Mother! with Anna Akana

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Speaker 1: On the Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have women and are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism the patriarchy zef in best start changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hi, and welcome to the Backtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Drante, my name is Jamie Lofton, and we are your hosts of this podcast about the portrayal of women in movie. You're damn right, we are. Hell yeah, I'm coming from Chuck E Cheese. You come from Chucky Cheese. I'm not coming from there. That's on you. I know it's on my bad. Um. Sorry, it's Thursday afternoon. Where the why am I not at Chuck e Cheese? You're right, Well, we have a podcast we talk about how women are represented and treated in a film cinema cinema. We use the Bechtel test as just sort of a jumping off point yard stick, a yardstick, if you will, And our version of the Becktel test requires that movie has two female characters who speak to each other. They also have names, and the conversation has to be about something other than a man. It's really only a two line exchange. That's all we need here at the Bechtel Cast. Hey, we're not We're not putting you out now, h Wood. Not that difficult. Oh Hollywood, I see Okay, I was like, h Wood, who's that? I'm sorry, I'm coming from Chucky cheese. I'm like full of hubris and like just have a wild energy at this time. I ate pancakes like an hour ago. So I'm actually very tired. Nice. That's like a nap food. Yeah. Well, we've really established that we have pretty leisurely chill lives. That's great, good for us. Yeah. Wow. Anyways, I'm excited for to talk about the movie we're talking about today because it is a polarizing film. Yes, in every conceivable. I was reading have you seen the Rotten Tomatoes page for this movie? No? But I know that it got an F on Cinema score. The I mean the reviews between like the positive and the negative. I mean it's like both. Some people loved this movie, other people like it truly made them want to walk into the sea, which is we'll get to it. Yeah. Well that's how I felt, and I believe that's also how our guest felt. But I will let her for herself. And let us introduce her. She's an actress. You've seen her on Comedy Central's Corporate and she's starring in a show on YouTube Red called Youth and Consequences and a Conna. Hi, thanks for being here, Thanks for having me guys. So you brought us the movie Mother Mother exclamation point. I hated it so much that I was like, I want to talk about how much I fucking hate this. That's just like my favorite kind of episode, just like pull out the bloodied corns and then just whack it. Yeah, so you did you see it in the theater? I did see it in theater. I was also nega high, so I do. I thought I would enjoy it from that perspective at the very least, because I heard about the polarizing review is before going in. So it's like, you know, go in with really low expectations and it's still managed to shatter those low expectations and have a whole new bar of just terrible movie. But yeah, it was six in the movie felt like it was just a close up on Jennifer Lawrence. That is that is I I think it was very deliberately shot that way. And then like the last half hour is straight up biblical torture porn and it's just God of can't like. As the movie goes on, I hate it more and more, like there's no I saw this movie very high as well, higher than I was expecting to be, and so the first time, I'm like, I don't know if I just really hated that movie or if I thought I could hear everyone's skin and that was the problem because it was that kind of high. I'm like, oh, there's a bald man in front of me, and I can hear his scalp. That was like drug you want? No, it was like I think it was like a really strong because I don't drug that much. So when I do, how many units of drug did you do? A couple too many? I don't know. But the people I was with were better at drugs than me, and so they were like having a great time hating the movie, and I was like, I can hear this man scalp, and I cannot tell anyone, least of all him, although I want to tell him so bad that his skull can speak and it's speaking and wants to get out. But yeah, the sound, I would for what it's worth. The sound editing in this movie is a lot. Well it's there, so yeah, seeing it. Seeing it in theaters was definitely. I mean it's like, did you feel trapped? Yes, yes, okay, yeah, it's like it feels like you can leave, but I don't know. It's I mean, it's very grating and it's okay. It felt like it would never end to It almost felt like the movie was like, you think it's going to end here, because I would have been I wouldn't have been shocked at any runtime on that movie. It could have been an hour, fifteen or three hours, and it just felt like forever because no real narrative is set up. It's just an extended metaphor. It will get into it, but like there's no goal that any characters trying to achieve necessarily that we know about, so we don't know anything that's going to happen, Like any event that happens, we're just like, oh wait, what, oh this is happening now? Okay? Like and were you a fan of Darren Aronovski going into it? I was. I loved Black Swan, I loved Reccoman for a dream. Um, I was excited to hear this, especially because I'd read some interviews with Jennifer Lawrence, and she was like, I thought this was a masterpiece. I loved this script. I loved his idea, and so I went in knowing like, okay, well, I'm a fan of his work, Like I'm I want to be open at least to what's going to happen. But the moment they ate the baby, I was just like, they really bad, really bad. And and even Jennifer Lawrence later turns on this movie because when during the I don't know like at what point it started. But I didn't realize until after I saw the movie the first time and was less high and able to google things. Uh, that she and Darren Aronovski were like hot and heavy while this movie was being made through when it came out, and then from and I'm sure it's not this simple, but they broke up shortly after the movie came out, partially because uh, and Jennifer Lawrence sort of said this. She was just like, yeah, he couldn't handle how much people hated Mother, and he wouldn't shut up about it. So I was like, actually, I have to be going. I thought was pretty badass, like um, calm down, which there was an interesting parallel of in the movie where our Barden is like my writing and she's like, well what about me, Except unlike her character Jennifer Lawrence dipped immediately, which you've got to hand at her that pretty Yeah, I mean, you don't offer someone your weird glass heard at the end of a relationship become dusted. Every time I see that on screen, I want to call it the heart of the ocean references. It doesn't deserve it, You're right, yeah, so I don't feel right calling it that. Yeah, the only metaphor, like I've read like some fan conspiracy theories after seeing it, because for those of you who haven't seen the movie, it's so heavy handed in biblical references and literally just the whole message of the movie is humans are bad, We're killing Mother Earth. Were so self centered and God is this like self absorbed asshole? Thank you, Mr Aronofski. I really love your your classic original viewpoint take. But the one that I did like is someone said, if you look at this movie through the lens of being with an abusive narcissist, it actually is good, and so like they kind of ran through the movie of like, you know, like your love is never enough for somebody and they absolutely have to have the adoration of others, and they're going to put the family second. They don't even care how much you're family life is completely destroyed by your art um. And so through that, Lens I was like, Oh, that would be a much better metaphor movie than this, right, which I mean, I guess I can work on that level. I don't think that that had anything to do with the intent, which just speaks to how fucking clueless Darren Aronowski must be where that he's like, hum, your partym not so bad, pretty smart guy, seems cool, seems kind of hot, has a stone right, they're god, I mean, the one good takeaway and then you get into the recap. But the one takeaway for me is you do get to see Ed Harris and Michelle Phifer essentially raw dogging on more than one occasion, which you never see coming, and there's always like a little weird It's kind of like in the Shape of Water where they're like no ay, or they're gonna let us watch the fish funk and then you're like, oh, I guess they're gonna gonna let us watch the fish fun. Like there they linger on Ed Harris and Michelle Phip for raw dogging and so you know, not that not worth the price of admission, but one of the more interesting parts of them sure to be, and shockingly one of the least graphic yeah right of the movie. At least, I do enjoy the representation of like people over fifty canoodling very sensuously. Yeah, but it's like, yeah, I guess representation. I did not need to see it. I did not need to see and maybe this will not age well because I'm really I'm really giving it to bald people today. But I didn't need to see Ed Harris's bald head in coitas I didn't I'll say I didn't mean it. Well, it's I mean, this is that scene is one of many that does not serve the story. What story? There isn't one? Okay, well tell yeah, let me do the recap of Mother exclamation Point, and I feel free to interrupt anytime. The recap is the most plant Yeah. So Mother exclamation Point is about a woman who's we don't know. Jennifer Lawrence is character's name, although I am dB lists her as mother. She is married. She goes I am his mother. At that one point, you're like, all the title. That's the name of the movie. So she is married to a character played by Heavier Bardem, whose name we also don't know. I am dB lists him as him I think, right, mother and him Yeah, okay, him capital h like that Powerpuff Girl's character. I do not know what you're referring to. Oh wait, yeah, yeah, the gay devil. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, I'm a board. Yeah. So they are married and they live in a house, and the entire movie takes place within this house. At first, you don't really know what's going on, and then in the rest of the movie you don't know what's going on. But so Caitlin, so mother, they live in a house. Heavier is a poet, she is a homemakers far as we know. She's fixing up this house because there was a fire, and we see a glimpse of this fire in the very beginning. And then she wakes up and she's like, better go downstairs and put some ship on the wall. How did they meet? Doesn't serve the metaphor, we're not Yeah, And then there's a visitor at the house played by Ed Harris. He's like, hey, can I stay here? And she's like, you're a stranger, but Heavier is like, yeah, stay, you're it's fine. That puts me so much. Is like, almost immediately the second the movie starts, people start behaving nothing like people exactly, to the point where it's just like, well, then what are we supposed to be like holding onto here? Because that would never happen, right, Only a relatable factor was Jennifer Lawrence badly wanting a baby and Javier every time the conversation came up, pushing it off, and so you're like, okay, like they're kind of this is a stereotype, but I at least understand it. Yeah. So Ed Harris shows up, and then his wife played by Michelle Peiffer, shows up and turns out they're kind of metaphors for Adam and Eve, and then they too, uns that show up, who may or may not be cane and able. I will say that it took me into the first viewing, it took me a little while to figure out exactly what the metaphor because I did no reading on it. And then someone in the movie theater I was in was like, oh, the Bible, and everyone was like oh, like genuinely for me was helpful, Yeah, because I didn't get it in the first well, the moment when the brother killed the other brother, I was like, okay, all right now. For me, it was the rib when Ed Harris is getting sick and his rib is bleeding. I was like, oh, got it, got it, but was hoping it would take a sci fi turn and the like, no, it's just the Bible. Yeah, I don't know what turn I thought it was going to take. I thought it was just like a straight up horror movie, and like the trailers made it seem like, oh, maybe there's going to be like a visitor they like comes and Fox shut up and they have to like fight off this intruder. But think it must be so hard to have made a trailer for it too. It was all whispering over black. Yeah, like what else are you gonna do? Like just get people in with the injury, because no one's going to want to see this, right, So the Sun's show up and one of the murders the other one. So then like this is kind of when all hell breaks loose and more people start showing up and Jennifer Lawrence is like, hey, wait, you can't be here, this is my house. Hey, hey, do that I can't sit there stop. The sink isn't brave down from there so much. She's like, that's like the lowest level act of you can possibly be. It's like she's saying it and she knows no one's going to listen to her, but she's like, well, hey, so things come down because she's like get out of here. There's like a funeral sort of thing that happens for the day, which one is, Oh God, I'm going to say his name around the cute one yeah, and then the other Gleason plays his brother, Oh really yeah? And you know there's more than one Gleason. There's two Gleasons. I'm learning and is their dad the other Gleason who is in Paddington too. Don't even tell me there's a third Gleason. I'll pass out, Okay anyway, Okay, So things calm down, and she's like, oh, I want a baby, but you won't even fuck me, and he's like, yeah, I will, and then they have sex and then we'll get to that and then suddenly she wakes up and she's like, I'm pregnant. I just know that I am. And then this inspires him a k god a testament I get started. So he get started, and it's like this beautiful masterpiece. And then his publisher calls and she's like, oh my god, it's great. The twist is it's Kristin wigg for some reason, who is like wigging out in this movie. So then a whole new horde of people show up and they're like, oh my god, God, you did such a great thing. We love you. More. Chaos breaks loose, and Jennifer Lawrence says, hey, hey, you being here up and then all comes to a head. Gives birth in public. She gives birth, well, she's in a room, but then her baby immediately gets stolen and eaten, passed around, passed, ripped limb from limb, and eaten by now the fans who are in robes. Yeah, but there's also a rave happening in the corner. A rave. There's like execution, people have guns. Yeah, it's like and God's like, it's fine that they ate our baby like they love me. It's fine. Also, so I think most people agree that Jennifer Lawrence's character is a metaphor for Mother Earth, right, so like all these people showing up is ruining no resper and her mother room. Yeah, they're breaking her sink breaks one of my favorite lines in that movie. Excuse me, that's not brains, like Jeffcose most the movie trying to fix up this house and then people come and funk it all up. So there's the metaphor where humans are just fucking up Mother Earth. So at the very very end, she goes from being all like hey to hey, and she like basically lights the whole house on fire. She's all burnt up and she's all funked up and everyone's like dead. And then God carries her and he's like, oh no, what have I done? And she's like I have nothing left to give, and then he reaches into her abdomen and pulls out Allah the fifth element. When Bruce Willis's character takes some stones out of the opera singer, you guys know what I'm talking about, right, No? No, he takes out the heart of the ocean, the like this weird this like crystal from her and then I guess it resets time. It fixes the house, and then there's a new woman and baby baby. So God, this movie is so annoying. That's the story, if you can call it that. Yeah, yeah, And so it's a. It's an extended metaphor, it's allegorical. It's the laziest screenwriting I've ever seen. Well he wrote, so yeah, like the best left in the ever note is my review of this movie. Like, I was reading an interview with their in Aronowski and he said that he wrote the I know, did he read the draft in like a day? He said, five days? And it shows Yeah. I feel like every time someone is bragging about how quickly they wrote something and then you see it, you're just like, yeah, maybe do a second draft, take a little time. Yeah, Like what was the rush to make Mother Like? It's not an urgent piece of anything? Five days? Wow? Wow. So as far as the treatment of the female character goes, I don't even know where to start, because this movie is such a heavy allegory. You could say, well, like she's personifying mother Earth and mother Earth is you know, just a place she can't be that active, But then why bother making a movie where your main character can't be active Because the whole movie is her reacting to stuff. She does not play an active role, and pretty much anything decisions are made heavier. Bardem is always like calling the shots, inviting people in not running anything by her, and then she just has to keep being like, wait a minute, Hey, you can't do that, you can't be here. So it's her being completely reactionary. So even though she's the protagonist, she has no specific goal in the story, and she had except to, I guess, be a mother, and that's sort of hinted at every now and then. She wants children, and she wants to be fixing up this house, but it's nothing that specific and then and she's not active in the pursuit of any goal, so she's just reacting to all the things that are happening, which is one of the reasons this movie might not be very good. Yeah, so you have a very passive protagonist until like literally the last five minutes in the movie, right, and at which point her goal just changes to like either survive and then failing that to like, you know, wipe everybody out. It's just, yeah, it's not fun to watch. And it's like, there's almost every point when we were watching this movie together, there's no real moment with with this character that you can't counterpoint with like, oh, but how would the metaphor work if that didn't? But I feel like that just speaks to the fact that then don't tell that story. It should have been a short film. It would have been a beautiful short film. But also like the running time of this movie was like what two and a half hours. It did not need to be that fucking long. It was very long. I mean the closest I think that, like the gas lighting between Javier Burdham and Jennifer Launce, there are parts of that that are very interesting and and like his avoidance is interesting, and there's i mean a number of scenes where she's like, hey, this is wrong and he's like, what are you talking about? No, it's not. Everything's great anyways, make toast goodbye, and you're just like, okay that there's some sort of but even that is like barely paid off and paid off on isn't even the word. I think my favorite scene in this movie, even though it happens as the movie is getting exceptionally bad, but like the scene that worked for me was the scene where Javier Burden steals the baby. That was like the part of the movie where I felt like the most like my blood pressure was extremely high, and that was like, I don't know, that was like the moment for me where Jennifer Lawrence's character felt most motivated and most threatened and like most able to control the situation, and you have such anxiety of like he's going to take the baby. He's going to take the baby the second she falls asleep, and then she fall asleep, and then he takes the baby, and then things get really bad. They eat the baby, the baby, like the yeah, the worst thing you can do to all fucking baby, and they're very bad, very bad. It's one of those weird things where I don't regret watching the movie, but I never want to see it again. I saw it twice now, and it was even more painful the second time. So okay. So there's things about it that I'm like, Okay, Like you said, if you sort of look at it through the lens of it being an abusive relationship, there's maybe some things to take away from it. I think there's also some things to take away if you sort of examine it from He's supposed to be God, she is Mother Earth. But I think you also make an argument for her being just sort of like a metaphor for just like womanhood in general, Like if he's the patriarchy ish sort of thing, like her whole world is strictly domestic. It is, and I guess if you look at it like that, you could argue that the movie kind of makes a comment on how no one takes her seriously, no one listens to her. She's mistreated and it's bad, and and then she retaliates and sort of like there's like some sort of catharsis there. I don't know. I was thinking that too, but then reaching maybe because then in the end she still offers up the very last thing she has, which is weird crystal heart, and you're like, Okay, she never takes something for herself. I don't know. I I was thinking that too before I had figured out the Bible thing when I was seeing it the first time, and I was like listening to this man's head. Um. But but at the beginning, I was like, okay, there, maybe there's some sort of gender commentary happening. But then Michelle Peiffer's character comes in and it's just as awful, that's true, if not worse, to Jennifer Lawrence's character, and I was like, Okay, so maybe that's not what is trying to be said here, because the second woman we see on screen is just as dismissive and means in a way that feels if you don't recognize the stupid fucking metaphor, Like most of what Michelle Peiffer does, especially feels crazy, unmotivated of just like why are you being mean? Why are you asking this woman about her sex life, like her home right right? Like why are you getting drunk? Like what I drinking a mich Hard lemonade? Though she is drinking a mice Hard lemonade. But it's Michelle's Hard lemonade. It's yeah, that's true. If we found it up, it's weird. I I really enjoyed Michelle Peiffer's performance in this movie because I feel like she was possibly one of the only actors who knew that she was kind of in a campy movie, because I like she gives a kind of campy performance because she's like always like draping herself over a piza furniture and it's like, so tell me everything, okay, relax, but I don't know, like it's and also like this movie could have been more fun if it was if it had a more campy tone, but there's no fun. It takes itself extremely seriously, yes, and it makes it for not a fun watch, Like it is nothing entertaining about this movie, And I think like the whole message of the movie is almost so immature and juvenile, like a thought that we all have when we're like thirteen of like oh we're bacteria, man, we're ruining the first Like like so it's like, what exactly motivated you to make something that's saying something that everybody has already thought and like kind of dismissed, right, And it's like, yeah, who who is the intended audience for this? Who's supposed to be learning? Right? And what are we what are we even supposed to take away apart from the very obvious like yeah, we're fucking up the ears, but then like because it's a metaphor for Old Testament and then New Testament. But then also like Odd is married to mother Earth, Like her character doesn't really fit into that allegory because almost is mother Earth because that's what they're destroying, Like you're trying he's like doing metaphor hats on metaphor hats. Yeah, it's like too many layers and none of it really works out, especially because so many of the characters in this movie behave in ways that people do not behave. So fine, if you want to make a movie that's an allegory for something, For example, Paddington One, it's an allegory for immigration and racism, and it's done very well. But mother exclamation point is like all these metaphors mashed up together in a way that like none of it makes sense, none of it works. Yeah, it's letters are like doing things that no one would do ever in behaving in ways that no one would ever behave. It's literally like UCB one oh one ship of like you have to map something on something else that makes sense, and if it doesn't make sense, find something different to you know, fit it into. You can't just make something like it's just so forced. The whole thing is so forth And I think that he tried to possibly I'm curious, what do you think that Jennifer Lawrence was a metaphor for Earth, but so was the house and they both sort of had a weird pulsing something where the house had a womb in the basement. But then also you like you would touch the walls and then there would be like a heartbeat. They were connected somehow. I was like, it just didn't quite make it. I think that, but I'm like, what is the takeaway from that? She is the house. Also, the movie seems to be saying that religion destroyed Mother Earth, which like, what was Kristen Wigs supposed to represent? I don't know what? Was she a metaphor? For see? I so like popular religion or something. Maybe I've never read the Bible brag so I did not pick up on the Bible. I can't stop reading the Bible. I didn't pick up on other time I saw it. I watched the whole thing, and I was like, what the funk? I was like, I know there's a metaphor here, I just don't know what it is. I started reading about it, and I was like, oh, it's a Bible thing. And then I was like, because I was I'm not super familiar with the various stories of the Bible. I didn't pick up on it. They're not great. But I also like, but now that I know it, I was like, oh, yes, this movie does bash you over the head with all these metaphors. But also, I don't know, well, that's that's something that we were talking about. Two it was like, it really bothers me, and this is part of why, Like some David Lynch movies don't do it for me at all. Of just like I don't like when you go into a movie and it's like, whoever made this wants me to feel dumb as rocks for at least part of it, and I don't like that, Like it's not a good feeling. It's a very pretentious movie as well, which really it was like it felt like I was being condescended to the whole time, Like the same thing happen to me when I watched like I've watched eraser Head, and I'm just like, what am I supposed to be getting from this? What does this mean? I just I don't like doing stupid. It's kind of interesting how a director and his script can just be so condescending and dumb at the same time you're like, wow, this is a feat. You should getting a word for this. His mother also reads is like a short story that someone in ninth grade was like a little subversive would have written. Right, it takes but also it's a metaphor and they eat the baby. Yeah, this for my life. I'm just like, oh, I'm sure my brother's film school friends are roughing over this. They're like oh my god, he's a genius. It's interesting because I feel like, you know, Aroonowski is like, whatever this male outour ever heard of a male tour? They exist on this exclusively. Who chose to have a female protagonist and chose to do nothing with her? That really bothers me, and I feel like sets a fall precedent of you know, I'm sure you know. And unless he's more woke than I give him credit for that, Aroonowski would look at this and be like, female protagonist, So I'm a feminist icon. I did it. I did it because she's there, and I don't photograph her like she's porn and I did it. You see her face, I did like And that just that bugs me so much because I feel like that just lets future directors get away with a being like a man can have a female protagonist, wh stress woman direct all the movies. And and also it's like that that character Jennifer lawng as the character, that person doesn't exist. That person is never mean, none of these characters have ever. It's just I mean, that bugs me. And then it's just bad writing. As I mentioned before, she's reacting to things that happen. But she's not driving the story forward. Things are happening around her, and she's reacting to them, and she's putting up She's protesting sometimes, but almost never in a way that it actually gets results or or anything happens because of a choice she makes. Like she's just reacting to the things that are happening around her. She never alters her approach. No, that either approaches universally, Hey stop stop that. Which, like again, because she's personifying Mother Earth, you could maybe argue, well, the Earth doesn't fight back, but actually it doesn't, like deliberately, the Earth is never like making a conscious choice to be like, oh, well you did this thing to me, I'm gonna fucking have a hurricane. But it's just so weird to make the choice to personify something like that. But also like that character, just rendering her so passive is like, what's the point why you even tell a story? If you want to make a movie about people and how they've fucked up the earth Watch Koyana Scotsy. It's a weird experimental movie from the early eighties, but it does a better job getting this message across anyway. Shout out to all my Koyana Scots heads out there. Wow, really, flero that man master's degree today, Jesus Christ. I think the problem was a he wrote it way too quickly, and is soul was so passionate about it and had the resources to make a film immediately that he probably spent no time actually thinking about it or putting it in the drawer and waiting on it for a couple of months. I mean, in a a lot of the interviews, I know you haven't read them, but he's so fucking psyched on this. He's like, you know, because we ruined Mother Earth with climate change, and we we do all these and we're drilling into her and then and then all the an overpopulation, and you're like, oh, wow, like you this is a little passion project for you. You think you're being so hashtag deep. Yeah. I think he didn't take the time that he should have to really evaluate this movie. Yeah, I mean, just in general, like the more famous filmmakers and writers get, the more they should like make sure the people around them are being honest with them before they start something. Because I'm sure that you know, most famous people have enough yes men around them to be like, yeah, real hack biblical metaphor love it amazing great, But yeah, I mean, that's that sucks if you genuinely I mean, and it sounds like he genuinely didn't know how like juvenile and silly it was because perhaps no one said, um, hi, excuse me, this is dumb. Hey, you stop that, Darren kiss it a race, Darren stopped writing that scrab your dad needs another dross. Hey that he's like, too late, I'm print again. And then they eat the baby. Can we talk about the scene where so it starts with Ed Harris and all those people have left, and she's like, my life didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. You talk about wanting to have kids, but you won't even fuck me. And then he like lunges at her and is like grabbing her and kissing her, and she is very vocally physically resisting. She's saying no nos, and she's fighting back, She's trying to push him off, and he keeps doing it. He continues, and then it changes from her resisting to her being into it suddenly, which I think sends a very dangerous message. And I think this is another hint that this is a movie with a female protagonist but directed by a man. It sends a dangerous message. You see this all the time, all the time. There's a really good lade Runners, the one I always go straight to resist, Resist, Resist, and now she loves you. Like it happens in like Empire Strikes back to with Han Solo trying to come on to lay Um. Pop Culture Detective has a really great video essay about this, about how a lot of movies will paint this scene of a man kind of aggressively coming on to a woman. She is resisting, but then something happens all of a sudden because he keeps trying and then suddenly she's into it and she thinks it's hot. And what you or not mentioning is that every single character that this video, I say explores is a Harrison Fords and Fordson Ford You're fired your own notice, predatory icon. He did not write those scenes, but he accepted every sele and check. Yeah, yeah, I feel like it was more acceptable back in the day, Like say anything was this huge romantic and it's like if a fucker was outside of your house blasting music, you would be like, leave me alone. I'm getting a restraining on the ya. I was thinking of that recently because I live on the first floor, so if someone did that to me would be extra crazy because I'd just be like making direct eye contact. But yeah, so many movies have done this and continue to do this, where it's basically what starts out as a rape scene and then it turns into this romantic thing where all all of a sudden, she's very hot because he just kept persisting and suddenly she's into it. So it obasually sends a message is like, men, if a woman is resisting at first, just keep trying, try a little harder, and then she'll be into it. I mean, granted, at this point in the movie, if any man is watching Javier bar dem and is like, wow, it seems like a good example to be following they're already lost. But but the way this scene, this movie's attitude towards sex in general is very bizarro of like this is this movie. This movie seems like anti sex in a lot of ways, because anytime that Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer going at it there like like the movie I felt was like, right, that's a weird thing they're doing, right, And then there's this weirdly violent sex scene and then them having sex whatever God and Earth, Like God sucks the planet such a bad metaphor, but so and then when they have sex, it results in disaster because it results in the baby and the baby getting fucked up. Well, it's it's a disaster because of like God's hubris and like wanting to be loved by his followers, basically sacrificing the baby because of that. And right, this movie is stupid. It's just like, sometimes I have a bunch of bullet point I'm like, do we even tackle it? My notes are also so just. I mean the narratives like that was straight up distracting of like every time she because she would show up every once in a while, he'd be like, oh yeah, wait what and then she magically turns into like a military person in the basement and they're all all at war and bombs are going off, and you're like, what the fuck this is? Yeah, this is a bad thesis film. It's not great. Can we talk about I guess the relationship between Jennifer Lawrence's character and Michelle Peiffer a little bit, because that's relevant to hard discussion. I mean it does you know, well, we'll get into does anyone have names? And therefore can it ever pass the back? Right? Yeah? So, but there is a there's a sequence where gen Law and Michelle talk, and it's usually Michelle Pfiffer like prying about her sex life or sort of judging her for other choices she's making, and everything she does is wrong, it's the thing. Yeah, yeah, She like makes all these bad hand of remarks like yeah, no, he probably still loves you, like yeah, your husband, I guess maybe likes you, and and uh, do you want some of my Michelle's hard lemonade family recipe? And later on when she returns after like the random murder that happens in the how, like oh yeah, which leads to feminist icon floor vagina right when the floor of the house just has a vagina all of a sudden, Yeah, and it's bleeding. It's free bleeding all over the place floor vagina, also feminist icon ed Harris whenever he at one point is like, Jennifer Lawrence, do you redid this whole house? And she's like yeah, and he's like every detail and she's like m m and he's like, so you're not just a pretty face feminist icon head hair just kidding. So the relationship. Yeah, Michelle Phifer and Jennifer Lawrence are just like a very bizarre situation where no strangers would talk like that. And I means mostly a Michelle Fiber's part where she's just like, why do you do your laundry so fucked up? What is this? What is this? I'm drunk bol and you're just like whoa, Like where what do you want? Like it's unclear to me outside of the metaphor what Michelle Phifer, why she's being so antagonistic and what kind of reaction she's hoping to get out of Jennifer Lawrence, Like it doesn't Well, they're all just yeah, they're all props for the metaphor. They literally don't make sense or don't exist outside of it. Well, like, I mean again, I have a very limited understanding of the Bible. But it's Eve who takes the flight of the Apple. That's like the original sin thing, and that's basically the fall of man. She's temptation, she's belligerent, she didn't listen. It's like the whole why why emulate that in a fucking current movie? Like that's not how it's just stupid. They're one of the things about Jennifer Lawrence's character, and it's like this whole time, we're like like, we're really really reaching for things here. But the the idea of the female protagonists trying to be polite and like a good hostess and respectful to all at all costs was something that was like, Okay, there was another moment during Kristen Wiggs press conference, you know, when Kristin Wick just starts having a press conference during this terrible movie, when there's like a mom and her son and she Jennifer Lawrence is like trying to be like, you cannot come in. She's like, but my son's pissing, and she's okay, fine, you can come in, but you have to leave. And then it turns out everyone's pissing for some reason. I was like paining and understank. Anyways, I thought I had a point, but it turns out I didn't. Well, I mean, maybe it's kind of what I was touching on earlier, where if this maybe this character is a metaphor for like the way women have historically been treated, where you know, we're conditioned to be accommodating and we have to be helpful and and and and delicate and all of this stuff and and how that's not really serving anybody, and like that's not good and that's not how it should be. But like, I don't think that Dannia Rondowski was necessarily thinking that, Like I think that's all, but it is, like it is so infuriating to see the only things you see Jennifer Lawrence's character doing is either cleaning stuff up or making breakfast or fixing up the house or just like endless domestic chores, doing laundry, you know, Jennifer and cleaning up a mess. Um. We touched on this a little earlier, but I did want to mention like how the female protagonist is framed in this movie, and that like almost every shot is either a close up of her face or a shot from her, like an over the shoulder or just a straight up point of view shot from her perspective, which I think is I guess you could call it interesting. It's unusual. It's not what we usually see in most movies, especially because most movies are not told from a woman's point of view, like and this this one is yeah, literally her point of view. It's like a point of view shot from I mean, it's kind of I guess kind of an even split of looking at her and looking from her point of view, right, So I mean maybe something I can take away from this movie is Okay, that's interesting that that choice was made, because often if it's a male director framing a female character, it's usually sexualized in some way or like, and I never find you get to see her share night gaw in a couple of times, you do. I mean, they do have that scene where all the people are attacking her on the floor and like her boob comes out and they're like grab which like why what what? What is that serving? Why is that scene? And being in a room with your boyfriend and he's like, yeah, yeah, hit her And I was like, ah no, no, how did he know that scarf? He's like, hey, Jennifer, just um lie here on the floor and get your face beaten. In all of these extras for my awesome, freaking you're gonna love it mother, I felt like I could see the male gaze on Jennifer Lawrence the whole movie, because she was completely perfect the entire time, Like she never got more in disarray as the movie went on until that very very ending section. But even then, like when she was running around. Her hair was perfectly in place, Like all the shots were like so close and intimate and like this gorgeous lighting, so it didn't were like sexualized, but it felt like Darren's way of viewing her almost. That's a really good point. Yeah, I hadn't thought of it that way. It's too bad because I I don't think this movie got nominated for every Razzie pretty much. I think he got the most nomination. And it's too bad because I don't think Jennifer Lawrence does a bad job in this movie with what she's given, which is not a lot. If seventy percent of the dialogue you're given is hey, like there's only so much you can do, and and given the fact that the camera is focused on her for so much of the movie, I feel like she and like Michelle Peiffer, felt like that at least an interesting job with what they were given. However, your burden, I don't know. I was like not loving him in this movie, Kristen Wig, what are you doing here? Ed Harris? I'm maybe like afraid of bald men's time, so like I don't have a good game fan of bald women test, but bald women are in charge every single time they appear on screen. Bald men, their scalps can talk, and they have really scary secrets to tell you. I mean, one of the huge problems is this movie boils down to because the director was like, we gotta have this metaphor. It's at the expense of characterization. So none of these characters feel like real people and therefore it's I mean, it's kind of hard to talk about them. So like before we started recording, I was like, what am I even going to say about this movie? Like how can I even talk about the female characters because they're like, they're not real people. They don't resemble human behavior at all. So it's just like, how do you even talk about the portrayal of women when these female characters they're just like metaphors and allegories and personifications of the ship. And no one's relationship makes sense. We don't know. There's very little evident about like why have your Bret m and Jennifer Lawrence would love each other in this for relationship? What keeps their relationship together other than her constant service. One of the more baffling character connections was like Ed Harris showing up in Javier Bardim just being like I love this guy, and that that goes through every single time. Ed Harris is like, I've been lying, and how your bards like you're so fucking real like and they're they're weirdly. I guess it is because like, because God loved those were his creations, so he loved he had, he loved them, and he's like, Wow, look what a good job I did with all this stuff. And I guess the movie is saying, oh no, God didn't maybe do a good job because everything got fucked up by the end Aronowski second draft. Come on, come on, it have been great to see the third, fourth, fifty second draft or I think that that would have ended in the trash if anyone had taken a good, long, hard look at what this movie is like, maybe skip it. He should have sent his script to me for notes. I would have given him great notes. Doesn't even have any other thoughts about the portrayal of women in all Right, Well, how about we talk about whether or not the movie passes the Bechdel test. I say no. I would say no to because the characters aren't named. Yes, if they had names, it would have to pass. I'm pretty sure because of the scenes with Jennifer Lawrence and Michelle Peiffer, but they don't have names, no matter whether I AMDB Page says sometimes I AMDDB Page says, Hey, the twist is they did have a name, but we'd never find out what it is. We never find out in the movie. Yeah, and we never and it's you know, I'd be more inclined to give it a benefit of the doubt if we knew, like, well, at least we knew a lot about the characters, but we didn't know anything about the characters either. So so I'm gonna not to come to this movie's defense at all, but I'm gonna argue that the caveat of the characters having to have names implies that, oh, these characters have to be important enough that we would know their names. So it can't just be like a random person we see and one scene that has one line, and if that character talks to another woman with a name, like, I think that's what that that caveat of the backdo test is saying. So it's like it has to be two main characters speaking to each other. So these are two main characters in the movie. So the fact that they don't have names, I think is just like whatever, and the artistic choice and the fact that they don't have names is an a gender decision because no one has names, correct. But but test is extremely flawed and I don't write so it doesn't. Yeah, I mean, I'm fine with saying it doesn't because of the name caveat, because otherwise, I mean, let's say they do have names. And then those two characters, Yeah, they talk about Mike's hard lemonade. They talk about like you suck just like sorry, and a lot of what they talk about are like domestic chores. And again that's a lot of what you see Jennifer Lawrence's character doing in the movie. But they are talking about saying they do mention man. But there are plenty of two line exchanges between those two characters that would pass the test if we knew their names. I don't want to give anyone a reason to be like, yeah, maybe I'll give this movie a chance. Yeah I'm not. I'm not gonna. I think I won't give it a pass just because they don't have names in this movie sucks really bad and it yeah, fuck it. In conclusion, let's write the movie on our nipple scale zero to five. Nipples where we rate the movie based on its portrayal of women go negative to nipples. Uh yeah, I'm gonna have to give it a zero just because of how inactive the protagonist is, how the relationship with the one other main female character is just like bonkers and doesn't make any sense. But the movie isn't like pro man either. That's the thing. It's not like, Wow, look how good a job men are doing. Isn't even like it's not specifically insensitive to women in a point a way. It's just insensitive to filmmaking and things that are good, a slab in the face to anything that's ever been good. Yeah. And then even at the end when she sort of has her like, oh, actually I do have a little tiny bit of agency and I'm going to blow the whole house up, and then she dies and then gets reborn into this other woman, so she doesn't even get to like have a cathartic moment that she actually gets to like enjoy and like reap the benefits of, because when she just dies, and then it's the whole thing of like, oh, well, God gets to start over because he's God. I give this movie zero nipples, but I give it one floor of Va China. There's no way around it. Great. Um, well that'll do it for our discussion about Mother, and I thank you so much for being here, thanks for having Where can people follow you online? It's just my name Anna Ancona great a right, Twitter, Instagram, check it out. All the stuff you can go to our website back tocast dot com. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and all the places you can buy our merch merch now hot merch or where you can. You can make those purchases on our website. You can subscribe to our Patreon. It's five dollars a month to get to bonus episodes. It helps us out, helps you out. It's a win win, you can't lose. All right, Well, what a rousing discussion about Mother as we did not like this movie, all right, well bye bye