Speaker 1: On the beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
Speaker 1: have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
Speaker 1: and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef
Speaker 1: in best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie
Speaker 1: Loftus and my name is Caitlin Drunte, and this is
Speaker 1: our podcast about the portrayal of women in movies. Horns.
Speaker 1: We use the Bechdel test. Yeah, as a it's not
Speaker 1: like I was surprised. We do, we do? We do?
Speaker 1: We do? The Bechtel test if You're not familiar, is
Speaker 1: a test that requires that a movie has two female
Speaker 1: identifying characters. They have to have names, they have to
Speaker 1: speak to each other, and they cannot be talking about men. Hey,
Speaker 1: can we by the test really quick? Let's do it? Okay?
Speaker 1: Hey Caitlin, Hey Jamie, you were really good at soccer
Speaker 1: this morning. Thank you so much for coming to Mike game.
Speaker 1: You're welcome. Wholesome doesn't have to be funny, it can
Speaker 1: be very awesome. Yeah, just very sincere. Yeah, Jamie, you
Speaker 1: came to my game, and I really I just need
Speaker 1: everyone to know what a good and supportive friend. You are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really more about me than it is about you know,
Speaker 1: you're it was great, it was fun. Yeah, all women's
Speaker 1: it's all women's league. So yeah. My soccer games always
Speaker 1: passed the Bechtel tests every game and then, except when
Speaker 1: you start screaming about the takedown of the patriarchy in
Speaker 1: the middle during the halftime, which is great. Well, sometimes
Speaker 1: we do yell at the usually male ref so I
Speaker 1: guess those don't pass. But most of our conversations are
Speaker 1: about soccer, so we use that test, the Bechtel test,
Speaker 1: as a jumping off point to initiate larger conversations about
Speaker 1: the general representation and portrayal of women in cinema. And
Speaker 1: we are here to talk about a movie a popular request.
Speaker 1: I'm still in theaters. Yes, we're talking about crazy rich Asians.
Speaker 1: And with us, we've got two guests, super Um our
Speaker 1: first guest new to the pod. She's a TV writer,
Speaker 1: a comedian, Cita Sean. And we have a returning guest,
Speaker 1: a friend of the cast. You may remember her from
Speaker 1: our Transformers episode of the What's Up Network. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: she hosts her own podcast called You Can Tell Me Anything. Theresa.
Speaker 1: Both of you guys have been on it's true which
Speaker 1: one of us is the crazy and which one of
Speaker 1: us is the rich? I mean, we to draw straw.
Speaker 1: I just want to be the agent. So Teresa will
Speaker 1: start with you. What's your history with this? Oh? I
Speaker 1: read the book when it came out. It's a good read.
Speaker 1: It's like a you know, a beatree, you know, a
Speaker 1: summer romp if you will, uh, And I obviously identify
Speaker 1: with the main character because she's from the Bay and
Speaker 1: then went to n y U. Yeah she is is Taiwanese.
Speaker 1: Well maybe not if there's a sequel anyways, but she
Speaker 1: thinks she's Taiwanese. And so yeah, I read the book.
Speaker 1: I remember when it came out. I read it and
Speaker 1: I even I found a tweet from a long time ago.
Speaker 1: I was like, I hope they make a movie out
Speaker 1: of this, and I hope I'm in Hollywood when that happens.
Speaker 1: That didn't happen. I didn't make it that far. So
Speaker 1: you were physically in Hollywood? YEA, Yeah, I should have
Speaker 1: been more specific about my wish, So yeah, manifest more specifically,
Speaker 1: right right? And Cita, how about you? I think I
Speaker 1: read the book when it came out to because the
Speaker 1: title was you know, like that was like click bait
Speaker 1: before clickbait. But I really enjoyed it. You know. It
Speaker 1: was like I read a lot of Joan Collins when
Speaker 1: I was a kid because I just had bargain books
Speaker 1: in my house all the time because my mom would
Speaker 1: buy me new books. So I read a lot of
Speaker 1: like eighties Joan Collins. And that's what Crazy Rich Agents
Speaker 1: reminds me of, like super shoulder padded like extravagance, Jamie.
Speaker 1: I read the book. I received the first book as
Speaker 1: a gift, and I read it on a couple different
Speaker 1: It was just my plane book for a while. I
Speaker 1: liked the book that it was like a fun beach
Speaker 1: read that I happened to be reading on a plane. Sure,
Speaker 1: and then I saw the movie last week and really
Speaker 1: liked the movie. Yeah, we saw it together. We did.
Speaker 1: It was fun. I did not read the book, but
Speaker 1: I did watch the movie three times in theaters. So
Speaker 1: let's basically, wow, you beat me. I saw it twice. Oay,
Speaker 1: you beat both of us, both of the Asians here.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to make sure I was adequately prepared,
Speaker 1: so I saw it many many times. So I'll do
Speaker 1: the recap. Yeah, sure, okay, So the story focus. Well,
Speaker 1: first we opened on a scene where Eleanor Young is
Speaker 1: trying to check into a hotel in London and a
Speaker 1: bunch of white people are like, you don't belong here,
Speaker 1: please go away, and she's like, actually, I'm buying this hotel,
Speaker 1: so fu y'all. So that sort of sets up the
Speaker 1: Young family fun you can't get off. And then we
Speaker 1: see Nick Young as a little boy, um in that scene,
Speaker 1: and I think he's with is it astrid? I think
Speaker 1: so that's that makes sense because his cousin. And then
Speaker 1: we cut to present day. We meet Rachel Chew. She
Speaker 1: is an econ professor at n y U. She is
Speaker 1: dating Nick Young, who is very hot and who is
Speaker 1: very good at wearing pants. Um, he wears a lot
Speaker 1: of pants. He just knows how to wear a parapets,
Speaker 1: a tailored parapets. I was like, were these made four
Speaker 1: your butt? It's wild? Well, I mean he can afford it,
Speaker 1: so probably imagine being able to afford pants with your
Speaker 1: butt in mind. Unbelievable. Jamie. When we were watching this together,
Speaker 1: you turned to me at a certain point in the movie.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure, or you had tears in your eyes
Speaker 1: and you said Nick Young is just so handsome. I
Speaker 1: was fully at Nick just too hot at one point
Speaker 1: that I just was sent over the edge and I
Speaker 1: began to cry. It was a worldwide casting for Nick
Speaker 1: Young's character, and apparently one of my friends told me
Speaker 1: that he was on one of those travel shows that
Speaker 1: shows on the back of airplane. As he wasn't even
Speaker 1: an actor, He's never done something like this. He was
Speaker 1: just a host that was very charismatic, and they were like,
Speaker 1: how about that guy. I'm I honestly, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm like he I'm sure he did a
Speaker 1: great job acting, but I was just like, I just
Speaker 1: was really overwhelmed. Um. I also, you know, and I
Speaker 1: would say that the Mike's hard lemonade I brought to
Speaker 1: the theater with I probably contributed to sending me over
Speaker 1: the edge in the first twenty minutes of the movie.
Speaker 1: But yeah, understandable. So Rachel and Nick are dating and
Speaker 1: Nick invites her to Singapore because his best friend Colin
Speaker 1: is getting married and he's the best man. So he's like,
Speaker 1: why don't we use this as an excuse for you
Speaker 1: to come and meet my family, and you can visit
Speaker 1: your friend while you're there and it'll be a great time.
Speaker 1: And she's like okay. So they go to they're like
Speaker 1: at the airport and she's like, I've got my tupperware
Speaker 1: of food. We're all good. And then the airline people
Speaker 1: come up to them and they're like, we'll get you
Speaker 1: checked into first class and she's like, um, excuse me,
Speaker 1: what do you mean. And then they're like, here's some champagne,
Speaker 1: here's an airplane bedroom. And she's like, wait a minute, um,
Speaker 1: are you rich or something? And he's like addie, kay,
Speaker 1: I guess and she's like wait a minute. For a while,
Speaker 1: he's like, I mean we're comfortable, like dog, you're rich.
Speaker 1: So she learns that he comes from an extremely wealthy
Speaker 1: family of like real estate moguls and like finance people
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. So she goes and meets his mom,
Speaker 1: Nick's mom, Eleanor, and Eleanor is like, this girl is
Speaker 1: not rich, so gross, She's not crazy or rich. So
Speaker 1: basically the story revolves around Rachel trying to earn the
Speaker 1: respect and the blessing of Eleanor because it seems like
Speaker 1: she and Nick are on like the track for marriage.
Speaker 1: And because Rachel is Chinese American, she was raised in
Speaker 1: the US, and she just has sort of like a
Speaker 1: different set of values, is what we called them? Wait,
Speaker 1: what is that American born Chinese they call us when
Speaker 1: we went to Taiwan. Oh that's what Aquafina says in
Speaker 1: the movie, which is like yellow on the outside. I've
Speaker 1: never heard that either. Okay, So, because she just sort
Speaker 1: of has like a different set of values than like
Speaker 1: the Young family, Eleanor is all like she's not the
Speaker 1: right person, like she's not the one for you Nick,
Speaker 1: but Nick is like enamored and in love with Rachel.
Speaker 1: Over the course of the story, you know, Rachel's like
Speaker 1: trying to like make Eleanor like her basically, and Eleanor
Speaker 1: keeps being like, you will never be enough. And then
Speaker 1: finally at the wedding that they've gone to Singapore four,
Speaker 1: Eleanor has hired a private investigator and reveals some information
Speaker 1: about Rachel's mom's history that would have caused like a
Speaker 1: huge scandal where her mom had unfair with another man
Speaker 1: who wasn't her husband, got pregnant with his baby and
Speaker 1: then left him in China and moved to the US.
Speaker 1: So that was like grounds for like basically dismissal for
Speaker 1: like eleanor to be like go away, never talked to
Speaker 1: us again. That part is like I feel like one
Speaker 1: of the most believable things too, because i mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure American culture people hide things all the time, but
Speaker 1: especially in Chinese culture, I feel like there's just so
Speaker 1: many secrets, but their secrets where it's like families will
Speaker 1: just be like so overbearing in one way, but then
Speaker 1: also so like, oh no, I just didn't tell you
Speaker 1: that your grandma died because it's the I decided it
Speaker 1: was best for you. And so there's things like that
Speaker 1: all the time. And then so like the fact that
Speaker 1: all these families have these secrets, I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly so weird. Like because her and my mom
Speaker 1: have a good relationship. Yeah, she's just like life yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: But then it's revealed that whenever Rachel like kind of
Speaker 1: confronts her mom about it, her mom's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: my husband was abusive and I left him because he
Speaker 1: was hurting me. But yeah, they have a really good relationship.
Speaker 1: So then Nick proposes to Rachel and he's like, I
Speaker 1: will leave my family behind, like you know he's supposed
Speaker 1: to be next in line to run the Young corporation.
Speaker 1: He's like, I'll walk away from all of that. I
Speaker 1: just want to be with you. And then we cut
Speaker 1: immediately to a scene where she has invited Eleanor to
Speaker 1: play majong with her, and she's like, I'm playing losing
Speaker 1: hand either way. Like Nick either leaves his family and
Speaker 1: then like that's not good because he doesn't have a family,
Speaker 1: or he chooses his family and doesn't stay with me,
Speaker 1: and then he will end up resenting you his mom.
Speaker 1: So she basically rejects him his marriage proposal, so that
Speaker 1: she's basically making the choice for him. And then that
Speaker 1: is the thing that makes Eleanor be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: she is enough. She's strong and she's a fighter, and
Speaker 1: she's good enough for me. So then she finally gives
Speaker 1: her blessing because then Nick reproposes with his mom's ring, um,
Speaker 1: and we're all like it up. So that was set
Speaker 1: up so well, I feel like, and I think the
Speaker 1: ring was great because the ring was the ring that
Speaker 1: Eleanor husband Nick Young's dad had to create especially for
Speaker 1: her because the patriarch wouldn't give up her old ring.
Speaker 1: So The ring is also like symbolic of like a
Speaker 1: marriage that wasn't approved by the families and now it
Speaker 1: passed on to another and the idea that traditions can
Speaker 1: be malleable because now it's the tradition because it's her
Speaker 1: his mom. But when I was created, it was because
Speaker 1: she wasn't allowed to continue the tradition. So like it's
Speaker 1: a new tradition, tradition yea unapproved wives, the unapproved wives.
Speaker 1: Um so then she says yes this time, and then
Speaker 1: they go and have like an engagement party on a
Speaker 1: rooftop in Singapore. There's a few subplots where Nick's cousin
Speaker 1: Astrid is dealing with her marriage to a guy named Michael.
Speaker 1: He was like also a commoner who marries into this
Speaker 1: rich family named Michael is always a red flag no
Speaker 1: matter what. Um So there's that subplot, and then we
Speaker 1: meet many of other Nick's families, and then um we
Speaker 1: meet Paklin, which is Aquafina's character and like her family,
Speaker 1: so we've got a whole cast of characters. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's the main storyline. There's also a lot of
Speaker 1: twin representation in this film. I feel like nobody's talking
Speaker 1: about there are three pairs of twins that I recognized
Speaker 1: the maybe more if I watched Aquafina her sister's twins,
Speaker 1: Aquafina's little basis sister. And there's the adult gossipy twins
Speaker 1: that are at the battelerette that they called the twins.
Speaker 1: And then there's the Flower girls are also twins, and
Speaker 1: they couldn't be Aquafinea sisters because it wouldn't make sense.
Speaker 1: They weren't sister, right, So there's always three pairs of
Speaker 1: Asian girl twins, which I feel like it is like
Speaker 1: a big win for me because I am an Asian
Speaker 1: girl twins and I was a flower girl in a
Speaker 1: wedding in Malaysia but the rehearsal was in Singapore. It's
Speaker 1: like it's basically a story of my life. Like Asian
Speaker 1: girl twins are hot, come outity during wedding season and
Speaker 1: they're just like, look at the pair of cutes walking
Speaker 1: on the aisle. Yeah, we crushed it. Full twin season.
Speaker 1: It's well, I mean Gemini season in the spring. Anyways,
Speaker 1: So are twins especially lucky? No, I think they're unlucky,
Speaker 1: especially because they're girls. I guess I just want to
Speaker 1: start by saying that I mean, this movie is a
Speaker 1: box office hit right now. It's what everyone's talking about
Speaker 1: second weekend number one. It's like a genuine blockbuster. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's like a rom com, but also like
Speaker 1: it's funny and it's tight. It feels like a blockbuster. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a solid flick and we've sold. My
Speaker 1: mom saw it with her former colleague. There were airline
Speaker 1: ladies what are the flight attendants together in Taiwan and
Speaker 1: they're still friends, and she came to visit her from
Speaker 1: Taiwan and they went and watched it, and I was like,
Speaker 1: that's so awesome. A friend is kind of like a
Speaker 1: crazy rich Asian though she like, she's not this crazy rich,
Speaker 1: but she's very like just more like an educated rich
Speaker 1: Asian rich enough to be like I can relate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think she's into it. Cool, cool, All right, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we will come back
Speaker 1: to discuss crazy rich Asians. And we're back. We're here,
Speaker 1: we're here. It's Sunday. We're literally a brunch club right now. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's great. Yeah, I read that A lot of like
Speaker 1: Asian immigrants people and parents, ones who normally never go
Speaker 1: to the movies are seeing this movie because they're seeing
Speaker 1: themselves represented for like the first time. This is the
Speaker 1: first American movie that's an all Asian cast since I
Speaker 1: think Joy Luck Club, like twenty five years ago. I
Speaker 1: mean it's funny too because it's like even if you
Speaker 1: don't because a lot of the criticism before the movie
Speaker 1: came out was that it's not relatable because it's about
Speaker 1: crazy rich people. But I think it's like, I mean,
Speaker 1: like when we watch Superhero movie, is it's like is
Speaker 1: that relatable? I think that's a dumb thing because it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, we gotta start somewhere, like do you
Speaker 1: really want to watch a movie about people doing nothing
Speaker 1: sitting around getting high? I mean maybe actually that's like
Speaker 1: haroldon Cumar. Also, by the way, haroldon Kumar is also
Speaker 1: leading Asian cast, and people keep forgetting that that's that's
Speaker 1: because people build as a stoner movie, not an Asian movie.
Speaker 1: But I guess that wasn't a major studio movie. Maybe
Speaker 1: it did really well. There's also it's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of white people in this so it's not like an
Speaker 1: entirely Asian characters cast, like, but the lease are Asian
Speaker 1: so more leads should have been Asian after that, but
Speaker 1: everybody seemed to forget that. That did well, but it
Speaker 1: was mainly a boon. Yeah, white is in the name.
Speaker 1: That's the only way they could get the movie to make.
Speaker 1: It's like, put something white in this title to trick
Speaker 1: the audience. Did you guys know that there was a
Speaker 1: very herald and Kumar three D Christmas? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: because it was on TV one year without the sweety
Speaker 1: glasses you saw it. Yeah, there was something about a
Speaker 1: Christmas tree. That's why I think that's what. Yeah. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: either way, we've we've come a long way from like
Speaker 1: Mickey Rooney's character and Breakfast a Tiffany's from like Dot
Speaker 1: Dong in sixteen Candles, even from like Scott Pilgrim where
Speaker 1: like knives Chow so much like tone deaf stuff is
Speaker 1: said about that character. So I mean we're still a
Speaker 1: far cry from what it should be representation wise for
Speaker 1: nearly everybody. Well, we're interested in, like what what your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that? Yeah? Well, I actually think because for
Speaker 1: me it's not representation isn't just half of it is
Speaker 1: visual Because of course, the more Asians people we see
Speaker 1: them more will realize like, Okay, like we can be
Speaker 1: in movies. But I also really like that the story
Speaker 1: itself is representative because it's just like someone I saw
Speaker 1: it with said this, well, it's like it's just it's
Speaker 1: funny because jokes are new because it's a new point
Speaker 1: of view, so that like does well for everyone. It's
Speaker 1: not something we've heard before. But it's not explicitly an
Speaker 1: Asian movie. Like the story about family and about tradition
Speaker 1: isn't explicitly Asian. It's very tied to Asian culture, so
Speaker 1: that I think obviously we relate to it more. But um,
Speaker 1: anybody can watch it and not think like, oh, this
Speaker 1: isn't for me, because everybody it has a mom like that,
Speaker 1: I think we can all relate to it. So I
Speaker 1: really like that it's representative in um, the story itself
Speaker 1: just like the point of view for sure. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this because my boyfriends are watching
Speaker 1: The Godfather Trilogy over again and watching that movie over again,
Speaker 1: which is probably like the most famous movie in America.
Speaker 1: You realized that, like the Godfather Trilogy is an immigrant story.
Speaker 1: It's it's really American, but it's also about an immigrant story.
Speaker 1: So I was thinking about that in context of crazy
Speaker 1: rich Asians, and I was like, oh, this is an
Speaker 1: immigrant story. It's like, uh, finding your identity, making a
Speaker 1: new like for yourself, all those things that are kind
Speaker 1: of what being American is all about. So that to
Speaker 1: me was really relatable. I actually bought tickets for my
Speaker 1: parents to go see it, and my mom was like,
Speaker 1: this is good, but this is very also just more
Speaker 1: about my mom than anything else. Her notes were that
Speaker 1: it was too loud, that she was like, loud, it's funny,
Speaker 1: like moms don't realize. I don't know if my mom
Speaker 1: recognizes herself and Ellen or young. She's not that strict,
Speaker 1: but like, like it's funny because I don't think people
Speaker 1: recognize themselves in it. Yeah, And I my mom's point
Speaker 1: about their wealth was also really funny too. She was
Speaker 1: just like, oh, it was so over the top, was
Speaker 1: so extravagant, like nobody lives like that. And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's the point of the title. It's in the title.
Speaker 1: But I think I think a lot of the criticism
Speaker 1: leveled at the movie. I mean, I enjoyed it. I
Speaker 1: sort of see the shortcomings, like, but I think it's
Speaker 1: because there's not enough of this kind of movie. There's
Speaker 1: not enough movies where there's like a majority Asian cast.
Speaker 1: There's not enough movies kind of with an Asian centers story,
Speaker 1: you have like a variety of like a body of
Speaker 1: work to choose from. Like we've been able to name
Speaker 1: like five movies made over like the last forty years,
Speaker 1: which is like not a body of work. That's like
Speaker 1: five movies. So if you had a body of work
Speaker 1: to actually critique against and then it would be interesting.
Speaker 1: Right now, we're just like picking, Like if there were
Speaker 1: like more stories about Asian people who are middle class, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you could be like, okay, well then like
Speaker 1: crazy roach Asians, Like yeah, that's a lifestyle that most
Speaker 1: people don't lead. But like there are many other examples
Speaker 1: of Asian stories, but they're the problem is it's there
Speaker 1: aren't many other examples. I even think as a rom com,
Speaker 1: it's diverse in the storytelling because most rom coms will
Speaker 1: have a meet cute, But this starts in a point
Speaker 1: of the relationship when it's healthy, nothing's going wrong. They
Speaker 1: do introduce his mom, and it's like there's some lives
Speaker 1: that have been told, but like, you know, every relationship
Speaker 1: has its bumps and then they deal with and it
Speaker 1: still feels cohesive and there's an arc, and usually I
Speaker 1: feel like rom coms aren't like that, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: end in their wedding, So it's it feels like a
Speaker 1: realistic sort of sliver of their life where it's like,
Speaker 1: this is the thing they had to get through. They
Speaker 1: got through it. I feel a resolution. Right. The main
Speaker 1: the arc of the story has to do with the
Speaker 1: relationship between Rachel and eleanor not really Rachel and Nick.
Speaker 1: So it's it's yeah, it's more about like a class struggle,
Speaker 1: a generation gap kind of thing, a like American Asian
Speaker 1: person versus an Asian person from Asia. Like it's right,
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's like those are the themes of the movie,
Speaker 1: and about like Americans caring about passion like got to
Speaker 1: me so much. I was just like, oh, why am
Speaker 1: I doing comedy? I've let my people down. It's just
Speaker 1: what am I doing? There's this big It's it's very
Speaker 1: much East versus West. You know, it's individualism versus collectivism,
Speaker 1: and Eleanor is on the side of collectivism because she'll
Speaker 1: do anything she's not see. That's also why I feel
Speaker 1: like it's a diverse angle because I don't think any
Speaker 1: side is really portrayed as like the right side, and
Speaker 1: this Rachel is not really portrayed holy right. She's a
Speaker 1: little selfish, but Eleanor's she says she's all about the collective.
Speaker 1: But look at her house. I mean, like I handed
Speaker 1: out food to the poor people. I don't like she
Speaker 1: cared about our country, but like does she? I mean,
Speaker 1: like they're starving people. She care about her family, and
Speaker 1: that's pretty much it. Yeah, so it's like everybody is
Speaker 1: kind of selfish. The unit is the family, which is
Speaker 1: a larger unit than the self, which is like until
Speaker 1: the family, until there's a black sheep in the family,
Speaker 1: and then you cut that person out and then they're
Speaker 1: not in your family, so your family can be perfect.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a very Asian thing to do. Well.
Speaker 1: The character of Oliver says that he's like the rainbow
Speaker 1: sheep of the family because he's like the one like
Speaker 1: out queer person. But then it seems like he still
Speaker 1: has good enough relationships with like all of his like
Speaker 1: aunties and stuff. Well, I'm curious your guys thoughts too,
Speaker 1: because I do feel like, obviously so much as tied
Speaker 1: to Chinese culture, but it's all those like themes of
Speaker 1: just like your you know, the filial piety is really
Speaker 1: tied to Chinese culture. But also I feel like people
Speaker 1: I can follow along where there are things that to
Speaker 1: you felt so new that was like, oh that's something
Speaker 1: that like I don't understand, or like that doesn't click
Speaker 1: or did it all like feel like yeah, this all
Speaker 1: makes sense I can track. To me, it all tracked.
Speaker 1: There were certainly things that like I hadn't experienced firsthand
Speaker 1: in my family setting or anything like that, because like
Speaker 1: I'm like German in Italian but like so far removed
Speaker 1: from those cultures that I really feel like I was
Speaker 1: brought up to be like culture less somehow, Like I
Speaker 1: didn't have like an Italian grandma like cooking us big
Speaker 1: Italian dinners or anything like they're just like really just
Speaker 1: like the most boring flat American experience where Hamburger helper
Speaker 1: like so like not Camber. So nothing was so unfamiliar
Speaker 1: to me that I was like what I don't this
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense or this doesn't track. But um, it
Speaker 1: was certainly experiences that I have not had. But that's
Speaker 1: why it's so important to have movies like this where
Speaker 1: you know, people like me, and I would say a
Speaker 1: large portion of white America can like see these stories
Speaker 1: and see these cultures represented and say like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is different from my own and and it's you know,
Speaker 1: delivered to us respectfully and in a way where you
Speaker 1: know we can learn about a different culture. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: feel like it did a good job of being critical
Speaker 1: with that, Like it was authentic so that I because
Speaker 1: I'm critical in my own culture, as we all should
Speaker 1: be of everything. Right, No, nothing is perfect, That's how
Speaker 1: we get better. So I feel like it did a
Speaker 1: good job of being critical without feeling like it was
Speaker 1: like exotifying anything. It didn't feel like it was like
Speaker 1: white gay zey, like oh look how weird they are.
Speaker 1: It felt like it was like criticizing from with him,
Speaker 1: but also understanding where they're coming from. Like the table
Speaker 1: scene when they're making the dumplings. That was I really
Speaker 1: like that scene because you see the generations and the
Speaker 1: kids joking even like asked her who understands because she
Speaker 1: grew up there makes a joke about like, oh, like
Speaker 1: they don't guild their kids, and it's like you see
Speaker 1: how there are flaws. I don't think we should just
Speaker 1: be like Asian people on TV. They're perfect because they're not. Like,
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of issues. We believe in ghosts,
Speaker 1: like all this, it's like what's going on over there,
Speaker 1: but we can't have any TV. Depression is not real,
Speaker 1: but that'sal illnesses an issue. Sexism is such a problem Asia,
Speaker 1: Like that's why there's so many girls that are left
Speaker 1: in orphanages because you know, the sons are favored. So
Speaker 1: that's it's that kind of talked about in the movie.
Speaker 1: But there's a reason why Henry Golding's character is so
Speaker 1: important because he's the son. Like they didn't have a
Speaker 1: daughter that was taking over the Young Corporation with son,
Speaker 1: which like is like a big I think you're The
Speaker 1: movie makes it so that we're able to be critical
Speaker 1: of it without feeling like we're like antagonizing or like
Speaker 1: vilifying the whole culture, because it's very well rounded in
Speaker 1: its criticism. Yeah, I feel I feel like if the
Speaker 1: most of the stuff that I just was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's not something I'm familiar with or or fully understand,
Speaker 1: were specifics inside of a larger narrative that you know
Speaker 1: is a rom calm, which seems really smart, and like,
Speaker 1: what's love? I didn't get that and also said I'm
Speaker 1: a virgin of me don't understand, but no, it was
Speaker 1: like I don't know. I mean, in terms of presenting
Speaker 1: a movie with a culture that the majority of the
Speaker 1: audience won't be familiar with, I feel like it was like,
Speaker 1: it's so smart to put it in a construct that
Speaker 1: everyone's gonna understand. Everyone, whether they like it or not,
Speaker 1: have seen rom com and that understands the general conventions
Speaker 1: for better or whereas of a rom com and and
Speaker 1: seeing things I didn't fully understand plugged into a larger
Speaker 1: structure that I definitely understand was cool and like made
Speaker 1: it easier for me on first feeling at least two,
Speaker 1: to be like, Okay, here are the things that I
Speaker 1: didn't completely understand her that was just new to me,
Speaker 1: and now I can just go and try to learn
Speaker 1: about those things and figure out what their context were
Speaker 1: in this kind of not entirely familiar story but like
Speaker 1: a romantic comedy that wasn't like wait, what's happening? You know? Well,
Speaker 1: like the un familiar stuff I'm curious, Well, like the
Speaker 1: mang scene where I was like, they're playing a game
Speaker 1: that I have no idea how to play. And I
Speaker 1: read an article after I saw the movie that explains,
Speaker 1: like there's a very important like significance to like Rachel's
Speaker 1: hand where she gives up a specific tile and it's
Speaker 1: symbolic of like her basically giving up her relationship with Nick,
Speaker 1: so that there's like all that symbolism there. I wasn't
Speaker 1: allowed to play Majong because my mom's dad like gambled
Speaker 1: away their house when they're a little and he was
Speaker 1: a big gambler. So I was not a low to play,
Speaker 1: and so I've never understood how to play. I just
Speaker 1: associated with like the amahs in the like smoky room,
Speaker 1: and I'm not allowed to go in, Like I understood
Speaker 1: what it culturally meant, but I didn't know the tiles.
Speaker 1: But I thought they did such a great job setting
Speaker 1: up the first scene about game theory because when they
Speaker 1: mapped it back and it's like the Chinese version, you
Speaker 1: instantly know what's gonna happen because they've set it up
Speaker 1: already with poker with you, you do understand exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: like here's something American audiences will definitely know, and then
Speaker 1: here is like something that you probably haven't seen or understand,
Speaker 1: but there's some context for it, and it makes it,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like it. It does make it accessible
Speaker 1: for someone who's not familiar with Chinese culture at all,
Speaker 1: because even if you don't know the game, what's happening
Speaker 1: in the scene is still like Rachel is basically sacrificing
Speaker 1: her own happiness because she loves Nick so much to
Speaker 1: be like, I'm giving him up for you, Eleanor like,
Speaker 1: and then luckily that's the catalyst that makes Eleanor see, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's cool. Play in the game dynamic is right, which
Speaker 1: was just really good writing on like two different levels. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I think the fact that this movie it's representation
Speaker 1: that we don't normally see. It's respectful American, Like I
Speaker 1: just truly did not know that much about Singapore as
Speaker 1: a city at Also a lot of those like images
Speaker 1: and you know, even establishing shots, I'm like, oh, whoa,
Speaker 1: this is like just not a city I see very
Speaker 1: frequently in my day to day media consumption. Gonna say bullshit,
Speaker 1: because everything idea is it a city and a country,
Speaker 1: I believe, so it's like governs itself. It's like a
Speaker 1: sovereign so it's like a city state. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like Hong Kong where it's like its own So yeah,
Speaker 1: got it, sovereign city state. Thank you, superproducer and Sophie.
Speaker 1: So basically, the fact that we see this representation it's
Speaker 1: handled responsibly that I think is largely due to the
Speaker 1: fact that it's direct by an Asian man, it's co
Speaker 1: written by a white guy and an Asian woman. It's
Speaker 1: based on a book by an Asian guy. So it's
Speaker 1: it's stories by this community and about this community. So
Speaker 1: when that happens, as we see in many of the
Speaker 1: movies that we've covered, where you know, if it's Michael
Speaker 1: Bay trying to like depict anything, he does it terribly crazy. Ex.
Speaker 1: Once was there a geisha and she was a robot.
Speaker 1: But you know, if it's like Ryan Kugler directing Black Panther,
Speaker 1: if it's John Chew directing crazy rich Asians, like it's
Speaker 1: that's is why we have just the stories and the
Speaker 1: characters and everything depicted in much more positive ways than
Speaker 1: we're used to seeing those types of characters on screen.
Speaker 1: And it's also just like a really well written movie.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think the thing with having like Asians
Speaker 1: do this particular movie. I'm not saying like all Asian
Speaker 1: movies have to be made by Asians, but there are
Speaker 1: particular things that they pay attention to. I think that
Speaker 1: helped the process along and makes it feel more authentic,
Speaker 1: because I think it's like the Hollywood development machine. You
Speaker 1: just you get scripts that are very broad, and so
Speaker 1: there's just things in the movie where you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I get it, this is like what being Asians like.
Speaker 1: And I think John M. Chew and especially Adele Lim
Speaker 1: who is a Malaysian, a born screenwriter, like she's very
Speaker 1: adjacent to Singapore, which is also very different from China. China.
Speaker 1: It's like it's it's the island parts of Asia, which
Speaker 1: have their own culture and their own way of doing
Speaker 1: things too. So I think that specificity really helped them
Speaker 1: pull it together. Yeah, for sure. One of the things
Speaker 1: that I wanted to point out, and I'm interested in
Speaker 1: sort of everyone's takes on this, but um, the like
Speaker 1: older men who could be in the story basically like
Speaker 1: the patriarchs, are largely absent from it because we do
Speaker 1: not ever meet Nick's dad. We get to know next
Speaker 1: mom a lot. He's like off on business. We meet Mama.
Speaker 1: But Nick's grandfather has passed away, so we never know him,
Speaker 1: but we get to know Ama. We spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time with like Nick's aunties, but we never meet
Speaker 1: any of the uncles. I don't think I feel like
Speaker 1: this is kind of accurate because I think it's very
Speaker 1: much like the home life is matriarchal. I mean, I
Speaker 1: didn't grow up in Singapore. I don't know how accurate
Speaker 1: that is, but I feel like in Taiwan culture, it's
Speaker 1: like it is very much around the like Ama, like
Speaker 1: in the house. Um. But you know, it's like doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it's necessarily elevating woman. It's just like the home
Speaker 1: is their place. So it's like kind of a double
Speaker 1: edged sword because they do run ship, but also it's
Speaker 1: like they run ship at home. Um. But I don't
Speaker 1: know because even like my great aunt, she's like the
Speaker 1: first female architect in Taiwan, and so she worked, so
Speaker 1: it's not like she's home because she didn't work, but
Speaker 1: like at home, it's like everything is about her. So
Speaker 1: I think there's like this more emphasis on the woman
Speaker 1: at home for sure in Chinese culture. Frankly, I found
Speaker 1: it refreshing that to have a patriarchal, we didn't need
Speaker 1: to man. Yeah. And then Eleanor also met her husband
Speaker 1: at Cambridge, like they were college friends, so she gave
Speaker 1: up like a promising law career to support her husband.
Speaker 1: So I think that also means, I guess in the
Speaker 1: subtext is that she was so smart and brilliant that
Speaker 1: she was able to help her husband grow her business,
Speaker 1: which was the acceptable gendered role at the time. Um,
Speaker 1: but that without you know, her backing him, maybe like
Speaker 1: the Young Empire would not have been as successful as
Speaker 1: it was. That kind of seems like the implication. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, it's interesting because um, I did notice
Speaker 1: that too, and I think it felt for me that
Speaker 1: felt more authentic, um not having the grandpa around or
Speaker 1: the the dad's around. But also because it's a story
Speaker 1: about the mom and the daughter. And I think even
Speaker 1: though that's universal specifically with an ancient culture, like the
Speaker 1: in law relationship is also very unique because there is
Speaker 1: always like a lot of conflict with that, especially because
Speaker 1: oftentimes they end up living with you and so then
Speaker 1: it's like two women of the house and the sun,
Speaker 1: and that's like a common living situation, and so even
Speaker 1: in circumstances where it's not like a huge difference in
Speaker 1: like socio economic class and stuff like that. Is there
Speaker 1: still like kind of like a lot of tension in
Speaker 1: a lot of those scenarios. Yeah, I think so my
Speaker 1: mom doesn't get along with my dad mom, and I
Speaker 1: see it a lot in other places to feel like that.
Speaker 1: The inlaw thing that is like a univer I don't
Speaker 1: think they always have to live with you, but there's
Speaker 1: kind of an expectation if you're the oldest son, like
Speaker 1: your mom will live with you as you get older,
Speaker 1: got it. And so there's like you're taking on caring
Speaker 1: for someone that's not your mom and maybe resenting a
Speaker 1: little bit because you can't, like you can't take on
Speaker 1: your mom right because it's not right to do that
Speaker 1: because you're actually in Chinese, like we did differentiate, like
Speaker 1: your grandma and your mom's side's called white pool and
Speaker 1: why means outsider, So within the word you're if you're
Speaker 1: a woman, you're considered an outside of your own family.
Speaker 1: So if you marry a man, you're always going to
Speaker 1: be referred to as outsider within your family, even by
Speaker 1: your kids. Not your kids, but like your kids kids
Speaker 1: call you like outside grandma, so there is like this
Speaker 1: in bed it Um idea that like the woman's side
Speaker 1: of the family, you're an outsider, and so that's why
Speaker 1: there's so I think there's so much tension because like,
Speaker 1: let's say you have to take care of your husband's
Speaker 1: mom and then meanwhile, you're you treated like an outsider.
Speaker 1: You're never going to be part of the family, and
Speaker 1: you can't even treat your mom because you've married out
Speaker 1: of your family. So now you're not You've left your
Speaker 1: family to take care of another family. And Eleanor does that,
Speaker 1: especially by handing Nick over for the amma to raise,
Speaker 1: because she knows that she's the outside person, so she
Speaker 1: essentially she gives her son up to the family. And
Speaker 1: so that's also an interesting thing too because that means
Speaker 1: like the powers kind of like passed between the women
Speaker 1: and the generations, like the Ama is the one who's
Speaker 1: going to determine the favorite of the next in line
Speaker 1: and when when the grandfather's gone. So that's also like
Speaker 1: a cool thing that they did in the movie. I
Speaker 1: liked it. Yeah, yeah, that's all very fascinating. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: question I had and when we were briefly having technical difficulties,
Speaker 1: we were discussing it a little more. Is the various accents? Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: can we talk? Because I genuinely just have no context
Speaker 1: for any I was like, okay, some people have British accents.
Speaker 1: And then and then, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people who learn British English or the Queen's English because
Speaker 1: Singapore was like a colony. It doesn't want me. But
Speaker 1: the accents, I thought, you talking about Chinese accents. So
Speaker 1: many of the Chinese accents are so bad, Like Nick
Speaker 1: Young's Chinese Mandarin is horrendous, and Rachel's is pretty bad.
Speaker 1: That's okay, that's normal for an ABC. But um, I
Speaker 1: think the Grandma had the best. I think she's Taiwanese.
Speaker 1: She sound in Taiwanese the way she spoke Mandarin, which
Speaker 1: they're not Taiwanese. But a lot of I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's not what I'm used to. But Mamas from joy
Speaker 1: Lot Club, Oh that makes sense. But so much of
Speaker 1: the Mandarin was just bad. And I was like, and
Speaker 1: then the Asian accents, like the Singaporean accents like very
Speaker 1: specific to and not a lot of the actors had
Speaker 1: like the Singaporean accent because it was like a really
Speaker 1: international cast you know. Ronnie's Australian, a Pinus from Queens,
Speaker 1: you know, and Nico Santos is from like here, I think, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a Berry. And then Jimmy Oh Yang's also you know,
Speaker 1: it's crazy and in like literally every single movie right
Speaker 1: now too. He's also in the Melissa McCarthy puppet movie. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's so funny. I love the pigs and valleys for
Speaker 1: Jimmia Yang past couple of weeks. If you watch Chinese soaps,
Speaker 1: whenever they have like a white character, she's just like
Speaker 1: very caricature, like blonde girl whatever, and she's usually some
Speaker 1: sort of like either like hot model or like evil girl.
Speaker 1: It's like she's either like really great or really bad.
Speaker 1: But usually their accents are bad too, so it goes
Speaker 1: both ways. I think they're just like, well, people here
Speaker 1: don't speak English. It's usually like a ustern European person
Speaker 1: because closer maybe I don't know whoever is available in
Speaker 1: Taiwan Hollywood, but it'll be like I don't know what
Speaker 1: you're doing, like that's not an American. But they'll be
Speaker 1: like she just flew in from New York. No she
Speaker 1: did not. I'm mean, I'm more forgiving. I guess because
Speaker 1: they do it there too, and whatever. Yeah, accents in
Speaker 1: all Hollywood movies, I mean, even like American dialect, accents
Speaker 1: in Hollywood movies can be very like you're supposed to
Speaker 1: be from where. Every time there's a Boston accent in
Speaker 1: a movie, I need just get furious in my head spins.
Speaker 1: You know, what's a good Charlie from Stranger Things as British,
Speaker 1: but I feel like his I didn't know this when
Speaker 1: I watched. I did know he was arrested for cocaine possession.
Speaker 1: He's a trouble young boy. Oh no, okay, we've got
Speaker 1: to take a break. We're gonna go rescue Charlie from
Speaker 1: STUPENTI from this coke pile. We'll be right back, and
Speaker 1: we're back Rachel. I mean, I love Rachel. She's constant
Speaker 1: woo is amazing. But um, Rachel's character, I thought, especially
Speaker 1: for the rom com genre, Um, we've sort of touched
Speaker 1: on it already, but like kind of is as stand
Speaker 1: out for like you're saying to Resent, like we don't
Speaker 1: have that meet cute scene. It's like clearly betrayed that
Speaker 1: she has a career that makes sense, which never happens
Speaker 1: in right, it's always like she is our curator, like
Speaker 1: I worked for a magazine, fashion magazine. Right, She's like
Speaker 1: I own a bakery, but my house is huge. So
Speaker 1: that like that trap is kind of like where she
Speaker 1: has this successful career. She's like the youngest faculty member
Speaker 1: at NYU. She's like, she's like very impressive. They go
Speaker 1: to great links to make you know that she is
Speaker 1: like smart, capable, etcetera. And and we have a very
Speaker 1: well fleshed out background for her as well, where we
Speaker 1: meet her mother. We learned about like the interpersonal dynamics
Speaker 1: of her family. We see do we see friends that
Speaker 1: are just her friends or she mostly meeting I think? Right, right,
Speaker 1: I mean and and so it's I think especially for
Speaker 1: this genre, she's like a well written character that we
Speaker 1: know more about them we would know about the average
Speaker 1: rom com lead. Yeah, she has a lot of agency,
Speaker 1: and I like that her next relationships very honest, Like
Speaker 1: after the fish gutting, she just tells him and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was gross. But I feel like even like in
Speaker 1: real life, a lot of people be like, well, I
Speaker 1: don't want to mention it done getting the satisfaction, but
Speaker 1: it's like, no, should tell you should tell him? And
Speaker 1: he is surprisingly unlike many you know, male love interests
Speaker 1: in rom coms, like he's not actively lying to her
Speaker 1: or actively manipulating her or the beginning, well he withholds
Speaker 1: information with yeah, But I mean he's also very committed,
Speaker 1: which is also something that's really nice to see in
Speaker 1: a male love interest because I feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of rom coms are like back and forth, back and forth.
Speaker 1: Who likes people more? And he's always like very steadfastly
Speaker 1: committed to Rachel and that's hot and does something that
Speaker 1: men never do in movies in any genre, which is
Speaker 1: apologized when they do something wrong, where it's like he
Speaker 1: is laying at the beginning of the movie, but once
Speaker 1: she is like, hey, you're lying, he's like, yes, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: and you're just like like it sucks that. It's such
Speaker 1: a relief to see that. But there's so many I mean,
Speaker 1: we just did an episode on Ten Things I Hate
Speaker 1: About You where like the lie last the whole movie
Speaker 1: and then at the end she asked for an apology
Speaker 1: and he led her cuts her off by like making
Speaker 1: out with her, So you know, men don't apologize in
Speaker 1: the movies, so it's rarely nice to see his character.
Speaker 1: We also don't know what he does. In the book,
Speaker 1: he's a professor, but also in the book, speaking of line,
Speaker 1: so Amanda, his ex is mentioned in the movie, but
Speaker 1: in the book, um, she is an ex and he
Speaker 1: had a threason with her and one of the other
Speaker 1: girls was on the bast trip. So they bring it
Speaker 1: up in the book and uh, and it's like, that's
Speaker 1: why Michel so pissed because you didn't he didn't tell
Speaker 1: me that your ex was coming, but you didn't tell
Speaker 1: me this childhood friend of yours that you mentioned was
Speaker 1: a girl. You got a threesome with your ex, and
Speaker 1: they all want to marry you, so they hate me.
Speaker 1: She deserved a heads up about all of Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we don't In the book he's a professor. In
Speaker 1: the movie, we don't even We know like what Rachel
Speaker 1: does and that she's very good at her job, and
Speaker 1: then like Nick is just the guy that she's writ Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I liked Nick's character a lot, but there he does
Speaker 1: at certain points fall into the trappings of like man
Speaker 1: who withholds conversation and then it's like, whoops, might be
Speaker 1: you're already Matt, you know. But he does apologize, which
Speaker 1: I don't even want to give him too much credit
Speaker 1: for it, but that never happens in and she makes
Speaker 1: him wait for it, like she is obviously heartbook, but
Speaker 1: she didn't take it him back right away. So I
Speaker 1: like that he apologized and has to deal with the consequence.
Speaker 1: It's like has to work for it, as should everyone. Right,
Speaker 1: we're going next. We've talked a lot about Eleanor, but
Speaker 1: is there are there any thoughts on Eleanor that we
Speaker 1: haven't For some good, she's like in everything, I feel
Speaker 1: like she's such a like acclaimed actress. Yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: that character was really well written, just like even the
Speaker 1: idea of her having been treated that way and still
Speaker 1: doing it, it's very accurate. Like I tweeted something my
Speaker 1: mom used on Twitter, just a joke about how like
Speaker 1: my mom was really hard on me growing up or whatever,
Speaker 1: and she saw it and then responded like because I
Speaker 1: told her, I was like, it's a joke. I don't
Speaker 1: think you're hard on me. Whatever she might listen to anyways,
Speaker 1: but you know, I was like, obviously, it's like a
Speaker 1: joke about having high expectations, even though I know it's
Speaker 1: for the best. And then she made a joke back
Speaker 1: and she was like, oh, well, like I'm not like that,
Speaker 1: but you did, you know my mom was like that,
Speaker 1: and I was like, but you are like that, but
Speaker 1: she said my grandma once my mom brought home like
Speaker 1: a test and she said she did the best out
Speaker 1: of seven kids. And then my grandma's answer was like,
Speaker 1: why didn't you get Yeah, but I guess it's like
Speaker 1: the cycle, like an Eleanor character kind of embodies that,
Speaker 1: Like she was treated that way, but it didn't make
Speaker 1: her more sympathetic. It made her actually harder because she
Speaker 1: in her mind she's like, oh, you have it easy.
Speaker 1: I had it harder. But she's doing the same thing. Right.
Speaker 1: If you kind of compared this movie to something like
Speaker 1: Meet the Parents, which has a similar premise in terms
Speaker 1: of just like you know, meeting your future in laws
Speaker 1: kind of thing in a standard like you know, Hollywood
Speaker 1: Garden Variety romcom like that, Robert Nero's character is like
Speaker 1: pulling out all the stops to like make sure he's
Speaker 1: like sabotaging men Stiller, and it's just like really goofy
Speaker 1: and like silly in a lot of ways. Whereas, like
Speaker 1: with Eleanor's character, like she's very grounded and it doesn't
Speaker 1: resort to these like really stupid silly moment. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean there maybe there's going to be a movie
Speaker 1: like that, but in this case, it's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you can see where she's coming from, Like you
Speaker 1: can tell based on her background and her upbringing and
Speaker 1: her like just that cultural context. Like even if we
Speaker 1: don't agree with her, we're still like, yes, this makes sense,
Speaker 1: like this, this tracks for her character, and yeah, she's
Speaker 1: developed really well. I think thinking of another in laws
Speaker 1: movie I was like, which apparently is a subgenre of movies,
Speaker 1: we receive Monster in Law and right where that is
Speaker 1: such a like classically like woman on woman Haiti, and
Speaker 1: the reasons given are very vague, and it's just like
Speaker 1: you just know by the poster that it's going to
Speaker 1: be Jane Fonda yelling at j Low for two hours.
Speaker 1: And if you choose to see that, then you choose
Speaker 1: to see that. But and and so anytime there's like
Speaker 1: a future daughter in law, mother in law or even
Speaker 1: just like any woman and woman conflict in a big movie,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, boy, like this could fall into so
Speaker 1: many like tropes, but like you were saying, Caitlin, like
Speaker 1: we've been talking about in general, it's just like everything
Speaker 1: is so grounded and we're given all the information we
Speaker 1: need to understand, and both characters grow and have a
Speaker 1: better understanding of each other by the end. And it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, that is like a very well managed
Speaker 1: conflict between women in movies were usually if we're given
Speaker 1: almost nothing, well the two characters are written as the
Speaker 1: conflict is sort of central to how they understand themselves,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what makes the conflict feel so grounded.
Speaker 1: It's not like like you were saying vague reasons like
Speaker 1: I don't like your hair color like that that a
Speaker 1: reason to fight, or like the color of the wedding
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's really how they see themselves in the world.
Speaker 1: And when that point of view clashes, that's when you
Speaker 1: get these really strong, you know, moments, but you also
Speaker 1: just understand what both of them are coming from speaking
Speaker 1: of like I mean bringing it back to the beachdal
Speaker 1: test like because even though they're fighting kind of of
Speaker 1: a man, they're not quite because it's like they talk
Speaker 1: even in that dumplings thing they're talking about like career
Speaker 1: and tradition and like values, so indirectly, like Nick is
Speaker 1: wrapped up in that as an example of values, but
Speaker 1: like replace it with anything else, Like Rachel wants something
Speaker 1: that Eleanor has and their values are clashing, so it's
Speaker 1: like it's not really about the man. It's about like
Speaker 1: what does Rachel value, is it? Like their passion and
Speaker 1: happyness and love, and Eleanor is like, no, no, you
Speaker 1: value hard work and building relationships and sacrifice. Sacrifice, That's
Speaker 1: what love is. It's sacrifice. It's giving up what you want.
Speaker 1: So therefore you should give up what you want so
Speaker 1: I can have what I want. Like that's kind of
Speaker 1: like what she's saying, yeah, and so I don't think
Speaker 1: it really is about the man, even though indirectly, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I see what you mean, right, And like Jaman you
Speaker 1: were saying, like oftentimes, if there is an antagonistic female relationship,
Speaker 1: it's usually because like one woman will just hate another
Speaker 1: woman simply because she's a woman and she sees her
Speaker 1: as competition. Or you know, it's if we see like
Speaker 1: a high school movie where there's like just like pettiness
Speaker 1: between two women, it's never really established why that is.
Speaker 1: Or like there's no background or context given as to
Speaker 1: like why two female characters might not like each other.
Speaker 1: It's usually just like relying on, you know, the stereotype
Speaker 1: of you know, Hollywood being like, hey, you know how
Speaker 1: girls can't get along, Well, here's a movie about it.
Speaker 1: So to me, even though this is largely a story
Speaker 1: about kind of what starts out as an antagonistic relationship
Speaker 1: between two women, it's not what we usually see in movies.
Speaker 1: It's like we said, it's there's the context that explains
Speaker 1: why they are butting heads. It's more of a difference
Speaker 1: of like values than it really is like them, you know,
Speaker 1: fighting over a man, which is weird to say because
Speaker 1: one of them is his mom. But but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like I think it's handled much better than it normally is.
Speaker 1: It's like a double wind too, because it's like you
Speaker 1: not only have a very well written female conflict, because
Speaker 1: there is like sometimes in the wide ways there are
Speaker 1: to criticize movies now and the different mediums to do
Speaker 1: sometimes I feel like it gets lost and I've I've
Speaker 1: definitely read is it Gillian or Jillian Flynn? Is it
Speaker 1: Gillian Flynn? I thought it was Jilly Gillian. I don't
Speaker 1: know for the purposes of this little sound bite, it's Jillian,
Speaker 1: but she wrote this great thing about like having female
Speaker 1: characters in conflict and how because it's never historically been
Speaker 1: written very well. Um, there was sort of like this
Speaker 1: prevalent criticism that was like, there just shouldn't we just
Speaker 1: shouldn't show women in conflict at all. And it's like, no,
Speaker 1: you can and should have women like that happens in
Speaker 1: the world all the time, but just don't not give
Speaker 1: us any context for why it's happening. And so seeing
Speaker 1: it effectively written and it's but it's grounded and who
Speaker 1: they are as people like it just I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's great and it's some of the best things in
Speaker 1: the movie. What do you guys think of Araminta the
Speaker 1: girl getting married? Um? Oh so for her? For me,
Speaker 1: I think it's she I don't know if she's complicit
Speaker 1: in like the really horrible treatment that like Rachel receives
Speaker 1: Allah like aromantous friends, who is kind of a fish
Speaker 1: in her bed right because she knows about she feels
Speaker 1: like she's a good example of trying to write. She yeah,
Speaker 1: like they write varieties of types of rich people and
Speaker 1: I feel like she's almost like when she's not the
Speaker 1: worst kind, but she's kind where it's like they get
Speaker 1: off scott free because they're not actually being horrible, so
Speaker 1: in comparison, they're good, but they also are obviously turning
Speaker 1: blinders to other people who aren't privileged, Like they're the
Speaker 1: kind of people who are like, oh, poor people make
Speaker 1: me sad like that exactly, like every once in a while,
Speaker 1: like her extravagant party and then she's like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be cute to invite Rachel, but also like maybe funny,
Speaker 1: but I'll stay out of it. Right, she creates the
Speaker 1: environment for the conflict to happen, and she's like, conflict,
Speaker 1: this happened drama at the party. I think she's kind
Speaker 1: of I don't know if she's actually based on Angela Baby,
Speaker 1: but do you guys know who Angela Baby is. She's
Speaker 1: like one of the most famous people in China. She's
Speaker 1: just like she looks kind of like what a computer
Speaker 1: program version of a perfect Chinese person would look because
Speaker 1: she's got so much classic surgery. But she's just like
Speaker 1: on everything. And her wedding was like three times Kim
Speaker 1: Karre's wedding or something I think she's in some big
Speaker 1: Hollywood movies, but she has like very yeah, not a
Speaker 1: lot of words, very CG. Yeah, but they'll put her
Speaker 1: and stuff to sell tickets. Got and she's like that
Speaker 1: she like four wedding dresses and like a carouse al
Speaker 1: wedding cake and stuff like that. So yeah, and Aaron
Speaker 1: and just character was one of the few characters in
Speaker 1: this movie that to me, like I saw it and
Speaker 1: registered just like, oh, that's a round com stock character
Speaker 1: that's being used in this movie. Another one that I
Speaker 1: felt like was very I think Killen. We talked about
Speaker 1: this after the movie. Aquafina's brother and who's like it's
Speaker 1: funny because he's a pervert and he's trying to take
Speaker 1: pictures of her naked, Like that is such a com trope.
Speaker 1: That was like, alright, I guess that's like Aquafina. Ever
Speaker 1: she's they're noticing it happening, and she's never like hey, brother,
Speaker 1: like stop that that's gross and creepy, Like no one
Speaker 1: challenges it, and it's just that was like the one
Speaker 1: part of the movie I was like, oh, to take
Speaker 1: a pictures of a naked not naked, but like always
Speaker 1: he's stopped. Yeah, like just the stockerd narrative in that character.
Speaker 1: I thought it was because he was going to post
Speaker 1: on social media, but I guess that makes more sense
Speaker 1: that he just wanted it first collection I thought he
Speaker 1: was that's that's what it seems like at first. Either way,
Speaker 1: he's taking photos of her without her permission, over and
Speaker 1: over and over, and then there's a scene where she's
Speaker 1: like lying in bed with her mom and they're having
Speaker 1: this big heartfelt moment, and then like the button of
Speaker 1: that scene is like him taking the pictures and they're
Speaker 1: just like, oh you how long have you been there?
Speaker 1: A short while? And they're like t and it's like
Speaker 1: he's invading scene. And especially that coming to the button
Speaker 1: at the end of a really well done scene about abuse,
Speaker 1: like and here's this creepy boy I'd taken. I was like,
Speaker 1: get out of here? Why are It was totally really weird.
Speaker 1: It was yeah, I was like who lets you know?
Speaker 1: They're like, hey, jed Apata right the ending to this,
Speaker 1: let's just see what how right Ken John's character and
Speaker 1: that the end of that scene. The other super Stock
Speaker 1: character I really liked was the film producer and his
Speaker 1: his trashy girlfriend's fun comedic. He's like producing a movie
Speaker 1: where like his girlfriend is tied up and like a
Speaker 1: guy is like nearby like fighting. It's like, what is
Speaker 1: this the end of Spider Man two mentioned, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: are meant to just read to me as like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like this is like kind of a less written out
Speaker 1: roumcom character. Yeah, she's a little plotty because everyone's going
Speaker 1: to her wedding too, so she's kind of disturbing story. Um,
Speaker 1: let's talk about Astrid. She is the i would say,
Speaker 1: other main female character with like kind of her own
Speaker 1: story arc, and it's there partly to sort of like
Speaker 1: mirror what's happening with Rachel and Nick, because she is
Speaker 1: this like rich like charity organizer, socialite like fashion icons
Speaker 1: five at the beginning, but she's like Nicks like one
Speaker 1: relative that he's really bonded with and like they're actually
Speaker 1: like friends and stuff like that, and then she and
Speaker 1: Rachel will kind of forge a friendship over the course
Speaker 1: of the movie. But then so her main storyline is
Speaker 1: she discovers that her husband, who was like a military
Speaker 1: officer I think that's the captain in the army Michael,
Speaker 1: but like does not come from a wealthy family so
Speaker 1: that was like caused for some controversy. And you know
Speaker 1: the family where like he married into money, she married
Speaker 1: like a poor guy. Yeah, so for her, I have
Speaker 1: a lot of thoughts about her. I don't feel like
Speaker 1: she's as innocent as she tries to act like. I
Speaker 1: think she's the kind of person who wants to be
Speaker 1: so perfect. She has done all the right things, went
Speaker 1: to the right school, whatever, it looks beautiful. But I
Speaker 1: don't think she's like like, I think she wants to
Speaker 1: be with a man of lower status, even though she
Speaker 1: would never say that to him, but because she enjoys
Speaker 1: being high status and she enjoys being not wrong, so
Speaker 1: she I think in her mind is like maybe I
Speaker 1: think in her mind she's like, he would never stray
Speaker 1: because look what he gets, Like in no world would
Speaker 1: he ever get this, and I'm giving it to him,
Speaker 1: and so it hurts more when he strays. But then
Speaker 1: when he does stray, she can't be wrong because nobody
Speaker 1: will be like, oh what does she do wrong? Because
Speaker 1: it's like, no, she's like hot, rich, famous and perfect
Speaker 1: and smart, So he must not be a man, he
Speaker 1: must be insecure. It must be his fault. And I
Speaker 1: think she builds that situation purposefully or maybe subconsciously. But
Speaker 1: I think she's the kind of person who wants to
Speaker 1: be always right and always perfect, and that's why she's
Speaker 1: not actually that innocent. And there's yeah, there's like hints
Speaker 1: of that in the movie in fact, like her husband's
Speaker 1: even like you always have to be like the prettiest,
Speaker 1: most port Like you're not like reacting to learning that
Speaker 1: I'm having an affair because like you can't be bother
Speaker 1: is he having a fair hot take hot Michael take.
Speaker 1: I'm not one to be a Michael apologist, but I mean,
Speaker 1: I definitely see what you're saying. That was something that
Speaker 1: I remember being like presented more effectively in the book.
Speaker 1: Maybe there just wasn't enough time for it in the movie.
Speaker 1: It's already a two hour movie. They didn't get too
Speaker 1: much into it. But I think the credit sequence they
Speaker 1: have a quick sneak peek about her running into Charlie,
Speaker 1: which is her ex um But I think in the
Speaker 1: book she's not having an affair, but she keeps talking
Speaker 1: to Charlie about how she thinks Michael's having an affair,
Speaker 1: and it's like you're hiding the fact that you're talking
Speaker 1: to your ex from your husband, and this is your
Speaker 1: ex that you almost married. So who is actively in
Speaker 1: love with you? And who you know that? Which is
Speaker 1: not like covered in the movie at all. Yeah. Actually,
Speaker 1: I mean she didn't really have as much to do, no,
Speaker 1: but I think she wants to be not wrong, So
Speaker 1: I think she talks, you know, if she's talking to
Speaker 1: her X was in love with her, complaining about her marriage,
Speaker 1: she gets to then be the hero of that story
Speaker 1: to him. She gets to be rescued too. I appreciate
Speaker 1: her presence in this story. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: this was done purposefully or not by like the writer
Speaker 1: and the filmmakers, but her being in the story and
Speaker 1: making like forming a friendship with Rachel sort of balances
Speaker 1: out the antagonistic relationship that she's having with Eleanor. So
Speaker 1: if you the only female relationship you saw in the
Speaker 1: movie was Rachel and Eleanor, we might be like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's like there's other options. Um, So, I mean we
Speaker 1: get that relationship, we get her relationship with Aquafina's character,
Speaker 1: we get a relationship with her mom, right, the whole
Speaker 1: spectrum of woman interaction. But I think because she's like
Speaker 1: so rich and like, you know, this like high status woman.
Speaker 1: She could easily you know, ignore or pay no mind
Speaker 1: to Rachel. But the fact that she's like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to make an effort to actually like be her friend, uh,
Speaker 1: I think is like maybe a conscious effort to be like, hey, look,
Speaker 1: rich people can be nice too. But he cares a
Speaker 1: lot about her image, Like she invited Alma to the
Speaker 1: wedding after Michael left her so that nobody would wonder
Speaker 1: why Michael wasn't there, and that's why she walked in
Speaker 1: with Alma. That's why Alma says, that's why she says
Speaker 1: thank you to her Alma when they're walking down and
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, she never comes, And so that's
Speaker 1: like a hint to like how much she cares so
Speaker 1: much about image, she's like neglected her actual relationships. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I felt the Michael Asterid storyline felt I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it was just because it was like more addressed
Speaker 1: in the book, but like it it felt it felt
Speaker 1: weird in the movie a little bit where it's like
Speaker 1: I in the movie I like felt for Michael a
Speaker 1: little bit where it was kind of like cutting dry
Speaker 1: in a movie that it does very well with a
Speaker 1: nuance storyline there felt a little bit less like you
Speaker 1: cheated on me, yes, queen bye, like that was kind
Speaker 1: of but I really enjoyed her relationship with Rachel. Uh
Speaker 1: that was like presented awesome and seen with them on
Speaker 1: the beach and like where they're bonding and said and
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, this is great and asked actually didn't
Speaker 1: want to go on the bachelorette party each other because
Speaker 1: she says to Michael, how would you feel if I
Speaker 1: came and worked at the office, and I was That
Speaker 1: was the scene where I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: like actually a real marriage. This isn't just like some
Speaker 1: pretty thing, because like she's offering to give up some
Speaker 1: like fabulous vacation time to spend time with her husband,
Speaker 1: and so when she's on the vacation, it very much
Speaker 1: feels like she's like giving up her husband. And the
Speaker 1: trip itself was wasn't something that she really wanted to do.
Speaker 1: It was like a constellation prize. So like then when
Speaker 1: when Michael says that like she never loved and I
Speaker 1: was like, well, dude, you haven't been paying attention, Like well,
Speaker 1: so I really do, Like, as I know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be super hard on her but because I like
Speaker 1: her and she's the one that I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: the most aspirational too, like I would love to be
Speaker 1: in her shoes. But I also feel like I recognized
Speaker 1: her flaws of wanting to be this perfect image. But
Speaker 1: I also don't think that relation to her relation with
Speaker 1: Rachel is all that innocent. I think again, her wanted
Speaker 1: to be high status draws her to Rachel because she
Speaker 1: can be the nice high status because Rachel is a commoner,
Speaker 1: and so being around Rachel, she's kind of like immune,
Speaker 1: Whereas if she gets involved with the girls, she's not
Speaker 1: immune because they're of her level and so they can
Speaker 1: play Caddy with her too, and she could get hurt.
Speaker 1: And so I think that it was all very calculated.
Speaker 1: And I think even her offering to help out at
Speaker 1: the office is calculated because it would be taken as
Speaker 1: an active sacrifice, and she wants everything she does to
Speaker 1: be recognized as an active sacrifice. So I think, I
Speaker 1: don't know, like I really like her, but I also
Speaker 1: I'm really hard on her because I feel like she's
Speaker 1: like this embodiment of like the sort of Chinese need
Speaker 1: to succeed and be perfect, but also being so privileged.
Speaker 1: You don't see how you are privileged. I don't know, right,
Speaker 1: she isn't perfect. Well, the fact that you're able to
Speaker 1: say so much about her means that she's written in
Speaker 1: such a way that you can actually clean this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, because so many female characters and movies are
Speaker 1: just like, we don't know anything about that person or
Speaker 1: her personality or her background or anything like that. So
Speaker 1: the fact that she is presented with different you know,
Speaker 1: choices and situations and that you are, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of reading. Also, she neglects her son, like they say,
Speaker 1: your son wants to see you, and she's like okay,
Speaker 1: and she's like reading some French and she doesn't understand,
Speaker 1: like she's already trying to make him into this perfect
Speaker 1: little international kids, Like I think you just don't have
Speaker 1: to spend time with you, Like she was shopping all day,
Speaker 1: like spending a million dollars on ear rings. Come on, also,
Speaker 1: I want herrings were really nice? Yeah? Should talking about Picklin? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Aquafina love her. Yeah, I mean she's like the kind
Speaker 1: of stock like comic relief best friend character as you
Speaker 1: see in many potoms. They're like, oh, we're going to
Speaker 1: hire a stand up to do this, like her main
Speaker 1: contributions to the story I think are making sure that
Speaker 1: Rachel looks the part basically. So there is the scene
Speaker 1: early on where she gives her address to wear to
Speaker 1: the party at Alma's house, and then later there's the
Speaker 1: makeover scene. About the makeover scene, I can't wait for
Speaker 1: the Crazy Rotations episode. Comma this is I mean, for me,
Speaker 1: this is just a trapping of the genre that could
Speaker 1: have been avoided but wasn't. I don't know. I didn't
Speaker 1: hate it. I don't have a good montage. Yeah, it's fine.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like the thing about this particular makeover
Speaker 1: scene that wasn't I don't know like it. It didn't
Speaker 1: bother me where our mentions got flooded about like red
Speaker 1: flag makeover scene. But the way this one is done,
Speaker 1: I feel like, if it's like, Okay, we have to
Speaker 1: have a makeover scene, there has to be a montage
Speaker 1: scene whatever. Some good looks are seen, but it's not
Speaker 1: like the Princess Diaries makeover scene, where it's like you're
Speaker 1: becoming another person and we're stripping you of your identity,
Speaker 1: which is what so many makeover your scenes are coated
Speaker 1: as of like you know, take off the glasses, lift
Speaker 1: up your tips, like the whole not enough, You're not
Speaker 1: good enough, stops using three syllable words, like the whole
Speaker 1: thing like it's a personality make over to where this
Speaker 1: was sort of just I don't know my reading. It
Speaker 1: was like, all right, she just needs a nice dress
Speaker 1: for the wedding. That's true, though the whole thing is
Speaker 1: like you're not gonna be enough, and she's like, just
Speaker 1: watch me become a different person, right right? What if
Speaker 1: she just shut up in sweatpants? Was like, I am enough.
Speaker 1: I'm so enough that I'm going to scale back. How
Speaker 1: enough I am? I? Well, so we'll talk about the
Speaker 1: makeover scene in a second, but I do kind of
Speaker 1: wish One of my issues with this movie is that
Speaker 1: I wish Rachel who has a PhD and e con comics,
Speaker 1: who's an expert in game theory, which admittedly I don't
Speaker 1: know what that is. I should have googled it, but
Speaker 1: I literally always gave very in dating all the time.
Speaker 1: Well you gotta use it. It's all about a pickup
Speaker 1: artisses the game. No, I don't mean it that way,
Speaker 1: but I'm your emotional losses. It's not about like like
Speaker 1: trying to pick up people. But it's like the game
Speaker 1: theory is just like in all the options and deciding
Speaker 1: like all the outcomes and the word and then going
Speaker 1: off the worst instead of the best. Right, So then
Speaker 1: the world if I hide how I feel the worst
Speaker 1: case scenarios, I'm always going to be lying to myself.
Speaker 1: So then no matter what, even if you tell the
Speaker 1: truth then it hurts, it's still better than the one
Speaker 1: where you're lying to yourself. That's how I use game theory. God, interesting,
Speaker 1: I should try that if I ever date again. Um So,
Speaker 1: Rachel is an ECON professor, so she knows about economics.
Speaker 1: She surely knows that capitalism is maybe not the best thing.
Speaker 1: So I what I wish for this movie is that
Speaker 1: she just did a little bit more to challenge just
Speaker 1: the extravagance and the real the wealth and the opulence
Speaker 1: and all of that, because I mean, anyone who gets
Speaker 1: that rich has exploited people. They have probably not done
Speaker 1: some great things maybe, And that doesn't seem like they're
Speaker 1: aside from Asterid, they don't seem to be that charitable.
Speaker 1: They seem to just be kind of hoarding their wealth
Speaker 1: and time, like Aquafina. I think at one point says
Speaker 1: like that house is two hundred million dollars, like that's crazy.
Speaker 1: So I just wish that maybe in a in a
Speaker 1: perfect world, Rachel would have been like, hey, you guys,
Speaker 1: and all of your wealth, uh growth, like, maybe share
Speaker 1: some of this? I d k anyway, Um, basically I
Speaker 1: wanted Rachel to be a socialist icon. So back to
Speaker 1: the makeover scene. So we talked in the I think
Speaker 1: it was the Aladdin episode. I think we made them
Speaker 1: as sake of saying that it's kind of rare to
Speaker 1: see a movie about a lower status or lower class
Speaker 1: woman getting together with a higher status guy, but that
Speaker 1: that we weren't right about that that was busted because
Speaker 1: there are plenty of movies like that, this one being
Speaker 1: one of them, Cinderella, Pride and Prejudice and these all
Speaker 1: that Manahan, Pretty Woman, My Fair Lady, Slash Dance. You know,
Speaker 1: there's kind of different examples coming to America, but in
Speaker 1: many of these examples, the woman does have to get
Speaker 1: a makeover or kind of lie about her status to
Speaker 1: be more appealing to the man. So in Crazy Rich Asians,
Speaker 1: the makeover, as we said, isn't it's literally just to
Speaker 1: be like, hey, there's not even a makeover, it's it's
Speaker 1: a dress trying on montage so that I can wear
Speaker 1: a nice dress to the wedding that I've been I've
Speaker 1: been planning to go to, and it's not built around
Speaker 1: a lie. Exactly happens. Yeah, it's not like I need
Speaker 1: to make myself more physically appealing to the man so
Speaker 1: that he will realize that he loves me. But in
Speaker 1: movies where it's a like lower status man who ends
Speaker 1: up with an upper status woman, and we see that
Speaker 1: in things like Aladdin, Titanic, obviously, Wish wish, Um, the Notebook,
Speaker 1: lad in the Tramp, dirty Dancing, Look, I'm not really um.
Speaker 1: We see like in Star Wars with like Han and Leah,
Speaker 1: even like there's all these different examples. Usually in in
Speaker 1: those cases, the man doesn't really have to do much
Speaker 1: of anything to change rarely even changes his clothes. In Aladdin,
Speaker 1: yes he becomes a prince, but that I think is
Speaker 1: kind of an exception to the rule. The beast puts
Speaker 1: on that nice but he's already he's the rich one.
Speaker 1: He's the prince, and she and Bell is a commoner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the dog the Dog Prince coming to CDs. Honestly, wait,
Speaker 1: really quick, scientist. Has anyone ever seen the Like Network
Speaker 1: series from the late eighties about Beauty and the Beast? Oh,
Speaker 1: the one produced by g RR Martin? Yes? Where, Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, it's Ditty the Beast in late eighties New
Speaker 1: York City. Beauty is a high powered lawyer's best and
Speaker 1: she's Linda Hamilton's Yes, what the beast herminator boyfriend. The
Speaker 1: beast is what's his name? The guy from Sons of Anarchy?
Speaker 1: I can't remember Ron Pearlman Cowboys, so it's like hell
Speaker 1: boy Terminator, come boy it is. I won't say it's
Speaker 1: a good show. I'll say it is a wild ride,
Speaker 1: and I highly recommend him. He lives in a layer
Speaker 1: underneath the city, so Linda Hamilton's forced to come see
Speaker 1: him whenever she has trouble with a case. He's like
Speaker 1: growling amongst his books. Let me help a man. He's
Speaker 1: the best. He's an actual beast. It feels like such
Speaker 1: a weird like, oh my god, like a furry entry.
Speaker 1: It feels like such like a focus group workshop show.
Speaker 1: It was like, Okay, people like beauty and people like
Speaker 1: lawyer's people like New York City. I just have to
Speaker 1: remind everyone that without that furry beauty and the Beast,
Speaker 1: we would not have Game of Thrones because that's where
Speaker 1: gry got started. Just a click hot Red so much
Speaker 1: in the best TV series. It's real like he looks
Speaker 1: like a Grench he does. The Beast looks very uncandy
Speaker 1: belly in this show. Anyways, what a time to be alive.
Speaker 1: To close the book on the dress montage scene, Um,
Speaker 1: I didn't hate it. It's I think they're because you
Speaker 1: can't have a romantic movie without people trying on different clothes.
Speaker 1: But I think because it's unlike many movies where we
Speaker 1: see a lower status woman having to basically change everything
Speaker 1: about herself in order to be usually physically appealing to
Speaker 1: the man, because so much of women's worth is attached
Speaker 1: to their looks. Unfortunately, so for a woman in many
Speaker 1: of these movies to be even a viable romantic option,
Speaker 1: she has to take off her disgusting glasses and get
Speaker 1: rid of her horrible pony tail and put on rich
Speaker 1: people clothes. So that doesn't really happen in this movie.
Speaker 1: It's really just her trying on some dresses. Could the
Speaker 1: movie have done without it. Short, it's not a cornerstone
Speaker 1: plot point of the film, so it easily could have
Speaker 1: been gotten rid of and the movie would essentially be
Speaker 1: no different a loot that we're talking about it. I
Speaker 1: almost feel like maybe it is included because this is
Speaker 1: a romantic comedy and that is such a familiar scene
Speaker 1: in that genre, and so maybe it's just like the
Speaker 1: movie's way of being like, Okay, here's this scene, but
Speaker 1: it's not. There's not the same implied toxicity that this
Speaker 1: scene would normally have. True. Well, before that scene, Rachel
Speaker 1: says to Peck and she's thinking about not going to
Speaker 1: the wedding, So the scene sort of serves that, I
Speaker 1: think as like a supportive scene from her friends, like
Speaker 1: that we're kind of arming you for the battle of
Speaker 1: this wedding, Like this wedding is the thing that you
Speaker 1: came to Singapore for. And so the closer like almost
Speaker 1: like a symbol of how to get ready for something
Speaker 1: as big as this, which is kind of nice, you know.
Speaker 1: It's it's really it's like about her community helping her, right,
Speaker 1: And that scene is part of a larger kind of
Speaker 1: sequence where before that they're like eating dinner and Picklin
Speaker 1: is basically like gearing her up to be like you
Speaker 1: have to like you have to challenge this woman, like
Speaker 1: you need to show her that she that you're like
Speaker 1: a fighter, that you are enough. There's that whole like
Speaker 1: bock box thing. And then she said to the wedding yeah.
Speaker 1: And then at the end of that scene, Rachel's like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing tonight? She's like, I don't I'm
Speaker 1: probably just hanging out of FedEx. Funniest it I would say,
Speaker 1: I was like, what are you doing? I got I
Speaker 1: guess do my send the mail? Doesn't take all night?
Speaker 1: I guess like myself up to do it and I
Speaker 1: might not even leave my bed so stressful thinking about
Speaker 1: FedEx um. And then in the aftermath of the wedding
Speaker 1: is Piglin again being a very supportive friend and you
Speaker 1: know she goes to stay with her. I really like
Speaker 1: that friendship and how that all plays out. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: Makeover seen, you know, it's it's there. It's not the
Speaker 1: worst example we've ever seen. When did you guys first cry?
Speaker 1: In this? Okay, we are coming on what when I
Speaker 1: saw there? There are quite a few like kind of
Speaker 1: female gaze shots in this movie, where like when Michael's
Speaker 1: taking a shower and I just like it's like, but
Speaker 1: I love that because like Asian men, I feel like
Speaker 1: often are de sexualized in Hollywood. Soul they made a
Speaker 1: point to like almost so much where you like, I
Speaker 1: get it, and they're like really linger on makeout scenes
Speaker 1: to be like these are sexual beans. Like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of Asian people, what do you think they come from? Sex?
Speaker 1: It's also a trope in Asian dramas. There's always a
Speaker 1: shower scene to introduce a male love interest. In the
Speaker 1: Asian drama, there's always like what who it is showering?
Speaker 1: You're just like, okay, I've seen it all, so it's
Speaker 1: like a nice nod, did that? So my Okay. We're
Speaker 1: coming off of our MoMA Mia episode in which I
Speaker 1: talk a lot about how I'm not a huge fan
Speaker 1: of wedding culture. I you know, don't like a whole
Speaker 1: lot of what weddings are about. The wedding scene in
Speaker 1: this movie made me cry each time I saw, each
Speaker 1: of the three times I saw it. It's really whenever
Speaker 1: the lights go down, like the illuminated little like fireflies
Speaker 1: or kind of and then it's it's so beautiful. This
Speaker 1: whole movie is very beautiful. When it really gets me,
Speaker 1: I know, it's crazy. I was like that scene, it's
Speaker 1: just like the number of wet facts taken to this room. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: it's when Nick mouth I love you and she mails
Speaker 1: it back, and I was just like, I've never cried
Speaker 1: at a wedding in real life. I've never cried at
Speaker 1: a wedding scene in any movie ever until this one.
Speaker 1: And I just don't know who I am anymore. So
Speaker 1: I cried a lot of the moms scenes. I cried
Speaker 1: at the wedding, but I was also thinking about wet facts.
Speaker 1: It's like, I want to see the scene of the
Speaker 1: poor people who have to clean this wedding, the pas
Speaker 1: so much like there's just so or like in the
Speaker 1: world in the movie, like the janitorial staff were like, well,
Speaker 1: good for them, like like fire up their wet bags.
Speaker 1: H would see that short film. But anyways, cried at
Speaker 1: the scene at the end between Rachel and her mom
Speaker 1: and her mom just even when her mom showed up
Speaker 1: and man, yeah, mom seems to make me cry. Mine
Speaker 1: was at the very end when Eleanor gives her that
Speaker 1: look it's like barely an acknowledgement but there's like just
Speaker 1: so much in that moment or I was just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they get it. It was I really like the restraint
Speaker 1: that that scene showed too, because it could have been
Speaker 1: like they met up again. Oh I'm so sorry for
Speaker 1: being Oh it's okay, thank you for accepting me into
Speaker 1: your family, and it's like none of that happened, none
Speaker 1: of that needed to happen. That like classic and I
Speaker 1: always cry at this the version of the scene as well,
Speaker 1: where it's like you are my daughter now, but there
Speaker 1: You're right. There is a ton of restraint in that
Speaker 1: scene and is communicated with a look nice. Yeah. Is
Speaker 1: there anything else anyone wants to say about the movie?
Speaker 1: Not too late to cast me in the sequel? It's
Speaker 1: dee say to you too, I'll be picking. So the
Speaker 1: only white people you see in this movie who have
Speaker 1: lines are being racist? Um, which is the British guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the British guys at the hotel at the beginning, except
Speaker 1: for the one white guy comes in and he's all
Speaker 1: like eleanor my friend here, let me sell you my hotel,
Speaker 1: So he's being nice. But other than that, really, the
Speaker 1: only white people you see are either being racist or
Speaker 1: they are kind of just in the background, sort of
Speaker 1: the scenery of the movie, much like people of color
Speaker 1: usually are in most movies. So it's really refreshing. I
Speaker 1: think minorities to get to embody racism movies, that's usually
Speaker 1: right unfortunately. Um but yeah, so this is a movie
Speaker 1: where white people are treated the same way that people
Speaker 1: of color normally are in white stories. So that was
Speaker 1: a great kind of reversal. There was like an article
Speaker 1: that said early on, when they're adapting, the scriptive producer
Speaker 1: asked Kevin if he would consider making Rachel white, and
Speaker 1: what the fuck that would be? Like a white girlfriend
Speaker 1: and going to see the crazy rich Asian world. I'm
Speaker 1: so glad they didn't do that. God. That's so of
Speaker 1: course some would be like, hey, just throwing this out.
Speaker 1: Have you thought about Emma Stone, Crazy Scarlet, a gal Story,
Speaker 1: the Holy Trinity Asian American actors? So oh god. Um.
Speaker 1: There's also been some um criticism about the erasure of
Speaker 1: South Asian people. I don't know exactly population wise what
Speaker 1: they comprise in Singapore, but we do see like a
Speaker 1: few brown people guards. Yeah, but that makes sense to
Speaker 1: me because the world, Like, again, I don't think this
Speaker 1: world is a free of criticism, Like they're really rich,
Speaker 1: privileged people, but I think their world is really elitist,
Speaker 1: so they probably do have a class thing. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I feel like, totally it would be nice to see
Speaker 1: more movies about that. But totally it would have been
Speaker 1: weird if we then saw I don't know the workers
Speaker 1: or something and just like a serious scene about how
Speaker 1: it's really hard and the decades. I feel like vaccine, vaccine. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean we do see the market and there is
Speaker 1: more diversity there. Yeah. I mean, if if anything, no
Speaker 1: movie isn't pervious to criticism. But to me, we just indicate, Okay,
Speaker 1: so we need more movies showing a wider range of
Speaker 1: different types of Asian people. Um, alright, well should we
Speaker 1: should we determine whether or not the movie passes the
Speaker 1: Bechtel tests, Yes we should, and yes it does A
Speaker 1: million billion times a lot. I stopped counting. Right. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of different combinations, Um, Rachel and Araminta, Rachel
Speaker 1: and Pikulin, Rachel and her mom, Rachel and Eleanor. Although
Speaker 1: I would say the vast majority of conversations between women
Speaker 1: are about nick Or, the subtext is that gets For example,
Speaker 1: like when Aramont is like, hey, come to my bachelorette
Speaker 1: party and Rachel's like, I'd love to. Does that pass
Speaker 1: the Bechtel tests because they don't specifically say a man's name.
Speaker 1: But she's saying, hey, come to the party that celebrates
Speaker 1: me being single before I marry a man. Kind of thing.
Speaker 1: We can fall We can fall down that rabbit a day. Um.
Speaker 1: But there are like whenever Rachel's like, piglin, you have
Speaker 1: a cocktail dress in your trunk and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not an animal that passes. Are doing tonight? I
Speaker 1: don't know? Going to is my favorite? Passively they're like wow, okay,
Speaker 1: cool and her and the princess talk about something in
Speaker 1: the front. Yeah. They talked about micro loans and how
Speaker 1: how giving women micro loans uplifts the economy. So feminist
Speaker 1: icon princess whatever her name was, she had a name,
Speaker 1: and therefore it passes. Yeah, it passes a bunch of times.
Speaker 1: And and like we were saying, speaking to just like
Speaker 1: the way women are portrayed. I mean we see a
Speaker 1: lot of different types of relationships between women, which is
Speaker 1: good for any movie for sure, definitely, And a lot
Speaker 1: of twins and plantation. Oh, I remember the one thing
Speaker 1: I didn't say that was in the book that wasn't
Speaker 1: in the movie. One, so that she has three Pecanese
Speaker 1: dogs in the movie. I don't remember what the first
Speaker 1: one was called, but it's like Rockefeller and Vanderbilt. But
Speaker 1: the third one in the book is named Trump, as
Speaker 1: they changed for the movie. Well, they do say like
Speaker 1: Piglin says, like, my mom like designed her house after
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's back. That was funny. But I think they
Speaker 1: were like, we shouldn't have this dog named Trump. It's
Speaker 1: so crazy because the book was written five years ago already. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Dystopia amazing. Let's write the movie on a nipple scale,
Speaker 1: where we rate based on its portrayal and representation of
Speaker 1: women zero to five nipples. Did you feel like how
Speaker 1: women are exists in Chinese culture was represented accurately by
Speaker 1: this movie or were there blind spots that were like
Speaker 1: missed because that was the one. I mean, when I
Speaker 1: was thinking about my rating, I'm like, I just like
Speaker 1: I have lower knowledge of like is this an accurate
Speaker 1: representation of women in this culture? I think they had
Speaker 1: a lot of different kinds of women in this culture too.
Speaker 1: In the movie, which I liked. I mean, Rachel's the
Speaker 1: classic like high achieving Asian American. Her mom is, you know,
Speaker 1: like an immigrant that came up through her own education.
Speaker 1: And then there's the very wealthy people. I would say
Speaker 1: there weren't enough average Asian representation, like people who were mediocre.
Speaker 1: There were extraordinary Asians represented that was fine, But yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say overall, did a good job. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't feel like that, like I probably put like
Speaker 1: a gay girl in there or something that a gay guy,
Speaker 1: but they also exploited, didn't expecisely say who was gay.
Speaker 1: I feel like it was applied. So I feel like
Speaker 1: it's still very broadcast applied coded gay characters. Man, right,
Speaker 1: we gotta say, yeah, well, the same with Oliver's character
Speaker 1: is and mom listeners if we have any you know,
Speaker 1: queer listeners that went away in about this Oliver character,
Speaker 1: I think because he identifies himself as the rainbow sheep
Speaker 1: of the family, I think that's to me, that's identifying
Speaker 1: himself as being queer. Um. So I don't even know
Speaker 1: if he's coded queer. I think he's like pretty explicitly
Speaker 1: that way. He just he doesn't like scream I'm gay,
Speaker 1: but you know by him staying rainbow sheep of the family,
Speaker 1: I think that's him identifying himself as queer. I do
Speaker 1: wonder if he sort of falls into sort of a
Speaker 1: trope queer character, especially a gay man who loves fashion
Speaker 1: and it's like all about like look at your earrings
Speaker 1: and look at your shoes and dress and like. So
Speaker 1: I also the Vita Rooster test came to mind, where
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, is there identifiably queer characters in the story.
Speaker 1: Would removing them have an impact on the story? I
Speaker 1: would argue with his character, it wouldn't make that much
Speaker 1: of a difference, and that Paklin would basically take over whatever.
Speaker 1: And again that was another thing where I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is more of a failure of this genre that this
Speaker 1: movie doesn't correct per se. Yeah, but I also think
Speaker 1: it's a little bit like culturally, like that's probably that
Speaker 1: if they started talking about it would just be its
Speaker 1: own movie. But like I do think he I don't
Speaker 1: know how accepting his family is of him being gay,
Speaker 1: So maybe that is one of the reasons he's kind
Speaker 1: of marginalized in the story and also maybe indirectly like
Speaker 1: to the main arc as well. Yeah, right, and just
Speaker 1: like mainstream movies are still so hesitant to like have
Speaker 1: out characters, right, I don't know, Like Rainbow Sheep, I do.
Speaker 1: I I agree that is identifying as queer, but it's
Speaker 1: just like, I don't know. Yeah, it's still be handled better,
Speaker 1: still feels a little bit tropy, Yeah, for sure. So
Speaker 1: then I guess from my rating, I'm going to give
Speaker 1: it a four and a half. I mean, just the
Speaker 1: obvious wonderful that this movie exists in terms of its representation.
Speaker 1: Hope to see many more movies like this to come.
Speaker 1: Hopefully this is the beginning of a large trend of
Speaker 1: seeing many more Asian characters represented on screen, many more
Speaker 1: Asian stories mainstream Hollywood story. I think that the female
Speaker 1: characters who we do get to know, which there are
Speaker 1: quite a few, are developed well. They're written carefully. We
Speaker 1: are given much more context and background for most of
Speaker 1: them than we're usually afforded in most movies. I do
Speaker 1: wish that Rachel was a socialist and that she was
Speaker 1: meeting now she probably goes a brunch. Brunch is such
Speaker 1: a thing. But yeah, and I like that this movie
Speaker 1: doesn't adhere to a lot of the tropes of a
Speaker 1: rom com and maybe because it's not even really a
Speaker 1: rom com, like it's not about the pursuit and the
Speaker 1: developing of that romantic it's a but Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I would say most of the characters are developed well,
Speaker 1: written responsibly. Four and a half nips? Who are you
Speaker 1: giving them too? I'm going to give two to Aquafina,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give to to Constance Wu, and I'll give
Speaker 1: my half nip to Oliver because I like his character too.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give us a four point to five. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I just feel like, kick give a or then
Speaker 1: we'll feel like satisfied with ourselves and stop making movies.
Speaker 1: Keep you know, you gotta have a little bit of
Speaker 1: aspirational growth. It's Thetaan way. Yeah, the game theory, I
Speaker 1: felt like it was a really strong story, like really
Speaker 1: well written. All the women had an agency. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously it's about love, so it's still going to go
Speaker 1: back down to the idea of like being with a man,
Speaker 1: but you know, it works with any you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't have to be a man. It's any relationship is
Speaker 1: hard and meeting the family's conflict and it's all about sacrifice.
Speaker 1: So I didn't think him being a man and like
Speaker 1: control in her life was central to and he wasn't
Speaker 1: asking to control her life too, which is nice for sure.
Speaker 1: Um so yeah, so I high high score. And also
Speaker 1: just Rachel is like, you know, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: just like me privileged bitch. Are you giv to um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll give up. Let's see, I'll give I'll give two
Speaker 1: to Constant Woo. I'll give one to Aquafina. Can I
Speaker 1: give one to the soundtrack. I really like the for it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give one to the soundtrack. Great soundtrack, and
Speaker 1: then i'll give I'll get the quarter to the director.
Speaker 1: I feel like you did a good job of realizing
Speaker 1: the well rounded vision. Hell yeah, so I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: five nipples because everyone should see this movie again next weekend,
Speaker 1: trying to promote it as much as I can. Who
Speaker 1: would I give nipples to? I would give two to
Speaker 1: Adelaie Limb, the writer. I just didn't feel like there's
Speaker 1: such great um cultural stuff that she did. One to
Speaker 1: Constance Woo, went to Eleanor, went to I'm sorry Michelle
Speaker 1: the goddess Michelle, Yo, she's amazing, And then I would
Speaker 1: agree with Teresa went to the soundtrack as well, because
Speaker 1: I think the soundtrack did this really good job of
Speaker 1: showing like the cultural dissonance of being Chinese in American
Speaker 1: and it kind of gave that to the white audience
Speaker 1: because it was familiar, but it was different at the
Speaker 1: same time. So I thought it did a great job.
Speaker 1: I want to take back one of my nips from
Speaker 1: Constant to give it to Michelle tough Luck Conscious maybe
Speaker 1: next time go back here syndicated show. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: four and a half. I really like this movie. I'm
Speaker 1: excited to see it again, like knowing everything we've talked about,
Speaker 1: it's like cool too, I don't know, just like I
Speaker 1: feel like it will be a slightly different, more informed viewing,
Speaker 1: which I'm excited for. The only half nip I'm docking
Speaker 1: it for is the times it falls into the rom
Speaker 1: com traps that I don't love as much, the creepy
Speaker 1: brother trope that the few things and I just wish that.
Speaker 1: And this is again a genre thing, but I wish
Speaker 1: that Picklin had more of an arc herself other than
Speaker 1: getting to see cool, rich people stuff. She's already rich
Speaker 1: right right where It's like she I felt there were
Speaker 1: like there was room in the story for her to
Speaker 1: have a small arc of her own, and that character,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, just didn't have it. And Aquafina is
Speaker 1: amazing and every scene and can do more. So I
Speaker 1: would have liked to see her be you know, allowed
Speaker 1: to do more as a you know, comic relief character
Speaker 1: as well. Anyways, four and a half given too to
Speaker 1: MICHELLEO because I love her, Giving one to Constance, give
Speaker 1: one an Aquafina, And I'll just toss my last half
Speaker 1: one out to Jimmy O Yang, who we didn't mention
Speaker 1: the whole damn time. Bernard Tye. He wears shiny underwear.
Speaker 1: That's what we know about him. It's what we know,
Speaker 1: and he gets my half nip. Well, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Teresa and Sita. What a treat, What a treat it's been.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having us so fun. What would you
Speaker 1: like to plug anything? Where can people follow you? And
Speaker 1: I'm sure I have a podcast what you guys about
Speaker 1: have been on It's called You Can Tell Me Anything,
Speaker 1: So you guys can check it out. Checked it out?
Speaker 1: Check it out. Yeah, people confess secrets to me, So
Speaker 1: that's on on the podcast. Places that's great, And where
Speaker 1: can people follow you and oh, I'm on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Larisa t l e R s t E Nice Perfect,
Speaker 1: And I'm on Twitter as Slowbear s l O b
Speaker 1: e a R. And I run a monthly show Interior Defined,
Speaker 1: which is a couch store, but you can come and
Speaker 1: enjoy the couches and the store feeds you one and pizza,
Speaker 1: So look out for it on my Twitter. Great, well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming in. You can find
Speaker 1: us on the Bechtel Cast at Bechtel Cast on all
Speaker 1: of the Things. If you have any thoughts on this episode,
Speaker 1: on this movie, we always love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: We have a Patreon a k Matreon at patreon dot
Speaker 1: com slash Bechtel Cast where we do to bonus episodes
Speaker 1: of months. This comes out in the very end of August,
Speaker 1: so okay, we've already heard our Doubt episode, so we're
Speaker 1: closing out Jamie's Bed a month. Doubt and Hackers comes
Speaker 1: out the feminist text Hackers with Matthew Lillard topless. Also,
Speaker 1: don't forget to go to our website Bactel cast dot
Speaker 1: com and there you can access our t public store
Speaker 1: where we have all of our freaking merch at your
Speaker 1: feminist Icon t shirts. Get your queer icon t shirts.
Speaker 1: To get your alphre Melina feminist icon t shirts. Get
Speaker 1: your cat facts with Caitlin. There were no cats in
Speaker 1: this movie, but just a reminder the cats to have
Speaker 1: eight nipples. And that's cat facts with Caitlin. Yeah, we've
Speaker 1: got clothes, we've got mugs, we've got wall art. So
Speaker 1: get whatever that is and hang it on your wall. Also,
Speaker 1: if you live in the Los Angeles area, you we
Speaker 1: are doing a live show in l A on September
Speaker 1: fifteenth at nine pm. It's at a venue called The
Speaker 1: Ruby on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. We are talking about
Speaker 1: Edward Scissor Hands and our guest is Maggie may Fish.
Speaker 1: So if you go to our website, beckelcast dot com
Speaker 1: and you click on the live appearances tab, you'll be
Speaker 1: able to find the link to get tickets. So come
Speaker 1: check us out September fifteen, nine pm. We will see
Speaker 1: there and thanks for listening. Thank you for listening. Go
Speaker 1: see this movie. Bye bye,