Speaker 1: On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and
Speaker 1: husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in
Speaker 1: best start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hey, Jamie,
Speaker 1: what Caitlyn? It's me Caitlin um your number one fan?
Speaker 1: Oh shit, I've listened to every episode of the Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 1: I've read your writing, I've seen your stand up. Do
Speaker 1: you do the Matreon too? I have access to the Matreon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've listened to all those episodes. It's only five
Speaker 1: dollars a month with over hundred episodes of backlog. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So either I'm your number one fan and and I'm scary,
Speaker 1: or I'm just a really supportive friend I don't know,
Speaker 1: or my co host and you're scary. I contain multitudes.
Speaker 1: It's be so many combinations of things break my ankles,
Speaker 1: like dare you I want a week off? How? Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Bechtel Cast. That was a fun one, that
Speaker 1: was having. Okay, Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name
Speaker 1: is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Darante, and this
Speaker 1: is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional
Speaker 1: feminist lens, using the Bechtel test simply as a jumping
Speaker 1: off point, just a way to initiate a larger conversation
Speaker 1: about representation in media. But Jamie, yea, what is the
Speaker 1: Bechtel Test? Oh? Well, I'm glad you asked after all
Speaker 1: these years. The Bechtel Test is a media metric created
Speaker 1: by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel's sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test.
Speaker 1: It was originally created as just sort of a one
Speaker 1: off joke examination in a comic she made in the eighties,
Speaker 1: but now it is sort of used as a broad
Speaker 1: media metric to see how people of marginalized genders are
Speaker 1: treated in movies. So the version of the test that
Speaker 1: we use requires that two characters of a marginalized gender
Speaker 1: with names speak to each other about something other than
Speaker 1: a man for more than two lines of dialogue, and
Speaker 1: it should be you know, a narratively impactful exchange. Do
Speaker 1: you think when Kathy Bates talks to her female pig?
Speaker 1: I wrote that down as like when Kathy Bates talks
Speaker 1: to misery and they're only blinking at each other. It's
Speaker 1: not my favorite pass, but there's an argument for it.
Speaker 1: I also think that when Kathy Bates breaks someone's ankles,
Speaker 1: it spiritually passes. That passes in spirit um. But we
Speaker 1: have an incredible guest to help tease apart the intricacies
Speaker 1: of what we would consider passing the factual test today.
Speaker 1: So yes, we do. So let's get there in the room.
Speaker 1: She's an actress and host of Trials to Triumphs podcast.
Speaker 1: It's Ashley Blaine, Feather and Jenkins. Hi, Hello and welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank you. So you brought us the movie Misery, did Yeah,
Speaker 1: welcome to our cabin. By the way, Thank you. I
Speaker 1: hope you feel safe. I hope you feel secure. I do.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Actually I really do. Excellent. Um,
Speaker 1: what is your relationship with this movie? Maybe the book,
Speaker 1: could any anything related to this property. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's definitely the movie. I you know, I was born
Speaker 1: in eighty seven, so you know Mry came out. I
Speaker 1: believe in UM, so you know. I it was a
Speaker 1: movie that my my family, my parents talked about and
Speaker 1: then once I got old enough to watch it, well,
Speaker 1: I probably watched it before I should have been watching it.
Speaker 1: That's all. You should put that on the record. But
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I fell in love with it.
Speaker 1: It's it's such a it's a well done film, it's
Speaker 1: a well acted film. It is an emotion an old
Speaker 1: film that somehow Kathy Bates still gives us moments of
Speaker 1: odd levity. I don't even know levity is the word,
Speaker 1: but she's still kind of makes you laugh. You know,
Speaker 1: we're solving a mystery. Well we know the answer to
Speaker 1: the mystery, but like, you know, this town is solving
Speaker 1: a mystery. You know, it's it's got everything you could
Speaker 1: want in a film. But yeah, I love it. I've
Speaker 1: always like and it's one of my husband's favorite movies.
Speaker 1: He watches it any times on TV. Okay, he's that guy.
Speaker 1: Love it. Yeah, babe, getting the Room Miseries on and
Speaker 1: you're like, wow, I feel so safe exactly. I'm like
Speaker 1: this again, do we need to see the part where
Speaker 1: she's taking off his feet? I don't want to see
Speaker 1: I don't want to see the sledgehammer. I don't want
Speaker 1: to see it. I saw that clip before I watched
Speaker 1: the movie, so I guess so my relationship and you
Speaker 1: know history with this movie. I've never read the book,
Speaker 1: but I knew about the movie and the storage. Through
Speaker 1: kind of cultural osmosis. I had seen the clip of
Speaker 1: the ankle, just like with the sound. It's just like
Speaker 1: the sound haunts me the most. So I had seen
Speaker 1: that clip, and then I watched the full movie in college.
Speaker 1: This would have been like probably fifteen years ago now,
Speaker 1: and I hadn't watched it since, so I didn't fully remember, like,
Speaker 1: what a good movie this is. You're right, it's like
Speaker 1: very well, like, very well acted structurally, like from a
Speaker 1: screenwriting point of view, good job Mr William Goldman, famous screenwriter.
Speaker 1: So I was like, that guy knows what he's doing.
Speaker 1: It's almost like he's an expert in his craft. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed this movie. I'm excited to talk about it.
Speaker 1: I think it'll be an interesting discussion through our Bechtel
Speaker 1: cast lens. I'm still kind of processing, Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: a lot of questions for the room. Yes, um, Jamie,
Speaker 1: what's your relationship with it? I also did take in
Speaker 1: a lot of this movie kind of through cultural osmosis.
Speaker 1: I watched this movie with a friend last night, and
Speaker 1: we both very strongly remembered seeing this movie parodied in
Speaker 1: an episode of The Animaniacs um in the nineties, and
Speaker 1: I think that that was my operating knowledge and like
Speaker 1: those clip shows of like I love the nineties, Like
Speaker 1: I totally knew about this movie via that, and I
Speaker 1: knew I loved Cathy Bates because she's Entitanic. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: the unsingable Molly Brown herself. Yeah, Annie Wilkes, you know,
Speaker 1: more sinkable, let's say, uh, perhaps sinkable. Um. But I
Speaker 1: haven't seen this movie before. I watched it in the
Speaker 1: early pandemic lockdown where I was just it was, you know,
Speaker 1: chaos mode. Um. I was like, who's got it? Who's
Speaker 1: got it worse? Right now? And I think it was
Speaker 1: actually coming up a lot because they're like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: we all feel like James con and misery and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh no. Anyways, I watched it for the first time then,
Speaker 1: and I really enjoyed it. But I wasn't watching it
Speaker 1: through a beackdel cast lens. I was just watching it
Speaker 1: for a thriller and to cathartically also see someone inside
Speaker 1: trapped inside. Yes, So revisiting it a couple of years
Speaker 1: later was really really interesting. And I also think this
Speaker 1: movie rocks. I didn't realize it was directed by Rob
Speaker 1: Reiner question Mark, it doesn't feel like but it's so
Speaker 1: good that you're like, all right, Rob Reiner, I guess
Speaker 1: that you can direct something terrifying. That's not how I
Speaker 1: associate it. He's eclectic. Look, he's got range. Everyone in
Speaker 1: this movie has range. And I'm very excited to talk
Speaker 1: about it. And I was also really excited to read
Speaker 1: what Stephen King had to say about it because we've
Speaker 1: covered a couple. I want to say, how have we
Speaker 1: just covered Carrie for Stephen King? No, we covered the
Speaker 1: Shining covered you and Stephen King. Um, you know. I
Speaker 1: I want to, you know, defend my fellow New Englanders.
Speaker 1: But he's kind of all over the map when it
Speaker 1: comes to writing female characters, and like it's so it's
Speaker 1: I'm interested to unpack it because I feel like Annie
Speaker 1: Wilkes spoiler alert. I think she's a really good character. Anyways,
Speaker 1: Yes she rocks. Yeah, dare I say I'm rooting for her?
Speaker 1: But that's not how you're supposed to feel. I mean,
Speaker 1: on one hand, I resent any movie that makes me
Speaker 1: that wants me to root against Kathy Bates. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, I support any character who is trying to
Speaker 1: stop male artists from making art so well, there's so
Speaker 1: many fun ways to come at this movie that I
Speaker 1: didn't like. I just at first was watching it for
Speaker 1: like whatever is happening. I'm I'm in full support. This
Speaker 1: is great, but like, yeah, there's a way to watch
Speaker 1: it that is like a pair of social relationship cautionary tale.
Speaker 1: And then my my favorite read of this movie, which
Speaker 1: is from Stephen king that I wasn't aware of before
Speaker 1: I was just doing background for this episode, was that
Speaker 1: when he was writing the novel, which I also have
Speaker 1: not read the novel, but I looked up the differences.
Speaker 1: It's not too many, except oh, here's a fun one.
Speaker 1: So in the movie, she kills the sheriff with just
Speaker 1: like a gun. In the book, she like runs him
Speaker 1: over with a tractor. She like, yeah, she like she
Speaker 1: really I know. But Stephen king Um had substance abuse issues.
Speaker 1: He had he had a cocaine problem for a really
Speaker 1: long time, and when he was writing Misery, he was
Speaker 1: thinking of Annie Wilkes as his cocaine addiction and himself
Speaker 1: as the writer, and so like there was a whole
Speaker 1: other read of this movie where Annie is like just
Speaker 1: this representation of addiction, like keeping this like writer who
Speaker 1: writes all these famous books. Um trapped? Yeah, fascinating. Yeah right.
Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: Stephen King, he got me. Hmm, yeah, I can't wait
Speaker 1: to dive into it more. Uh shall I do the recap?
Speaker 1: Let's do it first and foremost. Okay, So we meet
Speaker 1: Paul Sheldon played by James con He is an author
Speaker 1: who finishes the novel he's been working on in a
Speaker 1: remote cabin in Silver Creek, which is probably in Maine,
Speaker 1: because Stephen King sets all of his stories in Maine
Speaker 1: in Colorado? Is this in Colorado? Okay, just kidding. I
Speaker 1: don't know what, but it is. I guess. The Shining
Speaker 1: is also set in Colorado. So you've got Colorado and Maine,
Speaker 1: and those are the only two states Stephen King cares about.
Speaker 1: He loves the cold. He's a wink, he really does. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm into it. Yes, snow related danger seems harder to
Speaker 1: get out of, right, Yeah, yeah, it's treacherous. So Paul
Speaker 1: celebrates finishing his novel by smoking a cigarette and drinking
Speaker 1: a glass of champagne. Then he gets in his car
Speaker 1: with the manuscript drives off. But it's snowing heavily because
Speaker 1: he's did in the Rocky Mountains. The roads are slippery,
Speaker 1: and he slides off the road and rolls down an embankment.
Speaker 1: We then flashback to Paul talking to his literary agent
Speaker 1: played by Lauren Bicall. Love that I what a treat, right,
Speaker 1: what a legend? Sorry, really quick, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: make note of any any movie of this era when
Speaker 1: there's a car crash, you get to see the whole
Speaker 1: car crash. They just like they just wreck a whole car.
Speaker 1: I feel like that doesn't happen anymore. So this is
Speaker 1: early nineties, so practical effects are pretty mu the only
Speaker 1: option that like car crashes these days, and movies are
Speaker 1: like all c g I. But yeah, they're like, well
Speaker 1: we have to do a car, a Dominic Toretto car crash.
Speaker 1: This is just like a car rolling down the hill
Speaker 1: in Colorado. It was right, I don't know, it's cathartic,
Speaker 1: just to see an old school practical car crash. Yep. Okay.
Speaker 1: So in this flashback, Paul is talking to Lauren Bicall,
Speaker 1: and he's explaining to her why he killed off a
Speaker 1: beloved character in his famous book series entitled the Misery series,
Speaker 1: named for the main character whose name is Misery. Basically,
Speaker 1: he wants to get away from this series and work
Speaker 1: on other projects. We cut back to him in his car.
Speaker 1: He's bloody and unconscious. Someone prizes his car door open,
Speaker 1: pulls him out, and carries him off. Paul then wakes
Speaker 1: up in a bed in the home of Annie Wilkes
Speaker 1: played by Cathy Bates. Quick question, would the men have
Speaker 1: worked for Annie Wilkes if they existed at the time? Thoughts, Well,
Speaker 1: since the Minions famously work for the most evil person
Speaker 1: they can find, right, I guess she didn't cut the
Speaker 1: mustard in terms of evil. There must have been someone
Speaker 1: more evil active at that time. Who was the most
Speaker 1: evil person in? Oh? I mean we we have we
Speaker 1: have options. Well, okay, that's uh, that's Jamie's Minions corner
Speaker 1: for the week. Just some food for thought. Okay, So
Speaker 1: Annie Wilkes Paul is in her home. She tells Paul
Speaker 1: that she is his number one fan. She loves all
Speaker 1: of his books, She's read them all. She's also a
Speaker 1: nurse and she's going to take care of him while
Speaker 1: he recovers from this car accident in which he has
Speaker 1: been badly injured. Both of Paul's legs are broken, as
Speaker 1: well as one of his arms. She gives him pain pill,
Speaker 1: she has like put splints on his legs. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you take me to a hospital, and she
Speaker 1: says the blizzard was too strong, but once the roads
Speaker 1: are clear, I'll take you to the hospital. He also
Speaker 1: wants to call his agent and his daughter, and Annie says, oh,
Speaker 1: but the phone lines are down because of the blizzard,
Speaker 1: so you can't. I do love that he does do
Speaker 1: like in terms of I don't know how you would
Speaker 1: you call it. Is this a horror movie? Is this
Speaker 1: a thriller movie? I don't really know what the exact
Speaker 1: genre is. I think it's a it's thriller suspense. I
Speaker 1: would say it's in that with some horrific imagery. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's sure there's some overlap because I just appreciate that
Speaker 1: James Connon's character, so Paul Paul, I like that he
Speaker 1: does do everything that a person would do in this situation,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't like do the horror movie thing where
Speaker 1: he's like all right, and you know, just like he
Speaker 1: does challenger at every turn in a way that made sense.
Speaker 1: Well and maybe there's a discussion about this as far
Speaker 1: as gender goes. But the way men are written in
Speaker 1: horror movies is very different from the way women are
Speaker 1: written in horror movies when it's like a female protagonist.
Speaker 1: When they're written by men, they are written in such
Speaker 1: a way where they don't use logic. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: perhaps we'll talk about that, perhaps perhaps a little foreshadowing.
Speaker 1: Um okay, So meanwhile, um Lauren Bicall calls the local
Speaker 1: sheriff of Silver Creek. She Laured call Lauren. She Lauren
Speaker 1: makes a bo call and she calls Buster, the sheriff,
Speaker 1: and she's like, Hey, no one has heard from Paul,
Speaker 1: and I know that he was there in your town,
Speaker 1: So any thoughts And he's like, don't worry, I'll investigate.
Speaker 1: We cut back to Annie and Paul an He reiterates
Speaker 1: that she's his biggest fan and that she's been following him,
Speaker 1: and we're like, oh. She asks about his new manuscript
Speaker 1: and he lets her read it, but then she complains
Speaker 1: to him about all the swearing in the book and
Speaker 1: she kind of snaps. She starts yelling, she spills soup
Speaker 1: all over him. But then she's like, oh, I'm so sorry,
Speaker 1: and also I love you, Paul. And then we're like
Speaker 1: double oh, done, done, done, and and we also know
Speaker 1: that Paul has killed off the like her favorite character
Speaker 1: and the I think that that is like my favorite
Speaker 1: bit of tension in this movie is like waiting for
Speaker 1: Cathy Bates to get to the end of the book
Speaker 1: and then she goes nuclear. But prior to that, she
Speaker 1: has this little episode and Paul is starting to realize, oh,
Speaker 1: she might not be entirely stable. Meanwhile, Buster, the sheriff,
Speaker 1: is looking into Paul's possible disappearance. He is near Paul's car,
Speaker 1: which is now completely covered in snow. Um so the
Speaker 1: sheriff misses it. He doesn't see it. Also, the Sheriff's
Speaker 1: his wife, Virginia. I just want to get her because
Speaker 1: she's an iconic character. She's the best. I okay, I
Speaker 1: don't like that this movie is also making me root
Speaker 1: for a cop and his deputy, but I really I
Speaker 1: found their on screen relationship very fun to watch, so sweet.
Speaker 1: I love how she was like, was she about to
Speaker 1: jerk him off in the car or something? And then
Speaker 1: he's like, we're at work. I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: this is this is good horny representation. Good for them
Speaker 1: because at first you don't know they're married, and she's
Speaker 1: like putting her hand on his leg and we're like,
Speaker 1: oh no, what is about? What is inappropriate? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: then she's like and then he and then Busters like, babe,
Speaker 1: when you're in the car, you're not my wife, you're
Speaker 1: my deputy. And it's like, Okay, they're married, still inappropriate
Speaker 1: when they're on the job. I actually don't know whether
Speaker 1: that comes from like even King or William Goldman or both,
Speaker 1: but I just like those moments of levity are so fun. Like,
Speaker 1: I just I love Virginia. I wish we got more
Speaker 1: of Virginia. You know, after Buster is We're longer with us?
Speaker 1: Where's the Virginia spinoff series? This movie has gotten a
Speaker 1: lot of spinoffs, but all of them have to do
Speaker 1: with Annie Wilkes, which I guess makes sense. Lizzie Kaplan
Speaker 1: played her on a TV show that I did not watch.
Speaker 1: I did not even know that. Yeah, she plays like
Speaker 1: the young Annie Wilkes getting in Yeah. Yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I didn't watch it. But and then
Speaker 1: it was also a Broadway show starring Laurie Metcalfe. And
Speaker 1: she wanted Tony for it, which also sounds pretty good.
Speaker 1: I had no idea there was so much Misery content
Speaker 1: out there, the Misery expanded universe, Like, don't rule out
Speaker 1: the Virginia story. You mean the m C you the Misery,
Speaker 1: Misery Cinematic Kid exactly? Awesome, awesome, Okay. So Annie continues
Speaker 1: to be very creepy. She fawns over Paul's new book. So,
Speaker 1: here's something that was confusing to me. The newest Misery
Speaker 1: book in his Misery series has just been released and
Speaker 1: is being sold a bookstource. So Annie gets a copy
Speaker 1: of that. So she's reading that and his manuscript. So
Speaker 1: when she's talking about like what she's reading, I was
Speaker 1: never quite clear if it was his published book or
Speaker 1: his unpublished manuscript. She's reading both concurrently, it seems, So
Speaker 1: that's happening. And then Annie finishes the new book, the
Speaker 1: published one, and learns that Paul has killed off the
Speaker 1: Misery character, which absolutely devastates Annie. She lashes out. She
Speaker 1: says she can't be around him, she needs to leave,
Speaker 1: and she also reveals to him no one knows that
Speaker 1: he's there. She never called his agent or daughter like
Speaker 1: she said she did. And he's like even more isolated now,
Speaker 1: so and he drives off, and Paul is trapped in
Speaker 1: her house with two broken legs and he can't walk,
Speaker 1: so he crawls out of bed, but oh no, he
Speaker 1: is locked in his room. So the next day and
Speaker 1: he comes back and she's like, I know how will
Speaker 1: solve this. God showed me the way. You're going to
Speaker 1: burn this manuscript. And she knows this is the only copy,
Speaker 1: and she also starts dumping lighter fluid on him, so
Speaker 1: he has no choice but to burn his manuscript. Yeah,
Speaker 1: her like just being the super fan and knowing all
Speaker 1: this information that like she's like no, because like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just so scary. It's so scary. It's just like
Speaker 1: a number of times in the movie, she uses her
Speaker 1: like super fandom knowledge of him against him because he's
Speaker 1: like he tries to be like, well, there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of copies floating around publishers, and she's like, you said
Speaker 1: on an interview eleven years ago that you only you
Speaker 1: don't make a copy bees because you're superstitious. So I
Speaker 1: know that this is the only copy, and I'm making
Speaker 1: you burn it. And he's like busted. It's like meeting
Speaker 1: the person who edits your Wikipedia or you're You're like, no,
Speaker 1: not you're Wiki, You're you're Wiki feet page uh and
Speaker 1: and they want to kill you. It's it's so good
Speaker 1: in the book, I guess that, um, And I was like,
Speaker 1: this is like an interesting I guess. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I prefer. I think I prefer the movie. In
Speaker 1: the book, there is more than It's like a copy
Speaker 1: of the book does survive, and he when he escapes
Speaker 1: at the end, he publishes the original copy he wrote
Speaker 1: and it becomes a big hit. He doesn't rewrite it.
Speaker 1: I think I like it better when he rewrites it.
Speaker 1: And it's about ptsd s. Yeah, I don't know. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Paul has burnt his manuscript and then Annie sets
Speaker 1: him up in a wheelchair with a desk, a typewriter,
Speaker 1: and expensive paper so that he can write a new manuscript,
Speaker 1: one where Misery isn't actually dead, and one where he's
Speaker 1: paying tribute to Annie for saving his life and nursing
Speaker 1: him back to health. And he's like, okay, but I
Speaker 1: can't write on this paper. It smudges, which is just
Speaker 1: an excuse to get her to leave, and which upsets
Speaker 1: Annie and it makes her feel like he doesn't appreciate her,
Speaker 1: so she storms off to go get this other type
Speaker 1: of paper. While she's gone, Paul picks up a bobby
Speaker 1: pin that has been left on the floor and uses
Speaker 1: it to unlock the door to his bedroom. But, like
Speaker 1: he does in his books, I love I love that sequence.
Speaker 1: He's like, well, it does work. That's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite sequences. It's great. Yeah, but I guess the front
Speaker 1: door to the house is locked from the outside, so
Speaker 1: he can't get out. So he's going around the house
Speaker 1: trying to find a way to escape the telephone, like,
Speaker 1: she has disabled the telephone, so he can't even make
Speaker 1: a call. He hears her coming back, so he scrambles
Speaker 1: back to his room relocks the door with a bobby pin,
Speaker 1: just in the nick of time. Meanwhile, Paul's car is
Speaker 1: finally found the Like area. Law enforcement thinks Paul is
Speaker 1: dead in the woods somewhere, but Buster, the sheriff, doesn't
Speaker 1: think so, so he keeps searching. And then you get
Speaker 1: that amazing scene with him in Virginia or Virgins on
Speaker 1: the phone being like, I don't know where he is.
Speaker 1: He's probably out cheating on me, and she's like the
Speaker 1: least professional person in the world. I love Virginia. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So then, at Annie's insistence, Paul starts writing a new manuscript,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't approve at first, so she makes him
Speaker 1: start over. He begins a new version, which Annie loves,
Speaker 1: and then Paul is like, oh, well, you have dinner
Speaker 1: with me tonight. Annie. He's clearly, you know, like cooking
Speaker 1: up another scheme, which is that he puts the pain
Speaker 1: meds that he has been stockpiling in her glass of
Speaker 1: wine to drug her. But oh crumbs, she spills her
Speaker 1: glass of wine and his plan doesn't work. It's so good,
Speaker 1: it's I love this movie. So then Paul keeps writing
Speaker 1: this book. Annie is reading each new chapter as he
Speaker 1: finishes it. She's loving it. Some time passes, I don't
Speaker 1: really know how much. I'm thinking, like a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks or so, enough to like get him a little
Speaker 1: bit more healed up, and she's getting sad because, oh,
Speaker 1: she loves him, and she knows that he doesn't love
Speaker 1: her back. And his book is almost done and his
Speaker 1: legs are getting better, so soon he will have no
Speaker 1: reason to be there anymore. And then Annie pulls out
Speaker 1: a gun and says something about how she thinks about
Speaker 1: using it sometimes, and we're like, the steaks are getting high.
Speaker 1: I don't do that. That monologue is like, so we'll
Speaker 1: talk about it, but it's like it's it's just great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then Paul finds a bunch of newspaper clippings that suggests
Speaker 1: Annie has killed a lot of people, including her husband,
Speaker 1: other nurses, a bunch of babies at the maternity ward
Speaker 1: of the hospital. She doesn't really discriminate who she'll kill,
Speaker 1: really anyone, it seems, so Paul is really like, I
Speaker 1: need to get the funk out of here. But then
Speaker 1: she drugs Paul and when he wakes up, she has
Speaker 1: strapped him to the bed and she basically intends to
Speaker 1: keep him trapped there forever. Then we get the moment
Speaker 1: that I believe the movie is best known for, which
Speaker 1: is when she takes a sledgehammer to both of his
Speaker 1: ankles so that he can never get away. You can
Speaker 1: monologue to Oh, it's so good she I mean she
Speaker 1: wants this is the only fun fun fact from the
Speaker 1: IMDV page. Um, this is the only so Cathy Bates
Speaker 1: wont and ask for playing Annie Welks and it's the
Speaker 1: only Stephen King movie nominated that's ever actually one an
Speaker 1: oscar No kidding, Yeah, I mean we'll deserve He also wrote,
Speaker 1: I mean, he wrote, you would think Shawshank Redemption would
Speaker 1: have won something. That's what I say. They. I guess
Speaker 1: that they got snubbed across the board. I forget that
Speaker 1: Shawshank Redemption is a Stephen King thing. Yeah yeah, yeah, Wait, Jamie,
Speaker 1: did you say a scene that you can feel similar
Speaker 1: to Kman saying sound that you can feel the best
Speaker 1: thing ever made the AMC commercial? You don't, I would
Speaker 1: say when it comes to Annie welkes cabin, heartbreak does
Speaker 1: not feel good in a place like that. Somehow heart
Speaker 1: break feels bad in a place like Annie welks cabin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because not only is your heartbreaking, so are your ankles.
Speaker 1: That's true, ys, your ankles and your will to live? Wow? Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: so he his ankles are badly broken. Um. Then Annie
Speaker 1: goes back into town and Sheriff Buster sees her and
Speaker 1: he's like, hmmm, hang on a minute, there's something peculiar
Speaker 1: about this any person. Meanwhile, Paul is back at the
Speaker 1: cabin and he's like, well, I guess this is my
Speaker 1: life now Annie comes back home and puts Paul in
Speaker 1: her basement, and then Sheriff Buster comes over to Annie's
Speaker 1: house and wants to look around. He discovers Paul in
Speaker 1: the basement, but just then Annie murders him with a
Speaker 1: murders buster the sheriff with a shotgun, and she's about
Speaker 1: to kill both Paul and herself, but to save himself,
Speaker 1: Paul is like, no, no, no, Annie, I I do
Speaker 1: love you and and I want you to help me
Speaker 1: finish this book. So there's a sequence where he's finishing
Speaker 1: the book. She's all happy and they're gonna celebrate, and
Speaker 1: he needs his champagne and his cigarette and a match
Speaker 1: to light the cigarette. But he has when he was
Speaker 1: in the basement, he had procured a canister of lighter fluid,
Speaker 1: and so when she goes to get the champagne, he
Speaker 1: dumps the lighter fluid all over his manuscript and burns it.
Speaker 1: And she's like, oh my god, what the hell. And
Speaker 1: then there's a big scuffle there, you know, violently fighting
Speaker 1: with each other, and it's it's brutal. I mean that
Speaker 1: I always um surprised again by how and she comes
Speaker 1: back to life at one point, oh, it's just little yeah,
Speaker 1: And it finally culminates in Paul killing Annie, and then
Speaker 1: we cut too sometime later, he has obviously been found
Speaker 1: and rescued. He's made a Lauren Bicall. He made a
Speaker 1: Lauren Bicall and got to safety and his ankles have healed.
Speaker 1: He's able to walk again, and he meets with Lauren
Speaker 1: Bicall and he has a new book, and also he
Speaker 1: talks about he basically, you know, he describes his PTSD
Speaker 1: where he while he knows that Annie is dead, he's
Speaker 1: still like sees her on and he's kind of tormented
Speaker 1: by the thought of of her in general, the concept
Speaker 1: of a brunette. And then at the end and the end,
Speaker 1: like a server comes up to him and she's like, Hi, Paul,
Speaker 1: I'm your biggest fan. And we're like, oh, and that's
Speaker 1: the end of the movie. So let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break and we will come right back to discuss. And
Speaker 1: we're back. Wow, where where shall we start the discussion? Actually?
Speaker 1: What what jumps out to you? I first want to
Speaker 1: start with just I did some research too, and I
Speaker 1: thought it was just this is kind of an aside,
Speaker 1: but I thought it was crazy how many people that
Speaker 1: this film was offered to. That wasn't James Cohn or
Speaker 1: Cathy Bay Yeah? Wa who? So the part of Paul Sheldon,
Speaker 1: who ended up being played by James Cohn, was offered
Speaker 1: to literally the names are endless him William Hurt twice.
Speaker 1: They offered it to him twice, okay, and he declined both,
Speaker 1: but they came back, We're like, are you sure, William.
Speaker 1: I guess he was like, no. Kevin Klein, Michael Douglas,
Speaker 1: Harrison Ford, Dustin Hoffman, Robert de Niro, Al Pacino, Richard Dreyfuss,
Speaker 1: Jene Hackman, and Robert Redford. All of these people said no.
Speaker 1: And I guess, oh, and Warren beat he was interested
Speaker 1: in it but wanted to like change some stuff with
Speaker 1: the character. And I guess they were like, Warren, we
Speaker 1: don't have time for all this. Do you want to
Speaker 1: do the movie or not? And he was like, no,
Speaker 1: actually I don't. And so I was like, I'll just
Speaker 1: keep doing Dick Tracy. Yeah, yeah, and and then and
Speaker 1: then he eventually had to literally drop out. Officially. I
Speaker 1: guess he used the Dick Tracy as kind of you
Speaker 1: know the reasoning for that, but JA, I don't know
Speaker 1: how it got to James con But I don't know
Speaker 1: if they were like, listen, James, we've reached out to
Speaker 1: four hundred people. Are you down to do it all
Speaker 1: more famous than you? Yeah? And James was like yeah.
Speaker 1: At the time, like I imagine it was like super simple.
Speaker 1: He was like yeah, like how are you shooting for
Speaker 1: a month? I can do that, like, and then it
Speaker 1: became this amazing movie. And then Andy Wilkes was offered
Speaker 1: to Angelica Houston, which is like amazing. And Bette Midler
Speaker 1: both turned it down. And Bette Midler is she said
Speaker 1: publicly that she's deeply regretted the decision to turn down
Speaker 1: the character. Well she was busy prepping for hocus Pocus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I just like that as like a just an
Speaker 1: entry point, like I said, on the side, I guess
Speaker 1: just because it's such an iconic film and so many
Speaker 1: people turned it down. I love hearing those stories where
Speaker 1: it's like it was obviously exactly who it was supposed
Speaker 1: to be. It was supposed to be James Connon in
Speaker 1: in Cathy Bates, but it could have been so many
Speaker 1: other people. Wild to think about, and I just think
Speaker 1: it's like wild that um, I just can't get over
Speaker 1: the fact that this is a Rob Reiner movie on
Speaker 1: on top of everything else, and then this is like
Speaker 1: Rob Reiner and William Goldman collaborate. I think back to
Speaker 1: back doing this and they had just done the Princess
Speaker 1: Bride adaptation together three years before, and then they're like, okay,
Speaker 1: change of pace, what if we did Misery? And both
Speaker 1: of those movies are so iconic, it's like it's wild incredible.
Speaker 1: So my as I said, I'm still kind of like
Speaker 1: processing this movie because I do think there are a
Speaker 1: number of ways to look at it's um. Yes, I
Speaker 1: was kind of initially struck by the thrillers of this era,
Speaker 1: of which there are several where women are the scary person,
Speaker 1: the captor, the abuser, you know, like the the villain
Speaker 1: of the movie, who are often targeting men. Not always
Speaker 1: you've got like single white female, um where it's two women.
Speaker 1: But if you're thinking about like Fatal Attraction as another
Speaker 1: one we've covered on the show and the and the
Speaker 1: woman has always killed at the end, yes, yea, so
Speaker 1: she she's punished, and so I'm trying to think of
Speaker 1: it where I'm like, is this sort of just like
Speaker 1: a like a screenwriting like creative choice, where writers are
Speaker 1: thinking of ways to subvert situations and expectations, because statistically,
Speaker 1: in real life it's men who are more often abducting
Speaker 1: people and abusing them in and being scary and creepy.
Speaker 1: So is this just like or a writer's way of saying, oh,
Speaker 1: what if we you know, what if it's a twist,
Speaker 1: what if it's a woman this time? Or is it
Speaker 1: like male writers villainizing women because of sexist reasons? Is
Speaker 1: it something else? Is it all of the above. I
Speaker 1: I'm very curious about creative choices, like this is what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, and like, what is the what are the
Speaker 1: implications of that? What are the motivations behind making choices
Speaker 1: like that? You know, I think that media has an
Speaker 1: entertainment has kind of brainwash society into being really into
Speaker 1: and intrigued by, you know, the unhinged quote unquote woman.
Speaker 1: You know, there's something I think it's because, you know,
Speaker 1: societal norms tell us that women are hinged. We're not unhinged.
Speaker 1: We are as supposed to have it together and take
Speaker 1: care of the family and be the wives and the
Speaker 1: mothers and whatever, the homemakers. You know, obviously, this is
Speaker 1: a very antiquated view, but I'm just you know, as
Speaker 1: like a blanket statement as far as like the way
Speaker 1: society sees women. I mean, yeah, those are the expectations
Speaker 1: society has for women. And Andy Wilkes understands that too
Speaker 1: and like leverages it against people, which I kind of
Speaker 1: for sure, But I think that this movie definitely played
Speaker 1: to that. It played to the interest that society and
Speaker 1: consumers of entertainment are really that are really into the
Speaker 1: like you said, the shock of like, oh this is
Speaker 1: something different. This lady's unhinged, she's she's you know, she
Speaker 1: doesn't have it together, and she's scary and creepy. And
Speaker 1: also there's a thing about women being obsessive. There's a
Speaker 1: thing about that. I think that's that's a major theme
Speaker 1: in this film and in the book is it's it's obsession.
Speaker 1: And I think when we when we tend to see
Speaker 1: obsession in media and entertainment, it's typically the woman is
Speaker 1: obsessed with the man, like specifically obsession. I don't think
Speaker 1: you see us often the other way. You see it
Speaker 1: very often with a woman being obsessed with a man
Speaker 1: or a man's situation, or if there's a man who's
Speaker 1: obsessed with a woman. We've talked like the stalker, like
Speaker 1: how men, especially in movies of this era, are like
Speaker 1: are often stalking the person that they want to be with.
Speaker 1: But it's not framed as a bad thing. It's a
Speaker 1: framed as like he's going for it, he's gonna win
Speaker 1: her over. Yes, yes, that's what I mean. It's it's
Speaker 1: cloaked in a different way. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this as well. I think a good
Speaker 1: kind of like if I mean, I'm sure that there's
Speaker 1: some crossover between our listener and her listeners as well.
Speaker 1: But friend of the cast Karina Longworth did a wonderful
Speaker 1: series on the erotic eighties. This is technically a nineties movie,
Speaker 1: but it feels like an eighties movie came up nine.
Speaker 1: It's a cusp, but that sort of examines a lot
Speaker 1: of these issues and a lot of the cultural stuff
Speaker 1: because because yeah, this is like the Fatal Attraction era
Speaker 1: where it feels like there was this uptick in designing
Speaker 1: these female villains who are I feel like, in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases highly like reclaimable and have a lot
Speaker 1: of layers that you can go back and find amazing
Speaker 1: stuff in. But at the time, feel more like a
Speaker 1: cultural anxiety about women come to life, where you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about in our Fatal Attraction episode a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago how Glenn Close's character is like you
Speaker 1: can't have it all and like they're like and anxieties
Speaker 1: around women aging, which I think is also present in
Speaker 1: Annie's character, and just any woman who is other by society, Um,
Speaker 1: whether it's by how she looks or how old she is,
Speaker 1: or like the fact that she doesn't have kids, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. Um, it feels like people are always, especially
Speaker 1: in this era, which I think is interesting, always looking
Speaker 1: to make that the most evil thing that's ever happened,
Speaker 1: and have it happened to such a nice guy? Uh,
Speaker 1: which is and I love. I kept writing down in
Speaker 1: my notes Paul as definitely not Stephen King's on a
Speaker 1: little trip, but I But culturally it makes me think
Speaker 1: about just when I was working on the Kathy podcast,
Speaker 1: just reading about women's media in the eighties in general
Speaker 1: skewed so far in this direction. It seems like, partially
Speaker 1: in response to um, you know, the seventies were a
Speaker 1: pretty progressive time with exceptions, but like a more progressive
Speaker 1: time for women and women's rights than really any other
Speaker 1: time up till that point. And then the eighties and
Speaker 1: early nineties were just a period of regression and fucking
Speaker 1: Reaganomics and just like completely trying to repackage the collective
Speaker 1: progress people had made and turn it into a consumer product.
Speaker 1: And it feels like these characters and these women are
Speaker 1: are a big part of that, of are a big
Speaker 1: part of like, oh, you think you wanted to like
Speaker 1: live on your own, you think you wanted to like
Speaker 1: not live in this you know what is considered like
Speaker 1: this normal nuclear thing. Well guess what Annie Wilkes is
Speaker 1: like that and she's a murderer or like, right, this
Speaker 1: is what happens to a liberated woman who you know,
Speaker 1: lives on her own and doesn't have children, she'll become
Speaker 1: a murderer. Which I don't know if that like wholesale
Speaker 1: applies to this story, but it's like they're there. There's
Speaker 1: definitely Annie Wilks is like a part of Trent. But
Speaker 1: that's part of why I like this movie. It's like
Speaker 1: that reading is right there. And then or also if
Speaker 1: you you know, happen to come across this interview that
Speaker 1: Stephen King did in two thousand and six you can
Speaker 1: view the character in a completely different way because she's, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the addiction monster come to life. But also
Speaker 1: why do you make the creative choice to make the
Speaker 1: addiction monster of you know, a woman who is over forty? Like,
Speaker 1: there's so many questions, right, there are certainly implications there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. This is just like something that I
Speaker 1: find endlessly fascinating in terms of, like, we have certain
Speaker 1: societal and cultural expectations of women too, yeah, to be
Speaker 1: the ones to like hold things together and you know,
Speaker 1: be domesticated and and and stuff like that. So to
Speaker 1: subvert that and in this version of the subvert this
Speaker 1: version of the subversion, what Kate swish Um, you have
Speaker 1: completely quote unquote on ranged women who are obsessive and
Speaker 1: stalkers and you know, abductors and murderers. And not to
Speaker 1: say this never happens in real life, but it's also
Speaker 1: far less likely that it would be a woman than
Speaker 1: a man doing these things. So yeah, I just like,
Speaker 1: I still don't know quite how to process it. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I guess what I will because I also
Speaker 1: am actively having like which I feel like does speak
Speaker 1: to how good the movie and ostensibly the book is that, like,
Speaker 1: it's not a very easily answered question where I guess
Speaker 1: that like Stephen King did pull from a real person
Speaker 1: to build out this character, a nurse who it sounds
Speaker 1: sort of adjacent to um munch hous since by proxy,
Speaker 1: like she would make children sick and then vote unquote
Speaker 1: cure them but couldn't always cure them, and um, I
Speaker 1: was responsible for a number of children dying on her watch,
Speaker 1: and so like he's pulling from something it's like not
Speaker 1: happening in a vacuum, which I feel like is helpful,
Speaker 1: but I don't know, like, yeah, there are just like
Speaker 1: so many, so many reads of it, and well, okay,
Speaker 1: so if we're talking about Annie, I feel like it
Speaker 1: is there are a lot of tropes that we're talking
Speaker 1: about at play where I feel like her her body
Speaker 1: is not like directly commented on, but it feels like
Speaker 1: the camera comments on her body a lot. It feels
Speaker 1: like the use of the pig is a bizarre roundabout
Speaker 1: like joke at her expense. And I was struggling with
Speaker 1: because it's like, this isn't something that the movie is
Speaker 1: like outright telling you in a way that you might
Speaker 1: expect a movie of this era to do of just
Speaker 1: like absolutely making a joke of a woman's body that
Speaker 1: isn't like rigidly thin, which did happen in the original
Speaker 1: reviews of this movie, Like Kathy Bates's body was commented
Speaker 1: on extensively and extremely rudely and I don't even want
Speaker 1: to quote it here. Not surprising, right, oh, like people
Speaker 1: had an issue with her body type. No, they just
Speaker 1: were like, you know, the way that the character was described,
Speaker 1: it was like leading with like a middle aged, overweight
Speaker 1: woman like that. I think a good comparison here is
Speaker 1: have you both seen ten Cloverfield Lane. Yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like such a similar premise, but the it's a gender
Speaker 1: swapped premise and from like thirty years later or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: But John Goodman is trapping Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the
Speaker 1: basement and she can't escape, and the twist is different,
Speaker 1: but it's like kind of a similar premise in that
Speaker 1: it's like a middle aged person who's not rigidly thin
Speaker 1: is trapping someone in their house. But the reviews for
Speaker 1: ten Cloverfield Lane and the way that John Goodman's character
Speaker 1: is talked about is very different than Annie Wilkes. I mean, granted,
Speaker 1: that the plot goes in a different direction. But I it,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was thinking a lot about ten
Speaker 1: Cloverfield Lane when I was doing this watch right, But
Speaker 1: that's all. That's just very indicative of the way society
Speaker 1: views women's bodies versus men's bodies, where like, if a
Speaker 1: woman is a villain in a story, consumers of that
Speaker 1: story will be like, yes, she's a villain because she's
Speaker 1: like not traditionally beautiful, or like, you know, just any
Speaker 1: any number of awful comments like that. But I think
Speaker 1: it's it's not a coincidence that an actor like Kathy
Speaker 1: Bates was cast to play Annie, and considering the other
Speaker 1: actors who were considered Angelica Houston and Bette Midler amazing actors,
Speaker 1: extremely talented, but these are three women who are not
Speaker 1: it are like classically beautiful by Western beauty standards. So
Speaker 1: I think it's very deliberate that again, like someone like
Speaker 1: Kathy Bates's cast to play Annie because yes, she she's
Speaker 1: an older woman. Her body type is not a Victoria's
Speaker 1: secret model type. You know. It's the way that like
Speaker 1: most famous, like a list actress, is your female actors
Speaker 1: look a very certain way. Yeah, it feels like that's
Speaker 1: what they were trying to say, like this is what
Speaker 1: unhinged looks like, Like this is this is what it
Speaker 1: looks like to us? Does it look like that to
Speaker 1: you audience? Like it almost is like subconsciously they're trying
Speaker 1: to convince us that like this is the way it
Speaker 1: would look in reality, this is what this type of
Speaker 1: captor would look like. This is what and um, again
Speaker 1: it's it's not really in your face, you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like it's subtle in a way, but but
Speaker 1: I agree, I think it's it was it was still
Speaker 1: very intentional and be able to decide what is it saying?
Speaker 1: And is that okay? That that's what I'm saying. You know.
Speaker 1: It feels like the subtext is like, how could this
Speaker 1: woman possibly be happy, normal and well adjusted? Just like
Speaker 1: of course she has you know, of course she has this.
Speaker 1: And at first, you know, her backstory, I thought just
Speaker 1: about the children at the hospital and her being a nurse,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of her past life. At first I
Speaker 1: looked at it as like, oh, that's really good, like
Speaker 1: character development, backstory, Like that's really helpful and useful. But
Speaker 1: then when you think about it, it's also like what
Speaker 1: is that saying to Like, It's like her backstory is
Speaker 1: kind of like did children have she someone who children
Speaker 1: had to die on her watch and she had to
Speaker 1: have this horrific backstory in order to be this person
Speaker 1: who's now doing this. You know. Yeah, it's it just
Speaker 1: like introduces so many questions I do I appreciate. I
Speaker 1: just happened to watch Fatal Attraction the other night at
Speaker 1: a hotel Uma having a normal one. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: at a Laquinta. Uh yeah, yeah. It was a Continental
Speaker 1: breakfast with the wet sausage that they serve at continental breakfasts. Um.
Speaker 1: But I was taking in Fatal Attraction, so it's fresh
Speaker 1: in my mind as well. And I do feel like
Speaker 1: you'd get more background about Annie Wilks than I expected.
Speaker 1: And I feel like you do get more background on
Speaker 1: Annie Wilkes than you do for your average quote unquote
Speaker 1: unhinged woman, which is good. And I would argue you
Speaker 1: get more background on Annie than you do on Paul
Speaker 1: really in terms of like what her history is and
Speaker 1: her history as uh, you know, horrific, but we know
Speaker 1: about it and um, and that does help in a way.
Speaker 1: And I also a big thing unless I missed it,
Speaker 1: so correct me if I'm wrong. They do not attribute
Speaker 1: a specific mental illness to Annie within the movie, Is
Speaker 1: that right? Not that I've noticed now that also, I
Speaker 1: know we've talked about this abiliit tize, But that also
Speaker 1: I was relieved because I feel like often, I mean,
Speaker 1: you could argue the opposite and say like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: we're implying that women are you know, like fundamentally fucked up.
Speaker 1: But we have you know, we have Virginia, we have
Speaker 1: Lauren Bocall. We know that that's not the ethos of
Speaker 1: this world. It's Annie specifically. Um. But I just always
Speaker 1: I feel like thrillers are so as a genre, are
Speaker 1: so guilty of perpetuating stereotypes about specific mental illnesses, and
Speaker 1: it's always like, uh, you know, the beginning of Midsummer,
Speaker 1: they're like, bipolar disease killed the family and ship like that.
Speaker 1: I just always appreciate when there is a diabolical character
Speaker 1: when a text does not attribute that to to a
Speaker 1: mental illness, because it just like I always does so much.
Speaker 1: But I mean, people have certainly speculated around Annie Welkes's character,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it's ever mentioned in the book
Speaker 1: or the movie, it's just like, well, this is just
Speaker 1: what she's like, this is just who she is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that always herself. That always ends up villainizing specific
Speaker 1: mental illnesses, and I would argue just mental illness in general,
Speaker 1: and um and then yeah, Like again, the way that
Speaker 1: she is presented visually is the way that, like queer coding,
Speaker 1: a villain demonizes queerness. I think that the way that
Speaker 1: she's not even coded, just like the way that she
Speaker 1: is presented visually, ends up villainizing a number of attributes
Speaker 1: a person can have, as far as like age and
Speaker 1: body type and things like the at And then there's
Speaker 1: there are parts where she's like, oh, Paul, I love
Speaker 1: you and you're perfect and you're so brilliant, but you
Speaker 1: would never love someone like me. She says something like well,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm a I'm a nobody, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not this like famous writer like you. But I
Speaker 1: think that there's also subtext there where it's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not this young, beautiful, you know, traditionally
Speaker 1: beautiful woman. Yeah, she's very insecure. She's very insecure as
Speaker 1: it pertains to a lot of areas in her life.
Speaker 1: I think especially to her her looks and how she
Speaker 1: comes off, and you know, she's very in her head
Speaker 1: about all of it and that and that is ultimately
Speaker 1: what Paul Sheldon is able to kind of use in
Speaker 1: order to get his way and trying to escape the situation.
Speaker 1: He plays on that. It's like, okay, she surest I'm
Speaker 1: going to play into No, you are beautiful, No, I
Speaker 1: do love you know this, this paper is great. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for everything you've done for me. Like he
Speaker 1: plays in to boosting her self esteem and her self
Speaker 1: confidence in order to get what he wants, which also
Speaker 1: feels like kind of a gendered thing to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the way that, like, I don't know, like a lot
Speaker 1: of women are characterized in movies where they just like
Speaker 1: need a lot of like emotional reassurance and because women
Speaker 1: are so emotional and you know, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm articulating that well, but no, I
Speaker 1: see what you mean. I mean, it's like again, it's
Speaker 1: I think this movie's strength and what makes it like
Speaker 1: a little challenging to have a discussion about is like
Speaker 1: there's so many different ways to read it where I think, like,
Speaker 1: for sure he's playing on her insecurities and and like
Speaker 1: you're just kind of getting at of like how how
Speaker 1: it like Annie is a very smart character. She like
Speaker 1: catches him at every turn, and my penguin always faces
Speaker 1: do souths first of all, a woman knowing her cardinal directions,
Speaker 1: that's feminism, that's final way of feminism. Which way is
Speaker 1: the penguin facing? So like, but she she catches him
Speaker 1: and all this ship, she's very observant, like there he
Speaker 1: should not survive this ordeal, right, but except for when
Speaker 1: he is manipulating her insecurities about herself and manipulating her
Speaker 1: crush on him and her obsessive nature around him. And
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, it's like logic goes out
Speaker 1: the window and she is not this hyper observant character
Speaker 1: that we know she is. And that does feel a
Speaker 1: little pointed um. But and you can come at that
Speaker 1: from the super fan perspective where I kept trying to
Speaker 1: like flip it in my mind for him, like I
Speaker 1: guess like there is a fun I don't know, Like
Speaker 1: when I was watching it, I was like, oh, what
Speaker 1: if this happened to like someone writing an m c
Speaker 1: U movie and they were just kidnapped by one of
Speaker 1: those guys on Twitter. You mean a misery cinematic universe. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the misery cinematic universe. So but like what if
Speaker 1: Jeff Loveness was it was kidnapped by and by someone
Speaker 1: on Twitter, and like how would that play out? And
Speaker 1: but but which uh? And that mental exercise confirmed to
Speaker 1: me that it is kind of a gendered dynamic between
Speaker 1: the two of them that, like, you know, when she
Speaker 1: because we are conditioned to believe that this character is
Speaker 1: not going to be loved in the way she wants.
Speaker 1: When she receives that kind of attention, everything we know
Speaker 1: about her goes out the window because she is receiving affection.
Speaker 1: There's also like there are certain aspects of her character
Speaker 1: that and let me know if I'm way off here,
Speaker 1: but there there are things that like, you know, she
Speaker 1: lives on a farm, She's surrounded by farm animals. She
Speaker 1: drives like I want to say, like a jeep Cherokee,
Speaker 1: like the and like the way the way she dresses
Speaker 1: is like all this sort of masculine. There's certain things
Speaker 1: about her character that are more kind of markers of
Speaker 1: traditional masculinity. There are implications there where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: any any woman who kind of presents in a more
Speaker 1: masculine way something's wrong with her that also ends up
Speaker 1: getting demonized by by this movie. But then also she
Speaker 1: is kind of like beloved in her community because so
Speaker 1: that's like the other side of it is like she
Speaker 1: plays on this is something I really like, is like
Speaker 1: she plays on people's expectations about her constantly in order
Speaker 1: to be like, I don't know, I just have been
Speaker 1: in the middle of reading a book about female serial
Speaker 1: killers and uh just having a normal week everyone um
Speaker 1: staying in a laquintation. Look, I have no plans to
Speaker 1: do anything. I'm not plotting. But but a common like
Speaker 1: thing that specifically women who killed do is like play
Speaker 1: on people's expectations of them of like, oh, I'm you
Speaker 1: know me, I'm I'm just uh you know, I'm a
Speaker 1: middle aged lady. I raised pigs on a farm. What
Speaker 1: do you mean, right, which her community buys completely even
Speaker 1: though she's a well documented murderer. Every everyone has a
Speaker 1: scrap book full of her murders. Um, So it isn't
Speaker 1: until busters like wait a second, isn't that the murder
Speaker 1: lady like that? That that it comes up Like so
Speaker 1: she does she like plays this whole community based on
Speaker 1: society's like go to of underestimating what she could possibly
Speaker 1: be capable of, positive or negative. And she even like
Speaker 1: she even gets Paul at the beginning where she like
Speaker 1: is she's got him in a bed. She says, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a nurse, and he believed I mean, and she
Speaker 1: I guess she is technically a nurse. She's a bad one,
Speaker 1: but but like he is her job, but he buys it.
Speaker 1: He buys that, like, oh, she's just like this nice lady.
Speaker 1: She's going to take care of me, because that is
Speaker 1: like what you would be conditioned to believe she's going
Speaker 1: to take care of me. Um, there's no reason to
Speaker 1: mistrust her, right right, I have to look up this. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the female not to give up female serial killer
Speaker 1: a shout out, but it reminded me a lot of
Speaker 1: the same kind of the book calls her the giggling
Speaker 1: grandma Nanny Doss. But the deal with Nanny Doss, she
Speaker 1: was in them. She was kind of like the first
Speaker 1: like the first woman serial killer to be like on
Speaker 1: TV in the nineteen fifties. Um, but she was a
Speaker 1: middle aged too slightly over middle aged woman who had
Speaker 1: killed four or five of her husband's in a row,
Speaker 1: but she presented as like, I'm just a sweet lady,
Speaker 1: what do you mean, And like she was received in
Speaker 1: the press like she's not really very well remembered. I
Speaker 1: didn't know she existed, but like she's just presented as
Speaker 1: kind of like a joke. Even on TV. She's committed
Speaker 1: five murders and everyone's like, look at this grandma who
Speaker 1: can't stop poisoning her husband, and you're like, this is horrible, right,
Speaker 1: But it's like, but she built this whole media image
Speaker 1: of herself based on people's you know, assumptions to underestimate her.
Speaker 1: And even when she was like outed as a outed
Speaker 1: as a murderer. I don't know if that's the right passing,
Speaker 1: But even when she was like, you know, found to
Speaker 1: be a murderer of a ton of people, people were
Speaker 1: still kind of like, ha, ha, isn't this like weird
Speaker 1: and gross that this older woman is doing this? And
Speaker 1: you're like, it's kind of gross that anyone's doing the
Speaker 1: fire Maybe not good day. So there the way that
Speaker 1: like society tends to de sexualize mother's, like oh, you
Speaker 1: know a woman who is like who is like raising
Speaker 1: a family and like raising children and and again like
Speaker 1: aging women. It feels to me like those sort of
Speaker 1: like stereotypes of what we expect like a mother to
Speaker 1: look like are given to Annie, and that makes her
Speaker 1: less threatening at first, That makes her seem like a
Speaker 1: not formidable opponent. You know. That's why James Conn you know,
Speaker 1: Paul at the beginning is like, Oh, I am in
Speaker 1: good hands, Like she's a nurse. She's this like middle
Speaker 1: aged woman who seems like she's taking care of me.
Speaker 1: She puts splints on my Also, the like prosthetics that
Speaker 1: they put on his legs to make his legs look
Speaker 1: like broken and bruise and everything like that are so icky. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, like he has no reason not to trust
Speaker 1: her at first, based solely on just kind of like
Speaker 1: societal expectations of women in kind of caregiver roles that
Speaker 1: we perceive to be as like very unthreatening because of
Speaker 1: like gender norms and these societal expectations. So I still
Speaker 1: don't know what to make of the from a like
Speaker 1: narrative point of view and from like a feminist point
Speaker 1: of view, but it's interesting. I feel like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of ways to come at it because it's like
Speaker 1: they're also I was like, I you know, I was
Speaker 1: like I had to admit to myself obviously you know,
Speaker 1: anti murder, but brave, brave of you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: But in the world of this movie, like it is
Speaker 1: a little bit cathartic to just like as an idea
Speaker 1: to have this woman who is like That's why I
Speaker 1: really liked the speech where she's like, I know you
Speaker 1: don't love me, Like, don't bullshit me. I know that
Speaker 1: you're like lying to me. I know that you go
Speaker 1: for these you know, like Hollywood type girls or whatever
Speaker 1: it is she says. And then to see someone clearly
Speaker 1: articulate that of like you're full of ship and then
Speaker 1: break their ankles, that's, uh, you know, feminist, Like is
Speaker 1: that a hashtag feminist win? I don't know, but like
Speaker 1: seeing that as because you can look at that interaction
Speaker 1: as like, oh, she is the unhinged woman, and like
Speaker 1: it's implied that a woman who looks like her and
Speaker 1: as her age could not possibly be loved, or you
Speaker 1: can look at it as like here's a woman who
Speaker 1: has been told her whole life because of how she
Speaker 1: looks that she is not going to have the life
Speaker 1: that she wants because of her gender and because of
Speaker 1: how she looks and as she ages because of her age,
Speaker 1: and like just taking out that frustration on someone who's
Speaker 1: full of shit, and like that's also really fun. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I have a quote from Stephen King um
Speaker 1: and he's using I mean, we are it's hard, especially
Speaker 1: when you're reading stuff about this movie too. We want
Speaker 1: to be mindful about um language around mental health. So
Speaker 1: I'm quoting Stephen king here, but he's he says that
Speaker 1: Annie quote may seem psychopathic to us, but it's important
Speaker 1: to remember that she seems perfectly sane and reasonable to herself,
Speaker 1: heroic in fact, a beleaguer women trying to suffer in
Speaker 1: a hostile or is trying to survive in a hostile
Speaker 1: world full of cocka duty brats unquote cock Wait what
Speaker 1: did he say? Cocka duty? Cocka duty. I think he's
Speaker 1: just like quoting how Annie talks, of course, how she
Speaker 1: like uses all these weird I don't think Stephen King
Speaker 1: minds swearing. I did really laugh at the part where
Speaker 1: Annie gives him the typewriter for the first time and
Speaker 1: she's like, fix your book and he just types fuck
Speaker 1: over and over and over. I was like, yeah, been there,
Speaker 1: which feels like I was like, god, yeah, Stephen King
Speaker 1: loves uh. Every time I worry, I'm like, oh am,
Speaker 1: I writing myself too much into this. And then you're like, well,
Speaker 1: so many Steven, like every Stephen King, not every, but
Speaker 1: a lot of them have like I'm a writer and
Speaker 1: writing is hard, Like that's the Shining and Misery. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of the Shining, I think we'd be having a
Speaker 1: different conversation if every single one of Stephen King's books
Speaker 1: and like movie adaptations followed this formula of like unhinged
Speaker 1: woman ab ducts man and is scary, and all women
Speaker 1: are scary and murderers. But something like The Shining, which
Speaker 1: we covered again a few years ago, is about a
Speaker 1: writer who is a man. He's the one who becomes
Speaker 1: increasingly more unstable and scary and abusive and murdery and
Speaker 1: his wife, his wife is the victim here and like
Speaker 1: so where you're rooting for her and she's she's the
Speaker 1: character in that story who you know, we're like rooting
Speaker 1: for her survival and to escape this very abusive man.
Speaker 1: So there's enough, you know, like variety in Stephen King's
Speaker 1: work that this just seems like an example of, oh, well,
Speaker 1: sometimes there are scary women. This is just a story
Speaker 1: about one of them, and I'll shoehorn another podcast recommendation
Speaker 1: in here You're wrong about just in an episode where
Speaker 1: Sarah Marshall, friend of the cast, is talking about UM
Speaker 1: serial killers and how serial killers are sort of characterized
Speaker 1: by gender or or race or by does any attribute
Speaker 1: they have, and how the white male serial killer UM,
Speaker 1: while historically the most incompetent of them all, UM, like
Speaker 1: even in serial killing UM, it's still very much like
Speaker 1: there's a fucking Jeffrey Dahmers series that just came out,
Speaker 1: Like there's it's still the white male serial killer. And
Speaker 1: that is too. I feel like I'm sounding very scary.
Speaker 1: I was with Sarah and she gave me the book
Speaker 1: about serial killers and we watched Fatal Attracted together. It
Speaker 1: was all for her, Jamie shure sounds like a cover up.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to kill anybody. I swear we were
Speaker 1: at the Lakiza together. Definitely not dismembering a body. Also,
Speaker 1: I left this out of the recap, but there's what
Speaker 1: I felt was like a very clever thing for Annie
Speaker 1: to do when when Sheriff Buster comes over to look
Speaker 1: around her house. She fabricates the story of like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: I am such a huge fan of Paul Sheldon, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I received this message from God that I
Speaker 1: should carry on his work now that he is presumed dead.
Speaker 1: And that's why I have this typewriter and this Paul
Speaker 1: Sheldon manuscript because I wrote it, you know, Like she's
Speaker 1: like diabolical, but like the way she covers her tracks
Speaker 1: is like, I don't know, I just thought that was
Speaker 1: very clever. And so she is a very like we said,
Speaker 1: she's a very smart character. She's not incompetent. She just
Speaker 1: does get and she had a good strategy. Like the
Speaker 1: strategy was actually pretty solid. Yeah, she and she kept
Speaker 1: him there. How long was he there? I would guess
Speaker 1: at least a month, Like it's what do you mean
Speaker 1: know the exact time, Like how long he's I don't think,
Speaker 1: so it seems like a while because they had to
Speaker 1: do some like montages of like he writes a book.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I think it's more than a month.
Speaker 1: I don't know how. I don't think it's like six months,
Speaker 1: but I think it's a little bit. It's a couple
Speaker 1: of months, three months, Yeah, because his legs also like hell,
Speaker 1: and yeah, he has time to write manuscript. She's so
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like she's so good that it's just
Speaker 1: like wild that in the world. It doesn't feel unrealistic
Speaker 1: somehow that like Buster enters the house knowing she's a murderer,
Speaker 1: and she's still is able to charm him hard enough
Speaker 1: that he's about to leave the house. Like if if
Speaker 1: if James conn hadn't made noise from the basement, he
Speaker 1: would have left. It's just like she's she's good at
Speaker 1: what she does. She's smart. I also wanted to I
Speaker 1: agree with that you say what you're saying, Caitlin about
Speaker 1: Stephen King's um, you know, just like right and kind
Speaker 1: of just like a y variety of killers and crime doers.
Speaker 1: He certainly has stuff that it is not relevant to
Speaker 1: this discussion about another time. But also, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is the production of this movie. It's white guys up
Speaker 1: and down. However, however, it is like at least you know,
Speaker 1: you like you're saying, Stephen king Um does write a
Speaker 1: wide variety of women in a wide variety of villains.
Speaker 1: And I feel like Rob Reiner and William Goldman also
Speaker 1: have a pretty good track record with um you know,
Speaker 1: not being shy about like centering women in their work
Speaker 1: and not being like known as like hyper masculine UM
Speaker 1: writer directors. It feels like, you know, if if it's
Speaker 1: gotta be the three straight white guys, and according to Hollywood,
Speaker 1: it did, always does, especially when it's Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think it's good to note too that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I see Misery as being a film with a female lead,
Speaker 1: a strong female lead, and even Misery is is a
Speaker 1: woman and she's the hero of that series. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: to me, it's like it's it's strong female leads in
Speaker 1: the book and in the film. That's right. Exploring the
Speaker 1: book that Paul Sheldon wrote Boss this is based on
Speaker 1: a book that Stephen King. It's all very confusing, but
Speaker 1: it's female leads for sure. I would read those books. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, I wish someone I wonder if that
Speaker 1: ever happened. You know, sometimes they're like, oh, this fake book,
Speaker 1: and then someone actually writes it. Oh yeah, read the
Speaker 1: Misery books. She sounds like a badass at the end
Speaker 1: she does. I think that's great. That's the Misery Like
Speaker 1: cinematic universe that we need. Yeah, And controversially, I liked
Speaker 1: Annie's punch up of the Misery, not saying it was
Speaker 1: all worth it, but I'm saying I liked her. I
Speaker 1: liked her version. She had some good, good notes she did,
Speaker 1: she had some ideas she was I loved off the
Speaker 1: Cathy Bates delivery of Like I knew Missery was a
Speaker 1: member of nobility, and you're just like yeah. Also the
Speaker 1: way that you know, audiences remember horror movies for their
Speaker 1: villains way more than their protagonists, who are like the
Speaker 1: victims of the villains. And while you know, like Paul
Speaker 1: is like just as resourceful as Annie, and you know
Speaker 1: he's got the Bobby pin, he like stockpiles the drug,
Speaker 1: the medicine. He you know, is able to procure a
Speaker 1: knife at some point. He's also smart and resourceful. But
Speaker 1: we remember Misery for the Kathy Bates character. We remember
Speaker 1: it for Annie and her taking a sledgehammer to his ankles. Uh,
Speaker 1: far more, I think, at least than anyone remembers like
Speaker 1: James Cohn's character. Definitely, So yeah, it's her movie, And
Speaker 1: just another shout out to Cathy Bates. Cathy Bates, She's amazing,
Speaker 1: an icon is amazing. And you know, they talk about
Speaker 1: her being basically, you know, quote unquote undiscovered at that time,
Speaker 1: like she was, you know, she wasn't a name per se,
Speaker 1: which is so wild. All you need is the chance,
Speaker 1: you know, That's all you need. And I think this
Speaker 1: is a great example of that. And she delivered. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: holy sh it did she? Uh? And and then she
Speaker 1: won an odd like Oscar for her first like big
Speaker 1: Hollywood role. It's yeah, it's She's awesome, wonderful. Yeah. Is
Speaker 1: there anything else anyone wants to talk about? Um? I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I mean, as far as the other
Speaker 1: women in the movie, you know, I like that there
Speaker 1: are women in roles. This is like a super super
Speaker 1: white movie, which it doesn't have to be. Uh. For
Speaker 1: further female characters we have. We have Lauren Bicall, who
Speaker 1: is great. I feel like her character, you know, like
Speaker 1: was properly motivated to like save her clients. And also
Speaker 1: I just love agent characters because it's always like the
Speaker 1: subtext is like I need to save my my my
Speaker 1: money pile, not my person I care about. UM. Always
Speaker 1: a fun character. UM. And then you have Virginia, who's
Speaker 1: an icon, a legend and I am bombed that they
Speaker 1: did not like she? How does she? How does she
Speaker 1: react when she finds out Buster has been her shot?
Speaker 1: And or run over with a tractor in the book,
Speaker 1: and or oh god, yeah, poor Virginia. Also horny icon
Speaker 1: she's trying to she's trying to jerk her husband off
Speaker 1: at work. Good fun, pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, I love
Speaker 1: I think the women in the movie all. What I
Speaker 1: do like about that, I guess it's three right, it's yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: is that they're all, in my opinion, very strong character. Still,
Speaker 1: they're women with the mission. Obviously, you know, any played
Speaker 1: by a Kathy Basis mission is not a good one,
Speaker 1: not a commission, not a mission we are rooting for,
Speaker 1: but a mission. Nonetheless, you know what I mean, They're
Speaker 1: very active character, and they're all smart, they all have
Speaker 1: things figured out. They all, you know, are kind of
Speaker 1: a step ahead of whatever you know for so I
Speaker 1: like that I can say that all of them are
Speaker 1: strong and motivated in their own rights. I really like
Speaker 1: that nobody felt like a vapid, unnecessary character or a
Speaker 1: character used for to be like a sex symbol or
Speaker 1: to you know, to learn the guys to the theater.
Speaker 1: Like I like I like that they all the characters
Speaker 1: felt very strong but also very and I like the
Speaker 1: casting of them too. I think that they give that
Speaker 1: as well. They're they're giving. We care about the character
Speaker 1: so much what they look like, and as an actor,
Speaker 1: I I always those are roles that I am drawn to.
Speaker 1: But also it's it's roles that I appreciate seeing on
Speaker 1: screen where I can say, yes, this woman is beautiful
Speaker 1: or strong, whatever, but what matters is not just what
Speaker 1: she looks like. She's saying something, she's doing something. She
Speaker 1: has real motivations. And I like that I can say
Speaker 1: that about all three, all three of the women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, And just like the fact that it's like,
Speaker 1: like you're saying, actually, like they're three women who are
Speaker 1: over forty, and we know what their jobs are, and
Speaker 1: their jobs are important to what they're doing at all times,
Speaker 1: very important and important to the story. Like it's important
Speaker 1: it's important that his agent is like, no, like he's
Speaker 1: missing what's going on. It's important that Virginia is like, muster,
Speaker 1: something's going on here. I don't know, I'm gonna you know,
Speaker 1: it's important that Kathy baits, you know, Annie has this
Speaker 1: mission of getting Paul Sheldon to do what she wants
Speaker 1: him to do. Whether again, it's there's you know, we
Speaker 1: don't agree with her, but she's you know, sledge hammering
Speaker 1: off ankles. You know, there's a lot of bad stuff happening,
Speaker 1: but everyone's motivation is very clear. I bang with that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. And it's like there are three female characters,
Speaker 1: but there's also not a lot of men. It's just
Speaker 1: a pretty small cast in general. Like yeah, yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's like there's like, what six people in this movie?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. I mean, look, I don't know what our
Speaker 1: listeners were expecting, but this movie does rock. It rocks
Speaker 1: and the rules rules that. I will give credit to
Speaker 1: Jamie for that because I heard you say that one
Speaker 1: time and I was like, that's a good Oh. My
Speaker 1: mom used to say that when I did my homework.
Speaker 1: Ross and Rules rocks, Rolls and Rules. I also Mystery
Speaker 1: is also just a movie. I don't know anyone who's
Speaker 1: seen it doesn't like it. Like I've never heard one
Speaker 1: person be like I hate misery, never want to see
Speaker 1: that again. Like I've never heard someone say that. All right,
Speaker 1: is there any any other anything we haven't touched on?
Speaker 1: I think it's all I have, same, oh I wrote, Oh,
Speaker 1: I wrote, Um, Okay, here's some of my worst thoughts
Speaker 1: I had. Please okay, the original para social relationship cautionary tale. Okay,
Speaker 1: we talked about that. Okay. Here's my other thing, feminist icon,
Speaker 1: the piss jug question mark hundred percent feminist icon, the piss.
Speaker 1: I can't believe we've been talking for an hour and
Speaker 1: a half and we haven't brought up the piss jug
Speaker 1: in a in a really funny scene where she's just
Speaker 1: like kind of flinging it around. I think it has
Speaker 1: a lid on it, so there's no danger of the
Speaker 1: piss you're flying out, but there's the like, the cinematography
Speaker 1: in that scene is so focused on the piss jug
Speaker 1: and Paul James con watching the piss jug thinking that
Speaker 1: it's going to spill all over him. Please don't spell
Speaker 1: my piss on me U cint A. Photographer Barry Snenfeld
Speaker 1: wild that you know a lot of talent in this movie. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I liked. I mean, as someone who um has has
Speaker 1: done some piss jug caretaking in my day, I appreciated
Speaker 1: piss jug representation because it's a it's a part of
Speaker 1: the Gig incredible. Um. Well, this movie I do not
Speaker 1: believe actually passes the Bechdel test unless you do count
Speaker 1: the conversation that Anny and her pig named Misery, so
Speaker 1: we know the pig's name. They do kind of snort
Speaker 1: and oink around each other. I would say it it
Speaker 1: like doesn't pass, but also that this is we've talked
Speaker 1: about this for years, even though some people never want
Speaker 1: to hear it. But like that, just like the fact
Speaker 1: that like this, this metric was created as like a
Speaker 1: bit and it doesn't you know, it's not the end
Speaker 1: all be all, yeah it and decide if something is
Speaker 1: you know, overtly feminist or not. Um, but what does
Speaker 1: is decide That is our nipple scale, on which we
Speaker 1: rate the movie zero to five nipples. Examining the movie
Speaker 1: through an intersectional feminist lens. Now, this one is another
Speaker 1: very tricky one because of the different ways that you
Speaker 1: can examine this movie. Could you argue that Annie Wilkes
Speaker 1: is a like reclaimable you know, female villain because she's
Speaker 1: so smart and because she's always one step ahead, and
Speaker 1: you know, for any number of other reasons. I think
Speaker 1: sure I can see that argument. Could you make the
Speaker 1: argument that it's another example of you know, villainizing an
Speaker 1: older woman, an unmarried woman with no children, a woman
Speaker 1: whose appearance and body size doesn't conform to rigid Western
Speaker 1: beauties standards, and that those attributes being kind of used
Speaker 1: to demonize her. Sure, there there's lots of things. And
Speaker 1: then when you think back to Stephen King's original intention,
Speaker 1: which he revealed some years later, was that this is
Speaker 1: you know, the anti character is a metaphor for his
Speaker 1: addiction that there's a whole other lens by which you
Speaker 1: can um watch this story. But then those implications still
Speaker 1: exist as far as like her character goes in the
Speaker 1: way that she is characterized. So right, right, I don't
Speaker 1: know that there's I can't really come to a conclusive
Speaker 1: thought because I really like this movie. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's saying something like all women are scary and unhinged,
Speaker 1: because we see other characters in the movie who are
Speaker 1: very much not that. So it's just I think some
Speaker 1: people are very scary and murderers, and sometimes those people
Speaker 1: are women, and here is a story about one such woman,
Speaker 1: and in a way, that's feminism, and that's actually feminism. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, there are some as We've discussed some like
Speaker 1: kind of gendered things and you know, like kind of
Speaker 1: stereotypical tropes at play, but this is not the worst
Speaker 1: example we've seen, especially in this era, horror movies, thriller
Speaker 1: movies in this era, across the kind of you know,
Speaker 1: genre spectrum. Even so, Yeah, and so I'm going to
Speaker 1: do what I normally do when I don't know how
Speaker 1: to rate a movie, and that's just do a split
Speaker 1: down the middle of two point five nipples. I will
Speaker 1: give one to Kathy Bates and her incredible performance. Um,
Speaker 1: I will give another one to Kathy Bates and her
Speaker 1: incredible performance in Titanic as the unsinkable Molly Brown. And
Speaker 1: I'll give my half nipple to Misery the pig. I've
Speaker 1: I'm tempted to go in my I was like, if
Speaker 1: I was really going buck Wild, I would go three
Speaker 1: and a half. I think I'm gonna go three because
Speaker 1: I do think that there are, like what we we've discussed,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of tropes about women who are
Speaker 1: not traditionally you know, Hollywood hot and young, um, that
Speaker 1: are being leveraged as like a shorthand. To explain why
Speaker 1: Andy Wilkes is the way she is. However, I think
Speaker 1: we also get a lot of explanation as to why
Speaker 1: Annie Wilkes is the way she is. That would also
Speaker 1: work if you cast a traditional hot Hollywood actress, like
Speaker 1: she's just like implicitly evil. And so there's so many
Speaker 1: ways to look at this movie. I feel like the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, over thirty years later, we're able
Speaker 1: to still have such a rich discussion about like what
Speaker 1: she could mean and all the different ways to look
Speaker 1: at this character speaks very well of it, and especially
Speaker 1: if like Kathy Bates's performance. But obviously there are tropes
Speaker 1: at play that you know, you could watch the movie
Speaker 1: and think the movies commenting on or you could watch
Speaker 1: the movie and think that the movie is completely playing
Speaker 1: into and it's just a it's a tricky one. Um.
Speaker 1: But of the Stephen King adaptations, I think that's this
Speaker 1: is like, I mean, definitely up there is one of
Speaker 1: my favorites. I don't know if what my favorite Stephen
Speaker 1: King adaptation is. I know that I get very horny
Speaker 1: for Bill scars Guard, So that's it as mr it
Speaker 1: not in its specifically, but just in general. But then
Speaker 1: it kind of has nothing to do with the quality
Speaker 1: of the movie, so it's complicated. Wait have you seen
Speaker 1: Barbarian yet? Just as quick little side. Oh yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1: It's really good. I rather liked it. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: a fun It's like it's I think it's my Halloween
Speaker 1: movie of the year so far. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think that this movie is still so ripe for
Speaker 1: discussion in a way that a lot of movies from
Speaker 1: this era aren't. So I'm gonna give it three and
Speaker 1: I still am like, do I think three and a half?
Speaker 1: I don't know. But ultimately it is like it's a
Speaker 1: movie that you know, it's you know, straight white guys
Speaker 1: all all the way, all the way down. There's no
Speaker 1: real diversity of talent behind the camera, which always sucks
Speaker 1: to see we're in front of the camera or in
Speaker 1: front of the camera, Um I meant gender wise as Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's shout out to them. I think one person
Speaker 1: of color in the movie, who is a reporter, who
Speaker 1: is a black woman, saying that Paul Sheldon is presumed dead,
Speaker 1: I believe is the only where's her spin off? Where
Speaker 1: is her spin off? But yeah, I think I'll go
Speaker 1: three nipples, uh and I'll give I'll give one to Annie,
Speaker 1: one to misery the peg and one to misery the character.
Speaker 1: Or alternatively, I give all of them to Virginia and
Speaker 1: she can use the spare like a tire. Yes, good, good, good, Actually,
Speaker 1: how about you. I love both of the arguments, and
Speaker 1: I actually agree very much so with you both. I
Speaker 1: think I'm giving it three nipples. I'm giving it to
Speaker 1: the three female leads in the movie. I think that's
Speaker 1: why he gets three. The agent, you know, Virginia Buster's wife,
Speaker 1: and you know Lauren Ball obviously his agent, and um
Speaker 1: to Cathy Bates. I think that, you know, they're all
Speaker 1: very important, useful, like I said, strong characters in the movie,
Speaker 1: and I think that because of that, I'm giving it
Speaker 1: three to represent all all three of them. Nice for sure, wonderful. Actually,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us, Thanks for having me,
Speaker 1: Thank you for bringing us this movie. Yeah, talking about
Speaker 1: Misery on a Monday, ely, what better time. And we'll
Speaker 1: come back any time to talk about any other film. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. You guys are just incredibly brilliant
Speaker 1: and cool. Oh stop it are you are a number
Speaker 1: one fan? Yes, to be talking about anything films and women,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's right up my at least this is great.
Speaker 1: Come back any time. We'd love to have you back.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Where can people follow you online and have
Speaker 1: a healthy paras social relationship. You can follow me on
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter at Ashley Blaine and then my podcast
Speaker 1: at Trials to Triumph Spodum on both Yeah awesome, Yes,
Speaker 1: please check Ashley out. You can follow us on social
Speaker 1: media at Bechtel Cast on Twitter and Instagram. You can
Speaker 1: subscribe to our Patreon a k a Matreon at patreon
Speaker 1: dot com slash backtel Cast, where you get to bonus
Speaker 1: episodes every single month. This month we are doing spooky movies,
Speaker 1: so of course we are doing Final Destination three we
Speaker 1: have not covered one or two um and as well
Speaker 1: as Malignant the James One masterpiece, yes, feminist masterpiece by
Speaker 1: Mr games one. Uh And that's five dollars a month.
Speaker 1: And you also get access to the back catalog. And
Speaker 1: sorry there's a siren because that's Buster and Virginia coming
Speaker 1: to save me. I've been trapped this whole time. Copaganda.
Speaker 1: Copaganda got us again, didn't it? Okay? You can also
Speaker 1: get our march over at t public dot com Slash
Speaker 1: the Back del Cast if you're so inclined to get
Speaker 1: merch and uh and with that, let's go publish a
Speaker 1: bestseller but be haunted by the ghost of Annie Wilkes
Speaker 1: for the rest of our lives. Let's do it. I
Speaker 1: do not sign up for that. I don't want that.
Speaker 1: Fair fair, fair, fair Okay, bye bye bye