The Bechdel Cast - He's Just Not That Into You with Anna LaMadrid

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

This week, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Anna LaMadrid are just not that into He's Just Not That Into You.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @the_annalamadrid on Instagram. Follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP on Twitter Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm NK and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me? A show about the ways that mental illness is shaped by not just biology, swaps of different meds, but by culture and society. By looking closely at the conditions that cause mental distress, I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane, what we can do about it, and why we should care. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdel cast, the questions ask if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast.

A word of advice, Jamie? Yeah? sweeping and reductive generalizations about gender and relationships it's just not that good of a movie the end okay anyway sorry i can't hear you i've been locked in a closet by bradley cooper i actually could you speak up i'm'm trapped in Bradley Cooper's office closet. Oh, here we go. Here we go. Welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante.

And today we're broadcasting live from Bradley Cooper's office closet with a guest. It's getting crowded. Impossible to socially distance in here. Yes. crowded impossible to socially distance in here yes uh this is our episode about he's just not that into you this is our podcast about looking at movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the bechdel test simply as a jumping off point and jamie i've i forgot what what is the oh i well allow me let me ask allison bechtel she's actually in here too um i'm sorry before i say what the bechtel says i i had i think i just like ended up just my soul was flying out of my body when i was watching this movie and it was

like you know i was like watching myself watch the movie from above. And it would have made me laugh so hard if Scarlett Johansson, when she was being pushed into a closet by Bradley Cooper, if there was like just a skeleton in there from another woman who had been through the same thing. And then maybe he forgot. And then she, you know, and this happened in like 2002. And then he's like, oh, my God, I forgot. I pushed Jodie Foster into that closet seven years ago and she never got out. The Bechdel test is a media metric. As you said, it for our purposes, it requires that two characters of a marginalized gender with names speak to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue uh we'll see about this one we'll see how it goes you know and i guess

you're going into this you know it's not it's not a perfect metric you know it's it's not a feminist text just because it passes the bechdel test, as we know. Not saying that for any particular reason. Anyways, that is the Bechdel test. This is the Bechdel cast. And we have an amazing guest with us today. We certainly do. Yes. Welcome to the closet.

She's an actor. You've seen her on Vida, Love, Victor, Call Your Mother. And she is the founder of Put Me on Self-Tape, which is a self-tape and audition coaching studio in LA. It's Anna LaMadrid. Hello. Hi, I'm excited to be in the closet. It's getting hot, but I'm here for it. Bradley's coming back any second now, not to worry. Anytime, and I'm gonna walk out with my red negligee and not put my dress on while they're having sex. Two seconds after Jennifer Connelly left,

like, wouldn't she not realize that someone is coming? I was also like, they're going to run each other in the elevator. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Jennifer Connelly's going to be like,

is that my husband? Is that my husband's seed but i'm also like girl put on your dress yeah everybody in the office is gonna know we need we we need to we i just want to have a talk with every character in this movie about uh learning to love themselves yeah good so Good lord. So much thing. I have to say, like, as awful as all of these, like, ensemble movies of this era are, because it's also, like, whatever. I would include this in the expanded universe of Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve. And they're all so bad.

But it is kind of, like, Ben Affleck isn't in this movie for a full hour he just he just disappears he goes away yeah he's on a boat he's like he gets lost at sea maybe we don't know i mean one would hope it's just like a nightmare it's a nightmare but um but i was very fully um engaged triggered activated fight or flight response activated, fight or flight response. My fight or flight response was fully activated by this movie. But let's talk about our personal histories. Anna, what is your history with this cinematic text? You know, I remember watching it when it first came out and um i guess i've like many of us have been fallen

trap into finding romantic comedies um enjoyable when i was ignorant and didn't know any better um it was nice you know one of the things that i do for fun sometimes is i try to watch 80s movies and then see how they hold up most of them don't't. No. I haven't done this for, like, early aughts movies. So this was kind of like a revelation to me because I'm like, holy shit, there's so much toxic, like, masculinity, toxic positivity. Like, are these girls actually really your friends?

Like, yeah. So, yeah, that's my relationship to it. i can't believe that i enjoyed it and kind of normalized these narratives in my head i mean 2009 we're all there i know it's so depressingly like still feels too recent to be like wow we really we really did not question all that much the only the only thing that felt commonly accepted was that the movie was bad but the messaging kind of wasn't up for debate i don't know right caitlin what's your history with this movie oh gosh well i slash book so i watched the movie some amount of years after it came out and promptly forgot everything about it because

when i re-watched it to prep for this i was like well didn't remember that there were 4 000 jennifers in this movie didn't remember jennifer and i love when it seems where it's jennifer and jennifer you're like right my head hurts i'm just like where's Jennifer Lopez if you're gonna get the rom-com Jen Jennifer's in there at least then we would have intersectional right yes because where are the people of color in this film they are on the sidelines yeah being the gay best friend yeah yeah I was like literally it's it's like anyone who is not white and not straight is not going to be centered in this movie for even a second. They're just going to be there to tell Drew Barrymore how to send an email.

Like. Right. So I saw the movie at some point, but I did read the book when it came out because a roommate I had in college was like, Caitlin, you got to read this book. It's going to change your life. Oh, no. It's like my Bible. And I was like, oh, OK. And I didn't like I wasn't a Sex and the City watcher. Like I didn't really know what I was in store for.

And I don't remember specifics now. I obviously did not reread it recently. But I just remember the general takeaways of it, which are mostly like, because the book and the movie are very different in the sense that like the book is a self-help book. The movie is like narrative vignettes. But the themes are all still present. And the themes of the book are men know what they want, and they're going to go out and get it. But women shouldn't do that. They should not call a man first. They should not initiate contact. They should never ask a man out. Women should wait idly by for a man to make the first move. Women should surrender any and all power and agency and just sit around waiting for a man to take all the initiative. And I remember in like, again, 2005, when I read this, when my feminism was not sophisticated or, you know, not really barely there at all many of ours was yeah

i still was like this book is the most sexist regressive piece of shit that i've ever read in my life so i've hated this property for a long time now nice and that's my history jay was that also around the same time that that book, The Rules, came out? Ooh, good question. I don't know what year that's from. I would guess, though. It feels like the same era.

That sounded very similar, too, where she was like, if they ask you out on a Wednesday, that's a no. And it was like going around about how you need to make yourself be the prize and that they have to fight for you because that's what men want to do and that you shouldn't.

So that was another book. So I remember that being passed around my circle. Yes. Oh, that's that's from 95. The Rules, Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right. Written by two women. Written by two women. There are, and we'll get into this today.

Sometimes women can perpetuate sexism because, question mark, because they don't love themselves. Internalized misogyny, etc. My history with this movie is that I was taken to see this movie after my first breakup ever. And this movie came out when I was, I think, like a sophomore in high school. My boyfriend, who had just dumped me to play the saxophone more, I was like devastated. I was a mess. I was inconsolable. And so so my friends we didn't know i knew that it was a book but we definitely hadn't read it but my my friends were like

no we're gonna we're gonna cheer jamie up and we i think that we went into it thinking this was gonna be a movie that was like fuck men the sack and then hopefully also fuck the saxophone um but i remember we left very disappointed we didn't like the movie and at the end my my friend uh shout out jenny hyde uh she apologized she's like i thought that was gonna cheer you up but i don't think it did and i was like that's it was worth a shot and then we went to ihop and now that cheered you up that was it turns out that was the medicine i needed pancakes pancakes always win true like pancakes over toxic masculinity the movie um so that was my and then i revisited it when it was during the pandemic, just to be like,

is this as bad as I remember? And I was like, Oh, it's actually worse, worse. And, and here we are. So I've seen this movie several times this year.

And, and hopefully for perhaps for the last time, you know, we don't know some, there could be a very sinister twist the sequel oh god well should i get into the recap and then we'll go from there let's do it so the movie opens on a little boy being mean to a little girl and then the little girl is told that the boy was

treating her badly because he has a crush on her. And the voiceover explains how that is a lie that girls and women have been conditioned to believe. And then this is followed by a montage of women encouraging other women saying like, oh, when a man is ignoring you, it's because of this. Or it's, you know, let's make excuses for the guy and da-da-da-da-da, all this stuff. Or like, you're great. He can't dump you. Like, yeah, it was a sampler platter of...

What we were going to suffer through for the next two hours, too. Because I'm like, oh my God, this movie is so long. How dare this movie be longer than two hours? I am furious. Two hours. And it really felt like more hours than two. And also, that little kid just wasn't mean. He physically pushed this.

I was like, oh, so I'm normalizing physical abuse, too. Great. Thanks. Thanks for letting us know. If he hits us, that means he loves us. Ugh. Yeah. So anyway, so you have all this, like, this montage and this voiceover at the beginning.

And then according to the movie, the truth of the matter is when a man is not calling you or paying attention to you or he's being a dick to you, it means he's just not that into you and then so the rest of the movie is a bunch of vignettes that are all vaguely connected this movie is trying to be love actually but worse which is also you go back to our episode on love actually i don't have the mental capacity for it no um today also for this recap i'm going to use actors names instead of characters names because there are too many characters and who cares what their names are but most of the actors are famous so yeah that should just help clarify things agree okay so we cut to jennifer goodwin and kevin connelly aka e fromourage, which is probably what I'm going to call him this whole episode. They're on a date.

She seems to be more excited about it than he is because he is in love with Scarlett Johansson. Who is a singer slash yoga instructor. I was like, oh, we're hitting the tropes early. Early. Yeah. Who doesn't have yoga pants, by the way? In that scene where she's teaching people sweatpants, I'm like, you didn't even do your research, girl.

Whoa. You know you should be wearing Lululemons or some shit. Her character. I mean, everyone's character, but good Lord. This whole movie. Yeah. Yeah, so Scarlett Johansson meets bradley cooper at a supermarket not just any bradley cooper though frosty tips bradley tips

pre-fame pre like super super fame frosty tips cooper this was his breakout role guys let's just be honest i mean who could forget him leering at someone in the grocery line iconic and it would be several years later when he would become another problematic character he i have a lot of feelings on bradley cooper Most of them are not very good. But again, another day when my spirit can handle it. Right. Bradley and Scarlett hit it off, but uh-oh, he's married. But they exchanged numbers anyway. He is also friends with Ben Affleck, who is in a long-term relationship with Jennifer Aniston, and she wants to get married but he doesn't and it's a point of contention in their relationship and yep that's pretty much the whole

thing except he doesn't believe in it guys but he's committed he doesn't believe in it but but don't worry she's going to change him because that's how that's how things work that's she's gonna fix him i loved so that is basically their whole story but just i like the like sometimes they'll just throw a little bit of like spice at a storyline that just something else happens that you're like like chris christopherson has a heart attack and you're like huh why is that happening and then it's immediately resolved and it's like i feel like we didn't need to give chris christopherson a heart attack perhaps it's not necessary but i thought it was pretty i was laughing i was like what is him why it was a really roundabout way for jennifer aniston to be around her like in-laws

like her sister's husband yeah and and appreciate ben yeah which like again very roundabout way to go like you could have done that in like a much tighter more efficient way anyway yeah how would they filled out those two hours though i they wouldn't the things like i mean i guess that the only the chris christopherson plot heart attack i i was cracking up because i was just like what is this for like you know they're not gonna kill him so what's happening i messy messy messy meanwhile in the movie jennifer goodwin who works with jennifer aniston and also jennifer connelly so all the jennifers work together at the same company you can only work though what is their job they have never all they talk about is that one nutmeg copy but like who's the client are they all they do is sit around and get paid

to talk about guys the entire day i'm like yeah wow i want to work in that office which is also wild because i'm like uh ladies this is a recession i feel like uh there would have been some positions cut if if the three of you are all trying to write one paragraph about nutmeg for several months just seems seems like you know in the middle no talk of a pitch meeting no no stakes where they're like we just need to get them in the same room and women do be having jobs these days so nutmeg yeah and it. And it's advertising. That's cool, right? That's something women can do. It's actually the reason why I studied advertising. I'm not going to lie. That was my undergrad degree because I saw like the mom on Who's the Boss was in advertising. Like Amanda Woodard from Melrose Place was in advertising. So I'm like, oh, that's what women do. We do advertising. That's why I'm a journalist art curator slash.

Slash you own a bakery slash bakery, a struggling bakery owner. Oh, gosh. OK, so Jennifer Goodwin is waiting to hear from E from Entourage. And when she doesn't, she decides to go to a bar where she knows he hangs out, a.k.a. stalk him. And there she meets a bartender, Justin Long. Oy. Who is E from Entourage's friend, roommate, I don't know. Friend who, like, just walks into his house unannounced. I'm like yeah i'm also yeah i was like i was like are they roommates because i'm like oh you got keys

or you or does he just leave his door open i was really confused about justin long's character i mean first of all we've done the definitive justin rankings, and we as a podcast take the stance that Justin Bartha is better than Justin Long. So whenever I see Justin Long, I think, should have been Justin Bartha. That alone was distracting. But on top of that, his life was confusing, because it was like he's a bartender, but then he was also seen in a large office at one point. That was his house what everybody's house has like huge lofts i'm like where are you living and what is the rent yeah

everyone is is very wealthy they're very wealthy like his parents pay for that house for sure i mean and it's also like they they have to keep reminding you you're in baltimore because there's no visual indication that you're in baltimore and also it's like oh it's baltimore that's like but like it's all rich white people in baltimore with gigantic homes and it's like how why stop confusing yeah so justin long is So Justin Long is telling Jennifer Goodwin, my roommate slash friend or some guy who sometimes comes over, E from Entourage, isn't going to call you because he's just not that into you. Meanwhile, Scarlett Johansson, who is friends with Drew Barrymore, by the way, calls Bradley Cooper, who is married to jennifer connelly you see how all the threads are connecting it's brilliant the payoff is so like every time i was like oh like it was just i guess no joy no joy does not spark joy for me so So Bradley Cooper decides it will be okay and perfectly harmless to help Scarlett with her music career. Is he a manager or a lawyer?

Right? We don't know. But somebody in his office is going to help her. Yeah, but we don't know any more than that. Drew Barrymore can't figure out how to send an email for the whole movie. It's just like her co-workers being like, Drew Barrymore, use MySpace. And she's like, it's so confusing. She's trying to send a message to someone. What's going on with her character besides nothing, besides going to MySpace.com? She's selling ads to E.

To E from Entourage, yes that at least she does one thing that's work related what if she is selling nutmeg and it's all connected what now that's it we just cracked it let's call them up right now and let them know that we need the sequel yeah all about nutmeg oh he is just that into you that's my pitch for the title um also this movie was clearly written in 2004 or not 2009 and the screenplay was never updated to reflect 2009 technology because it acts like everyone still has landlines. Everyone still leaves messages on answering machines. Nobody text messages each other. Like MySpace.

Yeah, MySpace is dated. People knew how to send an email by 2009. Like there's just all this. Yeah, it's almost like 1995. Yeah, it's so, I mean, the book was published in 2004 or 2005 i think and then the movie comes out in 2009 but whoever was writing these things were using technology from like 2001 and i'm just like this i was so frustrated anyway okay so bradley cooper is like yeah i'm gonna help scarlet with her music career and then they start getting closer and more flirty and eventually they start sleeping together and then

he lies to his wife jennifer connelly about it he's actively gaslighting her. Over in Jennifer Aniston land, she leaves Ben Affleck because he refuses to marry her. So now she's single. And meanwhile, Jennifer Goodwin keeps calling Justin Long and asking for more dating advice. And it seems like maybe he's starting to like her and he even invites her to a party he's throwing which she interprets as him liking her but then he's like no you misread this you silly fool and she's like well at least i put myself out there you're gonna be alone forever and then she storms out god that's such a so messy that was that was a moment of empowerment, guys. What a feminist text. That was when she stood up for herself.

I was like, oh, we were really supposed to be cheering when I was like, I can't stand both of you. You guys deserve each other. Yeah, truly. I hope you take yourselves off the market so no one else has to deal with you. And then meanwhile, Bradley Cooper finally does tell Jennifer Connelly that he cheated on her. And she's upset at first, but then she's like, wait a minute, I'm partly to blame. So she goes to his office to try to, like, reignite their fire and to have sex with him. But oh, Scar to e from entourage because they have this kind of

like on again off again casual thing but she doesn't sleep with him anymore yeah like she goes to him when she needs to she needs a confidence boost exactly yeah which is uh not a nice thing to do but i was like oh why i understand this dynamic right so they like then they kind of get together for a little while but then she's like wait a minute this guy was an entourage I don't like him gross and so she breaks up with him and then Justin Long is starting to realize that he does like Jennifer Goodwin and then the movie ends with Jennifer Goodwin and Justin Long getting together Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck getting back together because she realizes that she doesn't need to be married after all but then he proposes anyway and then they get married with

sorry one of the most the one of the all-time doofiest proposals i've ever seen committed to film he put the ring in his pants cargo pants his disgusting cargo cargo pants and then she and i was like i was really hoping that that would happen and then jennifer anderson would be like wait a second i'm leaving like oh just the laziest so gross it was horrifying and then jennifer connelly and bradley cooper split up and then also e from entourage hits it off with drew barrymore And that is how everything concludes. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia

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or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified.

Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this?

We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And we're back. Well, where should we start? Okay, I want to, I can see how I can kind of, okay, I'm going to try to phrase this carefully. Things that get examined in this movie or start to be examined could be empowering for some people. Because we see examples of women making their needs and wants known in a relationship. You see challenging of men's behavior, especially when they're being dismissive of women's feelings. There's some voiceover at the end where Jennifer Goodwin's like, maybe a happy ending doesn't have to include a guy. Maybe it's just, you know, you on your own picking up the pieces and and freeing yourself up for something better in the future. But the movie only very barely scratches the surface of

any of these things and um is terrible the rest of the time uh because like there there are opportunities in this movie to explore like why men mistreat or are disinterested in women but they really don't even touch on that it's just like well men are just well i don't know men are boys or be boys i mean here's a there was an article that i read god i'm probably around 2010 that was around the time this movie came out that was titled like if it's not a hell yes it's a no and it was all and it kind of mirrors what justin long is saying right like when men are actually interested they will show up in the ways like you don't have to hound them to call you they just naturally will and i remember reading that article and being like that's a good compass for me

because i think we do hear a lot of narrative of like, let's excuse behavior and make it about. So in some ways I do agree with what Justin is saying. Like when guys are interested, it doesn't mean that I can't approach a guy if I'm interested, but it has to be reciprocal and I can't be the one driving. So I do agree with that. But there's a lot of,

everybody in this film needs therapy. Yes, desperately. Like y'all, everybody needs therapy. There's a lot of anxious avoidant type attachment style. There's a lot of codependency. There's a lot of lack of boundaries. And none of that is addressed. Yeah, and I do agree.

It's so, it feels like a half step towards something that I would agree with where it's like, you know, I'm very pro, you know, people not playing games with each other and being direct about how they feel. And I do think that there is kind of this tendency of like I mean it's it's introduced and like lightly criticized then immediately walked back in the opening scene of the movie where it's like if a boy is mean to you that means he likes you which is one of the largest fallacies that has spread to usually young girls and I think that it is like encouraging like people of all genders

from a young age to be direct and encouraging when you are on the receiving end of that to take people at their word. And like if someone's being cruel to me, there is no world in which you should, you know, view that as they like me and I should want to engage with them further. Like that is such a toxic idea. And so it's like, yeah, like, like you're saying, Anna, like, I do agree with Justin Long, like, oh, God, that sentence, to the extent that it's like, yeah, like, if someone is interested in you, they will make it known. And, you know, this isn't like a mind game thing, but it just has to go, you know, on both ends of a relationship. Because I feel like where this movie lands is like, and it sounds like, Caitlin, based on what you're describing about the book, that like men should be empowered to be direct, whereas women need to be doing like this calculus problem to figure it out um and and they are not afforded the same amount of like

emotional freedom and directness that that men are or agency yeah absolutely for sure yeah the movie opening with this commentary about like how women are not only programmed but like encouraged to think that if a man is a jerk to you, it means he likes you. And then so like challenging that notion is like totally legitimate. But then the movie doesn't. Yeah. Everything else the movie does is just trash. Right.

It's like there are occasional moments when it's I think it's Jennifer Goodwin's. I think she's supposed to be the protagonist. Question mark. But when it's, I think it's Jennifer Goodwin's, I think she's supposed to be the protagonist, question mark. But she, it's her, it's her voiceover saying like, what a load of crap, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, yeah, agree. Totally agree. But then the movie does not really go on to explore that idea in any meaningful way. Because there's, and there's also storylines that directly contradict that because like if you think about ben affleck and jennifer aniston who i kept forgetting were never actually a real couple it

just sounds like it was true but it wasn't she dated vince vaughn yeah she did date vince vaughn we were we ever so young uh but right and then ben benifer was him and J-Lo. They're both single now. What else? What? No. They're both. It's true. Like right now?

Yeah, because J-Lo and A-Rod broke up. And you're telling me about my own people. Like what? I'm not on an up and up on this drama. She just like showed her wedding ring like a few months ago. Yeah. A-Rod was cheating on her over zoom because pandemic get the fuck out of here i'm dead how do you how do you cheat on that

woman how do you know this goes to show and how do you that people just get bored and on zoom trifling all right well i learned something new so so you know benifer it's maybe it's not too late maybe it's not too late come back for part two the sequel all that to say you know the the jen anderson ben affleck storyline is all about him saying and being direct saying i do not want to get married which is like you know even if jennifer anderson disagrees with it like she should take him at face value there. He doesn't seem like he wants to get married. But the movie doesn't reinforce that.

He changes his mind and he throws a dirty old ring into his dirty old pants. And so that like directly contradicts what you're told in the first scene that like, oh, you know, when someone's being direct with you, take them at their word, which is not a bad message. But then it's not always true in the movie. It's just, yeah. Because the way women are written in this movie is that they are generally just irrational or reactionary or clueless or any other number of like stereotypical negative traits associated with women, the women are all written in these very broad stereotypes. So even if Ben Affleck, who I can't believe I'm about to say this, but like, as someone who like, for me personally, marriage is not something that I care about doing. I don't really believe in it as an institution for me personally. So the things that he's saying about marriage, I was like, yeah, I agree with you, Ben Affleck. Yikes. But I was like, yeah, I see where he's coming from. It's a valid viewpoint. And it's like, if your partner feels that way, you know, it's like, it's okay to feel either way. But it's like,

don't be like, you're gonna come around. come around i can feel it like that's so unhealthy yeah and it's like it's worth at least listening to and hearing him out but rather than jennifer aniston doing that she's just like well that obviously means that you don't even love me so we have to break up and it's like that's not what he's saying like what it's the concept of compromise in a relationship is completely absent from this movie, which is bizarre because that is a big part of being in a long-term relationship is talking with each other and sometimes finding compromises and establishing boundaries. But that is just not where they're at. But I think, again, therapy, because Jennifer Aniston is being triggered by her sister's wedding, which now has become a problem because everyone's perpetually like her family is pressuring her to be like, what are you doing? It's seven years. Like, I'm sure this wouldn't have happened. I don't think Jennifer would have been like upset about it.

They live together. They're sharing a home. He's putting up a painting like do you know what i mean like he's doing housework yeah but so so it's like it's not a problem until she let outside forces kind of like dictate what her life should be and then listen to those things but then she also is like i've been harboring these feelings for five years and it's like do you think that maybe like again therapy girl learn how to express yourself early on exactly do you think that uh jennifer aniston not being married to ben affleck gave chris

christopherson a heart attack is that what set it off is it he's like oh my god seven years and then he keels over he keels over i feel like they were probably like doing the conga line or something like they were gonna dance and it was just too much that was so i didn't even rewind the scene i'm like i because i looked down to take a note for a second and i looked back up and chris christopherson was in cardiac arrest i'm like i can't i don't i don't acting took me out it was so dramatic he was like and then and then everybody rushed and i'm like somebody call the fucking like ambulance they're all just like talking over each other no one's calling an ambulance oh it was yeah and the music shift where was oh there was oh my god there is so many this is not related but the the mute some of the music choices so the most 2009 soundtrack i've ever heard somewhere only we know playing i

was like oh that was that was a moment my morning jacket corinne bailey ray i was like wow sophomore year was what a time it's uh wilco like oh just so so much so much really takes you back to a terrible time yeah it really takes me back to being broken up with by a saxophone player thanks for nothing i want to talk about the toxic female relationships in this movie as well because it's not just men on men but i'm like jennifer connelly's toxic positivity with jennifer goodwin like at some point stop telling her he's gonna call she's like don't worry he's gonna call and drew barrymore girl you sit in there telling this woman to go for it for an for a married man yeah it, it's... And then you end up hooking up with E, who you know slept with Scarlett. So I'm like, are y'all friends or acquaintances?

Why are you getting your nails done together? I would never even have dinner with somebody who my friend had a relationship with. I didn't even connect that. Yeah, where is the loyalty? They're not friends. I don't know what that is, but they're not friends i don't know what that is but they're not friends yeah whoa i also did not catch that because i simply could not keep track of like who knew who

in which storylines yeah but yeah to your point anna like these characters are just like hurling this toxic positivity at each other which is like not helpful no one's being constructive no one is being critical about any of their thinking or behavior like it's just like that's not what like lifting up other women looks like by like lying to them and making stuff up yeah that's not how you do that. And also like hold space for Jennifer Goodwin to like spin out and then be like, Hey,

let's talk about how, how we can make you feel better outside of this. You know? Yeah. It's, it's the, the way that this movie is written, it just has such aggressively rigid views of what a man's behavior is

versus what a woman's behavior is that sometimes it's like I it just like there's so much cognitive dissonance in the way characters act it feels like sometimes you know the writer was like well women be like this so even if it doesn't like make logical sense in the plot, even though it doesn't make sense given this relationship, women be like this. So she would probably do that. Like it's just so binary driven to the point where it's just,

I was like, what? Huh? Like what? There's like a female writer and a male writer, right? On the book and on the movie yeah different teams so i just feel like i i don't know i feel like the woman was like sure that sounds right do it or maybe well nobody advocated for us in this film in the writing process they the the writers of the movie abby cohen and Mark Silverstein, they seem to work together pretty exclusively.

And they also wrote movies like Never Been Kissed, Valentine's Day and How to Be Single. So they are real connoisseurs of this very specific brand of pee pee poo poo. The book was written by Greg Berent and Liz Tuchillo, who were like producers slash consultants, you know, behind the scenes people on Sex and the City. Anna, you were mentioning this off mic right before we started recording, but there is like, it's always like a little, it's frustrating to this kind of writing with with a female co-writer. But I think it is like a pretty clear example that, you know, like representation is important, but it's not the end game because there's a lot of internalized misogyny. Yeah. Yeah. Especially for writers who have been in the business for a really long time. And, you know, if you start out in the 80s, that kind of mentality just stays with you. And unless you really challenge yourself to start seeing storytelling from a different vantage point versus like what you're used to working,

it's really hard to move forward. So I think the right representation matters. And, you know, it's interesting because the solo show that I wrote, the oxy complex kind of mirrors a lot of the anxiety that comes with dating, but, um, I bring in the scientific facts behind it. And I feel like that misses that's completely missed in this thing. You know, like when oxytocin gets released, when we start forming attachments, it does feel like a high. So I was like, yeah, Jennifer Goodwin is behaving in a way of somebody having a flood of hormones. That's just kind of taken over. And it does make you a little crazy, right? But how do you mitigate that without any awareness or like the paradox of choice. That is also a scientific fact with online dating and having so much more, so many more options for people to date that it makes it either a impossible to

make a choice or B it makes you less satisfied when you do make a choice. So like in so many ways right now, we're kind of being set up not to thrive in relationships. Yeah. Yeah. Check out the show. I mean, I would love to send you guys the link just so that you can watch it. Are you both single?

I am always single. Hashtag forever single. As Z-Way says, famously single. I am bravely, I'm bravely not single. Well, very brave of you i am um trying to get ben affleck to marry me it's been seven years and you know we're just gonna see what happens i think i'm gonna be on the lookout for those cargo pants that are gonna come in the mail oh yeah i can't get over it it was like i was i don't

it's so not even close to the worst thing that happens in the mail oh yeah i can't get over it it was like i was i don't it's so not even close to the worst thing that happens in the movie but i was like oh so the disrespect she did not change him if that is the proposal she did not change him yeah i feel like we should get into like probably like girl i don't want to move my shit out again. So here's the ring. It's like, I know I'm I'm tired of fighting because, you know, my girlfriend always be fighting me. Yeah. But yeah, I think it might be worth just kind of going through each relationship and just look at it more closely. to yeah i mean to your point and about the movie not acknowledging a lot of the reason that like people behave in certain ways in like romantic settings and this movie specifically hetero romantic situations because yeah 500 white hetero people right but then like there's also no exploration of why do some men tend to

behave in certain ways where they are like dismissive or they act disinterested or they mistreat women and it just it doesn't ever explore that at all even though there's a whole wide array of reasons including but not limited to good old fashioned misogyny. Well, and just like extreme, like social conditioning, like that, which also, it always is so frustrating when you see these like broad stereotypes about gender applied as if it is like, inherent to your DNA and not largely a result of environment and social conditioning. Right. And things that like people learn from the media they consume. But it's yeah, it's like things like men tending to think that women are disposable, men valuing women mostly

for their youth and looks, men not trusting women's feelings or don't think they need to be bothered with men feeling intimidated or emasculated by women who they perceive to be smarter or more professionally successful things like that and the movie is just like i don't know anything about that it's too much girls can we fix this i mean we can't fix this in one podcast. Like, what's going to happen to us? We've been trying for five years. We've been trying. We'll see. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for more discussion. 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 unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price.

Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on

his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. as Sarah Jean Moore, the story of one strange and violent summer.

This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you.

Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up?

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We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from blumhouse television iheart radio and realm listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back um so wait i feel is there did anyone else have anything else to add about the jen and ben relationship that was um wait which jen jen oh sorry jenna and ben affleck there's jennifer jennifer and also don't forget jennifer um yeah i think i mean there's a part where

jennifer aniston even acknowledges like well I've been kind of like withholding these feelings because I didn't want to seem clingy or demanding, which like fair again, oftentimes in hetero relationships. If a woman like does like make her needs and wants known, she is met with resistance and, you know, accused of being needy and being quote-unquote hysterical but so like the acknowledgement of that I was like okay maybe this is going somewhere but then again the way she's written is just to like not listen to reason just like not be willing at all to compromise jump to really irrational conclusions. Another thing I wanted to mention was Jennifer Aniston's character being single in the movie, the part where she is single after she has left Ben Affleck, is treated by the people around her as being a fate worse than death which is something that happens to jennifer aniston characters all the time in this era of her movies it seems like they're like 30 what and then they

like turn to dust it's ridiculous yeah to the point where in this movie not one but two different cousins of hers aggressively hit on her yeah which is disgusting and like why why would that be in the movie and like to be clear being pressured from friends and family members to find a romantic partner and to be in a relationship like that pressure is a very real thing for a lot of people what struck me though about this movie is like she doesn't really do anything to challenge that. It's not presented critically at all. Yeah. The movie it seems like the movie kind of agrees like, well, this is what you get when you leave Ben Affleck and you just like make that choice. Like, yeah, you're everyone's going to think you're like make that choice like yeah everyone's gonna think you're a loser and your cousins are gonna

hit on you so you better change your ways and get back together with Ben Affleck the movie is so focused on the end game of like the whole audience being like oh well clearly Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck have to get back together that I feel like they take every

lazy writing trope along the way to like reinforce that like foregone conclusion and then that means like the takeaway for so many of these storylines is just like this bizarro like really old-fashioned like like for this one for example is well being single is the worst possible thing that could happen to you so you better get back together with the guy let's settle baby let's do it and then like on the flip side of that for if you're like looking at it from ben affleck's point of view which like just never like ideal but you know but like at the end she comes back to him she was willing to compromise and say like yes we don't need this formal legal commitment of marriage as long as we agree to just to be committed to each other in this relationship like that is fine for

me and he's like cool great awesome but then he also folds and he's like no actually we should get married and i just i feel like like this would have been a good opportunity to show on screen like a you know not quite as traditional of a relationship on screen where like people do agree to be committed to each other without the like bonds of a legal marriage but instead this movie was like no hetero marriage that is legally binding is the end game and should be for everybody so that's what's going to be like the conclusion yeah they're almost like dodoi like obviously yeah so i just i thought like again i don't know why i had any expectations about anything but i was like oh that could have gone somewhere interesting there we could have seen something nuanced here yeah but then the movie just makes like the most basic uninteresting yeah boring

choice every time and here's the thing like why i find an issue with these stories i mean it was two hours long but i still feel like when you try to take on so many narratives like i have no understanding what that relationship is even about like Totally. Like, we don't know the history. And maybe that's inherent in, like, the structure of romantic comedies. Like, can they ever pass the Bechdel test? Or, like, you know, because they're just not structured that way. Like, that's not what this is about in terms of genre. But I just feel like I don't know how they got together, why.

You know what I mean? Totally, yeah. I need more information. But I guess that doesn I don't know how they got together, why. You know what I mean? Totally, yeah. I need more information. But I guess that doesn't make it dramatic. I don't know. Or maybe they're just like, we have Ben Affleck for 45 minutes total. Like, what are we going to do? We need to shoot this in three days so that he can go shoot the other film.

They're like, um, um, um. Put him on a boat. They're like, wait a second. What's Chris Christopherson supposed to do? I don't know. Have a heart attack do it um yeah i totally agree it's like there there is like if you're if if they really want you to take something away from this movie that's like applicable um you need to have context for what this relationship is and you really don't get it i mean i kind of feel with bradley you do because he says he says hey i kind of was talked into this marriage i didn't feel like i was ready

so at least we hear from his point of view even though it's fucked up like perhaps stand up for what you want and be like no i'm not going to do this right because he says uh no guy actually wants to get married and when he does get married he's just thinking about all the women he's going to miss out on. And I'm like paradox of choice. I know. And I'm like, Bradley, was it your idea or Jennifer Connelly's idea in regards to the frosted

tips? Whose idea was that? And how can we, yeah, it's like, I guess you, you do get like stray lines like that but a character that i really could have used that background for was jennifer goodwin because she has all of these

you know very kind of clingy behaviors i think she's my my feeling of how she was written was kind of this very broad stereotype of like desperate yeah and and there's no context for like why might she be this way what is her history like there it's stuff that you really could use uh but it just seems like the way it's written and the way it plays out it just plays out like a very broadly written character of like a single woman yeah because when she comes in with the with the diary stuff like she's cracked out and she's like i've gone through all of my stuff and i'm the exception i'm the rule i'm not the exception you know what i mean and she's like gone through like this type of behavior she's been accepting for a long time right that doesn't happen in a void but again i don't know that

these are movies are set up to explore those issues it's just like here's the problem let's fix it with love yeah right yeah yes and then where her storyline goes with justin long who oh my god i absolutely loathe his character such a smug little asshole what a what a piece of shit he spends most of the movie like either berating her or being like down to her a lot talks down to her he tells her that oh women love drama they feed off it which is another again just like large generalization of like this is how women be and he's like just like treating her badly not able to realize that he likes her until it's like almost too late and he's like wait a minute i've have been dismissive of women and i and so much so that i didn't even know what it feels like to like one of them it's and then she's like that's okay let's kiss and be together.

And I'm like... He doesn't even ask consent. He just goes for it. Well, but she also, I mean, it's like that goes both ways. Yeah, I mean, that other thing, she like jumped on him. We've got two surprise kisses.

You're like, wow, you guys really are the worst. But they belong together. But I mean, and when you put it that way caitlin that's sort of another storyline that contradicts the opening scene of the movie because he's being really mean to her and then it turns out he likes her he did like her the whole time yeah i didn't even that didn't even paint for me of like yet another central relationship

in this movie that contradicts what the opening of the movie says yeah was it that line when they were at the bar where he's like don't get excited i mean like you like a puppy oh yeah and he's like i feel i pity you i feel bad for you kind of and then she comes to the conclusion after that conversation that he's into her oh like girl because she was watching a movie i forget what the movie is now mary stewart masterson's in it some kind of wonderful yeah and she's like influenced by the media that she's consuming by a rom-com and she's like oh my god i had it all wrong he does like me and it's like you're like that's this is not a good yardstick to use. And then goes full throttle. It's like, what do you know about him?

Like, you guys haven't had any conversation except him telling you about guys that you should leave alone. Do you know how many siblings he has? Like, nothing. She's just like, he's it for me. Yeah, he just talks at her for weeks. And then she's like, I think I'm in love. Also, her behavior was so confusing to me at different points where it's like maybe if we had some context, this could exist. At least there's some justification. But when she goes to his party and she's become convinced that he likes her, she immediately defaults to cleaning up and being the mom at a middle school party for some reason like

just all these like you're like huh what the i didn't understand because she's like oh he wants me to co-host it with him because we're about to be a couple and like that's her logic but like the jumping to conclusions her mind map of how she got there i cannot really follow her logic and girl like read the room at the end of the party she's sitting here with garbage bags and he's playing video games with some hot chick like i would have left yeah two hours ago yeah save yourself the aggravation. And then, and you mentioned this earlier, but like, that speech that she gives after she does a surprise kiss lunges at him. Then she does this thing that I think that we were supposed to be like standing at the AMC cheering. She says, I may dissect each little thing and put myself out there too much. But at least that means I still care. And you think you you won because women are expendable to you and you may not get hurt or make an ass of yourself that way but you don't fall in love that way way either you have not won and it's like i see where they're going with that but it's still such a like binary thing of like there's only one right way to be and like it didn't didn't hit didn't hit for me it was a no It was a no from me on the lesson.

But I also feel like, you know, as much as the women are victims in this, the men don't get complexity either. Do you know what I mean? Like I don't know anything about Justin Long's character's issues and why he decided to build a wall around his life. You know, E has a completely code.

I mean, he's Jennifer Goodwin's mirror in the way that he's like lusting over somebody who clearly doesn't want to be in a relationship with him. And, you know, like he pretty much tries to bait her with a house. Yeah. You know, he's like, I'm only going to talk about an ultimatum. I'm only going to buy this if you are going to move in with me soon. Think about moving in with me.

Not right now, but like I went and it's like, what? Dude, so manipulative. Yeah. I'm at least glad that she wasn't like if she were to be like, oh, wow, what a nice gesture. OK, let's be together forever. And instead, she's just like, no, I'm good. I don't want any of this. Goodbye forever. I was like, I did appreciate that. that yeah because i would have had a panic attack of someone

i was like you want me to what no yes but now let's talk about the ironing board oh my gosh just what he's like that's why i want this house because it reminds you of your childhood home what get out of here. You're a stalker. Yeah. So gross. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, you know, we focus on or we tend to focus on the podcast about like how women are represented in movies.

But like men also being written in these very broad binary stereotypical ways is obviously also very harmful and not doing anyone any favors and it's just like another element of the patriarchy is the way that men are yeah they're modeling behavior as well totally and women are consuming this media yes so men in this movie are like oh i hate commitment and oh it's i hate my wife and blah blah blah and then women are like except for e except for e who he he just hates jennifer goodwin he doesn't think she's hot enough oh right. I hate him too. Yeah, he's the worst. They're all the worst. They're such trash.

And can we talk about him trying to dress gay so that he can get the gay market? Yeah, let's talk about how this is treated. He's doing weird, weird, gross stuff. So yeah, like we already mentioned earlier, the heteronormativity that is running rampant in this movie is just gross. The whole concept of the movie, you know, it's implying like, well, the only relationships worth exploring are hetero, one man, one woman kind of thing. The movie does acknowledge that queer people exist, but... But only in supporting roles in very broadly written, stereotyped ways. Yes, very much so. And then, yeah, so this subplot we're talking about is with Ephraim Entourage.

Drew Barrymore places... Because she works in ad sales or something like that. For a magazine, yeah. She places an ad for his real estate business in like a part of the newspaper that gets a lot of like traction from gay men specifically. Because I don't even remember what the ads are. It's like sex ads. Yeah, right. And he's like kind of weirded out by it at first. And she's like, no no you can tap into this

new clientele so they will come gentrify the neighborhood make it livable they even say that he's like this is a neighborhood in transition it's like you mean white people are coming in and gentrifying it cool cool cool cool yes yeah so to appeal to his gay clientele he starts dressing differently and of course justin long makes a bunch of homophobic jokes at his expense him just like altering his appearance is just a very it's supposed to be a joke like it's just supposed to be a hilarious homophobic gentrification joke like you're just like right what the fuck 2009 look how far we've come and then the the queer characters who you see who are either made or who are either like explicitly queer or queer coded in the case of like drew barrymore's uh like colleagues friends yeah they're they're office workers yeah yeah they only exist in

the narrative to give advice to straight people about their straight relationships but also the the buyers the couples at the at at ease open house they were also like and then have their two cents about what she was doing ease straight relationship and then some of the guys that drew barrymore works with go to justin long's party and give advice to jennifer goodwin so it's like three different occasions at least of queer characters only existing in the narrative to give straight people straight advice. It makes sense. Adds up. I mean, in terms of representation of this movie, it would be hard to do worse than this movie does.

Everyone, I mean, you can, if you have been blessed by not having seen this movie take a look at the poster it's 500 cis white people yeah and and then the few people of color we see in the movie there's first of all there's nothing going on there or i mean you have uh one scene with, what is the relationship there? Is it Jennifer Connelly? So Jennifer Connelly is like, they're remodeling their house. Yeah, their gentrifier house. Oh, yeah.

That was problematic for me. Yeah. Where she was like, we have so many undocumented. Why you got to call them undocumented? Yeah. A, it has nothing to do with this story and you're accusing them of smoking in your house i mean talk about oh that was cringy she was a karen back before there was a karen i'm gonna say i was like wow any if you were holding

on to any uh sympathy for the jennifer connelly character uh that's where it goes all the way out the window yes in a scene where she yeah she just like lays into Luis Guzman and like his staff criminal misuse of Luis Guzman oh okay so this is another example of like a quote rom-com that has absolutely no comedy in it there are like they're not jokes or if there are they like completely fall flat they yeah i never laughed once no no but there are well actually i laughed when chris christopherson that was hilarious no but there's a there are a couple lines that louis guzman says that i was like that's actually pretty funny and the rest of the movie is devoid of humor but it's just because louise guzman is funny it has yeah great and funny yes exactly they were yeah but it's also he's highlighting the ridiculousness he's like can i go to work can i get back to work now because i got shit to do with you like obviously you're projecting your marriage issues on me

and either you pay me 90 an hour to be your therapist or you let me get back to work it's real simple anyway so shouts out to louise guzman yes but yeah every other bipoc character in the movie is written in a broad stereotype very tertiary barely has lines you could take all of them out of the story and the movie would not be any different narratively like it's just because the only other representation is those two black women kind of talking about how men swindle them people who are not even people who are not even related to the plot like yeah right yeah they were like uh i don't know what did they say like they make it seem like breaking up was my idea yeah they, they have the whole speech about how you know when you've been dumped. Yeah.

They're acknowledging Inception before Christopher Nolan's Inception ever even came out. Whoa. There you go. Just blew my mind. Makes you think. Holy shit. Who else do we need to talk about is there any can we talk about um the fact that at the end it's so eat pray love but like those confessionals at the end and scarlet's like i'm going on a trip to india with my i'm like get out of here girl you're

supposed to be a struggling singer how you can afford a trip to India how long are you going for like what yoga teachers don't make that much I know it's like what what are you making to I she doesn't have yoga pants and yet she has a ton of disposable income yeah what and you're teaching at a Y, P.S. Yeah. So I know you're not making that much money to afford a whole sabbatical. We haven't really talked too much about Scarlett's character because it's just, again, a confounding character. A lot of the choices I was like, I don't know. Like she is, you know, it seems like she's falling for Bradley Cooper, who is cheating on his wife, who is Jennifer Connelly, who is projecting her issues onto Luis Guzman. It's all connected.

It's all connected. Like Babel, but a bad version. Which is like that's, you know, that's a storyline. Sure. But it's just I feel like you just don't i feel like i don't know anything about her other than she's supposed to be a yoga instructor i think they they don't show it because it's pg-13 but there's that gratuitous like oh she's taking her clothes off and jumping in the pool which just feels the seduction exploitative in a way that it's like well if you're if you're gonna do that like can i know something about who is this person what she says you have an ass so tight or whatever that it makes me want to dry hump and

i'm like i'm sorry what and then he's like i just fell in love right honestly as a as seeing this movie as a like a sophomore in high school was like, I can relate with that. But I'm just like, what part of him do you want to dry hump his ass? Like, what are you talking about? She wants to dry hump his ass. I think it's pretty clear. I'm trying to picture that. What I would love to do is like sit down with scarlet and talk to her about her

process like how did you make sense of these lines how did you commit to these lines like i would love to have that conversation because listen this was a job for her bless her she had to do it but damn that's a hard script to like stand behind. Yeah. She just, yeah, she's just ping-ponging between. And it's again, it's like there's the like seeds of potentially an interesting story if you know anything about the character. Because if you had context for Scarlet, you would be like, oh, you know, she seems to be in this pattern of, you know, like pursuing men who are unavailable and then going back to men she doesn't really care

about but wants positive validation from that is like reflective of a real life dynamic that exists but without context it just becomes too broad she could have had her own film everybody here could have had their own film and not be two hours and we could have gotten into some deep like healing romantic comedy stuff but the genre just wasn't there back then you know yeah i guess um anything else oh i guess we we were referencing this at the top of of the movie but uh bradley cooper does shove scarlett johansson in a closet and that is feminism the most disrespectful thing ever it was oh oh brutal I will say that back in my early 20s

I was spending the night at somebody's house and a girl that he was seeing showed up at 3 a.m. and I heard them arguing outside the front door while i quietly stayed in the bedroom so i guess i have been scarlett johansson at some point but at least i wasn't at his job in the middle of the day do you know what i mean yeah yeah like like silver linings playbook another bradley cooper's like at least I didn't go that low. Yeah, so many people do so many inappropriate things at their jobs in this movie. Yeah. And also, he can't find a piece of paper.

He's like, oh, it's in here somewhere. What are you doing? Like, go to the office next door and ask him again for the piece of paper and be done with it. He's gross. He sucks. One last thing I wanted to say was it felt to me like the Drew Barrymore subplot because she definitely gets less screen time than most of the other women. Oh yeah. She had one day of availability.

Right. Her through line, I got the sense that it was there mostly to shame people who use online dating and the whole thing was like oh that gross anyone who does online dating you're just setting yourself up for failure what you need to do is go back to the good old-fashioned meeting people irl well that, that's a very, I think that that's like a very of the time attitude. But again, like I think by 2009 was a little outdated as well. Yeah. Because that seems like a like sex in the city thing. Like when online dating was new, it was like perceived as unsafe

and desperate behavior when now it's like the norm. Norm, right. I took it as like tech overwhelm in a way which it can be a little bit and i don't know ladies but i'm maybe call me old-fashioned but i'm like i want to get off these apps like i if i want to i'm i'm to the point right now where i'm like if i don't meet somebody that's okay and i'd rather it just happen in person at some point. Sure. Because they are exhausting as someone who is also on the apps. I'd rather not be, but just have someone just meet like a lot.

I don't feel any like shame associated. No, no, no, there shouldn't be any shame. Absolutely. No shame. But you know,

for my show, I took a lot of real profiles, but had my friends who are actors give me an image so that i didn't like out anybody but uh one of them said my love language is dot dot dot anal and that was out in the world okay so you know there is a there is a terrible like wasteland of things happening in these profiles that I just like want to be done with. Yeah. My Hinge profile says my love language is making you watch Paddington 2. Caitlin.

Just, you know. Love it. You're going to get snatched up. Okay. You just want to cuddle. Not. Hasn't happened. anyway yeah any other any final thoughts from anybody i just um want to say that i was hella surprised because i've heard of

the bechdel test but i just it's so minimal do you know what i mean that when i see the amount of films that don't meet it i'm like what in the hell are you writing that you can't have two lines of women talking about something other than guys that's just ridiculous to me it's well that that brings us to our discussion of whether or not this movie passes the bechdel test. And I honestly did not pay close enough attention. Okay. I was really hoping you did. I'm,

I'm, you did. Oh, you did. They have one exchange where Jennifer Connelly asked somebody if they want coffee. And the other one says, yes.

Wow. Oh. And then maybe that the whole like i can't write this copy about nutmeg and then one of them's like dope oh maybe that but there's there's that one coffee and i'm like why is coffee important right now but i wonder if the writers were like we gotta pass the bechdel test throw in the coffee sequence i'm also seeing that some someone arguing on famous website bechdel test.com someone says that the scene where jennifer aniston and her sister who is named talk about a bridesmaid dress that's still pseudo related to marriage i agree. Yeah. Every single conversation between women in this movie is either explicitly or implicitly about men or relationships with men.

Yeah. In the entire movie. Even the montage where they're showing all the women. I was like, oh, two Asian women talking about dudes. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That montage in the beginning. I'm going to that montage doesn't pass coffee it doesn't but like the coffee thing was trash yeah we've also been having discussions on the show recently about sort of upgrade because

because there's so many different versions of the Bechdel test and we've kind of been thinking about upgrading ours to having it be like a meaningful exchange, which would exclude, you know, just like, Hey, here's this. Thanks. Or like exchanges like that. Cause sometimes I feel like little things like that.

Let really shitty movies get off the hook. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. So I'm going to go ahead and say that this movie does not pass the Bechdel test. I'm on board with that. Thank you so much. Let's put it to our

test. Our nipple scale, a scale of 0 to 5 nipples based on an examination of intersectional feminism as it applies to the movie He's Just Not That Into You. Guess what? I'm just not that into this movie

and I give it wow i'll give it a half nipple because i think that it very very minimally begins to think about starting some conversations that could be interesting about relationships but because of just how little follow-through there is how there's only space provided to hetero romantic relationships they are all rich white people who are given any significant storylines or screen time. We're actively gentrifying the entire movie. Baltimore. Yes. And just the very broad, sweeping, reductive stereotypes about men and women that the characters are written within. It's just so broad and binary and regressive and i hate all of it and now i'm talking myself out of this even half nipple i think i'm gonna give it zero nipples yeah i i i i

i would feel i don't know because the only thing that i liked about the movie besides chris christopherson i need to give it a half nipple because i need to give that to chris christopherson i need to give it a half a nipple because i need to give that to chris christopherson's heart and the movie um his art so i'll give it okay i'll give it i'll give it a uh half half uh no no nipples one half of chris christopherson's fictional heart um but it's it's it's like it's it's bizarre like, it's, it's bizarre. Like we've been discussing it. There are these few, like, I liked the beginning idea of the movie of like, here's a lie. We've been told our whole lives. It's bullshit. But then the rest of the movie is not about that and contradicts that.

And there's so much. It's just, I don't know. This movie was not made to, you know, I hope, I mean, but that's maybe not true that this movie wasn't supposed to change anyone's mind about anything or really challenge anything in a meaningful way. And I don't know.

It was very successful. It was extremely, so much money. Yeah, $178 million dollars at the box office which is quite a lot for a rom-com especially that was all bradley cooper though that was all the frosty tips baby uh so i'll give it i'll give it no nipples and then one half of chris christopherson's heart oh Aww. Anna, what about you? I'm going to give it a nipple ring. A nipple ring?

Okay. Because, a ring. Because it's shiny, it's nice to look at, but it's completely unnecessary. Just like the movie. Although the movie is not nice to look at. I mean, you know, it was shot nicely. You know, people put effort into it.

But then there are, okay, I just have to get into this. Jennifer Connelly comes in, tries to seduce her husband. He could not be less interested in it. But he's like, I guess. And then they, like, have sex. And then the camera, like, moves over to the door of the closet that Scarlett is in, but not like, why wouldn't you see what she's in the closet and look at her face instead of

just shows the door. And I'm just like, what the, who Scarlett was not available that day, but it has to be. Here's how much I was into the movie i was like that's a nice boosty age jennifer connelly like it was way to show up it's classy it's cute i liked it it also had like those do you remember those straps from the late 2000s that were kind of

like fringy they had they had those like fringy kind of uncomfortable straps but they looked cool i was like oh victoria's secret high school edition i remember these fringy straps what yeah what a journey anna thank you so much for joining us thanks for letting me chat with you guys i had so much fun it's our pleasure tell us about your show and tell us about other places that people can check out your stuff and follow you on social media yeah my show is called the oxy complex it's running streaming virtually um through april 18th you can go to i am a theater.com i am a theater.com to get tickets um it's set on the 500th day of quarantine which i didn't think we

would ever get to but maybe we will um and uh the character viviana is kind of dealing with insomnia and stress and starts having hallucinations which kind of take her back to look at her dating life and um try to heal some core traumas in her life in order to maybe be a better partner in the future. And, you know, it's a dark comedy, so I'm going to make you laugh. You can follow me on Instagram at the underscore Anna La Madrid. And I'm also an acting coach. So if you're an actor and you're looking for community, we created a membership platform called the new triple threat. Cause now actors have to be kind of all about their business,

their craft and their tech. So we have courses to help you set up your self tape studio, auditioning craft. We're going to do like budgeting for actors, you know, all the things that they don't teach you in school, the actual skills that you need to be a working actor. And you can go to thenewtriplethreat.com. So for as little as like 57 bucks a month, you get to access to all this information. That's awesome. Yeah. Cool.

And you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtelcast. You can check out our Patreon at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast, which can check out our Patreon at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast, which gets you two bonus episodes every month, plus the entire back catalog. And it is $5 a month. Love that. Wowie wow. What a treat. Get it. What a treat indeed.

And then our merch is at tpublic.com slash the Bechtelcast. Grab yourself a mask. grab yourself a shirt, other other wares. Live your life. You know, well, we're not gonna stop you. And then yeah, I guess we're just not that into he's just not that into you r.i.p chris christopherson just kidding he lives yay bye k hasn't heard from her sister in seven years i have a proposal for you come up here and document my project all you need to do is record everything like you always do what was that that was live

audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's right here in black and white in print. It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit 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, nicknamed Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus

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