The Bechdel Cast - Alien Resurrection with Gracie Gillam

Episode Date: September 23, 2021

Space pirates Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Gracie Gillam board a spaceship full of aliens and discuss Alien: Resurrection.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @grace_phippson 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.

Hey everybody, this is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture.

Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour.

If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. Quick content warning for this episode. There is an occasional mention of rape, rape metaphors, and incest. Not a pervasive part of our discussion, but it is present. So we just wanted you to know. Enjoy the episode! On the Bechdelcast, 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 bechdel cast earth man what a shithole damn it's true where's the lie where's the lie uh i love a movie whose last line really thinks they're doing something but actually just serves to remind you that you know nothing about the character you've been watching for two hours she's like i have no idea i've never been here you're like wow beautiful inspiring and it's sigourney weaver and winona rider being like wow earth look how pretty it is but it had already been established in the movie that earth is a shithole so i don't understand

what that's about well but then they got that they must have they they landed you know somewhere pretty and they they gaslit themselves and they're thinking it doesn't suck ass here which it does they shot a version of the ending of the movie with the same dialogue but them in front of green screen with a desolate Paris in the background. It's just like a broken Eiffel Tower. And like, they're like, the military is going to come get us. And then Winona the Rider's like, well, you could get pretty lost in a place like this. What do you want to do?

And then it's the same. I don't know. I'm a stranger here myself. But it's just like desert land Paris in the background. That's kind of fun. But also much like a lot of thoughts I was having during this movie. What? Huh?

And why? I am so excited to talk about this movie that truly, I mean, for Bechtel cast listeners, there's just, I feel like most of the time we have a grip on at least what's sort of going on. But this is one of those fun, rare episodes where I'm like, I'm at sea. to be our little Titanic lifeboat with the movie Alien Resurrection 1997, a.k.a. a movie that struggled to find watertight compartments to film in

because Titanic was shooting next door. Yes. Okay, so really quickly, this is the Bechdel cast. Welcome to it. I'm Caitlin Durante. I'm Jamie Loftus. And this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point. Jamie, remind me, please. What is it? Okay. So the Bechdel test is a media metric invented by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. There's a lot of versions of it. Our version is get ready this. We require that two characters

of a marginalized gender with names speak to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue and that it has to be a meaningful interaction and we can't get more specific about that you know it when you see it and yeah that's basically the test this movie i mean i the ways in this in which this movie passes are so joss whedon and I don't really mean that as a compliment right yes and we have a wonderful returning guest she's an actor you've seen her in Teen Beach movie Z Nation and the new movie streaming on Shudder app called Superhost it's Gracie Gillum. Hello. Hello, everybody. Thanks for having me back. Welcome back. Welcome back. I think we should open this episode with your rendition of the Bechdel cast theme song. Maybe we'll edit that in. I feel like that's the only way. I recorded, I like screen recorded it when you first posted it because because I'm weird so we have it I love that you don't

know what that means to me because every episode that I listen to my boyfriend and I do sing along with the harmonies to the opening number just like oh like we can't help but I have to sing along to the very very catchy opening thank you thank you for. That makes us so happy. Or also sometimes when we watch sexist movies, we just sing it. Of course. Shouts out to our friend Mike Kaplan for writing the song and to Catherine, a.k.a. Rini Voskrasinski for singing, for doing the vocals of our song. So shouts out to our pals. Yes. of our song so shouts out to our pals yes we uh now a song that five years ago around now was

being composed for the first time which is so wild caitlin i realized that this podcast is my uh longest relationship relationship yes wow same yeah Look at us go. Same. Wow. Oh, my goodness. Still in love after all these years. Oh, the spark will never die. What is the gift for a five-year anniversary? I don't know. Ooh.

That's actually, Caitlin, we should have a weekend. Oh, wait. We should finally go to Magic Mike Las Vegas like we keep saying we will. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Wait. Five-year anniversary gift. the traditional five-year anniversary gift is wood a symbol of strong roots in an enduring relationship kaylin i'm gonna plant

a tree and be like happy anniversary baby i'm gonna carve alfred melina's face out of a slab of wood with just a little butter knife oh god every time i forget the wood anniversary i feel like that's a punishment for not being in a relationship long enough i thought it was gonna be like gold right it feels like the gifts must get worse and worse as your relationship goes on what anniversary i think paper even comes after that which is just processed wood wait really who made this list paper's one of them and it's shockingly late one i think i like 50 years guess what paper divorce you it. You can get out of here. Oh my gosh. Okay. So Gracie, you have brought us Alien Resurrection, the fourth movie in the Alien franchise that came out in 1997. Tell us about your relationship, your history with this film. I brought this movie and I do not apologize, Jamie, for making you watch it for the first time. Thank you. I had not watched it until June of 2020. I had seen Alien, I'm sure, in some sort

of LA theater screening, then revisited them, I think just because they were on HBO Max or whatever, and watched the 2003 director's Cut, which I think is just wildly better. The tension in the Director's Cut, I think, is so much better than when you, even after watching Director's Cut, re-watching Alien is good. It's good. But the amount of, not a lot of movies, I think, benefit from long shots of hallways. The 2003 Director's cut of Alien very

much does and then I went through and watched more of them including the first Alien vs. Predator and Alien Resurrection is by far my favorite Alien movie and maybe among like easily top 10 or 15 movies for me I think this movie is doing everything that I really want it to be doing. I know that this is not a popular opinion. No, I love it. I love coming in hot. Coming in hot. Critics have Rotten Tomatoes rated this movie

54% fresh and the audience has disagreed with a 39% and I'm going to disagree with both of those. It's 100%. It's at least a 92. I'm so fascinated. I'm truly so excited because I'm at a point where I'm just confused, and so my mind is very open to being changed.

I feel like I can be taught here. I'm curious. Did you watch Alien Cubed, the third one? I've seen it. I'm open to, I feel like I can be taught here. I'm curious, did you watch Alien Cubed, the third one? I've seen it. I didn't. I knew that, Caitlin, you had. It's honestly, it's skippable, like, you know, like the first episode, like people say you can skip the first episode of Star Wars, of Star Wars movies. Like, it is pretty skippable. You don't have to know very much from it, but in terms of you watch it and the theme is just ruined and your heart is ruined. And then resurrection after that is very healing and satisfying. Oh, that's like in the order.

It seems like I did watch a bunch of franchise recap videos just to understand where exactly this is all coming from because my history with the alien franchise which listener i mean basically is all contained in the feet of this show where i've seen alien and aliens because we've covered it on the show this is just i this genre is so hard for me i cannot follow i get confused everyone's wearing the same outfit this is why i can't do war movies also i'm like i don't know who that is they're all wearing the same outfit and when people are on spaceships the whole movie uh it's like you're saying gracie it's it's a lot of hallways i don't know i'm not built for it but it's so fresh like do either of you have a genre or just like a vibe of a movie that it's like it's hard for me to connect with but i want

to like i want to and alien resurrection i mean it certainly held my attention because so much is happening the tone of this movie for me was so all over the place that i was on the edge of my seat just to see what genre the next scene was gonna take place in where like there's like the scene where it's like oh it's kind of a tense scene with one of the xenomorphs but then the scientist is like frenching the xenomorph like kiss me through the phone style it's like huh sometimes what is this like what is happening so i'm just i truly like i need to be carried through this movie in a little baby bjorn it's like true sometimes it's body horror sometimes it's a porn film sometimes it's space jam because they're playing basketball there's a whole scene that's the space jam yeah

yeah like what team wait does that mean i guess that technically couldn't sigourney like ripley eight could easily she would qualify to be on the Monstars would she not she's kind of a space alien she's an alien so yeah she can't be on Toon Squad she's not a cartoon so she has to be one of the Monstars no Dan Hydea is a cartoon in this movie Ron Perlman is a cartoon in this movie but not ripley no death is death is both very scary and also something that happens to you after you look at a part of take a part of your brain out and look at it it is very many genres that scene was like what movie am i watching it all like the production behind this movie,

I'm so excited to hear that you watched all the DVD extras, Gracie, because I was mostly interested in like, how did this movie get this way? Because it's such a specific way. And I wasn't surprised to hear that there were a lot of, like the director of this movie. Oh, let's see how I how i do oh good luck with this french jean-pierre jeunet jean-pierre jeunet yeah jean-pierre jeunet who we have covered his work

before in the form of amelie which i can't think of a more different movie on the planet uh but but i guess that he he wasn't really able to communicate directly with the actors he needed a translator to work with and so it sounds like from an actor perspective that everyone was kind of winging it in like trying to figure out what movie they were in and everyone seemed to land somewhere different and jean-pierierre was kind of like, we'll figure it out. Whatever. Yeah. He was apparently asking just crew members, like, what is like, like during recording a scene, like, what is he saying? Like about the dialogue that is in the scene?

Like, I think there was a lot of French people on set. And he says in the director's commentary, which I didn't finish because it was so little about story, that he spoke the least English. And like, this movie is visually cohesive, but the performances are not in the same film at all right which it does sound like and i'm a josh whedon detractor even even before he was revealed to be a piece of shit person it's just i don't i don't know i've never connected with this stuff. But he did seem to have some severe gripes with how this movie came out, where he had that quote that was like, everyone said every word of the movie wrong.

I was just like, huh. He's like, they said all the words that I wrote down, but they said them so confusing. Which I was like, I guess if I wrote that script, I would also be like i mean starting with ron perlman being like oh earth we got to go there that's a shithole and then at the end when they end up on earth they're like wow earth is beautiful it's like uh excuse me just the cloud part right right right the the this layer of the earth is is very beautiful yeah

joss whedon said quote uh it wasn't a question of doing everything differently although they changed the ending it was mostly a matter of doing everything wrong they said the lines mostly but they said them all wrong and they cast it wrong and they designed it wrong and they scored it wrong they did everything wrong that they could possibly do. Unquote. So he really did not like. That's very funny. I think it's very funny.

And also he's an asshole. So it's like, who gives a shit? But I was like, wow. I mean, I want, I'm curious of like, did he and the director ever get to like talk? Like, I don't know. It really doesn't seem so. I was really excited for some Joss Whedon commentary on this movie when I got the big package of it and was going to go into the special features. And I watched just so many special features.

And there was one clip of him and a long line of lots of people who designed props for it saying what they thought the next movie should be and how this movie should have ended. And it's's just him saying i feel like there's a lot of different directions it could go and that is the only joss whedon special feature that i was able to find just fully tapping out i also read some and i have not seen firefly before but uh i read a lot of pieces written about alien resurrection and a lot of theories that Firefly was Joss Whedon's attempt to like course correct what he wanted Alien Resurrection to be like. That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, because that show is also about space pirates doing space pirate stuff. So I can see that. So I guess if you wanted to see Joss Whedon's Alien Resurrection, you should watch Firefly. Yeah, or Serenity, which is a little bit more serious. My relationship with this movie and the Alien franchise in general, I am a pretty big fan of the first two movies, Alien and Aliens. And then for me, the franchise keeps getting worse and worse. I have not seen either Alien versus Predator movie, but I have seen Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, Prometheus, and Alien Covenant. And it's really just the first two movies I care about but I do I do appreciate how many swings this movie takes as far as just wild

narrative and production design choices there is I we were Caitlin and I were talking about this right before you you came on the call Gracie where like I I find this franchise so interesting because it's like Sigourney Weaver is holding it down throughout. Like, love her. You know that there's going to be great action sequences with women when she's in a movie. And then it's like you get four very different male directors with seemingly very different anxieties surrounding birth. Just like letting it all out over the course of 20 years. It's just like so bizarre that it even happened. So I'm glad it happened.

But what a thing to have happened. Yeah. Why don't we take a quick break and then we'll come back and recap the movie. 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.

Hey, everybody, this is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture.

I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh, my God. I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hahn can sing.

Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Ludi.

Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself.

Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we are back. I figured to start us off, since this is the fourth movie in the franchise, I would just do very, very quick recaps of the first three movies, where Alien from 1979 is about an alien that makes its way onto a spaceship

and kills the whole crew except for Ellen Rip ripley and jonesy love it and jonesy the cat yes who fun fact is credited as jones which i think is very funny really is that jonesy's stage name it's like it's just jones please call me jonesy i want to meet Jonesy at a bar and really pick their mind. Yeah. So, Aliens from 1986. Ripley is brought along to advise on this military operation because something, maybe aliens, question mark, is thought to have wiped out a small population that is terraforming a distant planet. Turns out, yes, it is aliensforming a distant planet. Turns out,

yes, it is aliens. There's this big mother queen alien. She has all of these offspring, and they kill everybody, almost everybody, except for Ripley and this little girl, Newt, who escape into space. Alien 3 from 92 picks up right where aliens leaves off where ripley i think crash lands onto a planet where the population is all of these prisoners so this is so it's sorry so it's like the ridley scott one james cameron is aliens which is mommy and then david fincher is the one we're talking about alien 3 just for for those who are not into the franchise I feel like these all these directors have very recognizable styles and themes and it kind of like helped my brain click a little bit yeah yes so Alien 3 directed

by David Fincher so she crash lands onto this planet full of like religious extremist prisoners there's also sex criminal prisoners yes they all have yy chromosomes so they're like extra male extra aggressive and it's david fincher very early career and like was the fifth or something director attached to it and they were writing that one as they shot it yikes you can tell yikes um anyway ripley has unknowingly brought an alien along with her to this planet and it kills a bunch of people and then she kills the alien and also has to sacrifice herself at the end because she has been impregnated with an alien death by mommy yeah so then alien resurrection which is what we are talking about today

we are on a military medical research spaceship that is floating through space these scientists have cloned ripley and we see them surgically remove an alien fetus from her chest cavity. It's worth noting that the difference between this alien being removed from a chest cavity and all of the other times we get to see that in this franchise is that this alien is not circumcised. This one definitely still has foreskin. It foreskin yeah wow i watched this movie twice and i did not get wow this is this movie really rewards uh rewatch you're like wait a second things have i'm very interested in talking about in this franchise like later in the episode how the idea of an alien parasite is treated differently in

male characters versus female characters where i feel like with the men it's truly like a parasite and you're like get it out of me like yucky but with with the female characters it's like oh birth and you're its mommy you would You would think that the parasite would behave the same regardless of who it's inside, but it just seems to know when it's inside someone with a womb and it acts a little different. And I'm like, you guys, you guys think it through.

Yeah. Also, because Ripley is a clone, she doesn't have the same cognition and memories as the Ripley we've come to know and love in the other three movies. Although she does have some of the memories and then she develops more cognition throughout the movie. Right. But at first she's almost kind of like a baby herself. She's just space jam. She's born sexy yesterday, but she does know stuff. Yes.

It's like a, yeah, it's like a variation on that. Of the born sexy yesterday thing. She was like born Sigourney Weaver today with some of Sigourney Weaver's memories. But this time she has a manicure important because she's an alien that's how you know and like Sigourney Weaver I mean in my mind like she can do no wrong she's the hottest person on the face of the planet she's amazing but the the things that she has to do in this movie the whole like there like, there's, I would say, approximately 500 birth metaphors a minute.

Conservatively, yeah. In this movie. But the one where she's, like, kind of hatching out of a cocoon and the movie really, like, lets you sit in it. And she's like, uh, uh, uh. And then she's like, where are we? France. We're in are we? France. We're in France. Space France.

Okay, so the alien that they have removed from Ripley is a queen. And the military scientists' plan is to have that queen reproduce because they want to tame the aliens, train them, weaponize them, etc. Make vaccines, I guess. Yeah. And we love vaccines. So I'm actually fine with them doing that. And then Ripley warns them that if they try to do all of this stuff, everyone's gonna die. Then the crew from this commercial freighter, again, basically space pirates, boards the military vessel. This crew includes Johnner, that's Ron Perlman, Call, that's Winona Ryder, other people who I don't recognize, so I'm not going to list the actors' names, but Vreese, Christy, Hillard, and then their captain, Elgin. They are there to bring cargo to Perez, that's Dan Hydea. that the scientists will use these people as vessels for the face huggers that come out of the

the eggs that the queen lays to impregnate so that the aliens will reproduce right so thank you for that yes thank you for that no matter how many times i hear, I can't get that piece of information to live in my brain like a parasite. I'm just like, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. In 10 minutes, I'll need to hear that again. Totally fine. Yeah, so the canon that has been established in the other alien movies is that a queen lays an egg. What comes out of the egg is a face hugger. It impregnates a human usually human host and then

an alien fetus bursts out of the human host's chest and then grows very very quickly into a full adult alien that goes on to kill people however as we will find shortly this kind of gestation reproduction process changes in this movie well it's in the first movie the canon is that they're all like it's it's kind of a sexless reproduction like the um set looks like they're turning the um captured crew members from the first film are turning into eggs and i know that ridley was really interested in that and what i think is so cool about this monster is, you know, it didn't really, and I don't think anybody thought about it as a rape metaphor until they hired a woman to play the lead. But it does really work really well as one, I think.

And in this non-gendered way, which is what's so wrong with Alien Cube. It's like, what's this complicated? Like, what if the metaphor was just the plot? It's mother!lamation point um but like the first movie it feels like there's just the one kind of alien and they can do the reproduction themselves and within the canon people recognize that but then there can also elect a mother like a bee and that is more efficient there's more eggs getting laid if that's the case but there's not a need for there to be a mother in the is more efficient there's more eggs getting laid if that's the case but there's not a need for there to be a mother in the first movie and it's only once they're writing for

Sigourney Weaver that anybody decides there needs to be a mother right because the queen doesn't get introduced until aliens right and prior to that yeah I think it's just assumed that these eggs appear somehow. Same as the cocoons, I guess. Which it's like, so it's just like as it's so bizarre to think like as as this franchise continues, it just gets like mommier and mommier. Like in more ham-fisted ways. Yes. Huh. Okay.

Yep, yep yep yep okay so then we see a scene where ripley meets this ragtag crew of space pirates she sort of plays basketball with them and then she also fights them she also seems superhuman and her blood is acidic just like the alien's blood is. So it's becoming increasingly clear that she is perhaps part alien. Then Winona Ryder, a.k.a. Call, goes to try to kill Ripley. Call is trying to kind of secretly stop the military people from breeding the aliens. But then she doesn't end up killing Ripley when she realizes they've already taken the alien out of her. And then this big fight breaks out between the space pirates

and the military, where most of the military end up dead. This is also when hell just kind of generally breaks loose, where a couple aliens get loose from their enclosure and kill several people including dan hidea and the character elgin r.i.p and you get that amazing what you were saying earlier crazy like your head gets blown out and he's like oh my brains and then and then dan hidea goes home he's like wow this is going to be such a hilarious comedy that I just shot. Like, who knows? I enjoyed that moment a lot because I was like, yeah, you know, he really does think that this is a different genre. And I appreciate his commitment.

Yes. Oh, so cartoony. We always quote Liz Lemon at that point because she's got a line on 30 Rock that Rock. I hope it's not an important part of my Blurn. Yep. Wow. Okay, so then Ripley teams up with the space pirates. One of the scientists is also with them, Ren. And they have to start to figure out how to get off this military ship that is now completely

infested with aliens. So they make their way to their cargo freighter called the Betty. And on the way, Ripley discovers a room with a bunch of past Ripley clones, presumably the first seven that didn't work out because they keep calling her Ripley eight. So it turns out they were just, you know, making all these like Ripley slash alien hybrids. There's all manner of body horror in the scene. And then she destroys all of them. And then they move onward with like a flamethrower. It's like she couldn't destroy them any more. Yeah. It's just, it's canon for there to be a flamethrower death and it's canon for someone to go kill me. Which.

Yeah. True. It's nice to get a return to that and sort of a full circle of it being Ripley. For sure. Love a good callback. Yeah. Also.

So after Ripley destroys all of the failed clones Ron Perlman's character is like oh wow what a waste of ammo and then like Ripley's crying because she just had to kill all these versions of herself and he's like oh must be a chick thing and we're like wow feminist icon Ron Perlman I love I hope I don't know anything about Ron Perlman as a person but I really enjoy seeing him in movies and I love his Beauty and the Beast CBS show that he did with girl boss Linda Hamilton bell lawyer oh my god he lived in the sewers of New York if you have Paramount Plus you gotta watch it. It's so bizarre. He breaks when Sigourney Weaver for real makes the three-point line throwing the basketball into the basket.

He immediately breaks. And I just have to imagine that Sigourney Weaver must have said nothing, must have been so graceful about it, but must have just been so furious that he immediately ruined that shot. I was reading, I was trying to find out about that shot. Cause I guess that there was like a popular myth for a while that she got it on the first try. No. Oh, well the first take, she didn't get, get it in rehearsal. Um, she trained really intensively with the professional basketball player for like, for like at least at a very intense two weeks and

apparently her trainer that she was supposed to not try to make it and her trainer came up to her and was like try to make it you can do it oh she did it i heard she was trained by the monsters and that's why she was so good i like that that's a good headcanon yeah or bugs bunny bugs bunny came over he's like you've got this. Well, she's spinning the ball on her pointy manicure that she has because she's part alien. So obviously she has pointy black nails like the aliens, which seems harder. I've never spun a basketball on my finger and I never will, but it seems harder to do with acrylic nails. Yeah.

She really makes it look convincing. Like when she's that the choices made in that scene are all so funny and good like that scene in no way requires that she's playing basketball very well the whole thing was her idea it's so good was it that seemed like from the interviews that it was her idea because she imagined it as the character kind of getting out of prison and just trying to have a good time which is also while she keeps playing after beating people up oh okay i think it's it's so funny it's well it's the type of thing that where in a movie that i think had been more competently written her basketball skills would i'm so sorry

everyone played later would would pay off in some way, but then they don't. And so the skill of hers is just established for no reason. Yeah. And then we just move on from basketball after that. Yeah. Christy's skills come back into play, but from that scene. True. Yeah.

I did kind of wish on the second watch, I'm like, it would have been cool if basketball came back. I don't know how it would have, but it would have been cool. At least be good at throwing something would make sense. Yeah, right. Like, pay off on that perfect shot. That's a good call. Kind of throws blood later. It's more of a flick.

That's true. I don't think it counts. But also, it's like the way this movie works, I'm like, you know what? If there's a dropped thread, fine. I'll never regret having watched the basketball scene. There's so many threads, though. You can't complain about that many threads.

True. It's true. Okay, so then the characters have to swim through the flooded kitchen area. Aliens are chasing them through the water they make it to the other side but there's this huge nest where the queen has laid a bunch of eggs also in that underwater scene uh the other i like to call her other woman other lady yep yeah hillard dies and we'll miss her so much just kidding we don't know a single thing about her. And I kept forgetting she had died. Her feet get such a closer close-up than her face, even right before she dies in this movie.

Yeah, I wonder. I'm like, give her a closer close-up. She's about to die. The movie really, like the movie doesn't even seem to care that they're killing off this character. To the point where I'm like, well, why did you add her? If she says no words and she's in the way background of every shot? And then they're just like, oh, and also she died. She died.

Yeah, there was that shot that went all the way down her body to her feet. So, oh, well, there you go. That's why they had her there. That's that. She's also the character that I guess like she and the captain elgin are an item and he says something like right oh there's nothing hotter than seeing a woman strapped to a chair that does happen i'm like is that why she's there like there's so many different creepy reasons that i hate that this character could have been completely neglected by the plot. Yeah. Yeah. Poor whatever that lady's name is.

Hillard. RIP that lady. Hillard? Hillard. Hillard. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Justice for Hillard. Truly.

So they are birthed onto the other side in the middle of this nest. They're fighting their way out of this kind of trap. Some people die along the way like Winona Ryder including Christy and Christy don't know why like I've seen this movie very many times and I don't understand why Christy sacrifices himself like acid to the face big deal but I don't get the self-sacrifice besides he's really good and we need him to go away so that later other deaths are more surprising

like we need to lose our sharpshooter but i don't understand why he sacrifices himself i was also i i also had questions about that as well because i also i'm just like there it seems like the second the plot starts to ramp up with the exception of like sigourney and winona they're like let's just kill off every woman and person of color we can so we're left with the worst white guys that aren't well-written characters in the movie and then our leads like it just is like but why but why yeah i mean good question dr ren's death is kind of fun yeah that is fun yes we do get left over with the worst white guys yeah right okay so christy dies call aka renona rider dies the military science dude ren betrays them he's the one who kills Call. Just kidding. She's not dead because big reveal.

She's a robot. And then they use her to like hack into the ship and basically set a course. Great hacker dialogue here where she's just like she uses every buzzword available. She's like, yeah, I had to hack into the ship's mainframe to the motherboard. And now where it's all computers. You're like, totally. Yes, I get it. Yeah.

It's revealed also that she's an autotone. And like there's a lot of like, you know, reproduction anxiety as it also relates to like cloning and then making robots throughout these movies. But there's Ripley's prejudice against robots throughout and then in this world there's at least not 20th century racism like in aliens but there's lots and lots of prejudice against this new generation of robots that were created by robots right and so like it is cool like everyone's like really grossed out and treats Winona Ryder like, oh, I can't believe I almost fucked you. You gross robot who has their own control over their actions. Another just like Ron Perlman.

As if you never fucked a robot. Like, OK. I was like, what is, huh? Yeah, there's another part where Elgin is talking to Dan Hydea's character and he's just like yeah do you see the new crew member we've got isn't she so fuckable and he's talking about Winona Ryder's character and yeah and then everyone as soon as they find out she's a robot they're like ew gross weird that's something that I think is like and I and, and I will defer to both of you for referencing if this is a trend in the entire franchise, but that like the misogy. And it seems like they have to they make an effort to remind you every 10 minutes. Like someone says something absolutely like horrific.

It's never subtle. It's always really aggressive. And it doesn't ever really stop. I don't know. And it's never sci-fi bigotry. It's never like this is what sexism would be in the future. And even their ship has like... Yeah, it's just like regular sexism.

Their ship is called the Betty and has a pinup girl on it. And it's just like, why is there this? Why is it still this? Like, I like there being only racism against robots. Like, that's a fun idea. But like, I feel like come up with a new kind of prejudice and then you're critiquing prejudice instead of just saying that in the year 20...

Wait, when does this one take place? 2379. I mean, in 2179, apparently we're making jokes about illegal aliens, but, like, 2379. That's true. We still got pinup girls on shifts. I mean, aliens but like 2379 that's true that's we still got pinup girls on ships i mean fortunately in 2379 um our species will be extinct so it's kind of a true it's a non issue yeah but it is like this bizarre like why is there just 1997 misogyny here i guess because

they're like you're in space you can do whatever you want because they're like... You're in space. You can do whatever you want. But they're like, well, women suck. Yeah. Let's make fun of the person in the wheelchair and also how fuckable is my new employee. Yipes. There's a lot of it. Thanks, Joss Whedon, for your amazing dialogue.

Also, no room for a wet whiskey, but there's obviously a lot of water on the ship that can leak out everywhere. That seems heavy. True. Very wet spaceships throughout. I did like the whiskey cube special effect. Yeah.

Very satisfying. Also, apparently still lemons and cherries, which is very optimistic about the 2300s. Like our military generals eating a lemon. I didn't even think of that. Right. Like, where are the bees?s. Like, our military general's eating a lemon. I didn't even think of that. Like, where are the bees? Right. So they hack into the ship. Basically, Call sets a

collision course to crash the big ship that the aliens have infested so that they can get to the Betty and escape in this smaller freighter. Then, as they're rushing toward the Betty, Ripley falls through the floor and into a pile of aliens. Then she cuddles with the queen. But it's sexy.

But it's sexy cuddling, even though it's her daughter. Okay. And then the queen who thinks and a part of her and and weirdly a cloney part of her yeah yeah they share genes not just because she's the mom right yes i have so i i just have all question marks in that area of my notes i'm like well okay we have no answers okay good okay good okay so and then the queen who thanks to ripley now has a human reproductive system which is described as a gift the guy who's been trying to train the aliens just like her gift to her was a human reproductive system

which the movie does subvert because the alien is so obviously an agony which i i like in this movie that is so obsessed with this one woman's maternity this movie at least is this is disgusting like human reproduction is disgusting as opposed to the other movies that are like oh eggs bad human human make baby good you be mother just like, alien is just writhing around with its little arms twitching about in agony. Yeah, you're just like, why is everything so horny and painful seeming in this one? Yeah, equal parts horny and pain.

Okay, so the queen now has a human reproductive system and then gives birth to this half alien half like it has a human skull face and then also meows like a cat uh-huh and so that's Ripley's grandchild and the trainer guy after watching Ripley I mean if anything play the role of father in this relationship. Then he says, look, he thinks you're the mother. Which I think is really funny and more of a critique of men viewing the thing. Rather than, like, actually making Ripley be the mother. Like, it thinks you're the mother.

And it's like, well, no, it destroyed its mother. It thinks Ripley is its god. Like, it's not. It's really Ripley. Anyway, maybe we're getting too into it for the plot. No, I love that. That didn't click for me. I was like, what?

What are you talking about? She's obviously not the mother. You didn't watch the whole birth and sex scene. You're in a cocoon. He's really chilling in this cocoon he is fun side note this actor's imdb photo uh looks exactly like a picture of buster keaton this is like in black and white costume and all weird that actor is uh brad dorif who played worm tongue in lord of the Rings as well as he's a major character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

So he's got range. Anyway, so there's all the weird horny, incestual cuddling. You forgot his most important credit. Brad Dourif is the voice of Chucky.

What? Dourif has appeared in a number of horror Brad Dourif is the voice of Chucky. What? Oh my God. Dourif has appeared in a number of horror films, most notably as the voice of Chucky in the whole Child's Play franchise. He's canon Chucky. Wow. I also think he,

as an actor, not just him voice acting Chucky, but I think he's also in the Chucky movies as a different character as well. But I might be completely misremembering. No, I think he's also in the Chucky movies as a different character as well but I might be completely misremembering no I think you're right Charles Lee Ray who I think is like the serial killer who's trapped inside of or Charles Lee yeah he's like one of the bad guys in Chucky and also the real bad guy which is which is Chucky I watched Chucky for the first time last year and I was like damn this shit's pretty good I liked it

it kind of holds up yeah I was like Chuck yeah and then I watched Aubrey Plaza Chucky and it wasn't that bad it wasn't as good as original Chucky but you know maybe well I don't know if we have anything to say about Chucky on this particular show but it was fun sure sure so anyways chucky's in the movie chucky's in the movie he dies there's been all this horny incestual cuddling and then ripley runs away and heads toward the betty ship but the weird alien follows her and gets onto the ship as well and ripley and such a good reveal though oh it's my goodness call trying to close the door and then the alien baby alien helps she was like oh baby alien that are you good or bad that scene i That scene, I... When Caitlin and I watched this together the first time, and I was like,

maybe I just haven't been paying close enough attention because I feel like this whole dramatic cutting back and forth feels very bizarre and unearned. But then I watched it a second time. I'm like, no, it still feels that way where it's like something about the editing in the scene where it just it keeps cutting back to sigourney weaver for a little bit too long where she's like and then you come back to like this terrifying like suck through a whole bad cgi i loved it i

love that scene oh right it's so confusing because what's about to happen is that Ripley and Carl have to deal with the alien who's gotten on board, Betty. And Ripley flings her acid blood onto a window and it creates this hole. And then the weird cat human alien gets sucked out of the hole into space in what is one of the most disgusting like body horror things i've ever seen it takes its time and the movie really milks it for a long time but not before ripley kind of makes out with the alien aka her grandchild coddles it's like horny nuzzling yeah it's very it's very charged yes and then the movie ends with ripley and call arriving on earth and they're like wow it's nice the end so yay let's take another break and then we'll come back to discuss. 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.

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Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. So Gracie, I kind of wanted to start with you here and sort of let you lead us through what are we missing about this movie? What are, and, and like, what about the popular kind of opinions surrounding this movie do you feel very differently about? Okay. Let me make my plea for Alien Resurrection. Okay. Because I think that it's really kind of, I really don't like that this movie becomes so obsessed with making Ripley into a mom.

Obviously, it wasn't written as female. It took a long time for the writers to conceive of any of the characters not being men, and even longer for them to think like, ooh, what if it was even the lead? And then the sequels, like, backstory was actually a mom but we're gonna take that away also like be a mom this whole movie which was cool at the time because she's doing a good job at her job and being a mom which i guess like historical context is powerful and then the third

one she's pregnant the whole time but with an an alien. And then it's obsessed with the fact that she is female-bodied because she's on a planet of rapists that only rape female-bodied people, apparently, and have a religion that women are bad and temptresses and should be kept far away. And to me, that ruins the metaphor of it. What I like about this monster is it's a rape metaphor where everybody has to have birth anxiety and i think a lot of movies that include rape metaphors are very very gendered and i like that it isn't doing that but these movies are kind of obsessed with ripley being a mom or not being a mom and please be a mom and then i think alien resurrection has the

opinion that reproduction is disgusting and you think alien reproduction is disgusting like human reproduction also disgusting and terrible for the mother and aliens are gross and other and to be killed but they are because of us it's a xenomorph like they're the way that they are the like like i don't know i feel like a lot of the xenomorphs bad qualities come from us and we see that in this movie with the alien sacrificing the other one they kind of seem naturally hive minded or even like they might have whale type intelligence and consciousness of the group like ants or whales but because they are partially us they have this disgusting individualism and then in this movie kind of takes it even farther where then the reproduction becomes

human and then the baby becomes grotesquely more human-like and then like this alien baby who i just i love and i'll give all the nipples to like i love alien baby um and the way that they light it so wait the baby to get sucked through a hole yes i love alien baby i feel so bad for alien baby they really make you watch her die yeah yeah they really make you watch that baby die but like even when it's like even when it's attacking you don't know whether or not it's attacking and i feel like that's the human not like you know the the xenomorphs that we're used to age very very quickly but this is more human and it's seems a more emotionally volatile and it like doesn't have like a prime directive.

And at one moment will be very, very cute and cuddly, but then also screaming and like as if it wants to attack you and sort of how is that different than a human baby? I, and I think what's cool and what's ever feminist about these movies is like the world is like Ripley, you should have a baby. Like, why didn't you have a baby 284 years ago or whatever? And Ripley always chooses to save humanity instead of like an individual family. And I like in that way is much more parental and heroic than like just like let's have this character be a mother who wants to get home to see her daughter's 11th birthday. So what I love about this movie is I feel like

you really get into who is disgusting. Is it the xenomorph or is it the humanity that they have adopted genetically? And this movie is just really like like reproduction in general is disgusting. It's gross when robots do it themselves. It's gross when robots do it themselves it's gross when we clone things it's gross when aliens have babies and it's also gross when humans have babies it is terrible and traumatic and disgusting and why is there still humanity in the year 23 whatever this is i mean i totally like i I thank you for, like, laying that out for us. Because it feels like this movie has not gotten this amount of, like, love and attention to detail. I'm so interested in that. Because that was, like, I still have a lot of confusion, honestly.

And, like, some criticism around this movie. But I did, like, one thing that really hit for me in ripley eight's character in this movie was and i feel like it's i guess that they explore it kind of thoroughly it's all over the place but the idea that she is considered worthless after the baby has been taken out of her and like i think dan hidea literally refers to her as like she's a sack of meat to us at this point we don't care and i feel like that that does say something about how we in today years still kind of characterize mothers or or how people with with wombs are characterized after they've you know quote unquote served their purpose and perpetuated the human race and all and all of that and and how Ripley eight is determined to

continue to just like find purpose and meaning in whatever that means for her after it's clear that the structure in in which she's been brought into has seen her as like outliving her use I feel like you can apply that to motherhood you can apply that to just aging in general and like she feels confident that she still has purpose and wants to keep learning more about herself after people have told her that she no longer is useful so from from that perspective I really like that's the part of Ripley 8's journey that I felt like was really effective and then there's a bunch of other stuff also right my my I think there could be a parallel drawn between some of the stuff that's happening in this movie and the things that are happening in texas right now as far as i was gonna say the abortion ban and like an

obsession of being in control of the bodies of like childbearing people where this movie, I guess I was maybe oversimplifying things in my brain in terms of like this franchise does get more and more obsessed with like reproduction, especially as it pertains to wombs and birthing and mother hood where like the first movie you just establish that basically anyone can get impregnated by these face huggers and then you give birth out of your chest and that's what we see happening to john hart's character aliens heightens this where we see that happening i think to a few different characters and then we see like the the queen mother laying eggs and then like Ripley becomes a de facto mother to Newt and then it's like you said this kind of like canon gets

retroactively established that she was also previously a mother I would say Alien 3 there isn't quite so much like birthing type imagery and metaphor, but that she's saved and she's precious because she's pregnant with an alien. Yes, that's true. That's true. And then this movie, like we've hinted at,

there's so much imagery, like every few minutes, it seems like there's some birth metaphor happening or there's some reference to wombs and reproduction and i mean and sometimes it's not even if it's not stated it's visually stated where it's like when they get out of the water thing they have to like kind of born themselves again because there's that weird little birth shell that they gotta punch through i'm like oh and then they all got borned again you take your first breath again yeah people keep being born i mean even the way the baby alien dies it's getting sucked through a hole that could maybe even be considered like a birth metaphor

but then i was as you were kind of laying all of that out, Gracie, I was like, oh, well, this movie is largely about this group of men who are doing all of these like experiments and birthing and all that stuff, much the way that conservative lawmakers are obsessed with controlling, again, the bodies of childbearing people. So I wonder, I don't know how much intentional commentary there is on that in this movie, but I think there's an interesting parallel that you can draw in terms of like yeah look how obsessed these people who don't really understand quote-unquote female reproduction and wombs and bodily autonomy and having choices over your own body like they clone ripley without her consent they i don't know if she was already impregnated with the alien or if they impregnate her. Either way, like, that whole thing happens without her consent. And then all this other stuff, just like, they're just making choices for these people and or creatures.

Yeah. Yeah, like, it's,'s wait you're blowing our minds alien resurrection good actually well i think you know we've seen the military in this in this world 200 years before that and this and uh there are a lot of i mean not a lot of them get named aloud and a lot of them die pretty early. But there are men and women in the military. And I think it is intentional in the script that all of these military people who are outside of like legal jurisdiction, too. They're like in an area of space where like things aren't controlled.

Right. But they're all male. And then also the ship is father instead of mother. Instead of mother, like in the other movies yeah and like you know like in your previous discussion about alien like there's even like should that count as a character i think it's really problematic to make subservient robots and computers female like the first year that siri came out the number one question that she was asked was what's your bra size and we had a conversation like that in the, in the, her episode a couple of years ago

now, where it's like, that is such a, like there is a psychological human conditioning by society, not by nature that people are more comfortable telling a female voice what to do. Yeah. And then yelling at it when it's wrong. That's not what I asked for. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. And I, I think, I think it is it when it's wrong. That's not what I asked for. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I think it is intentional that it's father, and I think it is intentional that it's these ridiculous, over-the-top cartoonish men think that they can possess life and control and profit off of life, and they can't control the aliens, and they can't control Ripley, and it's the death of them all. So I do think it is intentionally commenting on that um there is one female character who is on their

side who is just billed as anesthesiologist um and that does not follow the loftest rule of women with least hair has most power it's true it's true which is unfortunate she is the baldest woman but she is not in charge she's the opposite of in charge and unnamed which yeah i feel like a lot of these characters don't have allowed names give them give her a name i know yeah yeah true like it's i mean i guess hillary technically has a name but you but also they forgot to write her a character yeah and kind of going off of that discussion the the other thing that really worked for me in in this movie was the connection that call and Ripley 8 end up forming by listening to each other because it's what I would our call has we learn, has been told and programmed by the patriarchal structure that she was made by to destroy Ripley. But in connecting with each other in a way that makes sense in story, they're not just like, oh, we're the women characters, so we have to band together and be friends in a vague way but it's like you have like two real scenes with

them figuring each other out and forming uh bond and a friendship and at first honestly going into this episode i was like wow we have like five million asshole human men and our two like the two women who are the leads of this movie they they have, I think, humanity from the story aspect, but it's like alien clone born Sigourney yesterday and robot Winona. But the more we talk about it, the less I'm fixating on that. I don't know.

Because their scenes together are very, I think, like you understand why they band together and you understand why Ripley 8 is choosing call over baby. Yeah. And I think, you know, kind of the lock-in of this movie is finding out that those two characters share a common goal, even though the scene is called going to kill her. And they do have this like,

like, you know, why are they keeping you alive? Like, I don't know the newest thing. So I think that they are both women who are supposed to feel ashamed of their bodies by the patriarchal system in which they exist. And Ripley refuses to,

and embraces what is different about her clone body. And the same happens with call yeah um i think it's kind of cool that like there's a they're they're like it's an auton and a and a clone and yet they're like no i'm gonna i'm gonna be powerful and like try to find happiness on my own and call is so ashamed of her body and learns not to be because it saves the day and then says father's gone asshole and then it's great right and and like their common journey of being told what they're good for and what they're supposed to be doing and realizing that there are other ways to be and to like whatever like

I was like oh my god I need to text my therapist shame deprogramming let's say and like deprogramming your own shame deprogramming your uh you know just the idea that your quote-unquote creator or your overlord or whoever it is for them it's like their literal creator um what they ascribe as the meaning of your life isn't what like they don't get to decide that yeah so in that way wow movie good wow and i like that they have conflict again because it seems like you get them together in a scene and they realize they have the same enemy and like here it is it's going to be sigourney winona being buddies against the aliens and then the next time we see them again, they're fighting.

And they have completely different points of views of how they should be doing things and who should be in charge. And I like that there's that conflict. Yeah. I also, I love when it seems like Sigourney is going to flamethrow Dr. Wren. And then she ends up, like, just, like, giving the gun away and saying, don't do what? And then Winona just gives a perfect punch to the face to Dr. Ren, which is like such a great moment. I mean, oh my gosh.

Which you guys talked about the like men punching women and women punching men thing that happens in action sci-fi genre in I think your Aliens episode. Right, yes. And there is like, you know, and there's some superhuman element to this but uh Sigourney does get barbelled in the nose pretty early oh my gosh yeah and she fights right back and like she I mean yeah there there's there seems to be very little anxiety that this movie has about who's fighting who it's like whoever in the scene needs to be fighting. It doesn't need to be. Yeah.

Even if it's mid basketball game. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I didn't feel, I mean, even though there is violence inflicted upon women, it didn't feel specifically gendered or as though like women were being targeted because they were women.

It just felt like, right. These are characters in an action movie, equal opportunity, inflicting violence, and violence being inflicted upon you regardless of gender, which I suppose is parody. Yeah, like a parody. And I was kind of waiting.

I was like, okay in 1997 uh let's see when uh woman's going to be tossed to the side in the middle of an action scene to be like we gotta keep you safe like whatever mary jane at the climax of spider-man 2 they're like we had to trap her in a very sticky web but because what if she tried to punch someone. Someone? You mean Doc Ock? I, yes, I do. What if she, what if Mary Jane was like, I'm going with Doc Ock? That would have been smarter. I'll allow it.

It's my headcanon. This is a, this is a tangent and you can cut it out. But because listening to your aliens episode earlier today, it was brought up to both of you. But I can't, like, a conversation happened to Caitlin Durante durante who has a master's degree in screenwriting from boston university about the fight sequence in john wick 2 against ruby rose and it's i guess it's important to discuss john wick fights women but more importantly to tell caitlin durante who has a master's degree in screenwriting from boston university is that that fight happens at the moment in Act Two where John Wick should reflect upon himself

and then grow and change and realize that he needs his need instead of his want. Because it's a John Wick movie, that's never going to fucking happen. So instead of that, he has a fight sequence with Ruby Rose and an art installation of mirrors called The Reflection of the Self. Oh, okay. No, oh my God. I feel like that was Keanu's idea. That sounds like a Keanu. He's like, what if he called it Reflections of the self oh no oh my god I feel like that was Keanu's idea that sounds like a key he's like

what if he called it reflections of the self this like unspoken screenwriting joke that is very funny I and love that thank you for bringing up my master's degree in screenwriting because you know I would never I feel like it hasn't been coming up enough lately it hasn't been coming up because I would never bring it up so you wouldn't you never would i appreciate you doing it gracie thank you yeah unspoken screenwriting jokes very good i appreciate that yeah um can we talk about the vryce character dom vryce like we we've had this discussion many times on the show at this point, but Dom Bryce is a wheelchair-bound character who is played by all accounts that I was able to find, not a disabled actor. Which, again, is a very 1997 casting decision that is know is just like it's so unnecessary we I feel like we're repeat it's always worth repeating that there are so many talented disabled actors that would have fucking

nailed that part yeah so I wanted to call that out and also and also just discuss that character a little bit yes because the way that he is, especially by Ron Perlman's character, Johnner, is astonishingly horrible, where I feel like this is a pretty common thing for if there is an inclusion and visibility, but it comes at the cost of that character being horribly abused. Bullied aggressively. Yeah. That seems to be the whole function of the Ron Perlman character in this movie in a way that doesn't really work for me. And I think that is like kind of a Joss Whedon and like 90s 2000 writer thing that is done is the idea of the Ron Perlman character is he we know because of how he's written and presented that he's wrong. But I feel like you're still encouraged to laugh along with him. So what is the point of telegraphing to the audience this guy's an asshole but also the way he's delivering them like they're comedy lines there i think that

they're supposed to be perceived as comedy lines and so when he's teasing and abusing the only disabled character or you know just firing off every sexist missive he could possibly think of then it's like well what it it feels like a having it both ways in a way that doesn't work especially because he's one of the few characters that survives through the entire movie why did he die it'd be one thing if he was an asshole to everyone and then we understood that and his lines weren't played for comic relief and then he was punished by being killed. But that doesn't happen.

In fact, at the end, when Ripley and Call have killed the final baby alien by sucking it out of a hole in the window, even though the two of them seem completely fine and don't get their guts sucked out of the window. Well, I think they both are supposed to have a little bit of superhuman going on oh that makes sense yeah i think because you know cal is a robot and because right ripley is part alien they're able to hold on and be okay

and they're pretty close to that atmosphere i think at that point oh that makes sense yeah i think that's the reason that it's like if the one, what is the military guy's leftover? DiStefano. If he was still there and hadn't been killed, I think he would have not been so okay with that. Yeah. Right. I guess I'll suspend my disbelief for that. They're also, they buckle themselves into the wall.

So I guess they're fine. Anyway. Anyway, so when Ripley returns from that big climactic defeat of the alien, Ron Perlman's character throws off a little quip where he's just like, oh, he's just like, hey, Ripley. And then she's like, you remembered my name or something. And then there's like kind of like a comedic growth. Not like, yeah, like a nice moment between them, I guess, is what that's meant to be. And it's like, no, you don't get to redeem yourself after you've verbally assaulted, like, every person in the cast of the movie. Even his, like, I mean, he's obviously a terrible bully and a terrible bigot. But even just the tiniest bits of his actions are just unforgivable. Like, he gets mad at Cal for wasting his homemade liquor.

And then he throws Christie's. Like he gets upset at Ripley for wasting ammo and then shoots a spider. He shoots a spider. Like why? That is the funniest part of the movie.

You're just the worst guy. That is comedy gold and I'm obsessed with it. Okay, that's a great moment but he's a hypocrite. Yeah. Yeah, he's awful i will say for getting back to dom's character uh a little bit i would also be very curious to hear what

are disabled listeners who have seen this movie made of of how he was characterized throughout the movie one thing that i was in not encouraged isn't the word not horrified by I guess is that that Dom remains extremely active throughout all of the action scenes where I feel like there is such a tendency to sideline and Kirsten Dunst and the spider web characters who are disabled in action sequences specifically, but in a lot of genres, he is like those action sequences, particularly like once they're on the ladder and all this stuff, like those scenes don't work if his character is removed from the scene. And so I did like that Dom is in the way that there's parody across genders in action. It seems like there was a fair amount of parody with ability as well in the action scenes,

which was cool. Yeah, I felt that too. And I think it's notable that he also survives until the end and that he doesn't. I feel like a lot of movies would have killed off a disabled character specifically because of their like they wouldn't have survived because of their disability and i think that it's actually pretty remarkable that the filmmakers let that character survive until the end it's true yeah you cannot say the same for how uh non-white characters in this movie are treated that is is true. I mean, I think that Christy,

who, by the way, is played, it took me so long into the movie. I'm like, I know this guy. And I kept thinking of the actor, Gary Dordan is his name. And I was like, looking at him, I was like thinking of my aunt's house. I'm like, what is the connection

between this man and my aunt's house? He was on CSI for like 10 years. And my aunt used to love that show so i was like oh it's csi guys so whatever that's a useless fact that you can know but uh i i would argue that he's he's christy is the only black character who has a lot of influence on what goes on in the plot there are other people of color just it's just christy and the soldier who gets frozen who are black and then there's the two latinx uh military men including the general and then the one who makes it a long time yeah right but it's like even even the guy who lives a long time i

don't i don't know what his name was or like what is anything about him in the same way that like with the other lady we don't know anything about her she she makes it about halfway but like who was that no idea yeah i didn't know until listening to y'all's episodes that this franchise never has a woman of color character or guest character but but vasquez is played by a white woman what yeah vasquez is played by a white woman? What? Yeah, Vasquez is played by a white woman in brownface in the movie Aliens. It is true. I feel like there are not many popular movies with stuff that ages quite as poorly as brownface character in one of the best regarded sci-fi movies of all time.

It's so infuriating. And also, I mean, this franchise for as much as i am like genuinely being swung to the side of like this movie's pretty good um because gracie is a worker of miracles i all i'm saying it's better than 39 better than 39 i'll give it a 41 yeah yeah yeah but but this i mean throughout it's for a for a franchise that is really fixated on reproduction anxiety which i do think is a topic that isn't off the table for you know men to explore i think that that's like it's it's a worthy it's a topic that affects anyone who's ever been born so sure people are you know entitled to explore that topic but the fact that it's like if you go through the production like the top level production of every single

one of these movies it's it's just guys it's just white guy like it's yeah and it's like we just let's get some other voices in the room here maybe with uh with you know people who have been on both sides of of this uh of this thing i'm about to say a kind of gender normative thing but um i think that if there was anybody in charge who was female bodied in this production they would have shot the close-up of her manicure on a day where it wasn't so grown out like it is her cocoon birth and was like that's a two-week-old manicure like this is the one time you were going to shoot a close-up of it I mean maybe they were like well it'll be too unrealistic if where did she get this manicure on a ship?

We have to let it grow out. So it looks I don't I believe that they just don't they weren't looking and they're supposed to be her nails. And it like it doesn't look like nails because it looks like a grown out acrylic manicure. And it really bugs me. But that's like a very valid point. It's like I feel like that is like almost giving the same like the ponytail moment in birds of prey where it's like if you know you know um and if you don't people are gonna make fun of you for not attempting to know yeah i don't yeah this this i forget what i was about to say something about birth I feel like we've talked a lot about birth.

Yeah, my notes for this movie were pretty sparse. It was mostly Ron Perlman shoots a spider. The end. I have a lot of, I honestly like being able to understand this movie through your perspective, Gracie, I feel like has genuinely been very, very helpful to me to understand. Because it is, like, there is a lot of interesting stuff going on here. And then I just feel like it doesn't quite go as far as I would like it to in other areas.

And also just, like, yeah, this movie's really erotic, you know? Yeah. In a way that, like, I don't hate it. It's just, like, it's,'s i like i that's not even a criticism i have as much as an unavoidable observation well it's erotic between ripley and her alien offspring so i do have a problem with it in the sense that it's incestuous i get i mean i see that i it it's so cuckoo that it didn't super bother me in like a i guess it is like the the gendered way that people interact with xenomorphs

is like i feel like that that is more what stuck with me of watching back old scenes from alien in aliens and men being so freaked out by being inhabited by a parasite and then um childbearing people like inherently being like no i must protect the parasite as if this is just like a universal response like i don't yeah see what i love about it as a monster she's nuzzling her babies a lot yeah yeah i really i really like that it equalizes birth anxiety and from a writer who thinks that men might have womb anxiety this movie does not suggest that anybody has womb anxiety and i and i think that really i don't know i know, I really like that about this monster. And I hate making the fear of it gendered at all.

But I do think that the relationship between Ripley and the alien baby is, to me, it's supposed to be more God destroying their own creation than mother rejecting child and I like that yeah the prequels did not exist even as a as an idea I don't think at this at this moment but then like that really does resonate and I think that gives this movie a good place in the franchise is that these movies become less about the anxiety of acts like birthing an alien and more about what have we created as humanity and do we need to destroy it and then there's of course this other alien species that created us and intends to destroy it and that's where the xenomorph goo comes from um but yeah it feels it feels more to me like this movie is this this is maybe just an optimistic reading of it,

but it feels like this franchise is like, Ripley, you need to be a mom. Go be a mom. You're a mom. You're a woman. You have a womb. You're going to get raped and you're going to be a mom. And then this movie is like, no, Ripley's a fucking god and she's going to reject her own creation and save humanity.

Yeah, to save. Fuck. Gosh, wow. But I feel like how much of it was originally sexual and how much of that is just ridley scott noticing the hr geiger designs but then even like the way that they're creating those designs the actual pieces on set like whose idea was it that the face hugger is literally an oyster it's a vagina it's the vagina-iest vagina monster i've seen in a while and that's saying something because they get pretty vagina but it's also a penis monster

i have written on my arm from you earlier jamie don't wax my flaps oh my god i know the two flapped thing but it's i love that it's a penis horror and it's a vulva horror and it's the horror of birth for everybody yeah and then alien three is just like what if instead of the metaphor she was just always about to get raped all the time you're like thanks david interesting idea i want to i want to be clear that like we here on the Bechdel cast and we've talked about this before, but motherhood is something we obviously fully support. Assuming a person who becomes a mother wants to be a mother. I don't want to sound like we are condemning motherhood or childbirth in any way. Right. in any way. What we are critical of is the patriarchal expectation for anyone with a womb

to give birth and to become a mother and go through that process. And the expectation that that's basically the sole purpose of a person with a womb, regardless of whether or not that person wants to be a mother and be a parent. Because historically, that's been what society values and expects of people with wombs and so again it's that oppressive expectation right that we take issue with yeah it's completely anti-choice and it's turfy and it's get your creepy laws away from people. Which in this world still hasn't been resolved by the 2300s which is like just wacky enough to

believe. And also still smoking, I guess. Yeah. Well, you know, big tobacco. It's wild. Is there any other stuff? That was all i had for notes what is there are anything we hasn't we haven't hasn't haven't touched on yet i've covered everything i had

yeah i think we nailed it i think we blew alien resurrection wide open i i also just wanted to uh give the bechdel cast a tip of the hat for how many movies we've covered that came out in the year 1997 because the production conflicts for this movie when Jeunet was trying to get space to film this movie because I guess

the other Alien movies were shot in England this was shot in Hollywood because Sigourney was a co-producer and she was just like why the international commute which I think is like really uh good very good use of power but they were shooting it uh like a Hollywood lot and they had difficulty securing studio space because of Titanic and because of Starship Troopers and because of the Lost World Jurassic Park so there were just so many huge movies filming in in Hollywood Studios in 1996 wow

wild the best of them of course being Titanic the best movie ever made ever made ever made it's a it's a fact um does this movie pass the Bechdel test? It actually does quite a lot. Yeah. It does between Ripley and Call primarily, but they talk about aliens. They talk about how Call is a robot. They talk about how Ripley is part alien. They talk about Earth.

They talk about a lot of stuff. Religion. Religion. The nature of humanity and if humans possess it and ripley says i knew you couldn't be a human you're too humane yeah no human no human being could be that humane which is only the second most joss whedon whedony line in this i think second to uh i thought you were dead i get that a lot lot. Uh-huh. Still a very good line. That's pretty funny. I did have to laugh when Ripley says something like,

who do I have to fuck around here to get off this boat? And then Ron Perlman's like, well, I can get you off. Maybe not the boat. Not the ship. I mean, he's, again, a despicable character, and that's a gross line coming from him, but it's a pretty funny line otherwise. Anyway, does it pass the Bechdel test

when Ripley has to murder the terrifying body horror clone of herself with a flamethrower? I think it could. Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, it's a tense interaction, but, you know, let women have tension. Yeah, she says, kill me me and then ripley's like okay and the response is the action it's not it's not a dialogue response but it's definitely

a conversation it's a conversation yeah it's true so it passes handily um as far as our nipple scale goes a scale of zero to five nipples based on how the movie fares looking at it through an intersectional feminist lens um i mean powerful coming in hot um i'll split it i'll give it a right down the middle 2 2.5, I do think there is some interesting commentary being made on kind of the just obsession of male authority figures and like the fact that it's military and medical, you know, because there's a lot to criticize about the way medical professionals, some of them, harbor a lot of biases and withhold medical care from a lot of marginalized groups of people. So I think it's like interesting that it's these like military medical personnel and like, you know, these industrial complexes that are obsessed with basically using female bodies as vessels to perpetuate their own very destructive agenda. And yeah, I think there's, again, these interesting parallels to be drawn about what's happening currently in the world in terms of groups of men being obsessed with controlling

people with uteruses and denying people access to bodily autonomy. So I think that's all an interesting thing that the movie explores. I think that as far as how effectively it does that, that might be a little up for debate. i think it's i appreciate that the movie attempts something like that i don't like how weirdly horny ripley gets for her children her alien children i do appreciate that the main relationship that emerges in the movie that we are rooting for is between two femme presenting beings again they're not human women but they are for all intents and purposes women i suppose and that that's the kind of most compelling relationship between characters in the entire movie um yeah so there's some pros and cons of this very bizarre movie that's obsessed with birth imagery i will give it 2.5 nipples does

that seem too high no i i i think i'll probably meet you there. Okay. All right. And I will give them to the spider that gets shot to death by Ron Perlman. I'll meet you at 2.5. I think that there are a lot of really admirable swings in this movie. And honestly, this conversation has been so enlightening and helpful in clarifying some of those swings uh and i also i mean i like your interpretation gracie that uh of of ripley as god versus ripley as alien grandma uh and that resolves i think like a lot of the like cognitive dissonance I was experiencing and I think that that's a more I wish that if that was the the like canonical intention I wish that that

was that almost they hit that a little harder because I feel like that's a really like cool journey to track in a way that is like clear and obvious uh i'll piggyback on what you said caitlin i like that the uh the central relationship is ripley and call i think that their connection makes a lot of sense i like their mutual rejection of what they've been told about who they like who they've been made to be versus choosing choose like making a choice as an individual that's also in the interest of the collective at the same time. That's such a difficult line to toe that it's the thing that I think this movie

maybe does the most effectively. And then there's a bunch of stuff that's hit and miss that we've spent the last two hours discussing, so I won't rehash. But I think that Two and a Half feels good. An admirable uh an admirable swing definitely a movie that like uh I didn't like if not rewards on re-watching

there's definitely shit you missed if it's been a long time since you've seen this movie and I think it's aged in a really interesting way and watch it with friends uh don't watch it don't watch it alone have have a good night with friends yeah uh so i'll do two and a half i will give one to that lady that dies i'll give one to the basketball and i'll give the last 0.5 to uh ripley eight um i on the other hand think that this is a four nibble movie uh i'll remind'll remind you that you both gave four nipples to aliens both of you that sounds like something I would have done a couple years ago yeah

but yeah I recognize that maybe a lot of what I love about this movie is perhaps headcanon and is not necessarily super active in the movie, but I do think that a lot, like there's a lot of male gaze going on in this movie. The direction is very, very male gaze. And I agree. I mean, it's like she's being really sexy with the alien, but I feel like what that moment is supposed to be,

and it is really sexy when Sigourney Weaver is keeping her eyes still and moving her head around just because she looks like Sigourney Weaver and she's moving in a fluid way but um it's supposed to be her choosing between her animal side and her human side and choosing humanity I don't think that's the script I think it's just on set it became very sexy um yeah but uh I'm gonna I'm gonna throw a nipple at at least subverting the born sexy yesterday trope because. Yeah. Toss it over your shoulder right into the basketball hoop. Because, you know, and they're really surprised that that's a that's a side effect.

And I'm going to give I mean, aippled a call for all of the reasons. Just, I don't know, it's Winona Ryder and Sigourney Weaver being badasses in a movie together. Like, that does a lot for me. Especially since part of the reason Sigourney Weaver got cast in the first place was from being very tall. And everyone who was doing casting was like, see, this I can see is Ripley. Like, that's Ripley walking in the room. And she, like, credits her quote hooker boots about it. So as a short person, I like that there's also Winona Ryder being a badass.

5'3". And I'm going to give a nipple to the baby alien because I love the baby alien so, so much. And the lighting of the baby alien. They apparently had to CGI off the umbilical cord when it was walking because it looked too much like a penis, which is just like a fun little. I love that baby alien fact. Yeah, it was like a CGI thing that had to happen. It was the guy who CGI said it was the weirdest editing he'd had to do.

Which to me relates just a tiny bit, even though Joss didn he'd had to do um which i just like to me relates just a tiny bit even though joss didn't have anything to do with production to joss whedon really wanting vision to have a penis and having to be shown what that would look like to be told that that is incorrect um but that's a side track and i'm gonna give a nipple to the joss whedony dialogue because uh you know thinking about the human being aside, I love dialogue like that. And this is my lead character, my Ripley being told, I thought you were dead. I get that a lot. I'm like, that's a nipple for me. That's a nipple for me, dog. Four nipples. Well, Gracie, thank you so much for coming back and for helping us.

Yes. Thank you for bringing us this movie. Yeah. I'm happy that you watched it. can skip three i mean cubed yeah the more i learn about a alien cube the more i'm just like i'm i don't think i'll ever see the need to see it no no uh where can people follow you online check out out your stuff, plug away? I'm online on Instagram at Gracie Gilliam, G-R-A-C-I-E-G-I-L-L-A-M. And right now you can watch me in Superhost on Shudder app. It is coming up on spooky season, so good time to get Shudder app. And it's a good movie to watch in your home and contemplate the validity of safety in the domestic sphere.

Mwahaha. Hell yeah. Oh my. Super host on Shudder. Hell yeah. Check it out. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtelcast. You can subscribe to our Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon, for $5 a month at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast.

It gets you two bonus episodes every month, plus access to the entire back catalog of bonus episodes, which is over 100 now, I think. Yeah, I think we did it. We've crossed into triple figures. Wow, there's so much content left to explore if you're not already a matron. And you can also grab some merch over at tpublic.com slash the Bechdel cast. If you are so inclined, if you have a baby alien to dress, I'm pretty sure we have clothes for baby aliens. Triple XL. Also, I mean, it is a very size inclusive site. So go there

have a good time and everyone I think we just got to earth I mean I know it's kind of a shithole but I'd rather stay with the things man fun fact like she's apparently they're they're gonna put this shit they're gonna

send the ship to somewhere that's unpopulated. And according to xenopedia.com, that place is Central Africa. Oh. Oh. Okay. So that's interesting. Interesting. Okay.

Well, this movie's a mess. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers.. Bye-bye. Bye. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right?

Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. Don't miss Catherine Hahn on Las Culturistas.

Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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, you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just

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