Hitch with Ronald Young Jr.

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Speaker 1: On The Bechdelcast.

00:00:02
Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism?

00:00:10
Speaker 3: The patriarchy?

00:00:11
Speaker 4: Zeff and best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

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Speaker 2: Hi, Everybody, Jamie popping in at the top of the episode to ask for your humble vote in the Signal Awards. The Signal Awards are a podcast industry award and a show a produce. We The Unhoused has been nominated in the People's Choice category for public service and activism. If you haven't listened to the show before, we've talked about it on the Bechdel Cast many times. But it is a show created and hosted by the wonderful Theo Henderson that is about issues that affect the unhoused, told by unhoused people themselves. It is a wonderful show. I am so proud of it. There are some stiff competition, and we would.

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Speaker 5: Appreciate your vote. It is literally two clicks. There is a link in the description of the episode. You are listening right now, so pause the episode, vote and enjoy the show. The Bechdelcast, Hey, Jamie, Hey Caitlin.

00:01:11
Speaker 1: If I do ninety percent of the introduction to this episode. Will you come in with the other ten percent.

00:01:18
Speaker 2: I'll come in with the other ten percent, and then we'll fall in love. Okay, great, and then we'll be I guess that makes you hitch and meet Kevin James. Is that the dynamic?

00:01:28
Speaker 1: Well, there are two different scenarios here.

00:01:31
Speaker 2: Am I like Kevin James of the podcast? I guess yeah, it's true. I could also be Kevin James. Uh? What is god? Rom common names are so elusive. You're just started naming the actors Kevin James, Rich Lady Addison.

00:01:47
Speaker 1: Adelaide Allegra has the name of an isn't that an allergy medicine?

00:01:53
Speaker 2: It is the name of an allergy medicine. This is an allergy medicine coded movie.

00:01:58
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Benadryl makes as big appearance.

00:02:01
Speaker 2: Anyways, Yes, I'm down to do ten percent of the work. That sounds like it would be a hugely fluid rock.

00:02:07
Speaker 6: Good. Great.

00:02:09
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name's Jamie Loftis.

00:02:12
Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Derante. This is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test simply as a jumping off point. And what is that? Do you think, Jamie?

00:02:24
Speaker 2: Well, I do feel like it is relevant to today's discussion because there's there's a case for it, but I don't know so. The Bechdel Test is a media metric created by our friend and yours, Alison Bechdel, back in the eighties for her comic Thanks to Watch Out for. Originally made as a one off joke, it has since been adapted as a mainstream media tool that we talk about very little on this show, but it is the title of the show. Many versions of this test. The version we use requires that two characters of a marginalized gender with names talk to each other about something other than a man for more than two lines of meaningful dialogue. Whatever that means to you can't be a nameless waiter character, right unless I guess, unless the waiter's giving Will Smith something he's allergic to. That would have been an interesting way to pass. Oh sure, but yes, that is the metric. But we are mostly here to talk about intersexual feminism as it pertains to hitch Hitche two thousand and five, directed by Andy Tenant, written by Kevin bish.

00:03:36
Speaker 1: Kevin Bish, That Son of a Bish.

00:03:38
Speaker 2: That Son of a Bish, and then Andy Tenant a frequent appearance on the show. He also directed It Takes Two, he directed ever after he directed Sweet Home Alabama. So this is the fourth Andy Tenant movie we are covering on the show Wild. So is it a feminist podcast? We don't know, but we have a wonderful guest here today.

00:04:04
Speaker 1: We certainly do. He is an audio producer and host of the podcasts Wait for It and Leaving the Theater. It's Ronald Young Junior.

00:04:14
Speaker 2: Hello, Hello, Hello, and welcome.

00:04:16
Speaker 6: Happy to be here, Happy to have you. A big fan wait to talk about Hitch. Big fans of y'all as well.

00:04:22
Speaker 2: I saw you at the at the Amb's this year, and I feel like you're at you the outside of the MBS this past year.

00:04:28
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah, it was just it was mostly the jacket was doing most of the work. Well, the glasses, I guess as well.

00:04:34
Speaker 2: I was like, it was no, it was the whole thing.

00:04:36
Speaker 1: It's the whole thing.

00:04:37
Speaker 2: Give yourself credit. Yes, what is your history with the movie Hitch?

00:04:43
Speaker 6: The movie Hitch came out when I was a junior in college, so I would have probably been barely twenty years old. Well, actually I would have been solidly twenty, maybe about to turn twenty one. And it was when Will Smith was on a tear in terms of the films that he had done. He had already done Ali I am Legend was in his future and this was during the same string that he was gonna end up doing Hancock. So I was excited to see whatever the new Will Smith movie was. When I saw the preview for this, I was like, Oh, that looks cute, and I also love Kevin James. I was watching a lot of King of Queens at the time, which I still think is a very funny show, but it was. It was It was fun to see Kevin James start to begin to make his transition into more of a movie star, because this was kind of the beginning of him starting to show up in movies. I think this is pre Paul Blart.

00:05:32
Speaker 2: Mallcop I believe, so, yeah, this is this is part of the road to Blart exactly.

00:05:37
Speaker 6: That's exactly. That's what I call it, too, the Road to Blark TM. So he was headed, he was headed in that direction. So seeing the previews, I remember I was sitting in a room with some friends and they were like, I want to see that new Will Smith date doctor movie. And then we were watching a movie at the time, and you know how when DVDs used to have previews on them, which is yes, wild to think about, but the preview came on and I was like, oh, that does look very good. They had him having the allergic reaction in the preview and all that, so I was very excited to see it.

00:06:05
Speaker 1: That was a huge part of the marketing of that movie.

00:06:07
Speaker 6: I remember if drinking and be.

00:06:10
Speaker 2: Like, come on that, which is that's really the only kind of thing of that nature that hacks in this movie. But I also vividly remember the yeah, the turnover the shoulder and the kidvened store and the like hives prosthetics. It's a choice, it's a choice.

00:06:30
Speaker 6: It really is very very romantic comedy coded of that era. They like they truly don't make them like this anymore, which is like for for better and worse at the same time. You know, yeah, like as soon as that opening sequence comes on, you immediately start like logging for a better time. Sorry, I'm talking too much. I can talk about this.

00:06:50
Speaker 1: Well, that's what we're here to do.

00:06:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're here to get to the bottom of Hitch.

00:06:55
Speaker 1: So you saw it when it came out, and then have you been revisiting it since or did you leave it in the past until now?

00:07:02
Speaker 6: So I bought it on DVD. It is probably downstairs in my DVD collection, which is just a big binder of DVDs. I got rid of all the cases because what do we even need those? I'm right there with you, yeah, but I still have.

00:07:14
Speaker 1: My DVD binder of like two hundred DVDs.

00:07:16
Speaker 6: Okay. But the funny thing about that, okay, And I used to watch Hitch regularly, like, oh, y'all want to watch Hitch? Like just throw it on, like great date movie, that type of thing. But all of those films that existed back then, even though I own them, depending on where they're positioned on streaming media, they completely leave my mind. It's like they don't exist anymore. So when y'all mentioned this, I was like, oh, yeah, I think it's been a solid at least ten, maybe fifteen years since I watched that movie, and I just I yeah, So it's I loved it for a time when it was out, and then it just disappeared into the back corners of my mind.

00:07:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to return. We must return to Hitch.

00:08:00
Speaker 6: We gotta go back.

00:08:02
Speaker 2: We have to come back.

00:08:03
Speaker 1: We have to go back to Hitch.

00:08:05
Speaker 2: To go back. I have just started watching Lost last year, and what a treat. What a treat?

00:08:11
Speaker 6: Yeah you say that. Now what season are you on? Oh?

00:08:14
Speaker 2: I've watched the whole series twice.

00:08:16
Speaker 6: Which okay, okay, okay, okay.

00:08:18
Speaker 1: I don't know.

00:08:19
Speaker 2: It's like, I am, well, we got a table Lost because I got ept.

00:08:22
Speaker 1: You growingly come back for Lost. We'll do a spinoff podcast all of Lost.

00:08:28
Speaker 2: Easy prep. Yeah, I got the flu and I watched Lost.

00:08:32
Speaker 6: You probably got it from the island.

00:08:34
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, what are the others?

00:08:37
Speaker 2: That's one of the other cough in my mouth and here I am, Jimmie.

00:08:42
Speaker 1: What's your history with Hitch?

00:08:44
Speaker 2: My history with Hitch is that I saw it.

00:08:46
Speaker 7: I I This I feel like goes very firmly into my middle school sleepover cannon and kind of an outlier in the ramkan genre because it's I mean in a number of ways, but it's very rare in a rom com for the man to be the character that.

00:09:06
Speaker 2: We're leading with. I feel like it's very it's most often that he's kind of behind the woman trying to have it all. But this is like peak, well, I don't even know when peak Willsmith exactly was. It feels close. This feels pretty close.

00:09:20
Speaker 6: It's close.

00:09:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I hadn't seen it in at least ten years, probably longer. Although I feel like you see, if you spend enough time on the internet, you see Hitch in the wild with some frequency. People remember Hitch. Yeah, I most clearly remember the Hives scene, and then I didn't remember a bunch of stuff that I've excited to talk about. But I mean, mainly, rewatching this movie is like I miss Eva Mendez. Yes, I miss her acting not I mean, she's still thriving, but she doesn't act anymore, and I miss it. She's just like the most charismatic woman on the face the earth, and so as well. I mean, obviously Will Smith is Will Smith, but but yeah, I don't know. There's I feel like this movie has been through so many waves of criticism, reconsideration, reclaiming, getting rid of it again. It was so interesting going through the like because there's tons of essays about Hitch every time it reaches an anniversary, marker, and it always changes a little bit the public perception of Hitch, and I feel like I would have felt differently about it ten years ago than I do now. It's all over the place if this movie does mix all over the place, because sometimes it's like it's so weird, whereas like sometimes it's like ooh, a point is being approached, and then they're like, never mind, never mind. I expected to not like it a lot less than I. I mean, there there is stuff to love about this movie. I get why people return to it, and even then does un Retired challenge Kaylyn, what's your history with Hitch?

00:11:06
Speaker 1: I also saw it when it came out. I remember the marketing a lot, and I was like, well, I guess rom coms have never really been my genre, and I prefer Will Smith when he's in an alien movie. But I was like, sure, I'll go with what I was. I think a freshman or sophomore in college at the time, so I imagine I went with some friends to see in theaters, and I feel like I watched it a couple more times since then, just because it would kind of be on in the room I was in. But I never had much of an attachment to it and forgot most of the things as well, except for the ninety percent ten percent kissing advice.

00:11:57
Speaker 2: You remember that.

00:11:58
Speaker 1: I think about that like once a week. Well, not as like advice that I think people should follow, but it's just it for some reason that stuck with me.

00:12:09
Speaker 2: I get that that's a sticky that's a sticky bit of information.

00:12:12
Speaker 1: It's a sticky thing because I'm always like, I think what it is is I'm afraid a man is gonna go ninety percent into trying to kiss me, and like, just how yucky I feel about that.

00:12:25
Speaker 2: Ninety percent is too many. That's a lot of persons.

00:12:31
Speaker 1: Maybe it should be fifty to fifty.

00:12:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, that's a good threshold.

00:12:36
Speaker 6: I think it also articulates something that I don't believe in, which is the idea that when it comes to kissing, that the onus is on the man to like make the kiss happen, which is something that has bitten me in the behind so many times in life, because there have been women who was like, oh, well, he didn't try to kiss me, he must not like me, and I was like, no, I'm just shy and don't I'm afraid I want to, but I don't know how to do it, and I don't want to do ninety percent. It feels like I've be encroaching on your space.

00:13:05
Speaker 1: And this is why I think about it all the time.

00:13:10
Speaker 3: And weirdly, like Hitch doesn't totally step away from the fact that like men obviously experience anxiety and confidence issues like that is such a huge part of it.

00:13:21
Speaker 2: But then it gets weird to get I don't know.

00:13:24
Speaker 6: I think the movie vacillates. I wrote this down. I think it vacillates between being a pickup artist's manual and then an actual guide to talking to human women. So at its worst, yes, it's a pickup artist. At its best, it's like, here's how you talk to a woman, and I'm like, actually, that's not that bad. When it's like, hey, just talk to her, be nice, like be kind to her, you know what I mean. Listen, Yes, I'm like, that's not bad. But then because it throws it in a blender, it's like, wait a minute, wait a minute, this isn't right, Will Smith, I don't know if you're doing this right.

00:13:57
Speaker 2: And then the ending being like I don't know, and then there's Grandma Hedge. I forgot about Grandma.

00:14:03
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Grandma Hitch.

00:14:05
Speaker 2: I would see that movie too.

00:14:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, at least it's not what's that movie, Crazy Stupid Love where it's just like, here's how to be a pickup artist?

00:14:15
Speaker 6: Yees.

00:14:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, it like sort of starts to veer into that territory sometimes, but it never gets all the way. Yeah, and yes, some of the advice that Hitch gives is solid advice. A lot of it isn't, Yeah, but some of it is. And the takeaway from this movie I think is generally positive. But the point is I forgot most of it except for the ninety ten thing, and I am sort of haunted by it. But we'll unpack that and more. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap, and we're back.

00:14:58
Speaker 2: Let's lock it's Hitch time. I also this reminded me of I know that this is probably something that still happens, but I do associate the naming convention. It kind of feels geely coded to me, where you're like, oh, the guy's name is Jeelie. The guy's name is Hitch. You're like, oh, I guess I didn't see that coming.

00:15:20
Speaker 1: Alex Hitchens aka Hitch, Larry Jeelie, you know, keep going.

00:15:27
Speaker 6: Also Gilie's Ark two thousand and three, Hitch circa two thousand and five. So you're hitting the nail on the head in terms of what it was happening.

00:15:34
Speaker 2: The people wanted what they wanted, except one of the main differences being Hitch was wildly successful to this day is still the third most successful rom com at the box office ever.

00:15:45
Speaker 6: Wow, whoa yeah, of all time? What's two and one?

00:15:48
Speaker 2: Two and one? Oh my gosh, it just had it up two in one. One of them is so this is at the box office, but yes, it beats Pretty Woman adjusted for inflation. It's my big Greek wedding. What women want or before.

00:16:02
Speaker 6: Women one should not be number two. That's that's wild.

00:16:05
Speaker 2: What women want is nasty, that is.

00:16:07
Speaker 6: Not Yeah, have y'all done that on this show. I'll be back, Yes, Okay, do it again so I can talk trash.

00:16:15
Speaker 2: It's an interesting. Top ten is my big fact Greek wedding. What women Want? Hitch, Pretty Woman, Wild, there's something about Mary crazy rich Asians, the proposal which I barely remember, Sex and the City Runaway Bride knocked up. That's the top ten.

00:16:31
Speaker 6: Wow, that's okay, so their box office. This isn't preference, which makes sense, Like you're listing ten movies that I think people would go see. But wow, Hitch being number three, Well, but actually it is like kind of a straight down the middle of romantic comedy in a lot of ways. But like I mean, and we're about to unpack the real examinations of it. But I guess it's not that unsurprising. The other number two, What women Want, that's way more disappointing to me.

00:16:59
Speaker 2: That's too many, yes, just too many, like at least my big fact Greek wedding. I like, correct, What women want is a movie with a with a dark aura.

00:17:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, evil vibes.

00:17:12
Speaker 2: Yeah about pick up artists, my god, totally Like even without mel Gibson it's scary, but with him inexcusable.

00:17:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yeah.

00:17:22
Speaker 6: Can I say one thing?

00:17:23
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, please, oh yeah.

00:17:24
Speaker 6: I just want to point out that when y'all y'all picked Hitch, and I was so excited, I expected to be like anything that comes out in the early two thousands that I'm revisiting now, I'm expecting that I'm going to be like what was I thinking at this time? And I really appreciate y'all because this was one of the rare exceptions where I'm like, great, it has some problems, but I don't. I don't feel dirty like walking away from this as I did from other things that came out around that time when we really thought we were invincible culturally as a country point to be noticed a little. So I really appreciate y'all bringing me in for this one.

00:17:57
Speaker 1: Oh oh, absolutely, you are so grateful to have you. And let's meet.

00:18:01
Speaker 2: Hitch shall we Alice hitch Hitchins.

00:18:05
Speaker 1: Alex Hitchins played by Will Smith. He is a dating coach dubbed the Date Doctor. And something I think is hilarious about this movie is that everyone in New York City knows about the Date Doctor, as if he's like Spider Man, where we don't know his true identity, but it's like I've heard of him though, and he's famous.

00:18:29
Speaker 2: Unlike Spider Man. He has an amazing apartment.

00:18:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, he's raking it in.

00:18:36
Speaker 2: Beautiful rom com. I mean it's like that. It's almost like self aware the way they're doing it because he never says how much he charges. He's just like, that's why they pay me, so much. I love this. This world is just class does not exist, no, really in this world, and sometimes that can be fun. You're like, sure, not good for them and good for Hitch, although you know at what cost.

00:19:03
Speaker 1: Okay, So we meet Hitch during a montage where he's helping men talk to women, or get women to notice them, or orchestrate a meet. Cute. There's also voiceover monologue from Hitch and we'll talk about this, but it's advice, and again, some of it isn't horrible. A lot of it is quite gender prescriptive as far as this is what women like and so that's what you should do about it.

00:19:34
Speaker 6: Correct.

00:19:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, leading with the women who are really into their career right now? Do you believe that? Neither did she? She's lying. You're like, Wow, I love this guy.

00:19:43
Speaker 5: Can't wait to hear her.

00:19:44
Speaker 2: I can't wait to follow his journey.

00:19:46
Speaker 6: Yeah. The good thing is when he's talking of like, I feel good knowing that we know more than him at this point. Sound like, yeah, yeah, bless, I'm going to assume that Alex Hitchins grew up with the rest of us, like by twenty twenty five. He's like, I said some things and I don't actually agree with anymore. And I'm like, oh, that's perfectly fine. That's that's the grace that I'm offering him at this point, I hope.

00:20:06
Speaker 2: So we come to this place to show Hitch grace.

00:20:10
Speaker 1: You know, I wouldn't be mad about Hitch two you know, contemporary modern day, twenty years later or whatever. And yeah, he's changed his ways.

00:20:20
Speaker 2: Yes, that's what gets us. Ava Mendez back, Fine, I watch it. I'll go, I'll go watch it.

00:20:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it. Okay. So Hitch's thing is that he will help men for the first three dates and after that they're on their own. Then we meet Sarah played by Eva Mendez. Her various male colleagues and bosses are like, you need a boyfriend, and she's like, I don't have time for a boyfriend. I'm too focused on my career.

00:20:51
Speaker 2: She cooks forty hours a week talking about how she doesn't need a boy thread.

00:20:58
Speaker 6: Yep, I do like that.

00:20:59
Speaker 2: They give because she does. I mean, in rom com fashion. She is a New York City journalist, but she's kind of like a dirty journalist. She's a but not the way the movie frames it. The movie doesn't. They're just like I just think it's I mean, it makes sense in the plot. Why they she ends up being a gossip I don't know. Maybe it was just sex and the City era and this was this was a thing true.

00:21:23
Speaker 1: Right because she's a gossip columnist at a newspaper, remember those And some of her recent coverage has been on a celebrity named Allegra Cole and a breakup that she just went through.

00:21:37
Speaker 6: Can we just point out her apartment is way too big for a reporter?

00:21:40
Speaker 2: Yes, and classic Carrie fashion. Yeah, yeah, you're just you're like, wow, her and Hitch cumulatively, I'm just like, yeah, they're loaded. They're loaded, and god knows how, but I'm happy for them.

00:21:56
Speaker 6: I support it.

00:21:57
Speaker 1: They're both living in like three million dollar condos padform. We're not sure how.

00:22:01
Speaker 6: At least her door opens out, that's how. That's how I know you got money if you're not concerned about the direction of your door opens like whatever, I got a doorman. They can't get in here.

00:22:13
Speaker 2: And they don't you don't know if they own, but they have they carry themselves as if they own the place.

00:22:19
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, Then we cut to Hitch at a bar playing pool with a character played by raging Zionist piece of ship. Michael Rappaport, Caitlyn I almost flipped the table.

00:22:33
Speaker 6: I was like, what is this guy doing?

00:22:38
Speaker 1: May he rot in hell? This man?

00:22:41
Speaker 2: Nothing can prepare you to see what a jump scare really is.

00:22:48
Speaker 6: And that's such a good use of jump Scared two. That's what happened.

00:22:51
Speaker 2: I was like, Michael, why worse than the Hives scene? Like they it's also just I mean, we don't need to get it a full Michael Rappaport, but like Zionist is the tip of the iceberg with this, I mean just a vile, vile being overt racist.

00:23:09
Speaker 6: Yeah, as I would say, so evil, evil man.

00:23:12
Speaker 2: Every mask is off with this guy.

00:23:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, at least he's only in this one scene and he never comes back.

00:23:18
Speaker 6: But it could have cut it. Honestly, they shouldly.

00:23:20
Speaker 1: Should have cut it.

00:23:21
Speaker 2: They should do a twentieth anniversary release that cuts out the Michael Rapaport because also it's cuttable.

00:23:26
Speaker 6: It really is a lot.

00:23:27
Speaker 2: Wise, you don't need it cuttable.

00:23:28
Speaker 1: And the movie is too long. It's two hours long. No rom com should be longer than ninety ninety five minutes, like what are we doing here?

00:23:37
Speaker 2: Although I do appreciate the long extended wedding dance sequence at the end. That's just a return to form. Yeah, that's tradition.

00:23:46
Speaker 6: That's that's obviously not what goes on the kind of roof floor there's but we could as you go through, we could probably say what could have been cut in terms of like story, like come on, you didn't need this part, Like that's very you. You said two hours to it. I remember thinking it feels like a tight nine, but then after a while you're like, Okay, it's still kind of going, like what's what's happening here? Why are we still here?

00:24:05
Speaker 2: When that guy Tom shows up at the end, I was like I'm done, I'm done.

00:24:10
Speaker 6: Yes, this should have happened to Sina, though, why is this happening now? Like this is this is weird? This grand gesture, like you've already done it? Why are we what are we doing here?

00:24:19
Speaker 2: The grand gesture? Also, I was just like, this is a good weaponization of the Steve Puschemi test. If Steve Pushemi does anything that Hitch does in this movie, it's it's menacing and scary behavior.

00:24:33
Speaker 1: Steve, Oh, this is we made this cast original.

00:24:37
Speaker 6: This is a this is good, this should be that's amazing and also terrible for Steve. I'm so sorry.

00:24:45
Speaker 2: I know it will mean this our friend Steve, who's a bonafid but he plays creeps a lot.

00:24:52
Speaker 6: This would also work for Bill Scar's guard. So don't feel like it just has to be Steve because if Bill, because you know how I know it's true about Bill scar Card is that barbarian doesn't work if Bill scars guard is not a little bit creepy because you you think he's up to something the whole time, but he's actually not good looking guy whatever. But like, yeah, I'm just saying you can you can slash that. It doesn't just have to be Steve.

00:25:13
Speaker 2: Oh that makes me feel great about this test because I was like, I don't want to. I don't want to come down on our friend Steve. But it's the same thing where it's just like that type cast actor and so much of this movie. If you apply that test, you're like, well, I don't know, I don't know, but this this hitch.

00:25:31
Speaker 1: Guy doesn't feel great.

00:25:32
Speaker 6: I love this.

00:25:34
Speaker 2: Throw him soap on the hood of a car. I don't know, No, I'm.

00:25:38
Speaker 6: Seeing it all with Steve Shimmy, you took her, you took her to see.

00:25:46
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the Ellis Island thing.

00:25:48
Speaker 2: Steve tell me, trapped you in Ellis Island?

00:25:51
Speaker 6: Like I got here even with Bill Scar's guard. It's still like again here, like why did you take me to see my murder and grandfather?

00:25:59
Speaker 8: Oh?

00:26:00
Speaker 1: I can't wait to get there.

00:26:02
Speaker 2: I kind of like the ls Island bit. It makes no sense, but I was like, yeah, we get but I liked it right anyway.

00:26:11
Speaker 1: The whole point of this, like bar scene where they're playing pool, is the Hitch is being told that he should try to find a meaningful long term relationship, because Hitch's whole thing is that he only does very casual, short term dating, and according to the movie, that's bad and shallow and.

00:26:36
Speaker 2: Also women can't do it, and women are just simply not allowed in this world. Women have no desire to have casual sex and have no interest in it at all.

00:26:48
Speaker 1: Yes, and we're like, oh, why is Hitch like this?

00:26:52
Speaker 2: Who broke his.

00:26:53
Speaker 1: Heart or whatever? And we get a flashback of Hitch in college before he had any game, where he fell in love with a woman named Cressida and he came on too strong and she broke his heart, but he learned quote unquote from this experience, and that's why he does the work that he does, and that's why he is the way that he is in his own dating life.

00:27:18
Speaker 2: It feels very studio notesy that they give you this explanation in full flashback. I kept waiting for, like Cresida, for him to like run into Cressida or something. I feel like that could have been an interesting plot point of like him running into her twenty years later and like them having some sort of conversation or her being like, I'm sorry, I hurt you, even though he reacts quite violently when he tries out she's cheating, But I don't know. I kept there was like so much specificity to that flashback that is, like, you really think he's gonna see her down the line.

00:27:50
Speaker 6: The other thing I want to point out is that when they do the flashback and all he does is put on glasses, I'm like, I just want to point out this man is still very good looking, and he's still very very normal of the age of the time that he was around, So I don't think he'd be not adjusted or unable to talk to women or date or whatever. They kind of put him in this category that he is not in just because you put a pair of glasses on him. As a matter of fact, they might have improved what he looked like. I'm like, that's one of your five looks. Will. You should definitely be wearing glasses of other ports in this movie.

00:28:20
Speaker 2: It just kind of takes me to like a specific Fresh Prince era. You're like, yeah, we liked that, we liked that.

00:28:25
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're here for hot yeah yeah, yeah.

00:28:29
Speaker 1: Right. Also at this bar is Sarah with her friend Casey.

00:28:35
Speaker 2: She's too much wearing her the Beatles shirt from Target. She's too much. She's cracking me up with her her little t shirts, her little blazers. You're like, two thousand and five, we were just doing whatever.

00:28:46
Speaker 1: To me. That was signaling like she's not like the other girls because she likes the Beatles and drinks beer.

00:28:53
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I think that that is exactly what it's supposed to be telegraphing. But I kind of don't have a problem with it. I think funny, right, the Beatles, Wow, what a subversive choice.

00:29:07
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's so off kilter, quirky.

00:29:11
Speaker 2: I've never heard of them.

00:29:12
Speaker 1: Say more so, Sarah and Casey are talking about dating and men and being single, so not passing the Bechdel test spoiler alert.

00:29:22
Speaker 2: At one point they're never passing the Bechdel test. But interestingly, to me, in one scene there, you're not passing the Bechdel test and eating some really like weird looking food. When they go to that, they're eating like rice pudding. In one of the scenes where they're not passing the Bechdel test, You're like, what a weird what a weird way to like? I like rice pudding, but it seems like a gentrified rice pudding spot. I was like, was that ever a thing?

00:29:45
Speaker 6: It was wild, but I'm not I didn't live in New York at that time, so I don't know what was happening to get New York in two thousand and five were girls.

00:29:53
Speaker 2: We're girls talking about Will Smith over rice pudding.

00:29:57
Speaker 1: I don't know, we don't know. But in this case, they're talking about a guy who Casey has recently met, who she likes, but she's worried that he might be kind of a sleeze ball and Sarah is like, he's definitely a sleeze but Casey wants to go out with him anyway. And this will come back later. Then we meet Hitch's newest client, Albert Brenneman played by Kevin James, a guy with absolutely no game and he wants help with Allegra Cole that like celebrity heiress woman who Sarah has been writing about, and Albert's company handles her finances. So he has met Allegra briefly, but she barely knows he exists, and he knows that she's likely quote unquote out of his league, but Hitch is up to the challenge.

00:30:52
Speaker 6: To be clear, feels like Hitch is like, you know what, I'm the best. I'll take this on. He doesn't actually explicitly state that, but there's a way which he's like, man, this is like because he actually uses the words like Michaelangelo Siste Chapel and basically say like this is going to be his masterpiece making this workout, which feels like an opportunity for him with that regard. But if I could just say one thing, I mean, obviously I have a weight based podcast, w E I g ht weight for it to see him cast a fat man in this role where it's not totally lampooning himself like he is. He is confident and who he is as a person. What he lacks confidence in is his ability to connect with this woman specifically, which feels more progressive than I would expect from a two thousand and five movie. Now, there are some fat jokes, and there are some very distinct things that he's fat. He eats a bunch of donuts, he's fat, He splits his pants. That type of thing is in there, But like it's not about his person hood and who he is, Like, there's never a part of it that's like I need to lose weight so I can go talk to this woman, which I appreciated in twenty twenty five because we don't often get that, especially not for fat men.

00:32:06
Speaker 1: For sure.

00:32:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, because he trips on marbles at some point. You're like this poor man. But but it's like that is not unlike so many, especially in comedies, so many fact characters like he's that is not his defined in quality, and Hitch not to his credit. But I was just like Hitch, that is not a factor for him, and he's like, no, it's just about like I mean, he is a con man, he's a confidence man. He's trying to build up Albert's confidence and it I don't know.

00:32:39
Speaker 9: Yeah, I was also like, the very broad stuff is the very broad stuff you would expect for this time, but the if you like look at the story, you're like, they actually mutually grow through this friendship.

00:32:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, that never happens with men. That's really nice, like in movies.

00:32:55
Speaker 6: I like it. Yeah, yeah, that's I think that's one of the things that makes you feel good when you get to the end end, especially you know, well, I'll say this, I know we're going to get there. There's a portion of the film which we're gonna get to in which they connect over their boat, their like kind of twin, like we'll say obstacle without spoiling it. And I feel like that moment we rarely get of men saying what should we do? Or I feel bad and them having that kind of back and forth, which is really it kind of ends up being the ethos of the movie. But you're right, we don't. We don't get to see that with dudes.

00:33:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, very off.

00:33:28
Speaker 6: Not in two thousand and five. Like, if we're talking about the time, it certainly wasn't having a lot in two thousand and five.

00:33:32
Speaker 1: Definitely not.

00:33:33
Speaker 2: No, I mean and I don't know, and then it's like by the end, I mean, like Kevin James is like he gets the well, it's complicated, gets does he get the right girlfriend? It's the well we're about to get to it.

00:33:46
Speaker 6: Yeah, look at us jumping ahead.

00:33:50
Speaker 1: There's just so much to talk about.

00:33:51
Speaker 6: Okay, sorry, because like I'm not even halfway in. Guys, We're three.

00:33:55
Speaker 1: Minutes and it just got to the inciting incident.

00:33:58
Speaker 2: So there's this guiddam hit.

00:34:02
Speaker 1: Okay, So Hitch gets to work on helping Albert with Allegra Cole, who we finally meet on screen, played by Amber Valletta, who goes to a meeting with her financial advisors. She's asking if she can have five hundred thousand dollars to invest in her friend's clothing design company, but the main advisor guy shuts her down. So Albert takes this opportunity to advocate for Allegra so that hopefully she'll notice and appreciate him, and it works and she wants to meet with him one on one to talk about her investments.

00:34:39
Speaker 2: Now this, hmm, I understand what they're trying to do with this, but it's so I don't know. I did not care for the way it's presented where he's like, what if I neg do you at work in front of everybody? Like there it was like a And it's even referenced when she gets to the door where he thinks she's going to be upset, and then she's like no, I She's like, no one's ever talked to me like that, And I liked it. I'm like, okay, so that's how we're writing women character in this where it's like you have to suspend your disbelief of how a person would talk.

00:35:15
Speaker 1: Well because it's a mix of him nagging her, but then quickly she gets too advocating for her, so yeah, who knows exactly what she means, But the point is it works and she does notice him finally did.

00:35:29
Speaker 6: I think it is performed and is written and comes off as nagging, but the way I received it and I feel like it's poor writing, especially when you get to the part where she's angry at him, because I feel like if that scene had just been like, you don't have to ask us for what you want to do. If you wanted us to do something, we're going to do it, but we're here to advise you. If that had been how it was written, and he still goes off on the boss and all that. Then it makes sense. But like this idea because I remember sitting there being like, the whole point was Hitch said that you're supposed to be making a splash at this point, So if he advised him to do negging, and what actually happened was this this kind of like moment of advocacy. For me, it feels like I wish they had written it differently because Alex certainly did not tell him to like speak up in the meeting, tell her to f their advice, do what she's going to do, and then quit his job, you know what I mean. So I think that part it was murky to me in the writing. The execution comes off exactly like you said, It sounds like negging and an advocacy. But I'm like, all we really needed because later on the movie we see that the whole point is that he basically never listens to will Smith's advice and just only is just being himself the whole time, you know.

00:36:40
Speaker 1: And that's what works, which I like I do too.

00:36:43
Speaker 6: That's a great messaging and.

00:36:45
Speaker 2: I like that. I mean, we don't get that much like, we don't know that much about Allegraate, but I do know, no, but but really do get the surface stuff is I kind of liked it where it's like, you, you know, she's whatever we think of how blonde women with severe bobs are usually characterized in this genre. It's not as like, ooh, I'm a dork. I've like, I feel I'm uncomfortable with myself and I appreciated that.

00:37:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is some dissonance to me where it's like she's the daughter of maybe a billionaire it seems. And I'm like, oh, we're supposed to think that she's not a sociopath then, but.

00:37:26
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, knowing that this is two thousand and five and they even name drap parasols and at some point I think that that's like sort of who we're supposed to be inserting this into.

00:37:35
Speaker 6: Right.

00:37:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, in any case, Albert has made a splash. Then that night, Hitch is at a bar and he spots Sarah and takes an interest.

00:37:48
Speaker 2: Having a gray Goose martini, which feels very two thousand and five code dropping the gray Goose.

00:37:53
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed.

00:37:56
Speaker 2: Only the best because she makes a billion dollars at her job in.

00:38:01
Speaker 6: Newspaper writing where she does not have an office, where she's in a cubicle in the newslank floor.

00:38:05
Speaker 2: Come on, true, they're really back.

00:38:08
Speaker 10: The newspaper industry is dying in the office, but for some reason, at home, it's.

00:38:12
Speaker 6: Not crushing it.

00:38:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, she has raytheon stalks or some shit like it's Carrie.

00:38:18
Speaker 6: She's the daughter of a billionaire, could be that well.

00:38:21
Speaker 2: Her family life is hilarious to me because the two things we learned about her family is that her great grandfather was a serial killer and that her sister fell through ice once. And that is all we learned about her past. Really, you're like, wow, one such a specific thing, and then the other thing is so vague. That's right, I love it. She's just she's a complicated woman. She doesn't need a boyfriend, you guys.

00:38:44
Speaker 9: No.

00:38:47
Speaker 1: In any case, hitch takes an interest in Sarah and saves her from a creep who's hitting on her at the bar. They chat for a few minutes about how he's not gonna like every other annoying guy who tries to chat her up, and then he leaves and gives her some space to I don't know, play hard to get or I don't know. And then the next day, Hitch meets with another new client, Vance played by Jeffrey Donovan.

00:39:20
Speaker 2: Yes, that was I was watching with our friend Bryant this morning and he was like he came like twenty minutes and he's like, is burn Notice there yet? He's like, I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. And he's like, oh, burn Notice is in this one.

00:39:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, that guy.

00:39:38
Speaker 6: Yeah, the guy shows more popular than his name.

00:39:41
Speaker 2: Hey, yeah, he should just change it. But oh god, being an actor seems so awful because what if you could just end up being burn Notice.

00:39:52
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:39:53
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're a person and everything.

00:39:54
Speaker 2: But he went to the same state school as my mom. Oh wow, learning all about bird Notice mister Notice.

00:40:02
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay, So we realized that he's the guy who Sarah's friend Casey had been talking about earlier. And this guy Vance is like, oh, I just want to see her again and bang her, and Hitch is like, that's not what I do, so fuck off. Yes, then Hitch sends a courier with a walkie talkie to Sarah's work so that he can walkie talkie her and ask her out on a date.

00:40:32
Speaker 2: No, okay, Buemi test Buschemy tests. Yeah, Bushemy sends a mysterious box to your work, you don't open it.

00:40:40
Speaker 1: Also, if it's a walkie talkie, it means that he has to be in close enough range to her office to talk to her. So he's basically outside.

00:40:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's close by. He's sent an eighties punk courier. I was thrown by the courier, but I was like, I don't know, hitch has ops everywhere.

00:40:58
Speaker 6: This definitely doesn't pass the little Scars guard test, which I'm calling it now, but it certainly there was something about it where I was like, I suspect and I'm just asking y'all if this happened in real life, what percentage of charmed would you feel by this? If you liked the guy?

00:41:18
Speaker 2: Okay, and that's the real thing that is.

00:41:21
Speaker 6: Yeah, let's say you liked the guy. What percentage of charm?

00:41:24
Speaker 1: If it's two thousand and five when this came out, I think I would have been way more charmed.

00:41:29
Speaker 2: Now.

00:41:29
Speaker 1: I would have been like, why didn't you just ask me for my number when we were talking at the bar the night before? Yes, be direct, you ask.

00:41:39
Speaker 2: I think I would be like I would be I'm not made of stone. I would still be a little charmed, but my first question would be where are you?

00:41:49
Speaker 6: Are you in the house?

00:41:51
Speaker 2: Are you been twenty yards of me?

00:41:53
Speaker 1: Right next is the call coming from inside the newspaper office.

00:41:58
Speaker 2: Underneath my desk. He's also so like classic brom com where all of a sudden, everyone at Sarah's work is like, what people we've never seen before, we'll never see again, and they're like, are you gonna pick up the walkie talky?

00:42:15
Speaker 6: I really enjoyed that part. This is how I know like I'm also part of the problem because you're absolutely right, they all gathered and the audience you feel like you're gathering with them. You're like, ooh, what are you gonna do? Even though like something that and I think you both just proved that this would only work in a film where it's like there's there's a level of charm versus like versus actual work that it takes to do something like this, versus like should like was there a more practical way for you to just get my number? Like could you have just written me an email? Because there was an.

00:42:47
Speaker 2: Email at that time, and then little unbeknownst to us, the amount of work he's done on this first date. You don't even know the half of it. He's gone on ancestree dot com, which couldn't have been as easy in two thousand and five.

00:43:02
Speaker 1: Well exactly. He probably like had to look through like hard copy archives or something like. Because here's what happens. He asks her on a date. They settle on Sunday morning. They go to Ellis Island by way of jeet skiing on the rout Hudson River.

00:43:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is a really dirty body of water.

00:43:23
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would not recommend it.

00:43:25
Speaker 1: Don't do that.

00:43:25
Speaker 2: It looked pretty, though, I will say, like New York is very pretty in this movie.

00:43:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, But hitch he kind of flubs a few things up, including kicking her in the head on the jet ski and then tracing her family history back to a relative of hers who passed through Ellis Island who turned out to be a serial killer. And so the date was not this you know, magical perfect date, but there is something about this hitch guy, and say Sarah agrees to see him again.

00:44:02
Speaker 2: And not before telling her friend Casey over a very huge bowl of rice pudding. I was so distracted by the rice pudding because it was they show you the name of the I don't know why this stuck out to me so much. Uh, the name of the business is from rice to riches. And then we go inside and rose. Like unfortunately of rom coms, it is kind of a headline to be like women ate in this movie, they let the meat, but it just I don't I like rice pudding, but it's just I've never seen it eaten in a rom com before. Their bulls were really full.

00:44:37
Speaker 1: Look, visibility matters. I guess the rice pudding.

00:44:42
Speaker 2: And she says he really tanked, but he did it with flair, And then she is a huge scoop of rice pudding, which you would imagine would make her next line of dialogue really hard to hear. But it's fine.

00:44:53
Speaker 6: It's fine. Yeah, the failing with Flair part, like I mean, being charmed by all that, It felt like maybe maybe being charmed by the the amount of effort it took for him to then fail, because like because at that point, it doesn't even feel like failure. It could be waxy existential about this movie, but like it's it doesn't even feel like failure. It just feels like effort, and the effort is more I guess valuable than the the what is the product of the effort, which I think is what they're trying to get at in this part. I agree, yeah, because I didn't like the fact they're like he failed with flair. I'm like, what does what does that even mean?

00:45:26
Speaker 2: To say?

00:45:26
Speaker 6: You like him?

00:45:28
Speaker 2: Right exactly?

00:45:29
Speaker 1: B direct everyone. So meanwhile, Hitch is prepping Albert for an event that he's going to with Allegracole, and Albert's like, I hope there's dancing at the event because I freaking tear it up on the dance floor. And he shows Hitch some moves and Hitch is like, do not, under any circumstances ever dance like that in front of her. You look like a freak.

00:45:58
Speaker 2: I feel like I remember that from that trailers show Kevin James dance sequence.

00:46:04
Speaker 6: For sure, he dances fine, and I that's another thing that I want to stand for. There there's a there's a portion in there where this skews into big guy being a buffoon. But the truth is Kevin James has rhythm and he has no shame, which on the dance floor are too valuable. Those are the only two things you need. Not a wedding, any of that stuff is rhythm and no shame if you have those, And here's the thing is, if you only have no shame and you have no rhythm, you can actually still survive on a dance floor. So the idea that you're telling him that they do it to only do a two step because you're gonna look stupid. I'm like, I don't want to be with nobody who doesn't want to who doesn't want to be be on the flance floor.

00:46:40
Speaker 2: And that makes you look stupid. Yeah, yeah, Also, yeah, Kevin James much later, when he gets the kiss the ninety ten thing happens, he does it full like Gene Kelly thing. He's got moves, moves he does.

00:46:57
Speaker 1: He's very spry, and he does not listened to Hitch. He's like, my instincts are telling me to dance, so I'm going to dance. And he does that at the event with Allegra.

00:47:08
Speaker 2: And she's also dancing like a door like it's nice, it's nice.

00:47:13
Speaker 1: The thing is though, that some photos, some like paparazzi photos, are taken of them dancing and they end up in the tabloids, and Hitch thinks that Albert has humiliated himself and Sarah is upset because she didn't get to this story first.

00:47:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, they all find us out from the same newstand. The one news stand in all of New York City is where every character in this movie goes.

00:47:37
Speaker 6: Yes, yep, oh news stands. What a relic of the past?

00:47:40
Speaker 2: Oh I no.

00:47:42
Speaker 1: Rip. Then Hitch goes on a tirade about Albert possibly kissing Allegra, and this is where we get the whole men should go ninety percent of the way and wait for a woman to go the other ten percent.

00:47:58
Speaker 2: And as a two thousand and five movie, so we get the expected no homo moments yes of the movie with they kiss, and Will Smith has to be like, that's gross, yucky, that's gross.

00:48:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll talk more about that, but that happens. Meanwhile, Sarah finds out that the person who got the tickets for that event where they were dancing is Hitch, which means maybe she can use him as a source for this ongoing Allegra Cole story. So she calls Hitch to see him again, even though she had already been like, I'll see him again romantically, so we're just like, what is your deal? But anyway, Sarah takes Hitch to a food rave thing with Sarah's editor slash boss guy and his wife, and they're trying to get information out of Hitch, but he's playing it off like he barely knows Albert. And before they can any deeper, Hitch has his allergic reaction to shellfish or whatever, and so he takes a bunch of benadrill and he gets drunk off of that. I don't know if that's a thing, but he's drunk. Now you get high, you do, Okay, Well.

00:49:16
Speaker 6: He played it drunk every day. Yeah, he played it drunk, but it was like it's more like loopy or like and you'd be way more dozy, which comes on later obviously, but like at this point, like I think it was for them. If you're gonna be in the New York streets, that's what you want to be doing, is like being like a little bit tipsy with your partner and like kind of like singing a hit song from the seventy slash.

00:49:39
Speaker 1: Eighties, right, Okay, So then Sarah takes hitchback to her three million dollar condo and tucks him in. They chat about their past traumas.

00:49:51
Speaker 2: Because this is the point in the movie where, for some reason, you have to learn about Eva Vendez. His sister fell through some ice and she's still not over it, And they're like, what does that have to do with anything?

00:50:02
Speaker 1: But sure, really bizarre.

00:50:03
Speaker 2: I guess it's we're always asking to find out more about women in movies. I guess irrelevant information counts.

00:50:10
Speaker 6: I think they were trying to, like build It was a very weak attempt at character development, because you're trying to give her some interiority by saying, well, this is why she is the way she is. But the characteristic that they're strengthening is more of like like like maybe a stone walling or a separation or an aloofness, rather than the dogged journalism that we would expect to see from her, which I would expect to have that part fleshed out more and not necessarily why you feel protective of your sister, which doesn't actually connect well.

00:50:47
Speaker 2: I guess we do ed the meeting for some reason.

00:50:51
Speaker 6: But I completely forgot she fell through ice when.

00:50:53
Speaker 2: I see her, Yeah, it doesn't come up.

00:50:58
Speaker 6: I know something about you I forgot.

00:51:00
Speaker 2: Don't worry you really you've been through it? Does Tom? Know who's Tom? There?

00:51:06
Speaker 6: I know you didn't meet Tom in DC.

00:51:09
Speaker 2: I do agree. It's like, this is her like, you know, letting her guards down, letting him know something randomly traumatic about her life, which is kind of a fun phase of dating.

00:51:19
Speaker 1: Sure, and yeah, they're they're they're talking about why they're jaded when it comes to relationships, and Sarah's reason is because her sister fell through some ice twenty years ago.

00:51:32
Speaker 6: Sure, not connected, don't see the connection.

00:51:34
Speaker 2: Really, She's like, and I'm still not over it, and that's why I don't date seriously, Like start again. Your sister fell through ice.

00:51:44
Speaker 1: A connect It hard to connect the dots. But anyway, they wake up the next day, they have a nice morning together, they kiss on the lips, and then they part ways. Then Sarah sees her friend Casey, who mentions that she went out with and slept with that sleazy guy Burn notice after all thank you aka Vance, and Vance mentions the date doctor to Casey before leaving, because Hitch is known around town as this date doctor guy. Again, he's famous, just like Spider Man is. And Sarah hears this and she's like, hmm, date doctor, what's going on there? So she approaches Vance to be like, hey, who's that dating coach? You hired because I want to write a column about him. However, she does not connect the dots. She doesn't realize it's Hitch because she does not know what Hitch actually does. She only knows that Hitch is a consultant, like a very vague consultant guy, and she knows one of his allergies, right, So she gets the date doctor's card from Vance. That night, Allegra and Albert go to a basketball game together and he's like, is this a date and she's like, tee maybe, And Sarah is there with her colleague taking photos and stuff. And at the end of the night, when Albert is dropping Allegra off, it's time to put Hitch's ninety slash ten percent kissing roll of thumb to the test, and he almost chickens out, but then he goes for it, and then Albert and Allegra kiss on the lips. Everyone's kissing now. And the next day, Hitch meets up with yet another new client. But wait, it's Sarah's colleague. She staged this so she could find out who the date doctor is and what his deal is, and then she discovered that it's Hitch. Oh NOI, and she's like, oh, this is my boyfriend or whatever. But she but she wants to move forward with the story she's writing about him. But now she hates Hitch as a romantic partner.

00:54:17
Speaker 2: And so she does something that I feel like happens a lot in.

00:54:21
Speaker 10: Round Comms, and I know what it's trying to accomplish spiritually, but I always find it so bizarre where it's just like, oh, you hurt me, so I'm just gonna show up and get really drunk and be weird and go whoo and then Lee you're like, except this changes the narrative because he throws a bowl of lettuce at her.

00:54:40
Speaker 6: Well, I also want to point out, uh, and that is true. I also want to point out that I don't like films or and this is my biggest problem with Cobra Kai the show. I don't like anything that could be resolved with a conversation. I don't like that being a major plot point. Yeah, but it's basically if you ask one question, this would be resolved, and instead there's only assumptions made. Because that feels like weak writing to me. It feels like you you're basically not You need to give me a reason why they can't have the conversation that would resolve this. But if you show up at his house on the date, just ask the question. You could ask right there, be direct. And that's another reason why this movie is too long, because that should have probably just been combined into the next scene when you actually ask thee.

00:55:26
Speaker 2: When they have the confrontation, Yes, why are they doing?

00:55:30
Speaker 11: Yes?

00:55:31
Speaker 1: Yes, I totally agree. I don't ever like that as a writing choice. It always feels so contrived to me, And I like, sure people do make assumptions and get mad at people, and that's that's kind of reflective of real life, but never in the way that it's depicted in rom coms.

00:55:49
Speaker 2: But there's like a ways to do that that are like more I don't know, like whatever, Like every Shakespeare comedy is like the information gets back to Hitch from someone else in a weird way or a new per like maybe maybe Cresida comes back, like you know, add someone or something into it. If that scene, if we need this to be two scenes instead of one for some reason, Yeah, she can't just go to his house and say nothing. I know, it's so frustrating, especially if she's drunk. Of course you would say it, you.

00:56:19
Speaker 1: Know, when I do buy. It is in Shrek one when Shrek overhears Fiona being like, how could anyone ever love such a hideous beast? And she's talking about herself, but he thinks she's talking about him, so he's sad.

00:56:34
Speaker 2: But then the confrontation happens in the next scene. Yeah, like the next time they see each other, he's like, well, I guess you don't fuck with Shreks. I guess. And then that's also the point in the Broadway musical where he sings the best song in the musical.

00:56:49
Speaker 1: Whoa.

00:56:49
Speaker 2: It's called build a wall, Okay, an emotional wall.

00:56:52
Speaker 6: I was gonna say, build that wall is not a popular song.

00:56:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was written in two thousand and eight.

00:56:58
Speaker 6: It was written I'll tell you that, okay.

00:57:06
Speaker 1: So yeah, So Sarah goes to Hitch's place and refuses to be direct and to actually have a conversation with him. She does just say like, I know all about your skeazy job by bitch, and then she storms out and she publishes a story about him, painting him as a guy who teaches men how to be pick up artists, with a headline that something like Hitch can get you into bed with the likes of Allegra Cole with a picture of Albert and Allegra, which humiliates both of them as well as Hitch. So he goes to a speed dating event that Sarah is at with her friend Casey and tries to explain himself, and Sarah is like, I don't want to talk to you. I want to protect women from guys like you, and they argue, and Casey then finds out that Hitch is the date doctor guy who she thinks told BYRN notice to and pardon my expression, hit it and quit it with her.

00:58:09
Speaker 6: I do not part in your expression.

00:58:11
Speaker 2: Will I'm only.

00:58:17
Speaker 1: Quoting Hitch earlier in the movie or whatever whoever says that line understood. But anyway, Hitch is like wrong, Vance is a pig, and I refuse to work with him. Get your facts right?

00:58:30
Speaker 6: And then he storms, Can I can I just point out my biggest problem with the movie is right here, because there's a whole scene in there in which she talks to her editor of a newspaper. She talks to her editor of a newspaper who gives her permission to run the story even though he's like, I don't think you should because it'll blow up your life and your relationship. But what he does not do is do what an editor is supposed to do, which is get her to fact check this story and talk to all of yours. And if she would have done that and had the conversation, she would have had the information already, which I know doesn't work in the movie world. But that's another thing that gets me about lazy writing, which is to say, this woman is a good reporter, and you're telling me she didn't just ask him, Hey, this for the story. Even as a reporter, that's all you had to do. And so when he shouts that information at her, I feel like the look on her face is like, is like kind of presented as I feel dumb in this moment, But I also wanted to be like, you should also feel like a bad reporter who's not going to at your job, and your editor should be fired, because that would have been basic reporting at that point to say, oh, you got to go ask so and so about the question.

00:59:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's like the only excuse I can think of is like, I don't know, I mean, I don't know what the standards are for tabloid reporting, and it's like it seems like, this is what she does. She this is what she would normally do, is she's not doing it now, so it makes her look kind of like weird and incompetent in a way that's confusing. And also, I mean this is addressed later, but it's weird because it's true that was a really nasty piece of reporting she did. It's very disingenuous. When she's like, I'm doing this to protect women. I'm like, weird because you seem to actively be humiliating one. So it's like, well, no, you're like, I know you don't want your friend to get fucked over, but you don't really seem to have a vested interest in protecting other women outside of the scope of you and your friend. But then Hitch presented, He's like, no, I do noble. My job is noble. He's talking like he's like a nurse. I'm like, well, this is a bit of an overstatement of like I work for good and I'm a good guy and I've never given bad advice, and that is not really pushed back again for the rest of the movie, and you're like, well, you're not a bad guy, but you give a lot of bad advice, Like this is a It's weird how I mean, you know, I'm happy when people are proud of what they do, but like he shouldn't be that proud. He's like, I didn't work with one pervert. How could you say that about me? Like you work with a lot of scumbags.

01:01:06
Speaker 6: I don't know, you're right, I think though the anger, like I feel like the character's anger came from a good place. However, the film thinks that Hitch is a good guy in the way that we've come to understand, like the good guy meaning doesn't necessarily mean that you're not dangerous or you're not contributing to the negative aspects of patriarchy in a very specific way. Without that awareness, everything you say is absolutely right. It's like, hey, yeah, you're you think that what you're doing is noble, but it is a little borderline unless if you're talking to people just trying to boost their confidence, but you're not even having the nuance to understand the difference between like building up a man's confidence to feel good talking to a woman versus teaching men tricks on how to get women to interact with them so that they can trap them in a relationship, which because.

01:01:57
Speaker 12: It's like, if you go back to the beginning of the movie, he's literally kind of like playing god where he like steals a dog.

01:02:04
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about it.

01:02:06
Speaker 2: Like, you can't be that proud of that job. I know it makes you a lot of money, obviously, but like you can't pretend that that is like this is the most noble profession he's Yeah, he's acting like he's a teacher. It's like, Hitch, you're good at what you do, but chill.

01:02:25
Speaker 6: You're not a central personnel. Sorry, that's my last one.

01:02:28
Speaker 2: No, no, neither. I mean this we're looking in many such cases my own relationship and like these are non essential jobs and that's okay, but let's acknowledge that.

01:02:37
Speaker 1: And I'm like, what is his rate if like a guy goes to hire him, He's like one hundred thousand dollars please, Like it has to be so much for him to afford.

01:02:46
Speaker 2: Especially if he life calls it at three dates.

01:02:50
Speaker 1: I know, Like it's not like he has these guys on retainer, Like, yeah, it's a very short term thing. Anyway, is mad at Sarah's bad journalism, and so now everyone is sad and alone, Hitch and Sarah and Allegra, and Albert. They're all experiencing the end of act to low point of the movie, and then Sarah goes to Hitch to apologize for having the wrong idea about him and hurting him, but he's like, psh you didn't hurt me because I don't have feelings to even hurt.

01:03:32
Speaker 2: Actually, bye, and then he jogs away, which just feels kind of weirdly impotent. After that, he someone jogging away from a confrontation is just like, all right, man, yeah, you're doing great.

01:03:47
Speaker 1: Right, And then Albert shows up to Hitch's place to be like, I'm so sad. Can you please fix this situation with Allegra because he's still hopelessly in love with her. But then he realizes that Hitch doesn't really even believe in the things that he's telling men as far as like putting yourself out there to try to find true love, because Hitch is so guarded and he has so many walls up. He's a modern day Shrek basically true.

01:04:18
Speaker 2: He's going to build a wall.

01:04:20
Speaker 1: He has built a wall.

01:04:21
Speaker 2: It doesn't sound, it doesn't yeah, which it's possible.

01:04:25
Speaker 6: Expression he does say something that I really like in this scene Kevin James Albert Brinneman says something I really like, which is he says, if this is the only way that I could stay connected with her, well, then this is why I have to be talking about feeling miserable that he's not with her. And I felt like that was for me a very romantic like phrase. I remember I dated a woman once and we broke up. We were together for a while, we broke up, and she left. She went to she left the country, like to go to Canada for a month, and while she was gone, I would write her letters that I didn't send. I gave them to her later, But at the time I wrote her letters and I realized that writing the letters, because I was like we weren't in communication any of that made me feel closer to her. And I feel like that feeling of I felt very like closely connected to that feeling of like, man, this feeling of despair kind of becomes a comfort when it still feels like it attaches you to a person. Now, there's ways in which it's unhealthy and not good, but I don't feel like he was in an unhealthy place when he said that, which I really appreciated. A movie like this having just like a little gem like that.

01:05:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's like you get in that conversation because obviously Hit just reactive with like denial and anger and all of this stuff. But in the Albert character, he's like, I'm sad and I'm feeling it too, which is again it's like not something you see very often from from a man in a rom com. It's like, I feel like you mostly get the Hitch reaction.

01:05:52
Speaker 1: Right, which is like again reflective of a lot of men who have been conditioned to close themselves off and not process their emotions. But I do like that contrast between the Albert character, who is very freely feeling his feelings and feeling his sadness and expressing them versus Hitch, who is either unwilling or unable to do that. But then he realizes, I think, through interacting with Albert, like maybe I should try to feel my emotions. And then he learns from Albert, and that's also an encouraging thing to see in a wrong come from two thousand and five. But anyway, so Hitch is sad, but he's pretending not to be. Then Albert goes after Allegra himself to try to win her back because he's like, I don't really trust Hitch to do this, But Hitch beats him to it and shows up on Allegra's yacht and he's daughter of.

01:06:55
Speaker 6: A billionaire Jamie.

01:06:57
Speaker 2: Yes, it's true.

01:06:59
Speaker 6: Mast.

01:07:00
Speaker 1: Now Allegra is unhappy because she thinks Hitch encouraged Albert to manipulate her and do these specific things to put her at ease, such as dance like a buffoon, knowing that she can't dance, and Hitch is like, no, I had no hand in that. That was all Albert. Wait a minute, did that work on you?

01:07:23
Speaker 11: Do?

01:07:23
Speaker 1: I not even understand my own job that I invented.

01:07:27
Speaker 2: I think this is an effective scene. But aleg does talk to Hitch as if he is a wizard he can read her thoughts.

01:07:36
Speaker 1: I was like, no, hell could he?

01:07:39
Speaker 2: I mean, to be fair, he can figure out who your serial killer great grandfather is. But that that appears to be the limits of his powers.

01:07:46
Speaker 6: Sure right, basic google searches appear to be the limits of his power.

01:07:51
Speaker 2: She's referencing something that happened to her once when she was twelve, like, how would Hitch have access this information?

01:07:58
Speaker 1: And then Albert shows up and he and Allegra kiss and makeup. Then Hitch goes to Sarah to try to win her back, and he's pretty terrible at it, and then we get this reveal that she's there with another man, and she walks away and gets in the car in a scene that mirrors the time that he got his heart broken in college by Cressida, only this time Hitch does go after the woman he.

01:08:26
Speaker 2: Loves still very aggressively.

01:08:29
Speaker 6: Yeah, for sure, the way that I could not endorse Bill Scarsgard.

01:08:33
Speaker 2: Doing no nor any man throwing himself on the hood of your car. Heat up.

01:08:41
Speaker 6: You got to back up to go over him again.

01:08:43
Speaker 1: Too, make sure, yes, yes, yes, But anyway, Hitch professes his love for Sarah and they also kiss and make up, and it turns out the other man is Sarah's sister's husband.

01:08:58
Speaker 2: And why does she not just say that.

01:09:00
Speaker 1: I don't know where?

01:09:03
Speaker 2: Come on, Tom, I'm always acting that with my brother in law. Come on, Tom, really weird.

01:09:11
Speaker 1: But this is like when Hitch finally learns that there are no rules or basic principles to dating. And the movie ends at Albert and Allegra's wedding. The cast dances to now that we found love by Heavy d and the Boys, but I think it should be a Will Smith end credits rap. So this they dance too.

01:09:40
Speaker 2: I thought about this because it's weird that it doesn't happen. You're and this is around the time where it doesn't happen anymore. Yeah, like he's I think the last one I was able to find is Men in Black two. I mean, obviously he does the shitty Aladdin movie, but I'm gonna not count that. But he does he did do a song for Men in Black two Black It's coming nod your head.

01:10:01
Speaker 6: I remember the worst song it is. They tried to make fetch happen. It did not. The first one was fine. I could still sing the first one right now, but it's probably because it's attached to another song. But this new one, no, no stop it.

01:10:16
Speaker 2: But what's weird is there was a Will Smith single that came out the same week Hitch came out. Switch the song where he goes you know that one.

01:10:25
Speaker 1: I don't know this one at all.

01:10:27
Speaker 2: Well, I just performed it so well, so true.

01:10:32
Speaker 6: Now that's stuck in my head. Why would you do this to me?

01:10:35
Speaker 2: That was like, I mean, I was in middle school and this movie came out and they were playing Will Smith's Switch at the middle school in dances. But I looked it up just to be like, why isn't Switching that I feel like it was the same time. Hitch came out on February eleventh. Switch came out February fifteenth, and yet it is not in the movie. It's really bizarre. I wonder why.

01:10:58
Speaker 1: And it's the rhyme sing this in the movie.

01:11:03
Speaker 2: They're like, oh, we we have a big budget, we don't have to use Switch.

01:11:07
Speaker 6: It's okay, we'll license something. Don't even worry about it.

01:11:10
Speaker 2: It's not his best.

01:11:11
Speaker 6: Bill board chats.

01:11:14
Speaker 2: It's not his best, but I do. I mean, whenever I hear Switch, I can't hear it neutrally because it like I'm just consumed with like twelve year old anxiety, being like I'm not going to dance with anyone. That's what the song ignites in me. But anyways, Yeah, it's weird that there's not a Will Smith closer song because he had one ready. But it seems like maybe they just just didn't want it want it.

01:11:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss, and we're back.

01:11:51
Speaker 2: Or where to begin? Okay, Ronald, is there anything that jumps out to you? Where would you like to start? Well?

01:11:57
Speaker 6: I think generally there's there's a pushback in this movie. There's a way that this movie is the ways that it feels progressive is that in some ways it feels like it's grappling with that idea that I said before about vacillating between a pickup artist's manual versus a guide to just talking to a human woman. It's at its worst again when it's a pickup movie, when it's just like, this is how you pick up a woman. But then when it gets to the heart of it, and Kevin James and Will Smith, Albert Brenneman and Alex Hichens have that conversation where he's essentially saying to him, you don't even believe in love, you don't believe in these parts of it, And you realize that Albert Brenneman has just been being himself the whole film, despite what he's being told to do. Would you boil it down to those basic elements. I think that's what works for me in the film is to say that you met someone y'all connected and it worked out because you were being yourself and she was being herself and it was good relationship. But I just feel like the movie wants to push and pull at that in this way that the Hollywood effect makes the message worse and it pushes it into a different category. And also a man wrote this and a man directed this, like two different men, so through that lens, I wonder if they were really aware of that grappling, if no women were involved in the production, you know what I mean, right exactly.

01:13:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's it's interesting because it feels like, yeah, this movie is like we've been talking about this whole time, doing more than you would expect it to. I feel like it.

01:13:38
Speaker 13: Is like I don't know, like it is encouraging men to just be themselves basically, and which is a generally good message.

01:13:50
Speaker 2: And then like I don't hate the message, it's just all of the like it feels very studio notesy. The things I don't like about this movie, yes, where it feels like very tacked on, like, oh, we have this actor, so we should do this to them, or you know, all of these these rom com stock actors with like the queer coded co worker, some of the fat phobic things that Kevin James is subjected to even.

01:14:13
Speaker 8: Though if you look at the story, it's flawed, but it feels like it's hardest more in the right place that a lot of rom coms, which is weird, So I didn't expect it same.

01:14:26
Speaker 1: Even in that first opening montage with voiceover where Hitch is going through the quote unquote basic principles of how to win a woman kind of thing. Within that, it's oscillating back and forth between vague pick up artistry advice, but also like treat a woman like a person and actually talk to her and then listen to her and then respond to her like she's a person, you know. So like the first few clips we see are the like weird, like manipulate a woman into thinking, like stage her dog getting run over by a cab and pretend like you saved her dog so that she'll fall in love with you. Like that's obviously like really manipulative, gross, icky things. And then he's saying things like if a woman rejects you and says that she's focusing on her career, she's lying. And women don't even know what they want until a man comes along and tells her, and so like it's stuff like that, But then a few moments later he says, like, don't use what you don't have. If you're shy, be shy. If you're outgoing, be outgoing. In other words, like don't fake it and try to be someone you're not. Be yourself.

01:15:42
Speaker 2: I'm so curious, like what the drafts of this looked like, because yes, I'm wondering how because this is the game, the book by Neil Strass, Because unfortunately, I've done a lot of research on mans your shit pooa stuff and listened to for episodes of sixteen, and I did last year listen to a lot of accounts of men who were into like tried to use the game because they were nervous around women, and then grew up basically and realized that it's a joke. Which there are a lot of people like that, thankfully. And then there are the people who've had spent the last twenty years doubling and tripling down and becoming history's greatest monsters. Correct, But there are people It is interesting to listen to people who were drawn to this intentionally because it's made I mean like it's kind of what Hitch is doing, but also kind of not what he's doing, which is why it's confusing, but like basically targeting insecure men and promising that there is a recipe for success. If you just do la la la la la, you will be successful. And what the game does and what Hitch does sometimes not always, which is what makes this movie so hard to talk about, is like, not only is it raising the confidence of men, it's raising the con men at the expense of women. And that's the real issue. It's not that men having you know, being self possessed and having confidence is a bad thing. It's not. It's that a lot of these subcultures were like, oh, it's because you are genetically superior, and women are animals who don't understand themselves, and so you can't trust a word they say, here's forty five steps, including wearing the ugliest fucking hat you've ever seen, that is going to fix this. And I'm wondering how aware the like distribution and marketing was aware of that being a popular thing at this time and not wanting to completely lean away from it. I don't know.

01:17:44
Speaker 6: I believe that if this movie were a person, that this would be a person that we would be fine with. In twenty twenty five, meaning that they would learn and grow because there's enough. I'm thinking about all the things that I knew in a binary when I was seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty one, twenty two whatever, in my late teens early twenties, all the things that I knew in a binary, like, well that's not right. Oh that's right, Oh that's not right. That's how I kind of did everything, but the nuance wasn't there yet. And I feel like this film knows like there's parts of this where you say fact and it's like women don't know what they want, and I'm like, ah, I don't know about that. Like that's like if you said some people don't know what they want, and maybe our job as people is to like to continue to let introduce them to new experiences and allow them to become the person that they are going to be. But that's not What I just said is like is very nuanced and not something that you could just throw into a film, you know. So I feel like that's where you're right that like, at worst, when you think about like the pickup artist stuff that's in there, it doesn't feel as nearly married to that as it does when it gets to the full point of the movie at the end, which is that like, hey, there are no rules, you know, love people, be yourself, which is feels good, like a solid message, which is basically the only reason while we could watch this at twenty twenty five and not just throw this movie out with the trash, you know, I mean the three of us, like we could have just thrown this movie away, and we didn't.

01:19:08
Speaker 11: You know, because it lands somewhere that that is like okay, yea cool, you know, And I do like that both.

01:19:19
Speaker 2: So again, there's stuff going on here, but I do like that both of the characters Hitch and Sarah are like are both flawed, genuinely flawed, because I feel like there's it's so often in rom coms where like it is a woman who is inexplicably perfect but sometimes trips and falls, who ends up with a man who's more mean, yes than flawed. However, there's a lot of baggage that comes with that, because yes, Sarah is flawed in like she's her job is pretty sky they both have pretty scummy jobs. Yeah, so maybe they really found each other where they're like the ethics are all over the place. Will Smith throwing himself in the hood of a car as a grand romantic gesture. Question, I don't think so. A lot of the early courting is a little stocky. And then you have I think that one of the things that really sticks out, and in a way that's like, I don't know, I'm almost able to like laugh it off now. But the two thousand and five y casual sex is not a thing for women. And if any woman is like I'm not interested in a serious relationship, it's like, well, because you haven't been dicked down with the right dick yet or what like, which is sort of hitches whole business. Is that being true? But also the world of this movie that is true.

01:20:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, this movie is very like heteronormative monogamy, normative serious relationship is the only way to go anything else. It's shallow and yucky. And so those are very obviously like two thousand and five sentiments. There's another thing that rubs me around, that rubs me the wrong way about the sort of ideology that this movie is operating within, which is a line that Hitch says at the end when they're at the like speed dating thing, and he says something like, no, my job isn't to encourage men to just like fuck a woman and leave.

01:21:21
Speaker 6: It's to when you perform this movie, I only want to watch your performance on it. I don't even want to watch the movie anywhere. I want to watch you perform the book.

01:21:30
Speaker 1: I'll do a solo show reenactment thing. But yeah, Hitch is like, my job is to get women to get out of their own head and out of their own way so that they'll give great guys like Albert a fighting chance. And basically what he's implying is women are shallow and again, they don't know what they want, and so it's my job to help these men get women to see that they're being superficial and they just need to give men a chance. Like forget about their compatibility, forget about women's autonomy over who they are and are not sexually interested in. That doesn't matter. What matters is that Hitch is there to help his clients teach these women a lesson in how to not be so shallow. And even though Hitch like unlearns stuff by the end and he realizes, oh, a lot of what I was saying was kind of bullshit, and I was wrong to give a lot of the advice that I gave. But I feel like the movie lands on the side of this particular point because we have Albert Brenneman ending up with this, you know, gorgeous bombshell woman.

01:22:46
Speaker 2: And like, you're gonna tell me he's not remotely shallow. Everyone is shallow during this movie, Like there's yeah, it doesn't feel like the onus, and Hitch kind of says that directly to Allegra wheor he challenges her on that of like, oh, well, if I didn't have him yell at you at work, would you have ever noticed him? And then she's like yes, eventually, well maybe it's not. And it's just like everyone's show. I don't know, Like it just feels like he's quicker to turn things on the woman in terms of yet like not knowing what she wants, and if she does know what she wants, she's baby shallow and there are shallow women. There's shallow people everywhere.

01:23:29
Speaker 1: It's of all genders.

01:23:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, very prescriptive.

01:23:33
Speaker 6: It's also necessary like when you when you say that, like the implication that I need to create an event for y'all to talk, it's like, yeah, maybe she maybe she never notices Albert. But I mean, the only crime of that is that we don't get to see Hitch the movie, like, and I'm saying that like as a metal problem. That's not what is the actual problem of her not meeting Albert Brenneman, Like I'm sure if there's another Albert Brennaman out there, she would be given the same series of circumstances she would meet them. But he's making it like this is a good man, and I'm going to force to show you why it's a good man, which is largely a lot of the cultural commentary that we have now in which people are like trying to force each other to see, well, this is a good man, or this is a good woman, or this is a good partner in a very prescriptive and saying this is what you should be liking, when I mean the truth is, we know, like the heart wants what it wants, and the tech boxes that you have in your life rarely match the person that you end up falling in love with or want to be long term partnered with or whatever. And I feel like again that grappling is not entirely there in this film, which makes it say and I think something that something that makes it probably would have beaten them better, would have been some sort of a failure where hitchkind say sorry, guess she just didn't like you. If that would have happened in the film, then at least we know like, hey, we did the thing, we did your bag of tricks, we gave you the confidence, and she still didn't like you. If that had been in the movie, then I'll be like, oh, this is with intention. They're actually grappling with this thing, because at least they're giving the women agency to say like, yeah, great, you found my dog. I never want to talk to you again, exactly.

01:25:15
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:25:16
Speaker 1: And then also, I mean, specifically with the Albert Brenneman situation, what does he like about Allegra? We never find out aside from us being able to assume that she's beautiful and he's attracted to her.

01:25:28
Speaker 2: But beyond that, it's almost like he's being shallow. Yeah, right, that, which is fine, just admit, Like.

01:25:40
Speaker 1: So there are these problems, but I do think that the movie's heart is in the right place in a way that for example, what women want, No, that movie's heart is in the exact wrong place.

01:25:54
Speaker 2: So yeah, because Hitch genuinely grows as a character, which you cannot say for most men in rom coms definitely, or most characters has. Honestly, there's one thing I was not aware was a part of the conversation around this movie. But it's a conversation we have had about Will smith movies on this show before.

01:26:11
Speaker 1: I think I know where you're going with this.

01:26:13
Speaker 2: Yes, is there is a casting conversation around this movie.

01:26:19
Speaker 6: Yes, I know this now too.

01:26:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I was not aware, and thankfully scholarly journal Wikipedia brought me up to speed and there's a lot of information about this. But basically Will Smith said that Eva Mendez was cast and or offered this lead role because the producers of the movie were worried about the public's reaction if the part of Sarah was played by a white actress, which is of course praying on all of these anxieties around on one side, an interracial relationship between a black actor and a white actress specifically, which we could get we've obviously talked about many times on the show. And hopefully you live in the world and you're aware of how frequently black men are stereotyped as being predatory towards white women, specifically but they also didn't want to cast a black actor in this movie because then it would be perceived as a movie. And then it is the feeling of Hollywood to this day for the most part, that they can't promote the movie in the way that they want. They can't promote it to a general audience, which is their way of saying a white audience. And so the way that they split the difference here, and there's a quote from Will Smith. I'm not stating this is fact, but by casting a Latina actress in this role, that is their way of getting around it being either an interracial relationship between a black actor and a white actress, but it's also not quote unquote a black movie, and that way it's okay for general audiences. Of course, none of this is Eva Mendus's problem, but I want to share Will Smith. I'm not sure exactly when he gave this interview, but he said of this casting choice, he said, there's a sort of accepted myth that if you have two black actors, a male and a female in the lead of a romantic comedy, that people around the world don't want to see it. We spend fifty something million making this movie so the idea of a black actor and a white actress comes up. That'll work around the world, but it's a problem in the US. There has been a lot written about this. I've looked up some other examples where clearly this is like well trodden ground but in the year sort of leading up to Hitch and these are examples I wasn't aware of because I was not alive. Bravely, but in nineteen eighty nine there was an interracial relationship between a black man and a white woman on All My Children, and it got an actor fired because his character became so unpopular. Allegedly, there was an example on a different world where this also happened, where there was like boycotts of the show. And so this is I mean, obviously the history of interracial relationships outside of Hollywood has been so horrifically policed and continues to be in Hollywood. But where we talked about it before was in Bad.

01:29:20
Speaker 1: Boys one and Men in Black and Men in Black, because both of those movies have a white woman cast as what would be the love interest to the Will Smith character in probably any other movie, but because it's a black male protagonist as like the lead of the movie and a white woman. There are no on screen kisses or any It's.

01:29:43
Speaker 2: Not it doesn't actually, yeah, and this movie is very much a part of that same conversation.

01:29:50
Speaker 6: It's I mean, it's problematic in many ways, and this is like obviously a relic of those times. But there's also a way in which we especially when it comes to interracial relationships between black people and white people specifically, because this is still an interracial relationship, like we talk about what's going on in a hitch, but like specifically with white people and black people specifically. Like there's a conversation that happens, especially amongst the black community about what this means, especially for black men and white women. But also what's happening right now with Love Island and Nicolandria, which is a black woman and a white man. Another conversation is also being formed within the black community. But when it comes to the screen, when it comes to Hollywood, there's a way in which the anticipation of what is going to be well received or not is really a reflection of our actual behavior. Because I do believe that if they cast a black woman in this role, all of a sudden, the soundtrack is different to this film. The way that their marketing is entirely differently is different, and there's people are that will look at this and say, oh, I don't know if that for me. But if we actually went down into a checklist, like even something like Hancock, in which Will Smith is theoretically partnered with charlie' Starren and there they broke up, they're no longer in a relationship in the film, so we don't get any steamy hot seeds between Charlie Starren and Will Smith, you know what I mean. But then if you start going down a checklist of all these Will Smith, who is a light skinned black man, the colorism guilds in there too, if you start to think about that and think about who they pair him with, then it really starts declare to be like man. So is this on us, the viewing audience or is this on Hollywood? Who's saying based on your be But I feel like Hollywood say was based on your behavior. We don't think you're gonna watch this movie, which we'd have to do more examples of that being the case. But it's frustrating to say, like, you put another black person in this now it's a black film, and we can't. We can't watch it anymore. The last thing I'll say is the studio covers this very well. The studio on Apple TV Plus with Seth Rogen, it covers this very well. What it talks about. There's an episode about them making a kool Aid movie and they talk about race casting specifically there, which I encourage everyone to go watch because they talk about the very nuanced way this idea of too many black folks makes it a black film. Now can we market it? Which, yes, you can is the real answer. But I think it's something that it's a conversation worth continuing.

01:32:22
Speaker 1: I would say absolutely yes. Before I knew about this very deliberate casting choice, I was just watching the movie. I was like, Wow, unlike a lot of rom coms, and specifically romcoms set in New York City, this movie does not center whiteness. There is this interracial, multi ethnic relationship happening. But I did I was like, I bet that was a very deliberate choice. Did the reading about it found out? My suspicions were very much confirmed, and I just had anticipated that they were very deliberately making these casting choices to make it quote unquote palatable to a white audience, and that worked because the movies what the third highest grossing rom coong of all time. It grossed three hundred and seventy one million dollars at the box office. You know, this was a very deliberate marketing slash investment choice.

01:33:24
Speaker 12: Well, and but the thing I find where the industry says these things as if this is going to be true, And we've seen so many times that the way that marketing campaigns for Hollywood movies are designed are not necessarily based around reality. They're based around the prejudices all of the people who dictate.

01:33:45
Speaker 2: What happens in the marketing campaign. And so while it's like, I like there is some gray area here of like if there were a black actress playing Sarah and they just committed to marketing it the same amout as they would if Eva Mendez is in that role, it's very possible the movie would still do very well. And like that doesn't preclude racist audience members who are going to pigeonhole this movie as a quote unquote black movie. But I also feel like that that kind of stuff is sometimes used by marketing people to say, well, we had to and it's and it's the audience's fault, and it's like, well, there's a lot more going on than it's not it. The audience is definitely a part, a huge part of it, but you can't say that the audience is forcing your hand. The audience doesn't know until you market it to them.

01:34:37
Speaker 6: I would strongly encourage both of y'all and the listening audience to check out. There's an episode of the Town where in which they talk about Centers specifically, and I'm forgetting the guest's name who was on there, but fought tooth and nail to specifically say what happens when you market films that are black and what that looks like in terms of World War gross versus domestic gross, which, like, it's a conversation that is still being had even right now, because, as most of us know, when Sinners came out, Variety puts out this piece in which it's like Sinner's had a great opening weekend, but profitability is still very far away, in which everyone's like, why are you talking about the movie in this way? Like you're basically like like hamstringing it for some reason instead of talking about the path that it could go. And of course Centners goes on to break records and do very well and make a lot of money at the box office, especially for a RAT and R movie. But you're right, like the marketing when you talk about actually spending the money, you do see that there are returns that come. Even if it's considered to be a black film or even a woman film or a queer film, you still have to spend the money to get people to see it. And I think there's like there's this shirking of duties that happens amongst Hollywood studios because of that assumption, well, we're not gonna spend the money because they're not gonna come, Like, well, if you spend the money, they're definitely not gonna come.

01:36:01
Speaker 2: If you don't spend the money, no one's gonna come. And then you're just gonna blame it on the audience again exactly. I feel like we're in a big period of that in streaming as well, where there's a lot of talk around like, well we we diversified our streaming product, but now no one's watching it. It's like because you don't promote it the masses.

01:36:20
Speaker 1: I'm excited to listen to that episode though, of the Town on Sinners, because we'll be covering that movie pretty soon.

01:36:26
Speaker 6: So definitely put this in your research.

01:36:29
Speaker 1: Cool for sure.

01:36:30
Speaker 6: What else?

01:36:31
Speaker 2: What else we got? What else we got?

01:36:32
Speaker 1: Hitch, Grandma, We've got the rampant heteronormativity of this movie. There are a few queer characters, and I believe all of them are identifiably queer and not just queer coded, based on usually one tiny line of dialogue where you have Jeff, who is Sarah's colleague, played by Nathan Lee Graham, who I recognize from Zoolander. Of course, there's a part where he's meeting with Hitch, pretending to hire him, and then Sarah's other colleague is like, wow, Jeff's actually managing to play it straight, and so, oh, I missed that. There's that thing that I guess identifies him as a gay man, and.

01:37:19
Speaker 2: He put it's always in the blink, and you miss it exact for sure.

01:37:23
Speaker 1: And then there's Raoul, the doorman of Hitch's building, played by Molick Patolli aka Jonathan from thirty Rock.

01:37:32
Speaker 2: Yes, Oh my gosh, and they're they're making him do an accent.

01:37:36
Speaker 1: And play a character whose ethnicity is not his at all. Yeah, because he is Indian American and the character he's playing I think is suggested to be LATINX.

01:37:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:37:47
Speaker 1: I feel like there was just like one of those classic Hollywood casting you know, racist brown people. They're all the same, right, no one will notice the difference in any case. The character of Raoul says that he needs to bring his partner a mirror somewhere amazing. And then there is Maggie aka magnus Alegra's best friend, who I think this one is a bit more coded than explicit.

01:38:14
Speaker 2: Yeah. He asks if Kevin James is gay, which is honestly maybe. I was like, oh, I guess this character is supposed to be gay.

01:38:23
Speaker 1: I didn't, That's what I interpreted to.

01:38:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:38:25
Speaker 4: No, I think you're right. I just it was a messy one. Yeah, they're all messy one. They're all for sure, they're all messy. The movie does not care about their romantic lives at all. It only cares about the large number of straight people's romantic lives. Hitch does not work with queer people. It seems it's only straight men who want to date women. All three of these queer characters are only in the movie basically to help the straight people or to be overly concerned about the romantic lives of their straight friends. So it's, you know, the classic two thousand's era queer representation you see in a wrong com I mean, yeah, it's a barely representation for sure.

01:39:09
Speaker 1: And then you have the rampant homophobia of Hitch's character when he freaks out when Albert kisses him, which we've touched on a little bit, but again, it's just like the classic no homo, oh my god, a man kissed me. I have to spit in like dry heave and all that kind of thing, because it's so gross that he touched my lips for half a second. But also like, maybe Albert shouldn't have surprise kissed him. Maybe this whole ninety ratio is bad and I've been obsessed with it for twenty years.

01:39:49
Speaker 6: Is a problem here?

01:39:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think what Hits just learned is that it's too close. It's too close. But he will not hes not at a point in his life where he's ready to reevaluate the system. I do agree with you that, Renald. I do think that he will grow as a person. He will as a fictional man, will will grow.

01:40:14
Speaker 6: I would imagine Hitch two tackles all of this every complaint we have, Like there's there's going to be a main Like the main consulted person would be queer, and there would be Hitch learning along the way, and he'd probably have like a woman partner that's helping him. Maybe Eva Mendez is helping him with his business. Like there's there's going to be They're definitely doing a lot more in the sequel. I would say, it's demonstrate it. We've taken a progressive step forward, you know what I mean, So more of.

01:40:41
Speaker 2: A queer eye energy. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, which is classic television, classic television. I'm afraid to revisit the old series because I watched it with my mom. I'm like, I'm sure there's problems, but I loved it so much. Yeah, And I also I'm like, who knows if we get Hitch two, I don't know what even Mendes his character is going to do. What with the collapse of journalism. I think she probably lost her apartment. Unfortunately, she has a podcasts.

01:41:10
Speaker 6: All journalists have podcasts.

01:41:11
Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, it's Sex and the City to Yeah, yeah, it's true. As far as the Bechdel test goes, no question Mark, you say no, I feel like hitch looms large over every conversation in this movie, or or Albert I guess as the case.

01:41:30
Speaker 1: Maybe yeah, I mean there are scenes where Sarah and her friend Casey talk, but it's almost always about like heterosexual dating. So no, And then Allegra, I don't think talks to any women. If so, it's never a meaningful conversation. So I think this is a no to the Bechdel test.

01:41:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did give Sarah a friend, which again is more than you sometimes guess. But let's talk about the most important metric to ever exist.

01:42:01
Speaker 1: The Bechdel cast nipple scale, in which we rate zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. I will give this maybe a two two and a half. It feels like a split down the middle for me, where again it's leaning into some pretty formulaic rom com tropes of the time, lots of a woman who's so focused on her career that she doesn't have time for a boyfriend. Everything we've talked about. I'll give it two and a half nipples. I'll give them. I'll give one to Eva Mendez, I will give one to and the tenant.

01:42:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, friend of the show apparently.

01:42:48
Speaker 1: I don't know how he is as a person or what his politics are, but he's a frequent director on the show, so good for him. He's directed some iconic movies. And then I'll give my half nipple to the impending draft of Hitch two, which I propose that we all write together.

01:43:09
Speaker 2: Incredible, an extremely hitched movie. Yes, I'll also go two and a half, which I'm so surprised to hear myself saying, I, Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised by this movie.

01:43:23
Speaker 14: And it is very much plagued with all of the products of its time gags you would expect in a movie like this. It's a weird one where I do believe it's heart is in the right place, but it's still.

01:43:37
Speaker 2: Dressed up like every other movie like it of its time whose heart isn't in the right place. So it's just a weird watch. But revisiting it, I get why people like why people still have a lot of love for this movie. I also think, you know, this is the highest grossing rom com starring a black actor ever, and that is like a worth celebrating. And yeah, and I do believe hitch would learn from his experience. I also don't think Hum and Sarah are gonna stay together, and I think what they both need is a healthy breakup, and that is what is going to really set hitch free. Two and a half nipples. I'm giving them all to Eva Mendez to do with what she pleases.

01:44:24
Speaker 1: Yes, Ronald, how about you?

01:44:27
Speaker 6: I think I liked it a little bit more than y'all, but not much more. I'd say three nipples, and I would give one to the growth of Alex Hitchins, one to the charm of Alex Brenneman, and I'll probably give my third nipple to the aesthetic of the film. It felt very much like Ocean's eleven doublewares Prada. You know, they're very like slick like specific scoring that you hear and sheen over the film. I really enjoy that, and it just brings me back to a different era. They really don't make them like this anymore. But for all of the reasons that you said, I don't think it could go above three nipples. So yeah, yeah.

01:45:13
Speaker 2: Thankk you. Yeah, this was so much fun. The HH episode was everything I dreamed in more.

01:45:18
Speaker 6: I'm glad. I'm glad to be.

01:45:20
Speaker 1: Here where can people follow your work? Follow you on social media plug away.

01:45:25
Speaker 6: You can follow me on Instagram and threads. That is where I am the most prolific in my posting at Oh It's Big Round. That's at O H I T S B I g R O N, which is also where you can find me on letterbox and you can subscribe to my podcast wait for It spelled w E I g h T and Leaving the Theater where I review films as I'm walking out of the theater.

01:45:48
Speaker 1: Hmmm.

01:45:49
Speaker 2: Love that that brocks.

01:45:51
Speaker 1: You can follow us mostly on Instagram as well as our Patreon aka Matreon, where we do two bonus episode every single month, plus access to the back catalog, all for five dollars a month. Imagine And with that, should we leave ninety percent of the way out of this episode and let the listeners leave the other ten percent and you can do the rest?

01:46:17
Speaker 2: Bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and produced by Me Jamie Loftus.

01:46:26
Speaker 1: And me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtermann and.

01:46:32
Speaker 5: Edited by Caitlyn Durrante.

01:46:33
Speaker 2: Ever Heard of Them?

01:46:34
Speaker 1: That's me and our logo and merch and all of our artwork in fact, are designed by Jamie Loftis ever heard of her?

01:46:42
Speaker 2: Oh My God?

01:46:44
Speaker 5: And our theme song, by the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan.

01:46:47
Speaker 1: With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.

01:46:50
Speaker 5: Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only Aristotle Acevedo.

01:46:55
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