Speaker 1: On The Bechdel Cast. The questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
Speaker 1: best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: Hey, Jamie, Hey, Caitlyn, look at this necklace. I got you.
Speaker 3: Wow, And that's so nice.
Speaker 2: That part of the movie was giving me cal Hockley
Speaker 2: giving the Heart of the Ocean to Rose.
Speaker 3: It is a very low stakes Heart of the Ocean. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: very low stakes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because he's just borrowing it, right, he didn't even
Speaker 2: buy it for her.
Speaker 3: It's a loner. We're not worried about where it comes from.
Speaker 3: And I think that it gets returned, you know, without
Speaker 3: a problem. I feel like it's Deis X necklace, like,
Speaker 3: but you're just like, no, it just ends up being
Speaker 3: a nice necklace. And then it snaps closed and she goes,
Speaker 3: oh with all five thousand of her teeth, and we
Speaker 3: love and worship every single one of them.
Speaker 2: We sure do. Hello and welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: My name is Caitlyn Deronte.
Speaker 3: My name is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast
Speaker 3: where we take a look at your favorite movies using
Speaker 3: an intersectional feminist lens and using the Bechdel Test as
Speaker 3: a jumping off point for discussion. Caitlin H. What is
Speaker 3: the Bechdel Test?
Speaker 2: I'll tell you it is a mediometric created by dear
Speaker 2: friend of the show, Alison Bechdel, first appearing in her
Speaker 2: comic dis To Watch Out for It requires that for
Speaker 2: our standards, because there are many different versions of it.
Speaker 2: But for us, do two characters of a marginalized gender
Speaker 2: have names? Do they speak to each other? And is
Speaker 2: there conversation about something other than a man? And we
Speaker 2: particularly like it when it's narratively meaningful and not just
Speaker 2: throw a dialogue that could be cut from the movie
Speaker 2: and it would make no difference.
Speaker 3: So today we are covering We're sort of like I
Speaker 3: think this is sort of the theme of the tenure
Speaker 3: of the podcasting. So many movies that you would think
Speaker 3: we would have covered in the last ten years, but
Speaker 3: somehow we didn't. One of the most I think influential
Speaker 3: movies of its generation, one of the most successful movies
Speaker 3: in all of movies at the time of its release.
Speaker 3: We are at long last covering Pretty Women nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: directed by Gary Marshall and written by a writer named J. F.
Speaker 2: Lawton.
Speaker 3: I don't know, and we have two incredible guests to
Speaker 3: cover it with you. Just a little peak behind the curtain.
Speaker 3: We're recording this in the future, and I wanted to say, like,
Speaker 3: we could have talked about this movie for five consecutive hours. Yes,
Speaker 3: this is a rich, rich, rich text that there's been
Speaker 3: a lot of different reactions to over the years. There
Speaker 3: is definitely stuff we didn't have time to get to
Speaker 3: because of time constraints for this episode. If there is
Speaker 3: a perspective or I thought you had about this movie
Speaker 3: that we didn't cover in the space this episode, we'd
Speaker 3: love to hear it, either you know, reach us out
Speaker 3: to us on social media or especially if you're a
Speaker 3: member of our patreon aka Patreon. It's a fun place
Speaker 3: to have community discussion as well. Yeah. Yeah, with that,
Speaker 3: let's let's get into it. Let's get our guests in
Speaker 3: the mix.
Speaker 2: They are the filmmakers behind Modern Whore, director Nicole Design
Speaker 2: and writer performer Andrea Warehan. Welcome, Hey, thanks so much
Speaker 2: for being here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're so excited to be talking to you about
Speaker 3: this movie and to be talking to you about your
Speaker 3: movie congratulations.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. Thanks for having us. We're so excited.
Speaker 3: Of course, the pleasure is all ours. Let our listeners
Speaker 3: know a little bit more about the documentary and sort
Speaker 3: of how it came together over the years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, Modern Whore is a hybrid documentary directed by
Speaker 4: myself and co created with Andrea Ware, who is the subject.
Speaker 4: Slash star because this is a hybrid documentary where she
Speaker 4: not only talks to you know, the audience about her
Speaker 4: experiences as a es scort and stripper working in Toronto,
Speaker 4: she also acts out those experiences in a series of
Speaker 4: highly stylized reenactments that really run the gamut from humorous
Speaker 4: to uncomfortable to sad or scary, but ultimately that we
Speaker 4: want to be joyful and offer something new in terms
Speaker 4: of sex work representation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really enjoyable and affecting to watch. We're curious
Speaker 2: because at the top of the documentary you say that
Speaker 2: in movies, books, media, in general, sex workers are usually
Speaker 2: depicted as either victims or villains. And because our show
Speaker 2: is all about representation and media, could you talk a
Speaker 2: little bit more about your impressions of the way sex
Speaker 2: workers are represented on screen. Traditionally, historically, et cetera.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not pretty.
Speaker 2: It's not pretty woman, it's woman, and.
Speaker 5: The hooker usually ends up dead or is the punchline
Speaker 5: or is you know, pretty woman. Obviously we've got the
Speaker 5: hooker with a heart gold story, but we've also got
Speaker 5: a hooker in a dumpster.
Speaker 2: At the beginning.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, right at the beginning to set us up,
Speaker 5: like that's what we expect when we see sex workers
Speaker 5: on screen. So yeah, I think that that's like the
Speaker 5: general sort of range of depictions that we see from
Speaker 5: the brains of voyeuristic civilians with their nefarious intentions. When
Speaker 5: it comes to depicting us on screen, we're we're like
Speaker 5: manic pixie dream whorees. You know, we show up to
Speaker 5: further the plot, but we don't actually ever get our
Speaker 5: own stories. We don't have nuanced it's very like one
Speaker 5: note and yeah, we usually end up dead.
Speaker 2: Totally, so many tropes, so many you know, the object
Speaker 2: of the punchline kind of thing.
Speaker 3: And you use the documentary to sort of expand I
Speaker 3: mean bringing in your friends who are sex workers and
Speaker 3: also just a diverse group of perspectives in sex work specifically. Yeah,
Speaker 3: how did that come together? And I don't know, I
Speaker 3: really appreciated that there was, especially after watching Pretty Woman,
Speaker 3: a diverse group of sex workers and artists with Nuance
Speaker 3: and you know, like just all this and everyone's so funny. Anyways,
Speaker 3: what was it like sort of bringing this group together
Speaker 3: for the movie and kind of revisiting this period of
Speaker 3: your life.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm happy to say that, you know, all of
Speaker 5: those sex workers that are featured in the film are
Speaker 5: people have collaborated with artistically in the past, and they're friends.
Speaker 5: So like, there are people that I know. They're not
Speaker 5: just you know, figures of representation to be dropped into
Speaker 5: the film to check a box, you know, their real
Speaker 5: life people that I know that are making art or
Speaker 5: you know, living their lives and doing advocacy and also
Speaker 5: come to this work with you know, vastly different backgrounds
Speaker 5: and experiences. But at the end of the day, what
Speaker 5: we all have in common is that we believe that
Speaker 5: each and every sex worker deserves to be treated with
Speaker 5: dignity and respect, you know, regardless of that experience. So
Speaker 5: it was great to get them all on board to
Speaker 5: be in the film, you know, pretty early on in
Speaker 5: the process, and those interviews in the film arise out
Speaker 5: of you know, continuous conversations with them about what they
Speaker 5: feel comfortable talking about on screen. You know, what we
Speaker 5: wanted to bring to life in the movie. What were
Speaker 5: the topics related to sex work that we never get
Speaker 5: to see on screen? And you know, all of those
Speaker 5: sex workers brought something of themselves and what they feel
Speaker 5: like they never get to see to the movie, which
Speaker 5: is you know, enormously incredible. And I think it was
Speaker 5: really important since this was an adaptation of my memoir.
Speaker 5: You knows, it's a very prescient critique that I am
Speaker 5: a cis white femme who has written a sex work memoir.
Speaker 5: Like you stop me if you've heard this one. It's
Speaker 5: a common thing, and we need to be able to,
Speaker 5: you know, open the door to other sex worker experiences
Speaker 5: and other sex worker voices to be able to tell
Speaker 5: their own stories. It's extremely important and understanding that, like,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to be able to do that, and
Speaker 5: I shouldn't do that. That's not my role. I'm not
Speaker 5: here to speak for anybody. It's important for sex workers
Speaker 5: always to be able to speak for themselves totally.
Speaker 2: And it's really impressive the wide range of topics that
Speaker 2: you cover with your collaborators, colleagues, fellow sex workers. You're
Speaker 2: talking about the criminalization of sex work. You're talking about
Speaker 2: the importance of community. You're talking about not being given
Speaker 2: opportunities to meet your fellow co workers and experience solidarity
Speaker 2: in some cases. You talk about shame, you talk about
Speaker 2: romantic relationships, you talk about trauma, porn like it's there's
Speaker 2: so many and that's just the tip of the Iceberg
Speaker 2: parentheses Titanic reference.
Speaker 3: But I love it.
Speaker 5: You know what Rose was posing nude? I guess not
Speaker 5: for money, but like like one of the.
Speaker 2: French girls that she pays him exactly.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, you're in going to bring her into the folds, right.
Speaker 2: And So, because you're such a huge advocate of the
Speaker 2: importance of sex workers telling their own stories, what are
Speaker 2: some ways you would like to see representations of sex
Speaker 2: work and sex workers in fiction, in movies and television.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And are there any specific productions movies, books, whatever
Speaker 3: it is that you're like more people should be talking
Speaker 3: about this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely. I think like if we want to see
Speaker 5: representations of sex work change, we need to give decision
Speaker 5: making positions on TV and film sets. Two sex workers,
Speaker 5: you know, sex workers need to be writing their own depictions.
Speaker 5: We need to be directing these films, We need to
Speaker 5: be producing these films, editing these films. Opportunities need to
Speaker 5: be given to sex workers on any production that is
Speaker 5: about sex work. If you don't have a sex worker
Speaker 5: with decision making power on that side, I just don't
Speaker 5: think that representation is ever going to be accurate. So
Speaker 5: we need to pay sex workers to do that labor.
Speaker 5: And you know, I hope one of the sort of
Speaker 5: impacts of the film is that people understand just like
Speaker 5: how many sex workers are also artists.
Speaker 2: Totally, you know, we who can.
Speaker 5: Afford to be an artist in this economy, Like nobody's
Speaker 5: doing that? But yeah, no one, it's unless you're a
Speaker 5: NEPO baby like you come from generational wealth, like you
Speaker 5: have those connections. Good for you. Most of us have
Speaker 5: to work for a living, and sex work just presents
Speaker 5: this opportunity to make a solid amount of money in
Speaker 5: a short period of time with a flexible schedule that
Speaker 5: really works well as artists, and so there is no
Speaker 5: shortage of artistic talent. And I'm thinking about, like, you know,
Speaker 5: the labor of producing it's really not that different from
Speaker 5: being an independent sex worker, and you have to manage
Speaker 5: all of these different things at the same time you're
Speaker 5: doing all these jobs. Of course, you could be a
Speaker 5: producer on a film and one sex work shouldn't ever
Speaker 5: be a barrier to accessing these these jobs on a
Speaker 5: film set. And so I just, you know, I think
Speaker 5: that that's going to be really important for turning the
Speaker 5: page on you know, thousands of years of representation of
Speaker 5: sex work that don't involve us doing that labor. But
Speaker 5: of course, like I'm thinking about fuck Toys, like fucked Toys, amazing,
Speaker 5: amazing film Shadow to Annapurna, like truly that film is
Speaker 5: so it feels like the future of sex work cinema.
Speaker 5: And it's such a thrill to be kind of like
Speaker 5: out with our movies at the same time. And we've
Speaker 5: we've talked a lot together. We haven't been able to
Speaker 5: meet in person yet shout out to the US border forever,
Speaker 5: but you know, one day we will meet and will
Speaker 5: be so so, so so happy. But yeah, that film
Speaker 5: is like a really good example of sex workers being
Speaker 5: in charge of that representation and demonstrating just how fucking
Speaker 5: talented we are and that we have an eye that
Speaker 5: no one else has when it comes to our labor.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, we've got to cover fuck toys.
Speaker 3: It's so good good.
Speaker 2: Is there anything else you too wanted to say about
Speaker 2: your film before we chat about Pretty Woman?
Speaker 4: I will say one more thing. So our film starts
Speaker 4: with Andrea making the assertion that, you know, the typical
Speaker 4: depictions of sex work are typically victim or villain archetypes.
Speaker 4: And you know, she also offers something along the way
Speaker 4: that could be a new archetype called the fem vital
Speaker 4: as opposed to a fatal. So certainly, I think this
Speaker 4: is a film that just feels like a natural fit
Speaker 4: to have your lens on. And I'm just really excited
Speaker 4: to have had you highlight our project and think about,
Speaker 4: you know, furthering the representations of sex work and having
Speaker 4: that kind of thoughtfulness about.
Speaker 6: The way that these archetypes exist on screen.
Speaker 2: Totally. One of the closing sentiments of the documentary is
Speaker 2: wanting to move away from the representation of a sex
Speaker 2: worker needing a white knight to come and rescue them.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if that was a direct reference
Speaker 2: to pretty Women or if it was just a more
Speaker 2: of a reference to a general trope, But but it, really,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 4: It can be both.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're so we're so excited about the viv and like,
Speaker 3: truly in the first ten minutes, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: our listeners are going to flip for modern horror, so congratulations.
Speaker 3: I'm just like cystoked.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's take a quick break and then we'll come
Speaker 2: back to discuss Pretty Women and we're back.
Speaker 3: Before we get into the recap, what are your respective
Speaker 3: histories with the movie Pretty Woman.
Speaker 4: I have been reflecting on when I would have encountered
Speaker 4: this film for the first time, and I think I
Speaker 4: would have been a tween. I think I might have
Speaker 4: been twelve when I watched this for the first time,
Speaker 4: and you know, I was a kid who when I
Speaker 4: heard the Cinderella Story as a bedtime story, my immediate
Speaker 4: response was again, you know, I loved that kind of
Speaker 4: story of you know, the Cinderella story, and so I
Speaker 4: think I was certainly a prime target for that kind
Speaker 4: of film being charming, you know. And I also really
Speaker 4: loved and have always loved My Fair Lady with Audrey
Speaker 4: Hepburn from nineteen sixty four, So you know, both stories
Speaker 4: have that Cinderella element, and also both stories have that
Speaker 4: Pygmalion origin that's in there, definitely exactly. So, you know,
Speaker 4: I think that they kind of played into this core
Speaker 4: fairy tale, satisfying makeover comedy story that that I really,
Speaker 4: you know, felt into, felt engaged y. You know, you
Speaker 4: love the Roy Orbison song right off the bat. It's
Speaker 4: just so wonderful, and so to revisit that film again
Speaker 4: over the years, it becomes one of those films that's
Speaker 4: really interesting to revisit at different points in your life
Speaker 4: and see your perceptions of it evolve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Andrew, how about you.
Speaker 5: I don't have anything nearly as eloquent to say about
Speaker 5: my association with Pretty Woman. I don't recall ever having
Speaker 5: like a super strong reaction to it. But I also
Speaker 5: tend to have an aversion to anything I feel like
Speaker 5: I'm supposed to watch or I'm supposed to like, So
Speaker 5: there's like a bit of an avoidance there. But obviously,
Speaker 5: as a sex worker, it's the penultimate sex worker film,
Speaker 5: you know, so I feel like I felt kind of
Speaker 5: like neutral or maybe avoidant about it. Fair and rewatching
Speaker 5: it this weekend to talk about it was such a
Speaker 5: revealing experience for myself.
Speaker 2: Well, I can't wait to learn more about that.
Speaker 3: Caitlyn, what about you? What's your I actually I don't
Speaker 3: know your history with this movie.
Speaker 2: I saw it for the first time during the Great
Speaker 2: Caitlin Movie binge of two thousand and five, and then
Speaker 2: I think maybe once or twice since then, so I've
Speaker 2: seen it two or three times over the years, but
Speaker 2: it had been probably ten or fifteen years since I
Speaker 2: most recently saw it, so it was interesting to go back.
Speaker 2: You know, there are those iconic moments that everyone remembers
Speaker 2: from it, like the bubble bath scene and the like
Speaker 2: snapping the necklace case shut, all those like iconic moments,
Speaker 2: the red Dress.
Speaker 4: Big Mistake, Huge, the big Mistake Huge.
Speaker 3: I sort of forgot that that was where that came from,
Speaker 3: like I've said that, having no idea where it came from, so.
Speaker 2: I remember those. But yeah, it was definitely interesting rewatching,
Speaker 2: especially in the context of having just watched the documentary
Speaker 2: Modern Horre. So there's so much to talk about. Can't
Speaker 2: wait to do it, Jamie, what's your history with it?
Speaker 3: Andrea is similar to you, like I avoided this like
Speaker 3: this and like The Godfather, like all of these movies
Speaker 3: that I was just like, I don't need to watch this,
Speaker 3: and actually it's cool that I haven't, and I stand
Speaker 3: by that, but I did. I saw this movie for
Speaker 3: the first time last year because this is the movie
Speaker 3: that we've gotten requests for for years, because I mean
Speaker 3: it's I guess something I didn't realize when I finally
Speaker 3: did watch it was how like I knew it was
Speaker 3: obviously a very influential movie, but that this was like
Speaker 3: the highest grossing R rated movie until like last year.
Speaker 3: It made half a billion dollars in nineteen ninety, which
Speaker 3: is terrifying.
Speaker 2: It was the fifth highest grossing movie of the time,
Speaker 2: just behind Star Wars et an Indiana Jones movie, and Jaws.
Speaker 2: That's how much of a worldwide phenomenon this movie was.
Speaker 3: I knew it was a classic, but I like and
Speaker 3: people talk about it a lot, but yeah, I was
Speaker 3: not aware of like just how big a movie it
Speaker 3: was in its time. I love Julia Roberts, but as
Speaker 3: this movie goes on, it just gets more and more frustrating,
Speaker 3: and by the end, I'm like tearing the skin off
Speaker 3: my face and I have no attachment to it. So
Speaker 3: by the last scene, I'm like screaming at the television
Speaker 3: like it's a sports game. But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm excited to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's dive into the recap and we'll go from there. Okay,
Speaker 2: quick content warning at the very top, because there's a
Speaker 2: brief moment toward the end of the movie that involves
Speaker 2: physical and sexual assault. We meet Edward Lewis played by
Speaker 2: Richard gear. He is a businessman who's in LA for
Speaker 2: a work trip. He leaves at the party he's at,
Speaker 2: takes his lawyer, Phil Stuckey is his name, his car,
Speaker 2: and he's played by Jason Alexander.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the first shot of the movie is Jason Alexander
Speaker 3: doing close up magic, which okay, I was not on
Speaker 3: my bingo card for things that would happen in this movie.
Speaker 2: It's not him, it's not but he pops out right
Speaker 2: behind the magician almost like a magic trick, and so
Speaker 2: it looks like him, but it's a different guy.
Speaker 3: That's disappointing to hear. I know, I know.
Speaker 2: But anyway, Edward Lewis, he drives off in this car
Speaker 2: and he's trying to get to Beverly Hills, but he's
Speaker 2: getting lost along the way. Meanwhile, we meet Vivian Ward
Speaker 2: played by Julia Roberts. She is a sex worker who
Speaker 2: is getting ready for work that night. She's broke. She
Speaker 2: has to climb out of the window to avoid her landlord.
Speaker 2: She heads into a club and confronts her roommate Kit
Speaker 2: played by Laura san Giacomo, who used their rent money
Speaker 2: to buy drugs and so they need to make some
Speaker 2: money asap, and they start working their section of Hollywood Boulevard,
Speaker 2: and that's when Richard pulls up and asks Vivian for
Speaker 2: directions for Beverly Hills. She gets in his car to
Speaker 2: personally escort him to his fancy hotel, and when they arrive,
Speaker 2: he invites her to join him. They go up to
Speaker 2: Edward's penthouse room. She's getting looks from the stuffy rich
Speaker 2: people inside. She's mocking them, and then when they're settled
Speaker 2: in the room, she's expecting that Edward wants to have
Speaker 2: sex right away, but he doesn't want to rush things,
Speaker 2: and he pays her to stay the whole night, and eventually,
Speaker 2: after like chatting, lounging watching some I Love Lucy, she
Speaker 2: starts to undress. He asks what she's willing to do.
Speaker 2: She says everything except kiss on the mouth, so instead
Speaker 2: she kisses him on the penis. The next morning, he
Speaker 2: reveals what he does for a living, which is to.
Speaker 3: The worst answer ever.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Every like romantic lead in nineties rom coms have like
Speaker 3: a truly horrific job, like it, and it gives worse.
Speaker 2: His job gets worse because he ends up building worship.
Speaker 3: He's like mister military industrial complex. And then at the
Speaker 3: end he's like, all right, you can continue to build
Speaker 3: naval destroyers. You're like, now, are we rooting for this?
Speaker 3: I don't week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know it was horrible, but currently his job
Speaker 2: is to buy and sell multimillion dollar companies. And so
Speaker 2: the contrast between these two people's lives is becoming more
Speaker 2: and more clear because he's rich, highly educated, very prim
Speaker 2: and proper.
Speaker 3: Ding evil shit. It seems like without naps, like no naps,
Speaker 3: no bathroom breaks, he's not eating.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, But as he points out in the film,
Speaker 5: they both do the same thing for a living. They
Speaker 5: both screw people for money.
Speaker 3: Yes, yep, that's like nice try movie.
Speaker 2: One is a noble profession and the other one is
Speaker 2: whatever the fuck he's doing.
Speaker 5: I don't know if my ghost of her is calling
Speaker 5: it a noble profession.
Speaker 2: But anyway, the contrast, so he's rich and all this stuff,
Speaker 2: she's broke, scrappy, a high school dropout. Despite their differences,
Speaker 2: Edward tells her he's going to be in town for
Speaker 2: a week and that he would like her to spend
Speaker 2: that week with him, and they negotiate a rate of
Speaker 2: paying her three thousand dollars for the week. He also
Speaker 2: gives her money to buy quote unquote more appropriate clothing,
Speaker 2: so she goes to shops on Rodeo Drive, but she's
Speaker 2: getting more dirty looks from the shopkeepers. Some even tell
Speaker 2: her to leave, so she gives up and returns to
Speaker 2: Edward's hotel, where she's hassled by the hotel manager, Bernard Barney.
Speaker 3: I feel like I will always be Joe from The
Speaker 3: Princess Diaries to me, and he's basically playing the same
Speaker 3: character in this movie.
Speaker 2: Okay, here was a thought I had, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: it's not an original thought, but Princess Diaries is pretty
Speaker 2: woman for a PG audience junior to the point it
Speaker 2: has some of the same cast and the same director.
Speaker 2: Garie Marshall.
Speaker 3: Well, that's yeah, that's Hector Alizondo. I think is in
Speaker 3: every single Gary Marshall movie. I'm pretty sure that they're
Speaker 3: like they are, they're tight, best buds. And then Larry
Speaker 3: Miller is in both movies Akatesca. Oh my god, I
Speaker 3: always forget because I'm always like, who is that. It's
Speaker 3: always Polo Putnesca.
Speaker 2: It's always yeah every time, because he plays one of
Speaker 2: the shopkeepers in Pretty Woman.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the obscene amount of money.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so this hotel manager pulls Vivian into his office
Speaker 2: to kind of reprimand her or maybe kick her out,
Speaker 2: but they reach an understanding and then he arranges for
Speaker 2: her to go to a boutique where she'll be taken
Speaker 2: care of. And so she goes and gets a cocktail
Speaker 2: dress for dinner that night, followed by her returning to
Speaker 2: Barney for help with like dinner etiquette.
Speaker 3: Which is like literally what he does in the Princess.
Speaker 4: Diaries as well, just that it's a little type cast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he's like, this is the guy who teaches
Speaker 3: you what fork t is.
Speaker 2: For some reason, I also thought it was very Kathy
Speaker 2: Bates in Titanic Coded, where she's like, start on the out,
Speaker 2: fork lesson, start on the outside and work your way
Speaker 2: in Wow. Four Lessons of cinema history. Yeah, we're's the
Speaker 2: supercut of that. Okay. So that evening, Vivian and Edward
Speaker 2: go to dinner with a business associate of Edwards, this
Speaker 2: guy named mister Morse and his grandson. But the dinner
Speaker 2: doesn't go well for anyone because Vivian is struggling with
Speaker 2: the utensils and the food. Edward is insulting the guys
Speaker 2: about the purchase of their company. So they are pissed
Speaker 2: off and they storm away.
Speaker 5: Okay, but they are charmed by her. Then nobody's mad
Speaker 5: Vivian right, to be fair, It's not like, oh she said,
Speaker 5: dumb Moore, She's just fucking everything up. But it's more
Speaker 5: she's just like goofy Lucille bawling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. I mean, to know Vivian is to love her,
Speaker 3: and I mean it's also it's like Julia Roberts.
Speaker 2: She's so perfect, she's so charming. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so after dinner, Edward and Vivian deprief and this
Speaker 2: is the scene where they realize maybe they have more
Speaker 2: in common that they than they thought. They both screw
Speaker 2: people for money, they also have to detach emotionally to
Speaker 2: be able to do their jobs and then a little
Speaker 2: later they're canoodling and he keeps trying to kiss her
Speaker 2: on the lips, but she's like, uh uh ah, that's
Speaker 2: too intimate. So now they're just like caressing each other
Speaker 2: on top of a grand piano. That scene, to me
Speaker 2: is very hot. It is yeah, yes, beautiful the piano.
Speaker 3: Fuck. I mean it literally felt like I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I would watch the porn version of this. I'm sure
Speaker 3: it exists. Yeah, I would like to see it.
Speaker 2: There are like men in the room that I think
Speaker 2: like hotel staff that he sends away.
Speaker 5: I'm just like, okay, that's easy. Your power for good.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was like that for some reason, that detail
Speaker 3: in that scene is so hot, Like I don't know,
Speaker 3: he's like, please leave, I have to fuck on this piano,
Speaker 3: and they're like totally awaken it.
Speaker 2: They're like exactly exactly. Yeah, okay, so the next Okay.
Speaker 5: I did notice in the credits that that was an
Speaker 5: original Richard Gear song that he was playing. No kidding,
Speaker 5: he got the music credit for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Richard Gear. I mean it. It's like, I I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna call him underrated. He's pretty rated, but he's
Speaker 3: great and he has excellent politics. Which is like you
Speaker 3: rarely get both.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Also, maybe the only actor who has played a sex
Speaker 5: worker in American Jigglow and a client in Pretty Woman.
Speaker 5: Shout out to him, he's the real MVB.
Speaker 3: I still haven't seen American Jiggle you do? Do you
Speaker 3: like it? Okay?
Speaker 4: Cool?
Speaker 5: Fucking love it.
Speaker 6: It's really good, Telly.
Speaker 2: I need to see it too. Yeah. Okay. So the
Speaker 2: next day, Vivian goes shopping for more clothes. This is
Speaker 2: when we get the famous shopping montage while Roy Orbison's
Speaker 2: song Pretty Woman is playing, and she buys a bunch
Speaker 2: of again quote unquote appropriate elegant upperclass clothing. Meanwhile, something
Speaker 2: something business Edward is rethinking buying Morse's company because of
Speaker 2: something that Vivian said, maybe.
Speaker 3: Which never really nothing really ever comes of that, because
Speaker 3: I really love that she goes out of her way
Speaker 3: to make an excellent point, which is, you don't build anything,
Speaker 3: you don't make anything. You suck like you kind of
Speaker 3: you kind of suck. Your job is made up. And
Speaker 3: he repeats that but then sort of just well continue
Speaker 3: to do it or he's like, oh no, that's why,
Speaker 3: but that's why he lets the guys keep their military industrial.
Speaker 2: Right, that's why he pivots and he's like.
Speaker 3: You make weapons of mass destruction.
Speaker 2: You're like, I'm gonna help.
Speaker 3: You're like, no, this is the business to shut down Edward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's nuts. Yeah, He's like, oh, I guess
Speaker 2: I should build and make things.
Speaker 3: I know, like naval destroyer, wore crime device, started Natsy's shop, Like,
Speaker 3: come on, I.
Speaker 5: Love that he came to that after what literally taking
Speaker 5: his socks off and walking on grass.
Speaker 3: He goes out. I love the scene where I wrote
Speaker 3: down like Edward touches grass.
Speaker 5: It's like, you know what, I'm gonna let them do
Speaker 5: it build those ships.
Speaker 2: It's nuts.
Speaker 3: He has like so many love interests in this era
Speaker 3: of rom Com. He's just useless. He's useless but so rich.
Speaker 3: That's true, he is. He reminded me a lot. I
Speaker 3: was thinking a lot about Tom Hanks and You've got Mail,
Speaker 3: who to me is like the evil rom com protagonist
Speaker 3: because he's like shutting down Meg Ryan's bookstore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's mister Barnes and Noble or whatever.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: An then we cut to a polo match that Edward
Speaker 2: brings Vivian to all the rich people. Are like, who
Speaker 2: is that woman that Edward is with? And then Phil
Speaker 2: stucky thinks that she's there to commit corporate espionage and
Speaker 2: Edward is like, don't worry, she's a sex worker, except
Speaker 2: he uses different language than that, So then Phil goes
Speaker 2: up to her, being like, Edward told me what you
Speaker 2: do for a living. Maybe we could get together sometime.
Speaker 2: He's being very sleazy about it, and Vivian is hurt
Speaker 2: and pissed at Edward about this, and she wants to
Speaker 2: call off the rest of their arrangement, but he apologizes
Speaker 2: and asks her to stay. She says, okay, just don't
Speaker 2: hurt me again. They ca noodle some more in bed.
Speaker 2: She tells him her backstory, including how she got into
Speaker 2: sex work, and he says, you're so bright and special.
Speaker 2: You could be so much more than that, and we'll
Speaker 2: talk about that. Then they're getting ready for an evening out.
Speaker 2: This is the necklace case snap thing. They bored a
Speaker 2: private jet to San Francisco, where he takes her to
Speaker 2: the opera. She's incredibly moved by it. The next day,
Speaker 2: this is the like Edward takes off work to touch
Speaker 2: grass with Vivian and oh my gosh, are they falling
Speaker 2: in love.
Speaker 3: He's doing that, like he's like reading her Shakespeare quotes
Speaker 3: in the park. You're just like, it's so, it's so corny.
Speaker 3: I was there. I don't know it would work for
Speaker 3: some For me, I was like if I was held
Speaker 3: hostage in someone's arms while they read Shakespeare quotes to me,
Speaker 3: I would not I just wouldn't love it. But to
Speaker 3: each their own.
Speaker 5: I feel like we have to remember that this man
Speaker 5: has never apparently taken a day off in his life,
Speaker 5: and sure she's the one who's like, come on, just
Speaker 5: take a day off, just try and not work in
Speaker 5: for once. And so maybe he's just cosplaying as somebody
Speaker 5: and like he thinks it's that that's what the weed
Speaker 5: to do, that's.
Speaker 3: What you're supposed to do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's reading Shakespeare quotes in the park.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, I've heard of Shakespeare in the park.
Speaker 3: Is this it.
Speaker 5: Flu?
Speaker 2: Anyway, So they're like really vibing and they even kiss
Speaker 2: on the lips.
Speaker 5: Turning point, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Then it's their last day together, but he wants to
Speaker 2: see her again and basically like set up a whole
Speaker 2: new life for her with an apartment, a car, access
Speaker 2: to his money to go shopping, but that's not enough
Speaker 2: for her. She wants a dashing night on a white
Speaker 2: horse to come and rescue her, meaning she wants love, romance, intimacy,
Speaker 2: and he's like, mm, that's nice, but I'm not capable
Speaker 2: of giving you that right now.
Speaker 5: He can't afford it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his emotional currency, his bank account is empty.
Speaker 3: It's like, I have to go negotiate a weapons of
Speaker 3: mass destruction deal. I don't have time for intimacy love.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We cut to Edward in his meeting with mister
Speaker 2: Morse and Stucky is furious that Edward is bailing on
Speaker 2: this very lucrative deal, so Stucky takes it out on Vivian,
Speaker 2: pays her a visit in the hotel room, tries to
Speaker 2: rape her. She's fighting him off. He strikes her, and
Speaker 2: then Edward comes in and intervenes, but he still isn't
Speaker 2: able to give Vivian the intimacy slash fairy tale ending
Speaker 2: that she wants, so she leaves and packs up her
Speaker 2: things and is about to move to San Francisco. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Edward is heading to the airport, but he decides to
Speaker 2: have the limo driver take him to Vivian's apartment. She
Speaker 2: looks out the window and there he is a night
Speaker 2: on his white stallion limbo thing, and he climbs up
Speaker 2: the fire escape to her apartment, even though he's afraid
Speaker 2: of heights, and he quote unquote rescues her and they
Speaker 2: kiss the end. So let's take another quick break and
Speaker 2: we will come back to discuss.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's get into it, and we'll let the two
Speaker 3: of you sort of lead us here. What was sticking
Speaker 3: out to you on this viewing of of Pretty Women?
Speaker 5: I felt honestly struck by the Lucille Ball reference when
Speaker 5: she is sitting at Edward's feet on their first night
Speaker 5: and watching TV and Lucille Ball is just being a
Speaker 5: little ham. I think that there was like a connection
Speaker 5: being made between what she does as a sex worker
Speaker 5: and what Lucille Ball is doing as this like entertainer,
Speaker 5: as this comedian, because I think that's sort of what
Speaker 5: Julia Roberts is bringing to that role. Is this like goofy,
Speaker 5: goofy girl vibe. And I just I don't know. I
Speaker 5: felt like the genuine connection that Lucille Ball has with
Speaker 5: an audience being a woman comedian, and how few women
Speaker 5: truly have been able to break out and be as
Speaker 5: successful as she has been, like even still, you know,
Speaker 5: men still dominate the industry. I just thought that that
Speaker 5: was such an interesting thing for her to watch and
Speaker 5: be delighted by, and then also using that moment to
Speaker 5: initiate the action with her and Edward. I just like,
Speaker 5: there's something about being a sex worker when you're with
Speaker 5: a wealthy client and you're being paid a lot of
Speaker 5: money for your time and you do get to just
Speaker 5: be a goofball. That is a hidden world that most
Speaker 5: people will never penetrate. But I really related pretty hard
Speaker 5: in that moment, sure, and I thought it was quite
Speaker 5: insightful connection.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it definitely feels like, you know, the s cargo
Speaker 4: scene feels a bit Love Lucy. But interestingly, the director
Speaker 4: Gary Marshall was a writer on I Love Lucy. Oh
Speaker 4: it's a little bit of a easter egg for his
Speaker 4: prior work.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 3: That also stuck out to me on this viewing because
Speaker 3: it seems like they like they're interacting with different media
Speaker 3: throughout the movie, and it always feels very very intentional
Speaker 3: of they go see La Traviata is about a sex
Speaker 3: worker who falls in love with a rich guy. I
Speaker 3: think that she's literally watching My Fair Lady at one point,
Speaker 3: or like watching the ending of it and starting with Lucy.
Speaker 3: It just, I don't know, put you in a good headspace.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think for all this movie's flaws, it
Speaker 2: is worth noting that this is a movie and one
Speaker 2: that again was a huge box office success. Everyone saw
Speaker 2: this movie. Yeah, And it's about a sex worker who
Speaker 2: is one of two main characters. So she's not a
Speaker 2: side character, she's not a plot device, she's not the
Speaker 2: punchline of a joke. She's actually a protagonist that is
Speaker 2: given a personality and a sense of humor, and she
Speaker 2: has shown as someone who is worthy of love. And
Speaker 2: these are things that we typically don't get when it
Speaker 2: comes to the representation of sex workers.
Speaker 3: So the bar is on the floor, to be fair, is.
Speaker 2: It absolutely is now a hell? But that's something you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm curious what you both made of Vivian. Like
Speaker 3: looking back at Vivian as a character in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 5: I mean I honestly felt utterly charmed by her, to
Speaker 5: be honest, and I don't I guess like meeting her
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty six, or like reconnecting with her again,
Speaker 5: I was surprised by having moved. I felt and actually,
Speaker 5: in a strange way, how grateful I was for that
Speaker 5: white night ending. I actually found myself really happy that
Speaker 5: she got a happy ending.
Speaker 2: Fair totally.
Speaker 3: I was curious. I think it's just the happy ending
Speaker 3: is was hard for me because he's just like, he's
Speaker 3: such a piece of shit.
Speaker 2: But it was.
Speaker 3: Interesting learning about like the background of how much this
Speaker 3: movie changed before it like made it to the screen.
Speaker 3: This is literally a Disney movie, which I was also
Speaker 3: not aware of, but that it seems like, you know,
Speaker 3: while this movie plays into certain tropes, the original script
Speaker 3: played two completely different tropes around sex workers. It was
Speaker 3: originally a very dark movie called three thousand that was
Speaker 3: I mean worth saying is written by a straight guy who,
Speaker 3: from what I can tell, had no actual connections to
Speaker 3: sex work and was far more you know that. I
Speaker 3: think in the original version, Vivian was struggling with drug addiction,
Speaker 3: that she had been a sex worker for much longer
Speaker 3: than the Vivian of the eventual movie is, and that
Speaker 3: there is like a very sort of tragic They don't
Speaker 3: end up together. They don't the happy ending doesn't happen
Speaker 3: in the original version of the script.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was written as as a cautionary tale, like yes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we have a million of those exactly. Also,
Speaker 5: I think the thing I like about that ending too,
Speaker 5: And this might be controversial to say, because I know
Speaker 5: that we're you know, the sex worker justice refrain is
Speaker 5: we don't need to be saved, you know, we don't
Speaker 5: need a man to save us, like we can easily
Speaker 5: take care of ourselves. The fact of the matter is,
Speaker 5: I know so many sex workers personally for whom being
Speaker 5: quote unquote retired by a client, by a whale, you know,
Speaker 5: which Edward is, is actually the goal. The goal is
Speaker 5: actually marrying an extremely rich guy and being set for life.
Speaker 5: Some people do sex work for that reason. And I
Speaker 5: think that that's accurate. And I am actually happy for
Speaker 5: her that she was able to like set those terms
Speaker 5: for herself beyond the like I've set you up with
Speaker 5: an apartment, baby, and you're going to be You're gonna
Speaker 5: be okay, And she's like, I want more than that.
Speaker 5: And he earned that as far as I'm concerned, as
Speaker 5: far as a client goes as a great client, go
Speaker 5: for her girl.
Speaker 4: And she does say at the end, in response to
Speaker 4: him rescuing her is that she rescues him right back,
Speaker 4: and they do underscore that notion. I think they do
Speaker 4: writing wise, try to set up these two characters, what
Speaker 4: are their dreams, what are the things that might be
Speaker 4: holding them back. They're really taking pains to set up
Speaker 4: what's holding Edward back in terms of his need to
Speaker 4: control everything, his fear of heights feeling symbolic in terms
Speaker 4: of not being willing to go outside of his comfort zone.
Speaker 4: So certainly this is a bit of a manic Pixie
Speaker 4: dream court that you mentioned earlier. Andrea who comes into
Speaker 4: his life and disrupts all of that and helps him
Speaker 4: have his toes, bear in the grass, etc.
Speaker 2: She's like, here, wear this wacky tie that he would
Speaker 2: never win otherwise.
Speaker 3: He's like it is like it's like a tie with
Speaker 3: a little pattern on it. He's like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: I don't know it's.
Speaker 4: True, But I did feel like his outfit in that
Speaker 4: scene with the tie was my favorite thing that he won.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was a.
Speaker 4: Really good passion with so she really did well picking
Speaker 4: that tie.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was just gonna say, like, in response to you know,
Speaker 4: you highlighting that the film initially had this other ending,
Speaker 4: I felt myself watching it this time, especially knowing we
Speaker 4: were doing the podcast and and trying to pay attention
Speaker 4: to how they were setting up the characters and the
Speaker 4: dynamic and the themes. I did feel like the third act
Speaker 4: felt a little bit more awkward than I remembered, and
Speaker 4: I perceived it this time wondering if it was partly
Speaker 4: because it's trying to fit a new ending on something
Speaker 4: that initially didn't have a happy ending, and so in
Speaker 4: that third act I felt the corniness a little bit
Speaker 4: more than before. Of like when he encounters the jewelry
Speaker 4: box again and you're thinking, oh, he's remembering that moment,
Speaker 4: you know, on the balcony, and he's just confronted with
Speaker 4: these little remembrances of her. It all felt a little
Speaker 4: more ham fisted than I had recalled. But yeah, they
Speaker 4: got there and they got to that iconic happy ending
Speaker 4: Andrea mentioned where, you know, there's a lot of moments
Speaker 4: in this film that I think are beautifully shot, but
Speaker 4: truly that shot of Julia Roberts with her hair, you know,
Speaker 4: flowing hair on the fire escape looking down at him
Speaker 4: beaming is just is just so gorgeous.
Speaker 3: I appreciated on this viewing too just that. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's always like room for more deep characterization of woman protagonists.
Speaker 3: But I did like that the movie does go out
Speaker 3: of its way to say, like, whether she ends up
Speaker 3: with Edward or not, she's gonna be okay, and that,
Speaker 3: you know, unlike the original ending of this movie, which
Speaker 3: sounded really like irritating, was like her and Kit going
Speaker 3: to Disneyland, staring into the middle distance thinking about how
Speaker 3: maybe dreams don't come true. You're like, well, that that
Speaker 3: sucks so much. No one needs to see that, right,
Speaker 3: it's exhausting. I liked that things don't seem like they're
Speaker 3: going to work out with Edward, but she has a
Speaker 3: plan b you know, like she and and it doesn't.
Speaker 3: At least, I didn't get the feeling that Edward coming
Speaker 3: back into her life would necessarily disrupt the plans that
Speaker 3: she had for herself. It didn't see at least. I mean,
Speaker 3: what I will say of Edward is he cares what
Speaker 3: she thinks, even if I think his job is quite evil.
Speaker 3: He does care which she thinks and values you know,
Speaker 3: her perspective on her life and his. So it's like
Speaker 3: if she wants to go back to school, you do
Speaker 3: get the feeling that like that's gonna be fine, and
Speaker 3: she'll go back to school and it'll just maybe look
Speaker 3: a little bit different.
Speaker 2: Yeah. For me, the big thing was the fact that
Speaker 2: she ends up with a client, a wealthy one at that.
Speaker 2: I don't have any problems with that. I have a
Speaker 2: problem with the way that he treats her along the way,
Speaker 2: because he's quite I would say, mean, he's always telling her,
Speaker 2: he's like always snapping at her to stop fidgeting and
Speaker 2: don't sit there, just sit over there instead, Like I
Speaker 2: don't know, it feels like he's just trying to a
Speaker 2: big component of her arc is that he's trying to
Speaker 2: like quote unquote civilize.
Speaker 3: Her, right, the Pygmalion of it all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, Like he's introducing her to polite society, and
Speaker 2: he's teaching her respectability politics, and he's molding her into
Speaker 2: the person that he wants her to be. Where by
Speaker 2: the end, it feels like a lot of her maybe
Speaker 2: not entire identity, but her self expression with the way
Speaker 2: she dresses and and things like that kind of gets
Speaker 2: erased because he has molded her into like a polo
Speaker 2: match watching like s cargo opera lady. But yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: interested in your takes on that.
Speaker 4: I mean, they certainly establish him right from his opening
Speaker 4: scene where he's on the phone breaking up with Jessica.
Speaker 6: And someone who wants his girlfriend to be at his
Speaker 6: beck and call.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, and then there's a reference back to
Speaker 4: that where Vivian says, oh, you want me to be
Speaker 4: your beck and call girl. You know, he don't feel
Speaker 4: like psychologically they're trying to make that association that perhaps
Speaker 4: he's thinking, oh, you know, I can because I'm seeing
Speaker 4: a professional and there's money involved, and he does refer
Speaker 4: to her as his employee. He can and create a
Speaker 4: scenario where he can have this woman be at his
Speaker 4: back and call and that can be the nature of
Speaker 4: their relationship. And I do think, like you said, it
Speaker 4: produces quite a few uncomfortable sequences as a result of
Speaker 4: how he treats her, you know. And there's a I
Speaker 4: found that fight in the pink room of the Penthouse
Speaker 4: quite emotional to watch, you know, where it builds up
Speaker 4: to her just about leaving him at that point after
Speaker 4: he outs her to demon George Costanza, but to Stucky.
Speaker 4: He outs her to Stucky and you know, she really
Speaker 4: checks his behavior there and you know, I'm trying to
Speaker 4: interpret what the thought is behind it, and I would
Speaker 4: love Andrea's thought too, But yeah, it does feel like
Speaker 4: they're at least trying to suggest, you know, with her
Speaker 4: stating again, you know, say I control who, I control
Speaker 4: the price I control I say you know what and
Speaker 4: who and how much. She's really asserting her own power,
Speaker 4: and so it does become a power struggle between them,
Speaker 4: and he seems to have to have that journey where
Speaker 4: he realizes that also with this context, she's not really
Speaker 4: he doesn't have the power that he had wanted, and
Speaker 4: he has to learn about himself to kind of have
Speaker 4: their relationship grow in the end. I don't know if
Speaker 4: it fully achieves what they were going for there, but
Speaker 4: I think that was sort of an aspect.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, my heart sank
Speaker 5: when he outed her at that.
Speaker 2: The polo match.
Speaker 5: The polo match, which was such an interesting scene because
Speaker 5: she was already being poor coded because the other women
Speaker 5: were identifying her as of you know, Edward's girls or
Speaker 5: like the flavor of the week. So she's already being
Speaker 5: stigmatized just by association with Edward. But you know, she's
Speaker 5: fighting back, you know, she's like, I'm just with him
Speaker 5: for the sex, you know, and like asserting herself in
Speaker 5: that type of a situation. But I think, yes, there's
Speaker 5: this like Pygmalion theme, but fundamentally it's about class drig
Speaker 5: which is such an important part of being a sex worker,
Speaker 5: is that you by donning a particular outfit, you can
Speaker 5: step into the halls of power and go unclocked essentially
Speaker 5: as a whore. Sure, And I think as a sex
Speaker 5: worker it's actually a very important skill to have. So
Speaker 5: when he critiques her for fidgeting, for instance, I don't
Speaker 5: see it as mean. I actually do see it as
Speaker 5: an instruction for survival in these environments that actually kind
Speaker 5: of keeps the boat stafe, okay, because she's not outing
Speaker 5: herself as someone who like has well, it's you know,
Speaker 5: she's not outing yourself as poor, right, Like she's not
Speaker 5: outing herself as a street walker. And the thing is
Speaker 5: like with sex work, it is truly a profession where
Speaker 5: you can climb the ranks of class to an extent,
Speaker 5: not like being out as a sex worker is a
Speaker 5: different story. But if you're and like, marriage can be
Speaker 5: a way of subverting class. So I guess I have
Speaker 5: a different relationship to the way that he instructs her
Speaker 5: Amelia style. I felt that the way that she dealt
Speaker 5: with being hurt in that situation felt very real to me,
Speaker 5: and it hit me pretty hard. I'm pa messing. Maybe
Speaker 5: that's part of it, but it felt very real. And
Speaker 5: when you know, Phil comes back and exerts him anger
Speaker 5: toward Edward against Vivian, Like to me, that was a
Speaker 5: very like real moment. That's that's part of why men
Speaker 5: rape women. They're just like angry about other things and
Speaker 5: they're gonna they see a woman and they want to
Speaker 5: take what they want and maybe it'll make him feel better,
Speaker 5: you know, is how he puts it. And the way
Speaker 5: that Edward reacts to that is important. He has to
Speaker 5: beat the shit out of his friend and he has.
Speaker 5: And the other thing too, I clocked in that moment
Speaker 5: was like, Stucky is also a whore in this situation.
Speaker 5: He is a paid friend. You think this man is
Speaker 5: your friend, You've been paying him to be your employee
Speaker 5: for the last ten years. He's not your friend. He
Speaker 5: has no loyalty to you. He's ready to rape a
Speaker 5: woman that you're being so in that way like whoror
Speaker 5: in the pejorative like metaphorical sense, the way that we
Speaker 5: use horror as someone who just does anything for money.
Speaker 5: Well that's what lawyers fucking do. Yeah, So I thought
Speaker 5: it was interesting that in that moment he he went
Speaker 5: all in to defend Vivian over this other man he'd
Speaker 5: been paying for a decade.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Fair, No, thank you for contextualizing that, because I
Speaker 2: counted like five or six times where he tells her
Speaker 2: to stop fidgeting, or oh, you look more beautiful when
Speaker 2: you're not fidgeting, something about her body language. But yeah,
Speaker 2: recon reframing it as he's helping her, I guess like
Speaker 2: mask almost or like he's helping her like here's the
Speaker 2: role that I'm hoping you're able to play during this week,
Speaker 2: And if you're fidgeting, that implies discomfort and like unfamiliarity
Speaker 2: with these fancy spaces that I'm taking you to and
Speaker 2: things like that, so like act natural to fit in.
Speaker 5: Also, why is she sitting on every surface palpable and
Speaker 5: not chairs?
Speaker 3: I do love that. I'm like I don't know about
Speaker 3: the like class background of the writer or even at
Speaker 3: some point like who wrote this movie, because the original
Speaker 3: version was so different, But I was like, maybe it's
Speaker 3: just someone who's like what a poor people do do?
Speaker 3: They just sit on stuff that aren't that aren't chairs,
Speaker 3: Like like.
Speaker 5: She should be trained, that's like house training.
Speaker 4: She just about sits into a plate of eggs.
Speaker 3: It is a lot. Yeah, I guess the piano too.
Speaker 3: She's just planting. She's planting wherever.
Speaker 2: She sits on the balcony and is like that does
Speaker 2: genuinely stress me out every time? Same?
Speaker 3: I want to because I know we're operating on kind
Speaker 3: of limited time. I wanted to talk about Vivian's friendship
Speaker 3: with Kit and just how sex work as a community
Speaker 3: is presented as well. Yeah, was there anything sticking out
Speaker 3: to you? I mean, like I adore Kit, me too, Yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Also adore Kit and I you know, yes, we've got
Speaker 5: some you know, negative stereotypical representation embodied by Kit, you know,
Speaker 5: as far as being the drug adult sex worker who's
Speaker 5: spending rent money on drugs and is pretty nonchalant about
Speaker 5: the fact that one of their friends has been founded
Speaker 5: in a dumpster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, almost acting like, well, well because there's this interesting
Speaker 2: or bizarre thing where Kit is using drugs and like
Speaker 2: no judgment, but she's casting judgment on other people who
Speaker 2: are also using drugs. She's calling a bunch of people
Speaker 2: crackheads and acting like, well, if they end up dead
Speaker 2: in a dumpster, they kind of had it coming because
Speaker 2: they're addicted to crack, but that's not us. So well,
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure what to make of that.
Speaker 5: You know, everybody's always trying to punch down doesn't matter.
Speaker 5: And so I noted this because so the sex worker
Speaker 5: who was found in the dumpster, her name was Skinny Marie,
Speaker 5: and Kit said that it's sad, it's sad that she died,
Speaker 5: but she was a flake, she was a crackhead, and
Speaker 5: there was a pimp that was trying to straighten her out.
Speaker 5: And you know, if only she'd gone with the pimp,
Speaker 5: maybe she wouldn't be in the dumpster. But that was stark.
Speaker 5: It was definitely stark. One thing that I was confused
Speaker 5: by was the fact that Vivian was so eager and
Speaker 5: willing to pass money off to Kit, like in that
Speaker 5: scene where she leaves money with the Philip concierge. I
Speaker 5: was like, Okay, first of all, how are you trusting
Speaker 5: this person who's just like left you totally in the lurch.
Speaker 5: When it comes to your housing and you're going to
Speaker 5: trust this person with money when you know they've already
Speaker 5: spent your money on drugs, that doesn't come up again.
Speaker 5: That's just a kind of like she takes the money,
Speaker 5: everything's fine type of a situation. But then at the
Speaker 5: same time, I do think there's something about Vivian's character,
Speaker 5: but also about a lot of sex workers where so
Speaker 5: much of our work, whether it's with our coworkers or
Speaker 5: our clients, relies on trust. You have to trust that
Speaker 5: the person you're about to have sex with for money
Speaker 5: is not going to murder you. You have to trust
Speaker 5: that your friends are loyal, even if they hurt you
Speaker 5: on occasion. So I think that there is something very
Speaker 5: human and real about that trust, even if it's misguided,
Speaker 5: And I think that's sort of Vivian's wholemo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was a little throwned by that as well,
Speaker 3: but it did feel I don't know, like the energy
Speaker 3: of it was just that they will have each other's
Speaker 3: back regardless, because I feel like there's a poorly written
Speaker 3: version of this where you know, like Vivian as like,
Speaker 3: fuck you guys, I'm I'm like doing the s cargo thing. Now,
Speaker 3: But I appreciate at the moments that the story kind
Speaker 3: of goes out of its way to show that like
Speaker 3: Vivian has no interest in like leaving her community behind
Speaker 3: just because she is like sort of falling in love
Speaker 3: with this really rich guy. And also that like she
Speaker 3: I think the exception of the like women who were
Speaker 3: huge assholes to her at that boutique, there is class
Speaker 3: solidarity to service workers throughout in a way that isn't
Speaker 3: always extended the other way, especially in the beginning of
Speaker 3: the story. But that there, I don't know, like there
Speaker 3: it's usually like little performance choices from Julia Roberts, but
Speaker 3: that it's clear that you know, Vivian is, you know,
Speaker 3: even though she is doing the Pygmalion thing to mask
Speaker 3: in these spaces, she's not like becoming a rich asshole
Speaker 3: doing this one eighty overnight. She she's like always is
Speaker 3: very thoroughly herself, and there is like community and class
Speaker 3: solidarity in everything she does.
Speaker 5: We respect it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like her character a lot as far as
Speaker 2: Edward goes. On the other hand, I can't. I still
Speaker 2: can't totally shake the feeling that Edward could have treated
Speaker 2: her better in certain cases. Also, it struck me that
Speaker 2: he was so appalled that she charges one hundred dollars
Speaker 2: an hour, as if to say, like, well, your labor
Speaker 2: isn't worth that amount of money. Meanwhile, he's dealing in
Speaker 2: like billion dollar deals and it's like, how dare you
Speaker 2: charge one hundred dollars?
Speaker 5: But that's typical?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so typical.
Speaker 5: It is so accurate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, totally and also not clear if.
Speaker 5: He's not if he's being like facetious or not. I
Speaker 5: like me, there was like a bit of like playful there.
Speaker 2: Okay, I could see that because he doesn't.
Speaker 5: Like try to lowball her or like negotiate lower He's
Speaker 5: just like, oh wow, okay, that's a lot. That's more
Speaker 5: than I thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, And I do like that scene where they
Speaker 2: negotiate and like just to see representation on screen of
Speaker 2: a woman negotiating for herself and like knowing her work.
Speaker 3: And getting what she wants every single time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then and then the button on that scene
Speaker 2: is she says I would have done it for two thousand,
Speaker 2: and he's like I would have paid four yeah, and
Speaker 2: you're like, well, then pay her four thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but that's yeah, that's that's real. And the thing
Speaker 5: too is like I mean I thought it was confusing,
Speaker 5: how like, you know, she's charging one hundred for you know,
Speaker 5: the hour, and then he's like, how much will it
Speaker 5: be for the night and she says three hundred, Like
Speaker 5: obviously that's a little like question mark. But also if
Speaker 5: you've ever been in a position where you have to
Speaker 5: negotiate your rate, especially on the spot and really quickly,
Speaker 5: and you've never had to do something that would cost
Speaker 5: that much money, it takes a lot of bravery and
Speaker 5: courage to be able to name a number and stand.
Speaker 6: By it totally, you know.
Speaker 5: And then that's where I think that three thousand number
Speaker 5: comes into play, because even that's a low number for
Speaker 5: an entire week. Yeah, right, But if we put ourselves
Speaker 5: in her position, she's never asked for three thousand dollars
Speaker 5: in her life, and the way that she feels after
Speaker 5: she gets it, like it's just so palpable and so
Speaker 5: like overwhelmingly that that thrill of asking for something and
Speaker 5: getting it and knowing that you're going to be taken
Speaker 5: care of for this period of time, I mean that
Speaker 5: there's that's it's a good feeling.
Speaker 4: Plus the value of that new wardrobe on top of it.
Speaker 2: How much what was the obscene amount of money that
Speaker 2: he spent. I'm very curious to know something.
Speaker 3: I'd be curious what everybody thinks about. Is the way
Speaker 3: I guess like this is more of like a general
Speaker 3: realm com thing in general too that you see from
Speaker 3: the beginning of time through now is that this movie
Speaker 3: is like critical of class and not like unwilling to
Speaker 3: engage with class, but is still like it feels like
Speaker 3: very clear that this was like written in during the
Speaker 3: raake and administration. I guess where it does feel like
Speaker 3: the goal is to have as much as possible, and
Speaker 3: like there's I don't know, I feel like there there
Speaker 3: is class critique present in this movie, but it's still
Speaker 3: like the fantasy of it's a consumerist fantasy to some
Speaker 3: extent that, you know, the way that she's treated all
Speaker 3: of a sudden becomes okay because now there's a rich
Speaker 3: guy vouching for her, which resolves things for her on
Speaker 3: this day. But I don't know, like there's a little
Speaker 3: bit of movie language there where it's like the goal
Speaker 3: is to be respected by rich people, when it's like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, there's certainly power and a shift in your
Speaker 3: life that comes with that. But it I don't know,
Speaker 3: I mean in a way that is like unsurprising for
Speaker 3: a rom comm It's like a little overlay, simplistic in
Speaker 3: a way that felt like ooh, or like I felt
Speaker 3: like there was room in this story without changing the
Speaker 3: tone or the characters to like be more critical of
Speaker 3: class and not have the goal be the Pygmalion thing,
Speaker 3: to just like.
Speaker 2: Be assimilation and to rich person culture.
Speaker 3: And all the military destroyers there that's the worst of it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 4: I think it feels like Jamie you bumping up against
Speaker 4: the ship yees spelling, you know, again being an issue
Speaker 4: because I think in Edwards's character development, if you want
Speaker 4: to say that, it feels like, you know, he doesn't
Speaker 4: necessarily in the end do something career wise that actually.
Speaker 6: Speaks to who he is.
Speaker 4: He's actually upholding, you know, the Grandpa's dream. And I
Speaker 4: think they're trying to say that the significance of that
Speaker 4: is a sort of like symbolic resolution with edwards recently
Speaker 4: deceased dad, who he had this estrangement from, you know,
Speaker 4: so sort of trying to think of that being like
Speaker 4: some closure for him. But it doesn't really speak to
Speaker 4: who he is or what he might want to do,
Speaker 4: Like I would have loved if somehow they made him
Speaker 4: less materialistic in the end. But like you said, with
Speaker 4: the era in which it was produced, you know, this
Speaker 4: is a film that it's a rom com, and it's
Speaker 4: going to play into many fantasies, and certainly one of
Speaker 4: the ones that chooses to do is this kind of
Speaker 4: fantasy of money being available and flowing and upholding that
Speaker 4: consumeris fantasy.
Speaker 2: I kind of felt the same way about vis by
Speaker 2: the end, in the sense that we can imagine that
Speaker 2: she'll no longer be like, you know, working the streets
Speaker 2: now that she's partnered with with Edward now, But is
Speaker 2: there any hobby or passion or creative endeavor or anything
Speaker 2: like that that she does want to pursue now that
Speaker 2: she has the freedom to do so, But we don't
Speaker 2: really get a sense of of what she likes to do.
Speaker 2: Does she say something and I feel like there was
Speaker 2: a room for that when.
Speaker 5: She's in bed with Edward, Does she say something about
Speaker 5: what I thought she was a gearhead or something? Am
Speaker 5: I making that?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Okay, we do learn that, yes, she which is a
Speaker 3: Julia Roberts thing. This is like the third Julia Roberts
Speaker 3: movie we've covered where she's like, I know how to
Speaker 3: fix cars and you're like, okay, that is like that
Speaker 3: was the nineties dog whistle for I'm not like other
Speaker 3: girls she does how to fix car.
Speaker 4: I would have loved it if she was like a
Speaker 4: grease monkey mechanic. I mean, yeah, it had their own
Speaker 4: garage or something.
Speaker 2: But if she becomes like Jay Leno with just like
Speaker 2: an enormous garage full of like fifty cars and she's
Speaker 2: like restoring classic cars or whatever, that would have been nice.
Speaker 2: If there was room for that. I think that we
Speaker 2: could have known more about that.
Speaker 5: But there's room for a sequel. There's a whole world
Speaker 5: where maybe Edward becomes anti capitalist and renounces.
Speaker 3: His way an extremely pretty woman.
Speaker 2: Honestly, the way that they just keep legacy sequeling every
Speaker 2: movie from like the nineties and early two thousands, I
Speaker 2: would not be surprised if we see Pretty Woman do
Speaker 2: at some point.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: It also does make me ask the question, though, could
Speaker 4: it be made today?
Speaker 6: And could it be made today by Disney again?
Speaker 4: Like it had me reflecting again watching this. You know, Wow,
Speaker 4: this was a very specific point in time where this
Speaker 4: film was able to be made and cast America's Sweetheart
Speaker 4: in the title role. And I also think do so
Speaker 4: with this kind of these winks that were so fun,
Speaker 4: like having Richard Gear having been Paul Schrader's American Jiglow.
Speaker 4: You know, awareness of that in watching this film gives
Speaker 4: it a wink in that casting that I think is
Speaker 4: so fun and clever. And yeah, I don't know that
Speaker 4: I would see Disney doing this again, but obviously it
Speaker 4: was a point in time where it hit and it
Speaker 4: made all of that money you detailed about, you know,
Speaker 4: and yeah, it is really interesting to reflect on that.
Speaker 2: Does anyone have any final thoughts about the film?
Speaker 5: I mean, I just I don't know, if you know,
Speaker 5: every sex worker film, every film that touches on sex
Speaker 5: work needs to be realistic, especially if there's a happy ending.
Speaker 5: That's my controversial opinion. You know what, let her have
Speaker 5: her happy ending. I don't mind. I don't. I kind
Speaker 5: of love to see a sex worker happy in the end,
Speaker 5: and I love to see audiences cheer for a sex
Speaker 5: worker and be charmed by a sex worker. I think
Speaker 5: it's like actually really feel good, and maybe we need
Speaker 5: more of that totally.
Speaker 2: I mean, because you can criticize the trope of a
Speaker 2: sex worker needing to be quote unquote rescued from their job,
Speaker 2: because that certainly is a pervasive trope, and you could
Speaker 2: easily argue that the movie perpetuates that. But also to
Speaker 2: your point, sex workers, of course deserve a happy ending.
Speaker 3: And to be like centered in yeah the movie, as
Speaker 3: a full person, or at least as full a person
Speaker 3: as you could be in a movie in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And there is a trope that she's that character
Speaker 5: engages in, and that's the hooker with the heart of gold,
Speaker 5: and that like's she's a hook that doesn't do drugs
Speaker 5: and she's not like the other hookers. But at the
Speaker 5: same time, I don't know, I guess I kind of
Speaker 5: shrug because I still love to see it. I still
Speaker 5: love to see a loved sex worker. I think sex
Speaker 5: worker should be loved, and the way that she gets
Speaker 5: her come up.
Speaker 7: I'm just like, go Vivian, you go girl. Yeah, And
Speaker 7: I think you know she as much as you know.
Speaker 7: They're both our protagonists. I think that the audience is
Speaker 7: absolutely to me relating the most to the Vivian character.
Speaker 7: For sure, you know, there are a few things more
Speaker 7: satisfying cinematically than that big mistake, huge moment where I
Speaker 7: think we're all so invested in that triumph for her
Speaker 7: and it's so palpable, and I think especially that's why
Speaker 7: I think that that first movement of the film, as
Speaker 7: we see her come into her own and have those wins,
Speaker 7: is so wonderful and satisfying, and just the image of her,
Speaker 7: it feels like, sure, there's the class drag and there's
Speaker 7: the Pygmalion molding of her, but I'd like to think
Speaker 7: the positive spin could be like her coming into herself
Speaker 7: in some way, or her expression because you know, as
Speaker 7: she's walking down the street in the Pretty Woman.
Speaker 6: Song plays, it's just such a beautiful moment.
Speaker 5: It really is.
Speaker 2: I know, like we talk, We've talked on so many
Speaker 2: episodes about the trope of a rom com has to
Speaker 2: have a shopping montage or a makeover montage, but some
Speaker 2: of them are really fun and I like this one,
Speaker 2: so I'm not mad about it.
Speaker 4: We're allowed to have fun.
Speaker 5: And also I'm remembering that scene where Kit visits her
Speaker 5: at the hotel, where Vivian is thinking about breaking things
Speaker 5: off with Edward and Kit's like, are you not out
Speaker 5: of your mind? Like are you what the hell are
Speaker 5: you do not fumble this bag? Yeah, and that's real.
Speaker 2: I also love the every opportunity they get, Kit and
Speaker 2: Vivian mock the rich people who are clearly looking down
Speaker 2: on them. Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 3: It's like in just like the little exchange. I just
Speaker 3: like the chemistry between those two actors is so good too.
Speaker 3: You just like, I don't know, they're so good, but
Speaker 3: that little moment on that in that same scene with
Speaker 3: Kit where she's like whatever, poking at Vivian being like, wow,
Speaker 3: you clean up nice, easy to clean up when you've
Speaker 3: got a lot of money, and she's like yeah, And
Speaker 3: like they're they're even though, like I think there's like
Speaker 3: room to criticize it based on like the way that
Speaker 3: class is presented in terms of like what is the goal.
Speaker 3: I like that they're all like everyone knows what's happening,
Speaker 3: Like no one's being naive about it, especially in those moments.
Speaker 3: I like, honestly, one of my only things and a
Speaker 3: bigger thing for me. The first time I saw the
Speaker 3: movie is I wish Kit came back sooner. I just
Speaker 3: I think, just I love their friendship so much, and
Speaker 3: so much of the movie takes place strictly in the
Speaker 3: higher on the west side of la and not downtown.
Speaker 3: That like, Vivian's community disappears for so long, and Kit
Speaker 3: comes back, like really towards the very end. I wish
Speaker 3: she'd like come back a little bit sooner.
Speaker 2: But they should it down the shopping montage together, right.
Speaker 5: Right, true, that would have been iconic.
Speaker 2: And then she could have used some of that obscene
Speaker 2: amount of money to buy her friend some clothes.
Speaker 5: But then, you know, going to the end again, there's
Speaker 5: that moment of wealthy distribution where Vivian hands over some
Speaker 5: extra cash to Kit and calls it the Edward Scholarship Fund, right, you.
Speaker 3: Know, it's really cool, So I like tear up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love that moment, and I think that's that's
Speaker 5: actually so accurate to what sex workers do as far
Speaker 5: as mutual aid is concerned. We take client money and
Speaker 5: we pump it back into the community.
Speaker 2: Love that.
Speaker 5: I love that great.
Speaker 3: Movie and that we hear like Kit, it's a it's
Speaker 3: a little exchange. But like she's she's bringing another sex
Speaker 3: worker who I forget if we like learn her name,
Speaker 3: But another sex worker is going to be taking Vivian's
Speaker 3: place in the apartment. Kid's like, oh yeah, I've got
Speaker 3: this much like you have to pay a little extra
Speaker 3: rent because I'm going to be like she's going to
Speaker 3: continue to be a sex worker, but she's also going
Speaker 3: to go to beauty school. You like sort of get
Speaker 3: an idea of like where her life is going now.
Speaker 3: And also, I mean it's a tiny thing, but nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety the bars in hell, the fact that you know,
Speaker 3: Vivian is leaving sex work, Kit is staying, and there
Speaker 3: isn't like a value judgment placed on that in the
Speaker 3: way that I think a lesser movie might have tried
Speaker 3: to like present this as an undesirable fate or whatever.
Speaker 3: But it's like I don't think that the movie, and
Speaker 3: certainly not Vivian judges Kit at. I mean really at
Speaker 3: any time, Like they're just so, they're just girls I love.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, there's no like envy or anger or like
Speaker 5: you're leaving me behind. It's like Vivian's getting retired. Yeah,
Speaker 5: the retirement is the dream for all the rest of
Speaker 5: their life, for all of them.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I want to be respectful of your time. Does
Speaker 2: this movie pass the Bechdel test. Yes, it does. Mostly
Speaker 2: between Vivian and Kit. They do talk about Edward and
Speaker 2: this guy named Carlos as well, but they also talk
Speaker 2: about their work. They talk about the specific terms that
Speaker 2: they've set for their work. The we say who we
Speaker 2: say when we say how much I love that? So yeah,
Speaker 2: it's I think passing quite handily as far as the
Speaker 2: Bechdel cast nipple scale, though, where we rate the movie
Speaker 2: on a scale of zero to five nipples based on
Speaker 2: examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. Before we started recording,
Speaker 2: I was gonna give this a much lower rating than
Speaker 2: I'm going to now. This conversation really helped because again
Speaker 2: I was operating on like, he's kind of cruel to
Speaker 2: her and he becomes a war criminal at the end,
Speaker 2: and I mean, he ta be fair.
Speaker 3: He does, he does do that, he does.
Speaker 2: But some of those things have been listen, no client,
Speaker 2: no clients, that's true. Some of these things have been
Speaker 2: recontextualized for me. So thanks to the both of you
Speaker 2: for helping me on my journey, helping me on this
Speaker 2: character arc of mine. It's so important that this movie
Speaker 2: humanizes sex workers in a way that, again, most movies
Speaker 2: do not It gives Vivian humanity, It gives her a
Speaker 2: point of view, It gives her a character, which, again
Speaker 2: so many movies struggle tore.
Speaker 5: It gives her her character is sitting on everything.
Speaker 2: She's sitting on everything, and she's funny, like she's got
Speaker 2: a sense of humor. I love it when a woman
Speaker 2: is allowed to be funny and think things are funny,
Speaker 2: because that's also so rare to see, especially in movies
Speaker 2: of this era. I love that she gets a happy
Speaker 2: fairy tale ending, even if it does fall into some
Speaker 2: trope territory. I still am not a fan of Edward
Speaker 2: and his obsession with capitalism and the military industrial complex. Also,
Speaker 2: I feel like the Phil Stucky character is there and
Speaker 2: being as bad as he is to make Edward look
Speaker 2: not as bad. Also, it's very it's a very white movie.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna go three nipples.
Speaker 5: Woo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna give it one point five at
Speaker 2: the at the top of the episode, but I've been swayed,
Speaker 2: so yeah, three nipples, and I'll give them two Vivian
Speaker 2: and her friends.
Speaker 3: Yay, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna get two and a half.
Speaker 3: I don't like Edward. I don't like him. I'm happy
Speaker 3: for her. I think he's so boring, and you know,
Speaker 3: the naval destroyers. I'm just like, sure, could we have
Speaker 3: left at But that seems to be like what had
Speaker 3: to happen in every rom com. It's not particular to this,
Speaker 3: It's just a character I can never get on board with.
Speaker 3: But in any case, I love, love, love Vivian. I
Speaker 3: love how this movie. I mean, speaking to what you've
Speaker 3: been saying the whole episode, Andrea, that this is a
Speaker 3: fantasy that centers a sex worker very lovingly, And how
Speaker 3: many movies, especially movies with this level of like impact
Speaker 3: and cultural importance, can we say that for Yeah, there's plenty,
Speaker 3: plenty of criticisms to be said about it, but I
Speaker 3: think that it is like a net good movie. I
Speaker 3: enjoy watching it. I love the friendship with Vivian and Kit.
Speaker 3: So I'll go two and a half. I'll split the
Speaker 3: difference and to give one Vivian one a Kit and
Speaker 3: then one half too. We didn't have time to talk
Speaker 3: about her, but I always want to acknowledge when there's
Speaker 3: body doubles in a movie, because I feel like it's
Speaker 3: labored that is very often made invisible Shelley Michelle, great name.
Speaker 3: First of all, played Julia Roberts's body double in some
Speaker 3: of the intimate scenes in this movie and some of
Speaker 3: the close up body shots that Shelley Michelle as is
Speaker 3: the poster. The body on the poster Julia roberts head
Speaker 3: is photoshopped on. That is in fact Shelley Michelle. So
Speaker 3: shout out to Shelly Michelle. At her career peak, her
Speaker 3: legs were insured for a million dollars, which is so aspirational.
Speaker 3: I don't even know how that would work. Wow, But
Speaker 3: I love that for her. I enjoyed learning about her.
Speaker 3: My last half nipple goes to her shoded Shelley.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's wild. I did not know that.
Speaker 6: That's right now.
Speaker 4: I had heard that that she had a body double
Speaker 4: on the poster, and I wondered at watching it because
Speaker 4: there's that opening scene where you know she's shutting off
Speaker 4: her alarm clock and her face has the pillow over it,
Speaker 4: So I wondered, is.
Speaker 6: That a body devil?
Speaker 3: It probably is. Yeah, Well, I think from what I
Speaker 3: was able to gather, most of the like more intimate
Speaker 3: scenes where you can't see Julia Robert's face is Shelley
Speaker 3: Michelle Coold makes sense.
Speaker 2: How about the two of you for the nipple.
Speaker 5: Scale, I guess I would give it four and half nipples. Obviously.
Speaker 5: You know, we could do without the sex worker dead
Speaker 5: in the dumpster. She could do without pimps. We could
Speaker 5: do I mean, if you're gonna have a pimp, let's
Speaker 5: have some justice. We could do without the warmongering love interest,
Speaker 5: you know. But all in all, you know, it's funny
Speaker 5: because with Edward it didn't even like his occupation didn't
Speaker 5: even register to me, Like I wasn't even really paying
Speaker 5: attention to Edward. But I think you're both very right
Speaker 5: to draw attention to the fact that he is, like
Speaker 5: he's got an evil job, and that's sort of glossed
Speaker 5: over as just like men in a boardroom. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 5: But at the same time, as a sex worker, we
Speaker 5: have to suspend our judgment for the menu peas all
Speaker 5: the time. So I think I literally am just conditioned
Speaker 5: to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 5: That says more about me than anything else.
Speaker 3: Well, we're conditioned to hyper fixate on it because we've
Speaker 3: been We've covered a trillion rom cops.
Speaker 5: Yeah right, But I love I love Vivian so much.
Speaker 5: I love our little hooker lucial Ball, and I feel
Speaker 5: better off having rewatched that this weekend.
Speaker 2: Amazing, Nicole, how about you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, oh, I guess. So we are doing half nipples.
Speaker 3: That's a lot. Yeah, yeah, don't think about it too hard.
Speaker 2: We're grotesque over here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, Yeah, I think I'm in the three point
Speaker 4: five nipples, and I agree. I love Vivian, and I
Speaker 4: love all the fun that's had along the way while
Speaker 4: still balancing some heavier moments in the film. And I
Speaker 4: think I do feel emotionally connected to Vivian along the way,
Speaker 4: and I felt that really strongly this time. And I
Speaker 4: just want to say a shout out to Gary Marshall's
Speaker 4: direction because I love all of the well choreographed, detailed
Speaker 4: comedy that he brought to the story. And yeah, creating
Speaker 4: that Vivian being like a lucial Ball type, a new
Speaker 4: type of lucille Ball heroine, I agree that that's just
Speaker 4: so wonderful. And yeah, I think as a result, it
Speaker 4: just brings me back to what Andrey and I want
Speaker 4: to do with our film, which is, you know, I
Speaker 4: think of Andrea as a kind of Lucilla ball type. Yeah,
Speaker 4: totally has that type of infectious you know, charisma and
Speaker 4: her little Jim Carrey rubber face throughout the film as well,
Speaker 4: and I think she's got people laughing and feeling and
Speaker 4: endearing and charmed and yeah, very nippleworthy. Absolutely, Thanks Nicole
Speaker 4: any time.
Speaker 2: And speaking of the doc, tell us where people can
Speaker 2: find it and watch it and follow you on any
Speaker 2: social media or check out any other work you'd like
Speaker 2: to plug. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So Modern Horror is going to be available to buy
Speaker 4: and rent on digital starting May first, so please do
Speaker 4: check it out please. And for myself, I'm on Instagram
Speaker 4: as Nico design Nice.
Speaker 5: And you can find me on Instagram at wiener Woman
Speaker 5: w e r Woman.
Speaker 3: Perfect handle, perfect handle, no notes, no notes. Thank you
Speaker 3: so much for enjoining us, and huge, huge congratulations.
Speaker 5: Thank you. This was so much fun.
Speaker 6: Now, this is awesome.
Speaker 3: Come back anytime, truly, yes, come back to talk about
Speaker 3: any movie you want. Let's do American Jigglo next. I
Speaker 3: want to kind of watch it.
Speaker 6: It's really good.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, I can't wait. In the meantime, you can
Speaker 2: follow us on Instagram at Bechtelcast and you can subscribe
Speaker 2: to our Patreon aka Matreon. It's the best way to
Speaker 2: support the show. You get two bonus episodes every single month,
Speaker 2: plus access to the back catalog, and it's only for
Speaker 2: five dollars a month. That's so much cheaper than one
Speaker 2: hundred dollars an hour.
Speaker 3: Wow, no comment, all right? You can also follow us
Speaker 3: on Instagram, is the easiest way to keep up on
Speaker 3: what's going on with the show. You know, expect some
Speaker 3: tour announcements later in the year for our ten year anniversary.
Speaker 3: And in the meantime, let's get in our limo and
Speaker 3: go into our happy ending. We The Bechdel Cast is
Speaker 3: a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and produced by Me, Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 2: And Me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by
Speaker 2: Sophie Lichtermann.
Speaker 3: And edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of Them? That's Me?
Speaker 2: And our logo and merch and all of our artwork
Speaker 2: in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever heard of her?
Speaker 3: Oh My God? And our theme song, by the way,
Speaker 3: was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski
Speaker 3: Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Speaker 3: Aristotle Acevedo.
Speaker 2: For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash
Speaker 2: Bechdel Cast