Speaker 1: On the Bechdecast, the questions ask if movies have women
Speaker 1: and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy. Zeph and
Speaker 1: Beast start changing with the Bechdel cast. Cluck cluck, full
Speaker 1: clutch cluck. Queen, how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm doing so great? How are you.
Speaker 1: Never been worse? And I cannot overemphasize that. But today
Speaker 1: we are here to release I think kind of a
Speaker 1: banger episode. Oh yeah, we're unlocking an episode from our
Speaker 1: Patreon aka Matreon. If you enjoyed this episode, you should
Speaker 1: obviously be subscribing. It's five bucks a month and it'll
Speaker 1: give you access to over one hundred and fifty episodes,
Speaker 1: plus new ones every month with Caitlin and myself. But
Speaker 1: it's Chicken Run Week. It's Chicken Run Week.
Speaker 2: Yes it is.
Speaker 1: Oh, you didn't think it was Chicken Run Week.
Speaker 2: Well it is.
Speaker 1: Well it is.
Speaker 2: Take that and there's a reason.
Speaker 1: There's a method, Yes there is.
Speaker 2: So this is an episode that we originally released on
Speaker 2: the Matreon in February twenty twenty one as a part
Speaker 2: of a theme that we didn't have a good title for.
Speaker 2: But the theme itself was I think pretty solid, which
Speaker 2: was movies with animals in the title, because we did
Speaker 2: Chicken Run and Coyote Ugly, Yes, which has nothing to
Speaker 2: do with animals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and two movies that are really like, couldn't be
Speaker 1: less in conversation with one another, true, but two fun
Speaker 1: episodes to do and Chicken Run I mean an all
Speaker 1: timer movie film. There has since been a sequel released
Speaker 1: on Netflix that I have not watched yet, what about yourself.
Speaker 2: I just watched it yesterday.
Speaker 1: My niece loves it and she's four, So there you go.
Speaker 2: It was fun, I would say, not as good as
Speaker 2: Chicken Run the original high bar kind of nothing, hy
Speaker 2: Barticlear exactly. Anyway, you released this episode like three and
Speaker 2: a half years ago, so if you hear some references
Speaker 2: that feel a bit dated, that's why. If you're like,
Speaker 2: why are they bringing up the sonic the Hedgehog movie?
Speaker 2: Why are they talking about pandemic stimulus checks as if
Speaker 2: it just happened, Well, that's wild.
Speaker 1: I guess what. We weren't even vaccinated. Like, really, take
Speaker 1: yourself back there. We were in the thick of it,
Speaker 1: and we're in the thick of it now. But it's
Speaker 1: in a different way. The reason we're doing this is
Speaker 1: if you're in the Los Angeles area, you're in freaking
Speaker 1: luck because we are hosting a screening of Chicken Run
Speaker 1: at the Low's feel As three with American Cinematech on
Speaker 1: August twenty fifth. We're so pumped. We technically hosted as
Speaker 1: screening with them last year, but neither of us could
Speaker 1: go this year. Things are a little different because you
Speaker 1: had COVID last year. I have COVID right now, so
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna have it in three weeks. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll be there.
Speaker 2: We'll be there presenting Chicken Run. Yes, this is part
Speaker 2: of American Semitech's Friend of the Fest podcast festival, where
Speaker 2: they have podcast hosts introduce one of their favorite films,
Speaker 2: and we have the honor of presenting Chicken Run. And
Speaker 2: we're like, hey, what better way to promote that screening
Speaker 2: than to unlock our Matreon episode on Chicken Run. And
Speaker 2: that's what we're doing right now. A men, Now, if
Speaker 2: this is your first episode of the Bechdel Cast or
Speaker 2: you know, you don't really know who we are and
Speaker 2: what we are, we well, first of all, my name's
Speaker 2: Caitlin Deronte.
Speaker 1: My name is Jamie loftus.
Speaker 2: This is our podcast where we examine movies through an
Speaker 2: intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test as a jumping
Speaker 2: off point. But Jamie, what's that well?
Speaker 1: The Bechdel Test is a media metric originally created by
Speaker 1: queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, often called the Bechdel Wallace Test
Speaker 1: because it was co created with Alison Bechdel's good friend
Speaker 1: Liz Wallace. This test was created as a joke, a
Speaker 1: bit a lark an idea, a passing fancy by Alison
Speaker 1: Bechdel for her iconic comic Iconic Comic Likes to Watch
Speaker 1: Out for Great Comic. She's basically commenting on how infrequently
Speaker 1: women talk to each other in a queer context originally,
Speaker 1: but the way it's been adapted for the mainstream is
Speaker 1: that it's looking at how infrequently people of marginalized genders
Speaker 1: are allowed to speak about not men. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of versions of the test. The test we use
Speaker 1: is this, two characters of a marginalized gender with names
Speaker 1: must speak to each other for more than two lines
Speaker 1: of dialogue about a character who is not a man,
Speaker 1: and I honestly forget with Chicken Run. I honestly forget
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to consult with us three and a
Speaker 1: half years ago because they they know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if you want me to spoil it for
Speaker 2: you right now, they definitely pass the Bechdel test.
Speaker 1: I mean it is mostly about Yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: chicken matriarchy in any case, that is what we're releasing.
Speaker 1: And if you are in the LA area, we would love, love,
Speaker 1: love for you to join us on Sunday, August twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: at four pm. We're going to put the link in
Speaker 1: the description of this episode. We're also going to be
Speaker 1: plugging the hell out of it on social media, and
Speaker 1: please join us.
Speaker 2: It's eighty four minutes long, and it's been eighty four
Speaker 2: minutes minutes and I can still smell the chicken chickens.
Speaker 1: Yep, I can still smell the chickens.
Speaker 2: The chickens had never been used.
Speaker 1: Which is the whole point, Which is the whole point
Speaker 1: of Chicken Run, which is the whole point. They're trying
Speaker 1: to escape with their lives exactly. Yeah, just a perfect movie.
Speaker 1: We would love to watch it with you. I you know,
Speaker 1: I want to dress up like a chicken. There I
Speaker 1: said it. I want to dress up like a chicken
Speaker 1: do it. I don't know, like I've never really made
Speaker 1: I believe in myself that I can make this happen.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that's gonna look like, but you
Speaker 1: should come and see see if we pulled it off.
Speaker 2: Yes, definitely, so yeah, grab tickets for that. You can
Speaker 2: also find the tickets on our link tree link Tree
Speaker 2: slash Bechtel Cast and Yeah, we are so excited to
Speaker 2: present this movie and we hope to see you there.
Speaker 2: And in the meantime, enjoy this unlocked Matreon episode of
Speaker 2: Chicken Run. Jamie, what's your relationship with Chicken Run?
Speaker 1: Chicken Run's one of my favorite movies ever. I love
Speaker 1: Chicken Run. I remember seeing it in theaters with my
Speaker 1: family and being like, wow, look at this chickens run
Speaker 1: and not really understanding you know, feminism, patriarchal structures or
Speaker 1: or you know, workers live, and yet Chicken Run really hit.
Speaker 1: I loved it. I thought. I remember being scared when
Speaker 1: they go into the Chicken Machine. It was like for
Speaker 1: me right up there with Toy Story three, where it's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, these adorable characters are entering a doom
Speaker 1: machine and I'm so scared. I just love I just
Speaker 1: love Chicken Run, and I watch it probably about once
Speaker 1: a year for fun, depending on whether it's streaming places.
Speaker 1: I just watched it a couple months ago because I
Speaker 1: remember texting you about it, like fairly recently, and then
Speaker 1: you came up with this brilliant theme, You're welcome, and
Speaker 1: here we are back at Chicken Run, and yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are elements of it that don't hold
Speaker 1: up for me, but I think by and large as
Speaker 1: a movie, as a product, as a story, as a romp,
Speaker 1: as a romp, I mean, I think it holds up
Speaker 1: extraordinarily well. And I still love it. And I tweeted
Speaker 1: about loving today, and then you get five trillion people
Speaker 1: be like, but what about mel Gibson? As Like, I
Speaker 1: am aware that mel Gibson is in this movie. We
Speaker 1: will talk about it, but I'm not gonna let mel
Speaker 1: Gibson take away Chicken Run from me. I really love
Speaker 1: this movie and fuck mel Gibson. Two things can be true.
Speaker 1: What's your history with Chicken Run?
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it as often as you, but I
Speaker 2: too love this movie. I saw it when it first
Speaker 2: came out in two thousand. I think I saw it
Speaker 2: like a couple times. I think that was my first
Speaker 2: introduction to that type of like stop motion from that
Speaker 2: studio specifically, because I don't think I saw anything Wallace
Speaker 2: and Grammt until after this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that I didn't see any Wallace and
Speaker 1: Grammat until unless they I don't think they showed the
Speaker 1: short and I don't think I saw it until like
Speaker 1: Curse of the were Rabbit, and then I went back
Speaker 1: and saw the short cartoons. Right, everything from this studio
Speaker 1: is so fucking beautiful, Like all of the Arden and
Speaker 1: Studios stuff is just like incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I always get so I get and people
Speaker 2: might drag me for this, but I get this studio's
Speaker 2: content sometimes confused with Laika content.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean they also do could blame you thank
Speaker 1: you so much ascept a bully. Yeah no, I mean
Speaker 1: like the because Leika is like Coraline and shit like that.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, but like similar, like especially with what did
Speaker 2: I see recently missing Link that came out like twenty
Speaker 2: nineteen or something. Yes, I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 2: probably the same studio as Chicken Run. And then I
Speaker 2: was like, oh wait, no it's the other one.
Speaker 1: So looks very similar yeah, Thelika movies do like quiet,
Speaker 1: and I feel like there's a lot of like they're
Speaker 1: also all very British, yes, and so I feel like
Speaker 1: it's also the tone to the movies, or I'm sure
Speaker 1: that there is some overlap app creatively, but they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're very British stop motion movies. If anyone's if anyone
Speaker 1: bullies you about that, launch me out of the chicken
Speaker 1: what is it the catapult? Yeah, the chicken catapults.
Speaker 2: I'll attack them more like the chicken polt.
Speaker 1: Oh god, the sheer resourcefulness of these brilliant chickens.
Speaker 2: I know. Oh, I can't wait to talk about it.
Speaker 1: There's so much to talk about. Even in it's the
Speaker 1: areas where it is not amazing, there's still a lot
Speaker 1: to talk about, Like this movie. Now that I was
Speaker 1: paying attention to the politics of the movie and not
Speaker 1: just being like I love these chickens, which is usually
Speaker 1: where I'm at when I'm watching Chicken Run. I'm eating
Speaker 1: a plate of nachos and I'm like, these chickens are
Speaker 1: so cool. But this is like this movie is like
Speaker 1: if Animal Farm had gone right basically, yeah, like it's
Speaker 1: animals like seizing the means of production. I have a
Speaker 1: whole thing about it. But like they're seizing the means
Speaker 1: of production, they are overthrowing the oppressive force. But there's
Speaker 1: no like there's not enough infighting that the whole operation
Speaker 1: gets sabotaged, like they liberate themselves. It's beautiful.
Speaker 2: It is beautiful. It's also what So we recently were
Speaker 2: guests on the podcast Creature Feature talking about B Movie,
Speaker 2: and I feel like this is what B Movie was
Speaker 2: like maybe trying to do and then like utterly fumbling
Speaker 2: and failing every step of the way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. B movie just ended up being like, Wow, capitalism
Speaker 1: it's awesome. No, no, no, its it rocks. Although I
Speaker 1: was thinking I was thinking about B Movie when Larry
Speaker 1: King died, because I'm like, wow, what was his name?
Speaker 2: Me, Larry King?
Speaker 1: Be Larry King. That was like maybe his best maybe
Speaker 1: his best work, his best credit, Yeah iconic. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: So Larry King's not in this although I wish he
Speaker 1: was instead of Mel Gibson. Seriously, the Mel Gibson of
Speaker 1: it all. It's so it fucking sucks that he's in
Speaker 1: this movie, man, because other than that, it is like
Speaker 1: such a fabulous.
Speaker 2: Movie. At least we don't have to see Mel Gibson's face.
Speaker 1: It does make it easier to I mean, it's I
Speaker 1: hate that he got paid to be in this amazing movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at very least he's playing an evil fraud. But then
Speaker 1: also he's forgiven at the end.
Speaker 2: Oh, don't get me, Sack.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to be taught. I'm just like, you
Speaker 1: know what, he should have just left and stayed gone.
Speaker 2: And stayed gone exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, Like I thought, I really thought,
Speaker 1: because I've been thinking so much about when we redid
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast and we had that whole conversation
Speaker 1: about like the burden of forgiveness on female characters, and
Speaker 1: I didn't totally. I don't know. I just I'm never
Speaker 1: paying super close attention to the plot points of Chicken Run.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, she, Ginger comes so close
Speaker 1: to like subverting that and being like, fuck you get
Speaker 1: out of here, you coward, right, But then he shows
Speaker 1: up and then she I'm like, Ginger, I mean, live
Speaker 1: your life, don't let me tell you how to live, Ginger.
Speaker 1: But like Ginger, I feel like we can just do better.
Speaker 1: We can do better.
Speaker 2: Ginger can do something.
Speaker 1: I'm not opposed to Ginger finding love, but like Rocky
Speaker 1: really literally it sounds like my mom of just like
Speaker 1: my mom's like, you're gonna go off with some guy
Speaker 1: from Rhode Island, which is literally who Rocky is. He's
Speaker 1: some guy from Rhode Island. True, Ginger, do not just
Speaker 1: go off with some guy from Rhode Island. I mean
Speaker 1: that whole thing. We'll get there, but.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, we'll get there. In the meantime, should we
Speaker 2: recap it?
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm sorry, I'm getting like so excited. I have
Speaker 1: like a full glass of wine and I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to talk about chicken run.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I love it. Uh, let's take a
Speaker 2: quick break and then we'll come right back for the recap.
Speaker 2: So the story is as follows. We open on a
Speaker 2: chicken farm. The chickens are, they talk, and they're they're people,
Speaker 2: But their chickens.
Speaker 1: The most horrifying thing. I mean not horrifying. I don't
Speaker 1: know how the animation gets away with not being scary,
Speaker 1: but giving a farmful of chickens full sets of human
Speaker 1: teeth is such like a decision that it should look
Speaker 1: scarier than it does, and I feel like it speaks
Speaker 1: to the animation that that is not extremely because wasn't
Speaker 1: that like the reason that they completely reanimated the sonic
Speaker 1: the Hedgehog movie is because they're like, why does he
Speaker 1: have human teeth?
Speaker 2: Oh? I thought it was because his like proportions were
Speaker 2: all wrong.
Speaker 1: Wait let me oh, hold on, Maybe it was a combination,
Speaker 1: because that sounds right as well.
Speaker 2: Because he was like, his like proportions were just like,
Speaker 2: like his leg the length of his legs and arms
Speaker 2: were just like really bizarre. And they were like, this
Speaker 2: looks terrible.
Speaker 1: So we're both right and and I forgot how scary
Speaker 1: the first sonic was. Yeah, so he both looked too
Speaker 1: much like an animal and his proportions were like two
Speaker 1: Uncanny Valley photorealistic, Like he just looks like a blue cat,
Speaker 1: but he has like a full set of like Joe
Speaker 1: Biden viniars, Pete Davis whatever, whoever, Walton Goggins vinyars like
Speaker 1: mm hmm, just really scary stuff. For some reason, the
Speaker 1: chickens and the roosters they're allowed to have full sets
Speaker 1: of teeth. It doesn't bother me, Yeah, why not.
Speaker 2: I'll allow it. So one of the chickens, our hero Ginger,
Speaker 2: is organizing a mass escape for her and all the
Speaker 2: other chickens to basically do a prison break. And I
Speaker 2: also read that when this movie was like being developed,
Speaker 2: they were just like, let's do the Great Escape but
Speaker 2: with chickens.
Speaker 1: Which is like, holy shit, right, what a what a
Speaker 1: wide swing?
Speaker 2: Why didn't I think of that? You know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So we meet some of the other chickens. There's Babs,
Speaker 2: who is always knitting. There is Mac who is the
Speaker 2: brainy chicken in Stem.
Speaker 1: She's a chicken in Stem.
Speaker 2: A chicken in Stem, and you'd love to see it
Speaker 2: at last, at long Last.
Speaker 1: She's also Scottish, which is constantly made a joke off,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I can't tell if this is offensive
Speaker 1: or if I just don't live in the UK, but
Speaker 1: she's very Scottish.
Speaker 2: She also wears glasses.
Speaker 1: She wears glasses exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's Bunty, who lays a lot of eggs. I
Speaker 2: think that's kind of the main thing that we know.
Speaker 2: She's very fertile, Yeah, very fertile, full bursting at the
Speaker 2: seems with eggs. There's also an old rooster named Fowler
Speaker 2: who's like a former military man and he's always carrying
Speaker 2: the world War two, yeah.
Speaker 1: Or he says you did. He was actually just a chicken.
Speaker 2: He's just a chicken this whole time. Yeah, but he's
Speaker 2: always caring on about his glory days.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So Ginger is trying to escape and she gets caught
Speaker 2: by mister Tweety, Mister Tweety's dogs and Missus Tweety.
Speaker 1: Oh and iconic villains so scary. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I was so scared of her. But I think, you know, Jen,
Speaker 1: we'll have a more full discussion about her. But like
Speaker 1: where older women are so often fully demonized, with Missus Tweety,
Speaker 1: it's not because she's jealous of this. I think she's
Speaker 1: very logically motivated and true. And I also think that
Speaker 1: she is I forget where I thought this as I
Speaker 1: was watching, and I'm like, you're reaching, Jamie. But then
Speaker 1: I saw someone else wrote about it. I was like,
Speaker 1: I think that she's supposed to be like low key
Speaker 1: Margaret Thatcher. Oh, she styled kind of similarly. I think
Speaker 1: she's supposed to be like rural Margaret Margaret Thatcher. That's
Speaker 1: my working theory that at least I have their name
Speaker 1: written down here, that at least one writer also thought.
Speaker 1: But she's at least she is an She is like,
Speaker 1: she looks kind of like an evil stepmother, but she
Speaker 1: is a very highly motivated capitalist villain. Yeah, iconic, iconic, scary.
Speaker 2: And voiced by Miranda Richardson.
Speaker 1: Yes, too amazing.
Speaker 2: So Ginger gets caught and is thrown into solitary confinement,
Speaker 2: and as soon as she's released, she plans another escape,
Speaker 2: and another and another. We get a montage, each one
Speaker 2: ending in her getting caught and put in solitary.
Speaker 1: They're all funny, Yes, I like when they dress up
Speaker 1: like missus tweety and almost escape. Oh and then it's
Speaker 1: just a dress full of chickens. Oh, I'm laughing.
Speaker 2: The visual comedy in this movie is outstanding genius.
Speaker 1: It's so good all Yeah, Like these chickens, they are
Speaker 1: cracking me up eighty four minutes straight.
Speaker 2: Even the scene where like they're trying to escape like
Speaker 2: a trough they're like covering themselves up with it, and
Speaker 2: then they flip over and all their legs are just
Speaker 2: sort of flailing about. Like just the visual of their
Speaker 2: legs is the funniest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like anytime they're on, the chickens are on like
Speaker 1: stationary bicycles. I'm laughing like it just chickens are funny
Speaker 1: and and they're also you know, maytriarchy seizing the means
Speaker 1: of production, so they're also very inspirational. Here is it's true,
Speaker 1: Oh dressful of chickens, Like, who's gonna no, I can't
Speaker 1: write a joke that good dressful of chickens hilarious.
Speaker 2: So mister and missus Tweety this is an egg farm,
Speaker 2: not a poultry farm yet, but they're keeping track of
Speaker 2: the chicken's egg production, and if a chicken doesn't produce
Speaker 2: enough eggs, the Tweeties chop that chicken's head, which we
Speaker 2: see not like the gory details of it, but so
Speaker 2: sad though, Like a chicken gets murdered within the first
Speaker 2: ten minutes of the.
Speaker 1: Movie talk about steaks, I mean, yeah, immediately that it's
Speaker 1: life or death for the chickens because of what's her name?
Speaker 1: Her name is Edwena Chicken Edwena at this on this view,
Speaker 1: at least, I'm like, at least she didn't like it
Speaker 1: would have been even because this is a g rated movie,
Speaker 1: which is wild for how many times they almost knife
Speaker 1: the chickens, right, But at least Edwena didn't. I was
Speaker 1: worried that she was gonna go like, ah, like, but
Speaker 1: it's just silent.
Speaker 2: You just hear like the thunk of an axe.
Speaker 1: I wonder if they're like if she clucks when she's beheaded,
Speaker 1: it's PG or something. I don't know. That's too much.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh my goodness. And also missus Tweety is sick
Speaker 2: and tired of the farm's minuscule profits, and she sees
Speaker 2: an ad to turn her egg farm into a gold
Speaker 2: mine by producing chicken meat rather than chicken eggs. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Ginger is trying to hatch a new plan to escape.
Speaker 2: Get it hatch.
Speaker 1: Ginger in these scenes reminds me of like every DSA
Speaker 1: meeting I've ever been to, where there's like one highly
Speaker 1: motivated person trying to get like fifty well meaning people
Speaker 1: to pay attention to a good idea, and everyone's like, wait,
Speaker 1: huh what huh. It's literally Ginger is a branch leader
Speaker 1: of the DSA, and no one on the zoom call
Speaker 1: is listening to.
Speaker 2: Her exactly, so basically, she just keeps pitching ideas to
Speaker 2: escape because her whole thing is she's not happy with
Speaker 2: the expectation to lay eggs every day until she is
Speaker 2: what is it plucked, roasted and turned into chicken dinner
Speaker 2: or some some I forget the quote exactly.
Speaker 1: Right, because it's like the Tweeties, even before they sell poultry.
Speaker 1: Once you don't lay eggs, they will just eat you.
Speaker 2: Correct. Yes, So she's not satisfied with this being her
Speaker 2: fate and that's why she is longing to be free.
Speaker 2: But the other chickens are like, well, you know what
Speaker 2: if we don't try to escape because it never seems
Speaker 2: to work.
Speaker 1: Right, it's exhausting, I'm tired. And then that line where
Speaker 1: Ginger is like, there's not just fences outside of the coop,
Speaker 1: there's fences in your mind, and you're like, well, like exactly, Oh,
Speaker 1: she's amazing.
Speaker 2: She's a what a speaker, truly, and yeah there's stuff
Speaker 2: to talk about with the complacency of the other chicken.
Speaker 1: I love, it's literally it's just it's a Marxist tail.
Speaker 2: Okay. So the other chickens are like, well, let's maybe
Speaker 2: not escape. So Ginger is hopeless until a root stur
Speaker 2: named Rocky this is mel Gibson boo yeah, flies into
Speaker 2: their farm and Ginger gets the idea for the chickens
Speaker 2: to escape by flying over the fence and out of
Speaker 2: the farm, and she wants Rocky to teach them to fly,
Speaker 2: but Rocky is not interested in that. But he cannot
Speaker 2: leave because he broke his wing crash landing into the farm.
Speaker 1: And then there's a great scene where they have to
Speaker 1: like negotiate of like what services he's going to provide,
Speaker 1: because at first he's like, no, I'm not gonna help you.
Speaker 1: He kind of reminds me of like Chicken Han Solo
Speaker 1: a little bit where he's like, screw the collective. I'm
Speaker 1: just a I'm just a guy, and I'm just a
Speaker 1: horny guy wandering the earth, and screw you. And then she,
Speaker 1: you know, she kind of she's got them. She's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not just going to This is where I feel
Speaker 1: like there's a really cool something set up that the
Speaker 1: ending doesn't really follow through on of like she does
Speaker 1: not have sympathy for him, just because he says that
Speaker 1: she should like in to establish their relationship, which is
Speaker 1: such a strong way to establish a relationship between like
Speaker 1: in a kid's cartoon. Right. Oh, I just wish it
Speaker 1: stayed that way, but I love that. I love that
Speaker 1: first scene where he's like what, You're not gonna help
Speaker 1: me because I'm cute and she's like, fuck you, right
Speaker 1: to the guillotine, sir.
Speaker 2: And then I mean this is like, this is just
Speaker 2: like a good screenwriting comment. But he's like, okay, fine,
Speaker 2: I'll teach you everything I know, which he doesn't know
Speaker 2: anything because spoiler alert, he doesn't know how to fly,
Speaker 2: but he just like omits that, which is the same
Speaker 2: thing he does to the two rats that we.
Speaker 1: See Timothy's more. Timothy's spall like, let this man play
Speaker 1: not a rat for once in his life.
Speaker 2: He might as well have been playing scabberds. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Literally, I'm just like, this man is being typecast as
Speaker 1: a literal rat, and that's not nice. He was a
Speaker 1: really good mister Poe in Series of Unfortunate Events, which
Speaker 1: I am. I think I am going to choose that
Speaker 1: for my birthday this year on the Matreon ooh yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, poor Timothy's ball when I was like, wait
Speaker 1: a second, it can't be and I'm like, god damn it,
Speaker 1: they're still making Timothy's Ball play a British rat. Maybe
Speaker 1: this is how he got cast in Harry Potter.
Speaker 2: Ye, this was before the first Harry Potter movie.
Speaker 1: That would be really yeah, because he doesn't even come
Speaker 1: in till like the later movies, right, like the third
Speaker 1: or fourth or something.
Speaker 2: The third one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that would be really sad but also kind
Speaker 1: of funny if they were like, well, you know he
Speaker 1: can play a British rat, well, Timmy's ball weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So back on the farm, So some men show
Speaker 2: up from the circus to collect Rocky the rooster, so
Speaker 2: like he's a runaway from the circus. Ginger realizes this,
Speaker 2: so she makes a deal with him that the chickens
Speaker 2: will hide him if he teaches them to fly, and
Speaker 2: he agrees.
Speaker 1: Amazing negotiation by Ginger.
Speaker 2: Incredible. Yes. Then the next day Rocky starts training the
Speaker 2: chickens to fly by not doing anything related to flying,
Speaker 2: and they don't seem to be making any progress because
Speaker 2: chickens can't fly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of like evokes I think that these
Speaker 1: movies were made too close together, but like it evoked
Speaker 1: the be a Man sequence from Mulan for me of
Speaker 1: just like an insecure man leading a group of soldiers
Speaker 1: for a mission that they will fail at. I guess
Speaker 1: that's where I was coming from.
Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, I mean a training montage is a training
Speaker 2: montage is a training montage. You know they're I.
Speaker 1: Guess I just don't watch many movies with trade. I
Speaker 1: think these are the These are the only two movies
Speaker 1: I've ever seen with a group training montage.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Really I have seen are.
Speaker 1: Other movies with training montages that are like a big
Speaker 1: group of people, because I'm like, I've seen movies with
Speaker 1: training montages, but I just feel like these movies two
Speaker 1: years apart. I think that's why I'm just like, uh
Speaker 1: huh oh yeah. Insecure guy leads a group of soldiers
Speaker 1: that don't really know what they're doing.
Speaker 2: I mean, just like any sports movie where like the
Speaker 2: whole team is training, there's you know, dozens of those.
Speaker 1: I've seen, remember the Titans. I haven't seen many sports movies.
Speaker 1: I think that's why I'm like, Wow, look at these
Speaker 1: two iconic movies borrowing from each other, Mulan and Chicken Run.
Speaker 1: There's no way, but that was what I thought.
Speaker 2: Sure, Well, gotta watch more training montages.
Speaker 1: They're great, apparently, I guess.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the chickens are trying to learn to fly,
Speaker 2: no progress is being made, and then the equipment for
Speaker 2: turning the farm into a poultry farm arrives and we're like, wow,
Speaker 2: those steaks that we thought were all ready pretty high,
Speaker 2: guess what even higher?
Speaker 1: Who Now they won't stop rising.
Speaker 2: They really won't. So some of the chickens, including Ginger,
Speaker 2: are growing skeptical of Rocky because nothing seems to be happening.
Speaker 2: She wants results, but he's also this like pompous, shitty
Speaker 2: guy who's just like being dodgy about everything. Classic. Then
Speaker 2: missus Tweety doubles their food rations to fatten the chickens
Speaker 2: up so they produce more meat, which Ginger figures out
Speaker 2: and tells the chickens, and then everyone is all sad
Speaker 2: because they realize they're about to be murdered. And then Rocky,
Speaker 2: to cheer everyone up, throws a party, right, and Ginger's like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, maybe I was wrong about him. Maybe
Speaker 2: he's actually this good, nice guy after all, and his
Speaker 2: wings seems to be better. So she's like, Okay, tomorrow
Speaker 2: you can fly for us and show us how it's done,
Speaker 2: and he's like, yeah, yeah, definitely, I can definitely sure
Speaker 2: definitely do that. Uh huh huh.
Speaker 1: God, he's such a coward. I always, I always forget
Speaker 1: that he never even like admits. There's no scene in
Speaker 1: which he's like, Okay, I actually can't fly. At least
Speaker 1: then he would have a shred.
Speaker 2: Of like integrity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he's just a total like weak coward.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm it's nice, you know, for our purposes.
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting that like Ginger figures out that he's
Speaker 1: a fraud. She finds in the next scene, she finds
Speaker 1: us the other half of the poster that basically says
Speaker 1: he's a circus act. He can't really fly. So it's
Speaker 1: good that she discovers that. But I'm like, this fucking
Speaker 1: guy from Rhode Island is just lying, lying, lying, and
Speaker 1: then he bails. He never even he never has to
Speaker 1: face the music.
Speaker 2: It's he's there. There are like one or two moments
Speaker 2: where it's clear that he's like trying to work up
Speaker 2: the nerve to tell her, but then doesn't he You
Speaker 2: might say he chickens out.
Speaker 1: He chickens out. He's the biggest chicken in the movie,
Speaker 1: not just physically because he's pretty tall, but he's a cat.
Speaker 1: He's a cowardly he's a chicken chicken. Yes, he bails,
Speaker 1: he gets his little chicken bindle and he gets the
Speaker 1: fuck out of there.
Speaker 2: Also, does he ever apologize to her at the end? No,
Speaker 2: he doesn't, didn't think so she there.
Speaker 1: There are a few elements of like very girl there.
Speaker 1: For the most part, I feel like Ginger's character like
Speaker 1: manages to skirt around late nineties girl power feminism, but
Speaker 1: there's a few moments where it's like he never apologizes
Speaker 1: and there's that classic I feel like this happens in
Speaker 1: every Mary Kate Nashley movie where he calls her like
Speaker 1: a diminutive thing. He's like dollphace, angel beak or whatever,
Speaker 1: and then she goes, my name is Ginger, and it's
Speaker 1: like that edit some if you said a sentence like that,
Speaker 1: that that's feminism, And like there was a time where
Speaker 1: I feel like there's that happens in like Disney's Hercules
Speaker 1: as well, where it's like, at least with Ginger, she
Speaker 1: genuinely is like I think, a really feminist iconic character. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I feel like sometimes that's a shorthand for men
Speaker 1: writing quote unquote empowered female characters. It's like, that's not
Speaker 1: my name, this is my name, and you're like that's
Speaker 1: all we get.
Speaker 2: It's like, don't it happens in my name? Yeah, it
Speaker 2: happens in Transformers with Megan Fox, where like her boyfriend
Speaker 2: is like, come on, little bunny, and she's like, I
Speaker 2: can't tell you how much I'm not your little bunny. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: she's like humping the hood of a car.
Speaker 1: Don't ask me, don't ask me why. This is the
Speaker 1: only thing I remember about New York minute starting Mary
Speaker 1: Kate and Ashley. But that happens, for sure. I think
Speaker 1: Dean from Gilmour Girls is like, hey, kid, and then
Speaker 1: Mary Kate or Ashley is like, my name's not Kid, it's.
Speaker 2: Mary Kay or Ashley.
Speaker 1: Whatever the fuck? Yeah, I'm Mary kay and or Ashley
Speaker 1: and he's like, whoa. What you said back there really
Speaker 1: made me think, like you're just like that. So that happens.
Speaker 1: But at least other things happened in Chicken Run, you know. Sure,
Speaker 1: But that whole thing that was like my little nineties
Speaker 1: feminism Antenna went up when she's like, the name is Ginger, mister,
Speaker 1: like that whole thing whatever, Yeah, it's still Chicken Run.
Speaker 2: Do you think Ginger was named after Ginger Spice?
Speaker 1: I was thinking about as tohold by Ginger and then
Speaker 1: I looked, did you ever watch that cartoon?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it was a really good like, Okay.
Speaker 2: Who is is someone me owing?
Speaker 1: Yes, there's this cat. It's not Flea hungry.
Speaker 2: For his chicken dinner. Oh it's a different cat.
Speaker 1: No, it's Flea sitting at the window. Because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of alley cats in our neighbor feeds and fixes
Speaker 1: and relief, like it's like a catchabuili system. But there's
Speaker 1: cats around, and Flea will talk to them. But there's
Speaker 1: this one cat that we have checked on them multiple
Speaker 1: times and they seem fine, but they just keep They
Speaker 1: just kind of yell and then we're like, are you okay?
Speaker 1: And we're like if given him food or her. I
Speaker 1: don't know what the gender of the cat is. I like,
Speaker 1: I secretly, I'm like, what if the cat is pregnant?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Gregs and just is like uncomfortable because she's full of Gregs.
Speaker 1: I don't really know what's going on, but it's been
Speaker 1: going on for a week and every time she starts screaming,
Speaker 1: flee gets stressed out. Oh I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking of a bunch of little kittens named Greg.
Speaker 1: The little Greg's running around five hundred. Anyways, chicken run right, Yes.
Speaker 2: So where do we leave off? Oh Ginger, Yeah, he's
Speaker 2: a fraud, but she doesn't Ginger doesn't know that yet. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: missus Tweety has gotten the equipment together, the U and
Speaker 2: it's basically just this machine that turns a chicken to
Speaker 2: a packaged chicken pie, and she wants to test it out.
Speaker 2: So they grab Ginger and put her in the pie machine.
Speaker 2: Rocky goes to save her. The two of them go
Speaker 2: through the machine. They managed to escape and fuck up
Speaker 2: the machine, and now everyone's like, wow, Rocky, what a hero, even.
Speaker 1: Though he does nothing at least because I was like,
Speaker 1: oh god, we're damseling Ginger. But then it's like Rocky
Speaker 1: truly does not help in any significant way, and that
Speaker 1: he just kind of joins the distress, Like.
Speaker 2: You mean, like when they's inside the machine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean mainly, I mean, I guess it seemed
Speaker 1: more like a group effort and it wasn't like she
Speaker 1: was damseled and now, oh no, he has to like
Speaker 1: single handedly rescue her, and it was at least like
Speaker 1: a group effort to get out of the machine in
Speaker 1: one piece.
Speaker 2: Sometimes well, I was I was like paying super close
Speaker 2: attention to this because I was like, okay, is it
Speaker 2: like he saves her sometimes she saves him sometimes, Like
Speaker 2: how how does that dynamic play out? And it felt
Speaker 2: to me like he does do a few things to
Speaker 2: save her from certain death, she does one thing to
Speaker 2: save him. But it felt to me like the scales
Speaker 2: were tipped into like she is being damseled territory and
Speaker 2: he does have to save her a few more times
Speaker 2: than she saves him, or that she's able to save herself.
Speaker 1: Interesting, I was, I was not doing the exact math
Speaker 1: on it. I was, at least I guess I was
Speaker 1: more expecting like, oh, we're damseling her and then it's
Speaker 1: going to be a clear cut like end of The
Speaker 1: Little Mermaid, like I'm gonna defeat the villain, and then
Speaker 1: you know it's at least a little more subtle than that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I totally trust that. I wasn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wasn't keeping counts. Yeah, I just love Chicken Run
Speaker 1: too much. Disappointing, disappointing Chicken Run, do better, Chicken Run.
Speaker 2: Seriously, So he he emerges like this heroic you know, Wow,
Speaker 2: I saved her and then he and Ginger have a
Speaker 2: little moment and we're like, uh, oh, don't like where
Speaker 2: this is going.
Speaker 1: But you know, you know, I'm like in the year
Speaker 1: two thousand. You know, it's so fucked up. She doesn't
Speaker 1: need him.
Speaker 2: No, no, she really doesn't. But the next morning it's
Speaker 2: time for Rocky to show them his flying abilities, but
Speaker 2: he's nowhere to be found. And this is when he
Speaker 2: leaves behind like the rest of the circus poster showing
Speaker 2: him being shot out of a cannon, revealing that he
Speaker 2: cannot fly and never could. And we're like, oh, wow,
Speaker 2: have we arrived at the low point of the movie much?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounded like a second And what's more, Ginger's
Speaker 1: lost all hope the end of it.
Speaker 2: Until Ginger gets the idea, inspired by Fowler's time in
Speaker 2: the Royal Air Force, to fly out of the farm
Speaker 2: by building an airplane slash giant flying chicken apparatus. So
Speaker 2: they get to work on building this while mister Tweety
Speaker 2: gets to work repairing the chicken pie machine and he
Speaker 2: finally fixes it, so now it's like a okay, and
Speaker 2: it's now or never. The chickens roll out their flying
Speaker 2: chicken plane. They take off Rocky comes back to help,
Speaker 2: but missus Tweety is there trying to stop them. She
Speaker 2: grabs on They have to scary, very scary scary. They
Speaker 2: have to fight her off, and they do and then
Speaker 2: they you know, finally fly over the fence toward their freedom.
Speaker 2: And then the movie ends with the chickens living in
Speaker 2: like a grassy nook paradise.
Speaker 1: Like Chicken Themyscira basically like yeah, except that there's like
Speaker 1: a few men allowed to be there. Yeah, they end
Speaker 1: up in chicken paradise the end.
Speaker 2: So let's take another break and then we'll come back
Speaker 2: to discuss where do we want to begin.
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, I would like to kind of
Speaker 1: get the you know, touch on the mel Gibson stuff
Speaker 1: at the top and as well as the stuff we've
Speaker 1: been just like alluding to the whole time of like
Speaker 1: for me, two of the most crushingly bad things about
Speaker 1: this movie are the fact that mel Gibson is involved.
Speaker 1: And I don't don't I don't even want to like
Speaker 1: rehash his crimes here, but he's I mean famously his
Speaker 1: career has been more or less like unfortunately not stopped,
Speaker 1: but you know, impeded significantly by the number of anti
Speaker 1: semitic and missile is and violent things that he's said
Speaker 1: over the years. And so unfortunately we've had a discussion
Speaker 1: of this sort in our What Women Want episode as well,
Speaker 1: because I think that's the other big mel Gibson movie
Speaker 1: that we've covered. Yeah, but nothing, it's it's fucking inexcusable,
Speaker 1: and no matter what we say about this movie, there's
Speaker 1: there's no excusing mel Gibson and the fact that he's
Speaker 1: still cast and shit today like is inexcuse, like inexcusably bad.
Speaker 1: He should not have a fucking career at the very least.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to touch on the mel Gibson
Speaker 1: stuff at the top, Like, no matter how much love
Speaker 1: that we have for this movie, doesn't excuse anything mel
Speaker 1: Gibson related, Right, But going off, I guess the number
Speaker 1: one thing, or not the number one but up there
Speaker 1: of like the things of this movie that don't hold
Speaker 1: up for me, is the the chicken love story. You
Speaker 1: don't need it.
Speaker 2: Why is there a chicken romance?
Speaker 1: Why? Yeah, it's also not like I feel like it's
Speaker 1: interesting because recently on the show, I think we've encountered
Speaker 1: actually like a few different heterosexual love stories that felt earned. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but this is not one of them. This is not earned.
Speaker 1: This love story sucks and it feels very It feels
Speaker 1: very studio notesy to me because it doesn't really fit
Speaker 1: into the story.
Speaker 2: Uh uh yeah, for a number of reasons. One that
Speaker 2: Rocky spends a large chunk of the movie lying to
Speaker 2: all of the chickens.
Speaker 1: Classic two thousand rhetoric.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and specifically Ginger because she's the one, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of orchestrating him, teaching them how to fly. She's
Speaker 2: negotiating with him, so he's like kind of directly lying
Speaker 2: to her first and foremost, he is nagging her and
Speaker 2: like you mentioned, calling her, you know, sexist names.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of dealt with in a very I mean,
Speaker 1: I think unfortunately, it's dealt with better than a teen
Speaker 1: movie of this year would deal with it, because at
Speaker 1: least she doesn't like she I don't know. The first
Speaker 1: half of this movie. I like how she responds to
Speaker 1: his bullshit, like she is using him for a very
Speaker 1: specific purpose and wants nothing to do with him outside
Speaker 1: of his immediate use to the collective that she feels
Speaker 1: beholden too. And then it's like the last half hour
Speaker 1: of the movie, that whole, like I thought really subversive
Speaker 1: setup just totally falls apart, and I'm like, and then
Speaker 1: it just becomes fucking like she's all that of like
Speaker 1: or ten things I hate about you? If like, oh,
Speaker 1: this person who like has been nothing but cruel to
Speaker 1: me actually loves me and I don't care to dielide
Speaker 1: and I don't and I do who care? Apology? Never
Speaker 1: heard of it?
Speaker 2: Like right?
Speaker 1: Just oh god, why does Rocky have a redemption arc?
Speaker 1: Like get rid of it?
Speaker 2: Get rid of Yeah? He he abandons them in their
Speaker 2: like their moment of dire need, like he does everything
Speaker 2: wrong every step of the way, does not deserve redemption
Speaker 2: the fact that Ginger just like forgives him and yeah,
Speaker 2: that whole like burden of forgiveness applies here, Like why
Speaker 2: because again he doesn't even do the bare minimum. Really,
Speaker 2: he just throws a party to like cheer some people up.
Speaker 1: But he does that selfishly too. He does that to
Speaker 1: distract from the fact that he can actually help them, right,
Speaker 1: I just it's so frustrating because it's like the burden
Speaker 1: of forgiveness thing bothers me even more in the way
Speaker 1: it plays out in this movie. Because this isn't saying
Speaker 1: much for Beauty and the Beast, But you know, when
Speaker 1: Belle meets the Beast, she's gonna forgive him one hundred percent,
Speaker 1: no doubt in your mind. There's never like, oh, is
Speaker 1: she gonna go her own way here? Because bell is
Speaker 1: not beholden to collective there we have yet to see
Speaker 1: a feminist theme or her interact with a woman. We
Speaker 1: have no reason to believe that she wouldn't like.
Speaker 2: And it's a fairy tale going in, so you assume that, Okay,
Speaker 2: the main woman, the title woman, and the title man
Speaker 2: are probably going to get together at the end.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah, it's like Beauty and the Beasts. It's not
Speaker 1: like Beauty like bales on the Beast because he's a
Speaker 1: fucking asshole. Like that should be the title though, Chicken Run,
Speaker 1: Chicken Run, Chicken Run, so waved toxic character like there.
Speaker 1: It just it would have been so easy and more
Speaker 1: more like I think, like thematically satisfying to have her.
Speaker 1: It just seems like it doesn't make sense with her character,
Speaker 1: Like the way she said, she's set up so distinctly
Speaker 1: and so strongly as like a character who would not
Speaker 1: I keep almost saying a person she's a chicken. She's
Speaker 1: a chicken who would not have any patience for this
Speaker 1: kind of shit. And then the second that he like
Speaker 1: lies in a way that means he is no longer
Speaker 1: useful to her collective mission, she would never talk to
Speaker 1: him again. Like, it just doesn't make sense none at all.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't make sense other than they talked on
Speaker 1: a roof once, which is another contrivance that it's like,
Speaker 1: oh god, come on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially like you said, the way that she is
Speaker 2: characterized in the beginning is just like having these you know,
Speaker 2: strong values and wanting to be autonomous and not be
Speaker 2: a cog in the egg machine, right and not that
Speaker 2: like someone who you know, a woman who is like
Speaker 2: strongly convicted couldn't and wouldn't end up with a romantic partner.
Speaker 2: But like she seems to like have a good chicken
Speaker 2: head on her shoulders. Yeah, you know, she doesn't tolerate
Speaker 2: bullshit from anyone, right, much less a shitty man who
Speaker 2: again lies and nags her and abandons her and like,
Speaker 2: just like all he does everything wrong. There's nothing about
Speaker 2: what her character had been established to be that would
Speaker 2: make you think that she would be at all willing
Speaker 2: to forgive him right, and yet that's what she does,
Speaker 2: even though he does not apologize or hold himself accountable
Speaker 2: at all for anything he did.
Speaker 1: No, I mean in the way that he's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, Yeah, the whole I want to give the
Speaker 1: writer of this movie, who's written a lot while committing
Speaker 1: the sin of being a sis man, has written a
Speaker 1: lot of like iconic children's movies that I really love.
Speaker 2: Wait, what else has he done? I forgot to look
Speaker 2: him up.
Speaker 1: His name's Carrie Kirkpatrick. He wrote James and the Giant
Speaker 1: Peach the movie. He wrote Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, he
Speaker 1: wrote Chicken Run, he wrote The Little Vampire, iconic like,
Speaker 1: He's written a lot of classic kids movies. And he
Speaker 1: also wrote and directed small Foot, which was one of
Speaker 1: the animated Bigfoot movies that came out a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago. And it is the good one?
Speaker 2: Is it? The one that was? And Zendaia is me.
Speaker 1: Chi, Yes, it is that one he wrote. I mean,
Speaker 1: had he not written and directed small Foot, we wouldn't
Speaker 1: have Sunday's Meat Chie. So there's a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot. But he's like, he's written kids movies
Speaker 1: that at very at least have stuck with me that
Speaker 1: seemed to be like pretty different for their time at
Speaker 1: least or not just like you know, fill in the
Speaker 1: blank kind of movies. Sure, I wouldn't be surprised, And
Speaker 1: maybe I'm giving Carrie Kirkpatrick too much credit here, but like,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if, like in two thousand, Mel
Speaker 1: Gibson is this big star, if notes come back of like, well,
Speaker 1: we have to have the mel Gibson Rooster character redeemed
Speaker 1: by the end of the movie, and there should be
Speaker 1: a love story, because that's pretty standard for these kinds
Speaker 1: of movies. But it just, I don't know, it sticks
Speaker 1: out extra unfortunately in a movie that it has so
Speaker 1: much like really power, Like the first half of this
Speaker 1: movie is like incredible, and then starting at the point
Speaker 1: where Ginger is low key Damsel, I feel like that's
Speaker 1: one of the first cracks you sort of see of
Speaker 1: like oh no, oh, no, contrivances are starting to happen.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, like a good half of this movie,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, fuck, this is really cool, Like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so the love story in this one, I can't can't
Speaker 1: defend it in any way doesn't make sense with the character.
Speaker 1: There's no earned redemption, there's no apology. I don't want
Speaker 1: to see chickens kiss period, and especially if those human
Speaker 1: teeth in their beaks are all clacking around nasty. Where
Speaker 1: are those teeth rooted? They don't have gums, you know,
Speaker 1: hard to know why these dentured chickens are kissing. And
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 2: I know why? Why? Well, I know why they have teeth? Oh,
Speaker 2: because go on, it's because Jerry Bruckheimer was like, get
Speaker 2: these chickens somephon ears.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's great foreshadowing for our coyote ugly episode, Jerry Bruckheimer.
Speaker 1: That I mean, I knew. I wish I didn't know
Speaker 1: as a Jerry Bruckheimer movie going in, because the second
Speaker 1: you see someone's mouth, you're like, well, I know who's
Speaker 1: behind this, uh Bruckheimer teeth Lord Michael's and Jerry Bruckheimer like,
Speaker 1: someone's gotta someone's gotta hold these men to account about
Speaker 1: the whole teeth issue, Like what is wrong with you?
Speaker 1: Like sirs creepy old men being like why don't you
Speaker 1: get a new mouth, young lady? Like get away from me,
Speaker 1: young man. I mean, they don't, they don't discriminate by
Speaker 1: gender of who they will force to get a new mouth.
Speaker 1: Anyone will get new mouth for these at least there's that,
Speaker 1: So that's yeah, they are god so creepy. Anyways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the relationship aspect suck.
Speaker 2: Hate it. Get it out of there. You could easily
Speaker 2: remove it. The movie would be even better than it is.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I hate the chicken romance.
Speaker 1: No chicken romance please.
Speaker 2: Another thing that I felt was in the same vein
Speaker 2: of like why is this here and why did you
Speaker 2: make this choice because it goes against everything that had
Speaker 2: also been set up about like Ginger especially was when
Speaker 2: they're rolling out the Chicken plane at the end of
Speaker 2: the movie, see where you go. They engineered themselves, They
Speaker 2: designed it themselves, they builded themselves. And then they're like, okay,
Speaker 2: we're ready to take off. Fowler, go get into the
Speaker 2: pilot's seat because you have to fly this thing. And
Speaker 2: he's like, well, I don't know how to do it.
Speaker 2: I was I was a mascot in the in the
Speaker 2: Air Force, so I can't fly a pilane.
Speaker 1: First of all, you're like, a chicken was a mascot
Speaker 1: for the Air Force in World War Two?
Speaker 2: What you know what Sorry to all of the UK listeners,
Speaker 2: but I would not put it past.
Speaker 1: That's really me. That's so funny, that's so funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sorry UK listeners, but you've.
Speaker 2: Got some weird mascots.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I also found this plot point really frustrating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So what happens is basically they're like, Fowler,
Speaker 2: you need to fly this thing, and he's like, well,
Speaker 2: I don't know how to do it, and they're like,
Speaker 2: but you're our only hope, and it's like he has
Speaker 2: no more experience than any of the other chickens. Why
Speaker 2: wouldn't Ginger fly or why wouldn't Mac the brainy stem
Speaker 2: chicken fly it.
Speaker 1: I thought Mac was the more logical choice for this,
Speaker 1: especially because it's like it's one thing like they could have.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just such a weird choice because
Speaker 1: on one hand, it's like, I like where that scene
Speaker 1: is going, where there's kind of this theme throughout Chicken
Speaker 1: Run of men overcompensating and like men putting their pride
Speaker 1: first and being deceitful because of their own insecurity and
Speaker 1: because of their own pride, and like that's the theme
Speaker 1: with Rocky and that's a theme with Fowler. And I
Speaker 1: like that. I think that that's like an interesting dynamic
Speaker 1: to play around with. And so Rocky is exposed as
Speaker 1: being a fraud. He bails, right, Fowler is exposed as
Speaker 1: being a fraud, and it's like, Okay, I like that
Speaker 1: they made that choice because it's like his character kind
Speaker 1: of is reflected that the whole time. He's always like,
Speaker 1: look at me, look at me. And then if he
Speaker 1: has to do anything, he's like, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: ask Ginger because she's the only as told by Ginger,
Speaker 1: it's the only like she's the only person that knows
Speaker 1: or chicken. She's not a person, she's a chicken. She's
Speaker 1: the only person chicken in the Oh my god, it's
Speaker 1: so stressful. She's the only chicken in the coop that
Speaker 1: like is she's like the organizer, right, And yeah, so
Speaker 1: I like that his character is kind of exposed as
Speaker 1: a fraud. But then it's like, if you're gonna do that,
Speaker 1: why immediately in the same scene offer him a redemption
Speaker 1: arc Like that's such a weird choice. Yeah, this should
Speaker 1: have been like Mac should have been at I mean,
Speaker 1: Mac at least had an integral like it seemed like
Speaker 1: she was like command control inside of the plane. But
Speaker 1: she should have been driving the fucking plane.
Speaker 2: Come on, Yeah, I would have liked it way better
Speaker 2: if maybe like Fowler sort of like of his own accord,
Speaker 2: gets into the pilot's seat, like realizes he can't fly,
Speaker 2: and then like Ginger's like, wait, you can't fly, Well,
Speaker 2: then get the hell out of there. Hey, Mac, you
Speaker 2: engineered this thing. Surely you know how it functions. You
Speaker 2: fly the plane. And then she's like, yeah, here I go.
Speaker 1: I wanted to. I wanted to see Mac and Ginger
Speaker 1: in the front seat of the plane doing the damn
Speaker 1: thing like I it's it's frustrating because it's like and
Speaker 1: it's not I'm not even saying, like kick Fowler off
Speaker 1: the plane, like just put him on a bike. Just
Speaker 1: put him on a bike. Yeah, you know, like I
Speaker 1: think that you know Fowler, it seems like he is
Speaker 1: the kind of character. He is very flawed. He is
Speaker 1: like very pompous, but he can be worked with in
Speaker 1: a way that I don't think Rocky can. Right, Like
Speaker 1: he has like loyalty to the chickens of the coop
Speaker 1: at least, and it's like, don't toss him off the plane.
Speaker 1: But don't tell him to drive the plane. He just
Speaker 1: told you can't drive the plane, like what? And then
Speaker 1: I feel like there that was another thing that, Like, God,
Speaker 1: most of my problems with this movie are in the
Speaker 1: last ten minutes, which is frustrating because I just like,
Speaker 1: it's such a chicken run is so good, but like,
Speaker 1: if we're if we're if we're pecking it apart. Wow,
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: It's catching cocka doodle do, cock a doodle do? Tell
Speaker 2: more one of the cockodoodle doos and cocka doodle don'ts
Speaker 2: of chicken run?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Wait, now I forgot. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry for no, We're just making so many perfect,
Speaker 1: hilarious jokes. Wait, there was something. Wait, I'll get a.
Speaker 2: Chicken pun chicken instead a chicken run.
Speaker 1: Okay, wait Fowler. Fuck. I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: it had something to do with Fowler. I don't know. Sorry, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'll figure it out of Itally, I just I got
Speaker 1: so taken in. Yeah, I don't know. I guess. It
Speaker 1: just seems like this movie was making really interesting points
Speaker 1: about masculinity and the expectations of masculinity, but then they
Speaker 1: just kind of offered all the male characters who had
Speaker 1: displayed those traits in immediate redemption arc at the very
Speaker 1: end for no reason, for.
Speaker 2: No reason, completely under like they did nothing to earn.
Speaker 1: I think, like, honestly, I think that like I would
Speaker 1: have accepted a Fowler redemption act if he had had
Speaker 1: to work for it, and if he had had to
Speaker 1: like accept Oh I remember, I was gonna say, but
Speaker 1: if he had had to like be humbled in some
Speaker 1: way instead of being constant like that was his arc,
Speaker 1: was that he was not humble even though he didn't
Speaker 1: know how to do anything right, Like, so that should
Speaker 1: be the resolution of like, Okay, we don't hate you Fowler,
Speaker 1: but like sit down, you know, like yeah, that's but
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen. Oh, so that was okay. So what
Speaker 1: I was gonna say is, in the majority of this movie,
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting and like generally kind of
Speaker 1: cool how the chickens. The chickens are not like Mary
Speaker 1: sued at any point where it's not like they suddenly
Speaker 1: know how to get out of the coup. They suddenly
Speaker 1: like they pick up a whatever and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden they're superheroes and they like you see them working
Speaker 1: closer to their goal. You see them try and fail,
Speaker 1: you understand kind of what their journey is. But then
Speaker 1: at the end, Fowler is Mary Souon where all of
Speaker 1: a sudden he's like, I don't know how to ride
Speaker 1: a plane. Two seconds later he's like, I'm driving the
Speaker 1: plane right. How though, Like it's for a movie that
Speaker 1: seemed pretty conscious of like showing the character arcs of
Speaker 1: like how they're getting closer and closer and closer to
Speaker 1: knowing how to do what they need to. Hm, it's
Speaker 1: such a weird last minute choice to just be like,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, this character that never gets his
Speaker 1: ego checked once, even though it seems like that's where
Speaker 1: the character is going, right, can suddenly magically drive a plane.
Speaker 1: Like it's just weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, like you said, Mac, we it's established
Speaker 2: that Mac is the brainy chicken and stem she does
Speaker 2: complex you know, calculus and physics equations and all you know, geometry.
Speaker 2: Who knows what all she's even.
Speaker 1: Doing bits of shit. It's out of my pay grade.
Speaker 2: I don't know, right, But they're like, yeah, byye, but
Speaker 2: she she understands thrust, you know, she like designs this
Speaker 2: catapult and then she's put in charge of engineering this thing. Babs,
Speaker 2: who is seen constantly knitting, is in charge of manufacturing.
Speaker 2: And like other chickens are you know, getting the material.
Speaker 2: They're like all doing something in contributing.
Speaker 1: Which I appreciated that that was paid off on too.
Speaker 1: That like her because the knitting thing, it's like, oh
Speaker 1: you could. I was like, is this a reductive thing?
Speaker 1: What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? But then like that
Speaker 1: that plant and payoff baby, she's like she's a textile manufacturer.
Speaker 2: She sees the.
Speaker 1: Means of productions in her little chicken hands.
Speaker 2: M h.
Speaker 1: I love her.
Speaker 2: Yes, So yeah, that was disappointing to me that they
Speaker 2: did that whole thing with Fowler. And then the the
Speaker 2: other thing that we already talked about a bit and
Speaker 2: we don't need to reh too much was just the
Speaker 2: you know, women need to be saved by men, even
Speaker 2: when they're all chickens so like.
Speaker 1: Which is frustrating because it's like Ginger is so set
Speaker 1: up to be able to do it that there's really
Speaker 1: like I was, I was able to get as far
Speaker 1: as like, Okay, I understand why Ginger would enlist Rocky's help,
Speaker 1: but the second she finds out he's a fraud, I
Speaker 1: have no like we no longer have any narrative excuse
Speaker 1: to like have him even in the story, Like right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't I don't mind that she enlists his
Speaker 2: help because he seems to be able to fly and
Speaker 2: they need to learn how to do that, and.
Speaker 1: We've already seen them try and fail so many times
Speaker 1: that it's like, oh, okay, Like narratively, it like she
Speaker 1: will you know anything that seems promising, she will try
Speaker 1: mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I don't mind that at all. I'm talking
Speaker 2: more just specifically about the she gets put in the
Speaker 2: chicken pie machine and Rocky like goes in after her,
Speaker 2: and yeah, like her feet are stuck in the dough.
Speaker 2: She he has to pull her out of the dough
Speaker 2: before she gets crushed. They're about to get splatted by gravy.
Speaker 2: He takes like a vegetable and like crams it into
Speaker 2: the gravy machine. At the very end of that sequence,
Speaker 2: she does pull him out of the pie and get
Speaker 2: him out of the oven. So she does one thing,
Speaker 2: but it's mostly him rescuing her.
Speaker 1: And the thing is like there, see I wasn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we already kind of ash. I wasn't keeping
Speaker 1: track of like who is doing how much in that scene.
Speaker 1: But the whole time I was watching that scene, I
Speaker 1: was like, this should be like Mac, or this should
Speaker 1: be like I guess that it's that's okay. I guess that.
Speaker 1: That's kind of like the last kind of issue I
Speaker 1: have with how the Chicken Collective is written at times, right,
Speaker 1: they are sometimes written too and it's like, God, everyone
Speaker 1: take this with a grave of salt, because it is funny,
Speaker 1: like a grain a chicken feed can feed. But like
Speaker 1: the chickens are I think framed as being like quote
Speaker 1: unquote hysterical at times where they are put in. I mean,
Speaker 1: the thing is like the steaks are very high, and
Speaker 1: so it's not like they're overreacting, but they are often
Speaker 1: like ah, like they're they're always panicking, which which makes sense.
Speaker 2: Very funny to look at.
Speaker 1: It's so the thing is, it's so funny to watch
Speaker 1: the chickens panic, and so I'm like hah. Then I'm
Speaker 1: also like, but wait a second, wait a minute, this
Speaker 1: podcast has destroyed my brain. I can no longer enjoy
Speaker 1: cartoon chickens running around I have to be like, but
Speaker 1: what are the implications of the cartoon chickens running around?
Speaker 2: Let's the inherent sexism here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think there is something like there is
Speaker 1: like the chickens are sometimes made out to be like
Speaker 1: I think like humorously overreacting, right, if we're saying, you
Speaker 1: know that a lot of these like these chickens are
Speaker 1: drawn from life, human life, so that we were to
Speaker 1: imagine a group of women panicking and running around, and
Speaker 1: I think that it's kind of most egregious. And when
Speaker 1: Rocky is like I've got this and no one kind
Speaker 1: of stands up to be like, well, Gingers are like leader,
Speaker 1: like she's our leader, Like no one offers to go
Speaker 1: with him, there's no like it just seemed almost.
Speaker 2: Like they like volunteer him, right, They're like, you have
Speaker 2: to go do it, Rocky.
Speaker 1: Which strikes me as like a little cowardly of the
Speaker 1: chickens of like Ginger is addicted to putting her life
Speaker 1: on the line for all of you chickens, Like why
Speaker 1: are none of the chickens like let's make sure, Like
Speaker 1: I just kind of wish that in that scenario, I
Speaker 1: don't even like hate. I think that it's like plot wise,
Speaker 1: seeing the how how dire the chicken machine is and
Speaker 1: how scary it is, like that is a valuable plot point.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's like maybe Fowler could have been
Speaker 1: kidnapped or one of the chickens could have gone to
Speaker 1: like navigate their way out with Ginger. Like I just
Speaker 1: ultimately the fact that the chicken knife machine pop pie
Speaker 1: scene ends up serving the romantic narrative. I just didn't like.
Speaker 1: I don't hate that the scene happens. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: so scared of it when I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: I would have been just as scared if it was
Speaker 1: like Mac or Babs or like whomstever else. And it
Speaker 1: also makes more logical plot sense to me that one
Speaker 1: of her like lifelong chicken friends would go I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think my fix would be if well, then
Speaker 2: mister Tweety is like I know, oh, I know, just
Speaker 2: the chicken because he has a vendetta against Ginger, so
Speaker 2: it makes sense that Ginger are in solitary right exactly.
Speaker 2: I think my fix would just be like Gingers able
Speaker 2: to save herself, because we've seen her be very resourceful
Speaker 2: this whole movie. Can't she just for self and get
Speaker 2: herself out because yea, the function it serves in the
Speaker 2: story for Rocky to save her does sort of ignite
Speaker 2: their romance, which doesn't need to be in the movie.
Speaker 1: Their trauma bonded chickens. You're like, I don't need this,
Speaker 1: or even if we need to have Rocky show up,
Speaker 1: maybe he shows up and he's completely useless because that's
Speaker 1: kind of his thing. And then she's She's like, oh great,
Speaker 1: now it's twice as hard for us to get out
Speaker 1: of this chicken machine. You fucking lose her like there.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just like, yeah, I don't like
Speaker 1: because it's I think that that's such a scary effective
Speaker 1: scene and to have it service this like I don't know,
Speaker 1: romantic subplot that we both hate. I was just like, man,
Speaker 1: don't love it. Should we talk about things we love about? Yes? Kay? Okay?
Speaker 1: I read a lot. There's like kind of a stunning
Speaker 1: amount of think pieces about Chicken run oh, which I
Speaker 1: do love because I had all these that I'm like,
Speaker 1: are these irrational?
Speaker 2: Am I?
Speaker 1: And And some of them were and I won't bring
Speaker 1: them up, but others were. Okay, So I do feel
Speaker 1: pretty confident and I'm pulling I'm gonna be reading from
Speaker 1: uh two pieces. One is from Bitch Media by Dehan
Speaker 1: Jotanovic and the other is from Film School Rejects by
Speaker 1: Brianna Ziggler that kind of comment on the either the
Speaker 1: like hyper feminists or because I kind of went into
Speaker 1: Chicken Run being like, oh, this is like a really
Speaker 1: feminist movie, but it's also a really like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: quote the piece because I always like it's a very
Speaker 1: anti capitalist piece of g rated children's art, which is
Speaker 1: so fucking cool, like yeah, yeah, And and Brianna Ziggler
Speaker 1: in particular gets like full on into like Marxist theory,
Speaker 1: which is like locate out of my pay grate, but
Speaker 1: like she is, she is right where it's like I
Speaker 1: did you read Animal Farm in high school? I did, so,
Speaker 1: Like there we were confronted with kind of an Animal
Speaker 1: Farm style situation here, right, And it's based on literally
Speaker 1: a movie called The Great Escape about people like escaping
Speaker 1: a prisoner of war World War II camp, and so
Speaker 1: it's like pulling from some pretty dark stuff. So I
Speaker 1: just want to read a section of Brianna Zigler discussing
Speaker 1: the Marxist themes in Chicken Run because I truly do firmly. Like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ginger reminds me of every DSA chapter leader I've ever
Speaker 1: interacted with. Like, Okay, So here's what Brianna says. Quote
Speaker 1: the Tweeties farm and their chickens mirror the oft maligned
Speaker 1: working environments and practices of our modern day capitalist society.
Speaker 1: We're only valuable to our bosses as long as we
Speaker 1: can provide them with labor and therefore profit. As soon
Speaker 1: as we aren't profitable, we're disposable and reply. Thus this
Speaker 1: idea of Marxist theory inherent within chicken run, the objective
Speaker 1: of Marxism being the self emancipation of the working class
Speaker 1: i e. The chickens. German philosopher Karl Marx believed in
Speaker 1: a socialist revolution in order to bring about control of
Speaker 1: political power for the proletariat. The dictatorship of the proletariat,
Speaker 1: as he called it, would give the proletary public ownership
Speaker 1: of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. I'll skip
Speaker 1: down a little bit. It gets pretty dense. Part of
Speaker 1: Marxist theory also includes this idea of seizing the means
Speaker 1: of production. Means of production being what is used to
Speaker 1: produce goods and seizing them, as in taking control and
Speaker 1: using them for the greater good instead of personal gain
Speaker 1: as with capitalism. Thus, the chicken's entire bodies are the
Speaker 1: Tweedy's means of producing goods as well as being the
Speaker 1: goods themselves. In the end, the chicken's ultimate way of
Speaker 1: the escape relies entirely on their bodies hand powering a
Speaker 1: plane they built all by themselves unquote. So it's like,
Speaker 1: also this incredible labor story where like, you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like missus Tweety is kind of like a classically
Speaker 1: evil hyper capitalist villain, right, and I think that it
Speaker 1: framed even slightly differently. She's basically a girl boss, right,
Speaker 1: where she's like, I'm going to start my own business
Speaker 1: and like, yes, ladies, let's grind these chickens to death,
Speaker 1: like that kind of vibe where she is motivated by
Speaker 1: personal profit. And then the chickens like they are basically
Speaker 1: performing some form of like unpaid prison labor. They are
Speaker 1: held captive. They are used strictly for what they can produce,
Speaker 1: which at first is their eggs, which are immediately sees
Speaker 1: from them, with the only exchange being food, you know,
Speaker 1: the ability to continue to live and produce, which already
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, this is a labor story. And then
Speaker 1: when they are no longer useful to produce eggs, they
Speaker 1: are then harvested for the personal profit of missus tweety.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I just thought it was like a really
Speaker 1: heady but fascinating point that, like the means of production
Speaker 1: at first are the chickens' abilities to produce eggs, and
Speaker 1: then eventually the means of production once it becomes clear
Speaker 1: that it's actually more profitable to just mercilessly harvest the chickens,
Speaker 1: the means of production becomes their actual bodies, and so
Speaker 1: then using their bodies to escape is also seizing the
Speaker 1: means of production. Like strictly by having bodily autonomy, the
Speaker 1: chickens of Chicken Run have reclaimed the means of production
Speaker 1: and they can self determine what they want to do
Speaker 1: with their lives on Chicken Island. I just so shout
Speaker 1: out to Breonna Ziglai. I will send you this link
Speaker 1: so we'll have it in the description as well. But
Speaker 1: it was phrasing things that I didn't quite have like
Speaker 1: the Marxist vocabulary to say. But it's like, fuck, yeah,
Speaker 1: It's like on top of the fact that we are
Speaker 1: living in a chicken matriarchy. They literally like liberate themselves
Speaker 1: from capitalism.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, it's amazing, it's amazing. I like the commentary
Speaker 2: too on. So not only is Missus Tweety this like,
Speaker 2: you know, capitalist stooge bourgeois owning and controlling the means
Speaker 2: of production villain. She also she's like explaining the branding
Speaker 2: that she wants to do for the chicken pies that
Speaker 2: she intends to sell, and she's like, yeah, they're going
Speaker 2: to be called Missus Tweety's chicken pies and her husband
Speaker 2: her husband is like missus and she's like, yeah, a
Speaker 2: woman's touch makes the public seem more comfortable. So she
Speaker 2: understands like marketing, but also like she understands like the
Speaker 2: patriarchal structure that her chicken pies are going to be
Speaker 2: like distributed and sold to.
Speaker 1: She's literally a girl boss. She's a chicken girl boss.
Speaker 1: Like she understands the patriarchal structure, and instead of using
Speaker 1: that understanding to liberate herself and other people she's operating,
Speaker 1: she's continuing to operate inside of it in order to
Speaker 1: turn a profit for herself. Personally, she's a girl boss,
Speaker 1: and I really like that her downfall is underestimating the chickens,
Speaker 1: like she That's where I'm just like, Okay, Carrie Kirkpatrick,
Speaker 1: are you a socialist? Because like the especially with how
Speaker 1: the tweeties talk like the chickens the chickens do, they
Speaker 1: are the chickens are socialists, but it's kind of like
Speaker 1: worded a little more ambiguously for them. But when the
Speaker 1: tweeties are talking, I'm like, this guy took a couple
Speaker 1: courses because like mister Tweety is made out to be
Speaker 1: really paranoid for saying like the chickens are organized, like
Speaker 1: the chickens are going, they're like plotting their escape. And
Speaker 1: the reason that missus Tweety ultimately or part of the
Speaker 1: reason the chickens are able to seize their bodily autonomy
Speaker 1: and build a plane, is because missus Tweety doesn't believe
Speaker 1: that the chickens are intelligent enough, like the underclass chickens
Speaker 1: being beneath humans. Yes, that the underclass is like intelligent
Speaker 1: or motivated enough to organize and rise up, And so
Speaker 1: I liked that that's like that's made explicitly clear, like
Speaker 1: a bunch of times that missus Tweety does not believe
Speaker 1: that people, not people with their chickens, that living creatures
Speaker 1: she views as lesser than and less intelligent than her
Speaker 1: could possibly outwit her, which I feel like you can
Speaker 1: apply that. I mean, that applies to a wide array
Speaker 1: of historical risings. But right, I like, how I I
Speaker 1: think that missus tweety and and mister Tweety, I mean
Speaker 1: they're both kind of villains in that you get kind
Speaker 1: of two kinds of capitalist villains. You have like the
Speaker 1: super motivated one and then you have the kind of
Speaker 1: the bystander.
Speaker 2: Right, so just sort of like passively participating, and.
Speaker 1: Like, to mister Tweety's credit, he does notice that the
Speaker 1: chickens are organized. It's just no one believes mister Tweety.
Speaker 2: Yeah, missus Tweety's gaslighting him the whole time. She's like,
Speaker 2: it's all in your head to her own detriment. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: she should have just listened. Believe mister Tweety.
Speaker 1: Believe mister Tweety's believe. How did you feel when mister Tweety? Okay,
Speaker 1: this was kind of I was like, oh, how did
Speaker 1: you feel when mister Tweety was very willing to let
Speaker 1: his wife die. At the end, I was like, kind
Speaker 1: of always just like, I guess she's not nice to you,
Speaker 1: but you're like benefiting from everything she's doing. Like I
Speaker 1: kind of didn't. I was like, mister Tweety, that's like
Speaker 1: fucked up. You're just gonna let your wife get all
Speaker 1: ground up.
Speaker 2: I think he is. He's had it up to here
Speaker 2: with her gaslighting him and just being cruel to him
Speaker 2: and making unreasonable demands of him the whole movie, and
Speaker 2: she's and he's just like, you know what, I've had enough.
Speaker 1: Off of their head. I just like, I guess I
Speaker 1: don't know, not that I have this like well of
Speaker 1: sympathy for missus Tweety, but I'm like, damn, the one
Speaker 1: person who she thought was her ride or die was
Speaker 1: very willing to let her get turned into a pot pie.
Speaker 1: Yeah she does live. That also felt very g random.
Speaker 1: She doesn't get ground up. She lives, but then she
Speaker 1: also gets crushed by a wall, so maybe she does die.
Speaker 2: So maybe she does die. Hard to say, I have
Speaker 2: three jokes that I love in particular in this movie.
Speaker 2: One of them is toward the end when mister Tweety
Speaker 2: goes to all the chickens to put them through the
Speaker 2: chicken pie machine. They're like, what's the plan, Ginger, and
Speaker 2: she's like attack, so they all attack him and he's
Speaker 2: like in the background flailing around like all covered in
Speaker 2: chickens and he's like, the chickens are revolting, missus tweety,
Speaker 2: and she says, finally something we can agree on.
Speaker 1: The wordplay that is really funny, Yeah, amazing iconic.
Speaker 2: And then also my two other favorite jokes are when
Speaker 2: the chickens are trying to learn to fly and they're
Speaker 2: just sort of like falling everywhere. One of the rats
Speaker 2: is like, it's raining. Hen hilarious, right, I love I
Speaker 2: love a pun. And then this one unfortunately works because
Speaker 2: mel Gibson being cast as Rocky. So I'm but after
Speaker 2: Rocky is exposed as a fraud, I think it's Bunty
Speaker 2: says I knew he was fake all along. In fact,
Speaker 2: I'm not even certain he was a mayor, which is
Speaker 2: funny because mel Gibson is also not American, but he's
Speaker 2: doing an American access.
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't realize that that.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's intentional, but I was like,
Speaker 2: so God, that's such a peak Mel Gibson joke that
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, to be there there.
Speaker 1: I also had a whole section that about how Rocky
Speaker 1: the Rooster represents the hollow promises of the American dream
Speaker 1: enlighten me. I won't take as long as I did
Speaker 1: for the chickens being socialists, which they were.
Speaker 2: But that's fine. I have my own little allegory that
Speaker 2: I'd like to share.
Speaker 1: But okay, great, go on. Yeah. I also had a
Speaker 1: little thing that I wrote down and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if I can find one writer that has mentioned this,
Speaker 1: I will say it on the show. So okay. So
Speaker 1: you know we're on a chicken farm somewhere in England, right,
Speaker 1: We're in the UK. At least we know that there
Speaker 1: are Scottish chickens there, so it's kind of ambiguous where
Speaker 1: it is. Anyways, an American chicken shows up, right, he
Speaker 1: kind of flies out of the sky quote unquote, and
Speaker 1: he promises all these amazing things, and he's like, I
Speaker 1: can do this, I can do that. I've seen everything,
Speaker 1: I've been everywhere, I've lived this really rich and satisfying life.
Speaker 1: It turns out that he has been deceitful and that
Speaker 1: there's nothing behind all these huge promises that he's made
Speaker 1: to them, and he's kind of like made off on this,
Speaker 1: you know, reputation of being this like intrepid American when
Speaker 1: in fact, you know, he is completely lost in his
Speaker 1: life and he is strictly running on this like hyper
Speaker 1: masculine American image and it ends up being false and
Speaker 1: all the layers are pulled back. So I wrote down
Speaker 1: Rocky the Rooster better example of false American dream than
Speaker 1: Great Gatsby. Oohoo, hot take, Oh wow, hot take. I
Speaker 1: think you know goodness eighty four minutes and you get
Speaker 1: the message way easier than reading The Great Gatsby.
Speaker 2: I like all of our references to orwell, we've read above.
Speaker 2: We've got an f Scott Fitzgerald in there. Okay, we
Speaker 2: haven't readst in.
Speaker 1: We went to an American high school.
Speaker 2: Okay, but don't get used to it, because I won't
Speaker 2: be reading any more books I've read.
Speaker 1: That's why we're not doing Jane Austin January, because we
Speaker 1: don't want to read a book. Don't make us Oh
Speaker 1: my god.
Speaker 2: No, I yeah, I like that. That works for me.
Speaker 1: What was your allegorical connection? I'm excited this is maybe
Speaker 1: me reaching. Okay, I'm perfectly willing to admit that, but
Speaker 1: because you know, I was rewatching this through the Bechdel lens,
Speaker 1: I was also thinking that the chicken farm could be
Speaker 1: interpreted as like an allegory for the patriarchy, and by
Speaker 1: that I mean like the institution of the farm, like
Speaker 1: not its occupants, but the farm as an institution, and
Speaker 1: how it's like physically made to be very restrictive, like
Speaker 1: a prison, especially because the expectation for the chickens is
Speaker 1: to use their bodies to produce something that this institution wants,
Speaker 1: much like the way the patriarchy historically for millennia has
Speaker 1: expected that the role that women take on in society
Speaker 1: is to bear children and raise them. And that's not
Speaker 1: exactly what the chickens are doing in this movie, but
Speaker 1: it's still this like patriarchal expectation for anyone with eggs
Speaker 1: in their bodies to use their bodies to incubate either
Speaker 1: like the eggs themselves or like human babies that come
Speaker 1: from egg cells. And you know, for human women, historically,
Speaker 1: that's been the role that we've been ascribed and that's
Speaker 1: what value we have been seen to have in society. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not much beyond that. And obviously that's less true
Speaker 1: for human women today. But I still think this allegorical
Speaker 1: patriarchy argument works. Oh for sure. I think it's like
Speaker 1: run by a woman, but it absolutely is a patriarchal structure. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: just because a women's at the top doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: feminists for the last time.
Speaker 2: People, Right, women can still uphold patriarchal standards. We've said
Speaker 2: it before, we'll say it again.
Speaker 1: And that kind of echoes like turf ideology too, of
Speaker 1: like defining womanhood by the ability to reproduce, which is
Speaker 1: how a lot of you know, like turfs kind of
Speaker 1: continue to perpetuate harm towards trans women and like, you know,
Speaker 1: saying that being a woman is defined by your ability
Speaker 1: to reproduce, which obviously intentionally excludes trans women and it
Speaker 1: excludes people with wombs who don't want to have children.
Speaker 1: Like it's just such an absurd Yeah, and I totally
Speaker 1: agree with you. Like it goes back to like, oh,
Speaker 1: your value is determined by your ability to perpetuate X
Speaker 1: y Z in this case food life, right, whatever, and
Speaker 1: then if you're not deemed useful enough, then we'll just
Speaker 1: eat you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that was my whole thing, because like, the
Speaker 2: chicken farm is extremely restrictive. It is sort of like
Speaker 2: based on these very rigid gender roles and expectations for
Speaker 2: the chickens. And I was like, what is this but
Speaker 2: the patriarchy it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also like the turf patriarchy on that, like
Speaker 1: where it's like, you know, if you only define an
Speaker 1: animal by their ability to reproduce, your excluding so many
Speaker 1: out of sheer you know, does either prejudice or desire
Speaker 1: to profit or often both. Yes, So you know we
Speaker 1: should have you know we I think that they should have.
Speaker 1: You know, let missus Tweety die. She should have died.
Speaker 2: She was she was.
Speaker 1: You know what if nothing else, I'm like, we've gotten
Speaker 1: this far, Like, let's do the guillotine. Yeah, we're here.
Speaker 1: I don't care if it's PG. Make it PG and
Speaker 1: drag out a chicken guillotine.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One thing I liked in this movie was and that
Speaker 1: I wish we had more of, and I think if Rocky,
Speaker 1: had Rocky's storyline up been treated differently, we would have
Speaker 1: gotten more. Was Ginger and Max friendship and their collaboration.
Speaker 1: I really thought that there was kind of more to
Speaker 1: kind of mine from that relationship, because you do get
Speaker 1: a few scenes with them. They are like they're both
Speaker 1: friends and they are like co organizers, where I liked.
Speaker 1: I always love when there is I mean there there
Speaker 1: is sometimes internal conflict at the Coup, but it is
Speaker 1: not it's it's I don't know, it is, like I thought,
Speaker 1: pretty logically driven conflict. It wasn't just like, well, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of women in this area, so of course
Speaker 1: they're going to be arguing with each other.
Speaker 2: Like right.
Speaker 1: I really liked that, especially with Ginger and Mac. They
Speaker 1: both brought something different to the table. Ginger was like
Speaker 1: an ideas person. Mac was a logistics person. Chicken I
Speaker 1: keep saying person.
Speaker 2: I mean they're personified chickens. They're base, they're people. Chickens
Speaker 2: are people too. I'm peta now, oh my god, streful.
Speaker 1: There's like, you know, we have our right brain chicken
Speaker 1: and our left brain chicken and they're colaborating. And I
Speaker 1: like that they sometimes disagree with each other, but it's
Speaker 1: never like and now we're fighting and like everything is over.
Speaker 1: Like there's even one scene where Ginger is kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: Rocky's going to teach us how to fly, so don't
Speaker 1: worry about it. And MA'X like, I believe that, but
Speaker 1: has he flown? Like the way that they approach conflict
Speaker 1: to each other is very respectful, Yeah, and seems true
Speaker 1: to their friendship. And I just really liked it. I
Speaker 1: felt like that could have been an example of like
Speaker 1: a needless argument between two female characters in a a
Speaker 1: story that is treated in a pretty grounded way of
Speaker 1: like Max sort of knows that Gingers drinking the rocky
Speaker 1: kool aid too much, but isn't you know, isn't aggressive
Speaker 1: about it? You know, She's like you definitely could be right.
Speaker 1: I believe you, but like, but considered, they don't need
Speaker 1: to know it, but like, have you considered, we've never
Speaker 1: seen him fly? Like, I just I liked that. I
Speaker 1: thought that was like a really positive, subtle dynamic that
Speaker 1: I wish we had gotten more of a look at.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but like you said, I appreciate that there wasn't
Speaker 2: just like all this chicken infighting because oh women, female
Speaker 2: chickens be petty, so they have to be constantly arguing.
Speaker 2: Any conflict within the chickens felt justified, And that kind
Speaker 2: of brings up that the complacency thing I mentioned earlier
Speaker 2: of like, again, if you're looking at this chicken farm
Speaker 2: as like a capitalist machine or as the patriarchy, and honestly,
Speaker 2: what's the difference. You know that there's often complacency with it,
Speaker 2: like among the masses, because when oppression is normalized, as
Speaker 2: it often is in capitalism and the patriarchy, you don't
Speaker 2: often have the tools or resources to break out of it,
Speaker 2: or you know, sometimes you don't have the full awareness
Speaker 2: of what's even happening because you know, maybe the oppression
Speaker 2: is kind of subtle, or again, like it's just been
Speaker 2: so normalized and you have yet to unlearn the toxic ideology.
Speaker 1: Or it's just like a conflict a verse, like it's
Speaker 1: you can't not see where the chickens are coming from there,
Speaker 1: because it's like their fear is like if we quote
Speaker 1: unquote overreact to this, maybe we'll just get killed, or
Speaker 1: like maybe our predicament will somehow worsen exactly. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I was like I was full like galaxy
Speaker 1: brain meme watching that can play some chickens because it
Speaker 1: does like it almost I got into an argument with
Speaker 1: someone for reasons right like a few weeks ago about
Speaker 1: the two thousand dollars checks that we.
Speaker 2: We here in the US were supposed to have.
Speaker 1: Received, and then all of a sudden, the Biden administration
Speaker 1: was like, actually you got six hundred, so now it's
Speaker 1: gonna be fourteen hundred. Fourteen hundred plus six hundred equals
Speaker 1: two thousand, so shut up, like you should be happy.
Speaker 1: And how there was like a lot of kind of
Speaker 1: infighting online about like, you know, people who are like,
Speaker 1: just take the fourteen hundred dollars, like, just take it,
Speaker 1: and then other people are like, but we were promised
Speaker 1: a lot more, and like we feel justified in arguing
Speaker 1: that we should get at very least what we were
Speaker 1: promised instead of having to accept these kind of piecemeal things.
Speaker 1: And I know that that's not exactly what's going on
Speaker 1: in Chicken Run, but I did think of it because
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, the chicken's legitimate fear is like
Speaker 1: if if we rock the boat too much, we are
Speaker 1: putting ourselves in danger, which is true. And they even
Speaker 1: like say that explicitly towards the end, where like gingerfull
Speaker 1: On like beating her chest battle cry like we're gonna
Speaker 1: die oppressed, or we're gonna like we're gonna like die
Speaker 1: trying in this effort, and then she's able to like
Speaker 1: get the energy she needs to get the chickens to revolt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it makes sense that it's like I always appreciate
Speaker 1: because I feel like a lot of times, every every
Speaker 1: day like the e your everyday chicken type character is
Speaker 1: made out to be like not smart, when that's very
Speaker 1: often not true, and I feel like it's not even
Speaker 1: productive to tell a story that way of like anyone
Speaker 1: who is like oppression is normalized is not smart, Like
Speaker 1: that is kind of a ridiculous precedent to set.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1: I like that as far as the chickens go, we
Speaker 1: at least do understand in story why they are, you know, nervous,
Speaker 1: because they've seen what happens to chickens who step out
Speaker 1: of line. They get fucking beheaded.
Speaker 2: Uena gets her head chopped off.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. Yeah, I found that like that
Speaker 1: part to be like really affecting of Yeah, of like
Speaker 1: they're not just like sheeple, you know, in the way
Speaker 1: that I think some like large groups of people or
Speaker 1: like towns people in movies are made out to see them.
Speaker 1: They're not total sheeple, like they're they're chickens with the
Speaker 1: legitimate concerns, right, and just because they are like it,
Speaker 1: I agree that they should rise up and that the
Speaker 1: time has come, and I'm glad that Ginger was able
Speaker 1: to motivate them, but you also see where they're coming from.
Speaker 1: At the beginning, I'm just like, oh, these are just
Speaker 1: people who are like, let's take the fourteen hundred dollars check.
Speaker 1: Why are you so mad? And it's like, right, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I was like, okay, fourteen hundred dollars check, chickens,
Speaker 1: got it, wrote that down. Fuck.
Speaker 2: But and then also just like it reinforces Ginger is
Speaker 2: this like is this feminist icon? Like she's the one
Speaker 2: who's like, you know what, yes, the steaks are high,
Speaker 2: Yes we might die, but we are going to die regardless, exactly.
Speaker 1: Like it was just so bleak.
Speaker 2: Right right, But yeah, I think her the quote was
Speaker 2: like we're gonna die free chickens, or we're going to
Speaker 2: die trying. And then Babs is like those are only options.
Speaker 1: Hilarious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, she's like, you know what, I've had
Speaker 2: enough of this, fed up and we're gonna revolt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it's like and by that point it's
Speaker 1: like they are so they're like literally, if they don't
Speaker 1: do anything, they're only extending their lives by a short
Speaker 1: amount of time. And so it's like, okay, the time
Speaker 1: has come, like uprising, we're building a plane and then
Speaker 1: the one man here is gonna magically know how to
Speaker 1: fly the plane. Don't love that, but the I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just the way that the uprising was like orchestrated.
Speaker 1: You're just like, shit, I got all I got all
Speaker 1: worked up. I was like, damn, she's right, She's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ginger is amazing. Ginger is so amazing. I hate that
Speaker 1: she has to date Rocky, some guy from Rhode Island
Speaker 1: at the end. It's so not okay, you have nothing
Speaker 1: going for him. I liked how we kind of alluded
Speaker 1: to this earlier. But I like how Babs is seen
Speaker 1: doing like she's knitting. She's like a nervous knitter, and
Speaker 1: she's doing kind of like traditionally domestic and I feel
Speaker 1: like that's another thing that sometimes we see in movies
Speaker 1: that are like trying to present themselves as feminists, where
Speaker 1: they're like fuck domestic work, when that's actually really reductive
Speaker 1: to people who perform domestic work of any gender. Like
Speaker 1: I like that it's not just a joke of like
Speaker 1: the work, the traditionally feminine work she's doing ends up
Speaker 1: like being a big part of the reason that they're
Speaker 1: able to fly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. Love it.
Speaker 1: I love that this, like this coop, this revolution is
Speaker 1: inclusive of all sorts of women and all sort of
Speaker 1: like any everyone is welcome to the revolution, including Rocky,
Speaker 1: which is like, well, let's where are we going to draw.
Speaker 2: The line, but like draw the one somewhere.
Speaker 1: But I do like I like that the we haven't
Speaker 1: really talked about the rats because who really cares, but
Speaker 1: like the rats sort of redeem themselves to some extent.
Speaker 1: They sacrifice something that's important to them in order to
Speaker 1: join the revolution, and there is some sort of like
Speaker 1: like hesitate to say there's like restorative justice applied to
Speaker 1: the Timothy's Ball rat, but it's like kind of true,
Speaker 1: like they they are welcome to the revolution if they
Speaker 1: are willing to contribute in a meaningful way and not
Speaker 1: be assholes, and like that is kind of it seems
Speaker 1: like that's kind of the line of like who's welcome
Speaker 1: and who isn't is like, will you act in favor
Speaker 1: of the collective if you will get on the plane, baby,
Speaker 1: jump on a bike. I love it. Yeah, let's build
Speaker 1: a plane and get out of here.
Speaker 2: Seriously, Here's something else I like, which is that Bunty
Speaker 2: is voiced by Emelda Staunton aka Aunt Lucy from Paddington.
Speaker 1: Aka She's gonna play the Queen. And the last season
Speaker 1: of The Crown.
Speaker 2: Oh cool, cool cool? Yeah, you have watched The Crown yet.
Speaker 1: But it's boring. It's boring, but I've seen every episode,
Speaker 1: which is a lot of things.
Speaker 2: Also, how is Fouler not voiced by John Hurt?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, that's for sure John Hurt. And
Speaker 2: then I looked it up and it's like it's not
Speaker 2: John Hurt and you're like, what.
Speaker 1: It's whoever you call? When John Hurt is an.
Speaker 2: Available Benjamin with throw I guess that's very British sounding.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, And then speaking of voice acting, okay, so
Speaker 2: oh yeah I saw this or not. But the sequel
Speaker 2: of Chicken Run is in development. I think it's slated
Speaker 2: to come out in a couple of years this year.
Speaker 1: Actually, it comes out in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: Oh, no kidding. Oh my goodness. I looked it up
Speaker 2: on IMDb and it said that it was tentatively to
Speaker 2: be released twenty twenty three, but also, IDK maybe maybe
Speaker 2: the pandemic has pushed Maybe it was originally twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: but the pandemic pushed it back.
Speaker 1: Aandemic has pushed back. All I don't they're fun industry
Speaker 1: insider info because I work in stop motion animation. Stop
Speaker 1: motion animation that makes sense, yes, not which the animation
Speaker 1: is kind of impossible to do without people in the
Speaker 1: same room, so yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so the A sequel is in development, and
Speaker 2: the voice actor who plays Ginger, Julia Sawala.
Speaker 1: I have never tried to say her name out loud.
Speaker 2: Yes, so apologies if I got that wrong, But she
Speaker 2: revealed in July twenty twenty that Ardman, the animation studio
Speaker 2: behind Chicken Run, intended to recast her, saying that her
Speaker 2: voice now sounds quote too old, and Julia said, in
Speaker 2: response to that, I have officially been plucked, stuffed, and roasted,
Speaker 2: which is the quote from the movie that I butchered earlier,
Speaker 2: butchered loved that.
Speaker 1: She was like, listen, you think I don't deserve to
Speaker 1: be in Chicken Run. Here, I am quoting Chicken Run.
Speaker 1: This is such a bullshit thing. Yeah, that there, And
Speaker 1: it seemed to be done because it sucks because it's
Speaker 1: like Mel Gibson is rightfully not coming back for the
Speaker 1: next Chicken Run movie, and so they kind of use
Speaker 1: this as a blanket excuse to get rid of Julia
Speaker 1: Sowalha as well, when it's like, but she didn't do
Speaker 1: anything like she this is her. This is an iconic
Speaker 1: I always like it's it's so frustrating. How like if
Speaker 1: there's any area of acting where agism should particularly not
Speaker 1: come into the mix, it's fucking cartoon voice acting seriously,
Speaker 1: like that is a level of agism that is just
Speaker 1: like almost inconceivable because you're just it's there was like
Speaker 1: a similar discussion going on for it. This was like
Speaker 1: five or six years ago, but when the new Powerpuff
Speaker 1: Girls cartoon was coming out, they were like, we're getting
Speaker 1: the old Powerpuff Girls are not coming back because they're
Speaker 1: forty now, and it's like, well they were twenty five
Speaker 1: when they were the Powerpuff Girl, Like what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? It's so it is so like bizarre and
Speaker 1: frustrating that there's ageism in any area of entertainment, right,
Speaker 1: but like in particular voice acting, it's like on what grounds.
Speaker 2: Yes, not that any of it makes sense, but like
Speaker 2: that makes the least amount of sense.
Speaker 1: We're in such a level of fantasy where it's like
Speaker 1: she is voicing a claymation, Chicken. How are you too
Speaker 1: old to voice a clamation? Chicken? Yeah? That was That
Speaker 1: story is so fucking fry, especially because it's like we
Speaker 1: should just now. It's like we can't purely be thrilled
Speaker 1: for a new Chicken Run because it's like what at
Speaker 1: first when I remember when that came out, when it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, Chicken Run, but this time no Mel Gibson,
Speaker 1: sign me up? But yeah, but you can't. I really
Speaker 1: I'm curious if there's ever gonna be especially if it's
Speaker 1: being pushed back to twenty twenty three. I wonder if
Speaker 1: that prompted any discussion in the right direction, because it's
Speaker 1: like there's no reason to recast Ginger, absolutely none, especially
Speaker 1: like a movie going to Netflix where you don't need
Speaker 1: to promote it like on what grounds. Yeah, Ginger is
Speaker 1: an icon, And I'm also very glad that Julias Sawall
Speaker 1: has spoke up yea for herself because.
Speaker 2: There was backlash. I mean, I'm reading I read this
Speaker 2: on Wikipedia, our favorite scholarly journal, of course, and it
Speaker 2: didn't go into a whole lot of depth about like
Speaker 2: the backlash that the recasting received, the people saying that,
Speaker 2: you know this is extremely ageis why is this happening? Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I don't know a lot of details about it,
Speaker 2: but there was I mean, maybe the studio will listen
Speaker 2: and be like, sorry, we goofed, Julia come back.
Speaker 1: I really hope so, because it's like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I know that it's like foolish. Just I just I
Speaker 1: have such a strong love for Ardman animation, like all like,
Speaker 1: don't recast Ginger, you fight?
Speaker 2: Like yikes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was disappointed to hear that. I was interested.
Speaker 1: Did you know, Caitlin that Chicken Run is the highest
Speaker 1: grossing stop motion movie ever by like a lot.
Speaker 2: I did also read that on Wikipedia.
Speaker 1: I forgot how like Chicken Run was like a moment
Speaker 1: Chicken Run was fully I was curious, but like this
Speaker 1: this movie came out the year before there was an
Speaker 1: Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Yes, which was such
Speaker 1: a Bummer. I was just like, Wow, Chicken Run. I
Speaker 1: feel like would have had it on lock.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I was reading that it got snubbed for
Speaker 2: like because it was like it could have been a
Speaker 2: contender for Best Picture.
Speaker 1: But that just doesn't happen in animation. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, So basically everyone's like, g whiz, kind of sucks
Speaker 2: that Chicken Run didn't win anything. Let's make a Best
Speaker 2: Animated Feature categor the following year, which was won by Shrek.
Speaker 1: Never forgot there's, I mean, of all the iconic things
Speaker 1: about Shrek, the fact that it won the first Animation
Speaker 1: Academy Award is like wow, just wow. Chicken Run walked
Speaker 1: so Shrek could run, and that is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2: That is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: I wish the Chicken Run had more trophies, but the
Speaker 1: fact that Chicken Run was so rawly powerful that people
Speaker 1: were like, we need a new oscar so we can
Speaker 1: give it to to Shrek.
Speaker 2: That's so bleak.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Shrek is funny though, So you know,
Speaker 1: what can you do?
Speaker 2: While we're covering Shrek two this year? Sometime on the matrix,
Speaker 2: we spoke it. We spoke it in reality, we manifested it.
Speaker 2: Chicken Run is really.
Speaker 1: Like so iconically good and I want to marry Chicken Run.
Speaker 2: I love Chicken Frun.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. I saw I was a PlayStation game, and
Speaker 1: I was like, what, whoa? I know? I want to
Speaker 1: play the PlayStation Chicken Run game.
Speaker 2: Damn too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you have anything else? Anything? That's about everything?
Speaker 2: I know? That covered? I'm pretty sure Yeah, that was
Speaker 2: everything I had. So this movie does pass the Bechdel test.
Speaker 1: Not between many many chickens, so many chickens. Chickens talking
Speaker 1: about seizing the means of production passes the Bechtyl test.
Speaker 2: Period when chickens talk to each other about the laws
Speaker 2: of physics such as thrust passes the test.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's like it sounds like that's the
Speaker 1: sort of thing that I'm like, it sounds like science.
Speaker 1: I wonder if we have any any any listeners in stem?
Speaker 1: Was the Chicken science accurate? Because I just want genuinely curious.
Speaker 1: It sounded real to me, But everyone saying science and
Speaker 1: movies sound real to me. Let us know, Yeah, how
Speaker 1: many nipples were given this thing? Hmmm?
Speaker 2: I would give it? I can. I want to give
Speaker 2: it like three or three and a half. It definitely
Speaker 2: gets points taken off for you know, those like early
Speaker 2: two thousand era, like hetero romance getting wedged into the
Speaker 2: story for absolutely no reason, several male redemption arcs that
Speaker 2: are completely unearned and undeserved, female character having to be
Speaker 2: saved by a male character, that kind of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's like this society of chickens who like form
Speaker 2: their own matriarchy even though they are living within this
Speaker 2: like these oppressive confines of this like capitalistic patriarchal structure.
Speaker 2: They're like, not for me, not on, not today, We're
Speaker 2: gonna kape out of this, and they do, and they
Speaker 2: are extremely motivated, they're extremely active. They're iconic, absolutely iconic.
Speaker 2: I think I'm going to give it three and a
Speaker 2: half nipples, and I'm going to give one to Ginger,
Speaker 2: I will give one to Mac the chicken, and Stem,
Speaker 2: I will give one two Babs, who's knitting saves the day.
Speaker 2: And I will give my half nipple to Edwina, who
Speaker 2: does unfortunately get murdered maybe before we even meet her,
Speaker 2: but I.
Speaker 1: Feel like she kind of ends up being like I
Speaker 1: feel like I wish that Edwina's name was invoked more
Speaker 1: of like she's kind of a martyr for this cause
Speaker 1: like her, like that is the last straw. They're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: they're taking Edwena, Like there should be a statue of
Speaker 1: Edwena on Chicken Island, and I hope there is because
Speaker 1: she like she literally that she's kind of the inciting
Speaker 1: incident in a lot of ways of just like we had,
Speaker 1: like the steaks have never been higher. It's we're not
Speaker 1: bucking around anymore. They took it Weena from us, and yeah,
Speaker 1: now I'm like, damn it Weena should be like literally
Speaker 1: like a cultural chicken icon.
Speaker 2: Truly. Yeah, she's like the Joan of Arc of the
Speaker 2: Chickens exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna maybe overdo it a little. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get this four nipples because it is literally a feminist,
Speaker 1: socialist movie that is g rated for children and it's
Speaker 1: about chickens, and so uh there, I totally agree. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've we've hashed out kind of the shortcomings. Most of
Speaker 1: my issues with this movie are in the third act.
Speaker 1: Feels like a lot of studio notes of like we
Speaker 1: gotta have these chickens with teeth kissing, which nia don't,
Speaker 1: and like we have to have all these last second
Speaker 1: male redemption arcs, even though they're not set up in
Speaker 1: any way, and it's actually set up for a way
Speaker 1: more interesting ending. But all that said, it's literally like
Speaker 1: it's a story of a matriarchal chicken society seizing the
Speaker 1: means of production, demanding bodily autonomy, defeating capitalism, and moving
Speaker 1: to Chicken Island. That is amazing. That is so amazing.
Speaker 1: I wish that there were more women involved in the
Speaker 1: production of this movie. I will say, like Ardman is
Speaker 1: a company that I fully love that is a bunch
Speaker 1: of old white British guys, and I hope that that
Speaker 1: is no longer the case. I own. I haven't been
Speaker 1: keeping up with their roster of people. It seems to
Speaker 1: usually be the same couple of guys, much like Pixar.
Speaker 1: But all that said, I mean it's this, It's like powerful,
Speaker 1: and it got me all worked up. Even now when
Speaker 1: I watch Chicken Run, I want to join a revolution,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a great thing for children and
Speaker 1: to rise up against their oppressors and build a plane.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give Chicken Run four nipples and
Speaker 1: to give one to Ginger. I'm and to give one
Speaker 1: to Mac and give one to Edwina, and I'll give
Speaker 1: one to Babs because she makes the textiles that make
Speaker 1: the plane fly. Baby. Yeah, yeah, shout out. Chicken Run
Speaker 1: really a cultural moment.
Speaker 2: This movie also, in addition to you know, inspiring me
Speaker 2: to revolt more, yeah, I also am like, yep, I
Speaker 2: think I might have to fully commit to veganism. Now
Speaker 2: there you go.
Speaker 1: You don't that's beautiful.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I'm on My current food intake
Speaker 2: is I get one meat cheat a day. Sorry for
Speaker 2: a day. I get one meat cheat a month where
Speaker 2: I can eat meat once a month, and then the
Speaker 2: rest of my meals are vegetarian or vegan. But now
Speaker 2: I'm just like, damn, Chicken Run might push me over
Speaker 2: the edge and I might have to just commit. We'll see.
Speaker 2: I'll keep everyone posted.
Speaker 1: Ginger is an absolutely, I mean an inspiration. She really is.
Speaker 1: She's a feminist. I think she's entering my pantheon of
Speaker 1: all time feminist icons because she's not a feminist that
Speaker 1: just works to liberate herself, which I feel like if.
Speaker 2: She's uplifting other chicken women.
Speaker 1: That which is, which is like one of the most
Speaker 1: core important things is like, you're not just working to
Speaker 1: liberate yourself, because then you're just a girl boss. You're
Speaker 1: working to liberate the collective of the oppressed. Now we're
Speaker 1: fucking talking and that's what Chicken Run is saying. And
Speaker 1: I love I love Chicken Run. Yeah, it's it's almost
Speaker 1: a perfect movie. Let me rewrite the last, you know, half.
Speaker 2: Hour seriously, like end of AC two onward. There's just
Speaker 2: some changes that could be made and then it would
Speaker 2: be perfect and.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't even need to be big changes. You can
Speaker 1: still on like a plane of flight and Chicken Island
Speaker 1: just sea the things. Oh, anyways, an amazing piece of cinema.
Speaker 2: Wow, Well there you have it, folks. That was our
Speaker 2: unlocked Chicken Run episode unlocked from the Matreon, which, again,
Speaker 2: if you like this episode and you're not yet a
Speaker 2: Matreon subscriber, you should do that immediately by going to
Speaker 2: patreon dot com slash spectal Cast and subscribing for a
Speaker 2: mere five dollars a month and that gets you two
Speaker 2: bonus episodes every single month that are always on a brilliant, genius,
Speaker 2: incredible theme.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've never missed. I actually and I sometimes speak
Speaker 1: sarcastically randomly, But I actually do think of the Matren
Speaker 1: we have rarely, if ever missed in one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty one hundred percent hit rate.
Speaker 2: Only hits, Yeah, only the hits for our Matrons.
Speaker 1: There's only one time on the in the history of
Speaker 1: the Matreon where we accidentally did not cover a movie
Speaker 1: at all, and it is one of our best episodes
Speaker 1: we've ever recorded, So we've.
Speaker 2: Never Yes, are you referring to the episode where we
Speaker 2: tried to talk about the shape of water and instead
Speaker 2: got carried away talking about the three eleven cruise.
Speaker 1: Yes, and all of the hilarious ways that it would
Speaker 1: be funny for it to sink like the Titanic, Like
Speaker 1: I just the band is already on the boat. The
Speaker 1: point is, and that could happen again at any time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So join us at the matreod. It's fun, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's still the discussion you love, but more of a
Speaker 1: more vibes. There's vibes over on the matred.
Speaker 2: Tons of vibes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you want to have even more vibes
Speaker 1: still again, if you are in the Los Angeles area,
Speaker 1: please come and join us on Sunday, August twenty fifth
Speaker 1: at four pm at the Lowsphilas three. Thank you to
Speaker 1: American Cinematech for inviting us to participate in Friends of
Speaker 1: the Fest even though we aggressive we both did not
Speaker 1: show up at our screening last year.
Speaker 2: We had good reasons.
Speaker 1: We had good reasons. My dad was in chemo and
Speaker 1: you had COVID and this year neither of those. They're
Speaker 1: non issues. They're no issues. And so please join us
Speaker 1: for Chicken Run. It's been eighty four minutes.
Speaker 2: It's been eighty four minutes, that's right, And you can
Speaker 2: grab tickets. We'll have the link in the description of
Speaker 2: this episode. You can also go to link tree slash
Speaker 2: Bechdel Cast and get those little.
Speaker 1: Tickets, those little tikies, those.
Speaker 2: Little chickens, those for Chicken Run. Is that anything?
Speaker 1: No notes? Episodes over, Bye bye.
Speaker 2: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Speaker 2: Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
Speaker 2: by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Speaker 2: Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskresenski. Our logo and merch
Speaker 2: is designed by Jamie Loftus and a special thanks to
Speaker 2: Aristotle Assevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit
Speaker 2: Linktree slash Bechtelcast