Sunset Boulevard

00:00:01
Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy. Zephy and Beast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

00:00:16
Speaker 2: Mister Jamie, I'm ready for my close up.

00:00:20
Speaker 1: Bad news. You're under arrest. No nor acab includes particularly the cops that arrested Norma Desmond. She did nothing wrong. All she did was have a dream.

00:00:35
Speaker 2: Murdering a male screenwriter is not against the law.

00:00:40
Speaker 1: Brutal, brutal. I feel like the movie does feel that way a little bit, but maybe I'm just prigeting. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. We are washed up podcast stars. They're oh god, you know, really, is it like the second you turned thirty that you're like, oh, Norma does but you know, bushy wrong.

00:01:03
Speaker 2: She's got some interesting ID you know, maybe she's onto something.

00:01:07
Speaker 1: Maybe I should live with a little chimpanzee at my house and would that be so bad? Oh?

00:01:13
Speaker 2: I felt so bad for that really weird looking chimp. I don't know what the prop department was doing, but.

00:01:20
Speaker 1: It was like, what, Okay, I'm not even gonna say it, there's something Nope, never mind, Okay, Yeah, I'm washed Up Podcast star Jamie Loftus.

00:01:28
Speaker 2: And I'm Washed Up Podcast star Caitlin Dernte And this is our washed Up podcast. Hell yeah, where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test as a jumping off point.

00:01:45
Speaker 1: Oh, this movie has a fun pass there. Yeah, what just happened to my brain? Holy shit? Happy New Year? Yes, and here's what the Bechdel test. We're too washed up to even talk. Oh my god, so sorry. Our brains are just so old and decaying that we don't even know. We think we're on the set of soloam or whatever? Can you keeps spacing out in the middle of this recording and being like solo where what? Anyways? Sorry, our feeble little brains aren't working. The Bechdel Test is a media metric originally created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel with her friend Liz Wallace, which is why it's often called the Bechdel Wallace Test. It was originally created just as a one off joke in her excellent comic Dikes to Watch Out For, as a way of drawing attention to how little queer representation there was and how infrequently women spoke to each other. Lots of versions of the test. Our version is this, we require that a character of a marginalized gender with a name speak to another character of a marginalized gender with a name about something other than a man, for two lines of dialogue. Most movies don't do it. Past present, and I'll say it future. I don't think we moved the needle very much, but that's okay. And today we are discussing a movie that has been on our request list forever and one that just felt like it would be fun because it features the most depressing New Year's Party ever committed to film, truly, And we just hit the New Year, and so it's high time we cover Sunset Bulevard nineteen fifty directed by Billy wild At. That's so true. Who is German not Australian? Yeah? Wait, huge news. Caitlin and I were talking to an Australian guy the other night at a New Year's party that was not depressing. It was very fun. It was very fun, and he complimented your Australian accent.

00:03:45
Speaker 2: He did and did. I felt so honored.

00:03:48
Speaker 1: It was truly like, in the seven years we've been doing this, the first time we've received active encouragement from an authority and it felt really good. Yeah, so thank you Trint for for the compliments that did not pass the Bechdel test. So hope you're taking notes, Hope you're keeping up correct.

00:04:08
Speaker 2: You know what is going to pass the Bechdel test though, is when we take a little detour to plug the tour that we have coming up.

00:04:19
Speaker 1: Yes, it will totally pass the Bechdel test because a tour is famously genderless.

00:04:23
Speaker 2: And it's about Barbie, the Barbie Movie.

00:04:26
Speaker 1: I'm really excited. I just don't have a bone of hate in my body for the Barbie Movie, except for the few that we'll talk about at the show. Yeah, we were touring five cities coming up at the beginning of February. We are covering the Barbie Movie in every city. February first, we'll be at SF Sketch Fest in San Francisco. February second will be going over to Sacramento. Oh, Greta Gerwig vibes much everything about that Lady Bird. Our Barbie show there is sold out, but we still have tickets available to our second show, which is about the Wolf of Wall Street, which is like basically the same movie on same experience. You'll be fine, too much. Bring the luds, yes, yeah.

00:05:06
Speaker 2: Then after that we are heading to Texas and doing a show in Dallas on February third, a show in Austin on February fifth, and then we are circling back around to southern California and doing a show in San Diego on February tenth, recovering Barbie at all of those shows, and tickets are still available, although they're going fast, so yes, make sure you grab your tickets, which you can do at Link Tree Slash Bechtel Cast. And you're gonna want to see us live because here's the thing we put on a show. It's a spectacle. Okay. We are ready for our close up at these live shows, you know we are. Certainly we wear outfits, we do slide shows if we have time, we do audience Q and.

00:05:56
Speaker 1: A sound really exciting. We wear close and there's we played games, we've sung, we've danced. We really put on.

00:06:04
Speaker 2: The eat sometimes on stage.

00:06:07
Speaker 1: We do didn't have to be fed. It's kind of like, you know, a crossover between like a fetish video and a sexy college lecture, so so coming down and then we always we have tour exclusive merch and then we do meet in greats afterwards. So yeah, it's it's always a fun time and we hope to see you there. Indeed, don't believe we could have a fun time talking about a movie. Well, listen to this, Caitlyn, what's your experience with the movie Sunset Boulevard.

00:06:37
Speaker 2: So I saw it for the first time either late in high school or early college. I would have been like seventeen eighteen something like that. I knew that it was a very culturally significant movie, you know, one of the greats from the classic Hollywood era. So it's been on my radar for a very long time. And yeah, I watched it once then probably once again for like a film school assignment, and then maybe even a second time for a film school assignment when I did go and get my master's degree in screenwriting at Boston University, a fact that I never mention, and you know who probably doesn't have a master's in screenwriting from Boston University is Joe Gillis.

00:07:28
Speaker 1: Oh, I was like, whoa, why are we yelling at me? Yeah, it's true, it's true, and that's why he's such a failure exactly, and maybe that's why he died. It makes you think, Yeah, I have a similar experience with this movie. I hadn't seen it in a bit, but I would consider it in sort of my top tier of movies. I've seen it many times. I saw it for the first time, I think in college first just for fun or like the film program, like we've discussed like, oh, I have to watch this movie because like this movie is I think, like fantastic, and it's also heavily assigned. I've like a lot of people watch this movie for school, and maybe more people should watch it for fun because it's fun to watch. But yeah, I think I've mentioned this in the show in past years. I took this class in college that not only aged tremendously poorly, but at the time students were like what the fuck. I had a class called Wilder, Allan and Kaufman, and I took heavy objection to it exactly one of those directors. I didn't want to. I wanted to study the other two and not the middle one. Blah blah blah. It was like twenty thirteen, and they were like, shut up. Anyways, I quite enjoyed the Wilder portions of that class, in the Kaffman portions, but for the sake of this conversation, I sort of became a proper Billy Wilder fan through taking that class. I think he's a really fascinating person, complicated, certainly imperfect, but like I really like his work. And I mean, I think this is my favorite Billy Wilder movie. But I mean it is like kind of not to like start the episode out by like handing it to a man, but I really really like, I mean, the amount of incredibly influential movies that he turned out in this course of his career is absolutely I'll say it is Wilder. Wow.

00:09:21
Speaker 2: I mean, You've got Double Indemnity, which we have covered a couple of years ago on the show with Anita Sarkisian. We have not covered, but other very notable movies of his include The Seven Year Itch, The Apartment, and Some Like It Hot, which is probably my favorite Wilder movie.

00:09:39
Speaker 1: I mean, like it's almost like a three way time between ugh, because we were also talking about covering The Apartment this week, because it's also like a holiday time movie. It might be a tie between the Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment for me, but some like it Hot is also so great. See he also directed Sabrina like he did a lot of great work. And I was trying to read where I know that he had contentious relationships with actors and actresses. It seemed like but I think he's been through several rounds of film buff discourse of is his work pro women, is his work anti women? I think the answer, as with most people, is like somewhere in the middle, and it depends from text to text, and it depends on the years coming out all this stuff. I love Sunset Boulevard. I love the performances in it, and I really I mean, I hadn't watched it, I want to say, for maybe like three or four years, and there's so much to talk about. But I think as it's probably my favorite movie about movies. It's a good one. Yeah, And I feel like it still has a lot to say in a way that feels like kind of depressingly not dated. This movie is over seventy years old, and it still feels like what it's saying is still very relevant to how the movie and just works, but also very specific to the silent era and like, I'm really excited to talk about the context of this movie because Norma Dusmond is such a complex character that I feel like you can view a million ways, some of which are we'll talk about all one million. I just have like such, I can't imagine being Glorious Swanson and having like this experience and then being like, here's the character, and then not just being like, Okay, I can compartmentalize my entire life and career and play this caricature of an actor and while watching my movies that were directed by.

00:11:39
Speaker 2: Marriage and whatever, yeah, and.

00:11:43
Speaker 1: That movie was directed by him, and like compartmentalize it and not just be able to compartmentalize it, but like deliver such an iconic performance that like is so stripped of artifice, and like it's just and I have issues with that in some but I just like, I don't know, I can't watch this movie and not be like, oh my god, I don't know if I could even consider doing something that would require compartmentalizing your ego to that extent.

00:12:12
Speaker 2: It's unbelievable, I know, right Well, shall we get into it with the recap.

00:12:20
Speaker 1: Let's do it.

00:12:22
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break first, and then we'll come back.

00:12:37
Speaker 1: And where we're back.

00:12:39
Speaker 2: All right, So here's the recap of Sunset Boulevard. But before that'll place a content warning for suicide as well as emotional abuse in a partnership.

00:12:54
Speaker 1: If you're triggered by a character named hog Eye. Hog Eye, I have so many questions about Haguy? What was going on? How Guy? There are a few lines in this movie that are obviously, like, very famous, whether you've seen the movie or not. But hello, haw Guy. You're like, whoa, that's the greatest line rate I've ever heard.

00:13:17
Speaker 2: Because it's also not clear because he identifies himself if she remembers so yeah, he says, Hey, it's me, how Guy, and then she responds hello guy, but it's we don't know if she recognizes him and knows him or if she's just like being like.

00:13:31
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess she does, so I'm gonna guess she's actively listening. But just like the way she greets ha guy and he's so thrilled iconic, Oh my god, yeallo all right EPISP.

00:13:48
Speaker 2: The movie opens on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.

00:13:52
Speaker 1: I've ever heard of it? Oh, I can see it from my freaking house. Oh my gosh, I can't wait to die in a pool. Okay, So the police are heading to a huge mansion on Sunset Boulevard to investigate a homicide because the body of a man was found floating in the pool of a movie star. Yes, I feel like you know, narration is so often like overused or like as a lazy tool, but it rocks in this movie. And there's also that sort of moment where like Joe the William Holton character, as like, this isn't a famous thing to say yet, but he's like, you're kind of wondering how I got here. Huh, well, it's kind of a weird story.

00:14:36
Speaker 2: We go take it back, like, let's flash back to six months earlier where we meet and we get voiceover narration from a struggling screenwriter who, again I can only assume is struggling because he doesn't have a master's degree in screenwriting.

00:14:53
Speaker 1: It's so yeah watching this, I mean, just like individually, you're just like, wow, I don't like that I can relate with Joe and Norman No Bad and Betty like, oh I know, it's almost like it's a really good movie.

00:15:10
Speaker 2: Okay, Wow, Okay, So This screenwriter is Joe Gillis played by William Holden, and some men show up at his apartment to try to repossess his car because he's several months behind on payments. He needs some quick cash. He mentions two hundred and ninety dollars, which is nearly four thousand dollars in today's money. Bad and that situation, yes, So he's trying to go around town and borrow money from friends.

00:15:40
Speaker 1: No luck.

00:15:40
Speaker 2: He also goes to Paramount to pitch a story idea, hoping that he can sell a script, but the producer isn't interested because a script reader named Betty played by Nancy Olsen is like, yeah, I read that script and it sucked.

00:15:56
Speaker 1: So I honestly it's like, you have such Betty, I kept writing down Caitlyn vibes when he's like, what do you think?

00:16:04
Speaker 2: She would just be like nu, it's a trite and boring.

00:16:07
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then they meet up again later and you're like, oh, she's good, but she's just as hard. She's just like, no, it's bad. I still don't like it.

00:16:14
Speaker 2: But then she's also like, but I've heard your talented and I can see your potential, so let's collaborate and.

00:16:20
Speaker 1: Right, which is like at least grounded in the fact that she's seen work of his that she liked, but like none of the work of his that she liked has ever been produced, which does feel true to far. Yeah, I really like that exchange between them where she's like, I heard you had talent and he's like, not this year. I'm trying to work this year. I'm like, damn me too, me too.

00:16:37
Speaker 2: Man relatable. Yeah, Okay. So Joe leaves and while he's driving down Sunset Boulevard, he spots the guys who are trying to repoe his car, so he speeds away and ends up in the driveway of what appears to be an abandoned mansion, and he hides his car in the empty garage. His plan is basically to skip town, take a bus back to Ohio, and kind of just like give up on the Hollywood life. But as he's there examining this mansion, he hears a woman's voice and it turns out the house has not been abandoned. Then a butler named Max played by Eric von Stroheim, who, if you don't know, is a prominent Silent film era director who directed a movie starring Gloria Swanson, and.

00:17:29
Speaker 1: Don't worry they show a clip of it. Don't screen it this god.

00:17:35
Speaker 2: Yes, So anyway, Max the butler shows Joe inside and the woman whose voice we heard had mistaken Joe for being an undertaker who's there to remove the body of a dead chin.

00:17:49
Speaker 1: Pansy monkey undertaker. Yeah what, and the chimpanzee has been dead. I dare I say for a while, it seems like so it looks dry, uh huh, yucky, it's nasty. Anyway, it's real meet cute. At the top, they kind of do like start vibing immediately, like you know, it's fundamentally an abusive relationship with this first encounter, I'm like, are they vibing right now over the whole dead monkey situation?

00:18:21
Speaker 2: But in a very it's like a very neggy Yeah both ways with these two way nagging street they're weirdos, they're sick. So anyway, Joe is like, you got the wrong guy, But wait a minute, I recognize you because the woman is Norma Desmond played by Gloria Swanson, a silent movie star who used to be very famous but hasn't worked as an actor since talkies became popular, which is something that we learn she deeply resents that you know, she's not working anymore, and.

00:19:00
Speaker 1: That she hasn't completely accepted that she is no longer a big current start, and also that she struggles to accept the fact that she's aging and accept her own mortality because of how older women are treated in Hollywood, which I feel like this is one of the few movies of this era that like, well, we'll get into it, but like it's at least suggested and clear that there is a systemic reason that she's trained to see herself. It's all over the place, but like, I feel like it's clearer than you know, normally you see a woman over forty much less fifty that the call is coming from inside the house, and this is just something that happens at least this movie, I think. Does a lot of current movies do to contextualize it. Yeah, true, but it doesn't free her from you know, the troupes, all that stuff. It's so we're covering well, yeah, I guess this will come out in sequential order. We're covering May December coming up next week, and I know it's just because we've been sort of preparing for these episodes beside each other. But there are these like interesting parallels between you know, just like an older woman and by old, you know a woman over fifty, right, yeah, whose whole life has been constructed to protect her from reality, amongst other things. But it was just interesting watching those movies side by side and being like, oh, obviously I know that Todd Haynes has seen Sunset Boulevard, but there is like just the haunted house feel to it for sure. Yeah.

00:20:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was also getting some misery parallels. Sure, yeah, a movie we covered some time years ago. Yeah, And I was like, wow, I bet Stephen King watched.

00:20:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like, oh, I love having the genius thought that maybe a famous director has seen one of the most famous movies ever, Like could it be? Are you anyway?

00:20:59
Speaker 2: So Joe recognizes Norma Desmond and she's like, oh, wait a minute, you're a writer. Well, I wrote a story about Slome that I want Cecil B. Demill to direct, and she wants Joe to read her very long, handwritten script.

00:21:22
Speaker 1: It's got Santi University vibes. I was like, wow, literally, Norma Desmond wrote her Santi University. And also she's like, and no one will produce it.

00:21:31
Speaker 2: It's six hundred pages.

00:21:34
Speaker 1: Yep. She won't take.

00:21:36
Speaker 2: Notes, certainly not, And so Joe starts reading it and it turns out to be like poorly written, melodramatic drivel. But Joe realizes that he can try to squeeze some money out of Norma if he offers to rewrite the script. Yeah, and she's like, well, you're Sagittarius, so I can trust you again.

00:22:00
Speaker 1: It's like, no, No, that's the worst reasoning I've ever heard.

00:22:07
Speaker 2: There's another scene later on where she's talking about, like today is the exact right day to drop off the script to Cecil b de Mill because of like the alignments of the planets and how she's a blah blah blah and he's a leah or whatever.

00:22:22
Speaker 1: Like she's like, la women are going to LA women. It doesn't matter what decade it is, exactly the position of the stars is what is going to make or break their flopping career, you know, sure, yeah yeah, And also like we don't even need to ascribe a gender to it. That's just simply what it's like out here in general. It's true. And if you live in La and you think you're immune to it, you just haven't lived here long enough. I don't think.

00:22:49
Speaker 2: I quite recently was like, okay, fine, I'll finally figure out what my like rising and moon signs are.

00:22:59
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, wait, you should get a chart reading from my friend Cameron. Shout out Cameron Farmer's chart. My boyfriend just got his chart read by them, because he also was like, okay, you win, La, you win. I will find out about the start I know.

00:23:18
Speaker 2: And then also a few years ago, I bought crystals. I went to House of Intuition, I remember, and I bought crystals because I was like, these are gonna change my life and did they certainly not.

00:23:29
Speaker 1: But they're pretty A bunch of people just threw their phone in across the They're just like god, damn it. They're all like this. It's kind of true, but like, you know, victimist crime unless you get into like a wellness called don't do it. Don't do that, just don't do that, just don't Yeah exactly. Anyways, Norma Desmond not immune. I was just it was funny to be like, oh wow, nineteen fifty and yeah, yeah, it's just always been like that.

00:23:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't realize it, but it's true. Good for her Okay, So Norma has Joe read the rest of her script. She makes him stay the night to finish reading it because she won't let the script leave her house. She sets up a room for him and he's like, Okay, this is fucking weird, but whatever, I need money.

00:24:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:24:14
Speaker 2: Then he wakes up to discover that Norma had her butler, Max, bring all of Joe's stuff to her home. Basically, she wants him to move in while he's working on her script, and he's upset and freaked out, but he decides to get to work and get it over with as quickly as possible. But Norma is like hovering over him. She's being very controlling, and it's also clear, like you previously mentioned Jamie, that she's like she's been very sheltered. She's perhaps delusional. She's also very egotistical.

00:24:55
Speaker 1: And there's a big twist that like triple validates this late in the moon, but like, it still feels very like Max is like her protector. It's how I think of my eldest cat, Flee. Flee has Max vibes where he's like, don't disturb her, she's working.

00:25:16
Speaker 2: But yeah, she she's very like self absorbed She's always responding to fan mail from her adoring fans. She always insists on watching her own movies, things like that the.

00:25:28
Speaker 1: Fan mail thing was another May December overlap for me, where the Juliete more character like it's the same three neighbors keeping her bakery in business to appease her, and like, yeah, just sort of this like privileged but contextually upsetting and like fundamental, like just the bubble that you're stuck in. Granted, I have far more empathy for Norma, and you know she knew what she had to do.

00:25:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, So more time passes and a dynamic starts to emerge between Norma and Joe, where basically she becomes his sugar mama.

00:26:09
Speaker 1: Whoa, I said, I don't think I've ever heard you say that phrase out loud.

00:26:14
Speaker 2: It felt so weird coming out of my mouth. I'm not gonna lie. Someone clipped that, is that even the term sugar mama?

00:26:21
Speaker 1: Is that any So sugar mommy, sugar mommy? I don't know. I don't know. I think sugar mommy, sugar daddy. Yeah, but then sugar mama is a character on the Proud Family, And so how do we square that we don't know.

00:26:37
Speaker 2: The bottom line is Joe is her sugar baby.

00:26:42
Speaker 1: That's definitely true. That's okay, okay, and we're back.

00:26:45
Speaker 2: And we're back, and Norma seems to be into him, but he at present is not into her.

00:26:54
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:26:54
Speaker 2: We also around this time find out that Max the Butler is the one who is sending all of the fan mail to Norma, and so Joe is like, yikes, okay. Then he attends Norma's New Year's Eve party, except that Joe is the only one who Norma invited and because she's in love with him.

00:27:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she's like being actively predatory, creepy yeah, And so he's creeped out and he leaves and goes to his friends New Year's Eve party hosted by Artie, who says that Joe can stay with him for a few weeks because Joe's trying to get the hell out of there. Artie really gets the short end of the stick of it. I mean, I guess Joe dies, so that doesn't end very well for him, but there is like a poor Arty later on. I'm like, already did nothing wrong except ask someone to come to Arizona, which is like generally do that, No offense to all of our treasure. We just got so many subscriber Oh you la, people think you're better than Aaron Zona. And here's why the stars are on my side. Just kidding, I don't know what I'm talking about.

00:28:06
Speaker 2: Let's get Yeah, don't listen to us anyway. Artie's girlfriend is Betty, the script reader from earlier, who mentions to Joe that she has read another one of his scripts and she's like, it does suck for the most part, but there's this flashback with a teacher character that has a lot of potential. Yeah, so they're talking about that.

00:28:31
Speaker 1: Betty's good at her job, like she's direct, but she's also constructed, like the lady knows what she's doing exactly, and she's only twenty two. She's got a future in this town. Tell me about it. Well, we'll get there. But it's just like, God, I mean, I guess you already know that Joe dies. I'm just like, you know, he really would have been dead weight and her life so sorry, sorry, But also like, what she gonna do move to Arizona? I sure hope not. I hope she was like, Hey, I just need to be single for a while. I think that that's that's why she does do that.

00:29:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, but before then she and Joe are flirting a little bit, even though Artie is in the next room, and so.

00:29:17
Speaker 1: That's not very that's not very nice. And then also I'm like, well, she's twenty two or whatever. Yeah.

00:29:22
Speaker 2: So then Joe discovers that Norma is horribly distraught and that she attempted suicide after he left her New Year's Eve party, so he hurries back to her house to comfort her, and then they kiss, and then it fades to black, which I feel implies they have sex.

00:29:47
Speaker 1: I'm on board with.

00:29:48
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yes, So now Norma and Joe are like together.

00:29:53
Speaker 1: I love what it says on scholarly journal Wikipedia that maybe laughed. Joe returns to Norma and there relationship becomes non platonic. Oh they fuck, They fuck? Yeah hard. I mean, I don't know, we don't know, we don't know.

00:30:14
Speaker 2: The production code wouldn't show it.

00:30:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like, the writers new, the writers do it. I believe Billy Wilder knew how Norma fucks, but we just weren't privy to that information.

00:30:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Joe and Norma are together now. But also Joe bumps into Betty again, and she is urging him to work with her on this script idea, and he's like, I don't know, we'll see. Then the script of Norma's that Joe has been rewriting is finished and it gets dropped off at Paramount Studios. And then a few days later, Norma and Joe go to Paramount to see cecil B de Mille, and Norma thinks that he wants to direct her movie. But it's clear to us, though not clear to Norma, that Demil thinks she's a nuisance and he wants nothing to do with her.

00:31:11
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk about this scene. It's a devastating scene. It's yeah, yeah, it's brutal, really is. And this is also where our friend Hagye shows up, so we have to get hello, hai guy.

00:31:24
Speaker 2: He spins a spotlight around and shines it on her, and she's like, yes, this is where I meant to be.

00:31:32
Speaker 1: And you know, Hagy got an earfull from all the mail. Probably got fired for that. God. I hope not. I hope not. He's worked there for years. Katelie's I mean the silent era, you can't fire Hog. I let him off of the warning.

00:31:51
Speaker 2: I seriously, I know. Anyway, So, thinking that she is going to star in a movie soon and make the triumphant return to the screen, Norma starts getting all kinds of facials and massages and beauty treatments. She starts counting calories things like that.

00:32:12
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, women are still encouraged to do today well and also any actor.

00:32:17
Speaker 2: But right, yes, yeah, but especially the pressure because women are so highly valued for their appearance and their youth, that pressure is especially placed on women and fans. Yes, okay. Meanwhile, Joe has been sneaking out every night to meet up with Betty so that they can write this script about the teachers together. And also they're vibing even though she is now engaged to Artie, who is I think working on a film in Arizona. Anyway, One night, Max catches Joe as he's returning from sneaking out, and Joe is like, Max, we have to put an end to this charade. What happens when she finds out that there is no Demill movie and Max is like, she'll never find out. I was the one who made her a star and I'll keep her that way. And then this is where Max reveals that he directed all of her early movies, and that he was Norma's first husband.

00:33:21
Speaker 1: Why wild That twist never ceases to be, like, so you're doing what right?

00:33:30
Speaker 2: And I think, let me know if I have this right. But it seems as though they were together and then she rose to stardom and then left him and he couldn't handle it and he came crawling back, and then she made him her servant.

00:33:48
Speaker 1: Is that what happened? It seems like I would say he certainly is still in love with her, yeah, and also has this sort of paternalistic control over her life too, because it's like I hadn't ever really like thought past, like, well, what would Norma's life look like if Max wasn't there? And I think that like he clearly thinks that she would be actively suffering without him, preserving this delusion and kind of keeping her trapped in this house to an extent by taking you know, making sure all of her needs are met. But I you know, it's like possibly not like you will never know because you know she's been preserved in this place. I don't know, Yeah, Like the push and pull of like Norma is absolutely an emotionally abusive person and like extremely manipulative sort of by any means necessary, while having serious mental illness problems, will also, by any means necessary, keep the people she wants around around her to preserve these delusions of grandeur that she has. But it's also like there is so much patriarchy that surrounds her, right, and like.

00:34:58
Speaker 2: She has this enabler who is like playing into this delusion. So it's fair.

00:35:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a I mean, it's it's such a good movie, yeah, because it's just like, yeah, the cycle of abuse is present in every single character, and like you can argue that the you know, Joe being straightforward with her is a gift in a way, but it also is like it's what gets him killed. It's it's good that this will be demil sequence that leads into Max revealing that like she's Grew, I'm Kevin, and you're just like, huh, got it. It is kind of a Grew Kevin situation. If there was like three hundred Maxes, it would be think about.

00:35:43
Speaker 2: That, right, So Max is the Kevin le Mignon in this scenario.

00:35:48
Speaker 1: Dominions, He's all of the minions in one guy. If Drew had married one of the ominions. Anyways, it doesn't quite work in any case, we make.

00:36:02
Speaker 2: This work, Okay. So we get all these like intense reveals and we're like, oh my gosh. Meanwhile, Betty is talking to Joe and she's like, I'm not in love with my fiance Alretie and my fiance yes anymore. I'm in love with you, Joe. And then they smooch on the lips. And so now Joe is trying to figure out a way to leave Norma. But oh no, Norma, unbeknownst to Joe, has found the script that he's been working on with Betty. So Norma calls Betty to tell her like what this situation actually is with Joe, like who he lives with, how he lives, who's bankrolling his life basically, and then Betty goes over to Norma's house to see for herself what's going on. Also, Norma has bought a revolver, and we're like, okay, checkof's gun alert.

00:37:08
Speaker 1: Yeah. Literally, I think that that scene with Betty is so I mean, like Joe, it makes sense what Joe's doing, and I think that he is so overcome by like shame and frustration and at least I mean one of the few men in movie history baby that can correctly identify when he's no good for a woman and she's out of his league, and he is like, and I will move to Ohio, and you're like, wow, more men should do that. So like he understands that, like, even though he would like this relationship with Betty actively in a way that I think kind of plays on movie tropes where it's like, you know, usually if you have the like, no we can't, they will by the end. But like he at least has the presence of mind to be like, this relationship with Norma is too fucked up, yeah, and it like speaks to like what is Norma really a symbol of? But like, by extracting himself from that relationship, he's also extracting himself from like the Hollywood machine, right, and everything fucked up about it.

00:38:14
Speaker 2: And extracting himself from this cycle of abuse because he has been lying to Betty and withholding all this information from her, and that's so much of what's been happening between like Norma and Max, and I think, right, Joe realizes that he is like perpetuating that same cycle onto Betty in a different way, but totally he's still very much like withholding information from her. So he's like, I don't I can't keep doing this. I don't want to be a part of this period.

00:38:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's really interesting and like speaks to her naivete as like a younger character that like he brings her in, tells her exactly like this is the way I've been lying to you. It is tempting for me to stay for these very cynical reasons, and she you know, I think again it's like a little bit of a play on what we expect where she offers him forgiveness. You know, I could see that going either way, like she's horrified by it but offers him a fresh start essentially, but again he rejects it. He's like, no, I can't you know, because yeah, I think you're totally right, like him, staying with Betty first of all, will absolutely make her life worse and also will keep him in this Hollywood cycle of abuse. And it's like, I feel like we're led to believe weirdly that like Betty is maybe it's not even you know, fast forward thirty years, Betty is likely extremely jaded as well, because that's just what happens yeah, but that like it seems like she for reasons that it's like you know, aligning like youth and beauty with like they'll be fine. But I think that it's like set up that she is better suited to this life because she's like it's a generational thing with her family and she's had this experience with acting and leaving acting, and like she has the healthiest attitude about Hollywood out of anyone, And I think it's because she's from there and like her parents do behind the scenes work, so it's like the less ego driven positions that are are sort of better suited to understand this is just how it goes if you work in this shitty, garbage industry. So I don't know, I sort of went into this viewing being like, uh, how do I feel about Betty? Is she an underwritten character? But like, I don't know. Coming out of it, I was like, I'm never going to argue with more, but I feel like it's really clear where she's coming from, and like not that she is like higher functioning in this industry and like and it has a healthier attitude and avoid like it does make sense to me why she's kind of letting things roll off her shoulders but still works hard kind of vibe.

00:41:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I'm excited to talk about her more just because of her attitude toward the film industry and just kind of how that informs different things about her character. But yeah, it's all very fascinating anyway. So Okay, Betty is there at the house. Now. She's trying to encourage Joe to like run away with her and like escape this scenario and leave, and he's like, no, I've got a decent setup here. So Betty runs off heartbroken, but Joe decides it is time for him to leave and actually like go through with moving back to Ohio and just getting out of Hollywood in general. So he starts packing his belongings and Norma's like, what are you doing? Why are you leaving me? And he's like, wake up, Norma, there is no Demil movie. The fan mail you get is fake and you're not a star anymore. And that's okay, but you gotta face Fax. And then he goes to leave, but Norma shoots him and he collapses in the pool dead.

00:42:13
Speaker 1: Great gas by vibes good for him, yes, So.

00:42:17
Speaker 2: Then after this, Norma goes into a kind of like fugue state where she completely disassociates and she's ignoring the cops and the press who are there interrogating her until the newsreel guys show up with cameras and she's like, cameras, well, okay, And then she slowly heads down the stairs, thinking that she's like in the middle of a scene, that she's like back at the studio, that she has made her triumphant return. And this is where we get the famous line from the movie, one of the famous lines from the movie, often misquoted, mister demil, I'm ready for my close up. And that's how the movie ends. So let's take a quick break and we will come back to discuss, and we're back.

00:43:18
Speaker 1: We're back. Yeah. Part of what I find fascinating about the ending of that movie, just like reckoning back to other movies we've covered and like that takes place in the same sort of span of years, is that the ghost of Joe who's telling us this story, clearly thinks that Norma's life is you know, He's like, well, I don't know what happens to her. She probably won't serve a lot of prison time because she's so famous but like, essentially his ghost is like she's fucked. But I'm like kind of worked out for the ladies in Chicago who were trying to pivot from Vaudeville into being Moidera's So I feel like, baby, she's got another act in her could be ded. He just named Richard Gear to be your lawyer, and you can really make things work. That's how I feel. I wouldn't count Norma out, I wouldn't counter out. Oh yeah, is that a good thing? I don't know. Okay, where shall we begin? Oh boy, let's see. I mean I want to do a little context for this movie, because it is like the context of it is very important. Yeah, so this is, you know, as we've already talked about a Billy Wilds a movie. He was born in nineteen oh six. He's a Jewish director. He was born in Austria, Hungary, which either way, yeah, he ultimately moved to America and began working in films. I believe that he did do some work in the silent era, but mostly worked in the talkies, which exists to this day. What in any case, this movie, it was extremely polarizing and sort of disliked in Hollywood. Communities. When it came out, it prompted Louis Bymyriage to say something very xenophobic to Billy Wilder. He said, you've disgraced the industry that made and fed you. You should be tarred and feathered and run out of Hollywood. And he kept going, oh, he like said get out of the country, essentially implied that he should go back to Germany, which to say that to a Jewish director in nineteen fifty is unfucking believable, and like Louis by mahor notorious monster, but also speaks to like uh. Billy Wilder was a very successful director within the studio system and within the star system, and this was viewed as like, how dare you bite the hand that feeds you or criticize the hand that feeds you, right, which is like fuck you, which is exactly when Billy Wilder walked up to Louisimhor and said, he said, go fuck yourself girl. He was right. Okay. The other thing that is, like we've already referenced, is the fact that so many people, because this came out in nineteen fifty, this was the time that like silent film stars that did not make the crossover into sound pictures were getting older and hadn't worked in a while. This was Gloria Swanson's first movie in like nine years at the time that she had kind of switched to do. I think it's an interesting point in history, and like the fact that this movie is as like brutal as it is, it's really interesting because it's we were seeing around this time and like would continue even for like old Hollywood stars that did crossover into talking movies, people like Betty Davis, at people like Joan Crawford, like they would be pushed into television back on stage or if they stated movies would often be cast you know, the only way to really get a leading role would be to do older woman bodyhorn, which you see, you know, as the years go on. Like I think whatever Happened to Baby Jane is a huge example of that, where it's like, well, if you are a woman over fifty working at Hollywood and you want to work outside of like the kindly mother role, what are your options? And it is sort of like Norma Desmond is like the best role available because at least it's self aware. But like in most cases, there's a whole subgenre that still exists in certain ways. There's a great video essay about it from be kind Rewind that talks about whatever happened to Baby Jane specifically, but basically it is like a whole subgenre called hag horror that you know, just capitalizes on the star power of incredible actresses when they were younger and you know, allows them to be in movies with the contingency that they are perpetuating the idea that being an aging woman is horrific.

00:47:58
Speaker 2: Right.

00:48:00
Speaker 1: It's really interesting because, like we've talked about, like Gloria Swanson, this is her lived experience. We are seeing, not Norma Desmond story, but like she, you know, was a silent film star who never quite broke out as a talking film actress. Before Sunset Boulevard, she went back on stage. She was still working. She worked, she did stuff on TV, she worked on stage. You know, she wasn't rotting in a house, which I think is pretty fucking insulting. Yeah, but her career, I think we still see this with women and fems today. The types of roles she was offered changed, the types of mediums she was welcomed and changed. And then you know, Max is played by a silent film director. It's Buster Keaton is in this movie.

00:48:46
Speaker 2: Right, Demill plays himself, and Demill is often credited as the director who kind of made Gloria Swanson a star. So there's all these really interesting parallel between Glorious Swanson and the character she plays. Again, to our knowledge, Glorious Swanson wasn't, you know, didn't have a very warped view of reality and wasn't like living in this kind of delusion.

00:49:14
Speaker 1: But no, she was like living in New York acting on Broadway like she was. Okay, right, But it's still like, I honestly haven't studied Demil as a person very much. I know that he was a notorious conservative. I know that he was, you know, obviously deeply complicit in many of the sins of early Hollywood, but it is I think it's really kind of admirable that he was even willing to be in this movie as himself, kind of acknowledging the system that he was still complicit within, because like that de Mill scene was shot on the set of a huge movie he was directing, Like it was exaggerated versions of the actual reality, where it's like he still hadn't even directed, you know, the time, he hadn't even directed in his is hit yet when this came out, And you know, as far as Glorious Swanson's career goes, that, like Sunset Boulevard is a huge success for her, She's nominated for an Oscar. It's an unbelievable performance. But it's like the question is at what cost? Like you know, Cecil b de mill is not asked to make these huge ego compromises in order to continue working in an interesting way, And yeah, that scene is like just so brutal and like the way that he comes off, I thought like it worked where it's like he clearly has sympathy for her, but not empathy and not enough to do anything about it.

00:50:41
Speaker 2: Where be direct about like I actually didn't like your script, and he just sort of like lets her believe what she wants to believe, and he's too much of a coward to like be clear about what's gonna happen, and instead he's like get Gordon Cole on the phone and tell him just because the reason.

00:51:00
Speaker 1: That right, he's like, someone else take care of this. I don't want to take care of this, right, yes, yes, But then also like I think he doesn't come off as a complete monster. And I thought that was an interesting choice too. I mean, I guess that kind of makes sense where it's like that's where like it's particularly gross, where he has sympathy for her, he understands her predicament, but he doesn't want to deal with it because he does sort of defend her before she comes in the room, where they're like, oh, wasn't she a fucking nightmare to work with? And he was like not really, Like she was great to work with at the beginning of her career, she was really smart. And then you know, the more famous she got, the more difficult she became to work with, which also plays into stereotypes around actors, especially women, especially the further back in history you go of, like being characterized as being difficult could mean just being assertive and not.

00:51:52
Speaker 2: Rolling out advocating for yourself.

00:51:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so we don't really know, we don't know enough about the period between you know, Norma as a young woman into a woman in her fifties. But he has that really good line a dozen press agents working over time can do a terrible thing to the human spirit, Yes, which is a great line and also is like it makes set, like who but him would fully understand what is happening to her, and he does have the power to do something about it, as does any highly influential director. You know, does her script suck? Certainly seems like it like offer her a part that is not in this you know, it's I feel like, because Norma's whole world is designed to protect her from rejection or change, there are all these missed opportunities for potential compromise, right to get her back out into into the world. And so it does feel like these paternalistic men who want to appease her but don't actually want to help her in any way, Like she's completely doomed. Our girl is doing.

00:53:03
Speaker 2: And there's so many layers because like they're feeding into this ego of hers that is almost bound to form in a scenario like this where you're so doted on and you have all these adoring fans, and especially when you get famous super young, like she did. I think, yes, it's mentioned that she was discovered when she was sixteen, so you know, she's a very young person when she becomes a star.

00:53:33
Speaker 1: Just like my theory. By theory holds that you become frozen in maturity at the moment you become famous. Yeah, and so she's still acting like a kid like and it is like they don't shy away from the fact that her I mean, it's it's like funny the way that she It's sad, but it is funny how she talks to Demil where she's like, all right, I don't care about budget, you figure that out, and I won't work more than six hours a day, just like Norma. Come on, we got it, okay, But like that level of entitlement, Like I don't know, I kind of like that the movie doesn't make her tragic in the way that it's like and she's not even asking for much like she is asking for a lot. She's a diva. She's not being reasonable. Yeah, she is a diva, but that doesn't justify the way that she's treated, and it also doesn't justify the way she treats people like. It's just extremely messy. I think what I've seen talked about with Norma a lot over the years, which I do agree with, but it's like, because it's such a complicated movie, I don't think that there's any like simple way to be prescriptive about her. But there are like we've sort of been hinting at there is the tropes around older women are fully present. We see characters like this all the time, even now. The idea of like this is a woman who has not accept did that she's aging. And what I think this movie does well, even though I think it is way over the top and like the Norma character is more a symbol of how a whole generation of actresses were treated and discarded, as opposed to like an actual experience that happened to anyone. My favorite quote about this was from a former Silent actor named May Murray who saw the movie and said, none of us floozies. Was that nuts? Just a very old Hollywood way to say that. But so obviously it's not even reflective of Glorious Swanson's experience. It's an exaggerated version of how women are discarded. And I think that what works about Normous Character is that you get the full context. I think with other older women, it's just presented that this is how older women are, not this is how the world treats older one right, right.

00:56:01
Speaker 2: That's the thing with this movie that I think makes it so great, which is that a lesser movie would say, yeah, this is just how older women behave Why doesn't matter the way that you know, women are conditioned to feel about themselves as they age.

00:56:22
Speaker 1: What's that? Never heard of it? You know not?

00:56:25
Speaker 2: But this movie Okay, so it presents a woman who is quote unquote past her prime and who is characterized as being delusional. She's controlling, she's very conceited and self obsessed. But there's also this component of, like we said, she came out of this like system where like which is fundamentally abusive, super abusive, so focused on image, and so heavily values youth in a special women it does tend to chew people up and spit them out, and again, especially women as they age. This is clearly what had happened to Norma. And again, like we mentioned, there's the component of she became a star when she was super young. She like you know, came into all this money. It seems like she invested in oil boo and real estate.

00:57:27
Speaker 1: Oil boo, which is like, I mean, that's some rich lady shit like. And I also think that it is a good choice that she still has money because it's like, yeah, that it's not like she's down on her luck in the financial sense, But it's like all of the loneliness and like isolation in her life is fueled by feeling discarded and and it feels like whatever underlying mental health issues she may have had when she was very famous are so exacerbated by the predicament that she's in. And also I think, yeah, like you were saying enabled, however well intentioned, you know, you could debate all day, but by people like Max who are like actively preventing her from trying to live life a different way because of how he is enabling her current lifestyle that is killing her. It's like, I it's upsetting to hear the repeated attempts to take her own life and that like this has happened before, but there are no changes made to her life. And certainly so it's like Max is a really difficult character for me because I like he doesn't have her best interests at heart, at least in a long term sense. Like maybe in the short term it's more comfortable for her to believe these things, but it's clear that like I don't know, and it's painful to see Norma seeking out this validation from people where it's you know, I don't believe that she loves Joe. Really, they think that she has I think that he and maybe I, you know, feel free to roast be in the common. I don't think that she loves him. I think that he is someone that comes along when she is extremely lonely, who has a skill that she needs. It's a mutually beneficial relationship and that like, ultimately, I don't think she kills him in anything but like anger and jealousy, which are not love. Right.

00:59:32
Speaker 2: Yes, he's one of the first people to reject her in a way that she actually is able to interpret it as rejection because she's so surrounded by this like sheltered, enabled life where you know, he's the first person who comes along. And I really like his line towards the end where he says, you know, Norma, you're a woman of fifty, grow up and there's nothing tragic about being fifty, not unless you're trying to be twenty five, which is what Norma is trying to do.

01:00:11
Speaker 1: But I also like that line. It's another amazing line that is so loaded because it's coming from a man, because it's like he is like on paper in a perfect world, he's right, but it's like he doesn't I feel like, even though he understands that the world has done Norma this injustice and not in a way that feels underwritten in a way that I think is kind of genuine to a lot of people who don't have that experience of just being like, well, why don't you just snap out of it? And it's like, well, you know, it's presenting like, well, what are her options? Certainly what she's doing is not working for anyone, especially her, but like it feels like the alternative that she's being presented with is disappear gracefully, and that is like what women are, especially you know, women, the further back you go. And it's like she is operating at the highest privileged level. She's a rich white woman, and she's still nonetheless being asked, you know, can't you just gracefully disappear? Like why can't you do that? And I think that this movie, like I don't know, I think in this movie, maybe it doesn't make an overt suggestion of like what is the alternative because I don't think there is an alternative for Norma at this time. I mean, if we're being pragmatic, the alternative is go to TV, go to the stage. But like, I don't know, it's Norma is an ego monster in a way that a lot of actors are ego monsters. I don't think that it's like a you know, a gendered gender thing. I think that the way that people with big egos are treated is in a gendered way. You know, for sure, no one's calling a man a diva. They're like, he knows what he wants and he doesn't take shit from anyone, and like he's.

01:01:58
Speaker 2: Just going method and blah blah blah.

01:02:00
Speaker 1: God. Yeah, but you know when women do the same thing, they're difficult to work with whatever. But she is an ego monster, nonetheless, yes, but yeah, it's like what are her alternatives? And it seems like Joe's like, why don't you just quietly like, you know, can't you just be normal? And you're like, she kind of can't. Like not that that makes it, that justifies any of her actions, but her whole life has been constructed in a way that it's like, what does normal look like?

01:02:25
Speaker 2: What does normal normal look like?

01:02:29
Speaker 1: You know, fact, what does normal look like? Garfield?

01:02:32
Speaker 2: Wow, I just love a cat named normal because I used to love Garfield so much.

01:02:36
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he was a really good cat shout out normal. Yes, like she is.

01:02:44
Speaker 2: An ego monster, but she's a product of this environment that turns people into ego monsters. And Joe, Yes, it's He's right when he says, grow up, you're behaving like a child based and there's nothing tragic about being fifty unless you're trying to like desperately cling on to youth, which again she is doing because she is a product of this you know, nasty Hollywood machine. Yeah, but he's also complicit in this in the sense that he is a writer actively working in Hollywood, and his just complicit in this system that does value youth and beauty in women and that like choose them up and spits them out.

01:03:31
Speaker 1: So and it like makes sense that he's finally comfortable saying this when he I feel like I've had I mean, obviously not to this extent, but like you know what, like your friend is like I'm leaving La, I'm fucking done. And then and then you just start saying shit, and like this is his his moment for that where it's like, you know, he's done with this industry. He doesn't need to preserve any bridges. He's done, and so he can finally just be like this is fucked, Like I'm your fuck. This is bad. Pops the bubble because he decides he doesn't want to benefit from it. I don't know, I didn't remember, Like it's a small detail, but I was like, he better not take that stuff. He does it, he leaves the stuff. He's just like, fuck it, I'm gonna go work at this job in Ohio. And you know, at that point in the movie, I wanted that for him. It's it's too bad that he gets killed two minutes later.

01:04:23
Speaker 2: There's something to be said though, for like, look at this man who is able to accept that he didn't make it in Hollywood, and so he's gonna go back to his you know, humble beginnings and do whatever it takes for him to survive. But he's accepting that the Hollywood thing didn't work out for him, whereas.

01:04:45
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, but I guess where I would contest that a little bit is like because.

01:04:50
Speaker 2: He's like half I mean, I think the Betty character helps to balance that out.

01:04:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also that like Norma has such a wildly different experience of Hollywood. He hasn't even been successful, so it's sort of like, well, Yeah, it's kind of a lot like you can't be doing much worse than you're doing. You're like kind of a prisoner, you know. So it's not like I didn't feel gendered to me that it was easier for him to leave because there was nothing for him there anymore, and then like it seemed like his only way to stay there is to be in this horrific I don't even know if you can call it a relationship, this like cycle of abuse that he is a part of, but it is also very much a victim of, and I don't think that that is something to shy away from. I think that again, if we're going back to like movie criticism of the mid twenty tens, which is where we came out of and then we you know, grew up like Norma can't, but that like there is a hero and villain of this story, there's not Like Norma is tremendously abusive and manipulative at times. Joe is like lies and manipulates people as well. Betty's kind of the only person who's chilling and like, give her time too. She's twenty two. She'll probably you know, become a monster if she hangs out in Hollywood long enough's inevitable. But I liked going back to your point about like the writer being complicit in this system too. It felt like this movie also had like a pretty layered approach to that because it's true, but it's also like demonstrated how the way that the system is encourages that where it's suggested and it's like we don't really get a clear idea on like what Joe would be writing in a perfect world, so like is he brilliant? Probably not, but like he's trying to sell this shitty, bullshit idea that almost sounds like someone pitching a Netflix movie right, like they're like, I don't know someone famous, isn't it baseball something? Is this anything? But how it's it sounds like recently suggested that like this is not the kind of work he wants to be doing. He would rather be doing something creative and different, but that's not the sort of thing that's going to allow him to make a living. So that's also like drawn attention to God. Yeah that the line about being like, yeah, yeah, I know you've heard a head of talent, but I want to work this year, like vibe that, I get it, I get it. I get it.

01:07:18
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, there's that. And then but I also just I mean representation of a woman telling a male artist that his art is bad and try it.

01:07:31
Speaker 1: Loves it no matter like if they're flirting or not, Like she's just like I cannot tell a lie.

01:07:37
Speaker 2: At that point, they're not flirting because that's like their first meeting and she's at work and she's just like giving her honest, professional opinion and she's like, oh, yeah, I covered that script and I passed on it because it was trite, and I was like, hell yeah, dude. And then also later Demil calls Norma's script awful, but presumably he read the version that Joe rewrote and like punched up and it's apparently still very bad. So I think Joe is a flop. He's not a good writer.

01:08:12
Speaker 1: See again, I'm gonna come to Joe's defense here as someone who's done punch up work. Some things are unsavable and sometimes fair. And it also sounds like if she's hovering over his shoulder being like, no, you can't take that seat out, it's like, well, how much work did he even really get to do? True? I say Joe innocent in that instance. I do sort of wonder why because there are multiple times in the movie where Joe is like, hey, Betty, like you can have this, I don't really want to do it. I'm like, why doesn't she just do it? He's given her permission multiple times. Why doesn't she just do it? But maybe that's a good I don't know as far as Norma goes to sort of wrap up that discussion, Yes, to really fully explore her, we would have to talk moment to moment how she's behaved. I think that there are many tropes present in her character, undoubtedly. I think that her character uses these tropes to really exaggerate the point it seems like Billy Wilder is trying to make about how Hollywood choose actresses up and spits them out. And I think that in that exaggeration, there are moments that are like feel almost like I felt bad that Gloria Swanson had to act them out because it's suggesting that this could be her own experience when she was a person, and like, it was really interesting reading about her process of becoming involved with this movie because she was a huge star at Paramount and there is like a degree of truth to that like line that Norma says when she goes into the Paramount lot of like, you know, why should I have to check in? I'm the reason this place exists. And Gloria Swanson was such a huge early Paramount star that there is like some tongue in cheekness to that she didn't want to have to audition for this part. She's like, why the funk would I have to audition? That's silly, And George Qcoor, who is like another big old Hollywood director, was like, just do it, like you'll regret not doing it. But she had to make ego compromises in order to play this ego monster, and I just like, that is not the fault of Billy Wilder, but it is just an example of, like, even to make this movie that is hyper critical of Hollywood practices, those practices still had to be in play in order for it to even happen. And there were a lot of silent film star actresses who were like, fuck you, I'm not doing this. Mary Pickford said no, May West said no, I think And you can't fault them at all to be like, well, and I don't think I would be able to do They're like, hey, do you want to play like a podcaster who's like a huge fucking loser. I would be like, I'd rather not. I don't know, I'd rather not. I was like, is there, Yeah, it's not even like hard, No, it's just like, is that really my only option is there? Which it seems like for Glorious wantson to get back into a major movie, this was the option and like that fucking sucks.

01:11:16
Speaker 2: Yes, but that okay. So this is interesting where the reason that a lot of stars who were considered or offered the role of Norma Desmond, the reason they turned it down informs something which I'll talk about in a second. But so like may West, who portrayed herself as a sex symbol even into her forties fifties beyond, she was offended that she would be asked to play you know a quote unquote Hollywood has been because she's like, I'm still fucking hot, Like that's not the image I want to portray.

01:11:52
Speaker 1: The May West rejection's the best one. Yeah.

01:11:54
Speaker 2: Then you've got an actor named Clara Bowes. She was yeah, famous member her Silent Movie era star. She declined the role, saying that she didn't want to engage in the film industry again because of how hard it was for her to transition during like sound films, and I think it just like rung too close to home.

01:12:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:12:19
Speaker 2: Norma Shearer also rejected the role due to, like I think, similar reasons. She retired and she just had a distaste for the script. She just didn't feel like the characters someone she wanted to portray. But that brings me to this movie and how it does acknowledge the effect of societal expectations that are placed on women as far as like, you know, you always have to be young forever. If you age, you are rendered irrelevant. There's this strong pressure to stay young and beautiful and all of this stuff, which is this is sidal pressure, but also like very very prevalent in Hollywood, which is so image based. Yes, this movie also again acknowledges what probably led her to become such an egotistical person. Do I think that there could have been a few more explicit lines of dialogue that address this a little bit more explicitly? Maybe maybe they would have been too on the nose, but I feel like there are ways that the script could have addressed and acknowledged those things a little bit more. Sure, thoroughly. But the movie for the most part, does acknowledge all of these things. And even though there are tropes present as far as like, well, yes, of course an older woman is going to be delusional and she's going to be jealous of the younger woman, because there's that part where Norma calls Betty, who becomes Joe's new love interest, and she's like, well, you don't even know what's happening. He's actually with me, and things like that. But these tropes are you know, tropes often come from some grain of something that's true, which we see from the reasons that those other actors rejected that role. So like, it's all very interesting and it's just handled and I think of a more nuanced way than a lesser movie would have done.

01:14:32
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I really really love this movie. I just I also, like, I can't fault any actor for not wanting to play that role, because I mean it's so you know, reflective of what's happening within the movie. Of like, this is Norma's big comeback, and this was Glorious Swanson's quote unquote big comeback into film that yeah, required a level of ego compartmentalization that we don't ask of male actors, is all I was sort of getting at. But it's still, like, I think, one of the best performances I've ever because it's like it's like sad and it's also goofy and scary what she's doing with her eyes. It's still am big.

01:15:16
Speaker 2: It's the pictures that got small.

01:15:19
Speaker 1: Oh she's just iconic. I love things were queer, but they were about to get queer. Always true with this performance. She Oh god, there's moments where she goes like she does this little gremlin voice that I love, where she's like, you know, I'm not afraid to die and you're like, oh my god, Hello, she can go big in that way, but also have these moments of like complete devastit. It's just so fucking good. She's so good. But yeah, Norma, I think that what you just said is a great sort of bow on the Norma conversation. Oh thanks, but we've got a Betty. We've got a Betty here, we sure do. We've got miss Betty. I like Betty. I like her. I thought she's got a good head on her shoulders. I like you said before, I like that she is. And again I think it is just an element of because I just think of like people I know and work with who grew up here tend to have a healthier attitude towards the sort of bullshit that takes place, because it's just like you're brought up knowing it's bullshit. Right, It seems like that is sort of where Betty's coming from. Where she's referenced that she's like a third generation Hollywood worker, not a Hollywood star, and then we haven't even talked about her experience as an actor, which I thought was a really really interesting narrative decision to just add that, because it's like in like the space of a scene completely helps you understand where she's coming from and why her attitude, Like it was almost like she was spared this potential norma future, right, right.

01:17:01
Speaker 2: So her backstory is that, like you said, she comes from a Hollywood family in the sense that her parents and grandparents worked in Hollywood, but were never in those huge roles either as performers or like directors.

01:17:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, like lighting, costuming dn't work, yeah, stuff like that.

01:17:23
Speaker 2: So like she's a Hollywood the real she comes from a Hollywood family, but it's not like nepotism necessarily it's not like all that ego is not present in her character and her kind of line of work. Then you learn that she because she came from this, you know, like working class Hollywood family, it would maybe be expected that she would also work and oh, let's try to make her an actor. So her parents had her take like acting classes and all this stuff, and then when she went to do auditions and screen tests and things like that, it's mentioned that they didn't like her nose, so she had cosmetic surgery it seems to quote unquote fix her nose or you know, have surgery performed on it, and then you know, the casting people liked her nose now, but then they didn't like her acting, so she never made it as an actor. And it seems like this is something that she accepted and went to work as a script reader. But as she tells Joe, she's like, I don't want to do this forever. I'd like to advance in my career. And that's one of the main reasons she tries to like strike a professional relationship with him, because he says something like he's like, thanks for your interest in my career, and she's like, no, it's not your career I'm interested in, and it's mine, Like I was hoping to get in on this, make some kind of deal because I don't want to be a reader all my life. It seems like she wants to be a screenwriter.

01:19:00
Speaker 1: Right, and it actually like is if she's quote unquote just a reader at this time, it makes a lot of sense that she would try to find a writing partner who has at least had some work produced to get her first screen credit and then, you know, like, if she's smart, kind of ditch Joe and start doing her own thing. Right now, what she's doing makes complete logical sense. I love the story about her almost becoming an actor and then having that taken away. But like she, I think because she has a more grounded view of how brutal the industry is, because she's grown up around it. It's not this devastating ego blow. Like she's she's adaptable and that's why she survives and because of And again it's like I think that there would have been a time where I would have watched Norma and Betty and thought that it's like suggested that one is adaptable and one isn't, And like there's a good kind of woman and a bad kind of woman. But you still have all the information you need as to why Norma was not adaptable. She never got an opportunity to be adaptable. She became really famous when she was a kid. It's all she knows. Are there people who become really famous as kids who are adaptable people? Certainly? And like it's always going to be a person to person thing. I think what is generally true is people who become famous very young and then are fairly well adjusted as adults tend to have a good support system around them, which Norma very much does not. It is not so as exaggerated as her fate is. I do feel like you're given all of the information as to why Betty is comparatively well adjusted. I don't think it is a like youth equals good old equals bad situation. Then they add in this love story, which is just like, I don't know. I think that this it undercuts like we've been saying for seven years. Adding a love story is not an inherently bad thing. It's just like, well, what is it adding to the story. I think that like, you don't lose anything in this story if it is like a professional relationship dissolving and not a romantic one developing. Completely agree, And that is like as close as I feel like you have to just a trope, be a trup.

01:21:25
Speaker 2: I agree because like, the two main female characters in this movie both fall in love with Joe, and I'm like, first of all, why although I understand why Norma and we already talked about this, whereas like, does she actually love him or.

01:21:43
Speaker 1: He is useful? You know what's going on there? Exactly?

01:21:46
Speaker 2: Like she probably you know, thinks she loves him, but I'm sure she has a pretty warped perception of what romantic love, like healthy romantic love is.

01:21:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, so she kinda like she LOOKI had no problem killing him. He that is to be what indicates that, you know, I mean, obviously taking into account the mental health cliff that she is falling off of the entire movie, I think that that it like demonstrates that this was not love. It was like, I want someone around me who will help preserve this reality that I live in, and once he doesn't do that, she kills him. Exactly.

01:22:27
Speaker 2: That's not yeah, it's that it's she's deeply lonely, it seems, and he's a young good looking guy who comes.

01:22:36
Speaker 1: Along and has also William Holten like he I mean he's hot.

01:22:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, it stands to reason why she would be drawn to him. Yeah, But why Betty is drawn to Joe I don't quite get in a romantic way. I can understand why she's like, oh, like, this is someone who can potentially help me in my career, and she's not going about it in any sort of manipulative way, like this is how just networking happens in Hollywood, where you're just like, oh, this is someone.

01:23:12
Speaker 1: No, And that's like she's not pretending that she's doing something she isn't. She's very honest about right. I mean in the same way where it's like it would be very easy for her to bullshit him and be like, oh, yeah, I'm interested in your career, but she's honest about it. She's like, no, this is like a mutually beneficial thing. And they're collaborating in a way that felt like progressive of like you don't see women professionals acting that way in movies of this time very much, and so like it's cool, And then I don't know, Yeah, I guess it's like the only thing I can chalk it up to is like being twenty two, like I you know, certainly like in speaking for personal experience, not out of the realm of possibility that a twenty two year old can become infatuated with someone just because they're like older and kind of doing something they want to do and are nearby. But I don't think it serves the story. I don't think it serves her story. I think it serves his true in a kind of male centric writer way where it's like, oh, well, he has to make the choice between two women, and it has to be a romantic choice, where it doesn't. I think that this the choice that he's making is ultimately a professional choice anyways, because he's only with Norma for his career, and like Betty is offering him a different version of that career, I think the choice is still like adding the romantic element is just like not necessary. I mean, it didn't take up so much of the plot that it derailed the movie. For me. It just felt like thrown in suddenly, and I know that they were like flirting and vibing the whole movie. I wouldn't have minded if it was just kind of left there where it's like they have this like horny. I don't know. I just hope she didn't go to Arizona. And I also kind of felt bad for her boyfriend. I was like, that was yeah. He was so nice to Joe. He's like, yeah, you can live at my house. I'll do whatever. You're my bud. And then he's like, all right, time to hit on your girlfriend. You're like, come on, men get better at being friends. Anyways. Yeah, I think that the romantic element like did the least for me of any relationship in the movie. Yeah.

01:25:21
Speaker 2: I mean Hollywood has been wedging in hetero romances for decades. I know we see it here and it still happens to this day.

01:25:34
Speaker 1: I wonder if that was like an original part because Billy Wilder's so funny and interesting, and I just I really admire him, and I know that probably there's something horrible. I don't know about I really admired me, but I really love him and I like hearing about just like he was just a little rascal, where like he would submit the pages for this script to get approved a couple of pages at a time. You just sort of trick people. And then he said he was adapting this from a text called A Can of Beans, and they were like, okay, like he'd led people to believe that. He's like, oh, yeah, it's based on this book I read called A Can of Beans, which is so funny. You're just like, wow, you really can just don't ask people who we've here to read a book if you just tell them the book exists. They're like, yeah, totally a can of Beans. I heard about that. I just thought that mus really funny. Yeah, do you have any they asked you what to touch on for this movie? Not really.

01:26:37
Speaker 2: I just Norma engages in like as she's I guess seducing Joe or like what however you want to define that or what predatory? Yes, she is engaging in predatory behavior because there's that like line of voiceover narration from Joe where you know she would be showing him one of her silent films and he says something like you know sometimes she'd clutch my arm forgetting she was my employer. Yeah, and then you know that escalates, which I feel like you could argue is leaning into a trope about older women that sure they are inherently predatory because no one sees them as romantically viable people. Anymore, so of course they're going to engage in, you know, sexually predatory behavior.

01:27:40
Speaker 1: You're like, now, listen, I don't know how to what exactly to make of it, but I think that it is I like, I am inclined to agree with you, and also like, yeah, like that older women will prey on younger women and that's like one of the few kinds of older women that you see, or just like an older woman who is single, there has to be this air of inherently like she's desperate, right, and it can't be like, I don't know, like you could even be an older woman and be lonely and have it not translate to that behavior. But I mean, I guess the only thing and I'm obviously not trying to justify the behavior. I think to contextualize the behavior. I feel like that behavior is somewhat in line with Norma's entitlement right to how she treats people. So it didn't feel like out of step with the character. But then that speaks to like, well, who is the character. It's Norma Desmond. She's a menace, but also she's wounded and she has a product of her environment hurt people, hurt people, Damn, damn. Wow, someone tell Billy Wilder that. I think that's all I have to I just I love this movie. I love how challenging it still is, and I love how it interacts directly, not even like just with like the history of Hollywood up until this point in a really brilliant and smart way. Also Edith Head costumes just shouting that out. Oh that's that's always a good detail. But does it pass the Bechtels test? Wow, like low Kia does. Like, I think I'm giving it the edge. I think you could make the argument that you know, the grand context is Joe. But there is a brief phone conversation there's it passes like once kind of back to back with like Betty and her friend who we do get a name? Oh, we learn her name at some point.

01:29:38
Speaker 2: Her roommate right, who like drives her to Norma's house.

01:29:42
Speaker 1: Yes, she is weirdly given a name in the car when she's driving her. Either way, we do get her name. We could argue she's sort of like someone's on the phone. That's important because it's Norma. Yeah. And then it also there's like two lines of dialogue at the beginning of that phone call. The pass between Norma and Betty before Joe inevitably comes.

01:30:04
Speaker 2: Up right, So it's a it's a loose, soft pass.

01:30:11
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give it, but only because I just like this movie.

01:30:16
Speaker 2: But it does demonstrate how little women interact in the movie. But that's not what this movie is about. If Norma had more female friends, yeah, maybe she wouldn't be in.

01:30:31
Speaker 1: This I think she'd be a better shape. I think her life would be in better shape.

01:30:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, But society, you know, conditions women to, as we've talked about many times, be in competition with each other and not have you know, support and camaraderie. So Norma probably was just like although I think there are those scenes where she like invites other Silent Film era stars, including Buster Keaton playing himself, and a few other people that I didn't recognize who they were, but they were real Silent film stars, yes, yes, and a couple of them are women. So she does seem to have some friends who she plays bridge.

01:31:11
Speaker 1: With, so it doesn't seem like, say, Tice. I think that that's like part of what makes that seem sad. It's like they're all together, but they're all kind of like again, makes me totally understand why silent film stars would be like fuck you, Billy Wilder, because it does sort of present the entire silent film actor generation is kind of like checked out and zongked and just like drinking shuffling their thumbs around, you know. And I also understand why it's like, oh, well, that's a fun part for Buster Keaton to take because he survived that era, so it's like, well, you know, he's fine. So again I get why it's a challenging, annoying thing.

01:31:48
Speaker 2: Yes, in any case, our nipple scale.

01:31:52
Speaker 1: Our nipple scale, no one talks about that.

01:31:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, how come the nipple scale isn't the most famous media metric of all time, which of course is our scale where we rate movies zero two five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens, keeping in mind that this is a movie exclusively about white people and this white woman and her white privilege, which is in step with Hollywood at the time. Yes, there was very, very very little space for anyone who was not white to achieve any kind of stardom in Hollywood in this era. But the fact remains that this is an entirely white movie about this very privileged white woman. In any case, the movie presents this very nuanced examination of what an industry like Hollywood Wood does two people, and particularly two women who are getting older, and it acknowledges the various context that kind of creates this kind of ego maniac character in Norma. And again, I do think there could have been maybe a few more moments of more explicit examinations of that. The movie presents it visually without being too explicit about it. But again, you know, there's always the like, you know, you don't want your dialogue to be too on the nose and too preachy.

01:33:43
Speaker 1: Right, And I think that also like part of the reason it may have been more obvious to audiences at the time as well. Sure, right, yeah, because this movie is all as shit, it is very quite old.

01:33:55
Speaker 2: But even so, the movie you know, presents these things. And whether or not it how much judgment it is passing on Norma is not super clear to me.

01:34:11
Speaker 1: That also is still like kind of eye of the beholdery, like I don't know.

01:34:17
Speaker 2: Right, because it's like she doesn't come up is very you know, sympathetic or empathetic by the end on account of her murdering someone and then being like completely dissociating about it.

01:34:31
Speaker 1: But also she's so iconic. I know so, but it's also not like a I don't know, I think like a trope. I'm getting burn dataup right now in contemporary movies is like just a kind of like good for her ending to a movie of like and then she killed him, good for her, and that is well, we'll cover it eventually, but that was like the end of poor things for me, whereas like it's another you know, good for her movie that I think, like whatever whatever, different discussion, but like, yes, whether you're like or not, it's not good for her at the end of this movie. It's actually quite bad for her.

01:35:04
Speaker 2: It is not great for her. But yeah, yeah, I don't know. I wish there was just and maybe this is just like you know, us examining the movie in twenty twenty four, a movie.

01:35:15
Speaker 1: From nine seventy five years later, Oh my goodness, yikes.

01:35:19
Speaker 2: But I think if this movie not that it needs to be remade at all, but if there was a more.

01:35:26
Speaker 1: Modern future adaptations, there's like ben Broadway adaptations. I think Glenn Close wanted Tony for playing Norman Desmond, which I wish to god, I could see. Yeah.

01:35:36
Speaker 2: Anyways, if there was a more modern retelling of this story or a similar story, I think that it would be more explicit about examining like gender bias and all these things that the movie isn't super explicit about.

01:35:51
Speaker 1: But it's like also, I think, like fundamentally hard to extract this movie from this time because of how even though it's like you can up in history the things we're talking about where it's like, well, what there's the you know, silent film stars. You know, someone who is famous thirty years ago, you'd be like, oh, easy one to one is like a ninety sitcom actor that is considered washed up now and trying to adapt with the times. But it's also so specific to like, I don't know, I think that that's why they're so like there was just an attempt to comment on this in Babylon last year, where like the jump from silent pictures to talk like it's just so metaphorically works so well.

01:36:31
Speaker 2: Right, And it just reminds me that we still need to cover Singing in the Rain because that is also a movie about the transition from silent era movies to talkies and how a lot of actors struggle to make that transition and are discarded along the way. Anyway, Sorry, really quick, So Sunset Flo.

01:36:52
Speaker 1: I did know this because I was recently I don't know why, like bi annually I have to like watch every video that exists of Glenn Close. I just love glennon Close. I mean, and you're right to do that. Over the holiday break, I was just like, the time has come, I need to once again watch five hundred video essays about Glenn Close. So I knew that she had played Norma in an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical adaptation from the early nineties Whoa, and then so she played the part in ninety three and ninety four, and then again in twenty sixteen seventeen Iconic. But do you know who's currently playing Norma Desmond on the West End is Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls. And I just think that, who oh, I would go see that. I kind of baffling to me. But also, yeah, I'm in, I'm in. I want to I want to see Pussycat Dolls Boulevard bring in.

01:37:47
Speaker 2: Loosen up my buttons, Baby.

01:37:50
Speaker 1: Loosen up my buttons.

01:37:52
Speaker 2: Joe Gillis, Yes, well I will finally say what my nipple rating? Oh yeah, after so much preamble, hmm, I want to give it three point five. Okay, it's a very white movie, but it is handling this subject matter with more nuanced than movies from fifty or more years later handled this subject. So it's cool and interesting in that way. So three and a half nipples, and I will split them between Gloria Swanson, the actor who plays Betty, which is Nancy Olsen, and I'll give Billy Wilder, who hopefully was not problematic the way that basically everyone from that era was by default.

01:38:57
Speaker 1: I did a light scared he he said some kind of insulting things to Marilyn Monroe's intelligence that people feel one way or another about. And also, you know he was the seven year itch director that did the famous skirt up shot. You know, right, He's not without sin. But I, unfortunately am a big old fan. I want to give this movie for it that feels too high because of how cartoonish Norma is. But I also don't want to go much. I'm gonna go three point seven five because it's just vibe space. I think this movie is fantastic. I think that there are elements of it that feel studio notes thee I hope, like adding in a love story between Betty and Joe felt unnecessary, especially because as I was watching it, I was like, Betty could easily be a male character. Yeah, and I don't wish that, but just because of like, I just felt like the layering on of the love story was not necessary. One of the few things I really don't like about this spoofee. But Norma is iconic again for all of the complicated reasons we've talked about that also have to do with the production and the time. You know, is it reasonable that this is the best possible, you know, prestige part available to a woman over fifty at this time. No, I think that's incredibly fucked up. But it's an incredible part, and it's like I feel like you for the most part. And I know we've had discussions of the shades of gray, you know, sort of within that, but like you are given context for the ways in which Norma is a product of her environment, and it is not empathetic to her environment to the point where this movie actively makes a famous director look bad, which is amazing. I mean, like, I can't really think of a contemporary example of that happening in such an explicit way, like it's a you know, big old cautionary tale about why it's a heap of garbage to work in the entertainment industry, and you know, fair enough, I mean, not wrong, not untrue. And I also I mean, I think I know that Billy Wilder is kind of known or was known for a long time of being somewhat cynical in his outlook of the world, where it's like there's no suggestion on how to improve the entertainment industry. But I don't think that that's the job of the movie, you know. I think that it really paints a bleak picture of the Hollywood system at this time, and like it works, and I think the fact that it is age this well speaks to how little has actually changed. True. So I yeah, I just I think this is a wonderful movie. Three and zero point seventy five nipples still got a lot to say. I'm going to give one to Norma. She did what she had to do. I'm going to give one to Betty. I'm going to give one two hmmm.

01:41:52
Speaker 2: I give one to Hoguy, of course, Hogg guy.

01:41:56
Speaker 1: Where's my hog? Eye spin off. Now that we're we're scraping the bottom of the barrel of ip, Like, ha, guy, what about that guy?

01:42:06
Speaker 2: Let's give him six seasons in a movie. I'm gonna take back everything and give my three and a half nipples to the dead chimpanzee.

01:42:14
Speaker 1: Oh bless, they're hard. We didn't, we didn't, we don't know. And then I'll give my point seventy five cute Billy Wilder because God damn, I love him. I can't wait to cover the apartment. I can't wait to cover some like it hot and that Sunset Boulevard, Baby, I'm gonna celebrate by walking down Sunset Boulevard and buying one diet coke. Yay, that's my Sunset Boulevard. Walking down the street and getting a diet coke four times a day? Why because I can't have more than one soda at my house? Why obsessive compulsive disorder? Fair.

01:42:53
Speaker 2: I'm gonna walk down Sunset Boulevard and Nerd Mount used to be on Sunset Boulevard.

01:43:00
Speaker 1: RP, Folks, It's a long street. It's many miles. I was like, also, the Sunset Boulevard normous living on is not the Sunset no, we live on the PP side of Sunset Boulevard. Yeah, but I love it.

01:43:16
Speaker 2: I imagine she lives in like the Beverly Hills.

01:43:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, would you know all that? If you take the two, if you're a buzzhead like myself, you take the two far enough you'll get to normal zone. But yeah, we're we're closer to downtown. Anyways, you didn't ask. Uh. This is a great movie. I would highly recommend. And also it's streaming for free on the Internet Archive. If you haven't seen it before, you can watch it for free right now. Mm hm. Anyways, that's our show year. You got a Shrek, you got a Sunset Boulevard, and next week, spoiler, you got May Decemba. We're casting a wide net this year, so enjoy. Indeed, you can follow us on all the normal stuff. You can follow us on Instagram, you can follow us on x and you can also subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon. Great way to start the year five bucks a month at yourself. Treat yourself. It's five bucks a month. It gets you access to two bonus episodes a month with Caitlin and myself, and you also get access to our back catalog of over I think officially over one hundred and fifty bonus episodes, so you'll be delighted and infuriated for days on end.

01:44:29
Speaker 2: So check that out and go to our link tree link tree slash Bechdall Cast to grab those tickets for our upcoming tour once again. It's San Francisco, Sacramento, Dallas, Austin, and San Diego. Will be in those cities in early February, so check our link tree to look at all the ticket links and the dates and the details. So we hope to see you there. Yes, and you can also go to teapublic dot com slash the Bechdel Cast to grab some merch. So what you're gonna want to do? Grab some merch, wear it to the live shows and then we'll take pictures together and it'll be so cute.

01:45:11
Speaker 1: Exactly. In conclusion, we love you, Happy New Year, Happy twenty twenty four. It's gonna be such a regular year. We can feel it. So normal, so norma, so norma, so normal. Goodbye, bye bye.

01:45:31
Speaker 2: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie loftis produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Vosskrosenski. Our logo in Merch is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit link Tree Slash Bechdel Cast