Mean Girls with Jenny Jaffe

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Speaker 1: On the dol Cast. The questions asked if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef and Best start changing it with the bel casts. Hello and welcome to the Backdel Cast. My name is Caitlin, my name is Jamie. I don't know why did I do that weird thing at the end. I don't know. I wanted to match you, though, I love We're so on the same page. Love you. Well, here we are talking about women in movies once again thet time. I mean, we've been doing it for a while. I know, I'm so proud of us. I you know what it is. It's a good thing for structure. It's a good thing for our friendship. It's a good thing for our friendship with Aristotle. It's a good thing for you know, yeah, exactly, exactly exactly. Man. I'm really excited a man like man. Sometimes it's like when we're looking for guests for the show, we're like, Okay, who's super funny who do we have a friend crush on? And then let's just make it so so our guest today. She has been a writer for college Humor, MTV Disney, and she has a show coming out on i f C which she is the star and creator of, called Neurotica. Jenny Jeff Hi, I can't tell you how many times I've considered starting a podcast with the express purpose of making friends in l A. And I think that's kind of a hacky move but at the same time, but it does work so far, so good. I mean, everybody out here like just wants to be on podcasts, right, I mean, well, the thing that, man, I've been having a rough week with Los Angeles, the city that I am still not sure if I like or not. Where it's just everyone's always around, you know, like everyone's like, oh, I can do a podcast at two pm, because no one. That's why I have I'm not making the friends though, is because all the people I would be friends with are doing shows at night, which is the only time I'm free, because you've got you have a day job, right, so or the other thing is I'll be like, come by and get lunch at the studio or something like. That's the only other way I can. Well, you should go. You can go to those shows that the people are on and then be like, hey, I thought you were funny. That's true. I'm a very bad comedy audience though. Yeah, And then you have to go to a show I like, and I do like going to two shows obviously like I like comedy a whole lot. But the problem is, like, if I don't like something, I have absolutely no ability to pretend that I do. It is all over my face. And if it's a new friendship and I don't think they're funny, I won't be able to hide it. It's something I need to work on. Really, I just don't have a poker face, man. I mean that's a good problem. Now if you also honest, there's also just more bad comedy shows in the world. When they are a good comedy shows, you really do roll the dice everythingle I started doing comedy so that I would stop hiding from people, and then so I would have to be around people at night because I am not a killing I don't know if you don't know this about me, I'm not a party gal. What. I don't go to parties. I think the one time I showed up at a party, you were bowled over and I was too, and I left pretty quickly. The secret to parties is if you come for twenty minutes, people remember that you're there, and they'll never remember that you left exactly exactly. And you man, Caitlin's better at parties, and I I don't. I just came a social butterfly. You but like, but you're you're good at it. You do a good job. Thank you. And sometimes I'll show up and then it's like, but now I'm not talking to anybody. We should talk about the movie that we're here to talk about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we watched it together. This week. We're watching more and more movies together. I love it. It's fine. Couldn't make it, this one, this one, it's fine. Have you seen this movie? Though? Aristotle? Oh good, Okay, he's given a big nod. That was an emphatic knod. We're talking about mean girls, Jennyonine. Did you first see the movie? Came out when I was fourteen, which was like the perfect at and my class in middle in high school, I went to school with basically the same kids for seven years, was notorious for being a class of very mean girls. Really yeah. In seventh grade, one girl told all the rest of the other girls not to talk to me for a year, and they all listened. Yeah, I know I had some horrible bullying stories and she asked me to like retweeter Kickstarter at one point. So we're all good. Um, I should say that maybe I should go. He is listening. Um, we have millions of listeners on our podcast, including Everyone's Time. Yeah, we have a big high school bully following this is this is all to say that. Like, so when it came out in eighth grade, like one of the moms of one of the girls like sent out an email being like, we should all go see this movie, Like all the girls should go see this movie. And I think I like didn't go because I was too nervous to be around those girls anymore than I had to be. So it was a very timely movie for me. And it is like, maybe the thing I remember most about it is that when I went to go see it, it was the first time I had seen the Fandango Bollywood bag puppet ad do you guys remember? And it was the hardest I think I've ever laughed at anything. I was like, this is so funny, this is comedy, and this is what this is what it means to be a comedian. So I laughed about that through like half the movie, which is a great movie, is super funny anyway, but like, for some reason, just the b the fact they were bag puppets, it was very appealing. I really liked it. Yeah, I remember remember about the actual viewing experience. I didn't. I didn't see this movie in theaters. I think I too. So I was eleven when this movie came out, and all the moms at our church youth group, they were like, Oh, we're gonna We're going to teach the girls to respect each other, you know, and all this stuff, and I didn't. I was sort of fortunate to go to a high school. Middle school was tough for me because I were bad brace and so you know, there's no getting around that. But high school, my high school is so huge that bullying wasn't really a problem because you could. You know, someone might bully you a single time and then you wouldn't see them for weeks, and then they would forget because there was six thousand kids there. I had a hundred. Yeah, the smaller high school, it's the worst it is. But yeah, I just didn't know most of the kids in my high school, and they had no idea who I was. So even if it was like, oh, bad Brace girl, but then you know it was new for them. Every time they were just like, who is this freak? And then we're back Brace girl. How many bad brace freaks go to this school? Uh? So it was it was fine, and we were sorted into buildings like Harry Potter. And that's the true thing about my high school. Really. There are four different buildings and you got put in one year freshman year at random. No sorting ceremony was in the azure building. Where did you go to high school? I went to high school in Bracton, Massachusetts. It's a ship hole in southern Massachusetts. And there was the red, yellow, green, and azure for some reason, not for as sure, and the stereotyped were like Azure was for like brainy losers and red was for raven cloth well red foot, Red was like well adjusted cool people. Yellow was for like idiots and uh yeah, and and and then green was for the rest fletherin. That's really that works out it. All it did was affect your cafeteria and like where you ate and had homeroom, but you were you were sorted. Anyways, I saw this movie when I was eleven with my church group. I think I was a little bit too young for it then, but I liked it. I wish i'd seen it in theaters, So I don't remember if I saw in theaters or not. But it came out like a couple of weeks before I graduated high school, and I don't remember if I saw it right away or if it was maybe within the next year after that. But I saw it pretty soon after I came out. And then I was like, Oh, my goodness, isn't miss Mavie Emmer. And then I bought it on DVD and then everyone else is like, this is the best movie ever. And then I was like, well fine, and then I and then I forgot about it kind of. I sort of outgrew it, and now I have some thoughts which we will talk not anymore. I don't really I wasn't getting that read for me when we were watching it. Well, I'm very difficult to read it, Jenny. I have a very good poker face. You got exclusively a poker face. Yeah, and that I don't emote any emotions. I'm just a weird robot. I am Caitlin a robot. I know we need to balance each other out and I wish we could like hold hands and like some of your emotions could leach into my body. I would love for you to take something. There's too many and I don't have enough. So anyway, how about the recap? Let's do it? So Mean Girls focuses on a character named Kay Dharon played by Lindsay Lohan. She moves to a new school in Michigan where she's going to go to school for the first time. Oh sorry, yeah, my bad. Atting Coston is like a cool little place place I did the Northwestern College program. I got to be there first summer, and the coolest thing about it to me was that it was where Katie Heron lived. Yeah right, okay, yeah, so I'm dumb it states anyway, um uh. So she moves to a new school and she has never been to like public school before. She's only been homeschooled because her parents were researched zoologists in Africa. So she's like, oh my god, I'm in a new school. I don't know how to be a person. So she meets a couple of friends, Jane Ian and Damien, and they're like, we're gonna be friends with you, and we're a teacher of the lay of the Land, and then she meets the Plastics, which is this group of three young women who are mean girls. Hey that's the name of the movie. And Janice has some beef with the queen Bee of the Plastics, Regina George. Regina like sort of takes a liking to Katie. So Jane is like, hey, you should like hang out with Regina and pretend to be her friend and then we can like dish on all the stupid stuff that they say. But things get a little out of hand. Katie sort of becomes one of the Plastics herself, and then she has some lessons to learn, some friendships to repair. There's a boy that she has a crush on, and Hare and Samuel's that was That's where the October four joke comes from. Me Where is October because the other Lindsay Lohan October things on October eleventh, My birthdays on October eleventh. And then they put the picture together we should do that parent trap. Yeah, Hallie, we're like sisters, Like we're like twin and then they cry and hug. That movie definitely passes the backtel time. That movie with Flying Colors, Lizzy Lowen and herself. Million doesn't count, though if it's the same woman talking, it does. And then there's CHESSI Chessie, Yeah, Chessie's awesome. And then Natasha Richardson is is Dennis Quaid in it? He had dad? And then there's um Meredith is supposed to be twenty six in it, which is which makes me upset? That is crazy? She was that lady? Does that mean we can date Dennis quaint me? Does that that been sliding scale? I've been dating Brandy, I want to be quaite and Jason. Yeah, that's pretty much the stories. I just got sucked up in parent trapay. Oh yeah, Well going back to mean girls, um so yeah, Katie she becomes a mean girl herself, and then Miss Norberry a Ka Tina phase, like you guys have to learn how to be better to each other, and then everyone sort of makes up at the end, and there's a spring laying dance, there's a mathlete competition, Regina George is hit by a bus by the way, and one of my favorite plot times, Yeah, so I out of nowhere suffered that stupid thing. I do like that they got away with it, Like, what a crazy thing to have to be like, and then she gets hit by a bus and they were like, you know what, We're gonna trust you with this one. It just feels like a prank that someone got away with, presumably Tina Fay Right by the way, I was a mathlete in high school. Did you have a jacket. I didn't have a jacket. We only did I think like two or three competitions that I was a part of um. But we had mathletes at my school. Well, your school might have been cooler than mine. Maybe maybe it was kind of like cocarts. Right. Did you have a headmaster named Dumbledore? We had? Well, no, we had a principal named Dr zach Owitz. Same thing. She was pretty cool. Oh, I like that she was a woman. Yeah. Great, Yeah, and her husband was a history teacher, so she had a very nice beta husband, who is like, my wife is dope. Good role models. I love a good beta husband. I love beta males. Give me where are they? They're everywhere, but they're just mine's downstairs. You gotta find them your beta mails downstairs. Man. I think that I've skewed two alfa recently, and I've really I've got to be like where you gotta be sneaky. You got sneak up on them. They school kezy. If you bring your net, you'd be okay, you can trap them, you can do it. And then you say, Okay, now I'm going to fix you. Yeah. Anyway, that's the the story of me and girls. Let me just start by saying that I have con Okay, so it's not that I hate the movie, but I definitely don't think it's aged well and I think it's pretty problem at it and I'm experience. I experienced it the same way that I experienced Heathers, which we talked about on an earlier episode, where it's like, Okay, great, it's a movie about women, but a lot of them hate each other and they say horrible things to each other, and it portrays women in this like very catty, competitive way where they're really mean and awful to each other. And I just want everyone to get along. I just want a movie where everyone gets along and there's no conflict. No, I'm kidding, Like that was very much my experience of the women I knew when I was sort of in my early teens, is that it is very competitive. People don't get along like it was, and I don't think that's the case necessarily. I think that it's a bad stereotype about women, that that's how it always is, and that I think as you get older, I think that you start to realize like, oh, like these are my allies, and these are like the people who I care about, and like some of the competition dies down, and then I think it's like what happens is you realize that you've been pitted against each other at some point, and then you're like, oh, fuck all, y'all, I'm going to be with women and men are going to have to earn my trust, not the other way around it. And like that was what happened to me. Was like I felt like there were a bunch of women I thought just and from and I was like, oh, it's because like the men in my life were douche bags, and um, I think that's sort of what happens at some point is you realize how much a society is built on making you feel competitive with other women, especially when you're in like the industry and stuff. Yeah, I mean where there's days where it still feels that way, and I don't know, I I guess for me, this is sort of like portraying like, I think it's a pretty you know, it's it's obviously it's a movie, but in terms of portraying something sort of close to what it could actually look like in real life is important to to get people to relate because I feel like we if we just have a movie where you know, like women are totally supporting each other and getting along, um, doesn't make for an interesting movie. Not that interesting. But then also like I don't know, like if it was a movie about teenage boys not getting along, would we have a problem with it? Probably not. I don't know. I'm sort of I've got a specific piece stuck in my head right now that I read this morning in Harper's Bizarre by Jennifer Wright, who's writer I really like about how like the idea of feminism is getting conflated with all women having to like each other and what Stepford wives, the kind of environment that that encourages, where it's like, you don't have to like other women. You can think other women are stupid and wrong, and you know the way you could think men are stupid and wrong. You just need to respect them on a basic level, believe that they have the same rights that you do, and you're still like, I don't know, Like being being a woman who's a feminist doesn't mean that you can't have a negative opinion of another woman, especially if what they're doing sucks, like do you or doesn't match up with with your values or whatever. So that's I haven't like fully processed it, but it's something that I was thinking about in relation to this movie, of like, it makes sense that a lot of the characters in this movie wouldn't would be pitted against each other. And yeah, and I don't think it's like portraying anything unrealistic or things that don't happen, because yeah, these things, like a lot of women this age do treat each other this way, There's no doubt about it. Could we argue that maybe one of the reasons that like women feel that they're pitted against each other or that they feel it needed to be competitive in meat to each other, are movies like this that perpetuate the stereotype. Could we argue that maybe not? Maybe So, I don't know. Yeah, Well, when you guys saw this movie for the first time, which character resonated with you the most? I would say probably Janice Ian. Yeah, me too. I think of the sort of mother. I was the girl who said that Regina George punched her in the face. Like the thing is like I wasn't even at a level where I thought I could even try to be popular, like you know what I mean, Like, nor would I want to, Like I just wanted to die for most of high school. But that's like that's the whole separate story. Like I just did. But it wasn't like a motivating factor for me. But I really liked this, I guess idea of like a world where there was redemption possible for whatever this was, or there was some way to heal or through like my high school. Like it was weird because like I went through all of high school where I was like, yeah, all the movies are correct, Like this high school is like terrible and there's like a couple of kids who are like ridiculously popular and attractive and all this stuff, Like that's how every high school is. I don't have friends, that's normal. And then I got out of my I went to a very small, very preppy high school, like we got mentioned on the o C. Like that's the level of preppy that my high school was. And um, because we're known for having cocaine dealers, like we were really coke high school, really preppy, really rich, Like really what area I grew up in? Silicon Valley. Um, I hated my high school. I hated high school, but I also, like, to be fair, I don't know I would have liked any high school because I was just going through a lot of issues at the time. But like when I graduated and that talked to people who had gone to anywhere fucking else but my high school, I was like, Oh, I only thought my high school was normal because high schools on TV seemed like that too, Like because like interesting. So there is an aspect of it too that I think might be reinforcing, but it was also really reflective of my experience, which was like the weirdest little inselur bubble where I think, I mean, part of the reason this movie I don't think it's ever bothered me is because I don't think I've ever seen a movie that reminded me of my high school experience, and including this one. Yeah, Like so for me, it's like entertainment high school and entertainment and high school in the way I experienced it, which wasn't great and it wasn't you know there was a lot of problems, but there it's just it just seems so separate that it never even like I don't even think I really tried to relate with it that much because I was I was like, oh, well, you know this, everyone knows each other at this high school. So like, here's the thing. Here's the thing about about Mean Girls and my high school experience. That's totally separate, but maybe it maybe interesting. So when I was in high school, I should have mentioned in my credit So I founded a mental health nonprofit and I spent two years out of the comedy world sort of like doing that. And I have talked a lot about my mental health stuff and that sort of thing. But one thing was in high school, I was in really intense um exposure therapy for this like all encompassing fear of throwing up. And part of this therapy was that they handed me a list at the beginning of the thing where I had to watch movies that included scenes of somebody throwing up. Guess what Mean Girls has twice is mentioned a vomit, and I know exactly where it is because I always get nervous when that part comes on. Even to this day, just because like it's like an old reaction. But so I watched Mean Girls a lot because it was a movie I loved that also had a scene with puking in it because Katie throws up on like Aaron Samuel's lap, right, which is like a really tough scene for me. Like lots of reasons, but like, yeah, so that's an interesting sort of I know. So I know, like where every movie has a puke scene, had to mentally clock it, and Two Things I Hate About You has one too, which is another movie that I had writing at this age. My most memorable puke scene is from Do You America World Police? Oh yeah, fantastic puppet. Just yeah, that's yeah. Exposure therapy is, man, we should we should talk about that off because I went through exposure therapy last year. I should definitely talk about this. Yeah, it's holy fun. Like I still, man, what a what a fun? Maybe I need exposure therapy for feelings because I'm so afraid of them. I mean just regular therapy is the best thing for that. Yeah, everyone should be in therapy, I agree. I finally got insurance back. It takes six months through the Animation Guild working in the Animation Guild to get insurance through them, which is crazy. I'm just so Monday congratulations. I am just starting on medica. Unfortunately for my therapist, because I whatever, like I met him like in the e R and he was like, I am yours now like diagnosed me with O c D and bipolar and all this stuff I really needed and didn't know. And so now I'm like, I don't. I never want to leave him because I feel like you saved my life, but also no insurance covers him. So it's just this thing where the American system is terrible and steadily getting worse, and what are you gonna do. I'm never going to leave him. I'll go into debt. I don't care. I think that therapy should be free, the way that like you can get free books at the library. I don't know why that's not just a social service that we have because we don't value mental health. That's what physical health, and we barely value physical health very much. Oh are you a woman? Do you have a pre existing condition? Too bad? Go and die. That's what the Republicans say. Boy, okay, wait, let's go, let's go back. Mean girls, Well, a few things. One of the few reasons this movie does not hold up very well. The word retarded gets said three different times, so that's like, oh, that's a very oh for. I mean, that's that's another thing where I'm in no way justifying that. But if we're kicking it too oh for, that mean, at least in my experience, that was dropped quite a bit in pop culture and in my middle school. Yeah, it's pretty remarkable the amount of sensitivity we have acquired as a culture since the Bush administration. And like it's I know, it's like dropped off precipitously with the rise of actual fucking Nazis, but like there is also it's pretty it's cool. Like legitimately, there are a lot of kind of like weird gender jokes and stuff in this movie that I don't think would have been Yeah, well, I mean whenever, like Janice is going through the cafeteria and be like, here's where all the clicks sit, and she's like, this is where the girls who eat their feelings sit, and here's the girls who don't eat anything. Basically like body shaming women, mental illness shaming other women, and then like all these different like racial stereotypes. Yeah, there's a lot of jokes about Asian people. There's uh, there's gay jokes. Damien's expect like, there's a lot of stuff I would need to It's a hard thing because and I'm not trying to say that any of this is like okay, but that if we're talking about how people talk about each other in high school, that doesn't that's not incredibly unusual where I think of some of the words that were thrown at me in high school and it's like, well, you know, this movie is only one pg thirteen, so you couldn't say, hey, there's the girl with the ol bow up her asshole. Yeah, I got a lot of I got a lot of lesbo And I was like, yeah, you're half right, but yeah, just you know, it's like, um, I think just stuff that it's partially two thou four and it's partially stuff that just kids in high school say, and then like there's a tiny part that's problematic. Fave of Tina Fee, who I love, even though I think she has some really huge blind spots when it comes to especially talking about race and to think you know, it's one of those things where it's like I think she has net put more good into the world than bad, but really really tough listening to her defend certain choices she's made and thinks she's written and the Native American storyline and came exactly I'm thinking about too well. I think her character ms Norberry is poised as being like this wise woman who like she she's an ally and she's gonna give you all the answers on how to treat each other better as a woman. But I would argue that she is the most problematic character of them all. And let me explain why. There's a few scenes where she is talking to a character, usually Katie, and being like, hey, here's a reason that you should do this, and the reasons are always problematic. For example, she's trying to get Katie to join the athletes and she's like, yeah, we've of to have a girl on the team so that the team could meet a girl. Not because women need to be represented in mathematics, not because it would be good for Katie or because she's good at math women Is that exactly, um, But it's so that the boys on the team could have a chance to interact with a woman. That was her reasoning for Katie joining the maths. She was joking because she's a female math teacher, Like, surely she has, yes, but then it keeps happening another scene, whenever she's like, you, girls, towards the end, when they're all in the gymnasium, you've got to stop calling each other sluts and horse, because that just makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and horse. But like she's also the reason she's giving is always like how these women like their experience is related to two men, because she doesn't say, oh, it's because slut shaming is wrong and you should like be building each other up rather than tearing each other down, Like there's that. And then finally, during the math like competition, whenever they're two teams are about to go up against each other, Miss Norberry goes up to Katie's like, you can do this. There's nothing to break your focus because not one of those mary Mount boys is cute. Again, bringing her experience back to like how it relates to men. She didn't say, oh, you can do this because you're good at math, or because you've prepared a lot for this, Like it just bothered me that all the reasons she kept giving for different things were like it's how, it's how your experience relates to men in some way. So it bothered to me. Yeah, I get maybe I'm being nippicky. No, I think that those are valid points. Um, I don't know. I mean the thing that the thing that always bothers me about, especially like mid Odds, Tina fe characters earlier lots Lemon is just like, do you if they stop pretending that you look like ship, you don't look like ship, you look great, stopped like the whole, the whole for where she's like, I'm not that cute, I do math, I'm not the games. It's like you're beautiful, Calm down. Um, I don't know a lot of what she said, for sure, is in reference to men, but but also seemed clearly communicated as a joke or a lead into a visual like the Mary Mount Boys, and it cuts to I thought that in particular was because Katie had broken her focus through the whole semester because of Aaron Samuel's So I thought that particulars just her saying like, well, you don't get Aaron Samuel's here, so like, and her character dealt with That's that Aaron Samuel's thing pretty well? Yeah, in terms of calling her out where that you know the scene where she's like, well, it's weird because all your work is correct, but only the answers, and she's like, you don't have to dumb yourself down to like in Prescott press a guy. Yeah, I mean she still is the most problematic character, Like she right off the bat assumes that the black girl in classes uh who is from Michigan is the African girl. But yeah, not saying I don't think your reads are wrong, I just don't. I think in the context of the movie, they're not like the most problematic things about the movie, even though the movie does have a lot of problematic things. I mean, doing this podcast has basically ruined me. I'm now like like, oh, this movie isn't fucking perfect, Like I could be more. It's ripping up the bandon a lot. Well, I don't know if that's I mean, I think this is like one of the places that we've come to and like, I don't even know that slut shaming was a concept in two thousand and four that people were don't I don't think we gave it a name at least, I mean, it was happening, but we weren't like identifying. It's like, oh, this is there were sluts, but there was not the concept of shaming yet. People were slut shaming, but we didn't have it. We didn't have a word for it. We weren't saying like, you shouldn't do this because that's problematic. Two, I was getting slush shamed every day. Kid. I don't know what, like the closest to perfect in that regard movie is. I'd be interested to try. And because I think every movie has a pretty huge blind spot, because every person has a pretty huge blind spot, and they're like, everybody messes up, and the only thing anybody can do is when they mess up, and when they're like, oh wow, I didn't even think about this blind spot that I had. You're right, and I will do better in the future, and like then you just keep learning. And that's a place where I think Tina Fey's failed a little bit. But everybody gets to have a problematic faith, I think. And I think she's a good one. She's a good one. She's a Tina Fey. At least we have a women writer for this movie, and it was Tina Fey wrote it and then she adapted it from the book by Rosalind Wiseman, which is such a cheesy book but I've never read it. Queen Bee's and Wannabees We that was a part of the whole church group deals. You also had to read the book with your mom. I remember, like, I feel like there's a lot of stuff like that where my mom was reading a lot of books like that, and I don't know how much they really helped her, because like the real issue for me in high school was mostly just making sure I didn't kill myself. So like, I don't know how many of the much any of those books ended up factoring into how she dealt with me, But like I do know she or like she watched like the movie like thirteen and stuff, and I'm like, I'm not gonna lose my virginity for a solid seven years, so let's shift the focus, right, Yeah, my mom didn't. I don't know. I think my mom was sort of just like, well, I realized things don't look too good. But my mom what she tried to do, actually, which is kind of antithetical to the whole mean girls church group thing, was my mom actively tried to steer me into what she was in high school, which was a popular, well liked gal um and I guess I'd really have to do to dig deep to figure out how I feel about it. But I guess that she did that with a small degree of success. Where I, you know, my interests were reading and playing yobo, and I did ballet dancing, but usually I was wearing a back brace. And then my mom started being like, oh, you should join the drama club. You know, you should join the dance team. You should do this, you should do this, and she pushed me in a more conventional direction, which I wish she hadn't done, but also at the time, I listened. So I guess what I'm saying is my mom is my problematic fame. She's yeah, it's it's weird because and then you think, like the generation before us was influenced by all this ship as well. And I don't know what the mean girls for their genera that it just didn't exist. Oh true, pink ladies. Yeah, I don't think I need to reach that. Yeah. Oh hold on one second, let's just chuck the rest of this and stop that. Right. Musicals and I hate the lift from Dirty Dancing, that's right. I hated off Joel Schumacher directed fam of the Opera two thousand and four and think a terrible adaptation but also a terrible music. But I love it. I will have the phantom to talk with you, like anytime please. Okay, this is very bad. It is mostly a movie about how to run an opera house poorly, and then has a couple of scenes business, oh my god, are we yeah, we should talk about it. Spare me these unending trials. I'm leaving. I don't want to. And then I enjoy Patrick Wilson's interpretation of role. I do too. I think he's underrated. It's like, Wow, Christine, do you want to marry the ugly murderer rapist or the handsome nice guy who's actually a good act is actually a solid actor and can sing. And she's still like, oh this is Butler cannot hit the top note on music of the night. He can't hit one job. It's so bad. Okay, that's our shout out, the Schumacher shout out. The only musical I like is Team America World Police. Yeah. I'm gonna keep mentioning on this epico. It's got the best song ever, which is Pearl Harbor sucks. And I Love You. That's such a good song and I think about it all the time, the montage song love it, even though they already did it in an earlier episode of South Park Fun. You can recycle your material, trade Parker, Well, have you seen Cannibal to Musical and how do you feel about it? I have not seen that. No, it's brilliant. It's there. You'll probably if you like south Park Bigger, longer than cut and uh and Team America, then it's a kind of a trilogy. Hell yeah, it's It's got a lot of the same jokes and you see where a lot of like really early jokes came from. And I'll watch it. It's very delightful, cool, good guys, good guys, love them friends of the cast. I haven't seen that either, fantastic. I don't have the money to go watch things on stage. What you have to do is start writing for a clickbait website and then just be like, hey, I'll write about it, and then hopefully they forget that. I've seen Scarlet ears hire me BuzzFeed. I did stand up on BuzzFeed once and well, I'll put the link in the commice. It was an experience I'm changed, BuzzFeed, remember suff he changed. We haven't really talked about the plastics that much, No, we haven't. So we've got Regina George Rachel McAdams kills it. She that's so good. I agree with that good, which is weird. One. I've never particularly drawn to her in anything else, but she just like, I mean, all three plastics, and I don't we were talking about this. I don't like Amanda Seaford that much, or Cyfred. I never like her in anything becau so I forget it's her because I like it. She was in the Mamma Mia musical movie, which was am absolute well. I mean it's not a great musical, but like it's like, yeah, it's a bad, bad, bad movie. And then uh whoa uh Lacey Shabert Eliza Thorny the born Berry as a Gretchen Wieners. She Gretchen is my favorite plastic mine too. I think if they're Gretchen is the closest I could get to connecting with a plastic of she is me too. She's showing up for the Jewish American princesses. She like well because she's like she is a subordinate, but she's also just as smart as her boss as it were. And I man, I just I have a real soft spot for Gretchen Winers, especially when she does that speech about Julius, Caesar and Brutus. That is where I come closest to feeling for her of like, oh, she just really wants but also that's the makings of a monster if you give that person power. But she never gets it because it goes to Lindy Lewen. Yeah, and really good in this movie. This is like this, and then she's Freaky Friday kind of in the same year, and then passions of a teenage drama Queen. We start to right yea, then we start to lose her and be fully loaded. She's gone. The Canyons is next. Um, wait, was that it's the movie she did with James Dan like three years ago, the porn star. Wait, I was also a rapist. Yeah, it's like he's not a thing anymore. He's a bad person. She did this movie, and uh, the article that was maybe it was in the New Yorker, I'm not sure, but a really fascinating article by somebody who basically like hung out on set and like watched this travesty unfold and I do feel for Lindsay Lohan. I think she's I feel very bad for her. She's a casualty because she was delightful in a lot of these Uh. I thought she was very very delightful in this movie. She's talented. And and also I think that this is a and and this has nothing to do with feminism. However, so many people shine in their roles that you don't usually see them shining, and it's like, oh, this movie is very well written beause there are so many actors that I'm very underwhelmed bying any other movie who I just this part is written perfectly for them. And then there's Amy Poehler who's just starting, Amy Poller, just starting to peak. Thirty Rock hadn't happened, Parking Wreck hadn't happened. She's still on SNL at this point, I think, yeah, still in us now. And Tim Meadows is the best part of the whole movie. His jokes, I think are the best. When he's like, oh, keep your hair all night. We can't keep him here past four. I'll keep you here till four or the first. I have a mind to get cancel the dance, but we've already paid the DJ So I'm not going to do that and like, perfect, you don't have to give a speech. Most people just take the crown and walk off stage. Also, um, just to objectify a man as great topless Tim meadows seen or maybe it's well I think it felt it's close enough. His arms. Yeah, he's totally built for a comedian. He's tone. Yeah, I'm just like what, he's a toned man. He doesn't have to because he's a comedian, but um, don't tell him. Hopefully he says that way forever. Good looking guy, good looking man. Yeah. No, we're not passing the back told time. Shout out to Tim. Listen. Sometimes you've got to be like this man who could be my father has a nice bot. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's important for us to object if my men now and then yeah. So yeah, that is magic A large part of a large part of our podcast, honestly because I want to watch. I also want too, I watched, I haven't seen it either. I wisht Yeah, that would be amazing. We I have a fun fact about the Chippendales. What can I say? It really clean? Okay, So, first of all, friend of the cast, Sophia ben wat I love Sophia. She's the best, She's the high Sofia, I hope you're listening. I say hi to but she's She saw the Chippendale's not too long ago and was regaling me about all the amazing stunts. And I would god, I would love to see the chippen nils life first of all. Second of all, to the inventor of the Chippendales, there was oh god, I can't remember her name off the top of my head, murdered playboy model. Um. I used to work at Playboys, so I knew a lot about this woman, whose name I cannot currently remember. She's twenty years old when she was murdered. Uh she uh was in a bunch of Bogdanovich movies, or in at least one Dorothy Stratton Dorothy Stratton shed It's an amazing it's a fascinating story. My favorite podcast. You must remember this just did a really good love You must remember this. Yeah, she's the season finale of their Dead Blonde season. Anyways, she was murdered by her husband, who knew he was losing her to Peter Bogdanovitch. In any case, her husband also invented the chippen nails. You know, he died in the murder suicide and it was a horrible, horrible, horrible person. And it came out later that he had invented the Chippendales and never gotten any credit for it. I would just like to say that my favorite podcast is the Bechtel Cast, and sorry you must remember this is a very good It's the Extreme via Joan Crawford Betty Davis. Run was that was all about Joan Crawford, But then it had this like, which, who is a very fascinating person? There's I've been watching Feud at all, I haven't. I love Malina Shadow, love a good Melina, beefcake, beef cake. Look, I love a good Melina. Love the Malines. God give me more Molina. I really read a think piece the other day of like Alfred Molina, he wasn't given enough to do. I'm like, well, no matter what, I agree, watch him. What were talking? Oh, so that's what I know about the Chipendales. Why were we talking about the Jim and DALs magic Mike? And then we're talking about tim Let Meadows being kind of belt and object buying men. Wow, six degree is a really talking about male Strippers. I'd like to shout out one of my top favorite movies of all time, The Full Monty Oh Well. That was a musical too, starring Patrick Well. I actually saw, Yes, I saw like the off Broadway version of it in State College, Pennsylvania, where I did go to college to get one of my two degrees in films. Oh my god, I hate bringing it up. I really don't like to be the one to mention that I do have a master's degree in screenwriting. But um, you know, sometimes someone just so you're like the most qualified person to talk about this movie. Absolutely not, no, you are, I have I have, Well, we haven't. We never do our degree check in anymore. But I still I still just have people favorite podcasts and radio the people degree in public radio. Yeah. I went to Everton and they let you do that there. That's very cool. It was fun. Yeah. I didn't end up actually doing it, but it was fun. I have a b f A and TV writing, so I do not have So I like have a degree, but like not not to It's not not two degrees. Has anyone seen Hard Candy with Patrick Wilson. Yes, I love that movie. So I saw that movie for the first time, We're hard, Dad watch yeah, because Patrick Wilson gets castraight on like it's that's why it's hard to watch. She's also a pedophile. He's a pedophile, but also Ellen Page. I never I don't know, I think because I haven't ely big crushed on Ellen Page and like I did, like we I don't know how old she isn't that that movie, but there's in life. She'd just remember being fucking like floored by my She's cut off his deck and my dad sitting right there. This is why did your dad take you to see Hard Candy? We watched it together on i f C. Why I don't know. I do not know. I could not tell you. First of all, shout at the DIFC. Second, why did you guys screen this? When Jay made her dad, I think I like walked in on. My dad went through real indie film phase, which I think was he was just like this is where they show breast on TOPI. My dad's only ever gone through a James Bond phase, and there was about racing. My dad likes movies about race cars, race cars, my dad, and my dad writes about race cars. He contains multitudes. Really, my dad that's my dad, like hobby, he's really really drive race cars yet. My my dad, he used to cover professional race car driving in New Hampshire, So I used to go with him, what kind, what series or anything? I it was it was NASCAR, and then it was also like d really yeah, I remember that. There was I forget what her name was, but there was a female truck driver who don't think ever was a very famous, but she was like my hero when I was so because she was like this badass female pickup truck driver and we go and I'd be loud and I'd be scared, but then I get to touch her hand and it would be exciting. That's awesome. Did you know one woman in trucks? Raymond Bork kissed me? You know somebody named Yeah, he's a famous hockey player in the Boston Bruins. He's a legend. That's how I would name a hockey player. A sketch, right, Raymond Bork. And then once when I was a baby, there's a picture of me kissing my little baby forehead. And then my dad was like that was more important than her baptism. Raymond kiss my baby borke tism my borkedism. Oh shout out to New England hockey fans and yes, what are we talking about? Was the podcast Who Knows Anymore? I'm enjoying myself Mike's Harder, Harder, very sober right now. But in regards to I do like that they plant the idea in young women with this script that no one is just ever pure evil, and Regina George is given some depth as to yes, she is horrible and we see her do all this horrible stuff, but then you see her home life and you see I don't know, like when when I saw this movie for the first time, the idea that a popular girl had insecurities was something that had truly never occurred to me. Um so in in that way, I think that that was I think a positive thing for me. Of it doesn't justify the behavior in any way, but it also is just like, well, everyone has their thinks that that they're concerned about, and no one is as perfect as they whatever. Sure, I like that the main female characters outnumbered the main male characters because if you're considering all those people, yeah, I mean between Katie, Janice, Regina, Gretchen, Karen and then likes Kevin Barry, we'll throw in there. Those are like the main women, and then of the and then you've also got like Regina's mom and Katie's mom, and then of the main male characters who have the most screen time, it's really only Damien and Aaron, Samuel's a little bit Kevin, You've got yeah, and Shane omen principle, Coach Car the principle, but those are all more secondary or tertiary characters. So like we should say, Coach Car is we're we're too some uhh um, which is hard because they you know, they do not call that out. And and that's like a weird little subplot that is like we are saying, like there's a there's a lifetime movie going on here, like where it's both racist and excusing a pedophile. That is one of the things that bothers me more about this movie, as these two characters they're basically treated as the same character, and they don't really speak English, so we never know, and they're just like caddy girls who are being you know, manipulated by the same pedophile, which is gross to me because something like that happened in my high school by my middle school track coach. Uh. Fortunately, I was a little bit too young to be his type. But it's but yeah, like it's somebody like that too. I don't know. Like the way that that very very tiny storyline is handled, it feels like normalizing that in a way that like that's never resolved, and it's almost like, you know, the coach looks silly, like I've been caught, but the girls look silly too, and it's like, no, they're they're they're the victims of this grown man who is the really funny scene about don't have sex, but they're like the hilarious irony where he's the guy who's like, never have sex or he'll die, and he's so that is That's one of maybe my least favorite part of this movie, because at least most of the storylines are problematic but at least handled with a fair amount of humor and irony, but that one is pretty much just used as a joke. Down to the Tip Meadows line of like step away from the teenage girls coach car and it's just like he's a rapist. Yep, they're is that? So throughout this we're given the back story that Janice Ian was teased and she's constantly being called a lesbian and a dike and all this stuff, and then her moment of redemption is when she's standing in the gym scene where she's like, I guess it's because I have a big lesbian crush on you. So that where at lands as being a lesbian is still like not good. And Janice it turns out which you know, is not I think she is not a lesbian or she's you know, we were never given the exact story, but the way, the way that subject is left is she treats being called a lesbian very sarcastic, and it's an insult. The way it's because every time Damien's like, oh, this is why she hates Regina George so much, because she spread this rumor and eighth great about and then she's like, dude, no, don't say it. Like yeah, the idea of like anyone might thinking that she is a lesbian is horrifying administration where that truly could have Yeah, it made people social, It made me a social pariah briefly of like wait you yeah, it's just it's it's it's bad. It's bad. It doesn'tyone have any final thoughts about the movie. I still like it. I know that it has an h well in all respects, but m I still like it. It's still entertaining. Does the best bactal test does it does? Sure, there are a lot of scenes where women are talking about a man um, but there's a lot of scenes where they're not um. Janis and Katie talk about other women that you talk about. The plastics a lot, talk about Regina George a lot they talk about. But then they also talk about like friendship and and you know, things like that. Katie and ms Norberry talk about math. The plastics talk to it almost it sounds almost like a jokey passive effect. The plastics to each other about you know, clothes, about their bodies and how they're ashamed of them to some degree, things like that. So plenty of scenes where the movie passes a Bucto test. So hey, that's cool. Um, we can rate the movie on our nipples scale. Let's do it. We have a scale zero to five nipples where we write the movie based on his portrayal of women. I'm gonna give it. I'm gonna give it three and a half nipples for the reason that I think that it's a you know, it is not the fairness Bible. It's a good place to start for young girls, particularly girls growing up at this very specific time. I think that it started a lot of important conversations, even though it didn't handle everything perfectly, just seeing uh, major Hollywood movie with mostly female leads is important. Does not do great with race. This is not a very diverse movie. It certainly has its shortcomings, but most of but by and large, for your your average teenage girl, I think it is a good place to start, and it is a good movie to be in the el. And it also makes me laugh a lot. Um. So I'll give a three and a half nipples. Two of them belong to Miss Norbury, one belongs to Tom Meadows, the one you can see poking through Jim scene, and then the last half belongs to an a gas Her because I love her. Yeah, I don't get to see her enough movies. So I think I gonna I'll go, I'll skew down a bit, and I'll give it three nipples because while they all sort of redeem themselves at the end, it's just a movie of like ninety minutes of You're a slut, You're a horror, I'm a horror we're all shitty and you're a bitch and I'm a bit and spitches and just like a lot of just women mistreating each other. And I know the point of the movies to be like, don't be like this, but I don't know. I think if this movie was remade or a similar movie was made today, I would hope that it handles a lot of the things that this movie does not handle well. I would hope that it handles those things better. So, hey, I'm looking forward to that movie. Maybe I'll write it. Maybe I'll use my master's a green screenwriting for good for once in I use it for life. You use it for good all the time. Thing every time we turn on the mic, and every time we open a MIC's hard. And so yeah, three nipples, um, Two of them belong to Aaron Samuel, who I looked up on Twitter and I was like, man, this guy is still cute, so good for him. He seemed he seemed like a lifer. Uh. And then the third nipple I'm gonna give to Damien because I love Damien. I like, oh, I will say that I liked that he and Jane's wear the same like purple tuxedo. I like that she's sort of subverb. Yeah, you know, the typical I'm a woman, I have to wear a dress. No, she's gonna wear a tuxedo. I also just laugh man, when Damian sings beautiful A great moment, he held the shoe back with them, and then it gets to get a shoot thrown at him, and then that he whales it right back at the guy. Well. The other thing I like about this movie that I noticed is that, um, the reason they moved from Africa to Evanston is that it's her mom who gets a tenure at Northwestern, not her dad. Her mom. I forgot that detail very quick. Easy and Beta Males. Yeah, yeah, Katie's dad was with that grandmon podcast called Talking Beta Males where toilways two women and there's a man sitting there but he doesn't talk, but or he's a lad but he can barely talk. Yeah right, and you're just like, you may know, totally fine, work did it. We'll just keep going you turn hang in. Yeah, that's our podcast. Whenever we have a male guest, we only allowed them to speak whenever we removed the muzzle from their face. Very steampunky kind of muzzle. Yeah. No, Okay, Oh, just episode reminder steampunk. No, no, no steampunk. We don't tolerate steampunk here. Yeah, the final prejudice stands no step punk. Jenny, would you like to write the movie? Well, the thing is like, I really like, I don't think I can be objective in any way. I love this movie. And it's like, it's also like we didn't even talk about what kind of a cultural touchstone in Spain as far as like Mean Girls quotes like characteristic main factory and uh, here's what I'll say. I don't know that this is a great portrayal of women, but I think that this is a great portrayal of white, wealthy, suburban teenagers in the Bush era. This is a very faithful portrayal of that specific kind of woman. If we see so much of that, if we're just talking about that, then it's five stars or five nipples, were not like two nipples. And that's all I think this movie is. But yeah, it is not diverse. It is not particularly sensitive about women's issues. But it you know, we've over a decade of other movies that have been made because and in the wake of Mean Girls, and we have over a decade of feminist media that's been made kind of in the wake of Mean Girls. This was at the time a really important and groundbreaking movie because we did start, I feel like, having conversations about like the genuine, complicated feelings of teenage girls. That was like the context we were brought into the movie of like starting a discussion with teenagers and their like no matter, because there were a lot of teenage movies before that, but I think a lot of them were like dude trying to fuck in high school, and like there just wasn't a lot of movies about like girl on girl bullying. Un told this movie like that did seem like Heathers was the other one, But Heathers has a whole other set of things going on. Heathers is very unrealistic, and I felt like Mean Girls was kind of a movie that did more to me. I feel like I feel like the generation after us, we'll be able to see mean girls clearly and have more weren't the way that I feel able to separate myself from Heather's. Someone in generation after me will be able to separate themselves from mean girls. But yeah, it's like too it's too embedded in. I feel kind of that way about Clueless too, where it's like, I'm sure if I could step back from it, I'd find things to dislike. But as it is, I think it's um right, a literally perfect film. Blue This is literally perfect. Hey, listen to that episode of ours. Had you guys not already done it? That thousands? Because I can recite that movie and that's that's yeah. I know what you're thinking is it's like an axiom, a commercial or wet But I actually have a way normal life for I mean, I get up and I pick on my school clothes. Dad is a litigator that keep it rolling. Even Lucy I made is terrified of him. He gets paid five an hour dollars an hour to fight with people, but he fights for me, with me for free because I'm his daughter. That sounds rights right. Caitlin can do that with Pirates of the Caribbean embarrassed to him. I can do that with probably fifteen different movies, Back to the Future being one of them, with the Robert Durst documentary. Yeah, that's fucking amazing. People don't like you when you shave your eyebrows, you look weird. End of episode. Well, we're all friends now, and we're not mean girls to each other. We're nice. You guys are. Maybe it's because we're all in our twenties, all of us, not none of us are about to be thirty one. It's just we're all. Caitlin's triggering herself. You're going to be okay. No. I actually am very proud to be almost thirty one because as a woman of advancing years, I feel great about it. You're a woman of advancing, You're you're a badass person and you're great. Thank you need to call yourself advancing. I mean they're advancing. You are. I mean you're advancing, and we're all advancing. We're all advancing in our in our ways. I'm fourteen years old and I feel great about it. You're doing so well for fourteen, So excited to before. Thank you so much for being here. Anything we'd like to plug or is or we find just follow me on Twitter at Jenny Jaffee. Perfect. Well, thank you,