All About My Mother with Tamara Yajia

00:00:00
Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast. The questions ask if movies have.

00:00:04
Speaker 2: Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephyn Beast, start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

00:00:16
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.

00:00:19
Speaker 4: It's me Caitlin, and it's me Jamie. Welcome to our podcast where, for many years now we have covered your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist perspective. Using the Betel test is a jumping off point for discussion. But Caitlin, what is that?

00:00:34
Speaker 3: Well, it is a media metric created by our best friend Alison Bechdel along with her friend Liz Wallach.

00:00:41
Speaker 4: Recent convert to knowing the show exists. Alison Bechdel, Yes.

00:00:45
Speaker 3: Yes, yes. There are many versions of the test. The one that we use is this, do two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other? And is there conversation about something other than a man? And also we like it if it's like an narratively substantial conversation not a problem with today's movie.

00:01:07
Speaker 4: No, truly, So we won't waste any more time because we've got a rich text today. We are covering the nineteen ninety nine movie All About My Mother with an incredible guests. So let's get her in here.

00:01:20
Speaker 3: Let's do it. She's a TV writer and author of the new book Cry for Me Argentina My Life, is a failed child star and also you know her from our episode on Home Alone It's tomorrow You're here, Hello, welcome.

00:01:36
Speaker 4: Back by Wow. Two such similar movies.

00:01:41
Speaker 1: Guys. I'm desperate to talk about this movie.

00:01:45
Speaker 4: I'm so excited to hear your thoughts on it because this is my first time seeing it, which what a treat Ooh, I'm so excited to talk about it, but first tell us about your book. Congratulations.

00:01:59
Speaker 1: First of all, thank you so much. I'm really proud of it. And it's a memoir. It's based on my upbringing. I'm from Argentina and I have very obscene parents and a very kind of depraved, not depraved, but sexually open family who couldn't stay in one place, so we moved from Argentina to the United States, back to Argentina, and then back to the United States, all in the span of my childhood. And in between of those moves, I became a like a child star that was starting to blossom, and once I got my big break, I was pulled away from Argentina back to the US. So the book revolves around that and you know, my crazy parents and yeah, I'm so bad at talking about my book, Jamie. Did you have that problem with yours where you're like.

00:02:54
Speaker 4: Oh, well, yeah, I'm just like, well, you know, hotdog thoughts, what do you think? And then would panic at a whiff of a follow up. I think you did. I think you did great. And it is such a great book. I was just telling Tim Off Mike that I read half of it in the hardcover form and then I read the other half via audiobook, and so I can vouch for both experiences. Do one do booth go nut Sell.

00:03:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny because I wrote the book thinking like my life was so funny and like every in like it was a comedy book. And halfway through I was like, oh there were issues and I have a lot of unresolved trauma, and so now I'm like, I have to pivot from just like, yeah, the book is it is funny, but there's some real serious issues talked about there too.

00:03:52
Speaker 4: So but at least you have an incredible therapist.

00:03:57
Speaker 1: Oh my god, and speaking of.

00:04:01
Speaker 3: Unresolved trauma, all about my mother's true God.

00:04:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, no shortage of that. What is your history with this movie?

00:04:14
Speaker 1: Yesterday was my sixth or seventh time watching it. Okay, it's my favorite movie of all times.

00:04:20
Speaker 4: Oh amazing, Yes, wow, thanks for talking to us about it. What again?

00:04:25
Speaker 1: It was on the list of like the you know, maybe we can do one of these, and I was like yes. And the first time I watched it, I was on shrooms whoa, And it really just blew my mind in like a deeper like way than I you know, I would have just normally watching it. And then yesterday it was cool because I, for what, I took notes while watching it and I did a little bit of research on it, something that I had never done. And God will get to it. But at this time of my life, when I'm literally today starting IVF, that's another thing, Jamie.

00:05:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, wow.

00:05:02
Speaker 1: Today, today, today are my first injections and what it means to be a mother and a caretaker and anyways, you can tell I have a lot to say. But another thing about it, real quick is that I wanted to I was going to suggest we do Avida because I wanted to do something like Argentine because my book, and as I watched it yesterday, I was like, I never realized that the two main characters, Lola and Manuela, they're Argentine.

00:05:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, I assumed that was like a part of that that's yeah.

00:05:34
Speaker 1: I mean I knew she was, but I didn't realize that Lola was as well. And that I realized too. The reason that they immigrated to Spain was because they were escaping the dictatorship in Argentina. Okay, and that was like a brand new thing that I learned yesterday while watching it. So anyways, we can get into it. I just said a lot.

00:05:57
Speaker 4: No, thank you for trusting us with your favorite booth. I guess, Caitlyn, what is your history with this movie?

00:06:04
Speaker 3: I watched this movie during the great Caitlin movie binge of two thousand and four two thousand and five, which is when I saw many movies for the first time, and I didn't really remember anything about it because I'd never rewatched it. Mellow dramas are not really my genre, so I didn't feel super compelled to revisit it. But so much time had passed between my first viewing that I kind of just forgot everything about it, so watching it this time was sort of like watching it for the first time, and so it was really interesting to re experience. There's a lot to talk about, especially in the context of our show, because are there women in the movie and are they living their lives and talking to each other?

00:06:56
Speaker 4: They sure are, Boy, oh boy, don't worry about it.

00:07:00
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm excited to discuss. And then, Jamie, you said you had not seen this movie before.

00:07:06
Speaker 4: I had not seen this movie before. It's been on my list for a long time. I've seen movies from Pedro Almodovar before. I hope I'm saying that correctly, because I have been worried about it all morning, and I also know I mean, I think it's fascinating that his body of work is so built around motherhood in general, and it wild right as if I had more time to prep for this episode, I was like, it would be cool if I had time to watch a almodvar movie about mothers from every decade, because there is one but the work of his that I had seen before. I saw The Room next Door, which came out last year, just a very different movie, very quiet, and then I've seen I always want to say portrait of a lady on fire, and that's just simply incorrect. Not Women on the Verge of a Nervous break But do you see where I's talk.

00:08:01
Speaker 3: Like Kayden a lot of prepositions.

00:08:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I was telling Caitlyn last night. The reason I saw Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. I saw it like ten years ago because there used to be this comedy show that I would do in Boston with this awesome, like very sweet comic West Hazard. It was at a record slash movie store and you would get paid in a DVD basically that Like, the host was like, you should see this movie, and he gave me a very unstable twenty one year old a DVD Women on the Merge of my Nervous Breakdown. He's like, I think this makes sense for you, and it's a great movie and I loved it. But this, yeah, this was my first time. It was all about my mother, and I really enjoyed it. I'm so excited to talk about it.

00:08:45
Speaker 3: Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap.

00:08:58
Speaker 4: And oh, we're back, and we're back.

00:09:01
Speaker 3: Okay, here is the story. We are in Madrid, Spain. We meet Manuela played by Cecilia Roth, who works in a hospital as a nurse and a coordinator who facilitates transplants of organs from organ donors to recipients. She goes home where she lives with her seventeen year old son, Esteban. They watch All About Eve together.

00:09:31
Speaker 4: I wish I had that experience with my mom. I was like, I want, I want to intensely watch All About Eve with my mom.

00:09:37
Speaker 1: Right.

00:09:38
Speaker 3: She tells her son about how when she was younger, she acted in an amateur theater troupe and performed a streetcar named Desire, which is a show that Manuela takes Esteban to for his birthday. And as they're waiting for one of the actors to come out for a Steban to get her autograph, he asks Manuela about his father, because all Manuela has told him is that his father died before he was born. Then the actor comes out, Uma played by Marisa parades and Esteban runs after her taxi and is hit by a car and killed. Manuela is, of course devastated. She gives her consent for Esteban to be an organ donor, so she's like now on the other side of her job, basically, and his heart is transplanted into another patient's body. She looks at the files to find out where his heart is being taken to, and she kind of like follows the heart on its journey.

00:10:51
Speaker 4: I really loved that. I loved it. Weirdly reminded me of a Simpson's episode Stay with Me Yea, where like where you start the movie thinking it's gonna go one way and then say, just are like, actually the movie is about this, And I really like that because it's like Also, the whole idea of her following her son's heart is like a thriller I would watch too, right.

00:11:14
Speaker 1: Totally she and she's like in black glasses and like a turtleneck. You're like, oh, incognito mode, and then it's just the guy walks by and says, ah, I got the heart of a young seventeen year old, and then you never see him again, right, and you're like.

00:11:27
Speaker 4: And good for you, and I'm happy for you.

00:11:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, he walks by. A friend of hers is like, hey, Manuela, I know that grief can look a lot of different ways, but maybe you shouldn't have done that.

00:11:43
Speaker 4: You gotta leave that guy alone. And she's like fair. I was like that really Yeah, and then the movie kind of starts yeah and is.

00:11:51
Speaker 3: About something else.

00:11:53
Speaker 4: I just love that.

00:11:53
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:11:54
Speaker 3: Manuela travels to Barcelona to find Steban's other parent, who she had previously left when she was pregnant with Esteban seventeen years ago. She encounters her old friend Agrato, played by Antonio San Juan.

00:12:11
Speaker 4: Best character in dumb Movie, best performance ever. Yes, love this character.

00:12:18
Speaker 3: She is a trans woman and a sex worker who is being assaulted when Manuela finds her, so Manuela comes to her rescue, administers some first aid, and asks Agrotto where their mutual friend Lola is. We will eventually gather that Lola is Esteban's other parent, who Agrotto had kind of taken in and was caring for. But Lola recently robbed Agrotto and skipped town. And because Agratto is injured from the assault, she can't do her usual work, so she and Manuela go to see a nun Rosa played by Penelope Cruz for help.

00:13:04
Speaker 4: Baby. Penelope Cruz too, She's so young, She's.

00:13:07
Speaker 1: So cute, Like how beautiful can a person be? Oh?

00:13:12
Speaker 4: She is constantly challenging this.

00:13:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, really.

00:13:18
Speaker 3: Rosa takes Manuela to her mother's house, hoping that her mother will hire Manuela as a cook, but her mom refuses because she's very judgy and thinks Manuela is a sex worker and doesn't want to be around her. Then Rosa starts feeling nauseous, so Manuela brings her to the apartment she's renting until Rosa's illness passes. We'll put a pin in that. Then Manuela goes to see Streetcar Named Desire again with the same cast as the show she saw with her son in Madrid.

00:13:55
Speaker 4: She's stronger than me. Yeah, I would never step foot in a theater again. I would forget that art existed. She is such I mean, she's a strong character for all sorts of reasons, but this is one of them, very specific.

00:14:08
Speaker 3: One for sure. And she approaches Uma, the actor who is Steban, wanted an autograph from Uma is upset because she has recently started dating her co star Nina played by Candela Pena, who had like just run out of the theater, so Uma has Manuela accompany her to find Nina. She says the famous line from Streetcar Named Desire, where she's like I've always depended on the kindness of strangers. Because Manuela is this stranger who just like comes into her dressing room. She's like, oh, you're here, can you help me? So they go looking for Nina, who is dealing with addiction issues. They find her, and Nina drives off in a hurry, with Uma accidentally taking Manuela's purse them. The next day, Rosa pays Manuela a visit to ask if she can rent a room from her. Turns out that Rosa is pregnant and needs a place to kind of hide out during her pregnancy.

00:15:15
Speaker 4: Like you said, she's pregnant. She'sregnant.

00:15:17
Speaker 3: She is pregnant, yes, Greg, Yeah, she is with Greg and she needs to hide out during this pregnancy on account of her being a nun and all.

00:15:28
Speaker 4: There's a lot going on, Yes, she's Every new detail you learn about her is wilder than the last, Yeah.

00:15:38
Speaker 3: For sure, including that Rosa has gotten pregnant from Lola, the person who had also gotten Manuela pregnant, you know, seventeen or eighteen years prior. I think because of this, Manuela is reluctant to let Rosa stay with her, but she eventually changes her mind and Rosa will move in.

00:16:00
Speaker 4: Because she's the ultimate mother. Yes, she is the one true mother. Well, I mean there's a lot, there's a vigilian mothers, but she's the mother and.

00:16:08
Speaker 1: The protector of all.

00:16:10
Speaker 4: Yes, But I also feel like it gets around so many tropes of like you can see her struggle with stuff and like be like, ah, should I do this? And then like you can see her thinking the performance is so good. Oh this Booe's great.

00:16:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:16:21
Speaker 3: Yeah. So then Manuela goes to the theater to get her purse back from Uma, who offers Manuela a job as her personal assistant, and Manuela accepts and starts working like one second later. She then takes Rosa to a doctor's appointment. She has hypertensions, so there's a possibility she could Miscarrie, and she also asks for an HIV slash AIDS test, citing that she works with you know, high risk people, so she wants to have a test. A couple weeks past, another show of a streetcar named Desire is about to start, but Nina, who plays Stella, is drunk and bails at the last minute, so Manuela offers to step in, saying that she can do Nina's part. She knows the lines, and she does a great job, like almost too good of a job.

00:17:20
Speaker 1: Better.

00:17:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's unreal.

00:17:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Uma and Nina are like, wait a minute, how do you know this part so well? What's going on?

00:17:29
Speaker 4: I appreciate that. She's like, it's like all about Eve. You're like, yeah, exactly.

00:17:34
Speaker 3: She's like, you're stealing my life and my stardom and stuff. And Manuela tells them about how she took her son to see their play in Madrid a couple months ago, and that he was killed running after their taxi to get UMA's autograph.

00:17:52
Speaker 4: Oh, and she must have felt like such a asshole for that one. Yeah.

00:17:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:17:58
Speaker 3: And Manuela's crying as she tells the miss and she quits her job and runs off.

00:18:04
Speaker 1: Oh.

00:18:05
Speaker 3: The next day, Uma comes to Manuela's apartment to ask her to come back to work, but Manuela is like, I can't. I have to take care of Rosa, who has just learned that, in addition to being gregnant, she is HIV positive. Then Agrotto comes over as well, and everyone is sort of like, hey, Agrotto, why don't you take Manuela's job and work for Uma? So that happens and they have like just a nice little gals han they.

00:18:40
Speaker 1: Get drunk, they eat peanuts or something because there's like shells all over the table.

00:18:45
Speaker 3: They're laughing, there happened a nice time, so sweet.

00:18:49
Speaker 4: I love it.

00:18:50
Speaker 3: Agrotto starts working for Uma. There's still a lot of tension with Nina. She's still dealing with addiction. Then one night, the streetcar show has to be canceled because Uma and Nina get into a fight and nearly kill each other. So instead a Grotto goes on stage and does a comedic monologue about her life.

00:19:16
Speaker 4: She does like a one woman show. She's like, well I have you here? Yeah, can I workshop something?

00:19:23
Speaker 1: Probably my favorite, the best part of the movie to me is this monologue, Like it's really great.

00:19:28
Speaker 3: It's all about the different cosmetic surgeries she has had in order to be quote unquote authentic, and the audience is loving it. They're laughing, they're living, they're loving. And back at home, Rosa's mom, whose name I believe is also Rosa Rosa, comes by for a visit. She learns about Rosa's pregnancy and I believe her HIV diagnosis, and Rosa Senior does not really know how to deal.

00:20:01
Speaker 4: She's not the ultimate mother. She's a piece of work.

00:20:04
Speaker 1: I have lots to say about her when the time comes.

00:20:08
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Then Manuela takes Rosa to the hospital for her sea section. On the way, Rosa sees her dog and her father, who doesn't seem to recognize Rosa. It seems like he has dementia of some kind.

00:20:26
Speaker 4: Oh that scene is really heartbreaking, I know. But the dog, you're oh yeah.

00:20:34
Speaker 3: Then at the hospital, Rosa says she intends to name her baby Esteban, and that she has figured out that Manuela's son's other parent is also Lola, and Rosa makes Manuela promise that if anything happens to her, Manuela will tell her child everything and not hide anything. And Manuela's like, you can tell your kid yourself, nothing's going to happen to you, which is a death sentence for any character. Because cut to the next scene, it is Rose's funeral. She presumably died during the surgery, and Lola played by Tony Knot, shows up to the funeral to explain why she stole from a grotto to tell Manuela that she is dying and to say goodbye. Lola finds out about her and Manuela's son and wants to see him, but Manuela tearfully explains that.

00:21:39
Speaker 1: God, I cried at that part.

00:21:41
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. She tells Lola that Esteban was killed in a car accident, and in the span of like two minutes, Lola learns that she had a son and also that that son was tragically killed, and it's just all very devastating.

00:21:59
Speaker 4: God, It's nothing can prepare you for the last twenty minutes of this movie. It is just a It's a lot in a good way, but it's a lot. It is.

00:22:10
Speaker 3: Yeah. Then we cut to Rose's parents' house. Manuela now lives there with baby Steban, working as their cook and taking care of the baby. A month later, Manuela meets up with Lola and brings the baby. There's concern that the baby will also turn out to be HIV positive, but Manuela doesn't seem worried. She also shows photos of older Esteban to Lola, as well as Esteban's journal in which he wrote something on the day that he died that he desperately wanted to meet his other parent, and that's also very heart wrenching. Then we see and a grotto at the theater as Uma is rehearsing for a play and they receive a letter from Manuela saying that living with Rosa's parents was unbearable, so she left Barcelona with baby A Steban, who she is now raising as her own son.

00:23:18
Speaker 4: I loved, I loved how quickly that's dealt with where she was like, Yeah, so that was obviously fuck a funck that situation. So we got out of there out good for you, truly.

00:23:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then we cut to two years later. Manuela is returning to Barcelona with toddler A Steban. He has neutralized the virus and so doctors want to study him. And then Manuela reunites with Uma and a Grotto, and we learned a couple things like that Lola has passed away, that Nina left to get married to someone.

00:23:53
Speaker 1: Else and had an ugly baby, very ugly baby.

00:24:00
Speaker 4: Fun detail to add it. And that's the end of the movie. Yeah, so let's.

00:24:06
Speaker 3: Take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.

00:24:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, where would we like to start here tomorrow?

00:24:23
Speaker 3: Does anything jump out to you?

00:24:25
Speaker 1: The first thing I wanted to say is I realized that Alma Dovar's mother died either while he was shooting this or like the year it came out, and I just the dedication at the end killed me. Like starting by the end, there's this beautiful dedication. I can't remember the beginning. It's like for all women who want to be actresses, for all something like.

00:24:48
Speaker 3: That, actresses who have played actresses.

00:24:51
Speaker 1: Yes, it's very meta the movie. Yeah, and we can talk about that too. But then it says, and for all women who want to be mothers and for my mother. And that's when I was just like, there are levels of mothering and sisterhood in this movie that blow my mind because it's not so much about mothers, but it's like caretaking in all its forms anyways, that's amorphous. But I just wanted to say.

00:25:22
Speaker 4: That, Yeah, no, I like that was one thing that I mean, especially for it's time, Like I was really pleasantly surprised, and I know that there's stuff to talk about, but that he so thoroughly understands also just like a male o to her understanding, like being so open to not this very prescriptive idea of motherhood. Yes, and in a world where like even in movies that I love, there is usually like the mother character that is sort of and there she is because she needs to be there for whatever plot contrive. It's reasons you have, Like he clearly has spent a lot of his life thinking about what motherhood can look like and how you just approaches to parenthood in general, yes, what it can look like, and allowing them to be full people outside of that role while that role still means a lot to like it just it just was very I don't know, it's so thoughtful, but not in a way that felt like, yeah, they could still be funny and like, you know, hang out together and get drunk it like do what I just I just really liked it.

00:26:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:26:33
Speaker 1: I think of this movie as partly a comedy because the funny parts are so funny too. And one thing I wanted to talk about before anything is like his portrayal of men. To me, it says so much about how he sees women, because I made a note of this, Like the men in the movie are kind of rude as hell, Like there's the doctor who is awful to Penelope Cruz's character when.

00:27:05
Speaker 3: Cold and condescending cold.

00:27:07
Speaker 1: Yes, the actor in the play who's like begging Agrado for a blowjob. Remember that part, Like, oh, yeah, yep.

00:27:17
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:27:17
Speaker 3: Basically, he finds out that Agrato was formerly a sex worker and thinks that gives him license to ask her for a blowjob because he's feeling on edge, and she's like, I'm retired. Also, this is inappropriate, like what you're like no, yeah, She's like no, and then he's just like please no.

00:27:38
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:27:38
Speaker 1: It's like those are like the main like men's speaking parts. And then oh, Penelope Cruz's father, who like, there's a reason symbolically that he has dementia. He is an absent person. He doesn't like exist for her, and I don't think that's just like there's a reason for this. And the fact that when Penelope Cruise at the end of the movie sees her father and the dog at the park, she calls for the dog.

00:28:10
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:28:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I feel like even with Lola, like as a parent was completely absent too. I don't know what this means, but it just says a lot.

00:28:23
Speaker 4: I totally agree. It's like physically there, but they're not emotionally present. And again, it's like there's a gradient to what that looks like where it's like he's not taking the easy way out and you know, doing sort of a copy paste of like everyone is like misogyny the guy or whatever, where it's like, yeah, which which you used sometimes you come up? But yeah, like her father's absence because of I mean, we don't get the specifics or there's just some men that just are too horny to function and are like trying to basically assault our favorite characters, you know, you know. And then we have two prominent characters, even though we don't meet Lola until the last i think ten minutes of the movie, who are trans women and who are also very different characters as we can get into. But yeah, I mean, just for a movie that came out in ninety nine is like, I think, pretty unheard of at the time. Yeah, that's the thing.

00:29:24
Speaker 3: This movie does a better job humanizing different types of marginalized people than most movies of this time were able to do, and even movies that came out after this. But between the characters who are trans women, between the characters who are women who date women, sex workers, people living with HIV and AIDS, people dealing with addiction, like, there's so much more humanization of people who are largely punched down to and made jokes of and treated as not human. This movie does the opposite and lets us get to know these characters and gives them interiority. And I kept thinking to myself that the events of this movie and the different circumstances that characters find themselves in are not unlike what you might see in like a soap opera or a telenovella.

00:30:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:30:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, but the.

00:30:31
Speaker 3: Movie handles these circumstances and even though it is melodrama, it is way more like earnest and honest and heartfelt. It never feels overblown or anything like that. Is just so beautifully done.

00:30:46
Speaker 4: And I like that, like throughout, Alma Devar is not shying away from like citing his sources, Like he's like, I'm thinking about all of that Eve, I'm thinking about Street Cardime Desire, and actually like weaves his own influences into the story in a really cool way.

00:31:02
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. There's also I was writing down all of the like mentions of other works, and it was those two and then Music for Chameleons by Truman Capoti, which is the book she gives her son, and I haven't read that. I actually haven't seen all about Eve or street Car Named Desires, so none of the references.

00:31:21
Speaker 4: Did I get you would love all about ev Oh my god, because I'm not a big street car head, but all about Eve rips. It's so good.

00:31:29
Speaker 1: I'm gonna watch it tonight. Anyways.

00:31:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wanted to talk about Lola because Lola is a such a complicated character, and I was again because this movie is so particular, I had no idea where it was going to go with regard to Lola's character, because for the majority of the movie, Lola is someone we know about in terms of her effect on others, but we don't really know anything about her as a person. My I guess, like, ooh god, I hope that it's not, because I like my worry was because you know, she was HIV positive, and I think it's sort of implied that that is ultimately why she passes that. You know, like there's all of these I feel like we've talked about it, like kind of more frequently on the show recently, of how HIV is like presented in movies over time, and you know, there's been well intentioned attempts to show characters with HIV that end up being kind of condescending on a longer timeline. I was worried that it was going to be like, here is like one of two trans characters we know, and all we really know about her is that she has HIV and has children that she doesn't know about, and like sort of these broad, more stereotyped ideas and then we meet her. And I wasn't able to find a ton of writing from trans writers specifically about this movie. I would like to listeners, please let us know how you feel about this movie. But I did really appreciate at very least that like, by the end of the movie, you know that the intention is to treat her with all of the humanity she deserves to be treated with. It's just like, oh, yeah, and you get to see that, you know, like she's gotten an extremely raw deal in her life. And the movie also doesn't shy away from how people treated trans women at this time.

00:33:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the same way that you could make the argument that the only two trans women who we get to know are also sex workers or former sex workers, because that's a trope often affiliated with transwomen in media. And to be clear, the issue here is that that specific representation of trans women doing sex work tends to be presented in media with a sense of judgment attached to it and without examining any of the context of why that's a job some trans women do, and without developing those characters in any meaningful way. I feel like we had a similar discussion on the Tangerine episode. Oh yeah, yeah, I think the movie gives the characters enough, again just interiority that we're deviating from like the trope territory and actually like giving them characterization the way that again a lot of other movies don't bother.

00:34:26
Speaker 4: To do, right, and even the way that like HIV is presented in the movie, the fact that it's not just a trans character who has HIV, like Rosa's experience is very different from Lola's experience, and there's also sort of this gradient of like what that can look like. And I really appreciated that Almadovar goes out of his way to make it clear to the audience that this is not a death sentence for baby Estevon either, and like, yeah, goes out of his way to dispel probably what in ninety nine and a lot of people now as well would not really know or like think about.

00:35:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that's the thing about Almolo is like there's nuance to his movies, and like we were saying, you think it's gonna be about Manuela following the guy that got the Heart, but it's not. It's just this little thing. And then you think she's gonna stay living with the grandparents, but she's like, I'm out of here. To me, that's like those subtleties or like kind of deviations from the path is good writing that it hasn't been touched by execs who want everything to mean something yeah, yeah.

00:35:39
Speaker 3: You know, or for everything to be like a tidy, nice a reason yes, little happy ending, or a like yes, you can tell that this is not a Hollywood movie totally, that this is like a Spanish movie, because if this script came across the desk of Hollywood executives, they would have just been like, no, it needs to be more whatever, like Hollywood happy ending vibes.

00:36:07
Speaker 1: Yeah. And another thing about the transsex workers. I have you guys seen that TV show Veno. It was an HBO show. It's really amazing. It's about a famous trans woman from Spain and like around the same time, and there's an entire episode where she talks about how it was nearly impossible for trans women to get jobs at like hospitals or stores because there was so much discrimination and sex work was kind of there the only ways they could make a living, right, So I think it's a reality. I don't know in the US how it is, but I know in Argentina it's the same way too, or it was the same way too, especially in the nineties.

00:36:54
Speaker 4: And I think that like what Almodovart does here that makes it clear that he's not like stereotyping these characters because there is precedent for it. Is that like we see in particular, we see a Grotto is exploring other passions of her yes, like she's performing and she's you know, has has a very particular attitude towards sex work where she's not against it, but she's like, I don't do that anymore. I'm doing this now, And it's not he just writes people as people.

00:37:24
Speaker 1: She's retired.

00:37:25
Speaker 4: She's retired, yeah, and she.

00:37:27
Speaker 1: Has pride in the sex work she does, yeah, which I think is amazing, Like she knows she's really good at it, She's all All of those subtleties are what make his movies so brilliant.

00:37:41
Speaker 3: There's an exchange of dialogue where Agrotto is saying, I was so good at my work that I could give a blowjob in public and the only person who noticed was the recipient.

00:37:52
Speaker 2: Of their.

00:37:54
Speaker 3: And then they're kind of they're saying this because they think that Uma is in the other room out of earshot, because they like, don't know how she's going to take information like that. But then Uma stepped right up and she's just like, oh, it's been so long since I've sucked a cock, And then they all burst out laughing.

00:38:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so cute.

00:38:13
Speaker 4: That's great.

00:38:13
Speaker 3: It's interesting because Uma is more or less of the same generation as Rosa's mother, and Rosa's mother is a character who is like not tolerant. She is not understanding. She does not want to be around sex workers. She's very disparaging of them, and so you might assume, oh, no, Uma might be the same way, but she is not. She is very accepting and understanding of everyone around her.

00:38:41
Speaker 1: Both Uma and Nina, her lover, are the two characters in the movie that confuse me the most in that I don't quite understand what, like I can't pinpoint like this is what they're doing in the movie, or this is what type of person they are, but Roses I pinned her immediately as a narcissist and it just it showed, like I have a line that she says written down when she's talking about Penelope Cruz, her daughter. She says, ever since she was born, she's felt like an alien to me. And to me, that's like a person who had a child but isn't a caretaker, isn't equipped, it's too narcissistic, sees the child as an extension of herself, and thus, you know, she's ashamed of what her daughter does for a living, which is the opposite of Manuela, who literally everybody she meets gravitates to her for caretaking. And it just comes so instinctually to her. It's amazing, even when those people aren't her biological children.

00:39:53
Speaker 3: Because most of them aren't. And she she cares for a grotto, she cares for Rosa, she cares for a baby Debon, she cares for Uma, all these different characters she's providing care for in a way that is also contextualized by the story. I mean, she's just suffered this horrible, tragic loss and it's, you know, feeling an emptiness that she more or less fills by helping others.

00:40:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she does say to Manuela says, at one point, I have it written in Spanish. It's something like you don't pick your parents. You get what you get, and it's the fucking truth. But then again, like, did you guys notice how, I mean you obviously did. How She pretends that her and Penelope Cruz are sisters, and it made me think of sisters like older sisters taking care of younger sisters when a mother. I have a very narcissistic mother who you know, in turn, I raised my so in ways, in very protective ways. So that's when we get into the whole, like motherhood comes in so many forms or care you know.

00:41:09
Speaker 3: Well, that lends itself to the theme of chosen family, yes, which we see constantly with so many relationship dynamics and kind of combinations of characters where you can presume that Agrotto and Lola were you know, as quote unquote outcasts of society, chose each other as family, and basically everyone that Manuela interacts with ends up being her chosen family. Between Agrotto and Rosa and Uma to some extent, it's a little different because she works for Uma, but they also develop a friendship and yeah, so yeah, it's just like chosen family across the board.

00:41:52
Speaker 1: Also, Ulma Uma in Spanish means smoke, and her name is Uma Rojo, which is red smoke. I'm so curious about interesting that and why. I mean, I'm sure we can find it online. I didn't. I was too lazy to look, but I wrote it down because I thought it was really cool.

00:42:12
Speaker 4: That's fascinating, I did. Yeah, I didn't even think to look into what the significance of the names were.

00:42:18
Speaker 1: Of the names totally.

00:42:20
Speaker 3: Well, then, speaking of names, you've got a Grotto who says several times in the movie that her name, which she chose, refers to the fact that she has spent her whole life trying to be agreeable for other people and trying to make other people's lives agreeable. And that's a clear component of her character, one that is very relatable for women. Yeah, that we're expected to just be accommodating and agreeable.

00:42:50
Speaker 1: Another caretaker in a different way, which brings back to the theme of caretaking. And it's I noticed that in the very I think it's the very last scene when Manuela comes back to see Uma at the theater and Nagarailo is there as her assistant. When Manuela walks in, she grabs UMA's earring and she's like, oh, it's not clasped. And Uma says something to her like she says it to Agdado, like she she knows how to take care of me, And Nagarilo looks at her and she's like, bitch, I've been fucking taking.

00:43:24
Speaker 4: Care of you for two years.

00:43:26
Speaker 1: Yes, And it like it's those little things that I'm like this writing. This isn't just a scene where people are blabbing about whatever, like.

00:43:36
Speaker 4: Right, I mean even in the characters that are not doing a great job at being a parent or just showing care, because I feel like that's the broader sort of thing that we're talking about. Is like I do believe every character in this movie is doing their best. Yes, and a lot of people's best is just like Rosa's mom, I think is a great example of that. I think that that's the best she can do. Yeah, and it's not good enough. And it's like, I that's why part of why I like, I just love how matter of fact Manuela is about being like, well, this isn't gonna work. It's not personal. I just like.

00:44:11
Speaker 5: It's the boundaries I need like yeah, like and it needs to be like what, yeah, is best for the baby and I just love I was I don't know, like stopping at the end of the movie.

00:44:22
Speaker 1: It's so intense.

00:44:24
Speaker 4: Where taking care of this baby is like a way to pay tribute to her own son and.

00:44:29
Speaker 3: Like, oh, the baby is a half brother to write saw nest upon.

00:44:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that like Lola. Her relationship with Lola is complicated and it's not like again, it's like it would have been the easy choice for it to be a big like I forgive you, no, I forgive you, no, I forgive you, But it's just sort of like it seems like they both accept like our relationship is always going to be complicated, but time is of the essence and yeah, you know, Lola deserved to know about her son and like oof, it's.

00:45:04
Speaker 1: Just beautiful to your point, did you both notice how there's a lot of repetition in the movie in terms of like, first what a stave on her son, Like it looks like he's going to get run over and he doesn't get run over, and then he does. And then she played this character. Manuela played this character when she was young, and she ends up playing the character again, and she loses a son and then she gains this other son. There's a lot of that. And I was also reading how a take on this movie is that this is the son wanted to be a writer, since you know when we meet him. And the take is that this is the story he wrote about his mother. He erased himself by you know, killing himself at the beginning or you know, and he is a narrator at times his voice comes back, so that this is basically like him recounting the story of his mother, and he fictionalized his death in order to create this And did you also sorry, I'm I know it isn't so amazing. Also, like another thing to that, and you notice at the very beginning of the movie, there's this crazy shot of her son writing down the title with his pencil, and it almost looks like it's just a shot from below the pencil and it's like he's writing.

00:46:36
Speaker 3: It's writing it on the camera lens.

00:46:39
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, And that's crazy because it's just like whoa, he's writing the title of the movie, because then the title appears on the screen. So I just think, like God, the layers upon layers are so amazing.

00:46:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's that moment where they're watching All about Eve and the translation of the title from English to Spanish isn't like a direct translation, and he comments on that, yeah, like it should be like dorore Eve, and Manuela is like, that doesn't sound right, it doesn't work. But then the title of the movie in Spanish comes up and it's dot mi madre and you're just.

00:47:19
Speaker 4: Like, ah.

00:47:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. He also says that that part would you literally, would you prostitute yourself to save my life? And she says, I would do anything just for you. And then she's later confused for a sex worker, right, she poses as one, she poses as one.

00:47:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the fact that the first time that's presented, he's a sensitive teen but he's also such a teenager. He's like, I don't know, just his writing is both beautiful and melodramatic in the way the teenage writing is. Totally He felt very present through the whole movie, even that we only know him for five minutes.

00:47:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was, Yeah, and I'm curious. I did pay attention to whether his narration lasts the entire movie, but it's definitely there throughout it.

00:48:08
Speaker 3: Pops in and out.

00:48:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. Another thing that I wanted to ask you if you noticed where the time jumps in the movie are wild, like there's so many. Yeah, yes, which is another thing that sex would have been like too many, right right.

00:48:25
Speaker 3: Yeah. We used to get ahead like three weeks after her son's death, and then a couple more weeks once she arrives in Barcelona, and then there's a part where like two years past toward the.

00:48:37
Speaker 4: End, it is communicated. I mean like one of the time jumps is just communicated by Penelope Cruz is more pregnant, Like there's totally it's done pretty effortlessly, even though I know, I knowecs love to get there like underwear and a twist over it. But it's like if you just visually communicate it quickly, no problem, everyone's fine, you know, like everyone will be okay.

00:48:58
Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's why this is like piece of art to me. It's like not tainted, it's just straight from his beautiful brain.

00:49:08
Speaker 4: I love him so much, he's so great.

00:49:10
Speaker 3: Well, I was curious if there were any components of this story that were drawn from his life or that if it's like a kind of homage or I mean, I know he dedicates the movie to his mother at the end, but if he was like pulling anything from her experience, and it seems like not really, he just wanted to tell a thoughtful story about women and motherhood and caretaking and women's relationships and stuff. I read that. So he made an earlier movie from ninety five called The Flower of My Secret, where like student doctors are shown being trained on how to persuade relatives of people who have passed away to allow organs to be used for organ transplants. And he basically just like took that small piece, built the Manuela character around that, and then wroughte this entire other story, which was a huge critical and commercial success. It won awards, it can it won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Golden Globes. Baftis all this kind of stuff, I think it's I don't know if this is still true, but it is the film from the Spanish motion picture industry, meaning like movies from Spain, not movies in Spanish. It is the one that has received more awards and honors than any other film that has come out of Spain.

00:50:54
Speaker 1: So good, yeah, it's it's it this movie. It is the one another like, aside from like the plot, the beauty in this movie, the colors, Like my husband was saying, like it looks like technic color. Yeah, and it's just like and the way Barcelona is depicted, just like it's just stunning.

00:51:21
Speaker 4: It's beautiful. It's so beautiful.

00:51:23
Speaker 1: I was gonna wear an Almodovar red shirt for this and I forgot so pretend like I'm wearing red.

00:51:30
Speaker 4: Spiritually all three of us are wearing red. Yeah, I'm so like. This made me want to be more complete in knowing his work because I just love I love when a director tries to explore a pretty specific theme from every angle possible and like you can see them grow yes with the It just it's because he was in his late forties or maybe fifty when this came out, too, and so I feel like there's I like it. I like that there's like a pretty wide diversity of age too.

00:52:02
Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah.

00:52:03
Speaker 4: There's mothers, but it's we have a new mother, but we also have you know, a mother in her late thirties, and you have Ros's mom. You know, like, how did he write this?

00:52:15
Speaker 1: I know?

00:52:17
Speaker 3: Something worth mentioning is the actors who play the trans characters. In this movie where a Grotto is played by an actor named Antonia san Juan, who I believe is a SIS woman. The research I did about this, here's what I found. There's a Guardian article from twenty twelve, so you know, quite old at this point, and you can tell from the title. It's entitled should trans screen roles be played by transactors?

00:52:51
Speaker 4: Oh, twenty twelve?

00:52:53
Speaker 3: Right, twenty twelve And this article briefly mentions this movie saying, quote, there may be stealth transactors if fear of being exposed does not daunt them parentheses. The speculation about Antonio san Juan after she played and then dated term here but transsexual a Grotto in Pedro Almodovar's All About My Mother was feverish, So I don't remember this happening at the time, but apparently after this movie came out.

00:53:27
Speaker 4: And it's like also fruitiful, like nobody's business. It's not, yeah, no one's business any That's the tricky. It's like having these conversations, especially like three SIS people. It's like we sound creepy, like people said, and I felt, yeah, I went through that as well, and just like the amount that she had to correct you know, like we've talked about on the show many times, that transactors should play trans characters. It makes sense. Yeah, and that conversation was, you know, still very much being had in twenty twelve. I wasn't surprised to see that this was the case in nineteen ninety nine. Unfortunately, Right, what I will say is just based on Alma Divar's work going forward, I don't think it would be a choice you would make now, right, agree, Yeah.

00:54:16
Speaker 3: And he does center queer characters quite a lot, he himself is a queer filmmaker. But yeah, I think he would take better care to cast transactors in trans roles. But again, the other trans character who we get to know, Lola, is played by an actor who is a CIS man. So again, things that were far more common in nineteen ninety nine, thankfully, far less common these days, but worth mentioning for sure.

00:54:49
Speaker 1: I wanted to recommend to adjacent works to this movie, and one is Veneno, which I mentioned previously. It's on HBO and it's a series. And another one is a book called Bad Girls. It's about a sex worker, a trans sex worker in Argentina. The writers at Argentine and trans Woman and it's so fucking beautiful. It's called Bad Girls and the writer's Camilla Sosa.

00:55:21
Speaker 4: Okay, it's going on the list.

00:55:24
Speaker 1: Good companion books and shows to this movie.

00:55:28
Speaker 3: I would also recommend A Fantastic Woman from twenty seventeen about a trans woman living in Chile.

00:55:37
Speaker 4: Love that I still haven't seen it.

00:55:40
Speaker 3: It's really going we should cover it on the show sometimes.

00:55:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, any other thoughts on this movie.

00:55:45
Speaker 1: I hope my IVF works and I can become a mother us too.

00:55:52
Speaker 4: I'm rooting for you.

00:55:53
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm just announcing it in every podcast I go on. I'm like, I'm starting IVF, but it's it's like, well that's what I'm.

00:56:01
Speaker 4: Doing, starting IVS on the press tour. Baby, let's go.

00:56:05
Speaker 1: Yeah the worst. I'm traveling to New York to do my reading tomorrow and I'm going with like a thousand syringes and files of things.

00:56:16
Speaker 4: That's I mean, it's going to be a memorable trip. I can't. I'm so excited for you.

00:56:21
Speaker 1: Thank you and this. Watching this movie, like the day before I started was kind of crazy.

00:56:28
Speaker 4: It has to be. Yeah, like there couldn't be a more mother movie to exist.

00:56:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's like I want to take it as a sign that all is well, you know, like, but at the same time, I don't know. It was just it felt very I hate saying kismet, but it really did feel that way.

00:56:44
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, I guess my final thought is just sort of like a conclusive. I appreciate that this movie takes such care to explore women of different ages and generations and sexualities and stations in life and personalities, and again, the relationships between them or among them are also interesting and authentic in a way that, again most movies don't bother to characterize at all. But that's what this entire movie is about. Men are largely absent from the story, and the ones who we do see, like you mentioned tomorrow, are usually being antagonistic toward women, which is again a very familiar experience for women. I did want to mention the monologue from a grotto talking about how much she hates drag queens and saying that they're sleazy also felt very, very dated for sure.

00:57:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, wait, what was that? I missed it?

00:57:56
Speaker 3: So it's when they go to see Rosa, right when we first meet that character, And I don't even know what prompts this Tirade exactly. But a Grotto is just saying that basically that she feels that drag queens kind of make a mockery of trans women. You would think there might be more solidarity between.

00:58:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, my assumption of where that was coming from was how frequently trans women and drag queens, especially the further back you go, were conflated with each other. And I was like, right, it's coming from a place of frustration, but that is not on drag queens.

00:58:36
Speaker 6: That's on society losers, right. But yeah, there's there's just so much to appreciate about this movie.

00:58:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do think like that the movie does a good job of sort of contextualizing like Lola doesn't get the chance to be a parent in the suviie and because I've I was also worried that like she was going to be made out to be like a deadbeat parent, but she just didn't know and that was a choice that was made. And it just made me want to see and hope that we get more movies about transparents. Oh yeah, because there's just like not a lot there is the show Transparent, but there's a lot of problems with that. I would love to just see if we're movies with transparents, maybe just don't even call attention to it, just like parents, you know.

00:59:31
Speaker 3: Right, Absolutely, the movie does pass the Bechdel test.

00:59:36
Speaker 4: Practically the whole time, and like except where they're talking about various estebands.

00:59:44
Speaker 3: Right or talking to doctors who are being awful.

00:59:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:59:51
Speaker 3: As far as our nipple scale goes, where we rate the movie zero to five nipples examining it through an intersectional feminist len yes, I mean this movie gets high marks, like four four and a half. It's a rare movie that performs well on our show. I would take a little bit away from just the actor's cast to play the trans characters being sis actors. Otherwise, it's just such a beautiful depiction of women and their interior lives and their relationships with other women, some of which we see are very positive and uplifting, some of which are far more complicated. Well, I guess all the relationships are complicated, but some are not so positive. But there's just like so much nuance and authenticity to everything we see. That Again, most movies are like, there's one one woman, and of course she's a mother because that's what women are. Whereas this movie is like, yes, some women are mothers and let's explore that thoughtfully. So it's just really well done. And I'll give it four and a half nipples and I'll distribute them among all the women in the cast. Plus so Peak the Dog, oh so Peak incredible. Yeah, I'll go four and a half as well. I just think this is a beautiful, thoughtful movie.

01:01:30
Speaker 4: Yeah. I would love to know what our trends listeners think about it as well. But I was just like, so, I didn't know anything going into this movie, and boy, it puts you through it in a good way, but it puts you through it and I feel like, really effortlessly avoids all of these like stereotypes of mothers that he does so well. So I'm gonna give it four and a half nipples. I will, Yeah, I guess I'm going to I don't know. I mean, I love a grotto so much. Two to a grotto because that's just me nepotisming my favorite character. I will give one to Manmoila. I'll give one to Petro Amozovar himself because he really he really killed this one. And I'll give the half to baby Esteban.

01:02:26
Speaker 3: Exase tomorrow how about you.

01:02:29
Speaker 1: You know, I was gonna say four and a half nipples two, but then I thought, I'm going to add the half and give it a five nipples.

01:02:36
Speaker 4: Because it's your favorite movie.

01:02:38
Speaker 1: Yes, and because the fact that it came out in nineteen ninety nine. I'm just it's we haven't even today, like reached themes like this in whatever year it is. Now, like there's two trans women in the movie, like now I'm working on TV too, where it's like there can be the one character mate, Like it's unheard of. So for that reason, I give it the full nip and I'm going to give them all to Manuela because that performance by Cecilia Roth is a dream come true.

01:03:16
Speaker 4: Incredible, so beautiful.

01:03:18
Speaker 1: And because her character is the goddess caretaker and yeah.

01:03:24
Speaker 3: Wonderful, amazing. Thank you so much for bringing us to this movie and chatting about it with us.

01:03:30
Speaker 4: I think probably from episode to episode the wildest genre John we've made with a single guest in the history of this show, Home Alone and All About My Mother, Like, yeah, it's basically the same movie, two important films.

01:03:45
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's so funny. I remember that the one we did it was also like late on a Saturday night and we were like drinking wine and the vibe was just completely Now I'm like.

01:03:55
Speaker 3: It was a live show too.

01:03:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I.

01:03:59
Speaker 1: Was like, oh this is it has to be funny.

01:04:01
Speaker 4: We've we all grew up.

01:04:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. Well, thank you so much for.

01:04:06
Speaker 4: Having me, or thank you for coming back on come back anytime, surprise us again with a completely different movie. Yes, and congratulations on your book. Where can we buy it? Where can we follow you?

01:04:19
Speaker 1: It is available anywhere you buy books. I like to not buy it from Amazon if possible, but do what you must. And it's available for as an audiobook narrated by me, and I cry like twenty times during the narration, so that's kind of fun. And you can follow me on Instagram. I am tomorrow, Yeahiah, that's spelled tomorrow y a Jia.

01:04:46
Speaker 3: You can follow us on Instagram as well. At Bechdelcast. You can subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon, where we release two episodes per month focusing on a brilliant theme, all for five dollars a month at patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast.

01:05:07
Speaker 4: And with that, let's go walk Roses Dog.

01:05:12
Speaker 6: Yes, let's a bye Bye Bye.

01:05:20
Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Drante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Volskrosensky. Our logo in merch is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash Bechdel Cast