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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane.

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Speaker 1: Never told your protection of I Heart Radio's house Toffer.

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Speaker 1: Did you have a favorite villainous as a kid, Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: of course. Um I did love somefent me too, she

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Speaker 1: was my favorite. Um but the Wicked Witch, not the

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Speaker 1: Wicked Arsula was really fun too because she could change forms. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and she just looked like like her and her little eels. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's pretty fantastic. Yeah, I love Ursula as well. Um.

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Speaker 1: I I haven't seen um one hundred one Dalmatians since Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I haven't seen that movie in so long, But like,

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Speaker 1: looking back, I'm curious how disturbing it is as an adult.

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Speaker 1: I was quite very disturbing because for sure, like trying

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Speaker 1: to kill all these like she has jackets, already coats

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Speaker 1: of fur, so obviously she's already did this. She's already

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Speaker 1: done this. Yeah, so and she's just getting more and

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Speaker 1: it's like, oh my gosh. And she has those wild eyes,

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Speaker 1: the wild eyes, that's true. I felt like Maleficent had

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Speaker 1: a very cool like she can't be bothered air, you know,

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Speaker 1: like you can't ruffle her feathers. Um. I feel like

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Speaker 1: with all the live action versions. I'm like, they've done

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Speaker 1: pretty well with these. Well, that's one of the reasons

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Speaker 1: I wanted to bring back this classic because, um one,

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Speaker 1: I've been in Disney recently, but too like the Maleficent

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Speaker 1: movie with Angelina Jolie, the second one came out recently,

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Speaker 1: and then I know there's two versions of Ariel coming

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Speaker 1: out and one is coming out soon, the one, the

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Speaker 1: TV one, the live action one with Queen Latifa as

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Speaker 1: Ursla is coming out soon. So I do feel like,

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Speaker 1: right now we have a cultural fascination with uh, these villanesses. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was actually a whole board game, adult board game.

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Speaker 1: I actually really liked it. It It was hard, you've told

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Speaker 1: me about it. I really was really fun. I think

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Speaker 1: I was Maleficent you were, Yeah, and I won? Of course?

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Speaker 1: Did you Did you get to pick who you were?

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Speaker 1: Is it no? You get to pick? Because but it

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Speaker 1: was like Maleficent Arcela Sheriff from Sheriff Nottingham, Sure, and

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Speaker 1: um defar okay, of course far of course, Well we

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Speaker 1: should play that together sometimes. It was fun. We should

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Speaker 1: play it together, for sure. Yeah. I guess the Queen

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Speaker 1: of Hearts. She's another pretty She's a good Oh no,

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Speaker 1: it was Queen of Hearts. I'm a liar from who

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Speaker 1: Queen of Hearts? And uh Cheff Nottingham, Arcela and Maleficent.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's a pretty female. Yeah it was, which could

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Speaker 1: say a lot about that's true, that's true. I would

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Speaker 1: love to go through and kind of because I know

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Speaker 1: we've done an episode on the betrayal of evil stepmothers

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Speaker 1: in Disney and how it seems like you have your

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Speaker 1: your princess who's waiting to get married and then you're

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Speaker 1: evil stepmother who wants to kill the young the young

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Speaker 1: girl or charged. And that's kind of the dynamic that

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Speaker 1: the economy in those movies. And yeah, I guess a

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Speaker 1: lot of the villains, a lot of the memorable villains

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Speaker 1: are our women. M M. Talking about how do we

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Speaker 1: see women and why are they betrayed this way? Okay,

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Speaker 1: no one can hear you just whispering. People love it.

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Speaker 1: People do seem to whispering. But you know what villains

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Speaker 1: are in right now? I feel like they kind they

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Speaker 1: kind of have a flip between like the snow white malifice.

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Speaker 1: They're having a small flip, yes, And the psychology behind

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Speaker 1: that is something that I am personally fascinated in um

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Speaker 1: and we can. This classic episode is going to look

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Speaker 1: into that a little bit. What what these portrayals of

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Speaker 1: women as villains? What we can learn about our our

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Speaker 1: culture and our view of women. So please enjoy. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to Stuff Mom Never told you from how stupp works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

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Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline. And since it is Halloween's season when

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Speaker 1: we are recording this episode, we are honoring, celebrating the villainess. Yes,

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Speaker 1: the bad girl of pop culture and fairy tales and

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Speaker 1: comic books, the evil stepmother, the giant octopus with really

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Speaker 1: cool hair. Let's be honest, Ursula's hair is so on

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Speaker 1: trend right now. We've got to admit, though, or acknowledge

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Speaker 1: that Ursula was based on Divine the drag Queen. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: hence big beautiful Ursula with her big beautiful hair. No wonder,

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Speaker 1: she's so fabulous and and evil true true, yes, um yeah.

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Speaker 1: The post that inspired this episode was over at tour

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Speaker 1: dot com and it was titled in Defense of Villainess

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Speaker 1: is basically arguing that lady villains do not get their

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Speaker 1: proper dues in pop culture. Sure, they're brushed off. Is

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Speaker 1: just mad, bitter, resentful old women, or they just aren't

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Speaker 1: as visible or as fleshed out, yeah, as male villains are.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, there was some villain a snooze recently

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Speaker 1: that kind of gets to the heart of the marketing

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Speaker 1: machine behind villains and maybe one reason why we don't

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Speaker 1: see more women villains. Yeah. So, when you search for

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Speaker 1: anything on the Google about lady villains, villain essas whatever,

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Speaker 1: one of the only things that comes up on page

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Speaker 1: one is the fact that the original Iron Man three

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Speaker 1: villain was gender swapped right before production, and and not

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Speaker 1: in a good way. If you've if you've seen the movie,

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Speaker 1: you know that the villain was supposed to be a

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Speaker 1: woman and ended up not being a woman anymore. Why

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Speaker 1: did they do that, Well, I'll tell you so. In

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Speaker 1: the original script, the plan was to have this lady villain,

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Speaker 1: but a memo came down to the filmmakers saying, Nope,

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Speaker 1: don't do a lady villain. A female villain toy will

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Speaker 1: not sell as well. And that kind of blows my mind.

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Speaker 1: I I maybe I'm naive, but I didn't realize that

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Speaker 1: like pre production, not even after the fact. It's one

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Speaker 1: thing to like market something differently. But I didn't realize

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Speaker 1: that the making of a film could be influenced by

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Speaker 1: the toy making machine. Oh yeah, it's all about that money, honey,

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Speaker 1: I know. And so director Shane Black was like, guys, guys, guys,

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Speaker 1: calm down. The president of Marvel Studios had nothing to

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Speaker 1: do with this, because everybody was like, are you serious,

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Speaker 1: And they were trying to find out who to blame, basically,

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Speaker 1: and he said that we had to change the entire

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Speaker 1: script because of toy making. It was the marketing machine.

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Speaker 1: It was the higher ups at the studio. It was

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Speaker 1: not the director or the head of Marvel. Well, I

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Speaker 1: wonder if that also has to do with them, uh,

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Speaker 1: presuming that the audience for Iron Man is going to

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Speaker 1: skew mail, so maybe you'll have more boys who are

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Speaker 1: gonna be interested in buying Iron Man related toys compared

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Speaker 1: to girls. And the thinking goes that boys would be

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Speaker 1: less likely to buy a girl villains sure, or that

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Speaker 1: parents would be less likely to buy it for their son. Yeah. Maybe,

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Speaker 1: But I would just think, like, and I'm maybe I'm projecting,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, but I would just think that a

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Speaker 1: villain is a villain is a villain, and if it's

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Speaker 1: a woman like that just seems really fun too. I

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Speaker 1: imagine she has like dark lipstick and dark hair and

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Speaker 1: and cool accessories and oh see, I guess I am

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Speaker 1: a girl. Though we'll see. That gets to what it

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Speaker 1: seems to be the two categories of female villain that

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Speaker 1: you have in pop culture. Usually she's either kind of

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Speaker 1: vampi and a seductress, but also evil of course, she's

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Speaker 1: like an evil woman in that yellow song. Or she

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Speaker 1: is older and undesirable by virtue of her like lack

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Speaker 1: of sexiness. She's the anti seductress. She's the old hat

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Speaker 1: with the apple, the poison apple. Yeah. So, I mean

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Speaker 1: it's still a similar pattern that you see with female protagonists,

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Speaker 1: where a lot of times they are defined by their

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Speaker 1: relation to men and their sexual attractiveness. And with with

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Speaker 1: films too, cartoon or live action, you know, you have

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Speaker 1: to provide some degree of coding so that the audience

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Speaker 1: sort of knows what to expect from that character. And

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Speaker 1: so making her um, you know, a brunette, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: she maybe she's wearing all black and she's super sexy

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Speaker 1: like that codes as like the evil vamp villain just

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Speaker 1: the same way that painting her as a witch an

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Speaker 1: old hag is like, Oh, the signals to me that

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Speaker 1: I need to watch out for her and not trust her. Well,

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Speaker 1: and what you're describing, especially with the woman dressed in

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Speaker 1: all black like a Donna Karen outfit from head to

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Speaker 1: toe is just reminding me of Angelica Houston and witches.

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Speaker 1: I'll just watch that so flawless she is that woman,

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Speaker 1: she's so stylish, she's stunning. And then of course on

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Speaker 1: the inside she really is is this terrifying haggard witch

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Speaker 1: who looks like the Sanderson sisters which in hocus Pocus.

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Speaker 1: It's just watched hocus Pocus last night. Oh my gosh, Caroline,

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Speaker 1: I watched hocus Pocus this past weekend too. Okay, can

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Speaker 1: we talk cocus Pocus for a second for sure? And

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Speaker 1: this will listeners tie back into our conversation on villains,

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Speaker 1: because they are like the archetypal like evil Crone, and

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Speaker 1: they've got in that group of three sisters, they have

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Speaker 1: it all right. Oh yeah, they've got bet Middler's kind

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Speaker 1: of she's not the old hag in terms of like

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Speaker 1: the snow white evil witch with a poison apple but

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Speaker 1: she is still made to look with the buck teeth

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Speaker 1: that are yellow and the crazy red curly hair. She's

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Speaker 1: made to look a little more old and haggard compared

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Speaker 1: to her sister's right, and she's the most powerful too, correct.

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Speaker 1: And then you've got Kathine and Jimmy who she's They

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Speaker 1: make her do this weird like crooked thing with her mouth. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she kind of talks the side of her mouth. They

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Speaker 1: give her a speech impediment. Yeah, and she yeah, she

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Speaker 1: is the dumber. Well, she's dumber than uh Winifred. But

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Speaker 1: then you've got Sarah Jessica Parker's Sarah who she is

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Speaker 1: the vamp. She's the skinny blonde with the big boobs

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Speaker 1: coming out over her dress, and she is super air

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Speaker 1: heady and jumps around and claps all the time and

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Speaker 1: says a makamuk a muck and she really wants to

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Speaker 1: make out with any male who enters their premises. Correct. Um,

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Speaker 1: So I gotta tell you that I loved the Witches,

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Speaker 1: the Three Witches. Could have watched them all night long,

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Speaker 1: but I stopped watching hocus Pocus. Couldn't get through it, y'all.

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Speaker 1: This was my first time. Wait, this Weekend. Yes, at

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Speaker 1: thirty one years old. This was my very first viewing

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Speaker 1: of Focus Pocus, and I couldn't finish it because that

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Speaker 1: like poor Man's Jonathan Taylor Thomas kid. It was just

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Speaker 1: the worst because it starts off with him just lusting

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Speaker 1: after like the girl who looks like a young Hillary Swank,

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Speaker 1: and it's like weirdly like overtly sexual, and he doesn't

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Speaker 1: listen to anyone. And you know what, during the selection season,

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Speaker 1: when we've had a man who is not listened to

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Speaker 1: women mucking a lot of stuff, I was like, I

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Speaker 1: can't do this. I can't watch you. So where where

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Speaker 1: did you stop? The witches had come back and I

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Speaker 1: don't know, like uh like fake j T T had

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Speaker 1: just done something else fool ish, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: I can't thora Birch, You're perfect all the which is

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Speaker 1: you're perfect, even young Hillary Swank I think you have

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Speaker 1: a horrible taste in middle school boys, but didn't at all, um,

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Speaker 1: But I was like, why why does it have to

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Speaker 1: be centered around this kid? Um? Also, this is a

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Speaker 1: cautionary tale of waiting to watch children's movies when you

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Speaker 1: are a thirty one year old professional feminist. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: definitely have the benefit of the nostalgia factor having watched

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Speaker 1: it growing up, But it was funny watching it this

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Speaker 1: time around. I hadn't seen it in a couple of

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Speaker 1: years that I definitely was like, why why does it

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Speaker 1: have to center on this guy? Why can't it center

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Speaker 1: on Hillary Swank or yeah, who's perfect? Because by the

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Speaker 1: end of the movie, by the very end, which you

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Speaker 1: didn't get to, what's weird about it is that it

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Speaker 1: does feel like it is centered around her basically, Like

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Speaker 1: the ending shot is brother and sister like hugging or whatever.

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Speaker 1: But it's all about thora Birch saying goodbye to these

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Speaker 1: two characters, two of the characters in the movie. And

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Speaker 1: I wanted to be like this, this just should have

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Speaker 1: been the movie. Let the two girls, who are clearly

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Speaker 1: smarter than this boy run the show well and getting

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Speaker 1: back to you our convo on Villainess's villains. Uh, I

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Speaker 1: love that the Witches, the Sanders and sisters are just

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Speaker 1: purely evil and have no qualms about it whatsoever. You know.

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Speaker 1: They there's that moment early in the film where they

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Speaker 1: get some some youthfulness back and are restored to their

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Speaker 1: their younger looking selves. Um so you have like a

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Speaker 1: touch of uh, stereotypical like female vanity going on. But

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Speaker 1: then they're they're so powerful and terrifying and they love it.

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Speaker 1: And also I love that Bette Midler um despite her

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Speaker 1: extreme buck teeth and wild hair. I mean, she thinks

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Speaker 1: she looks phenomenal. I know they all do, and they're

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Speaker 1: they are, They're so wonderful. And I love how funny

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Speaker 1: that Middler is allowed to be in that movie. How

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Speaker 1: funny Winifred is allowed to be that she's not entirely

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Speaker 1: one dimensional. But let's talk about their fashion, because this

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Speaker 1: leads us into something that is pretty consistent across pop

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Speaker 1: cultural villains who happen to be women. So they've got

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Speaker 1: some good style. Yeah, so I love that the Sanderson

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Speaker 1: sisters they do have these like flowing gowns and capes. Um.

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Speaker 1: And you know you mentioned Angelica Houston in which is

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Speaker 1: she is fabulous with her lob, her long bob, her

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Speaker 1: you know, crazy good makeup. It was the eighties, um,

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Speaker 1: and her she's got this tight off the shoulder black dress,

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Speaker 1: which when she turns in to the ghoulish version of herself,

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Speaker 1: she's still wearing a gorgeous off the shoulder black dress.

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Speaker 1: I do love that that. Sarah Gailey over at tour

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Speaker 1: dot Com pointed this out, as did Lucy Hutchings when

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Speaker 1: she wrote about villainous fashion for Vogue UK. What were

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Speaker 1: some of her favorites? So I think one of the

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Speaker 1: main ones that is sited across all of these listical

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Speaker 1: sites has to be Maleficent, both the cartoon version and

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Speaker 1: Angelina Jolie's version of Maleficent. Of course, Maleficent is the

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Speaker 1: witchy evil villain from Sleeping Beauty. Yeah. She she has

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Speaker 1: that amazing headpiece. Yeah, she has that amazing headpiece. It's

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Speaker 1: so elegant, you know, for being like horn shaped and whatever.

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Speaker 1: Um and other villains with amazing accessories, Like you've got

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Speaker 1: to think of l Driver's eyepatch. She's uh, Darryl Hannah

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Speaker 1: in Kill Bill Searcy's queenly armor. So Searcy finally, spoiler

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Speaker 1: Searcy in Game of Thrones finally gets to be on

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Speaker 1: the throne. Who knows how long she'll be there, but

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Speaker 1: to indicate that she has transitioned from just being like

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Speaker 1: run of the mill evil queen into like run of

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Speaker 1: the mill super evil, super powerful queen. She's wearing all

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Speaker 1: black with her an all black gown complete with like

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Speaker 1: super badass looking armor on her shoulders. Yeah. Well, and

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Speaker 1: that reminds me of when a couple of seasons back

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Speaker 1: now where Sanza is off with Little Finger, and I

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Speaker 1: start worrying that she's about to go to the dark

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Speaker 1: side because she starts wearing this intense black gown that

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Speaker 1: has uh those like feather yas. Yeah, what way to

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Speaker 1: go wardrobe department, But I mean those killer wardrobes. I

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Speaker 1: mean they might be wearing robes like Maleficent or o

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Speaker 1: Riny she also from kill Bill. They might have fabulous

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Speaker 1: coats depending on how you view. For if you look

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Speaker 1: at Cruella de Ville or Miranda Priestley from Devilware's Products,

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Speaker 1: she's kind of the villain of that movie. Obviously that's

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Speaker 1: not a comic book movie or anything. Obviously she's supposed

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Speaker 1: to be Anna Wintour, right, so she must be well dressed.

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Speaker 1: But she's a villain for sure in that movie, and

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Speaker 1: she has fabulous coats. Uh. And one very common wardrobe choice,

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Speaker 1: particularly when it comes to comic book and superhero movies,

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Speaker 1: is the cat's suit. And so not only obviously do

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Speaker 1: you have Catwoman wearing the cat's suit, even though one

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Speaker 1: might argue that Catwoman is really more of an anti

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Speaker 1: hero than a villain. Let's let's go back right Ghostbusters

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Speaker 1: number one, Zul. Right, even though Zula is not technically

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Speaker 1: a woman, Zuel can take whatever form here she wants.

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Speaker 1: When Zul shows up on top of Sigourney Weaver's building,

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Speaker 1: Zula is dressed as like the white version of Grace Jones.

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Speaker 1: Basically anyway, You've also got Nebula and Guardians of the Galaxy,

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Speaker 1: uh and Harley Quinn not in the latest live action movie,

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Speaker 1: but in the comics she's wearing kind of like a

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Speaker 1: Joker type cat suit. Well, and then there's also Poison Ivy,

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Speaker 1: who wears a cat suit made of ivy. Yes, but

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Speaker 1: this is this is what I'm getting at though, where

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Speaker 1: we have like the more mature woman who might be

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Speaker 1: dressed all in black. She might be chic, but she's

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Speaker 1: probably not outright sexy. And then you have the cat

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Speaker 1: suit villains who are very sexualized. Yeah, I mean they

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Speaker 1: all like it is fun to look at them, and

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Speaker 1: I'm sure it's fun to create them. They have fabulous

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Speaker 1: crazy hair, like their hair is allowed to be the

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Speaker 1: Ursula swoop or Zul's flat top. Or if you're going

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Speaker 1: with like a woman who is putting on femininity to

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Speaker 1: describe to disguise her evilness, you've got amy from gone

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Speaker 1: girl who has like the most perfect, fabulous blonde, long,

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Speaker 1: luscious hair her she just puts on that luscious hair

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Speaker 1: and then just like Lego hair, just puts it on

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Speaker 1: in the morning, bamboozle has been afflick. That's right, And

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Speaker 1: you know, tied in with the whole like having fun

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Speaker 1: with appearance thing is the fact that a villain, like

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Speaker 1: I was saying, a villainess is allowed to look different.

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Speaker 1: She's allowed to have these different physical attributes than just

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Speaker 1: like the perfect Disney princess, well because she's loud. I mean,

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Speaker 1: this reminds me of our episode on Curly Hair, where

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Speaker 1: a lot of times you see coded in movies. If

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Speaker 1: you have sort of a life montage where suddenly a

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Speaker 1: female character kind of like gets her act together, she's

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Speaker 1: going to go from having curly hair to straight hair

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Speaker 1: or vice versa. Like when Um on Scandal, for instance,

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Speaker 1: whenever we see Olivia Pope Um like kind of teetering

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Speaker 1: on the edge of sanity, or she is off on

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Speaker 1: a deserted island like no longer. Yeah, Caroline's squinty, but

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Speaker 1: they're fans of scandal, know what I'm talking about. Um?

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Speaker 1: When uh, when she's not her put together Olivia Pope

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Speaker 1: um self, she usually has curly hair. Interesting, see, but

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Speaker 1: it's coading. It's it's signaling to the audience that, like,

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Speaker 1: even if you're not literally thinking like, oh, she has

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Speaker 1: really curly hair hair versus straight and put together. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's still signaling to you that something is different because

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Speaker 1: it's all it all kind of boils down to what

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Speaker 1: we associate with acceptable femininity, which is modest. You're not

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Speaker 1: going to wear a bold red lip like Maleficent. You're

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Speaker 1: not going to wear a gaudy fur coat like Cruella.

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Speaker 1: And you could see this as both a pro and

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Speaker 1: a con, but you are also likelier with villains, female

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Speaker 1: villains in pop culture for her to not necessarily be

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Speaker 1: white in the same way as so many female protagonists are. Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: so yes, that like virginal white femininity that is like

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Speaker 1: the crux of so many protagonists in these like fairy

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Speaker 1: tales or in these comic book stories, just the same

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Speaker 1: way that the villainess is coated as evil or crazy

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Speaker 1: by the way her hair is, or her makeup or

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Speaker 1: her clothes. You know, the protagonist, the fairy tale heroine

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Speaker 1: is so often just like the traditional feminine that we

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Speaker 1: think of, the traditional white feminine that we think of. Um,

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Speaker 1: but you can have plenty of different types of villains

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Speaker 1: in comic book movies. In fairy tales, You've got verat

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Speaker 1: Din a k a fatality, She's a comic book villain.

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Speaker 1: With d C comics. You've also got zen Z she's

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Speaker 1: a new villain actually for the ten Black Panther comic

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Speaker 1: series by Tana Hassi Coates. Um. And if you move

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Speaker 1: out of the comic book realm too, I mean, just

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Speaker 1: look at kill Bill by itself. You've got go go

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Speaker 1: you bari O, Rainy, she and Vernita Green All trying

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Speaker 1: to kill Uma Thurman's character. Or if you go to Batman,

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Speaker 1: you have my favorite villain of all, who is Catwoman

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Speaker 1: played by earth A Kit Oh yeah, she's perfect. And

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Speaker 1: then you later have Halle Berries Catwoman. And I mean

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Speaker 1: earlier you described like the quote unquote like traditional white femininity. Um.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if it's so much traditional as it

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Speaker 1: is racist ultimately, Oh, I mean yes, and I mean

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Speaker 1: traditional in terms of how that protagonist is shown on screen, right, Um,

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Speaker 1: Because I I feel like, with with exceptions obviously two

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Speaker 1: things like Zenz and Black Panther and and some of

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Speaker 1: these other characters. Um, But to me, the the chance

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Speaker 1: that these villains have differently colored skin, let's say, um,

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Speaker 1: does say a lot about how we perceive women of

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Speaker 1: color because also consider how um, black women in particular

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Speaker 1: historically have been so framed as Jezebels and sirens and seductresses.

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Speaker 1: And I would imagine that there is that that that

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Speaker 1: feeds into some of these especially older school villains. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: That no wonder it's more acceptable to have women of

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Speaker 1: color of some sort, right because they're already deviant by

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Speaker 1: virtue of them not being white, right exactly. And I

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Speaker 1: think that ties into the next point of why it

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Speaker 1: is so common slash acceptable to have a villain who

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Speaker 1: plays on the whole vamp trope, who is that sexy,

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Speaker 1: made up, you know, busty evil woman, Because even if

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Speaker 1: she's playing on her sexuality and toying with men and

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Speaker 1: taking advantage, it's like, you can't you can't hate her

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Speaker 1: for it. That's her power because she's evil. So it's

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Speaker 1: okay for a woman to display outright sexuality if she's

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Speaker 1: evil and will be defeated in the end. Well, and

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Speaker 1: then by by that logic, then doesn't that mean that

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Speaker 1: a woman doesn't that suggest then that a woman who

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Speaker 1: is open with her sexuality and wields it in such

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Speaker 1: a way that that is the evil thing about her. Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I know. And and some of my favorite villain essa's

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Speaker 1: do do this. I mean, but it's an old trope.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm so easy to rely on. Like okay,

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Speaker 1: So one of my favorites is in one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite movies to watch around Halloween, which is The Sleepy

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Speaker 1: Hollow with Johnny Depp. Love it, Love it. It's one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite movies. And Miranda Richardson's Lady van tassel

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Speaker 1: Uh in that movie is so freaking brilliant. She gets

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Speaker 1: to be beautiful, she gets to be glamorous, right, she

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Speaker 1: wears these big gowns. Even when she's mid like crazy

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Speaker 1: evil woman and her hair's coming out of her up do,

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Speaker 1: she still looks like so fabulous and glamorous when she's

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Speaker 1: totally losing touch with reality. Um and and all of

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Speaker 1: this evil stuff she's doing and controlling the Headless Horseman,

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Speaker 1: the way that she picks her victims and seduces them

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Speaker 1: and everything, like she tempts them with her sexuality and

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Speaker 1: her beauty, and it's so she's such a fun villain

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Speaker 1: to watch. This is also reminding me of a movie

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Speaker 1: I was watching last night also for the first time, y'all,

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Speaker 1: I've really been trying to catch up on pop culture

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Speaker 1: from like way back. I was watching Casino and Sharon Stone,

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Speaker 1: who plays Robert De Niro's wife hustler turned wife, is

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Speaker 1: such an embodiment of the Vampi villain because you know

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Speaker 1: from the first moment you see her on screen that

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Speaker 1: she is going to be his downfall because she is

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Speaker 1: so captivating in her whole presentation. Of course she's gorgeous,

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Speaker 1: but also in how they outfit her as just this

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Speaker 1: very glamorous but ultimately money hungry and self destructive um

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Speaker 1: like Vegas queen. Well, yeah, because how could beauty and

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Speaker 1: sexuality coexist with a woman who doesn't implode beauty, sexuality,

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Speaker 1: and ambition. I mean, granted, her ambition was just to

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Speaker 1: be like obnoxiously wealthy, but nonetheless as we're gonna get

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Speaker 1: into that. I mean, a lot of these villains are ambitious. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, not to be a villain apologist. They leaned in,

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Speaker 1: They really did. Ursula who leans in part of than

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Speaker 1: Ursula come on's feeling people's voices. She's got pet eels um. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this whole beauty thing and femininity is something that

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Speaker 1: Shannon Austin wrote about in Batman's Female Foes, which appeared

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00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,959
Speaker 1: in the journals Popular Culture back in April, and she

421
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:27,959
Speaker 1: quotes author Mary J. Russo talking about how often in

422
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:32,400
Speaker 1: these stories where the woman villain is powerful and also beautiful,

423
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:36,199
Speaker 1: that she uses her femininity as a mask and to

424
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 1: put on femininity with a vengeance, she writes, suggests the

425
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 1: power of taking it off and purposely disguising themselves in

426
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: this way and acting feminine to gain certain ends. Thus

427
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: allows them more power because they can remove this mask

428
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:57,480
Speaker 1: at times convenient for them, revealing the so called monsters underneath.

429
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 1: And I you know, I'd love to walk with you

430
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 1: more about this and get your opinion, but to me,

431
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: it just reminded me of every time on the Internet

432
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: a man criticized as a woman for wearing makeup. Uh.

433
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 1: But but you know, I mean quite literally, that's what

434
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: Angelica Houston's which villain does in which is she puts

435
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 1: on the mask of a beautiful, statuesque, distinguished, fashionable woman

436
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: and then takes it off and she's the haggard, disgusting

437
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: witch monster underneath, right, which I mean talking about rude

438
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 1: dudes on the internet. That that reminds me of, uh,

439
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:40,280
Speaker 1: the whole thing of makeup being deceptive, correct, Yeah. Yeah,

440
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: And you know, a villain, no matter male, female, old, young, whatever,

441
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:49,080
Speaker 1: deceit is probably part of that part of the storyline

442
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: is that you need to deceive the hero or the heroine.

443
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 1: And so in this way that Austin and Russo are

444
00:29:56,080 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: talking about, femininity is like a super dangerous disguise because

445
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:04,719
Speaker 1: look at poison ivy. You know, she's beautiful, you know,

446
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 1: and she'll tempt you with that beauty and then her

447
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 1: kisses are fatal. She will kiss you and it will

448
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: kill you. Yeah. I am highly allergic to poison ivy.

449
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 1: I can look at that stuff. Oh god, I had to, like,

450
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: I got it so bad a couple of years ago.

451
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: I had to take steroids for it, and I just

452
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: lost my freaking mind. I was rage crying all the time.

453
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 1: So I don't take steroids anymore. But anyway, and we

454
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 1: also do not need to go around kissing Uma Thurman apparently, Yeah, no,

455
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 1: don't do that. But if we look at how a

456
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: lot of times, especially with more traditional fairy tales like

457
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: Grimm's fairy Tales and a lot of the Disney Princess

458
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: plot lines, you have these villains who are older, and

459
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: there there's like this Catch twenty two of those kinds

460
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:57,680
Speaker 1: of fairy tales, obviously rewarding feminine youth, fertility, and beauty,

461
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 1: but at the same time, Malai ning these older women

462
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 1: who have lost that and who are trying doing everything

463
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 1: that they can to get it back because they realize

464
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: that that's the only way that society will value them.

465
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: And so we're like shaking a finger at them, but

466
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: at the same time, we are upholding the very thing

467
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 1: that is allegedly making them evil. Yeah, oh yeah, I know.

468
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:22,560
Speaker 1: And and we're so scared. We're so scared of elderly women,

469
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: especially if they are elderly and alone. It would be

470
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 1: one thing if it was an old woman and she's married,

471
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 1: because then she's she's just a grandmother. She's gonna make cookies.

472
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:33,960
Speaker 1: You know, that's how she would be characterized. And in

473
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:35,959
Speaker 1: a story, she would not be the villain if she

474
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 1: were married or paired with a man in some sort.

475
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: And there was this great NPR article that talked to

476
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 1: a couple of academics and folklorists about the appearance and

477
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 1: the presence of these older women in folk tales. And

478
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 1: they talked to Ivory coastwriter Veroniq Tajo, who said that

479
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 1: the old witch who destroys people's souls is a super

480
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 1: common African folklore figure. And she says, she's usually a

481
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 1: solitary woman. She's already marginal, she's angry at something, at

482
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: life or whatever, and she will eat people's souls in

483
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: the sense that she's going to possess people and then

484
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 1: they die a terrible death. There's something scary about a

485
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 1: woman who does not possess that youth and that beauty

486
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 1: um and that traditional femininity, and who's also alone, like,

487
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:28,560
Speaker 1: oh my god, where did all the norms go? And

488
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: she's like a nag. You know, if we if we

489
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 1: have to deal with her, if we have to hear

490
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 1: her complain about anything, we don't like it. And it's

491
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 1: certainly not unique to African folklore. I mean, if we

492
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:43,120
Speaker 1: look more at like Western history and some of the

493
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 1: mythology that we've built up around, say cat ladies and

494
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 1: I Salem witch trials and um. Also if we go

495
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: even farther back to medieval times when old women living

496
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:02,880
Speaker 1: by themselves were so reviled um that if they were

497
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: found to be complaining too much and too loudly, they

498
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: could be punished by having to wear what was called

499
00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 1: a scolds bridle, which was literally like a muzzle that

500
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:14,080
Speaker 1: they would have to wear to shut them up. Yeah.

501
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 1: People didn't want to see or hear elderly women on

502
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 1: their own. Gosh, Like, we don't want the burden. So

503
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 1: children are to be seen and not heard. Old ladies,

504
00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: we don't want to hear from you. When when can

505
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: we talk? That's why we have a podcast. I guess

506
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 1: I think we're in that sweet spot of people still

507
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: allowing us to talk. Yeah, yeah, we're still We're still

508
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,600
Speaker 1: fertile as far as we know, so we can keep

509
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 1: making podcasts. Oh thank god. Well. Harvard Folklore and Mythology

510
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 1: professor Maria Tatar could be Tater Tater Tott, Maria Tater Tott,

511
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 1: Maria tator tot. I like that. Um, I'm sorry. Uh.

512
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: She talks about how the powerful old witch woman in

513
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 1: mythology is the one who can work magic and transform.

514
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: In other words, hello, what have we just been talking about?

515
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 1: In other words, she can exert power and deceive. And

516
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 1: there's like nothing worse than an old woman deceiving you

517
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 1: with something. It's why people get so upset when women

518
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 1: wear makeup. It's why, you know, people criticize older women

519
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 1: for getting plastic surgery that's visible. It's like, what are

520
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:26,120
Speaker 1: you trying to do? Are you trying to deceive us

521
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 1: about how old you are? You should go live in

522
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,319
Speaker 1: a hut in the woods and biked children? Are you're

523
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 1: trying to avoid being rendered invisible by our sexist and

524
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 1: age of society? How dare you? What are you thinking? Um?

525
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: And you know, Uh, this Harvard professor points out something

526
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:45,839
Speaker 1: that I hadn't even thought about, which is the transformation

527
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 1: sequence that's in some of these Disney movies that we've

528
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 1: talked about. She says, I always looked at the Disney

529
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: film Snow White and that charismatic wicked queen who's down

530
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 1: in the cellar with their chemistry set. There's a sequence

531
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:01,240
Speaker 1: in which she turns from a beautiful, arismatic, wicked queen

532
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 1: into an old hag. And then of course she points out,

533
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 1: I think there's a scene that's probably more frightening for

534
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:09,800
Speaker 1: adults than children because it compresses the aging process and

535
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:13,359
Speaker 1: about twenty seconds, um. But it also reminded me of

536
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 1: the scene and Game of Thrones or Melisandra takes off

537
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: her magic necklace at the end of the night and

538
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:27,320
Speaker 1: transforms from this beautiful, seductive, redheaded witch into this ancient

539
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 1: old woman who's hunched over and sagging and her hair

540
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:36,839
Speaker 1: is falling out. And I mean, I like, hello, trophy trope,

541
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 1: trop nous of displaying just how powerful and evil someone

542
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 1: is by how they deceive you with their appearance and

543
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:50,399
Speaker 1: their femininity. Right, because if she weren't disguised as that

544
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: sexy witch and just looked like an old crone, no

545
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:58,359
Speaker 1: one would listen to her. Right. But but there are

546
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 1: really fun ways that these villains get to flout a

547
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:07,439
Speaker 1: lot of feminine conventions, and we're going to get into

548
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:20,720
Speaker 1: that when we come right back from a quick break, now, Caroline,

549
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 1: as soon as I said feminine convention, I felt like

550
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 1: I should distinguish that from the Witch convention in The

551
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:33,320
Speaker 1: Witches starring Angelica Houston, which is sort of a feminine

552
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 1: convention if you think about it. Yeah, yeah, totally feminine convention.

553
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 1: Not feminine norms per se exactly, but definitely a feminine convention.

554
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 1: They do eat children or no, they turn them into mice,

555
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 1: they don't eat them. Yeah, yeah, so that's fine. Um,

556
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:51,279
Speaker 1: but I do think it's fun. I mean, you know,

557
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:53,359
Speaker 1: I think it's fun to look at villains and talk

558
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 1: about them because they do flout so many conventions. And

559
00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 1: we've already talked about, you know, the stereotypical image. You

560
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:04,440
Speaker 1: know that they flout traditional femininity as it's as it

561
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 1: tends to be presented to us on screen. Um. But

562
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 1: because of a lot of that flouting, all of this

563
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:13,760
Speaker 1: flouting going on, they can make a lot of people

564
00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 1: nervous too well. And one of the reasons behind that,

565
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 1: some people have suggested is because I r L outside

566
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 1: of Grimm's fairytale Land, we don't really understand female criminality

567
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:32,719
Speaker 1: all of that much. It's it's still kind of hard

568
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 1: for us to wrap our heads around it. Yeah, there's

569
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:39,400
Speaker 1: a lot of assumptions, and this is coming from Brenda Russell,

570
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: who write perceptions of female offenders. According to Russell's research

571
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 1: and the research of others, we do tend to think

572
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 1: a female criminals as an anomaly, like it's weird, something

573
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 1: must have happened, and we tend to view them either

574
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:57,440
Speaker 1: as victims who were acting in self defense, or they

575
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 1: were under the control of others, like oh, well, she

576
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 1: must have been like one of Manson's women. She must

577
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:04,839
Speaker 1: have been told what to do and duped into being

578
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:11,360
Speaker 1: so evil and unnurturing. Or they are crazy, criminal deviance

579
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:15,959
Speaker 1: whose actions strayed from typically female behavior, like she does

580
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 1: have to be some comic book superhero villain, Like I

581
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:22,520
Speaker 1: can't imagine a woman who's like a run of the

582
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:27,959
Speaker 1: mill cluptimaniac, basically your run of the mill, average, every

583
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 1: day Clapton. She's just got sticky fingers. It's just one

584
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:36,360
Speaker 1: own a writer. I love Wyn and I love you. Um.

585
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 1: But then, of course there's a thing Kristin that you

586
00:38:38,040 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier which is tied into this as well, that like, ah,

587
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 1: none of this is normal for a woman to do,

588
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 1: to be a criminal, But when it comes to women

589
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 1: of color who commit crimes, we tend to be less

590
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 1: sympathetic because it's like, oh, well, no, she's that's just

591
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:58,760
Speaker 1: to be expected from a black woman because they're unchased

592
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:04,319
Speaker 1: and untrustworthy. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's a lot of It's

593
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 1: it's a hot mess really when you start unpacking. Yeah,

594
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 1: views of what women are capable of or not capable

595
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:14,719
Speaker 1: of are so inextricably tied up with issues of race

596
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:18,040
Speaker 1: and class as well. And speaking to that for listeners

597
00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 1: who want to learn more, we did a whole episode

598
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:28,600
Speaker 1: on kleptomania UM, which speak a lot to race and class.

599
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: So definitely go back in our massive archive and dig

600
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:35,719
Speaker 1: that one up because it's a good episode. But of

601
00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:39,879
Speaker 1: course too, you have a lot of female villains who

602
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 1: symbolize what we repress, and that immediately makes me think

603
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: of Carrie's mom. Yeah, what dirty pillows? Yes, your your

604
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 1: breasts or dirty pillows. And she's terrified of Carrie getting

605
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 1: her period because that means that she's send sexually mature

606
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 1: fears about female sexuality. Yeah, I mean, is that really

607
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 1: like at the heart of female villain e is sex panic.

608
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:13,479
Speaker 1: It's I mean it it seems like it. And well,

609
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:15,560
Speaker 1: and the thing about that too is like, Okay, let's

610
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:19,799
Speaker 1: think back to older, older tropes, fairy tales, folklore, and

611
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:23,400
Speaker 1: you've either got that temptous villain, which type lady, or

612
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:26,440
Speaker 1: you've got the old hag. And the more of the

613
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 1: stories are repeated, the more they've become deeply ingrained into

614
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:34,399
Speaker 1: our collective subconscious basically, And so when we I say

615
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 1: we like I'm a screenwriter, when we create new stories,

616
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:42,480
Speaker 1: what are we doing but reaching back into what we

617
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 1: think of in terms of what a female villain looks like,

618
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:48,760
Speaker 1: and frequently that goes all the way back to sexy

619
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:52,279
Speaker 1: witches basically, or I would argue that it goes all

620
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: the way back to the Garden of Eden. Oh snap

621
00:40:56,840 --> 00:41:00,400
Speaker 1: and Eve original sin. Yeah, I might see like a

622
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:03,760
Speaker 1: stretch to call Eve a villain. Now it totally works. Yeah,

623
00:41:03,800 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 1: I mean she's she is, uh, you know, lured into

624
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,879
Speaker 1: this by the snake Satan in the form of the snake.

625
00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:15,719
Speaker 1: But nonetheless she deceives Adam. Yeah, you've got deceit. You've

626
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:18,520
Speaker 1: got a naked lady, you've got long hair, don't care.

627
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 1: And we know what some dirty pillows because you know

628
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:24,319
Speaker 1: they weren't wearing clothes. Well, you know what Hippocrates thought

629
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 1: of long hair? That it was full of semen. That's right,

630
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:31,319
Speaker 1: that is a fact. That is a fact. Listeners, Yeah,

631
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:33,759
Speaker 1: that goes back to a couple episodes now that we've done.

632
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: We just love talking about Hippocrates and hair. It's my

633
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:40,799
Speaker 1: favorite Hippocrates fact for sure. But in terms of repression,

634
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:45,439
Speaker 1: Shyla Fairfax over at Current Vlog in June cited film

635
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:50,200
Speaker 1: theorist Robin Wood and looking at Horror Cinemas in particular,

636
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:55,400
Speaker 1: quote Return of the Repressed tool. Uh. Wood said that

637
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: monsters are manifestations of our tendency to enforce surplus repression

638
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 1: within our communities, ensuring we're all monogamous, heterosexual, bourgeois patriarchal capitalist. Alright,

639
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 1: so translate please, um. Basically, as Wood explains, in this theory,

640
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:17,840
Speaker 1: women are a counterpoint to male domination. They are therefore

641
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:23,319
Speaker 1: a threat to patriarchal society, and so men project their

642
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: repressed femininity, which they hate because it's not powerful and

643
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:32,319
Speaker 1: it goes against patriarchal structure. They project all of that

644
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:38,440
Speaker 1: onto women. And when a woman rises up in power,

645
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 1: so when that femininity returns to face them, uh, that

646
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 1: female character is clearly a monster who must be subdued

647
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:50,800
Speaker 1: and so when you look at all of this horror

648
00:42:51,239 --> 00:42:56,760
Speaker 1: film stuff, a female villain then is often the horror

649
00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:01,280
Speaker 1: trope combo of the rich, hern of the repressed, tool

650
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:07,240
Speaker 1: female victimization and punishing women who attempt to assume power,

651
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 1: and that whole female victimization thing. It's because so often

652
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 1: with these bad girls, these female villains, her motivation is

653
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:22,640
Speaker 1: so often revenge. Yeah, I mean, and revenge for social

654
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:26,480
Speaker 1: rejections sometimes. I mean, you do have in the Judy

655
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:29,799
Speaker 1: Garland Wizard of Oz, for instance, you you do have

656
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:32,319
Speaker 1: the Wicked Witch of the West who goes after her

657
00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:36,760
Speaker 1: because she thinks that um Dorothy has killed her sister.

658
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 1: So that makes sense, she knows she wants to avenge

659
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:44,319
Speaker 1: your sister's death. But as Elena doctor men Over at

660
00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 1: Time Magazine pointed out not too long ago, one thing

661
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 1: that a lot of female Disney villains have in common

662
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:57,560
Speaker 1: is revenge for just straight up social rejection. So I

663
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: didn't realize that Ursa Lah gets mad at the beginning

664
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:07,000
Speaker 1: and targets Ariel because she sees Ariel leaving for a

665
00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:10,200
Speaker 1: party and she's just bummed out that she's no longer

666
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 1: invited to those kinds of event. I didn't remember that

667
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:18,480
Speaker 1: at all. Similarly, Cinderella, you have the evil stepmother and

668
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:22,360
Speaker 1: stepsisters who are terrified that old Cindy is gonna outshine

669
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 1: them at the party. Um. In the animated Sleeping Beauty,

670
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:32,719
Speaker 1: Maleficent is upset that she wasn't invited to Aurora's christening.

671
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:37,160
Speaker 1: Oh right, well, but in the live action Maleficent with

672
00:44:37,200 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 1: Angelina Jolie, her backstory is that she got her heartbroken

673
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: by some man and now like anyone who experiences love

674
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 1: or whatever is just too gross and she's got to

675
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:52,759
Speaker 1: hurt them or whatever. Yeah, that was a disappointing choice. Yeah,

676
00:44:52,760 --> 00:44:55,880
Speaker 1: I mean, think of all of the crazy, weird backstories.

677
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:59,879
Speaker 1: You're literally recreating a fairy tale in whatever way you want,

678
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 1: and like that's what you go go for. Well, and

679
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:08,160
Speaker 1: Dr Men points out that, meanwhile, you have male villains

680
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 1: who tend to be allowed in the Disney cannon, tend

681
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 1: to be more allowed to just be like evil for

682
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 1: the sake of wanting to cement power. So with scar

683
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:23,399
Speaker 1: in the Lion King and Jaffar in Aladdin, they just

684
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 1: want to be king. That's also a song I will

685
00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:32,480
Speaker 1: not sing it. Oh come on, um, But for some

686
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 1: of the same reasons that these female villains in these

687
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:39,440
Speaker 1: tropes make people nervous, whether it's in real life according

688
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 1: to researchers, or just whether she's scaring people in the film. Uh,

689
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:48,000
Speaker 1: there's plenty of reasons to like her. Oh Yeah, she's fun,

690
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: she's fierce. She wears a bold lip. Oh yeah, no,

691
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:56,760
Speaker 1: seriously love it. Uh. She's unapologetically power hungry. She doesn't

692
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 1: have to just be spunky and rely on the hero

693
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:01,360
Speaker 1: to get her where she needs to be. She tends

694
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:05,400
Speaker 1: to be brilliant, if not a mad scientist type. She's unpredictable,

695
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 1: she's independent. Her storyline, her reason for being doesn't have

696
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 1: to rely or revolve around a man. It can have

697
00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:18,080
Speaker 1: something totally different. I mean, frequently it does involve a

698
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 1: man to some extent, but it doesn't have to well

699
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 1: with a lot of the social rejection lines. Though. It's

700
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:28,320
Speaker 1: more anger over competition with other women, which is also

701
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:31,839
Speaker 1: an interesting twist to consider. Yeah, and typically the thing

702
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 1: with these lady villains, whether it's live action, cartoon, folklore, whatever,

703
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:40,360
Speaker 1: she's typically not afraid to go after what she wants

704
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:46,560
Speaker 1: at any cost. Typically that involves killing someone. Yeah. Granted,

705
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:53,320
Speaker 1: her motives are questionable, sure, but these women are often ambitious. Yeah.

706
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:56,759
Speaker 1: So someone who maybe is not a villain, but it's

707
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 1: a fabulous anti hero who I think encapsulates a lot

708
00:46:59,920 --> 00:47:03,000
Speaker 1: of what we're talking about is Sigourney Weaver's character and

709
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 1: working girl, right, super ambitious, deceitful, beautiful. Uh you know, Petty,

710
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 1: She's like all of these complicated things wrapped up in

711
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 1: a shoulder padded businesswoman package. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. Yeah.

712
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:23,399
Speaker 1: I mean, all of the villains that we've cited by

713
00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:29,240
Speaker 1: name all have that massive internal drive. You know. Nebula

714
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: is gonna freaking kill, Serc's gonna kill, Zula is gonna kill,

715
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 1: They're all gonna kill. Cruella is gonna kill puppies. Like,

716
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 1: all of these women are driven to accomplish something, and

717
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:43,120
Speaker 1: usually it's killing, killing in order to get something that

718
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: they want. And sometimes though, they will team up with

719
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:52,719
Speaker 1: other women. Yeah, okay, So this goes back to that

720
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 1: Shannon Austin Batman paper that we sided earlier. She talks

721
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:59,439
Speaker 1: a lot and I didn't realize there was this much

722
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:03,320
Speaker 1: to talk about out Austin proved me wrong. She talks

723
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 1: a lot about the relationship between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy,

724
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:11,280
Speaker 1: and I was not aware of this. I basically only

725
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:14,760
Speaker 1: know anything about Batman from what I've seen in the movies,

726
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 1: the live action movies. Mine's more Adam West base, so

727
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:23,360
Speaker 1: yours probably even more accurate. I don't know about that. Um.

728
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:27,279
Speaker 1: But so Harley Quinn, who it is worth noting her

729
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:31,960
Speaker 1: entire character, Her persona is in reaction to a man.

730
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:34,839
Speaker 1: So she meets and sort of falls in love with

731
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:39,120
Speaker 1: the Joker, and he manipulates her into becoming this villain

732
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:42,880
Speaker 1: for him or with him. Um. But anytime she starts

733
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 1: to act up and try to kill someone on her own,

734
00:48:45,120 --> 00:48:47,279
Speaker 1: he basically smacks her down and he's like, no, I

735
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:49,280
Speaker 1: want to do that. You don't get to make decisions

736
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 1: about murder. You don't get to kill people for me. Yeah.

737
00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 1: And so you know, there's all of this stuff that's

738
00:48:56,640 --> 00:49:00,960
Speaker 1: lady villains and Batman in reaction two men. But at

739
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:04,520
Speaker 1: one point Harley Quinn is almost killed, but Poison Ivy

740
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:08,040
Speaker 1: saves her. Poison Ivy the woman with lethal kisses who's

741
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:13,799
Speaker 1: dressed in Poison Ivy, which sounds terrible. Um. And as

742
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 1: Austin points out, it's these women's closeness that gives her

743
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:22,160
Speaker 1: her strength back, not the stereotypical like cattiness and fighting

744
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: that makes them weaker. And so she says that the

745
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:29,759
Speaker 1: cements the almost terrifying idea that while a woman with

746
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:34,399
Speaker 1: power is dangerous, women helping women achieve power is an

747
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:37,360
Speaker 1: even more serious threat. Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn are

748
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 1: always running around together, helping each other even when they're

749
00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:42,400
Speaker 1: in a fight. Well, and talking about Harley Quinn, of

750
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:45,839
Speaker 1: course makes me think of Suicide Squad, which I did

751
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:47,960
Speaker 1: not see, because I'll never be able to get those

752
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:51,000
Speaker 1: two hours of my life back if I do. But

753
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:56,319
Speaker 1: the one bright spot critics said in the movie is

754
00:49:56,480 --> 00:49:59,520
Speaker 1: Harley Quinn, and she might get her own spin off movie, etcetera.

755
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:04,040
Speaker 1: So I am curious from listeners who are in the

756
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:08,719
Speaker 1: know what they think about her portrayal in that film,

757
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: because more broadly, I would be curious, um to see

758
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:19,600
Speaker 1: whether and how the dynamics and motivations of female villains

759
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:25,040
Speaker 1: changes it all in more ensemble roles where they are

760
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 1: usually the only female villain in the room, surrounded by

761
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:31,839
Speaker 1: their their dude villain friends um or they might be

762
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:36,440
Speaker 1: one of two. But I'm just curious from from listeners

763
00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:41,520
Speaker 1: if that changes changes things at all, or if they're

764
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:44,160
Speaker 1: still just kind of the same but hanging out with

765
00:50:44,719 --> 00:50:47,960
Speaker 1: batty friends. Yeah. And you know, we've talked a lot

766
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 1: about ambition and female power and the fears around it,

767
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:55,720
Speaker 1: and Sarah Gailey over at Tour wrote that the dividing

768
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 1: line between a protagonist and a villainist typically ends up

769
00:50:59,800 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 1: the villainous actually gets what she's been working for, meaning power.

770
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:10,360
Speaker 1: And you know, still, what we've been talking about is

771
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:13,439
Speaker 1: that what makes the villainous a villainous is that she's

772
00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:17,960
Speaker 1: still striving for more. She's still striving for more power

773
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:23,360
Speaker 1: um typically over the protagonist or the heroine, And Gaily writes,

774
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:26,799
Speaker 1: somewhere in there, they stop caring about what other people think,

775
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 1: and they get what they want, and they turn it

776
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:33,680
Speaker 1: into cautionary tales. Something bad is waiting for the woman

777
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:37,359
Speaker 1: who goes that way. We believe it and we repeat it.

778
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:42,320
Speaker 1: I mean, we're basically trained through everything from folk tales

779
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:44,920
Speaker 1: to being read stories as we're growing up, to watching

780
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:46,920
Speaker 1: movies now as grown ups trying to catch up on

781
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:51,520
Speaker 1: nineties pop culture, we're told that women with power are

782
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 1: to be we're to be suspicious of them. Well, and

783
00:51:55,520 --> 00:51:57,960
Speaker 1: that up until recently. I do think the narrative is

784
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:04,040
Speaker 1: changing um, in part because of major successes like Frozen Um.

785
00:52:04,080 --> 00:52:09,880
Speaker 1: But for so long, the underlying message was that really

786
00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:14,279
Speaker 1: the only honorable aim for a woman would be to

787
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:19,280
Speaker 1: find her prince charming. Yes, to be quiet and sweet

788
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:22,799
Speaker 1: and modestly dressed and wait for the hero to come

789
00:52:22,840 --> 00:52:25,440
Speaker 1: save you in the tower, be the damsel in distress,

790
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:29,759
Speaker 1: rather than doing it for yourself, like Maleficent with a

791
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:32,319
Speaker 1: head dress. That's right. I wonder if I could start

792
00:52:32,320 --> 00:52:35,279
Speaker 1: wearing a head dress. Listen, you can. The only thing

793
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:41,080
Speaker 1: stopping you it was getting getting a head dress. You're right.

794
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:43,719
Speaker 1: Maybe I could just get like a fascinator, you know,

795
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:46,280
Speaker 1: maybe you know Holly from stuff you missed in history

796
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:48,400
Speaker 1: class can hook you up. I know, But I just

797
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 1: always wear a T shirt and jeans. Would it be weird? Maybe?

798
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:53,839
Speaker 1: If it's would be like your flair? You know, you're

799
00:52:54,920 --> 00:52:57,719
Speaker 1: like how pick up artists are encouraged to always like

800
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:01,920
Speaker 1: wear something that will spark conversation, So years can be

801
00:53:02,040 --> 00:53:04,799
Speaker 1: a fascinator. I think I have killed this idea for

802
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:08,320
Speaker 1: you now. Yeah. Also, my soul, that's fine, I'm turning

803
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 1: into a villainess as we speak. But because of all

804
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:19,960
Speaker 1: of these rich layers and convention defiance that these villainesses

805
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:23,399
Speaker 1: tend to exhibit, a lot of people are calling for

806
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:28,960
Speaker 1: more of them and more fleshed out, more interesting female villains,

807
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:31,239
Speaker 1: Like give us more. Yeah, I know, I mean, I

808
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:34,880
Speaker 1: feel like we typically have been so starved for women

809
00:53:34,920 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 1: who don't fall into stereotypical save the damsel in distress

810
00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 1: categories that of course we would be excited to see

811
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:46,359
Speaker 1: women in these crazy villainess roles. I mean, I would

812
00:53:46,440 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 1: argue that, like, maybe we should just get more three

813
00:53:50,520 --> 00:53:54,439
Speaker 1: dimensional women characters in general, rather than having them need

814
00:53:54,520 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 1: to be amazing amy from Gone Girl. Well, and one

815
00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:01,120
Speaker 1: thing we haven't mentioned that we absolutely need to highlight

816
00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:09,040
Speaker 1: is how, arguably, nowhere else in mainstream cinema big screen,

817
00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:14,880
Speaker 1: small screen do you so reliably see any sort of

818
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 1: body diversity like you do with villainess is now. Of course,

819
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:22,520
Speaker 1: if they are the more sexualized cat suit wearing ones,

820
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:26,960
Speaker 1: they're gonna look, you know, like supermodels are gonna look

821
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 1: like halle Berry. But when you think about the Sanderson

822
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:36,000
Speaker 1: sisters and Ursula, you know you do have fuller figured

823
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:39,360
Speaker 1: women in there now. Of course, it also says something

824
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 1: about the fact that they are deviating from you know,

825
00:54:42,760 --> 00:54:46,440
Speaker 1: that uh thin ideal, and that also says a lot

826
00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:50,640
Speaker 1: about our fat phobic society for sure. But that's also

827
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:54,080
Speaker 1: a convincing argument to see more of them and to

828
00:54:54,160 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 1: also have them be more three dimensional. Yes, yes, because,

829
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:00,920
Speaker 1: as we've clearly been talking king about, even though the

830
00:55:00,920 --> 00:55:03,719
Speaker 1: Sanderson's sisters are villains and they're evil, we love them.

831
00:55:04,239 --> 00:55:08,239
Speaker 1: I love those women, even though you know all your

832
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:15,800
Speaker 1: faiths are problematic. Um. And Kelsey McKenney over at vox says, yeah. Maybe. Um.

833
00:55:15,880 --> 00:55:19,319
Speaker 1: She argues that, yes, male villains have tended to get

834
00:55:19,360 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 1: the juicier, more complex roles, with fleshed out backstories and

835
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:27,400
Speaker 1: rich motivations. Um. Possibly, she says, because we love the

836
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:32,680
Speaker 1: bad boys. We love complicated, difficult, evil genius men. She

837
00:55:32,800 --> 00:55:34,880
Speaker 1: does point out by the way that whole entire books

838
00:55:34,880 --> 00:55:37,879
Speaker 1: have been dedicated to pop cultures difficult men. I feel

839
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:42,440
Speaker 1: like there's one that has Tony soprano in the title. Well,

840
00:55:42,480 --> 00:55:45,880
Speaker 1: you do have the whole Wicked series, and how incredibly

841
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:48,919
Speaker 1: successful that's been. That's true, which is all focused on

842
00:55:49,480 --> 00:55:54,520
Speaker 1: the Witches. Um yeah, and she uh McKenny goes back

843
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:58,040
Speaker 1: through our pop culture villainous history and says that, yeah,

844
00:55:58,120 --> 00:56:01,359
Speaker 1: I mean they're great in their fabulous um, but they

845
00:56:01,400 --> 00:56:04,240
Speaker 1: have tended to be, like Maleficent, a little bit flatter.

846
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:08,520
Speaker 1: They tend to be used as plot devices. Um like,

847
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:13,160
Speaker 1: she says, the original Maleficent and um, the wicked Witch

848
00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 1: of the West, who, yes, she has the motivation to

849
00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:19,640
Speaker 1: avenge her sister's death, but is really just kind of

850
00:56:19,680 --> 00:56:23,120
Speaker 1: shrieking and vengeful on screen before she melts um Or.

851
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 1: She points out Nurse Ratchet in One flu Over the

852
00:56:26,120 --> 00:56:30,600
Speaker 1: Cucous Nest, who's evil but she has no real backstory. Okay, Also,

853
00:56:32,160 --> 00:56:34,880
Speaker 1: I had totally forgotten even though I've read the book

854
00:56:35,000 --> 00:56:38,880
Speaker 1: and seen the film. In One flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest,

855
00:56:39,640 --> 00:56:43,600
Speaker 1: Nurse Ratchet ends up getting hers at the end in

856
00:56:43,640 --> 00:56:47,000
Speaker 1: the most horrifying way. Like, yes, she is pure evil

857
00:56:47,080 --> 00:56:53,520
Speaker 1: and she treats patients in this psychiatric word terribly um,

858
00:56:53,640 --> 00:56:58,880
Speaker 1: but her come upance is like very close to sexual assault.

859
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:02,479
Speaker 1: So to. At the end of the film, Randall, who's

860
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:05,960
Speaker 1: played by Jack Nicholson um ends up getting in a

861
00:57:06,040 --> 00:57:11,400
Speaker 1: brawl with Nurse Ratchett and he rips her uniform and

862
00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:15,560
Speaker 1: I can't remember if it's like more graphic in the book,

863
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:19,440
Speaker 1: but he yeah, like tears her clothes off, and it's

864
00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:27,960
Speaker 1: just it's very violent. And while okay, she's she's horrible. Um,

865
00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:32,520
Speaker 1: female villains having their come up and be sexual violence

866
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:38,480
Speaker 1: is not cool like that that says a lot about

867
00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:44,000
Speaker 1: just like an outright hatred for women across the board.

868
00:57:45,040 --> 00:57:47,240
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think that that ties in and

869
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:51,040
Speaker 1: meshes perfectly with all of those theories about femininity and

870
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:54,640
Speaker 1: sexuality being deceitful and a disguise used to tempt the

871
00:57:54,720 --> 00:57:59,080
Speaker 1: helpless pure man. Well and and Nurse Ratchet is such

872
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:04,000
Speaker 1: the opposite of the stereotypical like nurturing perhaps kind of

873
00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:08,920
Speaker 1: sexy nurse. And also the fight between them is precipitated

874
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:14,840
Speaker 1: by Randall, like sneaking to women into the hospital. Um.

875
00:58:15,040 --> 00:58:18,400
Speaker 1: So anyway, I had I had kind of blocked that out,

876
00:58:18,440 --> 00:58:22,120
Speaker 1: I think until I started reading for this episode, because

877
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:24,600
Speaker 1: at first I was like, oh, yeah, Nurse Ratchet, she's awful,

878
00:58:24,640 --> 00:58:26,440
Speaker 1: and then I was like oh wait, but then then

879
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:31,520
Speaker 1: at the end things get very very uncomfortable and not okay. Yeah,

880
00:58:31,560 --> 00:58:33,280
Speaker 1: And I mean, I I think you know a lot

881
00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:37,320
Speaker 1: of what you were talking about with body representation and

882
00:58:37,520 --> 00:58:41,000
Speaker 1: you know, just having women who look different and speak

883
00:58:41,000 --> 00:58:44,520
Speaker 1: differently and act differently than the traditional heroin on screen.

884
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:47,600
Speaker 1: I think a lot of that goes to just under

885
00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:52,520
Speaker 1: representation of women in general, um and how we do

886
00:58:52,680 --> 00:58:56,160
Speaker 1: tend to with the way that women are represented on screen.

887
00:58:56,720 --> 00:58:59,320
Speaker 1: It is so easy still to fall back on tropes

888
00:58:59,360 --> 00:59:02,680
Speaker 1: to punish women for their sexuality or or breaking gender

889
00:59:02,720 --> 00:59:06,760
Speaker 1: norms and uh. This was also coming from mckenny's box piece.

890
00:59:07,840 --> 00:59:10,840
Speaker 1: She says that male characters outnumber female characters three to

891
00:59:10,960 --> 00:59:15,560
Speaker 1: one in family films, so like a Disney movie, and

892
00:59:17,000 --> 00:59:20,480
Speaker 1: of male TV characters are shown on the job in

893
00:59:20,520 --> 00:59:25,439
Speaker 1: comparison to just twenty of female characters. So women either

894
00:59:25,520 --> 00:59:28,000
Speaker 1: aren't there or when they are there, they're not shown

895
00:59:28,000 --> 00:59:32,000
Speaker 1: in positions of power. We're seeking power. But some would

896
00:59:32,080 --> 00:59:35,960
Speaker 1: argue that it's definitely getting better, not necessarily because we're

897
00:59:36,000 --> 00:59:41,080
Speaker 1: seeing um more three dimensional maleficens everywhere, but because of

898
00:59:41,120 --> 00:59:43,880
Speaker 1: the rise of the female anti hero. Oh my god,

899
00:59:44,520 --> 00:59:49,400
Speaker 1: my favorite anti hero right now is Phoebe waller Bridge

900
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:53,120
Speaker 1: on fleabag O You and Me both girl. Oh, I

901
00:59:53,280 --> 00:59:56,920
Speaker 1: Binge watched there's six episodes on Amazon. I Binge watched it.

902
00:59:57,600 --> 01:00:01,920
Speaker 1: I I belly laugh the entire time I was watching that,

903
01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:04,840
Speaker 1: And at the end the last episode, I was alternating

904
01:00:04,840 --> 01:00:08,200
Speaker 1: between laughing and sobbing like a crazy person. It was

905
01:00:08,800 --> 01:00:12,080
Speaker 1: such a good show. She is such an amazing character.

906
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:16,520
Speaker 1: I'm a little obsessed. And I just saw an article

907
01:00:16,560 --> 01:00:18,560
Speaker 1: where was it? Was it on Refinery I just saw

908
01:00:18,560 --> 01:00:21,600
Speaker 1: an article about what her lipstick shade is on that

909
01:00:21,640 --> 01:00:24,919
Speaker 1: TV show. Such a good lipshade. Oh yeah, she's wearing

910
01:00:24,920 --> 01:00:27,800
Speaker 1: the statement lip um. I would also like to give

911
01:00:27,840 --> 01:00:32,240
Speaker 1: a shout out to Sharon Horgan, who stars in Catastrophe

912
01:00:32,760 --> 01:00:36,280
Speaker 1: UM and she's also the showrunner of Sarah Jessica Parker's

913
01:00:36,320 --> 01:00:43,120
Speaker 1: new HBO show Divorce, which I'm not loving, but I

914
01:00:43,240 --> 01:00:47,240
Speaker 1: love Sharon Horgan. She's she's hilarious. I mean, if you

915
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:50,919
Speaker 1: can share the screen with Rob Delaney and uh, hold

916
01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:54,880
Speaker 1: your own, it's just amazing. And their chemistry is fantastic,

917
01:00:54,920 --> 01:01:00,160
Speaker 1: and she is flawed and three dimensional and wonderful. Well,

918
01:01:02,360 --> 01:01:05,080
Speaker 1: and that you said something, it's so key and it's flawed.

919
01:01:05,640 --> 01:01:09,600
Speaker 1: And whether you're a villain or an anti hero, and

920
01:01:09,640 --> 01:01:12,840
Speaker 1: typically if it's not a fairy tale anti hero equates

921
01:01:12,880 --> 01:01:17,400
Speaker 1: to just regular woman with flaws and bumps and bruises

922
01:01:17,400 --> 01:01:22,960
Speaker 1: and all. But um McKenney writes about how when you

923
01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:27,120
Speaker 1: don't let women be either the villain or just the

924
01:01:27,160 --> 01:01:31,760
Speaker 1: flawed anti hero, that ties into ideas about benevolent sexism,

925
01:01:31,800 --> 01:01:34,880
Speaker 1: that like, make sure if we're gonna have a heroine,

926
01:01:35,040 --> 01:01:39,120
Speaker 1: she's going to be upstanding and you know, pure and

927
01:01:39,160 --> 01:01:41,960
Speaker 1: innocent and in need of help. You know, we can't.

928
01:01:42,280 --> 01:01:45,520
Speaker 1: We can't let the woman hero have flaws and potentially

929
01:01:45,520 --> 01:01:49,240
Speaker 1: be angry. Well, that's why Jessica Jones is such a

930
01:01:49,360 --> 01:01:53,320
Speaker 1: refreshing change from all of that too. Although still all

931
01:01:53,440 --> 01:01:58,240
Speaker 1: the people that we've been naming so far white. Yeah,

932
01:01:58,400 --> 01:02:00,880
Speaker 1: so we've still got catching up to you. Well, and

933
01:02:00,960 --> 01:02:04,240
Speaker 1: let me tell you so I noticed this as I was,

934
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:07,600
Speaker 1: you know, pulling notes out of all of these sources

935
01:02:07,640 --> 01:02:10,000
Speaker 1: that we read, and I was like, where are the

936
01:02:10,160 --> 01:02:13,080
Speaker 1: black women? Where are the Asian women? Like? And so

937
01:02:13,160 --> 01:02:17,680
Speaker 1: I I did some searches on comic book sites. But listeners,

938
01:02:17,720 --> 01:02:21,000
Speaker 1: I need your help because I am not a comic

939
01:02:21,000 --> 01:02:25,000
Speaker 1: book person. And so I was specifically googling, for instance,

940
01:02:25,400 --> 01:02:29,000
Speaker 1: black comic book supervillains, and I came across a couple

941
01:02:29,040 --> 01:02:31,720
Speaker 1: of names. But when I tried to search for them elsewhere,

942
01:02:32,800 --> 01:02:36,440
Speaker 1: like they either weren't true villains or I couldn't find

943
01:02:36,680 --> 01:02:41,400
Speaker 1: more and better fleshed out info well. On TV, though,

944
01:02:42,040 --> 01:02:44,920
Speaker 1: we do have women of color being anti heroes. You've

945
01:02:44,960 --> 01:02:48,960
Speaker 1: got Cookie on Empire, and you have Analyst Keating in

946
01:02:49,280 --> 01:02:51,840
Speaker 1: How to get Away with Murder. There are times for

947
01:02:51,920 --> 01:02:55,520
Speaker 1: sure when you could argue that Olivia Pope is an

948
01:02:55,560 --> 01:02:59,280
Speaker 1: anti hero. Is the show Gotham still on because Jada

949
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:02,720
Speaker 1: Pink GTT Smith played Fish Mooney on that show. That's

950
01:03:02,720 --> 01:03:05,000
Speaker 1: a villain. I don't know if Gotham still on though,

951
01:03:05,560 --> 01:03:08,880
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not sure. I've never watched it. It's not

952
01:03:08,960 --> 01:03:11,240
Speaker 1: my cup of tea, but I know I know some

953
01:03:11,320 --> 01:03:16,200
Speaker 1: people love it, Gotham watchers. But okay, Kristen, Um, I

954
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:18,480
Speaker 1: forgot to mention, you know when you talked about Nurse

955
01:03:18,560 --> 01:03:22,800
Speaker 1: Ratchet being punished in almost a sexual assault style way. Um,

956
01:03:22,840 --> 01:03:25,800
Speaker 1: that's one theory that Dan wall Over The Mary Sue

957
01:03:25,960 --> 01:03:30,280
Speaker 1: in June talked about that there are issues when it

958
01:03:30,280 --> 01:03:34,320
Speaker 1: comes to screenwriters grappling with how to defeat a villain

959
01:03:34,360 --> 01:03:36,720
Speaker 1: and that villain is a woman. Because typically when you've

960
01:03:36,720 --> 01:03:39,640
Speaker 1: got a villain, the bad guy and the good guy fighting.

961
01:03:40,040 --> 01:03:43,000
Speaker 1: It's fighting, and it's bloody, and it's violent, and it

962
01:03:43,120 --> 01:03:44,960
Speaker 1: can be scary and awful and the and the bad

963
01:03:45,000 --> 01:03:47,680
Speaker 1: guy ends up dying or whatever. Um. And so Dan

964
01:03:47,760 --> 01:03:53,800
Speaker 1: wall Is like, I just wonder if screenwriters are nervous

965
01:03:53,840 --> 01:03:57,320
Speaker 1: about having some big epic final scene battle between a

966
01:03:57,360 --> 01:03:59,840
Speaker 1: man and a woman and and his thing, I know,

967
01:04:00,120 --> 01:04:03,760
Speaker 1: Kristen shaking her head walls. Thing that he argues is like,

968
01:04:04,160 --> 01:04:06,120
Speaker 1: if that really is what it is, because that's just

969
01:04:06,160 --> 01:04:10,080
Speaker 1: a theory that he's wondering about. Just right, write better

970
01:04:10,120 --> 01:04:12,960
Speaker 1: stories that don't have to involve punishing nurse Ratchet by

971
01:04:13,000 --> 01:04:15,200
Speaker 1: taking her clothes off or whatever. Yeah, there are all

972
01:04:15,200 --> 01:04:19,320
Speaker 1: other forms of confrontation that might not necessarily involve violence

973
01:04:19,440 --> 01:04:23,160
Speaker 1: a So, yeah, be more creative. Also, uh talked to

974
01:04:23,240 --> 01:04:27,720
Speaker 1: Joss Weeden because he made Buffy the Vampire Slayer if

975
01:04:27,720 --> 01:04:33,840
Speaker 1: he can make a seven season hit show where Buffy

976
01:04:33,960 --> 01:04:37,919
Speaker 1: is getting beaten up sometimes, I mean granted, and she's

977
01:04:37,920 --> 01:04:42,000
Speaker 1: defending herself, but like when early in uh, what is

978
01:04:42,040 --> 01:04:45,000
Speaker 1: it in the second season when spoiler alert she and

979
01:04:45,120 --> 01:04:49,920
Speaker 1: Angel fight, it is harrowing to watch. Um. And the

980
01:04:49,960 --> 01:04:55,160
Speaker 1: same with Jessica Jones, where like she's fighting, um, and

981
01:04:55,600 --> 01:04:59,040
Speaker 1: it can be difficult to watch, but there's a difference

982
01:04:59,080 --> 01:05:06,000
Speaker 1: between scenes of women fighting and depictions of violence against women. Yes,

983
01:05:06,120 --> 01:05:09,840
Speaker 1: which also going back to Casino right quick, Oh my god,

984
01:05:10,240 --> 01:05:12,480
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of that in there, which is

985
01:05:13,640 --> 01:05:16,840
Speaker 1: I just don't. I don't have the stomach for it anymore.

986
01:05:16,960 --> 01:05:21,640
Speaker 1: My threshold is so low for that, I can't. So,

987
01:05:21,880 --> 01:05:25,040
Speaker 1: I mean, we need better villains, We need people to

988
01:05:25,040 --> 01:05:27,360
Speaker 1: write better villains, but we also just need people to

989
01:05:27,400 --> 01:05:32,000
Speaker 1: write better women right well. And something really telling about

990
01:05:32,480 --> 01:05:34,440
Speaker 1: some of the shows that we've been talking about recently,

991
01:05:34,640 --> 01:05:38,040
Speaker 1: with say Scandal, how to Get Away with Murder, Um,

992
01:05:38,160 --> 01:05:40,800
Speaker 1: you have a woman of color who's a showrunner. You've

993
01:05:40,800 --> 01:05:44,560
Speaker 1: got Shonda rhymes with Jessica Jones, you have also a

994
01:05:44,600 --> 01:05:47,520
Speaker 1: woman's show runner, and they just announced for season two

995
01:05:47,520 --> 01:05:50,360
Speaker 1: every single episode will be directed by a woman. Like

996
01:05:50,640 --> 01:05:53,840
Speaker 1: this is why diversity is not just a buzzword that

997
01:05:53,880 --> 01:05:58,200
Speaker 1: it matters. And same thing for Black Panther and tanahassee

998
01:05:58,320 --> 01:06:02,120
Speaker 1: Coates coming in and taking that over and completely reimagining

999
01:06:02,400 --> 01:06:06,640
Speaker 1: that world with a black superhero at the center, because

1000
01:06:08,160 --> 01:06:12,760
Speaker 1: maybe now we can get more stories that reflect richer

1001
01:06:12,800 --> 01:06:16,360
Speaker 1: inner lives, but also don't just fall back on tropes

1002
01:06:16,480 --> 01:06:21,120
Speaker 1: about woman as sexy equals bad and dangerous, woman as

1003
01:06:21,160 --> 01:06:27,880
Speaker 1: ambitious equals dangerous, woman as anything over size, too bad,

1004
01:06:28,640 --> 01:06:34,840
Speaker 1: and over the age of what like, which means that

1005
01:06:34,880 --> 01:06:38,680
Speaker 1: you and I are just old hags. Yeah, so, who

1006
01:06:38,760 --> 01:06:43,520
Speaker 1: are your favorite villains? Listeners? Were there any that we

1007
01:06:43,560 --> 01:06:46,080
Speaker 1: didn't mention? I'm sure there are who you were hoping

1008
01:06:46,120 --> 01:06:48,600
Speaker 1: that we would cover, but we didn't. Let us know.

1009
01:06:48,760 --> 01:06:52,720
Speaker 1: Help us fill in our our villainous cannon. And we'd

1010
01:06:52,760 --> 01:06:54,160
Speaker 1: love to know all of your thoughts. We know so

1011
01:06:54,200 --> 01:06:57,600
Speaker 1: many of you are pop culture junkies, so give us

1012
01:06:57,640 --> 01:06:59,960
Speaker 1: all of your insights. Mom Stuff at how Stuff Work

1013
01:07:00,080 --> 01:07:02,600
Speaker 1: dot com is our email address. You can also tweet

1014
01:07:02,720 --> 01:07:06,840
Speaker 1: us at Mom's Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook. And

1015
01:07:06,840 --> 01:07:08,840
Speaker 1: we've got a couple of messages to share with you

1016
01:07:08,880 --> 01:07:17,960
Speaker 1: when we come right back from a quick break. We

1017
01:07:18,080 --> 01:07:20,840
Speaker 1: have some letters here about a woman who has decidedly

1018
01:07:21,400 --> 01:07:24,680
Speaker 1: a hero. I have a letter here from Polly in

1019
01:07:24,760 --> 01:07:28,720
Speaker 1: response to our Shirley Chisholm episode. She says, the first

1020
01:07:28,920 --> 01:07:30,840
Speaker 1: I heard of Shirley Chisen was on a trip to

1021
01:07:30,880 --> 01:07:33,640
Speaker 1: New York, where I wandered into a Brooklyn Delhi alone

1022
01:07:34,040 --> 01:07:36,480
Speaker 1: and was grace to sit with a sweet older fellow

1023
01:07:36,880 --> 01:07:39,280
Speaker 1: while I devoured my pastrami. He told me how he'd

1024
01:07:39,280 --> 01:07:43,760
Speaker 1: worked right beside the late great unbossed and unbought Chishlm

1025
01:07:43,800 --> 01:07:47,200
Speaker 1: in her campaigns. That man had the twinkliest twinkle in

1026
01:07:47,320 --> 01:07:50,000
Speaker 1: his eye as he taught me about her. Flash forward

1027
01:07:50,040 --> 01:07:52,600
Speaker 1: a year and I'm a field organizer for Denise Juno

1028
01:07:52,720 --> 01:07:55,480
Speaker 1: to take Montana's soul seat in the House of Representatives.

1029
01:07:55,680 --> 01:07:57,560
Speaker 1: Who I noticed you gave a shout out to on

1030
01:07:57,560 --> 01:08:00,760
Speaker 1: your Facebook page? What's so special a out? Her potential

1031
01:08:00,760 --> 01:08:03,440
Speaker 1: nomination comes not only from the fact that she's a

1032
01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:08,080
Speaker 1: two term state superintendent who radically lifted graduation rates on reservations,

1033
01:08:08,200 --> 01:08:10,240
Speaker 1: or that she would be the first American Indian and

1034
01:08:10,280 --> 01:08:13,120
Speaker 1: not to mention, lesbian woman elected to Congress, but that

1035
01:08:13,200 --> 01:08:16,200
Speaker 1: she'd be taking the seat on the one hundredth anniversary

1036
01:08:16,280 --> 01:08:19,120
Speaker 1: of the first woman ever being elected to the House

1037
01:08:19,160 --> 01:08:23,200
Speaker 1: of Representatives. And that's right. It was Montana who voted

1038
01:08:23,240 --> 01:08:27,360
Speaker 1: Jeanette Rankin into office in nineteen sixteen, before women even

1039
01:08:27,400 --> 01:08:30,599
Speaker 1: won the right to vote nationally. Montana has not sent

1040
01:08:30,640 --> 01:08:32,840
Speaker 1: a woman to Congress in a hundred years, and it's

1041
01:08:32,880 --> 01:08:36,080
Speaker 1: about time, I seriously could not get through the hours

1042
01:08:36,120 --> 01:08:38,719
Speaker 1: of canvassing all over my city without listening to Sminty

1043
01:08:38,800 --> 01:08:41,880
Speaker 1: between the doors I knock on. I always enjoy pressing

1044
01:08:41,880 --> 01:08:45,520
Speaker 1: play on my phone after suffering thinly veiled racist, sexist,

1045
01:08:45,600 --> 01:08:48,320
Speaker 1: homophobic reasons that a person at the door won't vote

1046
01:08:48,320 --> 01:08:51,559
Speaker 1: for Denise to know, I just love skipping past the

1047
01:08:51,640 --> 01:08:53,920
Speaker 1: men mowing their lawns as the two of you take

1048
01:08:54,000 --> 01:08:57,920
Speaker 1: a nuanced, intersectional look at something or another. I've stopped

1049
01:08:57,920 --> 01:09:00,040
Speaker 1: turning down the volume when I passed these men and

1050
01:09:00,280 --> 01:09:02,880
Speaker 1: Trump sign in the yard. Be damned. I'll end my

1051
01:09:02,960 --> 01:09:06,080
Speaker 1: letter with a current ZEITGEISTI quote from Jeanette Rankin, our

1052
01:09:06,160 --> 01:09:10,240
Speaker 1: first ever congresswoman. If I had my life to live over,

1053
01:09:10,320 --> 01:09:12,800
Speaker 1: I would do it all again, but this time I

1054
01:09:12,920 --> 01:09:17,120
Speaker 1: would be nastier. And that, my friends, is what we

1055
01:09:17,200 --> 01:09:20,880
Speaker 1: call a good omen for Hillary's nomination. All my best, Polly,

1056
01:09:22,080 --> 01:09:26,280
Speaker 1: I love that quote. I want that cross stitched. I

1057
01:09:26,280 --> 01:09:29,560
Speaker 1: bet it's already on at State. Okay, I have a

1058
01:09:29,640 --> 01:09:34,240
Speaker 1: letter here from Leslie, also about Shirley Chisholm, and Leslie writes,

1059
01:09:34,840 --> 01:09:37,320
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you all know about this, but

1060
01:09:37,520 --> 01:09:40,280
Speaker 1: surely is one of the few women who have an

1061
01:09:40,320 --> 01:09:45,519
Speaker 1: official portrait in the US capital. Similarly to uh, fellow

1062
01:09:45,520 --> 01:09:51,519
Speaker 1: badass Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin from Montana, Chisholm's portrait is extremely unique.

1063
01:09:51,600 --> 01:09:53,720
Speaker 1: Not only does it depict her standing in front of

1064
01:09:53,760 --> 01:09:57,200
Speaker 1: the White House in a fabulously loud printed dress, but

1065
01:09:57,280 --> 01:09:59,840
Speaker 1: it's painted in such a beautiful, vivid color that it

1066
01:10:00,160 --> 01:10:03,400
Speaker 1: man's attention. I used to be a Congressional intern and

1067
01:10:03,400 --> 01:10:05,519
Speaker 1: would always make sure to point out the portrait on

1068
01:10:05,600 --> 01:10:09,280
Speaker 1: tours that I would give to constituents, outlining her importance

1069
01:10:09,320 --> 01:10:12,040
Speaker 1: in political history, not only as a woman, but a

1070
01:10:12,080 --> 01:10:16,840
Speaker 1: woman of color, usually concluding that she was quote an

1071
01:10:16,880 --> 01:10:21,080
Speaker 1: overall awesome lady, Caroline. We've got to take a field

1072
01:10:21,080 --> 01:10:24,800
Speaker 1: trip now. Yeah, that portrait ps is incredible. I want

1073
01:10:24,800 --> 01:10:28,360
Speaker 1: to see it. I love it in in person. Listeners,

1074
01:10:28,439 --> 01:10:31,519
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your delightful letters that charm

1075
01:10:31,600 --> 01:10:34,519
Speaker 1: us every day mom. Stuff at how stuff works dot

1076
01:10:34,520 --> 01:10:37,120
Speaker 1: com is where you can send them and for links

1077
01:10:37,120 --> 01:10:39,559
Speaker 1: to all of our social media as well as all

1078
01:10:39,600 --> 01:10:42,519
Speaker 1: of our blogs, videos and podcasts with our sources so

1079
01:10:42,600 --> 01:10:46,519
Speaker 1: you can learn even more about Villain's head on over

1080
01:10:46,600 --> 01:10:53,680
Speaker 1: to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more

1081
01:10:53,720 --> 01:10:56,320
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Visit how stuff

1082
01:10:56,360 --> 01:11:00,120
Speaker 1: Works dot com, m