Speaker 1: Hey, Hey, Hey, how's it going. I haven't seen you
Speaker 1: all since the last decade. I know that's a bad joke,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna say it anyway. It is January seven,
Speaker 1: and it's time for another bit of the best of Nerdificent.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week, but for right now, why
Speaker 1: don't you listen to these hits? Yeah, so we are
Speaker 1: talking about the Bechdel Test. Why why did y all
Speaker 1: decide that you wanted to make a podcast about this? Caitlin? Well,
Speaker 1: I suppose it was my idea Bragg, But basically, I
Speaker 1: am a huge film buff, to the extent that I
Speaker 1: stupidly got two different degrees in film and spent you know,
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of dollars on an education and film
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, I mean movies. Movies are life for me. Um,
Speaker 1: honestly crazy, I mean brave, really really yeah. Everyone started
Speaker 1: hashtaging that Caitlin brave. Um. So I love movies and
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about them and kind of reconcile
Speaker 1: the fact that a lot of my favorite movies treat
Speaker 1: women horribly, or at least the movies that I grew
Speaker 1: up with and just had become accustomed to watch some
Speaker 1: of those that you discovered like, oh crap, I love
Speaker 1: me awful, but I didn't didn't have the representation of
Speaker 1: women yet, right, Um, the Big three were like for me,
Speaker 1: it was like the like trilogies of Back to the Future,
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones, and Star Wars like those were like the
Speaker 1: crux of my childhood movie development. Uh. And then just
Speaker 1: any I mean most movies since and before those also
Speaker 1: not great to women. So I just I wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of examine these movies more closely, just any movie
Speaker 1: that has had like a big cultural impact and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, take a look at them and figure out,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe how much media is responsible for the
Speaker 1: patriarchy still being a thing. Um. And so yeah, we
Speaker 1: just I asked Jamie if she wanted to collaborate with
Speaker 1: me on this idea, and she was very down. And
Speaker 1: two and a half years later, here we are, Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, it sounds about the same as krilling it
Speaker 1: and eventually nerdifficent. I was like, hey, you want to
Speaker 1: do this. I was like, yeah, yeah, good idea. And
Speaker 1: I had seen like I have not seen a lot
Speaker 1: of well now I have when the podcast started, I
Speaker 1: had not seen like most of I had also technically
Speaker 1: onto film school, but technically I went, but I've majored
Speaker 1: in radio, so I had also had to use medium
Speaker 1: radio worth it thousands in debt. Uh but yeah, and
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen most of the movies that we covered,
Speaker 1: and so it was like an uh in real time education.
Speaker 1: But I think it helps to get those two different
Speaker 1: perspectives from like me, who like is apologetic to a
Speaker 1: lot of these movies, and then you're like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: just seeing them for the first time and wow, they're
Speaker 1: not good. Yeah that makes sense, Yeah, because you're watching
Speaker 1: them with like an air of nostalgia too. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: for people that don't know what is the Bechtel test, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is our favorite thing to explain to the Bechtel test.
Speaker 1: We can get into the history of it, but just
Speaker 1: like the version and the way that we use it,
Speaker 1: because there's a few different like permutations of it. But
Speaker 1: it's a test that is applied to media, usually movies
Speaker 1: and TV, in which a movie that passes the Becktel
Speaker 1: test has a scene with two female identifying characters who
Speaker 1: have names, who talk to each other about something other
Speaker 1: than a man for at least two lines of dialogue.
Speaker 1: That's our d's our version. There's a bunch of different versions.
Speaker 1: They're simpler ones, there's more demanding ones, but that's the
Speaker 1: one we use, Okay. Yeah, And it originally started from
Speaker 1: Alison Bechdel, right, who wrote in a comic strip that
Speaker 1: was Dikes to Watch out for that appeared in nine
Speaker 1: and we'll have a link to the actual comics so
Speaker 1: y'all can see it. But it was essentially two women
Speaker 1: that were trying to go see a movie and had
Speaker 1: that same thing where they were saying, I only go
Speaker 1: to see a movie if it satisfies three basic requirements,
Speaker 1: when it has to have at least two women in
Speaker 1: it who talked to each other and about something other
Speaker 1: than a man. And then it ends with saying, the
Speaker 1: last movie I saw was Alien. Yes, that was like that,
Speaker 1: which is funny because that movie barely passes because they're
Speaker 1: talking about the alien protocol on the ship or Gina
Speaker 1: Monster as very like major sci fi movie as a
Speaker 1: vaginal monster because Agina's are scared must but against even
Speaker 1: more insulting when you see, like how often people pluck
Speaker 1: from black Twitter memes and pluck from the things that
Speaker 1: we are saying and use it in their bs and
Speaker 1: then uh, and then still have the goal to not
Speaker 1: want to hire black people for some BS bar that
Speaker 1: we can't reach because even then, ivye have a hard
Speaker 1: time letting in black people. And I and when I
Speaker 1: say black people mean black people, Africans get in higher
Speaker 1: on average, just so they can say they're letting in
Speaker 1: black people, but they're letting in Africans. And there goes
Speaker 1: a whole another baggage that I can but anyway to
Speaker 1: reel it all in that is that I don't barely
Speaker 1: scratch the surface of the baggage. But that's what is
Speaker 1: up against all of people of color and women, and
Speaker 1: that type of stuff isn't carried. And that's generally what
Speaker 1: people talk about, just in case someone needs to hear this,
Speaker 1: When they mean privilege, that doesn't mean that you didn't
Speaker 1: have a hard life. That doesn't mean that you may
Speaker 1: not have been poor. But if you were poorn white,
Speaker 1: you still have a better chance of getting it Harvard
Speaker 1: than a poor and black person. It's just simple facts,
Speaker 1: and there's data to back that up. Affirmative action help
Speaker 1: no one but white women, straight up. And it's and
Speaker 1: it's and that's just why let's just stick to the back.
Speaker 1: But I would say to go to end that point
Speaker 1: is essentially that is what studios are more willing to
Speaker 1: take a risk on, their less willing to take a
Speaker 1: risk on filmmakers color of color, and they're less willing
Speaker 1: to take a risk on stories from people of color.
Speaker 1: And that has been shown throughout these decades and even now,
Speaker 1: which is a conversation that we've had in the last
Speaker 1: couple of podcasts, we're still dealing with that. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask y'all about some of the films that were
Speaker 1: surprising that didn't pass the Bechdel test. Okay, let me
Speaker 1: pull up our list. There's I'm never surprised when a
Speaker 1: movie does not pass the Bechdel times. I mean sometimes
Speaker 1: they like seem to be marketed specifically for women, right,
Speaker 1: and there're even some of those don't pass sit. I
Speaker 1: think the most famous example of that that we get.
Speaker 1: We haven't covered it on the show, but it comes
Speaker 1: up all the time is I think it's like a
Speaker 1: nine late nineteen thirties movie called The Women and all
Speaker 1: female casts. It's like ten women you do not like
Speaker 1: your famously, and the way it was market is like
Speaker 1: it was like you don't see a man on screen
Speaker 1: the whole time, and that is true. It does not
Speaker 1: pass the back because they're only talking to talk to
Speaker 1: each other. But it's always about it's always about a gotten,
Speaker 1: It's always about a man named Steve. They're talking about
Speaker 1: Steve the whole movie. It's you know who wrote that?
Speaker 1: Let the women? Okay? Written by? Oh, it was written
Speaker 1: by It was written by two women. So really uh
Speaker 1: really ah job, no no way to no way around it. No,
Speaker 1: the thing is for me. I tend to not remember
Speaker 1: unless it's like it very handily passes, or it is
Speaker 1: very clear that the movie would not pass because it
Speaker 1: only has one woman in the entire movie See Raiders
Speaker 1: in the Lost Arc, see you Know a New Hope,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Um. I tend not to really
Speaker 1: remember if the movie passes the Bechtel test or not,
Speaker 1: just because it's a metric that is useful metric first
Speaker 1: starting off point to talk about representation of women in movies.
Speaker 1: But that's pretty much all we use it for, is
Speaker 1: just like okay, this initiates a larger conversation that we
Speaker 1: can talk about a wholesoe of other things. So whether
Speaker 1: or not a movie passes Jamie, as you said, like
Speaker 1: like The Room, that famously horrible, horrible movie pas Becktel tests,
Speaker 1: but like it's still such a piece of and you
Speaker 1: know it's fun to watch, but you know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean anything that that movie passes. And then I think,
Speaker 1: like we determine chart here, our our friends are very
Speaker 1: studious and update their chart. I would say one that
Speaker 1: I found surprising was You've Got Mail because it's a
Speaker 1: rom com. Yeah. I didn't think like movies that are
Speaker 1: like may right, four Women in theory, and that was
Speaker 1: came out like what two decades ago, So yeah, you
Speaker 1: think they talked about you know, well, I think, well, no,
Speaker 1: I think I think it's probably in her book in
Speaker 1: the scenes in the bookstore, you know, because she's talking
Speaker 1: about her mom and she's talking about you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like, I think that's probably how it passed. It.
Speaker 1: The whole order of the Rings trilogy does not pass
Speaker 1: the Bechtel test, not one of it. It's a ten
Speaker 1: hour it doesn't pass. It's crazy. It has every opportunity
Speaker 1: and it doesn't. Uh. And then another one we did
Speaker 1: recently that I thought, I guess sort of for the
Speaker 1: same reason you were saying, Danny about You've Got Mail?
Speaker 1: Is five d days of Summer doesn't pass the Bechtel test? Um? Wait,
Speaker 1: were you saying that it does pass? It does pass? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does pass. That's why I'm saying I find that
Speaker 1: surprising because it's a rom com. You think, like, you know,
Speaker 1: because she has that she was yeah, okay, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean rom coms often don't pass. I think we did.
Speaker 1: We did an episode about we haven't done, um, you've
Speaker 1: got mail yet? But would you do? When Harry met
Speaker 1: Sally and sleepless in Seattle, And there are most of those,
Speaker 1: there might be like a very quick conversation that just
Speaker 1: happens to not be about men. But often in rom coms,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's it's it's it's interesting because like, there
Speaker 1: are certain genres that almost never pass, like action movies
Speaker 1: like often do not pass because there's usually one woman
Speaker 1: and she's the love interest. She gets captured, she has
Speaker 1: to be saved, like she's everyone's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: she can kick. I mean even if she's allowed to fight.
Speaker 1: Usually women aren't allowed to fight. Usually they just or
Speaker 1: if you're in Raiders of the Locks arc, your only
Speaker 1: weapon can be like a domestic item, like a frying
Speaker 1: pan or in Halloween, it's like all domestic items that
Speaker 1: that are weapons and oh boy, another one I like this.
Speaker 1: This is like a more specific version of the behind
Speaker 1: the camera stuff is the Riese Davies test by Katerie Davies.
Speaker 1: A movie passes if every department has two or more women, uh,
Speaker 1: which is not which which is something that doesn't happen
Speaker 1: very much. Only about a third of movies pass this
Speaker 1: test because there is such a disproportionate representation behind the
Speaker 1: camera as well, which is something that I want to
Speaker 1: be better on our show about like paying attention to
Speaker 1: of Like it's so rare to see female composers, female editors, photographers, um,
Speaker 1: where it's usually where I we're talking about directors, writers
Speaker 1: and talent. But there's like, there's so many things that
Speaker 1: like when a movie is edited by a woman, they're
Speaker 1: probably going to edit out the shot where you know,
Speaker 1: probably the male cinematographers a lingering, male gay shot of
Speaker 1: a woman in a swimsuit exactly Like yeah, um, there's
Speaker 1: another one that is uh, I think lesser known because
Speaker 1: it's it's newer, but it's called the Kent Test. It's
Speaker 1: from um Clarkesha Kent, and it's there are many different
Speaker 1: components to it, so I'll just named kind of the
Speaker 1: main one. But it determines whether a film or other
Speaker 1: piece of media has provided the audience with adequate representation
Speaker 1: of women or feans of color. And then it has
Speaker 1: all these different like criteria by which you can like basically,
Speaker 1: it's like, I think twelve different things, and if it
Speaker 1: scores higher than like a six or an eight or
Speaker 1: some number, then it's like, oh, it's doing pretty well.
Speaker 1: A lot of movies don't fare very well on this test.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, for if he for your episode
Speaker 1: of Black Panther, I'm assuming that that passed the Bechdel test, right,
Speaker 1: And I love the fact that Ryan Coogler had Rachel Morrison,
Speaker 1: who's his DP and has worked with him on Fruitvale
Speaker 1: Station and on Black Panther, So that was that was
Speaker 1: a huge thing. That that was pretty cool that he
Speaker 1: had a woman behind the scenes um as one of
Speaker 1: the head people of his crew. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And
Speaker 1: then I was pointing, I was pointing this out to
Speaker 1: you the other day that George Miller, who made Mad Max,
Speaker 1: his wife edited it and he there's this quote where
Speaker 1: his wife was like, why do you want me to
Speaker 1: edit this movie? Was like, because if I have a
Speaker 1: man at did it's gonna look like every other action movie.
Speaker 1: And that that's true. Like one of the benefits you
Speaker 1: get from having an underrepresented piece to your film is
Speaker 1: you're getting a different perspective. I mean, in a good
Speaker 1: writer's room, that's why you want different perspective. I was
Speaker 1: and probably one of the most diverse writing room a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago. And you know we had you know
Speaker 1: me uh, you know, the show runner was Indian. You
Speaker 1: had uh, we had like two women to two men
Speaker 1: who were writing. Uh, and and it was just interesting
Speaker 1: to like, you know, have you just hear different things
Speaker 1: to the way people say, like, you know, it's it's all.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting too to have just the one line
Speaker 1: that I always liked to hear in those situations. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know when someone speak up and goes, oh, a
Speaker 1: woman wouldn't say that, you know, like his because because
Speaker 1: I just even from my perspective, whenever you see like
Speaker 1: a black person written by a white person, you're like,
Speaker 1: no black person in their life would ever say that
Speaker 1: today we are covering teen Titans. Actually you are an
Speaker 1: expert in these in these kiddos. They're my favorite super team.
Speaker 1: When Danny asked me if this was a subject that
Speaker 1: I knew anything about or liked, I was super thrilled,
Speaker 1: and I was like, how nerdy can I get? Because
Speaker 1: they're the best. They were the top selling DC title
Speaker 1: for twelve years. What years were those? Uh? Eighty two?
Speaker 1: Nine two? It was between them and then the Uncanny
Speaker 1: X Men or the top two best selling comics. That's
Speaker 1: the New Teen Titans, the Wolfman Perez era that affected
Speaker 1: and inspired the TV shows that I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking a lot about today. Yeah, but yeah, they're
Speaker 1: very important, and they're actually in terms of profitability, DC's
Speaker 1: most profitable franchise really, So we like to think about
Speaker 1: the Justice League, but to the Justice League have comics, Uh,
Speaker 1: Teen Titans have comics as well. There's also Titans Young Justice.
Speaker 1: All fall under that same banner. It's all the same
Speaker 1: creative teams and all the same characters. So they have
Speaker 1: more titles consistently that sell better than Justice League, although
Speaker 1: Justice League has more issues. So if you did I
Speaker 1: can't do math, and I certainly can't do math for inflation.
Speaker 1: Justice League probably wins in the comics. However, we've only
Speaker 1: had one Justice League movie and it's arguably a whiff.
Speaker 1: It's controversial at best. We've had one animated television show
Speaker 1: that's over a decade old. Teen Titans had the original
Speaker 1: animated television show Teen Titans Go, which is DC Warner
Speaker 1: Animations most successful DC property show that also spun out
Speaker 1: on an animal there. Even though I know you're on
Speaker 1: this okay trend because this is gonna be my one
Speaker 1: like rant and I'm gonna try and keep it at that.
Speaker 1: But the reason I stopped you at Teen Titans Go
Speaker 1: is a lot of people grew up on the Teen
Speaker 1: Titans before that, me included, and loved it. And I
Speaker 1: feel like Teen Titans Go got so much hate online
Speaker 1: from people out of the age range, like so many
Speaker 1: people who grew up on the first team titles like
Speaker 1: not my teen Ties, not my teen Titans. And I
Speaker 1: get that you want something for you, but just go
Speaker 1: ahead and repeat what you just said about Teen Titans Go.
Speaker 1: That is the most successful animated show and it's fun
Speaker 1: out its own animated movie. So many people try and
Speaker 1: push this idea online that they keep pushing this bad
Speaker 1: teen Titans go. But if it's it's most profitable, it
Speaker 1: seems like it's not as bad as we want to
Speaker 1: believe it is. I get you want the serious, you know,
Speaker 1: dark teen titans uh that we have, but that time's over.
Speaker 1: We had it and we enjoyed it. Now the kids
Speaker 1: that the demo that is watching that time slot is
Speaker 1: getting something they enjoyed, so layoff. Also what's funny is like,
Speaker 1: as much as people hate it that there were some
Speaker 1: people online who U saw I was like, yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1: That was probably me. I love it, but I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to be a trolled. I just like whenever
Speaker 1: people people are going to get upset, whenever people take
Speaker 1: risks and do like a different take. But I understand
Speaker 1: I understand why that doesn't always work to me. I
Speaker 1: just like when we're super I like seeing the bizarro world.
Speaker 1: I like the opposite, Like I don't always want the
Speaker 1: same thing. I like seeing like what if this person
Speaker 1: did go off the deep end? And he was like, yes,
Speaker 1: go off the deep end. But honestly, that's the true
Speaker 1: heart of comics because that's how you get things like
Speaker 1: Red Sun, and you get things like you know, old
Speaker 1: Man logan like, that's the there. Someone pointed this out
Speaker 1: to me a while ago, when I really were it
Speaker 1: was reading capes and they're saying they stopped reading capes
Speaker 1: because they got too obsessed with cannon and we stopped
Speaker 1: doing these one off fun things like All Star Superman
Speaker 1: and Superman. Is fun. I mean it's fun in the
Speaker 1: sense All Star Superman made me like Superman because I
Speaker 1: would Superman and then when I saw it, yeah, yeah, down,
Speaker 1: Wait how did you not like Superman? He was doing perfect?
Speaker 1: But you like Goku? He's dumb. Goku's dumb, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. His flaw is that he has this
Speaker 1: childishness about him and that he does put people in
Speaker 1: danger because he wants to challenge himself. Superman is just perfect.
Speaker 1: He's smart, he's handsome, he is the top of his job,
Speaker 1: he gets the girl. He can't do anything wrong. He's
Speaker 1: not dumb, you know. Like so he is too perfect.
Speaker 1: But I could see where you would think, oh with Goku.
Speaker 1: But Goku does have so many flaws that I'm constantly
Speaker 1: debating against online. Also, we're not here to talk about Superman,
Speaker 1: but when you were, Um, I'm originally from Canada, so
Speaker 1: when you're not American, Yeah, Superman is sort of held up.
Speaker 1: It's Superman and Captain America held up as like these
Speaker 1: bastions of American identity. So for me growing up, I
Speaker 1: was like, you can't like Superman. I'm not American, which
Speaker 1: is funny because he's like an immigrant. But yeah, but
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that as a a I mean,
Speaker 1: I married a white guy from a farm in Kansas,
Speaker 1: so clearly I've come around. But I remember when I
Speaker 1: was in the university. I went to the University of Ottawa,
Speaker 1: which is Canada's capital city. UM had a really good friend.
Speaker 1: He's actually on that YouTube show Wayne now is one
Speaker 1: of the twins. I haven't seen it. That's just the
Speaker 1: thing that people might know. He had a Superman belt buckle,
Speaker 1: and I was like, you're Canadian, you cannot wear that.
Speaker 1: We were like getting vites about that. But Superman is
Speaker 1: a difficult character for people to come around on, which
Speaker 1: is why I think Teen Titans, like I was saying,
Speaker 1: was so successful, because they are deeply flawed. Um, Robin
Speaker 1: is the best among them, and Dick Grayson as the best.
Speaker 1: Robin is a deeply flawed leader, but he grows up
Speaker 1: to lead the Justice League. So I know you have
Speaker 1: a moment that you talked about on the Daily Zeite guys,
Speaker 1: which is really funny. It's so funny because like it
Speaker 1: was a moment I totally forgot about but then remembered
Speaker 1: when I saw it, and it was it was actually
Speaker 1: a pretty cool episode where like, you know, it kind
Speaker 1: of uh try to deal with the racism because it
Speaker 1: was talking about racism and Starfire's family and he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I definitely know about that. And he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you you know about being judged because of the color
Speaker 1: of your skin or because of how you look, and
Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, I'm a robot. It's so great
Speaker 1: because because it definitely gets so close and I could
Speaker 1: definitely be just see the network notek of being like
Speaker 1: now I pull that back, just say it's because he's
Speaker 1: a robot. Can I ask you, um, what is potentially
Speaker 1: an ignorant white person question that you're under no real
Speaker 1: otis to answer, But I'd like to ask you, as
Speaker 1: an African American person, how do you feel about booya
Speaker 1: as a catchphrase? Oh? You know, I didn't care. It
Speaker 1: seemed like yeah, yeah, because it seemed like one of
Speaker 1: those things like he's saying something cool, but we don't
Speaker 1: want to make anything like you know, seems like it's
Speaker 1: because he's black, you know, because when he said it
Speaker 1: in Justice League, like I was really excited, and then
Speaker 1: I saw a bunch of people who I respect and
Speaker 1: who I look to for guidance because I was not
Speaker 1: a person of color. I don't know, Um, I got
Speaker 1: really mad about it, and I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: just thought it was really cool that he said the
Speaker 1: cotch for you. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think some
Speaker 1: you know, not a diss on them, but some people
Speaker 1: are just like hyper sensitive of what one way would
Speaker 1: be taken. But I feel like the only way to
Speaker 1: have taken that was that it was a call back
Speaker 1: to something he always said in Teen Titans, just like
Speaker 1: an X Men when he says I'm the Juggernaut bitch,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's like I don't to like across
Speaker 1: the world, yeah, like to like, you know, take that
Speaker 1: in any other way. I you know, I think there's
Speaker 1: more to unpass, you know. It's just I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't agree. I don't even agree that you could
Speaker 1: really take issue. I don't want to control how anybody
Speaker 1: feels about anything. But there I feel like there's a
Speaker 1: level too. Now there's there's this social currency to find
Speaker 1: the things wrong that are not woke, and it leads
Speaker 1: to people just jumping to stuff when they might have like,
Speaker 1: even if they didn't like it, be like all right,
Speaker 1: that's kind of whack and move on. But now that
Speaker 1: you can get likes, retweets and clicks, it kind of
Speaker 1: encourages more to kind of lean into something you might
Speaker 1: have just let go. Okay, so I'm allowed to like
Speaker 1: it good, That's all I care about. So so it's
Speaker 1: Jason Todd not as red uh red Hood, but he's
Speaker 1: not red Hood right until after the joker beats him
Speaker 1: to death of the crowbar and then he gets thrown
Speaker 1: on last. So this all takes place before that, I guess,
Speaker 1: because because my only gripe with Jason Todd would have
Speaker 1: been like if we got f Batman Robin, that kind
Speaker 1: of takes the wind out of red Hood sales, right um.
Speaker 1: And I like I like it to Grayson, who's like
Speaker 1: not as much of a Gali g but also degreason
Speaker 1: in my opinion, because it's only just my opinion. I
Speaker 1: don't want take anything away from him and likes it.
Speaker 1: Um would never say a f Batman. Well, that's the
Speaker 1: one Robin who would never like that's adjacent Todd moved
Speaker 1: and that was my gright with that. So me and
Speaker 1: you are back, even though you want to get rim
Speaker 1: because because because I love I love that's your thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, you don't like it more for me. I
Speaker 1: don't like it more for you. But like Dick Grayson
Speaker 1: worships Batman. So when I heard that line, I already
Speaker 1: noped out and I was like, and once again, I'm
Speaker 1: the same way. I have no qualms with anyone who's
Speaker 1: like jamming on it. I will never say not like
Speaker 1: the thing you like that. Those words will never come
Speaker 1: out of my mouth. And don't take it that way
Speaker 1: if you're like liking it and it's like, hey, should
Speaker 1: I not like this because it no? Enjoy it? Enjoy
Speaker 1: good things. I think Pacific Rim is one of the
Speaker 1: most perfect movies ever made, the best. It's It's sorry
Speaker 1: it promised me a robot, I mean a monster getting
Speaker 1: beat up by a giant robot with a freightership as
Speaker 1: a bat And what did I get when I went
Speaker 1: in a giant robot b being the monster with the Freightership.
Speaker 1: You barely get your promises keptain movies these days, and
Speaker 1: I was happy with it. I honestly didn't know that
Speaker 1: people didn't like Batman and Robin. I think I've said
Speaker 1: that before on this podcast. Yeah, yeah, and I didn't
Speaker 1: because I saw it when I was little, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is it. Literally was like if you're watching as
Speaker 1: a kid, It's like a comic book come to life.
Speaker 1: It's so colorful, stunt, dumb stunt. You have Uma Thurman
Speaker 1: as like may West. You know what you have like Arnold.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is so we have um, you know,
Speaker 1: Alicia Silverstone who was coming off clueless like I was,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it was my jam. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that that was not a good movie. Okay, we're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick break, but I'm hoping you're enjoying the
Speaker 1: best of Hopefully you're remembering the things you did last
Speaker 1: year while you were listening to these episodes. But let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then come back to it,
Speaker 1: and we're back, y'all. It's almost time for this episode
Speaker 1: to end, which means it's almost time for next week,
Speaker 1: which means it's almost time for a brand new Neurodificent.
Speaker 1: But now let's get back to the hits are Woman
Speaker 1: of the Hour, the wonder Woman, the wonder the Woman,
Speaker 1: the Myth, the legend, wondrous and a woman. Yeah, she's
Speaker 1: um super dope. She is one of the first superheroes
Speaker 1: just period, especially the ones that still exists and right now.
Speaker 1: Um she She and Captain America debut in the same year,
Speaker 1: so about ten ments of parts. So she was and
Speaker 1: um also interesting because their colors are the same, yeah,
Speaker 1: and there the same pretty similar and then American flag essentially. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because they kind of both did come
Speaker 1: from a place of challenging society at the moment because
Speaker 1: you know, Captain America is very much hate punch Nazi
Speaker 1: to yeah, so, and then she also punches Nazis because
Speaker 1: that's also a thing that you're supposed to do. But like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Kevin America was very much about, um, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like an immigrant ideal, like rising up for
Speaker 1: your country kind of situation. And Wonder Woman is a
Speaker 1: feminist ideal, which when you say feminism, you don't think
Speaker 1: nineteen forties, but hey, that stuff existed. Then yeah, you
Speaker 1: say what I said. So you posted a picture of
Speaker 1: the DC Archives and my first thought was like, these
Speaker 1: are sex toys because it was a whip. It was
Speaker 1: like it that looked like something else, and there was
Speaker 1: like but it's so funny because relating back to Professor Marston,
Speaker 1: he was that he was into S and M and
Speaker 1: they and it was interesting that they had like that.
Speaker 1: This was actually brought up that people were accusing him
Speaker 1: of having bondage spanking homosexuality like in his comics, which
Speaker 1: again this was in the forties, so it's like to me,
Speaker 1: it's super dope and like slid that in there. But anyway,
Speaker 1: it definitely some of those the original DC Archive like stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I could I see what they were
Speaker 1: doing well. And also I think that it seems like
Speaker 1: it's really like out of ordinary for that kind of
Speaker 1: delicious stuff to be in the books. But if you
Speaker 1: actually look at the comics from back then, like the thirties,
Speaker 1: even they've got crazy stuff going on. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of like female vigilantes that like merk dudes left and right,
Speaker 1: and like like we had wor up, we had water propaganda.
Speaker 1: But also these men were reading these during like that
Speaker 1: we're going to war, you know what I mean. They
Speaker 1: were like so in the same way that early pornography,
Speaker 1: you know, like they had pen of those magas the
Speaker 1: pin up and she looks like a you know to
Speaker 1: some extent. Although he definitely kept her, she was definitely
Speaker 1: sexualized later. I think her early stages were not as much.
Speaker 1: And you can and those and also heard that skirt
Speaker 1: in that first episode of that first issue is not
Speaker 1: actually skirts pant coats. You can actually clearly seep. Isn't
Speaker 1: that funny? They're just flowing breathe. Um, we have I
Speaker 1: know this is gonna this is gonna be a three hours.
Speaker 1: There's so much uh so. She her official title is
Speaker 1: Princess Diana of Themiscira, also known as Paradise Island. Um,
Speaker 1: that's what I called it forever because my first comic
Speaker 1: was of her, was her original run from Marston and
Speaker 1: they called it Paradise Island. Yeah yeah, And that's also why.
Speaker 1: And she's a daughter of Apolita. That is also why
Speaker 1: I'm a hardcore old school o g that she came
Speaker 1: from Clay because that was her original that has been
Speaker 1: changed a couple of times. So the nineties are really
Speaker 1: weird because there's a lot of like really awesome stories
Speaker 1: that were happening during that period with a lot of
Speaker 1: off putting art for me, So I know what you mean. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we're going to talk about Yeah, we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about Artemis real quick. Um. So, this modern contemporary age,
Speaker 1: especially in the nineties this kicks off. The eighties in particular,
Speaker 1: was an era of I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: will call it more adult storytelling. This is where the
Speaker 1: Dark Knight gets that gets to be the Dark Knight,
Speaker 1: you know. This is where a lot of comics that
Speaker 1: people are saying are the best comics ever made they
Speaker 1: get made during this period. Um. And so they're experimenting
Speaker 1: more with this stuff. This Jason Todd gets killed, uh
Speaker 1: you know, like Superman, Like they actually Superman, Batman, and
Speaker 1: Wonder Woman all lose their mantles, all within like two
Speaker 1: years of each other. Like this period of like five years.
Speaker 1: Everybody gets there, their titles usurped from them for various reasons,
Speaker 1: and Wonder Woman is no uh, no exception to this.
Speaker 1: So they find this lost tribe of amazons um called
Speaker 1: the Bonna mcdal and they are real hardcore and they're
Speaker 1: like and so the when they come back to the island,
Speaker 1: they're like, Okay, well we weren't here during the contest
Speaker 1: of Champions, so we should be able to do the
Speaker 1: contes as the champions too. So they take their best
Speaker 1: warrior artemis In she actually wins. So Diana is no
Speaker 1: longer technically a wonder Woman. This is where if you've
Speaker 1: ever seen a picture of her wearing bicycle shorts, this
Speaker 1: is where that comes from. All of her iterations are
Speaker 1: so like her eighties. There was one in the eighties
Speaker 1: and she just looked like she was like in Madonna's
Speaker 1: music video or something, you know what I'm talking like.
Speaker 1: I think she had a leather jacket. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: that's the same one. It's a leather jacket with the
Speaker 1: bicycle shorts the top. Yeah, she looks like she's in
Speaker 1: a music factor. But specifically, I'm not gonna lie because
Speaker 1: the new Wonder Woman that's dropping. Um, I believe we're
Speaker 1: not going to get it in twenty nineteen yet, now,
Speaker 1: are we? Okay you think? Yeah, Wonder Woman eight four
Speaker 1: literally takes place in eighty four, as it says, Um,
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of curious if they're going to put
Speaker 1: her in. I would love to see Diana in eighties
Speaker 1: where yes, she has to be to blend in. I've
Speaker 1: seen a couple of like photos from like you know,
Speaker 1: the shoot or whatever, and I try not to look
Speaker 1: at them very much because I don't like being spoiled
Speaker 1: ahead of things too hard, because you already guess what
Speaker 1: happens in movies without it. But I just was so
Speaker 1: curious about her clothes. There is some shoulder pads happening
Speaker 1: in one of the outfits, so yeah, definitely. And I
Speaker 1: saw one picture of another person and in the most
Speaker 1: eighties track suit, and I can't wait to see it.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the movie. Um, if you can't remember,
Speaker 1: did you did we see it together? I don't think
Speaker 1: we saw it together because I saw it in a plane. Okay,
Speaker 1: never mind, I don't think you're on the theater. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you, what do you What was your takeaway from
Speaker 1: seeing her brought to life on in film? Oh? I
Speaker 1: loved it, and it was you know, it was so
Speaker 1: obvious what the solution was too. And I've talked about
Speaker 1: this many times anytime I talked about like what d
Speaker 1: C needs to do to blah blah, blah, it's always this,
Speaker 1: which is simply like get new voices in there, getting
Speaker 1: new director was in there, and like I think Patty
Speaker 1: just really just brought a whole new like perspective to
Speaker 1: the series. And what she did was she made it
Speaker 1: a war story. Like, it wasn't a story about you know,
Speaker 1: is she going to like be like being a superhero
Speaker 1: or you know, any other like superhero story. It was
Speaker 1: a story about like this person dealing with the war
Speaker 1: and how that how that treats them and then being
Speaker 1: an outsider. So yeah, she was a fish out of water. Um,
Speaker 1: that was very well done. One of the things there
Speaker 1: were a couple of complaints that people had that I
Speaker 1: want to address. Uh. One was this idea that she's
Speaker 1: not a feminist because she fell in love with Steve Trevor,
Speaker 1: that it's literally not what feminism mean, and that to
Speaker 1: me is it's it's such a It just shows how
Speaker 1: outdated and singular that those people's view. You know that
Speaker 1: she can you can be a mean, you can be
Speaker 1: a fully fledged you know. Another thing was that she
Speaker 1: wasn't They were like, well, she's clearly not queer. Then
Speaker 1: I'm like, but you know, queer, you can sleep with
Speaker 1: you can you can do both. So there's a reason
Speaker 1: it's called by like you can do both. And it
Speaker 1: just so happened that this particular one, you know, and
Speaker 1: she fell in love with Steve Trevor. But I I
Speaker 1: find it hard pressed to believe that someone that looks
Speaker 1: like that would not be exploring on an island where
Speaker 1: other women are also equally as hot. It just like listen,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just a woman myself. Listen. And also again,
Speaker 1: like if we're talking about like I, I very much
Speaker 1: want to loop a lot of what she does into
Speaker 1: actual Greek mythology because I do think mostly the better
Speaker 1: or the more impactful writers tap into it in the
Speaker 1: right way. And if you think about ancient Greece, they
Speaker 1: didn't care. Yeah, they were tapping everything you pretty. I've
Speaker 1: seen the I've seen the porcelain, I've seen the plates
Speaker 1: in the and then with the very detailed tapestries they
Speaker 1: are and they there, it's it's part of their thing,
Speaker 1: that's what they did. But yeah, the one of a
Speaker 1: movie I'm really looking forward to eight four. We somehow
Speaker 1: have Steve Trevor back. Yeah, there's would you like to
Speaker 1: hear my theories? UM, sure, I guess we're just saying
Speaker 1: that this is everybody listening. This is a theory obviously
Speaker 1: isn't privy to the script, has not seen it. It
Speaker 1: isn't even finished yet. Just somebody that knows wonder woman
Speaker 1: that is thinking that this might be how he's there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I have too. Well, three there's three things. Two
Speaker 1: of them are kind of related. So number one, remember
Speaker 1: when he was bathing in that pool, that healing pool, girl,
Speaker 1: I didn't even remember that. So what was that water?
Speaker 1: What did it do? What's going on with that? He
Speaker 1: could have survived this whole time. You know he blew
Speaker 1: up in an airplane. We don't know what that water
Speaker 1: that was like to Smithery. Okay, so that would be
Speaker 1: like in Terminator with like the do like all of
Speaker 1: the little metal pieces coming back together. That leads to
Speaker 1: me my second theory, which is, uh, we were told
Speaker 1: all the gods are gone? Are they? Somebody could have
Speaker 1: plucked him out of that plane right before it it's floated,
Speaker 1: and that he's been off somewhere else in another dimension,
Speaker 1: in stasis something something for a very long time. That
Speaker 1: could be a thing, right because he still kind of
Speaker 1: looks the same and it's the eighties, so and it
Speaker 1: seems to me I haven't read a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: or whatever. The I think the most the least likely
Speaker 1: of the three theories is that he is somehow Steve's
Speaker 1: like Great Ransom or whatever. But I think that's not
Speaker 1: that doesn't make sense to me because there's nothing that
Speaker 1: they set up that just looks exactly just exactly like him, um,
Speaker 1: which they do in movies all the time. So whatever.
Speaker 1: But like so, so that third theory is like the
Speaker 1: least likely one where I'm like, you can kind of
Speaker 1: throw that out there and be fine, But it's that
Speaker 1: blue glowing water, what does it do? And um, we
Speaker 1: already know that Apocalypse has beef with the Amazons and
Speaker 1: the gods of old, so it's possible that it wasn't
Speaker 1: even a Greek god. It could be one of the
Speaker 1: other gods that did it. So like that, like that
Speaker 1: could have plucked him out, or that they're still hanging
Speaker 1: around because the dark sides will exist, then why doesn't
Speaker 1: the other ones have to be there somewhere? Um, And
Speaker 1: it could have been interesting if that was like a
Speaker 1: last pull of their power at that time. And then
Speaker 1: it takes sixty you know, a hundred years or whatever
Speaker 1: that for them to like be able to pull him
Speaker 1: back into this dimension because nobody's worshiping them except for
Speaker 1: like Amazons, so they kind of have to recharge. Maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know those are I want to know who
Speaker 1: came up with all of these? Did you all just
Speaker 1: call you called it real monsters? So that yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's like or we just called monsters or whatever like that.
Speaker 1: You know, you always you always show folk come from
Speaker 1: the theater originally, so in the theater you sort of
Speaker 1: just it's not Sweeney Todd, it's Sweeney or whatever. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not Oklahoma, it's Holma, or it's not that or
Speaker 1: the one that the one theater speak out with here
Speaker 1: because you have to say it this way is Scottish Plow.
Speaker 1: That's a whole different thing. Scot the Scottish the Scottish play.
Speaker 1: When I asked you to be on it, though, I
Speaker 1: made sure I didn't want to be disrespectful, so I
Speaker 1: made sure I like got all the a's and all
Speaker 1: of the exclamation call. I think it's three as two ages.
Speaker 1: I think it is still got it. Yeah, with these
Speaker 1: amazing actors, I mean the people who started the show
Speaker 1: were great uh, um, Charlie Adler, who's one of the
Speaker 1: great voice over people of all time. Um, and then uh,
Speaker 1: I don't have her name from Christine Christine Kavanaugh. She's
Speaker 1: the late Christine Kavanaugh. She was wonderful. A guy named
Speaker 1: David eccles, who it was a sound guy at cross
Speaker 1: Key Chupa had a really interesting funny voice, so he
Speaker 1: was became Crumb, the guy with the eyeballs out. And
Speaker 1: but then the guest actors would come in. The casting
Speaker 1: director was a woman named Barbara Wright who would just
Speaker 1: cast these amazing actors so like people like you would
Speaker 1: never expect to show up, like Tim Curry and uh
Speaker 1: and people who now like have had big careers later like, um,
Speaker 1: this Guyamexander Berkeley. You know Xander Berkeley. He's in the
Speaker 1: original term. He's a terminator too. He's the guy who
Speaker 1: who was um, John Connor's like step stepfather gets killed
Speaker 1: with the like the thing through the face. Yeah, Uh,
Speaker 1: that's Sander Berkeley has been in a million things. This
Speaker 1: guy named Toby Hass who has been in a million things.
Speaker 1: But like big Margot Kidder, the late Margot kid Like,
Speaker 1: these people just come through just doing like one voice,
Speaker 1: you know, because this woman was a great woman who
Speaker 1: like like these people. So I get to sit in
Speaker 1: and watch these amazing voice sessions and and the animators
Speaker 1: were great. It was just just a really fun experience. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So for people that don't, oh, I haven't heard of it.
Speaker 1: I don't know how. But the show focuses on three
Speaker 1: young monsters. It's its Obelina and Crumb, who attend a
Speaker 1: school for monsters under a city dump and learned to
Speaker 1: frighten humans. Uh. Many of the episodes revolve around them
Speaker 1: making it to the surface in order to perform scares
Speaker 1: as class assignments. The series premiered October at eleven am
Speaker 1: on Nickelodeon. That's cute. That was a good slot, running
Speaker 1: a total of fifty two episodes over four seasons. The
Speaker 1: final episode air December six. So, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: Charlie Adler voiced it is do you hate do you
Speaker 1: have a favorite or like one that I'm like, I
Speaker 1: hate to ask this good to ask your favorite monster?
Speaker 1: For sure? I mean he was so he was because
Speaker 1: he was he was a little bit me too, because
Speaker 1: he was like very nervous and anxious and always worried.
Speaker 1: And you know, Crumb was the cool one who liked
Speaker 1: nothing bothered him, and Obelina was super cool and stylish,
Speaker 1: which I wasn't, so uh yeah, definitely. Yeah. I liked
Speaker 1: writing for him too. He was fun to write for.
Speaker 1: But my first episode, I'm trying to remember. I don't
Speaker 1: think I pitched the story. It couldn't have been because
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about it. But it's the one
Speaker 1: that people seem to remember the most. Was my first one,
Speaker 1: which is where Crumb got a pimple that that came
Speaker 1: alive and started talking to him and it was voiced
Speaker 1: by Jim Belushi. But I remember writing that having a
Speaker 1: good time and that the pimple became more popular than
Speaker 1: him and he sang a song, and um yeah, it
Speaker 1: was just I was like, oh, I can I can't believe.
Speaker 1: Because I grew up as a kid just loving cartoons,
Speaker 1: uh specifically Bugs Bunny cartoons. So I would come home
Speaker 1: from school every day, and where I lived in New York,
Speaker 1: there was a Channel five in New York, which is
Speaker 1: show Bugs Bunny from half an hour from like three
Speaker 1: o'clock to three thirty. So I come home from school,
Speaker 1: turn on the TV half an hour of Bugs Bunny.
Speaker 1: But I came became so obsessed about it, Like that's
Speaker 1: if if I was doing that show all these years
Speaker 1: ago when I was a kid, I'd say I was
Speaker 1: nerding out about Chuck Jones because I knew the names
Speaker 1: of all that I could recognize the director's style, tell
Speaker 1: it Chuck Jones from Frizz Feeling from a Bob Mackimson
Speaker 1: from a Frank tash Lyn. Uh, you know, and and
Speaker 1: I so so have a chance to work in animation.
Speaker 1: Was just im planned on it, but it just really
Speaker 1: because of that guy, David Litson, you want to try
Speaker 1: and write on this cartoon, and I just ended up
Speaker 1: just loving it. I couldn't believe here I was this
Speaker 1: kid from Jersey, like you know, in Hollywood, like working
Speaker 1: for a cartoon show. It just was a thrill. I
Speaker 1: do have to say from it. I think I've told
Speaker 1: this story in here. But my mom used to be
Speaker 1: teased for her lips. She had big, full lips, and
Speaker 1: she they would call her Sandy big lips. Also like
Speaker 1: kids were like, couldn't think of a better Yeah, like
Speaker 1: you old Sandy big lips. But that was one of
Speaker 1: the things because the women in my family have really
Speaker 1: full lips, and I remembered that about Oblina, like it
Speaker 1: was just so, well, look, we'll take representation wherever we
Speaker 1: can get it. And was the thing that I loved
Speaker 1: about her having these big, full lips. It just like
Speaker 1: reminded me of the women in my family and I
Speaker 1: loved that so much. Um. And then when my mom
Speaker 1: grew up, everybody was getting them injected to get their
Speaker 1: lips like her. So there you go. And then I
Speaker 1: was a good representation for people who are growers not showers. Wow,
Speaker 1: the joke was right there. I couldn't leave it sitting.
Speaker 1: It was right there. David eccles, was the voice of Crumb,
Speaker 1: said okay, yeah, I did not know that he voiced
Speaker 1: the monster under Chucky's bed in the rug Rats, So
Speaker 1: that comes full circle. He was a monster in that world,
Speaker 1: and then a monster he was, I'm pretty sure a
Speaker 1: guy who just worked in the sound department at class
Speaker 1: Key Chupo, and he had a really it was a
Speaker 1: funny guy, had interesting voice, and I think maybe he
Speaker 1: did that thing in rug Rats. And then when they
Speaker 1: came up with the monsters, they said, for you want
Speaker 1: to do this too? Yeah, all right, Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: just have a weird voice. Yeah. And they did actually
Speaker 1: have an official crossover. So in the sixth season of
Speaker 1: Rugrats Akasblina and Crumb Crashed, Tommy Chucky, Phil Lill Dill
Speaker 1: and Angelica's Spooky Slumber Party, it was called ghost Story
Speaker 1: and uh iconic crossover. Yeah them. So we were talking
Speaker 1: about at the break, we were talking about the fact
Speaker 1: that Nickelodeon is rebooting a bunch of these shows apparently
Speaker 1: right there. I think they're do new Rugrats. They're doing
Speaker 1: new Hey Arnold. They had a movie for Hey Arnold,
Speaker 1: uh that came out last year, and then they also
Speaker 1: had Rocko's movie came out Rocko. That's right, So why
Speaker 1: not monsters give me a call, call me up, get
Speaker 1: the gang back together. There were the writers on that
Speaker 1: show were one. I mentioned some of the other guys already,
Speaker 1: but Mark Stein was the guy who ran it most
Speaker 1: of the time that I was there, and was a
Speaker 1: guy named Mark Palmer, Uh, Spencer Greene, Mary Elizabeth Williams.
Speaker 1: Just we were the main staff. They're just great, great
Speaker 1: people to work with, and we're talented and funny people. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also it was just like such weird. I love
Speaker 1: that it embraced the weird grossness, you know, especially because
Speaker 1: children love that. But also I think that that might
Speaker 1: be why all of these iconic writers that came together
Speaker 1: to kind of start in this room. I think that
Speaker 1: that's why it resonated with us even now decades later,
Speaker 1: that it was just such a it was just doing
Speaker 1: something different that I feel like a lot of the
Speaker 1: other shows weren't. Let's take a quick break and then
Speaker 1: come back to it, and we're back. Let's get back
Speaker 1: to the hits. Today we're talking about the Man the Mystery,
Speaker 1: James Vond. James Um, so you know, we're going to
Speaker 1: do the nitty gritty that I always start with. This
Speaker 1: is the first time the nitty gritty is very chunky,
Speaker 1: like usually, you know, the nitty grete. We just take
Speaker 1: the kind of synopsis of the subject that kind of
Speaker 1: launches us in at the discussion. But James Bond isof
Speaker 1: it's yeah, yeah, so Phil free to jump in. Commander
Speaker 1: James Bond cmg R n VR is a fictional character
Speaker 1: created by the British journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in
Speaker 1: N three. So I guess I was not aware that
Speaker 1: he was first in novels before the films. Yeah, now
Speaker 1: he was. He he wrote like Ian Fleming wrote like
Speaker 1: two or three books that he wrote. Um, I think
Speaker 1: Casino Royale and like On Her Majesty's Secret Service and
Speaker 1: Dr No in some version of that order, and and
Speaker 1: they were kind of like they didn't go anywhere, like
Speaker 1: they're just gonna hit the marketplace, and they just kind
Speaker 1: of died. And then um, it became like I think
Speaker 1: it was John F. Kenny did an interview with Playboy
Speaker 1: magazine back in the day, and John F. Kenny was like,
Speaker 1: my favorite books are James Bond books. And suddenly became,
Speaker 1: oh well, if President screws a Lot really likes these books,
Speaker 1: then there must be something going on in there. And
Speaker 1: then suddenly, like boom, they became best sellers. Mark, are
Speaker 1: you telling me that John F. Kennedy was the first influencer.
Speaker 1: I think so. I think I think he tagged up
Speaker 1: like this this is a paid post. So have you
Speaker 1: read any of the original novel Um, I've read like
Speaker 1: five or six of them. Um, they're shorter than the movies.
Speaker 1: They are like crazy misogynist, I mean, like that's that
Speaker 1: is that is They're very much a product of their
Speaker 1: time in that like James Bond loved Jamaica because Ian
Speaker 1: Fleming loved Jamaica like he would like he would summer
Speaker 1: there or winter there or whenever he can go there.
Speaker 1: And so like reading like gold Finger, which is all
Speaker 1: set in Jamaica, you're like, oh, like it's kind of yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean like you're like that we'll go to the
Speaker 1: Bahamas and that's gonna be different. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: just like it becomes he's got like a black buddy
Speaker 1: who's not really a buddy. He's more like a waiter
Speaker 1: slash show for a slash valet, and and every woman
Speaker 1: is kind of disposable, you know, and it's it is, uh,
Speaker 1: bringing that to the modern era is a challenge, I
Speaker 1: think is the And and you see these James Bond
Speaker 1: movies as you go, you go back and look at
Speaker 1: the Sean Connerys, and they still retain that vestige of
Speaker 1: of old school feelings about masculinity and femininity. And then
Speaker 1: you get to Daniel Craig and it's like, listen, you're
Speaker 1: gonna like have sex with a lady, but it's not
Speaker 1: going to be as unfortunate as it had. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems like as it moved forward in time, it went
Speaker 1: from the Bond Girls to the Bond Girl, right, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean there there would still be the like does
Speaker 1: he have to like sleep with like three women? Like
Speaker 1: and there's always like the Bond girl who dies early
Speaker 1: to his you know, adventure. I'm really motivated now that
Speaker 1: now that I can't even remember who she was, but
Speaker 1: she's dead and now revenge must happen. Yeah, And like
Speaker 1: the Bond novels especially and then the movies sort of
Speaker 1: after the fashion were aspirational. I think to like a
Speaker 1: generation of men um for good and for ill, and
Speaker 1: like the good of it is like James Bond really
Speaker 1: like dressed well and he lived well, and he liked
Speaker 1: good food and like it's a weird like Samelier's Guide
Speaker 1: to Wine and stuff, like those books are all like
Speaker 1: he's super refined and super defeat and super like you know, well,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have the fifty four rothchild before a steake.
Speaker 1: My god, what kind of barbarian are you? It was like, dude,
Speaker 1: like you're a killer. But but and that's that's sort
Speaker 1: of how it helped tie into the Playboy, because Playboy
Speaker 1: was also very much like, here's here's the guy that
Speaker 1: you kind of want to be, Like, here's how you
Speaker 1: should dress, Here's the party you should go to. Here's
Speaker 1: the music you should listen to. Here's the books you
Speaker 1: should read. Um, here's the women you should want to
Speaker 1: consort with. And James Bond fit right into there. It
Speaker 1: was like he he was the guy you wanted to be. Um.
Speaker 1: That changes over time, you know, and especially the as
Speaker 1: the more diverse a audience gets, the less they might
Speaker 1: want to just be that guy, you know. And and
Speaker 1: James Bond may or may not eventually change with those times,
Speaker 1: because there is no good reason why James Bond, if
Speaker 1: it's going to be played by a bunch of different actors, yeah,
Speaker 1: couldn't also be played by a person of color. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have one quote that I wanted to say. It's
Speaker 1: exactly what you said about him being a blunt instrument.
Speaker 1: This is from Ian Fleming in The New Yorker from
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two. He said, when I wrote the first
Speaker 1: one in nineteen fifty three, I wanted Bond to be
Speaker 1: an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happen. I
Speaker 1: wanted him to be a blunt instrument. When I was
Speaker 1: casting around for a name for my protagonists, I thought,
Speaker 1: by god, James Bond is the dullest name I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: Funny because now when you hear Bond, James Bond, it's
Speaker 1: like a man of mystery, and he's sexy debonair and
Speaker 1: it's just like, oh no, this like dole office worker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like he I think that he was in his Jamaica estate,
Speaker 1: which is also named Golden Eye because of course it
Speaker 1: is um and he had a wall full of books
Speaker 1: and one of them was a book on birds, like
Speaker 1: bird watching and stuff, written by a guy named James Bond,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh god, if that's not the
Speaker 1: most boring person and the most boring man, so boring
Speaker 1: dude that's ever been here's my spy. Well, it transforms
Speaker 1: so much, it's so interesting that it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: just this man that things happened to happen to him,
Speaker 1: to him being this force of nature essentially wrecking. He's
Speaker 1: a wrecking ball in my opinion, very much so. And
Speaker 1: and like those movies and even the stories, there's the
Speaker 1: version of those that are very reactionary, right, because like
Speaker 1: James Bond is kind of like this global cup who like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go right or wrong, but the wrong has
Speaker 1: to happen before he gets called off his game. So
Speaker 1: it's very much like we said, it's like, here's your mission, James,
Speaker 1: go do the thing. And then he goes and does
Speaker 1: the thing. But it would take a while before the
Speaker 1: movies began to make him proactive, before they gave him
Speaker 1: missions and drives and revenge and all that stuff that
Speaker 1: actually makes for here that you want to be tuning
Speaker 1: into over and over again, as opposed to just a
Speaker 1: guy waiting for like a case file to fall on
Speaker 1: his desk. I guess I gotta go get that bad
Speaker 1: guy again, little fail. I'm gonna come and get you.
Speaker 1: I'm coming and get you. It's so funny because I
Speaker 1: have never seen a single James Bond film Wow, but
Speaker 1: I have played many a Golden Eye. And Golden Eye
Speaker 1: is special in the sense that it had it normalized
Speaker 1: first person shooters. It changed the game literally, and so
Speaker 1: you know, it got people well aware of of crappy
Speaker 1: hit boxes with odd job. If you chose odd job,
Speaker 1: you were a horrible human being. And so like everything
Speaker 1: about Golden Eye is so fun and they recently did
Speaker 1: a source remaster for PC, so you can grab that
Speaker 1: if you're on the PC man Aster race. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's super. It was fun. And what kind of sucked
Speaker 1: was it was so good, so nostalgic that a Bond
Speaker 1: game never was able to survive around there. I think
Speaker 1: there was like was it a die? It was either
Speaker 1: die another day or um, what is the one that
Speaker 1: came out for PS two or PS one Night Fire? Nightfire?
Speaker 1: That's what it's saying, James Bond double O seven Night
Speaker 1: Fire for PS two. Okay, I think that's what it was.
Speaker 1: Then it was it was not great. I just remember
Speaker 1: that Golden I was the first party game I'd ever
Speaker 1: really played. It was, you know, like it was. It
Speaker 1: was a game where somebody had an N sixt before
Speaker 1: you go over and always be like five or six
Speaker 1: people in that house and for them would be playing
Speaker 1: Golden at any given time, and there was and it
Speaker 1: was It became a social event in a way that
Speaker 1: video games hadn't been for me and before. And there
Speaker 1: was always like it. And the screen was divided into
Speaker 1: those four boxes, right, and so four people were playing
Speaker 1: at once. I'm on a giant screen. There's always one
Speaker 1: screen where some person could not figure out how to focus,
Speaker 1: like just look straight ahead, Man, I can't do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that was next level. And you know, just
Speaker 1: talking about Golden Night, it's crazy to think that in
Speaker 1: sixty four launched two of the biggest like multiplayer party games.
Speaker 1: Uh not counting Mario Party. But you have Smash Bros.
Speaker 1: And you have Golden It's it's crazy to know that
Speaker 1: all that came from the n sixty four totally. The
Speaker 1: actors that have played James Bond. To me, Pierce Brosnan
Speaker 1: was my James Bond because he was who I was
Speaker 1: first introduced to and who I grew up with until
Speaker 1: Daniel Craig came into the picture. Who do you consider
Speaker 1: your James Bond? Good? Um? The first Bond movie I
Speaker 1: ever saw was Never Say Never Again. Um, So Sean
Speaker 1: Connery is my Bond. Um. I think I've seen more
Speaker 1: Roger Moore James Bond movies and seen anybody else, and
Speaker 1: that was more contemporary for me, Like I was a
Speaker 1: kid of the eighties and he was. He was a
Speaker 1: late seventies into like eighty five, eighties six, I think.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of always going to be Sean Connery
Speaker 1: for me, and even like Never Never Again is when
Speaker 1: he's the old Bond, he's war like to pay Bond,
Speaker 1: like it's just and it's a remake of another Bond
Speaker 1: movie because they're like MGM has the like the lock
Speaker 1: on James Bond movies and I have for since the
Speaker 1: very beginning. But there was some weird dispute with the
Speaker 1: screenwriter of Thunderball and he claimed some rights to it,
Speaker 1: and so that's the one movie that if any other
Speaker 1: company wants to make, they can remake Thunderball. And so
Speaker 1: it was Thunderball and then Never Seen Ever Again, which
Speaker 1: is just a remake of Thunderball again. Um. And so
Speaker 1: I remember that that was a summer and I was
Speaker 1: a bad boy at school and it was just coming
Speaker 1: out on HBO, and like I had forged my report card,
Speaker 1: like I like the kind of forgery that in junior
Speaker 1: high school you're really really good at. So it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make these fs a's because nobody will notice that,
Speaker 1: and these ds are gonna be bees because that totally works.
Speaker 1: And uh. And I had told my parents like at
Speaker 1: length that I really wanted to see this movie movie.
Speaker 1: And then when I they caught me in my master forgery.
Speaker 1: They were like, you can't do anything for a summer.
Speaker 1: So you know Caribbean parents, that's how that goes. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: so so from like June through September, I was locked
Speaker 1: in my room. But then like once once I got paroled,
Speaker 1: like my dad had videotaped never Say Never again for me,
Speaker 1: Like that was his present for me as I completed
Speaker 1: my my rounds in in the Big House. And I
Speaker 1: remember watching that movie and loving it to death even
Speaker 1: though it's not great, Um, but it didn't matter, yeah,
Speaker 1: because like this was this was the price. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was your freedom. This is my freedom for like I'm
Speaker 1: free given up. The new one, No Time to Die,
Speaker 1: is dropping April eight. Um. It's directed by Karrie Fukanaga
Speaker 1: and that he co wrote with Scott z Burns and
Speaker 1: Phoebe waller Bridge What Flee Bag Herself Indeed, which like
Speaker 1: that that in and of itself between Kari Fukanagen and
Speaker 1: Phoebe waller Bridge. I'm more excited for this Bond movie
Speaker 1: than I've been for a while, because you know, you
Speaker 1: can eat as I think you find with like sort
Speaker 1: of Black Panther is a different Marvel movie than every
Speaker 1: other Marvel movie because the perspective of the people who
Speaker 1: get to tell that movie, like Patty Jenkins is wonder Woman.
Speaker 1: It's a different superhero movie than every other DC superhero
Speaker 1: movie because the lens through which you're telling that story
Speaker 1: is different. And so to look at this now fifty
Speaker 1: year old franchise and look at it through a lens
Speaker 1: through which we've never seen it before, because every other
Speaker 1: director of a Bond movie has been a white British dude.
Speaker 1: And so now you get a sort of you know,
Speaker 1: multi racial you know, like American with a crazy eye,
Speaker 1: and it's a crazy flair for this sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And then you get a script that's that's co written
Speaker 1: by one of these smartest women on the planet, Like
Speaker 1: what does what does a James Bond movie from those
Speaker 1: people look like? You know, what does it keep? What
Speaker 1: does it retain? And how does it innovate and how
Speaker 1: does it propel the story forward in a in a
Speaker 1: way that we've never seen before to an audience that
Speaker 1: might not have responded to Bond before this, you know,
Speaker 1: because it is it's an archaic idea, you know, it
Speaker 1: is something of it of its own cinematic dinosaur, and
Speaker 1: to find a way to put a fresh coat of
Speaker 1: paint on it, and to and to roll it off
Speaker 1: the assembly line looking like something brand new while still
Speaker 1: feeling like something old. I'm all here for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we have Lashawna Lynch. She will be playing double
Speaker 1: O seven. You will have recognized her from a bunch
Speaker 1: of things, but most recently Captain Marvel cannot wait, cannot wait,
Speaker 1: I mean, And it's like even even if you've been
Speaker 1: burned before, and you know Bond has burned before, it's
Speaker 1: clearly it retains. It's its capacity to be like what
Speaker 1: was that all about? You know? There are enough pieces
Speaker 1: to it. You know. It's like it's like if you
Speaker 1: look at at at a car manufacturer that's been making
Speaker 1: cars forever, like you know, BMW, Mercedes or whatever. If
Speaker 1: you look at like a modern day Mercedes and then
Speaker 1: a Mercedes from fifty years ago, they look like cousins.
Speaker 1: You know, like there's enough elements to it. There's enough
Speaker 1: kind of curves in the bodyline. It's all kind of
Speaker 1: work the same, but you've now brought it into You've innovated,
Speaker 1: and you've put all kinds of bells and whistles on it,
Speaker 1: but it's still that car. And if you can do
Speaker 1: that with James Bond and like you know what, like
Speaker 1: this was a Rolls Royce from like Night, but like
Speaker 1: look at a Rolls Royce today, Like you can still
Speaker 1: kind of tell this faster and it's leaner and it
Speaker 1: does things better, but it's still it's still a Bond movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like, give me that travelog, give me that hero
Speaker 1: who does the impossible when nobody else could pull it off.
Speaker 1: Like give me these women who now have agency in
Speaker 1: a way they've never had before. And give me, you know,
Speaker 1: gadgets I've never seen, like just push it and that's it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the best of Nerdificent Part two.
Speaker 1: We missed you and I can't wait to see you
Speaker 1: all next week. All right, y'all, stay nerdy,