The Bechdel Cast - Edward Scissorhands with Maggie Mae Fish

Episode Date: September 20, 2018

In this live episode recorded at The Ruby in Los Angeles, the sharpest hosts in the biz Jamie Loftus and Caitlin Durante invite special guest Maggie Mae Fish to tear Edward Scissorhands to shreds!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @MaggieMaeFish 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.

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. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. There's so much beauty in Mexican culture, like mariachis, delicious cuisine, and even lucha libre. Join us for the new podcast, Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of lucha libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar.

Santos! Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like, what's the history behind bacon-wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon.

Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. And this season, we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history saying that the most popular cocktail is margarita followed by the mojito from cuba and the pina colada from puerto rico listen to hungry for history on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts on the pectocast the questions asked, if movies have women in them,

are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast, start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hi! Hello! Thank you for coming! Welcome to the thing! Hi! Hello! Hello!

Thank you for coming! Welcome to the thing! Hi! Hi. How's it going? I am Caitlin Durante. Yay! I am one of the hosts of the Bechdel cast.

I'm Jamie Loftus. I'm the other one. By a round of applause, who has listened to the show before oh cool you're right that's so funny because do you remember the first time we did a live show maybe a year and a half ago now yeah and we're like hey has anyone heard of the show before and someone was like what they did not know where they were or what they were doing does that apply to anyone here has anyone not heard the show before don't be shy okay we got we got one thank you so much so you just get your friends were like come on great oh man that's exactly well welcome sorry

for what's about to happen oh man well we should uh for you we'll tell you what the show is about so this is our podcast about the role of women in movies um so we analyze it through the lens of the Bechdel test yeah which is what I forget well Jamie the Bechdel test is a test that you apply to media, usually movies. It requires that a movie has two named female identifying characters. Boo. I know, gross. Boring. They have to speak to each other, and their conversation cannot be about a man.

Can we demo it? Let's demo it. Okay, it's a live show. Can we demo it and stand? Yeah. I want to do like absolutely everyone needs to see my costume yes um uh hey caitlin hey jamie do you stretch a lot i actually no i don't stretch enough i would say uh would you like to stretch with me um do i have a choice uh yeah i would love to this does still technically pass

do I have a choice no does can pass the back job alright so that's kind of how it works that's one of our more problematic passes I'm gonna pose another question to the audience which probably won't pass depending on who answers but

another fun thing happens during our live shows sometimes where people have come and haven't seen the movie we're discussing has anyone here not seen edward scissorhands wow okay we got two two great they just raised their scissors into the air i think that was funny yeah i always forgot i was to bring. Okay, because Caitlin is cosplaying as Edward. I was going to bring a handful of tacks and be like, I'm Jamie. Handful of tacks. I don't think that would have translated very well on stage.

You know, I think you're wrong. But I do think that it wouldn't have been fun for an hour. So here we are talking about the portrayal of women in a specific movie but before we get into that we're going to introduce our guest. Oh she's a gem. She's such a gem. She's absolutely wonderful. She's a talented writer. She's a talented actor. She has an incredible series of video essays one of which is on this exact movie. Please everyone give a warm welcome to Maggie Mae Fish. There she is.

There she is. That was great. You nailed it. OK. You nailed it. Now Maggie, you are cosplaying as the houses in the movie. Yeah. Houses and then the the houses in the movie. Yeah. Houses, and then the very bottom is the sexy housewife.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. So it's kind of a twofer. Twofer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was almost going to dress up as the bully who gets stabbed by the hands. Yeah. But I had no idea that that was Anthony Michael Hall.

Is that his name? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Like, that was Anthony Michael Hall. Is that his name? Yeah. Yeah. Like jacked Anthony Michael. You're like, why is he so puffy? I can never, that name of that actor and his face, I can never, and to this day, like you say Anthony Michael Hall,

and I'm picturing like Rick Moranis, because I can't place his name with his face. He plays like the nerd in all of the 80s John Hughes movies. And he's the one who in, is it 16 Candles, where he has a passed out girl thrown over, and everyone's like, woohoo! And we're like, what is happening? We're like, oh, that's rape!

Yeah, and also he has one of my least favorite qualities in a man, which is flesh-colored hair. Yeah! Blonde adult men are scary. All right, so let's talk about, Maggie, what is your history, your relationship with Edward Scissorhands, the film and the man? We never dated.

Yeah, I actually hadn't seen it until I was doing research for the Tim Burton video. I'd seen a lot of other Tim Burton films, and this one I just kind of skid past. I think because I got I get I got it. Like I saw the cover of the video and I was like, I know this whole story. I know what happens. And so when I was watching it for research, I was right. I got it and I knew what happened so this is like my third time seeing it I think getting ready for this yeah all right yeah Jamie what about you oh this was one of my movies this is my I know this is I was this is okay I would say that this qualifies as a very not like the other girls kind of movie you know like when you're 13 and you're just like actually i'm a little different

i didn't watch high school musical i'm home like flicking it to mr mr sharp hands like fully psychotic purchasing the merch at hot topic uh waiting for like my back brace to come off that was like the vibe mine was like uh like Danny Phantom. I think that was my like. I would say same category. Yeah, same category. Yeah. Dark ghost man. I think I just love the idea of a man who appears dead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like, oh, okay. Oh, you're not going to talk for a long time? Come to mama. Yes. He's a little bit shy, but he's also a little bit, he could kill you in any second. What a fun dichotomy.

No, I had, and this was one of the movies my mom was frothing for. The second I turned 13, for some reason, but she was just like, we have to watch it together. The whole time she's like,

look at him, isn't he handsome? Look at his pointy hand. That happens in the movie. Like you have to suspend your disbelief a lot to appreciate the events of this story. But the thing you have to suspend your disbelief for the most is the fact that so many like horny housewives are so turned on by sharp, by murder sharp weapons weapons what if it's just a kinky community maybe i i don't want to kink shame anyone who's into weapons as a kink but i did find that interesting to say the least what is your history with this caitlin i don't think i had quite the same relationship as you jamie but um it was a very rare relationship I don't think that's worth pointing out you weren't boinking it to

I think I probably saw it maybe once or twice as a kid enjoyed it more as a teen and then in college when I was like oh I'm studying film Tim Burton is what an auteur right so uh i appreciated his films more about a decade ago and didn't we all yeah yeah didn't we all yeah and then do you remember the one day where tim burton was like i think movies should be all white people and we all woke up all at once so we're like wait does this guy suck like and then we all went back and watched the stuff we're like wait this guy sucks he's terrible yikes yeah yeah he really blew it he really but he'd been blowing it for his whole career so long that we all just you know took it in stride the narrative of the mediocre man. Oh, man. 25 years on, he's like, joke's on you.

Yeah. He's directing the next 500 Alice in Wonderland and has $5 billion. I'm tired. Well, shall I do Caitlin's famous recap? Yay! Well, a tepid response. I'm really excited for it.

A tepid response from the audience. Started at two, got to a seven. Yeah, seven yeah yeah yeah thank you so much okay so uh the story of edward scissorhands well first i want to say caitlin uh how many pages of notes today my notes page count which is color-coded for anyone who is curious amazing is uh we're only at five today it's gone up to eight so okay no one cares oh there's a there's a table there's a table okay wow there's charts there's a map this is like a pie graph did you do an oil painting damn that's wild holy shit first i just want to say a movie about a young naive soft-spoken non-human who gets adopted into a nuclear family.

He struggles to fit in, and some of the neighbors don't like him. What is this, Paddington? Okay, thank you. Thank you for indulging me. Switch. All right, so the story of Edward Scissorhands. There's a framing device. At the very beginning.

We meet an older woman who tells her granddaughter where snow comes from. I'm interrupting. Please. Did we have to make Winona Ryder the old lady? Does she have to be in old makeup? Every time I'm like, why was that choice? Just so we could see how ugly she gets when she uh gets older to set up at the end where she is where they're like why don't you go see mr sharp and she's like because i look like shit

also uh i guess i'm interrupting the interrupter but it is wild to have a framing device uh of like a you know like a grandma talking to her daughter and then the movie's not at all about her she's telling a story just this one man's story i think that they're like hey the princess bride did this let's try it yeah yeah that thing i want to do that mr tim was like yeah let's give it a shot you can see what happens all right so uh this older woman starts to tell the story of what ends up being her family Peg is her mom she's a very sweet Avon lady in a suburban

community one morning she is trying to sell her Avons and she's having a hard time and she's like I think everyone's struggling with Avons they're stuck with Avons. They're stuck on Avons. Can you explain yourself?

We can't move past this until we get done. I felt perfectly clear. Yeah, read a book. Singular Avon, plural Avons. Right. Okay, she's trying to sell her cosmetics. And she's having a hard time. So she's like,

Hey, how about this haunted castle on the hill? They're going to want my Avons. And so she goes up there, and she discovers Edward, who is sharp. A sharp-dressed man. He's in leather. He's in all leather. He's in leather. He's in all leather. He's a never nude.

Oh, my God. He's a full-on never nude. He puts on clothes over his leather clothes. He may not have a body. They don't really say because he's not human. They might not. Is he just like soup in there? Is there just soup?

Oh, he's just more scissors. You open it up, it's just. He's so sharp. And throughout the movie, we learn about his sort of origin story, which is that an inventor played by Vincent Price creates him basically, but doesn't finish him

because the step that you have to get before you get to the finished man is a scissor man. That, I didn't realize that until this viewing. In that scene, I was like, wait a second. Like the scene where there's like these flashbacks and the inventor presents him with hands. And I was like, why does he have 300 pairs of shears for hands? And then he immediately skewers the new hands as his creator dies.

But it's weird. Yeah, I was like, is he a bad inventor? Yeah. He's a shitty inventor. Well, he is playing God. That's for sure. He doesn't seem to care very much about. What do we see that he's invented? Because from what I could tell, it was a way to make cookies and ever scissor hands.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, and something's chopping celery in the background for like a second. Yeah, it's like there's something. It's attached to your man. It's a scissor. It's a blade. What a fucking idiot.

All right. to your man it's a it's a scissor it's a blade what a fucking idiot all right we learn about Edwards history and he hasn't been socialized like he's only ever lived in this castle he's Tim Burton Tim Burton he's Tim Burton oh I say like I love when directors are like okay this person is like me but like really hot okay um what's Kyle's Johnny's app of me he's basically me that was my impression of Tim it was great so Peg is like I'll just I'll take you home you'll come and live with us in the community so she brings him into her home where she lives with her husband bill who i also as a teen did not realize was alan arkin so that's exciting so she's got her husband bill and her two kids kevin and kim and then when edward sees a picture of kim which is winona rider's's character, he's like, fucking gets turned on, man. He's like, all of his scissors,

all of his scissors inside his leather suit start to shift her out. Well, he must have a circulatory system because he's always nicking his face and bleeding. You're being too nice. I don't think that's a hot diss there. I don i don't think look i'm not a woman in stem but i i do think he's got regular insides but i don't know we can discuss it did you see that inventor he probably full of like celery he's just a garbage disposal okay so then yeah edward's all like oh my god i love kim she's cute

and then whenever kim meets edward she's not too sure about him at first like fair he's scary she has a boyfriend named jim who is a jerk yeah but she's in i mean she's like in an extremely toxic relationship and you know that from like moment one moment one yeah for sure it only yeah it's like i feel like he's like a let because this movie came out in 1990 and i feel like it's like a leftover of like the 80s kind of bully trope where it's like bullying to the point where it doesn't even make sense and it's grounded in nothing. Yeah, he gets a gun.

Not to jump ahead, but he gets a gun! Where he like, what? He screams at his friend to drive drunk for no reason. He's like, just drive! You're like, what? It feels like, and again, this is I guess jumping ahead, but it seems like the only way to justify Tim Burton's like, oh, I hate bullies, is to have the bully have a gun like and again this is i guess jumping ahead but it seems like the only way to justify like tim

burton's like oh i hate bullies is to have the bully have a gun like shooting at the weirdo so that the weirdo can kill the bully oh i've got a whole i've got a whole little snip to snip with that okay anyways kim has a piece of shit boyfriend right right right yeah and now pretty soon all the desperate housewives of the neighborhood of our this movie is paddington plus desperate housewives with also a little bit of beauty and the beast um i think that sounds like a way better movie than the one that happened so the the women of the neighborhood are like oh ooh, who's this new guy? And they're very excited about him because he's like disrupting the monotony of suburban life. He's like Uber. We can go anywhere now, Karen. So then he's like trimming their hedges.

He's cutting the dog's furs. He's cutting women's hairs. He's poking holes in the water. He's poking and snipping at everything gang you name a fun neighborhood item he snips it but then things start to take a turn whenever jim the shitty boyfriend convinces edward to rob his own house jim's own house and then And then Edward is the only one who gets caught. So everyone's like, oh, this Edward guy, he's a bad guy, actually.

We were wrong about him. And then they turn into the mob from Beauty and the Beast. In like 0.2 seconds. It goes. And then everyone forgets he's hot. They forget he's hot. How did we do the movie? We were trying to fuck Mr. Sharp yesterday.

Like what's happening? But Kim doesn't forget because now she's starting to fall in love with him. So she basically Sure. Yeah. That's love. She's 17 I guess. He's sharp and around.

He's sharp and around. He's somehow less threatening with his knife hands than her shitty boyfriend. So she's like, I choose you. And then the angry mob like cast him back up into the castle. And then Kim goes and like protects him basically by saying, oh, he died because there is a gunfight. And the police are like, cool, he died because there is a gunfight. And the police are like, cool, we're not going to check. Yeah. Peace.

Cool. Cool. But now, so Edward is back into seclusion. What did you say? He kills Anthony Michael? He kills the shitty boyfriend. And then immediately kisses Kim. And Kim was like, wow wow that was awesome i didn't just see a man fall to his death right oh god and now it snows because he's all by himself and he's

making ice sculptures so sure and then and then the ending of like why don't you see you grandma well i look bad. Because I'm ugly. I'm like, well, an actual old woman wouldn't have looked bad. You just happen to be 20-year-old Winona Ryder in a rubber suit. So you do look bad. Just take off the suit. Oh, man, imagine.

Shuffle up the hill. When Winona Ryder actually gets to that age, and then you're going to be able to compare the two of the makeup they put on her versus actual old Winona Ryder actually gets to that age, and then you're going to be able to compare the two of the makeup they put on her versus actual old Winona Ryder. Why No Forever is going to be hot forever. Yeah. She's never going to get to that. I feel like they put her in old makeup in one of the Star Trek movies, too.

Is that true? Why did they do this thing to her? Does anyone know? Oh, yeah. For a hot second, she's What's-His-Face's mama. Spock. Yeah. Is this a kink that people have?

Yes. I want to see Winona Ryder, but old. It's like, oh, like in her 40s? No, really old. So that's the story of Edward Scissorhands. Yeah. Let's take a quick break, and we will be right back. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered.

There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that 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. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free,

subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. out there. Every week, we break down every episode and give you our opinions. We cover it all. OC, Jersey, Beverly Hills, New York City, Dubai. As we always say, you're only as good as last week's episode. Plus, we're talking to all your favorite Bravo celebrities and not just housewives. We're putting your favorite people in the twat seat and getting the juicy stories everybody wants to know. So join us as we stir the pot and get ourselves into some trouble. Okay, maybe a lot of trouble. It's not really trouble when it's truthful. Let's just say we can be a little twatty. Listen to Two Teas in a Pod

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. One session, 24 hours. BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

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

Let's jump in to our discussion. Wow, Saturday night discourse. Let's start with the fact that there are a lot of female characters in this movie. More than I remember. I sort of was just remembering Peg and kim and i i hadn't seen this movie in a couple of years and i sort of forgot the horny housewife subplot and so there were more women than i remembered in this movie yeah i i found it hard to remember the women only because most of the characters in this film are like stereotypes very tropey

very tropey very like which makes sense because it's like a fairy tale she's retelling it so it's more like you know memory and distance but everyone is a stereotype so it's like including kim and like the you know because when you see that beginning shot of her, it's like she's a cheerleader. And she's with the jock who is drunk. The last outfit she wears is actually, I only noticed it the last time, but it's an angel outfit. It flares out.

So her silhouette is of an angel as Edward Scissorhands is making the statue of an angel. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. I would love to see, okay, that famous shot where Edward Scissorhands is doing his sharp thing and Winona Ryder wanders out and she's like, la, la, la, and then it's snowing on her. Do we know the shot? Okay, I would love to see that shot from like, oh, I want to see a wide shot of that. Because I think it would look fully psycho like across the street they're like what is happening over there

i'm sure it feels meaningful to them looking kind of weird from over here and then also during that scene are we to believe that alan arkin is on the roof? Yes. Yes. He's like, dude, dude, dude, the Christmas lights. And then it's like, there's a meaningful twirl happening on his own lawn.

Maybe it'd be hotter. That was a old Winona writer dancing out in the street. She'll never go. She's too insecure. Well, she does say at the end of the movie that you, you can still catch her dancing sometimes in the snow, but it's like, if you throw an ice cube off a mountain, at the end of the movie that you can still catch her dancing sometimes in the snow. But I don't know.

That's not how weather works. It's like if you throw an ice cube off a mountain, it doesn't get to the village. That's my weather metaphor. So the village of Burbank, which is, yeah. Yeah.

Timber and Bay is like this town off of the way he felt like growing up in Burbank. Mm-hmm. Oh. Burbank? What? What an awesome guy. Oh, yeah. So there are quite a few female characters.

Many of them are very tropey you know because you've got like the housewives the religious zealot lady but the female characters are by and large way more active than any of the male characters including Edward who is supposed to be the protagonist of the male characters, including Edward, who is supposed to be the protagonist of the movie. Things are happening to Edward. Yeah, and he reacts. And the very first time we see him in like a suburban setting, he hits his head on a car window.

Like in the first minute. He never been in a car. It's cute. I guess. I watched it and I was like, there's nowhere to go up from here. Like, he doesn't know what windows are. What? That's our main character?

What? That's, what? Well, speaking of cars, if the narrative is a car, he is not the driver. He is the passenger. That's a little thing I learned from screenwriting school. But I don't like to bring it up um yeah all the all the major choices in the movie are made by women with maybe the exception of a few things that happen toward the end with the boyfriend character that yeah the the how the movie ends is weird right did we have to kill i am not upset that we kill anthony michael hall but it just doesn't seem like it's that seems like

a very abrupt change of of pace for edward where he's so gentle the whole movie and then well i mean anthony michael hall does have a gun i don't know i don't know again it's almost like it's it is weird he has a gun. It's like Tim Burton, the film is very like, not much has happened throughout most of it. Right. Because of the way he writes it. And the comedy that Tim Burton thinks is funny,

which is funny, is this fish out of water, and people don't really react to him. They kind of accept him. And even when he gets called into the police the next scene is the father just calmly explaining how we don't steal like that's the biggest consequence uh right like the midpoint of the film so then the last like third feels crazy i like the okay another moment that is very dissonant is when he and Kim are standing at the window. And then, you know, she's like, hold me.

And he's like, I can't. I love the way you do that, Jamie. Thank you so much. I can't. He's scared. But anyways, we'll talk about that part. But then for some reason, his like spidey sense goes off. And he's like, Kevin's about to get hit by a car you're like what and then he runs outside and kevin's about to get hit by a car

and then he like saves kevin and then goes ah it starts to like like i don't like hibachi's kevin's face it's so weird i mean well first of all tim burton has a story by credit for this movie but the screenplay was written by a woman caroline thompson who also has a story by credit so it stands to reason that there are you know so many female characters and even though this is edward's story it's really the women driving it making all the main decisions because between like peg choosing to go to the castle and then choosing to introduce this person into the community and then and that the way the story ends is like hey let's try to integrate this other person into the community and it starts to work and then the second it goes a little wrong they're like well let's stop trying get this that was enough this weirdo back up into

his house right the lesson is like well i guess if you don't feel accepted you should just stay where you are forever go back home move back home you know what movie does not have that message paddington and then like kim is making a lot of active choices towards the end like when she You know what movie does not have that message? Paddington. And then like Kim is making a lot of active choices towards the end, like when she stands up for him and then protects him, helps him at the very end. Yeah. So then he still gets, I guess what we're supposed to believe is like the hero moment of killing

Anthony Michael. Right. A good guy. You know how he kills someone at the end. He murders. And everyone is like, time to kiss. Right. A good guy, you know. He kills someone at the end. He murders. And everyone is like, time to kiss. A 17-year-old.

He kills a 17-year-old. He kills legally a child. Yeah. Yeah. Childhood. Seems like he had some pretty serious issues to work through.

Yeah. Got a flesh-colored head to start. Gets worse from there. I feel like, though, even though a lot of the characters we see are very tropey like very archetypal i would argue that peg and kim are less so yeah and i appreciate their like relationship i like that you see them generally getting along yeah you don't see what you usually like for a typical like cheerleader popular girl teen girl character you know she can't get along with anyone she hates all other

women right and her and her mom have some big beef right right so it's nice to see i guess you see a representation of a positive of nice mother-daughter relationship yeah peg is my favorite character i love peg so it's so hard to get a movie mom done well like i feel like moms are always you know kind of getting you know they're either not getting enough story or but the fact that the movie starts out with her in a series of choices like you're saying that she makes and her character is like more consistent than the protagonist for sure where she's like she's all her character is like more consistent than the protagonist for sure where she's like she's all her instinct is to always take care of people she's one of the only women we see who has a job like she's peg's type she's peg is tight she really cares like she's

when i whenever i re-watch this she's the only one that i'm really oh peg's back yeah i hope arkinkin is generous to her. Like, lover-wise? What? Yeah. Okay. Arkin goes down on Peg because she works hard, and she's good to everyone, and so, you know, pay you forward. Yeah.

One thing I want to say about that character, Alan Arkin, let me just read a monologue that he gives, if you'll allow me. He's talking to Edward. He's like, you've been in that castle too long. You don't know anything about the wonderful world reach a certain age. They develop these gland things. Their bodies swell up. They go crazy. I try not to think about it. Seems like a good dad. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like he's just there for her daughter at every hard turn. The only thing that I will defend that monologue is,

is it is supposed to be silly. And that character is supposed to look dumb as shit. Like a doofus. And that scene ends with the dad giving Edward a Mike's Hard Lemonade. He says it's not really but he says it's lemonade. No he says it.

He says it. Whiskey. Either way it's hard lemonade. It's a Mike's Hard Lemonade blood orange flavor. And he's like I know Deadpool's on the camp but try to try to grit your teeth through that and enjoy the mike's heart it's a good beverage don't hold deadpool you know whatever even in 1990 they were gritting their teeth through the deadpool franchise it's been going on uh one thing i wanted to bring up was the scissor hands as a disability basically i just want to say

that there is almost no visibility of people with disabilities in mainstream movies edward's scissor hands are presented as a disability of sorts we've seen him struggling to do different tasks uh we have different characters being like hey don't let anyone tell you you're handicapped are presented as a disability of sorts. We see him struggling to do different tasks. We have different characters being like, hey, don't let anyone tell you you're handicapped. They're like, I have a doctor friend who can help you out and fix this. While it's interesting and important to show and represent the types of obstacles and or microaggressions

that people with disabilities might have to deal with, it's frustrating that one of the few movies that portrays a character with a disability does not have a real disability to give visibility to. And also ends up with the person with the disability being excommunicated for life. And then before that, it's highly fetishized yeah it's all sexy well it's a tricky thing because i mean i don't know what everyone's experience with this movie

is but i feel like edward scissorhands is one of those characters that like kids would and adults would plug themselves into because you can't like, especially when you're like a kid that feels different. Like that's, of course it's a character that, uh, before you realize that you shouldn't kill Anthony Michael Hall, they are before we learned that lesson that you would connect to. And so the,

the places where it misses, especially, I don't know him being told to fuck off forever really bothered me. Yeah. Cause thinking of the context of how people view that character, the takeaway is like, then you kill someone, and then you can never have a friend. Yeah, and the girl you love will never talk to you again.

She'll marry someone else. They'll have a kid. And then she'll talk about you behind your back for the rest of your life. Yeah. Yeah. Here's on to the next fun topic so this movie does a harmful thing where a woman i think joyce is her name comes on to edward tries to seduce him tries to kiss him he's not having it he runs away yeah but then after the townspeople start to turn on him after he retaliates she

retaliates by telling people that he tried to rape her right i mean that spreads a number of bad messages which one were you gonna bring up first well first thing is that it feeds into the idea that when women or victims of assault come forward, they're like, they made it up. And they're just chit chatting on their phones and they're painting their nails.

And that is, I mean, that is like a dead giveaway of like, yeah, man wrote at least part of this story because, uh, yeah. Like the fact that it's like,

Oh, a woman who Because, yeah, like the fact that it's like, oh, a woman who is reporting a rape is A, lying, and B, doing it because she felt somehow rejected or scorned by a man that she basically assaulted herself. Right. So, I mean, and that whole scene, too, with them where the consent is confusing in that scene

because there is one point where edward is like oh but then he's scared and also he doesn't know what windows are and it's like he's a baby not he's a baby don't have sex with him yeah and during that scene there's like a comedic song in the background it's like an upbeat like do do do do do dodo-do-do-do-do. I think it's a Seinfeld theme song. Yes! No kidding. Yeah, but it is clearly played as, isn't this funny that this, like, sexy housewife is so into Edward that she would do this? And no matter what way you view Edward, that just does not track at all.

Because there are, like, a number of things that are supposed to indicate to us that he is a literal baby. Right. Like, he's a young child. We even see that mirror moment that he has in Kim's room that is like the, I don't know, I've only been to college once, so I don't know what the name for it is.

But there's a moment where... The mirror stage. The mirror stage. There you go. But he walks into Kim's room and sees his reflection for the first time and knows what he looks like for the first time which is something that babies do anyways he's a baby don't have sex with him pretty simple rule well uh we talked about this really uh quickly before we started recording but i think we both thought of the born sexy yesterday trope, which we bring up all year and there.

Oh, whoa. They're fighting. No. Yeah. I mean, I, I,

I'm not sure where I land on that because, uh, like we were talking about the born sexy yesterday trope is a convention typically found in sci-fi movies, uh, usually where it's like a hot woman, uh, you know, is an alien and she's hot and she falls in love with the first man she meets who teaches her how the world works. And she's very naive.

It's a very common trope. And so I at first was thinking, oh, maybe Edward sort of falls into this because although he is a never nude, he is a baby. And, you know, there are women showing him, mostly women showing him what the world around him is. Um, but I didn't, I don't know. It's not quite that.

It's not quite that. What I think is a more appropriate, like kind of movie trend to apply to this movie is the, and I don't have a name for it, but the people falling in love with non-humans. Oh, so there's a great Lindsay Ellis video about this. Yeah, like why do we like monsters? Yeah.

I also wrote an essay about this two months ago. Oh my goodness. I didn't read it. I'm so sorry. Well, I'm calling you out. Oh my God. They are fighting. They are fighting the audience.

Whoa. So when it happens, when a woman falls in love with a non-human, it's usually a beast, a creature. A fish. A fish. Someone who's disfigured and he lives at the basement of an opera house. The Babadook?

Hot, hot, hot. That was just me. Queer icon? Queer icon, the Babadook. Oh, shout out to the Babadook. hot hot hot that was just queer icon queer icon the baba duke oh shout out to the baba duke other examples are any beauty and the beast adaptation shape of water a phantom of the opera apparently this happens in howard the duck which i haven't seen yeah there's a whole scene v for vendetta is yeah king kong is kind of an example this i would argue that like tarzan is kind of an example for sure i love godzilla you would be mine okay if i had to

pick one it would be godzilla so and then on another end of the spectrum of this is whenever men fall in love in movies with non-humans it's usually a very hot robot and or alien lady. A blank, a literal blank slate. The girlfriend experience. Yeah. Yeah. A sexy blank slate. There's a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of,

when it comes to like the beast trope, a lot of the tropes involved with that are racist. A lot of the tropes involved with that, in the case of The Shape of Water, Hot Fish Alert, that is like more of a gentle telling of that where it's like this is the other creature. King Kong is hella racist. And I think you had a great point with Edward Scissorhands of like this sort of fetishizing a disabled character. Yeah, yeah. Right. Because in most of these examples, when it's a woman loving a creature or some other, you know,

other non-human, she's usually very conventionally attractive and he is not. Isn't that wild? Yeah. Why? Why could that be? I wonder. Give Tim Burton a chance.

Give him a kiss. Date nerds. Date nerds. It's almost as if women's value in society is based on her appearance. What? And how there's a ridiculous standard of beauty that we have to uphold and maintain.

Well, and in both of these relationships, in the born sexy yesterday trope, the man teaches the woman everything she knows. He's in complete control of shaping her as a person, which is... Wow, what a fantasy. I know. And then the female character in the beast trope

still also kind of loses because very often the beast will retaliate on her, will at first behave violently or toxic, and then she has to be the one to tame him. Bend over backwards to make it work. Yeah, a lot of emotional labor in the beast mode. Right. And sometimes kidnapping.

Ooh. Right, because in both there's usually like a situation where the human has to teach humanity to the hot robot or the beast but it yeah the context is entirely different so yeah good point caitlin um okay anyway what else uh did you wanna one thing we could mention is the baldest woman in charge happens because peg keeps getting her hair cut shorter and shorter peg gets as she gets more powerful she gets snipped more yeah it's they're on board with the baldest woman in charge narrative right uh another quick thing is uh the scene where edward is like a guest on a talk show with peg and a woman in the audience says like oh have you ever thought about having corrective surgery or prosthetics i know a doctor who might be able to help and then edward says i'd like to meet him i don't know yeah what if the doctor wasn't a him edward but he just assumed because it was a doctor that it would be a man well he lived up in a

castle and he still had that sexism like ingrained in him he didn't even learn that he right i think that's another strike against the inventor yeah the inventor's just sitting around and being like hey if you ever happen to meet a woman she's dumb yeah no way i'm dead what you do you do kind of see the inventor teaching him like etiquette but it is like very stuffy old-fashioned etiquette stuff so he yeah he was the little that he was socialized was like very archaic yeah yeah and there there is that crazy moment in the this i do remember when i was a kid of like what whoa uh in the talk show scene where one of the girls and this would be me in any context is like do you have a girlfriend and then we're just because cause he just stares.

And it's like for 10 seconds, he stares and we cut out to Kim watching the interview. And he's still, he's just like, and no one says anything of like, this is just say no. And then he's like, I have to snip something.

And he snips something. Hey, let's take another quick break and then we'll be right back. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price.

Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Hey, it's Teddy Mellencamp. And Tamara Judge, better known as the Twats. Yep, you heard that right. We're the hosts of Two Teeth in a Pod. For all the housewife lovers out there, every week we break down every episode and give you our opinions. We cover it all. OC, Jersey, Beverly Hills, New York City, Dubai. As we always say,

you're only as good as last week's episode. Plus, we're talking to all your favorite bravo-lebrities and not just housewives. We're putting your favorite people in the twat seat and getting the juicy stories everybody wants to know. So join us as we stir the pot and get ourselves into some trouble. Okay, maybe a lot of trouble. It's not really trouble when it's truthful. Let's just say we can be a little twatty. Listen to Two Teas in a Pod on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do.

One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that?

You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's a fun thing we can talk about is Tim Burton being a racist. Okay.

That's fun. Let's do it. Rape, Tim Burton being a racist. Paddington. All the best topics um so as we know tim burton's movies are painfully white he does not care like many white directors in hollywood does not care about being inclusive unlike most white directors in hollywood he later went on to say it was very intentional that everything was right.

Yeah, he likes it that way. Yeah. He's like, um, what else would I do? And it's like, sir? You want to take that again? No? Okay. I'm writing this down right now.

You said that. You said this. He's like, uh, yeah. He needs to be, you know, it's like, if I had scissorhands i swear to god well allow me to read a quote from tim burton i think from 2016 uh he says i remember back when i was a child watching the brady bunch and they started to get all politically correct like okay let's have an asian child and a black a black he says a black and then he interrupted himself and he was like i used to get more

offended by that than just and then he interrupts himself again and says i grew up watching blaxploitation movies right and i said that's great i didn't go like okay there should be more white people in these movies end quote do you i think in this quote he's realizing he's very racist in real time yes yeah yeah this is there are literal dashes in the quote where he like he's like oh no talk about blaxploitation just talk about it talk about it and then he's like and I and I every pause his world is just falling apart and he got more racist

he like paused and like doubles down and then he's like anyways I've seen a blaxploitation movie and then he walks

into the ocean goodbye because I think there's only one character who's a person of color in Edward Scissorhands and it's one of the police officers.

Yes. And other than that, it's the whitest movie you've ever seen. Yes. And it's crazy because it's fiction, so there's no excuse. Yeah. Right.

All of his work is fiction. Yeah. It's all fantasy land. Yeah. A white fantasy land. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Anyway, see Alice in Wonderland 500. Golly. Yeah. It's all fantasy land. Yeah. A white fantasy land. Yeah. Oh yeah. Anyway see Alice in Wonderland 500. Golly. Yeah. I do think like Tim Burton is a he's an interesting case for

a director because he started out as an artist specifically. He loved drawing. So that's why his films are so visual which is a plus. But also he like doesn't have this like story minded it's all about the visual so he likes white people and big eyes because he likes paleness and it reminds him of himself or something wes anderson has a version of this syndrome where he needs everything to look nice and then he like it's on all white cast and then if there's not white people they're used as set dressing in his weird painting that he's making and he's not like thinking yeah hello things um like your work is a part of the world except tim burton i think his ideal world is him on top of a mountain in his own little mansion alone, fucking making statues out of ice, I guess.

Right, with everyone at the bottom being like, but he was awesome. He was awesome when he was here. He was really cool. We all wanted to fuck him when he was here. He was hot. He was hot. Oh, boy.

I think that was all that I have. Oh, man. I know, I've gotten through my five pages of notes, everybody. I did want to say in praise of the character, Edward Scissorhands, it is very unusual to have a male protagonist that is not traditionally macho. It is kind of unusual to have a movie where the only really traditionally macho character in the movie is you know the villain literally killed yeah but i think that there are there are pluses to that character because that's not something that you see especially in like 1990 if you were

a young boy who did not you know feel like you know connected to those like action heroes who were like i'm gonna punch every woman i see uh yeah and in a way like edward is like somewhat feminine like here and there like uh yeah i think that's a big plus he cuts hair he like does art you know and he's he does like domestic stuff he's chopping lettuce he's chopping lettuce he was made in a cookie factory he he connects with almost all women yeah and i don't know i mean there there are elements to that character that i think are uh good especially for for its time yeah yeah i would agree and i think that's actually probably i i think that's a trend across a lot of Tim Burton's work where most of his characters are,

his like protagonists are male identifying, but they are usually like very soft spoken. They're usually Johnny Depp. Yeah. They're usually Johnny Depp. Who as we all know is an awesome guy. I've heard nothing but good things. What a cool man.

Okay. So to be fair though when I was watching this movie a lot and other of Tim Burton's Johnny Depp movies I was a big fan of Johnny Depp back then sure we all were you're legally required if you didn't like Johnny Depp you had to register yourself

with the government and just continuing If you didn't like Johnny Depp, you had to register yourself with the government. It was like, oh, thanks. And just continuing with that a little bit, even though Edward Scissorhands is a soft-spoken male character who things sort of happen to, he doesn't do that much. He usually lets women just show him, like, hey, you're doing this now. And he's like, okay.

And it's like, okay, this is great. But he doesn't fall into the nerd toxicity zone that a lot of Anthony Michael Hall movies fall into of the nerd feeling entitled to things from women, usually, especially, because they feel rejected. There's no element of that in Edward. He's very polite, he's very grateful. He is so, I don't know.

Just like Paddington, I don't know. Just like Paddington, but not as good. Paddington is way better. I have not seen Paddington. Oh my God. I know, I really have to see it. But yeah, I don't know. For 1990, that character specifically could have fallen into a lot of traps

that he doesn't. Yeah, not to give Tim Burton more credit than he deserves no fuck that guy but yes yeah well does anyone have any other final thoughts i just yeah i guess just to reiterate what jamie said like the ending of the movie is the weirdest and the fact that she can't be with a guy with scissors for hands because she's ugly now is so weird and not that she can't be with a guy because she literally saw him murder someone yeah like that's a legit reason to not date someone kill someone that would you know make sexy time a little oh yeah having flashbacks of you stabbing that person and letting him fall out a window yeah oh well does anyone have any uh questions or comments that they want to

share yeah come on down so we can come on down i just wanted to point out the titanic similarity you have an old woman telling her grandchild that is not related to the man that she loved in the story. That's true. Give this person a round of applause. Thank you so much. Yes. I'm one of the people who has not seen the movie. Sorry.

But I read the Wikipedia. You've seen the movie then. You've seen it. But the one part I can't remember and I feel like it might be actually pretty significant because of the Princess Bride reference, is old Winona Ryder telling the story to her granddaughter or grandson? Granddaughter. And in the Princess Bride, it was the grandson, right?

Yeah. Okay. The story that had more fighting and action and not just romance. Yeah. Kind of what I was leading to oh okay so to recap the story that's being retold to the young girl is a romance story. It's a love story. Whereas the story in The Princess Bride that's being told to a young boy is about, oh, there's action and there's fighting.

And he scoffs at the love. He makes the grandpa skip over that icky love stuff. At least at first. He warms up to it eventually. But yeah, there is a distinct difference. Thank you for pointing it out. And also, I forget if we said this earlier, the framing device does not need to be there.

The movie could also just start. Do you guys think you're going to tell your grandchildren, people you almost had sex with? 100% yes. Yeah. I'm going to be like, so, okay, there was this guy who was in a lunchables commercial but he was really nice

i'm not gonna have any children so that that won't happen for me you can tell my you can tell my grandchildren okay yeah yeah come over be like hey so there's this guy uh i just wanted to add really quick i think as you know alan arkin does a good job in this movie but i could think of one man who could have done a better job tell me wow who uh well his nickname is freddie but his full name is mr alfred molina i think he would have been a great thick daddy in this movie. And he, okay, if Alfred Molina was playing the, oh, God, I can't even say his name. You just, I saw goosebumps go up and down your arm. Sorry, I'm activated.

Your scissors and your body are shifting. My scissors are shifting. If Alfred Molina was playing the Alan Arkin character, there would be no doubt in our minds that Peg was, was like getting head. Because we see Alfred Molina characters and we're like, he takes care of business. He does.

Even Doc Ock, you know. Maybe especially Doc Ock. Yeah. He belongs in this universe, Doc Ock. So many fingers. He was. Yeah. Was there other questions I thought I saw one in the back yeah come on come on down

so I love this movie and one of the things that I always noticed was so weird about it that they just like have pop in and then never address again is that one like crazy woman who's in her dark house like playing her piano she's like that guy's trouble like where does what what can we just talk about her yeah what's her deal totally

i totally we kind of skipped over church lady a little bit yeah i think that church lady i mean she's another very tropey character in the neighborhood. But I think this is also like Tim Burton's weak sauce attempt to be like, the suburbs are evil. And like Christianity. I think he's just taking every element of the suburbs and demonizing it in this very 80s, 90s way where there were so many movies, Winona Ryder's in a lot of them,

that it's like, you know my parents who love me? Fuck them. That is the, you know my parents who love me? Fuck them. That is the theme of so many movies. It's like teenagers who are very privileged being like, hey mom and dad, I know you worked hard your entire fucking life to give me anything I want, but screw you. Horrible.

Right. I think that was how I interpreted Church Lady. It's like little Timmy in the background like hey you know your little church it's stupid yeah that is what he thinks he was doing with that character that was Mr. Tim making his big point yeah it also seemed like uh because I grew up in a very small town and it seems like someone who wasn't born in a small town like being like oh I know what that's all about. Oh, you got this person.

Oh, and you got the crazy church lady. Oh, and you got the housewife. He's like, I heard that Tiki Taki song. I think I got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all the research I need to do. Okay, that's my script. Anyways, it's a guy with sharp hands.

What we think. He's sexy though. What do we think? He fuck we think any other questions or comments yeah um i just want to flash back to when jamie said if alfred molina was alan arkin there would be no doubt that he was going down on peg yes we got our doubt yes, yes. Anyways, let's talk about Doubt. So this is a two-part episode. There aren't any cats. There's a lot of dogs in this movie, but there are sadly no cats,

so I can't bring up cat facts. Oh, there's a Backstreet Boy in this movie. What? Yes. There is a Backstreet Boy. Where? So when they're driving into the suburbs for the first time and you see a man doing a slip and slide, that's Nick Carter.

Nick Carter's on that slip and slide? Fuck yeah, that's Nick Carter. Dude, why? I don't know. Why? I don't know. But it's on his IMDB. He credits himself as being in Edward Scissorhands.

Nick, good for him. Yeah. So there are no cats, but if there's... How many nipples do the Carters have? I'm gonna speculate and say two. So Nick Carter

has two nipples. That's Carter facts with Caitlin. Any other questions? One more? Yes. On the speculation of whether or not Edward Scissorhands has a circulatory system, we clearly know that his entire insides

are made of scissors. So why can't his blood just not be smaller red scissors? Oh my god. You cracked it. I think that's probably what it is. That's one of those ones where we're like, oh, duh.

Yeah, it's tiny red scissors. I thought you were going to ask a question that Caitlin hates when people bring up about our Beetlejuice episode where I brought up what I think is the question of the century. And now that it's Halloween season again, we have to ask ourselves, does Beetlejuice episode where I brought up what I think is the question of the century. And now that it's Halloween season again, we have to ask ourselves,

does Beetlejuice come scabs? And if so, are they dry or are they wet? This has been your annual reminder of wondering what Beetlejuice comes. They're dry? Okay, we have a hard opinion. That's worse. That's way worse. Because then I think I've said this before too,

it would sound like a shuffling a deck of cards. Right. Does that mean then does Edward Scissorhands come tiny little scissors? Yeah. Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha. Why does there always have to be a sound effect?

That's the best part. What if it just says like and then there was like 900 scams on the ground. I have to go home. Is there any other?

I just wanted to mention that at the end like the big gun fight scene where he has a gun for some reason uh when michael's anthony michael when he slaps and then like donkey kicks kim i felt like that was really excessive because he already has a gun you have a reason to kill him, but he still has to get the violence towards women in there for some reason when he's been pulling on her and bossing her around the whole time.

That's a great point. Yeah, I mean, that sounds like another, in the way that they go way out of the way to demonize this jock character in a way that is cartoonish for this movie. Yeah, it's like, let's get in a few, because what I would guess is like some sort of studio note of like,

please remind everyone why we hate this guy because he's about to get murdered. Yeah, like let's just, once again, let's really justify this murder. Yeah, like. Because we're not getting rid of the murder, so let's just make sure we write to justify it. Killing Anthony Michael Hall, non-negotiable yeah everything around it yeah yeah but absolutely like

getting in and because there's not like that's not an element of this movie at all up until that moment yeah right that's totally i think we talked about this in the point break episode this happens all the time in movies where the bad guys will inflict violence on women more so than anyone else because it like ups the stakes and it makes it seem oh that look how bad these guys are who could hit a woman a lot of men yeah uh a lot of men could so and just like the whole uh you know lazy writing trope of making uh abusers of women very cartoonish right where you can literally see you're like oh yeah he's gonna hit a lady but that's not me right in the audience can think to themselves exactly yeah so that you know when there's predatory characters like this

men who may have many of those qualities themselves can feel comfortable and be like well i don't i'm not i don't do that i'm not screaming i'm not screaming at my friend a drunk drive for no reason yeah you know and so not bringing a gun to an abandoned castle so I'm good I don't need it yeah yeah so that's unfortunate thanks for bringing that up I think we have time for one more question yeah okay first I want to say that I'm the end of the movie made me really sad. But what made me happy was I'm new to the podcast, thanks to my fiance. I don't know the rules with the test, but I did notice that in the beginning, is it Peg, the mom, is talking to Berta from Two and a Half Men, the maid. Yeah.

And then they both said names, and so I'm like, does that, we got really excited. I was like, oh, I think that passes the test, right? This is the perfect, Oh my God. It's literally like, you're new to this podcast? Yes.

Did they pay you? Right. What? That is the smoothest transition we've ever had in a podcast ever. As a fan of Segways, I am proud. Oh God. god that was i like was like

oh are we getting a segue gifted to us uh i'm about to come scabs that was so exciting whoa i was everywhere like anyways uh great segue to what we were gonna end end the show on. Right. So let's talk about whether or not this movie passes the Bechdel test. The scenes that I think you're calling into question is when Peg is going kind of door to door at the very beginning of the movie and trying to sell her Avons. I guess it's not as funny the second time around. Okay. But she is talking to, we learn the other woman's name is Helen at the end of that scene. And she comes back for several times in the movie.

And she's like, oh, you can buy your creams and your shadows and da-da-da. She does her presentation with her gorgeous handwork. She does a really good job. I was really proud of her. Every time I see that scene, she sells it really hard. I'm always thinking of my mom's Avon lady, Bev. Bev? Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. And then Helen's like, I never buy anything from you. Producer Sophie's just shaking her head. We left Bev unexamined for another show. Yeah. We'll unpack Bev later. We'll start a whole new podcast about it.

The Bev Dole Test. Let's new podcast about it yeah the Bev the Bev let's talk about my old neighbor Bev so anyway so that conversation I would say passes because they we learn both of their names and they don't talk about men at all they're talking about a failed cosmetic purchase and it's really that's what that's still one of the funniest moments in the movie to me so charming when she just just, they know. She gives it, she's like, okay, goodbye. So funny. It's great. And then the scene right after that, Peg is talking to Joyce and Joyce is all like, oh, there's a vehicle in my driveway.

I'm very busy trying to fuck this dishwasher repairman. Yeah. She's chaotic, Courtney. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She never mentions explicitly that she's busy with a man. The subtext of that conversation is revolving around a man. There's a few different phone conversations where that's the case.

Where sometimes there's a lot of, you know, like neighborhood phone calls. And and you know tim timmy's over in the corner like this is dumb and but yeah there are some where it's like there's an exchange inside of the phone call that passes but the subtext has to do with like what's what's edward snipping yeah because i would say most of the conversations between women after those first few scenes always about edward yeah and there are quite a few of them there are quite a few moments where it's like a group of only women talking but they're all yeah it's like what's edward doing there is a very good impression of the film that was a very offensive portrayal of women oh my god oh yikes we're like you know how women be like

well i think the movie does an offensive portrayal of once edward enters the picture they all just forget their lives and it's about edward yeah they're gossiping you know church is still about the church oh yeah that's true god's a man god so she's always talking about a man have you heard the ariana grande song it's not true but yeah i would say at least those first couple scenes in the beginning do pass the test. Also, the framing device at the very beginning of the movie when old, wrinkly Winona Ryder is all like, hey, let me tell you how snow was invented.

That would pass, except that we never learn that granddaughter's name. Does it pass the Vexel test if Winona Ryder is talking to her own rubber suit? Yes. And the rubber suit. Yes. And the rubber suit creaks in response. I would say yes. Just throwing it out there, yeah. Well, does the rubber suit have a name? Does the rubber suit?

Yes, Winona Ryder's rubber suit. I'm sure you do. Sorry. Yeah. So to answer your question, the movie does pass the Bechdel test. It does. It does. But many of the conversations between women do not.

It is one of those movies where there are more female cast members in general than there are male cast members, at least in terms of people who have impact on what happens in the movie. So it should pass by way more than it does. Right. Yeah. And also i wish that kim had a female friend yeah yeah yeah that's a very odd yes she's like the head cheerleader you would think that i know and also i'm like where i hoped that you know i almost was like i hope

she doesn't have friends because if not like why aren't they like yeah you should dump this guy he's horrible have you seen his hair? Yeah. Scary. And have you seen the scissor dude who just moved in? Come on. Yeah. I think we could really, we should re-edit that movie with us as friends. Yeah.

Just be like, yo, Kim, is he the sharp guy? Yeah. Anyways, dump Anthony Michael Hall. That wouldn't pass the Bechdel test,

I guess. Well, goodbye. Nobody's perfect. Me, me, me, me,

me, me, me. Sorry. Shall we rate the movie on our nipple scale? Let's do it. All right. As you know, our nipple scale, zero to five nipples,

based on the movie's portrayal of women. I'm going to give it, I think, a two. Because the female characters we see in the movie, tropey though they may be, they are certainly way more active than nearly every male character in the story. So it's largely women driving the narrative. I would say that it gets a lot of nipples docked off for being excessively white, for fetishizing and treating disability in a very strange way. But it's also like, as we also talked about, the main male character is not like a gross, toxic dude.

He's, I mean, he's barely. He's a baby. He's a baby. He's a baby who says like seven words in the whole story. His first line is talking about his dad, how he thinks his dad, he's like, he didn't wake up. Right. Right? What?

That's a what? That's mean. His dad died. In front of him. You're right. And he's never seen a window. You're right, he's cute. No, you know, when the, not magician,

but you know, the terrible inventor, the sexist inventor who made two things ever, is, like, handing him his hands, and he's like, here's everything you've ever wanted. I'm dead now. I just feel like that's going to happen to me someday. Yeah. Well, anyway, two nipples.

Because it's not, like, the most regressive story we've ever seen. It's certainly not progressive. But I think it handles. It's aggressive. Aggressive. Right. So, yeah, I'm going to give it two nipples. And I will give one to Edward.

And because Edward is just made of scissors, his nipples are also scissors. Yeah, a nipple doesn't have a fighting chance he's got nipple scissors yeah so one nipple scissor to edward and i'll give my other nipple to joyce because i appreciate how horny she was throughout the film yeah uh i'm gonna go to as well yeah i agree that this movie avoids doing some things wrong that it could and fully capitalizes on doing other things wrong that it could very on board with what you're saying i know and and just like re-watching most tim burton movies now is just gonna leave a bad taste in your mouth because now he has just laid the cards out on the table you know what he's about and giving him money is letting that continue to happen so you know it's it's a it's a bummer because it's it's hard to re-watch a movie that you you used to really love and that

you made you made your mommy froth so with that in mind it like it's unfortunate however uh you know doubt is still a movie that's out in the world. And so we have that to feel good about. And yeah, I agree with the two nipple rating. I'm going to give both of my nipples to Nick Carter. Dang. He's going to need them for that slippage line. That's two slippy nips.

That's two slippy nips for Nick Carter. Oh, boy. If it was Peg's movie, that would be five nipples out of five. That's really what I crave every time I watch this movie. Just more Peg. She's a delight. It should have been her movie. But because that's not the movie and that's not Tim Burton.

Yeah, I think I'm gonna go too for all stated reasons above, y'all. Who are you giving your nippies to? The doggies. Because those were real haircuts. They really had to give those dogs haircuts. Yeah.

I can't believe we got all the way through this without saying one of my favorite words. Topiary. Anyways, a lot of topiaries in this movie. And it's a dinosaur bush thing. It's when you make a bush look like a thing it's not supposed to. You see a bush, you're like, hey, what if something else? And then you get your snippy hand friend and he he does this little thing and then

you get a topiary i do that in the shower yeah oh yeah every woman is a topiary well with that maggie thank you so much for being our guest. We've had so much fun. Thank you for having me. We have so many people to thank. Thank you to our audience for coming to the show. Thank you. Hey, it's Caitlin. I am back in the studio.

And on behalf of the Bechdel cast, we just wanted to give a few more shout outs. Thank you to The Ruby for having us at the live show. If you're in LA, check out this venue. It's really cool. Go to therubyla.com for more info. Thank you to our producers, Sophie and Aristotle for being the best and most supportive producers in the world. Thank you to Sammy Junio for recording the live show for us. Thanks again to everyone who came out to watch the live show. You were the best audience we could have asked for. A big thanks again to our guest, Maggie Mae Fish, who you can follow on Twitter at Maggie Mae Fish, Mae spelled M-A-E. You can subscribe to her YouTube channel at Maggie Mae Fish, where she makes great

video essays about film, including one entitled Looking for Meaning in Tim Burton's Movies, which you should definitely check out. And as always, you can follow us at Bechtelcast on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. You can give us a five nipple rating on iTunes. You can subscribe to our Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Bechtel cast. And that gets you two bonus episodes every single month for only $5 a month. You can go to our merch store at tpublic.com slash the Bechtel cast. And you can grab our shirts, mugs, pillows, notebooks, and all sorts of other goodies that say feminist icon, queer icon, and other cool stuff. We are going to do more live shows in the future, so keep your eyes peeled

and hopefully we come to a city near you soon. Thank you so much for listening. You all get five nips from us and we will see you next time. Bye-bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. What happens when a professional football player's career ends and the applause fades and the screaming fans move on? I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. For some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers. You mix homesteading with guns and church. Voila! You got straight away.

They try to save everybody. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like what's the history behind bacon-wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. And this season, we're taking an even bigger bite

out of the most delicious food and its history. Saying that the most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba, and the piña colada from Puerto Rico. Listen to Hungry for History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.