The Bechdel Cast - Hustlers with Siouxsie Q

Episode Date: August 26, 2021

This week, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Siouxsie Q head to a New York strip club to chat about Hustlers!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @SiouxsieQMedia on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELPHere's the article the film is based on, "The Hustlers at Scores" by Jessica Pressler: https://www.thecut.com/2015/12/hustlers-the-real-story-behind-the-movie.htmlHere is the oral history about the movie, “The Hustle Behind Hustlers” by Rachel Handler: https://www.vulture.com/2019/09/hustlers-oral-history.htmlHere are the various resources provide by-- and ways to support-- our amazing guest Siouxsie Q:http://thewhorecast.comillreputepodcast.com www.youramericansweetheart.com www.ilovesqmedia.com@SiouxsieQMedia on Twitter and Instagramhttp://youramericanbabe.comFolks can stay in touch and hear about Siouxsie's latest adventures by shooting her a text at 415-548-9185 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.

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. Hey, Caitlin.

Yeah, Jamie? Thanks for meeting me up on this roof. You look cold. Oh my gosh, I'm so cold. Hey, can I bum a smoke? Yeah, I'm a known smoker, and I'm also wearing a gigantic fur as unethically sourced as a humanly could find. Would you like to get on in?

Yeah, I'm so chilly. Okay, well now that you're here, I have an idea. It's called a podcast and we're going to make a fuckload of money. Are you in i mean famously podcasters make a hundred thousand dollars per weekend yeah so yeah i'm in in 2007 if you were a podcaster the money podcasters were pulling pre-recession it's what they don't want you to know we'll see how we'll see how this goes yeah yeah yeah there's what could possibly happen we'll definitely be speaking in five years

yeah i'm not gonna i'm not gonna betray our trust and take a deal when we both get arrested after having an illegal podcast and i really hope that one of those exists. I don't know what you would need to be doing. I mean, I'm not sure. I feel confident about that intro. Welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante. And this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate a larger conversation. Jamie, what is the Bechdel test though? Oh, okay. So the Bechdel test is a media metric invented by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test, that requires the following. There must be, for our purposes, there's different versions of it. This is our version.

For our purposes, we require that there be two named characters of a marginalized gender that talk to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue and it has to be recent update it has to be a meaningful exchange we can't define what that is but you know it when you hear it uh and fortunately this is not a movie where i think we will uh struggle to find them so we won't need to really split hairs on it this week. No. Because this week we're covering, I think, one of our more popular requests ever. We've been getting a ton of requests for this movie since it came out. Before it came out, maybe even.

Before the trailer dropped, basically. And we were kind of waiting for the perfect guest to come along. And guess what? She's here, baby. It happened. It's the Hustlers episode. And our guest today, she is a writer, performer, and activist. It's Suzy Q. Woo-woo! Hi!

Welcome! Jeez Louise! Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for A, having this podcast, super duper important. And B, like doing this movie, super duper important. And C, having me. Thank you. I'm very humbled.

That's the most important part. We're so excited to have you on the show and to talk about this movie. Same. I have been hearing about this movie and thinking about this movie since long before it was ever even released let alone i actually ever even watched it which was only this week so thank you for giving me the final excuse to like you know i i am of the adult industry i was doing adult work in strip clubs around the same time this movie happened um so i was really reluctant to watch it you know it's like oh yeah you never know yeah so i'm amped so you had only just seen this very recently very recently yeah wow what were your just kind of like initial thoughts so okay i have a

relationship with i feel like every person doing adult entertainment during this time has a relationship with this movie somehow like um so i opened for jackie stripper aka jacqueline francis aka jackie the cute blonde who's jennifer lopez's grabs her boobs which by the way i can't believe jacqueline was not shouting that from the rooftops as soon as it happened until for the rest of her life i'm like why isn't that like the main part of your brand now? I don't understand. Maybe she had to like sign a boob grabbing NDA. Like JLo is the kind of famous that I'm like, there could be an NDA for anything. Oh, for sure. So I knew that Jack was involved in the process of making this film. I did not realize she had as much screen time as she did, which was really freaking cool. It's just in and of itself that movie existing and

what happened to get it made and the fact that real sex workers were involved and real strippers were involved in the making of this movie is important and i was worried that that sort of policy and procedural element of which i am very into all of those things particularly as an activist would somehow not translate to a good movie that I was stoked to watch. I was worried, but it sure did. It sure did to me. Yeah, to me, this felt like the dirty dancing for adult entertainers. It's not a coming of age story. It is that, but it's more than that. It's a love story about love that is so meaningful and so unspeakable that I can't even... Unless we had this movie to talk about and look at, I feel like I would not be able to

communicate the type of relationship between women that the adult industry can create. And that's what this movie is about, I think.'m so glad you liked it yeah jamie what's your relationship with it i've seen this movie a couple of times i was really really excited for it to come out for a lot of reasons i mean because it's the subject matter is not something you get to see addressed in depth much less in like i don't know i mean i remember seeing the trailer for this movie and being like this movie is going to be like heavy but it's going to be a fucking blast too and i really like movies that address class and inequality and in a way that doesn't feel like they're bashing you over the head with it and also in a way that isn't just

like and here are the white guys that made the whoopsie like it's it's so cool to see I don't think I've ever seen a movie about this period of time that focused on first of all women much less uh New York strippers like it's such a it it just ticks every box for me and i was really excited that uh it was written and directed by uh lorraine scafaria too because she's so talented and she's been at it forever and um i'm excited to talk about the production of this movie because she really had to fight to be able to even they wanted martin scorsese to direct this movie like all this shit that i'm just this is the kind of movie where like it's I'm just so happy that it got made and it seems like it got made the way

that the creators and the consultants wanted it to be so I'm stoked it was such a pleasure to re-watch it yeah what about you Caitlin yeah I've seen it a couple times on two i saw it in theaters with my amc a-list thing that is not a sponsor of our show but it might as well be they really should give us free memberships they really should you hear that mr amc anyway Mr. AMC. Anyway. AMC is a girl boss now. It's Ms. AMC. Abigail Mallory Christian is her name. And she's a nightmare. It's a metaphor. So yeah, I saw it in theaters

and then I've rewatched it twice to prep for this episode. And I also can't wait to watch it again. Like this is going to be in my rotation. It's an instant classic. Instant classic. It's so entertaining. It's so watchable.

The soundtrack is just... I woke up with all of those songs in my head this morning. And I loved how of the time it was, even though those are like very recent oldies, soundtrack just i woke up with all of those songs in my head this morning like just and and i loved how um of the time it was even though those are like very recent oldies like the the lord the lord album and just like yeah the front the two back-to-back frankie valley songs by the way frankie valley is like one of the first concerts i saw this like in in real life i freaking love that moment but yeah the soundtrack is lit it's so so good. I feel like it's, I don't know, this movie is doing so much right,

but I feel like it's so hard to make a period piece where it doesn't feel like, it's either kind of unclear when the movie's taking place or it's so clear that it feels condescending where I'm like, I understand what 1994 was but like with this movie it's it's like the recent past but I feel like they do like I felt like the most ham-fisted thing out of everything which I still liked was like panning to like the first season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians like okay I get it but that places us very specifically not only in the place but

also in our understanding of sex work at the time and our understanding of like performance and reality tv and like we didn't have only fans yet we didn't have like this but we did have kardashians and that honestly changed things i i really liked what what the creators of this movie and i'm guessing i guess primarily lorraine scafaria chose to tell us where we are and when it is. I thought it was like just so many cool choices. Yeah, for sure. Oh, all right.

Well, should I dive into the recap and we'll go from there? Ready. Yeah. And Susie, feel free to jump in whenever. Shall. All right. So we open. It's 2007.

We meet Dorothy, a.k.a. Destiny. That's Constance Wu. She is a stripper at a club called Moves in New York City. Ever heard of it? She's new there. We see her on a typical night. She's giving some private dances. She is not making as much money as she had hoped, especially because she has to hand over a lot of her earnings to various men who work at the club.

We see a little bit of her home life. She takes care of her grandmother. One night at the club, Ramona, that is Jennifer Lopez, dancing she's very very good wait wait we have to say what she's dancing to she's dancing to criminal by Fiona Apple it's one of my favorite scenes in the movie it's very exciting also may I say don't ever choose that song as your stage song unless it's like you know 2 p.m on an afternoon in portland and you're like doing your thing and you've got but like that there were the two things about the movie that like were were like cringy to me but not enough to be mad in any way it's just like it's like your mom who's really trying very hard to like accept you as you are and be into your new life like that is the performance that jennifer lopez gives us as ramona right like she is like her the pull trick sequence and like everything she does is technically perfect and like crazy and like not it i'm so curious to hear what because to me

to me no i mean i'm curious i mean it's like yeah the fiona the fiona apple choice i was like this might just be a song that the director likes i love it but and i also really like it so i was stoked oh it's a song that like sex workers like and like at the lusty lady which is where you know where the dancers can control the music and such like absolutely put on that song but like the type of reaction that ramona was getting with like the money going over that right i mean if you can get that kind of reaction with a stage dance to criminal like do it of course but that like it did not ring true to me in the same way that like her pull tricks did not ring true someone's like yes that is how you do that dance move is that how you

extract money out of a human? No, it's not. In my opinion, in my opinion. As someone who has extracted money out of many humans. I was like, you know better than we do. Such moves. And like, I don't do moves that good, but I made money. I will say about like, you know, whether or not criminal is a good choice. I'm sure there will be plenty of strippers that listen are like, fuck you.

I made so much money with that song please go for it but i do think that that moment when we see ramona we see her through justinie's eyes it's that moment when like it the reality of what was actually happening in that moment whether she chose criminal or whether like and that's possibly why it was criminal that's a song that like i would choose for like the girl i like to dance for me and so like we see her through those eyes of like oh man this is the way this is what the fantasy fulfilled right she's like mesmerized by ramona's performance i really love movie moments like that where you just see like I it's just fun to see like women looking at each other and really just being like completely taken in by like another woman's persona or like just like what she can do and I was thinking about it because we this is

like different context mostly but we just did an episode on chicago and you kind of get like a similar moment where it's like i want to be your best friend but i also want to be you like how do you do what you do like you're just can we exist in the same realm without destroying each other like let's try so she is dancing to criminal by fiona. And people are throwing tons of money at her. And Destiny is like idolizing her and her moves. So then we've got that rooftop scene that we alluded to in our amazing introduction to this episode where Destiny goes up to Ramona, asks for some pointers. And then Ramona is like, yeah, I'll show you the ropes and maybe we could even work together. Then we cut to seven years later,

where Destiny is being interviewed by a journalist named Elizabeth, played by Julia Stiles. I always forget that she's in the movie. And every time I see it, I'm like, oh, yeah. Yep. Same. i would say it's like what makes this a dance movie is julia style like sure she's canon nice little throwback she is canon and that like that with like the neon pink and also the fundamentally all of the dancing in the film i'm gonna say this is a dance movie which is like possibly my favorite genre of film the casting of this movie is so i guess it took two years to cast this movie they like really took their time and i feel like it shows i really like the casting choices same and julia styles was like hell bent on being in this movie she's like i don't care what role i'm in, I will do anything to be in this movie. Save the last dance for me.

So this journalist is interviewing Destiny about this kind of former life she has, because when we see her in like 2014 or whenever it is, she's like has a haircut and is like wearing like a more conservative outfit. And she's in like an HGTV living room. Yeah. So she seems to be living like a different lifestyle now. And Elizabeth, the journalist asks about when things got out of control. So then we cut back to 2007. But the movie periodically cuts back to this interview that's happening. So back in 2007, Ramona teaches Destiny some moves. They start dancing together.

They get very strategic about the men they target at the club. They start making a lot more money, mostly from rich Wall Street guys. And then one night from Usher. Okay. Wait. Okay. Stop again. mostly from rich wall street guys and then one night from usher okay wait okay stop again the so that scene is so wild that scene i mean i guess that it's like if you were to think of the most 2007 scenario you could this ursha baby would be it i love that there's no other like she describes it as like that was the last night it was good and that is the like the point it serves within the plot but other than that

no we never see Usher again it's just like sometimes celebrities come into the strip club and spend tons of money and it is an unforgettable night. Yeah. I remember when two years back to back at AVN Lil Wayne performed and then then cardi b performed and like i got to dance on stage with both of them with like all of my porn star friends and i was like and cardi b is a fictional stripper at this club diamond i wonder if that was like her her name do

we know if that was her name when she danced in new york i would assume anyway um yeah i love that the usher sequence is a fever dream that is it's true i'm sure that happened you know yeah totally i uh i just love that i don't know you just never expect to see usher you just don't it it's a thrill every single time and he isn't a lot of he makes cameos in a lot of he makes cameos in a lot of movies sometimes as himself such as hustlers and sometimes as the dj from oh my god which movie is it is it um she's all that she's all that yeah she's all that yeah i was like wait how is that true that is 100 true yeah bless his heart so it's like 20 years apart but still same energy it's he popped back up he's it's so interesting i i wonder because i know that it was jennifer lopez who talked to cardi b and was like you

gotta be in this movie i love this movie i wonder how many music stars were like oh it's a j-lo movie okay fine i well it's also a will ferrell movie right that's you know it's so funny because i always forget that this is like a will ferrell adam mckay like produced joint but then when you know that you're like oh it is like a movie about the recession with like a very particular framework i guess adam mckay's involvement makes sense totally i always have to learn who adam mckay is and then as soon as i do i promptly forget him and everything he's done and then i have to learn it again like six months later so sorry adam but i still don't know who you are he's listening i like his work a lot but he's just like i mean i feel like he's most known as like big short guy that's basically it oh so he like makes movies about the like very

stylized movies about this specific recession so yes yes yes yes he's in love with the recession he's obsessed okay i did like that movie um all right yes so they're making a lot of money destiny and ramona have become very good friends. We learn that Ramona has aspirations to design swimwear. We learn that she has a like tween age daughter who she'll do absolutely anything for. We learn that Destiny decides to go back to school. On the side, she's still working at the club and everything is going great. Her grandma's taken care of. She has her own place. Mm-hmm.

Then the economic crisis of 2008 happens, which obviously significantly affects Wall Street, which in turn significantly affects how Destiny and Ramona and everyone at the club will be able to make money because their clientele is largely Wall Street guys. I guess like technically, if you wanted to, you could pause Hustlers there, watch the entire movie, The Big Short, and then pick it up. And it would kind of almost be an unbroken story. True.

Smart. That's it. That's an entire his debt that if i were a history professor i'd be like i'm just gonna sit in the back today and we're gonna learn about the recession and i'm not gonna say a damn word so destiny stops dancing for a while she has a baby with her boyfriend johnny a few years pass she is struggling financially this whole time. She tries to get a job in retail. She calls former regulars of hers to try to get them to give her money. She's unsuccessful. So she eventually goes back to the club, but isn't able to make

the same kind of money that she was making with Ramona before until she runs into Ramona one night who catches Destiny up on what she's been doing which has mostly been going fishing where she and a couple other dancers at the club Annabelle who's played by Lily Reinhart and Mercedes, played by Kiki Palmer. Kiki Palmer. I love, I have an Adam McKay issue with Lily Reinhart in that every time I see her, I'm like, I've seen this woman before, but who is she? Kiki Palmer, I don't have that problem. I'm a Kiki Palmer stand for life. She's great. And she's so good in this movie. So good.

Awesome. She's great. And she's so good in this movie. So awesome. She's so funny. So these women go to a bar, they find a rich guy, get him drunk, take him to the strip club where he does not realize they work at, knowing that he will spend a lot of money there. And then they have negotiated a percentage of his spending with the club. So this is something they regularly do, although it doesn't always work. So to kind of streamline this process and ensure its success more often, Ramona comes up with a slightly different version of the plan, where they will give the guys that they meet a mix of ketamine and MDMA. It's the most illegal version of the plan.

It's like everything's going well and then we're just going to ramp it up a little bit through poisoning by illegal drugs. Yeah, you picture Ramona walking in and be like, okay, slight tweak and no one panic. I mean, that's what it was like in 2008 like it 100 and also like in 2018 post sesta fosta of just which is a piece of legislation but limited speech about sex on the internet and shuttered a lot of ways for people to uh so i mean like this movie is 100 about what happened to strip clubs after the recession like i I said, after I watched it, I feel like the entire thing can be like summed up in that moment. When she sees this, the house mom working the front at the bar.

And she's like, oh, you're out here again. And the house mom says, yeah, these are all Russian girls. And they're charging $300 for blowjobs in the back. And like that was North Beach in Sanisco when i was dancing in 2009 at the lost sea lady 100 and then like the fallout of what happened like i started doing escorting and porn and like went on to create my own content and what i'm doing now but the fact that women moved from the club outside and had to like ramp up what they would do and what they were willing to do and take legal work and you know start turning it into criminality out of desperation is 100 the story that we were all

living during this time so it's wild to watch it played out by celebrities yeah there's a quote i was going to share at some point seems like now is is a good time from Jacqueline Francis, who consulted on the film and who you opened for, you said, Susie? We love Jack. Santa Jack the Stripper. when I read the story a couple years ago, meaning referring to the article that this movie is based on, when I read the story a couple years ago, I was like, damn, this is an amazing story. And yeah, it's problematic. Surviving under capitalism is problematic for everybody. And it's important to just talk about it, unquote. And I feel like that's a lot of what this movie accomplishes, talking about and showing what it can look like to have to survive under capitalism and the lengths some people in certain professions have to go to in order to survive under capitalism. And, you know, we can talk more about that later. But okay, so Ramona pitches her plan of drugging people without their consent as a way to get the men to spend more money and faster. And Destiny is reluctant to join them. She thinks

people will get hurt, but eventually she agrees. So they start implementing this plan on these rich guys they find at bars they take them to the club they rack up their tab often having them spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in a single night we see them perfect their drug cocktail and like the ratios of the drugs that cook scene is is oh my gosh extra special very special the most wholesome babysitters club version of cooking drugs in your apartment that the world has ever seen it'll warm your heart i know it was i was like oh friendship is amazing wow that's the takeaway from that scene of cooking drugs basically in an easy bake oven like it's not not it's a hot plate but it's not not an easy bake oven you know it's so funny i love it okay so they're perfecting their methods

they also start outsourcing to other women to bring in more clientele and kind of like cast a wider net they're making tons of money and they're working as this kind of big, happy, rich family. Then they realize they're like, wait a minute, why are we splitting our earnings with the club? We could just be taking everything we make. So they start meeting the men in hotel rooms. Without security, because like clearly the security guards at the club were not providing them enough assurance to think that they should hire outside security when going to a motel just just wanted to point that out true yeah and then ramona brings in this woman dawn

to help them out but dawn is very sloppy they end up burning through their regulars which leaves them having to find strangers who are unpredictable one night destiny has to deal with this guy who had jumped off his roof thinking that he would like jump in his pool but he doesn't and he really badly injures himself so she has to take him to the er then like immediately after that has to get her daughter to school. She's got blood all over her. Everyone's looking at her. And Ramona is nowhere to be found while this big fiasco is happening. So, you know, everyone's kind of freaking out. This is also when Destiny's grandmother passes away.

So things are falling apart. Then during one of the interview scenes, Elizabeth, the journalist, brings up Doug. This is someone who they had stolen money from, but he wasn't this like gross Wall Street guy like the other ones. He seemed nice. He was going through a really rough time, but even so, they manipulated and stole from him. So he goes to the police who then start to investigate these goings on. A sting operation gets set up with Dawn, who had like betrayed Ramona and Destiny. Dawn. But they are too smart to get fucking caught.

Yeah. That was one of my favorite parts. It's yes there was a sting and like these girls right here are not new right and like that and that bitch was not only sloppy with clients she was sloppy with cops and a sting so nothing came of it right like but they had a very scary drive home across the bridge so funny in my head i'm like that that was the bay bridge there was no other way that could be any other bridge in my mind that they were driving home over being followed by the by the car but sure not set it's not your life suzy about other people's lives in new york but just like anyway that feeling of like knowing something is up and then

like every car that you see is potentially the one that's going to just stop and destroy your life totally i think that that that sequence in particular is pulled pretty closely from the real story that this was adapted from too where it was like yeah the real life person who was the inspiration for Dorothy was like, also was like, something's not right with this already very messy person tonight. And like tried to tip off the Ramona of the story. And it's,

it's the real life story of this is, is pretty interesting. And also where it deviates is we'll, we'll get there. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so they don't get caught and arrested right then after this sting

operation but they do eventually get arrested uh destiny ramona mercedes and annabelle are all arrested destiny takes a deal to avoid jail time because she doesn't want to be away from her daughter lily and then the movie ends with Destiny calling the journalist and her being like, what did Ramona say about me? And Elizabeth is just like, you know, why don't you just give her a call? It sounds like you really want to reconnect with her. And then I think the final thing is ramona who now works at old navy talking to elizabeth saying like the entire world is a strip club and some of us are tossing the money

and some of us are doing the dance i was like oh okay we're gonna end the movie on the moral got it i kind of i kind of like that move when it's like and in case you weren't paying attention here is the thesis statement if these shadows have offended just a full-on i but again like not mad about it at all it's so perfectly executed it's like nobody's mad when like dominique guicciano sticks a landing like it's just good. We just all cheer. There's nothing to be mad about. There's nothing to be mad about. Let's take a quick break and then

we'll come right back to discuss. 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. Only Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh, my God. I would love it.

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

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

Yee, must flock your hollum Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions.

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

and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it? Like you miss 100 percent of the shots you never take? Yeah. Rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Where do we want to start?

I don't know. I mean, Susie, you were talking about this at the top of the episode as well. I was curious to know what, yeah, what elements of this movie stuck out to you as particularly authentic? Was there anything that like didn't hit or felt kind of off um oh gosh it hit on so many levels and i think more than anything i was just so ecstatic to be seeing a story about adult entertainment and adult industry workers that was not necessarily something i'd seen before and it was a story story. I mean, I had lived it 100%. So it was like, very exciting to see things that felt so true. And like my partner and I were sitting, my partner's

been in the industry as long as I have, he's never been a stripper, but he's been around a lot of us. And we're just like clutching each other because, you know, the mistakes that we're seeing these like you know new girls make and the the toxic uh femme for femme kinetic energy that like can trauma bond to people and like the the desperation of the the world of economics i mean like 2007 was when i shot my first porn scene in eugene oregon it was a great time for me too. And I very, and by 2009, I was dancing on Broadway in San Francisco and entering the adult industry at the height of the recession was a threat. You know, it's, um, you really had to believe because the wisdom of the time was that there's, there's no money in this. Everything's doom and gloom. And, and uh it was a

very no one was sure what was going to happen you know the way that people had made money in the strip club was changing the things that people were doing in the strip clubs were changing the way that people made money online was rapidly changing and the way that adult industry workers made made money from people who made money online so really really exciting and then it was so obvious that sex workers had been a part of creating this movie because of some of the like symbols like that i was i was telling you earlier about the fur coat um component like you at the top of the show you guys were acting out the little the scene where destiny goes up on the roof and uh ramona is there smoking a cigarette in her massive floor-length fur coat and when she like climbs inside that i was like oh no it's over

it's over and i like i remember one night i went to work this was it was not in a strip club um but something close um and i met a girl. I was like, I didn't really want to go to work that night. Like I had a couple of drinks and I got there and it's just like, like not really feeling it. And then I met this girl and she was like, you look so pretty. You should put,

and she had this like fur, it wasn't real fur, but she had this like fur shawl thing on. She's like, you should wear this tonight. And I was like, it was over. It was over.

I made no money that night. Not no money, but I like, but like, you know, someone was like trying to talk to me and I was like it was over it was over I made no money that night not no money but I like but like you know someone was like trying to talk to me I'm like yeah I know what you I was just enamored of this girl and like I mean granted I'm gay but like I've seen that happen to straight girls in the industry because it's like it's that mother wound you know that like and so many of us have it because of the schism in feminism around the sex industry. I was just watching, highly recommend, Live New Girls Unite, which is a documentary about the lusty lady. Peep Show, which unionized in the late 90s. And then the workers bought the Peep Show from the people who owned it and had been, you know, such bad business owners that they had to unionize. They eventually bought the peep show from the people who owned it and had been you know such bad business owners

that they had to unionize so they eventually bought the place it's now defunct it it closed in 2013 but that is where i got my first strip club job was this unionized worker-owned peep show in 2008 it was really struggling during the recession i mean like when they talked about going fishing i mean we had our own version of, but it did not involve drugging anyone. We would just like put on cute outfits and go down to the ballgame, Giant Stadium, because that's when the Giants were having their like resurgence of success. And they've been to the World Series twice. And so their success was tied to our success. And so like on game nights, we would go down and pass out flyers at the game like, hey, it's just a short walk up the beach, a dollar, you can see all the naked chicks that you

like. And, you know, we were doing everything that we could to stay afloat during a really rough time. But that fur coat is such a just like symbol of opulence and wealth and like old money um lily barana who wrote strip city um an incredible book about when the o'farrell brothers theater uh the workers there sued the theater um about their independent contractor employee status so if you like this type of movie like two recommendations um live new girls unite which is such a like rinky-dink riot girl 1990s mixtape of the documentary it's so good if you if you like it if you like a zine you'll love this and then um

strip city which is a book by lily barana who occasionally contributes to the atlantic new york times and stuff she's amazing but the sequence in that book about the first time she could afford a fur coat, and it's like an extravagant expense, but like a 90s girl in San Francisco probably doesn't really even need, right? But a stripper in New York certainly does. But it's such a symbol. And then again, in the film Hustlers, when Ramona gives Destiny a fur coat for Christmas along with red bottom Louboutins for Kiki. These are symbols that are deeply meaningful to our community. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. It's so stupid. In the same way that a glass slipper or a magic lamp or these things hold meaning beyond what they are beyond the money that

they cost right um and so that i have a song that i wrote a long time ago like when i first had my like my first heartbreak the first other sex worker that broke my heart um i wrote a song called romance about this very feeling even if you're not into girls like if you enter the the adult industry the likelihood that you will fall head over heels in this like deep romantic way romantic way um with someone the likelihood that she will become your pimp and exploit you in some type of way it's very high but and like the moral of the story is that like this love is different and it's unlike anything else and it will probably destroy you and once you love in that way like when you violate the terms of that love and you violate that deep trust that like when you have to have someone's back because like everybody out in the

world wants to get you including the cops including the manager of the place you work including the man that you're taking money from the only person that has your back is that other girl in the room. And if you turn around and you exploit her, or if you turn around and you rat on her to the cops and you betray her, you'll never get that back. And it's the most sacred thing in the world. That's beautiful. Is that song still available?

Yeah, check it out. I can send you the link. Yes, send us the link. I would love to share it with our listeners. Absolutely. Oh my God, that was like so beautifully put. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity to talk about it. I'm just so glad that there's a movie about it. Like, yes, we needed this we needed this yeah and like you've said this is so much of what this movie is about this like female friendship and camaraderie there's a line of voiceover from destiny where she says like ramona wasn't looking for friends but it happened yeah this movie is i mean it's mostly about women looking out for each other helping

each other out lifting each other up knowing what circumstances they are in because she's also in the same boat kind of thing and just supporting each other and while there is conflict between the characters at different points in the movie like they don't agree on everything they take different approaches to things you know ramona has this tendency to kind of take in strays as as destiny puts it with like dawn and this woman coco keeps showing up but the conflict that does exist between them from time to time like it always makes sense there's the context for it and it's just beautiful to watch that unfold especially because and i want to pull a quote from the article that this movie was based on which is entitled the hustlers at Scores by Jessica Pressler, originally published in 2015 in The New Yorker. Quote, while evolutionary theory and The Bachelor would suggest that a room full of women hoping to

attract the attention of a few men would be cutthroat competitive, it's actually better for strippers to work together because while most men might be able to keep their wits and their wallets around one scantily clad sweet smelling sylph they tend to lose their grip around three or four end quote so and i feel like this is actually something we talked about on the moulin rouge episode which was from like a million years ago. But there's this really antagonistic relationship between Satine and one of the other courtesans in that movie and how oftentimes relationships between sex workers are portrayed that way in movies where there's the idea that they are competing for the attention of one man. So they have to be very cutthroat and

antagonistic toward each other. But how that is often not the case in real life among real sex workers. Yeah, interested if you have any, like additional insight about that, Susie? Absolutely. I mean, like, I, I mean, I shot porn on, you know, in college back in 2007, but I consider my first real job in the adult industry at the Lusty Lady, which is where workers literally banded together to unionize, fight for their rights, get represented by SEIU Local 790, and eventually buy the place. And if that isn't proof, it's empirical evidence of what's possible when sex workers band together and like a huge part of i remember my very first day walking out on to the stage which was like a little fish tank you know because a peep show is not a strip club it's like an enclosed stage with little tiny windows if you watch the madonna open your heart video or uh real New Girls Unite,

you'll get to see what it's like. But, you know, it's surrounded by mirrors and just this idea that like, if the window went up and the guy looked at me and I wasn't what he wanted, the idea that the girl that he wanted next to me was maybe what he wanted. And at the end of the day,

because we all had collective ownership of the business, it didn't matter. I was like, oh, you want to, you want to, I wasn't blonde at the time. You want a blonde? Absolutely. Let me eat princess real quick. She's so nice. And that feeling was always a part of that workplace. And I wish that we saw more of that in the adult industry. But I think, I think we are. I think that the way that the workers now can own the means of that in the adult industry. But I think we are. I think that the way that the workers now can own the means of production in terms of like creating content online, we see that there is a customer for every person, you know, and while white supremacy still exists, ableism still exists, classism, sizism still exists, the ability for us to find our niche and find the people who respond to

that niche is there absolutely and it always has been it's just been like oppressed by management and um you know other forces that be totally i i really appreciated and thought it was just immediately in establishing this dynamic between ramona and Destiny of how immediately like Ramona does not gatekeep any information she doesn't gatekeep I mean and and it sounds like not only because she seems to really get a lot out of taking younger strippers in under her wing but also because it's like she wouldn't benefit from gatekeeping information in that scenario anyways and and establishing that really smoothly and simply at the beginning i thought was just so cool because i think for like you were saying

caitlin a lot of movies about strippers and also just about you know how it's perceived that women fundamentally interact with each other is like inherently competitive when that is most often not the case we talk about this all the time even dance movies right if we think of this as a dance movie there's always that part of the movie of just like oh you think that you're this well you're not sister let me tell you but like we don't we don't get that moment until she comes back at the very end and it's even it's not that it's just that the whole place has changed it's not that these women are hazing her in a particular way she's just not part of it anymore yeah there's only one tiny moment that i clocked where there felt like there was a little bit of competitiveness where destiny is trying to get a guy early on in the movie to buy a private dance

and cardi b is like back off bitch well but that's kind of that only quick moment and then later like a few scenes later cardi b is helping destiny and like showing her how to give a lap dance hey that's just learning that's just your training wheels i remember my again my very first moment stepping onto the stage i was like oh, oh, a window came up. I'll go. I'll go talk to that window. And this girl being like, hey, just so you know. So like these are my windows.

This is my dance space. That is your dance space. Like you have to learn those those ins and outs of the clubs because you can't fuck with somebody else's money if they're in the middle of a sale. Just if you were a hot tub salesman and like somebody came up and you're talking to a nice family at the fair they're gonna buy a great hot tub and this other guy comes in he's like you know what let me show you this hot tub fuck that guy you know like right it's the same same thing i wanted i wanted to talk a little more about the i mean it's the the ramona destiny friendship and dynamic and i mean it's it becomes so many

things it becomes a friendship it becomes this like really intense almost romantic emotional connection they become business partners for a good portion of the movie and it's just it's so complicated in a way that i you i feel like almost never see between characters in a movie of, of any kind of, of like you were saying, Caitlin, they're, they're in conflict or they're,

they're disagreeing with each other. They're not necessarily in conflict, but they disagree with each other on almost everything. And their approaches to the world and to money and to work are fundamentally different. But they are still able to, I don't know, like exist in so many different ways to each other. And I thought it was really interesting that the writing of the movie, I like that you're kind of given that opening at the end of like, maybe they will reconcile and maybe this will be, you know, are based on these characters are based on we're still very much on the outs which is like makes me sad it does seem like by the end it's like well what no it's totally fair but it's totally fucking fair she ratted her out to the cops and she like pimp handed her you don't

get to come back from that you don't get to kiss and be like i'm sorry those are those are deep transgressions that you don't heal from yeah it's it's such a complicated like it's i don't know and it's like beautifully acted and written and shot and especially because they both have children you know what i mean it's just like if it was just them and they were still single girls but no no, like when you when you establish that somebody that you once saw as safe is actually not safe. Like you hope that you hope the best for them. And you are a mother and you cannot let that person in your life because you will lose your child or you will have or you or yourself or that child. You will be in an exploitative situation.

That risk. Nope. So, like, I completely understand. It's sad but right and that scene with uh ramona and destiny as well when when ramona learns that destiny has taken the plea deal and she's you know not aligning at any point at this point and ramona is furious i mean it's like it's such a hard she holds her close ultimately she knows why destiny made that decision even if it's the last worst possible thing for her i don't know that scene was just like so good but like terrible yeah yeah good

but terrible yeah and like this the the scene that i think parallels that because that was like the breaking point for ramona but the breaking point for destiny happened months before when ramona like hit her basically tried to get the phone away from her and like for good cause like Destiny was about to fuck it up and like essentially did but um that was that was the pimp hand coming out and like once that comes out that girl's not your friend anymore yeah the justification that Destiny uses when she's like this is why i took the plea deal was she's like quoting what ramona had said earlier but she said you know motherhood is a mental illness i'm doing this for my daughter i'm curious what everyone thinks about that just kind of as a bit of a

through line in the movie and i don't know if i don't sometimes i forgot that destin even had a daughter because she comes up so sparingly in the movie so i would have i almost would have liked to see her relationship with her daughter a little more because when she says that i'm like oh right you have a daughter. bit and we it's I mean I don't know I mean I I guess that that didn't really stick out to me too it made sense to me story-wise that that was the decision that Destiny made not just logistically but because of what we know about her and because of her personal history that's where it made the most sense to me where like she was struggling as a single mother and we know that throughout the story but we also know that she was struggling

with how she was abandoned by her own mother. And it sounds like she would do almost anything to prevent that from happening to her daughter, even if it screws someone else over. Right. Or that was how I was interpreting that. Absolutely. Yeah. Totally. Let's take another quick break, and then we will come right back. 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. Hey everybody, this is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right?

Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you.

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

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

Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes.

Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career

without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. I would love to talk a little bit more about um police and how police are portrayed in this movie and like yeah the the interaction of um the industry and the cops um you know i've never really done sex work in new york let alone danced um there so i'm not like as familiar with with the nuances of that relationship between like strippers and cops and strip clubs and cops as we saw in the film

like we know that police frequent these places and like i think one of the most like biting moments of the film is when uh the reporter i guess it's pov julia styles at this point is talking to the cops that like put together the investigation that eventually took these women down and like the takeaway for them was like yeah really spooked some of the guys we stopped going to the clubs all together like that's what he wanted her to know yeah oh okay cool sir that was on the record right so um but just in general i think that it's important to we we hear Jennifer Lopez's character say like, well, what are these guys going to do?

Are they going to call the cops and say, please, officer, help me. I spent $5,000 at the strip club last night. The inverse of that, though, is what are they going to do? They can't call the cops. Oh, please help me, officer. This guy that we gave ketamine and MDMA to is now, you know, if he wasn't like, what if we know that ketamine and MDMA have different effects on different people? You know, like the likelihood that a person could have gotten violent or had a weapon or sexually assaulted one of those girls in one of those hotel rooms is just so high and then what is the police recourse there right um is the question that we don't get into in this film because it is like even though it's 18 and up somebody says something about like that ends the the pg-13 component but it is a pg-13 stripper movie like even though it's very like

there's full nudity, there's something... It doesn't... Even their sentences, right? I don't know how true to life these are, but it was satisfying that at the end of this movie about the industry that usually ends with protagonists who work in this industry being punished, like severely punished within the world of the film,

either through death, dismemberment, or lifelong stigma or heartbreak, right? It's usually what we see. And these, these women all were able to serve their time and move on. At least that's what the film that was wants us to believe. As far as I know, that was also true of, of the real life story that the sentences that were like put on screen at the end were reflective of what actually happened cool so you know it's uh rare in that uh you know somebody can get out of a police encounter alive especially if they're a woman of color and a sex worker so um i think that those arrest sequences were handled really well by the filmmakers because in a time right now like i don't want to see kiki palmer near a cop right

and like that sequence was like just brief enough that like didn't i don't know perhaps it was traumatizing for a lot of viewers um but they it was very cinematic it was very like the end of the heist with all the cops like waiting at the line for you know like where i'm sure the reality was a lot uglier you know right yeah i do appreciate that the movie doesn't dwell on those moments or like you know make too much of a meal on it because we're not on even though these women are you know engaging in some very morally questionable behavior we're still rooting for them like we're not rooting for the cops in this story so so many movies ask you to do every single one i feel like i feel like i growing up is realizing that like every person

you've like liked in a movie is actually a cop i this happens to me all the time like oh my gosh wow um silence of the lambs oh wait she's a cop yeah yeah agent oh my god speed oh wait he's a cop everybody's a fucking cop yeah um okay here really quick i have been trying to get this movement this going for like years and years nobody wants it nobody asked for it but i'm gonna i'm gonna so like go for it shoot your shot i had the privilege of like getting a little taste of like the time's up moment i definitely got to spend like valentine's day 2017 or 18 with like lisa witherspoon and laverne cox and like on the warner brothers lot like the the toppled people started to get together and talk about 50 50 by 2020 and it was all like very exciting and

yada yada and like you know it's some things have happened but we all know where we are but yeah what i would like to see for times up to move forward like the next step in times up is times up cops hollywood has to stop doing this hollywood has to stop glorifying police and the bucked up work that they do like obviously we have to stop seeing i think it was really exemplified in uh the central park five uh series on netflix when we saw that this like the way that prosecutors and police and investigators abuse children and you know other suspects that they have in custody and the way that that has been glorified through like 1990s drama and like svu and law and order and all of this glorification of literal police

misconduct and violence and hollywood needs to be responsible for that and like put together a resolution to fucking stop it just stop it we don't need to see any more stories about quote-unquote good cops or bad cops who turn good or good cop or bad or just bad cops we don't need any more stories about cops right like except Wellington Paranormal and that's fine oh my god yes i love that show but yeah i'm fully on board with your movement i what can we do to help just hashtag times up cops like anytime you are having a moment where you're just like oh my god i thought that i could watch twin peaks but actually it is just a story about an fbi agent it's more copaganda yeah like it's just copaganda. Fucking Paw Patrol.

Like you're indoctrinated at such a young age. Oh my gosh. To cop media. But it's like, it's the fact that Paw Patrol exists and is wildly popular is, and this maybe sounds over, but I think that that's really disturbing that that is like something that exists.

And I totally, yeah, that's really disturbing that that is like something that exists and I totally yeah I totally agree with you that there should be in the same way that the time's up movement which it sounds like we all have some criticisms of uh perhaps uh but though yeah like is it but the way that there was at least some push to be like here is like a tangible like result that we want and not just like we don't like this and you should stop because I feel like that almost never yields something it's like like this is exactly what we want we want to see yeah cop media like decreased by like 75 percent by 2027 and like have that like a tangible result because otherwise it feels like i mean

this was so recently like copaganda was understandably so recently a huge discussion and in terms of the media discussion at least of how it appeared how cops appear in media i feel like that discussion did not last for very long and didn't, I mean, definitely didn't really move the dial very much. And I think it's a key part of how we move forward with imagining a world beyond police. We have to first imagine it and make movies about it. Yeah. That is key. It's just, it's not the only thing, but it's something that we as content creators slash like media like media coal miners. Can do.

To just you know call it out. Call it out in your favorite movies. I mean like if you're listening to this. I'm sure you have a social media account. Like next time you get mad. When you're watching SVU. And you're like you know what. Actually Detective Olivia Benson. You may be Jane Mansfield's daughter.

But like no. You can't treat that suspect that way. You have to actually let them see a lawyer. Frances McDormand in Fargo. Right. You can't you can't treat that suspect that way. You have to actually let them see a lawyer like Francis McDormand in Fargo. Done. Oh, God, I know. And it would be it would be nice to see more popular actors like as actors, you know what I mean? But this is something I am constantly cognizant of as like a performer. If someone asks me to play a role like that, I try to avoid it or like switch it. And this is not always true outside of the adult entertainment industry. It's like, excuse me, I have some feedback about my role. It doesn't really fit with my ethics. It's not things that generally actors can do. But in the adult industry, we are blessed and bratty. Blessed and bratty is a great way to be. cops were portrayed in this film like in terms of just like how egregious it usually is within the context of this film like it was okay like nobody was glorified but the the tension and like the real sort of risk and stakes and like how rough it is between sex workers sex workers of color specifically and police was i think absent was markedly absent in this film

yeah that is something that I feel like there was room to explore in this movie especially because several of the main characters are women of color but yes the way that cops have been historically represented in movies as heroes and amazing like just the best people in the world. And they're awesome. And they save the day all the time. Versus how sex workers have historically been represented in film and club for absolutely no narrative reason, usually just as an excuse to have naked women be set dressing in the movie. We never learn anything about them. They're just objectified and dehumanized because of the way they are just bodies that we don't know anything about. Versus this movie and a small handful of others and only in pretty recent years that take care to show the interior lives of women who do, or people of any gender who do adult entertainment. And we obviously learn tons of information about the interior lives of Destiny and Ramona. We learn some details about more secondary characters like Mercedes and Annabelle.

And then we even get a peek into the lives of several tertiary characters for example there's a scene pretty early on where they're going around like the dressing room and like cardi b and lizzo and a couple other women are like talking about their sex lives and their like romantic lives and personal lives there like i remember the first day i walked i walked into audition actually it's not my first day um i was you know seeing if i was allowed to dance naked and it was very dorky but i remember seeing this girl in the dressing room her name was dolores park just screaming in these like eight inch heels screaming on the phone to her boyfriend just like i had never seen a woman just like let her boyfriend have it so hard before and this was just like normal but that first sequence like we felt so

very familiar of just like women usually nude just like with their genitalia out being their full selves we don't get to see that very often and it's that that strip club dressing room space sacred as fuck sacred yeah and it's like met with all support and like love and energy and those scenes are so so wonderful and i also wanted to shout out how cinematography is handled in this movie too where uh there is a a uh there there's it's almost it's interesting because it's uh written and directed by Lorraine Scafaria it's edited by a female editor Kayla Emter there is a male cinematographer but I think that the way that cinematography is handled it's like so I mean whatever I mean it's all these scenes in strip clubs that are focusing on the strippers faces and a lot of a lot of scenes what Ramona is doing is controlling the camera entirely and then as the

power dynamic shifts then it's destiny starts to take control of the camera at certain moments but it's so it's still sexy when it needs to be sexy but it's not i don't know i didn't find the camera work to be creepy or leering or i mean because it was you were usually seeing things through one of these women's eyes and if what they were seeing was sexy and they thought what they were seeing was sexy it was sexy but it wasn't like and then you also get kind of the reverse of this which i always enjoy seeing in a movie where it cuts over to like you know the the patrons like goofy faces while they're while they're like looking at beautiful women dancing like i i just i really thought that was like a cool element of this movie and it's something that is so often i don't know i think

we take it for granted when it's well done because when it's poorly done it's so obvious yeah that's the thing like and we talk about women being objectified and being like the objects of the male gaze all the time in so many movies and it's not as though we have a problem with women being sexy on screen and being sexual on screen, like that's not where we take issue. It's all about like it has to be on her terms, like how she is presented and and how she is framed by the camera. And like, again, yeah. Whose point of view are you seeing? There have been leering shots in movies that you don't love that but it's like it just needs to make sense in the story because i feel like that's a huge michael bay thing when even with and like of course that's like the most

extreme example but like on the page like on the page a lot of michael bay characters are not inherently sexual it's just the fact that the camera is just like, for no narrative reason, just like making a complete meal of them, that they become so sexualized. And it's like, it's, it's in no way motivated by the story is just like, well, that's just what he wanted to do. Well, teenage boys are the target audience for this for transformers so uh we have to show megan fox's ass i'll never forget um doing i do a lot of media advocacy and like um you know i'll talk to the press um because because i know how to do offensively but it was i think 2012 or 2013 when my redbook.com was taken out by the fbi which is like like a advertising website that I actually used when I was a stripper working at the Lusty Lady because there was like an exotic dance section.

There was a section where we could like exchange information about dates and things like that. So I talked to the news in my little like red blazer and pencil skirt and my little advocacy outfit on. And I ended up like meeting them in like a parking lot somewhere, like Chevy's parking lot in Oakland or something. And I gave the interview and I ended up like meeting them in like a parking lot somewhere like Chevy's parking lot in Oakland or something and I gave the interview and I hit my talking points I talked all about you know like the risks to the industry and blah blah blah and when I saw the sequence that came out that evening on the evening news they literally started at my high heels and pants and used a whole shot of just my feet on the news and then like panned up my entire body as i was like talking about the fbi taking down a resource that helps keep sex workers alive on the fucking news so like it's not just michael bay it's not just michael bay it's like

it's the news the fucking news that's ridiculous it's ridiculous and i think that when i'm looking back on the movie hustlers and like thinking about like objectification or like you know That's ridiculous. male gaze and like using my body as a tool to survive under capitalism by exploiting the male gaze and also being gay and wanting to attract women who are also doing this dance something happens to your aesthetic and like people can't see me right now but like I am a cartoon character like through and through and I think that there is just a piece of alchemy that happens when you are because you're getting dressed at the strip club to make money that night. But you're also making sure that you like look good to your peers and co-workers. And maybe that girl you're going to get a donut with after work, you know, and if you've ever been in like femme lesbian circles or femme for femme spaces, the way that we dress to attract each other,

like goes, it goes into drag, right? It goes beyond like the, the, the male gaze, like the male gaze left long ago, honey.

I'm so sorry. That's not what these like glitter eyelashes are for. They're not for the man in the room. Okay. And that's very much what this film felt like for me of just like yes we're all i'm here at the strip club and i'm gonna make money because this outfit is hot but i'm looking at you ma'am and i'm wondering what you're doing later is what that film feels like cinematically like cinematography was yeah that is it it does feel it's pretty i'm like i don't

understand cinematography like technically at all but i'm like, I don't understand cinematography, like, technically at all. But I'm like, they fucking pulled it off. It only makes you feel the story beats stronger. My partner is a cinematographer slash, like, director of photography and, like, loves, I mean, you can see, we've got, like, these weird little, like, colored lights all over. So I've started to understand it more. Not unlike the lighting in hustlers lots of like pinks and purples which is very hot um i wanted to share another quote from

jacqueline francis that's from the oral history of this movie who it was talking about being in the strip club that they used as like the set of this movie so being on set Jacqueline says quote it was like a utopian strip club from days gone by I felt so respected for my opinion and my expertise coming from my background where sex work is stigmatized and considered not real work and that we are disposable and that violence against us is acceptable. It's really important to have compassionate and authentic representation of sex workers in mainstream media and the only way that's going to be achieved is by hiring sex workers to play the parts and to consult on these films. People are constantly shitting on me all the time about strippers being dumb bitches. It's So that's just, I mean, one of many things I deeply appreciate about this movie, which is that strippers were consulted and paid paid and just had voices in terms of how

strippers were represented in the in the movie and because yeah like she said how this is the thesis of our show how people are represented affects kind of public opinion and cultural perceptions of any particular group so so why on earth would strippers not have a say in how in in shaping their own cultural persona like yeah right it's so silly yeah Jacqueline Francis's quote like every single quote I came across that she'd ever said, I was like, she's a genius. She's so great. Like, she's so articulate. Like, just like the, I don't know, anytime someone can like, get a thought into two sentences. I little like words and the the the truths you know paired with these like adorable little like cartoons watercolors it's remarkable she's one of the greatest artists of our time and i really liked how and i'm curious what everyone thinks of how the um journalist is used to challenge assumptions made about strippers as well.

Because I feel like using that device, I mean, not only is it reflective of the fact that it was, you know, a journalist from a somewhat privileged background who wrote this story for New York Magazine originally, but even on top of that, I really liked that exchange between Destiny slash Dorothy and Elizabeth when Elizabeth is doing the journalism thing where she's like well what about the crime and that's you know clearly what she has been sent to do and we I mean you barely notice as an audience member because it's so awesome but like you've been focused on the relationship and the and the moment, the cultural moment for for most of the movie. And she's like, OK, but what about crime? And Destiny pushes back on this right away and is like, well, I don't want to be some a part of some larger narrative that like I'm not quoting her exactly here but i don't want to be a part of some larger stigma enforcing narrative that frames strippers as criminals wholesale so if that's what

you're trying to do i want no part in this and even goes further to challenge elizabeth on what her background is and like can you really empathize with me with, you know, it's and I think does something really, really smart that, you know, maybe a lesser journalist would have been scared and quit the story. And she was just like, you know, I'm not going to be a part of a toxic narrative that, of course, she would be well aware of. And I feel like it's almost that was almost like a clever writing way of talking to the audience too right yeah I just thought that that was like a a really cool moment yeah part of that is also I don't know if it's that same scene or not but she asks Elizabeth you know like yeah did you grow up with money and she's like yeah i'm we were comfortable my dad like is exactly what rich people say when people say comfortable i'm like that shouldn't be

allowed anymore yeah that's your way of downplaying the fact that you grew up in an upper middle class or like upper class family so cool but anyway that's that's i actually just watched crazy rich asians and that's the the thing thing when he says we're comfortable. She's like, that's exactly what really rich people say. Wow. Constance Wu movies are full of this interaction. Wild. But then Destiny challenges Elizabeth a little further and says, well, what would you do for $1,000? Because, of course, the answer is going to depend on what you already have and what you need because up until this point there's been this kind of like

probably as objective as elizabeth can like make herself seem but she's still like passing some judgment in terms of like you were drugging these people and she's like why are you fixated on that yeah we were doing that but also these guys were mainlining coke every day on their way to work so like but it just brings up this class conversation of a large part of destiny's motivation is that she wants to be completely independent she doesn't want to have to rely on anyone else financially she says this multiple times in the movie. And for someone who grew up in what was clearly a pretty financially unstable situation, her grandmother seems to be the sole provider for her. She was in debt. Her parents left her when she was young. She's coming from a low socioeconomic background and motivated by trying to get out of the cycle of poverty and wanting to be independent. And yeah, it goes back to that other quote from Jacqueline about surviving under capitalism and how like that's just kind of inherently problematic.

And it kind of like doubles as a commentary on how media is trained to view strippers and sex workers as well because of how it's like, I mean, and Elizabeth kind of tries to do this again where, I don't know, I mean, this is just how I interpreted her behavior in this scene but later on like I keep wanting to just call her Julia Stiles but like Julia Stiles like leans in to Destiny and is like well you know I know I'm supposed to feel bad for the guys that this happened to but I really don't and I kind of viewed that from a journalistic perspective. I was like, oh, is she trying to kind of lead her to say something? And, you know, I don't, I mean,

I saw her apartment. I don't think she really felt that way. Whatever. I, canon, I don't know. But all that to say, then Destiny doesn't take the bait and is like, oh, that's interesting interesting because there were times where i felt not good about this situation at all and again it's like this supposedly objective source making an assumption about how the person they're interviewing would feel based on this preconceived notion they have and like yeah yeah those scenes are wild i really appreciated the including that that is a device just because I think it is a really important part of the coming of age sex worker story that we're sort of approaching in this in this movie. Like, yes, you will meet a girl who will like consume you and possibly destroy you. She may exploit you. And if you turn her into the cops, you will never get her back.

And be careful when you talk to the media babes they will make you know like they are not your friend they are not trying to help you in any way they they are part of that strip club you know are they doing the dance because they're definitely not throwing money so be mindful be mindful oh i like that part yeah should we talk a little bit about the production yes uh so we referenced this a little earlier and i know i mean there's a million quotes from the oral history that support this as well but i was uh i i didn't know much about the production of this movie even though i'd seen it a couple of times and lorraine scafaria prior to this movie was she directed stuff but she was i think better known as a writer she had written this script and then it's just it's so typical but it's like

three years ago so it's double annoying i I was like, oh, great. This was happening in 2018. Amazing. Post times the time that it was up. Anyways. So Lorraine Scafaria basically was like really lobbying. Like, I want to direct this movie. And I believe like three or four big name male directors had to pass on making the movie before they would even consider her and on top of that this movie was originally with like the Annapurna production company which

they've made a bunch of famous movies I can't think of any of them right now but they're whatever they exist and oh this is a quote from Elaine Goldsmith Thomas, who's one of the producers. And but she says of Anna Perna, who eventually pulled out from this movie, she says, quote, the male studio executives were a little uncomfortable. Everybody could see the commercial value of this movie, but they were like, can they just drug the bad guys? Can they just do that to people that deserve it? And so it just at almost every that's why i'm like so happy that

this movie does exist and was directed not only by a woman but by a woman who wanted to consult strippers and consult people who could make the story authentic in the way that it needed to be because it sounds like the production originally had no intention of doing that they're like um we're just gonna let martin scorsese walk around and kind of just guess his way through this and it's like thank god so glad no one had to see that movie he would have done what he did to margot robbie in wolf of Wall Street. It would have been quite the thing to behold. The Scorsese cut, I have no desire to see. Ever. Not once.

No, thanks. But yeah, Jessica Elbaum, who is the founder of Gloria Sanchez Productions, who had originally bought the rights for the article to make it into the film, had been the one to go out to Martin Scorsese and then Adam McKay was another possible contender to be the director but then Lorraine Scarfaria was like no look I can do this I made this awesome sizzle reel and they're like oh wow this is a great reel okay fine you can direct the movie which which is like so i would be less annoyed by that if she

were like an inexperienced director like a sizzle reel makes more sense when you're not already a well-respected director she shouldn't have had to do that to like prove she could direct her own script oh it stories like that make me so annoyed and curious why did you pull my does anyone have anything else they want to discuss um i wanted to note that i love love love cannot say how much i love that we don't know anything basically or care about any of the boyfriends in this story when you said his name was johnny i was like was that his name that i believe was his name but the fact that we barely know is telling john is johnny a name johnny's not a name johnny's just a like a young john right there's john's there's johnny's and there's jonathan's that's the name of the guy from the room yes johnny exactly it's not a name it's not a name it's a johnny johnny is a

good shorthand for like random young man johnny here yeah no but i i love that because i think so often when people talk about stories that like humanize sex workers they're like yeah what's it like when she goes home to her boyfriend fucking cares he's a douchebag just like all the other men in her life like sorry no my my boyfriend for the record is fucking but i i hate seeing that it's just like such a boring like oh you the fact that destiny has a child and like we see this moment that we just sort of like get sucked into like the 2008 crash happens destiny gets pregnant suddenly there's this dude next to her i was like oh god are we about to see this movie i don't want to see this but we weren't thank god we do not thank god i think the only

boyfriend of any who who is like i mean i guess not extremely narratively relevant, but that is one of Kiki Palmer's motivations is to get her boyfriend who is in jail for I don't know if they tell you what it's for. But that that's the only boyfriend that I think comes up multiple times that she's trying to get her boyfriend legal assistance. Right. And does and and she's successful right but yeah that's treated as more just like that's not even a subplot that's just like a few that's her why you're in there yeah yeah it's like you know it's like kiki wants a brain she wants a heart yeah yeah and i like that everyone does even though it's like what i mean for for kiki palmer's character and oh my god lily reinhardt's character definitely definitely know who she is uh but they each have a scene that explains their why and that's all that's all comes from the source material

as well really that's good so i liked that speaking of that lily reinhardt character i um so from 20 i moved to la in 2016 late 2015 I started taking rep around that time which is pre-exposure prophylaxis um which is like a daily pill you take that prevents acquiring the HIV virus like birth control for HIV um it was really hard on my stomach so for those like two years like 2016 to 2018 not only did I like live in a tiny apartment with my cat i was also the puking girl that just gone the the moment when they like pulled up next to the cop and it's like everybody played cool everybody played cool and then they finally pull away and she just barfs in front like i've done that like that was puking so relatable this like movie season was big for puking legend this like movie season was big for puking girls because it was like

Lily Reinhart in this movie Ana de Armas in Knives Out it was like puke girl city that Christmas season representation matters girls who live alone with their cats and puke for no reason we matter there was

a small moment that I felt very seen by where destiny is describing this recurring dream she's she has where she's in the backseat of a moving car there's no one driving she has to like scramble to get to the front seat to try to like gain control of the vehicle she can never do it I've had that dream probably 50 or more times in my life it is like one of my recurring stress nightmares yes and I'm like to see that described and then like play out on screen I was like I feel seen yes that sequence was so good too I love dream sequences that are successfully pulled off where the thing is happening and you don't know that it's a dream until like right before

you it's gonna be so good yeah I'm so sorry you have that dream though that sounds so stressful oh it's okay i um clearly need to work on managing my anxiety i had versions of that dream but it was i haven't had them since i was a kid except mine was like i was in a station wagon and it was rolling backwards and i was like i wonder when my grandma's gonna pull the emergency brake and i was like oh no no grandma there's no grandma yeah that might have been a princess diaries induced dream to be honest because oh for sure okay yep um i can i ask some questions of you guys yeah absolutely i've talked like a fair amount about like my experience in strip club life but i'm curious about how much time y'all have spent in strip

clubs what that's been like like what what your point of reference because like it was very striking to me i didn't spend i was never in a 2007 strip club so that like big floor show i've seen that when i was like on tour in like those big states that have like Walmart sized strip clubs, but like a city strip club that popping, I had never really quite seen before. And then the shot of the 2008 strip club, it like chilled my bones. I was like, oh, this is the strip club I know. It just like hurt inside. But'm curious what if anything your frame of reference is for for those spaces i was in a i think i went to my first ever strip club in 2009 okay so not long after because i had moved to new york right around the time the economy tanked and was struggling to

find a job and when i did finally one, it was at a literary management company where one of the managers was like kind of doing that part time. But her main job was that she was the general manager of, and I forget which club it was, but it was one of the more popular strip clubs in Manhattan. And so she would let my colleague and I at this literary management company come in for free. She would buy us drinks. She would buy us lap dances. So we would go and just like have a ball. Was it a place with food?

Would you get to like get a meal or was it just drinks? I think it was just drinks. And then I've been to a few other strip clubs in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Portland, Oregon, Los Angeles. I was with you in Portland. Yeah, we went to one in Portland together. A listener of the show worked at this club invited us for to come in for breakfast it was very delightful wait i'm about to go to portland which strip club serves breakfast i need to know what was oh we'll get you the name of the club oh well yeah we'll have to look it up let me know a couple years ago we'll let you know but it was fabulous it was incredible strip clubs are special yes um yeah i have i've not spent a ton of time in strip clubs but I think

I go like once every two years my first time was when in Massachusetts it's it's like or I don't know how state to state this is but I'm from Massachusetts and went to college there and I was so excited to move to Boston because I I wanted to go to a strip club so badly and I was so excited to move to Boston because I wanted to go to a strip club so badly and I just like I was especially as a teenager I was so like fixated on stripper personas and like I read a ton of blogs and I was just like I was so excited to go and then I got to Boston I was 18 and they didn't let anyone in under 21 yeah so I ended up going to I ended And then I got to Boston, I was 18. And they didn't let anyone in under 21. So I ended up going to I ended up getting my dad to drive me to an 18 plus night. And I went to a strip club with my dad. And oh, my God, bless your goddamn heart. And we had amazing food and a great

time. But it was my dad was way more uncomfortable than I was I was like this is this is incredible this is the best and everyone ever I mean everyone who worked there was so nice and then once they figured out what our dynamic was they were like um okay and like but that I that's my most memorable strip club experience. But it's amazing. I love that. I ask because, um, a I always say that I think it's really important, like people will ask, like, what can we what can we do for sex worker rights movement to make the world a less violent, despicable place for people who do this type of work. I always try to encourage people to come out about their consumption, you whether it's um a great portland strip club experience with breakfast or like a weird night out with you know your relatives compatriots um or you know like hey i i subscribe to peghim.com or like you know whatever i i admire

this porn star or follow her on twitter just like take us out of the shadows when when it's safe for you to do so, because it's generally safer for you than it is for us to talk about like, this world society does not punish the consumer in the same way that they punish the practitioner, right? In this instance. So I love that you guys have had positive experiences. I fucking love a strip club i um in 2018 um i went on tour with stormy daniels when she was uh doing her strip club tour after like her book had i was about to come out i think but i was registering voters in the clubs and so i saw strip clubs all over this world and just the the um some things like some things shift of course like region to region like some places

you have to wear a gown if you're on the floor some places you have to have like a tea strap thong or pasties or nude color like all of these weird rules which is why Stormy was arrested in oh this is one thing I wanted to say about the movie I think in that first sequence where we

see Jennifer Lopez dancing she motorboats somebody, right? Or some variety. She, like, rubs her boobs in somebody's faces. That is the move that got Stormy Daniels arrested in Columbus. She was set up on a sting. Jesus. These white women came in as undercover cops, were hitting me up. They're like, oh, I love Stormy.

They were undercovers. And they initiated that move. And because, like, the laws vary state to state, they arrested her and a bunch of other girls, including girls I had registered to vote that night, who were, like, terrified. Like, please, okay, I'm going to give you my legal name to register to vote. Like, that's a scary thing to do in a strip club

when you're trying to keep your legal name private. And I was like, I swear to you you only me and the registrar of voters are gonna know who you are except then the cops came and arrested them and their names were in the paper the next day and that girl doesn't get to be a nurse anymore that's fucking awful so sorry to be a downer on we were having a very nice conversation but it's these these issues are important i think that like when folks watch um and consume entertainment about this industry it's important to know the the realities that face even like the most privileged among us i

mean stormy daniels is like the the whitest blondest tallest slept with the presidentist uh you know sex worker of our generation and still like a cop with an agenda can take her out if he wants. So great movie, though. Great fucking movie. Hustlers Rules. Hustlers Rules. Yes, I like this movie. I will watch it again. Like I said, I think it's a dance movie and dance movies are like my number one so this goes in the book like i will put this on before center stage and uh you know make a night of it does drumline count yeah absolutely oh my gosh awesome any other thoughts questions uh i've i've one more question for you suzy on behalf of us but also our our

listeners is there i guess for our listeners who are just starting to learn more what can they do to be supportive what could they do like yeah that for for kind of the lay listener. The lay listener. Where would you suggest? Well, if you want to stay in touch with me, I encourage you to do so. I am always harassing people who follow me about getting out the vote, calling your elective representatives about, you know, there's always legislation in the works. There's always a politician with an agenda who wants to use our communities as a scapegoat. So there's always work to be done. So if you want to keep in touch, shoot me a text at 415-548-9185. And I'll send that to you guys so you can put in the show notes.

It is my personal direct line, but it's also a way for you to access my email list. So email is terrible. I never check it. And I don't think you should either. But I do check my text messages because I'm an elder millennial. So that's a great way to stay connected, but also check out passcertified.org, P-A-S-S certified.org. That is the health and safety organization that focuses on health and safety in the adult industry and provides regulatory recommendations around what STIs we test for, when we have a production hole due to COVID,

or somebody tests positive for HIV, things of that nature. And find the adult performer that you support and pay them, whether it's Cash App, Venmo, the Afternoon Strip Club, Brunch Buffet, whatever you can do to support individual sex workers directly. That is the most important thing that you can do because every one of us is struggling. You know, even folks who seem to be living that life on Instagram is one second away from losing that Instagram and that way of making money. So find ways to support your local sex worker directly and do so. And if you would like to do that to me, you can. You can follow my Mostly Safer Work Pursuits at theforecast.com. That's my Patreon page. Ill Repute Pod is the Twitter for my podcast ill repute podcast i am my friend sovereign sire

who is also a porn star yeah she used to perform at the comedy venue that i ran um for a while nerd melt yeah she would come for different like storytelling shows and other just like comedic the best storytelling performances yeah so we So we take different people and figures throughout history of ill repute. Initially it was sex workers, but now it's just people with reputations that our history didn't get right. And so we nerd out. And this last week we covered Gidget, which is one of my favorite films. Definitely doesn't pass the Bechdel test.

Not at all. But so, yeah, that's that's mostly where you can find me. The daddy issue dot com and your American babe dot com is where you can find my spicy things. Very good. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing all that.

Speaking of the Bechdel test. Oh, my goodness. Already? No, I'm not ready. I didn't study drum roll please does this movie pass the bechdel test uh yes yeah it is yes it does a lot what i always like to find out like at what point like are we five minutes in are we 10 minutes in i didn't look but i feel like it's almost immediately yeah yeah i mean for there are plenty of interactions in this movie where men are the subtext of a conversation but there's also i mean i guess whatever i didn't uh i didn't do a math problem about it but i would guess that more almost more

often than not conversations between women are not about men they're about money they're about business they're about daughters they're about mothers they're about friendship they're about fur coats journalistic ethics totally yeah and when they are talking about men um they're often saying things like they're awful and degrading and possessive and violent and they never get into any trouble because they think they're above the law because they're so rich and all these guys tank the economy and it's their fault they lied and they cheated and they stole but none of them went to jail these assholes blah blah blah shakespearean monologues like that's what we hear about some some of ramona's monologues are literally like shakespeare you're like oh my god who wouldn't be taken in there is not a high opinion of a certain kind of man uh in this movie which is how they justify their illegal actions.

Oh, I will say that Doug is the guy that we feel sorry for. But even before Doug, the first guy that she calls, that's like the last on the list of regulars before she goes back to the strip club. Steven. Steven. I would say that both of those guys were humanized in a way that we don't typically get to see consumers of sex work humanized. And I think that that's really important, too, because the first step when people say like, yes, sex worker rights. OK, great. We'll just criminalize the consumer.

Right. And that's what really is getting pushed in a lot of places these days. The Nordic model or Oregon, some places are calling it the liberty or the justice the equality model or just garbage double speak garbage double speak but um yeah it's nice to see that like yeah okay not every one of these guys was a piece of shit like people consume things that you are selling and right yeah you can't you can't decriminalize and destigmatize sex work without also having empathy for the people who want to engage with it and consume it. Exactly. Or just like wholesale demonizing. Yeah, I thought that this movie like towed the ethics line and the consumer line pretty smart because it's also like very location specific of like totally these are wall street bankers and and it's and this this happens in the i read it's referenced constantly

in the article as well where you know the the parts of this that are criminal are as we've been talking about like it's a survival based thing that is being done and i i kind of appreciated that the movie doesn't mire you down with like well what are the ethics of this it's like that's separate like you can have that discussion on the ride home that's not what the movie is about but then on the other side yeah you do see the empathetic like genuinely caring people who were at this club and actually making like friendships and like actually talking to the dancers and getting to know them. And I don't know, I thought it was like well done

how you do see the flip side of like, it's not like this didn't do harm. And that also seems to be something that Destiny was really bothered by by the end, which I mean, it's, it's so easy to see destiny and Ramona's perspective in that moment. And it was cool to see kind of that split and that like dilemma

represented without the movie telling you how to feel about it. Totally. One piece that about like class that was in there that I think is maybe wouldn't stick out to someone outside the a couple hundred on up to like closer to, you know, four figures. And I remember a friend of mine being like, Yeah, I don't want to see guys that will pay X amount of money. I, I like my clients who pay a little bit less. It's just safer that way. And 100% that's been my experience that like the more money someone is willing to part with the more they expect to be able to do whatever they want and get away with it and we see that specter a little tiny bit but that specter is much larger in real life

and i think that like this is a like a little bit of a parable about the the hustle you know it's just like the thrill of and the temptation of these like massive amounts of money is there as soon as you enter the sex industry but like the more money you get into the higher the risk goes up and like that is why i think it's so important that um we approach discussions about sex work with our feet firmly planted in like labor activism practice of just like we are workers fundamentally and like yes there is the jackpot but we are we have to fight for you know like safety nets for all of us. You know what I mean?

There has to be like a baseline of safety. And like if you get lost in the sauce, you'll get got. And that's so much what this movie shows. Yeah. But it's way easier to get lost in the sauce when the pressures of capitalism are like literally breathing down your neck. Right. are like literally breathing down your neck right and it's like i mean ramona is like using wall street tactics to robin hood from wall street guy like it i don't know there's i could talk about this movie for 500 years forever yeah well with that in mind let's rate the movie on our

nipple scale zero to five nipples based on how it fares looking at it from an intersectional feminist lens i really can't think of a reason why not to give this movie five nipples yeah i don't really have anything bad to say about it i mean there are five nipples in this film there are at least five there are at least five nipples that we see so like that and and a full frontal penis a d in a non-erotic capacity which i always like i mean you can't really show but it's like a definitely a moment right yeah i i'm i think i'm gonna give this five nipples uh i love that this is a movie about female friendship and that friendship is it's

complicated it's nuanced it feels very authentic and real and compelling i'm like very much rooting for them to like get back together by the end of the story totally gotta get the band back together even though the reconciliation like you know it would be a lot for ramona to forgive destiny for they need a meat bring a mediator get a mediator in the mix for this i know some pro bono therapy i love that that friendship is at the core of this film i appreciate the class commentary i appreciate you learning about the interior lives of sex workers we learned so much about not only the the two main characters but several of the other women at the club i love that you get to see women defying the expectation to be quote-unquote well-behaved

because there's such a high standard in society and this extends to movie characters where like women just have to be perfect and they're not allowed to do anything bad and if they are they get punished for it and usually by like being fridged in the story and in this movie it is all about them engaging in like morally questionable and corrupt behavior right like how many movies like not like this plot point for plot point, but how many movies are about just a group of men doing extremely illegal things, not even for a reason, not for a reason. And like they're not punished for it at all. And it's like, woohoo. Yeah, go and murder everyone who comes across your path. Like, yeah, so I appreciate that this, you know, subverts that expectation for for women to just always be on their best behavior and always be adhering to what society expects of women. And I appreciate that it's a diverse cast and not just a bunch of white waspy women yeah yeah so i'm gonna give this five nipples and i gotta give one to lizzo good cameo good cameo the flute and everything oh yeah the flute titty fucking that i think it was on jacqueline

that oh yeah not only did j-Lo grab Jacqueline Francis' titties, Lizzo fucked her titties with her feet. How is she even living her life? Full ascension right there. I'll give one to Jacqueline. I'll give one to writer-director Lorraine Scarfaria. I will give one to the montage where Britney Spears Gimme More is playing over it I'll give one to Constance Wu and I don't know how many nipples that is but it's sounds like

enough sounds right yeah yeah I'm gonna go five nipples as well this is like this movie delivers on so many levels i feel like we could talk about it for another two hours if we wanted to yeah like i i just i mean on on top of what i'm really glad to hear from you suzy seems to be like a an authentic representation of strippers that strippers are actively consulted compensated and intimately involved in the production that is incredible the fact that we are we have these really complicated stories about women disagreeing and misbehaving and having different standards of ethics and ideas but but having it all come into this like really strong relationship that you totally understand but you're also like oh my god like even when you understand and see how things fall apart between Ramona and Destiny

and even if you don't you know agree with everything they do it's like you're rooting for them to be together and in each other's lives still and it's just like it's such incredible writing I liked that there was care taken that even the characters that aren't the main characters we understand what their motivations are they have distinct personalities they have friendships they have opinions they have disagreements and it all just fits so seamlessly into a movie with perfect dance scenes and perfect soundtrack and really good cinematography. And I just loved it. So I will give a nipple to Jacqueline as well. I'll give a nipple to Cardi B.

I'll give a nipple to Lorraine Scafaria. I'll give a nipple to the editor of this movie whose work we didn't shout out but was really good, Kayla Emfter. And I'll give a nipple to Kiki Palmer, Living Legend. Yeah. Oh, I love your rating system. Care to rate? Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, obviously five nipples for sure. I have to give one to I should pull up this quote, but I just remember shortly before or after this movie dropped. I remember Cardi got some like flack for coming out and being like, yeah, robbing men. We love to see it. I don't remember what she said. but she was like, yes, sometimes you have to rob a trick. Right? No.

Okay. I didn't. I thought I just made. Have you seen the movie? I don't remember. But that controversy just makes me love her so much. Yeah. So much.

I really love her. I don't endorse committing crimes, of course, for legal reasons. But definitely worthy of a nipple. And I would love to know if Diamond was Cardi's name when she was dancing. I'm sure that's easy to find somewhere if it's true. But yeah, five nipples, hands down. A nipple to whoever hired and got Jacqueline paid. I'm sure that Jacqueline had a lot to do with actually making that happen.

But whoever was the gatekeeper that opened the gate to actually make that real. Because I can't tell you how many times all of us have been in a situation where somebody wants to pick your brain for a movie or ask you a couple things. And the likelihood of you getting credit paid let alone screen time is just so small so like major props to the folks that that got that happening um i don't know who the rest of my nipples go to but like everybody kiki palmer for sure redistribute the nipples redistribute the nipple absolutely take that wall street all those wall street nipples and redistribute it back to the people absolutely occupy the nipple but yeah i will watch this movie again and again i will swap this movie out for a center stage or

dirty dancing when i like need to feel that feeling. A nipple for the training montage, a really crucial component of any like sports or dance movie is the training montage, which this really delivered on. You know, it's a very magical, magical film. And I have to, I feel like I have to give a nipple to like the collective problematic toxic femme that has been in my life in different iterations throughout my time as a sex worker, and will continue, I'm sure until I'm dead, and is personified in the

archetypes portrayed in this film, a nipple for each of those girls that I have loved and no longer. Beautiful to a nipple to all the girls I loved before shout out to another great movie exactly well Susie thank you so much for joining us and having this wonderful discussion my pleasure come back anytime come do another dance movie

I would love to I warn you like I have despicable taste in film and I'm completely proud of it. Like I am a John Waters child and I am here to play. We still haven't done John Waters movies. Oh, please. Anytime.

Anytime you want to talk John Waters. My dad's from Baltimore. I it's a little bit of a religion in my life. Here for it. Remind us where people can support you and follow you on social media and stuff. Yes. It'll repute podcast.com.

Your American babe.com. The daddy issue.com. And you can find me on Instagram at your American. Amazing. Yay. You can find us on not all of the socials, the socials that we use which are Twitter and Instagram

at Bechtelcast. You can support our Patreon aka Matreon at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. For $5 a month you get two bonus episodes every single month. What a treat. Incredible. And we also have merch we do

have merch it's at tpublic.com slash the bechdel cast all of it was designed by jamie by the way i don't think we shout that out enough but it's true that's very cool so all the more reason to grab some merch and otherwise thanks for tuning in and um hey let's all go to a strip club yeah okay oh okay yes oh quick quick public service announcement when you go to a strip club always tip even if you're not getting a dance like you know i mean like most people know that i think but in case for the lay listener if you're gonna go especially if you are like a femme presenting person because let me tell you when you are on that stage and you look out and you see a bunch

of girls and you think that they're like saying mean things about you it ruins your entire night so if you are a femme presenting person you go to the strip club go to the front tip the girl make sure she knows you're not a girl it'll help make the night better awesome thank you for that

bye bye love y'all. 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. Hey everybody, this is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas.

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