The Post with Lizz Winstead

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Speaker 1: On the Beck Dol Cast. The questions asked if movies have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef in best start changing it with the Beck del Cast. Hi, welcome to the back Dol Cast. My name is Jamie loft Is. My name is Caitlin Dronte. I'm still getting used to the last name thing. We started out early episodes we were saying our last names, and then we dropped and we got really casual, and then I was I was about to say, I've got I haven't done this in like, I think four or five episodes. Now I do have Mix Hard Lemonade with me today. Yes, congratulations, thank you so much. I do think this was a cute bit when we were recording most of the episode that night. However, it's three pm and buying a Mike's Hard Lemonade three pm is a bad look. People get worried. Yeah, I panics, and I also grabbed oatmeal raising cookies to be like no, but I also care about my health. Sure, yeah, I balanced lunch, Jamie, great job. Yeah. To address the Mike's Hard Lemonade ongoing storyline, on the back to cast. They have followed us on Twitter. Have we dem them yet? We have not? God, I know, I guess we should do that. Mike's Hard lemon that's a full name, right, mike Age Lemonade. Yeah. Okay, so that's the state of affairs. Our guest is horrified with your choices. I'm just waiting to say something about your choices. You want me to. So I'm literally sitting only other time I've ever seen anyone drink Mike's Hard Lemonade is on Dateline Predator. It's literally the drink of Predator's choice every time. Every time I used to be assessed with that show, and it would be like the fake adult would be like, I'll but don in a minute, and then the creepy predator would be like, you got some Mark's Hard Lemonade. And so I kind of feel like the crew of Dateline Predator love Mike's Hard Lemonade. So the way that they got it for free was to tell the person posing as the person and it was going to be predated, they don't have it was gonna be datelined. Um to tell that guy that she liked Mike's Hard lemonade. He gets hauled off to jail. They're like, here's our Mike's Hard Lemonade. Who we are nailing it? That's super sneaky, I love. I mean maybe that, maybe it's there's some sort of people who love Daateline, people who love Mike's Hard. Because I love day Line and BC. I've been known to crack a Mike's Hard and enjoy an episode. The correlation is obvious. Molesters Mikes It's hard, I know. So it's got all of the ingredients of a Dateline predator episode, a dude something that's hard, and a non alcoholic beverage for your underaged team. But then the hard I don't know, you know what, I just ruined your sponsorship to listen to the head that would be I would I think it would be a wild I mean, if Mike's Hard Lemonade WANs to clean up their image a little bit, sponsor a feminist podcast, you know, that's how we do not have an actual sponsorship. No, we've just been harassing them from years. Also predators probably like you know, chocolate and and soft pillows too. So it's not like I'm not trying to like deem this the beverage of of Roy Moore, Mike's Hard, Lemonade, and a goblet. Alright, anyway, what's the podcast about? So we are the Bechtel Cast. We talked about the portrayal of women in movies. We use the Bechtel test, created by cartoonist Alison Bechtel, as sort of a yard stick, a jumping off point. The Bechtel test requires that two women in a movie have names, they talk to each other, and their conversation has to be about anything besides a man. Do I do a demo? I'd love to. Oh, it's going to bring up Mike's Hard. I can't about that oatmeal cookie. The oatmeal cookie is bad. We just passed that. Yeah, perfect, Well you've already heard her voice. But let us actually give up normal introduction to our wonderful guest today. She is the co creator of The Daily Show, Ever Heard of It? And she is the founder of Lady Parts Justice Liz Winston, I don't think. I was also the producer of Dateline Predator. It was amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited. Yeah, so you brought us the movie The Post I did. Tell us why you chose this movie. Well, I um, as you would maybe uh guess for my CV that you just said. I'm a big political junkie and a media junkie. And when I heard there was going to be a movie about Katherine Graham's sort of taking over the post from her husband in an era where you know, women weren't running media anything's and women weren't really even working in the media that much, and it was just twenty or twenty five years that women even covered Why Shington, you know, it was Eleanor Roosevelt who said, when I do press conferences, I will only talk to women, which forced every single newspaper to have to hire women reporters because they didn't have any. And it was genius. And so I figured, yeah, that was in like, you know, the late thirties, So that means that this was in two I think. And so you know, forty years of just having this woman take over the paper. It was owned by her family, they gave it to her husband, not her, and then her husband does it. So and I just love news and media and all that stuff, and I really love Watergate and the Knicks administration and all that. So it was exciting for me to have a story that told of how the Pentagon Papers came to be and the injunction with the Times, and how the Washington Post kind of had to come back. So that's why I picked it, because I thought it was going to be really great, and I didn't find it really great. I was so ready to enjoy this movie. It was because it has and this will be I think this is like my main thing with it. It's like it had as all the ingredients for a great movie, but it's not. It's extremely mediocre. It's it was really frustrating because it's like they have this it's an amazing story. They've got the actor that you would think, but the all star casts, you've got Steven Spield this one. Yeah. I just saw it about two hours ago, so Jamie, you had already seen it, and I only thought today, So it's like already switching roles. I was ready. I mean, I I love, or I have loved like journalism movies. I think that they can be great, very exciting, but this one wasn't. No, and it's I was reading that they wanted to get it out this year because of the parallels of journalism and controversy and government overreach. And all of that, and it was so thrown out. And I'm a historian and so I knew who all the players were, but I can't imagine. And I don't know if you guys are like news nerds or anything, but like they didn't really tell me enough about who Daniel Ellsberg was is a backstory what the Rand Corporation is as a backstory. Um, the first time you meet Ben Bradley, you don't even know, you know, the guy named Ben, you don't know like that he is, you know, running the Washington Post. So it was all and even Robert McNamara they kept calling him Mr. Secretary in this opening scene that introduces his role as the Department of Defense secretary who crafted this incredible dossier that we now know as the Pentagon Papers that showed that we knew we were losing the war and we sent men anyway, and and then our government covered it up. But like, you don't learn that he's mcnamarital. And so it's to me, I felt like you need to give people a context. You know, when All the President's Men was made, it was made just under two years after Watergate happened, So everybody had the information and they knew this is forty five years later cut us a break on the story. And then when I saw David Cross is in it and Bob Owner Kerk. The first time I watched it, I thought that they were um Woodward and Bernstein. They're not. They're absolutely that, you know. I was like, I thought they were going to be Woodward and Burnt. Yeah, why would David Cross and Kirk not play wood And I was like that's a failing. I'm yeah, yeah, this was tricky. It was like because I I am like aware of everything that happened and and know all the the main you know players, but it was confusing with the way the movie treats a lot of the characters like it does. Assume that you're going to make a lot of connections that there's no reason that you would unlece you knew everything where yeah, like that that's the secretary connection took me, I think until almost halfway in the movie like, oh that's where they're talking. That makes way more sense. Where like that sometimes they're using like Mr. So and so, sometimes they're using their titles, sometimes they're just using their first name, and there's never any connection. And I'm not surprised to hear that. There was like a timeliness thing to it because that that felt like a little like we're being kind of hit over the head with it too. Where there were like two scenes I wrote done like Tom Hanks may as well break the fourth wall and look to camera and like wink of like hear that. Mr PRESI like, it's just like it was at getting his accent a lot, yes, being like I'm sorry, who are you right now? What accent was he meant to be doing? Hey, I don't know it sounded but sometimes and other times I'm just like what is happening? Also, the protest scenes were so cheeseblly, so it looked like they gave every extra sharpie and said write something that sounds like it was back then. I mean there was so many fringe vests and so many dudes of like long hair singing like everybody played the guitar. It was like there was four people in a pod playing guitar and singing a pizze song and other people have like moltough cocktails. It was like, is all of the everything that happened happening at once? It was so there's a lot of like Uncanny Valley qualities to this movie. I'm just like, what is it like this? This era had been described to the set dresser but not actually heard that Meryl Street just kept sleeping in her own in her own paper, like she had a notebook, and she every scene of her was like waking her up from the narcolepsy moments that she was having. And I keep calling her Mery from Catherine Graham, the ke I know her as Meryl Street. Listener's of the pulp fiction episode might recall that, according to me, her name is Meryl Street anyway. And the other the other part that I thought was so lame is whenever they would cut to the Nixon lookalike on my phone, Like you see him through like a window of the White House and he's like talking on the phone. He's like making these insane hand gestures, not a particularly good impression. No, and just like not shot. Well, Like I was just like, what is this? I don't know. So I I've taken history classes, I've learned about the Vietnam War. I read a whole book about it, and somehow I don't remember a single thing about it. I know almost anything about the historical events that were depicted in this movie. For some reason, American history goes in one year not the other. I just cannot absorb it or remember. That's helpful because it's because this movie must have been truly insane to watch. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, not not really not knowing any of the major players of this story, not remembering or knowing much about it to begin with. I would say I was watching the movie for about forty five minutes until I even understood what was happening. Well, it's true, and that's the part that and for somebody who does understand it, all I kept doing was getting more frustrated that they weren't filling other people in what was happening. And for me, like I got so I'm old as fun. So I when Watergate was happening, I was around eleven or twelve or I don't know. I was like, yeah, but I got like preteen chicken pox one summer, so I couldn't go out, and I watched the Watergate hearings every day, Like I was like a crazy looning kid who watched the Watergate hearings every day, and I was sort of fascinated by it. So I loved it, and I was kind of like I don't know what a nerd, So this life changing chicken pox it was, you know. And so I was like this eleven year o kid talking about Sam Irvin and John Dene and like I kind of knew what was happening, and then I would ask my dad to kind of fill me in. And then I realized my dad was like a total right wing kook, and so um that was problematic. And so I had a whole bunch of older siblings who were like protesting the war, and our dinner was always like a ship show of screaming at each other. So I wanted to see this part of because we always heard about the New York Times and then we saw the Presents Man, and I just wanted to hear this like take on what happens when a woman takes over a paper. And all I did was see somebody going, have me check to Bob? What is Bob? Bob, Bob, are you on the phone? Where big glasses? That this guy I don't know? And it was like, what the well, Meryl is meryling out. It's just like Beryl Street, what was happening? She's like she's doing like I was. Because I went back and watched interviews with Katherine Grandma, was like, why did she make these choices that she made? It didn't make like she was doing sort of her Julia Child voice, but like if Julia Child was very tired, Katherine Grandma was asking God blesses. There's a few different times where she went ben characters. The was also that was also problems too many bends. I would argue that in a cast a pretty amazing cast, almost Noah does a good job, Like it's it's it's kind of amazing, how how bad everybody does. Steven Spielberg, I would say, did a pretty horrendous bang up job totally. It just really bothered me of like even in the first scene where it's like, okay, we start with the flashback and then we go to um the story being put together, and it's all this it's all like swelling music, cross fading in of headlines, spoken exposition. It's like, there has to be a more could this scene be faster? Why is this scene slow? It's the most important part. It just was driving reenactment. I'm gonna say a line and you guys are gonna repeat what the next line is? Okay, I have a little kid you want some lemonade? What do they like? No? How much is it? No? No? Is there von? Okay? I'm disappointed in the both of you. We're not like taken by the I have a question, was one of the female lines, does that counts? The child selling lemonade says yeah, is there vodka? Well it is too woman talking about so we find out what the kid's name is. I think we do, right, No, that was like I feel like there's a lot of female characters in this movie whose names we do not know. Also, speaking of it was confusing. You are drinking lemonade with basically vodka in it. You know, who knows what's indence camp could be anything, could be anything taking years off my life, But I'm not sure what was in it exactly. Couldn't tell you no, no, no. In the theater, I saw this movie for the first time last week, and so we've all seen it in theaters, right, yes, okay and my theater. Every time the Nixon impersonator was on screen and the movie closes with him too, there was audible laughing. There was like what the funk is this like when it closed on him, being like, I forget where Like the closing line, but he's just like, hopefully nothing else bad will happen, and then his little cheek noise like whatever, his jowls are clattering together like symbols, and everyone was like cackling. And then it was like, oh, the movie is over. What great They could have literally cast a great Dane to play Nixon and that's how bad so and it was shot so lame. It was just like and like another part where there was audible laughter in the theater was when they cut to the picture of Tom Hanks and his wife and the Kennedy's and it was a really bad photoshop that frame photo. Everyone was like, what the fuck is this? This is so stupid. Also, it was for me, I guess you know, this is like a marginal detailed drue me in saying. But Ben Bradley was married three times and this was his second wife. Amazing waste of Sarah Paulson in a roll, and so it was like his last wife. Sally Quinn also wrote for The Washington Post, and so if you didn't know the history, but you maybe knew about her because the cool thing about Sally Quinn and Ben Bradley is that they bought the Gray Gardens House from Crazy Little from the Beals and they redid the whole thing. Oh, I'm a treasure trove useless bullshit. That's good, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, that's not Sally Quinn. That's got to be her name was like and Twinette. I think, I literally think her name is an. She was like teen you know, that's like going like some doing some deep cuts. Oh, so I guess we're gonna do the research and find out her nickname was teen I. And then she's really only and I mean she appears in it several times, but usually she's serving food. She's uh, you know, facilitating whatever. And then she's in that one near the climax of the movie we want some Sandwiches? Yeah, yeah, do you want some sandwiches scene, which is all of her scenes. Uh, and then the scene where she explains to Tom Hanks actually being a woman hard sometimes and he goes, oh, never thought about it. Also, her sister was having an affair with JFK and so Ben Bradley used to be really good friends with James Jesus Engleton, who was the head of the CIA then, and they did a whole giant investigation because the CIA was trying to do all of this crazy much more interesting story is this crazy covert operation where the CIA was trying to manipulate and control what the media was reporting. So they were really good friends. And then when it was revealed that his sister in law was having an affair with JFK, they had like a big breakup around all of it, Like there's a lot of palace intrigue around the CIA and Ben Bradley and the Kennedy administration, so many interesting things that would have made the movie more fun. Time. Ben Bradley's Wives would have been a better movie. They cover those three wives and they met in Paris. It's like a whole thing, like there's some good ship, but we got the garbage heap. Tom Hank, I mean, and and maybe there are exceptions to this role that I'm not thinking of, but Tom Hanks has like pretty exceptionally bad taste in like period movies, because he's in one of my least favorite movies of all time, Charlie Wilson's War, a movie that is ten years old and yet is like how did this movie come out? And people were like it's so cute? How this like political effict role is harassing women for three hours. It was God, But wait, can I just talk about one more thing about the movie? That? Okay, So when Bob and Kirk's character Ben goes to me Daniel Ellsberg, and it goes to hotel room and there's literally thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of stacks of paper everywhere, and then he compiles it into two file boxes and brings it on the plane. And I was a trailer moment to deliver that trailer moment. Okay, trailer guy, easy job for you. We're all laughing. And also there's so much weird bumbling for no reason, like Ben has to make a phone call every time. He's like he drops his notebook and reporters are falling, and I was like, why is he bumbling? I do not have to do it? Is that a choice? I wrote that done? Because every time he's had a pay phone, which is like three or four times, there's some sort of fit there like let's let out and kirtius and physical improv like not, why that's not what this movie is? What do you builds the tension of the scene. One of my got in a movie full of my least favorite scenes. At some point Jesse, Clemens and Zach would show up and it's like are they would word in Bernstein, No they're not. But there's that scene at the end, and this is like another time where I don't know why, but in so many recent episodes, like the way music is used in movies has really been like bugging me, and it's so it's just lazy in this where it's just like, yeah, let's just throw in some swelling strings and hopefully people won't notice, you know. But there's like the scene at the end where a woman in the office is getting a call and she's like, oh my gosh, it's so and so and the ruling is in and they say that journalism is good and journalists are good, and then like the music is like do do do do do do? I was like, funk this, what do you How dumb do you think we are? Exactly not to mention like the way that all went down, I can't imagine that's how it goes down. For a screamed line of exposition, journalism wins. It's like and it's like just make eye contact with the camera, like that's oh boy, right now? Should I even attempt to recap. I don't know if I'm gonna yeah, well, well we can help fill in the gaps. This is a tricky this is a hard movie to recap. Trure is So it's nineteen swo. We're in the middle of the Vietnam War. Nixon, President, k Graham, the publisher, I guess the Catherine again, I don't even know what The first forty five minutes of the movie are like. Oh, opens with this scene in the Vietnam War where this journalist he's like observing, he's checking things out, and then he reports back to Bob McNamara and he's like, actually, things in the war aren't really good, and they're like, well, we can't tell anyone this. We have to lie. So it becomes this like huge study that becomes these talk secret documents, and then Daniel Ellsberg is like, why shouldn't I should steal and link them? So The New York Times gets hold of them first and leaks a little bit of it. But then the Supreme Court is like, no, you can't do that. I'm sending up for a long week. Well no, no, the Spreme Court didn't say you can't do that. What happened was there was an injunction because of the White House. Um, so the White House tried to get this from not happening, saying that it was it would be a national security risk. Right, yeah again, I'm going. And meanwhile, Katherine Graham and Ben one of the Bends, they're like, wow, crap, like, oh this paper, we should take it public and no one takes out seriously and they're all upset about that. And then the people are like, there's like the implication of like, well, we have a woman running a paper. It's a liability right exactly. Yeah, No one really is confident in her abilities. And she's really good friends with a guy who wrote the Pentagon papers, and she fired she fired out friendly like they had in such weird specific details. I'm like, who is this for? Yeah? Anyways, So the Washington Post, via another of the Bends, the Bob Owen Kirkman, gets ahold of this huge study the Pentagon Papers as they later become to be known all the phone. But he's a great journalist. There's this whole sequence about oh do we publish these like it's our journalistic responsibility to let the American public know that the Vietnam War is actually not good, and that the government knew that we couldn't win it from the very beginning, but we still keep sending soldiers over there to die in this war. And then but then they're like, oh, but what will it do to our newspaper? It might you know, will collapse and all this because of the injunction. So they were trying to decide whether or not they would be shut down because of whether or not the Supreme Court would rule that it was illegal. Do you know, I did not check this, but was like the timeline of like because the timing of this. Part of the reason that she that k is like, I don't know if we should lead the papers is because there's some sort of like week long thing when they were going public. So what happens is the newspaper was was a family owned paper, and they were hemorrhaging money and they were in debt. So what they were going to do is go public, so people go by shares in the newspaper could stay afloat. There's a window of time when you go public and you have shareholders, there's a window of time where if you do something that is highly illegal or unethical, the deal can fall through and the shareholders can back out of the deal. So that window of time when they were deciding whether or not they were going to defy what could possibly be a Supreme Court ruling that said freedom of the press does not mean that you can take government acquired whistleblowing papers and expose them to the public. And the Supreme Court ruled that it is in the public's good to know that this is happening in the in their name. But this was the timeline where this was happening during that window where they so after a lot of like kathin Kay being like should I publish or should we not publish the story? What do we do? She finally decides to go ahead and run the story, publish and then I'm going to bed. She's sleeping for a lot of yess right, She's slow, tired, she's exhausted. And so they're like, oh no, what's this going to do Because there's another like extra obstacle at the last minute where the lawyers were like, oh wait, your source was the same source as the New York Times, and that could really like you could go to prison for that. Like the steaks were very high. Catherine's like fuck it published the damn paper and they do and everyone's like, oh my god. And then all the other papers follow suit and they're like, wait, we saved the world. And then there's a forty five minutes sequence of Steven Spielberg filming newspaper presses, which I actually kind of liked. That was the most visually interesting part of the movie, because the rest of it's just toss yeah like that. It takes like there's a million I can give you a million papers where they spin around. It's the headline, like that visual effect that it is not insufferable time you'll never get back. It's just like, can we reallocate the time spent looking at newspaper presses explaining what's happening in the fucking movie? Because actually newspapers that aren't yours and we just keep reading the New York too. It was smiled the majority of revelations come from the New York Times, which is because it's eventually the Washington Post does get a story, but that is not really focused on what that actually happened. I don't I don't know, I don't know. I don't know what is happening in this movie? Uh? Is that everything? Though? I mean the Supreme Court rules that created the press. Yeah, and then could we have seen that instead of hearing someone screaming on to the office on a phone. Yeah, that would have probably been more appropriate. And then the movie ends with the like Watergate scandal robbery thing happening, like, oh wow, is gonna not be the president anymore? Yeah, that's why. That's what I realized. It wasn't would Ward and Bernstein because they have heard yet. It's like, oh, right, they're breaking into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrists office, is what they did. Yeah, that craziness so right, it was. I mean, it was such a cheeseball ending to the movie, like yeah, audible laughter, you literally don't mean you don't. Yeah, listen, I know we've been talking about it for a while now, but skip the post. I've got to see its sanator early in the podcast there. Well, well, let day with us, though, keep listening because we haven't even told you if it makes the grade, yeah, it's true. I mean, let's get into the female characters discussion, because oh boy, I mean boy so much. It's all just missed opportunity after a missed opportunity, right, I feel like until the third act Katherine Graham is not very much an active character in this story. She's not really doing any I mean, she's making decisions, but we don't actually see her doing much like she's not I mean, I guess, and that's like not necessarily her role as the publisher to be like like in the middle of the excitement and like reporting on stuff. But well, partly part of what bothered me from like very early in the movie is that I don't even know if, like the way the movie portrays her and kind of a little bit the way Meryl Street plays her, it's not super clear to me that she's extremely competent at her job, which in real life she was, And so it was like weird where they were just like, well, we don't know if she's able to do the job, and I'm like, I don't know if I'm I'm sure she's able to do the job because she's always just waking up and being liked. But but I feel too, it's like this was her family's business, right, So you were the newspaper of record through monumental things. You grew up in a newspaper family. Do you have passion about information? Do you do you have passion about freedom of the press, caring about what the public thinks, or was your family just like these rich publishing people who were hob nobbing around with lb J and all the way that they sort of dropped that stuff about she and her husband, but forget about the husband. Her dad owned the paper, So I was like, do you care about this ship? It's not clear. I mean, I feel like she is far more like her motivation in regards to working for the paper, like her character always connects it back to like I want to make my dead husband and father proud, Like it never really has to do with like journalistic integrity or or breaking stories, and and and I haven't done a deep dive on kay Graham, and I don't know what her actual you know, like interviews. She loved it, I mean, yeah, it was. This movie is weird because it made me like her, Like I had more like excitement and respect for her as like a historical character before I went into the movie than when I left. Because the way the movie portrays it, it's weird. And there's that scene with her and her daughter towards the end of the movie where it's like I feel like ka, like the movie sells out the character entire really in like one of the last scenes where she's just like, you know, she's saying like it was very stressful, and but she's only talking about I want to make my dad proud. I want to make my husband proud. I wanted, and just going on and on and to the point where she's saying, oh, and when my father wanted to give the paper to my husband and not me, I thought that made total sense. I was like, what is She also says something weird, like people always say that whenever they see a woman doing something. I forget what verb she was, but it was like, when a woman does this thing, it's like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs. It's bad and it's weird, and like dog shaming. Don't shame a dog. Well, And also it was like when they were going public, they were saying, oh, you know, maybe you could try to think about expanding and becoming more than just like a local paper and the Washington And she was like, I don't know, I kind of just want to reach for the top shelf. I'm not really reaching for the moon of the stars. I know, I just want to keep it going and pay people and and even the opening scene was just like she was all consumed with making sure that the paper was covering Richard Nixon's daughter's wedding. That was the hill she was ready to die on for some reasons. Die on that hill, girl. Well. Another early scene is when I don't know the guy's name, but she was kind of being coached by this guy of what to say whenever they go into this big board meeting about when they're discussing like what the stock prices are going to be, breading it down as like Meryl Streep's friend. Yeah, I mean he worked for the paper, but I don't know what his name is or what his role is. Maybe now Bradley Witt for the actor, isn't the older guy? Yeah? Maybe? And every role he's in recently, I'm just like, wow, that wasn't because he's in't get Out too, And I'm like, he was in West Wing, Yes, he was in west Wing. West Wing. Yeah, that was a west Wing guy, wasn't. Oh my god, he wasn't the west Wing guy. So so him, he's like coaching Katherine Graham on like what to say, and she seems flustered and she's like, I feel like I don't know this stuff, and then you see a scene where, like immediately following that, she's in the board meeting. She's the one woman out of like twenty other men and they're all talking about, oh, I thought the shares were going to be sear And there's like an opportunity for her to reveal the knowledge that she was practicing with this guy, and she's going to say, well, you know, quality drives profitability, and then she totally chokes and then her friend See, I actually kind of liked that scene if it were paid off on in any way later on, But it's not like if she would like gets a chance to redeem herself. Maybe is that what you mean? Because I feel like the way that that scene plays out, like we as an audience know, it's like what I missed chance? And you know, she has in this huge room full of men who don't want to listen to her. But then the movie kind of, I mean, like sputters out in terms of keeping that going, in terms of like developing her as someone who you want to see succeeds. Like, I don't know, I was hoping that that would come. I was hoping we would see her in a meeting later where she would, you know, have one of those movie moments of like, actually I have something to say, and but you know that never happened. We do, well, we do. I mean she does and kind of redeem herself by the end when she's like, I know the steaks. I know I might go to jail over this. I know that the paper might totally fail, but I say publish anyway, and we're like going to bed. But that character arc, we don't see the actual arc happen. Like it's just she like flubs up at the beginning and then we don't, like you said, yeah, we don't really see her character grow and develop and build over the course of the story that leads to that point where she like suddenly has strong decision making skills. She has a few moments that I'm like, you know, there was like there's one scene she had with Tom Hanks been uh where they're sort of challenging each other on uh yeah yeah, and and like the way that Tom Hanks character treats Meryl Street is you know, a ma of respect and condescension. But I mean there are scenes where they're challenging each other and it is like a lively discussion. We have no idea. If you don't know the exact particulars of the history, you have no idea what the funk they're talking about. But they're challenging each other, and so she has these few moments of like, oh, she does know things, we just don't see her demonstrate knowing things in the way she does her job. So also, there was a scene, and I'm sure that it was put out there for discussion, but it was just angering where there's a dinner party and then somebody starts to talk about some kind of smart thing, and then a woman says, well, that's time for us to move, and all the women and Katherine Graham go into one room and talk about outfits or some ship, but the men talking about politics. Yeah. Yeah, that scene was fucking infuriating, And to keep our discussion about Titanic always going from I was thinking this far more effectively done in Titanic. But there, I mean, but this is sort of you know, the women go to one room, the men staying in the room and smoke cigars, and you know, what's the line politics? Wouldn't it just do anyway? Exactly? The famous Billy Zane performance Shout out Billy Zane every day always. But the way this knows that to Jack, he's like, you're too poor to know about feminist ion. Jack Dawson's like, I'm going with the ladies, see you later. I just want to watch Titanic again. Um. But in the post, the way that rolls out, it challenges nothing. They're like, oh, yeah, the women are not going to talk about anything but clothes. We don't know what any of their names are. And one literally goes like, kay, that that dreadful day job of yours, and are you fucking Katie? They are you know, according to the post, women are that dumb? I mean, honestly, it was just an endless and it felt like they were wedging things in to remind people how sexist things were by like ship like that, where it's like I get that. You can't show me into posortable ways, any redemption at all, you know. Even her decision to change the course of journalistic history was like are you there? Are you on the line? Are you on the line? It's everybody on the line of the Russians on the line. So many climactic scenes in this movie take place over the phone. It's very frustrating. I'm like what's actually happening, also to the point of like all the women talking about like oh, gowns and whatnot. There's a scene at the end after like after the climax, and they're like, wow, we won. Journalism saves the day. And there's a group of people gathered around a woman's desk in the newsroom and she says something like no more articles about dresses or shoes, and but it's just like a throw white line that like you probably it's just like, oh, subtle, great job. But there's also that scene where she goes and challenges Robert McNamara and she's just like, how could you do this? Like you knew all this stuff, you kept it secret, and Bob, could you do my dirty Bob so my son, my nephew, Bob. I think I might take back what I said about like not really seeing her arc because you do see those times where she does go and like challenge people, and she seems like she's getting more confident in her abilities and decision making and whatnot. And I also think it's cool that you do see kind of the stakes of the country and different parts of the globe kind of resting on her shoulders in terms of like do we leak this information? Do we let the public know about this like very important thing that was happening at the time. I like that you get to see a woman in that position where she's making such a crucial decision. Was it told interestingly in this movie? I felt like this movie was not interesting, which is crazy given the story it's telling. But I also feel like it just like does a huge injustice to the story and its characters. Like it just if I knew nothing about depending on Papers or any of that going into this movie, I'd be like, oh, so this was kind of a drag kind of thing that, which is crazy because there's there's so much and they just do nothing like they're One of my main things with this movie was like I feel like this exact movie in every single way could have been made fifteen years ago. Like it just feels like it could have come out at any time, Like there's no especially because they're like, oh, it's a timely movie. It's a timely story. If you told me this movie came out in two thousand and two, I would believe you because of how he treats his characters and how it treats the source material it could have come out fucking whenever well, and also likes somebody who created a TV show that wanted to ship all over the nepotism in the media, which is how the Daily Show came to be. It's driving force was observing the media and watching, you know, all these shows the storylines for me. I literally when Catherine Graham is challenged by Ben Bradley, the editor of the paper, and he says, wait, Robert McNamara has literally written this massive dossier that shows there's election near fraud. We've covered up the war where we send people to die knowing we were losing. And she goes, oh, do we have He said, haven't kind of a bad time lately, you know, And it's like so it's like that is the point. You know, even the journalism that's supposed to be the best journalism we have in this country is so full of bullshit. And Tom Hanks started touches on it by like everybody wants to go to the same parties with this one and that one, and and those stories of like of how those things intersect and how people finally do the right thing, Like I think that's really important. And so it was like a ship bath up until she finally pulls the trigger. But like, how much do you have to be convinced when there's thousands and thousands and thousands of paper and thousands and thousands and thousands of dead people and young people and and you're like, oh, my friends, I don't know. It's got you know, restless leg syndrome and it's just trying to make it work. And life and him had a fight, Yeah, a hard time. It's so yeah, I mean all of it was just sad by and large Yeah, I feel like Kay's character is under service and kind of largely just like unexamined as a person. It just kind of all over. She doesn't get that much screen I mean, this is an ensemble cast. I don't really know if we're supposed to identify any one character as the protagonist of the movie, because it seems like it's her and Tom Hanks's character, but she doesn't get that much screen time. Okay, if they were doing a movie called the Begdell Cast and you were hardly in it, right, that would be weird, and they made one of us significantly dumber than we were in real life, that would be Yeah. Like it's like it's called a post, right, And I don't know. I just kind of feel like, I mean, I know that, like there's not like two und of people that work out your podcast, so I know that's different. How dare you that we feel your strength? She's so clearly amazing, Um that you don't need to hundred people. That's right, That's what I'm saying. That would be funny if there was a betel Cast movie and I was in it for three minutes and I was only drooling. I feel like all you did was strength. I'm just like, um, what are we doing? Where are we haming? And my name was Bob but all but a stripe? Who else do we have for female characters? We have Judith, who is the She was the person who was maybe going to report on the wedding because they were like, you're not allowed, right. She said that Tricia Nixon looked like it looks like trash. She said, she looked like a vanilla scarpe coat. Sick for DELI get that money, vanilla, I screen cop. Oh my god, you're fired. That's too sick of burn she is, So she is in it. There's another woman who appears to be a journalist or reporter of some cod She's the one who at the end was on the phone and kind of like dictating what the journalist or Tom Hanks's secretary. Oh yeah, I was. I'm clear about her role. Yeah, there was the daughter, the daughter who did we have a name? I don't know if we learned her name. I was struggling with that. I was like, did I miss it? Did I miss it? Because those were the scenes that I thought like, well this and it sucks because there's two extended scenes with k Graham and her daughter, and there are some exchanges that you're like, this could maybe pass the Backeal test. But I'm not sure what her name is. I don't think. I mean, from what I could tell, you don't learn what we know her Her maiden name is probably miss Graham, but we don't. I'm like, I don't think we learned her name. And the little daughter's name, did we learned her name? I don't think. I don't think so. Also, it would be hilarious if this movie passed the back to test strictly on that lemonade standing direction. I think it might name vodka, Yeah, vodka. And Catherine also has an assistant or secretary. She's walking up the steps and that's I don't know if we know her name either. No, she was like you have to be at this place at five, Yeah, thank you. Yeah, there was that scene. And then there was the scene with the daughter but we don't know, And then was there an exchange between to say who wants sandwiches? And there was one woman in that room? Was that Judith or not Judith? I think it was not? Oh yeah it was Judith? Was it Judith? There is this movie so I couldn't tell you the name of literally anyone if I didn't pay and teen or Tin and Twinette twin Tin. Yeah. Actually Tom Hanks being lady not easy. Oh that was Oh my day was fine, Thanks for asking um. Feminist icon look out. There's a scene where a woman and I don't know who it is, says to Okay, I got a cake? Is that okay? And Kay says as long as no one counts the candles because it's her birthday. What's her name? I don't know his name. Am walking towards the door to answer it when Ben Bradley is there to say, I'm at your part day. Oh my god, tell you something, Ben, Bradley comes to her house at the beginning of scene to this movie, He's like me again, and to the point where the movie even starts calling it out of like wow, Ben, you keep showing up at my house. It's like yeah, almost like there's a more interesting way to do this scene, Like I know it's And I also just feel like we have to ask some old people if you just went over to people's houses on announcement, before the times of phones and things. Did people just show up that your house all the time? I remember when I was a kid, like my dad's friends would just maybe people just came over to your boss. I feel like I'm kind of glad that that trend has died out when whenever someone is like, hey, I'm just popping in, I was like that you have to leave my home. I'm not I'm not home, no matter of how many clear indicators that I'm home. Yeah, my grandfather would do that or a little and it would drive maybe than it is like an old person thing, because we're drive My mom fucking crazy. She was just like, why is he what? He's got a phone, Like, there's no need to just show up places. Yeah. Yeah, feminist like your grandfather. No, he's actually pretty bad person. So we're all my grandparents. Okay. So as far as the movie passing the Bechtel test, I don't couldn't identify any scene where there were quite a few scenes where women were interacting, but they were either talking about men or we did not know. It's usually Katherine Graham talking to someone else, but I don't think we know the other character's name in almost all of those scenes. With I don't think I was the same way because I was like super because I did the same thing. I watched it three weeks ago, and then I watched it again for the podcast, and I was really look get through the lens right, and I have notes of like this happened at this And I took a note of every scene, and I was like, do I know that person's name? Like do I have to go back and rewind it four times to see if maybe? And I was like, I don't know any of these people's names, right, and this is and and something else that I noticed that really bugged me, especially in the second viewing, was how many times there are several women in the same room and their characters don't interact in any way and that to me, it says like, I don't think that was done intentionally. But to me, that's even worse of just like, oh, this filmmaker, it wouldn't even occur to them to have female characters interact like it. Just there's so many scenes where Meryl and her secretary are in the same room the whole time. They do not speak well and they didn't speak to them, but that's it. Well, And there's that same when she walks in to talk to all the stockholders and she walks up these steps and all of these women are standing out there and they open the door, and I was like, are they the secretaries of all the men in there? Like? Who are all those women on the stairs? But yeah, and they all have these weird forty yards stairs and what are they? Why were they all standing there? For? They were like smiling at her to a good job. They're also ladies, there's right, it's just like a very vague over like women other women, But it's like, why would you know who she is? There's that scene I forget why exactly she's in court at this point, but there's that scene where she's speaking to a young woman and young woman's like I hope you in and then she sees that woman's boss mistreat her and be like you're late even though traffic or something. And that was another weird scene that I'm like, I think that Steven Spielberg thought he was being a feminist just then, but it was ultimately just a weird scene that and it never comes back. Oh yeah, she worked for She was like work for the one of the judges. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. I was like, okay, Like that was the one who's like, She's like, my brother is still over there, and I hope you win, but don't tell my boss I said that, or even that I talked to you. I can't. Well, I'm really glad that I because I came in here fucking hating this movie and I, oh my god, these women are like, I'm so happy. You guys were just like, oh my god. I was worried that you picked it because you liked it. No. I was like, man, this is the smartest person in the world. How could she like this movie? Oh no, I will never let you down by telling you this. Right now, I tell you I haven't say Titanic. No, that's that you know you're going to have an amazing night. I'm gonna watch it and then I'm just gonna call you about the like I watched it. It's it's like, I'm really happy. It does so much better than you would ever in your life think it would do in terms of the way it treats female characters. However, it's not necessarily a great movie. Hover counterpoint, it is the greatest movie of all time, I know, and I haven't seen it. I think it's one of those movies where do you ever meet those people who like, they didn't have sex in high school, and then they didn't have it in college, and then their virgins and by accident they're like, now I just am keeping it as a point of pride, and maybe I'm just And I feel like that way about Titanic, where it's like I just didn't see it, and then I was gonna and then I haven't, and like do I not see it? But I feel like I should just funk. Titanic just hasnicually just the Titanic suck the Titanic. Yeah, I'm the same way with The Godfather. I've never seen it, and then I think it's like extremely cute when I tell people I haven't seen it and then they go and unhinge their jobs, and like, that's right, it's not on purpose, but yeah, it becomes on purpose after a while. Let's see how far into my life I can make it without seeing The Godfather. Yeah, it's good, you should say it. That's kind of an amazing movie. I've heard good things, largely considered to be a better movie than the first time. Similar with Paddington Too, and how it is the other best movie ever made, along with alright, Paddington Too. Love it anyway, everyone's upset with me. I'm like, I haven't seen even a Paddington one. I think I'm a bear. It's a bear with a raincoat. He's got a defle coat and a red hat. Yeah. I had to kill two hours yesterday and so I saw about seventy of Jumanji. Oh, I wouldn't talk to you about that. I stayed until Nick Jonas showed up. I'm like, well, guess I'm out. I guess I'm fun. I guess I'm good, and I'm gonna just go do what I have to do. But you know not, Jamie, No, it's no. It's like a board and board game. Right. I hadn't seen the first, I'm very familiar with Jumanji whatever. I don't know what Jumanji. I know something I don't know the new Jumanji. There's a lot of colors. It's kind of like a sensory overload car tune. No, no, it's a It's Jack Black, Kevin Hart, The Rock, The Rock, Nick Jonas Jonas a woman from doctor who whose name escapes me. I feel like you deserve better. I thank you so much. Your time deserves better. I just didn't have enough time to go home. So I'm like, I guess I'm going to just see part of Jumanji. Did you pay money? I had? Used movie Pass? Is that free? So? Yeah? Yeah, So it's like you can see one movie a day for like ten dollars a month. So it's not free. It's not free, but if you go to the movies, movie pass is much like freedom. And you know what else and that is not granted to everyone. You have to ask for him. No one else isn't free? Is the press for a little bit in this movie that we're talking about, Thankfully they I love trying it back to killing the relevant topics. The master you are, so you are the seguess, shall we rate the movie on our Apple scales, so as we have a scale of zero to five nipples by which we rate the movie based on its portrayal of women. I'm gonna have to say it's not like this isn't the worst one we've ever done, but certainly not the best. I'm gonna I'm gonna give it like maybe a two and a half nipples. We've talked about how disserviced Katherine Graham was in the movie. I feel like we're not really ever on board with her, and that might be because she doesn't get a lot of screen time or opportunity for us to get to know her. Um. I feel like the story could have just come from a different angle and told her version of it much better. Of the other female characters there are, we never even get to learn their names. We don't even know what their situation is. We see eighty billion men on screen at all times, and that's frustrating. I don't know it could have done better. I don't know what I'm trying to say. Who are you? The most important question? But yeah, I'm going to give two of them to the Lemonade, and the half nipple will go to k Graham. I'm gonna give it to and and I would like to see what this movie would look like in the hands of a female director, because I feel like a lot of missteps would not have been But I mean, and I know that we're commenting on how women are treated by the movie and not the movie itself, but this movie is just so lazily done in every single way, and I feel like just the way it treats its female characters is one of the very lazy components. John Williams composed the music for his and it's the worst. Like, it's just no one is doing a good job. I think that they give us a female protagonist and they're given the source material for a very interesting, nuanced character, and we just don't get it. Women be servant sandwiches, women be providing exposition, women be talking about shoes. It's just like it's just also fucking lazy and is a bummer on many levels because there is a good movie to be had about the subject matter and this was not it. It's like there is a movie called The Pentagon Papers, which have you seen it? Is there? I haven't seen it years ago? Okay, I should have done more research on it. Sorry, everyone. If you know about the movie The Pentagon Papers, please twe someone's favorite movie. It was the movie was co written by a woman, Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, so you feel like it would have been a better movie. But just kidding, not this time, not this time. But yeah, I give it two nipples. I'm going to give one of the nipples to Zach Woods because yeah, I like him a lot, but he didn't blind this movie. And I'm gonna give the other uh nipple to Sarah Paulson because she also deserved way better. Yeah, I mean, I guess I would give it to grudgingly um, because really, what did you want me to walk out of this movie knowing and feeling like I don't know the answers to those two questions. There's a biography about Katherine Graham that I would say we should all probably read because if Catherine am was a fraction of how she was portrayed in this movie and Bren Bradley saved that paper, then that's the movie. And why are you making that movie trying to act like she did something if he pushed her into everything, you know, I just feel like everything about this movie was sexist. If she was not awesome, then why did you make the movie? It's like, and if you wanted to make a movie that was about Ben Bradley and how awesome he was, and that Katherine Graham said, I inherited this newspaper. I didn't want to be in the newspaper business. But you're really smart, and I'm willing to put my family business on the line because you are willing to like fight for democracy. That's a movie. But like, I don't know what this movie was other than I felt insulted by Katherine Graham's ineptitude. I felt insulted by the fact that I thought I was going into a movie that was going to tell me a little bit about her journey in this historical context and didn't. And I just feel like every woman in it, I don't know who they were. It was sometimes you literally cannot tell them apart and you don't know their names. So I'm gonna give my two nipples. I'm gonna give, I guess one to Judy for wanting to have some Mike's hard lemonade. Hell yeah, what it matters. And the other nipple I'm gonna give too. I don't even know who deserves it. I guess I guess Sarah Paulson for having to suffer through that bad photoshop picture. Yeah, we all had to. We were right there with her. I feel like I feel like Steven Spielberg or you know who, whomever tied to him. We're like, we want to make a journalism movie. Give me five ideas for a journalism movie. And he arbitrarily was like, oh, women are hot right now, like the woman journalism movie. And it's just like every it's just so thrown together and wishy washing, and the movie doesn't know what it thinks about itself. And then it ends on that horrendous like like a bad SNL sketch of Richard Nixon imprisonator. But like, here's the thing that, like, after knowing they made this movie because of the parallels of the times, like they chose the subject matter but also of the times, is now you know, it's like, then, do a movie about women in journalism who we don't know about because they got sucked over by creepy bosses. Who are the women we don't know? Like, where's the journalism version of Hidden Figures? Make that movie? Yeah, that's what we need. We need, we need the hidden figures version of every everything in the world. It's hidden figures of and call me later. It's the new hidden figures, extended universe, forgotten women through history. I mean, it's just unbelievable. There's like, way too many cool people who did really cool ship like that. I can't even and we don't know about them because history has buried them. The Post has gotta go. Yeah, it's gotta go. Don't like it, and it's going to be. It's nominated for everything, to the point where I don't think that anyone who like nominated the Post for an award has actually seen it. No, I don't know, because it's not winning no way, didn't win anything. No good. No, it's also you have to nominate Meryl Streep or uh, Ninja comes after you, Caryl Streets, Ninja, Army Street. I'm sorry, You're right, Meryl Street. Well, Liz, thank you so much for being This is so much fun. I'm saying I loved it. I come back. Are you Do you have those one guest rules like the people who like, No, you can't five years dad whenever you want? Okay? Policy? Where can people find you online? Is there anything you'd like to plug? Oh? My gosh. Yes, you can find me online at Liz Winstead on all platforms. I spelled my name with two z's because I'm an ass whole um. And then maybe what you want to do, because this is going to be super fun. On February first, Lady Parts Justice, which is my reproductive rights crazy comedy organization, is to a big livestream telephone at Lady Park Justice dot com. It's Rachel Bloom, Sarah Summer and I are hosting it and it's a whole fun evening two hour broadcasts of comedy and learning about what's happening to reproductive rights and abortion access and how you can join in and have fun. You can pledge. Mark Hamill is going to be sitting for two hours making crafts that are going to be auction. It's gonna be Does Mark Hamill make craps? Yes, he doodles and he does crafts and he's a bunch of stuff like you have me at Mark Hamill jass. Go to Lady Parts Justice dot com for all the info. It's gonna be a ballas there may or may not be a Piniona that is the patriarchy with garbage inside. Oh my god, gat my blood pressure is rising. Yeah, well hey on that. You can follow with the Bechtel Cast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, You can go to our website backtel cast dot com, tweet on US, rate and reviews on iTunes, Pledge to our page. Yeah yeah, coming up on the Patreon in February, it's Oscar. What did what I call it? You called it biopic March? Okay, but it was actually February, and it was actually not even biopics. It was it was Oscar Watch February. I accidentally called it biopic March about forty sons. But this month in the Patreon, we're doing a Tania and the Disaster Artists, which are biopics. So I understood your mistake, but unfortunately it was not for March. I don't know why I spent the whole day thinking it was. But subscribe to the patreon five dollars a month gets you two extra episodes a month. You bet you pretty good? And yeah, journalism is alive and well, especially print journalism swelling. John Williams score doing great. All right. Bye by