The Bechdel Cast - Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar with Kate Willet

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

Jamie and Caitlin go on vacation with special guest Kate Willett and spend the whole flight talking about Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @katewillett on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast, start changing it with the bechdel cast hi uh welcome to the bechdel cast my name's jamie loftus my name's caitlin durante and we're taking a trip uh we we're we're recording in vista del mar yeah. Yeah, we are. Are we, what is our generation's culottes? Is there, is that, is that just like a, is there a pant for our generation that qualifies

culottes or is that just kind of timeless across generations? Do you remember when gauchos were a big thing among? Vaguely? I remember like capris was like, I that's the first that's the first distinct pant that i besides like shorts that i remember being like oh in like middle school like we would wear capris once it became march sure right it might be i mean gauchos were a thing for maybe like two years when i was like a sophomore-ish in college so you might have what are couch shows describe these they're basically the same thing as culottes just with

a different name they look very comfortable now that i'm like older i'm 500 years old now and i'm like these pants like i understand the appeal of cool i used to like make fun of my mom's pants constantly. But it turns out that they were, she was right, I was wrong. I was wearing like low rise jeans and had a death wish, you know. So this is our podcast where we take a look at your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for discussion.

But what is that? Well, sometimes it's when a woman named Barb and another woman named Star talk to each other about something other than a man for most of the movie. But I guess more generally, our version of the test is when two people of any marginalized gender with names speak to each other about something other than a man and they have a, you know, meaningful conversation, meaningful to the narrative. Yeah. And yeah, we're covering Barb and Star star go to vista del mar today i'm

so excited to cover this movie and we have an incredible guest with us oh my gosh we we sure do let's get her in here that was that was my um midwest attempt i literally i did okay we i did check with my my boyfriend's mom who is a bonafide Barb and Star type. I was like, is this, do you feel like seen by this? Do you feel like made fun of by this? And she was like, this is my favorite movie. I love it so much. Like, we gave her our rental code for it, and she flipped.

It is Sari from Racing Wisconsin approved and that's good enough for me. Hell yeah. Our guest though is a comedian. She has a new audiobook out called Dirtbag Anthropology. She's the host of Reply Guys podcast. It's

Kate Willett. Hello. It's so nice to be talking with you. We're so happy to have you with you. Oh, we're so we're so happy to have you again. I cannot do this accent. We're so happy to have you. Yeah. Oh, thank you. I'm really looking. I don't know. This is like Tina Fey's impression of Sarah Palin. Yeah. Yeah. So happy. Yeah. Thank you for bringing us this movie. movie oh had you not heard of it i i thought i i felt like you had probably heard of it because the person who told me about this movie was julia claire who i know is a yes is a solid buddy of jamie loftus i mean yeah it was it was on my radar

but uh i hadn't seen it until we started prepping for this episode yeah me neither actually i was just like this looks good yeah oh yeah i was so excited for this movie to come out because this this was like another uh movie that got pandemic where it was shot like two years ago and i remember seeing trailers for it like back when you could still be in movie theaters and being and because i think it was supposed to be like a summer movie last year and i was like oh my god that that looks so good i haven't seen kristen wigg do something like truly goofy and fun in so long yeah so we rented it the day it came out it was awesome it was great i love it uh especially after kristen

wigg i mean no i we got a lot of requests for Wonder Woman 1984 and then we both watched it and we're like I don't I just felt nothing and I I felt angry I was like mad at how bad I thought that movie was and I was like yeah I mean maybe we'll cover it eventually but I'm like it is not a priority for me because that movie yeah stunt rushing I heard it was really bad it wasn't great and it was also like I don't know it's always like extra frustrating when it's like someone that you know

like I don't know Kristen Wiig plays like the big bad in that movie and it's just like she's boring in it and I'm like how did you make her boring like that's a you problem Patty Jenkins sorry remember when she plays a weird character in mother exclamation point oh i god i try not to think about mother exclamation point but that is

true and she's also i mean she went through we've talked about this like i think on our crazy stupid love episode where it's like when the like super successful comedian goes through like a phase of movies that are all like very serious indies and some of them are good and some of them are like what um kristin mc had that phase she's also wasn't she in the martian was she i don't remember have i lost touch with reality i don't know no it doesn't matter i don't remember that movie very well i i'm pretty sure and she's in her she's in a lot of like real slow burns yeah anyways this movie is a movie i actually enjoy unlike all the ones we just listed right yeah yeah i i too i mean you know me i love a romp and this movie is like textbook definition of a romp.

10 out of 10 on Caitlin's romp-o-meter. Romp-o-meter. The romp-o-meter. I believe it's pronounced romp-o-meter, yeah. Yes, I'm so sorry. Yes. Yeah, I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. I think I was picturing kind of like a girl's trip-esque narrative in the sense that like two people go on vacation and they have a vacation. I was not expecting

there to be like an evil mastermind villain. I wasn't expecting an evil revenge plot about killer mosquitoes. Yeah, it was fun. It felt like it was one of those scripts where it just was like written in a state of like a very open mind of like what could we put in this movie like sky's the limit killer mosquitoes an underground lair you know lethra some it was just really funny yeah yeah it was great yeah well i guess i should just get into the recap and then we'll go from there, shall we? Yes. Oh, yeah. And Kate, feel free to jump in at any time.

The recap is a safe space. Okay, so we open on a young paper boy. This is Yo-Yo. He is delivering newspapers around a neighborhood. And then he enters the lair of Sharon Gordon Fisherman, whose name, like, I had to pull that from IMDb because I was not sure if we, did we hear her name in the movie? They call her Sharon a couple of times. But yeah, I just kept thinking of her as like,

bad Kristen Wiig. Right. Yes. She is played by Kristen Wiig. She's like a supervillain type. And she reveals plans to unleash a swarm of genetically engineered killer mosquitoes into an as yet undisclosed small town. Then we cut to Barb and Star. That's Annie Mumolo and kristen wigg respectively they live in soft rock nebraska soft rock i love that so much yeah good this movie does like really reward reviewing as because i've now seen it three times uh there's something new and fun in like the super specific details every time.

Indeed. Yeah. They are very stereotypical Midwestern women in their 40s types. They are best friends. They are also roommates, which I did not pick up on the first time I watched it. But they live together and they share a bedroom, which is so funny. Like Lucy and Ricky style. Yeah, they have like separate full-size beds.

Uh-huh. They work at a furniture store, which they get let go from because the whole chain has closed. Seven months ago. Seven months ago. They also get kicked out of their talking club which is the funniest joke i've ever heard yeah and like full of like recognizable like great female character

actors there's so many good uh it was yeah just wonderful i love the talking club so much like it's like a book club but it's a talking club no books oh yeah book club for women who have never read a book before watching vanessa bear be so extremely cruel to whoever was locked out of talking club is so good i kept wondering who was like doing the voice of gail the woman who gets locked out i forgot to look it up though also that um that the hot dog soup uh triggered my fight or flight reflex because so i mean it's like and i've seen i know that that's like poking fun at midwestern food some of which is genuinely baffling to me and very thick it's rich rich. Yeah. A lot of textured dishes out there. I honestly like would eat that soup though.

Yeah. Oh, I bet it's delicious. It's big too. It just like looks like it's already been eaten. Yes. Stealing the soup. Yeah.

Anyway, so Barb and Star are kind of down on their luck at the moment. And they also realized that all the fun times that they used to have together were from years before. And they feel that they've lost their shimmer. So when their friend tells them about a vacation she just took to Vista Del Mar, Florida, they decide to take a trip together as well. Meanwhile, Sharon Gordon Fisherman gives one of her henchmen, Edgar, played by Jamie Dornan, a microchip which he will need to activate the receiver, which is going to attract all of the killer mosquitoes. Which is confusing and also doesn't super matter if you don't fully process the plot it was

very uh black mirror that element you know it was like kind of like austin powers meets black mirror i also loved the jamie dornan casting like it was such a uh like watching it again last night i was like well it's such a like because i feel like that's how i'm trying to think of other examples of like guy who's mostly known for being hot all of a sudden like you're like oh wait and he's pretty entertaining and he's trying so hard in this movie in a way that it like and i mean that as like a compliment where if he knew he was funny the performance wouldn't be like as good i feel like he's performing as if he's like is this working like full commitment like yeah uh-huh yeah i feel like another example of that

would be um one of the chris's chris hemsworth in his role in the like 2016 ghostbusters when he's like this goofy guy. I vaguely remember that because we covered that movie, but I feel like it just, it just left my body. That's acceptable. Hot guy trying to be funny. You know,

it's hit or miss, but sometimes it works. In this case, it worked with Jamie Dornan. It works. Cause yeah, the only thing I'd ever seen him in was like the 50 shades trilogy. And was like oh my god that's him he's like the yeah oh jesus i never i like refuse to watch those movies but that is so funny that what he's famous for is like being like uh the hidden guy and then now he's like this like uh you know very uh gentle character

who's obsessed with being in an official relationship. Yeah. That was my favorite part of the entire movie. It's so funny. Yeah. I also I just just a quick Jamie Dornan fact because I knew nothing about this man. I also detested the Fifty Shades movies and everyone's bad in those movies because the movies are bad. But he started as a model which i guess

isn't super surprising but there was a time in the early 2000s where he was known as the golden torso the new york time so he's it's like i don't i mean we talk about women being objectified a lot but uh yeah he the new york times declared him the Golden Torso in 2001. So, you know, shout out to the Golden Torso. Good for him. I feel like by the time you give a nickname involving the word torso, there's just no gray area with are you objectifying this person? You know what I mean? Like piece by piece, literally. Right.

But I love it. I'm thrilled that the Golden Tor torso got to like show his skills. This is his time. I mean, talking about a shimmer, like he is shimmering all over this movie. Cute accent too. When I saw his picture, I was like, I'm not going to have a celebrity crush on him. But when I heard the accent, I was starting to feel more flexible on that point. He's Irish in real life, right life right yeah that's his real accent he is from northern ireland and also i couldn't tell

if i was like is he like trying to because they're in some scenes i'm like is he trying to sound american right now like his accent is like all over the place but i just don't care i love it he's the son of a gynecologist listen i read his whole wikipedia page there are so many things i relate to about this guy already perfect torso child of a gynecologist former model i'm like we've had the same life yeah he's an everyman um so he has been given this like microchip or whatever which he will take to vista del mar and activate because that's going to attract the killer mosquitoes and also like you mentioned kate edgar is in love with sharon and all he wants is to be an official couple with her but it's clear that she is stringing him along and that she doesn't want to be an official couple with him. Yeah.

So then Barb and Star fly to Vista Del Mar. On the flight, they talk about an imaginary woman named Trish the whole flight. Tragically died. Who tragically died and turned into a water spirit. And I only mentioned that now because we've got a Chekhov's Trish happening. Very goddess ex machina ending here, yeah. Right, right. And then there's this whole thing where they like, they go to the wrong hotel and it turns out they're staying in a crummy motel but then they manage to get a room in the nice hotel after all

and that's where edgar is staying and they meet him when they're all drinking at the hotel bar and they end up hanging out with him all night they drink a bunch they take drugs they dance to a techno remix of my heart will go on and as soon as that's where i became convinced that yeah that's like because that's like 35 minutes in and like i liked i was like this is a really funny movie like up until that point but as soon as i heard like i was like this movie is for me. Well, the music that I loved in this was they had Richard Cheese in the movie. Yes. Richard Cheese is such a kind of classic Gen X guy.

You know what I mean? It felt perfect to their age. And it was great i remember like a boy in high school being like showing me richard cheese because his like uncle had showed him and being really blown away like richard cheese and the mighty boosh was just like it yeah i was it was so nice to see him i was like wow like gen z gets richard cheese now good for them wow okay so they they dance to all this music together and then they spend the night together and edgar leaves the next morning but oh no he's lost the microchip which activates the mosquito thing or something or something so Sharon has to call this like secret spy man

who she knows to come in and fix Edgar's mistake cue Edgar singing a song which goes something along the lines of seagulls in the sand can you hear my prayer and it oh my god it's great so funny the best part of the movie i think it's great yeah there's i don't know if this has been mentioned so far but there are multiple musical numbers in this film it's not a musical but it is music inclusive yeah oh yeah because there's a big that big number when they first get to the hotel and then they find out it's a motel and the song abruptly ends and a number is exactly the right term for it it is a number it is a number a showstopper 15 minutes in yeah very moulin rouge but like like midwestern moulin rouge it truly is like so fun to see uh like just see what people do if they have enough money to do whatever they think is funny because that just very much feels like what

this movie is it's like wow we could actually get a budget to do what like the weirdest shit we can think of great yep um so edgar sings his song which is my favorite part of the movie i listened to it on repeat this morning um meanwhile barb and star are pretending to have forgotten all about edgar from the night before but they secretly both want to see him again so first barb sneaks out to go talk to him. But then she realizes that her and Edgar aren't really meant to be. And she values her friendship with Star more than a man. So she goes back to her and Star's room. But then Star goes out to meet up with Edgar, has a very similar, if not identical conversation to the one that barb and edgar just had but then

he and star have sex which is a secret that star keeps from barb i do love that like just that like barb is such a like champion she's like i can't do this like i need to respect my friend and then star is like um we can only fuck twice yeah i will and they like i feel like we skipped over that they also fucked each other in the threesome because i thought that was a brave detail it's like they had sex together in the first night and uh referenced the sex and it was i thought that was kind of an interesting aspect of that they portrayed it as kind of a no big deal thing oh yeah yeah it is so yeah they move on immediately like if you left to pee you would not know that they fucked each other it never comes up again really right yeah they're just normalizing having threesomes with your friends uh meanwhile sharon's associate a spy by the name of darlie bunkel played by damon wayans jr contacts edgar to assist him i love that i love the scene where they're on the

the phone scene is my favorite i think his first scene where he's like no i have to go oh he's great and then back at sharon's lair she explains her backstory to yo-yo which is that when she was young her family moved to vista del mar where she was bullied for her pale skin and then after an incident which like utterly humiliated her caused her father to suffer a heart attack and die and caused her mother to leave her and she got launched onto a disney cruise ship out of a cannon yes uh sharon vowed to seek revenge on all of the residents of Vista Del Mar, hence this big revenge plot. As a child, she very much, it's like full on Wednesday Addams aesthetic. Very, yeah.

Yeah. I have some things to say about all of that. I was curious if we were going to talk about that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get there. Meanwhile, Star sneaks off to spend more time with edgar and then while that's happening barb is doing a bunch of like fun stuff that she and star were

supposed to do together they both feel really bad about lying to each other and then barb finds out about star's love affair with edgar and edgar is about to like call off the whole mosquito plan because he's falling out of love with Sharon and in love with Star but anyone who's in Kristen Wiig's body he's in love with right well I feel like to like to be fair that feels like what a lot of us do like you know for me it's not kristen wick's body but it's like some unkempt man with a beard you know just like switch him out he's got a type he's got a type yep but then sharon convinces edgar that barb and star are spies and that he needs to kill them meanwhile barb and Star confront each other about lying, but then Edgar comes in and ties them up and then Sharon abducts them. Alligators are about to eat

them, but they managed to escape with the help of their culottes, which if you're not familiar and you haven't seen the movie, first of go see the movie but there are these like very flowy capri type pants that are like very skirt and shorts mixed together basically yeah i didn't know that that's what those were called until this movie they go by many names maybe i don't know i think i'm gonna buy some no i mean they can truly save your life. Yeah. As we see in this movie. One of my favorite Bechdel test passes of this movie was Kristen Wiig telling the other Kristen Wiig to jump off a cliff. Yeah.

It was a very feminist moment of the film. It's incredible. So then they run off to stop the mosquito attack. But oh no, Sharon had already triggered the receiver to attract all the mosquitoes. So then they fight with Sharon in the middle of the ocean. The mosquitoes attack Sharon. And then Barb and Star are brought safely back to land by Trish, the water spirit lady who they had brought up on their flight, who is played by Reba McIntyre. And then Sharon shows back up with like all these mosquito bites. But then she learns the power of friendship.

And she becomes friends with all of the residents of Vista Del Mar. And then Barb and Star get their shimmer back and they ride a banana boat together. And that's the end of the movie. Love it. So let's take a quick break and then we will come back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 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. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I've been thinking about you.

I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110.

120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm.

Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds.

What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions

that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We're back. Caitlin, you brought this up during the recap. So I kind of just wanted to like touch on it at the top the stuff with Sharon's back story doing it because there's so

I have so many um compliments to shower on this movie so I think let's let's start with the stuff that um aren't as compliments I guess yeah so for me and this is something that we talked about pretty recently on our Da Vinci Code episode. Okay, yes. We're going the same way. We're on the same page. Yes, yes, yes. So that was a Matreon episode. But what we brought up then and now is the trope of the evil albino villain character. And while Sharon Gordon Fisherman doesn't specifically have albinism, because she has a made up condition called pigmentosh, Tadia, degenerate hysterica, white skinica, right, this condition seems to have pretty similar characteristics of albinism. And because she is the villain of this movie, I feel like we could pretty safely like put her in the category of this trope, which is obviously very harmful in its depiction of

people with albinism, portraying them as being villainous, untrustworthy, ill-intentioned. Yeah, I totally agree with you. It is definitely a trope we see all the time. I mean, there's, I think, movies that weaponize this trope to varying degrees. And The Da Vinci Code and Barb and Star are certainly very different weaponizations of this trope. But it's just like, kind of stunningly lazy, given how thoughtful so many elements of the movie is and it and it just like does end up kind of coming off as a lazy ableist choice that feels like it's 15 years old even though right most of the movie for me felt so modern and i would be interested in hearing what listeners think particularly listeners with albinism well i mean even beyond that it's also just like the trope of like the villain is

the person who doesn't look like everyone else you know or the the villain is somebody with some kind of medical condition you know it's kind of ableist yeah definitely yeah she's othered in this particular way and because she has such pale skin she's got like pale eyes she has an extreme sensitivity to the sun yeah it felt to me even though again they don't identify it as albinism i think it's you know definitely coded yeah so i was very disappointed to see that in a movie that came out this year. You would think that we've, you know, we've moved past that. But yeah, it turns out no. Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

And it's especially frustrating in a movie that like avoid so many tropes that would have been very easy in like a movie with this tone. Yeah. Like othering your villain is always going to have connotations to it. And like, I mean, no one else in the movie is is othered in that way. Right? Yeah, exactly. I was Yeah, I was like, put off by that. I still really liked the movie. But I was like, oh, really? Come on. Like, why? So that I didn't love. The other thing that kind of I was like, oh, really? This is in the movie was there's there's a Morgan Freeman joke.

Yeah, that was I was just like, that's what year was this script written? Like, yeah, I'm just like, did they not get the memo that he has a history of like harassing women on movie sets did did they not i don't know so yeah i'm surprised to see that there i wish it could have been any other old actor you know like and you would have had the same joke yeah i also felt like the i forgot what the child's name. Yo-Yo. Yo-Yo. Yeah, that was kind of, I don't know, there was definitely's a music cue that sounds like kind of native flute and drumming. Yeah. Which like the Tommy Bahama.

Yeah. The Tommy Bahama stuff mostly. And I'm interested to hear what our native listeners think about that. that but to me it feels like just kind of like a weird and like appropriative thing to have in a movie with no native people in it yeah so just yeah just like lazy writing too yeah like just not yeah i think he was supposed to be like some kind of shaman but like a shaman of of what you know it's just like this kind of general magical uh shaman guy you know it's also i didn't i don't know why i didn't realize on my first watch that that was literally andy garcia but it's also he's not credited as andy garcia is he credited as tommy bahama oh my god so i think maybe that's that could be why not to brag or anything but I

did recognize him as Andy Garcia right I just have an eye for Andy so thank you um yeah there and and those aspects I mean the the three things that we just touched on it did feel like the elements because this very much feels like an snl movie to me even though it isn't and those moments kind of like ping the part of your brain that like most snl movies do not hold up for reasons like this of like a huge plot point that is extremely homophobic a huge plot point that is extremely racist that, you know, most of those movies, even for fans of them, like they, you can't really make much of an argument for large aspects of them.

And I mean, they're, they're smaller in this movie, but they're definitely still present. Yeah. Right. I mean, the movie is also like,

I mean, like all, all four main characters are white people too right it's like i i mean i get like you know the whole thing is that they're from the midwest and stuff but yeah that's not like what the whole midwest is you know yeah the midwest is like i mean not as diverse as other areas of the country but it's not all white people and there were definitely like opportunities for there to be more diversity because it's not all white people and there were definitely like opportunities for there to be more diversity because it's like i mean even in talking club i think the only person

who isn't white is um rose abdu who is one of my favorite character actors i've been watching her since uh she was on gilmore girls nice. Okay, nice. She's great. Yeah, there aren't that many characters of color, and the ones who are present in the story are relegated to more secondary or tertiary characters. Yeah. I was also honestly surprised. I guess we're just going to get all our grievances out at the top. I was honestly surprised.

This isn't even really a criticism. I was just surprised that this movie was directed by a guy i like it's such a movie centered on middle-aged women that i was like that i i just i didn't even realize like realize until later on i was like oh this is directed by a guy named josh just would not have expected that in this case yeah i mean directed by a, that's one thing. A guy named Josh, that's even an escalation right there. That's twisting the knife. Yeah.

Written, though, by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo. And the movie also has a number of producers who are women, including Jessica Elbaum, who founded Gloria Sanchez Productions, which is a production company that focuses on producing female-driven comedy projects. Oh, yeah. They also did Booksmart, Hustlers. Those are the good ones. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. But I was similarly surprised that a man would have been hired to direct this movie. Yeah. So, you know, let's talk about the fun parts. Yeah, let's do it. I love that this is a movie about friendship between women. I love that this is a movie about women in their mid-40s finding their shimmer because they feel like they're kind of just fading away and they want to rediscover themselves and reignite their excitement for life.

This is like a version of Eat, Pray, Love that I enjoy. Yeah, it's not so self-serious, obviously, you know? Yeah. This is a pretty small thing, but one of my favorite parts of this movie was the relationship self-help books that the characters are reading. Sharon's reading one and Edgar's reading one.

And I think the one that Edgar's reading is called something like, how to feel like someone loves you even when they don't show it most of the time and then sharon's book is like how to convince someone you love them to get them to do what you want and i just i don't know that's very it's really small but i think that that was like a funny takedown of that the whole self-help industry which is often you know marketed to women in like a pretty sexist way a lot of the time you know like versions of like here's how to be you know more appealing to men or accommodate men or

something in some way and I definitely thought it was funny that they got a dig in at that yeah yeah similarly i liked that there was kind of like a a role reversal in terms of you see this man pining after the love and affection of this like evil mastermind woman i feel like that's not something yeah you see that much in terms of like uh especially like a hot former model former golden torso golden torso yeah jamie dornan yeah he's unapologetically sentimental ongoingly referring to his relationship aspirations as uh being an official couple an official couple like a 15 year old yeah but it's the kind of thing that like you know like women openly expressing a desire for you know like commitment or sentimentality

is often portrayed as like you know they're oh there's something wrong with her you know and um i i thought that it was yes i agree that it was very fun role reversal in this movie. Yeah. Especially because he does, he still respects her boundaries. He's always like, are you ready to maybe become an official couple yet? Like he's not like wearing her down or like hounding her or like just like being really obsessive. I mean, he's kind of obsessive, but he's not like he's still like doing this kind of from a distance yeah he's anxious but he's not creepy you know yeah yeah yeah and i liked that

those are the aspects of sharon's character that i really liked was like how i mean it's like no one should be emotionally manipulative in a relationship but it was a fun reversal to see like and like you're saying Kate with with the self-help books and also just like in general there are even though one of even though Star does end up in a relationship with Edgar I felt like especially for a movie about middle-aged women who who are they're not mothers they're like not the type of middle-aged female character that you're kind of used to seeing especially leading a movie and they don't make any of the easy like lazy choices that you would make with a character like that they're not like pining for a husband

they're not like where are my children like it's just such a simple premise of like well I am middle-aged and I want to figure myself out and like I feel like I've lost touch with myself yeah and they're also they seem generally more concerned about how other women view them than really anyone else they're worried about each other they're worried about how the talking club perceives them and it was just like a cool i don't know it's like you you never see that yeah and i just to kind of piggyback off that like i thought it was cool that they were both on journeys of self-actualization and then you see you know barb's character her journey of self-actualization is solo it's involving like a lot of adventures and star's journey is like a relationship journey she's opening her heart to love and experiencing that vulnerability again and i felt like the film did not make any sort of value judgment

about which of those is better you know and like that's good because i i often feel like even feminism asks us to kind of you know like either it's like independence is good or you know relationship is good or you know like and it's just it's like often presented as very like feminist versus not feminist and in reality most of us have both desires you know not everyone but um yeah it was just it was just cool to see the film kind of not like barb's journey is not a joke it's not pathetic you know uh star's journey is not weak i just really liked that yeah yeah and an element of star's journey i mean it's only mentioned in kind of one scene but I like when I was watching it to prepare for it for this episode, I especially appreciated it was like Star also talked about like her body image and like how she as she was getting older, she was feeling unlovable. She felt like she was never going to be loved again.

And then she says like the line is super goofy, but it was like it's where she's like you saw my like folds and holes and you weren't bothered by it and you didn't run away and it's like it's a it's i don't know it's my favorite kind of joke because it's funny but it's not at her expense and the response to it is not cruel and he's just like yeah like, Edgar is such a good active listener. And I like that, like, I mean, it's not like harped on, but it is like referenced in a way that felt like, I don't know, like genuine and funny. I liked it. Let's take another quick break and then we'll come right back. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered.

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

Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that.

I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up?

Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago.

We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I felt too seen. Um, dragged.

I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens

when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you.

And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. You mentioned this in the recap, Kate, but the fact that they have that steamy threesome together the first night that they meet Edgar, and it's clear that like, you know, that Barb and Star were doing sex things to each other. Yeah. And that they do not make a deal of it at all in the aftermath, which like, again, is

like that would have been like an easy slash lazy choice that a lot of comedies have done. So I'm so glad that they did not do that in this movie. I'm thinking particularly of a scene in the movie Trains, Planes and Automobiles where Steve Martin and John Candy, they have to sleep in the same bed and they wake up like spooning each other. And as soon as they realize that they are like embracing each other, they both dash out of bed and like are like, oh, my God, gross. They like didn't they didn't even have sex the way that like parvin star yeah did but they just made physical contact they just like touched each other and then yeah and then

but they're like flipping out that they even like were hugging like holding each other yeah so yeah i really liked that they just very normalized like a couple friends like getting freaky on vacation with each other yeah and they don't like it's a deal, but they don't not talk about it. Like they referenced the specific things that they did together in bed and, you know, and the fun and just like, they were talking about it the same way that they talk about their, their other vacation adventures, you know, nothing weirder. Yeah. Yeah. They acknowledged it happened, but like, they're like,

this isn't anything we're like grossed out by or ashamed of so yeah they're just like oh and now we change the subject to seashells or whatever yeah turtles turtles yeah and i like how the the way that they deal with conflict too felt really good because that's like another area where i feel like you could get you know like a lesser writing team could get super lazy with how women are in conflict are so often written in these kind of like broad tropes but I liked it I mean I thought like you know it they are on these solo journeys and I feel like that I didn't even really register this the first time I watched it

but it's like oh that a part of their journey is like having to be less reliant on each other and like growing as individuals and not being so you know codependent in in some ways but also still having that friendship and when they find out they've been lying to each other I love that they can't lie like that being established at the beginning is so funny at talking club um but you know it's like they're obviously pissed off at each other but then they have these like two beautiful forgiveness scenes after the culottes and again when they think that they're gonna die right before trish rescues them yeah it's so cute and you know i mean it's also like um they have their and this i think this is what you're also saying jamie like they have their and I think this is what you're also saying, Jamie, like they have their fight.

They do express like the full range of their anger and their sense of betrayal. But it's not and it's not in like this cat fight way. You know, it's like how real human beings engage in serious conflicts when there's a betrayal of trust. Right. Which is cool because it happens in between all this like ridiculous shit we're like i really love the alligators i love the scene where it right right before their fight like they're tied together and they're like slowly escaping and jamie dornan just like doesn't notice because he's talking about himself that's so funny oh it's so good well that's one of the things that i absolutely love about this movie which is you get this like extremely goofy

movie where i know it's not just a goofy movie it's an extremely goofy movie agree where women are the leads because like a lot of comedy movies where a woman is the lead or where women are the lead characters they are often rom-coms and a lot of rom-coms are not actually very funny there i said it but like this movie actually has jokes and it's like a rare example of an absurdist comedy that is female driven because most absurdist comedy which i think is like my favorite subgenre of comedy like i love absurdism they're so male dominated not a lot of room has been made for women in this subgenre at least like not much in like in the mainstream so i love that this is just like it's so silly you get to see women being very goofy a lot of very goofy silly things happen

in the movie and i was just eating it up yeah i agree there another uh another thing that i i liked about i don't know the the barb star and edgar triangle like their dynamics i was like oh there's like so much interesting stuff there because it's like just other things that could have happened but then didn't is like we talked about this before but like edgar is never creepy he's usually just listening and is maybe just like not the smartest person in the world and doesn't always pick up on other people's signals and on top of that like in that sequence where like barb and star basically go on the same sort of date with edgar that they both like i don't know like they just pursue him

extremely directly like without a hint of like insecurity or like they just show up like doing the splits like yeah let's hang out doing like yoga poses outside his dorm yeah i loved that like yeah it's just so funny i really i mean first of all i love that he's like nine or ten years younger than them yeah like jamie dornan is than annie mumlow and kristin wiggs so again you we talk about the age gap in hollywood a lot where there's again just a tendency to have aging men and they're like female co-stars will be like 25 years younger than them and it's rare to see like an older woman and a younger man so i appreciated that you have that just representation on screen and then and they don't mention it

either they're not like whoa cougar you know right yeah yeah right yeah it's just normalized and then i really like when when barb is talking to edgar on their like little walkabout around Vista Del Mar. And she's like, oh, you know what? Actually, you've set me free like our night together. Like that set me free. But that's all this was. She like realizes that she just needed like this sex romp to like be the catalyst that like gets her to realize that she like can go off and do fun stuff yeah but that she's not like pining after him maybe the same way that like kristen wigg is more interested

in him romantically but i like that dong touched her heart to be fair yeah right exactly that does happen that does happen um so i like that even though their like connection between the three of them initiates in this sexual encounter for all of them all at the same time in this threesome but that like there isn't like a love triangle after that you know no yeah even though it does seem like they will continue to all three of them will be living together back in soft rock nebraska which i i love like that would honestly be the dream life like if i got to live with like a partner and my best friend was also there wouldn't that be great honestly yeah i hope they don't change the layout of their house at all and just jamie dornan's in stars bed but they still all share a

room yeah oh my gosh yes he joins the talking club oh he would i feel like he'd be a hit there yeah he's very sensitive i mean the golden torso those ladies are gonna gobble him up he would let phyllis talk about horses god those cutaways they're great oh just like another thing that just made me laugh the the story of how barb's husband died is so funny where he was like a rodeo star but he got trampled but it was at a like a black friday sale it's so good there's so many and like you said jamie every time you watch this movie you like pick up on like subtle jokes you didn't notice the first time. It's just this movie's so funny.

Yeah, I'm so glad I dig this. And I hope that I hope that it's like been successful enough that there will be, you know, other opportunities like this made for for other women and hopefully not white white women you know like and and sort of open the open the floodgates to movies like this because it is i mean i guess that i i can't say for sure whether it's like bridesmaids is like the movie that kristen wigg and annie mummolo wanted to make but i do feel like there is this kind of tendency where it just takes women even after they've been very successful like way longer to be able to make like this is the thing I've always wanted to do if I can make anything yeah because Kristen Wiig has been you know she's been around for at least 15 years extremely successful and it's like just this year that you see like her like ridiculous, absurd

art project come out. And I feel like, you know, that tends to come much earlier for men. And yeah, just like it would be cool if if women and you know, all people who weren't young white guys got that got those same level of opportunities at the same pace which is not true right you know yeah yeah i also think that i don't know if i recall correctly but i feel like kristin wigg is from kind of like a normal background and was not a super rich person i don't know that could be wrong but yeah no that that is true it feels like the people who are like sons and daughters of Hollywood are able to get those opportunities at an accelerated pace. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that they're like Annie Momolo and Kristen Wiig are both from like pretty like standard middle class backgrounds back when the middle class was the thing. And yeah. And they and they both became successful in their 30s and like just all I mean their career trajectories are really cool and I just I just from a sentimental point of like that's so cool that like when best friends make a movie I love it yeah it's very fun yeah I also learned that Kristen Wiig had twins last year holy shit that's amazing via a surrogate she and her husband had twins she's got tiny babies at her house i just learned so much on

scholarly journal wikipedia this week um i don't have a lot of yeah i don't have a lot. Yeah that we don't get to see that much of. And I hope, yeah, this movie kind of helps pave the way for more movies like it to be made. And again, yeah, just open up doors for just more diverse and inclusive movies. Again, like specifically absurdist comedies. Let's see more like women-driven absurdist comedies. Women from all backgrounds. People of marginalized genders from all backgrounds. Hell yeah.

We need more of it. Agree. Yeah. With actual budgets too, because you can tell this movie had like a budget yeah it's like ridiculous the production design with all of like the very like saturated colors and the pastels yeah the pastels yeah it's like i was looking at the poster and i was like this was like reminiscent of like a lisa frank folder i used to have like yeah yeah um but yeah I didn't really have any anything else no I yeah I um I really enjoyed this movie I I agree that it there are the elements of it that

are dated are super frustrating because it seems at so many places to have conscientiously avoided dated tropes and so um there are moments where you're like oh these are you know gen x white women who uh maybe should have consulted some people yeah yeah it's true because it was very highlighted because they did handle uh like there was so much about it that felt so original and fresh, you know, that the parts of it that were dated or even just cliched did really stand out like a sore thumb. But I still love this movie. Yeah. Yeah. It passes the Bechdel test, obviously, like except for when they're talking about Edgar basically the entire time they're talking about all sorts of wild shit.

Oh, my gosh. Trish. They have a whole turtles turtles a lot of turtles we're led to believe that they spend i'm guessing what would be like as four to five hour flight talking about a woman named trish that they made up the entire time they're talking about seashells and their friendship bracelets and just this doesn't pass the bechdel test but one of my favorite exchanges was about Kermit's little frog legs yeah well does Kermit count as as a guy he's a frog I think so

right okay identify as a as a let me check I don't know if a non-human male is good question I didn't remember to pay super-human male is. Good question. I didn't remember to pay super close attention to this, but I feel like the movie does not pass the reverse Bechdel test in that men, I think, don't talk to each other really at all in this movie. Edgar and Darlie Bunkle do talk to each other. Oh, right, right, right, right. Yes. But just for a sec. Yeah. But just for a sec. Yeah.

But just a little bit. Yeah. The bulk of the conversations in this movie are between women. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And just a shout out to Darlie Bunkle and Edgar's fight in the sand. Oh, my gosh.

Them rolling around. They take a break. So good. Yeah, that was great. Yeah, this movie is so fun. And I hope that, yeah, it'll make way for more. So let's get to the nipple rating, shall we? Yes, zero to five nipples based on how the movie fares from an intersectional feminist lens. I'm going to definitely knock off some points for the really unnecessary harmful othering

of the villain, especially because again, there's such a long history of ascribing a disability or medical condition or mental illness to villains in media as a way to other them and to further villainize them which in turn demonizes and stigmatizes disabilities and conditions and mental illnesses yeah which is obviously very harmful and there's no need and no excuse for that type of characterization yeah i was disappointed to see that in this movie. This movie is way too white. Aside from those things, there is a lot about this movie that I really like because so much of the movie is about celebrating female friendship and normalizing women being alive in their 40s. And that being okay, which most movies do not deem to be okay and yeah that they like rediscover themselves and their friendship is just strong even stronger at the end of the movie

all those things like that uh i'll give it i think i'm okay with giving it four nipples for four out of five that might be way too high but I do love this movie and also I fumble the nipple rating every week so um I'll give one to Barb one to Star I'll give one to Darlie Bunkle and then my final nipple I'll give to uh jamie dornan's song about seagulls in the sand can you hear my prayer uh i'll go i guess i'll go like i four three point seven five ultimately the metrics meaningless but but uh but yeah i i i'll kind of echo what you said that they're making an ableist choice in your villain is just i don't know like really stood out in a movie that you know as we said tries to avoid those kinds of choices also it is like a very white movie and didn't need to be um yeah but but but i do love this movie it's so funny it's so

well written and i love that it's like celebrating, like long term female friendship and, you know, doesn't make them fixated on marriage or fixated on kids or like, it's just about them and like finding themselves and whether through a relationship or whether it's through, you know, like meeting Andy Garcia, whatever that means to you. So yeah, I'll go I guess I'll go for and I'll I guess I'll just I'll just do two to barb two to star. Keep it simple. Nice. What about you, Kate? Well, I think can I do point fives? You can do any increments.

Yeah. Okay, cool. I'm gonna give I'm going to give it 3.5. And if you asked me to rate this on the fun scale, I would say 5 out of 5. But, you know, through an intersectional feminist lens, this is a movie about white people having a very affluent experience, even if they're kind of middle class. And it does, I think, you know, rely on racist and ableist tropes to tell certain aspects of the story. So I don't know, I would say intersectional feminism 3.5. But it is a really fun movie. So

fair, very fair. Oh, yeah. Well, Kate, thank you so much for joining us in this discussion. It's been a delight. Oh, thank you so much for having me. Sorry if you can hear my little cat in the microphone at the door. He is really mad that I locked him out. Well, you'll be able to return to him so soon. But first, tell us where people can check out your stuff, follow you on social media, all that good stuff.

So on Twitter, I am at Kate Willett. And Willett has two L's and two T's. And I am Kate.Willett, same spelling on Instagram. I have a new audio book out called Dirtbag Anthropology that is an exploration of masculinity from my perspective, which is, you know, a feminist comedian. And it's kind of like part memoir, part podcast, part like, you know, research. And it's just like, it was a really, really, really fun project to make. It's available on Audible+. And then I also have a podcast called Reply Guys with Julia Clare.

Front of the show. Yeah, it's a leftist feminist comedy podcast. So we are talking about stuff through an intersectional feminist lens, but it's more like news and politics and stuff. So please check it out please oh yeah and you can follow us on twitter and instagram at bechtel cast we've got our matreon to subscribe to it's five dollars a month it gets you access to two bonus episodes every month, plus the whole back catalog. And it can be found at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. And you can get our merch at tpublic.com slash the Bechtelcast

for all your merchandise-related needs. And with that, let's get another buried treasure. Yum, yum. Was that ecstasy? You think that was ecstasy, MDMA? with that, let's get another buried treasure. Yum yum! Was that ecstasy? You think that was ecstasy? MDMA? Yeah, it's gotta be. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Alright, bye bye! Bye!

Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one woman wiki leaks she exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state listen to crooks everywhere on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast to listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free,

subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

Can Kay trust her sister? Or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes,

and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? It's right here in black and white in print.

It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.