Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast. The questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zeph and
Speaker 1: vest start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: Bello below Minions. It's the Minions episode of the Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 2: I could cry, I could cry.
Speaker 3: Oh, hi, Minion, Jamie, it's me Minyon.
Speaker 2: Caitlin Bello, Caitlin Bello, Jamie God. I just love these
Speaker 2: damn Minions. I'm in a great lude, I mean, Befel
Speaker 2: Cast listeners, it is important for feminism that you go
Speaker 2: see Dispicable with me for so to help facilitate that.
Speaker 2: And to be clear, we are in no way sponsored
Speaker 2: or affiliated with the Minions, and that is a source
Speaker 2: of pain for both of us. But all of the
Speaker 2: raw enthusiasm you're about to hear is uncompety for free,
Speaker 2: simply because it's Minion seasoned baby. It's Britney bitch, It's
Speaker 2: bitch's bitch. I have two millions in my lap.
Speaker 3: I was with you when you got that. Tell the
Speaker 3: listeners what we're looking at, Gane.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, sorry, I forgot that. We've been in an
Speaker 2: audio medium for eight years. So I'm holding a little
Speaker 2: Dracula Minion I forgot. I honestly forgot because we got
Speaker 2: this around Caitlin and I went to Universal together as
Speaker 2: we were wont to do around Halloween, and I was like,
Speaker 2: Dracula Minion, gotta have it. Forgot that there is precedent
Speaker 2: for Dracula Minion. As we'll discuss today, this is a
Speaker 2: minion that's appeared. And then I also have just my
Speaker 2: Kevin at hand all time. Although I did get some
Speaker 2: new Minion merch, I'm kind of bummed. Honestly. Well, we'll
Speaker 2: get it. We have to say what the podcast this first,
Speaker 2: but I have like that, I guess in Despable before
Speaker 2: they're kind of like doing a spy thing. So I
Speaker 2: have some spy minions.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: They changed professions every so often because you just want
Speaker 2: to see them in different little outfits. It's that simple.
Speaker 3: It's like Barbie in that way.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 3: The minions are Barbie.
Speaker 2: The minions are Barbie. The Minions are this Summer's Barbie.
Speaker 2: And I'll go on a whole rant about why another
Speaker 2: movie that we have no affiliation with, Inside Out too
Speaker 2: don't see it. I'm sick of emotional intelligence being encouraged
Speaker 2: when you could simply go watch Minions. I will not
Speaker 2: be listening to a nuanced discussion on the topic. I
Speaker 2: literally got into an argument with my therapist about it
Speaker 2: the other day. Okay, yeah, because Minions didn't come up
Speaker 2: at first. But she's like, I just saw Inside Out too,
Speaker 2: I think you'd love it, which is also a way
Speaker 2: of calling me unable to regulate my own feelings, which
Speaker 2: is why I'm there. But she's like, you should see
Speaker 2: Inside Out too, and I was like no, and she
Speaker 2: was like, I think you'd like it. And I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go see Minions and whatever.
Speaker 3: And that's okay, well, Jamie, to add to your collection
Speaker 3: mm hmm. And we will get to the Bechdel test boring.
Speaker 2: Yes, which this movie doesn't pass. Whatever, No it doesn't.
Speaker 3: We'll talk about it, but we have Minions business to
Speaker 3: tend to. Yes, Okay, you may or may not remember this, Jamie,
Speaker 3: but your birthday two years ago, I mean, of course
Speaker 3: you remember it. Being at medieval times, yes, hashtag red
Speaker 3: Night one the day you were given many gifts and
Speaker 3: then you couldn't take them with you. I think because
Speaker 3: you were going onward to another place you couldn't carry
Speaker 3: them with you. Yes, I have been hanging on to this. Oh.
Speaker 3: Actually our friend Bryant has been hanging on to it forever.
Speaker 3: And then I was like, give me that back so
Speaker 3: that I can give it to Jamie on her upcoming birthday.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that.
Speaker 3: Here it is ready. Oh my god, it's a little
Speaker 3: so fub bob. It's hand knit.
Speaker 2: Where did you get it?
Speaker 3: I got it in Edinburgh, Scotland. Ever heard of it?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 3: When I was there two years.
Speaker 2: Two years ago. I'm so excited. I don't have a Bob.
Speaker 3: Well, now you do.
Speaker 2: I have so many Kevin's and no, Well, I guess
Speaker 2: this is I don't even know.
Speaker 3: This is like that's somebody else.
Speaker 2: The Despicable Me. Well we should tell them what the
Speaker 2: Bechtel Cousins. But the Despicable Me movies pound for pound
Speaker 2: versus the Minions spinoff movies. It's minions every time. Give
Speaker 2: the people what they want. I don't care about groos interpersonal.
Speaker 2: I honestly I said this in my letterbox review of
Speaker 2: this movie. If the girls were sent to boarding, I
Speaker 2: think that he should send them to boarding school. I said,
Speaker 2: get them out, get them divorce Kristen Wig like, I
Speaker 2: don't care about his personal life. Leave it at the door,
Speaker 2: go to work, steal the moon, talk to the minions.
Speaker 2: That's all I want from grew.
Speaker 3: Yes, all right, there's so much jun pack already. The
Speaker 3: Bechdel Test.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, you're Kaitli. My name is Jamie first.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The Bechdel Test is a medium metric that we
Speaker 3: used simply as a jumping off point, created by queer
Speaker 3: cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test. Many
Speaker 3: versions of it, the one we use. Do two characters
Speaker 3: of a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to
Speaker 3: each other? And is their conversation about something other than
Speaker 3: a man or about minions? Because minions are boys, and
Speaker 3: we like it when it's a substantial media conversation, and
Speaker 3: it rarely happens to this day.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's so frustrating that the creator of Minions, who
Speaker 2: is I guess technically the person to at least be
Speaker 2: able to canonically make that call, would not just let
Speaker 2: the Minions be genderless icons as everyone had interpreted them
Speaker 2: to be. But we'll get into that. Because I think
Speaker 2: I have so many theories as to why he is
Speaker 2: doing what he's doing. Pierre CoFe, this is your trial.
Speaker 2: You're on trial.
Speaker 3: Yes, And before we go into our personal histories and
Speaker 3: relationship with the Minions, listeners of the show might know
Speaker 3: that any chance we get, we bring up the Minions,
Speaker 3: not unlike every chance we get we bring up Titanic,
Speaker 3: or every chance we get we bring up Shrek.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and much just like Shrek, it started as a
Speaker 2: joke and then slowly became real when we were like,
Speaker 2: wait a second, these movies are actually very funny and
Speaker 2: be watchabule. And there's certain you know, cultural phenomenons that
Speaker 2: it's easy to make fun of because you're like whatever,
Speaker 2: like I don't get it, But the Minions, if you
Speaker 2: don't get it, baby, you're the problem. Like, yeah, they're undeniable.
Speaker 3: Jamie, what is your relationship with this franchise?
Speaker 2: I love them? Okay, So my history with Minyas is
Speaker 2: actually and I know for listeners who are Matreon subscribers
Speaker 2: that listen to our Despicable Me episode two years ago,
Speaker 2: and so if you're interested in hearing us talk about
Speaker 2: it more, you can go over to the Matreon Patreon
Speaker 2: dot com slash back to past five dollars a month,
Speaker 2: So this may be us rehashing something similar from two
Speaker 2: years ago, so sorry for that. But I was a
Speaker 2: bit of a late comer to the Minions. I saw
Speaker 2: to Spick on Me one in theaters in high school,
Speaker 2: and I was like, wow, I really liked that. That
Speaker 2: was a really sweet movie. And I love those little
Speaker 2: guys because if there's anything I love in this world,
Speaker 2: it's a little guy. I love a little guy so much.
Speaker 2: I truly like when I heard Radio starts approving limited
Speaker 2: series again, I do want to do an entire series
Speaker 2: on the appeal of the little guy because little guys
Speaker 2: are just incredible, and also like little guys in like
Speaker 2: primary colors, yellow is a color for me, Minions, SpongeBob Woodstock,
Speaker 2: like you could keep going with like just the very
Speaker 2: visually appealing for children little guy and having them like
Speaker 2: represent be represented there's because they're so vague looking, like
Speaker 2: they're just tic TACs, like they could represent anything. It's
Speaker 2: the best. But yeah, I saw the first Despicable TV
Speaker 2: and I was like, wow, that was fun, and then
Speaker 2: I fell off and then I came back for this
Speaker 2: movie for Minions, This movie came out in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: so at this point I'm an adult. I didn't see
Speaker 2: it in theaters, but I just remember being like, oh,
Speaker 2: the origin story for the Minions. I am actually interested
Speaker 2: because I think the worst part and this sucks that
Speaker 2: this is lining up with Despicable Me for the premise
Speaker 2: of which I think is just rancid. I hope this
Speaker 2: movie is good. It's also written by Mike White, which
Speaker 2: is wild. Oh right, yeah, I think we broke that
Speaker 2: news fairly early because because we care. But yeah, the
Speaker 2: people are the least interesting part of Despicable Me Expanded Universe.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, they're just gonna give me
Speaker 2: only the parts I like, which is the Minions doing
Speaker 2: looney tune shit, because I firmly believe the more I
Speaker 2: watched Minions, because after this movie, I'm like, I'm in.
Speaker 2: I'm in for all of it. I'll show up for
Speaker 2: any of it. I saw Rise of Grew opening weekend,
Speaker 2: and then my mom is a second grade teacher, so
Speaker 2: it like, actually, I think it actually did help like
Speaker 2: heal our relationship a little bit, where it had just
Speaker 2: been a really really really long time since my mom
Speaker 2: and I had a common interest hmmm, or just like
Speaker 2: something that we could like text about that was like
Speaker 2: easy and fun. And so when I went from being like,
Speaker 2: minions are fun in an ironic sense and achieved nirvana
Speaker 2: and was like, the Minions are actually really funny and
Speaker 2: Kevin Stewart and Bob, I think this movie makes a
Speaker 2: strong case that has only increased in Rise of Grew
Speaker 2: that they are like our Marx brothers, and like, I
Speaker 2: know that that's verboten for some people to say, but
Speaker 2: that's clearly who they're supposed to be, and they're really
Speaker 2: good at it. They're like bugs, Bunny, They're Marx brothers,
Speaker 2: They're like all of these like classic comedy, goofy slapstick boys.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah. Then it was really fun to like share
Speaker 2: that with my mom because I was like, this will
Speaker 2: help you connect with your seven year old students who
Speaker 2: definitely watched these movies, and overnight she became a Minion's mom.
Speaker 2: And it brought meself because there's like also whatever like
Speaker 2: precedent for the ironic interest in this, and then also
Speaker 2: the fact that I think it's like it has to
Speaker 2: do with the fact that the minions are cute and
Speaker 2: so generic looking it almost right. Oh, another little guy
Speaker 2: who is yellow Tweetybird, another character that you see on
Speaker 2: a lot of graphic te's with some sassy phrase. This
Speaker 2: happens to all of the little guys. Snoopy is one
Speaker 2: of the little guys that you just see, like Garfield
Speaker 2: is a little guy. It's endless. People love to put
Speaker 2: a sassy, sassy wine mom phrase next to a little guy.
Speaker 2: And so my mom got into it, which only intensified
Speaker 2: our mutual interest because we bonded over it. And now
Speaker 2: it's it's just like it's for life. I love these
Speaker 2: damn minions, and I think this movie is I would
Speaker 2: say this movie is not as good as Rise of Grew,
Speaker 2: but it's still I still enjoy it more than any
Speaker 2: Despicable Me movie. I think it's really fun. I just
Speaker 2: thought of another little guy winning the poop. It's just
Speaker 2: all of these little guys, the little guys. Caitlin, what's
Speaker 2: your history with le Mignons?
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm gonna say some stuff that might be controversial.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say some stuff that might be full on blasphemous.
Speaker 3: I head until very recently, only ever seen Despicable Me. One.
Speaker 2: That's okay, That's okay.
Speaker 3: And Rise of Grew. So I saw both of those
Speaker 3: movies in theaters. We were both in at Rise of Grew. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I saw it when I was in Amsterdam on the
Speaker 3: same trip where I got Your Bob in Edinburgh.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love to hear it.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing, I was asleep for a lot
Speaker 3: of it. I was very tired and I needed an
Speaker 3: app so I did sleep through a large chunk of
Speaker 3: Rise of Grew. But I saw it before I ever
Speaker 3: saw Minions One, which I saw for the first time
Speaker 3: on a plane coming back from a different trip to
Speaker 3: Europe that I came back from like three weeks ago.
Speaker 2: What a traveler, I know.
Speaker 3: I'm so cultured. So I had never seen Minions One before,
Speaker 3: and I don't think I've seen any of the other
Speaker 3: Despicable Me movies, so I'm not as immersed in the lore.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll be real and raw with you for a second. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because I do. I really appreciate your forthcomingness.
Speaker 3: You're welcome, and I.
Speaker 2: Also think, honestly, a lot of people who are fans
Speaker 2: of the Minions it's not like they've seen all five,
Speaker 2: now six movies. I'll be honest with you, I haven't
Speaker 2: seen Despicable Me three. I've just seen clips on YouTube.
Speaker 2: I've seen Despicable Me one and two. I've seen Minions
Speaker 2: one and two. I haven't seen Despicable Meat three because
Speaker 2: I know that it's about like Groo finding his twin brother.
Speaker 2: It's just always too much grew interpersonal problems, and so
Speaker 2: I just like was not really in a rush to
Speaker 2: see Despicable Me three. However, I have watched one clip
Speaker 2: of minions from Despicable Me three easily weekly, like sometimes truly,
Speaker 2: and this speaks to my own emotional intelligence. Like if
Speaker 2: it's like late and I'm like tired and I'm like cranky,
Speaker 2: my boyfriend will be like, let's watch the minions in
Speaker 2: jail scene, and it will always put me in a
Speaker 2: better mood. Because I'm a baby. I don't know what for.
Speaker 2: But in Despicable Me three, the minions go to jail
Speaker 2: and they immediately take over the jail and everyone is
Speaker 2: so scared of though it's very Paddington two. Coded I
Speaker 2: was gonna say, that's what happens in Paddington two, Yes,
Speaker 2: but except no one learns a lesson. No one learns
Speaker 2: about themselves, which is part of what I love about
Speaker 2: the Minions. I feel like it is across children's media,
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff is important. I think like it's
Speaker 2: a really really positive thing that there are so many
Speaker 2: successful children's franchises that are rooted and empathy and understanding.
Speaker 2: Paddington definitely qualifies as one, you know, inside out to
Speaker 2: a movie I refuse to watch would be another. I
Speaker 2: think Pixar movies in general are generally encouraging empathy, but
Speaker 2: I feel like it is just as valid to have
Speaker 2: children's entertainment that is bonking each other on the head repeatedly.
Speaker 2: And I feel like when the Minions like debuted in
Speaker 2: twenty ten, they were soft launched in Despicable Me One, Yes,
Speaker 2: which you can listen to our Patreon episode about like
Speaker 2: how the rules of the Minions have changed because in
Speaker 2: Despicable Me One their employees that are paid money, right,
Speaker 2: which this movie directly contradicts. For sure, whatever that the
Speaker 2: canon problem. But I do feel like around twenty ten,
Speaker 2: like where Pixar was at its life greatest success up
Speaker 2: it just come out. It's like all of these really
Speaker 2: emotionally complex children's movies, there was kind of this like
Speaker 2: empty space for like what if something was just goofy
Speaker 2: and like looney tunsy, and it felt like the Minions
Speaker 2: just like rose to the occasion. And I kind of
Speaker 2: appreciate that they haven't backed off of that, which is
Speaker 2: again it's like the Despicable Meat like Grew always learns
Speaker 2: a lesson. Yeah, the Minions they don't. They don't, and
Speaker 2: I love that about them. They're so me for that.
Speaker 2: They never improved, they never.
Speaker 3: Learn I think that Shrek farted so that the Minions
Speaker 3: could bunk themselves on the head.
Speaker 2: It also just like I this is so good, Like
Speaker 2: this sounds bad, this sounds antithetical to about this podcast
Speaker 2: is I like Minions cartoon violence. I love it. I
Speaker 2: think it is so funny the fact that John Hamm
Speaker 2: tries to hang Kevin. Yeah, in this movie, you're just
Speaker 2: like and it's a PG movie and we're fine with it.
Speaker 2: When I watched this song because at the time we're
Speaker 2: recording this, this movie is streaming on Netflix. At the
Speaker 2: beginning with like the rating, it just said like rudeness
Speaker 2: was the content warning, Like CW, these guys are rude
Speaker 2: little dudes. Well, here's the.
Speaker 3: Other controversial, blasphemous thing I have to say, which is
Speaker 3: that the movie Minions One I think is a bad movie.
Speaker 3: I think the story is flimsy. I think it's Oh.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying I don't love the Minions and that
Speaker 3: I don't love the Minions in the movie, But as
Speaker 3: far as the story goes, if I'm looking at it
Speaker 3: through a screenwriting point of view, I think it is
Speaker 3: legitimately bad and I think it's badly miscast. I don't
Speaker 3: know why Sandra Bullock is there. I don't know why
Speaker 3: John Ham is there actually doing very good jobs. Why
Speaker 3: is Michael Keaton in the movie.
Speaker 2: I always forget Michael Keaton's in the movie. Which can
Speaker 2: we all at least agree that Jeffrey Rush was a
Speaker 2: great choice.
Speaker 3: He is a good choice for a narrator. I'm glad
Speaker 3: that he's there.
Speaker 2: He gave it his all. He kept saying the Minion
Speaker 2: the million. He clearly had much like Bill Nyh. He
Speaker 2: did Detective Pikachu for his like Grandchild, I feel like
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Rush made a similar play here and and we're
Speaker 2: better for it.
Speaker 3: Yes, I agree, And then Pierre, he is doing a
Speaker 3: great job as the Minions, and I do love the
Speaker 3: Minions again, I like them in this movie any scene
Speaker 3: that there are other characters in it. I'm not really
Speaker 3: enjoying myself, I will say, but I love the Minions,
Speaker 3: and I love Bob, little Bob.
Speaker 2: I love that you love He's just a baby.
Speaker 3: He's just a little baby. And I normally don't like
Speaker 3: babies or children, but I want to be Bob's mom,
Speaker 3: and that's wild coming from me.
Speaker 2: I love that you love Bob.
Speaker 3: I bought Well, here's my other little item. It's a
Speaker 3: little Bob enamel pin that I bought from univers.
Speaker 2: I recognize, I was like, I've almost bought that before
Speaker 2: I recognize it. Gosh, I have to get back to
Speaker 2: you Universal presently so I can get all this hot merch.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I just renewed my past, so let's go anytime.
Speaker 2: Me too, Okay, Yeah, I think it is if you're
Speaker 2: not a fan of the Minions and you're watching this
Speaker 2: movie for I mean, even if you're watching this movie
Speaker 2: as a like a parent or a parent age who
Speaker 2: like doesn't like the Minions, or like don't think the
Speaker 2: Minions are funny, I understand why this movie doesn't have
Speaker 2: a lot of narrative cohesion. It honestly feels like a
Speaker 2: series of shorts as opposed to a movie. It feels
Speaker 2: like a bunch of Looney Tunes shorts in a row,
Speaker 2: where it's like, yeah, before we get it. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't think it'll take long to summarize the plot
Speaker 2: of this movie anyways, but well that's what you think.
Speaker 2: It's actually distinctively complex. But like, the way that I'm
Speaker 2: still able to like engage with the Dominions ironically is
Speaker 2: like they're hugely a commercial product. Like you can tell
Speaker 2: that a lot of what is fun about the Minions
Speaker 2: is also so very calculated at best, devious at worst,
Speaker 2: because these are like they're they're literally designed to be
Speaker 2: global products. The language that they speak are an amalgamation
Speaker 2: of the most popularly spoken languages in the world, so
Speaker 2: that a kid from any country can watch this movie
Speaker 2: and instantly connect with it and feel like, oh, I
Speaker 2: know what that word is. I know what that word is,
Speaker 2: Like it's the way that Minnie is. Again, this will
Speaker 2: be in my thesis limited series podcast on this topic.
Speaker 2: Like they are designed to be globally appealing, but it works.
Speaker 2: It works.
Speaker 3: I was just saying this on a recent Matreon episode.
Speaker 3: I don't know what episode it was, but I think
Speaker 3: I'm fluent in minuonis. I don't think I could speak it,
Speaker 3: but I can understand.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of this is like just connected to
Speaker 2: something that was imparted to me. But do you like
Speaker 2: in the Series of Unfortunate Events series of the Three Orphans,
Speaker 2: one is a baby who always says like what sounds
Speaker 2: like gobbledygook, but then you're it's translated within the book
Speaker 2: to be like she said this, which meant this, and
Speaker 2: she's basically speaking mininie, where like when you grow up,
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, that's a Japanese word that she said
Speaker 2: that was like what you know? And so and the
Speaker 2: minions just like take this two and eleven. It's really cool. Wait,
Speaker 2: I want to look up the list of the most
Speaker 2: prominently featured like Okay, English, Filipino, French, Hindi, Korean, Spanish
Speaker 2: are all tied into minniese, and I feel like that
Speaker 2: doesn't even include sometimes where it's just like a made
Speaker 2: up word, or.
Speaker 3: It's like an English word that is just adjusted so
Speaker 3: that it sounds kind of gibberishy, but it also sort
Speaker 3: of sounds like English.
Speaker 2: Because they say they also just say like below and POOPI,
Speaker 2: which is just baby talk like, but I think they're
Speaker 2: really funny. But they're also just like fascinating because it
Speaker 2: does feel like they were like successfully made in a
Speaker 2: lab to be a glade appealing little cartoon Marx Brothers.
Speaker 3: And this movie made at the box office one point
Speaker 3: one five nine billion dollars.
Speaker 2: That's so off of a seventy four million dollar budget,
Speaker 2: which is wild. And the other thing that's interesting about
Speaker 2: the Minions, oh No, like is between Minions one and two,
Speaker 2: I feel like you can sense a distinct cultural shift
Speaker 2: because I think that the ultimately the goals of these
Speaker 2: movies is to make money and to appeal to the
Speaker 2: whitest audience possible. Obviously, the merchandising on the Minions to
Speaker 2: huge numbers in no small part thanks to us.
Speaker 3: I mean we're buying a lot of it.
Speaker 2: Yes, But in like twenty fifteen, this movie comes out
Speaker 2: and its interests are strictly in the West. The cities
Speaker 2: we see heavily featured are New York, Orlando, and London.
Speaker 2: Fast forward to twenty twenty two, A lot has changed
Speaker 2: in the global economy, because the economy what this movie
Speaker 2: is concerned by, and in Minions too. There is a
Speaker 2: vested interest in the East and in China specifically, and
Speaker 2: it's like I feel like you can weirdly trace the
Speaker 2: like direction of the global economy to where the Minions
Speaker 2: end up. It's very weird. Hmmm, yes, I swear to
Speaker 2: I know, I sound like I'm wearing a tinfoil hat,
Speaker 2: but I feel so sure that I'm right. No.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't even remember exactly where, because they're in
Speaker 3: San Francisco. Yeah, but there's a Michelle Yo character who's
Speaker 3: teaching them kung fu.
Speaker 2: And there's a big Chinese New Year celebration that is
Speaker 2: like the climax of and most of the merchandising for
Speaker 2: that movie was drawn from the Chinese New Year imagery.
Speaker 2: My key, well, I'll show you my keys are at
Speaker 2: a Minions Chinese New Year. Oh yes, so it's just listeners,
Speaker 2: feel free to tell me that I'm watching too many
Speaker 2: Minions movies. It is true, but I do feel like
Speaker 2: it's like because it is like these movies are such
Speaker 2: a like cravenly commercial product. It's interesting to see like
Speaker 2: what cultures they choose to represent in some years versus
Speaker 2: other years based on how much money they think they
Speaker 2: can make. So that's just minions commerce observation.
Speaker 3: No, I love it. Should we do the.
Speaker 2: Recap, Let's take a break and come back, because we've
Speaker 2: already been talking about minions for a half hours.
Speaker 3: All right, we'll be right back, and we're back. We're back,
Speaker 3: and here is the recap for Minions one from twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: And of course it immediately gets complicated.
Speaker 3: Well, the movie opens and we see I would estimate
Speaker 3: about three point five billion years worth of evolution of
Speaker 3: the minions. They start as single celled organism minions. They
Speaker 3: are following the biggest, baddest creatures in the primordial soup.
Speaker 3: Then one day they emerge from the ocean, having evolved
Speaker 3: into the modern minions that we recognize.
Speaker 2: Yes, the minions do subscribe to the evolution theory. This
Speaker 2: is a godless world in which they live. Yes, which, again,
Speaker 2: like you're like, okay, minions. I feel like part of
Speaker 2: this was in response to, like, there were so many
Speaker 2: memes about the minions in the early years of Despicable Me,
Speaker 2: where they would be like do they have skeletons? What
Speaker 2: do they look like with their goggles off? You know,
Speaker 2: just like sort of a bunch of like sorry that
Speaker 2: like really loud guys on YouTube being like what is this?
Speaker 2: Like you know, and I feel like all of those
Speaker 2: questions are answered in the opening statements of this movie.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the menions, they they're darwinning, they're evolving.
Speaker 3: Yes, they also, as Pierre Kofun has said, they don't reproduce.
Speaker 2: And ostensibly, from what I can gather, they don't reproduce,
Speaker 2: which would make sense because it seems like they can't die.
Speaker 3: They might be invincible. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe there's some wild shit going on in
Speaker 2: Despicable Me three. But of the four out of five
Speaker 2: movies I've seen and I double checked this to be
Speaker 2: thorough for this episode, the closest you see to a
Speaker 2: minion dying, which I guess maybe does make the cartoon
Speaker 2: violence a little more palatable, as you're like led to
Speaker 2: believe like they're bonked but they're never actually hurt. There
Speaker 2: is a minion at one point that gets I think
Speaker 2: it's Despicably b one who like ends up getting sucked
Speaker 2: into space. Oh but he's just like floating in space.
Speaker 2: They can't die, they're immortal, and they don't reproduce.
Speaker 3: Jealous, I know, truly, so we get voiceover from Jeffrey Rush.
Speaker 2: He's so good.
Speaker 3: The minions came this sure his Pirates of the Caribbean residuals,
Speaker 3: you know, diminishing returns, and he's like, I need a
Speaker 3: new living room or something, and so he did this movie.
Speaker 2: I think it's like he wanted to impress his grandson.
Speaker 2: He wanted his grandson wasn't old enough to watch Pirates
Speaker 2: of the Caribbean. He's like, all right, check this out.
Speaker 3: I can't say for sure, but anyway, he's.
Speaker 2: Explaining, bru when you ruwen Bill Nye, he said, mew too,
Speaker 2: mew two. It feels like that.
Speaker 3: Hmm, yes, it does.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So Jeffrey Rush is explaining that the minion's goal is
Speaker 3: to serve the most despicable master that they can find,
Speaker 3: such as t Rex during dinosaur times, and then many
Speaker 3: millions of years later they start serving humans in caveman times,
Speaker 3: and then we see them in ancient Egypt. They serve
Speaker 3: Dracula for a while later Napoleon, but they always accidentally
Speaker 3: kill their boss.
Speaker 2: Which also like would make you know, potentially we're recording
Speaker 2: this before Despicable and me before it comes out. It
Speaker 2: would be awesome if they eventually kill Grew killed Grew.
Speaker 2: I mean, they can't die. So this whole opening sequence,
Speaker 2: it's Ben talks about to death in Midians culture. But yeah,
Speaker 2: the fact that like just the Minians were not just
Speaker 2: present but critical in the development of life with the dinosaurs,
Speaker 2: with the caveman. Yes, they not just killed an ancient
Speaker 2: Egyptian pharaoh, they also built the pyramids. Yes, that killed
Speaker 2: said pharaoh. They are sometimes, i'mes, serving someone who is fictional,
Speaker 2: like Dracula. They're sometimes serving someone that people might argue
Speaker 2: or is too real, like Napoleon.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: And what I think is really interesting that they do.
Speaker 2: And again it's like this is applying an adult brain
Speaker 2: to a kid's movie about little guys bunking each other
Speaker 2: in the head. But I think like Napoleon already feels
Speaker 2: like if they have to go to the most evil master,
Speaker 2: Napoleon makes sense if you know anything about the Napoleonic Wars,
Speaker 2: wild to imply what they might have done while working
Speaker 2: for him. But it feels like this, like franchise in general,
Speaker 2: just makes kind of like slap dashed. I mean, And
Speaker 2: also pierreco Fan is French, so it feels like he's
Speaker 2: fucking with French history in a way that feels a
Speaker 2: little tongue in cheek. Yeah, but like the things that
Speaker 2: they I feel like sometimes the Minions movies will just
Speaker 2: decide like, well we're over that, We're not over this.
Speaker 2: Where in this they're like, well, the Napoleonic Wars were
Speaker 2: so long ago, people won't care if the Minions were there.
Speaker 2: But there's a very deliberate decision for the one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty years before the movie starts, that the Minions
Speaker 2: are out of play for any human atrocities that happened
Speaker 2: between the Civil War, the Minions were not there and onwards,
Speaker 2: like basically anything from the last century and a half
Speaker 2: or so, the Minions were out of play. I think
Speaker 2: that that's a really smart move. I know people have
Speaker 2: made fun of it a lot, but it's like, if
Speaker 2: these are canonically who we've said the Minions are technically
Speaker 2: when they were introduced in twenty ten, they were asside
Speaker 2: characters no one really like you could guess, but like
Speaker 2: no one would have guess they would have become a
Speaker 2: global phenomenon, and now they have their own movie. I
Speaker 2: think it's very smart to put them in a cave
Speaker 2: for two hundred years.
Speaker 3: Right, what's the movie going to do? Be like?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And then they worked for Hitler.
Speaker 2: No, right, they fought for the Confederacy, Like, no, no,
Speaker 2: because we want to love the minions, we do, should
Speaker 2: not have worked for Napoleon. But they learned their lesson
Speaker 2: and they migrated to the North Pole or wherever the
Speaker 2: fuck they went.
Speaker 3: Right, they go into seclusion in this ice cave. But
Speaker 3: after a while in the cave, they're growing restless and
Speaker 3: depressed about not having an evil boss to serve until
Speaker 3: one day and men, you named Kevin Kevin le Mignon,
Speaker 3: to be exact.
Speaker 2: I love how this is like Kevin's movie the way
Speaker 2: that Like the movie is called mad Max, but it's
Speaker 2: about Furio. So the movie is called Manias, but it's
Speaker 2: about Kevin. So wait, Bob is we I guess we did?
Speaker 2: Haven't benished with it? Bob is your favorite?
Speaker 3: Bob is my favorite? Yes, you're a Kevin head.
Speaker 2: I love Kevin. I just love Kevin. He's tall, and
Speaker 2: he has leadership qualities. I loved him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love Bob because he likes animals and he
Speaker 3: carries a little teddy bear.
Speaker 2: Around and he's adorable.
Speaker 3: He's the cutest and sweetest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bob is an mpath I love when he meets Pucci.
Speaker 2: My mom does this thing called Minion Mondays in her
Speaker 2: second grade class room where you get some sort of
Speaker 2: like if you wear yellow or blue on a Monday,
Speaker 2: if you're just like Minion cosplaying on a Monday, she'll
Speaker 2: give you like a treat or something. But on every
Speaker 2: Minion Monday, my mom will be like asking the kids, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: who's my favorite Minion and everyone will say Bob, And
Speaker 2: then my mom will be like, and who does Jamie
Speaker 2: want to marry? And then they'll all go Kevin. Because
Speaker 2: I said that to them, Oh, I know it impacted.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize what an impact it would be to
Speaker 2: say that I wanted to marry Kevin the Minion. But
Speaker 2: I do feel like he has the qualities outside of
Speaker 2: being like a proven war criminal, apparently like he has
Speaker 2: many of the qualities I'm looking for, like having leadership
Speaker 2: qualities and giving you a little kiss.
Speaker 3: All he is nerd. He wipes the crud off of
Speaker 3: Bob's face.
Speaker 2: And then when he's all big spoiler alert, he kisses
Speaker 2: all his friends.
Speaker 3: It's really nice the Minions. They care about each other.
Speaker 2: They love each other, and I love that they all
Speaker 2: have like fuck boy names, like all that is like
Speaker 2: a feature of the Minions. It's like Kevin, Bob, Stewart, Chris,
Speaker 2: like like random guys mel Yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, So one day Kevin declares that he's going to
Speaker 3: go back out into the world to find the baddest
Speaker 3: boss around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, He's like elected himself as Luke Skywalker. He's like,
Speaker 2: I just realize I am the protagonist. So here I go.
Speaker 3: I'm the chosen one. He recruits some help, some minions
Speaker 3: within minions when you think about it, Okay, layers like
Speaker 3: onions have layers, ogres have layers. Blah blah blah. The
Speaker 3: help the minions are Stuart and Bob.
Speaker 2: Sure, it's a bit of a rock star. He's got
Speaker 2: a bit of an ego on him. He's a little horny.
Speaker 2: He tries to have sex with not one, but three
Speaker 2: fire Hydrants.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, he's trying to initiate a threesome at one
Speaker 3: point with two fire Hydrants. I love it, and that's
Speaker 3: pretty cool. Yeah, I think that's really forward thinking. Yeah,
Speaker 3: polyamorous king Stuart. Okay, so the three of them, Kevin
Speaker 3: Stewart and Bob set off, eventually making their way to
Speaker 3: New York City. Ever heard of it? The year is
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2: And boy will they do. We were joking about this
Speaker 2: in our recently recorded Madam Web episode about how that movie,
Speaker 2: at some point in production was decided to be in
Speaker 2: two thousand and three, and they really bonk you over
Speaker 2: the head with like remember this, and it doesn't bother me.
Speaker 2: The minions do it because they do it so much
Speaker 2: that it starts to be parody. Like how expensive was
Speaker 2: this soundtrack? It was every single song, the Dad's like
Speaker 2: the Beatles, the everything was in this movie.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. So they are in New York and they
Speaker 3: learn about something called Villain con a convention in Orlando, Florida,
Speaker 3: where villains gather from all over and this year it
Speaker 3: will feature a special appearance by Scarlet Overkill, the world's
Speaker 3: first female super villain. Okay, feminism alert, we wo we woo.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're joking, but I feel like Scarlet Overkill. We've
Speaker 2: talked about this of like how the girl boss phrase
Speaker 2: is so liberally given out and I feel like sometimes
Speaker 2: it's just like a term that's WEAPONI is to be
Speaker 2: like a woman I don't like who has more power
Speaker 2: than me is like labeled as a girl boss when
Speaker 2: the definition of a girl boss is a woman who
Speaker 2: uses feminist language to accrue conventional patriarchal power, and that
Speaker 2: is Miss Scarlett Overkill to the hilt. She is a
Speaker 2: girl boss.
Speaker 3: And the minions are enthralled by Scarlet and they want
Speaker 3: to work for her, so they hitchhike two Orlando with
Speaker 3: a family who turns out to be bank robbers who
Speaker 3: are also headed to villan Con.
Speaker 2: Another weird page, like we didn't need that, that could
Speaker 2: have been anyone, right.
Speaker 3: The mom and dad of this family are voiced by
Speaker 3: Michael Keaton and Alison Janny.
Speaker 2: Which I genuinely didn't even know until this viewing. Oh really,
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yeah, I didn't clock their voice and then
Speaker 2: when you know, you know, but that kind of bummsy out.
Speaker 2: I feel like the art of voice acting is a
Speaker 2: very specific one and it's just sort of been like
Speaker 2: motover by, like celebrity stunt casting in since like Lindsay
Speaker 2: Ellis has a good video about it, since like Aladdin,
Speaker 2: so like the last thirty years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why I don't like John hamm in the role.
Speaker 3: I don't like Sandra Bullock in the role. I like
Speaker 3: them as actors in general, but like they're not as
Speaker 3: strong a voice actors as actual voice actors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, every time I watch this movie, I think that
Speaker 2: it's Jason Manzukus and not John Ham. Does that connect
Speaker 2: it all? Every single time I've watched this movie, I
Speaker 2: was like, wait, and then I remember it's John Ham,
Speaker 2: but it feels like it's John Ham doing a Jason
Speaker 2: man Zukus. I mean, I'm a huge Jason Manzukus fan.
Speaker 2: I think he would actually be a great choice for
Speaker 2: that character because it just sounds like him anyways, right, No,
Speaker 2: I see that, Yeah, anyways, but yeah, the celebrity stunt casting.
Speaker 2: It's like, this movie has a fairly low budget for
Speaker 2: what it is, but it could have been even lower
Speaker 2: by just not doing that. I don't know, right, I
Speaker 2: feel like no one is more likely to see this
Speaker 2: movie because Michael Keaton plays a bit part, Like it
Speaker 2: just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3: No, I don't know why they do that, but anyway,
Speaker 3: the family that they're hitching a ride with robs a
Speaker 3: bank and the minions help them get away by basically
Speaker 3: killing a bunch of cops. So the minions say, acab.
Speaker 2: I mean, but if they're working for the most evil people,
Speaker 2: but they do kill. Like another thing about this, he was,
Speaker 2: I've always sort of like paused by, is how obviously
Speaker 2: dead those cops are. It's like that car crash is
Speaker 2: so bad.
Speaker 3: They kill them.
Speaker 2: They killed cops, Yes, and you know, God bless love
Speaker 2: you guys.
Speaker 3: Yep. So then Kevin, Stewart and Bob arrive at villain
Speaker 3: con and watch this like presentation thing from Scarlet Overkill
Speaker 3: voiced by Sandra Bullock where she says she's looking for
Speaker 3: new henchmen and whoever can steal the ruby she's holding
Speaker 3: gets the job. So a bunch of kind of wannabe
Speaker 3: villains try and the ruby, including Kevin, Bob, and Stewart.
Speaker 2: And also there's like a meaningless plot point added here
Speaker 2: that like Kevin has a crush on Scarlet Overkill, right,
Speaker 2: But I was like, because they canonically don't experience desire,
Speaker 2: that it was just like he wanted her validation or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know, that's my husband.
Speaker 3: I couldn't tell if it was like a romantic crush
Speaker 3: or if he was just enamored by the idea of
Speaker 3: working for her, because she's presented as being like the
Speaker 3: awesomest super villain at the time.
Speaker 2: Right of her acceptance. I'm gonna go with that because
Speaker 2: that's literally my boyfriend. He's taken.
Speaker 3: Well, do minions are asexual canonically they don't reproduce.
Speaker 2: Yes, they're canonically a sexual. I mean even though we
Speaker 2: were not allowed to receive them as genderless icons, as
Speaker 2: non binary icons, we can still accept them as asexual icons.
Speaker 3: Well, that doesn't explain why Stuart wants to have sex
Speaker 3: with those two fire hydrants.
Speaker 2: Then I think that Stuart is just kind of the
Speaker 2: watch be like totally deflect. I think Stuart's just kind
Speaker 2: of like doing his own thing.
Speaker 3: Okay, sure, let's go with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: In any case, so these villains are trying to pass
Speaker 3: this test from Scarlett Overkill, including Kevin, Bob and Stewart,
Speaker 3: who end up being the ones to take the ruby
Speaker 3: from her, and Scarlet is impressed. She hires them and
Speaker 3: then she takes them to London, England ever heard of that?
Speaker 3: And the reason she goes there is because Scarlett wants
Speaker 3: Queen Elizabeth's crown. And if you're wondering, are we gonna
Speaker 3: meet Queen Elizabeth in nineteen sixty eight. Yes we do.
Speaker 2: Yes, another canonical girl boss.
Speaker 3: And also we're like, okay, if the Minions work for
Speaker 3: the most despicable person around, yes, would that not the
Speaker 3: Royal family of England?
Speaker 2: I know, I know in any year the rules are
Speaker 2: unclear and we're not given a list of Scarlett's crimes.
Speaker 2: I know. It's like it really does feel like evil
Speaker 2: is like just sort of applied to like general vibes
Speaker 2: and aesthetics versus actual things done. But whatever, probably better
Speaker 2: for the kids, right I don't think the kids need
Speaker 2: the details.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I don't know. I think kids should learn
Speaker 3: about the atrocities of imperialism and colonialism of the world
Speaker 3: early on. But that's just me, I agree, But not
Speaker 3: an Amnions movie.
Speaker 2: Not an Aminions movie, right, Like, it's like we'll kick
Speaker 2: that to Pixar and see how they do. But I
Speaker 2: do feel like there is value in escapist media, and
Speaker 2: that's Minions. I just like, if you're going to do
Speaker 2: Minions to learn, you got to get a library card,
Speaker 2: like grow up up, right, kids?
Speaker 3: Okay, So Scarlett wants Queen Elizabeth's crown because it's established
Speaker 3: that she has some possible unresolved childhood trauma, and she
Speaker 3: wants to be a princess so that everyone will love her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she.
Speaker 3: Wants the minions to steal the crown for her. We
Speaker 3: meet her husband, Herb, played by John Hamm. He gives
Speaker 3: Kevin Stewart and Bob some gear and some weapons, and
Speaker 3: then they head to the Tower of London, where the
Speaker 3: Queen's crown is kept. They use Herb's devices to try
Speaker 3: to steal the crown, but then it gets delivered to
Speaker 3: Queen Elizabeth voiced by Jennifer Saunders of Shrek to Fame.
Speaker 2: No way, wait, I didn't know this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she plays the fairy Godmother.
Speaker 2: Whoa. Yeah, this isn't even a dream Works thing. It's
Speaker 2: just a quizidence. That's nice.
Speaker 3: It's that universal umbrella, I guess.
Speaker 2: Wow. Wow, I love it.
Speaker 3: So the minions are chasing Queen Elizabeth. They're flopping all
Speaker 3: over London. There's a lot of you know, minions slapstick happening.
Speaker 2: They get stomped on by the Beatles like it truly
Speaker 2: is like all of these micro and I also feel like,
Speaker 2: while this movie is such a global product, it also
Speaker 2: feels weirdly personal to the like people at the top
Speaker 2: of illumination who grew up in the sixties and seventies,
Speaker 2: and that's why these Minions movies take place when the
Speaker 2: creators of this product happen to be growing up. Like
Speaker 2: there is also a level of like old guy nostalgia
Speaker 2: to like, what if we put the Beatles in here,
Speaker 2: what if we did this, what if we did this,
Speaker 2: where it just clearly feels like stuff that like Pierre Goa,
Speaker 2: Kyle Balta, and Chris Mellon Johnny liked when they were kids,
Speaker 2: which is not a criticism, it's just like, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like they're doing the nostalgia thing. It's like if I
Speaker 2: made a Minions movie and I should and was like,
Speaker 2: and here's a Backstreet Boys you know whatever.
Speaker 3: Oh, I can't wait till we get that in I
Speaker 3: don't know, twenty thirty eight or sooner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, come on, give me some credit. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2: And every Minions movie tends to advance by like a
Speaker 2: decade where they're in the sixties or in the seventies.
Speaker 2: The next movie, theoretically they'll be in the eighties. We'll see.
Speaker 3: Wow, I'll wait till the end of the recap to
Speaker 3: get there, but I have a timeline criticism, but I'll
Speaker 3: save it.
Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough, Okay. So the minions are.
Speaker 3: Flopping all around town and some cops are chasing them,
Speaker 3: so Bob pulls the legendary sword in the Stone out
Speaker 3: of the Stone, I guess to like fight off the cops,
Speaker 3: but that makes him the rightful King of England. So
Speaker 3: Queen Elizabeth has to hand over her crown, which makes
Speaker 3: Scarlett Overkill upset because she wants to be royalty. She
Speaker 3: thinks the minions are betraying her and like claiming the
Speaker 3: throne for themselves.
Speaker 2: The girl bosses have turned on the minions. It's bad,
Speaker 2: it's bad, but we do get the amazing. According to
Speaker 2: second graders, because I've watched it with him, there's nothing
Speaker 2: a seven year old loves more than the King Bob sequence.
Speaker 3: It's so good.
Speaker 2: Second Graders all love King Bob, especially because it's like,
Speaker 2: I think Bob is probably the most emotionally intelligent, like
Speaker 2: easy insert for kids, because it's like he's really excited
Speaker 2: and then he gets the job of King of England
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden he's nervous and he
Speaker 2: just wants his friends, and it's really cute, I know,
Speaker 2: and they also destroy Buckingham Palace like they're agents of chaos.
Speaker 2: I really don't think that if left in power, the
Speaker 2: minions would colonized places. I think they would just jump
Speaker 2: on the bed and like eat.
Speaker 3: That's true, they would eat bananas.
Speaker 2: Right, because we're told they're bad, but they're bad in
Speaker 2: a directionless way. If left to their own devices, they
Speaker 2: will just jump on the bed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then they kill their bosses. So honestly they
Speaker 3: should work for more evil people and then accidentally kill them.
Speaker 2: I think we actually have to. We should be thanking
Speaker 2: them for killing so many bad people.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, anyways, we've also been periodically cutting to the
Speaker 3: rest of the minions who are still in this arctic cave.
Speaker 3: Kevin had called them at one point to tell them
Speaker 3: that they have a new boss. So now all of
Speaker 3: the other minions are on their way to England to
Speaker 3: serve Scarlet overkill. Back in London, Scarlet storms in on
Speaker 3: Bob Bean King. She's furious at the minions for betraying her,
Speaker 3: but Bob willingly hands over the crown and his royal
Speaker 3: position to Scarlet, even changing the laws to make that
Speaker 3: legally possible.
Speaker 2: He's just a baby.
Speaker 3: He's just a little baby. And now the minions think
Speaker 3: they're going to serve Scarlet, not that she's queen, but
Speaker 3: instead she locks them in a dungeon, and this is
Speaker 3: when herb tries to torture them and tries to hang Kevin.
Speaker 2: Truly a shocking because they're like this setup is like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get the minions with all these medieval torture devices,
Speaker 2: which feels very you know, like loo ne toun and see.
Speaker 2: And there's never a fear that the minions will actually
Speaker 2: get hurt. It's nothing like that. But it's just like
Speaker 2: the fact that they lead with I'm going to hang
Speaker 2: the minions, which is something that like, I think they
Speaker 2: should have maybe started that sequence with something that no
Speaker 2: longer exists. But the fact that they started with publicly
Speaker 2: hanging the minions, it was just wild. It was wild. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then Kevin goes whoop, he just falls through ough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, their little minion bodies.
Speaker 2: I love them. I love them. They're so smooth, It's true.
Speaker 3: Now they find a way to escape and they make
Speaker 3: their way to Westminster Abbey, where Scarlet is getting ready
Speaker 3: for her coronation, because they want to apologize to her,
Speaker 3: but they accidentally almost kill her because again they're always
Speaker 3: killing their bosses, by dropping a chandelier on her, and
Speaker 3: Scarlet thinks that the minions did this intentionally, so she
Speaker 3: sends all of the other villains slash like Wanta be
Speaker 3: henchmen who were at villain con after the minions. Kevin,
Speaker 3: Stuart and Bob get separated from each other during this chase,
Speaker 3: and the bad guys capture Stuart and Bob.
Speaker 2: What their plan is is so unclear where at some
Speaker 2: point this movie just becomes like Scarlett v. Kevin and
Speaker 2: you're just like, now, what did Kevin ever do to you?
Speaker 3: And the answer is nothing.
Speaker 2: All he ever did was love you.
Speaker 3: But Scarlett threatens to kill Stuart and Bob if Kevin
Speaker 3: doesn't come back by dawn. We cut back to Kevin.
Speaker 3: He sneaks into Herb's room of super villain devices and
Speaker 3: he accidentally ends up in this machine that makes him huge,
Speaker 3: like the size of a ten story building, and he
Speaker 3: saves Stuart and Bob, who are about to be blown up,
Speaker 3: but Scarlett has this rocket dress that she's using to
Speaker 3: attack them.
Speaker 2: It's great, I mean, the Scarlet overkill looks are great
Speaker 2: for me. I love it.
Speaker 3: The other Minions, the ones who are in the cave,
Speaker 3: they show up and she's trying to kill them too,
Speaker 3: So Giant Kevin takes her rocket and he puts it
Speaker 3: in his mouth, and then he grabs Scarlet and herb
Speaker 3: and it seems like they're all about to exp blowed,
Speaker 3: but surprise, Kevin is alive and he's back to his
Speaker 3: normal size. So we're not really sure how that happens.
Speaker 2: But No, it's important to emphasize the global impact of
Speaker 2: when Kevin got big. Yes, no one saw it coming,
Speaker 2: and I feel like at some point with the Minions
Speaker 2: that they're also doing and despicable me for where they're
Speaker 2: leading the marketing heavily with the Mega Minion Yes, which
Speaker 2: I hope is not just an echo of We've had
Speaker 2: evil Minions, We've had Mega Minions, We've had minions with
Speaker 2: braces in the form of Auto in the Rise of Grow. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Big Kevin was a watershed moment for Minions because you realize,
Speaker 2: like they're little guys, but that's not always going to
Speaker 2: be true. The fact that they blew Kevin up like
Speaker 2: just again like cartoon violence moments that I feel like
Speaker 2: rarely happened in contemporary movies where we talked about this
Speaker 2: in some Pixar episode where like I expressed the frustration
Speaker 2: of like it now feeling like there was a necessity
Speaker 2: that a villain be redeemable or like defined by trauma,
Speaker 2: or like that there would be some defense and that
Speaker 2: like I understand the like I understand where that comes from,
Speaker 2: but I just like don't find it very fun to watch,
Speaker 2: to be like, at the end of Toy Story four,
Speaker 2: if we forgive the villain and they were actually more
Speaker 2: complicated than we realize, And then at the end of Minions,
Speaker 2: Kevin blows up, like his whole body, he swallows a
Speaker 2: rocket and he blows up, and then we are allowed
Speaker 2: to believe if and it also like if I'm five
Speaker 2: years old, I believe Kevin has died. Yeah, of course
Speaker 2: the minions are humming taps, which is so funny because
Speaker 2: also like theoretically this is the first minion to ever Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then he's fine, Like I just I love that
Speaker 2: sequence so much. It just it makes me happy that
Speaker 2: we have our own Looney Tunes where you're like, he's immortal.
Speaker 2: Kevin never truly blew up, but it's also like whatever
Speaker 2: narratively important that Bob believed he could have died.
Speaker 3: I mean, we got to feel those steaks somehow.
Speaker 2: And then he has Poochy. Kids also love Poochy the
Speaker 2: little rat. Yes, Bob's rat friend. Yeah wow, what a
Speaker 2: special movie. Yeah yeah. Then they get knighted and you're
Speaker 2: like all.
Speaker 3: Right, okay, yeah, So here's how it ends. There's this
Speaker 3: big celebration where Queen Elizabeth, who has been reinstated as
Speaker 3: the royal leader, commends Kevin, Stuart and Bob for their
Speaker 3: heroism gives them gifts nights Kevin, but oh no, Scarlet
Speaker 3: shows up again and steals the Queen's crown, but she
Speaker 3: is immediately stopped via an ice gun that belongs to
Speaker 3: a drum roll please Guru, and the Minions see him
Speaker 3: and they're like, hubba, hubba, who's that? And that's how
Speaker 3: they find their new boss the end. And here's my
Speaker 3: timeline issue. Okay, So Minions one takes place in nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty eight. At the end of the movie, we see
Speaker 3: grew for the first time. He appears to be ten
Speaker 3: eleven years old. Minions two takes place in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 3: That's eight years after the first movie, Grow says he's
Speaker 3: almost twelve. So in eight years, Grew has aged nothing,
Speaker 3: no amount of time. What's up with that?
Speaker 2: I don't have answers. I have no answers. I guess
Speaker 2: what I can say is that Grew is obviously built different,
Speaker 2: you know, but in terms of an answer, that's about
Speaker 2: as close as I can get. Okay, yeah, No, I
Speaker 2: don't know. And I feel like Grew will be thirteen
Speaker 2: in Minions three and it will inevitably be nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2: So I don't know. These movies are so vibes and
Speaker 2: also like part of what I think, I just really
Speaker 2: have a bone to pick with Grew, where he is
Speaker 2: just like the like he is necessary. I feel like
Speaker 2: this movie does prove he's necessary. You do need a
Speaker 2: human character grounding all these little guys, and Scarlett Overkill
Speaker 2: is comparatively random to have done. So, so I know
Speaker 2: Grew's necessary, but it is kind of nice to have
Speaker 2: one movie that it's like, oops, no groove. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: Rise of Grew is a better movie.
Speaker 3: I would agree with that it has a slightly more
Speaker 3: cohesive story. Let's take a quick break and then we'll
Speaker 3: come back to discuss.
Speaker 2: And we're back here we are, Okay, where do you
Speaker 2: want to start?
Speaker 3: I would like to talk about the gender of the Minions.
Speaker 2: Yes, which will directly intersect with a critical interview in
Speaker 2: Minion's Lore with Pierre Coffin.
Speaker 3: Yes. So here's my thing with it, where Minions creator
Speaker 3: Pierre has said explicitly that the minions are all male. They,
Speaker 3: of course, are always voiced by actors who are men,
Speaker 3: including Pierre Koffin himself. He told The Rap in twenty
Speaker 3: fifteen regarding the gender of the Minions quote, seeing how
Speaker 3: dumb and stupid they often are, I just couldn't imagine
Speaker 3: minions being girls unquote. First of all, using ablest language
Speaker 3: to characterize the minions not cool.
Speaker 2: I'll give him the pass of like we were also
Speaker 2: using those words in twenty fifteen. Be serious, fair for fair. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Secondly, yes, the minions are silly and slapsticky and childish,
Speaker 3: and they're usually not able to apply logic in many situations.
Speaker 3: But girls can be that way too. People of any
Speaker 3: gender can be anything. And I'm sure Pierre meant this
Speaker 3: as a compliment, but a very narrow view like this
Speaker 3: perpetuates very rigid binary expectations. Of gender. And then I
Speaker 3: was thinking about slapstick comedy as a medium or slapstick
Speaker 3: humor in movies and entertainment, and yes, goofiness and physical
Speaker 3: humor and slapstick has often been associated with men, and
Speaker 3: especially white men. You've got your Charlie, Chaplin's, your Buster Keaton's,
Speaker 3: the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges.
Speaker 2: Right, which has everything to do with like who is
Speaker 2: a low to be in movies at that time?
Speaker 3: For sure, women have been figures of slapstick comedy throughout history.
Speaker 3: I was researching a few examples from like early Hollywood,
Speaker 3: such as Mabel normand Marion Davies, Mary Pickford. There's of
Speaker 3: course more recent contemporary examples actors like Kristen Wigg and
Speaker 3: Melissa McCarthy. So women are participants of physical comedy and
Speaker 3: slapstick humor in entertainment, but it's just that they're often
Speaker 3: not associated with it, and they never get the same
Speaker 3: level of fame and recognition. And I think what Pierre
Speaker 3: actually is saying when he says this quote is I
Speaker 3: don't think women are funny or capable of physical humor.
Speaker 2: I think you're being really mean. I disagree with you.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that where he's pulling from is
Speaker 2: like a clear mid twenty tens feminism of this sort
Speaker 2: of Like well, to imply that a woman would be
Speaker 2: incompetent would be sexist, right, Like, it just feels like
Speaker 2: a ret conning of like a million. I would really
Speaker 2: be curious what the minions were originally intended to be.
Speaker 2: I think that no one was really thinking about it.
Speaker 2: They've always been given traditionally male names. Yeah, what I
Speaker 2: wish she had said, because what I feel like is
Speaker 2: probably closer to the truth is like I really liked
Speaker 2: the Marx Brothers, and I just wanted to make a
Speaker 2: million Marx Brothers. I do think that like there is
Speaker 2: some like gender discrimination built into that. I don't think
Speaker 2: it is like super villain levels of because again, like
Speaker 2: the language fair enough, but like this is ten years
Speaker 2: ago and those words were not commonly considered to be
Speaker 2: ablest at that time. But I think even in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: the decision to say definitively that all of these characters
Speaker 2: are men is bizarre because why not just say they're
Speaker 2: whoever you want them to be? I know, because I
Speaker 2: feel like in children's media, especially like I would also
Speaker 2: I think it would be weird if he was like, no,
Speaker 2: explicitly some are women, some are not. Like it's more
Speaker 2: just like who cares. They're little guys. Guys, but in
Speaker 2: the genderless sense, like they're little guys, they're whoever you
Speaker 2: want them to be. If you think they're funny, then
Speaker 2: you like them. I think it's interesting that he went
Speaker 2: out of his way to declare them to be men.
Speaker 2: I don't think it makes them a bad person. I
Speaker 2: think it is an interesting choice given his background. And
Speaker 2: this is a little bit speculative. He had a French
Speaker 2: father and an Indonesian mother, and his mother was a
Speaker 2: very prominent Indonesian feminist novelist of her generation. So Pierre
Speaker 2: Cofet like, he's not just being like a d doi guy,
Speaker 2: like he grew up around feminism and feminist ideas, and
Speaker 2: so the fact that his most notorious creation he goes
Speaker 2: out of his way to say is explicitly male coded.
Speaker 2: I wonder what that is like. I wonder if it
Speaker 2: is like some like generational, Like I don't want to
Speaker 2: seem like I insulting women by implying that which I
Speaker 2: agree is completely misguided, and like slapstick is for people,
Speaker 2: people fall down like. But I do wonder if there
Speaker 2: is some like gen X disconnect happening here where it's
Speaker 2: clear that he definitely grew up around intense feminist ideas.
Speaker 2: His mother, I don't know how to pronounce her name, honestly,
Speaker 2: I'm not familiar with Indonesian culture, but her name, her
Speaker 2: first name is spelled NH, her last name is Deni,
Speaker 2: and she and his father they got married. His father
Speaker 2: was a diplomat, and she became a prominent Indonesian feminist novelist.
Speaker 2: So I don't know. I mean, I don't feel comfortable
Speaker 2: speculating why anything happened in any direction, because when Pierre
Speaker 2: Koft gives interviews, he seems to have more of a
Speaker 2: bone to pick with his father than his mother. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I think it was the easier. It was
Speaker 2: like he had an issue with his mother's feminist ideas
Speaker 2: and wanted to repel. I don't think that that's actually
Speaker 2: the case. It seems like he had a lot of
Speaker 2: love for his mother. She passed in twenty eighteen, so
Speaker 2: she also lived to see the minions. Both of his
Speaker 2: parents did. What he says in a twenty fifteen interview
Speaker 2: with a Guardian to promote this movie is that Minions
Speaker 2: were not particularly inspired by his parents, because he found
Speaker 2: his parents, as a serious novelist and a diplomat, to
Speaker 2: not be very funny, and that he was interested in cartoons.
Speaker 2: He was interested in humor, and it wasn't necessarily something
Speaker 2: that was encouraged, so he says in this interview quote,
Speaker 2: my dad said watching TV was too passive and didn't
Speaker 2: make you think. So I found this other side. I
Speaker 2: needed some sort of distractions, so I drew a lot,
Speaker 2: I read a lot, and I listened to a lot
Speaker 2: of music. But I never considered a career in the arts.
Speaker 2: I was surrounded by people who were better than me,
Speaker 2: but that gave me inspiration to find out how they
Speaker 2: did it better. A diplomat isn't like a really funny guy,
Speaker 2: and my mom's stories are biography is mostly about how
Speaker 2: she used to live in Indonesia during the Dutch colonies,
Speaker 2: so it wasn't really fun. I have no clue where
Speaker 2: that humorous gene comes from, but France does have a
Speaker 2: culture of cartoons. And then, speaking to his parents a
Speaker 2: little later, he talks about how his kids inspire Minion's
Speaker 2: jokes and whether they work or not. But in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: so a few years prior to his mother's death, he says, quote,
Speaker 2: my mom had the life of an artist, so I'm
Speaker 2: living her dream a little bit, and she's super proud
Speaker 2: of me. But my father, who is nearly ninety, it's
Speaker 2: fair to say he's not really embracing my success. This
Speaker 2: is not serious for him. As soon as I started
Speaker 2: saying I really want to make movies. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to say he never helped me, but he never encouraged
Speaker 2: me to do this. We're not getting along that well
Speaker 2: because he's got that little resentment about him being wrong
Speaker 2: and not admitting it. So it's very tricky. He always
Speaker 2: has this idea of me working in show business, meaning
Speaker 2: that I'm strange. He never wanted me to do this.
Speaker 2: He never wanted me to have a serious job. And
Speaker 2: that's how the interview ends. WHOA And So I do
Speaker 2: think it's fascinating when like you have something like The Minions,
Speaker 2: where this like cultural symbol at this point that work
Speaker 2: invented as and he like talks about this in the interview,
Speaker 2: how he wasn't thinking particularly hard about The Minions indspicable
Speaker 2: me one. He was thinking like what is like a
Speaker 2: funny like I need minions, but I need like these
Speaker 2: assistants for grew. But the difference that will endure the
Speaker 2: audience is that he will know all of their names,
Speaker 2: and now will make kids and audiences think like, oh,
Speaker 2: they all have names. He knows their names, maybe he's
Speaker 2: not such a bad guy. And then the only other
Speaker 2: thing he was thinking about with the minions per this
Speaker 2: interview is that they need to be, you know, sweet
Speaker 2: enough that who knows their names, and they have to
Speaker 2: be easy for kids to draw, which they definitely are. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And that was it, And so I don't know. I
Speaker 2: just think it is like, really really fascinating that the
Speaker 2: son of this prominent feminist went out of his way
Speaker 2: to say all these cruisiers are men. But it's because
Speaker 2: he thinks men are less smart than women. I think
Speaker 2: that there's a lot of like, ultimately he's wrong, right,
Speaker 2: like that anyone of any gender should be welcome into
Speaker 2: this world of slapstick. I don't understand to this day
Speaker 2: of why he wouldn't have just said, I don't know,
Speaker 2: whatever you want. I feel like that is the smartest
Speaker 2: answer across children's media, or maybe just art in general.
Speaker 2: To be like, I don't have to answer that question, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't owe you that answer, right. I will always
Speaker 2: think it's confusing that he did. But I'm a Pierre
Speaker 2: co Fen defender. I don't think that he did any
Speaker 2: of this maliciously based on how I knew he grew up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I don't think it's malicious. I think it's
Speaker 3: more just like he has the way many people still
Speaker 3: do a kind of narrow view of gender. And the
Speaker 3: other thing I think is fascinating is the Minions are
Speaker 3: just far more gender fluid or gender neutral than Pierre
Speaker 3: gives them credit for. Yeah, they are male coded, but
Speaker 3: we often see them in drag. Right, they're dressing up
Speaker 3: as a woman to go to the Tower of London.
Speaker 2: Which is like so bugs bunny coded. I can't understand it. Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the history of drag within cartoons is like I love
Speaker 2: that the Minions are continuing that tradition.
Speaker 3: M hm in Minions to one of them dresses in
Speaker 3: drag to pick up grew from school pretending to be
Speaker 3: his mom.
Speaker 2: Bob's and drag on the plane one of the greatest
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the Minions plan scene is like one of
Speaker 2: the greatest sequences in comedy. It is, it just is.
Speaker 3: It's very funny Bob wears a thong even though he's
Speaker 3: a baby, so that's curious.
Speaker 2: But like, what does a baby mean in minions years
Speaker 2: I just would say, you know, don't overthink it.
Speaker 3: Well that's true. Yeah, you're right, you're right. So there's
Speaker 3: the many drag examples. Again, Physically, their body shape isn't
Speaker 3: associated with any gender. They are just little tic TACs,
Speaker 3: little pills.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I also feel like their voices could be interpreted as
Speaker 3: being gender neutral.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's certainly like as far as I know, like
Speaker 2: edited right.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think the minions are actually genderless icons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would be happy to defer to the fan
Speaker 2: base and this over the creator. I think that, like,
Speaker 2: I want to believe that the creator would defer to Like,
Speaker 2: it would be really weird and telling if you was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm not open to other answers, Like, I'd be curious
Speaker 2: if someone asked him this question again ten years later.
Speaker 2: Because it's also whatever the way that like stuff is
Speaker 2: presented in media, it felt like that headline was presented
Speaker 2: as a more like definitive thing than it actually was.
Speaker 2: Were what he's saying is like, well, I always thought
Speaker 2: about it like this for this reason, and that was
Speaker 2: made the headline of like, right, Pierre Coffences, minions are men,
Speaker 2: and you're just like, yes, that is what he said,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't like I feel like it's presented as
Speaker 2: like he was saying it with his whole chest, Like
Speaker 2: I'd be curious to hear this conversation revisited because I
Speaker 2: feel like the Minions should be interpreted as like the
Speaker 2: Minions or whoever you want them to be. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: should be, you know, open to any gender identity. They're
Speaker 2: so special.
Speaker 3: I agree. Do you have anything else to say about
Speaker 3: the Minions themsels selves?
Speaker 2: The Minions themselves, I don't think so. Yeah. No, I
Speaker 2: just I think that they're the best. I love them.
Speaker 2: Let's see if I have anything else about them. I mean,
Speaker 2: I have a few more things about Scarlette overkill same,
Speaker 2: But in the primary sense, no, I think like the Minions,
Speaker 2: I wish that they were open to any gender identity.
Speaker 2: And I still think that that is possible because, first
Speaker 2: of all, like the Minions are out of Puerkofan's hands
Speaker 2: at this point. I don't mean to say that his
Speaker 2: anymore than I feel like JK. Rowling is an easy
Speaker 2: comp there of like that the creator's opinion, Like you
Speaker 2: do not need to live and die by it. It's like,
Speaker 2: if it's important to you, interpret it as you will.
Speaker 2: But I just wanted to give more context for his
Speaker 2: stuff because I feel like he's been presented as sort
Speaker 2: of someone who is like, no, they're men, and like
Speaker 2: I just don't it doesn't seem to be true. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but that's all I have to say about the minions
Speaker 2: other than Kevin is the best one.
Speaker 3: Well, but then consider Bob.
Speaker 2: And then I say Bob, and I'm kind of like,
Speaker 2: grow up. I'm kind of like.
Speaker 3: We'll see Kevin just like doesn't really know how to
Speaker 3: have fun. Stuart knows how to have fun. Bob knows
Speaker 3: how to have fun. Kevin sort of like the straight man.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but like, how are we gonna get anything
Speaker 2: done if Kevin isn't showing up to work. Kevin is
Speaker 2: not pursuing fire hydrants or feral rats, He's at work. Okay.
Speaker 3: If I had to determine which minion I was, I
Speaker 3: think it would be Kevin because I often am like,
Speaker 3: all right, let's get shit done.
Speaker 2: But I don't think I would be Kevin, but I
Speaker 2: like I'm drawn to Kevin. I don't even know who
Speaker 2: I would be of the three. I have no idea.
Speaker 3: Maybe you are Bob and so it's an interesting flip,
Speaker 3: and that's why you and I are drawn to each other.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's beautiful. I wish I had I liked that,
Speaker 2: Like Bob has kind of like Kate Bosworth eyes.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, what's that called when your eyes are two
Speaker 3: different colors?
Speaker 2: I forget, I forget what it's called, but I think
Speaker 2: it is like both just like a very sweet feature
Speaker 2: on that character, and also makes sense when you really
Speaker 2: need people to be able to tell minions apart because
Speaker 2: they looks so similar.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Anyway, I think that who we are and who
Speaker 3: we are drawn to can be very different characters. That's beautiful.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about Scarlet Overkill.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: So when she is first spoken about, before we even
Speaker 3: meet her on screen, there's like a news broadcast about
Speaker 3: villain con saying there's a new bad man in town
Speaker 3: and that man is a woman.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel like that was like a tongue in
Speaker 2: cheek nineteen sixty eight thing.
Speaker 3: Oh for sure, yeah, yeah, and then she's announced at
Speaker 3: Villain Con as being the world's first female supervillain. So
Speaker 3: the Minion world, the world that this movie takes place within,
Speaker 3: is presum be a patriarchal place like ours.
Speaker 2: It doesn't seem to be like alternate timeline. It just
Speaker 2: seems like we as people have neglected to see the
Speaker 2: influence the Manias have had on our world.
Speaker 3: Right, So she's rising to fame and notoriety in this
Speaker 3: patriarchal world where villains have historically been men, and she's like, no,
Speaker 3: I'm going to break the glass ceiling, the villain glass ceiling,
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna be first. That's right, the first super
Speaker 3: villain who's a woman. And she's like the favorite among everyone.
Speaker 3: Everyone wants to work for her. The minions want to
Speaker 3: work for her. We have that scene with the little
Speaker 3: girl who's like you know in the bank robber family.
Speaker 3: She's in the car and she's telling one of the
Speaker 3: minions that she really looks up to Scarlet.
Speaker 2: What are the more impact full women in the plot line,
Speaker 2: I would say, is this little girl?
Speaker 3: Yeah, because she's like, wow, I want to be a supervillain.
Speaker 3: Here's this super villain who's a woman who I can
Speaker 3: look up to and be inspired by, and that's why
Speaker 3: representation matters. But then we have this presentation from Scarlett
Speaker 3: who says, like, when I first started, people said I
Speaker 3: could never rob a bank as well as a man.
Speaker 3: Well times change, So she faced sexist backlash when she
Speaker 3: was you know, I guess a young woman trying to
Speaker 3: be a villain and a bunch of men told her
Speaker 3: she couldn't do it. Maybe women also told her she
Speaker 3: couldn't do it.
Speaker 2: Right, which is very like in line with the like
Speaker 2: Girl Boss narrative of like other people doubted my ability
Speaker 2: to do the same evil thing, and like it feels
Speaker 2: like intentional enough where I mean, I don't know, because
Speaker 2: I know that we weren't quite having that conversation now
Speaker 2: where it was like twenty fifteen. Any woman in power
Speaker 2: is a force of good, yeah, and so maybe it's
Speaker 2: just like that era. But she's also being coded as
Speaker 2: a villain. I wish we had her resume. I know
Speaker 2: that it would be harmful to have her resume, but
Speaker 2: I would just be curious.
Speaker 3: It seems like she's just stealing stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she seems kind of like a petty criminal and
Speaker 2: I'm like, meanwhile, there's Queen Elizabeth, like, you know, who
Speaker 2: ends up being a hero of this story because this
Speaker 2: movie has to play in every single theater in the world,
Speaker 2: and you can't actually say anything overtly political.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, so she is the villain of the movie.
Speaker 3: She did face adversity, becoming the most powerful villain villain con.
Speaker 2: At least, so did Sheryl Sandberg's it pushing like, she
Speaker 2: is good.
Speaker 3: At fighting, so you know, we see her fight off
Speaker 3: a bunch of men and so that was impressive. We
Speaker 3: also have see Queen Elizabeth kick some people's.
Speaker 2: Ass, but I feel like that is actually maybe actively harmful.
Speaker 2: Is like showing at that time a living colonizer to
Speaker 2: be like a fun, no nonsense girl.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: It's just like, yeah, that's one of the most notorious
Speaker 2: colonists that's alive. Like, I wish Bob had killed her.
Speaker 3: I tell me about it. You should have taken that
Speaker 3: sword and chopped her head off.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that scene where she's in the pub after
Speaker 3: she has been dethroned and she's like telling stories and
Speaker 3: drinking pints of beer and stuff like that. I was
Speaker 3: getting very rose from Titanic vibes or she like gulps
Speaker 3: down some beer and I almost expected her to be like,
Speaker 3: what you think a first class girl can't drink?
Speaker 2: I mean I think that like devoid of any historical context.
Speaker 2: That was like kind of a funny beat.
Speaker 3: H Yeah. The other thing I guess with Scarlet's character
Speaker 3: for me is that And we've had this conver station
Speaker 3: over and over again at this point. But in animation,
Speaker 3: men are often designed to be whatever body shape and size,
Speaker 3: but women, or at least the main characters who have
Speaker 3: narrative significance in a movie who are women, often have
Speaker 3: very you know, Western beauty standards bodies. Yeah, there's even
Speaker 3: this like random scene in the movie where herb is
Speaker 3: tightening her corset and she's like, must have tiny waist,
Speaker 3: And I'm like, why is this scene in the movie.
Speaker 3: It has nothing to do with anything, Yeah, but it
Speaker 3: just feels like it's emphasizing the fact that she has
Speaker 3: like a very.
Speaker 2: Small waist, which is true. Like if I were them,
Speaker 2: I would not be pointing out how very much you're
Speaker 2: leading it, because I mean the whole franchise is guilty
Speaker 2: of that, including like the design of the christed Wig character.
Speaker 2: I feel like the most purport like the children are
Speaker 2: a little more proportionally normal. But there are characters that
Speaker 2: are not wildly thin in terms of like women in
Speaker 2: this franchise, But there are never characters that are presented
Speaker 2: as desirable or meaningful in terms of adult women that
Speaker 2: are presented as narratively important. It's very all the same.
Speaker 2: And that's also true in Rise of Grow, where the
Speaker 2: most important supervillain is still very very thin.
Speaker 3: Yes, I will say that Rise of grou has a
Speaker 3: little bit more racial diversity than the first Minions movie
Speaker 3: because it's almost all white characters, at least the human characters. Yeah,
Speaker 3: in the movie. And I feel like that's pretty true
Speaker 3: of the Despicable Me movies as well. So yeah, a
Speaker 3: lot of like harmful tropes of animation present in this movie.
Speaker 3: There's the i would say, queer coded stylist character who
Speaker 3: gives Scarlet like a makeover right before she's about to
Speaker 3: be crowned the queen. So we have that trophy character.
Speaker 3: His name is Fabrice, not unlike Fabricio. Yes, So just
Speaker 3: pointing that out something to think about, something to make
Speaker 3: you think. I don't know if I have much else
Speaker 3: to say.
Speaker 2: The only other thing I would say about Scarlett Overkill
Speaker 2: that I would say is positive is that I think
Speaker 2: it is generally good to have a woman villain, and like,
Speaker 2: in keeping with the like I think I'm doing a
Speaker 2: good thing, but I'm actually out of touch vibe that
Speaker 2: Pierre Coffin had when he was like, no, the minions
Speaker 2: are men, because I don't think women would be so
Speaker 2: not smart, you know, Like I'm glad that there is
Speaker 2: a woman villain and that that woman villain has a
Speaker 2: loving partner that she also loves. I feel like that
Speaker 2: is very rare and that you are often encouraged to
Speaker 2: see when you do get a woman villain. That part
Speaker 2: of why she is a villain is because she has
Speaker 2: a loveless life and that she resents the world and
Speaker 2: like she's getting back at the world because she doesn't
Speaker 2: have a boyfriend, and like this movie does pretty clearly
Speaker 2: subvert that. I honestly, the first time I saw this movie,
Speaker 2: I remember thinking that like herb was gonna end up
Speaker 2: being evil and like resent her and want to get
Speaker 2: But that relationship is presented kind of matter of factly,
Speaker 2: like where she's the dominant person in this relationship.
Speaker 3: He's her minion kind of yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, even though she's a piece of shit to
Speaker 2: everyone else, including Kevin, it is kind of rare to
Speaker 2: see a woman villain who has like who has a
Speaker 2: loving relationship like that is not the source of the villainy.
Speaker 2: And you know, it is kind of like lazy to
Speaker 2: be like, oh, it's some YadA YadA childhood something, but
Speaker 2: I genuinely prefer that to like, I don't have a boyfriend,
Speaker 2: so I'm going to be the Queen of Angelt or whatever,
Speaker 2: because I feel like that it's like a common fallback on,
Speaker 2: like a woman scorned. So I just wanted to point
Speaker 2: that out. I don't think herb is a great character.
Speaker 2: I like, I totally agree that like the celebrity stunt casting,
Speaker 2: I can take care to leave it. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's like an active hindrance to enjoying the movie.
Speaker 1: Hmm.
Speaker 2: But I do like that at least they didn't fall
Speaker 2: back on so many women villains that it's like always
Speaker 2: exciting to get one, and then I feel like occasionally
Speaker 2: or often it's like it's because this guy didn't love me, like,
Speaker 2: and that's not the case here, right, So that's nice.
Speaker 3: What is the case now that I'm thinking about it,
Speaker 3: and maybe I'm overthinking it, but she makes a reference
Speaker 3: to how when she was younger, she was penniless and
Speaker 3: maybe implies that no one likes her because of that,
Speaker 3: and that's why she's so hell bent on like being
Speaker 3: a princess and having a crown and being royal. So
Speaker 3: there's like a class element to it, which kind of
Speaker 3: implies that, like, which.
Speaker 2: At least seems more I don't know. I mean, no
Speaker 2: matter what the reason is, the movie is not implying
Speaker 2: that she's right to think it, right, but at least
Speaker 2: that's something that like, I haven't seen as much of,
Speaker 2: Like it's rooted in her own class anxiety and feeling
Speaker 2: of rejection on the basis of class. Which there's plenty
Speaker 2: of villains you could put in that category two and
Speaker 2: they all suck because they're villains. But like a woman
Speaker 2: villain whose like root issue is class anxiety, it feels
Speaker 2: a little less usual.
Speaker 3: Yeah, interesting, villain avoids some tropes.
Speaker 2: I think she's like a better villain than we have
Speaker 2: too many villains in the second Minions movie, The Whole Crew, Yeah,
Speaker 2: which I know is the point, but I mean, I
Speaker 2: like Scarlett overkill and I also like, don't miss her
Speaker 2: when she's trapped in ice or whatever. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: know that she is sort of the groove stand in
Speaker 2: for this movie because they need a person around for
Speaker 2: it to work. Yeah, and she's fine, she's fine. They
Speaker 2: certainly could have done much worse. And the fact that
Speaker 2: they went with a woman in the first place, I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm probably over rewarding them. But like in a kid's
Speaker 2: movie with a villain, I mean, what Disney movie that
Speaker 2: was formative for us? Could you say that for It's
Speaker 2: weirdly like older movies like Witches and blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: Like Ursula. Yeah, that's true, there's some but as we've
Speaker 3: pointed out on the podcast before, there's a trend of
Speaker 3: if the protagonist is a woman, that's the only condition
Speaker 3: where the villain would also be a woman, as if
Speaker 3: to say, sure, a woman could not be a formidable
Speaker 3: opponent if the protagonist was a man.
Speaker 2: So not true here, not because we've been aggressively told
Speaker 2: they're all men. Yeah. So, and the fact that the
Speaker 2: Medians they genuinely do just want the most evil boss.
Speaker 2: They're not concerned about the gender of the boss. They
Speaker 2: were like, oh, Scarlett over kills the best evil person
Speaker 2: great like you know which I don't know. These movies
Speaker 2: are not meant to shape your mind in any way,
Speaker 2: shape or form like whatever. I don't think it passes
Speaker 2: the Bechdel test, and I'm giving it five nipples.
Speaker 3: The closest thing I could come to it possibly passing because.
Speaker 2: In the car.
Speaker 3: It's in the car. Tina is the little girl in
Speaker 3: the robber family. She says, after the bank robbery, I
Speaker 3: tripped the alarm. I stink. Her dad says, you're still learning.
Speaker 3: Her mom chimes in and says, your father's right, Tina,
Speaker 3: he wasn't this good at being evil overnight? Your time
Speaker 3: is coming. Tina doesn't respond. So at no point are women,
Speaker 3: you know, characters who are women, are girls actually meaningfully interacting?
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna say a.
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, I would say no. It doesn't pass the
Speaker 2: Baxxel test. It doesn't meaningfully move the needle I think
Speaker 2: in any direction, like I don't think this is pushing
Speaker 2: forwards or backwards. I'm giving it five nipples. I'm going
Speaker 2: first today. I've decided, Oh no, that's fine. I'm giving
Speaker 2: it five nipples because I like it and it's fun.
Speaker 2: To Me, and I'm giving one to Bob, giving one
Speaker 2: to Stewart, I'm giving one to Kevin, I'm giving one
Speaker 2: to Scarlet overkill It, and I'm giving one to Poucci.
Speaker 2: And That's what I'm doing. I love them and I
Speaker 2: can't wait to see Despicable before. Oh wait, the last
Speaker 2: thing I wanted to say was that I really like
Speaker 2: the Minions movies compared to the Despicable movies, because the
Speaker 2: Despicable Me movies do something that I feel like a
Speaker 2: lot of kids' movies do that. It's whatever the Despicable
Speaker 2: of Me movies are predicated on grew adopting three children. Yes, fine,
Speaker 2: adoption is a very complicated conversation. But I feel like
Speaker 2: the Despicable Me movies have like a more traditional agenda
Speaker 2: of like reinforcing nuclear family values, because as the movies
Speaker 2: go on, at first it's like he's a single father
Speaker 2: with three adopted daughters and they're very happy. But then
Speaker 2: as the movies go on, it's like, but he needs
Speaker 2: a wife. And Despicable of Me two and like I,
Speaker 2: Despicable Me three can't speak to it. Haven't seen It'spicable
Speaker 2: of Me four. He and Kristin wigwife have a baby,
Speaker 2: and it's just like building out. That's the premise of
Speaker 2: the fourth movies. Now there's evil baby.
Speaker 3: He already has a baby. It's Bob exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean it's like that. I really do feel like
Speaker 2: that side of the franchise grows increasingly entrenched in these
Speaker 2: very traditional family values, which is also not where it's
Speaker 2: coming from. It comes from a like less traditional family. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it grows increasingly traditional as the movies go on
Speaker 2: in a way that just like doesn't feel whatever. A
Speaker 2: family is a family, but it just feels like a
Speaker 2: little like growing increasingly conservative in its values, whereas the
Speaker 2: Minions movies are minions, bonking minions on the head, which
Speaker 2: is literally all anyone wants anyways, So Minius movies are superior.
Speaker 2: Minions three comes out on July fourth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: See there, whoa yeah, God bless America. Just kidding. Well, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'll be there, I'll see it.
Speaker 2: I was like, anyways, we'll be there. What is your
Speaker 2: nipple scale rating for Minions?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, Since I don't feel any need to
Speaker 3: take the nipple scale seriously on this episode, because we
Speaker 3: normally take it so seriously.
Speaker 2: This is silly one.
Speaker 3: This is the most important metric of all time. So
Speaker 3: we normally, you know, take careful consideration, but this time
Speaker 3: I'll give it. Why not. I'll also give it five nipples. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I'm giving them to Bob and I'm giving them
Speaker 3: to his little teddy bear, Tim.
Speaker 2: Oh, I forgot about Tim. Bob is a sweetie. I
Speaker 2: just love them all. And also the Despicable b movies
Speaker 2: feature like B side minions, like they for some reason
Speaker 2: don't prominently feature the minions that we know and love,
Speaker 2: like they're like mel Chris, who I don't know them?
Speaker 2: Where's Kevin?
Speaker 3: Where's Kevin? Or Stewart Wor's Bob? And then in minions too,
Speaker 3: Auto and I love Auto, Auto.
Speaker 2: Rocks Auto has a pet rock. Oh that's right, I
Speaker 2: love Auto. Yeah, and he has braces. I like, they're like,
Speaker 2: how do we differentiate this minion? He has braces? Who
Speaker 2: gave him the braces? Don't worry about it? What does
Speaker 2: he get them off? Probably never?
Speaker 3: Never? Yeah, it'll be so many years because they're immortal.
Speaker 2: They're like Tuck ever lad they're the Collins, like they
Speaker 2: just do not die. And I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, listeners that has been our Minions episode. Thanks
Speaker 3: for tuning in. Thank you so much. I'm in a
Speaker 3: great mood. We I guess have to cover the other
Speaker 3: movies that have Minions in them. I feel like a
Speaker 3: precedent has been set.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you enjoyed this episode, please let us know.
Speaker 2: Like we've covered just yes, well, this is a great transition.
Speaker 2: Other ways to get other episodes from us is to
Speaker 2: go to our Patreon aka Matreon, where every month, for
Speaker 2: five dollars a month, we cover two new movies, just
Speaker 2: Kaitlin and myself for five dollars a month. And by
Speaker 2: signing up, you also get access to a back catalog
Speaker 2: of over one hundred and fifty episodes. And yes, one
Speaker 2: of those episodes is about Despicable Me one. If you
Speaker 2: want to hear more, please let us know because we
Speaker 2: want to.
Speaker 3: Yes, we do. I have to talk about Bob as
Speaker 3: much as possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then you can also follow us on social media,
Speaker 3: mostly Instagram. At this point at Bechdel Cast, you can
Speaker 3: go to our merch store at teapublic dot com slash
Speaker 3: the Bechdel Cast. I feel like we need some Minions merch, Jamie,
Speaker 3: not to put you on the spot.
Speaker 2: But I'll get right on it. I'll get right on that.
Speaker 2: We have Baby Grinch, like, come.
Speaker 3: On, come on, we have that and not minions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what the heck? I know it's on me.
Speaker 3: So thanks for listening, and poopie poopye. The Bechdel Cast
Speaker 3: is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and
Speaker 3: Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board.
Speaker 3: Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals
Speaker 3: by Catherine Volskrosenski. Logo in merch is designed by Jamie
Speaker 3: Loftus and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more
Speaker 3: information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash Bechtelcast