Manhattan

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Speaker 1: On the pick Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef In best start changing it with the beck del cast. Hi, welcome to the backdel cast. Already sounds so excited. I guess this isn't really so uh bonus episode alert. Yeah, we're doing an episode that's and it's a bonus, but it's it's grim. It's a grim. It's a grim bonus. It's it's still the scariest month of the year, true and truly the news has been proving it is the scariest month of the year. So we are doing a bonus episode. Obviously, if you're cooking on it, you know what it's about about the nine Woody Allen movie Manhattan, And why have we chosen to do this movie? I mean we really dug deep inside. No, we literally woke up and looked at the screens that we sleep next to, and it said that, you know, everything is a nightmare, which we knew Harry Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, dozens of others. Right, it's been it's been, I mean obviously a deeply traveling a couple of weeks. For all the allegations that are coming out, it's it's very positive that they're being brought out to the world. But it's hard, right, especially because the victims who are coming forward are perceiving some backlash, especially Woody Allen saying things like, oh, I don't support what Harvey Weinstein did, but you know, let's not start a witch hunt, you know, which hunts those things that men used to do to women for no reason other than they were threatened by women existing in the world around them. Right, So we thought it would be perhaps useful to look back on an example of a very predatory movie made by an allegedly very predatory person and talk about it, because it is wild watching this movie now came out what thirty eight years ago now is while watching this movie and ever thinking that this was, like this is amazing, Like this isn't a hard movie to watch at all. Right. I saw it for the first time probably in college, probably around ten years ago, and that was the only time I had seen it, But I didn't remember even what it was about. I didn't remember that a forty two year old man was in a relationship with a seventeen year old girl. I just didn't remember that that's what the story was because ten years ago, you know, I guess I just wasn't. I mean, I probably was like, oh, that's that's weird, and then I just forgot about it. Whereas today, well, and I think that a lot of work is done by the movie itself to really glaze over any problems that are there where I mean, we'll get into that too, where no one at the movie really raises a stink other than a passing joke at the fact that their crimes happening in front of them. So I think that the world Woody Allen creates, and I mean, we weren't alive for it, but it seems like the general society at that time did not point stuff like this out, and so the movie doesn't point it out, and that's bad. I first saw this movie in college as well, but it did bother me quite a bit because I saw this movie. This would have been the Lateen, which is when allegations about Woody Allen were first starting to surface, like really exploded in early but late there was rumblings and I had to take a class to graduate school and so I ended up having to take this class about Charlie Kaufman, Woody Allen, and Billy Wilder films. So we had to watch a lot of Woody Allen films, and I recall not liking them, not doing well in the class, and getting in trouble for specifically being like, this is gross. Why is he fucking a kid? Like that in particularly got me in trouble at that class. See. I So I took a directing class because you know, I did go to film school twice, and I was given like the script to a scene in Manhattan to be like, Okay, let's see how you would direct this. And it's the scene between Woody Allen's character and Tracy's character, the seventeen year old girl kidding, the one we're they're in bed and he has just moved into his new apartment and he was talking about like the water being brown and the noises from the his neighbors and stuff like that, and like at the time, I was just like, oh, I'll just direct this scene. Like it didn't really occur to me, like how gross and problematic, And that was a school assignment, Like that's great. Yeah, I mean I was like, yeah, I what was my professor thinking. I had literally had no choic but to watch these money or I couldn't graduate. Like it's just great. And also I I not to say this was a benefit in any way, but I was armed with a lot of a lot more information in latee of like this guy was basically being I mean not that there was no way to tell, as he had already married his daughter, but there there were serious allegations coming out, and it just felt wrong to be idolizing this work in anyway, especially when it's just like he he it's why he really is just laying it out in front of you of like I'm a predator. I fun kids, I did, like you're just like he's unapologetic about it, and it's nuts. Not even unapologetically he's victimizing himself about like it's just okay. So let's talk about the movie. Manhattan comes out in nineteen seventy nine after Annie Hall, after he's sort of said that I guess we're doing this now, you know, or watching way Allen do the same fucking things. Great, Yeah, I'll do the recap. Manhattan is about a Woody Allen type character about one Allen. His character though, is named Isaac, and he is in a relationship with a seventeen year old funny and everyone's like, wow, she's beautiful, and he's like, she's seventeen in public, she's in high school, she's seventeen. Isn't this funny? Isn't this weird? And the characters responded by saying, yeah, that is weird, that is funny, where it's just like, you know, we weren't there in ninety nine. But I find it very hard to believe that there's two characters responding, oh, that is so weird, like it's just because it was a crime. Towards the end, she's like, I turned eighteen, so I'm legal now, acknowledging that the sex they were having before was not legal, which it wasn't, and no one gave any shit about it. So not even the movie that, not even not even the characters in the movie who won And another straight white guy whose name eludes me at this it's Yale. No, like the co writer for the movie Marshall Brickman. Marshall Brickman, So they write this movie together. They're writing all these female characters, meaning they're directing, you know, like Diane Keaton's character who on paper and then I think several parts of the movie is a good character I would agree to given a background. And it's like, man, I hate that there's a good female character in this movie. But I mean, she has, she is armed with all the information, she is intelligent, she is she's very outspoken, very outspoken, doesn't seem to care, doesn't seem to care, And it's like, how fucking convenient that you're very empowered female character just also doesn't seem to notice that you're fucking a kid. And if she mentions it, mentions it as like so weird that this is going on. At one point, so there's a character named Yale, which is what EN's character's best friend, and he's married to Emily. At one point, Emily says, oh no, I don't think seventeen is too young. That's like in the first fifteen roots of the movie. And I know, and to tell you you flame and hot trolls out there who were like the women in the movie. Yeah, but that the women in the movie, those words weren't put there by a woman. They were put there by two men. So it's like these relatively realized female characters spouting nonsense like it's just yeah, sorry, I love how it worked up. We are It is infuriating movie watch at times, deeply uncomfortable. We laughed at two different parts and that was upsetting too. Were like, I hate that, I found that funny. I hate the chuckle. I hated it. It's just oh god, okay, anyway, so okay. So Isaac is dating a seventeen year old woman. His friend Yale is married, but he starts seeing this woman, Mary played by Dan Dane Keaton. Woody Allen meets Mary and he's like, oh, I actually, I like there's another thing in here where it's It's like, oh, Wh're gonna forgive him for these hanous crimes he's committing because he's awkward. Again, the use of an awkward personality as an excuse to do fucking insane things. I'm gonna go ahead and coin the term stutter corps. This is a stutter corp movie. All Woody Allen movies are stutter corps, and which just is you can shave fifteen minutes off the top of the movie. Right. So he meets Mary and they get off to a rocky start, but then he starts to like Mary, and Mary starts to like him, so he's conflicted, Oh, do I stay with this seventeen year old girl or do I hang out with Mary even though she's also dating my friend Yale. There's like kind of all this back and forth. He's writing a book, he's writing a book, he quits his job and is a writer. He's an artist, which comes into play later. He surrounds himself with affluent, white, fucking pretend just people, which is dumb, which I know, but it's very intentional what Woody Allen chooses to satirize in this movie and what he does not just satirize in this movie, because I think he is satirizing bullshit intellectualism quite a bit by being like, look at these people. They're so smart, threat museums and observatories and planetariums all the time, but they don't have it together. Like it's you know, he's commenting on that. The things he is not commenting on are just as glaring, such as he is sucking a kid. This is barely commented on, and and and in the way it's commented on. Tracy Mariel, Hemingway's character is being developed at the expense of the protagonist, which is like another continued I mean, I'm almost done. I don't really know what else happens. It's not an exciting movie. So at some point he breaks up with Tracy, the seventeen year old girl. He starts to go in sort of full force with Mary in their relationship, and then Mary meanwhile it's like, actually I think I still love Yale. So she and Yale kind of get back to together, and then Woody Allen's character is like, well, I'm lonely, so I better go back the girl to the child. But here's a twist. She's not a child now. She's she's crazy having gas let her throughout the entire movie because she's like, why might want to go and study in London and he's like, yeah, you should. Actually we probably shouldn't be together you're young, but like not to any point where he's going to really do anything about it. And then at the end she's like, Okay, I'm gonna go to London like you said I should, and he's like, actually, no, not on, I don't have anyone to validate me. And then she you know, but what a six month matter if we're in love, which is you know, a very eight, your old thing to say, and it ends with him like smiling, and we're like, oh yeah, maybe there's no there's never even the looming threat of a consequence for treating this situation where he does, for committing a crime over and over and over. It's openly discussed between the two characters. You can't even call it an open secret. It's not a secret. He's taking her out in public. We don't know that much about her parents or or where, nothing, nothing. I really know nothing about her character apart from her age and that she apparently is interested in acting. We're going abroad to study that, right, and she goes to high school. This this trope we've talked about before and it applies more to sci fi characters generally, but it did want to bring up the born Sexy Yesterday and that with Tracy and Isaac. It's like this dynamic and what we sort of are led to believe as a feeling about it for ISAA because that he's teaching this girl, he's teaching her intellectually, he's teaching her, teaching her, he's raping her, but he's teaching her sexually or that's his impression or whatever. Just the fact that there's there's no point in the movie where it's brought up as anything but a funny thing. It is never addressed it as a crime. It's indirectly addressed as a crime, where it's a joke that she's legal now, and there's no there's no threat that he will receive any punishment, and in fact he doesn't and he still has it. So great for Woody Allen funk Off. I was at a bar last night and I was like, yeah, brag and I was like, oh, sorry, I'm late. I had to watch Manhattan. We're doing it tomorrow on my podcast, and my friends were like, what why, And I'm like, well, what better way to introduce all the fucking problematic ship that's happening in Hollywood right now and that has always been happening. Then a widely regarded movie where a major platfoint is repeated. Rape. Amazing there for anyone who is like, but wait, okay, let's think top of the Dome cinematography. Sure, great, there's a seed in the planetarium where lights are used. George Gershwood very talented man, also deeply problematic. You can go into that Google hole yourself. New York a city that exists. The technical merits of this movie is not what we're here to discuss. So if that's where you're coming from in terms of like, but the rapes look so good, uh no, funk off enjoy your life. Also, I don't like this movie, Like it's not it's I hate I hate it, say I haven't. I have a deep mistrust for anyone who's like, yeah, Manhattan's a great film. Got goodbye. We have to we have to be going. So we've discussed Tracy is obviously the glaring, major, major, major issue in this movie. But the other two main female characters are Mary, Diane Keaton's character and Jill, who is Woody Allen's second ex wife. Correct, I didn't mention her in the recap. She's played by Meryl Street and she's depicted as this like greed true character. So the plot point there is if, unless I'm mistaken, she is writing a memoir about her Mary what a shitty partner Woody Allen was like, I tell all kind of memoir thing. She is also now living with her girlfriend and raising Woody Allen's son. That's she has primary custody of Woody Allen's and her son, and Woody Allen is very uncomfortable with two women raising his son, which is brought up as a joke, and sort of there's the scene we see like one longish scene between Isaac and the Sun where you mentined he hits his Sun as his son because his sons trying to get his dad to buy him like a toy boat, very pointing to the bigger, more expensive one, and then Woody Allen just like strikes him in the head. So there's that, And then in the next cut there at some sort of it's a rest restaurant and Isaac is saying like, oh we could, like you know, basically presents his son with like I know you're being raised by two women, but don't forget about toxic masculine. It like it's just where he talks about picking up women as like a joke to his kid. Yeah, he's like, if you were quicker, we could have picked those women up, just you know, teaching him just like fucking creep t he Also, it doesn't take too much of a leap to say that Woody Allen is kind of villainizing Jill Meryl Streep's characters sexuality as well. He's just saying like this shrewish gay woman, and it's also presented, and I thought this was interesting. I was reading Roger Ebert went back and watched this movie and had more come about it. In two thousand and one, he writes about this character specifically in a way that I think was weird, where he says Isaac's former wife Meryl Streep left him the live with a woman and writes the bestseller ridiculing her marriage and love life. We doubt her new relationship is sound if it leaves her so obsessed with the previous one. That is I mean, and I'm maybe that is how that reads to another straight white man, but that I mean, and I mean that's also just pure speculation because you don't see that much of their relationship on screen. But I think we are led to believe that. You know, it's like, well, Jill can't get over it, and she's trying to capitalize on what a shitty partner he was and now she dates a woman where I feel almost the implication is Woody Allen was such a bad husband that he turned her gay. That was what I took away. That's sort of how he I think he can character. Yeah, I think that that's what the movie thinks, you know, regardless of the integrity of this character, who deserved better. I don't know. I mean and and that is an individual's read. But I think the fact that a professional movie critics read was like, well she was so she's still so hung up on him. It's like, you can't conflate trauma with being in love, right and still being hung Like being angry about someone abusing you does not equal she's still in love with him, Like, but I think that that is what the movie would have you believe in that bobble Well, I made a list of all the things, or not even I probably didn't even hit all of them, but many of this you have a comprehensive list, Let's not sure, but I'm saying that there were so many that I probably missed. Some says this is such a fucking against stutter core movie that I can't even not to shame people with stutters. She was stutter shaming. No stutter shaming here, I'm just saying that Woody Allen should fall off the edge of the planet. So I made a list of all the things that he says either to or about women in the movie. The first one is he's talking to Tracy. This is after she's like, I think I'm in love with you for the first time pretty early on in the movie, and he says, don't get carried away, you're a kid. As long as the cops don't burst in, we're going to break a couple of records. And then later he's like, get dressed, like I'm going to fund a kid more than anyone who ever a kid, Jesus Christ. And then he's like, get dressed because you've got to get out of here. I don't want you to be comfortable here. You can't stay here, right does all he can to make Tracy's character not feel like she is a permanent fixture in his life totally. That And this is like sort of the beginning of him gaslighting her because constantly throughout the movie he's saying, you're too young, you don't under stand what love is, because she keeps being like, I love you. She literally says over and over, take me, seriously, listen to me. But and then he's just like, you're not old enough, Like you don't know what love is, You're too young. Yeah, that, but that criticism has never turned inward of like maybe this is the wrong thing to be doing, because it ends with maybe I we'll get to fund this kid again, like okay, sorry, continuous. Later he says to Jill, his ex wife Meryl Streep, of the two of us, I was not the immoral, psychotic, promiscuous one. Oh is that a reference to her sexuality? I think probably so excellent? Later on to Tracy, and this is after she's like, oh, you know, maybe people aren't meant to just like be with one person forever. It's kind of gone out of date. Again, more gasline, because he's like, don't you tell me what's gone out of date. You're seventeen. You were brought up on drugs television in the pill gas lighting bullettling her experience. He knows Benner because he has less hair. And then after this is after he meets Mary, he says about her, what a creep. She was overbearing, she was terrible, she was all cerebral. If she said one more thing about Bergmann, I would have knocked her other contact lens out. So I don't like that she's smart. I want to hit her. Okay, I'll just I'll just talk to translate. Please, this is this is good. Shortly After that, he says about Jill, I got a divorce because my ex wife left me for another woman. Mary says, that must have been really demoralizing. Isaac says, I tried to run them both over with a car. Mary says, that's incredible sexual humiliation. And I think that's enough to turn you off of women, which I found to be a very bizarre scene because Mary has been set up and later on the movie continues to be the smartest and most rational in her thinking and all of that. But because this character was written by two men, she's just reinforcing what what he Alan actually thinks, which was, Yeah, for me to have been left by a woman for another woman, how humiliating. Well, I think I think that this is sort of something that comes up in a lot of Woody Allen's movies where I wish I had a snappier title for it. But a feminist character written by a man, So not really a feminist character, but one that in appearance and behavior, in profession, there's enough there that you're just like, oh, you know, like you you would trust Diane Keaton's character, but she's still being written by a villain basically, and so when she glosses over the fact that when Allen's kid, when she glosses over villainizing queer people. As an audience member, you know, if you're not you know, you're sort of being told don't think about it. The character you trust thinks that, you know, queer people's lives don't matter either, and and stupid people with no critical thing skills would just be like, yeah, great, right, or people who have not encountered alternate ways of thinking. Because Woody Allens, all of his work is, We're told, is so intellectual and so smart that it's like, where are you supposed to be questioning? Where you not supposed to be questioning? He directs your focus in very deliberate ways and also directs your focus away. Okay, translation, I tried to kill gay people who hurt my feelings. Response. That sucks for you, and I can understand why you would have done that. I get it, would have done the same thing myself. Fuck that. Moving on later on, he says to Mary, well, first Mary is talking about Tracy and she's like sixteen years old, no possible threat at all. Isaac says, she's seventeen. You know, sometimes you have a losing personality Mary, what do you want. I'm honest, I say what's on my mind, and if you can't take it, then funk off. I I like the way you express yourself too. It's pithy yet degenerate. You get many dates, I don't think so. A very witty exchange in which women being smart is stupid and people calling Woody Allen out on his bullshit is stupid. Yeah, there's more. Don't worry. This is about Jill. He's talking to Mary. He says, my son is being raised by two women. Mary says, I've read studies you don't need a man to Mothers are absolutely fine. Isaac says, I feel very few people survive one mother. Uh, this is what Allen saying. Probably something happened to me a very long time ago that was emasculating, and now for the next sixty plus years, I will take it out on any woman I come into contact. Yes, and then again about his mother. Later on, Isaac says, I wrote a short story about my mother, the castrating Zionist. This is what he Allen saying. I'm trying to make this seem like a fun Jewish caricature, but what it actually is is I hate every woman I've ever met. All these exchanges, by the way, happened in the first half hour of the movie. Yeah, and then this, So this is when I got very frustrated and maybe stopped paying as close attention. But there's a few more later to jail. He is gaslighting her and saying I did not try to run you and your lover over with my car, even though he's exactly and she's like, well, what were you doing by the cabin anyway? And he's like, I was flying on you. Uh, there's no there's no words. I think he just he just really hit the nail on the head on that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no translation needed. We talked about this one. We talked about that one. Yeah, that was the one where he's next to two women in the restaurant and he's explaining to his son how they should have picked them up and fletched them. You know, his son a six year old boy, and and like and honestly again hate hers. It is written as a joke, but I would argue that that is just as much of a problem that he's like, hey, here's a terrible way to think about women, and then like, well, winky to the audience. Like this is funny. He's never going to learn, like is that funny? And then later on to Jill, this is after her book has come out about their relationship. He opens the door and says, I came here to strangle you. Well, sure, very funny, great joke. Um. So the three main characters, Tracy is just told like, you're you're right. I didn't even realize how little we know about her other than she and she sometimes has exams which we which we are to believe, you know, probably Willy Alan's character doesn't know a lot about her either because they don't discuss parts of her life very often, or like he's never asked. Um. Then we have Diane Keaton's character, who is just maybe the most troubling of all because she's just a bunch of smoke and mirrors in terms of a fully realized female character. We're all, you know, all the all the elements are there, but it's hollow and rings, totally hollow and and it just sucks. Yeah. There are a few moments where I'm like, Okay, I'm glad that she did this thing or says this thing. Yeah, let's talk about that. Well, she there's a moment where she's talking to a director friend of hers, and he's talking about this movie he's directing about a man who's such a sexual dynamo. Anytime he brings a woman to orgasm, she dies. And she's just like, this is horrid. So she calls him out. She calls out Yale for saying like, oh, does your love for me always need to express itself sexually? Because he's all like, let's go to do a how talent fuck and well to be fair, really, and he says make love. Oh, He's sorry love anyways, And then she's just like, what about other values like warmth and spiritual contact? So she's like, value me in other way besides you being able to have sex with me make love? But again, I I feel these like which I agree that like, her character is right in all of these issues. But even though she sees the more aggressive behavior of men as something she doesn't want to deal with, the world totally writes out any of the predatory behaviors with the person that she. You know, with Woody Allen's character where okay, so this character is written to see very aggressive masculinity, you know where it's like when I fuck a woman, she comes so hard. She dies great, but but there's a total blind spot set up for that same character of someone she's close to fucking a kid. You know, Like it's just and that, and that's what traveling to be about it is with this, and I think it extends to a lot of like Woody Allen's female characters, even the very well written ones are the ones that are hailed as well written. He directs your focus in such a specific way, and I feel like these moments of like, oh, she's smart, she knows what she's talking about, they're put there very deliberately for for the sake of the story in the movie, but also so that you notice less when she's ignoring things. And that and her whole pursuit. I mean, she's working on things professionally, she's a journalist. We know what she does for a living. That's good. She's writing things, she's working on different projects, but her seems like her main pursuit throughout the whole movie is landing a man that she wants. You know, it's between Yale and Woody Allen's character, and she just keeps like going back and forth, and she keeps saying, like I saw better, but like she's trying to stand up for herself, but like, really she's insecure. But it blows down to like her pursuit in this movie. If you're just like looking at her character and her character's goals and what she's trying to achieve, it's romance. It's a romantic relationship, and it's I mean, sure, this is like a romantic movie where I mean with every character in this movie, every main character is bouncing between two people at least, But I think her character is is a little different in that the two male characters to Isaac and then Yale, which like, God, hit me up, we get it, he's smart, they both spend a lot of their movie trying to break up with women, where the women spend a lot of time in the movie trying to convince the man that they are worth staying with. That was what was more of an issue for me, because everyone it is going between multiple people, and I think that in theory, that's a part of the point of like, oh love is a cloak. But there are scenes. There's a scene between Yale and Mary where Mary is basically just like, no, this is fine, I'm totally fine, it's great, and then we sort of see her try to convince him that she's worth staying with, and in the end he does end up staying with her well, and then as soon as they break up, she bounces right back to right where they are each other's second choice pretty pretty decisively, which is whatever plot point, but that there's two different scenes where Wody on I mean Woody is trying to break up with Mariel Hemingway pretty much every single scene, and then she especially is constantly trying to convince listen to me, I these are the reasons that you should stay with me, and he's constantly trying to leave her. So even though it's like every character here's bouncing between multiple interests, there's never a pressure on the man to prove to the woman what his worth is. It's assumed that they have value, where the female characters are kind of constantly trying to prove themselves, which is not all surprising from a movie that is like, I mean, Woody Allen is the king of like self indulgent on the writer, director, actor, hero of my own stories every single time, and he makes a point to say like several times, and I'm sure you could argue that these are like these are the jokes. But he's like, look, how could I am fucking His character says it in this movie, and I'd imagine I think it's a joke. If Ryan Gosling says it, it's not a joke literally, like you know, not as stereotypically alpha male is constantly like it just doesn't read, especially if you're writing those lines for yourself, like it's a joke if someone writes that line for Woody Allen maybe, And there's also a few different There's like that scene with Mary where she's like, you have a pretty good sense of humor. He's like, well, you don't have to tell me that. I know that, right. He's like, I make a living off it. You dumb, right, right, And it was like but yeah, so anyways doing a faul like there's just like I'm great fun too. Yeah. There's no pressure on the male characters to prove themselves really any regard excellent point, and there's no consequences presented to them except that they won't get fucked. Those are the only consequences, right, There's no well there's a joke about going into jail, but that's never never a present threat. Another female character, I wanted to talk about who doesn't get much screen time at all, but Emily yells wife basically every time she's on screen, she's like, how about we have kids? So our whole little whole thing is like, once that kids, I want to have kids, which it's all women can think about. I mean, if a woman wants to have children, so much power to her. But when you write a female character that that is apparently the only thing on her mind and we know virtually nothing else about that character, and is also presented as this is why I want to leave this lady because he's cheating on his wife. With Diane Keaton's character, Yeah, she's like, nad kids, kids, kids, and he's like, how about I going fuck other women instead? Number one sexist? Number two bad writing, which is how you could really characterize this whole movie if you wanted to. It's sexist and it is bad writing. Do we have anything else to say about the movie? Another thing I wanted to talk about is how Manhattan and I would guess a lot of Woody Allen movies based on the ones I've seen, are extremely white. Yeah, Woody Allen's characters always seem to be friends with only white people. There are no people of color with any you know, significant screen time or story beats or lines of dialogue in this movie. I think you only see two people of color in the entire movie who are helping him move into his new apartment, but they don't have any lines or anything like that. And Woody Allen is Jewish, so he's not you know, your waspy, Protestant Anglo Saxon type of white. And I want to acknowledge the persecution and prejudice that Jewish people have faced throughout history and also today, but the fact remains that Woody Allen has a habit of populating his movies with only white people, and it's especially crazy for this movie called Manhattan, set in Manhattan, New York City, where are all the people of color. The other thing I wanted to bring up is the age gap that exists in this movie and then all cross most Hollywood movie. I mean, this one is egregious, But then I think is almost the only pro that we could say for the massive age gap between Tracy and Isaac is that at least it is pointed out, where in most movies, I don't think it's even pointed out. You're yeah, absolutely right. So I'm taking some stats from an article from Vulture in I'm sure things have gotten better since the better The title of the article is leading men age, but their love interests don't pointing out that, Like you know, Hollywood stars who are men get older because that's how time works. But they're female kind of parts. The love interests of their characters pretty much the same age, which tends to be late twenties, early to mid thirties. Um, Harrison Ford, he just started that new movie play runner for nine. Uh and there, Yeah, I mean it's just all the sorry it took me a second, was like what you said. And he's still allowed to start in movies. Get Harrison FOURD out of movies. He is not allowed anymore. Give out, I retire, bitch, Harrison Ford, bitch retire. I'm fine with Harrison Ford. Harrison for bitch retire. But he is listed in this article as someone who has love and test that do not get much older, and then he usually has a pretty huge age gap, with the closest one, it seems, was when he was in Writers of the Lost Arc he was thirty eight, his love interest Karen Allen was twenty nine. Harrison Ford bitch retired. Crazy age difference was when he was in Six Days, Seven Nights, and and hait was twenty nine and he was fifty five, so he got older. His love interest was still in her late twenties. Other examples, So Johnny Depp is a heinous piece of shit. But yeah, Johnny Depp bitch retired. Yeah, that one literally gonna Joel. However, he is one of my favorite movies, Shock a lot. He is thirty seven. I hate that Alfred Willina had to even meet him. I don't know if they have any do they have scenes together? Maybe they don't, I don't remember, let me watch it. But he is thirty seven in that character in his love interest, Juliet Banosh, she's thirty six, So there's only one year age difference, which is that you don't get a trophy for that. No, No, because in Transcendence he's forty nine and Rebecca Hall is thirty. So that's you know, full on, we're we're at daddy's status at that point. Totally. It's Tom Cruise also bade George pretty bad Old Brother. We aren't though, another one of my favorite movies. He's thirty nine and his wife played by Holly Hunter in that movie is forty two, so she's three years older than him. Amazing. Richard Gear is another one. Richard Gear dribble butt theory, look it up, Brad Pitt, Liam Neeson, Tom Hanks. Actually they point out that he tends to be with age appropriate women in his movies. Well there's that, there's one there, Woody Allen. I mean, yeah, there's no way you can spend that the relationship between he and Mariel Hemingley's character to make it good. But the age difference is acknowledged, and we're in those movies. It's not even it's it's an assumed thing, right, It's just like, of course, this handsome older man would have a young twenty or more years younger than him love interests. And then I think that in movies very commonly, if if the inverse does occur, it is immediately acknowledged and made as a point of like this is like, why would a young, handsome young man want to be involved with an older woman. I rewatched Nightcrawler. I haven't seen that. It is very good. It's in reeks of toxic masculinity, but it's it's it's I like it a lot. So Jake gillen Hall's character, who we're supposed to think is in his late twenties early thirties, is interested in Rene Russa's character, who's I think supposed to be in her forties or fifties, and he pursues her, and it's constantly their age difference is constantly brought up because she's like, why would you want to be with me, I'm too old, and he's like, I'm I'm secure enough to be with an older woman, where that's never the issue in the inverse, like a younger woman never has to say I'm secure enough with myself to be with an older man. It's just assumed that that it's gonna happen. Well, so okay, Cupid. You know they do all their like analytics of dating patterns, thoughts and feelings, and they compiled a graph it's like, oh, a woman's age versus the age of the men she's attracted to, and it's basically they tend to be attracted to men very close to their same age. That's generally, like, I mean, a direct correlation. Men are gross I think not true because as the and this of course is you know, very hetero. This is, you know, for hetero relationships, but a man's age versus the women he's attracted to is no matter how old he is, we don't crack. We did not crack all the way up to fifty because they ask what age of women are you most attracted to? And no matter how old a man is, they only much always say either between twenty and twenty three pretty much fucking kids, which I can't I guess I'm not allowed to say so just and it makes so I wonder, is this because men are conditioned to seeing depictions of older men in media with a younger women and also kind of a complete omission of any woman their age, right of course, Yeah, this is the thing we talked about a lot on the podcast, where rarely do we see women on the screen who are you know, forties, fifties, sixties. So often, you know, women in movies are super young. The implication we can draw from that is no one wants to see an older woman on the screen, no one cares about their stories, And of course that's not true, but we're conditioned to think that because we see so much, we consume so much media where women of a certain age are ignored ignored. Oh wow, this is deeply and to everyone who's like, oh well, men are tried to do younger women because they have a biological imperian because younger women are more fertile and they want to put babies in them. Fuck, we have population issues, bitch, retire, grow up. So basically the point we want to make is the in recent days weeks, a lot of women have come forward calling out different men specifically. So I started with Harvey Weinstein in this most recent sort of news cycle, although at this point I've honestly lost track. I believe the founder of Just for Laughs was forced out of his position, the sitting CEO of Amazon Studios was pushed out of his position. It's interesting because it's like, we have people like Woody On, like Johnny Depp whose names are very recognizable to us, and then there are people whose names we don't know because they're manipulating behind the scenes, whose names are coming out as well. It's a lot. It's a ton screen Dunkies. I don't know exactly who, but someone affiliated with Screen Drinkies several allegations brought against him. It's everywhere, it's everywhere. It's encouraging that women are coming forward and action is being taken against many of these people, Harvey Weinstein being fired, people losing their jobs and not being allowed to work in Hollywood anymore. Um, and there's a lot of work left to do, and it's painful to have to read these accounts, but feels, you know, important. We hope everyone's looking out for yourself, taken care of yourself through all this, and we you know, obviously applaud all the victims who are coming forward because it is so hard to do, so hard to do, and all the writers who have been able to get those stories out because that's also so hard to do. And not to say that, you know, there I'm sure plenty of victims who are not ready. Things have happened, they're not ready to come forward about it, and so it's not to say that they're not brave, you know, they're like and then it drives me nuts just the emotional labor that any victims have to go through to be like, this thing happened to me, and I you know, I'm revealing it and I'm I'm coming public with it, and then just the burden shouldn't be on victims to come like the burden should be on sexual predators to not fucking be sexual predators, right, But that's never that's never going to have happened. And so it falls upon the people who are these just awful things are happening to them to also then be the ones to have to relive it over and over and over in order for any consequence to happen, Which brings me to just some food for that, because I feel like for years and years and years since the Wady Allen allegation, service, since the Bill Cosby allegation surfaces, there's always a lot of talk of like, how can we separate the art from the artists? Can I still enjoy Bill Cosby's stand up? Can I still joy this movie about Woody Allen? Fucking kid? Honestly? And I have heard a lot of mostly men, some women, mostly men, explain to me their views on why they think that, you know, but I I personally am at a point where I think separating art from artists at this point it's just like a dangerous precedent to set. It allows predators to continue making art without consequence. We are not at a lack for artists in the world. There are a lot of artists with a lot of important things to say, and I think that saying that, you know, if you're an artist and a predator, you can't you can't. There are a lot of voices that need to be heard that will gladly occupy that space who aren't sexual predators or not predators. There should be consequences for everyone. There's no way Woody Allen should be allowed to be making movies. Uh, there's no way that Bill Cosby should be on any stage at any time unless that stage as a court and he's being sent to Yale. Don't see Louis Kan's new movie, which is the clearest homage to Manhattan that you will find just bad, bad, bad bad, Hey, Caitlin, Yes, does Manhattan pass the back to Manhattan does pass the bad? But it passes in the most disturbing exchange from All Tide. So the scene it's Mary, Isaac, Yale, and Tracy all walking down the street. Mary and Tracy when they meet, they say like hi, Hello, That barely comes as a conversation, and later on, later on, Mary says, what do you do Tracy? Tracy says, I go to high school? He really? So, you know, three adults and then one teenager are just hanging out and Mary's like, hey, what do you do for a living? Tracy's like I study for my English sucking exams? Yeah, that what a pass? Good for you? Oh well, we hope you enjoyed this bonus I would call I would say this is an emergency bonus. Yeah, this is an emergency episode of the Beck Dol Cast. Thanks for listening if you If you want a regular bonus episode, you can sign up for Patreon at patreon dot com slash back Doel Cast, where we do to bonus episodes a month that are you know, they may be as painful as this one. They may not be You'll have to probably not sign out. They'll probably be a little less us screaming. But also if you don't like that, why are you listening to this show? Grow up bitch retire? So yeah, check us out. You can go to our website. You can pledge a five dollars a month on Patreon to get exclusive content and that helps us out with our production costs and all of that. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. Funk Off Willy Allen, funk Off, Willy and funk Off, Harveerty Weinstein and funk off any sexual predator in Hollywood and everywhere. If you're a man, be fucking helpful. Help everyone else. Keep your head up, listen and believe women and value women. Love you, Bye bye,