The Bechdel Cast - Happiest Season with Jes Tom

Episode Date: December 24, 2020

Tis the season to be inviting special guest Jes Tom on the show to cover Happiest Season!Here's a link to the film review in Elle by Makayla Philips: https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a34827483/happiest-season-kristen-stewart-review/ (This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @jestom on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name's Jamie Loftus. My name's Caitlin Durante. And today we're covering a movie that many call Happiest Season, but I like to call turn the car around now. But first we should tell you what our podcast is. Caitlin, what's our podcast? I forget. Who remembers? This is the Bechdel cast,

which is named after the Bechdel test, but the show, if you've been listening, has increasingly less and less to do with it, but it isdel test but the show if you've been listening has increasingly less and less to do with it but it is what we named the show we talk about movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point the Bechdel test of course is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel sometimes called the Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test, in which here are the criteria. Ready, everyone? Yeah.

This is school now. Yes. Two people of any marginalized gender have to have names. They have to speak to each other about something other than a man. And our metric is it has to be at least a two-line exchange of dialogue i actually think this movie in particular is kind of like uniquely suited to why the bechdel test originally existed because it was like invented in the context of queer representation as well which never comes up in the conversation about it it just kind of becomes like blanket uh women right but i feel like this this movie is

kind of a little closer to what the actual like comic strip that the test is pulled from is absolutely trying to get at so yes so good job movie good job movie it only was the bechdel test has been around for what 30 years and And this is a uniquely suited movie for it. Yeah. Yeah. So this was a very, very, very, very, very popularly requested movie. I feel like the second this movie came out on Hulu, or even maybe the second the trailer dropped, it was just like, everyone added us.

Like, when is it going to happen? And so we're doing it. And also, we were just watching it anyways. Yeah, for sure. Let's introduce our guests. They are featured in The New York Times. They are in Love Life on HBO Max. It's Jess Thom.

Hi. Hi, guys. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. I'm very, very excited to get into this one with you. This movie has been polarizing it has probably the most polarizing issue of 2020 is happiest season on hulu when people look back to yeah that's this is all people will remember about 2020 like what's the one thing that happened in the year 2020? Happiest season.

The discourse around happiest season. Jess, what is your, I guess normally we ask what is your history with this movie, but it's been out for less than a month. So we're just going to do general thoughts slash experiences with this movie so far. What are your general experiences and thoughts with this movie so far what are your general experiences and thoughts around this movie well i actually feel like i want to subvert the genre here and ask you guys a question okay um sort of to start me off um and i i 100 recognize the irony of asking this question in a movie that's about people being put on the spot and made to come out when they're not ready to do it yet but so i i don't know either of you guys in real life yet um so what's your guys's deal are you are you queer are you where on the spectrum do you fall uh i'm i'm bi cool

uh i am a straight person i'm so sorry that's fine we accept we accept you too we're an ally i ask because i ask because like i really wanted to get sort of the lay of the land like for our particular conversation on this movie and like yeah where everybody falls on this um so that's good that's good for me to know yeah yeah i don't know it was um i was kind of upset by this movie initially i have to come out as a hater that's like that's what i want to say sure yeah well you had one of the most i think like iconic tweets in the discourse of this movie wait i want to i want to pull it up um oh wait there, there are so many results. Okay, the tweet I'm thinking of is leave it to lesbians to call a movie happiest season. And it's one hour 40 minutes of abject

emotional suffering. That's the tweet. A perfect tweet. Yeah, I think it's true. I think it's true. I was like, where? Yeah, where are we emotionally that this is the movie we've called happiest season? Right? Like, I think we need to do a little check in with ourselves. I think we need to do a little like, see how we feel right now. Like, do a little breathe in, breathe out a little drink a little water. Like, how do I actually feel in this moment? Do I feel happy? Is that that feeling? Is the feeling happy happy or is it like a terror and anxiety it's even even just qualifying it as happiest like how right happiest ever this is as happy as it gets if this is anyone in this movie's best holiday they've ever had it's really a cause for concern

because everyone is really like bleeding emotionally for the entire movie. My takeaway from this movie was I found it to be an accurate portrayal of a certain type of being queer at Christmas experience. But I don't think that just because something is literally accurate makes it like a good movie or a fun thing to watch right and that actually perhaps in its accuracy it becomes unfun definitely not happiest maybe like bleakest or something i mean really i feel like i watched it and it reminded me of all of these terrible queer holiday experiences i've had and it just like brought up a lot of stuff for me and i was like i really feel like like my overall feeling about this movie is sort of a feeling of ambush and betrayal yes like i feel like it was

sold to me as like hey jess tom wouldn't you love a queer, cute Christmas romantic comedy? We made, we, some lesbians, made a lesbian romantic comedy for you. And then I watched it and it was like, actually, it's a lot of bad memories. Like every bad memory of like every queer holiday you've ever had. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Jamie, what are your general thoughts and feelings toward it?

I was really excited for this movie. It, you know, ticked a lot of boxes for me in terms of movies I want to watch. I am a Kristen Stewart fan. I'm a Clea Duvall fan. I came in with high hopes. And I left I left really sad. Yeah, I don't know. I think that there are good elements to this movie. And like a lot of it kind of rang true. I just my main thing with this movie is just it feels like a lot of movies we've discussed and that it's like wow it's like a lesbian christmas movie but it's also about like white republicans running for mayor and you're like well it was that necessary like it seems like it's casting a very very wide net and i just i don't know it was annoying to me to see a rich Republican family also actively trying to gain power in their community for the entire movie and to be rooting for that in the year 2020. I was not rooting for it.

I wanted him to lose. Right. Fuck that. And for Harper to be extremely complicit in that and like trying to help her Republican dad get elected. And it's just like, what? And to be fair, like the movie doesn't explicitly say that this family are Republicans, but the Victor Garber character is like very much coded as a Republican politician. So Harper is like trying to get her conservative dad elected. And also, Harper is really emotionally manipulative and abusive to her partner Abby, and I am not rooting for that relationship at all.

I really felt like the lesson of the movie was sort of, it's okay if somebody treats you like shit over and over and over again, as long as they tell you I love you at the end. And I was like, you know, that's a textbook abusive dynamic. Like, that's literally what abuse is. Somebody treating you badly and then telling you, but it's okay, I love you. I'm so glad we're all on the same page here. I was, ugh. I was, okay. I mean, part of why I insisted you guys out yourselves to me at the beginning is I feel like one of the polarizing aspects with this movie is I actually feel like straight people love it.

It is a movie for straight people, I think. It seems like it's for, especially in that ending scene, which we'll talk about with Victor Garber and Mary Steenburgen, where they are like, you know, we really should accept our gay daughter, don't you think? And you're like, is this 2006? Like, what year is this movie happening in? This movie really feels like it came out in the mid-2000s.

Yes. I was like, how is it possible that, like, this is like the kind of movie I would have snuck out of a blockbuster when I was 14 years old, like, under my jacket so my mom didn't see. Like, how is it possible that 15 years later, we're making this exact same movie? And I don't know. I mean, it seems like just based on the interviews I read with Clea Duvall surrounding this, it seems like it's it's not like her exact experience, but it's like pulled

from experiences of like, her and people that she knows so just like set it in the past like why you know it this if this movie took place during the bush administration it would make a lot more sense to me than it does well i don't think that there's any i mean well i'm sure we'll get into this in more detail but something that really bothered me about this movie is that there's an overall lack of specificity yeah so like i don't think that i don't think that they even got to the part where they were like what year does it take place in like it's sort of like it's a family it's christmas it's a christmas time of year in a town where instagram and ipads exist but that's right about all we know we don't yeah we're lesbians we love each

other you're my person that's why we love each other. Right. Harper. Harper. The more because I've seen this movie three times now and the this past watch when I was like getting ready for this episode, I was like, whoa, Harper, really? Just there is not one point where Abby establishes a boundary with her that she respects. Never. Till the very end. And from the very first second, too. Yeah. Even, like, the moment that they ostensibly give you as, like, their establishing relationship moment, the first thing that happens is Kristen Stewart goes,

I don't want to go up there. And Harper goes, go on, go up there. That's the first thing that happens. Even before that, Kristen Stewart's like, I don't really like Christmas. And Harper's like, I'm gonna make you like Christmas. And it's just like, just let Abby not like Christmas. It's okay to not like Christmas. Yeah, not liking Christmas representation. Yeah, I feel I feel so seen. I feel so seen in this film. I did think of you at that beginning scene. I was like, oh, it's like when me and Caitlin hang out in December.

And much like Abby's, much like Kristen Stewart's character Abby, who is a pet sitter over the holidays, that's like my whole gig over the holiday season. I cat sit for like 12 different cats. Brag. One cat for every day of christmas exactly the 12 cats of christmas um i yeah i did also i this was the first time that it really i was like oh it is kristen stewart falls off of a building in the first three minutes of the movie that's wild they're okay so something that really struck me as tonally off about this movie is like okay it's it's a christmas movie we sort of accept this kind of exaggerated reality we would accept that zany things happen but like 90 of this movie happens in total realism and then it's punctuated by these few moments such as kristen's Stewart falling off the roof.

But because nothing like that has been happening, it's like, whoa, like she just fell off the roof. Like, check her ankle. Is her ankle okay? Right. It's weird. Yeah, it's like, it seems like maybe they were like, on some draft of the script,

they're like, let's throw in a little like, hallmarky stuff here. But it doesn't make sense with the deep trauma that consumes most of the script. They're like, let's throw in a little like hallmarky stuff here, but it doesn't make sense with the deep trauma that consumes most of the movie. It's weird. The Roomba scene. No, it's scary.

The Roomba scene is scary. And it was like, why would you put this like scary? There are a few moments that we'll get to that. I actually think are scary horror moments where i'm like this should not be in this movie right just change it take it out and then there's other ones that again like an like the other end of that tonal dissonance spectrum of like that mall security like interrogation scene which is just like i'm like i did like that scene though it's funny but it's like it also

doesn't feel it doesn't align with the tone really of a lot of the rest of the movie yeah well something that i think is like kristen stewart is not a comedic actor no she can be a very good actor in the right projects but she's not a comedic actor and i personally don't think she's right to be the lead in a romantic comedy so like specifically that part where she's getting interrogated at the mall we have who is it lauren lapkus and i can't remember the other person but they're doing like zany big veep guy right and they're doing these huge characters and kristen stewart can't even do a straight man she's just like genuinely terrified that she's been caught stealing. Yeah.

Right. And I was like, Oh my God, like, I don't want to watch her like suffer while these characters like harass her. Like, because she is not responding to it in a comedy way. Right.

You're just watching characters like scare her. Yeah. Which made me really appreciate Dan Levy's performance particularly because he's such like the if he wasn't like genuinely a really good actor on top of being a good comedic actor those scenes with him and kristen stewart would have been so jarring but he like towed the line and it was like i dan levy's great he was wonderful yeah he was wonderful best character i would have watched a whole movie of him yes yeah i wish he had the the whole runner with like him and the fish I'm like that's the level of comedy that makes sense for this movie but then when it got too goofy

you're just like what is going on this is this is an interesting rewrite that we got yeah um well should i recap it oh jinx yes um and then just jump in whenever we we yell throughout the recap i would love to yell we love to yell okay so abby kristin stewart and harper is mackenzie davis they are a couple uh they live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Gotta love that Western Pennsylvania representation. It's Christmas time and Harper loves Christmas, but Abby is like meh about it, especially ever since her parents died 10 years prior. Her plan for the holidays is to just pet sit for some people. But Harper invites Abby to come home with her and meet Harper's family for Christmas time. So then we get a scene with Abby and her friend John. That's Dan Levy. And Abby is like, by the way, I'm going to propose to Harper on Christmas morning.

Insane lesbian. They've been together for a year. One year. And they show you it all in the opening credits. You never actually see their relationship. They just show you over the opening credits that they've been together for one year and now she's going to propose to her on Christmas. Right. That was one thing that I like that was like a story issue I had that was like, you're first of all expecting me to root for this pretty clearly abusive relationship when I know nothing about why the relationship was ever important to Abby. Like, exactly. Answer me this. I also think that it's huge to give her like both of her parents

are dead and she's all alone. And she's been alone for so long. Right. But we've never we don't really talk about it we don't really know how it affects her we don't really know what she thinks about it we just know she's her parents are dead and she's alone it's just a joke that's made constantly where everyone thinks that she like grew up as an orphan and she's like no like i was an adult when they died but we and we also don't know i mean i guess we don't really need to know what happened to her parents but it sounds like both of her parents died at once it just sounds like a massive massive thing to happen in somebody's life for us to not know anything about it right we do find out that they were professors at what

carnegie mellon yeah what would have happened to two professors at Carnegie Mellon at once what would have happened like it sounds like our accident yeah like what I don't know I I had a question I that was I I'd never caught before that they were both professors and that was why she was going to get her PhD which also never becomes relevant to the plot ever oh my god it was like Phantom of the Opera like a chandelier dropped on them. What accident happened? It was a freak accident in the Carnegie Mellon Concert Hall. And then we find out at the end that Abby was out to her parents before the chandelier dropped and that they were very accepting of her. It comes up more as a joke than it comes up as probably the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to Abby.

It's weird. The stakes there are confusing. Yeah. Oh, poor Abby. Anyway, so they're on the way to Harper's family. And on the way there, Harper reveals that she never actually came out to her parents like she said that she did. So she had lied about that. And they do not know that Harper is gay, nor that Abby is her girlfriend. Okay, so turn the car around.

Right. Yeah, it's easy. Right. Or Harper, tell her at that breakfast scene, when you clearly are having major second thoughts about Abby coming home with you. Maybe tell her then. That was one of the parts that really hurt my feelings, actually, was that like the whole setup is her going, come home with me. And Abby is like, what? Really? I never even thought to ask. I never even thought I would love to come home with you.

And then the next day she's like, oh, did I say that? I didn't mean that. I was like, oh, like, and I'm supposed to come home with you and then the next day she's like oh did I say that I didn't mean that I was like oh like and I'm supposed to root for her like she immediately just hurt my feelings yeah my feelings it's about me but I mean it's uh it there's there's moments where and I've seen like some I mean the I we can't even really get into the Twitter discourse on this movie it was there was so much of it but I did, I did see some people who were like, well, you know, consider Harper's perspective.

She's in a shitty situation. She, but it's like, that doesn't mean that you don't offer your partner an out. Like the fact that she didn't like, even if we get as far as I'm driving you and I was too afraid to tell you, I didn't actually come out to my family. She doesn even say in that scene like if you want I will just bring you back home and like we can work this out later like I'm really sorry I fucked up like she didn't even give

Abby an option to leave that's like evil she actually goes it's not fair it's not fair for you to expect me like it is immediately about her own feelings and her own experience and immediately she positions it as though abby is pressuring her into a situation that actually she instigated the entire time right yeah i and and abby is so i just abby just gets steamrolled at so many moments in this movie just to like not rock the boat and to not upset her partner which is another element of an abusive relationship right if i had written this movie if they had given me this exact cast and this exact premise i would have been like okay the, the premise is Harper says to Abby,

I want you to come home for Christmas with me. But here's the deal. My family is Republican. They're conservative. They don't know I'm out. I'm sorry, I lied. So you can come with me. But the deal is, we have to pretend that we're straight and we're friends and they go but they can't keep their hands off each other. That's the that's the tension is that they have like so much sexual tension that they're like trying to be straight friends right that's already better right but instead Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis do not really have on-screen chemistry so it's like you barely believe that they're in love and then the cruelty of like throwing Aubrey Plaza in the mix with Kristen Stewart when they very much they have way more

chemistry than her and Mackenzie Davis and it's again it's just like what do you want me to do movie like I have eyes I can sense things about people and their chemistry they're wearing the same jacket and you don't want me to want them to be together come on

that's what lesbians are like yeah they're i also they're the more i watch this movie i was like oh they actually they kind of don't have chemistry which i i mean i like i like both of the actors individually but together i was just like meh and i just am not rooting for it right okay so harper is like you're just gonna have to pretend to be my roommate who is straight and we'll get through this for the next five days uh and the reason that harper doesn't want to come out to her family is is because it's a stressful time for her dad in particular because he's running for mayor. Her dad is literally like, hi, I'm Eric Garcetti. Like it's so that whole element, I was like, this is just not the year to throw a wealthy aspiring political animal into the mix.

No, thank you. You can just, oh the victor garber character is like joe biden put me in the cabinet come on please like it's just oh it's very depressing yeah so harper is just like i'll tell them after the holidays but i can't do it before that because it's a very stressful time with his campaign and everything and we're like he's trying to take away our rights i can't do it now while he's i can't distract him from trying to take away our rights i can't do it now while he's i can't distract him from trying to take away our rights he might have empathy he might not take away our rights i just need to make sure that my father successfully removes our rights before i tell him that he has actually taken away my rights right exactly and that's family that's family

to make and and and the insults of gay icon victor garber having to play this all out it's just not right yes i agree i agree i love i love victor garber so much he they're my favorite victor garber quarantine anecdote was like jennifer garner made a weird video when we were in the first lockdown in like April where she's like I stay inside for my family for nurses and then it was like for Victor Garber and because she loves him because they were on alias the end oh yes uh shout out Mr. Andrews from Titanic Victor Garber's taking away his own rights in this movie. It's not right. Confusing. So Abby is upset by all of this, of course, but she, well, she has no choice but to agree to go along with this charade and to like kind of make the best of it.

So they arrive at Harper's house and meet her family, including her mother, Tipper. That's Mary Steenburgen. Her dad, Ted, Victor Garber. Her sister, Jane, that's Mary Holland, who also co-wrote the screenplay. And then we also eventually meet her other sister, Sloane, played by Alison Brie, who has a husband, Eric, and two small children. Also, Tipper, once I heard the name Tipper, I'm like, I know all I need to know. I was like, that's one of those names where I like that was the first time I'd ever heard a person with that name. And I'm just like, oh, Tipper Gore. I don't know who that is.

Is that Al Gore's wife? I was like, that's politician's wife energy. Gotta, gotta, gotta. I really think Harper and Abby are sort of like first round fictional lesbian names like if i was making if i was gonna write a sketch right now about lesbians i'd be like i don't know they're harper and abby abigail but she goes by abby because she's kind of boyish you know she's kind of a tomboy right it's like we could have used another pass on a lot of these names yeah because tipper and ted that's like oh yeah that used another pass on a lot of these names. Yeah. Because Tipper and Ted, that's like, oh, yeah, that's a white Republican couple. Sure. Sure.

So the whole family, including Abby, goes out to dinner that night. And Harper's mom has invited Harper's ex-boyfriend, Connor, to this dinner, hoping that he and Harper will get back together. They also run into another of Harper's exes, Riley. That's Aubrey Plaza's character. So things just like kind of keep getting more and more awkward. Can I just say about this scene, something that drove me crazy when I watched it a second time is I realized they're all at dinner, sitting around a table, but nobody has any food and nobody ever takes a drink everybody sits at the table with their arms down there are wine glasses half full on the table but no one ever touches them and no one ever takes a drink they just sit and talk with their arms down that's infuriating right and there are also like something else i noticed about the movie that i

was like this is why this movie feels so unc, is it's dead silent almost all the way through the movie. There are very few instances of music, including times when you would expect there to be music, such as in a restaurant during the Christmas season. But there's no music. Or at any party. Right. There's no music at the party. There's no music when they're ice skating. It's dead silent. Wow. That is extremely true. I didn't even notice that that it's like this movie is not doing itself any favors and making it less it's literally stepping out of the genre like you want there

to be too much music usually there is but instead there's like no music like drowned in like public like every hallmark movie i've ever seen is just drowned in public domain christmas songs by like nobody at this movie yeah nothing yeah which was wild because i i really feel like it was marketed as having because tegan and sarah did a song for it and i it was marketed very very heavily with tegan and sarah so i thought it was gonna have like a tegan and sarah like lesbian rock christmas soundtrack like the whole soundtrack right yeah the whole thing. But no, you only hear them literally during the credits at the end.

The very end. Yeah. And it's a cute song, but it was like, why couldn't, could we not afford to use it throughout the movie? Like what is, it would have been nice. I don't know. Because it only plays for like 30 seconds or something. It's not even the full song that you get because then it cuts to another song, I think.

Or does it? I don't. It does. It cuts to another song i think or does it i don't it does it cuts to another song that's like i mean what i don't know who did it it's not as good i would have liked to continue listening to the tegan and sarah song yeah uh i had a the more okay as as i continued to watch this movie over and over and over the arey Plaza's character Riley her entrances are always very funny to me because she always just like is suddenly there she like appears she comes up from behind like out of like alleys out of like she's always alone she always just is suddenly there and it's like I genuinely was like does she have anywhere else to be like does she have anyone else to hang out with around

the holidays like i started feeling bad for her it makes no sense that she like it makes no sense that she's at her ex's family holiday party yes why what and they could have justified that through like giving her a job in politics or something but they don't even do that and it's awkward yeah it's awkward because like now they have to see each other like that yeah that makes sense and as it is like she is one of the best parts of the movie so we need her there but it is sort of like why where why is she here but she does keep just like conveniently running into abby which is like i don't just like all those coincidences and like slinking out of an alley. I identify with that. I identify with that. That's me.

That's me. Just like pop popping up. Like, did somebody say, did somebody say, did somebody say my ex-girlfriend? Oh, that was, it was wild. Realizing that she is always just, she is just in the scene i had okay so my pitch for riley is like to keep her in this universe to keep her in this political i want her to like be working for whoever's running against victor garber there is some fun tension she's like victor garber's trying to take our rights away. Like, what the fuck? And then we could get, for all the setup we get of, like, how Harper also traumatized Riley, you don't get a scene with the two of them, which I also thought was strange. Or, I mean, they weirdly shake hands at the end.

Yeah. I'm like, oh, like you do with your exes. A firm handshake. Harper gives a pretty minimal apology for literally ruining Riley's adolescence. She's like, yeah, sorry about that. Hope I don't do it again, even though I already kind of did. Whoopsies. Yeah. Anyway.

Anyways. Oh, yeah. That was Riley's always slinking out of somewhere and in a sexy jacket. Always a blazer. Oh, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for more recap. So, y'all, this is Questlove and I'm here to tell you about a new podcast I've been working on with the Story Pirates and John Glickman called Historical Records. It's a family-friendly podcast. Yeah, you heard that right. A podcast for all ages. One you can listen to and enjoy with your kids starting on September 27th. I'm going to toss it over to the host of Historical Records, Nimany, to tell you all about it.

Make sure you check it out. Hey, y'all. Nimminy here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Historical Records brings history to life through hip hop. Each episode is about a different inspiring figure from history. Like this one about Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl in Alabama who refused to give up her seat on the city bus nine whole months before Rosa Parks did the same thing. Check it. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Because in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Listen

to Historical Records 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 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. 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 Hanken's thing.

Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. And on camera, yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music, and I just was like, who'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 going to hawk this slalom. I absolutely love it.

It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Okay, so we've met Harper's family. Everything's very awkward, especially for Abby. And then there's also an uncomfortable competitiveness between Harper

and her sister Sloane. They seem to be competing for their dad's approval. There's this whole ice skate race scene. And then there's this big party where Victor Garber is trying to get Harry, played by Anna Gasteyer, to be a donor for his campaign. And in that scene, this is when Abby runs into Riley again, because Riley slinks out from behind a corner. And Riley's like, hey, by the way, I can relate to what you're going through with Harper and Abby. Again, having to maintain this kind of facade is like,

I don't know what you're talking about. Well, that's the scene where she also says nice jacket, right? Or I like your jacket. Yes. Sorry, that's one of my top Aubrey Plaza moments of the movie. Something is weirdly happening with the production, like the production design in this movie, because it's also very, it's very dark. Like they're at this party, everybody's wearing black.'s very dark like they're at this party everybody's wearing black i'm like we're at a christmas party like no there's no green there's no red there's no lights everyone's wearing black that's true and like even when in the other scenes when it's just them in their casual clothing everyone's wearing gray or brown or like a dark

green like it's a very muted, non-festive palette. It's like Harper is wearing black in almost every festive scene of this. That is weird. God, okay. This is just like becoming full Uncanny Valley the more you describe it. Even Kristen Stewart's most festive outfit, which is the one where she's wearing the blazer with the shirt unbuttoned all the way. And it's like sequins, but it's gray. is still like gray black white i'm like is this how republicans celebrate like they're at a funeral like i did yeah that is really weird kristen stewart also always looks um cold yeah i think this is just sort of her

thing but i really feel like the whole movie is watching her be alone and being like yes like on the i don't know she's making me feel bad but i love her so much like i was like somebody like wrap her in a blanket and like put her somewhere safe yeah um okay and then there's this whole sequence where abby gets caught sneaking up up to Harper's room and then she has to play it off as sleepwalking. And then the following morning, Harper almost gets caught having spent the night in Abby's room by her family. Okay. So I have a huge note for them here. Please. Yeah. For me, the fact that they chose to have them hook up in the guest room and not harper's little girl bedroom tells me everything i need to know about who made this movie that illuminates everything for me i was like okay i get it we're we're not here to have fun that's like the dream that's always

it is a dream and literally the way they set it up with the set where she has all those horse trophies everywhere and all those ribbons. I'm like, I'm seeing the headboard banging and the ribbons like going like this. You don't have to show anything. It's funny it's it's the dream to have sex with the love of your life in your childhood bedroom it's the right amount of gross like there and it was right there especially if it's if it's a republican your republican household and your secret lesbian girlfriend that's so hot that's so much fun that's ball dropped ball dropped yeah truly okay so then the next day abby gets arrested by mall security because sloan's kids slip a necklace into her bag so now harper's whole family thinks that abby is a criminal and she gets uninvited to this big dinner does not make sense to me and if we're supposed to believe it makes sense why wouldn't harper like why this is such an easy argument to win to be like she didn't steal anything like just let

her come don't be don't like leave this person who doesn't know anyone here alone to go to dinner by herself like right harper should have been like well if abby's not going i'm not going like i'm not gonna like harper makes the wrong choice every single time this is what really makes me feel um betrayed by this movie is that like you know holidays and family holidays especially are a really sensitive topic for a lot of queer people because a lot of people don't get to have those moments with their families. And so I sort of was like, you know, you're giving us this movie being like, this is a romantic comedy for you for the holidays. And then it shows us this queer person being alone. Like it's an experience of watching a queer person be totally alone during Christmas. And I was like, this actually feels bad. Like, I know how it feels to be queer and alone at Christmas. And why is that the image I'm getting in the lesbian romantic comedy?

Called Happiest Season. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Watching her like walk down the street alone i was like god and then to have the conclusion of the movie be like and actually it was good that all of that happened it's like no that's not oh yeah chris and sir i just being that isolated on top of already less than 48 hours ago a gigantic betrayal from someone you thought you were going to marry and then to just be like thrown out into like the streets of this random

christmas studio lot it's just it's just fucked up also why did they do stealing black children yeah why did they do that that they shouldn't have done that they shouldn't have been like now the plot point is that the black children steal. Yeah. Especially in a movie where that is like so extremely white that there's only three black characters in this movie. It's Alison Brie's husband and then her two children. And yeah, they're stealing and... Stealing and receiving racism. Yeah. They're only there for them to be racist to them. Right. And it felt like the movie was tokenizing those characters for the sake of including more diversity without actually doing anything meaningful with or about those characters. Yeah.

And their characters have like no arcs. I really dislike Sloane's character. So I'm just like, I just try to block out that entire storyline. But the fact that it's like, if she is going to be there with her husband, give her husband a story. Give the only black adult in this movie a story. What are you doing? Yeah. How does he feel about like having married into this Republican family?

Right. Exactly. Exactly. I thought that in multiple ways. I'm like, is literally everyone on board here? Is there any I want to be rooting for Jane, but is Jane like, I guess I'm just a Republican. Like, is everyone on board here? And if so, let's discuss. Like, it's just so weird yeah um okay so uh abby has gotten uninvited to this big event so instead she hangs out with riley at a drag show meanwhile harper is not making any time for abby and she is hanging out with her high school boyfriend Connor all night. So all this like sneaking around and lying and repressing is weighing on the relationship. Harper starts to

withdraw and she's like, I need space. So Abby is like trying to figure out if she should just leave. But an Uber is going to cost like a thousand dollars so she's like i guess i just have to stick it out god an inescapable being unable to leave a partner's uh as someone who's tried to escape someone else's family's holiday more than once that is the most heavy moment of dread where you're like i can't there's i cannot. I cannot go unless my partner chooses to show me some grace, which they won't. Love that. It's a horror moment. It's a horror moment. She's trapped. Yeah. In that moment, she realized that she is trapped. I also thought that something that this movie captured very well, but I almost think did by accident, is the tonal shift between when they're at the drag bar to when she like goes back to straight land and i was like this is what it's like to like

feel this like huge relief to find your little pocket yeah feel a huge relief where you can finally let go and like not act like anything for anybody and then have to suddenly go back like with everyone's family and act like this again i was like that is real that's a real experience right that stark contrast because abby meets up with harper at a bar literally called fratty's yeah that was another i was like we could use we could have used another pass on that. Fratty, someone had to. Sometimes I just like, I have radical empathy for people who have to create sets that are based around kind of lazy writing. Where I'm like, someone just had to make a huge ass sign that said fratty's because no one wanted to do a second pass. It's not fair. But right, it's like that chosen family versus like biological

family and that contrast and like that's an interesting thing to explore but rather than really doing that the movie is just like well let's just make harper really emotionally abusive to her partner the end i know i i feel like the tension that also gets set up but is never resolved is about chosen family and like non-traditional like kind of family units versus like assimilation and like marriage and like your one true partner forever but then it totally just drops this one right and it's like actually the marriage thing is like what we always wanted in the end yeah and it's i don't like the way that the script kind of tries to wriggle out like the script is very aware that the marriage end game is very like kind of a really normative place to land and they just keep using dan levy's character to just acknowledge that they are aware

of that but then continue to do it anyways where like dan levy's like oh you know another win for the patriarchy blah blah blah blah blah and it's like okay so if you know that then then why follows through on it yeah yeah i kind of was thinking where just like the first time i was watching this i thought because he was so like his character john is it was yeah I just think of him as Dan Levy but it's yeah like it sounded like he was kind of like I thought that was kind of like foreshadowing for like oh you know like Abby's gonna like receive that eventually and be like yeah you know what I don't need to have this very like normative relationship like you know I can wait I can do whatever i want and but then

they're like nope you must get married you must get married because the or the mayor will cry yeah um okay so then the christmas eve caldwell party rolls around john shows up to save Abby. And Abby is like, you know what, Harper, it's over. I'm done. And then Harper goes to apologize and try to kind of reconcile. And as they are doing that and kind of embracing, Sloane walks in and sees them and then proceeds to out Harper to the entire family and everyone in the room, which is like dozens of people at this holiday party. I hate Sloane. Sloane is the only character who centers herself more than Harper.

Like Harper centers herself in everything. But Sloane literally like she takes the cake in terms of centering her like boring divorce over like this i just oh i can't stand yeah i just can't like i i've been saying this and i'll say it again i cannot stress this enough this is a triggering moment like yeah i cannot imagine you know and i've never had an experience like that of being like forcibly outed but But I cannot imagine being someone for whom this sort of thing has happened to them. And then they're watching this movie and it suddenly happens. And they're like not expecting that, you know, because I'm like, if you want to do a sad coming out story that's about a hard family relationship, that's one movie. Yeah. But this is like you were telling us the whole time it's a zany Christmas comedy and then just showing us these like really kind of triggering circumstances that like real people have lived through.

Right. And then taking that and turning it into like physical comedy by the end, too, is just so. Yeah, they're having like a slapstick comedy fight about it where like a nice painting gets destroyed and oh and i just i felt so bad for jane in that moment and in many moments uh based on the way that she's treated by family members also sloan did a horrible unforgivable thing by outing har, and she owes Harper a huge apology, which we never see. Harper doesn't need to speak to her ever again. I was like, that is, that could very well be the end of that relationship. Like, absolutely. Yeah. Harper

needs to estrange herself from her entire family and go to a lot of therapy and she needs to be alone for a while yeah she needs to be alone make some serious amends and then move forward with her life as not a republican shell i just don't get it i don't i don't want this family dynamic to remain intact. is like being accepted personally for being gay. And once we've passed that tier, everything is actually totally fine. Right. When like, as you keep saying, Jamie, like, it's not fine. It's not fine if the Republican gets elected as mayor and then does Republican shit. Like, it's actually not OK.

Other people are going to be hurt by that. Yeah. Anyone who isn't like as rich and white as their family is people are going to be hurt by that yeah anyone who isn't like as rich and white as their family is is going to demonstrably suffer it just the fact that that never comes up is truly baffling to me like especially from it doesn't seem like abby like i just the person we are sort of like told abby is it doesn't seem like she would be OK with that. I just don't. She never gives us a point of view.

We don't have a point of view from her. She just sort of like suffers throughout. Yeah. And then the fact I mean, this is very like, I think it's like one of the I guess rom-commy tropes that is present here is like she's like, I'm going to school for art. Right. And that's it. And no, I'm not going to talk about art literally even one time. But I'm going to school for art because my parents had a chandelier dropped on them. So you're just like, all right, I guess. Right. Abby should take the same approach to her relationship that anna gasteyer does to like examining ted as like a like someone she might donate to because it's like i'm not just looking

at you i'm looking at your whole family like abby should be like yeah i'm looking at you as a partner but like also your whole family and your whole family sucks again minus Jane but and I'm not saying that you shouldn't marry someone you want to marry because their family is awful but Abby should have a choice about whether or not she spends time with Harper's family and she isn't given a choice and instead she was lied to and ambushed and forced to be around these very toxic people. I would not be begging for these people's approval and acceptance. Right. Yeah. I really want Abby to like stand up for herself at any point.

I mean, but it's like she's in this very uncomfortable position that like, again, Harper forced her into like, you have to keep lying. You have to maintain this charade. And like, I feel so bad. It seems like we're being set up for like i don't know it's again it's just like you were just saying it's kind of just like a lack of character arc for abby because at the end it's like she is defined by being constantly steamrolled by others and then by the end she is steamrolled for a final time and then she's just flat uh like and it's it's actually

like the least the least forceful steamroll of them all she just kind of like gives in she's like okay yeah there's no like big turning point moment she just is like no and then she's like but yes right it's frustrating i don't like it and and again it's not to keep bringing up my little alternate riley idea but like even if abby is defined by being steamrolled riley is a character that could challenge that in her and be like why are you allowing this to happen to yourself on top of the fact that you're being treated like shit this family aspires to treat everybody like shit like you don't need to take this sitting down and that's why i'm maybe riley should run for mayor against mr carver better movie yes wow a sort of like female pew pew to change movie

the youngest mayor the youngest gay mayor oh the trauma of it all wow okay there's just a little tiny bit left of the story where um no it's fine uh so sloan outs harper to the whole room um harper denies it at first but then is finally like yes family i am gay and i'm in love with Abby and then Victor Garber pitches a fit and then Abby's like, it's too late and she leaves. But then Harper shows up at this gas station and she's like, I'm so sorry. You're the love of my life.

I'll make it up to you. And then they kiss and that's the big climax of the movie. And then the next day is Christmas Day. Harper's family has like come around they have a what we're meant to believe is a nice christmas together and then they all live quote happily ever after for at least a year well they do they do exchange rings yes they're wearing rings in the end so she's decided in that moment that it's still a good time to propose. Yeah, that they should get married.

Let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back for more discussion. So, y'all, this is Questlove and I'm here to tell you about a new podcast I've been working on with the Story Pirates and John Glickman called Historical Records. It's a family-friendly podcast. Yeah, you heard that right. A podcast for all ages. One you can listen to and enjoy with your kids starting on September 27th. I'm going to toss it over to the host of Historical Records, Nimany, to tell you all about it. Make sure you check it out. Hey, y'all. Nimminy here.

I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Flash, slam, another one gone. Bash, bam, another one gone. The crack of the bat and another one gone. The tip of the cap is another one gone. Each episode is about a different inspiring figure from history. Like this one about Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl in Alabama who refused to give up her seat on the city bus nine whole months before Rosa Parks did the same thing. Check it. And it began with me. Did you know, did you know?

I wouldn't give up my seat. Nine months before Rosa, it was called a moment. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Because, in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Listen

to Historical Records on the iHeart Radio 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. 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. Tune in for all the laughs, the's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person?

I got to hawk this slalom, Lugie. Not hawk the slalom. 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. We're back. We're back. That gas station scene, just, ooh, ooh. When Harper just,

she's just spewing the shit. Like, it's just just so when she's like i don't care what they think i only care about you it's like well name one thing you've done in the past week that would demonstrate that like right one decision i don't understand why they didn't just moviefy that moment like to me you could have given this movie a few different endings that I would have liked better. Like, the one I really like is the one where she, where Abby leaves with Dan Levy. And they have Christmas together. And it's, like, about chosen family and about, like, yeah, like, we're having our little queer Christmas. The other one is if we have to have Abby and Harper end up together, How come Harper doesn't do a huge romantic gesture?

How come she doesn't do a gesture where she puts in Christmas lights? I love you, Kristen Stewart. Merry Christmas. Like on the roof for the whole neighborhood to see. And it's Christmas and the music is playing. Like, why don't we do something like that? Why does she just show up to a gas station? And then it's like nothing moment.

I'm also like tracking you like that. Yeah, she's up to a gas station and then it's like nothing moment i'm also like tracking you like that yeah she's it's a stalking thing like she shows up uninvited unannounced that is not okay it's only funny when dan levy does it but that's another i mean as much as i love dan levy and his character in this movie that's like why are you stalking people, John, for comedy? Yeah, no, I knew that I was looking into like just interviews Clea Duvall was doing. I'm like, does she acknowledge any of like the all over the place perception of the movie? And she does say in interviews that she was determined to have Harper and Abby together at the end because she says, quote, there are so many lesbian movies that end in tragedy or these people fall madly in love and they never see each other again. We don't get a lot of happy endings and I wanted them to make it,

which fair point. Absolutely. But like, well, then why did you write the characters this way? Like, I don't know. i feel like there's a strong disconnect between because i also read some of these interviews and i feel like there's a really distinct disconnect between what cleo duvall thought she was doing and what she actually did because like i read a quote where she was like this is a story about like forgiveness and about like working through problems together in a relationship and i was like but they do not work together they there is not one single moment ever where they work together to handle this problem and there is not one single moment where the character harper does anything to merit forgiveness totally right right that we don't see them work through anything no so the actual

message becomes like you should just forgive people who treat you like garbage right and that's i actually think that that's a dangerous message for like queer people especially totally sure and it's like i have like i i like cleo de val i like really respect her work she's like you know she's for sure she's an icon she's great but she's an icon for sure but yeah i i totally agree with you jess like it's great. She's an icon for sure. But yeah, I totally agree with you, Jess. Like it's just a it's a weird way to kind of walk back some of the decisions you made in your movie to be like, well, you know, we're all we're all struggling. It's difficult. So just if someone is emotionally abusive to you, consider where they're coming from. And it's like, what kind of message is that?

I know. That's a weird message and like to be totally clear i also like i really respect cleo duvall and like have always like you know looked to her for a long time yeah as like a lesbian icon and so i just feel that's like what i feel disappointed by totally it's like she can't you like she can do better than that or i want to believe that she can do better and will i hope she does because it was like i hope that she like takes some of the constructive criticism around this movie to heart i think she will i hope she will you know her performance and but i'm a cheerleader. It meant a lot. There's just simply nothing like it. It meant a lot to us.

Yeah. Yeah. I also read, I did not know this movie existed, but I also read that there was a movie with a similar premise that came out in 2009. There have been a few movies that are almost exactly like this. Interesting. Wait, what are they?

Including one that I think came out in like 2018 or 2016 like kind of more recently i feel like i heard about that and i was like why didn't that come out 10 years ago it's about thanksgiving oh okay but it's the same thing somebody brings her girlfriend home and her family doesn't know right i read about a movie called make the yuletide gay from 2009 where like a college student takes a boyfriend home they pretend to be roommates but the main character like is i guess the difference is that the main character demonstrates a lot of guilt throughout the movie and like is constantly communicating with his partner and like having just doubts and like that which doesn't make it right but it like at least makes it like easier to not hate a character that we're supposed to

love because Harper just acts so selfishly at every single turn right I don't understand why they kept having her hang out with her ex-boyfriend. I was like, this is like the wrong, it's not, it's just a wrong thing to do. I also was confused by that. And if she was doing that to like appease her family or something, like not enough was done to establish like why she was doing that. And it was confusing to me yeah i mean i feel like that could have been an interesting opportunity of like because it's implied that that character is gay based on like how he interacts with dan levy later in the movie so it's like that could

have been an interesting converse like but she she shuts it down like she is so not receptive to it he like tries to talk to her outside of fratty's or wherever the fuck that place was and kind of like gives her an opening of like hey you know and but she's just like nope i'm not having this conversation with anybody and then it's like well then why why are you here also i think we could get rid of the boyfriend and then just include riley more absolutely yeah well you know what would if if abby had uh gone to christmas with her girlfriend's family and ended up hooking up with her girlfriend's ex that's a lesbian romantic comedy that's just a movie i desperately want to see that would have been so great there it would have been so fun they should have it also would have raised the stakes if like abby and riley kissed i like you know i don't condone

cheating but in this situation no no it's so like abby and riley legally can and should kiss because abby has just been like flogged by this situation and her partner for days on end. There's no end in sight. Going home for five days is a bad idea to begin with. That was like when I was the first time I watched the movie. I'm like, we leave after three days. That's three days is the maximum time you want to spend with your family. But she's allowed to kiss Riley.

I can't believe I cannot believe that they don't kiss at the bar. No, by movie law, it should have happened. Absolutely. Chemistry law. It should have just happened organically. Yeah. I did appreciate, I like the look on Harper's face when she sees. Oh, no.

What happened? Jamie seems to have accidentally dropped from the Zoom call. So we'll just keep recording and then she'll... Cool, cool. Yeah, there she is. Okay. Oh my God. I just got so intense about wanting Aubrey Plaza and Kristen Stewart to kiss that I started like fidgeting with a button and I accidentally hung up.

That's on me. Do you remember what you were saying? I was just saying something like horny and then got all worked up and hung up on the call accidentally. Isn't everybody fidgeting with their button? It's true. Thinking about Aubrey Plaza. It's true.

I, yeah, she's so, I liked, when she was doing press for this movie, it was like, it did make me laugh because she was just like, my goal in my performance was to make everyone be upset that Kristen Stewart doesn't end up with my character I'm like well you were successful I was shocked that she was allowed to say that yeah yeah that surprised me I guess she can just kind of do what she wants I don't know or maybe she doesn't care I have no idea she was grumpy cat who knows right she is grumpy cat I have no idea. She was Grumpy Cat. Who knows? She is Grumpy Cat.

This is not her first. I was like, wow, this is not her first Christmas ever. She was in the Grumpy Cat Christmas movie. To call back to those couple other similar like Christmas movies or like holiday movies with a similar premise about queer characters having to repress and like hiding their identity for for the comfort of straight families yeah right yeah that speaks to the fact that like this is like kind of the first queer centered chris like festivy christmasy movie that was backed by a major studio and you know it's got bankable stars it was supposed to have a theatrical release but then pandemic so it got a release on hulu but it makes it like viewing records on hulu which was right which is like cool enough people wanted to see a really good lesbian christmas movie and then they just they kind of just saw happiest season that then that's the thing like it's a lot more accessible

than previous similar movies have been but that makes it all the more disappointing that it like doesn't deliver and that has like some pretty toxic messages to take away from it because it has all these more he has way more eyes on it than uh other similar movies but what jess you were kind of alluding to this earlier is like it it does like by the end of this movie you're like oh this movie is for like straight parents like it's not for queer people like no it's for the p-flag crowd yeah yeah it's and so i find it frustrating because we've had this conversation about like multiple movies on the show before of like a movie that is like

kind of marketed as this huge win for representation but then it's about conservative white people and it's kind of doing the bare minimum in a lot of ways to to like start to it almost feels like it's testing the waters in a weird way i don't know i like who i wish that cleo devol was like if i would honestly respect it a lot more if cleo devol was like here's who i'm making this movie for and was just like clear about that because it's it's so jarring at so many points and then by the end when you land on that mary steen virgin victor gar scene, you're like, oh, so this is who the movie is for. To me, this is why like, quote unquote, representation is sort of like a not good enough or not full enough concept. Because like, I feel like this movie is a great example about that. Because I'm like, okay, sure. It is like about lesbians, like there are lesbian characters,

it was made by lesbians cleo duval is a lesbian she wrote it she directed it but the like actual content of the movie is not really good for like a lesbian audience or a queer audience right like you have to serve your audience like it's right right you can't just like put people in front of the screen right you can't and you can't just like you can't just stop at identity like there has to be more there right totally totally agree and that's something we talk about in terms of like representation in media is often a slow and tumultuous process where like the steps are generally like there's no representation and then after some amount of years it's like okay now there's some representation but it's usually

bad and offensive and harmful uh and then you move on to okay now there's like more positive representation but it's still it feels outdated still or it feels like there's a long way to go it hasn't quite caught up with like contemporary attitudes so this feels like that where it's like okay there's representation it's a story made by queer people about queer people but not but it's not for queer people it's frustrating yeah and this this is like this expands far beyond entertainment where it's just it's kind of like frustrating and insulting to have like something put in front of you and be like, look, aren't you? You should be happy. You should be happy that this exists when it's like, right. No, like, no, you don't just need to take something insufficient because like, yeah, I really resent that whole like, like well aren't you happy that this exists you're like

i guess like i'm not unhappy but it's not it's not what we were promised i don't know it's not what we were promised and i'm not even saying like it shouldn't exist but i am saying like it sucks that this is like the thing yeah it's the thing that we're getting right and it's not it like it hurts me like i spent i don me. I don't know. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm being melodramatic. But each time I watch this movie, because I watched it twice, I've spent the whole next day kind of at a high level of anger and anxiety. And just being upset because this movie reminds me of a lot of bad experiences I've had.

And now suddenly I'm thinking about these experiences that maybe don't bother me at all in my normal life. And so I'm like, that's just not like I feel like that's not the ideal outcome for a queer audience watching the queer romantic comedy. Yeah, of course. Especially because so many queer movies prior to this have focused on like tragedy. And there's been kind of an erasure of like queer joy narratives. And it's on the surface, it feels like this would be a queer joy narrative. You know, it's it's happiest season. It's Christmas time. It's festive. Woo. happiest season it's christmas time it's festa woo but like we've been saying there are so many

moments and just like beats and themes in the movie that are like traumatic and triggering and like closer to horror than comedy and like i would almost classify this as like a tragedy like it's kind of tragic what especially the way it ends and the fact that habby ends up with harper who is again really not a good partner or a good person there's essentially no joy in the movie there's essentially no christmas joy whatsoever like throughout the whole movie yeah except for like the opening credit sequence and the ending credit sequence right yeah and also the ending he wins mayor you're just like he wins oh yeah you hate that i really hate it really bothers me the yeah there's i mean the fact that it concludes

with the protagonist who we are rooting for settling for someone who does not treat her right, that we see on screen at least, and does not make any meaningful amends with the people in her life or works on herself even like 1%. Like, what kind of message is that that sucks right like it's not a happy ending just because you tacked it on there doesn't make it like a happy ending right for queer people yeah yeah i want to read a quote that i pulled from a review in l um fromela Phillips, who is a queer Black writer, says, quote, I needed the film to earn its happy ending and hold Harper accountable to unpack the trauma of coming out and how queer people harm themselves, each other, and those closest to them under societal pressure. I see myself in Harper, scared to come out. I understand how time is wasted unlearning and struggling with heteronormativity, but that's not an excuse to inflict emotional pain on others in the process. Being afraid of

confronting one's own personal trauma, especially a rich, privileged white family, doesn't excuse actions that hurt people. I don't want queer people accepting a partner who gaslights them because they're scared. I want queer mainstream films that delve into coming out and reckon with all the messiness of the situation. I want films that acknowledge the lived experiences of Black queer people. I want queer mainstream films that go beyond coming out to showcase the complexity of their characters." End quote. I agree. Yeah, I was like like she nailed it yeah that like and i don't want to invalidate anyone's feelings or opinions anyone who enjoys this movie finds value in this movie because i think there is a lot of value in this movie there is representation that we haven't

seen before in a mainstream christmas movie There are funny parts. I was still crying throughout. I cried when the movie told me to cry. I was playing ball with the movie. That scene at the end with Dan Levy and Kristen Stewart, you can't help weeping during

that scene. That's another scene where you're like, oh oh we're so close to something right like when the last time i watched it i was watching it with my um my friend hayan park and she was like at the end of this monologue he should be like and this relationship has seen its course yeah and yeah come with me let's get a drink at the drag bar exactly because he's right he's literally right everything he says is literally correct yeah yeah so yeah that's and for listeners that's the scene where towards the end they're at there's like so many scenes that

take place at the same gas station at the very end of the movie uh but they're outside at the gas station and uh john is basically reminding abby that harper is like in a really difficult position even though it is actively hurting abby and then he shares his coming out story and it was really traumatic and that he you know basically lost um a relationship with his father and was rejected by his family. And just because Abby was accepted by her parents before the chandelier fell that tragic night. It was a huge night for her. The ups and downs. My God.

Can you imagine? She told them she was a lesbian at 6 p.m. And they were like, we love you so much. And then at 7 7 30 they shouldn't have gone to the opera that night but they wanted to support their carnegie mellon students but i liked where he was going with that but then yeah it just kind of landed like so i don't care if you're emotionally abused by your partner even though he spent the whole movie saying the opposite of that so it's strange yeah I I do love his character I do love John and

again like a lot of what he says makes you think that like okay this movie is trying to have a progressive agenda he's calling out heteronormative standards different things like that but like the progressive agenda that this movie is trying to put forward is like it doesn't go as far as it thinks it's going it's weird it's weird can we talk about jane really quick yes jane i really like mary holland i like love her as a performer this character did not I love Jane but the way everyone treats Jane in the movie super sucks I mean I feel like she's like Jane is a like not a neurotypical character right and there's just jokes about it and there's just like all of these references to how she has been treated like shit

by her family for not being neurotypical for her entire life and that's the joke it's nice because i like her author's journey but the way she's treated by her family sucks and like no one ever really no one apologizes to her i don't know what it what it what about the jokes all to me they all feel very like mid-2000s sort of level yeah like where we still think it's okay to joke about that stuff we still think the closet joke is really funny like we are still talking about things in that it's still kind of okay to be like casually racist casually ableist and like that's the funny joke and that really takes me out of it i'm like this is like the queer movie of like 2020 yeah is this joke with this sort of mid-2000s sensibility in an offensive way it's i and then but again do i tear up when she is doing

the book reading at the end of the movie that That was the part I cried the hardest at. I found that to be the most compelling when she's just like, and then she's like reading from her fantasy novel and she's like, then they all look at each other and it was Glank who stepped forward first. And I was like, anyway. Yeah. I,

I really, anyway oh yeah i i really this family really treats everyone poorly and uh jane gets the brunt of it a lot of the time the ways that it's like the parents tipper and ted treat each of their daughters like shit in a unique way and the way that they treat jane is just ableist like that's that's how they show that they don't respect that daughter and then they it's just so all over the place he's like and then the sloan i was like i don't even want to talk about sloan there what what is her story they're like oh we're mad at her because she has a very successful business like right she didn't pursue law and she stopped to have a family but now she like she now she's like a girl boss like what am i rooting for here yeah i feel like they added a bunch of like b and

c and d storylines that ended up just diluting the main drama which is harper and abby and then it sort of was like like literally over and over and over again the last third of the movie is just people having like confessions yes yeah like all in a row and it's like why are we having confession after confession after confession even very often following up like harper's finally coming out moment and then the second after that someone else is like and i i was like why we're not talking about you like the movie's not about you when sloan makes that about her you're just like who even are you like get out of this movie yes sloan interrupts harper's coming out by being like, well, I'm getting divorced. And it's like, read the room, like, leave the room. But like, on the writing side, I was like, why did you do this? Why did you dilute your own movie as big moments?

Yeah. With these little moments that nobody gives a shit about. Right. I do wonder like what the what the motive is. I'm sure that there is a reason, but I just can't. I think it's probably something like in the end, we all have secrets. We're all hiding something. And that's how we can relate. Like that was what I got out of that. Right. And I was like, okay, but I don't give a shit about those secrets. They're not good secrets. I don't care. Right. I'm like, I don't care about her goop business related secrets it's just not the same problem i i don't know uh i the last thing i had was um this is i was only thinking about this

because i this like story popped up in my feed in the last couple of days about john so obviously there's a a lot of queer characters in this movie but john still for me fell into like a gay best friend trope um totally which i was like that's just another weird thing to be happening in this movie all basically everything he does is revolving around kristen stewart's life like he just i mean we know that he has a job we know what his job is it becomes relevant at the very very very end of the movie but like he's I feel like it's another like weird mid-2000s trope where he is just but instead of being at the beck and call of some straight girl he's at the beck and call of Kristen Stewart about her relationship and And it's just the reason I brought it up was

Andrew Rannells was in that movie Prom, which I haven't watched yet. But he was doing an interview for that movie, and basically brought up the Bechdel test. And he said, you know what the Bechdel test is, I apply that to a lot of gay characters as I read scripts, because I think it's a good way to figure out if they're just supposed to be a punchline, or if they're human, does he have a life, you can only do so much as an actor sometimes to flesh things out. And it really has to be in the writing, which I agree with. And it's like, I don't know, it's like you have Dan Levy, like, why wouldn't you? And he, he has no family, he has no family. He has no boyfriend. He has no he has a point of view about everything that happens in Harper's life.

But beyond that, he doesn't totally have a point of view. Yeah. Yeah. Also, he makes a very confusing just like narrative choice where Abby calls him or they're on the phone and she's like, everything is in shambles. Like, this is a disaster. I can't leave because the Uber costs a thousand dollars. And then John's like, sorry, gotta go. And he just kind of like hangs up on her. And then he shows up a few hours later.

Why wouldn't he say like, I'm coming to get you. Stay there. He would feel so much better if. Right. Because like that moment where he shows up is like, I guess treated as this like big reveal or something but it doesn't need to be and instead he just like he makes it seem like her problems are nothing and then he's like sorry gotta go bye but it's so that he can like get in the car really fast and come save her why wouldn't he tell her that he was coming to rescue her yeah i don't that didn't make any sense to me all that said i liked the fish jokes

the fish jokes were great it was good i mean i i have something in terms of like the varied queer representation within this quote-unquote queer movie yeah um is so i auditioned for Happiest Season. Big review. Yeah. I, yeah, I auditioned for Aubrey Plaza's role. And I know a couple of other people who auditioned for it, too, who've, like, said publicly. I know Rhea Butcher said that they auditioned for it. Irene, too, auditioned for it. And, like, I don't, I'm sure they put out a wide swath of auditions for like queer people in general. But like to see specifically these three people and me, Irene, Rhea, I'm like, oh, so they did audition like masculine people, gender nonconforming people, trans people and me and Rhea are trans and ultimately they chose a cis feminine woman which like i'm glad having seen the movie i'm glad aubrey plaza was in it because i want to look at aubrey plaza i would rather look at aubrey plaza than be in that movie but but what that says to me is you know they done it's not

that they auditioned us and they cast ruby rose or asia kate dylan or or Roberta Kalindrez or like some other like more famous masculine gender non-conforming non-binary person they just looked at us and they ultimately were like that's not what we want we want three feminine women right with long hair and femininity yes and I think that that is a choice a distinctive choice it certainly is that is telling and it's another kind of marker of like this movie feels behind um to cast all you know there are four queer characters all of them are cis most of them are white aubrey plaza is a person of color but it's still a very white movie. And she's a person of color who moves

through like whiteness in this sort of way Right. And then just hearkening back to that Harper is like so complicit in her father's campaign for what's clearly a Republican I know we can't get over the local politics

but we're having a lot of these conversations right like like our generation we have to talk to our families we have to talk to our conservative family members we have to talk to our parents who are well-meaning but maybe not as progressive as younger generations, especially like white millennials who are anti-racist. We have a responsibility to be like, hey, family, you need to stop. You need to stop being shitty.

You need to be actively anti-racist. Yeah. So for Harper to like, just like, yeah, I'm going to help my dad write his speeches for his Republican mayor campaign. It's just like, it's on top of the fact that like, it's,

it becomes confusing to me of like, if this movie is aware that this is a problem that even exists, like it's just so treated as a given that like, well, you know, families are like this and without you know acknowledging any of the active harm that comes with those views and just for her to be so unchallenging of it and to just i mean yeah that's just like privilege operating at the highest level to be like yeah well

i don't know it's like i don't want to make the holidays uncomfortable and that's the whole driving force behind that where it's like, well, sorry. Literally the whole thing we've been saying this whole time is you must go home for the holidays and talk to your family. You must go home for the holidays and during Christmas make your family uncomfortable. Like that's literally the discourse. Right. Yeah. And just this year in particular to see that just not even not even be acknowledged by any character in the movie at any point even characters that you would think would is just like another uncanny

element of this movie where I'm like what planet what year what like it just doesn't track at all and it just makes it like less relevant it works against the movie entirely yes i don't know well i was like wow um does anyone have any fun we all feel good yeah now that we all feel happy it really i feel the happiest season. We've discussed this on the show before, so we don't need to get too into this. But there was an interview that Kristen Stewart did with Variety where she gave her perspective on gay actors playing gay characters that I thought was just a take. I don't think she's ever spoken on this issue before and so the writer Kate Arthur asked the question uh there are a lot of people who feel it's important that gay actors play gay

characters after so many years of that not being the case what's her stance on that and she gives a very long answer but I found it to be pretty thoughtful where she um basically says she doesn't know and it depends, which is vague. But she says, I would never want to tell a story that really should be told by somebody who's lived that experience. Having said that, it's a slippery slope conversation because that means I could never play another straight character if I'm going to hold everyone to the letter of this particular law. I think it's such a gray area. There are ways for men to tell women's stories or way for women to tell men's stories, but we need to have our finger on the pulse and actually have to care. You kind of know where you're allowed. I mean, if you're telling a story about a community and they're not welcoming to you, then fuck off. But if they are and you're

becoming an ally and a part of it, and there's something that drove you there in the first place that makes you uniquely endowed with a perspective that might be worthwhile there's nothing wrong with learning about each other and therefore helping each other tell stories so I don't have a sure shot answer for that and she kind of opens that discussion by saying like she has played you know so many straight roles and she's like a skinny white cis woman. And so I don't know, I thought it was like an interesting answer to that question. I think just like you said, a lot of that answer only works if you're a skinny cis white woman. Exactly. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, I feel like we've had we've had conversations around

this in a few different episodes, but it, yeah, it basically does boil down to, she is operating with a lot of privilege coming into this situation. And so some people were not thrilled that Mackenzie Davis was cast because she is a straight actor. Other people don't care. And it comes through. It comes through. Yeah.

It comes through. It comes through. Like it doesn't have to, it doesn't have to come through. Like I think, I think Rachel Weisz plays an amazing lesbian. I always forget that Rachel Weisz is straight. What's funny is like, I feel like I see her like on the red carpet. And I'm like, oh, that's like a straight 48 year old mother of three. Like, that's like a straight woman. But she's like such a good actor that she can get into it but like if it doesn't come through it like just weird i always forget that mackenzie davis was in san junipero which was like another thing that makes me cry when i watch it uh but yeah i don't know i i just

i was wondering if that conversation was going to be had around this movie because there are a lot of queer actors playing queer parts and then there's a few examples of that not being the case and then we also have victor garber playing a straight mayor who is homophobic so there's i don't know i i thought i was glad she was asked the question and hopefully this is a discussion we'll keep having yeah uh speaking of rachel vice uh playing a lesbian character i guess it's worth just at least mentioning that a lot of lesbian love stories in mainstream movies have been period pieces about like clandestine relationships that are kind of doomed from the start because of like the era that they take place in. I'm thinking of Portrait of a Lady on Fire. I'm thinking of this movie. This movie takes place in 2007.

Right. It is a period piece. It is a period piece. It just won't tell you. Or it needs to be. God, remember how it used to be. Thank God it's not like that anymore. But yeah, like the favorite

and Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Carol. So at least this movie takes place in the 20th century because you know there's there's some criticism about having like all the mainstream movies about a lesbian relationship taking place decades if not hundreds of years ago um so and only with cis white women too yes like it's just i have an a special softness for the lesbian period piece as a genre so i like i i feel like i am always trying to defend that genre sure it's like i personally love it i just feel like i would rather watch i would rather watch a lesbian period piece movie with like lush costume and set and like good writing and compelling characters and a relationship I'm rooting for, regardless of how it ends, than watch a movie that takes place in the modern day where people wear clothes from H&M.

And it's a shitty relationship where I hate one of them and I don't want them to be together and I want them to break up. Like I just, one of those. Totally fair. Yeah. To me, the line is not modernity versus period. It's like, is it a good movie?

Like, did you write a good movie? Sure. Does it make sense? Does it make sense? Do we like any of these people? Do we like a single one of these people? Oh,

I did. I, I dislike Harper more with each viewing. I just referred to the favorite as my favorite lesbian holiday romantic comedy so where's the lie for a rewatch of the favorite the favorite does for all of its tragedy it does fill me with joy it fills me with joy more often it's got joyous moments tremendously joyous moments the part where she kicks the shit out of the guy in the forest for like five minutes it's hilarious

it's so funny every movie should have five minutes of a woman kicking a man in the forest it's just wow maybe maybe later i'm like i need i need to rebound from watching happiest season for the third time in two weeks. Right. Yeah. Is there anything else we wanted to hit on? That's everything I had, I think. Just that there's cat erasure. The cats get talked about, but we never see cats on screen.

Rude. There is cat erasure. That's totally true. Yeah. Why wasn't anyone talking about that? Why isn't that the main topic of discussion around this movie? Oh, I want to say something. Oh, my God.

We didn't talk about this. The part where Harper sends Abby the like sexy selfie. She's wearing like a full like shirt and bra in bed. Yeah. That was very revealing to me. I was like, OK, so the sexy picture she she is sending her as a fully clothed this is a like this is not a horror i'm in bed fully clothed thinking of you like wearing all my clothes i was like okay that's where we're at the way they act around each other i'm like have these women ever seen each other naked before like we just don't know i just feel like kristen stewart was cold

and harper is straight that's a perfect review yeah um yeah that was all i had all right well we know it passes the bechdel test yes it passes it but i would venture to ask is it worth it for a movie to pass the bechdel test technically if they're not like arguably sure two women talk to each other about something that's not a man but what do they talk about yeah well try to it does tragically pass the bechdel test when harper says what about me and abby says. And that's just a sign of a flawed metric. Yes. We need more ways to measure these things that we're watching.

Oh, well, funny you should mention, because we have something called the nipple scale, which is a scale of, I mean, the most important mediometric of our time. Thank goodness. A lot of them are tricky. This one's tricky because on one hand, it's like a mainstream queer Christmas movie, kind of the first of its kind in that it is, again, mainstream, big studio backing kind of thing. It's more accessible, but it wants you to root for a queer relationship that is toxic and unhealthy because of Harper. And I just can't really get behind it. And I know that Harper is under a lot of stress and is going through something very difficult of having to be in the closet around her family and having to hide her authentic self. And I know there are a lot of people today in 2020 who aren't out to their families and friends, and I want to acknowledge that. And I don't think that that aspect of this story is unrealistic or anything. And if Harper

hasn't felt ready to come out to her family, that's entirely her choice. But as we've said, that does not give her an excuse to be so dismissive and mean and unsupportive to her partner. And the fact that it's also extremely white and cis and weirdly Republican is just, it's not the movie we needed in 2020 we've said before would have made more sense in the context of it coming out in like 2006 or something like that would have been groundbreaking pre-obama a pre-obama game movie yeah yeah that's what this feels like to me. So hopefully this does that thing to like, pave the way, even though it feels outdated by by our standards. Maybe this is sort of one of those like stepping stone movies that we need that outdated in the way that it presents a lot of aspects of the story. So with that in mind, I hate like doing a split down the middle, like 2.5 nipple rating. But? But that feels appropriate, I think.

I don't know. I'm so indecisive um you always like you don't you always go first and then you're always like what should my number be i'm like this is my burden to bear but yeah i'll go with a 2.5 until i'm convinced otherwise by everyone else's nipple rating because that's how it always goes um yeah and i'll give uh my nipples to the um reindeer that uh kristen stewart has to lean on as she is ice skating so feminist icon that reindeer i'm gonna i'll go i'll go a two and a half as well i just yeah i guess i guess i'll go down the middle i don't want to like come down unduly hard on this movie but it it is you know it's one of the core messages is that you should kind of work to appease your like white republican homophobic family and that just

is like well then this movie i like i feel like we've been talking about it throughout the entire episode but it's just like that's like false advertising that is not what it we i was led to believe this movie was i wasn't but i think that ultimately this movie is kind of for straight parents like it so in that way it was a letdown I feel like there's so many missed opportunities for stronger character connections for like stakes that make more sense that serve the characters in the audience a lot better there's it just is like messy and i think clea devol can and will do better in the future and yeah i don't know it's just it it's it wasn't even happiest and that was in the title so that's not fair um yeah this is like it's another movie that is just kind of made to make white parents feel good about themselves in a way that just doesn't sit well.

So, yeah, I'll go 2.5. And I'm going to give my nipples to, I guess, Dan Levy and Aubrey Plaza. Nice. Jess, what about you? God well I said I was going to be a hater I said up top that I was going to be a hater and I've made it abundantly clear over the course

of this episode my opinions on this movie it's got to be a one nip for me I feel it did not deliver on any of the promises that i was like told from the beginning i feel like i i just feel surprised like i felt surprised the whole time i thought i wasn't gonna like it because i don't care for romantic comedies you know i didn't think it was going to, like, draw up, like, my own bad experiences. Yeah. Because, like, I didn't think it was going to make me remember how it feels to

be queer and alone. Like, I was like, that is kind of the opposite experience of what I was expecting. And I feel bummed out because it was sort of like a bias for us type project. And I just want to hold us. I almost am holding us to a much higher standard. I hold Clea Duvall to a higher standard than some like straight man making a lesbian movie because of a straight man gets it wrong or offensive or harmful. I'm like, well, what do you know? Right. You don't know anything. Yeah. All this is with love and respect. And I just want to put it out there that should Cleo Duvall want somebody to look over a script or write a little punch up, do a little punch up. I would have loved to punch up this script. I have ideas.

I can do it. Hire Jess, everybody. Everything I do is just a platform for me to go. And if someone wants to give me a job i forget who said this but there was like some at some point in the twitter discourse around this someone was like if you're rooting for the couple from marriage story more than the couple in happiest season that's really that does not bode well yeah brutal this movie also kind of operates on the assumption that like that the only type of cinematic conflict or like type of story that queer people would encounter is like like a coming out narrative and it's like well what about like

right what about people who are like out and living their lives? Right. And like contending with like what it is to be what it is to like really be queer. Not not that people who are closeted are not really queer. That's not what I'm saying. But like the whole tension in this movie is about disappearing into straight world. And like, what about people who can't do that? Yeah, right.

Absolutely. Yeah, we need more movies that normalize queer people's lives and romantic relationships and friendships and careers and any other aspect of a person's life. Like what about queer people or like a movie where the tension with the queer characters is not how they relate to straightness or straight people for sure where that's just like not the thing well folks there you have it our happiest season episode uh again if you if you love the movie all good but like you know consider on your next watch I hope you guys put a Christmas soundtrack over this whole thing to kind of oh yeah to bring it up to do what I wish they had done in happiest season put a

nice little jingle bell the Tegan and Sarah song is just going to be on repeat we got the rights to it and we're going to just play it under the whole episode on repeat just thank you so much for being here and talking about this movie with us. What a treat. Thank you for having me. This was the happiest season.

Where can people follow you online and check out anything you want to plug? You can find me on the internet on Twitter, which is my disgusting domain at jess tom j-e-s-t-o-m or instagram at jess the kid j-e-s the kid and the internet is where i live now so that's where you'll find me indeed hell yeah uh you can follow us also on the internet at uh bechtel cast on twitter and instagram and our patreon aka Matreon is at patreon.com slash spectralcast and that is where you can get two bonus episodes every single month

for $5 a month plus access to the entire back catalog. What a bargain. We did the new Princess Switch. You want to talk about a movie that makes no sense? Princess Switch 2 switched again to part two royals the royal switching and then you can take a check out our merch at

tpublic.com slash the bechdel cast um hope everyone is having i mean 2020 the happiest season of all. Yikes. Well, enjoy the rest of the year and we will be back for an episode on New Year's Eve about the movie New Year's Eve. Nightmare. Wow. Bye-bye. Hey, y'all.

Niminy here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Listen to Historical Records 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 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. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI.

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