Female Trouble with Roz Hernandez

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

00:00:16
Speaker 2: Caitlyn, Yes, Jamie. If there's one thing I've always said, it's this. Here's a list of things there's no need to know anything about. There's no need to know to know anything about the president's war numbers, science or intersectional feminism.

00:00:32
Speaker 3: And I've always said.

00:00:34
Speaker 4: That, Yeah, I'll just listen to you and I'll know everything I need to know.

00:00:38
Speaker 3: This is this is the most quotable movie of all time.

00:00:40
Speaker 2: Caitlin, you little bitch, Let me out of this bird cage.

00:00:45
Speaker 4: Look look, my favorite line is we rarely eat any type of noodle, but I'll have a small portion to be polite.

00:00:52
Speaker 2: I'm a Steven a ship kicker, and I'd like to have a podcast called the Bechdel Cast. Name what's your favorite line? Listener, Pretend we opened the episode with it. This is one of the only movies where every line is quotable and every.

00:01:04
Speaker 3: Line is screamed.

00:01:06
Speaker 2: It is the Female Trouble episode of the Bechdel Cast.

00:01:10
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus.

00:01:14
Speaker 2: I am a shit kicker and I would also like to be famous.

00:01:18
Speaker 4: My name is Caitlin Durante. I am a little bitch and I would also like to be famous. Yea, this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test simply as a jumping off point to get a conversation going. But Jamie, what in the hell? I'm gonna scream the entire episode just like divine? What in the hell is the Bechdel Test? Jamie love, keep bitch?

00:01:45
Speaker 3: Oops, all screamed? Okay.

00:01:47
Speaker 2: The Bechdel Test is a media metric created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, friend of the show, originally made in her comic collection Likes to Watch Out For as a one off, a joke to sort of draw attention to the fact that there were never lesbian romances in movies. It hasn't been adapted to a more mainstream way. There's a million versions of it. The version of the test we use as this to characters with names of a marginalized gender speak to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dollog or more. That is somehow, you know, plot relevant, really not something we're going to have to split hairs with on the movie we're discussing today.

00:02:29
Speaker 3: It's maybe the least.

00:02:30
Speaker 2: Interesting thing about the movie we're discussing today, because the movie we're discussing today is Female Trouble from John Waters and Divine not necessarily in that order, from nineteen seventy four. And we have an incredible guest to discuss this wonderful movie with.

00:02:47
Speaker 4: We certainly do. She's a comedian and host of the podcasts Ghosted and Tickled to Death, a horror movie game show podcast from Paramount. It's Roz Hernandez Female givel hi Hi, thanks for being here.

00:03:05
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I'm so excited to be here. When I got the list of potential movies and I saw this one, I had to I had.

00:03:14
Speaker 6: To go with this one.

00:03:15
Speaker 5: It's it's it's it's a fave of mine. I'm a John Waters lady.

00:03:23
Speaker 4: Well tell yeah, tell us all about your relationship to John Waters. Ouvra to this movie specifically.

00:03:30
Speaker 5: So my life changed in two thousand and three. I was right at a good age where I was very impressionable and trying to trying to find my tribe and trying to find what I was really interested in. I just I was preteen at the time, and I was just sort of, I don't know. I wanted to find my people. I wanted to find my thing. And I had a subscription to Entertainment Weekly and they released a entire issue that was ranking the best I think it was fifty cult movies of all time. And I didn't have that word meant or anything, but I was just looking at all the movies and just based on the pictures and the descriptions, I was like, I gotta see all these and it was like Faster pussycag Kill Kill, and Rocky Horror and just so many of these movies that just completely shaped me and showed me really strong women and gender variant people and drag queens and just all of these things. I didn't know about it. I learned so much from that. And Pink Flamingos was on the list, and that movie was technically unrated, like the DVD of it was unrated, so I could to the movie rental plays and rent technically because.

00:05:05
Speaker 2: As Apprett, that's genius.

00:05:07
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love that. So I watched that movie when my parents were out of town because I wasn't I honestly wasn't sure if it was like a porn or what it was. But I was just like, I can't have my parents though I'm watching them. And I was so fascinated by it. And then that led me to exploring John Waters and Female Trouble, which I think Female Trouble is his best movie. It's definitely like his most John Waters the It's definitely a big divine Uh.

00:05:41
Speaker 2: God, this is I know that this is. This is his movie, but it's divines movie. It is just like one of the most performances I've ever witnessed. It's so good.

00:05:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, Jimmie, what's your history with John Waters and this movie?

00:06:00
Speaker 3: So I'm embarrassed to say this is.

00:06:02
Speaker 2: I was worried this was going to happen. I thought I had seen this movie. I had, in fact seen Pink Flamingos. Yeah, what can I say? I got it wrong.

00:06:11
Speaker 3: I hadn't seen this movie before.

00:06:12
Speaker 2: Weirdly, my relationship with John Waters, I'm like very slowly making my way through his filmography at my advanced age. But when I was a kid, I really liked reading his memoirs because he's written a lot of books too, and I remember really enjoying it, Like I would get his memoirs from the library and they're so funny, and I like felt I had like a similar experience with David Lynch, where I like fell in love with like watching interviews and like reading their stuff. But I like was very slow to watch the movies, no real accounting for it, but I'm slowly making my way through his work. I saw Pink Flamingos in college and really loved it, and it has, you know, shares a lot of similarities with Female Trouble, but I don't know, Female Trouble is so special, it's just like its own thing. So this was my first time seeing Female Trouble. But I really liked the Academy Museum John Waters exhibit that I think was last year.

00:07:11
Speaker 3: That was amazing.

00:07:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that like inspired me to go back and watch stuff that I hadn't watched, which is how we recently covered Serial Mom, which is one of my eavorites. Kathleen Turner John Water together is such a powerful combo. But yeah, this was this was one of the few that I for some reason hadn't gotten around to you, probably because I thought I'd seen it already. And holy shit, I just I just can't wait.

00:07:39
Speaker 3: To talk about it.

00:07:40
Speaker 2: And I'm very excited to go back and reread some of his books because I just have such nice memories of reading them.

00:07:46
Speaker 5: They're amazing. I yes, I have all of his books. And one really fun thing is Provincetown in Massachusetts is one of my favorite plays in the world.

00:08:01
Speaker 3: It's great.

00:08:01
Speaker 5: And he lives there, and there's a bookstore there that sells all of his books and he just goes in when he has the time and signs them and they're all no markup or anything like, there's the same price. And so I rebought all of his books autographed, because why god, yeah, why not.

00:08:23
Speaker 2: I'm from Massachusetts and my family or my cousin's family goes every year.

00:08:28
Speaker 3: And I don't know if I brought this up. In the serial one.

00:08:30
Speaker 2: Episode, my niece, who's like five, has this awesome picture with John Patters.

00:08:36
Speaker 3: It's so cute.

00:08:38
Speaker 2: I was like, Oh God, she's gonna be so thrilled when she knows what this picture means when she's older. I just it was but for her it was like a nice man who she saw after.

00:08:48
Speaker 3: A drag brunch or whatever.

00:08:50
Speaker 5: Sure, but my cousin was.

00:08:51
Speaker 3: Like, you're not going to believe what we did today. God, that's so nice.

00:08:56
Speaker 2: He's such a community person too. I love hearing stories about his like how you know how great he is at keeping up with friends and like sending out the Christmas cards and.

00:09:06
Speaker 3: The and the book collections.

00:09:07
Speaker 2: And then I just he's just such a good vibe.

00:09:10
Speaker 5: Well, he stays busier than ever, which I think personally it's like another thing I learned from Joan Rivers. Just I completely understand retiring and just sort of relaxing and whatever, but also these people with these creative ideas and they have to keep making and I'm sure there's that that can be its own hell of trying to constantly top yourself and whatever. But they keep going. And John Waters, who's in his eighties, is sharper than ever. Yeah, and he is doing events all the time, just like a couple of weeks ago he was doing is screening here in la. He has his camp that he does where adults come and do John Waters themed events. So he's always traveling around doing different I actually saw the screening of serial Mom during that Academy show that they had and he was there doing a Q and A. Like he's just he's all.

00:10:18
Speaker 4: Over the place.

00:10:19
Speaker 2: He loves to yap.

00:10:21
Speaker 5: Yes, and he keeps his ideas going. He's got a lot to say.

00:10:27
Speaker 2: I really I this is like unrelated, but it's something I've been on my mind recently where it's like retirement is a good thing because of labor laws. But I do think there's certain people, there's a certain personality of profile where retirement like quickens your death.

00:10:43
Speaker 5: Absolutely.

00:10:44
Speaker 3: I just believe that.

00:10:46
Speaker 2: I think about I've been thinking about that, and he's one of those people. Like some people just need to keep making stuff, and I like that, Like John Waters specifically is a great person to keep making stuff because he's not precious about everything like some creatives are. Like he's still steems down to experiment and try new stuff and like be open to failure, which after a career like the career he's had.

00:11:08
Speaker 3: I think that's so amazing. I don't know if I would be able to do that.

00:11:11
Speaker 4: Like it's it's just awesome.

00:11:13
Speaker 5: Well, I think from from the start he had a lot of failure and he was just sort of like, well, Yeah, there's gonna be people that are gonna hate everything I do, but there's also gonna be people that really love it. Yeah, I think I think it's all people LISTA. I think we all need to have purpose or we have to contribute to the universe in some way, and if we're not doing that, Like I do think that if you retire and then you just sit and watch TV, you're gonna die and it's gonna be bad. Like you you just have to even if it's like take up knitting and make things that you can give to people. Like it doesn't have to be financial or whatever, but it's like you just have to keep those you have to keep the juices flouid.

00:12:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's I volunteer with a lot of retirees who are like, they're like, this is my new job, and you're like, yeah, like it's just purpose.

00:12:12
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah.

00:12:12
Speaker 4: Well also for artists, yea. You know, it's like it's one thing to work as a CPA for whatever forty years and then retire, But if you're inherently a creative person or you've always been an artist, you're not gonna just like stop making art because you're sixty five.

00:12:33
Speaker 5: Now I have to keep going.

00:12:36
Speaker 4: You got to keep going, Caitlin.

00:12:37
Speaker 5: What's your relationship with John Waters?

00:12:39
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, thank you so much for asking. I like John Waters as a persona, as a public figure, and I like the campiness and the subversive nature of his work more than the actual work itself.

00:12:57
Speaker 5: Fair, I get it.

00:12:58
Speaker 4: I saw Pink Flamingos in college. Also is during the Great Caitlin movie binge of two thousand and five.

00:13:05
Speaker 2: I feel like Pink Flamingos is on every list, regardless of what the list issue.

00:13:10
Speaker 3: On every single list.

00:13:12
Speaker 4: If you're a film student, you have to see Pink Flamingos.

00:13:15
Speaker 3: You're gonna see this damn movie.

00:13:16
Speaker 4: And I did it, and I was like, M, this is not for me. I understand why it's a cult classic. I understand why it has like it has such a huge cult following. I'm just not I think I'm too straight. I'm just not the audience for it. It's not for me, and that's okay. But I do love John Waters again as a public figure and as an artist. I just every movie of his that I've seen, for the most part, I'm like, M, this is not the one for me.

00:13:47
Speaker 5: Exactly did you feel that way.

00:13:49
Speaker 4: With Serial Mom not as much, because that, as we discussed on that episode, is probably the closest thing he has to a mainstream Hollywood movie, right. And then I like the hair Spray, like the two thousand and seven hair Spray musical that's an adaptation of his original Hairspray from the eighties, but he didn't direct the two thousand and seven to one, so it's not that's not a John Waters movie. I did see Crybaby also in college.

00:14:19
Speaker 3: I haven't seen Crybaby.

00:14:20
Speaker 4: It's also main's like more mainstream, but maybe that's just because like Johnny Depp is in it. But I don't remember that one very well. And there's several other of his movies that I haven't watched, so I don't have like the full idea of every single one of his films, but what I have seen, I'm like, yeah, I'm not sure that one was for me, and that includes Female Trouble, but I'm excited to talk about it. Oh my god, it's a rich text. Yeah, there's lots to discuss.

00:14:51
Speaker 5: I completely understand that I don't think that it's for everyone, and there's I have known gay people that I do not like John Waters, so it's you don't necessarily have to be gay or straight to enjoy it. It's a type. It's a type that I think by humor and deviancy, and it's it's definitely something that outsiders are attracted to. It's a lot of taking down. Taking down the man vibe can be a thing sometimes.

00:15:34
Speaker 6: Which a theory I like, yeah, yeah, And it's like at the end of the day, John Waters is he's an edgelrd, Like that's his whole thing, and like, in some ways it ages in this really fascinating way and then another way is maybe not as much, but another thing I appreciate about him, or like just watching him do because he's done, like you're saying, ro he's done like a million Q and as about most of his movies now watch a recent one, and he's also pretty open to being like.

00:16:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wish I hadn't.

00:16:07
Speaker 2: You know, I understand why I was so wanting to engage with the Mansons, but I regret it, you know, like he's not above you know, doubling down on stuff.

00:16:19
Speaker 4: Reflecting.

00:16:20
Speaker 5: Yeah, sure, but like when you put it into context, like when you put a movie like Female Trouble, it's a context to think this is nineteen seventy four, Like that is these people were. It's not just like a drag queen, which at the time would have been more female impersonator, more of like a classy thing, I think is more what they were going for a lot of times, at least when it comes to straight audiences seeing these kinds of performers, it would be going to a female impersonator cabaret and the's like, wow, I can't believe that's really a man. But then you have like Divine with prosthetics on her face and injecting liquid eyeliner, Like it is so punk. And by the way, punk rock wasn't really even a term or a subculture the way we know it until later. Yeah, she's Copers after this.

00:17:26
Speaker 3: And she's got a mohawk in this movie.

00:17:28
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, a trailblazer.

00:17:29
Speaker 5: So to think like where would those where does that come from? And to find a group of people that are on the same page to just make these things, not to make money. They're just like making these things and it's just with their friends. They are all people that knew each other in Baltimore and not it's not brilliant filmmaking per se in a technical sense, but they just wanted to put these together and make people laugh and it's wild. I don't know that they would have ever thought people would be talking about it years and years later.

00:18:09
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:18:10
Speaker 2: I also I didn't I didn't do enough research into this side of it, but I thought it was like so sweet and cool that, like it seems like there was a lot of like Baltimore community support from like Normy's where, like he was, they were able to shoot in all these different places. They were able to like shoot in a church, in a jail, and like all of these places that you would expect to maybe not be open to a John Waters movie filming.

00:18:39
Speaker 4: True, but you know, I don't know.

00:18:41
Speaker 3: I was like that.

00:18:42
Speaker 2: It's just it's so cool that like all especially like all of his early movies are just like full on community projects where you're like, oh yeah, who is this random person and it's like someone's mom or whatever.

00:18:53
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I mean that's where Edith Massey, for example, who's who's in the film as aunt Ida, She was a bartender at a local place that they went to, and he was just like, she's this woman needs to be on films, This woman needs to be in a bird cage yelling and he was not wrong.

00:19:19
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap. So I'm gonna place a content warning here at the top for you name it, it happened, assault, rape, incest, child sex abuse, like it. It sort of is all there. But we meet Don Davenport played by Divine when she's a teenager in nineteen sixty. She's at school. She's chatting with a couple of her girlfriends, chick Lit and Consetta about shoes that she wants for Christmas, a pair of chaw chaw heels. And I think it's so funny that this is basically the catalyst of the entire rest of the movie. But she wants these chaw chaw heels as a Christmas kids.

00:20:18
Speaker 2: We never hear from her loving, doting parents again after the chaw chaw heels incident.

00:20:24
Speaker 4: Well, this sets her on a life of crime.

00:20:27
Speaker 5: It was a very simple ass She wanted chaw chaw heels, and this is why you get your kids chaw chaw heels if that's what they asked for.

00:20:36
Speaker 2: That was my favorite letterbox review of this. It was like a haunting reminder that you should always get your daughter chaw chaw heels.

00:20:45
Speaker 4: Absolutely, It's true. So she and her friends they're very disruptive at school. Then it's Christmas morning and she still desperately is hoping for this pair of chaw chaw heels from her parents. But she opens her presence and discovers that she did not get the shoes she wanted. She got a pair of shoes, just not the black chasha heels that she asked for, so she lashes out. She throws her mother around.

00:21:13
Speaker 2: Her mom not on christmassess.

00:21:17
Speaker 5: Her mom's like lifeless body under the Christmas tree is something that I think about every day.

00:21:24
Speaker 4: I feel bad for laughing, but it's a very funny image what you're.

00:21:28
Speaker 2: Supposed to laugh She she I thought she had killed her, but then it's funny when she's just moaning not on Christmas.

00:21:39
Speaker 4: So don she attacks her parents and then she runs away from home. She hitches a ride from a man named Earl Peterson, also played by Divine Shocking. They pull over on this side of the road and go into the woods and have sex, during which steals his wallet. This sex scene is wild. First of all, I was like, is this It's hard to tell if it's consensual or not. It right, it's very murky, and then the a d R and the slurping sounds during this I got.

00:22:16
Speaker 2: The slurping sound reminded me of what you like your noise every time people.

00:22:23
Speaker 3: You make the scary slurp.

00:22:24
Speaker 5: But what is so wild is that it's Divine as a male playing the man who is impregnating Divine.

00:22:35
Speaker 2: It's just like a level of camp here heretofore an unknown.

00:22:40
Speaker 5: And they're doing it on a just random mattress out in the woods. And you know, because it is like, is this consensual? She said to it.

00:22:55
Speaker 2: I think I came down on the because I was also like unclear on that.

00:23:01
Speaker 4: Because at one point she's like, yeah, eat me, eat it, give it to me and she but I think at first you can't tell because it just randomly starts happening to fucking yeah in the woods. Then it becomes clearer that they're both into it.

00:23:17
Speaker 5: So they're making taffy, yes, which sounds like a term. They're making taffy.

00:23:26
Speaker 3: It cracked me up, the like I don't know.

00:23:28
Speaker 2: One of the one of the many great anecdotes on the Divine Wikipedia page is that like later when she was like primarily performing music. There was like an audience member told her to go fuck herself, and.

00:23:42
Speaker 3: Divine was like, I have. It's in Female Trouble.

00:23:47
Speaker 5: There's a great documentary about Divine by the documentarian Jeffrey Schwarz. I think it's just called I Am Divine.

00:23:56
Speaker 3: Oh yes, I haven't seen it.

00:23:58
Speaker 5: It's very well done and it gives you a lot of insight on who Divine was.

00:24:04
Speaker 4: I need to check that out.

00:24:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's streaming on Roku TV. I just didn't have Oh hell yeah.

00:24:10
Speaker 5: I think it's not to be too.

00:24:12
Speaker 4: I was gonna say it's to be.

00:24:14
Speaker 5: We love a to be is everyone obsessed with to be? Because I think to b is like one of the best things that's happening right now.

00:24:22
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:24:22
Speaker 2: I think to be genuinely is like preserving movies in a way most people, like most places are not preserving. I don't know how they make money, but I hope they stay.

00:24:35
Speaker 4: I like to be.

00:24:36
Speaker 5: I know, I'm like, there has to be some kind of dark thing going on here, but for the time being, I'm enjoying the fact that every time I go to tub I'm like, what the fuck is this? I'm like Anana, it's free.

00:24:48
Speaker 2: My my dad was really into uh two B. I know I've talked about this on the show before, but like I loved visiting home and seeing what my dad's recently watched on tub's were, because I was.

00:24:58
Speaker 3: Like, you're a freak man.

00:25:00
Speaker 2: Where it was like he would watch all these B movies from like the sixties and seventies, and I was.

00:25:05
Speaker 3: Like, all right, what are you watching?

00:25:06
Speaker 2: And he's like, I saw this movie called Pregnant by Mistake and it's from nineteen seventy two and it was terrible.

00:25:13
Speaker 4: And I was like, great, I can't.

00:25:16
Speaker 2: Only on TWOV, only on TOOV, can you find a movie that everyone hated fifty years ago?

00:25:21
Speaker 3: I love it?

00:25:22
Speaker 5: That sounds like what I watch. It's very similar.

00:25:26
Speaker 4: It's great.

00:25:27
Speaker 2: Or like every famous actor's worst movie is on Twodays.

00:25:30
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, oh absolutely.

00:25:33
Speaker 4: Okay. So we have the sex scene and then we cut to several months later, Don is living on her own and she is gregnant as hell, and she gives birth on her couch to a girl who she names Taffy.

00:25:50
Speaker 2: Oh my god, her severing her own chord with her teeth.

00:25:53
Speaker 3: It's just it's just disgusting.

00:25:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, she bites the umbilical cord. I read that that was I think a condom filled with chopped liver.

00:26:03
Speaker 3: Oh god, I really.

00:26:06
Speaker 2: It reminds me of because Pink Flamingos is the one where Divine is the filthiest person on earth and everyone is like competing to also be the filthiest person on earth, and I just love, I just love how gross these movies are, Like, people.

00:26:22
Speaker 3: Are not making gross.

00:26:23
Speaker 2: It's not actually safe to do what they're doing at any point.

00:26:27
Speaker 3: It's awesome.

00:26:28
Speaker 4: And Pink Flamingos, Divine eats dog shit. Yes correct, yes, okay, she do look And it was at that point when I was watching that movie, I was like, yeah, this, I'm not sure this is for me.

00:26:41
Speaker 2: I support I think by by comparison, Female Trouble is tamer on like the grossometer.

00:26:48
Speaker 5: It is, I mean, Pink Flamingos. I love Pink Flamingos. But there's also like there's a scene with a live chicken that is hard. Yeah, there's a couple of things in there that are I mean there's a singing anus, a person's anus is shown up clothes.

00:27:11
Speaker 4: I did not remember that one.

00:27:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, it gets wild.

00:27:15
Speaker 4: I guess, well, Okay, well, well, I don't know if I'll revisit Pink Flaming Goes. Maybe someday, but either way, Don is now a single parent to Taffy, and we see her at a series of jobs. She works at a diner, she does sex work. She robs men like she's like mugging them on the street, with the help of her friends chick Lit and Consetta. Then we flash forward to nineteen sixty eight. Her daughter, Taffy is eight years old. I guess, and Don is not a good parent. She refuses to let Taffy have friends or go to school. She's very physically abusive.

00:28:00
Speaker 2: She's my favorite line, there is no need to know about the president's war numbers or science.

00:28:05
Speaker 3: It's just so good there. I also think, and we'll.

00:28:09
Speaker 2: Get her to the This movie's fast and loose approach to child abuse. But the way that like I don't know, like John Waters has seen every movie on the planet, it seems like and I was, I think that the way the dot that Taffy is dressed is supposed to be a reference to The Bad Seed, which is like one of my favorite scary movies when I was a kid. She's supposed to look like Roda WHOA.

00:28:36
Speaker 4: The big movie reference that I think I picked up on was Sunset Boulevard. They like, I'm ready for my close up?

00:28:46
Speaker 5: Oh yeah. At the end of the movie.

00:28:48
Speaker 4: Other than that, I was like, I'm not sure what if anything is being referenced throughout this movie, but.

00:28:54
Speaker 2: Well, I think probably a lot of what he's referencing are like horrible movies that no one wanted to revisit to so who knows.

00:29:01
Speaker 4: But anyway, Don is again not a good parent. She shackles Taffy to her bed, et cetera, and then Don laments to chick Lit and Concetta about how difficult it is to be a mother, and her friends are like, don't worry, you'll feel better if you get your hair done at Lipstick Salon by a man named Gator. We cut to Gator and his aunt Ida, who we'll talk about the weird incestual through line of this movie as well, but she's acting wildly inappropriate and Gator has to reassure her that he's straight and he likes women. Then we cut to Lipstick Salon, which is owned by Donald and Donna Dasher, So we have Don Davenport, Donald and Donna. Yeah, hilarious. So Donald and Donna dash sure put their like potential customers of their salon through this like interview process because they only choose like the coolest people to be clients. And Don makes it through and chooses Gaytor to be the stylist that she wants. Then they go out and a short time later they get married, and at the wedding, Dawn is wearing an iconic see through wedding dress. But married life for them isn't great. They are abusive to each other. Gaytor cheats on Don with other women, and aunt Ida and Don don't get along and they're constantly taunting each other. We flash forward again to five years, so it's nineteen seventy four. There's a a Don Gator sex scene where it appears as though they have a toolbox kink Yeah yeah.

00:31:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, Hammer and Meanle knows flyers.

00:31:09
Speaker 4: And they're having sex and then Taffy, who is a teenager now comes in.

00:31:14
Speaker 2: For fourteen you don't look so good? Is such a good line.

00:31:19
Speaker 4: Yeah. There's a lot to unpack in this scene as well, regarding child abuse, incest ableism.

00:31:27
Speaker 5: I don't know that they were thinking about any of that.

00:31:31
Speaker 4: Thinking about it, but we on the podcast have to, so we'll talk about that later. But shortly after this, Don and Gaiter get in a huge fight after Gator shoves a carrot in Don's mouth. Seems to be the catalyst for their divorce because Don starts divorce proceedings and gets him fired from his job at lipstick Salon, which forces Gator to leave town, which devastates aunt Ida, and she's going to retaliate, so we'll put a pin in that.

00:32:06
Speaker 2: But she's just screaming at her house for what is an unclear amount of time.

00:32:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, rolling around on the floor.

00:32:14
Speaker 3: Yes.

00:32:15
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, the owners of the salon, Donald and Donna, ask Don if she will be their model for a photography project they're working on. The theme for which is crime and beauty. Basically, they want to photograph Don robbing people and doing other crime and Don agrees, but before they can start, aunt Ida comes in and throws acid on Don's face for like revenge for forcing Gaiter to leave. So Don is hospitalized. Her friends gather to see the unveiling of her new face, which has been disfigured from the acid. But they're like, oh my gosh, you're even more beautiful than you were before. They put makeup on her. Donald and Donna still want her to be the model for their project. This is where they inject liquid eyeliner in her veins. They give her a makeover a bunch of other presents, including aunt Ida in a cage. Yeah, and they're like, here, chop off the hand that threw acid on you. So Don picks up an axe and chops off aunt Ida's hand, and.

00:33:36
Speaker 3: It's very convincing. It's really good effect.

00:33:40
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:33:41
Speaker 4: Yeah. Then Taffy comes in to be like, mom, what the fuck are you doing? Also, why have you never told me who my real father is? So Don finally tells Taffy the name and address of her father, and Taffy goes to the home of Earl Peterson, who is drunk and horrible, and he tries to rape Taffy, so she stabs him with a knife and goes back home. Also, I will say like, when this movie started, I was like, yeah, I think I might have an idea of where the plot might go, And I was so wrong. It's just like, every five minutes the plot takes a wildly different turn that you simply cannot see coming.

00:34:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like it becomes a different movie genre every like fifteen minutes or so.

00:34:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, so anyway, Taffy has stabbed her biological father and she returns home and she's completely distraught, and she's kind of hanging out with aunt Ida like while she's still in the cage. But then Don comes in and she and Taffy are screaming at each other, and Taffy announces that she's leaving to go live with the Heart heart Ry Krishna of People, which she does, and this makes Don furious. So Don kills her own daughter, which seems to make Don feel absolutely elated and invigorated. And she goes on stage to perform this show at a nightclub. She does a trampoline act, she.

00:35:24
Speaker 3: Does her own stunts.

00:35:25
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, well, we have to.

00:35:27
Speaker 5: Keep in mind she has the liquid eyeliner going through her vedes and this is it's really given her a high.

00:35:36
Speaker 2: Kill your dangerous, it's bad.

00:35:40
Speaker 4: So she yeah, she's she's performing in this show. She's rolling around in dead Fish. The audience is loving it, and then Don pulls out a gun and starts shooting into the crowd and several people are killed. So Don flees into the woods. Wait, there is consent there to well, yes, she's like, who wants to be killed? Like, I'll make you famous?

00:36:06
Speaker 5: Somebody does, yes, they does volunteer to take a both.

00:36:10
Speaker 2: They volunteers tribute.

00:36:14
Speaker 5: She's not evil, guys. She doesn't just kill people.

00:36:19
Speaker 3: She asks for.

00:36:20
Speaker 2: Consent before she murders.

00:36:22
Speaker 4: This is true, but it does cause a frenzy, like you know, people are scared.

00:36:26
Speaker 6: Now she does keep shooting after and then she keeps going, yes, you are right.

00:36:32
Speaker 2: Look but like you were saying the liquid eyelander, I just think she's innocent of all charges at the end of the day.

00:36:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, well the jury doesn't think so. But anyway, the cops catch her and she's tried in court for many crimes, and several people testify against her, including Ida, who that's a given. But then her friends or who she thought were her friends, Donald and Donna Dasher also testify against Don and so they betray her. Then Don is called to the stand. She's ranting and raving and saying that she's famous and she's the most beautiful woman alive.

00:37:13
Speaker 5: Look at my legs.

00:37:16
Speaker 4: The people who died actually loved being killed by her, and the jury's like, I don't get it. So they find Don guilty and she's sentenced to the death penalty. She spends some time in prison before being executed, where she meets some friends and lovers. Seems like everyone adores her, and she's excited about being executed. She's treating it like it's another big show that's giving her fame and notoriety. And she gives a monologue akin to an awards show acceptance speech. She's like, I'd like to thank so and so, and then she's put in the electric chair and killed. And that's the end of the movie.

00:38:03
Speaker 5: Well, in her line of work, that is the highest honor.

00:38:09
Speaker 4: Yes, as a crime and beauty advocate slash perpetrator.

00:38:18
Speaker 7: And that's the movie.

00:38:20
Speaker 3: We'll take a quick break and we'll be right back. I ros, where would.

00:38:33
Speaker 2: You like to start where there's there's no there's no end.

00:38:36
Speaker 4: To where we could start here?

00:38:38
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I think it's just brilliant. I don't know, I don't know. Lead me in a direction. What do you want? Where do you want me to what do you want me to analyze?

00:38:51
Speaker 2: Well, let's I guess. I mean Don is the obvious place. But like, if someone doesn't like this movie because it is like upsetting to them in some way. There's like truly every single possible content warning like you had to do at the top of the episode, exists for this movie, so you know, there are so many ways in which it's not going to be for everybody.

00:39:13
Speaker 3: But I feel like I like it.

00:39:16
Speaker 2: Even though there's like individual lines or plot lines I don't love like. I just feel like Don and Divine are so perfect to me because it's just I like the kind of character that is, like she's behaving so absurdly badly that you're like, you know, this is not a there's no world where people see this and they're like, this is my role model, Like you know, it's it's it feels like someone acting out in the most horrible way possible in a way that is like cathartic, right, where like she's just like a walking intrusive thought and like every intrusive thought anyone's had in history, Don does with like pride and no scruples. And I watched this past guest of the show, Matt Bom did a really good video about the like John Waters trash trilogy, which includes Pink Flamingos and oh my gosh, what is the third one, the movie that came.

00:40:14
Speaker 5: After this, Multiple Maniacs or Desperate Living. Oh, Desperate Living, Okay, I.

00:40:21
Speaker 2: Guess that that that is the Trash trilogy.

00:40:22
Speaker 3: So this is the second one.

00:40:24
Speaker 2: And he sort of analyzes all of Divine's characters and also counters it by being like, there's a lot of ableism, Like it's you know, it is not it is not a politically correct movie in any way, shape or form. But like the core of a Divine character is that she like lives for pleasure, is quick to anger, and is never dishonest about it, Like.

00:40:47
Speaker 3: She always says like yeah I did it and I don't.

00:40:50
Speaker 2: Care, And that the villains of these movies tend to be people who do horrible things and then lie about it. So like that was something that I think really like pulled the movie into focus in an interesting way that like, while I have like individual scruples or whatever, you're like, oh, yeah, like Donald and Donna, they suck for so many reasons, right, Like they're like these rich people exploiting others for no reason. But like Don is just like in for all she can get and is not shy about saying that. But Donald and Donna the second, it doesn't become convenient for them to exploit people anymore. They're the victims and they're crying in court and all this shit. Like I don't know, I just I really liked looking at it from that, Like just Don is like the ultimate in like unapologetic and like ways that are really beautiful and ways that are quite evil, and I don't know, there's just like not a lot like it.

00:41:47
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think when you hit play on one of these movies, you very quickly learn what the rules are in this universe, or at what right and wrong is to these people, Like it's it's different than normal everyday life. And you're also going in with it the understanding Okay, that is a man that's playing a teenage girl right now, Like we know that, and it's it's absurd, it's all absurd. And then like her twelve year old daughter is really played by a grown woman, and like we kind of get that going into it. So I think that's where they get away with a lot of things that are not PC because you're kind of like, Okay, these aren't these characters. Yes, that this was a child, it would be more realistic and we would look at it in a different lens I think is the goal maybe.

00:42:53
Speaker 4: Right, because, like I mean, I was kind of coming into this episode being like, I don't really know how to talk about this movie, or probably any early John Waters movies, at least through the lens of this podcast, exactly because they're so campy and so intentionally trashy, which I do think separates separates a movie like this from other movies that we've covered on the show that have similar problematic elements of you know, fat phobia and ableism and playing abuse for a laugh, that kind of thing. But other movies that do that tend to be more like, well, this is just a movie that's coming out in the nineties, and it's a reflection of what society thought was funny or thought was tolerable or whatever. Versus John Waters. When he's doing it, it's almost like he's kind of making a mockery of those things. I mean, I don't think a lot of the things in this movie are above criticism, but his movies are transgressive in a way that sometimes at least thoughtfully comments on the status quo of you know, heteronormative, patriarchal, white supremacist society. Although I will say that this movie is aggressively white, but there's so much being subverted and like mocked. Yeah, but also it's including triggering and problematic things, so it's complicated, right.

00:44:36
Speaker 5: I think it's definitely commenting on mainstream society as anything. Drag typically is where you have to give in mind. These are all gay men, there's one trans woman, and cis women that are all a part of this, and I think that this women queer on the queer spectrum in some way. But these are not people with children. These are not people that are participating in mainstream culture of nineteen seventy three when they were filming it. These are people that are just like that world is not something that we are a part of, and so here's our take on it exactly.

00:45:24
Speaker 4: Yeah. John Waters is the group of actors he consistently worked with, the Dreamlanders, right, Yeah, totally. I think it's best summarized in kind of a monologue that aunt Ida gives when she's talking to Gator and she wants him to be queer, and he insists that he's straight and he's only attracted to women, and aunt Ida is like, ough, I worry that you're going to end up working in an office, and you'll have children, and you'll celebrate wedding anniversaries. The world of heterosexual is a sick and boring life. Like it's that's kind of the thesis of John Water's work. Overall, it just feels like.

00:46:10
Speaker 2: Like for the most part and like, again, not completely. There are a few I think, especially like the ablest jokes.

00:46:18
Speaker 5: In this like really just like did not.

00:46:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't really see any excuse for it other than like, I mean, like John Waters has admitted like kind of just being an edge lord, right, But I think more often than not, this movie and like this sort of trilogy appears to be like not punching down very frequently.

00:46:41
Speaker 3: It's like usually.

00:46:41
Speaker 2: Punching up or sometimes across question mark or like poking fun at their own community in a way that is like I don't know, I think like part of the reason that it holds up is because because of that, and like that makes the moments where it does feel like they're punching down to feel not great. But in the context of like also I mean not that this is an excuse, but like they're so young relatively when they're making these movies. They're in their like twenties, and who among us was not edge lordy in a way that they are embarrassed about and regret at different points in their twenties.

00:47:19
Speaker 3: I certainly was.

00:47:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there are definitely things to talk about, but I think like, by and large, especially when it comes to the portrayal of fatness and queerness, like it all is so tongue in cheek and also like I don't know, I feel like you can you can feel that it comes from a place of like subversiveness. But also just like this movie is like stars Divine, who like embodies herself in every single frame and every single choice she makes.

00:47:50
Speaker 3: Are there fat phobic.

00:47:51
Speaker 2: Lines, yes, but like they're delivered from Divine to Divine, and it's so funny, like you're that distant.

00:48:00
Speaker 3: It's like that weird sex seed is between Divine and Divine.

00:48:03
Speaker 2: The child abuse, while like I understand what that's going to be like a stopping point for some viewers, I think that like John Water's intentionally casting a visibly twenty seven year old woman to play a child helps you create that distance and it feels more like yeah, like elevated in Drag World.

00:48:24
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, also Divine, on the topic of her size, she's never not owning it and feeling so proud of her body. I mean the scene where she's stripping and she's fully like in a g string and just dancing around and you can't tell her anything like she is. She is owning her body size and very proud about it. And I think I think that's especially at a time like the seventies where you know, being fat was so bad, you know, like in in media. She's just like, I don't give a fuck, like I feel great, And I love that about Divide totally.

00:49:08
Speaker 4: Yeah. Also in that scene, the audience that she's dancing for is loving it. Yeah, they are whooping and cheering, And it would have been easy to well because you do see in the scenes where she's in high school, like at the beginning of the movie, her classmates are bullying her for being fat, and teacher and.

00:49:30
Speaker 2: Teach, but it's like that everyone who bully is divine for being fat. Are characters that we're supposed to hate for sure, So I'm kind of I mean, I don't know, that's my perspective on it anyways, is like, you know, and especially when it's fat phobic bullying from the other divine character earl to down. You're just like, yeah, we hate this guy. We hate this guy so much, and even though Dawn is despicable, we don't hate Well, I don't know, I don't know how we're supposed to feel about Don, but like she's iconic, Yeah, no doubt about it.

00:50:06
Speaker 5: She's an anti hero.

00:50:09
Speaker 2: She's a Don Draper type, a despicable me if you will, she's.

00:50:14
Speaker 3: A little despicable me.

00:50:15
Speaker 2: She's opinion.

00:50:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think the one thing that there's really no excuse for, and we already touched on this, but is the ableism a child Because for listeners who aren't familiar with this movie, Don keeps talking to her daughter Taffy in a very ablest disparaging way, calling her the R word, saying that she was diagnosed by mental like medical professionals, as you know, having some sort of intellectual disability.

00:50:49
Speaker 3: And it's clear that she has never brought this.

00:50:51
Speaker 4: She's this girl has like never been to the doctor.

00:50:53
Speaker 2: She's never been to a doctor and has been abused her whole life, which is like the movie does not shy away from, you know, it's obvious that that's the case. Even in context, that just felt more like edgy for the sake of being edgy versus like other choices that the script makes that have like a point of view or like.

00:51:12
Speaker 3: A tongue in cheek that just didn't feel as much.

00:51:15
Speaker 2: I think that again, the portrayal of like child abuse. It's the movie isn't portraying it as like right or anything like that or justified. But I feel and guessing and like, let me know what you both think that, like that was sort of an attempt on the on the movie's part to you know, like one of the very you know, stereotypical parts of like hetero society at this time and still is like raising children and raising them right and blah blah blah. And like the whole point of Dawn is she does everything contrary to what typical society does and so she is a terrible, neglectful parent.

00:51:58
Speaker 3: What are we supposed to make of that?

00:52:00
Speaker 2: I don't really know, but like I'm guessing that was sort of the energy behind it. It's like she is the anti you know, missus Claver or whatever.

00:52:10
Speaker 5: Hmm, Yeah, I think so. I think it would be shocking if she was this amazing mother, But it's still robbing men.

00:52:20
Speaker 2: Kind of funny because like, there are various I guess representations of incest or suggested incest also that I didn't know quite what to make of, because part of.

00:52:36
Speaker 4: It is sort of like there's a scene I don't even want to describe it, really, but there's a scene where Don suggests that her daughter commit an active incest with Gaitor. And even though Taffy and Gaiter aren't biologically related, like Gaitor is in Taffy's life theoretically as a stepfather, we don't really see any.

00:53:01
Speaker 3: We it's safe to assume he doesn't.

00:53:03
Speaker 5: He's not good at it.

00:53:04
Speaker 4: He's not really doing much right.

00:53:06
Speaker 2: It's a bad vibe that gives I think, a very funny line if you're not thinking about it in the context of the scene, which is I wouldn't suck your lousy dick if I was suffocating and there was oxygen in your balls. That is that's a good line, a good line.

00:53:22
Speaker 5: And I mean, does it help the case at all that the little girl says things like that and is like, fuck you, you're not doing it, you know, I think that maybe I.

00:53:36
Speaker 4: Think it does help.

00:53:37
Speaker 5: I think I help Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:53:40
Speaker 2: It's like she's saying stuff that like probably for I don't know. I wish I could strig a sentence like that together when I was fourteen.

00:53:47
Speaker 5: But yeah, and then when her father tries it, she kills them. I mean, yeah, there's something there, right, that's something.

00:53:54
Speaker 4: There's something. Yeah, she stabs him with a knife covered in mannise. Question mark.

00:54:01
Speaker 2: We don't think about it too hard, uh, Taffy, You know, I think maybe the tragic because Don is not a tragic hero.

00:54:11
Speaker 3: She goes out on top according.

00:54:13
Speaker 2: To her, so she's not she's not heroic, and she doesn't find her death tragic, so I guess she's doing something else. I feel like Taffy is kind of the tragic hero of the movie because she does her damnedest to get out of that situation. She finds Inner Piece and then dies immediately rip right.

00:54:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, She joins the Hari Krishnas and is murdered by her own mother about it.

00:54:38
Speaker 2: She's tried to like kill and punish her oppressive upbringing, and eventually, you know, unfortunately you can't get one over on Don Davenport.

00:54:47
Speaker 3: That's just kind of the.

00:54:48
Speaker 2: Rules of this world.

00:54:49
Speaker 3: So she was always doomed.

00:54:50
Speaker 4: Certainly, not when she's high on liquid I eyeliner.

00:54:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's like what we're saying since is like this, it is very it's very hard to I don't know, this is a movie designed to break our show, but.

00:55:03
Speaker 3: I'm gonna keep trying. Yeah, I agree that.

00:55:07
Speaker 8: Like I think for me, it was like primarily the ablest stuff that it just felt like it was doing something to just because you're not supposed to say this, and not because the movie really has any sort of perspective or like alternate representation.

00:55:23
Speaker 2: To it, So it's like it's not really saying very much.

00:55:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, I definitely think that there was a shock element that they were going for. I mean, this is after Pink Flamingos, right, yeah, two years after and that was such a huge smash hit in the midnight movie Underground and became something that everyone talked about. So this is following that and that movie of course, like the thing that everyone really took away from that was she ate poop that came out of a dot, but we see it on camera come out of the butt into her mouth and it's like, how.

00:56:05
Speaker 4: How do you heighten from there?

00:56:07
Speaker 5: Yeah, and people are coming expecting shock and this movie doesn't really have a lot of those moments that are like that in teds with there's not a singing anus, there's not you know, there's not any of that stuff. But then you know, knowing your audience of people that are coming to see your follow up movie, there's gonna be some moments that are just for the sake of taking it, taking it someplace.

00:56:37
Speaker 7: One of the things I liked about this movie is it's I do think it's like saying some like fun interesting stuff about class, because.

00:56:48
Speaker 2: There is a read of it where it's like these characters are with the exception.

00:56:53
Speaker 3: Of the what are their names, the rich.

00:56:55
Speaker 2: Couple, Don and Donald and Donna, the Dashers, most everyone in this movie is like working class or poor, and you know, like there's a read of it where you're like, okay, leaning hard into stereotypes around poor people that we were talking about in recent what was the episode recently we were talking about sort of like just stereotypes around ale that are just sort of presented of whatever, that they're bad parents, that they're criminals.

00:57:25
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah.

00:57:25
Speaker 4: Oh overboard, overboard. Yeah.

00:57:28
Speaker 2: A movie that genuinely sucks, which I don't think this movie does even remotely. This movie rocks uh So, I like the inclusion of the Dashers because you see that these like these rich characters are also completely depraved in a way that is different, where like there's this like it's not harped upon, because nothing is really harped upon in this movie, but like that these rich characters are sort of out to like exploit, exploit the poor people who come to their business and present them as art, and like that that is something that still happens and certainly happened then, and you know, there is an element to like they're encouraging Dawn to do all this horrible stuff or just encouraging, you know, bad behavior. They're witnessing child abuse and taking pictures of it and being like you're a diva, You're incredible, Like it's so over the top, and they're encouraging it almost as like a social experiment, like they're they're detached from it. They're like, this is my little art project, when it's like other people's lives. And and that is like thought, I thought, like a really cool way of framing how a lot of like wealthy benefactors view art and view outsider art. And I'm like wondering if John Waters had experiences like that, we're like rich weirdos are like, hey, John, we really like what you're doing. Keep doing all that gross shit. I totally get it, like that.

00:58:52
Speaker 3: Kind of vibe.

00:58:53
Speaker 2: And then at the end that the Dashers, I know we talked about it earlier, but that like the Dashers turn on Don once they're like, oh no, we're going to get in trouble for this. Actually we're the victims of this thing that we funded and encouraged one thousand percent.

00:59:07
Speaker 3: Like I just I liked that.

00:59:09
Speaker 2: Element of the movie that was really good.

00:59:12
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I feel like you come away going, oh yeah, they're they're the slimy ones, like they're the whole time. It's like Dog's doing horrible shit. But you know, ain't her defense. She didn't start out poor. I think that she is. She is not a criminal because she's poor. I think she's poor because she's a criminal. And she's a criminal.

00:59:38
Speaker 2: It's a criminal because she didn't get those chachachacha exactly.

00:59:43
Speaker 3: That's true. That's true. They do go.

00:59:45
Speaker 2: She is like a firmly middle class girl who chooses a life of crime, and in a way that is on her parents.

00:59:53
Speaker 3: I blame the parents.

00:59:55
Speaker 4: Ultimately must she was she was a teenager, she was a she needed guidance.

01:00:01
Speaker 2: It was a child. Yeah.

01:00:02
Speaker 4: I also think it's really funny that the Dashers put their potential clients through an audition process, and a group of women like waiting for their audition, and one of them is dismissed, I think, based on her appearance alone. And then another one is like, I'm a stripper and this is I heard, this is where all the strippers go. And they're like, yeah, that's fine, you're in. And then another woman is like, I work at the post office, getting the fuck out and get the fuck out of here. Hilarious. And then Dawn, who I think is the only one who ends up making it through, She's like, I'm a thief and a shit kicker, and they're like, that's exactly what we're looking for.

01:00:44
Speaker 5: Uh huh, she's great.

01:00:47
Speaker 4: Hilarious.

01:00:47
Speaker 2: I let My other favorite thing that happens at the hair salon is when one of the women thinks her haircuts too extensive and they take the hairdew back.

01:00:57
Speaker 3: They just threw it everything they just did. It's so funny.

01:01:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm like I'm trying.

01:01:02
Speaker 3: I surely I have more to say about us.

01:01:04
Speaker 4: Well, I mean to your original point, Jamie again, John Waters set out to make the trashiest movies that have ever existed. He wanted to make these very subversive, transgressive, campy trash films. And when you're doing that in the nineteen seventies, you're bound to, you know, make some mistakes. Things that seem subversive at the time are actually just like punching down or being edged lordie or stuff that we can very easily look at in twenty twenty five and be like, yeah, shouldn't have done that. Yeah, but it's fifty years ago, Like it's right, and even us like, as you said, like, there are jokes that I used to tell as a comic in my twenties where I was like, I I should have never said that, And it's because at the time I was like, oh, oh, this is subversive, this is fun, you know, I'm being edgy, And that's not what that was. That was just whatever shitty joke I was making. But yeah, so there's there's an element of leeway that we can extend to people. Obviously, context is important and the severity of what they do is important to consider, but so much of you know John waters work again when he is commenting on the status quo and making fun of it and being like, straight people are so fucking boring. The line where on Ida This happens a little bit later in the movie, where she's now trying to set Gator up with a man because she's so hell bent on Gator being gay, and this random man is like, well, well, how do you know that Gator likes men? And Ida says, I just use common sense. If they're smart, they're queer. If they're stupid, they're right. I'm laughing.

01:03:03
Speaker 2: Or she's like, if you ever decide to like leave the Hari Krishna and come be a lesbian, you can live with me. She is a one issue voter, Ida, and everyone needs to be gay.

01:03:16
Speaker 5: And I don't even know. I mean, is aunt Eida? Do we know her sexuality or she just really just wants to be around gay unclear?

01:03:25
Speaker 2: She really seems like she her Yeah, her sexuality is being around gay people.

01:03:30
Speaker 3: We actually don't know.

01:03:32
Speaker 2: She could be a self hating straight We don't.

01:03:35
Speaker 4: Know which relatable for me. But yeah. The point is like this movie and other of John Waters' works are doing a lot. As we've talked about to examine the boring, the ridiculous, the very rigid gender roles and heteronormativity of mainstream America in society, and he's just like, ooh, let me do the exact opposite of that. And sometimes it ends up being this hilarious, subversive, awesome thing. Sometimes it is punching down, but overall it's why we're able to like still love John Waters and his body of work despite some of the stuff that doesn't age very well. Yeah, but yeah, I don't think I have much else to say.

01:04:25
Speaker 3: Which feels wild.

01:04:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, like this movie, it's like you like it or you don't. I will be returning to this movie.

01:04:36
Speaker 3: I'm like, this is the kind of movie I've like.

01:04:38
Speaker 2: I don't know why. Then like I can't wait to be sick and watch this movie and eat soup.

01:04:43
Speaker 4: Well, you need to eat spaghetti and then throw it at the wall.

01:04:46
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're Taffy, I'll have two chicken breasths.

01:04:53
Speaker 4: Well we're not having chicken breast, we're having spaghetti.

01:04:55
Speaker 2: And then I'll have a small portion to be polite.

01:04:58
Speaker 4: And then Don is like, Taffy, there's not enough for you. I didn't make enough for you. I Meanwhile, she brings out this huge bowl of so much spaghetti that could have easily fed like eight people.

01:05:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm very curious what our listeners think of this movie.

01:05:13
Speaker 3: I really like it.

01:05:16
Speaker 2: There are elements of it that don't age well, but I feel like it's heart is so like it's just like you can tell where this movie is coming from.

01:05:23
Speaker 3: It's fifty years old, so there are issues with it.

01:05:27
Speaker 2: And also just like the divine Divine's performance in this movie is like wild. It is just like how much we were saying this at the beginning, but like every line in this movie is screamed.

01:05:40
Speaker 3: Like it's just it's awesome.

01:05:42
Speaker 4: It's a lat Also, there aren't a lot of cuts, so there'll be like a pretty wide shot that'll last for a few minutes, and the actors are just exchanging dialogue back and forth for minutes at a time, So the memorization you have to do, yeah, when you're shooting like that is no And they're just like, I don't know how much improv or if any was involved on any of these sets, but if it is all like very meticulously written and then performed as written, it is then like those exchanges of dialogue and monologues that had to be memorized and without like cutaways. Yeah, very impressive.

01:06:21
Speaker 2: No, he I in the Q and A I watched, he said it was all like he is like I am anti improv, which I saw it bright.

01:06:31
Speaker 3: I love that for him.

01:06:32
Speaker 2: He was like, I'm anti improv and so like people have like criticized the skill level of actors I've worked with over the years, but like they're memorizing twenty pages of dialogue, so your move. Yeah, So it's great these like I love characters that are like I live for pleasure and anything that is not pleasure I reject and will react with violence. It's cathartic. It makes me want to like stomp around.

01:07:00
Speaker 4: Totally like it. There's something very refreshing about seeing a female character do whatever the fuck she wants. Yeah, and you know it's not awesome when that includes child abuse and chaining your daughter to a bed and.

01:07:18
Speaker 2: No, but it's like this movie isn't pro child abuse.

01:07:21
Speaker 3: You know, it's just a keeps place.

01:07:22
Speaker 2: On a different planet as far as I can say, right, yeah, this is a movie where if your parents don't get you, chatcha he'll the floodgates are open.

01:07:30
Speaker 5: And now you're allowed to just kill people.

01:07:34
Speaker 2: You're allogic, generate, generational trauma, a perceived slight.

01:07:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I love to see women behaving badly in movies, so it's great.

01:07:46
Speaker 5: And honestly, like for me when I watch Divine, like I kind of do forget that that is a male drag queen character, Like I'm kind of just like this is just she's a shit kicker lady, Like she's a bad girl.

01:08:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, Divine is just like it's so good that I because I also I had to like refresh myself on like Divine as a drag performer and like I really want to watch that documentary.

01:08:18
Speaker 5: And the most unlikely movie star of yeah, that time, Like let's think about it. Ever, if you think about like just the seventies again, her size, the fact that she's this feminine man that dresses in drag, like that's not someone that was leading movies in certain that time. So it's this whole universe that they created for themselves where they're already going into this breaking all the rules.

01:08:46
Speaker 4: Right, and it's a universe where every time Down says I'm the most beautiful woman in the world, everyone around her agrees. Yeah, and that's just the reality of the society that it rocks of this alternate Baltimore.

01:09:02
Speaker 2: And this is we've like this is like maybe the most boring thing to point out, and everybody knows it. But for what it's worth, fifteen years after this movie, a Disney like an iconic Disney villain is like she becomes such a cultural touchstone and it's such a cultural force that she's like cartoon.

01:09:19
Speaker 3: Character by the late eighties.

01:09:22
Speaker 2: It's like it's incredible, like the amount that I don't know, like I love I love when a group of friends makes it, Like they made a group of friends from Baltimore made a movie and guess.

01:09:33
Speaker 3: What it changed the world. So think about that.

01:09:37
Speaker 5: It's cool.

01:09:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this movie has its issues, but I feel like it's just so there's nothing really like it totally, and it's kind of incredible that it's remotely good, Like given the resources and like how they had to make these.

01:09:52
Speaker 4: Movies a budget of twenty five thousand dollars, yeah, which I did.

01:09:56
Speaker 2: I put into a little thing, so that would be about one hundred fifty thousand.

01:10:00
Speaker 4: Dollars today, still super low budget.

01:10:02
Speaker 2: Still very very low. Yeah, and that yeah, it's like through the goodwill of their own community, were they able to like pull.

01:10:09
Speaker 3: This off time and time again. It's just it's awesome.

01:10:12
Speaker 4: It's beautiful. Ross. Do you have anything else? Do you want to talk about?

01:10:17
Speaker 2: No?

01:10:19
Speaker 5: I love it.

01:10:20
Speaker 4: It's great.

01:10:21
Speaker 8: Uh.

01:10:21
Speaker 2: It passes the Bachfel test a whole lot, usually about something horrible, but like, that's fine.

01:10:26
Speaker 3: That it counts.

01:10:28
Speaker 4: Women are talking about crime, money, fame, beauty, liquid, eyeliner, jump ropes, spaghetti, chicken, breasts, all manner of things.

01:10:40
Speaker 3: The list goes on. Yeah, so that no issues there? And then what about the the ultimate metric, the Bechdel.

01:10:47
Speaker 2: Cast nipples scale.

01:10:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the scale where we rate the movie from zero two five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I might defer rating on this episode. I feel like this, Yeah, I feel like the nipple scale doesn't apply to a movie like Female Trouble, So I kind of don't even want to rate it.

01:11:12
Speaker 2: I give it five mmmm five plates of spaghetti for me.

01:11:20
Speaker 4: Yes, I'll give it five human sized cages.

01:11:25
Speaker 3: Incredible. Where the hell did they get that so good?

01:11:28
Speaker 2: That would be a great Halloween cost Him? Very cumbersome, but really good.

01:11:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, wow, Ross, what do you think.

01:11:35
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd give it five trampoline.

01:11:40
Speaker 2: I love the anecdote that like John Waters and Divine went to the YMCA together for her to train.

01:11:47
Speaker 3: I'm just like, it's so good. It's so good because.

01:11:50
Speaker 4: She had to do all those flips with her wig, like staying on true and that's no easy task.

01:11:55
Speaker 2: True show girl. All right, Well that is our female trouble. So to thank you to everyone who's been requesting this movie for nine years.

01:12:03
Speaker 5: We did it. We did it.

01:12:05
Speaker 2: It is and thank you so much, Raz for coming on the show.

01:12:07
Speaker 3: This was so fun.

01:12:08
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I'm so happy that you invited me, and I'm I'm happy to talk about John Waters. I think it's I think again, it's like not certainly not what they were planning up when they were doing this stuff, but at this point it's like it serves as a historical record I think of queer culture, and not even just queer culture, like very subversive, transgressive, very a different, a world of outsiders and showing what a world of outsiders was like and what they were doing at that time. And this is only a few years after Stonewall, which was also those were outsider queer people. Those were gender non conforming trans people, and they were angry and fighting back, and I think that in a sense, that's where the culture was at. This is very early gay rights movement, and it's fun to see them letting their hair down and making each other laugh. And I think everyone should check it out totally.

01:13:33
Speaker 2: It's on the internet archive for free. If you haven't watched it already, can It's very easy to access.

01:13:42
Speaker 4: Indeed, thank you again for joining us for this discussion and tell us roz where people can follow you online, check out your work, listen to your podcasts, etc. Plug away.

01:13:58
Speaker 5: Thank you well. Roshrdad does on Instagrams where you can find everything. I'm so excited about this new podcast that I'm doing, which is a horror movie trivia game show type thing. It's fun. It is a podcast, but it's a game show, so we're I'm the host of it, and it's produced by Paramounts and it's all about horror movies and I really hope that you can listen to it and not necessarily be a horror movie fan. I think that we make it still fun and funny because there's all different kinds of improvised challenges that we put our guests through and it's just a good time. So that's called Tickled to Death. Go listen to that. And then Ghosted my podcast where I talk to people about their experiences with ghosts and aliens and bigfoots and psychics and stuff. That's my other podcast. And I have a YouTube channel where I go ghost hunting with guys I meet on Grinder and we go ghost hunting in haunted hotel rooms.

01:15:12
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, that's awesome.

01:15:13
Speaker 5: And it's comedic and it's fabulous.

01:15:17
Speaker 4: I love it.

01:15:18
Speaker 5: Rosser Dad is the Haunts. It's all that's called hell.

01:15:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you so much for training us.

01:15:24
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm so excited for the new podcast.

01:15:26
Speaker 3: Congratulations.

01:15:28
Speaker 5: Thank you of course.

01:15:30
Speaker 2: And you can find us in all the regular places we're on the Instagram. You can join our Patreon aka Matreon, where every month for five dollars a month you get two bonus episodes and access to our back catalog of over one hundred episodes. I think almost two hundred at this point. So get on there, get into it, and we will see you next week.

01:15:53
Speaker 4: Yes, thank bye.

01:15:58
Speaker 2: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and produced by me, Jamie Loftus and.

01:16:04
Speaker 4: Me Caitlyn Durrante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtermann and edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of Them? That's Me and our logo and merch and all of our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever heard of her? Oh My God?

01:16:21
Speaker 2: And our theme song, by the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan.

01:16:25
Speaker 4: With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.

01:16:27
Speaker 2: Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only Aristotle Ascevedo.

01:16:32
Speaker 4: For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash Spectel Cast