The Bechdel Cast - 500 Days of Summer with Brandie Posey

Episode Date: August 16, 2018

To celebrate 500 Days of Bechdel Cast, Caitlin and Jamie invite special guest Brandie Posey to discuss 500 Days of Summer.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @Brandazzle on Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. What happens when a professional football player's career ends and the applause fades and the screaming fans move on? I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite.

For some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers. You mix homesteading with guns and church. Voila! You got straight away. They try to save everybody. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Señora Sex Ed is not your mommy's sex talk. This show is la plática like you've never heard it before. We're breaking the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in Latinx communities.

This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z. We're your hosts, Viosa and Mala. You might recognize us from our first show, Locatora Radio. Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Pectocast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name is Jamie Loftus. Oh hello, I guess we're doing these accents. I didn't know, but here we are.

I just want to incense our audience. I just want to polarize them right at the top. Yeah, of course. My name's Caitlin Durante. Durante. And we are here to talk about the portrayal of women in film. The Bechdel test is the metric that we use in order to talk about how women are portrayed in films. What the bloody hell is the Bechdel test? Well, it's something usually applied to cinema, but can

be applied to all media. How long are we going to do this bit? It's a test. I don't know because there's no reason to do it, too, because this movie is not Australian. No, not at all. It's not Australian. I think any time I see Miles Gray,

I just begin to talk this way, and it's had to break out of. So the Bechdel test. Yeah, okay, we're back to our regular toad speak. The Bechdel test is the metric we use to discuss it. It is a test that requires there are two women in a scene who have names who talk about something other than a man. Not many movies pass. We talk about other tests as well, but that's our jumping off point.

Shall we demo it? I would love to. Hey, Jamie. Yes, Caitlin, what's up? have you ever been to australia mate i've never been but everybody thinks i'm from there because of my very convincing accent that uh no one finds annoying and they actually think it's very cool i like how you go into like a liverpool accent toward the end it's very cool it's a spectrum well i passed the bechdel test so it's true yeah so it doesn't mean that everything that passes the bechdel test is not annoying it can be very annoying sure so you know let women be

annoying it's our time to be annoying damn it time's up men being annoying i get to be annoying now well well today we really we have a a banger today a banger a banger we we got a real a real bing bong today i'm very excited to talk about this movie because it is a movie that is nine years old and yet i feel like the public opinion of this movie has changed drastically since the movie's release 500 days of summer here with us summer summer here with us to talk about the film is our friend a very wonderful person a comedian sorry i'm gonna go back to how i usually talk oh uh she's a comedian she's uh one of the co-hosts of lady to lady podcast and she's got an album out called opinion cave brandy posy hello governor oh hello

top of the morning to you i don't know if this is good or not. This is good. In fact, it's great. We have alienated all of our international listeners. Hello, international listeners. It's okay. I'll just talk American over here. It's fine. Well, we here on the Bechtelcast, that was my attempt at a southern accent.

We're blowing it. Blowing it. Hey, y'all, let's just get into it. Let's get into the discourse. So, Brandi, what is your history, your relationship with the movie 500 Days of Summer? Does that say it all? I watched it last night for the very first time. Oh, no kidding.

Oh, wow. Yeah. I don't like Zoe's whole thing. movie like seemed like it was peak whimsy the manic pixie dream girl thing just like really irritates me sure and this seemed like at the time when it came out that it was like the most that and i know that that's not necessarily a popular opinion sometimes so i just was like if i don't see it then i don't have to talk about it and then nine years later i was booked on a podcast where i had to talk about it to strangers sure thousands of them listening it's great thank you for your sacrifice yeah it's all good uh i was watching this with my boyfriend last night and he um he got about halfway through

and then he was like stop waterboarding me with twee i'm'm going to bed. Ooh. Good. Yeah. That is basically what this movie is. Yeah. Well, Jamie, what's your history? I'm guilty of loving it. I was 16 when this movie came out, and it really got me. Yeah, I really loved this movie when it came out. But I, within a few years, had turned on it,

which is why I think that a lot of people had that experience of this movie when it came out i was like it's it love and this is what i want and then i remember watching it i think in college just a few years later and being like oh this is like kind of horse shit you know yeah i will i will say i don't think it is a movie that is self-aware it has no idea what it's doing but there's a few different ways to watch it all of which i think are sort of interesting because there's when i was watching it this time because this is probably i've probably seen this movie five or six times over the years and every time i watch it watching it from this perspective knowing that the message is ultimately like net negative kind of yeah um

it's interesting to watch this movie as if it knows what it's doing because if it was a self-aware movie it might be brilliant yeah but it has no idea and so it's dumb self-aware in terms of it knowing that it's joseph gordon is the villain of the movie yes yeah which i don't think the movie has any clue because and i was reading about the production and the guy who wrote it was like i was going through breakup and like uh you know i was at my heart and me you know very very sensi boy bullshit oh yeah this is a guy that has put holes in all of his hoodies for his fingers his thumbs go through all my thumbmies. Where even Joseph Gordon-Levitt now recognizes. I mean, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I don't know that he's done anything wrong. I do find him annoying.

That's whatever. I'm here for Joseph Gordon. I am a fan of his. I grew up watching Third Rock from the Sun a lot. So I liked him from an early age. And yeah, I don't know. I'm not going to join his fan club or anything like that. So I liked him from an early age and yeah, I don't know. I just, uh, I'm not going to join his fan club or anything like that,

but I enjoy him. This is going to sound contradictory of me, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a bit in your face about how very woke he is. And I, that's just a quality. And then I find annoying, not harmful, but annoying.

Oh, for sure. I tweeted about this movie last night. Um, cause I was just furious watching it. And I had some leash. And here's the thing. If you say that you don't like 500 Days of Summer, several woke men will explain to you the movie as if you just don't understand what it's really about. Women aren't objects. They're people who can think for themselves, honey.

Oh, my king. And several, several, several guys did that to me last night. Oh, gee whiz. So I'm still. What I'll say for Joseph Gordon-Levitt is, like, as early as 2012, he declared himself the villain of the movie. Yeah. So it is interesting where he and Zooey Deschanel have both spoken of this movie in retrospect

and pretty close to it coming out as, like, yeah, that wasn't a good story or not as good as everyone thought it was in 2009. Well, and like, I could see reading that script and being like, oh, the intent is that I'm a, my character is a villain, but it's just executed really poorly. But I also don't think that was the intent of the thing in the first place.

I don't think so either. I think they were like, oh. It made me want that movie though. Yeah. I would like a movie where the, you know, sensi indie boy is like punished by the narrative for sure well it's funny because this movie aspires to be garden state which is what a horrible goal can you imagine your goal to be like i just want to be garden state i'm striving for Braff. Oh my god. Well, whenever we get around to Natalie November

or whatever time we do Portman July was really the funniest I don't know why it wasn't. But yeah, I loved this movie when it came out and turned on it within a few years. Yeah, same thing happened with me. I saw it pretty shortly after it came out really enjoyed it thought it was

you know, a subversive example of like the rom-com genre that I had come to hate. Just crazy because it subverts nothing. No. But that was what people thought when it came out. Yeah. Well, you know, I was not as, you know, aware of things back then. So and then I think probably only saw it once or twice between then and now. And now that I've rewatched it, it's a whole new world. Yeah. So shall I do the recap of the story? The recap of the film?

Are you going to start with the opening where there's just like several lines of text? Sure. Yeah. Great place to start. So the author's note that happens over black before we see any even images. And curry or grow up. Yeah. Where we can assume the screenwriter, the director, whoever's story this is, says,

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Next frame. Especially you, Jenny Beckman. Next frame. Bitch. So. Right away. Switch and we're swishing yeah i mean start with a three-pointer i like stood up in my house and was like oh cool so this is the

movie i would love to watch you watch this movie i was just punching a pillow the entire time yeah so just in case you weren't sure how this movie views women, it thinks they're all bitches, basically. Bitches, skanks, and whores. All three words are used. Uppity super skank is invoked.

God, I mean, this was like the late aughts where it was, and, you know, all of history, but when it was the sniveling loser was getting fucked for some reason,

but it was just as misogynist as the jock. And it was just like, well, what? Yeah. What's the difference here? Right. So we meet Tom, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, and we meet Summer Finn, Zooey Deschanel's character. Twee.

And so Tom is our protagonist. He loves love. He's a sensy boy and he is like on the lookout for the one. Something about him just is like he totally has called someone like, we're like Jack and Sally, you know, like he has that like hot topic adjacent vibe of like, yeah, I've never said this to anyone before, but you're kind of the Sally to my Jack. I'm like, I've never said this to anyone before, but you're kind of the Sally to my Jack. I'm like, I'm going to kill myself.

Yes. No, he for sure has a mix of just songs that are about two names. You know what I mean? He's just like, OK, these are going to be us. Cool. Awesome. This man made a sex playlist in 2007,

has not updated it to this day. He's like, what do you think about beach house like that's like he's gonna finger you to a beach house album he's done it a million times and then he'll yell at you later i hate him can i get mad that you're not getting off during usher can that okay so so tom and summer meet at work and the movie follows their relationship in which they are either together or not. Basically, him having feelings for her over the course of 500 days, and the movie tells the story out of chronological order. What do they think it is? Pulp fiction? Ever heard of nonlinear narrative? Kind of a cool thing this movie does. I think that sometimes

when movies go non-linear, it is to mask that it is a boring movie. Yes! Almost always. It's like, oh, put it in sequence. This movie fucking sucks. Yep. Absolutely. Oh, but the

past is happening now? Wait! That's like shitty time travel it started good and then it got bad like i feel like the out of order adds almost nothing to this yeah that's just enough yeah i would tend to agree um so we see their relationship unfold and their breakup unfold over the course of the movie again it's taking place not necessarily in chronological order. We do kind of start at the beginning, though, where they meet. He sees her and he's just instantly enamored with her. And she is ambivalent.

She barely notices him. And then he gets closer to her. Other characters would say that he stalks her. He listens to the Smiths. thank you very much yeah so he could not commit a crime yeah he's sensy we don't see him stalking her the way other movies portray a romantic pursuit a lot of the time but he is like he's taking an interest in her and he is trying to get her attention uh and then eventually that does happen and they have like a work hang at a bar in which his friend Mackenzie says like,

hey, do you want a boyfriend? And we'll talk about this whole conversation when we get to the discussion. But basically she says that she's not really into having a boyfriend, but they... He's like, she's saying it, but she doesn't mean it.

I'm going to change her. Me and my four inch penises are going to change her life. Her silly woman mind doesn't know what it needs. Me and my woman mind. Right. The most flaccid man to ever take breath. And she will be mine. Yeah.

So then they do start dating. And throughout the whole course of their relationship relationship she tends to be kind of distant she tells him that she's not really looking for anything serious he is meanwhile in love with her whenever he thinks that she's not into him or whenever she breaks up with him he falls apart and has to consult his toxic friends and his sister, who is a character who has never existed in the world. Just a wise child. I love a wise child. Yeah, we'll get into that weird trope.

The wise child trope ruins me. I hate it. It's so fucking lazy. Do you think they all go to school together? And that's why they're so wise? Just the most insufferable group of pretentious little, like, actually kids ever. That should be a YouTube video of just, like, cutting all of those kids

in conversation together. Yeah. It just, oh, it's horrible. And I feel like it's also, and we can, when we talk about that character more in depth, I feel like she, that character's fully exploited as a way to make Tom seem like not a bad guy.

Cause it's like, Oh, he's so nice to his little sister and he's clearly a good role model for her. And they're so close. But like, if you deconstruct that even a little bit, it's just like the screenwriter grasping at straws of like, how can I make this guy not look like a shithead?

Let me put the story out of order. Let me give him friends who are worse than him let me give him a sister so it's like he doesn't hate all women yeah he has a sister you know oh it's such such sneaky shit at play here so basically the story ends with them breaking up him being distraught over it. And then she gets engaged and then married. And he's all like, but you said you didn't want a boyfriend and now you're somebody's wife. And what? I don't understand what was wrong with me that you didn't love me. And then this sort of this is the catalyst that gets him to be like, oh, I should pursue my architect degree.

I'm going to go on a job interview to become an architect. And there. Another lazy movie job that does like architect. That's almost like, oh, does Zooey Deschanel work at a gallery? This is also our second recent episode we've done that features the greeting card company trope. One I hate. Oh, from the movie Her? Her.

And now this of like another coded sensy boy thing of like, he's too sensitive for the greeting card company? We love him. What a beta. I know. And I want to be clear that I am fine with men in real life who are emotionally sensitive and vulnerable I don't want to sound like we're being like oh sensy boys but the way that movies often depict that character is that they are still extremely toxic those men but we are led to believe

because they're so sensitive and because they know how to write I love you into a greeting card, we are supposed to sympathize with them so much. It's just a self-serving sensitivity. Exactly. They're still selfish. Like, it's like, no. Like, I mean, I'm dating a very sensitive guy. But he thinks out of himself all the time. Right.

And cares about other people and puts them before him. And, like, at no point do any of these guys in these movies ever do that. Right. It's only about them. We love when men are expressive. It doesn't happen enough in the real world. But this character,

the reason I feel fine making fun of it is because it's all false. It's not real at all. So yesterday, Jack O'Brien brought this to my attention. Joseph Gordon-Levitt

revisited this too. And he tweeted literally yesterday. It's August 7th today. He tweeted this too and he tweeted literally yesterday it's august 7th today he tweeted this yesterday someone tweeted still haven't forgiven zoe de chanel for what she did to joseph gordon levitt in 500 days of summer and then jgl to his credit responded watch it again it's mostly tom's fault he's projecting he's not listening he's selfish luckily he grows by the end i was like oh, oh. Okay, so good. He's acknowledging that.

Anyways, sorry. So the movie ends. He goes on this interview during which he meets another cute gal. And he's like, oh, I'm going to seize the day. I'm going to ask her out. Then he's like, what's your name? And she's like, Autumn. And we're like, whoa.

I also stood up at that point it was just a series of me just standing in rage and sitting back down i felt trapped in my own home that time i i did actively hiss when i know because i forgot that happened at the end i was like no so does that mean whenever they break up, he meets a girl named Winter? Like, what are we meant to believe here? He's going to end up with a solstice. That's what he's going to end up with. He's like, I need something more whimsical than summer, please. So that is the story.

We've already kind of touched on some of the tropes that we see from different characters, some of the problems that the movie just slaps us in the face with. Well, I suppose a good place to begin is the way that a lot of the characters use language to disparage women, to disparage women to disparage queer people other marginalized groups of people like so for example whenever tom's sister whose name is rachel comes over this is the very beginning of the movie she comes over to console tom after his breakup with summer his friends are there as well and they're all like oh maybe she's just in a bad mood maybe she's hormonal his sister's like pms that was crazy so bad i was like oh god it's just her hormones don't worry her having agency and making a choice to not be in a relationship anymore that she didn't

want to be in that's her having pms yeah can we just sign up for one second this movie also takes place in los angeles but it does not PMS. Yeah. Can we just sign off for one second? This movie also takes place in Los Angeles, but it does not feel like Los Angeles. It like desperately wanted to be in New York, but they like couldn't do it in New York. They couldn't afford it. So they were just downtown the entire time. Because when the little girl comes over, Rachel and sister, she's just like, it's speeding over on a bike.

And then she takes off her helmet, goes inside. And I was like, literally no one in LA wears helmets. What are we doing? Yeah. And there's a scene where it's like pouring rain yeah and it's supposed to be this like emotional thing where like she shows up in the rain she's drenched and it's like it rains in la once a year yeah you get one week we get one week a year and it rains and then it doesn't matter to him i just like felt gas lit at every moment of this movie especially in the setting of it where i was just like i know what los angeles is and this does not feel like we're in los angeles i also it took me a while to realize that the sister is chloe grace moretz yeah uh too so man not an auspicious beginning no no but thankfully she graduated to better material like the louis ck movie

oh that one oh she is she is he is daddy oh yes so there's god i mean i should we start with tom or summer i don't know it's hard because Summer isn't a person. Right. I would argue we know very little about Summer, and we know a lot about a construction of Summer that isn't an actual person, which is something we can talk about right after the break. Yeah. So we'll take a quick break, and we'll be right back. Yes.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the

iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what

happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you, and it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds. Sword Quest. This wasn't just a new game.

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We actually like very quickly went to Australia. Been on holiday. So yeah, let's talk about Summer. The backstory she's given during the kind of opening sequence of the movie where we're learning a little bit about her and about Tom. What we know about her backstory is some voiceover narration that says, after the disintegration of her parents' marriage, she only loved two things, her long, dark hair,

and how easily she could cut it off and feel nothing. And it's just like, really? This is how you're characterizing this person? Yeah. Like, it's such a one-dimensional characterization that it's embarrassing like the writer should feel embarrassed yeah no it's a really embarrassing don't worry he's very proud of what he's done also also it's just like so you're setting her up to be a murderer is that what you're trying to do here right because as she got older she

loved just torturing cats and feeling nothing right like what are we talking about but it's made to be very cute and attractive the way that he does it and okay zoe de chanel how do we feel because i feel generally that zoe de chanel gets a bad rap that is not necessarily fair and perhaps a little bit uh gendered in the way that she's been treated in her career and i like her okay you're allowed it's okay it's totally fine i've heard personal stories that she's a piece of shit so okay that colors a lot for me sure yeah and like the the leaning into the

tweeness of it is just like I get it we all have brands and stuff I just like like also this movie was very hard to watch in 2018

with the world that's happening around us right now because I was like shouldn't you be like rollerblading at a march or something I feel like you should be doing something like

twee in a space that matters of some kind you should be doing something like twee in a space that matters of some kind you should be like phone banking and footie pajamas or some shit like right yeah i would say i i'll fall in the middle of you two being just kind of ambivalent about her like i watched several seasons of new girl i thought it was generally pretty funny. But yeah, I don't dislike her. I don't like her. But I would agree that many of the roles that she takes in entertainment are this very twee. I don't even know if I would classify at least this role as a manic pixie dream girl type. It's more like chill pixie dream girl. Yeah.

But she dresses like her mom is the ceo of mod cloth like it's a whole well and it's like it's more like the embrace of like the thing is that stereotype is like a sacred text of like the incel nation basically like the manic pixie dream girl and for her to like take on those roles without like being like but this is wrong and stupid all the time to me is like feels a little irresponsible sure yeah i just i just feel like generally and i know nothing about this woman personally yeah yeah but i i guess where i fall on it generally is i think if a man was doing the same thing that she does in that she takes the same role frequently. It's not a

positive role. People come down harder on her and she is more reviled because woman. Right. No I think that's definitely true. Yeah. So that's just something I don't know and this is something that I guess it's more warranted for her than

you know it was just like this very popular hot take to have for a while. Like, Anne Hathaway is a bitch. Just, I hate her face and I hate blah, blah, blah. And, like, it was very cool to not like Anne Hathaway. When Anne Hathaway literally didn't do anything. And that's just something, I mean, she, like zoe de chanel's peak twee white lady and that has its own set of issues to unpack but i just it does like i don't know the the like hot take of like zoe de chanel sucks and like her and bangs and blah blah i mean every i don't know

every actor has that every actor has the role they take over and over and they don't examine it. It doesn't make her better, but I just feel like people come down on her harder. I mean, you're right, because there are plenty of, you know, actors who have been pretty typecast. I mean, Bruce Willis plays the same role over and over again. Yeah, for sure. Jason Statham. They all play, you know, archetypal characters in almost every movie that they're in. But we as a society love those guys.

And then we do come down harder on people like Zooey Deschanel for doing the same thing. Those characters that she accepts are vastly different from the archetypes that your action heroes take. But those roles are also not available to her right exactly so yeah i guess to me it's also like whenever i see her she channels that in real life a lot too on like couch pieces and stuff like that where she also like leans into it in person so much too that i'm just like just be genuine i want to know who i don't know who she is and i've never seen that in an interview and if this is who she is then that's that's one thing but I don't believe that that's true so just like there's like a disingenuous about all of it that kind of just like but why what's going on here because

she didn't used to be like that I remember when like she was in uh yes man and like um early like I've seen her yeah yeah yeah I've seen her in like early stuff I remember being like oh she's like she's fine and then she just was like oh this in early stuff. I remember being like, oh, she's fine. And then she just was like, oh, this is my thing. And I'm just always going to have a ukulele every time I'm on Conan. Right. The uke is a lot. Yeah.

Uke girl. I can't stand for that. But that was just my... Just to get, because for this episode, I'm just like, oh, my God. Everyone's going to go into our mentions of like, Zooey Deschanel, Zooey Deschanel. That's just... We got to get, because I, for this episode, I'm just like, oh my God, everyone's going to go into our mentions of like Zoe Deschanel, Zoe Deschanel. That's just there. We got it out of the way. Now let's talk about the character. That's fine.

So I would say that one of the main things that you do learn about her after you find out that she cuts her hair off and loves it or feels nothing or whatever. Loves the feeling of nothing. Loves the void. Addicted to the void. Yeah. So her main thing is she. Loves the feeling of nothing. Loves the void. Addicted to the void. Yeah. So her main thing is she... Married the noid.

Sorry. Got me good. So her thing is that she doesn't want to be in a relationship, really. She's fine with just kind of being independent and i appreciate that you see a depiction of a woman in a movie who is not obsessed with finding a boyfriend finding a husband because so many movies would have you believe that it's all women think about yeah because one movies be very heteronormative and two they just depict most single women as just being obsessed with finding a boyfriend or someone to marry um a man she but then that's like another

thing that's interesting about i don't know watching it this time it was like oh summer's way more independent and explicit about that than i remembered But the movie also does think like, but she does need a good guy. She's just like, she says that, but it's a defense mechanism and she really does need a man in her life. Like the movie doesn't even believe the character that it wrote.

Right, right, yeah. And it demonizes that trait about her where like she's like, yeah, I don't need no man. But because she doesn't want to be with joseph gordon levitt our hero the movie would have you believe that she is an uppity bitch and they literally call her uh uppity better than everyone's super skank right yeah i want to see more depictions of women in movies who are not obsessed with finding a man. And that's like their one goal throughout the whole story.

But also to not have that be demonized like it is in this movie. Yeah, for sure. What this movie needed was like the scene at like the party at the end where there's like his expectations versus reality. They needed a split screen of how they both saw every interaction that they had. Like they never gave her an actual say in any like at any point in the movie right even at that point you're like you're like oh poor him he didn't get the thing that he wanted like it's still not like from her point of view she's like oh yeah i'll just invite my friend over i think we're like

cool now you know it's at no point do you understand what is going on in her head whatsoever and he's such an unreliable narrator because throughout the whole movie he is so like fraught with emotion that he is not seeing things clearly and i we can see that when we watch this movie but i i wonder if like when this movie came out because we're led to believe that he's like this sensitive guy who deserves love and fuck her for not being in love with him back. Yeah. That we're, you know, meant to believe that he's this great guy. Mm-hmm. But yeah, we don't see things from her point of view, but we're still like supposed to empathize with him so heavily.

It's very bizarre. All the toxic traits that are passed off as sensitive man and it's like you know ultimately bad a bad movie for young men to see and this was like one of the movies that young men were seeing and they're like i literally remember my high school boyfriend being like i kind of liked 500 days of summer as you know to like really show his hand of like i am a sensitive boy but it's like the if you you know emulate those behaviors you're a bad man this is a movie about the worst kind of man yeah because he is and he feels entitled to her he is extremely possessive the second he meets her he starts to view her as property. Something that, again, on this viewing that I noticed is,

like, around a third of the time we see Zooey Deschanel on screen, it's not even the character. It's him thinking about her. So we're seeing the construction of her almost as much as we're seeing the character. And whenever we see the actual character, it's usually an argument or it's usually she's being a bitch or like, that's what the movie would have you believe.

And the, the times where she's like soft and so in love with them, it's usually stuff that doesn't even happen. Yeah. Or, or, or at least, you know,

a third of the time it's something that doesn't even happen. Oh, he literally like deconstructs her body and is like I love this birthmark and your knees and like this part of your hair and like the weird imperfection in your thing and it's like oh you just like literally just like pulled her body apart and we're like oh these

are the five parts of you that I would make into a soup and drink every day cool dude it's like I just want to turn you into a broth. How dare they do this to Matthew Gray Goobler. Anyway, sorry. That's just been like on the tip of my tongue this whole time.

I love goobs. I do not understand that reference. I love a little bit of goob. He plays one of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's terrible friends. Was it the black curly hair guy? Or like the blondie? Little blondie. Oh, Paul.

Yes, Paul the blondie. I love me some goobs. Give me the goob. Said it before, say it again. Give me the goob. But his character is insufferable. His other friend Mackenzie's character is insufferable. So I want to go to that conversation where...ffrey arendt so they are at a bar have it like a work

function singing karaoke so it's summer it's tom and it's mackenzie sitting in a booth and mackenzie goes to summer he's like so do you have a boyfriend and she's like a no and he's like why not she says because i don't want one and he's like come on i don't believe that and she says you don't believe that a woman could enjoy being free and independent and then he responds with are you a lesbian and she said no i'm not a lesbian i just don't feel comfortable being anyone's girlfriend i actually don't feel comfortable being anyone's anything and then they talk a little bit more and later on she says i like being on my own relationships are messy people's feelings get hurt who needs it we're young uh might as well have some fun and do serious stuff later and then mckenzie says holy shit you're a dude you're such a dude for saying that and it's and that so we can assume

the movie things that wanting to be single and not wanting to be in a relationship is a guy thing yeah it's a guy quality she's so cool she's a man right exactly i mean that's like the guys gal trope yeah that shows up all the time right of like that's something to aspire to of like be devastatingly hot and have all these traditionally feminine qualities but also act like a dude but don't look like one right don't have feelings don't yeah fine yeah yeah just like be fucking cool just be fucking cool but also be fucking hot yeah like be cool in the exact way that i want you to be cool. Be completely aloof until I desire you. And then be so into me.

Just like a dude. Right. But I forgot how explicitly she states it. But again, it's like there are those good moments in the movie that seem almost like it's a mistake. And then it's later weaponized against her as like, she is a dude. And like, you know, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. And it's also such a slippery slope

for them to characterize Joseph Gordon-Levitt's desire for a relationship as feminine. Yeah. Because the way he is in a relationship is scary and weird. God, there's that scene where, do you remember the scene where they're in the elevator

and he asks her like how her weekend was and she's like a little dodgy doesn't seem to really want to talk to him she's like it was good

and then immediately he gets so mad he's like she's not good enough for me anyways she's a bitch blah blah blah she's fucking somebody

she's fucking somebody all weekend and it's like oh my god he calls her a skank again yeah and yeah so god yeah there's there's a lot of eliza skinner made this point on twitter so i don't want to like me oh friend of the cast she was saying how like there are so many moments where she's just trying to be like early on where she's just like a woman trying to just navigate being polite to people in her office that he interprets as like one thing or another

where it's like the smith's thing to her she's probably like oh yeah we're in an elevator let me just say something oh yeah i also like the smiths and he was just like oh it's on yeah and it's like how many times are you just like in a space with a guy and you're just like yeah hey i mean make small talk for a second because it's weird to stand in silence with you right and it's just like so much of her is just trying to like exist in a space and he's interpreting it which is why he's such an unreliable narrator and why it's a problem for the movie to be like hey look how great this guy is yeah but yeah so she yeah she's just like yeah i like this miss too and then she like exits the elevator and you see him like visibly splooshing in his pants being like oh shit she

loves me and i love her oh god yes yes morrissey's an asshole and so am i oh that's great of course you love morrissey you piece of shit literally peak smith's fans yes absolutely of course i just have such a problem with the way that the movie ascribes certain traits as being masculine and other traits as being feminine whereby she doesn't run a relationship so she's a dude that's a guy thing yeah and he wants a relationship so that's almost like emasculating and that's like make him being feminine and it's just like those qualities are not like mutually exclusive to any gender and it's like so it subscribes to these like very rigid gender norms. It's interesting because I feel like

men and women have had very different reactions to this movie. Like at least based on my Twitter conversation it's been defended vehemently by guys and like women i think some like a lot of women like especially as you get older and you watch it as you get older you're kind of just like i know this guy we've we've all like known this dude and like the way that they're sneaky about like how what a piece of shit they are they like hide it until they show it

and you're just like yeah no this is like something i've had to like dodge my life and had to look out for like guys don't have these kind of warning signs to be looking out for in like women. So I think they're just like, oh, yeah. Like it's just we're just watching two different movies. Because women are just like, well, yeah, no, this is this is a to me. This is like a it's a warning manual for what not to go after. And men are just like, oh, oh man you can't have it all i think that a lot of people use this movie as a manual but for very different things where guys

are like oh this is you know like they they view joseph gordon levitt like you're saying it's like scorned yeah mistreated uh they're oh god the scene where he's like i say we're a couple god damn it and you're just like no you know where is that where he runs down the staircase and he's like no you go ahead yes two women in the hallway and it's like screaming you're an angry piece of shit and then that scene is followed with her showing up at his door, drenched from the rain. And she's like, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten mad at you. Because this all happens after he punches a guy at a bar because he threatens his masculinity.

So there's that scene where a guy comes up, tries to hit on Summer. She's very clear about saying, I'm not interested. I'm flattered, but I have no interest. Please go over there and leave us alone. Yeah, she handled it. Yeah, it was done. Yeah, it was done. And the guy's all like, really?

This guy is your boyfriend? And then Joseph Gordon-Levitt stands up and punches him in the face and then gets punched back. Yeah. And she is very mad at him, understandably so. Well, and he punches that guy because he's not her boyfriend he punches him because he can't punch her like to me it's like that that whole scene is just him being like i'm not even the thing that you think i am and then fuck you summer for not letting me be the thing because it's like he he also earlier could have been like

hey back off dude and then just like like like, he also earlier could have been like, hey, back off, dude. And then just like, there were moments that he could have also backed her up. And he never backed her up. The only time that he got mad is when he was called a boyfriend and he's not a boyfriend. Well, he only cares about her as it pertains to him. Outside of that, he has no interest in her.

Right. And on that note, we're going to take a quick break. Everyone just take a lap take a lap Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered there are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks.

Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged.

I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't

noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds, Sword Quest. This wasn't just a new game. Atari promised 150 grand in prizes to four finalists, but the prizes disappeared. And what started as a video game promotion became one of the most controversial moments in 80s pop culture. I just don't believe they exist. My reaction, shock and awe.

That sword was amazing. It was so beautiful. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest, a podcast about the fall of Atari and the disappearing Sword Quest prizes. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. It's almost like a metaphor for the industry and Atari itself in a way. Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Woo!

Yeah, I mean, it's so weird because it's like we're trying to have a conversation about Summer, but we literally don't know enough about her. We know these few tweef, like next bus facts about her hair. Her parents are divorced. She loves cutting her hair off because she feels nothing. Well, there's also...

The divorce narrative, too, I feel like is used to be like, oh, well, that's why she doesn't believe in love. It's like, maybe she just doesn't. Right. She doesn't need that. We see that also in The Holiday with Cameron Diaz's character. The Holiday. The Holiday. Cameron Diaz, like, her parents got divorced when she was 15 and her

whole thing now is that she cannot cry she has not cried since she was 15 years old because she's so damaged from her parents being divorced 20 years ago but yeah so we see so yeah we we I guess, why she's so emotionally damaged. And it's because her parents split up when she was younger. It's also so crazy because everybody has friends whose parents are divorced if their parents aren't divorced themselves who live perfectly fine lives. And it's just such like a lie that it's like it's really insulting. Yeah, it's lazy and insulting to make that like a thing that we know about her. Yeah. Yeah, it's lazy and insulting to make that a thing that we know about her. There's a few scenes in this movie that I wanted to just go through because I feel like they have become semi-modern iconic in ways that are weird.

The expectations versus reality scene is constantly cited as a joke at this point. But it's something that comes up all the time. And I mean, I think we may have even covered it already, Brandyy because it's like we don't see that from summer's point of view no and that scene is very serving to the joseph gordon levitt character where it gets a lot of sympathy for him where he's like he just wants a girlfriend but he drinking a beer at the rooftop party alone like he's at the rooftop party another scene that that I loved the first time I saw it was the dance scene after he has sex with her. Oh, yeah. Which rung to me this time sinister.

Yeah. As like a conquering kind of thing. Right. For sure. Because she makes it clear in the other, the last iconic scene I wanted to talk about, the Ikea scene, where that was, oh my God, when I was a teenager, forget it. I was like, this is the template for love. This is also something I can afford to do. Let's all go to Burbank. horrible teenagers, just the sweaty, hormonal teenagers the summer this movie came out.

Just laying, just spread-eagling and dry-humping all over the Ikea. The poor summer of 09, probably not a good time to be working at Ikea. But she explicitly... I got finger-banked on top of a naan. Hot. Yes. But she makes it clear to him in the ikea scene she said you know she kind of establishes the boundary before they have sex of like this is fun you're fun like don't yeah text

me walls of text the second you leave my house yeah kind of thing right just have a good time this is fun you know it's it's it seems pretty clear it was not clear to me when i first saw it but she does make that clear and then he does have sex with her and then it's it seems pretty clear it was not clear to me when i first saw it but she does make that clear and then he does have sex with her and then it's this yeah the fucking returning conqueror sensitive boy where again the movie has no idea that it's doing this but just the implication that that is like he got what he wanted. He was pursuing this like girl that he was pining over and then when he finally gets to have sex with her it was like the best moment

of his life where there's like dancers in the street and a marching band. Passionless missionary. Passionless missionary. Absolutely. Nothing was going on. That was some really boring hetero nonsense that was happening

doesn't at one point like the only other relationship he had when he's like in fifth grade or something that's like a line that they say like your last girlfriend he's talking he's saying that to his friend mackenzie okay he's like you the lot you don't know what you're talking about the last girlfriend you had was in seventh grade and you dated for three hours oh okay got it um so we don't we don't know a ton about Tom's, but we do know a little bit about Summer's relationship history because he asks her about it and she's reluctant to talk about it, but he kind of presses her and she's like, okay, fine. And the one thing I want to mention about that is she's like, oh, for a brief time in college, there was Charlie. And it cuts to what his imagining of charlie to look like which is like a guy in a punk band or something like that and then summer says

she was nice and then his face goes oh what what what and then it cuts to a woman in the same band yeah what is happening there to me is it's glossing over a queer relationship yep she could not say less about this character charlie um and it's also like a suggestion of oh it happened in college so it was just her experimenting it was a phase like yep very dismissive and that leads me to so i want to go back to how characters talk about women queer people For example, there is a moment where Tom is talking to his friends, Paul and Mackenzie, and they're all like, well, what's going on with you and Summer? Like, are you boyfriends or whatever?

Tell me more, tell me more. Yeah. And Tom's like, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever. Like, we're adults. We don't need to put labels on it. And then Mackenzie for no reason says, you sound gay. And Paul says, you really do. And it's like, what?

What? That scene was baffling. I mean, it is like 2009. And like, I would say we're peak no homo around this time. For sure. And this is not to just really take every opportunity to take a gigantic dump all over judd apatow but i will yeah this was like around the time where the judd apatow no homo oeuvre was like unfolding where it was like oh men can be friends now as long as they

constantly state that they could not be gay and they always have to be, when they're friends, they have to be shitting on women. But, you know, a real lateral move of like, men are allowed to be friends. It's not gay to be friends as long as you're always saying it's not gay to be friends.

The implication is that gays are bad and women are bad. Love that guy. Also demonstrated... But gay women, cool. Hot. Totally hot. Especially in college. But gay women, cool. Hot. Totally hot.

Especially in college. Deport Seth Rogen. There's a moment. Send her to North Korea. So we still need to talk about the sister character, but there's a moment where his sister is like giving him advice about like, oh, you just need to like ask her what you guys are doing in your relationship. And he's like, oh, that sounds hard.

And she's like, just do it and just don't be a pussy. And it's like using that language, calling a man a pussy is suggesting that he is weak and effeminate and bad. And then like his 12-year-old sister calling him a pussy. So let's talk about that character. I don't even know if I have anything to say other than what an insufferable trope that I hate. It's awful. Yeah, we're seeing... It's so lazy.

It's so lazy. It's a way to... For usually male writers who don't know how to write children or you know pre-adolescent girls oh let's just make her wise beyond her years make her know exactly how to be an adult so we see this trope in a couple other movies that i could think of off the top of my head which was like the nice guys i feel like this happens in kick-ass yeah paper moon some people were talking about that um i know it's other places i just can't remember jerry mcguire show jerry mcguire yeah little kid is a real smart right but i'm talking about specifically like 10 to 13 year old girls

yeah who seem to only hang out with adults seem to know how to give the best advice for adult situations. It's just such a lazy, tropey... This character, she does not exist. You've never met a 12-year-old girl like that. No, for sure. She's not even sweating. 12-year-old girls are never not sweating. She's playing soccer.

The line that she says is because she's giving him a relationship advice she tells tom you don't want to ask her because you're afraid you'll get an answer that you don't want which will shatter the illusion of how great the last few months will been it's like that i'm not smart enough to say that and i'm bitch, bitch, I'm 32. It's incredibly lazy. And the way it's using this character is kind of like, she's not like the other girls. That kind of deal where, I don't know. This whole movie is very incel. For sure.

Honestly, I was like, there's a subreddit where just shitty little virgins just talk about this movie constantly and are just like right god summer every summer's a stacy like that's their yeah yeah they're it's chloe grace moratz i mean i've i feel for her because she seems like a smart young lady but boy has she been thrown some real crummy parts since she was a very young girl. That's a bummer. Yeah. So that character absolutely sucks. And is used to say mean things about women and is sold out by the male screenwriter to be like well if a girl says that women are

bitches then it's like his little get out of jail free card yeah he's like it's too mean coming from his grown-ass adult male friends so i guess we'll just have the little girl say it instead and that's her whole purpose is just to be like another bro and then the other tool i feel like he uses is like when the movie came out it it is the narrative does a lot to mask what a shitty guy Tom is. But another way they accomplish that is by giving him shittier friends. Yeah. Where they're like, well, he's the best one out of them. Yeah.

So, of course, you should settle for him. We haven't met a man who's better than him. Yeah. But he's awful he's just happens to be the most you know nice passing guy and in this movie where everyone else is just straight up yeah they've they just which is almost more admirable it's like at least i know who you are where tom god the whole thing where he's sketching out the skyline i'm like do you know that architects build one building at a time? What the fuck are you doing?

Yeah. This isn't how you're an architect. This is not how to be an architect. Yeah. You're just painting, you're drawing skylines. It's just being an architect. I was like,

is he going to, is his dream to build 12 buildings? He just wants to build Los Angeles. That's his dream. Yeah. Those buildings are already done. I just want to sketch. It's done. Yeah. I just want to sketch. It's done.

Yeah. I just want to sketch the most boring postcards. I think that's, he's moving from greeting cards to postcards. Oh, and this scene where he's like, this is bullshit. And, you know, when he's like lashing out at work, he's like, love is actually more complicated than a card. And it's like, wow, hot take, you fucking genius. Yeah. Ugh. What a fucking narc loser.

He's basically a cop. I hate him. Yeah. Tom is definitely a cop. Abolish Tom. Abolish Tom. Abolish Tom. In that monologue he's giving, he does say that it's like pop songs and greeting cards

and movies that have fed him the lies of what romance is, which goes to show. And it's also true in the very beginning like the voiceovers saying that he had this belief that he wouldn't never be happy until he met the one which stemmed from sad british pop music and a total misreading of the movie the graduate which just goes to show how influential media is yeah right how movies lead us astray all the time. I also, on that note, there's, I guess, a visual joke. It's a scene where Tom and Summer go to the movies, and it shows the marquee of the movie that they're seeing, and it reads, part vampire, part giant, va-giant, which I guess is supposed to be a vagina joke

But It's not my least favorite joke I've ever heard Yeah And I have to That's something I have to fight Yeah It's my favorite part of the movie I didn't care for that

I think The bar is so low though My favorite part of the movie is when it cuts to a screen That Han Solo is on And he like gives a little wink That was That part's pretty great That glimmer of Star Wars was my favorite part of 500 Days of Summer.

I like the goop. I honestly just kept watching and being like, you know, I would make this movie great if like she took off her skin and was an alien. At one point, I just kept being like, what would make me like this? And I was like, oh, if like all of her like, i don't want a relationship is because she's she's from march well at one point whenever tom is on the date with this other girl and i want to talk about that scene oh yeah but he's all like i can only come to two conclusions she's either just an emotionless stupid bitch or she's a robot and that would have been like that would have been just like turned out to be a terminator just powers go for it yes there that's a great i love that yeah make that turn in the movie i was

like where's that third act where she's just like and then she fights mothra great done i i was reading um i was just sort of going through some of the stuff that's been written about because a lot of people's viewing of this movie has changed over the years rightfully so I found an interesting post from I don't know what her full name is her name is Jen and she wrote a really wonderful comprehensive piece about this and she names because the

conversation around this movie is a very manic pixie dream girl and that's true and that's present in a lot of movies but she names the Joseph Gordon-Levitt character depressive entitled fantasy lad. D-E-F-L. And I really liked that. Yeah.

Because that's absolutely what he is. The entitlement is something that just never hit with me the first time I saw it. But it's so, you know, that line, I love how she makes me feel. You know, like he doesn't love her at all. And just that it's such a common thing in relationships coming from the man, especially just in my personal experience of like someone just having an idea of you and then getting to know you makes them angry. Yeah. Which is horrible. And that's exactly what happens in this movie.

The better he gets to know her, the less he likes her because he doesn't actually like her. Right. He wants a specific thing and has found the correct vessel to project onto. But also, how could he like her? Because we know nothing about her. Like, nothing about her personality is really established. There's a moment toward the beginning there's more voiceover narration where uh the voiceover says there's

only two kinds of people in the world there's women and there's men which one that fails to acknowledge that gender is a spectrum and that there are many people 2009 come on what about all the people who do not fall within that gender binary? Anyway. And then it goes on to say that Summer Finn was a woman. Whenever she worked at an ice cream parlor, everyone went to it. And whenever she tries to rent an apartment, everyone gives her a discount. And like all this stuff where I recently learned about the Mary Sue trope.

And I was curious to see what you guys thought about whether or not she falls into that trope. If you're not familiar, Mary Sue's, and it's kind of hard to classify because a lot of people kind of interpret it different ways. But from what I gather, Mary Sue is a trope female character in which she is essentially perfect. She has no real discernible flaws her beauty is coveted by everyone everyone thinks she's marvelous and great but aside from that she's also just underdeveloped like those are the only things we really know about her it's more common i think fan fiction from what i understand this trope but but there's also like bella swan is cited as like the quintessential mary sue where

like everyone loves her even though she's like ordinary she's like very uh from twilight oh i don't know that's for sure not for me just the look of sheer shutdown rejection that came over brandy's face just now let's do it oh no no no no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because Charlize's character is a Mary Steele member. Oh, interesting. That's how I think of it as more of an action.

In my head, it's more of an action hero. She has all of the skills to solve a plot point, kind of. I became aware of it through superhero movies of the token woman in an action movie or the token woman in a superhero movie because that is almost uniformly the case until very recently and still sometimes anyways got it okay yes i think there are those kind of different interpretations where i also i like watched a video where people were saying that ray from the new star wars

is a mary sue type because she can do everything right away and she's perfect and everyone loves her but i don't necessarily think summer fits this cat and the more i like was watching it this time i don't necessarily even know that she is a manic pixie dream girl in the way that like natalie portman is in uh or kirsten dunst in elizabeth town was like where the was the source of uh nathan raybent the the writer for the av club even naming the trope. But because she's not manic is the thing, but she, I would say is a pixie dream girl, but that's because we see her so often in someone else's thoughts,

you know, where it's like, I don't know the character itself. It seems like there's more there that the movie just isn't interested in. So I don't really know what to do with that, where it seems like there is like some complex stuff about her that Tom never inquires into because he doesn't really care. Yeah.

So we see her as a manic pixie dream girl, or at least a pixie dream girl. But I don't think that that's actually what the character is. I don't know. That's what he wants. Yeah, that's what he wants. He wants her to be that. So he stops looking beyond. He's just like, your favorite Beatles, Ringo.

You're such a pixie. Dream girl. Meanwhile, I don't know who his favorite Beatle is. You fucking coward. How about you match it and you tell me who you think is the best. I mean, Paul. Oh, yeah. No, he likes Lennon because he wants to hit a woman really bad. For sure. He's definitely a John

Lennon guy. Oh, yeah. I love John Lennon and Morrissey. And they're just like really good guys. Yeah, it's like, oh, are you also investing in crypto, you fucking psycho? He loves Bitcoin. God, he loves crypto. Oh, yeah. That should be added to that. And then entitled Bitcoin bro lad.

Entitled Bitcoin lad. Will you accept crypto for this Morrissey vinyl? Hi, I'm a murderer. Can we talk about one of the only other female characters in this movie, which is the girl that he goes on a date with after he's been broken up with. This poor woman. This character's name is Allison. That's her first mistake.

She should have been New Moon or something. Her name is allison um how that that's her first mistake it should have been she should have been new moon or something her name is january and um so they go on a date he treats her like absolute shit yeah um he tells her very upfront saying this isn't going anywhere uh because basically i'm in love with someone else. He only talks about summer. He only talks about how he's heartbroken over her. And then we see a moment where she's like, okay, let me get this straight. She never cheated on you. She never took advantage of you. And she told you up front that she didn't want a boyfriend.

And we, as the audience, are like, oh, maybe he's going to come to a realization. Is this the moment? Nope. And instead he goes, I have a great idea. Let's go to sing karaoke. So you see him continuing to be the entitled guy that he is, having no self-awareness, having

no idea how he has approached this whole relationship with Summer has been completely wrong and entitled and bad. Yeah, he learns nothing. Poor allison she didn't do anything wrong no she was so patient with him she was good for her for second locationing with him right

like i would have been like i think i'm done uh we really saw allison do some serious emotional labor yeah for a strange man who hated her. Which is like, I've been Allison. I don't know. I think we have probably. Have you ever gone on a date with a man who's like, let me talk about my ex-girlfriend the whole time and also I hate you. They're like, oh,

cool. I'll sink six months into this. Let's do it. Also, as a former karaoke host, this guy for sure doesn't tip you can tell he's not a tipper definitely not see it in all of his choices he has a 4chan account like this there's something wrong with this man also like one one of the many points where i had to be like do not check out it was also when she sang sugar land or whatever that song is sugar town yeah sugar town full nancy yeah she sang sugar town but they didn't have Born to Run in that karaoke.

Right? It was just a way to drop. I also like Bruce Springsteen. How dare you? As a former KJ. That is not how the books work. Karaoke jockey? Yeah.

That's what we're called. Former KJ. I'm surprised that that wasn't included in your intro. I was going to plug it in the outro. Hey're called. Former KJ. I'm surprised that that wasn't included in your intro. I was going to plug it in the outro. Hey, ladies, former KJ. Yeah, I'm just like a former KJ. Yeah, that just made me mad. I was like, she has to sing the Twia song just to make her even more ethereal and everything.

Right. Well, the song that she chooses as a frequent karaoke attendee, a K.A., if you will, you want other people to sing fun songs that you can sing along to and all have an uproarious time. Her song choice is stupid. It's a bad choice. Like no one wants to sing along with that. No one's having a good time with that song. Rude. Yeah. Anyway. Some hot karaoke takes.

I'm too scared to do karaoke. I'm a baby. Really? I've never done it. The trick is you have to get really drunk. I'm good at that. Not the karaoke part. I don't know.

I want to talk about the scene that happens in the copy room after the, there's a surprise kiss in this movie where it's the friday night where they're all at karaoke his drunk friend mckenzie is like he likes you he's the 4chan account guy yeah for sure he's on 8chan now for sure And then whenever Summer's like, is that true? Do you like me? Joseph Gordon-Levitt's like, no, as friends maybe, but I don't like you. Because he's an immature little asshole. Yeah. Then the weekend passes and they're in the office together in the copy room. They kind of look at each other and then she just like saunters up to him and plants a right on his face yeah first of all this is they're at work like not appropriate technically

harassment uh yeah workplace harassment and you know he's into it because he fucking loves her or loves the idea of her but yeah it's just like really that's how so much of it it was also like looking back as it is recollections of him i'm always have with the movie i was like is any of this even the way things happened and true like is this all just like your memory of like and then she sauntered up to me and she fucking planted one on me in the copy room right right like how much is skewed yeah or did it happen where he was like leering over her and then she turned around and he was like, oh, her turning around means she wants to kiss.

Yeah. And I kissed her and then she was my ward for her. Also, it's fully 290 days of summer and then 210 days of Joseph Gordon-Levitt not being able to accept a breakup. They break up on day 290 days of summer and then 210 days of Joseph Gordon-Levitt not being able to accept a breakup. They break up on day 290 and then he stalks her. And then can we talk about where the movie leaves off? Because this is Joseph Gordon-Levitt decides he's going to build 500 buildings. He draws another skyline.

He's like, me going to get a job. I was like like for what for you you have to pick one and they can't be believed that are already there you have to design your own building that's so stupid he has not had an original thought in the entire movie and that includes being an architect right he's so stupid but there's a scene at the end where he's once again drawing buildings that already exist outside and sees Summer and she's in a new relationship because she has to be in a relationship. Of course. And he kind of got good luck chucked where she met someone who wasn't a total. I mean, maybe he is a total chode.

We don't know because the movie doesn't care about Summer. But she's like, I'm with someone now. I'm in a relationship and I'm happy. And I think that this is a sticking point for a lot of the insolves who are like, she was lying. She did want a relationship

the whole time and she was just leading him on and blah, blah, blah. She never leads him on. She always tells him that she doesn't want to be in a relationship with him.

Probably because he sucks. And then at the end, he's the hero because he's able to sort of accept it and now he's going to build a building that exists already yeah exactly i hate him and again we're meant to believe like whenever they meet up again at the park toward the end of the 500 days of summer you know she's all like i'm somebody's wife how crazy is that it was fate i just knew when he like he's the one and the movie frames it so that the audience is supposed

to think oh man what a what a bitch for not choosing him what a bitch for not choosing tom this sensitive wonderful guy that we've grown to love and it's like no like the movie so irresponsibly frames so many of those scenes and situations like that and you know we when we revisit this movie we realize oh no like yeah he is the bad guy he is a possessive for sure creep well even like the way that she talks and that scene feels like him telling mackenzie what happened at the park. To be like, I know I'm a wife. Oh my God. Is this homemade?

My banks. Take place in his head. Like, do we ever actually meet Summer? It's just like the most insufferable being John Malkovich of all time. Being inside the head of an incel. I do want to see Summer talking to her friends of like, yeah, there's a guy I'm dating and just like whatever it's just because I don't know I've been in situations like that where I'm like yeah just like really nothing else is happening and yeah you know I don't think he's

gonna kill me I can't sometimes I'm just like I don't think he's gonna murder me and they're so sure great yeah it seems like it would be more trouble because he's an emotional psychopath and so it would be more difficult to break off than uh just like have sex with him every once in a while and appease this emotional vampire yeah exactly that's how i picture her talking about him like well he bought me swedish meatballs once so he has two dollars yeah so oh that's fun i want to talk more about that ikea scene where when they're like goofing around they're all they're having fun and their sink is broken and like teehee they're lying on a bed at one point and then he like looks up and he's like summer i don't know

how to tell you this but there's a chinese family in our bathroom and then it cuts to this family and they're all like uh and then they walk away. And it's just another example of how the white straight characters in this movie talk disparagingly about marginalized people. Where it's like, one, how do you know they're Chinese specifically? Two, like that's played for a joke. As in like, ooh, what's this ethnic family doing here? Ruining our perfect white hetero moment. Yeah, exactly.

Why would they want to look at a bedroom? Right. Why would they be in a Swedish blonde store? This movie is painfully Caucasian. Oh, God. Yvette Nicole Brown is in it for a second. Yes. And her talents are way underused because I love her.

I think she's very funny. Yeah, she's great. And then there's a moment in the park where they're screaming penis over and over again. And then people are like, why are they screaming penis? And they're like, it's okay. We have Tourette's. And it's like, no, okay. You're making fun of a disability now.

Cool. There's another moment when they're like... Also, you're not in 10th grade. I hate... They're like in their late 20s? Yeah. If you can vote, you can't play the penis game anymore. I hate, yeah. In their late 20s? Yeah, if you can vote, you can't play the penis game anymore. I'm sorry, you're done. I love that limitation.

I remember after that where boys were doing that again at school and I, you know, listen, I'm a grown adult and I have been since I was 13 years old. I do not play the penis game. Wow, brag. Yeah, I guess that's the penis game. Wow. Brag.

I guess that's all I have to say. Also, why's it gotta be the penis game? Why can't it be a vagina game? I don't want to play that game ever. I don't want to either. Grow up. I do want to go see the movie Vagiant. What's it about? I don't know. I can't wait to do our episode on teeth. Oh yes. That'll be a thrill.

There's also a moment where tom is on the phone with mackenzie and he's like are you coming to this wedding and mackenzie's like i'm not gonna go to that wedding it's gonna be old people because old people are gross old people also turned out to be code for black yeah oh yeah that wedding is very weird i was like what's happening i don't know what to do with this information because they're the only basically the only two white people i like an all african american wedding yeah right and i was like what is this choice what's whose wedding was that that was some of their colleagues yeah co-workers yeah co-workers wedding i was like what did you

realize you needed to be diverse and you're like well we have the wedding we have one scene yeah we'll just put all the black people in one wedding scene. And none of them get to talk. No. Or, you know, play any significant role in the story. It's like set dressing. It's the Wes Anderson thing of using minorities as set dressing. Right.

So that if anyone ever challenges, why are there only white people in your movie? He's like, oh, no, they're in the background all the time. You know? They're in the background, not time you know like and where they're in the background not talking not having any characterization yeah also worth saying that mark webb who is just the throbbing chode behind this movie has gone on to have a very successful film career uh he directed the andrew garfield spider-man movies those are bad though especially the second one. He's bad. And last year he made a movie that I couldn't get through.

I tried to go see as a joke and I could not get through it. That movie Gifted about the child we're talking about, the really smart kid. Talent like it is, kid. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, on that note, this movie is directed by a man written by two men it's the story is being told through the lens of this male character it's like so much about perspective too yeah yeah it's crazy like it would have been this movie would have been

interesting with a female director to like tamper some of that and to be like let's balance this more and like there's a way to tell this story correctly sure you know but yeah i mean this is not this is not it i do yeah i do want to see a version of this movie where he's punished yeah yeah absolutely she like lets out one of her tendrils at the end and she's just like ah i wasn't'm Martian the whole time. Slurp. Chomp, chomp, chomp. Does anyone have any other final thoughts about this movie? This movie is bad.

People should stop watching it. Yeah. It's not a fun hate watch. No. It is just, it sucks and it'll remind you of a version of yourself you won't like very much. Yeah. This movie was very well reviewed when it came out big success my favorite glowing review of this movie was uh that it was the best romantic comedy since love actually oh wow yeah so great movie fuck this movie the end yeah it's really ice cream grabbing a couple of reviews because they made me very very fucking

angry this is great sometimes you never ever truly figure out why these mysterious creatures break your heart ah i was left for a line mysterious creatures being robots slash aliens yeah yeah i will say the uh the world socialist website gave it a negative review. They're very smart for doing that. They were like, this is bad. It sucks. I mean, it sucks from every angle, too, where it's like, lazily written, bad for women, bad for men, bad for... The entire spectrum of gender is punished in this movie. It's a bad, punishing experience.

Yeah, absolutely. Everyone loved it. And it also tries to play itself off as like, I feel like now the damage control has been like, but it's satire. And it's like, no, it's not. It's not satire. That was never the intent. That's not the intent of this movie at all. It comments

on nothing. Nothing is subverted by this movie. One of my Twitter chodes was like, it's just like Starship Troopers. I'm like, hello? How dare you? Number one, do not come for Starship Troopers. Do not come ever again. Yeah, you don't deserve

to come. You're done. You're done coming. But he was like, it's a satire just like that. And I was like, no, it's not. That's not the point of it. I guess I need to revisit Starship Troopers. It's pretty fun. OK.

Great. That one probably actually does pass the Bechdel test, I think. I'd be interested in that. Well, speaking of. Speaking of which, I was like, oh, here's Caitlin's chance. I love a good transition. That's how you know I'm a good podcast guest. I was like, I see the clock.

I see where we're going. You're no stranger. Does 500 Days of Summer pass the Bechdel test? No. Not even close, really. Not even close. Actively avoided it. Yeah.

Really goes out of its way. I don't think two female characters even interact in this entire movie. No. I think this movie is over if two women talk in this movie because they'd be like, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's kind of a fucking jerk. Yeah. And then, you know, we cut it off at day four and I'll go home.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, you're right. Imagine the conversation between Allison, the girl that he goes on one date with, and Summer. And they'd just be like, remember when we remember when we spent any time with that guy? He sucked. He was a nothing. Weird guy. Yeah, in retrospect, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's like, oh, remember that weird guy at work who was obsessed with you?

Yeah. Man. He's trying to be an architect now, but I don't think he knows what he's doing. Yeah, he just draws skyline of existing buildings yeah it's just buildings that are already there he doesn't fundament he went to school for it i just don't know how he has a degree buildings are there they already exist they're done he's just drawing the world trade center over and over again what's happening go to a space that's empty void of building yes and then make one also you know that iconic la

skyline right this movie does really want to take place in new york very badly very badly um well shall we rate the movie on our nipple scale yeah so we rate the movie based on its portrayal of women a zero to five nipple rating scale i'm gonna go ahead and give it i'll say a one nipple i'm giving it that many and not fewer because i do like that for a split second if we just kind of ignore all the other context of the movie we see representation of a woman who is not like marriage obsessed and not going gaga over, you know, trying to find a boyfriend. But because that trait of hers is demonized in this movie and made to seem like she's a bitch because she doesn't want to instantly marry Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character. That is one of the many problems of this movie. This movie is also extremely white, extremely hetero.

It doesn't do as badly as some movies we've seen in queer bashing, but it's certainly not an ally. No, there's no queer characters. Unless you count Summer's one queer relationship in college, which again is so glossed over that we can hardly even begin to understand what that was. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just it's us supposed to be sympathizing with an extremely entitled, possessive guy who the movie would want you to think is this super sensitive, wonderful person when in reality he sucks and summer's character is wildly underdeveloped uh the sister character is that stupid trope that really dumb trope that

does not no 12 year old girls are like that nope yeah. Yeah. There's just so many problems with it. And I give it one nipple and that nipple belongs to, I guess, Allison. Yeah. The girl that he goes on one date with and treats like shit. Yes. She deserves more. And yeah, she was like the one rational female character that we see. Yeah. Exactly.

I'm giving this movie no nipples at all. I would give it negative if I could. I stand for Zooey Deschanel in that I find her to be more sympathetic than, and whatever, already went through that. But I think seeing this movie as a teenager had a negative effect on my life. And I resent that. It affected, for sure, my behaviors around boys. It affected how I would allow myself to be treated.

And where it's like you see a movie where... And this is, I mean, this movie is not the sole source of this, but just because I was the exact right age to get all the wrong messages from this movie when it came out and so was everyone i went to school with yeah i mean it it affected the way i viewed myself it affected the way i assigned value in a relationship yeah i think that it just it it did nothing good for anyone and it it did make Joseph Gordon-Levitt a huge star. And then he went on to play the role a million times and no one ever gave him trouble about it.

Anyways, this movie fucking sucks and I have no nipples to give. Hell yeah. I will give it also zero nipples. Or like, I had a breast reduction a few years ago. I'll give it the leavings of my old boobs. You get a couple of pieces. You get your scraps. The remnants.

You get my tit scraps. There you go. That's all you deserve. Because you should be confronted with something that is real at some point. So that's what you get. The only way that you should be allowed to watch this movie is with a woman in your 30s sitting next to you with a remote control that they can pause and then hit you with the newspaper if you agree with something that just happened. It's the only way that you can watch this movie. Everyone, see if Brandy will agree to watch this movie with you.

Venmo her a million dollars and maybe she'll consider it. I would love to watch you watch this movie. I was just angrily petting my dog last night. You just became a therapy animal. Yeah, this movie is garbage. It's done. I washed my hands of it.

Well, Brandi, thank you so much for coming on this journey with us for 500 hours of talking about summer. Where can people follow you online? what would you like to plug uh yeah i'm on twitter and instagram at brand dazzle you can find me there um and then my website's brandyposie.com and that has all my tour dates and deets i do i'm on the road like four or five months out of the year so i go all over the place i'm a stand-up so um i'm

pretty fun live come hang out i promise i promise i'm a good time and then i have a podcast called lady to lady uh that's myself barbara gray and tess barker and we have like a different guest on every week and uh you guys have both been on yeah it's a real it's a real real silly fun time we just kind of gab and have a good time and basically uh live our live a bechdel life at all times great feels feels real good yeah find me there um i have a show in la monthly called picture this that's comedians paired up with animators and you live animate your jokes behind you during their set and it's a very silly and it's the virgil monthly and then we do that around the country a little bit too but brand dazzle and

brandy posey.com has all that info and of, don't forget your illustrious career as a KJ. Yes. A karaoke junkie. Oh, yeah. Where did you KJ back in the day, Jay? All Star Lanes in Eagle Rock. Oh, good. That's us. Wow.

I like that place. I bowl there. It rules. Wow. Yeah. I bowl. Yeah, I bowl. Bowling alley, dive bar, karaoke lounge, Chinese restaurant.

It rules. It rules really great um you can follow us the bechtel cast on twitter instagram facebook at bechtel cast you can subscribe to our matreon it's five dollars a month and you get two bonus episodes every single month it's august so that means uh on the on the mat this month, we've got the episode everyone's been asking for, Doubt. We have Doubt, and then we'll also have Hackers, because Caitlin's being very patient with me this month. It's your birthday, your birthday month. So I got to pick my favorite movie, Doubt, and a movie I haven't seen, Hackers. So go to the Mat Patreon for all of that.

And you can go to our website, Bechtelcast.com, and we've got all kinds of merch there. We've got our episodes there. Just, yeah, check us out online. And I'm going to go sketch a building that exists. I'm going to go talk to a Latinx person in Los Angeles at some point today. Oh, yes, please. Oh, God, it took person in Los Angeles at some point today. Oh, yes, please.

Oh, God, it took place in Los Angeles. And it's so... But did it. Oh, goodness. Well, you know, blessings. Good tidings to you. Bless your heart. And God bless us, everyone.

Goodbye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel,

available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me? Available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane, what we can do about it, and why we should care. Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson.

26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free

and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts.