The Bechdel Cast - Bad Moms

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

Caitlin and Jamie tackle Bad Moms! Happy Mother's Day!!!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow@BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP on Twitter 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. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Hi, mommies. How's that? Good? That was great. Mommies. Welcome to the Bechdel cast, mommies and non-mommies.

But you know, this week, mommies come to the front of the cast mommies and non-mommies but you know this week mommy has come to the front of the line that's right i make no mistake not just good mommies but bad mommies too bad mommies as well welcome bad mommies to the bad mommies episode of i was almost gonna say like this is how traumatized I am at this point where I was almost gonna say like Caitlin we can be bad podcasters but you know that that's just giving an asshole like a template of a mean iTunes review so I'm like yeah better not do it okay so this is this is our you know annual Mother's Day episode I miss I miss my mom yeah I miss my mom. Yeah, I miss my mom. She's doing okay. Although her health is not, she has Lyme disease, I think. And she has a lot of pain from that.

But then she's like, well, what if it's COVID-19? So no one knows anything. But my mom's health is a little precarious at the moment. But I think she'll be fine, I think. My mom, yeah, similar deal. My mom has rheumatoid arthritis and has been, I think it's just like, if you already have chronic pain, being cooped up in your house nonstop just doesn't do it any favors. For sure.

And she's also, shout out to Jill, because I'm pretty sure she's been a loyal listener throughout the choir. Oh, Jill, hi. Mainly because she has been teaching her second grade class still um right through quarantine through zoom through zoom which i'm like i shot i mean shout out to where this is a weird start to the episode but it's a quarantine episode so it doesn't matter uh but shout out to like all the parents and teachers right now who are making school happen over zoom i truly cannot wrap my head around that yeah students too like it's just who it's it's amazing not to brag or anything but i teach online screenwriting classes which i always forget to plug on the

podcast but if anyone's interested in learning screenwriting from yours truly someone with a master's degree in screenwriting uh that i absolutely hate to bring up but um i teach classes through zoom but i only have like i cap it at five students per section and they're all you know adults so and i'm like i can barely handle that well it's like that's the thing it's like i've been in a writer's room like during the days and i'm like i am an adult woman who i it's so hard to pay attention it's so hard i'm like why am i on ebay like i this is my job i hope no one i don't think that but anyways i've been on been on eBay and I'm doing my job, but I'm like on eBay.

So, you know, we can all be, it feels good to be bad. A wise person once told me. Well, that's sort of the theme of the movie. It feels good to be bad and we're back. Welcome to the Bechtel cast. This is, if you're a new listener, what a weird start. This is our podcast about the representation of female identifying characters in movies. We use the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for discussion. But what is the Bechdel test? I ask myself

each and every week. I'm happy to answer your question. It is a media metric originally developed by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. And it requires that the narrative have two female identifying characters with names who speak to each other about something other than a man. And the specific metric that we use is it has to be a two or more line exchange of dialogue. And a lot of movies cannot manage this simple metric. And interestingly, and we'll be talking about this iconic duo.

I mean, when people say like Caitlin and Jamie name a this iconic duo. I mean, when people say, like, Caitlin and Jamie, name a more iconic duo, I automatically say John Lucas and Scott Moore. But, you know, many movies that the writers of this movie have written in no way passed the Bechdel test. We've got a weird one today. There's pros and there's cons. But we're here there's discourse i wanted

before we get into it because it's we're it's just the two of us today um so i was curious i have i've just been interested in hearing like other podcasters that i listen to just like what is like a thing in quarantine that you've like gotten into or like a show or a thing that you're like oh i have been re-watching um a show that i really enjoy that i had only seen once but over the garden wall it's oh yes you recommended that to me yes i i can't recommend it enough it's short it's fun it's kooky um it was originally on cartoon network it's on hulu now i really enjoy it um so any any over the garden wall heads out there you let me know i'm gonna recommend a show that i've been watching really because i i've also been like working three jobs in the choir which is like it

doesn't make any like it's very lucky but it also is uh like just really fucks with your head a little bit sure but i watched the first season of on becoming a god in central florida and it's really good kirsten dunst is great nice and i love it so that's our core rex yeah core re. Let's talk about Bad Moms. Let's do it. So yes, we don't have a guest today, but I wanted to get some opinions of moms and whether or not this movie resonated with moms. So I have a few little tweets to share and stuff like that. Mom tweets. What was your history? Do you have a history with this movie?

No, I don't i had never seen it nor its sequel a bad mom's christmas didn't i just skipped them i based on what i knew about them when they came out and like who was making them and stuff i was like i don't think these are going to be for me. Yeah. I was right. Same. Not because of the premise, more just because of the writing style and the comedic sensibilities of these writers

and stuff like that. I just like the bloated, big-budget comedy genre aesthetic. This specific aesthetic and tone't it's not even really i guess it's kind of a genre it's also not for me uh yeah so this movie came out i mean fairly recently i had seen i've seen bad mom's christmas i watched it because christine baranski was in it and i i didn't love the movie but but I did love Christine Baranski. And Susan Sarandon's in it. She's good in it as well.

Honestly, I will say I really preferred Bad Moms Christmas to Bad Moms. Okay, interesting. But I think that that might just be because you get like twice the amount of... Twice the moms. Twice the moms. You have Cheryl Hines christine baranski and susan seren like those they're all like you know knocking it out of the park even though the writing still say with me sucks yeah uh but you have like twice the amount of fun performances

so it's it just was more fun but sure yeah i saw i watched watched bad moms i it's it's frustrated because it's like and we'll talk about this a lot because it's like a really good premise and like a really strong cast and everything i dislike about the movie has to do with the way it's written and directed and then when you're like oh it was written and directed by the hangover guys of course i don't like it yeah so it's it's kind of a bummer because i i'm sure that it would have been impossible to make this movie without their co-signing of it which is frustrating in itself and then everything i don't like about the movie is them getting in the way of a good premise and a good cast so yes um i'm glad it exists, but generally was like,

we got to be able to do better than this. Come on. We most certainly can. And I think that we have. That was another thing that before we super jump into it, I did a little research, as I've been known to do. Wow, brag. Perhaps some context.

I was just looking into like where moms have been represented in comedic movies and there's really not that much there is not a ton there's a lot of movies that have moms in them but are not about moms so it's like this movie was a huge hit it made 180 million dollars off a 22 million dollar budget so to me that indicates it's like this movie was a huge hit it made 180 million dollars off a 22 million dollar budget so to me that indicates you know like this is clearly a market people want this movie for sure and it was like reasonably well received but yeah because there this there's just not really moms represented as like a central focus in movies where you do see a lot and I think like a lot better than what this movie has to offer is there's a lot of TV that's come out in the past

couple of years that is comedy focused around motherhood and so it's just I I hope that and I mean god knows how or if movies will be made anymore um This is the end of the industry as we know it. Probably. But it's like Christine Baranski is going to be in like a plastic bubble. You know, it's going to be a whole thing. But I hope that, you know, I was encouraged at least to see, I mean, there's a ton of comedy shows of all different like genres of comedy. There's like network comedy.

There's niche. There's blah, blah, blah about mothers mothers but it just is not represented in movies so this is just kind of like what there is right now um wild but you know if you're if you're a mom looking for i'll um when this episode comes out i'll try to do a little thread of like TV recommended watching because it seems like that's where the options are. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah. And with that, should we do the recap and go from there? Let's do it.

So the story of bad moms, bad mommies. We meet bad mommy number one, although she's not bad mommy yet. She's good mommy. They're all good moms, but they're bad sometimes they're all like good moms but they also go through really long montage sequences that i fast-forwarded yeah like shop truly like we i can't talk about visual jokes in the because i just and they're all three minutes long it's too every these guys they just love a long expensive montage And I just don't care about it. That are like in slow motion. There's like some, you know, poppy bop in the background.

And it's just like this. You get one of those. Don't have 14 in your movie. Yeah. And like, can it be three characters that we at least know? Like there. But by the time the first like at length cameo comes in I'm like I think I know one thing about Kristen Bell's character how am I supposed to be like reveling in this like

wow like you don't know you really only know I would argue you really only get to know Mila Kunis in this movie I think you know one thing about Kristen Bell which is that her husband sucks yeah and that I mean that's just John and Scott Moore, no matter who they're writing for, they only know how to write broad stereotypes. For sure. A hundred percent. So you just don't get to know Kristen Bell and Katherine Hahn. You just don't.

But first we barely get to know Amy Mitchell. That's Mila Kunis' character. Were you frustrated? Okay, I'm sorry. I'm like, this movie was really fun. Were you frustrated in the first scene where they're introducing her when she's like, I sweat in workout class. And you're like, you're Mila Kunis.

Give me a break. I don't like when movies are like, Mila Kunis give me a break there don't I don't like when movies are like Mila Kunis is so awkward and you're like no she isn't she isn't I think she was miscast in this role but also who would have been cast in a such a broad stereotyped role like this I mean who would this be good for I really I think Mila Kunis is so talented we've seen her be amazing and I feel like she is yeah she is very miscast in this movie yeah so is Kristen Bell I think that true like of the main cast I think that like Christina Applegate and Catherine Han are pretty well cast but it's only because they're playing characters that they've been forced to play before

that are not fair to them where it's like oh Christina Applegate is going to play like an uptight rude person and she's been she's had to do that forever and like Catherine Han's gonna play like a very you know it's like and I hope they had fun and they did a good job but it's even when it's properly cast you're like this still is like not very nice i don't know okay where were we we have we met amy we've met amy boring she's boring she's uh she's overworked she's underappreciated she had her first kid when she was 20. She is now 32. She has two kids, Jane and Dylan. They do a bunch of extracurricular activities, which she's always trying to, you know, make it to like go to the, you know, events and the games and the recitals and whatever. But she's always late to everything. That's her thing. she's late to everything oh she's such a bad mom she has a

part-time job at a hipster coffee company working in sales i think we'll talk about that but this is a piece of writing that is so like roll your eyes into the back of your head okay boomer that i i was so annoyed by it where it's like just clearly two out of touch dudes being like millennials in the workplace they take two weeks off when Jon Snow dies and you're like Mila Kunis

is a millennial what are you talking like they're so like avocado toast like they're just stupid they're stupid and that anytime the workplace thing came up I was just deeply annoyed because it just made it made no sense. It was very frustrating. Yes. But that's her job. And she just always has so much going on. And she's worried that she might be a bad mom. There's also this group of judgmental moms that shame Amy for like having a job and being so busy. The queen bee of them is Gwendolyn, which is Christina Applegate's character. And then she has two friends played by Jada Pinkett Smith and Annie Mumolo.

Give Jada Pinkett Smith more lines. She was barely a character. I want to think best case scenario there's like a whole like there are scenes with jada pinkett smith that just like had to be cut for some reason because i'm just like why would you go through the trouble of getting someone who is like truly awesome in a movie where it is like very very white and then get this like iconic black actor and then give her no lines right so it's annoying on many levels truly yes and then like annie mamalo who co-wrote bridesmaids like she's just like pigeonholed into this like idiot type but like she's funnier than that like give her opportunities to shine

and also well that's like seeing annie mammolo in this movie is super frustrating because you're just like why didn't you let her write this movie right she's we like she's she is infinitely more qualified to do it and you're just gonna make her like again another like very talented person in this movie who has three lines and you're like what i hope she got a boat but like annie mummolo is a parent She is the same age as like the writer directors of this movie. She already had Bridesmaids under her belt when this came out. Why couldn't she have written it? Like. Great questions.

Great questions all around. It's it's befuddling. Yep. So that. OK. So Amy has a her husband, this guy, Mike. Also infuriating storyline. Yes.

He his whole thing is that he's pretty immature he's kind of a doof he like doesn't really do anything to help around the house and then one night amy catches him masturbating to a cam girl um which she apparently has been doing for 10 months so she kicks him out of the house the next day she has a terrible day you know she spills coffee on herself she spills spaghetti on herself oh she's such a klutz caitlin she's such a klutz she's such a bad mom her dog has vertigo because modern parents be having vertigo dogs you're like i'm just like there's some things in this that you're just like this is more of a rich person thing dogs on vertigo medication sounds kind of like a rich person thing uh they're like there i also i mean there is like a storyline with the husband, but it was like another frustrating.

I feel like the writer directors, John and Scott, are are kind of like both cutting themselves slack and telling on themselves through the husband character, because it's kind of like a character we've seen before of like, oh, he's not a bad person. He's just like kind of a doofus he's just dumb he would never hurt his wife on purpose right i mean i think it's like goofy and fits the tone of the movie but it also just means like oh no guy is gonna like super recognize themselves in that character or interrogate anything about themselves they're like oh he's dumb i'm an amazing husband I'm I'm a good dad yeah so that was annoying for sure so Amy has had this horrible day and at the PTA meeting that night Gwendolyn who is the PTA president is like Amy you're on the like police force at the bake sale or some poor Christina applegate just like she's a star why does she i mean yeah you know but yes her her character is like bitchy obstacle yep so amy is like no i'm not gonna do your thing

fuck it i quit and we're like quit what being a mom? What's happening? But then she's like, yes. Christy, another major writing flaw in this story is that the writers bravely, instead of examining where do these pressures on mothers come from? What systems are enforcing it they instead make the reason that things are difficult for all mothers be christina applegate right it's her fault that that every modern mother feels pressure and feels insecure and inadequate it's actually christina applegate's fault and by ruining christina applegate and and by that I mean to say pit women against women for really no reason, you can solve that. Yes, but before all that really transpires, Amy decides to be a bad mom. So basically, she goes to a bar to blow off some steam.

And there she sees Carla, Katherine Hahn hans character who is this horny irresponsible single mom type and kiki kristen bell's character who is an isolated stay-at-home mom with four kids and no friends type so you can see there's an attempt here to show different kinds of mothers but then the writing doesn't really do anything to subvert or expand on those types and it just ends up being types right exactly it there's like no nuance they are these one-dimensional characters right no thought was put into them aside from just like identifying them as these stereotypes and writing them as such and it's i guess i to be fair is the wrong preface to this sentence but like that is all john lucas and scott moore know how to do with characters of any gender if you

look at the hangover you also see like three types of bro that like they're not challenging in their writing um to put it lightly and so yeah you just end up like it's nice that you have three different types of mothers you have like a working mom in a relationship you have a stay-at-home mom you have a single mom this all sounds like cool all right different kinds of moms let's explore it but then we just don't explore it and we kind of just like nope that's it they got to step one yep so at at the bar they talk about how hard it is to be a good mom in this day and age how there's so many rules and expectations to be perfect so then amy is like screw it let's be bad moms parentheses 2016 written and directed by josh lucas and scott moore that's the name of the movie that was when

my boyfriend walked in during that scene and he was just like oh boy and then he just like left after that line he was like i'm gonna go get lunch yikes um all right let's let's take that moment to take a quick break because we're at break time and then we'll come back and keep going Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 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. The only Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh, my God. I would love it. I have to watch Lost.

Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hahn can sing. Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hahn can sing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad.

I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Ludi. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum.

Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do,

like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it? Like you miss 100% of the shots you never take. Yeah. Rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We're back. Okay, so the good moms have decided to be bad moms now. They're bad moms. They said it was the end of the first act, and we're like, all right, they are bad moms. They get drunk at the bar. Then they go wild at the grocery store uh the next morning amy is all hung over from her wild nights and her kids are like what the heck and she's like i'm a bad mom now make your own freaking breakfast she takes her kids to school in her husband's muscle car she skips work and goes to

the movies uh and lunch with her new friends, Kiki and Carla. Then we've got the bake sale scene there. Amy flirts with Jesse, this hot widower dad. But then Gwendolyn comes over and she's like, Amy, if you don't stop being a bad mom, I'm going gonna make your life a living heck then a scene happens off screen where amy learns that her husband is staying with his internet girlfriend this information happens in a scene that does not play out on screen right and then you're just like like that's not good writing it's not good writing and then i was just like i also don't care like yeah i don't care.

Yeah, I don't care. I'm not rooting for them to get back together. But I'm also not rooting for this random widower character who comes in. It's almost like they're shoehorning a romantic plot into the movie where no one cares about it and it doesn't really belong. Perhaps. But anyway, so this scene happens off screen but then the aftermath is carla being like amy you need to get laid and she's like yeah i do so the three of them go out to a bar but not only is amy a bad mom now she's also a bad flirter she's bad at flirting cue montage yeah another montage uh another long horribly

edited might i say montage it was showing her being bad at flirting but then jesse the hot widower dad shows up and they start flirting and then they have a a little kiss a little we're like okay she got what she wanted. I do want to talk about that kind of romantic storyline a little later on. Because there's some interesting things there. But anyway, so the next morning, Amy wakes up to her husband having returned. And she's like, get out of here. And we're like, all right, he was a character for a minute.

Yeah, I wasn't sure just because like they're not good writers i'm like i wonder if he's just never gonna be mentioned again but he is mentioned again but i still don't care about him so it just ended up kind of being like a moot point i was like hmm well i guess that that's what's happening right they could have written him out if they wanted me to want to see him they could have written him out. If they wanted me to want to see him, they could have written a better character. Right. Then Amy finds out that her daughter, Jane, got benched for her soccer game because Gwendolyn blackmailed the soccer coach, basically. So Amy is like, okay, well, then I'm going to run against you for PTA president.

And we're like, okay, guess this is this the plot now everything you're just like i know the shift because she says like i'm gonna be a bad mom and then she's like i'm gonna be the pta president and you're like i feel like these goals are at odds yes with but when she says she's gonna be a bad mom she doesn't really this is just like it's it's i mean we're not moms it goes without saying but i was like okay she says i want to be a bad mom but i think that i mean what she's actually saying is i want to be a mom and my own person right like why can't they just say that like i know that that's not as punchy but it's confusing for her to keep saying i want to be a bad parent

when which what she means something else like right it's still very clear that she like, they all love their children very much, but they're flawed people. So like, that's fine. You know, I don't get it. I mean,

I get it, but I don't like it. Like I want to be a mom who doesn't have to live up to such rigid expectations and high standards that are placed upon me by society and the patriarchy that doesn't fit into onto a movie poster well but bad moms well when you say when you say uh society and patriarchy i think you mean christina applegate oh oh right i'm so sorry it was actually her fault that this is all happening so that's why we have to defeat her in the election question mark unclear unclear it also seems like she doesn't

like logistically does Mila Kunis have the bandwidth for this her whole thing is like I don't have bandwidth for anything and then she's like she's already too busy the goal is she's like I'm gonna hurt she says I she don't think she means this but she's like I'm gonna be a worse parent because I am too bogged down with the expectations for work and parenthood and all this other stuff but then the focus shifts and she's like I actually want to take on an additional

responsibility to prove something to that I don't know what it is right okay okay just making sure that that is what's happening whoops that is what's happening. Whoops. That is indeed. Maybe it don't make sense. Oop.

So now that she's running for PTA president, she throws a meet the candidate party that no one shows up to at first. But then people start to arrive because they've got free wine and it turns into this wild party. And then Jesse shows up at the end as it's winding down and then they have a little kiss and a little sex. Ooh. And we're like, yeah.

And then there's another scene where Amy's husband is back again and they go to a couples counseling with Wanda Sykes. Again, her talents are wildly underused yeah i had just watched and this is like really embarrassing i just watched as a joke we were doing her on zeitgeist movie club which we've already done in this show and um listeners will know we don't love it we don't love it um but i watched so i watched jexi instead as a joke that adam divine movie it's really bad and wanda sykes is also

inevitably in that movie being wildly underused and so it's like just two days in a row of seeing wanda sykes enormous talent just wasted. I just hope that she's just like, they offered me so much money that I could not say no. I can't imagine that's true, though. It wasn't that big of a budget. It was only, what, $22 million? It's true, $22 million. What if Wanda Sykes was $21 million of the dollars?

Oh, fingers crossed. Hope so. Let's headcanon yeah but yeah she is very under you're just like this is a waste of wanda sykes but i'm glad she's there um but she's like wow you guys should just get a divorce which is like we know yeah it's like uh duh this is all to say that uh we're reaching the low point of the movie amy's marriage is crumbling she gets fired from her job that she has not been showing up to and she's like why are you firing me sure i've skipped work for the past week in a row but like i don't get it and then they're like our

avocado toast is dry and they're oh god that whole yeah so it's something it's not her fault that she didn't show up to work right it's millennials fault what and then to top it all off um gwendoline has planted weed in amy's daughter's locker and gets her kicked off the soccer team so everything's just crumbling in amy's world and her daughter gets really mad at her and calls her selfish and then she's like i'm gonna go stay with dad so things have fallen apart so it's the night of the pta election amy eventually shows up late because she's always late that's kind of her thing she's not like the other girls and she gives this speech where she's like hey most of us are bad moms and that's okay because being a mom is really hard vote for me and

everyone's like woohoo and she wins the election then there's like a little bit of a reconciliation between her and gwendoline her kids back. She gets rehired at work. The movie takes a very long time to end. I was like, kind of like, did you feel that as well? We were just like, the writing gets kind of scattered in the second act. And then they still managed to tie up

every kind of random storyline they had set up in the very long second act. But it takes a while where they're like okay there's a climactic third act scene which is like the third actiest i don't even really mean this is a bad thing but you know she goes up she says the title of the movie she says the statement of the movie and everyone's like woohoo you win the big game yeah but then it's like scene where you find out what happened with her and her kids scene where you find out what happened with the widow scene where you resolve the christina applegate thing scene where you find out what happened with her and her kids scene where you find out what happened with the widow scene where you resolve the christina applegate thing scene where katherine

han's character gets resolution you didn't realize that you were supposed to want uh there's just like there's like five daniel mont scenes that you're just like all right let's i don't like this movie very much sorry and then yeah that's pretty much it yeah and then we get this uh kind of like not post credits but like as the credits are rolling we get all of the the actors in the movie just them with their moms in real life having conversations and we're like oh this is more endearing than the entire movie i was saying this before we started recording k Catherine Hahn's mom is funnier than the whole movie. Catherine kept watching the scenes with Catherine Hahn and her mom and Jada Pinkett Smith and her mom were so delightful. I also think that Jada gets more screen time during the credits than she does in the movie.

Hundred percent. I found Kristen Bell's mom to be a little threatening. I was just like something about Kristen Bell's mom is not rubbing me the right way. Mila Kunis' mom seems like a delight. Same for Christina Applegate. That's my review of everyone's mom. Incredible. Something about Kristen Bell's mom has a bit of a sinister energy.

Can't quite place it. Sure, I see that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's take another quick break and then we'll come back and really do a deep dive. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.

My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh my God, I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know, I'm so behind. Katherine Hanken's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love. 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. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it.

It was somehow gorgeous. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions, like how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job?

Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote.

What is it, like, you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. So we've been chatting a little bit already throughout the recap of things that have, you know, bugged us.

Yes. I think I just want to start out the official discussion by saying, like, I can see why this movie would resonate with people, especially moms. For sure. Because it does a little bit to recognize how difficult it is to be a mom, how mothers are often underappreciated, overworked, how they often have to do a lot of the household and emotional labor to keep a family going. And this movie is about a group of women who are just fed up with those expectations that are placed upon them to be perfect moms. And then they say, fuck it to those expectations.

Absolutely. Like, I really do appreciate that there is like and again, for movies that have come out even remotely recently, this is the option of a movie that expresses these like really commonly held frustrations. So it's like i i'm glad this exists for that reason and and i'm glad that it like resonated i'm interested in your mom tweets yes because yeah this is the only movie of its kind for better and for worse um i'll read a few of the responses i got from moms and for our listeners who are moms feel free to reach out on social media and let us know how much or how little this movie resonated with you because we are very curious for sure um but anyway here are a few takes give me that sweet mom intel they were

a bit mixed but basically my tweet just asked um are you a mom? Have you seen Bad Moms? Did it resonate with you? Thoughts? One of the first responses was, I am a mom and I loved it. I also saw it in a theater full of moms and it was an awesome bonding experience. Okay. Another one said, big fan. I relate to Mila Kunis and Katherine Hahn. My husband left me for another woman and I had to struggle to

figure out how to keep my household afloat with two kids aged three and five at the time while shedding my wife slash mother identity and figuring out who I was. Another response was saying that she is a mom. She did not finish the movie. It did not resonate with her at all so again mixed responses i guess i mean like a lot of what you hear and then i think around the original coverage of this movie because this movie was reviewed mixed as well um and i was happy to see it that a lot of the reviewers of this movie were not just women but also were mothers um and it seems like moms are also split on this. But I mean, even the responses that you've shared, and thank you to those people for sharing,

seems to indicate that like, this is the first time they've seen those kinds of problems represented in a big movie. And in a way that isn't. And I think we've talked about this with a number of different identities that are held primarily by women of like it's nice to see a mom struggling in a way that isn't framed as like this is the most tragic thing in the world this is like and then it's just a sad because i feel like there's a lot of movies about like sad moms but this movie is about bad moms there might yeah and and i i could definitely see how seeing this movie in theaters with other moms would be really cathartic and fun totally i just think we can do better yes for sure and that that's my thesis statement of the film which is that like

it's a movie about being a mom and the pressures of being a mother and it's written and directed by two cishet men who are known for being cruel to women yeah yeah and i know that we we've done research into what these guys were saying on the press tour for this movie, which was like, look, just very like I, my, my suspicion going into researching the production of this movie was that John Lucas and Scott Moore wanted money,

right? Okay. That is what a lot of directors want. Right. But by 2016, you can't necessarily just make another hangover. You can't like bro comedy is really not as much in demand, you know. And so it just seems kind of like it just seems like someone reached out and was like, John Lucas Scott Moore, women are so hot right now.

So we need you to like don't don't like get out of your comfort zone or anything but we need a movie with some ladies and no you can't kill them uh and it just it just feels like a studio note like it just yeah i have like i have some of these interviews and i like i want to play some clips from them because they're so frustrating to hear these guys talk it's just I'm frustrated by them like they should have just known better they should have been like well we're not moms why would we write a movie about moms yeah but what have they done in their career that would indicate that they would pass money on to a marginalized creator like there's nothing that they've ever nothing no they they got offered the money and they took it which also makes me very frustrated at the you know the studio who was like hey men write this

movie about ma like yeah yeah i am i am at least mildly encouraged and appreciated by like i guess that kristin bell had a lot to do with this project existing as well from the research I'd done on the production. She was like, I think, the star attached that made the movie get made. And she was the one that convinced Mila Kunis to do it. And so there is like more women behind the scenes of this movie than your average John Lucas Scott Moore movie. But that's saying literally nothing. So, yeah. Well, let's hear a little a few things they have to say, shall we?

No. Yes. So this is an interview with the co-writers and co-directors, John Lucas and Scott Moore, about just sort of their experience developing and directing Bad Moms. And here are just a few choice quotes from them i am on a youtube channel called film is now movie bloopers and extras just to cite this source as properly as i can yeah so here's the first clip uh yeah. Well, I think, you know, the movie, the genesis of the movie was looking at our wives lives were both dads and our wives or moms and seeing how intense a world it was and how ripe it was for comedy. We went to enough mom events that got a little off the rails that were like, oh, we're not actually entirely making this up. This is something that actually happens. The three martini play date or whatever it is.

Not my wife, by the way. She's very well behaved. But other moms, of course. But we just thought it was a world full of really intense social interactions. And it was just a world that hadn't been, in our minds, done to the nth degree yet. And so we thought we could oh there it's very and i mean and the quotes get worse from that like it it just i really don't like it there it's so i mean it's like i i feel like that quote alone just like you're like yeah this was a studio note they were asked to write a movie about women. They asked their wives three questions a piece and then just wrote the movie.

And I really don't like this. Okay, let me know if I'm getting off the rails here. But I do feel like there is, especially in this genre, there's this repeated media narrative of women should be allowed to be raunchy too and like it just comes off a little like condescending like it's like okay well then like let them and also you don't need to write like there's just no i hate i just there couldn't be two people i

would want behind a project about motherhood less right i mean i'll play a couple more little clips from this but like yeah so there's this monologue that amy mila kunis's character gives in the movie when she's talking to her son about how her son like needs to do his own homework and she basically she's like you're entitled which means mommy and daddy have been spoiling you and now you think the world owes you something but it doesn't and if you don't learn how to work hard now you're going to grow up to be another entitled white dude who thinks he's awesome for no reason and then you'll start a ska band and you'll be mean to girls and you'll grow a mustache to look interesting but you won't actually be interesting and i'm not okay with that so please do your own homework so she's

like talking about male basically the directors of this movie who are entitled and think they can just do anything but then they also like but then they also do that thing where they make it sound goofy and not like themselves enough that they just sort of manage to slip out of it they're like right like i feel like that's the same the same issue I have with the way they wrote her husband where um I agree with our listener that it's it's like there is some visibility and like a shitty husband that cheats on their spouse with not a lot of guilt I mean that's unfortunately a pretty common thing that happens but the way that they write the character makes it seem like he's just not smart enough to be able to be a loyal husband it has nothing it is barely a reflection on his character and and i feel like that is a way that they let themselves and other men off the hook by just writing a character that

really no one is going to see themselves in and we've had this discussion in different genres too where it's like we've had discussions about like when a man is and i guess trigger warning but like when a man assaults a woman in a movie it's very often by a character that is so brutally evil that no or like no average person would recognize themselves in it and so then it just becomes like well what are you supposed to take away from that, you know, and this is a much less version of that. But I do think it is like kind of a flavor of like, these guys are not actually writing it. The one thing that they could do and use their lived experience to do is write a dad character that right isn't so ridiculous and they can't even do that it's just without getting like too like oh well i'm not like this this guy's dumb like it's like okay but like

they just can't self-examine also john locus being like, though, she would never misbehave. She's perfectly behaved. I'm just like, did you miss the point of your own shitty movie? It sounds like it based on that comic. It sounds like it. There was a piece I came across from, I was just looking through some of the coverage in both directions, the pro and con from when this came out in 2016 and there was a piece I found in Slate that I actually uh

quite liked and I thought it was someone who like a writer named Alyssa Strauss who enjoyed the movie but kind of had all of the same points that we have about why it's like well this isn't really she was like it's a fun movie but it's not really like the mother's experience where so i just wanted to share a quick passage from that that i think like ties in a lot of things that we've been talking about so far yeah um she says in real life a harried mom like amy seeking some relief would probably recognize that her unhelpful husband and unrealistic boss are her main problems. The annoying mom at school would be nothing more than a pebble in her shoe, something that bothers her for a moment, but can easily be resolved. Personally speaking, I know few moms who have been exhausted or wounded by inter mommy tension. I asked other moms I know,

including those with office jobs and those who are their family's primary caretaker, and they all felt the same. Moms are not at war with one another, we concluded, and most of us don't care about what parenting or employment decisions other moms are making. We might become irritated when a mom thinks she is better for making a particular decision, but the crime there is hubris, not how they are feeding their baby

or how many extracurriculars their kid is enrolled in, which I feel like is a big flaw of this movie, where it's like the way the problems that mila kunis's character chooses to address versus what she doesn't like yeah they make the villain another woman we don't know very well as opposed to any system that being her job which is like even that like gets conflated because of the shitty writing where it's like with her workplace it would be very I think smart and the most logical choice to make it a workplace that is not welcoming to mothers it's not offering flexible scheduling

right and and that should be a clear but they don't do that they make it like oh these millennials and their coffee beans and their game of thrones like the the problem is like people who are five years younger than Mila Kunis it's not the fact that workplaces are unwilling to accommodate mothers and maternity leave and stuff like that like yeah it doesn't even come it barely comes up so that is like conflated and then the clear issue of like her husband is cheating on her she wants to divorce her husband it finally gets resolved way later but men are not like obstacles in this movie the way that other women are well that brings me to perhaps another little clip even all that because it's like one of those media interviews where it says like john lucas on why women should be allowed to be raunchy even like the introduction to their clips is cringy the movie doesn't really get into a lot

of dadding and we unconsciously chose to like every time we felt as guy writers ourselves injecting guy stuff in we sort of wanted to treat men in this movie a lot like how women are generally treated in guy comedies which is sort of like love objects and a little bit of comedy here and there but we really wanted to get it not about like the relationships between like the struggles between moms and dads this is a mom movie this is not a movie about the two things okay i mean i don't even disagree that that's like a fun inversion but then it's like that sentence continues with like also i don't know what it's like to be a mom i didn't do a lot of research and i don't know what i'm fucking talking about so the whole movie comes

off a bit weird they're they're so lucky they had like three talented leads who are mothers to make this movie remotely convincing. Truly. And the writing doesn't do them justice of what they are capable of. Anyway, here's another clip. And this is Scott Moore talking now? So John may have said this, but we didn't so much as write this script as listen to our wives and the moms around us and write down what they were saying. And so really a lot of it is just observing the moms around us and putting it into a movie. And I have to say, you're talking about sort of cutting loose. I know my wife would love to cut loose every day, but there's so much responsibility placed on her that eventually she gets to the end of the day and it's like midnight and she's got to go to bed and it's

that frustration of not getting to do anything that she wants all day and so this movie is what if she got to just like do whatever the hell she wanted can we start like a go fund me for these wives they're like we need to get them out of there they're the way they talk about their wives is literally like their possessions. Like they're just, my wife would love to cut loose, but unfortunately I'm making a ton of money like off of her experiences. So I can't really like do much to contribute because I'm writing bad moms. Like you're just like, do you hear yourself?

So, and then I have one last clip to share. I know it's, and then I'm done, I promise. I think there are less pressures and less expectations on fathers. It seems like if you show up at an occasional soccer game, you're a hero for being there. But moms sort of have to be at every soccer game and make sure they brought the treats and make sure the kids are on time, make sure they have all the gear and that they have the shin pads. And there's just a lot that I feel like our society has placed a lot more pressure on moms to be perfect that dads, for right or wrong, probably for wrong,

are just expected to be at work and occasionally show up. But moms are expected to do everything. I personally feel like I get a lot more applauded for doing very little. And my wife does a lot and doesn't get any. You do very little lot more applauded for doing very little and my wife does a lot and doesn't get any very little and i do very little consciously uh no but i think there's i think that's i we could get into a really deep philosophical conversation as to why it is but the truth whatever whatever cause you want to point to it is reality that moms are held to a far higher standard and it's not fair yeah okay but what have you done but what have you done but what have you done you know they

just they're like um i think i've heard of this thing called the patriarchy um not really sure what it does or who it is but it seems really shitty i would be so pissed if that were me so i guess what i'm saying is wow really sucks and bye yes these are the doofuses who tried to write like an empowering mom movie yeah they did not succeed um that then that's all i have to say about it they just just did not succeed there. I really hope that in a couple of years, we like look back on this episode when a, I would love a run. Like it's not, don't misunderstand us.

We would love a raunchy comedy starring moms written by anyone else. They're written by like someone with experience, someone who has at least researched it. Like it just there couldn't be a more cynical like Hollywood choice for someone to be in charge of this movie. It just shows a complete distrust in lit. I mean, and having Annie Mumolo there really was like a knife to the gut for me of like you have cast someone in a shitty tiny role of someone who could be doing circles around it's just ridiculous totally yeah and and especially because like to have these two men write this movie about motherhood and it like them being like but like you know it's

it's bad moms it's moms like what if moms could be bad and raunchy and drunk and have sex and like all this stuff. And it's like, great. Yeah, that would be cool to see. That would be a subversion of what we normally see on screen. But like, again, it always it just comes down to like, these are not the people to tell this story, because these are guys whose comedy relies almost entirely on punching down and writing dialogue in a way that like i really don't like women it's very like katherine han's character the way that she's always like oh my cooter my cooch my pussy you're like that's how 50 year old men talk about women that is not how women talk about themselves like i unless there's something i'm

missing but like i've never known any one of my generation or my mom's that has spoken of themselves in that way and my and that's not to say that my mom and her friends don't talk about themselves in gross ways they do but not right but they don't talk about themselves like i feel like there is this weird sometimes there are semi-good monologues that i theorize were rewritten later on because they're just like this is too like mila kunis will occasionally have a good small monologue that is yes extremely on the nose but at least it's making a competent point like when she's at the bar and she's like there's so much pressure on us blah blah blah like you're just like okay yes i agree with this cool nice but then it's like for the most part it's moms talking to each other the

way their husbands talk about them and not how they talk about themselves because of who's writing the movie and so so and i just want to clarify something i want to clarify what we mean uh i i don't think that men should avoid writing movies about women or avoid writing female driven stories i think oftentimes it's awesome when men want to write compelling female characters. Like I have a lot of students in my online screenwriting classes. Wow, another plug. Incredible. It can be done really well. Like it can be done really well as long as you're, you know, doing it with empathy and you're informed like that is the key. And these writers have a very trackable history of that not being the case. 100%. Yeah, like, there's a way to do it responsibly. And there's a way to do it not

responsibly. And like, again, like the students in my class, if I'm not mistaken, every single one of them is writing a screenplay with a female protagonist. Like they are, I know they like they want to be contributing to inclusivity, and that's awesome, and we encourage that. Yes. But yes, it's a matter of these specific filmmakers is who we are railing against. John Lucas and Scott Moore,

they have this terrible track record. And I think I'm also like, we just came off of that Hangover episode that we did on the Matron. We have very fresh memories of how bad these writers are yeah at writing women and i think that it also speaks to i mean if you're writing i mean i i think it's wonderful that like where i mean as writers opening up more inclusivity but it's like women should be allowed to the front of the line

on this story for sure and and it's and it's i think another example of like the bajillionth time that an all-male uh screenwriting duo gets a million chances to do something well and never does it well and here we are talking about it right like they don't deserve another chance that's what i'm saying they don't in in the other like but people don't care another thing i think is worth talking about is that like this isn't to say that people can't change and like writers can't grow over time and that like people don't deserve redemption because like a lot of hollywood screenwriters should be trying to change and should be growingriters should be trying to change and

should be growing and should be trying to course correct but and I like you know I do admire that when people do put in the effort but still like these guys but it's not these guys yeah they don't qualify for that conversation it's not these guys I just am insulted by them trying to write this like female driven story that I think is attempting to like be empowering for moms. But it just like falls flat on its face. I don't even know if that's true. I think that that interview with them is for me, that interview is the nail in the coffin of like this was a very cut and dry cash grab. Yeah.

This story does not mean anything to them. They like reference their wives as if it's like the 1950s. Like that. I don't think that this, I mean, I've had very hard to believe that they went in to this project more wanting to make women feel seen than they did just want millions of dollars. Right. Yes. want millions of dollars right yes that's just one of the examples of how to write a female driven

story irresponsibly and not doing it responsibly which is what we are encouraging people to do you know if you're a man who wants to write stories about women and that include women great please do that yeah just do your fucking homework that's literally just do your fucking homework and and ask yourself you know like who else do i need to include in this process in order to make it an authentic story for sure idk my bff jill remember that oh my gosh is your best friend slash mom my best friend i've truly in quarantine I think I think I've told you this a little bit I so I like digitized all my family's home tapes and there's like 60 hours of them and so I feel like I've been with them non-stop and the way my mom narrates things is

just like I'm gonna edit this thing down and she's gonna win an oscar for cinematography her slow zooms and her omniscient narration is unmatched incredible i've seen a few of like the little clips you've posted on instagram there's i'm currently getting through this really long video of my parents on their sixth anniversary my mom like puts her wedding dress on and my dad is like this is weird and then my mom's like it's actually fun and i'm like now this is what we need in a movie whatever's going on here where is bad jill loftus bad jills we need bad jills bad jill and bad laurie i would watch that movie that would be so fun. And then Jada Pinkett Smith would also be there and actually get to have a line this time.

Yes. Yes. My mom, not to brag, but my mom would let Jada Pinkett Smith talk. In fact, she would only, my mom would not talk at all. She's like, Jada, you have the floor. I know. And then my mom would go around talking about like telling everyone for the rest of her life how Jada Pinkett Smith is her best friend in the world.

It would be a whole thing. Oh, moms are great. If only they had a better movie to watch. It's true. Okay. Here's some things that I didn't hate about the movie. And again, like, oh, I just, I know there's a lot to like about this. There is some small attempt, even if it's by the wrong people, to explore certain aspects of being a mom.

It tries. It does try. So I do want to include some things that I like. Sure. enjoy that between amy's two children more focus is given on the mother-daughter relationship than the mother-son relationship with the whole like soccer that is true uh storyline and they go to the spa and they bond at the spa and they have a nice little time um i enjoyed that and then what little we do see with amy's son is her, like, don't grow up to be an entitled white guy. And because she's like, you need to do your own homework. You need to cook your own breakfast.

He teaches himself how to cook. So you see he makes frittata. So you see a boy learning a domestic skill, which I feel like you almost never see in a movie and he's not mocked for it either which I feel like would have been another easy writing choice that they didn't go with I liked that too I liked I liked that uh her daughter was also uh on a sports team and that the main tension with the daughter I mean there was mother-daughter stuff but it was also like my daughter really wants to be on this sports team so they didn't relegate the daughter to like traditional you know stuff there either she's an athlete right they also do she takes

mandarin classes and then says some racist stuff about mandarin and then also and then mila kunis also says wow that's a little racist and you're like this is not a funny joke for this year like that's in response to um her daughter like worrying about whether or not she's going to be able to get into an ivy league school and she's like yeah they they're rejecting asians these days and then mila kunis is like oh that's racist but it's like yeah that's another like having it both waysiness that you're just like right that's not that doesn't if you just like that's just another like dumbass like directors of the hangover thing. They're like, well, if we say it's racist, then that absolves us. Yeah, you're just like, no, that's not how that works.

Yeah, I won't go through my whole list. But there's a lot of like punching down. Yeah, I mean, substantially less than you would expect from a movie from these guys, but still bad. But it's still present for sure. Yes. Some other stuff I did like, I actually really enjoyed, although I did not think it needed to be there,

but since it is there and we have to talk about it, I liked the romantic subplot between Amy and Jesse. If it had to be there, they could have done a lot worse. They could have done worse. And the reason I like it is that he treats her far better than certainly we've seen these writers and directors having male characters treat women. I know, I know. But that it's also like, I like that it would have been worse if he treated her badly, obviously. But then I'm also like, these guys went out of their way to treat a male character kindly that they would never have done for a female character.

That's true. In the same position. But I am glad. I mean, I liked I liked I know nothing about him, but he's nice. He has for consent. There's like he's doing the bare minimum on a very high level. That's true yeah he he asks if she's okay when he learns about like her husband having just cheated on her he he

doesn't neg her right we're mostly saying things that he doesn't do as opposed to things that he does which just like speaks to the sad state of the way women are treated, especially in like romantic context, because we've so we're so accustomed to seeing men being so shitty to women and like negging them and stalking them and wearing them down and surprise kissing them. In this movie, she surprise kisses him, which, you know, is also not good. Good, but different. Different. He compliments her on her parenting skills you know again this is just bare minimum the decent thing to do but because we're so conditioned to see men treating women terribly uh we're like wow give this man a medal

they also they objectify men far more than they do women in the movie to the extent it's often a joke where like when we meet jesse he's introduced in this like slow-mo gazey shot that's like you know panning up his body um to you know draw the audience's attention to the fact that this is the guy that the moms think is hot yep there's the like movie the fake movie that they watch in the movie theater where like this man is like in space with this woman he's like love is stronger than space and then he like rips his shirt exposing his chest and stuff so it's like okay yeah i mean and again this movie i mean like every movie in this kind of very bloated genre it can't possibly happen if everyone in the movie isn't pretty well off absolutely and

by extension there's very little diversity in the movie at all you just see a lot of different kinds of rich white moms yes this is 100 a movie about like middle class to upper middle class white women i mean did you see their house i mean amy's house yes i would say that like i mean like carla is more like middle class but like yeah amy it seems quite well to do and this is something that we see in media where moms are allowed to be boozy and like distant and irresponsible as long as they are financially stable white women. Right. Because when that's the case, it's funny.

It's a joke. It's hilarious. But like if you're a black mom or a low income mom and you like step out of line as a mother for one second there's a million other ways that you're going to be stigmatized and treated poorly totally and that's not to like lessen you know it's like it there is pressure on the bad moms but it's like there's really no like indication that the writers are aware that like this is on the low end of difficult you know also like another thing the movie does again it makes the ever so slightest attempt to try to hold

men more accountable to be good fathers but which is like something a movie could and should do like i would like to see more movies with those themes but like it's really glossed over there's like just not enough of an attempt to actually hold men accountable like the closest thing we get i think is that little through line with kiki's husband kent who we see him being like really controlling and borderline maybe abusive to kiki and then she has a cathartic moment at the end where she yells at him and that's like the only thing we know about her and it's also just like that's the lowest level of resolution you could possibly get for the very little we know about this character is like she told off her husband one time to go to a pta meeting like that's like but then and then like the scene we get after that is like i don't know his behaviors change and he's like oh mom so sorry i forgot the backpack

i'll go back and get it and meanwhile she's like there's a weird the way again these directors like their visual language that they use to indicate certain things yeah is really off because like in this scene kristen bell is wearing makeup and before she hadn't been wearing makeup so now that she's a middle part and then at the end she doesn't have a middle part love this love this arc for her like now that she's in control of her life she she's makeup now she's wearing makeup now there yeah you're like sure great and like i like makeup just as much as the next person but like these filmmakers are like oh well um makeup equals confidence right and i feel like that's just such an oversimplified male understanding of being a woman yeah and it's like who let you make this movie oh i mean who wouldn't let them who with influence and power would not let them make this movie

unfortunately um so yeah i mean just moms deserve i i'm glad that this this is this is i feel like kind of a classic example of like a tiny step in the right direction so that's good but it's also infuriating to be like wow progress sure is slow isn't it uh but yeah i don't know i i personally blame this all on christina applegate it's actually been her fault all along she invented patriarchy and if she hadn't done that none of this would be happening i think my final thoughts are just that like this is unfortunately because this is like one of the only examples of a like female mom driven narrative that is also like a romp because there's other there's a few other like movies that explore motherhood that came out around this time and i mean there's there's narratives about this all throughout film history but like some more recent ones were things like 20th century women tully the baba

duke you know can't beat the baba duke feminist icon the baba duke but these and queer icon the baba duke absolutely true but they these aren't romps so the fact that like kind of the one example of like a mainstream broad comedy mom romp is a movie made by people who don't know what it is firsthand to be a mom is just such a frustrating misstep and that doesn't mean like if you like this movie i can see why there are some things about it to take away that would be very relatable and that that would resonate with moms but i long for the day that we get moms writing mom movies and directing mom movies. Because I think that they will resonate with moms even more,

believe it or not. I wholeheartedly agree. But it does pass the Bechdel test. So there's that. A fair amount. a fair amount, a fair amount. There are whole scenes where they're just talking about dick. Yeah.

But there's also whole scenes where they're not. That's true. Sometimes they're talking about their cooters. Sometimes they're talking about their cooters. The most feminist thing that we do, we do it all the time. I think it is funny that you're just like, yeah,

they're talking about their vaginas. So it like, it passes the Be i think it is funny that you're just like yeah they're talking about their vaginas so it like it passes the vectal test but i don't want it to because of the people who are writing the lines but it does it does pass it does pretty handily it does and i think it might not pass the reverse vectal test i don't think we see men interacting really at all except which is kind of nice and it's kind of nice i think there's one there's a few exchanges where amy's husband and son just have like a quick exchange but other than that yeah i think it is not men talking to each other really at all so hey so there's that thankful for small miracles what would you rate this movie on our nipple scale uh you know on from zero to five nipples based on how well you feel it portrays women in the movie i will give it two i was feeling the same way. Because and again, I want there to be much more representation

of moms from all walks of life, not just rich white women, the whole spectrum of people. If they are parents, I want to see that we don't really get much of it at all and when we do see it it is very limited the types of moms we are allowed to see on screen I've never seen any mom like my mom Lori I've never seen anything remotely resembling my mom on screen same which means I need to write a movie about my mom yeah I agree I I kind of like and just based on the way that we've had to tiptoe around ourselves kind of throughout the discussion of this movie because it's the only movie of its kind I kind of I kind of resent a little bit that we have to you know keep being like but it's okay the movie's okay because it's just like there that's just such a clear indicator that there are not enough options in this genre it

is the only option i don't think it's a good movie i i'm glad that it portrays a few different types of moms in a very specific area of the world and not that every movie needs to represent everything but it's like this is a movie written by people who don't know how to write female characters right oh it just this movie just feels like so focus grouped and i'm glad that there are elements of it where moms feel seen but it's i mean it's like it's so frustrating that it's like oh we have to like give this movie points because it has mom representation but then it's like but it's not a good movie like moms deserve a good thoughtful movie that can still be raunchy and funny but like just let someone who knows what they're talking about right write it and sorry and that's the police coming to arrest john lucas

and scott moore yeah i live in their neighborhood uh no but yeah. And then just like we talked about just how intensely like whitewashed this movie and this genre is to the extent where you can have Jada Pinkett Smith in the movie and not give her a line. Like outside of like, yes, Christina Applegate.

Just, I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of broad stereotypes that these guys are known for perpetuating for all genders, races. They only know how to write in stereotypes and that doesn't really service what I feel like is needed in terms of portraying moms in a cool and funny way.

I feel so, I don't know. For now, watch TV instead. Two nipples. One to Katherine Hahn and one to Jada Pinkett Smith. Nice. I'm going to give one to Wanda Sykes and one to Vertigo Dog. Feminist icon, Vertigo Dog. The best character in the film.

Truly, I felt like I had vertigo this whole movie well there you have it bad moms happy mother's day to all the bad moms the good moms the whole the whole beautiful spectrum of moms we love you all and thank you for what you do and yeah and then just for everybody we hope you're doing well. We hope you're staying safe. What a time to be alive. Truly. Right.

And then I guess we should say where we can be found. Yeah. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtelcast for starters. For starters, you can subscribe to our Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon, if you have not already. And if you are able. It's a fun time. It's a fun time. It's May, so it's my birthday month.

Yeah, we're doing fun ones. We're doing some fun. We're doing Shaun of the Dead and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Just so much feminism oozing out of these films that I'm very excited. It'll be fun. Unfortunately, they are some of my favorite movies. And that's my cross to bear. Those are my picks for my birthday.

Maytreon. Maytreon. But we've been really, I think, cranking out the hits over on the Maytreon recently. Oh, yeah. Head over there. Join the community. Have some fun with us you can go to get some merch at tpublic.com slash the bechdel cast they're selling masks now

we're selling masks now so that's if i mean we all need one one another you get now for Molina mask. Go, go, you know, go cuckoo. And... Oh, and if you are interested in taking my online screenwriting class, you can go to caitlindurante.com slash classes for more information. Or feel free to just tweet at me, at Caitlin Durante, and let me know that you're interested. And with that, have a happy Mother's Day. Or a happy bad mom's day. A very bad mom's Christmas.

Bye-bye. Mother's Day, in a way, is just bad mom's Christmas. Okay, bye. Oh, that's true. Bye-bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Bye-bye. days. 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 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. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in.

Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.