The Bechdel Cast - Coco with Dani Fernandez

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

During this Día de los Muertos season, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Dani Fernandez discuss Coco!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @msdanifernandez on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Hey, Jamie. Hey, Caitlin. Seize your moment. You know, I know you've been wanting to play music. I know.

And that's your secret passion. And I think you should just go for it. Seize your moment. And who cares what your family says I'm the dog Dante by the way oh yeah my dog wow that's exciting uh well I love Dante I want a Dante at my house I love Dante so much oh I know he's one of my favorite Pixar Disney animal familiars Familiars, and Many Moons. And he doesn't even need to talk. I always feel like I'm like, whenever a Disney animal companion so good, they don't even need to speak. You're like, that's a that's a heavy hitter. Yeah. Dante's in the Hall of Fame.

Welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus and this is our podcast where we take a look at your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens with some of our favorite people in the world. And we do that using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for discussion, which simply don't remember what is that Caitlin oh I'll remind you it's been it's been half we've been doing the show for half a decade and yet what even is it well it's always changing and growing and our version of it these days it's fluid yeah it is very fluid so it's a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test, in which our version is

two people of a marginalized gender have to have names. They must speak to each other about something other than a man for at least two lines of dialogue. And ideally, that conversation is narratively important and not just like, heyy you know hey sally you know it when you hear it when you hear a meaningful exchange you're like okay something happened there yeah and we have a very popular request on the show today with a very popularly requested guest she's been on the show many many times and the movie is coco and the guest is uh if you clicked you already know but Caitlin give us the give us the rundown she's a writer she's an actress you remember her from our episodes on Tomb Raider and The Addams Family it's Dani Fernandez

welcome back thanks for having me oh gosh thanks for coming back i'm so glad that y'all had me watch this movie earlier like i just i haven't watched it in like a year and i was like i needed a reason to cry than all the other reasons that we have to cry right it felt good though i could feel it coming on and i just let it take over i was was like, that feels good. Sometimes you just need that sweet Coco cry release. It really, like it's no matter how many times you see certain parts coming, like last night

I was like, I've seen this movie before at this point. I'm going to be able to compartmentalize through this part and I've never been successful. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I didn't hydrate properly before watching like wow oh my gosh so Dani what's your relationship and history and all that with with Coco well it's uh you know representative of my family and background my family's from Mexico and um I

actually have a big, I'll have to send you guys a picture so that you can share it if you want to, but I have a big Coco guitar that has like painting of, of like the characters from Coco. It's really beautiful. It's actually one of my favorite pieces of art that I own. As you can see, I also have art, I have other Disney art and stuff behind me, but I don't't know I have so many different launching points into this one thing is that I I sent y'all also a video of my niece reading the Coco book like the golden book yeah and so it was so funny because we didn't really feel like we had you know as far as representation goes like before this we had Moana and so that was around the time that she

was born and she was like one or two and Moana came out and so we were getting her all Moana stuff we just wanted anything that kind of looked like her to have if that makes sense and so I think on like her second birthday it was like all Moana stuff what she still has she like loves her Moana dolls and then Coco came out and I was like, great. I have something from her culture, from her background that we can, we can help, you know, teach her. So then I got her the Coco guitar, like the white famous like guitar that she can like play on. My brother has pictures of him like playing guitar for her when he would like play her

to like to sleep. And so like, it was just just I don't know I felt like so many different intersections I'm also pretty um pretty open about having issues in my own family and not being close with certain people in my family and so like I really related to that aspect of of the movie um and then uh we also have an ofrenda at my brother has that he taught my niece and nephew. And so we have our, our deceased relatives on there and it has candles and like they've, they've taught their kids, you know, about that. And so, yeah, so, so it was, it was great, you know, before this, we had the book of life by Jorge Gutierrez and, and she also has that movie

in that book as well. And so the more representation, the more stories around this that we can tell, I think is really important. But I personally just felt very happy that this existed so that we could pass this on in my family. Oh, that's so wonderful. Beautiful. Love it. Jamie, what's your relationship with Coco? Pretty simple.

I mean, I just I've seen it several times. It makes me cry every time. And I take a lot of joy in it. It is, I mean, I'm not of Mexican descent at all. And I think my knowledge and my just experience of an understanding of Dia de los Muertos and I think very like basic aspects of Mexican culture. I mean, I just don't know enough basically. And I think that this a lot of what this movie does, although there is some criticism that we'll get into as well.

But like I've like learned from this movie too. And the way that Coco kind of ingratiates mexican culture into the plot in a way that is very natural is like i wish this this movie had existed when i was a kid but yeah true yeah but i'm glad it exists when i'm an adult it's great totally i was uh just talking about this with shout out to my spanish tutor adriana who rocks i have a whole segment from her because she was born and raised and grew up and lived most of her life in Mexico and I wanted to get her thoughts on it so she shared a lot of insight that I will share later but um I was saying like I didn't learn about Dia de los Muertos until I mean I took Spanish in high school and learned about it

then. But, you know, I spent so many years like not knowing so much about so many cultures, because well, one, the American education system did not expose me to much of anything. And two, all the movies I was exposed to were just about white people, white Americans. So I was like, yeah, I really wish I had this movie growing up too, just for the sake of like, I could have learned a thing. But same, I love this movie. I saw it in theaters, I think twice. I've seen it several times since then. This movie makes me cry, cry, cry. I teach it in my screenwriting

classes also. Like there's a segment I do on world building that I have my students like read a chunk of the script and then we watch that and like see how it translates from the page to the screen. And there's just like, I love this movie. So I'm excited to talk about it. Should we get into the recap and just go from there? Yeah, let's do it. As per usual. Let's do it. I was just saying how I think this is the longest recap I've ever written on the show.

Can't wait. Just because like, oh, this story is so good and it's like complicated, but not in a way that it's like overwhelming or like confusing or anything like that. It's just like so rich. And there's just so much detail I didn't want to leave out. So bear with me. But here we go. So we get some backstory about the Rivera family, where long ago there was a musician who had a wife and a daughter,

and one day the man left with his guitar and never returned. So the mother, the woman, banished all music from her life, became a shoemaker, which she passed down to several generations of her family. That woman was Miguel's great-great-grandmother Imelda, and her daughter is Miguel's great-grandma Coco. And then Miguel's family tells this story every year on El Dia de los Muertos. So then we meet Miguel. He's a young 12-year-old boy in Mexico. The rest of his family, you know, his mom, his dad, aunts and uncles, his grandma and his great grandma Coco, we meet them on screen. They are all still very anti-music. But Miguel has a secret. He loves music. He plays the guitar. He worships Ernesto de la Cruz, who was a famous musician back in the day. And Miguel loves his song entitled Remember Me.

Secretly loving music has to be like the sweetest rebellion ever. It's such a fascinating like when as writers, I'm like always thinking of like it's such a fascinating plot. You know, you're like, how are we going to make a movie about this holiday? And like, what can we do? And let's have his whole family hate music. But he loves it. It's such a good, it's like such a classic Disney setup, it feels like. Of like, know this.

For sure. And then the, you know, the cat. Like the Little Mermaid. Right. All she wants to do is go to the shore and her whole family is like no that's an abomination right i wrote that down too where it felt like uh i mean in obviously like those stories are are very different but like when apolita um smashes miguel's guitar spoiler alert i was like well king triton ruining the grotto it's like same yeah same devastating like how could you i thought i could trust you energy yeah yep so that night there's a music talent competition for dia de los muertos

in miguel's town's plaza and miguel wants to sign up but his family is like, no way. But then Miguel discovers from a photograph on his family's ofrenda that his great-great-grandfather was Ernesto de la Cruz. His face has been torn off of the photo, but Miguel recognizes his famous guitar. So he decides to seize his moment and enter the talent competition. But his grandma finds out what he's doing. And that's the scene where she smashes his guitar. So then Miguel goes to De La Cruz's mausoleum to borrow the guitar it transports him from his living state to a kind of like apparition in which he cannot be seen by the living but can be seen by all of the dead people who have crossed over to the land of

the living for dia de los muertos this sequence is so beautiful and well done like it's one of there are so many amazingly animated scenes in this movie but the one where it's so seamless and it's i feel like it also like you you are so put into miguel's shoes of like it's a little jarring and confusing and then you realize what's going on and that sequence is just like so well paced and animated i love it absolutely so then he runs into his dead ancestors including his tia rosita tia victoria papa julio tio oscar and tio felipe who bring him across the bridge to the land of the dead which is this huge beautiful city where everyone's dead family and ancestors live. It's also full of alebrijes, which are spirit animals. And then they go through this like

customs type thing, where Miguel sees a dead skeleton guy trying to cross into the land of the living, but he can't because his photo isn't on anyone's ofrenda so then the family finds mama imelda who couldn't cross over to the land of the living because miguel had taken her photo off of his family's ofrenda then miguel learns that he needs his family's blessing to be able to cross back over to the land of the living but he has to do so by sunrise or else he will turn into a skeleton and be stuck in the land of the living, but he has to do so by sunrise or else he will turn into a skeleton and be stuck in the land of the dead forever. More Little Mermaid vibes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You have three days, says Ursula. Yeah. So then Mama Imelda gives Miguel her blessing to return home,

but with the condition that he never play music again, since she was like the original, like no music lady. She invented the footloose rules to the family. Exactly. But the second Miguel is transported back, he picks up De La Cruz's guitar and is immediately transported back to the land of the dead because he broke his promise. So then Miguel gets the idea to get his blessing from Ernesto de la Cruz, since they're related, so that Miguel can return home and still play music. So Miguel sneaks away from his family and sets off with a street dog named Dante, who had also crossed over to the land of the dead because dogs are just transient beings who can cross dimensions. I think that that is like a tradition that's like rooted in

real mythology too of like dogs as yeah like intermediaries between the living and the dead. So then Miguel sets off to find Ernesto de la Cruz. So Miguel comes across that guy who we saw at the customs section, who he overhears saying that he knows de la Cruz. This is Hector, voiced by Gail Garcia-Brunel, by the way, who is my number one celebrity crush. Is it? Yes. I don't see you tweeting about him enough then. Oh, well, I... Are you trying to keep it on the i feel like anytime someone has a celebrity crush like i know i just but do y'all know who mine is yeah please tell us oh i thought you were gonna say yes of course we know i feel like when you say it i'll be like wait i've seen those tweets yeah i'm pretty sure i feel like this is in line with this it's selma hayek oh yeah i feel

like i've tweeted yeah about her i try to be chill though because I feel like not that we all know each other but we're kind of like I don't know like adjacent there's a six degrees element yeah yeah for sure and I know someone I think I haven't told I've told this story before another podcast but I guess not on this one but I like the new bachelorette was like 35 or something shocking horrible old and somebody tweeted that essentially like ew she's 35 and I said Selma Hayek's 55 and I would ruin my life for her and I didn't tag her because again like we're professional we all work in this business together and somebody sent it to her though because she screenshot it she put it on instagram not just

on twitter and like found me and tagged me and was like thank you danny yeah she was like i was like i would ruin my life for her and she was like thank you danny um i'm like wait i'm gonna do this for gail because you should i don't like I don't tweet about really anything except for Paddington that's true but I mean like I don't like when people tag that I just think it's weird

it's especially weird just because we work like you know a lot of us work on different shows and movies and like you know whatever like that's very awkward and I never wanted to be like weird so I don't ever tag them but if you found it on your own that's not my fault yeah that's very good i mean this shit how i mean not to shout it out once an episode but alfred melina was on the podcast these things do happen yeah i know selma and i will have our moment our moment yeah you gotta start thirst tweeting more i love i love when a thirst tweet leads to something beautiful it will yeah that's

nice all right well this is my cue to send out more thirst tweets i i don't know what's stopped the stakes are low i'm barely in the industry so i don't even have to worry about like professionalism here so um okay where were we so we see hector again and he and miguel make a deal if hector helps miguel find de la cruz then miguel will put up hector's photo on an ofrenda when he returns to the land of the living so that hector can cross over and see his family which he hasn't been able to do for quite some time. Miguel learns that De La Cruz is hosting a very exclusive party that night and that the winner of this talent competition that's happening gets to play at this exclusive party. So Miguel and Hector set off to find a guitar. This is also the scene where Miguel meets Frida Kahlo and has a fun interaction with her. Then Hector takes Miguel

to a place where dead people who don't have families or people to visit in the land of the living, they all kind of have formed this community. And we learned that if enough time passes, these kind of forgotten people will fade away and eventually disappear forever and have their what they call a final death which is illustrated through like the saddest scene ever committed to film so we see this with this guy chicharron who's voiced by edward james almost by the way so hector borrows a guitar from him he is fading and then we see him like die his final death we also learn in this scene that hector was a former musician and that hector is also fading because his family in the land of the living is forgetting

him the plant and payoff for this movie is so good. The screenwriting is absolutely incredible. So with the guitar, they head to this talent competition, and Miguel performs, but Miguel's skeleton family, who has been chasing after him this whole time, shows up to this show, and this is where Hector learns that Miguel does have other family who could give their blessing and send him back to the land of the living. So he's like, why am I trying to help you find De La Cruz? So then Miguel runs away, but bumps into Mama Imelda, who reveals

that she used to love music. But of course, that changed when her husband left and Miguel is like you I you should understand and support my passion for music and she's like no so then he runs away Miguel's a very emotionally intelligent kid I'm like I don't know if I was firing off shit like that when I was 12 right he's great not to be like I was so emotionally intelligent, but I have diaries of mine from that time, and I was so angsty and just thought I was so smart. And I don't know. I definitely was very emotional 12-year-old for sure. Oh, that's great.

I was very emotionally. I was just always repressing all of my emotions which I do to this day very healthily I think I was I just had like OCD like true OCD notebooks full of I would write down what everybody was wearing around me at all times because I thought I would die if I didn't do that. And then I would also write about my crushes for 400 to 500 pages at a time. Oh, my God. So there was more volume.

There wasn't a lot of quality. Hilarious. Oh, gosh. Anyways, Miguel is very in touch with his emotional needs and understands adults better than uh certainly i ever did for sure so then we see miguel sneak into ernesto de la cruz's party miguel finds him and tells him that he is de la cruz's great great grandson which de la cruz thinks is awesome and he is about to give his blessing to miguel to go back home and be a musician.

But just then, Hector shows up and reveals that all of de la Cruz's songs were actually Hector's and that Ernesto de la Cruz stole them. And then we get this flashback that reveals that de la Cruz poisoned Hector so that he could steal his songs. Twist! What a twist. Wow. I remember the first time watching that being like,

it really gets you. I know. I was just like, wait, this movie's for babies. And I didn't know that was going to happen. This movie's for babies. That's the thing about Pixar movies, though, is that the target audience is children but they're also

like so well written that all ages can enjoy excuse me but I have to say on behalf of Brad Bird that the target audience is family is everyone that's yes that's true sorry no I'm sorry Pixar director Brad Bird

very adamant that these are not for children I'm sorry I'm sorry. Known Pixar director Brad Bird. Very adamant that these are not for children. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Brad Bird. I'm just a single adult. I don't know what constitutes a family. Okay, Brad Bird. Your statement still doesn't include me somehow. No, I feel like he would think that you were a fan like you

you complete yourself Jamie yeah you are a family with Fred Bird would feel that way I am my own family unit please yeah exactly and that's why I feel entitled to watch the Incredibles 2 whenever I want exactly yeah I'm more of an Incredibles one. I'm sorry. But no, that's quite the correct answer. You're right. Okay, so then de la Cruz has Hector and Miguel taken away by security and thrown into a cave, where we get another big reveal that Hector's daughter, the reason he wants to cross back over, is Coco, aka Miguel's great-grandmother, aka Hector, not Ernesto de la Cruz, is Miguel's great-great-grandfather. And Hector wrote the song Remember Me for Coco. Then Mama Imelda shows up with her alibrije and rescues Miguel and Hector. Hector tells her what happened,

that, you know, he didn't leave her. He was murdered. And she's like, um, yeah, I guess, but I still can't forgive you. But she does want to help him not be forgotten. I do like that it kind of like turns into like the last act of a rom-com once they reunite too,

where it's like, will these two kids figure it out? And you're kind of like i don't know let's see right um so they they head back to de la cruz's place to get hector's photo back because de la cruz had stolen it um they find him backstage right before his big concert and they get back the photo but then mama emel Mama Imelda accidentally gets sent to the stage in front of thousands of people, and she has no choice but to sing and perform. And in so doing, she rediscovers her love of music and then is about to give Miguel her blessing, free of any conditions. But then De La Cruz shows back up and tries to murder Miguel,

but it's all caught on video. So everyone at the show learns that de la Cruz is a fraud and a murderer. Mama Imelda's alabrique saves Miguel, but Hector's photo is lost. So now Miguel can't put it on the ofrenda and Hector's dying because Coco is forgetting him and it's almost sunrise. So the family has to quickly give their blessing and send Miguel back to the land of the living. So now that he's back, Miguel rushes to Mama Coco and tries to get her to remember her Papa Hector. He starts singing Remember remember me which gets coco to remember and she starts

singing along and everyone's crying crying crying we are bawling our eyes out i remember i was at a screening and the there was a mom with like three boys there i was like oh man she must be like a mommy but i mean who brings like so many children to a PR screening or whatever. And I just remember the kid being like, mom, why are you crying? Mom, why are you crying? You know, when kids like don't quite like grasp something and she was just like full blown like sniffling in the theater. I just remember he kept like pulling on her sleeve. So Miguel and Mama Coco are singing together and Miguel's living family is there

and sees Miguel playing music, but they see how much Coco responds to it. So they're like, oh, wow, maybe music is actually a good thing. And then Coco takes out her photo of her papa and it is confirmed that it is Hector. So then we cut to a year later, the next Dia de los Muertos. The photo of Imelda and Hector is on the ofrenda, as is Coco's.

Apparently she had passed away at some point during the last year. In the land of the dead, Imelda, Hector and Coco are all united. They cross over and visit their family in the land of the dead, Imelda, Hector, and Coco are all united. They cross over and visit their family in the land of the living. Miguel is playing music for his family. Everyone's happy. Everyone's together. I'm crying more. And the movie is over.

Applause. Yes. So that's the story. Let's take a quick break and then we will come back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

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Yeah. Dani, do you have any place you want to kind of jump off from? No, I just wanted to make a note that my favorite part of this movie is when Coco is reunited with her parents and she's still old yeah it's like so sweet because they just like oh that's our Coco and they like pick her up and it's just like it's funny because you never think of like your kids being older than you I guess or whatever and that's just like how she was when she went to the afterlife. And it was just really, really sweet for them to just like love her even like that,

like to just like unconditional love. It was, I just wanted that noted that that was my favorite part. Of course. Yeah. I loved that too. Oh, every part of this movie just like tugs at my heartstrings.

Yes. Also his dad, I actually tweeted and I said okay so Miguel's dad there's like a picture I'll send it to y'all he like has his arms wrapped around Miguel's mom and I did that picture and then I did a picture of Gomez loving on Morticia

and I tweeted I said God I see what you have done for others so if you could please I would love I mean if not Selma Hayek I would love a Latino king to like love on me I think I deserve to be adored and loved and like please send me my Latino king thank you uh there his parents are very very sweet i mean it's like this movie is so stacked with characters that it's like i didn't like sure i guess i wish that we knew miguel's parents a little better but i also feel like this movie takes uh given you know whatever the restrictions of the time they have i like that the older characters are

prioritized and like the older women in particular are prioritized in this movie where you know we get to see a kid who lives in a multi-generational home you don't get that a lot in children's media at all you're usually stuck in the same you know upper middle class white suburb but you Miguel lives in a multi-generational home and then we focus mostly on his grandmother his his abuelita and then also on Coco who is it seems like you know she's her memory is not all there and she needs help and her daughter helps her a lot but I just I loved that given all the characters this movie could have focused on they prioritize the older matriarchs of of the family along with mama emelda too like that like once yeah miguel crosses over to the land of the dead like she's very clearly like the matriarch

she's in charge she's making all of the family decisions also Coco like because Latinas don't age the same as everyone else she has to be at least 500 I have to say for her to have all those wrinkles I'm like okay she's been around for she's at least 500 years old well and we'll we'll get into this I mean I love this movie much. Most of the problems, or like most of the things, any gripes I have are with Disney's conduct surrounding the movie, which we'll get into. I'm very curious also to get into what your, because I'm Chicana, so I grew up here in the States.

And so I'm very curious about people who actually were born and raised in Mexico who how they uh it came out there first actually yeah before it dropped here they got it a little bit earlier than we did so I'm very curious because it you know took place there in Mexico and so I always consider us like kind of in the in-between where I wrote about this in um The Good Immigrant this book where I wrote an essay in it where it kind of feels like we definitely don't fit in here in the US. But we're also kind of removed from growing up in Mexico. So it kind of just feels like we're in this weird in between space. So I'm very curious about people who grew up there, how they resonated with this portrayal.

Sure. Well, let me share what adriana ortega my spanish tutor hi adriana hi a wonderful person all around she's the best she had this to say as a mexican born and raised in mexico i can say coco is considered a Mexican movie. Since it came out, we started seeing Coco pinatas, alabriques, and crafts. And then Adriana included a bunch of photos of like Coco guitars and costumes and just like things sold in Mexico from the movie. She says the mariachis at parties started playing the songs from the soundtrack as if they existed forever. She also included a YouTube link with a medley of traditional Mexican songs with Poco Loco, which is one of the songs that Miguel plays in the movie. We'll share a link to that. And people in general were happy to see Mexico represented, not as a place of crime and poverty, but as a source of culture and traditions interesting to the world.

I'm personally obsessed with the movie, and I can't watch it without sobbing like a baby, no matter how many times I've watched it before. The movie is so well done that even little details, like the way the town where the characters live looks and feels, and the family dynamics show that clearly Mexicans were involved in the project. A clear example is the way all family decisions have to be approved by the matriarch. I lived it when my grandma was alive and she didn't approve of something. Doing that thing was an act of rebellion. On the other side, as someone who works with people in Mexico who lived undocumented in

the United States, I must point out what I don't like about Coco. The way transit between the world of the living and the dead resembles the Department of Homeland Security controls. For undocumented people, and even for people with documents, entering the U.S. is a nightmare. Every Mexican that has ever come to the U.S. has a horror story about homeland security. Depending on their privilege, the color of their skin, and their papers, those stories are different, but many times they're at least unpleasant. I think the creators of Coco could have found a way to create conflict for the character of Hector without implying that the Department of Homeland Security and similar controls are a quote necessary evil instead of a very deliberate evil created to discriminate against foreigners especially if they're brown and then when I

spoke with Adriana today she just had a couple other insights saying that she only watches the movie in Spanish with like the the Spanish dub which she says is like really, really good. Not all movies dubbed in Spanish are well done as far as the dubbing, but she said the Coco one is very, very good. The actors and just like people that they hired to do the dub are like just this slate of like all-star actors, iconic people in general from Mexican culture. She was really impressed with the Spanish dub. And then finally she said that, so El Día de los Muertos is more commonly celebrated in Southern Mexico, especially in the state of Michoacán in Mexico and Miguel's village was inspired by a town called Pátzcuaro so this is

kind of just like where Dia de los Muertos was more commonly celebrated in Mexico until this movie came out in different other parts of Mexico it was not a super important holiday but Adriana said that after this movie, the holiday grew in popularity pretty significantly around all of Mexico, where it is now like because of this movie, like art influencing culture kind of thing, the holiday is much more widely celebrated throughout the country. So, oh, that's cool. I know, right? It is interesting because I feel like we've, at least here in Southern California,

there's always been like a big celebration, at least since I've lived here, that we have here in LA. And so that's fascinating though. I also figured that the cast, I think a lot of the cast is overlap because they purposely had people who could speak Spanish and sing in Spanish as the leads. So I feel like that's probably why it's because they're great actors.

They were doing both the English version and the Spanish version. For sure. Yeah. Coco is the first motion picture with a nine figure budget, which the budget of this movie is humongous, but it also grossed way more money. I feel like this is kind of on par for Pixar movie budgets, too. Well, it took them like six years to make this. So it's the first motion picture with a nine-figure budget

to feature an all-Latino major cast. So the principal cast of even the English language version of the movie is all Latino Latinx Latine maybe there's a conversation to be had here about what's the best language to use absolutely not Caitlin absolutely not it is a lose-lose situation. I'm like, I don't even discuss it on podcasts anymore. I just tweeted and I said like, because you know, it was our heritage month. I don't know when this is dropping. But I just was like, happy, whatever term that people are going to just obsess over instead of paying attention to my accomplishments heritage month. Because I'm like, this whole month is about like, propping us up and like, like wow look at all the stuff that we're doing

look all the stuff that i'm doing in this community in this industry and it's just like but you're just going to spend the whole time arguing about like which term to use under my twitter uh so i was like yeah we just started like actually a bunch of us writers just started to you just say heritage month like we didn't even label it anything. And I remember people tweeting like, so we're just saying Heritage Month. Like we won't even say the word. And I'm like, I don't know. It's just not worth it.

Sure. This is also a joke. I don't, please do not write me. Please like. Totally. Leave Dani alone. Yeah, we don't have to get into it. I guess just to say that like we're aware of the different options for the language to use. There doesn't seem to be much agreement on what is like the preferred language. Yeah. So I might just kind of that I'll say anyone who follows me knows that like it's so important to be inclusive.

So at the end of the day, I truly do not care what term we if we even make up a whole word that doesn't even that's not even a word that we've heard yet. As long as people feel included, especially the most vulnerable people in our community feel. Because I say this all the time, but Latina, I am a Latina and like that's, I've always been represented by that term. And so I've never had to wonder what it was like to, to not be represented. And so that's what I care about, but I also alternate between all of our terms often. Sure. Totally. Yeah. So just again, shout out to Adriana for sharing her wonderful insights. Thank you so much to Adriana for sharing her wonderful insights. Thank you so much to Adriana.

She's been such a wonderful person and Bechtelcast listener over the years. She's the greatest. She pointed out, I think, one of the few repeated criticisms of this movie. Maybe it's just best to get through the criticisms at the top of the episode and then get into what we really loved about the movie um but what she mentioned about uh the use of the uh department of homeland security metaphor as a way to cross between realms seemed to be a that was a criticism that I saw in a bunch of places there was a um a really good essay published in the mary sue when this movie first came out by carla tamiz that i mean she opens the essay by saying that that decision triggered her as she was watching the movie and

sent her back to an experience she had with her mother when crossing into the U.S. when she was a kid. And it does seem to, I don't know. I mean, I'm curious to know what everyone thinks, because that was like one of the only things that like stuck out to me as, I don't know, like I maybe understand the impulse to reference that in the movie, but I don't like how it's like if you're going to make that decision creatively i feel like it really needs to bear out in a productive way and for especially for a children's movie in an optimistic way it's a disney movie but i was kind of surprised that by the end of the movie that system was very much upheld to the point where hector goes through customs i don't know i just

feel like there wasn't a lot of criticism on that system it was just like well this is the way things are and the movie does take a in a way that i really appreciated and thought was like a very thoughtful i don't know like pixar deep approach to the subject of showing that the way things are done does other and it does marginalize people in the world of the dead as well where the people who are slowly being forgotten they live they're kind of the underclass of this world and by the end it's like Miguel's family has managed to navigate that system in a way and so the individuals are doing okay but that system is still upheld in a way that feels like unusual for even like pixar movies where there was a there was a youtube essay i watched about it which

you know are very hit or miss but just even in the world of Pixar, like they are all about systems and then subverting the systems by the end of the movie where you're like, you have whatever. Monsters Incorporated. Stay with me. The system in that movie is we scare kids and turn it into energy. But through the character's journey, they realize this is a flawed system we need to change it to be a more you know societally positive less bad system and then it turns into like billy crystal does bad stand up at you and then that turns into energy like so much more efficient energy yeah right but it's like that doesn't happen in coco the The system doesn't. The characters go through incredibly nuanced arcs and the family goes through this huge journey. But the system is upheld in a way that is, you know, unfortunately, probably true to life.

But it doesn't feel like a Pixar movie. I don't know. What did everyone think about that? feels especially weird to include in a movie that showcases Mexican culture so well by most of the accounts that I've read to show that system that kind of like border control system in a movie about a community where that system so largely harmfully affects that community. It felt like a strange choice to me. Yeah, you know, I would be curious to hear how Adrian Molina, who co-wrote and co-directed this, who is Latino, his thoughts on it.

Yeah. Because, you know, kind of like you said, like I'm not, as a storyteller and as, you know, people who use things from our background, like I'm not as a storyteller and as as you know people who use things from our background like I'm not against using something that is harmful evil whatever like those elements do exist in in stories and they you know for a reason like he like you said like he couldn't get through he couldn't get over and that was harmful you know and so that was saying something however I understand what you're saying in the end is like that it, they upheld that as opposed to like destroying that. So, but for me though,

as, as a storyteller, I'm never like, I'm not going to show this because this is triggering or this is upsetting. It's like, it is triggering and it's upsetting. And like, I think sometimes that is included, unfortunately in our stories is things like that. And sometimes, you know, the audience, which is, this is, you know, this is a Disney movie, so it's going to a lot of people, but for other audiences need to see that sometimes. So I'm never like, don't ever show this, but I'm not sure why, other than it was, they needed a way for him to be policed. I'm saying this in quotes, like in some way to be, to not be able to be stopped, you know,

from some type of security, some type of whatever. So I don't know the conversations that happened in that room. And I'd be very curious to hear how Adrian, who did work on it, who did write this, or co-wrote this with Lee Unkridge, how he felt and like his thoughts behind it, because I don't ever want to discredit other Latinos and their, you know, their, their whys. And I don't, I don't ever want to censor any of us from what we feel we wanted to add or needed to add. And I don't know if in the end it,

also all of us being writers, I know that we know that you pitch stuff and you're like, this is how I want it to be. And then that's not always how it comes out. I can tell you. I was never. Yeah. Yeah. Writing on TV shows, like it's so funny seeing people tweet and they'll be watching a Netflix show. And this is my second Netflix show that I've written on now that I'm writing on now. And people will be like, why didn't they do this? Why didn't, I don't understand. Why wouldn't you? And I'm like, I can guarantee you if there were 10 writers, 10 talented writers in that room, they probably did. They probably brought that up. They probably did say, Hey, let's not do this. Or, Hey, like,

you know, they're going to say, why don't you you do this and then you don't always have the final say so yeah so i will just also say that as well sure it's like and you and you know that like especially like these whatever nine figure budget movies are noted and workshopped probably within an inch of their very lives yeah i, I mean, I would, yeah, I would be curious to know what those conversations were. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Because I think you're totally right, where it's like, there's nothing wrong.

And it does feel very like Pixar house style to reference real world issues in children's stories. Like that's something that they're really good at. I just, yeah, I would just be curious what the conversations were about, like, why it landed the way it did. I don't know. Yeah. Let's take another quick break, and then we'll come back for more discussion. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now.

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I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. I just want to reference, I think, the think the other well i feel like one of the defining controversies of this movie took place i think almost four years before the movie actually

came out because danny as you were saying this movie was in production for seven years lee unkrich who is a white director pitched it in in 2010. The story changed a lot. He brought in Adrian Molina, who had worked as, I believe, an editor in Pixar movies, who is now on the senior creative team. And this movie was being developed for a very, very long time. In 2013, there was something that I remember this happening, but I just hadn't thought about it in years. But there was a, I would say, a very Disney scandal where I think that at one point, Dia de las Muertas was the working title for this movie. And Disney was attempting to trademark that phrase in 2013. No one was happy about this like everyone was like uh sorry what the fuck um

so when that scandal broke there were uh i mean there were a number of mexican people of mexican american people who were all like you cannot do that that's that's so deeply fucked up um and that seems to be kind of a turning point in the production of this movie where i mean whatever this this is too dense a topic for a single podcast episode but disney's been appropriating and misrepresenting cultures for almost a century now yeah it's entire entire run. Yeah, and fumbling it almost every single time. And it didn't seem like until 2013 when this very obvious, like, no, you're not going to get away

with trademarking Dia de los Muertos, that the production then really ramped up and began to include more Mexican and Mexican-American artists and creatives in the project. I feel like it's so often that it does feel like people are screaming into a void online, which sometimes we are but in this case there there was like a an actual discernible change that took place in the production of this movie because disney tried to disney and people weren't having it and by all accounts the result of that was hiring a number of mexican and mexican american creatives to work on the movie which then came out four years later but even in some of the very positive reviews of this movie that scandal was referenced because it's just you know so egregious yeah one of those

was a mexican-american editorial cartoonist lalo alcarez what a poster definitely definitely know him he i want to share a quote about this, you know, Disney trying to commercialize and appropriate the name of a holiday. He says, quote, it's just frustrating because I've spoken to some of these companies begging them to have more people of color in the legal department behind the camera and green lighting projects, but they won't listen. And not just tokens, it's got to be real. So he, you know, was very outspoken about meaningfully including people in these important creative and development decisions and just, you know, any decisions that are made as far as putting a movie together. Post these remarks, he was then hired as one of the consultants on this movie along with octavio solis who's a playwright and marcella davison aviles who is the former ceo of the

mexican heritage corps so it's this group of people along with the co-director and co-writer, Adrian Molina, who were the people who seemed to be providing a lot of the cultural consultation that allowed for the movie to feel as authentic and for the representation, as far as the culture and the people in the movie, for that representation to feel responsible and respectful because despite these consultants um a lot of the people who are making major creative decisions behind the movie are still non-mexican white people yeah i was gonna say it's it's interesting like i feel you know i feel in the past decade and i've gotten to work with disney you know like i've I've you know obviously was in a Disney movie I've hosted with Disney I feel like they've really taken good care of me they also

it's wild I mean you all follow me on Twitter I say whatever the fuck I want to at all times and they're still like what do you want to host a this Aladdin press conference with all the Disney princesses and I'm like sure um I'm not gonna change like, sure. I'm not going to change the way, you know, I'm not going to ever censor myself. I'm always kid friendly when I'm like doing stuff with them. But like on my personal page, you know, I mean, to me, I'm like, if Sarah Silverman can say whatever she wants, then like I should be able to as well. And so I have actually gotten to see that change. Like I have one of the people who worked with me on Ralph Josie Trinidad. She was the lead storyboard artist and she also worked on Zootopia. She's now getting to direct her own.

They have a slate of directors of color who are now directing their own films. Another one that I know is Carlos Lopez Estrada, who did Ryan, the Last Dragon. And so like the industry as a whole, the industry as a whole is not anywhere near where it needs to be. I think, you know, we were having this conversation off air, but I still feel like, you know, we're very much in these boxes where for me, the stuff that is easiest for me to get greenlit is like this, this idea of this, like one big, happy Latino family. Like we're all just one big, happy family. That's like easy for

white people to digest. You know, we don't get to play like sci-fi as much and fantasy as much. Which this is to some extent, like definitely. But I just feel like as a whole we don't get to play around as much as a lot of other white storytellers um because I want to play in horror I want to play in you know I don't want anything to have to do with like I'm not even that close with a lot of members of my family you know and like I also want to play in like queer stories and what it's like to come out and like have to have to have find your family, like found family. Like those are kind of stories that I want, I want to tell. This is all to say, I do see it changing. I see on Disney plus with like, um, diary of, of a future president. Like I definitely do see more of us, more representation,

more of us getting to tell our own stories, which I think is the most important, not to have wallpaper, which I still feel like is a lot of places, and not saying that they don't do that. But just in the past decade, I have gotten to witness that. And so I'm hoping that that continues. I'm hoping that this also came out what year did this did Coco come out 2017 2017 the next year we had Black Panther in 2018 and it was like you know allowing like the reason why it feels so authentic is you know to some extent like you said like having people like Lalo or having people like Ryan Coogler like getting to be involved in these projects so it so that it doesn't feel like wallpaper I still feel all studios have a ways to go but I'm hoping that this also with the numbers with Shang-Chi like blew the numbers out of the water no one I don't

think was expecting it to do that well allows us unfortunately it is we're in this capitalistic society but it makes people go oh we can make money telling stories with people of color wow okay and unfortunately that you know sounds cynical but like that's how our industry works right yeah and so having the success of Coco having the success of Black Panther having the success of Shang-Chi and Raya and these other ones is is allows for more of us to get into the door and be able to tell these stories and so I'm glad that they have the slate of POC directors coming up that are that are getting to yeah because when you see a lot of the quotes from director lee unkrich who's this like you know pixar legacy guy he either directed or co-directed toy story two and three monster

zing finding nemo he you know was talking about developing and directing coco and how he has how he had all this anxiety about making the film because he's like you know we're taking on this real culture and the fact that I'm not Mexican or Latino myself I felt this enormous responsibility on my shoulders to do it right and it's like well I'm glad you feel that responsibility but can you like step back and be like hey am I the person am I the best person to be directing this movie it does feel kind of I don't know I mean it's it's moana and coco came out back to back years moana came out 2016 coco came out 2017 and it does feel like this kind of like half-step middle thing production wise where it's like on moana there were a lot of consultants

brought on but there's still these like legacy white directors and composers at the top of the project and i think that that was improved upon in coco because adrian molina clearly had such like i i really enjoyed watching his press junket interviews for this movie and like he just i don't know it's i would i I wish he had been just, you know, credited as a director, because it just seemed wish I had his name, but they had a Mexican music consultant consulting the white composer, but ultimately, the white composer gets the credit and you have to imagine a hell of a lot more money for being consulted on how to properly represent Mexican music. So it's like this in between place that like you were just describing Danny fortunately seems like this company and a lot of companies are working their

way out of of like no actually having you know experience helps but like having a white guy at the top of every project is gonna disservice a lot of projects and it's you know like it's it's getting in the way and it's holding back creative freedom and resources and like you're saying like capital from marginalized people who will do a better job so those elements are definitely present in this movie but it is nice that i mean it's it's less than five years later and that already does seem like it is in the process of changing like you're saying yeah I don't even know if now where we're at in 2021 like if you could do that I don't know if they are I haven't looked at their slate but I don't even think that their other their live action that I just named you know Shang-Chi had an Asian director and Black Panther had a Black director and like that

also we also have Captain Marvel has a Black director which is you know the Captain Marvel too which is very important we should not be directing just our own stories like yes please we should be directing our stories but also we can direct your stories too because we grew up Yeah, right. film totally where it whereas it doesn't work the other way around so what i'm saying is like that already feels like it's changing in the last couple of years so i am hopeful i don't know if they're doing i've heard so much about like a coco too but right that was like referenced i don't know if it's like super under wraps or like i have no it was like announced I felt at some point or it was like leaked and then it like disappeared I just assume everything gets a two

now even though it's like I don't know Coco does like I just the writing is so good it's like I guess that you know it's not like they left any hanging threads but they also created this incredible universe that anyone would be happy

to go back to so i don't i hope i hope so um i also was this the was this the project that got robert lopez and kristin anderson lopez their e got like when when did they effectively e got they're they're the um songwriting and composing married couple that wrote Remember Me and they wrote all of the Frozen songs. They're like, and I think that they started with Avenue Q. Is that right? Oh, I'm not sure. Yeah, the Book of Mormon and Avenue Q. I'm fans of theirs.

But I think that this might have been the project where they formally got their EGOT because most EGOT are um musicians and composers because right so as we learned on that really old episode of 30 rock you're right hilarious yeah i i don't know but i do know that this that remember me won the oscar for best original song so yeah it's very possible um i wanted to speak a little bit to co-director adrian melina's involvement in the filmmaking where he started out in 2011 on the project's inception as a story artist he would like submit notes throughout that process and the people

writing the script and like developing the story because this movie has i think four story by credits they would hit roadblocks with the narrative so at one point adrian melina started submitting screenplay pages just basically saying like let me just take a crack at this you don't you don't have to read it if you don't want to lee unkrich but i thought i'd take a stab. And then he thought, Lee Unkrich thought they were great. So then he asked Adrian to come on board as a screenwriter. And he said he found himself relying more and more on Adrian's input. So eventually had him come on board as a co-director as well. So he didn't even start out as like a co-screenwriter

and co-director. it was just like his insight and his kind of continued and increasing involvement is what got him to be brought on in this greater capacity yeah for example it was his idea so the other writers were trying to figure out the mechanics of Miguel being in the land of the dead and like what he would need to do to get back to the land of the living. And it was Adrian Molina who contributed the idea that Miguel would need his family's blessing to return home because that came from something very personal in his own life where, you know, like when he went to college, his parents offered their blessing, which is something that he like hadn't expected them to

do based on i think what he wanted to study or something but he's like yeah let's what about this being an element of the story and according to unkrich that part of the story quote ended up being really central and thematically on point it helped solve some problems we'd been having and that is like a crucial part of this story so it just like goes to show when you have people who understand the culture and know what they're talking about and bring them on your story is just have like a pack of white guys fumbling around in the dark which sounds like where the was the early production of this movie in fact lee uncridge also said that in an early draft of this script the character of miguel was going to be a mexican

american kid who would have and i think the movie would have been set in the u.s and he was dealing with the death of his mother so it was still going to revolve around Dia de los Muertos. And Lee Unkrich says, quote, our first stab at the story reflected the fact that none of us at the time were from Mexico. So it made sense to tell it from an outside perspective, because I knew we were going to have to teach an audience about the traditions and about Mexico. And that seemed like a logical way to do it initially. End quote. So it's like, okay, well, I will say I am kind of like, impressed isn't the word because it's like, you can't really hand it to anyone in this situation. But I feel like it is kind of rare to hear a white director publicly vocalize it

and not just be like, oh, yeah, but totally. And I Googled and I went to the library and like, I figured it out. Like, I feel like that's normally more what you get. And I feel like I bring to the library and like I figured it out like I feel like that's normally more what you get and I feel like I bring up the quote where Robert Eggers says he went to the library and that's why he understands indigenous American culture like I feel like you get a lot of that and uh yeah I guess like it still feels like it should just be Adrian Molina's movie and that it is but you know at least lee uncourt is like yeah i kind of didn't know what i was doing but did i take the directing

credit did i take the money i sure did you sure did i had one more i feel like we haven't even started talking about this story yet uh but there was one more criticism I just wanted to bring up because it's something I saw in several different places. And that was and again, in that essay, in the Mary Sue, it came up and the writer. Oh, my gosh. I have so many tabs. Carla Tamiz about how there's only one shade of brown in the movie in terms of skin tone and how that was something that stuck out to her as just a frustration and a disappointment and

conversation that I think is had all the time and yet rarely taken action upon in projects is colorism and the fact that there are many shades of brown and also there are white people that live in Mexico like there so I just want to quote from her piece because she does it better than I ever could obviously so she says quote I'm not naive enough to have expected

a fair representation of what Mexican people can and do look like, but wow, it was still surprisingly disappointing to find that Pixar found one shade of brown and really committed to it. Like any colonized land united under a flag that was imposed by settlers and voyagers on its indigenous inhabitants and the slaves who were brought in to help it make it suitable to white needs, there is no one way that a Mexican can look. I always think of the Sandra Cisneros quote from Caramello. So now we're quoting Sandra Cisneros. There are green-eyed Mexicans, there are rich blonde Mexicans, the Mexicans with the faces of Arab sheiks, the Jewish Mexicans, the big-footed as a German Mexicans, the leftover French Mexicans, the chaparito compact Mexicans.

This quote goes on for a while, but all that to say, she concludes by saying, that lack of physical diversity on screen is simply an extension of a continued failure of big stage Mexican representation and embracing both our extensive ethnic heritage and our pre-colonial history, unquote, which is a point I saw in a few different places.

And honestly, I mean, I felt foolish because i hadn't noticed i just wanted to bring that up as well yeah i think yes i completely agree and i feel like you know i understand to some extent his his family you know being the same color and um sure like his parents and looking like him but as far as his village they are correct in that there is still colorism both in latin american countries and and in our country very obviously amongst latinos and i do feel like they took that note with their new movie that they have with um stephanie beat, because that family seems very diverse skin color wise and to actually being including Afro Latinos. But that is something that I feel is an afterthought. And Miguel's shade, I feel like is what people think of when they think of Latino, you know,

and I've, I've said that as well. Like when I audition for roles, it's never debated about whether I'm Latina or not. Whereas my Afro Latina friends sometimes are not even considered. And so that is still a huge problem that we're, that we're still dealing with, um, that we saw, you know, the conversation surrounding In the Heights. I think that just in media that has been thought of as the skin color for Latinos. And it's just not correct that we do come in all shades. And I want to say, though, that yes, although there are white Latinos, like I'm more concerned with Afro-Latinos being shown. No, I know that she's not wrong, but I'm just like, yes, but also I personally don't

know if I care as much as, because I just feel white. Then if you are white, you have other things to latch onto. You have had other people that look like you and princesses that look like you and superheroes and people in Star Wars and whatever that are your skin color, then even if they're not Latino, they do still have your skin color. And so I'm very concerned with Afro and indigenous representation of Latinos. And I just feel like that has not been, and I know, Jamie, sorry, I know that's not what you're saying. I just wanted to say, or necessarily what she's saying. But I just wanted to say that like I just don't see enough representation and I feel a lot of times like they're they're just not considered you know right um absolutely like in the in the

auditions that I get it just and it's hard there is no one way to be Latino like that that it's also like we're kind of we have this term and yet we're so different that it's hard to put us all, it's hard to put us all in this, under this term. And so for me, it's so important with everything that I make that, that I actually make, I don't, I can't control the shows, you know, that I write on that I have bosses and it's their show. And I'm just a writer on there. I try to push as much as I can, and I do. But I'm, at the end of the day, not the one that's making the final decision. But at least in the things that I make, I feel pretty proud of being able to represent my community.

But I do feel like there needs to be more of our stories greenlit so that one singular movie or one singular show doesn't have to represent all of us, because I think that's such a burden that white people don't have. And I just think it's so unfair and hard on – like I think of even Insecure. And I remember people, you know, writing at ESA about like, well, this is kind of classist because you're showing this type of class of black people. And I'm like, well, one, she was also an Uber driver for one. But like two, that's such a burden to place of like she needs to represent the wealth of the Black community.

And I'm like, that's just impossible. That's not something that is put on white creators to represent every single element of their community. And so I literally have lost sleep about this with my own community of like, I actually cannot. I cannot represent, you know, the full breadth of my community and even experiences. As we're thinking, as I was thinking, like Lee Unkrich took this on and he's not in the community. I was like, I don't even know if I could take on like Argentinian like representation. I'm like that. That's just not that's not my like, I'm just not in that community. And so like, I don't even know if I would feel, and I have had projects come across like that. And I'm like, I pass on them because I'm like, that's such a, that would be so much time to when it could just go to someone that that's their impossible for one single Latino person to represent every single Latino person. And so what the truth is, is that more of those stories need to be greenlit. More Afro-Latino creators need to have need to be greenlit, need to be given the funds to make their own stories and shows so that they don't have to feel like they're a side character in somebody else's movie or site, you know, or an afterthought. Right. Yeah. And I want to acknowledge that we've had conversations on this show that demonstrate,

I don't want to speak for you, Jamie, but like my misunderstanding that I had for a long time about Latinx, Latine communities and people in which I kind of assumed, oh, all people in that community are people of color. And we've had conversations about like Latina actresses who are white people of European descent who are still also Latina, but we were referring to them as people of color. And we've had friends and listeners clarify for us, just because someone is Latina doesn't automatically mean they're also a person of color. And I think the confusion, for me at least, comes from the colorism and featurism that exists in media and movies and stuff where white European features are favored and are

considered to be more attractive. So a lot of the famous Latinx actors in both the US and in Latin America are of European descent, and they are not indigenous, and they are not Afro-Latino. Or if they're mixed, they tend to have more European features. So again, it speaks to the need to have far more representation across the board to fully represent all the communities and subcultures that fall under the Latin umbrella. So this is all something that I didn't have a super clear understanding of at first and I've had to do a lot of research and reading and talking to people and again there are past episodes where our misunderstanding is fully on display so I want to hold ourselves accountable for that and to acknowledge that yeah no i totally i mean we've we've very much fumbled and and made and i think just like it made not uncommon but

completely incorrect assumptions in the past on this show and it's something that's like yeah our listeners have have been kind in moments that honestly they didn't need to be about letting us know about stuff. And, you know, it's conversations that we're committed to continuing to have. But, yeah, I mean, even in this particular scenario with Coco, I was like, oh, like, Jamie, how did you not notice that? Because it's like once it's brought to your attention you can't unsee it and I learned about this criticism between you know whatever viewings for this show and I don't know and and like you're saying Danny it's a completely unreasonable request and an additional pressure put on marginalized creators to represent their entire culture every time they're creatively

producing something that is impossible and and setting up people for for failure because it's not a realistic expectation of a creator yeah so i mean the the it should just be the answers to have allowed more more people to have to get to tell their stories yeah and we'll eventually i mean i'm hoping that we eventually get to that that place yeah so no single poc creator feels like they they have to represent right every single element of their or even every single element of their you know commute like like i was saying in isa's case is like representing all types of different wealth or poverty or like whatever I'm like oh she just is kind of making a story about dating as a black

millennial you know but like to have to like and I and I totally understand that and and but it's just like it's just something that we don't place on um on white on like girls you know like that wasn't a con I mean I don't know I didn't watch the show, but it's not a commentary on Schitt's Creek. Well, actually I think it did because they were poor and then they got, but like Ted Lasso, I don't know. I'll keep naming things. I'll keep naming things with white leads. It's like you could name white leads for the next five days. No, but you're totally right.

Like these same burdens are not placed on white creators, largely because there's been so much representation of white people in media that the full spectrum has already been represented. And of course, there are groups that haven't been represented enough or well. And that's, you know, obviously, that's what we talk about all the time on the podcast. But even so, a lot of queer stories and stories about disability and stories about women still center white people. So again, this all just continues to speak to the need for a much larger scope of representation of all people, all communities, all identities, all intersections, everyone.

Yeah. And like behind the camera too. Yes. I was going to say too, like also just being able to represent both. Like, so one of my favorite Afro-Latino characters is Miles Morales. Oh, same. And I feel like a lot of times people forget that he is black and Latino. And I just feel like a lot of times there, a lot of stories don't allow for the full complexity or full depth of both of those,

you know? And so it's, it's kind of like one or the other. And that is, you can't, you can't separate those two. Those are two that is his identity. Like you can't like, you know, pick one or the other. And so that is his identity in full. And so it just is allowing more characters, I think, that are Afro-Latino to have all those layers is important. But I think a lot of times people forget. And have that not be such a rarity, too. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. times people forget and have that not be such a rarity too yeah yeah 100 i wanted to talk a little

about the use of spanish in the movie coco where not a ton is spoken in like the english language version of the movie um but there is some there and i wanted to share something from a New York Times piece entitled How Pixar Made Sure Coco was Culturally Conscious by Reggie Uguu. Uguu points out that, quote, Benjamin Bratt and the young Anthony Gonzalez as Miguel slip in and out of untranslated Spanish, a rarity in commercial American cinema. And then there's an additional quote from Octavio Solis, who is one of the consultants that was hired on the film, says, quote, the original idea was to have the characters speak only in English with the understanding that they were really speaking in Spanish. But for us, language is binary and we code switch from English to Spanish seamlessly, end quote, which is just like a feature that I thought was really cool. It gives

people watching this who aren't Spanish speakers exposure to the language. Like I think it just like has all these great benefits that I thought was like cool to include but I'm interested to hear other perspectives on that as well well I feel like that's how a lot of families at least here you know it's fascinating because it was in Mexico so obviously it's probably all in you know Spanish but like here in the states I feel like it's that's very common to kind of switch back and forth between spanish and english kind of seamlessly uh in conversation so i like that and i also just like you know hearing mexican accents with while english speaking and you know

just teaching even young latino like my niece is currently um, in a school where like half of the day is in English. And then after lunch, it's all in Spanish. And so I do love, I love the fact that, you know, this is a family or four kids, you know, a family movie. And so it's teaching young kids, whether they are of Latino descent or not, like getting to hear some Spanish in a massive, one of the things that actor Hector Navarro, he's a host for Nerdist and Skybound, a bunch of other things. We both like wrote each other about the beginning

to hear the Disney movie. I mean, the Disney music that was at the beginning of the movie with the castle was mariachis. And like, that was a huge deal to us. Like that was really important. That meant a lot. And so like evenis and like that was a huge deal to us like that that was really important that meant a lot and so like even little things like that to to have these like disney you know american disney whatever moments but like from our culture just feels really special yeah yeah

absolutely okay i have one last thing i promise and then we're going to talk about the story. I know it's late. The last thing I wanted to bring up was, I was looking back at, this movie was extremely well-reviewed. It has like in the 97 critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Right. This was an extremely well-reviewed movie. However, there was a piece on a website called Remezcla. I had never been on it before, but it's a website,

grassroots project that documents Latin culture. And they published this article as Coco was coming out, saying like, yeah, everyone's loving Coco, But on the Rotten Tomatoes page, there is not one Latin movie reviewer who has reviewed this movie to the point where this site ended up, you know, recruiting and reaching out to a number of I mean, because as we've talked

about on this show a bajillion times, there's no shortage of non-white film reviewers. That's just who ordinarily gets the job at the highest level and who ends up on the Rotten Tomatoes page. And it's something that's changing very slowly to the point where it's like, it would have been very glaring in 2017 to anyone who was looking that there were no Latin reviewers reviewing this movie. So this website, Ramescula put together a number, I think it was five or six reviewers who were of Mexican descent to review this movie.

And the reviews were still extremely positive, but the, I mean, the point of everything was like, we've sort of been referencing at different points in this episode. There's a lack of representation at every single level where you know the average movie viewer isn't thinking well who's writing my movie reviews but it absolutely makes a difference so yeah i just wanted to yeah point that out as well i mean i think it similarly, it's worth noting that Coco is Pixar's 19th movie

and the first one to feature a minority character in the lead role. Interesting. All the other ones up until that point had been white people. White coated toys or people. Or cars. Did you say white coated toys yes i did

white coated john goodman coded monsters owen wilson coded cars i'm sorry but sully is a monster of color um the color is blue blue yeah i mean look it's it's it's hard we have these conversations so so much internally of like yes please like we want to be able to review coco and moana and whatever but as i continue to say we we don't want to be your token person that i remember when moana came out i got hit i'm like i'm not'm not even from this. I'm just the closest thing you have to, you know? And so it's hard because we want to be included in the conversation. Like even with this podcast, like if you had invited another white person, I don't know how it would feel probably wouldn't be as important. Right. But like, but, but you

have also had me on, what did you say? Like Laura Cro Croft Tomb Raider and, like, the Addams Family. And so, like, you're not just like, let's get Dani on this Latino one and then we're, like, not going to let her talk about anything else. And so, like, that's, so I do want to say, yes, we do want to be included in these. But I just don't think that we want to be boxed in, like, pigeonholed. And that's the only thing we're allowed to talk about. And I know that, you know, our friends during Black History Month, same thing. It's like all of a sudden their inboxes are full and like, let's have you on every single panel and to talk about all this. And then all of a sudden after February, it's like, right, nothing.

Yeah. You know, and so it's it's let us talk like i mean if if there were less white film reviewers reviewing every single film that comes out like that would also rectify that issue of like there's what i mean this is really getting in the weeds but in terms of staff writing positions for magazines and like you know go-to film reviews as opposed to the freelance model that i think kind of empowers that kind of tokenizing behavior. True. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about the movie. Yeah, let's, let's talk about Coco, the story thoughts. I like it. I honestly thought this was really clever. Yeah, I still like, you know, my writer brain, like, I still think this is such a clever way to approach this. Like to be like, how are we going to make a film about this really special day?

Yeah, I felt like this was very clever and it was it was very different than Book of Life, like completely different. So it is fascinating. Oh, you should. You definitely should. Yeah. And I love Jorge's. He has Maya and the Three coming out on Netflix. Also cried watching that trailer.

Oh, cool. Also cried. I watched that trailer so many times and cried. Also something that took him like three years to make. The series that's coming out on Netflix. I mean, animation takes so long, but he has a very cool, very unique artistic style that you can't miss. Like I've seen, I've seen his work on like the side of buildings and I'm like, oh, that's Jorge. But yeah, check that out.

What I'm saying though, is that I love that we can have multiple movies and we should, because like how many Christmas movies are there? A billion. About white people. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. How many Christmas Lif movies uh do we have white people moving in with their parents yeah that live in a nice house or like reconnecting

with their high school love or something yeah which too many i mean whatever no disrespect to people who but like what anyways yeah i also something that uh just, like this is a really good movie in so many ways. It's also like a really good Disney movie. I can't remember what like more. But this movie has like Dela Cruz is such a good Disney villain. Like I felt like I hadn't seen like one of my goofy who gives a shit millennial gripes with more recent Disney movies is like, I like when a villain falls off a cliff at the end. I like it.

Like, and I feel like Dela Cruz, who literally, I mean, he gets crushed by a bell a second time. Poetic justice. We love it. Yeah. Yeah. Like his character, not only is the writing surrounding his character so strong and everything is so firmly planted but like when you reach the twist it is so like rewarding

but on top of that it felt like this really cool meeting between you know the more recent disney quote-unquote villains i feel like you're encouraged to empathize with them and then by the end maybe you see them in a different way which you do a little bit with but you still get that kind of satisfying 90s disney villain where he falls off a cliff and is double dead now um yeah i i really enjoyed how his plot line bore out too and how it like affected miguel of you know miguel was kind of being gently encouraged by someone he thought was his relative of like oh you know like it was all worth it this thing that I did like I would recommend it to everybody which again is kind of overly simplistic because everyone's family is different

but I mean he had me going I fell for it the first time I watched it, I was like, wow, he's right. No notes. He's great. Yeah, I too abandoned my family to pursue comedy, and I never looked back. True. I know. I was like, yeah, I guess we all did do that. So we're all going to get crushed by bells, et cetera.

Like, it's an oversimplification. But I just, yeah, I was like, wow, like a Disney villain. I missed them. It was exciting. One thing I really loved, and even though the main vehicle of this story is Miguel seeking the blessing of a male family member, there's so much emphasis in the movie on something that Adriana was speaking to in terms of like the matriarchs of the family and how there's so much emphasis in the movie on something that adriana was speaking to in terms of like the matriarchs of the family and how there's multiple women in the movie who are like the authority

figures of the household they're calling the shots they are revered and respected by the rest of the family strong women who miguel sure butts heads with, but, you know, he has an arc in which he does like come to learn to appreciate his family and the love that his family provides for him, thanks to the kind of guidance of these women in his family. And then the women also arc in the sense that they realize maybe they were being a bit too hard on him and a little bit too rigid and you know again when they see how much music means to him and they see the effect that it has on him and just like like kind of the larger cultural scope of things they're like oh i was uh maybe being unreasonable to banish all music for the rest of our lives i do wish that this is like a very tiny nitpick but i do wish that we had

gotten to see some of the women in this story have a little more fun where it felt like there was with with hector and with miguel mean, everyone has these very like dramatic arcs, but you get to see Hector and Miguel have fun and have these like moments of levity with their characters and goof off and just have these silly moments. And I wish that for all of the very well-developed and strong women in this story, I wish you got to see them have a little bit of fun because it did feel like usually,

even though all of the women are I think you know very individual characters I just I don't know I just wanted to see one of them make a goof have some fun joke like make a goof yeah I do like that mama Melda gets to like embrace her her music background again like she gets to like have that moment that spotlight I think the only thing that I would say is that this was kind of the answer to all of the Disney princess movies which by the way I personally appreciate like you know it was like every new Disney princess that would come out I was that Disney princess for Halloween it was like every new one I had the costume and so I think this was their kind of way of like, okay, well, we're going to instead,

because like we said, they had Moana right before this, right? And Frozen and like, I mean, also all the Disney princesses since Snow White. I think this was one of their ways of like, okay, now we're going to have a little boy, you know? Right. And like focus on that and his story and like men and like this bonding between a son and this father figure and the fact that he actually has parents and like

it's to keep his parents is fascinating for a disney movie um disney movies famously kill off mothers and the fact that there are like multiple mother figures in the movie. The family grows by the end. Yeah. There's a new sibling. Yeah. And he has a new sibling. Yeah. So that's the only thing that I would say that it kind of felt like, you know, my brothers

grew up watching me kind of experience it. Not saying that they didn't have their own shit because they definitely did. But like, you know, when it came to Disney, it was kind of like my time to shine. And they always watched me. They had to watch my Disney movies. It felt like, and they were always the side, whatever characters in the Disney movies. And so this was kind of like, if this had come out when they were little, you know, if I think of like my older brother getting to see himself in Miguel, you know, whereas the closest thing I felt I got was like Jasmine and I you know latched on to that but but yeah so that's what I would say with that with it being you know more quote

unquote boy if we're like gendering this but like it's I don't even have an issue with with the protagonist being a boy or with him connecting with his male ancestors yeah I just wish that that the women in the family got to have more fun in the moments that they that they were present because they felt very present like yeah i don't think i would really change too much about like the distribution of screen time really like it feels like the movie's so well thought out yeah i just no jamie i saw your blog and it said miguel have been. I did a bunch of math. I was like, hot take?

Boycott. No, I wanted to say I did love, I loved and freaked out and was like very excited about Frida. I have a Frida canvas across from me right now of artwork of her, my beautiful bi icon who I adore. She also popped up in Lovecraft. I don't know if y'all saw that, but like anytime she pops up in pop culture, I get really excited. Um, so I was really happy and she, she kind of got, you know, they definitely showed her a little, you know, her, her wild side. I guess she, yeah. I mean,

she definitely got to goof off. Yeah. Yeah. Her, her, her wild side, guess she yeah i mean she definitely got to goof off yeah yeah her her her wild side but i i was so happy that they had her in it yeah i do appreciate too that like the matriarchs are again these kind of like authoritative figures in the family and therefore often stern but they are also very appropriately soft and compassionate and like, oh yeah, loving and affectionate with Miguel, especially, and you know, other members of the family. But yeah, it didn't feel, I feel like it would have been a like earlier Disney trope or just like media trope in general to kind of villainize a like matriarchal figure in a family and be like oh she's the mom so she's mean because we've talked about that trope on a number of episodes

but these mothers and matriarchs and women in this story have just way more dimension i feel like than your typical like mother character yeah in a family movie especially right yeah uh any other thoughts about the narrative or the the characters uh oh this was uh something that I so I mean I just I love Hector and Miguel's relationship I love I mean the way that Hector's character is written I thought was so just brilliant the way that he's introduced like I don't I can't really think of many other movies that do this where I feel like Hector is so very introduced to you as a like side character that you don't see it coming that he is one of the most critical players in the

entire story i just felt like that was so well executed and almost plays on what we know about disney movies already to be like oh side character got it and that it ultimately like becomes this story about a father and a daughter by the end where you get to focus on the connection between Hector and Coco. That is like, I cried as thinking about it, but, but I think that that is kind of a rare thing in,

in movies. And by extension, like Coco and Miguel, like this, like in the beginning of the movie and in the end of the movie. So like during the exposition, there's all this, Miguel's talking about like, oh, I tell my like Mama Coco doesn't remember that much, but it's fine. I talked to her. I tell her everything. And there's like little montage of all the things he says to her and they do like he reenacts like wrestling with her and then at the end that again like the heart-wrenchingest scene of any movie ever where he's trying to get her to remember hector and singing to her and then she

starts singing along and you see how like how much she comes to life and which is like so inherent to like i don't know anyone who's ever had an elderly family member who is kind of in and out. And in a moment where you when you're like, oh, there they are, you know, and those moments are so precious and beautiful. And it was just like so well done. Yeah, I think that just goes back to like, how universal our stories are. You know, like having the story of Miguel, like pursuing something that his family doesn't necessarily want him to do. I feel like everyone can relate to that. You know, especially if you're in the creative arts. And then like, you know, having a falling out with a family member or, you know, like identity issues or like you said, even kind of losing

an elderly, having an elderly family member, like maybe not remember you or kind of going in and out. Like these are all universal stories and experiences. So I don't know, like I just keep going back to like allowing us to make our stories, but it's just like they're they're universal yeah they're human stories human stories yeah i'm really saying like groundbreaking things here that nobody has ever said y'all really like really like no one's ever thought of thought of these thoughts i mean it's really important to just be reminded of these things and talk about them. That's true.

It can't be overstated, I don't think. Yeah, did anyone have anything else? I think that was about, as I was going through my notes, I feel like a lot of this was just like, I like that. I feel like I'll just link to some really good articles I read that I think would be like good supplemental things to read in addition to listening to this episode. We didn't really talk about the, and I don't know how much anyone wants to go into this. If we don't want to go into it, we don't have to, because I would understand not wanting to think about the Trump administration again. But I think it's just at least worth mentioning the kind of cultural context in which this movie came out in the US, at least, where,

again, 2017, not long into the Trump administration, where Trump was, you know, constantly spewing hateful rhetoric about specifically Mexican people and, you know, this need to build a wall and, you know, the ramping up of ice and for this movie to come out like in the midst of all that and be so beloved and to represent the culture so respectfully and responsibly and authentically to be a huge box office hit. This movie, by the way, is the highest grossing film of all time in Mexico. So for that to just be a reprieve, basically, from all of Trump's awfulness is just another thing that goes to show how important it is for these stories to be told on a regular regular basis yeah i would say also like our resiliency and like our it winning an academy award and

um guillermo winning i think like either the year before and uh then roma winning and um just like our i don't know like our i was like our takeover our. And just like our, I don't know, like our, I was like, our takeover. No, just like our ability to resonate with so many people. And in spite of this country's president at the time, just wanting to obliterate us, that we still came out on top and we still were dominating. Which is a burden you shouldn't have to bear of course for sure but yeah yes absolutely they were like i hear that you hate us and we're going to um actually win all of these academy awards over everybody else um during that administration no literally like it was like so many mexican directors like one after the other after the other were like winning during just as kind of like a middle finger

you know i don't even want fuck you i i know i'm allowed to say that on here i was like what is another term for fuck you as a middle finger to the president yeah um the only last thing i wanted to mention was another like disney did another oopsie was that they used doesn't sound like them they used the likeness of a real woman named maria de la Salud Ramirez Caballero from a village in Santa Fe de la Laguna in Mexico. They basically used her likeness for the design of Mama Coco. Producers came to her village, took a picture of Maria, but did not compensate her or her family or give any credit to her or anything like that. So that's just another thing. I don't know, Katelyn.

They only had a budget of $200 million. That sucks. That's always so frustrating. And it's something that should just be standardized in Hollywood. Because I don't know. Unfortunately, I feel like in an industry like this, you cannot count on the goodwill of certainly large corporations, even in a production that seemed this determined

to be culturally sensitive. But there just needs to be a requirement that it's like, no, you cannot just steal someone's face like it seems intuitive but yes i hope the artists that follow me are i've seen y'all i send it to iffy and my friend danielle radford there are a couple of people that have copied like because you know i i post like my photo shoots like my very like muscular yeah like art like I've seen people use those and I'm like this is I should send you some I'm like this is my face you're you or like my I've had people I've had artists that'll be like oh I saved this and like use this as like a life drawing or like I

hope it's okay I like plan to use this as like you know because like the different poses I'm in like it shows off my different like muscle definition or whatever, but I definitely have seen a couple of Latino characters that look too similar. Like my face is very like my jaw. And like, anyways, I made this about me. I successfully made this about me.

What I'm saying is you can, but like, please like either pay me or be like danny has to voice this character because we base this off of her look but i've definitely credit you appropriately and compensate you like it's not too much to ask i can say because i i just be in this industry it happens more than people realize it happens more than people realize and is also when y'all tweet I just had a tweet about this but also when you're like pitching stories and stuff on Twitter people do steal those so I

just please protect yourself yeah yeah again that's why I only tweet about Paddington because that story already exists yeah or oh you know what I should tweet a story about how me and gail garcia brunel fall in love and get married and then that story can get stolen as long as it happens in real life you hear that gail wow anyway um yeah that was all i had we've been talking for a long time and um longer than the runtime of the movie so the tradition continues wow hilarious uh does anyone have anything else that's all I got no I'm just glad this movie exists oh yes yes and I already I I know I'll cry next time too there's no way around it. Yep. I honestly don't know the answer to this question because I was so enthralled by the story. I don't either.

Oh, I was hoping you would know. I forgot to pay attention if it passes the Bechdel test or not. I feel like it does. I think it does at some point. Between Miguel's grandmother and Mama Coco, and then there are other family members of his that exchange words, but I don't know, like, to what extent, or I don't remember exactly what they talk about. Yeah, it could be Miguel. Like, there's a, I could see it going either way. Let me, let me do a quick Google.

Hold on. Yeah, go to BechdelTest.com or whatever. If you Google any movie and Bechdel, yeah, yeah, BechdelTest.com or whatever. If you Google any movie and Bechdel, yeah, BechdelTest.com, here we are. Okay, it does pass. Okay. But then there's a lot of, this is like a lot of comments for this website. I would say we forgot to do our job, but also the Bechdel Test is, again, not that important to our show. Okay, so the consensus is it does pass the Bechdel test.

It doesn't pass a lot, but I would argue for this movie, you're in a matriarchal family, in a matriarchal structure. Women have a strong influence on the plot. Could women and could people of marginalized genders be speaking to each other more yes always i think that's always fair game but in in the context of this movie i don't know

this is just i feel like not the best metric to apply to this movie sure because of how i don't know but it does technically pass not not not a not a million times but it does pass. Yep. Well, how about that? As far as our nipple scale goes, zero to five nipples, examining it through an intersectional feminist lens, I would say if I had to take any nipples off, it would be because of some of the production and development stuff, and the people behind the camera being still largely white men who were making a lot of the major creative decisions here, and even though they brought on consultants, and Adrian Molina as a screenwriter and co-director, it still is just like, okay, well, who are you guys to make this movie and tell this story? But even so, the product that came out of it was

so good and so well handled. And aside from, yeah, like the kind of border control customs thing that was traumatizing and triggering for some viewers to watch and a couple little things like that. The Latin community, especially because so much of that culture and community, the way it's been represented in American cinema prior to that has been absolutely abysmal. So I would give this like four and a half nipples, I want to say. And I'll give one to Mama Imelda, one to Mama Coco, one to basically just all the mamas. Miguel's abuela. Miguel's mama. And Miguel's mama. And the little baby that was in her.

The half nipple to little sis at the very end. Yeah, shout out to the little sis. Yeah, I'll meet you at uh four and a half i think that you know that the criticism surrounding this movie in the production i think it's very much worth discussing and the i mean it's stuff we've been talking about for three hours so i don't want to you know retread everything i think that there is valid criticism around certain creative decisions in this movie. There was certainly a lot of white CEO creative nonsense that took place at the beginning of this movie in terms of production.

And I also think that the conversation around colorism is a very valid one that warrants continuing on this show and in the industry at large. And the movie that we got is so beautiful and so human while also being very culturally specific. And it's such a beautiful movie. I can't wait to watch it again. It makes me wish that it existed when we were kids,

but very happy that our nieces and nephews are going to be able to grow up with it. So four and a half nipples from me. I who am I going to give my nipples to? Wow. I'm going to give them all to Dante the dog. Oh, I did think about doing that. Because Dante is incredible. I want, I am going to start actively seeking out a stuffed Dante to have in my home.

And he has an arc too. He becomes another Brie Hayes. He does. Yeah. He's, when Dante came in the last scene, I mean, it's like the whole last scene is just absolutely emotionally destroying. Tears, tears, tears.

It's like, oh, it's beautiful. But yeah, Dante has, even Dante has a full arc. It's simply that good. Four and a half nipples. Yes. I feel like I have to give this five nipples. Is that how many nipples there are? Yeah.

Five nipples because of how important this movie is to me and my family. And I'm going to give all of the nipples to Frida, my queer icon. Oh, yeah. And I just imagine her there in heaven with all of her lovers. Love it. And Diego might be far away away from her i don't know well or there with her i don't know it depends on what she wants yeah i just want frida to have to have what she wants yeah well if it's diego from the biopic about frida it's alfred melina oh true which case right i forgot that jamie both true and problematic on

its face absolutely i mean extremely problematic but she they seemed like star-crossed toxic lovers um i just wish that she's surrounded by whoever she wants to be surrounded by. Absolutely. The end. Well, Dani, thank you so much for joining us. This has been an amazing discussion. Truly, thank you so much. We have to send you your three Bechdel cast appearance letterman jacket that we pretend to have that we don't actually have, but we should make. Okay. actually have but we should make okay i'll like put it on and wear it in front of my

mirror which will just be me naked looking at myself naked oh yeah perfect tell us what you'd like to plug where people can check you out on social media etc just follow me on social media because everything i'm working on doesn't exist yet on screen. And so there's nothing to point you to. Like a lot of other people during this time, like the last two years of my life, I'm like, I swear to God I'm doing something, but maybe you'll see it in 2024. No, I hope you see it before then.

I am at Ms. Dani Fernandez. It's M-S-D-A-N-I-F-e-r-n-a-n-d-e-z on twitter and instagram and that's where i post my things and my thoughts and my projects amazing hell yeah thank you again thank you come back anytime uh you can follow us on twitter and Instagram at Bechtelcast. You can subscribe to our Patreon, which is at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. It's $5 a month. It gets you access to two bonus episodes every month, plus the entire

back catalog, which is over 100 episodes. We did it! We can't stop creating content. You can also find our merch at tpublic.com slash thebechtelcast for all of your merchandising needs. With that, shall we cross the bridge

and finally embrace the sweet embrace of death? Yeah, let's do it. Let's seize our moment. Bye, everybody. Bye-bye. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang.

We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week, we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us

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Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit.

Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed 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.