The Bechdel Cast - Blue Crush with Melody Kamali

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Surf's up! Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Melody Kamali are catching waves and talking Blue Crush (2002). Follow Melody on social media at @melodykamaliSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart podcast. I know a lot of cops, they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season One, Taser, Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Taser, Inc. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser, Inc. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week I investigate a new case. If there's a case we should hear about call 678-744-6145.

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jeff Perlman. And I'm Rick Jervis. We're journalists and hosts of the podcast, Finding Sexy Sweat. At an internship in 1993, we roomed with Reggie Payne, aspiring reporter and rapper, who went by Sexy Sweat. A couple years ago, we set out to find him. But in 2020, Reggie fell into a coma after police pinned him down and he never woke up. But then I see my son's not moving.

So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown. Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family.

Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdel cast, the questions asked, if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast, start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hey, Caitlin. Yeah?

What's up? Oh, not much. Hey, Jamie, do you want to catch some perfect waves? Air waves, that is, to release our podcast on. Yes! I would love that. And that's how surfers talk. I think honestly so much of what I know about surfer culture does not come from Blue Crush,

it comes from the cartoon Rocket Power. That was what I was just going for. Is, I know, Kayleigh, I don't think you would have grown. I don't know what that is. And it is my life's mission to catch you up on cartoons you've missed. Rocket Power was a Nicktoon, and I think the late 90s, early 2000s,

that was about a bunch of surf kids on Venice Beach. I think it was Venice Beach. They're definitely in California. And they had this like kind of burnout dad named Ray, who I think probably wouldn't have taken the vaccine like that sort of surfer dad vibe. It was like a very weird, funny, diverse cartoon about surfer kids. And the best part was anytime there were like tourists on the beach, they would call them shoobies. I don't know, that I can't explain,

but they'd be like, ugh, shoobies. And they all talked like that, because it was a cartoon. Anyways, welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante. This is our podcast where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test as a jumping-off point But Jamie, what is that? Well, the Bechdel test is a Metric created by queer cartoonist slash our best friend Alison Alison Bechdel, back in the 80s in her iconic comic,

iconic comic, thanks to watch out for, originally written as a joke, often called the Bechdel Wallace test because it was co-created with her friend, Liz Wallace, but it has since been sort of adapted to be a mainstream media metric. The version of the test that we use requires that two characters with names

of a marginalized gender talk to each other about something other than a man. And it should be a meaningful exchange of dialogue. And it's especially relevant for today's episode because again, the origins of the test, as we mentioned from time to time, is that it was presented in Dykes to Watch Out for as this way for characters in the comic to be like,

wow, anytime I see women on screen in a movie talking to each other about something other than a man, I can pretend like they're in love with each other. And boy does that happen with this movie. Yes. Yes. So that is our show. Today's movie is Blue Crush. Long time request.

Long, long time request. This has been a long time coming. Yes indeed. And we have a wonderful guest joining us today. Let's get her in the mix. She is a writer, comedian, host. You've seen her at the New York Comedy Festival and shows at Stonewall.

It's Melody Kamali. Hey. Hello. Welcome. Aloha, Eve. Hey. What's up? How are you? Thanks for Bluecrashing with us today.

Thanks for having me. I think I talked to Caitlin about this movie years ago, asking if it had been done. And I'm so excited that she reached out knowing that I'm this is the movie that did launch like a thousand trips to Pac-Son, of course, like in the early aughts, but also my queer awakening. But I'm also kind of mad at you guys for having me rewatch this like with a critical eye because it's just. Yeah.

Yeah. We'll get into it. It kind of ruins it. Yeah. It kind of ruins it. Sorry for asking you to think too hard about Blue Crush. That is sometimes, that's a very common experience on this show.

You've been Bechdel casted, sorry. Yeah, I don't want to think, I just want to vibe. The girls, but yeah, this is gonna be fun. There's so much to talk about. The highs are high, the lows are low with this one, I think. Just like waves, just like tides, you know? Whoa! Have any, have either of you ever attempted to surf? I have not. No.

Yes because of this movie. How did it go? No I didn't have the core strength. I was a chubby little teenager 16. I had this DVD. I got it as a gift. My friends all knew I was really into surf culture, not like gay culture. My friends were like, Melody's weirdly obsessed with this movie. I was gifted the DVD freshman or sophomore year

of high school, and then we had a family vacation to Hawaii. I grew up in central Connecticut. So yeah, I made a point to sign up for a lesson. It was humiliating. I got up once, I think, but it was really for the pictures. Like I have a bunch of disposable underwater, waterproof pictures of me, like with my arms, my hands on my hips, just posing in front of like

a display of all these surfboards. I'm wearing a Hurley tank top, I believe, and just, you know, like decked out. Just so phony about it, but it's fun. I can like picture the very specific digital camera grain that is almost certainly on these pictures too. a moment and then hurly like I like Roxy Quicksilver billabong yeah oh no the brands that I was buying and wearing as a teen even though I didn't know what they were for like yeah I didn't know. Yeah, landlocked teenagers,

like walking around in board shorts for no reason at all. Pooka shells, god. This is a long form ad for Billabong and you know, it works, it worked well. It did, it did. There's so much to get into. The thing that, this is silly, objectively, but I did not realize that this movie was based on a

Susan Orlean article and my like inner dork was really, I was like, wow, Susan Orlean really had like a grip on culture at this specific time. Because this is also the same year that adaptation comes out. She's literally a character in that. You wouldn't guess by watching this movie that it was originally based on reporting, I guess I would say. But I just thought that was fascinating. What is, wait, there's like one other thing that she wrote that got adapted.

And then she wrote on John Wilson's show a couple years ago, which is kind of- Oh, really? Yeah, she's cool. If anyone hasn't read Susan Orlean's stuff, my favorite book of hers is, well, they're all good, but her first book is called Saturday Night, and it was written in the 90s.

And it was just about her following a bunch of real people's stories in New York on a Saturday night in like 1996. And it's just this beautiful long form, like every different kind of person you could meet in New York and what they did on this specific night. It's such a vibe. I recommend it. So Melody, your relationship with the movie, you saw it as a teen and it was part of your queer awakening. Any other notable? Well, just, you know, my DVD player broke a long time ago

and I hadn't seen it for a really long time. I do always like quote it when I'm at the beach. I've realized like it is when you, and I go to the queer beach here in New York, Reese beach, the people's beach, they call it. It's like a super queer beach here in New York, Reese Beach, the people's beach they call it. It's like a super queer beach. And I was like splashing around in the water last summer and said to my friend like, we grew here, you flew here.

Like, cause we saw straight people, like a straight couple walking along the shoreline. And we're like, oh my God, this was a lesbian. Of course I said this too. And then I just heard like other lesbians in the water cheer and point at me like, pull a garage. Like it is such a like touchstone in the community. And we went home and we watched it.

But again, we had some nutcrackers at the beach if we know what these are. And I don't know if it's happens outside of New York nutcrackers. It's like people selling like juice with like rail liquor. They just like walk around like the parks and the beaches here in the city. So all that to say like when I did rewatch it

for the first time in like a decade, last summer I was a little drunk. So now I'm rewatching it and. You're sober, you've got a critical lens. Yeah, thinking cap on. Yeah, it is a adaptation. I remember it had a lot of buzz. What was it like summer, 2022 or three,

because it was the 20 year anniversary. Yeah, 2022. So there were a lot of like articles going around and interviews with Kate Bosworth and like Vulture. So around that time I read those interviews and was just so bummed about the movie, it could have been. It is wildly different from the,

it's like an adaptation of an adaptation. The director came on and like completely changed the script. It was originally supposed to be a lot closer to the article. It was supposed to be all about female friendship. I think the Anne-Marie character was supposed to go to the mainland for college. They said it was inspired by Mystic Pizza,

the original script, and about those female friendship dynamics and will the friendships last and all of that. And I'm just like so upset that, not upset, I still love the movie, but it's crazy reading about the original script. But they did also say they are all on board for a sequel. Every time there's an interview with any of those girls. So Kate Bosworth has made a point to be like, I really want it to be more about

the girls and their friendships. So like maybe that'll happen and everyone will be happy. One can hope. Yeah, there's a guy named Matt in the movie for some reason and we're like, Matt, sure. Oh, a waste. A waste. Yeah, a Legally Blonde villain.

Yeah, the boyfriend, the ex-boyfriend from Legally Blonde. Yeah. I mean, it's not, I get it, he's gotta work. But get him out of the movie, he's gotta get out. I know. They're a surf instructor in the actual article that the surfer girls learned from is named Matt. So it's like, thanks.

They named the quarterback, Matt. Thanks. Why is he a quarterback? That, yeah. We'll talk about it. This is an egregious offense. Because also having read, and there's also, I mean, there's so much to talk about

of centering a white character in a movie about Hawaii. Oh my God. Which is, name a more 2002 choice there. But the fact that if you read the original Susan Orlean piece, which does center white girls, unfortunately. But like you're saying, the original piece is so much about friendship and ambition. And it sounds way closer to the original script

and way closer to the movie that we actually wanted in 2002. And now it sucks. A lot of community, too, is about community, the article. And they just feel so isolated. Like everyone's mean to them. It's them versus everyone. And it's supposed to be like the tight knit surf community on the island.

Yeah. But whatever. You know, many such cases. Sure. But you know, Fast and Furious had come out so they needed to use Michelle. And I think that's why it got such a shift in the rewrite. Oh, okay.

So a lot of people, when Fast and Furious came out, they were like, this is just point break, but with cars instead of surfing. So. So? Just a little. And what of it? And what of it? And what of it?

And that's fine actually. But to do like movie release math equations, I guess it would be point break minus Fast and the Furious equals Blue Crush. Does that resonate with anyone? Anyway, Jamie. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. I see the vision.

Thank you, thank you. I'll work on it. I'm riding that wave, I'm riding it. Oh, okay. Jamie, what is your history with this movie? My history with this movie is, of course I saw it at a sleepover. I saw it at a sleepover,

which is how to best consume this movie, is seen at a sleepover, which is how to best consume this movie, a scene at a sleepover in 2004. Yeah, I think a similar, there definitely was, this isn't a seminal awakening movie for me, but it's definitely there. And rewatching it now, I'm surprised it didn't play a bigger part. I don't know, I don't know what it is.

But either way, yes, I was very into this movie. I'd seen it many times, but I hadn't seen it in easily 10, 15 years, I think, before getting ready for this record. And I did remember even as a kid being like, Matt, who cares? You know, like, Matt, we're not interested. Like, you are, I sort of forgot that he was in it,

much less the fact that they like really bend over backwards to be like, and he's a quarterback from out of town because I feel like the internal logic there is very studio note, see if like, well, we don't want Kate Bosworth to end up with someone in her own community, God forbid. It's gotta be a white guy with a lot of money from out of town. And it's like, no, it doesn't. But I digress, we get plenty

of time to talk about it. Um, yeah, no, I, I, this was just like in the sleepover rotation. I was a fan and I had never thought about it critically for a second in my life until now. And boy, oh boy, is there a lot to talk about. I didn't quite go, I think it was maybe because I never quite got like the surfer culture bug. I definitely, you know, I feel like in the early to mid 2000s, two roads diverged in a wood and you either went the goth route or the surfer route and I walked down the hot topic path. And so this was a part of my life, but it wasn't my lived experience. I wasn't a billabong girly.

That's okay. What's your experience with Blue Crash Caitlin? I saw it pretty close to it coming out. I don't think in theaters, I might've also seen it at a sleepover. I was in high school when it came out So I think it's a teen movie that act the rare teen movie about teenagers that teenagers actually watched where yeah Most movies about teenagers are actually intended for nine-year-olds, right? So I I saw it and I have not seen it since until prepping for this episode

But but I did vividly remember and this will be like seared into my brain for all of time the scene where they walk into the disgusting hotel room that has been like trashed and vomited all over and then the condom gets stuck to one of their feet and they have to pull it off and then they go to the beach and be like, sir, here's how you throw away a condom. For some reason, that scene really stuck with me. I will never forget it.

To the point where like, I just, it was just sort of floating around my memory and I don't even know if I remembered that it was in this movie. I just like had that scene in my brain. So when I was watching this to prep, I was like, oh, this movie is where that scene is from. You took the one badass feminist point of the movie

with you and that's all that matters. Yeah, yes. So that I remembered vividly, but the rest of the movie, I didn't remember anything about except for it's about surfing. So watching it again was interesting, lots to talk about. We will get into it shortly. But in the meantime, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned

one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. I have never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother, she was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Erin Welsh, an ecologist and epidemiologist. And I'm Erin Almond-Updike, also an epidemiologist. On our show, this podcast will kill you. We cover everything from the biology of deadly diseases to the weird history behind them, all with a healthy dose of humor.

Like the time we made a surprising discovery about scabies. When you look at pictures of especially these particular mites, they look more like tardigrades, like water bears than they do ticks. They absolutely do. Yeah. They're kind of cute. Or when we used a classic movie reference to explain allergy tests. An allergist will inject teeny tiny amounts of the thing that they're allergic to underneath

their skin. It's just like Iacane powder in The Princess Bride, but it works. And our COVID-19 series was even added to the CDC Museum archives. So need I say more? New episodes drop every Tuesday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to This Podcast Will Kill You on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you

Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st, and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. [♪ music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music It really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you.

The story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president? Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal. The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it.

So is there a curse? Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so here's the recap. We are in Hawaii. We meet a young woman, Anne-Marie Chadwick, played by Kate Bosworth, who aspires to be the best surfer in the world. There is a surfing tournament called the Pipe Masters in seven days, which Anne-Marie hopes

to win. She has a dream about an accident she had while surfing a few years prior. So that's sort of like weighing on her. And already we're off to such a strong start. We've got a girl with a dream, but give it 20 minutes. That'll be great. But I can't believe we didn't mention the accident of it all yet, her injury, because it feels like this is sort of a movie about

PTSD and how simply being with a man could help you overcome it I think. Right. What's the cure to PTSD? Matt. A quarterback named Matt from Minnesota. Oh my god. Yeah and the fact I mean no offense to our Minnesotan listeners, but like, why Minnesota? Why can't this move? I mean, I just, you, it just feels so studio note to you that they're like, we, I don't know, just like the lack of faith that a movie that centers Hawaiian culture actually has the reach that it very obviously does. Not for nothing. This is the same year that Lilo and Stitch came out like I don't know. Yeah absolutely. So Anne-Marie wakes up and gathers her surf crew which is her friends Lena played by Suno Lake and Eden played by Michelle Rodriguez

and Anne-Marie's little sister Penny, played by Mika Borem. And they all head to the beach to catch the perfect waves that are happening today, perfect pipe as they call it. Also, there is a group of guys who are like kind of frenemies with the women. One of them is Anne-Mar Marie's ex-boyfriend Drew played by Chris Toloa and those guys are like girls can't surf and that is a consistent through line throughout the movie which we will talk about. But anyway, Anne-Marie, Penny, and Lena are like,

yeah, we can surf. And then they start surfing. But it's at a spot where the waves aren't super intense. So Drew comes over and he's like, you're not gonna win the Pipe Masters surfing these little baby waves. Come over to the real pipe. So they head to another area with these more intense waves where all the other

surfers are men and Anne-Marie tries to catch a wave but she has a you know memory slash flashback of hitting her head on a rock that injury that we were just talking about. And it freaks her out and she bails on the wave. And we'll find out eventually that this injury, this accident happened during a competition a few years prior where she was like making waves, surf pun, in the competition, but this accident put her out of the competition. She nearly drowned.

She has PTSD about it. And because she's hesitating, the men are giving her a hard time, again, being like, girls can't surf. A very common theme of movies of this time of girls can't blank. But also people still say that. People do still say that. People still do that. Oh my God, with this Renaissance and women's sports right now, like it is every comment section, yeah.

I really want movies to rise to the reality of women's sports right now, because I feel like the last round of it, I mean, I guess it would have been kind of around this time where we grew up with so many movies. I feel like, especially if you're a decom person, there were a lot of movies about women's sports. And this was like the age of like Lisa Leslie

and Mia Hamm and like all of these turn of the century women's sports stars. And now we have them again. So where are the movies? Right. Yeah. And then also the big conversation, I feel like around women's sports right now is trans women in sports.

And everyone who's pissing their pants and bursting into tears about trans women participating in sports. Where's the movie? That would be an interesting movie. Yes. OK. So again, the men are giving Annemarie a hard time and another big wave comes and she stands up on her board for a second, but then she falls off into the water and her

friends, especially Eden, who parentheses might have a little crush on Anne-Marie. Yeah. She's like, come on, you had that one. You just have to commit. Yeah, there's, I feel like so much of Michelle Rodriguez's character is just being like harder. Like she is just like. Friend or coach, trainer. Slash covert love interest.

Okay, so later that morning, Annemarie and her friends drive AnnemMarie's teensister Penny to school. It's clear that Anne-Marie is her caregiver, their parents aren't around. We'll find out that their mother moved to Vegas to be with a man and left them as teenagers behind. We get one line. Yeah, it's, yeah.

They're just throwing shit out there, really, with character details. This is why they're orphans, anyways. So... But also, it is interesting. This movie is obviously dissimilar from Lilo and Stitch in most ways, in that there's no little blue alien. However, the sister dynamic is not dissimilar

where it's the older sisters raising the younger sister and the younger sister is like lashing out in all of these ways. True and in both movies, the sisters are living in poverty, they're scraping by, by contrast, they see another surfer woman who has come to town for this upcoming competition Who makes a bunch of money from her various brand sponsorships

endorsements magazine appearances etc a life that Anne-Marie dreams of but instead she and Eden and Lena head to work as Cleaning staff at a resort where Anne-Marie makes eyes with one of the hotel guests. This is Matt. He's an NFL player there with some of his teammates and they're all VIP guests. That night, Anne-Marie comes home to discover her sister isn't there, that Penny drank all of their beer and smoked marijuana and went to a party. So Anne-Marie goes to

collect Penny, but they get in an argument and Anne-Marie storms out. The next day at work the women have to clean a particularly gross hotel room. This is the one that I vividly remember with vomit and used condoms on the floor. Anne Marie goes down to the beach. She finds the football player guy who's staying in that room. His name's Leslie, and she teaches him how to throw away a condom, which gets Anne Marie fired.

Can I just say though, you said they're VIP guests, right? Yes. And there's a scene where they're having their morning meeting, all of the maids at the hotel and their boss is like, remember they're VIP, they're like number one. Why are they in room 214? Because in that scene she goes down to find Leslie and is going room 214 or 215 something. The second level, I don't know. But maybe.

I hadn't even thought about that. Maybe in like the penthouse. I guess. Yeah. Yeah, didn't think about that either. I don't know where the luxury hotel rooms are. I've never stayed in one. No, that actually makes sense,

because Caitlin and I stay in those places all the time. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot. They should be on the 30th floor where we stay. Okay, thank you. Good point, good point. So inconsequential, please, sorry, we can continue. Okay, so Anne-Marie gets fired. Later, they head to the beach for more training and surfing.

Drew and his friends are there and then something happens where a guy, I think it's Drew, it's kind of like a wide shot so it's hard to see, but he interferes with Anne-Marie's surfing and she falls and her board breaks and then that guy Matt pops up to be like hi I was just vaguely stalking you anyway can you teach me how to surf and she's like um pass but then her friends are like well maybe he'll pay you and you need the money so they chase him down and he's like yeah I'll pay you $150 a day and they're like awooga! and then three of his teammates want to learn how to surf too so Anne Marie, Eden, Lena, and Penny each take on a student. We get a little montage, everyone's having fun,

they're goofing around, they're surfing, and Anne-Marie and Matt stay out later than everyone else, and they're vibing. Then he invites her to his hotel room, pays her a thousand dollars because he wants a lesson every day for the next week. The days leading up to the competition, mind you. Yes. So perhaps Anne-Marie doesn't, to quote, is this high school musical? She doesn't have her head in the game. She needs to get her head in the game. Yeah, if only Zac Efron were there.

So then they smooch on the lips also until he gets a phone call, which he answers, and he's like, Hey, sweetheart, miss you. So Anne Marie thinks that he's married or has a girlfriend. And he's like, no, no, no, no, no. It's my niece, which honestly seems fake, but we're supposed to believe it. And they carry on because he takes a picture out of his wallet.

And don't worry, this never becomes relevant. No. I think it literally is just like, oh, he's a great guy. He has a niece. Took a call from her even. Clearing a very low bar, our friend, Matt. Also, another thing that doesn't make sense

is that he makes the excuse of like, oh no, no, yeah, they're calling me right now because of the time difference. They say that it's 2 a.m. in Hawaii, which would mean, assuming they're on the mainland, maybe in Minnesota, it would be like 6 a.m. or some other like ungodly hour, weird time to be calling your uncle. So it's like, no, no, no, that doesn't make sense. You don't understand their relationship. So it's like, no, no, no, that doesn't make sense. You don't understand their relationship. No, he's like a really good uncle. Yeah, as an adolescent, I was always calling my uncle

in the middle of the night. What are you talking about? Okay, so the next day, Anne-Marie takes Matt to a more private beach away from all the tourists. But then Drew and his minions show up and they're like, this beach is for locals only. What's this outsider doing here? And a fight breaks out. Matt and Drew throw some punches and Marie breaks it up and they leave and they go back to Matt's hotel, which means that she blows off Eden because they were supposed to hang out and train and go

jet skiing together or something. And so Eden thinks that Anne-Marie is screwing up. She's distracted by this guy, Matt, who she keeps smooching and she's staying in his hotel room where she used to work and clean up puke off the floor. But now she's getting a taste of what it's like to be on the other side of this. She's ordering room service and whatnot. Yeah. Is this when she's making like a mayonnaise sandwich in the kitchen, this scene. Oh. Yeah. I just can't. The way they eat, obviously they don't have much money.

They're scrounging coins to get like Twinkies and said mayonnaise. But it's like, if Eden is so on her about her training, let's get a vegetable in the mix. Right? I did appreciate that. I mean, there, we's get a vegetable in the mix. I did appreciate that. I mean, there, we've talked about this in the show a million times.

And again, like the rigid body standards don't like, I think even when we do see women eating, it's still like, they still are held to this very high rigid early 2000s body standard, which this movie is no exception to. But I did appreciate, I even as a kid, because I love gross food. I love it. I used to make, when I would go to my friend Lois's house, we'd make frosting sandwiches. And I just felt, I just felt very seen by this where you're like, yeah, that's absolutely gross,

but she's still hot. And that's something to aspire to. that's absolutely gross but she's still hot and that's something to aspire to. Yes she does eventually put bologna on these mayonnaise sandwiches but she's slathering mayo on the bread for a long time. Good honor. Also we see them buy some food and make some food but we never see them eat food I don't think. interesting. I guess I didn't notice that. You need fuel. Still, I mean, I've never seen a mayonnaise sandwich of that caliber assembled in media. Yeah, true. Visibility, you know, representation matters. Okay, so Eden is getting on Anne-Marie's case about this guy

distracting her, but Anne-Marie insists the contest comes first. And the next day Anne-Marie trains with Eden and it's going well at first, but then a gnarly wave knocks them around and they get into an argument where Anne-Marie is like, quit trying to live vicariously through me, get your own dreams. And Eden is like, oh yeah, well, you're scared and you're just trying to run away like your mom. And then they part ways. Anne-Marie goes to Matt again. Not her friends because that would make too much sense.

Yeah. Not someone who actually knows her family dynamics. Just some guy. Just a guy who she met three days ago Um, he also has bought her a nice dress and there's like this big fancy dinner that his teammates and their girlfriends are all going to So she accompanies them and in the bathroom and marie overhears The women saying all these mean classes thingsist things about her, talking about other women who Matt has done this with, of like finding a local working class woman, treating her and buying stuff for her, including a server at Denny's, our favorite restaurant,

an American institution. So Anne-Marie is like, Matt, what the fuck? And he's like, no, no, no, you're not like those girls. And Anne Marie once again believes him for some reason, and they have a heart to heart. And she talks about what she wants in life, asks him what she should do. And he's like, go for it. This is in the water by the way. She gets so upset she walks into the night ocean. Okay the the water the like ocean cinematography in this movie is clutch. Yeah. It's pretty good. The CGI with the surfing even. Sometimes I'm like her body's there and her face is there. But it's good.

I don't think I would have noticed it in 2002. I notice it now. No. Yeah, of course. But also, yeah, they're in the water because Anne-Marie goes in the water in her expensive dress. Matt chases after her. He's also fully clothed. And it's like, who do you think you are? Leonardo DiCaprio in all of his movies? Uh oh. Anyway, so she's like, what should I do? He's like, the girl who I met

would never ask a guy what to do. And we're like, woo 2002 feminism. Yeah, even he is like, why am I supposed? Why me? Don't fucking know, I met you three days ago. Where's your lesbian friend? Get it together. Then we cut to the Pipe Masters contest the next day.

We learn in a throwaway line that is barely audible That this is the first time women have been allowed to compete in this contest I feel like that was also 80 yard in later like yeah Because it's so I was like I think they maybe forgot to mention What the movie was supposed to originally be about and they're like shout out to that But ultimately this movie is about the power of Matt's penis to change lives. Unfortunately, yes. So Anne-Marie is competing among the best surfers who are women in the world. So the competition is stiff. She goes and tries to catch her first wave and flubs it up, but then one

of her competitors, Kate Scarrett, who is a real surfer, real athlete, playing herself, she also wipes out and gets injured. And this is like Anne-Marie's chance. She keeps hesitating, but she manages to do a good surf. I don't know how to talk about surfing. No that's good. Perfect. You could be a commentator. Thank you so much. She does a good surf. Although she gets caught on a coral reef and nearly drowns again. But she's okay and she advances to the next round, though she seems unsure if she should continue with the competition because of this mishap. Is this when he gives her the pep talk?

Exactly. And inspires her with his own injury story? Yeah. Like, see my pinky, it's broken, but because of that, I got this sick little spin when I throw the ball. Banging my head against the table. You're like, who cares, Matt?

Why are you here? Stop trying to connect with her. Leave. Leave. How long is this fucking vacation? Ages. So she decides to move forward, and then it's time for the next round. Anne-Marie is up against a new competitor,

Keala Kennelly, who is also a real surfer, playing herself, who is crushing it, and Anne-Marie keeps hesitating again. She goes for it, eventually wipes out, but then she goes again and catches an awesome wave and gets a great score. She does not advance to the next round, but she has redeemed herself and the crowd loves her. People from Billabong and other brands approach her to be like, join our team.

And then the movie ends with Anne-Marie and Matt sharing a heterosexual kiss on the lips. Plus Anne-Marie is featured on the cover of the magazine, Surfing. So she got her wish. One of the things she wanted. Which should be the big win, but no, ultimately she has a rich boyfriend now. Yeah.

So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss. ["Surfing with Matt"] quick break and we'll come back to discuss. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.

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They're kind of cute. Or when we used a classic movie reference to explain allergy tests. An allergist will inject teeny tiny amounts of the thing that they're allergic to underneath their skin. It's just like eye cane powder in the Princess Bride, but it works. And our COVID-19 series was even added to the CDC Museum archives. So need I say more? New episodes drop every Tuesday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to This Podcast Will Kill You on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your

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And left a woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you. The story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president? Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.

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Where would we like to start? So much to pull from. There is. I kind of want to start with something that was alluded to earlier, but just the idea that this is a story set in Hawaii that centers a white woman and her white tourist boyfriend, where, you know, many scenes take place at a resort. We see little to nothing as far as native Hawaiian communities or neighborhoods or anything like that. The characters who are native Hawaiian or implied to be native Hawaiian,

such as Drew and his friends, are presented as antagonistic characters. They're always giving Anne-Marie a hard time. Which is something that we see quite a bit in stories like this. I forget what episode we recently encountered a similar, I think it was actually Perfect Blue, where any character that wasn't being presented as the quote unquote beauty ideal or even just had a darker skin tone was made out to be a side character and a bully. A villain.

Which yeah and the fact that I mean again taking Matt out of this story improves it tenfold. I don't know. I don't know how realistic it is in a teen movie that came out in 2002 for there to not be a forced romantic hetero interest. I want to believe better but I even like in Lilo and Stitch to talk about the other big movie set in Hawaii that came out that was mostly made by white people that came out the same year. Nani has a love interest but he's a person in her community and they take time to have the romantic interest make sense in a way that doesn't you know overshadow what the story is actually about which is very rooted in native culture however flawed but this movie just has an aggressive disinterest in native Hawaiian culture

and the way that it's shown is very, I mean, obviously the movie's interested in surfing, but it's more interested in the corporate side of surfing, which I think inherently when you're talking about the capitalist side of it, it's like tied to, well, of course we're gonna gravitate to white characters. And I don't know, I was rereading

the Susan Orlean piece this morning. I didn't quite get through it. I read it two weeks ago as well. But there is a lot of, you know, in the moment that this is set in, there were a lot of racial tensions in small surfing communities that are not, I mean, that I feel like if they are attempted to be acknowledged in this, they make out Native communities to be resentful bullies who are pushing around, we're told by the music, we're told by the amount of screen time

whose quote unquote side we're supposed to be on. And it's Matt. And with Anne-Marie, we have like, first of all, she does not need to be the main character. If anything, it would be interesting to have her there as a way to illustrate actual racial dynamics in this community at the time. But like this movie is not capable of doing that.

But it was just interesting reading about, you know, what was actually happening in these communities at the time, because there are dynamics that are just very much surface acknowledged or just left on the table completely. Right, like the one native woman in the movie, the cashier at the store at the gas station when they're trying to buy their Twinkies,

I think is the only person in the movie who is nice to them. It's just so fleeting. And even in that one exchange, she like puts herself down and references her weight. Yeah, right. Right. Yes. And like compares herself to Kate Bonsword's character. And you're like, no, come on. So I did want to say, wait, uh, that Senna Lake, uh, I hope I'm saying her name correctly. Who plays Lena? She is born and raised in Hawaii. She's of Hawaiian, Japanese, and English descent, but she is very connected to Native Hawaiian culture and is Hawaiian herself.

And I think it's frustrating that she's there, but she's like of the three girls, the character we get to know the least well. And like again, there's a huge opportunity to, you know, and I know, I'm sure that part of it had to do with the fact that this was her first movie and like, she was not a very experienced actor, but it's like then find an experienced Hawaiian actor and center the story around them. And I'm not even adverse to having Anne Marie be one of the girls in the background, right? But, but yeah, of the three girls, we do have a native Hawaiian character played by a native Hawaiian actor, but we don't get to know her at all. At all. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then the,

the native characters, the, that group of men, Drew and his minions are, there's that scene where Anne Marie takes Matt to the private beach and Drew and his friends show up to be like, you know, only locals are allowed here. They call Matt Howley, which is a Native Hawaiian term, meaning a person, especially a white person who is not a Native Hawaiian. I'm not quite sure how derogatory it is in different contexts, but they're using it derogatorily in this scene. But native characters being protective of their land

is presented in the movie as them being assholes and being like aggressively territorial. There's no acknowledgement of colonialism or land theft or anything like that. No, which they're only about 40 years removed from at the time that this is happening. I don't, it's, and again, not to keep bringing up Lilo and Stitch,

I guess that the remake just came out, so it's on my mind anyways. But, you know, and that movie does the bare minimum, it's a fucking Disney movie, but it still does more than Blue Crush to acknowledge the history of oppression and the tour, like this movie is very weirdly pro-tourism. Well, not weirdly because they are,

the tourism board was very involved in the making of this movie, which we can talk about. So it is very intentional that tourists are not being criticized in this context, but I don't like it. I don't, and it's weird, because again, you're given this, the three girls work at a hotel, and that's the closest you get to it being critical

of tourist culture, But you know, it's whatever it's a it's a movie. So tourist culture can be resolved by the main white girl telling off the rich guys one time and it's like, boom, solved. Great. And then she herself sort of gets to benefit for in the way that the tourists do, which I feel like there is like a pretty woman appeal to that switch. I remember liking that as a kid of like, ooh, look who gets to hang out in the fancy hotel now.

Like that's satisfying, I get it. But it's just like, I think because of the way it was made, and we can talk about that too, like it's just fundamentally unwilling to deal with necessary uncomfortable parts of Hawaiian history. Because I think that part of the purpose of this movie is to convince people to go on vacation. Yeah, yeah, right. And get surf lessons from white surfers. Yeah, there's a scene where Anne-Marie and Matt are relaxing in the hot tub in his hotel room. And Matt says something like, Oh, I can see why the tourists never leave their hotels. And then Anne-Marie starts to be critical of that. She's like, Oh, don't

say that. That's not real Hawaii. But then she's pivots and is talking about the native community and says, they're so protective of their land, their waves. And she's saying it like, it's so annoying that the people who are indigenous to this land are protective of their land from colonizers like me. And it's like, do you hear yourself? Yeah. They're a bunch of droos, honestly.

I hate that scene. So this movie was indeed made with the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau. That was the group that, and again, it's like, it's a very, very, I would be curious what our Hawaiian listeners think about this because that is the main source of income in the state of Hawaii because of all of these issues with colonialism. And so it's a very, very complicated topic. We also talked about it during our Lilo and Stitch episode. But that, yeah, it seems like a lot of the reasons that these issues don't come up are because it was made

to basically convince people to vacation. It was made, so the idea was to cross promote the film and the state of Hawaii, and it was brokered, and buckle in here, by a woman named April Messini, who had also previously brokered similar deals with the Hawaii visitors and convention bureau on productions like Baywatch Hawaii and Pacific Blue and also the Miss Universe pageant and you're like Miss Universe and is she a terrifying Trump Republican? Well yes she is Republican? Well, yes, she is. And she has since sort of pivoted to be a full time Trump booster. So that's who brokered

the deal with the state of Hawaii here. So knowing that it was like, okay, of course, this is a very uncritical look at, you know, like, basically, colonialism never happened in the version of Hawaii that is presented here. And I think like, yeah, part of the purpose of having the boys or the native boys be cruel to the random football guys is to make it seem as if native Hawaiians are resentful of them or like territorial in a way that it's like, well, fucking yeah, of course. But this movie takes the side of the football players

because they want the football players to come on vacation. Yes. And this is why we can't think too hard about the movie Blue Crush, it just unravels. Got Bechtel casted so hard just now. Sorry, sorry. And the fact that somehow the NFL ends up getting some free publicity in this too.

Yeah. Yeah. Iconic unproblematic institution, the National Football League, because they're name checking stuff. They're saying he's an NF. He's not just a football player. He's an NFL quarterback. And he's in Hawaii for the Pro Bowl, which is so again, it's like this April Messini diabolical evil person is getting, you know, every bad gigantic business in the US is getting a bite at the Blue Crush Apple. Also, this is separate, but in the Susan Arlene article, there is a guy named Matt who features prominently.

But he is not shockingly not an NFL quarterback. He is instead a coach slash I think father figure to the girls that the piece centers around. I guess that he's like he's in his late 20s. He's got his own family and the piece deals a lot more with the fact that many of the girls that's following are poor, right? Or have a single parent household and that this coach has been a part of sort of plugging the holes in like what they need. They stay with him sometimes, he gives them food, he helps their parents out, and it's like a very community based idea around this guy. And, but instead they're like, what if we just did not have anyone like that?

Because weirdly all of those traits end up sort of being attributed to Eden's character of the like pseudo coach. But I was like, I would much rather have that version of Matt where it's like he was a guy who had resources and was connecting the girls with sponsorship so they could afford to continue surfing but They're kind of left in in the lurch in the blue crusher verse Yeah, and the movie does examine class But in a very weird way where on one hand And I'm not saying that there are not

poor white people in Hawaii, but poverty disproportionately affects the native community in Hawaii because of all the usual suspects, colonialism, land theft, displacement, white supremacy, capitalism, labor exploitation. The movie doesn't acknowledge that. And again, I don't think that it's a bad thing necessarily

to show poverty at all, but it's not presented as a community problem. It's presented as a Kate Bosworth problem, which doesn't make sense. And the reason behind it is colonialism. So if you're trying to sell hotel packages, you can't include that. So we're gonna keep it, look, colonial gays.

Right, and they're like, it's the fault of their deadbeat mom that this is all happening, not the fault of American colonialism. And you're like, mm. And again, that's, I think, or I would, would I guess hazard a guess that that's part of why we don't really know more about Lena's character. And we don't I mean, we don't know that much about Michelle Rodriguez's character, either. Like, we don't know anything about the home life of really anybody except Kate Bosworth. And then the salute, the quote unquote solution is a rich boyfriend

from the National Football League for the Pro Bowl. And it's not that you should unionize the workers at your hotel and say, fuck you. It's that you should be staying at the hotel. You should be at the hotel. It's just, yeah, it's very like, I don't know. I did appreciate the sister dynamic. I thought that a lot of beats between the two of them worked

and I wish that that level of care and nuance was applied to literally any non-white character in the movie and that's just not what happens. And you had to really pay attention to catch that arc because they're at odds with each other at the beginning, that's clear. Side note, taking her from that party she snuck off to and she was like, hi, she looks like 12 years old

and is in the arms of much older men and that just was disturbing to watch as an adult. But when they finally come together, it's just like one little moment when they're teaching the football players how to surf. And you could see Penny's getting really into her linebackers development, and he finally catches a wave,

and she's so excited about it. And Anne-Marie's watching her the entire time, get more and more excited and just gives her this like big hug and you could see she's just so proud of her. But like that, I don't know, that's it. Cut to her hugging her at the end when they're all celebrating her not winning but being celebrated by the man. And getting the sponsorship.

And I mean, like you said, Melody, Penny is constantly surrounded by, and she's 14, she's surrounded by men who are presumably in their early 20s. No one is saying anything about this predatory behavior of the men. I do think that there is a one-off line that this does not resolve the issue at all. It maybe even makes the whole thing kind of sadder where it is acknowledged like she's

being, you know, sort of pursued and harassed and eventually assaulted by these older men. But then I think it's Eden who is just like, well, what do you care, Anne-Marie? We did the same thing at the same age. It's almost presented as this cyclical thing of like, well, this is just how men treat us, which is not the way to address that issue at all. If anything, that should make you angrier.

But I think that the way that they talk that away, and even the fact that when the little sister is going to these parties, it's made out as like, she's making these choices, like this is her fault. And the way Eden presents it's like, well, you did the same thing at the same time, as if to say, not in a way that's like, and that shouldn't be happening.

It's more of, I think that in their group, this is quote unquote, to be expected in terms of how you're conditioned to accept treatment from men. And unfortunately, I mean, I don't think that this movie is intending to make commentary on really anything, maybe. But that's definitely something that I remember from being younger and having like older cousins that are like, oh, well, this is just what happens.

Like this, you know, and then it's not till you're older or you have someone in your life who can, you know, pull that into focus of like, this is not acceptable for this to be happening to you. And like that you're able to, this is not acceptable for this to be happening to you and like, that you're able to, I don't know, I just found, I found that seemed to be very sad for for literally everyone because it's like they don't intervene because they were taught that it's okay to happen to them too.

Yeah, they're just watching her in the water. Look at her. Just look at her. Like, right. And they're like shaming her the way that they would shame themselves and each other. Like it's just a very vicious cycle. Yeah, we need the fervor from the condom scene applied to so many more systemic issues than this movie. Right, the selective go-girl feminism moments. Yeah. But it's like, but if your 12 year old or 14 year old sister is being hit on by grown men, but if your 12 year old or 14 year old sister is being hit on by grown men, she's a slut. You're like. Anne-Marie literally says something like,

oh, she's just doing this for the attention and to piss me off, you know, putting the blame on Penny rather than the adult men who are hanging out with a 14 year old girl. And it's a very like 2002 attitude, but it's atrocious. I just wish that there were a character in this movie that was even able to course correct Anne-Marie on that, because it's not unbelievable to me

that another teenager would have a warped view of these dynamics, but it's like, we need a grown-up in the room. And also just going back to the Susan Orlean piece again, they wrote out the, like the girl who Anne Marie is ostensibly based on is a teenage surfer named Theresa McGregor, who does have a mom. She simply does.

She's from a single parent household. Her dad's not in the picture, but she does have a mom and she has this coach named Matt. And again, I just feel like it's very Disney princess vibes to write out the mom for reasons that exist in a vacuum that aren't the reasons that we get in the nuanced masterpiece, Lilo and Stitch. I have to rewatch this.

Seen it since it came out. I'm kind of joking, but it is doing more than this movie is. Oh, absolutely, I'm sure. Yeah, yes. Also, Penny is a white girl with cornrows. Yep. And speaking of appropriation, I wanted to talk a little bit about the sport of surfing.

So you know, on top of everything we've talked about, as far as this movie centering a white woman and her white love interest in Hawaii, and the villainization of Native Hawaiian characters. On top of all that, this is a movie about a white woman doing a sport that Native Hawaiians originated. I don't know a lot about surfing, but I did a little research on the history of the sport. And you know, there's evidence of it existing as long ago as three to 5,000 years. It popped up in different regions of the world, such as Peru, various regions in West Africa, various areas of Polynesia, including pre-colonized Hawaii, where surfing

or he'enalu, which translates in English to wave sliding, it was part of religious and spiritual traditions. The crafting of surfboards was an important cultural practice. Then colonizers and Christian missionaries invaded the islands, banned surfing. I didn't realize for a long time until surfing was so popular that they couldn't continue to ban it. And then so instead they commercialized it. Exactly. Like it was banned in an attempt to erase indigenous culture and assimilate Native Hawaiian people into Western culture, which is what always happens during colonialism. But then when the colonizers realized they could capitalize off of surfing, they brought it back and turned

it into a whole industry. So just wanted to touch on that. I mean, it's very much another example of like what we see here is almost completely divorced from native Hawaiian culture. What we're seeing is like the commercialization of this sport and, you know, selling people on its authenticity by manufacturing a poor white girl to like, it's just, it's a fucking mess. And again, it's like the purpose of this movie is to sell stuff. It's to sell surfing garments that I didn't, I meant to look into, you know, where the big surfing brands originated to see if any are potentially native owned. I didn't have time. Oh, interesting. But you know, basically, it's trying to sell you on an idea of embracing another culture while completely not doing that, which is what we see all the time. I mean, we were-

And it worked. And it worked. And it was, it's just like another way in which American colonizers sell the idea of honoring native cultures that they've completely decimated and taken and then sold back to tourists. Yeah.

The white protagonist is never going to be the vessel to even mention once like any of the deep cultural or spiritual meanings with surfing. But no, it's just like the waves are strictly like gnarly or sick and like never sacred. We're never going to get that from Anne-Marie, you know. No. Yeah. What the movie does instead in regards to surfing is the through line of surfing being a boys club like it is in most sports where again, it's always,

you know, Drew and his friends being like, girls can't surf and they're undermining her skills. They're making various sexist remarks, which yes, this type of sexism is very pervasive in sports and of course the world in general. Anne-Marie tries to push back against that. She... But it just still feels pretty hollow.

It does, yeah. Where it's like, that's as radical as the movies willing to get. For sure. Yeah. Feels very white feminism. Yeah. And not even a lick of an exploration to queerness, obviously I'm expecting too much,

but there is an inherent sapphic energy. Let's talk about it now energy within that culture. I mean, now let's get into the good stuff. I think the actual professional surfer we see at the gas station that they point out, and like, oh, she's on the cover, she's sponsored, here she gets to surf in-do, like she reads very gay, that surfer.

And there's just this moment where she notices them and their boards on the top of the car and goes, ooh, surfer girls, local girls. And just the way she says it may be the only time we get a peek into any queerness in the culture of surfing. Obviously, it's all whatever we took from it and ran with. The undertones, I guess, may have been there. But obviously, it left us wanting a lot more. Yeah, there's nothing explicit or overt, but as you can speak to Melody,

there is a lot of shipping that has been done between Anne-Marie and Eden. There's gotta be fan fiction out there. Oh, I'd imagine so. But yeah, it's a lot of like Eden not liking that Anne Marie has started dating a man named Matt. And yeah, there are just different scenes where Eden will be like, oh, what?

Some guy thinks you look hot in a bikini and you forget all about the contest. And she's like, I'm not mad. I just happen to know you kick ass out there. It's just you and one other girl out there. It works. But it also inadvertently reinforces the angry lesbian stereotype,

regardless of whether or not this was an intentionally gay character. She's just so angry. She is, and there's no context, and so it just is. There's so many lost opportunities here. It's such a bummer watching it through, although, speaking to your point earlier, Caitlin, this is literally why the Bechdel test originally existed

is to address dynamics like this, where you're like, it's right there, but is it? And that's what the movie is fucking with you. But just the idea that there is this group of young women who are probably still, they're teenagers, they're probably still figuring out who they are. And like a lot of whatever 16 to 18 year olds are not fully out or even no or anything like that.

And you have them all together. I don't know, again, just like going back to the piece, there's all of these descriptions of like the girls having these like sleepovers out of necessity so they can wake up early together and having these bonding exercises, literally braiding each other's hair and talking about strength training

and eating a shitload. That was something that's brought up constantly is that surfers burn calories like no one's business and have to refuel constantly, which is something that, like Katelyn you're saying, we see but we don't. And even though we see the girls together, they don't like really share a lot of like intimacy

that you would think that they would. Like it's just, I don't know, kill Matt, hit Matt with a meteor. Yeah, I know the original article is about mostly teens. I feel like the movie aged them up to like 20-ish year olds, early 20s. I think they all live together, they share the cost of rent and bills and all that. Right, but like they're in the prime of their lives. Yeah. It's like now or never. Right. And it's not even to succeed, it's like,

so you can escape this, but we don't address what this is. Because it's one thing if it's poverty, but they're not explicit about it, so it seems also anti-Hawaiian culture. Like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and the camaraderie that you think would be shared among them, you see a little

bit of in the movie, but yeah, like you said, Jamie, there's, there's not as much and Eden's crush on Anne Marie is just too, too covert. Uh, cause like you, you watch the scene where they're on the back of a jet ski and Anne Marie is behind Eden clutching Eden's waist and we are we are the nation is playing and you're just like again like watching that from a like Bechtel test point of view you're just like yeah they're in love but the movie doesn't let them be. But they don't let us. Yeah, I mean, and so that's a good time to look at, well, who made this?

Okay. And while I have revealed myself to be a Susan Arlene Stan, she's a white woman from Ohio. So that is the original reporting, which, and I would say it's more of a gonzo, like she's not doing a deep dive into Hawaiian culture. She's writing about this series of a couple of weeks she spent with these specific surfers. So it's not a piece that's invested in the history or appropriation of Hawaiian culture

at all, which makes it a convenient piece to adapt here. So I think that like why this is happening is it's adapted from a piece of light reporting from a white woman from Ohio who I love but there it is. The screenplay is by a white woman from Los Angeles Lizzie Weiss who I've read a couple of interviews with. She had no connection to Hawaiian culture and in fact her family used to go on vacation there, when she was a child. So she is coming from the perspective of, this is a vacation destination,

and is directed by a white guy from Texas named John Stockwell. And so, you know, where is the Native Hawaiian representation at any point in this production? I think the only place that there might be Native perspective is the representatives for the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, but listen to the name of that.

What is the goal? It doesn't, from what I was able to gather, there wasn't really any indigenous or just Hawaiian in general contribution to this that was critical of tourism or colonialism. And there was also this, I wasn't able to fully wrap my head around this, but this movie does have a connection to a law

that happened, probably here from scholarly journal Wikipedia, but I did read the few articles that came out about it at the time. Blue Crush is the first film to use Hawaii's Act 221, a progressive local tax incentive that called for a 100% state tax credit for high-tech investments meeting the requirements for qualified high-tech business, while also allowing local investors to receive tax credits for high-tech investments, meeting the requirements for qualified high-tech business,

while also allowing local investors to receive tax credits for investments in film or television products. Universal Studios used the legislation for the Blue Crush production, receiving approximately $16 million in a deal with local investors who, in exchange, receive the film's high-tech tax credits.

So, this is not my area of expertise. What I can gather and what I gathered by reading into this law a little bit, and this happens all over the place, but I think it particularly in a recently colonized land like Hawaii, it's relevant is that filming this movie on location, there was a law that made it more affordable

and put money back into the Hawaiian economy. What my guess is, is this is part of the reason why this movie was able to be as commercial as it was and as uncritical as colonialism as it was, right? Because you have this law that's like, okay, we're going to put money back into the local economy as long as we can make the movie the way that we want to make it and have it ultimately be about a white girl and selling board shorts at the mall in Ohio. And so I don't know, if any listeners have a better understanding of the law than I do and it's not hard

Let me know if I if I'm on on the mark there But I just think it was interesting that this movie was sort of the one that set that precedent Yeah, and engaging with the local Hawaiian economy while not engaging with their culture or people outside of a few casting, like casting native actors, mostly as bullies. Yeah, it seems like that was the extent. Definitely. Yeah, if only Lilo and Stitch unpacked that law.

Yeah, not only, I did read an interview with Lizzie. Not only is she not a surfer, but she talks about how afraid of the ocean she is. Maybe this isn't yours. She said I'm more of a river and lake person. I'm actually terrified of the ocean. I honestly I am also terrified of the ocean. But maybe that's a reason for maybe I shouldn't write a movie about surfing. Like, if that's, maybe this just isn't your, I don't know.

It's just as, it's disappointing, especially when it's like, you know, it unfortunately still is rare for women to be writing movies about women, even if they are privileged white women, unfortunately. But yeah, Lizzie, I don't know. Lizzie, she was sent by the studio to Hawaii and maybe it is so, I mean,

we know it had to be commercial to a degree, but that's all she knew. That's all she knew. Being out there, so all she saw was the hotel. That's why we got that line about, now I get why no one leaves the hotel. Right, right. And you can just really trace the direct line of having this story completely told by outsiders. And I think Susan Arlene told the best version of this story, but even

she's basing it on a very small community and very little outside knowledge or experience. Like if this story was to be adapted into this movie, then why would you not then bring in Hawaiian people to consult on it? Yeah. I wonder if we all read the same interview. It was in something called monsterchildren.com. Yes, we did.

We shared the interview. The interview with. On the anniversary. Right, the 20th anniversary with screenwriter Lizzie Weiss. Seems like her main objective with this movie was like woman, girl power. Apparently she had a women's studies degree and so she wanted to showcase women in sports

and you know she talks about how it was important that she show women on screen supporting each other because there's that scene toward the end where Keala Kennelly is saying like you got this go for it to Anne Marie. And then there's that part where Anne Marie says something like she's listing off everything she wants. And she's like, I want a girl to be on the cover of Surf Magazine. It would be great if that girl were me,

but any girl will do. And we're like, yay, once again, 2002 feminism. I mean, I don't want to come down too, too hard on Lizzy Weiss here because it's like, yes, it's 2002 feminism, but also it was 2002. Like this is not uniquely a Lizzy Weiss problem. Sure, sure. Yeah. The first draft is wildly different than the movie we all see.

Can you speak more to it? Because I failed to do adequate research on that. Well, I read she co-wrote the first version. And I think I said at the beginning, she had mentioned in a couple interviews that it was inspired by Mystic Pizza. And it was really about female friendship and community. And they were a lot younger.

It was like that after high school, in between college time, one of the girls was set to leave to the mainland and it was just exploring all their relationships and those feelings of like endings and things. Way more female centered, of course. I read that the director came on board and wanted instead to make an action movie.

It was like, we got Michelle Rodriguez. And I also read that Lena and Eden had more developed roles. It was more about their like collective effort to support Anne-Marie and her surfing. Yeah, I just, I remember reading, it was just very different. And I just, I want a copy. I really do.

I would love a copy. Yeah, because I see this a lot in, I mean, even in criticism of movies that happen now, and again, this is also just me being a defensive writer, even in like criticism of movies that happen now, and again, this is also just me being a defensive writer, but so much of what comes up short in a finished product is often blamed on the writer explicitly, when often you don't know. Like your name is sometimes on something

that like these are not your words, it's not your original intention, and something that, like, these are not your words, it's not your original intention, and that's just, like, how the industry works. And I would imagine, I mean, based on your description, we had a movie that would have been imperfect, still would have centered this white character, but was a stronger attempt at telling a grounded story. And I mean, you know, having Lena's character rounded out more, seeing what her home life is like,

getting her connection to her culture. Like, we can't say that didn't happen at some point. I don't know. But what we do know is there was no NFL quarterback romance in the first version. There definitely wasn't the studio wanted it to have a broader appeal and had them add that in.

And then you look at the the number of players that are involved in like, you have to get the tourist board to sign off on this script, you have to get Universal to sign off on this script, you have to have this director that wants an action movie and doesn't think that a story about women can be meaningfully incorporated to sign off on this script and it's a system-wide failure. It apparently also like really centered on like the grit of the working-class women and that's obviously not gonna fly with the tourism board, of course. But I would have loved to see Hawaii

as more than a backdrop. Like, and just interact with it a little. Not to continue piling on, but another thing I did notice about this movie is the two other football players we meet are black characters who are presented as comic relief which non-white characters are put to the side in this because the only romantically viable NFL player, and again, why are there NFL players in this movie, is the white guy from Legally Blonde.

Yes. No black women at all, even in the girlfriend group, I think. Yeah. Oh, was there? I don't remember. I think there were women of color. Yeah. But we literally see them on screen for all of three seconds.

So yeah. And they're what? Mean. Everyone's and they're mean. They're so mean. They're very classist. Like there are there are like Hawaiian people in this movie. I mean, they do talk, like I was able to find that there was a fair amount of local casting, although I wonder how connected that is to this

tax break versus like an actual good faith attempt to meaningfully include Hawaiian actors because they are mainly cast as background characters and bullies So I would hazard a guess that that probably had more to do with getting this massive tax credit The world is so fucking depressing There's here's here's a good thing. Here's it. Here's a smiling thing. Maybe yeah a smiling thing, maybe. Yeah, let's smile. Or maybe I'm wrong, let's see. You do get to see, I think, Katelyn, you were both talking about this off mic

before we started at Melody as well, that you do see real life women athletes in this movie, and they're celebrated and presented as like, aren't they awesome? And they do, I think, classic athlete cameos where they can't act to save their lives. They're like, hello, I am It's one of my favorite kinds of cameos is athlete reading from a piece of paper off screen And I liked it and you actually get to see them. Yeah, you see them on screen

They have cameos the two that we see surfing pretty significant chunks of time in the movie are Kate Scarrett and Keala Kennelly. There are others who are mentioned or seen on screen. I kind of, I didn't write down enough stuff as I was watching, so I'm leaving people out. I know that. But yeah, the point is it's real athletes playing themselves and also doing a lot of the like stunt work and like body double work for the lead actors and they are credited as such. They're properly credited. I'm reminded of the discussion we had in the Black Swan episode where ballet dancers did a lot of

body double work for the lead actors, but were not properly credited. The production acted like Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis did all of their own dancing. For professional ballerinas, which like, upon reflection, I was like, wild that they thought we would buy that. But I do think that that is such a like, Hollywood commercialism thing to like,

not to shit on actors. I'm an ally to actors. I'm even marrying one. Someone's gotta be. I know, controversial. You live in LA long enough and all of a sudden. But yeah, I was reading some of the, and Kate Bosworth in,

because she of course did a retrospective interview about this, it's the law. I think especially during lockdown, there were a lot of these pieces coming out. But Kate Bosworth did an interview for the 20th anniversary with Elana Kaplan of Vulture and talks about how she was like, I was not an experienced surfer, I did everything I could

to prepare for the role to convincingly do some stuff, but absolutely need it. Like was very forward about the fact that she needed body doubles. And that's unfortunately unusual and yeah. Because so many productions will be like, no, we didn't use any body doubles. There weren't any stunt performers. Actors can do everything.

But now that the concept of a movie star no longer exists outside of five people, I think that it's easier to acknowledge it. Although, here's another thing that gets stuck in my, I'm getting attacked. Here's another thing that gets stuck in my crawl. Casper loves to weigh in. Here's another thing that gets stuck in my crawl. Casper loves to weigh in. Here's another thing that gets stuck in my damn crawl

the time is there's still not an Oscar for stunt work. And so, you know, even to this day, I think it's like important for actors, especially high profile actors to acknowledge their stunt counterparts because the industry is still, you know, systemically undervalues them is still, you know, systemically undervalues them. Yeah.

I learned, or I've been thinking about that a lot because a contestant on the last season of Survivor was a stunt actor. And he talked a lot about how broke he was and he was living in his car. So more for them. Yeah. There is not enough talk about how many like critical people in the industry are living in active poverty. Right. But yeah the least that actors can do is is what Kate Bosworth is doing which is acknowledging that she

did not magically become a professional surfer overnight. It's not a lot to ask for. Also I this is so beside the point But I didn't know that Kate Bosworth and Justin Long were married and I'm like, yeah, that's so cute. That's so cute I kind of love that. It's something I always forget They're just under the radar like to I live in two Icons that you would not expect have even met before are low-key married. It's nice. They're smooching. Yeah. Does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?

I just want to know if either of you know anything about Blue Crush 2. No, wait, say more. I don't. I don't know anything. I refuse. I know it was like a straight to TV movie. Let's see who's in it.

And that's it. But I do remember in that Vulture article, they do touch on it when they're asking if Kate Bosworth wants to, if she would do a sequel. And she says that she's on board, she knows the other girls are on board. She would want it to be way more about their friendship and surfing, but she, they make a point to say she would want

it to jump off of Blue Crush and in so many words it seems like she wants to completely ignore Blue Crush 2. Yeah, it doesn't exist in this universe. This is hilarious. Okay, so I don't even know if Blue Crush 2 had permission to associate itself with Blue Crush because this is, okay, Blue Crush 2 is a 2011, so weird amount of time, 2011 film starring blah, blah, blah. Despite the title, it is not a plot continuation of the 2002 film and critic reviews were generally negative. So we're not dealing with the same character.

It seems like they may have just released a movie called Blue Crush 2 because it's not technically illegal. I'm looking at the DVD cover. It says, from the filmmakers that bought you Blue Crush, unclear what they mean by that. I think it was maybe distributed by Universal Direct to DVD. Interesting. But it's about a totally different person.

It's about someone named Dana and her friend, J-Bay. I don't know. Oh friend, J-Bay? I don't know. Oh no, J-Bay is a place, not a person. I don't know. It's totally different. It's totally different. You know what other movie does this is Titanic Two, which is not about the characters,

nor even the ship Titanic. It's about the ship called Titanic Two. Oh, right. Other people and Shane Van Dyke directed and stars in it. That of course is Dick Van Dyke's grandson and it's a great movie. We should cover it someday, Jamie. Okay, fine. I do also remember like deadline articles from like mid 2010s about there was going to be a TV show. They sold it like Lizzie Weiss was they were developing the TV show for I think NBC with like Universal and everything. But that's all I know about that. I don't know what happened, but that would have been interesting.

Yeah, I'm ready for it. what happened but that would have been interesting. Yeah I'm ready for it if it ever comes. The last thing I wanted to mention this is going back to the the sapphic undertones of the movie in that same interview that we've referenced before with screenwriter Lizzie Weiss from monsterchildren.com. The interviewer asks, by the way many of my queer friends wanted me to tell you that you caused their gay awakening. And Lizzie responds with, that's so funny. I guess that's something if I were to do it again today, that would be more in the conversation.

Maybe I'd make Eden bi. I think it'd probably feel more real and honest to that world and our world and every world to mention that." Okay, Lizzie. Okay, maybe I'm glad she didn't take it on. I know. It's like, let's get a new writer in the mix. Lizzie's done her part. Yeah, I think that's everything I have. Yeah, I would be really interested if we have any Native Hawaiian listeners that would like to weigh in, we would love to hear your thoughts

on the legacy of this movie, because it is, there's a lot going on. We've done our best to get into it. Yes. The movie does pass the Bechtel test. Yeah, technically. Where Anne-Marie talks to Eden and Lena and her sister Penny about surfing. She talks to different other of the like pro surfer characters slash real life athletes about surfing. There's just a lot of talk about waves and pipe and surfboards. Eden makes her own surfboards. I don't know if she sells them, but we see her

like crafting a board at the beginning. Which is another thing lifted from the original piece that their coach does, which maybe does make more sense. I don't know. I wasn't mad about it, But I did like that she's an all purpose surfer. She could do anything. She's crafty. But it was like, let's give her an ambition. Does she want to open her own company? Is that why she's so, like, it's not that hard, guys.

We'll never know. We'll never know. We have to spend too much time on Matt. Matt, bring back Matt. That would be so funny if they opened a continuation of the story, being like Matt was hit by a meteor, unfortunately, moments after the ending of Blue Crush 1,

but don't worry, we're all over it. Put him out, run it, not that great. I know, turns out he wasn't that good after all. But that meteor created huge waves for them to surf. Yeah. And that was how we became surfing champions. Yeah, it does pass the Bechtel test. And then our nipple scale, where we

rate the movie on a scale of 0 to 5 nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. You know, there's some stuff this movie does about end of sentence. You know, there is this acknowledgement of sexism in sports and how like surfing is this boys club and all of these sexist men who are telling women that girls can't surf and it's you know the women pushing back against that and you know it's there's not a whole lot of commentary specifically on the pressure and the burden that is put on marginalized people to prove that they are just as competent as their privileged counterparts. But we do see that happening in the movie and we see Anne-Marie being a good surfer and other women being

good surfers. But the erasure and the villainization of Native Hawaiian culture throughout the story and things of that nature, I think I'm gonna give it two nipples. I'd say let Eden be gay on screen. Come on. Come on. Kill Matt. Kill Matt. Yeah.

I'll give one nipple to Senol Lake who plays Lena and I'll give my other nipple to that close shot on Kate Bosworth's eyes where you see that she has one blue eye and one brown eye. Yeah. You're like, oh, I remember that was like her whole, that was how she was sold to the world, which is unfair to her because she's talented. But I remember that being like a huge like, oh my God, she's not like other girls. She's a hot blonde with two different colored eyes.

Even the DVD commentary, they took a moment to really get it to that. To be like, get sick, like let it sink in. Let it sink in girls. This is diversity people. I think that that is 2002 diversity. Yeah. I'm gonna give this, sorry Caitlin, what was your ranking number?

I gave it two nipples. I'm gonna meet you there. I think I'm like tempted to go lower because I hate Matt so much. I might go one of that. I don't know, but I know that this is a seminal movie for a lot of people. I'll give it to you because of the potential, because there was a script that didn't suck, because technically this is a story about women that was adapted by women, but they were white women who had no experience in the communities they were writing about. And so you sort of lose,

so it's a very 2002 predicament we find ourselves in. We've talked about this a lot. I still feel like there was so much research to do for this episode that I didn't get to everything that I would have liked to. I feel the same. But this is, movie is like a third way feminist girl power commercial movie.

Where it's, and while there is, you know, The movie is like a third-way feminist girl power commercial movie. And while there is, you know, I think a lot nostalgically to love, it is so disconnected from the culture it pretends to be partaking in and appropriating that. And just let Eden be gay. I'm going to give it to nipples and I'm gonna give them to the young queer people of the early 2000s who had to really fight for their lives to see themselves in this movie.

Thank you. My nipples are for you. Yeah, or just I wanna give this movie snaps for the opportunities that it ultimately like presented but missed Right now is a moment of silence Yeah, do you have a nipple rating melody yeah, you have to give it like something the two yeah to average Women are I feel like two is a rating for, women are in it, women are technically involved in the production.

For passing the test on a technicality. But that's about all we can say. I just, even just killing Matt with a meteor at the very end, hitting him with a bus, Regina George style, come on, come on. Something, something. I thought of Regina, I thought of Mean Girls when she is in that fight with Lena

and she basically does that line where she's like, I'm sorry, you're so obsessed with me. And like Janice Ian. Another queer coded character with the femme, more acceptable conventional girls like, ah, God, like get off, like the one who's just trying to get her to see what's real and important. Yeah.

Push to the side. Oh, yeah. Well, Melody, thank you so much for joining us for this discussion. Thank you both for having me. This has been impactful. We watched this discussion. We're sorry for ruining. Processing for a while.

Yeah, sorry for Bechtel casting you. It's our job. It's our job to ruin your favorite movie. I'm not gonna be quoting it. I'm not gonna be quoting it at Re-Speech this summer. No, I'm gonna actually reprimand anyone who does. Yeah, you can um actually innocent people at the beach. Yeah.

Sure. Where can people follow you on social media? Plug away. Take a little break from it, I'm there. Good for you. I'm gonna make a comeback. Oof, it's gonna be so good. But there's stuff there.

At Melody Kamali on all social media. I also did host a podcast called Diking Out, and there's some good feminist discussion there. And congrats to the Alison Bechdel interview. We had her on, and I feel like she liked you guys so much more. We were just trying desperately, I think, to get her to laugh or to like us

because we're stand-up comedians. Like, yeah, anyways. She's very low-key. Yeah, but the Rosie O'Donnell, we redeem ourselves with Rosie O'Donnell. That's a good episode to check out if you'd like. But otherwise, yeah, happy to hear any criticisms of my criticism in my DMs there if you'd like.

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