The Bechdel Cast - Fast Times at Ridgemont High with Paige Weldon and Emily Faye

Episode Date: January 30, 2020

This week, it's fast times at the Bechdel Cast with special guests Paige Weldon and Emily Faye of Mall Talk podcast chatting about Fast Times at Ridgemont High. (This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @paigeweldon @mlefaye & @malltalkpod 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. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me? A show about the ways that mental illness is shaped by not just biology.

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

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. On the Bechtelcast, 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 Bechdelcast. Hi, and welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name's Jamie Loftus.

And I'm Caitlin Durante. And this is our podcast about the representation of women in famous movies. Wow. There you are. We are for episode. What is it? One million. One million.

There's still there's still so it's it is crazy. I mean, this show has been happening for three years and we're still like not even remotely through influential movies. There's so many left. I'm surprised it took us this long to get to this one today. I think this is the first time that we're covering a Cameron Crowe joint. I would say mercifully. We held out as long as humanly possible, but it's time to take a long, hard look at the scourge of Crowe.

Yeah, because he's got Jerry Maguire. Yeah, I haven't seen it almost famous yeah boring right aloha offensive elizabethtown not offensive in the same way as aloha but like offensively boring oh sure and we've got the manic pixie we've got yeah thing origins um anyways the bechdel cast is a famous movie podcast we use the uh bechdel test sometimes called the bechdel wallace test to as a jumping off point for a discussion which is a media metric invented by cartoonist allison bechdel that requires uh that a movie have two female identifying characters with names that talk to each other about something other than a man can cameron crowe do it i don't think he's ever done it probably not i don't think he's ever done it oh you know i i think that cameron crime i really like watching we're doing fast

times at ridgemont high today i really didn't realize the amount that I find Cameron Crowe's work to be annoying. Yeah, I would agree. His capacity for annoying me in different ways knows no bounds. Sure. Let's talk about it. We have two guests today. We do. We do indeed. We mustn't delay. They are comedians and hosts of Mall Talk podcast. One of my faves. It's Paige Weldon and Emily Faye. Hi. Hello. Welcome. Thank you for having us.

Hey, anytime. I am realizing right now, I'm really bad at knowing who made a movie, who the director is, and I feel like I didn't realize that Cameron Crowe did all those other movies. Oh, sure. I was like, whoa, what a career.

What a legacy. The legacy that Cameron Crowe leaves is immeasurable. It truly is. And we'll talk about this, but so Cameron Crowe wrote the screenplay and then also wrote the book that this is adapted from. Amy Heckerling directed the film and we'll talk. I found out that Amy Heckerling was my age

when she directed this movie and it made me feel like shit made me feel bad yeah but good for her good for her uh but made me feel like shit sure yeah so let's talk about your your relationship in history with the movie uh page we'll start with you um i had never seen it before. I have seen Almost Famous. I have seen Aloha. You were one of the 14 people that saw Aloha? You know, I saw it as a goof at that $2 theater in Hollywood Park. And it was bad in ways I had not expected.

It was like I was confused during it. I didn't know what was happening. I had never seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I feel like it is a classic that just I skipped for whatever reason. And Emily suggested it as a very like mall movie. Sure. And I watched it a couple weeks ago for the very first time. Okay.

Also, Emily, that brings us to you. Yes. It is a very mall movie. I saw it when i was like younger i think probably like twice like once when i was like younger younger once as like a teenager i could be absolutely wrong about this but i i could be mixing it up with something else i have the memory that maybe my mom recommended i watch it potentially Potentially is like a like, maybe remembered it as like one of those like classic 80s movies.

Right. And not, you know. But I could also be wrong on that. But I really liked it. And then I hadn't seen it in years. And I rewatched it last night. And I had remembered so little about it. It's a wild watch yeah i had seen it

at least one i think once before probably in college because i was like oh there's you know it's one of those iconic movies that you know i have to see didn't remember a single thing from it except for like jeff spicoli being like a stoner surfer dude like that was the one thing the one aspect of it that I remembered and nothing else at all registered in my memory so when I watched it again a couple days ago I was just like oh wait Jennifer Jason Leigh is in this Judge Reinhold is in this Judge Reinhold is extremely in this he couldn't be more in this and yeah didn't remember like what the story was i didn't know forrest whitaker was in this movie nick cage who is credited as nick nicholas coppola before he was like oh wait nepotism

may be a bad look for me right cage it is oopsie yeah uh so yeah i don't have a long history with this at all but yeah yeah there it is i hadn't seen it either i just don't as as uh if you've been listening to the show for a while i just don't like movie most movies released in the 1980s it's a time and culture that i find very weird it's pretty toxic and annoying that and like the early 2000s are like two times that you're just like oh yeah there's a very republican presidency going on right now um so you know i hadn't seen it yeah now i can't say that anymore and that's my history with the movie true i did wish i had seen it when i was younger because i felt like i kept watching it and being like honey no there don't i mean yeah i want to say up top i do like this movie i think it's a good movie and i don't like most 80s movies i don't like john

hughes movies but this one feels different in a way that i think it I kind of think it holds up honestly I think there's parts of it some parts they did do yeah and then others really don't um and we'll talk about them but I mean if you're comparing this movie to other like comparable mainstream 80s teen comedies uh I would say the most notable of those are things like revenge and the nerds 16 candles breakfast club porkies like are so flagrantly problematic and toxic and horrible that fast times at ridgemont high does feel a little bit more progressive but there are still it felt like realer which makes sense yeah because it's like based on Cameron like the the backstories that Cameron Crowe went undercover

never been kissed is actually based on his experiences going on Cameron Crowe's a weird man he's a weird man but I guess he was young enough he was like in his early 20s and he went to high school and he wrote about the i think it was in santa something uh claremont san diego okay claremont high in san diego he yeah he went undercover with it like in participation with the school's administration like they know they knew what was happening uh he went undercover originally with the intention of writing like a non-fiction book but then it turned and then he turned it into a novel as he was never been kissing uh in in san diego uh and then that book was published in 81 and then the film adaptation came out in 82 yeah because it was like bought as a movie before the book even like came out Cameron Crowe was a hot property at this at this time because he was like he started

writing for Rolling Stone when he was 16 and that's what Almost Famous is about and there's I don't know he was like a little young writer prodigy um that everyone was really excited about and then Elizabethtown came out and that's just sort of the story of his life. I forgot to say I hate Elizabethtown. Oh, my God. But I never seen it. I actually really loved Almost Famous growing up, and now the way you guys are talking about it,

I'm like, I don't know. Yeah, I haven't seen it in years, but I really liked it. I think most people do. I just find it, I just am like, who cares? I really liked it, and then I don't know what changed in me. But I just, I don't know. I don't like what changed in me. But I just, I don't know.

I don't like it now. I also didn't know Cameron Crowe also wrote and directed Say Anything, which I have not seen. Oh, that's one we must cover at some point. I know, that's like on the must. Yeah, where isn't he? But I do, it feels like this movie is written, it feels more authentic than other 80s high school movies, which like, yeah, because it's based on at least some kernels of stuff that he witnessed.

Yeah. So a lot of it was like, I don't know. I mean, there's a lot going on. Should we talk about it? Yeah, let's dive into the recap. All right. So we meet some teens who have jobs at the Ridgemont Mall. Oh, I should also say I think part of the other reason I watched it the first time when I was younger

is because the exterior of the mall is my childhood mall. No way. Not the interior, but the exterior shots are the Santa Monica place. So that was big to me. Okay. Having your mall featured in a prominent movie is a moment that's i'm thrilled for you that's really exciting it is so weird how many movies they shoot the exterior mall is different from the interior mall now are any of the malls the glendale

galleria are our favorite mall on the bechtel cast, of course. It's, well, no, it's the Americana. Well, okay, I'm, I, you know, the Americana is a pretentious, elitist shithole. It's outside. And, ugh, but, I, the Dunkin' Donuts is, I mean, you're the mall

experts. Yeah, we like both. We think we're fully in favor of them. They are a beautiful partnership, a symbiotic relationship. One of the many things love about maltac is um they don't choose between the americans and the gallery they're what we don't compare uh beautiful women we beautiful powerful women don't need to be compared they're neighbors and that's true i i'm a die-hard glendale gallery uh stan they have a dunkin donuts and we can't take that away. That's true. Anyway, so the mall is where they work.

And we meet Mark Ratner, a.k.a. Rat. He works at the movie theater. His pal Mike DeMone scalps concert tickets for a living. Across the way, Stacy, that's Jennifer Jason Leigh, and her friend linda phoebe kate's work at a pizza place we see stacy gets hit on by an older guy she tells him that she is 19 we find out that she's actually 15 he's 26 they exchange numbers oh no. That was a honey no moment. Yeah. We meet Brad,

Judge Reinhold's character. He works at a burger joint. And then we meet Jeff Spicoli, Sean Penn, of course. And he is a stoner surfer dude who just kind of hangs around and he seems to not wear a shirt very often. Classic San Diego.

Right. And then we cut to Ridgemont High where there are fast times. Brad seems kind of like a big man on campus. He's got a cool car. Spicoli is stoned and he's late to U.S. history class with Mr. Hand who gives him a hard time. Then we cut to lunch. Was Mr. Hand or Mr. Ham? Mr. Hand. Wow. Really? The cracks are starting to show.

I wonder if his name, that character, the real person, has a name that is similar or something and he just changed it yeah like he just was lazy about changing it to something could be then we see stacy and linda at lunch they're talking about sex uh linda is more sexually experienced than stacy she's also a senior she's stacy is an incoming freshman linda's a senior i believe mike is a senior whereas mark ratner is also a freshman yeah right and i do like the like when to a two-year age

difference feels like gigantic and like seeing that is always i love the phoebe kate's character because it's so she's so absurd it's like she's yeah she seems more experienced sure but she's like the that is such a real person who's just like lying about they're like oh totally totally totally i know how to i know how to really good blow job yeah i definitely have a fiance but he just lives somewhere else yeah yeah so i know everything and i'm gonna teach you i was shocked that there was confirmation in story that her I thought the twist was gonna be that her boyfriend wasn't real because like she's I feel like it's set up like he might not she's like well yeah he's not around he's older blah blah and then

he sends her a letter at the end I'm like how old is he well that I feel like it's so clear that it's like this man that she thinks is like this thing to her and he's like yeah she's just so dumb in her own way like about it it's sadder than if he was yeah see i think she wrote that letter as part of her ruse the ruse i like it she's a scammer she's a scam goddess i like there's like those little moments too where like they're talking about like oh do you come every time you have sex? And she's like, yeah, I think. Yeah. Like, oh, you're 17. Uh-huh.

Oh, it's funny. Yes. Okay. So then meanwhile, Rat is developing a crush on Stacy. They have biology class together. But Stacy goes on a date with that 26-year-old guy. They have sex, a.k. sex aka a statutory rape happens and then which is like very much written like kind of

80s style dodge where he's like you're actually 19 right and she's like uh huh and we're like oh no I have questions about that part too which is if he's 26 why doesn't he have a home they can go to where is that environment point

i was so overwhelmed by the rape that i didn't even i was like oh yeah he doesn't live what is like in like what is that maybe he's like married or something where oh god yeah that entire i mean that's like one of the worst. Right. Because you go to like a baseball dugout. Yeah. It's a wild, like that's been pretty much the beginning of the movie. Yeah. So it's very, very jarring. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And the movie doesn't seem to think that much of it. It's like one of those very weird, like culturally dissonant, like, oh, this was not a big deal. Right. Like it happens. Yeah. Yikes. He sends her flowers after this, but then he never calls her again she never hears from him after that meanwhile uh we get this

reveal that stacy and brad are brother and sister oh my goodness brad he's having a tough time he gets fired from his job and then his girlfriend who he was intending to break up with, breaks up with him first, citing the exact same reason that he was going to use. Then Rat asks Stacy out and they go out to dinner. She takes them back to her house. They start kissing and she tries to take things a little further, but he is visibly not comfortable with going any further. So he makes an excuse and leaves. He's not like the other boys. He's not.

He's nice. Whoa. Nice boy. Nice boy named Rat. Yeah, I want to talk about him a little bit. And then we see Spicoli's getting in trouble at school. He's dreaming about being a surf champion. He's driving Forrest Whitaker's car around.

He's like the big football star at school. And his car is a big deal to him. His car is a big deal, but Spicoli crashes it. And in order to make it so he doesn't get in trouble, he makes it seem like the rival school that they're about to have a big football game with uh like messed up forrest whitaker's car right before the big game meanwhile stacy isn't sure if rat likes her but then he and his friend mike come over for a swim linda is also there judge reinhold jerks off to her in the bathroom.

We'll talk about that whole scene. And I feel like the scene that people remember from this movie. Probably, yeah. I've seen that scene before, and I didn't even know what this movie was about. Yeah. Meanwhile, Stacey starts to develop a crush on Mike. He comes over to her place. They start kissing. They have sex. And then he comes really fast and then very abruptly leaves. Then later at school,

he blows Stacey off. And then sometime later after that, she tells him that she's pregnant, gregnant. She has already arranged to have an abortion, but she wants him to pay for half of it and give her a ride to the clinic which he agrees to but then when the day actually rolls around he is nowhere to be found so instead she gets a ride from her brother brad uh she's like drop me off at the bowling alley i'm going bowling um but then he sees her like run across the street to the clinic so he picks her up from the clinic and he agrees to keep her secret he's like you don't bowl yeah like that was his rationale behind calling her bluff right and then linda finds out what a shithead mike was to stacy So she sticks up for her friend,

takes revenge on him by spray painting prick on his car and his locker. And then Rat confronts Mike about being shitty and getting with Stacy behind his back. Then the kids go to prom. I mean, you gotta. You gotta. You gotta. It's a movie about teens.

We're going to prom. Caitlin hates prom scenes. I do hate prom scenes but I like that this one this one wasn't made that big of a deal of it wasn't like everyone's like yeah we're all gearing up for prom yeah it's just you know slice of life moment in their lives some teens dancing yeah nothing wrong with that just a place for everyone to be yeah true and then mike and stacy reconnect at the mall uh there's a scene at the end when brad is working at a convenience store uh where he stops a robbery so it's rat and stacy reconnect at the mall oh what did i say oh yeah sorry so uh rat and stacy reconnect and then the scene with the robbery Spicoli like distracts the robber and then Brad

saves the day. Which is a very I had to like double check to be like did the movie just end? But that's where it ends. That's where it ends. We get all these like the title cards of like and then here's what they got up to after this. Big 80s movie thing. Yeah.

I kind of appreciate it I want to know what happens to all of them I thought it was fun I want to know the day they die but yeah that's the story let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back for the discussion Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 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. I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me?

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will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. This is Jimmy O'Brien from John Boy Media. I want to quickly tell you about my podcast. It's called Jimmy's Three Things. Episodes come out every Tuesday, and for about 30 minutes, I dive into three topics in Major League Baseball that I am interested in.

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episodes drop every tuesday and we're back oh thank god i know i couldn't being on couldn't couldn't wait another second so where to start well something something great yes is that uh this was uh amy hackling's directorial debut as you were saying for those that are not heckling heads, she goes on to direct most notably Clueless, but also Luke Who's Talking. If you're a Luke Who's Talking head. Which I am. Have you seen it? Oh, yeah. I love those movies.

As kids. As a kid. The Baby's Talk? I honestly barely remember I think the yeah there's a both movies open maybe there's even a third one who remembers but there's a lot of sperm oh yeah there is a third one

Look Who's Talking 2 and Look Who's Talking Now Look Who's Talking 2 is spelled T-O-O or just confirming I think like Bruce Willis voices one of the babies there's always a like an opening sequence of a bunch of sperms swimming to fertilize an egg perfect and then all movies should begin yeah they should all begin that way because that's how every story

starts you know ultimately true uh i yeah i used to love those movies when I was a kid, but I could not tell you a single thing about what they're about. The new detail about you is that you've seen every Look Who's Talking movie. So Clueless and Look Who's Talking and a National Lampoon movie. Right. So she's like a legendary director. This was her first feature that she directed. So that's great yeah we very

rarely get to cover uh movies that are directed by women at all especially comedies especially comedies yes i was surprised i guess not surprised uh because we live in a world where everything's horrible but we live in a society is that what you're trying to suggest? I don't understand. Unpack that. I suppose would have maybe expected a movie directed by a woman to not fall into some of the trappings that we see happen in movies that are directed by men. Most notably, the male gaze dream sequence that Judge Reinhold has where he is masturbating to a topless Phoebe Cates. That was, yeah. I want to spring to Amy Heckerling's defense a little bit here by just, you know, she's 27 when she directed this movie it was her first gig ever i don't think she was really in a position to be push back pushing back a lot yeah and she like goes on i think to kind of course correct on stuff like that in movies like clueless yeah but

yeah no i totally see what you mean um that scene is so weird okay so i it's the iconic masturbation scene i didn't realize that that scene was a fantasy that doesn't happen in the because it was like when i when we meet linda's character i'm like she doesn't seem like she would just do that yeah because she doesn't right but it's the only scene that anyone like can recall top of head from this movie and it's so like i feel like it's one of those situations where i'm not gonna like phrase this correctly but like where the writing and the like cinematography it's like a little bit dissonant where it's because it's like linda's character isn't like that but then the visuals go way out of their way to give you this big nipple moment. That was just what movies were like.

You just did get to see everyone's boobs, I guess. I kind of feel like, I don't know. And ultimately, all the men are made fools of. That is the thing. That's the thing. It's not like, oh, my God, this out-of-nowhere fantasy where he gets to fuck her. It's like he's jacking off in the bathroom. She walks in on him and it's like, oh my God.

And he's embarrassed. So I kind of don't think it's like, I don't know. I think in context, like in the context of the movie, I don't have a problem with it. It's just like, it is like one of those things where it's like a maps the scene that like stands the test of time. I think just because that was for a lot of young boys

who watched it, they did jack off to that, and therefore it was what they remembered. But yeah, it is weird that I had never seen the movie, but I knew that scene. There are so many better scenes. Yeah, that actually happened. And then the fact that that fantasy, which is very clearly framed as like a dream fantasy sequence

is juxtaposed against what's actually happening where she's like getting out of the pool in a very neutral non-sexy way and she's like there's water in my ears and yeah so I'm like okay I appreciated that so she's not like her character

by the Judge Reinhold character is like made like a sexy meal of by just like his horny teen brain. And also they are the same age, which is good because she's a senior, too. You know, it's not like it's like little sisters, like best freshman friend. It's like they're both 17. Yeah. Yeah. I don't even know how to, I guess, articulate exactly why it's like, ugh, to me.

Because it's like, in the story, it makes sense. But something about it is just, I don't know. I mean, just the choice to include it at all in the way that it is included. The way that it's framed. It's a very 80s decision. Yes. And also, just like the way female nudity is treated in this movie is so of its time of like you see a lot of female nudity and I mean you see, you know, Sean Penn shirtless, but it's not that like I feel like that's just sort of starting to happen like now ish in like shows like Euphoria where it's like in shows about teen sexuality. You never see male nudity

really at all yeah and it's this like taboo thing still um where like in this movie you see like both female lead characters almost fully nude one you see fully nude and jennifer jason lee and then you see phoebe kate's almost nude right and with the men it's like that's just not an expectation that people had of this I was actually thinking of euphoria while I was watching this and how well just in the sense where I was like there is like a fair amount of like boobs but like euphoria is like if we're talking like worse euphoria has dicks, dicks, dicks, dicks, dicks. But dicks, dicks, dicks. But also when they show boobs, it's in a doggy style, whatever. It's more gaze-y, whereas this, I feel like, I don't know. This is almost just a result of the time. So we'll have the part in the movie where we show the main character's boobs.

I kind of feel like the Jennifer Jason Leigh, when her when her boobs are out, it's, like, barely sexual. I don't know. Well, she's having sex. She is, but there's, I don't know. The way that... Just that I was thinking about this show that was made literally this year that is also supposed to be teens having sex is, like, so sexual. I guess what I like about Euphoria, because I don't like, I there's i whatever the show's fine but like the at least it's like equal opportunity nudity where it's just like this is like 1982 like

it also i feel like kind of speaks to like who they're making the movie for you know it's just like catering to male gaze stuff and like the female gaze or the straight female gaze or whatever is like not really like you get sean Penn's abs a couple times but other than that it's like the women are way more sexualized. Is Sean Penn's character are we supposed to think he's like a hot guy? I don't think so.

Because you see him he's like the surfer dude and he has like the hot babes at the beach and I'm like well that's another fantasy of his that's like his fantasy I don't think so that's a relief

that's a question I have do you think any of the guys in it are actually supposed to be like someone that we're supposed to think of as hunky I don't know because Brad is always just kind of like keeps being put in this position where he just keeps like kind of being a loser yeah I don't know. Ratner is just such a like sweet like nerd yeah I mean I guess one thing I do like about this movie is and and talking about how it feels realistic to being a teenager is things like the fact that

losing your cool job just completely ruins your status like little tiny things just like ruin you when in the beginning he's gonna break up with his girlfriend he's like i'm a successful guy yeah yeah and he's like he cooks the burgers at a fast food joint but he's like yeah i have a job yeah um going back to the sex scene especially okay so the So the first one that we see between Stacy and that 26-year-old guy. So, okay. It is a statutory rape. She is underage. The movie excuses it by him thinking that she is of age.

He doesn't think that she's of age. But he barely tries to find out and he excuses it because at the end of the day it's like he's clearly painted as like a bad a bad guy i don't know who does suspect that she is too young right yeah he keeps asking i don't know that i would say it excuses but i don't know the movie doesn't treat it like that's what that is and then also another huge issue I have with this is that we're seeing we're seeing her nudity while the actor while Jennifer Jason Leigh was 20 at the time of filming or at least at the time of the release her character is supposed to be 15 yeah and I just I mean call me a puritan but I have a huge

problem with showing nudity of characters who are supposed to be underage. That's the, I mean, that's the same thing with Euphoria, though. Which, I mean, I haven't seen that show, but I... And every sexy teen show that's ever been. Yeah. It's the same thing. My issue isn't with that as long as it's, like, adult actors. Like, that's just kind of, like like the name of the high school I mean and it's like I do think that like teenagers it like can just like benefit from I don't know like seeing teen

sex shows when I was a teenager like some of it fucked me up and others times it was helpful and good I don't I just don't think it needs to ever be like characters who are supposed to be teenagers we don't need to see them naked ever i mean that's fair i guess i never yeah i don't know it's fair but then that's like but then if we're talking about that with that movie it's also the whole larger cultural movement where sexy teen shows and stuff are like yeah one of the hugest genres right unless that scene definitely made me very uncomfortable yeah totally yeah like this that scene i don't know i i do think the movie kind of gives them a pass in general i think that like i don't know cutting out like teen sex stuff in general just kind of like limits the kind of stories that you can tell i mean we can it could be implied that they have sex or it can be shot

in such a way where it's clear that they're having sex sure maybe but to show nudity to show like what's supposed to be 15 year old breasts is like no thing that's yeah i kind of think that's what i don't think we need that like most sexy teen shows are on the cw and they don't show actual yeah right but i'm i'm just bringing in the euphoria thing again it's like it is the same thing as this thing that is happening in 2019. But even more so. And most things over the years have not showed nudity. And that has been fine.

That's why we have 90210 and the OC. And those are full of sex and not a tit to be seen. And that's totally fine. I feel like I'm talking about whether or not the movie like dismisses it. I feel like, and I don't know if it's just a result of me watching this when I'm older, but I feel like there was this undercurrent of like the issue of not getting information about sex and sex ed and like having parents around to like tell

you anything. And she, she purely relies on her friend who's full of shit yeah to tell her what she should be doing and the friend is kind of the one who encourages it yeah and it's like she's wrong yeah it almost feels like she had that experience from like another older friend telling her this is what she should do and i feel like it was that was an interesting and kind of real thing to me of like, oh, you just like don't know what's going on and you just trust someone who's cool to you or whatever. That's kind of I think the whole realism of it is I think that in this movie, it's like Stacy is 15.

She's basically pressured by this friend who keeps going like, I was 13. What's the problem? You got to have sex she's basically pressured by this friend into having these bad experiences which like older men taking advantage of younger girls figuring stuff out is a tale as old as humankind and that happens but it doesn't like ruin her and i think that's what's kind of like revolutionary about this movie at the time like she has this experience the statutory rape experience she like has sex with this guy who's like a shithole and like he has like an abortion and then like at the end of the day it's like and i know that it's kind of regressive to not like you know that it does not acknowledge any

psychological effects of those things but also that it's not it doesn't judge her or anything like at the end she's like I don't care about sex I want to have romance and she gets with this guy now she has like a nice like 15 year old boyfriend and is like moving on an age-appropriate boyfriend named rat yeah no I mean I think that there's's a lot of things with Stacey's character that is done in a way that feels grounded and right. It's just, like, the statutory rape, showing it is, I feel like, was not necessary. We didn't need it, yeah. Did not need to see it.

And just the, I don't know, like like for a movie that's made for teens i feel like you have to like at least make some effort to be a little explicit about like that was not okay because i feel like they they kind of skirt it but it's not and it's like also very possible that like stacy didn't fully hadn't fully like processed it and there but it's just kind of like left there and then just you know what i kept thinking when i was watching this because i knew it was like based on a book it really had the feeling to me of when you watch a movie that's based on a book that you've read and you're like they skipped the part how do you understand like the first time i ever saw like a harry potter movie after reading after reading the Harry Potter books where I was like, this is too fast.

Or it almost felt like whenever they would like skip over like someone processing or having an emotional reaction. I was like, maybe it's in the book. Probably not, but maybe. I don't know. Feminist icon Cameron Crowe. We have to assume he addressed it um but yeah that that whole I mean story point in general is just like I don't know I don't even know if it was like mishandled as much as it was just not yeah right at all it was just kind of like left there in a kind of weird way yeah but I think that's because the only people she has to talk to are like other teens who don't know that it's like a bad thing we never even see the parent never see them yeah yeah which i thought was kind of cool yeah sure i like i was

like no parent movies i feel like the 90s is when parents started being characters and stuff talking about those like teen shows again the parents started being hot and also becoming characters with their own drama yeah like 90s early 2000s i feel like that started becoming a thing horny parents yeah i always have an affairs with other parents um yeah and then i mean i i okay can we talk about that the friendship between linda and stacy we've like sort of started yeah already but i don't know i think it like again it's like one of those very realistic friendships that will happen in high school where you're it's like two-year age gap feels like a million years and like i was thinking about this girl in high school a new name carissa that i would have like died for her and i thought she was a fucking genius

when she was the queen of sex and I would have done and I would have done anything she told me to I made my dad like drive me to a bright eyes concert and then drive around the block for three hours while I went to the bright eyes concert so Carissa would see me there and think I was cool I like would have done anything and so I'm like oh this is very much like you know a girl two years older than you that who you would just do like anything for and I mean I think my main and I like that even though Linda like and I don't think if I was a teenager watching this movie I don't think I would have realized that she's full of shit I think I probably would have just thought she was

cool this was also the first time I put together that she was older oh okay i don't think when i was younger and watching it i realized that okay i don't know if i even realized that until you said it today i guess well because she talks about uh when she gets that letter and it's like he says he's not coming to my graduation right and then in the end thing it's like she's at Ridgemont College now living with her like her professor yeah like oh no uh but I mean I like that they're like friendship is I mean it's based a lot of it's based on misinformation yeah but like good things about it are they're like supportive of each other in their weird sex endeavors uh i like when linda like super jumps to her defense yeah uh when she's going through the abortion thing it's it's not

anything where anyone passes judgment on her including her brother which i thought was really cool yeah that's like i feel like that's a huge moment in this movie yeah that's worth just a whole other conversation uh that we can get to yeah but but in general like they they have a friendship that's based on misinformation and like maybe like some failures of parenting and their job together and their job it's a very pizza i think my main thing was like i like their friendship i just like wish that they like we knew stuff about them that wasn't just like all boy relationships. Yeah. Yeah. I also do like I mean, well, I have mixed feelings about this because part of it's pretty problematic. But Linda has a pretty just kind of casual cavalier attitude about sex where she's just like, it's no big deal like whatever and like I like to see that

attitude uh on the screen not to say that everyone needs to have that but we usually see like girls being like sex is sacred and beautiful and I can only have it with my husband who I met right and like male characters get to be promiscuous without consequence exactly so to see a girl and we talked about this I think a little bit on a bonus episode on American Pie but the Natasha Lyonne character has a pretty similar just like casual like sex is whatever it's no big deal again just something I appreciate seeing now when linda part of her uh attitude is that yeah 15 year old friend of mine go have sex with this 26 year old man my theory is linda's a virgin i think linda's a virgin and she's absolutely full of shit i mean they're all lying like when

like even she's the only one telling the truth no she's not because after that mic thing uh when linda's like how long did it last and she's like 15 to 20 minutes and then she's like yeah my boyfriend lost like 20 to 30 and she's like i thought you said 30 to 40 oh yeah you're like when does a virgin but then also like brad right in the beginning when he's talking to the other person at work and he's like yeah and she's great in the sack and then like he turns to her to talk and she's like i don't want to have sex with you right yeah yeah everyone is yeah i think that linda probably is a virgin i got very strong mina suvari in american beauty vibes oh yeah and i'm you know fuck that movie but, like that character is all like, yeah, I'm so sexually experienced. And then we find out that she is, in fact, a virgin.

Yeah. So, yeah. It is weird at the beginning of that movie. It's not about like if it's right for her to have sex with the older guy. It's about how do we get him to agree to this? Like, all you got to do is tell him you're 19. Right. That's the believable age because it's not 18.

He'll totally believe you. Which it's like, I never did that. But I never actually got to the point of having sex with someone because that would have been scary. But I certainly, if a man was flirting with me at Starbucks and was like, where do you go to college? I'm 14. I'm like, I'm 19. I go to SMC. Which it's not like where do you go to college I'm 14 I'm like I'm

19 I go to SMC which is not like I'm actually gonna entrap the like I'm not gonna have sex with them but it's like you're safe that's a thing I don't know even if it's not about trying to have sex you do just want to appear older yeah there is just a thing of it's like okay I'm gonna go with this I'm gonna run with this i would go on like message boards yeah and pretend to be older and just talk to someone for 15 minutes and then get scared and delete the account it is a relatable experience yeah uh let's take another quick break and we'll come 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 unhurarts the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged.

I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in.

Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone, this is Jimmy O'Brien from John Boy Media. I want to quickly tell you about my podcast. It's called Jimmy's Three Things. Episodes come out every Tuesday and for about 30

minutes, I dive into three topics in Major League Baseball that I am interested in. Breaking stories, trends, stats, weird stuff. Sometimes I make up my own stats. Sometimes I do a lot of research and it ends up, I was wrong the whole time. So that's something you can get in on. Use Jimmy's Three Things podcast to stay up to date on Major League Baseball and to make you just a smidge smarter than your friend who's a baseball fan. You listen to me and then you go tell him, hey, I know this and you don't. So I make you smarter than your friends.

That's what Jimmy's Three Things is all about. Listen to Jimmy's Three Things on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find it on the Talkin' Baseball YouTube channel and new episodes drop every Tuesday. Okay, here we are back. Here we are again. Oh my gosh.

Should we talk about the abortion? Yes, we shall. Emily was saying this earlier. I was very impressed with how this movie handled it, especially for the 80s where John Hughes wouldn't have handled it this well. John Hughes who handles nothing well, kind of. I thought it was like, sometimes in this movie I find it frustrating

that they just present stuff and sort of have no comment on it. But for this story point, I thought it was really cool where Stacey has sex with Mike, she gets pregnant, she goes... She barely has sex with mike she gets pregnant she goes barely has sex which is that's that god that scene is so upsetting yeah so she like has mike's inside her for two seconds and but he's very fertile which is another beautiful humiliating moment

for a man or for a boy in that movie. All of them get humiliated. Yeah. He presents himself like such a cool guy and he comes immediately. It's so funny. Oh, he's a ticket scalper. He's a huge loser. But she like I liked how that scene played out where it starts by making a fool of Mike because he's like flirting

with a girl who doesn't seem to be interested in him and stacy goes up to him and is like i need to talk to you and he's like no i'm about to beg this baby she tells him that she's pregnant he immediately gets angry and blames her and says it was her idea and she shuts it down right away she was like no and he also says how do you know it's mine implying like oh you're probably like sleeping around with a bunch of different guys might not be mine right she's like it's definitely yours also don't say it was my idea right and he does take it back he also sounds like he's just parroting something someone told him you're supposed to say in these situations the older ones just yeah seem like they got some bad advice from someone else older and then they're giving this awful advice to younger people and then and

then she like he is like oh well there it seems like he's sort of like telling her what an abortion is and she's like no i know what one is and she already has it planned out yeah like and then she's like and i want you to pay for half i was like that was all pretty good great and then and then she has the abortion we see her right afterwards she seems and then like emily you kind of brought this up but she seems like physically and emotionally fine because i think a lot of media would have you believe that like, I mean, an abortion, depending on who's getting it, can be a very difficult physically and emotionally taxing thing. But it seems like for Stacey, she bounced right back from it. It didn't like emotionally ruin her. She's not like she just said a paycheck regret, regret and remorse.

Exactly. Yeah, she's. And then when her brother realizes what is happening and he picks her up from the clinic, he doesn't judge her. He doesn't slut shame her. He doesn't tattle on her. The biggest sin of all. And then he's like, oh, are you hungry?

Let's go get some food. He treats her with respect. It's very sweet because he drops her off. Then in his rearview mirror, he sees her run across the street from the bowling alley. So he's just waiting outside the whole time. Which is great. she just comes down and because like no one's there to pick her up right and then she's just like brad yeah oh don't tell mom and dad and then he's like no i won't the only thing that's weird about that is like um it's sort of implied that mike he tries to get the money yeah he's like couldn't and he couldn't and that's why he didn't come

like he would have given her a ride if he but he couldn't get the money or something right which is like which i don't know why they went i mean like maybe that's another like very specific true thing that cameron crowe heard about at this because i'm just like i didn't know because i was like why include that but maybe that's just i don't know yeah like he mike owes stacy an apology and 75 and 75 and we never 75 most of all yeah save the apology i will take the 75 first but what i also like about this storyline is that when rat finds out that Mike and Stacey had sex, he gets mad at Mike rather than Stacey. Yeah. He's like, and then Rat still likes Stacey

and, like, wants to reconnect with her. He doesn't act like she's, like, you know, tainted or anything like that after having had sex with his friend. I think that's the biggest thing. It's like nothing is like, oh, she's ruined. Right. That's, I think, like...

Because a lot of guys especially in 1982 would have that mentality and a lot of like or even a moment of like that slut and then maybe he comes back around he never has that moment right no he's like how could you do this to me you are my friend i like yeah i like rat rat's okay in my book. Rat's a good boy. He's a good boy. He's a classic movie, end up with this guy at the end of the movie, good boy. But unlike most of the 80s guys, he doesn't super suck. Because I feel like most 80s nerd characters, there's been a bajillion things written about how the proto incel entitled to women.

He doesn't feel entitled. He's just shy around her because he likes her. And then at the end when she gives him that picture of her. Oh my God, that picture is really cute. And I also liked seeing that moment where I feel like you don't see in teen movies a lot where a moment during sex where the boy gets uncomfortable and nervous for sure like you don't really and like that's important to see too because that like definitely happens in real life and you just don't really they're like men are supposed to be sexually aggressive

and like they never want to not have sex i feel like in that scene where she's trying to have sex with him it's so obvious that that's just what she thinks she's supposed to be doing and she had sex once so she thinks that this is who she is now right is this like vixen like just sexual and it's so right it's like clearly that's not who she is he gets uncomfortable but they're clearly both like because they both want to date but they've been told that dating is something different by the way there's another thing mike is a fascinating character to me because he's almost like a good friend like he he brings him his wallet at the dinner he like tries to help him out but he just ultimately but even when he

does that it's like a failure like he couldn't do it subtly at all right he like total that when gives him bad advice yeah he's just oh i have a list of the okay so he gives he says here's five dating tips that he gives to rat and i've uh broken down each one uh the first is never let on how much you like a girl which means like be emotionally withholding yes not okay the second one is you always call the shots, which is like be domineering, I guess. And then the example he gives is kiss me. You won't regret it. So it's like coercion.

Third one is actually like wherever you are, that's the place to be. So it's like, OK, emotionally manipulate the woman. The fourth one is find out what she wants and order it for the both of you. It's a classy move, which is what Cal Hockley does in Titanic. I wrote that down, too. So it's like, you know, take away her agency and autonomy. And then the fifth one is just kind of stupid. When it comes down to making out, put on side one of Led Zeppelin 5.

And it's like, okay. Well, I think it's very – it's the same thing that's happening on the other side. Also, what's funny is that immediately we see that everybody hates Mike. Like even in the end when like Rat is confronting him, he's like, whenever anybody talks shit about you, I try to stand up for you. And like when he's like always,

he's always like with different popular guys being like, yeah, this guy's my buddy, like whatever. And then the guy's just like with different popular guys being like yeah this guy's my buddy like whatever and then the guy's just like fuck off right and it's clear that none of these tips work because everybody hates him i forget what is mike's like thing that happens to him at that like oh he works at like right eight or seven eleven oh he got busted for scalping and now works at seven okay cool cool yeah and he's on the straight and narrow now i mean and you are kind of presented with these like two parallel like like stacy and rat are both like the younger like being mentored and then you have the senior mentors but yeah like mike is like bullshitting just as much as oh yeah as l is, but on top of that has this

projected fake machismo that makes him infinitely worse. Yeah. By the way, this is a total side note. Did you guys look up by any chance what the actor who played Rat did later? No. I did, but I didn't recognize

anything. Well, he wrote a couple of for dummies books oh so not what? sorry not the actor who plays Rat but the real life person that Rat's character was based on yeah is like a tech

genius and like wrote a bunch of computers for dummies I knew I remembered something about that that is I forget his name not the actor a bunch of like computers for dummies yes thank you i know i remembered something about that yeah i forget his name hang on not the actor the actor who knows what he did he won a tony good for him for him he was also how to win a tony for dummies he's 25 in that movie that's what he looked like when he was 25 years old yeah 12 when he was 25 years good for him i remember when i got older and i realized that like all the people in teen things are 36 years old oh okay why don't i

look like that i'm still kind of jarred sometimes when it's like i have like a 14 year old cousin and i'm like oh yeah that's what a 14 year old looks like. On Riverdale, they're supposed to be sophomores. It's absurd. They're like 28 years old. It's like, obviously this is what we have to do. We can't actually have teens in these situations. No one wants to see that.

They only do that on Degrassi. Rat, he was based on Andy Rathbone, who I don't know who that is, but apparently he's rich and famous and is a computer genius so um yeah it's just like such a wonderful end for like a high school nerd yeah he went on to be a tech genius wow um I have just a quick list of so you know this movie comes out it's like a you know a 1980s teen sex comedy basically so you know if you are

comparing it to things it's contemporaries things like also like it is it has funny parts but it's more of a drama kind of not really a comedy right it has funny characters right and some good lines but it's like i would say more like a dramatic slice of life. It's tonally pretty light, but also, I mean, yeah, there's some heavy stuff in it, like an abortion, things like that. But its contemporaries are things like, you know, again, Porky's or Render the Nerds, which are super, super problematic. Yeah, I've never seen either of those. It's way better than Wretched. So it's less problematic than those, but there are still some like 1980s problematic things that happen. I just have a quick list of them.

Like there's an opening shot of like the kids in high school and one of the kids puts like a little sign on the back of another student that says like, I am a homo. You know, that doesn't get commented on or anything like that. There's another moment where spicoli is having his like dream sequence about being a surf champ and he uses a homophobic slur there's there's also some just kind of like other male gaze shots where uh there's that upcoming football game at the rival school and we like some of the girls are wearing shirts that say like kill lincoln on it

uh to promote school spirit but like these are like that's very like headless women of hollywood like male gay shots of like their chest and their butts yeah um and then i forgot about kill lincoln assassinate lincoln i mean that's that's like a good joke i would say that's one of the best. Big high school rivalry energy. Also, I do think it's always funny in 80s movies where I feel like that was before the cheerleader as a popular thing got popular. And so every time in 80s movies when there's like cheerleaders, they're fucking nerds. Oh, really? Because the school spirit like was not cool to have.

It was cool to not care. So the cheerleaders weren't like the popular girl trove which they have there and those girls are just like the spirit squad they care too much it takes a lot of vulnerability to get up here and do something that you know you're gonna be made fun of so funny here's another thing that was like what is what is this like an 80s thing or what but mr hand passes out like his syllabus to the class and then everyone lifts up their paper and sniffs it. I don't know what that was. What was that?

I don't know. I don't know what that was. I literally thought his name was Mr. Ham, so I can't speak to it. It smells like ham. Yeah, I have no idea about that one. Talking about the school spirit thing, though, I wanted to talk about Charles Jefferson. That is the Forrest Whitaker character. Yes. He and his brother are the only two characters who are people of color who have really any significant screen time at all.

And even then, it's quite low. Yeah, he's barely in in it and really all we know about Charles is that an alumni gave him a nice car for playing football and he's very protective of this car we know that he wants to take his brother to the earth wind and fire concert but aside from that we don't know anything about his personal life he's not given any sort of characterization really everything that we know about him comes from someone else's perspective and then in most scenes you see him in he's framed as being this like very aggro intimidating person uh so just to characterize like the only characters of color in this way was a very just like regressive 80s approach.

And again, it seems like this is like someone that Cameron Crowe like observed and then just proceeded to not write anything for the character, which is like, it was kind of like not really much of an excuse to not do that when he is not writing it from life anymore he's like basing it on experiences and then adding fiction so it's like yeah then like let us know more than one thing about that character and don't like ground it in these like broad stereotypes yeah for sure Cameron I mean but I mean we all know and then he makes aloha so So he's not really good with it. Yeah. But it was a delight to see a young Forrest Whitaker. Forrest Whitaker is one of those actors I'm like, he was born at 45.

Yeah. Like, it's so wild to see him. I do think one of the best scenes in the movie is when Sean Penn and the brother are driving. Yeah. His car. That is a fun scene. I do think that's one of the most comedy scenes in the movie. Yeah. Because, I mean, it's good.

The way he keeps narrowly avoiding getting in a crash. And then it's just like. I mean, Sean Penn is making some choices. He sure is. He's so blonde. I just kept noticing how blonde you are and i don't know if we've have we ever covered a movie that sean penn is in before honestly we might not have uh well for for i would feel weird not mentioning that he has a horrible track record for everything

he's hit a lot of ladies yes he is uh not a good person yes bad man and like during this time specifically too is like i think around the time that he's dating madonna and there's just how old was he in this he was in his early 20s which is weird is that when he was dating madonna uh he was dating her in the 80s oh okay so this might have been slightly before but it was like there's a lot of stuff but there were times where certain people wouldn't report him physically abusing them because he was already almost in jail for hitting other people and just like there was this whole like culture we have to protect Sean Penn when it's like no we don't he's also strange watching him play a

character that's like very chill yeah it's like very full because he's decidedly not chill also I read that he he's famously going method for role, and he refuses to go out of character at any point on set. He makes people call him Spicoli. He only... I mean, not worth it, but as far as method characters go. I mean, probably better. This is the one I would prefer to be around. Yeah, maybe he should have just stayed there.

Whereas people just go method for fucking sociopaths, and it's like, no, you can't do this. Then you're just being a sociopath. Right. This one, it's like. Yeah. It's like at least he's being like chilled out. When we said it before, we said it again.

Women rarely go method because they would be fired. Right. I know I'm like most. I feel like when I think Sean Penn, I think like fucking Mystic River. Like where's my daughter? That's a gender. This is not a classic like, yeah, of course, Sean Penn. It's an outlier.

It feels strange that that's his character. Anyways, he's a bad man. Yes. Yes, indeed. Does anyone have any other thoughts? Aside from him being a bad man, I do kind of like how it wraps up with him and mr hand at the end what a goofy scene yeah because they've been like adversaries the whole time yeah and that's so weird but it's like he like comes to his house he comes to his house

prom night yeah yeah and doesn't let him leave for prom because he wants to tutor him then he tutors him and then she's like okay yeah just like, okay, yeah, the war happened. Okay, I'm going to the dance. It's so weird. It's so weird. But I feel like everyone gets kind of a nice little wrap up. Sure. It was nice.

Yeah. I like that. I mean, like, we know that Linda goes to college. There's kind of like a slight joke at her expense made about like she and then she started like hooking up with her professor um which again that like sort of like contradicted what i had in my head of like she was not telling the truth about having sex and i'm like oh maybe she did i kind of don't think she's a version i think she has had sex it has consistently been with like you know this thing where it's like guys who just don't really care about her

are older and are using yeah like this guy probably said something offhand and she's like he's my fiance in Chicago and he has no intention you know and so I feel like the professor would follow in that yeah like I don't think anything she was doing was like a full fabrication

it was just like based in something much smaller you know blowing it all out of proportion kind of thing she was doing was like a full fabrication it was just like based in something much smaller yeah you know sure blowing it all out of proportion kind of thing yeah sure which is like all any character in this movie does yeah which is all teenagers too i guess yeah experience yeah i do like that um the judge reinhold character brad is like gearing up to break up with his girlfriend and he's like it's because i want my freedom and did it and then she breaks up with him first and uses the exact same reason for she's like i'm a you know right and i like that it's like as soon as he gets fired he doesn't want to break up with her anymore

because now he's like low and he's like i'm so glad i have you and she's like yeah i actually have something i don't know what ended up happening with her i know yeah why don't we find out what happened to lisa and she like literally yeah she just like tells him she doesn't want to have sex with him when he's declaring himself king of the world for having a burger flipping job like it's all very satisfying yeah what happened to lisa cameron justice for lisa cameron I think that's all I really had. Yeah. I don't know. I was like pleasantly surprised by it.

It's better than most 80s teen comedies we've covered on this show, which is saying something. True. I mean, Back to the Future I still stand for, and yet we give it zero nipples on the bonus episode we did of it.

Yeah, I think it's just a very like of the time, but also in some respects pretty progressive for the time, especially like the way it handles abortion. I mean, the fact that itjudgmental way, like even still, we can count on one hand the number of like mainstream movies that even mention abortion, let alone like have it and treat it in a way. This movie does better than Obvious Child, which I do think is true because she ends up dating the guy that she got an abortion from. Oh, sure. Anyways. Yeah. So I think that, yeah, the fact that we even get that at all is very progressive for its time. But then there's just the whole like there being a statutory rape and it not being framed that way by the movie and like the teen nudity that I don't think is necessary at all. bit all over the place but um i was pleasantly surprised uh that it's you know not as bad as some of its contemporaries in terms of like toxic 80s mentality yeah so it doesn't pass the test we don't think there's like think i think maybe some two line exchanges it almost like there's one where they're in the cafeteria and they're like

there's four girls who are dressed exactly like pat benatar this year oh but which almost is but then it turns into her being like do you think the guys think they're hot right away yeah but that is almost it's close did you see that girl she looks just like pat benatar and she's like yeah there's four i tried to pay attention to like um if the guys had any because i was like i feel like i noticed this too they don't have very many conversations that aren't about girls yeah but they do there are a couple like i feel like because i was like okay the reason why this movie i think doesn't pass the bechdel test is because it is about sex it's about like about heterosexual yeah like so it's just that's what it ends up being

so i was like i wonder if if the boys talk about anything else and they like kind of do i think if we flipped it and the brother of uh force whittaker's character like talk about the car yeah history you know boy stuff yeah well even, even like the title cards at the end that like, here's what everyone's up to. The girls' information that we're given is mostly about their relationships with boys versus the boys that we get information about. The boys or the men. It's like all about their jobs. Which is that same thing from the Royal Tenenbaums.

Yeah, I thought that too. Where they only introduce the woman in relation to men. Linda is the only one going to college, though. That's true. She's the only one who made it to college. She gets a sentence. She gets a sentence. But yeah, it does not pass the Bicol test.

We're pretty sure. It might pass a little bit. But yeah, I don't think so. I mean, just because just because yeah it's like almost and then those exchanges kind of turn yeah the context of almost every conversation is about like boys oh one of my or there's even you know like one line like stacy being like i cannot do another summer oh yeah stacy says like stuff like she said something like um oh i can't keep working here or else i'm gonna get so fat that no one will want to take me out and it's like oh i was

even thinking near the end which is just like i can't spend another summer at perry's yeah but i think there's maybe a few small like two line exchanges by our very low bar would pass but the context of almost every scene conversation storyline is like hetero romance and sex. Yeah. Checking in with what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. So there you have it.

Let's rate the movie on our nipple scale. Zero to five nipples based on its representation of women. This one. Oh, God. It's a really such a mixed bag for me because like on one hand like i really like how the abortion thing is handled but i would give this like a two i think yeah because it's still you know harboring a lot of like 1980s stuff i, that's the thing. It's like when you talk about a movie that's about like romance and sex, yes, a lot of it's going to be about like what the female characters,

what we know about them is what boys they like, how much they like them. It's, you know, it's very geared toward like their interest in boys, just by the nature of that kind of storytelling. But I don't know. They still could have been characterized a bit more. We could still know what their favorite subjects in school are, maybe what they want to do when they graduate. What are their fantasies? We don't get to see any.

We only get to see boys' fantasies. Yes. And then just the encouragement of like, yes, you're 15 years old, but you should have sex with this 26 year old guy hate it um so yeah i'll stick with a two uh i'll give one nipple to stacy and one to stacy's mom she's got it going on we do see she taught reference caitlin she tucks her into bed right before her oh i forgot you do see you hear a parent you see their hands you see your face you see your face wow yeah she's like good night mom and then she sneaks out the window

i guess i'm gonna go i'm gonna probably be too hard but like for listener context because I just gave Little Women a three and a half I feel like I cannot give this a two oh yeah I'm gonna give it a I think I'm gonna give it a one and a half it does a lot of things that I wasn't expecting it to do at all do really well like I can't think of a I think a more like straightforward effective non-judgmental abortion plot line in another teen movie off the top of my head at all like i thought that was like great um and then yeah just i mean kind of echoing what you said of stuff that and just like basic writing stuff of just like there were very easy non like stuff that wouldn't even change the story, ways of just fleshing out the female characters a little bit more that either Cameron Crowe was not able to do or whatever.

I mean, it doesn't seem like he has a very coherent understanding of women based on his work. So in this instance, he simply did not try. Same thing with people of color. Just no attempt to characterize them at all. Or include them hardly at all. Which is like the Sofia Coppola school of writing non-white characters, which is just, I don't know, so I won't.

So I won't. You're just like, that can't be it. But yeah, I don't know. I think Amy Heckerling, this being like her directorial debut is like awesome. And I like all the performance, like all the all the performances are great. I like that you sort of see humiliating side to male sexuality in like teens. I like I like the way that rats like masculinity is written and shown. And I just, it's nice to see like teenagers that sort of sound like teenagers and are making the mistakes that teenagers would make in a lot of cases. The more I think about it,

the more that like American pie rips off so much from this movie, the Jason Biggs character is basically rat. Oh, but horrible. But yeah, that movie I think is far worse and far more toxic. Yeah.

Anyway. Yeah, I'll do one and a half. I like genuinely enjoyed most of this movie. Yeah. Yeah. And then I'm going to give

I'm going to give my nippies to Phoebe Cates because she is one of my favorite musicians mom. Oh. Frankie Cosmos. Oh. Is the child of kevin klein and

phoebe kates i didn't know that she and kevin klein they've been married for 30 years baby 30 years strong you learned something success story great how about y'all um okay i mean i guess going to go a little high. I want to give it three. I'm taking context into account a little bit. Sure. Thinking like between this movie, because it's 81, and like Booksmart, 40 years. That is 40 years different. Yeah, absolutely. And this one, it has like the protagonist in this teen sex comedy is a girl who is like figuring out sex and stuff.

And I feel like it treats her as like valid and like as opposed to just, I feel like it kind of does like subvert a lot of those 80s tropes, whereas the protagonist in another movie would have been rat or would have been Brad or like something like that and I kind of think like at the time like if you were a teenager in 81 this movie would have been monumental like seeing this movie compared to most of those movies at the time if you were like a teenage girl in 1981 I think that would have been huge any like dignified representation probably would have been huge and like dignified representation probably would have been huge and I think like a lot of the I don't know a lot of the negative stuff in it

it doesn't deal with it enough but it's not untrue like just because it sucks and it is a it like is an unpleasant fact of like life doesn't mean it doesn't actually happen it happens all the time so i kind of like that it like presents that and in a way that isn't like earth shattering sure you know and then i'll give one to um rat because he's a nice boy um i'll give one to the cardigans in this movie um they're really good cardigans and um one to phoebe kate's hair um because it's doing great work oh really yeah how many aerosol cans went into um okay you know it's interesting when we talk about like okay representation of women versus teen girls you know what i mean sure and so it's like obviously teen girls are complex human beings but they're it's different you know what i mean so it's like a lot of the moments where i feel like we're maybe missing some greater like emotional arc or something

i think it's maybe not a great excuse just being like, oh, well, they're just teens. So they didn't really think about it. I think we've seen a lot of things about teens where we get much deeper than that. But I think two seems fair. I also enjoyed watching this movie. I think it has a lot of very fun characters. And that's always my favorite thing in like 80s like teen like any kind of like high school movie is really good characters like i mean obviously we have our issues with spicoli but he's a very fun character yeah the issue not with spicoli spicoli is fine spicoli as an entity is

fine but unfortunately, his casting. Okay, I will give a nipple to, I feel like nobody has given one to Brad. Give Brad a nipple. What a nice guy. He's good overall. He's sweet to his younger sister. I feel like a lot of the time you see siblings in high school together

and the older one is like, don't talk to me. He's a hard worker yeah it's like he said at the beginning he's successful i'm a successful guy i also like that well i guess he was going to break up with his girlfriend and give her her freedom to explore but then i guess he actually wasn't going to so never mind on that um and then i would give the other one to uh Linda because I just like that character I like Linda a lot I think she's just such a another fantastic like that is such a true like high school girl the girl who feels like she has

to act more mature than she is. Yeah. And then spray paints the guy's car. So good. Yeah. I really like how immediately she was just like, he's not a human. He's a little prick.

Yeah. Oh God. When he just covers it with cardboard. It's like, what are people going to think? Oh, fun. Well, thank you.

Yeah, thank you for coming on for being here where can people follow you individually and then as a podcast tell us everything okay um i am at m-l-e like the letters um faye f-a-y-e on twitter and instagram I am at Paige Weldon on Instagram and Twitter. Yay. And you can follow our podcast, too. It's called Mall Talk. It's on the Forever Dog Network. It's about the mall, if you can imagine.

Yeah. Talk about the mall. We talk about it every week. Every single damn week. So, you know, if that seems fun. At Mall Talk Pod. Yeah. Mall Talk on iTunes and everywhere.

Yay. You know what to do. You found this podcast, so. You know how to find a podcast. Yeah, yeah. You're cool. We're all adults here. But if you don't, you can find us at.

Oh, perfect transition. Wow. Thank you so much. On Twitter, Instagram. I hardly ever use Facebook, so don't message us there. Yeah, we will not get back to you. But we're at Bechtelcast. You can join our Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon.

It's $5 a month, two bonus episodes, plus our entire back catalog. Over 50 episodes? So many, yeah. And it's at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. You can get our merch at tpublic.com slash The Bechtelcast. And yeah, thank you for listening. Is there like a line from this movie that people quote? Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist

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