The Bechdel Cast - Almost Famous with Kristen Lopez

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

This week, teenage journalists Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Kristen Lopez deliver a juicy story on Almost Famous. (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast Follow @Journeys_Film on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante, and @jamieloftusHELPSee 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. I'm Joe Gatto. I'm Steve Byrne. We are two cool moms. We are Two Cool Moms.

We certainly are. And guess where we could find us now? Oh, I don't know. The iHeart Podcast Network? That's right. We're an official iHeart podcast, and I'm super excited about it. I am too. I thought Two Cool Moms was such a fun podcast, but now it's even more funner and cooler and heartier.

That's right. It's more iHeartier. I knew it. Check your heart rate. That's right. It's more I heartier. I knew it. Check your heart rate. We're here at I heart. Yeah. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcast or on the I heart radio. Senora sex ed is not your mommy's sex talk.

This show is like you've never heard it before. We're breaking the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in Latin X 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 Bechtelcast, 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 effin' vast, start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Hey, Jamie. Hey, Caitlin. It's me, a journalist, and you're the lead podcaster of the Bechtel cast. Yeah. And it's time for our interview. So tell me, Jamie, what is it that you love about podcasts?

Sorry, I can't talk right now. I have to go hook up with a podcast fan. The horniest fans in the world. Are you talking about a groupie or is she more of a no i'd say she's more of a there's no good word for like band-aid like pod aid m4a assistant she's more of a way away no wait wave there's more possibilities with wave oh sure more of a wave yeah there's got to be there's got to be puns like podcast something i think it does speak to the inherent um and i say this with love the inherent dorkiness

of having a podcast and being a big fan of them that instead of having our equivalent of like super fans it's like parasocial relationships i'm very self-conscious about. I'm like, oh, we're all such dorks. It's fun. It's fun. Anyway, hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus. And this is our podcast where we, you know, get profiled in Rolling Stone once and completely lose sight of ourselves and then almost get into a plane accident. Yes. So, you know, nice knowing you. No, this is our podcast where we take an intersectional feminist look at your favorite movies. And today, a longtime request.

The 2000 Cameron Crowe epic? Question mark. Almost. Sure. Famous. Yeah. 2000 Cameron Crowe epic? Almost famoose. Yeah, a long time request for the show. And I'm actually kind of glad we're covering it now versus closer to when the show began because I feel like there's ways I feel about this movie now that I may not have had the tools to articulate

five or six years ago. Certainly, yeah. And we have an amazing guest. Yeah. Should we say what the Bechdel test is at any point? Yes, we've been doing this show for 5,000 years. Caitlin, you're right to say that. What is the Bechdel test anyways?

The Bechdel test anyways is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel-Wallace test. Many versions of the test. The one that we use is two characters of a marginalized gender with names must speak to each other about something other than a man. Hopefully it's a substantial conversation. Something like one of my favorite exchanges towards the end of this movie. I forgive you. I didn't apologize. Meaningful. I mean, that's actually a very, very meaningful exchange. That conversation carries a lot of weight and meaning. Yes. For one moment, this movie is about mothers and daughters and i celebrated that one moment exactly but anyway that's the metric that we use simply as a jumping off point to initiate

a larger conversation and to join us in today's conversation is pop culture journalist film editor for the rap and her book but have you You Read the Book? 52 Literary Gems That Inspired Our Favorite Films, which is coming out on March 7th. It's Kristen Lopez. Hello. I'm so glad. I totally didn't plan on this, but I'm wearing my Led Zeppelin t-shirt to talk about this.

So I feel like I came prepared. You did. Penny would be proud. I feel like she would. Only the best bands. I'm wearing my Titanic sweatshirt. Penny would still be proud. I mean.

She would be proud. I feel like she'd give me some shit. I'm wearing an Ariana Grande sweatshirt. I mean, it'd be interesting to see how the feminist world of rock star groupies would feel about female singers of today. I feel like they would have many opinions or they would be like boomer women and just be like, remember back in our day? I don't know. I feel like there'd be opposite ends of the spectrum. Yeah, totally. So you brought us Almost Famous and we must know, what is your history with this

movie? What is your attachment or non attachment to it? Please share with the class. Yeah, I mean, Almost Famous is probably one of my favorite movies of all time. I remember seeing it in the heyday of like, when indie film was cool in like the early 2000s you know this is like the garden state era right around you know 2000 to 2003 or 4 when indie film was still considered small scale but studios were starting to get into it making independent films that just had budgets and big stars intended to win oscars and had great soundtracks. So for me, this was something that I, I gravitated towards, because of the soundtrack and the time period, you know, I love the era of the 70s rock scene, even though now as a as an adult woman, I'm like, Hmm, there's something to reading Pamela

Despar's book about, you know, group of of the 1970s and the power they held or watching you know Cynthia Plastercaster's documentary but then you realize that these were children running around Los Angeles at like 14 15 sleeping with grown men and I've had to reconcile with that a little bit but you know as a teenager I didn't care about that I was just like the hedonism and Led Zeppelin throwing a tv off of a balcony and driving a motorcycle through the the you know continental hyatt house uh like that's that's cool um thrilling and also i mean it's it's probably one of the few films that actually details with some authenticity that I don't think has changed sadly the the desire to be a journalist as a young person you know like I I tell people a lot like William Miller is very much my prototype

for how I started you know big dreams thinking it was going to be about hanging out with cool people and I mean Cameron Crowe because he based a lot of that on his own life really does capture the naivete and the excitement of of journalism in a way that i don't think you necessarily get you know if you look at like the history of journalism movies all the president's men they're dudes in three-piece suits and you know they're they're breaking like government conspiracies it's not sexy it's not fun i mean robert redford is but you know watergate's not sexy um so i i think there's a lot of different things too i mean kate hudson's great i mean billy crudup like that was a moment in time that i'm not really proud of uh for for for celeb problematic celebrity males it

was a wonderful moment in time um and i think it still remains one of like the de facto like 2000s era films that just really captures like my own desire to be a writer and to be a journalist and sets the bar high but at times is also ridiculously authentic and like how much how little money you get paid, how much you're working versus how little you're sleeping. You know, the celebrities are weird, man. And they say that they're your buddies until you write something they don't like. And then it's like, we'll slit your throat.

You know, so it really does capture a lot of the things that, you know, now as an adult an adult you know I'm like oh god I remember those bright starry eyes I had I mean I still have them to an extent but they've slowly been pounded down by time tell me about it there is something so appealing about the like I totally agree with you I think the seeing little william you're just like oh that if you see that movie at the right time you're like that's me that's so me i'm gonna leave home tomorrow my mom is so oppressive and i'm gonna go on the road and everyone's gonna get it but then it ends up kind of being a cautionary tale but then also not because if you know anything

about cameron crowe which i did when i first saw this movie, I'm like, and it worked out. Now he makes movies, man. So it's not a super cautionary tale because you know that he ends up, like he stays a journalist. He stays an artist. Very successful. Yeah. And then he made Elizabethtown and then people got mad at him. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, Cameron Crowe, I think people forget that Cameron Crowe had such a string of hits. He was almost too big to fail in the 1990s through to the early 2000s. And I mean, I love most of them. You know, they're all problematic-ish in different ways. I've still never seen Jerry Maguire. Jerry Maguire is a lot of fun, even though it is, again, incredibly troubling. But it's got a fantastic kelly preston performance so i always i i it's one of those movies that i don't plan on watching

and then like an hour will have gone by um but it's great but then uh he did this and then i mean i don't think elizabethtown necessarily doomed him i think it was the film that people just realized that they were sick of him i think vanilla sky was like the first like wobble which i think vanilla sky is a fantastic movie time is going to tell on that one um and elizabeth town i i remember reading the script for elizabeth town back in the days when people would like trade screenplays that they got from illicit means um and i read the script and the script that i read was fantastic the movie is not that uh and i i know that crow is played around with it a bit more and he's released not necessarily director's cuts but more extended versions of that film that have gotten bet i think closer to the heart of what he wants it to be um but the spark is gone because if you

look at everything else you know aloha oh my god i forgot that was him and then didn't he do we bought a zoo he did we bought a zoo which is only good for matt damon in a cozy dad sweater so i mean i don't know i don't know if maybe he's one of those directors that like once you become so far removed from the zeitgeist you just can't get it back because i think that like cameron crowe as a director really defined some some respective eras whether that was writing the script for fast times at richmond high or uh say anything or even something like singles i mean he was really close to the eras that he got and i don't know maybe he's uh maybe just you know the

benefits of of time and, he's just not hitting it in the same way. I feel like a lot of directors from this generation are currently in a flop era. And in some cases, that's a decades long flop era, i.e. Robert Zemeckis and others. Oh, yeah. Anyway. Wow. Caitlin just took this opportunity to just fling Robert Zemeckis for no reason look I had to we had to watch Pinocchio recently and I'm still mad about it anyway Jamie what is your history with Almost Famous I honestly I re-watching this for this episode was kind of a journey because I sort of went into it I mean I went into it being like this is a movie I've seen maybe like two times I was like I think the first time I saw it would have been in high school and I liked it

but I don't something about like movies about classic rock are just like not fun for me usually it's just not my my thing um even though i like the music itself but like rock star movies were never really it for me however journalism scrappy little journalism movies are for me but i think that i saw this movie on both sides of the raging manic pixie dream girl debates of the early 2010s and um so I saw it once before that was like a popular term and was just like oh this movie is like I wasn't thinking about it very hard because I was 15 and I was like I want to live on a bus and I think that might have been the extent of my my thoughts I was like I want to see people do weird stuff but like be a loser like that seems like we're all excel in life

hopefully and um then on the other side I think it it was after the Manic Pixie Dream Girl thing. And I came in with a feeling of dismissiveness towards the movie and the character Penny Lane that now watching it again years later, I think was maybe a little unfair. And I don't know. Yeah, I feel like I've been on a whole journey with this damn movie because now like I don't know. I did that show Lolita podcast a couple of years ago and really looked into how young women and in the case of Penny Lane, girls are hyper sexualized by older men and like how. Like how and then also on top of that, how like fairly complex characters in movies can be reduced to marketing symbols in a way that I feel like Penny Lane kind of has become over the years. And I didn't even realize that when I was going into this viewing, I was coming in with the like poster of Penny Lane in my head and didn't really remember that much about what actually happens with the character, what she says and what she does. And I still think that, you know,

we have a lot to talk about and there's like certainly not enough to be like, she's actually like one of the most well-developed characters in film canon. Like she's definitely not. But I do think that there was more to her than I gave credit for on my last viewing. I have a lot of like, I guess, Lolita Dolores adjacent thoughts where Penny Lane is the idea and then Lady DeBars. Got a little bit about her for later. I don't know. I just, it's been a real day. I've been, I'm in the fucking zone. I didn't, I didn't walk into this recording being like, it's time to lightly hand it to Cameron Crowe. But here we are. It's the day. We're doing it. Caitlin, what's your history with this movie? Not a long one. I saw it for the first time in the mid 2000s I think as a freshman in college and I was not really I guess I was just kind of indifferent

about it I was not like wow I love this nor was I like I don't like I was just like okay now I've seen it brave so brave of me to be indifferent about things um and then I watched it again I would say probably within the past like six years or so I think just because I was like wow people still talk about this movie a lot people still ride or die pretty hard for this movie and I don't remember it at all. So maybe I should watch it again. And I watch it and I realized I kind of confused this movie with Boogie Nights, not necessarily like the plot or anything like that. It's more just like scenes that I thought happened in Boogie Nights actually happened in Almost Famous. I think like the like guy on the roof

and jumping into the pool scene, I was like, that could happen in either movie, I feel like the like guy on the roof and jumping into the pool scene I was like that could happen in either movie I feel like so my brain kind of just like confuses scene like individual scenes from those movies but anyway the most important thing is that almost famous has no Alfred Molina and so right it is by default the weaker film um but precisely you know I don't think that that means there's there's nothing to love about almost famous but what if alfred molina was in it i also this is like so goofy but i forgot that this was the movie where mark maron said lock the gates and i sort of it like itched something in the back of my mind where i was like wait a second i like i just

forgot that that was where that sound clip was from I didn't realize that was Mark Maron I didn't either yeah at the beginning of not to out myself as someone that I mean WTF is can be a really good show okay it can and I listen to it sometimes when I when I'm excited about the Okay. And at the beginning of every episode of this show I've been listening to since high school. That show started when I was in high school. Wow. And at the beginning of every episode, there's that clip where he goes, lock the gates. Now I'm embarrassed.

I like that show. Sounds like you're a podcast groupie to me, Jamie. He seems nice. No, my mom was a podcast groupie. me Jamie he seems nice no my mom was a podcast groupie my mom I mean I think I've told this story in the podcast before my mom I showed her WTF when I was in high school and she got really into it and she had a huge crush on Marc Maron and we saw him do stand-up once and he like remembered who she was because she had replied to all of his tweets every single day for months. And he remembered who she was, but like not in a positive way.

He was like, oh, so Jill, the groupie is in my blood. Yeah, fair. Anyway, I'm excited to talk about the movie. So shall we? Let's unlock the gates and start this amazing discussion. Let's do that right after we take this quick break. 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 iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore.

The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Jay Shetty and welcome to On Purpose. I started this podcast to have real conversations that help you live with more meaning, whether it's navigating relationships, working on your mental health, or figuring out what you're truly here to do. This week, I welcomed back Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist and professor at Stanford University, known for his insightful work on brain development, neuroplasticity, and the intricate connection between the brain and body. Letting go and not trying to control everything, but also pushing oneself to be more resilient and tenacious and things of that sort. I feel like all

of life is like that. All of life is about, yes, you need to take care of your physiology, you need to get your sleep at night, but it's also okay to get a bad night's sleep every once in a while. It's okay to not do every protocol. In fact, it's encouraged to not do every protocol. The expectation on us is not perfection, right? It's being able to toggle between these different states. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Trust me, you won't want to miss this one. All right, we're back and we're unlocking those gates. Mark Maron would be so mad. All right. Shall we? Is it time for Caitlin's Famous Recap? Yeah, let's do it. All right. Okay. It's 1969 in San Diego, California. Ever heard of it? We meet a young

William, his mom, Elaine, played by Frances McDormand, and his older sister, Anita. That's Zooey Deschanel. William's mom has a lot of rules, but she's also kind of a hippie, but she hates drugs and rock and roll. But she's also pretty cool and chill. But she's also a nonconformist who doesn't want them to, they don't celebrate Christmas on Christmas. They celebrate in September, so it's not commercial. And they're maybe vegans. I don't know.

They're whatever the 60s version of vegans is. Yeah, right. She kind of cracked me up because I feel like she, I've known like when I was younger I had like friends with like kind of hippie parents like this where they were so counter-cultural that they sort of were back to being conservative parents and like didn't realize it I was like but wait they can't go outside or say bad words and they're like yeah but that's because of counterculture and you're like hmm okay so elaine and anita don't get along because of all the things that elaine has banned in the household so anita leaves home and leaves her music collection to william saying it will set him free which is the best gift that an elder sibling can give a

younger sibling it's so beautiful yes and i I hope that William saved all those records because they would fetch him a mint when he's someone's dad. Yeah. 100%. So, yeah, we see him listening to all these records. And then we flash forward to four years later. He is now 15. He's played by Patrick Fugate. He is an aspiring music journalist,

and he's kind of following around Lester Bangs. That's Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is the editor of Cream, a music magazine. And Lester is like, all right, so you want to be a music journalist. Great, but don't make friends with rock stars because they'll be a bad influence on you and they'll use you. Just be careful. But he gives William his first assignment to write a thousand words on Black Sabbath. So William goes to a Black Sabbath concert, but he can't get in because he's not on the list. And he's a baby. And he's a child. Also, the baby, babyiam is michael anganaro which i thought was fun uh but he's like a child star and an adult star he's he's lovely

and he's married to maya erskine okay he was the hilarious drama teacher in pen 15 if anybody watched this like season two okay yeah he's amazing uh but the uh Patrick Fugit I think it's so like I don't know so rare that like I as I was watching it I was like I oh you don't really see a lot of like actual teenagers playing teenagers like he's at the exact perfect moment where you're always just like oh my god like he's just so pubescent and struggling. He's extremely 15. This poor kid. Yeah. So outside the Black Sabbath concert, he meets Penny Lane. That's Kate Hudson and some other,

they're not groupies. They are band aids as they call themselves because they are there not for the famous people but for the love of the music they literally kind of announce themselves as like muses they're like we are we're not here to fuck the band we're like a part of a grand tradition right but according to bijou phillips there is still sex involved so she's, we still kind of fuck the band. Yeah, it's only blowjobs. Yeah, just blowjobs and that's it. Yes.

There's rules, there's standards, of course. Then William meets the guys from fictional rock band Stillwater. Although there is a real rock band named Stillwater, but this is not the same band. The Stillwater in this movie is a very fictional band. They are coming into the Black Sabbath concert. I guess they're probably like the openers, but we meet lead guitarist Russell.

That's Billy Crudup. We also meet the lead singer Jeff. That's Jason Lee. And the other band bandmates who are far less important characters. But William wants to interview them and they're like, fuck critics. We play for the fans. And then William shows them that he is a fan because he knows their names and their songs and other tidbits about them. So they take a liking to William and they get him into the show. Then they invite William to go to L.A. with them.

And he basically starts touring with Stillwater as their kind of like journalist on retainer. Everyone's role. And I know that this is like based in cameron crowe's actual experience but i'm just always it would be so stressful to me to be in a ragtag group and be that unclear on what my role was i feel like what am i doing here like right what is my job well it's really like the ultimate who you know story apparently because like he gets the first assignment because he meets lester bangs the great philip seymour hoffman who gives him the assignment and then at a certain point ben fong torres from rolling stone just calls him up

and says oh we've seen some of your stuff we want you to write for us which in Cameron Crowe's actual narrative he did work partially for Rolling Stone they did hire him on not knowing how old he was but like he was doing actual work for them before this as opposed to just them being like oh we read some of your stuff other places and we want to poach you as like probably a permalance position I don't see them hiring him as staff um so you know back in the days when you didn't have to show any proof of identity to get a job they just call them on the phone they're like you can write 2 000 words for us right we don't need a bank account or a social security card just tell us where to drop the

money yeah no need to fill out tax forms, etc. I liked the few like actual historic figures that they bring in from this era because mostly everyone's made up, but like Ben Fong Torres and Lester Bangs, very real guys. My dad was a big Lester Bangs head. Okay. Yeah, we had some Lester Bangs kicking around the house, make no mistake. Okay, so William starts touring with the band and they're going around the U.S. Penny Lane and the other Band-Aids are along for the ride, such as Plexia, that's Anna Paquin, and Sapphire, played by Farooza Balk. And Penny Lane is having a not-so-secret affair with the lead singer, Russell,

even though he has a partner back home. And then also William seems to have a crush on Penny. Meanwhile, back in San Diego, Elaine is not thrilled that William is like touring with this rock band and she's always calling him and like terrorizing the people at the front desk of hotels and being like, send a message to my son to stay away from drugs. I wish we knew more about Elaine because I really I'm just like, she's just I I'm like I just want more context for how she got to where she's at I also love that one of the many people she calls uh and interacts with is a pre modern family Eric Stonestreet yes yes the guy that's like your mom really freaked me out yeah I do like the idea of Frances McDormand just calling around and terrifying different men, which is kind of what she does the whole movie. And she's totally fine with the long distance charges because she's calling pretty much across the country.

Yeah, right. It's so, I mean, I don't know. Also, her character was more complicated than I was expecting the movie to allow her to be. But we'll get there. Yeah. So then William gets a call from Ben Fong-Torres at Rolling Stone, who wants William to write for them and do a piece on Stillwater. And they're going to pay him $1,000 in 1970s money.

Oh, my God. I can't get $1, dollars in 2023 money for writing something like that you're just like right okay cool and like all expenses paid william it seems that's how you know it's fucking fiction right um so now still water is apprehensive about talking to william because rolling stone has a reputation for like hating certain bands and they don't know if they can trust him but they're like he's probably harmless. So William keeps trying to do an interview with Russell but Russell keeps blowing him off. He's usually too busy in his hotel room with Penny Lane. Then Russell and Jeff get in a fight about their roles in the band and the band's image and all this stuff. So Russell takes off with William saying

that he just wants to hang out with real people from now on. So they go to this party at a fan's house in Topeka where Russell does acid and is like I'm a golden god I'm on drugs and then he jumps off the roof that scene is fun to the pool I didn't remember what happens in this movie to the extent where I'm like does he get injured when he jumped because there are I feel like a few different scenes in movies over the years where someone jumps into a pool from a great height. Sometimes it's a really cathartic moment. Other times they get gravely injured. This one was one of the cathartic ones.

Sometimes you have not another teen movie where it's hilarious. Other times you get Get Him to the Greek where Russell Brand does break his arm. Yes, exactly. I hate that I was probably thinking about Get Him to the Greek where Russell Brand does break his arm. I hate that I was probably thinking about Get Him to the Greek. It was a moment in time. Still a good movie.

That's also a great rock star movie. Were we ever so young as to be watching Get Him to the Greek? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Okay. So then the next morning, the band reconciles and they head to Greenville on their next step of the tour. But William's deadline for the Rolling Stone piece is four days away, and he still hasn't really interviewed Russell. And he hasn't written anything substantial yet. Then the band's label brings in a new manager, Jimmy Fallon, because their current manager doesn't really know what he's doing.

So Jimmy Fallon comes in. He's like, I know how to do all this stuff for you. And also, we're going to fly in a plane from now on. And they're like, what? Classic Jimmy Fallon. Abandon Doris the bus. Yeah, right. That is like a fun movie thing where it's like, bus means you're salt of the earth.

Plane means you're sellout garbage. You're like, yeah, exactly. But also... What does Spirit Airlines mean? Not dressed in film. But also feminist icon Doris the bus. It's true. You know?

Although classically set in a nurturing role yeah it's complicated anyway so doris rocks uh meanwhile william keeps not going back home as he's supposed to he misses his high school graduation and then rolling stone informs him that his piece on still water is going to be the cover. So the stakes are even higher. Then they all head to Boston, where during a poker game with some other rock stars, Russell is like, yeah, you guys can have Penny Lane and the other band-aids after this, because Russell's girlfriend will be joining them on the next step of the tour in New York so they kind of have to like distance themselves from the band

aids and then William sees this unfold penny sees Russell with his girlfriend Leslie she's very upset by this and she takes a bunch of quaaludes. And William finds Penny in her hotel room. She's ODing. He calls in some doctors. They have to pump her stomach. There's more that happens in this scene that we will unpack. But the next day she's recovered and she kind of wishes him farewell. And she heads back to San Diego.

Then William is on the plane with the band. He finally is getting his interview with Russell. But then the plane runs into an electrical storm and it seems like they might crash and die. So everyone starts yelling out all of their secrets. And they're like, i love you guys but wait a minute i hate you i killed a man with my car and then a very 2000 uh gay joke yes yeah and everybody slept with the one guy's wife yeah um yes it's not like actual like real stuff like i've been stealing my like i feel like the menu does this a bit better

whether like actually have consequences like because you're not i mean i know that the manager admits that like maybe he took an extra dollar here like maybe he's been embezzling but like considering most of the rock stars of the 70s that got like royally screwed over by recording companies i feel that this guy definitely probably stole way more from them probably um and then so william is like you know what all you guys suck you claim to be about the fans but penny was your biggest fan and you used her and dumped her so it's a very intense moment but then the plane recovers from the storm and they all survive and they land and Russell is like you know what William write whatever you want about us so now William has all these juicy

secrets and with pressure from Rolling Stone he writes this juicy story but the band denies everything because they realize they seem super corny and amateurish i love this i like another as a fan of journalism movies even when they suck there's something so fun to me about the deadline call the deadline call comes a couple different times the the actor who's enforcing the deadline is really never given much to work with. So it always sounds kind of goofy. He's like, all right, William, you have one minute to get me the best story of all time or the magazine will explode. And it's like, yeah, I feel it.

I love when there's a character that's like, and I'm here to remind you of the stakes. And you're like, thanks, man. Appreciate it. that's like and i'm here to remind you of the stakes and you're like thanks man appreciate it and then he says something like oh yeah when my lady wants me to unclog the garbage disposal i have i understand i gotta get on it too and i'm like okay sir um thank you benfong tourist so the band denies everything. And so Rolling Stone can't run the story because they think William made everything up. Which I have a lot of issues with that ending.

Well, at least that section as a journalist. Like, yeah, of course, they're gonna say no, they didn't do all of this. Which is why you have like, if he had receipts or like other things and i'm pretty sure like if he demanded it they could go to legal and pretty much say like sue us like the u.s is pretty like when it comes to like slander laws i mean i don't think still water was going to be suing them because they would have had they would have to prove that it didn't happen this is where I'm just like come on yeah also he has all this stuff on record like he was rolling he's doing a good job recording device he has not been doing a bad job that also stuck for me we're just like but we've seen him taking notes and recording everything the whole time he has the proof and even so you're totally right like he would have more

you know leeway than it's implied and then also at the end like insult to injury that they cast off the entire like blame of that onto like shrew woman who works at the magazine who's like you know like the feminist killjoy at rolling stone ruins the story and you're just like oh man you're just like oh it's a conspiracy so the who can get on the cover of rolling stone which i was like i love that still water was your first choice and the who in 1960 1970 whatever was your backup choice like that's offensive to roger daltrey in so many levels right especially because at this point in this like fictional band's career they were still an opening act it seemed yeah yeah there's no like moment there's no like star is born moment where they like have a song that races up the chair i

mean it's not it's not that thing you do it's not pretend to be nice and Josie and the pussy cats. Yeah. No. And I mean, I know he sells it as I know he sells it as like, it's a think piece, which is that's pretty much every journalist like thing where we don't know what the hell to say. We're like,

it's a think piece about a working band making good. And you know, like, okay, yeah, that's great. It's not original, but I mean,

it's, it's doable. So, I mean, I guess that's, that's your angle original, but I mean, it's doable. So I mean, I guess that's your angle. So I mean, damn, dude, you better have a really great story to back that up from every other working band making good in the 1970s. Right. Yeah. Can I, I have, I have one more, I have, I'm late to adding the it's no blank from other music movies. Oh, no. Go for it. It's no Cinderella from the Cheetah Girls, folks.

It's no overnight hit. Which, I mean, I shouldn't complain. Nobody's really watching Almost Famous for the journalistic elements of it. I get it. But as a journalist, I just have to be like, this is not how actual writing works. Are you saying that Hollywood has misrepresented something? I just have to be like, this is not how actual writing works. Are you saying that Hollywood has misrepresented something? I mean, yeah, Hollywood, if we're talking about how Hollywood has represented journalism,

again, they're female journalists who are uh in spite of being journalists uh constantly referred to as mothers and wives like the recent movie she said um oh yeah yeah or they're they're never been kissed you know where it's just like we want to have you relive your trauma in order to sustain a story god whoops i feel like if a woman had been at the center of almost famous this would have been like pretty baby or something this would have like taken a really dark turn where they would have been like we can't take you seriously as a journalist you're a groupie right she would have been completely like mistaken as a woman offering sex with like oh my god a notepad in her hand um so

oh you're totally right you're totally right and it's like uh i don't think i want that movie i mean i kind of do but i would love like maybe like a Lorene Scafaria or like a woman who actually understands the nuances of that era in some way to do it. Because I think that, I mean, I have a lot of opinions. I'll let you get through the recap before I start throwing them out. So because the band has denied all of these you know stories and quotes and stuff william basically gets fired from rolling stone so he goes to the airport to go back home where he runs into his sister anita they both return home and reunite with their mom elaine meanwhile

russell calls penny lane to see how she's doing. He wants to meet up and like, clear the air and say the things they never said to each other. And she gives him an address that turns out to be William's address. So Russell shows up realizes it's not Penny's house, it's William's. And he's like, Hey, I called Rolling Stone. And I was like, actually, what William wrote was true. And then Williams like, okay, let's do this one last time. And he takes out his recording device and he starts to interview Russell again. And then the movie ends with Williams story does end up on the cover of Rolling Stone. Penny, we see her leaving on the trip to Morocco that she's always wanted to go on.

We see the band continuing to play together and we see William hanging out with his family. Yeah. The end. As Led Zeppelin plays at the end. Yes. Getting another Zeppelin reference in there. Yeah. Let's take a quick break and then we will 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 unhearts 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.

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miss this one and we're back and we're back where shall we start with this movie there's so much to talk about i mean i think i think for me there there's two there's two things that are worth pointing out so i don't know did you got you guys i'm assuming saw the theatrical version of this yes oh i guess i don't know the difference but i saw whatever version is on amazon prime okay yeah because there's there's two versions there's there's the theatrical cut, and then there's Crowe's director's cut, which is commonly called Untitled, which is what he wanted to name the movie,

and they told him, no, you can't. People will get confused by a movie with no title called Untitled. Which is fair enough. And the Untitled version is maybe about half an hour longer, and it's got a bit more backstory particularly with regards to penny lane's relationship with russell hammond okay

it's kind of frustrating that they cut so like that sequence when they first re-meet at the hotel and the ice room where you just see her coat go over the the window to block it there's a whole dialogue exchange there that goes on that pretty much like yeah yeah that lays out their history and pretty much is like the back and forth of like she doesn't want to but she can't help it um you know there's an extended sequence about her birthday um that is just like heartbreaking leading up to the reveal that they've sold the groupies to humble pie uh where jimmy fallon just like treats her like shit and it's just like another like poke at her so there's a lot more to her character in the untitled version as well as more like inside rock things like um i think the mark maron scene goes on longer in that one uh

so i would say that's what we needed more mark maron yes i would say if you haven't it's it's worth watching the director's cut if only because i think the biggest complaint a lot of people have when they watch the the theatrical is like well i don't know why she would give this guy the time of day other than he's hot you know and he's a rock star in the movie there are a couple more scenes that that showcase this history she doesn't seem quite as naive when it comes to him so I just had to throw that out it's worth it's worth a watch it doesn't completely fix the Penny Lane issues but it gives a little bit more backstory sure I watched the the ice box scene and then I read about the rest of the Ramuh stuff,

and I do feel like it would help a little bit because so much of, I don't know, I have so many complicated feelings about Penny Lane, but I think that in the theatrical cut before I started doing research when I just watched it raw, I mean, you just don't get to learn very much about her until the very end. And that's because, you know, this movie is so told through William's eyes. And so I guess that's where I struggle with it,

where I think the criticism around how little we know about her is like well placed and we don't know a lot about this character but this movie is being narrated by someone who doesn't know a lot about her and is clearly like idealizing her in a way that is you know that maybe it's like what she how she wants to be idealized but not as is not a reflection of who she actually is as a person and I do think that that's really interesting in a character I don't know I I I I don't know how well I'm going to be able to articulate my thoughts on Penny Lane because there definitely is like so much going on with her in terms of like who she wants to project to the world versus who she actually is which is like such a thing for 16 year olds that um i feel like it's overly dismissive to be like penny lane's not a real character it's like well no penny lane is a like character that lady

devised for herself to be able to navigate the world and you know you can have issues with that on its face and you can have issues with like a you know world where that seems necessary but i don't think that that means that it's not a character worth examining it's she's a cameron crow woman i think is the big thing you know like cameron crow is is nothing if not consistent with the types of women that he has written. You know, she's Dorothy Boyd in Dorothy Boyd. I think, yeah, Dorothy Boyd is the Renee Zellweger character in Jerry Maguire. You know, the woman that makes you want to be a better man, you know, type of thing. The woman who has you at hello.

Yes, exactly. And they're all blonde, too. Like we didn't really start to realize that he was actually creating the same type um you know like penelope cruz and vanilla skies is very similar or of course like the apotheosis is the manic pixie dream girl kirsten dunst in elizabethtown and that's where it becomes dissociative yes and i think what's what's interesting is crow has talked about how he wrote penny lane to be a tribute to the women that he saw on the road in in you know groupie situations now what we know is as groupies and it's really jarring to me again to watch this

movie as a teenager and to read pamela despars book and and numerous other groupies of this time period of written books. And Cynthia Plastercasters did a documentary, which is also really interesting, worth watching. And these women will tell you that in the 1970s, which was a far more permissive time, that they felt there was empowerment in being a groupie, that they are inspiring the music, right? As, as, as she says, you know know and that did happen um you know i think like what is it rolling stone referred to groupies by name and some of their songs um zeppelin did it like all of them have name dropped but now to go back to this post me too world that we're living

in now especially like watching the movie this week after like steven tyler got sued for sexually assaulting a minor who he also talked openly about having a relationship with when she was a child it hits differently now i think like i i realized i had aged differently with this movie when i realized that penny, they make a very specific point of saying that she's over 18. She's clearly over 21 because they're drinking too. So like she's in this weird non-specific age limit where she's clearly legal, but she's not old and decrepit like 25.

But is she? Okay. Because I was really, I mean, and we'll talk, we we'll get into this but this movie's approach to consent this movie's approach to underage characters and their sexuality straight up bad it's real bad um but i was like how old are these characters these band-aids because there's a scene early on where penny lane is talking to william and she's like how old are you and he's like 18 she's like me too okay but how old are we really and he goes

17 she says me too and he's like well i'm 16 she says me too and then he's like but i'm also 15 and then she stops talking so i'm like okay i she's 16. But I also wasn't sure if she was just kind of like playing along with him. She's playing along with him. She says the truth sounds different. You know, it's clear that she can tell that he's not being truthful. I mean, I got the impression and I think it's helped by Kate Hudson looking. I think she was like, what, 20, 22. She was in her early 20s.

She was 21 when the movie came out because she's born in 79. So she was an what 20 22 she was in her early 20s when she was 21 when the movie came out because she's born in 79 so she was an adult when it was filmed but then I went and looked at the script okay because the script usually tells how old a character is or ballpark so here's what I found as far as Penny Lane her character introduction does not specify how old she is. So we don't have anything to go on there. But Plexia, when her character is introduced, here's what the script says. Another breathless girl teetering on tall shoes. She is in the vicinity of 16. Her black hair is cropped short and dyed red, just like the cover of Bowie's Aladdin Sane. She is Pallexia, the voluptuous one from Riverside. So Pallexia, 16 years old.

Here we go for Outstep's Sapphire, 19, a tall girl with taller platforms, heavy eye makeup, et cetera. So we have Sapphire, who's the Feruza Balt character. She is 19 in the script. Then we have, um, chattering excitedly with sophistication far beyond her 17 years is

Estrella. So, or Estrella, I don't know how she pronounces it. Um, so she is 17. So we have these characters who are no older than 19 and some as young as 16. Penny Lane.

Unclear. Again, it's not specified, but I have to assume because even if they are drinking, that doesn't mean they're of legal drinking age. Right. Sure. Because they're usually like, you know, they're in hotel rooms and stuff like that where they wouldn't be carded or anything. I feel like Penny Lane could very easily be carded or anything i feel like penny lane could very easily be 16 there's definitely a chance that she's not of age yeah the movie the movie puts her in this like she's old enough to party age whatever age that you want that to be and

and i mean to read pamela desbar's book and the other like groupies of that era 16 would be nice because like a lot of these girls started out at like 13 14 15 i mean they're they're babies who had very permissive parents you know or were not you know came from from families where it was okay for them to be running around and i mean you and i think what's hard for me to to reconcile with is like the real world implications of what we now know, you know, like what is it? Axl Rose adopted his teenage girlfriend, you know, so he could write sweet child of mine or something like that.

Like absurd. Yeah. I mean, there there's like, I mean the list, I feel like the list of kind of classic rockers of the sixties and seventies that didn't engage in this behavior is shorter than the ones that did. I usually, I joke quote unquote um because i think that's the only way to deal with with some of this

sometimes is i'm like finding a rock star that didn't sleep with children is a lesson in futility because i i think i mean i know like like you know i've read rock star biographies i love the who you know i'm like roger daltrey writes in his autobiography that like he had illegitimate children but you don't need to know about like he was dead he claims he wasn't doing anything terrible you know whereas as we know like um pete townsend you know is definitely dating underage girls so it's it's one of those things where you're like how do we reconcile with what we historically know and in which now i think even within the last few years with me too is far more open about like actually no this was inappropriate and some of

these these you know women that were groupies in that era have had to go back and do their own kind of reflection on like yeah did i get taken advantage of and yeah it's hard to enjoy the movie without knowing i mean i compartmentalize because as a woman as a disabled woman like i have to compartmentalize in order to enjoy anything because nothing is perfect but we talk about this often on the podcast i mean like you have to in order to enjoy this movie because you're like i don't really know if that's appropriate or not right because what's happening in the movie there's certainly a historical precedent for Like, I don't really know if that's appropriate or not. Right.

Because what's happening in the movie, there's certainly a historical precedent for all of this behavior. And it was very permissible back then in this era. And even in 2000, when this movie came out, it was still far more permissible by our rape culture than it is today in 2023. So it's very tricky to my thing is like i i it's i have no issue with even like i mean the the character descriptions i think are very obviously written by a man but uh i mean the fact that these characters are the age that they are i feel like that's just pretty historically accurate i feel like it would be almost dishonest to be like, and these women were 27 and like, you know, taking time off from their job at the bank or whatever, you know,

like it is like this was what historically happened. And it's something that I agree, Kristen, has been really uncomfortable and fascinating to watch the people involved have to grapple or not grapple with that period of history I think that my my problems with it just have to do with the way that it's framed and told and like it just seems like I mean in some ways and for certain characters Cameron Crowe is an excellent person to be telling this story. He literally, to some extent was William, but in other areas, he's like deeply unqualified to like,

I mean, and even in, in most of the issues with this movie are not with what's happening. It's how we're being told that it's happening. And the way that it's, you know, like glorified as like, these are the golden days.

Like this was the best that things ever were and there's it's just deeply uncritical of um of anything and and is so determined to kind of glorify certain aspects of this world not all of them but most of but a lot of them there's the point at the end towards the end of the movie where they're talking about the new types of of groupies right sapphire brings out you know none of them use birth control and you know they don't know what it's like to be a fan you know and to love a piece of music till it hurts and i think that that's this real critical distinction that cameron crowe feels that these women are responsible for that they are responsible they are muses right they are these terpsichorean type of muses that have inspired the music and they're not here for the money

they're not here to get pregnant and railroad you into marriage or any of that you know they're not here for anything other than the music but as we've seen a lot of rock stars will jeff jeff says at one point the chicks are great and so it's a little like ridiculous to be like yeah it's kind of stupid for you to say that the women are here for this altruistic like they're here to inspire music and the dudes are are just here because you know they're not they don't see them as just things to have mess around with and get weighed. And really, if we're talking about inspiring the music, I mean, Sweet Child of Mine's a great song, but would we, does anybody know the name of the girl that inspired it? No, you know, like, and I think so it is a little disingenuous to be like these, these women are here, these young girls are here you know purely because they don't want to and Penny Lane makes that distinction several times you know groupies want to be near someone famous they're not here for anything else there's a hierarchy right I also sorry I also always think of the I also think of the song My Sharona every time that this like thing comes

up like there's so many songs and you're totally right christian it's like that you never know who it actually is very very rarely there's a few songs that you're like oh that's about yoko ono and uh and john lennon you know no notes about him great guy 100 well there's that scene where i don't remember which character it is now but she's introducing will William to Penny Lane and being like, you haven't heard of Penny Lane? She is like one of the founders of the band-aids and her whole ethos is, I'm tired of letting my body be sexually exploited by these rock stars. You know, we're here for the music. We're here simply because we are fans of the music. So it's

almost, it seems as though Penny and the other band-aids, again, their ethos is like, we're taking the power back for ourselves. Like we, but they still end up being exploited by these men. And in many cases, like statutory rape is happening here. And remember, nobody's,

William's not interested in writing about their struggle. Like that's, I think, that's an actually more interesting story than local band makes good like let's talk about these young girls that are supposedly inspiring the music or right it's almost like this we saw in the 2000s up until maybe about like what is it like 2015 this this kind of like reverse feminism which, which was women taking things that we've historically, like as a response to like second wave feminism and kind of like recontextualizing it as empowering. You know, the girl boss era, for example, you know, and relationships, the cougar thing, you know, like, oh, it's okay, because like men have been doing

it. So we're gonna do it. Right. And I feel like they're, this is kind of, this is part of that. Like, and if you read Pamela Despar's and any other groupie of the 70s, like they'll say that, yeah, they thought that they were empowered and that they were doing something that was like saying, screw you to the counterculture. But it's one thing to hear that. And then it's another to read out of the same breath, you know, Pamela Despar's talking about like locking herself in a bathroom because a rock star was trying to have sex with her and she had told him no.

So you're kind of like Crowe, I think, sees this as this empowerment thing. But even the women of the 2000s into the 2010s that were doing this now, like looking back at this, we're like, yeah, that actually wasn't as empowering as they thought they were you know it's it's unfortunate but it's true which again is like he's just i just don't think that he as a writer is kind of able to or qualified to give you the appropriate context like because even if you're watching this in 2000 as a young person like it would have i think it would have been really helpful to in any way in the story shoehorn in like where is second wave feminism at this point like there there are certain things about this story that they go out of their way to give you the historical context you need

and then other areas where you just kind of don't know because like I didn't understand the first time that I saw this movie you know I just I just was like, oh, this looks really fucking cool. But how, you know, like with the ethos of second wave feminism, like they are still very much under the thumb of patriarchy. Like they're still very beholden to the interests of men. The subversion or the way that the subversion was often seen is that like I don't have to be a fucking housewife. I'm not like demand like it's not demanded that i am home and being a wife and that is kind of where the freedom and the catharsis is like some level of choice but even when you're able to make that choice you're still

treated like shit which i feel like it is illustrated in penny lane and the band-aids to some extent but it just like I don't know it doesn't go far enough for me and I think it makes you wonder you look at like the relationship with Anita Anita's a great example of exactly what you're saying like she's a woman that doesn't want to be a housewife from what we know about her she wants to go see the world she becomes a stewardess and like seems to be having a real good life you know she's happy about that uh and yet the movie still doesn't really i don't know if it makes an opinion about how it feels about anita because she clearly has no relationship with her mother

it's unclear what her mother expected of her to do you know because because she seems fine with when william follows his bliss but when anita tries to do it it because because she seems fine with when William follows his bliss but when Anita tries to do it it's like I feel like there's so much internalized misogyny going on with the mom that I would have been cool to see more Elaine's whole thing is like oh this is a hobby right William's gonna give this up at some point and go become a lawyer and and even though she's opposed to it she still allows it to happen there's no like don't come back if you can't do this I mean the kid misses his high school graduation and she's opposed to it, she still allows it to happen. There's no, like, don't come back if you can't do this. I mean, the kid misses his high school graduation, and she's, like, upset.

But we don't see any, like, severe pushback. But it's unclear what she wants from her other daughter. You know, she says to her at one point in, like, this really hurtful moment that, you know, when she asked what their dad thought of her, and Elaineaine says you are rebellious and ungrateful of my love it's not really clear what she expects her child to do and she seems to be doing okay if anything it seems more empowering than penny lane and yet we still have to send anita back home to reunite with the mom and it's really unclear she kind of stay home is she going right did she quit her job yeah what what is the deal here because she's actually living this empowered life that the movie seems to be saying that the band-aids are living right and she and we explicitly know her age we know

that she is 18 when she leaves home and so it's like well she's on her own she's doing her own thing and and by the time the movie jumps she's 18 when the when he's little right and then right the movie jumps forward to like him as a senior in high school so yeah she's she's easily like early mid-20s so definitely old enough to make decisions and like start paying taxes and whatnot so i think that characterization and just like the framing of all of that is indicative of the big issue with this movie, which is that there is a far more interesting story to be told about these characters. Like you said, Kristen, as far as the way that these teen girls are having to kind of like reframe their thinking of like, oh, well, I'm not being abused if I don't view what's happening to me as abuse.

Like if I am, again, like kind of taking the power back and saying like, yeah, the same thing's still happening. But if I approach it differently in my mind, then then it's fine. I'm I'm consenting to this, actually. Which young people are kind of put in a position to do all the time. Like every generation has those situations. I feel like it's just the way that Crow frames the Rockers. Like he frames them as assholes, for sure. And he frames them as like vapid and too into their own success.

But he does that in a way that still makes them extremely redeemable and clearly wants you to still love them by the end of the movie and still be rooting for their success. It's just like, well then he's, he's coming at it like in a way that is just like not, I don't know. Like it,

it just, I, I always, and maybe if I watched the extended cut, I would feel different. But I am, I just am like, I don't care about Russell.

I don't care about Russell. I don't care about him. I'm like, who gives a shit if this guy is successful? And at the end when he's like, oh, I think Penny wanted you and me together. I'm like, why would William even want to talk to you? You're the fucking worst. I don't understand why William's still interested in you after all this time. Kristen, I think you're totally right.

If he was a really good journalist, he would have realized that Russell's not the story or he if anything he's the villain of the story if anything he would have written a story that like Stillwater's great but Russell Hammond's a dick a piece of shit yeah like yeah like their music might be good but them as people are bad I mean and yeah I mean I know that like the movie the Stillwater supposedly loosely based on uh robert plant and jimmy page from zep from led zeppelin which yeah i'm like okay if that was the case trust me this would be way more fucked up of a movie uh because if you've read even an ounce of what zeppelin did during their heyday like they committed practically committed crimes um so but but i always i tell people all the time i think i put this on twitter like a year or two ago um who was who was your favorite trash boyfriend and why is mine russell hammond um

and that like he is he is essentially like the troy dwyer of this movie uh you know but the ethan hawke uh in the sense that like i know he's a horrid human being, but maybe it's the hair. Maybe it's like the 70s aesthetic. There's just something where you're like, oh, I can't. I dig it. I know it's terrible. I can't do him. I can't do him. And I wonder how much of this.

Now, I mean, I have backstory to my explanation for this, because I think, again, as I said up top i had a billy cruda thing back in the day uh leading up to the whole like claire dane's uh mary louise parker triangle that happened which again he's also part of the problem because he is just as problematic as the movie that he is in um google that story if you want some juicy reading um but but i mean to watch them like this was kind of like his stock and trade is he played douchebags um like inventing the abbots which is another favorite of mine um like he plays the same character he's got better hair um so i mean i get it and i wonder how much that plays into all of this um and and i think conceiving him as kind of like a Robert Plant-esque, like musical genius,

but he's like a piece of shit. I hate it. I have no explanation for why I dug it then. I have no explanation for why I dig it now. But I think that like in the grand tradition of like all the trash boyfriends, again, going back to Ethan Hawke and Reality Bites, like there's just something where you're like god

i i maybe i want to feel like shit maybe i want somebody to treat me bad it's a very masochistic relationship the movie kind of explores this in certain conversations between william and lester bangs where they're both like we're not cool and we're never going to be the type of guy who's going to like instantly get the girl quote unquote because it's the rock stars who get the girl and who are perceived as so cool and who, you know, are just like effortlessly like chicken magnets. It feels a little Revenge of the Nerds, that whole exchange where he's like, you know, like, we're just we're smarter than them. Like, we're playing the long game and you're like okay so women are still objects to you but uh you know you're just playing a longer game cool cool cool right so it's so the movie has some self-awareness about like these dynamics

these these power dynamics as they relate to gender and like these age gaps and all this stuff. But for me, it goes back to what would be a more interesting story here, the mental gymnastics that a lot of girls and women have to do in a culture where they are so heavily oppressed and objectified. And you know, any marginalized person has to deal with this, like mental gymnastics you kind of have to do just as a survival right technique like that would have been the more interesting thing to explore through the lens of like the penny lane character and seeing things from her point of view but instead we're seeing the story from the point of view of this teenage boy who doesn't understand her who doesn't understand her who's in love with her quote unquote but he's can't be because he doesn't know her like he's in love with right with the

persona she's crafted exactly i feel like sofia coppola did this a lot better you know what like the year before uh with the virgin suicides which which is very much about like a group of boys that think that they know these manic pixie dream girls and sofia coppola's like slow your roll you actually know shit and you don't know these people and you know but but and the source material is very similar to that so it's doable it's doable if you care um and unfortunately i mean i think again this was this was cameron crowe and his too big to fail era and you know we weren't we weren't asking those questions we were just like wrapped up in the 70s aesthetic man and uh i i think boogie nights like you mentioned you know really did play into this as well because what is it the 30-year gap that we take to nostalgize stuff, you know? So, like, the 90s into the 2000s was this 70s heyday,

which, honestly, I would love for us to go back and look at now because I feel like we still have never reconciled. We just went straight to letting dudes make movies about how great the 80s were. But we never really looked at or criticized the 1970s, which is probably one of the most fraught decades, just from a gender perspective. And gender influenced everything. I mean, it even influenced the music in so many ways. from like a feminine like a female director script that is just like actually how do you reconcile with the fact that you're like a teenage girl and you're hanging out with like again laureen scafaria just like make diary of a teenage girl again but like groupie edition yeah i would i mean i really would love to see and also i would love to see a piece about like a woman now who was who was a teenager then having to reconcile it and like getting into arguments with her daughter or something about like how because that's like it is like a fascinating, difficult position that I don't envy anyone to have to be in is to have to feel in conflict with modern feminists because you didn't have a 2023 brain in

1972 and having to process that with a modern lens past middle age and figure out well how do I feel about that and like challenging how you grew it's like challenging sort of everything you know which I think is I don't know I've talked with my mom a lot about that too because I think and and this movie again almost sort of I think touches on it a little with Elaine and Anita of how a parent in this case a mother specifically's own you know internalized misogyny can be projected back onto their own kid um in a way that diminishes them and makes them feel like shit. And it's like, well, yeah, if you don't, if you're not able to, for whatever reason, process your own experience and figure out how you feel about it, it's going to turn into like

this inadvertent weapon that can like hurt people you don't want to hurt. And I don't know. I mean, I'm excited. I ordered Pamela Despar's book because I really want to read it now. And there was a good interview with her in Vulture back in 2020, just talking about this with a post me to sort of focus on how she sort of views this character. Because there were a lot of there's, I think, three different women that Cameron Crowe has alluded to. There's Penny Lane Trumbull, Bebe Buell, and Pamela Desbars. Penny Lane Trumbull, also a fascinating person. And I think what was cool about her was that she later made a band that was made up of other groupies. And they started making their own music. Which is another thing of like access. Like that's a way to gain access to a world you may

not have had access to otherwise that was not as welcoming to women. But anyways, Pamela Disparse, she says a bunch of things. I mean, she, she's particularly bothered by the penny lane overdose scene not for the same reasons i'm sure we're about to talk about but because of so she says this she says that that scene where penny lane sees that russell is with his girlfriend and then um seems to attempt to or inadvertently overdoses she says that that's quote horribly misogynynistic look at what a groupie muse is. That made me so angry. This character, the groupie like she's portrayed, is pathetic. I knew all the main groupies in a heyday of groupiedom.

None of them would have done that. There was always someone else coming to town. That really turned me off. No actual music-loving goddess groupie would do such a thing, unquote. So I think she thought that, you know, Cameron Crowe was being melodramatic and diminishing a character that was very much based on her and then the other thing that she said that I was like oh yeah they're like Cameron Crowe hired a number of consultants for this movie because obviously he's like well connected in this period of history Peter Frampton was a consultant on this movie yes and I guess that Pamela Desparres because she did meet Cameron Crowe whenpton was a consultant on this movie yes and i guess that pamela disbar is

because she did meet cameron crowe when he was a 15 year old writer and she did see the movie and she did have notes about it she's not completely dismissive of it but she's there's a lot of things she's kind of like what the fuck about one of them was that she wasn't brought on as a consultant and that makes a ton of fucking sense like if you've got a peter frampton consultant budget you've got a pamela despars consultant budget and like your cameron crowe in 2000 fucking hire her and i bet that this the material would have been elevated and i don't think peter frampton would have been giving a lot of great insider like when you talk about top tier hedonistic rock stars in the 70s that had like groupies that were probably on that level, I'm not thinking Frampton comes alive.

Okay. It is interesting, though. You brought up, you know, reconciling as an older woman. Susan Sarandon in The Banger Sisters, which actually is a comedy about two women who were 1970s groupies dealing with, like, being, uh, essentially fish out of water. Like, it's just, it's just not at all, like, it's a very 2000s look at groupiedom in the same way as this, where it's like, Susan Sarandon's given up that groupie life, and she wears brown suits, and she's very type A, and she puts that aside to raise her children to be utterly perfect and they hate her for it. And Goldie Hawn is like the Goldie Hawn. She's this free spirit who's still trying to be, she's like Steve the Pirate from Dodgeball who like still commits to the bit and doesn't understand why people believe like don't

believe that she's a modern woman she's austin powers pretty much um very fun movie but not it does not reconcile at all with like the dichotomy of the that era it's more just like susan sarandon's daughter in the movie who is erica christensen is like you're saying our mom used to be fun and made mistakes and smoked weed what uh it's it's very much of its era right do you think goldie hawn her character in that movie is somehow related to penny lane's character in almost famous because famously goldie hawn is kate hudson's mom yeah it took until 2003, February 17th at 1.06 p.m. for me to make that connection. I did not realize that until I just started talking about it.

And I wish I had made that connection. I mean, it's very, very possible. It's very possible. The movie did not do well enough to make any impact on audiences except me, who still finds it delightful. And I think if anything, that movie also throws in like

the plaster caster elements like there's a whole there's a whole sequence of goldie hawn and susan sarandon looking at pictures of supposedly famous rock penises uh but again never reconciling with the fact that they're like also hey look at this photo of us we were like 14 years old and also we have dick pics on polaroid ah yeah yeah i i mean i would and i do think that there's a way to make a movie like that that isn't inherently fucking depressing which i think is always my issue with movies about like women reflecting on their lives and they're like well of course it's safe to assume it fucking sucked and like it was really depressing the whole time you're like well it can still be like an engaging interesting i think we just need to write this um yeah let's do another thing that pamela

despars mentioned that also registered for me just given the time and the scene that you're in is she made a note in that 2020 interview with vulture of saying how whitewashed the movie felt to her and how like centered on white rockers uh you know white rockers who were certainly around and people that cameron crowe would have encountered but like the 70s was a huge moment for black music in particular and like the fact that you the only black musicians and black people in general that you see are very much in the background of scenes either like set dressing and the way that women are occasionally used as set dressing in this movie as well and a way that is just like not historically accurate right i feel like

cameron crowe has that problem in all of his movies well he did make Aloha, didn't he? He did. I was going to say, yeah. I mean, Emma Stone was one-eighth Chinese or whatever the hell that movie was saying she was. So, you know, chronic problem. Whoopsies. But yeah, I appreciated that she called that out as well. Yeah. And yeah, I guess she teaches memoir writing classes now,

which is kind of cool. Very cool. I was like, I want to take that. What? Okay. We've been speaking broadly about consent so far in this episode. There's a few specific. Let's talk about the two scenes where it's a huge thing.

Yeah, yes. Placing a trigger warning here for rape, for underage sexual assault. So chronologically, the first one is the let's deflower William scene, where three of the band-aids, Sapphire, Pallexia, and I think Beth from Denver, question mark, is the third one. They basically decide amongst themselves that they are going to deflower William, who they know is 15 years old. They then descend on him while he's trying to talk to Penny Lane, who he's in love with the idea of who she has presented herself as being. But anyway, so they're talking, they descend on him. They kind of like

pull him into the other room. He's resisting. He's saying no, no, no. They are pulling his clothes off. And then they like start kissing in front of him. And then we cut to the next morning, they wake up in bed together and then they say, they refer to him no longer being a virgin and everyone's kind of giggling. Right. I mean, it's very clear what happens. It's the way that it's framed as this like romantic, cool moment.

Like the, the scene could not be filmed more as like pro what's happening even though what he's saying is no and he's in the middle of a conversation with penny and like they physically drag him into the bedroom and but then it's like a very romantic tone the camera is like circling them and you know it's very cropped body you know there's just butts passing his face and he's looking at Kate Hudson and she seems to be thrilled that this is happening as well and she leaves the room and it's just like well this is an assault that's taking place uh but the way that Cameron Crowe films it and frames it you

kind of would never know it and I don't think that people really talked about it like that until at least a decade later. Right. I think we still have this weird issue with male consent. I mean, we saw the same types of discussions when Bridgerton came out. There was some deep talk about like, is that a rape scene that we're watching?

It certainly doesn't feel consensual. And that just came and went like we never really talked about it after that and i think that with with something like this it goes back to that whole concept of like the reverse feminism that we saw in the 2000s where it's like well these women have power they're taking it back and like they're the ones that are offered like as if to say that as long as women are consenting that makes it okay that they're okay with it and you know what kind of guy wouldn't want his first time to be with three women am i right like it's just very much in that grand scheme of like women can't be predators it's

it's you know if they're dating young men it's just like doing what men have been doing all this time uh it doesn't make it right but it's this like doing what men have been doing all this time. It doesn't make it right. But it's this mentality that I think we had at the time, where it's the rock and roll lifestyle and the women are okay with it. So therefore, it is fine. Right. That is very much a byproduct of rape culture that still, yeah, permeates to this day, where there's still an idea of oh men

there's no need for a man to consent or not because a man is always going to consent to sex with a woman right and then if you don't there's something wrong with you and it's like you're if your default isn't hypersexual then you're lesser you're less masculine or whatever that thing is yeah I like it's so frustrating and interesting to like reflect on that period of of time that you're talking about Kristen of like the girl boss mentality of like well the solution to patriarchy which already is very like cut down the gender binary, is that women should just be able to do what men have been doing the whole time. And it's like, no, it's a systemic. No, no, you guys, come on.

Like, it's not a challenge of like, well, how do we view consent in general? And like, have we ever had a productive cultural conversation about consent? It's just that, you know, women should be allowed to do what men do. And it's like, well, no, but we didn't like what they were doing. That was the that was a big problem. No one should mistreat anyone regardless of gender. Right? So yeah, the movie does not frame what happens as a gang rape. But that's what is happening. And then the movie just moves on immediately they're like okay and now there's another call about the deadline and then it just like never comes back and this is also like would be an interesting thing to see an older man reflect on in a movie

like this is just yeah i don't know this is sort of bizarre but I used to be really into these self-published blog memoirs that a carny would write he would be around Cameron Crowe's age but like same was traveling in carnivals as a teenager in the late 60s early 70s and when I was watching the scene I was like whoa this is so similar to something that Kevin wrote about in his blog of like how when he was a teenager like there were a group of women carnies that were like okay it's time for you to lose your virginity and he was like okay and then like writing about it as an older man like not quite knowing how to place that experience and like at the time telling himself as a kid like I'm supposed to feel happy about this so I guess I feel happy

about this but in reality it's like that's it's just because you're sort of in the same way that Penny Lane is sort of reflecting how she's supposed to feel about things in order to keep some semblance of control of her life it's like William has to do that too but I don't think that Cameron Crowe sees it that way and then I'm also wondering how this reflects Cameron Crowe's life and experience like I wonder that too we don't know he's the William character yeah I I was very curious about that too but um haven't found anything about it not that it's any of our fucking business right how Cameron Crowe lost his virginity so there you go I mean the movie's attitude toward consent and sex

is very reflective of the 70s the 2000s and then there's the overdose scene yes what happens here is penny lane is overdosing on quaaludes william calls a doctor to the hotel room he's waiting for the doctor to arrive he's like holding her she's drifting in and out of consciousness he professes his love to her and then he says something like i'm going to boldly go where many men have gone before hilarious moon landing assault joke and then he kisses her while she's unconscious good one so and the movie again there it is not critical of this at all it does not see this as the assault that it is and it just breezes right past this moment as if like yeah that's just what you do it's also unclear what this does to their relationship in the sense that it's not even

clear if she knows that i don't think she does yeah which considering like their their relationship and that this would be a moment for them to discuss, are we into each other? Is she into him as much as he is into her? It's never acknowledged. The scene culminates with the stomach pumping. I mean, I think if anything, the humor of having my Cherie Amor play over her barfing her guts out is probably a better use of humor than the moon landing joke

but uh but when she you know has the realization later and they have that discussion it's more of a moment for her to be real with him right and say what her real name is and talk about her background very briefly but it never is discussed what their relationship is it stays fairly platonic not for his lack of trying but he never makes any effort to do that while she is coherent right right he even says like why am i doing this you're never even going to remember it tomorrow like he's aware yeah he comes so close to being self-aware in that moment and then still and even the setup of that scene and I I mean I think once I read that Pamela Desbarres took serious issue with the fact that that scene happens at all sort of clarified for it like he's already set up as

the hero of that scene where it's like sort of implied that not only, you know, is Penny Lane so devastated that she would, you know, overdose, but also that she needs to be rescued by William, which she does. And then later Russell echoes that exact thing in that scene I don't like, where he's like, oh, I think she wanted us to do our little interview. What do you think? And then it also one of her friends is like oh i always told penny not to let too many guys fall in love with her but i guess i was wrong because one of them saved her life kind of like mario style and you're like oh like i i i feel like at that point in the movie you have enough about penny that if we're talking movie logic, it would have made sense to me

that she would have saved herself because that's like where her narrative is heading anyways. But William has to be the hero in that moment. But he also assaults her immediately before. Like, it's just, it's a mess of a sequence. Horrid. How did Peter Frampton not say something? But again,

it's like, I bet that that scene wouldn't even be there if Pamela Desparce was a consultant or it would be there in a different form. In a different capacity.

Yeah. Yeah. The last thing I want to touch on is the character coming out as a joke. 2000's gonna 2000.

Yeah. So what happens here is one of the other members of the band who we haven't spent much time with so not jeff or russell um i honestly don't even know which one it is larry or is i think it's larry yeah no no it's ed it's ed it's ed okay it's ed the one who doesn't speak throughout the entirety of the movie. He literally says almost nothing. So what happens is they're on the, it's the scene on the plane. They're hitting all this turbulence. They think they might crash and die. So they're, again, they're like kind of being very forward with their feelings and their secrets. And the button on that conversation is, who did we decide it was? Larry? Ed, I think. Ed.

Okay. Ed. Ed is like. So many generic names. So Ed is like, I'm gay. Everyone is like, huh? And then immediately after that, the plane kind of like levels out. The turbulence stops.

The light comes back on. Like everything seems smooth sailing through one lens living his authentic truth saved their lives everyone's life through magic but i don't think that's what cameron crowe is trying to do exactly so and then the character has this kind of like panicked look which fair coming out as gay in 1973 certainly came with a lot of risk but i feel like the coming out and then his panicked aftermath is it was all played for comedy yeah for sure like oh and now everyone knows he's gay and isn't that funny is how the movie wants you to view that yes on the one hand it's really weird to find the connection because there's a joke in mall rats that jason lee ironically tells a that's a very similar story about like people on an

airplane the plane crashes and they start essentially masturbating and then the the plane writes itself and everybody has to like look at each other knowing what they've done kevin smith wrote that in like 94 and then it happens in this movie in the sense that like it's a very similar and it stars jason lee so i never like know how to take that um if that's like an intentional comparison that's so bizarre but i mean the plane the plane crash element there's this this air of dark comedy in it right considering how many rock stars did perish in plane crashes and you wonder what what their, their last moments were like, you know,

was it a similar like confessional moment? And I think that at the time, like, as, as you said, 2000s is going to 2000. Like we, this is the Will and Grace era still,

you know, like we were still laughing at like, we accepted that, you know, gay people are a thing and we're still finding, we're trying to find humor in this type of like revelation. But I think for me, again, context is key. And knowing that it's 1973, I was like, oh, so they would have just kicked Ed out of the

band after this. Like, what is the discussion after this? Because they're, I mean, I'm doing just a casual search of my brain and I don't know any rock stars that openly were gay in the 1970s, especially considering this is, like, the era. We're coming up on, like, Anita Bryant and, like, harsh backlash for gay people. I don't, I think that, like, if anything, again, William leaves the story on the table, not that outing should be a thing,

but, like, that would be, like, Benfong Torres might be like, dude, wait a minute, one of these guys is gay? Like, screw local band makes good. Like, there would be repercussions. There would have to be a discussion because to be a major rock band came with a heavy dose of heterosexuality. That's why they had groupies there weren't we weren't hearing stories about groups of dudes offering sex to rock stars you know in in this time period even though i'm sure there were rock stars that were gay and there probably were groupies that were also made i mean those stories aren't told but there would have to say that they would have gotten off that

plane and not looked at him it would have changed everything i think and at the end of the movie when it's like every look at where everybody is like they show ed he's just like i'm with the band still okay so did you have to lie did you get a girlfriend like elton john had to date women right and he was the biggest rock star in the world yeah in the same time period what was happening with freddie mercury freddie mercury i think queen was starting out in the mid mid 70s and even then like i mean freddie was okay but we still like people still made fun of him and there was still criticism and and back like he just didn't give a fuck about it well i ultimately think that that

joke takes place in 2000 in a movie that is supposed to be in 1972 like i think that that joke takes place in 2000 in a movie that is supposed to be in 1972 like I think that that is a very of the late 90s ain't well into the 2000s just referencing queerness as a punchline with no serious thought about the year like I don't think Cameron Crowe was thinking about 1972 when he wrote that I think he was like oh this is a fun button for the scene like and it it simply is not and maybe he knows that now i don't know it's always one of the things that frustrates me especially about this new world of colorblind casting in period pieces we've just bypassed the discussion and gone straight to it's okay to see to have all of these characters be different ethnicities that's great i'm glad that we're seeing something like minx and and there's more black women and

we're we're having more minorities minx is a great example it's not just casting that way it's also saying what would the experience of a black woman in the 1970s have been like because trust us it would not have been the same as the experience of a white woman in the 1970s have been like because trust us it would not have been the same as the experience of a white woman in the 1970s and i think that too many films and television shows have not wanted to reconcile with how different races would have been treated in the past again not to piss on bridgerton again but bridgerton is a great example it's a great world to live in where you have a predominant cast of people of color. That's great. But you have to look at the era in some way. We have to talk about how the distinctions of having a black monarch would be in that time period.

And to not discuss it with any nuance just seems disingenuous. And we're still not having those conversations. And it's 2023. It's how many years since this movie came out we're still not able to have those those discussions the last thing i wanted to touch on is um how cameron crowe did have to sort of like answer for some of his crimes in this movie about 20 years later i think it was like 2019 or 20 that almost Famous was being adapted into a Broadway musical. And Cameron Crowe was very involved in the process. And so a lot of the criticism that had been made of the movie came up while this was being developed into a Broadway musical. He did defend Penny Lane against

the Manic Pixie Dream Girl allegations. He said, I always thought that she was a soulless, selfless, loving person who was super into community and kept herself a little bit hidden and also makes reference to the real women he was pulling from which fair point but they did not get the opportunity to weigh in on the character so i feel like that is maybe perhaps a little deflective but the positive thing i wanted to mention was that he does at least have the self-awareness that he cuts the gang rape scene from the musical that does not appear it seems as if he took the note that that is not a sequence that you would want to glorify and I think that his response was

to not include it in the musical adaptation at all wow a man doing the bare minimum i know yay not including a gang rape scene in a light-hearted broadway musical so um does anyone have anything else they want to talk about i will throw out that as as flawed as this movie is uh the the tiny dancer sequence is still my favorite favorite movie moment of all all time uh on feminist icon doris the bus yes i don't believe any movie has uh has done the group sing with as much fun and uh beautifully filmed as it does in this movie uh so much so that me as a little film nerd in my junior year of high school did a whole presentation about just that scene. And Cameron Crowe's relationship to music and editing.

And I knew I was a goner. So I give this movie, if anything, credit for that moment. Hell yeah. That's so lovely. Well, does this movie pass the Bechdel test uh yeah it does it does it passes between at least uh anita and uh elaine at i think a few different points they're arguing about um anita's direction in life and elaine's opinions on when christmas should be celebrated it passes again at the end with that exchange that was so loaded.

And I was like, ah, I want to know more about this. Of like, I forgive you. I didn't apologize. I think it may pass the most between them, but I'm sure it passes at least a couple times between the Band-Aids. Among the Band-Aids, yeah, I feel like they are often talking about the male members of Stillwater, yes or William they talk about music question mark I always forget to pay attention famously I am almost famous for

not remembering uh how to do our show I was gonna say it might pass for that wonderful discussion between the band-aids uh Sapphire saying that she needs to get into a room and have a valium i think that might that might count that might my favorite pass was when anita says feck you mom and then elaine says your sister did it she used the f word and little little williams like i think she said feck what's missing the letter u and then elaine was like i gotta hand it to him there yeah elaine i mean i think elaine there's so much going on with elaine and i wish that i mean you get a good amount of elaine and you get like a single parent in the 70s um we know what her job is. We know like stuff you wouldn't normally know

in a movie like this. I will say that there is a sequence in the untitled version as we were talking about like what are her beliefs as this like maybe she's a hippie. There is an extended discussion at the beginning of the movie

where she stops somebody who is painting Merry Xmas on a storefront and she goes on like a five minute diatribe about how it's either Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Oh my god. Because words have meaning. That says a lot about her as a person. It does. Based on Cameron Crowe's own mother. It's true and I guess she was like on set a lot. Yeah to keep an eye. I'm like't you have hired, hired Pamela Desparse?

Everyone worked on this movie, but her. Not Pamela Desparse, but. Jesus. Anyways. Yes. But let's get to the,

the metric that really matters. The nipple scale. Shall we? Exactly. Zero to five nipples based on how the movie fares when examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. Uh, well, i would probably only give this a nipple because for the potential that ends up being squandered but as far as like penny lane and the other band-aids circumstances and their situation There's a very interesting story there that just simply goes almost entirely

unexplored by Cameron Crowe and the other kind of creative forces behind this movie, because it's more interested in telling, ultimately, a story about what it's like to be a young teenage boy journalist swept up in the cool world of rock and roll. And even though those rock and rollers are pieces of shit who absolutely abuse women and are predators and creeps, at the end of the day, aren't they still kind of cool? But ultimately, they deserve a redemption arc at the end. Russell actually was a pretty good guy who deserves all the success he got, which is how the movie feels.

This is how the movie feels. They're like, yeah, he was flawed, but would I hire him to consult on my movie in 30 years? I guess I would. And yeah. The question, yeah, we never know if like Russell and Leslie, I mean, it's alluded that maybe they aren't together.

I don't know it could very well be that she decided after a couple weeks that their toxic relationship is worth keeping uh i'd like to believe that he never cheated again but again to go back to roger daltrey's autobiography he could also have just been the guy that in 20 years or 30 years would write a stillwater biography where he says I have illegitimate children but my wife understood that what happens on the road stays on the road and we're not going to talk about all of the cheating I did I have three children from it but you know you don't need to know the details you're like sir sir there this is I mean yeah

this is like anything I hear about rock history inherently stresses me out which is why maybe this is just like not my genre because you do have to like like you're saying Kristen like compartmentalize so many different parts of your brain to be able to engage with it where it's trying to come at you it's like my mom grew up in the 70s and she always tells me stories and they always culminate with me saying how did you not die like how are you not on a milk carton because every story is horrible and she says to me all the time if you were there just got it and I think that that's like the thing is that like if you lived in that time it makes more sense than us as outside observers so maybe

that's Cameron Crowe's whole thing like you had to be there man like you know it's like me trying to explain the beanie baby thing to somebody like you just right you had to be there you can't I can't explain that to you now I mean you missed it oh I've tried to explain it to people and no one fucking gets it there um but no I think you're right and but again that that would only be elevated by him hiring pamela despars because she was also there and it's like at the end of the day the real winner is pamela despars i think we all agree yes because she's we've been plugging her this entire episode yes in conclusion the movie's failure to understand various nuances across a bunch of different topics most horrifyingly the movie's failure to understand consent so yeah one nipple for

the female characters we do get who i would have liked to see more of potential was squandered one nipple i'll give it to Doris the bus I'll give it I guess a nipple and a half I'll skew up a little bit and I'll bisect a nipple because I do think that Penny Lane is a very rich character

who is I think misused I would be interested to see the other cut in full where you do get more context for what her history is. I don't know. Maybe I'm just like bringing my Lolita podcast stuff to the table here.

But I am always like interested in a young woman who is sort of just being projected upon like fucking wildfire and has to develop a way to navigate that um like young women and especially the further back you go historically like are always projected upon and and viewed through this very uh through the fucking male gaze god now i sound like a freshman in college but in all seriousness like i I think it's interesting that Penny Lane slash lady has to develop a persona in order to navigate the world with some feeling of power and belonging. And of course, that is still not going to be enough in a place where she's not being looked out for by anybody really

and i i think that there's just there's just more there than um than cameron crowe was interested in exploring and she was i think misused in like you're describing kristin as like the cameron crowe woman where ultimately her purpose is to show russell and william that life is epic and boys can be forgiven for all of their trespasses and it's all good. And I just wanted you to hang out the whole time, ignore all the assaults and my lack of ability to navigate the world with a sense of identity. But I think that that was there.

It just, he just wasn't interested in it, which is frustrating. I like Anita a lot I wish that there was more Anita uh maybe not in the framework of that story it wouldn't have worked but I just thought it was a good performance and a good character I like Lane I wish I that we could have understood her a little more as well and I don't know I mean there's no shortage of interesting women in this narrative and I just feel like they're not really focused on by the story. And that is a bummer.

Um, also the consent, I mean, and then I'll echo everything you said, Caitlin, about the consent stuff, which is complete dog shit and forgivable. Yeah.

And, and, uh, you know, on the part of the filmmaker prioritizing, bringing on consultants who would, uh, not bring any sort of critical lens to

this era um i feel like it's kind of a misstep on his part so give it a nipple and a half i'm gonna give one to lady and i'll give the other half to anita nice krist, how about you? Oh, gosh. I mean, I compartmentalize a lot with this. But if if we're looking at it, and, you know, just watching it, especially somebody watching it today, you know, it's it's one of those moments in time where I'm like, Yeah, but in 2000, man, it was great. I mean, it gets it gets it gets a two uh you know i'd give it higher uh just purely off of the nostalgia and you know how it affected me as a person and as a writer like it's it's up there with like you know i tell people the two movies that define me are like my girl in this um you know in in terms of like who i am as a person um but at the same time yeah i mean

reading the stuff that i've read like growing as a person um but at the same time yeah i mean reading the stuff that i've read like growing as a person it's one of those movies you know much like garden state is a great example going back and like being like oh god i have real issues with this now um you know but i mean as a piece of film i still look at it and i still you, the soundtrack and the time period and the L.A. story, like, the acting. I love it for all of those things. And I have to put all of the problems in a separate little container where I'm like, I love it, but. And the but gets longer every time I talk about it.

So I love it. But, you know, Cameron Crowe and I know it's got problems. And I am glad that Cameron Crowe seems to know it has problems now. That is like, again, a fun bare minimum thing to to observe of like someone who's able to engage with the criticism of their work over time is not nothing. However, the crimes of Aloha will never be forgotten. All right. Kristen, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much. We're a big fan.

We cite your writing frequently. So it's so nice to have you finally on the show. We're huge fans. Come back anytime. I mean, I'm always around to talk mess and feminism. And we're the two intertwined. So yeah we'll have to to team up again i'm ready so you guys you guys were my first like la event that i i ever i ever saw you came to our show at the ruby i forget which movie it was but it feels so long ago i mean it must have been like

maybe three or four years ago yeah four years ago was it Romy and Michelle oh maybe oh my god yes yeah wow it was a simpler time yes I've come full circle so yeah well here you are and we'll have you back where can people um follow you online check out your writing check out your book yeah so I'm I'm uh over at the wrap the wrap.com you can search the wrap kristin lopez you'll find my my writing there i'm on all the social media platforms probably to my detriment but i'm most active on twitter at journeys underscore film and instagram at kristin lopez 88 and yes but have you read the book 52 literary gems that inspired our classic our favorite films is out march 7th you can buy that wherever you get

books uh i know a lot of authors hype buying independent but honestly i will just be happy for anybody who buys it anywhere so it's wherever you can get your books and i hope to do a lot of stuff in the la area when the book comes out so if you're around and you buy it let me know oh amazing we'll be there and you can follow us on social media twitter and instagram at bechtel cast you can scoot over to our patreon aka matreon it's five bucks a month it gets you two bonus episodes every month that's it patreon.com slash bechtel cash That's where you can find the Pinocchio wars episode that Caitlin was dumping on earlier. Uh,

Zemeckis found dead in a ditch. All right. You can also get our merch at tpublic.com slash V Bechtel cast. And, uh, with that, let's, let's,

uh, let's load onto Doris and get the fuck out of here. What do you say gang? I'm a golden god! Jumps into pool. Bye! Bye! 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,

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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

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