Speaker 1: On the Beckel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start
Speaker 1: changing it with the Bechdel Cast. Hi, welcome to the
Speaker 1: Bechtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. Name Jamie Loftiz.
Speaker 1: And what do we do here? Jamie? Sorry to go, No,
Speaker 1: it's fine, it's a test. Well, this is our this
Speaker 1: is our podcast about the representation of women in movies,
Speaker 1: using the Bechtel Test as a jumping off point for discussion.
Speaker 1: How did I do? That? Was so wonderful? Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. And the Bechtel Test, if you're not familiar,
Speaker 1: if perhaps you're tuning in for the very first time,
Speaker 1: is a media test. Um. And actually I wanted to
Speaker 1: go into a little bit more detail than we normally
Speaker 1: do because I think this is like the perfect episode
Speaker 1: and the perfect movie to provide just a little more
Speaker 1: context and talk a little bit more about the origins
Speaker 1: of the Bechtel Test than we normally do. You're being
Speaker 1: a real lead deb right now. I am the squad leader.
Speaker 1: The squad leader. We're going to get into a fight,
Speaker 1: but by the end we will make up and our
Speaker 1: French one of us will be in love and the
Speaker 1: other one will be in charge. So you'll be in
Speaker 1: love and I'll be in charge. That's because that's how
Speaker 1: our normal lives are right now. Okay, anyway, so Alison
Speaker 1: Bechtel queer icon. She inadvertently created the Bechdel Test in
Speaker 1: her book Likes to Watch Out For published in UM.
Speaker 1: I feel like some people think that she like deliberately
Speaker 1: set out to create this specific media tests, but it
Speaker 1: was more than it appeared in the book, and then
Speaker 1: that was later co opted into the tests that we
Speaker 1: now use, and that is widely used to apply to
Speaker 1: you know, media and movies and things like that. Alison
Speaker 1: Bechdel credits the idea to her friend Liz Wallace and
Speaker 1: to the writings of Virginia Wolf, specifically Wolf's essay A
Speaker 1: Room of One's Own Um, which is a feminist text.
Speaker 1: The Bechtel Test is sometimes referred to as the Bechtel
Speaker 1: Wallace test um, which Alison Bechdel is said to prefer.
Speaker 1: But we are jerks, so we only call it the
Speaker 1: Bechdel Test. I love and friends, credit friends. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: critical it's it's great um. And then in the comic
Speaker 1: des to Watch Out for Um, it has to lesbian characters,
Speaker 1: and the context of their conversation is that there is
Speaker 1: so little queer women representation in movies that the only
Speaker 1: way for them to imagine that a female character in
Speaker 1: a movie might be a lesbian is if she is
Speaker 1: seen talking to another woman and they are not talking
Speaker 1: about men. So that is the origin of the Bechtel test.
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to share that to our listener.
Speaker 1: I'm less sure the original comic on our on our Twitter. Well,
Speaker 1: I know it's readily available, so we can do that
Speaker 1: as well. Indeed, this history Corner, Yeah, a new segment
Speaker 1: on every episode. Please got no? Shall we introduce our guests.
Speaker 1: Let's do it. I'm so excited. We've got to today,
Speaker 1: very exciting time. They are the hosts of the lez
Speaker 1: Hangout podcast. It's Lee Holmes Foster and Ellie Bridgatta. Hi
Speaker 1: did I say that right, Brigata? It's Bridget Bridgeta. But
Speaker 1: I think you should change. Honestly, I love it, Brigata.
Speaker 1: It sounds a little bit more like the things that
Speaker 1: I love sounds like it sounds like a beverage or bread.
Speaker 1: So sorry for fucking up your name, but welcome. It's
Speaker 1: all good. They literally messed up my name at my
Speaker 1: graduation and I waited for them. I was like, you're
Speaker 1: going to get it right. So they said it like
Speaker 1: seven times that I finally walked does an incredible flex.
Speaker 1: So tell us, Lee, let's start with you. Um, what
Speaker 1: is your history your relationship with the movie. Oh, by
Speaker 1: the way, today's movie is Debs. Yes, Debs is a
Speaker 1: cult classic two thousand technically two thousand four, but released
Speaker 1: widely in two thousand five rom com technically, although it
Speaker 1: feels like a d com to me in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways of getting a lot of d com vibes. Screens, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so many green screens and like goofy like kind of music.
Speaker 1: Very d com. It's so great. What is your experience, Lee? Okay,
Speaker 1: So my experience so because I'm going to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like I first saw Debs in college, which
Speaker 1: would make sense. That was like right after it came out,
Speaker 1: And I would say my experience with Debs is that
Speaker 1: for a really really long time, when we would try
Speaker 1: to talk to like friends or people about like queer movies,
Speaker 1: we would say for a long time. There's like one
Speaker 1: like good queer movie that's like a real movie which
Speaker 1: has imagined me and you. And then there's like two amazing,
Speaker 1: like campy movies, and those are Debs and But I'm
Speaker 1: a Cheerleader. Um, And so for a long time, Debs
Speaker 1: was like that go to of like it's so terrible
Speaker 1: and amazing just all at the same time, and there
Speaker 1: just wasn't a lot else out there, so so you'd
Speaker 1: kind of just watched those. We talked about this on
Speaker 1: our But I'm a Cheerleader episode where our guest was like,
Speaker 1: there are only two fun lesbian movies, and one of
Speaker 1: them is but I'm a Cheerleader and the other one
Speaker 1: is Debs. It has been like a request for a
Speaker 1: long time. Yes, it's such a classic. It's such Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's such a horribly amazing movie. The first time that
Speaker 1: I ever saw it actually was when I watched it
Speaker 1: with Lee podcast yeah called Less Central. I had never
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah, it was the first time that I
Speaker 1: had seen it, And I don't know why I hadn't
Speaker 1: seen it before. But I'm also a bit younger than Lee,
Speaker 1: so I was I was definitely not a lesbian or
Speaker 1: I was a lesbian, but I wasn't out when Depths
Speaker 1: came out. Um, so I saw it for the first
Speaker 1: time then and have since watched it probably five or
Speaker 1: six times. Yeah, yeah, because everything else is so depressing.
Speaker 1: Like if you want to watch something to beat and lesbian,
Speaker 1: like that's it. Yeah, Jamie, what's your relationship? Like most movies,
Speaker 1: I've never seen it before until today and I watched
Speaker 1: and I watched it twice in a row, and it's
Speaker 1: like it's so at my alley in so many ways.
Speaker 1: But it's just like the low budge vibes you get
Speaker 1: from it, the multitude of like the character directors are
Speaker 1: out in this movie, some wild character actor choices. Uh,
Speaker 1: that outfits are weird. I just it's it's everything. Uh,
Speaker 1: it looks like it costs seven dollars to make. And
Speaker 1: I love I loved her, Donna Brewster, and it was
Speaker 1: just she's so good and it's weird because I don't
Speaker 1: I haven't seen I mean, I guess I'm mostly judging
Speaker 1: her catalog from seeing on her on my mom's soaps
Speaker 1: when I was really young, because she started as a
Speaker 1: soap star and seeing her in The Fast and the
Speaker 1: Furious movies, but this is the most personality I've seen
Speaker 1: her ever display ever. It was just like, I really
Speaker 1: like this movie. Yeah, what about you? Um I had
Speaker 1: not seen it either. Um, I knew of it just
Speaker 1: because it had been request It's a common request for
Speaker 1: us to do on the podcast, and that was the
Speaker 1: first time I learned about it. I think it's just yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember someone in like a college film class I
Speaker 1: took presented on it and being like college myself of like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll watch that, and then I was like, no, I
Speaker 1: gon't watch a movie, don't work it somehow flew under
Speaker 1: my radar, which is unfortunate that this like fun queer
Speaker 1: movie was not even in my like wheelhouse or I
Speaker 1: just I wasn't aware of it, because I feel like
Speaker 1: I have a pretty good handle on most movies. Even
Speaker 1: if I haven't seen them, I've heard of them or
Speaker 1: I know about them. Twice. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: bringing it up, because you know, I don't like to
Speaker 1: mention that I do have a master's screen screen running
Speaker 1: from Boston University, but uh, yeah, it just when did
Speaker 1: you go to be you? I went there between Oh,
Speaker 1: we were probably there at the same time. Yeah, Boston. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's where I did my PhD. So okay, trying to
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, are you are you trying to upstage me?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I found that much more impressive degree there.
Speaker 1: At the same time, though my blood not even a
Speaker 1: very stressful But what did what did you study? Chemistry? Oh?
Speaker 1: A woman? That's that's why it's like, not impressive at all,
Speaker 1: and no one ever wants to hear about it. You
Speaker 1: know you're I'm not impressed by your PhD in chemistry
Speaker 1: at all. I think we also overlapped with a Casio
Speaker 1: Cortes though, didn't we? Oh she was I think she
Speaker 1: graduated inn I think something like that sounds right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I I missed her. So she and I overlapped.
Speaker 1: So once again, this is a this is spicy cast sy.
Speaker 1: I'm never getting invited back to anything ever. You have
Speaker 1: a PhD in chemistry, you can do whatever the funk
Speaker 1: you want. Yeah, and I didn't earned it. I didn't
Speaker 1: mean for my reaction to be like, oh, it was
Speaker 1: more like, oh, I wasn't expecting that. I am actually
Speaker 1: very impressed, and you're a woman in stem so that's great.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you the most common response that I
Speaker 1: think I've gotten when I if I tell people that
Speaker 1: I have a PhD in chemistry, I think the most
Speaker 1: common resp bonses what else do you do? Um? Really,
Speaker 1: so I'm not offended by any who are these people
Speaker 1: do that? That's fine? I want to fight these people,
Speaker 1: Lee has spot them. Oh good, good fight. I just
Speaker 1: tell them about my awesome lesbian podcast. That's all. I
Speaker 1: just have two very niche things. It's cool. Oh, also
Speaker 1: really quick. I also got some just taking the temp
Speaker 1: from the room. I was also getting some Josie and
Speaker 1: the Pussycat vibes from this movie visually, like if Josie
Speaker 1: and the Pussycats had like a fourth of the budget
Speaker 1: kind of like that, that's my statement, and like a
Speaker 1: zillionth of the star power exactly. They're like, we have
Speaker 1: Hall and Taylor, but we only have her for three
Speaker 1: hours so naked account and she'll only film in one
Speaker 1: rooms green screen it every time this movie takes place
Speaker 1: in the same room, and I love it. Okay, So
Speaker 1: should I do the recap of the movie debs? Yes? Please? Okay.
Speaker 1: We start with some wild voiceover that says that there
Speaker 1: is a secret test hidden within the s a T
Speaker 1: that measures a student's innate ability to lie, cheat, fight,
Speaker 1: and kill, and those who score well on this test
Speaker 1: are recruited into a secret paramilitary academy and they call
Speaker 1: themselves Deb's d e b s. The like first thirty
Speaker 1: seconds of this movie, I was like, what's like? Watch
Speaker 1: it three times to just be like I get the
Speaker 1: feeling they're not going to explain this again, and they don't.
Speaker 1: They do we ever find out what DEBS stands for? Yes,
Speaker 1: we do, end game? Yeah, what is it stand for?
Speaker 1: It stands for discipline, energy and beauty. Oh but it's
Speaker 1: also like debutantes because endgame is like prom basically. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, she does doesn't like Holland Taylor indirectly define it,
Speaker 1: like ten minutes before the movie is over. Yes, when
Speaker 1: she's reprimanding Amy. A choice was made being a big
Speaker 1: old lesbian. Yes, your one to talk, Holland Taylor one
Speaker 1: to talk. I know there, but this was like pre
Speaker 1: Holland Taylor didn't come out until a few years ago, right,
Speaker 1: she was not out when this movie was made. She was.
Speaker 1: She was leaving breadcrumbs for all of us. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's some of the background on debs um. Then
Speaker 1: we meet several of the Debs as they're on their
Speaker 1: way to Deb's academy. Um, almost like Santa University was
Speaker 1: almost like Santa Universe. Yeah, for sure, for sure. We
Speaker 1: meet Dominique. She is French. She's always smoking a cigarette,
Speaker 1: very sex positive, She's got many different dudes in her
Speaker 1: bed over the course of the movie. We meet Janet.
Speaker 1: She's a little absent minded, she's a little slighty. Um.
Speaker 1: We meet Max, she is the squad captain, and then
Speaker 1: we meet Amy. She is the top student at Deb's academy.
Speaker 1: She's a great spy and she is in the middle
Speaker 1: of breaking up with her boyfriend Bobby. Bobby, what a chick.
Speaker 1: They did not do They're like, no, no, nothing that's
Speaker 1: likable for Bobby. Hey, Jeff Stults would have been like
Speaker 1: hot off of his Seventh Heaven run at this point, right, true, Oh,
Speaker 1: I I forgot that that was where I recognized him from.
Speaker 1: There are so many people in this movie where you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know that you're from somewhere. I feel like he
Speaker 1: wasn't much more likable in Seventh Heaven to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's pretty horrible in this movie though. It's the worst.
Speaker 1: I mean down to the pokah shells. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: always bragging about his dad that belonged to his father, right,
Speaker 1: what is that? Yes, he's like my dad shells. Like,
Speaker 1: please started this on therapy, keep your shells out of this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: For he carries around a collection of his father's bracelets
Speaker 1: for some unknown racing and it's always like urgent for
Speaker 1: him to put the bracelet on her in midair. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: you gotta put it on my dad's bracelet. Now I
Speaker 1: love it. Okay. So the four of these debs meet
Speaker 1: up with Phipps, who was played by Michael Clark Duncan
Speaker 1: and Ms Petrie who is Holland Taylor and Queer Icon,
Speaker 1: and they're like, hey, Lucy Diamond is back in the States,
Speaker 1: and Lucy Diamond might be a reference to something, um,
Speaker 1: nothing that I've ever heard of, don't really do a
Speaker 1: general name. So weird that those two were to be associated.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like it's completely original and
Speaker 1: not an allusion to anything. Sick, just checking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So she Lucy Diamond is a smuggler, she's the leader
Speaker 1: of a crime syndicate. She's turn to Brewster, She's ridiculously hot.
Speaker 1: She's very hot, which Amy definitely recognizes. Yeah, oh, I
Speaker 1: just didn't expect her to be so good. She's straight
Speaker 1: out of like many shampoo hair commercials, even though no
Speaker 1: one's ever survived an encounter with her, right, yeah, yea.
Speaker 1: And she is planning to meet up with an x
Speaker 1: KGB turned assassin named Nkotchka. I like Nikotchka a lot more.
Speaker 1: I simply cannot pronounce names. I think, yeah, Nikotchka were
Speaker 1: joining out um, And so Phipps is like, hey, to
Speaker 1: do surveillance on Lucy. But here's the thing, it's very
Speaker 1: dangerous because Lucy has never fought anyone who has lived
Speaker 1: to tell about it. Amy is especially excited because she's
Speaker 1: writing her thesis on Lucy Diamond. Of course she is.
Speaker 1: And are they supposed to be at the same age?
Speaker 1: That was quite I was like, are you right? Was
Speaker 1: she writing her thesis on some some in her age
Speaker 1: or is she supposed to be a little bit older.
Speaker 1: It's really unclear in the same way that it's unclear,
Speaker 1: like it seems like they're supposed to be in college
Speaker 1: through this, but they treat them like high schoolers the
Speaker 1: whole time. And they're dressed like stereotypical private school high
Speaker 1: school students. Well, I don't know, typical private Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think they would definitely be sent to the principal's office. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're dressed like a Halloween costume. Oh yeah, well we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that. But yeah, I think they're meant to
Speaker 1: be like seniors in college basically because they say they're
Speaker 1: in their fourth year of Deb's academy. So Lucy is
Speaker 1: just like a a gay dropout who blazed her own
Speaker 1: trail and thus is essay material. True. Yeah, hard to
Speaker 1: say how old Lucy is meant to be. I got
Speaker 1: the impression that she was maybe a few years older
Speaker 1: than the debts. But again, she's right, UM's what we know.
Speaker 1: She's hot. She has a friend named Scud. Yes, I
Speaker 1: don't have any more questions. And we meet the two
Speaker 1: of them, and we find out that Lucy is planning
Speaker 1: to meet up with this ninotchka woman because they are
Speaker 1: going on a blind date, and we're like, whoa, Lucy
Speaker 1: is a queer icon. As it turns out, Scud is
Speaker 1: really wanting Lucy to be in love because that's such
Speaker 1: a good wing man. Scud is like, it's practically his job. Like,
Speaker 1: we don't really see him do much else other than
Speaker 1: be like, you gotta be in love, Lucy, move on,
Speaker 1: you got this. I was like, damn, Scud, you're really
Speaker 1: rooting for her. Scud is like a walking Lesbro slash
Speaker 1: motivational poet during human form. Yeah, you have to be
Speaker 1: open to love. You're so supportive. It's great. Peaks good.
Speaker 1: So the debs go to the restaurant for this steak
Speaker 1: out and Lucy shows up and she's there with her
Speaker 1: date and it's not going very well. In a very
Speaker 1: tall restaurant, the ceilings are like eight ft high, and
Speaker 1: no one ever looks up. Lucy. It actually is a pool,
Speaker 1: if anyone noticed, I just noticed this time. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's definitely an empty pool that they turned into a
Speaker 1: restaurant because on the wall it says like something about swimming,
Speaker 1: and if you look on the sides there are little
Speaker 1: things that say the height of it, which is six ft,
Speaker 1: so it's not that tall. Excellent budget they had, They're great, great, great.
Speaker 1: So Lucy does spot the debs who are just like
Speaker 1: hanging out in the rafters and so this lee to
Speaker 1: a big shootout. Whoa, whoa, wait, it's not that she
Speaker 1: spots them, it's that Bobby checks, as you're so wont
Speaker 1: to do when you're hanging in little swings from a
Speaker 1: restaurant's thirty foot ceiling on an espionage didn't. They're all
Speaker 1: in like circus swings is part of the plan. And
Speaker 1: then like every single one of Bobby's dad's bracelets is
Speaker 1: a Chekhov's gun the second it comes out, because it's
Speaker 1: just gonna happen. I would also like to believe that
Speaker 1: there's an entire semester's class of Deb's Academy that is
Speaker 1: solely devoted to balancing on those swing seats because they
Speaker 1: like move they can like shift them back and forth,
Speaker 1: and they returned at all, and the swings don't swing
Speaker 1: that much. They seem pretty stationary. I'm interested in this technology. Same.
Speaker 1: So there's this big shootout and to uh, Lucy and
Speaker 1: Amy find themselves face to face, but instead of killing
Speaker 1: each other, they sort of vibe that scene. Yes, it's great.
Speaker 1: And then Lucy gets away and she goes to Scutt
Speaker 1: and she's like, hey, I met someone. Her name is
Speaker 1: Amy Bradshaw, and Scott is like, you can't like her.
Speaker 1: She's a deb she's been, and she's like, not, she's
Speaker 1: she's she's the perfect score, which again we just have
Speaker 1: some very subtle coded language in here. And then Lucy
Speaker 1: sneaks into Amy's room and she's like, go out with me.
Speaker 1: If you do, I'll tell you what you want to
Speaker 1: know for your thesis. Janet crosses their paths one of
Speaker 1: the other debs, and so she and Scutt get dragged
Speaker 1: along to this like nightclub that they end up going to,
Speaker 1: and Amy and Lucy start to get to know each
Speaker 1: other and then they almost kiss, and also Scott and
Speaker 1: Janet or five pool table. There's a lot a lot
Speaker 1: going on. There's a pool table. There's a bunch of
Speaker 1: people that are like straight out of your you know,
Speaker 1: mid two thousand's small hot topic, so many mohawks, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of like giant metal ball necklaces. There actually
Speaker 1: is the guy with a potato stack on his end.
Speaker 1: I've seen this movie so many times that the last
Speaker 1: time I watched it, I paused it at a certain
Speaker 1: point because I was like, is that a potato sack?
Speaker 1: And it was so just letting, you know, look out
Speaker 1: for that a lot of Easter eggs because I will
Speaker 1: watch this movie again. I think it's so much fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so. She and Lucy almost kiss, but Amy is
Speaker 1: confused about her sexuality, so she gets up and leaves abruptly.
Speaker 1: Now we're back at Deb's academy and MS Petrie is
Speaker 1: all like, hey, Amy lead this investigation to find Lucy,
Speaker 1: and she also gets promoted to squad captain because they
Speaker 1: survived the Lucy encounter. Yes, so everyone's like, wow, what
Speaker 1: a hero. And then Max is all upset because she's like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I'm squad captain. This means there's some
Speaker 1: tension between Amy and Max, and as they stated whilst
Speaker 1: on the swings, they're best friends. And also Max did
Speaker 1: something that I'm like, Okay, this isn't what a great
Speaker 1: friend would say, but it did make me laugh of
Speaker 1: when she was just like, promise you'll never go to
Speaker 1: art school. I'm like, I wish I had a friend
Speaker 1: who had said that to me, right, Because Amy doesn't
Speaker 1: have that much interest in being like a spy. She
Speaker 1: wants to go to art school in Barcelona exactly, which
Speaker 1: is just like, I feel like the default for any
Speaker 1: like broody girl in the nineties two thousand movie you
Speaker 1: just want to be an artist for a lesbian I
Speaker 1: mean just any less either or right. It should have
Speaker 1: been a hint read the science, Amy read the science.
Speaker 1: So then, um, Lucy robs a bank just so that
Speaker 1: the Debs will like go and try to stop her,
Speaker 1: because she's trying to lure Amy there so she can
Speaker 1: get closer to her. And then Amy's like, ah, sorry,
Speaker 1: but I'm not romantically interested in you, Lucy. But then
Speaker 1: also but and then in that scene, Lucy also almost
Speaker 1: kills the Debs and it's like it's a booby trap,
Speaker 1: and like, um, excuse me, you almost killed the Debs.
Speaker 1: She's like, what a good prying. I didn't laugh about
Speaker 1: this later, I just like, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: want to be in a relationship with this woman now.
Speaker 1: I mean, we'll talk about the nature of their like
Speaker 1: the whole um. There's some strange twists. Yeah, So that
Speaker 1: they kiss, Lucy and Amy kiss and Amy is all
Speaker 1: like she changes her mind. She goes with Lucy. The
Speaker 1: Debs all think that she's been kidnapped, but it's really
Speaker 1: just them hanging out, spending time together and having a
Speaker 1: great time, which is a great montage. Also, they do
Speaker 1: appear to be in plain sight almost all the time. Right. Also,
Speaker 1: the montage is confusing time wise, because it to me,
Speaker 1: this montage appears to take place over the course of
Speaker 1: like many moons. Yeah, but they do mention later that
Speaker 1: she's only kidnapped for a week seven days. Yes, so
Speaker 1: they really they just kinda made it seem a little
Speaker 1: bit more than it was. Maybe they move really fast.
Speaker 1: I guess that let's let's not talk about lesbian stereotypes
Speaker 1: quite yet. But you know, also they're in their college
Speaker 1: aged I feel like in college a million times I
Speaker 1: would tell I would tell anyone I loved them. After
Speaker 1: a week, like yeah, They're like, do you love me?
Speaker 1: I'd be like, sure, I don't know. Could be true.
Speaker 1: So then um, Miss Petriet orders a search for Amy,
Speaker 1: and the Debs find her while she and Lucy are
Speaker 1: naked and kissing, and so, in an effort to cover
Speaker 1: up what would be a scandal for Deb's academy since
Speaker 1: like Amy was consorting with the enemy, they planned to
Speaker 1: instead they're going to name her deb of the Year
Speaker 1: at the big end game event. And it's Max's idea.
Speaker 1: It's Max's idea, and she's very smart, and she's going
Speaker 1: to give a speech to accept this award, so to speak,
Speaker 1: and her ex boyfriend Bobby is going to be there
Speaker 1: with her to make it look like they're together. Nobody
Speaker 1: has ever been more excited to take out a girl
Speaker 1: who has no interest in them than Bobby is to
Speaker 1: take her to anything. When they're dancing on the dance floor,
Speaker 1: she's literally like standing still. He's like busting all these
Speaker 1: moves not he doesn't look at her at all. Bobby
Speaker 1: is such a child, it's wild. I was pissed when
Speaker 1: Max called Bobby when they had a lead on where
Speaker 1: Amy was. I was like, man, Max, that's not what
Speaker 1: a friend does. Don't call the ex boyfriend who's who
Speaker 1: wears Puka Shell's never call him. Never guy. Ever. So
Speaker 1: we're almost at the end of the movie. Um, everyone
Speaker 1: is mad at Amy for her whole like wording with
Speaker 1: the enemy thing, and she's forced to suppress her feelings
Speaker 1: for Lucy, and she say that she's not in love
Speaker 1: with her, even though we know that she is because
Speaker 1: she's wait, sorry, super quickly, we missed a really important
Speaker 1: part of the movie. What the montage where Lucy Diamond
Speaker 1: decides to reform her ways? Oh God, yes, because in
Speaker 1: order to be in love, you do need to change
Speaker 1: everything about yourself. So Lucy's like, I'll do whatever it
Speaker 1: takes to win Amy back, and so she starts to
Speaker 1: return all the money that she stole from people with
Speaker 1: the help and support of Scott. Scott is they're they're
Speaker 1: singing karaoke together and what appears to be her bedroom,
Speaker 1: like they're just it definitely is her bedroom that they
Speaker 1: pan out and there's four other people there. Dan say,
Speaker 1: so it's like every crime operation has their backup dancers. Okay, yeah, yeah, true,
Speaker 1: especially during a reform montage trying out, she has a
Speaker 1: little batman signal that's Lucy Diamond that turns into Amy
Speaker 1: be mine. That's great. So now we're at endgame, which
Speaker 1: was essentially this ball prom kind of thing, and Amy
Speaker 1: is giving her speech and Lucy shows up to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: I actually love you and we should be together, which
Speaker 1: was sort of Scott's idea. Um, and then Amy is like, hey,
Speaker 1: here's my speech. It's such an honor to be a
Speaker 1: deb and blah blah blah, and then she's like, but
Speaker 1: just kidding, and then she's yeah, she literally gives the
Speaker 1: whole speech, and then she's like Comma j K. And
Speaker 1: that is why I actually need to tell you that
Speaker 1: I love Lucy Diamond. Also, wait, can we just come
Speaker 1: it real quick? On the speech accepting the deb's highest
Speaker 1: award ry, Jane, Oh was that a week? Didn't get it?
Speaker 1: It's just they're throwing them left and right, damn. Like
Speaker 1: it's taken many viewings of this movie to just really
Speaker 1: pick out all of the first subtle hints and you know,
Speaker 1: just hidden language in there. There's a lot of, first
Speaker 1: of all, really funny jokes, and I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of them are fairly subtle, Like there was stuff
Speaker 1: I was picking up on I didn't pick up on
Speaker 1: until my second viewing, and I feel like there's still
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that I missed. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: excited to go back and rewatch it. So Amy's like
Speaker 1: she professes her love for Lucy, Lucy is there. There's
Speaker 1: this big fight that unfolds, and then Lucy and Amy
Speaker 1: are running around the cross paths again at the same
Speaker 1: place that they did the first time they meet, and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh my god, let's be together and all
Speaker 1: the debt shop and they're like, wait, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: That endgame took place in the pool restaurant. Oh, I
Speaker 1: guess the oncation scenes they did have one building for
Speaker 1: ten days, but that takes place and it's like a
Speaker 1: warehouse that they're running around in. So maybe there's the
Speaker 1: basement warehouse under the pool restaurant, which is also in
Speaker 1: Dev's academy. Maybe Dev's academy. The exterior may have been
Speaker 1: mostly a green screen. I'm not totally sure. I don't
Speaker 1: I guess they sort they could have been in the
Speaker 1: pool restaurant. So then Amy and Lucier like, yeah, let's
Speaker 1: be together, and the DEDs are like, okay, we accept you.
Speaker 1: And that is pretty much the end of the movie.
Speaker 1: They right off into the sunset they got in Janet
Speaker 1: Get Together too. Yes, Yes, happy endings all around. Indeed. Um,
Speaker 1: then she has to be like, this is my boyfriend's scud,
Speaker 1: which is too bad. So that's the story. We're going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break and then we'll come right
Speaker 1: back and we're back. Hi. Hello. There's so much to
Speaker 1: talk about, lots to talk about. So to start us off,
Speaker 1: Lee and Ellie, we just wanted to get your take
Speaker 1: on just kind of the overall representation as as we
Speaker 1: already kind of talked about. Um, this is one of
Speaker 1: a very few, like fun queer women movies that exist
Speaker 1: at all, um still to this day. So we just
Speaker 1: want to kind of get your initial thoughts on like
Speaker 1: the representation of queer women in this movie, and just
Speaker 1: sort of your initial take on on that. There's a lot.
Speaker 1: There's a lot so much. I mean, one thing we
Speaker 1: will say is I wish it wasn't so accurate to
Speaker 1: be like, oh, here's one lesbian, she's a crime lord,
Speaker 1: and here's the other lesbian, she's an overachieving student, and
Speaker 1: they're gonna like move in and fall in love in
Speaker 1: approximately three hours. Um, well we have you hauling, which,
Speaker 1: like we like to say, is a lesbian trope that
Speaker 1: honestly is true. Like you know what you're like, that's
Speaker 1: a stereotype. But then you look around at all your
Speaker 1: friends and they're all lived together and they've been together
Speaker 1: for like six months. So describe for us what you
Speaker 1: hauling means. Okay, So you hauling is a lesbian term
Speaker 1: where basically there's a joke what does a lesbian bring
Speaker 1: on a first date? A U haul? Basically that move together,
Speaker 1: move in together very quickly. I've never heard that term before.
Speaker 1: That's funny. Oh really I thought that, like everyone knew
Speaker 1: you hauling, But we just live in a lesbian world,
Speaker 1: so yes, So it's just this, it's a stereotype that
Speaker 1: lesbians moved very quickly, fall in love very fast, and
Speaker 1: go through like every stage of the relationship very quickly.
Speaker 1: So seven days isn't really that unrealistic. I know, I
Speaker 1: wish it was less accurate, but yeah, that's pretty accurate.
Speaker 1: I do want to talk a little bit about one
Speaker 1: of the things that I think is problematic about Lucy Diamond. Yes,
Speaker 1: even though I love her and she's so beautiful, she
Speaker 1: is the predatory lesbian stereo type, yes, like, which what
Speaker 1: I mean by that is you have in lesbian movies
Speaker 1: usually one person who is already out and a lesbian
Speaker 1: or bisexual however they identify it, but they're already out,
Speaker 1: and then you usually have someone who's in the closet,
Speaker 1: and you have this person who's already out pursuing them
Speaker 1: very aggressively and then kind of like trying to coax them,
Speaker 1: that kind of trying to turn them in a way,
Speaker 1: which is very problematic. So Lucy Diamond at one point
Speaker 1: says she's into me, but she just doesn't know it yet, right,
Speaker 1: and then continues for the entire movie to basically hold
Speaker 1: Amy hostage in order to get her to fall in
Speaker 1: love with her. Yes, right. I found this to be
Speaker 1: very similar to another problematic trip that we come up
Speaker 1: upon in hetero romance movies, just sending predatory a manse
Speaker 1: in general, right, like basically framing stalking as romantic, where
Speaker 1: she does so many different things, where she shows up
Speaker 1: in Amy's room various times and uninvited, She threatens her
Speaker 1: with a weapon to get Amy to go out with her,
Speaker 1: She robs a bank and then almost kills her friends
Speaker 1: to again try to get closer to her. I still
Speaker 1: can't get over the whole movie track excuse him, like,
Speaker 1: who are you kidding? And Amy also is like, it's
Speaker 1: very sweet that you did that for It's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's the right term. I feel like
Speaker 1: they're all things where if any part of this movie
Speaker 1: was even a little bit serious, it would immediately fall apart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, because this is a very silly, campy movie.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that was one of the biggest things I
Speaker 1: noticed as well, where Lucy she is basically stalking Amy,
Speaker 1: but it's framed as romantic and this method of seduction
Speaker 1: yields successful results because they end up together and not
Speaker 1: for nothing. I found it interesting where I totally agree
Speaker 1: that that there's are like elements of predatory romance between
Speaker 1: Lucy and Amy. But Bobby kind of does the same
Speaker 1: thing to Amy at the beginning of the movie, where
Speaker 1: she can't get away from him and he's like, why
Speaker 1: did you bring up with me? Why did you break
Speaker 1: up with me? And he's like popping up on all
Speaker 1: her devices, and then he slides in on his freaky swing.
Speaker 1: He's like, he's like, why did you bring up with me?
Speaker 1: Here where my dad brings let and like it. It
Speaker 1: seems like a pattern in Amy's romantic life, but this
Speaker 1: story doesn't really address that well. And when when Bobby
Speaker 1: is doing it, it's framed as she feels as though
Speaker 1: she's being pesterred, and which is true, it's a valid
Speaker 1: But then when Lucy does it, it's like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: look how much she likes Amy, and look at all
Speaker 1: the efforts she's going through to try to get with her,
Speaker 1: and fan keeps almost killing other people shouldn't be with them.
Speaker 1: In fact, Lucy even says at one point to Amy,
Speaker 1: She's like, you say, I can't see you. I see
Speaker 1: you anyway. It's this little game we play and it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be this like, you know, cute moment, but
Speaker 1: it's like, no, you're right. It's like, is it a
Speaker 1: game or do you have a tracker that somehow can
Speaker 1: identify everyone in the world is either not Amy or Amy?
Speaker 1: And she does have that, yes, And then when the
Speaker 1: and then when the writing also indicates that like being
Speaker 1: stalked is secretly what Amy really wanted anyways, and Amy
Speaker 1: really did want Lucy coming after her because this is
Speaker 1: what she like. It just it's it's just not a
Speaker 1: good message for for young impressionable No, not really, even
Speaker 1: even if that predatory lesbian returns giant cartoon sacks of
Speaker 1: money with dollar signs on them, which just not enough. Well,
Speaker 1: that was another I mean, I mean, that was another
Speaker 1: thing that sort of bugged me about their relationship. And
Speaker 1: I guess, I mean, it is such a campy movie
Speaker 1: that it was. It's not like I feel like, no,
Speaker 1: I wish she was a mean bank robber forever, but
Speaker 1: that but that felt like another well worn trope of
Speaker 1: like one person needs to change everything about themselves for
Speaker 1: this relationship to work, like you have to where there's
Speaker 1: literally that scene with Scud I guess can't say it enough.
Speaker 1: We're like Lucy's like, man, I really love Amy, and
Speaker 1: Scuds like, so, do you want to give up everything
Speaker 1: you've worked for? And Lucy's like yep. Well. And it's
Speaker 1: funny too because there's this huge running theme in the
Speaker 1: movie about like finding yourself right, and they have that
Speaker 1: whole conversation when she's kidnapped, being like, you know, you
Speaker 1: should be doing what you love and Lucy's like, I
Speaker 1: am doing what I love. But then she like tosses
Speaker 1: that out the window. You know, maybe she could be
Speaker 1: a pirate though that was so weird too, but it
Speaker 1: was like Lucy, pirates are criminals and He's like, whoofs Oh,
Speaker 1: everything I want to be falls under the criminal category. Yeah. So, now,
Speaker 1: what what's she going to do after she's returned all
Speaker 1: this money? Like can she even afford to live now?
Speaker 1: It seems like she probably can't afford rent on her
Speaker 1: a big way. People cannot live on an art grad
Speaker 1: student salary. I just say, if Lucy's about to go
Speaker 1: to grad school, they're fucks. I do not assume that
Speaker 1: she did very well on her S A T S
Speaker 1: because she definitely assaulved that dude there. Yeah, there's I mean,
Speaker 1: who knows. There's a lot of parts of that relationship
Speaker 1: that just don't work in terms of setting an example.
Speaker 1: But there are other scenes between the two of them
Speaker 1: that I really liked. I really liked that scene where
Speaker 1: they were talking about, you know, Amy is going with
Speaker 1: the path that she was put on without questioning it,
Speaker 1: and then Lucy's challenging that, and she was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do bad stuff, but it's like that was a
Speaker 1: choice I made and I stood by it, which makes
Speaker 1: it weirder that she dials back on it later. But
Speaker 1: I liked that scene between them a lot, Like they
Speaker 1: do seem to challenge each other in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways and don't hold back, which is nice because Amy
Speaker 1: doesn't do that with her friends as much. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you do. I feel like in so many mainstream movies,
Speaker 1: which of course are mostly hetero, you see the romantic
Speaker 1: relationship if there is one in the movie, you rarely
Speaker 1: get a sense of like why the two characters like
Speaker 1: each other, or what they connect about, or what they
Speaker 1: even talk about. But I feel like in this movie,
Speaker 1: you get more of a sense of why they connect,
Speaker 1: and it is I mean, for the first chunk of it,
Speaker 1: Lucy is using some very questionable tactics and not even
Speaker 1: just the stalker stuff. It's like she's also kind of
Speaker 1: like negging her and or like being condescending to her,
Speaker 1: Like in the scene when they're in the nightclub, she's
Speaker 1: just kind of like being mean to her in a
Speaker 1: weird way. Well, that's that's flirting, right, That is flirting
Speaker 1: you right y? Yeah, yeah, the timeless tactic that works
Speaker 1: on us all. The thing that comes out in the
Speaker 1: scene in the club that made me laugh the most
Speaker 1: was like you can tell that maybe at some point
Speaker 1: Angela Robinson gets the story note that like, uh, we
Speaker 1: should make it like, don't make Lucy too bad because
Speaker 1: in that like Amy's like, well, haven't you killed a
Speaker 1: lot of people? And Lucy's like, no, they died of
Speaker 1: various diseases and or froze to death, so I'm actually
Speaker 1: a viable love interest and is like because I'm not
Speaker 1: a murderer, I'm just a robber. Yeah. That made me
Speaker 1: I don't know, I thought that that was like very
Speaker 1: fun camp be on purpose. Bad writing and I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I hope it was on purpose, because if not, that
Speaker 1: is nuts. Right. Well, and that's and and that's sort
Speaker 1: of the one line where Amy's like, you're just not
Speaker 1: what I expected, you know. Yeah, ah, yes, they're I'm
Speaker 1: sold on this now. Yeah, you know. And you ask
Speaker 1: someone if they murdered someone and they say no, you
Speaker 1: just believe them if they're hot. But only if they're hot, yeah,
Speaker 1: only if you want to kiss them. Yeah, And yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: and I think it's believable too, because their actual sexual
Speaker 1: chemistry is really believable, which we don't get very often
Speaker 1: in lesbian films because you have less of them, so
Speaker 1: the percentage of like good chemistry is going to be lower, right, Sure,
Speaker 1: But I actually like them together, Like when they're romantically together,
Speaker 1: they're cute together. They're believers, super cute together. I was
Speaker 1: rooting for them that montage. It's adorable. A lot of
Speaker 1: sitting on cars, the milk yeah, yes, spooning on cars,
Speaker 1: milk shakes, I'm like, yeah, sure, gifting each other handcuffs,
Speaker 1: just just cute stuff. The thing I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about is in terms of like the queer representation. I
Speaker 1: feel like if there is a character in a movie
Speaker 1: who is like identifiably a lesbian. In mainstream movies, she's
Speaker 1: I feel like she's often she will often be fairly
Speaker 1: butch presenting. Unsurprisingly, a lot of these movies are written
Speaker 1: by straight people who have like a very specific idea
Speaker 1: of what lesbians look like and how they present. Um,
Speaker 1: So it's like pulling from those stereotypes and then helping
Speaker 1: to reinforce them. In this movie, the two queer characters
Speaker 1: who we see are very fem and I feel like
Speaker 1: you rarely see that, and not that this is an
Speaker 1: especially mainstream movie, but like I said, in in mainstream movies,
Speaker 1: you're seeing these very stereotypical ideas of how lesbians present,
Speaker 1: and it's always like plaid flannel, wearing like short hair,
Speaker 1: like you know, nice pair overalls. Yeah, yes, well, and
Speaker 1: this this is also one of the only movies that
Speaker 1: you have both of them being femi. I do feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of the times you have one super
Speaker 1: butch lesbian and then one bisexual feminine woman, like that's
Speaker 1: like a very common pairing, but to have both of
Speaker 1: them be fem presenting is not as usual. That's what
Speaker 1: I was because I think they are trying to be like, well, look,
Speaker 1: there are different lesbians, but only if one looks like
Speaker 1: a man and one looks like a woman, and like
Speaker 1: they there they have this like heteronormative look to them
Speaker 1: even though they're lesbians. Right, Yeah, so I thought that
Speaker 1: was the very least interesting that you see that on
Speaker 1: screen when it's normally not that way. Well, while we're
Speaker 1: on the topic of how characters are presented in in
Speaker 1: this movie, just like a quick a quick moment for
Speaker 1: wardrobe choices. So it's a camp movie. I get that. However,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that this this movie. It's confusing
Speaker 1: because this movie is so over the top campy at times,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I don't know if you if you
Speaker 1: were making a point or if this is just what
Speaker 1: was in the budget. I had the second It's hard
Speaker 1: to know. Sometimes I wasn't sure if the costumes were
Speaker 1: commentary or if they were just not good enough enough
Speaker 1: money for more fabric yet the budget being whatever they
Speaker 1: found in Angela Robinson's pockets that day. Yeah, right, because
Speaker 1: they are wearing private schoolgirl plaid skirts like that are
Speaker 1: way shorter than even the other students at Deb's academy,
Speaker 1: who said earlier than it looks like Halloween costumes. That
Speaker 1: seems like the perfect description, which one is not appropriate
Speaker 1: for the spy stuff that they're doing. Like no, because
Speaker 1: some of them are wearing heels swings too. If anyone
Speaker 1: ever looks up exactly if anyone looks up in that
Speaker 1: huge restaurant, they're going to be like, you know, I
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, we do know, we know
Speaker 1: what you're getting at here. I don't they're the wardrobes,
Speaker 1: and this falls into like I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of this movie seems to be
Speaker 1: parodying movies like Charlie's Angels, but it seemed to just
Speaker 1: sort of be making some of the same choices without
Speaker 1: much commentary at times, Like if there was ever a
Speaker 1: point in the movie where it was pointed out that, like, hey,
Speaker 1: this outfit doesn't make sense for what we're doing, then
Speaker 1: I would sort of be more willing to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's satire. But they they're just kind of always dressed
Speaker 1: in ways that they could be so easily killed and
Speaker 1: not practical. And also where you just have to wonder,
Speaker 1: I mean, for how many guns they carry in this film,
Speaker 1: where are they keeping them. Where do you hide guns
Speaker 1: in that skirt? That's what I wanted, and they're huge,
Speaker 1: huge guns. Yeah, I had a lot of these very
Speaker 1: same questions. Also, when you consider the what I imagine
Speaker 1: as the intended audience of this movie, which is queer women,
Speaker 1: then becomes I guess catering to like the queer female
Speaker 1: gaze rather than the male gaze, because you know, it's
Speaker 1: these traditionally by Western beauty standards, traditionally beautiful women who
Speaker 1: all have the same body type. They're wearing these tiny skirts,
Speaker 1: some of them are wearing shirts that reveal their middrift like,
Speaker 1: some of them are in heels. So it's catering to
Speaker 1: I would think, a different gaze than we're used to
Speaker 1: seeing when it's you know, a mainstream but the alps
Speaker 1: are the same. But they are the same, and it
Speaker 1: is still showing like this very specific and rigid standard
Speaker 1: of beauty because again, they all have the same body type. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no there's no like diversity in terms of body
Speaker 1: type in this movie really at all. I mean, Max
Speaker 1: is a little shorter than the rest of them. My
Speaker 1: I was talking to my boyfriend about this movie today.
Speaker 1: I guess he saw it on the Sundance Channel when
Speaker 1: his mom wasn't home and he was twelve, and he
Speaker 1: was like, it honestly changed my life. It's one of
Speaker 1: Isaac's favorite movies. No way, I didn't realize girls could
Speaker 1: kiss other. He's like, my mom wasn't home and I
Speaker 1: just like I taped it. It was like a um,
Speaker 1: we have to take another quick break, but we will
Speaker 1: come right back. Speaking of the where do they keep
Speaker 1: their guns question, there are women with actual weapons in
Speaker 1: this movie, and it makes sense for the genre. But
Speaker 1: we've covered so many movies recently where if a woman
Speaker 1: has to fight someone because they're a woman, they're fighting
Speaker 1: with kitchen appliances or cookwear or knitting needles or fighting
Speaker 1: fighting words. So in this movie, at least, the women
Speaker 1: have guns. Not that I'm pro by any stretch, but
Speaker 1: in an action movie, it stands it's appropriate. Yes, I mean,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of ways in which I have
Speaker 1: to say the women, you know, they get guns, they
Speaker 1: have agency, they're smoking, they're you know, like sneaking boys
Speaker 1: into their rooms. Like there's a lot of things where
Speaker 1: they don't they don't really kind of treat them like
Speaker 1: they're not able to do the things that they're supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing. It's just in a very very campy way. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and even in their hand to hand combat, I don't
Speaker 1: think a DEB has ever been knocked out, but like
Speaker 1: all the men are just incapacitated. That is one of
Speaker 1: the cool Yeah, I totally agree is their abilities are
Speaker 1: never called into question, which although I have one important
Speaker 1: question about Deb's abilities, which is when you have endgame
Speaker 1: right and Lucy crashes endgame and Amy runs away with
Speaker 1: her and everyone sees Lucy Diamond and that dude sounds
Speaker 1: the alarm and everyone freaks out and starts running. Isn't
Speaker 1: every single person at endgames supposed to be a highly
Speaker 1: trained lose their minds? They're like, why are those four
Speaker 1: dead's the only debs who seem to have any idea
Speaker 1: of what they're doing? I just think that when I
Speaker 1: was during my first viewing, and then for some reason
Speaker 1: during the second viewing, I was like, I guess I
Speaker 1: don't care, but like at the DEB school and like,
Speaker 1: why are they the only four that ever get to
Speaker 1: do anything? Are the other debs just not ready or
Speaker 1: are they doing stuff we just don't know? They're freshmen?
Speaker 1: What are their classes about I think they're the top squad,
Speaker 1: like the top squad. Maybe they get gun privileges or something.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Seniors. And then here's something I wasn't
Speaker 1: totally clear on. Is Deb's academy like an all women's
Speaker 1: school or there? Do men go there as well? It
Speaker 1: doesn't look like it. But also I don't know, because
Speaker 1: but then what is Bobby's deal because he's always wearing
Speaker 1: something that says homeland curity. Yeah, I don't think he
Speaker 1: goes to Deb's account. How did they meet? Spy mixers? Oh?
Speaker 1: He was like, oh yeah, I'm dating a Deb part
Speaker 1: of Homeless Security. You meet on a steak out at
Speaker 1: the pool. Alright, nice meet, cute, very cute. But they
Speaker 1: do make Bobby look like an idiot, like in Always
Speaker 1: He Can, they can never find Lucy Diamond. At the end,
Speaker 1: he gets beat the crap out of by Lucy Diamond
Speaker 1: with literally one kicks out. So the men in this
Speaker 1: movie are not great, except for Scud. He also gets
Speaker 1: knocked out though by Janet, but he loves her because
Speaker 1: he's in love. He's into it. Yeah, feminist icon Scud
Speaker 1: because love is Hardie war is easy. Love is hard.
Speaker 1: Another thing that we don't get to talk about that much.
Speaker 1: And this movie I think goes kind of halfway as
Speaker 1: you don't get to see women eat in movies a lot,
Speaker 1: which is also crazy, but we uh, there is that
Speaker 1: scene at the very beginning when they're with Michael Clark
Speaker 1: Duncan where all four of them at least order breakfast,
Speaker 1: and you hear that at least Max appears to eat
Speaker 1: food and the rest maybe not as much. But Dominique
Speaker 1: literally just gets a coffee coffee, but she's all she
Speaker 1: She just exists on coffee and cigarettes and that's it,
Speaker 1: like all good French people do. Coffee, cigs and sex
Speaker 1: are new podcast. But I was I was like, we
Speaker 1: didn't get to actually see women eat, but they did order.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's not quite enough. It's a step in,
Speaker 1: you know, getting the order of that progress. I wanted
Speaker 1: to go back quickly to sort of the conversation about
Speaker 1: basically just the fighting that we see, which is often
Speaker 1: the women fighting men. And we've talked about this on
Speaker 1: different episode odes where it's like, Okay, well, in a
Speaker 1: in an ideal world where we have gender equality, shouldn't
Speaker 1: women like shouldn't men be able to like fight women
Speaker 1: in these action scenes and like maybe even knock them
Speaker 1: out and stuff like that. It's been a complicated subject
Speaker 1: that we don't really know how to broach, especially because
Speaker 1: in movies so far in where there's action sequences where
Speaker 1: there are women fighting, it's usually they're fighting other women,
Speaker 1: so or they're only given a rolling pin to defend themselves.
Speaker 1: In this movie, like we said, we see like women
Speaker 1: fighting and then usually kicking the ship out of the
Speaker 1: men that they're fighting, which you know, I enjoyed. I
Speaker 1: feel like that's a step in the right direction. And
Speaker 1: I think that the reason that it doesn't really like,
Speaker 1: I feel like that conversation, as important as it is,
Speaker 1: doesn't become super relevant to this movie because it's so
Speaker 1: campy and so it's not like, you know, we know
Speaker 1: that the Debs are better fighters than all the guys
Speaker 1: they are going up against into going into it, so
Speaker 1: it's never like a battle to the death with like
Speaker 1: with a man finding and what like you know the
Speaker 1: dev is gonna win and that the man isn't gonna die.
Speaker 1: So the Steaks don't feel quite as like you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: Bobby's going to get his ass kicked and we're gonna
Speaker 1: love it well. And there is also some way in
Speaker 1: which it a little bit helps the cheesy high school
Speaker 1: Catholic school girl outfits. Is that you know, when you
Speaker 1: look at Bobby and like the CIA guys and all
Speaker 1: those other spies are out there with like their suits
Speaker 1: and their outfits and their things and their boat proof vests,
Speaker 1: and they're you know, like big commando boots and everything,
Speaker 1: and the Debs are just like whatever, all I need
Speaker 1: is a tiny little skirt, maybe a flimsy button down,
Speaker 1: some heels, and like a giant gun and I'm still
Speaker 1: gonna kick your ass, right it like it kind of
Speaker 1: has that same thing as like Buffy Allay did, where
Speaker 1: it's like she's just gonna out there and her jeans
Speaker 1: and her big blue dustard coat and and she'll always
Speaker 1: win exactly. Yeah, I don't know, it was weird. It
Speaker 1: was weird, I mean, seeing I agree that that the
Speaker 1: way that the like, I think because the ability of
Speaker 1: the Debs is never in question, nor is the ability
Speaker 1: of Lucy that this movie, I mean, maybe that's what
Speaker 1: makes it so easy and it's so comical how the
Speaker 1: men are defeated that right, Like, it's because No, one
Speaker 1: doesn't like watching Bobby get punched in the faith. It's
Speaker 1: different than seeing like Wonder Woman versus Captain America and
Speaker 1: one of them is going to kill the other, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's Jamie. Different comic universes, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: care a funking I never will that the day Lucy
Speaker 1: Diamond shows up in like the m c U. That's
Speaker 1: just does that mean? Wait? Does that mean that if
Speaker 1: they're in different universes they can't meet Captain America and
Speaker 1: Wonder Woman? Ever, they can never made? Don't imagine? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, who knows. Maybe Marvel and DC will you know,
Speaker 1: ten years down the line have to cross over. Hard
Speaker 1: to say. I hope that maybe there will be a
Speaker 1: Justice League versus Avengers movie. In fact, I'm pitching that
Speaker 1: right here and right now. They should just hear that, Hollywood.
Speaker 1: They should just stop making all there's too many. I
Speaker 1: think there should be more Spider Man into the Spider
Speaker 1: Verse movies for sure, and I think there should be
Speaker 1: at least twenty of those. But yeah, they can take
Speaker 1: a break with I have a feeling there there will
Speaker 1: be if you just give them time. I'll be patient. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: that's One of the things with the movie Debs is
Speaker 1: that our four main deb characters are all women. The
Speaker 1: main villain is a woman. The head of Deb's academy,
Speaker 1: which is someone who all the Debs look up to,
Speaker 1: is a woman. All of the male characters are secondary
Speaker 1: or tertiary, Like you don't this is a movie populated
Speaker 1: almost entirely by women, and the men who aren't in
Speaker 1: this movie are hardly in this movie. Yeah, they, I mean,
Speaker 1: at the beginning they try to do like Michael Clark
Speaker 1: Duncan is very much like doing an angel's wake up
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and then it's immediately revealed that holl
Speaker 1: And Taylor is his boss. And if we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about problematic things though, can we just real quick
Speaker 1: touch on Mr Phipps, who I mean, while we talk
Speaker 1: about Lucy breaking into a oh my gosh without permission
Speaker 1: all the time, can we talk about how he can
Speaker 1: apparently just like operate preparation like with no warning and
Speaker 1: then has the audacity to give an inspiring monologue when
Speaker 1: he gets there. It's like, are you kidding me? And
Speaker 1: is it inspiring? After you just told someone that your
Speaker 1: basic test for aptitude is how good of a liar,
Speaker 1: you are right, I don't. It sounds like Deb's should
Speaker 1: be the bad people based on the way they describe
Speaker 1: the test right, how they can lie, chat, fight and kill.
Speaker 1: But then they're like, and you're the best at it,
Speaker 1: so you're a goody two shoes. They're like, what what
Speaker 1: It's confusing? Who knows? But yeah, I mean there's a
Speaker 1: few scenes where there's a room full of people. Miss
Speaker 1: Petrie will be there, the debs will be there. There
Speaker 1: will be like maybe one or two men in the scene,
Speaker 1: and the men are just treated the way that women
Speaker 1: often are in action movies, which is that they are
Speaker 1: basically scenery who are extras who don't say anything. Um.
Speaker 1: There's the scene where Miss Petrie is promoting Amy too
Speaker 1: Squad Captain, and she's accompanied by two men and another woman,
Speaker 1: and the two men don't have any lines in that scene.
Speaker 1: It's only women talking. There's another scene it's like the
Speaker 1: aftermath of Amy being discovered, um, having a romantic relationship
Speaker 1: with Lucy, and all the debs are there, Miss Petrie's there,
Speaker 1: Bobby and Phips are there, but I think Bobby has
Speaker 1: one line in that scene, and otherwise men do not
Speaker 1: talk in that scene. It's just like and it's only
Speaker 1: after Max tells him exactly what he's doing, right, you're
Speaker 1: going to She's like okay, yeah, so yeah, Bobby's basically
Speaker 1: in that scene to be offended that anyone might find
Speaker 1: out that his ex girlfriend is into a girl, right,
Speaker 1: which he which he later dials back on with a
Speaker 1: gross comment on the swing, which I don't think it's
Speaker 1: any mistake that that statement and the pooka bracelet are
Speaker 1: in the same scene. You're like, yeah, he's like, oh
Speaker 1: that lesbian thing, it's actually pretty hot because it's night.
Speaker 1: He's like, I know you still love me and your
Speaker 1: whole lessie thing. That's kind of hot, And yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that that and Janet has one line at some
Speaker 1: point when when she's trying to like shame Amy for
Speaker 1: the whole thing, and she's like, you're just a slut again.
Speaker 1: I think those are two of the worst lines for
Speaker 1: me in terms of, you know, problematic things in the movie.
Speaker 1: For sure, there's a few other things that are pretty homophobic,
Speaker 1: I would say in the movie, but I think because
Speaker 1: it's so campy, you I think you do realize, like
Speaker 1: those characters are clearly they're making it portrayed that they're wrong.
Speaker 1: Even Miss Petrie tells Amy like, you were out having
Speaker 1: your college lesbian experiment, right, Like this is just a
Speaker 1: phase that you're having, and you you embarrass the debts
Speaker 1: by being an experimental lesbian, which is obviously problematic. Right.
Speaker 1: Were there any characters that made those comments that didn't
Speaker 1: receive come up in later because I was trying to
Speaker 1: keep track of because once Bobby made that comment in
Speaker 1: this scene. In both of those scenes, it's I don't know.
Speaker 1: My head just went to like, Okay, he has to
Speaker 1: get his as kicked or this movie isn't doing what
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be doing. Well. I think Janet gets away.
Speaker 1: It's got free and she's probably the most homophobic of
Speaker 1: everyone because she is shaming Amy so hard. Are liking
Speaker 1: Lucy Diamond when they almost kiss she's so offended. Yea,
Speaker 1: she has that whole like she almost kissed you and
Speaker 1: you almost her. That's the thing that I'm interested in,
Speaker 1: and when everyone thinks about like the story, I feel
Speaker 1: like protects itself in a lot of ways, in a
Speaker 1: way where it's able to say kind of problematic things.
Speaker 1: But because they set it up as like Amy's a
Speaker 1: hero and Lucy's a villain and conflating those the two
Speaker 1: issues is sometimes they're saying something about like it's kind
Speaker 1: of coded language of like sometimes they're talking about like, well,
Speaker 1: the hero doesn't like hook up with the villain, but
Speaker 1: they're also not talking about that. I don't know. It
Speaker 1: seems like the Janet character, especially kind of gets away
Speaker 1: with stuff like that by couching it with well, she
Speaker 1: kills people, so you can't be with her. Also, the
Speaker 1: thing I'm not fully saying except for the times that
Speaker 1: she does fully saying, and because that's the thing, Janet
Speaker 1: is doing all of the same stuff at the very
Speaker 1: same time, like she's also in contact with Scott and
Speaker 1: having this whole flirtation because he's a boy. M But
Speaker 1: I would I would say, at least my read on
Speaker 1: it is that in most cases, in many movies, if
Speaker 1: a homophobic thing is stated, that is how the movie
Speaker 1: feels about it, rather than how a character who is
Speaker 1: framed as being wrong by the movie feels about it.
Speaker 1: So I feel like, with the exception of Janet and
Speaker 1: her sort of weird take on everything and then getting
Speaker 1: off Scott free about it, I feel like generally the
Speaker 1: homophobic things that are said are said by characters who
Speaker 1: we as the audience understand that feels more satirical and
Speaker 1: a lot and or yeah, I mean even and and
Speaker 1: even with Holland Taylor's I kind of wish Holland Taylor's
Speaker 1: character was a little more double down to like her
Speaker 1: being clearly very wrong. But we always know that she
Speaker 1: I mean we we it's already set up that she's
Speaker 1: a problematic person in general when she doesn't give a
Speaker 1: funk about any of her mentees until they do something
Speaker 1: that makes her look good. So she's already set up
Speaker 1: as like a very petty person, and so when she
Speaker 1: goes on to make comments like that, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: we already don't like her. Yeah, yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: ms Petrie is not the the redeemable character in this.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's the arc is supposed to teach
Speaker 1: you about finding yourself and being true to who you love,
Speaker 1: and it does that not using her. It's kind of
Speaker 1: you know, you're watching that with Lucy and Amy Max
Speaker 1: to a certain extent as a character who I think
Speaker 1: is shown having that growth of realizing like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: a true friend will support you no matter what. Right,
Speaker 1: I agree Max. I mean, well, we haven't talked about
Speaker 1: that friendship a lot yet. But Max and Amy's friendship
Speaker 1: is also very interesting, and also because their power dynamic
Speaker 1: in that friendship shifts a couple different times in the
Speaker 1: space of the movie, where at the beginning it's clear
Speaker 1: that Max is in charge of the friendship. She's like, Hey,
Speaker 1: if you get to art school, I'll kill you, and
Speaker 1: Amy's like okay, and so it's like, okay, Max is
Speaker 1: in charge, and then you see her have like that crisis,
Speaker 1: and it's the thing is like when Amy's put in
Speaker 1: charge of the debbs for not being killed by Lucy.
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly where the movie how the movie
Speaker 1: wants you to feel, but I was like, oh, if
Speaker 1: I was Max, I would also be upset because Amy
Speaker 1: is always talking about how she doesn't want to be
Speaker 1: a debt. Max is busting her ass and then has
Speaker 1: it taken from her because Holland Taylor's character isn't paying
Speaker 1: close enough attention to what the truth is and and
Speaker 1: so I was like on Max's side for a good
Speaker 1: portion and then she is very professional for the most
Speaker 1: part and like compartmentalizes and like his like Okay, we're
Speaker 1: on the same team, so I'll do it, and then
Speaker 1: Amy immediately fox up and almost gets all of her
Speaker 1: friends killed. So I'm double on Max's side. But then
Speaker 1: at the end the Dynamics whitches again when Max is
Speaker 1: like Okay, deny everything and like play by the rules,
Speaker 1: and then I didn't like her again. I don't know
Speaker 1: that character is all over the place. But then she
Speaker 1: and then at the end she's like yeah, She's like
Speaker 1: it's almost like careful character development was not the most
Speaker 1: important thing. She's just flip flopping all over the place.
Speaker 1: I was on I was on Max's side for a
Speaker 1: lot of the movie, and then she she really lost
Speaker 1: me in that scene where it's explicitly Max who is like,
Speaker 1: this is my idea. Deny, deny, deny, get back with
Speaker 1: your homeland security pooka shell got I like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: thing and she suggests body, it's all downhill for you
Speaker 1: from their Max and literally puts words into her mouth.
Speaker 1: I wrote for you say everything that I say, even
Speaker 1: when the other girls are like what if she's in love?
Speaker 1: What if she makes her happy? I hate that. Amy
Speaker 1: and Max had a long discussion after the movie, so
Speaker 1: for really sorted their next pops up from the backseat
Speaker 1: in the car and they talk out their feelings. Oh good, Well,
Speaker 1: what I couldn't help. But notice about that relationship dynamic
Speaker 1: is that the two non white debs in the group
Speaker 1: are When it comes to Dominique, she has very little
Speaker 1: screen time and or bearing on the story. She's basically
Speaker 1: just there is a visual joke who's always smoking a
Speaker 1: cigarette or and having sex, which is pointed right, And
Speaker 1: someone even calls I think it's Amy who calls her
Speaker 1: like a sex addict, and it's like, no, maybe she
Speaker 1: just that whole line because she calls people crazy and
Speaker 1: sex addicts and like that whole line can go. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's either Dominique not having any bearing on this story,
Speaker 1: or it's Max, whose actions are often presented as an
Speaker 1: obstacle for Amy, so she ends up being sort of
Speaker 1: an antagonistic force for Amy a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, you know, Amy is a blonde, white lady,
Speaker 1: and the characters who are people of color are either
Speaker 1: not doing much in the story or they are in
Speaker 1: some way in antagonistic force. Yeah, I mean they're They're
Speaker 1: very much there to help Amy's story develop, and not
Speaker 1: much else. There's they're not very consistent. There's no real
Speaker 1: growth or any like, you know, there's not as much
Speaker 1: given to them as characters. Yeah, they're they're kind of
Speaker 1: props and and we're superwhere we want to know from
Speaker 1: our listeners, like how you read that scene. I've had
Speaker 1: that that's that was the one reason why Max pushing
Speaker 1: back and being so frustrated when Amy just gets promoted
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. That's kind of like one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why that story point worked for me, because it
Speaker 1: is just like this blonde, white girl who accidentally does
Speaker 1: the right thing is is immediately put in charge, and
Speaker 1: then one of the only people of color in the
Speaker 1: entire movie who we know really cares about what she's
Speaker 1: doing has gone unrecognized. Her work's got unrecognized forever, and
Speaker 1: she's just displaced immediately, and she's like she calls her
Speaker 1: friend out on it, and not for that explicit reason,
Speaker 1: but I don't know that. That was part of the
Speaker 1: reason why I was like, oh yeah, Max, yeah, fuck that,
Speaker 1: like that's that's horrible. But then but then they kind
Speaker 1: of sell that character out through poor writing. Oh sid
Speaker 1: oh well, uh movies are bad. Um well, there's another
Speaker 1: very quick problematic line that gets said by Scud whenever
Speaker 1: they are doing this bank heist to Lord. I know
Speaker 1: that line he says, he says the R word, and
Speaker 1: you know he does. I used that. It's good and
Speaker 1: it's funny because the way that he says it and
Speaker 1: the sentiment behind that line and his delivery of it
Speaker 1: is perfect, and that line just needs to go. Is
Speaker 1: the thing. It should have been a different word word right,
Speaker 1: like if it had been any other word. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's definitely one of those things where it's like it
Speaker 1: is a byproduct of a movie that was made in thousands,
Speaker 1: and like you'd never see that line of dialogue these
Speaker 1: I mean, I also think that's true of the guns.
Speaker 1: I feel like you would never see the movie done
Speaker 1: this way with the guns the way they are or
Speaker 1: the outfits. I bet, like, I don't think the outfits
Speaker 1: would be quite that way. Yeah, I think that I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that the R word was used in this movie.
Speaker 1: I would not to cut a break in any way.
Speaker 1: But I do sort of agree that that is a
Speaker 1: byproduct of the time it was made in Yeah, it is,
Speaker 1: but that's what I'm surprised that it didn't jump out
Speaker 1: of you because it is. It's so noticeable. I feel
Speaker 1: like when you watch the movie. To me, it immediately
Speaker 1: was like this beacon where you're like, oh, you can't
Speaker 1: say that, like, you know, because if you were watching
Speaker 1: it today, you'd be like, who approved this line? You know?
Speaker 1: It was too busy whacking off to Scud to listen
Speaker 1: to what he is saying. That might be the single
Speaker 1: worst sentence you've ever said, Jami the Scud, I think
Speaker 1: that's a fun phrase. Oh goodness, Um, I did wanna
Speaker 1: just quickly point out Amy's thesis. She says, my central
Speaker 1: hypothesis is that as a woman operating in a male
Speaker 1: dominated field, you felt the need to overcompensation. She's talking
Speaker 1: to Lucy. You felt the need to overcompensate by being
Speaker 1: exponentially more ruthless and diabolical. Then you're established male counterparts,
Speaker 1: and I think that these psychological forces combined to create
Speaker 1: a kind of emotional void in which you're incapable of
Speaker 1: loving or being loved. Honestly, Amy's thesis sounds like a
Speaker 1: feminist text that I really do want to read. But well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I thought I didn't really love that
Speaker 1: thesis of like, I feel like that that that thesis
Speaker 1: to me, almost came off a little blamy of like, well,
Speaker 1: if women didn't resent their male coworkers so much, they
Speaker 1: wouldn't be killing so many people. And I was like,
Speaker 1: hold on, I don't know that that felt a little
Speaker 1: product of its timey and that's phrasing. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: give it. Something else that I also really love about it, though,
Speaker 1: is like from a queer perspective, you know, I think
Speaker 1: there's that whole idea of it's like, it's not that
Speaker 1: you can't love, you just don't love the way everyone
Speaker 1: expects you to, you know. I kind of like that
Speaker 1: part of it. Yeah, I like that whole scene because
Speaker 1: I don't know every scene where Lucy and Amy are
Speaker 1: pushing back on everything the other person says is good
Speaker 1: to me, it is there's a way in which it's well,
Speaker 1: it's thought that it's bad. It's just there's a way
Speaker 1: in which I'm gonna completely undo everything we just finished
Speaker 1: saying about how like the depths are just so competent
Speaker 1: and they can do everything that men can do in
Speaker 1: heels and skirits, and they don't need anything. Everyone in
Speaker 1: this movie is the worst spy every and that scene
Speaker 1: is one great example where Amy's like, I have you
Speaker 1: at gunpoint, but like, oh hold on, let me just
Speaker 1: tuck my gun under my arm to shake your hand
Speaker 1: and introduce myself and tell you about my thesis. And
Speaker 1: the only place where people are even worse spies than
Speaker 1: that is when the entire search and rescue operation descends
Speaker 1: upon Lucy Diamond's lair, finds her in a sheet and
Speaker 1: doesn't arrest her. Still, they just leave. They just walk
Speaker 1: away and leave her there. Even Max, who's supposed to
Speaker 1: be like the secret genius of the Depths, is like
Speaker 1: unbelievable and just like beats, it just leaves and they leave,
Speaker 1: and they don't even drive any home. They leave her
Speaker 1: a walk that they're not very good spies. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna throw that out there. The last thing I had
Speaker 1: to say about des was I I went back and
Speaker 1: I watched the short film it was based on. Yes
Speaker 1: it is, I mean it is. So it won a
Speaker 1: ton of awards. Uh the year it came out. It
Speaker 1: came out in two thousand three, so it seems like
Speaker 1: this short film did really well and it was immediately
Speaker 1: put into production to become a movie with the same budget,
Speaker 1: with with the same budget, except most of the budget
Speaker 1: went to paying Holland Taylor. But the short film exactly
Speaker 1: high end puka shells. If you're listening and you haven't
Speaker 1: seen the short film, highly recommended. It is even it
Speaker 1: moves even faster. It's like raunchier. And if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: I think that the short film does have an all
Speaker 1: queer cast, while the theatrical movie does not, or at
Speaker 1: least a majority queer cast, which I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that. Yeah, I'm not the most qualified person
Speaker 1: to make this comment, but it does seem like very
Speaker 1: often queer films when they're adapted for a larger audience,
Speaker 1: are dare I say, sanitized a little bit, and straight
Speaker 1: actors are cast in queer roles. I'm fairly certain, I
Speaker 1: think if my research didn't fail me, Amy and Lucy
Speaker 1: are played by straight actresses, and in the original short
Speaker 1: film that was not the case. Wait, is Claire Kramer queer?
Speaker 1: Am I like just learning this now? In the Amy
Speaker 1: and in the in the in the short film, the
Speaker 1: original short film, Oh no, you're right. I think it's
Speaker 1: the four debts that are that are queer. There's a majority.
Speaker 1: Why would you taught us like that. I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry. My whole world is opening up there no
Speaker 1: also Kramer of lerificous fame from both I got really
Speaker 1: excited that she was I'm so sorry now she she
Speaker 1: appears to be the only straight women in the movie.
Speaker 1: Or fine, I'm just going to cry myself to sleep tonight.
Speaker 1: It's no problem. I've fully ruined everyone's life. The one
Speaker 1: the one carry over from the Short Films cast is
Speaker 1: Jill Ritchie who plays Janet, who fun fact, is Kid
Speaker 1: rocks sister. So just a wild amazing thing. There is anything.
Speaker 1: Debs is one degree of separation from Kid Rock, who
Speaker 1: knew something we all needed to know. Yes, Lee and Ellie,
Speaker 1: do you have any other final thoughts about the film Debs?
Speaker 1: I do have one final thought, which is just I
Speaker 1: think while we it's so fun to wrag on Debs,
Speaker 1: and I love writing on Debs because I love it
Speaker 1: so much, um, I do think it's important to also
Speaker 1: mention that while we make fun of their their low
Speaker 1: budget and the effects and everything, that it is interesting
Speaker 1: to see the transition from Deb's to what Angela Robinson
Speaker 1: can do with a budget, which is Professor Marston and
Speaker 1: it's such a far cry between those two movies that
Speaker 1: I just think it's at least worth pointing out. You
Speaker 1: know that Angela Robinson is still a beautiful human being
Speaker 1: forgiving us Stebs and Professor Mark Pressor Marston. And it
Speaker 1: goes to show when you have a queer woman writing
Speaker 1: and directing a movie about a queer love story, it's handled.
Speaker 1: This is not to say this movie is not without
Speaker 1: its problems, but it is handled much better than when
Speaker 1: these stories are attempted by non queer people. And usually
Speaker 1: those stories aren't even attempted by non queer people. But
Speaker 1: it helps when the person who is creating this story
Speaker 1: and this content is someone who has experience and knowledge
Speaker 1: about these topics. And it's hardening to see that someone
Speaker 1: making their perfect art about the queer spies can go
Speaker 1: on to have an incredible I mean, she's had an
Speaker 1: incredible career. Professor Marston is amazing. She didn't she write
Speaker 1: and direct quite a few uh l word and True
Speaker 1: Blood and like she's like making Banks, she's chilling. Is
Speaker 1: she a woman of color? Yes? Yes, that it surprised
Speaker 1: me then the way that the women of color are
Speaker 1: treated in Debs then, but I would guess maybe it
Speaker 1: was producers could be. Yeah, I also feel like I
Speaker 1: think it stands out more with Max. I don't know
Speaker 1: that Max is that much less consistent of a character
Speaker 1: than everyone else in this movie. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's just everybody who is not Amy and Lucy kind
Speaker 1: of gets short shrift in this for true Um and Lucy.
Speaker 1: Jordana Brewster is part Brazilian. I don't know exactly how
Speaker 1: she identifies in terms of her ethnic identity, but she
Speaker 1: perhaps identifies as at least mixed. Not totally clear on that,
Speaker 1: but you know there's a text her, whose text her?
Speaker 1: And let us know what you find out. So does
Speaker 1: this movie past the BACKDL test? Yeah, big fat yes
Speaker 1: on that. You know. An easy way to pass the
Speaker 1: backdel test is have two women and instead of having
Speaker 1: them talk about a guy, I have them talked about
Speaker 1: how much they want to owe each other sure fire
Speaker 1: away Um. And in one of the very few scenes
Speaker 1: that I found where they do talk about men, they
Speaker 1: are talking about Bobby and Amy's like, I broke up
Speaker 1: with Bobby and someone says why and She's like he
Speaker 1: was just so boring, and then someone else says, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's an ass so when men are being talked about,
Speaker 1: it's usually in an insulting way, which is great. Um,
Speaker 1: I think. Also a super producer, Sophie pointed out that
Speaker 1: this movie would not pass the reverse spectal test and
Speaker 1: that there are not two men I don't think even
Speaker 1: talking to each other in the whole movie, but there
Speaker 1: might if there is. I do think that's that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound Yeah, it doesn't. I don't think. There's that scene
Speaker 1: where Scuts playing bingo with some guys but nobody responds
Speaker 1: to him. Yeah, and they certainly don't have names. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't know who any of those guys are. The
Speaker 1: name of my new band is Scuds playing Bengo. Um.
Speaker 1: And this is a rare case of a movie passing
Speaker 1: the Vito Rusto test, and a few listeners are not
Speaker 1: familiar with what that is. Um. The Vito Russo test
Speaker 1: requires that a film must contain at least one character
Speaker 1: who is identifiably lgbt Q, plus that character must not
Speaker 1: solely or predominantly be defined by their sexual orientation or
Speaker 1: gender identity. In other words, they should be made up
Speaker 1: of the same sort of unique character traits that are
Speaker 1: commonly used to differentiate straight characters from one another treated
Speaker 1: like people. But yeah, so strange. Um and the l
Speaker 1: G B t Q character must be tied into the
Speaker 1: plot in such a way that their removal from the
Speaker 1: story would have a significant impact. So this movie without
Speaker 1: question passes the Veto Russo test as well as the
Speaker 1: Bechtel test. So, in fact, I would say, in terms
Speaker 1: of the Bechtel test, this is a sort of like
Speaker 1: an estimated guest but I would say around seventy in
Speaker 1: the movie is characters passing the Bechdel test. It's like constant,
Speaker 1: constant conversations with named women who are not talking about men. So,
Speaker 1: and just imagine if they had cut Bobby's character, it
Speaker 1: could have been like, I mean, right, I think we
Speaker 1: need more Bobby Eraser. Yes, except when it's King of
Speaker 1: the Hill, and in that case, more more Bobby. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting take. Um, we can have a Bobby
Speaker 1: de So let's rate the movie on our Nipple scale
Speaker 1: rating of zero to five nipples based on its portrayal
Speaker 1: of women. Um, I this is hard, this is a
Speaker 1: this is I'm gonna give it. I think four nipples
Speaker 1: because there are brief problematic moments here and there, and
Speaker 1: the movie does, as we discussed, subscribe to some of
Speaker 1: the stereotypes that we see of queer women. But the
Speaker 1: fact that the main cast is almost entirely women, and
Speaker 1: and and a pretty diverse cast fairly yes, more diverse
Speaker 1: than your ordinary movie, but certainly but still no diversity
Speaker 1: in terms of body type, at least among the main
Speaker 1: four debts. Yeah, I think that aside from a few
Speaker 1: problems that the movie has, which I think can be
Speaker 1: attributed to it being a movie of two thousand four, um,
Speaker 1: I would say it does fairly well in terms of
Speaker 1: showing women who have agency and who are propelling the
Speaker 1: story forward. And it's fun to watch. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a funny movie. It is silly as fuck, but like,
Speaker 1: there's so little movie without the women, and without any
Speaker 1: of the women is based on a swing with some
Speaker 1: bracelets screaming at the top of his lungs. Right, the
Speaker 1: movie doesn't exist without the like six main female characters
Speaker 1: that are needed for this story. So good playing Bingo.
Speaker 1: I would watch that short film. Yes, um, so it's great.
Speaker 1: And the fact that it's, as we discussed, one of
Speaker 1: only a very small number of like fun queer women
Speaker 1: comedy movies in existence. Um, I think that's great. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with four nipples, and I'll give one
Speaker 1: to each of the four debts. I'm gonna go three
Speaker 1: and a half. And the reason we didn't touch on
Speaker 1: this very much, but something that always kind of bugs
Speaker 1: me in in movies is when friendships are disrupted by
Speaker 1: a relationship, and a new relationship suddenly destroys your friendship
Speaker 1: structure entirely and send your entire life into chaos. And
Speaker 1: I was trying to like go through that entirely. And
Speaker 1: I do think that in some ways, like Amy's relationship
Speaker 1: totally shakes the foundation of like her relationship with all
Speaker 1: of her female friends. And that was the thing that
Speaker 1: I didn't I don't know, even though like her character
Speaker 1: ultimately grows and I think finds the best of both
Speaker 1: schools of thought and whatever moves forward, that was like
Speaker 1: one thing that I was, like, I didn't love that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, and I guess movies need conflict,
Speaker 1: and if you have a majority female cast, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot of conflict and in fighting between women.
Speaker 1: But just the whole new relationship completely destroying friendship group
Speaker 1: for the most part, wasn't my favorite thing, but it's
Speaker 1: also basically a queer d com, which is incredible. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, it's like, it's such a fun movie.
Speaker 1: I haven't enjoyed watching a movie twice back to back
Speaker 1: in a very long time. And it's great. I mean,
Speaker 1: for all the fun ragging on the low production values,
Speaker 1: it's a good movie and it's funny. The story is
Speaker 1: tight for the most Yeah, I mean it's a it's
Speaker 1: less than an hour and a half long. What more
Speaker 1: could you ask for? And so I thought, I mean,
Speaker 1: if that was the last, uh so I'll give it
Speaker 1: three and a half or three and three quarters, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Somewhere somewhere it's a scientific there's a Wikipedia page.
Speaker 1: Did you see that? Where people are leaving? So now
Speaker 1: I feel more conscientious of my nipple ratings and I'm
Speaker 1: like losing sleep over it. There's a Wikipedia page for
Speaker 1: for us and then they write down it's really stressful
Speaker 1: actually about the page. I didn't know that they were
Speaker 1: like documenting all of our nipple games, updated rather frequently. Okay,
Speaker 1: so for whoever is making the Wikipedia page, I say
Speaker 1: three point seven five and I answer yes, final answer,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give also, if you are making the Wikipedia page,
Speaker 1: let us know that it's used so that we can
Speaker 1: credit you if you want. So, I guess I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give one to each of the debs, except I'm giving
Speaker 1: slightly less of one to Janet. Okay, sorry in it,
Speaker 1: but you are a kid rock sister, so life's Hardlee.
Speaker 1: Do you want to go next with your Yeah? I do,
Speaker 1: And I'm so torn as well because I feel like,
Speaker 1: if I vote with my heart and my nostalgic love
Speaker 1: for this movie, I want to give it four nipples.
Speaker 1: I do also feel like I think it comes in
Speaker 1: slightly lower than that, and I think my problems do
Speaker 1: have to do somewhat with the fact that I think
Speaker 1: Ellie and I both have our issues with the whole
Speaker 1: predatory lesbian trope, and I also do have an issue
Speaker 1: with the fact that I feel like they really toy
Speaker 1: in this with um the age that they're supposed to appear,
Speaker 1: and so when you combine the predatory lesbian trope, but
Speaker 1: the fact that they're very much casting them as like
Speaker 1: high school girls, even though they try to make it
Speaker 1: clear that they're not, but it sort of keeps presenting
Speaker 1: them that way. Like I that I have a hard
Speaker 1: time with. So yeah, I mean maybe maybe somewhere around
Speaker 1: you know three and a half? Can we do we
Speaker 1: get to assign them as well? Yes, this is so exciting.
Speaker 1: I wasn't I didn't prepare well enough to this. Okay,
Speaker 1: if I have just signed three and a half Nipples,
Speaker 1: I'm going to assign one to Scud for his excellent
Speaker 1: motivational quotes. I'm going to give one to Max because
Speaker 1: I just I think Max should get something more in
Speaker 1: this movie. I'm going to give one to h Angela
Speaker 1: Robinson for you know, just the gift of this and
Speaker 1: other things that she has given queer women. And I'm
Speaker 1: going to save my last half of Nipple and I'm
Speaker 1: going to gift it to Australia because like, what did
Speaker 1: Australia do to you? Australia gets sank or their attitude
Speaker 1: all right, Well, I think I have to agree with
Speaker 1: Lee that it's around three and a half. Mine is
Speaker 1: because of some of the homophobic comments that just like,
Speaker 1: even if you're saying them in sad higher, I think
Speaker 1: they create a problematic message of friends not being supportive
Speaker 1: of their friends in lesbian relationships. And I think also
Speaker 1: the relationship between Lucy and Amy were of course, I
Speaker 1: love seeing them together, but when you actually take their
Speaker 1: relationship and put it on paper, it's very stockery, so
Speaker 1: I really don't like that. That being said, I am
Speaker 1: going to give a nipple to Lucy Diamond because nobody
Speaker 1: has given her a nipple, and just what a hero
Speaker 1: she needs one? All right, um, I'm also going to
Speaker 1: give a nipple to Max of course, and Miss Petrie
Speaker 1: because I love the time, and then half we'll have
Speaker 1: to go to Dominique because I feel like she's the
Speaker 1: underdog of this. She has a lot of agency and
Speaker 1: she's very sex positive to me, so Amy calls her
Speaker 1: a sex addict. So love it. Well. I think you
Speaker 1: to both of you so much for being here with us.
Speaker 1: This has been such a fun episode in such a
Speaker 1: fun movie to discuss. You like having us. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Where can people find you and follow you online? Is
Speaker 1: there anything that you would like to plug in terms
Speaker 1: of social media? You can find us at les Hangout
Speaker 1: Pod on all the social media's Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook,
Speaker 1: and we also have a YouTube channel YouTube dot com
Speaker 1: slash Let's Hangout Pod and we post songs on there.
Speaker 1: We actually write original songs based on lesbian movies. You
Speaker 1: can see some of those on our YouTube channel. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: you can also follow us individually. Are our social media things.
Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter and on Instagram at ls H Foster
Speaker 1: and I'm at Ellie Bridgeta and we do want to plug.
Speaker 1: We have our very first live show coming up on
Speaker 1: February eighth at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn. UM, so we
Speaker 1: will be doing some fun things there about movie that
Speaker 1: should have been gay even if they weren't. Oh that
Speaker 1: sounds awesome. Yeah, take a trip to New York. Probably
Speaker 1: going to do one in l A at some point,
Speaker 1: so hopefully catch you there. Yeah, let us know. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you again so much for being here. You can
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