Hairspray (2007) with Keah Brown

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Speaker 1: On the Bechdecast, the questions asked if movies have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, eff and Beast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Bedel Cast.

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Speaker 3: Oh there's that's Oh.

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Speaker 4: I wish I had time to come up with a second everything like immediately. Yes, every night it's like a bedocast. Every sounds on the bed Dolcast.

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Speaker 3: People. Ever, we just lost all of our listeners all once.

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Speaker 4: I am yours, Thank you, Kia.

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Speaker 2: We gained a billion more.

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Speaker 4: The world's gonna wake up and see Bechdel Cast and me us that's you.

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Speaker 2: The listener exactly.

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Speaker 3: It's I.

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Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know what I was going to say. Oh, I was going to say, this is like that. I just had a really scary flashback to like the one year I was doing musical improv and most lines I was firing off sounded a little something like that.

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Speaker 5: Rhy.

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Speaker 3: I'm in the word with the word word.

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Speaker 4: God, I am so jealous of people who can do musical improv and that is a very embarrassing thing about me.

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Speaker 2: No, it's really impressive. It requires so many different skills.

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Speaker 3: I know.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, And I'm also really jealous of people who can sing in general. So dr how dare you?

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Speaker 3: It's not nice?

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Speaker 5: It's not nice. I would be such a problem if I could sing, Oh my god, I have no friends. They'd be like, KI, shut up, and I'd be like, I don't know how.

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Speaker 4: I used to really like, I had a huge theater kid phase, and then I went to school with a theater program, and then you're kind of forced out of being a.

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Speaker 3: Theater kid because you're like, oh, these theater kids.

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Speaker 4: Can sing, And I resented them for a while, but then I'm like, you know what, if I can thing like that, I guess I would be annoying as shit too. And some people just have the gift they can be annoying forever. So I mean, so I think we have that gift. We've been annoying for a very long time.

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Speaker 2: We are so annoying anyways.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to the Bechel Cast.

00:02:22
Speaker 2: My name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Dernte, and this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate a larger conversation. What is the Bechdel test? Though, I'll tell you, or Jamie if.

00:02:39
Speaker 3: You want yeees, okay, I'll tell you. I was like, Wow, they're really going for it today, okay.

00:02:47
Speaker 4: The Bechel Test is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace.

00:02:55
Speaker 3: Test, originally created as a bit as a goof for.

00:02:59
Speaker 4: Alison Bechtel's Credible Comics collection Likes to Watch out for You got to read it.

00:03:04
Speaker 3: It's a classic. It's also getting adapted for TV.

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Speaker 4: I don't know when it comes out, but it's turning into an animated show that I'm very excited to watch.

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Speaker 3: Anyways, a lot of different versions of this test.

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Speaker 4: It's sort of become pop. It's sort of it's become extremely popular over the years.

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Speaker 3: But the one we use is this.

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Speaker 4: We require that there'd be two characters of a marginalized gender with names talking to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue or more, and it has to be an impactful exchange.

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Speaker 3: It just does. It is what it is. If you don't like it, you can get the fuck out. Many movie musicals past this, many movie musicals don't.

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Speaker 4: And we'll just leave it at that for now, because today we're covering a movie musical. That's right.

00:03:53
Speaker 2: It's our Hairspray episode, specifically the one from two thousand and seven, which we were almost going to do an episode on back in I want to say twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen, when we famously on our Patreon aka Matreon covered we called it different things. Sometimes it was march Efron, sometimes it was zach Martron. Basically we were doing zach Efron March. I don't remember if we actually observed this in the month of March.

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Speaker 3: I would say it's safe to say that we didn't, right exactly. Most likely we.

00:04:30
Speaker 2: Knew that we had many, many, many requests for Hairspray two thousand and seven, but we didn't end up doing it because we wanted other perspectives aside from our own, Hence bringing on our guest who you know her from episodes on Cadet Kelly Brandy Cinderella from nineteen ninety seven ever after, and she's a journalist and author of the brand new novel The Secret Summer Promise.

00:05:00
Speaker 3: Kia Brown yeah, welcome back, welcome back.

00:05:04
Speaker 5: I'm so excited to be here. You know, I love you too, So this is gonna be good.

00:05:08
Speaker 3: I love you too. Congratulations on the fuck. We're so excited.

00:05:13
Speaker 5: Thank you. I love it. I'm sessed. Please buy it, thank you.

00:05:18
Speaker 2: So what's your relationship with Hairspray two thousand and seven.

00:05:22
Speaker 5: Oh, I'm obsessed with it, like, genuinely obsessed. It's one of my pick me up movies when I need to feel something good. Yeah, I put it on. Sometimes I sing among sometimes I'm just like deeply engrossed in what's happening, you know, I know some of the lines back and forth, and like it's just a vibe. I'm deeply obsessed with it. And the majority of that obsession has nothing to do with Zach Brown. Like he's great in it, but he's not why I keep coming.

00:05:51
Speaker 3: Back, sure fair, Yeah, he's not the main attraction.

00:05:56
Speaker 2: James Marsden is No, I'm kidding.

00:05:58
Speaker 5: Absolutely no way.

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Speaker 4: I mean, hold on, because I think that a lot of people would agree with that.

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Speaker 2: And I love James Marsden and sorry to not be passing the Bechdel test right now, but and I hope this age as well, and because you never know when you say I love a man, I've regretted saying that many times.

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Speaker 3: We had famous and otherwise right.

00:06:20
Speaker 2: But I'm a big Marsden fan. I would say.

00:06:25
Speaker 4: The man's got range. Maybe not in the movement of his face necessarily, but he's got range. He can do anything. I thought he was just a treat in the Sonic the Hedgehog movies. I love the guy, and he's amazing in that new injury duty he's doing.

00:06:44
Speaker 5: He's amazing.

00:06:45
Speaker 2: He's perfect.

00:06:46
Speaker 5: Goodness, he's perfect.

00:06:48
Speaker 4: This is my second favorite, or I guess like second most impactful James Marston performance, right behind Enchanted.

00:06:56
Speaker 3: Because I think he's pretty close to perfect and enchanted perfect.

00:07:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is my number one. This to me is just magnamobus. Did I use that correctly?

00:07:06
Speaker 2: I think so.

00:07:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, he really was born to be Corny Collins.

00:07:09
Speaker 5: He was, Oh, we're gonna get it, We're gonna get.

00:07:12
Speaker 2: In Jamie, what is your relationship with Hairspray?

00:07:18
Speaker 5: Oh?

00:07:19
Speaker 4: I also loved the hell out of this movie, so the second it came out, there's like for for better or for worse. I love basically every movie musical that came out in the two thousands. Most of this love is purely nostalgia based when I rewatched them, because you're just.

00:07:36
Speaker 3: Like hmm hmm, Joel Schumacher. Phantom of the Opera Does it hold up? No, Well, I watched it again. Of course, Chris Columbus rent even worse, worse. But and yet I continue to watch Chicago Chicago Now that holds up. I want that, not two days ago.

00:07:57
Speaker 4: I love it.

00:07:59
Speaker 3: And Harrispray.

00:08:01
Speaker 4: I think Hairspray in Chicago or the two movie musicals from this era that hold up the best.

00:08:07
Speaker 3: I think it's a great adaptation.

00:08:09
Speaker 4: And for the I had never seen before I was prepping for this episode, I'd never seen the original John Waters nineteen eighty eight one with Divine and Ricky Lake, So I went back and watched it, expecting that I would like it better, because I feel like that's the general what you expect. The original is usually better. But with all due respect to my king John Waters, the musical rips. It needs the songs. It needs the songs, and it needs James Morrison. And that's just kind of the beginning, middle, and end.

00:08:40
Speaker 2: Those are objective facts.

00:08:43
Speaker 4: If Divine could be in the movie adaptation. It would be the perfect movie in terms of me smiling. We have plenty of notes like perfect movie.

00:08:54
Speaker 2: In asterisks, many thoughts that we will share.

00:08:59
Speaker 4: We have about two hours and what's not perfect about it?

00:09:03
Speaker 3: But yeah, I love Hairspray.

00:09:05
Speaker 4: I listened to and I also loved Nikki Blonski so much, and I'm still angry to this day that she didn't have a bigger career coming off of Hairspray.

00:09:16
Speaker 5: A deeply agree, right.

00:09:18
Speaker 4: I remember, like her origin story really spoke to me because she worked at Coldstone Creamery and they heard her singing there, and I was just like, that is so magical, Like she was just like plucked out of.

00:09:29
Speaker 3: Nowhere, literally perfectly cast, like the perfect Tracy.

00:09:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, this movie is the best, and I'm it was interesting to look at it more critically because I hadn't seen it in like maybe four or five years.

00:09:44
Speaker 3: Kaitly went your history with Hairspray.

00:09:46
Speaker 2: I saw it somewhere along the way, probably like twenty ten, when I was first falling in love with zac Efron.

00:09:55
Speaker 3: Better late than Never, Never, baby, exactly.

00:09:58
Speaker 2: I watched it, maybe it was like twenty twelve, who could say even But as listeners might know. I tend not to gravitate toward live action movie musicals, but I will say this one is like campy and colorful enough that it works for me. Some of them are just too they're taking themselves too seriously or something. They need to basically be an animated movie without actually being animated for me to be able to stomach a movie musical. But this one works.

00:10:31
Speaker 3: I kind of I kind of wonder.

00:10:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, It's like I think that I consider the end of like movie musicals of me seeing every movie musical was when I just could not do the lame Is adaptation.

00:10:44
Speaker 3: I couldn't do it.

00:10:45
Speaker 5: No thank you, I could not do it, could not finish it. I was like, that's not for me specifically a virgo, but it's for somebody.

00:10:55
Speaker 4: Someone likes it. I'm glad that that movie is hilarious too, because it's like that I think that that's that's the same.

00:11:02
Speaker 3: Director as Cats yea an iconic movie musical, But.

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Speaker 4: There it's like the I think that that's where that director was like, we're gonna do live singing, and for some reason everyone's like, good idea.

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Speaker 3: But then you listen to.

00:11:16
Speaker 4: The soundtrack and you're like, oh, this is not a good idea. We shouldn't be hearing Russell Crosse sing live, and I think he'd agree with us. Yeah.

00:11:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just as bad as when Pierce Brosnan sings a song in Mamma Mia.

00:11:28
Speaker 3: Oh but he's camp.

00:11:30
Speaker 4: Do you remember the song in Mama Mia where he sings like like I don't know, like his mouth is just like full the whole time.

00:11:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:11:38
Speaker 3: The way he sings sos is unparalleled.

00:11:43
Speaker 5: It's like he's on the joke. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate.

00:11:48
Speaker 3: Russell Crowe didn't get the memo unfortunately.

00:11:52
Speaker 2: So I it took me a while to see this Hairspray, but I did see the nineteen is it eighty eight? Yeah, hairsp Bray, written and directed by John Waters. I saw that sometime in college, so it was like two thousand and five, two thousand and six. I was watching a few John Waters movies back then, including Pink Flamingos, and I think cry Baby was the other one. And I because cry Baby is a musical, I think I assumed the original would be a musical as well, but no, but it's not. And what happened was that the so this movie that we're talking about today is based on the Broadway musical adaptation of the original movie from nineteen eighty eight, so it went through a few different evolutions.

00:12:44
Speaker 4: It's funny because we're Kiya after this, we're doing Newsies, which is like kind of the opposite journey where it's like movie musical and everyone hated it and then they turned it into anyways.

00:12:57
Speaker 3: I love musicals so much. I can't believe.

00:13:01
Speaker 4: Prepping for these episodes reminded me that we have yet to cover Little Shop of.

00:13:04
Speaker 3: Horrors and how that is a travesty.

00:13:09
Speaker 4: Okay, Hairspray, Yeah, I'm really excited to talk about like the history of and like the adaptation changes that were made too, Because I knew that John Water's allegiance to Baltimore is unparalleled and he lives there to this day, but I didn't know how connected the original story for Hairspray was to like his childhood, and Hairspray is basically like a like John waters reimagined history of his own childhood. So excited to get into it.

00:13:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's take a quick break and then come back for the recap and we're back. We're back, Okay, Here is the recap of Hairspray two thousand and seven.

00:13:58
Speaker 4: Everyone's welcome to sing when their favorite songs come up.

00:14:04
Speaker 3: Yes, putting that out there.

00:14:06
Speaker 2: Okay, so we are famously in Baltimore, Maryland. Ever heard of it? It is nineteen sixty two. Yes, we meet teenager Tracy Turnblad played by Nikki Blonski as she's putting on Hairspray and singing, good morning Baltimore.

00:14:28
Speaker 4: I song love her so much.

00:14:32
Speaker 2: She's incredible.

00:14:33
Speaker 3: I love when people have it.

00:14:35
Speaker 4: It's like, one of the easiest ways to get me to fall in love with the character is when they have deep allegiance to a place that kind of sucks, and that is like the most relatable, wonderful thing in the entire world.

00:14:46
Speaker 3: I feel nothing when people are like New York is amazing. You're just like, shut up.

00:14:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, that famous song new York is amazing.

00:14:55
Speaker 3: You know, from the musical New York is Amazing. Well, but the King of New York Newsies. I got Newsies in the brain. Anyways.

00:15:04
Speaker 4: I don't really respond to songs about New York or LA because there's a billion of them. Yeah, there's only one song about Baltimore that I know of, and it involves Tracy Turnblood going to school in a garbage truck and that I love.

00:15:18
Speaker 5: We love a queen. Okay, so.

00:15:22
Speaker 2: Exactly, she misses the school bus. She's gonna get on a garbage truck. The song is about how she loves life and she loves Baltimore and she loves dancing. We also get a little cameo from John Waters and.

00:15:37
Speaker 3: He's the flasher who lives next door mm hmm.

00:15:40
Speaker 2: And she sings about how she wants to be a star. She just needs the opportunity. She goes to school, it's boring and she's really just counting down the minutes when she and her best friend Penny Pingleton played by Amanda Bynes a perfectly cash so perfectly cast love her.

00:16:02
Speaker 3: I forgot that.

00:16:03
Speaker 4: Alison Janny plays Amanda Byn's mom, and that's really inspired that that happened.

00:16:09
Speaker 2: This is an incredible cast. You've got Christopher Walkin, You've got Michelle Pfeiffer, basically all of the villains from Batman Returns. You've got Jerry Stiller, John Travolta, is there, Brittany no Queen Latifa. It's just wow, it's exciting.

00:16:31
Speaker 4: A very young Oh my gosh, wait, no, a very young she's mainly a composer. Now, who am I thinking of Taylor Parks? For all you pop music heads out there, she's like a really favorable she's an artist as well, but she's like written a ton of pop songs and she plays yez.

00:16:52
Speaker 2: Okay. So Tracy and Penny go home and watch their favorite after school television program called Corny Collins Show, hosted by Corny Collins played by James Marsden.

00:17:10
Speaker 3: I didn't tap dance to that in high school.

00:17:12
Speaker 2: Whoa yeah twist when he's like.

00:17:15
Speaker 5: Nice white kids, you like something their day and once a month we have a good day. I love that. Sorry, I'm feeling.

00:17:25
Speaker 2: Things for your heart out.

00:17:28
Speaker 3: This is now a singing podcast, no experience required.

00:17:33
Speaker 2: So on the Corny Collins Show, teens dance. That's really just this show that the teens are dancing with each.

00:17:41
Speaker 4: Other based on like real shows that happens back in the day. And this we'll get into this a little like The Corny Collins Show is parodying or mirroring a specific Baltimore based team dance show that John Waters watched growing up that also had a majority white cast and then had I believe that they did call it Negro Day in Baltimore at the time. So like most of the details of the Corney Collin Show are directly ripped from John Watter's childhood, except for the way the movie ends, which we'll get.

00:18:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, okay. So we meet some of the teens who regularly dance on the Corney Collins Show, including Amber that's Britney Snow and Link that's zac Efron and it's also like Link Zelda Tears of the Kingdom much anyway, we get to know Amber and Link a little bit. They are dating. Amber is very mean, Link is nice, and Tracy has a big crush on Link.

00:18:44
Speaker 4: There is this thing with Okay, I never noticed this before, but there is definitely a vibe about Harris Bray where, for some reason, men most men in this story are impervious to being bad.

00:18:58
Speaker 3: They're all good. No, he's good.

00:19:02
Speaker 4: Corney Collins, He's definitely not racist, he's good.

00:19:06
Speaker 5: The only guy who's questionable is the station manager, the person above Michelle Pfeiffer's character.

00:19:14
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, capitalism the person racism the person yes.

00:19:18
Speaker 5: Except he doesn't outwardly, He's not as outward about it in the way that Michelle Pfeifer is, which I find to be hilarious because you would think it would be coming from him to her and then her carrying it. But it's just like, no, she's rogue.

00:19:32
Speaker 2: She's like mask off evil. Yeah, extremely she took her catwoman mask off, and she's like, I'm she was like racism.

00:19:44
Speaker 5: She was like, I don't want to be I want to be racist.

00:19:47
Speaker 2: So but she plays such a good villain, she really does. So we meet all these teens who are mostly white, and then we learn about this one day of the mon that they call Negro d which is led by motormouth Mabel played by Queen Latifah, which is the only time when black people are allowed to dance on the program. Otherwise the show is completely segregated and white. The show announces that they have a spot, an open spot for a new dancer, and they're holding auditions, and Tracy wants to audition, but her mom, Edna turned Blad played by John Travolta, is worried that people will laugh at her because Tracy is fat. But her dad, Wilbur played by Christopher Walkin, is like, no, Tracy, if you want it, go for it.

00:20:43
Speaker 3: So another man who's always good, good, never bed.

00:20:49
Speaker 4: I did think and we'll talk about this later too. I rewatching this. I do feel like this movie does a pretty solid job of like illustrating how mothers will often project their own issues onto their daughters.

00:21:05
Speaker 3: I love that Tracy's like nope.

00:21:08
Speaker 5: She's like I'm good, thank you.

00:21:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're actually both on a healing journey mother. It's nice.

00:21:16
Speaker 2: So Tracy goes to the audition. But Velma von Tussel. Also, the character names in this movie are incredible. Everything that's Michelle Pfeiffer aka former Miss Baltimore Crabs.

00:21:30
Speaker 4: She is I love when in these movie musicals when the actor can't really sing and kind of knows that and so it's just like I'm just gonna perform. And I feel like Michelle Pfeiffer really performs Miss Baltimore Crabs. I wouldn't say she's singing necessarily, but I don't care.

00:21:48
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, And Velma does not like the look of Tracy, and she does not like that Tracy is pro integration because, as we mentioned, Velma is very racist. She's also Amber's mom and the TV station manager, so she has like a say in who is being cast in which like kind of segments will happen or not on the.

00:22:15
Speaker 3: Show Very Evil Girl Boss. Yes, Yes five.

00:22:20
Speaker 2: So later that day at school, Tracy gets detention because of the height of her hair, and this is where she meets several black students because similar to the American prison industrial complex, where black people are disproportionately incarcerated, black students at this school are disproportionately sent to detention. And there Tracy meets befriends, and dances with Seaweed Jay Stubbs played by Elijah Kelly.

00:22:54
Speaker 4: I had a crush on every boy in this movie when I was oh, and I.

00:23:01
Speaker 5: Went through a real like I'm gonna marry all of you.

00:23:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just really like some days it's a zach Afronde, some days it's an Elijah Kelly day, and if I'm feeling mature, it's a James Marsden day.

00:23:13
Speaker 3: Really, anything can happen.

00:23:16
Speaker 2: Now, Link, who goes to Tracy's school sees her dancing in the detention room and is like, oh, if Corny Collins saw you dancing like that, he would put you on the show. And then Tracy considers this and then does a whole song and dance number about how horny she is for link. Then she goes back to the set of the show or some event. It's like a dance event sponsored by the Corny Collins Show or I don't know something. The Corny Collins people are there and she quote unquote borrows a dance slash appropriates a dance from her new friend Seaweed, which never.

00:24:02
Speaker 4: Is brought up again. She she does she does what the TikTok thing that white teenagers do on TikTok there that, yeah, I guess it never like truly truly hit, and it's kind of embarrassing. It never like truly hit until I was watching to prep for this episode that I was like, she steals seaweed dance and never credits.

00:24:26
Speaker 5: Because she asks, but she never ever says and this is by Seaweed.

00:24:31
Speaker 4: She's just like, yeah, which is wild because Seaweed is usually right there. It's so it's so annoying that that was one, especially because like that happens in the original as well, and it's like, you could change.

00:24:47
Speaker 2: That, but nope, they did not.

00:24:50
Speaker 5: And then Zagafron sings Ladies' Choice, which is such banger, like it's still on my Apple Music.

00:24:58
Speaker 4: I really does I feel like zach Efron when he was not allowed to sing in high school musical one. He took that really personally and dedicated the next half decade of his life to being like, Oh, I can't sing, Oh I can't sing. That's interesting, when obviously he can.

00:25:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen it, I've heard it. Okay. So Corny Collins sees Tracy doing this dance and he loves it, and he puts her on the show, and she's now a cast member. She is continuing to talk about how she is pro integration. Corney Collins is also pro integration, which enrages Velma. Also, Corney announces the Miss Teen Hairspray contest, which is Tracy's dream to participate in, and so Tracy starts regularly dancing on the program. She's becoming more and more popular. Kids at school are starting to pay more attention to her. Mister Pinky played by Jerry Stiller who is in the original movie, who plays her dad. Yeah, he is the owner of a dress store and he wants Tracy to be his spokesgirl. And Tracy is like, oh, mom, you should be my agent and help me negotiate deals like this, But her mom Edna is very self conscious about her weight and she hasn't left the house in years. So Tracy, via song and dance, of course, shows her mom that times are changing and that for people who are different, our time is coming.

00:26:42
Speaker 4: I love that. I mean, I love all those songs. I also love Welcome to the Sixties. Also did a dance to that in high school.

00:26:52
Speaker 2: Incredible.

00:26:53
Speaker 5: It's such a good song. So you made the correct choice.

00:26:56
Speaker 2: It's true. Then Seaweed invites Tracy, Link and Penny to a party where they meet Seaweed's sister, Little Linez, played by Taylor Parks, and everyone is dancing and having a good time. There's romantic tension between Seaweed and Penny, but then Maybell reveals that Velma has canceled Negro Day and Tracy suggests that they march and protest, because you know, civil rights demonstrations were white people's ideascy and they're like, wow, great idea, Tracy, and Tracy plans to march with her black friends, but Link is a coward and he's like, I'm not gonna go. This would jeopardize my career.

00:27:47
Speaker 4: Another I mean, it's so weird. Okay, So this is where obviously, the all men are good rule that this movie subscribes to is challenged, but it doesn't close in a satisfying way at all at all.

00:28:04
Speaker 5: They're like are you Are you guys good? They're like yeah, you know, no, Biggie, Like I feel like, yeah, we're good. We'll just we'll look past that the fact that you don't care enough to stand up for people that are supposed to be my friends, and we'll just.

00:28:20
Speaker 2: Write be together and then I'm gonna kiss you at the end. I feel like when he.

00:28:23
Speaker 4: Comes back, he's responding to like not the issue of why everyone's mad at him, where like he everyone's like, well fuck you link because he refuses to stand up to racism or march. And but then he comes back and he's like, Tracy, I love your body.

00:28:40
Speaker 2: And I was like, that wasn't that wasn't the issue.

00:28:43
Speaker 3: That wasn't the problem.

00:28:44
Speaker 4: But she's like okay, and then it was like, but that wasn't the issue.

00:28:49
Speaker 3: I felt like I was losing my mind.

00:28:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I was.

00:28:53
Speaker 5: Just thinking like in with in the song without Love, literally they're talking about like like in the Sex with Seaweed and Penny, it's like very clear, like we can't be together. And then it's like Link is over there, like Tracy without you, like I don't know what I'll do, And then she's like, Link, I'm about the breakout so that I can get my hand down. You're like they're having separate, separate conversations entirely about what's Yeah.

00:29:22
Speaker 2: One of his lyrics is something like I will love you no matter what you weigh. And it's not that that's coming out of nowhere completely because various characters have commented on her weight prior to this, but Link never did, and that didn't seem to be an issue for him nor for Tracy.

00:29:42
Speaker 5: In fact, it was never an issue for Tracy. Right, that was an issue for her mom. But Tracy has never once been like I don't like my body, I'm uncomfortable with what I weigh. Link won't love me, in fact, she says, and I can hear the bells and birthday the Link will love a woman like we will wait and see, like she knows that she's got you know what it takes to be loved by somebody regardless of anything.

00:30:10
Speaker 4: Exactly, which is like one of the which is one of the like that's what I love so much about Tracy, and that's true in both adaptations, but I feel like it's stated really really clearly. But yeah, it's like Link is inventing a problem that he doesn't ever talk about with anybody else if it is a problem for him, or like an insecurity that he has or a stigma that he's absorbed. But yeah, he doesn't seem to understand why everyone's mad at him.

00:30:38
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then strangely enough, like he comes back and everybody's just not mad. I mean, that's how musicals work. But it's like everybody forgot about their fundamental differences in terms of even even I did because I love this movie. But it's like, but it's like, when you think about it critically, they would have to have a conversation about it. There's just no way. But you know, in my head, canda together forever. It's fine. But still they just everybody was like, oh, okay, he's with us now because he's dancing on stage, you can't stop the beat. And then he's like, come on, I knows, let's let's you know, let's do it, and they dance and he gives it her moment and like it's like, okay, cool. He likes bad people awesome. You know, it's like, I guess he learned or whatever.

00:31:26
Speaker 2: He's one of the white people who helps solve racism in this movie.

00:31:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, they really This movie is wild.

00:31:36
Speaker 4: And we were talking about this yesterday with a very different movie, National Treasure Too where it's like it I don't know, because this movie's messaging is so like everything is great and three white people from Baltimore solved racism forever. It's like the fact that the movie is also really fun to watch, that a more sticky lie to like absorb and the same way that you're like, I love watching National Treasure Too Bad that it's jingoistic garbage at its core.

00:32:12
Speaker 3: But.

00:32:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, see, I feel like I feel like the ability for it to be so fun the two thousand and seventh verge because I like the original, but let's be serious.

00:32:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not as fun.

00:32:26
Speaker 5: This one's fun. I think the way that this is fun sort of makes you forget just how to me. It makes me forget just how messy the sort of positives and reality of what's happening is. Because I spent my time desperate to find Corny Collins and Motormouth Maybell fan fiction yes, did you want first watch this? I was like, I want them to get bad. We need a sequel bad. And I was just like, I remember being like a child searching for their fan fiction because I wanted somebody else to prove to me that I was not wrong about their insane chemistry.

00:33:09
Speaker 2: Did you ever find it?

00:33:11
Speaker 1: No?

00:33:12
Speaker 2: Well, I guess you have to write it.

00:33:15
Speaker 4: James Marrison been and anything with Queen Latifa since because their chemistry is truly off the charts.

00:33:21
Speaker 5: I don't think so. But I feel like if I was to ever interview him, like I wouldn't act, that would be my first question. I'd be like, listen, can we talk about the chemistry that you too at or you know, do you have time for that? They'd be like, Kia, that's not the aim of this article about years ago.

00:33:37
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter, Okay, So back to the movie that is about the movie that was all on time.

00:33:47
Speaker 2: Sorry, back to the recap. Back to the recap. Link has just said I'm not going to march with you. I can't jeopardize my career, which upsets Tracy greatly. Meanwhile, Velma goes to Tracy's dad's joke shop. She's trying to seduce him in order to destroy their family and try to get Tracy kicked off the show, and it almost works because Edna walks in the shop when Velma has herself wrapped around Wilbur, and she gets very upset. But Edna eventually forgives Wilbur, realizing that it was like a setup, and the two of them, Edna and Wilbur sing a song about how they are timeless to each other.

00:34:37
Speaker 4: They're kind of beautiful, yeah, and neither of them can sing no, but that's okay.

00:34:43
Speaker 3: It works.

00:34:44
Speaker 5: It was beautiful. It was beautiful though, like, wow, what a moment.

00:34:47
Speaker 3: I know mom and dad are working it out.

00:34:52
Speaker 2: Then it's the day of the march and Tracy shows up and Maybell is like, well, if you march with us, you will never be allowed to dance on the show again. And Tracy says, I don't care. This is more important, So they march. Maybell sings a song and the cops and press show up and Tracy hits a cop with her sign and he's like, you just assaulted me. So she runs away and now there's this huge man hunt with the cops looking for Tracy. Penny tries to help her, but Penny's mom Alice and Janny, who is also very racist and very awful.

00:35:34
Speaker 3: And also super religious.

00:35:36
Speaker 2: Right, yes, she punishes Penny and like locks her in her room, but then Seaweed comes to rescue Penny. While that's happening, Link realizes he's in love with Tracy, and they all are singing a song about these kind of like forbidden love's kind of thing.

00:35:58
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:35:59
Speaker 4: I just wanted to make a quick note that in the I think the original movie if I'm remembering correctly, and definitely in the original stage musical at Tracy goes to jail with other protesters, that does.

00:36:11
Speaker 3: Not happen in the movie. So they cut a song that I've never heard. Oh but it's called the Big Dollhouse question mark.

00:36:19
Speaker 2: I don't know, okay, sure.

00:36:21
Speaker 5: Also, can I make one small note please when one of the funniest lines to me in the movie is when Seaweed goes to get Kenny out and she's like, sorry about the nots and he was like, it's fine, but was your mom and the Navy? Yeah, because he's impressed finding it, by the way, how like intricate the knots are And he's like one of the funniest lines to me in the movie because he's just like, what is going on? Am I going to get you out of it?

00:36:51
Speaker 4: Right?

00:36:51
Speaker 2: Yeah? Because she says something like I was so worried that the color of our skin would keep us apart, and he's like, no, but these knots might yeah, and we're like, uh huh okay. So then Tracy, Penny, Seaweed, Maybelle Edna, and a bunch of other people sneak into the TV station on the day of the Miss Hairspray pageant, and right when it seems like Amber is about to be announced as the winner, Tracy crashes the pageant. She dances with Link a little bit, and then Link as we as We alluded to, invites Seaweed's little sister, Ayez, on to the stage to dance, which is the first time this program has integrated dancing, which, of course Velma has a conniption about. Penny's mom is also seeing this on TV. She's freaking out because then like Seaweed comes on stage and dances with Penny. Meanwhile, a bunch of people are calling into the station to place their votes for the pageant, and Anez is named Miss Teen Hairspray, and then Corny Collins declares that his show is now officially integrated and everyone's dancing and having a great time. Velma is fired, and then Tracy and Link kiss the end.

00:38:21
Speaker 5: I just think, what a movie.

00:38:25
Speaker 3: The end, They're like, racism cured, we fixed it nineteen sixty two, only took a couple of weeks.

00:38:31
Speaker 2: You're like, wow, kind of yep, So let's take another quick break and we will come back to discuss, and we are back.

00:38:48
Speaker 4: It's true.

00:38:49
Speaker 2: Where shall we start?

00:38:52
Speaker 4: Where? Well? I can I share the historical context to begin?

00:38:56
Speaker 2: Please?

00:38:57
Speaker 4: So yeah, I didn't know any of of this before prepping for this episode, but John Waters wrote and directed the original and was very much pulling from his memories of Baltimore growing up when writing this. And so The Corny Collins Show is directly based on a teen dance show called The Buddy Dean Show that also had a big integration scandal. However, it ends very differently. So I'm going to be reading from an Atlantic article that came out in twenty sixteen where there was a lot of writing about Hairspray because they did one of those TV broadcasts of the stage musical. So there's a lot of twenty sixteen discourse around Hairspray, which sounds confusing but isn't anyways. The piece is by Matthew Delmont, and here it is quote. In December nineteen sixty three, producers at Baltimore's WJZTV canceled the book Buddy Dean Show rather than integrate the popular teen dance program. This move would have been a footnote in the annals of television if not for director John Waters, whose nineteen eighty eight film Hairspray offered up an alternate history with its fictional Corny Collins Show and rose tinted lets all Dance Together. Ending from nineteen fifty seven to nineteen sixty three, only white teens were allowed to attend the weekday broadcasts of The Buddy Dean Show, with the exception of one Monday each month when black teenagers filled the studio, the so called Black Monday. In nineteen sixty three, the Civic Interest Group, a student integrationist group founded at Morgan State University, challenged this policy by obtaining tickets for black and white teens to attend the show on a day reserve for black teenagers. After a surprise interracial broadcast. WJZTV received bomb and arson threats, hate mail, and complaints from white parents. Facing controversy over the possibility of more integrated broadcasts, the station canceled the program. So that is something that John Waters remembered from when he was a kid, and that was kind of part of his I guess mission when writing nineteen eighty eight, was imagining that ending differently, So I just wanted to open with that thing I learned.

00:41:25
Speaker 2: Yes, that is helpful context. And he was I think one of the few white filmmakers in that era who was addressing and examining racial inequality of that time. And then he wrote this kind of like fairy tale ending almost to this narrative, So you kind of have to look at the movie through that lens of like, yeah, everything was great and racism solved. But yea, his approach to that is extremely a like white perspective, and this adaptation that we are talking about, we're focusing on the two thousand and seven to one, carries a lot of that like kind of fumbling of how that subject matter is handled because like, this is a white savior narrative. The movie has very few black characters despite it being a movie that involves advocating for racial integration. Like we mentioned, there are moments of like characters appropriating culture and dance from black characters, and the movie presenting that is like a positive thing. There's this example of like police aggression directed toward a civil rights protester, but it being directed at a white person, when we know that police aggression and brutality is disproportionately targeted at black and brown people. So there's just all these things that they're like, yeah, white people, it was their idea to solve racism, and then they did it.

00:43:08
Speaker 5: I think the thing though, and I kind of give them credit for this, is that, like, as a black person, I enjoy the movie more knowing that it ends in this weird happily ever after. Like I don't want to watch a movie where I'm just reminded of the trauma of you know, that time frame, and that's in the civil rights in general. It's like, I enjoy that this version of the movie Corny Collins Show didn't get canceled, or that you know, racism is seemingly solved, because I don't want to watch another movie or another musical where I'm reminded of my own otherness because I see it all the time. Like I think that the I think the thing that for me about Hairspray is that I can forgive the rest of it because I don't need it to be a document styles right, I would prefer to escape for a little and pretend, like you know, Corny Combs are the person that exists, and he's like nice to black people and secretly with mortimonk female because they're seeing you together and they're very happy and it's fine. But I would also, like I just I think for me it's easier to dismiss or ignore those things because it makes me feel better knowing that they don't exist in that world. If that makes sense.

00:44:31
Speaker 2: That is totally fair.

00:44:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's something that I saw when I was going through the sort of like twenty sixteen round of discourse, A great time for internet discourse. Twenty sixteen really nothing, nothing like it, only only better discourse was twenty twenty a great year having opinions. Yeah, And I think that the discussion that you two were both having was very present in that round of discourse because I think in that same piece in the Atlantic, Matthew Delmont is arguing that you know twenty sixteen is not the time to be presenting alternative history on the history of racism in America, which I think is a fair point. And also I don't, I don't know. I think it like really depends on who is watching Hairspray and what they're watching it for. It Really it feels like it's the eye of the beholder is really relevant in that discussion because like you, what you just said like makes total sense. Why would you want to see trauma played out in this big, splashy musical. And then also it's like, I don't know, I guess. It's like I don't, I guess. I wonder is there a member of the audience in Hairspray that watches it and is like, yep, this was historical document?

00:45:53
Speaker 5: Like the thing is like, why are you watching hares for a history lesson? I think it's the same thing with the Little More the new reboot is people were up White people were upsetly be clear, it was white people who were upset because they didn't talk about slavery, because when they adjusted where everything was, they were upset that they didn't talk about slavery. And it's like, sorry, I don't want to go see Ario Eric and the Slave Trade. I don't want to. I don't want to go see that. I think. I think if you're looking at a movie musical from two thousand and seven and saying to yourself, damn it, why is that not accurate to what actually happened? Is this my history? Then you have bigger fish to fry, Like it's not, you have bigger concern I guess.

00:46:43
Speaker 2: I guess. My thing is that had this been in the hands of black filmmakers, they would have because, like, I also appreciate that there's like escapist media that does touch on racism and segregation that doesn't have this like traumatic, violent ending. But I think that there are certain elements within the story that could have been handled a little bit differently had they been had it been like written and directed by black filmmakers, where there wouldn't be those like moments where like, yeah, oh, it's totally fine when this white person appropriates this dance from this black dancer. Yeah it's the white girl's idea for the black people to hold a protest like.

00:47:29
Speaker 5: It would have been met with more nuance.

00:47:30
Speaker 2: I see what you're saying, right right, right right, Yeah, I think my main issue.

00:47:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, because it's I guess the frustrating thing is like those would not have been difficult changes to make, and it wouldn't have really changed what happens in the story much at all.

00:47:46
Speaker 5: I think in many ways it is a reflection of what happens, you know, but who will say something and then a white person will get the credit for it or whatever. Sure, but I do think I see what you're saying, Caitlin about the fact that, like, if it was directed by black people, there would be more nuanced to it. It would it would have brought about I think, a more nuanced conversation for sure. But I do absolutely see what you're saying. I just think it's like in that aspect. Unfortunately, in many ways, it's true you shoult of have to use non black people to get the point across about black things, even though it didn't really work because she didn't give them credit.

00:48:28
Speaker 2: Right.

00:48:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's frustrating because it's like, what it doesn't really change anything about the movie if she gives him credit for that, and it doesn't change anything about the movie. If it is like motormouth Maybell's idea to March and not Tracy's so and I also is interested in this same Atlantic piece. It gives the context of when the music when the Broadway musical came out, it came out really shortly after nine to eleven. I know, Shrek nine to eleven, Hairspray the musical was the sequence of events, and that, I guess wasn't surprising to me because I feel like there's so much post nine to eleven media that was very escapist and in some ways, and I guess I don't mean this as good or bad, but like revisionist and like we need to all come together, and yeah, I feel like Hairspray's like very squarely that the musical at least is very squarely in there. I guess my main thing is I wish we knew more about the black characters in the story and that they were actually written, because it's like, we certainly have this space for it, especially because you have Queen Latifah. Why would you not give her character a backstory outside of like a couple of lines. I mean the same with Seaweed, where Seaweed is on screen pretty frequently, but we don't really know much about him outside of that he loves being on the show and that he's falling in love with Penny. You don't get much. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I feel like there was definitely space, and I wonder if it exists in the musical and wast cut for the movie. I don't know. I haven't seen the musical. I would like to, but I wonder if there are scenes where you see like Inez and Maybell and Seaweed at home, the way that you see all the white characters at home, including Penny.

00:50:20
Speaker 5: I was gonna say, we learned so much about Amber.

00:50:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, we learn about Amber, we learn about Penny.

00:50:26
Speaker 4: There's a whole song about Velma's teenage years, like.

00:50:32
Speaker 2: Baltimore Crabs are like, yeah, why do we have that? But not get any scenes where we see this family at home. Also, think about how much more cathartic it would be when Inez wins Miss teen Hairspray if we knew anything about her.

00:50:48
Speaker 5: Yeah, right, Because even when we see her in that little bit where Seaweed is singing run till that, all he says is like, you know you're up next, your time is coming, But we don't really know what she's after at any point after that, or like you know, like she winn which is great, but it's like, who who are they outside of their connection to Tracy? I would love I agree, I would love to know. Although they did use them with people correctly and by finally giving our a song, that would have been a crime. I had she done a whole movie with no sing, I would have been like, absolutely not. But you know, aside from her secret toward love affair with twenty Pollins, she you know, I wanted more. I wanted to know more about her and and sort of how how she's raising these two kids in this time frame of Baltimore.

00:51:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, because I did. I mean, and I found that to be true in the original movie as well, where like you were saying earlier kid like I think it's or Kaylie, did you say I don't remember? My brain no longer works that? Like John Waters was a director who wanted to his center issues like racism and like homophobia in his work at a time where not a lot of directors were wanting to do that and certainly not wanting to do that in a way that had any like nuance or like it wasn't really steeped in trauma. And that's like part of what's amazing about him but it's like, but if that is something you're committed to doing, you have to like write the characters right or it's gonna ring a little bit hollow for sure.

00:52:29
Speaker 5: Also, having seen cry Baby, which is one of the wildest movies I've ever se.

00:52:36
Speaker 2: I barely remember it, I think it's like.

00:52:39
Speaker 5: In some ways his Hairspray makes sense after you watch Crybaby, because it's like it's sort of dry and weird and it doesn't exactly make sense in a way, So like maybe that's his vibe. Like I think with this one, with the two thousand and seven one, they had ample opper, you need to make these things make sense, right, and some of them, some of them they did, but most of them it was just sort of like, nah, it's good. We don't gotta you know, we don't gotta really focus on that. Yeah, what do you mean they have thoughts and ideas outside of like Tracy hoping.

00:53:16
Speaker 4: That no movie would have happened. Uh, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. I think it's so funny because this movie, like obviously it's based on John Water's work, but it is so sincere that it's sometimes you're like, oh, yeah, this was at one point a John Waters movie because it just feels like antithetical to how like his vibe where it's funny but it doesn't have the same sense of humor.

00:53:42
Speaker 2: You would never guess that, like Pink Flamingos and the two thousand and seven Hairspray came from the mind of the same person.

00:53:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, well because also he he I don't think wrote the book of the music.

00:53:56
Speaker 2: Awe, no, no no, So yeah it was so he wrote and directed the original film from eighty eight the Broadway musical adaptation book written by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Mean Song lyrics by Mark Shaman and Scott Whitman. If you're wondering if those are all white men, yes, they sure are. And then the two thousand and seven screenplay was written by Leslie Dixon, a white woman, and directed by Adam Shankman, a white man.

00:54:29
Speaker 5: So we also directed A Lock to Remember, he sure to add, which is my favorite movie in the whole entire world. Sorry, I just had this.

00:54:42
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, well it really is a singing episode.

00:54:45
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:54:46
Speaker 4: I like Adam Shankman, you know, missus the mark on a lot of the themes in this movie. But boy, can that guy direct a movie that I will watch the fuck out of, Like.

00:54:58
Speaker 5: Yeah, because did the step with some of the step up movies.

00:55:02
Speaker 4: He directed The Wedding Planner I walked remember, bringing down the House. So he's Queen Latifa Cannon the Pacifier. Yep, that is Dwayne the Rock Johnson's babysitter movie Cheaper by the Dozen, two Hairspray. Oh, and he did direct What Men Want Alright, alright, oops, all right, and then he directed the Enchanted sequel I didn't watch. I like him.

00:55:34
Speaker 5: He's got some hits on his some banger, it's true.

00:55:38
Speaker 4: Also, fun fact about Adam Shakeman, I mean he's he's I think we talked about this probably on the Walk to Remember episode, but he's or maybe the Wedding Planner episode. He's a queer director. He's been out for a long time. But that's not the fun fact I wanted to share. The fun fact I wanted to share is that he officiated the wedding of Freddie Prince Junior and Sarah Michelle Geller. Why. I don't know.

00:56:02
Speaker 5: Wait, I think then they do. Does he have anything to do with that?

00:56:06
Speaker 4: Or let me see, where As I think maybe he directed Buffy episodes No, he didn't.

00:56:14
Speaker 5: There's something there. I don't know if it's with Freddy or but I'm like, why I remember some sort of something.

00:56:20
Speaker 4: Oh, he was okay, keeping with the they are all wait is Rob Marshall because he directed Chicago and he just directed the new Little Mermaid movie. Anyways, Uh, they are all white guys, but they're three queer directors who started as choreographers and then became directors of movie musicals. Adam Shankman, Kenny Ortega, and Rob Marshall.

00:56:47
Speaker 2: What a pipeline.

00:56:47
Speaker 5: Shout out to Kenny. I'm sorry, but he also has hits.

00:56:51
Speaker 4: He god, he really like doesn't have missus that I know, like.

00:56:58
Speaker 5: Right shots and Julie and the phantoms that got canceled too early on that.

00:57:03
Speaker 4: So Good, So Good, Gone too soon. We're gonna be talking about that on the Newsy's episode because that was the first movie he ever directed. But yeah, it is shocking to me how Kenny Ortega, like, his movies are very rarely received well in their time. But the age like a fine wine.

00:57:21
Speaker 5: They're all perfect, people who know and people who have taste, you know.

00:57:30
Speaker 4: Anyways, that's I guess. Now we've talked about Adam Shankman. But to go back to the whiteness of this movie, it's just like it doesn't seem like there was anyone in the room who wasn't white. To draw attention to issues that in twenty twenty three seem very obvious and very fixable.

00:57:49
Speaker 2: Yes, can we talk about the movies examination of fatness and like how society and beauty standards perceive fatness and like the movies handling of all of that, Yes.

00:58:08
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think I think the movies handling of fatness, aside from Tracy and Motorvel Maybell like and how they feel about themselves, is like fatness is equitable in this movie to like the most disgusting possible thing you could ever be, And I find that to be really annoying. But also like it's interesting because it's like, we don't see a lot of fat people in this movie, right, It's just Tracy and Motival, Mabel and John Travolta as the mom. But it's like everybody everybody around them is either average size or skinny. But yet fatness is it still seemed like this like epidemic that we can't possibly allow to what is way do people use all the time now when they're like glorify Yeah, And I find that to be really intriguing considering the majority of the cast and the characters in this movie are nowhere near fat, right, it's just the three of them, and it's still just like fatness is running rampant.

00:59:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like you said, it kind of conflates people being prejudiced against fat people with racism.

00:59:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, which that was a big element of the twenty sixteen discourse as well, of just like these are not the same struggle. They're both struggles, but putting them on the same no sense.

00:59:43
Speaker 5: Like the man Hunt for True, the man Hunt for Tracy, Sorry, it just makes you laugh. The man Hunt for Tracy, for the sound thing is so coded in her being fat that like by the time that the police are out search of her and they carry her inside in the spray can, it's like or the hairspray can, it's it's sort of like, oh no. Then we have the police inside and they want to go stop the black people from being on the stage, and the almost like wait till commercial and it's like, why is there a connection there? I think that it's so wild to me. It's like, oh no, we've got a way to commercial for the black people get off the stage, and oh, we have to stop traicing because she's changing the minds of Baltimore and they're they're somehow connected because she suffers too, and it's like.

01:00:29
Speaker 4: It's not right, No, it's just like so it's I don't know, like it's almost funny because it's so I think it's so sincerely felt that you're just like, yeah, what do you think you're saying here? It's so confusing, and that does also kind of ring very like Post nine to eleven trying to say something but is made by a whole pile of white guys and is not really like saying what it thinks. It is kind of stuff where it's it's just like flattening the concept of struggle in America and there's like a prescriptive solution and that is being allowed to be on the Corny Collins Show.

01:01:07
Speaker 5: Like it's just like, no, it's very we all bleed.

01:01:11
Speaker 4: Red, yes, yes, yes, yeah, very much.

01:01:14
Speaker 5: Like oh, guys, I don't care if you're red, green, blue, whatever, you know, we all struggle.

01:01:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, like Clinton, yeah right. The thing that I was most frustrated with with this movie specifically is that John Travolta is in a fat suit that I feel like that just like undercuts so much.

01:01:40
Speaker 2: Definitely, Yeah, like it.

01:01:41
Speaker 4: It just undercuts a lot because in the original Divine plays Edna and plays like a It's I think it is interesting that the character of Edna is adjusted between the original movie, and also I guess from the musical to be more introverted and be more shy. I don't hate that decision, but that was a of us made. But in the original Divine is fat and not like wearing these really distracting prosthetics that I've seen people in recent years, you know, reclaim John Travolta's performance and like, you know whatever, if you love it, you love it. But yeah, I think especially because fat suits on big time celebrities. That was literally a huge topic of discussion less than six months ago when Brendan Fraser won the Oscar for the Whale, And like, so I feel like that undercut any Like like the attempts and I think some of the attempts to talk about fatness in this movie are successful, but like the John Travolta fat suit, I'm just like, what are we doing here?

01:02:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you said, it undercuts a lot because it is rare for a movie to have a fat character at all, let alone a fat protagonist. It's even rarer for a story with a fat protagonist to be about something besides the character's size, And in this movie, like her size plays a part in the narrative, but it's not what the story is about. It's you know, her goal is to be a dancer. It's not to lose weight or to find the confidence to be a dancer despite her size anything like that. Because another rare thing is for a movie to portray a fat character who is confident in herself. It's also a rare example of a movie showing a fat character doing something physical like dancing. A lot of movies with fat characters rely on stereotypes of like, oh, the only thing the fat character does is sit down and eat food.

01:03:51
Speaker 5: Stuff like that, and she's always alone, like like whoever it is, they never end up with some with a romantic partner.

01:03:58
Speaker 2: Either, exactly, Like, it's rare to see a fat character be romantically desired by another character period, especially one who is thin and who is like very traditionally attractive, such as someone played by Zac Efron. So you have these things that most movies refuse to do. But then it also turns around and again puts John Travolta in a fat suit. It has that character Edna eats when she's upset, people use food to convince her to stay at a party, So it's still relying on stereotypes for that character. But I guess I'm just saying, like, it's not all bad with at least with Tracy, but it fumbles a lot of other things.

01:04:46
Speaker 5: Yeah, because you don't really see her come out of her shell or like anything remotely into the very last scene when she goes on stage to sing. I do think it's really interesting though, because maybe I'm wrong because I've never seen the musical. But like Motor Belt, Maybelle was not. She was not in the movie. Was she in the nineteen Year She was?

01:05:09
Speaker 4: But it's like she's a much smaller character.

01:05:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, Okay, So I think I think the addition of like making a slightly bigger character made sense because then it's like you get to see she doesn't have the same even though her and Edna are supposed to be like close in age, I assume she doesn't have the same hang ups about her body. True and what it means and why that matters as Edna does. And so that's what I really appreciated. I started, you mentioned Caman about how she uses food to make Edna's stay. She's like, we got a whole feast, like I'm gonna eat. Yeah, So like if you're like, if you want to stay and you want to eat, that's great. But I think I think honestly though they had to because it's Cleanlatifa, like you can't just like she's not gonna be like, you know, a small role in general, but I think that one thing right that's not like that's one of the things that I deeply enjoyed it as a movie as well as like, even though we did not get what I think is great characterization of the black characters in the movie, the addition of her that that made her a bigger character in it was.

01:06:17
Speaker 2: For the better for sure.

01:06:18
Speaker 4: I did like that Edna, I guess, like because yeah, I think all the tropes that we've we've already talked about are very present. But I did like and feel like there was some value in like Edna seeing other women in her life, including her own daughter, like loving themselves and being happy and taking. I feel like it was like realistic that it took her a while to internalize that, and I love that, Like it's it's part of the like very happy, wonderful ending of this movie that she accepts herself, and it's I don't know, I think that there's a lot of ways to get there, but I think realizing that, like she is loved and accepted by her own daughter, there is I guess in this Baltimore, there are more options for her to like wear clothes that she's comfortable in that she doesn't know exists. There's like ways for her to ease into like a better relationship with her own body. And I like that that's it's like a really fun, I think fantasy thing to like see that she like her her daughter helps her realize that. And also it felt pretty authentic that like Edna is judging her own daughter's body towards the beginning of the movie and saying like, well, you shouldn't you know, you shouldn't audition for Corney Collins because they're going to laugh at your body. In like a way that it's like she's trying to protect her from what she's afraid of happening to her right, it's for a movie that like doesn't do complex like super well, I've like this that relationship really, I mean it like definitely for me where I feel like that. There's a lot of parents, but I mean I think very often mothers who project the body issues that they have with themselves onto their kids in presenting it like I'm just trying to help you, and I like that. Tracy rejects that and instead of I mean, there is definitely a version of this story that isn't as fun where she's like, no, fuck you, mom, like but because Tracy is Tracy, she's like, no, I feel like I'm good with myself and like I want that for you too, and let's sing a song about it.

01:08:39
Speaker 5: You know what else I appreciate, which I don't know if when you touched on earlier, it's like Wilber loved her the entire time, the entire time, but like even that wasn't enough. It's like she had to go and figure out for herself how to love herself. She couldn't put her hopes and dreams and whatever. I'm like, I got your dad love me, so it's lit. She was just like, yeah, you love me whatever, But like I'm not comfortable with me until she was yeah, which I appreciate because oftentimes it's like, especially with marginalized people in general, it's like, oh, if you can get one person to love, you hold on to that person and never let them go because that's the only option you got. Whereas they've been happily married. But she was still unhappy, and so it's showcased that like, oh no, I need to find it within myself and not place it in another person. Which is also a fantastic message for Tracy because even though she was like, I'm trying to get in Laney's pants, okay, she still didn't. She was like, I try to get dick down.

01:09:41
Speaker 2: She is not shy about saying it too. Her song is so horny about him.

01:09:47
Speaker 5: It's so horny, especially when she says like she won't go all the way, but she'll go pretty far.

01:09:52
Speaker 4: Oh I love suck up.

01:09:55
Speaker 5: So like I think it's even though she's very horny for Link, it's like she did not base her happiness on whether or not they got together. She based her happiness on being able to achieve her a dream of being a dancer.

01:10:09
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I and the same kind of goes for I don't know, like where. There's a lot of like women perceiving other women's bodies in this movie, which I always think is interesting. It's really easy to fuck up, but I just want to say it's interesting because you also get like in the Wilbur and Edna story, miss Baltimore crabs making the assumption that Wilbert is not attracted to his own to his wife.

01:10:41
Speaker 5: His wife his wife.

01:10:45
Speaker 4: And being wrong about that, and being like made a fool of for making that assumption.

01:10:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, she goes in and is like, I'm Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Watkins's gonna want to smooch on me.

01:11:00
Speaker 4: And You're like, well, she does have a point. She is Michelle fIF she is.

01:11:04
Speaker 2: But he's like, no, I would rather just sell you awesome, like whoop exactly such a due I might rubber chicken, et cetera.

01:11:14
Speaker 4: I love Christopher Walking joke shop owner. Yeah, now should he let us know what happened on that boat with Natalie Woods show? And I have to bring it up every time we cover a Christopher Walking movie.

01:11:26
Speaker 5: I would like to also know. Also, one of the funniest lies in the movie is when Britney snow calls u Na and she and she's like, She's like, who is this And she's like Mike. He's like Mike, who I don't know Mike. And then and then she's like where she said, where is Tracy? And she goes, I don't know, she's no. I don't know who she was asking for. Maybe it was her mom. She was like, I don't know. He's with those, he's with that, He's with that great white wheel and those blue grow It is like the way that I say that is like in my daily life, at least once every every two weeks, just randomly, I'll be like, he's with those, He's with that great white all those new gros. But to myself out loud, I don't know. It's definitely mean.

01:12:20
Speaker 4: It's so plays a good village. She does, she does, she does, Where is she? Where is she at now?

01:12:26
Speaker 2: What she is she doing?

01:12:28
Speaker 5: I think she just finished an indie movie or TV show or something.

01:12:33
Speaker 4: She's also in the Pacifier. Adam Shankman loves her.

01:12:36
Speaker 5: Who knew the Pacifier is an American classic?

01:12:41
Speaker 4: Shout It's true, It's true. Oh yeah, it's the Vin Diesel babysitter in a movie. Not the Rock and babisit a movie that's the truth fairy, the Truth Fairy.

01:12:50
Speaker 2: Yes, And then isn't there a John Cena babysitter movie? Also? Or like he's a fireman and then some kids show up at the firehouse.

01:12:58
Speaker 4: Why do people love in a beefcake babysits in a movie?

01:13:02
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean he technically babysits Vin Diesel's kid in The New Fast.

01:13:10
Speaker 2: You're not an American classes perfect film. No notes. Speaking of actors, Nicki Blonsky, as we've said, does an incredible job in this movie, but despite that, she never became a big star, which is just indicative of the way Hollywood tends to treat fat actors because it just refuses to cast fat actors in most roles. And I was looking at her I AMDB, and one of the things that she's known for aside from this movie is she is a lead or one of the leads in a show called Huge.

01:13:54
Speaker 4: So I wanted to Yeah, I wanted to bring that up because it because I was on the Nicky Blonsky train. It sounds like you were as well. And I remember most of her roles after Harrispray, a movie that she plays Tracy Turnblad a like woman who is comfortable in her own skin, and then her her roles after that for the next couple of years were mostly defined by what she looked like and also around shame, because I remember Huge. I also remember, if I'm remembering correctly, Queen Sized, which was a Lifetime movie about a fat prom queen, and so there there was definitely like it seemed like very and I honestly didn't did you did you ever watch Huge? I never watched it? I did, Yeah, what did you think?

01:14:46
Speaker 5: It was basically like a TV show about a fat camp and her character struggled so much with like feeling worth worthy, and she was like desperate to lose weight, and there was this really melo dramatic storyline about how some of the campers had like eating disorders and like they were desperate to lose weight. And I just remember being like, this is such a far cry from Hairspurd and like that happens. But I truly believed that, like all of her missteps as an adult human being aside, Nikki Bonski really is a casualty of the time, because that movie should have catapulted her. Yeah, like it really should have shot her to an actual trajectory and now people make fun of her because she had that racist incident. I think it was got airport.

01:15:40
Speaker 4: Yes, So that was the other thing I remembered that I was like, Okay, I yeah, I totally agreed Kia, that she was absolutely a casualty of attitudes towards fat women when like, because we just like grew up at such a horrible time.

01:15:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was wrong.

01:15:56
Speaker 4: But there was also because I when I was prepping for this, I was like, oh, I remember that it was like she and her family got into like a racist fight at the airport in like Turks and Caicos.

01:16:11
Speaker 5: It was like it was deeply racist tirade. Her and her mom went on to these other black people and everybody was just like, wait, what hairspray?

01:16:21
Speaker 4: Right, what's happening the girl who started the movie about curing racism? Like it just because and it was also the woman or it was like two families, but like it was America's next top model contestant that they got into a fight with. It really sent me back to and and of course, like I was going back through the like tabloid coverage of this from two thousand and eight and it is pretty pro Blonski in terms of, like, well, this was just being blown out of proportion. A lot of the context of what prompted the fight is not include and so it is like, I mean, there's certainly like more shades of gray here. But yeah, as far as her her career went, it was mostly roles that were defined by her body and then not as much. I was kind of interested because she she didn't do interviews for a long time, and I have a guess as to why. But when she did start doing interviews again is in twenty twenty, because she came out but never really spoke to the kinds of role she was offered, So I don't have her opinion of that.

01:17:37
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, she.

01:17:39
Speaker 5: Has a cameo too. I booked a cameo for my friend because she likes this baseball player guy, and I saw her on a little thing. She has, like cameo interesting and she wishes people like happy graduations from Nikki Bonski of hairs gray, like she's you know, that's her rug, which is great. Oh my god, I realized it's crigma that I'm out here talking about a straight couple.

01:18:06
Speaker 4: How dare you?

01:18:07
Speaker 5: I was like, Oh my god, guys, I am a I am a distress. So bisexuals everywhere. But in my defense, I was like, you know what, they would have a third occasionally, they would have a third.

01:18:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. Corney Collins is polyamorous, and in addition to having a secret romance with Maybell, he also kisses who's another adult man in the movie besides christ Maybe he kisses Christopher Walking.

01:18:34
Speaker 4: I don't know, well, does I feel like Christopher Walking? Like Wilbur's vibe is like open to a third for sure.

01:18:40
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, Wilbur's vibe is very like down the clown, you know.

01:18:44
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's literally a damn job. He's like, yeah, let's have a third and let's all fucking the joke shop.

01:18:53
Speaker 3: Let's let's let's get weird, kinky.

01:19:00
Speaker 2: Yeah. Can we talk about John Travolta again, but in a different context. Yes, So a man playing a female character. So obviously John Travolta plays Tracy's mom Edna. The precedent had been set for a man or mask presenting person to play this character in the eighty eight John Waters version, because, as we said, Divine plays that character. Divine was a drag queen and a queer person, and not that you have to be those things to play a gender bending role like this, but it kind of makes more sense that, you know Divine was cast in that role, and it kind of begs the question, why would they have not cast another, you know, iconic drag performer to play Edna in this movie, because to my knowledge, which John Travalta is not a drag performer. Unless I'm missing something, I don't know who like originated the role in the Broadway musical.

01:20:11
Speaker 4: I was just trying to find out.

01:20:14
Speaker 2: In any case, I guess I have complicated feelings on like I don't mind gender bending roles like this. I don't mind when like a mask person plays a femme or vice versa, or you know, someone elsewhere on the gender spectrum plays any kind of role. I think, honestly, it would be cool if there was more gender bending casting in media, But there's very little parody because I can think of several examples of men playing characters who are women. You've got your like Louis Anderson in Baskets. You've got Tyler Perry as Media. You've got Martin Lawrence as Big Mama This House. You've got Eddie Murphy and several of his like whatever, clunk, clump, what are they? What anymumps? And I think other of his movies as well, Norbit Yes, yes, And a lot of those actors are also in fat suits, which again we discussed is a big.

01:21:22
Speaker 4: Harvey Fierstein played Edna on Broadway and they okay, and one of Tony Baby Interesting. Yeah, I have I have also complicated feelings towards that, but I feel like I don't know, I think I sort of landed on like I don't know, I don't know like it. I feel like the part is so it's such a divine part that whatever not gonna argue the thing divine did and hurt and in her entire life great. And I'm not opposed to actors in drag at all. I mean, I think it just has to do with how well written is the character, is character written as a punchline or I think it reminds me of this was in the last ten years. Keenan Thompson I said that he was no longer going to play drag roles on SNL because he felt that it was just because they hadn't cast a black woman on the show and that they were you know, using him in drag as an excuse like not to cast a black woman, which is a great reason not to do drag for sure. But I think I don't know. I sort of landed on like I'm more upset about the fat suit. I think the fat suit fucking sucks. Yeah, And also I guess I just worry about like the slippery kind of slope that is presented there, because you know, John Travolta's sexuality has been speculated about for decades and it's none of our business, like how he identifies, and you know, it is our business that he's so high up in scientology, but as far as how he identifies, who gives a shit, I don't know. I mean, I guess my answer is I don't know. It doesn't bother me that Edna is a historically a drag role, because there are a ton of non drag rolls in this movie. It's not like the Keenan Thompson issue where it was like, well, we're gonna put a man in drag specifically because we don't want women around like it.

01:23:27
Speaker 2: Right, But a lot of movies would rather have a cis man in a fat suit play a fat woman than actually cast a fat woman.

01:23:36
Speaker 4: Absolutely.

01:23:37
Speaker 5: I think for me, I'm sort of in the same boat as Jamie where it's like I feel like, and again, not give a man too much, but I feel like John Travolta played and with a sense of like sincerity and it wasn't like she was the butt of a joke or that he didn't take it seriously. And I think that's what makes it better because I've always felt like, even in interviews that I watched, and I remember watching them on Oprah specifically about how he was just like, I didn't I was never going to play this like a joke because it's not a joke to me. Edna is a real person to me, and I'm going to treat her with the respect he deserves or something like that. I'm paraphrasing, but I think because I knew going into the movie that he seemed to take it seriously and didn't feel like he was just you know, pretending to be a woman putting on a show, I felt like I was like, oh, okay, I'm okay with him being Edna because at least he's not making her the butt of any jokes, Whereas like a lot of times and again I respect them as well, but like Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence and you know, all these other people, it's like the joke is that they're a man in a fat suit.

01:24:54
Speaker 2: Exactly, I mean pretending to be a woman, and like missus doubtfire.

01:24:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's why it's like, that's the joke, that's the bit, Whereas like in this movie, it's not inherently a bit. It's just this is the thing we understand and know. But it's not like, oh, guys, haha, laugh at me because I'm John Travolta playing.

01:25:15
Speaker 2: A woman, right, because that is the the joke. A lot of the time, it's there's this kind of idea that a man playing a woman is inherently funny, and like part of the comedy of a lot of these movies I mentioned is that there's a man playing a woman because it's funny when a man presents as feminine, like he's kind of being emasculated because he's wearing a dress, And isn't that hilarious, right?

01:25:46
Speaker 4: I think, yeah, Kia, you're like spot on that it like has everything to do with the actor's intent because you can feel, you know, in a lot of the roles we just discussed that, like fat women and men are the butt of the joke very very very much. So I think that, I mean, I think that the fat suit, the use of the fat suit like really complicated stuff, and I would say it's dated, except it still happens. But as far as as far as like John travolt does intent, that's really great to know, and I feel like that does come through in the performance. I think that the only thing that really sticks with me outside of the use of the fat suit is that Edna is the only fat character I think who who is being written to fall prey to the tropes of like emotional eating and like always hungry, and that's how you keep her in a room. I don't think that the other fat women in the in the movie are really treated that way. So I feel like there's notes of that, but it's definitely not I think the worst incarnation of it, and I do, I mean it is. It does make me feel a lot better that like in the in the press junk that like John Travolta is like, no, I'm not trying to make fun of anybody, and I do feel like that comes through in the performance, And yeah, I don't.

01:27:11
Speaker 2: Know also Worth mentioning that every time a man is cast to play a woman, it takes a role and a paycheck away from a woman. But but if there was more parody and you got to see like femmes playing mask characters more often, because that rarely happens in movies. Again, like the lack of parody is kind of noticeable. But I don't know, just I thought Worth mentioning, Yeah, I don't know.

01:27:41
Speaker 4: I think ultimately it doesn't bother me that Edna is historically a drag role. No, yeah, I think, And honestly in my notes, I was like I got stuck in my head about it, and then I was just like, it's it's John Water's story of course, right, there's going to be people in drag. It's John Waters. That just makes sense.

01:28:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, does anyone have anything else they'd like to talk about?

01:28:09
Speaker 4: I was just glad that I just learned Harvey Firestein played dead. No, no that way. It was like I want to listen to the fire Steam cut. And also like, you know, like he's really famous. Why did why didn't he get to be? I mean I know that like John Travolta, I remember the marketing for this movie and that was like the headline. Yeah he was, yeah, in a movie full of famous people, but I was like Harvey. I would loved to see Harvey Firesteam played in this version.

01:28:38
Speaker 5: Yeah. I remember they Press junk They did a lot of like, come see this movie because John Trewood was in it, and also Queen Latifa and I they paired them together, you know, in the little Press Junkers. It was always those two and then randomly Zacha frown by himself a couple of times, then him with like Nikki Bronski. I feel like only really did in every use with But I think it's because they were like introducing her like this was our first big thing. But it was very much like, guys, come see this movie. John Tavoltz is in it, and so is Kreeamatifa. If you don't come, we hate you. This is this is the draw, This is the thing. But yeah, I think I don't know. I guess. If there's one other thing that I would say, it's that James Marsden should be cast in rom Comes where he gets the girl. There should also fiction I'm the really gonna let it go? There should also these fans fiction of Corney Tallens and Monmouth Maybell and if you're not, if you don't write it, you're racist. And then also it's just like this is a lesson in what it takes to like have chemistry with the people that you cast like, we don't focus on chemistry enough anymore. Please bring back chemistry reads, that's what it is. Yeah, bring it back. We need it desperately.

01:30:01
Speaker 4: There has just been just.

01:30:02
Speaker 5: Because they're heart doesn't mean that they should actually work together.

01:30:06
Speaker 2: Exactly. See Matthew McConaughey in every rom com he's ever been kept.

01:30:12
Speaker 4: Okay, see watch already that's Adam Shankman. Adam Shankman decided he and Jalo had chemistry, and I trust him, and I think they did.

01:30:24
Speaker 5: And I think they did too. I think I think he had more chemistry with her than he did with Jennifer Garner in that one movie about the ex girlfriend's past that he doesn't.

01:30:35
Speaker 2: Have chemistry with any women.

01:30:37
Speaker 4: Kitlyn is a McCaughey detractor.

01:30:40
Speaker 5: They had chemrasry. You don't think they had chemistry.

01:30:43
Speaker 4: I think Kate Hudson can have chemistry with a wall.

01:30:47
Speaker 5: You know, he didn't have chemistry with a failure to launch.

01:30:53
Speaker 4: Oh, Sir Justica Parker Parker, they did not have chemistry. Yeah, that didn't work. I didn't, especially when you grow up watching Sarah Jessica Parker have chemistry with so many different people.

01:31:02
Speaker 5: You're like, literally so many different people.

01:31:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I'm only hearing examples of people whom Matthew McConaughey doesn't have chemistry with. My point has been proven as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, that's all I think.

01:31:16
Speaker 4: That's that's all I have to say. Yes, but does this movie past the Bechdel test?

01:31:23
Speaker 2: It does a lot.

01:31:24
Speaker 4: Yes.

01:31:25
Speaker 2: Tracy and Penny talk about dancing. Tracy and Edna talk about how it's the sixties and times are changing. Tracy and Velma talk about how Velma is racist, Velma and Amber talk lots of different combinations.

01:31:44
Speaker 4: It's true, And I like, Oh, last thing I'll shout out is there is like what would typically be coded as a makeover scene in this movie, but it's just Edna getting closed that she likes more.

01:31:56
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it didn't even register for me, honestly.

01:31:59
Speaker 5: And I like, there was nothing that was like, ooh, let me make a sinner exactly.

01:32:03
Speaker 4: She's like, oh, there is like a store for me, and now I can have a matching sequin outfit with my daughter, which incredible.

01:32:15
Speaker 5: I also really like Big Blonde and Beautiful. Yes, I think that's a very good song that has nothing to do with a man and just being like, yeah, I like to eat dopey STANDI I'm a grown girl, Like I'm gonna eat this food on his table, and you know I like that because I'm always hungry.

01:32:35
Speaker 2: And now it's time for our nipple scale, our perfect metric, in which we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I would say, I'll start by saying that I completely hear your point, Kia, about wanting to see something that you can escape into a story that deals with racism and has this happy, kind of fairy tale, escapist ending that doesn't remind you of, you know, the horrors and trauma of real life racism. I guess I would just like to see more versions of that as told through a black perspective that doesn't do the various fumbles that this movie does, and that actually characterizes the black characters and gives them interior lives.

01:33:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think that there's ways for media to be escapist and inclusive, like yeah, for sure, and it's yeah, and it's all behind the scenes stuff, definitely.

01:33:51
Speaker 2: And then between that and the movie's perspective on fatness, which in some ways is rather progressive in terms of it showcasing a fat character who is confident and who loves herself and her body, which is something that's so rare to see in popular media. But then it turns around and puts John Travolta in a fat suit and relies on reductive stereotypes for the Edna character. So I don't know. Oh, how many nipples?

01:34:26
Speaker 5: Is it? Like?

01:34:28
Speaker 2: Two? Is it three?

01:34:30
Speaker 4: Bruce Flanche also played Edna.

01:34:33
Speaker 2: Oh that's great.

01:34:36
Speaker 4: Sorry, still on this article.

01:34:38
Speaker 2: Okay, nipples, I'm gonna give it. It feels like cheating to give it two and a half, but I think that's where I'm gonna land because it's heart is in the right place. It's trying to do something and say something. It's not doing it perfectly, but the attempt is clear. So I'll give it two and a half nipples. I'll give one to Taylor Parks, who plays I knows. I'll give one to Queen Latifah and I'll give my half nipple to Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, and Batman returns.

01:35:23
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go three for nostalgia purposes, I agree, Like I think that the again, it's just like this movie slash production. It's more understandable to me that these issues are present in the nineteen eighty eight version because John Waters was always working on such shoe string budgets. But by the time it's like a huge This was a huge budget movie. They had John Travolta money, So yes, you did have the money, but not the foresight to have black creatives involved behind the camera, which is I'm a say we hear about all the time, but I think, especially in a story that explicitly deals with race at a very specific place in time, you know, it's ridiculous. I hate the Fat Suit, Zero out of Town on the Fat Suit, but I think that this movie is so campy in so many ways. I this movie is so queer coded in so many ways. For some reason, I'm like Miss Baltimore Crabs is a queer song. I can't really tell you why that is, but I know that it's true. Like it's just a very gay movie, and that's part of why I love it so much.

01:36:37
Speaker 2: The font of the title on the poster is a rainbow.

01:36:42
Speaker 4: It's iconic. I mean, it's like there's you know, queer representation in this movie, even though none of all of the characters are straight, is at an all time high. And I'm like, not even joking, goodness, it's like, it's a blast. And I agree that like for all of its issues, it's not nothing that its heart is in the right place. And even though it fumbles, you know, we've talked about it at length at this point, it certainly fumbles a lot, but this movie is not mean spirited, which I think means something and it's Yeah, So I'm gonna go three nipples. I think I'm gonna give one to Harvey Fairestein because I'm now really invested in that. Of course, I'm going to give one to Taylor Parks, who is one of the great pop song composers of our generation. She's a legend. I love her so much, and I will give the last one. Ooh, I'm gonna split the last one, and I'm going to split it between Elijah Kelly and James Morriston, who in spite of the Zach Effron of it all, were my top two crushes in this movie.

01:37:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna go four out of five. Listen with its issues, Yeah, even with it's very greatant and very obvious issues, this movie is very important to me as a virgo. And I think, like despite the sort of white savior miss and the fat suit and the like inability to just have fat people be fat people without being en day for all of their characters, I would say four out of five because it just for nostalgia reasons, it just really means the world to me, and I think that it's a perfectly casted movie. And so my first nipple is going to clean the Tifa because she's clean Latifa, of course, and she's the perfect motibile bebel. And my second nipple is going to the relationship more about Lobo, because they're together, they go together real bad, like Carisia said.

01:39:05
Speaker 2: Corny Collins, more like Horny Collins.

01:39:08
Speaker 5: Yes, exactly. And then my third nipple of course goes to honestly Amanda Vines because even though she didn't sing, she was perfectly petty in this movie. And like I think, I think about the live adaption of Harris Pray that Arianna Grande was tenny and she can sing.

01:39:29
Speaker 2: But I think doesn't feel like the right test.

01:39:32
Speaker 5: Amanda Vines acting as Penny. Yeah, yeah, Amanda Vines acting as Penny was a one day one. And then yeah, my final nipple goes to I'm stealing your answer, Jamie. They have to Elijah Carry and the other half to James Marsden because I love them both. They're both fine, and I love an attractive man. I forget that they're possible, but they are in this movie. And yeah, just you know, shout out to the queer codedness as well. Yes, because again it's Pride Month, and as your local buye, I will say that I find almost every woman in this movie just as attractive as almost every man.

01:40:16
Speaker 4: It's pretty unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, I oh, what was I gonna say?

01:40:20
Speaker 2: Oh?

01:40:20
Speaker 4: I didn't know Ariana had played that part. And it just I'm an arian orientator, That's what I am.

01:40:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, me too. I like our music.

01:40:31
Speaker 4: I just think like Taylor Parks writes a lot of it.

01:40:33
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just think it was like glaring to me what the difference is between the two. Like Amanda Vines cannot say, Ariana grind they can sing, but Amanda Vines was given as tunny. I fully believe, yeah, she understood the vibes of who Penny needed to.

01:40:49
Speaker 4: Be ultimately in movie musicals, It's like, I would much prefer someone could act than sing. It would be great if they could do both. But I also, oh, that was what I was gonna say, because arian is in the Wicked, the live action Wicked movie, and I'm just a little worried because I'm a fan. But the girl can't act. It hasn't been able to since she was a child. It's concerning.

01:41:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean, like like you, Jamie.

01:41:18
Speaker 4: I'm very worried Cynthia Arrivo cannot carry this movie on her back.

01:41:21
Speaker 2: It's not fair.

01:41:22
Speaker 5: It's just it's gonna be interesting to see because it's like two movies now they're splitting it so.

01:41:28
Speaker 4: Which also is like what huh, We're going to sing defying gravity and then make me come back a year later, Like what are you talking about? Yeah, the theater kids are gonna be fairal I'm looking forward to it.

01:41:41
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much, Kia for joining us. It is always a damn delight to have you come back truly any time for any movie. Where can people follow you, check out your work, order your book, et cetera.

01:41:58
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I'm over on the hell site called Twitter at kok Ah Underscore Maria m A l I. It's the same on TikTok and Instagram. Even though I am bad at TikTok, I'm there, and then you can find me on Facebook at the Kia Brown and my website is Kia Brown dot com. And also again, if you like queer y a romance stories where they don't do drugs in a seven eleven parking lot, you can read my book, The Secrets of My Promise, and I think you'll love it, so please buy it because I promise it's good.

01:42:36
Speaker 2: So that's a secret summer promise. Yeah.

01:42:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, I bought it and it's in the other I bought it at book People in Austin, Texas.

01:42:45
Speaker 5: You did bring it with you so that if I see you, I can sign it.

01:42:48
Speaker 4: Okay, Oh my gosh.

01:42:50
Speaker 2: Hell yeah. You can follow us on the hell website Twitter, as well as the other hell website, Instagram or app at whatever. I'm one hundred years old and you can follow us there. At Bechtel Cast, you can subscribe to our Matreon where we did do Zach Marchron slash march Efron slash zach Efron March probably observed in July October, so we did march Efron and many many other episodes which you can have access to for five dollars a month, and that's at patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast.

01:43:37
Speaker 4: And you can get our merch over at teapublic dot com slash Thepechtyl Cast if you're feeling so inclined. And with that, oh look the garbage truck is passing five. We've got to get to school. Here we go, Bye bye bye