WEBVTT - Spoiled Saturday: Obsession 0:00:05.340 --> 0:00:05.939 And this is Anne. 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:07.060 Anne Samantha. 0:00:07.700 --> 0:00:09.180 And welcome to Stuff I Never Told You, a production 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:23.030 of iHeartRadio. And welcome to another edition of Spoiled Saturdays. 0:00:23.470 --> 0:00:29.270 Happy birthday to me. I'm so excited because this was 0:00:29.310 --> 0:00:33.530 a birthday present episode for me. We were talking about... 0:00:33.780 --> 0:00:38.240 the movie Obsession, which I adore and have been talking 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:42.790 about on the show for a little bit. And was 0:00:42.810 --> 0:00:47.030 a pretty big hit. It was very popular. Did very well. 0:00:47.630 --> 0:00:52.010 And the actress who plays Nikki in the movie, Indy Navarati, 0:00:52.770 --> 0:00:56.000 she's going to play Rogue in X-Men. That's how popular 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:56.700 we're talking. 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:58.400 People are excited. 0:00:59.140 --> 0:01:03.080 Yeah, people are excited. So I was very happy to hear. 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.820 We got kind of cut off, Samantha. But I was 0:01:05.900 --> 0:01:09.819 worried you would be angry with me. But it sounds 0:01:09.900 --> 0:01:13.770 like you're not so angry with me for suggesting this. No, no. 0:01:14.420 --> 0:01:17.690 I was a little worried, but with the spoiler, I 0:01:17.890 --> 0:01:20.730 will say, like, it wasn't as intense. And also, it 0:01:20.750 --> 0:01:24.010 looked very... much like a stuffed animal. So it made 0:01:24.050 --> 0:01:25.429 it a little better. 0:01:25.450 --> 0:01:28.090 It being a cat. Yeah. 0:01:28.150 --> 0:01:31.450 So I was trying not to get ahead on this 0:01:31.630 --> 0:01:33.930 one for you, but like, yeah, so because I was 0:01:33.950 --> 0:01:37.580 a worry, but yeah, that was some like, uh, parts, 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:41.680 but I was able to disassociate enough because I was like, what? 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.780 There's a lot to this. I was like, what just happened? 0:01:45.180 --> 0:01:46.339 I think that's a fair assessment. 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.600 I will say the worst part was like the cringe moments, like, 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:51.380 oh no, like during the party. 0:01:51.970 --> 0:01:54.150 I meant to warn you about that because I know 0:01:54.170 --> 0:01:56.510 how you feel about secondhand embarrassment. 0:01:57.850 --> 0:01:59.770 I did fast forward a little bit through some parts 0:01:59.810 --> 0:02:01.170 of that because I was like, I can't. 0:02:01.790 --> 0:02:04.830 Oh, that part's so good. I mean, not all of it. 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:09.720 Like, I've got the gist. Don't you worry. I got 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:10.180 the gist. 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:15.200 Yeah. No, that's... Before we got kind of cut off, 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:17.520 because we were about to record with Eves and we 0:02:17.540 --> 0:02:19.060 were talking about it and Eves came on, so we 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:19.540 stopped talking. 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:19.660 Yeah. 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:23.000 I was going to bring up the secondhand embarrassment, but 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.880 at that point it was too late. So what good 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:28.620 have I done? 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:30.780 Because I think I'd already watched it by that point. 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:32.419 I was ready. I was like. 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.980 But I did think about that with you. It's got 0:02:37.020 --> 0:02:38.959 a lot of those elements in it. It does. 0:02:39.419 --> 0:02:40.400 Because it's supposed to. 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:41.100 Yes. 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.239 But it was like, oh no, cringe. 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:46.260 Yes. 0:02:47.419 --> 0:02:47.639 So. 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.720 I have talked about this movie before on a happy 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:55.060 hour and I'm going to revisit what I talked about 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:57.780 in that happy hour in this episode because it's kind 0:02:57.820 --> 0:03:01.130 of changed since that came out, which actually I'm, I'm 0:03:01.169 --> 0:03:03.089 just going to say as we're recording this, because we're 0:03:03.110 --> 0:03:06.769 trying to get ahead, we're recording this kind of early. 0:03:06.830 --> 0:03:12.209 So it's, uh, August 21st, 2026 in case some big 0:03:12.630 --> 0:03:16.000 new conversation starter happens with this, which is totally possible 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:21.070 that it will. Um, I saw this in theaters twice. 0:03:23.169 --> 0:03:27.570 And one of the things that kind of touches on 0:03:27.630 --> 0:03:37.590 that cringe, embarrassment element is that people were so unsure about, like, 0:03:37.610 --> 0:03:41.540 I'm so uncomfortable with what's happening here. Like, should I 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.160 be laughing? Is this scary? I don't know. Like, in 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:45.640 the audience. 0:03:48.910 --> 0:03:56.460 The atmosphere was palpable. And I will be discussing how 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:02.900 I personally think that they vindicated my viewpoint on this movie. 0:04:03.540 --> 0:04:11.460 But it's a visceral reaction that I experienced when I 0:04:11.500 --> 0:04:15.920 saw it in theaters. People were really reacting to it. 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.580 That being said, I've got to put it in here. 0:04:20.290 --> 0:04:27.010 Fan fiction. I don't read obsession fan fiction, but obsession 0:04:27.029 --> 0:04:32.430 has made its way into fan fiction I do read 0:04:33.190 --> 0:04:35.430 because it was so popular. And so now like every 0:04:35.470 --> 0:04:40.200 couple you can imagine, there's a obsession fan fiction with 0:04:40.339 --> 0:04:44.730 that couple. I do have one I like. 0:04:44.750 --> 0:04:45.980 That seems concerning. 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.580 Oh, I have one I like, and it's really good 0:04:49.660 --> 0:04:53.000 because they're very clear this is a horrible thing. This 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:58.250 is not meant to be romanticized. So it's horrific. It's like... It's... 0:05:03.529 --> 0:05:06.589 Just something I have to prepare myself for, which is 0:05:06.670 --> 0:05:08.890 amazing how many fan fictions I have now that I 0:05:08.930 --> 0:05:12.730 have to prepare myself before I read it. But it 0:05:12.810 --> 0:05:17.010 is great. It's a great one. But I'm just surprised 0:05:17.570 --> 0:05:22.000 a little bit at how much I've seen Obsession kind 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:26.360 of filter into other fandoms. Another thing, this is just 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.060 a random aside. I've noticed this in a couple of movies, 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:31.599 but Obsession has at the end, it can't be used 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:35.100 to train A.I. I don't know if that legally means anything. 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:37.540 I was going to say, does that really hold up? 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:40.520 I mean, it seems like it should because it's in 0:05:40.660 --> 0:05:46.260 kind of all the copyright section. But I have no idea. 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:50.469 I just noticed it when I was watching on my recent. 0:05:50.510 --> 0:05:54.150 Can we say that? To be fair, our company says 0:05:54.210 --> 0:05:57.310 guaranteed humans. So I hope they have something that says 0:05:57.370 --> 0:06:00.950 that they can't use our content for AI. Hey, stop 0:06:01.010 --> 0:06:03.710 using us for AI. Yeah. Is that enough? 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:14.000 We're guaranteed human. Definitely. No questions about it. Exactly. So 0:06:14.060 --> 0:06:17.780 I'm also really excited about this because I got my 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:19.880 hair cut today and the person who cuts my hair, 0:06:20.580 --> 0:06:23.860 she loves horror movies. And we just talked about this 0:06:23.900 --> 0:06:27.810 movie like the whole time. It was fantastic. 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:29.870 And so y'all are on the same page? Yes. You 0:06:29.900 --> 0:06:31.590 haven't met anybody that disagrees yet? 0:06:33.330 --> 0:06:40.510 No. I've met some people who, like, are a little, like, 0:06:40.550 --> 0:06:46.750 not complete agreement, but nobody, I would say, essentially disagrees. Yes. No, 0:06:46.790 --> 0:06:49.630 she was definitely on my page. And she was even 0:06:49.690 --> 0:06:52.440 pointing me to, you should listen to this. You should 0:06:52.460 --> 0:06:55.560 go watch this video. This will break it down for you. 0:06:55.580 --> 0:06:55.640 Oh. 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:57.960 I was like, oh, my gosh. Thank you. 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:00.040 Are you one of those, too? Because my partner, if 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:02.960 they see a movie they really like, or at least, like, 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.760 have questions about, the first thing they have is YouTubes 0:07:06.300 --> 0:07:08.200 that have breakdowns. Do you do this too? 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:11.600 I don't normally do it, but for this movie, I did. 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.120 I watched a lot of video essays. I even watched 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:19.380 a really, really fun one that was about the legal 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:25.000 arguments every character has about the crimes committed. I loved it. 0:07:25.380 --> 0:07:26.720 I'm going to be talking about it a little bit 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:30.760 more later. Normally, I don't do it, but just so 0:07:30.790 --> 0:07:33.340 many people... After this movie came out, there was a 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.800 lot of conversation about it, and there were a lot 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:39.800 of really great videos that were made that I thought, 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:42.860 I want to check that out. I want to see 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:44.580 what that's about. Okay. 0:07:45.140 --> 0:07:45.460 Yes. 0:07:47.050 --> 0:07:51.830 So, I mean, just to reiterate, hopefully, obviously, spoilers, the 0:07:52.010 --> 0:07:57.350 whole thing, spoiled. Content warning, we're going to be talking 0:07:57.370 --> 0:08:03.420 about violence, sexual assault, death, and suicide. And some of 0:08:03.460 --> 0:08:05.680 this is kind of tricky to talk about because of 0:08:05.740 --> 0:08:10.140 the nature of the story. Some people refer to Nikki 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:14.690 and not Nikki to differentiate. I'm going to stick with Nikki, 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:20.870 but know that after Bear makes the wish, it's mostly 0:08:20.930 --> 0:08:25.410 not Nikki who is controlling Nikki's body and actions. And 0:08:25.430 --> 0:08:28.770 the real Nikki is forced to experience it and occasionally 0:08:28.830 --> 0:08:32.250 breaks free of it. Also, you're going to get my 0:08:32.309 --> 0:08:39.010 Bear is the Villain manifesto. Don't you worry. Maybe not 0:08:39.050 --> 0:08:42.979 a perfect, simple villain, but he is the villain. People 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:47.180 in the theater were rooting for this man's death. There 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:51.860 is also discussion about suicide that is a little bit messy. 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.080 In some of the videos I was watching, I was like, oof, 0:08:54.820 --> 0:08:59.420 that is tricky to talk about. But all right, here 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:12.910 we go with the plot. Obsession is a 2025 horror 0:09:12.929 --> 0:09:17.190 movie directed, edited, and written by Curry Barker. And I 0:09:17.230 --> 0:09:21.230 realized doing this, he did Milk and Cereal, which is 0:09:21.390 --> 0:09:24.530 a horror movie. It's available on YouTube for free. I 0:09:24.590 --> 0:09:28.030 believe it's still available. It's like an hour long. It's 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:34.440 a very unique take on found footage. And I think 0:09:34.980 --> 0:09:39.140 this is where I thought I'd already seen Obsession years ago. 0:09:40.059 --> 0:09:43.860 And I'm pretty sure that I got something mixed up, 0:09:44.220 --> 0:09:47.140 but I definitely saw milk and cereal. And when I 0:09:47.179 --> 0:09:51.470 was reading that he was the person behind it, I thought, okay, 0:09:53.370 --> 0:09:58.309 something is sliding into place for me. The movie stars 0:09:58.809 --> 0:10:02.920 Michael Johnston as Bear and Indy Navarrete as Nikki. It 0:10:02.980 --> 0:10:08.250 features Megan Lawless, Cooper Tomlinson, and Andy Richter. Yeah, it 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:12.070 was a huge critical and commercial success. It beat out 0:10:12.150 --> 0:10:16.429 a lot of blockbusters for weeks. It is one of 0:10:16.470 --> 0:10:20.620 the highest grossing horror movies of all time. Barker was 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:24.000 a YouTube sketch artist. Along with Tomlinson, he was also 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.020 in Milk and Cereal, Barker was approached by a producer 0:10:27.100 --> 0:10:31.970 to make a movie. And Barker pitched an idea based 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.210 on a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode, and that's what 0:10:35.250 --> 0:10:41.290 became Obsession. The plot follows Baron Bear Bailey, a young 0:10:41.330 --> 0:10:44.929 man with romantic feelings for his friend Nikki Freeman, who 0:10:44.970 --> 0:10:47.550 he works with at a music store with their friends 0:10:47.750 --> 0:10:51.770 Ian and Sarah. He seems like he's really shy, and 0:10:51.830 --> 0:10:55.230 in the beginning, he is practicing confessing his feelings for her. 0:10:56.050 --> 0:10:58.860 It doesn't go well, at least according to his friend, Ian. 0:10:59.540 --> 0:11:02.679 Bear returns to his apartment to find his cat, Sandy, 0:11:02.740 --> 0:11:05.920 has died after getting into some pills Bear has left out. 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:10.420 We are going to talk about that more. Don't you worry. 0:11:11.540 --> 0:11:15.490 Nikki calls and convinces Bear to come out to trivia 0:11:15.750 --> 0:11:19.860 after informing him she's quitting at the music shop. So 0:11:19.900 --> 0:11:23.800 she's put in her two weeks. So now Bear thinks 0:11:23.820 --> 0:11:26.780 he has a time crunch to tell her his feelings. 0:11:27.140 --> 0:11:31.679 So he agrees and heads out to a store to 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.520 replace a crystal necklace that Nikki lost. So it's kind 0:11:34.540 --> 0:11:40.090 of a new agey store. Instead, he ultimately opts for 0:11:40.130 --> 0:11:43.429 a novelty item called the One Wish Willow, a stick 0:11:43.510 --> 0:11:46.450 that when broken is guaranteed to grant you one wish. 0:11:46.530 --> 0:11:51.020 And you only get one wish. No more. The cashier 0:11:51.380 --> 0:11:54.000 is very ominous about the whole thing and tells him 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:59.480 not to come in complaining. At trivia, Bear attempts multiple 0:11:59.500 --> 0:12:02.610 times to start a conversation with Nikki, but is interrupted. 0:12:03.250 --> 0:12:05.970 He offers to drive her home when she says she 0:12:06.030 --> 0:12:10.770 just wants to sleep. On the way, on the drive, 0:12:10.929 --> 0:12:14.110 Nikki implies that maybe Sarah has feelings for Bear, but 0:12:14.210 --> 0:12:17.980 Bear ignores this and fumbles multiple times to make his 0:12:18.059 --> 0:12:21.550 feelings for Nikki known. After they arrive at her home, 0:12:22.050 --> 0:12:25.270 she asks him bluntly if he has feelings for her, 0:12:25.850 --> 0:12:30.340 and he lies and says no. Once she's inside, he 0:12:30.390 --> 0:12:33.840 breaks the one-wish willow and says, I wish Nikki Freeman 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:35.940 loved me more than anything in the f * * * 0:12:35.540 --> 0:12:41.319 ing world. Suddenly, Nikki reappears, and it's a great creepy shot, 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:46.070 I love it, and seems confused about the death of 0:12:46.110 --> 0:12:51.100 the cat, saying it's her cat. but then convinces Bear 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:53.780 to take her back to his place after she says 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.979 her father is dying of cancer. He agrees, and eventually 0:12:58.020 --> 0:13:02.520 they start kissing until she abruptly snaps out of it 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.580 and falls off the bed looking confused and horrified. He 0:13:06.660 --> 0:13:10.339 reacts extremely defensively, and she assures him it was just 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:15.440 a panic attack. The next day, Bear finds out that 0:13:15.580 --> 0:13:20.430 Nikki has made him a shrine of Sandy's remains. thinking 0:13:20.470 --> 0:13:24.840 that he would like it. Yeah. Bear talks to their 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:29.620 friend Ian, who suspects that drugs are involved. And this 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.720 is all happening, and she's like creepily staring at Bear, 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:38.219 by the way. There's a montage of them seemingly happily dating, 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.880 very domestic, but their friends are growing more and more concerned. 0:13:42.580 --> 0:13:45.740 Ian reveals that Sarah told him that Nikki sees Bear 0:13:46.020 --> 0:13:49.130 as a little brother, that that's what Nikki told Sarah, 0:13:49.190 --> 0:13:53.570 who told Ian, and that her father is healthy, no 0:13:53.630 --> 0:13:58.850 cancer to be had. When Bear confronts Nikki about this 0:13:59.030 --> 0:14:04.260 on their date, she is extremely volatile, asking, what does 0:14:04.340 --> 0:14:08.660 it matter if it's true or not? To which Bear says, 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.680 it doesn't matter to me. And then you cut to 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:19.390 Bear raping her. That night, Nikki behaves erratically, watching Bear sleep, screaming, 0:14:19.410 --> 0:14:23.850 hiding behind flowers that she claimed were for Sandy, shrieking 0:14:23.910 --> 0:14:27.050 at him to stay when he tried to move away 0:14:27.070 --> 0:14:30.859 on the bed. The next day, Bear asks her to 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:33.840 be normal and not do any more of that, and 0:14:33.940 --> 0:14:38.500 she agrees, sending him on his way with a packed lunch. However, 0:14:39.370 --> 0:14:44.000 he finds that she has duct-taped the door shut. He 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:49.800 eventually pulls it free and goes to work and is 0:14:49.860 --> 0:14:54.050 talking to Sarah about colleges after she received another rejection letter. 0:14:54.070 --> 0:14:57.350 And she has one more chance, which is her dream 0:14:57.410 --> 0:15:01.990 college of Luther. While eating his sandwich, he finds a 0:15:02.010 --> 0:15:06.000 picture of Nikki with the caption, not me, taken while 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.900 he was sleeping. And discovers that the meat inside is 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:15.900 that of dear old Sandy the cat. Yep. Bear calls 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:21.560 the One Wish Willow helpline. I love this. And talks 0:15:21.620 --> 0:15:25.020 to a really bored customer service person who tells him 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:29.360 he can't change the wish. Bear asks if the love 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.430 is real. And the guy is essentially like, sure, man. 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:37.820 So Bear asks to cancel it. but he learns that 0:15:37.860 --> 0:15:41.400 he cannot. Then the customer service guy plays what he 0:15:41.500 --> 0:15:46.160 claims are the sounds of Nikki screaming from wherever she is. 0:15:46.980 --> 0:15:49.460 He also informs Bear that the wish will end when 0:15:49.540 --> 0:15:54.380 he dies. When Bear returns to his apartment, he finds 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.280 that Nikki has stood in the same place all day, 0:15:57.780 --> 0:16:02.320 waiting for him, swirling herself, vomiting on herself. She acts 0:16:02.380 --> 0:16:05.500 very shy about the whole thing and goes to shower. 0:16:06.490 --> 0:16:09.770 Bear reveals that Ian invited him to a boys' night 0:16:10.190 --> 0:16:15.390 that Nikki specifically wasn't invited to. In response to this information, 0:16:15.410 --> 0:16:18.940 Nikki freaks out until he agrees for Nikki to tag 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.480 along to the party. This brings us to the party. 0:16:23.180 --> 0:16:23.580 Yes. 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.950 There, the partygoers are playing a game of Jenga where 0:16:28.070 --> 0:16:30.270 every block you pull has a message on it, like 0:16:30.310 --> 0:16:34.830 a dare. Nikki pulls one and reads a really creepy 0:16:34.870 --> 0:16:37.510 poem that she wrote that we'll talk about more later. 0:16:37.530 --> 0:16:42.010 And Bear pulls one that reads, kiss the person to 0:16:42.050 --> 0:16:46.450 your left, which happens to be Sarah. Before he can, Nikki, 0:16:46.590 --> 0:16:50.910 with the most intense frown I've ever seen, pulls Sarah's 0:16:50.990 --> 0:16:55.090 chair out and kisses him instead. It's extremely awkward. It's 0:16:55.350 --> 0:17:00.770 so awkward. Even more so when Nikki suddenly screams... it's 0:17:00.830 --> 0:17:04.350 not me, and starts bashing her face in with a bottle. 0:17:04.990 --> 0:17:10.430 Broken bottle. Yeah, she breaks it and then starts. Yeah. Yep. 0:17:11.010 --> 0:17:15.320 After way too much pressure, Bear takes her to the hospital, 0:17:16.210 --> 0:17:20.020 but they are dismissed due to her refusal of treatment. 0:17:22.100 --> 0:17:25.379 Back at the apartment, Bear implores Nikki to just be normal, 0:17:25.500 --> 0:17:29.020 to just be Nikki, and she sobs that she can't be. 0:17:29.820 --> 0:17:34.970 She threatens to kill herself to keep him in the apartment. 0:17:36.450 --> 0:17:40.330 Later that night, Bear gets a message from Sarah requesting 0:17:40.369 --> 0:17:43.370 that they meet. He slips away from Nikki in bed, 0:17:43.970 --> 0:17:47.210 only for her to stop him with a plea to 0:17:47.290 --> 0:17:51.379 kill her. She says, this is really me and not 0:17:51.430 --> 0:17:54.460 the being that's been controlling her that she calls she. 0:17:55.540 --> 0:17:58.580 Nikki begs Bear to kill her before she wakes up. 0:18:00.340 --> 0:18:04.280 But he gets angry and says, what would be so 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:07.639 bad with being with me? And leaves her there crying. 0:18:09.380 --> 0:18:13.630 He meets Sarah in her car in the park, where 0:18:13.650 --> 0:18:16.190 she tells him that Ian and Nikki have been casually 0:18:16.230 --> 0:18:19.770 hooking up for a long time. They are about to 0:18:19.950 --> 0:18:24.270 open her last college letter together when Bear asks her 0:18:24.780 --> 0:18:28.820 if she likes him. And Sarah says, I was to 0:18:28.859 --> 0:18:32.110 your left. referencing the kiss she should have gotten earlier. 0:18:32.869 --> 0:18:36.600 But before anything can happen, Nikki arrives and smashes Sarah's 0:18:36.650 --> 0:18:41.680 skull in repeatedly on a brick. She promises to get 0:18:41.780 --> 0:18:46.340 rid of the evidence, but Bear helps her. Later, Bear 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.960 opens Sarah's college letter to see that she did get accepted. 0:18:51.780 --> 0:18:55.800 Bear returns to where he purchased the one-wish willow to 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:59.720 find another one in hopes of having someone counteract his wish. 0:19:00.380 --> 0:19:03.699 He is able to purchase two and learns that the 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:08.959 cashier was perfectly satisfied with his wish. Bear goes to 0:19:09.140 --> 0:19:11.240 Ian and tries to explain the whole thing, but Ian 0:19:11.260 --> 0:19:16.570 doesn't believe him. And he snaps the one-wish willow, and 0:19:16.609 --> 0:19:19.790 he asks for a billion dollars, and then money starts 0:19:19.850 --> 0:19:23.679 to rain down upon them. I love that scene. 0:19:23.700 --> 0:19:25.500 That's where I thought he was going to get killed 0:19:25.540 --> 0:19:28.159 by the money. I thought that too. I assumed it 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:29.800 was going to be like a monkey paw thing, which 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:31.510 is what I think this is the inspiration of. But 0:19:31.550 --> 0:19:35.790 I'm like, oh, it just kept hitting him. Okay, maybe not. 0:19:37.190 --> 0:19:38.870 I thought it was going to be death by money. 0:19:39.070 --> 0:19:42.470 But I love that scene because it's just like such 0:19:42.510 --> 0:19:49.210 an immediate, clear, no, this thing works. Yes, yes. So 0:19:49.290 --> 0:19:51.970 Bear goes... back to his apartment to find a shrine 0:19:52.150 --> 0:19:56.090 to Bear and Nikki's relationship and a very messed up, 0:19:56.160 --> 0:20:00.280 very bloodied Nikki. She threatens to kill herself again and 0:20:00.460 --> 0:20:05.020 does kill Ian when he barges in. Bear retreats to 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.240 the bathroom with the gun. with the intent to kill 0:20:08.300 --> 0:20:12.389 himself to end the wish, but instead opts to overdose 0:20:13.010 --> 0:20:16.710 on the pills that killed his cat. Just as he's 0:20:16.790 --> 0:20:21.109 waiting for death, he attempts to induce vomiting, just as 0:20:21.170 --> 0:20:23.870 we hear the snap and song of a one-wish willow, 0:20:24.609 --> 0:20:27.500 and suddenly he's all smiley because she has wished for 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.460 him to love her as much as she loves him. 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:35.300 And that is a recurring theme, that she is frequently angry, 0:20:37.250 --> 0:20:41.660 insecure that he doesn't love her or he doesn't love 0:20:41.700 --> 0:20:46.260 her as much as she loves him. So, he leaves 0:20:46.300 --> 0:20:49.460 the bathroom. They smile awkwardly at each other until Bear 0:20:49.500 --> 0:20:53.659 collapses and dies from the overdose. Nikki reaches for the 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.179 gun to kill herself, but snaps out of the wish 0:20:57.300 --> 0:21:01.109 now that Bear is dead before she can. She tosses 0:21:01.150 --> 0:21:05.230 the gun, shoves away Bear's body, and screams and wails. 0:21:05.900 --> 0:21:07.800 Why did you do this? How could you do this? 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:12.139 All while the TV in the background plays video of 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:20.729 Bear sleeping. The end. Yeah. They did shoot an alternate 0:21:20.790 --> 0:21:24.850 ending where she does die. Where Nikki does kill herself. Yeah. 0:21:26.030 --> 0:21:28.170 Now I will say, I was waiting for him to die. 0:21:28.190 --> 0:21:30.580 I'm like, really? Really? Just die? 0:21:30.619 --> 0:21:37.340 Yes. Yes. Yes. And we're going to talk about it 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:43.090 a bit more, but it was a purposeful choice for 0:21:43.150 --> 0:21:46.250 him to... He tries to induce the vomiting before she 0:21:46.290 --> 0:21:54.910 makes the wish. So, there's a lot to be said here. 0:21:55.750 --> 0:21:59.870 I have tried to condense it, so it's not just 0:21:59.970 --> 0:22:03.520 me Screaming at the top of my lungs points that 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.460 so many people have made. But we're going to do 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:10.040 this a little bit differently. I'm going to start with 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:14.560 two main points because I think they inform the rest 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:18.510 of everything else. So the question of when does Bear 0:22:18.550 --> 0:22:22.910 become the villain? So he is the villain. And I'm 0:22:23.190 --> 0:22:26.590 happy that pretty much everyone seems to agree. Aside from 0:22:26.710 --> 0:22:30.030 usual Manosphere bros. I'll get into that more in a second. 0:22:31.250 --> 0:22:36.970 Because if you'll remember, I was very concerned about it 0:22:36.990 --> 0:22:38.950 when I did that happy hour. This is one of 0:22:39.030 --> 0:22:44.889 those things that I just thought, unless it's done well, 0:22:46.170 --> 0:22:47.670 I don't know how people are going to take this. 0:22:49.050 --> 0:22:50.770 And one of the things I love about this movie 0:22:51.710 --> 0:22:59.770 is that the evolution of how Bear starts as a 0:22:59.830 --> 0:23:08.500 sympathetic character And then over time, you start to realize, oh, 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:11.780 not so much. And that could happen at different points, 0:23:11.900 --> 0:23:15.840 depending on your viewing experience, very quickly or over the 0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:21.310 span of the first half. I'd say it demonstrates that 0:23:21.350 --> 0:23:25.649 he's not someone deserving of sympathy. And I wanted to 0:23:25.670 --> 0:23:32.930 put this in here. So Universal Studios. announced the character 0:23:33.010 --> 0:23:36.070 Nikki would be featured as part of their Halloween Horror 0:23:36.109 --> 0:23:39.490 Nights as one of the characters who is wandering around 0:23:40.270 --> 0:23:44.629 scaring you. But when they announced this, they included a 0:23:44.780 --> 0:23:51.000 statement that said, she's not the monster. Because normally all 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:54.020 these characters are monsters. And they went out of their 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:56.100 way to release a statement and say, she is not 0:23:56.140 --> 0:23:59.140 the monster. She was the victim. She was the product 0:23:59.180 --> 0:24:03.690 of a monstrous situation. I just thought that was interesting 0:24:03.730 --> 0:24:07.260 that they felt like we got to be clear here. 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:10.060 So is this going to be like her being possessed 0:24:10.320 --> 0:24:11.240 or being taken over rather? 0:24:12.100 --> 0:24:15.619 I think it's going to be her, either like the 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:18.000 really bloody version of her at the end or the 0:24:18.220 --> 0:24:20.399 one that I think if she was like carrying around 0:24:20.420 --> 0:24:25.600 the vase of flowers in front of her face. I'm 0:24:25.859 --> 0:24:28.160 anticipating seeing that at Dragon Con. I think someone will 0:24:28.180 --> 0:24:28.440 do that. 0:24:29.270 --> 0:24:31.930 Well, that whole, like, go back and forth, which I 0:24:31.950 --> 0:24:34.950 have seen TikToks of women doing that to their men 0:24:35.010 --> 0:24:38.189 after watching this movie, freaking their boyfriends out. That would 0:24:38.210 --> 0:24:38.600 be a hole. 0:24:39.710 --> 0:24:43.300 I love that scene where he's like, you're freaking me out. 0:24:43.660 --> 0:24:47.100 And she does that, like, rush at him. I love 0:24:47.160 --> 0:24:47.800 that so much. 0:24:48.300 --> 0:24:50.540 That's what I'm saying. Like, they were like, because they 0:24:50.560 --> 0:24:57.399 also obviously edited it to make it scarier. She has it. 0:24:58.710 --> 0:25:00.879 People I've seen do it. And then the backwards walk. 0:25:01.420 --> 0:25:03.960 Yes. I love that whole part. 0:25:04.500 --> 0:25:04.800 Yes. 0:25:05.520 --> 0:25:07.520 I think that would be really good. That would be 0:25:07.540 --> 0:25:10.320 really good. I think there's going to be a pretty 0:25:10.380 --> 0:25:16.070 decent showing of Obsession at DragonCon this year. Yes. So 0:25:17.310 --> 0:25:19.850 another thing I wanted to note, some people like myself 0:25:20.030 --> 0:25:22.370 thought the name Bear was to play on the whole 0:25:22.410 --> 0:25:26.590 man versus bear trend that was popular when this was 0:25:26.630 --> 0:25:30.389 being filmed. Basically, would a woman rather face a man 0:25:30.530 --> 0:25:33.969 or a bear? The creator has said that no, that 0:25:34.030 --> 0:25:36.160 is not the case, but he appreciates that so many 0:25:36.200 --> 0:25:38.879 of us thought it. He was kind of like, oh, 0:25:40.100 --> 0:25:45.429 if only. He said he just wanted a name that 0:25:45.470 --> 0:25:46.370 would stand out. 0:25:48.020 --> 0:25:50.879 Yeah, Baron, Bear, please stand up. 0:25:52.920 --> 0:25:55.030 But going back to the original question, when did he 0:25:55.070 --> 0:25:57.950 become the villain? There are three main arguments, but they 0:25:58.130 --> 0:26:01.310 all boil down to he knew what he was doing 0:26:02.010 --> 0:26:04.870 and he knew something was wrong and didn't care. So 0:26:04.930 --> 0:26:10.880 the first argument is right after the wish. So in 0:26:11.200 --> 0:26:16.640 that first instance, he knows something is off with her. 0:26:17.790 --> 0:26:22.070 He's attributing it to drugs. At first, he's like, maybe 0:26:22.109 --> 0:26:26.209 she's just really sad about her dad having cancer. But 0:26:26.250 --> 0:26:28.369 what I think is really telling about this whole thing 0:26:28.970 --> 0:26:35.050 is that he, when they kiss, he immediately, she has 0:26:35.090 --> 0:26:38.409 like her snap out of it, oh my God, what's 0:26:38.450 --> 0:26:44.159 happening moment. And he immediately tries to defend himself. He 0:26:44.260 --> 0:26:47.199 doesn't ask if she's okay. He doesn't check on her. 0:26:47.900 --> 0:26:50.290 He just is like, you kissed me. It was you. 0:26:50.609 --> 0:26:54.250 You did this. Like all of this stuff that he's 0:26:55.990 --> 0:27:05.080 obviously aware something is wrong. And he is so much 0:27:05.160 --> 0:27:09.979 more concerned that he is not going to get consequences 0:27:10.020 --> 0:27:12.620 for it. And we're going to talk more about consequences 0:27:12.700 --> 0:27:17.949 versus loss of autonomy. This happens again. When she shows 0:27:18.250 --> 0:27:21.890 up at his apartment, it's a beautiful shot where she's 0:27:21.950 --> 0:27:23.910 in like a red dress, but her face is all 0:27:23.950 --> 0:27:26.030 in shadow and her eyes are gleaming. 0:27:26.590 --> 0:27:26.889 Yeah. 0:27:27.310 --> 0:27:30.129 Oh, and she says, well, I didn't want anyone to 0:27:30.210 --> 0:27:33.300 think that you were taking advantage of me. And he's like, 0:27:33.359 --> 0:27:35.960 I wasn't taking advantage of you. He's just immediately. And 0:27:36.960 --> 0:27:39.020 she's like, oh, that's what I'm saying. But he is 0:27:39.140 --> 0:27:46.260 so defensive right away. The second one, which I think 0:27:46.280 --> 0:27:49.609 at this point, is the why does it matter rape scene. 0:27:50.590 --> 0:27:58.430 So when they're on their date and Bear learns from 0:27:58.450 --> 0:28:01.920 Ian that her father is fine, doesn't have cancer, he 0:28:02.660 --> 0:28:06.240 asks her about it. And that's when she has her 0:28:06.300 --> 0:28:11.379 wonderful scene I love. No, no, no, no, no. Don't 0:28:11.440 --> 0:28:19.010 ruin this date. She sits down and he asks her, like, 0:28:19.070 --> 0:28:22.030 do you love me? And then he uses the exact 0:28:22.170 --> 0:28:26.189 same wording from his wish more than anyone in the world. 0:28:27.250 --> 0:28:35.100 And that's when she says, does it matter? And he says, nope. 0:28:36.380 --> 0:28:39.460 And then it cuts to the rape scene. And that 0:28:39.540 --> 0:28:42.460 is why it's a rape scene. He knows at that point. 0:28:43.290 --> 0:28:46.450 You can't convince me otherwise that he did not know. 0:28:47.490 --> 0:28:51.590 And the wording of his wish and intent to control her, 0:28:52.090 --> 0:28:57.480 that's really important. When he makes the wish, he sounds 0:28:57.520 --> 0:29:03.940 like dejected and angry. And I think that you see 0:29:03.980 --> 0:29:10.170 that throughout. And it's reflected in he doesn't care. He 0:29:10.410 --> 0:29:16.690 just wants her. More than, like, he wants her to 0:29:16.970 --> 0:29:22.520 only want him and nothing else. That's her whole world. So, 0:29:24.020 --> 0:29:26.980 as I was saying, I did watch these legal videos 0:29:27.400 --> 0:29:31.200 about this movie. It is illegal to have sex with 0:29:31.240 --> 0:29:36.190 someone who has an inability to consent. And he clearly knows, 0:29:36.230 --> 0:29:39.630 I think even in the first instance where they didn't 0:29:39.650 --> 0:29:42.500 have sex, but he knows something is wrong even if 0:29:42.540 --> 0:29:49.590 he doesn't know that it's the wish yet. And the 0:29:49.630 --> 0:29:53.130 sad thing about all of the legal videos I watched 0:29:53.210 --> 0:29:56.350 is Nikki would be punished the most despite being the 0:29:56.550 --> 0:30:01.950 one who voluntarily chose the least. The company would be fine. 0:30:02.550 --> 0:30:04.290 Bear is dead, so I guess you can make of 0:30:04.330 --> 0:30:09.340 that what you will. But they go over multiple things 0:30:09.380 --> 0:30:12.720 that Bear says in these legal videos that prove that 0:30:12.780 --> 0:30:15.200 he knew something is wrong that they could use in 0:30:15.220 --> 0:30:18.980 a legal case. He says she needs serious help. Something 0:30:19.060 --> 0:30:24.770 is very wrong with her. She is exhibiting violence, threats 0:30:25.290 --> 0:30:29.340 that are out of character. He went online online. to 0:30:29.410 --> 0:30:33.700 try to figure it out, he called the company hotline 0:30:34.620 --> 0:30:39.160 where they confirmed that she's been altered and she is suffering. 0:30:40.440 --> 0:30:43.080 So all of this proves he suspected he caused it 0:30:43.460 --> 0:30:46.020 or something was wrong and he did not care. So 0:30:47.440 --> 0:30:53.800 as I was saying earlier, there is an interesting dichotomy 0:30:53.840 --> 0:30:57.340 in a lot of horror where male horror is a 0:30:57.440 --> 0:31:01.840 fear of consequences. And female horror is loss of autonomy. 0:31:02.480 --> 0:31:05.360 And that can switch up, like Alien is a great 0:31:05.400 --> 0:31:11.350 example of when it switches up. And in this case, 0:31:12.430 --> 0:31:15.530 he is, Bear is more afraid of the consequences and 0:31:15.570 --> 0:31:22.930 she has lost her autonomy. And he ruined her life. 0:31:23.690 --> 0:31:26.770 He took her future. I think you could argue he 0:31:26.810 --> 0:31:31.300 took Sarah's future. And these were his choices that he made. 0:31:33.990 --> 0:31:39.870 So that's a larger conversation to have. But the third 0:31:39.910 --> 0:31:44.770 and final point, I think irrefutable if you make it 0:31:44.810 --> 0:31:48.710 this far, that he's the villain, is when she begs 0:31:49.050 --> 0:31:53.840 him to kill her. And what does he do? He says, 0:31:54.280 --> 0:31:58.060 would it be so bad to be with me? and 0:31:58.190 --> 0:32:04.140 leaves her alone. And he knows she's suffering. He knows 0:32:04.200 --> 0:32:09.340 at the very least she's become unstable. And I just 0:32:09.380 --> 0:32:14.800 can't imagine walking away from someone I cared about who's 0:32:15.060 --> 0:32:20.200 begging me to kill them. Like, walking away from that situation, 0:32:20.720 --> 0:32:26.320 making it about you. He doesn't care about her at all. 0:32:26.680 --> 0:32:29.510 I have a whole section about that later. He doesn't 0:32:29.530 --> 0:32:34.610 care about her. He thinks he is the victim. He 0:32:34.650 --> 0:32:37.870 could have gotten her help multiple times. If this is 0:32:37.930 --> 0:32:44.560 his friend, multiple times, and he never tried. He never 0:32:44.700 --> 0:32:50.100 ever tried. I have seen that this has become a 0:32:50.120 --> 0:32:56.300 new boyfriend test of If your boyfriend is like, oh, 0:32:56.820 --> 0:33:04.380 I see where he's coming from. Women being like, oh, no. Okay. 0:33:05.360 --> 0:33:07.400 And a lot of the things they say is, he 0:33:07.440 --> 0:33:10.800 didn't take advantage of her on the first night. And 0:33:10.900 --> 0:33:14.070 I just think, wow, the bar is so low. 0:33:15.010 --> 0:33:17.969 Do we know that for sure, though? Well, that's just 0:33:17.990 --> 0:33:20.970 what they say. Just because they didn't show it doesn't 0:33:20.990 --> 0:33:21.610 mean it didn't happen. 0:33:22.700 --> 0:33:24.680 Yeah, and I think you could argue that he did. 0:33:25.680 --> 0:33:28.380 But just the fact that they're like, well, he didn't 0:33:28.440 --> 0:33:30.980 have sex with her or rape her that night. And like, 0:33:31.260 --> 0:33:36.240 this is the saddest point you could make for your argument. 0:33:36.320 --> 0:33:43.030 That's odd. Yeah, yeah. So those are my three main, 0:33:43.050 --> 0:33:45.830 and not just me, I think those are the three 0:33:46.350 --> 0:33:49.450 main points that people use to be like, this is, 0:33:49.730 --> 0:33:53.920 he's the villain. Another thing people like to debate is 0:33:53.980 --> 0:33:56.870 whether or not Bear could have actually gotten with Nikki 0:33:57.110 --> 0:33:59.670 if he'd just spoken to her about his feelings honestly. 0:34:00.750 --> 0:34:04.870 The creators have been clear that no. When Sarah told 0:34:05.030 --> 0:34:08.549 Ian Bear was friendzoned, that was the truth. I think 0:34:08.570 --> 0:34:12.780 the clearest indicator of that fact, of that Nikki didn't 0:34:13.020 --> 0:34:16.060 view Bear romantically, is when she reads her creepy Hansel 0:34:16.100 --> 0:34:19.489 and Gretel poem at the party. And she's talking about 0:34:19.590 --> 0:34:22.390 how only the branch of a willow tree could conjure 0:34:22.430 --> 0:34:26.770 a love between a brother and sister. Yeah, she's talking 0:34:26.790 --> 0:34:32.070 about an incestuous relationship forced by a branch of a 0:34:32.070 --> 0:34:36.620 willow tree. Yeah. And that makes it so much worse 0:34:36.640 --> 0:34:39.640 to me because she trusted him as a friend. And 0:34:39.680 --> 0:34:42.020 when she's begging him to kill her, she still had 0:34:42.160 --> 0:34:45.549 faith in him. She thought he might not realize what 0:34:45.590 --> 0:34:47.629 was going on, and she was willing to die to 0:34:47.710 --> 0:34:51.910 protect her friends. And in the face, she didn't want 0:34:51.930 --> 0:34:56.620 to continue living that way without autonomy. But in that moment, 0:34:57.140 --> 0:34:59.240 he made it clear to her that he was punishing 0:34:59.320 --> 0:35:03.940 her for perceived rejection. And all of this is made 0:35:04.000 --> 0:35:07.780 worse in that he could kill himself to save her, 0:35:08.219 --> 0:35:10.370 and he knows it. So she's saying, I'll do it, 0:35:11.239 --> 0:35:15.890 and he doesn't. just leaves her to suffer. Another thing 0:35:15.969 --> 0:35:19.650 is he could have gotten with Sarah. Sarah clearly was 0:35:19.710 --> 0:35:20.450 interested in him. 0:35:21.190 --> 0:35:22.469 Which Nikki kind of brings up. 0:35:22.830 --> 0:35:26.450 Yeah, Nikki's kind of like, how would you feel about this? 0:35:26.910 --> 0:35:30.160 I told her, what do you think? And he very 0:35:30.200 --> 0:35:32.000 much knows what that means. Yes. 0:35:33.060 --> 0:35:37.520 Yes. And I think he, when it becomes clear that 0:35:37.600 --> 0:35:40.060 Sarah is interested in him, suddenly he sees that as 0:35:40.120 --> 0:35:43.150 an option. And that's going back to the fear of rejection. 0:35:43.469 --> 0:35:48.569 He's too insecure. And so it took Sarah to kind 0:35:48.610 --> 0:35:51.490 of be open and Nikki to kind of tell him 0:35:53.030 --> 0:35:55.790 for him to think, oh, maybe it could be Sarah. 0:35:59.750 --> 0:36:03.380 He's also very much in the vein of a guy 0:36:03.430 --> 0:36:09.359 who thinks a woman will fix his problems, which we'll 0:36:09.400 --> 0:36:14.080 discuss more. I also, like, every time I rewatch it, 0:36:14.210 --> 0:36:17.170 I always am so sad in the beginning. Nikki just 0:36:17.210 --> 0:36:19.989 wanted to go home and sleep. She just wanted a 0:36:20.070 --> 0:36:25.810 ride home. And this is what happened. Another thing that's 0:36:25.890 --> 0:36:32.819 interesting is that when they were doing the casting, Andy Navaretti, 0:36:33.700 --> 0:36:37.680 her audition, one of the reasons they chose her is 0:36:37.960 --> 0:36:42.730 because she brought out a very, like, kind of sassiness 0:36:43.330 --> 0:36:46.259 that they wanted to make sure that people knew it 0:36:46.340 --> 0:36:51.000 was a friend zone situation. Because originally, at least according 0:36:51.040 --> 0:36:55.220 to the creator, she'd been written very girl next door, 0:36:55.440 --> 0:36:59.009 but she brought in this kind of, like, sassiness. 0:37:00.190 --> 0:37:04.069 It was obvious she saw him as the friend. Like, 0:37:04.090 --> 0:37:07.250 there was no, like, there was that tough girl, like, hey, 0:37:07.630 --> 0:37:13.330 you know, we're good, right? Because, like, nah, this is 0:37:13.350 --> 0:37:13.710 a nah. 0:37:13.910 --> 0:37:14.290 Okay. 0:37:14.350 --> 0:37:16.890 Like she, like it was very upfront. Like she treated 0:37:16.930 --> 0:37:18.490 him like a younger brother, essentially. 0:37:18.969 --> 0:37:26.480 Yes. Yes. Something else I thought was interesting is costuming. 0:37:26.600 --> 0:37:30.040 So a lot of the interviews I watched about this, 0:37:31.780 --> 0:37:35.359 because you don't actually get to see Nikki before she's 0:37:36.300 --> 0:37:40.290 possessed for a long time, It's a short amount of 0:37:40.330 --> 0:37:42.150 time that you get to see her before she's possessed. 0:37:43.330 --> 0:37:46.090 They tried to make as much use of that time 0:37:46.370 --> 0:37:49.840 to showcase who she was. And one was in the costuming. 0:37:49.910 --> 0:37:53.739 So in the first costume she wears, it's like an 0:37:53.880 --> 0:38:02.600 oversized coat. It's very comfortable. After the wish, she is 0:38:03.100 --> 0:38:08.560 dressed much more seductively. She's in like short shorts, tight clothes, 0:38:08.760 --> 0:38:14.120 tight dress. So doing it for Bear and not for her. 0:38:14.140 --> 0:38:27.739 So I thought that was interesting. This brings us to 0:38:27.780 --> 0:38:32.890 the inversion of tropes, of which there are many. The first, 0:38:33.670 --> 0:38:37.529 Wish Gone Wrong. So one of the things the director 0:38:37.550 --> 0:38:40.710 slash creator has been very clear on, and I think 0:38:40.750 --> 0:38:43.890 is extremely important, is that this is not a monkey 0:38:43.930 --> 0:38:47.920 paw situation, meaning it's not a cursed item that is 0:38:47.980 --> 0:38:50.280 going to twist your words and give you the worst 0:38:50.340 --> 0:38:54.460 possible outcome. We are shown in the movie some people 0:38:54.700 --> 0:38:57.620 used the one-wish willow and were happy with the outcome 0:38:57.660 --> 0:39:02.279 of their wish. He made a bad wish. He took 0:39:02.340 --> 0:39:06.820 away someone's choice, her autonomy. and in doing so, allowed 0:39:06.840 --> 0:39:12.560 for something else, her, to inhabit Nikki's body. He reduced 0:39:12.600 --> 0:39:16.560 her to an object for his wish fulfillment, erasing what 0:39:16.620 --> 0:39:20.870 made her, her, so his wish was never going to work. 0:39:21.750 --> 0:39:26.230 Because even though he claimed he wanted Nikki, he didn't, really. 0:39:27.310 --> 0:39:30.500 He wanted the idealized version of her, and the life 0:39:30.520 --> 0:39:33.680 that they could have together that he created in his mind. 0:39:34.520 --> 0:39:37.460 He keeps telling her to be normal after she's possessed, 0:39:37.480 --> 0:39:41.940 to just be Nikki, a very clear indicator that he 0:39:41.980 --> 0:39:45.779 knows that she isn't Nikki, but he wants the Nikki 0:39:45.969 --> 0:39:48.670 who was in love with him without the fear of 0:39:48.730 --> 0:39:53.299 her rejecting him. That being said, the wording matters in 0:39:53.360 --> 0:39:58.569 terms of bear's intentions. When he made the wish, his 0:39:58.630 --> 0:40:01.549 words are not getting twisted. He could have wished to 0:40:01.610 --> 0:40:04.589 be the person she'd want. He wished to make her 0:40:04.650 --> 0:40:09.530 essentially subservient to his desires. So I think that's important. 0:40:10.050 --> 0:40:13.589 Yeah. I said monkey paw, so obviously not. 0:40:13.950 --> 0:40:16.930 I think, though, I get it because the idea of 0:40:16.989 --> 0:40:20.609 a wish not going how you want. Yeah. I get, 0:40:21.170 --> 0:40:23.500 I think I called it monkey paw too. But I 0:40:23.560 --> 0:40:25.940 think that distinction is important, that it's not like it 0:40:25.980 --> 0:40:28.600 was twisting his words. 0:40:29.120 --> 0:40:32.200 It was his choices that was being interesting because I 0:40:32.239 --> 0:40:34.910 do remember when he was reading, trying to research about 0:40:34.930 --> 0:40:38.930 this specific thing. And one of the wishes were like, 0:40:38.950 --> 0:40:42.270 he's one of the comments where it works and it's amazing. 0:40:42.390 --> 0:40:45.710 My mom is so happy. She's so gorgeous and she's 0:40:45.790 --> 0:40:48.260 so happy about herself. So that person had wished for 0:40:48.320 --> 0:40:52.320 her mother to, to become beautiful or whatever whatnot. And 0:40:52.340 --> 0:40:54.200 it seemed like it had worked out. Like they're all 0:40:54.239 --> 0:40:57.870 happy because it wasn't about her necessarily, but letting her 0:40:57.950 --> 0:41:01.049 mom have what she wanted. I just remember that one 0:41:01.090 --> 0:41:01.589 for some reason. 0:41:01.810 --> 0:41:04.670 Yeah. Yeah. And well, when he goes to the, a 0:41:06.090 --> 0:41:09.470 very funny and absurd scene when he's covered in blood 0:41:09.530 --> 0:41:11.810 and goes back to the store and it's like how 0:41:12.170 --> 0:41:14.509 he's telling the cashier, like, how could you sell this 0:41:14.530 --> 0:41:19.270 to people? This product is dangerous. Can you make the 0:41:19.310 --> 0:41:22.190 wish to counteract my wish? And he says, the cashier 0:41:22.210 --> 0:41:24.470 says so calmly, like, I already made my wish, man. 0:41:24.489 --> 0:41:27.049 That's great. He never says. 0:41:26.989 --> 0:41:27.589 What it is. 0:41:29.260 --> 0:41:32.780 Whatever happened with him, he wasn't worried about it. So yes, 0:41:32.860 --> 0:41:35.020 it is a situation where he made a bad wish. 0:41:35.420 --> 0:41:39.020 And if you're looking up, I would urge you not to. 0:41:39.140 --> 0:41:43.040 But if you do stumble into the manosphere arguments of 0:41:43.100 --> 0:41:46.610 why Bear is actually the victim here, A lot of 0:41:46.660 --> 0:41:55.020 times they say he just worded it incorrectly. That's not true. 0:41:55.460 --> 0:41:57.719 Especially because when he gets on the line with the 0:41:57.780 --> 0:42:04.370 customer service people and he asked to alter it before 0:42:05.590 --> 0:42:08.310 he's like, oh, I'll cancel it then. He asked to 0:42:08.450 --> 0:42:13.569 alter it because he still wants this thing even though 0:42:13.610 --> 0:42:19.410 he knows it's not her. Yes. So another trope, the 0:42:19.530 --> 0:42:23.830 nice guy trope. The character bear would generally fall under 0:42:23.870 --> 0:42:26.489 the nice guy trope. And this is a trope that 0:42:26.510 --> 0:42:31.090 paints a guy as nice. He is usually nerdy and shy. 0:42:31.370 --> 0:42:35.219 But once you do a little digging underneath that, they're entitled, 0:42:35.300 --> 0:42:38.759 they're angry, they're vengeful. The scary thing about the nice 0:42:38.820 --> 0:42:42.840 guy is that he's not openly radicalized, but he still 0:42:42.960 --> 0:42:49.460 thinks women are objects. So you won't necessarily know. One 0:42:49.500 --> 0:42:52.640 of the ways I see this manifesting with him is 0:42:52.980 --> 0:42:58.330 how Bear weaponizes sympathy. So from the start, he uses 0:42:58.370 --> 0:43:00.970 the death of his cat to garner sympathy. He takes 0:43:01.370 --> 0:43:04.130 Nikki's fake story that he later knows is fake and 0:43:04.150 --> 0:43:07.740 keeps telling it about her dad having cancer to elicit 0:43:07.780 --> 0:43:10.520 sympathy from their friends and kind of as a like 0:43:11.000 --> 0:43:15.819 shield from their judgments. because the friends are really concerned 0:43:15.880 --> 0:43:20.359 about Nikki's behavior. Another big conversation that's come out about 0:43:20.420 --> 0:43:24.259 this has been about the victims of male loneliness and 0:43:24.340 --> 0:43:33.470 male insecurity. So Bear is lonely. He's extremely lonely. He 0:43:33.550 --> 0:43:38.350 doesn't have much going on. He lives in his grandmother's apartment, 0:43:38.410 --> 0:43:42.350 and his grandmother has just died. His cat has just died. 0:43:43.530 --> 0:43:46.680 And in the beginning, all the stories, when he's doing 0:43:46.719 --> 0:43:50.800 his practice confession, all the stories he shares about Nikki 0:43:50.860 --> 0:43:53.799 involve her being the only one who was there for him. 0:43:53.820 --> 0:43:59.239 Because he was lonely. He doesn't seem to have much 0:43:59.300 --> 0:44:03.420 going on. And this is interesting when compared with Ian, 0:44:03.560 --> 0:44:06.779 his kind of frat boy friend. Yeah. 0:44:07.530 --> 0:44:10.330 Who literally tells him to, like, neg her, essentially. 0:44:10.550 --> 0:44:16.150 Yes. So if you had the two of them together, 0:44:16.170 --> 0:44:20.590 you would think Bear is not a threat. Both of 0:44:20.670 --> 0:44:24.610 them are trying to control access to Nikki. Neither one 0:44:24.650 --> 0:44:28.150 is good. I just think it's interesting that you'd probably 0:44:28.230 --> 0:44:34.899 be more willing, oh, Bear might be fine. Nope. His 0:44:35.000 --> 0:44:38.739 first reaction to Nikki saying she wants to quit and 0:44:38.760 --> 0:44:42.160 continue writing is not support our curiosity, but instead a 0:44:42.200 --> 0:44:47.140 knee-jerk reaction about not seeing her anymore and assuming that 0:44:47.200 --> 0:44:51.240 she's writing romance. So not wanting to be lonely again 0:44:51.300 --> 0:44:55.300 and worrying that she'll move on. It's not that I 0:44:55.380 --> 0:44:58.819 don't get the, oh, I'm going to miss you, but 0:44:58.930 --> 0:45:02.359 he immediately was like, oh. I'm not going to ask 0:45:02.380 --> 0:45:07.100 her about what she wants or anything like that. Patriarchy 0:45:07.160 --> 0:45:12.740 hurts everybody. There are systemic reasons contributing, at least in part, 0:45:13.180 --> 0:45:16.020 to why Bear is so lonely. But the violence is 0:45:16.160 --> 0:45:21.900 often directed at women. This brings us to my lack 0:45:21.940 --> 0:45:26.900 of care point. He does not care about Nikki. I 0:45:26.960 --> 0:45:31.950 cannot stress this enough, not truly. At multiple points, he 0:45:32.010 --> 0:45:35.650 doesn't seem to know much about her, and even the 0:45:35.730 --> 0:45:39.030 things he does know, like she doesn't like the nickname 0:45:39.130 --> 0:45:42.810 Freaky Nikki, he disregards in hopes of getting with her. 0:45:44.050 --> 0:45:47.810 She repeatedly tries to make clear that it isn't her, 0:45:48.130 --> 0:45:52.310 it's not me, and he doesn't care. She smashes her 0:45:52.390 --> 0:45:57.410 head in, and he won't look at her. He's mostly 0:45:57.450 --> 0:46:01.930 annoyed and angry and took her home and yelled at 0:46:01.989 --> 0:46:05.680 her to just be Nikki. Like, she's still covered in blood. 0:46:07.340 --> 0:46:09.660 If you pay attention, this is just a fun detail, 0:46:10.360 --> 0:46:13.160 Nikki seems to snap out of her possession when she 0:46:13.260 --> 0:46:15.900 sees her reflection in a mirror or some type of 0:46:15.960 --> 0:46:21.110 reflective surface. So she recognizes it's not her. I just 0:46:21.130 --> 0:46:24.569 thought that was cool. I also would say he's not 0:46:24.610 --> 0:46:27.690 really being honest about who he is with her either. 0:46:27.710 --> 0:46:31.170 They just don't seem to have, as much as he 0:46:31.190 --> 0:46:34.049 built it up with his confession, they don't seem to 0:46:34.070 --> 0:46:38.219 have a very communicative relationship. And I mean, he didn't 0:46:38.260 --> 0:46:41.640 know about her being with Ian, and it's not any 0:46:41.660 --> 0:46:43.520 of his business. But I just think there's a lot 0:46:43.560 --> 0:46:49.080 of things that, I don't think he really cared about her, man. Yes, 0:46:49.380 --> 0:46:51.719 as I said, every memory he shares about how much 0:46:51.780 --> 0:46:54.880 he loves her center on her attention on him. He 0:46:54.960 --> 0:46:57.760 doesn't ask questions about her when they're on their date. 0:46:58.700 --> 0:47:02.530 Other than, oh, hey, let me see how far this 0:47:02.550 --> 0:47:07.050 wish thing goes. And this brings us to the cat. Yes, 0:47:07.450 --> 0:47:13.310 poor Sandy the cat, R.I.P. Sandy is Bear's cat, and 0:47:13.330 --> 0:47:16.390 the story opens with him finding his cat dead in 0:47:16.450 --> 0:47:20.830 his apartment. The cat then becomes a through line in 0:47:20.870 --> 0:47:23.549 the movie with Nikki making a shrine to it and 0:47:23.750 --> 0:47:28.630 cooking it and feeding it to an unsuspecting bear. The 0:47:28.710 --> 0:47:32.410 cat represents Bear's lack of ability to take care of 0:47:32.510 --> 0:47:37.370 living things that are under his supervision. So if you 0:47:37.410 --> 0:47:39.970 look around his apartment, you can also see dead plants. 0:47:41.130 --> 0:47:44.739 Sandy died because she was apparently hungry to the point 0:47:44.780 --> 0:47:47.650 of starving. because she had torn open the bag of 0:47:47.710 --> 0:47:55.670 cat food, and she got into Bear's grandmother's medicine and overdosed. 0:47:56.070 --> 0:47:58.650 And this implies that Bear did not secure the medication 0:47:58.730 --> 0:48:02.239 and left it accessible for the cat. When Nikki is 0:48:02.320 --> 0:48:06.220 reduced to a shadow of herself, and I do love 0:48:06.280 --> 0:48:09.380 how they frame her in darkness all of the time, 0:48:10.560 --> 0:48:13.540 he treats her like a pet. He decides what they do, 0:48:13.640 --> 0:48:17.750 what they eat, what they watch, And yes, she even 0:48:17.989 --> 0:48:21.950 wets herself waiting for him in that one spot. When 0:48:22.050 --> 0:48:25.470 he takes the pills to overdose at the end, he 0:48:25.710 --> 0:48:28.590 did not do that for her, in my opinion. I 0:48:28.630 --> 0:48:31.950 think he was like, I'm in a situation, I don't 0:48:31.969 --> 0:48:34.390 know how to get out of it. And then he 0:48:34.910 --> 0:48:39.000 still backed out. That's my opinion. That's my. 0:48:41.460 --> 0:48:46.210 Another trope, the crazy girlfriend. So this was inverted in 0:48:46.250 --> 0:48:50.530 a lot of ways. I will say, in my opinion, 0:48:50.650 --> 0:48:55.880 everyone failed Nikki. Like, everybody. They dismissed her as being 0:48:56.880 --> 0:49:02.760 crazy or on drugs. And to be fair, I wouldn't 0:49:02.860 --> 0:49:06.460 go straight to possession either. But instead of trying to 0:49:06.580 --> 0:49:12.340 help her, yeah, like, Sarah's worried, oh, she's taking advantage 0:49:12.380 --> 0:49:16.370 of Hubert or... Ian's worried about, oh, how's it going 0:49:16.390 --> 0:49:19.700 to look? And probably with a hint of he didn't 0:49:19.760 --> 0:49:23.560 want Ian to be with her. They weren't genuinely worried 0:49:23.640 --> 0:49:27.700 about her other than how it impacted him and them. 0:49:28.640 --> 0:49:31.759 The whole thing was very victim-blaming. I also just want 0:49:31.780 --> 0:49:34.380 to throw in here, sometimes women are just nice. And 0:49:34.420 --> 0:49:37.310 that's all it f * * * ing is. That's it. 0:49:38.290 --> 0:49:40.820 They were friends from high school. Or middle school. 0:49:40.840 --> 0:49:41.280 Yeah. 0:49:41.300 --> 0:49:43.840 And that's always been a thing. That's it. 0:49:44.280 --> 0:49:47.910 That's it. That's all it is. I think it's interesting 0:49:47.950 --> 0:49:50.330 that you could make the argument that Nikki is a 0:49:50.390 --> 0:49:54.810 manic pixie dream girl or somewhere in that realm. But 0:49:55.270 --> 0:49:59.750 I do think she was a legitimately nice person that 0:49:59.810 --> 0:50:04.690 Bear painted that way in his mind. Like that is 0:50:04.850 --> 0:50:08.799 what he saw and wanted her to be. The more 0:50:08.840 --> 0:50:11.719 you learn about her, the more that image cracks. And 0:50:11.840 --> 0:50:15.020 one of the lines that stands out to me is 0:50:15.090 --> 0:50:18.230 after she kills Sarah, Nikki says, you wished for this. 0:50:19.390 --> 0:50:25.270 You wished for this. And if you heard my heavy 0:50:25.370 --> 0:50:29.740 sigh in our recent episode with Bridget about AI companions, 0:50:29.880 --> 0:50:32.360 it was because of how the male fear of rejection 0:50:32.440 --> 0:50:35.480 has contributed to the rise of these companions. But I 0:50:35.540 --> 0:50:39.040 couldn't talk about how I was like, obsession has this 0:50:39.060 --> 0:50:44.390 whole thing too he's too afraid a rejection to be 0:50:44.430 --> 0:50:49.330 honest about how he feels so i had to rein 0:50:49.370 --> 0:50:55.410 myself in he wants to deal with nikki the sycophantic 0:50:55.430 --> 0:51:00.170 ai he doesn't want nikki the person and he's the 0:51:00.230 --> 0:51:04.210 one that made her the crazy girlfriend trope uh The 0:51:04.230 --> 0:51:07.170 crazy girlfriend trope always puts the blame on the woman 0:51:07.210 --> 0:51:10.569 without discussing why she might be that way. When you 0:51:10.630 --> 0:51:15.930 think about it, statistically, men are often the ones stalking. 0:51:15.950 --> 0:51:22.270 They're the ones engaging in domestic violence, trapping women. And 0:51:22.290 --> 0:51:25.989 these are all behaviors that she exhibits. But he's the 0:51:26.190 --> 0:51:34.210 one that put her in that situation. That's not her. Mm-hmm. Also, interestingly, 0:51:34.710 --> 0:51:38.609 it is hilarious and terrifying. The men using this movie 0:51:38.630 --> 0:51:42.810 to be like, see, I'm vindicated. Women are crazy. Completely 0:51:42.830 --> 0:51:44.589 missing the point. Really? 0:51:44.850 --> 0:51:45.210 Wow. 0:51:45.489 --> 0:51:53.779 Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, obviously, I mean, I feel like 0:51:53.920 --> 0:51:59.620 obviously he keeps screaming at her, just be Nicky. when 0:51:59.660 --> 0:52:03.910 she's acting like the crazy girlfriend, but he knows it's 0:52:04.010 --> 0:52:09.089 not Nikki. He knows what he did. He knows that 0:52:09.170 --> 0:52:13.469 he is the one that made this situation and he's 0:52:13.670 --> 0:52:17.589 angry at her for it, but she wasn't the crazy girlfriend. 0:52:17.700 --> 0:52:24.620 He's the one that orchestrated this whole thing. And listen, 0:52:24.980 --> 0:52:28.960 by this point in the movie, he absolutely knew. I think, 0:52:29.440 --> 0:52:32.520 Some people will argue about when, but at that point, 0:52:32.820 --> 0:52:36.670 no way. He absolutely knew. If he's yelling at her 0:52:36.690 --> 0:52:39.969 for like, please just be Nikki, why can't you just 0:52:39.989 --> 0:52:43.770 be Nikki? No. I would guarantee a lot of the 0:52:43.790 --> 0:52:46.290 men who think Bear is the victim don't like it 0:52:46.330 --> 0:52:49.660 when women are not subservient to them and they get 0:52:49.760 --> 0:52:55.000 mad when women are mad at them for cheating or 0:52:55.440 --> 0:52:59.330 when women ask to be treated with respect. or as 0:52:59.370 --> 0:53:04.910 a human being, to me, it's scary, the disillusionment you'd 0:53:04.950 --> 0:53:07.910 have to have for this take. That's a wild thing 0:53:07.950 --> 0:53:13.069 to me. But yeah, it does exist. And that's kind 0:53:13.090 --> 0:53:14.839 of the update I wanted to do on my happy hour, 0:53:14.890 --> 0:53:17.399 because in there I said I was so glad most 0:53:17.440 --> 0:53:24.820 people seemed to be understanding that Nikki was not the villain. 0:53:25.260 --> 0:53:29.570 She was the victim. But there were definitely the Manosphere 0:53:29.630 --> 0:53:34.650 videos came out after that. And so finally, we're going 0:53:34.670 --> 0:53:37.450 to talk about love in a couple of ways. So 0:53:38.150 --> 0:53:41.590 as a part of the like crazy girlfriend trope, obsessive love, 0:53:42.410 --> 0:53:45.259 this does usually rely on the girlfriend in question being 0:53:45.320 --> 0:53:49.120 obsessed with the guy in question. In this case, it 0:53:49.160 --> 0:53:52.160 was a wish forced upon her. And this is pretty 0:53:52.200 --> 0:53:55.040 telling to me because it feels like a commentary on 0:53:55.540 --> 0:54:01.710 writer's to force this on women characters. A lot of 0:54:01.830 --> 0:54:08.190 these sometimes romanticized obsessive behaviors are used for horror, including 0:54:08.210 --> 0:54:13.480 the thing many women hate hearing, just smile, just be pleasant. 0:54:14.500 --> 0:54:18.060 She has so many creepy smiles in this movie. She 0:54:18.160 --> 0:54:22.580 laughs way too loud. She cries too loud. She gives 0:54:22.980 --> 0:54:27.759 her family heirloom to him. all of it feels very 0:54:28.320 --> 0:54:33.110 demonic and not human. And yeah, her performance is amazing 0:54:33.290 --> 0:54:38.290 and unpredictable. They did not use CGI or AI. It 0:54:38.330 --> 0:54:44.200 was her and makeup, all of that. Wow. Yep, yep, yep, yep. 0:54:44.760 --> 0:54:47.020 And then kind of like at the end, having the 0:54:48.120 --> 0:54:52.060 really sad turn where she's like screaming, why don't you 0:54:52.160 --> 0:54:55.719 love me? And there's the dead body of Sarah. And 0:54:56.000 --> 0:54:57.940 she's trying to look like Sarah and she's trying to 0:54:57.960 --> 0:55:04.960 smoke to be like Sarah. And he could have had Sarah. 0:55:06.219 --> 0:55:11.620 It's just, it's really tragic, the whole thing. Oh, also, 0:55:12.440 --> 0:55:14.960 there is a kind of Easter egg where you can 0:55:14.980 --> 0:55:18.840 see an ad for the One Wish Willow. And it says, 0:55:19.880 --> 0:55:23.879 dangerous when used by people that are insecure or obsessive. Hmm. 0:55:25.820 --> 0:55:29.560 So this brings us to something Nikki says in the 0:55:29.580 --> 0:55:33.600 beginning of the movie where she's kind of, she's talking 0:55:33.620 --> 0:55:36.880 about a book she's writing and Bear immediately assumes it's 0:55:36.900 --> 0:55:38.760 a romance and she says, no, it's a love story. 0:55:38.840 --> 0:55:42.020 He says, aren't they the same thing? And she says, no. 0:55:42.900 --> 0:55:46.419 So let us break that down a little bit. From Oprah.com, 0:55:47.120 --> 0:55:49.900 in America, we live in a culture that glorifies passionate 0:55:50.080 --> 0:55:53.900 romantic love. Our friends are in love, dreaming or daydreaming 0:55:53.940 --> 0:55:56.819 of it. waiting and dating to fall into it. Women 0:55:56.880 --> 0:55:59.640 and men begin new lives in love. Romantic love is 0:55:59.700 --> 0:56:03.880 our inspiration, our motivation, our reason to be. Romance is 0:56:03.920 --> 0:56:08.410 a cultural obsession, an imperial ideal. We believe that love 0:56:08.430 --> 0:56:11.549 can be found here and now and forever in an 0:56:11.670 --> 0:56:15.010 instant across a crowded room or tomorrow just around the corner. 0:56:15.810 --> 0:56:19.550 It can, but rarely. In reality, romance is more fleeting 0:56:19.640 --> 0:56:22.960 and more dangerous than we are told, more complicated than 0:56:22.980 --> 0:56:26.589 we could have imagined. more elusive than we've been led 0:56:26.630 --> 0:56:29.989 to believe. Love is a promise made every day only 0:56:30.010 --> 0:56:35.650 to be broken tomorrow. So I like this quote because 0:56:37.180 --> 0:56:41.200 of how it talks about the cultural obsession of how 0:56:41.260 --> 0:56:43.439 this will kind of fix my problems, which I think 0:56:43.480 --> 0:56:48.410 Bear has really attached himself to. Psychology Today wrote about 0:56:48.450 --> 0:56:53.160 obsession in this context. a fixation on an object followed 0:56:53.180 --> 0:56:57.050 by the uncertainty of reciprocity, what we call a limerence 0:56:57.630 --> 0:57:00.230 and the desperate need to resolve it by searching for 0:57:00.290 --> 0:57:08.239 hints of affection. I mean, that's it. He's fixated on Nikki. 0:57:08.989 --> 0:57:14.860 He's uncertain if she reciprocates and he's determined to search 0:57:14.920 --> 0:57:18.280 for these hints of affection. There's also a part of 0:57:18.320 --> 0:57:22.590 that article talks about, um, The person that you believe 0:57:22.610 --> 0:57:26.610 is the one that sees you, truly sees you. And 0:57:26.650 --> 0:57:31.290 he thinks that Nikki is that person. But it's an 0:57:31.330 --> 0:57:35.010 obsession about controlling her body and her choice. And there's 0:57:35.050 --> 0:57:38.700 a lot of great video essays out there about this. 0:57:39.540 --> 0:57:42.880 But just the way he words the wish and the 0:57:42.920 --> 0:57:46.700 way he acts after, that's really what he was obsessed with. 0:57:48.200 --> 0:57:51.760 So Nikki and Bear... have these different ideas of love 0:57:51.800 --> 0:57:55.500 stories and of what love is. And maybe this sums 0:57:55.640 --> 0:57:59.860 up how some men could interpret this movie so differently 0:58:00.000 --> 0:58:05.740 than like everyone else. Fear of consequences versus fear of 0:58:05.840 --> 0:58:10.360 loss of autonomy. Whose needs did he think mattered more 0:58:10.420 --> 0:58:13.940 to achieve this love that he wanted? And how did 0:58:13.980 --> 0:58:16.860 it look? It looked like her staying in the box 0:58:16.900 --> 0:58:21.670 that he put her in and him being Her entire world, 0:58:22.390 --> 0:58:25.450 which is not healthy. He did not care about her choices. 0:58:25.990 --> 0:58:28.210 He wanted to protect his ego and use her to 0:58:28.250 --> 0:58:31.010 solve his problems. He wanted to believe he was a 0:58:31.050 --> 0:58:35.060 good guy who deserved her, even as the evidence he's 0:58:35.160 --> 0:58:39.700 not piles up. He never tried to help her. Not once. 0:58:40.360 --> 0:58:43.900 That is not love. That's not even friendship. And he 0:58:43.960 --> 0:58:48.480 thinks that it's okay because of whatever patriarchal systemic shit 0:58:48.560 --> 0:58:52.810 he's absorbed. at least on some level. And when we 0:58:52.870 --> 0:58:55.150 look at the news and what's going on and the 0:58:55.190 --> 0:58:57.800 taking away of women's choices and how women are viewed, 0:58:58.600 --> 0:59:11.940 it's no wonder, unfortunately. So there's my whole thing. about obsession. 0:59:11.960 --> 0:59:15.340 I could have gone on and on, but like I said, 0:59:15.780 --> 0:59:17.700 so many people have been talking about this. It started 0:59:17.740 --> 0:59:23.540 a lot of conversations. So if you want to learn more, 0:59:23.560 --> 0:59:28.240 you absolutely can. It is out there. There are some 0:59:28.300 --> 0:59:34.750 really wonderful think pieces about it, and then some fun things. Like, legally, 0:59:35.430 --> 0:59:39.150 the company behind One Wish Willow, you'd be sued. You'd 0:59:39.170 --> 0:59:40.250 be sued to oblivion. 0:59:40.270 --> 0:59:43.280 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. If you can prove it. Like, 0:59:43.300 --> 0:59:46.910 that's the problem with, like, this type of magic, so 0:59:46.970 --> 0:59:48.730 no one really believes it until they do it. 0:59:49.600 --> 0:59:53.760 Yeah. I think the big point in the argument, though, 0:59:53.820 --> 0:59:58.100 was if you have a product where on a consumer level, 1:00:01.100 --> 1:00:04.950 On a customer services line, they say, well, one way 1:00:05.010 --> 1:00:09.090 to end the wish is to kill yourself. One, presumably, 1:00:09.110 --> 1:00:12.350 you'd think it was recorded. And so that's a pretty 1:00:12.450 --> 1:00:17.350 big issue for the lawsuit. 1:00:18.130 --> 1:00:19.650 I mean, yes, but. 1:00:20.490 --> 1:00:22.690 Yes. No, I mean, that's the thing. That's the biggest 1:00:22.770 --> 1:00:28.160 issue with Nikki's legal defense, because, I mean, what is 1:00:28.200 --> 1:00:33.310 she going to do now? is that, at least in 1:00:33.350 --> 1:00:37.070 the videos I watch, she has a really great legal defense, actually, 1:00:37.110 --> 1:00:42.630 but it depends on people believing that this product worked. 1:00:43.030 --> 1:00:51.050 And what jury and judge are going to believe that. Yeah. Well, thanks, everybody. 1:00:51.070 --> 1:00:55.840 This has been fun for me. It's a nice birthday 1:00:55.860 --> 1:00:56.760 episode for me. 1:00:57.620 --> 1:00:59.480 Fantastic. Thank you for sharing. 1:01:00.260 --> 1:01:02.380 Thank you for watching. I did. 1:01:03.000 --> 1:01:03.280 Yes. 1:01:03.700 --> 1:01:08.380 Yes. Well, listeners, if you have any thoughts, please let 1:01:08.480 --> 1:01:12.460 us know. You can email us at hello at stuffmonevertoldyou.com. 1:01:12.800 --> 1:01:14.160 You can find us on Blue Sky at Mom's Top 1:01:14.180 --> 1:01:17.560 Podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at stuffmonevertoldyou. We're also 1:01:17.620 --> 1:01:19.740 on YouTube. We have some merchandise at Cotton Bureau. And 1:01:19.760 --> 1:01:21.140 we have a book you can get wherever you get 1:01:21.180 --> 1:01:23.610 your books. Thanks, as always, to our super producer, Rima, 1:01:23.680 --> 1:01:24.810 and our executive producer, Maya. 1:01:25.170 --> 1:01:25.690 Thank you. 1:01:26.290 --> 1:01:28.410 And thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told 1:01:28.430 --> 1:01:30.390 You is produced by Heart Radio. For more podcasts from 1:01:30.410 --> 1:01:32.000 Heart Radio, you can check out the Heart Radio app, 1:01:32.120 --> 1:01:34.020 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.