The Bechdel Cast - I, Tonya

Episode Date: August 13, 2020

It's Jamie's birthday and we're unlocking a past Patreon (aka Matreon) episode about her favorite movie, I, Tonya! Happy Birthday, Jamie!(This episode contains spoilers)Content warning: physical and emotional abuse.Links for language to use and void surrounding mental illness and disability: https://www.healthpartners.com/blog/mental-illnesses-terms-to-use-terms-to-avoid/ and https://everydayfeminism.com/2016/06/casual-ableist-language/For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast is the show for you. Subscribe now and listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast is the show for you. Subscribe now and listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus.

And it's your birthday episode, Jamie. It's my birthday episode. I'm so excited. Oh, and boy, do we have my favorite movie of all time for you today. Wow. So, what we are doing today on the Bechtelcast, and we will get you up to speed. If you've never listened before, welcome. It's my birthday.

We're going to tell you what the podcast is about in a second. But for returning listeners, we are unlocking an episode from our Patreon aka Matreon back from 2018? Yeah, early 2018. Which, as we'll discuss, was in a way 5,000 years ago.

But yeah, it's an episode about I, Tanya, one of my faves. And so if you're not a member of the Matreon, this will be your first time. And if you also if you're not a member of the Matreon, you know, think about joining us. It's a great little space for for everybody. Beautiful community. But yes, it is Itanya Day on the cast.

But first, we have to tell everybody what our podcast is about. Because we don't do that in Patreon episodes. If you're on the Matreon, you already know what you're getting into. You know, you know. But on the main feed, we have to be respectful of the fact that maybe it's your first time here. Because you're just an Itanya stan. And you couldn't help but click. True.

So what we do on the Bechdel cast is examine film through an intersectional feminist lens, focusing on the representation of women, but extending the conversation further to other topics. And we use the Bechdel test as a just inspiration. A jumping off point, if you will. And that is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. And it requires that for our purposes, our version of the test, that to people of any marginalized gender, they have to have names, they have to speak to each other about something other than a man for at least two lines of

dialogue. Let's try it. Okay, let's do it. Okay. Hey, Caitlin. Yes, Jamie. Do you ever feel like in a biopic,'re like this biopic is so amazing and then you learn about the subject of the biopic and you're like oh geez um yes i have done that before especially when the

biopic is about a woman it makes you think and then it passes the Bechdel test yeah doesn't have to be perfect doesn't have to make sense just really some bare minimum stuff most movies don't do it uh you will not be shocked to know this movie is an exception it's true but yes so we are gonna uh get the episode started up we're gonna kind of cut you in at the recap right yeah slightly before the recap so what i was thinking because since we've recorded this two and a half years two and a half years ago right so a little um a little peek behind the curtain everyone we recorded this early 2018 it was when we were still recording our matreon patreon episodes on my iphone in my bed oh this was the one that was on your iphone they're usually pre-covid they were all in your bed but not all on your iphone

there's a clear timeline if you're on the right we the the early um patreon episodes we recorded on my iphone so the sound quality is not bad, but if it doesn't sound top notch, that is why. It was early days in the major round. Yes. Then we upgraded to some fancier equipment. But in any case, so that if you're like, this doesn't sound as good as it normally does, that's why. Also, before we jump into the episode, we wanted to address something that we have had the habit of doing in the past, but we have become more aware of this thing that we're doing and we have been phasing it out. And what it is, is the use of certain phrases or just certain language that is disparaging of mental illness and is ableist. And what we mean by that is we use, in this episode and others past,

phrases like, oh, that's crazy, or that's insane, or... Et cetera, from that line of thinking. This is still very common language that a lot of people use, and we would encourage you to try to scale back on it, get rid of it, not include that in your language anymore. Because like we said, it is disparaging of mental illness and is ableist. Yes. And so if you are interested, we will leave some links in the notes of this episode in case you have any questions about certain words, uses of words. We want to educate our listeners just as our listeners have educated us. These

are words that have since been worked out of the show and our lives, and we hope to continue to do better. And, you know, if these are still words in your daily rotation, there are so many wonderful substitutes. That's the thing about words. You don't need to use words that are disparaging to people because guess what? There's other words. It's true. Synonyms exist. So we wanted to acknowledge that as well. Oh, and another thing we want to be better about doing moving forward is to include content warnings for episodes in which we discuss topics that are sensitive and potentially triggering. So in this episode, we'd like to include a content warning regarding our discussion of physical and emotional abuse.

So there's that. And we also wanted to update our history with the movie because we recorded this episode just a couple months. I mean, like two maybe months after this movie came out. And so, you know, the movie has like whatever, eight tupled in age since we talked about it. Eight tupled. That's not even accurate or whatever close enough it's older it's much older right and and you're especially your relationship with it jamie has grown and gotten more special it's grown and deepened yeah so for me i mean we both saw the movie in theaters a couple times i really enjoyed it I haven't watched it though since we recorded the episode

aside from when I rewatched it a couple days ago just to because I know we were doing this episode and wanted to refresh my memory. But for you, Jamie, the reason so you're releasing this as your birthday episode because it's become such an important movie for you. So tell us about that. It's well, I guess when this movie came out i knew it was one of my favorite movies already because i saw it nine times in theaters which i have never done before and never did since this episode slash this movie came out during this wonderful time where movie pass was a thing that worked and it actually cost ten dollars and so the only thing i used my movie pass for was to see i tanya nine times and i unsubscribed and then movie pass

imploded and yes no one has heard from her since but the so i saw this movie nine times within two months i think i just loved it there is like I I've always been very attached to the Tanya Harding myth basically it's a culture you know an American myth at this point I my first cartoon I ever made was about Tanya Harding I remember that really it was like yeah it was forever ago but I really always attack I'm sure I talk about in in the episode too, but I was always very attached to her just kind of as like someone who came from like the lower middle class. I think Tanya came up from an even lower class than I was from, but I just was really, I really, it really spoke to me how determined she was and how she didn't take shit from people and kind of how that attitude

results in being punished by the culture that you live in especially uh at the time that she was skating and i think the movie is so well done it's written and directed by a man and yet i like it and sometimes men don't do horrible work they really they really figured it out this time i i i re-watched this movie last week and i still love it so much it makes me cry a lot it's the only time i've ever been impressed by sebastian stan uh margot robbie's at her best i just i think it is such a fun and engaging movie that manages to make i i think like takes a lot of very serious topics and treats them with the weight and the respect they deserve but also don't make it like a depression experience i think it's still like a super engaging and fun movie

and after the last time i saw this movie in a theater, I was seeing this movie in theaters as late as July 2018. Wow. Because I think you'll remember this when I say it is because they did a rooftop screening of I, Tonya in downtown Los Angeles. And Tonya Harding was there. And it's here that I wanted to just acknowledge because it's just interesting, I guess, of like, I mean, obviously never meet your heroes, but this one stung a little like, oh, Tonya Harding, very sweet. But she gave kind of like some opening statements. And I actually I'm going to cite myself here. I wrote a piece about it at the time for Paste magazine uh called falling out of love with tanya harding and that kind of says what i'm saying now just like tanya harding was a kind of a hero of mine and like she overcame so much and was like you know maintained her dignity through a really difficult experience but then when you hear her talk uh about her uh political views, you're like, oh, dear. She didn't get explicitly into her political views.

But there was enough. There was some bat signaling to some things I really don't agree with. And I'm sure our listeners, everyone at some point in their life realizes that you have to idolize the idea and the message and not the person. But this was one of those moments for me where I was just like, oh, I wanted, you know, I wanted to agree with Tanya Harding on everything. I wanted her to have like views that I aligned with, but simply wasn't the way it went. But I still really love the movie. I feel like it is just my favorite movie ever

i watch it all the time i watch it to fall asleep i watch it to call like i just it's my movie i love it yeah cool well i think with that we can just launch into the unlocked you know in a movie when they do like kind of like it's some sort of call that effect it's like a transition it's like a ripple like a yeah like the ripple effect like the dream like the flashback it's it's imagine that whatever the audio version of that is we that's so okay i tanya is if you are not aware is the new tanya harding biopic starring margot robbie as tanya harding and alice and jannie as tanya harding's mother and a guy from gossip girl as jeff galooly hot hot hot oh yeah jeff galooly hot hot hot in this movie distracting can't deal with it and i'm very upset that i think he's hot because i know his character is horrible his character is and as a person he's a horrible person and real life jeff galooly not hot basically everyone real life in this story, not hot. But it's a movie, so hot.

Sorry, I just explained how movies worked. Like regular, but like way hotter. So it's about the 1994 Olympics where the media frenzy surrounding Tanya Harding when she allegedly was involved with whacking Nancy Kerrigan, who is barely addressed in this story very intentionally. Right. And we'll get there too. But, so, it's got a lot of buzz. A lot of buzz. Marco Robbie, people loved

her performance. Allison Allison Janney. Queer icon. Allison Janney's character? Or Allison Janney? No, Allison Janney. Okay. Allison Janney, queer icon. But I would argue Allison Janney in a fur coat with a parrot, queer icon. Like, easily. So, yeah, that's the movie. If you haven't any queer icon but i would argue alice and jenny in a fur coat with a parrot queer icon like easily so yeah that's the movie if you haven't seen it i would highly recommend seeing it i think it's

such a fun well done movie i love it agree the one thing i was surprised about with this movie is i mean when they say i tanya they're not kidding nancy kerrigan is like left out of this story right which i think i don't even think she has any lines except for when she's like hi, Tanya, they're not kidding. Nancy Kerrigan is, like, left out of this story. Right. In fact, I don't even think she has any lines except for when she's like, why? After she gets hit. Exactly, yeah. No, and then they have whoever the actress

that was on set for two or three days playing the part of Nancy Kerrigan, they just have her basically reenacting news footage, which is weird because it's, like, in all, like, the more recent documentaries about this. There's a lot of talk about how like Nancy was also done a huge disservice by the media. And not I mean, not as significant as Tanya, obviously, but, you know, Nancy didn't do anything. I feel like Nancy often gets framed as like this like prissy bitch when When Nancy, which they, this was like the thing that I was like,

oh, they're really not going to mention this in the movie at all. Nancy was just as poor as Tonya Harding. She was not from an abusive family, but she was also like a blue collar gal who was reframed by the media to not seem like that and was like held accountable for like oh look at this rich bitch when she wasn't and so that's all i have to say i just thought it was she she's really glossed over i mean this movie is we're seeing it through tanya's eyes and so i guess it's like nancy's a prissy bitch but i thought a little more could have been done to just acknowledge that

may i posit a theory sure that this movie is the first of a figure skating extended universe, cinematic universe. I... And there's going to be an I, Nancy. Could I play Nancy Kerrigan? Yes. I cast you. I'm a brunette from Massachusetts.

I could do it. Yeah. I could do it. You've done ballet. Figure skating is ballet on ice, right? Dude. These don't send me hate mail for saying it. I feel like there's someone out there,

no, it's not. No. I mean, figure skating is fucking hard. I couldn't hang. I tried it when I was little. I couldn't do it. I got really good at roller skating as a kid. You're a blader?

Not roller blades. Roller skates. roller skates oh sorry yeah they're different oh sorry i didn't mean to but i never i never ice skated until like a couple years ago uh and some of the skills do transfer over because all my friends were like falling because i'd never like roller skated or ice skated before. But I was like pretty good beginner. And they were like, Caitlin, how are you so good at this? I'm like, bitch, I roller skated. You have a lot of interesting hidden talents. You really do.

Thank you. You're welcome. Should we recap? Yeah, let's recap. Hi, Tanya. So it's this cast of actors reenacting both interviews that are like direct to camera and then also the story events as they unfold. So every actor we see, they're basically playing the same character over the course of almost three decades.

Like I think Margot Robbie plays Tanya between ages 15 and 45 right in this movie yes yeah and then yeah so you see like older tanya played by margot robbie in interview style same thing with what's his name stan sebastian stan hot hot okay i know he's so hot as young jeff gluley as older jeff Gluley with that weird goatee. Horrible. The mustache is better. He's got, somehow he's got a face that works for a mustache. Real life Jeff Gluley did look like straight up disgusting with a mustache.

But I mean, this, again, it's like movie hotness of just like, I guess you can just wear that and it's hot. Well, shit. Okay. My favorite performance in this movie. Margot Robbie is awesome. Allison Janney is awesome. My favorite performance in this movie.

I have to look up this guy's name because he is like, I think this is his big first like role. The guy who plays Sean Eckhart? Sean Eckhart. Yeah. Unbelievable. Paul Walter Hauser. I hope he's in everything.

He was so good. This is a breakout role for him. I hope so, dude. He was so good. This is a breakout role for him. I hope so, dude. He was so fucking funny. I know. And I wasn't, I didn't realize that, I'd never done like a real deep dive on Sean Eckhart and I didn't realize how fully delusional he was.

And then when they do, at the end, they do like the side-by-side to see how exactly they reenacted interviews. The Sean Eckhart interviews are crazy. He's like, like well i work in covert ops yeah counter terrorism and espionage and you're like what right and they're like sean but you don't he goes oh but i do and he's like but we checked and you don't he's like oh but i do i do and i do he's so fucking funny and like i i just shout out to paul walter hauser wherever you are i'm sure

you're listening i just thought he was like brilliant and i hope he's in everything now yeah he was so he was so great so i tanya the story we follow i tanya through her ice skating career. Sorry, we follow who? I, Tanya. Sorry, her name is I, Tanya. I, Tanya Harding. We're doing great today. How are we going to record another episode after this? Okay. It's going to be great. We follow Tanya, or as I think she is named.

I, Tanya. Through her figure skating career, which starts when she's a soft four, which means three. So we meet her mother, LaVonna, who is... How to describe her? She's overbearing. She is emotionally abusive. She's physically abusive. She is one of those parents who,

oh, look at all the sacrifices I've made for you, and you don't appreciate anything. She's a very bad parent. We'll hit on this in a bunch of different places, but this movie, people have differing opinions on how this movie does with the topic of class. I think it does pretty well, especially based on the fact that from what I get,

and if you know differently, please hit us up. But pretty much every event described in this movie is based on anecdotal evidence and interviews so it's kind of tricky to make the argument of like oh they're making these white trash people look like a joke and it's like well they did confirm that this is what they did down to like that guy derek's like running through a fucking pane of glass to get like that really happened. There's footage of that happening. Whoa. Yeah. Like all the stuff in the movie basically is stuff that real life idiots did. Wait, did it happen where he bashed his head through it? Because he had the baton. He could have broken the glass with the baton. Oh, I guess that's

possible. I don't know. Anyways, the way this movie deals with class, because it does make commentary without changing the story, but I don't know. I mean, I was fortunate to have parents that were not abusive and are great. They're my problematic faves, but I do think it was like interesting setting up this dynamic and showing this dynamic that I saw in a lot of my friends growing up of like parents in poor communities being too hard on their kids with the implied logic being like, I need to toughen you up for the world or you're going to end up just like me. Which is kind of the message that's kind of Tanya's fear throughout the movie is that she's going to be exactly like her mom and be a waitress which she is for a while and it seems like and it's never explicitly stated but my takeaway was that like lavana was basically like i'm gonna be really really really hard on you to the point where it is illegal abusive i'm gonna throw a knife at you but the overarching thing to be like, I have to toughen you up because you're being set up to fail by the world. And that is like a parent-child dynamic I've seen before. And I feel like I haven't seen a ton on screen.

So I thought it was, I mean, it was like scary. But like, I don't know. It worked for me. Or if you do see it on screen, I feel like it's often not the main character. It'll be, like, the main character's friend who... Who needs rescuing or something. Yeah. An example that comes to mind is The Craft, where...

Oh, sure. Yeah. Right, right, right. And if I thought about it, I'm sure I could come up with others, but... Yeah, I don't know. Like, so there were certain moments with her where I was like, ooh, that seems like my aunt or, my friend's mom of like some lines i wrote down were like you were soft nice makes you shit like basically these repeated enforcement like you have to be

really tough on yourself and on everyone in your life or you're not going to survive um which is you know i i see where she's coming from i don't hard disagree with her approach to literally everything but but i i think the more common depiction in media overarching like there's so many fucking movies about like rich children and their distant parents not poor children and they're overbearing to the point of abusive parents but i think in the real world those are just as common right i mean so there's i think it'll take me the whole episode to get through the recap but essentially yeah just it follows tanya and her figure skating career starting from a very early age she's a standout she's very good even at like she's a stand-up she's a stand-up comic

crashing season three the tanya harding story the marvelous mrs harding so she is great she trains a ton her mom does pay for all of her lessons and is supportive in her pursuit of becoming a figure skater but again that's like kind of like another class commentary thing where like i think where like children of poor families often feel like they are an investment if they're doing anything extra right where like kids who are from wealthier backgrounds are able to try more extracurriculars and and there's less of like a pressure to be like well you better have fucking fun supportive in the sense that she was paying for it that she was, but also inflicting a

whole lot of psychological warfare on Tanya. Exactly. It was like, it was basically a contract for abuse of like, in order for you to do the thing that makes you happy, I have to be able to fucking be all out abusive to you at all times. And that's the only way she could keep doing it. Right. So we see Tanya's progress as a figure skater into her teens and early 20s and this is also around the time that she meets jeff galooly i don't know how old he is when they meet but she's only 15 and he's probably i think he's i think he's supposed to be 19 or 20 well that's upsetting so they start dating and then he starts becoming abusive toward her as well both physically and emotionally her career starts to take off she starts winning a lot of competitions

she moves out of lavana's home because she's had it up to here with her so she moves out with jeff the abuse continues with him like she's winning national competitions and the Olympics are on the horizon and then she gets a death threat called on her. And... Right. So this is 94. There's, like, a weird... And this is all historical. It's not weird because it, you know,

happened. But, like, there's, like, she goes to the Olympics in 92. She does not deliver. It's implied it's because she's like maybe like drinking too much and like doing stuff gained some weight got out of shape which you know is a little shamey but also seemed like there was some truth in that and that was like had to do with why she which ties into her abusive relationship with jeff but she was in an abusive relationship and was not self-medicating exactly like she didn't she didn't deliver at the first olympics which would normally be a death sentence because by the time

the next winter olympics come around four years later she would be in theory too old which is crazy because she would have been 25 right but i guess in ice skater years too old yeah but then there's this thing that really happened where they're like actually i don't know what the rationale is but they're like we're gonna have the winter olympics again in two years which would be like perfect timing and so there's kind of this there's a bunch of great montages in this movie again just like a series of really stellar training montages that I really loved. Yeah. To heavy-handed music.

It was great. So she starts training again, and she's kind of like, she's got it back. She dumped Jeff. She's like on a tear. She's doing great. And then she takes Jeff back. Okay. Right, exactly.

So she takes Jeff back because she's doing competitions and the judges are like, you're just not the image we want to project. We want a wholesome American family. And she's like, I don't have that. So she gets back with Jeff to basically placate the judges and be like, look, look at this family I have. Because they get married at one point earlier in the story.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like to basically, yeah, project the image that they're going for, and then there's like this big competition that if you place, I forget exactly what it's called, but it's like if you place in this competition, you are considered for the Olympic team. But if you don't place in the competition, you can't be considered for the Olympic team. So high-stakes shit. Yeah.

And prior to this, a death threat is called on tanya and it freaks her out and they're like oh crap like this is gonna ruin my chances and then this is where you know the stories it's where paul walter hauser really starts to fucking shine but he has this idea where basically jeff wants to impress tanya or somehow like i think honestly like get her to be indebted to him a little more so she won't leave him right uh because that's how he thinks because he's a manipulator because he's a manipulator but he's so stupid that he's not even good at it but so he's saying like oh it'll improve tanya's chances if we call it a death threat on nancy and then sean who also called in the death threat on tanya we learned later and that's true oh sean has literally he's just so fucking like he was just smart enough to be extremely infuriating because he's like just smart enough to be like you should have

known better but whatever whatever. I guess. I don't, like, is he? Sean's smarter than Jeff, but that's saying nothing. Yeah. Jeff's literally dumb as a rock. So Sean's like, because I think that the movie goes way out of its way to be like toxic, toxic, toxic, this character. Sean especially. His toxic masculinity is kind of, uses a punchline over and over in this movie.

Yeah. Which I hadn't seen it portrayed in other places but i don't know i thought it was funny and i thought it is good to make toxic masculinity you know project that as like you look like a fucking idiot right but so he's like oh we need to do something to nancy and jeff said okay let's mail write some letters mail death threats which is like oh you're a snail mail a death threat incredible idea anyways sean takes matters into his own hands and plans the fucking whack that the whack heard around the world right yes which is carried out by people who are somehow

even stupider it's just a well of stupidity yeah just. Just a gaping maw of idiots. And how involved Tanya was in the planning and execution of these letter death threats is unclear. That'll be up for question forever. Right. You know, and I'm not even going to bother positing my own theories. We'll never know. Yeah. We can hit on this later, too.

But, like, I don't think Tanya Harding is, like, a good or nice person. gonna bother positing my own theories we'll never know yeah we can hit on this later too but like i don't think tanya harding is like a good or nice person and i don't think that she's like completely telling the truth but i don't think that that makes her story any less valid or interesting or worth telling but it's like i don't know i mean she it's it's clear that she knew about some portion of it. I think this movie plays it down perhaps a little too much, but like, we'll never know. Sure.

So the attack on Nancy Kerrigan's knee happens. And then I think that the sequence of events is that Nancy obviously can't compete after she's whacked at these trials. Tanya does really well at the trials places. It looks like she's going to be on the Olympic team. The question is, will Nancy be allowed to be on the Olympic team since she couldn't compete in the prelims? And that part is like, it makes sense that it's left out of this movie,

but it is pretty incredible how she completely, I'm like crying. She like totally buckled down, did not pay attention to any of the media coming out, and just like had her like family and support system totally blackballed. Everyone was like, she's training, she's getting better. And in six weeks went from like whacked knee to like big. Yeah, that recovery time was insane. It like shouldn't have been possible. Like it is pretty pretty i just don't

think nancy gets enough credit i think she's also she's not as interesting historical figure as tanya harding but she was pretty fucking cool so because nancy's able to do this amazing turnaround she's allowed on the olympic team and also because and i think that this is explicitly stated in the movie too and has been said by tanya harding in interviews. It's like the media who's been investing all this time and energy into this story is not just going to be like, eh, we're not going to let Nancy compete. People wanted a huge event. Yeah.

And then the movie ends with they both compete in the Olympics, both I, Tanya, both Tanya and Nancy. Tanya does not place. Nancy Kerrigan gets the silver medal. Tanya's skating career is over also because she goes to court and the judge is like, you're never allowed to skate in any sort of competitions ever again. She's like pleading with the judge,

please, this is my whole life. This is the only thing I know how to do. I don't have an education. That was like the most impactful part of the entire movie for me i did not see that that was like i i felt like one of like the big successes of them because i knew that that was how the story ended but it never really occurred to me exactly how devastating that was for her where that was like truly all she had so if her involvement was as low as the movie would have you believe that's horrible and it like it does show how women are punished yeah yeah that was that was like such a gut-wrenching

moment it really was to watch of like that would be i was thinking i was like that would be like if someone told me that i could never do stand-up again but then i was like yeah yeah it's like that would be the worst thing i'd be like you know what uh i wouldn't cry yeah i wouldn't cry i wouldn't offer to do jail time instead when the people are that's so funny i was like i'd rather go to jail than not be able to go to an open mic is jail so it doesn't so then uh she become we see her like stint as a lady boxer i have an autographed picture of tanya harding during her boxing days yeah i really i'm deep into it and i only say lady boxer because that's what she calls herself she's just a boxer anyway per her she's a lady yes so that's the story let's take a quick. Anyway, per her, she's a lady. Yes. So that's the story. Let's

take a quick break and then we'll 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.

To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a US president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson.

I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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

BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television iheart radio and realm listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts there's a lot to digest here there's a lot to discuss one of the main points i wanted to bring up was the kind of ongoing theme she's talking about how figure skating is this sport where the judges want you to be this old-timey version of what a woman is supposed to be.

And her sort of recognition of how she was never going to be that because she didn't have the money to afford all the pretty costumes and she chopped wood every morning so like she didn't have just sort of like the little delicate frame and everything like that. That was one thing that I thought could have been touched on a little more. I agree. I was surprised it didn't because

that is such a big, that informed the direction of her career so much and I think that was like why the people who liked Tanya Harding really liked her because she, like she was so athletically good that there was no, you know, like even though she was not traditionally feminine and like had an athletic build, which makes fucking sense for an athlete. But you weren't supposed to have an athletic build and didn't have a ton of money. But she was so good that people like could not deny her you know like that was cool but it's we see we see it a few times she gets into an argument with judges

and says i'm making my costumes which is true she was making i she had so many disadvantages but they're just like yeah you're not really what we're looking for but you're so good that we can't tell you to go fuck yourself until they found the first excuse to tell her to go fuck her and i think that that also directly ties into how she's treated as you know she was characterized right away as like white trash who they were looking for an excuse to get rid of her right and the second they found one they got rid of her forever yeah and it not only her sort of like appearance and the way she presented herself physically it was also like from what i gathered like her music choices you know she did a lot of like hard rock

and metal she like wore the blue nail polish that her coach was like no more of that like dare i say she was a product of her fucking environment right like you know but that's not an environment that that sport respects right exactly so watching this i mean i i related to her because there's a part where she's talking about how she like operates a forklift chops wood and works at a hardware store and stuff like that and i didn't have that exact same experience but i grew up in a blue collar family, you know, working class. My dad had a forklift and a backhoe. Part of my chores were to go into the woods and Pennsylvania. Cause we lived in the middle of the woods. We would go in the woods. We would gather firewood. I'd have to like load it onto this like wagon that was hooked up to the tractor. I had to drive the tractor around. You're like a farm girl. I'm not a farm. Well, I'm a woods girl. We didn't have a farm, but we had a wood. You had wood.

There's wood. There's wood. There's wood involved. I had to fucking rake leaves all the time. I had to mow grass all the time. I had to plow our driveway with a 1986. You had a plow? We had a 1986 Ford F-250 pickup truck that my dad attached a snowplow to. So I had so many physical chores that I had to do all the time growing up. And I resented the hell out of it. Because at school, I was trying to be friends with the popular kids whose parents were doctors and who didn't have to shovel dirt all the time. And I was just like, ah, please please no one find out about my home life right you know I was kind of I was trying to fit in with like

the quote-unquote like what women are supposed to be and what you know teen girls are supposed to be interested in and all the stuff and I was just like ah like there was just like this whole internal struggle that I was like going through but I also was like it's cool that I can like do all this it is cool and like but but that's not the message the world was sending you no no no at that time I was city poor person so we didn't do a ton of outside things sure but like we're like a city mouse and a country mouse. We really are. I forget what a country mouse you were. Yeah. Like, I have no outdoor skills. But my first, like, full understanding of class in a meaningful way was, it was weird, I wasn't that aware of it growing up because everyone was poor, and I'm kind of grateful

for that, where there really wasn't, there was a class divide that I thought about a lot when I was watching Lady Bird of like, there were people who had like more money than us that my parents would be like, oh, just don't act like a fucking idiot around them, you know? Yeah. So there's little stuff like that. But I largely didn't become aware of my upbringing being poor until I was in college with a ton of rich kids.

Oh, those Emerson Richies. Yeah. And that was like, that was like an upsetting experience where for my entire college experience, I started out by, like I had to work full time through college or I would have had to drop out. And for the first half, I would not tell anybody. And I was like very embarrassed about it. You know, I would just be like, oh, I'm busy.

I can't like go to whatever. But it's like, cause I was working till 3am at a scary pizza place run by a sexual predator who I called the police on. But like, but, and then in the second half of college, I, I'm really glad that I did, but it's like, I just was like, you know what? Rich people are actually trash and I'm working really hard and I don't want to be like, it sucks enough having to work these awful jobs. So I'm not going to like hide the fact that I'm doing it. I'm like, it sucks enough having to work these awful jobs. So I'm not going to like hide the fact that I'm doing it. I'm like, whatever. I'm working harder than you. Fuck you. Yeah. All I had to say is like, she had so much extra stuff to have to do and she was

still one of the best. And that's so the best. And they still didn't want to give it to her. And I, and I totally get that. That is like a, that's fucking frustrating to be like, I am working against so much more than the average person and you're still not, you still won't give it to me. Which is a thing that, I mean, this is poised as more of a class struggle than a gender one in this movie, at least. Right. Because we're only seeing women figure skaters in this movie.

There are certainly gender specific things to talkaters in this movie there are certainly gender specific things to talk about in this movie but for her it was more of a class struggle thing yeah but i think it is still very much like a parallel situation where women have to work a lot harder to get recognition to be taken seriously than their male counterparts a lot of the time right and then just like every time you're in a marginalized group and then you add another marginalization on top of that, it gets infinitely harder again. We call that intersectionality.

Yes, queen. So I enjoyed that this movie at least posed this theme of like a woman, her background, her appearance, the way she presents herself, the way she talks, her tastes and things, doesn't align with the quote unquote old timey version of what a woman's supposed to be as per the judges

of this sport and how that was a struggle for her and how she sort of had to like suppress who she was to be able to fit in but also how she was kind of like unapologetically being like fuck you like there's that scene where that's the best she tells the judges like how am i gonna get a fair chance like why do you hate me so much and they keep saying like we'd also judge on presentation and then she says like suck my dick and it's like

like you're like oh no but you're also like, fuck, that's so cool. And she really did that too. Just like, so cool. I mean, yeah, I wish that that was dug into a little bit more, but I do love that she, I mean, she had, and it comes up a million times, the triple axel is like her secret weapon to be able to stay in skating because she was the only one that could do it. Yeah.

The movie makes a point several times to skating because she was the only one that could do it yeah the movie makes a point several times to say that she was the first woman to attempt and complete it and be really good at it like ever uh right it was her secret weapon secret weapon um okay we would be remiss to not talk about the two central abusive relationships in this movie. One between Tanya and her mother, the other between Tanya and Jeff. We touched on her mother already, but I did think it was like kind of a different, unusual, and again, it's a biopic, so they are just sort of displaying real alleged events and interactions with them. but it was interesting seeing a relationship between two women where i think that like it's a trope basically where it's like this older character

is going to bully their student as it were into greatness whiplash is that exact thing there's a i mean but there's other, I had some written down, but I feel like it's usually, it's either between, like, a male coach and a male student, or it's between, like, a male coach and a female student, and it's a sexualized relationship, which we see in Black Swan. Another example of a male coach and a female student is Million Dollar Baby. I don't think, I don't remember that movie

super well. I don't think there's any sexual component of their relationship. But at first he's like, I don't train girls. And she's like, I'm the best though. I'm really good. And he's like, okay, fine. I'm Clint Eastwood and all. Whatever. Boring. Fuck Clint Eastwood. Fuck Clint Eastwood. But like, yeah, but he like kind of, you know, they develop

a friendship. But it's like he, a lot of that movie is him bullying her into getting really good yeah it's a dynamic we've seen a lot i just we rarely see it between two women and that is a component of tanya and her mom's relationship and it's abusive i think it's like more of you see a more whiplashy kind of relationship yeah that was the closest parallel I could think of. There's a couple different scenes where LaVonna just says like, Tanya did her best when she was angry. And so we see LaVonna paying people to tell Tanya she sucks

before she gets on the ice. All this fucking sadistic, manipulative shit with the goal goal being and that way she'll do really good and the other way that she would do that is by withholding praise at any cost yeah where even when you know tanya's landing triple axel is doing stuff no one else can do it's always well this is what you did wrong and lovana is abusive on so many different levels it's just like well which do we pick she is abusive on like a coachy kind of level which is crazy because she can't fucking skate no but i think even more so than tanya's actual coach diane who is not great and is very i think that she falls more in the bucket of like t Tanya, you're not feminine enough. Right. That's sort of the space she occupies.

But LaVonna is like, you suck, you're bad, and I'm going to tell you you're bad because that'll make you good. And she gets enough results by doing that that she continues to do it. Right. And it's bad. component of her abuse of like making it feel like tanya owed her something which is i think very common with kids and parents yeah just like a kid feeling like an investment and like they have to do well because their parents are struggling in order for them to be able to do anything which is an unfair pressure to put on a kid i don't know i mean it is so complicated the issue of class in america if you can believe nuanced complicated thing but there's that element there's also just

the element of like lavana is a fucking bad person who wants everyone around her to suffer and and i i'd be curious i mean we see very little of tanya's dad in this movie it seems like they had a good relationship and that he was kind of the beta to lavana's alpha to the point where tanya says later in the movie well you hit dad i was like oh she hit dad yeah okay that's you know an unusual abuse dynamic but, LaVonna is framed in the movie as a character who, for a number of reasons that are explained, wants everyone around her to suffer. Right. And Tanya certainly suffers.

And also LaVonna is completely aware that Jeff is abusive towards Tanya and does basically nothing to stop it. And really just makes that one comment in that scene they have together where she says like what i forget the exact wording it's like um you're a dumb piece of shit who thinks she deserves to get hit right where you know we can get the subtext of what she's saying which is that you don't deserve to get hit but she's leading with you're a dumb piece of shit but also she's hitting tanya so exactly and that's and then tanya responds by being like well where did i get that idea the implications of that

are obviously like oh i think i deserve to get hit because you hit me my entire life there's yeah there's no there's no subtlety in the way that issue is presented yeah but that's like good i don't think that there should be like shades of gray presented of like should this be like but it is interesting to me and and jeff is the less fleshed out character of the two uh between him and lavonet but it is interesting to see i think as of right now i feel like ultimately it is an interesting and i think kind of impactful choice to characterize an abuser a little bit and you know alice and jenny there is a part in the movie where she says like my mom was nice and nothing happened you know and like that and that's why that's why i amounted to nothing i think was the implication of like nice parents in poor communities raise unremarkable children seems to be her belief and that is a moment that

reveals so much about that character and who she is and it's like do we want to see a three-dimensional depiction of an abuser in some ways it's like you don't really want to introduce a like i don't want to be able to empathize with this person But real life abusers have motivations and have elements and probably, you know, not every single thing they have done in their entire life is the worst thing ever. And that is something that you struggle with. And that's part of the reason why abusive relationships are so hard to get out of because people are in them. Yeah. Real people. Right. I think it's dangerous to depict an abuser in a way that we might be empathetic or sympathetic to them.

I think it is, though, important to present them as kind of like three-dimensional people because then we can kind of start to learn okay why are you this way is there anything about you that can be helped and made to not be that way like because oftentimes yeah an abuser depicted in media is just like very one-dimensional they just are sort of like pure evil kind of thing right and we don't understand why they're that way or if we do it's Which can be an interesting villain character but it doesn't if the objective is to get people to recognize people like this who may exist in their own life that is not the way to go

So I think it was actually pretty responsible on the movie's part to depict LaVonna the way that she was because she is a fleshed out character But the movie also doesn't absolve her of anything which is important and i thought was also effectively yeah do i think there was one moment where i was like should we be giving this abusive woman laugh lines oh right especially

that part where she it's like whenever tanya and jeff's relationship has kind of like taken off and we don't see yeah there's a lot for a while and she's like well my fucking storyline's disappearing right about now and we're all like big laugh line it's like i don't know there's some shades of gray there that i'm not totally comfortable with yeah but by and large how she's treated in the in the movie narrative wise i thought was interesting and if that's the choice they're making to have a three-dimensional abuser the movie doesn't absolve her it's clear that what she's doing isn't wrong but it offers some insight into why that may be and I thought that was an interesting choice yeah we don't get that as much with Jeff I don't particularly care another element of the abusive relationship that I thought was very interesting and ultimately pretty effective was Tanya is the abused in both of these relationships.

She's on the receiving end with her mother from the second she emerges from the womb. And then, you know, shortly after, it seems like she and Jeff had like three weeks were really pleasant. And then seven or eight years that were a fucking nightmare. Yeah. But I think that, and I need to do more thinking on this and I want to bring more effective examples to the table in the future, but I feel like in general, there is this media trend of when women are portrayed as being in abusive relationships on screen. And I think actually an example, a recent example would be Nicole Kidman's character in Big Little Lies. She's abused by her husband pretty brutally in that show, but her character is presented as kind of a perfect character of like, here's this woman who works really hard does all of her domestic chores is basically

bringing her husband his meal and he whacks it out of her hand and and hits her that sort of thing where we are seeing a depiction of abuse that is like i mean it's very hard to watch and it is i'm sure realistic to some people's experience but these flawless women in abusive relationships i think is kind of a media trend where it's like and she never did a whole thing wrong in her entire life how could this person abuse her whereas in tanya's abusive relationships tanya is a very flawed character she fucks up a lot and and there are examples of times where she fucks up in ways that have nothing to do with jeff or her mother she fucks up independently like a person would right so again it's just like showing real people in abusive relationships there's examples of yeah like tanya fucks up a lot

in this movie and in her life and like it couldn't be more clear that just because you don't even have to like her to recognize that she doesn't deserve this abuse. And I just thought that that was something that I really haven't seen that much of, like, especially a woman in an abusive relationship where she can be a fuck up and she is doing stuff. She's not a perfect person and she's receiving abuse and she doesn't deserve that. Where, yeah, seeing a character like that just sort of drew my attention to how rare it is to see a flawed character receive abuse in a way that

it's still very clear that it's like yeah that was something i thought about a lot yeah that's really interesting i think that's a symptom of so many movies that do depict an abusive relationship it's caricatures almost it's a lot of like archetypes. It's, you know, not real people who are the characters of the story. So they don't seem as fleshed out or they, it's, you know, you see the writer being,

well, I want to make my character this way. And to me in some crazy way that justifies or doesn't the abuse they receive sort of thing. So they're just like these not real people who the storyteller designs in the way that they think is going to serve their story best. And oftentimes, like you said, it is like the, what's the show called? Pretty Little Lies.

Big Little Lies. Big Little Pretties. Pretty much. Yeah. I like to call it the Laura Dern inan and i patch hour yeah i just i'm never gonna know the difference between pretty little liars and big little lies two amazing shows okay all you need to know so it often we do see you know a very kind of like perfect prim proper woman who doesn't really have any flaws and is the victim of abuse. I think that that's

almost like another way to justify writing a female character that's unrealistically passive. Yeah. Yeah. Where like the female character receiving abuse is not doing anything wrong in any area of her life and she's punished. and i think the writers of stories like that are like look how tragic this is like look how much she doesn't deserve this whereas i think like those same people would be like oh but if the character's flawed it makes her somehow deserve it a little bit more and that's obviously not the message that anyone should be sending so yeah i think it is really interesting that tanya is depicted as a flawed character and that does not make her deserve abuse. Just that was like something that really struck me with this movie where I was like, that is so cool.

And also I think that like, I'm saying it's trope, right? Like the perfect woman who is abused is also just like lazy writing. Yeah. It's easier to not write a character that behaves like a human. Right. But, but in this, in this movie,

I just, that was like one of my favorite elements of it. That was like, cool. Not that I want to see abusive relationships on screen every second of my life, but that was, I thought like really effectively done. Yeah.

And they really, they don't spare the audience in the way the abuse is depicted. I mean, it's hard to watch. It's hard. Let's take another break and then we'll come back for more discussion.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson.

I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it.

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm.

Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. But speaking of real people, which is what this movie is about, that brings me to something I wanted to talk about regarding biopics and how most biopics are about men. Some of them are tortured geniuses. Other ones are about fucking mediocre as hell men,

including the disaster artist and ed wood throw a fucking stick and you'll hit a man who has somehow had a movie made about his unremarkable life so few biopics are about women i did some quick googling and found a list of about 20 or so that people have heard of there's more over the no one's ever heard of. Over the course of film history. Yeah. A few of the more notable ones include this one, I, Tanya, Frida, Hidden Figures, Elizabeth, The Iron Lady. A lot of these are kind of recent, too.

Jackie. Selena. The Queen. Julie and Julia. And there's also What's Love Got to Do With It. Selena, Gia, Erin Brockovich. Monster. Monster. Monster.

Marie Antoinette. Persepolis. Persepolis. One of my faves. Love, V and Rose. The Passion of Joan of Arc, which was a long time ago. Oh, that was a good one. The Coal Miner's Daughter.

So there's only a small handful of biopics about women. And every other, I mean, and the biopics is such a massive genre there are so many oh just any loser can have a movie made about their life if they're if they're a man and often in the case of steve jobs which oh my god if you have not seen the ashton kutcher jobs vehicle i saw it on my 21st birthday and it was it's truly so remarkably bad that you have to see it you would be you're just if you don't watch jobs and figure out what the rules to the drinking game is it just the movie basically gives it to you like every time ashton kutcher's is in a field talking about computer like what is happening there's a time where asha gutter is having an argument through a beaded

curtain you're just like what is happening yes you gotta watch it but but but if you if if you look at the list of biopics about women by and large they're about white women yes by and large they're about straight women by and large they're about women who have had massive success that have led these amazing lives. From what I can pick out, you know, like they're mostly triumph tales with the exception of I, Tonya and Monster. Those are the two I can see on this list that involve a woman failing. Right.ak yeah pretty pretty bleak and one might argue that oh well there aren't more biopics about women because there aren't more notable figures in history and well i would counter argue yeah history is written by

the victors which are which are men. People named Victor. Victor. History's written by a mean old bitch named Victor. So there are plenty of, and if it seems like there aren't more notable figures from history who are women, it's because they don't get talked about. They don't get written about. They've been written out or if there are actually fewer it's because women haven't been allowed to be fucking politicians until two seconds ago it's because women weren't allowed to be any like so many things leaders of any industry or even allowed in the industry i can't wait for irbg the rbg movie is gonna be fucking tight also there is sort of a

weird trend in some of these biopics where it's like and this is i think this is a biopic trend overall but it is maybe because there's so few about women it's like oh come on there is some that it's like and at the end she's murdered where that's that is several on this list of like what made her life so remarkable was that she died in a gross sexy way and you're just like ah fuck me come on we gotta watch james franco saw his leg off and you can't have a movie about ruth bader ginsburg grow up there's movies about fucking civil like the wrong side of the civil war and there's biopics about southern generals in the come on what do you how many times is leonardo dicaprio gonna play someone in the 1920s before i get my ruth bader ginsburg movie i'm now married to it

there that's not to say that there's not good biopics about men there are but the fact that there are so many male figures that have more than one biopic about them that is not a problem that the female equivalent has you're not finding like god which steve jobs biopic should i watch you could literally there's three literally, there's three of them. There's three of them. Should I watch Lincoln or should I watch young Mr. Lincoln? Fuck. And there's probably not even all of them. And this doesn't even include all the fucking stupid like history channel documentaries, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

And I mean, if we go back before release, mainstream Hollywood biopics. If we go before 1950, I mean, there's a million male biopics about the randomest men in existence. Like, a randomized video game character. They're like, we have to have a three-hour epic about this amazing man's journey. May I also just take this opportunity to say that Citizen Kane, which is loosely based on...

Oh, such a drag. William Randolph Hearst. Yes. Is the worst movie i've ever seen i hate citizen kane fuck that movie it's so fucking boring who cares about your fucking sled get over it and fuck off i don't like citizen kane i don't it's not i don't think it's the worst movie of all time i dated a a guy who was really into Citizen Kane for a while to the point where he tried to remake Citizen Kane. Oh, gosh.

With, and you're going to know exactly what I'm talking about, with prop comedy. Oh, yikes. And it was halfway shot before someone told him it was a fucking terrible idea. Which is like one of my favorite anecdotes of all time.

Because I was complicit in being like everyone thought it was a bad idea but people hate telling men that their idea is the worst idea of all time and that's why so much mediocre male art is out there because people love telling women their ideas are bad oh yeah uh but men they're like yeah yeah try to remake such as you fucking idiot oh boy well a few other things yeah i wanted to mention we see what has become a trope of oh i noticed the caitlin trope a woman being good at fixing cars as a way to show her as the i'm not like the other girls but in in this movie, yes, and there are examples of this where it doesn't feel tropey or it doesn't feel like it's a

weird tacked on trait to make her feel, I'm not like one of the other girls. This is an example of a movie that does it well, but like you, Tanya walks up to Jeff, he's like fiddling around with his truck and she's like, oh, you got to do this thing or blah, blah, blah. And she like reaches in and she also has braces she has braces it's so cute he's like oh okay um yeah i'm in this scene and it's like you don't know what to do with it you can just like he's the scene the part where and you and you know like if you didn't know he was about to become a historically notorious piece of shit that story beat when the very heavy-handed Romeo and Juliet begins to play,

when he's like, you're so fucking pretty. Yeah. And she's like, no, I'm not. No, I'm not. You are. And you're just like, ah! Please kiss. And then end of the movie.

And then break up immediately. But that was a nice moment. But yeah, no, i totally believe that she was good at fixing cars just based on her background but the fact that they show it yeah yeah yeah um because it happens again in a in an episode that we've either just done or is about to come out is uh josie and the pussycats where it's like that one hey that one didn't make sense in the context of the story no not, not at all. Why? But Alan Cumming does give a break the fourth wall glance at the camera at one point in the movie.

I cannot wait to record that episode. I'm going to explode. And it's to a Meat Loaf song. It's like that was designed with me in mind. I can't even believe. Anyway, okay. I'm shifting. I'm getting even believe. Anyway, okay. I'm shifting. I'm getting, okay.

But that's it. Going off of the fact that that trope, I would agree that trope is present because that was intentionally shown. But the way this movie, it would have been very easy. I wonder if the director of photography for this movie was a man or a woman. I don't know. This movie is directed and written by a man, which I was surprised at. Two different men. Yeah. But this movie, I mean, a movie about figure skaters in general, it would have been a very easy choice to sexualize the way the movie is shot.

And it's not shot that way at all. Totally. When you see figure skating scenes, you're looking at either Tanya's face to communicate how she's feeling about herself, or you're seeing the athletic focus. You see like the triple axel a million times. Right. So I thought that was really, I won't say impressive, because that's just how it should be but agree yeah i mean yeah that's what it should default to and yet so many movies are shot in such a way where it's hey we're shooting this with the male gaze camera most which has magnets that are just on a woman male gaze goggles on-ass. Put your male gaze goggles on. Right, and the way that

skaters were sexualized in this time would have made it a very easy, cheap choice, and they don't make that choice, and I thought that was good. Cinematography by Nicholas... Lots of consonants. Don't know that last name, but that seems like a man. I'm gonna try.

Karakatsanis. Karakatsanis. Karakatsanis. Film editing by like a man. Kara Kara Kara Kara Katsanas Kara Katsanas Kara Katsanas Film editing by Tatiana Feminist icon Tatiana Regal Yeah She edited

Lars and the Real Girl Ooh I just learned Anyways I hope she I genuinely just based on all I haven't seen all the

Oscar frontrunners but this was like the best editing I saw in any movie It was Yeah Shot very well Edited very well Yes it is a terrific movie it is so good i mean not as good as paddington 2 but i mean i wanted to talk really quickly about the role of toxic masculinity in

this story is yeah as it pertains to jeff i think we've we've already sort of covered that relationship a little bit we don't get to know jeff very well in this movie and that doesn't bother me but of the two abusers we know jeff far less well but what we know about jeff is that when tanya doesn't behave the way he wants he hits her and he you know it's a pretty cut and dry dynamic we see that over and over and over but the moment in the relationship where and they both acknowledge this in interviews and i thought the way it was portrayed like there's that moment where they're like after the triple axel everything changed where to me that indicated a shift in the power dynamic of like when tanya basically was just growing more confident in her abilities and and ability to succeed their relationship worsens and

to me i felt like that was a response to a man not feeling in control of the relationship yeah feeling inadequate or like oh this woman is more successful than me she's better than me and because he doesn't really have he doesn't have he has a job but he doesn't have, he has a job, but he doesn't have special skills the way that Tanya does. Right. And so we see examples of like, he's very on paper would appear to be supportive in that he is present. He's there. But he, you see him taking credit a lot for stuff and you see him repeatedly asking to be noticed and appreciated for, you know, and it's not wrong to want to be appreciated but it's absolutely wrong to hit your wife so you know i think that it's it wasn't a brand of toxic

masculinity that we haven't seen displayed but i thought it was whatever effectively presented especially for a character we don't know that much about in terms of his background we know that he's poor right he says a little bit about himself but that's basically all you know sean i think is a more interesting case study here and i love paul so much i want to be his best friend sean is a different kind it reminded me of that pop culture detective essay about like the toxic masculinity of like nerdy guys yeah of how sort of for years in movies like weird science where it's like the nerds will rise up and fuck every woman where you know it's presented that narrative of like nerds don't get

to have sex with girls and what a massive travesty and they should be allowed to enact they should be just as shitty to women as popular guys oh I just watched 16 Candles last night for the first time. I won't get into it. But my God, is that the worst movie I've ever seen? I think we should do it. We should definitely do it. We should do a Johnny's special because it's despicable. But presenting toxic masculinity as a punchline

was like another very deliberate choice this movie makes that I thought worked really well. There were some moments where I was like ah he's doing violent terrible stuff but by and large i think presenting that character as a fucking joke who literally i mean he's he's speaking in like pretty broad strokes of like i'd never do anything wrong cut to like him doing something wrong. That was another great Paul Walter. When he's in the back of the car, he's like, they'll never break me. Cut to a montage of him just bragging about Nancy Kerrigan thing.

Yeah, that was me and my crew. And it's like, oh. And also he lies like five times. He's like, I got paid $65,000. I'm like, did it? What are you talking about? It was just like, it was are you talking about it's just like it was oh god i mean i i think that that the way that character is presented was really interesting choice that maybe won't work

for everyone but i thought it was a way that we don't see toxic masculinity displayed a lot that can be effective true yeah i agree another couple things i wanted to point out about her abusive relationship with Jeff is that at one point, you know, she says, you know, I thought it was my fault that he was hitting me. That I just thought was interesting just to have it be pointed out because that's such a common thing for abuse victims to feel because their abuser is often also extremely manipulating and makes them feel as though it is their fault and the fact that it even gets said yeah i thought was important moments like that like this is weird to say but i wish that this movie had come out when i was a teenager because there's so much presented here that is presented really explicitly and directly

even when they're like painful truths to be very direct about but i'm like excited for like young girls who are seeing this movie and and can hear these messages stated so clearly like that's awesome another good message that i think the movie sends is it starts with you see like a tiny tiny scene of her stepbrother, Creepy Chris. Yes, yes. This guy was living with me at the time, and I remember my first date with Jeff because I had my creepy stepbrother arrested that day. Because you see a scene where he comes up and gropes her and, like, fondles her breast. And then she, like, flings him down and calls the cops on him and, like, has him basically arrested and kicked out of the house. And then there's a number of other times in the movie where she calls the cops on him and like has him basically arrested and kicked out of the house and then there's a number of other times in the movie where she calls the cops on jeff and nothing is done and

has restraining orders filed against him he often violates them they even get divorced because they get married and then divorced but she takes him back after that so i mean he also shoots her he shoots her nothing is done cop a cop pulls them over pretends her bloody face yeah and then and then while he's kind of talking his way out of it in the background with the cop you see another scene where tanya's directly addressing the camera saying like he can talk his way in anything never the cop just left me there like it was i mean oh yeah how women are disservice when you can't make the argument that she didn't try to get out she did she did but you know the abuse cycle

yeah the last thing i wanted to talk about was the media aspect of it yes which feels especially relevant right now of a lot of the reason this story unfolded the way it was was for ratings and for you know there is that side of it but ultimately it was that people just didn't believe tanya like they did not believe what she was saying i think this movie makes a really great point of like her whole life no one believed her even when she was saying. I think this movie makes a really great point of like her whole life no one believed her even when she was saying over and over like this is the abusive relationship I'm in this is how my class is getting in the way of me achieving my goals. Say what you will about her she's a very direct character and person and and she's just kind of shoved aside and reasons are found to dismiss her and sometimes even including like the fact that she's

very direct is used as a reason to discredit her yeah it's like you're too blunt you like we it's trashy yeah it's not classy right and the ultimate message being that like people just didn't believe what she was saying and there was a lot of ways that people were biased and prejudiced against her that informed that reaction you know like there's a lot there's certainly a lot of gray area in this story but that she was done a huge disservice by the media that ended up robbing her of a career that it seemed like people always wanted to rob her of anyways right yeah um it's just yeah there's a line that she says in the movie she's talking

about nancy kerrigan and she says the press wanted nancy to be the princess and i to be the pile of crap to sell papers so basically they had decided even though they came from similar economic backgrounds nancy and tanya which the movie should have said should have said but because nancy was maybe not as crass and maybe a little bit more refined in her appearance, the press just held on to that and were like, yeah, Tanya is white trash, forklift driving welder lady who's like, ugh, gross. And her competitor, of course, they were... Well, the thing that sucks is Nancy was from a similar background, but she was willing to play ball, as it were,

by not really saying anything about her background. She was very, like, old interviews with her. They're just, you know, in the way that you see a lot of teenagers who come to prominence and stay there, she's not really saying that much. She's saying, like, she's thanking people. You know, she's not stating her opinions as much as tanya is and and i think that like there is a big element of like people wanting her to apologize for something that she does she she's an unapologetic person and people

did not like that right and i it's i mean we've hit on this before i've just like an unapologetic man sky's the limit for those types of characters and a lot of biopics that is like the the center of it like he'd never apologize for doing what he thought was right and that's what we see tanya doing and you know you can see the real historical result is that her life was ruined because she wasn't willing to play ball and yeah was unapologetic about who she was i don't know if this is an appropriate parallel to draw but remember when mike tyson bit off someone's ear and everyone's like that's badass oh mike tyson oh slap on the wrist but uh actually you can still be in the public eye and you're like what a silly

guy and did it and i think that ties back to like the femininity issue of like the sport she was in of just like she wasn't supposed to be tough in that sport she's supposed to be traditionally feminine yes and there was no wiggle room but then also just the way that, like, the press and media treated both cases, where, like, Tanya was to some degree involved in violence against Nancy Kerrigan, and Mike Tyson was no doubt involved with violence against someone. There's no way around. There's video footage of it. By biting his ear off.

But he got some shit for a while i remember but now like mike tyson you can see him in movies like he's still check out or please god don't watch the hangover but like exactly like huge he's still a person that people yeah and often he's the butt of a joke but the fact that he's still but honestly that was that ended i i'd argue that ultimately that was a boon to his career yeah whereas with tanya it was easier to villainize her because of the patriarchy that little shifty patriarchy back again oh we thought we got it last time uh recommended viewing for people who enjoyed itania first of all watch the 30 for 30 documentary it's made by i forget what her name is but a really great documentarian also i think it is relevant that the source material for this movie was curated

and presented by a female filmmaker really really really good and then follow up i would watch the netflix documentary about amanda knox where you'll find a similar story of i mean there's no limit to the stories of women being victimized in media. That's why our show exists. But in terms of real-life stuff, Amanda Knox, the story being that she was accused of murder when it was clear very early on that she did not do it, and it was done by someone else who admitted to it. But for years, it was like, did she do it? And it was done by someone else who admitted to it but for years it was like did she do it and was pushed by the media and i think that this movie pulls from that a little bit because

there's that shitty media guy that we see in the talking heads over and over who's like he and i popped her tires like the that seemed like almost directly pulled from there's like this british tabloid journalist in the amanda knox documentary who couldn't be more thrilled with himself for ruining her life and i just want to shoot him uh but recommended viewing yeah hey does this movie pass the factual test i wonder it certainly does for sure it does you've got lavana and the coach talking you've got tanya and the coach talking you've got lavana and tanya talking to each other you've got Tanya and the coach talking. You've got LaVonna and Tanya talking to each other. You've got, we didn't talk about this character, but Tanya fires Diane, her first coach, and then hires someone named Dottie or something.

And then when she fucks up the 92 Olympics, Diane ends up coming back. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. With that great scene at the diner where Tanya's like, well, I'm just like my mom. I'm a waitress. I'm poor. I'm a waitress. I'm poor. I'm out of shape. And the good news is I also am unskilled. I was like, that was fun.

That was fun. But yeah, I mean, the movie passes dozens of times. It's not even worth counting how many because it's tons. No, this movie is, from moment one, women take up the screen for the majority of the movie. And again, it is worth saying it's 95% white women. Yeah. Again, tricky.

It's a biopic. Tricky. We're in Oregon for most of the movie. But worth saying. Oregon, which was founded as a white supremacy state, if you didn't know. Didn't know? Yeah. Horrible.

Yeah. They wouldn't even let black people live there until sometime in the 1920s, I want to say. Well, that explains what a white state it is. Yeah, it was founded as like, this is going to be a white haven for any white people who want to live here and not be around any people of color. I did not know that. That makes sense of every place I've ever seen in Oregon. Mm-hmm. Whoa.

Very white. Fucked up, man. Shall we rate the movie? Yes. makes sense of every place i've ever seen in oregon whoa very white fucked up man shall we rate the movie yes i'm gonna give it a five nipple i think i think i am too i know no i'm gonna give it four okay because and i know it's about i tanya harding but i do think that nancy was robbed, was, was villainized. She was Margot Robbie. I think she was, and I understand why this choice was made, but I don't like it. She was villainized in this story that she was not, she couldn't be less of a villain or even a willing participant in. I thought that there were several small opportunities to flesh her out a little bit, but the movie shows no interest in giving Nancy's character any dimension, which I, that really did bother me. However, every other woman we see on screen is flawed, has motivation.

Just, I don't know, just like a lot of human women are shown in this movie and are shown together and are shown in conflict are shown not in conflict there's well actually kind of everyone in this movie is in conflict at all times yes regardless of gender pretty much without exception yeah down to the fucking we didn't talk about this where though we think we're getting a reconciliation scene with tanya and her mom and they they're like, nope, she's being paid by someone to get Tanya to admit she did something that she may not have actually done. Amazing. But yeah, I mean, I think that this movie is terrific.

I just wish. Justice for Nancy, baby. Nancy, to her credit slash to my low-key fury, still to this day has no interest in talking about it. They're like, have you seen I, Tonya? She's like, nope. Wow. She will not talk about it.

She has no interest. I mean, and it's weird because Nancy Kerrigan ended up kind of making a killing off of this incident. Although, obviously, she was not, again, she's not a willing participant in this. Right. But she did make that amazing comeback. And then off of that amazing comeback she won second place made a face which i'm just like that's the only time we've seen nancy kerrigan behave human is that because she was so like conscious and perfect and then when she was just like kind of there is

like a great clip when nancy kerrigan gets the silver medal in the olympics where the girl who wins it was like a Russian girl, is like taking a while to get off the ice because she's crying so much. And Nancy's just like, there's like a clip of Nancy Kerrigan being like, why are we going to just, are we just going to keep filming her crying?

And it's like, okay, fine. She's a person, you know. In fact, I liked it. First of all, I make faces all the time. I always have a scowl on my face. And also also that's basically telling telling a woman to smile smile right prettier when you smile she lost that sucks after all she went through like she frowned but but the movie casts her as in i mean tanya

right cast her as in the wrong for doing that and the movie makes no commentary on the fact that that is probably a little petty of her because you know nancy anyways clearly i'm a nancy stan i love her yeah i love tanya too i love this movie yeah i'm gonna i i'm gonna stick with my five just because i don't have the same emotional investment attachment to nancy kerrigan as you do so i just thought it was great that we what feels like because they actually are real people depicted because other biopics will be about a historical figure and totally glass over them and make them not oh yeah that tom hanks movie about walt disney also that tom hanks biopics are fucking problematic charlie wil Wilson's war is an atrocity to nature. Charlie Wilson was like a Senator.

I'm pretty sure who literally the whole movie is like, he's abusing women and it's fucking cool. Tom Hanks and biopics. No more the post fuck off. Well, uh, an example I saw recently was the greatest showman, which is the worst movie I've ever seen.

I did go to see it because Zac Efron is in it, and that's my cross to bear. But that movie totally glossed over all the horrible shit P.T. Barnum did in his life and does not depict him as an interesting or compelling or multi-dimensional character the way that I, Tonya does. So I, Tonya was very responsible in presenting these characters, flawed as they may be, as dynamic, multidimensional characters and people and exploring things that movies don't often, if they do explore, they don't go into enough depth about or make any real statement about,

which is class struggles and abuse and the media's portrayal of women and things like that so it tackles a lot it does tackles a lot and i think it does it all for the most part pretty responsibly and on top of that it's just you know a woman's story it's a woman driving this story it's a fun movie it's good because there is kind of like sometimes a tendency of even in movies that fare well with the bechdel test and portrayal of women of like yeah we're seeing strong female characters but we're not seeing strong flawed female characters true and that's something this movie does very well yes indeed so yeah uh I give it a five nipple and my nipples go to

I think that Sean Eckhart has eight nipples. You think he's a cat? I think he's a cat. How great would it have been if Alfred Molina was in this movie? Can I just say, there's not really any older male parts in this movie, though. So it might have been impossible. And also, how amazing is it that there's no older male parts in this movie? So Alfred Molina, unfortunately, I think, I mean, he's a feminist icon. He posted a thirst trap along with a caption that's like donate to times up and it's like um what bitch but like i love it

you're good so you're giving sean eckhart five nipples i'll give him two of mine which brings his count to seven and so maybe he just like he's got like a spare time because i love i i can't wait to see paul walter hauser in every movie that comes out from now on i i literally can't wait to be tired of him um and i'm giving my other two nipples to nancy sorry yeah that's great yeah and i also think that i look more like nancy kerrigan than the girl who played her in the movie i'm just throwing it out there. Okay, sure. So like all the casting agents were patrons on our page. I can't wait to play Nancy Kerrigan. Well, that was the episode, folks.

Thanks for listening. Yes. I had given the, I didn't remember this, but I had given the movie five nipples. And Jamie, you had given the I didn't remember this but I had given the movie five nipples um and and Jamie you had given it four I think I wouldn't necessarily give it five if we like to do the episode today backpedaling on her nipple rating again Caitlin backpedal Durante strikes again I I don't know maybe I would still give it i might i might even score it a little lower i don't know maybe it would still be around a four for me i think i think i would drop it down to like a 4.5 for the reasons that you cited in the episode i was just too i was too gung-ho about

it i guess i was just like to be fair ed had just come out and we were all excited we were like alice and jannie's gonna win that oscar and then she did so yeah i i i feel like oh and i want to say a final note that i think in the two and a half years since this movie has kind of slipped out of the zeitgeist in a way i do not like i feel like people don't talk about itania reallya really at all. I feel like it's you and Demi Adedjouibe are the only people talking about I, Tonya, and we need to fix that. Me and Demi's text thread is pretty much all about I, Tonya. It's just like watching it again. We're both watching it a lot. He and I have a similar text thread about Paddington, so that makes sense.

Demi is that friend. He's a man of passion. But I would encourage you, if you like I, Tanya, tell someone who hasn't. It's on Hulu for crying out loud. It's not hard to watch I, Tanya. It's so accessible. Just bring it to your friends. Bring it to your loved ones.

They deserve it. Okay, I'm getting off my soapbox. Also, Jamie, I can't believe we went through that entire episode and you never mentioned anything about Zambonis. Which is, I mean, that is for a reason. One of my only notes. Not a Zamboni in the whole movie. Not a damn Zamboni in sight.

Not a Zam, which is, first of all, erasure. Zamboni in the whole movie. Not a damn Zamboni in sight. Not a Zam, which is, first of all, erasure. Zamboni erasure. Zamboni erasure. There's for sure. And like Tonya Harding is like, she's like a working class hero. She would be talking to the Zamboni drivers. She would be forging lifelong friendships with the Zamboni drivers. I bet she knows how to drive a Zamboni and operate one.

Now I want to just quote the whole movie again. She does chop wood every day. She does drive the Zamboni every day. Yeah. That would be... I mean, that would just be... If this were a fictional story, they're like, well, yeah, Tanya pays for her lessons by driving the Zamboni, which is something that I would do for free.

Oh, sure. Like to refer to a recent episode on the Cheetah Girls when the one character works at the community center to pay for her for her dance lessons. It could be just like that. That's a very common way to get children to do labor they shouldn't necessarily be doing. I did the same thing for dance classes in high school. They're like, oh, to help teach the little kids and then we'll look the other way. And you're like, look the other way? I'm doing a job.

Anyways, I, Tanya, rocks. She should have been on a Zamboni. Also, I've ridden a Zamboni. End. Wow. Fiend. Well, thanks for listening, everyone. You can follow us on social media at Bechtelcast on Twitter and Instagram.

Really be sure to follow those accounts because that's where we post, you know, certain events that we have. Maybe you were hanging out on our Titanic livestream last week. We're hoping to to do more of those so just stay in touch don't be a stranger you can join our the the episode you heard unlocked today was from our patreon aka matreon where for five dollars a month you can get two bonus episodes a month as well as access to our back catalog, which is over 70 episodes, I think, at this point. So there's just if you're running low on main feed, it's a great place to go. And it's also a great community. You can get our merch at tpublic.com slash the Bechtel cast. There's just options upon options upon options of ways for you to form parasocial relationships with us.

You should make an I an itania design for march okay don't tempt me also i wanted to pitch this oh go for it a crossover of itania and i frankenstein what if they exist in the same universe we should honestly i now i'm like should i change my other birthday patreon episode to i frankenstein honestly wow something to think about i would i frankenstein is two perfect movies combined it couldn't be done oh god i love ifrigginshead so much like the scene where he's on top of the mountain he's just swinging around nunchucks but there's no one there i love it i simply don't remember i think i've seen it but i don't remember anything about it aaron eckhart really wishes that you didn't remember anything about it. I would gladly record a bonus episode on it, though,

if that was your birthday wish. Maybe that's the move. About to make my wishes come true. Wowee. All right. Well, thanks again, everyone. And we'll see you next week. Bye.

Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the President of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer,

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