Pleasantville with Jessie and Leonard Maltin

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Speaker 1: On the Beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hello and welcome to the beck Del Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Dronte, and this is our podcast about the representation of women in movies. Is that correct? That's correct, Jamie. Would you say that the representation of women in movies is like generally like pretty good? I would or would interesting? In general? Very very bad. How many episodes have we been going for? Now? Five million? Yeah? I think the general consensus in surprise to me, but I'm interested to hear more. Okay, I have to fifty first dates you every morning? Mind you that the why don't we done that movie? Oh God, that mood. I've never seen it. It's very funked up. But what I really loved it when it came out. I thought it was the most romantic thing ever. It's spoiler alert. Adam Sandler has to show Drew Barrymore this like weird DVD he made to like tell her it's two thousand and six or something every morning, and he's like, so all this stuff happened. The Clinton administration is over. Also nine eleven happened. Also, Arnold Schwartzenegger is in office, like it's the the events he chooses to cover and the order is So it's an insane movie. But I really liked it when it came out, but almost I almost never want to see it again just so I can. Well, you gotta cover it, So sorry, but you gotta see it again. Oh no, shout out to all my fifty first dates and for you, it'll be exactly two laps of first dates. So we used the Bectel test as as a as a way to initiate a larger conversation about women in film and the to test if You're not Familiar, is a media test created by Alison Bechdel. It requires that a piece of media has two female identifying characters. They have to have names, they must speak to each other, and their conversation couldnot be about men. And for our standard, it's a just a two line exchange, very low bar, and yet it still does not happen nearly enough. So that's what we're working with here. I'm excited for the movie we're talking about today. It's one of your favorites, and I yeah, I would say that it's one of my favorites. Although upon this rewatch I was like, oh boy, oh something's happened. But before we get into it, let's introduce our guests. We've got today very exciting the host of Malton on Movies podcast. It's Jesse and Leonard Malton. Hello. Can I tell you when I first became aware of this? Yeah, it was as apparent when I started taking Jesse to movies when she was a little girl, and I became alarmed at the lack of role models for her. I don't know how enlightened you would rate me as being. I like to think I am. And so when Jesse was growing up, we go to these Saturday morning or Sunday morning screenings that they have here in l A for family friendly movies. That's how they have their media screenings. One time we went to see the Karate Kid Part three, classic film that no one would call a classic, and they got generally poor reviews. But Hilary Swank is a key character in that along with Mr Miagi, and I came out with a different point of view about that movie than almost any of my critic colleagues, because I was watching it through her eyes, and I said, well, it's not a very good movie, but it has a nice lesson, a nice moral for her. I like to take away from that movie. That was my first kind of I don't know if you call it an antiphany, but it was a realization that if you're trying to be a responsible parent, an enlightened parent, and especially in this case, the parent of a daughter, there are other considerations besides is a great writing, is it outstanding cinema? It's the takeaway And and I refer to that all the time because it made such an impression on both of us cretic at three, who knew a monumental film. But it's so funny because it's like, yeah, as recently as you know, when we were growing up, there were still like relatively slim pickings for positive role models for girls outside of you know, the Disney princesses that we've talked to death on this show, but you know, finding active young girl roles, Like I think almost everyone I grew up with was like, oh yeah, Harry at the Spy and Matilda, like those were the Two Little Girls. Okay, so pleasant. What are each of your history in relationship with this movie? It's one of my favorite movies ever. I loved it ever since the first time I saw it. I remember seeing it and obsessing with it, you know, over it. But yes, it's one of my favorites. I know, damn near every word. I love it. My parents, though I had not seen it, I think since it's since it came out. And so I said to my dad, do you remember it? I said, I do, but not not as well. And my mom was the same thing. She couldn't remember exactly. So we sat down, the three of us one evening and watched the film. And the best part for me was watching the two of them and they were really enjoying it because I didn't need to watch it again. I know it, but but I liked watching them watch it. So you as a family watch each other watch movies because you're watching a karate kid. That's true, but it is true. It's it's I'm I'm very much I'm a people watcher anyway. I'm an only child, so I'm very much like the I sit in corners and stare at people. So with this, for me, I kept watching the two of them, and when it ended, my mom said, I can't believe I don't remember this movie. I love this, this is so good. She was really really pleased with it. I think you and you had a similar reaction. I did really pleasant rediscovery for me because I had not seen it since it came out. I come to it from a slightly different perspective than any of you, just kind of the fact I'm older. I grew up watching Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best At, Ozzie and Harriet and all of those TV shows that didn't take place in the past. That was my present, that was my present day. So I lived my life and absorbed what they were telling me was the ideal, the ideal of American life. I was a baby boomer and these were baby boomer shows the post World War two era, and they were hugely popular and it all had long runs those three shows I just named, and then endless reruns, so they were always there. They were part of the fabric of American life. Jamie, what's your history? Um, I think that this was a movie that I feel like it was on i f C or the Sundance Channel, like constantly when I was in high school. So I saw this movie a bunch of times in high school, aided by my Toby McGuire crush, which really maybe, uh, you know, very likely to watch this movie more than once. Um, and I always really liked it. I hadn't seen it in I think four or five years, and there were some things that stood out to me at this point that I feel I feel almost a little silly for not registering for me sooner. But I mean, in general, I still think it's a really fun movie. I've forgot how emotionally affected I was by it, and um, yeah, I really like it. Yeah, it is a movie that I really love as well. Although as you said, Jamie, there are some beats that happened, especially like towards the end of Act two where I'm like, oh, you're introducing this metaphor, oh and then okay, we'll talk about Then Miles Grady is upstairs and we're like, oh, yeah, we'recovering Pleasantville today. He's like, oh, yeah, the movie about racism with only white people in it. And we're like yes, and he was like, oh cool, yeah, so we'll we'll dig into that in a bit. But um, yeah, I I first saw this, I think, and probably I mean it came out in ninety eight. I think I saw it in like two thousand and have been watching it pretty subtily since then. But yeah, I'm excited to dive in. Yeah, I'll run through the recap and then uh, and then we'll go from there. So we meet David. That is Toby McGuire's character. He is a teenager, he's in high school. He's a I think they're seniors I had imagine in high school. Um, he's he's a bit of a nerdy type, and he's obsessed with a show called Pleasantville, which is this old timey black and white, very wholesome. And in this show pleasant Ville, it's about a family with a mom and a dad and a teenage son named Bud and his sister Mary Sue. Very nuclear, very nuclear family unit. Um. And then we meet David's twin sister, Jennifer. She's played by Reese Witherspoon. She is this popular girl in school. She likes this bad boy, and she has made plans with him to watch this concert on MTV that night, but it's at the same exact time as this pleasant Ville marathon is happening. That David wants to watch. This is a great problem. There's a lot of problems at the beginning of this movie that I very much enjoyed. So they're fighting over the remote and it flings against the wall accidentally and shatters. So this TV repair man shows up magically right then, and he sees how big of a fan David is of the show Pleasantville, and he gives him this special remote control. You just said Don Knots. I would say Donna Barney Fife from that show, The Nervous Man, from the Steve Allen Show. I grew up with Don. Gary Ross. The filmmaker very candily and deliberately cast Don not Sure in that role because he knew it would get the kind of reaction I just heard from aging boomers. All the knots heads are coming out. Yeah, that's what but I interrupted, Oh, that's that's what the recaps all about. So they've got this special remote control now, and David and Jennifer continue to fight over it, and they accidentally hit this button that sucks them into the world of pleasant Fills. I like to wonder what happened to the two actors in pleasant Right, Like, where did they go to the nineties nineties, that would be fun, but we do know what happened to unpleasant film. They're just horrified by nineties culture the all time right, because David becomes Bud and Jennifer becomes Mary Sue. So they're like, what the frick? What get us out of here? Like what's happening? And the don Knots character is like, no, you're staying. It begs the question why this man is going around looking for teenagers to replace the current cast of pleasant Ville, Like he's just like I've been looking for people to do this for years. You're like, why, don Knots, Why wouldn't that ruin the show, which as we see it does. Why would he do that? I kind of I'm like, you know, I don't have to know, but I am curious why that was his I never really questioned the logic of it until this recent rewatch, but I was like, why does he do that? I just don't question them. Yeah, that's the whole meeting on meeting on the movie's terms. It's like, if you're saying that you want to send them back there, then that's where they go. I trust to move the plot forward, that's right. So they realize that they have to play along existing in the world of Pleasantville until don Knots shows up again and is willing to like discuss sending them back to their actual time. And so then they meet their mom and dad, Betty and George Parker that's played by Joan Allen and William H. Macy. So David has an easy time fitting into Pleasantville because he knows the show so well. But Jennifer is like, this place fucking sucks because it's like this utopia of like wholesome purness. No one has sex, like books or blank nothing burns, like all this eating meat and cheese and gigantic stacks. Right. But then this character, Skip Martin played by Paul Walker, is like, hey, Mary Sue, I like you, Let's go on a date. Palmer is great in this movie. He is such a little cutie pie. Watching him be all bamboozled and what was the part where he's just like, I don't know what's happening to my body. I was like, oh my god, Paul Walker has a boner and he doesn't know what's going on. It's a great scene. So she takes him to Lover's Lane and they get into some heavy petting, and I know, I'm so sorry. Oh my god, I'm so sorry. The family chew, which is all new to Skip, as you just hinted at Jamie Um because like again, everyone in Peasantville is basically a sexual. So at the end of the night, Skip drives past this like rose Bush and one of the roses. It's no longer in black and white, it's red, and we're like the color sin, are this new? Bud and Mary Sue perhaps changing things in Pleasantville. So now this sort of incites these changes where teens are making out, they're listening to rock mu there's that great scene where Paul Walker tells all the other teenage boys about sex, and then no one can shoot a basketball anymore. It's great. And then more things are showing up in color. And then Bud's boss at the diner, Mr Johnson. That's Jeff Daniels character. He is like learning to be more independent and he's enjoying the changes, and he's like, I love painting, I want to paint more. But Bud is sort of like resistant to things changing. He's like, let's maintain the status quo here, h And all this Bud's family life is terrible. His parents are divorced, they fight all the time, so for him, pleasant Ville is the escape exgreens of So the reason he doesn't want things to change because he says, I love the idea of having my mom and dad home and loving each other and dinner on the table every night, whereas Rie Swedishman's character is saying, why the hell am I in this horrible bra and I'm not allowed to talk to boys? There are no toilets here there you know, all those sorts of things, all of which were true in Father Knows Best and leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet. There are no toilets. No, you never saw a bathroom. Well, to see a bathroom, you see a mirror, man of the sink in a mirror, but there was. It was kind of a joke. You never saw a toilet and the beds like marys. I don't think that is the same era, in the same ground rules. Yeah, you may know that when Lucille Ball became pregnant in real life, they wrote it into the show, so Lucy Ricardo was they couldn't use the word pregnant. Yeah, I didn't know whoa what did they say? Gnant's expecting. Those shows were even at the time, but we didn't criticize them for that. They were not just idealistic, they were antiseptically idealists. And there were no four letter words, there were no double entendres, there was no violence, there's no irony, no iron It was all straight faced and sincere and America loved. America embraced these shows. America of that time embraced these shows fully and wholeheartedly because they represented what was considered the ideal. And yes, they were all white, they were whiter than white. And this black and white TV show presents a world that he would be very comfortable living in. Yeah, it would bring him happiness, he feels. So the next major thing that happens in the story is that Mary Sue teaches her mom about sex and masturbation, and then her mom gets into the bathtub has a little fun, little time with theirselves. That's what I call masturbation. I know, I'm so sorry. And she has an orgasm that causes a tree to spontaneously combust outside, which is what happens every time a woman comes how you know she is not more people should be talking about that. I know, I know, I know, that's why there are so many forest fires. So then Bud goes to the fire department and then how has to teach them how to put out fires. But this uh incites a curiosity in people where they're like, well, uh, fires and all, but also what's outside of Pleasantville and what are these books about? And this girl named Margaret shows an interest in Bud and they end up going out and then starts to like open up to things changing. Meanwhile, Betty is vibing with Mr Johnson, Mary Sue is turning down sex with Skip to read instead um, and then the first time for the first time in her life pretty much yeah. And then George, their dad, is freaking out about his dinner not being ready on the table for him. Yeah. He's freaking on about change, as is the mayor and a bunch of other like old men in the community, and they are very resistant to all this change. Meanwhile, like the TV repair man is like, what do you guys doing to Pleasantville, and Buds like, screw you, this is what you wanted, don knots You've made your bed. So basically, the mayor is like, make pleasant Ville grade again and tries to enforce like segregation because all these people are turning to color and there. Yeah, they they hit you over the head with with what they're metaphor. Yeah, well they're they're afraid of the other, the others, and they I mean they go so far as to say like coloreds, like they write and will unpack that. There's like proud boys who are like burning books and vandalizing storefronts and stuff like that. Also Betty and um Mr Johnson and Mr Johnson fall in love. They're they're beautiful out there freaking, and the mayor creates this code of conduct that prohibits all the stuff that has been changing about Pleasantville. And then, in an act of defiance, it's like no more dancing and fun music only John Phillips Susan marches for are you kids? Um? So, in an act of defiance, Bud and Mr Johnson paint a mural, depictively ugly mural, but because I like the message. It's depicting all the everything that's been happening, Like, yes, there's a copy of my favorite part that I thought was silly on the mural was a copy of Catcher in the Rye flying to Heaven. It's like, oh my god, but sure, why not. So the two of them are put on trial, but is defending them against the mayor, and he's trying to prove the point of like, well, maybe some things are better than pleasant, like stuff like being silly or being sexy. And then he gets his dad to turn to color, and then the mayor gets so piste off that he turns to color. And then everyone goes outside and the whole town is in color, and everything's changed for the better is the message of the movie. And then Toby McGuire goes back to the nineties nineties to spread the message of I like to picture him going to his friend after me because I've been stuck in a TV. They're like, oh my god, he's on d MT. But and then Reese Weatherspoon decides to stay yes, and that is she starts to stay in Pleasantville and pursue her studies. Yes, she says, I've done this slet thing. Yeah, and now she wants to try something different. It is also worth unpackaged. She's done. Yeah. One word you haven't used in your in your description repressed. Yeah. Yeah. That may be the ultimate adjective to describe all the people and the society in which they live. It is holy and resolutely repressed, not just sexually repressed, but repressed in other other ways, to which seems to be what makes it so appealing to David in the first place, where there's that scene that I mostly liked, where when they're still in the nineties and his mom is on the phone and she's having an argument about custody and all this stuff, and he's just watching Plauseanville and totally ignoring it and repressing any of that, and you're like, oh, it makes sense that of very repressed environment would be appealing to him. It's like, oh, no, one has problems, and if they do, it's not discussed. It sounds like the kind of place I wanted. And he goes there, um, where we know from the beginning that that's not Jennifer's deal at all. She's very forward about what she wants to do, and so of course you would hate it there. Right. Um, we got to take a quick break, but then we'll come right back after these messages and we're back, Okay, So the big thing about this movie, my big issue with it, and then we can talk about some of the other stuff. And we've already touched on this a little bit, but the movie attempts to become this metaphor for because it's borrowing like language and imagery and other socially relevant things from civil rights Sarah. The race subplot on this viewing didn't didn't do much for me, even though I I understand and you know, contextually what they were trying to do. I just didn't feel like this set up lend itself particularly well to making the point that they were trying to make um. And also that's introduced so late into the movie, where it's like the movie is almost over and they're like, no, now it's about race, and you're like why, Like what what? Because it's that's been established, which makes sense for the context of what the show Pleasantville would be, which would be an entirely white cast. But then that means that the world that everyone's existing in is made up entirely of white people. And then to introduce this race metaphor using only white people just doesn't work when we're watching it through the lens of two thousand nineteen. Yeah, that that part of the movie did not age well for me. Well, I see, it's it's all it's all a matter of perspective having grown up then there were no black people on TV in those sitcoms that I can recall, certainly not in recurring roles if at all, and being pre civil rights, which all those shows were, although some of them drifted into the era that was for many people a definition and an absolute snapshot of American life. Remember, they did throw in its un silly, but they threw in a couple of black people into the like when you go to Pleasantville there, that's like two. But they're they're really don't minimal that I sometimes, but I think they did that. First of all, we we are not big analyzers in general because we watched so many movies. If we sat and went through absolutely everything, I think we'd all lose our minds but also come to life our life. But also it's it's the kind of thing where I don't necessarily think that everything has to be analyzed deeply. And so for me watching the movie, it would be weird if suddenly, instead of turning the color, they turned black, Like that's not what you want to have happened. That's even stranger, you know, but racial. I'm just saying it's to work that in since they do choose to go down a race road. Um it would have been stranger to suddenly have a black person pop up. So I think the problem with this movie is that they are introducing this like civil rights metaphor into a sort when they didn't need to do that. If it was just about sort of like the enlightenment of people in terms of like women's sexuality, which is a thing that gets established, and then they leave the race thing alone because they're only they only have white people with which to carry out whatever metaphor they're trying to carry out. Um, yeah, it just felt like wouldn't they were taking a big hit if they hadn't addressed it at all. I mean, that's kind of the just that there may have been a better way to do it. I don't. I don't know, and I don't how an idea as to what that may be. But I don't know. I just felt like the movie bit off a little more than it could chew, and in terms of like addressing all the evils of this era, it didn't seem equipped to address civil rights. If one of the particular things about the movie is because it takes place in this all white sitcom. How I don't know, it's just like it almost seems like it's for me. It attacks the women's sexuality and women's liberations so effectively that that seems like it was very well equipped to do that and not so well equipped to do you feeling any of those things then the first time I sat because that's the other part of it. And that's what is so tricky about looking back at movies is that movie is now twenty years old, which is crazy. First of all, that's crazy, but it's twenty years old, and it's really hard. And I think I think the reason that my dad and I are sort of used to turning certain parts off is because we watch old movies. I was, you know, my dad raised me on certain things, and there's definitely stuff that will watch sometimes that that I can't the step and fetch it. Characters I have a really hard time with. Do you know these are? I mean, like, so what we saw Charlie Chan. There were stereotypes, common stereotypes in movies for many decades. Every irishman was a cop, Every Chinese person was a laundryman or woman. Every Italian was a grocer or a fruit vendor or an organ grinder. If you can believe that every Greek person owned a diner, and every black person was a pullman porter on railroad cars or or a personal maid to a fancy white woman. So step and fetch it. Step and fetch it was the name of a performer. Stay name of a Performer's name was Lincoln Perry, who played the laziest person on the planet. So because that was that was his his stage name, that became sort of a name used for that kind of a character. So step and fetch it, and you know Heckel and Jekyl and Dumbo. Yeah, that's sort of a thing. But watching those today, I sometimes will watch something and I'll say to my dad, this is too much, like I can't it hurts me to watch this. At the same time, we watch so many things where I mean, you name it happens, and so I think that we are used to turning parts off because you can't look at a movie with today's eyes. You just kind of can't. Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying. And I've had to, like, I mean, when I even when I go to watch movies at the theater, I often have to, like, you know, take off my bactel cast goggles. Just to enjoy anything. But what we so often find when we do analyze movies for this podcast is that the movies that we've seen, you know, pre two thousand eighteen, you know, like I mean, and and also they send messages or they have they erase certain things, or they portray certain people in certain ways that have negatively impacted society at large. And on this podcast, you know, we have to be like, oh, you know, when I watched you know, Indiana Jones growing up, like that fucked me up. There's all these characters, white characters in brown face. There's all these you know, not good portrayals of women, uh, you know, stuff like that. So like, yeah, I know, we have to in order to enjoy any entertainment kind of have to shut off our analytical brains sometimes, but specifically go to me when it's older that that. I don't mean now, because if you walk in and see something like that now, you go really, guys, really guys. But if you're even just twenty years ago, even there, you start to hit these kind of roadblocks. I think there is a way to have it both ways a little bit. Yeah, where it's it's like I when I when I watch I totally agree with you where I when I watched movies for this show, I watch it differently than if I'm just enjoying it um because otherwise, you know, it's just harder to enjoy things. But it does, I don't know it. It's it's been helpful for me, and it hasn't really Like with some egregious exceptions, most of my favorite movies haven't necessarily changed as a result of turning off my compartmentalization to watch it. It's just, I don't know, just creates a more aware picture of something that I know I like. And it was I mean with this movie, which I still think is a good movie, and you know it's still one of your favorites, and it's just I don't know. It's it is interesting and I think it's very yeah, entertaining movie that I wouldn't call it a message movie, but it's a movie that makes a point or two. Yeah, So with the entertainment and the enjoyment and the past and production design too beautiful, stunning, gene Apple walls, brilliant, and it leaves you with something to chew on, right, how hard you want to chew, It's up to you. What I mean when I say that sort of the turning certain parts off, it's that we won't notice something, and then if you say this made no sense or I don't like how that worked out for both of us will sort of go yeah, but when we watch something initially, we're pretty good at sort of not doing it. So how does this movie fair on the Bechtel scale? Well, well we'll find that out. There's there's still a bunch to talk about for me. The Yeah, So basically, the I think the biggest issue I have with this movie, and then we can get into some other stuff that I think we think the movie does effectively is just again to radio reiterate the fact that it's equating white people who have turned from being in like black and white to color, equating them to actual people of color, and then trying to make this metaphor just doesn't work when we're looking at it through today's lens. So yeah, it's just a case of false equivalence. And then sort of a weird victory lap at the end of like we saw racism in pleasant Ville, It's like, well, that would be pretty easy to do if there are no people of color, it's only white people. Um, but with that we're going to take a quick break and then talk about the betrayal of women. They we're back. So in terms of the female characters in the movie, one of the first things that I noticed upon this rewatch that I, I guess was like kind of subconsciously but like hadn't given it much thought until watching the movie for the podcast, but I was like, Oh, a woman's sexuality is what incites all the changes in pleasant Ville. Like that's the catalyst that gets things to start happening. That's the catalyst. I mean, I think that there are some other things I think, I mean, women seem to prompt most of the changes inside and and there. It was pretty sexually heavy at the beginning, where Jennifer is the one who I thought pretty effectively, you know, meet Skip and is forward and like this is what I want to do and oh you don't know how to do this. Here's how you do it? Want to do it? Great? Uh? And they do it. I should say, do it more? Yeah uh. And then the same with Betty's character, who literally sets the town on fire by masturbating once. But but then that that word repression, Yeah, I mean, that's how repressed she was. It's it's it's almost like a cartoon exaggeration, right, But that's why it's such a funny moment, right, It's a great I mean, I love that I forgot that moment happened because I just hadn't seen it in a few years and I was like, Oh, my god, I guess what that is, like the scene I remember from this movie because it is I think the first movie I've ever seen where you see the suggestion of a woman masturbating. Incredible suggestion of a woman having having an orgasm in a movie like that was the first time I had ever seen that, and I was like, Oh, what a difference can make. H Yeah, I mean, and it's still I mean, it's still not super common, but that this was definitely one of the first movies where female masturbation was suggested and visually implied as well, in a way that didn't see him like talking down to it of like it literally is a catalyst. Yeah, hich I love I love the way that the thing that will drive us both nuts is anything gratuitous, and that is whether it's foul language where someone saying fun every five seconds and somehow that's supposed to be let you know the script, it's lazy, same kind of thing nudity. When nudity fits and makes sense, none of us react to it, not in a big way. When someone is standing there naked and you understand that it's because they want them to stand there naked, that's when I say I don't like this. So what I appreciate about that scene especially is we all understand no one needs to see what she's doing. We all get it. And whether it's you know, whether it's just that she's pampering herself. That's the other part. Two is that if someone didn't know what she was doing, let's just say someone younger watching it didn't know what she was doing, they may just think that that she's pampering herself. And she's never does that. She's drawn a bubble back, which narratively doing something for herself. She handles, she like candles. There, she's she's in that bathtub having her time. So it could work either way. I wouldn't have minded that. But I think the good thing about the I mean I think it fits with the story to or like in what world of pleasant Ville the TV show are you going to see? Like Titti's not uh, and also it just allows it to be PG. Thirteen and so, I mean, I think this is like a cool movie for young women to see. I mean, and like, gratuitous female nudity is something that we come up against a lot on this podcast where we're like, and the other thing is that oftentimes female sexuality is something that's villainized in a movie where a villain, a female villain will be like overly sexual, and that's something where we use the audience are meant to think like, oh no, she's like loose and that's that's part of what makes her evil or whatever. But in this movie, the female sexuality change, it's what leads to an increased curiosity from like different people in the know to be like basically like, what's a fire and why does it? What's the word? My favorite thing, honestly is fire. Yeah, fire, fire cat every time. It makes me laugh every single time. Cats do have eight nipples. This is kind and I think it would have been such an easy, lazy choice for the men to become sexually aware of first and sort of gone in a more fratty direction with it. And the fact that Jennifer's character is basically the sex said teacher for this entire world was really cool. And and the fact that I mean, and they were like little moments where I thought Jennifer was it was maybe the character was sort of talked down to and made to be like, oh, she's like a high school slut like that was sort of, but she's so in charge of her own sexuality and so calling the shots at every point in the narrative. And then where her character goes where it seems like, I mean, the rules for what makes you technical or aren't caught it. I mean, it's just like some emotional response or something new that is fulfilling to you. Because at first it seems like, oh, if you have sex, now you're in technicolor. But then that doesn't happen for Jennifer because she's been having sex, so it's like not new and exciting, And what is new and exciting is education and learning stuff, which was the one thing I was waiting to happen because I had never watched this movie with this lens before of like, oh, it would be a bummer if it was only sex that you know, activated women, But but then you do see a few different things, and Jennifer's story was really I don't know. I forgot that that was her. The Mayor turning color is that he gets angry, but angry in such a serious way. He becomes unpleasant. But that's it each person, did you say, it's it's something within them. So it depends on what you need. It depends on yeh who they had been established previously, and then there once they undergo their character arc, whatever it may be. That's sort of what is the catalyst for their changing of colors. And then for David, he changes colors when I'm just I keep whenever say it changes colors. I think of the horse from the Wizard of Oz. But he changes colors when he has to defend his TV mom from the Pleasantville Proud Boys who are lunging at her because there was a nude painting done of her by Jeff Daniels, which I don't Does he ask her if that's cool? Or does he just do that? We don't That all happen happens off screen, and I have to she's consenting to it. Yeah, it doesn't feel like he's done something terrible, clear because she's not wanted. And then she's there with him painting, which is true, going off of like, um, the Mary Sue character like having all of her agency and being sex positive essentially and like spreading the gift of sex to people. That then inspires the Betty character to also like have her agency when it comes to her sexuality, because she's the one who keeps approaching Bill Johnson. That's his name, right, and she keeps like going to him and saying, like, let's let's experiment. I mean, we can presume a lot of this kind of happens off screen, but we do see her approaching him kind of with the intent of, like, let's get naked. The women in this movie are forward and state what they want, and usually the men are like, oh sick. But then, but that would be a great line of the film. Daniels just goes, someone says cool in this movie and it's a big But then where the Mary Sue character leaves off, I don't know quite how to feel about this. Well, even before that, where first she's the one whose sexuality like sets the wheels in motion for the whole town of Pleasantville, but then later when she chooses like reading and studying over sex, and then she says later on like I've tried the slept thing. It got kind of old. It's great that she's like trying to enrich her life intellectually, but then that means she ends up sacrificing her sexuality, which kind of a mixed message. I don't think that. I think I think that her saying I've done the slept thing is her sort of saying that I've tried different parts of myself. I've looked at different parts of myself. So now it's the sort of thing where you feel like she'll do it when she wants to. I think that's the difference, is as opposed to doing something because she has a reputation or she wants trying to be more popular, you know, she wants she she has that she's leading the women in and stuff like that. It's it's in this case, she's sort of saying, this is what I want to do right now, in the same way that when Skip comes to her window is like hey, hey, and she's I'm studying, so I thought we could go and I'm studying and she closes it. So that's sort of to me. It's more so that that it's her saying, I've made the decision that this is my focus now. I don't think she's saying and I'll never have and the Nunnery is now because we do see a shot of her at the very end at university and she's like flirting with a man and she's got a book open in her lap in front of her, So she's having that she's having at all at all. Another thing that kind of not necessarily rubbed me the wrong way, but it is at least worth mentioning, is that the thing that gets Jennifer to want to play along in Pleasantville is a man so like and that makes sense for her character, like she had been established as this kind of like boy crazy teen. But the fact remains that a woman is motivated in a movie to engage with what's happening in the story by a man. Oh, I think you could say the same thing as the Betty character if if that's they are stuper using because she I yeah, I mean Betty gets It's interesting because I love the relationship between Jennifer and Betty, and I almost wish we saw a little more of that because the scene that we the scenes we see them together in are so like they're great and they're talking to each other about stuff that women were not supposed to talk to each other about and learning and educating each other. But then I mean, I guess this would probably be realistic for that time. But Betty, you know, goes from one man to another man, and so it's a combination of you know, she gets some of the motivation from what she learned from Jennifer. But would she have left her husband if there weren't a Jeff Daniel's waiting in the wings? We don't know. But see, we don't know that they get together. They were talking about this interesting because you see that she goes to him, but we don't see her with him, and at no point do we see her because I say that we were just talking about this in the car. She does what she wants to do, and if she did, what I feel like is if she did just go straight to Jeff Daniels, everything would sort of be lost because then you go all the stuff you just did, you just went from one man to the other. We don't know that, and that's why the very end where you see the three of them sitting on the mark, and it's sort of like, yeah, she can do whatever she wants. So we don't really see anything. But that's you don't really see anything that tells you that now she's with him. We understand that they sort of had a romantic night, but we don't know what they're going to do from there. He really Jack Dawson's her, right, he does a Jack Dawson glass to paint Hello. That's that is a relief, I guess. Yeah. I sort of was like projecting that foregone conclusion. I hope, yeah, that these character. You know, she explores her options. If she wants to get together with Bill, she can do that, but the difference is wanting, right, she wants to choose this person, and that is a big difference to everything else. Yeah. Right, Because her arc basically goes from her starting out as this like cheery housewife who's making the meal she's eat up, yeah, subscribing holy to the to the status quo of Pleasantville. And then she learns about sexuality and she knows her husband won't go for it, so she masturbates and pleasures herself or William when they cut back to him when she's in the bathroom and he's trying to get comfortable and in his twin sized bed, like and then shortly after that she turns to color, but she's too ashamed and she's not really ready to embrace this. Another repression moment, right, So she covers herself all up with makeup. That's a very sweet moment though, Yeah, with her in turn McGuire, that's a very sweet It's a very tender because on the one hand, obviously she's trying to hide that she's turned color. But at the same time, that's a really sweet moment with them. And then of course later on when they when Jeff Daniels ropes off the makeup, that's the other weeping right, Yeah, I can't beautiful just the way you are, which she's like. I loved, I loved that scene with her and Toby McGuire, especially because it was I mean, she you could see the repression in the shame of like I've changed and I'm not ready for people to know that. And he, you know, even though he knows, you know, she'll probably she may be happier if she, you know, it's just herself in the world. He like accepts that she's not ready and that's not appropriate. She will be she knows she will be ostracized. Yeah, if not burned at the steak Yeah, right by the pleasant, feel proud boy yeah um, and then where her are ends is well before the kind of conclusion of her character arc, we see William H. Macy's character being like, where's Mari dinner, like, still expecting her to be like the homemaker caregiver role, and then whenever he confronts her about it, she's just like, no, I'm not going to do that anymore. Because he's like, he lays down some like terms and conditions, like you're going to go to this tom meeting you every day. Yeah. I like that. He's made out to be like the du fust idiot who were not supposed to like in that stand and she's just like, no, I'm going to do whatever I want and you can't do anything about it, right, and I mean, and then you get the like sincere growth of his character too, where he I mean, we see him be like I don't know how to I'm eating olives, which relatable as someone who can't cook and lots of lots of them. The scene went in the courthouse where Toby Guyer's talking to William H. Macy and in that moment saying doesn't she look beautiful? Don't you love her? And he's crying and you're just like, oh my god, so beautiful because there too, it's a nice thing they don't make Will you make Macy's character evil? No, he's not a bad man. Where the mayor is sort of seen, is this, oh fish, I think he's as close to a villain. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah, but will you h Macy? If he was terrible, then you would have no, yeah, leave him? Why would you want to be with that guy? But he's not that. Yeah, but this is also what he knows well. It's like the in the courtroom scene where Toby McGuire is trying to basically get Macy to turn to color. He's saying, like, it's not just the cooking and the cleaning that you enjoy. Maybe it's because you actually like her for her personality, and it's like and it never occurred to it, which like is a very cartoonish thing. But also these are cartoonish characters. Yeah. I really ended up appreciated, like the William Macy character. Something that I don't think is super common in movies even now is to see a male character who has entirely the wrong idea about women, who is you know, spoken to directly and then is made to seem capable of change. I feel like that is something I'd like to see more of in movies because it is like cathartic and exciting for me to see a guy be you know, punished for being an asshole. And I'm all for seeing that. But also I think for like male movie cars, especially like young male movie cars, that can be a positive thing to see some someone who is not treating women the way they should be and then seeing them be called out and then begin to change and making that seem like a viable course of action is thing that like younger boys should see more of. As much as I was concerned for Jesse growing up not having a good female role models, I was also just as a person aware that there weren't very many good male role models. Yeah almost none. Yeah, which is crazy because there's so many you know where were again nuance, Uh, three dimensional characters something to pattern yourself, pattern your life after. Oh that that guy really has his act together, you know, and he is he's smart, he's capable, he's I don't want to keep using the word enlightened, but that's the one that seems to come to mind. And uh, and there are a damn few of those. Yeah then or now? Yeah, absolutely something I love And I thought about this then and I think about it now. But the whole thing of both Jeff Daniels and William H. Macy being good people means that it's not an easy decision. And the film that I always relate that to is The Notebook. Now, I'm not a die hard Notebook person. I like the movie fine, but I do know it. But I've always really appreciated that the two men she had to choose from from We're Good Men, Ryan Casson and James Mars James margin. But the whole thing is, you know, normally there's the there's like the Jack Dawson and you know and Rose where she's with a terrible man. So there's no question, you know, she should go to to the other guy. It's much more complex to say both of these are good options, and so with Joan Allen. But that's if Joan Allen. You know, if William and Macy's character was one dimensional and just like I don't care about you, I just want my food, then there's no question go go to go to the other guy. But when you layer it and you say no, it's not cut and dry like that. It's not that simple. I appreciate that. I appreciate doing something different absolutely. And then I think with like the Toby Maguire character in his different like whether he's being David or whether he's being Bud, Like he's a sensitive guy who is like there's a whole scene where he puts makeup on his mom, like how many But then the last scene with him and jenekas Merrick right exactly where where he's comforting her because you know, she's having romantic problems with her boyfriend or whatever, please clean up her makeup. So that's it's obviously a callback that you see, you know, you see with Joan Allen doing it now he's doing with his real mom. But that makes that moment so much more tender because you believe, I feel like and his character doesn't go from like bad too good. He just goes from repressed to less repressed, which is like a cool, a cool arc to see someone got through. Um. Any other final thoughts about the movie. I think it holds up really well in general. I think it holds up really well. The performances still all feel real. Um, that's the thing. The pieces even if the whole is not perfect. To me, the pieces are absolutely worth it, and if you can sort of deal with the other stuff, of course, someone watching it for the first time going to have a completely different experience. And that's true all movies. If you love something, you love it. And so I can't look at it now and say, we'll let me be completely objective. I can. I love the movie. I've seen it a million times, but I do think compared to some especially it holds up well. Yeah. I think aside from like the very like late nineties idea of like progressive ism of like white people who turned to technicolor is the same thing as a civil rights movement. But aside aside from that, like, yeah, I do genuinely think this movie holds up pretty well. I still enjoy it. I'll still watch it. Um. I just have to point out that there's like trivia in the beginning where David's like practicing for the marathon, and one of the questions is what did Bud and Mary soon na the cat that they found in the gutter. The answer is marmalade, which I have to pay for that. You know, Paddington is his favorite food, so just have to mention just shout out to Paddington. Is there a part you feel like Alfred Molina would have played well in this movie? Oh? I think he would have been a good mayor because he's, oh you know what, he plays basically well, he plays basically that same character in Chako La. I know I'd like to see with Mr Johnson. I was gonna say, I was as I love I love Jeff Daniels, but I love Alfred Molina in a romantic role. Sure, yeah, that would be my pick. Okay, Yeah, that's great. That's that's my final thought. Does this movie pass the Bechdel tests? Yes, it does does a couple of times. A few of them are just like very throwaway moments where Joan Allen is like, I just love that sweater on you, Mary Sue. It's so flattering. He says, thanks, thanks um, And then there's a couple other like have breakfast now, or like get off to school okay, and she's like, I'm not hungry. But the big scene is the one where Jennifer as Mary Sue is teaching Joan Allen's character about sex. And yeah, they're they're doing household chores, but they're talking about masturbation, which begs the question where did Mary, Sue and Bud come from? If Joan Allen's character has never had sex, they did, Well, they live in in a universe where uh story started. They started with two people going into a TV show where why are they having sex? Yeah? I guess it's just like the story the Baby. They all show that when season one started, and they were the way they were. So but yeah, there's there's a fairly long scene where she's like, yeah, again, what they're talking about hetero sex. So whether or not that passes the Bechtel test is up for debate because you're talking about like having sex with a man, but then but then it turns to masturbation. I would give that scene a pass for that reason. Yeah, so like it. The context for me is like sex for pleasure and like sex for female pleasure. Yeah, it's not about minutes about them. Yeah, the man is the tool literally, but he's the vessel. Yeah, but yeah, I'll give us a pass for sure. Yeah, so that I mean that. I just loved that scene in general. Same shall we shall we write the movie? Let's write it on our nipple scale zero to five nipples based on its portrayal of women. Um, I think I'm gonna go with a three. Um, I'm gonna take some nipples off because of the the whole discussion we've already had regarding like, oh, white people solving racism. That's my big problem with the movie. But then, um, looking at Yeah, I mean the female characters who have agency, especially in terms of their own sexuality. The Margaret character we didn't really talk about a lot or at all, but that's the teen woman who Bud ends up, yeah, ends up dating. She kind of really only exists in the story to kind of like further developed Bud's character, and she doesn't really have any bearing on this story, so she's just kind of like one of these sort of flat, one dimensional characters. But yeah, of the characters we do get to know, Betty and Mary Sue slash Jennifer, Yeah, I really like the the message that they help perpetuate in the story. And yes, so I'll give it three nipples, and um, I'll give all of them to the cat named Marmalade who we never meet on screen, although maybe that's the cat that gets saved by the fireman in the very beginning. Marmalade visibility is high. I'm gonna go I'm gonna strictly do this writing based on how this movie treats women, because I mean, I also did not care for the way that this movie tried to throw in civil rights, uh in the kind of this bizarro way, but strictly based on how the movie treats women, I'm gonna give it a four, only docking it really for the b characters that are kind of a little bit tropy, like the the you know, the friends in the nineties and the fifties are kind of you know, like reductive bimboie characters. Uh. And then I sort of agree with you about Margaret's character. It seemed like there was more there, but there just wasn't time or real estate given. But they were very sweet together. Yeah, they were definitely sweet. I just I don't know anything about that character outside of she's sort of you know, there to his his star. Is there also like a Garden of Eden reference where she's like here takes yeah, biblical milical imagery. I mean, the Bible is, of course if feminist text, but yeah, in general, I really like that women becoming less repressed and challenging norms is the catalyst for really most of the change in the movie, and I thought it was really well done. I still I still enjoy it. So I'll do four. I'll give Wonder Race two to Joan and one to Paul Walker because why not? Why not? R I p Yeah, four nipples, Yeah, cool, solid, Yeah, I'm good to sell Forward two on that basis. Yes, it sounds great. Well, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. I appreciate it. I'm having you. Is there anything you would like to plug? Where can people follow you online? He is at Leonard Walton. I'm at Jesse Malton on Twitter and Instagram, and he has a Facebook page, and there's Leonard Walton dot com and he writes movie reviews there and does book ground ups in that type of stuff. And then May ten eleven twelve is Malton Fest first film festival. It's a hidden gem film festival, so we're not showing new stuff. We're showing recent movies that flew under the radar, recent but also some older ones just to keep things interesting. But yeah, it's it's the idea of just it's it's film appreciation and our our goal always in kind of everything we do is community. Um, the internet does not treat people, don't treat each other very nicely. Uh, and I think that it's really important to continually get them away from the computer into real We want to we want to bring people together. You want to take them out of Pleasantville the show. They're stuck in the world. We want to bring people together. We're gonna do it in the heart of Hollywood Egyptian Theater. So we're very exciting. And it's over Mother's Day weekend. So on the Sunday, my mom we're having like a Mother's Day thing for her and bring your mom's cool check that out and listen to Mountain Lawn movies and uh yeah, thanks again for being here. You can follow us on social media at Bectelcast. You can go to our website bactelcast dot com. We've got our episodes there, We've got our merch store there. Merch Yeah, what's on what you're wearing? Jecame correct. I thought this right after we first met No no Dave meltdown when we had Alfred Molina on our show, which now the day we met you guys that that is actually necessary. Gunt for this episode was, Yeah, Aristotle the world's best engineer. The World's Best Engineer a shared engineer as a table found out through Jesse that Alfred Molina was going to be on Moltena Movies. So I took the day off. Caitlyn and I went to meltdown and I was I totally whipped out and I was too afraid to talk to him. Fast forward a year and a half he was on the show and our best being he's probably adore him. I absolutely adore him and of course an astonishing act one of the greatest actors honestly living. He's incredible, totally a friend of the show, and it was speaking of You can get feminist icon Alfred Molina merch, which he was low key horrifying. I think he loved it. 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