The Bechdel Cast - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with Maggie Maye

Episode Date: June 29, 2017

This week we invite powerful witch Maggie Maye to talk about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Maggie is a Ravenclaw! Caitlin is a Squib! Jamie loves Lemony Snicket!(This episode contains spoilers)Follow @Maggiemayehaha on Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @hamburgerphone Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's right, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories,

and of course, the culture. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

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The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hi and welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. Ooh, I had to throw in my last name. Why'd you do that? I don't know. I'm not going to give any of my names.

We're only allowed to have two and you just used up both of them on yourself. Sorry? I'm whomever you want me to be. I'm more of an idea. You're just a floating orb of essence. That would be really nice. It sounds very low maintenance. Oh yeah, you'd never have to shower.

Oh, here's what I'll do. My name's Jamie Bethany Loftus. Whoa! Full name it! Jamie Bethany Loftus. Whoa. Full name it. Jamie Bethany Loftus. No one likes that. No one likes Jamie Bethany. You're like triple down on that. Boom, boom, boom.

Jamie Bethany Loftus. Should I reveal my middle name? Yeah, I guess to get us back on the even playing field. Yeah, we get everything. Thank you. My name is Caitlin Marie Durante. I know. But thank you.

You're welcome. I feel like Marie is like a go-to middle name. Yeah. My parents are not originally. Marie Anne. It's just really a little connector piece. Yeah. Lynn.

One time someone thought my middle name was Lynn and I was like, you think my name is Caitlin Lynn Durante? Yeah. There was a brief period of time when I was very young where I wanted to go by Jamie Beth because of Lori Beth Denberg, who was on All That. Oh. And she was my favorite cast member. And I'm like, I want to be Jamie Beth Loftus so I can be a little bit closer to Lori Beth Denberg. But it didn't stick.

Bethany is also a miscarriage of my mom's. My brother and I both have miscarriage middle names. Oh, I remember this. I know this bit. You have a bit about it you're doing for stand-up. Yeah, it was a little fictional, the bit. But the middle name thing is true. She's like, well, if it doesn't work first time around,

I'm going to kick it in the middle of the next one. So they're never comfortable with their middle name ever. Yeah. Yeah. I was contemplating whether or not to reveal something about my mother, which I do stand up material on this as well. So I don't think it would be a big deal. Okay.

Although she did ask me to never tell anyone. Wait a second. Well, then I was like, Mom, I wrote a really funny stand-up bit about it can i tell everyone the thing you told me not to tell anybody and she's like okay so that's really let me preface this by saying that my mom is a great lady and i love her a lot uh shout out to laurie my mom had two abortions before i was born oh is this bad i didn't know that this is not bad but um yeah i knew this about laurie i you know it's a personal thing and you know it was her body her choice and there are people out there who would think that she's terrible for having done this

but she's not she's even better because if she hadn't had those abortions i wouldn't have been born her life would have right came out very differently and i wouldn't be here so i tried that same approach with my mom once i'm like well maybe if you hadn't had those two because both the miscarriages were i mean obviously before my brother and i uh i was like well maybe you wouldn't have us and she was like no i wanted four kids i was like well fuck sorry sorry it didn't work out But we wouldn't have the fun origin story of my mom getting those experimental womb steroids. Oh, right. Which is why I'm...

You were born twice. That's why I was born two times. That's why I was a fat, fat, fat, fat baby where she could have no babies and then she could only have huge babies. It was like a magic spell. Yeah. She wouldn't be magic. Hey, speaking of magic. That was an intentional segue.

But before we go into that, we should introduce our guest. Yes. She's a very funny comedian. You've seen her on Conan. Maggie Mae. Hey. Thanks a bunch for being here. Yeah, thank you.

Thanks for having me. Of course. Of course. So you've brought us a movie. That movie is called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Caitlin's so excited for this episode. And you're so not. I'll be okay. I'm strong.

We watched it together. We did. We had fun. I like this movie. Cool. I just don't like Harry Potter. I see. That's a different podcast. Different podcast. We don't need to go into it, although I'm sure we will. We might.

So tell us about your history with, like, why'd you pick this movie? Well, I'm a big fan of Harry Potter because I'm a big fan of magic. I actually do stand-up material on this as well. I am magical. You can't tell me I'm not. So, I mean, y'all don't know my life. Y'all don't know how I do stuff. So y'all don't even know my middle name.

So, I'm Magic and y'all can't tell me that I'm not. Maggie Magic May? Is that your name? Dang. There it is. My middle name is actually Maggie. It's Magic Maggie May. Oh, okay.

That's way smoother. Got it. But, yeah, I love magic. Oh, okay. That's way smoother. Got it. But yeah, I love magic. I love fantasy. I loved the Harry Potter franchise. It was so good and smart and well thought out. I read the books first. The last book, I actually went to the, there was like a release party and you can get your

book at midnight. Like Barnes and Noble? Yeah. So I showed up to that, got my book, put headphones on, ran to the car, drove home and then read it. Didn't check my email, didn't turn on the TV, none of that until I was done. Because the one before, someone had ruined it before I'd finished reading. Oh, no. And that's a big ruin for the sixth book.

Yeah. Oh, and that's a big ruin for the sixth book. Yeah, and they showed, like, dudes driving by, like, lines outside of bookstores just yelling out what happened. And people just being like... That's domestic terrorism! You can't do that! That's exactly what that is. What are they, Slytherins? Right? Oh my gosh!

I'm like, I'm not going to let that happen to me. Yeah. I think that that's so... That is really cool that there was, like, a series... Because there was series in I think our lifetimes where – I mean so many people have that exact experience of like getting the book at midnight and going and not communicating with anyone until they read the whole thing. Like that's really cool that that happened as recently as what, like 10 or a little more than 10 years ago? Yeah. That's crazy i'm a big harry potter fan although so i've seen this movie maybe 50 times or more it's insane i got it on dvd and

my sister and i watched it every day for an entire summer sometimes twice a day similar to what i did with the titanic double vhs right that i can that experience i can connect with the har double VHS. Right. That experience I can connect with. The Harry Potter one, I can't. I mean, I just loved the books so much. I had read the first four, I think, at that point. And I was just like, oh my God, I love Harry Potter. This movie is not that great. It's a little campy.

I still love it. You know, I've seen it enough times to be able to quote every single line of dialogue as embarrassed as i am yep and then i started rereading the book in preparation for this episode because i wanted to see if there's like are women portrayed any differently in the book and i i was like oh wow the prose in this is like for a much lower reading level than i remember it's like this is for sixth graders yeah i for some reason thought like the prose was just more mature or something i don't know

it matures as it gets older yeah harry potter i think from the book perspective because we were talking about this yesterday too i feel like there's something to when you give a kid a book that is that like looks long and like big they're like whoa whoa, this is so cool. I am smart. Because when you're... It's like quantity, not quality when you're a kid. But the margins on Harry Potter is bananas. You have like five

words to a page. It's the same thing with the Lemony Snicket books, and those were the ones that I was toting around like, look at me, this is 200 pages long. But that translates to like... It takes a couple hours to read because there's like four one inch margins on every side. It's crazy. The font is like size 16. Harry Potter has a ridiculous font.

I will say there's a little, there's some curves to that. I'm just like, oh, this is, is this a fantasy book? Is this what we're reading their font looks real magical yeah it does yeah it looks magic it's a very but like microsoft word magic yeah like how would clippy envision magic because we're gonna talk about clippy a little more oh man he just wanted to help that's all he wanted he's like are you writing a letter there's like a military drama about clippy somewhere like he was just trying to help and no one wanted his help he was a casualty of war ignored by his peers

all right well this is my spare time ignored by his peers. Mocked. All right. Well, this is my spare time to figure out. I'll do the recap. Please. Here we go. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is about a young boy,

Harry Potter. He's the boy who lived. He gets dumped off on a doorstep because his mom and dad get murdered by Voldemort, a.k.a. you-know-who, a.k.a. he-who-must-not-be-named. Grow up, everyone. Just say his fucking name. Wow. So he has to live with these muggle family members of his, these non-magical people.

And then when he's 11, he gets a letter. He's like, whoa, I'm accepted to Hogwarts. Holy crap. Am I a wizard? And Hagrid, his friend, comes along. His new friend is like, you are a wizard, Harry. So he leaves this muggle world. He's abducted by a huge man. On a motorcycle.

On a motorcycle. I'm just like, this is not the precedent we need to be setting. This is very weird, early Bush era kind of politics to be like, don't get on the gigantic stranger's motorcycle because he tells you you have magical powers. That's deeply troubling. Anyways, but that is what happens. That's all I wanted to do. But I was nine. I shouldn't have wanted that sure

and you know he takes you shopping he's like you have an owl he's a get a wand pervert there is that scene you pointed out yesterday where he's sitting on his own stoop playing the lute and like luring children into his cabin then And he's like, oh, hi. It's a classic pervert move, luring them in with music. He's not playing just any song. He's playing the score to Harry Potter. He's playing. He's like, doo-doo, doo-doo-doo. I noticed that.

That's some Pied Piper kind of nonsense right there. Exactly. Taking kids out of town. Yeah, he's trying to make them laugh. Anyone with a loop is trying to take your children away from you. I think it's a safe bet to just say don't trust anyone with a loot. Loot owners, you're on notice. Loot owners are louts.

Ooh, see? Easy. Loots are louts. Easy to remember. Especially if they're playing John Williams scores. You know, don't trust them. It's bad. Right. That means they're not even culture scores. Don't trust them. It's bad. That means they're not even cultured.

That's step one. Basic ass lute players. If someone's playing the Star Wars theme on their lute, don't approach their home. There's a lot of scenes with children alone with Hagrid that now very much bother me. There should be supervision. He takes them into the

dark forest and he's like, this is detention. We gotta find this dead unicorn because there's an evil thing out there killing it. It's like, that's not safe even for the wizarding world. Right. But anyway, I'm jumping ahead of myself. He got all worked up about Hagrid and how he's a pervert.

Harry Potter discovers that he's a magical person and he gets accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. So he preps to go to school. He does all his school shopping and then he goes and he meets his friend Ron Weasley. Mediocre as hell.

Fun guy. Give him a chance. I say, fun guy, give him a a chance and then he meets his other friend hermione granger who she's great i like her a lot but they only become friends with her because they feel bad for incessantly bullying her for the first part of the school year to be fair she is mean she to them a bit She is mean to them. I think this is a later discussion that I want to have. We'll get there.

Okay. And then, you know, there's the headmaster, Dumbledore. He's the best wizard of all time or whatever. Good Dumbledore. Not Richard Harris. Yelling Dumbledore from later. Right. Like yelling Dumbledore.

He's scary. He is scary. He's too harsh. I don't want to help him. And I'm not sad when he, spoiler alert, passes away. Natural causes. Yeah, very slowly. It's a period of years. He's so old.

We never know how old he is. Right, should we really be mourning? He could be 800 years old and dying of scurvy he was friends with nicholas famel who had the elixir of life yeah um which is what this movie's about so there's this secret item that hagrid takes out of a vault at gringotts the wizard bank and harry's like what is this item we don't know what's happening and then they discover this three-headed dog inside Hogwarts the castle and they're like what's this guarding is the dog guarding the thing that was taken out of the vault and then they figure out that it must be this

sorcerer's stone which is this thing that can turn any metal into gold and it produces the elixir of life which makes you immortal and they deduce that one of the bad professors, Snape, or someone who they think is bad, wants the elixir of life to give to Voldemort because he maybe died whenever he tried to kill Harry Potter. Also left that part out. Whoops. Yeah. He killed Harry Potter. He tried to. Didn't succeed. He's got a lightning bolt scar. Because Harry Potter's mom got the same weird experimental operation my mom got

in North Carolina. And that's why her baby is huge and can't die. Like me. Exactly. That is part of Harry Potter canon. Thanks for reminding me. We had the same experimental birth doctor. Started off in North Carolina.

Exactly. Harryter's roots actually lie in north carolina okay so they're like snape is bad and he's friends with valdemort and valdemort must be trying to come back because you know we think he might have died but maybe he also didn't and he maybe is trying to resurface they have their their whole school year. Harry Potter's great at Quidditch. What isn't he great at? He's truly great at everything. And whenever he does something wrong, everyone's like, actually, that's good

because either the catch is you're wealthy or the catch is we know you broke the rules, but now you're the captain of the sports team. That happens over and over and over where he's just, and I get it from the perspective of like, kids are going to be like, I want to be like this. I want to like break the rules and then get,

you know, and he had a tough past, but I'm also just like, there's so few things that Harry Potter actually has to, he doesn't really get in trouble ever. And he fucks up all the time. Yeah, exactly.

Like exactly. Even in the magic world, there's. White male privilege. And he fucks up all the time. Yeah, exactly. Like, exactly. White male privilege. Even in the magic world, there's still white male privilege. Cis, straight, white male privilege. Harry Potter just takes it. He's just like,

oh, I broke the rules. I guess I'm the captain now. And you're just like, fuck off, because that's, you know, probably how your whole life is going to go. Yeah.

Don't even need to learn the lesson. Doesn't matter. You're good. yeah like he said he's wealthy i want him to share his wealth he's got a poor ass friend ron all the weasleys are poor share your wealth harry and they get him presents yeah mrs weasley knits him a sweater and it's like no you give her something i'll go prison and then there's this whole thing at the end where they're like oh my god we gotta stop snape from stealing the sorcerer's stone so that he doesn't give it to voldemort right but surprise it's not snape it's professor quarrel who's a little a ucb 301 graduate his acting is that of a a UCB 301 graduate who's very proud of himself. He's like,

It's like, great job. Would you like some, you know, yes. And then everything. I think Professor Quirrell's hilarious because all of his line reads are like, I don't know who this actor is. That's a troll in the dungeon. Right. And then he says, I thought you were to know. And then he like passes out.

I'm just like, I have been sidelined in this exact horrible improv scene that you're doing right now. And it was an interesting thing because I haven't seen this movie in like I think between like six to ten years. Certainly before I knew what a UCB 301 graduate did. But that's totally I think that they just plucked him up from from from British UCB. Ye olde UCB. And they're like oh yeah you seem like you you have a basic feel

for the craft put on a turban white man and scare every child and also that's the other thing Professor Crowell he's a white guy in a turban and surprise what's under the turban is scary

and that's not a good precedent set either surprise, what's under the turban is scary. And that's not a good precedent set either. Right. Most people who wear turbans in real life don't have a Voldemort face on the back of their head. I think we can just take out the word most. I don't know a single person that's hiding.

Except for Judy. She's got an evil magician back there but everybody else is good. But she's very nice. Judy for Judy. She's got an evil magician back there. But she's very nice. Judy's nice. She takes her medication and the evil magician stays intact. He doesn't say anything. Poor Judy.

She's doing her best. So yeah, they discover that it's Quirrell and that he is harboring Voldemort who like can't have his own body yet because he's still this half-person. So of course, Harry Potter wins. He defeats the bad guy, even though he's an 11-year-old. And he's like, I won! I won! And that's pretty much the end of the movie.

Yeah, and then he gets on a train and the big pervert says see you next year don't accept the pervert's offering it's pictures of you and your family from when you were young like yeah don't open it till you till I'm not in your sight

so there's that there's the movie. We forgot to talk about what this podcast even is. They know. Oh, shit. You're right. Movies. Well, maybe we'll just say this one.

Hopefully, you know. Hopefully, you know by now. The role of women in movies. That's right. Yes. One of the questions I would like to pose is why J.K. Rowling, a woman, a pretty outspoken feminist, today at least, you've got some feelings about that, I can tell. I could snap her, but I am just curious to know why she didn't write a female-led YA novel when she is a woman. Why did she like, oh, maybe I should write this book and have the men outnumber the female characters?

Has she written a female-led anything? I don't know about her work outside of Harry Potter or how much of it there actually is. Me either. There's Casual Vacancy, which I don't remember if she wrote that under a pen name or not. I just remember I worked at a bookstore when that came out and everyone was like, probably don't. It's not supposed to be a very good one. I don't know. I don't know anything about it, though.

Yeah, I haven't read any of her other work besides Harry Potter. But I guess, you know, is it interesting that she decided to make the lead a boy no i was thinking about that too because there are a lot of strong female characters in the book there aren't like in the movie if we're just going by the movie i didn't see any weak female characters except for that one girl that came and got sorted after like susan bones yeah like she i was like you are her name's susan bones susan bones that is also my stripper name thank you for me please welcome to the stage, Susan Bones. What kind of haunted house ass name is Susan Bones? Garbage.

Lazy. Timid one, you know? And I'm like, yeah, you Hufflepuff as fuck. That's weird. All the other female characters were super strong, but the male characters, there were weak male characters, and there were backstabbing male characters and there were bad male characters and two-faced ones, literally. So I saw it in sending Harry, it's like, go get your dudes. You know, like your dudes are causing all the trouble in Hogwarts. They're causing all the trouble in the magic world.

It is not our responsibility to now go and have to produce the emotional labor of handling your dudes. Go get your dude. Like, I saw it like that. I like that. I like that a lot. Go put yourself in danger and go get your dude. Right. I'm going to be out here with the snake grass or whatever.

Wherever they are. So I did a little bit as upsetting as it is to me to engage in jk rowling's life i i wanted to like uh go over her story a little bit so she was a single mom when she wrote this i believe a single mom to a young boy so that's the main reason i would give her a pass on harry but you, she's like raising a little boy. So that kind of makes sense. But what I did think was interesting was that the reason that her pen name is J.K. Rowling is because when she gave the manuscript and they were like, yeah, we really like this. But because she went by like Joanne or whatever.

And they were like, but we don't think that people are going to want to read a book by a woman. So that's why they made her change it to like this kind of androgynous jk rowling so it could have been like the common thing exactly the writer of the outsiders they did that to her too right right and they were like we know jk simmons that's a man jk rowling must also be a man people confuse it and think he's doing a weird pivot. But it is interesting to me that was happening as recently as 97. It seems like, really? Yeah, you'd think we'd be over that. Well, but we're not.

Not even today. Yeah. But so, I mean, it is weird. I mean, I agree that all the female characters are strong and intelligent and don't really cause trouble. At least until we meet like Bellatrix Lestrange later on. And she's like pretty much. And who's that bitch that wears pink? Oh, Professor Umbridge.

She's cool. Dolores Umbridge. She's a. It's him, him. She's a fucking. Yeah. I hate her. I think cool. Dolores Umbridge. She's a... Yeah. I think that after I saw that movie that was the first time I used the C word.

I'm pretty sure. Yes. She is. She is. And is it problematic for us to be saying that? Maybe, but that is exactly what she is. We're reclaiming the word. Fine. Every Harry Potter villain is a cunt.

All villains are cunts. All villains are cunts. All of them. Let's make no exceptions. All villains are cunts. Mr. Freeze, cunt. Total cunt. Everyone except Doc Ock.

He's not a cunt. We really need to give him some thought. Okay. He has a very nuanced story. I just think that maybe he was trying to do it for the good of science and then maybe got a little sidetracked. I was going to start a clock to see how long it would take you to mention Alfred Molina or one of his characters. Well, I think that Alfred Molina really sells you on the idea that maybe Doc Ock is a very nuanced character. A lesser actor would not have done that.

Perhaps. So shout out to Alfred Molina. Please tweet back at us. Why aren't you answering us? He didn answer a tweet i'm so sad i'm sweating now anyway so yeah dolores on bridge she's a cunt she is a cunt yeah but that's i mean that's okay that's okay that is okay she's supposed to be right right i think that she gives cat lovers a bad name. Oh, I forgot that she has cats. She loves cats. Isn't she the lady that basically cut her students?

She gave Harry a pen and she's like, you must not tell lies. And when he wrote it on the parchment, it actually dug into his hand. It was like he was cutting. Major cut. Don't do that to kids. Violence against students. Don't cut that to kids. Violence against students. Don't cut your kids. Easy rule.

Yeah. All right. Well... You see PS up in the magic world. That's true. Yeah, where... Anything goes. Where...

Is there ever, like, a... I know that there's, like, magic government, but is there any sort of regulatory force to, like, protect children? Because all the children are repeatedly they're like seems like you've got this which is crazy you've got a wand where do kids

they don't go to school presumably until they're 11 when they go to Hogwarts where do they learn to read when did they read and there's no math there's no magical math they're just like pick it up on the way. There could be no women in STEM. There it is.

No women in STEM. Although I would argue that Professor McGonagall is a woman in STEM. I feel like transfiguration is the science of the wizarding world. What is transfiguration? It's like turning one thing into another. Oh, yeah. That sounds like science. But potions. That's like beakers. Pot thing into another object. Oh, yeah, that sounds like science. But potions...

That's like beakers. Potions is like chemistry. Oh, yeah. Tubes. You need math for that. You need math for tubes. The T in STEM, I think, stands for transfiguration.

And the M stands for magic. Science, transfiguration engineering magic and magic yeah yeah you can you can twist it okay there are women in stem yeah yeah and plenty of them and then also oh wait no i was thinking of the they have the herbology is it herbology in the that's kind of science-y. Yeah. Or like home medicinal kind of, it seems health related.

There's the study of plants, whatever that is. Botany. Botany. Botany. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Professor Sprout is teaching botany classes.

Is that the guy with the beard? They take, no, she's a woman. Okay. That's what I thought. Okay. So that is a female professor.

And then there's, we don't ever see her in the movie, but there is, I think, a female astronomy professor that teaches astronomy classes. No, that's the tease lady. She's a tease. Yeah, they never, they don't take. I like her a lot. Yeah. Right.

And we, I think we don't see her until the third movie or we don't meet her until the third book. But there's another astronomy professor who's a woman so there's a lot of women teachers a lot of them don't get mentioned or flying class Madame Hooch gym teacher that is gym teacher right

that's like her equivalent like Miss Tassinari in seventh grade and there it is the school nurse aka uh madame pomfrey yeah another woman right um but a lot of these characters at least in the movie don't get a lot of screen time or any significant and besides professor mcgonagall it doesn't seem like many of them have like a high standing in the school because dumbledore's in charge we know that and it seems like mcgonagall, it doesn't seem like many of them have a high standing in the school. Because Dumbledore's in charge, we know that. And then it seems like McGonagall is next. She's the head of Gryffindor House.

Oh, right. There's housemasters. But are there any other female housemasters? I know Snape is Slytherin. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. I don't know who's in charge. Oh, I think Hufflepuff is Professor Flitwick. Oh, the little guy. The little guy. And then Ravenclaw, I think, let who's in it. Oh, I think Hufflepuff is Professor Flitwick. Oh, the little guy.

The little guy. And then Ravenclaw, I think, let me look it up. Their original Ravenclaw was Rowena Ravenclaw. Oh, yeah. She was one of the four founding members of Hogwarts. I'm assuming. Oh, wait, Maggie, have you ever taken the quiz that you're supposed to take to figure out what house you're in? Yes.

Where are you? I took two because the first quiz gave me some bullshit. Okay, fair enough. I got Gryffindor the first time. I was like, I'm not a Gryffindor. That's not where I am. And then the next time I got Ravenclaw, which is where I should be. I'm going to Harry Potter World on Sunday.

Oh, wow. So I'm going to get sorted. And if I don't get into Ravenclaw, I'm throwing a scene. Wait, do you get sorted at Universal? I've only been to Florida. I've been several times, but I didn't want to ever wait in the line. Wait, I'm sorry. I saw the commercial.

That's so cool. And it looks like I'm getting a wand, all kinds of, it's going to be ridiculous. I want to go now. We should go. Flitwick is the head of Ravenclaw House. So I'm so sorry for all the listeners at home. We're like, Caitlin, you were wrong. Because I know that's what you were doing.

Sorry. All Caitlin's nerds calm down the head of hufflepuff is professor sprout who is the herbology okay okay okay that makes sense so it is half and half for the housemasters yes yeah okay well that's good we've got women in some leadership roles that's nice good good on the right track but in in terms of just important yeah female characters who contribute to the story in the movie and also in the books especially the movie there goes your mic's hard lemonade pardon my mic's hard um they just don't have that much to contribute to the story although i would argue okay so let's talk about talk about Hermione. That's the main person we have to talk about.

I would say that she contributes more to the progression of the story than Ron, if we're arguing that Harry, Ron, and Hermione are the three main characters. Well, because I think she, a number of times, is almost like the exposition tool who pushes forward

like, and now we're going to the library. And then she'll be the one to figure out, this is we're going to the library and then she'll be the one to figure out this is what we came to the library for okay next scene and then she'll like i feel like there's a few scenes in a row where she figures out a critical thing that otherwise it's like oh i don't know what they would have done right so there were a couple of times in the movie i noticed when harry was like oh well if it wasn't for Hermione, we would not like when Ron was like, well, lucky I didn't panic. He's like, well, lucky Hermione pays attention. And then her biology.

And then she's like, you're a great, you know, great wizard. And he's like, you're better. She's like, yeah, but friendship and whatever. And also like, you're my richest friend. One must be aware when speaking to their richest friend of how they're talking. That's not even a gender thing. That's a class issue. I wouldn't tell my richest friend I'm smarter

than him, even if that was true. I'd be like, no, you're really smart. I would tell my richest friend that I am smarter than him because I hate rich people. But then how are you going to get all this money and trick him and then lock him in a cage? I can trick him by being smarter than him. Say, hey, you can't even buy smarts like me.

Give me your money and try. Yeah. Slap. Yeah. Slap him with a handful of hundreds. Or like quarters if you're poor. It would hurt more. Yeah, I got a sock full of quarters.

Bam. Smack the wealthy with it. Yeah. Oh, hashtag smack the wealthy. Let's get it going. Find your wealthiest friend. If they're cool, they'll understand why you're doing it. They're your friend. They won't press charges right right they'll be like you know what this is symbolic of something larger and i

right right yeah i accept it now let's go to dinner i'm buying because i'm wealthy and i need to spread my wealth right that's all i want for wealthy people to spread their wealth. Sorry, I'm a socialist. The only time I've ever hit someone in my whole life was in college. And I was in an argument with my closest male friend. And we had just been like duking. It was over something very stupid.

But I got so mad mad I had never been that mad before and I'm like I don't have any words left I'm gonna hit him and so what I did was in the Boston Common I I knew he was getting out of class I knew he would be heading for the train station and I knew we were supposed to be meeting up

for dinner to argue more instead I'll just end it now and I hid behind a tree and waited for him to pass me and i leaped out and i punched him in the face and it wasn't a good punch but it was it was very dramatic i was i'd been waiting for a while for him to get out of class and i punched him in the face and i'm like never like he stood there and I was just like, I don't want to have this argument anymore. And that was like after I'd hit him and he was like, okay.

And then he brought me out to dinner and the argument was over. That's the only time I've ever hit someone. I want to do that like every 20 years. It sounds like it was effective in getting what you want. I like it would have been totally valid if it wasn't effective, but I'm very glad that it was. I don't know if you'd ever been hit by anyone, much less someone you'd never expect to hit you.

Yeah. And he rewarded you with Sizzler afterwards. It was like Wing Snider or something. I didn't put him out. It was good. Hey, bringing it all back, this hasn't happened in this movie, but Hermione does punch

Jacob Malfoy in the face in book, in movie number three. When she's wearing that hoodie. Yeah. Yeah. Pink hoodie. Pink hoodie. Bam, punch in the nose.

Like it. He deserved it. But going back to Hermione, a topic I'll always bring up is a woman needing to be saved. It happens over and over again. It's a horrible trope. Very annoying.

And it happens in the scene. It's like Halloween time and someone has let the troll in the castle. And this is right after Harry or Ron was like, no wonder she hasn't got any friends. She's a stupid bitch or whatever. That's exactly what he says and uh and so she goes to the bathroom and cries all afternoon and then someone lets the troll in and then harry's like we we've got to tell her money she doesn't know and they go and the troll is in the bathroom flinging his 2001 CGI glory.

Flinging his little club around. As men are wont to do. Hermione, like, is just, she doesn't do anything to save herself. Even though she's the most competent of the three of them in magic. Like, she could be like, hey, Wingardium Leviosa. Does she have a wand on her, though? She might not, but I feel like, well, they always have their wands on them at all times yeah that's true this is but is is this the only time in the movie it happens it is right and so i'm willing to forgive it because she then

saves either ron or harry or the both of them like three times after that right i think that maybe the fact that that comes so early in the story is almost like a misdirect of like it looks like she can't defend herself. Because obviously, I'm sure like in the right circumstances, she could have. I don't know. She was just maybe peeing. You know, she's in the bathroom. I mean, she had. Why else would she have been there?

Maybe her wand was off. Well, she was crying all day because they were bullying her. I cried and beat at the same time we don't know we don't know sometimes you got liquid coming out of my face got a liquid coming out of all of my orifices sprouting but they're i don't know i but but then i guess this if we want to harken back to our a few episodes ago to our wonder woman episode when a woman isn't a superhero i feel like it's almost a little bit misleading to have her succeed in every scene of like i think it's okay that hermione fails or she doesn't even fail but like is freaked out and doesn't isn't like hyper competent in every scene because that just feels kind of i don't know like i it almost feels like a human thing to me of like,

of course you're not going to be competent in every moment of trouble. Yeah. The thing about Hermione that I noticed is that she has her strengths and she knows where other people have their strengths and is comfortable enough in herself to let people work on their own strength. Like when Ron is doing chess. You mean to tell me smart-ass Hermione can't play some chess? She probably can.

But she's like, Ron's out here doing it all the time. He probably grew up playing wizarding chess. I will defer to him. Especially because this is the only thing he has to contribute to the whole story. Right, right. She's like, he's not going to make him the credit set up and let him do this. That's interesting, like, the idea of just, like,

choosing her moments carefully. Because, I mean, that's certainly not something that Ron does. But I also think that for most moments

he's afraid rather than thinking rationally. I think it is funny that Ron's main moment and, like, his moment of strength is essentially like, I'm 11 and I'm going

on a suicide mission. He's like, I'm gonna die for my friend I've known for six months. And I'm just like, oh, so still dumb as fuck, but like, you know, noble dumb as fuck. There's such a thing.

You can get the Weasleys to do whatever with some candy frogs. Right. You buy a Weasley a candy frog, you have a friend for life, his mom will knit you a sweater on Christmas. Everything. Yeah, because I mean, like, Harry Potter hadn't even really

met his family at that point. You're just like, oh, you bought our kid candy once. I think my parents were a little bit like that. They're like, well, again, our kid candy once. Yeah, you can get. I think my parents were a little bit like that. They're like, well, we get it. Our kid's not super easy to be friends with. If you're going the extra mile, you will be rewarded. Also, that scene where he buys like the chocolate frogs and all the other candy on the train.

In that scene, there are so many shots of a child's crotch. Because like Harry's like pulling change out of his pocket or like scabbers is on ron's lap and you just see like a shot just of like a small boy's crotch and it's like surely you could have shot this a little differently little boy shots in this movie makes you think about chris columbus and where's he at? Well, this is a vile topic. Do we get any Hermione crotch shots? Not that I remember.

Not that I remember. We'd get several Harry crotch shots, at least one Ryan crotch shot. Harry crotch. I have to go home now. And then there's that scene at the end where Harry's saying goodbye to Hagrid that big old pervert and Harry's head comes up to

Hagrid's crotch so we get when we're seeing stuff at Harry's perspective we are looking at Hagrid's we've gotta assume horse dick giant maybe bigger than a horse. Maybe.

The man's huge. He's like 11 feet tall. Yeah. Yeah. Which we learn later in the series that his mother was a giant and his father was a human. How did that sex happen? Okay, don't talk about me and my ex-boyfriend. Don't talk about me and my ex-boyfriend don't talk about me and my small man it works out

also i'm probably gonna get yelled at for kink shaming or something oh listen a giant and a human can't fuck what's wrong with that it's curious is all i'm saying you have to climb up her to do that yeah people don't just like that not. I bet he could have crawled inside of her vagina. Honey love finds a way. Love finds a way into that cavernous vagina. Maybe there's like a whole Ulysses style adventure he took

inside her vagina found his way back out and then somehow he had you know scuffed to the right place and she was pregnant. we don't know their story he was artificially inseminated someone just dragged in a garbage bag full of yeah he had to come in a jar every day for six years and then there's a 20 chance his wife might conceive aristotle is crying

they just put it in a super soaker yeah yeah yeah or like a t-shirt gun this is not kink shaming this is kink empowerment this is the science behind this is women in stem just discussing right just a discussion of just normal reproduction oh yeah well is an acceptable kink i'll say it um going back to her mind and so yes she does need to be saved by harry and ron um in that scene with the troll but then a bunch of other things happen where when they're like running through the third floor corridor and they like need to escape filch she She's like, Alohomora! She knows the spell. Sounds like kind of a minor one.

But then, whenever she realizes that what she thinks is Snape cursing Harry on his broomstick during the Quidditch game, she's like, leave it to me! And then runs up to Snape's little audience pit area. His little Phantom of the Opera area.

And lights his robes on fire which five love it arson got love a good uh you know felony um send your teacher on fire and then manages even though like she targets the wrong person she manages to save harry from you know falling off his broom and dying and then toward the end like you already mentioned when they get caught in the devil's snare the big plant right she's like you just gotta relax and then ron is freaking out and he can't listen to a woman can't chill exactly and he's like harry listens but he doesn't have a personality and then yeah Ron is all like oh yeah

look he it's like she saved your ass just fucking acknowledge it for one second yeah Ron which is why Ron is a chode

and he sucks I man okay you're right you're right but I think as a chode

he like all chodes they grow they grow. They grow with time. If you just give him a chance. He doesn't, though. He stays a piece of shit through the entire series. He does nothing but verbally abuse her and undermine her abilities.

He's not a grower. He's a shower. He's a shower. Really? Okay. Well, I believe you. I'm sorry. I just had a lot of problems with Ron.

I just had a crush on Rupert Grint for too long, and I'm being an apologist, and that's on me. And that's on me. Rupert Grint came into the bookstore I worked at once, and I'm tolerating him. Whoa. Yeah. Kind of like a human slash giantess kind of thing. Oh. Well.

I have to welcome him on a James Joyce voyage within me. But I wasn't brave enough to ask. Hey, I got a t-shirt going a few inches. You have six months and a lot to come. Amazing opening line. I want to go home. Okay. Another thing that

Hermione does that I, okay, so she, here's the thing. She's poised as this like brainiac. She's very clever. She's a know-it-all. Her smartness and cleverness is almost poised as like a flaw of hers because at least at the beginning, she's like, look at everything I know. And look at all the spells I know. And look how smart I am and how good I am at all the school things. And then she mansplains a lot. She's like, it's actually leviosa, not leviosa or whatever. That's kind of fun, though.

I don't mind that she's explaining, overly explaining. Because it's like, you're a boy and you're dumb and I'm a smart girl. And then she grows out of that. Like, you know, maybe she sees, like, this isn't the way to be. Or maybe just, like, not even the most effective way to get what she needs to get done by just pissing people off. I don't know. But, I mean, I feel like her, I feel like it created results. Like her telling Ron how to correctly say Lingardian Leviosa, like later on he used it right. Yeah, it paid off.

That's true. So, I mean. And then what I didn't think about when we were watching the movie but occurs to me now is that also she, aside from the fact that there's clear weird gender disparity at hogwarts to some extent she's also coming from the point of like she's seen as and this comes out i think in later books it's like a half breed she's a mudblood right and so i'm sure like even at the point where that's not discussed in the movie she is maybe of the mind of like, well, I have something to prove. So I have to be. I mean, and this is this goes back to a gender sort of metaphor of like, well, I have to be twice as good to be taken seriously as this redheaded cuck, you know? And so I don't know. Now I think of it like like that.

And she's not coming from like any point of privilege in the magic world. Fuck that sentence, Jamie. But I don't know. I guess that justifies her attitude a little bit. Right, right, right. Well, also, I would say that you're not from a pure wizarding family. You're not a pureblood. That's the racism of the wizarding world. Right.

You know what? Honestly, Hermione was a black person. Did y'all know that? In the books? Like written? Yeah, like in that play that they have in England, it's a black person playing Hermione. No way.

And everyone's pissed. And like J.K. Rowling was like, I never said she was white. And if you look in the books, they said she has frizzy hair. Yeah, they just said she has frizzy hair and it's like a Brillo pad and it's like soft and everybody wanted to touch it.

She never let anybody. But yeah, she could easily be a person of color. Oh my god, I love that. Oh, I never knew that. Fuck these casting directors then for casting Emma Watson. Yeah. Yeah, now we need to watch Beauty and the Beast?

Unfair. We need to watch all those perfume ads? Come on. I love that. Oh my god, I wish that was true. That even further adds another layer of other stuff that she's now also having to like go against and like perceptions that people are going to perceive of her just right for being you know any kind of a way you know intersectionality oh she's so angry

she's such a bitch no dude she's just you know a person of color and magic than you yeah that's cool i want to read more about that play yeah also to make emma watson's hair frizzy in this movie they actively crimp her hair the whole which is another just a beautiful early aughts touch that i appreciated they're like how do we frizz it up oh don't worry my daughter has a crimping iron in her house. We'll figure this out. Going back to, this is a very white movie. There are some people of color, they usually don't have any lines, except for like Lee Jordan as he's announcing the Quidditch game.

Although, is, I want to say Angelina Johnson, one of the Quidditch players? Yes. A person of color? I think she is. I think so. She's in the book, isn she yeah i think so and then there's a one other guy that's like kind of the periphery of his little like friend group oh dean thomas i think so because he's their age right he's like he's also a little buddy buddy with

that one kid that keeps blowing himself up. Oh, just the little Scottish. Yeah, Seamus and Dean. Yeah, I think Dean. I kind of like that friendship. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see their story. I want a spinoff.

Those are their, well, there's like, because the kids in this movie are such adults, it's like fun to see like kids behaving like dumb little kids sometimes and blowing themselves up. It's nice. Yeah, true. Or like Neville Longbottom, like, I'm scared. Where's my tone? Of course you are, you weird little kid.

Going back to Quidditch, though, I did enjoy that it's, as you pointed out, co-ed teams. Co-ed teams, yeah. Didn't feel the need to separate them into, you know, a boys' team and a girls' team. Also, all three of the... Also female coach. Female? Well, she's like the Quidditch master gym teacher. I don't know if they have coaches.

Master gym teacher. But all three of the chasers on the Gryffindor team are women. So it's like... And they're like point scorers. They're like... They're the ones dealing with the heavy ones. I don't know how the game works. They throw the quaffle around.

I love how also Quidditch is a sport invented by someone who has no understanding of how sports work. Listen, if you're a real life person, I'm looping you in with the steampunk community as far as people I don't respect. If you're a real life person and you in your spare time play Quidditch with your other adult friends, I'm gonna need you to walk into the sea. It's just an unacceptable way to spend your time.

Go meet up with your local steam punks and let's start over. I'm all about Quidditch though. If your kid is on a quidditch team i'll go watch them it's with kids it's candy it's with kids it's cute with like with with they better fly though if it's a bunch of kids running around and throwing stuff i don't have time that's soccer the children had better be able to fly yeah there better be real magic and real brooms my college had a quidditch team and I found it so deeply upsetting.

That's like, oh, someone I went on a date with is now actively in public flailing about thinking he can fly. I can't. I can't accept it. College like with brooms between their legs running around and trying to be athletic. Yeah. Yeah. It's some real art school bullshit and they need to grow up that is yeah grow up art school grow up art school pick up a

fucking basketball and figure it out dress on the football field yeah get a concussion for sports yeah put on a fake strap your skates on Let someone kick you in the head with a skate. Also, why is Quidditch the only sport in the wizarding world? We don't have just wizard b-ball. Baseball. Wizard b-ball. Yeah. Quidditch is the only sport because it looks like it's, like, five sports put together.

Right. That's true. There's, like, nine things happening at all times. I guess, like, sort of every, what is it, like three or four different kinds of balls? There's bludgers, quaffles, and the snitch. Yeah. I wonder how much thought she actually put into that. Yeah, hard to say.

Yeah. But it comes, it's such a huge part of the books, especially that it's like, why are you so much emphasis on this? Anyway, I wanted to talk about. Oh, I love how like this is not about what this podcast is about. But I have to mention that I love how much product placement there is in this movie for products that don't exist. Yeah. Products that 10 years later would exist.

And then they can like capitalize on that later on with the Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans and stuff like that. Because if you go to Universal Studios, to Harry Potter World, you can buy wands and you can buy all the candy. But there's just so many shots where it's like, check out this logo for the Nimbus 2000. It's like, was Nimbus sponsoring this movie? Did you get money to put Nimbus? And it's like, was Nimbus sponsoring this movie? Did you get money to put Nimbus in? It's so funny because if Harry Potter as a movie franchise had flopped, that would be so embarrassing to watch back now. They were really swinging for the rafters with that.

But it just happened to work out in a pretty spectacular way. There is in the second movie, the flying car is like a ford i remember that being it is a thing although i don't i tried looking it up i don't know if it's a real type of ford it was like a ford i forget but i i was like what a ford fiesta were they driving a ford fiesta ford focus i'd have to sensible choice My mom and sister both drive a Ford Focus. My dad drives a Focus. Oh, nice. Boring car.

Very boring. Hey, here's something I wanted to talk about. Sure. Why doesn't Hermione have any female friends? I was wondering about that. Yeah. That's a good question. She's got people to choose from. She's got Lavender Brown. She's got Pavarti Patel. She doesn't have as many choices.

People in other houses. Right. Later, doesn't she kind of become friends with Luna Lovegood? A bit, yeah. Okay. But that's quite a bit later on. I don't think we even meet Luna until book five. She's younger.

A bit, right? I think she's their year, but she's in Ravenclaw. It seems like the houses don't... They only are enemies with each other. Yeah, they don't like hang out which like what kind of fucked up show is that another weird precedent to set but yeah

that is interesting I mean I know that probably statistically she is there's less girls or it looks in this movie anyways there's less girls that go to Hogwarts maybe I think that that might even out later on but still it's I don't know, that's interesting. It didn't really look like a lot of

girls in Gryffindor. Yeah. I can't really, like, It's like 50% of them are Weasleys. It's just a million Weasleys. It's like 20 Weasleys and then a few other kids. Jenny gets into Gryffindor too, right? Yeah. Okay.

I love that the implication, basically, about the Weasleys is like they're probably Catholic it doesn't seem like they really believe in birth they're like old school like New England Catholic Irish Catholic freckled red headed Irish Catholic

never seen a condom in their life even though there's probably a fucking spell for that that's that what is wizard birth control like good question wow there's no probably effective right probably unless there's a counter spell like i want to get you pregnant i don't know but what man has ever truly said that? I want to get you pregnant. Well, a question for J.K. Rowling to answer in a series of very boring clickbait articles sometime in the next five years. I can't stand when she does that, where she every couple years, she's like, oh, it feels like maybe interest isn't like where it should be. This character is bi.

Doesn't change anything that happened. No. Chill out. We see you. I see you. You're fine. You're still a millionaire. You don't need to tweet about...

We still like the books. Yeah. You don't need to tweet about which teenager you're saying is bi. I think the more characters she makes lgbt the better i'm sick of all these fucking straight white people but i don't like that she does she seems to do it for like fucking attention like it's not maybe can we talk about professor mcgonigal yes yes downton abby mrs downton abby mrs abby uh-bey of downtown. Yeah. Mrs. Abigail downtown. That's my CW remake of Downton Abbey.

Abigail downtown. Abigail downtown. It's about a girl trying to make it in New York City. After Hermione, she's the female character with the most screen time and dialogue and importance and bearing on the story. I mean, I really like her. She's stern and she's strict. You know, tough but fair. She's no nonsense,

but she's also compassionate and highly capable, very smart, a boss-ass bitch, a lover. Real into sports. Yeah. Real into sports. You could tell she was athletic back in her day.

Yeah, I bet she was on the team back in the day. She was a scout. She basically was like, Harry, you're a seeker now. She's one of the people like, you broke the rule. Here's your reward. And she buys Harry a broom. He's got money.

Right? Give Weasley a broom. He's poor. These Weasleys, what are they supposed to do? She made me think she's got money on a lot of those Quidditch games. Yeah. Oh, maybe. Oh, I bet she's a bit of a gambler. McGonagall's got dice. She's got dice on her.

That's why she isn't headmaster. What if she's a gambling gambler? Wow. She'd be headmaster. J.K. Rowling, if you're listening, here's an idea for some clickbait videos. Yeah, I'll click through all of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll share that on Facebook and be like, see?

It works. It works. Oh, boy. She's great. I like her a lot. She doesn't have a whole lot to do with the actual, like, I'm going to do a thing that makes the story go forward. She's, you know, sort of on the periphery for the most part. But she's an important character in later books and movies.

I think maybe plays more of a significant role in different things. We even talked about Aunt Petunia at all. Right. And she, I mean, obviously I don't like her. But I think she's a more interesting character than she gets credit for. Because especially this movie is like, it's a Chris Columbus movie. He made Home Alone. I think he came at this like, I'm making a goofy kids movie.

And it works. And I like it. But I like the character of Aunt Petunia because it's sort of like her attitude informs Harry Potter's life in such a major way where she had this rivalry with her sister and like there was a lot of jealousy that she wasn't you know perceived to be as special as her sister was and that kind of derails the first 10 years of her nephew's life yeah and so i don't know i feel like she has like a weird amount of power over this story and even though you only sort of see her being like like she sort of is kind of like an inciting person in how the whole series goes yeah just kind of which is interesting because and it also from i was just like would i rather like actively it sounds exhausting making an

adorable child miserable for 10 years like over like well he's important in this area of the world that i don't have to associate with if i don't want to why not just let him go but i mean that speaks to how mad she was probably oh wow yeah because i often wonder like why wouldn't you just like it wasn't like they were gonna come into contact with that it doesn't seem like they ever would have had to no it's weird because it maybe perhaps there's like some female rivalry which i mean with sisters is more i mean that just happens um but it's strange she would keep that rivalry up for her dead sister though who died in a pretty brutal way that's kind of weird that she wouldn't be like okay well shoot you know let me you know put a bookmark in this and like not she was just like oh yeah

yeah and by the way i'm also gonna fuck up your kid's life too right yeah that's that's intense you know in principle are there any like twists with her later in the series or like where it turns out and i don't remember find out something about how she agreed to protect harry so that like voldemort could never find him at their house so she did something no boy it seems like she would have had to because otherwise like that's that's like i can't imagine anyone having that level of anger after their sibling is like brutally murdered. It's like she's like cartoonishly bitter and dig about it. Yeah. Yeah.

And like will kind of waste her own life making a point to someone who has been dead for 10 years. Right. Yeah. She's such a cuck on the other side too because she is so ran over by her son her yeah her fuck she is such a cuck i'm like oh like you're just letting everybody else is it a thing of like oh my kid is a piece of shit so i'm gonna take that out on because she doesn't seem like she has much power over uh vernon who only the way this movie is stylized especially at the very beginning it looks like chris columbus thinks he's like adapting a rolled doll book

because it's very goofy every shot of uncle vernon is like he's like mugging in some way like and like it's so funny because the series does get so dark later and to the point where the whole like the movies are three hours long and like blue but the first I don't know that's part of why I like this movie because it's like there is like a levity to it that there isn't to the others but the family at the beginning especially like there's

just they're just cartoon characters it was very much like Matilda right yeah that's what it reminded me of I was like this is that scene in Matilda DeVito and Matilda. Right, yeah. That's what it reminded me of. With all of the letters. I was like, this is that scene in Matilda. DeVito and Matilda. We should do a Matilda episode.

Okay. Okay. We haven't talked about the most important female character in the whole movie. Hmm? Mrs. Norris, the cat. Oh.

Just kidding. But she holds a special place in my heart. Yeah. Because she's a cat. Also, you know, she does things. She's like, I'm going to run and you have to run away from me so you don't get in trouble. And then that's what leads them to the corridor on the third floor where they find Fluffy, the three-headed dog. And that's how they figure out the whole thing.

So Mrs. Norris, more important than we give her credit for. I'm with it. I like her. That's my hot take on the cat. Hot cat take. Pussy takes with Caitlin. Which, speaking of dogs, both Fluffy the three-headed dog and

Fang Hagrid's dog we mustn't forget that we need to say dogs out like hogs out, but dogs out. But Hagrid, you're a pervert. Don't take your hog out. You will be placed under arrest. It is amazing watching that movie. Why would you let a child be alone with that person i i don't now we're going to be getting emails about size shaming he's very scary he's scary and he's and they're like he's a gentle giant i think maybe we should stop talking to kids

about gentle giants so much they seem sort of like outliers versus perverts who want to eat you uh well you know dumbledore trusts him with his life he gets all the important tasks even though he also manages to fuck everything up dumbledore the old man who constantly puts children in grave danger let's listen to his recommendation he's like like, I trust Hagrid with my life. Meanwhile, Hagrid's like, sure, I'll take this dragon egg and let me just tell you all the secrets about how to get past my three-headed dog. Stranger in a bar whose face I never saw. Oh, he's troubled. He's a drunk.

Men talk. He's an alcoholic. He's an alcoholic. He was always like, oh, I shouldn't have told you that. Yeah. And how to keep his mouth shut. Look at his life, though. I would, I shouldn't have told you that. Yeah. And how to keep his mouth shut. Look at his life, though. I would, I mean, look at his life. He lives in a tiny shack with an assortment of animals.

His only friends are kids. Yeah. I think it's a little sad. He's a, oh, and at this point in the movie, he doesn't even, he's a, he's like a janitor. He doesn't, he's not a teacher yet. He's a teacher later. In fact, he's a, yeah, he got expelled from Hogwarts. He can't even do magic. He's not a teacher yet. He's a teacher later. In fact, he got expelled from Hogwarts. He can't even do magic.

He still does it. Maybe that's when he gets off the sauce. When he gets a job as a teacher. Maybe. When you lay off the butterbeer. Yeah. Oh, the butterbeer, which is basically just, what is that at Universal Studios? It's basically cream soda with butterscotch flavoring. It's disgusting.

I hate it. I will not buy it. People like it. I prefer pumpkin juice. If you're going to go to Universal and get a Harry Potter drink, all about the pumpkin juice. That's just another hot take from Caitlin.

Let's go. I have a few days left on my season pass. I'm going on Sunday. Hell yeah. From. Let's go. I have a few days left on my season pass. I'm going on Sunday. Hell yeah. End of June. But I have a few blackout days on the weekend. Okay.

Just let me know. Let's figure this out. Do you have any final thoughts you want to say about the movie? The portrayal of women in the movie? I do want to bring up one more. Because she was kind of a background character. But she provided the portrayal of women in the movie. I do want to bring up one more because she was kind of a background character, but she provided the biggest magic of all. That's Harry's mom.

She provided the biggest magic of all which is like why... Who we do see in flashbacks. I forget, but yeah, we see her in flashbacks. But that's why Harry was able to win is because she gave him the best magic, which was punk-ass love. Still, that was...

She essentially was the hero of or the catalyst behind his heroism. I found that. He's only the famous celebrity Harry Potter because she sacrificed... Which, why are women sacrificing themselves for men?

Women be sacrificing their bodies well she appears in the mirror too right she's just like in the mirror and the little photo book that Hagrid gives them at the end she pops up all over the place Hagrid's a weird pervert took these pictures of you and your

family he's like don't flip to page seven my thumb's in one of them. Moving on the side. Oh my god. That's great. Let's talk about whether or not the movie passes the Bechdel test. Okay. So,

there is one scene that I think is a candidate for a pass. That we did not catch the first time. Right, I had to re-watch it again, and I was like, wait a minute. There's the scene after they've defeated the troll in the girl's bathroom professor mcgonagall comes in she's like what's all this oh my god you guys could have been killed hermione steps forward and says it's my fault professor mcgonagall i went looking for the troll i'd read about them and thought i could thank you i'd read about them and thought i could handle it i was wrong if harry and ron hadn't saved me i'd probably be dead she says harry ron and then right

and then professor mcgonagall replies and she's just like i expected more rational thinking from you i'm really disappointed in you i can't believe this five points from gryffindor yeah first of all fucking five points really Really? Yeah. More. You're fine. Yeah. They're very arbitrary. There seems to be extremely. There's like, or like there's like very crazy point inflation later in the movie.

Or at the end of the year, they're like a thousand points to you for this. Dumbledore's a manipulator. Give me some chips. Twelve hundred points. Dumbledore manipulates children. He 100 points. Give me some chips. 1,200 points. Dumbledore manipulates children. He's like, hey, Slytherins, you won. Just kidding, bitch.

I was like, they're 11. Why would you do that? You're 800 years old. That's so mean. You didn't have to do it that way. What if your grandpa did that to you? It was like, Jamie's my favorite. Actually, just kidding literally everyone else is my favorite that's so mean i would argue that you got to start

manipulating people young so they can get used to it when they're an adult because people are always going to manipulate me they need these kids need practice yeah okay because here's the thing voldemort manipulated people into following him. So you got to be prepared. You got to know like how not to be. You can now win an Academy Award and then lose it. And now you know how it feels. You know, he moonlighted those kids. So like what is a worse pain than that?

Those kids got Miss Columbian. Wait, so in this analogy, Slytherin was La La Land, which if there's ever been a more Slytherin movie than La La Land, point it out to me because Moonlight was Gryffindor. Or the alternate Dumbledore

is Steve Harvey. And then I forget the two other countries. But Dumbledore is Steve Harvey. At the same lace front wave. Do they ever. But Dumbledore is Steve Harvey. Right. Got the same lace front weave. Did they ever say that Dumbledore is white? Because maybe they should have cast Steve Harvey. What a different series it would be.

It would be awesome. That was like what Steve Harvey was like remembered for mainly. Oh my God. That would be so great. That would be so great. I just watched The Wiz for the first time okay please can there be another adaptation of harry potter where it's an all-black cast oh my god yes yes please and whoever's listening please hire me to do it yeah i will work for cheap i will tell sag whatever you need me to tell them

i'll work all day and all night partial nudity i'll show you some shoulder oh that would be so good oh yes i do all my own stunts too i have my own broom what you're you're gonna do yes oh my god oh man so i love that we were talking about if this movie passes the bacterial test or not so kind of hard to tell because she does hermione does mention harry and ron in that line of dialogue yeah however that's not really what the conversation is about she's taking the well she's kind of here's the thing she's taking the blame for them too i don't think it passes because the men are or the boys are like integral to that conversation i right you could argue that it's like she's talking about being

able to defeat a troll and she failed but but she's taking the blame for two boys that's the yeah that's the reason why i don't take because she could have just said like I was here taking a monstrous shit. It's unclear why she even feels the need to cover for them anyway. I don't get why that happens. Yeah. There's no need for that. I think I may possibly because in the context of the scene, they put themselves in danger on her behalf and maybe she felt guilty about it. I could see that way.

But that scene doesn't pass for me and also just the fact that there had to be this much discussion to reach any sort of conclusion it's just like well it probably could have done better there's female characters around and then there are only i think two other scenes where there are women together in the room who might have had an opportunity to talk, but it doesn't happen. There's another scene where Professor McGonagall and Hermione, I think they're in her office after she has found them lurking outside of the castle.

They are lurking a lot. They spend a good hour lurking. Children be lurking. And she's like, you guys get detention but i don't think hermione even speaks in that scene it's mostly harry and professor mcgonagall talking and then later in the movie whenever they're like we need to talk to dumbledore someone's trying to steal the the chamber of. What is this movie? The Sorcerer's Stone. What's the operative prop in this one? Like that one. I mean, the first four, it's Harry Potter in this prop.

Harry Potter in a rock. Harry Potter in a cave. Harry Potter in a building. Harry Potter in a cup. He's a prop comedian. He's a prop comedian and's a prop comedian a magician i'm triggered anyway in that scene also she's like dumbledore's not here he's in london for the ministry of magic again hermione doesn't say anything so surprisingly few opportunities for women to even talk in the movie it's a symptom of the problem of storytellers not

feeling the need to just make more of the characters women there's so many like of the male characters we've got harry ron dumbledore hagrid draco neville longbottom snape quirrell voldemort and then like secondary and tertiary characters like oliver wood the weasley the other brothers flitwick nearly headless nick the centaur man in the woods and then really of the main female characters it's hermione and professor mcgonigal right and that's pretty much it there's madam hooch she says a few lines and petunia has a bit of a role in the story but like right they never intersect with other female characters or they rarely do. I would be interested and maybe there are, we have listeners who are hardcore enough Harry Potter fans. I'm sure this exists out there somewhere, but I'd be interested in how that evolves over from like movie to movie, from story to story.

And then eventually from, I guess, director to director. Because this one doesn't pass. I would imagine because I think the second movie is kind of the same exact team as the first movie. If it does pass, probably not by that much. But it's, I don't know. I mean, nothing's going to make me rewatch these movies. But I'd be interested to know. We see much more of Mrs. Weasley in the second movie. That's true, yeah.

We see, of the new professors, it's the fucking Gilderoy Lockhart. So he's a dude. Oh, handsome. Handsome. Handsome cuck. Guy who can't do anything. Mediocre. Actor. UCB 101. Gilderoy Lockhart.

Yeah, I'd have to really let's just do all the Harry Potter movies. You want to come back for another episode? Absolutely, because I have strong opinions uh yeah i'd have to really let's just do all the harry potter movies for another episode absolutely because i have strong opinions and i can think of some scenes from like later ones where i'm like this would totally pass the bechdel test right for sure until like book seven you know for sure the umbridge movie that's gotta pass because she's in so much of it and i feel like to her and McGonagall like have it out at some point or like

I don't know I think I just called you Harrystottle Harrystottle you should go by Harry for short Harry Potter Harrystottle don't make him do that

he doesn't deserve it in a good way Harrystottle's Don't make him do that. Harry Stottle! He doesn't deserve it. In a good way. Right. In the end. Himself better than Harry Potter. Hot take. I agree, though. Let's rate the movie on our nipple scale.

We rate the movie on a scale of 0 to 5 nipples based on its portrayal of women. I would say I'm going to give it three or three and a half. I'll skew down to a three because I think it could have done a better job, especially considering it was adapted from source material written by a woman. I don't know why she didn't include of the female characters that there are. A lot of them are, yes, they're strong characters. They are well developed, but there's just not enough of them that contribute that much to the story. Hermione is great

and I think as we've agreed she has more bearing on the story than Ron, who is virtually useless. But, man, I'm going to get so many tweets. People are like, Ron! I love Ron! Would you hear Ron so much? Ron's useless! He's garbage yes and i just

wish that the the gender balance was more equal like why aren't there more female characters who are contributing more to the story that might improve down the road but at least for this first movie i'm gonna go with the three nipples. The nipples belong to them. I love having a nipple belong to an animal. So two of them belong to the three-headed dog, Fluffy. So it's got some fluffy nipples. And then the third one, it belongs to the centaur, whose nipples we do see. Oh, yeah, we do.aur, whose nipples we do see. Whose nipples?

Oh, yeah, we do. Yeah. Yikes. Because he's shirtless. You can see his big horse dick and his nipples. We see his hog. His human nipples. We see that half horse hog.

I'm going to piggyback it on you. I agree with three because similar reasons. There are not really any female characters that we are actively introduced. Minus fucking Susan Bones. But almost every female character we're introduced to is strong, is a professional, or at least has enough of a background that you understand where they're coming from. Which is all you can ask out of a character. They're not all going to be fucking Wonder Woman badass bitches. But we know where they're coming from, which is all you can ask out of a character. They're not all going to be fucking Wonder Woman badass bitches, but we know where they're coming from, their characters.

That, I feel like, is pretty impressive for any movie. But they don't talk to each other. And I think another positive thing you could say for this movie is that women are not actively punished in the way i think women in major movies often are just because they are women and around but again that is not a trophy or an accomplishment that's just something that you wouldn't should default to but movies can't even manage to default to that right like movies that came out 10 years after that movies that came out fucking yesterday it still. Movies that came out fucking yesterday still

can't pull it off a lot of the time. So that's good, but three nipples because they didn't talk to each other enough. I give two of the nipples to Dumbledore, but Steve Harvey Dumbledore. And then I'll give my last nipple to Ron's rat

Scabbers oh yeah who turns out to be who turns out to be that British character actor who's in every movie yeah so three yeah I would agree with that I would give three

I was leaning to three and a half nipples because of the strong female characters that were an important part of the strong female characters that were an important part of the story, but their inclusion in the story was what kind of, what gave them that ceiling. I didn't like that they didn't talk to each other. I didn't like that Hermione

didn't have other feet. Like, I can't even off the top of my head be like, oh yeah, this other woman is a Gryffindor. Oh, I've seen, you know, other Gryffindors sitting around like I've seen other male gryffindors sitting around it was just an emphasis on men with strong female characters sprinkled in um and men's like relationships like all the bonds apart from his bond with hermione most of the like relationships in the movie is harry and hagrid harry and dumbledore's budding Harry and Ron spend Christmas

together. Very intimate. But yeah, there's this one. Happy Christmas, Harry. Happy Christmas, Ron. Real British. But yeah, three and a half. Wizardry celebrating Christian holidays.

Here's some Christian witches. Let's see who we get these nipples. I would give the half nipple is Miss Norris. Cool.

Because it's a very small kitty nipple. Kitties have eight nipples as we recently learned. From the lion.

Yeah. Caitlin and I captured a stray cat and counted. Yes. That's how we found out. Wait, what was the movie we liked? From the Wizard of Oz, because I was like, the cowardly lion, how many nipples do cats have? And eight is the number.

Six to eight. Well, she gets one and a half. Yeah. All right, one and a half nip. Cool, cool. And then another nipple goes to Professor Flitwick. Is he the one who was decorating the Christmas tree? He gets one because I really feel like he's seen some stuff out there.

And another nip goes to... You know what? I'm going to give this nip to Snape. Okay. Oh, yeah. Snape doesn't get a lot of love. Right. You get to have a nipple.

And his is perky. Oh, good. It would be. That a lot of love. Right. You get to have a nipple. And his is perky. Oh, good. And it would be. That's why his robes are so flowy. His nips are hard all the time. Just the one nip. Yes. Real hard and just.

I like it. You earned it. I like it. Rest in peace, Alan Rickman. Yeah. Great. Very true. Very true. Well, Maggie, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me. It's been a blast. Thank you so much. It's been, I would thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. It's been a blast. Thank you so much. It's been, I would say, even magical. Thank you. Where can people find you online? I'm on Twitter at MaggieMayHaha. And that's M-A-Y-E as May.

I got a Facebook page out there. I'm on Craigslist sometimes looking for a dresser. Great. Hit up Maggie on Craigslist if you've got a dresser. Let me know about it. I'm on some magic apps you muggles wouldn't know anything about. Y'all wouldn't know anything about that.

Y'all don't know about Madge app. Y'all on Madge app? No? Okay, don't worry about it then. But you can find me on Twitter. I'll be there. You can follow us on Twitter at Bechtelcast. You can follow us on Twitter at Bechtelcast. You can follow us on Instagram at Bechtelcast. You can email us at thebechtelcast at gmail.com. There's a Facebook page you can use.

We've got a Facebook page, too. Also called the Bechtelcast. We're everywhere. No reason to not hang out with us. Right. We go to bingo a lot. We go to bingo on Wednesday nights sometimes if we're not busy. Right.

That sounds fun, though. Yeah, we went last week. It was nice. I'll go. Oh, shit, come. I won't talk about any men either. Oh, yeah. I like bingo.

Please come with us. It'll be a blast. Let's be friends. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to say something really good to close out the episode. Here it comes. Here it comes. Here it comes.

Avada Kedavra. Avada Kedavra. All right, bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption

that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, this is Matt Rogers. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. joining us on Las Culturistas. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti.

And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.