Speaker 1: On the beck Dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
Speaker 1: have women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends
Speaker 1: and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef
Speaker 1: invest start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: quick note at the top of the show Beckdel continuity
Speaker 1: check for all you eagle eared listeners. You're about to
Speaker 1: hear an episode about the movie A Little Princess, one
Speaker 1: of the stars of which is Vanessa Chester, who you
Speaker 1: may know was recently on the Bechdel Cast for our
Speaker 1: book Smart episode. Now, in this episode, we are talking
Speaker 1: as if we don't know her, because at the time
Speaker 1: it was recorded, we didn't. That's true. We met Vanessa
Speaker 1: after this episode was recorded. So if you're listening to
Speaker 1: this and you're thinking, hey, why are they talking about
Speaker 1: this Becky character is if they'd never met the actor, Well,
Speaker 1: that's why. We simply had not met her yet. And
Speaker 1: in the magical world of podcasting, sometimes you record an
Speaker 1: episode and then niche sits on the shelf for a
Speaker 1: while and then it's just right. So now you know
Speaker 1: and get ready for a hell of an episode. Here's
Speaker 1: a Little Princess Cast. Hello, and welcome to the beck
Speaker 1: Del cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is
Speaker 1: Caitlin Drante. It was a dramatic positive. I panicked, Sorryanic,
Speaker 1: I have an offered Molina update, but you actually provided
Speaker 1: me with Because we both follow his fins to, we
Speaker 1: are not at liberty to disclose his fin stuff. Aristotle
Speaker 1: actually found the fins to and passed it on to
Speaker 1: us because that's just what we like fins to. I
Speaker 1: know that's Instagram, but like why it's like your fake Instagram.
Speaker 1: It's like where like either you sign up to post
Speaker 1: passive aggressive things, not a good idea I would never
Speaker 1: um and or it's what famous people do to have
Speaker 1: an account that is just for people they actually know
Speaker 1: and not for like like Beyonce definitely has a fence.
Speaker 1: Has to thank you for keeping me young. So this
Speaker 1: is Freddie's fin stuff that we we became privy too.
Speaker 1: So we're recording this around the time that abortion rights
Speaker 1: are simply gone. Hopefully when you listen to this that
Speaker 1: won't be true, but probably it will be even more
Speaker 1: true than it is right now. Unfortunately. So, but he
Speaker 1: he posted in solidarity with women because he is a
Speaker 1: feminist icon. He posted what appears to be a kaleidoscopic
Speaker 1: image of a vagina, and then said, quote, those of
Speaker 1: us without a vagina need to shut the fuck up
Speaker 1: dot dot dot in the abortion argument, no vagina means
Speaker 1: no voice unquote. I mean a true feminist icon, truly,
Speaker 1: what an all I just said, start by breaking the
Speaker 1: Becktel test and sharing that's that's okay because we're gonna
Speaker 1: only pass the Bechdel test from here on out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are uniquely suited to with our movie this week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, we use the Becktel test as a jumping
Speaker 1: off point to initiate a larger conversation about the representation
Speaker 1: of women in movies. And the Bechtel test, of course,
Speaker 1: is a media metric created by cartoonist Alison Bechtel that
Speaker 1: requires that a movie have two named female identifying characters
Speaker 1: who speak to each other about something other than a man.
Speaker 1: That's demonstrate RIGHTA Caitlin Jamie, what is it? Um? Oh shit?
Speaker 1: I know what I was going to say. I was
Speaker 1: going to break it. Never mind that passes that the
Speaker 1: test twist passes. I was gonna say, I didn't you
Speaker 1: see John c Riley at a at a roller skating place?
Speaker 1: It was like motherfucker or even nish. Over three years,
Speaker 1: we still don't know how to pass on the Becktel
Speaker 1: tests bright of us well anyway, how vulnerable. So today
Speaker 1: we're talking about a Little Princess movie directed by Alfonso
Speaker 1: corn which I always forget he directed but during his
Speaker 1: green period Green Days. Learned a lot about his green period.
Speaker 1: Lots of stuff and without much further ado, let's introduce
Speaker 1: her guest that we have today. She is a pop
Speaker 1: culture entertainment critic. She's written for Hollywood Reporter, Playboy, Paste Magazine,
Speaker 1: Pajaiba dot Com. It's Joel Monique. Hi's okay, we're so sorry,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming. I'm so excity to be here. I
Speaker 1: love this show. It's super funny guys, including you. Of course,
Speaker 1: now I'm part of thee You're canon. I was so
Speaker 1: excited because when we talked about getting you in the
Speaker 1: show at first, you didn't think for a moment before
Speaker 1: you really oh, a Little Princess. So it's a long
Speaker 1: time favorite, a problematic in places favor, But if you're
Speaker 1: just looking for really solid representation of women, good Lord
Speaker 1: your silk of fly and it's like magical and whimsy
Speaker 1: and fantasy when it came out. I was six, so
Speaker 1: it's like a perfect age for this movie. And Emmanuel
Speaker 1: Levitsky did the cinematography and he's like iconic, so good.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was a no brainer. It's a beautiful movie.
Speaker 1: It looks so beautiful. Yeah, and very green, extremely green. Caitlin,
Speaker 1: what's your history with this movie? I watched it a
Speaker 1: lot as a child. This and The Secret Garden I
Speaker 1: was watching constantly. I've probably seen this movie thirty times
Speaker 1: or so because it came out when I was nine,
Speaker 1: so I was like, that's still like, it's still the
Speaker 1: age to be appreciating this. And my sister and I
Speaker 1: would watch it all the time, and then a couple
Speaker 1: of years later, Titanic would come out, which you know,
Speaker 1: of course, takes place around this same era. There's a
Speaker 1: music box in this movie that's plays the same tune
Speaker 1: that ross music box places and Titanic, the one that
Speaker 1: goes do Do Do. I didn't notice that. I was
Speaker 1: surprised that we didn't talk about it, because when I
Speaker 1: rewatched it this morning, I was like, I know that
Speaker 1: music box tune. Oh my goodness, must just been a
Speaker 1: very popular music box from the early very different vibes though,
Speaker 1: because in a Little Princess it's that little girl wailing
Speaker 1: because her mother's dad, and in Titanic it's Cal Hackley
Speaker 1: being like, why can't I fuck you? And she's like, no,
Speaker 1: same music box, very different sames. Yeah, so this is
Speaker 1: one of my childhood favorites, but hadn't watched it for
Speaker 1: probably twenty years or so. Um, so it was an
Speaker 1: interesting rewatch, Jamie, what's your history? I don't have much
Speaker 1: of a history with this movie. Most people I talked
Speaker 1: to about this movie that we're not completely in love
Speaker 1: with it as children very often confuse it with The
Speaker 1: Secret Garden. I am firmly in that camp. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is based on work from the same author, the
Speaker 1: visual styles are similar, there's problematic themes about colonialism in
Speaker 1: India and both of them. But I I think I
Speaker 1: saw it like maybe once or twice when I was
Speaker 1: when I was a little bit this this movie count
Speaker 1: when I was like two or three, So I think
Speaker 1: I kind of missed it and then saw it at
Speaker 1: a friend's house later, but it wasn't particularly attached to it.
Speaker 1: But watching it back, I mean, it's like it's an
Speaker 1: unusual movie for kids, where it like takes heavy topics
Speaker 1: and deals with them in a heavy way, which you
Speaker 1: don't I don't know. It's like an unusual approach. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I like it, and I like my favorite
Speaker 1: colors grain, so I'm a fan. Should I do the recap? Yes?
Speaker 1: All right? So it's nineteen fourteen Titanic sunk Titanic for
Speaker 1: two years, were over it. We meet this little girl
Speaker 1: named Sarah. She lives in India with her father. They
Speaker 1: are clearly whose British colonizers as hell is that's my
Speaker 1: favorite party. You're like, wait a second, I know this daddy.
Speaker 1: You do care of another little girl needed a lot
Speaker 1: of help, Sharie. I love Dabas. He's like, you're my
Speaker 1: little princess. This Indian woman named Maya, who's like all
Speaker 1: girls are princesses. I don't know her relationship to this
Speaker 1: Indian woman exactly. It's not clear. They really skirt what
Speaker 1: is very clearly her dad's job of participating in colonialism.
Speaker 1: They really skirt it. I have I After the recap,
Speaker 1: we can get into why. I think in this instance
Speaker 1: it might be okay, this is entirely from the perspective
Speaker 1: of a child, right, Children don't understand these things. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I wish you washed about how I feel
Speaker 1: about the presentation of that. Sure, it's I mean definitely
Speaker 1: like Sarah being so naive about everything benefits the story
Speaker 1: in every way, because you would I guess you wouldn't
Speaker 1: if you were, like how old is Sarah is supposed
Speaker 1: to be. She's eleven, the actresses eleven when this movie
Speaker 1: is released, So she's I think between the ages of
Speaker 1: nine and twelve, Okay, So like you wouldn't necessarily realize
Speaker 1: exactly what your parents at that point, and you're sheltered
Speaker 1: from a lot of that too, is like and and
Speaker 1: I think that it plays it makes because she is
Speaker 1: that way. It gets us to this amazing villain that
Speaker 1: I just I really like the dynamics of the villain
Speaker 1: being like, listen, girl, Like the life that you think
Speaker 1: you're living is such a facade and you don't know
Speaker 1: hard work and you don't know what like difficulties are like.
Speaker 1: And I feel like she's really justified in a lot
Speaker 1: of places, not all of the places. She's also terrible,
Speaker 1: but I understood her. There's yeah, seeing seeing seeing her
Speaker 1: as an adult, you're like, oh, you're someone hurt you. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is the world hurt you? Yeah? I get it?
Speaker 1: Um okay. So then Sarah's father has to go and
Speaker 1: fight in World War One. So Sarah is sent to
Speaker 1: a boarding school in New York City Ever heard of it? Wow?
Speaker 1: And she has the biggest bedroom. All her toys are there.
Speaker 1: She clearly comes from a place of extreme economic privilege. Yes,
Speaker 1: she gets a tour of the school. She meets I guess,
Speaker 1: the headmistress, Mismntion. She's very strict, an icon skunky stripe.
Speaker 1: Love it. We meet her sister, Amelia Mention, who is
Speaker 1: nicer than her. Her sister miss teacher there. And then
Speaker 1: Sarah sees this little black girl who is mopping the
Speaker 1: floor and she is like m And then Sarah meets
Speaker 1: the other girls who attend the school and one of
Speaker 1: them is really mean. All she wants to do is
Speaker 1: brush her hair. What of it? Sarah starts her lessons
Speaker 1: and the school has a lot of rules. Mis Mention
Speaker 1: is always yelling at her. And then Sarah sees this
Speaker 1: black servant girl again and she's curious about her and
Speaker 1: she finds out that her name is Becky, which I
Speaker 1: love the arny of a black girl being named Becky to. So,
Speaker 1: so Sarah goes up to Becky's living quarters and she's like,
Speaker 1: you have to go or we'll both be in trouble.
Speaker 1: She's like icing her feet. She has very uncomfortable shoes.
Speaker 1: So then Sarah sends Becky a new pair of shoes,
Speaker 1: shoes that I would like to have myself. Yellow. They're
Speaker 1: furry shoes. They have heels, but they're slippers. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: beaver lined. Listen, this is fourteen and their fancy as hell.
Speaker 1: She spared no expense. And then Sarah gets in trouble
Speaker 1: again because she uses her imagination to liven up story
Speaker 1: time and Miss Mentioned is like, don't you use your imagination.
Speaker 1: But the girls want to hear Sarah's stories about like
Speaker 1: the princesses and princes and India's so that she's like
Speaker 1: sharing stories that Maya had told her previously. I think
Speaker 1: that story she learned when she was living in India. Yes,
Speaker 1: so all the girls go to Sarah's room in secret
Speaker 1: so that they can keep hearing her stories. Meanwhile, Sarah's
Speaker 1: father is deep in the trenches of World War Wilds.
Speaker 1: In it there's mustard gas and everything. It sucks. And
Speaker 1: then during Sarah's birthday party, she receives word that her
Speaker 1: father was killed in action and that the British government
Speaker 1: has seized control of his company on all of his assets,
Speaker 1: which means that Sarah is not penniless. She has no money.
Speaker 1: This is the one scene where I feel Miss mentioned
Speaker 1: went too far about it too. I don't I want
Speaker 1: to get too into it, but like, I just you
Speaker 1: didn't have stuff that little girl's birthday, right, Why couldn't
Speaker 1: she have had one more hour of happiness, just joy,
Speaker 1: like the peak of her joy. She's like, now is
Speaker 1: the time you crush it? But yeah, I also feel
Speaker 1: like she's a woman who's like, these girls can be
Speaker 1: prepared for harm and hurt and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: shield them from because the world certainly, and she has
Speaker 1: such a hard time getting the words out to say it.
Speaker 1: It's clear that she doesn't take joy and hurting her.
Speaker 1: But I also think that she does take a little
Speaker 1: bit of pride be able to knock her down to pay.
Speaker 1: It's such a weird time to be like taking pride
Speaker 1: in something like that, and especially with a child. She's
Speaker 1: just so insecure. I feel for her deeply. She needs
Speaker 1: a good therapist. Yes she does. God, I've been no
Speaker 1: one believed in therapy at this time. Freud who is
Speaker 1: he passenger? And then that black balloon is like moving
Speaker 1: to forward her. So it's so good. The cinematography and
Speaker 1: this movie is so good. It definitely feels like foreshadowing
Speaker 1: for like mis mention to hurt you, miss her. Daddy
Speaker 1: didn't tell that she was a princess enough, and that's
Speaker 1: why she's me class. So yeah, miss mentioned is like,
Speaker 1: you're a loan in the world now, Sarah, unless I
Speaker 1: just side to keep you here out of charity. So
Speaker 1: all of Sarah's belongings now belong to Mismntion, and she
Speaker 1: is put to work as a servant in the school
Speaker 1: to earn her room and board. She's living like next
Speaker 1: in the attic with Becky and Mismntioned is like, you're
Speaker 1: not a princess any longer, because throughout the story so far,
Speaker 1: Sarah has has been telling her peers at school, you're
Speaker 1: a princess. I'm a princess where all princesses. So you know,
Speaker 1: she's taken down a pay. So she moves to the
Speaker 1: attic with Becky and starts working as a servant. They
Speaker 1: become good friends. And then also there's something going on
Speaker 1: next door. There's an old man who lives there who
Speaker 1: has a son who is also fighting in the war.
Speaker 1: He has gone like m I A. And then there's
Speaker 1: an Indian man who lives with him. Again, that relationship
Speaker 1: is unclear, although according to some of my research, he
Speaker 1: is identified as a servant to the old man. And
Speaker 1: then Sarah keep seeing him around town. And then there's
Speaker 1: an injured soldier with amnesia who turns up who they
Speaker 1: think might be the old man's son John, but it's
Speaker 1: not because it's Sarah's Danny. Can you hear me? Listen?
Speaker 1: I really thought she was going to launch into a
Speaker 1: full musical, can you hear It's amazing? The restrength in
Speaker 1: this not being a musical incredible, although she does sing
Speaker 1: the song at the end. Oh okay, they were just
Speaker 1: this close that. We'll talk about the child actress who
Speaker 1: played her. What a what a story? We don't know?
Speaker 1: Get it? Okay? Um? So the old man takes Papa in,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't remember anything, he doesn't know who he is,
Speaker 1: he doesn't know that he has a daughter, and Sarah,
Speaker 1: of course, is not yet perfect to this information. Young
Speaker 1: Sir Davos still hot. You can get it now, he
Speaker 1: could get it in, So Sarah decides to start getting
Speaker 1: back at Miss mentioned. They pour some soot into her room.
Speaker 1: The other girls helps Sarah get her lock it back
Speaker 1: by stealing it from Miss Mention. They go up to
Speaker 1: the attic to give her the lock it and to
Speaker 1: hear more of her stories, but then Miss Mention catches
Speaker 1: them and she's like, Sarah, how many times do I
Speaker 1: have to tell you you're not a princess? Look at
Speaker 1: the mirror, your gross and you're not allowed to eat tomorrow,
Speaker 1: and neither are you Becky. Sarah's all like, well, I
Speaker 1: am still a princess. All girls are princesses. Didn't your
Speaker 1: father ever tell you that? And then Miss mentioned she's
Speaker 1: crying and she's upset, but we'll never learn why she
Speaker 1: has to become a chimney sweep and her bosses and kids.
Speaker 1: Couldn't you they explain literally everything. You're like, okay, but
Speaker 1: why is she poor? Okay because the government sees it. Okay,
Speaker 1: like they give you explation for everything. But then at
Speaker 1: the end, she's like a chimney sleeping You're like, that
Speaker 1: doesn't track I don't understand what happened to see her
Speaker 1: get fired and there she didn't really the cops and
Speaker 1: seem to care, like, I guess we just go home now.
Speaker 1: For men to arrest a little girl was a lot.
Speaker 1: But and then the plaque on the school says like
Speaker 1: the Randolph School for Girls, and I think that's the
Speaker 1: name of the man next door, so I guess he
Speaker 1: buys the school reading it's fundamentals. But before that all happens,
Speaker 1: Sarah and Becky even told that they're not allowed to
Speaker 1: eat at all. They have to do like all their
Speaker 1: chores without any meals for the day. And then they
Speaker 1: wake up that morning and there's this whole feast in
Speaker 1: the attic for them that we are meant to believe
Speaker 1: the mysterious Indian man next door somehow provided for them,
Speaker 1: and he like there's snow. He gives the whole room
Speaker 1: and make over. Some real mystic surgery going on here, right,
Speaker 1: And then miss mentioned comes in and sees all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and she thinks Sarah stole it, so she calls the police.
Speaker 1: So Sarah escapes into the house next door and sees
Speaker 1: her father, but he still has amnesia and don't remember
Speaker 1: the scene of the entire polow it gets me howls.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Her performance in that scene, you're like, whoa,
Speaker 1: she almost fell off a building, like client how in
Speaker 1: the rain running from the police, think goodbye to a girls,
Speaker 1: she considers her sister finds the one thing she's looking for.
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't know. I'm so sorry it's not
Speaker 1: my kid more a please stage left. She breaks out
Speaker 1: crazy and then so he doesn't remember who she is,
Speaker 1: so the police come in and they're taking her away,
Speaker 1: but suddenly he does remember because again the indianman stares
Speaker 1: really hard at him, and he's cured of his amnesia.
Speaker 1: And the music cue with the no More Amnesia. You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is all sorts of wrong. It's only that one
Speaker 1: music queue for all the magical happenstance this year, exact
Speaker 1: same one. You're like, okay, I guess like that blod
Speaker 1: It's response to because you're like, at this point, oh,
Speaker 1: something good about right, it's so weird. And then they
Speaker 1: have that conversation when Davos is like, blindfold is still on,
Speaker 1: but you call him what's Liam cunning at BA? But
Speaker 1: he's wearing his like his blindfold and his memory starts
Speaker 1: to come back when the Indian man says he's from India,
Speaker 1: and then Davos is like, India, that's it. But his
Speaker 1: daughter's voice screaming for help across the alley lane. No,
Speaker 1: shut the window. That's just a loud little kid next door.
Speaker 1: But this India, you speak, it's his favorite place on
Speaker 1: the planets. Only dream in India, okay, bro So then yeah,
Speaker 1: so then her father remember, Papa remembers, and they reunite,
Speaker 1: and then everything is great. Becky goes with them. I
Speaker 1: guess I go back to India. Not sure. They at
Speaker 1: least take a left. That's where the maybe somewhere better
Speaker 1: than this. And then yeah, miss mentioned has to work
Speaker 1: as a chimney sweep. Amelia has run off with the milkman.
Speaker 1: Good for you, girl, and then that the end of
Speaker 1: the story. And then there's no one to educate the girls,
Speaker 1: and we don't know what the French teacher, I guess
Speaker 1: is still there. That's not good for those girls. He
Speaker 1: did not seem competent. He just wanted tea and a nap. Okay.
Speaker 1: He was so tired, and to be very rude to
Speaker 1: ladies in charge. Listen, we don't always have to agree,
Speaker 1: but in front of children, we are reunited front and
Speaker 1: be like, she could teach you a thing about your friends,
Speaker 1: like bitch, what how dare you? Miss mentioned? Miss mentioned?
Speaker 1: Ending up? And then the kid who's her boss was
Speaker 1: a kid she had yelled at earlier. I appreciate that
Speaker 1: that kid's are I was like, oh he gets yelled
Speaker 1: at I mis mentioned, And then end he's like, I'm
Speaker 1: your fucking boss. I'm seven, Like that kid hades he
Speaker 1: was going in for that money. He was like, excuse me, no,
Speaker 1: you pay me my job. He knew his value, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and taught our girls of value. Oh my god, what
Speaker 1: a movie, what a wild story. Let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break and then we'll jump into the discussion. Where where
Speaker 1: should we start. Well, there's so much for me having
Speaker 1: grown up with this movie and still appreciating it to
Speaker 1: some degree. It's a story that is at least partly
Speaker 1: about female friendship, like that's one of the core tenants
Speaker 1: of of the movie. And then it's specifically about female
Speaker 1: friendship among young girls, which is not that common in
Speaker 1: like mainstream movies, which is crazy. But like we talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about this on the it takes two episode.
Speaker 1: But there's like just so few movies about like girls
Speaker 1: being friends or like a no ensemble cast of young
Speaker 1: girls and like the stuff that they do together and
Speaker 1: the things that they talk about together, and like what
Speaker 1: they have in and I I appreciate it. I was
Speaker 1: a little I've had forgotten about the bully character and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, it's so easy to like create
Speaker 1: friction that way. But even the like Sarah and what's
Speaker 1: the name of that Carona and aunt named Lavinia's I
Speaker 1: have a super soft spot for Hell yeah, I love Lavinia.
Speaker 1: I love Lavinia because she is like I feel like
Speaker 1: the film does a really good job of showing like
Speaker 1: what Lavinia's issue. It's like Lavinia was the most popular
Speaker 1: and probably would never have had a problem with this
Speaker 1: girl except for that her. You're like, she's gonna be
Speaker 1: the most popular girl, and she's like, whoa, whoa, my
Speaker 1: status is in jeopardy and her status is like the
Speaker 1: only thing she has. She loves having the girls follow
Speaker 1: her around. And it's not no, it's definitely not like
Speaker 1: the best kind of person. You don't want to model
Speaker 1: your life after Lavinia, but it's like an honest portrayal
Speaker 1: of I think a girl who has found herself like
Speaker 1: a corner of attention, and I think it's strings through
Speaker 1: all these girls stories, so they just missed their parents
Speaker 1: really bad. And I think Lavinia never talks about her parents,
Speaker 1: but I imagine part of this is missing her parents.
Speaker 1: Part of this like popularity and being surrounded and being
Speaker 1: comforted and knowing people like prefer her Like it's not
Speaker 1: I do a lot of inferring in this movie, So
Speaker 1: feel free to be like, well, that's a great headcanon,
Speaker 1: but this is not what was shown in the movie.
Speaker 1: A problem with it because I don't know, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: trying to justify it, but I feel strongly like Lavinia
Speaker 1: has a really solid art because even at the end
Speaker 1: we get that great little hug where she was like
Speaker 1: you because you're no longer going to be a problem.
Speaker 1: You can't if you're not here, So I like you plenty.
Speaker 1: He was like, Okay, she did not redeem herself in
Speaker 1: any way. Lavinia did not. But suddenly Sarah's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's hug. It seems a little to me like Lavinia
Speaker 1: is Searcy and Sarah is Denares, and she's like Sarah
Speaker 1: is very very pure she I. I liked the lavinia.
Speaker 1: I liked that there was an ark and that that
Speaker 1: was resolved and it wasn't just like and now the
Speaker 1: mean girl is mean forever and right. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, all the relationships between the girls felt like
Speaker 1: I mean, they spoke like they were, you know, thirty
Speaker 1: at times, but that's movies, and I thought it was
Speaker 1: the time period. I think like children, especially of an
Speaker 1: educated certain level, were required to They were spoken to
Speaker 1: like adults. You were considered like a young adult at
Speaker 1: like twelve instead of like us were like your now,
Speaker 1: you're like a whole person. People they had to quicker.
Speaker 1: But I liked, I mean, all the relationships between the
Speaker 1: girls at the school, it felt like realistic and it
Speaker 1: was really nice to see how their worldviews were shaped
Speaker 1: by the adults around them, which I think was like
Speaker 1: had part to do with how the other girls received
Speaker 1: Becky just based on what they had been told by adults,
Speaker 1: where like that's there's that exchange between Sarah, who this
Speaker 1: is like her first time. We're assuming this is her
Speaker 1: first time seeing an interaction like this, and she doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to understand, Like why isn't Becky with us, why
Speaker 1: is she wearing something different? And then the girl she's
Speaker 1: speaking to she says, that's Becky. She's not allowed to
Speaker 1: talk to us. Why not? She's a servant girl and
Speaker 1: she has dark skin, so well doesn't that mean something?
Speaker 1: Like it's just like I mean, it was just like
Speaker 1: it was interesting to see like a young girl like
Speaker 1: encountering that and then also having the girls around her explain, oh,
Speaker 1: isn't this just like how things are and like just
Speaker 1: not challenging it, and it's such a great Like the
Speaker 1: reason I really love this film is because of Becky essentially,
Speaker 1: like Becky's the only black girl in her school. I
Speaker 1: was only black girl in my school until seventh grade.
Speaker 1: So the way the girls reacted around her, the way
Speaker 1: that they had a lot of thoughts about who Becky
Speaker 1: should be or how she should act like all that
Speaker 1: like really resident like Becky looks different and she acts different,
Speaker 1: and her responsibilities are different, and it's like to see
Speaker 1: a film explorer, you have to be taught to hate
Speaker 1: in a way that isn't so in your face about it.
Speaker 1: It was sort of refreshing. I love the way that
Speaker 1: that scene ends because there isn't really anything for her
Speaker 1: to say, like she challenges as much as she can,
Speaker 1: and Sarah challenges most situate like when they're like no
Speaker 1: talking at the dinner table, She's like, well, that's unnatural.
Speaker 1: People discuss, you know, it's weird. I just said thank you.
Speaker 1: Usually that's you know, really rewarded as a child, like, oh,
Speaker 1: she knows her manners um and so I I like
Speaker 1: the idea of I think this film is a really
Speaker 1: good job of showing like kids have agency and our
Speaker 1: people and have thoughts, but oftentimes they don't know what
Speaker 1: to do with those thoughts. Like I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of times, like when we get smart kids in movie,
Speaker 1: they're like just slam dunking on adults. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: we talked about like the precocious child trope all the time,
Speaker 1: and I didn't feel as though any of the children
Speaker 1: in this movie fell into that trope, which felt like
Speaker 1: refreshing to see like kids acting like kids. And even
Speaker 1: when like Sarah challenges Lonnie the smallest bit, you almost
Speaker 1: see her be like, oh, I don't know, like like
Speaker 1: that's just I don't know. I never had a cognitive
Speaker 1: thought about this. I just accepted what was given to me.
Speaker 1: And I guess it makes sense for Sarah to have
Speaker 1: that attitude because I mean she grew up in India
Speaker 1: among people with dark skin and like that, I mean
Speaker 1: she was a British colonizer, even though she has an
Speaker 1: American accent. Confusing, but I guess I mean people with
Speaker 1: dark skin were very normal to her. This is where
Speaker 1: I think it gets muddled, as like, Okay, it would
Speaker 1: have been great to have gotten some reference points of
Speaker 1: what her status wasn't that society and where her father's
Speaker 1: position of rank was, because is he like just the
Speaker 1: soldier hanging out and he's practically one of the people.
Speaker 1: And then money, yeah, which makes me think there's much higher. Also,
Speaker 1: when we see her room in India, it's like elaborate
Speaker 1: and gorgeous. They say it's the biggest room. He says,
Speaker 1: I spared no expense, like he's they're clearly very wealthy totally,
Speaker 1: And so I think trying to figure out, like how
Speaker 1: much did she see? How much does she aware? Because
Speaker 1: as much as I believe you have to be taught,
Speaker 1: also believe that by like ten, you've seen enough of
Speaker 1: the world east can start putting together how human street
Speaker 1: different humans differently, Um and I think she would have
Speaker 1: seen bits and pieces of that in India, and so
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know, it's nice that she's so
Speaker 1: innocent and you can kind of pass it off, but
Speaker 1: it's also hard to believe that she would be like that.
Speaker 1: And yeah, there's I mean, and there's like a lot
Speaker 1: of and we can get into this later as well,
Speaker 1: but like there's a lot of you know, like confusion
Speaker 1: and a little bit of I guess I don't know
Speaker 1: if we can call it a controversy if it's in
Speaker 1: a hundred year old book. But Frances Hodgson Burnett, who
Speaker 1: read this The Secret Garden uh never went to India,
Speaker 1: had never been there, but us as like those colonial
Speaker 1: themes like in the background of so many of her books,
Speaker 1: and presents Indian characters as like very docile and like
Speaker 1: the sight he really was bothering me. By the end
Speaker 1: of the movie, I'm like, this is like maybe a
Speaker 1: third of his lines are just that one word, and
Speaker 1: it's such a signal call of servitude, and it's just like,
Speaker 1: I don't think we needed it. She hangs out with
Speaker 1: so many like servants, people of different skin color, Like
Speaker 1: you could have made this person a human being as
Speaker 1: opposed to just the magical genie figure, right, yeah, and
Speaker 1: and I mean and it's like especially because like this
Speaker 1: movie takes place in nine four when rebellion in India
Speaker 1: is becoming like a huge thing. This is like when
Speaker 1: Gandhi's movement is taking off, and they're like, no, they're
Speaker 1: mostly just there to make dinner appear by magic. Like
Speaker 1: it's just it's I don't know, so the like the
Speaker 1: whole way that that author approaches stuff like that, it
Speaker 1: seems to be like agreed upon that it's like very
Speaker 1: at best, very misguided. That might serve as a good
Speaker 1: transition into the conversation that I had with our friend
Speaker 1: Paula Vanalan, friend of the show, friend of the show.
Speaker 1: We had a quick chat with her that we will
Speaker 1: play for you now. Hi, Caitlin, Here, I am sitting
Speaker 1: with a friend of the podcast, Paula vignal In, who
Speaker 1: watched the movie with us and then also recorded this
Speaker 1: previously and then the audio quality was bad, my fault.
Speaker 1: So we're doing this again. Yeah, I get to talk more. Yes,
Speaker 1: So thanks for coming back. We really appreciate it and
Speaker 1: we would love to hear your insights about the representation
Speaker 1: of Indian people Indian culture in the movie A Little Princess. Yes,
Speaker 1: you gave me notes because this was a month ago
Speaker 1: and I forgot um. I guess we could start by
Speaker 1: talking about the mythology that's represented in the movie, and
Speaker 1: that's like the story of the Ramayanaum. To set this
Speaker 1: up a little bit, the Sarah character is telling a
Speaker 1: story to her classmates throughout the course of the movie.
Speaker 1: So every so often we'll we'll cut two scenes of
Speaker 1: Sarah telling the story, and then there will also be
Speaker 1: other cuts to characters enacting the story that she's telling.
Speaker 1: So that's the setup. And I think we thought that
Speaker 1: from the beginning of the movie it was a story
Speaker 1: told to her by an Indian woman that she's then relaying, Right,
Speaker 1: that's what we're meant to believe, I think. But I
Speaker 1: think she is taking ownership of the story because her
Speaker 1: friends are all like, you're such a good storyteller, and
Speaker 1: it's like she just was telling Hindu mythology, like a
Speaker 1: whole religion to her friends, and it's just like I
Speaker 1: came up with us well, full disclosure, when I watched
Speaker 1: this movie a lot as a kid, I had no
Speaker 1: idea that the story that she was telling was any
Speaker 1: sort of Hindu mythology. I thought that I don't even
Speaker 1: know what I thought it was Almo. I think I
Speaker 1: thought as a kid that she was just kind of
Speaker 1: making the story up as she goes, especially because we
Speaker 1: see a scene in the movie at some point where
Speaker 1: she doesn't like the boring story that's being told at
Speaker 1: story time, so she starts to invent an alternate ending
Speaker 1: for like, she basically writes fan fix in her during
Speaker 1: story time. So I just kind of assumed that she
Speaker 1: was applying those creative storytelling skills to her telling this story.
Speaker 1: But now I know thanks to Lord Rama and Sita,
Speaker 1: and it's a whole, a whole big thing in Hindu mythology,
Speaker 1: and the way that it's presented. One thing that I
Speaker 1: didn't I know that they can't tell like the whole
Speaker 1: story of it, and they left out like blaring parts.
Speaker 1: So they're banished to a forest, and he has a brother.
Speaker 1: They don't bring up the brother, the brother's acute character. Um,
Speaker 1: she gets captured by Ravenna, who is a demon with
Speaker 1: many heads. The representation in this fucking movie was like
Speaker 1: an acid trip. Not that I would know what that
Speaker 1: is of course not of course not recorded audience. No
Speaker 1: one has ever done drugs, no one, nobody knows what
Speaker 1: drugs are, but assuming um, but yeah, it was crazy,
Speaker 1: like the representation of the demon was insane, and then
Speaker 1: there was like whole chunks of the middle. The monkey
Speaker 1: god Hanuman is a big part of this story and
Speaker 1: wasn't brought into it. So it's basically the kidnapping of
Speaker 1: Sita and the rescue of her that was only represented
Speaker 1: in this which is retelling very much like a fairy tale,
Speaker 1: almost Christian did like just gent out of it. It's
Speaker 1: just like a princess gets captured and a prince needs
Speaker 1: to save her from a tower in a castle, like
Speaker 1: that's what. I don't even remember the tower being a thing,
Speaker 1: but I was like when I thought, I was like,
Speaker 1: is this reponsible, Like what's happening? It's kind of invoking
Speaker 1: like yeah, that's sort of imagery. So yeah, it just
Speaker 1: it seems to me like she's just like doing this
Speaker 1: very like American eyes, like bastardized version of this Hindu mythology,
Speaker 1: and they whitewashed it even more by having white actors
Speaker 1: play the god. Yes, okay, right, so when the movie
Speaker 1: cuts away to Rama and Sita playing out the story
Speaker 1: that Sarah is telling. The actors who are playing those
Speaker 1: two characters are white. We've got Liam Cunningham, who plays
Speaker 1: Sarah's father, who's also playing Rama in like blue face,
Speaker 1: but like brown face essentially because it's you know, a
Speaker 1: brown it's a brown blue face. Okay, right right, um?
Speaker 1: And then Sita is played by an Australian actor named
Speaker 1: Alison Moyer. Was she like the mom and the photograph?
Speaker 1: I think so, yes, I think that's what. So basically
Speaker 1: Sarah's like retelling a story with her parents cast as
Speaker 1: like Hindu gods and god, yes and ship Um damn.
Speaker 1: That's bold. That is bold. You were also saying that
Speaker 1: she butchers a lot of the pronunciations of different like
Speaker 1: I can't remember specifics now, but for sure yeah, um,
Speaker 1: which is like, it's understandable white people can't pronounce things.
Speaker 1: We know this. I'm sure I've already mispronounced. It's fine,
Speaker 1: but everything together was troubled, right, because I mean it's
Speaker 1: essentially again, because there's no nothing is done in the
Speaker 1: movie to explain that the story that she is telling
Speaker 1: actually comes from Hindu mythology and is not just some
Speaker 1: like make believe she's Yeah, it's like a white girl
Speaker 1: just taking over a whole religion, which is very invoking
Speaker 1: of that. Do you remember when that like dad went
Speaker 1: and planted a flag in Africa and declared that land
Speaker 1: his daughter's like the American dad. That's what that felt
Speaker 1: like a little bit. It's like my princess owns this now, right, Okay.
Speaker 1: So then the other main issue, as far as I
Speaker 1: can tell with the movie in this context is the character.
Speaker 1: His name is rom Doss. Is that how you say that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He is the Indian man who lives next door to
Speaker 1: the school where Sarah attends school. He essentially assumes the
Speaker 1: role of a like mystical magical person who's like all seeing,
Speaker 1: all know, he seems to have powers, like because like
Speaker 1: white movies, American movies love to poise like a person
Speaker 1: who is black or East Asian or South Asian as
Speaker 1: the like magical foreigner trope, and this which movie does it?
Speaker 1: I'm fine with As long as you think we can
Speaker 1: curse you, I don't give a ship. As long as
Speaker 1: you think we're more powerful than you, I don't know
Speaker 1: the fuck like bow to us or whatever, Right, on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he's like he does always show up, and there's
Speaker 1: was I imagining this or like did I is there
Speaker 1: like a sound of wind chimes whenever he shows up
Speaker 1: or something like that. There's like a specific music cue
Speaker 1: very Indian. Yes, it's almost like, yeah, he does his powers,
Speaker 1: which is like anytime you look at him and he's
Speaker 1: just like right because here are a few of the
Speaker 1: things that happened as it relates to his magical mysticism.
Speaker 1: He somehow always knows what's going on with Sarah. He
Speaker 1: happens to be on the boat that Sarah and her
Speaker 1: father are on when they're traveling from India to the US.
Speaker 1: He just happens to live next door at the school.
Speaker 1: It's suggested that he is the one who brings them
Speaker 1: like this big feast. He decorates there. He basically the
Speaker 1: girl eyes Yeah, their room, you know he does. He
Speaker 1: gives them new clothes, he gives them food, he does
Speaker 1: the whole Bobby decoration thing. It was it was Sarah
Speaker 1: and her friend and it was yeah, they like walking
Speaker 1: in the room, They're like, oh my god. They wake
Speaker 1: up like in the like very ornate bed. So it's like,
Speaker 1: how did he do all this stuff without waking them up.
Speaker 1: He like did this overnight. So it's like this. I've
Speaker 1: always argued that Santa Claus is Indian. We're very hospitable
Speaker 1: and we'll come to your house and give you sweets.
Speaker 1: I mean, the things that he does in the movie,
Speaker 1: you know, are very kind and generous gestures. But I
Speaker 1: think that some people might find this trope problematic. Sure,
Speaker 1: I know it is. I just like exercising power over
Speaker 1: white people, that is important, but yeah, it's not It's
Speaker 1: not good to dehumanize other ethnicity. Yeah, it also justifies
Speaker 1: trying to colonize them, right, It's like you're trying to
Speaker 1: harness their power. It's like the fucking Wakonda thing. Why
Speaker 1: everybody's trying to go there, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like they're like they have something, we want it. So
Speaker 1: that's I don't know that character was played by a
Speaker 1: brown man, right, Yes, so at least they didn't whitewash
Speaker 1: every Indian character in the movie. And then the really
Speaker 1: wild thing is that there's like this weird like dais
Speaker 1: x mockin a thing that he does in the movie
Speaker 1: where it's the climactic scene her father still doesn't have
Speaker 1: his memory, and then ram Das just looks at him
Speaker 1: but really hard him, super hard, very determined, and then
Speaker 1: that's somehow, with his magical energy, he is able to
Speaker 1: restore the memory of Sarah's father, and then that's what
Speaker 1: effectively resolves the whole story. It's just really playing in
Speaker 1: the trope of like Indian doctors. That's you're playing into
Speaker 1: that trope to not every Indian is going to heal
Speaker 1: your memory people, right, Like Indian people do other things
Speaker 1: to be magic and be doctors. Also, like we have
Speaker 1: to study hard to be doctors. Okay, we don't just
Speaker 1: stare at people. Probably not as hard as everyone. But
Speaker 1: I'm kidding, I'm kidding. So that, yeah, that's not great.
Speaker 1: And then we also see him in like several different
Speaker 1: scenes over the course of what we can assume is
Speaker 1: many different months the movie takes. But but he's always
Speaker 1: wearing the same exact outfit. I think, so I remember
Speaker 1: there being so we talked about orange and green. He
Speaker 1: wears orange and green a lot too. He's wearing I
Speaker 1: think mostly gold or like, yeah, but if memory serves,
Speaker 1: he's either wearing the same thing or nearly the same
Speaker 1: exact thing in every as if he only has the
Speaker 1: one outfit. Yeah, so's ever been to a fucking Indian wedding,
Speaker 1: You know that's not true. We do changes during the
Speaker 1: wedding ceremony in South India, so like literally the bride
Speaker 1: changes her Sorry, So I just feel like that doesn't
Speaker 1: do our culture, just mis representation. There's another kind of
Speaker 1: bizarre thing that happens where Sarah puts a curse on
Speaker 1: another classmate of hers. She like kind of speaks in
Speaker 1: a language that I certainly didn't recognize. You said that
Speaker 1: you didn't recognize it. It might just be that she's
Speaker 1: kind of speaking in tongues and then she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that was just a curse from a witch that I
Speaker 1: learned in India. It will probably make your hair found out.
Speaker 1: So it's just like adding another layer of like showing
Speaker 1: Indian culture is being like this mystical foreign and potentially
Speaker 1: like almost like a scary thing that is like unfamiliar
Speaker 1: and strange to white people, but that white people can
Speaker 1: use at will, that can appropriate like yoga, They've taken
Speaker 1: our powers from us yoga Kama Sutra. Yeah, people love
Speaker 1: to steal stuff from other cultures. So those were the
Speaker 1: main things that struck me in the movie. Was there
Speaker 1: anything else that you wanted to touch on? I think
Speaker 1: one thing that I we were talked about last time
Speaker 1: was that the only representation we had at that point
Speaker 1: was like a poo and then like this, and then
Speaker 1: people would confuse the Indian in the cabinet and it
Speaker 1: just like make a joke and I'm like, that's a
Speaker 1: different thing. But okay, um, so there wasn't much, so
Speaker 1: it it is interesting that they took this like mysticism
Speaker 1: route as opposed to like the poverty route that usually
Speaker 1: people take. I honestly don't really remember this movie from
Speaker 1: my childhood, so I don't remember anybody like making fun
Speaker 1: of me with it or whatever. Like I feel, I
Speaker 1: feel like this movie was definitely for white people, like
Speaker 1: a thousand percent, whereas I think like APU, like there's
Speaker 1: so much, so much issue with it that people have now,
Speaker 1: but like it definitely penetrated Indian American culture or like
Speaker 1: South Asian American culture, like it was like in our lives.
Speaker 1: But this movie, I like don't really remember it affecting me.
Speaker 1: Watching this movie, I was like, it would be so
Speaker 1: dope if Hindu mythology there was like a different take
Speaker 1: on it that was like more American but still like
Speaker 1: true to it because like watching it, I was like,
Speaker 1: the coolest parts was the story, like you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like the Ramayana parts. But like I was thinking,
Speaker 1: like it would be cool if there was something like
Speaker 1: a you know, Romeo cross Juliette, or it was like
Speaker 1: Leontero DiCaprio, like something like more modernized and like weird
Speaker 1: and fun. I would love to watch that, but like
Speaker 1: for Hindu mytholog But then also so whenever it cuts
Speaker 1: to the Rama and Sita story, all the set designstra campy.
Speaker 1: So oh that is camp. Oh, now I know what campus.
Speaker 1: Everybody was arguing about what camp was for the met Gala,
Speaker 1: and it turns out it's just those scenes from the
Speaker 1: Little Prints exactly. Amazing. Yeah, the colors are just like
Speaker 1: really weirdly like saturated and just like everything's like plastic
Speaker 1: and it's just like, yeah, they definitely made it look
Speaker 1: very fake, which was disrespectful. Yeah, it would be cool
Speaker 1: to see like a because all of those mythologies, like
Speaker 1: they're told over and over again in India in like
Speaker 1: these different like cereals and like these movies and TV
Speaker 1: shows and stuff. But it would be cool to see
Speaker 1: like an American do it, like an Indian American or
Speaker 1: Hindu American, like whatever do it. But with the technology
Speaker 1: we have now and with like more like mad that
Speaker 1: would be kind of cool. For sure. Someone pay me
Speaker 1: all of your money. Thank you. That's anyways, that's a
Speaker 1: thought that I had. But no, that's great. This has
Speaker 1: been great. Thank you for this perspective. Is so helpful,
Speaker 1: So we really appreciate you taking the time twice. The
Speaker 1: next time it'll be even better like this. Thanks again
Speaker 1: so much, thank for your very helpful perspective. And uh,
Speaker 1: back to the episode. We gotta take a quick break,
Speaker 1: but we will come right back. Wo. She formative and
Speaker 1: helpful in placing my feelings on where things happen and
Speaker 1: why they happen. And I feel like what kind of
Speaker 1: that conversation reveals to it? Really we could have added
Speaker 1: like a few moments here and there of dialogue, like
Speaker 1: when they first meet, Like what if he introduced himself
Speaker 1: and was like, hey, how you do it? Like she
Speaker 1: could have like maybe said like I miss India and
Speaker 1: they could have maybe talked about a place that for
Speaker 1: them was both home, you know, and that might have
Speaker 1: given like some levity, and we didn't need, like, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty minutes of that. We need like to like some
Speaker 1: vaguely defined friendship between them, Like I think that would
Speaker 1: have served the story too, instead of him just appearing.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of characters in this movie that I'm like,
Speaker 1: we just don't know enough about them. I would include
Speaker 1: Becky and that we don't really know what her background is,
Speaker 1: and there were a few opportunities to provide that context
Speaker 1: that just doesn't. I was so frustrated in the scene
Speaker 1: where they're on the you know, they're talking through like
Speaker 1: the wall in the attic and they're talking about how
Speaker 1: um Sarah mrs India, Like this would be a great
Speaker 1: time for Sarah to ask Becky, like what is your background?
Speaker 1: She does not do that, and we never we like
Speaker 1: we're given very little information about Becky's background, which and
Speaker 1: I mean even less for the Indian man and and
Speaker 1: and also mis mentioned, like we don't really know like
Speaker 1: who what have pened? Why is she? I don't know
Speaker 1: if I want to know any more about mis mentioned.
Speaker 1: I'd been going really I've been going back forth about
Speaker 1: it a lot because on the one hand, and like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe there was like a thing with Sarah's mother because
Speaker 1: we know Sarah's mother went there. Maybe that's like she
Speaker 1: has like this ingrained like And on the other hand,
Speaker 1: like this movie is doing something that I wish more
Speaker 1: movies would do, which is tell me less. There's something
Speaker 1: great about being able to fill gaps in a movie.
Speaker 1: It doesn't quite work for TV shows and were eight
Speaker 1: hours of content there, But when we have like ninety
Speaker 1: tight minutes and you're just exploring people being themselves in
Speaker 1: these moments, it's it's really intriguing to start wondering about it,
Speaker 1: Like because that dad line really triggered her, Like that
Speaker 1: actor got to make such great choices based entirely on
Speaker 1: just where she wanted to take that character. She's like
Speaker 1: she was in the Beatles. Help people think that maybe
Speaker 1: eleanor Rigby was named after her. I couldn't find any
Speaker 1: backup information on that. Paul McCartney did an interview with
Speaker 1: g Q I think maybe last year where he explains
Speaker 1: like where these songs came from. He describes eleanor Rigby
Speaker 1: as a song about World War Two widows that he
Speaker 1: like grew up with in the projects in London, and
Speaker 1: it's a song dedicated to them and how their lives
Speaker 1: never quite got right. But her name is Eleanor she
Speaker 1: was in help maybe. But she also has like all
Speaker 1: these cool, like weird roles. She plays a lot of
Speaker 1: like witches and weird old people, and I think to
Speaker 1: get such a she's so cool and she's alive, and
Speaker 1: now I'm like trying to check her down and try
Speaker 1: into a series on like aging Hollywood people. If you're
Speaker 1: an outlet who wants that, DM me let me know.
Speaker 1: Alice are like, well our readers like this, I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: like what happened to years old? Like Dori's day just
Speaker 1: died and nobody got her final statements on how she
Speaker 1: felt about her life. It's really annoying. I digress. Um,
Speaker 1: she's really cool if you know her, like tell her
Speaker 1: people love her still, but like to do such cool
Speaker 1: things like women who especially at a time where your
Speaker 1: option was getting married, or live a life of some
Speaker 1: kind of servitude, for her to live alone, for her
Speaker 1: to clearly not like that path she did some great
Speaker 1: things with She's British, but there are moments where you
Speaker 1: get like this New York accent that's very much like
Speaker 1: a street New York like Brooklyn sounding. It comes out
Speaker 1: particuly when she's Sometimes Sarah is so eloquently said, but
Speaker 1: sometimes it's like Sarah with a hard eat. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: almost like a Southern like it's it's I really feel
Speaker 1: like the actress is just making really strong choices to
Speaker 1: be like, listen, this is a woman who rose up
Speaker 1: a bit. I think she doing the math. It seems
Speaker 1: like she must have inherited the school from like a
Speaker 1: mother figure, because the school is called Mismntioneds like seminary
Speaker 1: for girls, but it was established in like the eighteen fifties.
Speaker 1: Or maybe she's two hundred years old and has found
Speaker 1: the fountain of you. She's a day walker. I love it, um,
Speaker 1: But yeah, you don't get to see characters like either
Speaker 1: of the meet Ums, especially in kids movies. They're either
Speaker 1: totally awful or incredibly sweet. And to see an adult
Speaker 1: who has an issue with the kids. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you guys hang out any kids in my roommate.
Speaker 1: My other roommate is a school teacher and she's like
Speaker 1: somebod these kids are just bitches. She works in Beverly Hills,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how much money has like the
Speaker 1: financial train on things. But it's certainly your personality is there,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you just don't like a child. How does
Speaker 1: that manifest and how does that child deal with that?
Speaker 1: Because she sar didn't do anything. I think Metam has
Speaker 1: very valid reasons for being like, this girl is foolish
Speaker 1: and she's gonna get steamrolled by life, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to be the hard person who's in her face telling
Speaker 1: her like it really imagines she can grow up. I
Speaker 1: get used to it. But she also so limiting, so
Speaker 1: refined even in herself. That floating down the stairs, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's it's so creepy movies, especially older women,
Speaker 1: Like I don't think I've ever seen House on Haunted
Speaker 1: Hill was super movie for your show because it was
Speaker 1: written by lesbian, But it is like any floating lady
Speaker 1: just really creeps me out. And she just glad do
Speaker 1: this like weird daddy thing and then her like her
Speaker 1: frame is just like still floating, and I'm like, how
Speaker 1: she looks like she's Dolly tracking herself, Like how is
Speaker 1: that humanly possible? It was? That was like one of
Speaker 1: the only things I remembered about the movie at all,
Speaker 1: was that very memorable, so freaky. It says a lot
Speaker 1: about her. She's clearly trained to be among high society,
Speaker 1: and I think she's dealing with if you look at
Speaker 1: the kids who she picks on. I think she's picking
Speaker 1: on kids who remind her somewhat of herself, of something
Speaker 1: that she shut down because the other girl Ermine Guard,
Speaker 1: damn name she used the Bumblebee girl and that nineties
Speaker 1: music video. Yes, yes, she's so. That's the same actress
Speaker 1: who also did a really lovely job. She comes from.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing like an Irish cop father who rose through
Speaker 1: the ranks. Again, I have a lot of headcannon on
Speaker 1: these characters. I love Erman Guards. She's so sweet, she's adorable,
Speaker 1: but mentioned picks on her a lot in class for
Speaker 1: not being able to do math, and she's like frustrated,
Speaker 1: and I think anything that reminds her of like low
Speaker 1: class or head in the clouds, she just cannot sad
Speaker 1: king at that part of herself or just like excessive naive,
Speaker 1: like naivete and kids seems to really bother her because
Speaker 1: like Sarah is very naive when she gets there and
Speaker 1: then it's like la la la, here's my story. And
Speaker 1: she doesn't like that I feel like Ermine Garde sort
Speaker 1: of falls into that category as well, where she's yeah,
Speaker 1: she's like floatier and spacier and like mis mentioned, she's
Speaker 1: a realist. She's like, the world is gonna hurt you,
Speaker 1: and if it doesn't hurt you. I love that scene
Speaker 1: with when erman gard goes to the attic and it's
Speaker 1: like she's very upset and she's just like, wait, do
Speaker 1: you want to be a way for it anymore? Like
Speaker 1: I was like, oh God, I had that interaction so
Speaker 1: much when I was like it save you're a girl,
Speaker 1: you've ever bared your soul to another girl in a
Speaker 1: very platonic way of like why are we not friends?
Speaker 1: I'm trying to understand. It gets you. I really loved
Speaker 1: that scene. And then they have and then like Sarah
Speaker 1: and Becky have the knocking system, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is like a little girl like paradise of like
Speaker 1: secret coat bearing your soul the slumber parties where she's
Speaker 1: just telling her very factually and accurate and probably racist story,
Speaker 1: but the fact that they're like all like buried under
Speaker 1: the covers and like listening and very intrigued, and it's
Speaker 1: like there's there's a power in girl groups that and
Speaker 1: especially I think if you're isolated the way they are,
Speaker 1: they don't have any agency over there, like daily activities,
Speaker 1: and so they're sort of very much bound to each
Speaker 1: other um in the system. And it's still it's weird
Speaker 1: to me that we don't have more stories about this
Speaker 1: because it's such a defining point for like every woman.
Speaker 1: You would think that there would be I mean, I
Speaker 1: want to see more stories. I would buy tickets to
Speaker 1: see more stories like this. I mean, there's so few.
Speaker 1: It's it's wild how few there are. And like the Sister,
Speaker 1: like the whole school kind of has this like subtle
Speaker 1: ish arc where at the beginning you have lotty like
Speaker 1: not questioning anything and just being like, oh, well this
Speaker 1: is the way things are, of course. And and then
Speaker 1: they also have like the girls in the school, even
Speaker 1: the ones don't know as well. By the end, they're
Speaker 1: all like down to do this like locket operation, and
Speaker 1: they've made the decision that they're going to support each
Speaker 1: other and not just like I'm getting there's like an
Speaker 1: Ocean's eight sequence where they like the hell out of
Speaker 1: this locket. Yeah, they get the locket back and oh
Speaker 1: it's so and then like Becky gets like her big
Speaker 1: moment where she makes a noise in front of people
Speaker 1: that look like I thought it's a mouse. They just
Speaker 1: mentioned it hits the door and east Ship, and we're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great. It's just so perfect. It's so sweet and
Speaker 1: charming and Becky's journey. As much as I think that
Speaker 1: she could have been a more central figure, what we
Speaker 1: do get out of her it's so like great, Like
Speaker 1: there's if you're black, you care about your hairline and
Speaker 1: how kids are represented in films is really important to me.
Speaker 1: And it was frustrating at first to be like, man,
Speaker 1: this girl's hair is so messy. That's so frustrated by it.
Speaker 1: But the more I watched the film and and again
Speaker 1: watch the art that all of these girls get, it's
Speaker 1: like she didn't have anybody who cares for her right,
Speaker 1: Like she's clearly somewhat depressed, and how could you not
Speaker 1: be being surrounded by girls your age and not being
Speaker 1: allowed to have any kind of interaction with them that
Speaker 1: even this girl just looking at her is like wow,
Speaker 1: And you get like even the reversal of the moment
Speaker 1: when Sarah kind of storms in on Becky to be
Speaker 1: like Sarah in her again very naive mine. It's like
Speaker 1: I don't, like, just go make friends, and Becky like,
Speaker 1: who the hell are you doing? Like you cannot be
Speaker 1: in my room and we are both gonna get in
Speaker 1: so much trouble. Please leave. Um. She stands up for
Speaker 1: herself that a way I think when you get it,
Speaker 1: here's what if you get a token black character. So
Speaker 1: often they are just treated very much like side characters.
Speaker 1: And for Becky to get not just a name, not
Speaker 1: just a role, but like to be taken with her
Speaker 1: at the end, and her dress looks so good and
Speaker 1: her hair it's so perfect, and she's like they're very
Speaker 1: much treated as equals, like even though it's like magical
Speaker 1: and stilly, how they get that breakfast, like they both
Speaker 1: get the same shoes, which I like, always live and
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff like I have, like Susie Carmichael
Speaker 1: Becky in this movie. Yeah, as as far as like
Speaker 1: talking with my white peers about like black representation under
Speaker 1: the age of twelve, this is little were kind of
Speaker 1: it as who they knew and so to see like
Speaker 1: both of those characters sort of rise and be powerful
Speaker 1: in their own rights. And like Becky literally finds her
Speaker 1: voice by screaming, and you know it's to help these
Speaker 1: other chump white girls. You didn't really get her a lot,
Speaker 1: but do you know a lot of else to work with? Um?
Speaker 1: And I man, I like it still, even though it's problematic,
Speaker 1: even though it's very much a signal of how desperate
Speaker 1: I was for representation and any of the things I
Speaker 1: was watching. So you don't get black girls in period pieces.
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with period pieces. I'm obsessed with fantasy. And
Speaker 1: so this's like Becky always has like a special place
Speaker 1: in my heart. She's awesome. That's that I do like.
Speaker 1: I love Sarah and Becky's scenes together are very sweet
Speaker 1: and very just like it's so nice. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: a question, Yeah, um, do you think this is a
Speaker 1: white savior story? Oh? I mean yeah, if you're just looking,
Speaker 1: Becky isn't given enough to do to really save herself,
Speaker 1: and she doesn't really seem to ever desire more. We again,
Speaker 1: like you guys said, we don't really know much about
Speaker 1: her life outside of this situation. There's not even a
Speaker 1: lot of like poor shadow. I mean that would require
Speaker 1: a lot for an actress too of that age to
Speaker 1: be more about her outside of what's in the text.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it is a white savior story. I like it.
Speaker 1: Damn it. This is so hard. I always really analyzing
Speaker 1: this movie is much more difficult than just sitting back
Speaker 1: and enjoying it. Like, no, it's just whimsical and like
Speaker 1: the guy who had Children of the Men with the
Speaker 1: snow scene and it doesn't cry, it's so pretty um
Speaker 1: what we think about a context, you're like, dang ish,
Speaker 1: use I don't, I mean, And a lot of those
Speaker 1: problems seem to be it's like a lot of it.
Speaker 1: I want to blame a lot of it on Francis
Speaker 1: Hodgson Burnett because that's like so built into the story
Speaker 1: and she has such a bad track record with like
Speaker 1: writing non white characters at all. But with with adaptations,
Speaker 1: it's like there was room in this movie for their
Speaker 1: for us to know more about Becky. They're just was
Speaker 1: This is Alphonso Crels first studio film in America, so
Speaker 1: we have two Mexican tours essentially in Lebitsky and Craylon
Speaker 1: coming up to do their first big Precious also Emmanuel's
Speaker 1: first big studio film, so I know that they they
Speaker 1: were kind of felt free in in the visual representation
Speaker 1: because that's why they got hired. But outside of that,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure like how much agency they felt they
Speaker 1: had to imbue dark skinned characters with storylines. And to
Speaker 1: be fair, that never seems to be Alfonso's sort of
Speaker 1: bad either. I don't think he really cares about I mean,
Speaker 1: he's out there darkning Harry Potter movies. Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and we just did a Roma, which is great but
Speaker 1: also has a lot of colorism issues if you want
Speaker 1: to talk to indigenous Latino X women about that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it definitely I think if it were made today, we
Speaker 1: would demand much more out of it as a film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you know that this movie failed spectacularly at the
Speaker 1: box off didn't yet had a seventeen million dollar budget,
Speaker 1: only made ten million dollars? What were we doing in?
Speaker 1: I know, it's like it's I feel like, for the
Speaker 1: like year it came out, this is you're not going
Speaker 1: to get much better. To be fair, though, I my
Speaker 1: parents were big movie buffs, were at the movie theater
Speaker 1: a lot. I did not see this until home VHS,
Speaker 1: saying so, yeah, we might have been part of them.
Speaker 1: I'm sure my dad was like, first, I'm not sitting
Speaker 1: through any princesses movies and go yourselves. And then I
Speaker 1: have no idea what my mom was doing. This is
Speaker 1: totally a per alley. That's interesting. Was it a Christmas release?
Speaker 1: Do you remember the release date? Really? It was released
Speaker 1: in May? It was really what that's the problem. Okay,
Speaker 1: if we go back, we talked to the add people,
Speaker 1: be like, this is a Christmas season film. Get the
Speaker 1: hearts warm. We like Dickens era stuff. It vaguely looks
Speaker 1: like Christmas in this weird, indescribable way because it's half
Speaker 1: it's green, which is half of Christmas color. Can we
Speaker 1: talk about Alfonso and green. He's really weird for green.
Speaker 1: He loves green. Um, I was okay. So when we
Speaker 1: were watching this with Coula, we were all like, the
Speaker 1: green and the gold, there's got to be some symbolism here.
Speaker 1: I read some like hokey blog posts that posited some theories,
Speaker 1: none of them quite lined up, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: well maybe he talked about it, like maybe there is.
Speaker 1: I was like, is this in the book? Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it him? Like? I don't know what? And the
Speaker 1: the answer is is puzzling which and it is simply
Speaker 1: that Alfonso loves green. That's it. Like there are quotes
Speaker 1: from him there. There is like a great interview done
Speaker 1: with the costume designer of this movie, Judyana Makovsky, right
Speaker 1: when this movie came out, and apparently they had like
Speaker 1: a big argument about how he was like, I only
Speaker 1: want green. Nothing cannot be green. She's like I can't
Speaker 1: do that. She's like, I will quit if you make
Speaker 1: me make everything she did do that green on Green
Speaker 1: school Girl before the clothes are green, the building that
Speaker 1: the school is in his green, the shots of like
Speaker 1: anything happening in the kitchen, there's so much lettuce and
Speaker 1: green apples in the frame, Like are we getting all
Speaker 1: this money to buy all of this fresh produce? That
Speaker 1: very suspect to me. I was like, no, no, you
Speaker 1: didn't buy that at the New York Market. We saw
Speaker 1: her just shopping at Yeah so so. And then the
Speaker 1: quote like a year later, I guess he was asked
Speaker 1: about this directly in a New York Times interview and
Speaker 1: he says, quote, I have to say green is the
Speaker 1: only color I understand. I can really frame it, I
Speaker 1: know how to work with it. I see other colors
Speaker 1: and they feel alien. I cannot give you a rational explanit.
Speaker 1: I love that it's just my art. When you please
Speaker 1: just watch it or don't, it's so like, I just
Speaker 1: don't care. I'm obsessed with the especially in this era
Speaker 1: when you've got that like weird Emerald marble Green a lot,
Speaker 1: so it's like golden white flext but then you're also
Speaker 1: dealing with a lot of natural greens. And I think
Speaker 1: coming from the India set scenes to here, this looks
Speaker 1: like such a polished like studio film. It's like like
Speaker 1: a thirty style like studio like when they're doing the
Speaker 1: kind of it's not c g I yet special effects.
Speaker 1: Visual effects is what we would have called it back
Speaker 1: in the day. That freaky which if you, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: there's an Alec Baldwin film, we're a similar demon creature
Speaker 1: like that comes up and I'm like, did they borrow
Speaker 1: things from each other? Um? I love it. I love
Speaker 1: all of the Green movie. And it's like a living
Speaker 1: like urban jungle, and I feel like now that urban
Speaker 1: jungle is really in as a style choice, like looping back,
Speaker 1: I really like. I mean, it's always because we get
Speaker 1: so like I mean, the point of the show is
Speaker 1: to be in the weeds and like really analyze everything,
Speaker 1: and then sometimes you do just like Nope, there's no reason,
Speaker 1: and that is so comforting. You're like, great, everything is chaos.
Speaker 1: Alfonso likes green. That's why I don't look for meaning
Speaker 1: in anything. Yeah, that's why words ending the show today.
Speaker 1: Something I wanted to talk about is that a big
Speaker 1: deal is made in this movie about the idea that
Speaker 1: all girls and all women are princesses. This, I think
Speaker 1: can be seen as an empowering message for the young
Speaker 1: girls who are seeing this movie, who this movie is
Speaker 1: targeted to, because it's basically saying all girls have value.
Speaker 1: But I also think that the connotation behind the word
Speaker 1: princess invokes like a certain image and certain idea blond
Speaker 1: with giant blue eyes, perfect man and like Sarah down
Speaker 1: to it. I mean, like all like all canonical princesses
Speaker 1: does not have a mother sound exactly princess tropes. And yeah,
Speaker 1: so this like idea of like the princess type has
Speaker 1: historically not been empowering, and largely because what media has
Speaker 1: like put forth about what a princess is basically every
Speaker 1: Disney movie pre two thousand today, because like, princesses always
Speaker 1: end up with a prince or a man. In general,
Speaker 1: they rarely have a storyline that's anything besides a romantic relationship.
Speaker 1: They are largely siss white, able bodied girls or women.
Speaker 1: They are rich and from the highest socio economic class. Uh,
Speaker 1: they rarely have a mom or really any female relationships
Speaker 1: to speak us. So it's a lot of diming in
Speaker 1: this movie sort of place. So that yeah, against type
Speaker 1: a lot too. If we think about just the last
Speaker 1: one you said doesn't have a lot of female friends,
Speaker 1: She's only got lady friends. Um, she doesn't have a mom,
Speaker 1: but yes, has a lot of girlfriends. And then if
Speaker 1: we look at the fact that who else she sort
Speaker 1: of inspires or shows to be princess, not just Becky
Speaker 1: who she takes with her at the end, and they
Speaker 1: again looking like sisters, like they belong together, same costuming
Speaker 1: and all of that. You also get the same thing
Speaker 1: with Amelia, who is like the plump lady who would
Speaker 1: definitely have been considered past her time. This the milkman
Speaker 1: is kind of hot. They actually had chemistry, which I
Speaker 1: get really upset when plus size women. As a plus
Speaker 1: size woman, when women get cast against guys who are
Speaker 1: clearly not into them, I'm like, listen, casting, we gotta
Speaker 1: do better, like find better actors. You don't really have
Speaker 1: to be in love. Lots of actors are not. I
Speaker 1: need to see like the chemistry otherwise I'm not believing it. Um,
Speaker 1: they clearly were into that whole like two second milk exchange.
Speaker 1: I think that's what like hot, Yeah, it's oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: it's so steep, and she's like, I'm just gonna wait.
Speaker 1: He's definitely coming back, and then she just like holds
Speaker 1: onto the thing and it's like, don't go, like we
Speaker 1: are connecting. You know, this all kinds of like glorious
Speaker 1: sexual time and from the get go, like Sarah sees,
Speaker 1: all of them is equal. So I think it a
Speaker 1: getting placed into our earlier issue of naivete. You know,
Speaker 1: how much do we believe that a girl of her status,
Speaker 1: who looks like she does, who has all the advantages
Speaker 1: in the world, truly believes that everyone is treated equally
Speaker 1: in the film? She does, And again, because she does,
Speaker 1: it just justifies that villainary. More like, if we keep
Speaker 1: following back into that idea of Okay, probably not, but
Speaker 1: maybe she's the exception. You can kind of I can
Speaker 1: bridge the gap I can bridge the divide. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel the same. I mean, I I totally agree with
Speaker 1: all of I mean, the concept of a princess in
Speaker 1: culture is like flawed and like, right up until today,
Speaker 1: I think that. But I just felt like the way
Speaker 1: that she uses the word princess, like her meaning of
Speaker 1: it is a little bit different. Like I didn't think
Speaker 1: that she was saying like, oh, everyone is like rapunzela.
Speaker 1: I felt like she was the way that Sarah was
Speaker 1: using it. And I don't even know if this is
Speaker 1: the way that Davos meant it when she said it
Speaker 1: to her, but the way that she interprets it, I
Speaker 1: thought was like saying, like a princess as like worthy
Speaker 1: and like worthy respect. And yeah, one of them even
Speaker 1: follows that logic too, and like I really love the
Speaker 1: idea that. Again, as wrong as the stories were, the
Speaker 1: way they were used as devices to inflict and impact
Speaker 1: her life were really interesting. Like when she's first sent
Speaker 1: to the attic, she creates a circle of safety like
Speaker 1: the one from the story to protect herself. She gives
Speaker 1: she takes the same advice she gave not Lillian the
Speaker 1: other The little girl cries, she gets hurt, the same vice.
Speaker 1: You know, just because I don't know, just because I
Speaker 1: can't hear them, doesn't mean they can't hear me. And
Speaker 1: so she starts calling out to her father. But then
Speaker 1: we get that really great emotional exchange where she's in
Speaker 1: the street and like some boy, out of the kindness
Speaker 1: of his his naive heart, gives her a coin. The
Speaker 1: mother is like, nope, that's awful. Look, she's just followed us.
Speaker 1: She's trying to give the coin back. She's like, I
Speaker 1: don't want it, I don't need it. I'm okay. Now
Speaker 1: she has the money, so she bites herself, like what
Speaker 1: I believe is the cross hot bun or kind of
Speaker 1: like it is a hot, delicious tree, and she is cold,
Speaker 1: and she has been working all day. She had to
Speaker 1: fight a boy to keep the stuff in her basket
Speaker 1: and right, and she's about to eat it. She sees
Speaker 1: another girl who are clearly having much worse lives than her,
Speaker 1: Like they're trying to sell flowers somewhere where they got
Speaker 1: these yellow roses in the middle of winter. I have
Speaker 1: a questions, but they have them, and they're selling them,
Speaker 1: And so she gives it to that girl. That girl's
Speaker 1: mother is like, make sure this girl gets a flower.
Speaker 1: Don't let her go without it. She in turn gives
Speaker 1: the flower to the old guy who just found out
Speaker 1: he lost his son. And when she gets a flower,
Speaker 1: she calls her a princess. She says, for the princess.
Speaker 1: And so I think this idea of being a princess
Speaker 1: not being about having money. She was a princess even
Speaker 1: when she hit her lowest point, even when she didn't
Speaker 1: have anything like it was still her ability to just
Speaker 1: be kind and giving. And again it's just, oh man,
Speaker 1: it's really hard in the world, being an adult and
Speaker 1: living in this world to be like, yeah, none of
Speaker 1: this happens. But if you want to enter a land
Speaker 1: of like make believe and and believe in like the
Speaker 1: quality and good in children who have not yet been corrupted, Wow,
Speaker 1: it's impactful. I mean the way that Sarah uses like
Speaker 1: something I was like thinking about through the movie is
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, like we talk a lot
Speaker 1: about privilege, and I feel like it's generally used as
Speaker 1: a negative term, but I think Sarah is in some ways.
Speaker 1: There are there are ways where you're like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is getting a little white savior, this is getting a
Speaker 1: little like it's a very delicate balance of like how
Speaker 1: to write one of these characters well. But for the
Speaker 1: most part, I thought that the way that Sarah used
Speaker 1: her privilege and that she clearly has was setting a
Speaker 1: relatively good example of just like she does use her
Speaker 1: privilege while she still has money and fancy stuff, she
Speaker 1: uses it to help people. And then and then when
Speaker 1: she doesn't have much, she you know, she still has
Speaker 1: a fair amount of privilege and still tries to all people.
Speaker 1: So it maybe wish I had seen this movie when
Speaker 1: I when I was younger, because it's you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: if you do have a protagonist that has a lot
Speaker 1: of privilege, then like, you know, go to great lengths
Speaker 1: to show how you can use your privileges. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: agree there. To me, there are two kind of main
Speaker 1: takeaways from this movie that are potentially conflicting. But one
Speaker 1: is that like, Sarah is a princess because she is
Speaker 1: kind and because she is generous and nice to everyone,
Speaker 1: and she isn't afraid to challenge the oppressive systems that
Speaker 1: are in place. The other takeaway is that everything will
Speaker 1: be fine as long as the loved ones you thought
Speaker 1: were dead are actually still alive. And you are still
Speaker 1: very rich, right, I mean her like return to richness
Speaker 1: and like that vague thing that like Davos at the end,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, I told them I wasn't dead. Got
Speaker 1: all my ship bocks, like okay. I do wonder how
Speaker 1: the film would have turned out if either her dad
Speaker 1: never got his memory back or he just wasn't there
Speaker 1: and had died in the war. Because she has no
Speaker 1: motivated It's not like she's motivated to go find her father,
Speaker 1: like she is just going to escape. And before she escaped,
Speaker 1: she turns back and she's like, I'm coming back for you.
Speaker 1: And there's a small part of me that really wants
Speaker 1: to believe this girl as tough as hell and would
Speaker 1: have figured a way out in New York and probably
Speaker 1: not kept all of that like glorious sweetness about her,
Speaker 1: but maybe would have found a way to to survive
Speaker 1: and space for her and her friend. It would have
Speaker 1: been hard. As listen, someone right the alternate Universe fantasy
Speaker 1: fiction and sent it to me. These girls got to
Speaker 1: just survive on their own, and they're like amazing and
Speaker 1: tough and scrapping. They start a small business there. I
Speaker 1: liked one of my favorite parts of this movie was
Speaker 1: during the escape part, the dais X plank that appears
Speaker 1: a perfectly measured plank to get from one window to
Speaker 1: the other. And I like went back to because we
Speaker 1: watched it last night with Paula VI and then when
Speaker 1: I watched it again this morning, I'm like, maybe that
Speaker 1: maybe the plank is set up, maybe it's been there
Speaker 1: the whole time. But she, like Sarah just turns to
Speaker 1: Becky and he's like, help me get this board. I
Speaker 1: was like, what the board is, Sarah floor. I thought
Speaker 1: it was going to be the green like thing that
Speaker 1: moves in between their walls. It's like they have like
Speaker 1: a loose kind of plank. I thought she was gonna
Speaker 1: be like, just snap that off and let me climb across.
Speaker 1: This the thing that connects us, launching us into a
Speaker 1: new life. I don't know something, but it was not.
Speaker 1: It just maybe the magical indianman who lives next door
Speaker 1: foresaw this would all happen and gave her the plank
Speaker 1: whenever he was like decorating the room and like setting
Speaker 1: up this huge banquet for them. Oh, so my theory.
Speaker 1: He was like, I actually, he's like he set everything
Speaker 1: up really quietly and like when does he know he
Speaker 1: sees Sarah? He saw her on the Titanic like boat
Speaker 1: that they come to America from India on. He saw
Speaker 1: them like daughter and father dancing together. He knows their relationship.
Speaker 1: He knows that Daddy is sitting ten feet away. He
Speaker 1: also saw Daddy Davos give Sarah a heart shaped necklace,
Speaker 1: not on like what happens in Titanic, but so yeah,
Speaker 1: he knows. He's like this omniscient guy a lot of
Speaker 1: these issues if we had just seen him watch dude
Speaker 1: come into the building with his daughter, because like if
Speaker 1: if he is aware of like, oh, this guy looks
Speaker 1: like the same dude that dropped the daughter off of
Speaker 1: the school, Well you should take him in there, because
Speaker 1: you have the means to do so. If you can
Speaker 1: rewatch this movie thinking about this guy is just playing
Speaker 1: the ship out of everyone around him. It is wildly
Speaker 1: more entertaining. I feel like it is. Yeah, It's just
Speaker 1: I don't know. With the plank and the ending, it
Speaker 1: like it gets so fantasy at the end that I'm like,
Speaker 1: I I mean, I'm I'm happy to accept, like and
Speaker 1: everything worked out like happily ever after, Sure, Davos is alive. Sure,
Speaker 1: you know, like why why not? Something I did like
Speaker 1: though that we haven't talked about yet. It's like the
Speaker 1: way that grief is portrayed in this movie I thought
Speaker 1: was really cool and not something you get to see
Speaker 1: in kids movies at all, or especially like played in
Speaker 1: like I thought, like a pretty thoughtful way, because you
Speaker 1: all you were saying earlier, like it's clear that all
Speaker 1: these kids are missing their parents and then in the
Speaker 1: case of Lottie and then later Sarah, are actually their
Speaker 1: parents aren't coming back for them, and like seeing that
Speaker 1: play out in different ways. With Lottie, it's just the
Speaker 1: screaming fits in front of the music box, or like
Speaker 1: Sarah gets, like I mean, it's like really devastating to
Speaker 1: watch how depressed she gets. She's like there is no magic, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's very clearly going through the depression phase of grief. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like just the way that she like sort of
Speaker 1: it's just sort of SAPs all the like positive energy
Speaker 1: out of her, and then it's sort of then the
Speaker 1: young girls that she knows that like lift her back
Speaker 1: up and and so I just I really thought that
Speaker 1: it was like a cool, thoughtful presentation of grief, and
Speaker 1: again it's like all that is sort of undone at
Speaker 1: the end where you're like you didn't have to grieve.
Speaker 1: Daddy was across sister, but the way I was presented
Speaker 1: but I thought was like was lovely. And also I
Speaker 1: just found out on Wikipedia dot organ ever heard of
Speaker 1: it that the Chimney Sweep as Alfonso Korn's son. Yes,
Speaker 1: or he was so good. He was so good. And
Speaker 1: when you talk about the girl, uh, Lisa Matthews is
Speaker 1: the girl that places there. She comes from like a
Speaker 1: billionaire family from Chicago, which explains the American accent. She's
Speaker 1: like a prince great yes great. Actress went on to
Speaker 1: do Air Force One played uh, oh my gosh, Harrison
Speaker 1: Ford's daughter say solo. But I'm like that's not right,
Speaker 1: Uh play his daughter. She did one more movie after that,
Speaker 1: not a successful but now she like runs like a
Speaker 1: Hedge Fune company that like gives money to sub Saharan Africa.
Speaker 1: Is a jillionaire and like we're I mean, her family
Speaker 1: owns Hyatt hotels and we know about families that own
Speaker 1: hotel chains. It always ends well, Uh, they own the
Speaker 1: Royal Caribbean cruise Line. They own the TransUnion credit bureau.
Speaker 1: She's from like a lot of money. So basically she
Speaker 1: was like, I want to be an actor, and then
Speaker 1: everyone was like, okay, you're an actor now, great, a
Speaker 1: really good child actress. I don't know if it just
Speaker 1: didn't transition as an adult or she was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I have money, I don't have to do this. Good,
Speaker 1: do something else. She married a hot guy who kind
Speaker 1: of looks like Jamie Lanister, like like an average Jamie Lanister.
Speaker 1: You know, they live in Austin. It's like it's rich
Speaker 1: people like I do. It's funny. I'm really glad that
Speaker 1: she is like she like, or at least was like
Speaker 1: a very talented child actress, because I'm like, the second
Speaker 1: I was like started reading about her, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: she was like, Dad, wouldn't it be cool if I
Speaker 1: was a movie star And he was like, yeah, sure, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't care. Businesses to run multiple Also, Camilla Bell
Speaker 1: is in this movie, which one was Kamilla Bell Jane,
Speaker 1: I don't know one of the girls like that. I
Speaker 1: hope it was the girl. Wait a minute, was she
Speaker 1: the girl who told Lavinia like, I don't care what
Speaker 1: you're doing. I want to listen to these stories. Oh,
Speaker 1: I hope, So I don't know. I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't really remember. And there's two Jane, Betsy and Ruth
Speaker 1: are characters that I I'm assuming that they were all
Speaker 1: girls at the school, but I have no idea they
Speaker 1: were hanging out in the background. I like that it
Speaker 1: was a small group of girls and they were not
Speaker 1: running through child actors. They're like, no, this is the group.
Speaker 1: They're here to deal with it, um. And I also
Speaker 1: like the staging for this. I would be so curious about,
Speaker 1: like what is it like to direct that many kids,
Speaker 1: because they talked to a bunch of stars from Susanne
Speaker 1: and they're like, so there were six kids and they
Speaker 1: were a lot like kind cool kids, but there must
Speaker 1: have been so many like child wranglers on. So I
Speaker 1: mean you get to think that like Alfonso Korn has
Speaker 1: to just work well with children, because it's like, I
Speaker 1: mean this movie especially, there's basically only children, and he
Speaker 1: manages to get like some really impressive performances out of kids,
Speaker 1: which is like a testament just as much to him
Speaker 1: as it is to them. And then you know he
Speaker 1: like he tamed Rupert Grant or whatever. Later like he
Speaker 1: knows how to work with child actors. I mean we're
Speaker 1: notoriously I love up. I have a question them forever.
Speaker 1: Is he a good actor? I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I like his new comedies, his Little Big TV show.
Speaker 1: I think they're adorable and definitely like he is lean
Speaker 1: his second act. Yeah, well, I mean also like and
Speaker 1: oh my god, what's his name? Daniel Radcliffe was a
Speaker 1: bad actor in the first two Harry Potter movies and
Speaker 1: then gets pretty good in a Prisoner of Azkaban. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that Emma was like, listen, we can get this together.
Speaker 1: She was like, let's just try some exercises. They all,
Speaker 1: I feel like they all to level up in the
Speaker 1: third one kind of yeah, And by the fourth one
Speaker 1: we're really just flying, which for me was perfect. The
Speaker 1: fourth book is my favorite, and I was like, here
Speaker 1: we go, and then ours comes in. My heart is
Speaker 1: really softening. Terry Potter as I'm so glad to hear that. Um,
Speaker 1: can we go back to Amelia really quick? And I
Speaker 1: would like to pose a question, how do you feel
Speaker 1: the representation of bigger women is in this movie? Like
Speaker 1: all of the representation, we got so close. They did
Speaker 1: not let a fat Joe slip until her final moment,
Speaker 1: and I was livid. I was like, guys, we did
Speaker 1: so good. She was just a lady. She fell in love.
Speaker 1: None of the kids were like judging or making faces
Speaker 1: behind her, like it was a polished perfect and then
Speaker 1: they're like throw the suitcases at the guy in the
Speaker 1: land on top of them because that's what sells, Like damn,
Speaker 1: that was just so exciting there. It was. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like she her character in general, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't really tell how much it was, like whether it
Speaker 1: was a comment on what she looked like at all,
Speaker 1: but like she was the slap stickiest of the people
Speaker 1: at the school. Because it's like anytime someone would make
Speaker 1: a loud noise, it would be like like she would.
Speaker 1: She she had big physical reactions to things, responsible for
Speaker 1: the crying girl, which was so even she's conspired with
Speaker 1: Satan cursed me um. But I liked, I mean, I
Speaker 1: liked the scene with Sarah and Amelia on the staircase.
Speaker 1: I thought that was another like lovely little Sarah moment
Speaker 1: of like ne're worthy of love and she was like
Speaker 1: Amelia is like I hate children out of here. So
Speaker 1: that's where I think that they film doesn't like it's
Speaker 1: like good in two ways and the bad and three like.
Speaker 1: I think they do a really good job of subverting
Speaker 1: expectations fat women are supposed to like love kids. They're like,
Speaker 1: you're the natural caregivers, you have the tits like make
Speaker 1: it work, um, And so for her to like for
Speaker 1: the whole time just be like, I'm really not, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to, don't want to, would rather not
Speaker 1: be here. I thought's interesting for a character like her.
Speaker 1: I think that, yeah, putting her in a slapstick position, certainly,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel weird about it because if
Speaker 1: it was two men running an all boys school, we
Speaker 1: most likely would have the exact same dynamic, you know,
Speaker 1: like a tall, thin person and like a shorter, fatter person.
Speaker 1: Has been like comedy like how we make it work
Speaker 1: in partnerships for so long. Visually, Um, I'll say this again,
Speaker 1: we're desperate for representation. We're grasping to what we have.
Speaker 1: This movie goes above and beyond what most representations at
Speaker 1: the time where. And I think if you look at
Speaker 1: it in a time period capsule, that way, you can
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, I can value what we were aiming
Speaker 1: for even if if it came out today, we wouldn't
Speaker 1: anywhere near reach our standards of excellence and at least,
Speaker 1: I mean, you do know more about Amelia than you
Speaker 1: know about miss Minchin, Like she has more of like
Speaker 1: we know more about her personal life and like her
Speaker 1: feelings and thoughts and context for them than for her sister.
Speaker 1: Of the main thing or one of the main things
Speaker 1: that you know about Amelia is her like fawning over
Speaker 1: a man. That's true, I mean, but we also know
Speaker 1: she hates her job, like I don't know, we see
Speaker 1: her as a person who like, Okay, so since we've
Speaker 1: been Game of Throne saying, just batting it in over
Speaker 1: the place, my girl, brand A Tarth gets late, like
Speaker 1: not anywhere on her to do list, right, but she
Speaker 1: finds herself falling for a guy. Then next day, dude's like,
Speaker 1: so I'm actually still in love with my sister. I
Speaker 1: gotta go back home and deal with that. And she cries,
Speaker 1: and it's like the whole internet like it's having like
Speaker 1: a very divided meltdown of whether like these tears are okay.
Speaker 1: I think when you put women who present differ really
Speaker 1: in situations of love and allow them to be soft
Speaker 1: that it's a blessing because I know certainly I didn't
Speaker 1: see a lot of that growing up. Like if you
Speaker 1: were tough, you were just tough all the way through
Speaker 1: and no man could ever get to you, and you
Speaker 1: did not need love. That's not like a realistic like
Speaker 1: situation for many people. Some people do desire love, and
Speaker 1: I don't think that I should always fall back to that.
Speaker 1: And I do think for both Brianne and for Amelia
Speaker 1: that there were opportunities for better representation. That being said,
Speaker 1: Like Amelia got her dude, like she like got to
Speaker 1: fall in love, and it was something that that character
Speaker 1: clearly wouldn't allow herself to think about before. And so
Speaker 1: to see her be in love, to see her come
Speaker 1: to terms of that, and then to see her go
Speaker 1: for it, like, that's a cool story arc that frequent
Speaker 1: and for the most part not be made fun of
Speaker 1: for it. Uh think it's really beautiful. Really had to
Speaker 1: squeeze it in, didn't you help yourself? That's a great point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am also, and let me know what your thoughts
Speaker 1: are on this. But um, the way that it is
Speaker 1: characterized is, I mean, most of the girls at this
Speaker 1: school are very slim, Guard is a little bigger. She
Speaker 1: seems to be characterized, at least in the beginning, as
Speaker 1: like kind of a more pathetic I was worried about
Speaker 1: that tropes like sleeping in of like token chubby girl
Speaker 1: who all the other girls are going to make fun of.
Speaker 1: But then the movie, I don't know, I mean it
Speaker 1: kind of likes to flash her out more almost any other.
Speaker 1: I don't know that's true. I mean she she has
Speaker 1: only picked on by one girl, the girl who picks
Speaker 1: on literally everybody. So there's that point. I think she
Speaker 1: is shy, but then they make it not about her
Speaker 1: body but about her worry that she's not going to
Speaker 1: please her father and that man. That conversation also brais me.
Speaker 1: When she she's talks to Sarah about her dad and
Speaker 1: she was like, you know, he doesn't like being here.
Speaker 1: He's like, well why would she? He sent you to
Speaker 1: some place he doesn't like to be and she's like, well,
Speaker 1: he wants me to fit in and he doesn't feel
Speaker 1: he can fit in. And to you such kid words
Speaker 1: for such big grown up ideas of like I want
Speaker 1: better for you, but also I hate this police and
Speaker 1: if I become this do we not have a relationship anymore,
Speaker 1: and she doesn't have any of the words to describe
Speaker 1: all the things she's feeling, but she's trying, and it
Speaker 1: is so beautiful. And so I think again, the way
Speaker 1: the film lets in these little contexts, and the fact
Speaker 1: that it doesn't give you the answers to everything, it
Speaker 1: allows for better headcanon representation than maybe what the film's
Speaker 1: intentions were. I'm gonna keep clinging to it. That's what
Speaker 1: I had. I stand like, I I wish she could
Speaker 1: have I wish she could have gone with Sarah and
Speaker 1: Becky too, because she had a dad. But I also
Speaker 1: caught myself thinking about the exact take erman Gard with you.
Speaker 1: She also needs liberation. Yeah, and then her dad is
Speaker 1: proud of her that she can speak French. So that
Speaker 1: was nice to see. Yeah, And in general, I mean
Speaker 1: all the what is this man's role in colonialism? Aside?
Speaker 1: I liked the relationship between Sarah and her dad. I
Speaker 1: thought it was like very it was nice to see,
Speaker 1: you know, just like a positive relationship between a father
Speaker 1: and I feel like so often, even in movies about princesses,
Speaker 1: the father and the daughter are at odds about every
Speaker 1: expectations of her, or like it was nice to just
Speaker 1: have like the presentation of I mean, he says it
Speaker 1: in the first scene when the only scene where they're
Speaker 1: actually in India, where he's just like, I think you
Speaker 1: can be anything you want to be, or like it's
Speaker 1: just a very like if you wrote out like stock
Speaker 1: nice Daddy Davos character, it would be this, and I thought,
Speaker 1: I thought that was like lovely and gives her a
Speaker 1: lot of agency to to speak on her own behalf
Speaker 1: to like in the when they're in the classroom and
Speaker 1: the teachers like, yeah, you can't wear jewelry, and she
Speaker 1: like looks her dad and he's like, what do you
Speaker 1: want to do kids, because like, yeah, I do insist
Speaker 1: on keeping it. And before then he just he always
Speaker 1: allows her this sort of space to just be herself,
Speaker 1: so that again it's sort of believable that she feels
Speaker 1: sort of like a little adult because she you know,
Speaker 1: she's the one constantly comforting him already, it's like, what
Speaker 1: do you do rememorizing me by heart? She's like, I
Speaker 1: know you by her Daddy, I'm gonna be okay, You've
Speaker 1: got to go to war because she his wife. That's
Speaker 1: get a little promised me. At points, I'm like, yikes,
Speaker 1: maybe dad needs to find a wife. Like she's taking
Speaker 1: on but overall charming. And I don't know if you
Speaker 1: guys are Daddy's girls either, and I certainly amps are
Speaker 1: very tight. But he would never allow me to be
Speaker 1: a princess. He was like, I don't know what any
Speaker 1: of that garbage is, but take that too on time,
Speaker 1: move the lawn like some dishes, and maybe we'll like
Speaker 1: watch a movie after work at the hockey rank, Jamie.
Speaker 1: But it is nice to see you, like a single dad,
Speaker 1: like be able to like connect with his daughter in
Speaker 1: a in a way that we usually don't see in
Speaker 1: movies because usually I'm thinking of like, um, a league
Speaker 1: of their own. We're like the one dad, like the
Speaker 1: single dad raised his daughter like a boy basically because
Speaker 1: he's like I don't know how to do girls stuff.
Speaker 1: So she boyd now I am dad. We don't know
Speaker 1: what to dad dode but yeah, so it's like he's
Speaker 1: like embracing the femininity that she wants to display at
Speaker 1: that time in her life. And he's like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: are our princess, and yeah, but you can be whatever
Speaker 1: you want to be. Yeah. It was really it warmed
Speaker 1: my frigid heart. I thought it was so nice. Does
Speaker 1: anyone have any other thoughts about the movie? I will
Speaker 1: say that in the alleyway, when um we're seeing the
Speaker 1: chimney sweep, there is a cat. That cat has eight nipple?
Speaker 1: Can we also love Daddy Davos to death? But how
Speaker 1: amazing would Freddie Wilina have been in the dead role?
Speaker 1: He would have been. I mean he used British, so
Speaker 1: he's very kind you. I've like, maybe I just want
Speaker 1: to hear him say you're a little princess. Maybe I
Speaker 1: just want that audio clip out there in the world.
Speaker 1: I don't know. He would have been incredible in that role.
Speaker 1: Like genuinely, I hope he was approached and was like, sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm preparing for Spider Man two ten years from now.
Speaker 1: He was like, I need a long time to figure
Speaker 1: out this role. I mean, I have to play Dot.
Speaker 1: And in the same year was that when Like Species
Speaker 1: came out. Okay, this is actually a critical part of
Speaker 1: the show. What was he in What was he doing?
Speaker 1: Maybe he was doing theater, Okay, he was in something
Speaker 1: called Nervous Energy, he was in something called Hideaway, he
Speaker 1: was in something called Scorpion Spring. He was in something
Speaker 1: called dead Man. He was in something called the Perez
Speaker 1: Family Man. He wasn't something called the Steel. He wasn't
Speaker 1: species that year. Yeah, so you know he apparently he
Speaker 1: had tons of ship very busy. My goodness, damn paying
Speaker 1: the bills in nine Molina, so many questions about where
Speaker 1: this Molina of such a god. He's just so handsome.
Speaker 1: I will not deny. And then and then we later
Speaker 1: found out also woke because i'minist icon. Yes, I mean,
Speaker 1: did you see that scary kaleidoscope Vagina? He posted? Loved it,
Speaker 1: hated it, I don't know. It was the ultimate older
Speaker 1: gentleman ally move where you're like, this is actually a
Speaker 1: bit much. But I appreciate where you're coming from seeing
Speaker 1: my Laurence Fishburn obsession, and I really value and appreciate
Speaker 1: your love of Molina. I hope Molina and Fishburn are friends.
Speaker 1: I feel like they're like they're such character actors. I
Speaker 1: just assume all character actors are friends. Why wouldn't they
Speaker 1: be like the same talent bond over it? True, fish Brandon, Melina,
Speaker 1: it's better than most of the candidates we have. We
Speaker 1: have to overlook that Alfa Millina is fully British. Hey,
Speaker 1: speaking of talking about men or not. Does this movie
Speaker 1: pass the backtel tests all over the damn place? It does. Yes,
Speaker 1: many combos, many different conversations. Hard yes on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's write it on our nipple scale five nipples based
Speaker 1: on its representation and portrayal of women. I think I'm
Speaker 1: going to go like three and a half. I feel
Speaker 1: like we have fully thanked when its to nipples at
Speaker 1: this point. Yeah, because there's a lot of good things
Speaker 1: that this movie is doing. You know, it's a very
Speaker 1: female driven story. It shows a young girl like using
Speaker 1: the privilege that she has to empower other people, specifically Becky,
Speaker 1: and that does get into you know, white savior territory.
Speaker 1: And you know there are some like mean girl characters
Speaker 1: who seem to be mean for no reason or like
Speaker 1: their characterization is kind of glossed over. But you have
Speaker 1: enough other different personality types and the other girls that
Speaker 1: it's not at all like, oh, all girls are pitted
Speaker 1: against each other anything like that. So you have like,
Speaker 1: what are several very healthy relationships between girls. So that
Speaker 1: is very nice to see. There are some weird things
Speaker 1: about how Indian culture and people are depicted thing and
Speaker 1: and triple a million thanks to Paula v for uh
Speaker 1: for giving us some contexts for that. She'll be back
Speaker 1: for a dark Night episode Watch Out every Yes, thank
Speaker 1: you so much to her for her insight. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: other little things here and there where you know, there's
Speaker 1: like that fat joke that they didn't need to do
Speaker 1: and then they did it, you know, different things like that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I would say a solid three and a half.
Speaker 1: I'll give one nipple to Guard, I'll give one nipple
Speaker 1: to Amelia, mentioned I'll give my remaining one and a
Speaker 1: half nipples to Becky. Yeah, I'm going to go three
Speaker 1: and a half as well. Uh, for basically all the reasons.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of examples that I think
Speaker 1: we've talked about at this point of things getting close
Speaker 1: and then either petering out at the end, or like
Speaker 1: with Amelia, like you're like, oh, we've got we've got
Speaker 1: a story arc for a fat character and it's like
Speaker 1: but then it's sold out at the last minute, or
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of little examples of that, Like
Speaker 1: there's no excuse adaptation wise that we shouldn't know more
Speaker 1: about Becky and that she shouldn't be like grounded in
Speaker 1: her own story. It would only help literally everything, um,
Speaker 1: everything that Francis Hodgson Burnett put pen to paper on
Speaker 1: in regards to India is cuckoo. And uh, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of bad tropes that play there that again, like
Speaker 1: adaptation wise and this movie, it should be mentioned was
Speaker 1: there there are two writers, one of them as a woman,
Speaker 1: which is you know, good and and never happens, so
Speaker 1: that's positive, but there were there were a lot of
Speaker 1: issues with the source material that could have been improved
Speaker 1: upon in the adaptation that just didn't happen, which is
Speaker 1: disappointing because it is a beautiful movie with a lot
Speaker 1: of great messages and anytime there's like a group of
Speaker 1: girls who are like supporting each other and it's not antagonistic,
Speaker 1: and even when it is, it's resolved, and like it
Speaker 1: just felt it felt very wholesome and lovely and I
Speaker 1: liked it. I like that and I like that there's
Speaker 1: no reason the green, And honestly, just like I had
Speaker 1: such an exhale and I was like, I'm in as
Speaker 1: much as I love picking things to death, what really
Speaker 1: if that there was no reason for the green? I
Speaker 1: would have explained it nothing, you know, it would have
Speaker 1: been terrible in the esplanation other than I just wanted
Speaker 1: it that way. You would have been like, I don't
Speaker 1: need any of this, like David and Dvy explaining things
Speaker 1: after game of throws, like that's not why any of
Speaker 1: the things happened. And if it is, I'm so disappointed
Speaker 1: and just there. It's just what it is. And so
Speaker 1: to all you wee blye bloggers out there fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: you were wrong. It's about fucking nothing. So I love
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, three and a half nips. I'll give
Speaker 1: two to Becky, one to Amelia, and then I'll give
Speaker 1: the last half to Alfonso's son, a little sweep set.
Speaker 1: I will also go through and a half because it
Speaker 1: just feels right. It's just it's appropriate. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: give all of mine to Becky, literally, all the love
Speaker 1: and joy. I've never seen a person of color in
Speaker 1: a historical drama before this. I remember that I was young,
Speaker 1: and then when I did, it was so often slavery.
Speaker 1: Amasad came out, and long after this saw that theaters horrifying,
Speaker 1: really triggering experience. Don't take your eight year old to
Speaker 1: see it, um, and she just so so full of
Speaker 1: love and trying and just a desire to make a connection.
Speaker 1: And girl I could identify many many A year later
Speaker 1: in seven, when I started my first grade year, it
Speaker 1: was horrible. Um, but Becky and depictions of Becky we're great.
Speaker 1: And I also want to thank you guys because I
Speaker 1: always get on my dad about watching old movies, but like,
Speaker 1: doesn't this bother you? Look at these racist depictions, like
Speaker 1: these are the movies of my childhood. How dare you
Speaker 1: try to rip them away? And I'm like old man,
Speaker 1: so stupid defending this movie like it's my life, right,
Speaker 1: because no, it's fine, everything's cool, like closs over it
Speaker 1: to the good stuff. Um. And so you know now
Speaker 1: we're close, sir. Yeah, I understand his perspective. So yeah,
Speaker 1: oh well, thank you so much for joining us. And
Speaker 1: wherein Yes, go to Twitter. I live there at least
Speaker 1: sixteen hours a day. You'll be able to contact me
Speaker 1: on Twitter's at Joel Monique or um. If you're so inclined,
Speaker 1: you could go to I G. I'm trying to Instagram
Speaker 1: story more. I don't. It's not intuitive for me, but
Speaker 1: that's Joel underscore. Bonique also visit me over at paste
Speaker 1: am Pajaibo, where I do the weekly content, the movies
Speaker 1: and the TV's and all the fun stuff. Awesome, amazing.
Speaker 1: You can follow the Bechtel Cast on social media at
Speaker 1: Bechtel Cast. You can subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon
Speaker 1: gets you to bonus episodes every month, including the entire
Speaker 1: backlog of all of the episodes we've recorded already. It's
Speaker 1: over forty episodes at this point. So if you like
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Speaker 1: I mean Caitlin hanging out her house, that's the place
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Speaker 1: all princesses. Yes, interpret as you will.