The Bechdel Cast - Imagine Me & You with Samee Junio

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Imagine Caitlin & Jamie & special guest Samee Junio discussing Imagine Me & You. (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast. Follow @it_your_sam on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes,

and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? It's right here in black and white in print.

It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions ask if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just

boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast. Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Hey, boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast hey jamie hey caitlin look i know it's your wedding day and you're getting married to alfred molina right now but yeah could this wait no because i did your floral arrangements and then i looked at you and I fell in love with you at first sight. Wait, I fell in love with you at first sight.

This is going to suck. We should. Well, let's wait a couple of weeks. Jeez. Okay. Okay. Yeah. God, Alfred Molina is going to be so bummed out when he finds out.

He's going to be so bummed out. He's going to have to talk to my precocious kid sister about it on a roof for some reason yeah and then he's gonna be like i should have married you nine-year-old kid and i'm just like what is this joke that's happening with the hot guy from chasing liberty welcome to the bechdel cast welcome my indeed. My name is Jamie Loftus. I just married Alfred Molina. Congratulations. My name is Caitlin Durante and I will soon be marrying Jamie Loftus. It's awesome.

And now, and my funny dad is going to be so supportive. Your dad who is Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I didn't watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer so I did not know that. Did you know that Matthew Goode was the hot guy from Chasing Liberty? I don't know what Chasing Liberty is. See and that's why this is such a strong partnership. We we complement each other so well. We fill in each other's gaps oh wink oh wait this is really this is caitlin's horniest year and it's starting to seep into the vernacular as well i won't deny it oh my god remember when you hit on it hit on the tech guy at our show i only say that because it was in front of the audience

on mic it was it was sort of aggressive I did apologize to him afterward and I said I'm sorry if that made you uncomfortable but I did call back to me hitting on the tech guy at a live show that we did in Los Angeles several times. And you are getting married. Actually, everyone kind of did love it. And now we can do a reverse and I can show up at your wedding in low rise jeans. With a huge belt that's like four inches thick. Every outfit that Lena Headey wears in this

is equally baffling and enticing to me. I really love it. The pants, I know that that's just 2005 in general, but when you see pants going so dangerously low where it's like there's an inch of hip flesh where it like stops being sexy and starts being like what's gonna happen like it starts to make me nervous yeah speaking of the wardrobe i wrote down in my notes that this is the scarfiest movie I've ever seen. In that no less than 30 different scarves are seen, spread across at least a dozen different characters. It's very scarfy. I didn't notice the scarfiness

because I was too busy writing down this horrible joke. What is this? Coyote British? Yeah. Okay. Is the episode over? Yes. Thanks for listening. You can follow us on Twitter. Let's get Sammy in here. It's time.

We got to get Sammy in here. We'll introduce our guest and then we'll explain what this podcast is. Our guest today is the senior audio producer at entertainment weekly you know them from our episodes on she's the man and crazy stupid love is that even the name of that movie don't remember and you know them from dog on various tours it's sammy junio welcome back friend wait is this your jacket appearance this is this is episode three isn't it this is three but we our jacket appearances we give our out jackets jacket five fuck yeah and to be, we've never followed through on the jacket promise.

We've never given out a jacket. Naomi has a jacket. Just Kniece. Just Kniece has a jacket. God damn it. That's exciting. I think I confuse it with three. She's in the three club, right?

Yes. Correct. There's a three club, then there's the jacket club. Oh, man. Right. So, Sammy, you are now in the three club. Which is just the name i don't get a jacket no we'll give you a little hug i think i'm busy now i should leave so caitlin's

horny i just want to hug my friends i know i've talked about this on the show before but i worked very briefly right after i got out of college at this place that I guess will remain nameless because it's still open for some reason, but they call their employees guest huggers. And if anyone comes in and they're like, I want to hug at the time you had to hug them. I hate it. And you made $8 an hour. It was 430 in the morning. How many hugs did you deal out i would say i didn't give out many hugs

but i hugged the same people over and over a lot of regulars came in wanting wanting a hug because the hug is required did you have like limitations around the hugs like no longer than three seconds you can't snuggle in their neck like what's the deal with these hugs i don't think unless i'm blocking things out i don't think i ever had a problem with like hug duration it was more the firmness of the hug and the earliness i felt i felt defenseless because it was always 5 a.m and it would be like oh a weird old guy would come in and he's like i'm here and you know here for my hug so i'm here i'm here for my hug and then you'd have to hug him i don't like that one bit so anyways

sammy that's what we could do for you thoughts yeah okay yeah i'll do it we're good at it i'll pay you both eight dollars an hour sorry bye oh thank you yeah yeah thanks so much um this is our show in which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to get a conversation going and uh Jamie what is that though oh yeah um well it's this the Bechdel test there's a lot of different versions of it it was created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace test there's a lot of different versions of it. It was created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. Our version of it is this. We require that two characters of a marginalized gender with names talk to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue.

And they have to be narratively significant lines of dialogue. No pass the coffee, okay? No, no thank you, okay. Unless that coffee has... Poison. Yeah. Wow. Should we write this screenplay?

I think I just rewatched Phantom Thread. Oh, sure. And that's my cross to bear. Yeah. The movie we're covering today is Imagine Me and You. It is a 2005 British, I don't know why I said British like that, like an accusation, British rom-com directed by Mamma Mia. Mamma Mia man, Ole Parker, aka Mr.

Papapia. Mamma me and you. That's where he got the idea to direct Mama Mia. Fuck. Wow. What's his name? I know that he's married to. His name is O.

Parker. Yeah, he is Mr. Thandie Newton. Oh, congrats. Yeah. Yeah, truly. They've been married for a long time. And so they're at home. I mean, is he called Papa Pia at home?

Is he called Papa Pia anywhere? That's not even my joke. That's from our Mamma Mia episode with Mielle. Wow. That's a callback that I completely forgot about. It's a good joke. When she said Papa Pia, it rocked my world. I don't think he directed the first one it was just uh mama mia here we go again or did he do both no i think he just did the second one

wait yeah okay unless he only wants credit for the second one no no he's he's directed this he's directed the best exotic marriage. Oh, he wrote it. I don't think I care. I mean, he is worth talking about because he, as far as I know, is a straight man who wrote and directed this movie about queer women. That's true. So that'll be worth discussing, perhaps.

He didn't do terrible things to them, which is nice. True. about queer women. That's true. So that'll be worth discussing, perhaps. He didn't do terrible things to them, which is nice. True. But then there's also some choices that were made. I'm like, yes, a straight guy wrote this movie. I can tell. Sammy, what is your relationship with this movie? This movie was brought to my attention recently by one of my dear friends.

And I mentioned that i haven't seen it and she said she reacted in that way that like some people do when you don't you haven't watched like jurassic park or back to the future or anything you have to see it which usually i shut down and then stop watching movies for two years because i just don't like that. Too much. Too much. Yeah, it's a little too much. But because it is a piece of queer cinema, I watched it. It's fine. It's fine.

It is fine. Yeah, we'll talk about the degree to which it is fine. Sure. For the record, though, when you approached me to cover a movie on the bechdel cast because of my gayness and you guys doing a rainbow capitalism move by featuring queers in june i yeah we're basically the gap and we're like all of our shirts are rainbow this month right or whatever it's like yeah we're a bank with a rainbow flag outside. Oh, that's terrifying.

And then outside of June, you're awful. Right. We don't give a shit. Yeah. I'd say we're the opposite of allies. Right. Okay. So, Jamie, what is your relationship with this movie, if any?

I didn't really have one. I was aware of this movie and I had not seen it. It wasn't like, honestly, sometimes I the difference between me watching a movie and not is, is it streaming for free at this exact second? If the answer is no, then I'm like, well, I'll get around to it or eventually I'll have to pay $4 to watch it for my job and that is what has happened here and I I mean I enjoyed it I I think that like there's there are some problematic elements to it but as far as uh you know I generally like rom-coms even when they're corny and problematic and horrible and this movie is all three of those things to some extent but to less of an extent than i think your average rom-com true which is pretty impressive yeah so i enjoyed it i thought it was lovely i also like really like the two lead actors in this movie so that made it uh quite easy to watch and also they're like i fell down a rabbit hole of how they're like best friends

and there's all these cute interviews that they've done together because they did two movies together this year and one was called The Cave and one was called Imagine Me and You. Oh, wow. We were so close from the set of The Cave that we couldn't wait to play a couple.

I don't know what The Cave is about and I don't care. I'm guessing it's about a cave that much i feel pretty sure of but or it's a another queer exploration movie and the cave is a puss wow okay things are getting horny again oh dang it reel it back guys no it's too late we're going full throttle not full throttle full throttle to horny town here we go oh okay i had never seen this movie either and it wasn't even super on my radar i was under the impression that basically every not that this is even an extremely mainstream movie but it got like a theatrical release not the widest release but

it's like a fairly widest one it's not like an art house movie it's like a fairly mainstream british how wide was the caves release do you think i bet it was a little bit wider and yeah definitely longer yo whoa so what was i saying this movie it was not super on my radar because i was under the impression that that most mainstream lesbian movies were period pieces that ended in sadness and or tragedy so i was pleasantly surprised that this is a light-hearted rom-com that has a happy ending yeah it has a big corny ending set piece and everything oh yeah parents are frenching in traffic you're like what is going on here uh there's a Chekhov's diaphragm. We'll get into that. Horny.

So should I do the recap of the movie? Actually, let's take a quick break first because we've been yabbing horny yabs. What? Wait, wait, wait. Before we go to this break, what is a horny yab? Is this when you're yabbing and gabbing? Is yab even a word? Look, I'm tired today.

So we're gabbing and it took so long that we have to go to break. So let's do that and we'll be right back. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get

the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100 percent of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. 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. 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. And we're back. We're on fire today, I swear. I swear. Our smoothest episode yet. i feel like i've derailed us no no it's not you sam it's actually because caitlin was getting derailed woke horny the plot of imagine me and you is this. We meet Rachel. That's Piper Parabo. She is getting ready for her wedding.

She's with her mom and dad, Tessa and Ned, played by Celia Imrie and Anthony Head. That's Giles from Buffy. Giles. Also there is Rachel's little sister, Henrietta. Oh, God. also there is rachel's little sister henrietta oh god and also her friends come in beth and xena played by sharon horgan and vanette robinson do you remember they made the kids fall in love sorry they're when they i hate it creepy creepy i hate it so much here is h actually rachel's little sister because when they're walking to the carnival bonfire thing, she's with another adult. And she's like, I'm not your mother.

I was really curious about that, too. Because she only has adult friends. This little girl, this nine-year-old girl, doesn't have any friends her age except for a boyfriend she gets later. She only hangs out with adults. So weird. The woman who i'm not your mom is her friend beth it's such a bizarre addition to the movie but there is a little sister henrietta okay it is i feel like the mid-2000s was the peak of this just like garbage trope of like i'm a kid and all my friends are adults and i'm really smart and listen to my vocabulary and do you believe in love at first sight?

And you're like, oh my God, it's not the kid's fault, but I feel sick. What's an unstoppable force? Oh my God. Can you be my best friend, says Elanista? I was like, what the fuck is happening? Shame. Yeah, she should be shamed for spending all of her free time with a child who she's not related to.

Wait, hold on. One more thing before we talk about. Did you both see the fact about Click? Yes. On the Wikipedia page. Oh, Sammy, I feel like you'll like this. This movie was originally called click because they click yes and then they had to change it because of the movie click which is

about stanley with a remote control that changes the course of time i feel like that's a it was a good pivot because i feel like probably it would have been called clit oh no one thought of that and i honestly think you know if there was a movie that needed the title click more i think that it was the movie about the remote. The Adam Sandler movie. Right. Yeah. Click feels more integral to the premise. Yeah. Anyways what happens in the movie? So okay so we we see Rachel getting ready for her wedding. Then we cut to Luce. That's Lena Headey. She is a florist who did the floral arrangement for this upcoming wedding. We see everyone arriving at the wedding. We meet the groom, Hector, a.k.a. Heck, is what everyone calls him.

So British. One thing that confused me about Hector is that he got so, or Heck, I guess we have to call him Heck, is that they establish him as being very shy. Like he's too shy to make his speech at the wedding. But then for the rest of the movie, he's in fact very outgoing. So there are a lot of...

What was that all about? Public speaking is horrifying though. That's true. But then he like was accosting people at the grocery store. Where he's just like, are you gay? I was like, this feels like a different person to me. A grocery outing. What a trope.

What was going on there? Still, I still think that public speaking is horrifying. And there's a big difference between that and outing people in the grocery store. Fair enough. Heck really loves to out people. At least every other scene he's outing somebody. It happens so frequently. It kind of becomes his thing.'s like really bizarre yeah so there's that uh he is played by matthew good

the wedding starts and as rachel is walking down the aisle she makes eye contact with Luce. Love it. They give each other a little look. Love it. It's cute. I love it. At the reception, Luce introduces herself to Rachel. She helps like fish Rachel's wedding ring out of a glass bucket full of some kind of drink. I really love this scene. It's a fun scene.

Also, here are some things about that whole scene. Number one, Luz already just wraps her arm around Rachel, like immediately to move her in front of her while she's fishing the punch out. So touchy. Do I love it? Yes. Is it inappropriate? Also, yes.

And then also, if you're going elbow deep into anything or anyone, she didn't take off any, she didn't wipe off her arm. She knew how far she had to go in. She didn't wipe off her arm. She didn't take off her jewelry. Correct. Which was the whole problem. Also, was it explained how the ring even got in there?

She's like, it's in there. I was like, how did it? No. Who put it there? She just dropped it in because she didn't want's in there it's like how did it no who put it there she just dropped it in because she didn't want to be married to her straight ass husband heck she made a mistake immediately knew it yeah i guess that's foreshadowing her wedding ring falling off she also she does play with it at the end spoiler alert and she's just like it's still

not tight on her finger because it's just like flopping around anyway you can't be having a floppy wedding ring yeah doesn't bode well i do like when lena heady lena heady gives that jerky guy that heck works with a clammy handshake oh and uh i giggled i giggled at the clammy handshake. There was a sound effect. It was like a... And it was gross. There's also the thing of like... I forgot all of their names just now. Rachel, Luz.

Luz instinctually put the ring back on Rachel's finger. And Rachel, there was like no... There's no like shock of, oh, she's touching me. Like she's just like, I'm going to put it on as your hand is behind your back and i don't know they were being rascally i loved it i'm realizing that i mix up this guy matthew good with another british guy who was hot around the same time named hugh dancy oh hugh isn't h Hugh Dancy the guy in Ella Enchanted? Or no? Yeah.

They're just like generically, it's hard to keep generically hot guys straight sometimes. True. Also, I think Hugh Dancy is married to, oh gosh, I forgot her name, Claire Danes. Okay. Oh yeah, he is. Big win for Hugh.

Matthew Goode's wife doesn't even have a wikipedia page it makes me sick loser okay i all right but i just need to barrel through this keep it keep it in okay so we see loose helping rachel with her floppy wedding ring and then we see them like vibing you know they're they're they're connecting We also see a bunch of men try to hit on Luce, such as Heck's best man, Coop. And then that sleazy guy that you were talking about, Jamie, his name is Rob. Just finish the name. But right. I hate Coop.

Coop, Heck, Luce. Coop sucks. And I hate that the movie tries to make us think that he doesn't suck. Yeah. I think that's, that was one of the more glaring things for me was being asked to root for Coop. Yeah. Can't,

can't do it. No. So all these guys are hitting on Luce, but she doesn't seem to be into any of them. Then one day after the wedding, Rachel comes into Luce's flower shop and thanks her for doing a good flower job at the wedding. Also, at what wedding does the florist hang out the entire time and has such a presence that a child befriends them and then asks for their number? I don't understand this.

How do they stay in contact, this child and this adult? Right. In 2005, no less. Would have been very difficult. I also, I mean, there's so many like this is such a rom-commy rom-com, like down to the fact that her job is florist.

You're like, really? At least you see her doing her job and it's not just like really we couldn't do at least you see her doing her job and it's not just like what's a rom-com job she curates things at museum but she is a florist do we know what rachel does i believe she's a journalist but we only see one scene in which she is doing work journaling but your diary yeah she's she's writing in her diary um i made note of this that the movie cares way more about heck's job because we see him at work or talking about work or something relating to his work and not just his current job but his like dream job that gets talked about constantly and then rachel's job is just like what does she do again you see her at an office

a bunch i didn't realize that she was doing journalism there's that scene where she seems to be like editing a piece that either someone else wrote or that she wrote you'd be funny if she was like solving the zodiac case and just the movie was like not interested they're just like she won a pulitzer the next year not that the plot of the movie was very interested in that i love that heck also heck's job i don't know like what i i'm sure i i sort of understand like where where they were going by being like he's got to make changes in his life question mark but i'm like i don't know why we're seeing this man at work doing business deals and being like i hate business deals 41.4 41.1 what yeah temperatures what are you doing i

think he's day trading crypto do you think papa pia really knew what he was writing down when he wrote that down i don't think so i don't know this job my my just say stuff in the phone i don't know go on okay okay so rachel goes to lucy's flower shop and she's like hey come to dinner with me and my husband we'll see you friday and she's and loose is like sounds great so then rachel tells heck about these dinner plans and she reveals that she is trying to set up loose with coop that guy who is like hex friend slash best man and this is the part of the movie that don't try to find any logic here because there isn't any because what what has happened already is that Coop at the wedding was aggressively hitting on Luz even more aggressively than I was hitting on the tech guy at that show. That's actually a good yardstick to use moving forward. Right.

Was it more or less aggressive as that night downtown? Way more aggressive than that because he was like groping her on the dance floor and like being really sleazy. That was disgusting. So he has already expressed ample interest in Luce. Meanwhile, Rachel is like, yeah, I'm trying to set them up. I think they would be a great match, which first of all, what is your judge of character rachel if you think that coop is at all a good person and secondly why are you trying because she's like oh my gosh do you think coop likes loose i hope he does and it's like he's already said a million times he does so there's

just like a really weird plot hole i don't know if there's like a missing scene or what. But none of that made sense. The closest I could get to like finding some logic in there was like, I don't know. I feel like I've seen this happen before. It's like if you have a like if someone has a crush on someone else while they're in a relationship, they're like, I've got to pair this person off. I've got to get this person into a relationship so they're not tempting to me anymore i've seen that happen in friend groups where it's like we need to neutralize the situation okay well this is like friends and not a florist you met for a couple hours at your wedding that's the other thing right right it's like i keep forgetting they're actually not friends. They don't know each other. But you wouldn't know that based on what happens in the movie because both Heck and Rachel are acting as though Luce is a very close friend of theirs, but they didn't meet until the wedding.

And Luce doesn't appear to have friends. Except for the friend from the grocery store. Like Luce has friends, but only when it's plot convenient. Right. Right. for the friend from the grocery store like loose has friends but only when it's plot convenient right right the relationships in this movie in general and the way they are established and pan out often make absolutely no sense but the point here is that rachel is trying to set up loose with coop and she really hopes that coop likes loose sheuce. She doesn't really care if Luce likes Coop. Luke. Oh, Luke. There's too many consonant sounds here.

She doesn't care if Luce likes Coop. Which is also like, maybe this is like a 2005 haircut, like men's haircut back then were not very good. Sure, sure. But they kept talking about Coop like, well, who could resist? And I'm like, I'm sorry. Easily.

I feel like many of us could. Could, yeah. Because his personality is also dog shit. And his haircut looks like he went through the Casper machine. Okay, yes. Oh, that's the best burn in the entire world. Thank you. So that's happening.

But then also Rachel is like, yeah, I have this feeling that Luce and I are going to be really good friends. We're just like, we're kind of soulmates, but in a friend way so so she reveals that to heck then loose comes over for dinner and reveals to heck that she is gay which heck reveals to coop immediately everyone he's ever met yeah so many people but then coop is like oh well i can switch people from being gay to being into me fucking childish and he does this constantly throughout the movie

as well and again it's like i'm sorry we're supposed to be we're supposed to find this guy compelling at all because we're supposed to be like we don't want him to get hit by a car right i had to when that started coming up i had to remind myself how close in proximity this movie came out to geely a movie in which that is the entire premise yeah wow so I almost forgot. Unfortunately, this kind of rhetoric was so tolerated in the Bush administration years that you could make a whole movie about it. It is true. Okay, so they're all at dinner. And everyone is discussing the idea of like, love at first sight versus falling in love with someone gradually and they all kind of figure out where they stand on that and i'm getting i guess this is supposed to be like yeah this is the theme of the movie but it's like very clunky and like not very well done

where do we stand on this whole thing well as um someone who's experiencing their horniest year i believe in horny at first sight damn what about you sammy i i think it's like a it's probably a horny at first sight but there is like that that vibey thing that happens uh sometimes with like with rachel and luce which is like oh oh, fuck. Now the rest of my day and possibly week is ruined because I'm going to be thinking about you. Is it essentially love? No, but I think that a lot of people confuse it with that. But like, you know, when you see somebody and you're like, oh, fuck, I'm obsessed with you.

I think my life has changed. But you're not going to say that immediately. You might say it later. Speak for yourself. Horny gate horny alert we just are adding a foghorn sound effect a foghorn it's the horny alarm uh jamie your thoughts i believe in it because i suck i'm corny i do believe in it i i think i don't believe in it like every time someone says it happens uh sometimes they have to um you know like just go to therapy sometimes but other times i do think it's possible i i have experienced it

and then i ended up in a really long relationship okay that's so nice so it doesn't mean it has to be good good or end well to count right no one's like that's a common misconception true i believe in it but i also don't think it's like um i feel like it's overblown of like it's not a must sure Right. A slow burn is good. You can also try horny at first sight. Just a thought. I think I should try more horny at first sight because it sounds less punishing. It's pretty fun.

Okay. So Coop gives Luce a ride home from the dinner and she confides. Yeah. It's creepy. He's again aggressively hitting on her the whole time. She confides in him that she's into someone, but that person is already partnered. And by this point, we, the audience,

can assume that it's Rachel who she's into. We saw the poster. Right. Also, Coop's hand is on Luce's butt on the poster for the movie. Don't know if we caught that. It's true. He's like canonically the worst. It's just wild.

He's awful. Then Rachel and Heck, because don't forget his name is Heck. Yeah. They run into Luce at the supermarket when she's with another woman edie who i think we also saw earlier at the very beginning of the movie at the flower shop yeah so they're friends and heck is like rachel you know your friend loose well she's gay by the way and then they run into Luce and Edie again and he's like hey Edie are you gay so he's just like loudly mr shy not respecting boundaries screaming top of his lungs at the grocery store I just gay as a tennis player yes that is a line of dialogue i hate this scene so much papa pia papa pia what

are you doing so edie reveals that she and luce are just friends they're not dating and then rachel seems to start questioning things about herself about love in general perhaps even about her relationship with heck oh she gay me gay um okay so then everyone goes to rachel's sister henrietta's school play slash science presentation i'm not really sure what it is what weird excuse was there for luce to be there? Because Henrietta asked Luce. I helped her. Yeah, Luce helped Henrietta with the project because they're best friends, question mark. So weird.

So sinister. When did you access this child? When did this child come in contact with you? Long enough to, I hate asking questions of a movie like this, but I just cannot handle it. I cannot suspend my disbelief suspension of disbelief i and i can suspend not to brag but i can suspend my disbelief we've seen it we've

seen it happen yeah i saw dr strange oh so i think i know a thing or two about well the multiverse of my disbelief because it felt real to me um one of the like conventions of rom-coms is that the characters and specifically the romantic interests usually bump into each other very conveniently very plot devicey very often so it's not out of like the realm of you know being able to suspend your disbelief for a rom-com that these characters are running into each other but the way the movie justifies that they're running into each other is what is absolutely wild and makes no sense ever just have her like have a niece in the right like it there's there's so many ways to have this be a like corny forced together rom-com thing that i love without her being best friends with a nine-year-old why yeah keep the kids out of it yeah why is the kid even there also i know i can like suspend my

like lena heady is a very like talented actress but sometimes you're like get cersei away from that kid she's got a bad track record true wow pushing kids out of windows and everything you You're going to let Cersei Lannister that close to your fourth grader? Good luck, honey. Scary. Okay. So Rachel and Luce are at this science presentation of Henrietta's, and Rachel fantasizes about getting close to Luce

and touching her hair and maybe even kissing her. So horny. Very good. I did like that part so good i screamed it was the first time second time and third time i watched it there's scenes you're right jamie there's scenes make you so horny that like almost the rest of the movie being awful is okay it doesn't matter if it gets bad five seconds after but yeah that uh that scene i really enjoyed and even though a lot of it you're right sam, Sammy, was inappropriate and overly touchy,

I did love the punch ball scene also. It was so good. I would do it. Absolutely. 100%. I mean, we haven't even gotten to the diaphragm scene. So just wait. Oh, my God.

Yeah, the second time Luz grabs Rachel's under breast. Oh, wow. I'm horny again. While someone else is on the train to horny town. We are. Okay. So Rachel is having this fantasy about nuzzling up with Luce. And then Rachel tries to talk to Luce about her feelings,

but Luce kind of runs away and it seems like she doesn't want to be responsible for tearing apart anyone's relationship and specifically Rachel's relationship with Heck yeah for some reason she tells Coop she's like guess what guy who won't stop harassing me I don't believe in messing with other people's relationships yeah because they're supposed to be friends question mark and you're like yeah they become friends and it's like why this guy sucks so bad right she probably has other friends edie like luce has horrible taste in friends as we because she becomes friends with a fourth grader and a guy who won't stop sexually harassing her in the course of this movie.

And you're like, you already have friends. And your mom seems really nice. And her mom seems nice. I love her mom. And the one friend that she does have who seems age appropriate and who doesn't mistreat her is Edie. And we barely see that relationship on screen.

Yeah. And she's one of the only other queer characters in the movie. Although, the way that she grabbed her in the grocery store and was just like, I tried! There's also probably some weirdness there. Yes! I thought that was weird, yeah. It stresses me out. Everything's a mess in this movie.

Sorry, Caitlin, you did almost say que-ric-ters on your favorite queer characters. And I just wanted i just wanted to make sure we um acknowledge we acknowledged it and now it's out there and if our audience wants to take that into their vernacular save a half a second a time they're welcome to do some merch coming possibly characters i don't know if we want that on our permanent record i think you should okay so then rachel goes to a video store and rents and i couldn't tell if this was specifically a lesbian porn movie but it's a porn movie and her mom catches her while she's renting it heck catches her while

she's watching it each time she plays it off is like a mistake or it's research or something silly i accidentally brought four pornography films on vhs back to my flat we all can relate. I don't know why I said pornography films. I'm a virgin. So sometimes that'll happen. Also, it's 2006. We have the internet. Right. Yeah.

No one told her about whatever website people were on in 2006. Was it RedTube? Was that RedTube era? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, what? How do you know, Sammy? That was a test i won the game positive for horny horny town okay heck notices that rachel has been a bit

distant lately and he's kind of trying to maybe spice things up or figure things out. Meanwhile, Rachel continues to think about Luce. Then Heck has to bail on plans that he had with Rachel. So he asks their new best friend, Luce, again, this relationship is very weird, but he's like, hey, Luce, will you take my wife out in my place and then she does so rachel and loose go to a soccer game where loose grabs rachel's diaphragm and teaches her how to yell really loudly don't worry that comes back in a checkoffs diaphragm favorite term. Right up there with characters. Our favorite. So that happens. And they're touching. They're vibing.

Then they play DDR together. An arcade is so horny. I take you to arcades for dates. Yeah. DDR is tied with the classroom space presentation scene for things that made me the horniest in the movie nice outside of kissing outside of kissing of course sorry I'm a virgin so this is a difficult episode for me yeah of course although I wished I mean I wasn't shocked because of just how any like non hetero romances treated ratings wise. But this movie was rated R.

How absurd is that? Oh, yeah. And they said it was because they say fuck a lot, which isn't untrue. But you're like, you could almost argue PG like outside of like some heavy petting, which I know that's like, but even there's been people make out in PG movies. Oh, for sure. I just was like, I can't believe this was rated R. It's ridiculous. Titanic is rated PG and we see bare titties.

Titanic is not rated PG. Sorry, not PG. PG-13. There's a nipple in it, Caitlin. Sorry, I meant to say PG-13. And furthermore, there's two nipples in it. There's a nipple in it, Caitlin. Sorry, I meant to say PG-13. And furthermore, there's two nipples in it. There's two nipples. If anything, this movie should be rated PG-13.

The fact that it's rated R, I think, has a lot to do with something we've talked about on the podcast before and something that is the topic of the documentary, this film is not yet rated, where oftentimes queer relationships and queer sex scenes will earn like an R or an NC-17 rating, even though they will virtually look identical to a heterosex scene, but because it's like, quote unquote, taboo. It's just like straight up homophobic. Yeah, I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding. And then it also, it's like, and the fallout of that is it just like limits people's access to the movie and distribution and all that. I was like, man, it's just simply not an R-rated movie. Not even a little bit. Okay, so they're at the end of their little soccer game slash DDR date, and Rachel almost kisses Luz, but Rachel pulls away at the last minute and then goes inside. In front of her house. Yeah.

Yes. Kiss in the arcade. in front of her house house yeah yes kissing also loose doesn't say hey did you just try to kiss me in a way that if someone had done that to me i would be like hey did you just kill and you're brave yeah thank you so much i would have been like what sorry yeah sorry i got in my face got in the way of your face i actually really shouldn't even be here because i've never had sex before this is me showing up anywhere they almost kiss but then they don't and then rachel tries to have sex with heck in a park i think to like liven up their sex life um but it doesn't pan out now what was going on in that scene that scene was so bizarre yeah and also like excessively british what a uh-huh papa i don't papa pia really uh really confused me there yeah because they encounter two gay men or two queer men who

are also having sex in a park they have the same first name and they're dressed identically oh fuck they're twins papa p is a pervert and i get that there's like a that is a thing and that there's like a historical precedent for gay men having sex in a place like a park but it just felt like it was like making a weird joke of everything and then right that whole scene was so bizarre and like polite and sexless that you're just like what am i watching it reads very Why did they dress the men in the same outfit? The same brown sweater? It was like, I don't know. Tweedledee energy in the costuming department that day.

Not sure what was happening. They're like, we ran out of scarves. We used up all the scarves on the 800 other characters. We were going to give them matching scarves as well. But unfortunately, Lena Headey is only wearing scarves on the 800 other characters we're gonna give them matching scarves as well but unfortunately uh lena heady is only wearing scarves today so we're fresh out yeah um okay so then rachel goes to lucy's flower shop and she's like whatever's happening between us it has to stop and so she tries to end things but then two seconds later she comes back and kisses loose and they're making out and it's getting steamy and we see that classic in her

bum tramp stamp what oh yes i i just liked how i don't know this movie's so british even the it's it's as british as piiper Parabo is not. I was wondering, and I want to hear what our English listeners think about her accent in this movie. I can't tell how good of a job she's doing. It didn't bother me, but yeah, it's like we're not purveyors of the accent. True. But I liked when Lena Headey was like, I have thorns in my bum. And you're like, wow, what a British way to say that.

True. Okay, so they're making out. It's getting steamy. But then Heck comes in and Rachel hides in the back and overhears Heck telling Luz his concerns about how he's doing something wrong in his relationship, which makes Rachel feel super guilty that she's not being honest with him. So she runs off. And it also is bizarre because Heck does not know Luz very well. And here he is in the flower shop saying, I think my marriage is falling apart.

What do you think? They're putting a lot of pressure on Luz. Truly. Yeah. For someone that they just like forced into a French, like it doesn't feel like their friendship happens organically at all. It's very bizarre. So Rachel runs off and Luz chases after her and Rachel's like, I can't do this.

So they kind of say goodbye in part ways. We see Rachel being bummed about this. We see Luz being bummed about this we see loose being bummed about this heck is having a bad time at work he quits his job everyone's having their low point 41.7 you're a liar and i lied too 44 quit what are you lying about what are you doing on the phone he's like i bet it's something really fucked up maybe okay in my head canon rachel is solving the zodiac killer case meanwhile her husband is on the phone with the Zodiac Killer, bargaining with him, being his accomplice. Whoa.

Is that 41 people killed? 41.1. He's negotiating it. He's negotiating it. It's down. This is how many you can get away with. Yeah. 34.6.

I love this. This is, let's keep it going. Let's talk about this for another 20 minutes yeah okay so everyone's having their low point Luce confides in her mom about Rachel Rachel talks to heck about how she has fallen for someone else but she plans to stay with him because he is her best friend then goop shows up at luce's flower shop and confronts her about meddling in rachel and heck's relationship and he calls her i think a dumb slut he sure does so we think that's awesome rachel finds out that luce is going on a long holiday. Through Henrietta, who was on the phone with Luce.

Right. What? It's like that child has one of those phones that can only dial out the police and the parents' phone number. But instead, it's the police and Luce. And Palouse. Wow. Okay. I don't hate it um okay so so sorry it's just sinking in for me we're really uh coining a lot of phrases today due to our uh lack of access to reality

we're doing so well i think we're doing great we're doing good so rachel learns this about luce that she's going away on holiday and then that like prompts heck to be like i can't do this i'm leaving i'm not going to stand in the way of your chance to be happy with someone else rachel so she's like okay cool and then her parents are like, what's going on? And Rachel is like, I'm in love with Luce, but I don't think anything's going to happen. And Rachel's dad is like, well, you should go after her. So they all pile in the car and go to Luce's flower shop. But Luce's mom is like, she's not here, but let's go get her.

So then they get back in the car and try to intercept loose on her way to the airport question mark not really sure but they're all stuck in traffic including loose in her taxi so then rachel calls loose on the phone and realizes she's nearby because she hears a cyclist singing imagine me and you so happy she hears that on luce's end of the phone and then she actually hears the cyclist singing a few seconds later as he passes so rachel's like oh my gosh she's nearby so she gets on the roof of the car and yells out really loudly, just like Luce taught her in the diaphragm scene where she's like, use your diaphragm to yell. And Luce hears it and gets out of the taxi and then they run toward each other and they kiss on the street. I just thought about how funny it would be if instead of your wanker number nine that uh rachel just did the horny foghorn just

okay sorry go ahead it's good it's good um so the kiss on the street and then as the credits roll we see heck traveling and he meets another woman we We see Coop who has apparently settled down and had a baby. We see Rachel and Luz. That's not good. And they are so happy together. And that's the story. So let's take a quick break. And I'm so sorry to interrupt your singing, Sammy.

But we do have to leave immediately and go to a break and we'll be right back. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. What a coincidence. 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. And we're back. Do you remember when they played that song in Freaky Friday, but they turned it into a rock song? I don't remember that. Oh, sing a few bars if you will. Okay.

Instead of, imagine me, I do. It sounded more like, imagine me, I do. It sounded more like imagine me and you, I do. You know, like rock music. If you've heard the version of the song, I did a pretty good job. Imagine me and you, I do. I think about you every day and night. It's only right to think about the girl you love at all their time so happy together beautiful and then the guys in the background are like

it's good all right so should we talk about this movie thoughts this, which I think is called Click. Click. Imagine her and her. Ooh. My first thought on this movie was that there is a hot dog representation is almost confusingly high. The only thing we know about

Rachel's father is that he loves his family and But not his wife. His wife. not his wife his wife not his wife hates his wife right until the until at the end where he's like actually i love my wife yeah they they hate each other they do hate each other so but he does love hot dogs he loves hot dogs that's the thing that he loves purely he can't love his daughter if he thinks about the fact that she's most likely not a virgin. That makes him sick. Yes.

Yeah. What did he say? He said, I can't talk about my daughter because all I can think about is you putting your hand in my daughter or something like that. Very weird. It was something. I'm like, is that something people, I mean, not to mention your your parent but is that like something that people even that just wouldn't be my go-to phrase to even express that thought what if he's like get your hot dog out of my daughter yeah get your hot dog out of my i yeah i don't need to continue the

sentence no do it um okay so this is a queer rom-com from 2005 i'm not gonna say a qualm con and it was written and directed by a man i don't know exactly what his sexuality is, but he is married to a woman and that's all we know. Yes. So I can't, I don't want to, you know, make any assumptions here,

but it's a movie from 2005, meaning it could go a lot of ways. I was like, there's probably some very dated things here. There's probably some like weird tropey things happening and there are but there were also a lot of things that i was pleasantly surprised by again not knowing really anything about the movie before watching it to prep for this episode and knowing some of the existing kind of tropes and context surrounding lesbian movies i was pleasantly surprised it is a movie set in

contemporary times so it's not a period drama it isn't tragedy porn the way that a lot of again you know like mainstream lesbian films have been in the past few years there's a happy ending where the lesbian lovers get together at the end and presumably stay together and they're like generally accepted by all their friends and family i mean there are i feel like coop and rachel's mom are the most problematic unless i'm missing someone but they seem to be the most problematic about the relationship yeah for sure i think you know being the worst offender by far because he was like i just saw geely and you won't believe you know the lies i believe but but yeah generally like accepted and and and so happy together one could even say indeed or the way i choose to say

it which is so happy together but yeah that is something because of the like time and place where they are we don't have to see the characters deal with extreme rampant homophobia. Of course there are micro and macro aggressions against them from particular characters, but by and large people are accepting them. Although you do have like all those weird moments of like, heck outing loose to everyone he's ever met. There's, there's weird things like that going on but it's

i guess not the worst example i've seen also it might not be fair to call loose and rachel lesbian lovers because it's entirely possible that rachel is bisexual yeah i kind of i i'm curious what everyone thought. I kind of appreciated that that was like, because I know that like public discourse in 2005, at least as my child self was aware of, is like the conversation around bisexuality was basically non-existent. And so I thought that there would be very like dated, tropey, like pick a side kind of conversation surrounding Rachel. And I kind of appreciate, I mean, for the time it came out that that wasn't a big discussion and that wasn't something that was like, like it wasn't, I guess it was like, it just like wasn't called into question, like whether she had ever loved or been attracted to her husband which i don't know i thought it was like i just i wasn't expecting that move for a movie that came out in 2005

yeah same yeah i really appreciate that they didn't like they didn't lean into stereotypes to make it like palatable for the straight audience either. Like they didn't like, Oh, loose is a lesbian. So here are these lesbian things. She definitely does. Cause she's a lesbian straights. It was nice. Sure. I was also pleasantly surprised that loose when you meet her is already an

out lesbian. Cause a lot of times I think a trope in queer romance stories is not to discredit or invalidate people discovering themselves and questioning and discovering their sexuality. Because, of course, that is completely valid and an authentic experience for many people. But I know that there is a frustration about a lot of queer cinema that many queer characters are not already out and living their queer lives, and the representation skews pretty heavily on characters who are in the closet and or who haven't come out yet at the beginning of the movie, and a lot of movies focus on coming out stories, which I guess this movie sort of does with Rachel's character. But I just appreciate that Luce is already out.

Yes, she's like out to her mom. No problem. Like it's just a very chill environment. Her mom's just like, get out there and date. And then Lena Headey's like, you get out there and date. And then they both do the end. The end. Yeah.

I was surprised that we see women kissing each other on screen multiple times, especially because, again, another cinematic convention you see, especially in movies of this era with queer characters maybe the characters were allowed to be out but often they wouldn't have any kind of romance or romantic partner and if they did we were also not allowed we were not allowed to actually see them

kiss or be physically intimate in any way so the fact that this movie and it would be absolutely ridiculous if they weren't allowed to because like rom-coms have people kissing that's one of the conventions of the genre and it shouldn't be surprising that this happens but because of the precedent that had been set of queer characters not being allowed to show physical intimacy on screen, I found myself surprised that, again, in a movie from 2005, we actually see them kissing on screen. I went back and watched some of the DVD extras and press junkets from this movie because I was just curious.

Because as far as I know, Piper Perabo and Lena Headey are both straight actors, as far as I know Piper Parabo and Lena Headey are both straight actors as far as we know and certainly at this time they were very publicly publicly straight uh there's gotta be a better way to say that uh but but I wanted to like watch interviews with them and something that didn't occur to me that came up in every single interview was this movie came out the same year as Brokeback Mountain and Brokeback Mountain comes up in every single interview was this movie came out the same year as brokeback mountain oh and brokeback mountain comes up in every single interview and they're very annoyed by it where i don't know i mean i think it like to me it almost spoke to like how little queer cinema

there was in like a i guess because this movie was not huge brokeback mountain was huge right um but in everything they're like why don't you have as much sex in this movie as they have in brokeback mountain oh they're kind of like it's a different genre like rom-coms are usually pretty sexless so yeah i thought that this this had about the amount of sex and kissing that your average rom-com yeah does and possibly slightly more maybe because they kissed more than one time right right because normally in a hetero rom-com they don't kiss until the very end it depends on the story of course but like that's pretty standard yeah yeah yeah it just I didn't connect for me that this was like the year of Brokeback

Mountain and Brokeback Mountain comes up as if it were the only other queer movie to ever exist. And Lena Headey and Piper Perabo just kind of don't know what to do with the question. They're like, yeah, it's a rom-com. We're friends. We met on the cave. And, but it's very sweet. I don't know.

Another thing, and we were talking about this a little bit, Sammy, when you and I watched part of this movie together. Together. Unhappily. Okay. I'm joking.

You brought up that the movie tends to avoid the predatory lesbian trope. I don't know what to make of the soccer game slash yelling slash diaphragm scene because they're, I don't know. But I tend to agree that the movie does tend to avoid that trope. But then... I feel like the diaphragm scene isn't,

like, if they were going to lean into the predatory lesbian trope loose would essentially be coop like it's that oh sure sure not like because i feel like the diaphragm thing like as aghast as we were about loose touching rachel where she did i'm horny about it um we you all right me horn um like they didn't shoot it in a way where it seemed like luce was doing it for the reason of just touching all over her new married friend right yeah and then rachel is like well put both of your hands on me. Yeah, that. And we're like, oh, Rachel, you slimy dog. But it should be as, I don't know. I mean, it is the spit like a man scene of the movie.

And Jamie, as you just said, put your hands on me. Loose. Loose. I felt like, yeah, for that. I mean, I definitely think that that's a very 2005-y. But it felt more like a rom-com thing, that that would have happened in a rom-com in 2005, regardless of the gender of the people involved. Like, you could see Hugh Grant doing that in 2005 in a rom-com easily.

Just like, you know know he probably does it in Notting Hill for all I know yeah I the diaphragm thing felt like a rom-com issue uh more so than a predatory lesbian trope in my opinion yeah I see that and like it's not even though that you know you watch this movie and you're like, wow, let's congratulate the movie for avoiding what should just be avoided in a narrative. But at the same time, because so many harmful tropes have been established, I still couldn't help but be, again, pleasantly surprised by what the movie does that's positive and avoids that is negative. That said, there's stuff that it leans into that is negative. Yeah.

But I guess my point is like, oh, there's really cool stuff that happens in this movie that I think make it watchable even to this day yeah i don't know yeah this felt this feels like a it just it's a bit of a weird one because it's like there's certainly like way better movies about women in love than this one a lot of the ones that are much better are made by queer women we've covered some of them on this show i feel like papa pia is kind of showing the papa pianist of it all in certain scenes and exchanges um and then it also kind of feels like we've talked about this kind of thing that tends to happen on the show all the time of just sort of like this weird half step of progress where it's like this was a like wide international release with big movie stars but

it was like written and directed by a straight guy but it it almost felt like this movie like deviates so little from the rom-com formula that it feels like I don't know I would be curious of like how if if it's already considered at this time so unusual to have a queer relationship at the center of a like widely released movie like how far are you going to deviate from the formula if that movie is even going to get made you know know? Right. Which I have kind of conflicting thoughts about because on one hand, this movie was not reviewed favorably. I think it has like a 35% on Rotten Tomatoes.

And the consensus seems to be that, yeah, despite it subverting the kind of expected narrative of this being a queer story rather than a hetero story, which is what most mainstream rom-coms feature, this is still an extremely predictable, tropey, corny rom-com. And while that is true, part of me is like, well, queer people deserve corny rom-coms too. Boring ass movies. Yeah. But on the other hand, it felt to me partially, and I'm interested to hear everyone's thoughts on this, but there's still so much heterosexuality in this movie and it felt to me as though this is a movie that's like written by a straight guy mostly for straight people because of different story choices that

were made and and what the movie focuses on a lot which is like way too much of because like there's all these subplots or like narrative through lines where we get focus on rachel's mom and dad and their failing and then re-blossoming relationship we get rachel's little sister and her little boyfriend oh my god i mean that's like a whole separate issue why are we having the music swell gross i have that in my notes my sentence is music music swell for children question mark why and it seemed to seem to swell absurdly loudly too it's like it's like oh my god sorry sorry and we're grooming okay yeah. Yeah, it's weird. Good job, Papapia. Papapia Boo.

Papapia. Nasty. We see Coop trying to fuck a bunch of women. We see Beth, Rachel's friend, trying to find a boyfriend. Basically, I just wish that there were more queer movies where more of the characters are queer and it's not just like two queer women hanging out with thousands of straight people? That is an ask that would have overextended old Papa Pia and I feel like he would have mishandled

any more queer characters. Certainly. Papa Pia is like, I can truly just handle two and a half if you consider Edie, Luce's friend Edie a character which he seems to about halfway. Right. Yes.

1.3, 1.4, 2. Meanwhile you get a whole scene of whatever the fuck that is. Boring. A piece I enjoyed on this was written by friend of the show Princess Weeks. Princess wrote about this movie for the Mary Sue earlier this or last year. So I wanted to share what her thoughts were a little bit.

She's saying stuff like this. Quote, neither Rachel nor Luce pursue the other. They just keep getting pulled in each other's way. And while Luce being gay is addressed early on, it's not seen as an issue, which is great. I felt a lot more joy in watching this film because while the cheating element isn't great, it was nice seeing it not be either a traditional coming out story or inherently a gay angst story. Just a love connection with bad timing that ends up working out without turning anyone into a bad person, unquote. Nice. Which i do think is like a

strength of this movie because it's like heck i think a lot of hex behavior is unacceptable the fact that he compulsively outs loose at every opportunity yeah is pretty egregious but in the general sense i did a pre because i feel like it's such a rom-com one of the tropes that's avoided in this movie is like there's always like the the third party is made out to be like horrible evil irredeemable cal hockley if you will the cal hockley of the situation and heck while he certainly has issues and like has behavior that is not acceptable is not like a bad person right and is also i thought like it was cool that they didn't make him out to be a villain because then you get to see him like realize that his wife is in love with luce and accept that his wife um but i thought it was nice that he like obviously it's very painful

for your wife to leave you for anybody but yeah but he's just like you know he accepts it he doesn't lash out in a villainous fashion and uh that's i think even for any rom-com that's uh unusual but i thought it worked really well here. Instead, we have Coop lashing out and being like, you filthy slut. Something is wrong with Coop. And we're like, Coop, why are you even in this movie? Get out of here. No one likes you.

Yeah, he doesn't do anything. The boy ain't right. Yeah, Luz could have had those conversations that she had with Cooper with H if they really wanted them to be friends. Or with Edie like right what would have worked better for me is if so when Coop meets Luz at the wedding and he he fancies her if he goes to Rachel then and is like hey can you try to set me up with the flower lady can you like get us all together for dinner and try to set me up with the flower lady? Can you like get us all together for dinner and try to set this up? And then Rachel's more than happy to extend this invitation

because she either consciously or subconsciously wants to spend more time with Luz. And then that's why they have that dinner scene with the matchmaking attempt. That's not even necessarily like a Bechtel cast thing. That would just like, would make more narrative sense to me. But anyway. I don't think we need to spend any more time

trying to make Cooper make sense. Right. So we just have to accept the fact that the trash character, Papa Pia, you know, examine yourself. But it's also like, to me me Rachel's character not making sense unless I guess you could read it that like she extends this invitation and is trying to do this matchmaking because she's also just subconsciously trying to spend more time with Luz and it could just be under the guise of trying to matchmake but really she's just like i want to be near her

so i think that's entirely possible anyway moving on like most rom-coms even ones set in large cities with diverse populations uh this is a very white movie rachel has what feels like a token black friend, Xena, played by Vinette Robinson. Of Rachel's two friends, her and Beth, Xena is the one without a little subplot because the other friend, the white woman, gets more screen time. She gets a little subplot where she's trying to find a boyfriend.

We just get to know that character better. The one black character in the movie is like sidelined to the extreme and i hated it yeah i think her most notable moment was the scene in the bathroom where they're talking about if they had ever considered dating women before and that is like that was her little showcase moment i thought it was like a fun moment for the for 2005 but yeah we don't we don't know anything about her right and this movie i mean as with most rom-coms it's very white and it also takes place in just like generally the upper classes upper you know you saw their flat they have a spiral staircase yeah in their flat yeah which is with like roof access simply impractical okay not practical

heck can afford it because he day trades crypto or whatever the fuck oh he's got 41.6 he's good he's set for life yeah he's fine he's gonna get a bonus the size of his boss's knob it's implied i was like i really hate business dialogue in movies it's so gross um you see a david mammoth play one time and then you just write shit like that down it's disgusting my eyes glaze over anyways is, is there any other stuff to touch on? Other thoughts? Caitlin, do you have more things or can I get at it? Please.

Okay, great. Here's some things in my notes that we didn't touch on. Yeah. Going back to the bathroom scene, I don't think I've ever heard cross the street as a euphemism for being gay, which is fun. British. When Rachel goes, have you ever crossed the street? I was just like, oh gay oh which is fun british when rachel goes have you ever um

crossed the street i was just like oh that's nice i'll use that um and then when rachel was talking to heck after exposing her gayness to him her line of you're my best friend that was enough before and will be enough again that that is a terrible not comforting thing to hear from your new wife truly yep and if that is how you felt in the relationship before you probably shouldn't have gotten married anyway precisely uh we already talked about i should have married you which is what heck said to a nine-year-old child. That is so, so bad. Just unbelievably weird. It was giving little women Amy and Laurie energy,

except that actually happens in Little Women. Gross. Anyways. Okay, and then some horny moments between Rachel and Luz. After the arcade date when they're talking about flowers and Luz is like, you don, when they're talking about flowers, and Luz is like, oh, you don't want to hear about lilies.

And Rachel's like, no, tell me about lilies. And Luz is like, okay. They mean I dare you to love me. And then Luz makes eye contact and then steps away. Oh, that is so horny. What a horny move. I loved it so much. Very good, very gay, quite horny about it.

And then when they're breaking up in the park, horny what a horny move i loved it so much very good very gay quite horny about it and then um when they're when they're breaking up in the park and lucy's like don't forget me and rachel says i won't remember anything else yeah also just fucked me right up again i those scenes the scenes between the two of them gorgeous i like them a lot no thank you even though i think that rachel's character is like kind of blah and like a little under characterized i mean she's a straight woman true um sorry but why are they drawn to each other besides the fact that they are both attractive and near each other this is a thing that uh i take issue with and basically canon baby you're sexy and close by that's life canon about to build a life together

my bros that's true there are just a lot of sexy people that you're just like i'm this isn't a conversation kind of relationship and well that's good for them trust me with my horny time i know but when i'm if i'm trying to like get into a relation like a long-term meaningful companionship with someone imagine being so hot you wouldn't even need to talk to anybody i don't have to imagine unbelievable we make our living talking without being seen. We have the opposite problem. Despite all that, though, I did really enjoy their scenes together and honestly wish there were more of them. But instead, too much real estate in the movie is dedicated to watching heck at his job.

Scenes between Coop and Luce in which he is being a disgusting creep. Scenes where Henrietta is best friends with a hundred different adults. I just wish there had been a little bit more emphasis on the queer relationship and seeing that heighten and develop. We gotta watch Imagine Me and Two. The Rise of Gru.

Oh, heck. If this movie was like really, really bad, we could call it Imagine Pee and Poo. Wow. I love Pee and Poo. We're really doing it. Yeah, Sammy, do you have more things? Did you read the Roger Ebert?

I'm teeing it up right now. Okay. So once we decided that Imagine Me and You was going to be the movie we covered, I Googled it as one does. And I saw that there was a review from www.rogerebert.com from 2006. And in the Google search, you see a little bit of a sentence so the sentence is this this movie is basically gay propaganda the basis is that she is leaving a happy relationship with a man she has known for ages and is a good dot dot dot which is a pretty strong review accusation strong accusation look yeah i clicked i was like i have to make sure i'm assuming that he's saying all this is a pejorative

but what if he wasn't right but he was he did not like the movie he didn't like the movie but then at the end he was like at the end he kind of implies that it's because it's his second like he liked a movie where piper parabo plays a gay character better like he's like i like the other parabo lesbian movie better and then you're like geez okay oh no he was talking about another oh yeah was he yeah Was he? Yeah, that's what he. Yes. He was like, she's probably thinking about how much better that movie was the whole time she was shooting this movie. He's just a mess. Right. But here's what made me me eyebrows raise is that that specific sentence in the snapshot of the article or review. Mm hmm. Not in the not in the review once you click on it so was it so where does it come from it was scrubbed oh okay so we'll never know the rest

of that sentence wait so it was it originally published with that sentence in it but then they like edited it out later on i'm pretty sure because i i couldn't find it anywhere else right because i started i tried to search for it too once you had mentioned that and then i couldn't find it anywhere so yeah huh naughty boy roger naughty boy roger well we'll have to call him in hell where he lives now sorry i just like to mention that roger hebert could be in hell if you believe in that sort of thing sure sure yeah i mean he maybe he's in heck it's like the character's name 41.2345 um here's a few things um loose fat shames one of her customers loose calls her love interest shrill heck keeps talking about how he could make jam and i'm like excuse me don't you mean marmalade

we're in paddington territory here okay this is england this is london you mean marmalade have i heard of it um i felt as though there was like we talked a little bit about Rachel's parents and that relationship how they hate each other but then at the very end they decide to rekindle and they kiss it felt to me as though we had like a shrewish mom trope happening with Rachel's mom but then that was also kind of like offset by loose having a cool mom yeah so cool mom who fucked me so much she fucks yeah what else i feel like the part where rachel almost kisses loose after they play ddr was a surprise kiss but then it didn't get followed through on which i feel like we haven't seen where like a surprise kiss doesn then it didn't get followed through on which i feel like we haven't

seen where like a surprise kiss doesn't happen all the way surprise kisses just mean like nobody's asking can i kiss you right it's just like you know you kind of lunge at someone and kiss them without checking in to see if they want to be kissed i'm sorry was there a lunge in that one i feel like that was a vibe. That was a vibe. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like that one passed the vibe check for me. I feel like they were tiptoeing towards each other.

Maybe I'm just obsessed with people. No one does my line, my horny pickup line, which is, should we kiss? And that way it's very explicitly put out there thank you so whenever people don't say that and don't get all of that verbal confirmation see I do something that's not sexy I say what then we're kissing oh cool oh my yeah I ask if uh do you want to kiss and then um after minutes of me being very very nervous i'll say okay here i come so we're all doing great i also do like a you know when like a parent is like feeding their kid a spoonful of thing and it's like an airplane i sort of do that too I'm like here I come is it with your head yeah I'm like swiveling oh Sammy wins that's pretty good um I think that's really all I had yeah I had coyote I said I said more like coyote British

more like Rachel getting unmarried. And then I... Whoa, that's actually a really good joke, Jamie. Thank you. Wow, don't sound so surprised. Well, I mean, comparing to Coyote British? From the joke writer who wrote Coyote British comes a joke that makes sense. Oh, good grief.

That's all I have. That's all I have. Yeah, Sammy, sammy do anything else you'd like to share yeah i really don't like that ddr is again misrepresented in the movie they are not playing they're not actively playing the game yeah i can tell which happens a lot and it's very frustrating as a a ddr self-proclaimed ddr champion champion it doesn't fly with me it's also funny when people in movies manage to make ddr look sexy because it's like it not to say it's not sexy but it's not like backup dancers sexy it's like ddr is really sexy if you wanted to see someone move their feet really quickly and while their upper half is essentially not moving at all, it's not right.

Piper Parabell gets an ass shake in there. I'm like, that's not, that's not how that game is played. That's not how it plays. Also, I'll, I'll go ahead and say that DDR is not really that sexy.

It is not, but it's the, just the atmosphere of being in an arcade and competing with someone. Arcade. Sexy. That is sexy. Exactly. Horny. DDR not sexy. atmosphere of being in an arcade and competing with someone arcade sexy that is sexy exactly horny ddr not so had although even them ending up on a ddr machine after luis was like i want to go

dancing that is ridiculous that is a ridiculous solution to that yes i would be so disappointed because ddr should not be called dance dance revolution it's like jump jump revolution you're not really dancing when you play ddr you're just sort of like stepping and hopping it's like tap tap now i'm sweating that's the game that's the game but i did enjoy their connection and it felt to me as though they had pretty palpable on-screen chemistry we've talked about this where like developed on the set of the cave true but we've talked about how like sometimes in queer movies where straight actors are cast the characters don't have any chemistry and this isn't necessarily a season happiest Happiest season. I feel like we talked about this on the Carol episode as well. And this is not necessarily, this is not specifically a...

Took some heat for that one. That's true. No one can claim that there was chemistry in happiest season. Just canonically, palpably untrue. You're like, do these women know each other? I mean, there was, but it was between Aubrey Plaza and Kristen Stewart. Right, right. And this isn't like necessarily an issue specific to queer movies, because look at Matthew McConaughey and every rom com he's in and how little chemistry he has with any of the women. Okay, wedding planner, they were in love. That

is so false. And I refuse to check check my work but this is something that we have come up upon where straight actors are cast in queer roles and they often won't have chemistry with each other but i felt chemistry between piper parabo and lena heady and 100 yeah yeah tell that to my para boner caitlin cut that out piper pipe there's a there's a pipe there's a penis joke in there maybe just spitballing anyone i yeah i was i was following it no i was following it but then i was like that would sound so gross to say out loud. Well, happiest season, more like horniest season for Caitlin, and I'm going to make a Piper penis joke. Anyway.

All right. It passes the Bechdel test. Yes. Big surprise. The movie passes the Bechdel test. A lot. 500,000 times. Yes. It's a lot.

Between a lot of different combinations of characters as well. Moms and daughters, lovers, children and adults. That are best friends. We don't know. Epiphy. Yikes. As far as our nipple scale, 0 to 5 nipples based on how the movie

fares when looking at it through an intersectional feminist lens. I guess I would give this, this is one of those sort of like split down the middle movies for me. I do think it was ahead of its time in a number of ways i think that it holds up better than you'd expect of a 2005 rom-com about a queer relationship written and directed by a straight white guy as far as we know but a lot of harmful tropes were avoided not all all of them were avoided, but enough were that I feel like, you know, this is a movie to still watch and enjoy and appreciate the relationship and

appreciate that it's a queer rom-com that has a happy ending and that has a nice relationship that you can get behind because also like just a convention of the rom-com genre is like it's a toxic relationship where characters are lying to each other and being manipulative and being gross and creepy a lot of the time and that doesn't happen in this movie. We just have a pretty sweet connection between two people and they make it work. So I think I'll give this three because of that. It obviously gets points off for some of the behavior of other characters that doesn't really go challenged or commented on by the movie. and heck outing loose all the time that the extreme whiteness of the movie the sidelining of the one black character everyone else you see on screen who has a speaking role is white um yeah three nipples and i'll give one to rachel i'll give one to loose and i'll give one to edie because i wanted more for her character i'll meet you at three uh yeah

there's uh for its time consider like i had to keep putting my like it's frustrating because there are so many like better queer movies many of them made by queer people made well before this movie but a lot of the popular you know mainstream cinema that cinema oh my god okay whoa hey i have to go walk into the ocean loser alert movies is called movies okay but yeah a lot of movies that featured queer relationships in like mainstream releases literally geely came out two years before this so i think given the era it came out in, I was pleasantly surprised that it did as many just like lovely, sweet rom-com things as it did. I like the relationship. I like the characters generally. I'm mainly docking it for extreme whiteness, Papapia's choices surrounding when music should swell around children and

literally the character coop. So I'll go with three. I'll give one to Luce. One to Luce's horny, horny mom and one to the hot dog. Yummy. Oh yeah, I wanted to give a

nipple to the scarves. Oh yeah. But I ran out. a nipple to the scarves. Oh, yeah. But I ran out. Honorary mention to the scarves. Scarves? Scarves. Scarves. Scarves.

Scarves. Scarves. Scarves. Sammy, what about you? I don't have anything to add to y'all's reasoning, but I think the child stuff makes me incredibly uncomfortable so it's a two and a half for me dog hell yeah wow do you want to go up to 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.4 2.3 are you lying to me we're just lying and then you hang up the phone and say i quit bye bye. My nipples go to Luce, go to Luce's mom,

and then the.5 nip goes to, don't forget me, I won't remember anything else. It's nice. Oh, it's really cute. It's good. It's fucking good. Well.

Give Papa Pia that. Thank you so much for joining us once again you are now in the the three time appearance club and for that again the reward is a nice little hug i can't wait to hug you both for longer than five minutes for eight dollars a piece right i was like and you don't even need to pay me the five minutes divide that by you it just give me 35 cents give me milk money i'm good to go you got it i want the full eight dollars please you got it um thank you so much for coming back where can people, you know, check out your stuff and follow you on social media and all of that? I'm on Twitter at it underscore your Y-O-U-R underscore Sam. Don't follow me on Instagram.

Oh, my. Or what? I'm just I'm taking a break from it. And I just it feels weird when people start following me from podcast stuff or just like anything. And then I feel like I'm overexposed. Yeah, that's part of why I'm taking myself off now. That's healthy. I have the exact opposite and unhealthy relationship with social media in that I need more people to follow me so that I feel more valid as a human.

So I'll just throw out, follow me at Caitlin Durante on Twitter and Instagram. I'm ambivalent on the issue at this time. Smart. And so I won't be commenting further. However, you know what you can do? You can sign up for our Patreon account, Patreon at patreon.com slash eBactolCast, where we're covering all manner of

cinema this month. We're covering two great pieces of cinema on the Matron. We're covering I Know What You Did Last Summer and Midsommar. So how do you like that? How do you like that? The theme, of course, being I Know What You Did

Last Midsommar. It's not. It's's no coyote british but i think that we were on to something but we did cover coyote ugly on the matreon so that's just another reason to head over there and subscribe and get access to that get a pair of boner no okay we gotta end the episode we gotta end the episode you can get our merch at tpublic.com slash the bechdel cast uh follow us well flea is also horny flea is like did someone say para boner poor flea um yeah check out our merch it's uh be on the lookout for the forthcoming character shirt just kidding we will probably never make new merch um anyway that's at tpublic.com slash the bechdel cast and thanks for listening thanks for coming back sammy thanks for coming back hey Sammy. Thanks for coming back. Hey, thanks for having me. Happy Pride.

Bye-bye. 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.

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