The Bechdel Cast - Austin Powers with Atsuko Okatsuka

Episode Date: April 9, 2020

This week, Jamie and Caitlin invite very groovy guest Atsuko Okatsuka to chat about Austin Powers.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @AtsukoComedy on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's right, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories,

and of course, the culture. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Joe Gatto. I'm Steve Byrne. 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. We're here at iHeart. Yeah, you can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts or on the iHeartRadio app. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast oh yeah baby groovy do i make you horny i'm the girl that gets horny hello and welcome to the bechdel cast my name is Caitlin Durante. My name is

Jamie Loftos. And we have a podcast about the representation of women in movies and we use the Bechdel test as a jumping off point and that of course is a media metric created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test and it requires that two female identifying characters with names talk to each other about something other than a man. Can we

test it really quick? Yeah, baby. Okay, this question will maybe not seem immediately relevant but maybe a little later in the show. Okay. Hey, Caitlin. Yeah, Jamie. Have you seen Bombshell?

Yes, I have seen Bombshell, and I know what the connection is, but I won't spoil it. It passes. Yes, yes. So today's movie is not about bombshell today's movie is about a man an international man of mystery if you will um we're covering the austin powers movie focusing on the first one although i embarrassingly watched the entire trilogy and have some things to say, but why did you do that? We're in a quarantine. We, I have,

what else am I going to do? Here's the thing. I feel like bad movies in the quarantine. We still, we don't have to watch them. That's true. I do. I mean,

I'm excited to talk about it though. Cause I, I, it's my general understanding and vague knowledge that they get worse as they go on. Is that true? Yes. I definitely think the third one is the worst one. Although none of them are good.

I mean, none of them are. Well, especially for our purposes, they're bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Yeah. Spoiler alert. But as I was doing some reading reading i was reading through the plots i was like oh these do seem to uh to slip from a slippery place in the first place oh yes indeed yeah well we've got a guest you know her you love her a quarantine. She's the host of Let's Go Otsuko, which is a weekly podcast and also sometimes a live show when we're not in a quarantine. And you remember her from our

Shrek episode, Never Forget Shrek. It's Otsuko Okatsuka. Hi. Why do you keep giving me Mike Myers? Isn't it fun? It's great. We just did Wayne's World, or we would have brought you on to do that one next. Dang. Well, we're not doing Love Gurus, so hard to know what else we're going to do.

Thanks for letting me miss out on that one i don't i don't get it i i thought it was me for the longest time with mike myers for the longest time it was i was like it's me it's it's it's because i didn't grow up here it's because i don't get american humor you know something's wrong with me but no no it's something's wrong with mike my Myers and something's wrong with the culture. Yeah, because there's just so many movies. There's so many pop culture things that you just grow up with, like in elementary school, like everyone doing at one point, like suck it, you know, from wrestling or like everyone doing, you know, like a Jim Carrey voice. Everyone doing a fucking baby from, you know, what we're about to talk about. What's that movie called? Austin Powers. And me being like,

I never laughed. I never even gave like a nice, you know, being being polite kind of laugh to it. So I'm glad you mean you had me rewatch it. Yes, sorry. I think you bring the freshest possible perspective and also we're so sorry. No problem. It's good to review what, you know, human beings were capable of doing and the progress that we've made. Exactly.

What's your experience with the Austin Powers? I mean, this movie movie but the franchise in general i think i watched it once like a long time ago i remember seeing vague like i remember seeing clips of like the one beyonce was in whichever one that was gold member gold member yeah caitlin's like i watched it yesterday that That's right. Caitlin also recently watched both National Treasures. Oh, yes. Which actually sounds like it was a more fun task than this, right? It was, for sure.

Yeah. Well, God bless National Treasure. I'm going to need to see that map. That's my only impression of Nicolas Cage. Spot on. But yeah, back to Austin Powers. Jamie, what's your relationship with the franchise? I have not really much of a relationship with this franchise.

I'd never seen this first movie. I have no love or attachment to not to Brad I have no love or attachment to this era of SNL and like all the over the top 90s guys I just it's never I wasn't there really for it or I was like too young for it and then I it just has never done anything for me I did see gold member at a drive-thru with my cousins because i really liked beyonce and i remember it being one of the first movies i'd ever seen that like as a kid you're like this movie is not good you know which is kind of like a jarring you feel like a of like an intellectual master because you're like wait every it's like that John Mulaney sketch where

it's like every movie is the best movie a kid has ever seen this was maybe my first movie where I'm like this was not my favorite movie and just like the first time I actively remember like recognizing that Beyonce deserved better so I have no attachment to this franchise. I don't really give a fuck about Mike Myers outside of Shrek, and that's on me. Caitlin, what's your history with this franchise? I embarrassingly used to love these movies. No shame.

Thank you. I saw the first two when they came out. So when I was 11 in 1997 and the first two when they came out so when i was 11 in 1997 and the first austin powers movie came out like the demo like i was the demo and then the second one came out two years later i was 13 i still did not have very refined taste in cinema so i also loved that movie by the time the third one came out I feel like I had outgrown the franchise and I did not see that one ever until I watched it like two days ago but I saw the first two multiple times I used to quote them constantly my mom and I to each other would say um how about no Scott like 20 times a day these were a big part of my you know tween years I guess yeah I I didn't even realize that Seth Green is

in this movie I didn't he's in every like he's my boss and I was like oh he's in every movie that came out in this like span of five years and it's so funny like they're i the dr evil scott scenes they work for me still for the most part yeah there there's some funny stuff there and ultimately i mean and that for me like ticks the box of all movies which is that ultimately this is a movie about fathers and sons and how they relate to each other and so this movie is no exception he might have been the only one that was close to how the viewers are feeling yeah his character his character being like the outside voice being like you suck i hate you yeah you know i do love that scene where he's like why don't you just shoot it like what like that's pretty funny oh i resented this movie for making me laugh a little bit

i did an lol once i i would i just i still didn't get it i was just like why and why three why three is a good question you know what i mean that that's just so much money it's so so so much money and um i know i get it it's very quotable i can see it it's very catchy you know it's very like the brand they know the brand very well but yeah i i wasn't i wasn't mad i was more just like i don't get it i didn't and i didn't get like the ace venturas and stuff so again maybe it's me get ace ventura to be i don't get it yikes yeah i don't get mask i don't know but well like i i grew up on a lot of slapstick you know but it was um when it came to like western slapstick it was like i love lucy you know charlie chaplin like you know things that were like 100 years old but even with like Japanese

comedy you know the slapstick I feel like it was still like sticking to the old formula so it was more reminiscent of like Charlie Chaplin type or Buster Keaton instead of you know whatever like like wacky for wacky sake do I make you horny baby yeah a lot of me too situations you know it was also like i don't know it's like even if like i hadn't seen this movie but as i was watching it like i just it was so huge that like i feel like i had taken up a lot of it through cultural osmosis and then most of the details that I didn't know were, you know, horrifying. Yeah. Can't wait to talk about it. I do remember, I wonder if any listeners will remember, there was an AIM chat bot that was Austin Powers themed,

that I think it was released as a promotion for the third movie. But I was in like, I don't know, like maybe fourth or fifth grade. And I was at a sleepover all night where like me and the other girls at the sleepover would write like dirty things to the Austin Powers chatbot. And it would just auto reply, yeah, baby. And we'd be like, ah. You'd be like, my mom is a biatch and it would be like shagadelic class i remember that right it was a thing yeah i liked chatbots they always knew their character it was always consistent it was the only consistent thing about the internet at that time you know was chatb bots would always like say

three things in rotation exactly everything else was scary you didn't even know when you would connect to the internet you know oh yeah it could take hours you don't know yeah yeah totally but that you could count on speaking of austin powers themed things have either of you been to that austin powers themed pop-up bar in Glendale that is still there like over a year later? No, I've almost gone a couple times and then I'm like, wait, I don't know what that is. I'm not going to go. What Austin Powers themed bar in Glendale? What? I've never heard this. This is a real thing. It was supposed to be a pop-up, but it, I guess it was popular enough that people just kept going and it stayed around. Obviously, it's closed now because of all the lockdowns and everything. But it's called like the electric pussycat or something. And it's themed after the club in the first movie called the electric psychedelic pussycat swingers club and i went to it and they have various austin powers like actors

dressed up as austin powers characters uh they have a bunch of austin powers themed cocktails um i think i drank one called like horny something something horny I don't know. Shag something. But apparently Austin Powers is still relevant enough that people were like, yeah, let's make a pop-up bar in 2019. For sure. I mean, it's like all those movies. I've been to, I guess, the embarrassing pop-up bars I've been to were Beetlejuice themed because I wanted to see what the scab sitch was. Of course. Yeah, that's fun.

That was fun. And then I went to a Big Lebowski themed bar many years ago where they only served white Russians, which is a funny idea, but in practice, very gross. Right. They have one in Iceland for Big Lebowski. They do?

Oh, fun. Yeah. My friend went to it in Reykjavik and it was like white Russians too. It's so funny to see like what other cultures like really like about like, you know, which movies really spoke to them or whatever, to the point they make a whole themed bar like that. I okay, one time I did have to do, like, a benefit where they hired a bunch of, like, actors who could dance. So, like, we had to dress up in, like, groovy wear or whatever, 60s. Like, we were, like, what is that, Go-Go Girls? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We had to learn dance moves. And it was, like, rich people that we were performing for. It was, like austin powers theme and uh so an austin powers impersonator kind of led us the whole time and i remember at the end of the gig we got like 20 bucks for doing it i remember at the end of the gig i was like talking to the impersonator and he was like okay well i gotta go and he he valeted his car but he had the same exact car as austin powers too oh my god and my mind being blown and yeah his license plate was off it was like swingers like 12 or something you know what i mean yeah but yeah not all spelled out yeah but i was like

oh my god the level of commitment as an impersonator you know like how far does it go i love a good committed impersonator there's nothing like him in the world yeah and how do you feel as an impersonator about other impersonators you know of like the character that you do how yeah how intense is Yeah, how intense is the competition? How intense is the demand? I mean, you don't really know. Yeah, I don't know. Well, should we get into the recap and go from there? I suppose. Let's do it. Okay, so the film opens. It's 1967. We meet Dr. Evil. He has a very cute cat named Mr. Bigglesworth. And that cat, of course, has eight nipples. And that's cat facts with Caitlin.

Swish. He is trying to have Dr. Evil, not Mr. Bigglesworth. Dr. Evil is trying to have Britain's top secret agent assassinated. And this man is austin powers and austin is groovy he's randy all the women love him keep going keep going he's horny baby and he makes and randy yes he's horny and he makes everyone else horny i guess um all the women love him he meets up with mrs kensington his like spy partner and they receive a message from basil exposition um hilarious i guess that is pretty that's i mean that's pretty funny the message says that dr evil plans to go after austin powers at the club tonight so austin and mrs kensington

try to stop dr evil there but he gets away and then cryogenically freezes himself and shoots himself into space. Right. We cut to 30 years later, 1997, and Dr. Evil returns. And Austin Powers had also offered to freeze himself if Dr. Evil should ever return. So they thaw out Austin Powers and partner him up with Mrs. Kensington's daughter, Miss Kensington, aka Vanessa, aka Elizabeth Hurley. Right. He proceeds to sexually harass her relentlessly in almost every scene after that. But Caitlin, it's cute. It's hilarious.

You can tell that sexual harassment is actually really awesome when he does it for two straight minutes. And then she turns around and is like. Right. She's like, oh, maybe I do like that. He's wearing me down. Meanwhile, Dr. Evil and his cronies including this guy named number two who and then this is the point in the movie where you're like what happened to natalie wood wait what why was he involved yes he was natalie wood's husband and he was on the boat and he knows more than he's saying even more

than christopher walken does whoa interesting every movie to me is ultimately about what happened to natalie wood this is why you all have this podcast this is why you do so good that's what we've been trying to figure out this whole time and we have not gotten any closer um so that's what i but yes he plays number two but also he's he's you know you can see in his eyes he's got a secret or want his one eye right so his character number two and dr evil they all are forming a plan to hijack some nuclear weapons and hold the world ransom for 100 billion dollars. I'm so sorry for that. Then Dr. Evil is introduced to his son

that was made from the sperm sample that he had left behind before he cryogenically freezes himself. And this son is Scott. And that's Seth Green's character, of course. Then Austin Powers and Vanessa go to Vegas to try to get some intel on Dr. Evil and whatever scheme he's cooking up. And they play blackjack with number two. And then there's a scene in the bathroom where we realize that the character was named number two to set up a very long extended poop joke.

With, what's his name, Tom Arnold. Yes, he is in the stall next to him. And we're like, all right, well, I guess you can't say they didn't think about things when they were making the movie. There's actually quite a bit of thought. It's actually all very clever and good wink wink nudge nudge to it the jokes had to come first they were like okay poop joke how do we make this work with the rest of the plot you know yeah then they like reverse engineer it totally totally this is what i want a poop joke and okay, well,

his name's number two. That's it. We solved it. I guess it wasn't a lot of thinking possibly. It was. Cut it, print it. I mean, screenwriting at its best. So then nothing happens for a while except that Austin Powers relentlessly

and repeatedly sexually harasses Vanessa, which she seems to become more and more receptive to. And then Austin Powers is tasked with getting information about something called Project Vulcan from a character named Alotta Fagina. And now we're like, now this, now that's what I call feminism. Volume 1997. Oh boy. For, I mean, this, I don't, this isn't a compliment.

It's just an observation. There's far more women in this movie than I expected there to be. That's very true. But that is where, that's where it ends. It's not like, and the representation is incredible. There's more female characters than I thought there'd be. Well, and we're coming to some of them, including one of Dr. Evil's hench people, hench women.

Oh, women can be hench now? Yes, women can be hench and that's feminism. Yes, hench. Oh. She's so evil, she could hang out with the boys. Yeah, yeah. It's a big Sheryl Sandberg energy. And this is, of course, Frau Farbissena, played by...

Mindy Sterling, who is amazing. She's been in, like, everything ever. She's, like, one of the great character actors. Yes. IMO. Indeed. I i bet i bet i would bet five quarantine bucks oh 500 100 100 billion dollars quarantine bucks that mindy sterling and alfredina know each other. Oh, I bet they're friends. All character actors know each other and they're all friends. And this is maybe just my fantasy world, but I feel like they know each other. No, I think that's true.

I want to believe that as well. Yeah. So anyway, feminist icon Frau Farbissena unveils her latest weapon because she's a woman in STEM and she developed the fembots. They are these killer robots who look like hot women. So even more women introduced into the narrative. More women? This is, I feel like that was a pretty, to me, it was like a very cut and dry, like Barbarella parody reference.

Which I have not seen, but I need to. i is it just it's fembots and they attack barbarella somehow portrays women even worse it's like one of jane fonda's earliest movies jane fonda who true who truly is a feminist icon but she you know she she really grew into it and maybe wasn't all the way there at barbarella uh but like yeah it's a movie about like a sexy space android lady i mean it's not satire but it looks like it sure sure and at least we can give credit to austin powers for that is that they they are satire i think i don't know I can't tell it's definitely satire but I feel like it makes that like thing that some like satires do where they just are like oh well we're just gonna say it's satire and then we're gonna assume that we're absolved of anything even to the term of like satire

theoretically is supposed to make commentary which yeah for awesome powers that's shaky well that's why I don't think it is satire I think it just is closer to parody commentary which yeah for awesome powers that's shaky well that's why i don't think it is satire i think it just is closer to parody which is not making any sort of commentary there's like one angle that i feel like it could be considered satire and then but as as it pertains to its treatment of women i think it's like total parody oh for sure sure so what happens next is austin and vanessa sneak into verticon which is dr evil's company or something and they but they are captured and brought to dr evil's secret lair and he's about to use this giant drill to burrow to the earth's center and release his nuclear weapons. He's fracking.

That's right. He's like RuPaul. He's fracking. Wait, is RuPaul pro fracking? RuPaul literally. Okay. I'm just breaking all sorts of news.

RuPaul and his husband own a large ranch in Wyoming where there is active fracking. Oh shit. a large ranch in wyoming where there is active fracking oh shit he just like said it recently out of nowhere on fucking fresh air he was just like he described fracking in the longest way he's like well we contract out some of the land for purposes related to petroleum-based sub and you're like it's fracking he's fracking oh my god we can't have anything in this world rupaul's literally fracking he's like a republican isn't he i feel like all rich people just are chaotic evil and like we can't have anything well speaking of evil dr evil thank you thank you caitlin hey anytime he tries to kill austin and vanessa

with mutated sea bass but it doesn't work and they escape and vanessa goes to find help and austin stays behind to go find dr evil and he comes across this group of fembots who try to seduce and kill him. But he starts dancing around and making them so horny that they all malfunction and explode. Meanwhile, Dr. Evil starts his drill up and Austin and Vanessa burst in and they stop him. But Dr. Evil gets away, shoots himself back out into space. And then Austin and Vanessa have to escape the lair right before it self-destructs. stop him but dr evil gets away shoots himself back out into space and then austin and vanessa have to escape the lair right before it self-destructs and then we cut to three months later austin and vanessa have gotten married and dr evil and his cat are in space and they're all

cold and he's like i'm gonna get you austin powers and then they're like all right there's gonna be a sequel i guess i guess i guess no way around it so that's the end of the movie let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere,

a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you.

You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhard in you. Oh my God, I would love it.

I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know, I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hanken's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song?

Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Luge. I'm not hawk this slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean

when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown.

I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something

wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Feminism in Austin Powers. Where do we begin? I mean, just some quick observations off the top. We've got Will Ferrell in brownface in the first several minutes of this movie. And I believe that this is not the only time that Will Ferrell is seen in brown face.

I think that there is also an SNL sketch where he did that again, which is like. You're not talking about the Native American one, the Thanksgiving one recently or no? Oh, no, there's more. more no i wasn't thinking of that one wait let me pull up the one i was thinking of okay well the one i'm talking about they are they tried they acknowledge it they try to be like different about it it was just this past thanksgiving oh okay then i then that's probably what that was a response to was the fact that he had done Brownface in like the early 2000s, like probably around or after this movie came out. Makes sense. Makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there was, you know, there's self-awareness going on.

That's the thing about 2019, 2020, you know, self-awareness and fear of canceled cancellations. I was like, is it growth or is it fear you know sometimes totally thin line you saying brown face made me think about also the un characters which were just like very it's a small world type um like the oh yeah right the german guy literally i think had a kill on and maybe a bagpipe. Oh, yeah, the Scottish guy. And then there, yeah. Oh, Scottish. I'm so sorry.

Not Germany. I'm getting all of it. Here I am being racist. There's a lot of broad stereotypes in every possible way in this movie where, like, I think that Frau, what's her name? Mindy Sterling is almost supposed to be, like, this stern, like, Nazi-ish German woman. Right.

So there's definitely a lot of broad stereotypes at play. And then in the UN scene that you're talking about, Atsuko, when they cut to like the group of people and there's I mean, there's only like it seems like 20 different countries represented. Yeah. But one of them, did you notice the people that they have there to represent japan yeah she's like they sent a geisha yes there's a geisha and then a sumo wrestler and those are like that trend continues believe it or not into the sequels where it seems like Japan specifically, I don't know if Mike Myers or the director or someone has a fixation on Japanese culture, and it gets referred to more and more, and increasingly more racist jokes are made in the sequels. There's one in particular about Japanese twin sisters in

the third movie that is just excruciating to watch. I mean, and like this, I mean, this entire generation of SNL men are guilty of this thing. I mean, we see Will Ferrell in this movie. Mike Myers, the love guru. I mean, say no more. That whole the premise is racist. Dana Carvey is in Brownface and the Master of Disguise five years after this. Like it's bigger than mike myers but he's a big offender of it too especially in a movie that is like so painfully white that it's

like you really had to put will ferrell in brownface like yeah it just yeah it couldn't be but but no one thought anything of it in night like to the point where will Ferrell did brownface again. No, totally. Yeah. I mean, I did laugh for a second when you mentioned the sumo wrestler again, and I had to track the laugh. Like, am I laughing because it was funny or was it because, I don't know. I mean, I think you have to take a step further. If it's like parody or satire or whatever,

maybe I don't know the difference between the link the language um well actually parody is more like if you don't necessarily have a comment right it's more like i'm doing a similar version does it remind you of that thing uh and then satire is like actual like possible social commentary behind what you're making uh okay cool so i do know the definitions um sometimes i don't know i mean this isn't my first language um but uh like if they took it a step further and like the people representing the un was like i don't know like a literal like sushi fish or something you know what i mean and like uh maybe that's not funny that that's why I would never be hired in the writing room for you know Austin Powers but well that's a compliment to you as well yeah I'm just like what if it was just a little little bagpipe you know and that was

Scotland's uh leader I don't know this is bad anyway, there's no way I can fix the movie either. So what am I talking about? Well, speaking of the whole satire and parody thing, so obviously, the Austin Powers trilogy is a parody of a few different things, it seems, but it seems to be primarily the James Bond franchise, especially the earlier ones from the 60s and 70s. And this is a franchise that is ripe for satire and parody, but Austin Powers is not really doing anything to meaningfully comment or critique this franchise. It's really just portraying a lot of the same problematic tropes that the bond franchise does especially as we already hinted at it when it comes to female characters there's no you know intelligent commentary happening there's no meaningful subversions of anything it's just like and hey remember how horribly the bond films treated

women let's do the same exact thing 30 years later. Yay. Yeah, well, that's the thing. Yeah, I think that the one point that I could see this movie attempting parody on is the masculinity aspect of these characters. That I think Austin Powers himself in some ways is somewhat satirical with and it's not like smart satire or even good satire but i think that the fact that like they make references to like oh he's this like ladies man that you would see in the 70s and we didn't none of us grew up with this so it's kind of like we're basing this on sort of secondhand knowledge but that's who he's based on like a James Bond type of like a character

like that and then to give him like oh he he uses a penis pump or like he's somehow sexually like quote-unquote impotent um I feel like that's at least an attempt at some satire of saying like oh well maybe these hyper masculine characters were not as like that's an unrealistic standard i don't think it's done smartly but that's that was the place where i saw like an attempt right but then but even so a lot of the a lot of the movie undermines that where it's hard to make the argument that like, Oh, like Austin powers is this like unconventional looking sex icon, but he still only surrounds himself with like young conventionally hot white

girls. So like, you can't really give the movie any credit for that because it doesn't extend the same, the same for women in any way where even like it's so it it is wildly ridiculous to me and doesn't seem based in satire at all just like what the writing is that we only see like austin powers's partner originally in the 70s is vanessa's mother and theoretically like i i feel like a better version of this movie is to

like, see her come back, and then have to like, reconnect as she has like, age, she's had a family, she's like done all this stuff. And then she has to like, reconnect with this guy she used to work with in the 70s. Like that is more interesting to me than like and now she's got a hot daughter and the mother and daughter are gonna bond over both inexplicably liking this guy like i just i was i thought it really sucked that they just completely wrote vanessa's mother out immediately like that just yeah the only the only through line was that austin possibly her too. It sounds like he definitely did. And that he loved her. Yeah, he like really loved her.

It was like a weird, it's like a weird Mrs. Robinson kind of like, yeah, I loved her, but she's not available anymore. But then they drop that entirely and he's like, well, I guess I'm just in love with her daughter now. And you're like, what? They're different like they i mean i feel like the the logic of the movie extends as far as like mothers and daughters are pretty much the same person which is which is like okay that's a new level of not writing a female character it's

just been like well they're related so like you can actually have sex with either and it's basically the same thing and they have the same jobs and they have the same spy partner like they you know they do everything the same the only thing was different was i guess that you know the mom was married to someone else oh it's it's just so like lazy and just bizarre i mean and that like reinforces the whole like way that this movie views women which is that if they're over a certain age or they don't look a certain way then there's no point in having them on screen yeah but the guy got to keep his hots because he was frozen or whatever but he's not even hot like it's just like uh i think men men are allowed to look a lot like it's it almost reminds me of like what we see in animation a lot because this is a very cartoony movie of like

male characters are allowed to look a lot of different ways and there's different body types and there's you know like mike myers has more body diversity in this movie than all of the female characters like it's just it's very true that well the only thing he was body shamed about was his teeth and he got to fix that at the end he did and um but and he still got the girl so like i don't feel bad it's he felt bad about his teeth one time right yeah um but i do you also i also don't remember and correct me if I'm wrong but the moment where Vanessa did flip and she's like I do like him what happened that was confusing to me as well okay yeah I have this whole thing beat by beat kind of mapped out because it barely makes sense but here's what

I could yeah the story beats as they relate to miss kensington so she's introduced with a very male gaze panning shot starting at her feet slow pan up her entire figure objectifying to the extreme austin powers then sexually harasses her for a few minutes she finally says like do me a favor and stop calling me baby you can address me as agent kensington except she's gonna backtrack on it in two seconds exactly um because he's like oh come on and she's like all right then vanessa you can call me vanessa so then we cut to a scene on austin's private jet and this conversation is very frustrating. And it goes like this. Austin says, how does a hot chick like you end up working at the Ministry of Defense?

And she's like, well, I went to Oxford and I excelled in several subjects. I ended up specializing in foreign languages. I really wanted to travel, you know, see the world. He interrupts her and he says, that's fascinating, Vanessa. Listen, why don't we go in the back and shag? Yeah. Amazing. Hilarious. She says, no, please concentrate on the mission.

Like give your libido a rest. And then he's like, okay, well, let me show you something. And he beckons her over to his bed. Then he kind of springs this whole thing on her where he's like, do I make you horny, baby? Do I make you randy? Blah, blah, blah. He pretends to like fall on top of her. She's like screaming and being like, get off me, get away. She then jumps up and says, I will never have sex with you, Mr. Powers, ever. If you were the last man on earth and I was the last woman on earth, and the future of the human race depended on our having sex simply for procreation i would still not have sex with you and he's like meh but then

the scene ends with her like kind of giggling at him and his antics and it's just infuriating it's like yeah i guess foreshadowing of what's to come which is him wearing her down and her changing her mind so a little bit later they arrive at a hotel in vegas and again austin powers is like when are you gonna have sex with me and she's like stop it and he's like oh i was just kidding i'm just trying to get a rise out of you and then she's like oh you and you. And it's like, no, he is like sexually harassing you within an inch of your life right now. Right. Well, that was, yeah, that was like something that really stood out to me of like a major failing of the movie where I read was it was a GQ piece that came out on the 20th anniversary. So like three years ago it came out and the let me see the author of the piece made I think a pretty like smart comparison

writer named Tom Phillip who's great he draws a line from Austin Powers to MacGrupper and basically it says that MacGrupper succeeds as a satire where Austin Powers fails because MacGrupper if if I mean, I like that movie a lot. It like at least holds the character accountable for fucking up at least some of the time where Austin Powers. It's almost like a boomer uncle attitude towards him where they're like, well, he doesn't understand. So it's fine. He can't be held accountable for his actions because he doesn't understand. So it's fine. He can't be held accountable for his actions because he doesn't understand what things are like in 1997. Right. And that like

the movie does not extend the logic any further where like, Vanessa has to forgive him for these things because he doesn't get it. And like, there's no onus on Austin Powers to have to grow as a person. Right, exactly. Except to accept monogamy into his life. That's the one thing he has to do. Right. And that comes pretty much next where the next major thing that happens between them is we see Vanessa on the phone with her mom, who also does not seem to have really aged at all in 30 years. So like, even though she would be 30 years older like she's not visibly 30 years older because heaven forbid we have a woman like in her 60s on screen right and when we do have a woman in her 60s on screen it's basil exposition's mother and she gets punched in the face she gets called

a man yeah there's so much god i'm just being reminded of so much. That was so upsetting. Because just to sidetrack a little bit, there's that moment in the beginning of the movie where they're still in 67. They're in that club. And there's a woman who approaches Austin Powers. And he punches her in the face. And everyone's like, oh my god, what just happened?

And then it cuts to this woman is now suddenly a man. And, you know, Austin Powers pulls the wig off. And it's like, see, he was a man. He's trying to kill me. Which is, I mean, what the, like, that's horrible, obviously. And then the same thing happens later in the movie, except this time he just thought that an older woman was a man man punches this woman in the face and then everyone's like oh my god why did you punch basil's mother and he's like oh i thought

she was a man that's the worst part is it's a callback it's uh anyway so vanessa is talking to her mother she says something like oh wow I can't believe you were able to resist Austin Powers charms. Like, you should want to have sex with him because he's the most charming man alive. And Vanessa's like, um, I don't see it. I don't know what you're talking about, blah, blah, blah. Then there's a very quick scene where they're actually doing some work. They're trying to find Dr. Evil, but it lasts for like 30 seconds. And then suddenly Austin Powers is like, wow, you're so beautiful. I'm going to take you out for a night on the town. And then we cut to this like romantic date that they're on. They're drinking champagne. Burt Bacharach is serenading them. They're dancing.

Cut to them playing Twister in their hotel room. and then all of a sudden she's like tiki austin you're awesome you're so funny come have champagne with me and then there's this scene where like the moment where she's trying to come on to him because i guess her mother convinced her that she should like him like that's my best guess for why she has suddenly made this shift because she's she's like kiss me blah blah and he's like no you're you're smashed it wouldn't be right i'm not gonna kiss you when you're drunk why that he became a gentleman right there all of a sudden right even though he's been sexually harassing her non-stop for every moment up till this point and she's like no i finally see what

my mom was talking about you're so funny you're so charming and it's like where is this coming from like the choice to make her make this shift after he's sexually harassed her non-stop is so frustrating it's almost like oh maybe it's like oh maybe she needed to be told she was beautiful because that's what set it off. It was so weird. You know, in broad daylight, it's like he saw her in broad daylight for once outside. And he was just like, oh, my God, you're so beautiful. And she was like, oh, yes, night out on town. I don't make sense of it.

Then there's a little bit of time where like Austin has sex with a lot of vagina. Which how could we not have brought that up sooner? I mean, well, that's an obvious like parody for the Pussy Galore character from whatever Bond film that is. But like. But again, it's like, what is the commentary? I think it's just kind of doing it again. Right. Exactly.

For sure. She's like the she's the femme fatale. But her name is even somehow goofier than Pussy Galore. Like they're just there's no commentary there. It just is. You got to be smarter than what you're trying to make fun of. Exactly. And this movie is not.

But, you know, he has sex with her. And then Vanessa is like, well, gee wh whiz if you want us to have a relationship you gotta get it through your head that the times have changed this is the 90s because i guess now she wants a relationship but it's like okay all of a sudden they're in a relationship that was okay i thought i had missed something too i was like no because she didn't I was like wait did I like black like what and then she it's that classic move that movies do and by classic I mean bad where they're they're like oh she's at the top of her field she's really good at her job and then we kind of see that happen like one time but then for the most part she just becomes the love interest and she is

like I'm a little bit jealous and you're like oh my fucking god like it's a bad look for everyone like she yeah they're not in a relationship but then when she says that they are he's like oh we are and then it just gets confusing you almost feel like there's like a missing scene there or something totally where like she has completely come around which like why why would she? But of course, the movie makes her make the choice to come around. And then suddenly they're in a relationship and then cut to the end and they are married.

And then cut to the following movie, The Spy Who Shagged Me. That movie opens with Austin Powers discovering that his his wife vanessa was a fembot the whole time who tries to kill him and then she explodes you know it's this whole thing where he's like oh wow i can't believe my beautiful wife the love of my life was a fembot all along and then he's like wait a minute that means i'm single again yay yeah baby wait what that's how they solve that's how they solve getting rid of her yes exactly which okay so i was like maybe again it's i guess it's sort of parody in terms of

maybe it's satire i don't know it, I think the acknowledgement that like the bond franchise and similar like action spy franchises treat women as though they are expendable and disposable because at the beginning of this movie, the main female character from the first movie is made to be evil for no reason and then killed off immediately. But again, there's no commentary being offered here uh it's just again participating in the same sexist trope i have i

have a question about that does that mean that mrs kensington is also an evil person she was in on it and that's not really her daughter that was it makes no sense that wasn't and then i'm also like why wouldn't they have frozen mrs kensington like right yeah it doesn't make sense to me because she was like in theory austin powers is equal i don't get it yeah yeah yeah that and after this happens in the sequel basil exposition is like yeah we knew she was a fembot the whole time and then like austin powers gives this weird look and i guess that excuses the lack of narrative justification for why they killed her off but it's just like are you fucking kidding me right now you're just like what

but anyway so back to the first movie um the yes the way that she is i mean it was just deplorable to see her be sexually harassed by him non-stop but then to also see her like secretly be like tiki i actually kind of like this right i mean it just sets up every bad precedent that like yes movies especially especially at a movie that like realistically was targeted at young men like that is just every irresponsible thing you can do with a movie for young men is like tell them it's okay to sexually harass people that this is what women actually want that women are to be viewed a certain way like it comes down again to like the responsibility of like i think mike myers thinks this is satire for them i think like and if that's the case then it's like you carry a responsibility with that you have like

you it drives me like up a wall when people suggest like well i don't actually need to take my audience into account when i make things i make whatever I want and blah blah blah where it's like Mike Myers you know your audience is like pre-teen like it's kids and like and young people and like you know movies like this definitely have like a lasting impact even though it seems goofy and stupid and mostly just something that annoying people quote still for some reason but it does like have elastic effect on people and it's like yeah if you that was so that little giggle shot really killed me i hate it no it has it has a lasting effect on people because there are people out there who go i am going to make money dressing up like him driving a car just like him and doing and doing weird dinner parties because i mean i guess you kind of have to look like the person you have to be practical about

that too you can't just want to impersonate anybody right you have to have at least similar features so maybe you don't have a choice but you know maybe yeah maybe he was just he just looked already exactly like austin powers and he's like well i can make a career out of this and for the people who don't look like him they set up a pop-up bar in glendale california i liked seeing carrie fisher that was nice oh i she's deserved so much better i know but it was like a bright spot. You're like, oh, there's someone here I like. This is good. We've got to take a groovy little break, but we'll be right back, baby.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price.

Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, wherever you get your podcasts. Catherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhard in you. Oh, my God.

I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Catherine Hahn can sing. Oh, I have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hanken's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song?

Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Luge. I'm not going to hawk this slalom. Rudy. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it.

It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm N.K., and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable.

It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case.

Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There is a chunk at the end that went a little better than I expected. It's not to say that it's good at all, but I was like, oh, this isn't as horrible as I was expecting it to be considering everything that's happened up till this point. But at the end, both Vanessa and Austin are, they're like near Dr. Evil's secret lair and they get captured. And they are largely able to escape. This is when they're like surrounded by the like mutated sea bass or whatever. They're able to escape largely because of all the dental equipment that she brought with her. Then she goes and gets help and brings back an army.

So she was more active than I was thinking. I was like, oh, she's probably just going to get like tied up and damseled and fridged. And that does happen a moment later when a lot of vagina is holding her hostage. But then Vanessa chops her and escapes on her own. She does not need to be saved by Austin Powers. So I was like, okay, that's a little better than what I was expecting. I was. Yeah, action hero of the scene while Austin is trying to use his sexual wiles to get out of a situation and I feel like normally

you would see that dynamic in the reverse where like a woman has to seduce someone to get out of a compromising situation we've seen that a billion a hundred billion times 100 billion times i mean in that scene at least austin is the person that has to use his like sexual wiles to get out of a compromising situation so it's not much but it was better than like you're saying it was like slightly better than what i was expecting right but then that just means that all those fembots have to die we see like oh yes we love to see a woman get punched or exploded in this yes because they couldn't handle a man you know being so sexy and with the fembots it's like i mean honestly like i still think the aesthetic of the fembots is like kind of iconic but that's just because that

it's Barbarella um and I you can draw a direct line from do you remember that Katy Perry music video where she shoots out of her boobs thought of that well that's a brilliant commentary anyways uh the but the fembots are ultimately like this, you know, they're carrying out. I mean, I guess that Frau Farbissena did invent them, but they're ultimately like these sexy ladies that don't have names who are meant to carry out the wishes of Dr. Evil. So not necessarily feminist icons. Frau Farbissena, I think, is the best female character of the franchise. She's pretty much the only consistent one. Is she in all of them?

She's in all of them. Oh, that's fine. Oh, cool. But she's not necessarily, you know, treated. I think the second movie, a joke is made at her expense where, so Dr. Evil and Austin Powers go back in time to, I think, 1969. What? And that's where most of the movie takes place. and Austin Powers go back in time to, I think, 1969. What?

And that's where most of the movie takes place. So Dr. Evil, he's like, oh, wow, number two, you look so young and handsome in 1969. And he's literally played by Rob Lowe, one of the handsomest men alive. He's in a deleted scene from the first movie, too, I saw. Oh, really? Interesting. Yeah, so I guess he was there

from the jump i guess like i mean but he was in wayne's world too so maybe him and mike myers are just like their best friends yeah maybe but anyway so he so number two gets to be played like the young version of number two gets to be played by a very handsome actor whereas the joke is made that she looks the same exact same she doesn't get to be i guess the joke is like that she looks the exact same. She doesn't get to be, I guess the joke is like, Oh, she's, you know,

pretty average looking no matter what decade it is. Well, I mean, there, there is the good thing there, which is that Mindy Sterling is getting paid. Yes. There's no one in the second movie.

It sounds like that knows what happened to Natalie Wood. That's true. That's true.'s true and just while we're on the second movie a couple things to say about that real quick that Heather Graham plays a character named Felicity Shagwell she is the main female character and like ally to Austin Powers she is shown as being extremely horny for Austin right from the jump. But the big obstacle of that movie is that he can't do anything about it because he's lost his mojo,

which again might be slight commentary on what you were talking about earlier, Jamie, with like the masculinity aspect of this type of like, you know, British super spy yeah but like again i don't i don't know what they're trying to say with this the commentary it's the audience of this movie is like i think a little bit jarring and confusing because it's like most people see this movie are and like quoting this movie are kids and teenagers who just based on the time the movie came out would have no like life understanding of what the movie is parodying but then it's making

all these references that seem to be for their parents but that's not like i'm sure parents are watching the movie but not in the same like what it's just weird it's just like it's just kind of uncanny valley and like i think mike myers is making it for kids, but that's who's watching it. Right. And so any of the intended commentary just gets completely lost if there is any. I don't know. I wasn't alive in the 60s in England. I was.

It is so interesting with that said, is that like the audience you weren't making it for are the fans and because they don't get the references that means they're taking it at face value and actually liking that i mean no i mean not as a read at all on people who did watch it as kids and they liked it caitlin thank you you know but um it's it's so weird to it's kind of like some sasha baron coen movies where people who he's making fun of like it and they have no idea he's making fun of them you know right right because they're just like oh sex jokes homo jokes or whatever you know and so they don't get that they're he's making fun of

homophobia but um wait so how did he lose his mojo is it because he lost his wife and he's making fun of homophobia. But wait, so how did he lose his mojo? Is it because he lost his wife and he's sad about it? Oh, I'd love to tell you. Nope, nothing like that. It is that the character Fat Bastard steals it from him. So of course, we have Fat Bastard. This is one long fat shaming joke, one of the worst, if not the worst offender of a fat joke in movie history is the character Fat Bastard. He shows up again in the third movie as well. It is despicable. Similarly, I would argue that the mini me character many many jokes are made at the expense of verne troyer and the his size and his body rest in power um so you have all these this doesn't happen to a large degree in the first movie but starting with the second movie of this trilogy there is all these jokes made at the

expense of various people's bodies and looks and things like that. So that is obviously unacceptable. The most important thing, though, about Austin Powers 2 is that when they're tracking Fat Bastard, at one point, Austin's like, the signals come through. He's at Paddington Station oh okay oh so it's forgiven it's for no but there is the paddington reference um and if only this movie about a british person wearing a blue jacket was not about austin powers it was instead about Paddington Bear. Yeah. If I may, I think that maybe this, I don't know if this is, this isn't really an Alfred Molina type movie.

No, no. He would not set foot on that set. I don't think so. And even if he was offered a part, he was probably busy shooting his iconic part in Boogie Nights, which comes out the same year. True. Interesting.

Y'all know a lot. just have a wikipedia page open at all times and then as far as like austin powers three this is the one i'm least familiar with i only saw it once but there's just the beyonce one the beyonce one uh There's a whole slew of racist jokes throughout the movie. Is she his love interest? She's like his like spy partner. I don't think they ever have any sort of, I don't remember. I think they do kiss at the end.

I think, yeah, but it's not quite, it's not quite framed the same way as it is in the first two movies. I hate that Beyonce had to kiss mike myers but then i would also be pissed if he had no interest in beyonce at all you know right that would also be racist right like oh oh is it because she's black you know right well yeah we've talked about that a lot in recent episodes of like this especially in this era like a resistance to showing any interracial couples on screen right and how like it sometimes gets confused even by us at

certain points of like oh that's cool that they didn't force a love interest and and then like i mean it was when we were talking about bad boys right right that it was like oh well that was because in this time it wasn't that they were doing something feminist it was when we were talking about bad boys. Right, right, right. And it was like, oh, well, that was because in this time, it wasn't that they were doing something feminist. It's that they were doing something racist. Yeah. Oh. Yeah.

I got it. Totally. Yes. If memory serves, they do share. They are like flirting a lot throughout the movie, and they do share a kiss at the end. But he is not. Trying to shag the whole time.

Not trying to shag her relentlessly in a harassing way again as far as i was like watching it like in the middle of the night so who knows what my memory is doing but either way none of these movies are good and they're all treat women terribly yeah also i mean just because we referenced it at the top of the episode this movie this true i mean are all three directed by jay roach caitlin oh i believe they are yes so jay wrote okay so this is like one of my least favorite trends in recent movie history i hate it so much we've talked about it before on the matreon uh but this whole like trend of men who directed incredibly offensive broad 90s and early 2000s

comedies getting this second act now directing movies that are supposed to be feminist or like or i guess progressive in general where you have the Farrelly brothers with Green Book which is a trash movie that won a ton of uh Oscars or you have I mean for but and Jay Roach directed Bombshell which was supposed to be the feminist movie of the 2019 movie season it wasn't it didn't make any fucking sense and it wasn't very good but just the fact that like these prestige projects that like are about women and people of color and they're just being given to these guys that did these outwardly like their whole resume is like across the board jay roach's resume is sexist sexist sexist what i didn't say that right

any of the three times no understood but but like but but then they're like yeah you know what he should get an opportunity to direct a movie about misogyny in the workplace like on what fucking ground it just whoa you're blowing my mind right now i had no idea that's wow that this is the this is how the system gets recycled over and over of course it's the people who were here first and it's dudes like him and of course they were in the times that was what that's so fucked up he's the one who directed bomb show yeah i mean they're not getting you talent no it's like of all the i mean of all the stories that needed to be directed by a woman and then also like why we are like oh the first me too movie is about like women on fox news like all right but for sure so it's like shitty on a number of levels but if you

want to tell that story why hand that to the director of all three austin powers just like on what fucking grounds does that make sense well uh jamie because he also directed meet the parents and meet the fuckers uh-huh i like i don't i've ever i mean i i don't know anything about this man personally but you just like on on paper and on like the resume translating to that it just makes no sense and it just is like it seems like a slap in the face to female filmmakers as a whole yes oh my god i wonder what side by side the scenes from fembots if there are any scenes in bombshell that kind of like side by side i'm just thinking it's like three three blonde women you know three blonde women there were six blonde fembots you know like if if it's like there's some like shot to shot storyboard like similar i don't know i wonder if he used that as a pitch you know like oh this is a scene

from austin powers okay so i'm picturing you know how the fembots were like this this is how the girls and bombshell are gonna be standing it. It's kind of like this. Yeah. So that's a not very fun fact. My, my, the only fun fact I could find about this movie that was fun was that scene. I mean, there's like those two scenes that have those extended visual jokes about dicks and boobies because this movie is for nine year olds.

But whatever. And what if okay hilarious thought jamie had while watching the movie oh please what if you watch the end and it was like cinematography roger deakins just what if roger deakins literally orchestrated those boobies and pp shots anyways um well it's not him but that would be really funny if that was roger deacons anyways um that scene that last scene with all the melons and the boobies and all the whole boobie thing yeah yeah that was shot at the scientology celebrity center what isn't that weird what okay hold on there's just too many things my mind needs to calm down yeah you're gonna you're gonna explode like like one of the fembots wait okay wait everything's wrong with everything everything's very wrong hold on i need to um i need to calm down wait

breathe i okay so everything about this movie is reminding me of just everything wrong with, like, the 90s. Not just 90s. It's, like, very incel from, like, the judo chop to now Scientology. It's, this is all very, like, toxic incel shit. You know what? Well, also because for some reason, like like every guy loser who's like who gets toxic about not getting um laid gets really into like martial arts too and so every time no for real it's like um uh you know putin is like a black belt you know what i mean it's always like weird

evil people uh it's always like evil dudes like who are like not getting laid and like you know are angry about it um that get really so like the references to judo freak me out too like judo chop you know in austin powers yeah yeah yeah because i was like everything like the obsession with japan you know, obsession with boobies, dumb sex jokes and poop jokes. And I mean, the Scientology, I can't explain right now, but like, did they just offer it? I don't know. I guess. Yeah.

It was a free. Everything else seemed kind of like they could shoot it for pretty low budge. I mean, the U.N. was just like a dark room, right? Like the background was just black. Right. I think the first movie had a $16.5 million budget, which is, yeah. It's pretty low for a studio comedy, like action comedy. Yeah.

Yeah. I wonder how much that budget goes up between the first and the second one. Oh, I have it right here. It pretty much doubles for the spy who shagged me and then that again nearly doubles for the third movie um these movies grossed the first one didn't do super well not super well it was a success but i i read that part of the reason it didn't do well is it didn't do well in england because it came out right after princess di passed away and no one was fucking with it at that time because i think that they were really

banking on it being very successful in england as well but everyone in england was bummed out yeah um i'm seeing two different figures here and i don't know exactly which one is which so i'll just say the lower one to be safe but worldwide these movies the trilogy grossed about 675 million dollars as a trilogy across the world so you're like you're like the people were sad about princess diana's death and they knew watching the movie would not make them feel better and so they just avoided it pretty much i don't know does anyone have any other final thoughts i can't wait to do another mike myers uh movie oh yeah you gotta what do you do you want to come back for um so I married an axe murderer or whatever the fuck that movie is

sure I haven't seen that our number one request most people haven't yeah well next time we'll have you on for a movie that you actually want to talk about we've punished you long enough no no no it's fine look I have we have

time right now I have time right now i was like yeah i'll revisit austin powers we appreciate it yes uh let's figure out if the movie passes the bechdel test no it doesn't i i had my fingers crossed for when vanessa and her mother were talking but they only talked about fucking austin powers so yes i think that's the only time women interact in the entire movie because like frau farbisina does not interact with her fembots they don't have names for sure and they don't have names um yeah i maybe a lot of vagina when she's like kidnapping um vanessa but i don't know if they talk either we didn't see that conversation yeah no i don't think this movie passes the bechdel test no i don't think so

no and if it does it shouldn't right unless the sea bass the mutated sea bass were all female fish and they talked but we didn't see it There better be a deleted scene where that happens. And if not, I'm going to be pissed. Let's rate it on our nipple scale. Zero to five nipples based on its representation of women. I think I'm going to just go ahead and give this zero nipples. I'm going to give it a zero as well. I'm going to give it a concaved nipple. Yeah.

I mean, everything about it is despicable uh it does not get any better as the franchise goes forward there was an opportunity to provide meaningful commentary on this type of like spy action franchise uh because i mean we talked about one of the bond movies so far yeah on the podcast um and it was one of the more recent ones and it's still oh god do we have to talk about another one no well so i was like oh we can do austin powers because originally um the newest bond installment was supposed to come out in early april but everything's you know not being released in theaters so that's why i was like oh let's do a an austin powers movie instead so that's why we're releasing this episode now you know all of our plans have fallen to shit but it's

actually fine yeah mulan didn't come out but our our episode did. So basically, it came out. Basically, Mulan came out. Yeah, and look, whatever. Oh, by the way, I wanted to, before we leave, I said concave nipple not to body shame, but because it's like a negative nipple. Oh, so it's pointing inwards. Yeah, what I meant was it's a negative one.

Got it. God, I think I've lost ability to really like form sentences because no honestly i haven't seen people and i know anyways thank you for having me on that would be my that's my last thought uh we're so glad to to have had you thank you so much for being here and anotsko uh what would you like to plug and where can people follow you online and check out your stuff? You can just find me at Atsuko Comedy. A-T-S-U-K-O Comedy. That's where I'm at.

Oh, yeah. And check out Let's Go Atsuko, the podcast and the live show. And the future Quibi show. Yes. And the future Quibi. Yes. Coming to your phone. So we'll see. You know. Yes. And the future Quibi. Yes. Coming to your phone. So we'll see, you know.

Yeah. We'll see what happens. It's coming. It's coming. Yes. Can't wait. You can follow us on all the places, Twitter, Instagram. Patreon, aka Matreon, is $5 a month and it gets you two bonus episodes of the podcast

every single month. That's at patreon.com slash Bechdelcast. And our TeePublic store, teepublic.com slash TheBechdelcast, has all of your merch needs. And without much further ado, yeah, baby. Shagadelic or something. Horny. Horny. Horny.

With that, horny. Bye. Bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country

into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, this is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only,

Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. Don't miss Catherine Hahn

on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Joe Gatto. I'm Steve Byrne. 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. We're here at iHeart. Yeah, you

can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts or on the iHeart Radio app.