Speaker 1: On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in them? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Speaker 1: Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef In best start
Speaker 1: changing it with the Bell Cast, Jamie, life's a bitch,
Speaker 1: and now so am I thanks for telling me. I
Speaker 1: guess you're welcome. I just want you to know I
Speaker 1: underwent a transformation recently, and we'll see I'm actually running
Speaker 1: for mayor. But but if it's if things like go south,
Speaker 1: even the smallest bit, the first little snaffhoo I encounter,
Speaker 1: I will then pivot and threaten to kill everyone's son,
Speaker 1: all of the small children. Oh boy, does he want
Speaker 1: eighty quickly on that one? It is wild. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to figure out who I'm most spiritually connected to.
Speaker 1: I love I love Catwoman, but like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I could do what Catwoman does. I do feel
Speaker 1: very connected to Christopher Walkin's big old son, you mean Chip,
Speaker 1: who also talks like Christopher Walkin in his two lines
Speaker 1: of dialogue. This is what I wanted to say. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry to interrupt it earlier, but literally, as soon
Speaker 1: as they started talking, like, I completely forgotten that part
Speaker 1: of his character is that he sounds like his father,
Speaker 1: and so they're like get await that just run And
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, he's like doing a walk In impression. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea that that would be a hereditary trait is
Speaker 1: so funny. Or also like begs the question of like
Speaker 1: how long did he spend only with his dad, so
Speaker 1: that he's like, oh, that's like the normal way of talking,
Speaker 1: like talk. Yeah, I had so many questions about the sun,
Speaker 1: but the Sun was just like damseled time and time again.
Speaker 1: And we don't talk in this community enough about damseling.
Speaker 1: Christopher Walkins, big old son, his large adults. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: a disturbing trend in meeting. It's a very harmful trope
Speaker 1: and I won't stand for it. Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1: think that I am team large Adults Son. But also
Speaker 1: there's but I'm also team the clown that's like, hey, penguin,
Speaker 1: are you sure we want to steal everyone's son? And
Speaker 1: then just gets shot immediately. There's so many goods. I'm
Speaker 1: also on the side of the stilts clown that gets
Speaker 1: knocked over by the batmobile. God, this movie fucking rules.
Speaker 1: It's the batmobile just has devices, specifically for knocking over
Speaker 1: people on stilts. He's thought through everything, Yeah, every contingency.
Speaker 1: He's like, we gotta have something in the batmobile for this.
Speaker 1: He's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, Alfred, what if And
Speaker 1: it's gonna sound wild, but what if I needed to
Speaker 1: feed a clown on stilts? We have to be ready.
Speaker 1: I really, I really don't think I appreciated just how
Speaker 1: much work Alfred has to do until this movie specifically,
Speaker 1: and also like I'm sure we'll get to this, but
Speaker 1: they at the end when Batman picks up a cat,
Speaker 1: you can see it in Alfred's face where he's like, well,
Speaker 1: I know he's not going to take care of that thing,
Speaker 1: So that's my cat now, Like I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to do everything for this cat. Yeah, who's scooping the
Speaker 1: litter at the end of the days? Are not Bruce Wayne? Alright?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. This okay, Well, let's just get into it.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Becktel Cast. My name is Jamie LOFTEV.
Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Darante, and this is the show
Speaker 1: where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
Speaker 1: the Becktel test simply as a jumping off point, which
Speaker 1: of course, is a media metric created by queer cartoonist
Speaker 1: Alison Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test. Originally conceived
Speaker 1: as a just kind of one off joke in Alison
Speaker 1: Bechtel's comic Likes to Watch Out For, has since been
Speaker 1: kind of co opted into the media metric that we
Speaker 1: based an entire show on where Wow, yeah calling us out?
Speaker 1: Um we Our version of this test is as follows.
Speaker 1: Two people of a marginalized gender have to have names,
Speaker 1: they have to speak to each other, and that conversation
Speaker 1: has to be about something other than a man, and
Speaker 1: ideally it's a narratively significant conversation, not just like a
Speaker 1: throwaway exchange. Controversially, I think when Michelle Fiver talks to
Speaker 1: her cats, we know is a woman because they're like hu,
Speaker 1: they're communicating. All right, Well that's it for this episode
Speaker 1: where yeah, We're done. I feel like the nonverbal, like
Speaker 1: the nonverbal communication is strong and and could it be
Speaker 1: more narratively impactful? No, no, brings her back to life
Speaker 1: kind of amazing. That's pretty big, huge, Okay, so we
Speaker 1: are we are covering up. Batman returns a Christmas movie
Speaker 1: that came out in June. I thought was kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: But in any case, let's get into it because clearly
Speaker 1: we are at the crossing with thoughts, so let's get
Speaker 1: our guests in here. We must also cat on my
Speaker 1: literally fly is right. I really whenever Flee is represented
Speaker 1: in movies, it means a lot to me. He was
Speaker 1: sitting in my lap the whole time, riveted. He loves
Speaker 1: a movie cat as he should. That's wonderful. So Flee
Speaker 1: is our honorary guest, but our real guest for this
Speaker 1: episode is culture writer and screenwriter Karen Hahn. Hello, Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here and also so excited
Speaker 1: to talk about this movie with you guys, because again,
Speaker 1: I think we're all going like fully feral as Catwoman
Speaker 1: would want. Yeah, we're so excited that you sent us
Speaker 1: because we were we reached out to Karen being like, hey,
Speaker 1: we want to do you know, it's it's holiday movie block,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that we've ever like brought this
Speaker 1: movie up, even though it's overtly a holiday movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the thing I think just because like the
Speaker 1: iconography of Catwoman and the Penguin are so strong, like
Speaker 1: you tend to forget that there is like Christmas and Gotham.
Speaker 1: And also I feel like they forgot about that again,
Speaker 1: as you say, like they put it out in summer.
Speaker 1: Basically they were I think they were like, we'll have
Speaker 1: our like superhero Ted Poole. But then it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's like actually a Christmas movie. But I mean that's
Speaker 1: now when I watch it. I will watch it when
Speaker 1: it's cold, right. It feels like that's how people view
Speaker 1: it now. And it's also like such an it's like
Speaker 1: an anti Christmas movie too. It's so fun. It's a
Speaker 1: perfect film. It just gets better every time I watch it.
Speaker 1: It really does. So what's your relationship your history with
Speaker 1: the movie, Karen, I Well, it came out the year
Speaker 1: I was born, so I did not watch it in
Speaker 1: theaters or around the time when it debuted. But I
Speaker 1: watch it sometime in the last ten years, which I
Speaker 1: know is not a super specific time frame. But that said,
Speaker 1: it must have been post like Nolan Batman um, because
Speaker 1: I know, like I started, I watched these like after
Speaker 1: I saw the Christian Bail movie. But then watching this,
Speaker 1: I was like, holy Cannoli, like this is really really good.
Speaker 1: And also this and The Batman that precedes it with
Speaker 1: Jack Nicholson at the Joker. It's just like there's so
Speaker 1: much great stuff going on in both movies that it's
Speaker 1: kind of shocking. And I was saying this to Caitlin
Speaker 1: before we recorded that. It's like, I can't imagine any
Speaker 1: exact green lighting this movie today, Like you would describe
Speaker 1: some of the elements and be like, no, no, no, no
Speaker 1: no no, we can't do that. That's too silly, or
Speaker 1: that's too on the nose, or that's just weird. But
Speaker 1: that's what makes this movie so fun and so memorable.
Speaker 1: I'm realizing this is the third Batman movie we've covered
Speaker 1: on the podcast, because we did the nineteen nine Batman
Speaker 1: like six years ago. One of our first episode was
Speaker 1: a really long time ago. I was I was like,
Speaker 1: how did I see this movie? Originally? I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it was literally for this show the shows Brown ye yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. And then we've covered The Dark Night a
Speaker 1: few years ago, and so this is our this is
Speaker 1: our third Batman episode, and I'm not mad about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, if there's one thing about Batman movies is
Speaker 1: that there's five hundred million of them, and I like
Speaker 1: a lot of them. So Jamie, what's your relationship with Batman? Returns?
Speaker 1: So I had not seen this movie before. That's so exciting.
Speaker 1: It was really Um, I have had a hell of
Speaker 1: a couple of days just like watching this movie. Uh
Speaker 1: two and a half times. I really yeah, I really
Speaker 1: loved it. I feel like every time I say I
Speaker 1: haven't seen a popular movie, I'd like to remind Bethel
Speaker 1: cast listeners that when we started this show, a big
Speaker 1: thrust of the promise was that Caitlin has seen a
Speaker 1: lot of movies, and I had not seen a lot
Speaker 1: of movies. Over the years we it doesn't come up
Speaker 1: as much, but um, there's still I still haven't seen
Speaker 1: a lot of movies. Um, but this, yeah, I've never
Speaker 1: seen it before. But I really enjoyed the first Tim
Speaker 1: Burton Batman that this was like hailed as like one
Speaker 1: of the best superhero slash just sequels in general, And yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally agree with you, Karen, Like it's I don't know,
Speaker 1: like this is like Tim Burton allowed to like Tim
Speaker 1: Burton out at the peak of his Tim Burton is
Speaker 1: with like the biggest budget possible, and I just but
Speaker 1: the thing, it's like he nails it, Yeah, like it's
Speaker 1: so it was really I think that, like I mean,
Speaker 1: and this is not an original observation by a long shot,
Speaker 1: but it's it's so like fun to watch a superhero
Speaker 1: movie that's like fun to watch, and you kind of
Speaker 1: forget that they were supposed to be fun to watch.
Speaker 1: And I like a lot of like serious superhero movies,
Speaker 1: like I enjoyed, you know, Robert Pattinson Batman, but it's
Speaker 1: not I wasn't laughing, you know, and I wasn't supposed
Speaker 1: to be laughing. But like, this was so fun and
Speaker 1: such a like cool otory kind of movie. I loved
Speaker 1: all the behind the scenes stuff that was that they
Speaker 1: had real penguins. They have real penguins and animatronic penguins
Speaker 1: and people dressed up as penguins. They had every kind
Speaker 1: of penguin's wild It was so and then I read um,
Speaker 1: I just was like, how did we end up with
Speaker 1: the circus? I had a theory and then I checked
Speaker 1: it and I was right. I was like, I bet
Speaker 1: that Tim Burton was just like I just want a
Speaker 1: circus because you're like, a circus is very obviously not
Speaker 1: necessary to the plot, and it was I guess that
Speaker 1: it was originally written as a band of performance artists,
Speaker 1: and Tim Burton's like, that's going to have to be
Speaker 1: a circus, honey, I won't do it with the clowns.
Speaker 1: It's gotta be back flipping clowns. A lot of them
Speaker 1: are going to have machine guns. They wrote out Santa
Speaker 1: with mischine guns, which would have been awesome. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I fell in love with this movie a
Speaker 1: million percent. It's so good. And also I brag just
Speaker 1: saw Danny Elfman in concert a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: so I was like triple pumped because I forgot how
Speaker 1: great the scores to his Batman movies are so good.
Speaker 1: He's such a weirdo and like the best way possible.
Speaker 1: And also like one of those composers where whenever you're listening,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, that's Danny Elfman. Like he makes no
Speaker 1: effort I think to like blend in. He's just like
Speaker 1: here in it, here's Danny, and you're like, here's Danny.
Speaker 1: Danny Elfan loves a horn. He loves a French horn
Speaker 1: and he loves it. He loves one of those. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my second favorite Danny Elfman's core right next to of
Speaker 1: course Spider Man two. Oh my god, his best and
Speaker 1: the best of your movie. I also wanted to say,
Speaker 1: I think this is the first time that I can
Speaker 1: say I'm following in Alfred Molina's footsteps to some degree
Speaker 1: to give him that he was I think when when
Speaker 1: it was a nun that he was going to be
Speaker 1: on this podcast, I like started crying, like I lost
Speaker 1: my mind. Alfred Molina is our friend, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: was a guest on this podcast. Famously are esteemed incredible.
Speaker 1: Haven't heard from them since, but all good, and we
Speaker 1: we sold your on. But yeah, I hadn't seen this
Speaker 1: movie before and I absolutely love it and I can't
Speaker 1: wait to introduce it into my holiday rotation. Yeah, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: what's your history with Batman Returns? I saw it for
Speaker 1: the first time, probably as a freshman in college. I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, there's all these Batman movies I missed
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. I gotta watch them, And
Speaker 1: so I saw. I watched all four of the ones
Speaker 1: from the late eighties into the nineties. It's a fun time.
Speaker 1: Batman Returns is easily my favorite one, and I would
Speaker 1: rank this probably my number two superhero movie of all
Speaker 1: a time behind behind uh Spiderman into the Spider verse.
Speaker 1: Oh see, I would put it Spiderman two is always
Speaker 1: going to be number one for me. But this is
Speaker 1: like top whatever, top of the list to percent pile
Speaker 1: ten out of ten on Caitlin's rompo meter because Spider
Speaker 1: versus kind of unbeatable in a Whalso, yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: incredible movie. I love it so much. There's lots to discuss, like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I can't wait to dive in the
Speaker 1: beginning with why do they have a baby cage at
Speaker 1: their house there? Do you feel like, oh, they like
Speaker 1: went onto craigslist or like rich craigslist or whatever, and
Speaker 1: we're like, we require a little baby cage if anyone
Speaker 1: knows where we could get one of those, or they
Speaker 1: like hired someone to make it after they saw that
Speaker 1: their baby had little webby hands. They called their good
Speaker 1: to Blacksmith. They're like, they commissioned. They've got a guy,
Speaker 1: for sure. They definitely have a guy. It scares me
Speaker 1: to think what rich people have access to. But anyway,
Speaker 1: but this movie talks about that so much. This I
Speaker 1: was so surprised at how deep into like social commentary
Speaker 1: this in a way that like, yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess I wouldn't say it doesn't feel it just like
Speaker 1: fits into the story very naturally in a way that
Speaker 1: sometimes I feel like it's not like a here's the
Speaker 1: moral of our story kind of thing. It's just like
Speaker 1: it's naturally baked into it, woven right in. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: love it. So, yeah, I love this movie. I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to talk about it. And um, should I do
Speaker 1: the recap and we'll go from there. Yeah, Okay, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of interjections because every frame of
Speaker 1: this movie, I have something, there's something they have to
Speaker 1: be said about everything. Okay, so let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break first and then we'll come back to recap. So
Speaker 1: we'll be right back, and we're back. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is wild to open your movie in the way that
Speaker 1: this one opens, where it's basically like a silent sequence
Speaker 1: of these two very rich people deciding that they don't
Speaker 1: want their baby anymore and then throwing it into the sewer.
Speaker 1: You've got a rich regnant lady, yeah, screaming because her
Speaker 1: baby doesn't look the way she wants it to look.
Speaker 1: They put it in a cage, the baby eats a cat,
Speaker 1: and then they throw the baby in the river, which
Speaker 1: is wildly as it was. As the movie was going on,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, was the baby eating
Speaker 1: a cat foreshadowing of him phasing off with Catwoman? I
Speaker 1: think maybe? So. Also I was like, what is this
Speaker 1: the creature from Shape of Water eating a cat also
Speaker 1: in this movie? So and if he's not, he should be. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: so we see this happen. Then we cut to thirty
Speaker 1: three years later. So Danny Devita supposed to be thirty
Speaker 1: three in the movie. Yes, okay, that made me laugh.
Speaker 1: Actually that's a really good point. Also, I can see
Speaker 1: my audio peaked, like, right, that's a really good question, big,
Speaker 1: big question. I guess Penguin people age differently. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he was like almost fifty already by the time. Yes,
Speaker 1: this came out right, Yeah, I think so if you
Speaker 1: live in the sewer age like a president is what
Speaker 1: it is. Actually, you're right, Like he's got a lot
Speaker 1: of city miles, a lot of road miles on him.
Speaker 1: Like he's not lived an easy life. No, I get it,
Speaker 1: he's had it rough. So it happens. Yeah, it's really funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he's he's dwelling in the sewers, people seem to
Speaker 1: know about him, or there's rumors about his existence. This
Speaker 1: you know, half man, half penguin person. It kind of
Speaker 1: had Phantom of the Opera vibes. Yeah, absolutely, but like
Speaker 1: more charming in a way. Also, his whole just his
Speaker 1: underground water layer is like straight out of Phantom of
Speaker 1: the Opera. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like in a
Speaker 1: different world. You're like, oh, I could I could see
Speaker 1: myself getting horny for the penguin, you know, in a
Speaker 1: different world. I mean I was. I was kind of
Speaker 1: horny for Colin Farrell penguin, but only because I knew
Speaker 1: who was in there. Well, also like he was he
Speaker 1: was funny, like the funniest part of the movie arguably
Speaker 1: when they show him like the crime scene pictures. He's like,
Speaker 1: oh come on, I was like, absolutely, yeah, he kind
Speaker 1: of he kind of posted me pulled out a little
Speaker 1: bit on that one. I liked it, but I don't
Speaker 1: say I feel like I am like I am. I
Speaker 1: love I love this penguin. I would let him into
Speaker 1: my house, no question. I would say, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely I would. I would vote for him for mayor
Speaker 1: it well before the pivot, but not post pivot. Before
Speaker 1: I got. There's so many elements, I mean, and there's
Speaker 1: like stuff about the penguin that we definitely need to
Speaker 1: like talk about when when the moment comes. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot to unpack. But his whole like I think,
Speaker 1: like coming off the l a mayoral race, so you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: just a guy trying to buy the seat of mayor
Speaker 1: um and almost doing it. And I was like, is
Speaker 1: this going to be Rick Caruso's pivot? I kind of
Speaker 1: just hope he goes back to building malls literally why.
Speaker 1: I watched this with my partner last night and he
Speaker 1: was like, oh, like I would vote for the penguin
Speaker 1: over Rick Caruso, And I was like, You're right, I
Speaker 1: would too, Honestly, at least he's got a story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's much like sympathetic and he's not like rich brain pilled. No,
Speaker 1: he's he's so quick to go back to the zoo. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: his loyalties lie with the zoo. The zoo a problematic
Speaker 1: entity all its own, but who knows that better than
Speaker 1: the penguin exactly what I mean, Like, I guess I
Speaker 1: assume he's like freed all the penguins that work for him,
Speaker 1: like even liberated them from the zoo, right, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: But then he uses them as ponds and his little um. That's,
Speaker 1: you know, destroy a Gotham scheme. I am very conflicted
Speaker 1: about this because he does that but only arguably in
Speaker 1: a moment of extreme desperation, and then he is really
Speaker 1: like caring of them, and then they are very caring
Speaker 1: of him in turn, like they become they know to do, like,
Speaker 1: oh ship, we gotta be pall bearers now, and like
Speaker 1: they know to do. That's he makes me cry. I'm
Speaker 1: not like siously makes me cry. They make the animatronic
Speaker 1: penguins frown. I paused it. I was like, how is
Speaker 1: this penguin frowning? This is wild? Like yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: that was like it was unclear. I was like, the
Speaker 1: penguins kind of have like some Minions vibes where you're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, they just are like invested there. But
Speaker 1: I understand where you're coming. He's crew. I'm just always
Speaker 1: looking for who's the grow of the movie here. I mean,
Speaker 1: all throughout my recap is just full of Minions references.
Speaker 1: So thank god, Oh terrific cool. Okay, Sorry sorry for
Speaker 1: derailing immediately. We have a lot of thoughts about the penguins, specifically,
Speaker 1: we'll get to them. Yeah, yeah, we'll wait. We'll be
Speaker 1: so good, no worries. Okay. So then we meet Selina
Speaker 1: Kyle played by Michelle Peiffer, who is the assistant to
Speaker 1: a prominent businessman and like energy mogul Max Shrek played
Speaker 1: by Christopher Walkin, And now my blood pressure is skyrocketing.
Speaker 1: You're just like, oh, there's a character named Shrek. My
Speaker 1: favorite quote that because I was like, okay, you know, look,
Speaker 1: Shrek called sure, it's come it's gone, it's come back.
Speaker 1: My favorite one was it's nice to see you out
Speaker 1: in the real world away from Shrek. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: feel like I could relate with that. People should. I
Speaker 1: wish someone would say that to me. I would go
Speaker 1: on a date with them that said, this is an
Speaker 1: extremely Shrekkian movie. We got Shrek, we got minions, we
Speaker 1: got it all, we got clowns. There's so much what
Speaker 1: don't we have? Okay, So Max Shrek gives a speech
Speaker 1: to the people of Gotham during a Christmas tree lighting event,
Speaker 1: but he's interrupted when a bunch of goons or minions
Speaker 1: think about that aka the Red Triangle gang. You need
Speaker 1: to get like a Minion soundboard whatever you mentioned it.
Speaker 1: It's just it's like not the air horn noise. But
Speaker 1: I actually don't really know what I I mean. It sounds like,
Speaker 1: but oh well, what don't they sound like that's a
Speaker 1: good you know, nana bello, bellow banana, etcetera. I'm learning
Speaker 1: so much. It's like the time of year holidays. You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: my Spotify wrapped list is gonna really bumm me out soon.
Speaker 1: Mine's always like horrendous, so bad, right, Like it's if
Speaker 1: you're proud enough to share it, it's you don't have
Speaker 1: an interior life. It should be really embarrassing. I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely share it, like for public shaming purposes, right,
Speaker 1: as a way of holding yourself accountable. Yeah, here's what
Speaker 1: I did, I guess. Yeah, yeah, I think that it's
Speaker 1: it's very possible because I played it a lot as
Speaker 1: a joke, and then it's such a short track that
Speaker 1: it comes on a lot. But there's a track on
Speaker 1: my like go to playlist that's the Minions singing the
Speaker 1: Universal theme song. But I think I probably listened to
Speaker 1: it three hundred times. It oh, a few years ago,
Speaker 1: my most played song was the Lonesome Cowboy credits song
Speaker 1: from Toy Story four, was like, this is song what
Speaker 1: happened to you that year that you were really But
Speaker 1: I also think that once I had stepped away from
Speaker 1: my computer and left it on repeat without knowing it.
Speaker 1: So that did check up the numbers. But that's not
Speaker 1: to say that I didn't listen to it a lot,
Speaker 1: because I definitely didn't. I gotta, really, I got to
Speaker 1: revisit it. I can't conjure. What does it sound like?
Speaker 1: He was aloneesome, cowboys beautiful? I'm crying there. I'm getting tried.
Speaker 1: It's all about making friends. I've never sounded worse on
Speaker 1: a podcast. Disagree, No, this is this is raw and uncut. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right. So the Indians, so Penguins minions show up
Speaker 1: to re cavoc on the city. So the city lights
Speaker 1: up the bat signal to summon Batman, of course, played
Speaker 1: by Michael Keaton, who shows up and stops the minions.
Speaker 1: He also saves Selena Kyle, who is being terrorized by
Speaker 1: one of the minions. I know I said that we
Speaker 1: would be so good dirty Custom recapt but number one.
Speaker 1: I pointed this out again to Gala before the before
Speaker 1: recording already, but I wore my Michael Keaton shirt specifically
Speaker 1: for this recording. There's a um And also the shot
Speaker 1: of him when the bad signal is lit is like
Speaker 1: one of the best shots I've ever seen, where it
Speaker 1: goes off on the wall of Wayne Manor and then
Speaker 1: like he stands up in front of it and you're like,
Speaker 1: it's just so good, It's so good, amazing. It also revided.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, superhero stories like it's fun
Speaker 1: when they're very simple too, because you're like, what is
Speaker 1: Bruce Wayne in the middle of doing. Is he just
Speaker 1: like hoping that someone will commit a crime so he
Speaker 1: has something to do. He's just sitting there, He's just
Speaker 1: hanging out. There's not a light on in the room.
Speaker 1: There's no evidence as to him having hobbies. No, No,
Speaker 1: I think that that's a beautiful I was like, let
Speaker 1: me give the scriptway too much credit and be like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe that's them saying that, you know, billionaires have no
Speaker 1: interior life. They're all essentially sitting in a dark room
Speaker 1: at all times. I mean, yeah, I think you're right,
Speaker 1: but who am I to castones? I also do that
Speaker 1: mark like, yeah, people of all classes can sit in
Speaker 1: a dark room. It's a very egalitarian. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: great equalized right, yap wow. Okay, So during this havoc
Speaker 1: that the minions are unleashing Max, Shrek is kidnapped by
Speaker 1: the Penguin, who, of course is played by Danny de Vito,
Speaker 1: and he is mad at Shrek for polluting the city
Speaker 1: and he blackmails Shrek into helping Penguin so hard not
Speaker 1: to make a joke, he's making Gotham his swamp. Yes,
Speaker 1: he really is. Yeah, Gotham is getting a bit swampy.
Speaker 1: Who's Shrek doesn't? Really? I think part of the I
Speaker 1: think his son's son is Donkey, is his Donkey. He
Speaker 1: is kind of his Donkey, which makes it even more
Speaker 1: amazing when Shrek is like, t Penguin, take me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it lends new depths to the motion picture Shrek. Now,
Speaker 1: Shrek would totally do that for Donkey. Also, he has
Speaker 1: I've seen it evidence. Okay. I have to say I
Speaker 1: love how talkatively is and he's such a cute voice.
Speaker 1: It's so sweet. He knows that Catwoman is about to
Speaker 1: appear on screen. Yeah, Flee loves to chat. He loves
Speaker 1: to he loves to weigh in, and he knows that
Speaker 1: this is a good time. Has he always been a
Speaker 1: very talkative count? Yeah, I've never I've only had like
Speaker 1: mostly coincidentally, I've I've had three black cats in my lifetime,
Speaker 1: and I've never had one that made any noise. And
Speaker 1: Flee is so loud. He always has been. He's a
Speaker 1: he's a screamer. It's wonderful. Okay, So Penguin blackmails Shrek
Speaker 1: into helping him figure out his backstory. He wants to
Speaker 1: know where he came from, who his parents were, what
Speaker 1: his real name is, and he no longer wants to
Speaker 1: be seen as a monster. Meanwhile, Selena has to go
Speaker 1: back to the office where she discovers dirt on Shrek
Speaker 1: and all of his shady business stuff, and just then
Speaker 1: Shrek shows up and realizes Selena knows all of this
Speaker 1: incriminating information about him. So do you think he wants
Speaker 1: her to get out of his swamp? There he kind
Speaker 1: of shows up and he's like, get out of swan exactly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: by Shrek at the beginning of Shrek one exactly, And
Speaker 1: he gets her out of his swamp by throwing her
Speaker 1: out of a window. That scene is awesome. So she
Speaker 1: falls to the ground. She is lying there, presumably dead,
Speaker 1: but then a bunch of street cats, and I like
Speaker 1: to think that they are you know, rum Tum Tugger,
Speaker 1: busta for Jones, magical, Mr Mustaphele every bed. Wow, everyone
Speaker 1: showed up. I'm as a skimball shanks girly I but
Speaker 1: I maybe he comes later when there's a random circus
Speaker 1: train in the middle of Gotham. Because the railway cat
Speaker 1: he has a job is a union man. I love him. Okay,
Speaker 1: So these cats from the movie Cats seem to bring
Speaker 1: Selena back to life. She returns home. She's chugging milk,
Speaker 1: she's throwing away her stuffed anim she makes a new
Speaker 1: outfit because guess what, she's catwoman now. She ruins her
Speaker 1: dollhouse question mark, Yes, she makes it goth. I was
Speaker 1: watching this and I was like, I do think, like
Speaker 1: every woman goes through this at some point in her
Speaker 1: life means like you either become goth or you become emo.
Speaker 1: It's like you become like adjacent to Then to that scene,
Speaker 1: every woman goes through this, every single woman. She turns
Speaker 1: her hello there sign into hell here. I cheered iconic,
Speaker 1: I cheered so good. There's so much fun like little
Speaker 1: plants and payoffs in this movie that you're just like,
Speaker 1: who thought of that? It's the production I forget the
Speaker 1: production designers, like the Tim Burton guy bow something. I'll
Speaker 1: look it up. Okay, So she's becoming Catwoman. Meanwhile, Penguin
Speaker 1: stage as a situation where he saves a kidnapped baby
Speaker 1: at a public event so that he can save it
Speaker 1: and be seen as a hero by the people of Gotham,
Speaker 1: which works, and everyone loves Penguin now. And he goes
Speaker 1: to city hall or whatever, and he learns that his
Speaker 1: real name is Oswald cobble Pot. He learns who his
Speaker 1: parents were, but he's like, I forgive them for what
Speaker 1: they did to me, and so people continue to sympathize
Speaker 1: with him. But Bruce Wayne slash Batman, who by the way,
Speaker 1: it were like thirty six ish minutes into the movie,
Speaker 1: and it's only at this point when he actually starts
Speaker 1: to become a character, because prior to that he's barely
Speaker 1: in the movie. He's kind of like not in the
Speaker 1: movie very much, and it doesn't know that that was Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I get why that was Like a criticism
Speaker 1: of the movie at the time, but in retrospect you're
Speaker 1: like he's sort of the most boring person. It works,
Speaker 1: and also like I don't know, that's the fun thing
Speaker 1: about his Michael Keaton is also a weird choice for Batman,
Speaker 1: but like one that I love in a back but
Speaker 1: like he's like a little awkward. He doesn't have like
Speaker 1: the leading man features that I feel like everyone else
Speaker 1: they want Batman to have, even just like thinking about
Speaker 1: Batman the previous movie where like the Joker's goons or
Speaker 1: whatever come to his house and he's like, you want
Speaker 1: to get crazy, Let the Jokers Minions You're correct, yes,
Speaker 1: the Minions Banana. They come to his house, and then
Speaker 1: he like has this moment where he's also being like
Speaker 1: very kind of aggressive towards them, which is not I think,
Speaker 1: like you never see Batman and other movies being like uncool,
Speaker 1: but he's so is as Michael Keaton, and like the
Speaker 1: whole first scene or the second scene where he meets
Speaker 1: Selena and he is just totally tripping over his words
Speaker 1: just because he's instantly like, oh, she's like she's hot.
Speaker 1: I have to talk to her. It's so good. It's
Speaker 1: I I And again it's like it's like in a
Speaker 1: modern context like scans more with like how a weird
Speaker 1: guy with too much money would probably act like yeah,
Speaker 1: I love you alive girl. Yeah, yes, okay, so so
Speaker 1: Bruce slash Batman. He does not buy this whole like
Speaker 1: Penguin is a sympathetic character thing. He thinks Penguin is
Speaker 1: up to no good. Meanwhile, Catwoman goes out on the
Speaker 1: streets and starts being a vigilante, not hero exactly, because
Speaker 1: Catwoman is famously sort of a good guy and sort
Speaker 1: of a bad guy. Maybe that's over oversimplifying. We will
Speaker 1: talk about her at length. But she blows up a store,
Speaker 1: but it's like empty, it's empty, and it's Shreks store,
Speaker 1: So we're like, yeah, you're like, oh, I guess that
Speaker 1: was evictiblest crime. It's fine. So Catwoman is on the
Speaker 1: streets now. The next day she shows up to work
Speaker 1: as Selena, and Shrek is surprised to see her back
Speaker 1: in his swamp because he thought he killed her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he thought he drowned her in the swamp. Well guess what.
Speaker 1: But also like shockingly unconcerned that a woman who has
Speaker 1: fallen a significant distance out of a window is just
Speaker 1: like back and not talking about that, and he says
Speaker 1: something like, well, if she tries to blackmail me, I'll
Speaker 1: push her out of a higher window. But until then
Speaker 1: I have better fish to fry. Yeah, it's like the
Speaker 1: shreky and logic here is kind of all over the
Speaker 1: because he's like, okay, so he didn't check to make
Speaker 1: sure she had died, right, Like, if he looked out
Speaker 1: the window two minutes after that, he'd see her body
Speaker 1: being swarmed by cats, which is highly unusual. But you know,
Speaker 1: he's a he's a careless guys. I was like, okay, whatever,
Speaker 1: but like there are things that happened throughout the movie
Speaker 1: that you just think is going to get a big
Speaker 1: reaction from him, and he just does not blink, such
Speaker 1: as when Penguin bites someone's nose off. He's like, comes
Speaker 1: over here, what sidebar? And I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: he just like does not Yeah. I mean I don't
Speaker 1: hate it, but I was like, yeah, sometimes his reactions
Speaker 1: to things. I was like, well, I thought that would
Speaker 1: have mattered more to you. I think the nose meaning
Speaker 1: is especially funny because every one else freaks out and
Speaker 1: then only Christopher walk and he's like all right, whatever,
Speaker 1: he literally takes a society. He's like, I think we
Speaker 1: should run you for mayor. It's really funny. Oh that's
Speaker 1: so good. Okay. So Selena is back at work and
Speaker 1: she meets Bruce Wayne, who is there for a meeting
Speaker 1: because Shrek wants Bruce to help fund his new power plant,
Speaker 1: which is actually not a power plant, is going to
Speaker 1: suck energy out of Gotham rather than generating energy anyway.
Speaker 1: He they meet and there seems to be a spark
Speaker 1: between Bruce and Selina. And then meanwhile Shrek is trying
Speaker 1: to have Oswald cobble Pot run for mayor because the
Speaker 1: current mayor of Gotham is trying to stop shreks bogus
Speaker 1: power plant. I think. But they need a catalyst to
Speaker 1: drive out the current mayor some kind of like city crisis.
Speaker 1: So Penguin's minions unleash more chaos on the streets, which
Speaker 1: is basically just like assertain they just like militarized the
Speaker 1: clowns or the penguins anytime they need shipped to get
Speaker 1: stirred up there, like all right, all right, We're just
Speaker 1: going to give the penguins guns and people will not
Speaker 1: know what to do. And it's true they don't know
Speaker 1: what to do. It's true panic. Yeah, so the clown
Speaker 1: gymnasts are flipping around and just causing chaos. Separately, Catwoman
Speaker 1: is wreaking her own havoc on the city. She This
Speaker 1: is when she blows up Shreks department store. Then Batman
Speaker 1: and Catwoman have like a face to face for the
Speaker 1: first time. They fight for a bit. They then Catwoman
Speaker 1: each I mean, well, she looks It's like a very
Speaker 1: sexually charged movie. Oh it is the horny ist movie
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. There's like a scene where he says
Speaker 1: like I'm hard, like you're just there are a number
Speaker 1: of times where I'm pretty sure she puts her hand
Speaker 1: on his penis and he's just like all right. I
Speaker 1: wonder if that's a rating thing where it's like you
Speaker 1: can imply that her hand is there, but if he
Speaker 1: reacts to it, then you're getting hard are then? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure who knows. I didn't hate it, but again,
Speaker 1: very very horny movie, and for younger me definitely, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh wow, like what is going on here?
Speaker 1: So then Catwoman goes to Penguin to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: help me get rid of Batman and Penguin's like sounds great,
Speaker 1: he's horned up. Oh yeah, there's that scene that ends
Speaker 1: with like, I mean because it's like, as the movie
Speaker 1: goes on, Catwoman's horny nous just they just keep kind
Speaker 1: of cranking it up and up and up and up.
Speaker 1: To be fair, they're also doing that for Penguin. Like
Speaker 1: everyone's getting hornier as it goes but like Catwoman's becoming
Speaker 1: a very you know, like specific kind of horny. But
Speaker 1: there's a scene that ends with her licking herself and
Speaker 1: Penguin just sitting on the bed going like, were just horny.
Speaker 1: He's been in the sewer for thirty three years, as
Speaker 1: we now know, Like we don't know how much action
Speaker 1: he's been getting, but I have to assume it's not
Speaker 1: that much. And if you've been down there for thirty
Speaker 1: three years and this is all you're thinking about, I
Speaker 1: think he's justified. It really is Phantom of the Opera
Speaker 1: vibes in that regards as well. We're just like, I
Speaker 1: need a girlfriend. Finally he does. In a future scene
Speaker 1: he is kind of going like our slash in cell
Speaker 1: a little bit. Oh he's a complete full on predator. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but we'll talk about that later. Um. Okay. So Catwoman
Speaker 1: wants to get rid of Batman, but she as Selena,
Speaker 1: goes on a date with Bruce, neither of them knowing
Speaker 1: about the others alter ego. They're chatting, they're talking about duality.
Speaker 1: They're like basically telling each other who they secretly are. Um.
Speaker 1: Then Selena Lune is that Bruce to kiss him. They're
Speaker 1: making out, but then Bruce has to leave abruptly because
Speaker 1: Penguin is trying to frame Batman for kidnapping the Ice
Speaker 1: Princess during the New Christmas tree lighting ceremony since the
Speaker 1: other one got ruined by clowns by clown by clown gymnasts.
Speaker 1: But don't worry, the next one will also be ruined
Speaker 1: by by the same people. So Bruce puts on his
Speaker 1: bat suit and heads down so hard. It's all a
Speaker 1: horrible place to live, and also like feels like it's
Speaker 1: perpetually a nighttime almost like I know logically that they're
Speaker 1: hard day time shots, but it's just it's always under
Speaker 1: the cover of darkness. I also appreciate that at one
Speaker 1: point the mayor is like, yeah, I know that you
Speaker 1: citizens of Gotham probably think that you know, these streets
Speaker 1: are really funked up and scary, but don't worry. You're
Speaker 1: elected officials and law enforcement have everything under control. And
Speaker 1: it's like, no, you don't. You're attacked by clowns every
Speaker 1: other day. How well could these public services be doing there?
Speaker 1: The way that Gotham looks, I think of like all
Speaker 1: the Batman franchises I've seen, I think, I mean, I've
Speaker 1: seen like one from every whatever. But this is my
Speaker 1: favorite Gotham visually because I love the Nolan movies, but
Speaker 1: it does kind of just look like Chicago. I like
Speaker 1: them for that reason, though, Like I do think this
Speaker 1: is still my favorite Gotham. But I'm very sentimental watching
Speaker 1: the Nolan Gotham because I grew up a lot in Illinois,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, that's the best nice. I was like,
Speaker 1: maybe if Gotham looked a little more like Boston, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be so critical. Every movie has to be made
Speaker 1: for me specifically. I mean, I do feel like you
Speaker 1: would feel very differently about it if Gotham looked like Boston.
Speaker 1: I would actually be so thrilled. Have either of you
Speaker 1: seen the menu? Not not yet, but I do want
Speaker 1: to spoiler alert there's a character from my home town. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although I couldn't really suspend my disbelief to believe that
Speaker 1: Anya Taylor I could be from my hometown. There's I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't think that there's beautiful people like
Speaker 1: that in Brockton. But she came from Brockton. Jamie, you're beautiful.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not. I'm a tailor. Joyce swan Neck
Speaker 1: defeating Ralph finds at a restaurant. Beautiful. But you know
Speaker 1: who is? Who is? But her? It's true. She is
Speaker 1: like an alien. She she is a gorgeous alien. I
Speaker 1: really love her. Yeah, she came from a different like
Speaker 1: the sailor moon planet or something. It's I do appreciate
Speaker 1: her even being fictionally connected to Brockton. It's an honor.
Speaker 1: There wasn't. There was a show a while ago that
Speaker 1: was specifically set in the town in Illinois that I
Speaker 1: mostly grew up in, but they didn't shoot any of
Speaker 1: it there and didn't really make an attempt to make
Speaker 1: it look like it. Not that there's that much going
Speaker 1: for my hometown in Illinois, but every I remember, everyone
Speaker 1: that I like went to high school with, we were
Speaker 1: like watching the trailer. We were like, what the hell
Speaker 1: is this? Like this is not at all, This doesn't
Speaker 1: look like a done at all. Rude. Brockton gets constantly
Speaker 1: disrespected because of like there have been like some movies
Speaker 1: shot sequences there, but it's only like, oh, we need
Speaker 1: somewhere that looks like it sucks and it's not safe.
Speaker 1: So there were like a lot of key scenes from
Speaker 1: Katherine Bigelow's Dumpster Fire of a movie Detroit was shot
Speaker 1: at the streets of Brockton because they're like, we just
Speaker 1: need a place that looks like it just blew up,
Speaker 1: and so then they shot it in Brockton. Rude. Adam
Speaker 1: McKay shot some of the scenes where like Timothy shallowm
Speaker 1: is hanging out with his dumpster friends and don't look
Speaker 1: up in Brockton. I'm just like, no fucking respect. Unbelievable.
Speaker 1: They're like, okay, dumpster sequence, where can we go? Like
Speaker 1: what the fuck? Okay? So the second tree lighting ceremony
Speaker 1: is being interrupted by clowns, so Bruce puts on his
Speaker 1: batsuit and heads downtown to save the day. But Catwoman
Speaker 1: shows up and she and Penguin successfully frame Batman for
Speaker 1: murdering the ice princess. So now everyone hates Batman, which
Speaker 1: is a pity because she seems nice. She seems very nice. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also there's a sequence where Penguin hijacks the batmobile and
Speaker 1: he's like crashing it into things, but then Batman regains
Speaker 1: control of his vehicle. He's like doing it from like
Speaker 1: an arcade. It's really fun, it's really really cute. It's awesome.
Speaker 1: Then Penguin is able to gain more power and popularity
Speaker 1: with his mayoral campaign. But while he's giving a speech,
Speaker 1: Bruce Wayne Slash Batman leaks some audio where Penguin is
Speaker 1: talking about how he's playing this stinking city like a
Speaker 1: harp from hell, and so everyone turns on Penguin and
Speaker 1: hates him now. So he returns to the Sewer to
Speaker 1: plot his revenge. This is where he goes from semi
Speaker 1: successful mayoral run too, I'm going to kill everyone's firstborn
Speaker 1: son in about two minutes. I think he could have
Speaker 1: recovered the campaign, could have recovered. I mean it reminded
Speaker 1: me of, like, honestly, some key moments in the Trump campaign. Seriously,
Speaker 1: I was saying the exact same thing. It reminds me
Speaker 1: I was like that, Well, there is his Billy Bush
Speaker 1: tape basically and against all odds, he was famously the president.
Speaker 1: We don't need to talk about. So Penguin's campaign tanked,
Speaker 1: but Trump's won't. What's going on makes you think? Okay,
Speaker 1: so about Penguin, writes in this chat. So while Penguin
Speaker 1: is plotting his plan to kill a bunch of babies,
Speaker 1: very plagues of Egypt. Yeah, while that's happening, Bruce and
Speaker 1: Selena go to this masquerade party, although it's called a
Speaker 1: Max Scarade party because it's Max Shrek's party. Um, get it,
Speaker 1: get it. It's a real stretch, it's hard, it's a mouthful.
Speaker 1: When he walks in there playing an instrumental of super
Speaker 1: super Freak, implication that super freak like exists in this universe,
Speaker 1: which I'm glad to know that it does. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wonder if it only existed as an instrumental. Oh, interesting
Speaker 1: could be Um okay. So they're dancing and Selena is
Speaker 1: telling Bruce about how she's there to kill Shrek. She said,
Speaker 1: no more swamp. No, I'm going to drain this swamp,
Speaker 1: she says, And then they both say something that makes
Speaker 1: Selena realize that Bruce's Batman, and he realizes that she
Speaker 1: is catwoman. Um so they're like, oh my god, what
Speaker 1: do we do now? But just then Penguin launches his attack.
Speaker 1: He shows up. He kidnaps Max Shrek again as a
Speaker 1: second choice he loves. She tries to kidnap Chip, but
Speaker 1: then Shrek is like, no, don't hurt my donkey. Take
Speaker 1: me instead. That's my donkey. I wish the Chip had
Speaker 1: gotten to talk. There could be dead. Let him take
Speaker 1: me I can. But honestly, like his christ ever walk
Speaker 1: in the Freshman is shockingly good. Like it's just subtle enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who was that guy? He killed it? I don't know,
Speaker 1: feel like used to be in m M A or
Speaker 1: something was my impression. Andrew brand Narski. He is an
Speaker 1: American actor and former bodybuilder, best known for portraying leather
Speaker 1: Face in the remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Saying
Speaker 1: in Street Fighter, and Steve Latimer in the Program, and
Speaker 1: obviously Chip in Batman returns his most iconic role. Okay,
Speaker 1: so while that's happening, Penguin's minions are stealing babies all
Speaker 1: over Gotham. But Batman stops this somehow. I didn't even
Speaker 1: catch how he's able to stop that, but that he
Speaker 1: puts an end to it. So Penguin sends out all
Speaker 1: of his little penguins, like literal penguin birds with rockets
Speaker 1: strapped to them to blow up Gotham. And I would
Speaker 1: classify this scene as a bit of a march of
Speaker 1: the penguins. Oh yeah, yeah, bit of happy feet marching
Speaker 1: out onto the streets. Yeah, and I think that's all
Speaker 1: the penguin movies. Well, there's also surf Surf's up. Is
Speaker 1: that what it's called? Surfing penguins? I forgot about that.
Speaker 1: Madagascar has penguins in it. They are not the prominently
Speaker 1: it's true, really famous penguins. Yeah, they got their own
Speaker 1: spin off, right, I thought so. My little cousin loved
Speaker 1: the Madagascar movies. Okay, I haven't revisited it a while,
Speaker 1: but I loved it when I was a kid. The
Speaker 1: second one does a polka cover of New York, New York,
Speaker 1: which is one of my favorite versions of it. Like
Speaker 1: not ironically, it's very and that's going to show up
Speaker 1: on your Spotify end of year to this year, it
Speaker 1: probably has already. Um. Okay, so there's a march of
Speaker 1: the penguins, but Batman shows up he jams their signal
Speaker 1: and reroutes their gps IS to send them back to
Speaker 1: Penguin's sewer layer. Penguin escapes, Batman catches up with him,
Speaker 1: they fight, Rockets start going off. Meanwhile, Catwoman fights with
Speaker 1: Shrek in the Penguin Layer. She's trying to kill him,
Speaker 1: but Batman shows up and he's like, no, let's put
Speaker 1: him in jail, and he's trying to appeal to her humanity.
Speaker 1: He's like, we could be together. Batman was pissing me
Speaker 1: off in that scene. I was like, leave her alone,
Speaker 1: let her finish him. Seriously, totally agree, and also like
Speaker 1: takes the very ill advised tack of saying her real
Speaker 1: name and then taking off his mask in front of
Speaker 1: Max StrEG in order to try to convince her. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, if anything, that makes the case for killing
Speaker 1: him even stronger, Like he can't be out there. No.
Speaker 1: It is really funny though, When Shrek is like, why
Speaker 1: is Bruce Wayne dressed up as Batman? Catwoman's like, because
Speaker 1: he is, you, moron. It's good anyway. So Catwoman kills
Speaker 1: Shrek via electrocution and then presumably scurries off with one
Speaker 1: life left of her nine lives. Penguin shows up, he's dying.
Speaker 1: He dies so that his little penguins drag him into
Speaker 1: the water and Karen's crying. I I do cry every
Speaker 1: time he dies in this movie, Like this is not
Speaker 1: a joke, Like I cried and death scene every time
Speaker 1: it is sad. They give him like a real proper
Speaker 1: tragic hero or not tragic villain and send off. When
Speaker 1: he pulls the umbrella out and it's and he's like,
Speaker 1: pict a cute one again and then just falls her.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, he's an eight. He got he
Speaker 1: should they should just give him. He's such a good actor.
Speaker 1: And I feel like we all forget that because he's
Speaker 1: so good at being like funny and weird and like
Speaker 1: it's always sunny and stuff and posting his feet to Twitter.
Speaker 1: But he's such a good actors. His performance is incredible.
Speaker 1: He's amazing. Yeah, um okay. So then the movie ends
Speaker 1: with Bruce. He's driving around with Alfred. He thinks he
Speaker 1: sees catwoman in an alley. He gets out, he finds
Speaker 1: her cat, which looks exactly like Fleet by the way.
Speaker 1: He takes it home so that, like we said, Alfred
Speaker 1: can take care of it and then Bruce Wayne says
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas, Alfred goodwill toward men and women, and then
Speaker 1: they go, oh like feminist icon. He nibbles a little
Speaker 1: bit there. Wow, it is a really funny final line.
Speaker 1: It's you see Catwoman and then you know, like, because
Speaker 1: we live in the future, that she never comes back,
Speaker 1: and it's sending you up for a movie that never happens. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break and we will come back
Speaker 1: to discuss, and we're back. Karen, Where would you like
Speaker 1: to begin? Uh, that's such a good question. There's so
Speaker 1: much to talk about. I mean, I guess we'll start
Speaker 1: with the penguin because he's fresh on my mind, where
Speaker 1: I just love him so much, I would I would
Speaker 1: give a little kiss. I don't mind that he's perfect.
Speaker 1: The main conversation to be had about him as it
Speaker 1: pertains to our show and the analysis we do here
Speaker 1: is um the physical mothering and able ism that is
Speaker 1: present in his character, even though no specific disability is
Speaker 1: referenced when it comes to his character. And I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure that having penguin like features, to my knowledge, is
Speaker 1: not a real thing, right. But the syndactyl ly or
Speaker 1: what is it with his hands, I think is the
Speaker 1: real thing. But obviously, again they don't put like a
Speaker 1: name to any of what's going on, right right, Even so,
Speaker 1: a villain in a movie having a typical physical features
Speaker 1: and looking different from everybody else is just inherently ablest.
Speaker 1: And in this case, I would say also fat phobic,
Speaker 1: because Danny de Vito is wearing a fat suit as
Speaker 1: the Penguin character. So there's just all of this again
Speaker 1: physical mothering of his character. But this movie does something
Speaker 1: interesting that I feel like a lot of movies don't
Speaker 1: do when it comes to physically other movie villains, where
Speaker 1: the movie will other the villain in some way, usually
Speaker 1: with like very ablest under an overtones, but it's usually
Speaker 1: not something that impacts this story or the character. It's
Speaker 1: just like a trait that exists in a void for
Speaker 1: that character. But Penguin's whole thing is that he was
Speaker 1: discarded by his parents because he was physically different, which
Speaker 1: led to a lifetime of isolation and resentment and longing,
Speaker 1: which turned him into the villain that he is. So
Speaker 1: you have this character who's like affected by everyone in
Speaker 1: the community being ablest towards him, and yes, it does
Speaker 1: turn him into a villain. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: know what to make of it exactly, but it's it's tough,
Speaker 1: I think, like, especially for the time period, Like it
Speaker 1: feels pretty forward in that respect, where again, like the
Speaker 1: fact that he looks the way he does is not
Speaker 1: supposed to indicate that he's a villain, like I think,
Speaker 1: especially because of the way that Tim Burton uses iconography,
Speaker 1: like everyone looks a little bit weird it and especially
Speaker 1: as you were sort of saying in the penguin's case,
Speaker 1: like he is like this specifically because everyone else discriminates
Speaker 1: against him because of the way he looks. So it's
Speaker 1: not there as a storytelling shortcut or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's not there in the sense of, like I think
Speaker 1: it's discussed the most with like Bond villains, where there's
Speaker 1: always some kind of physical deformity that has no bearing
Speaker 1: on their personality but just means look at them, they're evil,
Speaker 1: which is not the case here. And I also feel
Speaker 1: like the depths again, the fact that data Vito is
Speaker 1: such a good and empathetic actor like goes a really
Speaker 1: long way towards selling that point, because like then they
Speaker 1: have the direct like rips from the elephant man, where
Speaker 1: at first, like when he's being reintegrated into society, he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not a penguin, like I'm a man, I have
Speaker 1: a name, And then when they reject him because of
Speaker 1: the tape, and also I think because of inherent bias,
Speaker 1: he's like, I am not a man, I'm a monster.
Speaker 1: And it's like, again, it's because of the outside influences
Speaker 1: that he is doing these bad things more so than
Speaker 1: that being like an inherent part of his personality. Right,
Speaker 1: I yeah, I like was it is like a tricky
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like a tricky topic to take on
Speaker 1: in any regard, and it's like so present in comic
Speaker 1: books in general that I appreciate it, like even though
Speaker 1: it's like certainly not like a perfect attempt to address it,
Speaker 1: but like I thought it was like like you're saying, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: and like it was trying to give context to like
Speaker 1: he is not a villain because of how he looks.
Speaker 1: He is a villain because of how society treats him
Speaker 1: because of how it looks. And you know, it was
Speaker 1: interesting and I don't know what actually we'll come back
Speaker 1: to it. I lost it. Um Oh. I also I
Speaker 1: saw some reads. It's tricky because it's like I certainly
Speaker 1: see and like can acknowledge a lot of the able
Speaker 1: is m that's built into the character. And then there's
Speaker 1: also moments where it's like they're just trying to make
Speaker 1: him look more like a penguin, and so it's like
Speaker 1: two things kind of are happening at once. I saw
Speaker 1: that at the time of this movie's release, and rightfully so.
Speaker 1: I mean, and we've talked about anti Semitic tropes and
Speaker 1: villains a number of times, and I think that, um,
Speaker 1: some of those are certainly present in The Penguin as well.
Speaker 1: The point that didn't register with me was like, here
Speaker 1: is a villain who's being given anti Semitic styling, who
Speaker 1: is determined to steal babies around Christmas, and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh uh, yep, that is certainly what's happening. Um, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that It's like I totally agree with Karen.
Speaker 1: I think like Danny Devitto's performance is like so much
Speaker 1: of like what humanizes this character. I like that he
Speaker 1: gets so much context into why he is the way
Speaker 1: he is. Danny DeVito is so perfect it's hard. He's perfect,
Speaker 1: and Danny DeVito I think again, not to keep just
Speaker 1: talking about his performance, but the fact that he never
Speaker 1: plays also like a joke goes a long, long, long,
Speaker 1: long long way towards this kind of coming off better,
Speaker 1: I guess, because I think you could very easily play
Speaker 1: it as like, Oh, he's so funny and weird look
Speaker 1: at him, But I don't think he ever plays it
Speaker 1: that way in the movie. Yeah, yeah, for sure. The
Speaker 1: thing that puts me off about him the most as
Speaker 1: far as his like villainous qualities, is his like predatory,
Speaker 1: like sexual predatory behavior, where like he says stuff like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'd like to fill her void, and he just like
Speaker 1: is actively groping people and sexually harassing them. I viewed that,
Speaker 1: though I didn't view that as like tying into anything
Speaker 1: that had to do with his physical appearance. I viewed
Speaker 1: that as like him getting corrupted by power the second
Speaker 1: he gets a little bit of power, because that's like,
Speaker 1: because like the coolest part about his character is like
Speaker 1: he at the beginning, it's like you can totally see
Speaker 1: like he wants to funk over Gotham because he's been
Speaker 1: so thoroughly rejected and isolated from the society he should
Speaker 1: have been growing up in but then the second he
Speaker 1: gets a little taste of power, he immediately is like
Speaker 1: horrible to everybody in all the expected ways, which I
Speaker 1: think is like an awesome whatever. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: it's a it's a good arc we know, we know
Speaker 1: this arc um. Oh, that was what I was thinking.
Speaker 1: It was earlier, was I feel like I mean, And
Speaker 1: there's plenty of criticisms of Tim Burton. I wasn't even
Speaker 1: going to get into them today really because we've talked
Speaker 1: about them in previous episodes. But I do think that
Speaker 1: like something that he dealt with well in a lot
Speaker 1: of examples, especially in this era of his is like
Speaker 1: taking another character and building them out to be someone
Speaker 1: that you can empathize with, even if ultimately they're like
Speaker 1: doing the wrong thing. And so for like it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess like the penguin in Tim Burton and Mark
Speaker 1: Water's hand because this was written by the guy who
Speaker 1: wrote Heathers um like You've got two That is Daniel Waters.
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, Daniel Waters. Mark Waters is his brother who
Speaker 1: directed Mean Girls. Yeah, the whole Waters dynasty situation apparently,
Speaker 1: but yeah, Daniel Waters wrote Heather's Tim Burton liked Heathers,
Speaker 1: and he liked that Daniel Waters had no knowledge about
Speaker 1: Batman Um and didn't care about Batman Cannon and like
Speaker 1: it just like we're two people who were known for
Speaker 1: dealing with humanizing misfits well and so for I think
Speaker 1: that they did a pretty good job. But I also,
Speaker 1: you know, totally understand all of the criticisms around the
Speaker 1: penguin as well. Yeah, I think, I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it is very of its time in a way, like
Speaker 1: even thinking about the uh, like phone sales calls that
Speaker 1: Selena Gas where they're like, oh, if you wear this
Speaker 1: at the office, your boss is going to invite you
Speaker 1: to day late, like it's so gross, and Max's houltree
Speaker 1: ement of her, and then even to an extent like
Speaker 1: Bruce where he's just like he sees her and he's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: that woman's hot. I want to talk to her more, right,
Speaker 1: I think it's rare and maybe it doesn't even happen
Speaker 1: for a man to come into contact with Selena and
Speaker 1: not immediately say something, even though like I think the
Speaker 1: most egregious thing is like the two security guards are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I should arrest her or as
Speaker 1: with her right, and you're just like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: like okay, you can blow up those guys. And then
Speaker 1: she's like, you're paid too much. Also watching her is
Speaker 1: very cathartic. Oh yeah, absolutely. Also, Penguin turns on Catwoman
Speaker 1: the second she's like, yeah, I don't want to have
Speaker 1: sex with you or marry you, and he says, and
Speaker 1: I quote you, lousy minx. I ought to have you spade.
Speaker 1: You sent out all the signals, and I don't think
Speaker 1: I like you anymore, and then he tries to kill her,
Speaker 1: has her air lifted out of the scene. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's an incredible, incredible way to get someone out of
Speaker 1: your life. But also like he has no little to
Speaker 1: no social interaction with people. Don't know, I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to write off the behavior like you should not behave
Speaker 1: that way towards anybody, but anyway, but that no, I
Speaker 1: think that that's like part of why this character is
Speaker 1: like kind of endured in spite of like all this
Speaker 1: stuff is like I don't know, I feel like I
Speaker 1: complain about modern movie villains a lot, and like the
Speaker 1: movie doesn't go out of its way to like redeem
Speaker 1: the Penguin, like he's still a villain, but you also
Speaker 1: know enough about him that you do feel a little
Speaker 1: bit bad or or in Karen's case, are full and
Speaker 1: creeping um when he does die, because it's like, well, no,
Speaker 1: like he you know, grew up extremely disadvantaged. He was
Speaker 1: raised by penguins. He's not interacted with people. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: he's dying a very horny virgin. Like there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that he lost the mayor mayoral campaign. His
Speaker 1: dad was pee wee herman. He has a lot of baggage. Wait,
Speaker 1: his dad is played by Paul Rubens. Yeah, I didn't know,
Speaker 1: and Karen wasn't lying. Doug Jones is in this movie.
Speaker 1: He plays a clown. Oh my gosh, he's the he's
Speaker 1: the quote unquote thin clown. Oh why I mean described
Speaker 1: Doug Jones in a better way. It's true, Like it's
Speaker 1: right there, Oh my goodness. But like but but but
Speaker 1: by the time Penguin dies, I just like I feel
Speaker 1: like it's kind of a weird lost art in big
Speaker 1: movies to have uh, you know, poetic villain that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like they're they're so clearly a path you can
Speaker 1: see where he his life would have been fine or
Speaker 1: like he would have been redeemed him some way, and
Speaker 1: that's what makes that storyline powerful, that he is not
Speaker 1: on it or did not manage to get on it
Speaker 1: right and then like the first person to like accept
Speaker 1: him into society. It happened to be like kind of
Speaker 1: the most evil guy um where like nobody around him
Speaker 1: has his best interests at his heart. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: only doing it because he was being blackmailed. And he
Speaker 1: also was like, oh, I can use him as a
Speaker 1: political pond so I can build my power plant, right
Speaker 1: like if if I don't know, I mean it's like Penguin.
Speaker 1: By the end, you're like, yeah, he's the villain. You know,
Speaker 1: he's not going to make it out of the movie.
Speaker 1: But but also we're frowning and it's sad, and he's
Speaker 1: supposed to be thirty three years old. Yes, the last
Speaker 1: thing I want to say about I feel like I
Speaker 1: love I think almost across the board really like the
Speaker 1: like political like corrupt politics commentary in this movie and
Speaker 1: like those areas of the Penguin. I kind of am
Speaker 1: like kind of above criticism for me, where it's like
Speaker 1: commenting on how like people are so influenced by media
Speaker 1: narratives that make them feel like good people, where it's
Speaker 1: like these are the same people that have rejected and
Speaker 1: been afraid of Penguin his whole life, but then there's
Speaker 1: this false media narrative constructed by the penguin to be
Speaker 1: like I'm good now you should feel so bad to
Speaker 1: have been so horrible to me in the past. And
Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, we love the penguin, now we're going
Speaker 1: to vote for him. And then like he's like, oh, whatever,
Speaker 1: fuck you. Um, that's absolutely true. Yeah, I was not.
Speaker 1: I keep interrupting you, but I was thinking about that too,
Speaker 1: Like in the scene where he goes to his parents
Speaker 1: grave site and it's like a whole like media circus
Speaker 1: out there, Like there are a lot of journalists, there's
Speaker 1: a huge crowd that all are just wanting to gawk
Speaker 1: at this yeah, and it's like he's, uh, so there's
Speaker 1: so much about this movie that you're like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: like rejecting all these things where it's like he's crafting
Speaker 1: his own redemption arc while being completely unchanged, and like
Speaker 1: people buy it because and people always buy ship like that.
Speaker 1: They want to Yeah, are we to understand that Penguin
Speaker 1: killed his own parents, like he knew who they were
Speaker 1: and at some point went and killed them and that's
Speaker 1: why they're dead or did I just kind of fill
Speaker 1: in some blanks. I think they just died. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't think that he had he had killed them, Okay,
Speaker 1: but well that's my headcanon that he did already know
Speaker 1: who they were and he went and killed them, killed
Speaker 1: Pee Wee. I mean that's going to dock him a
Speaker 1: few points in my book. You really can't be killing
Speaker 1: pee Wee Herman. But also like the fact that they
Speaker 1: brought Pee Wee Herman back for the Gotham TV show
Speaker 1: specifically because they're like, we gotta get him in. It's
Speaker 1: a great cameo. Anyway, He's Cannon, he is, He's that
Speaker 1: Makann and know he is. It makes me Also Jan
Speaker 1: Hooks is in this movie. I love Jan Hooks Okay,
Speaker 1: so oh yeah. But then and then like just like that,
Speaker 1: they're like running him on this like law and order campaign,
Speaker 1: like just all this stuff where it's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that. The people of Gotham are also always kind
Speaker 1: of like not like complicit in the downfall of their city,
Speaker 1: but like they kind of fall for everything, and you're
Speaker 1: like well, guys, I mean you really should have been
Speaker 1: reading between the lines on that whole Penguin redemption narrative.
Speaker 1: But you know, I guess you're gonna get attacked by
Speaker 1: a clown again just desserts, but like the like, oh
Speaker 1: or city is so full of crime narrative also like
Speaker 1: something that we see a lot in our contemporary society
Speaker 1: and it's not always true. But yeah, can we talk
Speaker 1: about before we get to because Catwoman, I know it's
Speaker 1: like going to consume so much of the discussion and
Speaker 1: rightfully so. But uh, I was reading about like the
Speaker 1: creative production of this movie and a lot of the
Speaker 1: back and forth that happened between Tim Burton and Daniel Waters,
Speaker 1: and something that I liked because because Max Shrek. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have known this because I don't know about comic books,
Speaker 1: but is an original character added to this movie was
Speaker 1: not part of Batman. Cannon added him in specifically named
Speaker 1: after the actor Max Shrek, who played I liked that.
Speaker 1: You know, they wanted to have like you're kind of
Speaker 1: like political villain to to counter to the Penguin, which
Speaker 1: is like more kind of a classic comic book e
Speaker 1: villain um. And they said that they wanted to do
Speaker 1: that specifically so that they like decate there, like, oh,
Speaker 1: the greatest evil is often just like an elected public
Speaker 1: official or like a business person, and it's true, and
Speaker 1: it's true. I just like it ages very well in
Speaker 1: that regard. I really, I really liked it. And I
Speaker 1: mean I don't like the character of Max Shrek is
Speaker 1: so despicable, but like it just like it fits in Gotham.
Speaker 1: I would prefer that to like another cartoony kind of villain.
Speaker 1: And Christopher Walkin plays the hell out of him. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh he looks so goofy. He looks great. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: it's amazing. He's hot. He's oh my god, Christopher Walkin
Speaker 1: is hot. And then every time everyone in this movie
Speaker 1: is hot, and then we're always like, what happens on
Speaker 1: the boat and Christopher walking what happened? Yeah, I cannot
Speaker 1: forget that that he probably does know how Natalie would died.
Speaker 1: I can never forget that. TikTok, you know, you gotta
Speaker 1: let us know you're getting up there. And he hasn't
Speaker 1: dropped that on the Dune to press tour. He's like
Speaker 1: he's getting to There's been too many true crime podcasts
Speaker 1: about Natalie would. I just want to say this now,
Speaker 1: this is the best Christopher Rock and I can do.
Speaker 1: And there I was. I love it. It's perfect, It's perfect.
Speaker 1: All right. Shall we talk about Catwoman? Okay? That costume,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's hot. Jeem So my note, my
Speaker 1: notes are all over the place with her. But I
Speaker 1: guess just like, okay, generally speaking, or to kick us off,
Speaker 1: first of all, well, I love Catwoman. Incredible character, amazing.
Speaker 1: Michelle Peiffer as Catwoman is iconic, just like she's the
Speaker 1: best one, so good. What I like about the Selena
Speaker 1: Slashcatwoman character is I mean, she's contextualized much like Penguin
Speaker 1: is where you get the sense that Selena is constantly
Speaker 1: being undermined by men in her life and her mom um.
Speaker 1: She's constantly being disappointed by men in her life. She
Speaker 1: is inundated with pressure to please men and kind of
Speaker 1: adhere to rigid gender roles, you know, all of this
Speaker 1: ship that she's dealing with. That like she's literally like
Speaker 1: putting a pink collar job. The whole thing where she
Speaker 1: keeps saying like I'm an assistant, it's like a secretary,
Speaker 1: Like that whole distinction is so good and every yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone keeps calling her secretary right, And then like at work,
Speaker 1: when she tries to offer some input in a meeting,
Speaker 1: she's shot down. Shrek doesn't want to hear what she
Speaker 1: has to say. He says something like, you know, we
Speaker 1: haven't properly how to feel that way about Fiona too,
Speaker 1: and she I mean, exactly, okay, sorry, I thought love
Speaker 1: was only true in fairy tales, but tributity lies within.
Speaker 1: So everything about the point is Shrek undermines Selena. And
Speaker 1: then she goes home. You see a bit of her
Speaker 1: interior life. She has all of these messages on her
Speaker 1: answering machine from people again either like disappointing her, undermining her,
Speaker 1: like laying on this pressure was kind of like societal
Speaker 1: patriarchal pressure. And then when she goes back to the
Speaker 1: office and is murdered by her boss, that's obviously like
Speaker 1: the catalyst that turns her into catwoman. You know, Skimble
Speaker 1: Shanks is like Miamio and she's like a catwoman, and
Speaker 1: he's like back from work, back from the clown train,
Speaker 1: I work on um. And then she criticizes skimble Shanks
Speaker 1: for not paying rent, which if true, is wild because
Speaker 1: he we are to understand that he has a job.
Speaker 1: That's right. He's one of the few cats that makes money,
Speaker 1: so he should be paying rent. He's rich. Um, he
Speaker 1: works on a train. What is it going to use
Speaker 1: all that cat money for? He's a cat and he
Speaker 1: takes it so seriously. That's the whole song is about
Speaker 1: how seriously he takes his job and exactly how he
Speaker 1: does it. He's like, I'm on time every day and
Speaker 1: the train just kind of can't run without me. I
Speaker 1: saw it at the Pantages a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and he didn't tap in the stage adaptation. Heck, I
Speaker 1: know Mr must Files tapped, and well Mr m is
Speaker 1: a classic tapper, but he's like not a tapper in
Speaker 1: the movie, but he is a tamper on stage. I
Speaker 1: knew that, but I didn't know that there was no
Speaker 1: Skimble Shanks tapping. I mean, it was a lovely dance,
Speaker 1: but I did walk away disappointed. It's a lot more
Speaker 1: of like this. It's yes now is Skimble Shanks taking
Speaker 1: up space? Of course, during the number he's taking up
Speaker 1: He's taking up space the way that Sebastian Maniscalco does
Speaker 1: during his specials. He's back and forth back and forth,
Speaker 1: like but but it just wasn't quite the tap number
Speaker 1: I was expecting. Yeah, I'm sorry, Catwoman. Yes, okay, another
Speaker 1: little context defect. And again I don't want to get
Speaker 1: in the habit of hand to get to dim Burton
Speaker 1: too hard. He has a lot of baggage. But I
Speaker 1: guess when they were developing the scriptum According to scholarly
Speaker 1: journal Wikipedia, Burton's only instruction to Daniel Watters writing the
Speaker 1: script was that Catwoman had to be more than a
Speaker 1: sexy vixen and like so he it was a definite
Speaker 1: point of like we need to understand how she gets
Speaker 1: from zero to Catwoman. It's not just sexy lady and
Speaker 1: suit do crime and be a girlfriend. Which is why
Speaker 1: I think she really works in this movie, like she
Speaker 1: has more to do. Like I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: the fatal flaw of like the other like film Catwoman
Speaker 1: that we've seen where they don't have as much to
Speaker 1: do or there's kind of too much assumed that we
Speaker 1: would know about her already, that she falls kind of flat.
Speaker 1: That this line is like she rules, I understand her,
Speaker 1: talked about him like she's great and she has like
Speaker 1: a real struggle like I'm trying to I I are. Honestly,
Speaker 1: most of the Robert Pattins in Batman movie, I know,
Speaker 1: I liked it, but most of it's already left my brain.
Speaker 1: But Colin Farrell a little the strongest impression in that movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I liked him, and I love Zoe Kravitz, but it's
Speaker 1: like her Catwoman was so cool that it wasn't like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wonder if she's going to get out of this.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, she's so cool, she's probably gonna get
Speaker 1: out of it. Michelle Peiffer's Catwoman. I genuinely was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going to happen now. She's very chaotic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the stakes are so high for her, and you know
Speaker 1: that right away, and you also like, I guess I'm
Speaker 1: curious what you both thought about this, because I I,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that we're to believe that like
Speaker 1: Selena is like unraveling as the story goes on, She's
Speaker 1: like losing her you know, grip on reality. But I
Speaker 1: thought that for the most part, that was like well
Speaker 1: contextualized enough that it didn't super bother me. Like when
Speaker 1: she goes nuclear on her house, I was like, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: There comes a day you just died and came back
Speaker 1: like of course, yeah, I'm not going to call that
Speaker 1: overly emotional behavior. I think it makes sense, right, because
Speaker 1: she's reacting to all of this stuff that she had
Speaker 1: been dealing with prior to that, the most drastic being
Speaker 1: that she was murdered by her boss. But like she
Speaker 1: to me, I see her transformation as like an extremely
Speaker 1: liberating and empowering moment for her because she comes in,
Speaker 1: she destroys all of the pink stuff, the her dollhouse,
Speaker 1: her stuffed animals, She's spray painting things black to make
Speaker 1: like her house goth. She pulls out like the one
Speaker 1: black leather coat she has and she's like, this is
Speaker 1: my outfit now. So she's like rejecting femininity, like traditional
Speaker 1: femininity in this way. But I don't think the movie
Speaker 1: is saying like feminine things bad, Like yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: think so either. It's more just like she's I think,
Speaker 1: fed up with the expectation to adhere to very rigid,
Speaker 1: hyper feminine gender roles and she's like, funck this, Like
Speaker 1: I'm going to break out of this prison basically of
Speaker 1: gender role constraints and unleash havoc on the world. What
Speaker 1: I don't quite get about her character is while I
Speaker 1: think she has a really cool internal conflict like you
Speaker 1: mentioned Jamie, as far as like she's struggling with this
Speaker 1: dual identity, she doesn't really know who she has become.
Speaker 1: This transformation is like really messing with her mentally and emotionally.
Speaker 1: Her external conflict doesn't really make any sense to me.
Speaker 1: She wants to take down Batman for why. I assume
Speaker 1: she wanted to take down Max s Trek and knew
Speaker 1: that and felt that Batman would be an obstacle for
Speaker 1: that because like obviously what she was trying to do
Speaker 1: is assassinate of his This man basically is not going
Speaker 1: to allow that to happen on his watch no matter what.
Speaker 1: That makes more sense, That's how because I was like
Speaker 1: a little unclear in that at first, but then I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, Selena is one thing I actually really
Speaker 1: like about her is she goes full girl boss babe,
Speaker 1: but she like she is like very strategic in the
Speaker 1: way she does stuff where it's like if she has
Speaker 1: to manipulate, like emotionally manipulate Batman in one scene to
Speaker 1: like neutralize him temporarily and then go over to the penguin,
Speaker 1: you know, like get what she needs from him, and
Speaker 1: it's like all very strategic and like Batman is such
Speaker 1: a like I was gonna say loser. He's not a loser,
Speaker 1: but like he's so like lawful good that you know,
Speaker 1: and his whole thing is he doesn't kill people and
Speaker 1: she straight up does some I know, which I think
Speaker 1: Batman heads don't Like, I don't care it works in
Speaker 1: the movie. I'm not that mad about it. I like
Speaker 1: that Daniel Waters, like he has so many quotes about
Speaker 1: being like saying like, I don't care about pleasing fans.
Speaker 1: Comic book fans mean nothing to me, Like they shouldn't
Speaker 1: let me kill Selena. But it makes more sense if
Speaker 1: Batman kills people, and you're just like, man damn Daniel
Speaker 1: to borrow a phrase, Um, he just he just doesn't
Speaker 1: give a rat's ass when it comes to great which
Speaker 1: I do. I think that mores honestly more uh screenwriters
Speaker 1: for like big franchises, they should hire more people who
Speaker 1: don't give a ship because that's the only way you
Speaker 1: get new stuff. Tony Gilroy, this is why Andor is
Speaker 1: good because he hates Star Wars. Really, I hate Star Wars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and is so good. It's like I'm talking, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: watch it still. There's an entire arc about the prison complex.
Speaker 1: Like it's wild interesting, it's really really good. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: less fans should be hired. And this is how I'm
Speaker 1: going to get to write a big franchise movie. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, you should hire me. I don't know anything. Um,
Speaker 1: but like Batman is so like there you know, all
Speaker 1: the obvious observations about Batman been made also on this show,
Speaker 1: uh where it's like he's a billionaire and her, but like,
Speaker 1: but I think for this that doesn't even really come
Speaker 1: into it that much. Those are the kind of obvious
Speaker 1: criticisms of him. But like that scene at the end
Speaker 1: where they're like he's coming in lawful good and he's
Speaker 1: like we just need to like bring him to the
Speaker 1: police and it'll be fine. And Selena is like, what
Speaker 1: the funk are you talking about? Like this guy lives
Speaker 1: above the law and so do we, and he's like, no,
Speaker 1: cops are amazing. I love God and p D and like, Commissioner,
Speaker 1: my only friend, my only friend is a cops are
Speaker 1: I was like, God, so pathetic, But like whatever, But
Speaker 1: I just I just loved how like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like in a way that totally fits like cartoonishly explicit
Speaker 1: that conversation is and that he doesn't win her over
Speaker 1: like that was I was sort of like nervous that
Speaker 1: whole scene of like, oh God, is he going to
Speaker 1: win her over? Is she gonna be like you're right,
Speaker 1: let's just bring him downtown and like get him locked
Speaker 1: up or another fear. This was like a Spider Man
Speaker 1: two based fear, whereas like is Batman going to get
Speaker 1: the killing blow on Max Shrek or something? Because I
Speaker 1: always forget Batman's not supposed to kill people, So I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, is he going to get to do it?
Speaker 1: That would suck because it's so clearly Selena's kids to
Speaker 1: do it. But none of that happens. Batman is literally
Speaker 1: like knocked out for for Selena to get her killing
Speaker 1: blow in. Honestly, his part in the final scenes is
Speaker 1: so funny because he gets knocked out and then you
Speaker 1: see him sort of like in the distance sort of
Speaker 1: standing up and like here around and see what's going
Speaker 1: on as these six penguins, uh score the body of
Speaker 1: the penguin into the water, like, can you imagine being
Speaker 1: Bruce Wayne in that moment, being like, huh, like what's
Speaker 1: going on? Oh, the penguins are like having a funeral service,
Speaker 1: and then Batmans goes like, oh, I gotta go. And
Speaker 1: then Batman goes over to like the rubble and like
Speaker 1: clear some of it away, and he's ease Max Shrek
Speaker 1: just as like a yeah, like a burnt to a
Speaker 1: crisp dead dude. Catwoman's nowhere. It's really good. It's awesome.
Speaker 1: But I liked I totally agree with what you guys
Speaker 1: are saying about Catwoman and her I guess spectrum of femininity,
Speaker 1: because I think that's one of the fun things about
Speaker 1: this movie, and I think something that will be relatable
Speaker 1: to anyone who has ever sort of questioned how to
Speaker 1: present gender in any way. Where the scene where she
Speaker 1: saves that woman from being raped on the street, she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you make it so easy, always waiting for someone to
Speaker 1: come save you. I think that's like a sort of
Speaker 1: thing that we all wrestle with, where it's like, even
Speaker 1: if you want to present in a very traditionally feminine matter,
Speaker 1: or that's what you like more and what you want
Speaker 1: to do, Like the stereotypes that have been laiden onto.
Speaker 1: These particular aesthetics are so loaded and what people tell
Speaker 1: you about like when, for instance, like someone is sexually assaulted,
Speaker 1: like so much of the language is about like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: what were you doing in that situation? So yeah, where
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's interesting to watch her struggle
Speaker 1: with that. Like they obviously don't go all the way
Speaker 1: into like just talking about gender politics in this movie,
Speaker 1: but it's a very interesting thing to touch on in general,
Speaker 1: because like the iconography of Catwoman in this movie, where
Speaker 1: she turns into this like all leather like girls dominatrix style,
Speaker 1: like has such an impact on how we now perceive
Speaker 1: like quote unquote strong female characters because they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: like they have to be sexy but also shoot a gun.
Speaker 1: And it's like, no, like that's not what constitutes like
Speaker 1: strength for any character, or like you don't have to
Speaker 1: present in one way or anything or the other to
Speaker 1: be considered strong. But anyway, right, because her sexualization is
Speaker 1: something I was grappling with because she when she transforms
Speaker 1: into Catwoman, she becomes like I would say, one of
Speaker 1: the hottest movie characters of all times, absolutely a sexual
Speaker 1: awakening for were I think most people who feel sexual feelings.
Speaker 1: One of the IMDb trivia things for this is that
Speaker 1: people kept stealing like the one sheet of her like
Speaker 1: because and like to the point that they had to
Speaker 1: like start putting like cops out to watch like busses
Speaker 1: and like signage post and ship to make sure they
Speaker 1: would stop stealing them our tax dollars at work, people
Speaker 1: guarding sexual images of Michelle Peifer like. A friend of
Speaker 1: the show, Sammy Junio had this to say, Michelle Peifer
Speaker 1: as Catwoman is a gay awakening for a lot of
Speaker 1: queer folks. And gay awakening is also what I announced
Speaker 1: into my empty apartment when I get out of bed
Speaker 1: for the day. So Sammy making a Google but I did,
Speaker 1: I mean my my feeling on it was like I
Speaker 1: understand why, Like it almost feels like the sort of
Speaker 1: thing where for me it really works in the context
Speaker 1: of this movie, and I understand how like people could
Speaker 1: take the most base interpretation of it and lift it
Speaker 1: for other movies in a way that is like net negative.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that that's Michelle Feiffer Catwoman's fault.
Speaker 1: I feel like, no, no, it's a very like Mr
Speaker 1: Hollywood takeaway to be like, Okay, so you know she
Speaker 1: people really liked this character and it's probably because she
Speaker 1: was wearing a skin tight suit and had a gun
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, that was a part of it,
Speaker 1: but also I like, but also the other stuff. It's
Speaker 1: not nothing. It was definitely a good chunk. But also
Speaker 1: it's like the character was well written. She was really
Speaker 1: strongly motivated and like, yeah, I sort of viewed like
Speaker 1: her being sexualized. I don't think it's ever like endorsed
Speaker 1: by the movie explicitly, like especially when it's um Shrek
Speaker 1: or the Penguin and and I don't know, I felt
Speaker 1: like her sexualization at least with like the outfit and
Speaker 1: her behavior was more like she's like all of a
Speaker 1: sudden confident, like sexual confident and like into herself in
Speaker 1: a more about her Yeah, And I liked that, like
Speaker 1: the visual representation of that. And obviously it's a very
Speaker 1: like you know, Western beauty standards visual interpretation of that,
Speaker 1: but I thought it worked that it's like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is like a woman who has felt so pushed down
Speaker 1: by all these different forces and now she's finally like,
Speaker 1: oh I'm fucking hot and cool. And I can like
Speaker 1: do whatever I want and that's cool, that's fun is
Speaker 1: and that's like, that's what I was grappling with. Where Like,
Speaker 1: on one hand, you could easily argue that her sexualization
Speaker 1: is very much on her own terms. This is how
Speaker 1: she chooses to present this is a manifestation of her
Speaker 1: newfound confidence. But on the other hand, you could argue
Speaker 1: that it was the male screenwriters and directors who chose
Speaker 1: to present a female character in this way. But but
Speaker 1: because like her being sexualized in this story isn't predatory
Speaker 1: in terms of like the way the camera views her.
Speaker 1: It's not like male gazzy linger e cinematography. It's more
Speaker 1: just like and this is how the character is now
Speaker 1: presenting it pretty objectively in my opinion, So yeah, I
Speaker 1: was like pretty fine with it. Yeah, I totally agree
Speaker 1: with that as also objectively into it because it's like
Speaker 1: Michelle Phiffer and also her performance there is a really
Speaker 1: good It was from like I think five or so
Speaker 1: years ago for the anniversary of this movie. It was
Speaker 1: a really nice piece by uh right. We've cited many
Speaker 1: times on this show. Angelica, Jade Bastian and Vulture wrote
Speaker 1: this nice ode to Michelle Pheiffer as Catwoman, and just
Speaker 1: like how her like will link it in the description
Speaker 1: of this episode, she she directs you to several ways
Speaker 1: that Michelle Peiffer was talked about in the press where
Speaker 1: I think that also, and this gets me into like
Speaker 1: Lolita podcast brain kind of like how I think a
Speaker 1: lot of like the takeaway of how Catwoman was presented
Speaker 1: was shaped by how the media talked about it versus
Speaker 1: what actually happens in the movie, because all, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: where you know, in context, she's taking control of her
Speaker 1: own sexuality and presenting the way she wants to present.
Speaker 1: But the way that, like she was profiled at the time,
Speaker 1: the way she was talked about in the media, was
Speaker 1: very it like had nothing to do with Michelle Pfeifer's performance,
Speaker 1: which I think is like really awesome. Her performance is great, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean that's just very indicative of the way
Speaker 1: women tend to be perceived, because people tend to value
Speaker 1: women for very specific things like their physical appearance and
Speaker 1: not their skills or artistic talents or brains. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: do we think about the bat cat relation? I love it,
Speaker 1: I don't hate it. Um it feels a little like
Speaker 1: half baked kind of. But it seemed to me that
Speaker 1: Bruce likes Selena after like he meets her in Tricks
Speaker 1: because I think he thinks she's fierce and powerful and
Speaker 1: cool and that's what he's drawn to her confidence. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he literally wants her to like step on him, like
Speaker 1: it does kind of like that's the kind of he's
Speaker 1: like this like shy weirdo. That's like he came to
Speaker 1: this super freak party hoping you'd be here. Like she
Speaker 1: wants him to step on him, and she would, but
Speaker 1: she's busy. Yeah, she's booked it busy. She's busy killing
Speaker 1: Max Strick. She's literally like, there's a bedroom in the
Speaker 1: other room if you want to like get this done. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love how horny she is. And he's like, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: what we had superhero movies could be He was so horny.
Speaker 1: It's so they're so like so funny. The scene where
Speaker 1: they like first fight and she's like, you can't hit me,
Speaker 1: I'm a woman. He's like, okay, so you're right. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, and then she kicks him in the faces.
Speaker 1: I wrote all of this down because I love this good.
Speaker 1: It's great. That's the first fight between them. They're fighting,
Speaker 1: she's holding her own but he knocks her down and
Speaker 1: then she says, how could you I'm a woman, and
Speaker 1: then he's like, oh, I'm sorry, and then he like
Speaker 1: goes to help her up, but it was a trick.
Speaker 1: She kicks him. She gets the upper hand and knocks
Speaker 1: him over a ledge, so he's like dangling there, holding
Speaker 1: on by her whip. And then she was like, as
Speaker 1: I was saying, I'm a woman and can't be taken
Speaker 1: for granted, and that's when she says, life's a bit now,
Speaker 1: so am I, And we're like, She's got a lot
Speaker 1: of great lines. It's really really fun. I really do
Speaker 1: like how like cartoony the script is even at the
Speaker 1: beginning where it's all of her like single lady lines
Speaker 1: are so weird but funny, where she's like it just
Speaker 1: it's literally sounds like a comic strip where you walk
Speaker 1: in you're like, honey, I'm home. Oh wait, I don't
Speaker 1: have a husband. I'm like, that's a cavy strap, and
Speaker 1: then like the single cam like laugh track. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's so especially because they like go so hard against
Speaker 1: it and that in the rest of the movie that
Speaker 1: it like totally works. I loved that she uses the
Speaker 1: clown taser at the end. She kept the clowns taser
Speaker 1: um planning payoff baby um the only thing that kind
Speaker 1: of like pinged for me. And we just talked about
Speaker 1: something similar on the Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead
Speaker 1: episode where a female character's wait gets just kind of mentioned.
Speaker 1: There's a moment where Selena is like, she and Bruce
Speaker 1: are talking and they're kind of commenting on the news coverage,
Speaker 1: like the media coverage of Batman and Catwoman, and Selena
Speaker 1: says something like, oh, you know, there's like this rumor
Speaker 1: going around that Catwoman is thought to weigh a hundred
Speaker 1: and forty pounds, as if she thinks that's too much
Speaker 1: and she doesn't weigh that much, and she resents that
Speaker 1: people think she's she weighs more than she actually is.
Speaker 1: Really jumped out in that moment because you're I honestly
Speaker 1: was like confused by that line at first, because I
Speaker 1: was like, what is even being said, because that's just
Speaker 1: like it's whatever I mean that I do. We've talked
Speaker 1: about that before too, was like that that's like the
Speaker 1: kind of ship that gives young people eating disorders, as
Speaker 1: someone who famously had my my e D cranked up
Speaker 1: to an eleven by an offhand line in a Family
Speaker 1: Guy episode, Uh, you really can't be it's like the
Speaker 1: numbers specifically that really bugs me where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Yeah, that that was like a very
Speaker 1: bizarre one. It's just a lazy choice to make like
Speaker 1: the one female character in the movie mention her weight
Speaker 1: or be concerned about her weight. And as these movies
Speaker 1: always do act in such a way that women being
Speaker 1: concerned about their image and their weight just happens in
Speaker 1: a void has nothing to do with the societal pressure
Speaker 1: we place on women for how they look. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that line, that line bumped me out. There's a really
Speaker 1: funny um I stand it to you, Caitlin, there's a
Speaker 1: really Dani Schwartz like three years ago, Live tweeted this
Speaker 1: entire movie and also called out that line of like
Speaker 1: what are they saying here? Like truly was oh no,
Speaker 1: And then if you think about it for a second,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I guess brain where it was like
Speaker 1: that messaging was kind of like approaching and all time
Speaker 1: high because we're in like the what is that Kate
Speaker 1: moss quote whatever that era food doesn't taste as good
Speaker 1: as skinny field or whatever. The fuck? Yeah? Remember we
Speaker 1: were ever you know the words that shaped and haunted us? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I I also clocked that. Unfortunately it's one
Speaker 1: line and doesn't really come up again. Yeah. The last
Speaker 1: I think one of the last things I have is
Speaker 1: um the scene where she goes on the date with Bruce.
Speaker 1: She makes the first move and it's intense. Okay, it
Speaker 1: is possibly a surprise kiss because she lunges at him.
Speaker 1: She does lunge at him. However, he has just said
Speaker 1: that he wants to kill, wants to kiss. So I
Speaker 1: felt like, maybe I'm giving Catwoman a pass on that one.
Speaker 1: She came in hot. Yeah, but I'm gonna give her.
Speaker 1: She came in hot. She was like, I cannot wait
Speaker 1: to kiss you. Will you let me? And she's like
Speaker 1: I see that, and I raise you. I'm going to
Speaker 1: kiss you by pouncing on you like a cat. She's like,
Speaker 1: I might actually eat you. Um, but yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think that like their relationship, Like it doesn't. I
Speaker 1: just it's like so nice to see horny super horny
Speaker 1: woman visibility. I love it incredibly horny. It's good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do like because we talked about the trope of
Speaker 1: a woman using a frying pan as a weapon. She
Speaker 1: uses a frying pan, but it's to smash up her
Speaker 1: own apartment. I liked it, followed by the line where
Speaker 1: she says, I don't know about you, miss Kitty, but
Speaker 1: I feel so much yummier, iconic, iconic, so good. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start saying that to Flee Um and he's going
Speaker 1: to love every damn second of it, or I'm disowning.
Speaker 1: Oh the stakes are high. Yeah, the stakes are high
Speaker 1: from Mr Flee I will say every time I watched
Speaker 1: this movie. So right after she transforms into Catwoman and
Speaker 1: then she's on the prowl, as you might say, on
Speaker 1: the streets of Gotham, the first thing she does as
Speaker 1: Catwoman is to save a woman from being sexually assaulted
Speaker 1: by Oops, one of the few people of color in
Speaker 1: the movie, which unfortunately is very in line with like
Speaker 1: Tim because his movies are so aggressively white that he's
Speaker 1: even defended it um, which was like, why would I
Speaker 1: play non white people in my movie? And we're like Tim,
Speaker 1: what did he say? Wait? Was was I'd have to
Speaker 1: look up the exact quote. We've discussed it on the
Speaker 1: show before. I think that this was around because he
Speaker 1: it was like to the point where he had to
Speaker 1: like walk this back. This was Did it have something
Speaker 1: to do with the Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children House Peregrine
Speaker 1: Home for Peculiar Children? Yeah, okay. He said this to
Speaker 1: writer Rachel Simon in and it was on the Miss
Speaker 1: Peregrine um Press Stork, he said. Quote. Nowadays people are
Speaker 1: talking about it more, he says, regarding on screen diversity.
Speaker 1: But quote, things either call for things or they don't.
Speaker 1: I remember back when I was a child watching The
Speaker 1: Brady Bunch and they started to get all politically correct,
Speaker 1: like okay, let's have an Asian child and a black child.
Speaker 1: I used to get more offended by that than just
Speaker 1: I grew up watching black sploitation movies, right, and I
Speaker 1: said that's great. I didn't go like, Okay, there should
Speaker 1: be more white people in these movies. Unquote it it's
Speaker 1: just like the most white. This is the same as
Speaker 1: like every time anyone complains about their people clear casting
Speaker 1: anything like Star Wars or something, and the logic of like, oh,
Speaker 1: they can have their own movies and it's like no,
Speaker 1: like this is not you can't talk like this. You
Speaker 1: can't don't stop stop talking, like shut your mouth, Tim Burton.
Speaker 1: So that's like, especially remembering him making those comments, like
Speaker 1: seeing that you're just like this is like a very
Speaker 1: intentional joy. This is intentional absolutely. So Catwoman is saving
Speaker 1: another woman from being sexually assaulted and then the woman's like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, thank you. But then Catwoman kind of
Speaker 1: victim blames the woman and it's like, well, you make
Speaker 1: it so easy. You're always just waiting around for some
Speaker 1: batman to save you. And so it's always at this
Speaker 1: point in the movie when you see her save when
Speaker 1: you see Catwoman save this other person, and I'm always like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's about to go on this like vigilante almost like
Speaker 1: the movie Teeth, where she's like like, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: protect women and save women from these predatory men. And
Speaker 1: I always think that that's the direction the Catwoman character
Speaker 1: is going to go in, but she quickly abandons any
Speaker 1: sort of like ally ship to other women and then
Speaker 1: just like goes after Shrek, which I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just I guess it's just like me having certain
Speaker 1: once and wishes for the Catwoman character, but I certainly
Speaker 1: would have liked for that to be the direction that
Speaker 1: she went in. But like, it's sort of the same
Speaker 1: point as like when I mentioned this scene earlier where
Speaker 1: it's like you can understand why that is her reaction
Speaker 1: to saving that woman, Like it's not right obviously, but
Speaker 1: the way that she, like, the social conditioning around her
Speaker 1: basically is telling her this, and it's also why she
Speaker 1: rejects that kind of more feminine aesthetic as Cat Woman. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I honestly wasn't like super bugged by that, Like I
Speaker 1: think it makes a point. Yeah, yeah, I see what
Speaker 1: you mean. Yeah, I think the only the only thing
Speaker 1: that I felt like in this movie was like characterizing
Speaker 1: the was it like ice princess, or like characterizing her
Speaker 1: as such a bimbo, very dizzy, as a as a
Speaker 1: proud bimbo and a bimbo apologist. I just feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: making her just kind of a classic bimbo. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a little cruel. Yeah, I mean it's such a small
Speaker 1: part of the movie, but unless she gets murdered, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's always like a while like a movie where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: we can only have one woman we're really thinking about
Speaker 1: in the movie, like we can't characterize more than one
Speaker 1: that would be whatever. I feel like the only other
Speaker 1: woman besides Catwoman and the Ice Princess who has any
Speaker 1: significant screen time. And it's not as though this woman
Speaker 1: has a lot. But there's a million of penguins. She
Speaker 1: has a little dog love her. She seems to be
Speaker 1: one of penguins, like right hand minions. She's she's high
Speaker 1: up in the ranks. What's going on with her? But
Speaker 1: she doesn't speak until the very end, And it's her
Speaker 1: who's like giving the countdown. Is like of like, oh,
Speaker 1: the penguins are going to reach their destination and team
Speaker 1: minus fifteen seconds. She's really just there for fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I loved her. She's there for love of the game.
Speaker 1: She is like droning through narrating the height of the
Speaker 1: action of the movie. She's like, the penguins are going
Speaker 1: in a different direction, looks like there's coming towards us.
Speaker 1: I just that's the kind of like Tim Burton character
Speaker 1: I really like. Of just like a woman who is
Speaker 1: bored by something very exciting that's always so fun. I uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I liked her. The dog is so cute. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like a little busted. It's very cute. It's a good dog.
Speaker 1: It's a good boy. Um, feminist icon. The duck Boat, penguin,
Speaker 1: My god, the boat. We haven't even talked about the
Speaker 1: duck Boat. It's so good. It's so it's so I
Speaker 1: love like, it's perfect when a movie is just like
Speaker 1: and we just talked about the many ways in which
Speaker 1: Tim Burton is a relic at this point, but I
Speaker 1: do love to watch a director absolutely abuse a big budget.
Speaker 1: It's so fun like, it's so like the It's cannon
Speaker 1: that he was just like, no performance artists, Let's go bigger,
Speaker 1: let's go full circus at the zoo. For no reason.
Speaker 1: We need animatronic penguins. We need people penguins, and we
Speaker 1: need penguin penguins. There's nowhere around it. Um. The animal
Speaker 1: rights stuff in this movie, we can't go there because
Speaker 1: Michelle Fiber put a real bird in her mouth. So
Speaker 1: we wish that we're the best and hope it went
Speaker 1: on to thrive. Um. But it's just like, this movie
Speaker 1: is so The duck Boat. The duck Boat is wonderful.
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm obsessed with the duck Boat. The train,
Speaker 1: Why is there a train. I do want to shout
Speaker 1: out the penguins. They're so cute. They are so cute.
Speaker 1: They're very good. They frowned when the penguin dies. So cute.
Speaker 1: It's so sad. They're sad for their friends. They're literally
Speaker 1: it's it's literally like if Grew died, what would happen.
Speaker 1: It's exactly like if Crew died, they would be beside themselves.
Speaker 1: They would not the Canada that they are like especially
Speaker 1: devoted to Grew because they've had like other masters, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't Yeah, they've had a lot of They've worked for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, but grew as special to that.
Speaker 1: But they love Grew okay, because Grew takes all their
Speaker 1: boxes where It's like usually their bosses are really evil
Speaker 1: and also abusive towards them, but grew as evil and
Speaker 1: nice to them, so they love Grew. He takes care
Speaker 1: of them. Okay. They kind of grew up together. They
Speaker 1: grew up together. They grew they grew up and they
Speaker 1: grew up together. There was I was sitting, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is my last tangent of the episode. I promised I
Speaker 1: was taking a mega bus from Rhode Island to New weekend,
Speaker 1: because yeah, I'm kind of a fucking sleb. But I
Speaker 1: was sitting next to this college student who was talking
Speaker 1: on the phone with one of his boys for the
Speaker 1: duration of the bus. It was it was really long
Speaker 1: and obnoxious, but it was just like he was such
Speaker 1: a bro with like three brain cells that he was
Speaker 1: really like getting some good quips and every once and
Speaker 1: again like he was just he was objectifying his classmates
Speaker 1: the whole call boy. But at one point he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, Christina, she kind of really glue. How do
Speaker 1: I she glew up over the summer? Did I say that? Right?
Speaker 1: She blew up? And then you could hear the guy
Speaker 1: on the other line and be like, yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: get it. And then he just like I was like,
Speaker 1: oh god, that's incredible. She blew up. He couldn't think
Speaker 1: of the word glowed amazing. He was literally coming from
Speaker 1: Brown University. It was just how we get Max Trex
Speaker 1: out there blew up over the summer. It was nasty.
Speaker 1: Al Right, Well, Batman Returns? Does anyone have anything else
Speaker 1: to say about Batman Returns? Um There was supposed to
Speaker 1: be a sequel where Catwoman Michelle Fifefer. Catwoman had her
Speaker 1: own own story. It was supposed to also be done
Speaker 1: with Daniel Waters and Tim Burton Um and it follows
Speaker 1: her to a like more Las Vegas e location. It
Speaker 1: sounds like it would have been great, but it never happened.
Speaker 1: Damn it. Here's my last thing to say. Well, I
Speaker 1: guess I have like two less things. One of them
Speaker 1: is I do think it's funny that people complain about
Speaker 1: like Batman not being in this movie enough, because ultimately
Speaker 1: it is a Catwoman movie, Like Batman is fairly incidental
Speaker 1: to what goes on in the film. This is a
Speaker 1: movie about Catwoman and the penguin, like it's their movie.
Speaker 1: They are the two far more strongly motivated characters, and
Speaker 1: Batman is just like, well, I'm Batman, so I have
Speaker 1: to stop these people. But yeah, exactly, like he is
Speaker 1: called to the scene, like he did not create the scene.
Speaker 1: I kind of like that this movie is like comfortable
Speaker 1: with Batman being a little bit boring, Like yeah, because
Speaker 1: I don't even think Batman is like obviously he's like
Speaker 1: not a boring character, but I like that this movie
Speaker 1: is sort of like, well, he's not the most interesting
Speaker 1: character in the movie, and we're comfortable with that he returns,
Speaker 1: but you know, kind of to a more incidental degree
Speaker 1: than you would imagine, Right, I totally agree with that.
Speaker 1: I love My second point is that dating bed is hot.
Speaker 1: We should recognize that more. I think as a society. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: his energy, Oh my god, he's hot. He's a socialist,
Speaker 1: his politics are kind of immaculate. What is hotter than that? Yeah? An,
Speaker 1: he's single, I think, so not divorced, but I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like I know that he and Perlin
Speaker 1: are like separated, but they're not divorced. I don't find
Speaker 1: that disqualifying. Yeah, if he comes up, but I was like,
Speaker 1: if he if he comes up on Bumble, yeah obviously, no,
Speaker 1: no question. Yeah, I'll keep an eye out for him
Speaker 1: on Riya. Yeah I'm on Riya. Have I had any luck?
Speaker 1: They're not one iota. I've still not used a dating app.
Speaker 1: So I was just throwing Bumble out there because I
Speaker 1: know it's exists. Yeah, I was on one of them.
Speaker 1: I want on dating apps for like a month and
Speaker 1: then I was like, I don't think I enjoy this,
Speaker 1: and so I stopped. They're not great anyway. We saund
Speaker 1: like Selena Kyle at the beginning of the movie of
Speaker 1: her like it's a good it's a good note to
Speaker 1: wrap up on because this movie is so horny. So
Speaker 1: now a little bit exactly does the movie pass the
Speaker 1: Bechdel test? I agree with you, Jamie, I would argue.
Speaker 1: When Selena talks to her female cat whose name we
Speaker 1: know because it's miss Kitty, that passes because here's the conversation.
Speaker 1: Selena comes home, cat goes me ow. Selena says, Miss
Speaker 1: Kitty back more sexual escapades. You refuse to share. So
Speaker 1: they've talked before establishing a relationship. They have a close bond,
Speaker 1: although miss Kitty is withholding. Miss Kitty says miaw. Selena says,
Speaker 1: drink your dinner. Kat says me ow. Selena says, what
Speaker 1: how can anyone be so pathetic? Yes, to you, I
Speaker 1: seem pathetic, but I'm a working girl. I gotta pay. Then, yes, Selena,
Speaker 1: I mean, and that passes the Becktel tests. That passes.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell you. It passes flying.
Speaker 1: I feel comfortable with that. I feel ecstatic about that.
Speaker 1: Is there much else outside of that? There is a
Speaker 1: brief interaction between Catwoman and the Ice Princess, but they
Speaker 1: don't actually speak to each other on screen. Yeah, at
Speaker 1: least not really. It would have been fun if she
Speaker 1: could have had a little tete a tete with Penguins
Speaker 1: board associate. But I don't even know if we if
Speaker 1: that character get the name. I just really liked her,
Speaker 1: So Wikipedia just lists her as the poodle lady. Okay,
Speaker 1: love that. Yeah, that's great. I support that Ice Princess
Speaker 1: is nice. She seemed really nice. I would have loved
Speaker 1: to get lunch with her, sweetie pie. Yeah, she was great. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: R I P T I P. But who among us
Speaker 1: has not wanted to vault into the giant tree at
Speaker 1: Cavilla Center. It's true, It's true. And you know, like
Speaker 1: if I've got to go at the hands of Danny
Speaker 1: de Vito, you know it's going to be memorable for sure,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. People will talk about it after the fact. Okay,
Speaker 1: So how about our nipple scale, though, which is a
Speaker 1: scale of zero to five nipples, and which we rate
Speaker 1: the movie based on looking at it through an intersectional
Speaker 1: feminist lens. I'm gonna go like three and a half
Speaker 1: of this. I might be bringing some of my bias
Speaker 1: into that score, because I do love this movie so much.
Speaker 1: As we've discussed, there are there's some things about the
Speaker 1: coding of the penguin character. It's able is m and
Speaker 1: anti Semitism that is so present in the coding of
Speaker 1: so many villains. This movie is kind of no exception,
Speaker 1: but there it's intended or not. It's like it's worth acknowledging. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: a few other like little missteps here and there. But
Speaker 1: so the screenwriter Daniel Waters was brought in after another
Speaker 1: writer who I think wrote the screenplay for the first
Speaker 1: Batman movie, Sam Ham. Sam Ham, his name is Sam Ham.
Speaker 1: That's going to bring some baggage with it if you
Speaker 1: grow up at that name. He was exactly. He was
Speaker 1: originally involved in the development of the sequel of Batman
Speaker 1: Returns and had written I don't know if he wrote
Speaker 1: a full draft or if he was just sort of
Speaker 1: like outlining the story, but basically he was replaced by
Speaker 1: Daniel Waters or he just like his involvement didn't happen
Speaker 1: the whole way through the development process. But he had
Speaker 1: written a version of Catwoman that Daniel Waters changed because
Speaker 1: Sam Ham's version of Catwoman was just like a quote
Speaker 1: fetishy sexual fantasy fem faetale. Daniel Waters changed her to
Speaker 1: a and again this is pulling from wiki Pete here
Speaker 1: scholarly journal um changed to a working class, disenchanted secretary,
Speaker 1: writing her as an allegory of contemporary feminism, right, And
Speaker 1: I feel like the movie kind of nails. It works,
Speaker 1: and we're speaking of white feminism from the early nineties, yes,
Speaker 1: but spice Girls feminism. But it works. But it works
Speaker 1: at least for this movie, certainly doing more than a
Speaker 1: lot of superhero movies are doing now still to this day.
Speaker 1: If there's a woman in it, it's feminist, right, right,
Speaker 1: And they're like, yeah, sure, it's like, let's just have
Speaker 1: her say some sort of T shirt equips at some
Speaker 1: point and then Thor is Natalie Portman now until she doesn't,
Speaker 1: And that's awesome. No, not really, Yeah, don't worry, not really.
Speaker 1: I didn't see that. We would never let a woman
Speaker 1: be thre. So I just appreciate the movie takes a
Speaker 1: lot of time to characterize the Selena Kyle slash Catwoman character.
Speaker 1: It gives her an internal life. We see her at work,
Speaker 1: we see her at home, we understand all of the
Speaker 1: context for why she becomes Catwoman, and just all of
Speaker 1: the societal pressures that she's fighting against. Could she have
Speaker 1: been more of an ally to other women? Yes, but
Speaker 1: I think you know, look, this is also how long
Speaker 1: does this movie take over? This this takes place three days? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you know she would have gotten there. You know,
Speaker 1: she just needed a little more time. She just needed
Speaker 1: more time. That's what she's doing now, exactly. Yeah, she's
Speaker 1: still but shell Fiber Catwoman is still canonically out there, right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure she does all sorts of incredible The
Speaker 1: character she plays, an antman, is actually Catwoman. Everything about
Speaker 1: that interesting, right, She's an antman? What a crossover? Right?
Speaker 1: I only saw the second one, so I was confused. Well,
Speaker 1: she's not in the first one, Okay that I was
Speaker 1: just confused by the movie anyway, So all of the
Speaker 1: characterizations she gets, she's given an internal conflict which a
Speaker 1: lot of female characters are simply not given in movies.
Speaker 1: And she she's just like a more interesting and fun
Speaker 1: character than Batman in this movie. I think she and
Speaker 1: Penguin are kind of tied for like most like well characterized,
Speaker 1: compelling characters for sure. Yes, So with all of that
Speaker 1: in mind, I'm going to give the movie a three
Speaker 1: point five nipple rating. I'll give one to Michelle Pfeiffer,
Speaker 1: I'll give one to Miss Kitty, I'll give one to
Speaker 1: feminist icon the duck Boat, and I'll give my half
Speaker 1: nipple to the line Life's a bitch now, so am I? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll go. I'll go three and a half as well.
Speaker 1: This movie fucking rules. It's the outside of a bedel
Speaker 1: cast lens. If I was just watching this movie, I'd
Speaker 1: be like, Yeah, greatest thing I've ever seen. Cool, great,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I think that like we've we've
Speaker 1: kind of singled out this stuff where it's you know,
Speaker 1: maybe a little dated in some areas, and there are
Speaker 1: certainly tropes that we've discussed in the past that are
Speaker 1: present here, um, and you know deserve acknowledgement and calling out.
Speaker 1: But in terms of like a superhero movie in ninety two,
Speaker 1: this like movie is doing a hell of a lot
Speaker 1: of cool stuff. And I love Michelle Pfeiffer. I love
Speaker 1: her cat Woman and disputed top tiercat Woman. No one's
Speaker 1: doing it like she was doing it. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give it three and a half nipples on a give
Speaker 1: to to Michelle and the remainder to Miss Kitty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll get a neat for I like from not this
Speaker 1: specific angle. I would just give it a straight five
Speaker 1: out of five. I think it's a great I think
Speaker 1: it's a perfect movie. Um. I mean we've talked about
Speaker 1: its flaws, but it is a perfect movie for if
Speaker 1: I had to distribute them, one for pre Catwoman Michelle,
Speaker 1: five for one for post Catwoman Michelle, five for one
Speaker 1: for the duck Boat, and one for a Day Debuto. Perfect.
Speaker 1: Perfect of course. Also it's time for cat Woman Facts
Speaker 1: with Caitlin. Finally, cat Woman, as far as I know,
Speaker 1: has two nipples. And that's Catwoman Facts with Caitlin. Nice.
Speaker 1: You're welcome, thank you, Good for her, Good for her,
Speaker 1: Karen m hmm. First of all, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Thank you for having me. This was delightful,
Speaker 1: an absolutely iconic movie to discuss it. We've had such
Speaker 1: a nice time. Please come back anytime, any time. Literally
Speaker 1: just asks me anytime please, I mean truly, like tomorrow
Speaker 1: would be great. What are you doing. Let's let's let's
Speaker 1: do bat nipples next time. I have not seen bat nipple,
Speaker 1: so that would be fascinating for me. It's like it's
Speaker 1: a pretty wild ride. It's not this movie. It's not
Speaker 1: I wouldn't compare it to this movie. But it's got
Speaker 1: a lot coming for that's Clooney Batman. Is that right? Yes? Yes,
Speaker 1: I think so, okay, because then there's it's Valve Batman
Speaker 1: after that, right, yeah, I always messed up the order.
Speaker 1: Oh I forgot there's a Valve Batman. Too many Batman's anyways,
Speaker 1: Karen uh, where can we find your online? And what
Speaker 1: would you like to plug? Um? You can find me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Karen Wayhan as long as the platform
Speaker 1: is still active, and you can find me on Instagram
Speaker 1: at the Karen Hahn and I would love to plug
Speaker 1: my book as of recording. It is coming out in
Speaker 1: a little less than a week. It is called Bong
Speaker 1: June Hoe Distant Cinema. It is coming out from Abraham's
Speaker 1: slash Little White Lies. It's just all about Bong June
Speaker 1: host work. Please buy my book, Thank you please, I
Speaker 1: can't wait, truly, congratulations, thank you so much. It's wild
Speaker 1: because like some of the preorders have started arriving already,
Speaker 1: so which is terrifying to see that it is out
Speaker 1: in the world. Like some people haven't it's loose, but
Speaker 1: Jesus Luz. Yeah, one of my favorite, right up there
Speaker 1: with Life's of Beach. And so thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming on truly, yeah cock, so come back anytime.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me, and truly it
Speaker 1: would be an honor and a joy to come back
Speaker 1: on the show. I can't wait. We'll email you tomorrow, amazing.
Speaker 1: You can also follow us on Twitter as long as
Speaker 1: that platform exists, and yeah, or Instagram. At buck cast
Speaker 1: you can follow our Patreon a k a. Matreon. Five
Speaker 1: bucks a month gets you to bonus episodes. It's usually
Speaker 1: just me and Caitlin kind of choosing movies around a theme.
Speaker 1: So of course it's December, we're doing our holiday round up,
Speaker 1: so we're doing Linday Lohan Netlix movie. You know, we're
Speaker 1: bringing the hits. We also just did mob March, which
Speaker 1: we observed in November. So if we had to put
Speaker 1: our thoughts on just because I feel like people have
Speaker 1: been harassing us about The Godfather for so long, and
Speaker 1: by that I mean people who have never listened to
Speaker 1: our show and don't think what we have to say
Speaker 1: it should be taken seriously. So we put that behind
Speaker 1: a paywall. I think we take a pretty good job.
Speaker 1: We both liked the movie, so funk you Young Robert DeNiro,
Speaker 1: My god, hot, young Albaccino, Oh my god, hot, get
Speaker 1: inside me. All right, let's that's all. At Patreon dot
Speaker 1: com slash backtel cast for five dollars a month. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then you've also got our merch. Hey, you're not
Speaker 1: sure what to get your loved ones for the holidays,
Speaker 1: consider going to Tea Parts get them a copy of
Speaker 1: Karen's book and then go then go to tea Public
Speaker 1: dot com slash the Bectel cast for some merchand day.
Speaker 1: I am actually someone who has received Bechtel Cast merge
Speaker 1: for a holiday and it was a great gift, so
Speaker 1: I would recommend it. Yeah, and we didn't even plan that.
Speaker 1: We didn't even plan that. It's the gift that keeps
Speaker 1: on giving. Anyway. Life's a bitch, and so are we.
Speaker 1: By