Speaker 1: On the beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
Speaker 1: have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
Speaker 1: and husbands, or do they have in individualism the patriarchy?
Speaker 1: Zef in best start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin,
Speaker 1: Miss Jamie, and we're here to talk about movies and
Speaker 1: how women are portrayed in those movies. Women rule, women rule,
Speaker 1: not according to movies, So no women suck. And that's
Speaker 1: especially true of the movie we're talking about today. We
Speaker 1: got a hum ding or today. Man, I'm sorry if
Speaker 1: this episode ends up being like two and a half
Speaker 1: hours long, because I have many pages of notes. I've
Speaker 1: got a lot. Yeah, there's a lot to say. I
Speaker 1: watched this movie once drunk, once sober, and tried to
Speaker 1: figure out what I was saying in the drunk notes.
Speaker 1: We'll see if I can piece it apart. I watched
Speaker 1: probably the first fifteen minutes of it on Netflix and
Speaker 1: then I was like, Oh, this movie blows. And then
Speaker 1: I happened to have the Riff Tracks version of it,
Speaker 1: so I watched the rest of that and it was
Speaker 1: a much more enjoyable way to watch it. Yes, but hey,
Speaker 1: let's jump in and introduce our guests. Let's do it.
Speaker 1: He is an educator, but his most impressive credit is
Speaker 1: that he is the best friend of a one Caitlin Durante.
Speaker 1: It's j T. Taylor. Guys, thanks for having me. Thanks
Speaker 1: for being here, my friend. Yeah. Thanks, that was a
Speaker 1: good introduction. I'm I teach the youth of America about
Speaker 1: commas and quotation marks and commas inside of quotation marks.
Speaker 1: What would you say is the most important piece of punctuation? Puberty? Okay, amazing? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's usually where we start at the school year in
Speaker 1: English class, puberty, and by the end they're shaving. It's great,
Speaker 1: well in class and everything full service. That's amazing. In Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: I miss shaving at school. You're you're in junior high
Speaker 1: and you're like, let's sneak into the bathroom and shave
Speaker 1: each other. My friends just shaven, shave it away. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: this podcast is inspired by the Bechtel Tests. Right, do
Speaker 1: you know what that is? Maybe? Maybe not. If you don't,
Speaker 1: we're here to tell you that it's a test you
Speaker 1: that you apply to movies or whatever, anything that has
Speaker 1: a story. The test requires that the story has two
Speaker 1: female characters. They have to talk to each other, they
Speaker 1: have to have names, and their conversation can't be about
Speaker 1: a man. I would honestly be fascinated if this is
Speaker 1: the first episode someone would choose to listen to, because
Speaker 1: it speaks more to their movie taste than anything aft, like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is going to be my jumping off point for feminism. Hey, Jes,
Speaker 1: tell us about your your history. Well we're talking about Twilight,
Speaker 1: do you know? Oh no, you've misprepared. Were already give
Speaker 1: it five film. So I'm an educator that means I
Speaker 1: teach kids. And during my first interview, I knew this
Speaker 1: is the job, This is my dream job because the
Speaker 1: summer reading included Twilight. Real, what time do I start? Who?
Speaker 1: In their right mind? For what age? The Massachusetts? There there?
Speaker 1: It was a high school book for the high school
Speaker 1: reading list. It's not there anymore, right, So what what
Speaker 1: year would this have been? Tight? So that was when
Speaker 1: I was in high school. That's crazy. Yeah, do you
Speaker 1: want to transfer? Yeah? I want to go back in time.
Speaker 1: My mom loved these books and she bought the box
Speaker 1: set and was like, you've got to read them. She'd
Speaker 1: later do the same thing with fifty shades, but I passed.
Speaker 1: It was like your commings on these books. This is
Speaker 1: chriss Well. I first encountered Twilight by going to visit
Speaker 1: my friend J T. Hi. Yeah, that's my fault, that's
Speaker 1: my It was before I lived in Boston, and I
Speaker 1: think I went to visit you and you were like, hey,
Speaker 1: got to watch this movie Twilight. We watched it and
Speaker 1: it was bad, and you really at the time like
Speaker 1: I loved it. Those movies. I spoke. We got into
Speaker 1: fights about these movies because you were wrong and I
Speaker 1: was right, no, because I have been right all along
Speaker 1: that they've always been terrible, and now you're coming consistently
Speaker 1: believed that there. I've consistently been a detractor, but I
Speaker 1: was on board for you know, it's like this sort
Speaker 1: of like twist my arm. I guess I'll go because
Speaker 1: all my friends are going, but I think it's stupid.
Speaker 1: But I would always go. I mean same like I've seen.
Speaker 1: I think I saw the last three movies in the
Speaker 1: theater really midnight. I saw the first one in theaters God,
Speaker 1: and then I read the first book and a half
Speaker 1: and it was like, holy sh it. The pros in
Speaker 1: these books garbage, and I couldn't keep going. Also, I've
Speaker 1: been a long time team Jacob. Oh, I agree, I agree,
Speaker 1: I'm okay. Team Jacob is the right team. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I agree. Also worth mentioning that our producer
Speaker 1: Aristotle used to be a big Twilight head. Really wait,
Speaker 1: what team were you on? Okay, it's good that we
Speaker 1: have a split room. This is going to be good
Speaker 1: for discourse. I don't understand. Well, okay, we'll get to Edward.
Speaker 1: I just to Moody, give me, give me Jacob. He's
Speaker 1: got He's a red blooded American horny wolf. I'm into it.
Speaker 1: They have good banter. They have an actual friendship. Yes,
Speaker 1: it doesn't start with like I'm gonna just look at
Speaker 1: you for a long time, although that is. That's how
Speaker 1: my high school boyfriend, uh he ensnared you, just by
Speaker 1: staring at you for a while. Yeah, there was one
Speaker 1: time where someone was like, oh, Steven stared at you
Speaker 1: for the whole math test. All right, I'll date him.
Speaker 1: He was really good at math, so I finished shortly
Speaker 1: and then he was just like it worked. We dive
Speaker 1: for four years. Romantic Nope, nope, listen, it was great
Speaker 1: at the time. Okay, I was, I was young. I
Speaker 1: was I was a baby. Gay Mowanna hadn't come out yet,
Speaker 1: so I didn't really know who I was. It just
Speaker 1: it spoke to me, and uh, I don't regret that
Speaker 1: books are movies first. For you the movie it was
Speaker 1: the trailer really for New Moon, when the parent government
Speaker 1: is introduced, right, correct, I was books first. Okay, I
Speaker 1: was still, you know, really knee deep into Harry Potter
Speaker 1: at the time. And give me a breath over Harry Potter,
Speaker 1: thank you alright, already came out. I'm irrevocably over Harry Potter,
Speaker 1: who didn't learn the word or have a complay from this.
Speaker 1: We just looked up the definition this morning, ten minutes
Speaker 1: before you got here. I remember reading this these books.
Speaker 1: I think it's the second book. But there's like a
Speaker 1: part where Edward disappears and then Bella just does nothing
Speaker 1: for like three months. Yeah, that's towards the beginning of News.
Speaker 1: And there's a couple there's a couple just like blank pages,
Speaker 1: and I remember seeing that and being like, oh, you
Speaker 1: can just do nothing for three months. This is such
Speaker 1: an interesting idea. It's society. I was I was like
Speaker 1: straight up turned on by the idea of doing nothing
Speaker 1: for three months, and so I was like, well, thank
Speaker 1: you Stephanie Meyer for just, you know, making this an
Speaker 1: option for young women doing nothing for three months because
Speaker 1: they're they're like, maybe a friend should I do the
Speaker 1: recap Alright, So Twilight centers around a young Bella Swan.
Speaker 1: Don't forget, there's no way to convey that a character
Speaker 1: is attractive unless you name her Bella, which means beauty,
Speaker 1: and then also give her the last name of a
Speaker 1: sexy bird, as we saw in the Pirates of the
Speaker 1: Caribbean episode with Elizabeth. I think that there are actually
Speaker 1: very dirty and mean. Have you ever met a swan?
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm asking that as someone who
Speaker 1: actually I've met several swans and can confirm that they
Speaker 1: are the sexiest of all the birds. Swans have only
Speaker 1: been very mean to me. There's this place in Bracton
Speaker 1: called dw Fields Park and you would go, I mean
Speaker 1: maybe because they were city swans. It was very rude.
Speaker 1: You'd bring little scraps and they were loud, they were territorial.
Speaker 1: They would ship everywhere. Beautiful swan. It's it's a myth okay, well,
Speaker 1: not according to black swan, not according to the swan Princess.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of misconceptions about swans that I would
Speaker 1: like to spend. There is a lot too much. What
Speaker 1: about those other birds? How about pigeons? They have the
Speaker 1: worst reputation, But are they the worst birds? We don't
Speaker 1: know because we haven't seen enough theories about pigeons. They're
Speaker 1: about as dirty as swans. All birds are dirty and
Speaker 1: kind of scary. I think you're not wrong. Sorry, sorry
Speaker 1: to trigger all you bird lovers out there. I expect
Speaker 1: them strongly. So we've got bella swan. She moved to Forks, Washington,
Speaker 1: where there's never son. You know. She's in a new
Speaker 1: high school and she's trying to make new friends, but
Speaker 1: she's so clumsy and awkward that it's hard. Except everyone
Speaker 1: immediately loves her, including a person named Edward Cullen. He's mysterious,
Speaker 1: he's pale. He emotionally abuses her from minute one, but
Speaker 1: he's intriguing because it turns out, wow, he's a vampire.
Speaker 1: So they start to fall in love. She's like, I'm
Speaker 1: irrevocably in love with you. At one point they're playing baseball.
Speaker 1: The baseball scene is bananas. I love it. Well, this scene,
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be significant, but it is because this group
Speaker 1: of bad vampires show up who have been killing the
Speaker 1: townspeople and eating the sniffy ones. I like, I like
Speaker 1: the one named James who's always sniff in the air. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And they show up because Bella starts hanging out with
Speaker 1: the Cullen family, which is this family of vampires that
Speaker 1: have just all been turned by Carlyle are all foster children,
Speaker 1: but they're also all fucking each other. Interesting precedent that, yes,
Speaker 1: So they're all playing baseball together and the bad vampire
Speaker 1: show up because the thing with the Cullens is that
Speaker 1: they don't eat people, even though they want to. They're vegetarians,
Speaker 1: so they only eat animals. Makes sense. So the bad
Speaker 1: vampires who do eat people come by. This guy James,
Speaker 1: this lady Victoria, and let's see the one name Laurent,
Speaker 1: and they're like, I smell a human, I'm gonna eat her.
Speaker 1: And James, the lead bad vampire, Sniffy Sniffy Sniffy Sniffy Magoo,
Speaker 1: decides that he's gonna turn Bella into a project and
Speaker 1: he's gonna chase her. That's exactly great, Like he's gonna
Speaker 1: fix her fix here by drinking all of her blood.
Speaker 1: And so everyone freaks out and they're like, we gotta
Speaker 1: get away from here. So they drive to Phoenix and
Speaker 1: Bella things. Is this about Fury Road? Can we do
Speaker 1: figur Road? Oh my god, it's been done. I would
Speaker 1: rather do this than Fury Road. Honestly, I like this movie.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, No that I'm having a stroke. Jamie hates.
Speaker 1: I hate mad Mag's Fury Road. Give me any Twilight
Speaker 1: movie over it. I have to go like be here
Speaker 1: in Robert Buttons and handsome Tom hardy handsomer. I'm already boring. No,
Speaker 1: his character is born because the handsome Okay, yes, team Jacob,
Speaker 1: but kiss me on the lept. I love that he
Speaker 1: wears a wig. There's like a lot of especially later
Speaker 1: in this series, a lot of Jacob objectification, speculation on
Speaker 1: his abs. He's wearing wigs. He's like Nicole Kidman, like
Speaker 1: he's like, look at my body, look at my wig.
Speaker 1: It's great. That wig was huge on Gate Twitter. Really yeah, wait,
Speaker 1: Nicole Kidman's wig or Jacob Black's Okay, Okay, I was
Speaker 1: going to say because I was really into I feel
Speaker 1: like I've brought up this exact wig before, the one
Speaker 1: that she wears is in in Big Little Eyes, Nicole
Speaker 1: Kivin's wigg and Biggle Little Wise is something I think
Speaker 1: about at least once a week. So they're in Phoenix
Speaker 1: now and James is like, I'm when I eat you, fella,
Speaker 1: and She's like, Okay, I'm gonna die in the place
Speaker 1: of someone I love. She's okay with it, and she's
Speaker 1: fine with it. It's the opening line from the movie,
Speaker 1: right and and just so, so there's no mistake made.
Speaker 1: You see a deer being consumed, as if to say, like,
Speaker 1: don't worry, we have no problem selling out our protagonists
Speaker 1: in the place of someone hot. Yeah. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a movie that starts with a female deer being hunted
Speaker 1: by a male hunter. And that's a perfect metaphor for
Speaker 1: how I grew up in Pennsylvania. Did you get Hunting
Speaker 1: season days off? We did, but I didn't go. I
Speaker 1: stayed home and played video games like a normal person.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: have to go to school on the first day of
Speaker 1: Like there just was no school in the first day
Speaker 1: of Buck season and does season? Who does sides? But
Speaker 1: the first day of Buck season, and it's different. The
Speaker 1: Bock season and Do season are two different seasons. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's the Vaultori the designs. Actually this is new information
Speaker 1: to me. That's crazy. Yeah, grow up in rural Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: and then you won't have to go to school when
Speaker 1: there's hunting to be done. Okay. But so she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna die for Edward because I revocably love him,
Speaker 1: And then of course he has to show up and
Speaker 1: they fight James because James has bitten Bella. All the
Speaker 1: vampire venom is coursing through her veins, and she's like
Speaker 1: and it's like so she's like lying there on the
Speaker 1: floor nearly dying. And then they kill James the vampire
Speaker 1: by Alice ripping his head off. And then Edward, who
Speaker 1: has expressed this entire time that he wants to suck
Speaker 1: Bella's blood more than any humans blood. He has to
Speaker 1: suck the venom out of her blood stream, and he's like,
Speaker 1: oh god, am I going to be able to stop
Speaker 1: in time? Good raw dog in it? Well I knew
Speaker 1: that's basically what the metaphor is. He's like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I'm gonna be able to not come exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's raw dogging it hot more raw dogging in movies,
Speaker 1: Edwards the raw dog So the betrayal of women in Twilight,
Speaker 1: you went your turn? Do you only speak when you're
Speaker 1: spoken to? Well, the first time Bella had sex, she
Speaker 1: raw dogs are right? And then she gets pregnant with
Speaker 1: a little demon. They should maybe consider protection. But he's
Speaker 1: so strong that parent come is impervious. Was that the thing?
Speaker 1: He's like, Oh my, I have like badtery acid come
Speaker 1: and there's no use in stopping me. And then he's like,
Speaker 1: oh guy, this is so sick all other sniffys. Can
Speaker 1: we just okay, can we skip forward to the end
Speaker 1: of the fourth book really quick before we finished summarizing
Speaker 1: the first movie, please, of how all this stuff happens.
Speaker 1: There's a love triangle forever and then it turns out
Speaker 1: that Jacob the were wolf was actually lusting after Bella's
Speaker 1: unborn egg baby. Yeah, this is it. That is so
Speaker 1: fucking gross. It is horrifying because we see them form
Speaker 1: a friendship here that I'm like, this seems like puppy love,
Speaker 1: seems like there's something there, but he's actually like horny
Speaker 1: for her egg puppy, He's horny for her egg what
Speaker 1: is it, renesme or whatever fucking stupid ass name. Grow up.
Speaker 1: I remember having to stop reading the book and going
Speaker 1: back and being like, surely this is not the implication,
Speaker 1: because the whole thing is that someone imprints on the werewolves.
Speaker 1: I think she's still a very young child that he
Speaker 1: sees her for the first time. To be fair, Edward
Speaker 1: is ninety years older than Bella, so a colonial England,
Speaker 1: Like this is so fucking d Yeah, he like sees
Speaker 1: this and then he's like, oh, exactly, that's exactly what happens.
Speaker 1: And it is disgusting and one of many reasons I
Speaker 1: fucking hate this series. That to me is the worst
Speaker 1: part of the whole series. I have a high tolerance
Speaker 1: for garbage and trash. But the dog man seeing a
Speaker 1: baby and saying I'm going to that baby, and then
Speaker 1: in the book being like, and here's the resolution thing
Speaker 1: you've been waiting for years is the dog wants to
Speaker 1: fund a baby. Like no that that you're like, oh, closure, like, no,
Speaker 1: call the police, right. Just back checking a bit to
Speaker 1: the end of the first one, the Good Vampires the Collins,
Speaker 1: they show up, they destroy James. Meanwhile Edward is sucking
Speaker 1: all of the blood out of Bella. Cut to the
Speaker 1: end of the movie whereby she's done nothing to resolve anything,
Speaker 1: and they go to prom. The end they do that.
Speaker 1: Look though, I will because I was in high school
Speaker 1: when this movie came out. I remember specifically, So this
Speaker 1: came out like meat two thousand eight, and then the
Speaker 1: prom season after two thousand nine, everyone was doing the
Speaker 1: bell of Swan thing with a prom dress and converses.
Speaker 1: That was like a thing for for the next couple
Speaker 1: of years. You know, I'm in support of like wearing practical,
Speaker 1: comfortable shoes in a formal occasion. That's fine, But what's
Speaker 1: gross is being inspired by Twilight. But that totally was
Speaker 1: what Yeah. Yeah, everyone was like, I'm doing the Bella Swan,
Speaker 1: I'm wearing a kid dress. I'm awkward, I can't dance. Also,
Speaker 1: I'm awkward, I can't She also wearing a cast because
Speaker 1: of Vampire had broken her leg. Yeah, which might have
Speaker 1: informed the shoe decision, but it went over all the
Speaker 1: high school girls were like, oh, this seems easier, which
Speaker 1: is true. Well, where do we jump in with this
Speaker 1: hard Tovie, we can start it. Charlie's tom Selleck mustache. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go there. Let's go there first. Are we into it?
Speaker 1: I'm into it. I'm into it, honestly, Hot Dad, I'm
Speaker 1: team Charlie. Yeah, hot Dad. He's doing his best and
Speaker 1: he's hot. Okay. One of the first things that happens,
Speaker 1: which I was grossed out by, is Bella arriving at
Speaker 1: the new school. All the boys are like, who's the
Speaker 1: new girl. She's so pretty and oh my god. And
Speaker 1: then one of the characters, Tyler, swoops in for a
Speaker 1: kiss just like surprise and then runs away. But this
Speaker 1: is now, like, I don't know, the tense movie that
Speaker 1: we've talked about on this podcast where a man just
Speaker 1: like surprise kiss is a woman, which don't forget there's
Speaker 1: all such thing as a surprise kiss, right, it's all
Speaker 1: it's assault, And I just don't know why this always happens.
Speaker 1: The first thing that bothered me about the movie is
Speaker 1: that they used the word chill ax and you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's two that in eight was like chill ax Bella.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh no, feature yeah, I'm just lamping over.
Speaker 1: She has a moderate amount of anxiety about being interviewed
Speaker 1: as the new kid for the school newspaper, which would
Speaker 1: never happen, and he immediately back pedals and he's like, relaxed, woman,
Speaker 1: chill acts, I'm just trying to lamp over here. Do
Speaker 1: you remember. People will be like, I'm just lamping. I
Speaker 1: have no idea what that means. People would say that
Speaker 1: in my high school. They'd be like, oh, funk, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think of all this because this was my
Speaker 1: back this yeah, this was the best, the best years
Speaker 1: of my life. Just kidding. I was wearing a back
Speaker 1: brace for these years. But people would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're lamping on the east side. For some reason, there
Speaker 1: was a time where you could say lamp and I
Speaker 1: just meant to hang out. Yeah, like Chilla hack sing
Speaker 1: if you will, but like lamping. Yeah. Bella's first steps
Speaker 1: into Forks really really interesting. A lot of people talk
Speaker 1: to her about the weather. Tyler throws a twizzler at
Speaker 1: her and then his van. He does throw a van
Speaker 1: at her, and then Edward throws it back. He's like, no, certain,
Speaker 1: not on my watch. I protect her. She's gonna save her.
Speaker 1: She's not. I watched her when she sleeps just like, ah,
Speaker 1: how romantic. Okay, yeah, so I made a list of
Speaker 1: all the ways in which he is extremely abusive. There's
Speaker 1: a scene he straight up gaslights her whenever he's he
Speaker 1: saves her from the van crashing into her because he
Speaker 1: has to like speed across the parking lot to get
Speaker 1: to her in time, and because he's a vampire he
Speaker 1: can do that. He's lightning fast. In the hospital, She's like,
Speaker 1: how did you get over to me? How did you
Speaker 1: do that? And like, also, how do you stop a
Speaker 1: van with your arm? And he's a reasonable questions. He's like,
Speaker 1: I was already right beside you, and she's like, no,
Speaker 1: you were across the park. She keep saying, I know
Speaker 1: what I saw. I know that was like scary to watch.
Speaker 1: Knowing what gaslighting is now you're just like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: And it being presented as like a funny little plot
Speaker 1: point of like it's not time for her to know.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, no, this is like a textbook example
Speaker 1: of something that happens in abusive You're just like, why
Speaker 1: you hit your head? You're confused? Yeah, that's like sample
Speaker 1: text question her reality and make you think she's crazy.
Speaker 1: And then she here's the thing. She does stand up
Speaker 1: for herself. In this movie, a lot things happen to
Speaker 1: her and she's like she tries, but it's always undermined
Speaker 1: by the fact that she then just keeps staying with
Speaker 1: this very abusive person. Like there's a scene where those
Speaker 1: like scary rape dudes in Port Angels, Washington come after
Speaker 1: her Port of Angels. They're like being all creepy, and
Speaker 1: she's like, get off, don't touch me. She like even
Speaker 1: kicks one of them. Like she does fight for herself.
Speaker 1: She stands up for herself, but it never laughs long,
Speaker 1: or she always succumbs to whatever abuses being tossed her way,
Speaker 1: or very often just being removed from one abusive situation
Speaker 1: and placed into a different one where like obviously the
Speaker 1: guy is harassing her in port Angelist, that is bad news.
Speaker 1: I think if we're playing out that situation realistically, she
Speaker 1: would not have been able to rescue herself. We don't
Speaker 1: know that she has any like physical training that would
Speaker 1: allow her to fight off multiple grown men. I mean,
Speaker 1: if there's like a bit of ice she slips on it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she can't. She has no hand eye coordination. She'sward, she's awkward,
Speaker 1: but she knows what about No, She's like, I hate that,
Speaker 1: but he has a crush on me. I'm cute, I
Speaker 1: bought hair colored to box and I'm awkward. Okay, So
Speaker 1: this is a hard thing to discuss because many women
Speaker 1: find themselves in abusive relationships and we must not victim
Speaker 1: blame them at all, because we can just be like, well,
Speaker 1: why didn't you get out or why didn't you fight back,
Speaker 1: or why didn't you stand up for herself? Like that's
Speaker 1: obviously not how you approach, of course, not that. What
Speaker 1: I what I think is the dangerous precedent set is
Speaker 1: that we can't We're not gonna blame Bella because she
Speaker 1: is sixteen years old. Who male or female at sixteen
Speaker 1: years old is like emotionally equipped to deal with gaslighting vampires,
Speaker 1: especially when he's ninety years older than her. And that's
Speaker 1: the gross thing where he is somehow attractive. He's like
Speaker 1: a hundred year ol man and that's like, you know,
Speaker 1: takes you into a whole weird fiction world of like
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do a corpse? But like we don't know,
Speaker 1: we don't know. But speaking to like the abusive relationship angle,
Speaker 1: I think that the real problem with it is that
Speaker 1: obviously the target of these movies are girls that age
Speaker 1: and the way their relationship, Like I think the characters
Speaker 1: is one thing, because it's so fucking fictional that, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously we can't really make value judgments on those characters.
Speaker 1: But because sixteen year old girls are the intended audience,
Speaker 1: and the relationship between Belle and Edward is positioned is
Speaker 1: an ideal and like taking abuse and standing up for
Speaker 1: yourself but later saying I was wrong to do that
Speaker 1: is positioned as true love and an ideal. Like, I
Speaker 1: think that that's the real core of the issue, is
Speaker 1: that they're just justifying young women accepting abuse from a man.
Speaker 1: Fun The characters they don't you know, none of the
Speaker 1: characters make any sense. These characters are they're they're not real, right,
Speaker 1: There aren't vampires. I mean, I've been too Forks. I've looked.
Speaker 1: But someone whether it's the author the screenwriter, decided to
Speaker 1: portray American culture in Forks, Washington as this is the norm,
Speaker 1: this is what young women should aspire to be, aspire
Speaker 1: to do right and then bella kind of I mean
Speaker 1: not to bring up Harry Potter because I'll pass out,
Speaker 1: um out of rage, to be clear, But Bella like
Speaker 1: kind of the same as Harry Potter. You know, she's
Speaker 1: Bella's a central character and she has the least personality
Speaker 1: out of everybody, which is kind of done intentionally so
Speaker 1: that the intended audience plugs themselves into that character. So
Speaker 1: it's like not like teenage boys are watching this, or
Speaker 1: you know, at least not to the same degree, but like,
Speaker 1: teenage boys are watching this and they're like, I totally
Speaker 1: relate with Edward Colin, but teenage girls almost universally if
Speaker 1: shoe choices at my junior promor to be believed related
Speaker 1: with Bella and I had to model themselves after her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you make a very good point about how the story
Speaker 1: positions this as true love and your relationship is like this,
Speaker 1: then oh how romantic? What a like a romance for
Speaker 1: the ages, which I guess people fell for that because
Speaker 1: this is a worldwide phenomenon, But I mean that moms
Speaker 1: fell for that, which is even more in my mom
Speaker 1: but like, but moms, we're into this series and that
Speaker 1: it's just like whoo, whoof this goes back? Well, this
Speaker 1: came out or this was like kind of the height
Speaker 1: of its popularity right after college for me, I think,
Speaker 1: and I had people my age, like in their early twenties,
Speaker 1: and then I remember talking to my friend and her
Speaker 1: older sister who was like late twenties. They were just
Speaker 1: all enamored with this story. And I never understood it
Speaker 1: because I have exquisite taste and self respect. Back to
Speaker 1: the point of her being continually abused throughout this story
Speaker 1: by Edward and standing up for herself. But then also no, yeah,
Speaker 1: she completely acknowledges her the quota. So the lion fell
Speaker 1: in love with the lamb. What a stupid lamb, sick
Speaker 1: masochistic lion, right, and then they're like, let's kiss, yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's a romantic song, right, the music swells. Well,
Speaker 1: this goes goes back a little bit. But Bella's relationship
Speaker 1: with her mom is very weird, where I don't remember
Speaker 1: if she's like if it's expressed that she's like a
Speaker 1: little bit frustrated or resentful of her mom. In the
Speaker 1: book and the movie, her mom is like, yeah, I'm married, uh,
Speaker 1: minor league baseball player, and I'm just gonna go watch
Speaker 1: a fun ton of minor league baseball baseball team. But
Speaker 1: but we see her call her mom multiple times, and
Speaker 1: she's like, I missed you, mom, I love you Mom.
Speaker 1: I was just like, are you not? But then the
Speaker 1: mom follows up with what about the boys. Are the
Speaker 1: boys cute at your new school? Hey? Many new boys? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then she says I don't know, I'm not great,
Speaker 1: and then she's like, Okay, I gotta watch some baseball.
Speaker 1: Feeling she's always it like a batting cage on a
Speaker 1: pay phone or like what are you doing? Like why
Speaker 1: is she not? Why is Bella not furious at her
Speaker 1: mom of like, thanks for dumping me in Washington with
Speaker 1: my tom Sel like dad who like rules. But also
Speaker 1: if my mom just abandoned me in the middle of
Speaker 1: high school because she was fucking a minor league baseball player,
Speaker 1: I would be furious. Yeah. Well, and one of the
Speaker 1: many conversations that Edward overhears or you know, tries to
Speaker 1: very voyeuristically spy on, He's like, what's in Jacksonville? What's
Speaker 1: what's your story? Tell me everything about it? I can't
Speaker 1: figure you out. I just can't read you. Tell me everything,
Speaker 1: and she's like, well, my mom stayed home with me,
Speaker 1: but I could tell it made her unhappy, Like in
Speaker 1: what world? But it doesn't. I'd rather be watching minor
Speaker 1: league baseball than stay home with you, feel like daughter.
Speaker 1: The typical teenager would use that to be like hard
Speaker 1: or the ship out of it right, be like I
Speaker 1: did this for my mom, and I deserve some attention
Speaker 1: because look at what I'm doing with the sacrifice. And
Speaker 1: that's not the story. No, it's like barely a plot point.
Speaker 1: And it's like her mom pops up. I don't even know,
Speaker 1: because it's not even like her mom ever provides new
Speaker 1: information or Bella, and Bella doesn't really tell her anything.
Speaker 1: It's just like two actors getting their SAG card. They're
Speaker 1: in a batting cage somewhere in Arizona, and and and
Speaker 1: then one time the scene is interrupted by the fact
Speaker 1: that Edward has been in her room for hours. Right,
Speaker 1: so he doesn't have to know how to read her
Speaker 1: mind if he's just watching her and listening to all
Speaker 1: the words she says at all times. Okay, so that's
Speaker 1: one of many very problematic things, is that she's the
Speaker 1: only person who's thoughts he cannot read, because I guess
Speaker 1: as a vampire you also have special powers to funk
Speaker 1: that stupid thing. But he can simple yeah, but for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, we find out later that Bella also has superpowers.
Speaker 1: Everyone has special power. She just needs to become a
Speaker 1: vampire to figure it out. Accepted a voice inside you,
Speaker 1: so he can't read her thoughts, and I think this
Speaker 1: is part of what draws him to her, because he's like,
Speaker 1: I have to figure you out. You're my new project.
Speaker 1: Everyone wants to make Bella a project. Well, it's it's
Speaker 1: fair to say that the new girl in school in
Speaker 1: a small town, she's new, she's different. I can't read
Speaker 1: her thoughts. That is interesting, right, But it's it's the
Speaker 1: crux of his interest in her that and he becomes
Speaker 1: so grossly obsessed with it too, Like he goes way
Speaker 1: too far with it. In fact, there's a scene where
Speaker 1: he we're lamping. There's a scene where they go into
Speaker 1: the woods and she's figured out that he's a vampire.
Speaker 1: He confirms it. They go up this mountain and at
Speaker 1: one point he like pins her against a rock wall,
Speaker 1: puts both of his arms up, so she's basically trapped,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I have to know what you're thinking.
Speaker 1: Tell me what you're thinking all the time. And it's
Speaker 1: so weird way to try to control someone like he
Speaker 1: just he can't read her thoughts, so he's like, I
Speaker 1: need to know what you're thinking. I must control you. Right,
Speaker 1: But if we put that in the context of a
Speaker 1: teenage girl who's never had a relationship before, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: here's a boy who really cares what I think. Again,
Speaker 1: it's like this very dangerous precedent to set where teenage
Speaker 1: boys are fucking morons obviously and don't understand how to
Speaker 1: function around anyone. Yeah, right, the expert. I'm an educator.
Speaker 1: I educate this fuck dumb. But but it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a very appealing I know when I was sixteen,
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, a boy who really wants to
Speaker 1: know my innermost thoughts. Wow, I'll let him pin me
Speaker 1: to a rock. And it's like, you know, ten years later,
Speaker 1: obviously you're like, don't touch me and stay away from me.
Speaker 1: But it's so fucking insidious and a bummer. Some right
Speaker 1: after or right before he admits he's like, I've killed
Speaker 1: people's right after it doesn't matter to me, and of you,
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, that's not you. That scene is so crazy,
Speaker 1: like that whole sequence and then he and then it's
Speaker 1: in the big reveal. Wait, which one that scene where
Speaker 1: after they've admitted everything, they've talked about what it means
Speaker 1: to be a vampire, he takes her through the cloud
Speaker 1: break we finally see the true Edward. Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: where he That is such a weird real because if
Speaker 1: you don't know that that is the exact reveal it's
Speaker 1: coming in the books, it's like, what is he doing?
Speaker 1: And he walks and it isn't like a dazzling like shing,
Speaker 1: which is how I pictured there was a sound effect
Speaker 1: though there wasn't when the sun hits my skin. I
Speaker 1: was expecting listen not to criticize this amazing movie. I
Speaker 1: wasting a bigger reveal that he was sparkly. If I
Speaker 1: had not known and had been waiting with bated breath
Speaker 1: for that to happen, I would be like what I said, Oh,
Speaker 1: he's got a little body glitter. He goes to players
Speaker 1: and he puts on his body glitters. You remember body glitter?
Speaker 1: That was fun? Are you boss? You ever buy body glitter? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I thought this tube of Victoria's secret body glitter that
Speaker 1: I never wore. I don't know why. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not a sparkly person, like, that's not something I
Speaker 1: would ever put on my body. Why did I buy this?
Speaker 1: And then I ended up throwing it away? We lived
Speaker 1: together in college and I actually saw it and used
Speaker 1: it once. It's like, oh my god, I'm glad someone
Speaker 1: used us. The body glitter and he usually smells good
Speaker 1: to five stars reviewing posthumously, irrevocably. That's my favorite adverb.
Speaker 1: So we're not we're not blaming Bella. At the center
Speaker 1: of the story, like, like Edwards medium baggage is he
Speaker 1: hasn't figured out what it means to be a vampire, right.
Speaker 1: He he knows what like popular culture tells him about
Speaker 1: being this mean, evil vampire, but he's not like the others.
Speaker 1: He's not like the other and he just he uses
Speaker 1: Bella to figure it out. He's like figuring out his
Speaker 1: morality and he's using this young seventeen year old to
Speaker 1: do it. He's ruining her right. The other thing one
Speaker 1: just well, fuck, I have a list of eight thousand
Speaker 1: things I want to say, but one of them is
Speaker 1: that it's so fucking creepy and weird to me and
Speaker 1: should be to everybody that he is. So we learned
Speaker 1: that he's turned into a vampire in nineteen eighteen hot,
Speaker 1: which means he was probably born in nineteen hundred. He's
Speaker 1: a trench warfare vampire, and he has gone through high
Speaker 1: school presumably dozens of times. But he well, yeah, because
Speaker 1: we see that all the I actually always remember. I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's a actually a really cool art piece suit in
Speaker 1: your house, And then I saw it this time, I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I stand by it. I like all
Speaker 1: the caps. I like that kind of like I would
Speaker 1: put it in my very fancy all glass home. Right,
Speaker 1: don't throw any rocks around that house, the vampire house. Yeah, So, okay,
Speaker 1: we don't know how vampires and they're like mental and
Speaker 1: emotional maturity happens. Maybe when they turn into a vampire
Speaker 1: it stops, or maybe as they age they developmentally age
Speaker 1: like humans, so that he's a nine year old man inside,
Speaker 1: but he's he's stays in like a seventeen year old body.
Speaker 1: Either way, it's weird that he's alive for ninety years
Speaker 1: and you would think has the emotional maturity of a
Speaker 1: ninety year old and then it's still attracted to a
Speaker 1: teenage girl. You're raising your hand, yes, Jamie, what would
Speaker 1: you like to draw a parallel. Okay, have you seen
Speaker 1: or read Tuch ever Lasting? No, that is the immortal
Speaker 1: good text to text connection and thank you so much.
Speaker 1: An educator's approval means the world. Um No, but the
Speaker 1: Tych ever Lasting is the closest and non too inside
Speaker 1: because I like Tuch ever Lasting much better, But the
Speaker 1: Tych over Lasting book is way more fucked up because
Speaker 1: it's like in a hundred year old hot seventeen year
Speaker 1: old and he's like lusting after a ten year old,
Speaker 1: kind of like Jacob Renesme style, if you will. But
Speaker 1: in the movie they aged up so that it's someone
Speaker 1: who was on the Disney Channel lusting after Rory Gilmore
Speaker 1: a little bit older. But it's interesting because the way
Speaker 1: that that story plays out as a sort of a
Speaker 1: similar like it's a family who's drank from the Fountain
Speaker 1: of Youth, and the whole time they discourage the object
Speaker 1: of his affection, who is ninety years too young for
Speaker 1: him but looks age appropriate. They discourage her from drinking
Speaker 1: from the Fountain of youth and she doesn't, and then
Speaker 1: at the end of this story we see a still
Speaker 1: young hot Jesse something I forget his last name, drives
Speaker 1: up on his motorcycle and then he sees, you know,
Speaker 1: the grave of Rory Gilmore. So in that story, it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's more powerful because because she goes off
Speaker 1: and she lives her life life and she does not
Speaker 1: succumb to intense gas lighting from the object for refection.
Speaker 1: And it's also like said that, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: living forever may not be a great thing after all
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So anyways, that's the closest parallel
Speaker 1: to this story that I can find. And there's not
Speaker 1: any gas lighting in that because they're always like, don't
Speaker 1: do it, and then she doesn't. So maybe it's just
Speaker 1: a more boring story. Yeah. I don't think Edwards that strong, right,
Speaker 1: he would never be able to control himself. He's a
Speaker 1: raw dog control himself his own personal brand of Heroin.
Speaker 1: Just for all my Tug ever Lasting heads out there,
Speaker 1: it's Jonathan Jackson who played the Hot guy and Tuck
Speaker 1: ever Lasting. They also go to the top of a
Speaker 1: mountain to discuss eternal life in that movie. If you're
Speaker 1: living forever and you're an innocent teenage on janu you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to go to the top of a natural
Speaker 1: formation to hash it out. That's a new movie rule.
Speaker 1: Oh man, too bad. We already have the loftist test.
Speaker 1: The lattictist hold strong, baldest woman in charge doesn't apply
Speaker 1: to this movie. I don't think no. I'd say the Well,
Speaker 1: the baldest woman in this movie is Alice, and she's
Speaker 1: the I would say she's the best female character because
Speaker 1: she kills someone. Yeah, she rips it that dude's head off.
Speaker 1: I loved that kind. Yeah, she's a real hot topic
Speaker 1: assistant manager. Hey, really quick? Are we to believe that
Speaker 1: Bella was also wearing sleeves and jeans in Phoenix the
Speaker 1: whole time? Because we see her at the beginning like
Speaker 1: I live in Phoenix, Arizona. It's hot. And then we
Speaker 1: see her in like two layers of sleeves and jeans
Speaker 1: because she's awkward, right, she can't show her shoulders, she's
Speaker 1: too awkward. She would she'd melt. But I'm just like,
Speaker 1: how did you live in Phoenix for your whole life
Speaker 1: with your chode of a mother. I don't understand your Well,
Speaker 1: that's why she gets kicked out. Remember that hilarious joke
Speaker 1: that everyone like cracks the over. Yeah, the scene where
Speaker 1: the fucking Mike Chode, who's like, oh my good Isabella right,
Speaker 1: and she's like just Bella. That's the closest to a
Speaker 1: real high school student that we see. I think, so yeah,
Speaker 1: Like that's like he's a Chode in a way that
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I would know a choked like that.
Speaker 1: Anna Kendrick plays a high school or in this movie,
Speaker 1: well those she's like or someone says in that scene,
Speaker 1: you're from Arizona, are't she supposed to be like super tan?
Speaker 1: And then Bella I'm just like, I guess that's why
Speaker 1: they kicked me out, and they both ha ha ha ha.
Speaker 1: We have d cups, but we're not cool, Like grow up.
Speaker 1: If you have d cups in high school, you're cool
Speaker 1: dealing it. Let's talk about all these scenes that happened
Speaker 1: in the science room where when Bella first walks in.
Speaker 1: By the way, the science teacher's name is Mr Molina.
Speaker 1: I know, but it would have been a perfect opportunity. Well,
Speaker 1: you continue to talk about science, I'll figure out what
Speaker 1: offered Molina was I figure out what he was doing instead.
Speaker 1: I'm sure the part was offered to him because that
Speaker 1: could have been homage. Here's what he might have been doing.
Speaker 1: He might have been filming The Ten Commandments playing Ramsey
Speaker 1: is the Pharaoh. Obviously, he might have been providing the
Speaker 1: voice of Professor Jeffries and chill out Scooby doo wait
Speaker 1: chill acts, though not that what they meant. He might
Speaker 1: have been in pre production to be the narrator in
Speaker 1: Angels and Demons in two thousand and nine. He was
Speaker 1: probably filming The Pink Panther too. Probably he's busy all
Speaker 1: the time, all right. So she walks into the science room,
Speaker 1: there's a fan blowing, a gust of her scent travels
Speaker 1: to edwards nostrils. He borderline pukes, and then she sits
Speaker 1: down beside him, and he has a hissy fit the
Speaker 1: whole time, and then as soon as the bell rings
Speaker 1: he storms out. And Okay, to be fair, she's like
Speaker 1: I was to confront him, to figure out what his
Speaker 1: problem was, Like, she wanted to know what the funk
Speaker 1: his problem was. I'm not that brave. She doesn't get
Speaker 1: a chance, Well, she kind of doesn't get a chance
Speaker 1: to do it. Yeah, she does, because the next time
Speaker 1: they're in the science room together, they're looking at the
Speaker 1: onion slides on the microscope, which is a good Shrek reference.
Speaker 1: Onions have layers. We know it, we love it. Where's
Speaker 1: the where's the Shrek episode? Right? Where is it? It's coming.
Speaker 1: But that's a fun scene because she looks into the
Speaker 1: microscope and she's like, it's pro phase, and Edwards like, actually,
Speaker 1: can I look at it just a double check your
Speaker 1: work because I don't believe you more gas lining, and
Speaker 1: then he looks into it and then he's like, it's
Speaker 1: pro phase. Man's plaining it's unfair because he's been seventeen
Speaker 1: for ninety years, so he's done this experiment for probably
Speaker 1: fifty times. Show off somehow. Yeah, It's like, yeah, I've
Speaker 1: I've got this, I've got this. She so he Man's
Speaker 1: plains to her, but then to her credit, she says, yeah,
Speaker 1: like I said, the thing is like Bella. God. I
Speaker 1: feel Bella has the agency of an above average teenage girl,
Speaker 1: but she's shot down by the narrative repeatedly until she
Speaker 1: is just trapped. Like when I was sixteen, there's no
Speaker 1: way I would challenge anything on anyone any time because
Speaker 1: I was wearing a back brace and I was afraid
Speaker 1: of everyone. Like can you imagine confronting a cute boy
Speaker 1: at sixteen, Like that takes fucking guts, especially if you're
Speaker 1: new somewhere, Like I feel like she's displaying above average,
Speaker 1: Like I'm going to figure this out. And then Stephanie Meyer,
Speaker 1: fucking evil puppet master, is like, how can we destroy
Speaker 1: this young girl's agency. She's like, what happened in the
Speaker 1: parking lot? I know what I saw? And then Edwards like,
Speaker 1: no one will believe you, literally, no one will believe you.
Speaker 1: But it's romantic. But it's romantic, it's romantic gas lighting. Hey,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, though, Bella, so she knows all about
Speaker 1: prophase and Anna Face and all that stuff. I would
Speaker 1: call her a woman stem. She is a woman who
Speaker 1: has heard of STEM. Yeah, she's a better folly a woman.
Speaker 1: Yet she is a child, and that's part of the problem. True.
Speaker 1: And then oh, but in that scene, in that prophase
Speaker 1: and a Phase scene, we see Edward effectively defeat Bellot too,
Speaker 1: because at the end of that scene she stops checking
Speaker 1: his work, Like the last beat of that He's like,
Speaker 1: do you want to check? She's like I'm good, No,
Speaker 1: and then she's like I trust to. I was like,
Speaker 1: he's a million he knows the difference between prophase and
Speaker 1: I mean, which is better than I can say? Chemistry
Speaker 1: times there's there's part of than me. And now I'm insecure.
Speaker 1: I made a list of different times that Edward nags
Speaker 1: or gaslights her, and the time codes because it happens
Speaker 1: so frequently. Twenty minutes and he saves her from the
Speaker 1: car crash. Twenty four minutes, He gaslights her, saying, oh's
Speaker 1: right next to you. No one's gonna believe what you say.
Speaker 1: Can't you just thank me and get over it? Fuck off?
Speaker 1: Thirty minutes. If you were smart, you'd stay away from me.
Speaker 1: What if I'm not the hero? What if I'm the
Speaker 1: bad guy? Fifty minutes, He says Bella, what do we eat?
Speaker 1: A k you? She says, you won't hurt me. At
Speaker 1: this point, she's fully gaslighted, sher agency is dead for
Speaker 1: the remainder of the series. Well, she's irrevocably in love
Speaker 1: with minutes and I've never wanted a humans blood so
Speaker 1: much in my life. Bella says, I trust you. Edwards says,
Speaker 1: don't get there. What are you doing? Oh? I still
Speaker 1: don't know if I can control myself. Bella says, I
Speaker 1: know you can she's kind of gaslighting him, but she's sixteen.
Speaker 1: There's God. It's the same disturbing interaction over and over
Speaker 1: seventy minutes and Bella, I'm not scared of you, Edward.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't have said that, and then he kidnapped her
Speaker 1: with the spider monkey, with this sin and then God,
Speaker 1: and then seventy five minutes and Bella has a scene
Speaker 1: that doesn't pass the actual test in a very infuriating
Speaker 1: way with her mom who is waiting to fuck her
Speaker 1: chowed husband. After he gets out of the batting changes
Speaker 1: and then he comes out, you know, he comes out
Speaker 1: of the shadows and she's like, oh, you were here,
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, I've been watching the Sleep for months.
Speaker 1: And that's when I stopped counting the times he was
Speaker 1: gaslighting her because it happens so much and this movie
Speaker 1: is very long. Well, that's an interesting scene because the
Speaker 1: first time you see Bella wake up and he's stalking
Speaker 1: her in her bedroom and then she turns dream She's like,
Speaker 1: that was the first night I dreamt of Edward Culent.
Speaker 1: So it's played off. It's like, okay, we used the
Speaker 1: audience think, okay, maybe that was a dream, and then
Speaker 1: when you see that scene again and he admits to
Speaker 1: sneaking into her room and watching her sleep four months,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, that wasn't a dream. And then and
Speaker 1: then she's like, all right, time to hook up kiss me.
Speaker 1: Honestly though, this, uh, I almost get it. There was
Speaker 1: another when I was very young, there was another vampire
Speaker 1: book series called Cirque to Freak. You guys remember this now.
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with that as an educator. This is
Speaker 1: a sexy vampire be signed about a vampire named I
Speaker 1: think his name was Darren, and he was thank you.
Speaker 1: I wrote the book, but Darren was the object of
Speaker 1: my affection. I was like a little bit younger, it's
Speaker 1: like maybe twelve or thirteen, and I didn't know how
Speaker 1: my vagina informed my thoughts yet. So I was reading
Speaker 1: the Cirque to Freaks books and it's about this like
Speaker 1: young boy who was turned into a vampire by a
Speaker 1: circuit sounder and goes on the road with these freaks
Speaker 1: and he's he's a road vampire. He's a road vai,
Speaker 1: like a road comic. But I feel like he really
Speaker 1: informed my current lifestyle. He rode tests his vampire. But
Speaker 1: in any case, I had a huge crush on him.
Speaker 1: And in that book series, there was a point where
Speaker 1: he had a crush on a girl and he would
Speaker 1: just like hide around her in various places. And so
Speaker 1: I had like these weird cabinets. I grew up in
Speaker 1: a house with no doors, and and instead of closets,
Speaker 1: we had these weird cabinets built into the walls. And
Speaker 1: so I would imagine that Darren the vampire would hide
Speaker 1: in the cabinet to hide. I wanted him to hide.
Speaker 1: So when I see Edward emerged from behind a curtain,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I get it. I wanted Darren in my cabinet.
Speaker 1: In vampire practice, to hide and wait for your prey,
Speaker 1: right for kids on them, though only when you're in love.
Speaker 1: Get in my cabinet. It's about how about that scene
Speaker 1: where Edwards like everything about me draws you in. I'm
Speaker 1: so handsome and attractive and my voice and my sin
Speaker 1: over yourself. And then he's like, but that's if I
Speaker 1: needed it, is if I couldn't outrun you. He's like
Speaker 1: dashing from tree to tree, hite me off. And then
Speaker 1: she's like, I don't care, I trust you you. Oh,
Speaker 1: here's an the fun moment where um, it's a scene
Speaker 1: where he's like, what's in Jacksonville because he had been
Speaker 1: leering at her and listening. Sorry, I just watched you
Speaker 1: pour a lot of water out of your month having trouble.
Speaker 1: I'm having trouble. I didn't eat for the first time
Speaker 1: until two minutes before this, and then I had a
Speaker 1: mis heart. So I think that my I'm physically compromising. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that was talking her chode friend Mike about going
Speaker 1: to Jacksonville, and meanwhile Edward is standing in the background
Speaker 1: listening to everything she's saying and just leering at her.
Speaker 1: The next scene, Edwards like, what's in Jacksonville? And then
Speaker 1: she trips a little bit and he goes, she's awkward.
Speaker 1: Can you at least watch where you're walking? Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: for the first half of the movie, he's so mean
Speaker 1: to her. Well, and that also enforces an age old
Speaker 1: thing that my mom told me was true and that
Speaker 1: I feel like every parent and maybe still do like
Speaker 1: they in four is this dangerous? Like if a boy's
Speaker 1: mean to you, that means he likes you, you know,
Speaker 1: like if someone's being repeatedly aggressive and rude to you,
Speaker 1: which and it's usually like with younger kids, but they're
Speaker 1: like if they if they're being mean to you, it
Speaker 1: means they like And it's usually boys towards girls, except
Speaker 1: unless you're hell good, attacky, and then you if you're
Speaker 1: hell good, attacky, you're fine. Well sure, and yeah, like
Speaker 1: nagging is a common flirtation technique. However, it's usually like,
Speaker 1: let's say she trips a little bit a flirtatious way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well he'd be like, He's like, oh jeez, at least
Speaker 1: launch where you're walking. He but he like, don't yell.
Speaker 1: That's a good rule of thumb. Don't yell at the
Speaker 1: object of your affection. Again, what's at the center of
Speaker 1: this is the fact that Edward cannot deal with the
Speaker 1: fact that he's a vampire. He wants to be a
Speaker 1: good person, but he has this this label, this identity,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't know what to do with it, right,
Speaker 1: But he's not true to that. About forty five minutes
Speaker 1: into the movie, everything switches and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: he's like, all right, let's date. Let's do this. I
Speaker 1: know that I'm a bad guy, but I want to
Speaker 1: put you next to this bad guy that I am. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like that apple scene, right, where he says he's just
Speaker 1: trying to like that symbolism for something I couldn't tell.
Speaker 1: He's just trying to get information out of her, and
Speaker 1: she says, you know, your mood swings are kind of
Speaker 1: giving me whiplash, like completely acknowledges that he is just
Speaker 1: so back and forth. And then as soon as they
Speaker 1: start dating, he develops a personality all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I'm gonna jump on your truck and
Speaker 1: and she's like, can you really pretend to be human neighbors?
Speaker 1: It's funny. So there's just flirting and fun. I like
Speaker 1: the scene where they try to kiss and he's like,
Speaker 1: I would I fuck you do that. The sexual aspect
Speaker 1: of the relationship is so problematic. It gets worse and worse,
Speaker 1: where he's like, if I do you die, I'm super
Speaker 1: strong so I could kill you. I want to bite
Speaker 1: you all this this is what every man is told
Speaker 1: me that if you'd pass away. But um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that's no, that's no good. But the scene where they
Speaker 1: do hook up and they can and I will say
Speaker 1: for me, the sparks were flying. Oh there's something there.
Speaker 1: I was like, that was a good, like story aside
Speaker 1: a good movie kiss. It's hot. That's a hot kiss,
Speaker 1: but then you know, but then you remember the horrible
Speaker 1: story that's taking place. The aftermath of that is really
Speaker 1: disturbing to me, because they kiss and it's hot. They
Speaker 1: go from like vertical to horizontal really fast, and you're like,
Speaker 1: it's getting exactly and then he's like, stop it, and
Speaker 1: he throws himself off at her, and then she's sort
Speaker 1: of like in her bed, very in a very vulnerable
Speaker 1: like she's in her underwear. She's like kind of hunched
Speaker 1: over it, and she's just like she's awkward, very unco
Speaker 1: what it's like. It's clear that she feels ashamed because
Speaker 1: she's like, I'm sorry, he said he told her to
Speaker 1: stop it. Yeah, and then or I don't like, is
Speaker 1: it him telling himself to stop it or is it
Speaker 1: telling her? It's hard to say, but she's like, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: and she's put in this position where like she then
Speaker 1: feels shame for like trying to be sexual. And it
Speaker 1: made me feel weird not to come to the rescue
Speaker 1: of Edward Colin. But at least he made his needs
Speaker 1: known in the moment and stopped a situation he was
Speaker 1: not prepared to enter for abstinence. What's what's going on there?
Speaker 1: There's definitely some sort of abstinence thing because they wait
Speaker 1: for a marriage in the series, don't they Let me
Speaker 1: see if I remember right, JT. You'll know Kaitlyn, You'll
Speaker 1: know you guys will she Is she a vampire? Before
Speaker 1: he can fuck her? Or does he? I think he
Speaker 1: focks her. Well, she's still mortal on their the night
Speaker 1: that they get to the island, right, but then it's
Speaker 1: like there's like restraints, invaulved isn't there, There's like something. Well,
Speaker 1: she wakes up the next morning and she's black and blue.
Speaker 1: He like he got really aggressive. They break the beds
Speaker 1: and then the maid comes in in the morning. He's like,
Speaker 1: what the yeah, call the police throw on an island.
Speaker 1: Something disturbing has happened here. I vaguely remember that, and
Speaker 1: by the time I read it, I knew it was
Speaker 1: not okay. I'm glad that we at least the first
Speaker 1: movie there's at least a little bit of wiggle room
Speaker 1: where there's at least some parts of the movie that
Speaker 1: might be construed as relatable for someone if they were
Speaker 1: a teenager or a young adult. In two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: As the book go on, you're just like this just
Speaker 1: spirals out and it gets fucking weird after she wakes
Speaker 1: up black and blue on is las Man during the honeymoon.
Speaker 1: Is that really what it's called? Yes? After his mother
Speaker 1: and then his adopted mother who's younger than he is.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he's so upset with himself for hurting her
Speaker 1: so badly that the rest of the honeymoon they just
Speaker 1: like play chess. They aren't allowed to touch, but once
Speaker 1: when she's a vampire they can find. They have sex
Speaker 1: all the time. The first month, they move into a
Speaker 1: house just for fucking because it's so loud, just like
Speaker 1: the baseball scene, but different funck house. Are you serious?
Speaker 1: I'm very serious. I don't know if this happens in
Speaker 1: the movie, but it definitely happens in the book. They
Speaker 1: fucked so loud they need a house. They the Cullens,
Speaker 1: have a house on site that's like a mile away.
Speaker 1: They can't no one could be within a mile of
Speaker 1: them because they fucked so loud. That sounds tight, But
Speaker 1: the road we take to get to the the isolated
Speaker 1: house is dark, right alright, So some alternatives. I kind
Speaker 1: of wish that this movie was more about Bella and
Speaker 1: her gay best friend Jacob. How would the movie have
Speaker 1: been different if that was the the a story. You know,
Speaker 1: Edwards just like the b in the background, like who
Speaker 1: cares about the vampire? Well, Jacobs barely in this movie. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I know I forgot how little he was because I
Speaker 1: was really like looking forward to look Aunt Taylor Lawtner's wig.
Speaker 1: How little he wasn't it. He's in that great scene
Speaker 1: where um Pilla's like, what did your friend mean about
Speaker 1: the Cullens don't come here? And he's like, oh, you
Speaker 1: heard that that line of dialogue that was very audible
Speaker 1: and that everyone was like everyone in the all of
Speaker 1: her friends to stare for a second. Yeah, He's like,
Speaker 1: oh you caught that. Yeah, every fon king person caught that.
Speaker 1: Or another weird scene. I mean, all the scenes between
Speaker 1: Bellett and Jacob are first of all, less weird than
Speaker 1: any scene between Belle and Edward, more dynamic than any
Speaker 1: scene between Bellett and Edward. But also there's always like
Speaker 1: a weird uncanny valley quality to it, where it's towards
Speaker 1: the end where Jacob shows up, walks out of the
Speaker 1: woods or something, and he's like my dad said me
Speaker 1: the spy on you like say it paid me twenty
Speaker 1: dollars to talk to you. And then she's just like, well,
Speaker 1: you better go get that. I was like, this is
Speaker 1: extremely suspect, vaguely dressed up for problem. He's wearing like
Speaker 1: a nice button. But he doesn't go in. He goes
Speaker 1: to a different he doesn't go to this in the reservation. Well,
Speaker 1: then day isn't he's really earning that twenty dollars. Like,
Speaker 1: I gotta like the part you went shopping before he came.
Speaker 1: How far does twenty dollars going forks Washington cheese? So far?
Speaker 1: For years? Different time? Well, he's like, my dad wants
Speaker 1: me to tell you to break up and stay away
Speaker 1: from your boyfriend. And then Edwards shows up and he
Speaker 1: was like get here, I'll take it from here. Like
Speaker 1: and just another way that he controls here, doesn't let
Speaker 1: her talk to any other men. He's just always, oh,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the scene. Well, Everard does Edward know about?
Speaker 1: I forgot? Does Eward know about the werewolves? But Jacob
Speaker 1: doesn't know yet. He's just like, I'm just wearing a wig.
Speaker 1: Well he knows. I think he knows that he's descended
Speaker 1: from like the wolf clan. I think he knows. He
Speaker 1: thinks it's a story though, right, yeah he does, they said,
Speaker 1: because there's that scene on the beach where he basically says, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just a weird Washington thing. You're just like okay, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: but like his elders turned into wolves, Like wouldn't he
Speaker 1: know about that? Because Act one, remember all of his friends,
Speaker 1: all of his like reservation friends, are like going off
Speaker 1: and being weird and getting sick. And he's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know why I'm all alone. I haven't hit all
Speaker 1: my friends. I want to get sick, like get mono
Speaker 1: and disappear and then come back. And he realized it
Speaker 1: was like a secretly it's like maintained as a secret
Speaker 1: until you start going what a horrible way to conduct, Like, Hey,
Speaker 1: a crazy thing is going to happen to you, but
Speaker 1: you can't know about it until it's actually happening to you.
Speaker 1: I don't. That's how I got my period. No one
Speaker 1: told you you were going to get your period. I
Speaker 1: didn't really know what it was. I thought I shopped myself. Anyways,
Speaker 1: that's sorry for another day. Yeah I did. I was like,
Speaker 1: that's weird. I thought I would have did you know, really,
Speaker 1: like your mom didn't tell you we were we were defunded.
Speaker 1: We didn't get sex fed at my school, and so
Speaker 1: I thought I shipped myself, And I'm like, can I
Speaker 1: no longer? I thought that, like my sphincter was un
Speaker 1: or something. But it turns out this is a woman
Speaker 1: and worked. Okay, so maybe it's not so unbelievable. I
Speaker 1: can relate with Jacob the whorwolf. Why got it? Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the scene where she goes to Port Angels
Speaker 1: and those creepy dudes follow her and pray on her. So,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, she sort of fights back. They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: pretty lady, where are you going? And she's like, get
Speaker 1: away from me, don't touch me. Edward shows up saves her,
Speaker 1: which happens a bunch of times. Don't worry a mentalist
Speaker 1: of all the times, and he has to save her,
Speaker 1: but as JT You pointed out, I'm an education puts.
Speaker 1: He takes her out of that one dangerous situation and
Speaker 1: then puts her immediately into another dangerous situation because he's
Speaker 1: driving extremely recklessly. Get a bad boy. He yells at
Speaker 1: her about how she always puts herself in these dangerous
Speaker 1: situations as you're so awkward. She's always following and then
Speaker 1: pulls right out in the middle of traffic. It's like
Speaker 1: beebe like everyone's just yelling at him. And then the
Speaker 1: aftermath of that scene is when they like show up
Speaker 1: at the restaurant, and I love the restaurants. So it's
Speaker 1: so restaurant, so weird. I love it. So she's like,
Speaker 1: you gotta give me some answers. She's demanding to know
Speaker 1: what's going on right, still being she should not have
Speaker 1: let her friends leave first of all, but that's a
Speaker 1: that's a novice mistake I could see myself making. I
Speaker 1: was I was wriends. We're so mad when she disappeared
Speaker 1: for twelve hours, but then when edwards they're they're like,
Speaker 1: they're like, we better get going. So she's like, did
Speaker 1: you follow me? And he's like, I just feel very
Speaker 1: protective of you. This is okay, Listen, sometimes someone's gonna
Speaker 1: stare at you during your math test and you're gonna
Speaker 1: be like, I'm just being protected. I'm kidding him. But
Speaker 1: it's so frustrating that she keeps being like, tell me
Speaker 1: what the funk is going on? And he's just like,
Speaker 1: I'm protecting you, and then she keeps following her. And
Speaker 1: this is also the scene where we finally get some
Speaker 1: answers and he reveals that he can read minds right,
Speaker 1: and then he can't read her right, and then the reaction, Oh,
Speaker 1: she's like, is there something wrong with me? You can't
Speaker 1: read my mind? What's wrong with it? Right? So automatically,
Speaker 1: I'm the person that's messed up in this situation right
Speaker 1: where you were just like I'm a mind reader and
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm I'm sorry. But here's the thing. I
Speaker 1: don't want to relate to this movie in any way,
Speaker 1: but as I say, exteen or seventeen year old girl,
Speaker 1: well you have to put yourself in the yeah, like
Speaker 1: when I you know, you're very self conscious. You don't
Speaker 1: have a lot of self esteem at that age usually,
Speaker 1: So I think it was it was actually kind of
Speaker 1: like humanizing a bit too. I found it believable that
Speaker 1: she'd be like, that's wrong with me. Teenagers of either
Speaker 1: gender are easily manipulated. True, I know this. I was
Speaker 1: just doing it to a teenager this morning. I mean, well,
Speaker 1: it's just him being feeling so protective of her and
Speaker 1: controlling of HER's just one of the many ways he's
Speaker 1: abusive toward her. And backtracking a little bit to the
Speaker 1: scene where they're all at the beach that there is
Speaker 1: a point where it's the friend who isn't Ana Kendrick, Angela, Angela,
Speaker 1: she so Angela wants to ask Eric Eric, angel wants
Speaker 1: to ask Eric to the prompt and Bella And this
Speaker 1: part literally infuriates me because I know how unfair this
Speaker 1: whole serious is too women. Where Bella says take control.
Speaker 1: You're a strong and independent woman, and I'm like, where
Speaker 1: do you get off? You're about to go vampire man.
Speaker 1: There's a few moments in this movie where it's like,
Speaker 1: there's Bella's last stand as a as a person with
Speaker 1: any sort of agency or opinions. Bella initially do that
Speaker 1: a lot in the beginning when Angela first meets Bella,
Speaker 1: Angela's like, hey, I work for the newspaper and I'm
Speaker 1: just so tired of talking about eating disorders. And Bella
Speaker 1: is like, what about the boys swim team spidos and
Speaker 1: and she was like, yeah, you're really good at advice. Yeah, honestly,
Speaker 1: which here this is a controversial opinion because obviously Mike
Speaker 1: is a chode, but I think she should have just
Speaker 1: employed the catch all Jamie Loftus solution of just date
Speaker 1: Mike so that she can fix him. No, just to
Speaker 1: kill some time and give the vampire time to get
Speaker 1: the funk out of her way and not ruin her life.
Speaker 1: Better to have a chowd for a couple of months
Speaker 1: than be immortal and have a baby that's eating you.
Speaker 1: Well again, I think she should have dated Jacob. Jacob
Speaker 1: is her best friend. Jacob. Do you think they had
Speaker 1: a report? They know they I agree, But do you
Speaker 1: think he was gay? That first movie? I prayed I
Speaker 1: don't even believe in God, and I prayed God, he's
Speaker 1: a great and then Stephanie were ruins him by making
Speaker 1: him a pedophile. I'm cutting off that wig. What did
Speaker 1: you say? Oh, he's so handsome. There's a looking Adam.
Speaker 1: Another fun scene that Bella. She's like, why did you
Speaker 1: hate me so much? And he's like, I did, but
Speaker 1: only for making me want you so badly, which is
Speaker 1: Victim't blame me. Oh my god, what you said? And
Speaker 1: it's like, if you weren't so so fucking I won,
Speaker 1: I'm your blood. I'm good again. It's Edward has a
Speaker 1: problem inside. He's trying to figure out who he is.
Speaker 1: He hasn't seen that excuse, and he puts it on Bella.
Speaker 1: It's not definitely not fair. The scene where he makes
Speaker 1: her say the word vampire, see it vampire, vampire, and
Speaker 1: then he's not even a good line read no cousin vampire.
Speaker 1: He grabs her arm and yanks her and literally pulls
Speaker 1: her through No, no, I trust you, my little spider monkey.
Speaker 1: And then seconds later he gives the line, so the
Speaker 1: lion fell in love with the lamb, and that's the like,
Speaker 1: that's when he decides to fall in love with her.
Speaker 1: That's it. Oh the scene where they're falling in love
Speaker 1: and there's fog and Edward Collins flaming the piano, it's
Speaker 1: actually I remember you're just like ow. The director was like,
Speaker 1: why not? Female director? To add insult to injury, Catherine
Speaker 1: Hardwick directed this movie. Woman director, female woman screenwriter, adapted
Speaker 1: by a book written by a woman. Should be a winner,
Speaker 1: should be here we are. But yeah, everyone's the wrong
Speaker 1: woman and they found a bunch of bad ones. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about act three whenever. This movie ends great. Finally,
Speaker 1: Bella goes after James to be a martyr, to be
Speaker 1: like again. Right, of course Edward has to step in
Speaker 1: and save her. One of many times he saves her,
Speaker 1: so we've got saves her from the van, saves her
Speaker 1: from the creepy dudes, and port Angelis, saves her from James.
Speaker 1: He steps in to save her. There's vampire venom all
Speaker 1: up in her. So she's lying on the floor. She
Speaker 1: doesn't do anything. She's supposed to be the protagonist, she's
Speaker 1: the hero of this story. She doesn't do anything to
Speaker 1: resolve the conflict. She's rendered completely inactive and totally passive,
Speaker 1: and she doesn't do anything to determine the outcome of
Speaker 1: the story, which is not how storytelling works. How do
Speaker 1: you know so much about storytelling? Oh, it's just because
Speaker 1: I have a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University.
Speaker 1: Alfred Molina is to Jamie as screenwriting degree is to Caitlin.
Speaker 1: That was one of the questions on my g r E,
Speaker 1: which I did have to take to go to grad
Speaker 1: school for his screenwriting. Man, what year did Alfred Molena
Speaker 1: joined the Royal Shakespeare Company? Seven? Okay, so the protagonist
Speaker 1: of this that's my security question. The protagonist in this movie,
Speaker 1: in her most dire moment, is paralyzed. Yeah, right, well
Speaker 1: that this kind of reminds me to just bring Alfred
Speaker 1: back into it, Freddie Sorry, um of sort of that
Speaker 1: one an off moment in Spiderman two at the climactic
Speaker 1: scene where Mary Jane makes one attempts to hit a
Speaker 1: blow in the villain and it is just ceremoniously thrown
Speaker 1: to the side. And that's pretty much what happens to Bella.
Speaker 1: She she makes the choice to go. She we see
Speaker 1: her making a choice. Things are bad, but at least
Speaker 1: you know, you're like, all right, she's making a decision.
Speaker 1: It's bad, but it's well, it's a stupid as hell
Speaker 1: choice because she's not equipped to fight these vampires you
Speaker 1: know who is the other vampires who she's friends with now,
Speaker 1: But she makes a choice, and that happens so rarely already.
Speaker 1: So it's like at that point I was like, I
Speaker 1: know what happens, but that is misleading and that maybe
Speaker 1: she'll do something. And then she does make like one
Speaker 1: attempt to go against what was like, what were we
Speaker 1: calling him the sniffer. She tries to get the sniffer
Speaker 1: and then he sniff, he's he sniffs her right to
Speaker 1: the side. She's she's done. He touches her leg and
Speaker 1: it breaks right and you're just like, well, there goes
Speaker 1: the protagonist. She's done. So God, it was just so
Speaker 1: annoying that she is completely ineffective in doing anything to
Speaker 1: determine It's a moment in the story. It's a big
Speaker 1: moment for the relationship though, between Bella and Edward. Remember,
Speaker 1: she's bleeding profusely, and Alice can't control herself. She might
Speaker 1: like bite off her head at any time, and that's
Speaker 1: why she did just rip off someone else's Carlyle sends
Speaker 1: her off to actually do some damage, and that's when
Speaker 1: Edward learns about himself that he won't eat her because
Speaker 1: he loves her so much and he doesn't want her
Speaker 1: to die. But I know it's so romantic. Well, and
Speaker 1: then the scene after that when she's when Bella is
Speaker 1: in the hospital, her mom's like, what, you don't want
Speaker 1: to move to Phoenix again? You want to stay in
Speaker 1: Forks with hot ass Charlie Swan, Well, okay, and then
Speaker 1: she leaves. Let's just say as Charlie Swan and then Edward,
Speaker 1: who had been pretending to be asleep because guess what,
Speaker 1: he doesn't need to sleep. Great, I bet you get
Speaker 1: so much done, except you don't because you just go
Speaker 1: to high school. Exactly. You don't have to go to
Speaker 1: high school. You could just stay inside. Rob is classically
Speaker 1: trained as an actor in Sleeping. He's really good. I
Speaker 1: believed it classically trains Sleeper. Well, okay, so the scene
Speaker 1: in um the hospital whenever Edward's like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't maybe we shouldn't be together. I'm putting you
Speaker 1: in too much danger Allah spider Man, but She's like,
Speaker 1: I can't live without you, baby. We gotta get one
Speaker 1: last infuriating moment in there where he's like, I've treated
Speaker 1: you shitty this entire movie, and now I'm saying that
Speaker 1: maybe we shouldn't be together, and she's just like, no,
Speaker 1: but I'm irreflacably in love with you, irrevocably there. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are consequences to being with Edward right, Like, she's
Speaker 1: literally broken after this fight. Um, she's broken up with
Speaker 1: her dad. After spending months trying to fix this relationship
Speaker 1: that she hasn't had since she was four or whatever,
Speaker 1: she has to lie to him. What she says that
Speaker 1: was a painful scene to watch. She really breaks his
Speaker 1: heart with like they both do a really good job.
Speaker 1: I don't want to end up like mom just stuck here, right,
Speaker 1: And he's like, I am boring, that's all she's implying.
Speaker 1: It's like, you're such a drag dad um really quickly
Speaker 1: on the subject of Catherine Hardwick, because it is extremely
Speaker 1: difficult and was relatively historic at the time for a
Speaker 1: female director in two thousand and eight to be given
Speaker 1: the reins to this massive blockbuster. Her previous directorial history
Speaker 1: prior to this included a movie I used to love
Speaker 1: that I would probably not love as much if I
Speaker 1: revisited now, called Thirteen. It came out in two thousand
Speaker 1: three before I was thirteen, so I was like, this
Speaker 1: is what I have to look forward to. And it's
Speaker 1: like young girls fucking and doing drugs and messing their
Speaker 1: lives up. But anyways, that was like her big debut
Speaker 1: and and she graduated out of that started getting bigger
Speaker 1: Hollywood gigs, gets Twilight does almost every installment, I don't
Speaker 1: think she does the last one. And then just speaking
Speaker 1: to women in Hollywood in general, since Twilight this massively
Speaker 1: for all of its shortcomings, of which there are many.
Speaker 1: For all of its massive success, she has had very
Speaker 1: little major release work since then, which I think is
Speaker 1: a testament she sorry not to correct her man's plain, Um,
Speaker 1: you are my least favorite man in the one. Uh.
Speaker 1: New Moon was directed by Chris Wentz, so not not her,
Speaker 1: but she well maybe she was was directed by David Slade.
Speaker 1: Breaking Dawn was directed by Bill Condon, so it seems
Speaker 1: like it was all men after this first one. Wait
Speaker 1: a second, Okay, So yeah they didn't. It was a success.
Speaker 1: It was a huge success. It was a huge success.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, So she sorry, I was misreading that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she dropped out of the New Moon sequel. She was
Speaker 1: offered the New Moon sequel but ended up not being
Speaker 1: able to do it because of a scheduling thing, which
Speaker 1: is like, Katherine, make it work, got it. It seems
Speaker 1: as though the screenwriter, Melissa Rosenberg, did work on Slash
Speaker 1: right most of the sequels, so she returned for the others.
Speaker 1: It's bizarre because yeah, if you look at Katherine Harberg's
Speaker 1: filmography since then, she didn't direct another movie for three
Speaker 1: years after the first Twilight and has only directed three
Speaker 1: movies total in the past ten years, so I'm ready
Speaker 1: for her comeback. You know, right. She directed Lord of Dogtown,
Speaker 1: the skateboard movie for gran outline. Yeah skip that one.
Speaker 1: I didn't see that. She also directed The Nativity Story
Speaker 1: that also, you know, let's not rule up the fact
Speaker 1: that maybe she's not a great director, but also crummy
Speaker 1: male directors getty second chances. Katherine Hardwick has not been
Speaker 1: as fortunate, and it just feels worth mentioning. I can't
Speaker 1: speak to the quality of her work because you know, Lord,
Speaker 1: every movie that I'm thinking of that she's directed kind
Speaker 1: of sucks. I have a day dream where this story
Speaker 1: isn't about Edward and Bella. It's about Bella and Charlie
Speaker 1: and a comeback story where a young daughter learns to
Speaker 1: love her dad again. And sure there's a vampire in
Speaker 1: the background, but at the end of the day, Charlie
Speaker 1: really loves his daughter. You know, Charlie is so bad
Speaker 1: at his job. He's a police officer and crime is
Speaker 1: running rampant. There are other worldly creatures and most of
Speaker 1: the time he's at a diner ordering food for Bella.
Speaker 1: He's like, she'll have this is not a jump Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true, which like, what is this? He cal Hockley's
Speaker 1: orders her. You like, lamb right, sweepy, that's all right,
Speaker 1: it's about time, you know. Yeah, he does make some
Speaker 1: questionable choices with his career as the town police officer.
Speaker 1: He's the chief of not even just like a random officer.
Speaker 1: He's the chief. So they're animal tax happening all around
Speaker 1: town and he arms Bella with some mace you know,
Speaker 1: the vampire stopper mace um. At one point after the
Speaker 1: field trip where Bella has a horrible time with Edward,
Speaker 1: she comes home and he's already on his second beer
Speaker 1: at lunch, and she immediately starts cleaning up after him.
Speaker 1: She does. Yeah, so that's why I wanted that to
Speaker 1: be the focus of the story. I understand why Bella's
Speaker 1: mom left him, because he does seem to be a
Speaker 1: bad at his job and be an alcohol However, both
Speaker 1: parents are really horrible and like, it's so amazing that
Speaker 1: Bella is alive. Hey, listen, if Robert Pattinson is raw dogging, hey,
Speaker 1: you're like, I wasn't raised right. There's a fun scene
Speaker 1: where they're like talking about going to prom and Bella
Speaker 1: is like, but I can't dance and Edward says, I
Speaker 1: can always make you very romantic. And another moment where
Speaker 1: she's not like the others was where he makes some
Speaker 1: sort of numbers joke and then she's like, I don't
Speaker 1: need to know what the square root of pie is.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh she is, she's a smart cookie, and
Speaker 1: he's swoon and he's like, you know, or when she
Speaker 1: knows women in stem you are, and then when she
Speaker 1: knows the name of a composer and she's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's really good, and then he's like, you know that
Speaker 1: is and then he's like, I have to take out
Speaker 1: my fog machine. I need to play your piano right now. Well,
Speaker 1: that's one of my big problems with this movie, just
Speaker 1: in a narrative sense, is that we don't really ever
Speaker 1: know why they like each other are except for the
Speaker 1: fact that they're attracted to each other. But they're like,
Speaker 1: but he's you're right, They're just both so devoid of
Speaker 1: personality that like it's confusing why they like each other,
Speaker 1: Like what are they compatible about? Nothing? Well, Edward can't
Speaker 1: you know. He hears everyone's thoughts all the time, and
Speaker 1: people are gross. Right, It's like sex, sex sex cats, right,
Speaker 1: and like that should be annoying, right, So, like he
Speaker 1: comes across young Bella and like, I get why it
Speaker 1: would be enticing, but he paints this picture of like,
Speaker 1: this is fate, this is destiny. We have to be
Speaker 1: together right now, I have to stalk you. And that's
Speaker 1: just not how it should have been. Well, like, if
Speaker 1: he finds her intriguing that he doesn't have to listen
Speaker 1: to her thoughts all the time, I'm fine, I guess
Speaker 1: I get that. But then he demands to know what
Speaker 1: she's thinking all the time. He's like, you're the only
Speaker 1: person I can't read, so you need to tell me
Speaker 1: what you're thinking all the time. And then she's like
Speaker 1: and unfortunately, she's probably like, um, sex and cats. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: you have a blind spot. But I am a person
Speaker 1: and thinking about sex and pats as well. But she's not.
Speaker 1: She's thinking about numbers and I don't want to dance.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm awkward. One thing I do want to point out,
Speaker 1: which does not redeem this movie in any way, but
Speaker 1: I do like that there's pretty equal gender balance in
Speaker 1: terms of about half the characters are women whose names
Speaker 1: we know and have at least some role in the story.
Speaker 1: Because a problem we come up with on the podcast
Speaker 1: a lot is that there are hardly any women in
Speaker 1: this whatever story we're talking about. And it's nice that
Speaker 1: Bella has some female friends. She's got Jess, she's got Angela,
Speaker 1: she's got Alice. They like develop more of a friendship
Speaker 1: in the later movies and books, and she has a
Speaker 1: relationship with her mom. So it's nice to see that
Speaker 1: there are some like female bonds. They have thoughts, they
Speaker 1: all have opinions, they all have conflicts. Except for Victoria
Speaker 1: the vampire. I think she's just trying to eat people.
Speaker 1: But everyone else, well she gets made at the very
Speaker 1: very end because she's that prom watching as vampires do.
Speaker 1: She's no the blonde one. Is that Rosalie. She's a star.
Speaker 1: Oh Nicky Reid. Uh, it's one of those directors and
Speaker 1: now you know, bringing back the cast, get the gang
Speaker 1: back together. But Victoria is one of the evil vampires ladies,
Speaker 1: the one the last person you see in the movie
Speaker 1: for some reason, because well she was with she was
Speaker 1: dating James, whose head gets ripped off, kissed and she's mad.
Speaker 1: She's like, you've ripped off my friend's head. If for
Speaker 1: I loved this hip for so she has a personal
Speaker 1: vendetta against Bella now, which becomes the story. It was real.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just like a teenage romance where they just
Speaker 1: like sort of like the way each other looked like
Speaker 1: they like they were together for a while. They were
Speaker 1: as vampires do. Does anyone have any final thoughts about
Speaker 1: the Have you gotten three or seven pages of notes? So? Yeah,
Speaker 1: overprepared because I'm a type a educator. I think I
Speaker 1: loved this movie ten years ago because I didn't know
Speaker 1: what it meant to be a feminist, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know what it meant to love myself or love another person.
Speaker 1: And now I am sort of a feminist and I
Speaker 1: myself yeah, I mean I have some t shirts what
Speaker 1: the Future is Female? Check me out on Twitter. Um.
Speaker 1: But now I have a good sense of what it
Speaker 1: means to be in a stable, normal, respectful relationship. And
Speaker 1: I can look back and say, this was a fun
Speaker 1: movie to pre Game two before I went out to
Speaker 1: the club. But I don't think that it's a very
Speaker 1: positive film, and I don't I wouldn't recommend it to
Speaker 1: any of my students, thank you. I think that that
Speaker 1: is a sentiment that a lot of us can relate to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're like ten years ago, it was a not a
Speaker 1: simpler time. It was a it was a more lectris time.
Speaker 1: And the further you go back, the worse it gets.
Speaker 1: So we're doing better now. We're in a better place
Speaker 1: as a culture. Moana came out, and since then things
Speaker 1: have been on well, the up and up, except then
Speaker 1: the but then Transformers came out of game. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're in a better place as
Speaker 1: a culture, but we as individuals are in better places
Speaker 1: killing Donald Trumps president. So you know that's not too good. No,
Speaker 1: it's not too good at all. We as a culture
Speaker 1: don't like that. But my taste has gotten even more
Speaker 1: exquisite if you could believe it from ten years ago.
Speaker 1: So Spider Man two is still in my top five
Speaker 1: and has been for over ten years. Check out a
Speaker 1: Spiderman Homecoming. I really enjoyed it. Oh, I haven't seen
Speaker 1: it yet. I want to say, I want to describe
Speaker 1: it as irrevocably, but that one irrevocably a movie I've seen.
Speaker 1: It's true. You can't go and see it. Take it back.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of female characters. For how bad this
Speaker 1: movie is. Two women, true, like you were just saying,
Speaker 1: which is and I hadn't even thought of it. It
Speaker 1: probably is about half and half in terms of male
Speaker 1: versus female characters, which doesn't happen a lot in movies,
Speaker 1: but also said just as bad that all the female
Speaker 1: characters are just well. There are many more opportunities for
Speaker 1: the movie to pass the Bechdel test than we see
Speaker 1: in the average movie. What was Your Reads? I think
Speaker 1: it does, but only very, very minimally, and often in
Speaker 1: a conversation where they then shift the focus to a man, right,
Speaker 1: so like it's we're talking to line exchanges. At one point,
Speaker 1: Bella and Angela and Jess are talking about their prom dresses, right,
Speaker 1: and then the subtext is it's about the boys and
Speaker 1: how the boys will react to the dresses. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: So still technically passes. But there's one scene in the
Speaker 1: kitchen in the Vampire House between Alice and Bella. She says, hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Alice, Bella says hi, and then Alice says, you
Speaker 1: do smell good. And then as May is like, are
Speaker 1: you hungry? And Bella is like yes, right, and and
Speaker 1: then you're like a weird dramatic unnecessary she just ate
Speaker 1: and all right, and then Rosalie is like she breaks
Speaker 1: the glass right, and I'm just like, calm down. She's
Speaker 1: really upset to be To be fair, a family of
Speaker 1: one year old vampires are trying to quart a seventeen
Speaker 1: year old so they make an Italian meal. And then
Speaker 1: Twilight is a movie that forever changes the Bechtel test.
Speaker 1: It's like, how does the Bechtel test change when women
Speaker 1: can be food? You know, I'm into I'm into this
Speaker 1: line of thing. I don't think it passes because they're
Speaker 1: always talking to food, not to people, not to other women.
Speaker 1: It's like, you're not be Where were you on that?
Speaker 1: What if women can also be eaten? Right? It's like
Speaker 1: two meals talking to each other. That doesn't pass the
Speaker 1: Bechtel test. I would say the scene where Bella and
Speaker 1: just meet each other in the gym after she's just
Speaker 1: spiked of volleyball at chowed Mike's head passes because Jessica goes,
Speaker 1: I'm Jessica, by the way here from Arizona, right. Bella
Speaker 1: was like yeah, and use aren't people from Arizona supposed
Speaker 1: to be like really tan? And Bella is like, maybe
Speaker 1: that's why they kicked me out que uproarious laughter from everybody,
Speaker 1: like we love me girl, She's funny. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: this movie as a movie that they're you know, books
Speaker 1: written on how bad it is to women, does pass
Speaker 1: the Bechdel test if you can believe it. But as
Speaker 1: we often acknowledge, the Bechdel test is not like the
Speaker 1: end all be all. It is literally syndicator. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's start here and then so Twilight, for all of
Speaker 1: its shortcomings, gets to step one. But that's as far
Speaker 1: as it stops. Right there. With that, let's rate the
Speaker 1: movie our nipple scale. To our listeners who are not
Speaker 1: familiar with the nipple scale, Let's start with the Twilight episode.
Speaker 1: Go back and listen to Thelma and Louise come on
Speaker 1: or mo wanna come on, and then revisit this episode.
Speaker 1: Go listen to Gli No, do not endorse that No
Speaker 1: Julie is a good episode. Hey, I give it one
Speaker 1: nipple because we're rating it based on its portrayal of women.
Speaker 1: One nipple because I do like that there's a pretty
Speaker 1: equal gender balance in terms of male versus female characters,
Speaker 1: pretty equal across the board, and I like that you
Speaker 1: do see Bella often standing up for herself again. It
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter because she ends up in this abusive relationship,
Speaker 1: but you do, at least, on many many occasions, see
Speaker 1: her and be like, no, don't touch me, No I
Speaker 1: want answers, No, stop gaslighting me. I know what I saw, like,
Speaker 1: bye bye bye. Two thirds away into the movie, it's
Speaker 1: she's done for, but we do the dying breaths of
Speaker 1: what was once a somewhat confidence in the work. She
Speaker 1: is awkward, but someone who can at least ask, you know,
Speaker 1: not afraid of confrontation, not afraid of asking a question
Speaker 1: that is reasonable to a man. Sure, yes, So that's
Speaker 1: why it gets one star and not zero stars stars.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Okay, one nipple, one
Speaker 1: nipple for Caitlin, one nipple for me would have gotten
Speaker 1: a zero nipple rating. But it has a tiny little
Speaker 1: thing going for it. Isn't there a thing where you like,
Speaker 1: give the nipple to someone, Yeah, we will. We describe
Speaker 1: the nipple. My nipple belongs to Jacob, whose nipple we
Speaker 1: see in New Moon. He's like, I'm riding on a motorcycle.
Speaker 1: I gotta take my shirt off, and you see his
Speaker 1: nipple and it's a good Nipple highly endorsed that nipple,
Speaker 1: so Team Jacob, Team Jacob agree. I'm gonna give it
Speaker 1: one and a half nipples because technically, with R. Rubric
Speaker 1: it does pass the bactial test, which I was honestly
Speaker 1: very surprised that it does technically more than once there
Speaker 1: are a lot of female characters and then almost exclusively
Speaker 1: wasted potential. But this is to be clear, the one
Speaker 1: and a half is for this movie only, not in
Speaker 1: any way for the whole series, which gets negative nipples
Speaker 1: because it actively removes more and more agency from its
Speaker 1: female characters as the series goes on, begins to kill
Speaker 1: them off, etcetera. But for this movie alone, I'll give
Speaker 1: it one and a half because, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: we see Bella not be totally gaslighted that at the beginning,
Speaker 1: we see her fight as she goes down, uh and
Speaker 1: descends into the worst years of her life, which presumably
Speaker 1: lasts forever. Uh. It's I give one and a half,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to give one to that fucking Jacksonville
Speaker 1: batting cage showed Phil, and then I'll give half of
Speaker 1: one to Angela because she was the closest we got
Speaker 1: to anything. She was a strong independent woman. She asked.
Speaker 1: She asked Eric and he said, yes, they go to
Speaker 1: prom together. They sure do good for her. Go angela
Speaker 1: half a nipple for you. Um, I interesting premise. I
Speaker 1: mean it didn't really deliver, But I think this would
Speaker 1: have been a great movie if it were about Bella
Speaker 1: and her dad or Bella and her gay best friend Jacob.
Speaker 1: It was not about those things. So I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: it one What can it be about Bella and her mom?
Speaker 1: Why can it be about a female in Florida? That
Speaker 1: doesn't have to happen when you're rewriting the story. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're rewriting. Okay, I'm still giving it one and
Speaker 1: a half nipples. And that is because in the trailer
Speaker 1: to New Moon, there was a lot of controversy about
Speaker 1: edwards left nipple. If you guys haven't read about Nipplegate,
Speaker 1: people really went to town Twitter about Edwards. Maybe funked
Speaker 1: up body, Maybe he wasn't as perfect as everyone thought.
Speaker 1: I actually kind of remember that one and a half
Speaker 1: nipples for Rob Pattinson's left nipple. Thank you, dear God,
Speaker 1: Hey JT, my dear friend. Yes, thanks for being here,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me We've had a swell time.
Speaker 1: This is really different from my day job, which is
Speaker 1: an educator. Right, do you want some followers? Where can
Speaker 1: people find you? On Twitter at JT in the Cloud.
Speaker 1: I say funny things about culture and video games and
Speaker 1: education and feminism. Hey, you can follow the Bechtel Cast
Speaker 1: on many different platforms for instance, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Bechtel
Speaker 1: Cast some variation on it. Fucking banger in Out. You'll
Speaker 1: find it. We have a live show kind of in
Speaker 1: New York in September. UM. We'll be posting more about that.
Speaker 1: Probably by the time this comes out. You'll be able
Speaker 1: to buy tickets. That's exciting. Check our various media places.
Speaker 1: Find out a place to buy things. To that thing
Speaker 1: and we'll see you at that thing, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: have a big old fun time. We're gonna chillax, chillax.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be lamping in New York City. Push baby, Okay,
Speaker 1: bye bye. Say it.