The Bechdel Cast - Gotta Kick It Up! with Mekita Rivas

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

This week, we kick it up with special guest Mekita Rivas while discussing the Disney Channel Original Movie, Gotta Kick It Up! (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast Follow @rivasraves on Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's right, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. 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. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

There's a lot to figure out when 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. 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? Shimmy, shimmy, stomp. Something. Dance moves? I don't know. We're dancing. Oh, I could have taken the lead on that. I was a dancer. Oh, yeah.

You were a dancer. Okay, so you try. All right. See if you can do it any better than me. One seven eight that's my favorite part of any dance movie is when you get the five six seven eight hard and then you just get like a woman in her early 30s panting and screaming at teenagers that is the good stuff one two three four. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. And you're just like. I would die for this woman. I don't know why.

But I've been told that I should. Oh. God. This movie is about a lot of things. But it is about. The evil power. That a dance coach holds. Over.

Her. Dominion. True. Her Jurassic Park. Dominions. Her minions. My famously rejected. Script for. Universal Pictures. Jurassic Park. Dominions. It minions. My famously rejected script for Universal Pictures, Jurassic Park Dominions.

It would have been the crossover event of the century, but instead they went with Colin Trevorrow. Welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante, and this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point you're damn right which is I'll tell you what it is tell me what that is it's a mediometric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel

sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace test originally appearing in her comic dykes to watch out for in the mid 80s as a bit of a one-off goof that also kind of examines how there was so little representation of queer women in the movies at the time absolutely something i would like to mention more often as we discuss the bechdel test but anyway there's deep lore for the Bechdel test. Such deep lore. Yes. In any case, it is the media metric that again, we use as a springboard. Our version of it is two characters of a marginalized gender with names must speak to each other. And their conversation has to be about something other than a man ideally it's a substantial conversation and not just a nice day we're having sally yes it is betty or some of our worst passes which is like shut the hell up okay yeah um which is a classic woman dynamic.

Yes. So quickly right off the top, today we are covering the classic Disney Channel original movie. And if you're a listener of this show, you have statistically been harassing us about covering one Disney Channel original movie or another for the better part of 10 years. So today we are covering one of the greats. We were covering Gotta Kick It Up, 2002. But just so you know,

the way that we're structuring our episode today because of guest availability is that it will be Caitlin and myself for the recap portion. And then we're going to bring in an incredible guest, Makeda Rivas, for our discussion. So if you're like, is there a guest?

Yes. Eventually. Patience. Patience. Yes. But yes, today we're covering Gotta Kick It Up. And boy, oh boy, Caitlin. Yes. What is your history, if any, with the Disney Channel original movie, Gotta Kick It Up? I have no history with it. As with every other DCOM, Icom i've never seen it right until i've had to watch it for this show do you ever wonder who you would be if you do do you think you'd be different i think i would i think like because in a small way but in a way not substantial I don't think it would have informed my taste very differently than it already is because I did watch some like almost decom coded movies but ones with just like higher budgets but the one that comes to mind would be like Lindsay Lohan

Parent Trap which I saw on repeat as a kid. But also as a kid, I was watching Titanic every day. So, you know. I mean, yeah, there's no lack of the general vibe in your life. I feel like mainly my life would be different because I would not wear so many ugly clothes and be like, this is awesome. But unfortunately there was one of these damn things on every single week and they would be wearing the weirdest stuff. And you would, I mean, I feel like it's the xenonification of,

yeah. Thank you so much. Of women of a certain age. And also let's like take the gender specificity out of it. Wow. Yeah, thank you so much. Of women of a certain age. Sure, sure. And also, let's take the gender specificity out of it. We're all impacted by the brutal choices made by the various costuming departments in these films. Indeed. So, all that to say, I had never seen this movie.

I had no history with it, but i'm excited to discuss jamie what is your relationship with gotta kick it up exclamation point i love this movie i saw it the day it aired on television wow sorry i was in elementary school when this came out i remember watching it with my cousins as I feel like my answer for every decom because there's only so many ways to get kids to shut up and this was one of them at this time my cousins they were always I remember like because we all lived within a mile of each other my mom ran the daycare at my house we were together a lot and then these would air on friday nights and so first of all even if you weren't excited about the movie it was a sleepover opportunity and so you had to spend as much time with your girlies as possible and so this was an opportunity and it felt like

to me and i wonder how my cousins feel about this i will ask them that it felt to me that if the decom was about girls higher likelihood that the sleepover would would be approved by the powers that be and and if you're getting kind of like a kyle massey original if you're getting like a ricky allman movie you wouldn't understand he played raven simone's little brother cory on that so raven he later starred in the spin-off cory in the house in which inexplicably he moves to the white house i didn't watch that one okay because it was about boys the white house and not the smart house not the smart house. Not the smart house, which is my White House. No. Well, anyways, they're all a part of the same expanded universe.

But anyways, we watched all of these for whatever, seven or eight years until it was suddenly uncool to do so. Got to kick it up, though. Firmly remember watching it. Remember watching it with my cousins. And we loved girls and dancing. And so this was an event. And at the time I don't, I mean, as I rewatched it, I remembered, I feel like with a lot of childhood movies, I remember basically nothing that happened in this movie. I remembered girls, I remember dancing. And I think because of how history played out, I remembered America Ferrera.

Yes, of course. And so when I went to revisit this movie, what I thought this movie was, was a movie about a group of teen dancers starring America Ferrera who do cool dances and win the contest. It is, however, a movie in which America Ferrera barely has a character, where a white woman who played Belle on Broadway

and did the voice for Megara in Hercules plays a white savior coach who teaches a group of teen girls nothing that's sort of what happens it's not as though she's inspiring them to start dancing they're already all dancers and at many points in this movie they're dancing in spite of her

and so I found it interesting to be like oh this movie is actually about a central white character I didn't even remember who i really do like upon further reflection she's certainly and i feel like the nature of these movies and by that i mean teacher student kind of sappy movies i'm gonna take the white savior element out for a moment, but it's like, well,

sure. They learned from me, but I learned from them too. But even if you put this movie up to a microscope, I don't think that they really learned anything from her. No. Well, that's correct.

Anyways, she's able to overcome her very boring problems related to not finishing her freshman year at Juilliard. I'm like, cry me a fucking river. Anyways, in my memory, this movie was a great cinematic achievement. In reality, it is a very interesting, somewhat dated, but I think valuable to talk about, cinematic achievement. Yes, yes, yes. I can't argue with that. Yeah.

So shall we talk about it further with the recap? Let's recap, baby. But first, let's take a quick little break. 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. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh, my God, I would love it.

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

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

It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions, like how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies.

Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it, like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back.

We're back. Okay, here's the recap for Gotta Kick It Up! And you gotta. And you simply gotta. If there's one thing you gotta do. It's kick it up. Did you know the original title to this movie was Kick It Up! And then it turns out that was something.

And they're like, hmm, how do we punch it up? Gotta. I do think that that choice alone illustrates the immediacy with which these movies are made, where they're like, I don't know, it airs in 10 minutes. What are you going to call it? You're like, um, you gotta kick it up. You gotta kick it up. And so it was. I did not. I was like, is this like a dance expression? The way that like, oh, you know what know what first of all it's not first of all as a dancer it isn't also when i went on to urbandictionary.com to confirm to talk about gotta kick it up you could just text me my god well i was like okay is kick it up a dance expression no and it's not and when you look up kick it up on urban dictionary

the first entry is oh no when your friends want you to smoke a big ass joint with them why in the year 2023 would you consult this website and then the response is like oh yeah let's kick it up tonight and that means to smoke a joint of marijuana. Okay. First of all, if you're a listener, please let us know if you've ever heard that in your fucking life. It's like that reminds me of my mom still not fully understanding the implications of the phrase hook up. Oh. In a way that I think I maybe have talked about in the show before,

but it always makes me laugh where she's like, hey, I have to go hook up with your uncle. You're just like, you don't. She means meet up. But she says it like she's going to have sex with her brother-in-law, you know? And so in that way, language is is amazing and it can sound like anything but in terms of kick it up as far as I know unless it's a dance genre I am not trained in

no it's not an expression and not to brag but I was the captain of my high school dance team and so if there was any kicking of it up, I think I would have known something about it. That's true. But I believe colloquially within the community of high school dancers, the phrase was kick. It was merely kick. Got it. It up was implied within the action. Of course.

Now, this title reminded me that so many movies that center female athletics have it in the title. Remember we did a whole Matreon theme based on this? Whip it. Whip it. Stick it. Bring it on. And bring it on also, I would say almost definitively that Gotta Kick It Up in part got a green light off of the success of bring it on

i would say yes probably as i feel is the tendency for like if there's a very successful like movie that comes out theatrically about a year or so later there'll be sort of a version of it that comes out on the disney channel it's just how society works and you can like that or not sure sure sure but anyways okay what's this movie about i'll tell you what it is wow because we also were pondering what does it ever refer to in the title of these movies we're not quite sure yeah what are they kicking up their feet i meant like spiritually oh right i'm a dancer caitlin i know what they're kicking yes oh my god you're starting to piss me off and we're gonna post a picture of my high school dance team because i'm i'm starting to get it's fine

all right okay one last tangent before we oh no i mean is that every time i learned about this movie before seeing it or knowing what it was about i assumed based on the verb in the title kick kick that it would be about soccer um and so i was like woohoo soccer movie as a also captain of my high school soccer team both leaders both captains we're leaders oh captain my captain oh which speaks to okay before we get on mic we were talking about wow we really communicate in the love language of sub-genres we were talking about how this movie is directed by the same director ramon menendez who directed Stand and Deliver which has as you're about to hear a similar but different overarching story is like a teacher inspires a group of youths to aspire to

greatness and that is a sub-genre I like to think of as substitute teacher movies and not to really brag because not only was I a high school dance captain, I also would later be a substitute teacher, which is sort of a direct one to two if the truth is to be said. And my career as a substitute teacher was four months in Watertown, Massachusetts. Brave of me to say, but I did not know what to do. When I was substitute teaching gym, I would make the kids run in a circle. And if they were good, I would play Let It Go from Frozen. And that was one lesson. That's an example of one of my lesson plans. My other lesson plan was movies. And I would pull from the same substitute teacher movies that I would watch, which included Stand and Deliver,

which included Remember the Titans. I think most significantly, Remember the Titans to me is my seminal substitute teacher movie. What else? Mr. Holland's Opus. Anytime a teacher is doing some shit that they shouldn't be doing,

Dead Poets Society, but that's more of like a high school energy you can't show that to second graders remember the titans turn it on for fucking anybody you know i would have assumed it would have been more appropriate for older kids but not if you ask the second graders i taught and you can re-watch it let me know if that was bad of me to do but i did anyways this feel like, even though it didn't become, because I think it was like a TV movie, but I think that this movie falls squarely into like substitute teacher movie canon.

Why were we talking about this? Because I said, oh, Captain, my Captain. Oh, Dead Poets Society. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Well, what's the movie about? What is it? I'll tell you. And we'll figure out what it is later

yes yes yes yes okay so we open on the first day of school at marshall middle school in southern california i'm guessing la area but it doesn't really specify we'll talk about this in the discussion but the movie is based on experiences that one of the writers had in the la area so i think it's implied yeah yeah and before classes start for the day when everyone is just sort of lounging around outside two students daisy played by camille guatti and yolanda that's americareira, start dancing. You might even say they are kicking it up. And then another girl, Esmeralda, played by Sabrina Wiener, wants to dance with them.

But Daisy has a bit of an attitude and she won't let Esmeralda dance. Don't worry, that will not really impact the plot moving forward it's just something that happens a couple of times it's just a way to introduce the characters it's just a way to say some shit yes then we meet miss bartlett played by susan egan yes susan egan is bella on broadway just keep that in mind because she's just like associated with so many famous voice roles that it's like really hard to ignore. She is the new biology teacher at the school. Don't worry. She's not qualified for the job.

She does not have a background in biology or really science of any kind which is substitute teacher coded yes except she's a permanent teacher yeah she lives in a house uh-huh i was like this is a fantasy world anyways yeah principal zavala played by miguel sandoval who i recognize from the beginning of jurassic park fun little fact about me. Oh, he's kind of a legendary character. He's been in so much stuff. Indeed. Yeah.

So the principal goes up to Miss Bartlett and he's like, good luck. These students can be pretty intimidating. And you're like, what do you mean by that? Well, right. And I think what he means is that miss bartlett is a waspy blonde white woman and the majority of the students at this school are latinx and the students in miss bartlett's class do not take her seriously and daisy even gets up and starts dancing like on her desk.

I don't appreciate that this is implied to be a racial comment when it is simply how teenagers treat new teachers. Yeah. You're just like, yeah, she's a joke because she's an adult and she's new here. That's just how that works yes indeed and then as this kind of chaos is unraveling principal zavala walks in sees the disruption and gives

daisy a month of detention now speaking of dancing or kicking it up as it's known across all cultures, Yolanda is talking to her friend Alyssa, played by Joanna Flores, about the school's dance team. The previous dance coach had retired, so now it looks like there's not going to be a dance team this year. That is until Esmeralda discovers that Miss Bartlett went to Juilliard. So she asks the principal to try to recruit Miss Bartlett to be the new dance coach. And Miss Bartlett reluctantly agrees and tryouts are coming up. And Daisy negotiates with Principal Zavala to join the dance team instead of serving her detention time.

At the suggestion of her boyfriend of ambiguous age named Chewie, who said that he had done the same thing previously. Right. So Daisy, Yoli, Esmeralda, Alyssa all try out for the team, as well as another girl named Marisol. She's played by Solima Rodriguez. And they, along with a handful of other girls who will never speak and we will never actually meet, but that's just how movies work. They all make the team. Miss Bartlett is very like no nonsense. And she expects the girls to be as dedicated to the team as she is. And they start to get into shape and they start to put choreography together. And then it's time for their first competition at rolling hills middle school but the team's performance is pretty sloppy and daisy gets so pissed about it that she storms off stage and quits the team and the team in

general doesn't have a lot of faith in miss bartlett but then daisy sees miss Bartlett dancing in the gym by herself. Okay, one of the most iconic scenes in the movie, because it sucks. Yeah, like it is heavily implied, and this we'll talk about in our discussion as well, but it's like very implied that it's like, oh, Miss Bartlett's relationship to dance is really complicated. And you're sort of like um okay but yeah then the first glimpse you get of why that may be and it also is repeatedly referenced in a way that i

don't think she's really held a task for in the scope of the movie is that she's projecting her own issues onto the team and intentionally holding them back because of issues that she hasn't resolved in regards to her relationship to dance right spoiler alert the reveal is very boring but this is the first scene where we see like her dancing like no one's watching and for some reason and i think this is also very just like in the way that these movies are written to be pretty soapy seeing miss bartlett dance like no one's watching infuriates daisy she says how dare you dances if no one's watching when we could have been watching right i love drama because it turns out that miss bartlett has more moves than the team realized and it seems like she's been holding back. So Miss Bartlett then convinces Daisy to rejoin the team.

And they all get to work on some more serious choreography. And then there's an upcoming competition at Hamilton Middle School. But Miss Bartlett won't let them compete at it because she thinks they still have a lot more work to do. She wants them to be the absolute best because a part of her whole thing and her arc is that like she put too much pressure on herself to be perfect and she thinks that being the best is the most important thing. Now the girls feel differently and they decide to enter the competition without Miss Bartlett knowing. So the team spruces up their uniforms and heads to Hamilton. Daisy's boyfriend Chewy and his friends give them a ride. Because they're very supportive for a chunk of the movie.

Right. Until they're suddenly not for no reason but the team they're not sure if they can do this but then and they're like can we kick it up we gotta we gotta we gotta and then marisol is like well my grandma always says si se puede which means yes we can which becomes the team's motto so just a quick uh they briefly contextualize it within the movie but i also want to contextualize it within the episode so the phrase si se puede it's a historical phrase it was very intentionally put into the movie by its it's safe to say primary writer nancy de Los Santos, who also wrote Selena, amongst many other movies. So she contextualizes it in an interview that she did a couple of years ago with a website called millennialhallmarker.com. She says, I am extremely proud of getting si se puede into the script and onto the television screen, but it's not a dance phrase or wasn't at the time.

Si Se Puede is Spanish for yes, you can, yes, it is possible. And it is the motto of the United Farm Workers Union, co-founded by union activists Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. The phrase is credited to Ms. Huerta in support of Cesar's hunger strike during the union's creation. I love the phrase and wanted the young dance team to have words that reflected their strength and commitment to their goal. And it was great to hear these words spoken on television. It always makes me smile. I really loved that she got to say that. This was for the 15th anniversary of the movie, so 2017 but that yeah this is um in a movie that as you'll hear in our discussion

certainly has plenty to criticize about a lack of cultural specificity the phrase he supported and also having it contextualized as something that was important to this character's grandma does sort of give it a cultural specificity and i don't know honestly like i don't know if i ever would have learned this phrase if it weren't for this movie nice thanks for sharing um okay wow i said bravely yeah um thanks um thank you anyways anyways back to the recap no i kid but also here's the rest of the recap okay fine so the team competes at hamilton middle school and they get third place and while they're there a woman named lionel elliott who's the dean at a prestigious performing arts high school approaches daisy and wants her to apply to the school and daisy is hopeful but she's also concerned about tuition costs

and things like that i really love again it's like another teen movie thing but the name of the dance scout is a woman named Linnell Elliott played by Yvonne Farrow and I just love when a character's only referred to by their full name for ostensibly no reason to just like intimate their grandeur and so they never call her Linnell they never call her Ms. Elliott every single time it's Linnell Elliott's gonna be there and it's like they're saying Barbara Streisand but it's just like a lady in the movie and she's always wearing a pantsuit she's kind of like our resident girl boss of the movie and she's great and she's sort of like you know she's like hey you know we can get you a full scholarship. And you're like, wow, that never happens. Lynelle Elliott, as far as we know, an icon.

We respect her. Yeah. Yeah. True. It's Lynelle Elliott for crying out loud. Yeah, famously. Okay. So the girls return from the competition. Their parents are really upset for just sort of like disappearing for a few hours miss bartlett finds out about it and she's also upset that they betrayed her trust but daisy is

like well it feels like you don't believe in us and miss bartlett is like actually it's that i don't believe in myself and i've put too much pressure on myself to be perfect. And then so after this heart to heart, everyone feels ready to keep competing. So the team puts together another routine. They gear up for regionals. There's some drama along the way, such as Daisy's boyfriend Chewy can't handle that she's spending so much time dancing. So he breaks up with her we'll talk about that yeah the school doesn't have the budget to pay for their trip to regionals and then also miss bartlett was offered a job at another dot com company or whatever they keep calling it and the team finds out about this job offer and they feel betrayed but miss bartlett is like no i turned

it down i'm still your dance coach and then they put on a car wash slash food festival thing to raise funds for the trip to regionals and then also chewy comes around and apologizes for being an ass. And then it's the day of the regional competition. The team is there with their new uniforms. Daisy almost chokes because Linnell Elliott is there to evaluate her dancing. But she does a good job. The team puts on a great performance. And they get second place.

Yay, the end. Si se puede. I always forget because it does feel like such an unconventional choice to be like, let's end at the penultimate competition. And we'll just sort of tell you in a slide how they did yeah we'll talk about this in a second but like because this is semi-based on real experience i was like why couldn't they just win first place why yeah embellish those details you know you gotta kick it up the plot that is wow and with that let's take a break and come back with a full discussion with our wonderful guest

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 k Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious

as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh my God. I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know. I would love it. I have to watch Lost.

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

I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Rudy. I'm not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum.

Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Prudente. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take?

Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.

My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we are pleased to be joined by our special guest.

She's a freelance journalist. She covers culture and style. It's Makita Rivas. Hello. Hello. Hi. Welcome. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Of course. Thanks so much for being here. So we approached you because you had written a really great piece in Refinery29 about the movie. And so we're just curious basically what your relationship with this movie is, kind of preliminary thoughts, and then we'll get further into it yeah because we also want to talk about how i mean your pieces about how your feelings about it just changed over time yeah what's interesting is i hadn't really thought about this movie in probably 20 years and

i um have been contributing at refinery 29 so most almost for a while. And my editor was like, hey, this anniversary is coming up for this movie, which, you know, was pretty influential for a lot of young Latinas growing up, you know, 15, 20 years ago. So would you want to rewatch it and just sort of like, let me know your thoughts. And so I had honestly, I kind of went into it a blank slate. Like I think I last saw it on the Disney channel when I was maybe 11, 12 years old, give or take. So I couldn't really recall much other than like your typical group of like rebellious troubled kids who are essentially kind of like adopted by this like white savior you know sort of character and then upon rewatch I was like oh wow like some of this has not aged very well so it was sort of a journey but there

were still parts of it that did feel heartwarming so So it was a little like a mix of both, I would say. For sure. Sure. I mean, there's something to be said for, I mean, Latinx representation in like major Hollywood movies is still extremely low. And so for this DCOM to, I mean, you could, I was going to say for it to center this like team of latina yeah but you could also argue that it's like the lady who centers it's first of all so distracting that it's like the lady who voiced bell because once i learned that i couldn't unhear the voice the

whole time yeah um but it's like also about her like flopping at Juilliard. And you're like, well, I don't care about her flopping at Juilliard. I just don't. Right. Yeah. And I think there was like another part where she talks about like growing up, her parents like wanted her to work really hard. She was just saying like, I felt like I had to be the best or like good was never good enough. And essentially it felt like her sob story was like her parents wanted her to work too hard. And just like, I mean, I'm not trying to minimize that by any means, but it just was sort of like, I don't know if this like warrants you, you know, like kind of diverting away from, you know, the other Latina characters in the movie.

It kind of felt like there were parts where her backstory probably could have been compressed a little bit more. Right. And one thing that really stuck with me about your piece was how you closed it, which is by saying, why couldn't Miss Bartlett been Latina? Like why? And I had the same feeling as I was rewatching it where, I don't know, I found it very interesting that this movie was directed by the same director as Stand and Deliver. Because you're like, oh, this guy's bread and butter is teachers bringing students together. But having I mean, obviously, the optics of the teacher being white and clearly from a more privileged background, just like totally undercuts a lot of elements of the story.

And yeah, your suggestion was like, yeah, why did they not do that? I don't know. Questions that need answers. And we don't have them. Although I guess what informs this choice, not justifies it, but informs it at the very least is a little bit of context which is so the story is based on the experience of Megan Cole who is one of the I guess creative minds behind this movie she has like a story by credit and she's also a co-producer. She was like a producer at Disney at the time. So she was like the one to pitch the story. Right. And so I'll just quote an article or a review from the LA Times entitled Life Inspires Story with Some Kick. So quote, prior to joining the Walt Disney Company,

Cole was involved with the non-profit teach for america program that places instructors in under-resourced schools across the country cole who has a master's degree in education from harvard university me vibes with my master's degree in screenwriting from boston university something that I would never mention ever you're like it's in Boston basically Harvard basically Harvard okay so back to the quote so Cole who has a master's degree in education landed at Nimitz Middle School in Huntington Park where she started the campus's first competitive dance program. Although Gotta Kick It Up was quote-unquote inspired by her experiences at Nimitz, the movie is set at a fictitious Marshall Middle School. And then I'll kind of end the quote there because it sort of just recaps the movie.

But it puts into perspective why the movie focuses so much on this white woman. Well, even so though, with all due respect to Megan, she upped herself to having gone to Juilliard, which is pretty significant creative license because from what I could see, she was on her high school dance team. I'm like, well, if Megan went to Juilliard, so did I. And I didn't. But I feel like even that, like taking that creative license pretty clearly illustrates that there are elements of the story that were not

adapted one-to-one. And so keeping the teacher as a more privileged college-educated white woman was a very changeable thing. And it feels pointed that they did not view that particular element of the story as changeable yeah i definitely agree with that so my understanding of i just wanted to yeah go a little more into the context of this where like these movie of the week like tracking production for movies of the week is so difficult. Because I'm like, oh, yeah, this movie was made in Canada for $12 in two weeks. Yeah, it's hard to trace the history, right? That's just how they're made. But my understanding is that Megan Cole pitched the story loosely based on her own experiences. And then they hired another screenwriter who had written the Selena movie a couple years before,

Nancy De Los Santos, who wrote the main teleplay along with two sort of Disney white guys stalwarts. And that the director, Ramon Menendez, also helped with the story. So it was a very like collaborative effort. But from what I understood, I mean, there's an interview with Nancy De Los Santos a couple of years ago that makes it seem like she was, it was mainly a collaboration between herself and Megan Cole, where Nancy went to the middle school where Megan Cole had taught. She interviewed the former dancers that she'd worked with and tried to write a story that revolved around Latinas based on women that she spoke to. Which I think is great and makes it even more frustrating that it's like the whole

Megan Cole needing to be Megan Cole within the story is such a sticking point. Yeah, I was a little surprised to hear about Nancy's involvement. And you would think that her involvement would hopefully had had an influence on maybe steering the story in another direction. But at the end of the day, I guess not. Unfortunately, not so much every time there's a situation like that I'm like I can't imagine how much pushback you would get from a place like Disney like I'm sure that she wanted to include less garbage than ends up in the movie yeah or I would hope so she it was a lovely interview we can link it in the description she's talked specifically about being proud of getting the si se puede

phrase into the movie and including some you know actual cultural history and explaining what it is which again was just rare in these disney movies of the week it would usually be like a dog learns to bake or whatever right yeah no for sure a house is smart what if a house is okay that's a good one though so watch your mouth oh my gosh good times good times you would also think that with nancy's involvement the latina characters would have been a little bit more amplified as far as their characterization and their interior lives their backstories and we get a little bit of that for some of the characters but i felt like some of the characterization was just a little under cooked especially with like and maybe it's just because america ferreira is

such a star yeah now and for her to like we never meet her family we never see her at home the only thing we know is that she's bad at math and you're like okay well that's relatable but what else yeah it's wild because like she's and again it's probably partially because she became so famous so quickly after this movie but she was sort of like one of the only parts I remembered about this movie. And I was surprised to rewatch it and see that they've barely written a character for her. Yeah, she's surprisingly one-dimensional. And like you said, she's such a star and she commands the screen. And you kind of want more from her when you're watching.

So yeah, that's a little disappointing. The character development in general is very inequitable across the girls i would say right and it's like at the expense of the miss bartlett character having so much like she has the most significant arc she has the most significant backstory why is that the case when it's a movie about this group of girls and on this dance team at this school well let's take it sort of character by character yeah just so we can talk about what we do learn about yeah characters so honestly i don't know how unfortunately how much more i have to say aboutolanda's character because there really isn't much there. I know I like her, but I'm like, is it just because I like America Ferrera?

Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. The character I feel like there is, we learn the most about and there's the most to talk about is Daisy. Yeah. And I know that Makita, you sort of spoke on how you felt about Daisy in your piece a little bit. But I'm curious, yeah, what do you make of that character? Daisy, she's so interesting to me. I mean, I think, I think she has a pretty authentic character arc, you know, like, for kind of playing that typical troubled teen who, you know, doesn't maybe have the most respect for authority and kind of like all of those tropes.

I think she plays it with a certain degree of heart. So I do like feel for her. And toward the end when her and Miss Bartlett like kind of finally see eye to eye and you know you kind of have that like disney channel happy ending i am ultimately rooting for her i think there are some parts where the conflict maybe felt like a little contrived like when i was re-watching it and it was like oh she like got up and danced in class and then got like a month's detention. And that was like the whole reason why this whole thing started. You know what I mean?

And it was just like this is. Yeah, it was a little like that part was a little like cringe and laughable. But, you know, taking it for what it is, like being a Disney Channel movie, I think, I think she plays it pretty well. And like, I will say her boyfriend is another interesting character. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's your response is pretty much. Yeah, because I mean, I have a huge nostalgic attachment to this movie. But as I was rewatching it, I'm like, Oh, I basically remember nothing about what happened. I just remember being like, girls dancing is awesome to me. Yeah.

That was basically my takeaway. For sure. But there are two back to back conflicts that are immediately resolved towards the end of the movie. Where the first one I thought was very funny because it was like,website.com comes to Mrs. Bartlett's house and he's like this website is taking off you gotta join the website and then she's like I don't know should I join the website and then in the next scene she's like I'm not gonna join the website like, well, then why did I have to look at that? What's the point? Yeah. The second one I think is more interesting

because like you're saying, Makita, Daisy has a boyfriend named Chewy who I'm like, how old is this guy? Yeah, I know, I know. She is 14. Get away from her. But we don't know. So if we're like, he's TV 15, which is like human 27. We don't know so if we're like he's tv 15 which is like human 27 we don't know right right

he's old enough to have a driver's license so he's at least 16 at least yeah so he's ambiguously older than her even if we're leaving that on the table i thought he was an interesting character because i don't know i feel like very often you are shown dropout characters as like this person is bad they're bad news and anyone who drops out of high school is bad which is so prescriptive and such bullshit that i towards the beginning of the story appreciated that it was like he dropped out of high school but he's thriving to the extent that he can he's got a job like he's doing okay and it was a sympathetic character who was generally supportive towards daisy at first but then but well that's the thing that felt like a writing thing to me where he just

like to me turned out of nowhere and was like actually i hate you it did seem out of nowhere yeah super out of left field i don't know where that decision came from i think they're like oh we need more drama more drama more drama yeah i think that was it but then it like also resolves within 10 minutes because he's like i hate you we were supposed to have a family. And then she correctly is like, I'm 14. And Mrs. Bartlett, I think, you know, correctly advises Daisy to be like, hey, don't worry about what this guy is telling you if he's an asshole. Like, this is a good opportunity for you. But that's also loaded coming from the white savior teacher about a latin teenage boy and so that also felt bizarre and then it doesn't matter because he's

like i changed my mind i'm supportive again right yeah yeah my main takeaway from that was he does not deserve the redemption this story gives him. Because he's really cruel. And he's basically just like, don't follow your dreams. All you should do is spend time with me. This whole dance thing is getting in the way. And don't do that. And if you're not willing to compromise and basically give up dance for me, then you're out of my life. And she's like,

what? Once again, I'm 14. Why is this even a conversation? And then like a few scenes later, he shows up at the car wash and he's like, just kidding. Here's $100. Yeah. You're like, we need a higher forgiveness tax. Exactly. Yeah. He needs to put in more effort. I don't know if it was supposed to be speaking to like the fickleness of teenagers and maybe like teenage boys in general. I don't know. But yeah, it did seem like kind of like emotional whiplash there.

Oh, sure. Yeah. And I mean, ultimately, I it was frustrating because, again, the age thing was throwing me. But I generally liked Chewie. And it seems like they were like not bad for each other. Like whatever, what teenage relationship is good, really? Like they famously don't go well. But like it didn't seem like they were bad for each other. And it seemed like the story had a lot of love for him and had an interest in like characterizing him to be like a sweet person.

And then it just felt like the script turned on him. It didn't feel like that was foreshadowed in any way. Definitely not. But anyways, Daisy. Daisy. Daisy. Well, to bring it all back is what we know mostly about her. I guess, you know,

she's the character who butts heads most with Miss Bartlett. She's also her friendship with Yolanda seems to be the strongest friendship in the movie, even though we kind of know nothing about it. Because again, we know nothing about Yolanda. But at least like the script, a lot space to establish them as close friends but aside from that the main thing we understand or learn about daisy's interior life is her relationship with her boyfriend which like fine but because especially we get other characters and more information about their home lives and you know we meet their families or we have a sense of like what their interests are outside of dance and stuff like that but it just felt a little

I don't know just a very easy choice to make for like the character who's essentially the protagonist in Daisy is the one who's like, of course she has a hetero boyfriend. Yeah. It kind of seems like most of her story outside of the central conflict between her and Miss Bartlett is essentially about her being in a relationship. Yeah. You know, with this interesting Chewie character. So I do think that was a missed opportunity. And again, for Yoli as well, I don't really understand why certain characters got maybe a more holistic sort of treatment in terms of like painting their family life and at least like putting faces to names in terms of who the parents were, who siblings were and things like that.

It would have been nice to have had that for all the girls. Totally. Well, that's part of what it seems like part of the reason this even made it to air, which also speaks to like the dearth of Latin stories that were out there at this time, was because a white lady who already worked at Disney happened to have this experience. And so she becomes so baked into the story. like as i was re-watching it and also just reflecting on what i remembered about the movie which was teenage girls dancing and that was my favorite thing in the world yeah i did not remember how integral the coach character

was and i wish i guess it was closer to my like warped childhood memory, which was like, this is a movie we're talking DCOM expanded universe, I think I was maybe projecting some cheetah girls onto. Yeah. Gotta kick it up because that movie, which we've talked about on the show and has many of its own faults, but does generally focus on how the girls relate to each other and their interpersonal conflict and that doesn't exist in this movie as much as I thought it would which sucks because it's like I wish that the central relationship in this movie was between Daisy and Yoli like that makes more sense than having Daisy's tether be this lady who flunked out of Juilliard. Like, who cares?

Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The friendship between Daisy and Yoli is the most, the one we know exists. But again, we don't know anything about it except that they seem to bond over their mutual interest in dance. There is conflict between Daisy and Esmeralda to some degree, where Esmeralda, she isn't quite so challenging of authority as Daisy is.

And so she's like, come on, let's dance and let's follow the rules. And Daisy thinks she's like kind of a nerd based on her choice. Yeah, that felt pretty like classic, like contrived introvert versus extrovert. Yeah, like almost like Esmeralda being sort of like the goody two shoes and Daisy is like the non goody two shoes basically, you know, doesn't necessarily listen to authority and wants to kind of like do her own thing. And, but agreed that also felt contrived. I think like one of the first lines in the film is like, as Merelda is trying to share like some music that she wants, like the girls to dance to. And I Daisy's like I have the moves I pick the

tunes or something like that you know and it's just like so so 2000s movie so 2000s like very like bring it on-esque dialogue yes yeah and you're just like wait why is this like suddenly contentious like aren't you guys friends so that was also kind of weird at times and it kind of goes underexplored too because it's like that that conflict comes up a few times but you never really know where it comes from oh and then it seems like it just sort of dissipates over time which can be true of conflict between teenagers but it's like it's a movie of the week i need more information i need more more info. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Daisy says something like, get your girly music out of here. It's like, first of all,

what's wrong with girly music? Define that. Yeah. What is girly music? What does that mean? What do you mean by that? So Esmeralda is one of the characters whose home life we do see. We meet both of her parents. They seem loving and supportive, although they expect a lot of Esmeralda, especially as far as providing some care for her younger brother. They appear to both be working parents who probably have pretty demanding work schedules, so they rely on Esmeralda. And I like that there's that scene where she like

sticks up for herself like you expect so much from me why can't i have this one thing for myself and i was like yeah yeah i love that scene too and i was so i remember being angry when i re-watched that scene if it's the same scene that i think because i think it's after they like placed at a competition like they did really well yeah so well yeah they did really well and then she comes home and her parents are like didn't you know we're supposed to have dinner at your aunt's and where are you you're supposed to babysit your brother and you're supposed to cook your brother's dinner and like all this stuff and I'm just she's 14. Like you guys are the parents, like, relax, relax, like, but I will say that part feels authentic, and that it at least depicted a reality, you know,

for a lot of Latina Latinx families, you know, starting young, if you're in a multi generational home, especially eldest daughters will take on a lot of that emotional labor and just actual labor in the household so that was one thing i think they got right yeah and that could have been explored a little bit definitely oh yeah for sure and then the other character whose home life we see is Alyssa she has the like extremely supportive parents who are showing up to all the competitions yeah well and I felt like it was like partially implied because we get two families that are characterized and one are two working class parents and the other seem to be middle class to upper middle class parents and those are the parents that we see

as being actively supportive it just felt like pointed in a way that felt a little icky i don't know what did everyone think about that it's almost like too easy or like too obvious right yeah you know yeah the implications the optics of it are like just yeah just an easy stereotypical choice to make without examining like well if working class parents appear less supportive why would that be they have to work usually more hours at more right often physically demanding jobs all of the context is not really explored in this particular instance although i think the movie handles class in otherwise like pretty interesting ways because it does acknowledge that this is a school in a lower

income neighborhood there's references to like some students dropping out maybe at a higher rate than wealthier schools nearby there's like a possibility that some students may join gangs. I think the principal. Yep. I remember that. He like cites that as a reason that Ms. Bartlett should coach the dance team because it'll help keep kids out of gangs.

But that also felt so like white savior coded to me. Like I, I will say I did not really like how the principal spoke about his own students and to his own students at a number of points in the movie where like when we meet him he is telling a black teenager to pull his pants up which if there is not a more reductive 2002 thing to be happening in a movie. And then I struggled with the principal because it just seems like, I believe that he cared about his students,

but the way that he spoke about them behind their backs felt like it really, like it was very, very harsh and reductive at a number of points. I didn't love him. Yeah. harsh and reductive at a number of points i didn't love him yeah he also loves the military or like brought his like military black ground and he was like in the military yeah that was definitely like i guess the implication that like these types of students need or require this kind of like strict militaristic style like form of authority I guess in order to be you know led in the right direction or whatever like the tough love kind of thing is like that sort of trope like that's what's required and it, well, or you could just like not be an asshole. High school principals, I feel like are all cut of the same cloth to some extent,

where it's like, yeah, you have to be sort of hardened to the world if your job is being torn to shreds by teenagers every day. I wouldn't survive a day. But I feel like it's frustrating because we see him be very harsh to the students to their face. It would have been nice to see, I guess, him have like a gentle moment with a student, but we really only see him have gentle moments with Mrs. Bartlett for some reason. And you're like, again, Ms. Bartlett is just like in the way in this weird way. Agreed. Let me show my soft side to this random lady with no teaching experience who just her dot com company failed. How does she go from having a background in dance to then being some executive at a tech

company or like an internet startup or something, and then to a biology teacher, like what is that trajectory? I mean, I think that that is probably an attempt to comment on like on the teach for America culture where it's like that program does bring in teachers that don't have a lot of experience. But again, it's just like the fact that we know about two of this lady's failed careers indicates that we know too much about her.

And then we like never learn anything about Yoli, except that she's not good at math. Why do I know about all three of Miss Bartlett's career and nothing about yoli like it's yeah really really unbalanced i like what you just said about her just kind of being in the way of the story like that's what it feels like when i watched it there would be a moment of like the girls being on screen or them with their families or something and you're kind of just wanting a little bit more and then it's like back to miss bartlett and like her the fact that she was a juilliard for two weeks and it's like okay i mean okay cool she's crying i just was like i i feel bad i did laugh when she cried because you're just like i'm just like get over it not that I get it trauma can look like anything but this one was pretty silly one of my favorite moments in the movie that made me laugh because

it was just so out of nowhere and hokey was when Chewy and Daisy broke into the school on a weekend to like I don't know be mischievous or whatever they were yeah she had to get up her backpack yes they broke into the school and then she's like wait what's that music and miss bartlett's like flash dancing in the gym by herself yeah and chewy's like what am i watching why why is this on my television screen um and then she finishes dancing and then she starts crying and you're like oh god we're gonna have to learn about what i know i know i don't care sometimes something that really stood out to me was it's Miss Bartlett's idea for these girls to incorporate dance from their cultures, their cultural backgrounds. Like, why wouldn't that be the girl's idea? too is like let's do something really innovative by taking advantage of your background which is such a white perspective to be like of course you think that incorporating existing dance styles from other cultures would be innovative innovative well this is coming from the same woman that on

the first day of auditions was like i will not allow any tardiness for any reason even if you're esmeralda and you have responsibility to your brother also no dark lipstick and no jewelry and no just like all of these very pointed sounding comments to be like i want you to be a juilliard ballerina yeah you're out and i feel like it was at least presented in a way that was like, oh, she means business where it's like, no, I think she's being she's saying a lot of fucked up things. Yeah. Like her subconscious bias was definitely showing. It was like, oh, we're trying to paint the dancers like they can only be dancers if they look and act a certain way. And I do think, obviously, you know, thinking about sort of the stereotypical white blonde haired, you know, Juilliard ballerina.

And then to your point, those comments about like, because I think Esmeralda was like walking in late and she's like, I'm sorry, I had to, you know, like pick up my brother after school or something like that. And she's just like, tardiness will not be accepted. And it's like, it's your first day. Like, can we be a little like realistic here? Yeah. And then the remark about the dark lipstick and like the long nails and, you know, like, obviously, it's like those are signifiers for a lot of Latinas in relation to how they do, know their beauty routine and things like that so that was it's just like yeah definitely some like coded subtext there whether that was intentional or not you know what I mean but it was definitely there and if it was intentional it should have been

commented on like as a part of like if we absolutely have to be invested in this woman's arc unlearning her racist biases should be a part of that yeah but instead the closest you get is another moment where i laughed where it's like a serious scene between mrs bartlett and daisy where daisy teaches her the phrase si se puede and oh yeah she goes si se puede and you're like oh my god mrs bartlett sucks so much she's so annoying oh my god yeah i can't stand her that reminds me of another point you made in your refinery 29 piece makita is the lack of diversity across the spectrum of latinidad where the characters for the most part at a school that seems to be predominantly latinx latine students they're at least on the dance team there are no for example afro-latina students we're also not sure what nationality

any of these girls are we yeah know that the other girl in the main cast who was introduced later so she has even less characterization than the other ones but marisol I want to say she is an immigrant from what country we don't know right and then the other thing with her is that there are several references to her English not being perfect which again just feels like another easy stereotypical choice where right of course like when a language is not someone's first language there will be challenges often for that speaker but to like constantly draw attention to her not being a native speaker just felt a little and is because like that's the only thing we really know about her right exactly yeah english not being her first language is sort of this clunky movie of the week way of conveying plot information. And that is like how it goes at the climax of the movie where it's like,

that is not, not quite the joke, but like that is the function of her character is to communicate information to other people. And we know nothing about her other than that. Yeah. Right. And then they're like,

are you sure you even understood that correctly? Yeah. And she's like, yes. Yeah. It's like, it's probably something that could have been touched on like once and then not it'd be right it doesn't need to keep like

there was definitely a lot of missed opportunities for just again more character development and something else that would be an actual like marker of her personality or her back you know it's just it was very one-dimensional i will say she is the one who says know, it's just, it was very one dimensional. I will say she is the one who says like, oh, it's like my grandmother always says, si se puede, which becomes the team's motto. So yeah, that's her contribution. But aside from that, we don't know really anything about her. But back to just the lack of diversity, and there are no cultural specifics for the girls who seem to be mostly well i don't want to make any assumptions i would hazard a guess that at least some of them are first generation maybe some of them are second generation or more but you know it would stand to

reason that they would maybe mention like oh like you know this is my specific cultural heritage and maybe they didn't do that in the movie to just try to seem more inclusive like we don't want to leave anybody yeah so we're not going to be specific but it also then you get like the monolith syndrome right exactly yeah so and then there's not much body diversity either in the cast where i mean america ferreira especially during this time in her career was one of the few young fat actors at this time and this is something that a lot of movies she was in at this time calls a lot of attention to or just a lot of the media because we covered real women have curves last year yeah yeah i don't hate the way body size is handled in that movie but then you've got things like ugly betty and like sisterhood of the traveling pants which like

so much attention is called to her size and how she's bigger than the other girls around i like that this movie just allows her to be fat without calling attention to it although the first thing you see her doing in the movie is buying a candy bar which again just like feels like a oh well of course yeah fat girl is gonna buy candy and then that's not something we see any of the other girls doing but i was also like yeah let her have her snack. Jesus fucking Christ. I hate that a girl eating a candy bar is a political statement. It's, yeah, it's so frustrating. Well, and even worse is, like, in that scene, I think she dropped it and then somebody stomped on it. And then, like, Daisy can't, you meet Daisy and she, like, tells the bully to back off or whatever.

Right. And it's just just I don't know like you said like can we just let her have her candy bar and like not make it into a thing because I think the bully said something like oh is this part of your diet like making you know like some snide remark and true that was unfortunate yeah yeah I'm I think we talked about this in the sisterhood of the traveling pants episode forever ago but yeah like because america ferreira was one of the only teen actors that wasn't extremely skinny at this time it felt like she had to take on so much like not she couldn't just

be an actor because she also had to be a signifier of body type that was supposedly not allowed but now we're allowing it but just for this one girl and yeah i mean and unfortunately i think that that there is still a lot of that around today but it's just i don't know i love america ferreira so much i just like wish her the best in every damn thing. She had to take a lot of shit. So much. Oh, yeah. For existing. I also wonder if because, again, because outside of her character, there's no body diversity.

Yeah. And I almost wonder, because she's the only fat character, is that why her characterization seems to be scaled back wouldn't surprise me it's happened before in many movies where the one fat character in the movie has little to no characterization i think that's a really good point very possible it's so bizarre because it's like this movie is so i think because of the genre it is like it's pretty vague in most ways other than you know that most of the characters are Latina but like I mean speaking to your point Makita and in your piece like you would have to change very very little about Mrs. Bartlett for her to not be a white character I think that there are elements that it's like oh this is coked into this character is, but it would have been easy to scale back. And I think that

that is like kind of what can be potentially freeing about movies like this is that they're like not written in a hyper specific way. And so you can cast anybody and like who you cast makes a difference. But I think in certain roles, yeah, like in Yoli's role and in Mrs. Bartlett's role in particular, like they sort of played to stereotypes and they played to easy, quote unquote, marketable choices versus acting in the best interest of the characters. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, I would have loved to have seen a latina and afro latina play miss bartlett i think that could have been really cool but oh well absolutely yeah well now they just need to remake the movie yeah the last thing we need is another um any other thoughts before we sort of wrap things up? My last little thing was,

I think it's great that this is a predominantly female femme cast, but I also think it would have been cool to see some boys on the dance team as well, especially in this context, dance is considered to be like a more feminine activity, especially because they seem to, and maybe this is a thing, maybe this is just my ignorance about what certain high school extracurricular activities are actually like, but they're a dance team, but they're wearing cheerleading uniforms and like doing pom-pom things. Is that the standard? Okay. That's just my ignorance. Okay. Anyway, so in any case, this would have been considered, I think, a more feminine extracurricular

activity, but I think it would have been cool to see some boys like doing dance and being on the dance team to kind of challenge those gender role expectations. Yeah. But I don't think that like takes away from the movie and again i appreciate that this is largely a like all femme cast but that's it for me yeah any other thoughts i think for me i mean i think it's still like i feel a little nostalgic for it and i do think like we're watching these with the gift of hindsight and, you know, it's so easy to say we would do this and this differently. But, you know, I appreciate that it was at least like a step in the right direction in terms of, you know, broadening representation on the Disney Channel, which like was such a seminal like pop culture thing for so many like millennials in particular. So I appreciate it for what it was at the time.

For sure. Yeah. Yeah. We talk about this a lot on the show of like stepping stone movies of like this movie's success. You can hope because it was so, I mean, clearly we're talking about it over 20 years later.

Like it is a well-remembered movie. Yeah. This movie led to better and more thoughtful representation. And so in that way, I feel like, yeah, we talk about this in movies we grew up with all the time where it's like, well,

no, it's, you know, it is in no way perfect, but because there were young people who wanted to make stuff watching it, it did have an important role and make a difference, which is kind of, you know,

in some ways the best you can hope for. Yeah, absolutely. Indeed. And it handily passes the Bechdel test. Yes. Almost all the time, except when it's like the principal or Chewy. I think those are really the only times where it isn't a discussion about something other than a man. Oh, yeah. They're talking about dance. They're talking about being bad at math, etc. You know, all the major topics of conversation. Look, say what you will. I was talking a lot about being bad at math in high school. It consumed a lot of my time. Not me. I was talking about being good at math. Whatever. Well. No, I'm kidding. I don't know what I was talking about in high school so long ago. Anyway, yeah, it passes a lot. Although I again, I wish there was just more meaningful relationships established among

the girls on the dance team. But it does still pass a lot. But as far as the perfect metric, which is, of course, our nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples, examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I'll be, oof, I'm between like a two and a half and a three i do appreciate that the movie is in essence about a group of latina dancers in middle school even though they're in ninth grade which is again maybe another thing that i'm misunderstanding that's confusing really i was like middle school ends at eighth grade i thought

ninth grade i think it changes by region though because i think in some places it's like it could be five to eight it could be six to nine like i'm pretty sure it varies i will say when i was like going through middle school high high school, I'm originally from Lincoln, Nebraska. So like there were some high schools that were 10 through 12. Oh, okay. And then there were a couple of middle schools that I think were six through nine, if I remember correctly. But I think at some point it all kind of shifted again. And then the traditional middle grades were six through eight. Well, yeah, when I think about like the range of dates that my public school went through, you're like, why? It actually makes more sense to do it in like four year increments,

because I did like K through six, seven and eight and nine through 12. And why was that? We'll never know. Anyways. Another thing we don't have the answer to. Any case, yeah, this is semantics that I shouldn't get hung up on. But I appreciate that it's about this group of Latina girls at this school that addresses class and, you know, could have been handled more thoughtfully but I appreciate that that's a component of it we didn't really talk about the you know Daisy getting an offer to apply to this like prestigious performing arts school and like assuming that she wouldn't be able to go because her mother couldn't afford it and she's like hesitant because she thinks she assumes it'll be a bunch of like rich white kids at the school.

So, you know, it does some things to tackle class. It does some things to sort of characterize some of the girls. But again, because it is such a focus on the arc and the backstory of the Miss Bartlett character, especially where like she's a white woman from seemingly and more upper middle class background coming in to be this like white savior figure for these kids who might be on a bad path. So she has to reach them through dance. And it's like, well, they already want to do dance. Like, yeah, you're actively preventing them at many points in the

story. Yeah, I'm doing it. You keep like trying to bail or like holding, but they and they're constantly like, it seems like you're holding out on us. Like, can you be more present and like, quit betraying us all the time? And she's just like, haha, what? Anyway. So I think a lot of the choices feel very early two thousands era. A lot of things were not challenged that would,

I think, be challenged were the movie to come out today. The lack of characterization for some of the girls, the lack of specificity, I think is potentially harmful lack of diversity among the latina students things like that with all that in mind so yeah i think i'll give it two and a half nipples sort of a split down the middle and i will give one to america ferreira because she's just so wonderful i'll give one to America Ferreira because she's just so wonderful. I'll give one to Camille Guatti.

That's who plays Daisy. And I'll give my half nipple to Marisol, who I wish we knew anything else about. I know. Any more information would have been nice. I'm going to go three. I kind of even want to go a little bit higher, but I think that that might be nostalgic. I'll go three because like we've been talking about,

I mean, this movie has many shortcomings. It's lack of diversity within the Latin community, its lack of specificity, the fact that this movie should absolutely be about the relationship of girls on the team and not girls and Juilliard flops, like that will never stop being annoying to me. I totally forgot about it and now I will never forget about it. Yeah, I think that like this movie definitely fumbles in a lot of ways. And also I want to hold space for it as a very, very unique movie to its time. At least in I mean, in the like millennial movie, especially targeted toward like young tweens or just young people in general. Absolutely. Like it's almost, and it shouldn't be this way,

but it is almost completely singular in terms of like a piece of mass media designed for tween girls that is theoretically exclusively about Latina teens. And I appreciate that it had such a big impact. And on the rewatch, I wish that because it had such a big impact, it had handled a number of issues

better. Miss Bartlett's a flop. I wish that we could just sort of eject her out of the movie or change the significant things about her. There were a number of girls on the team I wanted to know more about and didn't. And yeah, the lack of cultural specificity felt very, I don't know, indicative of what Disney Channel was about at the time, even when they were producing movies like Gotta Kick It Up, which is that it seems like the undercurrent for Disney then, and you could also still say Disney now, is that they are assuming whiteness of their audience. And so they're assuming that you wouldn't care about more cultural specificity which first of all is not true and second of all is deeply

white centric and reductive um i'm gonna give this movie three nipples on nostalgia points and because i do genuinely believe it led to better representation down the line because it was so successful. I'm going to give one nipple to Daisy. She's the best. I'm going to give a second nipple to Yoli because in my memory, she was the protagonist and turned out not to be. And my final nipple, I'm going to give to a scene that made me laugh so much. The scene where the website guy comes to Mrs. Bartlett's house and says, his website is huge. Gossip and news for teens. You could go to London.

And I was like, what a speech. What a sick man who immediately doesn't matter. And those are my n yeah, my nipples. Makita, what do you rate this movie? Oh, I will give it, I think, two nipples. And I think they are mostly rooted in nostalgia. Just for like, and I started off my piece very nostalgically. Like just writing about like, you know, it's

2002, like you're getting home after school, sitting on an inflatable, like neon chair, you know, eating Trix yogurt or whatever. And like, this is just like, these movies are just so associated with that specific time in my life um simpler times arguably so I think there's like you know just you miss kind of that feeling but in terms of actual representation it is pretty lacking I think it to me it sort of falls into this category of like checklist representation right it's like okay we have some vaguely Latina characters we're not really going to go beyond the surface level we like have some glimpses into their whole life. But obviously, as we've discussed, it's not super

substantive. There's, you know, one character who speaks English as a second language. And there we go. Like, there's the movie, guys. And I think it's sort of hoping, you know, as we've said, just hoping for a little bit more, and then it never just arrives. I think it is definitely a product of the time. And unfortunately, we just, we meaning, you know, Latinas, I'm multicultural myself, you know, that was something that I didn't see represented in media really at all, which is a conversation for another day. But like, I think it was just like, you're just so hungry for anything. So you, you're happy with what you get, right? So all that being said, yeah, you're happy with the crumbs.

Exactly. Which is like so sad, but I know. So two solid stars, mostly for nostalgia's sake. I will give one to America Ferreira because America Ferreira. And then I think I'll give one to actually Nancy de los Santos because she's a fan of her work, especially Selena, and it's cool that she was involved in the project. I was surprised to learn that this movie was co-written and directed both by Latine filmmakers.

Yeah, and already successful like we're not even catching them at the beginning of their careers because stand and deliver came out 15 years earlier yeah and i mean it's cool and it feels like there is like a creative commitment because you wouldn't just you wouldn't simply make a decom if you were already very successful unless you had a real love and investment in the material. Yeah. So I think it's amazing. Yeah. Agreed. Makeda, thank you so much for joining us. This was so much fun. Thank you. This was great. Where can we find your work? Where can we find you on social media? How do we keep up with you?

You can keep up with me primarily on Instagram these days. I'm at Rivas Raves. I am also contributing, as I mentioned, Refinery29Somos, Eater DC for my like Washington DC folks, because I'm based in DC. So I cover the food scene here. But I, you know, just I would say follow me on Instagram, because that's usually where I try to share some of my work. Amazing. Yeah. Thanks again for being here. Come back anytime.

Oh, my gosh. Yes. I'm happy to talk early 2000s movies, literally any moment of any day. So let me just say the word. Maybe we'll hear. I can't wait and then you can follow us on mostly instagram these days as well at bechtel cast as well as subscribe to our patreon aka matreon at patreon.com slash bechtel cast where you can get two bonus episodes every single month plus access to our back catalog of well over 100 bonus episodes, all for $5 a month.

And you can get our merch over at tpublic.com slash the Bechdel cast. Get your weird Halloween merch. Ooh, Beetlejuice. Nice. Declaring definitively, do you think Beetlejuice comes wet scabs or dry scabs? One of our grossest ideas,

and we turned it into merch. We did, and now is the time to buy it. or dry scabs. One of our grossest ideas and we turned it into merch. We sure did. And now is the time to buy it. Now is the time to announce where you stand in the Infinity War. That is, what does Beetlejuice come? Yeah. Well, good note to end on. Great note.

Should we all get together and learn a dance routine? I'm down. And then win regionals. Should we all learn Miss Bart learn a dance routine. I'm down. And win regionals. Should we all learn Miss Bartlett's dance routine that caused her to cry at the end? I was like, I only will do a dance routine if I am allowed to weep in the gymnasium afterwards.

That's where I'm most comfortable. So yes. Of course. All right, let's do it. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks.

She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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?

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