Election with Natasha Chandel

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Speaker 1: On the bed Cast, the questions asked if movies have women and um are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef in best start changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hello and welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Darante, and this is our podcast in which we discuss the role of women in famous movies you've seen before. Today is a special one to This is a special one. I mean, you're hearing us on a Tuesday. You don't usually hear us on a Tuesday, and it's it's okay. First of all, actually I'd like to do a p s A right at the tippity. If you're listening to this on election day and you're like, oh, I'm just kicking back listening to the Betel Cast and you have not yet voted, turn us the funk off or listen to us on the way. Sorry, I I couched it a little. Get on your bird scooter, get in your car, get on your public dancy, get on your free can, burn it on your you know, whatever mode of transit you want. Just get out there and vote. Hope you did your research. Yeah, well, okay, so so that that a side. Welcome to the Beck dol Cast. If you're not listening to this on election day, sorry for coming in so hot, but the message rings true. You should always vote every next opportunity you have. Yeah, where that do ag in? Hey quick plug. At the top of the show, we're gonna be doing a live becktel Cast show here in Los Angeles, so hopefully you'll live here. But if not, just travel, get with the program. No big deal, just just you know, by flight. Didn't come on down. But we're doing a show on Saturday, November tenth at nine pm at the Ruby. This time we'll be covering the Fifth Element, one of My Thieves, with our guest and dear friend, Danielle Radford. Hell yeah. For tickets, go to our website becktel cast dot com, click on the live appearances tab and we will see you there. It's a small venue, so grab your tickets asap. Wow, yes, queen, go off. Okay, So this is our podcast about the portrayal of women in movies. Um. We use the Bechdel test as are jumping off point for discussion. Of course, a test invented by cartoonist Alison Bechdel that for our purposes requires that a piece of media has a scene in which two female identifying characters with names talk about something other than a man for two or more lines of dialogue. Shall we demo? Yeah? Demo? Hey, Hey Jamie, Hey Caitlin. Did you vote today? Yes, bitch, of course I did? Well, me too. Wow, We're great. I only voted for women, and that passes the Bechdel test. Okay, I was like, well, but what if something? But also this still goes. Some female candidates might have some horrible ideas, so it's good to do your research at advice as well. Darn Tuton, what a productive Bagel pass test passing conversation. So that's where. But but we obviously expand the conversation to cover many different topics related to how women are portrayed in the movie. Today, we've got a great movie and a great guest. Yes, indeed, let's introduce her. She is a producer, writer, actor, and host of the Kind of Dating podcast Natasha Shandel. Hello, I was just listening to you in THEE. I hope I said something half decent. It was an uplifting one. Yeah, great, then I'd take full credit for it. So we're talking about Election, the movie from director Alexander Payne, adapted from a novel by Tom Peroda. I used to have a doctor named Dr Payne. Oh, and I had it, and and I had a dentist named Dr Vagenie, which is hilarious, which is horrible. Why did my dentist Why was my dadists last name of Vagina? We don't know. If Dr Vagenice gives me a root canal, it does that pass? Then these are the real questions. So Natasha tell us about your your history, your relationship with this movie. I watched it around when it first came out. I really have a horrible memory, so I won't be the person who ever remembers me watching something in a movie theater. But unless it was Titanic, I oh my god, Titanic. Yeah, that's remember watching in the theater. Everything else after that just is gone. Usually threepisodes like usually Jamie, let's do another and I yeah, let's scratch election. This is a Titanic podcast. Now, Usually it's one of us to bring up Titanic, and our guest is always like, why are they talking about Titanic? Well, I was just gonna say we could bring it back to an election, because really, if they were to have voted off, who should have got off that fucking vote? It would not have been half of those people who actually got off. Can you imagine, like what a better world it would be of some of those rich motherfucker's had drowned? Hot takes? Yep, but and some working class women survived. Yes? Great, but yes, I so I watched I watched Election again around when it first came out. I thought it was hilarious. I thought Reese Witherspoon was a great antiher, like it's the kind of characters I like a lot um and I'm still not sure. When I watched it again, I'm like, do I like her? Do I not like her? Likes? And I love that about her just as an actor, And honestly, like, who thought when that movie came out? Was that twenty something years or less than twenty years later? I feel like it's the exact thing happening or happened. Yeah, the parallels between this movie and the Clinton Trump campaign are There's a lot to unpack there because I think I think that I mean, we can get to this in a bit, but I think that Tracy Flick is already partially inspired by Hillary Clinton in this movie because this is at the end of the Clinton administration, the public is always already well aware that Hillary Clinton has ambitions beyond what was the quote of making cookies and right Also, I have some Wikipedia trivia for us hit that the novel that this movie is based upon. The novel was inspired by two key events. The first one was the nine two Bush v. Clinton election campaign, this of course being Bill Clinton and not Hillary, but I think that that's when that quote may have first come out though, like that she was not going to be your average first lady if he was elected UM. And then in that campaign Ross Perrot entered as a third party candidate UM, which is echoed in the movie by Tammy Metzler. Showing up was Tammy Metzler, the literal Green Party is she like fucking Nager. That's crazy, well, Gary Johnson, but if you fast forward her now, she'd be Trump. She I started that that. That's what I was a disrupter, right, like the one who's like, don't she's not really care about this. You do this, don't do that. I'm gonna drain the swamp. I'm going to get rid of this no more student body whatever. I was crazy, right, That's what I think I was thinking along those lines. But that totally makes sense that she, I guess in this context would be third party like Green Party. Yeah, whoa, This movie is crazy, so I really liked it. The other thing that the novel was inspired by was a incident at a high school in Wisconsin where a pregnant teenager was elected homecoming queen, but the staff announced a different winner and burned the ballots to cover it up. Horrible that that's so crazy, would so not work in today's social media world. Absolutely, but in pulled it off. I mean, thankfully homecoming doesn't define our lives. Speak for yourself. We just did carry so a lot of very true once your history with election. I didn't see it until I think I was in college, so it would have been like the mid two thousand's, so not that long after it came up, but certainly not right away. But I remember really enjoying it. But it was one of those movies that I liked but just was like, Okay, I've checked that off my list, move on to the next one on our list. Didn't ever go back and re visit it, but I'm kind of bummed that I didn't, because upon rewatching it to prep for this episode, I was like, oh, this is like a really this is a fun movie. The Tammy character, especially, I I'm like, so here for and uh yeah, I really I enjoy this movie quite a bit. I saw this movie yesterday for the first time, which listeners of the show will not be shocked to hear. I've never I've only seen the movie Doubt, plus any Titanic and Titanic plus all the movies we've done here. Mine is The Majornks, which I didn't actually watch, which is so often brought up in our iTunes reviews. If you're leaving us it tuned reviews, I encourage you to mention that as a plus as a meta textual thing. I saw this movie the first time yesterday, and I really really like it, especially like I mean, there's so many great performances in that but this is the only movie that I've seen anyways of Also, Matthew Broderick playing like a really despicable guy that you're supposed to hate, but he plays it so like, I don't know, I really enjoyed his performance, especially, and I just want to talk about how Reeseaway's potent. I think it's like she's so, she's so talented and she's so interesting where I feel like she's played a care her that has kind of the same description every time, but she plays this character so many different ways over the years that it's just like, yeah, like making fifty different recipes out of the same basic ingredients, right with her. So including a couple of movies that we've covered, which is our most recent episode of Cruel Intentions, where she's like in high school, she's like the virginal but she's smart, Yeah, like very smart, ambitious young woman going to a private school and then getting tricked into having sex with Ryan Philippi and usually men are like threatened by her. Yeah, and then l Woods of course, on our Bonus Matron episode doing Legally Blonde, kind of a variation on this character, but so entirely different all the way up to Big Little Lies, like that was sort of like a like returning to form a little bit of like that's a more mature version of the characters she got famous for playing. She's so she's very interesting to me, yes, indeed, And this movie is great. Yeah, Yeah, I mean, the one thing that really stuck out to me were like there were so many themes that they talked about through it that you know, even like right off the top through Matthew Broderick's like narration, the talk of destiny at first, and then they and then they talked about like morals, it's just like a big one, and and then just you know how much just too ambitious. It was like so many things that are so relevant. And the ending, I think, I know that we haven't even done the recap yet, but the ending of this movie. I watched it four times because it's just like the movie is firing on all cylinders, and like the last five minutes where you know, the whole time you're experiencing the movie through unreliable narrators. But it's like in the last couple of minutes where Matthew Project's narration is still so cocky, and then you see like it's so stark at the end that I one, I wish I had the time to go back and watch the whole thing over with that in mind of like, oh, you can't trust a fucking word that comes out of this guy's mouth from the moment, but what you know, but like, I can't wait to watch this movie again. It's okay, yeah, so I'll do the recap um. We meet Tracy Flick played by Reese Witherspoon. Of course, she is in high school. She's an overachiever. She is running for student council president. We meet Mr McAllister played by Matthew Broderick. He's a history, everyday guy. He likes his wife, and he likes his job. He's just a nice Keith. Well, it starts out like it's Matthew Broderick. You like him, right, he's a teacher this time, Yeah, you like that probably, but he seems to be perturbed by Tracy Flick. And then in the back story we learned that Tracy had a sexual relationship with another teacher, Mr. Nevatney, who got fired and he moves away, but he and Mr McAllister were best friends. Locker room talk, you get. We got a whole scene of locker room talking where we'll talk about this too. But that I think the movies pay us so well, and like, you start to hate Matthew Bradgick character in such specific increments where you're given a little bit of like, well, I didn't do anything wrong, but he was complicit as something wrong happened, where he's always the moral high ground, even in that conversation where his best friends like, I'm having sex with a minor cool, right, and then Jim the Matthew Bradgick character says like, well, that's not ethical. Fucking ethics teacher. He's like, well that's not ethical and that's bad and dada, but he doesn't really do anything about it. He just kind of stands by as it happens. He's just tell me all the details, please describe it even further, and then I'll go watch my creepy VH exactly and I'll just tell you that this isn't right, but keep going and picture Everything's like, I don't want to hear that, but secretly we're pretty sure he does. Um. And this is one of the reasons this relationship between this teacher and student is one of the reasons that Jim McAllister does not like Tracy, and we'll go into other reasons, but so Mr. McAllister doesn't want Tracy to win the student council president, so he approaches Paul played by Chris Klein. What an interesting jock care I love I can't wait to talk about him. Such an interesting right. So he's a he's a popular kid. He's you know, star of the football team. He I kind of love if he's dumb as rock, but he's sweet. He's always a character too, right, Yeah, that's kind of thing. He's so good at it. What's the other Anyways, I'm gonna dig up some other Chris Clin dum dummy parts, American pie Yeah, yeah, yeah, big one. So Mr McAllister gets Paul to run an opposing campaign for president and helps that Paul will be Tracy Flick. So Paul starts campaigning, and then we meet Paul's sister Tammy, who is getting broken up with by this girl Lisa, who then starts to date Paul and then to retaliate. Tammy also starts running for student council president as Donald Trump sort of, where she promises she's like I don't care, I just want to do it to bother people. And she's literally like Kanye Maga hat like just trolling everyone because she's mad. Yeah basically yeah yeah, because she's running on the platform that student government is stupid and if she wins, she will dismantle it. Just an anarchy platform. Yeah, he's giving me chills. But the people love it. The people are like, yeah, Tammy here, I love it way more than Paul's campaign because he is a terrible public speaker. But that's because so my name is Paul. Who was that equivalent? That's the one I was trying to figure out. That's like Ted Cruz or something like. The guys like, oh, I'm supposed to that's way more like, you know, he was sort of the nicest Bush. And then you're like, okay, right, there's even almost at like please clap moment where no one says that allowed, but his like speech ends, there are crickets, and then Mr McCallister has to be like, yeah, if only we had found out, like almost twenty years later that police clap actually came from election and Jeff Bush love that well. Fun fact. According to according to director Alexander Payne, Election is Obama's favorite political movie. I'm sorry, I'm stuck. I haven't thought about police clap in a long time. Jeb Bush implored people to clap for him, and that's clap facts with Caitlin. Okay, um, so people are loving Tammy also more than trace He's campaign because she's just very you know, bureaucratic. By the book, she's too prepared. Yeah, So Tracy is very frustrated and she rips down all of Paul's campaign posters and then Tammy sees Tracy throwing them away in a dumpster. But Tammy decides to confess to Tracy's crime because that kind of helps her platform to have, like, yeah, I don't give a fuck. Yeah. The parallel to that is Bernie Sanderson. We're finding the whole just like I just got to figure out how this is all parallel to everything that fired up. So meanwhile, Mr McAllister is falling in love with Mr Nivatny's ex wife Linda, or he thinks he is. They have sex once, but things very quickly fall apart after that whenever Linda tells Jim's wife Diane, and then he gets kicked out of the house. Um. And then the next day is election day at the school, the students are casting their votes, the committee is making their count and then the chairman of this committee a student named Larry. Larry, Yeah right, he's like really advocating for Tracy because truths why is all about the truth? Because Tracy wins the election by one vote, and Mr McAllister he comply cannot allow this to help. He goes full Florida like Florida two thousand young Man, the hanging Chad, the chest, the cha chas. He pulls two of those chats off and he throws them away so that it looks like Paul wins the election. Tracy is devastated, but Larry feminist icon, he's suspicious, so you know, he apparently goes to investigate. The two ballots that were thrown away are discovered, and then Jim McAllister has to submit his resignation from Carter Hi, which I have so many thoughts. But how the exit system for male teachers work at the school too? Oh yeah, we'll get into that. Also, the side story about him getting it on with well, he's lecturing Tracy, right, huh. He's he's trying to preach morals and ethics. Meanwhile, friends, yeah, he's trying too. That's so frustrating to It's just this movie is so so that happens, and then we see something we never see it in movies usually where it's like he loses his job, he loses his wife, and then we kind of flash forward for the end, right, because he starts his life over. He moves to New York City, he gets a job at like the Natural History Museum. He is still harboring resentment for Tracy Flick and and he says he doesn't right, he says he doesn't. He lives in a basement. But he could not be more clear than that was triggering. I was like, I used to live in New York. I was like, I remember these times. Well. Um, so he still hates Tracy. And it's even though he would have you believe that his life is great, he actually feels bad for her, right right, right, right right, Um, But we'll talk all about that. But yeah, that's pretty much the end of the film. So let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to discuss woo and we're back. So this story is basically a pathetic man who ruins his life because he were since wimmen and what it blames down to. Yeah, yeah, So we see a female high school student who, unlike most high school students in movies and certainly many that we've talked about recently, Um, she has aspirations beyond wanting to get a boyfriend or beyond wanting to go to prom. In fact, we don't even know how she feels about prom because she never mentions it. But we do know how she feels about student council because the whole movie is about her wanting to win. So if we're getting into the Tracy discussion, there's there's so much about her that it's like, I don't know, like unusual and like tricky to unpack in the context of the story, or was for me where I would argue almost every character in this movie grows and changes very little, and like their situations change, but they like I think almost part of the point of the movie is no one really changes, where they just kind of continue lying to themselves and others. And that's politics, baby, Like I get it. But Tracy in particular is is interesting because we're introduced with kind of a common shorthand to characterize a female character, which is you put her in a very fucked up, what seems to be a statutory rape relationship that clearly does even though it I think this movie avoids, certainly avoids making it the center of her story, but it clearly affects her a lot. And the way this movie plays that storyline is very bizarre. I mean in terms of the metaphor, I don't know if that's like a politician that has a sex scandal or what that was supposed to symbolize. But in terms of like in this story it is an adult and a minor, I was a little confused at why it didn't seem to affect Tracy Moore. If the story is going to go out of its way to be like, here's a statutory rape that happened, and then it does seem like Tracy, to her credit but also a little bit to my confusion, continue to do everything in high school that she was going to do anyways, almost unhindered by this relationship. I thought it was a little weird. I don't know. Yeah, I had a hard time kind of processing this component of the story is well because she, as far as we can tell, as far as the story presents it, she is a willing and consenting participant of this relationship. That's that. And and this is another place where the voiceover where you know the voiceover is biased and not necessarily true. But I think movies like Do This a lot where she literally says I know what you're thinking, you know, and it's like, yeah, I know what I'm thinking. You're getting raped by your teacher, And movies almost say like by acknowledging it, they get a past. But it's like, no, that's still what's happening in the movie. But she says, like, I know what you're thinking. It basically says I was a fully consenting party. Don't worry about it, did it? But like the breakup sucked. But it's like she almost kind of it seems like the relationship ends because her mother finds out about it, and we don't see enough of the mother in this movie either. It's very weird. Yeah, so the mother finds out about it in a scene that happens off screen because we only see the aftermath of it, which is Dave Nevatney being very broken up over the relationship ending. We don't play for laughs, Yeah you were in love, Like that whole thing is played for I mean, he's supposed to look pathetic and he's very clearly in context of the story and the wrong but just was weird that it fits the tone of the movie, but him looking like pathetic and then being like, Okay, you gotta work at a grocery store because when they bring it back later. It's also played for laughs. I just didn't like that this rape was continually played for laughs and didn't impact the story really that right. And then the way that Tracy responds to the relationship and the breakup is that, oh, he had to go and get all mushy, like I had to go with me, I miss our talks. But otherwise, like what a loser kind of thing. So yeah, I feel like that's not necessarily the most realistic way in which that that type of relationship would play out, especially as it pertains to how it would affect a teen girl. Well, so I think the way that they think, Yeah, my my issue was that they made it seem like she based on her voiceover that that she was consenting and she's like, oh, he didn't, you know, he didn't do anything. And then clearly in the action you see he convinced her, like, you know, by playing her emotions and manipulating her. But then the scenes when they actually start like progressing and are having sex, in the moment when she's about to enter the room, she looks scared and she looks like, oh my god, I have to do this, okay, and he kind of has to pull her into that and then later for her to come back and be like, oh, well he caught feeling. It was like I was like, I thought you were. That was why I was like, I want to watch the movie over knowing that all the voice over our lies, because I guess now understanding that a little better, it's like, oh, all that voiceover is not true necessarily because we see her being coerced, and I think the movie understands that, but it just like it just wasn't clear because it's so early in the movie where and then even at the end of her final scene though, when she sees the teacher character again, she's like a young politician or something and she's getting in a car with some senior male politician and her look is almost like am I fucking him? And you're just like, wait, are you what? What is he? Because it's sort of like the teacher insinuating it in a little bit with that, I thought, oh, I didn't even thought of that. That's totally yeah, yeah, I don't know. That's where I thought. I was like, is he trying to say that she's like using somebody again or you know, well, because it seems necess certainly, how Jim McAllister perceives her, and I think how you can definitely interpret this as that she will kind of stop at nothing to get ahead, and if that means, you know, sleeping her way to the top, I feel like the movie is suggesting that that's a definite possibility for her. Yeah that I mean that side of it. I think that there It's not even like that needed to be written out of the story entirely. It just felt like that was one of the few subplots of this movie that just like it wasn't handled responsibly or satirically enough, or there was just something about it because there's my kid, the teacher she was messing with, like did he add something to her life? That I think it's more for Jim than if that storyline affects Jim more than it does her, because that opens up that guy's ex wife and that's the president that, like Jim is like this complicit kind of two faced God. It's just weird that they used her as the catalyst for that, like she's the bad one when she was the kid getting or Jim resents I mean, and I think that Jim secretly resents Tracy because now he doesn't work with his friend anymore. That's to me, that's the main reason narratively why this is in the story, because he needs a reason. I mean, it's very clear that he does not respect women, and he is very threatened and talks his way around it for so long though he's like he's like, I don't blame Tracy, and then spends the rest of the people blaming her. Yeah. So to me, the reason that this part of the story exists in the movie is that he needs a compelling I guess reason that he really actively represents her and yeah, has to like it motivates him to retaliate. But I feel like by making it a situation where she is the victim of statutory rape is a weird choice and it's I mean, like we see in many movies. It is directed by a man, co written by two men, and adapted from a novel written by a man. So right, so we're three degrees of separation away from I mean, we're a million degrees because no one was talking to uh, not to get two stuck on this point, because there's so much to talk about, but there was just the way that relationship is were trayed. There was one scene especially that like made my heart hurt a little bit because I feel like there's like a lot of girls who in high school, like, even if it's not the extent of that experience, there's like a teacher who talks to you some kind of way and goes out of their way to make you feel special, and then you look back on it and you're like, wait a second, that was I literally had an art teacher who would always be very complimentary of all the girls, and then after school would be like, you should chug a bottle of cough syrup and like come back tomorrow and tell me what you did, Like just like that was that guy. And you see, I mean people wonder why women, particularly young women, have like this eternal fraud syndrome, and I think this is like a very concise The way that scene plays out, I thought was like effective to the point of being a little painful to watch, where you know, it's like here's this older man who Tracy clearly has a lot of respect for and she's a crush on him whatever, and he tells her she's smart, she's special, she's attractive, and then it's just like this coercion thing. It's basically the same speech that Jack gives Rose and Titanic where he's like, you're the most outstandingly but wonderful. It's not because he means then they're in love, but there it hits the same piece because he's like, you're the most wonderful, astounding girl woman I've ever known, and then Dave Nevatny is like you're the most smart, sensitive, attractive student person I've met. There it's just that is so like if there's a one scene in a movie I've seen in the past couple of years that concisely puts like white we'll all actually smart talented women have this kind of fraud syndrome. It's like maybe because men say that just to fuck them, and then they feel like it's not true because someone just said it. So that I'll just add the tiniest point because again I don't I don't want to see on this too long, I'm sure, but when Jim Jim, when he talks about like why he's upset, the first cut is to the Dave guy saying like her pussy gets a wet or so, and then you're like, oh, wait a minute, is he talking about this kid? And then with this whole Kavanaugh thing, happening. The headline has been you know, Trump says it's dangerous to be a young man right now, and I was like, is it dangerous to be a young man right now? Like interesting, well, welcome to our life for all of time, that it is dangerous to be a woman at all times in all of history and eternity. One one more point about this where there is such heavy and I was annoyed about it until again the very end, Where'm like, there's so much voice over in this movie, but voiceover is used to introduce the characters as well. Another movie where that where that happens that we did not too long ago, as royal Ton and Bob's, And there was a tendency in those movies where the male characters were introducing voice over with their accomplishments and the women were introduced with their sexual history. And this movie doesn't quite do that. It's it was almost an inversion of it where Tracy Flick is introduced with her accomplishments and she's introducing herself, yes, and then there's a sudden flip where it's like and here's the other stuff. I guess I don't feel any which way about it, but it just reminded me of at least at very least many facets of her life were presented out and it wasn't like here's the girl and here's who she fucked. Right. Yeah, yeah, there's some of that, but it's not exclusively that. Right. Um. I want to talk a little bit about how Jim McAllister views women. It is very clear, especially as the story goes on, that he feels extremely threatened by strong, smart, ambitious women. He says in his poice over towards the beginning that he does not blame Tracy for what happened with Dave. How could I Dave was an adult over twice her age. Sure, she got on my nerves once in a while, but I admired I admired Tracy. I really did. And as he's saying that, he's like throwing away the signatures that she got to be able to campaign for president, and it's obvious that he does not admire her. That he does blame her and resent her for the situation with Navatni being fired, but he places none of the blame on him and he places all of the blame on Tracy. Yeah, I mean, Jim, the way I interpreted that character was like a demonstration of like, here's the most average guy in the world who at the beginning of the movie, you know, he's just he's average. Is fuck, he seems relatively content ish, and then let's peel back everything. Even in the most average of people, is this deep seated hatred of certain people? Um, and then they I mean it goes up to a fucking eleven from there. But there was because he is so average and he hates women, and he doesn't think he hates women, and that I think there's a lot of guys and Tracy points that out too right, and her voiceover says that, I mean, I would hate my life if I were him, and just like the monotony of what he does all the time, and she and her depiction was like on every student body, like any team, and exactly she was like in the front of everything. And and it's kind of hard to know, I guess, because this was because it's so steeped in politics, like the Monica Lewinsky scandal is a few years before this, and so it's almost hard to know exactly how the writers of this movie want these lines to come off, which is interesting. I mean, I'd be interested in hearing what Alexander Pain thought in verses now, because I think the reading of this movie is very open to in interpretation in a good way where you can kind of see what you want in it. But they're really quick. I want to go back to my buddy feminist icon Roger Ebert, who almost always has the worst take and the most stupid Like everyone was like he was the best, but go back and read his stuff. He wasn't his. His summary of the movie is so telling, where he gave it a good review, but he says, here's a movie that's not simply about an obnoxious student, but also about an imperfect teacher, a difficult administration, and a student body that's mostly just marking time until it can go out into the world and occupy valuable space. That is his. So all that to say, the reading of this movie in the twenty years after it's probably changed a lot, oh for sure. The next thing I want to say about Jim McAllister and how he views women, specifically Tracy Flick, is it not only does he resent her for you know, his best friend getting fired, and not only does he feel threatened by her ambitiousness, He has a bunch of sexual fantasies about her. We has a lot of sexual fantasies about a lot of people. Yes, every woman who is not his wife, everyone next of the woman who loves him, Well, is that anyone else besides Linda, because I feel like Linda and Tracy, Linda Tracy, and then he watches porn and but and it was also like a teacher student porn, yes, or wasn't I thought it was a football player and cheerleader, that they were both students, and then he projects dave on Yeah, that's what I thought it was. Yeah, it is mostly Tracy and Linda who he takes stuff out on. But even based on there's like a few shots and I kind of want to compare this shot later on to a shot we see of Tammy versus a shot of Jim, because those characters balance each other out in this very bizarre way. But there's a few shots where we see Jim's direct viewpoint, so you know, some some male gazy shit. Some of it's more obvious where that time, you know, like you see that shot of like Linda's boobs. Oh yeah, he's like hanging a fruit. She's framed sexually. His wife is not framed sexually. Even during sex scenes, she's not framed sexually. And then any time Jim's voice over is going and we get those really unflattering shots of Tracy um So the like the visual even the visual language is telling you how Jim feels about the women around him. Yeah, and then he's the type of person that after that day that he spends with Linda, you know, he takes her to the mall to go shopping, and he's like helping her out around her house. He's like driving her back, and then they see like a motel on the side of the road and he's like, should we get a room? And she's like, that's not funny. So he's like making a sexual advance. She rejects it. And then when he's back home and talking to his wife, she's like, oh, how is your day? His wife? His wife, she's like, how's your day? And he's like, oh, you know, Linda's great, but she can be a little much sometimes. So he's the type of when his advances are like rebuffed and rejected by a woman, he starts talking shit. Yeah, oh yeah. So he's a feminist title. There's I mean I think that there's this is the same year American Beauty comes out. I'm pretty sure that also came out in ninety nine. There are a few I like this movie a million times more than I like American Beauty. I can't stand up moving, but there are a few like recognizable qualities in him. And then Kevin Spacey's character in that movie where the small like micro punishments of the women around them when he feels reduced or rejected or just in that that line about Linda is so great because I'm like, oh, I can picture almost any guy I know saying something about someone else that way and not even having a barely registered without getting personal. But my one, my exes, who I've often talked about on my podcast Crazy One, we'll just go with that. Um, he when he was cheating on me, he would talk about the girl he was cheating on me with, but he would keep saying like shitty things about her and like always being like she was she was. And then I didn't even know that they were friends. And then when I found out, I was like huh, And I was like, wait, so all this time I had a grand do that? Fuck man? Well, now you know I was trying to throw you off the scent. Sometimes another fun thing happens where later on, when Jim McAllister ruins his own life by cheating on his his wife, he calls Linda and blames her for ruining his life. So he is the type of person who's not willing to accept any blame or to take accountability for anything that he's done. He's always looking for other people to us to blame onto, or he's resenting everyone else for things that he is complicit in, or that other things have done, other people have done wrong. I think almost at the top of that is like any woman exerting power over him, he's going to retaliate against because even I mean, part of the reason I thought he didn't he wasn't even being affectionate towards his wife, uh, even though you know she certainly didn't do anything wrong, was because she really wanted a baby. And that like almost like, first of all, that's lazy writing for his wife kind of character, but also just like the fact that he wasn't the primary focus of her desire I think is a pretty clear reason why he'd want to retaliate against her. He wants to be the center of everything, and he's so threatened and this is like fucking pathetic. He's so threatened by Tracy wanting to be student body president that he brings an election where there's that line where he's like the sight of Tracy at that moment affected me in a way. I can't explain who knew how high should climb in life? How many people would have to suffer because of her? I had to stop her now, Like he's so afraid of female power in any way that he and it just gets so pathetic. And I love when he gets stung by a bee and just like the fact that like he's saying, like how many people would she affect in her life? And it's like, while you know, you stay quiet while your best friend was sucking a minor and her life is ruined. His life is ruined, The wife's life is ruined, Your wife's life is ruined, your baby's life that he Paul's life is ruined. Well, also his wife never gets pregnant, right, not that we see in the story. I think that that's another parent he's impotent. I think that that was like what that message. They were having baby sex every night and head they were trying for a year and ye never conceived. He's an impotent man. Yeah. Hey, let's take a quick break and then we'll be back for more. And we're back. I just wanted to read some quick stats about women in politics and then we can, you know, talk about some more specific characters. Let's just use Congress as an example microcosm of politics. If you will, well, tell me more about this Congress in two thousand eighteen, the year that we are currently living in, unless you are listening to this podcast from you know, because this podcast is gonna last and really hold up to Yeah, this will be the last thing people here. Four. Yeah, if you're listening to this podcast, you do have seven days to look okay. So in two there are seven women in Congress, making up only twenty of members of Congress. Hot in nine, the year that this movie comes out, there were only sixty three women in Congress. One hundred years ago, guess how many were women were in Congress? We couldn't vote, so that there was one, there was one. There was not a Congress when we couldn't vote. How did that happen? Who is that? I don't I don't, I don't know. I need to do research. But Rutgers dot E d you gave me some some hot info. Anyway. So, m much like in movies, women are wildly underrepresented in politics do wouldn't you know it? Except if you're listening to this right now, a record number of women are running for political positions this year mid terms today right now. Yeah. Also, if you combine movies and politics to things that are so good to women historically, the results are even worse. A quick Google search of political movies will yield results that show nearly every movie in that sort of sub genre of political movies is about men, except for that Sarah Palin movie Game Changer, and maybe a few others, which for wild cards here and there is awesome in rules I have seen to say, the one time wherever like Sarah Palin fucking literally she's awesome. Her movie was just about her. I loved her talk show about moose or whatever it was literally what it was, it was like Sarah Palin goes to the woods and French as a moose. Remember where she could have been all heart beat away from the presidency whatever. Um, I don't know. That's almost one of those like ripple effects things where if you're basing movies on real life events, would be really hard to make movies about women, uh if, but only if you're making movies about very high level politicians, Like there's where where's the hidden figures of women working in like women doing the actual work while Mr Guys wearing his Mr suit and he's like that was me. Um. So it's like one of those things where it's like, yeah, it's hard to find. You have to really look for those stories. But if there were more movies about women in politics, little girls could have seen them and said, hey, I see myself represented on screen. That's going to influence my decision to go into politics. Because there was not the representation, it perpetuates the cycle, right, And this this movie, I mean, it's interesting because I mean, just based on that Ebert review alone, I think that people's view of Tracy tends to be all over the place, and I was sort of having trouble placing how the movie feels about her at times the same and I think that that is intentional anyway, where I don't even think the movie is totally okay with female power. And I think that the movie wants you to feel like she's kind of annoying and she's overly ambitious. I don't read that character that way at all, but it seems like just based on the time this movie came out and listeners, if you have any opinions or more information, please let's know. But it seems like this character, to an extent, I mean down to the way she's styled, is supposed to be a Hillary Clinton style character, where from so early to her being in the public eye, whether you like her or dislike her whatever, we're not even going to get into that. But she was portrayed from moment one as a power hungry woman who whose very existence was emasculating her male counterpart, and like almost no matter what side, didn't know, whether you were on the left or the right or whatever, that was the general view was that she was she wanted too much, she was trying to be too powerful, and it seems like that is supposed to be the exact same values that we see in Tracy, even though with the benefit of time there's so much more there. But it was I don't know, it just seems like a weird, inconclusive commentary on something that I'm like, I don't know how Alexander Paine feels about her, right, I think he likes her but thinks she's annoying and should go away right and then but there's some moments where Tracy expresses different frustrations about, you know, working really hard for something and saying stuff that really resonated with me, where she says, uh, she's talking about her mom. She says she likes to write letters to successful women like Elizabeth Dole and Connie Chong and ask them how they got to be where they are and what advice they have for me, Tracy her daughter. Nine times out of ten, they say, you have to hold on to your dreams no matter what the pressures women face me, and you have to work twice as hard and you can't let anything or anyone stand in your way. So on one hand, it's like, yeah, she seems like she's willing to kind of like try to pull on some people to climb her way to the top but up. And on the other hand she's saying, yeah, like, as a woman she has to work twice as hard, gets not nearly as much of the recognition, and you know, it's always an uphill battle for her. Well. I was also such a mirror again of the election, where it was clearly out of the two final candidates, the more experienced one who had less of a personality but more you know what I mean in terms of a magnanimous kind of thing. Came off as a little bit yeah, you know that, not as personable the way people perceived it. And then the other person are less qualified. But this big person who spoke in layman language and used you know, short word words and descriptions for everything that related to a lot of people, your name of George W. Bush a few times where it was like he's simple, and that's like, that's such a big part of elections nowadays, right, It's like, is it about the quality of the candidate and their policies and their experience or is it personality? Is this who do you want to get a beer with? Like, I don't want to get a beer with political candidates. Please give me the best policies and then do your job. Don't don't drink with me, don't come to the chachat lounge with me, Senators go to work exactly um. And then Tracy expresses this very sentiment and fairly long monologue that I will paraphrase, but basically she's saying, you know, you might think I'm upset that Paul Metzler decided to run he doesn't have the qualifications that I do. Yet it sucks that some people are just handed everything to them and while other people like me, who have worked very very hard for their entire lives, you know, trying to get what they want. Blah. And she's like, it doesn't bother me at all, And obviously it does, because every every person who delivers any sort of voiceover narration this movie is not unreliable to themselves and others. Uh. And that I mean that. I'm sure that resonated with all of us hearing that. And the reason, I guess the reason I say it because it's weird, because stuff like that is so clearly written, where you're like, whoever is writing this story must you know, feel for tracing and at least to some extent, understand her. But then where that character is left, like you're saying a little earlier in Natasha, it's like it's a little bit weird where the last line I think we hear her speak is like when she's at college and she's still the implication at the end of like because she is intelligent and has ambitions that she will be alone Forever was a weird place to leave that character because that's one of the few moments where you know, in the voice sober she's like and it's totally fine, and that's the lie. But you see reflective in the voiceover, and what happens, that's what the movie thinks happens to her, is that she doesn't really have friends in high school and people point that out to work a few times, and it clearly does affect her in small ways. And then we see her flash forward to college and there's that voiceover line, if you want to be great, you've got to be lonely, and we see her alone and it's just like such a weird It's like, then, how do you feel about this woman movie? Because that is, you know, not necessarily true. It's not I mean, it seems like it's like, this is the truth for this kind of woman. And I mean, my my guest would be that the writer, whoever, at what point the like line of men that wrote this movie, that must have been something that felt true to them because it's presented like it's true. Well can I say so? Uh, we've done two episodes of this in our pod cast that we did one on the Science of Relationships and another one with the author of a book called The Love Gap of Why Smart Women Are Single? Yeah, okay, cool, Yeah, And I think in that one she references the psychologists from Signs of Relationships who is on our podcast, and they talk about um their case studies that say, and I'm going to funk up the ratio or the percentage, but a large percentage if you ask guys what kind of woman do you want of them say they want a smart, independent, ambitious woman who like can think on her own all that stuff. And I think it's like less than fifty seven percent or something like that percent of guys actually end up with a dependent woman and they don't actually end up with the independent woman. And so this is the whole book in case study around the fact that like, theoretically you love the idea of this, but when you're actually faced with this person, they make you feel less then, which is like the a mechanistic character, right, like he felt whenever he was around somebody like Tracy, a reminder that he is living this monotonous life when she chose to take steps to you know. Yeah, and there's a line that he has in the very end whenever he talks when he's seeing her in Washington, d C. And he said something like, I feel sorry for her. She's probably still waking up at five am every day pursuing her stupid little dreams. And it's like and he's like holding a fucking slurpee cup, no disrespect, but you know, I love slurping nation. But he's out there, you know, denigrating the visual of holding a slurpy cup. It's like a forty five year old dude lying in a basement in New York. But like, you know, he looks soap and then he throws it, throws the slurpie at the lima. He's like, I'm so mad. You mean me, I volunteer, I'm a doze in. And he's got this like clinically depressed new girlfriend, like she's recently out of her relationship, and he in that shot. I don't know if you noticed. She's talking about something and he stares at her tits and so he just didn't even know. It's so like, fuck this guy. But there's millions of him, yeah, and we know some of them. Yeah. So as far as Tracy goes, I liked her as a character quite a bit. I identified with her because I feel like I was not exactly like her in high school, but I was like way too ambitious and taking things way too seriously, and like my thing was like I want to graduate in the top five percent of my class, and like I was, you know, joining, I was doing mock trial. I was, you know, playing the sports and doing all the stuff. Pay for a VHS if you do. So, I you know, related to her, And there were some moments in high school where I also felt like a loner because I was like, man, no one's taking their studies as serious me, so I I can't let these people slow me down. And like any case, this is all to say that, um, I generally like the way that she's written, and I find her to be, you know, a fairly multidimensional, interesting character. We often don't see that, especially in you know, kind of teen high school movies like this. There's just a few blind spots exactly, Yeah, for sure. One of the blind spots that I don't know if it's a timing thing, but I feel like we're kind of set up like Tracy's mom is going to be an important character in this story, but then she never really becomes that like she only actually speaks, and I think like one scene, which is weird because we she's introduced in voiceover, is like, my mom is awesome. She raised me on her own, she contacts powerful women, she's like supports me. It's a paralegal. You know, we don't know what she does for a living. And then the lazy writing of like I know what you're thinking. I grew up without a dad, so I hate men, And it's like, Okay, this is horrible writing. Why are we doing this? But then the mom character there's blind spots there too, because the mom gets so mad she finds out that, you know, like her daughter's being taken advantage of, to say the least, by her own teacher, but then doesn't demand something beyond him being fired. Like there's just a few weird like that were like a mom that seems as on it as this mom is presented to be. She would be trying to get this dude and fucking jail. He would not be working at a grocery. Maybe she did try to sue Jim. She did at the end that they had like the newspaper that said that she but not but not Dave, the one who actually write assaulted home. Maybe it's a commentary on how when women come forward about you know, abuse and assaults, not there's no consequences, nothing happens, but it's I don't think it is a credit. No, I don't think it's active commentary on definitely, But yeah, it's weird. I used to I when I first watched the movie. I'll be honest, I didn't like Tracy when I was young. I didn't know enough, and I was like, she's just not nice, and I like the nice guy, and the nice guy should have won, and I can't believe. And then as I've grown older and become more obviously grown, immatured to my own and I though I've always been ambitious, I think the part of her that was very like I would do anything to get their part never related to me UM, and so I think I sort of blacklisted her in that way. And this time when I watched her, I really appreciated the passion she had and and you know her actually not getting brought down by the stupid teacher who did this horrible thing to her, um, but to like not have lost all of her zeal for it. Like I appreciated that part, UM and like I mean at the end, even when she lost, for a second, she was like, Okay, I accepted defeat. She cries a lot, butrple pants suit the world wepped. It was a tough morning for everyone, even though she did she won the popular vote, but that damn electoral college. That's an excellent point I would. I mean, for any listener who hasn't seen this movie in a while, particularly since the last election, probably go back and watch it and see how your opinions of the characters have changed, because if, especially if you saw it when it first came out, chances are your brain has been scrambled upwards. Certainly. Yeah, I want to talk about Tammy and the queerness that's represented on the screen, because when we first are introduced to Tammy Metzler, she and Lisa are kissing. Lisa's not really into it, she leaves, and then we hear Tammy's voice over, which is that it's not like I'm a lesbian or anything. I'm attracted to the person. It's just that all the people I've ever been attracted to happen to be girls. She's yeah, she's struggling with company closet, figuring it out. Yeah, I really liked Tammy. I appreciated her whole like anarchy thing, where obviously that doesn't translate well into like current politics or like our actual situation, but as you know, as a high school student body, where what even is in my school at least, like the student body government got nothing accomplished, like didn't do anything. It was really just a title and in a popularity contest and that was it. So I kind of I like that she recognizes that. I like that she advocates for herself, she stands up for herself. She does call Tracy a kunt. That's Tammy's kind of a mixed baggie. There's I mean, it is so rare, I mean, especially in a movie at this time, to see any queer representation in a teen movie, as we kind of note based on I mean a lot of movies we've been doing recently, um our teen movies of this era, and very rarely see a fleshed out queer character who we know something about them other than they're queer. But a lot of I mean, it's there are some really good moments that she has, and then there's other stuff that it's like, really this is the I mean, this movie first of all, has no recognition of bisexuality. It's a very simplistic view of even I mean that line that you just said that, like I fall in love with the person, uh, could be interpreted to be kind of a forward thinking you know, that's a statement of like not recognizing the binary in that way. But the way we're supposed to read it is that she is uh, you know, strictly attracted to women and just doesn't want to admit it to herself or isn't right ready. The fact that she only enters the race for revenge against another woman who I don't totally understand the Lisa character was very confusing to me. Of like Wise, Lisa retaliating against Tammy so hard if we are supposed to believe that she is not queer in any way. But Lisa's motivations are not clear well defined or explained all, Like, I mean, the only thing you hear is Paul's like and then Lisa just came over and like it was like, I mean, the only way I pieced it together was she was using Tammy to get to her brother. But they should have just added some some line in that that like that's what she was doing and was like sort of experimenting with her and was like, I'm not really into this, really actually into but then she gets so into running Paul's campaign, and I'm like, maybe there's some political reference I'm not getting in this, like there was for every character that confused me, and like maybe this is a reference to a nineties politician that I just like, I'm not as aware of. But the fact that Tammy enters the race as kind of like a trumpy, rogue candidate that's like burn it all down because I want to get revenge against someone. And it was like, Okay, what else do we get Tammy? Like what else? And uh steins where she's stalking Lisa. She is stalking for love, hiding, hiding in trash cans, the whole fucking montage We've seen a million times. I was like, Okay, what else we get Tammy? And she yeah, he calls uh, I forget if it's a Tracy A bitch, Lisa A count Tracy ac count Lisa A bit that exchange is made U And then you're like, Okay, it's not like women aren't allowed to dislike other women. What else do we got? And the one scene with Tammy a character I do genuinely like and seeing like representation and her being there is powerful in itself, but the way the movie treats the character and the choices that she makes, I feel like villainizes her in a way that's not necessary. The one moment I really liked of hers that to me, I'm as stand and then like direct opposition to the way we see Jim all the time is that scene where I forget what motivates her leaving the house. I think it's when like Tammy finds out she has to go to Catholic school or something, she's going to have to drop out of the election, and she sees a soccer field full of girls and she's looking at them, and so it is a gazy shot that it's not an exploitative shot, right, There's like she's standing far away and she's looking, you know, and you can tell like she's interested and possibly attracted, but it's not creepy and it's and then you see anytime Jim looks at a woman, it's very creepy and cropped and whatever. And I was like, that was my favorite scene with Tammy where you saw like that felt like, I mean, I would be interested in what our listeners think, that felt like the closest thing to like positive progressive representation of just like a girl recognizing her own sexuality and you know, being semi okay with it. But I feel like that character is is weird in a lot of ways. Well, she's just as kind of it seems as unreliable of a narrator is everyone else where you know, she at the end, she goes to Catholic school and she meets another girl whose name I forget, but just a little alright, Jennifer Junith right where she's like, we're soulmates and we're never going to be a part, and we're you know, best friends and we love each other. And you can kind of imagine that that story will play out a very similar way as her relationship with Lisa, because she keeps seems like she's kind of chasing after girls who may be open to experimenting who or who may be questioning, but ultimately end up you know, identifying as had to row and that like lines her up with all the other characters who basically end where they started at the end the movie too, where it's like this could have been an opportunity for her to you know, learn and grow, but she simply does not. The only yeah, the only thing I felt with like the three candidates was the girl's all seem angsty and like the one Paul goes just so cool and laid back, and he's just like wants to be this cool dude and like, man, I just just became Homecoming King and everybody loves me. And you know, Lisa one will have to find somebody else. But I guess that's life. Like he's so cool and and like the girls are like she's like the the angsty lesbian trying to figure her life out, and I'm like, why is it? Like her whole thing is like anger? And but then he also turns to camera at the end and he's like maybe my life would have been different, He's like, or maybe i'd be did Why did they choose to because he's the only person that does that, right. Yeah, And I don't know if that line even like me, Yeah, the character there's something cognitive dissonance there. I don't know, there's a whole other movie in that line. Its like is he secretly very deep and like nihilistic and things there? I do. I totally see your point of Tammy is just as fucked up as anyone in the movie. I guess it's just the main person we have to compare her to is Tracy, who is not as conniving she is, I think, just as frustrated and angry. But I think it just gets back to the problem of like, well, because Tammy is the only queer character we see represented everything she does, it's almost hard to keep an individual because queer people are never represented, and so when you do see like the one queer character doing all these like this petty bullshit, you're like, man, yeah, yeah, that's dangerous. I guess I just like looking at it on the surface and not analyzing her after any deeper than that, like what we've just done, but just kind of very surface level, like her speech that she gives and then the scene where she's like praying and saying like, hey God, I know I don't believe in you, but I'm going to Catholic school soon, so like, I guess a bit of practice, and then you know, her speech is all like who cares, Like I don't even want to be running for this, you know, I'm just going to dismantle this institution, and like, don't vote. I don't care, and I was just like, she's cool, right, don't don't listen to Tanny. You should vote and you should care counts. Can we talk about Paul? Where to begin with Paul? Well, he can start by saying that he unlike many jock football player type characters that we see in teen movies, he is not this like gross misogynist, toxic masculinity poster child. It's a blank slate. He's he's sweet and he's sensitive, and he like loves his sister and he like is originally opposed to running against Tracy and her and he's like, I'm not gonna run against her. You know that's she's good at that and I'm not gonna, you know, interfere. And there's a few lines where he approaches his sister Tammy. He says, it's kind of weird that you're running against me and you haven't told me why you're doing it, But that's okay. I respect your privacy and I want you to know whoever wins you or me, there's no hard feelings. Were still brother and sister. Also, the weird addition, like that weird moment where he's like, well you are adopted. I was like, why is that there that It's like, I guess that's just another thing we know. Yeah, and then you know, when he's praying for her, he's asking God to make Tammy happier because she's so smart and sensitive and I love her so much. Like but then also he's clueless because he doesn't seem to realize that his sister is queer. There's like some moments where I was like, Paul, you missed that, and he's like, and I don't know how he send it up here. I mean, she got in a fight with Tanny and next to the next thing, I know, she's a I was like, Paul read the room. Yeah, So he's just clueless and stupid. And then also a line that he need delivers I think in voice over pretty early on in the movie, he says, you know, Mr McAllister changed my life, and whatever they say he did or didn't do, I believe he's a good man. So he almost just like sees the good in people to a fault because he's never like it's sort of like that, you know, there there's guys out there like this, who are you know, they have a good heart, they mean the best, they're generally respectful of women, but nothing bad has ever really happened to them, and so they're not going to assume that anyone would do anything against anyone's better interest because I just don't have that experience. I mean, the one thing that he did that was very poignant was at the end when they were voting, He's like, everybody says that you should vote for yourself, but I don't think that that's what I think. That's just he literally was the one who voted Tracy in. She won by Paul's vote. Oh, he's a good guy. And then he wants to have a fund a carnival that fundraises for muscular distrophe at the and that scene kind of broke my heart too, of like he does end up caring, like you know, and not supposed to be like a funny moment where Mr. Mcallaster's stooge ends up being motivated and does want to make a difference. But you're like, man, that like seems like pretty true to how you know, like when men usually only choose to support younger versions of themselves and bring them in and it just perpetuates this Oh god, that whole scene was like, oh Paul, baby, Paul won't drop the ball, and I loved that smogan. It's a little defend. Another one was Paul Metzler, you Betsler, precious, But oh one another this is just a quick thing and we hardly know anything about this character. But the student who was running for vice president Jerry Um. We see representation on screen of a person with a disability. I love Jerry and he's running on a freaking post and opposed. He cracks jokes, he's anyways, yeah, Jered basically gets a standing uh yeah yeah, because what he says like I can't stand, but I stand for you, and everyone's like, this are Jerry. Another character we see for like two seconds that was like, oh, there's a whole other thing in there. Uh Tammy's mom. There's that scene where the parents find out that she's been election tampering and she's been disrupting coming down the escalator with Mulanni and the whole ship. But there's a scene with the parents where it seems pretty point. The mom's sitting there like with a martini. I think she's supposed to be like, oh wine, mom who is exhausted with her blow hard husband. Um, and he's you know, yelling He's like, where where are you sucking? You're going to a new school, and Tammy's mom keeps almost saying something's cut off, and then eventually she finally does say something and is you know, not a dumb person at all. Is very well spoken and starts to say make a cogent point, and then the dad cuts her off again. You're just like interrupting, You're going to Sacred Heart or whatever the spot just like whoa oh. They say something like yeah, we're gonna straighten you out, and then she's like giggling because I don't know if it's because of like right like I'm pants sexually and it's like all right, Tammy, we okay. Does anyone have any other thoughts about the film? Whof there's a there's a lot just The last a Shotover really liked was the shot of the dick at the end. He's like, what happens when a man loses everything? It's like literally a straight up castration shot. Um oh, I guess The last thing I wanted to say in terms of just like you know, unwrapping a pretty clear commentary is, uh, the idea of second chances where Jim's character at the end. You know, it's like and then I moved to New York and I got dissed and it's not perfect. Clearly his life kind of sucks, but you know he's not really punished. He just has to start over. That is, I mean clear political allegory of like, hey, just I mean, I think applies to what a lot of guys are trying to do after their me too moment, to like I just gotta go somewhere else or wait a little while and then I can just keep on. Louis k keeps doing drop in sets at the Comedy Cellar. He's addicted to it. He won't stop. And yeah, so that that was like a moment that I think feels like especially timely right now to just like and I just went somewhere else and did the same ship forever. Awesome. So I do appreciate the one kid, the truth kid who looks spits on this Larry feminist Larry, and Larry wants women when on Jim is like still driving on the streets after all of this has happened. He's divorced, he lost everything. He's in the car and he sees Larry and they both just like lock eyes and He's like tries to give him a little smile. Larry's like, I'm like, yeah, much like what Rose does to Billy Zane in the end of Titanic Tooey, Yeah, where was Billy's and in this movie? Where was the Boba duke in this movie? Where in this movie? Yeah, there's a mistake. Not everyone's always available. But I hope that I love I love Alfre Billina to you know, to my dying day. I think Matthew it is so good in this movie. This movie was excellently cast. It's like a perfect inversion of who people perceived him to be. Oh, I would be remiss not to just remind everyone, as I do every time we mentioned Matthew Brodrick. Matthew Broderick did hit two women with his car once and killed them both. Oh my god, I didn't know that about him, guys, Matthew Brodercks. I mean, he didn't do it on purpose, but he was in a car with Jennifer Gray in Ireland and uh so, just yeah, enjoy Matthew brodjeckts never water. It's uh, you know videos Matthew Brodicks. So nothing happened. M just a fun fact about Matthew Broderick, he'd killed the lady. Well, that really sucks. Well to bring that note, Yeah, well a fun to to uplift our spirits again after hearing that, I just wanted to point out. I don't know if anyone else noticed, but um, whenever you first are introduced to Paul and he's like tumbling down a mountain as he's skiing, you see two different shots of what is obviously stock footage of a skier because they're wearing different coats. And then when it cuts to a close on Paul, he's wearing a different coat from both of the previous two shots. So it's so funny. I didn't see that. I love that. That's great continuity, and it's clear that they didn't try to do they didn't do anything to try because I easily just could have taken the one stock footage shot and then matched the coat with whatever that person was wearing. But it seemed like an almost deliberate joke for like it to be three different coats, because those shots are so long that you could have just used the one so anyway. And then finally, for anyone who's keeping track of the name anagrams of what Caitlin Durante anagrams too relevant to this movie. Caitlin Durante anagrams to run lit candidate if you misspell candidate and only spell it with one D. So for example, you know, if someone's like, hey, I don't know if I should run or not, I would say to you, run lit candidate, because you're lit and you're a potential candidate, you should. Right in my sub rating now, I'm rating things twice an episode. Uh and and that's a two for me, a two out of five. Wow, Jamie harsh as a stretch. No, listen, there's been there's been great ones, and I hold them to that gold standard. Okay, I understand, well, I think this is one of my better ones. So like, I guess we're there's we can you know, disagree from time to time. But um yeah, that's that's the one I got for this one. The last thing I wanted to mention to this movie's credit, this is one of the few because we didn't discuss Jim's wife, Diane really at all, because we're not given much other than her husband's a sucking asshole and she would like a baby and she uses a sex phrase clearly written by a man film what woman in her right? It wouldn't happen. Ever, I say that every day, what if? What if? Caleb was like, I'd like to come out in strong opposition. That's my only sex phrase. It's my campaign slogan really for when I when I a lit candidate, run filed me up. The one thing I wanted to say to that point, other than the fact that you just lost my vote, is that that this is one of the rare movies where, you know, Linda tells Diane your husband and I had sex, and Diane breaks up with her husband, doesn't seem to actively punish the other woman, which I think is usually well so I appreciated that. Yeah, we see them having presumably just interacted and probably not passing the Bectel test because it's probably talking about Jim. But it seems like they are consoling each other. They're you know, they're crying and comforting each other, and they are placing the blame rightfully on Jim, who I don't know if this happens right before right after when he has a conversation with Linda and is like, you ruined my life and she's like you, like you took advantage of me, like, and he's like, well, you took advantage of me, you kiss me, you hugged me, and like, I think that they should have acknowledged that they both had a partner. There was one thing I was like, Linda was an active participant in that. But I think that that also spoke to her not being a very well written character, because she pretty clearly rejects him and then all of a sudden seems not just on board to have sex with him, but on board to have sex with him in front of her baby, which is such a leap, and the character were introduced to that, it seems like that character was sold out at some point, right, But we're Linda Land. She should definitely own some of the blame. But she's right. I mean, I think she's right to not for like, obviously she didn't ruin Jim's life, but she was an active participant. She literally fund the guy in front of her baby. No, I should do that with with Linda. There's no catalyst for the audience to understand why she suddenly changes her mind about wanting to sleep with Jim. Why does she even invite him over after he hit on her? And right he would think that that would put an end to that friendship. Well she said that, She's like, I was just lonely and made a mistake and you know, and that's the thing again about this moral ethics, and it does happen. And that's the thing I liked about this, Like I like in general about this movie so much is I think the overarching message is also about like how so much everything is gray. There isn't so much of like black and white, and there is a lot of gray space. And it does come to moral ambiguity. Like with every character there's like they're all you could see the good side and then you're like, oh, we did this shitty thing and that literally everybody totally poor filming up, she did nothing. Hey does this movie pass the Bechtel test? Yes? Yes. Women do not interact nearly as much as I was expecting, considering there are a fair number of female identifying characters. I only clocked one scene where it passes, which is between Tammy and Lisa in the beginning. Whenever they are kissing, Lisa pulls away. She says, I told you, and she's like what She's like, it doesn't feel right anymore, and she's like Tammy's like, but I love you. And then a few seconds later, Lisa is getting into a car and starting to drive away and Tammy's like, where are you going? And she's like, I'm not like you. I'm not a insert homophobic slur here. Yeah, we're not in love. We were just experimenting. So nothing is called into question here in terms of hey, is this is a man mentioned here? Like this is about women kissing each other an interesting past? Did you not have Tracy and her mom passing at least once in that scene? No, because unless I am just misremembering something. But the only scene I noticed where Tracy and her mom interact on screen is after Tracy finds out she loses the election and she's crying, and then her mom comes in and she's when she's stuff to her right. She's like, uh, there there, lie down, take my pill, you know, and then she's like, maybe you needed more posters or you should have taken my suggestions about your speech, But Tracy never verbally responds she's crying. Yeah, I wish that mom. I don't understand why that mom character wasn't more present, And that was like a weird thing for me. So yes, this movie does pass the Bechdel test, but as far as I can tell, only in one scene. Unless I'm missing something, it's not okay. That's that's the way the cookie crumbles will take one for Yeah, now we rate on our nipple scale, where we rate the movie based on its portrayal of women based on a scale of zero to five nipples. This is another like kind of landing right in the middle for me, where to me, it's not especially progressive, it's not especially re aggressive. It has interesting female characters, more time and care was spent to develop them, certainly more than other similar kind of teen movies, especially of this era. But also there are choices that were made, like the statutory affair that happens between the teacher and the student, and I don't know, this is just like it's a hard this is a hard one. This is some of them are it's very easy, and this is a hard one because as you were kind of touching on Natasha, it's like there's a lot of ambiguity and gray area that is honestly are realistic. I mean, we as as people find ourselves having to make difficult decisions and and being faced with things that we don't exactly know what the right and moral and ethical thing to do is in the moment, and maybe making mistakes here and there. So I think all of those aspects of the film are interesting. Um Worth noting that this is an extremely white movie that could be um maybe explained away the fact that this takes place in a suburb of Oh Maha, Um, where do we share? But we're everywhere. Yeah, replace the Indians. I'm sure we found our way somewhere there. But yeah, every major speaking role, in fact, maybe even every speaking role period is spoken by a white person. Um. I do appreciate that there is clear and not code did because if there is queer characters in movies, usually they're just coded that way. But we do see someone who, even though she perhaps is not totally sure how she identifies at this stage in her life, she is queer. Yeah, although as we discussed, you know, she kind of falls into a sort of trophy character of like kind of the angry lesbian type. So you know, more care and time could have been spent to develop these characters just a little bit more. Um Yeah. So overall, this was a very long winded way to say that I give this movie. I'm going to give this movie. I think two and a half nips. I'll give one to Tracy Flick, I'll give one to Tammy, and I will give my remaining half nipple too Diane Jim's wife and then ex wife because I feel like we should have his wife, because I feel like we should have learned more about her, and more about the mom character, more about many characters. But you know, you only have so much time in a movie, so I'm gonna go. I'm very close to wanting to do with three and a half for this one. Natasha, you made a great point at the end for all the like nitpicky things they have about this movie, by and large, every character in this movie is presented as flawed, and that is, I think, in general, a positive in that we have female characters that we know well enough to know that they're flawed. Usually it's the only thing we know about them, or we know nothing at all. So where where I do have like certain like thoughts of like, I think that Tammy's character could have been handled better, You're totally right. She's a very flawed character, as is the entire main cast. And for any criticism of like everyone like, it's not just the female identifying characters in this movie. That and where they started. Everyone's in a vicious cycle that they made themselves, and that's you know, suppressing, but it feels real and at least is uniformly applied to almost every character you know. There there are a few misses with I absolutely agree that the statutory rape storyline is mishandled, and there's I mean, I think that there's space inside of it this movie for it to be handled well, but it's not. And then there's a few uncanny valley characters like Linda where I could understand where you're coming from, but we just haven't spent enough time with you to understand why these sudden switches were made. Uh, And just that I don't see any reason why Tracy's mom couldn't have been more present. Uh, little stuff like that. Obviously, it is a very white movie, and there's no reason in a high school setting for their now, although my high school had white people in it. So I don't like not to defend this choice at all. It might be a regional thing, who knows. But also in movies you can make choices to you know, misrepresent things, because movies do it all the time. Right. And also it's like, how would it have affected the story negatively? Like it it wouldn't you know? You could have the movie happen the exact same way and have included people of color at any point. But I'll go three three and a half because it's hard to find. It's hard to find complicated depictions of women in movies at all, and we've got we've got a few here, and I really really enjoyed this movie and I'm looking forward to seeing it again. Um, and also sorry, what I was gonna say is not just a complicated woman, but the kind of character you can keep revisiting and take something new away every time. I think that that is something very commonly applied to male characters. Um, I go right to TV. But like you know, you're don drapers of like revisiting this guy we all thought was so fucking cool. There's not a lot of female characters that are written well enough to be able to go back and have new takers. So I'll go three and a half. M I mean to give two to Tracy flick uh, and I give that half to Diane, and I'm given the last of that poor baby who had to see Matthew brodack of sex. Um, you guys said everything. Now, I would give it three also because I appreciate that they were telling a female sort of driven story. I appreciate that there were multiple female characters. I mean, we talked about well five or so, and you know the reason I wouldn't give it a full five is because they were portrayed to be like the parts of us that could be embraced. We're sort of underappreciated, so even and I get it. I mean, as a writer, like, when you're writing a character, you just gotta go like all in. You can't be like, oh, the um, you know, the ambitious student, and the log line has to be the over ambitious student, um, the obnoxious student. Like it has to do. And I get it, Um, but I wish that, you know, if we had the platform, we weren't portrayed as that. Otherwise I feel like all your points are valid. Um. I'm always an advocate for diversity. Um. That's that. I completely get that. I'm from Canada and and uh, I see, I think it's a lot more common there, um to see all sorts of people. But I've learned as I've come to America, that there are cities here where people didn't have people of color um at all, like until college and stuff. So I understand that. And I'm just kidding sometimes and sometimes not um that everybody should have diversity, but it's you know, back it was, it's all good. Um. Yeah. So three, I'll give two and a half to Tracy just because she's a bull buster and she you know, didn't let anybody stop her, and she had a lot of ship happened to her and she pushed on. She was also a human being who was flawed, and I think there's a lot to take away from her. Um, and fucking Reese Witherspoon plays her, so you have to love her. The other quarters I'll give to Tammy because, like you said, it's it's great that they had um an openly queer character on camera, and and her depiction was honest in the beginning of her struggling, you know, and trying to figure it out. Um, Diane, I feel bad for her. I feel bad for her, and so I don't think the math added up. Guys, don't judge me. I'm Indian. I should have known the math, but they didn't. I think that I'm also half hungover, but I'm not. I'm just really sleepy. Well, thank you so much for being here. Much fun. What would you like to plug? Where can people find you? On mond um, you guys can check out the Kind of Dating podcast. We are everywhere you find podcasts, and we're also on YouTube. You can follow us on social media where at Kind of Dating across the board. Um, I'm at Natasha Chandel on Facebook and Instagram and Natasha underscore Chandel on Twitter because some other bitch took my name. I'm getting unbelievable. Never use this Twitter, give me my handle that I'm kidding awesome. You can follow the Bechtel Cast on the various platforms on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtel Cast. You can write and review us on iTunes. You can subscribe to our patreon a k R Matreon by going to patreon dot com slash backtel Cast and you pay five dollars and you get to bonus episodes every single month. It's November, so you're going to be thankful for that you did. Oh and also don't forget you can now that we're getting into holiday season, you can also gift someone else uh Patreon subscription. We had some of that last year. Also last year and thanks getting fun no member fact, Caitlin and I got violently drunk and watched every version of The Grinch efforts and also watched and recorded and as still unreleased Titanic episode because we were too we were too drunk. So all I had to say, we put a lot of loving care into the Patreon and if we are too drug, we will not release it. Yeah, unless I know, maybe the it's funny. We've gotten requests for like when when are you releasing this? I think the people might want it. We'll see, you know. If some of our listeners wanted to donate substantially to an organization we love, they can here and we'll just hope they don't asslaunge it, just keep it to themselves. Yeah. Yeah, Also you can go to our merch store, UM Gift Season, t public dot com, slash the Bectel Cast and by all of our goodies there. Holiday shopping will be introducing some new designs and so get ready for what is it? Cyber Monday? Cyber wonder. Okay, we love you so much. By by vote