Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have women in them, are
Speaker 2: all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they
Speaker 2: have individualism? It's the patriarchy. Zephy and Beast start changing
Speaker 2: with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 1: Hey, Caitlyn, Hey Jamie.
Speaker 2: Have you ever wanted to watch a movie that's sort
Speaker 2: of like Mulan but without literally anything that made it fun?
Speaker 1: I can't say that I have wanted that too bad?
Speaker 2: Do I have the movie for you? Is it g
Speaker 2: I Jane? It's with deepest regrets, it's g I Jane. Wow,
Speaker 2: there's what I mean there? What is this movie if
Speaker 2: not the be a Man thing over and over and over,
Speaker 2: but with a soundtrack that is completely dissonant with what
Speaker 2: is happening on screen. This, I mean, this is a
Speaker 2: small nitpick to start with, but the soundtrack to this movie.
Speaker 2: I have a theory as to why it is the
Speaker 2: way it is, but it's it's fun weird. Ridley Scott
Speaker 2: is so all over the place. He really is what
Speaker 2: goes through this man's head? But the why is why
Speaker 2: is the pretenders in G I Jane? Like? Can we
Speaker 2: leave them out of it? I don't like that the
Speaker 2: pretender that Chrissy Hind got like G I Jane Dollar Anyways, anyways, there.
Speaker 1: The feel like making love.
Speaker 2: Honestly, why is that there? That's why Vigo morton'sage accent,
Speaker 2: Vigo Morton's in shorts. Why are so? And this this
Speaker 2: is the this is the petty complaint Runk. There's also
Speaker 2: I mean, but like, okay, Chrissy Hind, Randy Newman, Mozart,
Speaker 2: even Mozart's catching a stray by appearing in G. I.
Speaker 2: Jane Like, it's just you just hate to see you
Speaker 2: hate to see it. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. I
Speaker 2: guess we were gonna have to cover this one eventually,
Speaker 2: weren't we.
Speaker 1: We were.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My name is Jamie, my name is Caitlin. This is
Speaker 1: our show where we examine movies through an intern sectional
Speaker 1: feminist lens, using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping
Speaker 1: off point. That is a media metric, many different versions.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna breeze through this today because there's so
Speaker 1: much to talk about.
Speaker 2: I know, it's like, but it is, I mean, it's this,
Speaker 2: this movie is slippery in a way that like does
Speaker 2: it pass the Bechdel Test? Sure, but at what cost? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Exactly, so many different versions of the test. The one
Speaker 1: that we use is do two characters of a marginalized
Speaker 1: gender have names? Do they speak to each other? And
Speaker 1: is there conversation about something other than a man? And
Speaker 1: we ideally like it when it's a narratively meaningful conversation,
Speaker 1: which in this case, sure it's narratively meaningful, but is
Speaker 1: the narrative at what jingoistic bullshit?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's like if you had to email the Pentagon
Speaker 2: to get your movie made. Reconsider Yeah all right, yeah,
Speaker 2: well buckle in because spoiler alert, it does pass the
Speaker 2: Bechtel test. But that is literally what we will not really,
Speaker 2: I mean, it is relevant because it passes the Bechdel
Speaker 2: test way before the Bechdel test was a culturally relevant marker,
Speaker 2: and it does so very intentionally, but to a very
Speaker 2: nefarious end, which is to recruit women to the American military.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, at what cost? We have a wonderful guest.
Speaker 1: Let's get her in the mix. She is a lawyer
Speaker 1: and host of the five to four podcast and popular
Speaker 1: Cradle podcast. It's Rhan and Hamam.
Speaker 3: Hi welcome, hello, and you're welcome. You said you know,
Speaker 3: we'll just have to you know, we knew we'd have
Speaker 3: to get to g I Jane at some point. You're
Speaker 3: welcome for being the person that brought it to twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five.
Speaker 2: For you guys, thank you came much true, It came true. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess to start, let's talk about our history with
Speaker 2: this movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Rhannon, what's your relationship with it?
Speaker 3: So this is really interesting because I had a childhood
Speaker 3: relationship to this movie. Without seeing the movie as a child,
Speaker 3: I had a relationship to it in that the promo
Speaker 3: for the movie, Demi Moore and the casts, you know
Speaker 3: what is it called their their publicity tour for it.
Speaker 3: Let's say the interviews that they gave. The hoopla that
Speaker 3: was made about, in particular some of the what people
Speaker 3: would call iconic scenes. Demi Moore shaves her head right
Speaker 3: in this movie, those kinds of things. Demi Moore screams
Speaker 3: at one point, suck my yes. That that sort of
Speaker 3: like media really hit me as a kid. I remember
Speaker 3: seeing things like this being like discussed on TV. And
Speaker 3: you know Demi Moore's workout routine, these kinds of things right,
Speaker 3: and I as a child was even though let's go
Speaker 3: ahead and get it out there. I'm Palestinian Arab growing
Speaker 3: up in the time post Gulf War then post nine
Speaker 3: to eleven. Right, So as a child, I was somehow
Speaker 3: even with that context about myself out in the open here.
Speaker 3: As a child, I was not clocking that the movie
Speaker 3: was about US imperialism, right, the violence of like the
Speaker 3: US military. I was not clocking this at all. And
Speaker 3: again I never saw I never saw the movie. So anyways,
Speaker 3: invited onto this podcast, was thinking immediately about, you know,
Speaker 3: when when I was a kid, what were the movies
Speaker 3: that were like about being a badass lady, you know,
Speaker 3: being a powerful, strong lady, being one of the guys,
Speaker 3: even though you're a lady. So this this came up,
Speaker 3: and then now like as an adult watching it, I
Speaker 3: have you know, the full layers, let's say, of like
Speaker 3: perspectives and interpretations and analysis where you're just like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, this is so so dark, darker than you know,
Speaker 3: even maybe like a sort of substanceless feminism, you know, Patina.
Speaker 3: Over all of this, it's even darker and more disappointing
Speaker 3: and and sort of at root more violent than that.
Speaker 2: It's totally it's very this is a movie with a
Speaker 2: dark energy, putting it in that category. Yeah, and I do.
Speaker 2: I feel like this movie did. I also hadn't seen
Speaker 2: it before, but I felt like I did because it
Speaker 2: was so It's so talked about. I mean, I unfortunately
Speaker 2: one of the associations that I have with this is
Speaker 2: like that g I Jane was name checked in the
Speaker 2: slap incident. This is would remember that.
Speaker 1: WHOA, I don't know, I don't remember that.
Speaker 2: Yes, I blame my fiance for remind I don't know
Speaker 2: why men think about this lap so much, but they do.
Speaker 2: But when Chris Rock was mocking Jada Pinkett Smith, he
Speaker 2: called her GI Jane because she was bald. And all
Speaker 2: that to say, for a movie that was not very
Speaker 2: successful and pretty widely mocked in its time, it has
Speaker 2: real cultural staying power. Yeah, and for like really bizarre reasons.
Speaker 2: Because this movie is clearly clearly has an agenda, and
Speaker 2: it is to promote US imperialism and to bring the
Speaker 2: third wave feminist movement under the umbrella of US imperialism
Speaker 2: and sell it back to women. And I think that
Speaker 2: that is why we get the weird soundtrack that we do.
Speaker 2: We're like, oh, and we've got your music, girl power.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so many things that this movie does
Speaker 2: that is very nefarious to that end, but it has
Speaker 2: its cultural legacy. I feel like it's a little harder
Speaker 2: to pin down. I'm glad it wasn't more successful. It
Speaker 2: doesn't seem like it had a top gun effect, but
Speaker 2: it still does demonstrable harm because we're still talking about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know. I think it's also a little
Speaker 3: bit about selling feminism to men too, like because it's like, actually,
Speaker 3: they can be badasses and actually if the real goal
Speaker 3: is like serving your country and shooting at the bad guys,
Speaker 3: then women can do that too. Maybe, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's feminism for like sexist men who like the
Speaker 1: type of feminism that they could get behind or digest.
Speaker 2: Almost yes, I mean it's like so constantly dissonant, where
Speaker 2: every other scene it's like it will start to make
Speaker 2: a point but then fail to interrogate the system that
Speaker 2: that point is being made inside of. So it's it's
Speaker 2: totally meaningless all the way down to like the turf
Speaker 2: Senator herself, like where you're like, yes, like she's she
Speaker 2: is kind of like Nancy pelosiing her way through life.
Speaker 2: This is a valid criticism. There are people who do this,
Speaker 2: who weaponize identity politics against people like but then fails
Speaker 2: to it. But they were like, and and you know
Speaker 2: who really has it figured out? The Navy, And You're like,
Speaker 2: what do you mean? What do you mean? Her being
Speaker 2: the big bad is so weird, Like it's just like
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know, I don't know what the
Speaker 2: fuck there. I mean, I do know what the fuck
Speaker 2: they're on about, and it's very frustrating, very uh.
Speaker 1: I had also never seen this movie, but I remember
Speaker 1: it being a big deal when it came out. It
Speaker 1: was the same year as Titanic nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 2: So it never stood a chance.
Speaker 1: So I was busy and with.
Speaker 2: Making an impact.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, but this movie was marketed to all hell
Speaker 1: I remember there was just like yeah, like you mentioned
Speaker 1: Rihann in different images or scenes from it. That just
Speaker 1: became part of the cultural zeitgeist. But I just I've
Speaker 1: never been interested in war or military movies, so I
Speaker 1: was like miss me with this, no thank you. So
Speaker 1: I just watched it for the first time the other day,
Speaker 1: and I don't really know what I was expecting, and
Speaker 1: it kind of it sort of like was everything I
Speaker 1: was expecting and nothing I was expecting at the same time.
Speaker 1: It was a bizarre experience.
Speaker 2: But and I feel like it Also we'll talk about
Speaker 2: this later, but like where it's really Scott's filmography is
Speaker 2: so fucking weird.
Speaker 1: How can he make Thelma and Louise and this also
Speaker 1: like I don't know, he was just like also not
Speaker 1: that like film and Louise is a post child for
Speaker 1: perfect feminism or anything, but but for.
Speaker 2: Its time I mean. But also I mean it's just
Speaker 2: like the movie he made immediately after Thoma and Louise
Speaker 2: was fourteen ninety two Conquest of Paradise. So this guy
Speaker 2: is a girl boss imperialist. Like I don't I which
Speaker 2: those exist, but it's just I don't know, yeah, the
Speaker 2: But then he also makes Gladiator, which is like anti
Speaker 2: imperial he maybe just wants to work. I don't fucking
Speaker 2: get it. I was. He also makes black Hawk Down,
Speaker 2: which is right, also very like military copaganda. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: look up if that one did, because this movie didn't
Speaker 2: get the Pentagon Seal of Approval, but mostly for like
Speaker 2: perverted reasons, where Ridley Scott was like, no, her superior
Speaker 2: does have to look at her in the shower, and
Speaker 2: you're like, that's the reason that that's.
Speaker 3: The nipples are hard in uh in A lot of
Speaker 3: that have to talk.
Speaker 1: I'll talk about that later.
Speaker 2: But she doesn't care. She's just she's just one of
Speaker 2: the boys. She's just one of the boys. I want
Speaker 2: to be treated just like everyone else badly. You're like,
Speaker 2: what the fuck, it's wild.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
Speaker 1: to recap the.
Speaker 4: Movie, and we're back.
Speaker 1: Okay. So here's g I Jane nineteen ninety seven. So
Speaker 1: we open on a hearing where this guy named Hayes,
Speaker 1: who is vying to become Secretary of the US Navy,
Speaker 1: is giving a testimony. But Senator de Haven, who's a
Speaker 1: whoa whoa whoa woman.
Speaker 2: She's not afraid to say it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: This senator interrogates Hayes about the abysmal treatment of women
Speaker 1: in the military and how there are all these barriers
Speaker 1: women aren't allowed to do, like a quarter of the
Speaker 1: jobs in the military, and she wants full integration of
Speaker 1: women in the US military, which is something the Department
Speaker 1: of Defense will agree to if candidates who are women
Speaker 1: are able to prove they measure up to the men
Speaker 1: in a series of test cases, but the high ranking
Speaker 1: men who want this program to fail select the Navy
Speaker 1: Seals as the test case where women would have to
Speaker 1: prove themselves because the Navy Seals training is famously, very
Speaker 1: very difficult. It has a sixty percent dropout rate, meaning
Speaker 1: most men can't even handle it, so there's no way
Speaker 1: a woman will be able to.
Speaker 3: How many times do they say this sixty percent dropout
Speaker 3: rate in the movie explicitly? So many times that they
Speaker 3: just throw out that stat to remind us, you know,
Speaker 3: it's really hard.
Speaker 1: It's so hard, it's.
Speaker 3: So hard to do this.
Speaker 2: The stakes are high.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then we meet Lieutenant Jordan O'Neill played by Demi Moore.
Speaker 1: Her name is not Jane, no shocking, Yeah, it is Jordan.
Speaker 2: I had no idea. Why why not just call it?
Speaker 2: I mean, the name Jordan was not sticking for me.
Speaker 2: All my notes say Jane. Right.
Speaker 1: So she works at the Naval Intelligence Center doing some
Speaker 1: sort of strategist analyst whatever intelligence job, and we see
Speaker 1: her mid mission. Seems like she's good at her job,
Speaker 1: and of course she's surrounded by men who tell her
Speaker 1: to know her place and not step out of line
Speaker 1: or whatever. And she's being told this by someone who
Speaker 1: It took me a while to figure this out because
Speaker 1: all the men in this movie look the same to me, exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, I was waiting for someone to say it.
Speaker 2: You'rs like, I don't know who these guys are. I
Speaker 2: was like, do we like that one? I don't, don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know, But this man is a don't step
Speaker 1: out a line. And it turns out out to be
Speaker 1: her boyfriend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they live together.
Speaker 2: They live and not only did they live together, they
Speaker 2: take they take baths together like they're twins.
Speaker 1: It's twins. I guess maybe when you're a child.
Speaker 2: Zoom for efficiency's sake, I wasn't talking about adult twins.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Senator de Haven is reviewing candidates to join this
Speaker 1: test program, and she thinks this Jordan O'Neill has potential
Speaker 1: because she's attractive and feminine.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, transphobia already entered into the movie in this scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and with photos too, which is absurd. Yeah. The
Speaker 2: first the first person who is suggested, she's like, oh,
Speaker 2: too strong, people are gonna like she drops chromosomes, Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: Musom test on this person kind of thing.
Speaker 2: And there's like this heavy indication that I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: at least she turns out to be the villain, but
Speaker 2: that's just it was like out of pocket. Immediately she
Speaker 2: checks that, which this is a weird planted payoff. She
Speaker 2: wants to make sure that Debi Moore is straight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she says, I don't want you batting for the
Speaker 3: other side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's such a nineties dork loser like
Speaker 2: way to phrase that, but yeah, I feel like she's
Speaker 2: trying to say, like, well, are you normal, because we
Speaker 2: need a normal person quote unquote to do this, and
Speaker 2: then like all of the prejudices that come with what
Speaker 2: she considers normal, we're safe to advance her career. I'm
Speaker 2: not really sure what she's trying to do it.
Speaker 1: But it's really unclear. I had to watch these scenes
Speaker 1: a few times to try to figure it out, and
Speaker 1: I'll try to explain it when we get there, but
Speaker 1: I'm just like, what is going on here? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: after they say a very like transphobe turfey remark, this
Speaker 1: senator also sees another picture of a woman who is
Speaker 1: tall and thick and muscular. She has kind of more
Speaker 1: masculine features, and they mock her and they're like, is
Speaker 1: this the face of someone you want on newsweek? She
Speaker 1: looks like the wife of a Russian beat farmer, and
Speaker 1: you're just like, holy shit, what.
Speaker 2: A specifically hateful joke, Like who wrote that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So anyway, they're reviewing all these candidates and they select
Speaker 1: Jordan as the person they want to recruit into this
Speaker 1: program on the condition that Jordan is not gay. And
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that. Don't ask, don't tell of at all,
Speaker 1: because like the senator is very explicitly asking. But anyway,
Speaker 1: like was.
Speaker 2: It that the whole Wasn't that the thing?
Speaker 1: She's like, I know I'm supposed to not ask, but
Speaker 1: I'm asking.
Speaker 2: I'm asking, and you'd better tell, he says.
Speaker 3: She says, I just want to. She says something like,
Speaker 3: I just want to make sure you have a solvent
Speaker 3: heterosexual at home. Yeah, like that you have a male.
Speaker 1: Partner and they're so heterosexual that they take baths together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're doing foot stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Cut we cut to Demi Moore's feet. I believe
Speaker 2: a total of three times. One time when they're like,
Speaker 2: your foot's all fucked up, and it cuts to the foot,
Speaker 2: You're like, I hate to say the foot I didn't
Speaker 2: need to see the.
Speaker 1: Foot almost like a Tarantino movie in that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, she does have a heterosexual boyfriend.
Speaker 2: His name is Royce Solvent, heterosexual at home. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: don't worry, he hates her.
Speaker 1: He is not supportive of her goals because she's interested
Speaker 1: in this opportunity, but she doesn't want to be a
Speaker 1: poster child for women's rights. She just wants the operational
Speaker 1: experience so that she can advance her military career in
Speaker 1: a way that she's not able to now with all
Speaker 1: these sexist roadblocks.
Speaker 2: So already we're not on board with the goal, right,
Speaker 2: Like the goal is bad, the goal.
Speaker 1: Is real bad. And Royce points out that the men
Speaker 1: in the training program will make her life a living hell,
Speaker 1: and he's not wrong, but he's also like, well, I
Speaker 1: don't want to wait for you if you go off
Speaker 1: to war. I expect you to wait for me, but
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do that for you. And then I
Speaker 1: don't know if they break up or if he just
Speaker 1: kind of like leaves in a huff, But that doesn't
Speaker 1: really end well. Jordan arrives at a naval base in
Speaker 1: Florida to begin her Navy seal training. She meets her
Speaker 1: commanding officer, who's like, oh god, a woman.
Speaker 2: I guess his reasons for hating women. He gives later
Speaker 2: is very funny. It made me laugh where he's like
Speaker 2: guy in a car, Like I was like, he's just
Speaker 2: saying shit.
Speaker 3: It's like that has nothing to do with you, and like,
Speaker 3: would never inconvenience you, right.
Speaker 1: He's also he says like, I need to hire a
Speaker 1: guy in a collegist now to keep track of your
Speaker 1: pap smears. And it's like she's only there for three months.
Speaker 1: We don't need a bunch of pop smears during that time.
Speaker 2: Like how many pap smears was she forced to get
Speaker 2: during her time?
Speaker 1: I don't know anyway, so he's not thrilled about her
Speaker 1: being there. We also meet some of her fellow trainees,
Speaker 1: who of course are all men, and they're talking about
Speaker 1: how women can't do what we do. They're too weak
Speaker 1: and they have too much body fat.
Speaker 2: And one guy is named Flea, which is my cats,
Speaker 2: which I found very distracting.
Speaker 1: I wrote that in my notes, so I was like
Speaker 1: Jamie's cat alert flee.
Speaker 2: He flee would never do anything that.
Speaker 1: The other flee does. He would never join the military.
Speaker 2: It's a man of integrity exactly.
Speaker 1: In addition to Flee, there are guys like McCool Wickwire Cortes,
Speaker 1: Jim Cavizl is there playing a guy named Slovnik, and
Speaker 1: they hate her immediately. Then she settles into her like
Speaker 1: R and R quarters, which is just an empty room
Speaker 1: because it's separated by gender and she's the only woman.
Speaker 1: Then it's the first day of training. We meet Command
Speaker 1: Master Chief Ergale played by Vigo Mortensen.
Speaker 2: Short shorts Viego Mortenson shorts.
Speaker 3: Are so short the entire film. Yeah, did he ask
Speaker 3: for that, leggy Vigo Mortensen.
Speaker 2: We don't see the legs on literally any other character,
Speaker 2: including I think maybe Demi Moore a couple times, because
Speaker 2: as we'll talk about, there's like, I guess they could
Speaker 2: have done worse with hyper fixating on her body, but
Speaker 2: they definitely don't miss the opportunity too.
Speaker 1: Sure. Well, it seems like all of the whatever like
Speaker 1: leaders of this training program are wearing the same short
Speaker 1: shorts because there's a few of them and I only
Speaker 1: notice one para legs same. Yeah, it seems like it
Speaker 1: was all Vego. I was looking at all the legs.
Speaker 1: But in any case, he's one tough sombitch. And everyone
Speaker 1: starts the very vigorous and brutal training, obviously lots of
Speaker 1: physical exercise. They're fighting over food, they're having to eat
Speaker 1: it back out of the trash again. They're plunging into
Speaker 1: freezing cold water. They have to write an essay about
Speaker 1: why they love the United States Navy. The drill sergeants
Speaker 1: are screaming and belittling them, and this is all just
Speaker 1: in the first day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's so many montages in this movie. It's exhausting, truly.
Speaker 1: Gi Jordan is struggling, but she's not the worst at
Speaker 1: this and she's very determined, even though a lot of
Speaker 1: the men are cruel to her, especially this guy Cortes,
Speaker 1: has a vendetta against her. But again she's very determined.
Speaker 1: Though for those who are not determined to complete the training,
Speaker 1: they have to ring this bell three times and it
Speaker 1: signifies their resignation. So that's always kind of like looming
Speaker 1: over everyone. Then there's this obstacle course, which they make
Speaker 1: to be like a war zone with the officers shooting
Speaker 1: at them. Yeah, but there are these like booster steps
Speaker 1: for women and women only time advantages. But Jordan doesn't
Speaker 1: want those. She wants to go through the course like
Speaker 1: everyone else. So she goes to her commanding officer to
Speaker 1: be like, your gendered double standards mean that I'm being
Speaker 1: treated as an outsider, Like how am I supposed to
Speaker 1: fit in and succeed? And then he pitches a fit.
Speaker 1: This is where he's talking about pap smears and her perfume.
Speaker 1: But then he agrees to hold only one standard for everyone.
Speaker 1: Then we get the scene where she buzzes off all
Speaker 1: of her hair, becoming the baldest woman. But I would
Speaker 1: not say she's in charge, so it does not follow
Speaker 1: the baldest woman in charge not.
Speaker 2: Which is weird because I feel like it's one of
Speaker 2: the movies I based that idea around despite have never
Speaker 2: having seen it. But again you have. It is weird
Speaker 2: how how similar there's like sequences in Mulan which comes
Speaker 2: out the next year, similar hair chop and scene.
Speaker 1: True. Yes, she also moves into the same like bunking
Speaker 1: area as the men, and that guy Slavnik is disgusted
Speaker 1: that she brought tampons with her.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what would you like if she didn't have any?
Speaker 2: Like what do you wonder to.
Speaker 1: Just free bleed all over the place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he screams multiple times, like as they're like, you know,
Speaker 3: clear out, like you know, we gotta we gotta go
Speaker 3: or whatever. He's like, you don't care about tampons. You
Speaker 3: don't care about tampons, like fixated. Right, there's this is
Speaker 3: somebody really really having a meltdown?
Speaker 2: Yeah, as melodramatic as a lot of it is, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I do believe that someone would do that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Men are very emotional.
Speaker 2: They're huge drama queens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So then Hayes, the Navy secretary guy, gets wind that
Speaker 1: a woman doing the Navy seal training program has gone public.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be a secret, private thing, but
Speaker 1: it's gone public because there was this like investigative journalist
Speaker 1: or someone taking pictures of Jordan during training. And so
Speaker 1: the Navy Secretary is furious about this becoming public information,
Speaker 1: and he wants her progress monitored and then also for
Speaker 1: like background research to be done on her. Basically he
Speaker 1: wants to see if they can find anything to discredit
Speaker 1: her because this haze guy wants the program to fail.
Speaker 1: But she's doing pretty good. She's made it through the
Speaker 1: first week of training. She's getting the hang of things.
Speaker 1: She's getting into peak physical shape, doing a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, pull ups and push ups, but not wearing
Speaker 1: a sports bra, which I don't know why you do that.
Speaker 2: She wants to be just like everyone else. They're not
Speaker 2: wearing a sports bra. Why should she?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And she's starting to earn the respect of
Speaker 1: some of the men, though others like Cortes and Slavnik
Speaker 1: still have this like sexist rivalry, which.
Speaker 2: Which is the sort of part of what's at the
Speaker 2: core of her very feminist goal is to earn their
Speaker 2: respective men.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Yes.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Then there's a part where Jordan struggles to pull her
Speaker 1: own body weight onto a raft that's speeding by, so
Speaker 1: the master Chief questions if she's strong enough to be there.
Speaker 1: And this is happening in a scene where she's taking
Speaker 1: a shower and he just comes in and she's naked
Speaker 1: and they're both just like shrug.
Speaker 3: This is the scene where Israel is mentioned. Yeah, drink
Speaker 3: d we have an Israel mentioned.
Speaker 2: That was like in a scene where you're already like
Speaker 2: flat on your ass, like what am I watching? And
Speaker 2: then he brings up Israel and it cuts to naked
Speaker 2: Demi Moore. I'm like, what the fuck is this? What
Speaker 2: are we doing?
Speaker 1: He's like, you know, the IOF is awesome actually, and
Speaker 1: then he's like, and you're too weak to be here anyway?
Speaker 1: Want to be in charge of boat number six?
Speaker 2: Well, and she also manages to get a girl Boston
Speaker 2: there too, where she's like is it also talking sort
Speaker 2: of in reference to I guess America and Israel, where
Speaker 2: she's like, well, how did you get your little thing?
Speaker 2: How did you get your little your metal? And it's
Speaker 2: like saving a woman is bad, saving a man is good.
Speaker 2: It makes you think. I was like this, you're naked.
Speaker 2: He's your boss and you're naked. Like yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's at this part of the story that I
Speaker 1: really started to worry that they're gonna wedge in some
Speaker 1: like love story between the two of them, because it
Speaker 1: sort of starts to kind of I think in a
Speaker 1: different movie, or maybe there was just another draft of
Speaker 1: this script where like there was that Okay, I had.
Speaker 2: A feeling, yeah, we'll talk about it. But there I
Speaker 2: went through because I was like, why did this movie
Speaker 2: not get Because there's I mean, the whole military entertainment
Speaker 2: complex usually comes down to weirdly like one guy, and
Speaker 2: it was one guy for like thirty five years, who
Speaker 2: would be the one to decide if you are going
Speaker 2: to get the full force support of the American military
Speaker 2: to make your shitty movie. And this one guy ended
Speaker 2: up saying no and not signing off on g Jane.
Speaker 2: And one of one of the original reasons that Ridley
Speaker 2: Scott did agree to change was that she was originally
Speaker 2: dating her superior in the Navy, which I'm assuming would
Speaker 2: have been the Vigo Mortenson character. So that might just
Speaker 2: be left over from that, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm like, why is this scene here where
Speaker 1: he's like, it's not overtly sexualized, but she isn't the shower,
Speaker 1: but he is kind of like looking her up and
Speaker 1: down and she is naked and he's not, and so
Speaker 1: it's very bizarre and.
Speaker 3: They get very close to face to face. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: is introducing sexual tension here, and it feels like very
Speaker 3: overtly we're supposed to think Demi Moore is hot, Demi
Speaker 3: Moore is sexy, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so the movie doesn't culminate in any kind
Speaker 1: of love story between them, but it feels like it
Speaker 1: was like starting to drop some hints anyway. Then there's
Speaker 1: this like simulation mission thing. It's I'm like Capture the Flag,
Speaker 1: but like military Industrial Complex style, where Jordan leads her team.
Speaker 1: She's delegating tasks, but Cortes and Slovnik refuse to take
Speaker 1: orders from her because she's a woman, and they get
Speaker 1: themselves and everyone else on the team captured. The master
Speaker 1: Chief beats the shit out of Jordan. He acts like
Speaker 1: he might rape.
Speaker 3: Her in front of everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in front of everybody, because by their logic, this
Speaker 1: is what she quote unquote wanted for them to not
Speaker 1: go easy on her just because she's a woman, But
Speaker 1: she doesn't give up any information. Then she fights back
Speaker 1: and kicks the shit out of the master Chief and
Speaker 1: this is when she.
Speaker 2: Goes suck my deck.
Speaker 1: And now he respects her and so her other fellow
Speaker 1: trainees enough to invite her out for a drink when
Speaker 1: they have some R and R time.
Speaker 2: Which also it's so frustrating, where like her sort of
Speaker 2: one pal who is always like she's whatever, the feminism
Speaker 2: nurse or whatever, but she like this is another sort
Speaker 2: of decisive moment for the debianmore character where she's like
Speaker 2: she tells the other girls She's like, I can't hang out.
Speaker 2: The boys finally invited me. I'm like, god, you suck,
Speaker 2: you suck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So she goes to hang out and drink with
Speaker 1: the guys, but she also goes on the like little
Speaker 1: beach picnic outing with the women at the training center,
Speaker 1: who I think are mostly medics, and a reporter is
Speaker 1: there taking more secret photos of the women, and the
Speaker 1: high ranking men see the photos and pull Jordan aside
Speaker 1: and say it looks like you were fraternizing with other
Speaker 1: women in a gay way, and Jordan is like, no,
Speaker 1: this is just women hanging out. But the men want
Speaker 1: to pull her out of training and give her a
Speaker 1: desk job, basically demote her, I think. And she's enraged
Speaker 1: and she rings that bell that signals that you want
Speaker 1: to quit the Navy seal training, and she leaves and
Speaker 1: goes back home. Her boyfriend Royce is there. They reconcile
Speaker 1: and he shows her some reports and letters and stuff,
Speaker 1: and it seems like Senator de Haven, the woman who
Speaker 1: was originally advocating for Jordan, is the one who hired
Speaker 1: the photographer to sabotage Jordan's training.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it turns out she's a cowardly bitchous.
Speaker 2: She really is.
Speaker 1: And these are the reasons that I only very vaguely
Speaker 1: understand and can barely articulate. But it's something like she
Speaker 1: I think she's a senator in Texas and there are
Speaker 1: these different military bases in Texas that are in danger
Speaker 1: of being shut down. So she kind of like trades,
Speaker 1: does some kind of trade with someone to prevent the
Speaker 1: basis from being shut down in exchange for kind of
Speaker 1: selling out Jordan, I think, is what was happening, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like she's gonna lose reelection if these bases get
Speaker 3: shut down, like the voters right will turn against her
Speaker 3: or something. And so with this threat looming, she saves
Speaker 3: the bases over saving Jordan, right.
Speaker 2: Right, which of course a senator would do, right. But
Speaker 2: it's like this is where like the ultimate dissonance comes
Speaker 2: in where she's like, no, that I need to be
Speaker 2: a Navy seal, and it's like, lady, you don't. You
Speaker 2: do not need to be a Navy There is a
Speaker 2: funny like there's like a repeated it's just like a
Speaker 2: bad writing thing. But the Anne Bancroft character this seed
Speaker 2: says a few different times she's like, well if you
Speaker 2: think you're going to change my mind, then pull up
Speaker 2: a chair, or like go to sleep, or like you're
Speaker 2: going to be here for a long time.
Speaker 3: Past your time.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was like, what do you okay?
Speaker 1: Whatever, So Jordan threatens to expose the senator for being
Speaker 1: a lying piece of shit. I guess unless de Haven
Speaker 1: gets Jordan back into the Navy Seals training program. Cut
Speaker 1: to Jordan returns to complete her training and she and
Speaker 1: the others are about to do I think this is
Speaker 1: sort of like their last thing and operational readiness exercise
Speaker 1: in the Mediterranean Sea. But then they get called to
Speaker 1: go on a real life military mission in Libya.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, and they're not done with training yet, and
Speaker 3: they're being asked like, okay, no, you got to do
Speaker 3: Navy Seal mission right now? Yes, And I've seeing how
Speaker 3: fucked up these people are, right right, what an amateur
Speaker 3: show this is.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't think they're ready, and the mission
Speaker 1: is also vague, but I think they have to do
Speaker 1: some sort of rescue or extraction thing. I'm guessing rescuing
Speaker 1: some American soldiers in Libya. And we'll talk about the
Speaker 1: way the country and Libyan characters are portrayed. But yeah,
Speaker 1: basically there's you know, a big third act battle. The
Speaker 1: Master Chief needs to be saved and Jordan kind of
Speaker 1: takes charge. She's giving orders, and then she ultimately gets
Speaker 1: the Master Chief to safety. They make it out, and
Speaker 1: they return to the US, where Jordan officially makes it
Speaker 1: into the Navy Seals after successfully completing her training. The
Speaker 1: end y we so let's take another quick break and
Speaker 1: we'll come back to discuss, and we're back where to begin, Oh,
Speaker 1: Ash Rhannon, is anything jumping to you?
Speaker 3: You know, it really is hard to choose. Is it
Speaker 3: the racism, the orientalism? Is it? You know that this
Speaker 3: really military propaganda. Is it the dissonant and illogical, superficial feminism,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's they're so difficult.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I think something that stuck with me throughout every scene
Speaker 3: in which Jordan is insulted or even like sabotaged, you
Speaker 3: know her, the fellow Navy Sealed trainees, you know, actively
Speaker 3: try to sabotage her and make her look bad every time,
Speaker 3: even and I think this culminates in the scenes where
Speaker 3: they're doing this sear training, the capture of the flag exercise. Right,
Speaker 3: It really culminates in this in this part where Vigo
Speaker 3: Mortensen physically assault her. I mean, it's a really it's
Speaker 3: actually like difficult to watch. It's like she's actually getting
Speaker 3: like truly truly violently beat up, and then he acts
Speaker 3: like he's about to sexually assault her in front of everybody.
Speaker 3: There's blood, like all of this stuff. What is sticking
Speaker 3: with me throughout every single one of these horrifically sexist
Speaker 3: examples is not that anybody like learns a true lesson
Speaker 3: about sexism or that that kind of overt sexism is wrong.
Speaker 3: It's that Jordan overcomes it. And actually, you know, master
Speaker 3: Chief Vigo Morten said, did it all for the right reason,
Speaker 3: so that she could prove herself, so that the team
Speaker 3: will get behind her. You know. Afterwards he tells an officer,
Speaker 3: another officer who says like, hey, I think you kind
Speaker 3: of went too far on that. He tells an officer,
Speaker 3: you don't get it. She isn't the problem we are,
Speaker 3: and I did right, like, I did it for all
Speaker 3: the right reasons. And this is the entire movie. It's
Speaker 3: really sick, yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, and it's they don't, like you said, no one
Speaker 1: really learns anything. It's just that she has sort of
Speaker 1: assimilated into man behavior quote unquote yes, which is the
Speaker 1: problem with any sort of girl Boss feminism where it's like,
Speaker 1: women can uphold imperial institutions too, women can commit war
Speaker 1: crimes too, and that's the logic of the movie.
Speaker 2: I feel like this movie even takes out a step
Speaker 2: further where, like I like, in your prescriptive girl Boss narrative,
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, yes, women can commit horrific atrocities, women
Speaker 2: can be billionaires, women can do you know, A, B
Speaker 2: and C. But this one is also predicated to the
Speaker 2: fact that like, like, her whole mission is to be
Speaker 2: treated like a man likes it's yeah, you know, Sheryl
Speaker 2: Sandberg shit where I feel like it's even worse where
Speaker 2: I feel in some girl Boss narratives it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: and now the guns are pink or whatever the fuck
Speaker 2: She's like, she's not even asking for the gun to
Speaker 2: be pink, like she's She's like, I want to do
Speaker 2: war crimes just like everyone else. I she is so
Speaker 2: vested in not questioning the system she's participating in to
Speaker 2: a kind of scary degree. She has no question. Yes,
Speaker 2: her mission is to be completely swallowed whole by it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me prove it to you. I can do
Speaker 3: I can do war crimes. I'm actually really good at it.
Speaker 3: If you would just let me, you just beat me
Speaker 3: up like everybody else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't care about feminism. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: be some poster child for women's rights. I just want
Speaker 1: to be a bloodthirsty war.
Speaker 2: Criminal, right, And that's I do think it's like an
Speaker 2: interesting idea, not in the scope of this movie at all.
Speaker 2: It is an interesting idea to not want to be
Speaker 2: the poster child for something. I think that that is
Speaker 2: like an interesting narrative tension. But in the context of
Speaker 2: this movie, it makes her an even more confusing character because,
Speaker 2: like I get to the extent that she doesn't want
Speaker 2: to be a poster child. She doesn't want the media
Speaker 2: to hyper fixate on her. That's fair, right, Like she
Speaker 2: doesn't want all these things to happen, But like she
Speaker 2: doesn't even take issue with the sexism that she does experience,
Speaker 2: Like she gets annoyed when like the I mean in
Speaker 2: the beginning where the I don't know what the fucking
Speaker 2: title is, but the first guy she meets before Vigo Mortensen,
Speaker 2: lays out sort of like, Okay, here is what we're
Speaker 2: going to do to sort of protect you from what
Speaker 2: is almost certain to be a very hostile group of
Speaker 2: people towards you. Yeah, and she's like, no, I don't
Speaker 2: want to be like, which is just sending what I mean.
Speaker 2: This expands so much because like, obviously there is real
Speaker 2: life misogyny and homophobia in the military which is shown here,
Speaker 2: but it has no interest in questioning those policies. It's
Speaker 2: just questioning it in regards to this one character who's like,
Speaker 2: I don't care about that. So what is this movie
Speaker 2: even trying to accomplish. Yeah, it feels like it's just
Speaker 2: trying to not only enlist women into the American imperial project,
Speaker 2: it's also saying be quiet about the like about the
Speaker 2: gender discrimination you've heard about? Shut up, Like if you
Speaker 2: were a real soldier, you wouldn't quote unquote complain about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and any even minuscule nod to like, oh, there
Speaker 3: might be a systemic problem here. For example, when Vigo
Speaker 3: Mortensen after almost killing me more like we're supposed to
Speaker 3: understand right by physical assault in front of people. After
Speaker 3: he does this, and he says the thing about like
Speaker 3: she isn't the problem we are and this is why,
Speaker 3: this is why I did this, right saying we are
Speaker 3: if he's referring to like whatever, the US military or
Speaker 3: something like, there's no there's no then like next step,
Speaker 3: which is like, okay, if this is if you're saying
Speaker 3: this is a systemic problem here, there's no next step
Speaker 3: of like, oh, how might we fix that? The solution
Speaker 3: is like again, honorably, I beat her up in front
Speaker 3: of people, right, Like.
Speaker 2: It's it's not even like there's not even an interest
Speaker 2: in like accomplishing a very like what also would have
Speaker 2: been a bullshit like centrist propaganda to this movie. Ye, yeah,
Speaker 2: it can't even do that because the movie also hates
Speaker 2: their Nancy Pelosi character. So it's like, I don't know
Speaker 2: what to do with that, Like, I mean, it's a
Speaker 2: it's a right wing movie totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, like it seems to be saying, well, there's
Speaker 1: sexism everywhere, so of course there's going to be sexism
Speaker 1: in the military, but the movie is like otherwise completely
Speaker 1: uncritical of any systemic issues within the military and the
Speaker 1: military itself, which is a tool to uphold US imperialism.
Speaker 3: And do lots of violence, including sexist violence. All over
Speaker 3: the world, you know.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 1: And it's basically just saying like, yeah, the military is
Speaker 1: is awesome and women should want to be a part
Speaker 1: of it. And that type of jingoism is still being
Speaker 1: used today, obviously not only to recruit for the military,
Speaker 1: but to recruit ICE agents. I've seen people likening the
Speaker 1: signing bonus and the relatively high salaries for ICE agents,
Speaker 1: likening that to incentives the military has historically offered to
Speaker 1: encourage people to enlist.
Speaker 2: So and the fact that the Viga Mortensen character, you know,
Speaker 2: references the IDF in the scope of by far the
Speaker 2: darkest scene in the movie to be there, and it's
Speaker 2: a hard contest because he also almost kills her. I
Speaker 2: mean that is used in IDF logic all the time,
Speaker 2: is that like, we love women and women are a
Speaker 2: part of it. When it's conscripting to a genocide. It's
Speaker 2: just I don't know. I was so shocked at how
Speaker 2: how this movie wouldn't even get to I guess the
Speaker 2: very low nineteen nineties girl boss feminism. It doesn't even
Speaker 2: like clear that.
Speaker 1: No, it sure doesn't. And then you have the whole
Speaker 1: third act of the movie, which is this mission in Libya,
Speaker 1: where again unclear exactly what they're doing. It says they're
Speaker 1: doing an extraction thing, but I don't think we ever see.
Speaker 2: That, which based on the documents, not to be a spy,
Speaker 2: but but based on the documents that I was saying,
Speaker 2: that is very, very intentional, and I think that reminds
Speaker 2: me of like a lot of when the American military
Speaker 2: is involved in a movie. They never want to draw
Speaker 2: your attention to exactly what is being done in the movie.
Speaker 2: That's why in the most recent I didn't see it,
Speaker 2: but in like the Top Gun reboot, they're fighting a
Speaker 2: country that doesn't even exist, unnamed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so vague. Yeah, I remember that about that.
Speaker 2: So that's very much a part of the playbook where
Speaker 2: they're like, Okay, we're willing to name the country that
Speaker 2: we are killing civilians in, but we don't want to
Speaker 2: say exactly what we're doing or what the goal is
Speaker 2: because you don't want to think about that too hard
Speaker 2: because it's violent. Yeah.
Speaker 3: A couple mentions of the word plutonium, right, like satellite cells.
Speaker 3: It is like something extraction, right, and it's just supposed
Speaker 3: to be like it's it is shoving. It is shoving.
Speaker 3: Imperial violence down your throat, but to such a vagueness
Speaker 3: that like you are assumed to be on their side anyway, right,
Speaker 3: Like you're this is acceptable because surely what's going on
Speaker 3: in Libya is bad and those are bad guys doing it, right,
Speaker 3: Like that's there's this baseline assumption not criticized or not
Speaker 3: like engaged.
Speaker 2: At all to right, like it's just playing on prejudices.
Speaker 2: They're assuming the audience already has.
Speaker 1: Right the idea that like, well, we're in an Arab country,
Speaker 1: so of course it's full of terrorists and those people's
Speaker 1: lives are expendable, and the Navy has carte blanche to
Speaker 1: shoot and kill whoever because they are the enemy. And
Speaker 1: even before Libya gets mentioned, someone says like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: getting called to this mission where Iran Iraq and it's
Speaker 1: like no, another one, another enemy country, quote unquote. So
Speaker 1: and then just like the way the country of Libya
Speaker 1: is portrayed, the score that starts playing once where.
Speaker 3: In Libya stereotypical like arrul, which is like a Arab
Speaker 3: Middle Eastern ancient kind of wind is instrument, is the score.
Speaker 3: So you're like, oh, they're in Arabia, yep, they're landing
Speaker 3: on the beach in Arabia.
Speaker 2: Right, Like, truly, at every level this movie is trying
Speaker 2: to play on American prejudices.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the way they make Libya look like this dusty barren,
Speaker 1: decrepit wasteland, the brown filter they put on those scenes
Speaker 1: in post production that makes everything just look dusty and dirty.
Speaker 1: The way the people of Libya are presented, they're hostile,
Speaker 1: They're needlessly violent, Like forget that the US Navy has
Speaker 1: just invaded this country for unclear reasons and are killing
Speaker 1: anyone they see and.
Speaker 2: Will continue to for decades after.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so just absolutely horrific.
Speaker 2: And I think that like another I honestly do not
Speaker 2: know the name of this character because I couldn't keep
Speaker 2: track of all the boy names. But there is exactly
Speaker 2: one black character who we get to know. This is
Speaker 2: a very very very ugly play to make.
Speaker 1: His name is mcool.
Speaker 2: McCool. All the names are so silly, okay, so McCool. Also,
Speaker 2: he has to give this speech while actively treading water,
Speaker 2: which is like that doesn't seem fair to that actor,
Speaker 2: but whatever. So that where, you know, and it's done
Speaker 2: in this very nineties way where it's equating the struggle
Speaker 2: of black soldiers with the struggle of women's soldiers as
Speaker 2: if it's an identical struggle. But the only black soldier
Speaker 2: we get to know is mcool apparently, and he references
Speaker 2: very real prejudice in the American military against black people,
Speaker 2: which is a very you know, it's an important thing
Speaker 2: to talk about, like it is a very valid subject,
Speaker 2: but it's brought up for all the wrong reasons. It's
Speaker 2: brought up to say, like, oh, no, you know, g
Speaker 2: I Jane, like, I totally understand your struggle, like because
Speaker 2: my grandfather was treated this horrible way by Themerican military,
Speaker 2: and then they proceed to push back on that system
Speaker 2: not at all, like and especially in a movie that
Speaker 2: is racist in general, that it feels like Ridley Scott
Speaker 2: is like or the writers of this movie, sorry he
Speaker 2: didn't write this, David Twohea and Danielle Alexandra girl Boss
Speaker 2: what the fuck? But they you know, they're they're basically
Speaker 2: weaponizing this true fact about how racist the American military
Speaker 2: is to excuse all the other racism that the movie
Speaker 2: is guilty of perpetrating. And also that's the only thing
Speaker 2: we ever learned about McCool, we'd ever guess. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: speaks in other scenes, like, I think all the guys
Speaker 2: sort of with the exception of like the bully guy
Speaker 2: and Viga Mortenson, they're all like about the same amount
Speaker 2: of active in the scene, but the fact that they
Speaker 2: go out of their way to be like, Oh, our
Speaker 2: one black character, he and his family have experienced racism
Speaker 2: and that's all we're gonna tell you.
Speaker 1: And that's what defines him. Yeah. Yeah, because you have
Speaker 1: like the Jim Cavizo character who's obsessed with tampons being
Speaker 1: near him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the one thing we learn about him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Cortes Cortez is the guy who like sabotages her
Speaker 1: and like doesn't help her over the wall. And then
Speaker 1: Vigle Mortensen sees that and he's like, well, I better
Speaker 1: combat this sexism by threatening to rape a woman in
Speaker 1: front of everyone.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, what you're never gonna get in this movie.
Speaker 3: And look, I don't expect Hollywood to give this kind
Speaker 3: of analysis to us. I'm not saying right in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety seven that Hollywood and Demi Moore we're gonna make
Speaker 3: the kind of movie I'm about to describe. But you
Speaker 3: never get from this movie that the US military is
Speaker 3: inherently by design racist, sexist, transphobic, because it is an
Speaker 3: expression of capitalism by imperialism. Right, these things are not
Speaker 3: designed to be inclusive or diverse, right like this is,
Speaker 3: this is this is a structure and a system that
Speaker 3: truly is not reformable, Jamie, you said it earlier, like
Speaker 3: this is a right wing movie, right like this is
Speaker 3: and and and the military, the US military is like
Speaker 3: a right wing conception, you know, a structure, and so yeah,
Speaker 3: you're you're never gonna get that. You're gonna get. What
Speaker 3: you're gonna get from this movie is a peak inside
Speaker 3: quite a glamorized individual experiences of individual discrimination.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: But but but not like, oh, you know, the US
Speaker 3: military was racist during World War Two. It's still racist.
Speaker 3: It's still super sexist, and like wonder, wonder what's going
Speaker 3: on there, you know, But.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, it's the military we've got. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so I guess in a way it's really cool.
Speaker 3: And at the end of the day they're shooting Arabs,
Speaker 3: so that's great. You know.
Speaker 2: That is like very much what the third act is
Speaker 2: telling yeaheah, yeah, it's this movie is evil. Super Dark
Speaker 2: has an evil and there's there's so much so I
Speaker 2: wanted to We talked about this in a couple of
Speaker 2: different episodes. I know we definitely talked about it in
Speaker 2: our Top Gun episode. I believe we also talked about
Speaker 2: it way back in the day in our Independence Day
Speaker 2: episode and also Transformers because the American government, uh, the
Speaker 2: American military was involved in the making of all of
Speaker 2: these movies. Now, I mean I I did not finish it,
Speaker 2: but I am bravely in the middle of watching a
Speaker 2: documentary called Operation Hollywood, how the Pentagon shapes and censors movies.
Speaker 2: It's f I've heard of this, Yeah, it's on YouTube
Speaker 2: for free. It's from It's a little dated because it's
Speaker 2: from I think it's from like the early to mid
Speaker 2: two thousands, but it is a sort of breakdown of
Speaker 2: exactly how this system works. So for listeners who haven't
Speaker 2: heard of those other episodes or haven't heard us talk
Speaker 2: about it in a while, Basically, there is a specific
Speaker 2: job that is it's a guy named phil Essentially for
Speaker 2: a long time at this time, it was a guy
Speaker 2: named Philip Strubb who is the DoD's film liaison. Is
Speaker 2: the name of the title, and so from nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: nine to twenty eighteen. This was a job that basically
Speaker 2: this guy would go over scripts that wanted to have
Speaker 2: either bases or tanks, weapons, whatever it is, lent out
Speaker 2: to them at a lower rate in exchange for reflecting
Speaker 2: the American military in a positive way. It's a propaganda unit, right,
Speaker 2: And to be clear, obviously there was a ton of
Speaker 2: military propaganda in cinema, like going back to its very existence,
Speaker 2: but it took them till the eighties to make this unit,
Speaker 2: and it is in direct response to Top Gun. Top
Speaker 2: Gun came out in eighty six and famously there was
Speaker 2: a huge enlistment spike in response to its popularity, and
Speaker 2: that was when the DoD I guess realized, well, if
Speaker 2: this is going to be a trend in movies, we
Speaker 2: want to be directly involved with it. And so that
Speaker 2: is why this department was created. And it really does
Speaker 2: seem to just be this guy. So every movie from
Speaker 2: eighty nine to twenty eighteen is going through him. Now
Speaker 2: it goes through this guy named David Evans. Very very
Speaker 2: little is known about these guys by design, I am sure,
Speaker 2: but there is there were a and again I cannot
Speaker 2: vouch for this website, but a website called spy culture
Speaker 2: dot com. Pretty cool sounds git they in Spy Culture Nature.
Speaker 2: They did leak some documents. This is from a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago how the Pentagon rewrote Gi Jane and
Speaker 2: there are twenty five pages of documents that they were
Speaker 2: able to access that were between the office of Ridley
Speaker 2: Scott and Philip Strubb about this movie and with specificity
Speaker 2: what exactly the DoD wanted changed about this movie and
Speaker 2: what Ridley Scott's response is, what the concessions he did
Speaker 2: make and the concessions that he didn't. And so the
Speaker 2: long and short of it is that this movie was
Speaker 2: not signed off by the DoD explicitly because it showed
Speaker 2: that there's sexism in the Navy, and so they were like, sorry,
Speaker 2: mister Scott, the premise is flawed. The Navy isn't sexist.
Speaker 1: There's no sexism here.
Speaker 2: But that does not mean that Ridley Scott did not
Speaker 2: make significant concessions to this. So I'm just going to
Speaker 2: read from this article what were the Pentagon's objections. They
Speaker 2: didn't have any issue with the basic plot of a
Speaker 2: woman going through special Forces training, but they did have
Speaker 2: a problem with almost everything else. One problem was that
Speaker 2: they didn't want the training identified as being for the
Speaker 2: Navy Seals, but wanted Scott to invent a fictional special
Speaker 2: unit that O'Neill was trying to get into. So again
Speaker 2: that trend of like, let's not talk about exactly what
Speaker 2: we're doing because then people might think about it. They
Speaker 2: didn't like O'Neill's boyfriend being her superior, so that was changed.
Speaker 2: A scene between the CEO at the training base and
Speaker 2: O'Neil was considered too sexist, but Scott didn't want to
Speaker 2: change that. O'Neill shaving her head was considered out of line,
Speaker 2: and Scott replied can be negotiated, which I don't think
Speaker 2: it was. But the scene where the chief confronts O'Neil
Speaker 2: while she's naked and having a shower quote presents privacy
Speaker 2: policy issues quote unquote, which Scott agreed to change, which
Speaker 2: he didn't. A scene where a seal urinates in a
Speaker 2: foxhole in front of O'Neil had the DoD conceding that
Speaker 2: it addressed quote issues related to the presence of women
Speaker 2: in frontline combat roles unquote, but quote carries no benefit
Speaker 2: to the US Navy unquote. They also didn't like the
Speaker 2: sequence depicting survival, evasion, resistance escape training, which sees the
Speaker 2: masters chief imprisoning, waterboarding and beating up trainees, including the protagonist.
Speaker 3: So that's it. That's that's it movie.
Speaker 2: So those are the reasons why the DD did not
Speaker 2: ultimately sign off on this movie. Because one of the
Speaker 2: heroes waterboards another hero, however, that does not mean that significant.
Speaker 2: So I guess the question is what is the agenda
Speaker 2: of this movie if not to get the support of
Speaker 2: the DoD, because it doesn't and Redley Scott does not
Speaker 2: end up like really getting the what I don't know
Speaker 2: exactly what the benefits are, but the ostensible benefits you
Speaker 2: would get. So what the fuck is this movie trying
Speaker 2: to do? Like it's baffling right right.
Speaker 1: If it's not gonna bother to bend over backwards to
Speaker 1: get the Seal of approval from the Department of Defense,
Speaker 1: then but it's still like, but the military is awesome,
Speaker 1: and like, let's make this movie basically as recruitment propaganda
Speaker 1: to specifically encourage women question mark to join.
Speaker 2: The military, join the military, and never ask a question like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, the dissonance here the it's really it's
Speaker 3: sort of nonsensical in a lot of ways, plot wise, dialogue,
Speaker 3: and then the and then the kind of like politics
Speaker 3: of it are are are really nonsensical as well. You know,
Speaker 3: what what what was released Scott's goal? What are what
Speaker 3: were the what are the goals of the writers here?
Speaker 3: What's what's Demi Moore's goal in being in being in this?
Speaker 3: You know, it's like a lot of I think there's
Speaker 3: a lot to unpack there.
Speaker 2: I can I know a little bit about that because
Speaker 2: I did not remember. I don't know, I just did
Speaker 2: not remember the like cultural conversation around this movie. But
Speaker 2: so apparently this was Demi Moore at a time in
Speaker 2: her career where like she was sort of waning in popularity.
Speaker 2: She had just starred in a huge box office bomb
Speaker 2: called Strip.
Speaker 1: Tease, which was notorious for being a horrible movie and
Speaker 1: people hated her performance, and.
Speaker 2: So she was already I mean, and this is this
Speaker 2: is sort of, I guess, unfortunately, a more kind of
Speaker 2: classic tale of how actresses are disposable, and then to
Speaker 2: me more making the choice to star in a US
Speaker 2: imperialist narrative to try to undo that and rescue her career.
Speaker 2: I think it seems like what her motivation here was
Speaker 2: was to kind of dig herself out of the hole
Speaker 2: that she'd been thrown into by strip teas and try
Speaker 2: to remarket herself as an action star by doing this.
Speaker 2: But by all accounts, it didn't work. And it seems
Speaker 2: it seems like, I mean, it's I don't like, this
Speaker 2: movie is fucking horrible and evil, and people were very
Speaker 2: like weirdly sexist to Demi Moore for having been in it,
Speaker 2: Like they blamed the movie sucking wholly on her. She
Speaker 2: like won a Razzie, which feels like an over correction
Speaker 2: because it's like, there's so many issues with this movie.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't put her performance in the top ten of
Speaker 2: those issues are agree.
Speaker 3: I actually, okay, you know, let's take the script and
Speaker 3: the and the movie and and everything for what it is.
Speaker 3: Her acting is not.
Speaker 1: It's not the problem.
Speaker 3: It's not the problem. Yeah, it's not the problem that
Speaker 3: makes this movie land the way it lands, you know.
Speaker 2: Right, And she's and like, so it's just from what
Speaker 2: I can tell, I mean that she she was just
Speaker 2: pretty like squarely escapegoaded for this movie's unpopularity, even though
Speaker 2: I will say at the time there were reviews of
Speaker 2: this movie that were like, uh, this movie is too
Speaker 2: jiggoistic for me to engage with. So even in the nineties,
Speaker 2: like people, we're not just taking their slop, which was
Speaker 2: I don't know. I guess I was pleasantly surprised that
Speaker 2: not everyone was just taking the slap. But then you
Speaker 2: get into like, I don't know Ridley Scott. I don't know.
Speaker 2: He's made four thousand movies, he's five hundred years old,
Speaker 2: so can we get to the bottom of what his
Speaker 2: whole deal is? Probably not. He also made huse of Gucci,
Speaker 2: which I forgot.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, he directed that.
Speaker 3: That's hilarious.
Speaker 2: Wow, he made the last dool at a house of Gucci. Savior.
Speaker 2: He's just an enigma, an enigma. He's booked and busy.
Speaker 2: He'll do anything. But he I mean his other I mean,
Speaker 2: you could argue his most famous characters he directed the
Speaker 2: first Blade Runner, but he also I mean, his most
Speaker 2: famous character you could say is Ellen Ripley.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, I would, it's probably his I would agree
Speaker 1: with him.
Speaker 2: And she is also in the American military, so like
Speaker 2: he like.
Speaker 3: There's a soft spot in Ridley Scott's heart for us
Speaker 3: military story.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, like I don't know, and there has been
Speaker 2: a lot made of over the years of like wow,
Speaker 2: Ridley Scott for a male o tour has women as
Speaker 2: his protagonists pretty often, which is true. I have not
Speaker 2: seen all of his movies, but they're you know, examples
Speaker 2: obviously Alien Thelma and Louise Prometheus, which I didn't see
Speaker 2: Gi Jane. I know that the last duel centers around
Speaker 2: a woman house of Gucci. Looks they're not all good,
Speaker 2: but it does happen with some frequency. But it is always,
Speaker 2: i think, without fail, a white woman. And also he
Speaker 2: doesn't write the scripts, so he's sort of just a
Speaker 2: gun for hire. Clearly he has an interest in this,
Speaker 2: but it's a very particular kind of woman he has
Speaker 2: interest in. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Can I bring up a very short exchange in Gi
Speaker 3: Jane which I think almost completely encapsulates the nonsensical politics
Speaker 3: of this movie. Please, When Jordan has survived the torture session,
Speaker 3: training session, Capture the Flag, when she's survived it and
Speaker 3: she's at the bar with the guys, she's done it,
Speaker 3: She's she's in you know, like this is this is
Speaker 3: almost like a scene with a victory lap where she's
Speaker 3: finally in.
Speaker 2: The boys, you're gonna say, she goes to the bathroom.
Speaker 3: Is this right, Jamie, Yep, she goes to the bathroom.
Speaker 3: Oh and and after all of this has happened to her,
Speaker 3: she's very physically injured her face, like, she has black eyes,
Speaker 3: she has a huge like red mark on the side
Speaker 3: of her face. She's obviously been beat up. Right, she
Speaker 3: goes to the bathroom. She's in the women's restroom. She's
Speaker 3: at the sink, and another woman is in there who
Speaker 3: walks past her and said, after you know, looking at
Speaker 3: her and noticing what her face looks like, she walks
Speaker 3: past her and she says, ain't really my business, but
Speaker 3: I say, leave the bastard, which is like, so this
Speaker 3: woman has assumed that Demi Moore's character is in a
Speaker 3: situation of like intimate partner violence domestic violence, right, and
Speaker 3: that like her partner, a man has beat her up,
Speaker 3: and Demi Moore g Jane Jordan O'Neill turns and gives
Speaker 3: like a little bit of a smirk, like doesn't doesn't
Speaker 3: say anything in response. The woman leaves the bathroom, but
Speaker 3: she kind of smirks, and I think, like, what we're
Speaker 3: supposed to interpret is like, oh, it wasn't that she's
Speaker 3: actually succeeded at something really big and accomplished something important,
Speaker 3: but like, actually, what did happen was that she was
Speaker 3: beat up by a man?
Speaker 2: Yes, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Yes, she was physically assaulted by men.
Speaker 1: She is in an abusive relationship, yes, in which a
Speaker 1: lot of people would say she should leave.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it's so it's so wild, it really is.
Speaker 2: Well like and that yeah, and that lady is made
Speaker 2: to look ridiculous and it's like no, you actually unfortunately
Speaker 2: guessed it exactly. But it's like, but this movie cannot
Speaker 2: I think it's like what is the stopping point? Because
Speaker 2: it's like, well, if what is happening to dem More
Speaker 2: is abuse, then what's happening to all of the soldiers
Speaker 2: his abuse? And you're like, yeah, yeah, what if it
Speaker 2: was there? Yes, but again just like going right up
Speaker 2: to the line of like, but we cannot interrogate the
Speaker 2: system why I don't know. I really don't know. The
Speaker 2: other exchange that because and I feel like that that
Speaker 2: exchange and this one like really tells you what the
Speaker 2: movie is about. For some reason, what is the okay
Speaker 2: in one of her many like would you say that
Speaker 2: to a woman? Which there are times to ask that
Speaker 2: question very rarely. When she does though, where it's like
Speaker 2: she's talking to her her nurse friend, you know, and
Speaker 2: she her nurse is like, why are you doing this?
Speaker 2: And it is kind of gendered the way she's asking it.
Speaker 2: I wish she was asking it more in the Royal
Speaker 2: why are we doing this? Can we stop? Right? But
Speaker 2: she says why are you doing this? And then to me,
Speaker 2: Moore says, would you ask a man the same question?
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah? And then like, and what do they
Speaker 2: say when you ask them that question? And the nurse replies,
Speaker 2: they say, because I get to blow shit up. And
Speaker 2: then instead of again, instead of interrogating that, Demi Moore's
Speaker 2: character says, well, there you go. And then the scene
Speaker 2: is over and you're like, well, I guess that's what
Speaker 2: the fucking movie is about. Yeah, because I get to
Speaker 2: blow shit up? Does feel like sort of the moral
Speaker 2: of the story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and anything being a victim of any kind
Speaker 3: of violence is worth it so that you can blow
Speaker 3: shit up. Yeah, this is like the moral of the story.
Speaker 1: It's boggling. We touched on this a bit already, but
Speaker 1: The one bit of commentary I suppose that the movie
Speaker 1: does seem to offer is that this senator woman who
Speaker 1: does this like gender integration into the military project, originally
Speaker 1: kind of under the guise of feminism and championing women,
Speaker 1: but she abandons all that to further her political career.
Speaker 1: As soon as her own career is being threatened, she
Speaker 1: drops any advocacy she was doing. Fuck that, I'm looking
Speaker 1: out for me and myself, which happens all the time
Speaker 1: in American politics. I mean, look at fucking AOC pretending
Speaker 1: to be this progressive voice and then voting to keep
Speaker 1: sending money to Israel. You know, shit like that. But
Speaker 1: that commentary means basically nothing in a movie that's saying, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: sure politicians are correct, but the American military is right good.
Speaker 2: Actually, that's I mean the under the underdog. You're like,
Speaker 2: what do you mean you're talking about.
Speaker 3: There's a scene, there's a scene earlier first first half
Speaker 3: of the movie for sure, maybe even first quarter of
Speaker 3: the movie, in which the guy in the highest command
Speaker 3: position at the base or training center where the trainees
Speaker 3: are at he's on the phone with the senator. This
Speaker 3: is when the photos first go public. You know, there's
Speaker 3: some sort of investigative reporter taking pictures with a telephoto lens,
Speaker 3: and these are getting leaked to the public, and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, the public knows that a woman is
Speaker 3: in the training program for the Navy Seals. So the
Speaker 3: senator calls the high ranking officer and is like, what
Speaker 3: the hell you know, this wasn't supposed to go public.
Speaker 3: What's going on? And the officer guy says, like, you know,
Speaker 3: a Senator, these photographers are using telephoto lenses. Nothing I
Speaker 3: can do. They're on a public highway now unless you
Speaker 3: want me to violate the Constitution and violate their civil liberties.
Speaker 3: I can't do anything about that. And you wouldn't want that,
Speaker 3: would you, Senator. And it's like the milly the military
Speaker 3: cares about the Constitution. They're they're they're doing ice detentions
Speaker 3: right now. They're using military basis for for kidnapping migrants.
Speaker 3: So yeah, no, that's that's yeah. The the US military
Speaker 3: is in no way the good guy in in in
Speaker 3: any in any situation, and certainly not legally right, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, and I think it is like a very a
Speaker 2: very like calculated thing to present the military as the
Speaker 2: good guys but not present the entire government as the
Speaker 2: good guys like they It's almost like it's a it's
Speaker 2: a like a lot of copaganda narratives. It's like the
Speaker 2: there there are bad apples, and Anne Bancroft is a
Speaker 2: bad apple. She is too craven and ambitious, certainly not
Speaker 2: the head of the military, especially if you go back
Speaker 2: to the beginning, and like she I think accurately points
Speaker 2: out that he was sex like wildly sexist at many
Speaker 2: points in his career. But we're just meant to forget
Speaker 2: that because the moral of Demi Moore's story is that
Speaker 2: embracing masculinity and all of its horrors is good for you,
Speaker 2: and so it doesn't matter if even I don't know
Speaker 2: like the because the Ambrake bankrupt character is like it's
Speaker 2: almost frustrating that you're like, yeah, this is these these
Speaker 2: are real people that do this, but there is no
Speaker 2: one in the military who is presented as they would
Speaker 2: actually be, or if they are, it's like, and that's
Speaker 2: good and that's the job. But when when this other
Speaker 2: character is craven and horrible, it's bad.
Speaker 3: There's no rules, right exactly exactly. It's I had a
Speaker 3: note that that the scenes in this movie. We're moving
Speaker 3: at like breakneckt speed. It's the scenes. The scenes in
Speaker 3: this movie, I don't know if we want to talk
Speaker 3: about this. Y'all are forty five seconds long, especially in
Speaker 3: the first half, and we're establishing so much information and
Speaker 3: we are moving at such an intense wild pace, and yeah,
Speaker 3: these are this is editorial choice for sure.
Speaker 1: And it's always this like there are these like hard
Speaker 1: cuts to the next scene, and they're usually accompanied by
Speaker 1: this like really epic music when it's like nothing epic happened.
Speaker 2: Like why are we like it's either epic music or
Speaker 2: like nineties adults contemporary. It's so dissonant we should turn
Speaker 2: to the score. Maybe, Yeah, because there are some.
Speaker 3: Choices made about nineties women ballads in very key scenes.
Speaker 2: Some of them I was laughing because they're just like
Speaker 2: it heard. Yeah, there is a Chrissy Hind song where
Speaker 2: I was like that, and I also hate that, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like these people would have had to have agreed
Speaker 2: to have their song put in this. I what I
Speaker 2: don't know, I guess is do you get to see
Speaker 2: the movie before you like decide if your song is
Speaker 2: able to be used. I'm assuming no, but either way
Speaker 2: it's horrible.
Speaker 3: That's an interesting question. Yeah, whether whether these whether these
Speaker 3: women artists would have approved their song being used in
Speaker 3: the movie had they seen it before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, even if you agree to the premise,
Speaker 2: it's still it's like either way. Chrissy Hyde put two
Speaker 2: of her songs in the Girl Boss Navy Seals movie. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you know that's that's on her.
Speaker 3: It was clockable, Yeah, it was clockable beforehand.
Speaker 2: You're right, yeah, it does. It does feel like the
Speaker 2: songs are weaponized.
Speaker 1: Yes, but that was I mean, like not to defend
Speaker 1: anything here, but like the feminism, the Girl Boss feminism
Speaker 1: of the nineties, this movie is very emblematic of that,
Speaker 1: and that was what we were like, Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: feminism because we just weren't in ter I mean there
Speaker 1: are episodes, early episodes of the show I feel like
Speaker 1: on the.
Speaker 2: Rock, Oh yeah, we were not asking the right questions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was not saying good things on that episode,
Speaker 1: like being critical enough of the military industrial complex. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this was this was very reflective of the times. There
Speaker 1: are two things I do like about this movie. One
Speaker 1: is the scene where Jordan and her boyfriend are in
Speaker 1: the bathtub together and then he gets out of the
Speaker 1: bathtub and she says, get your dick back in here.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I like, this movie's tried so hard,
Speaker 2: so hard. Also that weird fart, what is that fart joke?
Speaker 2: That the like, Oh, yeah, the hell was that?
Speaker 3: That was a brain fart, like a soldier. That was
Speaker 3: a brain fart, And I don't accept brain farts in
Speaker 3: you said something stupid and brain and I don't accept
Speaker 3: that in my office.
Speaker 2: This this script was bad, but also the actor was
Speaker 2: not selling it at all or I was like, what
Speaker 2: the hell like, yeah, silly.
Speaker 1: Ye didn't like that? Did love? Get your dick back
Speaker 1: in here? And then there's also a part where the
Speaker 1: whatever the officers are screaming at and berating the trainees,
Speaker 1: you know, hurling insults at them, and one of the
Speaker 1: things they say is worm sperm and that's just that's
Speaker 1: that's funny. That's good.
Speaker 3: I'll go ahead and put that in my pocket.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'll say that again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, Daniella.
Speaker 1: Actually, but everything else was bad. We also touched on
Speaker 1: this a bit, but the way to me Moore's body
Speaker 1: is again, this is not the worst offender of over
Speaker 1: sexualizing a woman's body and lear her. But there are
Speaker 1: some weird choices made where, for example, lives that there's
Speaker 1: that little montage where she's by herself trying to get
Speaker 1: stronger doing push ups and pull ups and stuff, and
Speaker 1: it seems like she is not only not wearing a
Speaker 1: sports bra, but she's not wearing any bra and like
Speaker 1: no shade to not wearing a bra in general, but
Speaker 1: when you're doing like very hard physical exercise, like that
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense, and it's it's very much seems
Speaker 1: like it's a well, we have to make sure we
Speaker 1: see her hard nips through this white tank top.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, she's gotta be she's got to be sweaty,
Speaker 3: and we need to see the edges of her body
Speaker 3: in every respect because throughout the movie, you know the
Speaker 3: naked where she's naked in the shower with Vo Mortensen
Speaker 3: in in the space with her. This is another thing
Speaker 3: like throughout we have to have these almost like sign posts,
Speaker 3: remember that Meanmore is hot, member Demi Moore is sexy,
Speaker 3: you know, like it's reminding the audience constantly like yeah,
Speaker 3: we're kind of saying a girl has a brain and
Speaker 3: a girl has a body that can accomplish things physically
Speaker 3: just like men. But also girls are hot.
Speaker 2: But we're but we're told at the very very big
Speaker 2: I mean it is by I guess who we're supposed
Speaker 2: to think it is the villain of the movie, even
Speaker 2: though she's tied for top villain with so many characters.
Speaker 2: But we're told at the beginning of the movie like
Speaker 2: the limits to which because we're shown we're shown literally
Speaker 2: pictures of women who are not acceptable, and like Demi
Speaker 2: Moore is acceptable, and the camera is not fighting with
Speaker 2: the villain of the movie on that whatsoever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the movie isn't taking that up critically. They're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you're right, she is hot.
Speaker 2: You do have to you do have to be hot
Speaker 2: to be respected. You're like, oh, yeah, right.
Speaker 1: And the Senator isn't even poised as the villain at first,
Speaker 1: and he thinks that she's advocating for women's rights for
Speaker 1: up until probably sixty percent of the way through the movie, and.
Speaker 2: That's that's the bummer is like again, just like with
Speaker 2: the theme of this movie, that at the by the
Speaker 2: end of the movie, no one is advocating for women's rights,
Speaker 2: even disingenuously, like we've actually lost one person pretending to
Speaker 2: fight for women's rights, and then there's no one to
Speaker 2: fill that void, right, and.
Speaker 1: Again, you could read this and I don't think this
Speaker 1: was the movie's intention at all, but you know, it
Speaker 1: could have been commentary that, yeah, there are women who
Speaker 1: you would think would be championing for women's rights, but
Speaker 1: they turn out to be upholding the same sexist ideals
Speaker 1: of the patriarchy, which is very much a thing. There
Speaker 1: are many women like that, but the movie it just
Speaker 1: seems as like, yeah, she, like the only other woman
Speaker 1: in the movie is evil, and.
Speaker 2: Well there's also missus nurse who oh right, missus Medick,
Speaker 2: who is weaponized in a way we haven't talked about yet,
Speaker 2: right where we didn't talk about the homophobia plot point,
Speaker 2: which is get into it seed that is planted and
Speaker 2: then and then it comes back. How thrilling. When the
Speaker 2: senator was outright transphobic and homophobic at the beginning, I was,
Speaker 2: unfortunately like it turned on tried to go into my
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven brain. I'm like, I'm assuming that her
Speaker 2: transphobia is completely being played as a joke and audiences
Speaker 2: are not supposed to have a problem with it. The homophobia,
Speaker 2: I was less sure about of like are we because
Speaker 2: she makes such a point of it to be like,
Speaker 2: I need to make sure you're a straight, normal lady.
Speaker 1: You're getting dicked down right by a man with a penis.
Speaker 2: Right, you better be telling someone to get you get
Speaker 2: your dick back in here every night. And she's like,
Speaker 2: don't you worried?
Speaker 3: I am.
Speaker 2: I'm the most normal woman alive. But that home again
Speaker 2: just like this brain dead ass movie where they bring
Speaker 2: back the homophobia because she goes to the beach with
Speaker 2: women and makes physical contact with the only woman she's
Speaker 2: met in the military.
Speaker 1: Even like it's so obviously platonic.
Speaker 2: I mean, but I do believe in like the nineties
Speaker 2: tabloid culture, this could be weaponized against someone successfully. I
Speaker 2: definitely do believe that. But again, it's just like the
Speaker 2: way that it plays out is like, it's not that
Speaker 2: that is something that should be pushed back on. It's
Speaker 2: that because they also once again go out of their
Speaker 2: way to be like we're not asking and you don't
Speaker 2: have to tell us, but which I also know did happen.
Speaker 2: But then her way of dealing with it, she's like, well,
Speaker 2: this sucks because I'm not queer and then she leaves.
Speaker 2: It was like, that's not the only thing that sucks.
Speaker 2: They're like, it's it's just this character is unable to
Speaker 2: conceive of anything outside of her personal predicament, and so
Speaker 2: any like social commentary that happens is because it is
Speaker 2: directly relevant to her. Is why she's always asking would
Speaker 2: you ask a man this? Because she's a woman and
Speaker 2: she's directly experiencing the prejudice. But when it comes to
Speaker 2: literally anyone else, whether it be anyone who's not white,
Speaker 2: whether it be queer people, she's like, well, that sucks
Speaker 2: because I'm straight and white. And then she like stops
Speaker 2: home and again and again with the fucking. When she's
Speaker 2: like threatening and bankrupt, she's like, I'm gonna go, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna say something about this publicly. I'm going to say
Speaker 2: this on MSNBC. And it's like, great, do that. But
Speaker 2: then when she gets what she wants, which is to
Speaker 2: like go commit a war crime, she shuts up, yeah
Speaker 2: and never says anything. So it's like, yeah, she's awful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think this is like a really
Speaker 3: I think this is a really big theme of the movie,
Speaker 3: which is that like everything is about everything is about
Speaker 3: individual experiences and individual interactions to everybody's detriment. Right, So
Speaker 3: this is about like her as an individual experiencing you know,
Speaker 3: discrimination in different ways and how she overcomes it. But
Speaker 3: but the system and the rules and and nothing ever changes.
Speaker 3: And I think I was really thinking about this in
Speaker 3: terms of what I think are a set of really
Speaker 3: disappointing ending scenes. So the end of this movie is
Speaker 3: the ceremony on the beach, where you know, the people
Speaker 3: who have made it through the training are entered into Great,
Speaker 3: you made it into the Navy Seals. Good job.
Speaker 1: You know, I've just murdered dozens of brown people in Libya.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, and so handshakes all around, Congratulations soldier,
Speaker 3: here's your here's your ab Seals little metal thing whatever.
Speaker 3: And then that cuts to Jordan, like in the locker room,
Speaker 3: kind of putting her stuff away. She realizes that Master
Speaker 3: Chief Vigo Mortensen has put a book of poems in
Speaker 3: her locker or in her area and inserted another medal,
Speaker 3: like we can only assume is because she saved his
Speaker 3: life right right then, and then they make eye contact
Speaker 3: and they're alone, they're alone in the in this locker room.
Speaker 3: They make eye contact kind of like the honorable nod
Speaker 3: at one another. I see you, you see me, and
Speaker 3: then the movie is over. And so there's a lot
Speaker 3: of questions I have, Like number one, the movie proves
Speaker 3: to you, tells you multiple times, there's no systemic change here,
Speaker 3: even as to some sort of like collective change even
Speaker 3: among her team of trainees that she just went through this.
Speaker 3: That there's no ceremony around her getting this medal publicly,
Speaker 3: Like there's no like team at the end of this movie,
Speaker 3: the people that she's just been through all of this with.
Speaker 3: There's no like celebratory or like, g I Jordan, we
Speaker 3: really actually you know, we did it together, you know
Speaker 3: kind of thing. There's no there's nothing. It ends with
Speaker 3: her in front of a locker like right, yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't know, does that make sense, Like it's just the lady.
Speaker 3: It's just this lady, right.
Speaker 1: You would think there would be like and now women
Speaker 1: are allowed to do the thing. Yeah, but there's none
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, it's just like it is so hyper
Speaker 1: individualistic every step of the way. To go back to
Speaker 1: the don't ask, don't tell of it all.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So after these like beach photos have been revealed
Speaker 1: and she's like, these accusations are bogus. But she also
Speaker 1: says like she's like, are you suggesting that I'm a lesbian?
Speaker 1: Well you better drop these malicious accusations. As if she's
Speaker 1: also homophobic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well she is, Like I'm like she we have
Speaker 2: no reason to believe that she holds anything but firmly
Speaker 2: right wing believes based on everything we see her do
Speaker 2: and say or this whole movie.
Speaker 3: True, Yeah, the homophobia here to the degree and I
Speaker 3: don't think it is. But if there is some tiny
Speaker 3: interpretation that could be made that, like homophobia in the
Speaker 3: military is unjust and wrong, which I don't think the
Speaker 3: movie is doing right, it's still you are still supposed
Speaker 3: to kind of shrug your shoulders and understand why that
Speaker 3: would be wielded against her or like wielded against anybody, right,
Speaker 3: Like you're still supposed to be like you know, if
Speaker 3: maybe you're like, yeah, but being queer isn't wrong, right,
Speaker 3: It's still the lesson is still supposed to be. But like,
Speaker 3: but but don't you see like you can't be publicly
Speaker 3: you know. That's the That's the best that can be
Speaker 3: said about the homophobia here.
Speaker 2: And what a nineteen ninety seven sentiment is like, hot
Speaker 2: white women can join the military, but you better be
Speaker 2: straight or you're not welcome here. Like it's just the
Speaker 2: line is so clear. Wait, I need to find this.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, okay, this is from that same spy culture again.
Speaker 2: If anyone knows about the legitimacy of the publication, Spy Culture.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a scholarly journal to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, their logos very silly. I'm like they got the document.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Okay, I have not vetted spy culture,
Speaker 2: but they had a behind the scenes fact that I
Speaker 2: did not see anywhere else. So, continuing on this back
Speaker 2: and forth between Ridley Scott and the DoD, Scott agreed
Speaker 2: to almost all the changes requested, but even after he
Speaker 2: submitted a heavily altered script, the DOOD still said no.
Speaker 2: This led to an amusing but not unprecedented incident where
Speaker 2: Demi Moore called up the White House and asked to
Speaker 2: talk to press it in Clinton to try to get
Speaker 2: the decision overturned. The DoD file on Gi Jane includes
Speaker 2: several press cuttings about this, all of which makes sexy jokes. Yeah. So, also,
Speaker 2: Demi Moore called one of our pedophile presidents to try
Speaker 2: to get her imperialism movie made as intended.
Speaker 3: You're just like and the White House was probably like lady,
Speaker 3: you just did strip teas and it sucked. Like, you know,
Speaker 3: Demi Moore in ninety seven doesn't have social or political
Speaker 3: capital at the White House, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, and unfortunately that is like reflected. I mean it
Speaker 2: all because it sucks because like Demi Moore is willingly
Speaker 2: participating in this imperialist slop. Yeah, and also she is
Speaker 2: kind of treated like shit a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're just getting demeaned left and right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?
Speaker 3: I'm looking at me notes, but don't want to be
Speaker 3: batting for the other side. They will eat corn flakes
Speaker 3: out of your skull. Oh your boyfriend telling you we
Speaker 3: don't have to talk about that. I just I took
Speaker 3: notes on like the wildest lines.
Speaker 2: You know, there are some lines that are just straight
Speaker 2: up weird, like just yeah, the brain fart thing, the
Speaker 2: corn flake skull, like get your dick back in here.
Speaker 2: Worm sperm or sperm.
Speaker 1: At least we had worm sperm. This movie gave us
Speaker 1: worm sperm and nothing else. I'm grateful. Yeah, that's all
Speaker 1: I had this movie does pass the Bechdel test, as
Speaker 1: we said at the beginning of the episode, but again
Speaker 1: at what cost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is a great example of the
Speaker 2: reason why it was to this day Alison Bechdel's like,
Speaker 2: that was not how I intended it for it to
Speaker 2: be used, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, as far as our nipple scale though, where we
Speaker 1: rate the movie based on a scale of zero to
Speaker 1: five nipples examining it through yes, hard visible nipples through
Speaker 1: your white tank top, based on examining the movie through
Speaker 1: an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: I think maybe if I had watched this movie ten
Speaker 1: years ago, I would have given it like two nipples.
Speaker 1: Today I'm giving it zero nipples because it really is
Speaker 1: just a propaganda tool for American imperialism and American military
Speaker 1: industrial complex, and those are the most evil entities imaginable.
Speaker 1: So I give it zero nipples. If I did have
Speaker 1: to give it some, I'll give one foot rot or
Speaker 1: whatever Jordan gets diagnosed with on her foot.
Speaker 2: I can why bring foot rot into it.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to cut to the foot rot, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: one foot rot to the line worm sperm, but zero nipples.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm also zero this. I'm like I'm glad that
Speaker 2: this movie was not successful in doing what it wanted
Speaker 2: to do. I would recommend, I mean, I'm going to
Speaker 2: when we got off this callm to keep watching that
Speaker 2: documentary because I think that that's like something that should
Speaker 2: be talked about a lot off. Like how absolutely complicit
Speaker 2: so many filmmakers, and now I think even more so
Speaker 2: video game creators are in working with the American military.
Speaker 2: And how yeah, and how so much of this I mean,
Speaker 2: this specific movie is clearly targeting women, but how so
Speaker 2: much of this entertainment targets children so that when the
Speaker 2: recruiters come around, they have already been, you know, fully
Speaker 2: encouraged to view fighting for an imperial force as normal
Speaker 2: and good and righteous and all this stuff. So yeah, no, no,
Speaker 2: no nipples. It sucked.
Speaker 3: Yeah, zero nipples for sure from me.
Speaker 1: Love it when we're all in agreement, lehann And thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. It was a pleasure.
Speaker 3: This was really fun. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, come back anytime.
Speaker 1: Please tell us about your podcasts, tell us where people
Speaker 1: can check them out, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Sure, so wherever you get your podcasts, both of these.
Speaker 3: My podcast five to four is a podcast about how
Speaker 3: much the Supreme Court sucks. We talk about discuss present
Speaker 3: basically left critique of the Supreme Court, critique of the
Speaker 3: conservative legal movement. You know, there's six fascists up there
Speaker 3: right now. There's a lot to talk about. So check
Speaker 3: out five to four for all the Supreme Court depression news.
Speaker 3: And then and then I'm also on a podcast called
Speaker 3: Popular Cradle, which is a little bit newer, and Popular
Speaker 3: Cradle is a podcast about Palestine from here in the
Speaker 3: far diaspora. I am on that podcast with two Palestinian organizers,
Speaker 3: community organizers, and we're talking about the Palestinian liberation movement,
Speaker 3: the history of Palestinian resistance, what's going on right now,
Speaker 3: gesturing at everything, and more. So, Yeah, you can check
Speaker 3: both of those out wherever you get podcasts. You can
Speaker 3: follow me on Blue Sky at Awa Rhiannon AA's a
Speaker 3: y w a Rhiannon. And you can check out our
Speaker 3: Patreon four five to four at patreon dot com Slash
Speaker 3: five four pod all spelled.
Speaker 1: Out excellent, Thank you again, come back anytime.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Death to g I Jane, Sorry death death, death to
Speaker 2: g I Jane. So I was thinking of the Wendy Williams,
Speaker 2: the Wendy Volliumes meme.
Speaker 1: Oh Yeah, you can follow our our Patreon as well
Speaker 1: aka Patreon at patreon dot com. Slash Bectal Cast two
Speaker 1: bonus episodes a month, plus the entire back catalog and
Speaker 1: with that at.
Speaker 2: Ease Soldiers at Ease, Bye Bye.
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