Speaker 1: On the Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy zef invest start
Speaker 1: changing it with the bec Del Cast. Hello Jamie, Hello Caitlynn,
Speaker 1: it's me. Um. You know not. I'm not a witch.
Speaker 1: But do you want some chocolate? Do I want something? No,
Speaker 1: I'm just in my treehouse here. Don't worry. I didn't
Speaker 1: poison it with any formula that's going to turn you
Speaker 1: into a mouse. Okay, do you have a snake? Do
Speaker 1: you have a snake? Um? Yeah, I have a snake.
Speaker 1: But that's just because I know you love playing with snakes. Okay, pointed, Um,
Speaker 1: and none of your business what I do in my
Speaker 1: spare time. Well, I guess I'll I'll think about it,
Speaker 1: but only if you promised to only appear in one
Speaker 1: scene and never come back. Sure, Okay, yeah, yeah, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Bechtel Cast. Another perfect introduction, flawless, no notes.
Speaker 1: My name is Jamie Loft, as my name is Caitlin Dronte,
Speaker 1: and this is our show in which we examine movies
Speaker 1: through an intersectional feminist lens using the beck Told test
Speaker 1: as a jumping off point to initiate a larger discussion
Speaker 1: representation in cinema. Do you have one of those Twitter
Speaker 1: like scary Halloween names? Do you have you ever done that?
Speaker 1: I've never done that. I have done it in the past.
Speaker 1: I forgot to do it this year, Slash couldn't think
Speaker 1: of anything clever. And have you have you done? I
Speaker 1: know you've done Caitlin Bante, right, Bante? Yeah, which doesn't
Speaker 1: even really make sense. I had one well, one year
Speaker 1: I did nine tip Dracula because that is an anagram
Speaker 1: of my name. Who could forget nine tip Jack? And
Speaker 1: then there was another one I did that I was like,
Speaker 1: I'll never top this. This is genius and I'm so smart,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't. I can't remember what it was. So
Speaker 1: this is not a good story. I've never I've never
Speaker 1: had one. I don't I've never been able. But also
Speaker 1: I'm notoriously like not good with puns. I just don't
Speaker 1: have a good brain for it. And so I'm like,
Speaker 1: maybe there's one that's just been sitting in front of
Speaker 1: me my whole fucking life, But I've never Boo doesn't
Speaker 1: fit any any damn place in my name. Ghost doesn't
Speaker 1: fit what rhymes with Jamie scared, scare me loftus scar
Speaker 1: that sucks. That sucks. I hate it about it. Wait, okay,
Speaker 1: I actually, um, I think I can come around to this.
Speaker 1: Um Okay, can I tell you what the Becteal test is?
Speaker 1: Please at all pass the Bechtel test, by the way,
Speaker 1: which is just proof that it doesn't. Although you could
Speaker 1: argue that that was not a conversation that moved the
Speaker 1: episode forward in a meaningful way. So I disagree. I
Speaker 1: completely disagree. So so. The Bechdel test um is a
Speaker 1: media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, often called
Speaker 1: the Bechdel Wallace test um. It was originally made as
Speaker 1: a kind of one off joke metric in Alican Becktel's
Speaker 1: comic Dikes to Watch Out For which here's your occasional
Speaker 1: reminder that you should read that comic. I have the
Speaker 1: full collection and it fucking rocks. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different versions of this metric. The one we use
Speaker 1: requires that two people of a marginalized gender with names
Speaker 1: such as Caitlin Bronte and Scare Me Loft have a
Speaker 1: conversation about something other than a man for more than
Speaker 1: two lines of dialogue, and it does need to move
Speaker 1: the podcast the Bechtel Cast forward in order to count
Speaker 1: this this movie. Today we're covering the Witches n Um,
Speaker 1: not to be confused with The Witches twenty, which no
Speaker 1: longer exists, has been wiped from the record, and I
Speaker 1: have like just a little it doesn't have to do
Speaker 1: with intersectional feminism, but it does have to do with
Speaker 1: predatory capitalism, so sort of it does. So we'll get
Speaker 1: there later. But nine nine Angelic Houston The Witches is
Speaker 1: the topic of today's discussion, and I thought it would
Speaker 1: pass the Bucktel test a little more handily than it does,
Speaker 1: I'll be quite honest. But discussion for later, Jamie, what
Speaker 1: is your relationship to this film slash intellectual property? Nothing?
Speaker 1: Nothing at all. I don't I I couldn't tell you
Speaker 1: why I didn't watch this movie growing up. But I
Speaker 1: have no nostalgic attachment to it. I think the most
Speaker 1: nostalgic attachment I have to this movie is just the
Speaker 1: idea of Angelica Houston. And that's a powerful thing. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I always like she is so campy, and like,
Speaker 1: I think she's really fun in this movie. I think
Speaker 1: it is like I didn't know Jim Henson was involved
Speaker 1: in like I truly knew basically nothing. I just knew
Speaker 1: it was a World Doll book that I never read,
Speaker 1: and this is a movie that I've never seen, and so, uh,
Speaker 1: this has been a request we've been getting for some time,
Speaker 1: and I think we there was an uptick in it
Speaker 1: when the reboot was released, which I've only seen clips of,
Speaker 1: but is by all accounts so like also whatever not
Speaker 1: good and no one has any nostalgic attachment to it either,
Speaker 1: so whatever, So Mecas is in his flop era, baby,
Speaker 1: he did, gosh, she's been in his flop era because
Speaker 1: what what is it? We he welcomed us to Marwin
Speaker 1: and we were like, I'm I'm weaving and then what
Speaker 1: did he do it? He said what about Anne Hathaway
Speaker 1: and the Witches? And You're like that sounds so Phoebe
Speaker 1: Waller Bridges right there, like what do you? What are
Speaker 1: you doing? And then most recently he was like, how
Speaker 1: about Pinocchio? We were okay, no thanks, but and then
Speaker 1: we were like but also but also soft plug for
Speaker 1: the Matreon when we will be covering the Pinocchio Wars,
Speaker 1: which Robert Zemeckis in his flop, Era has already managed,
Speaker 1: I think, to lose in advance. The battle has not
Speaker 1: even started and he's already lost. Because I everyone hated
Speaker 1: that damn movie and it looks so scary. This movie
Speaker 1: also looks so scary, but in a very different way.
Speaker 1: I will say, right at the top, apologies to people
Speaker 1: with a nostalgic attachment to the spoofy. I did not
Speaker 1: like this movie. Uh and I I think it shows
Speaker 1: all of and this is like been criticism since the
Speaker 1: book came out. The book was released in eighty three.
Speaker 1: We famously don't read books, but I did research the
Speaker 1: differences and adaptation changes, and then this came out in
Speaker 1: and rold All, who we'll get back to. We've just
Speaker 1: we've covered we covered this last year on our Matilda episode,
Speaker 1: but it is even more relevant in this adaptation than
Speaker 1: it was in Matilda. I think of just this is
Speaker 1: just like late Era Roll Doll, like all of his
Speaker 1: famous prejudices against women and Jewish people in particular, and
Speaker 1: Jewish women in particular are just all like cannon to
Speaker 1: the story. And I h Angelica Houston is great, but
Speaker 1: I just really had a hard time with this one, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: what's your history with the Witches? Nine? I had not
Speaker 1: seen this movie either, something that it seems like I
Speaker 1: would have seen as a kid growing up. But I
Speaker 1: don't think it was on TV a lot. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: you didn't watch a lot of TV and I didn't
Speaker 1: even have cable. Yeah, and I didn't watch much TV
Speaker 1: as a kid. Also, I think, like my family is
Speaker 1: just like not a spooky movie family. I missed a
Speaker 1: lot of spooky movie Like I had never seen hocus
Speaker 1: Pocus until well into my adulthood. Not that that's like
Speaker 1: a scary, but like even just like I mean it
Speaker 1: is like kid, kid, kid, And I think this movie
Speaker 1: is like kids scary, oh my god. Yeah, and also
Speaker 1: like kind of adult scary. Also, I do think like
Speaker 1: there's so much wrong with like I don't like this movie.
Speaker 1: I do think it was a kind of cool, bold
Speaker 1: and interesting choice cool bold interesting. Wow, good words um
Speaker 1: that they thank you that they hired a horror like
Speaker 1: a famous horror director to do this movie. Like he
Speaker 1: took the assignment and he's like, I'm just gonna do
Speaker 1: this like I do my grown up movies. Is that cool?
Speaker 1: And you're like, I don't know. Um. The main thing
Speaker 1: I knew about this movie going in is that it
Speaker 1: traumatized every child who had ever seen it. And I
Speaker 1: understand why because the horror imagery in this movie is
Speaker 1: horrific and I brutally yeah. Yeah, And I'm sure if
Speaker 1: I had seen it as a child, I would have
Speaker 1: been similarly traumatized. And I read that the director Nicholas
Speaker 1: Rogue cut scenes from the movie that he thought would
Speaker 1: be too scary for children after he saw his son's
Speaker 1: reaction to the original HUT, so it was going to
Speaker 1: be even scarier and he cut some of it out.
Speaker 1: That is so gnarly. Uh. I want like just being
Speaker 1: the kid of a horror director and then just being like,
Speaker 1: all right, so if this trauma like you're you being
Speaker 1: traumatized today could say I have other children for being
Speaker 1: traumatized in this exact same way. Do you accept the assignment?
Speaker 1: That's so all. I want Nicholas Rogue's kids to tell
Speaker 1: us what was in the scenes. That's how what would
Speaker 1: they what? I guess? Okay, I don't know. Sorry finished, So,
Speaker 1: so your history is so I hadn't seen the movie,
Speaker 1: but I did read the book as a kid. Oh,
Speaker 1: we had a few Roal Doll books lying around the house,
Speaker 1: and so I probably read this book when I was
Speaker 1: maybe like ten or so. I also read Charlie and
Speaker 1: the Chocolate Factory around that time, but I think those
Speaker 1: are the only two Roal Doll books I ever read.
Speaker 1: But I liked the book The Witches, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was very scary reading it as a kid. Um,
Speaker 1: So I I have, I would say, not even nostalgic
Speaker 1: attachment to this story. But I went into the movie
Speaker 1: knowing what it was going to be about and what
Speaker 1: would happen in it, and remember the story pretty well,
Speaker 1: so like when the events of the movie were unfolding,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, that does happen. The ending
Speaker 1: is um quite different in the book. We'll talk about that,
Speaker 1: but uh yeah, I um, I kind of I mean
Speaker 1: for all the traumatic imagery that Nicholas rogue because he
Speaker 1: was really a cinematographer, but like, yeah, like for all
Speaker 1: the traumatic imagery he offers up. I kind of liked
Speaker 1: that they changed the ending of like because the I mean,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize the ending of the book is brutal.
Speaker 1: I think that that's how the reboot ends, where it's
Speaker 1: just like what they're like, the kid is going to
Speaker 1: be a mouse forever and he has nine years to
Speaker 1: live and he knows that. You're like, oh yeah, rough. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So all this to say, I had I was familiar
Speaker 1: with this story going in, but I hadn't seen the movie.
Speaker 1: Definitely would have been traumatized by the imagery as a kid,
Speaker 1: because as even as an adult, I was like, oh my,
Speaker 1: like the transformations, like the scenes of like humans transforming
Speaker 1: into mice. That is some of the scariest ship I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. It's so yeah, this movie would have fucked
Speaker 1: me up. I'm glad I didn't see it when as
Speaker 1: a kid. Yeah, um, shall I do the recap and
Speaker 1: we'll go from there. Let's do the recap and then
Speaker 1: you know what, let's go from there. Okay, fine, we
Speaker 1: will Okay, now we're fighting. Okay. So we open on
Speaker 1: a grandmother telling her grandson Luke, who is we were
Speaker 1: like also recently talking about how we do not know
Speaker 1: how old children are. I guess he's like nine. I
Speaker 1: guess he's canonically nine. Okay, Oh, maybe I'm better at
Speaker 1: this than I thought. She is telling Luke about witches.
Speaker 1: They are evil, they hate children, They basically hunt children
Speaker 1: for sport, and she's lost a finger. Yes to to
Speaker 1: a witch encounter. We press zoom. Maybe that's the scene
Speaker 1: that are cut. Maybe you got to see Angelica Houston
Speaker 1: bite Grandma's finger off. Maybe so. Grandma tells Luke that
Speaker 1: which is dress in ordinary clothes. They look like ordinary women,
Speaker 1: they live ordinary lives, but there are ways to spot
Speaker 1: a real witch. One. They're bald, so they wear wigs
Speaker 1: which itch and give them a scalp rash. Now, if
Speaker 1: the baldest women aren't in charge in this movie, I mean,
Speaker 1: this movie follows the rule. It enforces the rule. It Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't even exist when this movie came out and
Speaker 1: people were following that damn rule. Yeah. Um. The second
Speaker 1: telltale sign is that their eyes have like a purplish
Speaker 1: hue to them real which is also don't have toes,
Speaker 1: and so their their feet are just square, so they
Speaker 1: never wear pointed shoes and sure I guess uh. They
Speaker 1: also have a very keen sense of smell and they
Speaker 1: can smell children, and children smell very bad to them,
Speaker 1: and the cleaner child is the stinkier they are to
Speaker 1: a witch. Also, Grandma tells Luke about the grand high witch,
Speaker 1: which is like the leader, which is the leader of
Speaker 1: all the witches. Get it anyway, I get it. I
Speaker 1: get it. So Grandma also tells this story about her
Speaker 1: childhood best friend named Erica, who was abducted by a witch.
Speaker 1: So we get all this backstory about witches. You know,
Speaker 1: I was thinking, I was, I was trying to put
Speaker 1: myself in like baby brain, and I think that I
Speaker 1: would have been afraid of the horror imagery. But I
Speaker 1: but I wonder like and for I am genuinely curious
Speaker 1: for for those who have a nostalgic attachment to this movie,
Speaker 1: were you more scared by the horror imagery? Or were
Speaker 1: you more scared by ever looking at a painting again
Speaker 1: and ever seeing someone in a painting being like that
Speaker 1: they're going to die there? Yeah, that was the scary.
Speaker 1: I was like, that would have sucked me up. That's
Speaker 1: very current because I had that haunted Mandy Moore poster right,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, and she still lives there in your poster,
Speaker 1: in my poster. Yeah. It's one of It's one of
Speaker 1: those conspiracy theories where the actress who's been on This
Speaker 1: is Us for five years is a is a double
Speaker 1: switched out by the government. The real Mandy Moore lives
Speaker 1: in your poster still in my childhood bedroom. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I believe it. Yeah. Okay, So one day Luke's parents
Speaker 1: die in an accident, so Grandma becoming this batman him right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Luke wayne over here with his parents being like, they're
Speaker 1: like bye, and then and then like the police have
Speaker 1: her dress or something. I was like, what happened to that?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what we were looking at, but Luca
Speaker 1: Luke to them. Luca's orphaned and Grandma becomes his primary caregiver,
Speaker 1: so she takes him to England, where a woman with
Speaker 1: purple eyes tries to give a snake to Luke and
Speaker 1: a chocolate bar, and I'm like, is that a Willy
Speaker 1: Wonka chocolate bar? Are we? You know? Are we what's
Speaker 1: happening here? We're going to really? I mean we talked
Speaker 1: about it until the Tupit just like the way rold
Speaker 1: Doll turns food into weapons is so oh gosh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I will say this first witch. I liked her a
Speaker 1: lot and I she had perfect teeth. Okay, yeah, another
Speaker 1: telltale sign of witches. I have shitty I think I
Speaker 1: just have gum disease. So when someone has nice teeth,
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, who are you a millionaire? Okay? So
Speaker 1: then on Luke's birthday, Grandma gives him some mice, which
Speaker 1: he names William and Mary. Horrible gift, I gift bad
Speaker 1: mice names. There, I said it are they kids? I
Speaker 1: don't think because they can't talk. They're just mice, right,
Speaker 1: And they're not from the Henson the Creature the creature shop, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just another yeah. But oh no. Grandma collapses, she
Speaker 1: has fallen ill. Turns out she has diabetes. But when
Speaker 1: she recovers, she takes Luke and his mice on a
Speaker 1: little trip to a hotel by the sea to Casa
Speaker 1: day Mr Bean. Mr Bean is the hotel manager. Also
Speaker 1: at this hotel, dozens of women show up for the
Speaker 1: convention for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
Speaker 1: to Children. And that's the most prepositions I've ever said
Speaker 1: in a single sentence. That is that of all the
Speaker 1: that gotta chuckle out of me, because I was like,
Speaker 1: that's the witch there? Um, did you pick up on?
Speaker 1: This is so goofy? But they made a diabetes joke
Speaker 1: in this movie. I was like, that's the most there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of things about this movie outside of
Speaker 1: the wild number of tropes that are used in a
Speaker 1: bad way. But like, this movie isn't like especially dated
Speaker 1: to me. I guess a little bit with the clothes,
Speaker 1: but most world all movies kind of feel a little
Speaker 1: bit like out of time. But they just drop a
Speaker 1: diabetes joke, like yeah, and that commercial didn't exist till
Speaker 1: I was like, damn, you're showing your hands. You couldn't
Speaker 1: you couldn't resist making a nine year old said diabetes
Speaker 1: tomfoolery indeed. Okay, So Angelica Houston has entered the film.
Speaker 1: She seems to be the leader of this royal Society
Speaker 1: for the Prevention of cruel teacher children, and she's so
Speaker 1: hot and she's very hot. Her name is Miss Ernst,
Speaker 1: and the women adore her. And then there's some little
Speaker 1: clues that seems like maybe these are not women who
Speaker 1: want to prevent cruelty to children, but maybe they want
Speaker 1: to cause cruelty to children because maybe they're witches. Oh
Speaker 1: there is I mean, I I you know, exploiting the
Speaker 1: inherent sinister nature of a hotel convention is kind of fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a fun idea. Um, I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 1: is this this movie came out, this is the year
Speaker 1: before The Adams Family, So this is I feel like
Speaker 1: Angela Houston's She's just she's just warming up for the
Speaker 1: main events for more Tisia. Yeah, definitely. Okay. So then
Speaker 1: Luke explores the hotel. He meets another boy named Bruno.
Speaker 1: Luke gets yelled at by Mr Bean for having loose mice,
Speaker 1: and we're literally like Mr Bean and you can't you
Speaker 1: can't done see it? Yeah, And then we're also like,
Speaker 1: I guess this is for all these these mice are
Speaker 1: like foreshadowing Chekhov's Mouse. Yeah, okay. So Luke is like
Speaker 1: running around the hotel and he winds up in this
Speaker 1: big room where the women from the Society for the
Speaker 1: Prevention of Cruelty to Children a k a. The Witches
Speaker 1: come in and gather for a meeting, and Luke is
Speaker 1: hiding in the corner and he watches as all the
Speaker 1: women remove their shoes and their wigs because guess what,
Speaker 1: confirmed they are witches. I thought it was really funny
Speaker 1: that she has her like Angela he used, and takes
Speaker 1: her face halfway off before being like, oh wait, is
Speaker 1: the door closed. That was when I started coming up
Speaker 1: with my um tory story theory, where I'm just like,
Speaker 1: this is applying the lodge of toy story, but instead
Speaker 1: it's just leaving a bunch of women over thirty five
Speaker 1: in a room alone, and then they turned into evil witches.
Speaker 1: And that is true. That does happen in real life.
Speaker 1: So miss Ernst takes off her face mask because she's
Speaker 1: the Grand High Witch with a scary face. Miss Ernst
Speaker 1: is like, you witches are a disgrace. You're not killing
Speaker 1: enough children, and that's why I created formula eighties six,
Speaker 1: which turns children into mice. Another toy story parallel. Much
Speaker 1: like the character said, miss Ernst is a scientific genius
Speaker 1: who just needs her energy directed in a more positive
Speaker 1: direction where yeah, she could really help people, much like
Speaker 1: Sid's parents should have just been like, you're a creative kid,
Speaker 1: let's let's take you to it after school program. Anywow, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to see the toy story parallels. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's the end of the similarities. Yeah, okay, So she's
Speaker 1: talking about this formula that turns children into mice, and
Speaker 1: she demonstrates it on that kid Bruno, who she has
Speaker 1: lured into the room with chocolate. She has already given
Speaker 1: him the formula. It works on like a time delay,
Speaker 1: and then the witches and Luke, who is still hiding
Speaker 1: in the corner, watch as Bruno transforms into a mouse.
Speaker 1: That transformation is also like truly one of the scariest
Speaker 1: things I've ever seen. Yeah, I mean that the raw
Speaker 1: fucking body horror and this um is just like it is,
Speaker 1: and that I mean that whole scene that is so long.
Speaker 1: That was the other thing where I was just like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this movie gets a lot of mileage out of like
Speaker 1: very very few locations. But in any case, that scene
Speaker 1: is so loaded. But just even on its face is Oh,
Speaker 1: that would have scared the ship out of me. As
Speaker 1: a kid. Roll hates when children are hungry. What is
Speaker 1: wrong with him? He's like, if you're hungry, you're gonna explode.
Speaker 1: You're gonna too bad. Oh, he's such a fucking asshole.
Speaker 1: Like you know, I did to say the least, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that and to have like this was I
Speaker 1: think this was like the last movie that Jim Henson
Speaker 1: was well enough to work on. And he's really uh
Speaker 1: he put the creature shop to work. It's so fucking scary.
Speaker 1: So again, we like listeners. If you happened to see
Speaker 1: the reboot while it was still available for streaming, we
Speaker 1: couldn't watch it, but I'm assuming that it was probably
Speaker 1: less scary in the new one, because there's like you
Speaker 1: can just sort of do a boring c G I like,
Speaker 1: I'm a mouse, but like with the practical effects, it
Speaker 1: is so gnarly. It is brew a truly. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the meeting is about to disperse, but then one
Speaker 1: of the witches smells Luke. They find him. They chase
Speaker 1: him around for a bit and eventually catch him and
Speaker 1: Miss Ernst gives him five hundred doses of formula six,
Speaker 1: which transforms Luke into a mouse immediately, and the witches
Speaker 1: trying to step on him and kill him, but mouse
Speaker 1: Luke runs away. He finds mouse Bruno. They can both
Speaker 1: still talk, so they scurry through the d talk about Bruno.
Speaker 1: In this movie, they never hesitate to talk about Bruno. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the exact laugh I was hoping for. And
Speaker 1: Grandma especially is trying to talk about Bruno. She's trying
Speaker 1: to tell his parents about b and they are not
Speaker 1: having it. The parents are sort of like, we don't
Speaker 1: talk about Bruno, not during whiskey and sherry time, and
Speaker 1: she's like, we needed to wow the parallels. Did you
Speaker 1: recognize Bruno's mom? No, she is played by Brenda bleth
Speaker 1: In a k a. Mrs Bennett from Pride and Prejudice
Speaker 1: two thousand five. Wow. I did not. Wow. I guess
Speaker 1: that she was really in her nineties hair bag because
Speaker 1: I didn't notice. That's like, I have a thought on
Speaker 1: that character as well, too, but like, for now, all
Speaker 1: I'll say is she really knows how to give a
Speaker 1: surprised face. True. Alright, So the two mice boys scurry
Speaker 1: through the hotel back to Luke's grandma's room, and Luke
Speaker 1: is like, hey, Grandma, so I got turned into a
Speaker 1: mouse by some witches. And also, is it just me
Speaker 1: or did Grandma barely react to the information that her
Speaker 1: so grandson is a mouse? Snow? I thought that too,
Speaker 1: And then I'm just like, she's been I guess, ostensibly
Speaker 1: hunting witches for years? Does she like, no, this is
Speaker 1: on the table? Angelica Houston sounded like it was a
Speaker 1: new thing, so I feel like she should have been
Speaker 1: more surprised, But I'm like, maybe maybe this is in
Speaker 1: their playbook. I don't know, I don't or maybe also
Speaker 1: the thing that and I don't think that this story
Speaker 1: has any interest in exploring this side of it, which
Speaker 1: is like fine, but I was just like, also, you know,
Speaker 1: in a realistic world, which is obviously isn't these two
Speaker 1: would be like overcome with grief because her daughter just
Speaker 1: died and his parents just got Bruce wayned. And so
Speaker 1: I'm just like, maybe she's just like still emotionally, she's
Speaker 1: like sure, sure what next? My grandson's amuse great. She
Speaker 1: could be just numb, she could just be in shock,
Speaker 1: could be a lot of stuff we don't know. But
Speaker 1: mouse Luke has a plan. He wants to put formula
Speaker 1: eighty six into the witches soup at their dinner that
Speaker 1: night and turn all of the witches into mice. So
Speaker 1: Grandma helps him get into the Grand High Witches room,
Speaker 1: though her cat makes it a little tricky. I liked
Speaker 1: that part. Me and Flee were cheering. We're cheering for
Speaker 1: the cat, and it's a cat that looks a bit
Speaker 1: like Flee. Oh well, because yeah, I mean please please
Speaker 1: the classic uh which is cat? True? Yeah? Um, Okay,
Speaker 1: so then Luke manages to get the formula and scurries
Speaker 1: back to Grandma's room. So she takes Mouse Luke and
Speaker 1: mouse Bruno to Bruno's parents and tries to explain the situation.
Speaker 1: They don't believe her. Bruno's mom is like, and you know,
Speaker 1: screams at the site of mice because you know, women
Speaker 1: be hysterical. Well, it's blonde women and women with children generally,
Speaker 1: with the exception of the maid who is brunette and
Speaker 1: we don't know if she has kids. Um, but generally,
Speaker 1: blonde women and mothers are afraid of mice. Women with
Speaker 1: dark hair or non white women are witches. They want
Speaker 1: more mice, more mice, more mice. That's the rule. So
Speaker 1: then mouse Luke goes into the hotel kitchen and puts
Speaker 1: formula six into the cress soup. No idea what crest
Speaker 1: soup is, but that's the soup that will be served
Speaker 1: to the witches. And then he runs up the pants
Speaker 1: of the chef ak the butler from Downton Abbey. So
Speaker 1: that was a fun little yeah, I never I never
Speaker 1: did Doubton Nabby and it's it's been you know, I've
Speaker 1: heard it's great. Is that a hot take in two
Speaker 1: thousand twenty two. I'm hearing good things about this doubton Nabby,
Speaker 1: I mean I generally like it. Yeah, um okay. So
Speaker 1: then the soup is served, the witches eat it, and
Speaker 1: then chaos and horror ensues as the witches turn into mice,
Speaker 1: and then also the Grand High witch turning into a
Speaker 1: mouse is the other scariest thing I've ever seen. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I like, how right before that happens? Um,
Speaker 1: Angelica Houston, I mean she is, uh, there are a
Speaker 1: few moments. One of the moments that I really, I
Speaker 1: genuinely was like, wow, that was cool was when the
Speaker 1: first witch, who is like in the kitchen realizes what
Speaker 1: is happening, is the first to try to the soup,
Speaker 1: is the first to turn into a mouse. She screws
Speaker 1: out a mouse form to try to warn everybody. Ajelica
Speaker 1: used to just steps on her and she clothes into goo.
Speaker 1: What are the rules? Um? But that was that was
Speaker 1: awesome because I guess Angelica Houston assumed that was a
Speaker 1: child mouse and so she was like, well, let me
Speaker 1: just kill this. But it was just like wow, wow,
Speaker 1: she really uh, what's what's my shittiest clickbait um. The
Speaker 1: lack of empathy that Angelica Houston's character demonst it's in
Speaker 1: the Witches is shocking, right it it writes itself. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the hotel staff are trying to squash and kill
Speaker 1: the mice. Rowan Atkinson chops and kills mouse, Angelica Houston
Speaker 1: with a clever It's chaos, but things kind of settle
Speaker 1: down and mouse Luke and Grandma say goodbye to Bruno
Speaker 1: and his parents, and then they leave the hotel and
Speaker 1: go back home, and Luke is like, hey, being a
Speaker 1: mouse isn't so bad, and Grandma is like, yep, and
Speaker 1: that friend is really sad. Yeah, it's good to know. Like, also,
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention why does Mr Bean get the kill? Like?
Speaker 1: Why does Mr Mean this has been Grandma? I have
Speaker 1: a theory as to why. I think it's because she
Speaker 1: has to be the good one and so we can't
Speaker 1: see her actually killing her harming anyone that directly. I
Speaker 1: wonder what happens in the book. I act, we didn't
Speaker 1: check who kills her in the book because it just
Speaker 1: feels like logically Grandma has been hunting this specific which
Speaker 1: for decades. This woman took her finger off, like why,
Speaker 1: but she just puts a little dish over her and
Speaker 1: it's like turns around and then Mr Bean get I
Speaker 1: was like, Mr Bean's got no you know, he's got
Speaker 1: no stake in the game, Like hey, but he whatever.
Speaker 1: The whole premises is flawed from the jump. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: if I'm watching this movie, let Grandma kill Angelica Houston,
Speaker 1: what are we doing? Yeah for sure? Um okay. So
Speaker 1: then they're like coming to terms with Luke being a
Speaker 1: mouse forever. But wait a minute. There was one which
Speaker 1: Ms Ernst Secretary I think, who was not turned into
Speaker 1: a mouse, and she has been following Luke and Grandma
Speaker 1: and it seems like she might be up to no good.
Speaker 1: But it turns out that she's like a good witch
Speaker 1: or she doesn't want to participate in child hunting, and
Speaker 1: she with magic turns Luke back into a human and
Speaker 1: that's how the movie ends, which is a big departure
Speaker 1: from how the book ends, which is that he stays
Speaker 1: a mouse, knowing that he will die soon. It feels
Speaker 1: like a major departure because of how abrupt and out
Speaker 1: of step with the rest of the story it feels,
Speaker 1: because it's like that maybe I was like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I've I've watched the movie twice. I was paying attention.
Speaker 1: I was like, but that, which is sudden, like I'm
Speaker 1: nice now and like and then she's like Glinda the
Speaker 1: good which and then he has to like it's so
Speaker 1: shoehorned into the last ninety seconds of the movie that
Speaker 1: Luke literally has to yell out the window Bruno next like,
Speaker 1: don't forget about Bruno, don't forget about Bruno, and like
Speaker 1: I'm glad for the children. I'm glad that that change
Speaker 1: was made. But just watching it in with like movie logic,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh yeah, this, uh, this doesn't match up
Speaker 1: with anything else that happens. It makes sense that they
Speaker 1: changed it. Okay, let's take a quick break and we
Speaker 1: will come back to discuss and we are back where Okay,
Speaker 1: where to begin? I would like to start, if it's
Speaker 1: okay with how and this, I mean this, it's all
Speaker 1: sort of like part of the same conversation of how
Speaker 1: roll Dolls. Personal prejudices are very much on display in this.
Speaker 1: The three main areas that stood out to me that
Speaker 1: are also like, I mean, so, we'll probably be repeating
Speaker 1: some stuff that we've mentioned in the Matilda episode previously,
Speaker 1: but I think it really does bear repeating. So a
Speaker 1: quick trigger warning for particularly anti Simon to them and um,
Speaker 1: fat phobia. But I think that the three areas that
Speaker 1: we're really jumping out to me was something that we've
Speaker 1: discussed in Doll adaptations before, which is fat phobia, he
Speaker 1: but also misogyny and anti semitism. I think we're just
Speaker 1: like just running rampant. The story can't happen without that.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to start by going over rolled
Speaker 1: all again. So if you've heard this information before, you
Speaker 1: already know. If you haven't heard this information before, you know,
Speaker 1: sorry if this is at least you're finding out from
Speaker 1: your para social friends, but just but you know, like
Speaker 1: Rold All was unlike I think that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of creators that people will go to the map for
Speaker 1: where they're like, well, we don't know for sure if
Speaker 1: they were, but like rolled all of Rold Doll's prejudices
Speaker 1: he was very vocal about. He literally said, I am
Speaker 1: an anti semi like, there is no room for any argument, um,
Speaker 1: even if you wanted to fucking straw man this issue.
Speaker 1: He was very very anti Semitic um. He was known
Speaker 1: to be horrible to his first wife in particular, but
Speaker 1: also a lot of women in his life. He was
Speaker 1: known to be extremely volatile and mean. He also said
Speaker 1: to his wife, his wife, his wife on their first date.
Speaker 1: Let me let me pull up the quote, I'd rather
Speaker 1: be dead than fat unquote. He's just like a piece
Speaker 1: of ship person like demonstrably so. And if you have
Speaker 1: attachments to his works, I would say, like most people
Speaker 1: do who are at least in our age range, and
Speaker 1: but like it's very relevant information because they're going to
Speaker 1: continue to adapt his work. Netflix paid a billion dollars
Speaker 1: to license his entire catalog in the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: But anyways, I just wanted to start by saying, like,
Speaker 1: we're going to be taking a look at this, and
Speaker 1: also it is very inherent to the author. The way
Speaker 1: that women and the way that anti Semitic tropes are
Speaker 1: presented in this work and in this movie are definitely
Speaker 1: not a mistake intentional to the point where this book
Speaker 1: was when it came out in eighty three. I mean, normally,
Speaker 1: in most cases I'm very skeptical of like a band
Speaker 1: book because that usually they're usually bad for the wrong
Speaker 1: reasons right right, and it's like a puritanical thing. But
Speaker 1: there was a lot of controversy about the Witches when
Speaker 1: it was released in the book because people were like,
Speaker 1: this is really misogynist, Like the first page it's all
Speaker 1: about how I mean, I think that he's also like
Speaker 1: going on this weird tirade about childless women, and like
Speaker 1: just all of his shitty politics are so um on
Speaker 1: display here. I don't want to really read any of
Speaker 1: his specific comments about women. Um were about Jewish people.
Speaker 1: You can seek those out. They are out there. He
Speaker 1: has also said a number of racist things. There's uh
Speaker 1: I this was my I don't think I found this
Speaker 1: in my Matilda research. But apparently like he was like
Speaker 1: let go by his editors at one point, like one
Speaker 1: of them. And this is an incredibly lucrative author obviously, um,
Speaker 1: but it was literally like he was too a extremely
Speaker 1: mean and bad to work with and be editors at,
Speaker 1: especially at this point in his career when he was older,
Speaker 1: Like he would refuse to write out racist and misogynist stuff,
Speaker 1: and his editors were like pleading with him and he
Speaker 1: would say no, So they were like, well, we can't
Speaker 1: work with you anymore. If you are like I I
Speaker 1: refused to publish the children's book without misogyny, like it's
Speaker 1: just absolutely wild and gross and um so so. But
Speaker 1: as it pertains to the witches specifically, I do want
Speaker 1: to share what he said to his editor because it
Speaker 1: was flagged by the editorial team of like, this seems
Speaker 1: like maybe you're working through some stuff, buddy, seems more
Speaker 1: like a scary diary entry. But his editor, um whose
Speaker 1: last name is Rocksburg, I don't have his first name here,
Speaker 1: said that, you know, he pushed back and he's like,
Speaker 1: next draft, let's uh, let's take it easy on those
Speaker 1: damn witches a little bit when it comes to the
Speaker 1: misogynist tropes, or like let's mix it up. Uh and
Speaker 1: roll Dall replied, quote, I don't agree with you about
Speaker 1: women coming in for a lot of this, for a
Speaker 1: lot of the stick all the way through. The nicest
Speaker 1: person in the whole thing is a woman, the grandmother.
Speaker 1: So I have not changed anything. And so he like really,
Speaker 1: you know, doubled down on every I mean, he's he
Speaker 1: had issues with the n double a c P who
Speaker 1: came out against some stuff. He wrote, Um, I think
Speaker 1: as it pertains to the BFG and early draft of
Speaker 1: the VFG that he did have to fix and was
Speaker 1: forced to fix by the editor. But like, it's just
Speaker 1: like on almost every marginalized person you could imagine, he
Speaker 1: has said something deeply cruel. And this is like one
Speaker 1: of the most famous children's authors of all time. Also,
Speaker 1: his granddaughter became a very famous plus size model, So
Speaker 1: fuck you, rold Doll. But anyway, so so that's all
Speaker 1: I mean. Did you have anything else you wanted to
Speaker 1: jump in to add to that? I just like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to share specific comments but no, but I
Speaker 1: will share a very very quick excerpt that I pulled
Speaker 1: from the book because I went back and skimmed through
Speaker 1: parts of it. Um, this is from the book, and
Speaker 1: I believe the context here is that it's the grandmother
Speaker 1: talking to I don't well, actually no, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if it's this is what the grandmother is saying to Luke,
Speaker 1: or if this is just sort of like omniscient narration.
Speaker 1: Not entirely sure. But what it says is quote A
Speaker 1: which is always a woman. I do not wish to
Speaker 1: speak badly about women. Most women are lovely, but the
Speaker 1: fact remains that all which is our women there was
Speaker 1: no such thing as a male, which, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: a ghoul is always a male, so indeed is a
Speaker 1: bar guesst. I don't know what the funk that is.
Speaker 1: Both are dangerous, but neither of them is half as
Speaker 1: dangerous as a real witch, right unquote. So I get
Speaker 1: why you could read that and be like, that's pretty cool,
Speaker 1: Like women are the most fearsome and terrifying of everybody.
Speaker 1: That's fun. I don't know, I was, I was trying
Speaker 1: to read through, like because this this is a been
Speaker 1: a divisive work. I'm talking more about the book than
Speaker 1: the movie when I say this, but like it was
Speaker 1: a very divisive book, and there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who like read claim it on the basis of
Speaker 1: that um where they're like, well, you know, he's created
Speaker 1: a world where like this group of women are like
Speaker 1: the most fearsome, powerful people in the entire world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like they're all powerful, and um, what we'll say about
Speaker 1: those reclaimings as they conveniently don't mention any of the
Speaker 1: anti Semitism, but that passage is cool, Like that's that
Speaker 1: I wish that. I don't know, like they're they're but
Speaker 1: it's also like demonstrating like, yeah, I'm saying that I
Speaker 1: think that most women are lovely, but I actually secretly
Speaker 1: find women scary and think that a lot of them
Speaker 1: are evil witches, right, Like, I mean, you can take
Speaker 1: it in a few different ways, but it's just so wild,
Speaker 1: like yeah, there's no there's no um defending and also
Speaker 1: like there's I'm pretty sure that because Matilda was recently
Speaker 1: turned into a Broadway musical, I believe it's being um.
Speaker 1: And then do you remember there was a big Emma
Speaker 1: Thompson was cast as Miss trunch Bull. There was a
Speaker 1: controversy about that because they didn't cast a fact actor
Speaker 1: in a fat part. But so like all that to
Speaker 1: say that there's like there's another rollout of Roll Doll's work,
Speaker 1: as we talked about this in the Matilda episode, but
Speaker 1: his family released an apology postmortem right after making a
Speaker 1: billion dollars that was also divisive. Um, the apology I
Speaker 1: think is like not a bad one. I think it
Speaker 1: was the timing that people were a little more suspect about. Quote.
Speaker 1: The Doll family and the Roll Tolls Story Company deeply
Speaker 1: apologized for the lasting and understandable hurt caused by some
Speaker 1: of Roll Doll's statements. It goes on from there. It
Speaker 1: is good that his family and company can acknowledge it,
Speaker 1: but also I think it was, in my opinion, rightfully
Speaker 1: speculated that that was just so no one would yell
Speaker 1: at them for taking the one billion Netflix dollars, so
Speaker 1: that these could be adapted again. And there's no quality.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how much say the role
Speaker 1: Doll company will have if you're to take the new
Speaker 1: adaptation of the witches um that came out. It seems
Speaker 1: like a lot of the tropes were not improved on
Speaker 1: at all, and so it's no guarantee that they'll do better, right,
Speaker 1: because again, the whole story is rooted in one big
Speaker 1: anti Semitic stereotype. So we'll talk about that, should be,
Speaker 1: let's get into that. Yes, let's all right. So the
Speaker 1: Grand High Witch when Angelica Houston takes her Angelica Houston
Speaker 1: face off, face off, and then we have the Grand
Speaker 1: High Witch as she actually is. The character design here
Speaker 1: very closely resembles anti Semitic caricatures that have been illustrated
Speaker 1: of Jewish people throughout history. No ambiguity about it, right,
Speaker 1: you know, various features the large hook knows being perhaps
Speaker 1: the most obvious one those anti Semitic caricatures that have
Speaker 1: existed throughout history. Visually speaking, feels like it was just
Speaker 1: like mapped onto the character design of the Grand High
Speaker 1: Witch um and and also like they I've read some
Speaker 1: analysis that was like they go out of their way
Speaker 1: to like give the witches like reptilian features, and just
Speaker 1: like it just seems like they do the absolute most
Speaker 1: you could possibly do. Yeah, it's upset. And then there
Speaker 1: is the again, the premise that the movie is based on,
Speaker 1: which is that these witches want to hunt children. And
Speaker 1: if you consider the fact that the main character of
Speaker 1: this movie, Luke, the you know, the little boy Luke,
Speaker 1: he is a you know, blonde haired wied kid, and
Speaker 1: these witches are hell bent on like him Norwegian. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: So I'm going to read a quote from a piece
Speaker 1: by Shelley J. From entitled looking back on the anti
Speaker 1: Semitism in Rhode Dolls the Witches quote attributing Jewish features
Speaker 1: to quote unquote bad witches goes back centuries. In an
Speaker 1: article about the origins of archetypal witches, Ellie Buford writes,
Speaker 1: the stereotype of the Jewish nose is often used in
Speaker 1: anti Semitic media, including Nazi propaganda such as The Eternal Jew.
Speaker 1: While in early folklore it was likely not initially tied
Speaker 1: to anti Semitism, the feature is used in modern times
Speaker 1: to code characters as Jewish. Shelly J goes on to
Speaker 1: say the child snatching and blood libel tropes of the
Speaker 1: witches also have their roots in folklore, going all the
Speaker 1: way back to Chaucer. Buford notes blood libel was a
Speaker 1: charge frequently leveled at Jewish people during the Middle Ages.
Speaker 1: People believed that any time a gentile parentheses non Jewish
Speaker 1: child went missing, that Jewish people had kidnapped and killed
Speaker 1: the child, either for ritual purposes or to use for food. Unquote.
Speaker 1: And what does the Jewish coded grand high witch do
Speaker 1: in this movie? And what does she want all the
Speaker 1: other witches to do? Kidnap and kill aryan looking children.
Speaker 1: They're also portrayed as having unlimited money and resources. Right,
Speaker 1: That's that's what I meant when I said, like it is,
Speaker 1: you know cool in theory that roll dolls presenting these
Speaker 1: women is all powerful, but through the lens of anti Semitism,
Speaker 1: he is and had and literally like textually said a
Speaker 1: bunch of really stereotypical comments about Jewish people and money.
Speaker 1: And that is also a part of the Witches right,
Speaker 1: because the Grand high Witch has a trunk full of
Speaker 1: cash and she is like throwing money at the other
Speaker 1: witches and saying, here, take this and buy buy up.
Speaker 1: All the candy stores in England offer people three to
Speaker 1: four times what the shops are actually worth, just so
Speaker 1: that you have this way to lure children in, to
Speaker 1: capture them and to kill them. Yeah, I saw, and
Speaker 1: I genuinely I mean, just a reminder for our listeners,
Speaker 1: Caitlin and myself, we're not Jewish, so our perspective is limited,
Speaker 1: and so there's stuff we're missing. We always want to
Speaker 1: know it because, in fact, in a recent episode we
Speaker 1: missed originally that there was an anti Semitic trope and
Speaker 1: animation tropes being used in Mother Gothel from Tangled. So
Speaker 1: we want to get shit right and we want to
Speaker 1: continue learning. So if we're missing any thing, please, um
Speaker 1: we are always you know, do people still say bang
Speaker 1: my line. I've never said that. I was like, bang
Speaker 1: our line. I've never heard that at all. What do
Speaker 1: you mean it's been said. I think it's like a landline,
Speaker 1: like land bang my lind give me a call, drop,
Speaker 1: drop me a line. I've heard that. God, we're so old, okay, um.
Speaker 1: I think that that's an older phrase, though I think
Speaker 1: that phrase predates us bang my log. It was when
Speaker 1: people were calling each other's landlord, landlord land line, let's
Speaker 1: move on, um okay. So another thing, because I was
Speaker 1: like coming through pieces, I was coming through right it.
Speaker 1: I just was like, what you know, I want to
Speaker 1: be brought up to speed here. It was also I
Speaker 1: thought I saw speculated in a few places that the
Speaker 1: accent that Angelic Houston takes on has been generally interpreted
Speaker 1: as German, but there are plenty of Jewish people in
Speaker 1: Germany as well as Um. Some people would argue that
Speaker 1: it is more of a Yiddish accent. I don't have
Speaker 1: the know how to say one way or the other,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't able to find any production notes on
Speaker 1: what she was doing, but I wanted to mention that.
Speaker 1: And then for me, where the anti semitism and the
Speaker 1: misogyny um sort of started blending. Yes, yes, the intersection
Speaker 1: of misogyny and anti semitism, which unfortunately is a very
Speaker 1: very real thing. But I think that where it like
Speaker 1: overlapped most severely for me was in that like opening
Speaker 1: sequence of the description, because I honestly didn't put this
Speaker 1: together as an anti Semitic trope until I read it.
Speaker 1: Let me get the name of the writer so I
Speaker 1: can cry out at them for this insight. Tom. So
Speaker 1: this is um from a piece that was written for
Speaker 1: Vox by Aja Romano Um when The Witches came out. Um.
Speaker 1: So this is a reflection on just the story at large.
Speaker 1: UM not specific to this movie, but it definitely applies here. Quote.
Speaker 1: The anti Semitism Doll himself professed doesn't necessarily play a
Speaker 1: role in most of his other works, but it's directly
Speaker 1: relevant to The Witches, a story that's explicitly about detecting
Speaker 1: impostors in the midst of society. This is, to be blunt,
Speaker 1: the theme of most anti Semitic conspiracy throughout history, and
Speaker 1: has led, in its most extreme form to the idea
Speaker 1: that Jewish people quote hide in plain sight while essentially
Speaker 1: controlling the world. Unquote. I did not put that together
Speaker 1: on my viewing, but I completely agree and like no
Speaker 1: knowing role Doll's feelings, I'm sure that that was his
Speaker 1: intense inspired whole narrative he is uh, he's a bad man,
Speaker 1: he sucks hot take. And I think also within that
Speaker 1: same um, I think where I got thrown off in
Speaker 1: addition to just like I don't have a Jewish perspective,
Speaker 1: but I um, I mean like it is an inherently
Speaker 1: scary idea that something is hiding in plain sight and
Speaker 1: can hurt you, Like that's whatever you used in horror
Speaker 1: all the time. But I thought it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: where it sort of crossed into more generalized misogyny for
Speaker 1: me was like the ways in which the witches had
Speaker 1: to hide the parts of them that were seen as grotesque,
Speaker 1: where it was all very like stuff we've talked about before,
Speaker 1: but like this might be the most extreme example that
Speaker 1: we've ever covered, where you know, like the trappings of
Speaker 1: classic femininity with like the wigs. You know, your hair
Speaker 1: has to look a certain way, your makeup has to
Speaker 1: be on point, you have to like look good, you
Speaker 1: have to look glamorous, have to wear high heeled shoes,
Speaker 1: like all this ship and the implication that which is
Speaker 1: just like Galaxy brain, the implication that the story has
Speaker 1: is that women are doing this to fool you, so
Speaker 1: you don't notice that they're evil, and there is no whatever,
Speaker 1: there is no implication that this might be something that
Speaker 1: is demanded of of many women, especially you know, the
Speaker 1: further back in time you go, right, So it's just
Speaker 1: like again, it's like, oh, it's uh. If you feel
Speaker 1: pressure to look a certain way, that's your fault. And
Speaker 1: also it removes the possibility that you might just enjoy
Speaker 1: presenting feminine, Like there's just no there's there's no nothing.
Speaker 1: The rigid expectations are rigid. Um. Yeah. Something that really
Speaker 1: struck me was the I would say, casting and makeup
Speaker 1: choices for the witches, because there's a room full of
Speaker 1: like a hundred of them, give or take, and the
Speaker 1: people that were cast as witches, and the kind of
Speaker 1: just character design of the witches in general carries some
Speaker 1: troubling implications. So many of the women who are cast
Speaker 1: as witches are middle aged or older, which is actually
Speaker 1: I guess, a deviation from the book um the ground
Speaker 1: which is described in the book as being okay. So
Speaker 1: I think that this is like specifically a movie issue,
Speaker 1: and I feel like what it's implying is what I
Speaker 1: jumped to, was implying like women without children are more
Speaker 1: likely to be evil, scary and like, and it's not
Speaker 1: that it's not just that I don't want children, it's
Speaker 1: that I hate children and I want them to die,
Speaker 1: which is just like whatever, It's just everything is so
Speaker 1: fucking absolutist and in this specific world, yes, um, there's
Speaker 1: that there is similar to what you were just talking about.
Speaker 1: Certain markers of quote unquote femininity are like removed from
Speaker 1: the witches where you know, they make them bald, they
Speaker 1: have rashy skin. Certain choices are made to for like
Speaker 1: they're like makeup and costuming. In addition to that, there's
Speaker 1: like some of them are given like prosthetic teeth. Basically
Speaker 1: they are made to seem unattractive by traditional Western beauty standards,
Speaker 1: which I think is like supported by like virtually every
Speaker 1: cinematography choice is the movie like is supporting that like,
Speaker 1: which is again it's just like I don't think that
Speaker 1: there's any way to adapt this story that isn't offensive.
Speaker 1: And I think some of the cool like if I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking, like Jamie likes watching a movie brain, I
Speaker 1: think some of the cooler choices are in the cinematography
Speaker 1: because it's like, it's really fucking scary but like, you know,
Speaker 1: all of the like movie language choices totally support what
Speaker 1: you're supposed to not like about them, like unflattering camera angles,
Speaker 1: unflattering lenses like fish eye lens kind of stuff. And
Speaker 1: then something I noticed, And we couldn't find any information
Speaker 1: about how intentional this was as far as casting goes,
Speaker 1: but several of the witches who are in the group
Speaker 1: at the meeting are men, So I in this is
Speaker 1: speculation here, but I would speculate that that's just another
Speaker 1: thing that contributes to this idea that if you're not
Speaker 1: adhering to a very you know, traditional binary standard of beauty,
Speaker 1: then you're evil. If you are a woman with masculine features,
Speaker 1: that's scary, that bad. The implications here are you know,
Speaker 1: a whole number of you know, just very harmful queer phobic,
Speaker 1: transphobic implications. There's just a lot done in this movie
Speaker 1: that I feel like is was probably intentional. Again, we
Speaker 1: couldn't find anything to confirm this, but we really we
Speaker 1: really did look. I mean, but and and even fans
Speaker 1: of this movie have speculated something very similar. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's kind of like, as far as I know, like,
Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot available in terms of like finding
Speaker 1: out about the production process of this movie outside of
Speaker 1: kind of like the basics, because I have all these questions,
Speaker 1: but Nicholas Rogue is dead, so I don't know a
Speaker 1: lot of the answer. But yeah, I I genuine I
Speaker 1: didn't notice that on my viewings. But once you pointed out,
Speaker 1: I I see what you're saying. I agree, right, And
Speaker 1: we had a similar discussion on the Matilda episode with
Speaker 1: the Mistrunchable versus Miss Honey characters, where if you who
Speaker 1: are a woman who presents as traditionally feminine and traditionally
Speaker 1: pretty and who has like mothering type of qualities, you're
Speaker 1: a good person. And if you're a woman with masculine
Speaker 1: features who would not perhaps be considered as attractive by
Speaker 1: Western standards of beauty, you are a mean, bad person
Speaker 1: who hates children. Right, But it's well, I don't see
Speaker 1: I haven't I haven't revisited anything remotely Charlie and the
Speaker 1: Chocolate Factory in a very very long time. I know that,
Speaker 1: like Willy Wonka is like a villain, but he's a
Speaker 1: villain in a different way than the Witches are villains,
Speaker 1: and in a different way than Miss trunch Ball is
Speaker 1: presented as a villain. I so take this with a
Speaker 1: grain of salt because I haven't revisited in a while,
Speaker 1: but just my memory of because I read those books
Speaker 1: and watched the movies, and he's definitely a villain, but
Speaker 1: he's more like he's a trickster. Uh, you like him,
Speaker 1: but you are never you know, like Miss Trench Bull
Speaker 1: and Um, I think Angelica Houston's character are highly reclaimable characters,
Speaker 1: but they're meant to be despicable, like from the first
Speaker 1: moment you see them, where I feel like Willy Wonka,
Speaker 1: you're no matter what form he appears, and you're supposed
Speaker 1: to still kind of like him even though he's an asshole.
Speaker 1: So that's, you know, a very rold Doll thing. It's
Speaker 1: so wild to me. I mean it's like, I love
Speaker 1: I love the character of Matilda and the fact that
Speaker 1: Jim Henson was so deeply involved in making these like
Speaker 1: horrific anti Semitic prosthetics, and yet this is the same
Speaker 1: person who gave us Miss Piggy. I just I'm like, uh, hello,
Speaker 1: it doesn't whatever. I'm not I can't lose sleep sleep
Speaker 1: over it at this time. Um, we're tired. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I mean, and and just to sort of close the
Speaker 1: loop on the misogyny of it all. So this is
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a very very white movie. I
Speaker 1: believe that there are some women of color in the
Speaker 1: background who appear. I think that there are a few
Speaker 1: witches who are not white, but you only witches first
Speaker 1: of all. Um, even outside of that, like I feel
Speaker 1: it feels just like, yeah, most of the women who
Speaker 1: are afraid of mice are maternal or blonde, all of
Speaker 1: the like, any woman who expresses anything is either maternal
Speaker 1: or blonde, and that's just how the world works in
Speaker 1: Mr Bean's hotel. I don't like it. Um, I do
Speaker 1: want to Well, let's let's talk about Grandma really quick,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of ways to come back Grandma.
Speaker 1: I do think that she and Angelica Houston are the
Speaker 1: most motivated characters in the movie. Sure, which is which? Which?
Speaker 1: Which is? Like? You know whatever? For me, all the
Speaker 1: fucking anti semitism, uh cancels out anything that I would
Speaker 1: like about it. But you know, I can I can
Speaker 1: respect that the two most motivated characters are women. I
Speaker 1: sort of wish that if that's the case, then like
Speaker 1: lean into that rivalry more like I don't know why
Speaker 1: we're with I I know what, Ever, like you needed
Speaker 1: a child protagonist as the World Doll book, but I'm
Speaker 1: just like, I don't really give a shit about Luke.
Speaker 1: He's very just there, and I guess that the mouse
Speaker 1: practical effects are cool, but like I just didn't I
Speaker 1: don't know. I was like, the grandma is the more
Speaker 1: interesting character, but also she's the one that's like sharing
Speaker 1: this misogynist uh theory she's been forming for her entire
Speaker 1: life at the beginning, So you're like, well, that's I
Speaker 1: don't know. I didn't hate the grandma character. Like I
Speaker 1: thought it was cool that at every step she did
Speaker 1: believe her grandson when he and no one ever believes
Speaker 1: children in books also very often in real life. I
Speaker 1: think that that is always a valuable thing to include
Speaker 1: in children's media of like just a kid, something weird,
Speaker 1: specific horrible happening to a kid and having them be
Speaker 1: believed by an adult they love. That's very important. That's nice.
Speaker 1: But she's a conspirace, like it's it's all very weird.
Speaker 1: But she basically says, like, be wary of any woman
Speaker 1: you come across a little boy, because there's a chance
Speaker 1: she might be a witch. So I have a fundamental
Speaker 1: distrust of women right right and literally. And at first
Speaker 1: I was like you gol. Lucacy was like that can't
Speaker 1: be true. It was like Luke's living in the year.
Speaker 1: And then she's like, no, we gotta roll that clock backwards.
Speaker 1: Don't trust a woman in the entire world. Um, it's
Speaker 1: so bizarre. I do like there and and and the
Speaker 1: other thing. I'll hand too to Grandma. I guess in
Speaker 1: the book she's grandmama. They give they give people names
Speaker 1: in the movie, they didn't give them in the book.
Speaker 1: I guess everyone it's like boy, grandmama, grand witch. Um,
Speaker 1: but she's named Helga. In this she has a name.
Speaker 1: And when the action of the movie, because this movie
Speaker 1: is like kind of like a how some funky pacing
Speaker 1: to like it takes longer than I thought it was
Speaker 1: going to take for him to become a mouse whatever.
Speaker 1: But once that is happening, you know, like she is
Speaker 1: very active in basically everything moving forward. They're working together.
Speaker 1: She believes him. I think the only if the story
Speaker 1: has to go the way it has to go, the
Speaker 1: only thing I wish had gone differently was that she
Speaker 1: should have gotten to kill Angelica Houston after all of that.
Speaker 1: So weird that they let Mr Bean do it, especially
Speaker 1: because it's been suggested, if not overtly stated, that her
Speaker 1: injury on her hand was caused by Angelica Houston, which
Speaker 1: and like they had a rivalry, they recognize each other,
Speaker 1: you know, So it would have been so much more
Speaker 1: cathartic if Grandma was able to land the killing blow.
Speaker 1: It's so bizarre to be that that that didn't happen, because, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that Angelica Houston kind of like confirms that
Speaker 1: when she goes to see like she first of all
Speaker 1: triggers a diabetic attack. She's so evil in poor Grandma
Speaker 1: and like walks in, She's like, oh this bitch again,
Speaker 1: she's old. Now I know who this is blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: which also implies that the witches are immortal. I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, hard to say, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it. I think that we're supposed to believe that
Speaker 1: Angelica Houston something, whatever happened with the finger was her.
Speaker 1: She didn't even get to kill her. What's the point.
Speaker 1: Why am I watching this movie? Um? I would The
Speaker 1: other thing with the Grandma character is that so she
Speaker 1: learns towards the beginning of the story that she has diabetes,
Speaker 1: and I feel, and maybe this is me misinterpreting or
Speaker 1: reading too far into this, but I feel like the
Speaker 1: movie implies that her diabetes is making her a bad caregiver,
Speaker 1: and it's like the fault of her diabetes that is
Speaker 1: why Luke got caught by the witches and turned into
Speaker 1: a mouse, which obviously has very ablest implications if true. Um,
Speaker 1: because like there's a scene where she's like laid up
Speaker 1: in bed and Luke even says like, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if it was the witches or if it was her diabetes,
Speaker 1: but she was like not able to look after him,
Speaker 1: and that's why he got caught by witches and turned
Speaker 1: into a mouse. I don't know. I that did not
Speaker 1: occur to me, but I think it is interesting. I
Speaker 1: don't know, yeah, I I honestly sort of just like
Speaker 1: any time I see a kid just like running around
Speaker 1: and you're there, should be an adult there. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: this movie came out in that was probably just allowed.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but that but that is an interesting point.
Speaker 1: I didn't think about that. There are a lot I mean,
Speaker 1: there's like mostly female characters in this movie. Another one
Speaker 1: I would like to talk about really quick is the
Speaker 1: one that was changed and I think maybe added with
Speaker 1: specificity entirely for this movie, which is um Susan the
Speaker 1: Good which I didn't hear her ever be called Susan,
Speaker 1: but apparently her name is Susan. I think that this
Speaker 1: is like for me, like whatever, I'm old, and this
Speaker 1: movie is for kids, so I'm not handing it to myself,
Speaker 1: but I feel like you're told immediately that like this,
Speaker 1: which isn't like the other which because she's wearing white
Speaker 1: all the time, and she's blonde, and she's none of
Speaker 1: the other witches where light colors or have these aryan
Speaker 1: complexions which enrolled dolls. Ship is always intentional, so she's
Speaker 1: the only that I could spot anyways, the only blonde
Speaker 1: which and she the few times you see her, uh Eva,
Speaker 1: Angelica Houston's bossing her around, being an asshole to her,
Speaker 1: and then at the end, she's fed up and she
Speaker 1: she leaves the dinner. So she's the only witch that
Speaker 1: doesn't eat the soup and turn into a mouse. And
Speaker 1: then she goes like, can you help me trace what
Speaker 1: goes on there? Because she goes we see like there's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is I haven't seen Nicholas Rogues,
Speaker 1: Like I haven't seen others of his movies. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is his style. But there's
Speaker 1: like occasionally in this movie, just like really quick shots
Speaker 1: that are like supposed to be a whole scene and
Speaker 1: then and then you're like, wait what they cut up
Speaker 1: to Susan the good Witch at some point in the
Speaker 1: middle of like the peak of the movie, and it's
Speaker 1: just like her in her hotel room by herself, drinking
Speaker 1: a cup of tea by herself. She doesn't even speak,
Speaker 1: but you hear her thoughts for a second, which doesn't
Speaker 1: happen anywhere else in the movie, and it just goes like, well,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to hang out with them anyways, or
Speaker 1: like whatever it was. I was like, what was that?
Speaker 1: That was self bizarre? And then like that's the only
Speaker 1: it's that. And then when Grandma and Luke Mouse are
Speaker 1: leaving Mr Bean, sorry, Luky Mouse, Lukie Mouse are leaving
Speaker 1: Mr Bean's hotel, she's like looking at them, and then
Speaker 1: that's the only information you get before you find out, oh,
Speaker 1: actually she's so good and you're like what I could not.
Speaker 1: I think it's implied that the grand high Witch who
Speaker 1: is her boss, mistreats this quote unquote good witch, and
Speaker 1: so she just was fed up with being mistreated, so
Speaker 1: she decides to like rebel against this evil witchery and
Speaker 1: use her magic for good? Is the load chick that
Speaker 1: I could kind of track? Yeah, I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: opposed to the change made to the ending. These poor
Speaker 1: children have suffered enough. I don't mind there being a
Speaker 1: random happy ending, but it is a very gendered happy
Speaker 1: ending that that um, even though it doesn't align with
Speaker 1: the story logic, it aligns with the view of women
Speaker 1: that we've seen this whole time, which is that, um,
Speaker 1: blonde women are nice. Yeah, so that I just wanted
Speaker 1: to just even just to unpack, like they really half asked,
Speaker 1: letting us know why she was good and who else
Speaker 1: do we have? We have the made There's not really
Speaker 1: much to say there, I think as far as uh oh,
Speaker 1: this is a fun transition. Um Bruno's mom a k
Speaker 1: as mom. I think she's just like she's characterized as
Speaker 1: very shrill, shrill and hysterical. Yes, and that's kind of
Speaker 1: unchallenged both to be fair, like a lot of world
Speaker 1: roll Doll parents. They're just kind of incompetent assholes, um,
Speaker 1: the both of them. But the way that they're incompetent
Speaker 1: assholes is very gendered for sure. Yes, but they are
Speaker 1: bad parents. Speaking of Bruno, should we talk about Bruno?
Speaker 1: There we go, we have we simply have to talk
Speaker 1: about Bruno. No, no, actually, let's take another quick break
Speaker 1: and then we will talk about Bruno. Okay, we're back
Speaker 1: and we're talking about Bruno. So Bruno. I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: I was sort of wondering. I'm like, is this the
Speaker 1: one Rold Doll movie where there's not whole sequence or
Speaker 1: and or character dedicated to fat phobia? It is not.
Speaker 1: The character is still there. Um. Yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: very common theme in roll Doll's work. We talked about
Speaker 1: this extensively on the Matilda episode. There's a similar character
Speaker 1: in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If I'm remembering this correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So he's a kid who is fat and who is
Speaker 1: obsessed with food, which leads to his demise. And also
Speaker 1: they much like they do with Bruno in the case
Speaker 1: of Augustus group, not only is the child punished and
Speaker 1: there's all of these troops that we we'll talk about.
Speaker 1: But roll Doll also specifically blames the parents in every
Speaker 1: case because it Bruno's parents are also, you know, covertly
Speaker 1: blamed for their child not being rail Finn, which is
Speaker 1: for some reason roll Doll is like so in love
Speaker 1: with that idea of restriction and control. Um, but there
Speaker 1: was I was reading. There's a really good Slate piece
Speaker 1: about Rolled Dall and the way food is presented in
Speaker 1: his entire It's by Anna Lisa Quinn and it came
Speaker 1: out in UM and she she points out a lot
Speaker 1: of different stuff, but she even, like I I appreciate
Speaker 1: she mentions the inverse as well, because Augustus Group much whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll cover Willy Wonka at some point, but
Speaker 1: all the kids in that movie represent what Roald Dahl
Speaker 1: perceives to be a societal evil, usually related to consumption,
Speaker 1: and uh puts that blame on children that he kills.
Speaker 1: Cool except for Charlie, who is famously boring. UM. But
Speaker 1: the way so Augustus Group, you know, meets his demise,
Speaker 1: there's extreme body horror with him. He basically meets himself
Speaker 1: to debt like it's just it's it's really the but um,
Speaker 1: the inverse is also true where he talks about people
Speaker 1: and children in this is Charlie who like restrict themselves
Speaker 1: from eating as a very virtuous thing to do. So,
Speaker 1: like when Charlie first gets a candy bar, like Roldal
Speaker 1: spends a whole page describing how slowly he eats it
Speaker 1: and how like much control he exerts over himself. And
Speaker 1: that is like, not the reason but one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that he is perceived as a more virtuous character,
Speaker 1: which is just like, you fucking weirdos. Give a hungry child,
Speaker 1: you're like, and that's practiced. Like, what the funk are
Speaker 1: you talking about? Um? Anyways, I'll reference that piece a
Speaker 1: little more, but let's talk about Bruno. Yes, so Bruno
Speaker 1: is a little chubby, and this is something that he
Speaker 1: is punished for by the story throughout the entire movie,
Speaker 1: and the movie leans into a number of fat phobic stereotypes.
Speaker 1: For example, we meet him and he's scarfing down food.
Speaker 1: He is lowered in by the witches with the promise
Speaker 1: of several candy bars. He loves food so much that
Speaker 1: he doesn't notice that he got turned into a mouse
Speaker 1: because he's too distracted by food. Yeah, um, when there's
Speaker 1: not a single line with him that passes without him
Speaker 1: noticing the nearest food he is not, He's like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess like I wanted Luke to be. I wanted
Speaker 1: all the kids to be more upset than they were mice.
Speaker 1: Why are all the kids so fine with bi Literally
Speaker 1: the end, Luke's like, oh, yeah, I'm probably I'm gonna
Speaker 1: die any day now, but it's all good, and You're
Speaker 1: just like, what the fuck. They're both like, oh, we
Speaker 1: don't have to go to school or do homework anymore.
Speaker 1: Being a mouse is awesome. It's like, and you're never
Speaker 1: gonna have sex, like what they well, it's something that
Speaker 1: I was like, that's what I mean. It maybe that
Speaker 1: they're nine, that's not on their minds, but just like
Speaker 1: saying that sucks. But anyways, but but yeah, I mean, brute.
Speaker 1: The way that Bruno is unbothered about it is by
Speaker 1: only talking about food, which is also the only thing
Speaker 1: that he talked about when he was a human child. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's also when mouse Bruno and mouse Luke are running
Speaker 1: away from the witches, Bruno complains about having to run.
Speaker 1: He says it gives him indigestion. He doesn't like it.
Speaker 1: He's um. He says something like, no more sports because
Speaker 1: they're running away to safety. Um. And then and then
Speaker 1: the last time we see his character on screen is
Speaker 1: Luke's grandma telling Bruno that he needs to go on
Speaker 1: a diet and then I know. And then Bruno saying
Speaker 1: to his mom, Oh, mom, you always wanted me to
Speaker 1: lose weight. Well, now I'm a mouse, and she as
Speaker 1: if to say, I lost a bunch of weight because
Speaker 1: I'm a rodent now. Um, and she's like, I'm hysterical,
Speaker 1: So I can't respond to that at this time. But um,
Speaker 1: and I think that, like when I mean, everyone's transformation
Speaker 1: into a mouse is horrific. But I felt I felt
Speaker 1: like the way that Bruno was transformed was also pointed
Speaker 1: in the way that it was designed because his like
Speaker 1: belly is exposed, whereas when Luke is transformed into a mouse,
Speaker 1: you don't even really see it. You're just kind of
Speaker 1: like the camera is is untransformed and he's naked, questioned naked,
Speaker 1: and you're like, did what did I just see? I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not going to rewind that, but I'm
Speaker 1: I'm like, I like that one I was just like,
Speaker 1: I'm not touching that one. I don't want the fuck.
Speaker 1: I hope I was wrong, but yeah, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what I saw, but he's definitely naked,
Speaker 1: and we maybe saw too much. UM. Basically the point
Speaker 1: is this story, and it seems like most, if not all,
Speaker 1: of Rhodol's work are making very harsh judgments against fat
Speaker 1: and us and saying that fat people and fat kids
Speaker 1: especially are ravenous. They're greedy, they're lazy, it's their fault
Speaker 1: that they're fat, and being fat is a bad thing.
Speaker 1: And that's a common theme throughout his work, and it's
Speaker 1: very much on display here in this story, and it's
Speaker 1: a very common theme across everything. But like across children's literature. UM.
Speaker 1: I did a little bit of research to this end,
Speaker 1: because with Roald dall Um, the examples that came to
Speaker 1: mind were, um, I forget the name of the character
Speaker 1: in Matilda, but the cake scene in Matilda, Augustus Gloop,
Speaker 1: and now Bruno, who I recently learned exists. UM. But um,
Speaker 1: fat phobia is so rampant in children's literature, especially like
Speaker 1: and it's something that unfortunately, like we still need to
Speaker 1: be very mindful of because all this ship is getting
Speaker 1: readapted because you're not allowed to write a new story
Speaker 1: any so whatever, I'm being a drama queen, but you
Speaker 1: know this is being readapted. So I found piece by
Speaker 1: Rebecca Rabinowitz. She wrote something called Who's that Fat Kid?
Speaker 1: Fat Politics and Children's Literature for the Children's Book Council
Speaker 1: Diversity Blog UM, and she kind of um unpacks a
Speaker 1: lot of tropes that are leveraged against fat or just
Speaker 1: not finned children in general. In books, they're often characterized
Speaker 1: as of lower intelligence. They're characterized as hyper fixated on
Speaker 1: food and defined by hunger and or fatness, and they're
Speaker 1: very often found to be either bullies or the victims
Speaker 1: of bullying. And I honestly as I didn't I I
Speaker 1: don't know if the bully trope ever really like clocked
Speaker 1: for me. But then when she unpacked it, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that actually makes sense. She's uh. Basically every bully in
Speaker 1: the Harry Potter books is fat. There's Dudley Crab and Goyle.
Speaker 1: Um are all kids that are not rayl fin like
Speaker 1: Harry Potter and our Luke um. And then there's also
Speaker 1: a lot of fat characters that are bullied. It's just whatever.
Speaker 1: It's just like defining someone by their experience. Um. It's
Speaker 1: been found that anti fat attitudes begin as early as
Speaker 1: age three, and another study found that children are less
Speaker 1: likely to want to be friends with fat characters, which
Speaker 1: is not the fault of the children, it's the fault
Speaker 1: of how fat characters are presented to them, and and
Speaker 1: also that they're very rarely main characters. Um, there's always
Speaker 1: they're either a best friend or a bully or uh,
Speaker 1: you know, side character that a thin hero needs to
Speaker 1: rescue from bullying. So I just wanted to shout out that, Um,
Speaker 1: Rebecca Rabinowitz piece, it was very helpful. Also just rolled
Speaker 1: all Um loves to talk about, like James and the
Speaker 1: Giant Peach. Also, like there's just there's just so much
Speaker 1: is his obsession with people's body sizes and food and
Speaker 1: the restriction thereof I'll say it, I'm glad he's dead. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: he would rather be dead than fat, and so he
Speaker 1: got his wish. Okay, bye, yeah, good riddance. So yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: The last thing I want to just touch on a
Speaker 1: bit more is the just witches and the representation of
Speaker 1: them in media. We've talked about the portrayal of which
Speaker 1: is in other episodes such as The Love Witch, and
Speaker 1: of course I think that that's probably where we did
Speaker 1: at the best, The VIC and The Love which yeah,
Speaker 1: iconic episodes. Sorry, I was just thinking of other movies
Speaker 1: we've covered that had witches, but I don't think that
Speaker 1: we got as in depth hocus Pocus the Craft, which
Speaker 1: is of Eastwick the Craft. We've covered a lot of
Speaker 1: witch movies. There's well, because all women are witches, um,
Speaker 1: and I mean, and that's a fact. I love the
Speaker 1: right kind of witch media, you know, is it can
Speaker 1: be some of the greatest ship in the world. But
Speaker 1: but that is not often how which is are presented
Speaker 1: in media. So we've talked about the various tropes that
Speaker 1: surround which characters and stories about which is. Um. We've
Speaker 1: unpacked a little bit the historical context of people, usually women,
Speaker 1: who have been perceived as being witches and the literal
Speaker 1: witch hunts that have happened throughout history. I've referenced this
Speaker 1: book before. I'll recommend it again, the book which is
Speaker 1: Sluts Feminists by Kristen J. Sole, which dives into that
Speaker 1: historical context and, among among other things, but basically, again,
Speaker 1: people and especially women throughout history who have just not
Speaker 1: fit the mold of very rigid gender roles and expectations,
Speaker 1: and that ranges from anything to like interest or profession,
Speaker 1: their sexuality. They're just physical presentation, all manner of things,
Speaker 1: and just a fundamental misunderstanding of women in their bodies
Speaker 1: has led to the perception that a bunch of women
Speaker 1: must be witches. This movie leans into a lot of
Speaker 1: those tropes because it, you know, it demonizes women who
Speaker 1: don't want children, It demonizes older women, it demonizes The
Speaker 1: movie doesn't come out and say this, really, but if
Speaker 1: it seems like all these women are also unmarried, I
Speaker 1: think that kind of comes with a territory of like,
Speaker 1: I guess that I I can't prove that they are
Speaker 1: unmarried and childless, but I would. I would put money
Speaker 1: on that that's what we're supposed to believe, because any
Speaker 1: woman we know that has a child or married, we
Speaker 1: see them with their husband or their kid. I think
Speaker 1: that there's also just like a thing with which is that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we've talked about this at some point, but
Speaker 1: not only is it, you know, a way to rationalize
Speaker 1: not adhering to the rigid expectations of women across cultures.
Speaker 1: And that's like another thing where it's like we are
Speaker 1: so focused on um, you know, characters who are white,
Speaker 1: who are which is when? Which culture is with with?
Speaker 1: I think very few exceptions a universal thing. Misogyny really
Speaker 1: is everywhere in most places and has been forever. But
Speaker 1: I think it it also is like in uh meant
Speaker 1: to inherently discourage or to imply that, um, women talking
Speaker 1: to each other means something bad. It is like a
Speaker 1: force of evil for women to talk to each other
Speaker 1: because whatever, You don't want them to start getting ideas
Speaker 1: uh and talk to each other about how scary the
Speaker 1: men around them might be. Well, that's I literally was
Speaker 1: thinking about because I'm always thinking about hot dogs. But
Speaker 1: there's a thing that I, um, there's a story that
Speaker 1: I talk about in the Hot Dog Book, which you
Speaker 1: can pre order now. Yeah, do it. So. One of
Speaker 1: the anecdotes that really stuck out to me that I
Speaker 1: know I've told you before, UM is the creator of
Speaker 1: Auntie AND's Pretzels, who are famous for their pretzel dogs,
Speaker 1: was from an Amish community, UM, where women are you know,
Speaker 1: not encouraged to talk to each other, especially about something traumatic,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of shame, as there are in
Speaker 1: across most religions. I'm not trying to target the Amish
Speaker 1: community specifically. Sure she you know, she she was being
Speaker 1: abused by a priest in the community, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: until she spoke to the community of women that she
Speaker 1: found out everyone was being abused by the priest and
Speaker 1: the priest was weaponizing the inherent shame that came with
Speaker 1: religion and also communing among women that you know protected him. Well,
Speaker 1: if women commune, they become a coven and are which
Speaker 1: is right. I mean, it's just sucking, but it's like,
Speaker 1: it's true. It's just it's ridiculous. But yeah, yeah, all
Speaker 1: this to say that women have been perceived as witches
Speaker 1: throughout history and punished and killed for it time and
Speaker 1: time again because they defy gender roles and expectations, and
Speaker 1: then harmful tropes in media and and you know, entertainment
Speaker 1: and literature, cinema, etcetera have arisen a rose. I don't
Speaker 1: don't remember it sounds good how to speak, but they've
Speaker 1: emerged over the years without like challenging all the sexism
Speaker 1: inherent in perceiving women as witches. And they're just like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: witches are evil and a lot of women are witches,
Speaker 1: and therefore a lot of women are evil and this movie,
Speaker 1: this story just presents that as a simple fact. So yes,
Speaker 1: and I think that it is just like a I
Speaker 1: don't know, I I understand why. And also it's like
Speaker 1: I hate I need to stop thinking of like what
Speaker 1: are people going to be mad at us about now? Um,
Speaker 1: But just for the sake of saying it, we understand
Speaker 1: that this is a very campy movie. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of elements of this movie that are really really reclaimable,
Speaker 1: Like sure, but it's our job to get the text.
Speaker 1: And this is, you know, based on really anti semitic
Speaker 1: children's book. So um, you know, I I understand why
Speaker 1: people like this movie. I understand why it's campy, but
Speaker 1: we just don't have any attachment to it. I fear right,
Speaker 1: that's it's true. Um. Another like trope that gets leaned
Speaker 1: into is like the woman or the witch as a
Speaker 1: sed actress to like kind of lure someone in This
Speaker 1: happened in the Vivich where sometimes the Viviach presents, as
Speaker 1: you know, of a traditionally beautiful seductress who's like walking
Speaker 1: around naked in the woods to lure people in. But
Speaker 1: then when you see her in her quote unquote true form,
Speaker 1: that's leaning into another trope, which is an older woman
Speaker 1: who does not you know, have a victorious secret model body.
Speaker 1: Um is evil and scary. Uh So the director Nicholas
Speaker 1: Rogue deliberately costumed Angelica Houston too, like have you know
Speaker 1: she's wearing like a sleek black dress which like shows
Speaker 1: Cleavagh's mortisia hang out. Yeah, right, and um, that was
Speaker 1: a very deliberate choice. He wanted the grand high witch
Speaker 1: when she's like Angelica Houston, uh and not a horrible
Speaker 1: anti Semitic stereotype to have sex appeal. And then and
Speaker 1: then you see like is it Bruno's dad who's hitting
Speaker 1: on Angelica Houston in various scenes? Yes, and then you
Speaker 1: get a dirty look from Bruno's mom. Um, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that's at least if I'm going to reclaim one
Speaker 1: of those elements, I guess that that's one of the
Speaker 1: more reclaimable things. To me is like you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like whatever, that's a two pronged thing for me,
Speaker 1: where it's like sometimes it's like yeah, especially because this
Speaker 1: is written, scripted, designed and shaped entirely by men. I
Speaker 1: feel like there is this assumption that it is scary.
Speaker 1: A scary thing of woman can do is like manipulate
Speaker 1: you with her body and sexuality. But also I like when, uh,
Speaker 1: when that does happen because all of the men too,
Speaker 1: If nothing else, all of the men in this movie
Speaker 1: are pretty incompetent and and horny. Yeah, horny and incompetent
Speaker 1: and like horrible basically useless. Like it's the kids, and um,
Speaker 1: the women are fully the only like you know, active characters.
Speaker 1: Like there's things that like Mr Bean tries to do,
Speaker 1: but he's not really successful in any of it. And
Speaker 1: the same goes for Bruno's dad, and those are kind
Speaker 1: of the only male characters. And so sure that's fun.
Speaker 1: Uh And what I I mean Angelica Houston, I just
Speaker 1: love her so much. I just yeah, but this movie
Speaker 1: is not not good to do anything else. I don't
Speaker 1: think so me either, Yeah, I I this movie does
Speaker 1: pass the back toll test, not as much as I
Speaker 1: would have thought. There's a lot of Grandma and Luke,
Speaker 1: Grandmat and Luke, Bruno and Luke, and then Angelica Houston
Speaker 1: will talk to other witches but we don't know who
Speaker 1: most of what most of their names are true. I
Speaker 1: would say that the only witches that are remotely characterized
Speaker 1: are her Eva and kind of Susan and a few
Speaker 1: of their exchanges would pass. But on in such an
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly you know, women driven movie, Um, I kind of
Speaker 1: thought it would happen more. It does happen though. Yeah. True,
Speaker 1: But how about that nipple scale of ours? Wow, that's
Speaker 1: what really counts. That's a really major metric here, boy,
Speaker 1: I mean, so zero to five nipples. Based on examining
Speaker 1: the movie through an interest actional feminist lens, yeah, I would.
Speaker 1: I would say between the blatant anti semitism, sexism, and
Speaker 1: fat phobia, you know, not not going to get very
Speaker 1: high marks. If you don't have any attachment to this movie,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't watch it. I don't know. There's so many
Speaker 1: better movies that have the themes that this movie is mishandling.
Speaker 1: Like I love body horror, I just don't like what
Speaker 1: it's anti semitic, like, you know, like there's there's just
Speaker 1: for anything that the people hold onto for nostalgic reasons
Speaker 1: to this movie. There is a movie that does the
Speaker 1: same thing better so if you haven't seen it, Honestly,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't bother skip it. Yeah, but I guess you know.
Speaker 1: I like the Little Mouse puppets. I mean the hands. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's uh whatever though no funck the mice. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just like this movie. This movie, I didn't like it.
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's doing a lot of bad things. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll give it any nippies. I'll give it one nipple
Speaker 1: for it's potentially reclaimable stuff. Mostly I just love Angelica Houston.
Speaker 1: But maybe it doesn't even deserve nipple. I'll drop it
Speaker 1: down to a half nipple and I'll give it to
Speaker 1: Angelica Houston as Morticia Adams. Yeah, I'm gonna do it
Speaker 1: half as well. I just, uh, it like, is not
Speaker 1: that this super matters, but just personally griping it annoys
Speaker 1: me when there's like a movie that I feel like
Speaker 1: I should like because I love body horror and I
Speaker 1: love casts of women doing evil shit, and I love
Speaker 1: Angelica Houston and so you know, on its face, but
Speaker 1: it's just like it just pissed me off to watch.
Speaker 1: I didn't like it for all the reasons We've been
Speaker 1: talking about for two hours now. So I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: give it a half nipple for camp and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give it to the mom who gets you know, nuked
Speaker 1: in the first two seconds of the movie. Um, I
Speaker 1: didn't know what her name was, but she was I
Speaker 1: did appreciate that she was like Grandma stopped telling Luke
Speaker 1: all your misogynist conspiracy theories, and Grandma was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'll give it. I'll give it to her, but
Speaker 1: um yeah, this this bummed me out. This bummed me out.
Speaker 1: So uh, that's the Witches. Oh the thing. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, well, we'll talk about it in on a
Speaker 1: Matrion episode. But the reason that we cannot because I
Speaker 1: honestly I would have watched movie. So here's a little PostScript.
Speaker 1: I would have watched thee to prepare for this episode.
Speaker 1: But you literally, at least in the US, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure this is true across the board. You literally cannot.
Speaker 1: It is media that came out less than two years
Speaker 1: ago that is no longer available anymore. You can't because
Speaker 1: there is like this horrible thing going on right now
Speaker 1: that is like I researched it very intensely because the
Speaker 1: production of a show I'm working on is like really
Speaker 1: tied up in all of this ship. But Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: and HBO, they're like legally making existing you know, art,
Speaker 1: whether it's good or not. Because I hear that, but
Speaker 1: but you shouldn't be allowed to disappear. You know a
Speaker 1: movie that came out two years ago, it's just absolutely
Speaker 1: and it's not being done because it was offensive. It
Speaker 1: was not being done because it wasn't good. Bad movies
Speaker 1: exist fucking everywhere. It's being done because it is like
Speaker 1: a corporate loophole that was just made possible by the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court a couple of years ago that allows huge
Speaker 1: companies like Warner Brothers and like HBO to make stuff
Speaker 1: disappear in order to not pay taxes, in order to
Speaker 1: consolidate money and not pay taxes. So it's all a
Speaker 1: fucking like if you watch the movie and hated it,
Speaker 1: I wish I could have watched it and hated it too,
Speaker 1: because it's just like I think it's corporate evil, and
Speaker 1: I think it's really disrespectful to people who worked hard
Speaker 1: and made a whole fucking movie. Even if that movie sucks.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't be allowed to disappear something like that. Um,
Speaker 1: And it's been happening to a lot of people, so
Speaker 1: I'm just personally piste off about it. And literally, as
Speaker 1: we were recording this cartoon network got shut down. So
Speaker 1: what Yeah, I'm a fucking animation writer. I just like,
Speaker 1: I hate this ship so much. Um, so the Witches,
Speaker 1: you know, the Witch is. Will it be missed very much?
Speaker 1: Probably not? But but you know, CEO shouldn't get to
Speaker 1: decide what art exists in the world and what doesn't.
Speaker 1: That's a fucking nasty precedent and I hate it. Uh
Speaker 1: And on that note, goodbye, Yes, uh, thanks for listening. Um.
Speaker 1: You can follow us on social media at spectel cast,
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram. Hey, because it's just us, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna plug my social media. You can follow me on
Speaker 1: those same platforms at Caitlin Durante and Hey, Jamie, do
Speaker 1: you have anything that you want to plug? Maybe like
Speaker 1: a book about hot dogs or anything. If you want
Speaker 1: to buy my book about hot dogs, it is available
Speaker 1: for pre sale now. It's called raw Dog, The Naked
Speaker 1: Truth about hot Dogs by Jamie Loftus comes to you,
Speaker 1: That's me. It comes out in stores on May nine,
Speaker 1: but uh, pre sales are cheaper and really helpful. Um,
Speaker 1: I would recommend, and we'll link this in the description,
Speaker 1: I would recommend you buy it on bookshop dot org.
Speaker 1: It's a really cool website. It's where I got mine,
Speaker 1: and it connects you to your nearest local independent seller
Speaker 1: and you save money. Please don't buy the book on
Speaker 1: us on I'll be so sad. So there you go,
Speaker 1: and I really hope you watch it, and you can
Speaker 1: get our merch at t public dot com slash becktel cast.
Speaker 1: You can follow you don't have to follow me online.
Speaker 1: I need to get off that fucking thing. Anyways, it's toxic.
Speaker 1: We're the first people who have ever said that. Um,
Speaker 1: but hey, you know what's not toxic is our Matreon
Speaker 1: matres a little toxic, it's a little chaotic, I would say. Um,
Speaker 1: you can subscribe to that at Patreon dot com slash
Speaker 1: becktel Cast, where you'll get access to to bonus episodes
Speaker 1: every month, plus the entire back catalog of all the
Speaker 1: Matreon bonuses we've done. And it is five dollars a month. Wow,
Speaker 1: what a deal, What a deal with a steal and
Speaker 1: I'm not even joking, it's a good deal. We're only
Speaker 1: releasing the hits so and and this month because it
Speaker 1: is the scary month. Um. We did Final Destination three
Speaker 1: and we're doing Malignant, a James Wong movie and a
Speaker 1: James Wan movie. You're going to love it for my books. Truly,
Speaker 1: I feel like we can really cut loose on the matrion.
Speaker 1: It's exciting. Um. So that was the Witches. Thank you
Speaker 1: for staying for my corporate rage PostScript and we'll we'll
Speaker 1: see you next week. Bye bye bye