The Bechdel Cast - Gremlins with Moujan Zolfaghari

Episode Date: December 13, 2018

Rule #1: Caitlin and Jamie hate the patriarchy. Rule #2: Watch Gremlins with a critical lens. Rule #3: Special guest Moujan Zolfaghari can do whatever she wants at any time of day! (This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @moujanz on Instagram! You should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP on Twitter! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you.

You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories,

and of course, the culture. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast hello and welcome to the bechdel cast hi my name is jamie loftus my name is caitlin dorante this is our show this is our

podcast about the betrayal of women did a betrayal betrayal which i think it's not too far off i'm depending on the movie most movies betray usually it's about the betrayal of women yes um anyways this is the show it's if it's your first time listening hey welcome welcome if you like gremlins the movie we're discussing today probably sorry in advance yes because we will be talking about both the portrayal of women in the movie and the betrayal of women in the movie tfw your dad breaks his neck being santa a problem we can all that was nuts that was a twist i totally forgot about well we'll talk about it anyways uh so we critique the portrayal of women in famous movies using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point. The Bechdel test being a media metric created by Alison Bechdel in the 1980s.

And Caitlin, what is it? I'm a fucking dummy. I forget. fucking dummy i forget well first of all jamie you're not a dummy but i'm happy to remind you that the bechdel test requires that a movie have two named female identifying characters in the narrative they must speak to each other and that conversation cannot be about men wouldn't you know it a lot of movies do not pass this very simple test it is a very low bar shocks i know but whoa that was then wow we're in the we're in the holiday episodes now yes we certainly are when are we gonna do eight crazy nights you know what we should because there are very few uh movies about hanukkah or any, which is going to be one of my talking points.

But there's so many Christmas movies and so few holiday movies that are representative of any other major religion. I genuinely think we should do I Love You, Crazy Nights. I've never seen it. There's so much wrong with it. I mean, it's kind of a nightmare, but, you know, it is. It's nicer to have to see adam sandler as a cartoon oh sure yeah anyway so well that didn't pass the test because we talked about but we did talk about hanukkah and that always passes the bechdel test what nope i don't know

basically because every major religion focuses on a patriarchy i would say that talking about religion in general does not actually pass the bechdel test but anywho yeah here we are this is the podcast this is it uh let's should we just introduce our guest yeah i'm psyched to have her oh my gosh our guest today she is a tv writer a comedian and the co-creator and a voice on the podcast Mission to Zix, Mujan Zulfagari. Hello, happy to be here. Hi, thank you so much. Hi.

That went too high. Hi. I'm so excited. Just like a gremlin. Yep. Oh, I just realized while watching it that I can do a really good gizmo. Really? I was born to do gizmo.

You should have been cast instead of Howie Mandel. I know. Wait, what? Yeah, he did it before he did Bobby Zorob. Wow. What? I don't even know where to fall on that. That is good. Wow. Hire this woman to be your voice actor on anything.

So what is your history, your relationship with the movie? So I've never seen it before, but I remember it was a choice. I recall as a kid it being around. Like, I think I was alive when Gremlins 2 came out because this came out in 1984 and Gremlins came out in 1990 I believe so yes I'm just getting a grimace 2 and I just didn't want to because it looked really scary and I was a really scared kid in fact I think around that time when Gremlins 2 came out it was like gonna be at a birthday party we're gonna watch it but we were also watching Brave Little Toaster and that freaked me out and so I called home and like told my mom I

wanted to go home and that was the movie that got me away from sleepovers but I couldn't tell my mom because I have I'm from a immigrant Persian family and my mom did not approve or understand the idea of sleepovers like why would you send your kid to be at a person's house where adults drink beer and they have dogs? And so like and so I couldn't say it was because they were showing me scary movies so I think I was like I just like have a stomach ache or something. I put the

blame on myself so I could continue this sinful practice of sleepovers but I chose not to see it and so I saw it for the first time when you told me this is a good movie to watch or a movie to watch a movie to watch this has been a popular request

for three holiday seasons running now and so we buckled and yeah Caitlin what's your history with this movie? well I did not see it for the first time until fairly recently as well. I think I probably watched it maybe three years ago.

Like, this is not a movie. This is the type of movie that I probably would have grown up with under other circumstances because, like, I would place this in the camp of, like, Back to the Future, The Goonies, like, Indiana Jones, like that camp of just, like, iconic 80s movies. But for some reason this just like wasn't in my household so I didn't grow up with it I have no sentimental attachment to it it's fun but people love this movie and I'm just not quite there with it but yeah so I saw it for the first time a couple years ago still have not seen Gremlins 2 but I have seen the Key and Peel

sketch about the pitch meeting for gremlins 2 and i love that sketch so much i it has to be better than the actual gremlins 2 movie so i'm just going to keep watching that over and over again yeah what's your history jamie uh also didn't grow up with it i think my mom's reasoning at the time was that it was too violent and watching it now i'm like it is extremely violent it was pg when it came out but that was before before there was pg-13 i think i think this was one of two movies that ushered in the pg-13 rating this and uh temple of doom because there are many murders and the gremlins i mean including those of theremlins, there's human murders and then a lot of vicious.

The gremlins die in very violent ways. They're exploded. The microwave thing. I was like, if I saw the microwave scene when I was a kid, I would have been traumatized. And the last gremlin who just wouldn't die and they just showed his esophagus and just he was still alive. Oh, my God. Yeah. The children, what a treat.

What a treat. Yeah. For children, what a treat. What a treat. Yeah. I didn't grow up with it, and I don't think anyone in my family had a particular attachment to it. So I saw it for the first time a couple years ago, and then rewatched it twice for this, because there's just, like, there's so much going on in this movie. Even, like, genre-wise, you're like, who is this for exactly? Apparently it was for every, I mean, it was a very successful,

let's see, yeah, an $11 million budget and it made $150 million back. Best Spielberg produce results. It's wild. Okay, so getting into it, it is not surprising that this movie was uh written produced and directed by all men and all uh white men as well you know it almost goes without saying because it's a movie made in the 1980s right but uh boy does that show this is an early chris

columbus joint how old was he wrote the script. How old was Chris Columbus? He was 24. And it was in NYU. It was in NYU. And he was actually, this is a spec script. He wasn't intending it to be written. No kidding. But. Well, what a treat to be Chris Columbus.

Yeah. And actually, the film, I think it's like maybe the film draft or one of the drafts before Spielberg got his hands on it was even more. Yes. I read that. That it was really gruesome. And Spielberg was like, let's dial this back so that we can show it to a broader audience.

Spielberg tries to get a lot of guys to dial back during this time with varying degrees of success. For more, go to our Indiana Jones episode where he tries to talk George Lucas out of making Indiana Jones a rapist and fails. And fails. So, you know know complicit right so shall I do the recap uh yeah let's go for it okay so Gremlins uh we open with a guy going into

a store in Chinatown it's the holiday season uh we're not sure what city or area of the country this is and I don't think it's very foggy it reminded me of the LA that is what is that movie that I hate with Harrison Ford Blade Runner Blade Runner yeah it looks like oh right the start of it yeah yeah like the foggy blueness the neon lights and yeah yeah that was I was like oh I hate that I hate Blade Runner. That's how I started. The low-key racism that's about to happen. Oh, boy. Yep, we'll get there. So he goes into Chinatown in whatever city that they're in, somewhere where it snows.

And he sees a creature called Mogwai. But we don't see this creature yet as the audience. But he's like, this will make a perfect gift for my son and then the store owner is like hey this isn't for sale and you shouldn't take this because he was basically like you can't handle it right because the mogwai require a lot of care and attention and there are three rules for taking care of the mogwai which is to keep them out of bright light especially sunlight because it will kill them number two to keep them away from water and number three never feed them after midnight so he's like great here's two hundred dollars i'm

taking this with me and then we meet his son billy who based on the opening few scenes of this movie you're like oh he's buying a small furry animal for his son his son's probably 10 years old but then you're like he's like 20 he works he's an adult with a job at a bank he could be also a 30 year old playing a 20 year old like i wouldn't be surprised he is a young either way you think he's gonna be a child and he is an adult with a job at a bank although when when his dad gives him the gift, he's like, is it a puppy? Right. He is kind of like a child boy. Also, his only friend is Corey Feldman is like a 10-year-old.

So I have to believe that the original draft of the script was like him as a kid and then they aged him up for some reason. Also just a bad choice for a friend of any age. Right. but like also just a bad choice for friend of any age right yeah it's weird because you would like I feel like this movie would almost work better if it were a 10 year old discovering mom why instead of a 20 year old man but there's a lot of like I think this movie kind of tries and fails a bunch of times to make commentary on class right and that's why the character was aged up because there's like a few references to like, well, he has to support his family and that's why he works at the bank and da da da. Because his dad's a shitty inventor where it's like, there were also a lot of weird like Disney. I mean, I guess it couldn't have been references to this because it was like references to Disney movies that may not have even existed yet.

But like the whole like dad being a shitty inventor thing you're like oh that's kind of beauty and the beastie yeah and then there's that whole first scene with what's the name of the mean old lady that is like mrs deagle mrs deagle yeah she's basically mrs gulch from the wizard of oz she's a combo of miss gulch and of mr potter from it's a Wonderful Life. And also Scrooge. She's like a Christmas Scrooge. Oh, yeah. She's a lot of villains in one. And then ultimately, I'm just like, it feels like her character is supposed to be,

yeah, like she has money. Like the main villain or something. But then it kind of falls flat. Although my first reaction upon seeing Mrs. Deagle is like, ooh, I like this badass woman. She doesn't take, she's just walking by and just stopping cars. She has her own agenda. She has her own backstory.

But then she's a capitalist. You're like, boo. Doesn't really. She's got a big ass ceramic head. You're like, this could go a lot of ways. She's killing dogs. I mean, we'll get there. So Billy works at a bank. He has a dog. head you're like this could go a lot of ways she's killing dogs i mean right so billy works at a bank he has a dog and then there's also a woman there named kate who works at the bank and

is friends with billy and then mrs deagle comes in and she's so much miss gulch that she's basically like i'll get you my pretty and your little dog too she literally tried she's like except except she goes a step further and describes how she would kill the dog. Right. But in her defense, like the dog ruined like a precious like ornament of a ceramic, like probably she saved money. Like we don't know the backstory

but this vicious dog came and destroyed it. This beautiful thing she had, maybe it's the last thing her dead husband gave her. And like this dude brings his dog to work? I mean, come on. That's true. You shouldn't bring your dog to work policy?

You shouldn't bring your dog to a bank, necessarily. There is here at House of Works, hey, Anderson, Sophie's dog. Right, but they probably had an agreement. I feel like at the bank, I don't know. Maybe I'm being a stiff by being like, don't bring your dog to the bank. But I feel perhaps don't. Banks are, yeah, they're not necessarily a dog friendly environment. It's hell. Dogs don't belong there.

Yeah. Dogs need to be in happy places. Okay. So then, so we meet Billy and Kate and Mrs. Deagle. And then the man from the beginning gives the mogwai to Billy for Christmas. And he's cute. He's furry. His name is Gizmo he likes to sing and then Billy's friend Pete which is Corey Feldman's character comes over and meets Gizmo his friend is a 10 year old yes who's dressed as a Christmas tree for most of the movie and he accidentally spills a jar of water on Gizmo and then these little like fur balls burst out of his body and then they grow into other mogwai so he like we find out that they multiply when they come in contact

with water right but the new ones the new mogwai are not like gizmo they're a little bit more rambunctious and there's one with a stripe on his head and he's like their leader and then billy wakes up and his dog barney is like hanging outside tangled in like Christmas lights. And he thinks it was Mrs. Deagle. But it's like maybe it was the Mogwai. We don't know. And then he takes one of them to school. And one of his like I guess former teachers runs some tests on it.

Oh, right. Because he's not. It's weird that he would just go to the high school if he's a man. Right, because he's a man. Yeah. Right, because he's a man. Yeah. Right. I have no relationship with anyone in my high school anymore. Go to a scientist, like a proper scientist.

You're an adult. You work at a bank. No, I can't Google. He walks in so, like, I didn't, that didn't even register with me because he acts like he belongs there. Right. He's like, oh, yeah, I just go into the high school. Unless he is in high school and he just also has a job at a bank and he's never we just never see him at school sure it's not clear how old he's supposed to be and his best friend is 10 yes so i don't

know what's what's going on with billy so then billy feeds the other mogwai and he wakes up and they've transformed. They're in this like cocoon phase now. And he's like, wait a minute, I didn't feed them after midnight. But turns out he did because they like cut the cord to his alarm clock and they tricked him so that they would be fed after midnight. And then these like egg cocoon things hatch and born are these scary, creepy,remlins but gizmo is still nice and cute so he's fine so these gremlins start to wreak havoc on the city there's like the one at the school who's like attacking the teacher um there's the ones at home that attack his mom the mom fights back the mom fights back and we'll talk about that scene but stripe the stripy one

survives and escapes and then so billy goes after stripe stripe jumps in a swimming pool and multiplies like crazy go to the y and then they like wreak havoc on the y the y is just open i guess it's a 24 hour why it's fun to stay at theMCA. I love the Y. And so now there's an army of gremlins and they're going all over town. They kill Mrs. Deagle. They kill a lot of people. They do kill the racist neighbor. Yes. So that's a win.

But also the man who looked like Santa Claus who was in the beginning of the movie who's just simply buying a tree. It's true. Some of their kills are on point. Others are. It's just random., yeah. Some of their kills are on point. Others are... It's just random. Yeah, they're just killing at random. Phoebe Cates reveals in the 11th hour... Sorry, Phoebe Cates plays Kate.

She reveals in the 11th hour, because originally she's like, I don't like Christmas. And Billy's like, Why? I'm 10. I love Christmas. And she's... At the end, she's like,

Well, since you asked, my dad dressed up as Santa and got in our chimney. First of all, why would you do that? And then he she's like, well, since you asked, my dad dressed up as Santa and got in our chimney. First of all, why would you do that? And then he got confronted. He fell and broke his neck in the chimney. And that's how I found out Santa wasn't real. And she could smell him.

She knew there was like a weird, very dramatic monologue that also, if you Google it, is in comedy monologues. Oh, really? Yeah. dramatic monologue that also if you google it is in comedy monologues uh yeah because actually the intention of that scene it was like joe dante either the director or chris cooper the dude who wrote it chris cooper chris chris chris coop but they actually want they wanted that scene in because it's it's both comedy and drama so it plays with the crowd so i guess like back in the day when the movie came out if you watch it with like a full theater people will be laughing at that scene because it's jarring but me watching it alone i was like what is happening morbid it's a moment of backstory do we need this i this was like one of the few times that a movie chooses

to characterize its own like basically its only female character and you're just like i didn't need that yeah i actually didn't want to know like that what did that add to the story nothing because for a while i was on board with her because i'm a curmudgeon who thinks christmas is creepy and i don't like it and uh she's like yeah i don't celebrate christmas and i'm fine with that but then you find out why and it's because like her dad had this grisly Christmas related death and it's like Chris Columbus you sicko like what are you talking about that's crazy there I don't know I liked her character well we can get into that too I liked her character a lot where she's a you know she's a working gal she's circulating petitions she's like the perfect we'll get it like perfect girl next door with a demon background with the most fucked up backstory ever i just don't oh god i mean when i eventually fist fight chris columbus

and i will chris coop columbus mr chris coop i'm just gonna be like why did you why did you do her like that there she worked so hard why did you have to kill her dad in the most violent fashion? God. God. Okay, so then the gremlins are killing people. They invade a movie theater where they watch Snow White, which is how we know that they're the villains of the movie because they love Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Refer back to our Snow White episode for more details.

And then Billy and Kate blow up the movie theater, and then it kills all the gremlins except again for Stripe. And then Stripe goes into a department store and he fucks everything up. Oh, right. I remember that place. Stripe has a gun and he's shooting at Billy. Not only does he have guns, but gremlins have these tiny guns, like gremlin-sized guns. Gremlin-sized guns.

Where did they get them? Where do you get like oh boy I just don't know and then so Stripe tries to multiply himself again but then Gizmo he's like been racing around in a like little toy car and he zooms up and opens a window and lets the sunlight

in and then it melts Stripe in what's a horrifying scene it's really disgusting. And then, so then the bad gremlins have been defeated. And then at the end of the movie, the Chinese store owner comes back and he's like, you messed up, you white people.

I'm taking Gizmo back because you don't know how to do anything. And the dad's just like, oh man, sorry. Whoops, didn't think that would happen. Oh boy. And that is the movie. Yay. thing the dad's just like oh man sorry yeah i didn't think that would happen oh boy and that is the movie yay so why don't we take a quick break and then we will come back to discuss 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. 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

Sanner. 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. 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 Bernhard 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, Luge. I'm not going to hawk this slalom. And we're back. Where to begin? Oh, boy. Well, let's talk about, should we just go right into the racism of the movie? What part of the Sunday is it? Is it the cherry or the chocolate fudge? I mean, let's get into it. That's a lot.

That's a lot. Yeah. So the way Asian and specifically Chinese culture is represented in this movie is, oof. I talked to a friend of the cast, former guest, Sita Chong, who was our guest on the Crazy Rich Asians episode. And she had this to say about it. I'm just going to read what she wrote because it's great. She says,

Well, there's no existence of furry critters in Chinese history that explode into a mass of overpopulation overnight. Magui in Chinese literally means demon or devil, but it doesn't have the traditional Judeo-Christian connotations attached. Sometimes a demon in Chinese literally means demon or devil, but it doesn't have the traditional Judeo-Christian connotations attached. Sometimes a demon in Chinese culture is simply a spirit that has returned to earth or someone with an unsettled debt. Demons aren't necessarily evil. The thing I find funny about the Chinese origin of gremlins is that the movie Critter takes very little from

any kind of real Chinese mythology, but really builds on the 1980s fear of red China. I really see the mogwais or Chinese critters as just another extension of the red scare. These Chinese monsters are uncontrollable. They run rampant in America, aping all the things that make America American. The gremlins are incredibly destructive. Once they've been let out of the bag, so to speak,

they run amok during the height of a very sacred holiday in America, which is Christmas. This, to me, really reads as a what-happens scenario if something Asian does take over in America. This is supported textually by a line of dialogue. This is the racist character who we mentioned who hates all things foreign. He says, you've got to watch out for gremlins because foreigners put gremlins in their machinery, the same gremlins that brought down our planes in World War II. There's definitely a weird othering of Asian culture here. The only Asian characters are mysterious, speak in riddles, and if we think of the gremlins as Asian,

then they also speak in gibberish. Gremlins rely pretty heavily on the idea of Orientalism, which is that the Far East is inscrutable and it's impossible for any Westerner to try. And once anyone tries, they unleash chaos that has to be contained by any means necessary. Billy doesn't ever try to understand the gremlins. In the movie, he only tries to defeat them, which makes sense if you think of Billy in the American exceptionalism sort of way. So that's everything that Sita had to say about it. Thank you, Sita. Yes, that was great. And that's everything that Sita had to say about it. Thank you.

Yeah. Yes, that was great. And I mean, that says it all. Yeah. I mean, the fact that it is and it's tricky with movies like this for me, it is anyways, to try to identify because it came out 30, almost 35 years ago now, exactly what you're supposed to be laughing at and what you're just because most of it now does not read as jokes that hold up in any way because a lot of them are just racist but yeah the neighbor character is the most overtly racist yes um and there's so much coding in this movie which we'll which see the references and we can get into but the the neighbor is you know like literally implying that uh i i think people

from asian cultures are putting gremlins in cars yes and like the the title of the movie comes from this like bizarro racist rant from the neighbor which later becomes a town-wide accepted word right for what they are and it's just I can't tell if a 1984 audience is supposed to think that's funny. Well maybe also I mean that character ends up being killed and so that

and like the villainous lady were killed but created in such a way that people the audience would hate them so maybe they were intended to be this racist so their death would it would be more comical than us having any empathy for their death i was confused about that because but then they also kill santa yes and you're like and then they try to kill like billy's mom so they're they're like and they kill the biology dude right so they're indiscriminate

he was the first death yes which uh is like one of the only people of color in the movie, of course, is the first to die. Well, there's some historical context to like the gremlin word, which is it's from like I think World War I or World War II, which is like that's the word that they would use to explain why so many planes were falling or there were so many technical errors. It's the idea that these mysterious like demons or something are messing things up. But Chris Coop Carter. Chris Coop Carter Columbus. I'm just going to each time I mess it up. He apparently wrote it based off of the mice in his living room.

Yes, I read that. Yeah. He just had a mice infestation. But then he probably also, any inherent racism he may have had. I don't know. I'm just implying that. Right. Well, I mean, that's a tricky thing with this

where it's like he, it seems pretty well accepted now. And I honestly wasn't familiar with this reading of the movie and felt silly once I started to read about it because the second you read about it, you're like, oh, of course, I'm a fucking idiot.

Like, yeah. And it's confusing a little bit because you're just, it's, I mean, it's possible that Chris Coop Carter Columbus did not fully understand him as being an ignorant dumbass by doing this. But then there are certain moments like with The Neighbor where it's like, you couldn't not know what you were saying there.

Right. But maybe he thought he was playing it for laughs. I don't know. Like, it just. I feel like there's just so much inherent racism in people, white people of this time that they're, you know, coding things certain ways. Which, because also the movie has been criticized for coding the gremlins as black youth and playing into negative black stereotypes. Right. I mean, that's like the big.

Right. So this comes from a blog post that I ran on the Internet. Ever heard of it? Wow. Right. The blog post is entitled The Rac the internet. Ever heard of it? Wow, Brad. The blog post is entitled The Racism We Never Noticed in Gremlins. And this is by WordPress user Vegan Mystical. It says, negative African-American stereotypes in their dress and behavior. They are shown devouring fried chicken with their hands, listening to black music, breakdancing, and wearing sunglasses

after dark, and newsboy caps, a style common among African-American males in the 1980s. I recently ordered that book. I haven't read it yet, but I am really interested to read this book by Patricia Turner, Ceramic Uncles and Celluloid Mammies. In that same piece, I read it as well, there was an interesting commentary that I didn't pick up on just strictly due to lack of historical knowledge. Specifically about that first scene

where the white man purchases a black-coated character from the Asian coated store. Okay, it reads. As a side note, Asian characters, particularly Chinese, were grossly stereotyped in the 80s films as wise omnipotent sorcerer types

like we just discussed from Gremlins, Karate Kid, Kung Fu, etc. Moreover, Asians also owned slaves and tended to side with white supremacy. In The Color of Success, Asian Americans and the Originals of the Model Minority, Ellen D. Wu explains, quote, Chinese immigrants and their children needed to be fully integrated into American society, unquote, and did so by sacrificing unique cultural customs and engaging in American, quote, assimilation at the level of full equality of social, economic, and political participation, unquote. So again, we don't really have any insight into where the fuck this scene comes from, but there's a lot of readings of it that make it this very sinister historical. I wonder if 24-year-old Chris Carter Cooper Columbus intended this. You can't find, the thing I find most frustrating is you can't find any evidence that he has spoken about this in public or even considered it a legitimate criticism. Where it's like, if you wrote this in your 20s and you're an ignorant shit, then the absolute least you can do is cop to it later acknowledge it

and be like whoops i fucked up yeah i just thought it was a cool thing now like a mystical asian dude selling the cute little furry animal without realizing the huge implications right like i you know because there are so many movies like this with directors who are alive well and still working at a very high level and it's the, very fucking least you can do is acknowledge that you were either being outwardly hateful or were really copping to these gigantic, ignorant blind spots. Yes. So, Chris Columbus, you're on fucking notice. There's also a moment from the movie Dear White People where a professor says to Tessa Thompson's character,

might I also remind you that I read your entire 15-page unsolicited treatise on why gremlins is actually about suburban white fear of black culture. And Tessa Thompson's character, Sam White, responds, the gremlins are loud, talk in slang, are addicted to fried chicken, and freak out when you get their hair wet. Basically, I want to read this 15-page paper that doesn't exist. Release the document, Tessa Thompson. Yeah, I feel like, because as an outsider, foreigner, human, I had the kind of the same reaction to it too, where I felt like gizmo mogwai was the idea of becoming westernized. Like if you don't break these rules, if you stay within what we believe you should be as an American, you're fine. But if you bring any outside influence or outside things or change us in any way or come – yeah. The idea of like outside influence and you're breaking those rules and you become gremlins and you're seen as an intruder to American society. Right.

So you shouldn't try and change – I don't know. So yeah. For for sure I had like an adverse reaction to it but Gizmo was so cute and it's frustrating because like Gizmo's like whatever the cutie that everyone remembers from the movie but it's like you just sort of see in that character a level of like just complicitness and willingness to play ball with the problematic white protagonists of the movie. And Spielberg actually wanted to keep Gizmo in the whole movie. Originally, Gizmo turns into a gremlin. But Spielberg's like, we need like a pal. We need like a fun little side character that we're reminded of how cute everything is.

Gotta sell lunch boxes. It worked. It did. This movie, I mean, yeah, it's it's a hard watch right because like the connotation of that then becomes oh well like we've got this like cute thing that comes from this exotic mystical culture that white people don't understand and and it's cute at first but then it spawns these evil things and it's like the message that that sends is. And the fact that it literally starts with a purchase. Yeah.

And like a negotiation on a purchase is so sinister. And basically a colonized purchase. Like you're taking it without being allowed to. Yeah. Right. Because the elder guy in the shop is like, it's not for sale. But then the son is like, or like the grandson or there's a younger kid there. He's like, like no we need

the money like well we'll take it and here here you go but yeah like the wise old guy is like you shouldn't have this but even though the wise old guy is such a stereotype exactly just like everything is just it's just a fucking yes all those movies in the 80s had this guy or had this idea of the magical Asian. Like, ooh. Which is like for Asian actors and people of color, it's like, cool, we get roles. But at the same time, it's like not the roles that are helping us. Right. They're just perpetuating all those stereotypes and all of that racism.

And that's the first scene in the movie. It's just like it's upsetting. And then, I mean, Chris Columbus, to speak of his catalog, Gremlins is the first movie he writes. And then he goes on to write other, like, The Goonies, which I haven't seen in a while. But if you do even a little bit of reading about The Goonies, it has many similar problems with race. And it's just, oh, God. He's a mess. And then Harry Potter, right? and then the two worst harry potters yeah so it's you know fuck him you know yeah part of me wants to at least hope that like

these filmmakers didn't intentionally set out to portray these racist stereotypes and do all this racist coding. But again, because just racism is so ingrained into white people and society in America as a whole, they probably didn't intentionally set out to do this, but they did it anyway, just because of the systematic racism. Yeah, it would be a different story if a movie like this came out, or at least set up in the way it was came out today. Right. Yeah. But then I'm just like, I trust no bitch in regards to issues like this.

Because then you find the George Lucas document that's like, no, I know he's a rapist, but he's the hero. Right. I wish he were more of a rapist. Right. of a rapist. And so there are examples of like movies of this era with creators knowing full well what they're doing and doubling down kind of for no reason other than the fact that they can. Right. And they think it's funny or cool or whatever the fuck is going through these. I don't know.

Yeah. It's. Yeah. Or they just like need a backstory for this animatronic idea that they got. Yeah. Right. It's bad writing. Better make it Asian.

Yeah. And it's just like, oh, goodness gracious. Well, so that they got. Right. It's bad writing. Better make it Asian. And it's just like, oh, goodness gracious. Well, so that's that. Shall we talk about the female characters? Which one? Wait, how many were there? Well, there's two. Or three.

Three. We've got Miss Gulch. Miss Gulch, we've got the mom, and we've got Kate. Oh, there's also the one that Miss Deagle talks to in the beginning of the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's on screen for that one scene. And we'll talk about that later whenever we discuss whether or not the movie passes the Bechdel test. But, okay, so let's start with Kate.

I would argue that she is an example of a female character in a movie that you can remove from the script and the movie is virtually unchanged right i agree the story would play out basically the same exact way because there's nothing that she does that advances the story or changes the direction of the story um she's basically a sidekick to billy who does nothing so could you take billy out of the movie also like i don I don't, this whole, like, I don't know. This is like a weird, not to give, I know we're talking about Kate now, but there's like all this, getting back to sort of like the failed class commentary of this. I mean, I don't think this movie even remotely meant to make this point, but it's like, oh oh yeah like very often all white communities that are middle class can be very racist i don't think that's what the movie's trying to say at all but like with kate we have like a working girl character yeah who it's weird because she checks

a lot of like boxes that i'm looking to get checked where we know what she does for a job we know she feels strongly about at least two things which is that she does not like christmas and she would like to save this bar yes uh we know unfortunately we know a little bit about her back history which is the worst thing i've ever heard in my entire life but you can you're totally right she can be removed very easily it's it's confusing to me that that we do know so much about her given how little impact she has on the plot right and then she's essentially there to serve as the romantic interest for billy and get a little kiss at the end right so i wanted to talk a little bit about that because they are colleagues and

friends at the beginning of the movie somewhere i'd say around halfway through billy asks kate out on a date and i've seen that i think it's fairly well handled because he's clear about his intentions and you don't hear people ask ask for dates right but he literally says hey if you're not doing anything this thursday i'd want i was wondering if you'd like to go on a date with me like the language that's used there I appreciate because I can't tell you how many times a guy's been like hey do you like want to hang out sometime and it's like okay in what context what do you mean

and then you're like I don't know it's just like whatever like we just hang out and it's like okay are you asking me out on a date I need to know this and it's remarkable it's been a year I don't understand what's happening right now and they're like I don't understand what's happening right now. And they're like, I don't understand why you're asking me

to define something. We live together, okay? We have a child. We're married. I don't understand. Are we in a relationship? We're married. There are, yeah,

I don't, there's so many examples of like already being in the middle of a meal and then being like, oh my God, this is a date to this person. No! Right.

So, I don't know. Just anyone who's asking anyone else for a date, be clear about your intentions. A point for Billie. But Billie, also be clear about your age. I just go on a date, I am also blank years old. I am 10. Is that okay? I'm 10, I work at a bank.

Are you 10? Are you 20? Are you 30? We don't know. I'm like the movie Jack also. I'm Benjamin Button. And then she says, he asks her out for a date. She says, I'd love to. And he's like, okay, yeah, that's great. We can square away the details on the phone. And it's just like, okay,

I appreciated how that happened. It was cute. But then later on, they're fighting the gremlins in the department store and then he just like out of nowhere kisses her like there was no lead up to that i feel like he does say like go look for lights and then they kiss oh so he gives her a task and that gets everyone horned up i simply cannot feel sexual feelings unless i'm given a job to do a task if I'm not caring for someone am I relevant to the world well speaking of care so like after the battles have happened between you know Billy and the gremlins gizmo is there and like he gets kind of wrapped up and he's like

here caregiver woman take care of this thing while I go off and fight. So that was cute. Well, there's also, oh, you know what? Let's take a break. Let's take a break and then we'll talk more. You know, very, very organic break take. 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

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I feel some Sandra Bernhard 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 Hanken's thing.

Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Luge.

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I'm sorry, I just snow plowed you. People do dive via snow plow in this movie. No, that's true. So yeah, she exists in the story to basically be the cute girl that Billy likes and serves really no other function. We're talking about Kate. Yes, Kate. Yeah, she's like the perfect girl next door

who is just always there for him whenever he needs him. And in all these movies, too, it's just like the white male geeky nerd savior who gets the hottest girl in town or the only girl in town. I don't know. Right. At least it's not as bad

as a John Hughes movie, but it's still like, really? Billy has no skills. He is a nice boy. He's not like a, we don't know his demon backstory. He's only 10 years old. Except that he's 10, and that's really what he hasn't said yet. Right.

Unlike a lot of male heroes in movies, especially from this area era but also still today they carry so much like toxic masculinity and machismo and billy to this movie's credit is not like that no he has no skill except he can draw comics he can draw he draws and he um counts money at his bank job i mean hey neither is a crime. Yeah, and he hangs out with little Corey Feldman, which is actually a con. It's a con. It's a crime.

Yeah, we're not sure how old he is. I just wanted to point out in regards to the mom scene. Oh, yes. We don't know a lot about the mom other than she's a mom

and so we see her, she be cooking a lot. She's supporting her mediocre husband. She's supporting her mediocre husband. She's very supportive in a way that's like, there's something going on. Like, she's like the most supportive person. Like, honey, I'm, like, this thing is broke. She's like, oh, don't worry, honey.

That sounds great. Here's your dad's another invention he made. Like, I feel like if she just said it, if she acted it out in just, like, a little slighter, more annoyed way, we totally get the backstory of this family. Yeah, I'm like, let's see her without Xanax and see, like, what happens. But I feel for her,

because I'm like, your husband is a dud, dude. He can't even crack an egg. He's a dork loser. He seems to be hemorrhaging money by pursuing his dreams and by dropping 200 on these mystical pets just to get a gift that he didn't consult his wife about like he just assumed she would also be okay with this mogwai furry character being in the house an unknown species that we don't understand how it is to take care of. You just assume your son's going to take care of it. And it comes with a manual with scary sounding rules.

You take care of it when your son's at the bank and also high school or elementary school. You don't know. Or college. Or grad school. This is a great time to mention that I do have a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University. Don't encourage her. What I wanted to talk about was the mom fighting scene. This is a very typical scene of this era, but also kind of still of almost any era

where it's like a woman is fighting, and she's defending herself, and she is, to some extent, victorious, even though she ultimately needs to be rescued. Right. And is immediately handed off to a man and is like, she's... Yeah, just literally just handed off,

like shoved into a man. And then bye-bye mom, rest of movie. But the thing we've talked about a lot on this show is the only weapons she has are domestic weapons. She's only allowed to defend herself using... She has a knife, but it's one she was just using to cook. She like kills them using a blender.

She kills them using a microwave. Like they're every way she has to defend herself as impressive as it looks and is are domestic tools. And also when you take in the whole racial issue with this whole movie, it's a domestic white woman absolutely slaughtering a bunch of Coded non. Yeah. you take in the whole racial issue with this whole movie it's a domestic white woman absolutely

slaughtering a bunch of uh coded non-white characters so that is actually not as triumphant uh and it's just it's not it's uh it's a mess it's not right wow i came into this being like oh man that scene was pretty cool and now i'm like oh yeah never mind yeah you're right peel back those layers and then you realize using her woman tools right and then and then contrast that with so as you mentioned jamie she does need to be saved so she kills three of the four gremlins who attack her so she kills the first three but then a fourth one comes at her and she can't fight it off from the tree and she can't fight it off. So then Billy shows up and saves her. And he, while she has been using the blenders and the microwaves and all the kitchen appliances,

he comes in, grabs a sword off the wall, hits the gremlin with the sword and launches it into the fire. So these are like very typical, like manly, like actual weapons that he uses to defeat the gremlins with. And then by contrast, she has used these like very domestic, typically feminine tools. And Kate too. Katie, the love interest. Yes. She was using a camera, like very, like not very violent, but very artistic, womanly sort of thing. And I suppose there's an argument to be made for like, okay, so she is resourceful. She's using what she has at her disposal.

But the fact that we see this again and again, we talked about this in the Halloween episode with the Laurie Strode character using like clothing hangers and knitting needles to try to fight off a killer. And then Indiana Jones. Raiders of the Lost Ark. She uses a frying pan to hit a guy over the head with. A lot of frying pan bonks in the history of cinema. You know, I've tried and it doesn't work.

You'd have to get like a cast iron skillet. Like a really heavy iron skillet. But yeah, so we see this again and again. Or the other option if a woman is fighting men usually or anything it's usually like a female action hero who wraps her legs and her crotch around a guy's face and then like body slams him right also the idea that they can only defend themselves to a certain point like they can't fully defend themselves right they always need to be saved that's in halloween too yeah not halloween give

them 30 more seconds they would have figured out a solution right didn't need to be there yes but they always yeah but it's always so even though this movie doesn't have like the typical macho male hero it does like fall into the many trappings of these like well the man still has to save a woman and mom can only fight using mom stuff. Right. And then later on, he blows up a movie theater with this big explosion, which is, again, a very macho, manly way to defeat something.

And then Kate's just like, I don't know what to do. Here's a camera. Yeah. Also, my dad dressed up as Santa and then died. I can't get over it. I wish she'd had more of those soliloquies. Just like more backstory.

What if all of her family members had died in a horrifying way dressed as a seasonal character? Always going through the chimney too. That chimney. My mom was dressed as the Easter bunny. She put herself in an egg. So that's why I don't celebrate Easter.

It annoyed me that that's the reason that she ends. I mean it makes sense for the character and for anyone that you wouldn't like a holiday that kills your father. Absolutely. But I want to see representation on screen of a person who doesn't like Christmas because Christmas is creepy and I know I'm going to get a lot of shit for

saying this. The cringe. But Christmas is creepy. I hate Christmas music. All those like slow like hymn like songs especially like Silent Night.mas is creepy i hate christmas music it's all those like slow like hymn-like songs especially like silent night that is creepy santa claus an old white guy deciding if children are good or not that's creepy nativity scenes are frightening and i also hate the capitalism and consumerism of the holiday in general i I will say that I enjoy the spirit of giving and the emphasis on being with loved ones around the holiday time,

but everything about Christmas is creepy. Also, you cut a tree and you watch it die. Right, yeah. You're just destroying nature. There's a lot of things wrong with Christmas. Well, I... You're allowed to love Christmas. I do.

It's okay. But with that, as I hinted at before, there are so many movies about Christmas, so few movies. There is a movie called Winter Solstice, which is the holiday that I celebrate around this time of year, but I don't know what it's about, and no one saw it, including me. This is just the time of year where Caitlin and I drink a lot and watch Titanic. Yes.

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Yes. The version of the holiday season that I have cultivated for myself I now enjoy very much because it literally is just like watching Titanic on repeat. And that's, we're really good at that. Yes. This movie actually didn't come out during the Christmas holiday. It came out earlier because they wanted to, I think, fight it against Ghostbusters.

So it came out in the summer or something like that. Another movie riddled with problems. I can't stand Ghostbusters. I simply can't stand it. It bothers me. Anyways, this movie sucks also. Yes, it does. Oh, but Gizmo.

Gizmo. That's great. Gizzy is a sweetheart. But my point is, let's see more movies and stories about holidays that are celebrated usually by marginalized people because they are Muslim or they are Jewish. Yeah, or do the way my family did which is i forced christmas upon my family because i didn't want to be the one kid in my town irish catholic town who didn't do it yeah that sucks that you felt you had to do that but that is a

very common huge thing yeah and then one there is one christmas where my parents totally got into it like like we would decorate our house top to bottom, Christmas decorations. And we would have Latter-day Saint solicitors always come to our door. And one time they came to our door and they're like, do you believe in Jesus?

And my mom had like a Christmas brooch. There's like a tree behind her presents. Jesus like a placard or whatever. And she's like, no, no, we don't know what that is. And she just closed the door. Christmas to us is just like, it's just a gift.

In fact, one morning, I don't have the sweater anymore, but one morning she makes us, and she just locks the door. Christmas to us is just like, it's just a gift. The gift. In fact, one morning, I don't have the sweater anymore, but one morning she makes us, used to make us dress up in like all the same and take a photo. She'd buy us all the same sweaters. The sweater's somewhere in our house

where she got it from Walmart, of course. And it says Christmas, and it has a tree, an American holiday. Oh. Yeah. Sinister. I was the one person in the family photo.

I think I was like 15. I'm like, no, mother, I don't agree. She's like, you brought this upon us. My family had an opposite thing where we did celebrate Christmas until I was, I think like 16 or so. And then my mom was like, no, we're atheists and we're gonna celebrate

winter solstice instead which was basically the same exact thing as us celebrating christmas because we still like put up a tree and stuff but we just uh got gifts four days earlier on december 21st that's okay joe yeah that's pretty cool um does anyone have any other final thoughts about the film Gremlins? I wanted to say one last thing about, and this is, you know, for us is kind of, you know, an obvious point. But Miss Deagle, just of the three female characters, making one the shrewiest shrew who's ever shrewed is like, it's an easy choice that they certainly did make. This movie makes every easy choice. Did you guys notice that one of the gremlins in the bar scene

was wearing her red wig? Because after they killed her, because she wasn't wearing a wig in that scene. She was like all natural. They killed her and I assume perused her clothes and was wearing their clothes. So I think the clothes they're wearing in the bar scene and then later in the cinema

are the clothes of the people they've murdered. Maybe that's where they got the tiny gun. Think about it. I have like a big thought that came as I was watching it. So at this point, nothing is canon that's happened in Gremlins 2. I understand Gremlins 2, it's more justified or it's explained, but we don't know the gender of what a mogwai is or like what a gremlin is.

It's just like a gender neutral thing and so we're assuming they're males because we just assume they're males howie mandel yeah i guess i was referred to they use he pronouns okay they do okay but that but also they're making it because how do they know yeah they know right well gender doesn't apply to animals like it does to people. But they do seem gendered as male. Right. And they're personified. They're like person.

They act like humans later on. But I know in the second movie there is a female gremlin and she looks like. Does she have a bow or something? She has like makeup on. And I don't know if she has breastises. But she might have breastises. According to the Key and Peel Gremlins 2 sketch that I love so much, Peel is going around the room

like the writer's room and just asking for pitches for gremlin types and the one woman in the room says could there be a female gremlin? And Peel's character responds lipstick, boobies, bitch you had me a little gremlin and peel's character responds lipstick boobies bitch you had me a little gremlin for jj and then he later says that's why we need a woman in the writer's

room wow so i have not seen gremlins too i don't know how that female quote-unquote gremlin is stylized but i'd have to imagine that it's very like egregiously like she's got a pink bow or she has boobs so she's a oh god also just in general when he asked when they got the three rules in the beginning and this is just not even a general note

about the whole movie it could have all been solved if you asked oh why do you what happens if you break those rules right what are the stakes? What are the stakes? All right. Cool. Yeah.

Okay. Cool. Bye. Oh, okay. Then actually, unfortunately, I cannot make this purchase. Right. It's a fault on both sides. A little kid should have been like, you know, they will mass murder your town.

But, you know, 200 bucks. I shouldn't be spending $200 if my 10-year-old son's working at the bank. I got gotta go. I did a quick Google search for female gremlin and the results show a gremlin with very noticeable red lipstick with long green hair and she's

wearing what appears to be a cheetah print bra and mini skirt. It's like the female M&M. Yes. She's like heels. M&M. Hey. Yes. She's like heels. You got to make sure men want to fuck that rambling.

For a video I always found really helpful of like female coded characters or creatures in movies and in media in general is from a past guest of the show, Anita Sarkeesian. I made a great video about five years ago called The Ms. Male Character. And her video is about how it applies to video game characters in particular, like starting with Ms. Pac-Man and on, but just sort of unpacking how we tend to repackage the same character, but with a very traditionally feminine appearance, and they're usually weaker characters

and they're always sexualized and giving tits where tits don't be. Have you guys seen Space Jam? Because I watched that a while ago. Lola Bunny? Oh yeah. That's an example of that for sure. Last thing I'll say,

this is a movie where within the movie movie, characters are watching other movies. Yes. A lot. Yes, yes, yes. Where they're watching It's a Wonderful Life. They're watching a Clark Gable movie. They watch Snow White. There's always screens and there's always movies on them, which is perhaps a commentary on how influential media is but they're in one of the scenes they're like a clark gable movie

is on the screen and there's an exchange i don't know what movie it is so listeners if you know uh let us know but um a woman uh opposite clark gable says it takes a certain kind of guy and then he responds with and that guy needs a certain kind of dame and then that those two lines get repeated in sort of like voiceover kind of thing. When Gizmo is driving around in the toy car in the department store, and it makes no sense to me as to why. It makes it seem like him hearing that would inform a certain decision of his. But I can't understand why. Wait, let me try. Let me try.

It takes a certain kind of... No? Okay. Well, no, it's not him saying it. It's not Gizmo saying it. It is the actual dialogue from the movie that just gets... Yes, yes. Okay, I remember.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it does... I don't know why that choice was made. It's such a specific choice, but it doesn't seem to inform anything that happens in that scene. It's weird. Also, at the end of the movie, when the magical store owner comes back, he's telling them, like, you shouldn't be letting Gizmo watch television or eating snacks. Yeah. And it's true, because, like, Gizmo is watching all these, like, male-led, like, what media is portraying life to be or who the leaders or who the heroes of. And, you know, he adapts it.

So we have, in in fact infected gizmo with the patriarchy yes this is like another uh trend that i think gets really popular in the 80s and sort of continues on as like the whole like oh we're like post movies we're we're like commenting on blah blah blah and like this that first of all, I'm so bored. I'm dead. But like they show so much other stuff. But they don't really comment on it other than like, it's a wonderful life. That was a happy movie.

Anyways, this one's fucked up. So here's the movie. Right. And just like it almost, listen, doing things like this, the end game of it is we end up having to watch Shrek in the future because all of a sudden it's like, oh, every postmodern reference is the cutest thing in the whole world. And then all of a sudden it's a movie, and then we have to watch that movie.

The Clark Gable movie I'm seeing was called To Please a Lady. Oh, wow. Who knows better than Clark Gable movie I'm seeing was called To Please a Lady. Oh, wow. Who knows better than Clark Gable? And then Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Oh, right. That was one. That's when the gremlin cocoons are hatching. I took note of the first movie that was on the awning of the movie theater.

It was A Boy's Life. Yeah. Yes. Which is a movie that happened later on in life. It was a fake movie at that point. But later it's a movie with, I think, Leonardo DiCaprio or something. Oh. And Robert De Niro.

Well, this is a great time to bring up Titanic then. Geez. There it is. And then Snow White. Snow White. Sleeping woman. I think Alfred Molina refused to participate in this movie. What?

He read the script. He's just like, this is. There's no parts for him. R's just like, this is riddled with problems. He was originally the voice of Gizmo. And then they were like, sorry Alfred, we could get Mandel.

Big shot Mandel's in town and he has a tiny person's voice. Well, I think the question on all of our minds is how many nipples does a Mogwai have? That's a good question. Well, we do see cats. Mrs. Eagle has cats in the movie.

A lot, yeah. A lot of cats, which is demonizing owning a lot of cats, I think. I loved that one of her cats was named Old Dollar Bill. She has one thing on her mind, baby. That's true. Get that money, girl. Oh oh i want to name a cat dollar bill and wait for it to get old oh gosh uh any does anyone have anything else honestly i will watch gremlins 2 now i kind of want to i kind of want to because that's the one everyone talks

about more i feel because it's just like all the there's like a bat gremlin there's a spider gremlin there's all these sexy female one yeah and gizmo dances gizmo dances he dances well that does sound fun yeah i'll probably see damn it well what are you doing later jamie let's watch gremlins too okay should we uh determine whether or not this movie passes the bechdel test. Sure. Okie dokie. Well, as you hinted at, Mujan, there is a scene between a character named Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Deagle. The exchange goes something along the lines of like, hey, my husband got another job and I've taken up sewing. And Mrs. Deagle's like, what are you saying? And she's like, well, we're not going to make any money for two weeks.

So like, can you give us more time? And Mrs. Deagle says, the bank and I have the same purpose, to make money. And she's like, Dollar Bill needs to eat his food. Big fan of Mrs. Deagle. Mrs. Deagle. Mrs. Deagle stan. Mrs. Harris is like, but Mrs. Deagle, it's Christmas. And then she's like, well, now you know what to ask Santa for, don't you?

Money! And then Phoebe Caves' character comes in and is like, actually, Santa isn't real. Want to know how I know? No, not this again. She goes around town telling the story every Christmas. It's like six people live here. We know. Okay, so Mrs. Harris' husband, Joe, does get mentioned in this scene.

But you could possibly make the argument that there's like at least a two line exchange where the bank and I have the same purpose to make money. Mrs. Deagle, it's Christmas. Although Christmas does have Christ in it. And Christ was a man. And then she also says Santa, who is also a man. And also, we don't know those characters first names. I don't know if that matters. Well, she, under IMDb,

is credited as Mrs. Jo Harris. Oh, Mrs. Jo Harris. Yes, so she doesn't have her own name. So she's exclusively defined by the man she married. Sick. Awesome. Also, that scene ends on, again and again, I'm like, Chris Columbus, it seems like you're going

for fucking something, but at the end, her son is like, I'm like, Chris Columbus, it seems like you're going for fucking something. But at the end, her son is like, I'm hungry. And she's like, me too. And you're just like, what? What? That's not resolved in the movie. No, but when he wrote, he's like, boom. He's like, I've seen It's a Wonderful Life.

My movie's going to be just like that, but with monsters. And no resolution. And poverty. Boom, Chris Columbus, Coop, Carter carter also could you have more is there a worse person to be named after oh christopher columbus yeah i mean of course he makes racist movies right of course practically in his dna unless i'm missing something i think that's the only scene in which two women interact in the whole movie yeah i went through it again and i couldn't find one yeah yeah so and i'm gonna i'm gonna say this this scene does not pass because one we kind of know that character's name but like she's defined as mrs joe harris so like that's not

great we also only see her in that one scene and then i think never again does it pass when mrs deagle's talking to her cats i was thinking that too. They could be female cats. That was my only other question is, would the cats respond? Old dollar bill gives her some great advice. Yeah. Really opens up some discourse in the household. Yeah, I'm going to say this is a no for me on passing the Bechdel test.

I was back and forth, but ultimately a no as well. Yeah. God damn it. Well, shoot. Hey, let's rate the movie on a no as well. Yeah. God damn it. Chris Columbus. Well, shoot. Hey, let's rate the movie on a nipple scale. Okay. Zero to five nipples based on its portrayal of women.

I'm going to give this a half nipple. Yeah. And maybe that's even being generous because I think it's probably for the scene where you do see the mom character being active and defending herself at least for a little bit. But again, she has to be saved. She's only using domestic appliances to fight. And then the Kate character really serves no function in the movie except to be the romantic interest of the male hero. The other main female character, who is the pro-capitalist villain she is so cartoonishly characterized that she's like basically not even a real person between that and the egregious

racism of the movie is not good so i'll give a half nipple and that belongs to gizmo who i'm pretty sure does have a nipple in there somewhere uh i'm gonna go half nipple, and that belongs to Gizmo, who I'm pretty sure does have a nipple in there somewhere. I'm going to go half nipple as well, for all the reasons you said, and also for going 15% of the way of writing a female character in Kate, where we, at the very least, know that she has a job. We know a little bit about her. She is treated by her romantic interest generally respectfully uh which is a little more than you would get in most movies of this time especially

considering this is like peak john hughes so everything i don't know the movie is like, it's, it's, I didn't like it. I didn't like it. But Gilman was so cute. I know. And that's hard for me. Yeah. And so cute. That's why it's there, though, to distract us. I know.

It's like, I want the lunchbox. Like, why is the woman crapped out? Oh, gizmo. And you're like, oh, boy. He's in a blankie. He has sunglasses. I did audibly go, oh. I know,ibly go oh when he was on the dartboard you're like i know uh oh god i googled way too much that that scene is there because they were so angry

okay so basically gizmo was only supposed to be there in the beginning but since they made it the whole movie it cost such a pain for animatronic people and like because they had to create ways for it to walk or talk so that scene was there for the crew so they could you know basically immobilized yeah and also just show how much anger they had towards having him there for all the movie whoa so in the scene

the gremlins are bullying gizmo but it's really the crew that was bullying him yeah giz can't catch a break poor gizmo well I'm going to give. Oh, yes. My half nip goes to Giz as well. Okay.

I'll give, because I actually, so just watching this as like a piece of fluff without analyzing it or anything like that, just as a movie watcher, I enjoyed it. But the more I got into it, oh, come on, why? No, I want to like this movie, kismo was so cute but as for the portrayal specifically of women i would give it like half yeah yeah because it just they were there but they were in part of the storyline really they could have disappeared there's no point to them the mother was supportive and just locked in that house and i think she was letting out maybe a lot of frustration during that scene where she was murdering all the

gremlins. I like her read of that scene where she's like, this is for all your stupid inventions! Oh, really? Oh, I guess I have to destroy this to kill that one? Okay, whoops, I'm sorry that happens. This is not a cappuccino maker. It makes tar. You dumb husband. Oh god, watching her have to choke that down, you're like,

girl, let's go Thelma and Louise. Let's get out of here. Get out of here. You can go outside. And also the wife of the MAGA guy. Sorry. Oh, yeah. She was also so supportive of him.

Like all the wives that were there were just like, yes, honey. Of course, honey. Definitely, honey. Whatever you say, honey. I'm just going to stay in my little cave house and never see the light of day. He literally was the MAGA neighbor. And then they killed her, too. So she didn't get anything out of it.

So yeah, I would say for women, it's pretty much a half. But for Gizzy, I would give it a five. Aw, Gizmo. Portrayals of Gizmos in film. Well, Bouchon, thank you so much for being here. In that voice, where can people follow you online and what would you like to plug? Whatever voice you want.

Follow your heart. You can see me on the Instagram where I sometimes do things at Moujah Z. And Jamie and I wrote an animation of sci-fi lady show. Why did I say that? Specifically for women. No, it's for everybody. It's called Humankind of that's on Facebook Watch that we wrote with Diana McCrory. And she's the best.

And we do voices on it, which is cool. It's on Facebook Watch if you're on that. And I wrote on a sketch show that is going to be on a network at some point. It's being shopped around. That's how TV works and also Mission to Zyx Z-Y-X-X is a sci-fi improvised podcast. I play the voice of a just like an old sentient

spaceship who used to be a movie star called Bargerian Jade. I don't know if she I try to make her pass the Bechdel test as much as I can. Good. But yeah. Well, thanks again for being here.

You can follow us on all the platforms at Bechdelcast. You can subscribe to our Patreon, aka Matron, by going to patreon.com slash Bechdelcast. It's $5 a month and you get two bonus episodes every month. And also, it is the freaking season to uh go to our t public store we just released a bunch of new designs for all of your uh winter solstice shopping needs yes uh so if you want a queer icon baby grinch shirt now is the time i made i think maybe one of my most cursed drawings yet. It's gorgeous. Also, we have a West Coast tour coming up. We're going to San Francisco Sketch Fest.

We are going to Portland and Seattle. Those ticket links are on our website. If you go to Bechdelcast.com and click on the live appearances tab, you can find tickets to those. We're doing movies such as the breakfast club fight club it's a lot of clubs the little mermaid the club door we should have done

what are the other the first wives club what are we thinking oh yeah we'll do that eventually but the movies we are doing are little mermaid and sleepless in seattle as well so if you live in that area come on down. We'll be there. See you there.

We love you. We respect you. And happy holidays, whichever holiday you observe. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist

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