The Bechdel Cast - Bad Santa with Alonso Duralde

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

On this episode, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Alonso Duralde discuss Bad Santa! Ho ho ho! Follow Alonso at @alonso.duralde on Instagram, listen to his podcasts Linoleum Knife, Breakfast All Day, & Maximum Film, check out his reviews at thefilmverdict.com, and grab a copy of his book, Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The patriarchy's effing vast, start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Hello and welcome to Bad Bechdelcast. I'm Bad, Caitlin. I'm bad, Jamie, and this is our podcast that's not... I almost said this is our bad podcast. This is our good podcast. About bad movies. About bad. Well, you know, not every week, but...

But a lot of the time. So this is our podcast where we take a look at your favorite movies using an intersectional lens, using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for discussion, which is going to be hilarious this week, because I think the main interaction between women, in this movie is Laurelite Gilmore stealing grandma's socks. I think that that is about

the beginning, middle, and end. Yes. But we'll talk about it. It is the bad Santa episode. I think continuing the trend on the show recently of now that we've been around for almost 10 years,

like movies that you would think we would have covered by now, but for whatever reason, it never quite wins in a poll, whatever it is. We are covering bad Santa. But first, Caitlin, What the hell is the Bechtel test so we can be certain this movie doesn't pass it, which it doesn't?

Certainly. It is a media metric created by our very best friend in the whole wide world, Alison Bechtel. We've met her twice. Different versions of the test. The one that we use is this. Do two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other? And is the conversation about something other than a man?

And then we also like it when it's a narrative. meaningful conversation and not just throw away dialogue. Which I don't even think the sock thing is kind of just a side gag. That doesn't really serve a narrative purpose, does it? I would say no. A lot of things in this movie don't serve a narrative purpose. It's a vibes-based film. So to bring on Bad Santa, we have an incredible guest who is an expert in this field,

not in being Bad Santa, but in holiday movies specifically. So let's get them in here. Absolutely. He's a film critic, podcast host, and author of the book, Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas. It's Alonzo Duraldi. Hello. Welcome. Thank you for having me.

I once did a Comic-Con panel with Allison Bechall, actually. Oh, my gosh. So she's your best friend, too. That's how that works. Yes. It's amazing how that works. Yeah, you've spent probably a comparable amount of time with her. Exactly.

We love her here, obviously. Yes. I'm so curious to hear about the book and updating the book, but to ask you a question, I'm sure everyone does all the time, what is your favorite holiday movie? Oh, man. It's hard for me to pick one. I mean, I think it's sort of inescapably, you know, It's a Wonderful Life is a movie that has become kind of a cornerstone of American cinema in general that is also a Christmas movie. But so much of it depends on kind of what mood I'm in. Like if you look at the book, you know, I've got chapters about tear. jerkers and about you know horror movies and uh action films so it sort of depends on you know i think what's great about the idea of christmas movies is that whatever you're in the mood for and whatever kind of film floats your boat you will find something that dovetails with you know christmas it's true it's it is such as as you were saying that i'm like i actually don't

i had to think for a second to figure out my answer to that question katelyn do you know what your favorite holiday movie is yes i have two muppet christmas carroll that's tied for my first one too yeah And Batman returns. Right. Oh, okay. I think mine's Muppet Christmas Carol, and I don't know if this is an embarrassing one or not, but I love Jim Carrey Grinch. I love it.

No, that's great. That's a good one. Okay, okay, I'm sensing a tepid reception in the chat. That's fine. That's fine. Not my favorite. It's hitting 25 this year, and they're actually doing, I think it's going to be back in theaters and they're putting out like a 4K, it's a whole thing.

We saw it in theaters last year as well. I think, like, at the end of the day, that movie came out when I was seven. And that is probably why I still love it so much. We have a recurring thing on breakfast all day called Was it Great or Were You 8? Very much what this was. Which weirdly, I think, comes into play for a lot of people with the movie we're talking about today, Bad Santa.

But before we get there, Alenza, what was it like revising the book and the re-release? Tell us more about it. Well, you know, it's funny. I think if you have like a website or a podcast, you can constantly be updating it and bringing it, you know, up to speed. But once you've written a book, it's just dunk, it's there, you know, and it's sitting there and there's nothing you can do to change it. So pretty much from the moment the first edition came out back in 2010,

I've been thinking in my head, oh, I got to add this, I want to add this, I hope I can do this again so I can put in these other movies. And not just the many new films that have opened since 2010, but I'm constantly finding things that I had missed before, like, thanks to TCM I was introduced to the whole world of Christmas noir which I had just completely missed the boat on

so now I've got films like blast of silence and cash on demand you know I got to circle back and put in so yeah it was a treat because it sort of allowed the the book to be a living document again that I could sort of update and

and talk about certain things and you know never mention the movie about the boy wizard again and you know all of that stuff to kind of bring it to 2025. Amazing. Oh, that is amazing. Thank you for, like, the second you said, that subgenre, you're like, yeah, of course that exists, but it never occurred to me.

I'm excited to get a copy of the book. I'm stoked. Oh, thank you. And we come to this place today for magic. And by that, I mean a discussion of the 2003 movie Bad Santa, which I think it's, I do feel like Caitlin, over the years, we have covered truly a staggering amount of movies that came out in the year 2003. Again, I think probably just a youth bias of the time. Alonzo, we'll start with you. What is your history with the movie Bad Santa? And I guess at this point, the Bad Santa

Cinematic Universe. Yeah, weirdly, I can't remember if I saw it in theaters or not. Surely, I must have, if only because I was a huge fan of Ghost World, which was Terry Zweigoff's previous film, which is a total bectal test passer, I want to say, as a non-expert. But I don't remember vividly seeing it. But I know it was certainly when I wrote the book the first time around, it was one that I knew had to go in there. And it's a film that I appreciate and I get why people like it and I get why people need that kind of Christmas movie in their diet in December.

If they're just like ODing on sugar plums and they need a little saltiness in there. I get the role that it plays in a balanced, you know, holiday diet. And I remember kind of not hating Bad Santa 2 as much as most people did. Not that I'm not going to die on the hill of that movie, but I was kinder to it, I think, than a lot of other critics were. But generally speaking, these have been ones where there are a lot of films in the book that was like, I knew I had to include them because they have a following because they have spawned, you know, Christmas tree ornaments.

and, you know, they get screened every year. You know, your National Lampoon, Christmas vacations. You know, I was way too old for the Home Alone phenomenon. I was in my 20s when the first one came out. So I don't have the attachment to it to the people who were, you know, seven when it came out, have. But, you know, I get why they're there. I get why people love them. And this is in that category of, like, if you like Bad Santa, I get it.

I understand what it's bringing to you every December. Right. It is definitely, yeah, I guess I'm like, where would I put? I would put this in the same category as National Lampoon. I think I would also include eight crazy nights in like the Edge Lord Christmas canon that this is firmly a part of. Yeah, winter holiday, like, edge lord, highly problematic movie subgenre. So like a lot of broad comedies, it doesn't age particularly well.

Right. I mean, weirdly, a Christmas story when it first came out in 1983 was designed to be kind of an anti-Christmas Christmas movie. It was designed to poke holes in nostalgia and the idea of looking back on this sort of Rosie Norman Rockwell past and sort of showing that it was actually a lot messier than we give it credit for. But over the years, that movie has itself become this object of nostalgia that I think it's kind of dulled the original intent of being sort of spiky. And I mean, I as a self-proclaimed Grinch, like the idea of a movie that subverts the notion that Christmas is this sweet, joyous time where everything is nice and wonderful.

Like, I don't like super saccharine holiday movies typically. So something like Bad Santa, in theory, is more aligned with what I would like. But just, I guess, to say, my history with this movie, I saw it around the time it came out, and I hated it then, and I hate it now. I did not think it was funny. I don't like the humor of this movie at all. for the same reason back then as I do like that's how problematic so many of the jokes are in this movie that even in 2004 or whenever I saw it I was like you can't say that so so I really don't care much for this movie what about you Jamie what's your relationship with it I had never seen it before I yeah I'm also coming in as as a hater but it's a rich text is rich text that we And there is, I think, a lot of, like, production information about this movie that I was kind of interested in that, like, once I learned it, I was like, oh, I guess this, this is, like, a worse Coen Brothers premise.

Like, if the Coen Brothers had actually written this movie, it could have maybe been not quite what it is. But, like, it was almost so many different movies that I found learning about the production history interesting. You know, is it shocking to find out the Weinsteins have fingerprints on this? certainly not. But I remember, I mean, I was too young to see it when it came out. But I also remember, I remember the marketing very clearly because I was not too young to be watching Gilmore Girls, which I was very much watching in 2003. And all of the children and their mothers watching Gilmore, it was kind of a scandalous thing that Lorelai Gilmore is in Bad Santa Licking Billy Bob Thornton on TV. And you're like, that's an upstanding citizen of Stars Harlow,

Connecticut, like she would not be caught dead saying fuck me Santa in a car, but that's the range that Lauren Graham has. I love Lauren Graham. Does Emily know? Does exactly. What would Rory, Rory would be just Rory's home, you have to imagine, like, especially because her character exists in this like fuck void as many women in broad comedies do, that I feel like you can be like, this is like laur like gilmore on an absolute bender uh like rory's home studying and she's fucking santa i just i i understand now why lauren graham did this at this point in her career to be like hey i'm not just lor like gilmore i can also fuck santa i also understand why it might have sounded like a good idea to do this movie at the time and it was successful so you know

you can argue and and you know burney mac smoking a cigarette and mixing a little bit of laxative. I was laughing. I wasn't laughing very much, but I was laughing then. Yeah, I did not like the movie, but I am interested to talk about it because it is like, it's an interesting subgenre that I like and I wish, like, I think there is like a version of this movie I would like, or this premise, I guess. There's a thing we get into with comedies of, I think certainly in this era. And yeah, I think Edge Lord is a fair. a descriptor, at least in terms of the audience, where I think that

maybe people set out to portray behavior that was appalling and audiences were like, ooh, like I'm down for this. Like the generations of dudes who had to be explained that Swingers was not a how-to. That Swingers was not aspirational, but they took it that way anyway.

And I think it's telling that the Terry Zweigoff director's cut of this movie is the shortest of all the cuts. And it's the cut that makes the Billy Bob Thornton character the least appealing. Like everything where he's sort of nice to the kid, he takes out. So he is not interested in making his protagonist like appealing to the audience or somebody that we root for or empathize with. And so I mean, yeah, I think you're right. A lot of it is on paper and it's in the film and it's in the text and we have to deal with that.

But I think there is also that thing where the audience decides, oh, hey, you know, Freddie Kruger, he's so, funny you know like that they they they imbue a character who is those to be a hero with heroic tendencies because they feel like it yeah i i was that was another thing that i was really interested to talk about with with you both is how wildly different the various cuts of this movie seemed to be i watched a bad er santa which i think is the longest version of this movie yes and that is the version that somehow the movie joker is going to become relevant in a moment because Todd Phillips was brought in to direct a couple of scenes. Terry's Wigoff. So Terry's Wigoff, we've covered Ghost World on the show. You can go to that episode. We've got takes

on Ghost World. But yeah, like, I mean, he directs infrequently. And so it is, it is kind of, I didn't know he had directed this. And I was like, wow, this really doesn't seem like the movie he directs. And it's clear that like everyone had a slightly different creative vision here. Like, Terry Zweigoff wants to make a movie about a despicable person and does not want you to feel, you know, bad for him, which I think is, like, most clearly illustrated by basically cutting out the relationship between him and young Roger, his young ward. Thurman. Thurman. Oh, my God. Someone calls him Roger.

Roger is Thurman's dad. Oh, okay. See this. Okay. And also a monologue at the beginning of the movie, I don't think, is in the Zygoph, cut. that basically gives you a framework for why bad Santa is the way he is, where it implies that he had an abusive upbringing. And, you know, you're given a framework that doesn't justify the behavior but contextualizes it.

Terry Zweigoff has no interest in that. The theatrical cut, and then even more so, the longer cut, has more of an interest in doing what, you know, like commercial movies do, which is give him a redemption arc, give him a, you know, I got to get this elephant to this little kid and blah blah, blah. And, you know, and I honestly don't know

which version of it I that I couldn't really decide. I'm like, I don't really want a redemption narrative for this guy. But I also like it's, you know, Zweigov heads will disagree, but I don't like watching a terrible person for 85 uninterrupted minutes.

Nor I. So, I don't know. It's a, it's a sticky wicket, this one. It really is. And we'll get into it. But first, let's take a quick break, and then we'll come back for the recap. It's 5.23 p.m. One of your kids is asking for a snack.

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That's HelloFresh.ca promo code Dinner 50, HelloFresh.C.A. HelloFresh. Canada's number one meal kit delivery service. I'm investigative journalist Melissa Jeltsin. My new podcast, What Happened in Nashville, tells the story of an IVF clinic's catastrophic collapse and the patients who banded together in the chaos that followed. I'm breaking news to tell you about. Tennessee's attorney general is suing a Nashville doctor. In April 2024, a fertility clinic in Nashville shut down overnight and trapped behind locked doors were more than a thousand frozen embryos. I was terrified. Out of all of our journey,

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Before we get into the recap, do we think that John Ritter would want this movie to be dedicated to him? Oh, RIP, I love John Ritter, and I understand why it was dedicated to him. It's his last film appearance, but I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if I would be like, yeah, slap my name at the end. I want to be forever associated with this. Well, in the same way that Cloris Leachman is in this movie, but uncredited, and I have to imagine it's because she's like, I don't want my name on this.

Yeah, she's like, oh, I'm so sorry, I thought I was in a Cohen Brothers movie. I feel like that's how a lot of these people get involved, because it's a great cast. And some people think that they're going to be in a Terry's Waggoff movie that's going to be allowed to be a Terry's Waggoff movie. Some people think they're in a Cohen Brothers movie and kind of like they're in a Weinstein Brothers movie, which is the worst case scenario. I think there's an onion piece that's written from the point of view of somebody who had an episode of Veronica's closet dedicated to them. So, yeah, I think it's just one of those things where you never know when you're going to go.

So like any project could be your last. That's a really, that's a very harsh reality. Because I mean, John Ritter was also, I mean, he was, he was in his 50s. I feel like he, you know, if he knew he was living on borrowed time, this maybe it would not have been the one. But who knows? We'll never know. Right. In any case, here's the recap of the movie. So we meet Willie, played by Billy Bob Thornton. He works as a mall Santa, but he's not very good at his job. You might even say he's a bad Santa because he's mean to children. He gets drunk on the job. He pisses himself. He also works with Marcus, played by Tony Cox. who is a little person who dresses up as an elf. And then we get a reveal that Willie and Marcus break into the mall after hours and that their Santa slash elf jobs are just a cover

so that they can steal stuff on Christmas Eve, where Marcus takes a bunch of merchandise, Willie is a safe cracker by trade, and he steals a bunch of cash from the safe. And we find out they've been doing this every Christmas Eve for the past seven or so years. And after they successfully pull off this heist, they go out to celebrate. And Willie contemplates trying to get his life together. He's like, oh, maybe I'll stop drinking.

Maybe I'll open up business and settle down and get married. But he's forgetting that he's a bad Santa. And 11 months pass of him being a drunk and degenerate. bad off-season Santa. Yeah, he's bad on season and off-season. It is very, I mean, he's a bad dude, but this man is just, he's just so actively in despair from frame one where you're just like, it's, I'm worried about him. I'm thinking of him like an uncle.

There's a John Cassavetti's version of this movie where it's just about a guy who's an alcoholic who also is a Santa, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it seems like that sounds like it's closer to what Terry's Weigoff wanted, and they're like, Oh, no, we have to give him, he needs to be a father by the end of the movie. Like, does he? Well, also to speak to like the Coen Brothers conceit of it all, because originally the Coen brothers developed the concept for this movie, and then they brought on another writing

team to write the script, but the Coen brothers were still involved to some degree in the development of the script. It seems like they added some crass jokes, seemingly not too far from what ends up in the movie. And then the Coen Brothers stay attached as executive producers. But any of the cleverness and tact that I think usually appears in a movie that the Coen brothers are involved with is mostly absent from Bad Santa. But like if this was maybe like the Big Lobowski, but the dude moonlight says a Santa Claus or something like that. So if it's like a character like the dude, who is way more redeemable than this Willie character.

Like, that's a movie I can get behind. But Willie is so, I guess, intentionally despicable. But also just by virtue of, like, having him be the protagonist. And, like, this is the character we're following and laughing at. We're laughing at all the jokes he says. And, like, so many people love this movie for the wrong reasons, like you were saying, Alonzo. So, like, it's just, it's so hard to get behind for me. yeah but um anyway so about a year passes and then willie gets a call from marcus it's that time of year again

and they show up at a department store in phoenix arizona in their santa and elf costumes willie is once again horrible at his job he's drunk he's cruel to the children he swears in front of his boss, played by John Ritter, who goes to the security manager of the store, Bernie Mac, and asks him to keep an eye on Willie. Bernie Mac is funny in everything. Yes. He's just never not amazing. I know.

He's too good for this movie. Yeah. Then we meet a child named Thurman-Murman, although we won't learn his name for a really long time. It's so it's I clocked at least in the batter Santa cut. It's 32 minutes in where you get a name for this character, which doesn't feel like a strategic reveal. It just, I kept writing down child question mark because it just takes a really long time to learn what his name is. Well, the idea is that Willie doesn't bother to find out his name for weeks. And then finally he's like, toward the end of the movie, he's looking at Thurman's report card. And he's like, Thurman, who is that?

that. Is that you? He's Thurman-Merman. Yeah, so we don't really know what his name is for a long time, but I'll call him Thurman because that's his name. He's played by Brett Kelly. Yes, who reprises the role in Bad Santa 2 and also has a really funny paragraph in his Wikipedia page I would like to share. Oh, please. I don't know who has it in for this guy and included this on his Wikipedia page. He was a contestant on the October 23rd. 2004 episode of Jeopardy. He ended double Jeopardy with $0. Thus, did not qualify

for final Jeopardy and therefore finished in third place. Someone hates this guy. Why would you put that on? That it is such a short Wikipedia page. And that's one of the things. I have a nice Brett Kelly thing to add to a countermeadows that. So he

appears in another Christmas comedy that I like quite a bit called Unaccompanied Miners. Oh yes. I've never seen. Paul Feig directed. And Lewis Black plays the sort of harried airport manager in that movie. And he actually said, he goes, I took the movie because I wanted to work with the kid from Bad Santa. Oh, that's really sweet.

So he actually told him on set. Yeah, you're the reason I'm here, kid. I wanted to work with you. So, you know, that's a Brett Kelly positive. True. That must have been so exciting. God. I mean, he's adorable in this movie.

He's not, you know, he's just a boy. I know and he is frequently bullied by other kids by literally like bully dot like JPEG like he's just some kid yeah bully TM he's also bullied by Willie T.M he's also bullied by Willie when Thurman comes into Santa's workshop at the department store and sits on Willie's lap and Thurman asks him a bunch of questions about being Santa because he thinks that Willie is the real Santa Claus and is enamored by him. Later that night, Willie meets a bartender named Sue, I think, but that's the Lauren Graham character. And she has a Santa kink. So she buys him a few drinks and then has sex with him in his car in the parking lot.

Fuck me Santa. Fuck me Santa. Fuck me Santa. Fuck me Santa. And then we are introduced to For the little screen time she has All of it is just completely like irrational I'm so curious at what point this love story became Like I'm curious if this was a studio mandated romance Because it just wasn't I don't know like her whole thing where it's like

Okay it's one thing to have a Santa kink fine Okay but then at the end she's like I like you I think you're like no you don't come on what do you like about him he's the most despicable person imaginable he's mean and he stinks yeah anyways i know we'll talk about it but um so they have sex in the car and then right after this a man who was at the bar aggressively approaches willie and it's unclear exactly what is going on here but we do know that it's homophobic you're like oh will we see this person again no we will not see this person again. He's here to be a, I don't know, plot device. Yeah, and so he attacks

Willie, but Thurman intervenes and kind of saves Willie. So he gives Thurman a ride home, where he lives in a big house with his grandma, played by Cloris Leachman, who seems completely oblivious to her surroundings. And Thurman, again, is incredibly naive, and he still thinks Willie is the real Santa Claus. So Willie takes advantage of this situation and steals money and a car from them. And Thurman's just like, whatever you need, Santa. Then Willie continues to be bad Santa. He has sex with a woman in the dressing room at work, and he gets caught by John Ritter, but he manages to weasel his way out of getting fired. Then he thinks maybe a cop is snooping around his motel room and he worries that the police are on to him and Marcus

for their robberies. I did think it was very funny. I don't know if this was a joke or just like how the scene ended up, but he's like loudly making a phone call about this like basically read it right outside. He's like, hey, I think they're on to us. Yeah. Which is just like, oh, movies are fun. Also, Octavia Spencer's in this scene and we're like, oh, they really, The early roles of Octavia Spencer, like, she deserves peace. Seven pounds, baby, seven pounds. Goodness gracious. And then she came back for the sequel and we're just like, she's too nice.

She's too nice. I did watch the sequel to prep for this. Okay, yes. Thoughts? I have regrets. I'll share my thoughts when we get to the discussion. I did not watch the sequel. Also, by the way, speaking of Gilmore Girls, Alex Boorstein pops up in here as well.

Yes. Which also feels like a 2003 comedy requisite. Like, she has to be there. And I'm always happy to see her. This is like peak mad TV era. Yeah. It's lowest for crying out loud. I'm always happy to see her.

Okay, so Willie is like, oh no, the cops are onto us. So he decides to go back to Thurman's house and hide out there for a while. And Thurman is all too happy about this. He keeps asking more questions about Santa and the North Pole and the reindeer and everything else. And sometimes it seems like Willie and Thurman are hanging out because they're like playing checkers and stuff. But mostly Willie just treats Thurman horribly and has Lauren Graham's character over for sex. And one of, I think, the most baffling seeds in, Just, I don't know, the Lauren Graham character, like, you have to, you got to laugh or, or what else can you do?

But this scene where we've established because she is a woman, she loves kids and she wants kids. And, you know, true of a lot of women, but I think it's a default mode for women in movies. You know, she loves kids. But she's totally fine with being caught, having sex in front of a kid, does not make any effort to move. she just sort of passively watches the conversation as if the writer for maybe I it's just it just pisses me I then at the end she's like wow he's such a great kid I was like what is this what what is this does she like kids or not she also sees willie be horrible to thurman and says nothing and she's like I can fix him question but but ultimately she like you

No, the reasons that Willie changes, at least in the theatrical cut of this movie, have little to nothing to do with her. They have almost everything to do with Thurman Merman, which I'm not upset about. But also, you're just like, what is the function of this character other than this is a comedy and therefore we need a hot woman in it? Right. I should have mentioned also that I believe the version that I watched and am doing the recap on is the theatrical cut. Okay. So anyway, we see Willie and Thurman hanging out. There's also a scene where Thurman badly cuts his hand.

And Willie kind of helps him and kind of shows a little concern. And maybe Willie is growing and changing, question mark. He even cooks dinner for Thurman and his grandmother. But then Thurman gets beaten up by his bullies and he goes to Willie for help. And Willie is like, well, what do you want me to? do about it, leave me alone. So I guess he still has some growing and learning to do. Meanwhile, John Ritter has asked Bernie Mac if he can help him get Willie fired. So Bernie Mac starts doing some digging on Willie and Marcus, and he tells John Ritter's

character that their track record is clean, but he knows actually that they are thieves and he approaches Willie and Marcus to blackmail them and be like, give me half and I won't turn you in. See, and now it's feeling like a Cohen Brothers movie again. Right, right. And they have no choice but to agree to this. The next day, Willie shows up to work as Santa, drunker than ever. He makes a scene. It seems like he has hit rock bottom, especially when he attempts suicide.

but then Thurman comes in and Willie sees that his face is bruised, so Willie decides not to end his life, and instead he beats up the children who have been bullying Thurman because Willie is feeling parental toward Thurman now or something. So now Willie feels like he has helped Thurman, and he feels good about himself, and he gets Marcus to help him teach Thurman how to defrable. offend himself. And so he's like doing all of these what he thinks are nice gestures. And then a little

while later, Thurman gives Willie the Christmas present he made for him a wooden pickle, which is how he cut his hand in the previous scene. Literally gives a phallic item with his blood in it and you're like, huh, okay. Wow. The themes are so subtle. Like I don't know where to where. But Willie seems really touched by this. Yeah. Then Thurman reveals that he has not received any presents from Santa for the past couple years, and he thinks maybe it's because he's a no good loser. And Willie is like, well, look, kid, I'm not Santa.

In fact, there is no Santa. And Thurman is like, well, I know that. I just thought maybe you'd want to give me a present because we're friends. And Willie is like, oh, damn. so true and you can tell that scene was added in because shortly after thurban just goes back to calling him santa and treating of like he's real santa right then willie has loren graham's character over to spend christmas eve day with him and thurman and they do lots of christmasy things meanwhile marcus and his girlfriend who we see occasionally but don't worry we won't learn any

anything about her. Girlfriend or wife, I'm not sure. Yeah, some romantic partner. I also, there was a shot in at least, I think this might differ between cuts. There's a shot that I was, like, I guess, confused by in the longer, in batterer Santa, where I thought she was going to, like, egg on my face. I thought she was going to do something. That was her idea.

But it turned out I was wrong. but there is a scene where they're in the mall cafeteria and Tony Cox calls Bad Santa a scumbag his girlfriend is there and then she's like taking notes as Billy Bob Thornton is making a confession

about the details of what's being done and I was like is she going to blackmail him is she going to go off on her own and do something but then she doesn't so never mind so never mind she does a woman almost had an idea Yeah, but then it was like, oh, wait, I misunderstood.

Yeah, no, no, no. That would never happen in a movie, Jamie. Sorry. So, Marcus and his partner kill Bernie Mac by running him over with their van. Kind of sign style. I associate that kind of death was signs. Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

And I guess the idea is that they won't have to give. him half of whatever they steal and then Marcus and Willie get to work on their usual robbing the department store on Christmas Eve and Willie cracks the safe and then he's like oh wait one last thing and he grabs the stuffed elephant toy that Thurman mentioned he wanted but then Marcus pulls a gun on Willie the heel turn of Marcus is so like this 10 minutes is a journey for, I was like, this is not who I understood this man to be. Wow. Yeah, it's almost like the screenwriting is not very good. It's written by 45 different people. Yeah. It's kind of fun. But, but Willie's like, I can't

count on you anymore. You're drunk and unreliable, Willie. And then he's about to shoot him and take all the money for himself. But then a bunch of Deus X security guards pop out. And Willie manages to get away, and he's hell-bent on giving Thurman the Christmas gift. So he goes back to Thurman's house with the stuffed elephant, but the cops are chasing him, and they shoot Willie on the stoop of the house. But Willie survives somehow, even though he had like eight bullet wounds. Does he die in this Terry Zweigoff cut? I don't think he dies in any of them, but it's been a while since I've seen it, so don't quote me on that. Interesting.

Would be wild if he died in that cut, and then there's still somehow a sequel where he's... Good point. Well, Terry's Wagoff also, like, had nothing to do with the sequel, and he also said something kind of... Wait, he said something that was kind of bitchy that I thought was funny in a piece I read. He said something like, I will not be seeing it, but best of luck to all involved kind of thing. He said, I'd like to see the sequel, sure. So far, I've only seen the trailer. Tony Cox looks hilarious in it.

The rest, not so promising. but I wish of luck I was like wow bitchy love it well and he had to I'm sorry just real quick he had to fight for Tony Cox

yeah the wine scenes did not they were they wanted like Mickey Rourke or something you know to play that role so they didn't they didn't appreciate

the Tony Cox casting they really didn't appreciate the Brett Kelly casting they wanted like a sort of Zach effrony Disney kid and so that they actually came up with a kid who looks like

a genuine you know a kid on kind of nerd yeah regular looking kid you know these were not the kind not the movie the wine scenes had in mind and they obviously wanted something softer and kinder and gentler which is why i got did not want to give them it's interesting because it feels like yeah this is uh i always find like production notes on movies like this interesting where it's like there's so many cooks in the kitchen and everyone

wants something that is like pretty wildly different and so it ends up being diametrically opposed yeah so it ends up being like a little bit of all of it and it just is a weird thing and you're just like well what version of this so you just have to be like what version of this movie would I have liked to see choose your own adventure yeah to go back to the sequel really quick that movie was directed by mark waters of mr mean girls mean girls fame freaky Friday fame another like huge departure from what he normally does like why are all these guys directing bad Santa movies when they had previously done like movies about teen girls like it's weird it's a pivot it's not my least favorite pivot i feel like my least favorite pivot was

like 2019-ish when every guy who directed a broad comedy like an offense of broad comedy of the early 2000s was like i'm making a me too movie and i was like no you're not oh why are we letting you do that well i i remember in the 2000s it was a definite like queer indie to mainstream teen girl pipeline like you know jim fall went from trick to the lizzie mcguire movie and you know uh Tommy o'haver did um get over it and uh the guy who did kissing jessica stein did like you know legally blonde too like that was that was the segue it's interesting yeah like these bizarreo pipelines that you're like i guess it made sense to them i don't know Well, in the same way that, like, for at least, I feel like it's kind of winding down now,

but it's like if you made a really good A-24 movie, you would then make a really horrible Marvel movie. What did the director of Minari just do? It was something like, not a Fast and Furious movie, but something like that. We're like, really? Oh, wait. That's your, okay. Oh, Twisters. Twisters.

Oh, yes. I kind of liked Twisters. I got to say. No, it was fun. But it was just like, this is who we're, okay. I mean, I guess you understand. in small town America, you know. Like Barry,

Barry Jenkins, Mufasa, like that, yeah, that kind of... Good example. It is weird. It is, I don't know why it feels particularly weird for Terry Zweigoff to have made this jump,

but it does. I don't know. I think, again, I think we're grappling with the movie they thought they were making and the movie that different people wanted to make and the movie that wound up happening. And I can see a through line of Terry Zweigoff

and the kind of, of sort of archly bitter observational humor of ghost's world and of his documentary work. I mean, this is the guy who did the Crumb documentary, let's not forget. I can see that segueing into a version of Bad Santa, which is bleakly funny and in no way trying to make its lead character huggable. And I think he's up against the Cohen brothers and the Weinstein brothers having different visions entirely. And so we're left with this sort of mulligan stew of everybody's different flavor profile thrown in. And then it comes down to like, well, whose cut are you watching? Yeah. It's interesting.

I mean, I guess it's hard to know where to start with this movie. Yeah. Well, there's a couple minutes left. Oh, God. Oh, yeah. There's the epilogue. Right, right, right. Yes. So he survives all these gunshot wounds, Willie does, and recovers kind of off-screen in a hospital, but we're seeing Thurman at home. He's opening a gift from Willie as well as a letter, which explains that Willie is off the hook for the crimes he committed because the cops shouldn't have opened fired on an unarmed Santa. And because he ratted out Marcus or something, I don't know, I was like really barely

following at this point. But then there's a final beat of the movie where Thurman's bully shows up to harass him again. And Thurman, per Willie's fatherly guidance,

kicks the bully in the nuts. The end. Merry Christmas. You're like, yeah, I guess that that should happen in this movie at some point. I guess. They make you work for it. So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break, and we'll come back to discuss. It's 5.23 p.m.

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We're back. Okay. Really quick. I found a, hopefully this IMDB user, it seems like they were thorough, but this is my source. There is an IMDB user

who wrote out all of the differences between the three versions of this movie. Oh, wow. Okay. So thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you so much. So that was how I sort of started figuring out

what I saw versus what actually happens in the theatrical cut, which I guess we have to sort of take as canon. But I think, think that he so just to read the end of the director's cut i think we are to believe that he's dead all scenes of willie trying to teach the kid to stand up for himself including the boxing scene which terry swigoff didn't even direct are removed the car death scene is the same as on the unrated version which i think is just like more violent the burney mac one no no the bad santa

car chase oh okay when he dies okay and alternate car chase scene also willie does not say this is Christmas and the kids getting his fucking present because this is the version with no moral. The ending is changed to the kid scrubbing Willie's blood off the front porch. So I think he is cooked in the Terry's Waggaw version, which is like a version that it wouldn't be my favorite movie. He's not my favorite director. But like I think that that at least has like there's a vision there, you know, to like here is this despicable piece of shit.

I would be surprised if all of the, not that there. would be a lack of offensive jokes in that version, but there is such a commercial version of these jokes that I think we hear. I don't know. It's just, it's puzzling. Where should we start? Because this is obviously, I mean, we've talked about movies like this on the show before. This is a movie whose objective is to be offensive to as many people as possible. Like, that is part of why this movie exists. So it's not shocking that it happens, but it is, yeah, I mean, it again, not my favorite and also still no matter when that kind of movie comes out it's very reflective of like what is considered shocking and also but like not so shocking that you can't do a huge

you know commercial movie around it that i think would be very different now well i think for instance the whole you know loren graham has a santa kink thing is a thing that we hadn't seen in a christmas movie up to that point and so just having it there having her yell that out and having that be the thing that drives her character was, you know, enough of a novelty that that was like, well, we're going to do that, of course, you know. And does it say much for her character? Does it make sense in the larger context of who she's supposed to be

and how her relationship with him grows over the course of the film? I mean, not really. I would say no. Yeah, they didn't give much thought to that. But, I mean, yeah, it is a thing where when you saw that ad on Gilmore Girls in 2003, it was shocking because you'd never. never heard anybody say that in a movie before, much less America's sweetheart, you know. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, I guess if we're starting with her, I mean, it doesn't even

feel like a particularly long conversation because it's like, I don't, I don't think I know enough about her character to know if her character changes at all throughout the movie. It seems like kind of from the jump, she has a Santa kink, she's going to show up every once at a while. Out of context, why does she have no one in her life to spend Christmas with? We don't know. We don't care. Why does she completely ignore all the times in which Willie says something horrible, does something horrible? In front of a child when she loves children? If she has a Santa King, wouldn't this be like a busy time of year for her?

Like wouldn't she, you know, she'd have something lined up for her December's, right? She's gorgeous. She should be making it around. Like, why this Santa? I think it's safe to say, like the women in this movie are essentially an afterthought. Oh, absolutely. In terms of their participation in the story and in the, you know, overall character arcs of the men, like, they're set dressing. Yeah, absolutely.

Each woman is basically some caricature of a person where you have, like, Marcus's girlfriend or wife or whatever partner, played by Lauren Tom. She, I don't even know if we learn her name in the movie, like her character's name. No, and she's like, she's so accomplished. and you're just... Lois. She's Lois. Yes. Oh, okay. She's, okay. Her character's name is Lois. She's Lois and, oh, it doesn't make any sense.

But, like, she's in the Joy Luck Club. She's, like, a big stage actor. Like, I was just like, I hope that they paid her well for this, because this is beneath her. I don't imagine they did, but we can hope. But, yeah, I mean, like, it's... Her character is almost presented as Marcus's sidekick. Like, she kind of helps with the robberies sometimes.

Sometimes, like, she seems to be the getaway driver, maybe, but, like, why isn't she more integrated into the, like, the robbery crew or not that I'm like, but I'm also like, well, maybe women should steal more. I mean, if we're going to have a robbery crew, let's get her involved. Let's get her involved. Yeah. But mostly her character is there to display a series of racist stereotypes, and that's pretty much it for her.

Yeah. I mean, whatever. We could cinema sins this to death. But like in the logic of, I don't know why Marcus is it like she's my main conspirator. Like why is bad, I know that you need, I guess for this scheme to work, you need a Santa. But again, why this Santa? The same, I'm asking the same question as the Lauren Graham. Why this Santa? Well, because he's a safecracker. I think that's, I mean, he's, he's not a Santa who is a safecracker. He's not a Santa who is a safecracker. He's, a safecracker who pretends to be Santa to get inside. And I think Lois is mainly there to sort of give Marcus a shopping list of specific consumer items that she wants him to take from the

department store while Marcus is draining the safe of the cash. Because women be shopping. They be. They truly be. And yeah, I guess it's like I don't think it would have changed things very much to have her like a little more actively involved in

those schemes. And I also I also feel like she's, well, let me know what you think. I also feel like she's kind of there to make Marcus seem like a better person. Like she serves kind of another function where bad Santa, he can't hold down a relationship. He's a mess, blah, blah, blah, blah. Marcus says explicitly at one point, like, I am in a monogamous relationship. I'm very happy, blah, blah, blah. And it's like she, I think she's there as set dressing. She's there to be this broad, you know, stereotype. and she's also there to like make us feel a certain way about Marcus. Like everything about her has very little to do with her. She's, which is the story of women in broad comedies for the most part. It's just like she's there to tell you something about this guy. For sure.

So I, I don't know. There's another, there's, you know, we don't need to go shot for shot, but there's, you know, a lot of very leering POV bad Santa gazing on women. bodies often that's how we meet women characters is from the bottom up it is his POV but again there's like it's not commenting on anything if we then go on to not get to know this woman at all and she's just like uh or she's like i like that yeah his the fact that he is he finds sort of plus size women appealing i think is the movie treats as being as funny as loren graham having a Santa fetish. Like, can you even believe it?

Yeah, totally. And it's like, yes, yes, I can. Right. Yeah, no, that's played as a joke. And then bringing Octavia Spencer into it, it just makes it even worse. Leave her out of it. My takeaway from her involvement in the story, so she plays a sex worker named Opal

and, like you mentioned, Jamie, she's in the sequel for some reason. I think she's just too nice for her own good. She's in a lot of, like, weirdly bad movies. It seems like to do a favor to a friend. But the way that Willie is presented, basically, it's like everything that Willie does or anyone who he's involved with or whatever, everything associated with him is bad because he's bad Santa. And so him knowing Opal, I feel like this movie is sort of is anti-sex work just by virtue of like she knows him and everyone that he knows is bad.

and then she's in one quick scene and then we never see or hear from her again. Yeah, there's also, I think that this is only in the bad or Santa cut, which makes sense because it feels very like, why is this here? There is a cutaway scene towards the beginning during these like 11 lost months where bad Santa is spending all his bad Santa money,

where he brings a sex worker home, and then just kind of like berates her for a while. and then the phone rings and it's Marcus and he's like guess what it's November and then we cut to the you're like well I'm glad they cut that out but it was I think kind of solidifies your thinking there where there's

another scene with I think a sex worker who somehow characterized even less we really just beat her and then she's told that she smells and she sucks so yeah this is a movie written by so like getting into the production a little bit

and then we'll definitely go back to the characters. There's a lot to talk about. But just, uh, so Terry's Weigoff, uh, was set to direct this. It was written by Glenn Fikara and John Reckwa, who are a team who I believe they, they did, I love you Philip Morris, which I am a fan of actually. It's really, they, they did a, uh, they did crazy stupid love. Right. And then they do the thing that these, that these guys often do, which is they take a serious turn and it kind of doesn't work. They did, uh, Whiskey Tanger, Fox, later on. Oh, right.

And then they go back to comedy and they did Jungle Cruise. I've never seen I Love You, Philip Morris. I have seen the Billy Bob Thornton Bad News Bears, which is interesting in retrospect because it sounds like that's what the Cohen brothers kind of wanted from this movie. There were almost a million different bad Santas. It was almost James Gandalfini. There was almost Bill Murray. It was almost Jack Nicholson.

It was almost De Niro. It was like, well, De Niro would go. on to be bad grandpa i think uh yes which is a far worse movie than this which is wild i have not seen bad grandpa but i do i'm like i wonder how how common that is that like if you work long enough you're going to be bad something bad moms well it's like you know well yeah no the the bad prefix definitely got very popular for a while i was thinking about like turning down bad santa and then doing bad grandpa is like when sean connery turned down lord of the rings and then said yes to lee of extraordinary gentlemen like you just

you never know you just never know everything is a gamble I love I feel like there's a I can't remember what my favorite example of that is but yeah so anyway it's just like speaking to the all over the place nature of the movie there when the sequel came out there was a an oral history of the first one that released

that gets at what you were talking about earlier Alonzo that Tony Cox was an actor that Terry Swigoff really had to fight for and he sort of, it sounds like there's conflicting accounts but that he kind of threatened to walk if he didn't get the cast that he wanted and really went to bat

for Tony Cox and Brad Kelly who seemed to have a lot of love for him. Billy Bob Thornton seems like maybe not as much which brings us to I don't know like the less said about the Weinstein's the better they're involved. You've seen the movie. It's not shocking

but brings us back to Marcus who again it's like they're from scene to scene I feel like his character is treated very differently there is a version of this character that I think is better but I get like there there were this movie did have me sometimes for like a scene or two where you're like oh that's interesting right where yeah I don't know well there's a base level of pragmatism of like dude you're drunk we have to keep it together if we're going to you know do this heist and if you are like urinating on children and having sex with women in the dressing room that's not going to help us like you've got to keep it together long enough for us to do our thing and i think if they had focused on that where he's just like trying to get the job done and not tolerant of you know willie's shenanigans that's a character but they don't they don't stay on that they don't quite commit to it yeah i felt the same way where it's like it is an interesting premise to me that we have tony cox who is a little person he has been in a ton of movies and but his character unlike so many little people in movies

is not defined by that quality right he is first and foremost robbing department stores and like it's a broad comedy it's not a huge you know in-depth life but like he's willing to use his status as a little person to get the elf gigs which right in a in another movie i think that becomes a smarter thing of like well i'm a little person you're a safe cracker i know we'll do this and that becomes our schick. And I think the fact that he is resentful of the fact that he's spending nearly the entire movie dressed as an elf, but he's doing it as a means to an end is an interesting way to portray a little person character that a lot of other movies weren't maybe smart enough

to do. I guess it's the thing that really bumps for me. And I'd be curious what our listeners think as well is that it's so often, I feel like every time we get a little closer to having a fuller idea of his character, it just, like the concept of his taking advantage of other people's assumptions about him to get what he wants, that's an interesting premise. But then it sometimes just devolves into jokes about little people that feel like, you know, the elements of this kind of movie that really don't work for me, where it's just like piling it on and piling it on and piling it on to the point where it

feels like improvised of like, what's the worst thing you can think of to say about this man, you know? Right. The movie waffles back and forth. scenes where other characters will be talking about him and they're not sure what language to use to describe him and they end up using disparaging language and using slurs. And, you know, Bernie Mac finally comes in and has to say, like, you know, the correct language is little people. And you could argue that there's commentary there kind of in people fumbling over the right language to use. getting it wrong and being ablest along the way.

But that gets undercut when in all of the other scenes, you have various other characters, namely Willie, constantly insulting Marcus and being entirely ablest toward him. And sometimes Marcus pushes back on that and he calls him out. I think pretty frequently he does, which is, which I did, Which again, I appreciate it. Yeah.

Of, like, there's multiple scenes where Marcus is like, I think it's a scene towards the end where he's like, yeah, go ahead, say, like, say something about how I'm a little person. Like, you're the weakest man in the entire world. And, like, that's kind of all you have on me because I'm a person and you're a piece of shit. And so it's like there are these moments of, like, lucidity that you're like, oh, now we're going somewhere. But then it, like, the turn that Marcus has character takes toward the end didn't really scan for me. Like, totally. It's just, yeah.

Sometimes it's eating its cake and having it too. And they're like, we're acknowledging that this is terrible, but we're also doing it because you're going to find it funny. Yeah, it's also a lot of Willie saying slurs, and that's played for laughs. And that's, oh, the audience is supposed to laugh at that. Oh, we're supposed to find that funny. I do want to give Billy Bob Thornton credit for not trying to make this character lovable. Yeah.

Like, I think he is committed to the Zweigoff version of this, which is that this guy is a piece of shit. and I think there are other characters who would play it with a wink who would play it with oh I'm a scamp but you love me and Billy Bob Thornton just feels like he is going full on no no I am

this is an alcoholic hitting rock bottom in a Santa suit yeah it's like that's I think that it's like everyone is kind of in a different movie here at different moments because it does feel like I don't know there's Billy Bob Thornton performances I really really enjoy and like

his whole like we can't even get into the Billy Bob Thornton of it all There's just so much going on with that guy. I also didn't realize he was in his 70s now. He's like also weirdly ageless in my mind. But yeah, it seems like he's playing the version of this character who dies at the end. He's not playing the version of this character that forms a meaningful Christmas bond with a bullied child.

And finds redemption. Right, right. So, yeah, that's a good point. Like he is playing an irredeemable piece of shit in, you know, more of like in, art-housy Terry's Weigoff movie and then it's like Frankenstein into being this other thing and it just doesn't work

and I also I mean like I don't know there is a lot of speaking to your point Caitlin a lot of ableist dated language that was very normalized to say in a shock context in the 2000s that now just is like does not age well

it's weirdly making a comeback and that's also horrible but we see that a lot we see that you know with relation to Tony Cox's character we see that with relation to Thurman's character

quite a bit whether it's like fat shaming or dropping the R word which comedy is in the 2000s did constantly because that was what it was like watching a movie then yeah I don't know

it's I think we keep kind of circling back to the same point where it's like this if this movie is this tone just just kill him just kill the guy but then also i'm like there were scenes that i was like i like thurman merman i don't want to get rid of thurman merman i think he's a sweet kid i want the best for him um what what's funny about steering away from the ending in which he dies is that it basically turns bad santa into the kind of christmas movie that people who love bad santa would on for the most part say they don't like you know If you're turning to this movie as an alternative from the sort of sweetness and light or from the kind of redemption arcs of, you know, it's a wonderful life or a Christmas carol or whatever, then you would want that character dead.

But if you don't and you want to see him improve and become a better person because of the magic of Christmas or whatever, then really you do like that kind of movie. You just can't admit it. And so we have to dress it up in this sort of like badass, you know, thing that you can feel like a. tough guy about but it's it it it has been edited to be that movie eventually but yeah it still wants you to like have the like warmish fuzzies at the end where they're like he's okay you guys he's okay it's like not too far from the narrative that we've seen over and over as far as especially father and son oh redemption arc christmas stories because that's the santa claus that's jack frost Feminist masterpiece, Michael Keaton's Jack Frost.

I mean, Elf even. Elf, for sure. It's so many. This movie coming out the same year as Elf is wild. What a wild year for Ball Santas. Have y'all done a Love Actually episode? It was like one of our first episodes. I would hope so.

Okay, yes. I think we're due for a revisit, though. I mean, it's been a long time. We just watched the Family Stone for the first time, and I was, I'm like, I need, I need to like go on a walk I need to process the events of the film but but yeah for it for this one in the theatrical cut it seems like and certainly in the extended cut I mean it I wrote down tells you it's a father's and sons movie in record time tells you in ADR in the opening shot or in narration in the opening shot and interestingly I've gotten in the habit of looking at

some of the top letterboxed reviews especially for a broad comedy that I don't like because you can you can almost always find someone's reasoning for like why this movie means a lot to them and I think it's interesting to look into it and a handful of them for this movie specifically references that opening monologue as like what really hooked them so I'm like you know probably the Zweigoff version of this movie wouldn't have been commercially successful but it would definitely make more sense but yeah I mean that that opening monologue is also like paints him out to be a despicable person he says something racist within it um it it sort of solidifies that like we're playing into negative stereotypes around veterans

we're playing that you know certainly around addiction that is the premise of the movie right but starting the movie by being like i was like uh abused by a father with anger issues and like have gone on to live this like aimless self-destructive life and i hate christmas but i'm santa It, like, sets you up for the Weinstein version of the movie of, like, what is. I mean, it's also the moral of Jurassic Park, where it's like, this crouch needs to learn how to be a father yesterday. And that's, which sounds like the Zweigoff cut has, like, no interest in whatsoever. No.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm like, I guess I prefer, like, I don't really prefer one over the other, but seeing them sort of Frankenstein together is a very weird experience. I mean, sadly, I guess this is an example in which like studio notes and interference do make a movie more successful. Because you're right. I think the Zweigoff version of Bad Santa would have been like an arthouse curio and it would, you know, would have a tiny cult that watched every year. But it would not have become what it became because, again, I think it is a movie that stealthily is delivering the kind of

this movie that Bad Santa Fans would claim that they were too cool for. Yeah, everyone secretly, like, I feel like wants the grouch to reform. It's the Scrooge. For the Grinch's heart to grow three sizes. Right. For Jim Terry Grinch. For Scrooge.

For Michael Cain Scrooge to look at Brachett and be like, here's a Christmas goose. But it's just like beyond the pale here because the original version of this character is kind of irredeemably horrible. Well, that's the thing.

Like, whatever, if there has to be a male redemption story, like, a fine. I would rather men redeem themselves than a bad man go on staying horrible for the rest of his life. And thriving, yes. Right. Yeah.

Like in real life. Like how it always happens in real life. But the movie is just so riddled with slur after slur, after problematic joke after reductive stereotype after you know it like which is like the 2000s right in comedy it's just it can't i mean there's we could get into the representation of alcoholism the ageism with the grandmother character being so oblivious that she doesn't notice that an adult man with a balaclava is in her house about to rob her everything like yeah i mean it's like it's like it's so deeply of its time and like then some and so to be asked i think kind of then and now to be like

we love this guy he's a lovable rogue like i don't it's a it's a it's a tough sell it's the it's the rule of if you were her child when you saw this movie i'm sure that like it is something that uh you carry a little torch for in your heart but yeah having seen it for the first time for this i'm like I just, I simply cannot, I cannot participate in loving this movie, but Bernie Mac did still manage to make me laugh in basically every scene he was in. I mean, fair. That's just kind of the rule of Mac. I'll touch on the sequel really quick because I'm like, well, if I watched it. Oh yeah, because you've both seen it. Yes. I saw it when it came out and not since, so I don't really remember it, frankly. I watched it yesterday, so it's quite fresh. Okay, tell me. The main reason

I wanted to watch it is because it came out in 2016 and this is around the time that movies started to be less overtly problematic and slightly more conscious about how things were being represented and what language was being used and all of that kind of stuff our show came out this year exactly so I was curious if you fixed everything we actually fixed well I don't know take a survey. I don't know that we've made much of a dent. But I was curious if this sequel scaled back on any of the abelism, racism, fat phobia, ageism, et cetera, that we see in the original movie.

Because I feel like you will see sequels that come out like whatever 10, 15, 20 years later that will sort of update whatever, the story. The world. Yeah. things feel slightly updated and slightly adjusted for the time bad santa hates woke you just know he hates woke this movie did not do that this movie doubled down and even added some stuff like it was just as problematic if not more than the 2003 original movie which is I mean I think the only thing that is like I don't know I mean yeah I didn't see it I've I've I had it up

And I was like, I cannot press play it. Like, I just can't do it. But clearly an interest in this style of comedy in the mid-2010s wasn't there because the sequel did not do well. It didn't even make its budget back. And not that I'm in any way defending it, but I think, of course, if you're going to make a bad Santa sequel, you're going to think, well, what do people love about the first one?

What is it that keeps them coming back and rewatching it every year? The easy answer is, oh, well, the shocking. humor and the you know the the the sort of bleak point of view and and the no holds barred offensiveness you know so now let's have kathy bates say all that stuff you know yeah oh yeah i guess that that is the 2016 twists they're like now women are horror we've wrote a woman character and she's awful you're like equity all right also also kathy bates plays his mother and she's only seven years older than Billy Bob Thornton. That's the, it's the Angela Lansbury condition, you know.

She spent the entire 1960s playing the moms of people she was like less than a decade older than that. Manchurian candidate. Yeah. All fall down, yeah. It's just like, can a woman just have a bob in peace without it being a big, a whole thing? Evidently not. well thank you for watching bad santa both of you and it's best of life but also uh Lauren

Lauren Graham didn't come back she was like I'm correct no I just this year I read both of her memoirs because I am a millennial woman and I had a great time she's a really great funny writer nice I need to check those out she's quite good in in the remake of the best Christmas pageant ever that came out last year. Oh, I haven't seen it. Is that the Pete Holmes movie? Yes. She narrates, and so it, you know, which gives it a little Christmas story flavor.

And then she was in twin list this year, which I didn't see, but I know you did, Caitlin. Yes, I loved that movie. Yeah. And then she's in one of the Colleen Hoover Slop movies that I'm kind of. She plays mommy question mark probably in a movie called Reminders of Him. I'm just like, the Colleen Hoover movies, they're. I will never see them, but I do kind of delight in seeing the trailers aggressively shoveled at me where it's like, nice try. Nice try, asshole. You're not getting me in that room. There's a few other things with this movie, like specific things that we haven't touched on that, you know, we don't need to necessarily go into a lot of detail on. I'm thinking especially of the scene in which the random man from the bar attacks. The homophobia jumps scare.

Yeah. That's a character played by Ajay Nadu, who plays Samir from office space. I was like, oh, my God, that's Samir. But anyway, this scene is so bizarre. Also, the character is named Hindustani Troublemaker. Yeah. Which is, like, if there was any question of how much regard the script has for the character, there you go. There you go.

But it manages to be everything at once. I mean, it manages to be so many horrible stereotypes that it's, like, almost impressive that it's like homophobic it is hostile to any brown person who's ever existed it's like it's just so we have a bingo yeah it does feel like that yeah i was like what is i think it's supposed to be a joke about like repressed homoeroticism which is manifesting as homophobia in the character but i'm just like i could barely make sense of it it's such a bizarre scene the character never comes back. It is based off of a look in the bar. It's just bizarre. So it's a, it's a handful of things like that throughout the movie on top of all the just slurs that are abelist,

racist, sexist, fatphobic, homophobics, et cetera. And I, and, and, and it doesn't pass the beckdel test. Merry Christmas, everybody. And it doesn't even come close to passing the bectal test. So we could got to just skip over that. Usually there's at least a spirited debate going on in the comments of BechtelTest.com. But here, for this one, everyone's pretty like, nope, Lauren Graham touches Chloris Leachman's foot. And that is as far as we got.

So, yeah. So let's get to the more important metric and perhaps the most important metric, the Bechtlecast nipple scale. Yes. the scale where we rate the movie 0 to 5 nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I will give this movie

zero nipples. Can you imagine that? It's kind of an easy one. I'm going to join you with zero nipples. Look, the movie got some chuckles out of me. But this is a sinister movie. It does have a bit of a dark aura, I would say.

Again, it's like if Terry Zweigoff had been able to commit to his vision. It still wouldn't be a movie I liked, but it would be a movie that made sense. Yeah, that maybe would, that was saying something that was like trying to make a statement, but this just ends up being a statement list. Because he really like, I mean, outside of, I mean, I guess the change that takes place with him has to do with Thurman-Merman, but it doesn't have to do with anyone else. And there are so many characters that it's bizarre that it doesn't have to do with anyone else. And I guess we touched on this, but my last thing said, because I have no

nipples to award, is that I felt like they really sold out Marcus's character based on who I thought he was. I felt betrayed. I was like, this, he is so like, I mean, he's not a genius mastermind criminal, but he is at least thoughtful in how these things. Committed to his craft. Yeah. So for him to randomly murder someone who people are certain, going to miss it just felt like so that's sloppy that's sloppier it was sloppy yeah he's presented as being the far more competent of the two between him and willie he's on top of stuff he's making a list and checking it twice you might say he truly is and then suddenly he's like a murderer like where did this come from it's very bizarre it's something else it's yeah so yeah zero nipples

boo to this movie. Alonso, how about you? What say you? Oh, well, if we're talking, the scale is purely about intersectional feminism, I think a zero is the only way to go. If we were raiding it on like, you know,

poisonous mistletoe displays or, you know, empty cans of bud light, it might be something else. But, yeah, on the nipple scale, it is a big goose egg. Indeed. Well, thank you so much for joining us for this discussion.

Thank you for having. What a holiday treat. Where can people follow you online? Check out your podcasts and your books and everything else. Well, you can read my reviews of current films at The Film Verdict at thefilmverdict.com. And I'm on various podcasts. My husband, Dave White, and I do the show Linolium Knife, which just celebrated its 15th anniversary. Congratulations.

Thank you. Yeah. We are the literal gray old men of movie podcasting. Also, you can hear me on Breakfast All Day with Christy Lamere. The two of us used to do a show called What the Flick, but now we've started. We've had breakfast all day going for several years on YouTube. The Maximum Fun Show Maximum Film with Drea Clark and Kevin Avery. And I pop in regularly to deck the hallmark to talk about Christmas movies of various stripes.

I'm the easiest person on Earth to Google, but I'm A. Doraldi on Blue Sky and Alonzo. Dot Duraldi at Instagram. And my new book is the revised and updated second edition of Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas. It's available wherever you buy books online in person at your local library. It's a book, book, and an e-book. Pick one up this holiday season. Please do. Oh, I said, thank you so much.

A longtime fan of your work, so it's as cool as surreal to talk to you about this perfect movie, no notes. Hey, if y'all haven't done Carol yet, you know, I think there'd be a lot more to dig into. We have done Carol. Oh, my gosh. I have done Carol, okay. Yeah, that is, that is the, that is the Christmas movie that does follow on. You can find us in all the regular places, mostly on Instagram. You can also join our Patreon, aka Matrion, where for $5 a month, you can listen to two bonus episodes every month and also vote on what movies you want to hear about.

So this, this month, the matrons have voted on the Family Stone and the original Black Christmas. So if you want to hear those episodes or our back catalog of nearly 200 episodes, I think, now, sign up in the link in description. Give yourself a little holiday gift. Give someone else a little holiday gift of the Bechtelcast matrion. And with that, let's either die on the front doorstep and or go on to live a long, healthy life. Ho, ho, ho. Bye. The Bechtelcast is a production of IHeart Media, hosted and produced by me, Jamie Loftus.

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with vocals by Catherine Voskrasinski. Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree slash Bechtelcast. I'm investigative journalist Melissa Jeltsin. My new podcast, What Happened in Nashville, tells the story of an IVF clinic's catastrophic collapse and the patients who banded together in the chaos that followed. It doesn't matter how much I fight. It doesn't matter how much I cry over all of this.

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