The Bechdel Cast - First Wives Club with Caitlin Gill

Episode Date: July 25, 2019

Caitlin Durante, Jamie Loftus, and special guest Caitlin Gill get together and form a club that revolves around discussing The First Wives Club.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @ROBOTCAITLIN 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. 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.

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On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked, if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name's Jamie Loftus. And we are here to talk about the representation of women in movies.

That's what our podcast is about. This is the Bechdel cast. Hey, Caitlin. What, Jamie? In case you haven't gleaned it in the past three years, could I just give you a reference point for what the Bechdel test is? Please, I need it. I just, every once in a while, just a jolt of adrenaline to the system. The Bechdel test is-

Never heard of it. Well, then, start leaving your one star reviews now. Just kidding, please don't. Only MRAs do that and they're very good at it. The Bechdel Test is a media metric invented by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes also called the Bechdel-Wallace Test,

in which there has to be a scene in a piece of media where two female identifying characters with names talk to each other about something other than a man of media where two female identifying characters with names talk to each other for about something other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue. Wow. I can't believe I've never heard of this test before. I was holding a burp literally that whole sentence. And I feel like if you rewind 15 seconds, you'll hear it. You've been burping a lot recently. I've gone full durst. I really have. I don't know what's going on. I'm

just burping and telling lies. I can't stop. Well, I think that burp conversation passed the Bechdel test. So we're off to a good start. Thank you. I mean, I did mention Robert Durst. Oh, fuck. I mean, I think of Robert Durst as kind of a genderless he's more of an idea than a man I think um so it does pass it does if we are saying that Robert Durst is an ideology well he's sort of like a cloud of of gas I see him much like a burp there you go there you go and that's why he's so susceptible to them I'm glad we unpacked that um so yeah this is the the Bechdel cast. We are covering a much requested movie today. We've been getting this request since we started the damn cast. Took us about three years, but we got there. We got there. Today we're covering The First Wives Club. And here to join us in our conversation,

a hilarious comedian whose album called Major comes out on august 2nd and you also may remember her from our butch cassidy and the sundance kid episode and our episode on the notebook yes it's caitlin gill that's me welcome back it's the other caitlin it's nice to be here if you heard a strange sound in your audio unless that's neatly clipped it was my dog licking my nose a minute ago. Major Margaret Hotliff-Soulahan, the titular dog from my album. Yes. And what a cutie. She is a cutie. She really is.

She's really thriving today. I saw her do some tricks in the elevator. Well, not to brag, but she's very good. You make her do tricks a lot. She's easy to distract with a treat. And that really begs compliance. It works. It just works.

Tiny piece of meat and she'll do whatever I need, which is good because I forgot her leash. What a terrible dog owner. That's like a key thing you need to take your dog out of the house is a way to restrain them. I have confidence about it, though, that I'm like, I guess this is just the dynamic. I do leave her off the leash as much as I can because she's honestly better. Well, she's a strong, independent woman.

She is a strong, independent woman. She knows what she wants. And what she wants is to know where I am. And if she's attached to a leash, independent woman. She is a strong, independent woman. She knows what she wants. And what she wants is to know where I am. And if she's attached to a leash, she knows. So the off-leashness, it makes her pull the attention. Is this podcast about my dog? Because unless you stop me now, it is about to be. I apologize.

My dog is a woman hater. Yes. The one time he was allowed in this podcast studio, he chewed through one of the audio cables and deplatformed the left once again. Oh my goodness. That is hilarious. He's all about it. I really need to meet this guy.

I only know him through Instagram, and I am... He's dangerous. He's a red pill. I'll get bit. I'm in. Let's go. Didn't he also shit and piss on the floor

the last time he was here? He did shit and piss and chew through an audio cable. But he was here the day Alfred Molina was here, and he behaved until literally the second Alfred Molina left, and then he shit and pissed again. Honestly, wasn't everybody shitting and pissing, though? As soon as Alfred Molina left, it just everybody's body evacuated. He was just doing what we were all thinking that's true so the first wives club

what is your history with that your relationship with the movie i saw it in the theaters with my mom who is herself a first wife oh so it goes way back okay it goes way back. Okay. It goes way back. It's fun to revisit with fresh eyes. Certainly. Jamie, what about you? I'd never seen this movie. I feel like this movie kind of made, like, has become more popular again in the past even year or so. I remember that Ariana Grande did a bunch of First Wives Club, like, homage with her last album. There's, like, moments in her video where she and her two, I think, producers, or they're singing on the track, and they're all wearing the white jackets and the whole bit.

And I don't know. I was excited to see it. And, man, I really enjoyed it. What a romp. What a romp. Isn't it? I'm a fan. It really was.

And it starts off in such a dark place that you're like, where? What? And then it just becomes a romp so quickly. Yeah. One of my favorite things in movies, just period, is what actor did the most with their one day on set. Because there is no question that Stockard Channing was on that set a day. Yes. A singular day.

And with that day, oh oh what she turned in to rise to the occasion in the moment you don't have the full month to shoot you ain't hanging around with the ladies the whole time you're in you're out i bet it was months apart from when the other three ladies were doing the filming had nothing to do totally different team like director on the phone from actually new york because this was in LA. It was just an incredible I love spotting those performances. I mean turn to Scream

if you really need the entry level understanding of the value of having a star on set one day. One day performer. The Drew Barrymore twist with having her

and it's Liev Schreiber in Scream 3. I forget who does it in Scream 2 but it's so good. It's great. When you have someone brilliant on set for one day, what they turn out is Stalker's performance. It's one of the best scenes of the movie.

It really is. The gravitas, the sadness, the ache. Folks, she dies by suicide. Yes, she does. And that is a wild inciting incident and perhaps confusing to say what ensues is a romp, but it's simply the truth. It's true, yeah. All right. What's your history, Caitlin?

I hadn't seen this movie for the first time until about a year ago because it's one of those movies that I knew we had gotten a lot of requests for and I figured we would do it someday. So I was like, maybe I'll just check it out early, you know, familiar. It's on Hulu for crying out loud.

Yeah, so I watched it that one time about a year ago and was like, this certainly is a romp. And I don't know why I hadn't seen it before. I guess I was 10 when it came out, so I wasn't necessarily the target demographic. Are you the child of a first wife? No, my mom is. There's no easy. I've realized as i asked that question because i'll tell you whatever you want to know about my family and it's horrible but i do realize that

other people don't as often so as that question tumbled out of my mouth so tell me about your parental marital stuff that's not necessary they are married should they be hey open questions. Oh, baby, what's up, Lori? What's up, Lori? She listens to the podcast. Anyway. My mom, I mean, I guess she is a first wife, but also is, was, I mean, she's a first wife, but there hasn't been a second one yet, but she's no longer a wife. That's a first wife. She's a first wife. Yeah.

She's a first wife. And she's, I would say she's medium bitter about it. Yeah. Okay. Pretty healthy. It wasn't, she's not not i don't think she's in the club quite we're in sour orange territory not to full women no yeah yeah they they talk right yeah they're friends yeah uh so should i just dive into the recap and then we'll go from there let's do it all right so we open in 1969. There are four best friends who are graduating from college. I wanted to give you a soundtrack here, like a little like, but I can't get my mouth guitar to work with a 60s sound. I can't. Oh, sure. I can't. I don't have it. My all along watchtower isn't playing right now.

I was about to come in with some Austin Powers music, but that's all said and done. It's really hard to do with your mouth, as it turns out. No, keep going. Why is this hard? Oh, right, right. So the friends are Cynthia, Annie, Elise, and Brenda. And then we cut to the 90s. And that's the end of the beginning. Just like in Austin Powers, we cut to the 90s. And that's the end of the beginning.

Just like in Austin Powers, we cut to the 90s. Oh, right. This movie is basically Austin Powers. Basically, yes. So we're now in the 90s, and Cynthia is distraught. And it's implied that she dies by suicide. Right. Then we cut to Annieie that's diane

keaton's character she has been reconnecting with her husband aaron who she's separated from which makes her daughter chris disappointed because she hates her dad can relate personally see comments that i made five minutes ago. And Diane Keaton is really Diane Keaton-ing out to the point where her name is Annie again. Full Diane Keaton. Oh, Annie Hall. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I'm like, lay it on thick, why don't you? I do think she has to be named either Annie or Diane or she won't turn around.

She won't respond. I feel like her name was supposed to be susan but it just became it didn't work we couldn't get her yeah can't get her engaged she's brilliant she's so good she's brilliant i do like to think of her as an inattentive cat like creature yes just like damn she's like oh yeah i'm not entirely sure she's from the same plane she's one of those artists where i'm like you are a vessel for an energy from far beyond. But it is the most nervous energy I've ever seen. You have to just harness it.

Try to communicate with humans on the planet Earth. It's incredible. This is a great part for her, though. She screams like seven times. And each one is perfect. And I feel like it starts early. I think some screaming happens really early on. It's too early.

No such thing. Then we see Elise, Goldie Hawn's character. She is an actress who is obsessed with trying to look young so that she can keep getting cast in Hollywood movies. And then we see Brenda, Bette Midler's character. She has a son who's about to have a bar mitzvah that's she's neatly summarized as a brenda yeah she's a brenda yeah she is a brenda yep and then they all find out about their friend cynthia's suicide and the presumed motivation behind it which was that cynthia's ex-husband this like successful Wall Street dude just remarried a younger woman right so Annie Elise and Brenda all reconnect at Cynthia's

funeral so then they all get lunch together and Elise and Brenda talk about how both of their husbands left them for younger women and then Annie is all like, well, I'm still married, but we are separated. And then they keep hanging out. They're getting more and more drunk and they're lamenting about how we're in full on bougie white lady brunch mode. Yeah, we're on top shelf daytime drunk. It's very specific. There's no way it's past 2 p.m. at the height of this scene. It does look like they're closing the restaurant, but it looks like they're closing the restaurant for lunch to dinner service.

It is very bright out for that many glasses on the table. And they're just, you know, lamenting about how everyone sees them as being too old and stuff like that. Yes. Aren't they 46? They're 46. Okay, they're 46. And Diane Keaton's mom keeps insulting her for this reason. Oh, no spring chicken, Diane.

Jeez. That actress, I forget her name, but she's so good. She's a great actress. Eileen Heckert. Diane Keaton's mom is terrific from beginning to end. And she's one of those perfect old ladies whose lips are just lipstick. Like, I'm not sure there's anything underneath. It's a perfect flesh tone.

But she's painted on this majestic mouth. That's gorgeous. She's incredible. Every scene, she steals it. So Annie, she's been trying to make some personal progress in therapy. Elise is in the middle of divorce proceedings from Victor Garber and then she later finds out that she's being considered for a mother role in a movie this is around the point where I realized that Goldie Hawn's character is basically just Jenna Maroney when she freaks out about being

about auditioning to be a mother you're like this character is Jenna Mar, but toned down a little. Right, right. She used to be married to Victor Garber, a.k.a. our king, or the hero of Titanic, really. And this really made us realize, as we just discussed, that Victor Garber more often than not plays a villain, which is crazy because his best and most prominent role is being a little sweetie pie who wanted there to be enough lifeboats but was overruled. And because that happens, he sacrifices his hot body to the sea.

Doesn't that make him a villain? That he wasn't strong enough to get more lifeboats on the biggest boat in the world? He was a complicit bastard, and I'm glad he's dead. He was weak-kneed. Okay, anyway. So, you know, we we're seeing all these the women in their normal worlds and we see brenda and she uh confronts her ex-husband in a store being like i need money you suck morty and morty morty and then his new wife shelly his new wife shelly played by sarah jessica parker shows up and then his new wife Shelly his new wife Shelly

played by Sarah Jessica Parker shows up and then they they body shame each other for a while oh my gosh I mean this movie has

thinks all women under 35 are completely brain dead I think it's a fun fantasy you know like I'm I don't even

I don't hate it but it really is a rule with no exception. Unless you're a lesbian. Lesbian was sensible. A college-educated lesbian is the exception to the rule. Always. Always. In every case.

And then Annie's husband asks her to dinner, and she assumes that it's because he's decided to recommit to their marriage. But it's actually because. And over his commitment issues and over that thing about me poisoning his food. Right. That's okay. She just slipped that in there and you're like, um. That was a weird throwaway joke. It's a perfect throwaway joke.

You're like, it's got to come back, right? And it just doesn't. Well, she spends the whole time just being like, his commitment issues, you know, his fear of connection. And, you know, yeah, maybe he got over those. But, honey, the fear that you were poisoning his food? There's no bouncing back from that. He's not coming back. He's not.

That's on the other side already. This is a prequel to the Phantom Thread. I was just going to say, Phantom Thread, maybe that's... He was into being poisoned. He does his most brilliant advertising. It was actually sexy. It was sexy. She assumes we're going to get back together, but instead he announces that he wants a divorce.

And then Annie's therapist. After he has sex with her, which is the meanest thing anyone can do. And wears the robe. Yeah. From the hotel room. I'm sorry that's happened to you and talking over that is way ruder. But I did want to point out that there's one room per robe per hotel room and he's wearing it. Oh, yeah.

Rude. The meanest thing someone can do immediately before saying I've been cheating on you for three months is have sex with you. And then just be like, just wanted one last taste. And then like, anyways, I'm a like anyways i will compliment him for eating you out as implied but i'm not happy about the circumstance other than that birthday caitlin yeah he owed you at least that but i still think yeah no bad dog so she finds out that he's been cheating on her with her therapist dr leslie rosen played by Gay Harden, because she walks in. This sounds like a Wondery podcast.

The gals get together again, and they're all furious that their ex-husbands have taken them for granted and never appreciated all they did for them. So the women form the First Wives Club. That's the name of the movie. Okay. Here's where it gets wild. Did I think going into this movie they would get office space? Did I think that they would make an LLC for the First Wives Club?

And a super cliparty logo? Oh, I loved the full door, like, Nickelodeon-style logo they have. I need that T-shirt so bad. At the end, that was when I was like, like wow that's a huge office they've got and they hired in the building that goldie hahn just oh yes they're the privilege the use of privilege in this movie is wild uh but then at the end the husbands are making out checks to the first Club, which means they've incorporated in some way. It's on their taxes. Wild. Yes, very wild.

So they form this club, and they come up with a plan to sabotage their ex-husband's lives and relationships. So that's their new full-time job. I love it. I love it I love it there's also just like I feel like it's rare to find a movie quite this like empoweringly petty it's just like a full-on fantasy like yeah we all wish we had limitless money for our various revenge projects right the money comes from the revenge exactly what a beautiful built-in engine real fin dom fin-dom energy going on here.

Because I expect we're getting into it, right? But, oh, yeah, we're getting to Goldie's plan. I think Goldie's plan is my favorite plan. I just love it. I love it. I love it. So first they ask Annie's daughter, Chris, the sensible lesbian who's under 35, to get information. Presumably.

Hard to tell with a lesbian. To get information on Annie's ex-husband, Aaron. And then Elise starts repossessing and selling all the stuff that she and her ex-husband, Bill, Victor Garber, acquired together as a married couple, much to his dismay. And then Brenda gets a tip that her ex-husband morty started his business by selling stolen goods so they've all got these separate plans to seek revenge or as they keep calling it justice on their ex-husbands and they need the stolen they need the the books to prove that uh you know morty is a crook so uh they need a way to get into his new condo or house or

whatever so they orchestrate this like interior decorating con to get this high society lady ganilla goldberg played by maggie smith perfectly yes yes to the ultimate a fourth generation scammer she's great she's trying to convince sarah jessica parker's character to hire this guy duarto felice he was an interior decorator that brenda works for they like do this whole heist thing and they sneak in to get the documents hijinks ensue there's like a scaffolding oh my god window cleaning at two of my favorite bits of physical comedy just period ever first uh and definitely the more minor of the two is uh so the office that they're trying to get the papers from is upstairs yes which means that they've got to ascend a staircase and safety first they all reach for the banister but because it's an art deco home the banister is

not sturdily affixed to the staircase itself it's hanging from wire from the ceiling so it just goes everywhere and you watch like collectively 120 years almost just tumble off the stairs it is the best yeah it's all three of them are so like perfectly cast and they're both they're all like really good with physical comedy they're all screamers i just love it we are also in this bit of physical comedy that comes right after the staircase is preceded by the best diane keaton scream in the movie where she peeks over the edge of the building and then responds with her entire body like her whole body makes noise her like glasses flip off and then like come back down and then godi han's like i can do this i do all my own stunts she's already over she's already in no problem oh loved it so good and they they have to get down in the window washer thing and every second of that i so funny just cackles

it's so it's so good yeah it's everything you need to happens they fall right into the window of the people that they're trying to run from morty and shelly and bronson banchot however you say his name is just leading them around the apartment whipping them around so they don't see them and then in a floor below of, a couple is trying to make sweet love, only to be interrupted. As always. But they're both huge fans, Mike, of Elise. The callback to Elise, you look great,

is that, I mean, they established it because Elise has fans, and Elise gets told she looks great. I mean, when Chris gets pulled in, it's in a lesbian bar. I'd love to put a button in that oh we'll talk about that absolutely but yeah

man them stopping in front of the sex having couple was just terrific you look great what I can't hear I can't hear you look great

and then she goes oh thank you the two of them to get the husband and the wife you look great so good oh my god it's so fun

but they have the documents they need now so fun. But they have the documents they need now. So they have, yeah, they had the document. Seeing Diane Keaton on that old ass computer trying to hack. Where are the tax information? I was like, Diane Keaton, you don't know how to use a computer. It also didn't look like a burn in. It looked like something they built in paint and then just told her to click around in the paint menu. Like real careful.

It was great. Meanwhile, Chris, Annie's daughter, is like, hey, mom, you should get back in the advertising business. So to raise money to start a business, Elise sells Annie all the assets that she repossessed from Victor Garber and her marriage. And then Annie sells them at an auction, which Sarah Jessica Parker's character is at buying everything. Right, well, buying the wrong things because Professor McGonagall is like,

buy all the wrong things and spend all your, like she's being a scammer behind the scenes. She's got a perfect stranger and Professor McGonagall telling her what to do on either side. I just wrote down Lacey's name during that because I was like, she's a true scam goddess. Oh, yeah. She really is. Yes.

It's really connecting the dots galaxy brain style. So the wheels are in motion, but Annie is trying to like, you know, dig into Elise's ex-husband's Victor Garber's kind of deal and pass, but can't find anything bad on him, which upsets Elise, and she's drunk, and she's saying some nasty things, and Brenda fights back, and things start to fall apart in the first wives club. But then they realize, hey, we shouldn't be fighting each other. We should be fighting the patriarchy. So they refocus their anger back toward their ex-husbands. And then Brenda extorts Morty, basically puts herself in control of his electronics business,

saying, I'm going to take everything or I will rat you out for your criminal activity. And then Annie takes the money that she earned from the auction and buys her ex-husband's advertising agency out from under him. And then Elise goes to Victor Garber, her ex-husband, and says, hey, that new girlfriend of yours, that actress lady. Oh, this is a bad one. She is 16. He's like, ah.

Yeah. So there had to have been a better beat there. But my favorite payoff of the three is Bette Midler full on kidnapping her husband. And she says, this is a kidnapping. He comes to. He's in a meat locker. And he's confronted with his tax crimes. And you're like, this is what i wanted and

this is the revenge i was seeking i do also love whenever kawori han is like yeah like your lawyer suggested we liquefied the assets here's your half and it's 50 cents she sold all that stuff to diane keaton's character for a dollar oh oh it it's so good. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's just so good. It's perfect. So they all have their ex-husbands meet them at their official office of the First Wives Club. And they're like, OK, we have you here. And now you have to pay. And they make their ex-husbands fund a crisis center for women that they name after their friend Cynthia and then they

throw a big party and the voiceover narration that Diane Keaton is giving she's talking about how Brenda and Morty they're probably going to get back together how Elise is in a new hit stage play she's dating an actor in the play and that Aaron Erin, her ex-husband, was like, I'm ready to get back together. And then she tells him to drop dead. And then they, after the party, they're all wearing white business suits. And then they start to sing and dance. And then the dancing continues onto the street. It is inspiring. I honestly do cherish that scene. I never had context for like what that comes at the end of and you're just like, oh, it just fits perfect. We've got to take a quick break and then we'll come right back. 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. guest, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East.

That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh my God, I would love

it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hahn can sing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt

Bjork's music and I just was like, who is this person? I gotta hawk this slalom, Ludi. I'm not going to hawk this slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous.

Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Santer. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote.

What is it, like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career. Without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. that for all this movie's strengths, it is about upper class straight white ladies. Oh my gosh, this is like white feminism, the movie. It is white as snow! It's insane. To the point where I was curious about the historical context of this movie,

and I didn't do a deep dive on it, but this movie comes out in 1996, which is a big moment for Hillary Clinton. And I feel like you can kind of feel it in this movie. This is pre-Monica Lewinsky. big moment for Hillary Clinton and I feel like you can kind of feel it in this movie um this is pre Monica Lewinsky that'll it's the fan in 98 but I I feel like the uh there there are some uh Hillary Clinton vibes I felt throughout this movie uh and not even in like a negative way but like you do feel the that like white feminist vibe through this movie and also almost as like a negative way, but like you do feel that like white feminist vibe through this movie.

And also almost as like a predictor of where things go from there, a deep hatred of younger women. Oh yes. That permeates the movie. But just, I mean, right off the bat, we recognize this is a movie that comes from the most privileged place a woman can come from.

Indeed. Yes. If I had just seen this now, I couldn't connect because I can't, I don't care about rich people or any of their problems. Right. I'm so sorry if you're rich and you're listening. And there's a lot of media with great performances and brilliant characters, and the stakes to me are just all so false because they're rich.

And I think because I saw this early on, it helped. So I had a connection to it I think actually in a few ways this movie gave me an unrealistic picture of the world because I just sort of accepted that like yeah you know you'll have one rich friend one of your friends will marry a banker it's not weird to know someone famous and like you know you'll be fine right yeah Brenda's character is the one that you you know, my family is the most like. An apartment, God, when Goldie Hawn steps into Brenda's apartment for the first time, it's so fucking good.

I've never been to your apartment. It's so real. Oh, I love the way, the condescending way that rich people describe normal people. But the way they, like, that's exactly it, that Brenda's there to wear bad skirts. And like, you know, the end is that her ex is still rich. So she'll be fine.

Yeah. And I think, you know, this was a simpler, more complicated time where this was like a bold picture of four women. And I'm really glad that it looks dated in the ways that it does. Right. Because that just means that there's been progress. Right. So there is like, I'm glad glad that it looks dated in the ways that it does. Right, because that just means that there's been progress. Right. So there is, like, I'm glad this movie exists.

I think it's definitely a step in the right direction that, you know, misfires in some ways. Sure. In plenty, which we'll talk about. But, like, it is, this was, like, a huge surprise of a hit of a movie, which think also just speaks to like how few movies are made for women specifically like older women there's a huge market for this shit we've this had a 30 million dollar budget and made back 181 million dollars it was a huge huge huge hit and it's wild that there's not first wife club to second wives club uh for something to grow so much and not get pulled back although i

think i just spoke a remake into existence my apologies universe let's all write it let's get right on that i uh i would push gently back against the idea that this movie deeply hates younger women because all of these stars were younger stars like these aren't women who became famous at 46 this is them reflecting back you know some of them were famous as teens some of them would have been that 16 year old who might have fucked a director like not implied you know what you know what i'm saying yeah i think it's looking backwards i think it's a commentary on how we being the hollywood or the media or people feel about older women, that it's a reflection back.

Because there's no way to me that Goldie Hawn, reflecting on being an aging actress, I don't think she hates her younger, I don't think Bette hates her younger self. I do think there is a weird empty target for just those, like, the idea of young women who sleep with older married guys. It's just sort of this amorphous blob in the movie.

And they only take shape twice. And they are both total idiot ditzes. Right. That's what I'm more criticizing. I don't think it has anything to do with the actresses or anything like that. But the way that the younger characters are written are to be vapid, absolutely stupid, and will fall for anything. I don't know. Is Shelly stupid stupid or is she the

smartest one in the world she's definitely not the smartest one in the movie she's i think she's probably smarter than the most of the guys in the movie she's smarter than victor garber is she smarter than most of the ladies i think she's got a number i think she's reading the world and i mean she's taking a cynical perspective from it her character is obviously an airhead she says duh and snaps her gum but I think an act's an act and she like the scene where she and Morty have a fight and she just flips her hair turns around and gets her dress right is like wow your tool belt is full and you know how to use every tool in it i mean compliments sure i mean yeah shelly is a total idiot uh wait no shelly's the sarah jessica parker who's the elizabeth but what's her face

who is canonically 16 so i guess we can't even really like i mean is she though or was that a lie i think that was real she has like her birth certificate but they were trying to make something up on him right oh i don't know i feel like upon rewatch i grew confused about sure okay yeah yeah to me it's more of a the main women we're focusing on just resent that their former husbands have all left them for younger women yes because you know these are shitty men who value youth over anything else in a woman so i just i understand it's the the writing misfires and it's like kind of needlessly piling on other women to make the character younger characters over the top materialistic and stupid i mean in the 90s sluts were still sluts right i mean which

this movie makes very clear there's a lot of there would not have been an opportunity in that time to like make those fully fledged characters because they're man stealers and that's well yeah and that's like such a stock character or it's like i was thinking back to like the new and also the new wife is a stock character like the younger woman woman that, like, I mean, I'm thinking of Meredith. Yeah, Meredith from The Parent Trap is like peak villainous new wife that is like trying to, and it's like, I understand where that-

The hills are alive with the sound of stepmoms. They demand that you call them by their whole first name but yeah i mean there's a lot of things about this movie that is like because this is a feminist text but it is like a very it's a very 90s feminism a very white feminism text because you know there's still a whole lot of body shaming across the whole spectrum of like body shape and size mental health and suicide are not really addressed responsibly i would say yeah there's There is quite a bit of slut shaming. The only women in this movie who are people of color,

well, there's hardly any to begin with. And if there are, they are in either service roles or extras in the background who don't get any lines or significance. I mean, pretty much the gamut of 90s go-to thoughtless mistakes are definitely made. One moment if we can I mean you just named basically all of our talking points.

I'm going to choose one. The ways that bodies are treated in this movie. I think there's some good moments and there's some shitty moments. A good moment I thought was towards the end when they have this blowout, like 10-minute long argument. It's like Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn are especially great in this scene.

And Goldie Hawn keeps on poking at Bette Midler about not looking the way that she wants her to look. And having a body that isn't a size two like hollywood body and bet middler snaps at her and gets really angry and throws a golden globe which and you don't usually get to see like the person who is being talked down to yeah by the quote-unquote hottie get a chance to respond and respond with anger and like you get that like cool catharsis and like that i thought like i didn't expect that to happen because they are like subtly and unsubtly piling on to bet middler's appearance and the way she's styled and all this throughout the movie and then but then she gets to throw a fucking golden globe about it and it's like leave

me the fuck alone and like i that i i liked that that was cool that's either right before or right after elise says to brenda what did you ever win a pie eating contest so it's like yeah no wonder brenda is furious that's when you throw a golden globe and then and then goldie hahn goes that's a golden globe and it hits a picture of goldie hahn it does and when goldie hahn goes to clean it up the picture is like a portrait of her laying and smoking and it's just goldie hahn standing there and like the same standing pose with a cigarette it's so good literally such a perfect shot one perfect shot twitter get right on that because it is too good it's it's i i like there were a lot of moments in that argument that i thought were like really

cool and cathartic and not what you normally get to see and also um in in spite of the fact that this movie is coming from a big place of privilege all these actresses are 50 and over yes when this movie comes out which is extremely, especially for a movie to be made like this and also to be this successful. And granted, I mean, they go to like some big names to make that happen, but they're all over 50 and they're presented for the most part as very sexually viable characters with agency, access to grind, et cetera. And that is cool. You don't get that a lot. It is cool. I do think also that the conversation about

bodies in this movie can't be pulled out of the context of the 90s in which it lives. Oh, the 90s. The world's thinnest time. Just the worst of the bones being super fashionable time yeah where i mean sarah just jessica parker it looks like it's just painful it's funny when jason moana had his like dad bod

picture get made fun of recently and uh it was a believe it was a female director came to his defense and was just like actually having abs for a movie is like terribly unhealthy like what it actually takes is this like deprivation diet and it's not it's not good yeah and actors will ask if they have to do abs and like they should get paid more because it's horrible and i feel like there's a conversation that didn't happen about what women had to do to be sarah jessica parker in that movie like it's why I like I think Sarah Jessica Parker's too smart to play a character that stupid without knowing the kind of stupid she was was a little bit smart like there's a she's just not allowed to be anything but a puff of air and I wonder what

her first wife club movie would be if you got to see her later yeah you know because you're trapped in whatever youth says you have to be in some ways like flashing back to the 60s and 69 graduating from college you were away and you know sarah jessica parker's character and her herself were just trying to be away in the fucking 90s right she's so small in this movie and it gets commented on because bett midler's character says something like oh look at you the bulimia has certainly paid off so she's body shaming her for her you know tininess tininess and then sarah jessica parker comes right back with some like fat shaming comments directed at bett midler's character so it's it's almost like women can't please anybody

including each other. Right. I genuinely think if this movie got rebooted, which I hope it doesn't. Please just produce an original story. But if this movie was updated for 2019, I would be very surprised if the first wives and second wives didn't end up speaking to each other and finding common ground. And then, I mean, it would be cooler if the second wives were brought in on it and they could just, you know, be six deep when they, you know, spike on the guys. Because these guys get punished every way but morally. That's the other moment where it's like so, so white privilege-y that you're like, whoa. Like one lost a credenza and some really nice sculptures. There's an argument for I'm pretty sure all three husbands to be or maybe not maybe not Diane Keaton's husband, but at least two of the husbands could be put in jail. Yeah.

But that is not even really a reference as like, well, there's no way that's going to happen. Which is the whitish. One is a literal child molester. Like one is a child molester. One is like has been like committing fraud and stealing and they're like well we're just gonna you're just gonna have to pay me off for this i mean you're not gonna go to jail you're a wealthy white business owner but to be fair i think it in like wherever you are if you don't send your paycheck to prison like the fucked up thing about the trajectory of this movie is that these women's fate is still tied all

to their ex-husbands. And so Marty going to jail doesn't help... Morty going to jail doesn't help Bette Midler. Right. So, yeah, she needs him around

to capitalize on her. To write the checks to her LLC, the First Wives Club. That blows my mind. I love it. Just because now I understand what you have to do

to have a check filled out to, out to something that isn't your name. Yes. It takes a lot of work. It does. They had to have gotten someone. Yeah. I mean, come on. They all have accountants.

They've got accountants. It's true. This movie, Home Alone, a short list of other movies made me think that you live in big houses when you grow up. Yeah. You just have money. You'll just be upper middle class. I, you just, like, have money. You'll just be, you know, upper middle class. I think that worked out for all of us. There's all of the Brad Pack movies.

Like, you just have stuff. Yeah. You know, it's normal. And look at us now. It's accurate. We all have so many assets. We all have apartments and cars, kind of. Yeah.

We still don't have a car. There, there, yeah, there is, I mean, I feel like in this just place, every, like, rom-com or any genre adjacent is just, like, at cheapest, like, upper middle class. But these women are loaded. Super posh. They're like, oh, Bette Midler's poor. But then you're like, no, she's not. They're all living in New York and she has, like, a house.

Like, it's, everyone's fine. She has money to pay for her, the band that he wanted at her son's bar Misfa. That was the only thing Morty was willing to pay for. Oh, was it? Yeah. She lays on a little guilt. Boy, that son character. Did I put a lot of myself in him?

Upon first viewing, gosh, it is hard yeah the whole scene where it's like you two won't even talk to each other like been there buddy like just like and at the end it is it is a cruelty the last scene in that movie should be edited out for children of divorce if you are like the morty and Bette Midler dancing. And their son is like watching from across the dance floor. That is so fucked up. Just like sitting next to my mom in the theater just like, ha! Ain't going to happen, kid. My mom doesn't sound like that.

She's a pastor. I mean, I'm on board. Yeah. board yeah and to continue the the body shaming talk the other uh major besides uh kind of the the body shaming that takes place towards bett midler is the body shaming that takes place towards goldie hahn where again i feel like we get a very 90s treatment of like attitude towards plastic surgery where goldie hahn's character for the most part is like fuck you i'm doing you know takes takes the, I think they even referenced Cher because Cher was like one of the only people who would admit to having plastic surgery

and was like really into it and tell people to fuck off because Cher's the best. But Goldie Hawn's character is like, she'll be dodgy about it and then she'll be like, okay, so yes, I've had work done and blah, blah, blah, it's for my job, blah, blah, blah, because, and you can't, mean it's it's like it especially for where her character's arc is she is trying to remain relevant in a business that it kills older women right uh and so it it

makes sense and uh diane keaton's character is like oh i don't know you're getting stitched up and blah blah blah and you know it's treated as very icky or like taboo or just like the way it's treated even her doctor is like if i put any more collagen in your lips you'll look like you like put your mouth on the a pool drain but she did she looked really really really i mean there are some body horror elements introduced with the plastic surgery i don't really mind it when the doctor says it because that's his job to advise on plastic surgery. But the way that the other first wives treat it, at least at first, is literally, I mean, again, product of its time. That's how my mom would have talked about plastic surgery at that time. That's exactly it. It's why I think that movie is self-aware. Like, it's having a conversation

we have about plastic surgery, but it's having it with the people who are experiencing it. We're not standing in the grocery store looking at a magazine and being like, tsk, tsk. We get that scene, but then we get the pushback, the follow-through. Goldie Hawn gets to talk to you. She's not on the magazine cover. She's

at the table. And she gets to tell you that she did this not because of your tsk cover she's at the table and she gets to tell you that she did this not because of your tits at the grocery aisle but because you won't look at the magazine cover unless she does this she says and that middler's saying you call me fat but you ask for the whole world to be this crazy skinny like both of those right are reflections of conversations we have and i see i saw it then like none of it feels punching down to me. Aside from the privileged whiteness. I felt differently about the body shaming parts

because I feel like all of these actresses are under the lens and have been for so long that it's active commentary across the board. I mean, I think the dudes do a really good job of letting the ladies have this movie. They're kind of just vessels. But every lady is sort of a comment on how Hollywood treats women. Down to the women of color who are only in service roles. I think there's a self-awareness in this film that's like, look at us.

I hope that's the reason that there are no women of color in any significant roles. I'm giving them credit for that. But I see what you're saying. But I do think the movie is aware of that. Like in 1996, they weren't going to make this movie without four white women who were married to white men. Right. And they weren't going to make it without a beautiful star in Goldie Hawn's part.

And they weren't going to make it without a huge name in Bette Midler's part. Like the same constraints that the movie talks about are applied to the movie. Like, I mean, like Goldie Hawn's line where she's like, there are only three ages for women in Hollywood. Babe, district attorney and driving Miss Daisy. That's great. Yeah. And she's right. And she's right.

And those rules still apply today. Yeah. The movie, I think, did the best it could to flip over conventions. Asking it to do all of them is a lot in 1996. But maybe we can observe, like, what it did try to comment. Not we, but, like, watching it again, I did feel like some of it is commentary and some of it is oversight. Right. I think you're right.

They could have actors of color. I think they cast it really white. I think, I mean, it's like, and we're not coming from a place of like, this is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong. It's, it's more of a, I think we're coming from a place of like, this is present. Is it commented upon or not? And I think with the body shaming, some of it is commented upon and some of it isn't.

And it's for jokes. It's cheap. There's a lot of cheap jokes. And some of them are stronger than others others but the ones that are less strong certainly don't carry the whole social commentary angle that i feel is present in some of it like right i mean i think that the bet middler stuff is great because there is a payoff and she gets to respond and the same thing like you're saying for the way that people are kind of snipping at Goldie Hawn for being plastic and having a lot of work done. And like she gets the opportunity to respond and just like explain and we understand where she's coming from. And then there's a few examples where I feel like that it skews cheap

and it doesn't happen. For sure. Yeah, agree. Let's take another quick break. And then we'll come right back for more discussion. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that 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.

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I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hanken's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song?

Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Ludi. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous.

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the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. What next? One thing that I thought was also like something that I hadn't really heard discussed in a movie before was like one of the commonalities of all four of these women including Cynthia is that their husbands became so successful because of the support or some other driving force of their wives I think that is not something that ever really gets discussed and

probably like one of the big strengths of this movie where like it's uh stated that cynthia's husband became this big successful guy because of her connections uh annie was the one taking care of their daughter and taking care of everything at home and and super providing for her husband while he was building his uh ad agency brenda was working the counter at morty's stores and doing all the on the ground stuff. And Elise was the one who was originally gave her ex like a screen partner and in all of his opportunities in Hollywood. And then he immediately became a dickhead and ditch. Yeah. She's like, I taught you everything you know about films. That's so cool. I like I love that they get the chance to like air their grievances about it

because it's like yeah that's fucking horrible and it happens all the time all the time yeah and it's and it's the movie we don't it's the way the characters we don't make movies about yeah every movie is about a dude who did an amazing thing and there's like wife character way in the back she's either supportive or annoying exactly and this is you know pulling those wives those characters out of other films and throwing them all together which i love which is great yeah like form a club they do there's such a dark sad streak in the bett midler storyline about her uncle carmine is this italian dude connections, things that fall off the back of trucks, access to meat lockers and such. And he, along with Brenda's father, organized stuff to fall off

trucks for Morty's first stores so that they could get their start. And then Carmine's so mad at Morty, you know, what a shame. He's a dog. He treats you this way. What a shame. Right. And then just tells her to look at the books and goes away. Yeah. Carmine's been there the whole time she's been broke. Right. Carmine would invest in a husband. Carmine won't invest in her.

Oh, I didn't even think of that. And they don't even get, it's not like Morty goes and Carmine's like, I got you, babe. Don't even worry about it. Your boy's taken care of. No problem. It's that they have to get Morty and it's still morty gets the money morty gives the money right and that that's crazy how fucked carmine isn't a feminist icon looking out for brenda but a fun character actor terrific so good i also love that we've talked about it a little bit but i love that that big argument scene between everyone where it's like you get you get to see so many.

I feel like we are kind of in a phase of like things are all generally moving in a good direction. I feel like we are kind of stuck in this like film moment where there's a lot of Mary Sue ish friendships and like I support you no matter what. Awesome. And here we get a lot of conflict and like they disagree with each other a lot in this huge argument where it makes sense that they would have grievances to air with each other after like 20 years of not seeing each other. And then this traumatic thing happens to everyone. And then they start a weird small business. And like, of course, they're going to have to go back to 69 and like you know yell it out and it's it's really cool to see them like calling each other out for all this different shit and and then also and then follow that by sad montage of yes maybe it was gonna happen to our weird small business and then coming back and forgiving each other

catastrophizing everything's on fire the whole world is over she's falling apart and then she calls her mom which makes for like a really great arc with her and her mom where she's like things were bad and then you called me her mom is like really touched

because previously like Diane Keaton was like, my therapist says you're controlling. And it seems like she is. She is. Yeah. She super is. And on such nice stationery.

Right. I know. That was so sweet. Her mom character is great. But yeah, I really liked that arc. And then going back to that argument scene, I love to see women's rage expressed in a movie because women aren't allowed to be angry according to society read friend of the show past guest saraya shimali's

book rage becomes her about this very topic but uh yeah i just i love i love women's rage and it gets hurt like they listen to each other they're angry and they have to take distance halt hungry angry lonely tired don't make a decision or start a fight if you're any one of those four things but they have their fight they step away and then it's diane keaton that takes convincing because her neuroses pushes her to think that everything's over but the two women who were the maddest who actually expressed their anger resolved the conflict and then brought it back around to diane keaton in this way that works. And Goldie Hawn getting sober is a little easily handled. She looks at a large bottle and she's like,

you're right. It was like a bottle of Carlo Rossi wine. Which is what you look at when you're making the decision to get sober. It's the fully empty gallon of Carlo Rossi. That's the dark moment. But that should never be empty. You should buy it and it should live in your house after you drink two glasses

of it and be like, no, I'm not doing this to myself. But yeah, she just does get sober. She vacuums with a hangover one time and is like, you know what? I'm putting it down. Yeah, they do glaze over that. But as far as realistic as a movie of

this genre is ever going to get for like showing like a group of friends being mad at each other, seeing like we never get to see like what friend breakups are like because there's still no societal rules for them other than just ghosting people. And then, yeah, like seeing it come back together and they take some time and it's nice. And you're like, oh, this is so. I liked it. It seems like all the tension that had existed between them since the first scene was aired out and resolved. It felt healthy. I loved it. It does do the thing where like that's exactly the time in a movie structure. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't know if anybody here has studied screenwriting, but if anybody has It doesn't ring a bell. But it's all too rosy and you've already seen seeds planted, weed seeds planted in the garden that are going to have to get pulled out. And it's satisfying to watch them grow because you see it right from the beginning

Oh, they're going to get in a fight right at the end of act two. And then they do and it's perfect because it just this movie's just a bunch of pretty little bows everything ties up real nice it happens it you know it's great i think that scene pays off really really well i really yeah that was like one of my favorite it's in the performances too not just the lines the tension's really there between them until they blow it all up and then their friendship afterwards is sweeter and it's funny that golden bett midler throwing the golden globe was so funny throwing a golden globe in response so good it's it's incredible i i really really enjoyed that scene another thing about um the arc with annie and her mom um with annie and her mom in the beginning

annie's like what if I find somebody else? Like, it's possible because she's like, you know, contemplating. I'm not saying good Diane Keaton. Yeah, contemplating. What if I find somebody else? Thank you. Contemplating whether or not to like try to make things work

with her husband, Aaron. And she's like, well, you know, I don't know. What if I find someone else? It's possible. And then her mom says, you're 46. You have a better chance of being slaughtered by a psychopath. bad statistic from sleepless in seattle yes yeah except they in sleepless seattle say that the statistic is incorrect right um yeah another another choice quote and this is all presented as we know that the mom is being too much and it's not presented as like what she's

saying is correct but she also says you're married you're happy you have a daughter you don't need self-esteem you're like oh katherine you need to see the therapist right you need to go see marcia gay harden oh i love who by the way there's like this really bizarre like male gaze shot when we first see Marsha Gay Harden's character where like the camera just like hovers on her like pelvis for a while yeah it's a generous thigh shot yeah and then it tilts up to her face but it's like okay so there was a male cinematographer on this movie but anyway it's how you know from the first introduction of that psychiatrist that that's who her husband is fucking yeah yeah like for sure if you're an adult watching that movie it's like oh they're fucking you just know i mean

the lesbian in me now is like oh those two should fuck but it didn't happen that way no unfortunately not i do hope again i'm giving this movie so much credit uh because there's two ways that goes it's either like get a lady with hot legs like we need her to look hot so we believe a husband would sleep with her or it's like a super intentional shot of like let's really lead that this lady is fucking the husband that's also in therapy with her right and who knows this movie's kind of a coin toss that way it is it's like you it's sometimes you're just like this could be commentary or this could be oversight like yes yes it is definitely a mixed bag in that i think it is i think it is. It's like you it's sometimes you're just like this could be commentary or this could be oversight. Like you said, it is definitely a mixed bag in that way. I think it is. I think it is mixed. It's super proud of what it's making commentary on.

Yeah. But it's hard. 20 years later, it's kind of hard to pick apart what is which. It's like intention is hard to identify sometimes. And then the final arc of like the mom Annie storyline is Annie's's mom at the party, the celebratory party at the end, just saying, you're not getting any younger or thinner. You know what I think you need? Absolutely nothing.

And then Annie's like, ah, yes, ah. I love it. So that was great. It's cute. I also, going back to the Marsha Gay Harden therapist for a second, it was one of those, like, I don't know the last time I felt this in a movie where you get to see the quote unquote, like, deceitful person. Well, not even quote unquote. For Marcia Gay Harden, you should not be fucking your client.

Yeah, that's, yeah. That's, she was. Reliable. She was bad. But you see her get hit in the face before you know that. Right. And then later you're like, oh, I guess I'm glad she got hit in the face earlier. Like, it was so weird.

I was like, oh, I don't know the last time that, like, the bad thing happened to the villain before you knew they were the villain. And then you were like, well, good. I enjoyed that. Wild. I do feel like Diane Keaton was supposed to be the last to know. Yeah. We do. Oh, for sure.

I mean, that's her personality, too. Yeah. the last to know yeah we do like you got it that's her personality too yeah is she's she's you know put up a lot of walls and intentionally deluded herself and in some regards but you know who doesn't do that in order to remain alive at times i've convinced diane keaton doesn't know she's on set and i just sort of follow her around just like in bowfinger yeah just like nicholas cage uh ladies how about that ivana trump oh my god oh you're like 1996 honey okay she's there as herself delivering the famous line don't get mad get everything which she didn't get mad she didn't get to do that no well you can't because trump's dad put it in a trust when he was three years old to earn interests as a business.

Yeah. It was just nice to be reminded that we live in hell now watching this lovely movie from 22 years ago. Crazy how Ivana Trump was a first wife, but then also could have been a different kind of first lady. Yeah. But it didn't happen that way. But now the weird, like, broken facsimile of her. Also, Gloria Steinem.

Somehow the lower model. Also, Gloria Steinem is there playing herself at that party. What can you do? You know? There's a lot of, like, little 90s cameos oh yeah this movie too it's rich should we talk about annie's daughter chris and the sort of overall representation of

queerness let's talk about chris baby what i will say i feel like in the 90s it like coming out had to be like a thing like you know you sat everybody down it was like the whole movie and like with chris she just sort of walks in and it's it's like so early it's the first time you meet her and she's coming out to her mom and she's just like bt dubs yeah i loved it eating clamps on the reg and in the middle of like also being criticizing her mom like she basically interrupts criticizing her mom for fucking her dad again to come out and then returns to what she was talking about.

I don't know if this was the actress's choice because it's in the lines a little bit for her dad, but she did it on purpose. I love it. She's just had a plan. I know I have to come out to my parents. What's the best, worst way I could do it to them? Let me wrap it in an extremely personal criticism

I love it I love I thought that scene was so like especially for its time so cool and it's I I'm curious at what you guys think I also thought because it's the way Diane Keaton's character deals with it at first she's like are you sure yeah she's like when you say lesbian right but but i do feel like that is how some parents especially older parents like someone born in 1946 that is a pretty good outcome for like bafflement but acceptance like it seemed like you know as much as it would be amazing for Diane Kitten to be like, that's amazing. I completely accept you. Yes. Like, that's ideal, obviously.

But it felt like a supportive, realistic way of showing that. Thoughts. Yes. I love the scene where they show up at the gay bar. Yeah. So there's a lesbian bar. First of all, bigger, nicer than any lesbian bar I've ever been to which are determinedly

like dives but this is a like you know dance club like ladies dancing

it's huge it's very big it's all ladies Goldie Hawn is so excited because she's never been in a gay bar guys those are lies

Bette Midler is just so matter ofof-fact about it. Could not give a shit. I love the way her character handles it. They're just all examples of ways to do it right. Be super excited. Don't give a fuck. Or if you're that cheesy and sensitive, like Diane Keaton is, just stopping a woman walking out

the door being like, you're just incredible. I just fucking loved it. Because that's more, again, like this movie is like my parent like my dad that's my dad that's tops what you're doing there i like good way to go big thumbs up congrat congratulations big thumbs up i think is what i'll stick with is that what you like to be called big thumbs up is that okay just the sweetest i also really enjoyed you're not incredible because you're a lesbian you just are a lesbian you could still be a piece of shit living proof like it's

fine that's such a parent thing to do it's so cute it is they're they're just like i just i which is they're just saying like i don't get it but i i'm fine with it into it like it's that scene was i i in the same vein of like diane keen being like i what what what like that's yeah that scene doesn't punch down at all it doesn't seem that to me is about freedom a woman just didn't say that like it you know there's uh like you kids what you're up to is still i understand that perspective i think there's this whole generation that like you don't say that kind of thing out loud it's not just that you don't come out it's like oh no isn't there an underground society where you're supposed to be this like you know what's running through her

head is like all the lesbians she knew that got married to men like right and lived and like you know marriages or whatever with their long-term friends on the side or whatever. Her picture of what lesbian freedom is isn't that lesbian bar. Not if you, you know. Right. Even in 1969, a lady gay was just like, I am a proud lesbian who will marry a man to satisfy my family. And people were like, congrats. Yes.

Proud of you. That was like, you can't fight. It's so hard. When they're all at lunch after. I'm a southern dandy and i'm gonna marry a generously proportioned woman good we've got plenty and we need you lock this down well when they're all at lunch after cynthia's funeral um you know and they're just like annie is like she's talking about her daughter she's like and you know

lesbians are great these days she's like ch like, and you know, lesbians are great these days. She's like, Chris is just perfect. I mean, lesbians are great nowadays. She like hesitates a second before saying nowadays too. It is like the perfect, like mom desperately trying to get it, not quite getting it line read. I thought it was really fun. It's a lot to ask of your parents to be excitedly proud of your sexuality of your family of your love absolutely but like just straight up raw dog fucking no your parents don't have to wave a flag for that it's totally okay if they are a little shy about like the

actual sex part about your sexuality yeah probably for the best that they aren't overtly enthusiastic. I mean, parents are that way about straight people. Sex, too. Period. If you are telling your parents something about what you do while you're having sex, they are allowed to be like, okay, hang on. Let me get over the part where you are having sex with anyone or thing, and then I'll process who you are having sex with anyone or thing and then i'll

process who you are having sex with or what look do what you want with your life and then it it chris is is like a continued presence throughout the movie she she pops up here and there she's participating in the first wives club she is an employee to like scheme on her dad who she hates again i want to just read that conversation at the very beginning between her and her mom where she's like, ugh, you were with that man again, weren't you? Mother, I'm so disappointed. And Diane Keaton's like, I know, sweetie, but he is your father.

And then she's like, yes, but he's using you and you shouldn't let him. And it's like, hell yes. Women hating their dad representation in movies can't let him and it's like hell yes yes women hating their dad representation in movies can't get enough of it it's it's super fun and it was also accurate to the way a daughter hates her dad which is still loves him just knows that he's knows him yeah and it's not like you know she's still like in his office she hasn't said she's never going to talk to him again. That's her dad. Right.

But she's also not... She's got expectations for him that he hasn't met. And I appreciate that. That's a kind of love. It's a very daughterly kind of love for their dad. Like, you dumb oaf. Do better. Do as good as I think you should do. Yeah.

And then the other thing about Chris that I liked, because I feel like people are like, queer people are outed as jokes in movies very often, especially of this era. And at the beginning, she tells Diane Keaton, don't tell dad. I'm going to tell him when I want to. And at the end, she does. And it's such a funny moment that she does it, too. Like, it's just, yeah.

Like, Chris is fun. She's just perfect the chris like i chris is fun yeah i mean she's just perfect she's like she says something don't tell daddy i want to tell him when the time is right like father's day or christmas morning my favorite joke of the whole movie i loved that and then at the end she does i forget what the quote is but she comes out to him and when he's really when he's when he's like already he's just been extorted right and she's like btw i helped extort you also i'm gay see ya like it's amazing it's yeah i enjoyed it same worth noting that this is you know a woman's story believe it or not but it was directed by a man yes screenplay by a man it was based on a novel by a woman olivia goldsmith um it was produced by scott rudin and then many

other almost entirely men i think there's maybe one woman uh producing this but it is still largely men behind the camera per use baby why why why do that when this is such a female driven story because caitlin men like money um also women like money but uh you know that's a conversation for another day sure i wonder do you get 30 million dollars to make a movie about four women all of them over 50 unless the director's a dude in 1996 that that makes are you gonna let a woman direct i mean we still barely let a woman direct wonder woman true and it is many years later right and i mean katherine bigelow was directing movies about katherine bigelow's first wives club they're violent violent shit they would someone would have been hanging upside down by his ankles

right he would have been like water ported whenever diane keaton hits her therapist it would have been with a machete oh katherine big that's tarantino's first wise club yeah it's just feet it's first West Club. It's just feet. It's just first West feet. I also think it's worth noting that, you know, while this is a, you know, a 90s feminist text, this is still a movie where the women are pretty much all consumed by the men in their lives. Like the men are motivating their choices. They're, you know, and it is to get revenge or justice against the men but it's still like they're being motivated and driven by men that's definitely true but i also don't mind it

for what this movie is like this movie is a revenge fantasy for women who have been wronged by their husbands yeah and if that's the audience like it would be great to see them just start a small business i guess but like but like this is a revenge fantasy by a wetzel's pretzels franchise and just and men but i mean like men get so many of those where they get like there's a bajillion movies about a man seeking out revenge, usually because someone killed his wife. His wife. I see you, The Revenant. Slash most movies.

But, like, I mean, First Wives Club, I agree that, I mean, it is like the 90s version of they are tied to their men. Culturally, at this time, I don't think that that is too far off from what would have been true for many women still oh yeah i mean my my mom wanted to get a divorce in 94 but like financially couldn't get a divorce and it seems like um on a in a much on a much more privileged level that's true to some extent for these women as well and i just i mean yeah i i like that it's a revenge fantasy because that's why people watch this movie. That's why people watch Kill Bill is because it is cathartic and exciting and like no one's going out and doing this in real life. It would be far too expensive. But it is.

No one has the resources for it. No one has the resources to have a building in Manhattan to turn into your revenge factory. But that's a really fun fantasy. I wonder if the novel was written in the 80s. Because it's got a go-go 80s energy. Like with all the wealth. Having a broken down building

in Manhattan. It came out in 92. And the screenwriter of this movie, I guess it's worth mentioning, while he is a man, and we have to count that against him uh he is also the writer of steel magnolias and laws of attraction oh um so he i mean we we have not covered either of those movies but he seems to be commonly tapped to write movies about i

cannot wait for your steel magnolias day oh I'm surprised it's taken us this long. Just everybody gets juice. Everybody has to drink juice. One thing I liked, another thing I liked about this movie is I liked the scene where they're in the room full of open flames, which isn't really a movie about friendship between women. If they're not sitting in a dangerous room full of candles at some point drinking wine and hashing it out i it reminds me of the scene in sisterhood of the traveling pants where they go to like the place where their moms met and like baby gymnastic pregnant lady gymnastics uh like once a year that's what that's called yes i i believe that that is what it is called. But they have a similar scene.

And in it is they talk about Cynthia, who I think her presence in the narrative is very in and out. And sometimes it gets it's this movie gets so rompy that you forget why they're kind of what motivated them to do it. Right. But then you occasionally come back to grounding it of i really i mean i thought that scene was very sweet where they were like revisiting memories and yes is is cynthia's letter kind of just like a random chekhov's gun to keep the second act moving sure absolutely no one's gonna argue it's not yeah but but i did i i liked the the and that's where the um leslie gore karaoke is introduced is in the i don't know i thought that scene was very sweet

and it was like a nice like reminder in the middle of the movie of like oh yeah this is why we're here it's nice it's so nice to see you know women bonding women having fun in a movie women throwing golden gloves at each other fighting yeah and honestly that's my dream imagine being at a place in life where you can have a golden globe to throw incredible but yeah i think it is worth at least touching on the representation of mental health and suicidality in this movie yeah for sure i don't even quite know what to say about it but it's it's definitely not well informed let's let's just i mean yeah it's not well informed i think that it is like you know employing a number of tropes um in order to fit the exact plot of this that is not responsible.

It implies that a single event in your life would drive you to this. It doesn't even really address the mental health aspect of that at all. There's also in that weird letter later where she was like maybe it wasn't my husband perhaps it was loneliness and you're like okay there i i don't even know if that's in what direction of of helpful that is yeah i think that it is like another example of like something that should ideally be a responsible mental health discussion being used as a plot point right yeah i don't and i and i also uh don't think it was done with intention to harm anyone but it just was kind of lazy writing sure and it's not the worst example that we've seen of like mental health

suicidality representation but it certainly wasn't handled the best way that it could have been no but i mean i i also did like and i guess i want to know what you guys think about this too i did like even though like the way they discuss it again a lot of the ways they discuss things is flawed but it's it's it's good Major. She's suffering. She's just whining for no reason. She's suffering because we're not talking to her. This is 100% about the fact that our attention is pointed at each other and not at the dog, and it's my fault.

It's my fault because I spoil her, and this is the result. Don't spoil your dog. Ignore them. Ignore your dogs. But they talk about at that lunch how like, how their friend died by suicide. And, yeah, like, I forget which character it is, but one says, well, why do you think she did it? And then they discuss it, which it is not a laser-focused, perfect discussion of mental health. But it is a discussion that realistically these women would have had. I wish that there was kind of a more defining,

like this is where the movie stands on this issue, the way it takes very strong stands on other things. But again, the fact that there is a discussion at all, even if it is definitely flawed, I was surprised that that discussion was even had. And then again, because this woman's death is used as a plot point, pretty, I mean, like pretty transparently, the only response to why do you think she did it was Goldie Hawn basically starting to form the first wives club where she's like, well, she probably gave him the best years of her life, sacrificed her youth, always put herself last to bolster his ego, his drive, his ambition and just as her dignity was hanging by a thread she he just lobbed it off by running out with some preschooler i'm guessing and at that point she's already talking about herself and the discussion of mental health has ended right um yeah that preschooler

being uh heather locklear so yes there's there's that incredible um yeah is there is there anything else that anyone would like to talk about i love ganella i think this movie is not perfect and wonderful it's perfectly flawed i think for what it misses its heart is pretty sweet and it's i guess if you saw it i don't know if you are divorced or were the child of divorce this movie just hit certain notes that like the other thing we haven't even brought up yet is that it's about divorce like yeah you know i used to go to movies when i was a kid my parents split when i was seven and they were about families oh yeah so that's like not my picture or if it is about divorce it's like some kind of drama. It's about horror. Mrs. Doubtfire.

Yeah. Mrs. Doubtfire is another one that's just like so emotionally wrought. It's so hard. But yeah, so many Hollywood movies are about like the nuclear family unit. And the 90s started to crack that open. And this movie did it in a way that was like fun. And the trajectory of the characters leaving, you know, is out, not back into their relationships except for Bette. And I think that her intention was set from the jump of the characters leaving you know is out not back into their relationships except for bet and i think that her intention was set from the jump of the movie too

after like watching it once you've seen it it's like wow they plant their seeds and they all just grow so neatly uh yeah oh and like yeah but it yeah it's i think it's cool it's about divorce i think it's cool it's a bunch of ladies that aren't 25 i think it's cool that they are peak their peak performances these are brilliant actors the whole cast is perfect amazing and everybody just is having so much fun and even watching it again with this lens of like how's this movie made how does it feel to watch what are these performances like i still slip into like goldie hawn's character and diane keaton's character is just diane keaton and i'm still like oh annie it's just so fun it's a fun watch it's a romp i really yeah i really loved this movie and it gets the same

thing wrong that white feminism gets wrong so yeah it's very reflective of itself it's time yeah i can't take you back in time and make you be a divorced kid who sees it in 1996, but let me tell you, it really hit. Yes. Certain moms really laughed harder than other moms. I had a few quick last things. movie ends of the three first wives it is suggested that bett midler and her husband that scene that shall not be named where they are probably gonna get back together they dance together and when that happened i was like oh no everyone's not getting back together right no no no and then thankfully mercifully no one else gets back together we find out that goldie hawn has a

younger boyfriend amazing and that that great like diane keaton voiceover where he was like my husband you know said he had changed and he wanted to come back and i told him to go to hell and it was great i yeah i i just i wish that bett midler had just taken the business but you what right fine one for three ain't bad you need a morty too because men as much as i love to admit it have feelings like and uh like if men can't process what they're experiencing then we're perpetually fucked like part of what we'd ask men to do is fully have their emotions so if Morty did go through a midlife crisis, panicked, didn't know what to do with his life, you know, who knows? You can apply whatever you want onto

his character. Was he feeling pressure? Was he feeling failure? Was he feeling inadequacy? He expressed it, he made mistakes, and then he made a choice to walk back those mistakes. Like Shelley doesn't dump him. He like leaves her in the Lamborghini that he's willing to walk away from. Men need to make those journeys too. And the other two men do not. They remain shitty characters. So I think it was cool to give whether or not Bette should have gotten back together with him. It can be an open question for whatever your own familial issues project onto that scene. You can apply your own filter. But I was really glad that one of the male characters had to come face to face with his mistakes and then the trajectory is that he's

going to be dealing with that that he left that he's going to have to rebuild his home and it's not just on bet middler like i don't know i thought that was a cool art yeah for old morty i always i mean i'm always saying that masculinity, one of the things that it stems from is men not being able to feel, process, express their emotions. And such huge pressure on them to not. And in this movie, there's pressure on Morty to not have any feelings. He's supposed to have this perfect plastic bride. Why isn't he happy with his money and this new young? He got all the toys that he was supposed to have right and he's not happy yeah i don't know that's a necessary arc if there aren't more martys or mortys if they're all just the other two guys then there's no point in ever trying you know does that also mean that that

scene at the end with sarah jessica parker in the lamborghini victor garber like oh yeah they fucking they're fucking but then like that's that was his lamborghini yes yes they sold the lamborghini at christie's and fucking made sarah jessica parker buy it that's a great detail uh the the last thing was uh what their end game is because with the first wives club i'm like okay they have one job and then where does this business go from there? And opening the women's shelter in Cynthia's name, while a very bougie white feminist, because they started a women's shelter in Manhattan, which is helpful to women exactly like them. I mean, not to knock any women's shelter that's opening,

but it's like that's a very This Movie's feminism version of opening a women's shelter with an opulent party with Ivana Trump. It's like, I don't love it. I do love the intention. And I did love that, that,

that the story at very least, um, it says, okay, now that they've completed this task, you know, they've gotten their revenge and then they move on to helping other people. Right.

That's cool. I like that that like it's you you rarely see that at the end of a revenge movie you see the revenge begotten and then you're like woohoo yeah but they but you see that they're starting a next chapter and they appreciate that one thing i don't do they ever go after cynthia's husband no they should oh yeah oh yeah i wonder if they make him give money or something i mean yeah they Cynthia's husband? No. They should. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I wonder if they make him give money or something. But yeah, they should have. I'm seeing in the,

I'm just reading, I read a piece on the adaptation. In the book, they do. Oh, great. In the book, they go after him for insider trading. Terrific. But in the movie, it's not.

I mean, but I think that Cynthia has a significantly smaller presence in the movie than she does in the book. I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. Also, at the very end, when Sarah Jessica Parker's character is being hit on by Victor Garber, she says something to him like, oh, what's going on in there? A lot of battered women dancing around, which is, I guess, a joke that probably didn't need to be in the movie but makes her look like shit makes her look very I think if you're gonna play a shitty character you have to be shitty

yeah I did I did giggle at how insensitive that was of her because it does make sense that the two shittiest people in the movie would end up together I don't know I didn't dislike that no I find myself in a weird I am open to being wrong about this, or at least subjectively wrong, that I often am fond of characters people hate because they're bad people. I'm like, yeah, they're bad. They are not a good person. This character, even if their arc moves toward redemption, they are bad and they will remain bad.

They've done nothing to tell you that they are good. They're not changing their mind. Yeah. I loved how much Three Billboards split the world of nerdy movie watchers. I fell in the camp who loved it. And I was in a theater that laughed really hard at all the things that I thought were funny in that movie. And I love Sam Rockwell's character because he's a piece of shit. And I love seeing this unrepentant, like, it's not even unrepentant because he's a piece of shit yeah and he's I love seeing this unrepentant like

it's not even unrepentant because he's willingly unaware like that's a bad person we are supposed to not like him and the fact that he doesn't get his comeuppance is on us that's like a reflection of us we don't do that to bad people we let them thrive they continue to flourish they just go on on their rampage of vengeance like that's how that movie sets off and i totally get like how disgusting that a cop gets to be this evil in a movie i'm like it's so real that is honestly accurate and if that character relented and gave you a little one trickle a tear it's the cheapest shit it's like you know there's it's there's better performances than others i don't know if there's a straight line between Sarah Jessica Parker's performance in this movie and three billboards.

I would love if you found it. I know. One converted book that nobody thought would make money that was only for old ladies. And one converted play that nobody thought would make money that was pretty much just for old ladies to make them mad. But, yeah, I love a character that's really good at being bad. And I would be disappointed if Shelley said anything less shitty. But it is shitty. Like, what an awful thing to say.

Totally. I love it. Yeah. I love it. Hey, does this movie pass the Bechdel test by any chance? Yeah. It does. Yeah.

It truly does. Super does. Anna and her daughter, Chris. Anna and her mom. Anna, Brenda, Elise all talk to each other in various combinations. Chris never talks about anyone she's fucking and only talks about her dad. Like she's a totally plot motivated character. Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's interesting these ladies' relationships with the men in their life and how much it affects their decision making. Like you were saying that they are really tied to the men's decisions in their lives and the movie is kind of about them discovering agency uh but i love these characters yes i think they are unique they're time stamped in both 69 and in 96 and i like i'm still very fond of them i still am really fond of like Bette Midler's character reminding me of my mom and being in a movie I'm still like tickled by Goldie Hawn being a movie star who's a movie star in a movie talking about being a movie star and all the shitty things we do to movie stars yeah and Diane Keaton's perfect she's just ridiculously perfect in this movie

so the three of them together I just it's dynamite don't if you haven't seen first wives club i'd be surprised but if you haven't get on it it's yeah it's a it's more of a hoot than i remembered i laughed harder than i remembered it's very funny it's the jokes land yeah more often than they don't and when they don't they thud in this way that like resonates how good the rest were or how far we've come sure you know yeah and i mean and the end the end is genuinely very affecting the dance oh man if you're not crying in this i'm crying i'm crying i have to wear sunglasses to concerts because people singing makes me cry so i'm stuck from the jump like i cry the first time they sing and they and then

by the end yeah it's the sweetest if you don't want to watch the first time they sing and then by the end, yeah, it's the sweetest. If you don't want to watch The First Wives Club, fine, but do go on YouTube and watch the closing scene, which you can do and it's worth it. Yes, of course. Hey, let's rate the movie on our nipple scale, zero to five nipples based on its representation of women. This one's a bit tricky because there's a lot that it does right there's a lot that it does to set the stage for more inclusive and intersectional feminist texts to come out later

i wonder what wouldn't have been made if that 30 million dollars movie hadn't made 180 million dollars i wonder what you could draw a straight line to. Sorry to interrupt, but that was like, wow, I want that. That's genuine wonder. So it's a good stepping stone, but also... I'm going to give it three nipples. Okay, thank you.

Thank you for your guidance. Wow, women helping other women. Beautiful. I felt like you weren't sure where the room was. I have no help. I wanted to just let you know where I was at. I appreciate it. You know, just, wow, I'm coming up with this all by myself, but I think I'm going to give it three nipples.

Incredible. But yeah, I mean, as we've discussed, there's three women who are middle-aged. We never get to see women like that have their own story in a movie. They're seeking revenge on the

shitty men in their lives. That is cool. But yeah, it is a very like hyper privileged white feminism story that excludes a lot of women i do like the way the chris character and queerness is handled for the most part that was i think she's my favorite character so that said i will give all three of my nipples to chris annie's daughter i'm gonna do three as well wow incredible i had no idea that you were gonna do that i will you well you always go first so you never you you never get to you're always setting the tone and like well let's mix things up um okay so yeah i i really really really enjoyed this movie and i think it is like

it seems like like you're saying caitlin gill um that it's financial success like that unfortunately we you know we live in a society right and so so you know what is financially successful will inform what gets made in the future and so a movie with older women, though they are very privileged older women, but that doing well does pave the way for a book club. Yes. For another movie about rich white feminists. That Diane Keaton is in. I almost got kicked out of that screening. I was with you.

Oh, yeah. Michaela and I were pretty drunk. I also took lots of cans of wine into that movie and was real chatty by the end. It's like, what are you going to do? That's what that movie's for. I know. And then someone hushed me. I was like, are you fucking kidding me?

Are you friendless? I'm like, go watch Grace and Frankie at your house if this is how you feel. Like, I came here to be annoying. But anyways, First Wife Club. feel like I came here to be annoying but anyways uh first wife club yeah I mean I I think it does have a a place in history for paving the way for more inclusive movies um I appreciate the swings it takes at social commentaries some of them really hit others of them definitely miss in the modern sense. But the amount of issues that this movie takes on, whether they address it successfully or not, is kind of staggering. I mean, like, we're talking about body image. We're talking about mental health. We're talking about queerness.

We're talking about patriarchy. We're talking about age. Like, we're talking about age like we're talking about money it's like there is there is so much that is even i mean just seeing a movie this big and successful even attempt that many things is is pretty impressive and the performances are so good and i cried and victor garber is such a dick oh he's awful it's so good the way he's smiling at the conference table when they're talking divorce jeez i was although there was okay the in his first seat in his first scene he does say babe and i was like oh like i i felt that um also at the child molestation reveal didn't work for me but it that is such a 90s reveal yeah um. And I still feel kind of like I just don't give the writers of this movie enough credit to think that they were doing subtext on how they wrote the younger female characters. But that's just, I don't know, that's still something I got stuck on.

But other than that, I mean, I think this is an amazing movie. I look forward to watching it again. I hope people will watch it for years to come also you know divorce visibility that didn't happen very much three nips just equal the one two three goldie bet diane nip for one hurrah yeah i'm passing out a fourth nip but it's because i saw it then yeah uh. And I think being 15 and having elements of the storyline be close to my life, except for the money part. But it felt to me way better than the movies of its era at handling what it was taking on. And it did take on so much. And I watched it at a time when movies were still like real.

Like I was in them and felt them and like the story washed over me and I wasn't watching for shots and angles and like thinking about the screenwriter or reading the credits at all. It was crazy to see that life on screen then. And it's fun to watch now. And I think it's crazy that a movie that starts with a dear friend's death and is focused on divorce is like in my catalog of fun movies to watch. It's cool to see life be normal and crazy and stupid in the midst of all the big changes like death and divorce because life is those ways. And those women had to figure out how to be themselves, how to be wives, how to be ex-wives, how to be friends, how to lose someone, how to grieve. And they all did it like a hot mess.

I appreciate that they got to be messes. I just think that there were, there's enough going on in, I'm reaching back, I climbed in my time travel machine and in 1996, four nipples. Four nipples. An extra one for Chris, the lesbian, and then one for all the ladies. Great. Awesome. Oh man.

Caitlin, thank you so much i have fun and every time i get to grace this seat i feel like i tortured you with both cassidy and the sundance kid a movie i love and then you tortured me with the notebook and i yelled about it a lot but it is nice to be back i think every this is just such a great movie uh kelly my sweet lady was very excited uh because she loves this movie hell yeah and Kelly loves movies like who's afraid of Virginia Woolf she likes people yelling at each other after drinking and this movie is like

full of it so just all the hot reads lots of little lines where can people follow you online and what would you like to plug oh on the online I am at robot Caitlin on Twitter I am at Caitlin is tall on Instagram. Caitlin with a C

and all proper vowels, no Ys. And I'm very excited that I have an album coming out on August 2nd. It's called Major, named after my dog, who you might have heard whining earlier in this recording.

I'm just very proud of it. It's good for all ages. There ain't no dirty words on it. Which is kind of silly and exciting. I made a clean album for financial gain. I will be honest with you on this podcast that it was a financially motivated choice. I'm proud of

the material. I think it's very good and warm and also I wanted to do that. I didn't really think about this sweet part but right after the recording a comic was in the audience a buddy hi Ben Kalina it was like midnight and nobody had noticed that it was clean which I

was very relieved by but when I mentioned it to the buddies I was talking to my friend Ben pulled out his phone and texted his sister at midnight like hey there's an album coming out that his cousin can listen to he has a 13 year old cousin who loves stand-up and like isn't afraid of piss shit or cum but also doesn't necessarily want to listen to that in the car yeah so it occurred to me it clicked that like i made something that you

could listen to when i loved stand-up the most when i would listen to all the dirty stuff when nobody was looking but like it felt really cool like again reach back into 1996 and just offer four little nipples to tiny little kids out there so it was really cool so yeah you can listen with anybody I mean we've got a lot of listeners who are moms so

listen with your kids if your child is aware of the existence of lesbian relationships then they are good to go but yeah it was really fun to go um but yeah that's it was really fun to record and i actually listened to it never thought i'd listen to an album do you listen to the podcast do you listen to yourselves as recorded well i edit so i have to you have to of course what with the editing uh yeah make me sound brilliant um i i i can't listen to it. It's so hard. I'm like, oh, I'm stupid. I make everyone sound great.

Oh, yeah. Perfect. But I was pleased with it. I can report having listened that I think it's pretty good. Yay! I didn't expect to gush this much about it. But there you go. I'm proud of this album.

And I hope you really like it. And don't hesitate to smash play it. Where can people be able to find it and buy it? All over all the things. It'll be on the Spotify. It'll be on the Spotify. It'll be on Apple Music. And anywhere you listen to or buy things digitally, you will be able to find it. Thank you to my label, Blonde Medicine, for making all of that possible.

Awesome. I'm willing to be a shill for any other corporation that will do me favors or pay me. So let's jump on board. You can also find us on all the places that you find stuff including on social media where you can follow us at Bechtelcast we've got our Patreon

aka Matreon which is $5 a month and you get two bonus episodes every month coming up on the Patreon is my birthday month in which we will be doing Jennifer's Body and Freaky Friday. Yes. So look forward to those.

Hoorah. Woo. Yeah. We've got merch that you can buy at tpublic.com slash thebectocast. All the classics, feminist icon, queer icon, feminism is the law now, et cetera. I have a nipple scale button on my jacket. Oh my goodness. Proud wearer.

Thank you. Yeah, other than that, let's all form a club, shall we? Let's make an LLC tonight. Okay. I'm calling my accountant. Does anybody know a good accountant? No. Bye.

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.

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. Captain's Log, Stardate 2024. We're floating somewhere in the cosmos, but we've lost our map. Yeah, because you refused to ask for directions.

It's Space Gem, there are no roads. Good point. So, where are we headed? Into the unknown, of course. Join us on In Our Own World as we uncover hidden truths, navigate the depths of culture, identity, and the human spirit. With a hint of mischief. One episode at a time. Buckle up and listen to In Our Own World on the iHeartRadio app,

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