The Bechdel Cast - Blue Valentine with Youngmi Mayer

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Youngmi Mayer bust our their ukuleles and discuss Blue Valentine.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @ymmayer 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.

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 iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts this is michael rapaport and i have been professionally podcasting for 10 years the podcast game has changed so much and if you're looking for the most disruptive podcast in the world then subscribe to the i am rapaport Stereo Podcast today. We're talking sports, politics, pop culture, entertainment, and anything that catches my attention. Listen to the I Am Rapaport Stereo Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated

Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. 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 effing vast start changing it with the Bechdel cast Jamie Caitlin I don't love you anymore okay let's just

break literally let's just break up right now end of movie oh let's break up fine do not bring me to a hotel room let's not have a discussion actually let's just break up yeah well because uh i'm so out of love with you you ruined my life you ruined my life i know you didn't mean to it's complicated but we should just break up deal i was gonna be a doctor caitlin so we're both michelle williams in this role-playing scenario yeah we're two michelle that would be a fun blue valentine where it's one michelle williams sabotaging the other michelle williams or if it was michelle williams like dawson's creek michelle williams and destiny's child

michelle williams and they're in a relationship and they're sabotaging each other. I would love that movie. Where's that? Where's that movie? That said, this movie, I just, let's just break up. Let's just break up and let's not drag it out because our kid is so cute. And I want her to have, you know, let's just get her out of here. Yeah. God.

Anyway, it's the Blue Valentine episode and and this is the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name's Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where we take a look at your favorite happy and sad movies and look at them using an intersectional feminist lens. But hold on, Caitlin. Yeah. Hold on. Hold on.

Michelle? Yeah? What is the Bechdel test? Well, it is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. There are several different variations on the test, but the one that we are currently using is as follows. Two people of any marginalized gender have to have names, and they have to speak to each other about something other than a man, ideally for two or more lines of dialogue. And even more ideally, it's a conversation that is narratively impactful. Well, let's see how this one goes. We have a popular request today. I'm actually very, I mean, sky's the limit

in terms of upsetting things we could discuss today. And I'm very excited to get into it. We've been getting this request for years. Blue Valentine, 2010 movie, written and directed by Derek Cianfrance. Cianfrance? That was my best guess. Yeah, very European last name. Don't really know. But then I realized that I enjoy his work. He's Ryan Gosling's kind of his his muse a little bit. Oh, I didn't look up to see what else he has done. Well, we'll get there. But he he also did Place Beyond the Pines.

I Know This Much is True. He did the story for Sound of Metal. He's done a lot of broody guy stuff. He's a broody guy making stuff about broody guys. And Blue Valentine was his first kind of big movie. There's more to discuss there. We'll get there. But let's get our guest in here.

Certainly. We have an amazing guest today we sure do she is the co-host of feeling asian podcast it's young me mayor hi welcome how are you hello welcome thanks for having me i'm so excited to talk about this movie i have so many thoughts i literally can i'm like just foaming at the mouth. Wait, is that? Sorry. I wasn't going to point that out. Weird 1930s phrase. No, I'm so excited to get into this movie. And I was just like thinking about all of the things that I wanted to talk about it. And like, I just keep remembering more and more things. But I didn't.

I should have known that the creator, his name was Derek. It is. This movie does kind of have derek energy big dare oh derek uh we should have known it was derek it was derek all along you don't even need to change the bde it's big derek energy baby it has big derek energy yeah sorry my cat is yelling yelling oh so what is your your history your relationship with this movie young me so i have a very uh tumultuous relationship to this movie much like how the movie itself is like tumultuous um and i was like really thinking about why it affected me when i watched it and this was 2010 was a year that I got married oh wow yeah and then and I remember watching it and oh wow this is like maybe it's like super personal but I love

being too person oversharing so please go for it I remember watching it and feeling a lot of those feelings and that was like the year that I got married. Like I wanted the marriage to end because I mean, I'm divorced now. Yeah. But I had a lot of like a lot of issues that I had to deal with mentally and like through therapy. And like I came out the other end. But this is when I was extremely young. I think I was 22 or 23 at the time. And I hadn't processed all these things and i remember around the same time my

other favorite movie was this is not to sound like a film nerd but like do you know that ingmar bergman movie scenes from a marriage but there's like a bunch of them because i think it was like a tv show at some point or something it's a series of movies. And I loved those movies so much, which is another like I'm unhappy in marriage. I want a divorce sort of thing. Right. But I started watching those movies as like a teenager. And when I was a teenager, I was obsessed with those movies. And I was like, what?

And I was like trying to analyze myself. I think it's because I had this like very toxic childhood where it was like they call it emotional incest which is a very strong term but basically it's like you do the role of like what a mom would do in your family yeah right yeah yeah so like when i grew up i had this sort of relationship where i was the mom in my family and I had to do things with my dad because my mom just wasn't there, you know? And so I think that's why I was like obsessed with this feeling of being forced into this like unhappy union sort of thing, which also like right off the bat, I feel like that's like very deep. But that's my relationship to this movie. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing all that too i mean it's like this this movie brings shit out yeah oh my god also i was like the teenage girl watching uh scenes from a marriage i would have wanted to be her friend in high school so bad i would have been like right well she's not like other girls smoking cigarettes. Yeah. Smoking cigarettes and watching it. And like, this is such a good movie. I love it. I'm sitting at another table wearing a back brace. Like young me is so cool.

No, we would have definitely been friends. Are you kidding me? We would have been at the same table. I love your cat in this because I have a very like friendly cat and the cats. I have two cats. And they're always in my Zoom meetings. So I'm glad that you also have a very present cat. He really likes to me.

He's, you know, men taking up too much space. But that's Flea. Oh, Derek. Oh, Derek. You should have known. Yeah, Flea's on the floor defending Dean. Being like, was he not doing his best? It's like, well, we'll talk about it.

Jamie, what is your relationship with this movie? I've also been with this movie from the beginning since it came out. I saw it when I remember seeing it with a friend when I was a teenager. This movie is so like, I actually, I mean, I think that there is, like, a lot to love about this movie, as excruciating as it is. I feel like Derek kind of pulled this one out. I really, like, I don't love the, obviously the characters there's a ton to talk about,

but it's so complicated, and it was, I like, I mean, I don't like watching this movie, right? Because it's really hard to watch. But I thought it's really hard to watch. Yeah. But I thought it was really interesting coming back to this movie over 10 years later and how much I got out of it that I didn't get out the first time just because I was much younger where I was like 17, 18 when this movie came out. And the first time I watched it, I think I identified much more strongly with the six-year-old uh that

was like watching her parents marriage clearly not work there's all these like dynamics of you know fun parent mean parent that are completely gendered and you don't really understand when you're that young and so I really felt for the child the first way through obviously I did the second time but now I'm like the age of the characters and have been through relationships like this and it's so hard and so complicated and god I just like oh Michelle Williams just this was whatever personally because of where I'm at in my life right now. This was a very, very difficult watch on the rewatch. But in a way that I feel like means that the movie is good.

But oof, ouch. It hurt my feelings. And I also just really like some of the things that put this movie in 2010 including the score by the band grizzly bear a band that i have i haven't thought about since 2010 so shout out to derrick apparently because i wasn't expecting derrick to get such a strong emotional reaction out of me this time but derrick did it he did holy shit uh c what's your history with Blue Valentine I had no history I had never seen this movie before and in fact anytime it's ever been referred to I I always got this movie confused with blue is the warmest color and that makes sense blue velvet so like i would hear blue valentine and i think people were talking about

blue velvet usually so that's my amazing relationship with it i would say that like hyper realistic real world dramas are my least favorite genre of film so i tend to avoid them not because i think a lot of them are really well-made movies and extremely like emotionally affecting and effectively told stories but i don't like movies that make me feel my bad feelings i like movies that make me forget about my bad feelings which is why i watch almost exclusively romps but uh yeah so so i had uh avoided this one and um i think it'll be an interesting discussion especially on this podcast too because like we normally don't cover hyper realistic character driven dramas yeah there's an interesting discussion to be had yeah there's a time i was gonna say there's the one

other thing that i remember about this movie that it's always so bizarre where it's like this is not on the filmmaker or the actors but like the just like the weird takeaways that people have from movies where i think more so than the story what i most strongly remember as a teenager seeing this movie was the whole there was a ton of drama around the cunnilingus scene in this movie like there I don't remember that drama yeah and it was like it brought out this is also so 2010 like there was like a very early proto-meme like feminist Ryan Gosling which is ridiculous but whatever But what I mean, he is a feminist, but like, God, the fact that in 2010, we're like, how remarkable. But there was like all this drama around this

movie almost getting an NC 17 rating because it depicted him going down on her. And it was this whole discussion. Ryan Gosling, to his credit was very outspoken about like that's fucking ridiculous like why why and that I feel like that was like a big takeaway from this movie even though it's like well that's the last thing that this movie is about like and then I feel like I vaguely remember that now I totally forgot about that and I feel like now I remember it was like very discussed. Yeah. I mean, and I will say that's definitely, at least in the theater,

I think it's the first time I saw a man going down on a woman in a movie. I'm pretty sure. I mean, it's representation that we still rarely get in media. Was he doing this in the movie? This, that thing? Did he do that?

He kind of does it a little bit. Everyone everyone listening they don't have to see what i they they know exactly what i was doing men are like wow he's really good at it yeah so i mean it's like i just i mean i remember sitting i because i saw this movie with like a new friend and we sort of like looked at each other like okay you know because it's like you just truly it makes me feel old I mean it still doesn't happen in movies often but at the time I was like wow holy shit there's parents in this room I don't remember that part of the movie unfortunately what I remember it very clearly I didn't re-watch it for this podcast because I remember the movie so well but i guess i don't well let me refresh your memory with a recap all right uh okay so we

meet dean and cindy played by ryan gosling and michelle william. They are a married couple in Pennsylvania. Ever heard of it? Shout out to my home state. Wow. They have a young daughter named Frankie who is looking for their dog, Megan, who seems to be missing. Poor Megan. Well, I mentioned a dog and your cat flipped out about it.

He's like, what about me? The family seems to have a pretty typical working class family situation, dynamic. Both of them are attentive parents, but we sense some tension between dean and cindy yes cindy takes frankie to school then she goes to work at a hospital where she is a nurse we see dean at work he paints houses we also see him drinking and driving this is the first hint we'll get of his alcohol abuse and then on the way home from work sydney spots their dog megan dead by the side of the road which she tells dean about who berates and blames her for the dog's death and then this is the first hint we see of his emotional abuse they drop frankie off at her grandpa's, I think Cindy's dad's place. Yes.

Yeah. Which, because we get more with him later in the movie as well. In the flashbacks. This movie is told out of order. Ever heard of it? Non-linear storytelling. Ooh, Derek. Derek.

Derek's a filmmaker. Derek's a writer. I feel bad. I'm like, I do like Derek's work. I know. Not me handing it to Derek, but sometimes you got to hand it to Derek. I had two brilliant observations while I was watching this. One, that this is the like, way more bummer version of 500 Days of Summer in terms of it's like non-linear storytelling about a relationship that goes sour and this movie is if before sunrise before sunset and before midnight were all combined together into one movie yeah and just like told non-linearly anyway we still gotta do those movies on the show yeah we'll do beef before ve movies on the show. Yeah. We'll do before Vember on the Matreon.

Okay. So they dropped Frankie off at Cindy's dad's place so that Dean and Cindy can bury the dog without Frankie seeing. Then we get a flashback of Dean. I think it's like five years-ish earlier. He has a full head of hair because... The Ryan Gosling hair piece in this movie is so goofy. I feel like they shaved his hairline way back so that it looks like it's receding

because you can kind of tell that it's shaved and then thinned out at the top. Yeah yeah they really make this character age like a president and it's then it's still like michelle williams who's right she has slightly shorter hair yeah but anyway so we see dean in this flashback he lives in brooklyn he gets a job with a moving company. We see him move an old man into a retirement home. We cut back to the present. So with Frankie gone for the night, Dean plans a little romantic getaway for him and Cindy. He wants them to get drunk and make love. Cindy is very reluctant to do this, but Dean makes the reservation anyway. They stop at a liquor store before heading out of town where Cindy runs into Bobby Ontario,

someone who seems to be an old flame of hers. And Bobby Ontario is a horrible person, but I will say that is a great character name. Bobby Ontario, like that is such a fake movie name that I burst out laughing when she's like Michelle Williams is in the liquor store like and most of this movie is so grounded and normal and then she's like Bobby Ontario I was like are we in a Will Ferrell movie all of a sudden what who's Bobby Ontario? Yeah. What is Keanu Reeves' character's name in Point Break? It's something like... Oh, yeah.

It's like Johnny... Joey Utah or something. Johnny Utah. Johnny Utah. Bobby... Yeah, he does sound like... His young ward, Bobby... His young Canadian ward, Bobby Ontario.

Anyways, fuck Bobby Ontario. He sucks so bad. Yeah. She runs into him and then she tells Dean about it and he does not react favorably she gets very defensive it's clear that there's a lot of baggage here which we will learn about later we then flash back to Cindy in college when she was dating Bobby we see them having sex he finishes inside of her without protection which really upsets her assault yeah um and then also in a couple different flashbacks we see Cindy

visiting her parents and her grandparents and both of those sets of relationships are cold distant cold, distant, unhealthy, or just like fully abusive. Cindy also visits her grandma in a retirement home, the same one that Dean was moving that man into earlier in the movie. And this is where Cindy and Dean meet for the first time. They chat a little bit. He implies that he wants to take her out on a date and he leaves her his name and number. We then cut back to the present. Cindy and Dean arrive at their hotel. Things are tense. He wants to be close and intimate with her.

She's not having it. She doesn't even want to be there in the first place. Whatever, we'll talk about there in the first place right like whatever we'll talk about this in the in the main discussion but it's so frustrating in a way that i'm like i wonder if i picked up on this as much when i was a teenager but to watch him like keep pushing her on stuff she doesn't want to do because he thinks he's being romantic where it's like no just just listen to your partner far more effective way for your relationship to not fucking explode which is also like how they meet like he's very pushy right there's a whole

scene where i'll make a reference to the notebook but he's a very there's a pushy pushy person there's a great i mean great and by great i mean upsetting story about that scene okay there's yeah we'll get there we'll get there okay so she doesn't want to be there she's kind of rejecting him they both start drinking then we flash back to cindy again she has broken up with bobby and then dean is hoping and waiting for Cindy to call. He goes back to the retirement home to find out where Cindy lives from her grandmother, which don't love that. Her grandma's so weird about it, too.

Like, he's like, hey, who is that girl? Can you tell me? And her grandma literally is like, sure. Put up a fight, grandma. Grandma's been doxing their grandchildren all the time truly can't believe it who can you trust right but then he happens to bump into cindy on the bus so they get to talking we see some flashbacks where they're spending time together he sings her song with his ukulele and it seems like they're falling in love. We then cut back to the hotel room in the present. She tells him that he's wasting his potential. He's like,

well, all I want to do is just be your husband and Frankie's dad. Romanticizing the issue again, I see, Dean. He then tries to initiate sex. he says he wants to have another baby with her she's still not into it he gets upset he says i deserve affection and then they start to have sex but it goes horribly wrong and then she locks herself in the bedroom and then they both drunkenly pass out. Another flashback of them when they're younger, first having met, they're extremely horny for each other. They nearly have sex on the sidewalk outside. They nearly have sex in a taxi. And then they definitely have sex in a bedroom.

Then she takes a pregnancy test and discovers that she is pregnant and she sorry pregnant she tells dean and reveals that the baby is not his it must be bobby's sorry it's just uh it's a reference to an amazing youtube video that we also then reference constantly on the show is it the video where they're mispronouncing the word pregnant like a million times yeah the yahoo answers video where it's like did i get girl pregananant that's also my favorite video of all time so it's so good yeah so great she's she's she's heavy with greg she's she's she's got a there's a greg on the way growing inside stark gonna drop a greg on the front scoop so she so it's it's bobby's greg unfortunately and she goes through the motions of having an abortion but at the last minute decides not to go through with the abortion

dean comforts her and he's like let's just do this let's just be a family implying that you know he'll raise this baby as his own we cut back to the present Cindy wakes up in the hotel and leaves for work without Dean and without telling Dean that she's leaving so then when Dean wakes up he sees that Cindy is gone heaks out. He doesn't know what's going on. We flashback again to Bobby, who has found out about Dean being with Cindy, and he shows up at Dean's work and beats the shit out of him. So now we understand why Dean was acting that way when Cindy told him about seeing Bobby in the store.

Fuck Bobby Ontario. Fuck Bobby Ontario. Bobby sucks. he's horrible all the men in this movie are i mean horrendous people i'm just like we have to get we have to airlift cindy and frankie out of this plot line we got to get them out of there certainly yeah back in the present cindy is at work her doctor boss makes an indecent proposal at her. Then Dean shows up at Cindy's work. He's drunk. He berates her for leaving him at the hotel. She tells him she can't take it anymore. She's like, I don't love you anymore. In fact, I hate you and I want a divorce. They go to pick up Frankie. They hash things out or try to kind of, Dean wants to make

this relationship work, but Cindy recognizes that they can't stop treating each other poorly. And she doesn't want that for herself or for Frankie. And then we get one last flashback of them getting married. And then the movie ends back in the present with dean crying saying goodbye to frankie and then walking away uh so wow why did i choose this movie it's just so rough it is rough but it's worth talking about yeah and let's do that right after this break. 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.

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Oh, I was just going to say when I heard you saying that you don't watch movies like this, it is like the anti-escapism movie. Yeah, truly. Sometimes I'm like, why do people make movies like this i thought this was all about tap dancing and putting lipstick on because it's the great depression you know like why why do i don't know why i watch this well i have to say it really did move me it didn't make me feel good or better about anything but it did move me and like right I mean movies like this even though they're like they don't align with my taste I understand why people like them because they they're very like validating especially if they like present authenticity and realism and

like actually meaningfully and authentically explore what it is to be human what it is to be in a relationship, you know, whatever the movie is about, like, these movies that are done well, can be, I don't know, just something that like people can really relate to. Yeah, I hate relating to things. I just want to watch people going on an epic quest. Yeah, knowing that I'll never do that. It is very poetic, I have to say it'll never do that it is very poetic i have to say it is poetic and it's very well done yeah hats off to derrick yeah so i will give it that yeah the so the background for why this movie exists is uh you're not gonna believe this

dark's parents are divorced oh no worst thing that ever happened to Derek I well it sounds like it sounds like it um which is also very 2010 for you know a guy to be like my divorced parents and that having that be a personality you know um yeah yeah anyways I get it you know like you know parents that get divorced it's tough but um this was like something that i guess derrick sian france was trying to get this movie made for 12 years had michelle williams and ryan gosling attached to it for like almost seven years like it just took a really really long time to get made basically everyone in this movie was also came from a messy divorced family and so there was like a collaborative aspect with the actors there are a bunch of writers it sounds like a pretty interesting like movie to make

and then also for Michelle Williams they had to move the location that they were shooting in because Heath Ledger had just died right before they started shooting this movie and she wanted to be close to their daughter obviously in, in the year that followed that. And so there's just like all this really heavy trauma collaboration that was going on with this movie. But I feel like once I don't know, once I knew that, I was like, oh, it kind of it's so sad. And also I was just like, wow, it seems nice that people had each other during this movie i don't know it seems like everyone enjoyed making it as much as you could enjoy making a movie this fucking depressing right yeah i mean where did oh oh it's caitlin the thing i wanted to tell you so there's a scene

in this movie where michelle williams needs to tell ryan gosling i'm gonna keep using the actor's names uh michelle williams needs to tell ryan Ryan Gosling that she's pregnant but she's like you know yeah she hasn't gotten it out yet and he's like you gotta tell me you gotta tell me and he like climbs onto the side of the is it the Brooklyn Bridge like some bridge he's threatening to jump off a bridge if she doesn't tell him which he does in the notebook when he hangs from a ferris wheel. Unless Rachel McAdams will agree to go out with him. So you're like, why are Ryan Gosling characters always doing this specific toxic thing, threatening to take their own life

if they don't get an information nugget from a woman right now? Right. And the reason is because I think that, so that part was not written. I guess that Derek was like like this is what needs to happen in the scene and they improvised it so i think ryan gosling just did it because he'd done it in a movie before like that was ryan gosling's idea i think he was just like oh bing bong i did

this in the notebook let me just do it right now so that wasn't even written it's just like i think he just was like i did this in 2004 because the similarities are so striking that I was like yeah is this a coincidence or no I yeah I thought I assumed it was written and I was like shame on you Derek but then I I read in a couple interviews he did and I guess that Ryan Gosling was just like oh yeah you know how characters do this and you're like I don't but whatever your characters do this and no one else you know how you do this and you're like i don't but whatever your characters do this and no one else you know how you were like it was a collaborative writing effort i feel like i feel like there's a part of ryan gosling that likes to be like the like i'm gonna kill myself

if you don't like like love me or like i'm gonna get beat up by the football guy you know like sort of emo i don't know i think that that's probably his heavy hand in it is my guess yeah I mean it's like he was the one that chose to jump on the side of a bridge it sounds like in that scene he could have remained on the ground it wouldn't have been a problem that is such a like Ryan Gosling character thing of like this era of Ryan Gosling I don't really know I'm like when was the last movie he was in I mean that brings up an interesting thought I guess I had about I don't know how to word this exactly but like more or less his masculinity or his version of masculinity as it's presented in this movie and then how that kind of ties into the relationship in general

because like during the climactic scene when they're breaking up in the hospital and he's saying like you want to hit me you want to hit me and she's like no i'm not and then yeah he's she's saying like be a man and like there all these, I have to just like organize my thoughts for a second here, because there's just so much that happens. So a big thing that I talk about on this podcast, I fixate on how love and romantic relationships are represented in movies. And we've concluded on many episodes that most movies present a very cartoonish and false depiction of romantic love especially because most of the movies focus only on the time between like the meet cute which is another thing in movies that is usually pretty silly but between the mute the meet cute and the time where the couple

officially gets together and then that's the end of the movie and we don't see any other relationship have a greg or something like they become yeah you only see the happy right so this movie obviously shows the whole range of this relationship yeah the meeting, the falling in love, the relationship getting rocky, them falling out of love. And I'm not saying that every relationship goes through this exact progression. Statistically, a lot of them do. So I think that's fascinating. And I do think there should be more movies like that, because I feel like so many people have very unrealistic expectations about romantic love because of what they see in movies. So I think it's useful to have a movie like this that like, yeah, shows the after parts of like the couple getting together and, you know, that honeymoon

phase kind of thing. And it seems like in this movie in particular, like Dean's character especially hasle you to someone's love and time and commitment and and i and i the movie knows that i think because the relationship fails due to him being a horrible listener and a horrible communicator and doing things that he thinks are romantic instead of listening to his partner yeah i think the point that caitlin made about showing the end is probably why i like movies like this because they do feel so authentic and real and it does show this part where other movies just cut out because it's not part of the fantasy right but i also feel like this movie does like a good job like i think showing because the ryan gosling

character that he likes to play so much is like this toxic but very romantic character of this like this man that's like i'm gonna jump off a bridge because i'm obsessed with you like sort of and that's extremely romantic to watch in a movie but then we get to see the other half of that you know it's like this person that's like just not a good partner and then what are you gonna do it's like it's almost like looking at your teenage infatuation in 15 years and he's a house painter and he smokes a bunch of weed and like he used to be like the guy playing the guitar at parties, but now like what, what's going to happen if you end up with this guy, you know,

it's like this, like smashing that romantic idea of a toxic, abusive partner. Yeah. Right. And, um, which,

uh, you brought up the other most 2010 thing about this movie, which is the ukulele. Oh, I didn't want to say it. I said guitar. No, but which is the ukulele element i didn't want to say it i said guitar no but i like the ukulele i love it i think it sounds really pretty and if somebody played the ukulele to me i'd probably be like let's get married you love this song baby it's the song he sings is but it's so foreshadowing of what their relationship is going to be because

he's like you always hurt the ones you love and it crumbles the relation he's like basically just like yeah singing the recap of what their relationship will be yeah so uh foreshadowing much good job derek no there's this there are some good points that there's that that yeah the force it was a little heavy-handed derek but it's fine um and then like the hotel room being um the theme is like the future and i'm like yeah all right we see it we see it we see what you did there it's so broody but once you're in it you're like yeah exactly the future yeah this relationship is so i mean i love how you like describe yeah like the the romantic guy that you don't really think about like well what is how is this gonna bear out like yeah and all the signs are there and i that's kind of like what i appreciate about this movie is like

i feel like a worse written movie would be like he used to be so great but now he's awful when it's like the things that make their relationship fail on his end are present from the moment they meet it's the same person yeah like and it's just framed in this like halo at first and you don't i i do appreciate that this movie focuses more on Cindy's background and the context for her than it does on Dean, which I feel like is kind of rare in any movie. I feel like usually you get so much background about the man in a relationship and relatively little about the movie. That's definitely not the case here. you do learn about Dean I feel like it you have all the context you need for who and why he is in a way that it's like he's a horrible partner he is you know clearly struggling with addiction and very in denial about it to the point where he's romanticizing his own addiction right he's

like I get to wake up and drink a beer at 8 a.m aren't you so proud of me which if you've ever been in someone's life that's struggling with something like that that scene was like oh rough yeah yeah do you think that we okay so this is my question because i remember watching the movie all those years ago and sort of sympathizing with him i mean because on paper when when we talk about it's like yeah he's abusive he has you know alcoholism and it's like he's not a great partner but i feel like i feel like a lot of people will watch this movie and sort of like feel bad for him and be like well what's so bad about this guy he's so sweet and yeah he has problems but why is she so mean to him do you like do you think

it's like so yeah and i think that's one of the reasons this movie is an effectively written and told story is there are aspects of his character that are very empathetic he's an extremely attentive and loving father to his daughter that isn't even biologically his i feel like a lot of i mean men in real life and male characters in movies would be like oh this kid isn't mine well then screw you i'm out of here but he it's like not even a thing it's his idea for them to like start a family together there's this toxic idea of like oh i'm being cooked i'm not gonna raise someone another man's kid and he doesn't that's like not on his mind at all so yeah he's also really supportive of her abortion when she wants to get an abortion he's there and then when she changes her mind he's

there and yeah it's it's frustrating especially because you're given this context for how men have treated cindy previously right that it's like i get why she falls for dean and also all of the problems are there from the very beginning and it just what like ripped my heart out made me want to fucking fight dean is i mean it's his idea he wants to stay like you're saying caitlin he wants to be present in frankie's life and he wants to be her father but he still does hold the fact that frankie's not his child against cindy and like hints at it and all these scenes where like there's i think it's like that climactic fight where he's like the only reason that you're yelling at me is because I'm around

and like is still holding it against his holding his own decision against Cindy which is like yeah just incredibly immature and unfair and I kind of wonder young me I wish I remembered like how this movie was received because it feels like it really lends itself to like someone to people being overly sympathetic to his character ryan yeah yeah i think so i think there is a conscious decision on derrick's part maybe not conscious maybe he doesn't even know right that i think people are without knowing skew towards feeling sorry for men even if they're the problem and i think that without even knowing when i saw you know i have like worked through a lot of internalized misogyny since then

obviously sure but when i saw it i was like man why is she like such a bitch like that's a nice guy and yeah he is raising her kid and now I'm like no this is that that's not how it is at all like I had such a different perspective but then I also like I also you know identified with her because I was just like every man in my life is a fucking failure and I hate them all you know and like I know why she's fucking angry because like i know how that feels you know like great now you're gonna act like you're the victim when you're the the man that's like let me down again like so it was like it was weird it was like a weird emotional thing for me yeah well i think that speaks to how so many movies, so much media, and then just like society in general, asks us to be

empathetic toward men and forgiving and forgiving. Yeah. And society gives men way more permission to make mistakes and treat people poorly. And I think a lot of people don't even perceive men's mistakes and their bad behavior as being wrong or bad people just view it as oh that's just what men are like like it's the whole boys will be boys thing yeah because yeah historically we've given men so much permission to be shitty and women have not been given that same permission those standards are very different i do think that i don't think that the movie is necessarily asking us to take sides but i do i i think that it serves as kind of an interesting mirror for where you're at when you yeah i agree thinking back on it i don't i think that it was made well to show like a very unbiased sort of

realistic view, but it is a mirror on myself and who I used to be, baby. Totally. Yeah. So I was like, I did feel bad for him. I was like, why did I feel bad for that guy? I don't know. I remember feeling bad for him too. And then being like the same thing of like we yeah whatever like it it is

a beautiful thing that he wanted to raise Frankie but you can't yeah oh it's so frustrating to watch him throw that in her face as if she asked for it yeah when she didn't she like there's like that scene explicitly after she decides not to get the abortion where this is his idea and she says you don't have to do this. And he says, I want to, let's be a family. And it's like,

well, that's it. Dean, you made this decision. And I, it's, it's just, I don't know.

Yeah. This movie is so tough. Cause you're like, you guys, can we wait, can we talk about the abortion scene really quick? Because I know, I know that's a trope and I'm, I'm assuming you've covered it on this podcast before.

But the abortion clinic, we're going to go to the clinic and lay down in the bed and then be like, I can't do it. It's a baby like that. Come on. So I. That's too much. Wish we the audience had a better understanding of why she changes her mind and decides not to go through with the abortion. Yeah, right. Because it seems almost like in the scene as you're watching it, she just like can't handle the physical pain and that's why she stops it.

But it's probably more than that. She just decides to keep the baby after all. But we don't really check back in with her about why she changes her mind because we talked about this on like the juno episode and like other episodes where like it is such a common trope they give you a reason in that movie but the reason is sucks and it's kind of anti-abortion in general right that movie we wash our hands of it. And then like the way that the abortion is represented, and I've been fortunate enough to not have to go through with an abortion myself, but I imagine it's not the most pleasant thing.

And I think the movie probably pretty realistically depicts the experience of it. So on one hand, I appreciate the authenticity there but i also worry that people would see this movie and like scare them away yeah that they would it would scare them away from having an abortion especially because she like seems to be in a lot of pain she changes her mind mid-procedure so i have really mixed feelings about the abortion scene so i've had an abortion and i'm very you know open about it yeah and i'm very anti how the media in america shows abortions because i think it's so dramatic and so over the top and ridiculous because it's always like this thing where it's like oh my god like that

but i'm gonna be very honest to you i had an abortion i didn't i didn't give a shit i was like what to do like i got an abortion who gives a't give a shit. I was just like, what to do? Like I got an abortion. Who gives a fuck? Right. You know? And I was just like, and it took four minutes and I felt fine. The next night I was, I was like 20 years old.

I was probably like in a nightclub or whatever. And I just feel like, yes, it's valid that some people do have that reaction to having an abortion. And the feeling of like being put in this like hard place where they have to do something they don't want to do, whatever. But a lot of people just don't, it's not moving. And I,

I deeply don't believe that it was a baby and it wasn't a baby. And it was just like something that I had to do, like getting wax or something. And I don't, it doesn't, you do. You know what I mean? I hate that idea that in America,

every single time you see an abortion in a movie every single there's not even without one exception it's like oh like it's like oh like it's such a big dramatic thing because for some people it just isn't that and like we do need like i think we need like more representation of people that are just like yeah i went in it took four minutes and now i'm having a cocktail with my friend like who cares right right totally that's an amazing point yeah there's nothing available there especially when it's a movie made by like a male auteur like this too where it's like well where do you get off derek you know telling us that this is the most traumatic thing

yeah yeah yeah people process things differently. And like, if you truly believe in abortion being, you know, it's like a right that women should have with their bodies, like you should really start to process it in a way that it's not killing a baby. Come on. Like, it's not that at all.

It's just a routine medical procedure. Yeah. And there's like no range of experience shown. Yeah, thank you for bringing that up too because I feel like we've talked about that on the show but like not enough. And unfortunately, I think that this also was the first, this movie I guess was more firsts for me

than I'm realizing because it was the first time I saw a guy go down on a girl in a movie and it was also the first time I think that I saw an abortion in a movie and Caitlin you're totally right there's no real reasoning given even though I for what I've like I've found like conflicting opinions on this scene where some people don't like it and and sort of for the reasons you're describing young me and then there's other people who are like the thing that they like about

it is the second that michelle williams character is like i don't want to do this that the doctor is immediately like okay i'm sorry and then like immediately ends the procedure that was great too fun terrible fact the doctor that plays the abortion doctor in the movie is a real abortion doctor or should I say was because he has since been he's no longer an abortion doctor due to malpractice so that's what you know what a what a world whoopsie let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for more discussion. 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 unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks.

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We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the mask as part of my cultura podcast network on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you stream podcasts and we're back i want to jump back to the relationship between cindy and dean because you know we've been talking about especially as it relates to like the empathy that some viewers have had toward dean and how again like because so many people are conditioned to see a character like cindy because she's the more i mean let's face it she's the responsible. Like she's the, she's the disciplinarian. And we've talked a lot on the show about how the disciplinarian parent, if there is kind of like

that type of dynamic where it's like the fun parent and the quote unquote mean parent, and it's almost always depicted as like the quote unquote mean one is the mom. And it took me personally, cause I, my, I get, well, my family dynamic wasn't even like that. But it was just like, I had a mean parent, and then a parent who was completely unattentive. But my dad didn't yell at me. So I liked him better at the time. Yeah, he just didn't yell at me because he didn't engage with me at all is what I now realize was happening. But my mom was the disciplinarian. So I thought she was mean and so much media. And I don't think this movie actually does that. I think it is pretty objective in the way that it presents these two people. But it's like, just our personal

baggage that we bring into the movie. But I think this movie this movie again presents the characters pretty objectively I think it contextualizes especially Cindy and her life and her backstory meaningfully and I think the movie does a pretty good job at depicting spousal abuse or mistreatment um where again in movies spousal abuse is often very oversimplified and presented in a pretty cartoonish way where it's like the man comes home drunk and hits his wife yeah right yep there's rarely context there's rarely any additional information about the relationship we just see this kind of like one-dimensional like guy comes home and hits his wife or girlfriend yeah yeah and some abusive relationships are partially that but there are often other dimensions to the relationship where like sometimes an abusive relationship is loving and supportive sometimes the couple does

get along with each other and laugh with each other and enjoy each other's company and yeah so I think this movie does a good job of presenting that kind of more nuanced and realistic version of a relationship where yeah both people are not treating each other well and like you know I don't want to make it seem like, oh, well, the man is a horrible one in this relationship. And the woman is a pure angel who's like doing everything right. Like they're not treating each other well. But we have all the context as to why. Like she's not treating him well because she's frustrated by him never listening to her. At any point.

Being so pushy and and so for her it's a lot of just like built up resentment and frustration yeah all this to say that it's just like it's not the very like kind of one-dimensional cartoonish version of abuse and mistreatment that we often see depicted in media it's so interesting hearing both of you like right off the bat point out the abuse because i didn't even think it was abusive when i first saw it now i'm like yeah this man is definitely abusive for me i was just like this is just like a real relationship you know um and now looking it just shows just shows me how much i've like learned i feel like since i've seen this movie 12 years ago totally totally i mean i i don't think i would have you know seen seen his behavior

as abuse when i first saw it either yeah i feel like and i feel like the way it was presented at the time and again it's like it's so tough because i feel like so much of what i took in about this movie was other people's reaction to it versus just watching the movie. And it is kind of like, like we were saying, kind of like a mirror movie in a lot of ways. But yeah, I mean,

I feel like that was not the discussion around this movie at all. It was like, no, life is tough. Relationships are hard. And you're like, yeah, but also there's clear abuse in a way that I,

I don't know. I'm kind of, Yeah, but also there's clear abuse in a way that I don't know. I appreciate how much care is taken by the movie to contextualize Cindy's attitude towards men and relationships. I do feel like it possibly gets a little trauma porny for my taste because it's Derek writing the movie right and like so you're like okay like I think he did have at least one woman who co-wrote the movie with him yeah we've got uh Cami Delevingne is maybe how you pronounce her name and then Joey Curtis plus Derek all co-wrote or all have writing credits on this script. And I know that like Michelle Williams, like even though she's not a credited writer, had a lot of input on her character and like it wasn't just Derek.

But I mean, every man in Cindy's life completely fails her, which unfortunately is not the most uncommon experience. We haven't quite talked about this yet, but I also appreciate that this movie takes place in like the working class which romance movies never ever do it's still obviously an extremely white movie but the fact that it's a romance that's being taken seriously in the working class at all unfortunately is like worth noting but i'm trying to think of like all the men in cindy's life that we get context for it we get context one of the really difficult ones that i feel like the movie almost doesn't touch on that much because it doesn't necessarily

need to is like her relationship with her father because her father was abusive towards her mother who i think has died by the time the movie starts. Seems like it. And it's clear that like poor like Cindy has seen her grandmother be in a loveless marriage with her grandfather, has seen her mother be abused by her father. And her takeaway is like, I don't want to be in a relationship like that but she's a teenager and still hasn't really like quite processed that abuse by the time she gets into a relationship with Dean yeah and then it's like I wish I knew like what the reasoning for this is I don't dislike the choice but like my guess was that it had to do with partially like she hadn't she hasn't processed

everything and partially sometimes it's like a class thing where yeah her her dad is still in her life because she kind of needs his help with child care yeah and it's like she fully knows that like he was a piece of shit to her mother and you don't really get closure on that issue right yeah but he's still around and it's like and she also is taking care of him now the way that it seems like she's taking care of you know her grandmother like she's taking care of people her whole life and now it's like she's also taking care of dean right because she keeps bringing up like you're my second child which he basically is and then there's how bobby treats her and that's like bobby i feel like is as close to we get as a clear-cut villain because

he's kind of like like he's a villain jock i feel like it's as close to a stock character as we get in this movie and his abuse toward her is so much more like obvious than dean's abuse so i can understand why people like especially in like 2010 wouldn't have picked up on a lot of dean's behavior as abusive because it's far more subtle and it's not the like screaming belligerent like fuck you bitch which is like what yeah yeah bobby says to cindy so yeah bobby ontario you know what i think dean's character is okay this is how i'm processing this so like bobby ontario is the classic like misogynist like oh like sports jock right person right and then you know like when you're like in high school you're like oh here's like the emo skateboarder guy that's like not like those other guys he's like a musician and he's

sensitive and he wears eyeliner but then he ends up just being another misogynist but in a different just another flavor yeah he's an alt misogynist he's alt he's not like the other studded belt yeah he's not like the other like he skateboards you know it's it's like when you were in high school and you're like oh the skateboarder guys are like artsy they're gonna treat me with respect but it's just like it's just another brand of and i feel like ryan gosling is just that caricature in this movie and so you're like tricked into being like well he plays the ukulele and he he's in love with me and blah blah blah and then at the end you're like oh wait this is the same this is the same thing it's just bobby ontario it's the same guy yeah yeah he's he's just like a sensitive misogynist like we see him cry over the death of their dog yeah maybe that's what we should call

this ryan gosling stock character the sensitive misogynist because i feel like that is kind of like who he is yeah alt misogynist it's like the yeah i feel like there's a lot of memes about that character now like the the guy that wears nail polish and then he still punches a hole in your drywall yeah but he's wearing nail polish so right we see him punch a bunch of walls or like a fence like he never takes his physical aggression out on cindy but he's he's like does punch a bunch of like inanimate objects oh he's got rage issues yeah and also he he keeps oh god this is unfortunately something that is like come up for me in relationships in the past where it's like he's like patting himself on the back for not hitting her that's where he's like i'm not gonna hit you because i love you i'm like what do you want to fucking metal like thank you the lowest bar imaginable good for you piece of shit

he's like i'm i'm staying with you like it's like or don't or don't i have to can i just say um what i was gonna say about what you were saying about class that's such a good point jamie like that is so because you never see it on screen and with the with the backdrop of class all these things make sense like your dad's abusive why are you hanging out with him because i'm fucking poor like what am i i'm fucking poor i need my dad in my life like i can't just like go to italy for five months or whatever you know um but like also the the class thing is interesting and also what it reminds me of is like something like my mom would tell me because I think the divorce thing a lot of people you know I was joking about Derek's family being divorced and that's sad but like that is very traumatizing to people if your parents get

divorced but my parents didn't get divorced and they had a really horrible marriage and they're still together. And that was like a different kind of trauma. And like the level of sadness and darkness that's in this movie is their relationship. It's like the scene where they're yelling at the future hotel room is like their everyday life. Do you know what I mean?

But then also what it reminds me of is like, my mom is like, because you know, like what you're saying about in the movie like her grandma had this and then her mom had this like every generation back in my family had it worse than the next generation so like when i was married my marriage was like i mean there was like probably abusive things that we would do to each other but it was there was no real like outright abuse it

just was a marriage that didn't work do you know what i mean yeah and my mom was just like why are you getting divorced he doesn't hit you he doesn't have a gambling problem and i was like so you know like it's like and i'm like well because our marriage doesn't work like we're not like in love with each other and why does somebody have to like break your arm before, you know, like it's like hard for that bar is so low. Right. But my mom also,

you know, like really, really poor and like, because of class, like she, even if she wanted to leave, she couldn't and she didn't end up leaving and they're okay now. But you know,

like that is like, that's such an interesting thing that you brought up. Cause I feel like people don't talk about that in movies right yeah and then speaking of class so director derrick had ryan gosling and michelle williams live together in rural pennsylvania in a house with their on-screen daughter who was again just a five-year-old kid. Wow. And basically gave them a very minimal grocery budget. They had to live on what the actual character's salary would have been. Cosplaying as poors.

How exciting for them. They were really cosplaying poor. Oh, my God. really cosplaying poor oh my god Derek made them go very method to basically enhance the tension between them when they shot all of the scenes that take place in the present wow including something that I think is extremely fucked up where director Derek he like initiated fights between them and so the actors would like fight in real life and then one night he quote told gosling to go into williams's bedroom and try to make love to her oh my god gosling soundly rejected ended up sleeping on the couch i so director derrick was like hey ryan gosling go try to have sex with michelle williams your co-star

who's also actively mourning the death of her husband like that's so fucked up to do that's fucked up to do period but like at that point in her life i i read that interview as well and like that is fucking evil and he also mentions stanley kubrick in that same interview as if that's like a pro of like, well, yeah, Stanley Kubrick used to do this to his stars. You're like, yeah.

And that was really fucked up. Why are we speaking of abuse? Like what the fuck? You know what? I stand by everything shitty. I said about Derek. I don't take any of it back. I do like this movie,

but that's like a fuck. That's not necessary. It's not necessary. They're good actors. They're actors. They can act. Yeah. That is so funny. But the cause playing as poor, that's like a that's not necessary it's not necessary they're good actors they're actors they can act yeah yeah that is so funny about the cosplaying as poor it's like imagine you only have 78 to go grocery shopping and they're like i can't do this it's too hard and that is like that that to me is like super annoying but it's like if everyone's on the same

page about it then whatever but like that anecdote about trying about trying to get Ryan Gosling to go in her bedroom, I found. Oh, my God. Very upsetting. I fucking hated it. Derek. Yeah. Derek. Derek.

I hope he's listening. He's going to listen to this. He's definitely listening. He's our biggest fan. Speaking of all of the men in Cindy's life who completely fail her um her boss yes this doctor guy so we get a few different scenes with him throughout the movie and the arc here is basically he's offering her an opportunity at some other hospital it seems kind of far away and then she eventually figures out

that he has ulterior motives with this basically he's trying to get her away from her family because he wants to date her why do we think so many women who are perfectly capable have imposter syndrome well exactly shit like this she even says like i thought you wanted me there because i'm good at my job and then he's just like okay i'll see you in the other room and then what happens shortly after this is her belligerent husband comes in and punches this doctor in the face so then she has to like help and care for this guy who just made this indecent proposal at her and then he fires her yeah just everything that happens there was like i mean realistic but extremely upsetting and just further proof that she's just like has

the misfortune of every man who she knows or has known being awful to her and this goes back to the class discussion too because it's like one of the last scenes in the movie is a flashback to the first time she brings home dean to her family and the family has all of this missing context they don't know that she's pregnant they don't know that it's not dean's they're clearly judging Dean based on his job and class in a way that's not necessarily fair but there's it was something that like I don't know I remember from if I ever brought a boy home when I was young is like especially when you're sort of like Cindy is very much viewed as like the great hope of her family and the first a character who i mean she is extremely intelligent and she does seem passionate about medicine and there are all

like dean is a a large factor to why her career is derailed but he's not the only factor and like that is also complicated but it's clear that her family views her as like the person that's going to like not die in the class she was born in and like has all this potential and like of course they're kind of clinging to that in a way that puts pressure on her and yeah it's just that element as well and then the fact that like including the reason you just described kitlin with this fucking horrible boss that is hitting on her and then fires her for reasons that are beyond not her fault right yeah it's just like it's so devastating because that shit happens and oh god that scene is so frustrating because it's like it's in that scene

too where it's like dean punches the doctor in the face you're like well i want the doctor to get punched in the face, but not like this. He's not even punching someone in the face for the right reason. She gets punished for all the failures of all the men around her, basically. Yeah. Again, unfortunately, a relatable experience for women, but doesn't make it any easier to watch. Also, one of the ways in which Dean is like subtly mistreating her throughout the movie is it so like she has aspirations to be a doctor. We know that she doesn't end up there.

She gets a job as a nurse. I like to think she does after they get divorced. I like to think she goes back to school. Right. But when we see the flashbacks of her in college, she is planning to be a doctor. And then Dean says to her, like, basically, you're too hot to be a doctor. Girls as pretty as you shouldn't be doctors.

You shouldn't be studying. And she comments on this type of thing that he says to her, because he does it before where he like compliments her quote-unquote actually more insults her but it's like a half compliment half insult where he says oh you're so beautiful that must mean that you're also like quote-unquote crazy he says to her sensitive misogynist i know it's so frustrating and she calls him out on it too in that moment but it's still like it's not quite enough right she's like you're insulting me and complimenting me at the same time and he's

like no I'm not you're just like ah fuck you right and and like yeah this seems to be something that he did I also got the sense that um she's resentful of him because he's wasting his potential and I think that's also her being resentful because she, I think kind of blames him for her also squandering her potential because she kind of blames him for holding her back and like for her, like never becoming a doctor. I agree with that. Yeah.

There's definitely some projection going on in this relationship. That's the word I was trying to say. One thing I wanted to bring up really quick, just before we completely move on from that kind of peak confrontation scene at the doctor's office. This is a small thing, but I appreciated having it there

because we don't get to see, I mean, as we'll discuss shortly, we don't get to see Cindy interact with other women outside of her grandma very much uh it doesn't seem like she has a big network of friends so to see in that scene she has i think that she's named as well these interactions don't pass the bechdel test because they're all like let's get ryan gosling the fuck out of here but she has a co-worker who it's clear she's spoken to about the abuse in the marriage before i think mimi mean oh yes yes and her friend at work is like trying to

help her out and helping her try to like mitigate this situation and also tries to you know help her around the boss as well like they're in this fucking like laser you know maze of toxic men and i i just appreciated that mimi was there and like kept trying to be like hey get the fuck out of here like you're gonna get your wife fired which he does and it's oh right and also you would think that mimi probably knows that their boss is a piece of shit too that would do something like that right um does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss wait what's the nipple scale what's what is that oh gosh okay so our nipple scale is where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples okay based on just examining it through an intersectional feminist lens so a movie that handles things really responsibly and has a feminist message and is just like an amazing feminist masterpiece that would get five

nipples and then you know your average michael bay movie would get zero nipples i thought that that was about how many nipples you see in the movie. Cause I think you see four nipples. You see a fair number of nipples. You see both of their nipples. Speaking of nipples, you know, the shower scene where he like gets in and he's trying to like,

yeah, have sex with her and he starts sucking on her nipples. And she's like, Oh, don't do that. And I'm like, Ooh, I felt that in my,

the soul of my nipples you know when you're not wanting to have sex and someone's like trying to suck on your nipples you're like oh god get away like he's sexually pushy it's like it's gross i wanted to talk about just one other like there's like these little moments that are so realistic that are like burned into my brain i think when like somebody throws the keys and they have to both look for the keys oh he takes off his wedding ring oh the wedding right after she's like i want a divorce so he flings his wedding ring off and then he's like real gold because i'm like that could be like a class thing if it's real gold yeah you know when you're poor

you can't be just fucking throwing that gold ring in the dirt you gotta look for that that's 300 you can get the pawn shop um yeah yeah i guess the nipple thing i have to say this is like this is like a really realistic movie so i guess the misogynistic parts of it are kind of realistic so i don't even know if there's like i don't know i personally can't think of like an outwardly except for the abortion scene, which I think, I think that's really, I just want people to never do that again. And I don't think men should be writing scenes like that ever again.

Like, do you know what I mean? Totally fair. Yeah. Like it's actually happened to them, but like, yeah, I don't know.

What, what do you, what, what's your nipple rating for this movie? I, good question. Well, first I just want,

I don't think this movie passes the Bechdel test. hmm, good question. Well, first, I just want, I don't think this movie passes the Bechdel test. No, not at all. No. Because even the few, the like little tiny bit where like Cindy and Mimi interact, it's in the context is they're talking about Dean and their boss.

When Cindy and her grandma talk, it's about like, I forgot to pay attention. I was paying attention. I think the whole conversation, the subtext of it is like how do you find romantic love with a man that isn't traumatizing and terrible um so the subtext is definitely men yes right right right um so no to test nipple scale, I would give this three or three and a half nipples because I do think that despite it being the whitest movie I've ever seen, it does represent a lot of things about our relationship going downhill, the subtleties and nuances of the abuse in this relationship,

I think are handled in a way that is far more authentic and nuanced than that usually gets represented on screen. I think that you get a lot of context for, and more context for Cindy's character and backstory than you do for Dean, which I think like priority given to the woman in this, you know, hetero relationship, priority given to her characterization is not something that usually happens yeah i think that a lot of this is it sucks that this like really realistic portrayal of a relationship is the characters mistreating each other and a really bummer of a story uh the abortion scene i do i agree that it is like the one thing that i think is handled irresponsibly and I wish

that there was more representation in media of just very normalizing getting an abortion and it not being a huge deal it not being an extremely traumatic thing that it's just a choice that someone makes and follows through with that procedure. And that scene could have been handled much differently without the movie changing that much. Right. Like it doesn't need to happen that way. Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think I'll give it, I'll give it three and a half nipples on our scale.

If I was rating it on a, Caitlin, do you have fun watching this movie scale? On my rompometer, it is a this movie scale on my romp-o-meter it is a zero zero on the romp-o-meter negative 10 million romps one thing you could say about this movie is it is not fun fun is not the word that's not why

that's not why Derek makes movies apparently he can't find an example of him wanting us to be in a good mood Derek and of course not every movie has to be a romp but yeah there's a lot I appreciate about this movie three and a half nipples I will

give one to Michelle Williams because she gave an incredible performance I will give one to little Frankie I'll give one to little Frankie. I'll give one to Megan, the dog. May she rest in peace.

And you know what? I'm not going to give it a half nipple. So just three nipples is my official rating because I don't like to be bummed out. I'm going to go three and a half. I think that this movie there, are I mean I think we've hashed out the issues with it it's an extremely white movie I think that the only non-white character is Ryan Gosling's co-worker Marshall who we only get in a couple scenes we get no

context really for who he is he's mostly just there to listen to ryan gosling which obviously is just like very unfortunately in especially in this like moody 2010s drama is very expected and frustrating and like not necessary at all should always be called out and uh the abortion scene i'm i'm so grateful that we had that discussion young me because I feel like I because whatever I'd seen this movie so many times over the years that I hadn't even like thought given the correct amount of thought to how that scene is presented right so those are the two things that really stick out to me is like just irresponsible when they came out and have aged even worse um i do really appreciate the class elements to this story um it feels rare that like i don't know that there's really this

is like the main famous movie about a breakup that is about poor people uh you don't like because you get so many movies that are like a marriage story and it's like half of the divorce is like well who's gonna get what property and it's like this is not relatable to most of people who see fucking movies like yeah i appreciate that it's like not only a breakup but it's it's clear that like their backgrounds affect their ability to break up and like that is not something that's often brought up and I appreciate um how the idea of like this romantic emo boy like it's kind of like cool to see the Ryan Gosling character he'd been playing for 10 years be deconstructed in a movie yeah in a pretty like self-aware way um we didn't talk about this but something that I thought was like really well done on the rewatch that I doubt I picked up

on the first time I saw it was Ryan Gosling's character talking about like oh you know women are less romantic than men because blah blah blah when it's so obvious that he has no understanding of stuff we've talked about like in terms of class of like the history of women and why a woman may marry for some level of security because the world does not value her in the same way like just all this shit yeah i i had this movie held up honestly better than i was expecting it to i still feel like there's a lot that you can get out of it if if you're going through a breakup and you want to just fucking lose your mind, then give it a rewatch. It's streaming for free right now.

I was really crying so much. It took me four hours to watch this movie. Oh, no. Anyways, three and a half nipples. I'm doing great, guys. Woo-hoo! I'm giving all my nipples to Megan. Megan the dog.

Youngmi, how about you? I don't know. I would say also three. I would say, okay, so here's the thing. I'm very sensitive about when movies only have white people. And I'm very sensitive about the Bechdel test. I've never said that out loud. Isn't that weird?

It's Bechdel, right? Bechdel, yeah. I think in my head I thought it was like Bechdel or something. I had a weird pronunciation in my head for years. i can't believe i've never said that out loud embarrassing myself at parties um i'm very sensitive about that i'm very sensitive about when movies are all white but i have to say because this movie is just about two people basically i'm like a little bit more forgiving because you know even even ryan gosling i don't think he had a conversation with anyone about anything besides his wife in the movie either i don't remember

maybe he did so it's it's because the movie's only basically about two people i'm a little bit more forgiving of that when usually if it's like an all-white movie i'm like no there's no fucking way i'm gonna watch this like how dare, um, and then also the class thing. And I think it's very important. And I think class like is too hard to think about and it's too painful and people just don't like to look at it. But the truth is most relationships, I would even,

I'm going to say this most relationships in America because of how, where like the socioeconomic status of Americans, which more than half of us live in poverty look like this this is what most relationships look like you fucking have to stay with this person you have to go like dig in the dirt for the 200 gold ring because like you don't have a choice and like we should explore that more it's important for sure nobody want yeah nobody wants to see the fucking story about the person arguing about who gets the beach house. I totally agree with you.

What the hell does that mean? It makes me feel like shit. I'm going through a divorce too. I'm eating peanut butter sandwiches for a month. You know, like, right. Yeah, I think the class thing really I think the class thing is what saves this movie in my head of like why it's important to exist and you know I'm gonna hats off to Derek Derek thank you for doing that director Derek director Derek yeah we don't forgive you for the weird like uh trying to make Ryan sleep with Michelle thing that was weird

and you should feel bad awful yeah I hope he feels bad. I'm just like, God, I hope people grow. Like, fuck. Yeah. Well, Youngmi, thank you so much for joining us. Of course. It's been an absolute delight. What would you like to plug? Where can people follow you online?

All that good stuff. You can follow me on social media at YMMayer. My TikTok is YoungmiMayer. And I have a podcast called feeling asian podcast you can follow on social media at feeling asian podcast everywhere and then you can listen everywhere we have new episodes every wednesday right now i'm going to record with um the woman natalie who was on love is blind oh my god one of the asian So I'll, I'll let you know how that goes. So that episode should be out by the time this is out. Hopefully.

Hell. Wow. Huge. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone be sure to check that out. And then you can check us out on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtelcast. You can subscribe to our Matreon,

which is at patreon.com slash bechtel cast it gets you two bonus episodes every month plus access to the back catalog and that is five dollars a month and if you want to get merch that's over at tpublic.com slash the bechtel cast in the meantime hope this didn't bum you out too much, but guess what? Sometimes it's a bummer. Jamie, I decided I love you again. Let's get back together.

No! Oh, crap. No. In that case... Last thing, he does apologize, but I don't accept his apology. Bye. Okay, bye.

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