The Bechdel Cast - Frozen with Chris Farren

Episode Date: May 24, 2018

Jamie and Caitlin are sisters and one of them has ice magic (guess which one), and this week they talk about Disney's Frozen with special guest Chris Farren! (This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast. Follow @chrisfarren 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, you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you.

You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us 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. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name's Jamie Loftus.

Ooh. Wow. Loftus? I'm trying a new thing. Okay. I'm still caitlin dorante we have a podcast called the bechtel cast in which we discuss the portrayal and representation of women in cinema through a feminist lens because wouldn't you know it hollywood usually fucks up real bad when it comes to portraying women well i'm

struggling taking this babybel cheese out of its waxy container. Did you ever know that you can eat the wax? Oh, can you? Yeah, if you think it's food. The first time you have baby bell cheese, maybe you're, I don't know, out on a date with someone and they're like, hey, do you want some baby bell cheese? And you're like, yeah. And then you just bite into it thinking there's no task to perform before you can. Anyways. it thinking there's no task to perform before you can anyways well that's a good example of a conversation that i think passed the bechdel test i didn't specify what gender the date was right

so and i and i won't now uh so i'm pretty yeah that passed the bechdel test and if you're still curious what that is, I shall elaborate. It is a test that you apply to media like movies, for example, that requires that two female characters speak to each other. They have names and their conversation cannot be about a man. That is the... Should I bring up Pussy Saga again? Or are we going to be all Pussy Sagad out from last week?

I think we're extremely P be all pussy-saga'd out from last week. I think we're extremely pussy-saga'd out. Just to all our listeners out there who are on the pussy saga, that is their life, we wish you the best in your pussy saga. Yes. I just wanted to say it. Okay. Anyway. Kaylin's mad at me.

I don't understand why you're mad so soon. Yeah, it usually takes me like 20 minutes or so. I know. I'm getting stressed and tearing up my cheese into small pieces. No, I'm not mad. I'm happy that you brought up Pussy Saga. But I did want to just stay on track and say that the Beckel test is what we use as just a basis for a larger conversation. Yeah.

So I say without much further ado, we should introduce our guest. Oh, yeah. Who is a wonderful conversation. Yeah. So I say without much further ado, we should introduce our guest. Oh, yeah. Who is a wonderful person. He is a musician. He's a very funny person. Chris Farren. Hi. Hi, Chris.

Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Chris, of course, has been fully restrained. Yes. But because he is a trusted friend, bungee cords. Yeah. Thank you. A comfortable restraint. Yeah, thank you. A comfortable restraint.

Yeah, I can move a little bit. We have the scary stuff. We have sharper stuff. Right. But that's for interrupters. A friend of mine, sorry. You just interrupted me, Chris, and you have to go. No, I can leave.

All right, so Chris, you have brought us the movie Frozen. Yes. Why did you pick this? Tell us about your history with this movie. Okay. So three years ago, I saw this movie for the first time and I just, I really, something about it really activated my mind. Okay.

And I really, really liked it and I became obsessed with it. No kidding. Yeah. Yeah. And I had like merch that had frozen characters on it like i sold merch that said my name but it also had frozen people probably illegal oh or definitely illegal well when we were emailing us like with your few different movie pics uh and we were sort of deliberating which one to go with and we're were like, what if we just do Frozen? And then we combined your name with it.

So it was like Chris Farozan. Oh, yeah. Like F-A-R-R-O-Z-E-N. Yeah. That works. It works really well. You're welcome, everybody. I should have done that for the shirt.

And then people who would come to my shows would start bringing me Frozen swag. So you really love this movie. I did. I did, yeah, for sure. I mean, I still love it, but I have a tendency to get all in on things. And back off a bit. Well, I think it was mostly, and I'm sorry to anybody hearing this who maybe brought me stuff.

Do we have a Scloosie right now? No, no, no, no, no. I just get pretty sick of it because of how much my own fault I attached it to myself. My apartment is full of frozen stuff. And I kind of looked around one day. I was like, I don't like anything this much. And then I kind of started cooling off. Sure.

Hey, cooling off? What did you say? Oh, God. Did I say what? Frozen? The temperature of frozen, which is cold. And then, okay. Keep going, keep going, keep going.

Don't stop. I hit him stopping. Much like flowing water does when it gets frozen, it stops. Yes. Okay. That's cool. A good job. But again, I say thank you to anybody who ever brought me any sort of frozen gift.

Yes. Wow. Here's the thing. We often get tweets, Facebook messages, different methods of correspondence right from fans some of them are men asking us to not have so many men on the podcast oh no i think and we're we hear you we're we're listening to our we're listening but sometimes we're ignoring as well something i think the reason that we still have on male guests because often they are wonderful and our fans acknowledge that but i think it's important to in a situation

like yours where you loved the movie frozen and you brought it to us like this movie was intended largely for like young girl audiences like you wouldn't expect a grown adult man to really have this movie resonate with them. So I think it's interesting and good to include the representation of a grown man loving. Wow. I feel like. So that's where. I'm half of all grown men. I feel like I'm being roasted almost, but it's nice.

So good. Caitlin, I did like how you slowed the sentence down when you were like, a full-grown man who likes frozen. And it's good that that exists too. That's how my mom would talk to me when she thought I was doing something fucked up too much but like it wasn't illegal you know she's like well i think it's interesting that you eat dog food and i can't tell you no oh love it love anyway what i'm going to say chris is we're very happy you're here and i'm

happy to be and we like you so much and we're very happy you're here. And I'm happy to be here. And we like you so much. And we're so glad you brought us the movie Frozen. This is my first time seeing this movie. This morning. I did not know that. And I love a princess movie and all the problems that come with it. But I love a princess movie. I think the reason that I did not see this movie is because when this movie came out,

I was a substitute teacher in elementary school. And it would be all they would talk about. Yeah. And it was horrible. It was just total. And my mom is a teacher as well, and so is my cousin. It was just like there was a lot of adult fatigue coming off this movie because it was so popular in a way that few movies are anymore like it's like a movie just everyone has seen it to the point where when I was a substitute gym teacher brag I could literally

coerce the children into I'm just like go have the time with the ball over there and then at the end of class I will play let it go if you do what i tell you the whole class and they would do it because kids there's something is activated within them when they hear that song or or was a couple of years ago sure but i think still is like every child on the planet has seen this movie and likes it yeah when that song started when i watched it today when it started, when I watched it today, when it started, I was thinking, okay, this is overplayed, this song. And then about halfway through it, I was like, I love this song so much. It's a good song. I was so excited when she like lets her hair down and then her outfit changes.

It's so cool. It's a very empowering song for her. Yeah. And moment in the movie. Yeah. Yeah. I saw the movie for the first time i don't think i saw it in the theater but i think i saw it like right after like when it came

out on dvd and caitlin loves dvds that's cool caitlin has more dvds than anyone i know most of them were bought between the years of like 2002 and 2010 we'll say yeah i've hardly bought any in the past several years but i don't even have a dvd damn player whoa wow is that counter the counterculture has arrived i don't have a dvd player or a tv that's cool thank you so much. I know. So anyway, I saw this movie shortly after it came out and it did not quite resonate with me the same way it did for you. I was like, oh, it's cute. It's okay. But I only saw Frozen that one time before rewatching it yesterday. And I don't think it's a good movie like I think the story is flimsy I think overall it is net positive in what messages it sends especially considering the intended audience but like I compared this movie to Moana and Moana's its characters are so much better its script is so

much tighter like the song's a lot better like the animations a lot better Moana's characters are so much better. Its script is so much tighter. The song's a lot better. The animation's a lot better. Moana does feel like more of a fully realized movie. There's parts of Frozen that feel incomplete, kind of. Or just thrown together. It's like, why is Olaf there? I get why he's there, but does it serve the story at all? I hate that he's there. Yeah, that's a hill at all i hate that he's yeah that's a hill

i'll die on i was arguing in the car over here i think that if josh gad is in the movie at all it cannot pass the bechdel test there's no if he is on the roster it cannot i don't know why i have such a visceral hatred of josh gad but i do want to steal his lunch money and throw him in a trash can. Yeah. Which is just... I just want to say that we on the Bechdel cast do not endorse bullying. Except as it pertains to Josh Gad. There's always an asterisk. Your words, not mine. Should I do the recap?

Yes. Okay. So Frozen centers around two sisters, one named Anna and one named Elsa. They are very close as children. Something about Elsa is that she has these like kind of magical ice powers where she can conjure up snow and she can turn anything into ice. And also create snowmen who are anthropomorphized and vaguely. She can just summon Josh Gad gad which is more of a curse than anything else and yeah so she has all these powers that are getting stronger with age and that are like exacerbated when she's feeling feelings and while she's like they're like playing with her magical powers

Elsa injures Anna and her parents have to take her to these troll magical things they're cute they're fine they're made of stones and I don't get why they're there so the troll king is like we have to erase all of your memories of elsa having powers so then elsa kind of goes into seclusion because like she's encouraged by her family to not use her powers and she's becomes like a bit of a shut-in and then their parents die uh and then of course at least both of them die true subverting them at least both of them die subverting the normal princess option they become total orphans yeah they go full orphan and then a few years later Elsa comes of age and she is about to have the coronation ceremony where she will become queen and she's nervous because she's

like what if my powers come through because no one knows about about them, including Anna, because her memory has been erased. And then all these like visitors come for the coronation, including this guy, Hans, who Anna falls in love with immediately and they get engaged. Yes. And then Anna goes to Elsa and she's like, do you give us your blessing for us to get married? And Elsa's like, no, that's stupid. And also ice everywhere. And her powers are unleashed and everyone's like oh my god she's a monster so she runs away and builds an ice castle on a mountain sure as you do of course and it's a beautiful castle it is cute stunning

Chris is getting back into it I would say it's like not very well furnished but she doesn't need it she can do whatever she wants I don't even think she ever sleeps maybe not she's an independent woman she doesn't need no lounge furniture yeah she's just walking around

looking at stuff freezing this have you guys heard about the fan theory that brings together Tangled and Frozen and Little Mermaid? No. I sort of knew. It is. It brings together a lot of white princesses. So you see at the coronation scene,

because I knew to look for this, even though I'd never seen Frozen, Rapunzel is there. Because you know how at the end of Tangled, she has that brown haircut and but she's there you can there's like a screenshot that was like an intentional easter egg but then one fan took it like all the way and assumed that Anna and Elsa's parents got in a boat accident on the way to Rapunzel's wedding and the boat sank, which is why Rapunzel would feel

like she has to come to the coronation three years later because the parents died on the way to the wedding. Also, Tangle came out three years before Frozen and then Frozen says three years later. So there's that connection.

Then the sunken boat that the parents die in is the shipwreck at the beginning of The Little Mermaid that Ariel explores. Well, that shipwreck, I beginning of The Little Mermaid that Ariel explores. Well, that shipwreck, I mean, we're led to believe that all of this stuff happens in Frozen in some Scandinavian culture, I believe,

or Nordic, something like that, right? But I don't know where they would be going. I don't know where Rapunzel takes place because they would be somewhere between somewhere. And then Ariel, I don't even know where she is. It's all vaguely European. Little Mermaid happens, I believe, in the Caribbean. Oh, yeah.

But there's only white people there. Well, it's like the colonialism. It's like all the white, I don't know if they're French or something, but they're all inhabiting those Caribbean islands. Oh, wait. No, there's maps. No, okay. okay no it tracks norway denmark is i believe little mermaid germany okay those are the three i don't have any information beyond norway denmark germany those are the three countries that is written on the BuzzFeed article.

I'm a trained journalist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, that's a fun idea. I mean, it's a fun idea to entertain, yeah, of course. Anyway, okay. So Elsa builds her ice castle, and in so doing, it unleashes this eternal winter. So all the townspeople, they're like, Oh, no. So Anna is like, Oh, I have to go to Elsa and get her back so that she can be my sister again and get rid of this

eternal winter. In so doing, she meets Kristoff, who helps her get up the mountain. And then Anna confronts Elsa and she's like, No, you have to stay away from me because you won't be safe and I'm going to put you in danger. And then immediately creates a giant snow monster to chase her away, you know, to keep her safe. A weird, a weird... There's so many things that happen in this movie that, like, because it's been four years since it came out,

I was like, this is not what I thought happened in this movie. Like, it doesn't follow the storyline i had yeah in my head there's a lot of weird shit in elsa's defense of creating the snow monster why did she do that she was just she just made him and then all the snow monster initially did was just pick him up and just throw him out and And then Anna threw a snowball at him, which is. Yeah, but he. Which is. Rude. Which is aggressive.

Yeah. That's aggressive. Yeah. I still think that he was in the wrong. The snow monster? Yes. And Elsa was wrong for creating such an entity that was capable of such evil. I think it was misguided. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But she also doesn't seem to have a lot. She doesn't seem to have very good control of her powers. Right. Which is why she secludes herself. So in some ways by them showing up, she's like, I can't control my powers. I'm not ready.

She's not totally like they're like, no, you just don't believe in yourself. And it's like, no, but also she clearly does. She also can't do it. She can't. Yeah, I see that. Anyway, so they have to return to Arendelle. Oh, because in this like interaction that Anna and Elsa have, Elsa accidentally attacks her with her ice magic again, but this time in her heart. And they go to Kristoff's family and friends, which are, again, the stone troll people. They're cute.

They're whatever anyway so the troll king is like oh whenever the ice magic attacks you in the heart the only way to fix that is an act of true love so they interpret that to mean that anna needs to receive love true kiss from her new fiance hans so they rush back to the castle but Hans is like actually I'm a murderer who was here just to plot and conspire against you to steal the throne. Here to plot.

When he's actually you think you in love but actually he's here to plot. I wish I could have said that all the way through so then anna is like dying and christoph is like oh shit i have to go back because i actually love her unlike hans and then elsa is like wait i fucked everything up i almost killed my sister i have to go back to arendelle too so there's this like confrontation hans is about to kill elsa and anna sacrifices herself to save elsa which is the act of true

love that was needed to melt her icy heart and bring her back to life love it and then like hans gets arrested anna and christoph share a kiss and then that's pretty much the end of the movie and then like oh my god it's summer again and oh love is what thaws everything so i just have to feel love because elsa had been told not to feel anything true and now she's like oh conceal it don't feel it exactly but if i just feel love reference to something so everything's fixed and olaf is still there why doesn't someone take a blowtorch to that thing it's awful yeah the opposite of that they give him a snow cloud personal to carry him around and his own little netflix special or whatever the fuck oh no wait there was that thing that what movie

did that play before coco it was a 22 minute long disney short that played in front of coco and it was the worst thing i've ever seen in my life and i'm so people were so upset about that that they stopped showing it they were like there's a half hour josh gad joint like no one would pay for that it has to be foisted upon you yeah uh god josh gad yeah So that's the story of Frozen. Great. Thanks for the cat. Thank you so much. Here's some initial thoughts I have.

Okay, well, Jamie, you mentioned both the parents dying, so subverting the trope. Because most Disney movies, especially ones that are fairy tales, have like the dead mom trope. Right. Where it's a princess and she has no mom, but her dad is still around. This movie movie both of her parents are alive but if you notice her mom doesn't say anything oh word she is there but it's like the king who does all the talking and makes all the decisions and the mother i don't think has a single line not that i notice but it's bizarre because it's like they do a few tight shots on her giving a meaningful look.

And it's like, why can't she just say something? Because it would be kind of interesting to have introduced that into the dynamic of the parents of like, I wouldn't think it'd be out of the realm of possibility for like, obviously, the king has the final word because literal patriarchy. But to see the queen be like, oh, maybe we shouldn't do this. Maybe we shouldn't force our daughters to be separate their whole lives. Just like a line of that would have been helpful. But you see her give, I think at one point she gives Anna like this look of like, yeah, sucks, don't it? But she doesn't say anything. Yeah.

Was frustrated by that. Yeah, I think there was easily an opportunity to introduce that sort of dynamic cut the scene where olaf is imagining what summer would be like for him like that does not need to be there you'd melt bitch i hate him i hate him so much like those scenes do not advance the story at all they shouldn't be there there should be more time developing yeah like something like the mother character instead we have a snowman on a beach right hilarious so glad it's there i honestly like the second that song hit i was like i knew this was coming and i'm fast forwarding this shit but yeah i mean even from like a story standpoint if we're even putting

gender aside like we're not attached to the parent characters at all right because they are sort of just like mean and misguided and they die and you feel bad because you like anna and elsa but not because you like had any attachment to the right right you're like oh they just sucked yeah yeah so then a few story beats later it's coronation day and um there's a whole song there's a whole song in which anna sings about how she she's so excited for the people to come because she's been so lonely which makes sense like she's basically like had to get rid of most of the staff in the castle princesses can't stop being locked in their home right princesses under house arrest yeah so it makes sense that she's excited but then

the song basically shifts to the focus is her like oh my god what if i meet the one i'm so excited to fall in love today and then so this story is mostly about her relationship with her sister but a large part of her motivation of anna's motivation is falling in love with and being in a relationship with a man i get why they're doing that because this is still a fairy tale and that trope of her whole desire being to fall in love with a man and to end up with a man is subverted at the end right but it's just i don't know it's just like well why can't we just eliminate that all together yeah i i think that this is like in a way that moana fortunately doesn't the frozen like kind of tries to have its cake and eat it too with a lot of the commentary it's making with

like oh yeah like anna realizes she doesn't need a man she still ends up with one but you know so it's it's like we're presented with i mean i didn't even really have that much of a problem with the coronation thing because i feel like it was commented on enough of like, oh, love at first sight with strangers is a scary concept to teach to children. And don't do that. And then she, you know, we then see her get to know a guy and then end up with him, which isn't the worst. But it's like then Disney still has its way with like one of the princesses ends up with a guy at the end. And it's the context is shifted a little, but not quite enough for it to be like. And it was subverted because it gets like like 75 percent of the way there or not even that much.

Yeah, because initially what they said is the concept of the movie was to have a movie that wasn't about romantic love. Right. Which I think they tried to do, but they, yeah. But then she still has two characters who end up being. Love triangle. Right. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. And I feel like the way that they try to talk that off is like, well, but there's two princesses and only one of them ends up with the guy. But it's like, no, that's not how that works that's yeah it's frustrating because it's like it's not that i i even have a problem with someone ending up with some but it's like then don't say you're making this commentary if you're gonna have her end up with a guy at the end right you know because then you're not really doing what you said you're doing yeah i mean i can see it where like their relationship isn't the focus of the story but it is enough of a part of it that you can't ignore it so yeah i have kind of mixed feelings about it and then the the switch that they go back because they're like oh we have to go find hans

because love like that push is such a large part of the story but then it's like oh well she realizes that's not what it is but then it's like oh but then now she's just gonna marry this reindeer guy right like who's pretty mean to her who negs her constantly yes very hard always telling her to calm down because women be so emotional and it's like dude you hang out with a reindeer all your life your whole life yeah your only friend and trolls oh let's apply let's apply the uh the buscemi test there steve buscemi hanging out with a reindeer his whole life meets a lady he's killer. He's not a love interest. All right, because the movie opens with like young Kristoff and he's like harvesting ice

because he's in the ice business. That's the worst song, by the way. It's a really bad song. That's the worst song. That's the worst type of song in any. Why is it in the movie? Like, why do we open with that? That's insane.

I don't understand what they're really doing either. They just like mining ice they're ice prospectors yeah yeah where do they bring it and they better get it there fast it's so cold right it'll melt that's the worst song second worst song is the one where she's getting ready for the party i have a mental ranking oh yeah wait what are your mental ranking of the songs. Oh, yeah, wait. What are your hot rankings of the songs? Okay, I got to write this down. Yeah, pull up the soundtrack.

Let's figure this out. All right. I am genuinely curious. So from memory that we've got, and I don't know the names of them. Okay, so we got Ice Guys Making Ice is the worst song. Bad.

Worst. And the next worst is Getting Ready for the Party. First Time in Forever is what it's called. Love is an Open Door, I Forgot. Snowman, I Would Not Die in the Heat. Third worst. Okay. And then we have the troll song.

Oh, right. The Fixer Upper. Fixer Upper. It's actually a pretty good song. So I'm going to say build a snowman chris is a professional musician that's right so what he says what i say is goes yes this is hey this is your wheel your wheelhouse yes we're letting you fly okay so worst second worst third worst and then build a snowman is fourth but not worst it's getting good now it's getting worse

I did my ranking really weird and then I would say fixer upper fifth worst which is actually pretty good and then

sixth worst is love is an open door which is actually a very good song and then seventh worst is let it go which is

and seventh worst equals best also known as the best yeah seventh worst but I that Go, which is the best. Also known as the best. Seventh worst. That's a hot ranking. There are only seven songs? I have another big issue with Rosalind. Maybe you were forgetting one or two.

I feel like there's a lot of mini songs where you're like- There's like a reprise. Some false starts, some reprises. Oh, his little reindeer song in the shed. Oh, shit. Oh, fuck that song. I wouldn't even count it. But the Ice Grunt song is still worse than that song.

Right. But the last half hour of the movie, no songs, which bothers me. It troubles me. They're too busy. They're too busy doing stuff. Well, then you should never have a song. If that's all it takes. It's totally weird.

Yeah. I was reading through, and I think that this is kind of like emblematic of how hard it is to get a cohesive, cogent story about women told at all, especially on this high level where it's all I mean, it's like John Lasseter, which is a whole other thing to unpack because he was very involved in this. But like if you read through the writing process of this movie, it's crazy how much changes over the course of time where it starts out. Good sister, evil sister, where Elsa's pure evil and she freezes Anna's heart on purpose. Yeah, like right out, right out the gate.

Yeah, like woman on woman, straight up like sisters hating each other for basically no reason and they brought in a female screenwriter jennifer lee who also co-directs the movie also wrote the screenplay for wreck it ralph um but they do another draft of it and this time it's like elsa's less mean but she still is hurting anna on purpose because she's jealous of her and like but that's like how these movies have always been written of like if we're putting it on like you know a princess and any stepmother any second wife right that's like the dynamic and when you go through the history of it took a couple years for this movie to get written in its current way which is still not perfect but it's at least you're viewing the sisters as like equals you know instead of like

good and bad it's just crazy how how hard it is to get a story about two women told that isn't like based around jealousy or like one hating the other or whatever so right i mean yeah this movie subverts at least some of the tropes of a Disney fairy tale princess story, but it still adheres to a lot of them in the sense that so, I mean, Anna is the main character. She's the protagonist. We see the story from her point of view. She's the one with the most agency and bearing on this story. She decides on her own that she's going to set off sort of on her own adventure to go and bring Elsa back so that they can figure out how to melt this eternal winter. But has three male cohorts by the time she gets there. And like she basically, she sets off on her own, but then almost immediately needs the help of a man. And that's when we meet Kristoff.

And then there's that scene where they're being attacked by wolves which what is it with the evil representation of wolves in Disney movies I mean gosh those wow they're anti-wolf they're in the pro-wolf agenda you know what for our wolf listeners out there I feel like they would be upset big wolf community I didn't know that that's cool We have a lot of wolf fans. I get along really well with coyotes. Saw a coyote yesterday. Wow. Driving.

I was driving. Wait, the coyote wasn't driving? No, no, no. Coyote was just looking at another dog. Oh, wow. See, they do kind of just look like sick dogs, so it gets confusing. Yeah. I think that would offend our coyote listeners

i've almost i've almost touched a coyote multiple times and then been like that dog's so sick no well uh anyway moving on from wolf like creatures so the wolves are attacking them she's like i want to help and christophe's like no i don't trust your judgment because you just got engaged yesterday to a man that you've hardly yeah. Yeah, he's so mean to her. He acts so indifferent to her. And then when that comes up, he's like, what? That's crazy. And it's just like, what do you care? Right. Yeah. Hard to say. But yeah, he doesn't want her help, but she helps him anyway and actually ends up saving him a couple of times. So we see the reverse of a woman. I don't think there's any time, at least in that sequence,

where she is damseled. So it subverts the trope of her being damseled and needing to be rescued by a man because instead she saves him. But then as the story goes on, more male characters show up, like Olaf, who is not a man snowman yeah he's male identifying yeah you know voiced by a male identifying actor so um don't bring up josh gad again i will say also

in the notes for the way this movie was written because i think that there's a very clear parallel for this josh gad character that drives me crazy uh jennifer lee who wrote the movie tried to write olaf out multiple times and they would not let her do it because you need a cute little sidekick because it makes cute stuffed animals this is the same thing that ruined what would have been a great movie treasure planet oh there's a robot named ben in treasure planet that ruins the whole movie and you're like that's a studio note why can't they just get the fucking thing out of there? And they're like, but backpacks. But merchandising.

What's Treasure Planet? Treasure Planet is actually very steampunk and it's fucked up that I love it so much. Steampunk's back, baby. Steampunk has to go. Westworld. What a bird butt robot. Yeah, it's like a steampunk reimagining of Treasure Island.

It's really good, except they ruin it in the second half by adding in a really loud, obnoxious sidekick named Ben. But anyways, they tried to write out Olaf. Also, they originally rejected the ending of this movie multiple times. The studio did yeah like the sisters realizing that sisterly love could be more powerful than a man you had just met uh was rejected over and over and over oh we are not surprised how did they get it through weirdly problematic john lassiter ended up vouching for the ending and said like i've never seen a movie do this before i think we should give it a try and test screenings and if it doesn't work we'll go we'll go full hetero yeah um and then and also

this is the first disney animated movie ever that is co-directed by a woman wow wow it took a very long time it took uh what a hundred years literally, this is an example of a story where the two main characters of Anna and Elsa are women, but pretty much every other character is a man between Kristoff and Hans, Sven the reindeer, who I thought was a moose for a while. All our moose listeners came. The Duke of Weselton, his two bodyguards, the Troll King, all of those characters. I think the only other person implied to be a woman is a troll. Yes. Also, the only, this is maybe a whole other can of something, but the only implied person of color in the movie is also just a troll.

Yeah, that's true. Oh, is it the one who at the very beginning with young Kristoff and young Sven? Yeah. Like, hi. And she's like, oh, you're cute. I'm taking you. Yeah. And she also has a very gospel singer-y type voice.

I think it's coded. Yeah. Yeah. And anytime I see that Mickey Mouse that's in the beginning of this one, it's like from like 1920s, I was like, that Mickey Mouse is racist. Steamboat Willie? Yeah. Steamboat Willie? I mean, that's a name that sounds racist and is. wanted to talk about how yeah all the characters in this movie are white and granted it takes place in we can assume sometime before like 19th or 18th century scandinavia which is still an extremely

but it's also like a magical right but anna and elsa are you know conventionally beautiful by western standards they're very thin. They have like that body type that we see in almost every Disney princess movie where it's like perfectly, it's like, you know, proportioned in such a way. You know, very narrow waist, like wide hips. Pretty sexualized for, you know, a movie that's directed towards children. More covered than you would find most princesses at least at least they are dressed weather appropriate which although sometimes they aren't because like elsa after she turns everything into winter is still wearing like the top of her dress is still

mostly exposed like her shoulders and chest maybe not isn't She does say, the cold never bothered me anyway. You're welcome for my beautiful singing voice. I would have to imagine she but also it's like that is a choice. She has more hair than a human. I know that. She has upon her head more hair

than a human. Than an actual person would have if she... If you count the strands, which I have not, but I've read about. Excuse me? Okay.

We see these two characters in this very specific body type that we see over and over again in Disney movies. And there's nothing wrong with having a body type like this. But when it's pretty much the only representation

of a body type that you see in these movies that are largely being seen by young girls. Yes. Yeah. These characters in these movies are influencing these young audiences. And I think that movies have the responsibility to show a vast range of body types and skin colors and everything else but when they're almost always like this hourglass very thin waist very by western standards conventionally the ideal that is irresponsible and and that goes beyond just the movie too because when we're talking about disney movies we're also talking about

merchandising and like what are studio executives and people with money comfortable putting out into the world. Because kids are, I mean, as someone working at a school, when this fucking movie came out, every kid had Frozen merchandise. Oh, the dolls? Right. And it's like if you see that same image over and over and over, like this is the body you're going to see. Every kid has merchandise with this body type on it, this skin color.

Yeah. every kid has merchandise with this body type on it, this skin color, this, like... Yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's... There's no argument that it doesn't fuck with you to some extent, and there's no alternative with this movie with the type of body that you see. Right.

It's just really, the only difference you get is the number of braids. Right. Yeah, you get the one or you get the two. Uh-huh. But filled with more hair than 400,000 strands I'm seeing That's more than a human

That's a lot That's a lot of CG hair Yeah Render that head Hackers Render that head Render this head of hair You dirty little hackers

Oh, so speaking of the songs The Fixer Upper song, I find to be- Which is the fifth worst song. The fifth worst, yes. Third best. No, we are not framing them that way. Fifth worst. Third best.

That song, again, one of the many scenes in this movie that is unneeded, but it just drives home the point of this movie's agenda of like still having Anna be in a like romantic relationship or a potential one. Because like he brings her there to his adopted family of troll people. And he's like, hey, she's dying. And we're like, we don't care about that right now. Actually, we're going to sing a song about how you should love our son. And it's just like why is that there why is that a focal point right there's a part in the song where they say like

something about how like how he hides that he's the honest good which is such a weird line yeah it's just like he's a real nice guy but you wouldn't know it based on the way he treats you you know what i'm i'm i'm taking wow you know what fixer upper is now fourth worst and build a snowman is fifth fifth worst okay i'm i'm okay with that switch okay cool i'm okay great okay so then the next story beat after that song is when the trolls are like hey you need an act of true love to melt this frozen heart they interpret that to mean because you know they've probably read a bunch of fairy tales themselves these trolls the trolls dreamworks everyone involved are like, oh, yeah, that must mean a true love kiss. Which is another attempt at them subverting.

Right. I think this movie sends a positive message to its young viewers that rather than a hetero kiss between a man and a woman, it was like the familial love between two sisters that saves the day because up until that point most disney fairy tales where if there is a curse to be broken or if there is something that needs to be fixed it is often a hetero kiss that saves the day right so at least this movie does not go in that direction there is a kiss though at the end i think this is noteworthy because christoph asks for consent true he does actually that's a great point yeah because she replaced his sled that she fucked up like she said she would anna did fair she's rich she's extremely wealthy that was the only thing i thought when she's like i'll replace it and everything in it i was like, good for you. Right. So he's really happy about his new sled.

And he's like, oh, my God, I'm so happy I could kiss you. But I won't. But could I? Maybe. And then she's like, you may. And she gives him a little peck on the cheek. And then he's like. And then they go.

The Caitlin kiss sound is my worst nightmare it sounds like you're taking something i'm sucking the soul out of everyone i kiss or a cartoon character running away really fast leaving the frame yeah so i think this movie does send a very positive message to its young audiences that asking for consent to kiss someone is good. It's actually hot. Yeah, it's hot and it's cute and it should be done more often. Yes.

So that I think is worth noting. I wanted to talk a little bit about Elsa's powers. Her chirokinetic magic. Whoa, is that what it's called? Yeah. It's off the top of my head, yeah. Cryokinetic magic. Wow.

Who she only shares his powers with Iceman from the X-Men and Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat. What about... Wow. I forget the character's name. And some other things, too. But those are the only ones I can remember. What about Mr. Freeze?

Mr. Freeze himself. Yeah. Oh, I'm thinking of Batman. No, I'm thinking of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oh, okay, yes. Who, what's the character? Oh, is it Freezone? Frozone.

Frozone? From The Incredibles. I think it's... Frozone? Frozone. That sounds terrible. Wait, is that really the name of the character? No, I have no idea.

No, I'm pretty sure it is. Yeah, it is. Frozone. Wow. Frozone. Well, a lot of characters, it turns out, have this power. What is it? It's, of course, cryokinetic magic.

Oh, of course. Of course it is. Are all the characters that you mentioned, all the other ones, were they all men? Yes. Sub-Zero, I think, is the only one I'm on the fence about. Is that the Mortal Kombat one? I can't believe that character's name is Frozone. It's like L-Zone, but frozen.

Sub-Zero, what's he say? Yeah, but the only black character in that movie is named Frozone. Yeah, that's not good. That's not good. Well, I guess we got to do an Incredibles episode. That can't be right. The sequel's coming out. It's true.

True. What does Sub-Zero's thing he says? You're about to get real cold. Scorpion says, get over here. One of my favorite bad movies, Jack Frost. Oh, yeah. I recently just watched that. Very recently.

That movie's crazy. Christmas time I watched it. Wait, who made you? This Christmas, 2017. The Michael Keaton one? Yeesh. Who made you watch it? I think it might have been self-inflicted.

That one, because doesn't the, he's like a bad dad who died. He's like a rocking blues magician in like a cover band yeah yeah well they seems like they're gonna get signed i don't know if they're cover band but they might as well be he died he dies and then comes back as a terrifying anthropomorphic snowman and has to repair his relationship with his children it's horrible yes it's really scary. Very scary. And it works. Oh, wow.

That's the scariest part of all. So in movies, when women are given powers, they are usually either an evil witch or a supervillain. Examples include the Wicked Witch of the West, Ursula, the Evil Queen from Snow White, Maleficent. Melissa McCarthy. Melissa. the west ursula the evil queen from snow white melissa melificent melissa melissa wow tell us how you really feel about melissa

she's an evil witch um what i meant to say is i have loved that new element of bexel castler is that Caleb believes Melissa McCarthy is pure evil. But who I actually think is evil is Maleficent. There we go. There it is. From Sleeping Beauty, the Ice Queen Witch from The Lion and the Witch in the Wardrobe, Mystique

from X-Men. We've got Poison Ivy where there's a whole laundry list of others. So it's either that or if a woman is given powers in movies she's perceived as being like too dangerous and that she should not harness these powers and or that she just shouldn't like use them in general. We see this from like Rogue in X-Men. I feel like this is a thing in Wanda from the Avengers. Princess Leia we don't even know she has force powers pretty much until like five movies into the franchise the love fairy and pussy saga is oh wow uh doesn't use

her powers right away but then once she's liberated uh another great example it's just naming a lot of lore sure sure did you beat the game it's impossible to beat the game it actually ends up kind of becoming this existential nightmare where you're said that Is that why it says you won't last five minutes? You're given, you can last 10 hours and not, they give you a goal and then I achieved the goal and there was nowhere, no one acknowledged that I achieved the goal and they're like, you should give all your points and open a movie theater. And it ends up being this weird real estate scam.

It's an existential nightmare. No one probably plays it for 10 hours. Yeah, they don't expect you to get that far. I was completely horny neutral. Played for 10 straight hours. And I was like, I'm ready to rescue the poet Sappho, which was the goal set at the beginning of the game. And then I went to the love fairy who had given me the phone where i get all the hentai sex uh after i solve every puzzle it's my reward

sure is my hentai sex and i return the phone i say here here's the come of five women as i told you i'd bring back release the poet sappho and she says do you want to open a movie theater and that you can't and then you just they drop it they don't expect you to get that far wow rude uh anyways i with women having powers right right right yes uh when men have powers in movies it's like makes them strong and powerful there are some exceptions and sometimes, like they have to keep them a secret from their family or from whatever. But by and large, a man having powers in movies means he's a superhero or he's going to save the day and he's just strong and powerful. Or even if he's

like a villain, like he's still crafty, cunning, like, wow, like, look how cool. So this applies to this movie, Frozen frozen because she is given this like awesome power we don't really understand where it comes from or why this happens but there's you know it's a magical world with stone troll people and snowmen that can come to life so sure those are the rules of the world and we just suspend our disbelief i guess any world where josh gad can exist freely including ours i have a problem with but so she's given powers but the whole time she is encouraged not to use them or that it's going to be too dangerous and it's just like this uh i feel like if a little boy discovered that he had these same powers his parents in whatever movie it was would be like, wow, these are cool.

You have to harness these and learn how to like channel them and make yourself awesome. Well, I think that the story at least gives you a reason why they try to suppress her powers, which is that she hurts her sister. Right. I think that the punishment that they come up with, given that they seem to have unlimited means, is a little harsh and they could have maybe consulted another third party but i guess the trolls are like uh like why that's so stupid yeah that's like i thought yeah i don't understand why they had to be keep them separated as the uh and they also like realistically we're supposed to believe they actually remain separate that whole time even when they were dead away right even when their parents were dead right i'm like why couldn't you just hang out now like their funeral

they didn't go to that or was the whole funeral just putting that piece of black cloth over there draped it over the drape oh malfoy that thing up and send it off but they um oh what i was gonna say is i feel like her powers being suppressed is obviously i feel like the movie at least makes it clear that they're doing the wrong thing by doing that and that eventually by the end of the movie it is changed and she is able to recognize that her powers do have value and it's just a matter of how she uses them. But I had a problem with that. I don't think this happens with male characters, at least as often. And I don't watch movies where people have superpowers very much because I'm a fucking adult. So I don't really know. But the fact that Elsa's powers, every time it goes wrong,

is because her powers are sort of dictated by her emotions is something that I found a little bit annoying. Like, well, she just can't get her emotions under control, which is a common criticism of women. So that's why her powers keep hurting people is because her emotions aren't in check. That's not something you hear about when a guy is like, I mean mean there's a million montages of a man honing his powers but it's not quite as put upon as like well you're you're like emotions are an issue right um yeah i feel like that's like a fairy tale version of saying like women be crazy right a little bit yeah

so that was my ish and yeah the movie does make an attempt to say like oh this was the wrong way to go about this because her suppressing those emotions that apparently like exacerbate her ice powers i'm sorry her cryo it's of course called cryokinetic magic that still it's like by the end she like she hones her powers by keeping her emotions more in check right like i feel like that's not fully well you could argue that to me it's she realizes that love and like letting people in is the thing that allows her to control or that at least allows her to unfreeze the eternal winter and to like thaw it all out but that's also a horrible lesson if you're vulnerable you'll just get gaslighted by a youtuber that's what happens when you're vulnerable with yourself well the problem is i

think i mean that's one of the reasons i don't think this movie is very good or very well written is that the rules of her powers and just the world building in general is not very good. And it leads to some story problems and stuff like that. But, yeah, at least the movie, as we've discussed before, subverts enough of the like Disney fairy tale tropes that it isn't like another replica of some of the more problematic ones that we've talked about, like Snow White. So, good job. I mean, Frozen is considerably less problematic

than most princess movies. But it's still, that does not mean it does a good job. That is just such a low bar to clear. Right. Perhaps all of these problems will be fixed in Frozen 2, November 24th, 2019. Is that that really happening is that your plug yeah that's my plug i'd like to plug frozen

it really needs a big marketing boost yeah i i hope so i mean i would be interested in because i mean you think between late 2013 and, there has been a pretty significant cultural shift that I would hope would be stated by the movie in any way and carefully done to not state that, that Elsa is coded queer. That's something I've heard over and over. Yeah. Again, it's like, especially like even a couple years ago, Disney would never, like Disney notoriously codes characters queer, but as bad as queer villains, like that is their bread and butter. And then this way, I think it's interesting that many people read Elsa as coded queer.

I don't disagree with it. I certainly see what they're saying, but I feel like part of the reason that that is, and it is ultimately a net positive thing, I think for, for kids seeing the movie, but I think that the reason that happened is because she started ultimately a net positive thing i think uh for for kids seeing the movie but i think that the reason that happened is because she started as a villain in the first draft of the character she was a queer villain character they softened her to the point where she was an equally

likable character to the protagonist but like that element of the character i think like to some extent stayed intact because i don't know I feel like the way that Disney codes characters as queer besides evil is alone well that's what I was going to ask is what is the reason that people were perceiving her or feeling that she was coded as being queer is it only because she doesn't have a love interest i think that that's part of the reason i'd have to go i'd have to go deep into like i think that there's a number of ways to come at it i know that for a lot of people i mean just based on the research i did when the movie came out people interpreted her being isolated and not pursuing any love interest in the movie as a possible way

of queer coding which is kind of like depressing when you think about it is like yeah you know a queer character has to be alone and a straight character has to end up with someone like it just the the rules of that world become very fucked very quickly the animal straight characters in this movie is an example there's often more than one person pursuing her because she's got i mean hans ends up being a bad guy who's not actually a love interest of hers but she doesn't know that until toward the end yeah as far as she's concerned he loves her and he's her fiance and then meanwhile meanwhile, like Kristoff is like the scrappy, mean person who is also secretly developing a crush on her. But you could never tell her that because he's too mean or whatever.

But yeah, that I'd be interested to learn more about that. There was, do you remember though? There was like that big movement on Twitter. I remember this just from being a frequent tweeter. There was like- Brag? Sorry. But there was like hashtag give Elsa a girlfriend.

Like people were very deep into viewing Elsa as like a positive queer role model. Which again, I think is like a net positive move, but also that you have to dig through so many layers of creating meaning where the movie isn't necessarily giving you much to go on to find a queer character in a movie for kids is like frustrating right wasn't the most recent beauty and the beast the first time they had an josh gad and it's josh gad which is why i don't hate him. No, no. Wow. First of all, that queer moment in Beauty and the Beast is total bullshit. Sure.

And Josh Gad is horrible. But getting back to queer undertones and Frozen, I'm seeing, and this makes sense. Again, it's open to interpretation and everyone's going to view this movie differently i viewed elsa's suppression of her powers as more of like a femininity thing of like here you're awesome but keep it hidden so that you are able to move through the world and you know like don't become too powerful i viewed that just seeing it today as like a feminine thing but a lot of people view that as the experience of being in the closet um so that creates elsa's arc as like hiding herself away from the world isolating herself because she's not comfortable with herself she doesn't know how to be around other people and i guess that that is too many viewers read as the experience of being in the closet and then going back into

the world as your authentic self looking at at it through that lens, yeah, that's really interesting because she does have that let it go, very empowering song slash moment. It's the seventh worst song. So that you could maybe argue is like a parallel to her coming out. Part of me is like, I guess that's kind of cool that they,

if that was like their idea to kind of leave it open to interpretation so many different people could insert themselves into the experience right and put their own experience into it but i it would be way more cool if there was a person that was like explicitly right because i don't think a lot of kids are like watching this. Right. You know, they're not. And that's, that's, again, the intended audience of this movie. So for children's movies, things like that, I feel like do have to be more explicit, because they're not going to get the right. Absolutely. I absolutely, I agree. I just think it was interesting that it had such a

profound. Yeah, effect. And then also the inverse of that being that churches got mad that elsa didn't have a boyfriend oh uh and really and also viewed that as queer coding of not having a boyfriend equals you are gay which is bad news for me in high school uh so anyways interesting yeah so that is i i assumed i i've because i I was aware of that going into this and had a few notes to that. For some reason, I didn't remember that happening at all, but I am not as frequent of a tweeter, so maybe that's why there's, I don't know.

Yeah, I thought that was interesting. And that's something I'm very interested to see if they do anything with in Frozen 2, because it was such a big response. And it's like, are they going to do something good? Yeah. Because I can't imagine that disney would commit to her being alone again for a whole movie right but if they give her a

boyfriend people will be of course that yeah exactly yeah definitely mad oh so let's see jennifer lee i mean i'm pretty down for jennifer lee the writer i don't know if she's writing frozen too i hope she is she is because it seems like i don't know if she's writing Frozen 2 I hope she is she is I don't know if she's writing she's at least directing it or co-directing it I think again and there was a there's been a few like little Frozen things like the Olaf's Frozen

Adventure I didn't see that there's something called Frozen Fever that I hated that sounds like a paradox yeah when I watched it it made me realize that frozen has been for kids all along and i was like wait a second this is a cartoon for children wow but it's also something that anyone of any age can enjoy yeah and i did if it appeals to them personally i much prefer moana zootopia was great do they sing in zootopia they don't

well something we see in frozen that we don't see in moana as much is that is idem and sal and i think that's really worth bringing up is one big thing Moana has going for it is, A, it's a better movie. B, Josh Gad has nothing, not anywhere near it, which is great. Moana 2, though. I know, they recast Josh Gad as Moana. Oh, wow.

It's actually, people are freaking out that Josh Gad is Moana, which is what the poster says. Josh Gad is Moana, which is what the poster says. Josh Gad is Moana 2. Yeah, he's Moana 2. They jumped the shark. Moana has an evil twin. It's Josh Gad.

It's insane. He appears as himself, a real man. Wow. Not even computer animated? No, just Josh Gad. Basically wearing his Steve Wozniak outfit. It's horrible. It's horrible.

But the theme of two strongly bonded women in a Disney movie who are not constantly being pitted against each other. We see Moana has a close connection with her family. But I did like seeing Elsa and, like, I hadn't seen a relationship like that in a kids movie before of, like, a strong familial bond between two characters that are very different. That, and I mean, we already sort of unpacked the visual aspect of it that's a problem. But, like, I don't know. I thought it was really nice. And I even teared up once or twice because I'm very fragile. But yeah, like the theme of like sisterly love and two strongly bonded women who have a sordid history and that one almost killed the other twice. It happens, but they still are able to resolve their differences.

And I don't't know just like someone you're close with when you're young and then you grow apart because whatever your parents are on a bone and sinks and then you have to learn to love each other again as adults i thought it was nice that is nice i think one of the problems with it though is that we don't see them on screen together that much no because either elsa is in seclusion or she just runs away and builds her ice palace. Like if you counted up the total amount of time that they are on screen together interacting, I imagine that it's like eight minutes or less. Like it's a very small part. What if they get to know each other and they don't even really like each other?

That would be a lot. Frozen 2. They barely have hung out with each other. Frozen 2, they like each other's posts on instagram but other than that kind of radio silence i i which is again another thing that i don't know i don't know i'm standing out for jennifer lee right now because i'm reading through all the stuff she pushed for in the movie that they were just like fuck off yeah she was pushing for them to be together more in the movie uh she was also pushing for them to know each other after their parents died and the powers that be were like no we want them apart for the whole movie which we can interpret as a way i mean there's i guess sort of a narrative reason to do that but by the end i think there's no excuse for

them to be apart for so long right so you can shoehorn in all your bullshit josh gads like keeping the two interesting female leads apart just gives them the opportunity to sprinkle in all these other dudes right yeah should we figure out whether or not this movie passes the it does it does really early on elsa and anna as children an Anna runs into the room she's like wake up let's play but then she says do you want to build a snow man yeah that's what I was wondering about is it passed the test if they're talking about snow man how come it's never snow woman how come no one is ever like let's go outside and build a snow woman or snow gender queer person that's cool my brother and i made a snow tony collette one year we were a tony collette household sure yeah anyways yeah she's very talented yeah we all

felt that way um so that scene i think there's at least a two-line exchange there later on when they are both adults at the coronation ceremony Elsa and Anna are like oh my god is this what a party looks like and then we cut to a bunch of people standing around not really enjoying themselves uh and then I have had that thought a lot though is this what a party looks like yeah and then they tell each other they look beautiful and then uh they smell chocolate together and then yes smell chocolate together. And then Anna's like, I wish it could be like this forever. And Elsa's like, it can't because of my powers that you don't know about.

I think that's pretty much the end of that conversation. But I would say that by and large, like passes the whole way through. I don't think there's any mention of any men there at all. They're not in that many scenes together. You think it would pass more frequently, but it really doesn't. I think like the next time is when Anna is like, hey, will you give your blessing for me to marry Hans? And rightfully so. Elsa's like, no. No, bitch.

But that does not pass the Buckdell test because they are talking about Hans. Later, though, when Anna goes to Elsa's ice palace, that passes because they're just like, hey, come back to Arendelle. Almost that whole scene passes. Yeah. After that, it's probably not till the very end when they like reunite. There's opportunities that were missed right and left. If we had given perhaps I would see a scene that I think would have made a lot of sense and would have worked would have been a scene between either the mother and Anna or the mother and Elsa. It would have helped the story.

And that would have been a way to shoehorn it in. If we have to have a fucking snowman, make it not be Josh Gad. Cast. Cast. Melissa McCarthy. I was just going to say evil witch. Caitlin's mortal enemy. Melissa McCarthy. I really like Melissa McCarthy. I just want going to say evil witch. Caitlin's mortal enemy, Melissa McCarthy. I really like Melissa McCarthy.

I just want everyone to know. It's crazy how evil you think Melissa McCarthy is and we all disagree. There's a dartboard in the studio with Melissa McCarthy's face on it. It's so weird because it's like she's so talented and she really like knew when to steal a scene in gilmore girls and when to hang back she's a giving performer i think we should give her more credit kaylin i agree i also like the main stone troll person could have been a woman and she could have talked to the moose the reindeer whatever it was um yeah there were plenty of opportunities for this movie to pass it for but it does definitely yeah uh shall we rate on our nipple scale

yeah zero to five nipples uh based on its portrayal of women this is another tough one where like i said i think it's net positive in terms of the message that it sends, particularly to its young audience, in that it shows women being active in the story. It shows them having agency and making choices that have bearing on the story. They are, for the most part, not damseled in any way the way that a lot of Disney princesses are for most of the stories that they're in. I think that having it not be a hetero love kiss that saves the day, but instead being a act of love between sisters, right, that solves the conflict, the asking for consent to kiss her at the end, I really, really enjoyed. So I think there is a lot of good things to be taken away but the fact that there's still several love stories that are feel kind of shoehorned in there that don't really need

to be there the fact that we don't see Anna and Elsa interacting more the fact that their you know body types are the same body type we see over and over again in disney princess movies and in almost every movie in general i think that there's still work to be done so hopefully in frozen 2 so come on this year november 24th this year 2019 oh wow which is next year right yeah whoa yes so i'm gonna give it a three and a half nipples maybe four i don't know let's say 3.75 okay wow a first um first uh yeah 3.75 i'll give two to anna one to elsa the three-fourths nipple to the mom who didn't say a damn word in the entire movie and then died tragically in a boat accident. Not unlike most of the people on Titanic.

True. Yeah, very true. What if, oh my God, what if Elsa created the iceberg in Titanic? She was so emotional. Women are too emotional and it sinks the titanic eventually oh my god women are bad yeah she probably like made a glacier in her like you know fury her flurry fury yep that is and then it it breaks off centuries later right floats into the atlantic ocean the titanic hits it that's what happened. That's canon.

Yeah. Okay. Anyway, who's next? I'm going to give it, I was going to go two and a half. I think I'll go three. Okay. It frustrates me when movies like this, because I liked this movie. There's so much net positive that you just described. I also think it's very significant that this is the first Disney animated movie

that is at least partially directed by a woman, written entirely by a woman. But now I'm going back to two and a half because there are so many missed opportunities. And it really frustrates me when a movie tries to capitalize on how forward thinking it is when it still features so many themes and through lines that are regressive or at least maintaining a status quo that has existed in these franchises for years and years. So mostly, I mean, two and a half based on sheer missed potential of what this movie could have been. I totally agree with what you're saying with reinforcing the conventional Western beauty standard body image on such a high level.

Shoehorning in the love story was obnoxious and not totally necessary. And just the missed opportunity for women to be present in this story that was actively thwarted by the movie itself by keeping women away from each other because they're scenes together I really love. And think that they're like so nice and special and yeah taking the voice from the mom why do that like why is that necessary i don't know yeah it sucks because it's a good movie i think net positive and you know girls who are in school now and this is their movie are way better off than we were where we were like, oh, the girl who fuck a dog is my hero. Who's that? That's Belle from Beauty and the Beast.

Oh, right. Yeah, of course. The girl who French the dog is my favorite girl. And I became that girl. You're always Frenching coyotes. Ah, yeah. came that girl you're always french and coyotes i yeah yeah i'm i'm approaching coyotes on the street thinking conflating it with true love it's confusing and we're even better off than our parents generation were that was like growing up yeah they're like fall asleep

maybe someone will show up and kiss you without checking like right it does demonstrate progress progress is very slow though that's not an excuse but it tends to be extremely slow but there are so many and and just like reading about how the writer director of this movie was trying to push it forward and was actively thwarted by the system she was working within sucks. I mean, I'm glad she was pushing. And I think that this movie would have sucked if she wasn't pushing. Really pushing. So it's like progress, but not enough progress. I hate that it's still like princesses will sooner French a dog than be queer.

That's like crazy. So two and a half for me. One to Anna, one to Elsa, and I'm giving one to Gad. Wow. Unexpected. Charitable. Giving one to Gad.

Listen, he needs a win from me personally. Other than that, he's very wealthy and doing great. Yeah, I think you spent more time talking about how much you hate them than Anna and Elsa appear on screen together in the movie Frozen. Oh my God. Part of the problem.

The only thing that I feel more strongly than loving women is hating Josh Gad. What if, okay, and also Alfred Molina as Olaf. Okay. Any female identifying person or Alfred Molina. Also, this movie, I have to go back back it does not pass the bechdel test because okay that's your opinion and i do not stand by a new hard rule a new bechdel test does josh gad appear in the movie uh chris okay i wrote down three three nipples three n Three nippies. A lot of the stuff about the mom not speaking, that's pretty crazy.

How there are literally only two or three, potentially, women in the movie. And one of them dies almost immediately. Right. And one of them is a troll whose name we never know, and we don't know anything about her. Yeah. I mean, I think if it was on a scale of all the Disney movies, then it would be like higher than three because this is until Moana. Right. Which we gave, I think, five nipples across the board.

We were like coming that entire episode. We were like, ah! It is a very good movie. I love it so much. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. And then, of course, I have my issues with the. The songs.

The songs, of course. Oh, my issues with the... The songs. In the songs, of course. Oh, you've recopied your list. Well, just to make it clear for myself. So just to clarify, the seventh worst song is Let It Go. Which is, you're also the best, but yeah, seventh worst. To me, it's the best. Yeah. Right.

Number six worst is Love is an Open Door. It's just a nice song. It is. Number five, I Wish to Build a Snowman. Okay. I wish to. Number four, Fixer Upper, the Trolls song. See, I like the trolls.

I know that they're just backpacks. And are they the trolls? Are they the Dreamers trolls? I never got the answer. No. No, because those are Dreamers. They look like the trolls. But those trolls aren't made

of stone that's just like a weird jeffrey tatzenberg if you saw cartman but he was made of stone you say that's cartman no i'd say that's who put cartman in stone yeah and can we help him yeah and is that legal it leaves cartman in stone but also the i can't watch South Park anymore because Matt Stone and Trey Parker, they gave Josh Gad his big break in Book of Mormons. They did. So I actually don't fuck with Carmen anymore because it's a little bit too close to Josh Gad being a relevant person. Yeah. So, sorry. And he could play him in the live action movie one day.

You were given a list. Anyway, where was I? I'll start from the beginning. Number seven, again, let it go. Love is an open door, build a snowman, fixer-upper. Okay, third worst, I'm a snowman, heat won't kill me. Number two, getting

ready for the party is the second worst. Number one, Ice Guys Making Ice is the worst song in the movie. Ice Guys Making Ice is a terrible song. And it's the only song no women appear in. Oh, sure. Well, we don't know how the ice identified us. I did that on purpose.

That's true. Well, all right. So Three Nipples and I give all three to whatever interesting character will be revealed in the second Frozen that's coming out. Wow. November 24th, 2019. The Three Nipples character we haven't met yet. second Frozen that's coming out November 24th, 2019. The three-nippled character

we haven't met yet. There's gotta be something either creepy, scary, bad, or hot. The four tenets of a movie. Yeah, that's like the National Honor Society. Are you creepy?

Are you over the four uh creepy scary bad or hot those are the four things you have to be to get into national honor society well i'm back to being mad okay chris thank you so much for thank you so much for having me we had so much fun talking about frozen where can people find you online follow you oh go to hotguywithglasses.com is my website or chrisferrin.com both will send you to the same place great and on twitter chris ferrin instagram chris ferrin facebook chris ferren. Also, check out Chris's music. Yes. Oh, I'm a musician.

Yes. Well, thanks again so much for being here. You can follow the Bechdel cast on social media at Bechdel cast. You can give us gifts the way that Chris Farren's fans gave him. You only have one fan. Rest in peace. They just died in a boating accident. But it was a beautiful boating accident.

Yeah, the way your fans have given you frozen gifts, one of those gifts can be $5 a month to our Patreon, our Matreon, because that'll get you two bonus episodes. Anyway, well, thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. 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

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