The Bechdel Cast - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Karina Longworth

Episode Date: November 15, 2018

You must remember this week's movie, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with special guest Karina Longworth!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @KarinaLongworth on Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast hello and welcome to the bechdel cast my name is jamie loftus and my name is caitlin durante and this is our podcast about the portrayal of women in movies is that right boy is it wow oops i said boy no oh crap. Colloquialisms don't count. Do they? I say man, dude, and boy so much, and I feel like I need to erase those from my vocabulary. That's true. So instead, girl does it.

That's what I meant. Is dude gender neutral? I use it in a gender neutral way, but I know a lot of people who feel that it's masculine and then don't like to be called dude. Be called dude. Fair. Well, wait, what's our podcast again? So we talk about the representation and portrayal of women in movies. We use the Bechdel test as just a jumping off point to initiate a larger conversation about representation.

Oh, yeah. If you're not familiar with what the Bechdel test is, it is a media test that you apply usually to movies, but really anything with a narrative. It was first originated in a book by Alison Bechdel. And I wanted to briefly mention that because a couple fans of ours, Viola and Ty mentioned that the test was created by queer icon Alison Bechdel. And then it was actually in the comic strip. It's two lesbians talking about how little representation there is of lesbians in movies. So just wanted to throw that out there that we recognize that.

And because what's happened with the test, it's kind of been like appropriated by straight people. Yeah. So I just wanted to call attention to that, that it was specifically the characters in the comic strip are talking about how they see so little representation of queerness. For the purposes of our discussion, our version of the Bechdel test requires that in a piece of media, two women with names speak about something other than a man

for more than two lines of dialogue you think it would be easy it's a very low bar but if you've heard any of our episodes before you'll know that it is challenging oh yeah yeah some movies cheat what do you mean what was the one in she's all that where they're like i think you should kill yourself and then she's like that's mean and that passes the Bechdel test yeah so but we'll do a better job than that so let's demo it Jamie okay hi Caitlin hey Jamie how what's up um nothing just hanging out with my gals talking about movies oh you know what this movie made me have a new appreciation for what's that flesh shorts. Yeah, there are some male athletes who look nude. Well, now we're in the later. Yeah, I broke it. We made two lines. But oh boy, those flesh colored. I forgot about the flesh toned shorts. And they really, they really came on strong

in this one. Loved it. Certainly. All right. Well, without much further ado, let's introduce our guest. We're so excited for our guest today. She is the creator and host of You Must Remember This podcast and author of Seduction, Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood. It's Karina Longworth. Hi. Hi. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for joining us. Thank you. We're so excited to have you. We've been fangirling on the text chain a little bit. We're very excited. And we're excited to talk about this movie in particular. Today we're discussing Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1953 movie, musical comedy directed by Howard Hawks. Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe.

I don't think we've covered movies with either of them in them Monroe. I don't think we've covered movies with either of them in them before. I don't think so. No. So a big first here on the Bechdel cast today. This might be like, it's the only Marilyn Monroe movie I can think of off the top of my head

that where she is basically paired against another woman. Yeah. Right. I'm not, I've seen some Like a Hot and I like that movie a lot or at least i did pre bechtel cast who know i'd have to see it again and then decide but um i haven't seen seven year itch and i don't really know i'm not familiar with her other work really so i grew up with a

monroe appreciating uncle who really uh laid it on, most likely for all the wrong reasons. But I have seen a lot of her movies. I hadn't seen this movie in at least 10 years. And I remembered liking it, but I remembered liking all of her movies. And so I was pleasantly surprised and challenged by this movie at a number of points where I thought I, you know, predicted because of the time it was made at what was going to happen. And very often I was put in my fucking place, if you will. It was cool. Karina, what about you? What's your history, your relationship with this movie?

I probably saw it for the first time when I was a teenager when I kind of first discovered Marilyn Monroe and thought she was interesting. I don't know how old you guys are, but, like, I was a teenager in the 90s, and, like, I remember pretty early in my awareness of who Marilyn Monroe was, Elizabeth Hurley made this comment. Have you guys heard this? She basically said something like, if I was as fat as Marilyn Monroe, I would kill myself. Oh, my God.

And, like, I was just thinking about that today because, like, I mean, you watch this movie and she does not look fat at all. Oh, my God. not really being represented in popular culture at that time. And so that was probably like my first moment of appreciation of the film. And it's something where I've seen it so many times now that I almost can't even really enjoy it as a movie anymore because I just know it so well. But then I was watching it last night and there are always things that I forget about it. Like in the Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, the fact that like the women in the chandeliers are in bondage yeah and some just like some of the conversations like have some really interesting aspects to them there's some lines of dialogue that I was just like what did you just say but wow okay uh yeah I I had never seen this movie and i just watched it the other day for the first time well you know what i didn't like it but i'm not gonna let that you know really

cloud any judgment in terms of our discussion what didn't you what didn't you like about it before we i felt like it took forever to get a story going i feel like you don't really know a lot of hollywood musicals yeah um stop and go i don't know we can talk about it in the discussion but this is just never gonna be a movie that i was gonna enjoy but but but i'm excited to talk about it yeah um okay so i'll do the recap of the story so we meet lorelei lee that's marilyn monroe's character and we meet dorothy shaw and that's jane russell they are best friends and they are like a performing duo who sings and dances they're singing about arkansas they look great we love them lorelei is engaged to a man named Gus Esmond.

He's a rich guy who showers her with gifts, but whose father disapproves of Lorelai because he thinks that she's like a gold digger, which, to be fair, she is. With strategy. Right, yes. And Lorelai and Gus are going to travel to France to get married. And Dorothy is going to go along on this trip to Chaperone. For kind of vague reasons. Yeah. It seems like it's at the request of Gus.

But then he also doesn't seem to want her there. Either way, we've got to get Jane Russell on the boat. Also, why doesn't he just go with him? Because he later shows up in France. I think for business reasons, he can't go on the same boat. I see. And that's why Dorothy is there because he like knows that left to her own devices, the Marilyn Monroe character will like

probably just like hook up with another rich dude. Which she does. So Dorothy is supposed to be stopping that. But Dorothy, you know, is very easily distracted by attractive men. Oh, yeah. In flesh color. Classic Olympic team distraction. I, yeah, I mean, they enable each other in fun ways. Oh, yes. Yeah. And they get on what's basically the Titanic. A lot of Titanic. It's like, this movie is like, what if the Titanic didn't crash?

But was sexy. But was really hot. So Lorelai is on the hunt for a rich man on the boat. Ostensibly for Dorothy. For Dorothy, yes. And Dorothy is chasing after these Olympians because unlike Lorelai, she cares more that a man is handsome than he is rich. Or like I would argue like can give her pleasure or something like that it's kind of like the money versus pleasure argument with them meanwhile

there's this guy named mr malone uh and he is trying to get close to lorelei and dorothy and at first we don't really know why there's this old guy named Mr. Beekman, a.k.a. Piggy. Piggy. Oh, Piggy. Feminist icon Piggy. Piggy owns a diamond mine, so Lorelai is trying to cozy up next to old Piggy. And Piggy's like, yeah, she thinks I'm hot. Should we note that Piggy is older and overweight and is not an attractive man? Not conventionally attractive. Yes.

He doesn't hit the Western standards of beauty that we're used to. He's got a monocle though. He does. And that's kind of hot. He does kind of look like Mr. Monopoly. Yes. He does. He truly does.

I guess Mr. Monopoly would have also been a philandering misogynist. Right. Yeah. So Lorelai sees Piggy's wife's diamond tiara and she freaking loves it. And she's like, I got to have that. So while all that's happening, Dorothy and Mr. Malone are like giving each other the QDI until she sees him spying on and taking photos of Lorelai while she's with Piggy. Which is just like the scene in the gym in Titanic. Right. So then Dorothy is like, oh, he must be a private eye that Gus's, I think, dad hired,

is what she speculates, to keep tabs on Lorelai because he's just trying to shut down these impending nuptials between Lorelai and Gus. So then Dorothy, she's disappointed that her new crush is a spy. Classic. And she and Lorelai are like, crap, we got to get these incriminating photos from him. They're like, let's do a very difficult, problematic thing to watch in 2018. Let us drug you, Mr. Malone, and strip him and rob him. Yep.

Mm-hmm. You know, we can talk about it. We can talk about it. When that scene started, I was like, oh, no, I forgot about this part. And then it just gets, like, more and more and more intense. And then... Because they're, like, gaslighting him. He's like, what's like what's in this drink and he's like oh it's just vodka and and even that we're uh laura lies like turn up the heat let's roast him let's kill him let's do it

uh and oh it was uh crack and then never mentioned again next day he's he's like are we broken up like you should honestly break up with jane russell if that's yeah that's not good behavior um goes both ways baby you can't roofie anyone no and then and maybe this is just me not knowing how boats work but they somehow get the photos developed on the boat as if there's a dark room on the titanic i mean back in the day when people everybody used to take photos on film like you could get photos developed almost anywhere so i would believe it like i mean i wasn't alive in the 50s but in the 80s like literally you get photos developed on any corner okay okay i found it a little difficult to suspend my disbelief for there being a dark room on a ship but hey maybe maybe there was i don't know let's go with it i also the picture that is developed is so funny. Whatever, like the goat and the snake and the picture of Marilyn Monroe and Piggy.

Right, they're doing like an act out of like how animals eat each other. And it is incriminating, I suppose. So for some reason, this is even crazier to me, Lorelai shows the photos to Piggy. She did not need to do that. She could have just destroyed the film, but that's not what happens. Instead, she's like, here's what would have incriminated us if these photos got out. And then Piggy's like, wow, you're so awesome for showing me these. I'm going to give you a gift about it.

Oh, I think that was her playing along game. That was how I interpreted that. Like, she'll definitely get something now, but she also might get something later if she just doesn't outright blackmail him. Okay. Oh. Be like, hey, I'm on your side. And then she'll still have those pictures forever. Yeah. Okay.

That makes me like her character even less, but okay. More tiaras. Right. So then he's like, oh, how about I, you know, give you a motorcycle or something? She's like, no, I want your wife's diamond tiara. No! Yeah. So he gives it to her.

He's like, seems reasonable. Then it's revealed that Mr. Malone was audio recording that conversation. So he still has incriminating evidence against her. And it's like, bro, if you have the equipment, just start a podcast, you know? Don't exploit women um so then Dorothy's like hey Malone I like you but if you try to you know exploit my friend I'm not gonna like you anymore I'm out so then they get to France and Cherbourg which is where Titanic left from and Then there's a shopping montage. And then we get to the hotel where Lady Beekman,

Piggy's wife, his wife, accuses Lorelai of stealing the diamond tiara. And then the hotel's like, you guys can't stay here because... Much like a little scene in a movie called Titanic where someone, except this time she actually did have... Yeah. But, you know, a robbery scene in a movie called titanic where someone except this time she actually did have yeah but you know a robbery scene a robbery scene involving a diamond ship related robbery yeah close enough specifically about diamonds yes and then malone had told gus's dad about the goings-on with lorelei so he's like the wedding is off and then here's where things get really wild where

the cops show up to arrest Lorelai so she runs away and then Dorothy pretending to be Lorelai in like a blonde wig or maybe she dyed her hair blonde she goes to court because you know when you're arrested you immediately go to court afterward? To court, yeah. So that happens. And then Malone shows up and he's all like, he's about to sell out Lorelai. But Dorothy's like, hey, I'm Lorelai, but my friend Dorothy is in love with you. But if you say anything bad about her, I won't love you anymore. And he's like, never mind, JK.

She blackmails him in public. He's like, okay. He's like, okay. And then he figures out where the tiara is and it gets returned to piggy and then loreline and dorothy mary gus and malone and double wedding kiss and that's the end of the movie it sure is so i i didn't hear anything weirder or awry happening. So to answer your question, the story that unfolds is why I don't like this movie.

I don't think it's a stupid story. Oh, okay. But I'm willing to hear everyone's arguments to the contrary. Okay. Where do we start? I just wanted to note that the source material even though the i believe the screenplay was written by a man but the source material is from a screenwriter named uh anita loose who's also a novelist and was like one of the first i think contract female screenwriters

or yeah she wrote uh most of douglas fair' first movies. She was one of the biggest screenwriters during the silent era. And then in the 1930s, she really helped to shape Jean Harlow's persona by writing some of her movies. And then she wrote several memoirs about her time in Hollywood, which are really great. So she's a cool lady. And she initially wrote Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as a serial that was published i think in harper's bazaar and it was inspired by um this friend of hers hl menken who is a new york intellectual who you know was a middle-aged man extremely intelligent and he was just like completely overwhelmed by his attraction to some little blonde showgirl and so anita lowe's basically wrote this satire about how somebody

who could easily be dismissed as like a dumb blonde floozy was actually incredibly smart and cunning and was able to intellectually overpower in her own way like a giant of letters yeah and that happens in the movie i think yeah i mean it happens a bunch of times. Yeah. Well, maybe let's start there with how men are portrayed in this movie before we get to Lorelai and Dorothy. absolutely handicapped immediately by their own erections and like willing to do almost anything to even spend time with Lorelai be anywhere near her yeah we see it with Gus who I don't think we're led to believe he's an idiot he's not right a brilliant man he's no man of letters no but he's you know he's he's wearing glasses that's Hollywood go, but he's, you know, he's wearing glasses. That's a Hollywood gopher. He's not dumb.

Right. He's got some stuff going for him. But he, you know, anytime Lorelai says something, needs something, asks for something, no matter how irrational, he gives it to her. I don't know. And I mean, the same goes for Piggy. But I don't know. I mean, this seems like a very dated form. And I feel like it almost plays into, I was thinking about when we watched Teeth, Caitlin.

Yeah. And how, you know, women are sometimes portrayed as these cunning creatures that want to take things from you and need to sort of be neutered in order and domesticated. And you see kind of shades of that. But Lorelai's character always wins and always gets what she wants. Yeah. And so it feels like those sorts of stories are being commented on sort of where she is genuinely very manipulative and cunning, which women are commonly accused of being right. But she also gets what she wants and isn't, in the end, isn't punished for wanting those things, which seems like a victory. Right. I don't know.

I guess what bothers me about it, like, there's a scene at the very end whenever she finally is face-to-face with Gus's father, who has long disapproved of her and the idea of her. And you see him start to warm up to her because she's pretty. And he says the lines and like, hey, I thought you were supposed to be stupid, but you're not. And I'm confused now. She's like, Gus, just give me three minutes alone with your father and then everything will be fine. And her like breathy fuck voice.

But then it cuts immediately to their wedding so we don't even get to see like and we do see other scenes where she is like you know cunning and coy with her sort of like manipulation but i feel like there was an opportunity to like see okay let's let's see her be smart and do something well that speech she gives at the end i thought was was like pretty effective in demonstrating that point where essentially when she is confronted with the father and he's like, hey, you're as hot as they say. Anyways, you can't marry my son. And she has what I thought was like a really cool, interesting speech about what is it if a girl is pretty that's not the reason you marry her but it certainly helps right which is you know we can unpack that statement all day but she is like

demonstrating that she understands what she's doing she's not ashamed of it and she doesn't think she has to be and i don't know well she's contrasting it basically the father is accusing her of only wanting to marry her son for his money. And she's like, look, she's contrasting being beautiful as being a value in a woman to being rich and a value in a man. And she's talking about this double standard in, I think, as aggressive of language as an actress like Marilyn Monroe could in a movie of 1953. Sure, for sure. Yeah. And then and then in the scene before when she says to Gus, something akin to like, well, I didn't become this way because I wanted to, like the way society is set up made me this way. Right. Which I think is like, basically the thesis of that character,

which is that she understands that the world is set up to exploit her. And so she's all of her behavior is kind of a defense mechanism. Like she's beating people to the punch by exploiting them. And you can argue as to whether or not that's good feminism, but I think for the time, it was a certain kind of progressive. Yeah, that's true. Ant seems to have a level of practicality to it,

where, I mean, I don't know. I would argue that, you they're they're sort of representing two different kinds of feminism where Marilyn Monroe's character is more of a survival based understands that society values her until she's a certain age or until she looks a certain way and then she's on her own so she's like kind of stockpiling now. Yeah. So she'll be set later because we have to assume there will be limited opportunities for her as she gets older. So in some ways that like level of self-preservation and just good old fashioned redistributing the wealth.

I'm all for that. Certainly. I'm all for that, certainly. I guess it just bugs me a little bit that a large part of what she does to sort of exploit people or so she the fact that she's using that very idea and using it to get what she wants is good. I don't know. I just, do you know what I mean? There's a lot of ways to look at it. I mean, I think in the context of the time this is being made, her options are limited. Sure. Just by what society will allow women to do. And of course, there's like always outliers there. And we could argue that Lorelai should go to college and get a doctorate and become a scientist. Woman in STEM.

Become a woman in STEM. Yes, queen, go off. And, you know, really defeat the patriarchy single-handedly but given i don't know i i understand and i feel like the the movie goes out of its way more than an average movie of this time to get across to you that she is trying to survive the only way she knows how. With, I mean, with the support of a man, but also, I don't know. I ended up liking Lorelai's character a lot more than I thought that I would.

And Dorothy's as well. I mean, they're both symbols for different methods of survival. But only because she's a pretend. But like, what's Dorothy gonna do to pay the bills when she turns? She's the one who's gone and become a woman in STEM.

She's going to be like, okay, I've had all the sex. I'm going back to school. We had a similar discussion on the Breakfast at Tiffany's episode, another movie that I simply do not like. But I understand that because women have had to kind of use unconventional ways to get things uh you know capital or opportunities

and things like that because they've not been afforded to us historically that is something I appreciate and like to see stories about but I guess guess when it's like, hey, I'm a beautiful woman and let me exploit that to get the things I want. Like, I don't know, I guess it's just because great that that's available to you. But what about all the women who aren't, you know, conventionally attractive by Western beauty standards? Like what? It's a very individual approach.

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Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. And on camera, 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, Lugie. Not hawk the slalom.

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This is your expertise. So what do you think? Well, I mean, I enjoy the movie more than you do. I think that it's fair to say that the storyline is thin and silly, but that's part of just it being a musical comedy of 1953. I also think that this movie kind of critiques previous musical comedies in various ways. I mean, and that was typical of musical, Hollywood musicals of the 1950s is that they had a meta quality to them.

Singing in the Rain would be another example of that where they're sort of quoting previous musicals and making them a little bit more ridiculous while at the same time also blowing you away by certain technical things like choreography and costuming but I mean I wrote about this in my new book Seduction, Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Hollywood Howard Hughes's Hollywood because of Jane Russell who was the second of two actresses who Howard Hughes basically discovered and turned into major stars and basically previous

to this movie Jane Russell was most known for being in Howard Hughes' The Outlaw, but really most known for being in the publicity surrounding Howard Hughes' The Outlaw, which was entirely built around exploiting her breasts and showing as much of them as Hughes could get away with at the time. And at the time, like right after this movie came out, Hughes was sued by some of the shareholders in the studio he owned, RKO. And the main focus of their complaint was that they thought that Jane Russell was a waste of money and that she wasn't a good actress, wasn't a good star, and that he had squandered the shareholders' money building her up.

But the timing of their lawsuit was really unfortunate because it came to court right after Gentlemen Prefer Blond came out and had been a massive hit one of the top 10 highest grossing movies of the year it was the biggest blockbuster of the summer and it turned her into a star almost as big as Marilyn Monroe so that lawsuit didn't go very well for the shareholders but one of the things that I do find really interesting about this film is the fact that she had been absolutely the target of like the most withering male gaze I mean also the other thing about the outlaw is that a lot of it is built around a rape scene and a lot of the publicity around it featured like a cartoon of the rape scene so this is all detailed in my book as well but so she went from that to playing this role of Dorothy in Gentleman Prefer Blondes

where it's all about her gaze. It's all about her objectifying men. Her costumes are comparatively really covered up compared to what she had worn previously. Especially the scene where she is like singing about her sexual desire

for these Olympic dancers. Like they are wearing flesh toned shorts that make them look naked. And she is wearing a high-necked, comparatively high-necked black jumpsuit. You can't really see her cleavage, which was what she was known for at the time. And it's not a thing where she's singing about,

I want these men to want me. She's singing about how she wants them. So I think all of that is really interesting. I mean, I love Jane Russell, and a lot of the reason why I love Jane Russell is because of this movie. Yeah. I really liked her character a lot. I would say I prefer hers.

Wow. Caitlin prefers a brunette. Yeah. Caitlin prefers brunettes. My new movie coming out. That's the new What Men Want. That scene was so interesting and having that context for it

is so helpful because I assumed that that scene was just commentary on other musicals like what you were saying where you're going through the screen full of women in various bathing suits and treating them as set dressing and all that that

happens all the time even now but that scene was so fun and it seemed to communicate like it knew exactly what it was doing jane russell's great in it she's so funny and all the all the olympian men were just vacant they're all they none of them they were just flexing they're just bodies they're just exactly like they weren't even allowed to in the way that some scenes like that would like the woman turns to the guy who's singing and goes like oh but like they didn't even they were just there they were automaton flesh-toned muscle boys right yeah yeah for sure that was great but i would say that while both of these characters both lorelei and

dorothy the story boils down to basically a friendship between two women and in the things that they want and how they try to get them but they're also framed pretty much entirely by the men that they're attracted to like what type of man they're going for um that's how like their personalities are defined to us or that's how like their personalities are defined to us or that's how like like she goes for this kind of guy so she's this girl and Dorothy goes for Glass's spy and so she that she's this girl right so using that as a way to like characterize women is you know not the best way to do it but we still writing either yeah i mean because i mean they're two very distinguishable women but they're i would say pretty still archetypal where it's like

lorelei is the like blonde ditzy airheaded doesn't know what a tiara is right doesn't understand where france is kind of thing right although that exchange does pass the vectal test yeah i mean a place to even the stereotypes of blondes and brunettes in some ways although i guess i mean i don't know i guess i'd have to revisit the old trope book because i don't know that brunettes would be portrayed as like seeking constant sexual stimulation and pleasure right i guess she's framed as because she's not blonde she's just like different from that like archetypal like ditzy blonde type so and because she's not blonde that means she's smart instead of airheaded and she's sarcastic and that's basically what we know about dorothy i kind of wanted well i wanted to talk about the title of the movie, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, because one, it reduces women to their hair color, which means it's objectifying women.

That's all of Marilyn Monroe's career. And this is something that happens within this movie and in countless other ones. So that's, you know, not great. and it perpetuates the idea that like the blonde bombshell is the like ideal standard of beauty for women which has long been perpetuated by the media and movies like this one i i mean as it pertains to dorothy's character i like her a lot i liked uh her relationship with malone felt you know more authentic than a lot of relationships I think you see they've got banter they've got banter she you know she starts out by uh kind of calling him out where in that first interaction they have at the table he is lying to her but he's saying like oh I'm rich

and I've got all this stuff and she's like you know off. That's not what I'm interested in. Yeah. Leave me alone. And I found besides the fact that, you know, she roofies him. He lies to her. Those two things aside, I found the relationship to be very pleasant or more, you know. And again, it's like we have to contextualize everything with a movie like this. And for this time, I thought it a a kind of a sweet relationship and you know to the end it could have been very easy for him to you know do his job and not do what she told him to to save the relationship but he does he values her above spying on marilyn monroe i would argue that he she is very forgiving of his not that great behavior.

I do. She roofies him though. That's true. No one really comes out ahead there. Everybody's flawed. Yeah. Lots of shades of gray here. To quote some like it hot.

On one hand, there is that classic, like guy initiating a relationship under false, under a false identity thing, but then she roofies him. right is it a wash but she has to tell him like so often what he she i don't i don't know why i'm about to try to defend a roofie scene but she only does that because he's sneaking around spying on her friend to me this whole storyline plays out where she has to keep being like you keep trying to fuck with my

friend and i like my friend so you better not do that but if you don't do it even if that's what your intentions were i'm gonna forgive you no well she bailed on him when yeah he didn't that's that immediately takes him back another well i don't know how much time passes necessarily but the not to like come to the extreme defense of this movie but I I feel like that might be a little bit reductive of how that relationship works because Dorothy does tell Malone to go frick himself if you will when it comes down to he's going to keep sabotaging her friendship which for both of them seems like the most important thing to them where there's

even that scene uh where Dorothy and Malone they're on the deck it's all very titanic you know and uh Malone makes a jab at Lorelai and Dorothy immediately is like I can talk about her that way but you don't know her you can't talk about her she's actually very smart and don't know her, you can't talk about her, she's actually very smart, and don't do that. And, you know, clearly defines the boundaries of, you know, Lorelai and Dorothy are critical of each other, but they respect each other and care about each other and want the best. Even though in Lorelai's case, she kind of wants her version of the best. Sure. Dorothy.

Yeah, I suppose. How do you, I don't know know what do you make of that friendship green I actually think that it's um it's really positive especially for the time period I mean there are just not a lot of movies where you have two female stars who are treated by the movie as equals you know I can name a few others but like I think that for that time period, it was really, really unusual. And I do think that it is more central to the movie than any of the male female relationships. And also, like, I guess I just want to one thing I don't think we've like stated in these words so much is that I don't think that what Lorelai is ultimately going after is rich men. I think she's

going after diamonds, Like her real love affair is with diamonds. And it's with this idea of accumulating wealth. And this is her way of doing it. Like there's a whole song about it. Diamonds are a girl's best friend. And I think like the staging of that song really plays up the idea that like because she accumulates wealth, she's free. Whereas these women behind her are like dressed in black and are like literally tied up there and so i mean it it's you know obviously it's skewed and it's also satire but i actually just think that like so many of the messages in this film are positive yeah i i liked this the way this movie plays the friendship I was like so surprised by it every turn because even in movies now, occasionally you'll see a friendship break because, you know, the husband wanted this or the boyfriend wanted this.

And, you know, women can have friends, but at the end of the day, the romantic relationship is going to take precedence and could break off. But they make it so clear that that is never going to be the case. And it's also just nice or something that I don't think you see very much to see two women who view the same thing. I don't know. A victory in bipartisanship is Lorelai and Dorothy's friendship because they view life in a fundamentally different way, but they appreciate each other. They don't let it ruin their friendship, even though they're constantly debating is money or fucking more important, which jury's still out.

We don't know. But I don't know. I appreciated how that could have so easily been played into constant cat fight fighty stuff. But they had like actual conversations about it. And, you know, when Lorelai would try to push her viewpoint on Dorothy, Dorothy would be like, no, I'm going to, you know, frick the Olympic team. See you later. Because when she does try to do that, she accidentally sets Dorothy up with a child.

Who I'm pretty sure is like a creep in the making. Because he has a few lines where he's like, oh, I appreciate a good looking woman. And then he's like, I'll help you because you've got a lot of animal magnetism. Oh, also can we talk about how Marilyn Monroe accidentally Winnie the Poohs herself. She gets stuck in a porthole. I was like, I can't believe they're Winnie the Poohing her. Or I don't know which came first. Either way, she's a honeypot Winnie the Poohing.

And she needs a little Christopher Robin to yank her out. That was dying at the Winnie the Pooh scene. Yeah, that was really funny. What a treat. Yeah, I mean, really the only thing with that friendship, or the main thing with the movie that I felt like wasn't really commentary and was sort of just playing to like, and this is how a movie ends, is the double wedding end. Right.

That was like the only major thing that happens in this movie that I was not, I was like, eh, that that happens in this movie that i was not i was like that's kind of sure i guess i guess that that's how movies end at this time but even that is like is putting the friendship above either of these relationships because like that's true neither woman is um is saying like you can't be part of my wedding day we want to do this together you know neither one is like it is like i'm the star here it's my day it's more like it's our day right that's true and they're yeah they ride or die married each other i mean maybe that's what the movie is saying that they're really doing

oh maybe just coded yeah oh i like that i guess for me it boils down to and this is maybe just simply a preference thing but and because I agree that the friendship between them is represented in a by and large positive way where they're constantly defending each other, but they're also challenging each other what i don't like is that the things that they're trying to do or to get are framed entirely around men what i prefer i guess in like a female friendship story is something like thelma and louise where you know you got two supportive friends and the men have fucked them over so they're just gonna go and shoot up a bunch of, you know, convenience stores instead. That's just my preference. My Caitlin prefers Thelma and Louise.

I mean, I think, I'm sure that there's a way you could sort of show a movie like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as paving the way for other movies like that to exist of just you know if there were no movies portraying two women in uh you know ride or die friendship i think the you know those movies are difficult to make for sure really quick before we wrap up the discussion i want to give a quick shout out to lady beekman lady be Beekman, I, you know, you feel for her because even there, there's some commentary of Piggy

is this horny old dumbass with a lot of diamonds who is actively philandering on his wife, who we meet, who is originally very nice to Dorothy and to Lorelai, and then later comes back for the tiara, which I applaud her for

um I just want to give a quick shout out to Lady Beekman who did nothing to anyone no yeah she just has a creepy old husband just let her live yeah a couple lines of dialogue that I wrote down yeah uh Dorothy says I like a man who can run faster than I can, which sounds terrifying. No, I want a very slow man, personally. Caitlin prefers slow men. I forget which one of them says this. I think it might be Dorothy.

But someone says, if we can't empty his pockets between us, we're not worthy of the name woman. But that's like about the person they're roofing. Yes. Yes, it is. So, I mean, fair if like two women can't take like a passed out man and get something out of his pocket. And they do. I don't think that's exactly what they mean.

Keep the name women. Gus says about lorelei i'm going to make her marry me yeah that was not didn't love and and there was one little grabby from malone from malone that was like oh yeah he says to dorothy i'm not wrong about you and you're gonna listen to me and yeah says this while he's angrily grabbing her arm and turning her toward him. It's so hard to know. I think they're just playing a complicated game of dominance and submission. Oh, maybe. I actually think it's fine.

Who is the dom? We just didn't see the whole contract scene like in Fifty Shades of Grey. The censors cut that out. A quick fun thing that I found on IMDb, and maybe Karina, you know about this, but a couple of years after Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Jane Russell was in another movie called Gentlemen Marry Brunettes. But it doesn't seem to be a sequel or any type of, in no way is it related. She doesn't play the same character like weirdly anita los did write a sequel to gentlemen prefer blondes called gentlemen mary brunettes oh but then when it came time to make this movie i think her niece actually wrote the movie mary

anita loose but they just like threw out the original story because they couldn't get marilyn monroe um so they just did something else. I haven't seen that film. Okay. Interesting. We got to take a quick break, but we'll come right back. Okay.

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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, let's talk about whether or not this movie passes the bechdel test all right it's interesting i was reading a lot of criticism of this movie after watching it and getting all my own thoughts you know sharted out etc a lot of critics say this movie does not pass the bechdel test and

they must be i think using a different version than we are. Perhaps, yeah. Because there are certain caveats and variations on the test. But again, for our sake, it's just at least two lines between female identifying characters who are not talking about men. Using that standard, I would say the movie does. A bunch of times. Well, I would say I only found a couple, I think. Hit me. Okay, here we go. Dorothy says, not Europe, France.

France is in Europe. Lorelai says, who says it wasn't? Dorothy says, well, you wouldn't say like, oh, where's North America, Mexico, would you? And she's like, well, if that's where I wanted to go, I would. That passes. That was silly. A lot of the passes I came up with, it's tricky because the subtext of what they're talking about very almost nearly all the time is marriage and men.

And because that's the central debate of these characters is how do they view this? So, I mean, there were some, I got like six or seven passes of like on the page, they're not talking about men technically, but the subtext of the whole movie, it's hard to pass. Yeah, they might not mention a man's name in the conversation. But I would say almost every single conversation they have is either about a specific man or they're talking about the concept of loving men or finding a man. Passes a few times in theory when they're in the process of roofing Malone. They're talking about stealing pics. They're talking about turning up the heat.

But from a man and to make a man uncomfortable. So, I mean, it's, I mean, the very, and as we always say, it's a flawed metric. Not perfect. The whole thing this movie is trying to comment on is like how women perceive marriage and men and how, like, how to survive and survive and live a fulfilling life at this time. So it's kind of, I mean, it's a tricky movie to pass. Sure. Yeah, for sure. Although Lady Beekman and Lorelai talk about diamonds. They sure do.

But yeah, almost every conversation between women is about men, either in subtext or context or like explicitly but does pass it does by our standards go movie one quick thing that i wanted to mention is there's a moment where whenever gus's father's like hey they told me you were stupid and lorelei says i can be smart when it's important but most men don't like it Which there are a couple lines like that that I do appreciate where she kind of like challenges the status quo or she points out a double standard. I would have liked that to happen more. But again, thinking about the movie being 1953 and yeah, this is paving the way for more progressive texts to come down the pipeline. But yeah, I didn't. I think I came down too hard on Lorelai.

But that's just because I'm a brunette and women are defined by their hair color. Women can't get along. Yeah, I just, I thought that was cool. And there's a line where she's talking to Gus and she says, and we touched on this briefly, but I wanted to read the quote. It's men like you who've

made me the way i am and if you love me at all you'd feel sorry for the terrible troubles i've been through instead of holding them against me right so yeah those are those are moments i appreciate it's great i feel like that yeah all the satire you know reaches its logical conclusion by the end of the movie and i don't't know, I thought this movie held up pretty damn well, given that it's over what, 60, 65 years old. And a lot of that, I mean, all the typical prejudices and issues of the era are on full display where, I mean, unfortunately, it goes without saying that this is an entirely white movie. This is an entirely straight movie.

All that is fully what it is in 1953. But given the time, I was very impressed with this movie and I would watch it again. Well, let's rate it. Speaking of how we feel about it, zero to fiveipples, based on its portrayal and representation of women, I am going to give it, I would say it cloud my judgment. But while I do appreciate the female friendship and how it probably did pave the way for more progressive movies about female friendship to be made, I think that because the goals of the women are defined entirely by and framed entirely around the type of men that they're after. I think also this movie was funded by the diamond industry. Is that true? No.

Probably not. But why? It was funded by 20th Century Fox. But it does actually promote the names of several diamond stores. Tiffany's and Cartier. So I just oh god Kaylin didn't like the movie I didn't like the movie I do appreciate a few of the things it does you know it does challenge different gender specific double standards it does show a positive

female friendship I don't know the fact the only thing we really know about them is the type of men that they want and the only thing we see them do is things to either land a man or in some cases several different men if you're talking about Lorelai which is fine hey if you want to fuck a bunch of people do it also Gus is like really possessive of her and like jealous and he's like you need a chaperone because I don't trust you because you're a woman who's hot and so you're probably going to. But to be fair he cannot trust her. That's true. A lot of. No I don't know. Maybe he's not like stereotyping

her maybe he's just like seen her flirt with other rich dudes. That's right. That's based on past experience. And there is that roofie scene. But also why would you send like to chaperone someone who's like you know who's really going to hold her accountable? Her best friend in the world. Who's also, like, DTF like crazy.

Who's, like, the horniest. Let me invite the horniest person she knows. This is going to work out great. So, yeah, I'm going to, this is probably too low, but I'm sticking with the two nipples. And I'm going to give one to each of my gals. One to Marilyn Monroe and one to Jane Russell. Cool.

Well, I guess I don't know what a five would be and I don't know what a one would be. But I'm going to say four. Yeah. Cool. I think I'm going to split the diff, do a three, maybe three and a half. I think that something we didn't really, Karina, you spoke to a few times, was even the way this movie is framed is a little bit different and not how we're used to seeing. I mean, certainly Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell are fully made up

and gorgeous this whole movie. The costumes are incredible. But the male gaze, I feel like this movie is aware of the male gaze and subverts it several times in a way that is, you know, for once not the center of, you know, she's controlling the camera and where the camera goes instead of being pursued by it. And Lorelai and Dorothy are the only ones who kind of break the fourth wall in the musical scenes. And it just, I don't know, they felt fully in control of the movie and generally the story and were equipped to solve the problems that they were sent to. Although, of course, you're totally right that they're sort of defined by their views of men in the world. So I'm going to do three and a half.

And I'll give two to Jane, one to Marilyn, and half to Lady Beakman. Ooh. Yeah. She earned it. Sheekman. Ooh. Yeah. She earned it. She worked hard. I'm kidding. I don't know anything about her. Well, Karina, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me. This has been so much fun. So much fun. Plug whatever you want. Well, my book, in which I write about this film and others made by Jane Russell, Seduction, Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood, it will be in your local bookstore. Yay.

Yes, read it. It's great. I can't wait to read it. Where can people follow you online? Oh, I'm on Twitter at Karina Longworth, and you can find my podcast, You Must Remember This, on iTunes. Yeah, I hope people listen to it.

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So check that out. And hey, we'll talk to you next time. Thanks for listening. See you later. 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.

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