Speaker 1: On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and them? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Speaker 1: Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best start
Speaker 1: changing it with the Bell Cast. Hey Caitlin, Hey Jamie,
Speaker 1: can you meet me in the playroom in fifteen minutes. Yes,
Speaker 1: I would love to meet you and your Neil at
Speaker 1: the door. Don't make eye contact with me, so sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm in charge. It's an expensive looking room. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of gizmos and gadgets are plenty serious. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the I think that was a good opening. That was
Speaker 1: a good opening. We've got a lot to sort through today.
Speaker 1: And I would say that I'm for sure underqualified to
Speaker 1: talk about today's movie. To talk about today's movie, I
Speaker 1: also feel that way. We've been talking about doing this
Speaker 1: movie for a couple of months. It's been a fan
Speaker 1: a popular fan request. I've been dreading this episod. Really
Speaker 1: I've been looking forward to it, but also knowing that
Speaker 1: every other word ought to be like but I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I the only I've I mounted a drummer.
Speaker 1: The most I'll do in sex is all of the
Speaker 1: work to make it end sooner. Um, okay, this is
Speaker 1: the Bechdel Cast. This is our our My name is
Speaker 1: Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin, our podcast about how
Speaker 1: women are portrayed in movies. It sure is. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to get a Mike's Hard because it's like
Speaker 1: kind of early. But then I thought about how much
Speaker 1: we have to get through, and I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to get a Mike Hart. I can't actually need
Speaker 1: to do it that hiss, Mike's hard. Uh, the ball
Speaker 1: still in our court. The ball is in our court.
Speaker 1: They literally they owe us the ball is in our
Speaker 1: red room if we have to do something about it.
Speaker 1: In your mouth every time someone vendom ozes me, it's
Speaker 1: in like you do it every single time. It's the
Speaker 1: number of Mike's hards it is, which is just you know,
Speaker 1: it's two dollars. I owe you. I m ow you
Speaker 1: for right right that I'll get you through the week. Okay,
Speaker 1: So yeah, we use the Bechdel test as a just
Speaker 1: sort of jumping off point for a larger conversation. The
Speaker 1: Bechdel test for us is two female characters in the
Speaker 1: movie who have names have to speak to each other
Speaker 1: in the story, and their conversation has to be about
Speaker 1: anything besides a man. So we'll see how this movie affairs.
Speaker 1: But first, let's introduce our guests. Oh my gosh, she's
Speaker 1: a hilarious comedian. She's the host of a new podcast
Speaker 1: called Loner at coy Wolf Creek. Sarah Schaeffer, Hi, thanks
Speaker 1: for having being here so passionate about this topic. Welcome
Speaker 1: to our Thank you tell us why you chose this movie. Um,
Speaker 1: while the new fifty Shades is out now, so it's
Speaker 1: timely the closing chapter, right, the last well of the
Speaker 1: I think she continue E. L. James continued to write
Speaker 1: other things like, oh, it's now from Christian point of view,
Speaker 1: like there's all these spinoffs interesting, but I don't know
Speaker 1: if they're gonna make movies of those. But anyway, so
Speaker 1: it's a franchise and the third one is out. I
Speaker 1: had never seen the second or third one. I have
Speaker 1: now in the past twenty four hours seen everything. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: been real turned on for good twelve hours, just totally sittillated.
Speaker 1: I just came straight from the movie theater and um,
Speaker 1: I have a lot to say, Okay, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: wanted to do this movie because I think it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I just think there's so many things to talk about,
Speaker 1: a lot to unpack, a lot and and sorry, were
Speaker 1: you into the books at all as their Um? I
Speaker 1: was not. I read like one paragraph and was like,
Speaker 1: this is truly the worst writing. I mean, it's really bad.
Speaker 1: I mean the woman, I don't know how old she was,
Speaker 1: maybe in her four thirties or forties when she wrote it.
Speaker 1: I think, um, it was the first time she'd ever
Speaker 1: written anything, and it was like on a whim, you know,
Speaker 1: Star Twilight fan fiction, and so our standards probably should
Speaker 1: be a little lofer. But the fact that I got
Speaker 1: so popular A little backstory on me. There was a
Speaker 1: short time a couple of years in New York I
Speaker 1: was actually working. This is really a little insight onto
Speaker 1: how if any young comedians out there, people pursuing an
Speaker 1: entertainment career, how fucked up it is. I was the
Speaker 1: head blogger for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, biggest break
Speaker 1: of my career, but I wasn't making enough money to
Speaker 1: make ends meet. So I had all these side jobs,
Speaker 1: which was crazy because I was working like fourteen hours
Speaker 1: a day, and one of my side jobs was to
Speaker 1: go to my friend Rachel Kramer Bustle. She's a big
Speaker 1: writer in the erotic fiction world and erotic nonfiction erotic
Speaker 1: writing in general. And she hosted a monthly erotic reading
Speaker 1: series in New York and she hired me to come
Speaker 1: and film it and then put the videos up online.
Speaker 1: And then I also made book trailers for her anthologies,
Speaker 1: which one was about spanking, and so I literally made
Speaker 1: a little short film of people getting spanked with clothes on,
Speaker 1: because like she wanted it to be you know, PG,
Speaker 1: so that more people could see it. Um. But it
Speaker 1: was one of the weirdest things I've ever all these
Speaker 1: weird side jobs. So anyway I heard during that time.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say I read a lot of erotic because
Speaker 1: I just I'm not a big book reader. I love reading.
Speaker 1: I go through phases of reading books. But um, I
Speaker 1: was an English major, you know whatever, I can read, guys.
Speaker 1: Um speaking of what we majored. And I do have
Speaker 1: a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston, Okaya qualified on
Speaker 1: so you are qualified to talk about this. Um. I
Speaker 1: got into a screaming match with uh debt collector. So
Speaker 1: I too went to college? Yes you did, so anyway
Speaker 1: I heard during this time, I heard a lot of
Speaker 1: erotic writing. So then when fifty Shades became popular, I
Speaker 1: was shocked at how vanilla it was, and like how
Speaker 1: the stuff I heard was way more advanced and complex. Um, well,
Speaker 1: we'll go into So I watched the movie a couple
Speaker 1: of times, as I always do to prep for every episode,
Speaker 1: and then I did some extra work where I talked
Speaker 1: to a lot of people who have been in B
Speaker 1: D s M relationships before just to gain a better understanding.
Speaker 1: I did a deep dive. So I have a lot
Speaker 1: to say in regards to that specifically, like how those
Speaker 1: people experience those relationships and also how they perceive this
Speaker 1: movie to be and how well or poorly they feel
Speaker 1: it represents being in a dom sub relationship. But we'll
Speaker 1: get into that. But yeah, we've all we've all got
Speaker 1: interesting angles on this sight. My little ankle I'm bringing
Speaker 1: to the table. I entered this God entered does not
Speaker 1: work in this particular episode I learned of fifty Shades
Speaker 1: of gray. I think, well, I mean because this was
Speaker 1: like such a huge cultural moment where I remember my
Speaker 1: friends and I when I was in college, we would
Speaker 1: look to see how many people we could see reading
Speaker 1: it on the train, because that was like a thing
Speaker 1: that people were doing it, Like, oh, it's so funny
Speaker 1: that people are reading this like kinky book in public,
Speaker 1: and what an interesting horny move to be like a
Speaker 1: you know, horny alpha move. But then I actually interacted
Speaker 1: with it for the first time. When my mom was like, Jenny,
Speaker 1: you're not going to believe this thing. I found she
Speaker 1: did the same thing with the Twilight series, which makes
Speaker 1: sense because so much of the top half of this
Speaker 1: movie you could just be like, oh, yeah, it's pretty
Speaker 1: much Twilight but with no vampires and Kinky aged up
Speaker 1: five years but whatever. So my mom was really like
Speaker 1: she had the box set this is prior to the movies,
Speaker 1: very into it. She was like trying to get me
Speaker 1: to read the first book. And so all my early
Speaker 1: experience with this franchise was all moms. And that's a
Speaker 1: lot of like what the audience for this is, It
Speaker 1: is moms, And I know a lot when the movie
Speaker 1: started coming out, like friends of mine would go with
Speaker 1: their moms and it was like this can key bonding thing.
Speaker 1: But I do think it's like a thing, and and
Speaker 1: you know, there's five million pieces written about fifty shades
Speaker 1: of great. Every single take has been taken at this point,
Speaker 1: but just we're going to come in with a new one.
Speaker 1: Someone heard me say that, They're like, actually just going
Speaker 1: to shut it off there. But but it is interesting
Speaker 1: to me where like that this is like obviously a
Speaker 1: franchise with a primary female audience. And how with with
Speaker 1: Twilight too. It's like people are so shamed for like
Speaker 1: going to see these movies and enjoying them, even even
Speaker 1: if it is like, you know, it's a campy and
Speaker 1: it's a little silly and and to your point, is
Speaker 1: not an accurate representation of the B D s M community.
Speaker 1: But I mean I know I for sure participated and
Speaker 1: being like this is so stupid, this is so silly
Speaker 1: and dumb. And now I'm just like who cares? You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's people enjoy it. If this is how moms
Speaker 1: learn about kink, let them. Let them. Mom's flipping to
Speaker 1: come to that. After watching it today, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's nine. I mean, there's issues we can get into
Speaker 1: the theater I was in today because it was early,
Speaker 1: it was like noon, if there weren't many people in
Speaker 1: the audience, um at that showing, but everyone was kind
Speaker 1: of like chuckling and laughing and they're to kind of
Speaker 1: sort of go with it. I mean, ultimately, if it's
Speaker 1: a fantasy, you know, and there's there's there's stuff that
Speaker 1: appeals to me, and it like, how can you not
Speaker 1: get caught up in the fantasy of like an extremely
Speaker 1: attractive rich man like whiskying you away with you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that is like, you know, and obviously not
Speaker 1: everybody is into that, but like there is something beautiful
Speaker 1: about it where it's just I candy or like, my god, lush. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I just want to say that at the top
Speaker 1: because there is so much to unpack, but I don't
Speaker 1: I I feel badly when it's like I don't want
Speaker 1: people to feel bad for enjoying a movie like this,
Speaker 1: especially if it's their first exposure to something like this,
Speaker 1: because it is that in a lot of ways, it
Speaker 1: is fun. There's a former guest of the cast, Lindsay Ellis,
Speaker 1: recently made a really interesting video essay I would direct
Speaker 1: everyone to will put it in the notes of this episode.
Speaker 1: We always say that, but we've never had literally never
Speaker 1: had not check out the notes maybe anyways, but she
Speaker 1: made this great video essay about the Twilight franchise and
Speaker 1: about all the vitriol and basically how society has a
Speaker 1: way of really unloading on anything that teenage girls really
Speaker 1: like and and equally stupid things that teenage boys like,
Speaker 1: like transformers and ship like that don't get the same
Speaker 1: kind of vitriol. Um And I would argue that fifty
Speaker 1: Shades of Gray for for a slightly older audience kind
Speaker 1: of falls under the same umbrella. So if you enjoy
Speaker 1: these movies and you went to see them, I don't
Speaker 1: want you to feel bad about yourself. That said, and
Speaker 1: now the rest of the podcast. First, I want to
Speaker 1: say that I saw the movie the first one in
Speaker 1: the theater two thousand fifteen. It was the first movie
Speaker 1: I saw in the theater when I moved to Los Angeles. Ever,
Speaker 1: but if the first movie I ever saw in a
Speaker 1: movie theater was no Um, I moved to l A
Speaker 1: and then that was the first movie I saw after
Speaker 1: moving here. Interesting that I saw in the theater. I
Speaker 1: went with a few gal pals. I did not really
Speaker 1: know what the movie was, or I hadn't read any
Speaker 1: of the books. I still haven't. I have now seen
Speaker 1: the first two movies at this point, I have not
Speaker 1: seen the third one, but I do have plans to
Speaker 1: go see it on Valentine's Day brag Um, I know,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I um, well, I'll get into that later.
Speaker 1: I can't. I would be remiss not to bring up
Speaker 1: the Bengo board. One of our fans made a Bengo board,
Speaker 1: And now every time we talked about something we've talked
Speaker 1: about previously, I'm thinking about the Bingo board. And I
Speaker 1: came into this episode thinking about the Bingo board. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where anytime we mentioned one of our motifs, if you will,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Did you do you have a
Speaker 1: master's degree in screen writing or something like that? I
Speaker 1: don't like to bring it up. So I mean I
Speaker 1: might just have some ban on board moments, okay, which
Speaker 1: is okay. So the recap of fifty Shades of Gray. Um,
Speaker 1: we meet Anastasia Steele. She is about to graduate from
Speaker 1: college played by Dakota Johnson, who is Melanie Griffis daughter
Speaker 1: slash Tippy Hedren's granddaughter. She's a legacy. She fills in
Speaker 1: for her roommate, who is a journalism student, to do
Speaker 1: this interview or interviewing someone named Christian Gray for the
Speaker 1: school newspaper. So she goes and interviews him. He is
Speaker 1: a twenty seven year old billionaire. He's already he's built
Speaker 1: this huge business empire. Okay, there's so much vagueness in
Speaker 1: this movie, and I really love where they choose what
Speaker 1: does he do? What is his job? It seems like
Speaker 1: he does telecommunications. I thought it was green energy, literally,
Speaker 1: because there was a mention she was like a Mudge
Speaker 1: fund that mentioned at one point. Mother right, they're starving
Speaker 1: children in Africa, agricultural projects in Africa. He's like a
Speaker 1: Richard Branson type. He's got his hands in everything. Sometimes face,
Speaker 1: sometimes learning. Sometimes he just has to go well in
Speaker 1: the second most So also you can have it all. Okay.
Speaker 1: So the scene where he and Anna meet and she's
Speaker 1: interviewing him, and he's kind of like, I mean, immediately
Speaker 1: he's pretty condescending of just like what is this question?
Speaker 1: Was this question? And at first I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: he's being mean to her, But then I listened to
Speaker 1: her questions. I'm like, oh, she's off, she's doing a
Speaker 1: really bad job. She was just like what she's an
Speaker 1: English lip major. She's the girl who wrote the babe
Speaker 1: dot net article about Za. Sorry, She's like, she's like,
Speaker 1: she's like twenty one years old, like doing a really
Speaker 1: high profile red. I'm just like she she's like, do
Speaker 1: you have a hobby? And he's like what, I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I think I'm on his side, Like you're taking up
Speaker 1: his time? Do you have a hobby? I wrote the
Speaker 1: questions questions, Well, they're not even her questions or her
Speaker 1: roommates ques anyway, the whole her roommate could not look
Speaker 1: less twenty one if she tried. Anyways, So she, you know,
Speaker 1: they have this sort of awkward encounter where she doesn't
Speaker 1: do a very good job interviewing him. But he's mysterious,
Speaker 1: he's brooding, he's hot, and there's just the immediate spark.
Speaker 1: Well in the script there was written that they had
Speaker 1: an immediate spark. Do you all think that Jamie Dornan
Speaker 1: is hot? I can't. I can't. I'm not sure. For me.
Speaker 1: It's his eyes. They're dead, they're dead, which makes him very,
Speaker 1: very good in the show The Fall because chiller, because
Speaker 1: he plays a serial killer and I'm actually, and this
Speaker 1: is super fucked up to say, but I'm kind of
Speaker 1: attracted to him in the Fall and he's literally a
Speaker 1: serial killer and a rapist. There's a lot of going
Speaker 1: back there. That's a separate podcast I would do with
Speaker 1: my therapist. The Fall is excellent, It's so good, and
Speaker 1: Julian Anderson is so good. Nice Anyway, I wish I
Speaker 1: hadn't said that, but I can. People who have seen
Speaker 1: The Fall will understand you've seen it, haven't well. And
Speaker 1: there's also just like the whole serial killer thing, We've
Speaker 1: all been there. For me, it's Durst. I'm a Durst
Speaker 1: goal myself. The leads I want to dog killed him,
Speaker 1: all like that. Of course, yeah, you're attracted to him.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I am at swaddle him like
Speaker 1: a baby and carry him around. There's it's okay to
Speaker 1: be titillated by things that are taboo. Exactly. So wise
Speaker 1: shows about murder and serial killers wouldn't not be on
Speaker 1: the air. Apparently Jamie Dornan has corner at that market.
Speaker 1: But for Christian great. Yeah, there's just something every time,
Speaker 1: there's moments where it's like he's registering with me as
Speaker 1: a person who's hot, but I'm not like attracted him anyways,
Speaker 1: Everyone's going to feel different, sure, exactly, so, um, they
Speaker 1: are played by all from Molina for your consideration. Visi's great,
Speaker 1: We're Alfred willing to plays Christian Gray. We all have
Speaker 1: our own Christian Gray. Jamie Dornan, I there, it's it
Speaker 1: is the eyes. He's dead in the eyes. Yeah, not
Speaker 1: to bring down a fellow, Jamie, Jamie and Jamie violence
Speaker 1: really rampant, and then Jamie community not good. I'm so
Speaker 1: sorry to hear that. So these two characters, Anastasia Steal
Speaker 1: and Christian Gray are meant to be having a spark.
Speaker 1: So they have this kind of awkward interview and she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I was still about Anasta. Christian She's like all hot
Speaker 1: and yeah. There's a moment at the elevator and then
Speaker 1: she walks outside and it's like pouring rain and then
Speaker 1: she like horn tips her head back and she's like,
Speaker 1: holy go the horny rain is I really liked the
Speaker 1: horny rain. So she's about to carry on with her
Speaker 1: life until Christian Grave shows up again at her work
Speaker 1: in the hardware store and he's like, I need a
Speaker 1: bunch of rope and tape and all the cable ties,
Speaker 1: and she's what's happening? Why are you here? Because at
Speaker 1: this point she's living in Portland and he's in Seattle,
Speaker 1: so he like traveled all this way to stalk her,
Speaker 1: and yeah, which is one of the many Twilight parallels
Speaker 1: early in this movie that it's like, okay, we know
Speaker 1: where the first act is completely mapped in Twilight. So
Speaker 1: he's like, let's go get coffee. And then they're like
Speaker 1: chatting and she's like, yeah, I'm an English lit major.
Speaker 1: I like romance. And he's like, oh, never mind, I'm
Speaker 1: not into romance. But then like they're still switched about
Speaker 1: it because I when he said that, I thought he
Speaker 1: was gonna be like, oh, never mind, I'm not into
Speaker 1: college students. But that is not a problem for him,
Speaker 1: not a problem. Well, she was about to graduate, so
Speaker 1: she's probably probably yeah, so that he's drawn to her,
Speaker 1: she's drawn to him. But there's something. There's just a
Speaker 1: little something that seems to be keeping them apart, and
Speaker 1: we don't know what it is. Is he a vampire?
Speaker 1: Isn't the distance between Portland and Seattle unclear? He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's it's a bad idea for you to hang out
Speaker 1: with me, but I can't stay away from you. Then
Speaker 1: one night, she gets really drunk and he like shows up,
Speaker 1: but where she is She did not tell him where
Speaker 1: she was, but he somehow did she not tell him.
Speaker 1: He uses, no, this is my main I'll save it.
Speaker 1: But I guess he uses his telecommunications empire to figure
Speaker 1: out where she is. And then he shows up and
Speaker 1: then they spend the night together because he kind of
Speaker 1: like takes care of her and like, and every detail
Speaker 1: of that is dark. Where she wakes up the next
Speaker 1: morning and she's just like, did you undress me? And
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, I had I had no choice. You
Speaker 1: were covered in vomit. Very shame he was shaming here.
Speaker 1: He was barfi and then and also she didn't ask
Speaker 1: him to do anything, and also she wasn't even like
Speaker 1: if every time I threw up as a twenty two
Speaker 1: year old at a bar, It's just it was all
Speaker 1: just such a weird overreaction. And then he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: obviously I slept next to you. I mean, realistically, I
Speaker 1: think we should really apply the Steve Bushey test here,
Speaker 1: where you replace the Hount male lead with Steve Bushey
Speaker 1: and see if it's serial killer behavior. And that absolutely
Speaker 1: is every almost every single thing he does is and
Speaker 1: and it's called the cops. So they start to sort
Speaker 1: of develop this romance. But he's like, I have to
Speaker 1: tell you something. And then he shows her his room,
Speaker 1: his playroom. He calls it it's dark, expensive room. It's
Speaker 1: revealed that he is into B D s M. Now
Speaker 1: she is still a virgin at this point. She's never
Speaker 1: had sex. She's never really had any sort of sexual encounter.
Speaker 1: Very important thing to remember. That's another Yeah, that's another
Speaker 1: thing that really bugs me about whatever. Yes, I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll get into it. Really about He's like, if you're
Speaker 1: going to do this, and you can leave at any time,
Speaker 1: but if you consent to entering into this type of relationship.
Speaker 1: Here the sort of conditions. He sort of like, you're
Speaker 1: going to move in for the weekends. There's literally yeah there'
Speaker 1: he draws up this whole. He makes her sign a
Speaker 1: nondisclosure agreement first, and then he I want to start
Speaker 1: doing just like drowning in red flags at this point.
Speaker 1: That's why she speaks so softly. And then yeah, so
Speaker 1: then he shows her the room and she was like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: I don't know about this. This is all new to me,
Speaker 1: a whole new world. And then let's see how many
Speaker 1: Disney songs I can sing um and then he's like,
Speaker 1: we will agree to everything that might happen ahead of time.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be like I need you written consent to
Speaker 1: so they he draws up his contract, and then there's
Speaker 1: this actually what I think is a pretty fun scene
Speaker 1: where they negotiate the terms of the contract. I liked
Speaker 1: that scene, saying like what she's will willing and not
Speaker 1: willing to do? In the meantime, they're like, she has
Speaker 1: sex with him for the first time in a non
Speaker 1: there's no bondage or there's no so manipulative the way
Speaker 1: they he does. I mean, like the whole central relationship
Speaker 1: issue here that I feel like probably misrepresents b DSM
Speaker 1: relationships in general, is like one is kinky, the other
Speaker 1: just wants a regular relationship. Can they make it work?
Speaker 1: And at every point in the movie it kind of
Speaker 1: seems like, no, they can't. She really does just want
Speaker 1: a normal relationship and he really doesn't. So, but we
Speaker 1: do see her consenting for the part to the things
Speaker 1: that he does. So then the movie, it's sort of
Speaker 1: the big climactic moment is when she's like, I don't
Speaker 1: really understand why this needs to be part of our relationship,
Speaker 1: like why do you want to punish me? This isn't
Speaker 1: really what I want because part of like sort of
Speaker 1: the terms of the contract is that, like, there are
Speaker 1: these rules. Um, if she obeys them, she will be rewarded.
Speaker 1: If she disobeys them, she will be punished. Really unsexy
Speaker 1: climactic scene to this movie, well yeah, because then so
Speaker 1: she she's still trying to gain an understanding of why
Speaker 1: he needs this or what what about this is fil
Speaker 1: filling to him and because she's not really feeling the
Speaker 1: same way, and then she says something like I need
Speaker 1: to see how far this can go, like I need
Speaker 1: to see what the limits of this are. And then
Speaker 1: there's a scene where he strikes her with a flogging
Speaker 1: device I don't know the terms, six times and she's
Speaker 1: going and it's a full on whip in that part,
Speaker 1: and this greatly upsets her and she is basically just like,
Speaker 1: don't touch me. This is over. I gotta go. I'm out,
Speaker 1: And that is pretty much the end of the movie.
Speaker 1: Wait you left, I probably left some left out where
Speaker 1: the elevator door start to poz and another emotional dey
Speaker 1: of names end of the movie it to black you
Speaker 1: really do have to see all three Okay to understand
Speaker 1: this story. Okay, I will poorly constructed story. So I've
Speaker 1: seen one cait scene to Saracene three. Al Right, well
Speaker 1: it so for me. I was telling Caitlin this on
Speaker 1: the way over. I mean before we get into the
Speaker 1: sub sub subcategories. Wait when you said sububs, did you
Speaker 1: mean subcategory about subs? Oh my god, no, go on there,
Speaker 1: but but another term that we'll have to Okay for
Speaker 1: me if the franchise ends at the end of movie one,
Speaker 1: I almost think it's like, for all of its problems,
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting story because what I was expecting
Speaker 1: going into this because I didn't really I know what
Speaker 1: happens up until the scene in the hardware store, because
Speaker 1: that's where the writing got too bad and I had
Speaker 1: to stop reading my mom's book. And also I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm reading my mom's Krusty Comb book like I don't
Speaker 1: want to anymore, so I stopped reading it. So after
Speaker 1: that I didn't know what happened. And as a protagonist,
Speaker 1: Anastasia does undergo a pretty like significant arc. I thought,
Speaker 1: where you know, she's whatever three, like she's a verge
Speaker 1: in at the beginning of the story and gets into
Speaker 1: this pretty sus relationship. I think we're talking the fourth
Speaker 1: time she has sex. She's being whipped exactly like I
Speaker 1: can't imagine the third time. I mean, like it's so
Speaker 1: very unbelievable. It's a steep curve. And I don't want
Speaker 1: to spoil anything. And I don't think I am because
Speaker 1: like I think everyone knows the third one, they get married,
Speaker 1: because like at the end of the second one there, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Mrs Gray. Okay, so I am not joking when I
Speaker 1: tell you that the entire trilogy is maybe eight weeks
Speaker 1: of time. I am hidden, they even say. And there's
Speaker 1: a point in the third movie where they go, well
Speaker 1: that happened three weeks ago, and it was like something
Speaker 1: from the second movie, and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this one. This character goes from college student virgin to
Speaker 1: I don't I don't want to give away dungeon. It's
Speaker 1: unable from the point that they meet in the first
Speaker 1: movie and book to the end. Maybe I don't know
Speaker 1: about the book, but in the movies it's like eight
Speaker 1: weeks of time. It is so crazy, like from her
Speaker 1: graduation till like the next September it's really weird, and
Speaker 1: it's the specific Northwest you can't tell seasons training. I
Speaker 1: kept projecting like Horny Fraser into all the Seattle scenes.
Speaker 1: But but in terms of like if the franchise ends
Speaker 1: at the end of the first movie, for me, she
Speaker 1: gets into this relationship, it escalates very quickly. She is
Speaker 1: in many ways sort of empowered by B D s
Speaker 1: M and learning how to say no and set boundaries
Speaker 1: where she's very meek at the beginning and uses that
Speaker 1: new knowledge to break off this harmful relationship end of movie.
Speaker 1: If it ends right there, I'm almost like, that's kind
Speaker 1: of an interesting story and not you know, artfully told,
Speaker 1: but an interesting story. But every one knows the date
Speaker 1: does not stop there. So but if it in the
Speaker 1: you know devil, if it ends at the first movie
Speaker 1: and she just moves on with her life and with like, wow,
Speaker 1: what a weird time. Anyways, moving on, I'm twenty two,
Speaker 1: you know, like I thought, kind of interesting. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: let me start by saying, one of the reasons I'm
Speaker 1: dreading this episode is because I feel like I'm a virgin.
Speaker 1: I only saw a movie in the theater for the
Speaker 1: first time three years ago and I have never had sex. No.
Speaker 1: The reason I'm dreading this is I think I'm going
Speaker 1: to accidentally misspeak or just say some things that sound
Speaker 1: kind of kink shaming, and I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: I'm coming at this topic of b D s M
Speaker 1: from an outsider. I don't have any experience in a
Speaker 1: relationship of that nature, and I'm having issues digesting it
Speaker 1: as a relationship dynamic. Since I've spoken to some people,
Speaker 1: I've gained a better understanding of it, and I feel
Speaker 1: a little bit differently. But to me, at first, before
Speaker 1: I spoke to anyone about it, and especially pretty much
Speaker 1: my entry into this type of thing, aside from going
Speaker 1: to the Museum of Sex, New York City several times
Speaker 1: and like reading some stuff there, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: much about b D s M. So to me, from
Speaker 1: an outsider's perspective, I was looking at a dom sub relationship,
Speaker 1: especially one that is a male dom and a female sub,
Speaker 1: and to me that just looked like sort of a
Speaker 1: very heightened version of what society's expectations are of men
Speaker 1: and women, and how men are expected to be the dominant,
Speaker 1: powerful ones and women are expected to be submissive, obedient people.
Speaker 1: And I was having a just a difficult time accepting
Speaker 1: that as a things. I was like, well, how could
Speaker 1: that be empowering to anyone? And what like it Just
Speaker 1: I was, you know, just really struggling with that. And also,
Speaker 1: this is me. I'm coming from a place where my
Speaker 1: tastes and sex, not to get too graphic, are extremely vanilla. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm so boring. I like very boring sex. I don't
Speaker 1: sex shame yourself. Boring sex works. My kink is extremely
Speaker 1: boring sex. Um. So there's not really anything about b
Speaker 1: D s M that appeals to me. And I think
Speaker 1: that's okay, just as people who are into b D
Speaker 1: s M that's okay too. But I'm I was still
Speaker 1: just like, well, what about how like this is like
Speaker 1: submissive women and I want women to be empowered, Like
Speaker 1: a lot of what we talked about on this podcast
Speaker 1: is like women who have agency and women who make
Speaker 1: choices and are strong and empowered and all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and like that's what I really enjoy. And then to
Speaker 1: see a relationship dynamic where the woman is submissive and
Speaker 1: the male is dominant, I was just like, ah, but
Speaker 1: I've spoken to some people who have experienced b D
Speaker 1: s M relationships and they have cleared some things up
Speaker 1: from me if you would like to hear about it, okay.
Speaker 1: So I spoke to four people total. Three of them
Speaker 1: were women who were the sub and a hetero relationship
Speaker 1: where they had a male dom. One of them was
Speaker 1: a guy and I wasn't sure if he was a
Speaker 1: sub in this relationship, but he said that he was
Speaker 1: in a relationship with a DOM, So I don't know
Speaker 1: if that dynamic played out where he was the sub,
Speaker 1: but he was able to he answered some questions I had,
Speaker 1: so um. The first question I basically asked everyone was
Speaker 1: what is it about b D s M that people
Speaker 1: who are into it find appealing or fulfilling? What do
Speaker 1: you get out of that type of relationship? I think
Speaker 1: that's a very complicated question that differs for every person,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be different for everyone. But it
Speaker 1: seems as though some of the common trends that I
Speaker 1: discovered where it can help people cope with a past
Speaker 1: traumatic sexual event or an assault. For subs, it can
Speaker 1: be enjoyable because they like to feel as though they're
Speaker 1: taken care of. Um. It also allows them an outlet
Speaker 1: where they don't have to be in control because they
Speaker 1: might have a lot of power and responsibility and other
Speaker 1: aspects of type stuff life. So it's like, I like
Speaker 1: to not have to be in control of this situation. Similarly, um,
Speaker 1: they just like to feel It's like it's freeing to
Speaker 1: just sort of surrender control and not to have to
Speaker 1: worry about what to do to like please someone sexually.
Speaker 1: Like it's like you just tell me what to do
Speaker 1: and I'll do it, and like I don't want to
Speaker 1: have to worry about what to do next or if
Speaker 1: you're enjoying yourself or whatever. So I'm sure this doesn't
Speaker 1: even begin to like this is like the tippitty Iceberg.
Speaker 1: There's also like pain stuff. You know that, like pain
Speaker 1: is a releasing sexual pleasure pleasure. Yeah, right, so this
Speaker 1: is again I only spoke to four people, so basically
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, so it actually can be empowering to
Speaker 1: these A lot of people would say the sub actually
Speaker 1: has more power, yes, and that's another thing I learned.
Speaker 1: I think that's different. But in movie three there's a
Speaker 1: moment where you wonder who really is in control here? Well,
Speaker 1: also I learned that subs set all the limits, and
Speaker 1: well we see that kind of in the negotiations scene.
Speaker 1: So I did some inadvertent research for this episode a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago in this very building, because comedians
Speaker 1: Eli Olsberg and Alison Stevenson hosted this show called SSFW
Speaker 1: where they invited a DOM in a sub who worked
Speaker 1: professionally in a dungeon, a Los Angeles area dungeon check
Speaker 1: it out in the Metropolitans met our dungeon, and uh,
Speaker 1: there was like a panel of comedians and then we
Speaker 1: were just I mean, it was basically just an open
Speaker 1: dialogue with with a DOM and a sub who have
Speaker 1: that relationship personally but also work in that sector professionally,
Speaker 1: and it was really enlightening and I super encourage people
Speaker 1: who have never learned anything about it because this was
Speaker 1: my first experience just like listening to someone in front
Speaker 1: of me talk about it openly for an hour, which
Speaker 1: is kind of a cool thing to have happened. And
Speaker 1: based on that, you know, quote unquote research as it were,
Speaker 1: it seems like fifty Shades tries to get it right
Speaker 1: and is not quite get it right. Like there's elements
Speaker 1: of it and again this is I mean the same
Speaker 1: same as you. Like, I've never been in a b
Speaker 1: D s M relationship. I pretty much exclusively fuck magicians
Speaker 1: and drummers, as I've said before, and I have no
Speaker 1: intention of changing or improving myself, so uh, and they're
Speaker 1: notoriously lazy in bed so uh not a B D
Speaker 1: s M gal But from my understanding of it, like
Speaker 1: there was a lot of talk about how contracts work
Speaker 1: and how in b DSM relationships, uh, in particular, like
Speaker 1: communication and like clear and positive communication is so important
Speaker 1: because like the relationship, I mean, every relationship relies on communication,
Speaker 1: but this one extends to physical safety. And I feel like,
Speaker 1: and again we'll feel free to disagree because I don't
Speaker 1: have the context for it, but I feel like this
Speaker 1: movie and franchise kind of conflates like a kinky b
Speaker 1: D s M style relationship with an abusive relationship and
Speaker 1: says like one equals the other, when all the research
Speaker 1: I've read indicates that that is not at all the case.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean that's like she's being introduced to
Speaker 1: this world that she doesn't know anything about, and she's
Speaker 1: confused by it and doesn't feel the way he feels,
Speaker 1: which is this is supposed to be awesome, and this
Speaker 1: is what I want. It's like someone who is I
Speaker 1: don't know the labels they give themselves, so I apologize
Speaker 1: if I'm getting it wrong. But like someone who's into
Speaker 1: B D s M and then someone who's not king
Speaker 1: first non kink or something, um kink versus virgin, she
Speaker 1: doesn't know what she is yet. I mean she might
Speaker 1: be later, you know, but she doesn't know, and so
Speaker 1: she's being introduced to it. Some of it she really likes,
Speaker 1: she's are excited by it that some of it scares her,
Speaker 1: and she's getting an education, like she's like getting a
Speaker 1: PhD when she's like just learned how to read. Like
Speaker 1: it's just too much. Um. So I can see that.
Speaker 1: But what they do with the abuse thing, I think
Speaker 1: is they give him this backstory that it like for him,
Speaker 1: comes from a place of where he was abused, So
Speaker 1: that's why this type of thing gets him off and
Speaker 1: makes him feel good and in control. They get more
Speaker 1: into that in the later movies, but like I think
Speaker 1: for that point, it's like, that's okay if that's why
Speaker 1: you're into B D s M. But I just think
Speaker 1: she's so like, but I want to know why why
Speaker 1: won't you let me touch you? Like and like, you know,
Speaker 1: she just wants to know why, why are you into this?
Speaker 1: And so there's a lot of like darkness put on it,
Speaker 1: like it's this bad, shameful thing. So in that way,
Speaker 1: it shames it a little. But then the other the
Speaker 1: part that really bugs me the most about this movie,
Speaker 1: other than the timeline part of it, when is just
Speaker 1: like when I think about what I was like at
Speaker 1: that age, and like, I I lost my virginity when
Speaker 1: I was twenty one, so I was a little a
Speaker 1: little later than other most of my friends, So I
Speaker 1: know what it's like to be like a late bloomer
Speaker 1: in some ways. I mean that's not the latest, but
Speaker 1: like it was late for me, felt late and I
Speaker 1: can't imagine going to that level that quickly. But one
Speaker 1: of my biggest issues with it was that while the
Speaker 1: sexual relationship was actually a pretty straightforward lesson and consent,
Speaker 1: like I actually think that was correct consent in the
Speaker 1: later and I don't know if it was two or
Speaker 1: three because I just watched all of them in the
Speaker 1: past one form, but there's like a moment where she
Speaker 1: said actually uses her safe word, she says red and
Speaker 1: he immediately stops and like unshackles her or whatever, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, he like fully respects her sexually in that way,
Speaker 1: even though he does try to wear her down and
Speaker 1: he does some course of things. Um the part that
Speaker 1: I can't get over, which is the the stalking behavior
Speaker 1: like and that and the abusive like keeps playing out
Speaker 1: where he doesn't want her hanging out with her friends.
Speaker 1: He's isolating. These are things that abusers do, like they
Speaker 1: don't want you talking to your friends or family. He
Speaker 1: like knows her bank account numbers. He's like stalking her
Speaker 1: and tracing her phone and like it's so inappropriate. And
Speaker 1: I actually disagree with the Steve bishemything only in that
Speaker 1: I don't care how attractive a guy was. I do
Speaker 1: think if he was behaving that way, rich or anything,
Speaker 1: there would be enough red flags where I would just
Speaker 1: be like, you're fucking creepy, like even showing up my work.
Speaker 1: I don't care who you are. If Brad Pitt did
Speaker 1: that to me, I would be like, shut up, creeping
Speaker 1: me out, And the illusion is gone because I mean,
Speaker 1: I just don't find that attractive and so like, and
Speaker 1: I always careful to like, even though it is hilarious
Speaker 1: to think of like a gross, like shlubby guy from
Speaker 1: accounting doing this stuff like that's hilarious, and of course
Speaker 1: women are you know, the power dynamic. It wouldn't even matter,
Speaker 1: like like how do you think Donald Trump gets women?
Speaker 1: Like like he managed to do it? You know, like
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: they look like. And I so I'm remiss to like
Speaker 1: because an argument you see, like from men's rights activists
Speaker 1: online all the time, is like, uh, well, if it
Speaker 1: was attractive, I could do whatever I wanted, Like if
Speaker 1: a hot guy did this, I could, you know, And
Speaker 1: it's like, no, that's actually not true. But no one
Speaker 1: wants to be like that does happened though, But she
Speaker 1: does right in the movie. That's what the main thing
Speaker 1: that I just can't do it. I can't handle that
Speaker 1: part of it. It's like it's just and I understand
Speaker 1: it's a fantasy, but that's not like what I would
Speaker 1: fantasize about. The Virginia thing bothers me and it's not
Speaker 1: even I mean, you know, she is a consenting adult.
Speaker 1: I think the consent I mean, and I've only seen
Speaker 1: the first movie, but consent seems to be something that
Speaker 1: really was considered very carefully in the way it's represented
Speaker 1: in this franchise, because it I mean it, it is
Speaker 1: so easy to get it wrong. Movies get it wrong
Speaker 1: all the fucking time, and therefore why in the movies
Speaker 1: we've covered on this podcast, there's a weird surprise kiss
Speaker 1: that's presented as very roman so as far as consent goes, like,
Speaker 1: I recognize that although she as a version, she is
Speaker 1: a consenting adult as well. But in the scene where
Speaker 1: she says she's a virgin, when she says that, that
Speaker 1: like visibly increases her value to that where you know,
Speaker 1: it's like right, and I'm like, no, this is where
Speaker 1: you pump the brakes and make sure she knows what
Speaker 1: she's getting into. That's the responsible way to deal with
Speaker 1: the situation, not being like, oh, I have to you know,
Speaker 1: because that is manipulative behavior. He already knows at this
Speaker 1: point that she does not know anything about B D
Speaker 1: s M and is interested in a traditional relationship, like
Speaker 1: he knows that, and so what he does to get
Speaker 1: her into this B D s M relationship is give
Speaker 1: her taste of what a traditional relationship might be like
Speaker 1: and takes her virginity. And I just that really bothered me.
Speaker 1: That felt like especially big like trespassing of like someone
Speaker 1: who just doesn't know yet. It's values. It sucks, and
Speaker 1: especially because that scene where like he's about to take
Speaker 1: her virginity if you will, He's like, we need to
Speaker 1: change this situation. She's like, oh, it's on a situation,
Speaker 1: am I But like because they had already talked about
Speaker 1: consent and how important that is. But then he isn't like,
Speaker 1: well can I have sex with you? Like I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's this weird. He's like, I'm going to take you
Speaker 1: into the room, and what's going to happen. He buries
Speaker 1: the lead in a lot of ways. I think where
Speaker 1: he starts he says, I've done this with five other
Speaker 1: women or whatever, like he I think he's just fifteen
Speaker 1: in this exact same situation, so he knows what he's
Speaker 1: doing and he's an adult, and and he knows what
Speaker 1: she doesn't know. And I just the way that she
Speaker 1: enters this relationship seems it just puts her in such
Speaker 1: a big disadvantage. And well, I mean, and then the
Speaker 1: total control he has by buying in the movie too,
Speaker 1: he buys the company she works for, and it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, like I think there's just so much control.
Speaker 1: It actually makes me not buy him as a dom.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like he's in so much control in
Speaker 1: his life. You would think that in his private life
Speaker 1: he'd be a sub, But he was a sub. He
Speaker 1: says he was a sub in his first b DS relationship,
Speaker 1: which was rape because it was an adult woman with
Speaker 1: a fifteen year old boy, which an Asstasia calls out
Speaker 1: multiple times, and she's like a predator that comes out. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when I first saw it was like, I fucking
Speaker 1: hated that movie. It was just like watching someone being
Speaker 1: raped and beaten, you know. And then by the third one,
Speaker 1: I was kind of like I understand what they're trying
Speaker 1: to do here, and it is a fantasy, and there
Speaker 1: were parts of it that I was like kind of
Speaker 1: caught up in. I mean, you know, the sex scenes
Speaker 1: to me, weren't that titillating, although there were a couple
Speaker 1: of moments where I was like damn, oh my god,
Speaker 1: like when the one where he first of all, he
Speaker 1: breaks it, enters into her apartment and shows like so
Speaker 1: Twilight moment, unacceptable. I don't care who you are, Um no,
Speaker 1: not okay. I don't even if you were Brad Pitt
Speaker 1: would be like, Brad Pitt, get the funk out of
Speaker 1: my part out. So he shows up in her apartment
Speaker 1: and he like fox her on the bed, and that
Speaker 1: part I did. I was like, damn, I might have
Speaker 1: to pause the movie, um like because he like pulls
Speaker 1: up her shirt and uses it as a black and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, that is that's good.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can tell he's good at fucking, like
Speaker 1: there's no question him and his dead eyes are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's mechanical about it, like he's a robot, like you
Speaker 1: will come, which is kind of hot multiple times, although
Speaker 1: in the first movie she doesn't come. She does not come.
Speaker 1: We don't see her come, yeah, which I found I
Speaker 1: was waiting. There were also so much pubes in these movies,
Speaker 1: like a lot of people, they go so close to
Speaker 1: seeing Dick and Madge like they really and I appreciated
Speaker 1: that I wrote I wrote down nice pubes, dorn and
Speaker 1: and genuinely when I felt she's got pubs too well,
Speaker 1: to the point that it was brought up earlier that
Speaker 1: it has the same problem that we see in Twilight,
Speaker 1: where like he is stalking her, he's being like a predator,
Speaker 1: he's showing up at work, he's being very cootable. Okay,
Speaker 1: So before I say that, I asked the people who
Speaker 1: I was talking to. I said, does the dom sub
Speaker 1: component of your relationship carry over into other parts of
Speaker 1: your relationship not just like in the bedroom for sexual encounters,
Speaker 1: And different people had different answers, so I think it
Speaker 1: probably varies widely. So I was curious, Okay, is him
Speaker 1: being controlling of her just an extension of him being
Speaker 1: a dom right? But then I was like, I just
Speaker 1: I simply can't accept that because he's being very predatory
Speaker 1: and it's but it's framed as being romantic. She's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: he's showing up at my work and he's traveled all
Speaker 1: this way to see me. My thing is that it's
Speaker 1: one thing if she agrees to all of that, but
Speaker 1: she never signs. So if she signs the contract and
Speaker 1: that behavior is happening, and that behaviors in the contract,
Speaker 1: then Okay, you need to schedule a follow up meeting
Speaker 1: with this guy. But I think there's a reason for
Speaker 1: that after seeing all three. I think the reason is
Speaker 1: is because he is changing to they're meeting in the
Speaker 1: middle somehow, and you find you find that they're trying
Speaker 1: to find a way to do the sex the way
Speaker 1: he wants to do it, in a way that she's
Speaker 1: comfortable with, and then in exchange and you see that
Speaker 1: even happen in the contract negotiation where she gets a
Speaker 1: little bit of the girlfriend experience in exchange, and so
Speaker 1: you see him breaking his own rules because he's ill
Speaker 1: I think we can do. I think that's the reason
Speaker 1: the contract never got signed. Um, don't bite your lip.
Speaker 1: I can't see it all right, Dar's like, don't bite
Speaker 1: the lip by that lip. I don't want to come yet.
Speaker 1: I don't want to Also, they he's behaving that way
Speaker 1: long before it's ever agreed upon that they're going to
Speaker 1: enter a D s M. So that's I think what's
Speaker 1: the big problem is for me, one moment that I
Speaker 1: was like, now this is just crazy is where he's
Speaker 1: buckling her into the helicopter, so sort of like him
Speaker 1: buckling her up. But I was like, the way it's
Speaker 1: done is very much like, um, the similar mechanism of
Speaker 1: a baby of a car seat where you have to
Speaker 1: pull it tight. And that made me once again like
Speaker 1: underscore or something else that I kind of found interesting
Speaker 1: about the movie is that it's so childlike in the telling,
Speaker 1: and I'm so curious about b. L. James's sex life,
Speaker 1: like the writer of the Book of Life that she's
Speaker 1: never done anything other than missionary stunted, and like I
Speaker 1: would even there were moments where I was like, this
Speaker 1: movie reminds me of the Room where Tommy was so
Speaker 1: in the room clearly had this childlike perception of relationship
Speaker 1: of sex of like movies, and like this is I'm
Speaker 1: going to portray it. And I felt this felt the
Speaker 1: same thing about fifty Shades of Great, which is like
Speaker 1: very childish, like a lot of real world problems just
Speaker 1: sort of melted away. I don't know, just maybe it's
Speaker 1: from having heard a lot of erotic writing that was
Speaker 1: just more grown up and more mature and more really
Speaker 1: about the characters and in the moment what it means,
Speaker 1: and like this just felt sort of like an immature
Speaker 1: view of what b DSM and kink would be. Someone
Speaker 1: like al James, in my mind, probably had never done
Speaker 1: any of this sex stuff and just fantasized about it,
Speaker 1: imagined it. I don't think she, but I could be
Speaker 1: wrong for me. The movie Secretary if you've ever seen.
Speaker 1: That movie is an incredible portrayal of a B DSM
Speaker 1: relationship and like and it's disturbed. It was my first
Speaker 1: real introduction to that type of relationship and portrayed on
Speaker 1: screen for sure, and I was really like, it's way
Speaker 1: more complicated than I thought. It actually to me was
Speaker 1: a beautiful love story. So I highly recommend watching that
Speaker 1: movie because it's portraying this type of subdom relationship in
Speaker 1: a way that is really raw and real and like
Speaker 1: in the end, very touching. Like it's very it goes
Speaker 1: to really fun places, but you you you understand the
Speaker 1: commitment and the bond between them, and that this is
Speaker 1: what these two people love and enjoy about each other.
Speaker 1: Their dynamic is everything. Now it's there's some weirdness in that,
Speaker 1: the fact that he's her boss, but but he finds
Speaker 1: his match, she finds her match, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: like incredible, which I think another problem might have with
Speaker 1: this movie is that the power dynamic, and I'm sort
Speaker 1: of speculating here, but I would imagine that in a
Speaker 1: healthy b DSM relationship, the power dynamic it's still pretty equal,
Speaker 1: and even though it might seem as though one is
Speaker 1: more dominant, and one is more submissive because the sub
Speaker 1: is setting the limits and calling the shots and and
Speaker 1: feeling liberated and all this stuff, and the dom is
Speaker 1: basically doing only what the submissive will allow. I would
Speaker 1: imagine that there's still a pretty equal power balance. Struck.
Speaker 1: One thing that the professional dom subs that I heard
Speaker 1: speak really made a big emphasis on, something that I
Speaker 1: noticed was not done in this movie, was like after
Speaker 1: the playroom stuff is done, that it's like very important
Speaker 1: to have like together time and like cool down time
Speaker 1: and like i mean spooning basically after sex and and
Speaker 1: just you know, it's like you've had this cathartic experience
Speaker 1: and you've come to it in whatever way you've come
Speaker 1: to it consentually. But afterwards it's like, Okay, now we're
Speaker 1: just people and we're together and we care about each other,
Speaker 1: and we don't see that here. And and there's one
Speaker 1: scene in particular where they don't go full I mean,
Speaker 1: but he he spanks her the night of her graduation
Speaker 1: and then bails and she's upset, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course she's upset. She's you know, she's like still
Speaker 1: not fully understanding what's happening, and then and then he
Speaker 1: disappear years before there's any Actually, it's just like shitty,
Speaker 1: I would have I would have got I'm like, I
Speaker 1: was trying to imagine what that conversation with my mom
Speaker 1: would have been, Like I would think, I don't know,
Speaker 1: and I went back to work. I don't understand. That's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like, I think, there's he's exerting much
Speaker 1: more power over her, and there is a very big
Speaker 1: power imbalance in their relationship, whereas he seems like here's
Speaker 1: a lot of its own spoken it's like a threat.
Speaker 1: There's she's literally there's a point in the third movie
Speaker 1: where she has to like sneak out of her own
Speaker 1: home because he has security on her. And it's just
Speaker 1: like and there's a reason for it, that isn't his fault,
Speaker 1: but like it's just there's constant reminders throughout that this
Speaker 1: man has total control over your life, and even if
Speaker 1: you tried to get away from him, he would find you.
Speaker 1: That's abuse. I mean, that's like, you know, that's the
Speaker 1: worst nightmare for any woman to not feel that she
Speaker 1: could come and go she pleases. Now, the whole time
Speaker 1: she's in Astasia is like constantly bucking his attempts to
Speaker 1: control her completely. You don't know me, I'll do what
Speaker 1: I want and he's like, well, then I'll punish you,
Speaker 1: and she's like okay. Um, So there's this weird dynamic
Speaker 1: they're figuring out, I guess, but the fact that it
Speaker 1: all happened so quickly is just bizarre. Yeah. There there's
Speaker 1: like a I think that a very easy story fix,
Speaker 1: I mean, of the million story fix is available through
Speaker 1: this franchise. Is the only example of someone very into
Speaker 1: b D s M that we see in the first
Speaker 1: movie anyways, is Christian Gray. So everything we see about
Speaker 1: b D s M is through his experience specifically, and
Speaker 1: that's all we have. So even if he comes to
Speaker 1: b D s M in a specific way that could
Speaker 1: happen in real life, which is that he has a
Speaker 1: past history of abuse, he is, outside of being into
Speaker 1: b D s M a manipulative and controlling person. That's one,
Speaker 1: but we there's no counter example to show the audience
Speaker 1: that that's not necessarily what a b D s M
Speaker 1: relationship is or even what is normal. And so where
Speaker 1: everything like, we only see one person who represents this
Speaker 1: entire community, and it is directly connected to like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: fucked up behavior kind of does tie into b DSM
Speaker 1: the way this movie presents it, like that's the bummer
Speaker 1: that yeah, so many regular Americans this is their introduction
Speaker 1: and then walk away from it going right, because that's
Speaker 1: what that is. It's just it's just a couple. You
Speaker 1: just tire up and your spanker a little bit. And
Speaker 1: that that's because they never actually that was actually was disappointed.
Speaker 1: They never actually did some hardcore b d s M
Speaker 1: type like yes, master like that. It's pretty down, like
Speaker 1: you know, oh god. The contract negotiations scene is the
Speaker 1: only time that you really get a glimpse into like
Speaker 1: what could really be going on? What's but black? Although
Speaker 1: Movie three Weight in Movie three Day to Do do
Speaker 1: some more advanced stuff. I remember that now he gets
Speaker 1: more advanced, he's letting him do some some more tools
Speaker 1: are added to the situation. Back to the point that
Speaker 1: was made a little bit earlier that like, so he
Speaker 1: was abused as a very young child, and I think
Speaker 1: we're meant to believe that that maybe informs part of
Speaker 1: why he is now into b d s M. But
Speaker 1: the movie frames this is like something that he needs
Speaker 1: to be cured of. Or fixed or that like his
Speaker 1: his fetish for this. Yeah, as a result, but like,
Speaker 1: but as we discuss, like the several people I talked
Speaker 1: about were like, yes, b D s M can actually
Speaker 1: be a great way to cope with an assault or
Speaker 1: pass abuse or something like that. But the fact that
Speaker 1: the movie frames are like he needs to be cured
Speaker 1: of this fetish that he has and there's other ways
Speaker 1: for him to So like that's problem yeah, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: because like the subtext there is like, oh, a functioning
Speaker 1: person in society would not have this intrat because he's
Speaker 1: the only person that we have to go on. Can
Speaker 1: I say though, that this movie is directed by a woman,
Speaker 1: The screenplays adapted by a woman, adapted from a book
Speaker 1: written by a woman. It's based on a book written
Speaker 1: by a different woman. Oh yeah, right, exactly, the Stephanie Meyer.
Speaker 1: So I think that because so many women are involved
Speaker 1: in the main sort of storytelling components, I think we
Speaker 1: saw a different movie than we would have seen if
Speaker 1: he First of all, how many times does he eat
Speaker 1: her out? That would never if men were involved. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of emphasis on her, like her face, her pleasure,
Speaker 1: And I understand that sometimes people have a problem with
Speaker 1: that more than when they're like, you know, well now
Speaker 1: it's men, or now we're all the male gaze upon
Speaker 1: her body and out that there's a little bit of
Speaker 1: that going on. But there was definitely, like I mean
Speaker 1: there in the third movie he uses a vibrator on her,
Speaker 1: and it occurred to me, this is truly the first
Speaker 1: time I've ever seen a vibrator depicted in a movie
Speaker 1: that wasn't an opportunity to shame a woman. Can you
Speaker 1: think of any scene with a vibrator that wasn't where
Speaker 1: the woman was being made fun of because she was
Speaker 1: using a vibrator because she was old, or a mom
Speaker 1: or getting caught with it. It's almost always like a
Speaker 1: joke like yeah, yeah, you loser. You know. It's always
Speaker 1: depicted in a way that's meant to make the woman
Speaker 1: feel bad for having having to use it. Right, it
Speaker 1: is to me, as a vibrator enthusiast, it is to
Speaker 1: me a godsend. Aliens sent it to us. They look
Speaker 1: like they look like a little alien designs, like little spaceships,
Speaker 1: and they take it to space and they're they're the best,
Speaker 1: I mean, like, and they should be used. I love
Speaker 1: that he used it it's part of his playroom. Like
Speaker 1: I liked that they were showing things that had to
Speaker 1: do with female pleasure and not in a shameful way
Speaker 1: that we're like, you know, this is like these are
Speaker 1: tools you know, that you can all use to like
Speaker 1: make each other feel good that aren't just about the
Speaker 1: man coming. Like in that part, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's to me evidence of women are behind this story
Speaker 1: in this movie because there's this, I think there's much
Speaker 1: of an emphasis on her pleasure experiencing pleasure from this
Speaker 1: type of relationship as there is for him experience. You
Speaker 1: don't even see him really yeah, he it's all about
Speaker 1: him making her feel good, and like you know, now
Speaker 1: the question is like what makes her feel good makes
Speaker 1: him feel good? And then those lines you know, pushing
Speaker 1: boundaries and all those things shades great you know there.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, this is this Like this movie like
Speaker 1: opened such an intense, like polarizing dialect. But I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the subject of consent being dealt with,
Speaker 1: I think pretty universally well without this many women involved,
Speaker 1: like involved in high roles. Well, to me, there are
Speaker 1: three ma takeaways from this movie that are very positive.
Speaker 1: One is the emphasis on female pleasure and it being
Speaker 1: framed is a thing that not only exists because most
Speaker 1: media ignores it all together, but it's also something that
Speaker 1: is important and it should be strived for. The second
Speaker 1: thing is female nudity and it making sense for the
Speaker 1: context of the story, because so many movies will have
Speaker 1: a naked woman or you see a woman's breast and
Speaker 1: it has nothing to do with the story. Like an
Speaker 1: example that comes to mind is like in die Hard,
Speaker 1: there's this like a topless woman who had been having
Speaker 1: sex in a room during the Christmas party and then
Speaker 1: like the terrorists coming and paying her out. But it's like,
Speaker 1: why is that in the movie? Has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the story? Is just it was an excuse to
Speaker 1: put it right? At least in this movie, we do
Speaker 1: see a lot of female nudity, but it makes sense
Speaker 1: because this is what the story is about. It's about sex. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would be really, it would just make no sense
Speaker 1: to not show it or to try to Dakota Johnson,
Speaker 1: I mean give it up for her for like truly
Speaker 1: being so naked for so long in all three of
Speaker 1: those movies. I mean, it's a choice she made, and
Speaker 1: I think she comes out on top in my opinion. Like,
Speaker 1: think about all the different ways women are naked in movies,
Speaker 1: and at least, at least in these movies, it's because
Speaker 1: she's like getting hers you know, right, Well, yeah, most
Speaker 1: movies it's just absolutely no reason, and it's through a
Speaker 1: very male gaze and very objectifying. You know, that's not
Speaker 1: the way we want to see things. The third thing
Speaker 1: that I think is a great takeaway from this movie,
Speaker 1: which we've already talked about, is the emphasis on consent.
Speaker 1: It gets talked about a lot in most movies. Don't
Speaker 1: even mention the word or even acknowledge it as it
Speaker 1: being a concept. Um as we Yeah, like Jamie, you
Speaker 1: said there's a surprise kiss, and every other movie that
Speaker 1: we talked about's no surprise kiss in this movie. Kiss
Speaker 1: is a few lines that I wrote down him saying,
Speaker 1: it's important to know that you can leave in any time.
Speaker 1: I do this with women, women who want me to. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have to be honest with each other for this
Speaker 1: to work. I won't do anything until I have your
Speaker 1: written consent. Like it, and it doesn't, I don't come.
Speaker 1: I was worried when it first came out that it
Speaker 1: was going to be all about people are gonna think
Speaker 1: this is what women, like an everyday woman who's you know,
Speaker 1: dudes are going to think that they can just but
Speaker 1: it wasn't portrayed that way at all. You know, I've
Speaker 1: had my own experiences of like dudes doing things without
Speaker 1: even asking first, and it's just like, oh, my dear god,
Speaker 1: why did you think that that was acceptable, like in
Speaker 1: any universe, you know, And there's all this, you know,
Speaker 1: the z S story I think is interesting and that
Speaker 1: it brought up all these questions about consent and like
Speaker 1: that twofold one is like what is porn doing that
Speaker 1: people are watching this porn that's really really pretty borderline
Speaker 1: violent and like a lot of choking and like I
Speaker 1: would call it skull fucking. Like we're like a guy
Speaker 1: is just literally fucking a girl's head and you know,
Speaker 1: she looks like she's dying in it, and you're and
Speaker 1: that's what people are watching, and like they're becoming desensitized
Speaker 1: to more vanilla stuff and wanting this more taboo stuff
Speaker 1: and they go and hook up with somebody and there's
Speaker 1: a different perhaps perception, like I don't watch porn. I
Speaker 1: can't watch it because I can't stop thinking about the
Speaker 1: production and I can't get into it because I'm just like,
Speaker 1: where's the Like, God, who's I even do that a
Speaker 1: little with like even with fifty shades, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: oh man, how many times do they have to take
Speaker 1: that part? Like like good, how awkward was that? Like
Speaker 1: let's just talk about there. That could just be a
Speaker 1: symptom of being in the business and thinking about shoots
Speaker 1: and things like, but porn just doesn't do it for me.
Speaker 1: I also think there should be like a disclaimer on
Speaker 1: every porn video that's just like, please do not try
Speaker 1: this at home, truly, but like unless you have your partners.
Speaker 1: It's like Jackassida and I've seen a little bit of porn,
Speaker 1: and I've seen stuff that like more recent stuff like
Speaker 1: I watched a couple of James videos and I was
Speaker 1: really disturbed. And people are like, oh, he's the feminist one.
Speaker 1: This is before he had his like outing as a
Speaker 1: g and I was like kind of shocked. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is what people are into. And you know, I've
Speaker 1: seen it. I mean I've worked on shows where they
Speaker 1: like pull up porn on you know, for some for
Speaker 1: reasire for something that's questionable, m and you know you
Speaker 1: have seen stuff, and I thought, oh my god, like
Speaker 1: my perception of what is acceptable is so far off
Speaker 1: of like, so when when you enter into a hook
Speaker 1: up with somebody, even if you think you know that person,
Speaker 1: like you don't know what they've been watching. And I
Speaker 1: just wondered, like, what is porn doing to young men?
Speaker 1: And then the second piece of the disease thing that,
Speaker 1: like I thought about while watching fifty Shades all the
Speaker 1: way through again was Christian Greg like you said, clearly
Speaker 1: cares about her feelings at every step of the way.
Speaker 1: Now we can argue there's points where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: he completely just dismissed her signal of like hey, I
Speaker 1: don't want you showing up at my work, um, and
Speaker 1: he's like I will, Um. There's those kinds of things,
Speaker 1: But sexually, he is very concerned about her feelings and
Speaker 1: that was my thing of like, no matter how you
Speaker 1: read these story, you can't deny the fact that he
Speaker 1: did not care about her feelings in that. And at
Speaker 1: what point people when people go, oh, technically, I didn't
Speaker 1: see any laws broken, And it's like that every time
Speaker 1: sex do not at one point do you give a
Speaker 1: shit about the other person and like check in with them, Hey,
Speaker 1: is this here's the whole I saw a tweet that
Speaker 1: was like the whole Like she was just like it
Speaker 1: was just like sucking a dead body, Like she just
Speaker 1: laid there. And it's like maybe she didn't like it
Speaker 1: and ignored that. And he's like saying, anything, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: my one thing that I mean, we've we've touched on it,
Speaker 1: this whole, this whole thing that the main thing for
Speaker 1: me is just like making sure and this probably this
Speaker 1: probably doesn't happen for like someone who is like a
Speaker 1: mom who's coming into this all of us for the
Speaker 1: first time. Is making sure that it's it's okay to
Speaker 1: have an abusive relationship depicted on screen. Right. But but
Speaker 1: they do not do a good job of separating what
Speaker 1: is a b D s M behavior from what is
Speaker 1: an abusive behavior. It's lumped in as all the same thing.
Speaker 1: So the things that we see over and over are
Speaker 1: the stalking behaviors that's not kinky. Stalking someone isn't kinky.
Speaker 1: Showing up at their mom's place is not kink unless
Speaker 1: that's something they've previously agreed upon, which which controlling someone's
Speaker 1: actions without their consent is not kinky. Baiting someone with
Speaker 1: sort of genuine but mostly not genuine intimacy just because
Speaker 1: you know that that will keep them coming back without
Speaker 1: their consent is not kinky. And that is it's also
Speaker 1: globbed up into the one character who's interested in b
Speaker 1: d S. I'm in the entire movie that those lines
Speaker 1: aren't drawn, and I like it sucks because it's like
Speaker 1: there are They're way more positive takeaways from this movie
Speaker 1: than I ever would have imagined. And I really and
Speaker 1: and for all, and I have like a shortlist of
Speaker 1: all the ways that this movie is exactly like Twilight,
Speaker 1: down to like girl interested in books, never sex before
Speaker 1: like which is And she trips sometimes because she's clumsy,
Speaker 1: but I but I like, I like and staged up
Speaker 1: and saved. Yeah, but I like Anastasia. She's like she's
Speaker 1: like her better than Bella Swan. Yeah, I just I mean,
Speaker 1: but she's like, I've older, less of an annoying teenager.
Speaker 1: I understand, Like, you know, she she's like, you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: woman in her early twenties who doesn't know that much.
Speaker 1: But she is a more active character than I thought
Speaker 1: she was going to be advocates for herself more than
Speaker 1: I thought she would, calls him out more than I
Speaker 1: thought she would, and ultimately sets the boundary is like,
Speaker 1: you know, off for now. So I just I wish
Speaker 1: that this movie, for all the good stuff it does
Speaker 1: with like consent and bringing a relationship like this into
Speaker 1: the mainstream, it doesn't do a good job with saying like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is how this B D s M relationship works,
Speaker 1: but don't think that in the second and third. By
Speaker 1: the third they've kind of moved away from is it
Speaker 1: a B D s M relationship? Is it not? They've
Speaker 1: kind of moved away from that, and they're into there's
Speaker 1: other like very maladramatic stuff happening. Um, that's like more
Speaker 1: outside factors are now affecting their lives, like you know,
Speaker 1: like stalkers and the voltri real enemies. Yeah, definitely, like
Speaker 1: there's Yeah, I found myself at moments during the third
Speaker 1: movie being like, oh man, I really rich a rich man,
Speaker 1: which just come take me away. Well, that's the other
Speaker 1: thing is portraying B D s M. Is this very
Speaker 1: cosmopolitan rich boy thing too. Yeah, which I thought was
Speaker 1: kind of funny. Is just like I'm into kinky stuff
Speaker 1: and me have a helicopter and now you get a car,
Speaker 1: and I wrote down, I want a sex laptop. Where
Speaker 1: is my sex laptop? Get me my free sex laptop.
Speaker 1: At one point during the third movie, they get into
Speaker 1: a private jet and she's like, you own this, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, bitch, have you not paid a vehicles ever?
Speaker 1: It's only been eight weeks, so just like, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: seeing there like Halo period. But as someone who grew
Speaker 1: up secretly watching Real Sex on HBO late at night
Speaker 1: as quiet as I could while still hearing it, I
Speaker 1: already knew going into this movie that kink has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with class or attractiveness, because Real Sex featured
Speaker 1: some very everyday, average looking people doing very kinky stuff
Speaker 1: and to the point where it was like kind of hilarious. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I love real sex and that's where I got my
Speaker 1: education about sex. Can I run down the ways in
Speaker 1: which E. L. James lifts directly from Twilight? In the
Speaker 1: first movie Alan Okay, so protagonist girl who read rigin,
Speaker 1: there is a character who's like the boy who's around
Speaker 1: who has a crush on her, who is like, wait,
Speaker 1: you don't have a crush on me? Back I'm furious,
Speaker 1: and then he gets hit shitty mom who doesn't show
Speaker 1: up to important life events because of her most recent husband,
Speaker 1: which we see in Twilight with Bella's mom and her
Speaker 1: baseball boyfriend that she's like, sorry, Hun, can't make your
Speaker 1: high school graduation. My boyfriend's in the batting cage, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to seem unsupportive. And then yeah, mom,
Speaker 1: mom being such a romantic that she's basically handicapped at
Speaker 1: being a good parent. Oh even though the very hot,
Speaker 1: intelligent female protagonist, she's a little bit quiet, but somehow
Speaker 1: every man that comes into contact with her, in love
Speaker 1: with her, obsessed with her, can't get over it. It's
Speaker 1: just something special, right, There's just something about you. And
Speaker 1: it's like she has not said she's read a book.
Speaker 1: The piano scene, literally the pianos scene, same exact thing
Speaker 1: as Twilight, wait till the third movie scene. That's like
Speaker 1: what the funk? Like we didn't know the whole time. Oh,
Speaker 1: and then the weirdly close wealthy family dynamic that who
Speaker 1: with the family It was like, oh, this is kind
Speaker 1: of like Edward Collins very close, creepy, so close, it's
Speaker 1: creepy family where Marcia gay Harden's like this, what's this?
Speaker 1: Also shout out Marcia Gyard really enjoyed her presence in this,
Speaker 1: and she knows exactly what movie she's in. It's so
Speaker 1: good and Pacific Northwest. They're like, let's not relocate it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, if there was any doubt that you were
Speaker 1: shut out to your favorite movie, don't. If there are
Speaker 1: any doubt two thousand and eight and actor's film John
Speaker 1: Patrick Shanley that this was based on Twilight originally. I
Speaker 1: mean the flags are everywhere. Replace vampires with kink because
Speaker 1: Edward Callings a fucking stalker to exactly the only other
Speaker 1: we haven't. We've mentioned her once, but I don't even
Speaker 1: know if we measure my name. The other female character
Speaker 1: in her roommate, Kate Takes Yeah, Kate. Weird Kate. There's
Speaker 1: a very uncanny Valley quality about Kate because she's there
Speaker 1: to ask questions. Very weird b story about Kate and
Speaker 1: the third movie that's like this wasn't necessary at all.
Speaker 1: Kate hangs out, she sticks around well because she's she's
Speaker 1: sucking his brother. The brother is like, ye, just a
Speaker 1: du fist, Like he's like like Combaine Mountain, like in
Speaker 1: the first movie, like where they're like the brunette couple
Speaker 1: is like the smart ones, and then the blonde ones
Speaker 1: are like they just walk in on them fucking and
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, put your pants on, blonde people. The
Speaker 1: brunette It's like, what is happening. This is another example
Speaker 1: of a movie that where the romantic relationship it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily ever really clear why the two characters like each
Speaker 1: other or why I setting the whole the b DA
Speaker 1: something completely aside the person of the shape of water
Speaker 1: that yeah, she gives them an egg and now they're
Speaker 1: in love, carrying around any given time making people fall
Speaker 1: in love with me. But yeah, I mean so many
Speaker 1: movies do not handle this well where we actually see
Speaker 1: what the two characters are compatible over and why. I'm
Speaker 1: so so sorry that was a debt collector. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I just I just don't know why it's so hard
Speaker 1: for movies about romance to actually depict romance well in
Speaker 1: a way we're like, oh, we understand why Anastasia would
Speaker 1: like Christian, and why Christian The only reason that's given
Speaker 1: is like Christians just like I can't stay away from you,
Speaker 1: and I guess she likes him because he's rich, like
Speaker 1: I don't know. There was one line where he and
Speaker 1: this is at the very beginning where he was just
Speaker 1: like he knew what like the name of three books,
Speaker 1: and you could tell she was impressed by that. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is hag but I get there. She's like bare minimum.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I totally agree. I just I'm like, they
Speaker 1: tried exactly one time, but I noticed that just like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, also I can read and she's likesten Bronte. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I will say that I'm pretty sure this movie passes
Speaker 1: the back to test and its first spoken words. In
Speaker 1: the very first scene of the first movie, they're talking
Speaker 1: in a way. They're talking about Christian Greg because it
Speaker 1: has to do with the fact that she's leaving to
Speaker 1: go interview him. He has not explicitly stated. So the
Speaker 1: very first scene they're just talking about, like, you know,
Speaker 1: good luck. Is that what you're wearing? Are you take
Speaker 1: my car? I have a GPS, like, yeah, they don't.
Speaker 1: They're talking about like her. But I think that the
Speaker 1: interview with him, but that he does not actually get stated,
Speaker 1: so I would guess that it. I think that scene
Speaker 1: passes even though the context of the conversation is about
Speaker 1: interviewing a man. However, yeah, I would Most of the
Speaker 1: scenes after of that are either Annestatian Kate or Anastasia
Speaker 1: talks to his mom very briefly a few times, but
Speaker 1: usually most of the conversations are about Christian Gray. I
Speaker 1: was genuinely, I like, I yelped. I was like, did
Speaker 1: this movie just pass a minute? One can't believe it there,
Speaker 1: but yeah, Kate quickly just becomes a little like how
Speaker 1: do you feel? Listening to the way that Kate addresses
Speaker 1: her not being a virgin anymore is very bizarre, where
Speaker 1: she was like, how do you feel? And I goes,
Speaker 1: I feel different and she's like, yeah you do. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, that's the end of the conversation. Great, cool,
Speaker 1: and then analogs into her sex laptop and answers sex
Speaker 1: emails that her sex boyfriend is sex harassing her with
Speaker 1: lots of harassing emails in this movie. Yeah, shall we
Speaker 1: rate the movie on our nipple scale? Let's do it
Speaker 1: all right, based on the portrayals Lemon, we have a
Speaker 1: nipple scale of zero to five, nipples five being the best. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to just sort of talk through this
Speaker 1: one because, like I said, there are a few major
Speaker 1: things that I think the movie does really well, and
Speaker 1: that it promotes consent as being a very important thing.
Speaker 1: Female nudity is not gratuitous and actually makes sense in
Speaker 1: the context of the story for once, and female pleasure
Speaker 1: is framed as something that is good and that that's
Speaker 1: something that you should strive for. However, the romantic relationship,
Speaker 1: if you can um call it that, because he's so
Speaker 1: reluctant to say that he need I don't do romance.
Speaker 1: I fuck hard, I don't make love. I fuck hard.
Speaker 1: That was a big moment in Miami. For all intents
Speaker 1: of persons, We'll call it a romantic relationship because it is,
Speaker 1: like you said, Jamie, him being abusive and predatory is
Speaker 1: lumped in with the B D s M aspect of
Speaker 1: their relationship and not separated as those two things should be,
Speaker 1: and his predatory behavior not being framed as something thing
Speaker 1: that's problematic in the movie. It almost kind of cancels
Speaker 1: out the good things of it. It's weird. It's weird
Speaker 1: because and then also it's like, Okay, they don't separate
Speaker 1: those behaviors, and then so as a result, the audience
Speaker 1: takeaway is that b DSM proclivity is a thing to
Speaker 1: be cured and not just a part of someone that
Speaker 1: can be accepted, because it looks so dangerous the way
Speaker 1: it's presented in the movie. Right, So with that in mind,
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to give it one nipple, okay,
Speaker 1: because for all of its positive things, I think those
Speaker 1: are immediately canceled out by the negative parts of the movie. So, um,
Speaker 1: one nipple. I will give it to Anastasia's bare nipple
Speaker 1: that you've seen many many times. I'm going to give
Speaker 1: it to. Okay. I thought maybe one was too low,
Speaker 1: but I'm sticking with one follower. I'm gonna give it to.
Speaker 1: And I do feel like if I saw three movies,
Speaker 1: I might feel a little bit different, but based on
Speaker 1: the first movie alone, I'm going to give it too.
Speaker 1: I wish just in general, I mean, it's a movie
Speaker 1: a better relationship between two people. I wish that the
Speaker 1: female be characters were given more to do and more
Speaker 1: to contribute other than just asking Anastasia how she's feeling.
Speaker 1: Because it's bad writing and also because we don't know
Speaker 1: anything about them. So the way that b characters are treated,
Speaker 1: especially with the women was like pretty lazy, and I
Speaker 1: feel like we could have gotten a lot more by
Speaker 1: using them more. But Anna as a character, I do
Speaker 1: like her and I feel for her, and I think
Speaker 1: she is disserviced in a lot of ways, primarily by
Speaker 1: how her partner represents all things kink and how consent
Speaker 1: is dealt with well. So much is not dealt with well.
Speaker 1: But based on our central female protagonist, I like her.
Speaker 1: I feel for her. I was like excited and like
Speaker 1: rooted for her when she got horrors, recognized where her
Speaker 1: boundary was and was like, I'm out. But then I
Speaker 1: mean there's again. Whenever we do a story that's like,
Speaker 1: this story is badly written, it's a it's a challenge
Speaker 1: from moment one, but I'll get I will give this too.
Speaker 1: I'll give one to Anna, and I'm gonna give one
Speaker 1: to Marcia gay Harden because she's a woman in stem
Speaker 1: she's a doctor. She's a doctor. I'll give it too.
Speaker 1: I wish I could give it less because I wish
Speaker 1: the bar was higher, right, but we're just so desperate
Speaker 1: for like anything that's not created by a man, written
Speaker 1: by men. You know, like this does feel different and
Speaker 1: it's like I can see a little bit of the
Speaker 1: light cracking through the you know the brock. Yeah, on
Speaker 1: the right track, a good start. Let's get a better
Speaker 1: written story, let's better acting, more complex story. Show is
Speaker 1: more kinky Seattle stories. Fraser like movies that celebrate women's sexuality,
Speaker 1: like Magic Mike and like, you know, they're just it's
Speaker 1: fun to go see those movies. And I agree that,
Speaker 1: like women should be able to go see movies like this, Twilight,
Speaker 1: you know whatever. I mean, the most fun I've ever
Speaker 1: had in movie theaters are those types of movies. Like
Speaker 1: I went to Twilight the first one, tears were streaming
Speaker 1: down my face. I was laughing so fucking hard because
Speaker 1: the women in the audience were going nuts teen girls.
Speaker 1: I mean every time when like um, Taylor Lawtner came
Speaker 1: on the screen, they were like like and I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh my god. It was like women were
Speaker 1: just like in their in their element. Like it was
Speaker 1: like we were having like a witch, you know, gathering
Speaker 1: the wood. So great. Yeah. And then the other one was, um,
Speaker 1: I went to see a Magic Mike screening that was
Speaker 1: so fun that like it was Magic Mike too, and
Speaker 1: it was just like everyone was dying laughing throughout the
Speaker 1: whole movie. It was so fun. And then the other one,
Speaker 1: which I'll never forget, was I went to the opening
Speaker 1: night in New York of He's Just Not That Into You,
Speaker 1: and it was almost all women in the audience and
Speaker 1: like everyone had brought wine, like snuck in wine. I mean,
Speaker 1: who were like wasted, And it was like so fucking
Speaker 1: funny because there was one moment where that would be
Speaker 1: a good one for you all to do, if you
Speaker 1: haven't already haven't. No, I remember I saw that after
Speaker 1: my first He's Just It's I loved the movie, but
Speaker 1: I've never hated another book more in my entire life.
Speaker 1: I think I hate, Yeah, I hate the idea of it.
Speaker 1: But the movie was very entertaining, It was very and
Speaker 1: it was really fun to be in a movie theater.
Speaker 1: But but there's a moment in a movie that's like
Speaker 1: the big dramatic, like proposal moment, and no joke, you
Speaker 1: could hear this ripple across the theater where it was
Speaker 1: dead quiet and then just a sort of wave of
Speaker 1: laugher because every woman was crying, and then it was
Speaker 1: like you're crying, No, you're crying, and everyone started sucking
Speaker 1: laughing and it was so funny. It was just like
Speaker 1: it's like there's just not that many movies where it's
Speaker 1: like women, where centers women in a way that like
Speaker 1: and we are like a force like Twilight. These are juggernauts.
Speaker 1: They made so much money, but they were treated like
Speaker 1: a second fiddle to be a fair horrible superhero movies
Speaker 1: that are just absolute ship. What do you mean? Justice
Speaker 1: League was great? There's there, Yeah, there's so there are
Speaker 1: so few places where like groups of women from all
Speaker 1: different all different walks of life you can just like
Speaker 1: get into the same room and have like a weird,
Speaker 1: silly good time. And so I never want to be
Speaker 1: like fifty Shades of Grade shouldn't exist, Like it's got
Speaker 1: a ton of problems, but I'm thrilled it exist because
Speaker 1: it gives you, like that good cathartic experience that it's
Speaker 1: super hard to find anywhere except the movie. Worth mentioning,
Speaker 1: this is a very white movie. This is a very
Speaker 1: hetero movie. Yes, a lot of straight these a lot
Speaker 1: of white people, as with most movies, which is no excuse,
Speaker 1: but you know follows the trend absolutely well. Sarah is
Speaker 1: so much for being here right with us. Where can
Speaker 1: people follow you? What would you like to play? Follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Instagram, Sara Shape for one across the board.
Speaker 1: And I have this new podcast which I'm really excited about,
Speaker 1: which is sort of weird and it's like Me and
Speaker 1: the Future commenting on right now. It's got like a
Speaker 1: fictional element to it of fantasy dystopian thing going on,
Speaker 1: plus real topical discussion. Um and what's the name of
Speaker 1: your podcasting It's called Loner at coy Wolf Creek being
Speaker 1: like a combination of species of already exists. There's a
Speaker 1: new species of animal where some cut kyotes and wolves
Speaker 1: and dogs a little bit of dog in their dogs. Yes,
Speaker 1: Christian gray wolf. Okay, oh, there's already a wolf thing.
Speaker 1: It's Twilight Taylor Lautner. Hey. You can follow the backtel
Speaker 1: Cast on all the social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
Speaker 1: You can write and review us on iTunes. You can
Speaker 1: buy our merch online what oh my gosh. You can
Speaker 1: also subscribe to our Patreon give us five dollars a
Speaker 1: month and then you get to bonus episodes of the
Speaker 1: backtel Cast every month. It's a win win win, win
Speaker 1: win win. And other than that, I just want everyone
Speaker 1: to know that I fuck hard. I fu hard to
Speaker 1: see you in the playroom. That was like you might
Speaker 1: not if you have to say it, I actually fuck
Speaker 1: very soft. Sounds good. Thank you, but a T shirt. Okay,
Speaker 1: bye bye