Speaker 1: On the Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef and best
Speaker 1: start changing it with the bec Del Cast. Hey, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: Hey Jamie. So we're about to graduate from high school, right,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to trying to like plan the next phase.
Speaker 1: Can I just like pitch you what my ideas and
Speaker 1: then let me know what your plans are? Please? Okay?
Speaker 1: My plans are to graduate from high school, moved to Europe,
Speaker 1: Mary Alfred Molina, and then die. What are your plans? Oh? Um?
Speaker 1: I was thinking I would just like accept my fate
Speaker 1: as a vampire slayer and kill a bunch of vampires.
Speaker 1: Because you're not like other girls? I know? Are you?
Speaker 1: I am? I am exactly like other girls. Isn't that wild?
Speaker 1: That that's that becomes the truck question of the movie? Um,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus,
Speaker 1: my name is Caitlin Durante, and this is our show
Speaker 1: in which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens,
Speaker 1: using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point now, Jamie, Yes,
Speaker 1: whatever is the Bechtel test, Well, i'll tell you it's
Speaker 1: and and I we told Alfred Molina this, so it's
Speaker 1: good that we're all like my future husband, Alfred Molina,
Speaker 1: who famously hates men's rights activists, as he said on
Speaker 1: our show. Absolutely he's got to come back, okay the
Speaker 1: Bechdel test, we're and we're okay. So that's an example
Speaker 1: of something that does not pass the Vitel test because
Speaker 1: the version that we use, uh, it's a media metric
Speaker 1: created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel
Speaker 1: Wallace Test. Lots of different versions of it. The version
Speaker 1: that we use requires that two people of a marginalized
Speaker 1: gender with names speak to each other about something other
Speaker 1: than a man for more than two lines of dialogue,
Speaker 1: and the dialogue exchange should have some sort of meaning
Speaker 1: and not just an offhand like would you like spaghetti? No,
Speaker 1: although unless it's very plot spaghetti, and it's very important,
Speaker 1: sometimes there's plot spaghetti. What's an example of plot spaghetti?
Speaker 1: Huh oh? Actually maybe in another vampire movie, which the
Speaker 1: name of it is Escaping Me right now, but it's
Speaker 1: the one that key for Sutherland is in not Donald Sutherland.
Speaker 1: What the hell movie am I thinking of The Lost Boys?
Speaker 1: The Lost Boy? Yes? Sorry, I was like The Lost Boys.
Speaker 1: There's plot spaghetti in that movie. I've never seen it. Well,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it plots spaghetti necessarily, or it might
Speaker 1: not even be spaghetti. But there's a scene where there's
Speaker 1: like some noodle dish and then they're like feeding it
Speaker 1: to humans and then they're like just kidding, its worms
Speaker 1: or something iconic, and then they're like they use their
Speaker 1: vampire powers to turn the spaghetti into worms. I might
Speaker 1: be completely remember that the name of the movie. I have, Look,
Speaker 1: it's been a minute. My brain works in mysterious ways.
Speaker 1: Move over, Mom's spaghetti plot. Spaghetti has entered the chat. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that we got that. I think that that
Speaker 1: was a very perfect way to introduce our Absolutely, yes,
Speaker 1: let's get her in the mix. She is the senior
Speaker 1: vice president of Development at Crypt TV. She is a
Speaker 1: co executive producer on Peacock's The Girl in the Woods.
Speaker 1: It's Jasmine Johnson. Thank you guys for having me, Thanks
Speaker 1: for being here. I'm always like to talk about Buffy,
Speaker 1: the Vampires, are the movie in particular, Yes, So what
Speaker 1: is your relationship and history with the movie the franchise
Speaker 1: in general? Tell us everything? Yeah, you know, Um, it's
Speaker 1: really interesting because in my line of work, my line
Speaker 1: of work being like being a producer and a development executive,
Speaker 1: where I have to meet with a lot of writers
Speaker 1: and a lot of directors, specifically those who like genre
Speaker 1: because that's what I produce. I would say, like a
Speaker 1: third of the time, I always have people who will
Speaker 1: cite Buffy as such a big inspiration to them, and
Speaker 1: when they cite it, they're talking about the TV show, always, always,
Speaker 1: always talking about the TV show. And I think I
Speaker 1: might be maybe the rare person who when I say
Speaker 1: I was obsessed with Buffy as a kid, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the movie, not the show. I've seen like a
Speaker 1: season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the TV show, but
Speaker 1: the movie was what I watched Pete as a kid
Speaker 1: over and over and over, so much so that I
Speaker 1: was convinced, And do not laugh at me, because it
Speaker 1: still may be true, but I was convinced that I
Speaker 1: was in line to be the Slayer because I have
Speaker 1: a similar birthmark to the one that it tells Buffy
Speaker 1: that she has uh and I just knew. I just
Speaker 1: knew that I was supposed to be one of the
Speaker 1: slayers of the vampires. I hate to tell you guys,
Speaker 1: it didn't happen. But yet this was so short, you
Speaker 1: know yet maybe maybe yet. I feel like my my
Speaker 1: hey day is sort of behind me at this point
Speaker 1: as far as being able to like fight and kill
Speaker 1: and I don't know, takedown vampires. But you never know,
Speaker 1: you never know. It's very like sixteenth birthday. Like I
Speaker 1: remember the pilot episode of Sabrina the Teenage which she
Speaker 1: I think she woke up on her sixteenth birthday levitating
Speaker 1: above the bed, and that was the thing that I
Speaker 1: was like, absly, that's going to happen the morning of
Speaker 1: my sixteenth birthday. I will be floating. I just really
Speaker 1: want the show or movie that's about like you turn
Speaker 1: forty and then realize you have magical monster slaying powers me.
Speaker 1: I guess I could. Yeah, that's the next thing that
Speaker 1: I want to be responsible for making. Oh that is
Speaker 1: such a good idea. That would actually be amazing because
Speaker 1: everything is like sixteen, seventeen eighteen, But like what happens
Speaker 1: when you're like me and I'm thirty three, and I
Speaker 1: have no powers to look forward to coming into its
Speaker 1: kind of kind of sex a little bit. It's pretty
Speaker 1: agest the fact that, Yeah, like so much media I
Speaker 1: mean in general revolves around young people like thirty and younger,
Speaker 1: and it's like, what about the people I feel like
Speaker 1: I come of age every five years, Like I have
Speaker 1: another coming of age like every few years, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what what coming of age thing am I going to
Speaker 1: have when I'm fifty? Like that should be a story
Speaker 1: for that. I mean, that's so true. I mean, I
Speaker 1: I always use the term I say that I love
Speaker 1: coming of age content, and people always equate that with
Speaker 1: like y A meaning you're in your teens or like
Speaker 1: your young adults, and I always have to correct them
Speaker 1: and say, when I see coming of age, I'm not
Speaker 1: necessarily talking about like teenagers. Obviously you do come of
Speaker 1: age at that age, but you never like truly stopped
Speaker 1: coming of age. And I think, um, you know, having
Speaker 1: more things that explore what that looks like when you're
Speaker 1: past whatever the ages that media has deemed as the
Speaker 1: one that is the most important, I think should be
Speaker 1: done more, you know, Like it's it's just as important. Totally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we just got a pitch together in a space. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and hey, I heard that you're a development executive, so
Speaker 1: I am. I am anyway, that's all. That's all to say.
Speaker 1: I was convinced I was going to be the next Layer.
Speaker 1: It didn't happen. But maybe in the real world you
Speaker 1: can be four and be a Slayer. So or maybe
Speaker 1: the slayer before me killed all the vampires one of them.
Speaker 1: That could be possible. Hard to say, Jamie. What's your
Speaker 1: relationship with the Buffy franchise? Extremely limited? I think I've
Speaker 1: said this this might have been on Maiturion episode. But
Speaker 1: I had like a very bizarre experience with the Buffy
Speaker 1: series where like my first day of college, there was
Speaker 1: a girl who like locked me in her dorm room
Speaker 1: and made me watch ten episodes in a row, and
Speaker 1: it was like, I think, well intentioned, but felt like
Speaker 1: a hostage situation, and I just the whole experience left
Speaker 1: a bad taste of my mouth towards Buffy culture. So
Speaker 1: because it was just like I was like, God, what
Speaker 1: a stressful thing to happen on your first day of anyways,
Speaker 1: So I have very limited experience with it. I knew
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting going into preparing for this
Speaker 1: episode only knowing like the impression I had was that
Speaker 1: fans of Feed the TV series hate this movie, and
Speaker 1: I was curious. I was like, I wonder why, Like,
Speaker 1: I've definitely seen ten episodes of Buffy under Duress, so
Speaker 1: I get that the tone of the shell um, but I,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's dated in a lot of aspects.
Speaker 1: But I really thought the movie was perfectly fine and
Speaker 1: everyone was being a baby about it, like it's very
Speaker 1: different from the show. But if there's anything that that
Speaker 1: Caitlin and I were texting about this before we started recording, uh,
Speaker 1: there's anything that we've learned on this show in the
Speaker 1: past month, because we also covered Alien Resurrection another Weeden script,
Speaker 1: it's that Josh Weeden loves to have a tantrum when
Speaker 1: he doesn't have complete creative control over something, and he'll
Speaker 1: like shit talk anything that he didn't have a million,
Speaker 1: which is like whatever that bears out in his personal
Speaker 1: behavior too, but like any time he doesn't have complete
Speaker 1: creative control, he's like, that was the worst thing that
Speaker 1: ever happened, and pee pee poo poo, and it's like, dude,
Speaker 1: the movie is like pretty good. I really enjoyed it
Speaker 1: so good. It's fun. Uh, Caitlyn, what's your history with Buffy?
Speaker 1: So I am admittedly a fan of the show, although
Speaker 1: I would I have not engaged with it in many years.
Speaker 1: I binged, all is it seven seasons? Somewhere around like
Speaker 1: twenty twelve. I want to say, I watched it with
Speaker 1: my best friend j T, who was always a big
Speaker 1: fan of the show. Then I watched a little bit
Speaker 1: of the spinoff show Angel, I read some of the comics.
Speaker 1: I at some point, I think after I saw the series,
Speaker 1: I went and watched the movie. I don't remember if
Speaker 1: I watched the movie before or after. I think it
Speaker 1: was after the series, which probably explained why I didn't
Speaker 1: like it as much as the series, because I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is different and blah blah blah, and then going
Speaker 1: back and rewatching the movie for this episode, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I was hard on the movie back then. It's not
Speaker 1: as bad as I thought, or it's not even like
Speaker 1: bad at all, although I would say the third act
Speaker 1: gets a little it's kind of messy at the edge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it gets a little flimsy. I could have stood to
Speaker 1: have maybe like a more epic, less weirdly sexually charged.
Speaker 1: I was just like, dude, pee wee is a vampire
Speaker 1: who like jumps on the hood of a car. I
Speaker 1: was like, Yeah, how can you feel dislike this movie?
Speaker 1: That's so um Yeah, I was. I was too hard
Speaker 1: on the movie the first time I saw it. I
Speaker 1: generally enjoyed it watching it back this time to prep
Speaker 1: for the episode. And that's my general history with Buffy.
Speaker 1: Should we dive into the recap of the movie, let's
Speaker 1: do it, and Jasmine feel free to jump in whatever. Yes, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So we open on a quick scene in the dark Ages.
Speaker 1: We see a young woman fighting some vampires and we
Speaker 1: get some voice over about vampires and vampire slayers. Then
Speaker 1: we cut to nineteen nineties southern California. The light ages
Speaker 1: very funny. Um. We meet Buffy played by Christy Swanson,
Speaker 1: who is doing a cheer routine with her fellow cheerleaders.
Speaker 1: Then she goes to the mall with three of her
Speaker 1: friends who I do not know what those characters names are,
Speaker 1: because we did they happy, we don't really love. I
Speaker 1: think I know one's name is Jenny. I remember that
Speaker 1: because I think I don't know which I think it
Speaker 1: was the one with the curly here because I remember
Speaker 1: Jenny not to spoil the end, but the dance. But
Speaker 1: outside of that, I'm not sure. Did they even give
Speaker 1: those characters names barely? I think so. Hillary Swank is
Speaker 1: one of the friends, and she I think it's Kimberly. Yes, okay, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: But then there's a third one who in fact, like
Speaker 1: the one black friend. What's her name? What's her name?
Speaker 1: I don't know. We don't know anything about her, Okay,
Speaker 1: we because I kept like waiting for waiting to find
Speaker 1: out what her name is. I kept waiting for those
Speaker 1: characters in general to become important relevant to the story,
Speaker 1: and they never like, uh that was That was one
Speaker 1: of the things where I'm like, Buffy needs like and
Speaker 1: I know that that's a huge part of this show,
Speaker 1: is like Buffy is like connection with her like crew
Speaker 1: or other women and yeah, movie Buffy, no dice in
Speaker 1: that department. Yeah, it's kind of a bummer. Um. It's
Speaker 1: one of the things that I also I didn't realize
Speaker 1: like in watching it as a kid, but it had
Speaker 1: been maybe like fifteen years since I saw the movie
Speaker 1: and then rewatched, and I sort of hate the idea
Speaker 1: that like Buffy has to be such a lone fighter,
Speaker 1: Like I think that that messaging that you know your
Speaker 1: friends are not going to support you and you have
Speaker 1: to sort of give up everything in order to save
Speaker 1: the world is not quite right. And I understand that
Speaker 1: the show didn't go that route. And if I was
Speaker 1: going to remake this movie in the day and age,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do that. Like I wouldn't her friends can, like,
Speaker 1: they can all start that way, and you can have
Speaker 1: some who maybe don't believe in vampires or don't support Buffy,
Speaker 1: But I don't think that every single person in her
Speaker 1: friends group needed to be so terrible all the way
Speaker 1: through the way. It almost felt like another way of
Speaker 1: like because it's like kind of goofy and funny to
Speaker 1: be but it's you know, definitely a thing where it
Speaker 1: becomes a big part of the movie as it goes
Speaker 1: on to telegraph that Buffy is not like other girls,
Speaker 1: and it seems like that's how they demonstrate it by
Speaker 1: making other girls mean and vapid and awful, which is
Speaker 1: like that that's not the move, right, Yeah, we can
Speaker 1: talk about that more because there's a lot to cover
Speaker 1: their Okay, So Buffy has friends and they go shopping
Speaker 1: and they do cheerleading together, and at the mall, they
Speaker 1: have a brief encounter with Donald Sutherland, who is giving
Speaker 1: off some weird vibes. He's wearing a trench coat, like
Speaker 1: he's just staring at them, not saying anything. So they
Speaker 1: briefly encounter him, but then they go about their day
Speaker 1: and head to the movies. A couple of their classmates
Speaker 1: are there. Pike played by Luke Perry and Benny played
Speaker 1: by David Arquette are there at the movie theater and
Speaker 1: they're like these like burnout quote unquote loser types. And
Speaker 1: then that night Buffy links up with her basketball star
Speaker 1: boyfriend Jeffrey. Meanwhile, one of Jeffrey's friends is walking through
Speaker 1: a park and crosses paths with Paul ol Rubens, who
Speaker 1: is looking very creepy and it seems like he is
Speaker 1: probably a vampire. I love he's having so much fun
Speaker 1: in this movie. I love him in this movie. He's great,
Speaker 1: I think because would have like overlapped with pee weee
Speaker 1: to like I don't know, not to whatever. This is
Speaker 1: a feminist podcast, so I'm not going to just hand
Speaker 1: it to Paul Rubens for an hour. But it is like,
Speaker 1: I feel like he's like underrated in like how versatile
Speaker 1: he is because he's so associated with Pee wee. He's
Speaker 1: got range. He certainly I'm a scene stealer in this movie.
Speaker 1: I can't wait till we get to his death scene.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, hot five best deaths. It's so good.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh. Then we cut to a news report about
Speaker 1: a bunch of people having been attacked and dying from
Speaker 1: severe neck wounds. Then Buffy has a dream about the
Speaker 1: vampire slayer who we saw briefly at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the movie, who I think is also played by Christie Swanson. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like her in a wig. That was a confusing
Speaker 1: part of the Lord to Be. It was like the
Speaker 1: lure is kind of messy when I thought about it,
Speaker 1: where I was like, okay, so there's always been slayers,
Speaker 1: but they all seemed to be Christie Swanson reincarnated over
Speaker 1: and over. Question marks. See that I've gotten in debates
Speaker 1: about this as a child, because hit it, you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of it kind of sucks a little bit
Speaker 1: because as a kid, you want to play like as
Speaker 1: your favorite characters, Like we want to play power Rangers.
Speaker 1: You want to play whatever, and so playing Buffy is
Speaker 1: not a game. But if I wanted to play Buffy,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be Buffy. But it's the early nineties
Speaker 1: and kids would tell me like, you can't be Buffy
Speaker 1: because you don't like Buffy. Or even if if I
Speaker 1: was playing Power Rangers, you can't be the pink Ranger.
Speaker 1: You have to be the yellow one because the yellow
Speaker 1: one is black. And I'm like, shut up, I will
Speaker 1: be who I want to be. But in diving into
Speaker 1: the lore, as I was watching this movie, I had
Speaker 1: flashbacks to being a kid and being told I couldn't
Speaker 1: be Buffy because this is how Buffy looks, and I
Speaker 1: was listening to what Buffy was saying. Um. And this
Speaker 1: comes a little bit later when Mark says like, have
Speaker 1: you been having these dreams? And she's like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I was a handmading maiden or something. And she's also
Speaker 1: like I was a slave in Virginia And I picked
Speaker 1: up on that like so quickly. And again this may
Speaker 1: just be my own personal history with Buffy and just
Speaker 1: growing up in a society that I wanted to marginalize
Speaker 1: me and tell me I could only be but a
Speaker 1: certain character. But I was like, there's no way that
Speaker 1: like Buffy. If she looked like Buffy would have been
Speaker 1: a slave girl in Virginia. So I believe, and I'm
Speaker 1: sorry to go on such a deep tante point, but
Speaker 1: this is important to me, only me, maybe, but it's important.
Speaker 1: I believe that Buffy was just when she was dreaming,
Speaker 1: she was putting herself in the situations of these girls.
Speaker 1: I don't think it was actually the slayer looked exactly
Speaker 1: like Buffy every single time. I just think that she
Speaker 1: was dreaming and putting herself in the shoes of all
Speaker 1: of these I'm not even sure if it was only
Speaker 1: um women, who knows, anyone could be a Slayer, but
Speaker 1: so I think any one of us could have been
Speaker 1: a Slayer, including me. Know. That's a very good point though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that makes sense that like she would just insert
Speaker 1: herself into her own dreams. But yeah, no, that's a
Speaker 1: really good point. I hadn't thought about that sequence in
Speaker 1: context of because the other the only other one you
Speaker 1: see as her in a wig. That totally makes sense. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because in the show you see like slayers of by
Speaker 1: gone days, and I if I'm remembering correct, there's one
Speaker 1: who is like a Slayer in the nineteen seventies, who
Speaker 1: is a black woman in the show who like pops
Speaker 1: up now and then throughout the series. So the Slayer
Speaker 1: is not just Christie Swanson or Sarah Michelle Geller. Um. Okay.
Speaker 1: So during this dream though, we see this vampire Loathos
Speaker 1: played by Rutger Howard, and he seems to be like
Speaker 1: the big bad vampire in charge. Then we cut back
Speaker 1: to the present where Paul Rubens vampire tells his master,
Speaker 1: presumably Loathos, that he is building an army. Uh. Then
Speaker 1: the next night, Buffy and her friends go out to
Speaker 1: plan their upcoming senior dance. A drunk Pike and Benny
Speaker 1: are there. They all give each other a hard time.
Speaker 1: Then the guys leave and then Benny gets bitten by
Speaker 1: Paul Rubens. Pike doesn't notice because he's passed out for
Speaker 1: being so drunk. And then Donald Sutherland shows up and
Speaker 1: takes Pike with him. Then Donald Sutherland ak Merrick. It
Speaker 1: takes him a while for us to know what his
Speaker 1: name and his name and this is like Donald Sutherland,
Speaker 1: They're not great with names. Donald Sutherland in a trench
Speaker 1: cut three. Donald Sutherlands in a trench cat so he
Speaker 1: is Merrick. He pays a visit to Buffy and tells
Speaker 1: her that her birthright, her like destiny, is to be
Speaker 1: a vampire slayer and that he is her watcher, and
Speaker 1: she's like, what are you even talking about? So then
Speaker 1: he takes her to a graveyard to show her and
Speaker 1: prove to her you know that she is in fact
Speaker 1: the slayer. A couple of vampires come out of the
Speaker 1: graves and Buffy is able to kill them with relative ease.
Speaker 1: She seems to be a natural at this. Then we
Speaker 1: cut back to Pike and Ben Benny shows up and
Speaker 1: he is a vampire. Now he wants Pike to invite
Speaker 1: him in he's floating. Pike is like, what the hell, dude,
Speaker 1: get away from me. I don't want any part of
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing. Yeah. Meanwhile, Lothos, the big bad vampire,
Speaker 1: is getting more and more powerful. Buffy, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: is not too sure about this whole being a vampire
Speaker 1: slayer thing. She just wants to be a normal teenager
Speaker 1: and go to cheerleading practice. But Marek shows up again
Speaker 1: and he proves that she is the true slayer by
Speaker 1: throwing a knife at her head, big swing, really really
Speaker 1: a risk, but she catches it. What would he have
Speaker 1: done if that went straight through her forehead? Right? Like, congratulations,
Speaker 1: you just killed the child. I wonder how many like
Speaker 1: teen girls he has accidentally killed because he's like, you're
Speaker 1: probably the Slayer. Let me just test this out, and
Speaker 1: then a knife through her skull. You know, I never
Speaker 1: thought about that. That's pretty dark. I actually don't feel
Speaker 1: like Marek is a great trainer. We can talk about
Speaker 1: that anymore, maybe later. So I do now that you
Speaker 1: say that, I feel like he probably went through like
Speaker 1: at least three or four girls before he finally got
Speaker 1: to the right one with Buffy. Dark because his gauge
Speaker 1: also isn't that great. Because he sees Buffy doing some
Speaker 1: gymnastics and he's like, wow, you're a gymnast. You must
Speaker 1: be the Slayer. And it's like the pretty basic gymnastics too.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't do any gymnastics, so none of
Speaker 1: it is like super basic. But she's doing a couple
Speaker 1: of cart wheels and like a backhand spring or something.
Speaker 1: It's not like she's doing Olympic levels of gymnastics, but
Speaker 1: still she's I guess that makes her quality find to
Speaker 1: be the best slayer, right, like, uh, dude, your criteria
Speaker 1: seems to be a bit off. Um. But he was right.
Speaker 1: She is the slayer because she catches the knife and
Speaker 1: he's like, only the true slayer could have done that,
Speaker 1: and she's like, okay, I guess I am the slayer.
Speaker 1: So then she starts training so that she can be
Speaker 1: fully prepared to take on vampires, and then we get
Speaker 1: a fun training montage. We see Buffy slay her first vampire.
Speaker 1: I guess not her first because she slayed some in
Speaker 1: the graveyard, but like her first one is like the
Speaker 1: official slayer. Meanwhile, other vampires, including Paul Rubens vampire, attack
Speaker 1: Pike in his van, but Buffy and Marek show up
Speaker 1: and save him, and then Buffy and Pike have a
Speaker 1: conversation about like, oh wow, he's so surprised that she
Speaker 1: kills vampires. He thought that she was like just like
Speaker 1: the other girl, Arles or whatever. Um, And there's also
Speaker 1: some romantic tension in the air between them. Buffy again
Speaker 1: wants to continue to keep up her normal life with
Speaker 1: her friends and cheerleading, so one night, when she's cheering
Speaker 1: at a basketball game, one of the players Grueler is
Speaker 1: now a vampire, so she chases him out of the
Speaker 1: game and fights him. Pike shows up to help, and
Speaker 1: then Lothos shows up, and there's a weird interaction between
Speaker 1: him and Buffy where he's like, I'm waiting for you
Speaker 1: to ripen. Yeah, and so we'll talk all about that,
Speaker 1: because yeah, the last thing you want to hear someone
Speaker 1: say to a young woman is exactly that. So or
Speaker 1: a young person at all, Like, yes, it's just like getaway,
Speaker 1: get away, And then Lothos kills Merrick very easily, barely tries.
Speaker 1: It is every time Lothos is on screen, I'm just like,
Speaker 1: what is happening? What is he doing? How? Why is
Speaker 1: anyone reacting the way they're reacting. I find it all
Speaker 1: very confusing. But he so he kills Mark and then
Speaker 1: just leaves, so Buffy is still safe. She's sad over
Speaker 1: the death of Merrick. She also just feels in way
Speaker 1: over her head, and then she and Pike have an
Speaker 1: argument because she's like, I can't handle this. I just
Speaker 1: want to go to the senior dance and he's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I thought you wanted to do important things like kill vampires,
Speaker 1: and then he drives off on his motorcycle. Um So,
Speaker 1: then Buffy goes to the senior dance. Her boyfriend Jeffrey
Speaker 1: dumps her there, which is like who cares, right, We're
Speaker 1: lucky cares because she's like, oh, yeah, here's the other
Speaker 1: guy that I'm a sort of already dating. Yes, because
Speaker 1: Pike shows up after all, and then he and Buffy kiss,
Speaker 1: but then a bunch of vampires invade the dance and
Speaker 1: Buffy fights them. Then she heads off to face Lothos.
Speaker 1: She gets there, she kills Paul Rubens, where again, his
Speaker 1: death scene is just, I would say, totally inconsistent with
Speaker 1: the other things that are happening in this moment in
Speaker 1: the movie, very long and drawn out, extremely campy. But
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want it any other way. You can't have
Speaker 1: it any other way. Um So, then Lothos is about
Speaker 1: to bite Buffy, but then she fights back, she gets away.
Speaker 1: She returns to the dance where her classmates have killed
Speaker 1: a bunch of vampires, and then Lothos bursts in again
Speaker 1: and Buffy finally kills him, and then she and Pike
Speaker 1: ride off on his motorcycle. That's the end of the movie.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and then we'll come right
Speaker 1: back and we are back, all right. Where shall we begin, Jasmine,
Speaker 1: is there anywhere in particular that, like, was there anything
Speaker 1: that stood out to you on this rewatch that you
Speaker 1: want to talk about in particular? Um uh? Maybe too
Speaker 1: much for me to be able to like center my
Speaker 1: brain where to start. So why don't you guys pick something?
Speaker 1: And I'm sure I will have a lot to say. Sure,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to start with a little bit of
Speaker 1: like context on the movie and get through kind of
Speaker 1: the jos Sweden of it all because I'm always trying
Speaker 1: to get in and out there because I feel like
Speaker 1: we've been talking about him too much on the show
Speaker 1: recently and I'm I'm sick of it. Um Okay, So
Speaker 1: this movie was written by Josh Weeden. The characters are
Speaker 1: his creation, and then he goes on to do the
Speaker 1: TV show later. It's also directed. I feel like it's
Speaker 1: not discussed enough. This movie is directed by a woman,
Speaker 1: fran Rubel kuzy Uh and she's I don't know she
Speaker 1: she's been a director of various romps over the course
Speaker 1: of her career. I think that it's interesting, Like the
Speaker 1: main takeaway, I don't know like listeners of the show
Speaker 1: will know jos Sweden bothers me. I don't like him,
Speaker 1: and I think it is so interesting how he has
Speaker 1: kind of managed to shape the entire narrative around this
Speaker 1: movie and in the process whatever a writer who was
Speaker 1: really tooting his own horn for being Mr Feminist for
Speaker 1: a while, like repeatedly dumped on the woman who directed
Speaker 1: this movie and kind of blamed her and Donald Sutherland
Speaker 1: for the reason that it didn't turn out the exact
Speaker 1: way that he wanted it, as if like whatever, he's
Speaker 1: like screenwriting nepotism. He should know that when you've write
Speaker 1: a script, it's not going to appear word for word
Speaker 1: on the fucking screen, you baby. Anyways, So, but but
Speaker 1: he's such a feminist. Yeah google google that, Um whatever, Okay, So, uh,
Speaker 1: I'm like having a hot flash now. It's upsetting. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really upsetting because for a long time, like you said,
Speaker 1: he was sort of like the voice of I don't know,
Speaker 1: but you're right, women, like kind of like women in
Speaker 1: genre like badass women. I don't It just is kind
Speaker 1: of a bit. Uh. It's so rough when you think
Speaker 1: about it, it just it makes you there's so many
Speaker 1: things that we did wrong in the past. Um, but
Speaker 1: allowing that to sort of be the voice of of
Speaker 1: badass women is maybe one of them. But it shows
Speaker 1: inspire a lot of writers. But now we do have
Speaker 1: to sort of contend with what does that mean to
Speaker 1: have someone like that have shaped such an influential female character.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a messy topic, um, and it seems
Speaker 1: like you guys are sick of talking about it. So
Speaker 1: just in the context of him specifically, he's just been
Speaker 1: coming up a bunch um. But yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess the long and short of it there is that
Speaker 1: he in multiple interviews, has said that Donald Sutherland was
Speaker 1: very difficult than the set he was writing rewriting his
Speaker 1: own lines, which I do fully believe. It's there's like
Speaker 1: so many stories about Donald Sutherland being a pain in
Speaker 1: the as to work with. Fine, I'll concede at that point.
Speaker 1: But he he also was like, oh and this director
Speaker 1: was so like weak willed and she would let Donald
Speaker 1: Sutherland kind of walk all over her. And I'm just like,
Speaker 1: do you hear yourself? In any case, I think it
Speaker 1: is interesting that you know, in retrospect, Josh Weeden kind
Speaker 1: of actively turned his own fan base against this movie,
Speaker 1: and I think that's why people don't really critically engage
Speaker 1: with it. But there's, uh, there's quite a bit going on. Yeah, yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: starting with I mean, just the kind of basic idea
Speaker 1: of this being a movie that centers a a woman
Speaker 1: is like the hero, like the ass kicking like action
Speaker 1: star of the movie, which like a lot of movies
Speaker 1: of this genre or this type don't do. This is
Speaker 1: a pretty male heavy thing, as is the idea of
Speaker 1: like kind of the hero's journey chosen one narrative that
Speaker 1: is something that women and girls like usually don't get
Speaker 1: to be the chosen one in most stories. This is
Speaker 1: like a pretty male centric idea, and so it's just
Speaker 1: like very cool to have this movie that, as simple
Speaker 1: as it might seem, and like, like you mentioned, Jasmine
Speaker 1: was like a very empowering thing for you to watch,
Speaker 1: Like to be able to like see this woman and
Speaker 1: watch her kicking ass and have this like chosen one
Speaker 1: narrative be about a teen girl, Like that's an empowering
Speaker 1: thing for you know, the target audience of this movie
Speaker 1: being like teens and you know, young people generally, I imagine.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean I think that's just like a
Speaker 1: a cool thing in general. Yeah, the movie has things
Speaker 1: to discuss, but the but the I mean, like the
Speaker 1: action scenes are fucking cool and like funny and dynamic,
Speaker 1: and she's in control, like I was really worried about
Speaker 1: at the end. I was like, oh, no, please don't
Speaker 1: say that, you know. I feel like it's so we
Speaker 1: very often see in this kind of this specific era
Speaker 1: of when women are fighting or even when they're the hero,
Speaker 1: they're kind of like tossed out of the climax scene
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, now you will be saved. And
Speaker 1: this happens in another vampire movie with Twilight, where Bella
Speaker 1: Swan is the protagonist of that franchise, and yet in
Speaker 1: the first movie she's just like rendered unconscious almost immediately
Speaker 1: during the climax and then like doesn't get to do anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then like the other example, I always go to
Speaker 1: his like Kristen Kirsten, Sorry, it was getting like the
Speaker 1: oh the Christians and the Kirsten movie stars Kirsten Dunce
Speaker 1: like caught in a just like held on the side
Speaker 1: of the scene in a spider web for the entire
Speaker 1: climax of Spiderman too. Um, you're just like, okay, so
Speaker 1: you're not invited to proticit like, but Buffy remains in
Speaker 1: control of basically all of the action. And it's really
Speaker 1: I thought Christie Swanton did a really good job. She's
Speaker 1: I thought so too. I also really loved like, at
Speaker 1: the very end, you have you have Pike, and I
Speaker 1: appreciated the Pike was the damsel here. You know, Pike
Speaker 1: always fainted. There was even one time I think where
Speaker 1: I heard him saying like, at least I did faint
Speaker 1: this time. And you get to the very end and
Speaker 1: Buffy has saved the day. I mean, Pike didn't really
Speaker 1: do much. I don't really know what he did, uh,
Speaker 1: But he looks up and he's like, oh, did I
Speaker 1: do all this? And she's like, no, no, you absolutely
Speaker 1: did not. And he's like, yeah, yeah, he did all this,
Speaker 1: and it's it is totally fine with that. I don't
Speaker 1: I never felt like he felt like his masculinity was
Speaker 1: threatened in any way, not that it should have been,
Speaker 1: but this is the early nineties we're talking about, um,
Speaker 1: and I just really think that, like, as a young
Speaker 1: girl watching this, I didn't realize this obviously at the time,
Speaker 1: but I internalized a lot of the good There's there's
Speaker 1: some rough stuff we'll talk about that, but a lot
Speaker 1: of the good things. The main thing being watching this
Speaker 1: woman like really like you said, take over, take ownership,
Speaker 1: kick butt, and like come out and on top, and
Speaker 1: she is She's the one. No one else does this
Speaker 1: but her. She saves the world basically. Um. I think
Speaker 1: it was really informative, especially now as I'm getting into making,
Speaker 1: you know, being able to help make my own content,
Speaker 1: the kind of things that I value and the kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff that I want to make. I really do
Speaker 1: think that if I think about it, I can trace
Speaker 1: it back to very early on, like watching and loving
Speaker 1: Buffy as a kid. You just never know like what
Speaker 1: someone's going to watch and how it's going to influence them,
Speaker 1: which is why I think that it's really important like
Speaker 1: what we put out there, what we put on on
Speaker 1: our screens, um, because you just you just don't know that.
Speaker 1: And with that romantic subplot with Pike, as you said,
Speaker 1: there's like I mean, it starts out it's it's like
Speaker 1: one of those enemies to lovers dynamics, which is like,
Speaker 1: which I kind of I do. I'm a sucker for that. Um.
Speaker 1: But like we mentioned, like their dynamic is mostly this
Speaker 1: like almost like gender flipped, because we're so used to
Speaker 1: seeing it the other way, where you know, we're used
Speaker 1: to seeing a man be the fighter, the protector, the
Speaker 1: action hero and his love interest a woman because everything
Speaker 1: is hetero in movies. Um that she's the damsel. She's
Speaker 1: the one who has to be saved. She's the one
Speaker 1: who's not really participating in any of the action in
Speaker 1: this movie, though, it's like completely flipped where he does
Speaker 1: help out sometimes and almost he he assumes this role
Speaker 1: is almost like her sidekick. I would say, I think
Speaker 1: he kind of gets in the way a little bit more,
Speaker 1: which like is funny and like, yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just I appreciated that where there's yeah, various scenes
Speaker 1: where he like he doesn't fight at all and then
Speaker 1: he instead fates or he does like help out a
Speaker 1: little bit, but it's still buffy like taking the reins
Speaker 1: and like getting ship mostly done. And then like you said,
Speaker 1: like at the end, like he acknowledges that he hasn't
Speaker 1: contributed much. This is not a blow to his ego.
Speaker 1: He's just like, wow, you're And I also think that
Speaker 1: there's something to be said for him kind of encouraging
Speaker 1: her to like continue to be the slayer because there's
Speaker 1: like a moment where she's like, I'm in over my head,
Speaker 1: like I just want to be a normal teenager, Like
Speaker 1: this was sprung on me and I never asked for
Speaker 1: this and blah blah blah. And he was just like, well, like,
Speaker 1: you have this opportunity, now, don't you want to like
Speaker 1: make something of it and like do this important stuff.
Speaker 1: And you know, the way he handles it is like
Speaker 1: maybe a little I don't know, I feel like he
Speaker 1: could have handled that better. But the fact that he's
Speaker 1: like cheering her, he's her cheerleader. Wow. I also love
Speaker 1: that he even though he felt like it was beneath
Speaker 1: Buffy and definitely beneath himself, he still showed up the dance.
Speaker 1: He still came to the dance, and he came prepared.
Speaker 1: I think you bought a bunch of spikes, a bunch
Speaker 1: of wood and it came in. Yeah. I was I'm
Speaker 1: glad for having this this talk because I was back
Speaker 1: and forth it on like Okay, what function does this
Speaker 1: love story serve? And like, as I was watching it
Speaker 1: to to prepare, I do think that like there is,
Speaker 1: I don't know. We're always arguing that it's like, is
Speaker 1: this head of real love story necessary to the story,
Speaker 1: and well, and I you know, we'll get to this,
Speaker 1: and we've sort of already started talking about this, but um,
Speaker 1: how I do wish that one of just like the
Speaker 1: glaring things about this movie is that there are no
Speaker 1: women in Buffy's life that provide any support or like
Speaker 1: real narrative importance for her, And so I wish that
Speaker 1: she also had like a friendship. But I did feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the dynamic with her Pike, especially as the movie goes on,
Speaker 1: does serve a function like you're describing Jasmine of like
Speaker 1: you know, it's still extremely heteronormative and and stuff that
Speaker 1: it's like movies from to be, but it's he's not
Speaker 1: threatened by her, because I feel like even when you
Speaker 1: do have these like very active female action stars the
Speaker 1: guy that they'll partner with, even if they're very in love,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's like he's not totally okay with the dynamic
Speaker 1: or like he's threatened by it. Almost feels like a competition. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this doesn't feel that way at all, And it's
Speaker 1: like it sounds like that that does have like a
Speaker 1: real positive application of like Pike is still this like
Speaker 1: traditionally cool like outsider motorcycle like like he's so he's cool, right,
Speaker 1: but also is very secure in himself and is like
Speaker 1: okay with his girlfriend being the one who saves the
Speaker 1: world and was rooting for them by the end. I
Speaker 1: just wish that she had some friendships. Um, some friends
Speaker 1: she can have that and friends right, like her best
Speaker 1: friend ended up being Donald Sutherland in a trench coat.
Speaker 1: I needed a I needed a little more than that. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: The one thing about the romantic subplot that was all
Speaker 1: for me was like really this again, where at the
Speaker 1: dance he's like, Puffy, you're not like other girls, but
Speaker 1: she's like, yes, I am. I liked that. I liked that.
Speaker 1: I was glad because when I heard that, I like, groan,
Speaker 1: why what what was your What problem did you have
Speaker 1: with it? I mean mostly just that like the idea
Speaker 1: of like Heateroman especially will use the you're not like
Speaker 1: other girls as a compliment when it's really just like
Speaker 1: that's just a way to tear down other women or
Speaker 1: to like paint femininity or just like womanhood or girlhood,
Speaker 1: and these broad strokes and as like bad, right, but like, oh,
Speaker 1: but if you're not like the other girls, you're different
Speaker 1: in like X y Z ways, Like that's awesome. So
Speaker 1: it just like is a way to kind of demonize
Speaker 1: femininity and like girlhood and womanhood and things like that.
Speaker 1: So it's like always like it always pings for us
Speaker 1: when we hear like, oh, you're not like the other girls.
Speaker 1: But then she's just like So what I liked about
Speaker 1: it is that she immediately challenges him and it's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I am because there's nothing wrong with other girls. Who
Speaker 1: doesn't say that, but like that's the implication I just
Speaker 1: wish to. The script also followed through on that and
Speaker 1: gave us some likable women in the script that weren't Buffy,
Speaker 1: which which we know that like Jos Sueden is capable
Speaker 1: of doing. So I'm assuming that that had to do
Speaker 1: with studio stuff, because it like we do know that he,
Speaker 1: you know, for all his faults, does right women who
Speaker 1: are friends with each other and important to each other.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that I don't know. I'd like I And
Speaker 1: I also another like little moment that I appreciated from
Speaker 1: Buffy was also at the end where I think Pike
Speaker 1: says something like he asked her to dance after she's
Speaker 1: killed every vampire ever, and he's like, I'm assuming you
Speaker 1: want to lead, and she's like, no, I don't. And
Speaker 1: I liked that. I was like, that's I didn't think
Speaker 1: it until she said that. I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: like action girl protagonists, I feel like we're so like
Speaker 1: painted with a broad stroke of like and she's in
Speaker 1: charge of fucking everything and she's the boss of blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah, where it's like people are complicated,
Speaker 1: and she's like, nope, I don't want to be you
Speaker 1: can do this. It's all good and it's fine. Like
Speaker 1: I thought that was a very sweet exchange. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of like you guys said, I guess a
Speaker 1: little bit unfortunate that in the whole if you look
Speaker 1: at the way that they paint that they be particularly
Speaker 1: teen age girls. But I guess you could say, um,
Speaker 1: women in general, since there are no like adult figures
Speaker 1: in her life because her mom is awful as well. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's a very very negative view of them and even
Speaker 1: like take like Buffy herself. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: guys tracked this, but I happen to. I love, love,
Speaker 1: love like outfits in fashion, and I particularly love the
Speaker 1: stuff in this movie. Um, but Buffy goes from wearing
Speaker 1: the sun dresses and like her hair down and all
Speaker 1: that to wearing cut off shorts with like a flannel
Speaker 1: and boots. Like the implications sort of being that if
Speaker 1: you are into this stuff, you're into Even at the
Speaker 1: end when she's going to look for like a dress
Speaker 1: and she's shopping, she's not like super into it anymore
Speaker 1: because now she's evolved. She's better than that. She's like
Speaker 1: the next level of woman, which I have a huge
Speaker 1: problem with. I think, like you said, Jamie, people are multifaceted,
Speaker 1: and I don't love this idea that it doesn't only
Speaker 1: come up in Buffy. That comes up quite a bit
Speaker 1: that if you happen to be quote unquote girl or
Speaker 1: into fashion or whatever it is, um that is deemed
Speaker 1: to be like I said, uh, feminine activity, that it's
Speaker 1: less than and it makes you less than. And in
Speaker 1: order to ascend, you have to put that behind you
Speaker 1: and realize that that is not something that you need
Speaker 1: to care about. And once you do that, you will
Speaker 1: become the person that you should be. And I think
Speaker 1: the two things can completely and totally exist together, which
Speaker 1: is why I wish that at least one of her
Speaker 1: friends had like stood by her in addition to Pike
Speaker 1: and didn't have to. I mean, they were pretty awful
Speaker 1: in the beginning, but I don't think that like some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that they loved needed to have changed
Speaker 1: to still support their friend and take down vampires together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally agree. Yeah, where it's like and again, it's
Speaker 1: like I don't even know who would have been the
Speaker 1: purpose trader of that stuff, because Josh Weeden has like
Speaker 1: distanced himself so much from this script, so who knows.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, it does seem to like in a
Speaker 1: way that feels very nineties, but I feel it does
Speaker 1: still happen sometimes in media like demonize whatever a more
Speaker 1: traditional form of femininity and make it seem like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is an inherently weak and vapid way to live
Speaker 1: and feel. Where it's like that is so like there's
Speaker 1: no gray area there, and there needs to be gray area,
Speaker 1: especially because I don't know even like style Lize, I
Speaker 1: was like, I want Buffy's costumes from the beginning, not
Speaker 1: the end, or like some modification because I know It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I want her to be able to fight comfortably,
Speaker 1: but I'm like, you could modify your style at the
Speaker 1: beginning to make it like vampire killing friendly. I liked
Speaker 1: all of the outfits. I like Buffy in the beginning
Speaker 1: and the end, then all of her outfits for the
Speaker 1: training montage too. I really liked that training montage me too, right,
Speaker 1: But the movie does like subscribe to this idea that
Speaker 1: like Buffy is the one good female character in this story,
Speaker 1: and all the other women because they like, quote unquote
Speaker 1: like feminine things that the movie deems to be like vapid,
Speaker 1: like shopping and like wearing dresses and caring about going
Speaker 1: to a dance and like all that stuff all the
Speaker 1: other women in the movie equals bad to the point where,
Speaker 1: like to bring up the costuming thing again, when Buffy
Speaker 1: goes leaves the dance to go fight this like Horde
Speaker 1: of Vampires, she's wearing a dress, but Luke Perry throws
Speaker 1: her his leather jacket as if to say, like, you'll
Speaker 1: need this to fight vampires. I said that exact thing
Speaker 1: when I was watching it. I was like, what's the point,
Speaker 1: what is that gonna do? I feel like it's going
Speaker 1: to like encumber her arms, it's going to make it
Speaker 1: harder for but cool. I gotta LEVI jacket great, but
Speaker 1: it looks cool. I guess I don't know, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I think. In addition, so not only are all the
Speaker 1: all the other female characters in this story, you know,
Speaker 1: painted with these broad strokes of just like portrayed as
Speaker 1: being too hyper feminine equals vapid equals bad kind of logic. Um,
Speaker 1: it means that all of Buffy's most significant relationships in
Speaker 1: the movie are with men. And you know, we talked
Speaker 1: about her and the love interest Pike already, but then
Speaker 1: there's also like Buffy and her mentor Merrick, Buffy and
Speaker 1: the villain Loathos, So like we can have separate discussions
Speaker 1: about that. But yeah, the movie does subscribe to this
Speaker 1: idea that like, Buffy is kind of not like the
Speaker 1: other girls and that's a good thing, right, And it's
Speaker 1: like that's not the message that we should be putting
Speaker 1: out into the world, which is wild, yeah, because it's
Speaker 1: like the character pushes against that, but then the movie
Speaker 1: doesn't quite follow through on effectively commenting on it. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit messie. Yeah, let's take another quick break,
Speaker 1: and then we will come right back and we're back.
Speaker 1: Should we talk about Buffy and Merrick? Which why not?
Speaker 1: I mean he he like also starts out being like, Wow,
Speaker 1: I've never met such a like vacuous and vapid slayer.
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm stuck with you right now. And
Speaker 1: but then she's constantly challenging him, and it gets to
Speaker 1: a point where they actually develop a bond and mutual trust,
Speaker 1: and at one point she's like, what do you even do, sir?
Speaker 1: Like I'm out here putting my neck on the line.
Speaker 1: What are you doing? Like? Oh, I'm kind of like
Speaker 1: a trainer kind of guy, a very bad one because
Speaker 1: it's been centuries and he has not defeated the vampires.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how do you still have this job? In
Speaker 1: any other line of work? If you consistently do not
Speaker 1: deliver the results, you are replaced. Yeah, here you are
Speaker 1: to lead another girl to the slaughter. Men get a
Speaker 1: million chances, don't they? They a million chance to do
Speaker 1: one thing? He also like he admits he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I should have found you so like so many years ago.
Speaker 1: We should have started your training a long time ago.
Speaker 1: But I don't I don't know. I just it was like, well,
Speaker 1: what do you what were you doing? Like, isn't it
Speaker 1: your job to find her and then like early on
Speaker 1: and train her. So it's also such a like a
Speaker 1: blase sort of thing to say, considering this is Buffy's
Speaker 1: life her, like she's putting her life on the line,
Speaker 1: and Mary's just like, oh, sorry, you probably should have
Speaker 1: years of training under your belt, but you're still going
Speaker 1: to have to sort of condense everything into a four
Speaker 1: week timeline. I think at one point Buffy says, it's
Speaker 1: been like three weeks or four weeks or something years
Speaker 1: and training condensed four weeks. Marek is awful, trash, He's
Speaker 1: bad at his job, like I felt like, and I
Speaker 1: feel like Buffy. Buffy did so much of the like
Speaker 1: emotional lifting in that like she like whatever, She's like, oh,
Speaker 1: he made a joke, like she kind of like brings
Speaker 1: out a lighter side of him. But it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he put her in an impossible situation that was like
Speaker 1: for sure, and she pulls it off like she's I
Speaker 1: don't know, I thought that that that montage cracked me
Speaker 1: up because she's wearing the same outfit at the beginning
Speaker 1: and end of the montage, So I guess that she
Speaker 1: just happened to be wearing the same outfit exactly three
Speaker 1: weeks later, which is like true to like clothes, but
Speaker 1: was confusing movie wise, like what it seems like no
Speaker 1: time has past because he's always wearing the same trench coat,
Speaker 1: so you're like, what day is it? Whatever? Gosh, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean, I guess I don't totally know
Speaker 1: how to feel about this relationship because he also like
Speaker 1: dies like and then there's like forty more minutes of
Speaker 1: the movie. But I guess I appreciate that that dynamic
Speaker 1: grows and that they come to respect each other, and
Speaker 1: then he's even like, wow, you're you were the right
Speaker 1: person for the job after all. And then I think
Speaker 1: as he's dying, she's like, sorry, I keep doing this wrong,
Speaker 1: and he's like, no, don't do that. Yeah, do what
Speaker 1: you're doing. Don't play our game. Don't play by our rules,
Speaker 1: because clearly it never works because there's still vampires around,
Speaker 1: So do it your way, Buffy. And so he respects
Speaker 1: her and admires her, and yeah, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess I was like fine all of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the relationship you know, it ended up being
Speaker 1: kind of sweet. My issues specifically come with Mark as
Speaker 1: the trainer of the Slayers, and I've said my piece
Speaker 1: about that, like story was like I didn't hate Mark.
Speaker 1: I just felt like their connection Like again, I just
Speaker 1: feel like there were stronger options for a character for
Speaker 1: Buffy to connect with because they truly had nothing in common.
Speaker 1: He wasn't doing a good job. And then when he died,
Speaker 1: like she was, she was sad, but it was also like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I feel like the movie wanted you
Speaker 1: to really feel his death and I was like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: Donald Sutherland died pretty early in the movie. That's that's interesting, right.
Speaker 1: I was like, well that was kind of easy. That
Speaker 1: was simple. I thought it would have lasted the whole time,
Speaker 1: all right. There was like no fight, Like suddenly he
Speaker 1: was just stabbed. There was like no fighting leading up
Speaker 1: to that. I was like, what how? Who was all back? Um? Also, okay,
Speaker 1: so Marek is like, hey, how about those menstrual cramps
Speaker 1: you're feeling? Oh my god? Yes, okay, Josh, is that
Speaker 1: a thing on the TV show? Please say it's not. No,
Speaker 1: I do not think so. I was like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? So what is happening here is that basically,
Speaker 1: when vampires are nearby, Buffy feels menstrual cramps. It's like
Speaker 1: a warning sign to let her know that vampires are afoot.
Speaker 1: And she's like, what is this all about? And Mark
Speaker 1: explains it's a natural reaction to their unnatural nous to
Speaker 1: vampires unnatural nous. So basically I know that, like Josh
Speaker 1: Weeden does not consider this movie to be cannon, but
Speaker 1: if you're looking at like this movie and the show,
Speaker 1: the lore seems to be that the vampire slayer is
Speaker 1: always a cis woman. So at least with this movie,
Speaker 1: with this like world building thing of menstrual cramps equals
Speaker 1: vampires are nearby, the logic is that like if you're
Speaker 1: a slayer, you're a woman, and being a woman means
Speaker 1: you have a womb and that you're a menstruating person
Speaker 1: and that's natural. So it's like this very sis normative idea.
Speaker 1: And I think it's also supposed to be kind of
Speaker 1: like a joke to like I don't know what it was.
Speaker 1: It was so random. Yeah, that didn't work for me
Speaker 1: at all. It's like and it doesn't really come back
Speaker 1: either where. Yeah, it's like very and it's like sis
Speaker 1: normativity and also just and it's like, oh, well, I'm
Speaker 1: writing a character that menstruates. I better bring that up
Speaker 1: like that. You don't need to bring that up like if,
Speaker 1: like if the Slayer was written to be a SIS man,
Speaker 1: I feel like there would not be anything like that
Speaker 1: attributed to his character. It wouldn't be like, oh, your
Speaker 1: scrotum is gonna hurt when vampires are around? Like did
Speaker 1: that happen to the last Boys? Kaylin remembers the movie
Speaker 1: better than both of us. Yeah, like, what are you what?
Speaker 1: It was so weird? Yeah? I found that to be
Speaker 1: very very bizarre. It was two? Really? Uh was what
Speaker 1: two ing there? It was really having a two? Um? Okay,
Speaker 1: So the other like major relationship or like whatever dynamic
Speaker 1: there is between Buffy and another character in this movie
Speaker 1: is with her and Loathos And I'm gonna need some
Speaker 1: help understanding what. I don't know if we can help
Speaker 1: you there. I had talked, there's any help? That was?
Speaker 1: I have no words, Yeah I have, here's my spiel
Speaker 1: about it. So what appears to be happening is what
Speaker 1: feels like a very sexually charged hero slash villain dynamic
Speaker 1: that feels extremely gendered, because again, I don't think it
Speaker 1: would be written that way if the hero was a man.
Speaker 1: But because it's a teen girl, this weird like heterosexual
Speaker 1: dynamic gets introduced, which is especially creepy because she's a
Speaker 1: teenager and Lothos is played by a much older actor
Speaker 1: and also the characters hundreds of years old. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like this happens in other movies where the
Speaker 1: protagonist is a girl or a woman and the villain
Speaker 1: is a man. I thought immediately of Labyrinth with like
Speaker 1: Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie and like that weird like
Speaker 1: dance they have together. Um, But there are all these
Speaker 1: scenes where like Buffy has a dream where she gets
Speaker 1: into bed with Lothos and he embraces her. There's that
Speaker 1: scene where like the first time they come in in
Speaker 1: face to face contact, Lothus is like, oh, I'm ready,
Speaker 1: I'm ready for you to ripen because like it seems
Speaker 1: like he doesn't want to fight her so much as
Speaker 1: like have this weird like seduction sex, Like he's like
Speaker 1: fetishizing the idea that she's a slayer, which feels very
Speaker 1: like vampire culture as well of like this old creepy
Speaker 1: guy trying to like engage with a teenage girl, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of like cannon to this genre in a
Speaker 1: way that I was kind of hoping that the movie
Speaker 1: was going to comment on, because this movie does a
Speaker 1: lot of things that vampire movies don't usually do. But
Speaker 1: that was something that felt kind of bizarrely very much
Speaker 1: in place. Yeah, I just and I didn't understand logistically
Speaker 1: what the heck was going on. Like the first time
Speaker 1: that Buffy has an actual showdown with Lothos and she
Speaker 1: sees him and is mesmerized. Is that? Is that what's happening? Right?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm like, stab him and she can't.
Speaker 1: She's not really moving, she's looking at him, she's coming closer,
Speaker 1: and like you said, there's this weird sexually charged energy.
Speaker 1: I didn't quite understand what was happening. All I kept
Speaker 1: shouting was what are you doing? Stab him with your
Speaker 1: wooden staately um and some he kept saying like we're
Speaker 1: drawn to each other, and it was just like all
Speaker 1: very weird and the movie could very much so exist
Speaker 1: and should have existed without that. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: even from a story perspective, I actually think it undermines
Speaker 1: the logic of what was going on because I have
Speaker 1: no clue like why that was happening exactly, and if
Speaker 1: like they insist on that happening in the movie because
Speaker 1: like vampires, I mean, like vampire lore is very much that,
Speaker 1: like they're seducers. They like draw people in with the
Speaker 1: you know, they glamour people. So like if that's a
Speaker 1: thing that needs to be established just part of like
Speaker 1: the world building, and it just isn't. So it gets
Speaker 1: really confusing to the point where we're wondering, Yeah, Buffy,
Speaker 1: why aren't you killing him? Why aren't you trying to
Speaker 1: fight him? Because it seems like in in her character
Speaker 1: because she is so like one of the things I
Speaker 1: like about her is she's so self assured against people that,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever, against people who are giving her ship.
Speaker 1: Like she rejects Donald Sutherland in a trench coat several times,
Speaker 1: is like fuck off. Like she's she's like very confidently
Speaker 1: rejecting the call to adventure, and she's like, fuck you,
Speaker 1: Like I maybe you don't like that. I want to
Speaker 1: like graduate high school, moved to Europe, married Christian Slater,
Speaker 1: and die iconic line. She's like, but that's what I
Speaker 1: want so like leave me at like alone. And then
Speaker 1: there's that amazing thing where her like shitty boyfriend's friend
Speaker 1: slaps her button then she like slams him to the ground.
Speaker 1: It's like this is a girl who like is not
Speaker 1: afraid to fight back when someone's fucking with her, and
Speaker 1: so it does feel like out of like I don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that didn't feel fully realized because it's like we've seen
Speaker 1: her give so many people ships. Yeah, it's not consistent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I was just so confused by that. But then
Speaker 1: like based on some weird thing that Mark had said
Speaker 1: where he's like, listen to the music and when the
Speaker 1: music stops and then he like boh dies. But then
Speaker 1: like the music has stopped in that scene with her
Speaker 1: and Lothos, and she's like, oh my god, it was
Speaker 1: I knew it all along music and we're like what
Speaker 1: are you. I'm like, did you forget to have a
Speaker 1: scene here? I never quite understood like what she realized.
Speaker 1: I never got it. I was like, Okay, confused she
Speaker 1: understood what it was that was her next move, because
Speaker 1: I certainly didn't understand. I mean, I think it is
Speaker 1: important for the audience to make it clear to the
Speaker 1: audience what that's all about, but whatever, whatever, it is
Speaker 1: fair enough. She then kind of like snaps out of it,
Speaker 1: and then she finally starts to fight back and then
Speaker 1: you know, lands the killing blow in in the next
Speaker 1: scene and you know, defeats him finally. But there's so
Speaker 1: much of like that dynamic where he's like being uber
Speaker 1: creepy and like uber predatory, which again, this is what
Speaker 1: vampires do, but there's nothing to establish why what is
Speaker 1: exactly happening, what Lothos wants, why he wants to seduce
Speaker 1: the player rather than kill her since she is an
Speaker 1: immediate threat to him, or why why she's responding to it,
Speaker 1: and the way that she is that it's just like
Speaker 1: just feels like very weirdly like gendered and sexualized in
Speaker 1: a way that like just made no sense to me.
Speaker 1: Absolutely none. Okay, I'm glad we're all in agreement. Say,
Speaker 1: have any any other stuff they wanted to to talk
Speaker 1: about for this one? Just a couple quick things. One,
Speaker 1: this is another teen movie that ends with a big dance.
Speaker 1: I don't think here that's a stable. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a staple. I'm just pointing it out. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I gender, you know, I love a dance. You hate
Speaker 1: that detail, he said, am I just more notice it
Speaker 1: as a as a very consistent trope. I love it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes I'm just I'm annoyed by it, depending on
Speaker 1: kind of what happens or what the implications of the dance,
Speaker 1: because sometimes it's like, well, a movie starring a teen
Speaker 1: girl has to end in some big romantic thing because
Speaker 1: girls like romance and love stories and glamourus balls where
Speaker 1: she hetero kisses her one true love. And then other
Speaker 1: times I'm like, uh, you know, the high schools have dances,
Speaker 1: so it makes sense that like you'd have the big
Speaker 1: third act it like a significant social event kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It didn't bother me because I felt like that like
Speaker 1: brought together Buffy's two worlds so cleanly, whereas like she
Speaker 1: was on the dance planning committee, those are where her
Speaker 1: previous friends were. I felt like in this, like this
Speaker 1: movie kind of uniquely because sometimes you're just truly at
Speaker 1: a dance because it just feels like, well, this is
Speaker 1: where teen movies end. But in this movie, I did
Speaker 1: feel like it was justified in like bringing her worlds together,
Speaker 1: that is fair, right. It was also like, like you said, Jamie,
Speaker 1: we've throughout. Um you start at the beginning where she's like, fully,
Speaker 1: you know, they're one of the second or third scenes
Speaker 1: we see with Buffy and her friends. They're planning, they're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what the theme should be, and
Speaker 1: they settle on environmentalism, and that was kind of funny.
Speaker 1: Bugs or something. Yeah, they're like, we hate bugs, bugs,
Speaker 1: let's get rid of the ozone there. So it was
Speaker 1: like weaved in and like Jamie said, it was I
Speaker 1: felt like it was a nice little having the two
Speaker 1: worlds come together. And maybe I just I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm a sheep that just likes everything that everybody
Speaker 1: else likes. But I loved that in Dance with her
Speaker 1: and Pike, I thought it was very sweet and I
Speaker 1: was off for their romance. Um, I was okay with
Speaker 1: it in this instance. I will say I did not
Speaker 1: mind the hetero teen romantic subplot in this movie, because
Speaker 1: which is saying something because it's vile, right, but I think, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the way that you know, we already talked about it,
Speaker 1: but it's um the way it was handled I appreciated.
Speaker 1: Another thing I appreciated was the fight choreography. Um where
Speaker 1: we've talked about this a lot, where a lot of
Speaker 1: movies with a woman as the action hero doing fighting
Speaker 1: often has like very gendered and sexual fight choreography. We
Speaker 1: talked about that vagina slam slam. I wasn't getting any
Speaker 1: of that really in this movie. It was just like
Speaker 1: what you'd expect as far as just like non gendered combat.
Speaker 1: And I also really liked the fight choreography, like wove
Speaker 1: in what Buffy was already really good at, Like she's
Speaker 1: a very gymnastic fighter, Like it's cool, I don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like her being a cheerleader as part of why she's
Speaker 1: a good fighter, which I feel like that's that on
Speaker 1: top of it, Like I mean, I guess we we
Speaker 1: don't really talk about this very much because we've probably
Speaker 1: talked about this and they bring it on episode, but
Speaker 1: like cheerleaders are so athletic and strong and it is
Speaker 1: like so physically taxing to do, and so to see
Speaker 1: that like applied to combat was really cool. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Bubby was already starting out, uh like at a hive
Speaker 1: in the beginning of the training montage. This isn't fighting,
Speaker 1: but I remember watching her climb do the rope climb
Speaker 1: and she just like sails up that rope. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if you guys have tried to climb a rope,
Speaker 1: but that is not easy. She was tried and not succeeded,
Speaker 1: so she was already starting like at a high And
Speaker 1: I do love that they incorporated the gymnastics um in
Speaker 1: the show that I have coming out this month. We
Speaker 1: also have a main character, much like Queen Buffy, who
Speaker 1: was a monster fighter, and we had a lot of
Speaker 1: conversations about like what does it look like, what do
Speaker 1: those fight scenes look like? Because you mentioned this being
Speaker 1: um non gendered fighting style, But I do think that
Speaker 1: when we were talking about our own character, there are
Speaker 1: differences between the ways that people fight, especially depending on
Speaker 1: who your opponent is going to be, and you want
Speaker 1: to make sure that you're utilizing what you would actually
Speaker 1: as the person how you would actually fight, and so
Speaker 1: a lot of times you'll see that people don't take
Speaker 1: that into consideration, especially when it comes to female characters,
Speaker 1: like what are the ways that they are going to
Speaker 1: approach a fight UM versus like a male character. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I love about Buffy, like
Speaker 1: you said, is they were using what she would already
Speaker 1: have considered as her strength, which is her gymnastics. So
Speaker 1: it's nice that they took the time to think about
Speaker 1: that and really incorporate that into the style. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it's cool to watch, you know, I love watching her
Speaker 1: flip around and stuff. Yeah. I guess the better way
Speaker 1: to frame it is that her fight choreography didn't seem
Speaker 1: sexualized in the way that a lot of women's fight
Speaker 1: choreography tends to be. Right. So yeah, um, this is
Speaker 1: also a very white movie. Yeah. The cast is very white.
Speaker 1: Any people of color, which I think is hardly there's
Speaker 1: her one friend, her one friend who we might not
Speaker 1: even know the name of. I think she has two lines,
Speaker 1: hardly says anything. Yeah, so any people of color are
Speaker 1: relegated to like secondary or tertiary like background characters who
Speaker 1: we learned nothing about. You know, every major character is white. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is um uh. You know I already went in
Speaker 1: a whole speel about how, you know, growing up like
Speaker 1: wanting to play certain characters and not having any that
Speaker 1: there certainly were black characters, but like you said, they
Speaker 1: oftentimes had no lines or just were very much in
Speaker 1: the background. And this wasn't just the early nineties, like
Speaker 1: I want to say, like even still sometimes still now,
Speaker 1: but especially in my formative years as a child and
Speaker 1: a teenager, even watching some of the shows that I
Speaker 1: love to watch, like I was a huge Small Bill
Speaker 1: fan for a while, um and that show I Love,
Speaker 1: Love Love, but like they had a character who was
Speaker 1: Superman's best friend who was black, and over the course
Speaker 1: of like literally I want to say, the first season
Speaker 1: was pushed to the background and was very much just
Speaker 1: showed up to expose it some stuff and then leave.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what I felt like most how
Speaker 1: most black characters were treated um and still are sometimes
Speaker 1: where they never have their own storylines, they never have
Speaker 1: their own agency. They are just there to either be
Speaker 1: uh like the voice of wisdom or come in and
Speaker 1: relay just enough information so that the producers and the
Speaker 1: network executives can say, oh, but we have a character
Speaker 1: of color. But they're never given like the meat and potatoes,
Speaker 1: which is unfortunate because people want to see themselves on screen,
Speaker 1: which is why I would get into fights about how
Speaker 1: I want to be Buffy even though I don't look
Speaker 1: like Buffy. Um And it's just you know, I'm glad
Speaker 1: that we're sort of talking about these things and and
Speaker 1: changing it. I think the changes are coming slowly, but
Speaker 1: it really is important that people are able to see
Speaker 1: themselves and like, yeah, like you're saying, not just in
Speaker 1: a surface way and like an impactful, fully realized character way.
Speaker 1: And also it's a it's a very straight movie as well,
Speaker 1: which is always like I don't understand why vampire. I understand,
Speaker 1: but it's like I understand because society, but also I'm
Speaker 1: just like vampires being repeatedly coded as strictly hetero. I'm like,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't track for me. It doesn't like, never has,
Speaker 1: never will. Vampires I feel like, are queer cannon, like
Speaker 1: what very hetero movie vampires are pan sexual, all of them?
Speaker 1: For sure. I think that's true for sure. For sure,
Speaker 1: there's no way that you can live hundreds of lives.
Speaker 1: I couldn't even live this life that I'm in without
Speaker 1: exploring my sexuality and figuring out that straight. So you're
Speaker 1: trying to tell me that hundreds of years like no
Speaker 1: one explored outside of just you know, And I don't
Speaker 1: buy it. I don't buy it at all, not not
Speaker 1: a chance. And again, tell me if I'm misremembering Caitlin.
Speaker 1: But the TV show isn't quite as hetero uh normative, right,
Speaker 1: there are queer there is at least a queer character, correct,
Speaker 1: there's several queer characters or queer relationships like you actually
Speaker 1: see in fact that might I think that was one
Speaker 1: of the first shows on network television or not, I
Speaker 1: guess cable television that had um or what that word?
Speaker 1: I don't my television bub for a while, wasn't it,
Speaker 1: and like you can if you remember that, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: arranging myself like with UPN But it was not one
Speaker 1: of those I don't know cab or what it was.
Speaker 1: In any case, it featured one of the first lesbian
Speaker 1: kisses on on screen on television. Yeah, so yeah, there
Speaker 1: was not quite so much heteronormativity as there is in
Speaker 1: this movie and most movies. Feels worth mentioning that, especially
Speaker 1: toward the beginning of the movie, Buffy and her friends
Speaker 1: make different jokes that are like at the expense of
Speaker 1: the unhoused population or they don't um. There's some like
Speaker 1: xenophobic remarks that are made and things like that, But
Speaker 1: I think that's done to show who Buffy used to
Speaker 1: be or like who like who what her friend group
Speaker 1: is like these again kind of like self centered, sort
Speaker 1: of like rich elitist types. Um. But you know there's
Speaker 1: there's still like jokes made at the expensive on housed
Speaker 1: people and stuff. So you know, feels pretty nineties. Does
Speaker 1: feel very nineties. Ben Affleck is in this movie. I know,
Speaker 1: like five seconds, like two seconds, And I actually read somewhere, um,
Speaker 1: just in casual googling of this movie, which one does,
Speaker 1: I read that his line, the one line he had,
Speaker 1: was actually dubbed because the director hated his delivery, like
Speaker 1: to be to have one line in a movie in
Speaker 1: that line be completely dubbed over. Couldn't even get that.
Speaker 1: I couldn't even get that right. But yes, Ben Affleck
Speaker 1: is in this movie. So is Thomas Jane, who was
Speaker 1: not as bigger an athlete. I did not catch. I
Speaker 1: did not catch that either. But I was watching this
Speaker 1: with my girlfriend over the weekend and she was like,
Speaker 1: that's Thomas Jane and I was like, no, only Ben
Speaker 1: Affleck is the that the only star that just like
Speaker 1: briefly appeared. Uh, Thomas Jane plays Oh you know that
Speaker 1: character had a name. They are horrible with the names.
Speaker 1: And when Pike goes to get I guess his van
Speaker 1: service because he's trying to leave because he knows vampires
Speaker 1: are out and about and he's like, I want no
Speaker 1: part of this. The mechanic and I have no idea
Speaker 1: how my girlfriend was able to spot that this was
Speaker 1: Thomas Jane. I don't like to even still, like I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to pick that up. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: Thomas Jane appearance. Even Ben Affleck have ran random appearances.
Speaker 1: And uh, this movie also Stephen Root, who is one
Speaker 1: of my favorite character actors, plays like the school principal
Speaker 1: in this movie. Yes, there's a lot of people this
Speaker 1: movie is apparently kind of stacked with with the cast here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I kind of assumed. I was like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: whatever happened to Christy Swanson. I've never seen her in
Speaker 1: anything else. She has been consistently working this entire time.
Speaker 1: But she's She's in a lot of like TV movies
Speaker 1: and stuff that I tend not to watch. But yeah,
Speaker 1: she's she's still around working. Shouts out to her. I
Speaker 1: thought she was awesome as Buffy. She's great, like just
Speaker 1: just a quality quality super heroine. And then Paul Rubens
Speaker 1: giving the performance of a lifetime stealing every scene is
Speaker 1: so wonderful. Yeah, it's a fun movie. Like if you
Speaker 1: if you have been on the fence about giving this
Speaker 1: movie a chance just because of kind of the bizarro
Speaker 1: cultural reputation it has, watched the movie. It's fun, You'll
Speaker 1: have a good time. Yeah, But does it pass the
Speaker 1: Bechtel test? I feel like it does. Even though the
Speaker 1: Buffy's friends barely have names and we barely learn them
Speaker 1: and they mostly talk about a yellow leather jacket and um,
Speaker 1: but they talk about like planning the upcoming dance and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So yeah, and they have that whole
Speaker 1: scene that's about like that. I mean, they do talk
Speaker 1: about men for a part of the scene, but about
Speaker 1: the conflict of like Buffy, you've changed, Like why do
Speaker 1: you think what we like it is not cool anymore?
Speaker 1: Like that was a meaning Like yeah, I'll always be
Speaker 1: bummed out that there were not stronger friendships. But I
Speaker 1: feel like that's a lot of that scene pretty firmly passed.
Speaker 1: And then I think maybe a few exchanges with Buffy
Speaker 1: and her mom as well, like when she's like what
Speaker 1: time is it? And then Buffy lies and she's like
Speaker 1: my watch is so slow? Like yeah, I guess that that,
Speaker 1: Oh Buffy's Mom, where's that spin off? Yea, So it
Speaker 1: does pass the Bechdel test as far as our nipple scale,
Speaker 1: in which we assign zero to five nipples to the
Speaker 1: movie based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens,
Speaker 1: I feel like I would give it like a three,
Speaker 1: maybe even like a three and a half, so we
Speaker 1: can get half a nipple. Yeah, we give quarter nipples sometimes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: decimal to your heart's content. I think we've given pie
Speaker 1: nipples before three point one four, it's given negative nipples
Speaker 1: before inverted. Yeah. Yeah, the nipple score spectrum is fluid. Um.
Speaker 1: I think I'll give it three and uh half. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's too generous, but especially for like an early nineties movie,
Speaker 1: because oh my gosh, comparing this to other early nineties
Speaker 1: movies in any genre really like things were not great.
Speaker 1: So kind of maybe like adjusted for time inflation almost,
Speaker 1: but inflation. The fact that you have the fact that
Speaker 1: you have this female centered story about a woman chosen
Speaker 1: one narrative about a woman who like kicks ass and
Speaker 1: doesn't really need help from men because Marek, as she
Speaker 1: points out, is not really doing anything. Pike is her
Speaker 1: sidekick who barely does anything, who gets like damseled, and
Speaker 1: that she has to save several times, like she never
Speaker 1: really has to be saved. She's doing all of the work.
Speaker 1: She has all of the agency in the movie. Although
Speaker 1: I guess you could argue like being a chosen one
Speaker 1: kind of like inherently takes agency away from you because
Speaker 1: she's just sort of like your voice a gendered way, though, right, right, right,
Speaker 1: right exactly. Um, So, as far as the circumstances go,
Speaker 1: like she's got agency, she's doing things. She's a very
Speaker 1: active character. I didn't hate the hetero romantic subplot. I
Speaker 1: did hate the weird dynamic between her and Loathos that
Speaker 1: did feel oddly gendered. Yeah, yeah that that. I don't
Speaker 1: know what's happening to the weird men's oh cramps thing.
Speaker 1: We should have just been absolutely deleted from the movie. Um,
Speaker 1: the fact that there's no racial diversity, there's no like
Speaker 1: body type diversity, it's all very heteronormative. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: think there's enough like cool stuff going on. I think
Speaker 1: I'll land on a three three and a quarter nipple
Speaker 1: and I'll give one to Buffy. I will give one
Speaker 1: to Paul Ruben's death scene. I'll give one to Buffy's
Speaker 1: black friend, who we who the movie doesn't even care
Speaker 1: to give her a name. And I'll give a quarter
Speaker 1: nipple to the little baby kitty that Lothos is about
Speaker 1: to go snack on in that one scene, because I
Speaker 1: feel really bad for the cat. I'll meet you there.
Speaker 1: I'll go three and a half as well. I think
Speaker 1: the issues this movie has with a glaring lack of
Speaker 1: diversity across the board is both very obvious and extremely
Speaker 1: of its time. Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of just
Speaker 1: co signing our discussion and what you just said, Caitlin
Speaker 1: Um because I like Buffy a lot. I like how
Speaker 1: much she subverts I wish that the villain subverted more
Speaker 1: about this genre. Yeah. I wasn't actively rooting against the
Speaker 1: central relationship, but I do wish that she had women
Speaker 1: in her life to talk to and it was like extra,
Speaker 1: like they were right there. Give her a connection with
Speaker 1: her mom of some sort, even if it's not positive,
Speaker 1: Like give us something like give us some friendship. Give
Speaker 1: you know there there are opportunities, or like why are
Speaker 1: all the vampire villains men? Like what you know? There's
Speaker 1: like so many opportunities for her to not just have
Speaker 1: the pivotal figures in her life be a bunch of
Speaker 1: white guys and but that's not how it went. However,
Speaker 1: I love buttfy. I really loved the performances in this movie.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna give it three and a half. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give one to Christie Swanson. I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: one to the director of the movie, fran Rubel Kuzooe,
Speaker 1: I will give one to the Motorcycle, and I'll give
Speaker 1: my half to Paul Rubbin's nice Jasmine. What about you? Um,
Speaker 1: I will give this three and three quarter nipples, so
Speaker 1: I'm slightly higher than you guys. Three point seven five nipples.
Speaker 1: Three quarters of those nipples goes exclusively to the scene
Speaker 1: where the friend grabs buffies but and she flips them
Speaker 1: over and slams them against the locker, because that is
Speaker 1: the proper response to when that happens. So good, UM,
Speaker 1: I mean, you guys have already touched on. Um, you
Speaker 1: guys already touched on the things here. I agree with
Speaker 1: everything that you said. I I will focus mostly on
Speaker 1: the positive here because, like I said, this had like
Speaker 1: such a positive influence on me and seeing a character
Speaker 1: like Buffy, especially growing up as a child of the
Speaker 1: nineties and a teen of the early thousands, you just
Speaker 1: never saw I shouldn't say never, but mostly did not
Speaker 1: see women portrayed in this way. So I already gave
Speaker 1: my three quarters of a nipple to that one scene.
Speaker 1: Obviously one goes to Buffy. I gotta give one to
Speaker 1: my man Pike. I'm a big Pike fan. I appreciated
Speaker 1: what they did with that romance and with that character,
Speaker 1: and I guess what do I have? One more? One
Speaker 1: more nipple. I will give one more nipple to just
Speaker 1: the influence that that movie had on me and how
Speaker 1: it continues to have influence on me, and the stuff
Speaker 1: that I want to champion developing now that I am
Speaker 1: an adult, over thirty woman who gets to help put
Speaker 1: content out into the world. Yes, which, speaking of tell
Speaker 1: us about your show, Yes, yes, I would love to um.
Speaker 1: So the show is called The Girl in the Woods
Speaker 1: and it premieres October one, which I believe is in
Speaker 1: Thursday very soon on Peacock um and the show, much
Speaker 1: like Buffy, the show revolves around our main character, whose
Speaker 1: name is Carrie Ecker, and she is a monster slayer.
Speaker 1: She lives in this colony on the outskirts in the
Speaker 1: woods of this mining town, and this colony soul job
Speaker 1: is to protect a door, a very mysterious dore that
Speaker 1: stands in the woods. Um. The door is a door
Speaker 1: to a monster dimension and it is the number one
Speaker 1: priority that that door does not open and the monsters
Speaker 1: do not come out. But this is a TV show,
Speaker 1: so you can guess what is going to happen. If
Speaker 1: you can't guess, the girl's gonna open and monsters are
Speaker 1: going to come out. Um. And so Carrie uh is
Speaker 1: going to eventually find herself in this mining town and
Speaker 1: she's going to come across two new friends whose name
Speaker 1: names are Tasha and Nolan, and together they are going
Speaker 1: to have to uh fight the monsters that have been
Speaker 1: released and try and say this town. It is a
Speaker 1: very fun show. It has a lot of great themes
Speaker 1: that I think are very relevant today. It is a
Speaker 1: very queer show. Um. I say that with so much
Speaker 1: pride being a queer woman myself. Um and Uh, I
Speaker 1: just think much like Buffy, it is very fun. It
Speaker 1: is very fun, um and uh. We have three main
Speaker 1: characters and I think they all sort of you get
Speaker 1: to see the three mains play characters that you don't
Speaker 1: really see very much even today. Um. And I'm just
Speaker 1: really excited for for everyone to to check it out.
Speaker 1: At the very least. If you love watching teens fight monsters,
Speaker 1: check out the show. But if you also like character development,
Speaker 1: you like scary content that has uh social and very
Speaker 1: like human themes at the heart of it. Uh and
Speaker 1: you love teen romance, especially with a little dash of
Speaker 1: queer inserted into it. All of the things that I love, um,
Speaker 1: you'll love. Hell yeah, everyone check out The Girl in
Speaker 1: the Woods on Peacock. Is there anything else you want
Speaker 1: to plug? Social media? If you want to find me
Speaker 1: on Instagram? UM or Twitter at the same handle, it's
Speaker 1: jazz face Killer. It's jazz with twosy ease killer with
Speaker 1: two els, jazz face Killer. UM and please him me up.
Speaker 1: Let me know what you think about the show. Let
Speaker 1: me know what you think about Buffy the movie. Um,
Speaker 1: spread the word about Buffy the movie. So many people
Speaker 1: talk about the show and that's fine, but like, let's
Speaker 1: bring up you know, the movie's profile because I think
Speaker 1: you're right, Jamie and that Joss Wheden did some damage
Speaker 1: out there. And it's not fair because this movie is
Speaker 1: very fun. Yeah it is. It is. Let the Buffy
Speaker 1: Movie Live totally. Thank you so much for this was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. Thanks for inviting me to be
Speaker 1: on the show. I loved talking about all this stuff
Speaker 1: with you, guys. Our pleasure. Come back anytime. Thank you.
Speaker 1: And then you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Speaker 1: at Bechtel Cast. We've got our Patreon ak Matreon that
Speaker 1: gives you two bonus episodes every single month, plus access
Speaker 1: to the back catalog. It's five dollars a month at
Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash bechtel Cast. You can also get
Speaker 1: our march at t public dot com slash v bechtel Cast.
Speaker 1: It'll be there if you need it. If you don't
Speaker 1: need it, that's okay too. And with that, do you
Speaker 1: both want to get on my motorcycle and let's get
Speaker 1: out of here? Oh my gosh, yeah, let's blow this joint.
Speaker 1: Can I wear a leather jacket? Oh yeah, you can, sorrow,
Speaker 1: you can borrow my yellow leather jacket, Jasmine, so five
Speaker 1: minutes ago? Okay, win, No, it's retro alright, Bye bye
Speaker 1: bye