The Bechdel Cast - Carrie with Eva Vives

Episode Date: October 4, 2018

Jamie Loftus and Caitlin Durante invite special guest Eva Vives to prom where they talk about Carrie (1976) and have a really nice time! (This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @LittleRedWritin on Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, 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 hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast my name is Jamie Loftus and my name is Caitlin Durante this is our podcast about the portrayal of women in famous movies here we are something that doesn't pass the Bechdel test before we intro it. I used TaskRabbit for the first time today, and a hot firefighter came to my friend's house and brought her mattress to my house, and then we added each other on Facebook. Oh. I think I love that. So you're Gregnit now?

I'm Gregnit. I think I'm Gregnit. I think I'm Gregnett. I don't know. Well, anyways, I met a firefighter today. Okay. What's the Bechdel test? Yeah, that for sure didn't pass the Bechdel test, which is a test that you apply to media for our sake, movies. It requires that the movie has two named female identifying characters who speak to each other about something other than a man.

Okay, let's try it. Okay. Hey, Caitlin. What, Jamie? Guess what kind of mattress I have now. Wow. What kind of, I don't know. Queen.

Yes, queen. Yes, queen. Okay, well, it doesn't have to be a compelling conversation, but that technically passed. That passed. If it was a king-sized mattress or a California king, that would have not passed. Stop gendering our mattresses. Right?

Why do they do that? Why are California kings extra big? What are they keeping in there? Well, the real question is why are queens smaller than kings? Oh, I mean, less than. I have some idea. than kings oh i mean and less than idea i mean less than but also like i think like better because if you're getting into the king-size bed territory it's like who do you think you are like what no one needs this much space so i disagree you have a king-size bed i don't have one but it's only

because i don't sleep with anyone else in my bed if i was sleeping with someone you need someone i would need a bed that was at least, I would say, 20 feet wide. I just don't let people stay at my house. Sure. I'm just like, okay, well, get out of here. Like, you can come for breakfast tomorrow. Anyways, I'm very nurturing and nice. Okay, I'm so excited for the movie we're talking about today.

I'm particularly excited for our guest we have today. Her movie came out last week. It's going to be playing across the country. It's called All About Nina and it is a movie, well, we'll just let her tell you. It's writer-director Eva Vives. Hi. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. I've listened for so long. It's nice to be here. Yay! We're so glad to have you. Before we get into the discussion, can you tell us a little bit about All About Nina for our listeners? Sure. It's a movie that I wrote and it's my first directorial debut. Well, I guess a debut is always a first, right?

Yeah. It's my directorial debut. It's a prom of sorts. Yeah. Feature debut anyway. And it stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, soon to be in a huge DC comic book as well. But she is the titular character and she is a stand-up comedian. Yes. I have heard of those. Something you guys know something about.

And Jamie worked on the movie as well. It's How We Met, which I'm very grateful for. She was our comedy consultant. So you might recognize some of her jokes in the film as well. It's how we met, which I'm very grateful for. She was our comedy consultant, so you might recognize some of her jokes in the film as well. Yeah, anytime there's a joke about fingering, it's my joke.

That's my contribution. Not to give anything away, but yeah. I ended up having to cut a bunch because I was like, it's getting to be too many fingering jokes. We could see the punchline coming. No such thing. So, everyone should see the movie to begin with. But then also, you know, if you happen to giggle at a fingering joke, that's my little contribution.

I'm told it's raw and it's dirty, which I'm like, is it? That's just the way my friends and I are. If you go outside of the comedy scene, I think other people seem to find it kind of in your face. It's rated R. It's totally rated R. And it also has the wonderful common in it. And it, yeah, it definitely passes the Bechdel test. Oh, it does.

You've thought about this already, haven't you? When you first gave me this script a year ago, I was like, oh, let's see where it passes. And it passes a billion times. Yeah. It's great. So it's Bechdel cast approved., let's see where it passes. And it passes a billion times. Yeah. It's great. So it's Bechdel cast approved. Woo! So definitely check it out.

We'll talk about it again at the end. But today, we have a very different movie to discuss because it's the Halloween-y month now. The movie we're talking about today is Carrie. Yeah. The Brian De Palma Carrie. 1976. Yes. Yeah. The Brian De Palma Carrie. 1976. Yes. Yeah. I'm so excited to talk about it. Yeah it's it's a wild one. Ava what's your your history your relationship with this

movie? When did you first see it? I watched it again this morning in preparation of this but I had seen it I don't know not a ton of times. First of all, I was born in 1976. This is how old this movie is. So I definitely didn't see it, you know, at its time. You didn't see it as an infant? No, although I saw a lot of other inappropriate things. But I'll say horror is not my forte in movies, although I certainly love a good horror movie. So I just didn't come to it until probably I was in my mid-20s. And a friend of mine, Zoe, said, oh, you should see it. It's all about periods. I was like, oh, I didn't realize that.

All right, I'll go see it. Is that going to be the sequel to All About Nina? All About Periods? I mean, yeah. We talk quite a lot about bleeding in our movie as well. We do, yeah. But yeah, and then I thought, because I'd only seen that image of her covered in blood and with the fire, which again, I thought, this could go either way.

Like it could just be one of those silly movies where like women get bloodied up or and then she was like, no, no, it's about periods. So I thought, oh, OK, that's different. So then I watched it. And it's interesting because I mean, Jamie knows this. I was abused as a kid. And so I maybe because I was in the midst of sort of going to therapy and talking about my recovery, I remember the first time I saw it in my mid 20s, it really hit me that way. I felt it was very much about a kid who I mean, clearly she is being abused at home.

Oh, yeah. And you know, how far that abuse goes in terms of her own mother, all of that are the things that when I watched it today, probably like 15 years later or so, I had a lot more questions about. I think at the time it hit me more viscerally because I thought, and you guys are probably, you know, you're younger than me. So you've grown up at a time where, again, even though the movies still leave a lot to be desired in terms of for roles for women and anybody who is not white, basically. Because, by the way, not one non-white person in this movie. No. Actually, I think I saw one black guy in the prom scene.

Yeah, but no one certainly with speaking roles. No. Anyway, I digress. But anyway, so yeah, this time around, I was a little bit more disappointed in it in the sense that I wish, I mean, I'm sure we'll get into it, but the fear of women was very palpable in it and certainly the ending of, I guess to me, the allegory felt like if you're abused, you will burn in hell. Right.

There was, oh gosh, there was a few moments where I thought the movie was ending and it actually wasn't. Like the last few minutes, I mean, we'll get into it, but like the last few minutes of this movie were such a rollercoaster of like, how does this movie feel about Carrie? Where, like,

what is the movie? Because I thought it was like reaching a place where I was like, oh, this seems empathetic. And then at the end it's like, no, just kidding. She's in hell.

And you're like, oh, okay, great. Yeah. Caitlin, what's your history with this movie? I lived my whole adolescent and adult life until two years ago ago thinking that I had seen this movie as like a teenager.

And I think it was just because I knew the very iconic moments of the movie, which is the shower scene where she finds out she gets her period and has a bunch of tampons and pads thrown at her. And the prom scene, which I think i might have actually seen that whole sequence play out and then just think that i had seen the whole movie but yeah i watched it two years ago and realized oh i've actually never seen this whole movie so that was a fun revelation for me but i do distinctly remember seeing The Rage Carry 2. Whoa. Wait, when did that come out? That came out. Was that like in the 80s?

No, no, no. Wait, was this the Kimberly Pierce one? I'm not entirely sure. It was, I think, an early 2000s sequel. Let me see here. Like a direct-to-video deal? Oh, that. Because I know Kim.

1999. Got it. Because I know Kim Pierce remade it with julianne moore but i i haven't seen that yet so that's actually watching it today i was i was really curious about how her treatment of it would change it you know yeah i haven't seen the remake yeah that was julianne moore as the mother and that chloe chloe grace moretz as carrie saying that blonde girl chloe really doesn't narrow it down when you think about it. Also, let's not reduce women to their hair colors, Jamie. But also. But also. But no,

I haven't seen that one. But I think the other thing is that I read Stephen King's autobiographical like how to write books called On Writing. talks at length about carrie in that book which i have not read the book carrie but i did read on writing and i just thought that just through osmosis i must have i was like yeah i've seen this movie but it was just that i had been exposed to enough carrie related imagery and stories that I thought I saw it. I think that I had sort of a similar experience where I wasn't 100% if I had actually seen this movie or not. I think that mostly just speaks to what an impact this had on the culture

to the point where by the time it was 20 minutes in, I was like, oh, I definitely haven't seen this all the way through. But same like you were saying, I'm pretty sure that I saw clips of it in college, in class. It's sort of like that weird thing where I think I know more about this movie through references made to it, through other things, but I've never actually seen the thing. My experiences with this movie is I saw it this morning, as usual. But I have had, I don't know know i've had a weird lifelong thing with stephen kang because he lives in the same town my grandma lived in right yeah and so uh i would like

i have like pictures of him when i was a little kid and i don't know like he just was like a hero growing up even though i haven't read a ton of his books he was just like the only writer I'd ever met for a very long time I was like oh he's the coolest and like the fact that I knew he wrote about girls even though I wasn't allowed to read the books um I thought was really cool Stephen King has written so many books that it's kind of hard to have a concise discussion on like how he writes female characters I haven't also read enough of his hard to have a concise discussion on how he writes female characters. I also haven't read enough of his stuff to have that conversation. Same, yeah.

Let's do the recap. What are we going to do? Just the story, and then we'll actually get into a more in-depth discussion. So many questions. I know. Okay, so the story of Carrie is we meet Carrie, who is a teenage girl. Sissy Spacek. Right. Love her. What a performance. So the movie opens they're playing some volleyball and gym class and then all the girls are showering in a sequence that you know we'll unpack and then she gets her period for

the first time and she does not know what's happening. She thinks she's like dying. Yeah, yeah. She just sees blood and she thinks that she's dying. So she starts freaking out and screaming and begging for help. And then all the other girls in her gym class start bullying her and they're throwing feminine hygiene products at her. Which is like, what a waste. Right. We're taxed on those.

Like, come on. Just throw them in um stressing me out and the the main perpetrator of this bullying incident is this girl chris it's got farrah faucet hair yeah and then the gym teacher comes in and tries to console carrie and all this is happening a light bulb bursts and we're like what what's that all about then she goes home and we realize that she has a religious zealot for a mother yes and who's reading i think the book she's reading when carrie walks in is like the sins of women just like okay she is right so her mom finds out that carrie has gotten her period and she punishes her for it by locking her in a closet.

Harry Potter reference, I'm assuming. I thought about that too. So Carrie is the victim of physical, verbal, emotional abuse from her mother. And from really everyone around her. Yeah. The amount of slapping that happens in this movie is quite astounding.

So much slapping. Sorry, I keep not letting you get through. No, no, no, it's fine. So then she goes, Carrie goes upstairs after being let out of the closet

and her mirror shatters suddenly and we're like, huh, what's that all about? And I was like, tee hee hee. Isn't that the cue though? Yeah. The cues are so goofy.

So then the girls in the gym class who were bullying her are being punished by Miss Collins, the gym teacher. And she's like, do this detention with me or you don't get to go to prom. And that's all anyone cares about. Right. So Chris is like, I'm not doing this stupid detention. So she gets banned from prom meanwhile carrie starts to investigate she's like glass keeps shattering around me i wonder what that's all about really quick uh this because we just recorded our bonus episode on teeth yesterday there are so many a lot of parallels parallels yeah so so carrie uh active character takes it upon herself to figure out what the fuck's going on. Yes.

Reads some books. So she finds a book that tells her about telekinesis. So she's like, that sounds like what I have. Then one of the girls who is friends with the mean bully Chris, but who seems to be nicer. Sue? Sue Snell. She asks her boyfriend Tommy if he will take Carrie to the prom because she genuinely seems to want to help Carrie even though she's complicit in some mistreatment of Carrie.

That was an interesting... I feel like Sue, of everyone, for most high school girls, is probably the most relatable character of, like like you're seeing someone get bullied, but you don't want to be uncool, but you also don't want to let this happen. And like, what can you do? And so she like tries, but fucks up. Yeah.

So Sue is interesting. In another male fantasy way. Please fuck my girlfriend. That's basically what she says. Exactly. So Tommy asks Carrie to prom in a series of scenes that we will also unpack. But eventually Carrie agrees to go to prom with him. Her mom isn't happy about it. But Carrie stands up for herself. She's like, I'm going like she made her

own dress. She's excited about it. Well, kind of through intimidation, too, because her mom knows that like is recognizing that Carrie has these powers. And Carrie's like, yeah, I do. So I'm going to prom. Yeah. And we find out some background that the father left. Right. Because she says your father left for another woman is what they did at first.

Yeah, and she said your father was evil, too, which I didn't know if she was interpreting that the father also had the powers or not. And she just said no. He just left her another woman. Right. The implication by the end, I don't know. We'll get there. So many questions. What?

We keep interrupting poor Caitlin. What? Yeah, basically Carrie's mom is unhappy with the situation. But, you know, Carrie's slamming windows and stuff like that with her telekinesis. And she's like, I'm going to prom. It's a great, great moment for a young teenage girl coming to her own power, whether it's against your own parents. I mean, there are some really great moments of that. For sure.

Yeah. But meanwhile, Chris is plotting something that involves. With John Travolta, which I didn't realize that he was in this movie. Right. It's like, oh, he's plotting against. So they're scheming. There's a pig involved. They killed a pig. They keep slapping each other. It's a lot.

There's a toxic relationship happening there. Everyone gets to prom. Carrie is really excited. She is, you know, dancing with Tommy. He seems to be treating her nicely, except for the parts where he tries to surprise kiss her, which we'll get to. Yeah, but at least he seems to, he's come, like, it's no longer like he's doing a favor.

Like, he's enjoying his time with her. Seems like it, yeah. The two of them, Tommy and Carrie, win prom king and queen because Chris had the system rigged. She's a Russian hacker. prom king and queen because chris had the system rigged much like a russian hacker yeah much like most of our recent elections what is this gore bush 2000 basically anyway maybe that's where they got the idea yeah yeah they were like oh well i mean they did it at carrie's prom how hard could it be screamed it at the white house. How hard could it be? Screened it at the White House. They were like, hey. Hey, what can I do?

Check out the way they throw those ballots under the table. Right. What if we put a thing of pig's blood onto Al Gore? We can blame this on Stephen King. Right. I hope it started out exactly like Carrie, and then they had to, like, backpedal it. Be like, well, we can't just, like, carry Al Gore. It is an all-white people party.

It is true. And there's a lot of similarities. It is true, yeah. Man. I mean, I think that that's now American history, what we just said. Yep. Yeah, I can't believe they were going to do that to Al Gore. He seems like a nice guy.

So they win prom king and queen, and they go up to the stage, and that's when the final moments of this plan are unleashed and this big bucket of pig's blood gets dumped onto Carrie and this invokes her to retaliate using her telekinesis where there's a hose that's spraying people. She locks all the doors. No survivors it seems like. It seems like she kills everyone. Other than Sue. But she's outside of the doors. Because I think everyone in the room dies, but Sue leaves. She even kills the

coach. Yeah. She does kill the coach. So much self-hatred going on in this movie. And then Chris and John Travolta get away, but then Carrie's like nope, and she explodes their car. Right. There's a fire in the gym. There's all kinds of, yeah.

Bye. Carrie walks out. She's covered in blood still. And then, yeah, Chris and what's his name? Billy, I think. Yeah. They blow up. They blow up in their car.

They do try to run her over first. They do. Yeah. And she's like, nah. They, I mean, they, you know, who misses them? Right. They're goodbye. Then she goes home and cleans herself off.

And then her mother is like, oh, Carrie, stab. And then she stabs her. Right. Because she's trying to save her, basically. Another incredible line. She says, I should have killed myself when he put it in me. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is pretty tremendous. I love how, and it seems like so consistent with this character and just so creepy how no one in that house ever says the word sex. It's like it and we didn't do it and he put it in. But when he put it in me is pretty intense. Yeah. It's like, it's pretty graphic without naming like the it, but. Yeah.

And also it's unclear at that moment if she was raped or not because the mother because she says uh i made him promise he wouldn't do it again but then she's talking about living in sin so i couldn't figure out if the problem was that they weren't married or that he had forced himself on her yeah i think it's open to interpretation so many things are more in the book but i don't know yeah The movie doesn't really seem to follow any witch plays in it. So then the house caves in. Carrie gets stabbed once, and then she starts telekinesing knives into her mother. She literally crucifies her own mom, Christ-style.

And then the house caves in on itself. Then seems to be sad about it and brings her down from the cross. And then the house collapses on them. Goes to hell. They get in the closet. I mean, it's so horrible. And then the final shot is the flattened house, basically, and then Sue Snell walks up and she's like,

oh no, what a horrible thing that happened. She brings flowers. A bloody hand comes up from beneath the ground and grabs her and she's like, ah. But it was a dream. Right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But was it? Because then they go back to it and she's still being dragged down.

Oh. I don't know. I don't know. Let's watch Rage Carry 2 again to find out. I'm sure that doesn't sell out the characters in any way. So that's the story. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back.

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Yeah. And I think we've had this sort of discussion before where it's like so many steps removed from an actual woman where Stephen King wrote it. And then I forget what the name of the screenwriter, Lawrence... Lawrence D. Cohen. Leonard Cohen wrote the screenplay.

Mr. Leonard Cohen, rest in power. Isn't that amazing if he had written it? Yeah, Lawrence D. Cohen. And then, yeah. Right, he adapted it. and then Brian De Palma produced and directed it and that's like that's so many like where is any woman but it's a woman's story and I think that that is kind of why this movie for me and a lot of movies of this era and even later like the way I'm happy that there's a lot of women interacting in a movie, but the way they interact is kind of uncanny valley and doesn't necessarily

make sense to me. And that used to bother me when I'd watch movies like this, but then it's like, yeah, it's because it's just what we're seeing is how three different men interpret teenage girls bullying each other. Yeah. And not only that, I mean, I had the same thought. And like you, I actually blown up to this shamefully that I have never read any Stephen

King books, which, well, I don't know. I am curious because I do think he's a really interesting character. I have read some of his on writing. I think his politics seem cool. Like, clearly he's interested in women. I do believe he's been fairly open about his own abuse as well, which is also rare for certainly for men of that generation. So you know, I have a lot of sympathy for him, even though again, horror is not my

genre. But I love a lot of the movies that have been based on on his books. So like you guys, I also I was like, I wonder what the book is like. And I wonder how he feels about the movie and the adaptation. But several times in the movie, including the famous sequence in the beginning, I today so clearly felt that it was actually, you know, I think some men and filmmakers, directors do this all the time, specifically, are unable to talk about their own fears, whether it's about masculinity or women, unless they have women portraying them. And to me, that sequence today, I thought, I don't know about you guys, but I never saw young girls in lockers behave like that. And I don't just mean, and I don't just mean the throwing things. I know women can get nasty too. It's not about that. But

the way it was more, first of all, the slow motion movement of tits in your face and all of that, which I know was supposed to be, you know, romantic and beautiful or whatever. But it was what it was. But also that, like, they were, like, snapping towels on each other. And I remember at the time, the age they're supposed to be, girls would just cover up. Like, I mean, maybe you walked from the shower to something or whatever. But to me, at least, and again, I'm curious about your guys' experience, but the being comfortable being naked in front of women came later,

like when it was my friends and you're choosing. Like when you're a teenager in high school, the last thing you want to do is for anybody to see your tits or your ass. But here they were. It was like a Playboy advertisement of what they, I think, what men were seeing as, oh, this is, but also probably the way, and again, I wouldn't know this from personal experience, but the way dudes are, right? Or maybe in that generation where in locker rooms, where they're much more show-off-y.

Right. They're just sort of mapping typical male behavior onto women to basically make it a very like male gaze thing where we can see like full frontal nudity and like girls slapping each other and throwing like their clothes at each other and stuff and by the same token i felt the same way with you know with the famous shot of her period started i'm like boy that is some heavy flow she's just gushing she's a geyser it's a real man's understanding of what a period is totally and i think that that that whole scene plays into I don't know, from when we were very young

there's always the joke where creepy uncles would be like, so what happens in the women's room? Is there a couch in there? Is there a TV? Shit like that. And a scene like that is almost like, yeah, here's what your creepy

uncle thinks is happening in your locker room. We get to reinterpret this. Great. And you scene like that is almost like, yeah, here's what your creepy uncle thinks is happening in your locker room. They're like, oh, we get to reinterpret this. Like, great. This is. And you can see that it's, you know, Brian's fantasy of like, I get to shoot all these young nubile bodies. And all the same body type, basically. All white girls with the same body type. The one that's a little bigger, whose name I forget, but she's a great actress.

With the glasses? Yeah, she's the funny one yeah right yeah it's bigger women are funny according to movies but also have you think and also the the period thing when it comes which again I am glad I saw this so long ago because I do remember I think I didn't finish that thought that I think at the time I was still so glad to have like any female representation that especially if it dealt with something like getting a period or anything like that, that I was just sort of fascinated by that. Whereas this time around, I was a little bit more out of it, meaning I was like, none of these and to your point about how mean everybody is, I know that the Amy Irving character eventually tries to help her. But I was like, you know, this shit happens all the time that women have accidents with their periods or you bleed through your pants or whatever.

Like we tend to help each other out with that. Like even for young girls, it seems really weird for all of them to like start throwing fucking pats at her. Especially when she looks as horrified and as terrified as she does. Right. And it's relatively something that I was searching for in this movie was more practical reasoning for the bullying. Cause it was just like, I was hoping for like, you know,

later in the story, Chris, we would understand like in a clear way, she's jealous of Carrie in some way, or there's some connection between the two other than just like, Chris. Yes. Yes.

Chris is like the main. Yes. It's never really, I mean, connection between the two other than just like Chris is like the main villain girl. We get a couple of mentions of how weird she is and how she's not like others but that's mostly coming from her when she talks to her mother later saying I'm funny. I'm not like

the other kids. It's just a little, I don't know. I was just hoping for it would have been very easy to ground that storyline a little bit of like maybe they used to be friends and now they're not or just like hoping for, it would have been very easy to ground that storyline a little bit of like, maybe they used to be friends and now they're not. Or just like a more, a clear reason for women to be so aggressively mean to each other. Because as it is, it just kind of seems like this is how the writers feel women treat each other and feel about each other. Yeah, I think that men have just historically seen whether or not they have actually seen this or if this is just their sort of idea of what female friendships and relationships

must be like, but they just assume that, oh, women can't get along and they're always so cruel to each other. And then a lot of men prefer it that way, too, right? That it's like it's easier for them to handle us if we're just like catty bitches like going at each other. And I was also taken by the fact that with the exception of her mom and the coach, which is a whole other conversation I'm sure we'll get into. I felt like all of the other girls were consistently defined, certainly by their looks, whether they were naked or not. They all kind of looked the same. And then they were competing for men and or for a beauty queen title right like that was the only thing that seemed to be

of interest to them and it was like which also seems unrealistic because it's their senior year of high school and no one talks about what they're doing after high school like right as far as they're concerned their life ends on prom night and And then, to be fair, it does. It does. The most interesting character to me who wasn't Carrie was Sue, where, I don't know, it's like you see what she's doing from a teenager's perspective, but it's so misguided. Right, because she seems to be wanting to help break Carrie out of her shell. Right. But in order to do that, that means she has to just start dating. Like surely there's, she's just like introducing like a romantic component into it.

And it's like, well, like, why don't you just try to talk to her? Like, why don't you just try to befriend her a little bit? that's the thing about Sue that, that I thought was so interesting was like,

that she wanted Carrie to have a better quality of life at this high school but she didn't want credit for it she didn't want it to seem like she had had anything to do with it so in Sue's mind I the way I interpreted it was like Sue feels for this girl but doesn't want to become less cool in the eyes of her peers by actually becoming her friend. Yes. Yeah. Also, it wouldn't fit the pattern of how these guys seem to be seeing these girls. Right.

Because instead, like, the quote-unquote nice thing for her to do is to say, you know what this girl would need? To get laid. Or, you know, or, I mean, when I was watching it from her point of view, like, I was thinking about actors and motivation. And, you know, probably she's saying, well, I think, when I was watching it from her point of view, like I was thinking about actors and motivation. And probably she's saying, well, I think her boyfriend is nice. So she's like, maybe I can sacrifice myself by allowing Carrie to go to prom with him. Because in another nutty way, you can't go to prom without a date, they say in the movie too.

Right, which is like awesome. So it's a sacrifice for Sue to say, I won't go, you go, which again is sort of another thing that's expected from nice women, right, that they make sacrifices like that. Why the dude also doesn't, it's such a weird thing to do to be like, because then he also seems to interpret it as like now we're boyfriend and girlfriend. Because he kisses her. No, it becomes a romance between the two of them so i was like so well what happened to the

other girl right like this was the agreement that sue is literally giving her boyfriend because that doesn't seem fair to me they're uh they're introducing a throuple component to their relationship and well and in the conversation that they have with the coach about it the coach questions them like why are you doing this? What's your motivation? And he seems really confused, which was the only thing that seemed really realistic to me. Like, they ask him something and he's like, I don't know what the fuck is going on. It's that scene and then it's what you're talking about, Jamie, with like her wanting to kind of like be behind the scenes in this whole thing.

Yeah. wanting to kind of like be behind the scenes in this whole thing yeah that made me think the first time i saw this movie was that sue was in on chris's scheme and that she they were trying to find a way to get her to prom so that they could sabotage her which would make sense story-wise yeah and so i wrote this whole set of notes that it's like, oh, another teen movie about boys tricking girls to get them to prom so that they can play an awful prank on them. And then so I wrote all these notes about it. And then I was like, oh, yeah, but this time, like the schemers get there, come up and unlike most movies that we've talked about where they end up kissing each other at the end. But then I was like, oh, wait, no, that doesn't even happen. They do seem to be innocent, those two.

Sue and her boyfriend are the only ones who. And the male students in this movie, I think it's kind of almost an, not responsible, but like an unusual portrayal of teen boys where they are relatively clueless and basically are. And I think that this goes into writers' intent and reflects on the writer's view of women, whether that be, you know, De Palma, the screenwriter, Stephen King, I don't even know, but that these two teen boys, whether they're doing something relatively good, like bringing Carrie to prom, or bad, punishing Carrie at prom for no reason, it's never their idea. They're doing what a woman is telling them to do they're being too for the purposes of this story manipulated by a woman and I think that that reflects on how the authors view women well and

also the rage that the Travolta character has over being called stupid because it happens like three times that that Chris calls him stupid shit, I think. And then he slaps her. And then she slaps him once. I don't know. It's just not a good relationship. And then there's a lot of shots of her tits, too, among those fights. So there is, again, I felt so much more like this is not only a male interpretation of women, but a male interpretation of themselves by using

women as the conduits of it, you know, that so much rage comes to men if they feel belittled by women or not considered fuckable by women or whatever, but it's easier to put it on a bunch of girls. Right. And then like piggybacking on that, almost like in the context of this story, like blaming their female counterparts for whatever it is they end up doing. Where like it's, you know, Travolta's character is being told what to do. And there's that scene with Chris that, I mean, the scene where they're in the car and they're fighting. But then it's like she, in a very classically teen movie way, manipulates him through sex to get him to do what she wants, where she gives him a blowjob,

and then all of a sudden he's willing to kill a pig. Like, stuff like that. Well, also, she's supposed to be blowing him, but she won't shut up. She keeps saying Billy. She's like, Billy, Billy. And I was like, I hate Carrie White. Right, I'm like, can anyone else speak full sentences

with a dick in their mouth? Because I don't think that's a thing. And then why does she hate her? Is it because the period thing, they got punished and then she, is that what it is? so hell-bent on going to prom and who was so obsessed with prom that she will go to great and crazy and violent and horrible lengths to ruin another girl's prom experience just because she blames carrie for for not being able to go herself oh but which which is wild like who no one is that crazy about prom, I don't think. Oh, I'm sure plenty were, no?

Sure. Again, this is the 70s. Yeah, but are they going to kill a pig and then dump its blood on a poor unsuspecting girl? Also, the pig, the killing the pig scene, that just seems really, really intense. I guess the darkness of that stuff, I think, would have made for a better movie. And again, such character study. If we understood, for example, where the Travolta and the Chris character were coming from. Like I'm not saying, I mean, if you start thinking about it, it sounds like some kind of psychosis or something.

If you're going to go out at night and murder a pig with your own hands, fill a bucket of blood. Because if it's the joke, then just throw fucking paint on her, right? Like why does it have to? Right. But of course, the movie's so obsessed with blood anyway. Yeah. And menstrual blood. Yeah.

I guess that's what they're trying to mirror. Well, I mean, it's a horror movie. You have to suspend your disbelief for quite a few things. But it does sort of. But that's so specific. It reinforces this idea. So I've talked about this a lot on, and we've done a lot of teen movies recently. There's a trope that really bugs me that teen movies always seem to have to end in prom or a spring formal or some

sort of big affair like that. And I think I've pinpointed why it bugs me so much, which is that when I was a girl and a young woman, and this is specific to my experience, but I think it rings true for probably quite a few people, that the big milestones that I was taught to look forward to and was taught to think are super important moments of my life were prom and my inevitable wedding, which has not and likely will not happen. But that's a story for another time. But like social wise or your family specifically? It was not so much my family, but certainly my peers, my teachers, movies certainly. Sure.

Yeah. Reinforce this. So it was like, you know, prom is the short term goal. Your wedding is your long term goal. And like both occasions are like something where you get dressed up for. There's an elaborate gown. There's a big emphasis on especially how the woman looks. There's just big social rituals.

Yeah. The focus is on romance with a man traditionally. Both are occasions where a woman, you know, traditionally may lose her virginity at the end of the night kind of thing. So these were like the things that you're like, oh, as a young woman, like these are the most exciting, the most fun, great, best days of your life. Right. So you resent it now. Yeah. I guess it just bothers me that like not enough emphasis is placed on education or career or like creative pursuits. Is that true for you too growing up? I'm curious because I didn't grow up here. So

that was, we didn't have prom, so that took care of one thing. One less thing to dread. I have a slightly different perspective on it where, I don't know, I mean, I've been a person who always takes a lot of comfort in rituals. And I went to a big enough high school where I went to like this gigantic inner city high school where prom like it was a deal and like almost everyone went but I don't mind that proms and weddings exist I think that there is definitely value in them as an idea and just a value in like coming of age social rituals if you choose to participate in them can be very valuable for some people. However, I do feel that the fact that, yeah, like in media especially, that that is like the forced narrative of, in a way that doesn't even really feel that realistic in terms of my life

where I would say I was thinking just as much about graduation as I was about prom. Like those would be two things that happened close together. Oh, sure. That were probably at the time equally important to me. And that was like, that's fine. I don't want anyone to feel bad about wanting to go to a prom or wanting to, you know, go to a wedding. I mean, I went to four proms. So it's not that I was like refusing to go to them.

But I just, it bugged me that like there was just so much emphasis placed on that. And so little emphasis placed on things that I deemed to be more important because like think of how many movies teen movies and well that I prom and how few movies end in a graduation ceremony with a young woman giving the valedictorian speech like right right even in this movie even in that sequence there's so much time spent on her looking very beautiful, very angelic. The crown is being placed on her. I noticed that Tommy is sort of to the side. Yeah, yeah.

So even he seems to, like, not matter in that moment. It's all about, but really her looks or that is a symbol of acceptance of herself. That suddenly because whoever has given her this moment, everything's going to be okay, right? As if, like, the fact that she lives with a fucking insane mother and doesn't know she was going to get her period or any of the other stuff doesn't matter. And, like, the movie will, like, you can tell just by that, like, you're saying how that moment is presented. Like, this is the best moment of her life. Yeah. Which I was like, I thought you all hated her. Why are you so excited for her except for the coach?

The mob mentality in this room is very weird. They're just down for whatever. The bucket falling on his head and knocking him out. I laughed so much. One of my favorite shots. Yeah, it's like an empty two-pound bucket. I was like, why is that there? Is that a backup bucket?

So great. I guess it was because they wanted to figure out if he's not knocked out can't he try to stop her or help her somehow oh so they need they needed to get him out of the way a decoy bucket with a slow motion bucket i i i do i totally agree with the you're saying caitlin where it's like the the way that prom and weddings are portrayed in media are so aspirational and so clearly, I mean, to sell stuff. Not just to sell you on the idea of like your events, but to literally sell you items. Yeah, I mean, I think that this movie that's keeping with its view of women in general, I think that it's like, it's also saying like, well, what would be the most important thing to ever happen to this girl?

Winning prom queen. Because in, you know, Stephen King, Brian De Palma's eyes. Well, yeah, that's what all teenage girls want. Right. So it's just again, it's just like reinforcing this vague idea that no one has asked a woman about at all. And earlier in the movie, Carrie explains to her mother, like, people think I'm funny, but not in a, hey, I'm a hilarious stand-up comic kind of way, in a people think I'm unusual and weird and alienating kind of way. And she expresses a desire to fit in, which I think is very normal for that age.

Sure, yeah. desire to fit in which i think is is very normal for that age yeah but then they like extend that to oh but so she's gonna want to be the prom queen obviously and and yeah it is a very yeah male understanding of what a teen girl must want it literally is i mean i i think stephen king was like i think he's in his like mid-20s when he wrote this or something it was his first published book but like he's writing how he thinks teenage girls would act and this is as a guy 10 years older than a teenage girl who's never been a teenage girl so and and i think that that just informs so much about what this did you guys as teenagers either partake or witness in that kind of like group female bullying? Not that I'm saying that that means it doesn't happen or does, but I'm just curious because I was really trying.

I've had girls and women be mean to me like one on one. And, you know, some like look stuff and shit like that on the street or whatever. But I've never the intense bullying that either I suffered or saw was almost always dudes, which I'm not saying women didn't do it, but I'm just curious if you guys have witnessed that. I've never seen it in the way it's portrayed in this movie, because it's just, in this movie, it's just violent and baseless. And it doesn't stop, too. It goes on and on and on. And then, I mean, not just in that that scene but then obviously in a long-term planning kind of way yeah i've never seen a universal hatred of a single person the way that people hate carrie i don't know i think when i was picked on in like middle school and high school

would be like small groups uh same yeah like maybe just a small small group of you know four or five people who would be like, hey, she sucks. Right. Let's go fuck with this one. Right. Yeah. I've never seen it or experienced it anywhere close to how it's represented in this movie. Right.

Do you guys think it's a fear of periods as well? Like, I thought about that a lot. Oh, for sure. Because her mother fears it, hasn't told her about it. But then there's also, again, if the girls are actually the guys, like, I kept thinking, why are you scared of that? And it's, well, you know, women come not just into their so-called womanhood, but really it's your ability to bear children, right? Right. And maybe that's what is also scary to men about it, that, like, now you can't just, like, fuck them indiscriminately. There might be a child involved in it.

Like, I don't know if that's a... I see that. I mean, it's like the fact that in this movie the cause and effect is like she gets her period. Now she can do evil things. Yeah, and that too. It's so just like... I guess that's what brought that on because it's never hinted that she didn't have this power before. It doesn't seem that way because it starts with the light bulb and even she doesn't really seem to know what's going on. It's the power of life and death, I guess, like comes with her period, right? Yeah.

Like she has. I would have liked that if I had gone on my period and become whatever it's called. You keep saying that so well. Telekinetic. Telekinetic. Well, this is, and just because we just watched Teeth yesterday, this is where the girl from Teeth succeeds, where Carrie does not succeed as she learns to harness and control her power. And then where Carrie, it seems like, and this is probably a more realistic read of a teenage girl.

Or one way that I found it is like she suddenly has this new thing happen to her and she doesn't quite understand it yet. And she doesn't quite know how to control it. That I think is realistic. What I don't think is realistic is that it means you are going to hell and everyone dies. But, you know, it's not a movie. Right. Yeah, the ending of this movie means that... Sometimes periods feel like that. I have

felt that way, like locking myself in a closet as my house descends to hell. But I don't know that Stephen King or Brian De Palma knew that, but maybe they did. No. I mean, look how much I thought you bleed when you... And there's also that hilarious scene after in the, whoever he is, the headmaster's office with the coach, where also she's smoking, which I love, and more in short shorts. And they talk quite openly about periods in a way that I also...

Well, the headmaster cannot say the word. He cannot even, he like really skirts around the issue. But then he's like, who would have thought that at this time and age like a young girl wouldn't know about anything, which again is like a veiled like slut shaming.

Yeah. Sure. And then her mother, whenever she finds out that Carrie has gotten her period, says something like, if you hadn't sinned, the curse of blood

would never come upon you. Right. And like you don't have it. Right. Are we meant to believe that her mother is not menstruating? No, but that's, I mean, but the mother is insane. But actually I remembered my mother telling me years ago, I'm from Spain, I was born and grew up there.

I know this isn't the only country where that happens, but that when she first got her period, my mom, and told her mother that her mother slapped her and that was a very common thing to do because it was it was equated with original sin which they do in this movie too which again is so fucked up so like original sin being knowledge means that we were cursed by having periods right so therefore like the welcoming into womanhood was a slap in the face, which is pretty tremendous. My mom had a similar experience where she wasn't hit, but she was made to feel very bad when she first got her period by her mom. Yeah, it's like a generational code switch. something between Carrie and most of us who grew up generations after this and weren't quite

steeped in this Carrie-verse where so much emphasis is put on this stuff, but yeah, I just thought I shit myself. I just thought I shit myself when I got my period the first time and I didn't say anything for days. I'm like, I can't stop

shitting myself. And then two days later, my mom was like, is everything okay? I was just acting weird. I was walking weird. But had she told you about it prior to this or no? No, she thought that, well, she, I don't know. I think I must have known it existed, but I never got sex ed in school. Wow.

And it happened to me so late. But isn't that insane to you? Yeah. Well, here I think are the implications of this or like people's like subconscious reaction to this, which is like, oh, my daughter or this, you know, this young girl is becoming a woman. That means she's probably going to start having sex soon. And that's bad. And that's impure. And that's evil.

And, you know, very like I think there's very slut shaming implications to. Oh, for sure. This reaction. And that's another maybe generation thing where for Carrie's generation, at least it's implied in the context of this story, that the symbolism of it is that she is now a woman who is somehow more dangerous. She's able to carry a child now, where by the time I was getting a talk about when I finally was like, hey, maybe this isn't shit. My mom and all my friends sort of more closely

associated getting your period with the beginning of puberty as opposed to like childbearing or anything like that. Like we were just like, oh my god, I got my period. That means maybe I'll get boobs soon. For some of of us it just never happened but like but yeah maybe you should have massaged them with soap like Carrie does in the movie maybe I should have just groped myself in a public shower maybe that would just egg them on I don't know

yeah so much to unpack with this movie we just did a tight 20 minutes on period blood alone and it's various interpretations in this movie. Let's take a quick break and then we'll be back for more. Cool.

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interesting to me. This was not a character I was familiar with going into I knew the mom I knew that there was like a villainous girl who pours pig blood on Carrie I didn't know about Sue I didn't know about the coach and they ended up being two of the for me like the most thought-provoking characters because they exist in this in-between space where I don't know like I saw more of myself in characters like that than any of the, you know, anyone on the cartoonish end of the spectrum. More of yourself in the coach? Not in the coach. Mostly in Sue. Oh, right.

But let's talk about the coach. It's coach Miss Collins. Miss Collins. She's, yeah, the phys ed teacher. teacher and because there are I would say four main relationships that Carrie has with other women and I would say two of them are fall on the positive end of the spectrum I wouldn't necessarily call them positive relationships but they're more on that end of the spectrum and then the two very negative relationships on that end of the spectrum is her mother and Chris are the negative ones and then Sue and Coach are the negative ones. And then Sue and Coach.

Are the positive ones. Yeah. And it's interesting because it's, for the most part, her relationship with Sue kind of plays out unbeknownst to her. Yeah. They never relate to one another. No. It's like everything that's happening between them, Carrie doesn't even, I don't think she ever finds out about it really.

Which is interesting. Yeah. Because she even says, I know, you know, Tommy asked me, but they're just making fun of me because I know who he goes with. Like, he doesn't even say her name. Well, because Sue does run with the mean girls. And we see there's, like, one point when they're at, like, gym detention. And there's that needlessly long male gaze-y scene of all their bodies doing jumping jacks. And really crazy, like, electronic music that is so tonally...

That whole scene is so tonally... That scene is a minute and a half long. Why? The tonal inconsistencies of that scene are wild. Guys, it's 76. Come on. It's true. There is, like, one moment in that scene...

More slapping in that scene, too. Yeah. There is more slapping in that scene. Because the female and female violence in this movie, yeah. Miss Collins be slapping in this scene. I just... I'm baffled by Miss Collinsins i mean i don't have by the way also to give context to the young ones as the as the resident old person in the house this character until i'm

sure very recently was almost always referred to as the lesbian like the assumption was always that she was in love and wanted carrie and that that why. I mean, I know I've heard that so many times, which I remembered watching. I was like, hence why she's so unhappy. Do you think that that is what the story is implying or is that just what people thought? I didn't. I mean, certainly what people thought. I don't know. Again, it was also before my time, although I saw it earlier than you guys.

So I don't know if that would have been immediately assumed at the time in a way that it isn't now. Yeah. Well, there is like a trope of women gym teachers and coaches in media that they seem to present as being fairly butch. All the way up to glee. That's why she's always, yeah, she's always exercising. She's smoking and wearing short shorts and making the girls do it and slapping them around and also in another baffling scene she seems to be upset at who they're going to the prom with remember when she asked them right who's taking you to prom and she's like tell me and she gets like teary-eyed to invest it yeah which i don't understand i was like is she into

the guys or did she not get taken to prom but then I don't I mean I found her as a character very baffling I didn't understand like hearing that does help me a little if that is what the story is supposed to be implying even like subtextually yeah because she is like a character who at some points you're like I know what she's doing and other points you're like where is she going with this really not sure right because tricky character the first scene we see her in is when she's coming to console carrie after she's been violently bullied by she slaps her first but she slaps her and then she tells me that's slapping that lady yeah you know she's like get a calm down get a hold of yourself and then she apologizes and she says, sorry, I didn't know Carrie. And then she comforts her. And then there's that scene where she talks where Miss Collins talks to the principal and she's like, I really identified with the girls because I just wanted to shake her and be like, don't you know what a period is? So she's like, but then later on, she punishes all the women who were bullying her and wants to ban them all from prom.

And, you know, she gives them all detention and everything like that. You know, she's like, didn't you stop to think of Carrie had feelings? So she's advocating for Carrie. Then she finds out that she's been asked to prom. She's like, oh, you know, you need to change your attitude about yourself. It's great. Get hot. Yeah, get hot. Just put on some mascara and some lipstick. The part in the coach that I recognized, again, it's like there's a few characters who are the closest things we have to allies to carry are people who have at least good intentions. But that doesn't mean they really do her any good.

She's certainly the only one who shows her real kindness, absolutely. To her face, yeah. But the thing with the teacher is like, and this is something I remember from being younger, of a teacher who is like, yeah, you're weird. And a teacher who genuinely wants your life to be better, but the only way they know of to make your life better is to be like so just be normal like why can't like do normal stuff and then people will like you which is I don't think a good message to send a young girl at all but I understand why she's saying it and I and it seems clear that she's trying to do a good thing she wants Carrie's life to be easier but doesn't really care if that comes at the

sacrifice of like Carrie being herself. Also, I guess no one, I also found it really interesting that no one ever brings up. I mean, even in that conversation with her, like it's so weird that she doesn't know about periods that they just blame Carrie. And I know there's a phone call to the house that we don't hear informing the mother that Carrie has gotten her period. But like why nobody thinks to investigate or take this woman. Well, it does kind of get explained away by the principal when he's just like, oh, well, I guess we shouldn't be surprised knowing that mother of hers.

But yeah, nothing further than that gets explored. To me was also something that was really sad in this one and that I definitely identified with in the first viewing and even now that so often kids who are abused end up being blamed themselves for their behavior and nobody questions why it's there right now and nothing is really done right you're like you have a 16 year old 17 year old who's getting her period and it's horrified and doesn't know like something's up you know yeah well I think that and the way that that's's kind of cast off is like by introducing another kind of malleable, incompetent male character, the principal, who can't even remember Carrie's name, much less actually do anything to be helpful.

Every time something like that happened and she showed, in this case, she flips his ashtray and breaks it i i really wish i could do that in those instances where like men don't listen or say my name wrong or anything like that i'd be like i wish i could just flip an ashtray or close a window or or like throw a bucket on their face or something and then that's it like i don't need to do anything else i'm not gonna kill you i'm just gonna jostle your stuff a little bit. That aspect of it, again, I thought, did you guys feel her power at all eventually, even if she's killing everybody? Like, did you feel like, yeah, girl, or no? Well, yeah. But I have some complicated feelings about this.

I wanted to read a quote from what Stephen King said about his book, Carrie. He says, Carrie is largely about how women find their own channels of power, but also what men fear about women and women's sexuality. Writing the book in 1973 and only three years out of college, I was fully aware of what women's liberation implied for me and others of my sex. Carrie is woman feeling her powers for the first time and like Samson pulling down the temple on everyone in sight at the end of the book. So he sees this character as a very empowered woman who's coming into her own and who needs to die. That's the thing. So there are a lot of female empowerment stories. Well, they're not a lot of those stories, but of the female empowerment stories well they're not a lot of those stories but of the female empowerment stories that are available to us a lot of them are about a woman being wronged then they enact revenge often violently um we see this in this movie we see it in kill bill thelma and louise

mad max fury road the legend of billy jean the the teeth episode that we have coming out. We talk about that. And I would say there's a huge shortage of women empowerment stories where we just get to see women being awesome without either having to be the victims of a bad thing that happened to them and or like just not having to seek revenge on someone. They're just cool and good at something and they're empowered that way. And then with Carrie at the end, she's essentially punished for being empowered and coming into her own because then she dies. So it's, you can see this as a female empowerment story, but how empowered really is she at the end when her house collapses on her? Right. I mean, I think I definitely latch on to the catharsis of let it fucking burn sometimes where obviously what Carrie does is not a real world solution.

But I think it is representative of, you know, I mean, it certainly sounds like Stephen King is basically copping to like kind of openly copping to like yeah a woman who's fully in control of her powers and abilities is scary to people especially at this point in history I don't know I mean again it's like there is a part of any abused woman or person I I'd imagine, that has this fantasy of like, let it burn. And it's almost like cleansing by fire of like, I've been wronged. I'm angry. And fuck you guys. And, you know.

Yeah. So I see a value in it. Yeah. And to your point earlier, I think I hear you because sometimes I'm like, you know, and I have this issue in my own movie, too, that some women have criticized of like because she's a survivor as well in the film. And there's an element of, you know, she burns down an entire gym with her telekinetic powers. Right. I mean, isn't that Carrie? But so I get it but i i think sadly where we are right now so much of our narrative

because you know that empowerment means you're overcoming some horrible thing that happened yeah i i know that that's not true for every woman and i'm also thinking as a filmmaker i don't know how you make that dramatic i think the then the other stories become movies where like women are interesting flawed powerful weak all of the above just like men are interesting, flawed, powerful, weak, all of the above, just like men are often treated that have nothing to do with whether they're righting a wrong or not, right? So like, I love Terms of Endearment or those kinds of films where it's like, well, nothing horrendous happened to anybody in there. They're just interesting and fucked up characters and equally so men and women, which I think is a really positive thing. But I don't know what I was thinking, like, what's the empowerment?

Like, is it Beyonce at the Super Bowl or Coachella? Like, and, you know, I don't know what's happened in her own life. There's no empowerment without corporate sponsorship. I suppose it doesn't even have to be especially empowering. But the thing about us seeing women's stories is because there are not nearly enough of them, just seeing a woman doing cool things instead having a specific goal and setting out to accomplish it and then succeeding in that would just be empowering because we see so little of that in media currently sure yeah i

think that there's room for both though oh sure sure i think that there's an excess. I don't even know if an excess, but there's a shortage of women being able to live their lives and have goals and accomplish them in stories in a fun way that doesn't involve her having to die at the end. I don't know, but yeah. Well, that's something I wanted to talk about was where does the movie fall on Carrie? Because we're – and again, I'm sure I can see it already.

I can see our Twitter feed with people being like, in the book, we're being straight with you. We have not read the book. This is not a podcast about books. So what we're talking about right now, book heads, is how it appears in the movie and what the adaptation is in the movie. From what I could tell, the movie has a very inconsistent stance on Carrie. Where there are some moments where it's so clear. It's like, yes, she is suffering. She's being abused.

And, you know, it's like you want to help her. And you want people there to be doing more to help her. But then in the end sequence, you know, everyone and then we're like this isn't good including her own mother who is the source of as far as we know or you know where her pain is coming from right which you know it's horrendous as that is I can kind of justify in the in the idea of the movie you're like okay this horrendous thing happened to her. She's killed everybody. Now she's going to, you know, she washes herself.

And then, you know, her mother tries to kill her. Right. And then she kills her. But then even in that, there seems to be like, what's it called? Deo Machina? Oh, Deo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, where is this house going to?

And what does that have to do with kilotonetic powers and and what does that mean about how like the story feels about her and then she also once again seems to be feel bad that she killed her mother but it's punished for it anyway which again i also think brings up a question of justification it's like should you you know be allowed to defend yourself against your abuser like this woman was about to kill her right so yeah i mean i think you've had that gone to court uh carrie has yeah well we've all seen the jinx but it makes it so sad that you know again as someone who who's been through a lot of that i felt you know i i recognize that so many abused kids often want to defend themselves but then fall prey to the same

behavior so like when she hugs the mother and hides in the closet with her, I found that extremely sad and in a weird way realistic, you know, even if we're suspended and believe about everything else that's happening in the movie. And so it made me incredibly sad

to then be like, these are one and the same, like let's just take them down and then the sign that says she lives in hell. I'm like why you know yeah and it maybe it's supposed to be open-ended and ambiguous and we're all supposed to decide how we feel about this character but it's like we see her kill all her students you're

like ah but then we understand why to an extent and then she doesn't kill anyone without some cause her mother is literally trying to kill her so uh yeah she gets killed but but carrie feels immediate remorse for this she clearly had love for her mother because you know in the scene before she's like begging her mother to just hold her and be there for her and her mom can't do that for her so it's it is also never never approached why the mother is the way that she is. You know? Yeah. And then the house

goes to hell. These things don't come out of nowhere. You know? And then the movie ends on what I thought was like a note of empathy for Carrie

of like, she never did anything wrong and, you know, look what happened to her and now everyone is dead and Sue comes up with the flowers

and it's like, okay, so this is dead and sue comes up with the flowers and it's like okay so this is where the virginal she's dressed in white holding little flowers and then it's like yeah the angel comes to bring the flowers to carry who's whatever and and you were like okay so this that made sense to me as an ending but then it's like no she's in hell and the the hand reaches out and you're just like, what? Yeah. How does it? It was confusing. The ending almost felt to me like it might have been, I don't remember how he made this movie, but it could have been like studio notes. Yeah.

You know? One last jump scare. I did jump at the end. Oh, yeah. Me too. I thought it was ending. I want to talk about a few scenes that are, I would say, less open to interpretation because they're pretty clearly bad. And that is the scene where Tommy Ross asks Carrie to prom.

It happens twice. The first time they're in the library, he's like, hey, do I want to go to prom? And she runs away. She books it out of there. No pun intended because they're in a library. So we interpret that to be a hard no. Yeah, that's, I would say that's a hard no. And then the aftermath of that is, you know, Carrie is processing this information. She seems upset because she thinks, as she explains to Miss Collins, that he and his pals are playing a trick on her.

And Miss Collins is like, no, you know, I think it's just that you're not confident enough. So put on some makeup and you'll be fine. So then the second time is when Tommy goes to Carrie's house uninvited, shows up at her front door. He mentions prom again. She's like, I already told you. He's like, no, nothing I can say to change your mind girls do it all the time because you know

girls be fickle she says why are you doing this so she's not as naive as I think most audiences interpretation of Carrie usually is

it's like you know she's rightfully paranoid that everyone's fucking with her because everyone's fucking with her and the coach says that

earlier she's like we're not as stupid as you think we are we know there's a motivation behind. Right. So she says, why are you doing this?

And he says, because I want to. She says, I can't. He says, yes, you can. She says, you better go. Not till you say yes, he says. She says, no, I can't. Yes, you can. She says again, I said I can't.

He says again, yes, you can. He's getting cartoonish. Will you please? And then she says, will you please and then she says will you please go she's telling him to leave he says not till you say yes he repeats that line she says why is this so important to you and he's like oh because you liked my poem and then finally he has worn her down this is like the scene in the notebook where he's like i'm gonna kill myself unless you go out with me and then so hanging from a ferris wheel like i'll jump if you don't go to prom with me like yeah so um it's not quite that but it's him asking her over and over saying i'm not gonna

leave until you say yes and finally she says yes but only it's after he's worn her down. As 500 times. So, yeah, the implications of this are upsetting. And then... Well, and also because as the audience, we know she... I actually think she probably does want to say yes and would like to go,

but has a very clear reason why she can't. Because of her mother. Because it's her fucking psychotic mother will try to stab her so had tommy just stopped forcing the issue and not like you know done this whole like very typical movie i'm not gonna leave you alone till you do what i want you know we could have a lot of lives could have been saved can Can we blame it on her loving poetry or on him writing poetry? I think, yeah. Like maybe the moral of the story is that boys shouldn't write fucking poems.

He didn't even write that poem, he says. Oh, I plagiarized it. Oh, he does? Because I thought the whole thing was that it was his. And she says, it's so beautiful. And then the fucking male teacher also makes fun of her. I know. That was so weird. I was like, would someone truly do that? It's so beautiful and then the fucking male teacher also makes fun of her i know that was that was so weird i was like would someone truly do that it's so beautiful i think yeah and he keeps looking at the coach too there remember in the yeah yeah i read that

i was like a lot of really strange characters in this yeah well another uh troubling moment happens a little bit later when tommy and carrie are at prom and he's like come on dance and she's like I can't I don't know how he's like don't do it so she reluctantly agrees and they start dancing and then he tries to surprise kiss her he goes in for a surprise kiss she pulls away and then immediately starts apologizing and he's like no it's okay and she's like no I I don't know how to do anything I can't do anything I don't know how to dance and i don't know how to kiss is what she is implying and then he kisses her basically what is dangerous about this is that it sends the message that if at first a woman says no or rebuffs a man's advance i mean we talk about this all the time the no is a yes yeah it's like it's not

because she doesn't want to it's because she's shy or she's unsure of herself or she's not confident enough. And you just got to go for it. You just got to build her confidence up and get keep. Do people now ask if it's okay to kiss all the time? Is this the norm? I do it. The rare times that I've kissed anyone, I'll be like, hey, should we make out? And then.

I found it's weird. In the past couple of years, that is sort of... Now, at this point, as a sometimes kisser of people, yeah, usually people will be like, is this cool? And then...

Wow, that's really different. Yeah, I think that that is like a change. I mean, even in my own romantic experience, that is a shift that's taken place in the past couple of years. I'm personally for it. I think it's fun. There's some room for fun banter before kissing.

You're just like, nope, just get it. You can. And even if there's not. It's a fun treat. Well, no, I mean, that was the thing that I always, I remember when I was very young, so we were kids. But this kid that I kind of liked was like, can I kiss you? And I thought, oh, why is he asking? I felt like I was giving every signal in the book to be kissed.

But again, then I've had it both ways, you know. So it's like if it's something you want, which I feel like, oh, I'm putting out those vibes and I feel like I'm reading them the same way, then it's great when it happens and like nothing gets said because it feels like you're finally both agreeing to it. But then I've also had a lot of dudes kiss me when I did not want to be kissed. Right, right. I think that that is like a cultural moment thing where everyone is just reevaluating that, like anything. Because it's not to say that every kiss that's taken place without, you know,

a brief conversation before it takes place is not consensual. But I don't know. I mean, I think it's just like right now we're in a place culturally where it's just become clear that everyone, depending on who they are, what their background is, what privilege or lack of privilege they've come to be with, has a different idea of what being on the same page is. And so that's why these conversations are happening and yeah i mean what's his face who plays superman came out recently with all those remarks where it's clear that he does not understand what consent is still so henry cavill henry cavill is like oh i can't even ask a woman out anymore or else I'm going to go to jail. And it's like, dude, you need to fucking learn some shit because, uh,

yeah. Anyway. Right. Where it's just like, I think it's, it's one of those things where I feel like it's almost going to take a generation or two to sort of reset, uh,

cleansing by fire, if you will, just waiting for us all to die. Um, of like, everyone's grown up with such a warped idea of what consent is that right now it just seems like the smartest thing to do to verbally make sure, okay, this is how I'm interpreting this. Yes, but the other issue with that, there's also an assumption that A, they're going to

listen. So if you say no, that doesn't mean that it stops there. Right. Sure. And we see that in movies a lot. Right. And B, that sometimes, and I do think this is still like an issue for a lot of women. And I hope that that's one of the things that I would like to change and certainly talk about in my movie of how do we get in the confidence to say no when we want to say no.

Right. Because for plenty of reasons that I can imagine, especially young girls been in a situation where they feel like, oh, I don't really want to kiss, but maybe I should say yes. But if I say no, am I safe? Right. And then, but then guys are like, as long as I'm getting that verbal, you know what I mean? Like, it's more complicated than just like a legal thing where you're like, well, she said yes. I totally agree.

I just think that it's – and I'm not even saying that that approach is the foolproof way of consent, but it seems like at least a step in the right direction that hasn't existed as sort of like a rule of sorts in culture up to this point. It's definitely – yeah, unfortunately, it won't prevent everything. Well, I also feel like some of these things really are masking the fact that, like, you know, I think the guys who are going to take advantage of women and don't want to read the signs or don't give a fuck

have been there for a while and will probably continue to be there. Like, I've also, you know, I'm kind of okay, like, I'm remembering the guys who guys who like clearly were reading the wrong signs slash probably liked me more than I liked them, kissed me. I was like, whoa, what's happening? Not into it. And they were like, sorry, bye.

To me that sort of feels like, okay, like, you know, I mean, it's awkward, but it's not, I don't think criminal. It's like, you know. Yeah, I think, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't feel violated if someone just like, you know, went in for a kiss, even if our lips met, you know, and I just wasn't feeling it and, you know, back away and said, no thanks, that's not for me. Classic Kayla.

As long as he says oops sorry and then doesn't keep trying to persist that's you know a mistake kind of an occupational hazard that's what I mean like to me that's very different like okay clearly I was reading it the wrong way and then I'm out of here I'm not going to be

an asshole and like keep you know right but honestly my preference if some guy is like misreading my signals, would be for him to have it kind of in his head to be like, so like, do you want to make out? And we'd be like, nah. Nah, dog. And as opposed to him,

as opposed to having that awkward interaction. Right. And it's a simple, like it's, you know, it's like you're saying, it's not the end of the world, but I think it is a step in the right direction to eliminate that. And the same with the cleansing as generations go on. Just teaching kids basic consent seems important. And not just be like, follow your heart, because some people's hearts are evil. And the point I'm trying to make, which we've made on the podcast many times before, is that many, many movies equip boys with these tools where scenes play out where it's a boy being rejected over and over again.

But then wearing the woman down and that working and the girl then falling in love with this boy. So the men are receiving these wrong and so are women that like if if a guy if you keep saying no to a guy as long as he keeps coming back and hammering you with the same question that that's what's romantic that's that's what the movie will have you believe which brings me back to my uh everyone's grandparents love story is disturbing anecdote. When my grandparents would describe how they met, now I'm just like, what? He just followed you around in his car and yelled at you? And then you were his wife and you loved him.

There's definitely a weird sort of cultural dissonance with that. I have one last quick thing. I wanted to talk about that last scene between Carrie and her mom before the scary knife and then the many scary knives and then they die. Because there is that conversation that takes place between the two of them. Carrie has just taken her bath. She's cleansed herself of the blood of her peers. Great. She finds her mom her mom says

i should have killed myself when he put it in me and then they have this conversation where it's weird because you you sort of start to feel empathy for carrie's mom and then she immediately sells it out by stabbing carrie but for like a minute there, you're like, oh my gosh, you know, she is also someone who is in incredible pain. Sure. Where, like you were saying, Eva, like we don't know what the relationship between the mother and the father was like. It seems like it could have been, you know. When she says, I smell alcohol in his breath, like we get a hint in there. But again, it's done in this like, she's insane as opposed to right you know like right she's such an unreliable narrator that we can't really

well and i think that like the takeaway for me with that character was like she was describing like sexual desire in a way that sounded so like she thought she had to reject sexual desire so when it happened it was painful to her and it was like full of shame to the point where a few minutes later when she's like you know jesus christ superstars stabbed to death the way she dies is kind of like orgasmic yeah like and it's almost like i don't know it seemed like it was referencing the conversation they just had where... She seems to be at peace. Yeah. Yeah.

Like the idea of sexual pleasure caused her pain. And then when she has pain, there's some expression of pleasure. I don't know. And so what does that mean to Stephen King? I don't know. I'm thinking about the quote you just read, and especially because he says women's lib, which again, I think the period having babies thing is relevant to that because the pill had such a huge consequence that way, you know? And I know that men are often terrified even if it's in this.

Like I remember when I was pregnant and I wasn't big enough to show that. Like I would tell men I was working with or something like, oh, by the way, I'm pregnant. And almost always there was this like moment of fear in their face. Like it wasn't me, you know, like not my baby. And I thought, oh, it's so interesting. It's like centuries of, I don't know, of something that I, I don't know if this is true, but it felt to me like even from, you know,

I mean, and I know a lot of men want to become parents and happily so and all of that, but that there's still this weird, like an animal thing of like, oh shit, like like, I'm out of here. Yeah, you know. Anyway, I wonder if that was because again, I think period stands for fertility here, right? And it's so interesting that of course, her mother is unable to love her in any way. Like she seems happier when she locks Carrie in a closet, and then she's like sewing happily by herself. Yeah. Which is also, you know, and I mean, from what I know, and clearly I'm not a therapist, but, you know, women who are unable to love their children in that way, it's like a pathological issue.

So again, it's never said if Carrie's mother is like this because is she just pathologically insane or did something happen to her, got her this way? And I for sure would have liked to know something because again i think it clears stuff out my one of my issues with this kind of abuse in movies is that like it by never being explained it just continues to be a taboo that like well i don't know shit i don't know it's like actually we do know how this stuff happens and and just like that the concept that depicting abuse is enough, you know, but it's like not examining it just means you're kind of perpetrating abuse because you're just showing it happening. And it's like, okay, acknowledging that this happens in the world and not commenting on it is almost worse than not doing anything at all.

It's just, oh, well, I could keep going. But we're running out of time. Lawrence, Brian, and Stephen. The boys. The boys had something to say about the 15-year-old girls, and they missed a little. Shall we determine whether or not the movie passes the Bechdel test? It sure does. It does.

Quite a bit. Yeah. All the damn time. All the damn time. I just want to read a few of my favorite passes. Miss Collins says to Chris, spit out that gum. Chris says, where will I put it, Miss Collins? She says, you can choke on it for all I care.

Another great line. Yeah. There's a lot of ones where, like, Miss Collins is like, I'm going to knock you down. Vaguely threatening her students. Yeah. Not so vaguely. I mean, she's all over it. She's Vaguely threatening her students. Yeah, but it passes. Not so vaguely. I mean, she's all over it.

She's just slapping the shit out of them half of the time. But it passes between Carrie's mom and Sue's mom. It passes between Carrie and her mom. It passes between Miss Collins and Carrie. There's a lot of different combinations. And they do talk a lot about men, though. They do, yeah. But there are an awful way more conversations than I was expecting to pass.

I think that one of the things that stuck out to me, too, is I forget what alternative test it is, but a lot of the time that they're talking very frequently, it is about religion. It's about shame. It's about just stuff that's happening in the scene. But it is also very often about something domestic or something beauty related. A lot of the time it passes.

It's because they're talking about prom. But, I mean, for a movie of this time, it is a female-centric story. Most of the men in the story are kind of complicit goofuses who are never really central. And it puts periods at the forefront of it, which I'm sure in 76 was outstanding, right? Sure, and the fact that this movie was like a hit on top of that.

Right. But I think the period is only featured so prominently because that's such a scary and disgusting thing to men that because this is a horror movie they're like what can we put in here to make this more horrific oh how about menstruation yep so well let's rate the movie on our nipple scale where we have a scale of zero to five nipples we rate it based on its portrayal and representation of women. I'm going to give it, I think, a two and a half or a three.

Ooh. We're synced up. It's like we're menstrual blooding our opinions. Because women entirely drive this narrative. If there are men, they're only doing things because women asked or told them to do things. So women have all the agency in this narrative. If there are men, it's they're only doing things because women asked or told them to do things. So women have all the agency in this story. They're making all the active decisions. It can be interpreted as a story of female empowerment. That's certainly how Stephen King intended to write it based on that quote I read. But it's also a very male understanding of what femininity is,

of what female relationships are, of how, you know, women operate in the world. So had this same or similar story been written or directed by a woman, I think we would have seen something very different. I'm interested what the situation is with the various remakes and sequels and stuff like that. I'm not familiar enough to comment on it, but yeah, it's a story where a woman's period

also means she's telekinetic and she gets to enact revenge on her abusers. But also... Wouldn't that be cool if your period just didn't mean, like, ow? And she gets to enact revenge on her abusers. It's the power to lock you in a room and turn you on fire. Wouldn't that be cool if your period just didn't mean, like, ow? So I'm going to go with, I think, two and a half nipples. Who are you giving your nipples to?

I'm going to give my nipples to, I'll give, well, we see both of Sissy Spacek's nipples. Okay. So I'll give two to her and I'll give my last half nipple to Miss Collins, the phys ed teacher, who her intentions and motivations are inconsistent, but seem to overall be on the positive end of the spectrum. Good for its time. Yeah. I'll go two and a half as well i think that this is just like again there i would think that this story would be portrayed a little clearer and a little differently if women had been involved in production at literally any point um and i wish that we had that product to be like

okay here's a woman's story as interpreted by all straight white men and here's a woman's story as interpreted by all straight white men, and here's a woman's story interpreted by a group of women, and what things are different. They honestly should give a piece of source material to a group of men and a group of female filmmakers and see what happens. Compare and contrast. A lot of the stuff that bothers me about this movie, I don't like that Carrie, for having control of her powers or some sort of control, is sent to hell. And that goes relatively unchallenged to, like, the last frame of the movie.

It's like, she's sure in hell, all right. But a lot of the things that bother me— She gets her period, and a week later, she's sent to hell. She's in hell. I was like, man, is her period even over at this point? She's, like, day five. And does she have a fucking tampon? Because in hell. I was like, man, is her period even over at this point? She's like day five. Does she have a fucking tampon? Because I don't think moms.

Did he even give her one? Yeah. Can we have the scene where she goes shopping for them? She uses the ones that got soaked in the shower, I guess. Oh, no. They're already. She just bleeds all the way home. I can't tell if this movie all takes place in the space of Carrie's period, but that

is funny. It's like day five, burn it down. I think it might. I also kind of like that little kid she throws off his bike. Yeah. That kid's last name is DePalma. I'm guessing it's Brian's son. See?

He's like, hey, we're just going to toss you off a bike today, son. The more I think about Stephen King's books, the more I think this is his issue. Because the one with James Khan where his fucking ankles are broken oh misery which is a great movie but I mean it's a woman imprisoning him in a fucking bed like this guy is terrified of women yeah yeah a lot of things that bothered me about this movie specifically were subtextual like every time we see a group of women specifically the opening scene is very bizarre. I think between the three of us have reached a conclusion that this is not something

that happens in the real world. And just the way women are filmed in this movie, I don't know who is doing the cinematography. I have a guess that their gender is like, it's so many women's nude torsos or like there's a nip peeking through and it's very exploitative. Slow motion breasts coming towards the camera. Panning up and down. A lot of thighs. Even with the fact that Carrie's groping herself in the shower

and just all the scenes, the nudity for the most part is gratuitous completely. And again, who showers like that in the locker room like she's like a bachelor orgasm after having been bullied out in the field she's like but time to soap up my breasts especially as someone as like conservative as carrie as it makes no sense like right so that is not how a modest person showers and and and the same for the gym scene where it's just you know we're following a butt walk past breasts and it's that for two minutes and so for a story that features mainly

women the women are constantly objectified by the movie they're in even if they're not really objectified by the men around them because there's not really enough men around them to be doing that. So as well-crafted a movie as it is, the way women are framed in this movie really bothered me. And the fact that it's, you know, all white women with the same body type, basically, with the exception of one girl who is played, I would argue, as a joke. I mean, that— And who's really only there to pull funny faces. Like, we don't know anything about her. Yeah, and that gym scene made it extremely obvious to me

where you're panning on that long line of girls doing the things. I'm like, they all have the exact same body. It's, you know, in terms of any sort of variety of types of women we see, we see a lot of women, but it's the same type of woman we're seeing multiple times so that sucks and i don't like it uh but there there are a lot of good things that we have discussed within there's there's a lot of like on the right trackness to this story but unfortunately i think because there are no women involved in the making of this story, a lot of it kind of misses or it kind of gets uncanny valley. So I'm going 2.5.

I'll give one to Carrie, give one to Sue, and I'll give one to the car that blows up. Am I doing this as well? Yes. Okay. Am I doing this as well? Yes. Okay, well, clearly I'm not as adept as you guys at giving out nipples. But I'm probably going to go with two. Okay. Which is surprising considering, like, I think it works as a movie. But I think my conclusion today is that, to your point, like, I don't think it's a movie that's concerned with understanding women at all. I think it's about the male fear and psychosis of women and in particular their power as

understood by the coming on of the period. And in that way, I find it really disappointing, meaning, you know, take it a little further. So I'm supposed to give nipples to the people. Anything you want. I mean, obviously, I feel for Carrie a lot. So, I mean, I wish that more background or character could have. I mean, we essentially also don't know her beyond, you know, the fact that she gets her period and then these powers. That's true.

Like, what is Carrie interested in? I don't know what she likes. The motivations of almost every main character are not very clearly defined. And they all, but they are all doing things that should be motivated and yet they are not and i'll probably give my other one to mom actually because i feel for her as well although you know she's a horrendous um mother to her but i feel like i'm gonna believe that there's not that to justify it but that there's somewhere i don't know i just feel like again a completely misunderstood character who nobody wanted to take the care to figure out.

As with most female movie characters. And also moms. Moms get a really rotten deal in a lot of movies, especially the ones written or directed by men, I mean, who I think are working out their issues with moms. So, like, the moms and the characters are either angelical and kiss you and put you to bed or stab you to death. Right. My full-on mommy-dearest coat hanger. Yeah. Eva, thank you so bed or stab you to death. Right. My full-on Mommy Dearest coat hanger. Yeah. Eva, thank you so much.

Oh, thank you. I could keep doing this for hours. I love it. I know. Yeah. It's just always there's truly never enough time. Yeah. So tell us all about Nina.

It came out last week. And where can we follow you and that project on social media? All About Nina Film is the website. And that should, it tells you where it's playing and where you can buy tickets. It's playing in New York and L.A. And then other markets are going to open as we go along. And because it is a sort of smaller independent movie, you know, we could use the support. We're not a Marvel film that's opening

in like 5,000 screens at once and that everybody's heard about or anything like that. But it does seem to be hitting the spot with a lot of survivors. And actually not just that, but I think women who are feeling rage these days, which seems to be a lot of us,

say, for example. Rage, Carrie too. Yeah. Yeah. Kavanaugh hearings, all of that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great.

Everyone go see the damn movie. I insist. It's really, really good. And you'll laugh too. And it's fun. There's fingering jokes. Woo. And there's pain.

Period diarrhea jokes. Yeah. There's... Written by women. There's an interesting mother character. There is. Yes. Yes. A nuanced mother character. Yeah. It's... Yeah. There's an interesting mother character speaking of this. Yes,

a nuanced mother character. It's, yeah, it's a terrific. And good guys too. Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's,

I think there's. As well as some shitty guys. We have everything really. It's like people. The whole spectrum is covered. The spectrum of humanity. No,

it's really great and thank you for. Thank you for having me. You can follow the Bechdel cast in all the usual places. We're on Instagram and follow the Bechdel cast in all the usual places. We're on Instagram and Twitter at Bechdel cast. We're on Facebook.

You can go to our website, bechdelcast.com. You can go to our TeePublic site. Get all the cool merch at teepublic.com slash thebechdelcast. And if you're feeling crazy, we've actually referenced a bonus episode coming out on our Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon, several times in this episode. We have a few October-y episodes coming out, including Teeth. So go over to patreon.com slash Bechdelcast to sign up for that. Five bucks a month, two extra episodes. You betcha. Also, we have a few live shows coming up. Details at the time of this recording are yet to be confirmed, but we know that we will

be in New York and Philly at the beginning of November. And we have... We'll be back in LA as well. We'll be back in LA for a live show here at the Ruby, also in November. So we'll be tweeting about it. We'll be posting about it on our website, Bechtelcast.com, under the Live Appearances tab. We'll have more details as they come in. So, check us out live, baby. We love you. We'll talk to you soon, goddammit. Goddammit, let's go burn a gym down. All right, let's do it.

Okay, bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who, 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. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me? A show about the ways that mental illness is shaped by not just biology. Swaps of different meds.

But by culture and society. By looking closely at the conditions that cause mental distress, I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane, what we can do about it, and why we should care. Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here,

and now is the time to do your homework the best way to do that homework is to listen to the nfl fantasy football podcast come hang out with me marcus grant as well as my pal michael f florio as we give you all the insight you need to set the best lineups each week for a smart fun and entertaining path to league domination the nfl fantasy football podcast is the show for you. Subscribe now and listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts,

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