The Bechdel Cast - Interview with the Vampire (1994) with Brooke Solomon and Jordan Gustafson

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

On this episode, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guests Jordan Gustafson and Brooke Solomon (of Queer Quadrant podcast!) can't stop drinking each other's blood while they chat about Interview with the Vampire. Check out Princess Weekes's video here -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT5unKXnSUk&t=1s Follow our guests at @brookebsolomon @jordan_gustafson and @queerquadrant on Instagram!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, 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. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever.

But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do.

What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 effin' vast.

Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Wah-wah. My mom is dead. Well, I... Brad Pitt. At least I didn't kill her. Okay. But I will turn you into a vampire.

Wow, this is a great... Yeah, if I was at home, I could have really performed that. But, you know, it's just not happening today. That was an attempt at introducing our interview with the vampire. I kept saying it with different names. I was like, interview and a vampire. I kept saying it with different names. I was like interview and a vampire. Interview but a vampire? Like there's so many fun ways to and none of them are the title. Welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante. This is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens

using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point and that of course is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test because it was kind of co-created with her friend Liz Wallace and it has many versions but the one that we use is this Do two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do those characters speak to each other? And is there conversation about something other than a man? And we especially like it when it's a nice, meaty, juicy, maybe even bloody conversation.

Yeah, yeah. This is our food. Discourse is our disgusting food. When the night falls, we can finally start having discourse. Right. So today's episode is interview with the vampire because I was always calling it interview with a vampire, but it's the. I interview where's the vampire? Dude dude where's my vampire um frost vampire what are other movies about interviews frost vampire would actually be a great movie oh my gosh i don't know if it would be that would be a fun queer canon movie frost vampire sure sure um i never saw frost nixon that's what you're referring to, right? Yeah. Take Nixon out. Put in the vampire.

Okay. Sure, sure, sure, sure. And then I think now we're kind of cooking. We've got a real TV event. So true. In any case, interview with a vampire. Did I say it wrong again? Interview with the vampire.

With the. Oh, yeah. I think it's the the where you're like the. It trips you up. Lestat is still alive. Like he's not like the vampire. He's like acting like, yeah, the Beyonce is still alive like he's not like the vampire he's like acting like yeah the beyonce of vampires which he's not i know easily the vampire i like the least yes they're all just one of many oh jordan's freaking out

anyway we've got two incredible guests. They are the hosts of Queer Quadrant Podcast. It's Jordan Gustafson and Brooke Solomon. Welcome. Hello. Okay. I'm personally a fan of Dude, Where's My Vampire? Gotta say. That is pretty good.

Thank you. Yes. For me, because I'm not a Louis fan, interview with some vampire. I agree that he's the weakest vampire in the film. Easily. Every vampire is better than him. It is just some vampire. I agree that he's the weakest vampire in the film. Easily. Every vampire is better than him. It is just a vampire he's really interviewing, though.

So you could say, like, interview with a vampire, you know? Right. But it's not. It's not. I feel like, so we were telling Caitlin, we did this movie a very long time ago at the very, very beginning of our podcast, and we've been waiting for an opportunity to re-sync our teeth into it um but i remember on our podcast that interview with a vampire versus the vampire tripped us up for the whole episode yeah he's just not the vampire i feel like if it was unfortunately and i'm you know i'm not like

vampire i'm not caping for lestat or anything but he's certainly a more and if if the whole movie was an interview with lestat i would buy interview with the vampire because he has energy that is like i am the vampire he wants everyone to believe that he's he's like don't leave the country i'm definitely the only vampire. Even Armand would be pretty good because he's like, I'm the oldest vampire. You're like, yes, you are. The grand dame of vampires.

He's the OG vampire. He's like, I am Dracula. Yeah, what Nosferatu found dead in a ditch. He's the vampire. it's cool that this movie presupposes that vampires can be hot because you know the dawn of cinema they're like vampires are ugly nosferatu and this movie is like what if antonio banderas this is kind of like the vampire movie i mean well i mean obviously there are so many but like when i think about what i want out of vampires this is the version of vampires that i want i really liked it bitchy expensive

motherfuckers drama queens yes they're they're fun they're hot and they're fun what is your history and relationship with this movie i watched it for the first time for our episode that we did. I had never seen it. I just knew kind of like the cultural cachet of like, oh, did you know that there's this weird campy, like sort of gay vampire movie? And then I got obsessed and I still haven't read the book. But like, I mean, this movie is ridiculous,

but I think it's a very good time and I'm loving the show on AMC plus right now I just started it to prep for this I haven't seen this show fabulous I haven't either it's okay I know okay okay I'm caught up I think maybe I'm one episode behind but it's like this to me it I I'm very I'm one episode behind, but it's like this to me. I'm very Anne Rice-pilled at the moment. At the moment. But yeah, I hadn't seen it. You're dipping yourself in a bowl of rice.

Drying out. Drying out in a bowl of rice. Right? Right? You're so Rice-pilled. So I watched it for the first time for the pod as well. And I think I was mostly aware of it slash interested in it because as a Tom Cruise, you know, fan, as someone who has seen every movie of his, you know, it was something that was always lingering in the mind.

And I think I was also just kind of aware of it because I think like I knew about David Geffen early because I'm such a Little Shop fan and I knew that he produced it. So and he's also was kind of one of the first gay famous people that I was aware of because of like the Spielberg connection as well so I feel like when you're like a young burgeoning creative and you're like who are queer you know people in Hollywood it's like one of the first names so I think that was probably the one of the things that led to it but I know like when whenever we covered it I feel like I'm never gonna listen to that episode again because it was so early and I don't even remember what my thoughts are so this feels like a whole new experience it's like a

rebirth it's like how we feel about the first like easily three years of our show at this point yeah we should just delete all of those episodes but But this is the thing. You're getting a chance at a new life. And we're going to give you the choice that we didn't have. That we never had. You did it. To have a better opinion on interviewing the vampire. Old podcast episodes are so challenging. But I do feel like you're like, wow, a public record of our bad taste.

You got to learn on the fly. Or how much smarter you eventually got. Sure. That's a good way to phrase it. Yeah. How much better we got at talking to people. I think it's the biggest thing. That's true.

That's true. One would consider that a core tenant when starting a podcast. You would think. However. Yeah. It's a humiliation kink, mostly. Yeah, mostly. Yeah. It's kind of like being yeah it's a humiliation kink mostly yeah mostly yeah it's kind of like being a vampire is a humiliation kink you know you're just like you can't go outside they're like don't you want to like come to the park with us like oh

i do think vampires are the gayest like fictional creature yeah yeah possibly i can't think of anything that and i say that as as a compliment but like well yeah of course i can't think of anything that and i say that as as a compliment but like well yeah of course i don't think anything else comes close yeah i wonder if that's why i'm so into vampire lore because like i love not that i've like done a deep dive really but i love so much just like vampire stuff like media and who are your who are your vampires yeah who are your guys i mean yeah well welcome to wtf with probably buffy the vampire slayer is my biggest uh although she's killing vampires but they're you know they feature prominently and then there's some vampires like angel and spike i was gonna say become series regulars and stuff like that. And then Angel had his own show,

which I didn't watch nearly enough of. Oh no, actually my biggest vampire thing is What We Do in the Shadows, duh. I love the movie. I love the show. I also enjoy From Dusk Till Dawn. I enjoy A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. Then we've got Blade. Blade rules. Blood Rave. We've got blade blade rules blood rave we've got and i

haven't seen this the whole way through and i really want to sit down with it sometime soon but the francis ford coppola braun stoker's dracula like so good kiana reeves being weird and winona rider is there and like all kinds of goofy stuff i also really like uh what's the um willem dafoe plays nosferatu and it's like is the name nosferatu the living vampire or is it the other one where it's like the it's the other because they're both came out like in the same year hold up and then there's a new nosferatu coming out right like there's new which should be interesting from the the bitch guy shadow of the vampire shadow of the vampire yes i also need to re-watch that but there's just i don't know there's something so alluring about vampires so i agree anyway jamie what is your history with interview with a vampire well i guess my bisexual card has been revoked because i've never really been into vampires

um i'm sorry i don't it never really connected for me i hadn't seen this movie before i feel like all of my vampire knowledge i like i don't know because our generation was like pretty pummeled with vampire media i did watch twilight i read Twilight. My mom and I shared the book set, which is gross. Passing back and forth. Just she would give me her soggy copies of Twilight. But Vampire Diaries missed me. True Blood missed me. Like I just didn't, it didn't happen for me for whatever reason. Maybe it was probably honestly because my mom liked vampire stuff and I was like, I'm built so different. I'm going to read a series of unfortunate events 40 times.

There we go. And that's how I get my bisexual card back. To just take the edginess in the other direction. Exactly. Yeah. I'm going library edgy. But no, I hadn't,

I hadn't seen this movie before. And wow. Wow. I, I, I I so weird. I can't I like, I don't know what word I would put. I was so enthralled. I also read about half of the book or I listened to half of the audio book, let's be honest. But I did listen to half of the audio book at 1.9 speed. And so I feel like I speak as an authority when I say that the movie is like a pretty close adaptation of the book. But what is left out is really interesting, especially because I forget what movie we were talking about this recently. But it's like the rare movie that was actually adapted by the author, which you never see. And so I think it's interesting. some stuff that ends up not being there um but yeah i liked it it's such a weird it's so weird

there's so many things to talk about a rich text there's so much i want to quickly agree with you jamie on the not being super into vampires because vampires we talked about this before on our podcast we're like my lowest ranked of monsters and i don't know whether maybe this is like a new england well brooks from new england so never mind but also i grew up a girl and like true i was similarly like in the twihart era i guess but like for me i was just like i i guess because i had maybe like the vamp we were so inundated with vampires that i think i went the other way which is why i think i was like less into them growing up just because like if there is so much you know yeah i don't know what missed me i was i was trying to think of what my favorite monster is i think it's like sexy fish guy that's my favorite monster love a sexy fish guy creature

from black lagoon's my favorite monster movie because it's like a weird guy you know but he's horny and sensitive and you're like yes i could fix him yes he actually doesn't need to be fixed because he's like a sweetie right he's perfect yeah he kind of arrives ready yeah all he all he needs is your acceptance he loves eggs you know it's fine wholesome all he needs to do is flood your bathroom and he is so he's so okay um yeah i don't know, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what it was. I do feel like it was like a probably like because I also read the Twilight books in secret. I didn't like want all of my friends who loved Twilight and it would have been easier to connect with them if I just admitted I was also reading them.

But I didn't want them to know. And I also had this whole thing about magic. I think we talked about this in our really really old Harry Potter episodes but I always was like I didn't like fantasy because I love series of unfortunate events so much and they didn't have magic and so magic in any other book was cheating and magic was an unfair plot device and the Baudelaire orphans had to figure it out with like a pile of rope and so I'm not interested in magic which is ridiculous but it was how I felt for like 15 years I'm not gonna derail this episode too much but Jamie have you ever read the Mysterious Benedict Society

no I've heard that it's similar great follow-up to a series of unfortunate events it's so fun I'm doing a reread of them because i never listened to the audiobooks and they're all read by tim curry and it's they're so good has tim curry ever played a vampire because he has so much vampire energy this is a huge question that is really is it you know it kind of is vampire coded but isn't obviously it's a clown but he can be like he forms as your nightmare you know but technically he's a demon yeah right if we want to get he was okay they say he was a vampire in the worst witch which i think is a mary kate nashley movie yeah okay great great well squandering his potential i would say oh my god i don't know i look up the image i

think he kind of killed it oh my god wait i need to send i'm gonna put this in the chat he he's definitely played a vampire okay this is exciting uh anyway my relationship with the movie is I had seen it many, many years ago. I want to say the early 2000s, long before I was really thinking or reading about queer reads of this movie. So I just didn't really think about it or it didn't really occur to me as like a queer text or like that there's like queer subtext present in this movie because I also didn't really remember it before this rewatch and then I started watching it again I was like oh yep there it is I see it now it's right there and then I just started the series last night so I'm not very far into it I'm like midway episode four, but I can't wait to talk about the kind of adaptation changes and just the different things that the show does that the, I would say, movie adaptation fails to do or just kind of mishandles. So yeah, there's just so much

to chat about. Wait, let me look at this picture. Picture's nuts it's fabulous oh whoa yeah like he i feel like probably he had that same thought at some point caitlin where he's like why the hell hasn't anyone cast me as a vampire i will do it for anyone including mary kate nashley he's like you don't even have to pay me my rate i'll just do it for free sag minimum kind of perfect because you know nobody was telling him he couldn't do something on that set. He had free reign. The green screen is really good though.

I think it looks like we're actually outside at night. Like I don't think that there's any sort of tell that it was not shot on location, you know? So true. I don't know how everyone feels about the Tom Cruise. There's like, whatever. It's very 1994 casting if i'm talking about people i think did a good job i would be down to kirsten dunst and antonio

banderas i think correct but i was just i was looking at because i know ann rice was um and then she like walked these comments back later and she's like no tom cruise was good because she probably feared the church of scientology honestly if i was ann rice i would be like i don't think that she's like actually he did a good job i think she's like i don't wish to die i'm putting that on wax she's dead we can't ask her so it's the truth um but well maybe she's a vampire we don't know it's if anyone is. But the people that were listed as potentially being cast for Lestat,

like all of them were better ideas than Tom Cruise. John Malkovich, that would have been great. Jeremy Irons, terrible person, would have been a good Lestat. Would have been good. Would have also been a good Count Olaf, if we're being honest. He would have been a great Count Olaf. Yo. have been good. Would have also been a good Count Olaf, if we're being honest. He would have been a great Count Olaf.

Yo. Right? Count Olaf's supposed to be scary. I just have it on the brain right now. I'm like, why do they always cast him as funny? He's scary. Anyways, yeah, Tom Cruise is such a weird, I mean, and he goes for it

in the way that he's known to. That's why I like it. I will say I don't hate his performance and these acting circles around Brad Pitt He's known to. That's why I like it. I will say I don't hate his performance. And he's acting circles around Brad Pitt. And Kirsten Dunst is acting circles around both of them. Yeah. Brad Pitt, bad person, bad job.

Yeah. Tom Cruise, bad person, interesting job. Kirsten Dunst, great person, great job. That's true. Yeah, exactly. I totally agree that we can give Tom Cruise all the credit for going for it because I I think that he's honestly helped along by the fact that in the same scenes you have Brad Pitt who is very much not going for it and you're like well I hate this I also just I think that the cruise performance matches the over-the-top campy energy because this movie

moves through so much so quickly that like he has to make an impact in about an hour and i mean he makes the damn impact boy does he the first 30 with him are like my favorite part just because it feels like it's bottling something so particular and i think if you have someone of his status coming in because obviously he's such a big star at this point already, and he's delivering lines like, do you still want this or have you tasted enough? I've drained you to the point of death.

When you transition, the world becomes different. Like he's delivering all these like big vampire queer lines. And I think if you have someone like Cruz with his kind of like very fruity, know behavior you have to like you buy into it and you're like I would also transition for Tom Cruise this vampire you know because he has to have this greater than energy versus like if it was like a boring kind of maybe sexy but not like overwhelming guy would you buy into it would you you know become a vampire no i guess yeah when you put it like that it's like you are supposed to think and also just like having listened to

half of the book really fast so again scholar you are a scholar yeah i feel like you are supposed to get the feeling that like well that is scary but also yeah critically he is also unhinged and unpredictable and tom cruise in that frame is kind of exactly the right casting i know i know we have to recap um there is like a bizarre foreshadowing of tom cruise and oprah winfrey's history happening here where oprah winfrey saw an early screening of this movie and she left 10 minutes in because she said i believe there are forces of light and darkness in the world and i don't want to be a contributor to the force of darkness and we're like there's plenty of like valid reasons to want to leave this movie but um oprah not wanting to be

allied with the forces of darkness i'm like i'm pretty sure you're like friends with like bill gates like you're fully out you are kind of the you're an active member of the force of darkness anyways yeah i liked that she was just like this movie is evil and i'm leaving i don't want to be a part of it good for you uh on that note let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap. Hey, everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight.

I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd 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. 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. do. One session, 24 hours. BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board

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

or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back okay so i'm gonna do my best with this recap uh i will place a content warning at the top here for suggestions of suicidal ideation, as well as violence against women. Okay, so we meet Daniel Malloy, played by Christian Slater. He's in a room with Louis, played by Brad Pitt, about to interview Louis and he's like tell me about yourself and Louis is like I'm a vampire teehee and Malloy doesn't believe him at first but then already right at the top it like I feel like the fact that Brad Pitt appears in the present and the past just draws more attention to the fact that he just has a face that does not belong in the past it's so distracting to see him in the past he just doesn't whatever that thing is where it's just like

some actors just don't make sense in period pieces and um he is one of them he's one of them also you're telling me he never updates his haircut in the 200 years oh yeah he canonically cannot oh when you cut your hair it just grows back immediately true nightmare like what if the day you became a vampire you were like dirty like you're just dirty forever bad hair day yeah you look like shit or like you just got out of a terrible cut and you were waiting for it to grow back okay well then explain though the so when when kirsten dunst when claudia at first her hair is like straggly and stringy and it it's it's not cute sorry to say but then it's like the second she becomes a vampire now it's curly and lush and she's got these beautiful lush curls so like i

think the in-universe explanation is very twilight where it's like being a vampire makes you the hottest version of yourself or the most the the kind of like most alluring like attractive version of yourself because that's part of your way that you that's one of your weapons seduce people yes okay which makes the later Anne Rice Stephanie Meyer debacle all the more hilarious where it's like, ladies, ladies, ladies, you are doing the same thing. Right? Right. It's all okay. Yeah, it's horny vampires. Yeah.

Some are just Mormons. There's space for everybody. Okay, anyway, so Malloy doesn't believe Louis at first that he's a vampire but then Louis does some vampire tricks he moves really fast and then Malloy is like okay cool cool cool I believe you now that's what I'm like at the magic castle like okay no I guess you're a magician okay fine I believe you and then Louis begins to tell his story. Basically, he's like, it's been 84 years, except it's more like it's been 200 years. We flash back to the late 1700s,

and we learn that Louis was an enslaver, and he owned a plantation in Louisiana. It's the worst, it's this insane hard cut to him being like, and I owned a plantation and you're like we will get to that because it's it's weirdly like discussed more in the book but like i don't know i am not going to accuse the book of having any sense of nuance but it's at least addressed more clearly that the book is anti-slavery which the movie i don't think does an adequate job of even remotely i agree so louis is mourning the death of his wife and his child

who passed away recently and he's grief stricken, and he wants to die himself. And this is when he meets Lestat, played by Tom Cruise, a vampire who has been stalking Louis, and who bites him. And he's like, I'll give you the choice I never had to become a vampire, and it'll be awesome actually and louis agrees so listat turns him into a vampire which the lore here is that listat drains most of louis blood and then makes him drink some of listat's blood and that's how you become a vampire we cut back to the present with this interview where louis dispels some myths about vampires he doesn't mind crucifixes and the stake through the heart thing is nonsense though he does sleep in a coffin and the sun will kill him like and the sun the sun will kill you like some stereotypes are true i mean yeah that's one of the main tenets of the Bechtel cast.

No, I'm kidding. But so we also learned that different vampires have different powers. For example, Lestat can read people's thoughts. And so we flashback again. Louis is trying to like get into the groove of being a vampire. Lestat moves in with him and And they're biting people, they're drinking their blood, although Louis refuses to kill anyone. So he survives mostly off of drinking animal blood. And it's like, okay, someone read Twilight and Rice plagiarism much?

Lestat, on the other hand, loves killing people and he has an insatiable appetite. He prefers killing young women and girls and like high society aristocrat types, especially ones who are evil and who do bad things. And so I was like, OK, Dexter vibes, sort of. But one night they go after this rich woman who had her husband murdered and then blamed an enslaved person for the murder. But even then, Louis can't kill her. So Lestat is becoming kind of increasingly annoyed with Louis' refusal to kill people. And so he leaves. We then briefly meet a character named Yvette, played by Thandie Way Newton, an enslaved person at Louie's plantation. And she's like, hey, what's going on? Everyone is

afraid of you and your freaky friend. Could you please ask your scary friend to leave? To get out of here? Louie bites her and kills her in i guess a moment of weakness but then he realizes what he's done and that this place is cursed so he frees all the people he has enslaved and then he burns down the plantation presumably trying to end his own life in the process but listat shows up again and saves him. And he's just like, this is what it is to be a vampire. You just got to embrace it. So they moved to New Orleans together. Although Louis is still unwilling to kill anyone. One night, Lestat pressures Louis into killing a woman, but again, he refuses. and then he like runs away and on his little

journey he finds a little girl claudia played by kirsten dunst whose mother has just died of a plague of some kind so louis bites her and then listat walks in just then and he's like, woohoo. Laughing his little ass off. These guys, these guys, these guys. They're so silly. There's he, he canonically baby traps. Yeah. Yes. You know, the best way to fix a relationship is to have a baby or get married.

Is to have a child. You know, it fixes everything. My favorite Letterboxd review of this movie was, like, Louis says, I'm leaving. And then Lestat says, I'm pregnant and it's yours. Yeah. Which is basically what he does. Yeah. God.

The whole movie improves in my mind a thousand percent when you know that it ends with Lestat being like, what a fucking baby, right? Like you're just like, that's the coolest thing I've ever heard. I wish every book ended like that. I wish Twilight ended like that. It would have improved the whole series. This is one of my favorite endings. We'll talk about it when we get to it. It's so awesome. It's one of my favorite endings we'll we'll talk about it when we get to it but it's so awesome it's one of my faves okay so what happens basically is that

listat turns claudia into a vampire her hair gets so curly she then immediately wants so much blood and they take her in as their daughter they like teach her how to be a vampire and how to feed on people you know just two gay vampire dads and their adopted child she's very spoiled and she's always killing her piano teachers and her dressmakers and basically anyone else who's around then many years pass obviously none of them have aged and one day cla, Claudia sees a naked woman through a window. And she's like, I want to be like her and have boobs like that. And they're like, oops, sorry, your body will always be that of a child. And then Claudia is resentful for them turning her into a vampire and making her this, you know, devilish creature who will never grow up and for taking her mother away from her. She especially hates Lestat for

this. So she kills him by tricking him into drinking the blood of people who are already dead, which is like kind of poisonous to vampires and then slitting his throat or at least they think that she has killed Lestat because one night after Louis and Claudia have I think they're either about to move to Europe or they have already moved to Europe something Lestat shows up he's all decaying and gross and he's so mad and Louis and Claudia set him on fire and escape and now they're in Europe and they spend many years traveling the world searching for other vampires, but they can't find any until it's 1870. They're in Paris and then Louis finds this goofy little clown vampire doing a jig he's doing some

antics it reminded me of that in sync music video where they're all in the box he's doing that dance he is doing the bye bye bye music video yeah he's in the bye bye bye box you know he's definitely in a bye box if you know what i'm saying a lot of people in this movie are in the buy buy buy box it's something we need to talk about yes yes anyway this vampire is named santiago and he's played by stephen ray who i didn't recognize or realize that was him at first i mostly know him from v for vendetta but he's there. But the more important vampire in this situation is his daddy, the leader of the Paris vampire clan. He's actually the oldest vampire ever. The oldest vampire. This is Armand, played by Antonio Banderas.

A truly special wig. He's wearing a wig. So Armand invites Louis and Claudia to his play, which is vampires as the actors pretending to be humans, pretending to be vampires. I love when they're watching it and Claudia's like, it's so avant-garde. You're like, oh, she's so right.

This is art. it's dinner theater a play within a movie it was a play that felt like a play it did i like that and sometimes when people say avant-garde they do just mean like not very good and i think that that's also true yes um so then armand shows louis and claudia around his his Phantom of the Opera ass underground lair full of many vampires and Louis asks Armand like what are we who are we who's the original vampire because he still has all these questions about his identity his vampire identity and what this all means but armand doesn't really answer him but as far as he knows he's the oldest living vampire at 400 ish years old also they're in paris at this point right yes so for what it's worth i also made the phantom of the opera

connection due to candles in a basement and this would have been happening like around the same time that the phantom would have been phantoming nearby because the events of phantom of the opera were in the 1880s and this is i believe the 1870s so he would have been lur that play. Fanfic idea. Crossover of the century. Lestat meets Gerard Butler Phantom. Yes. I would pay money to actually watch this. Oh, I see it. I see it.

And Christine and Louis can go be sad together. That's true. On a balcony somewhere. They could just go be the most bummer part of their yeah respective movies right no one really like likes when they're back on screen you're like well i guess they are the main character allegedly why do i hate them so much anyway so at this underground vampire lair louis is thinking about how they may have actually wronged Lestat by killing him because

oh, what if he's just like a product of his circumstances? And then that vampire Santiago who can read people's thoughts is like, just so you know, the only crime a vampire can commit is killing another vampire. And Louis is like, oh,

okay, that's interesting oh i love their faces during that reaction we're like sick sick sick sick sick oh so we committed the crime and you can read our minds that's that's really great oh that's actually good because i haven't done that so definitely have it so now claudia is worried that that Louis is going to leave her to like hang out with Armand, especially because Louis thinks that Armand could be the teacher that Lestat never was to him. So he's like very allured by Armand. And we can talk about the adaptation difference from the book to the movie in a bit. But he's like very into Armand. But he goes home to Claudia. And Claudia has a woman there,

Madeline, who wants to become a vampire. And Claudia wants her as her kind of like companion slash mother figure. So Louis does it, he turns her into a vampire but just then they are all kidnapped by armand's vampire minions they seal louis in a coffin and then they put claudia and madeline in a like dungeon of sorts where they will be exposed to sunlight. And that happens. They burn to a crisp. They die. Now Armand, who didn't realize that his minions were doing this, he rescues Louis, who then enacts revenge on Santiago and the other minions.

And Armand still wants Louis to join him, but Louis declines because he still has this like conscience that he's had throughout the entire movie of oh it's so wrong that we kill people and blah blah blah and Armand has no such conscience so Louis leaves but not before they almost kiss each other on the lips. I'm so close. Then they don't. Then Louis wanders around for like a century or so grieving the death of Claudia. And then he returns to the US. He becomes a huge film buff. He loves cinema.

It kind of reminded me of the end of Babylon where I'm like, oh, they're just using clips. They're just using clips. He discovers the power of cinema. That's what happens when you get a David Geffen budget. They'm like, oh, they're just using clips. They're just using clips. He discovers the power of cinema. That's what happens when you get a David Geffen budget. They're like, yeah, just put in a clip from the movie.

You got the money. Superman? Sure. Avatar should have been in there. Avatar should have been in there. No Gone with the Wind, which is a little surprising, could remind him of his roots. It's true.

Oh, God. Yeah, but they just had the babylon approach so yeah it was kind of like oh okay okay sure kind of fun anyway one night in new orleans louis catches the scent of a vampire and he follows it into an abandoned probably plantation where listat has been squatting for who knows how long, you know, rotting still, looking like shit. He somehow didn't die after being burned and all the other things that they did to him. You know, he's been living off of rats the way Louis used to.

And Lestat is hopeful that he and Louis will be together again, but Louis is is like nah dude bye and then we cut back to the present with the interview with christian slater and louis is like i don't know what happened to list out i never saw him again and christian slater's like well that's a terrible ending come up with something better He's also just like mesmerized by the idea of like being a vampire. Yeah. And also it is like a lot is very audacious of Christian Slater at the end of this multiple hour story to be like,

so what's the angle? You're like, shut up. Like what are you talking about? And Louie is like, have you not been listening i just told you how like cursed of a life this is and then he disappears so christian slater goes chasing after him because he's just so obsessed with vampires now but guess who catches up with

christian slater it's listat who is still looking like shit until he bites and drinks from Christian Slater, which like revitalizes Lestat. And he's like, I'm going to give you the choice I never had, which is, again, exactly what he said to Louis 200 years earlier. But not before calling Louis annoying as shit. And then it sort of like ends like CSI Miami style. It's like, yes. it has a sympathy for the devil it's amazing a cover oh right it's great he's like oh god is he still whining about stuff i had to listen to this for 200 years blah blah and then he presumably turns christian slater into a vampire yes the end. So that's the movie.

Let's take. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near right in time for a new season of my podcast. Next question. Starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight.

I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also gonna have some fun, even though these days, fun and politics seems like an oxymoron.

But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr. and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric,

starting October 3rd 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. 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. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a 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. EPM 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 another quick break and we'll come back for the discussion and we're back what a recap oh thank you i did my best where to begin i i feel like it's i have a quick thing on christian Slater just right up top sure my read is that he's so you know Anne Rice lived in San Francisco growing up lived in the Castro lived in the hate during like the summer of love so she's like surrounded by gay men basically and her son obviously is gay my read on Christian Slater is that he's literally cruising for like a vampire or a guy and he ends up like with brad pitt in this it becomes because like in the end he's so in love with him and the like idea of vampirism that i'm like oh you got a taste of like what you wanted and now you're like yeah

give me the whole thing so my like macro arc is that he's like cruising for his first time and ends up with like either a vampire or b is just like a gay man for a hookup but that's just was my read and why not both yes exactly why not both i agree because at the end he doesn't just want vampirism he wants to become louie's companion and louie's like ultimate curse is that everyone who he meets falls in love with him. Somehow. For some reason. Must be the baby blues. And he doesn't want to be with any of them because he's too mopey.

And every single person is like, I would give you everything if you would come and be my companion. And he's always just like, no, I can't. Because reasons. And I think it adds a really like thematic layer to the whole movie because it happens over and over again it's the idea that he's constantly running from himself and he shouldn't be because he's never going to escape it and that like his self-loathing is all tied up in being a vampire i.e being being queer yeah yeah yes so yeah should we kind of start there as far as the queer readings of this movie yeah i would it be would it make sense to go through like the different adaptations and like

how overt things because i feel like the movie to my understanding is the least gay version of this story i think so the book one of the major differences and i'm sort of just getting into this part but armand's character is way way bigger in the book he and louis are in a relationship for decades they love each other it is like overtly a queer relationship and they like have i mean they they sound like a drag honestly but they're very in love they're like always talking about like they're talking about philosophy they're talking about the meaning of eternal life they're you know they're like traveling the world together they're trying to figure out what it all means and so there are like overt protracted relationships in the book which came out in yeah 76 yes yeah that as far as like our discussion goes that's i think the biggest

adaptation change which was obviously left out of the movie and when ann Rice was writing the screenplay for this, she was very hyper aware of the relationship between that character and Lestat, because in the movie, that's the relationship that gets most of the screen time. And there are obviously like many queer under if not overtones in that relationship. And so she was like, Oh, this movie is not going to get made if like straight audiences are watching this and perceiving this and, you know, Hollywood producers are perceiving this. So she considered straight washing her own story, but at the end of the day, like didn't end up doing it. And then the movie was made the way it was portraying that relationship, the way that it is. And I think at the time in, you know, the mid 90s, when this came out, I don't know if people were just like, Oh, yeah, that's just how vampires be. They're just sort of like sucking on each other and like, stuff flying to the sky with an orgasmic face as they change into a vampire. Yeah, it seems like a lot of straight audiences didn't really

pick up on those like those tones but obviously queer audiences did yeah and i like if you can't pick up on it that's on you like it's so it's right there i was honestly surprised at how queer this movie did get because i i just wasn't but it i i wasn't aware before yeah doing the research for this episode that Anne Rice had considered straight washing her story, which especially with like, you know, David Geffen being one of the most prominent

gay men in the world. He's a billionaire. We don't even like him. He did make Shrek possible. He did do that. He made Shrek and Little Shop of Horrors possible. And like, do you get a pass for that? You're a billionaire, but you made two and four in pieces. He did do that. He made Shrek and Little Shop of Horror if possible. He did. Do you get a pass for that?

You're a billionaire, but you made two and four in pieces. 9.1 billion, Jordan. So much money. But he is one of the, I would assume, most powerful gay men in the world. And even he is not able to get know get the armand you know even having him committing i mean he's very much the reason that this movie had the budget it did because vampire movies were not you know really popping off at all at this time but this movie had a 70 million dollar budget of which tom cruise got 10 million of which is absurd he's not even in the whole movie but whatever yeah um they could

have hired jeremy irons for 12 and he would have done it but yeah the fact that even like that amount of power and money and influence cannot get a explicit gay relationship into the story feels very 1994. It's pretty wild to me that well there's the there's kind of the the famous Norm Macdonald review of Interview with the Vampire which is currently my Twitter header which says here's my review not gay enough and I agree that it's not gay enough but at the same time it is very surprising how gay it is given this was such a blockbuster is starring two of the biggest stars in the world at the time is this kind of big sweeping epic story like all of the the people that Anne Rice suggested for Lestat a la the Jeremy Irons of the world like you said Jamie she could have got them for $12, but this, like the,

the cruise pit casting puts such a spotlight on this movie that makes it both more impressive and also more frustrating that it's not explicit. It's so close to being explicit. Like we said, he canonically baby traps this guy and says, Louis was going to leave us us and now he's not louis beautiful so many times i mean claudia calls so many times the claudia armand thing where she tells louis like armand wants you as you want him and there's just so many like

longing glances between them it's impossible to watch this movie and think that it's not queer. Right. It's just so textual. Right. It is textual. It's so weird. Cause it's, it's textual, like visually as textual in script.

And I'm just like amazed that it exists in the way that it does. She's just talked about it so much too. You know, I think like since her son came out, she's obviously been more outsp talked about it so much too you know i think like since her son came out she's obviously been more outspoken about it but she's talked about how it is gay allegory and how like honored she is by that and like the quote that like i think rings the most truth or like so funny to me is like and it's just interesting she goes i think i have a gay sensibility and i feel like i'm gay because i've always transcended gender and I've always seen love as transcending gender and she I think just has such a queer sensibility whether or not

that's because just how she grew up where she was whether or not it's her son's influence on her whether or not it's herself that she maybe like never got to express but like there is such a clear queerness to how she writes everyone and especially like queer men which i think is super fascinating especially coming from like someone who was identifying as a woman so right yeah you know yeah i have some kind of i guess questions i'd like to pose because i was reading this as like obviously you know seeing the these two handsome men sucking on each other and you know rolling around together and all that stuff but then more from like an allegorical point of view I think you could read this as like oh this is a metaphor for Louis realizing he's gay or bisexual or queer in some manner and

struggling to accept this about himself and having a hard time like him refusing to embrace his vampire ways and drink people's blood. I feel like could be seen as like kind of a metaphor for someone struggling to accept their sexuality and you have this other character who has like fully embraced it and is like just do it this is what the this is the life come on but i also find it interesting that that character listat is an abuser he's a manipulator he's an enabler you know he's like he's not a good partner he's a murderer he's a murderer so I'm just like I wish that if that was like kind of an intentional allegory on Anne Rice's part I'm not sure if it is but if it was intentional I'm'm just like, well, you know,

that's not great that that's like the central relationship that you know, this person who's like, helping or encouraging this character to embrace who he really is, is also someone who is extremely manipulative. Not to say that that can't and doesn't happen, because of course it does. And I'm sure that's a familiar experience and relationship dynamic for many people. But because there was so little queer representation in movies at this time, either overt or more coded, it would have been nice to see a healthier relationship dynamic on screen, especially since the other queer relationship in the book between Louis and Armand is basically completely erased from the movie. Also, I was reading different interpretations of this movie that sort of treats vampirism as an allegory for

HIV and AIDS. Oh, always. In a way that of course demonizes queerness and demonizes hiv and aids and uh i feel like that's a totally fair interpretation of that again the movie is based on source material that was published before yeah and also like vampire lore in general uh existed long before this but like i i can see that as like a read of like. I can see that as a read of the movie. But yeah. Right. Yeah.

So I don't know if I actually posed a question that I said I was going to at any point. But just wanted to share some of my thoughts around that. It's interesting to think about. I won't talk about the show too much because I do think it's very much its own thing but I think in the film Armand is sort of meant to be the the tethered version of Lestat he's the better version of Lestat he's the more kind of like teachable interested party who could be with Louis um but it eventually doesn't work out because Louis like never can get over the death of Claudia. I think where the show really takes the themes that you posed, Caitlin,

and makes them significantly, I think, more layered and more interesting, and obviously they have more time, is that Louis is canonically a gay man and Lestat is canonically I think he describes himself as non-discriminatory like he's canonically bi slash pansexual he's pan and that is something that gets brought up and is basically like played back and forth between them is that they're one of the main reasons that Louis is staying with Lestat is because he knows that it's pretty rare that he's going to be able to find a relationship with another man where the other man is fine with not hiding it and how important that is to him and I think there are sort of shades of that in the movie I mean they do live together they they move in together. Everyone thinks of them as an item, a platonic or not.

They're raising a child. They're raising a child together. They have a baby. I love that scene where they're having Claudia try on dresses and they're just running around with all the fabric and the lights and the plants. They're living their best lives. But I think that that sort of, that sort of softens the read in, in my opinion, is that like it starts out as a mutually beneficial relationship that

descends into a very toxic, abusive relationship, but that at the beginning they do both give something to each other that the other one that they can't have alone yeah yeah a couple other things i wanted to point out about the series versus the movie at least is in the series the louis character is black played by jacob anderson and listat turns him into a vampire in 1910 Louisiana so the show explores a lot of themes surrounding race and racism during Jim Crow era south in a way that I think is a smart update from the way the movie handles hugely better enslaved people yeah and race in that

regard because I mean just shout out to thandy way newton who plays yvette and is credited in such a way that i thought she was going to be a much more significant character right but she's only in two quick scenes and then she's killed like and then she's killed and before that it's like a portrayal of an enslaved person who seems to like love her enslaver and is concerned about his well-being and then he she's the first person that he kills i believe because prior to that he's like no i'm not gonna kill anybody that was pretty despicable the way that the movie frames race in general like there's it's it's i would guess they were going for ambiguity which feels so and and that is not successful either because all of the enslaved characters are presented as like we like brad pitt you're like there's no one

who is actually characterized this is also true of the book. We have no indication in the present or the past that any of the white characters or any of the vampires have any issue. Like it's just presented very matter of factly in a way that feels just like deeply gross and unnecessary. Obviously you, you cannot make a movie or any work of fiction in this place in this time that doesn't acknowledge slavery but it's done so extraordinarily poorly that yeah in the movie like when i was reading the book the fact that there there was like a passage where louis basically says i i was wrong to have he never even says he was wrong

to have enslaved people he's just like i was wrong to have underestimated enslaved people's intelligence like that's as close as you get to an outright condemnation of slavery and there's i don't know the way that this movie both presents slavery in some of the most stereotypically harmful ways that you could draw a direct line back to Gone with the Wind. And this also reminds me, has anyone ever seen, there is a really great video essay from Princess Weeks about Confederacy vampires? Yes. Also, I love Princess Weeks so much. She's the best. Our big fan. It is an excellent video.

Because why? Is it so pervasive? It's really, yeah, we'll link it in the description. I rewatched it. Because I think it's True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Twilight. Yes. You can group this, if you're talking about the Confederacy, as not like the actual Confederacy army, but like.

So interesting. All of these vampire franchises feature vampires who are sympathetic, lovable characters who are white vampires who fought for the South in the Civil War. It is a wild through line. And Princess, in re-watching this video, sort of speculates that at least some of this has to do with the popularity of interview with a vampire and you know she includes the same passage

that i'm talking about where you know the absolute barest minimum is done by anne Rice in text to be like, well, slavery was bad, obviously. And Louis knows that now, but that's it. And, you know, then goes on to make the argument that future vampire adaptations did even less and very much presented like Jasper Cullen,

bravely fought for the South, you know, in the Twilight franchise. And so that future adaptations got even more regressive it is a very fucked up and bizarrely consistent trope that appears in vampire media of at least the last 50 years i yeah and it seems to at least have some roots here. Yeah, I feel like this, I'm glad that the series has made serious changes and also has changed the time period that it's taking place in. Yes, pretty significantly.

Yeah, and it brings out the themes in such a more interesting way. Like similarly, the Louis character, he finds this newfound power in being a vampire, but also still feels, of course, like the same imbalance of power in Jim Crow, New Orleans with him still being a black man, but then like, has the power to overpower people that are being racist to him, but also can't give away the fact that he's a vampire it just makes it so much more complicated and makes his kind of like sad boy demeanor much more textured and layered than this movie because I think this movie does dirty by the character of Louie not necessarily by like Braditt but like by his character because

he's who we got he's who we gotta tether ourselves to um right i mean as a result i think that kirsten dunst is unquestionably the standout performance of the film and i almost can't even watch the scene where she gets burned it's too It's so upsetting. Because I love her so much. And I think that she's like the best character in the movie. And she's probably, well, of course, she has the advantage of being a child. So we let her throw tantrums and not understand what's happening. But she's the one who I'm like, I feel like you're really, really dimensional. She's like kind of the most nuanced to her as well.

It's like, even though she is a baby girl she does like love killing and she loves murdering and i think that's such a fun dynamic because you have listat who is even a little bit like simmer down you're going too far and that kind of interplay there is really fun but then she has the more close tether to brad pitt as a father so like the intersection there is really fun but then she has the more close tether to brad pitt as a father so like the intersection there is interesting like the tug of war at her as a character brad pitt has that line where it's like i saw her as a daughter but listat saw her as a pupil right but that she also doesn't want to be thought of as a child the age thing is interesting because i think in the book she's really young she's like six she's like five five yeah so she's a demon toddler i'm in the terrifying in the show i would

assume because they don't want to cast someone who's under 18 she's probably like 15 14 15 yeah they age her up in the show they cast an actor who's a teenager although she's kind of acting more like a 10 year old so i don't know if they're like trying to convince the audience that she's 10 the way that little women tried to convince us that um florence pew was 12 but she's like 26 holding a sign i'm 12 i'm 12 say there was i was getting really nervous about the relationship between Claudia and her two father figures where I was like, oh, no, are they going to start? Is this movie going to start? Because, again, I didn't really remember much about it. But I was like, are they going to start to suggest that like they're like grooming her to be their lover or is there going to be some really disgusting like child sex abuse kind of thing

happening and there is a moment where armand is like oh claudia is your lover right louis and he's like no she's my daughter well but also kirsten dunst kisses brad pitt on the lips as an 11 year old in this movie which she later took severe public issue with and a lot of people gave her shit about but there was i was going back and watching the press tour which is like normal to do but yeah i do think it's normal to do i think it's so odd because i think that like i would interpret that as like a kind of just fatherly kiss but then that's not how it was interpreted yeah i guess i would i would take i i do think that it's maybe it's like because the book also seems to be playing on what the movie is playing

less on and i think smartly so but like in the book he like louis is like i i love her like a daughter and i'm in love with her i it's leaning into that. And, you know, I don't, to my knowledge, 54% of the way into the book at 1.9 speed, there is no, it's all coded as an emotional attachment and it's not physical, thankfully. But that is, that's not shied away from that. It's like, well, what is this relationship? Because I think in, in the book really, you know, reminds you, well,

actually she's been alive for 65 years. Anyways, I was, I want to just shout out the, yeah, the Kirsten Dunst interviews. Cause I, I watched like a lot of the original press run for this movie.

And even like as a kid, like they were like, what was your favorite part? And she's like killing people. They're like, what's your favorite part? And she's like killing people. And they're like, what's your favorite part? And she was like kissing Brad Pitt. But she said, I hated the kiss so much because Brad was like my older brother on set. And it's like kissing your brother.

It's weird because he's 31 and I had to kiss him on the lips. So it was gross. And you're like, yeah, don't make an 11 year old do that. Don't do that. And which was like further made weird on the press tour because everyone she said that to as a 12 year old was like, you should love kissing Brad Pitt. And she was like,

to her credit, she was like, well, I don't because I'm 12. And they were like, good. Oh, people were so weird to her on this press tour.

What a horrible time for press conferences. Like that era too, specifically is like the 90s through early 2000s of people's views on like what they can and shouldn't say in press stuff is just especially children kids especially like a child yeah i feel like natalie portman went through it a lot during phantom menace in 99 she was 14. Yeah, even earlier, yeah. It's interesting with Claudia too because she is so clearly based,

and Anne's talked about it, being based on the death of her daughter. And the book originated as a form of grieving the loss of her daughter. Who died of a blood-related disease. Right, so it's just so interesting the intricacies around the character with regards to that

when you know that it is basically a stand-in for her own child. Just an interesting kind of thing to write. Yeah. To have like the child then be, you know,

bloodthirsty. That's why I was expecting like when Claudia was introduced to have a lot more to say critically about that character but it's just like i don't know i i think in general do not have a child kiss an adult man on the mouth in a movie is an easy and correct criticism to make of any movie particularly if that kiss is supposed to be ambiguous gross right but as far as like i just don't feel yeah i don't

really feel comfortable critiquing ann rice's writing there because it's just so deeply personal to her own life and like her sorting shit out that yeah especially yeah because in the book that's why claudia is is five years old because her daughter was five years old and so it's so personal that I just you know uh I can I can criticize Anne Rise all day for making a sympathetic plantation owner her protagonist but as far as Claudia goes um I feel like yeah I have I have no comment that was her her processing um one of the most traumatic things I can imagine going through. I'm so fascinated by the character of Claudia. I love her as a character because, like I mentioned,

you forgive a lot of the instincts that she has because she's eternally trapped in this arrested development adolescence. But I also love how how as her mind grows and she becomes like a full adult mentally she understands Lestat and Louis arguably better than they understand each other or themselves when she brings Madeline to Louis I had completely forgotten and I thought that she was like here you need a new companion so i brought you this adult woman so that we can be a family again and instead she's like listen man i know you're gonna run away with armand so if you could make me a new mother figure

before you run off with your new man i would appreciate that appreciate that. Brad can't get into turning this woman. Even when he does, you read on his face that this is not an enjoyable experience, whereas everything with Lestat or Armand is much more entertaining for him. Erotic even. He's like, ooh, this lady has cooties. I don't want to touch her.

I'm hundreds of years old, and I still think girls have cooties he does not other than the scene that we discussed he's very much not interested in women at all listot is the one who's like let's meet up with some new orleans sex workers and we can murder them because no one will know or care I did want to talk about like who the victims often are. Oh, yeah. Lestat and kind of by proxy, Louis, because it's mostly women, many of whom are black women, many of whom are sex workers. Their deaths are often very sexualized. The movie frames like, wow, look how sensual it is when they murder these women.

And I mean, I'm fine with the part where they target that rich woman who had someone else kill her husband and then she blamed it on an enslaved black person. And then it's implied that the enslaved person was killed because of it do the thing where you kill other bad people but the movie is like very uncritical of any time they are targeting innocent black women innocent sex workers well i guess etc i agree with you i i think i wish that if we had seen all of these highly sexualized killings, we had seen it across the board. You know what I mean? Because it's not like, I don't know, I can't safely say like, I wish they killed less people. I just wish they killed a wider variety of people. Because yeah, it did feel pointed there it was hyper fixated on women specifically poor women and often black women there's the one golden youth who he kills yes yeah but it's not the same it just feels like i think in the book and i don't i it was like it felt like it was made explicit that listat was evil and targeting people that he found vulnerable.

And that was why he was choosing his victims in the way that he was. And it was at least written that it was like, and this is a horrible thing that he's doing by specifically targeting the most vulnerable people he can find. People he perceives as people who will not be missed by society and then he would let himself have an aristocrat aristocrat an aristocrat an aristocrat thomas o'malley okay disney movie alert he could have the little kitten from the aristocrats as a treat um but like an aristocrat would be a treat because that would pose a higher risk of exposure for them in the movie that's not made it clear at all and it's made more seen as just like a buffet of vulnerable people that the camera is highly eroticizing and it's just like if you're gonna go for i feel like if you're gonna

go for erotic kills in your movie you cannot focus specifically on historically marginalized people like it doesn't work yeah right not unless there's you know active commentary being made about those power dynamics which this movie isn't making i mean there's a lot to you could also read into it too it's like when you have two gay men at the center there's the intersection of you know the gay male you know internalized misogyny or you know like the interplay between like a gender there but like obviously that's not what the movie is going for or what the text is but like there is again like these implicit reads that you look at the movie just because it is like mostly women who are the ones that are dying but right and like the two guys are like well we can kill them easily no one will care but we don't have that line or anything to then dig into that i also just don't

understand why they were specifically targeting women i don't know like i i guess in the movie like lestat's motivation for specifically focusing on women was not entirely clear to me i think it's a i think it's a movie thing i it feels yeah like uh well of course we got butts in seats we're gonna give them some sensual bloody ladies yeah let's find an excuse to show some boobs on screen yeah and again in the way that we've talked about on the podcast before as far as so many horror movies sexualizing violence against women i feel like we talked about this a lot on the like cabin in the woods episode but there have been different like slasher movies and just horror movies in general that are so guilty of this where yeah it's like reveling in a sexual way in violence enacted against women and it feels

like that's happening to a very large degree in this movie this is neither here nor there but i did want to point out some striking similarities between interview with the vampire and monsters inc which we just covered on the matron okay not expecting this both movies feature two men who live together who come upon a little girl and become her surrogate parents oh my god and one of the dads has like a closer bond to the little girl and like really connects with her and then ultimately they part ways again that's pretty much where the similarities start and stop but true though it's so true pretty good thank you so much what i'm hearing is uh monsters inc queer quadrant oh it's actually it's on the list i have it i know it is mike and sully i mean i mean that was the conclusion we came to yeah every two-person podcast is inherently a mike and sully you know

like there's two mikes and two sully as always. Yes, yes, yes, yes. It's true. The other silly little observation I'd like to point out is Louis' full name is Louis Dupont Duloc. Duloc? You mean the kingdom from Shrek 1? Yeah. And that's the power of David Geffen.

It is a perfect place oh wow it really is i love that little song it's so good me too well spotted well spotted thank you so much well they don't mention his full name in the movie but they say it all the time in the series because they're always saying like mr du l'oc and i'm like okay shrek much you can't escape it anyway um does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss my only silly little observation is that this is a movie about boys with feelings but it is and it's not a movie about fathers and sons. Exactly. It's about fathers and daughters. Daughters. I will say on the horror of it all,

the Stan Winston makeup and the horror design, Tom, when he's in the chair looking decrepit AF, that is really, really good stuff. Good stuff. I was just reading about Stan Winston because he did the effects on Tank Girl. Yeah, for the kangaroo people. Also, when Anne Rice was considering changing the gender of the Louis character in a draft of the script.

Also worth noting that the director, Neil Jordan, wrote a draft of the script and is uncredited. And it's not super clear. I couldn't find any sort of clarity as far as like what draft ended up being shot, like how much of it was Anne Rice's original draft, how much of it was the director's. Not super clear, but just wanted to point that out. So when Anne Rice was considering having the Louis character be a woman, Cher was considered for the role. And she co-wrote a song entitled Lovers Forever, along with Shirley Eckhart, for the soundtrack of the film. Cher obviously didn't end up getting the part, although a dance pop version of that song was released on a Cher album many years later. Oh, that rocked. 20 years later on the 2013 album, Closer to the Truth.

So that's a little fun fact. I have a question. Yeah. Just, you know, let's say we have to straightify it which like boo we don't like doing that but like yay if we have to do it i feel like share would be incredible in this share is the gayest possible right right exactly the gayest straight you can get right yeah but like imagine that flow just flying through the air, like blood coming down her face. And she probably has six inches on Tom Cruise.

Absolutely. Oh, my gosh. Love that. OK, well, if we kind of gayify it in a different direction, if it's Cher and then Angelica Houston as Lestat. Oh, yes. Yes. This is making me want to rewatch The Hunger with David Bowie and Susan Sarandon, which

is another great, very queer vampire movie. It's gay. It's gay. I love that. I would immediately watch that. Oh, wow. Does anyone have anything else they'd like to say slash the movie? Does it pass the pectal test i didn't even pay attention i don't

think so i don't think it does i don't think so maybe on a technicality between madeline and claudia but true but it's a maybe i was watching and looking for it and i'm not sure i'm not convinced spiritually no we'll say no to that um as far as our nipple scale, though, rating this movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I don't know, it's tricky, because like, this has such a legacy as far as like, it's, it's queer reads and following and fan base. And I think that's always a beautiful thing. there's also like the actual text that we're working with leaves a lot to be desired obviously it handles the portrayal of enslaved people horrific really horribly there's a quick shot of characters practicing what I'm assuming is supposed to be voodoo practices but it's the very you know stereotyped false version of be voodoo practices, but it's the very, you know, stereotyped false version of the voodoo religion. The explicitly queer relationship between Louis and Armand that was in the source material being erased from the movie, that's very frustrating. But also, it's a movie that explores a dynamic between two men louis and lestat

who are sometimes suckling on each other and sometimes they're raising a child together and there's something very interesting and like weirdly unusual about that in don't see that a lot mainstream cinema because this was a huge hit like it was a box office smash it was like pretty critically well reviewed but like commercially it was it was a pretty big hit so um i don't know i think there's something really interesting about that and i guess most of my nipplage goes to the fact that it has this like this queer following but i would give the series a much higher nipple rating. Again, I'm not that far into it. But if you like this movie and you but you want something more,

I would suggest checking out the series. I'm going to meet you at two as well. Yeah, I think that this movie is like, so like pleasantly, surprisingly, overtly queer for the time it's coming out in, while still not being as queer as the source material, which feels rare. And I always appreciate when a work is so open to being adapted more responsibly to match the times. It seems like for the most part, it was like really well received. Which a lot of franchises. You do not get that with. And yeah. I mean as far as this specific movie goes.

It is so campy. And it is about two gay vampire dads. Raising their bratty daughter. Like it's awesome. And it also deals with race. I think tremendously badly. And doesn't have a very high opinion of women either outside of just kirsten dunst right and so that is why i am going to zone in at two i'm going to give one to ann rice i'm going to give the other to oprah winfrey for leaving the movie due to the dark forces that it was introducing in the first 10 minutes.

Of course. Of course. That's with all of our podcast steps, a dark force just inherently there. Yeah. If you stop listening after 10 minutes because of dark forces, you know, can't blame you.

Jordan, how about you? I'm going to go a little into the San Francisco sky. I'm going to go with three. And I think it's just because i like the queer the queerness i think just works for me and i think that's just i think you know what two and a half how about that that feels nice half a nipple you know it's like a baby nip and i think it's just because there is just so much i think when we first covered the movie i wasn't sure how

queer it was going to be just because I had never seen the movie, was aware of it. But even watching it again, it is overwhelming how much there is in there. And I think just for our podcast and just for me in general, seeing something with that rich of a text

made by a studio at that point in time is always super refreshing. Even if there is a lot that doesn't work about the movie there's a lot that sometimes does and so i think like to be you know true to myself i would have to give it that that's that's how many nips you know maybe a nip for the sky floating a nip for christian slater cruising you you know? Why not? Why not? I think that's fair. Oh, beautiful. And yeah, Brooke, how about you? I'm also going to give this one two nipples

because I do think that it's a pretty audacious movie for the time. And yet, again, Norm Macdonald, he sums it up. That's true. Somehow still not gay enough. And I think that is what always held us back, Jordan, from being like, we can't fully stand, even though we might want to.

It's right there. But I love what this movie has done for the vampire genre as a whole. And the series that it's led to, I totally agree, Caitlin. I cannot recommend the series highly enough. It's my favorite thing on TV right now. It so funny it's so like textually rich everyone is beautiful and it's extremely like sexually explicit in a good way it really textualizes the subtext but

i think that i do love the sort of dramatic coy way that the subtext is handled here you just wish that the movie had more of an intersectional view to it if it's going to be like leaning into vampires in this way leaning into like the marginalization the outside you know sort of ideation that these vampires experience and it feels like it just cracks open the door, but doesn't really open it all the way. So for that reason, I'm going to give it two nipples. I give one to Kirsten Dunst's beautiful curls. Those curls are curling. I give the other to Antonio Banderas' wig,

whether it deserves it or not. I just, I don't know if it's good or bad, but I can't stop thinking about it. It's flowy. It's long. It's long. It is long. Those are two proper adjectives to describe it. Well, thank you so much, both of you, for coming on the show.

Tell us about your podcast and where people can listen to it and anything else you'd like to plug. Well, we're so honored that you had us on, especially for yield pride month, which is currently happening. It's pride month all year on the queer quadrant, but this month, especially we want to be highlighting organizations that are doing things and making a difference to the community and also to the world. So every episode you listen to this month,

you'll hear a little extra something about the orgs we're supporting. things and making a difference to the community and also to the world. So every episode you listen to this month, um, you'll hear a little extra something about the orgs we're supporting. We, uh, release episodes every two weeks on your favorite four quadrant blockbusters that may not be as straight as you think they are. Um, I cannot in good conscious recommend our early interview with the vampire

episode. I mean, like listen at your own risk, but I can recommend caitlin coming on for hobs and shaw hobs and shaw pretty good i also i have to recommend the titanic episode of course that too jamie was there as well jamie was there it was it was a good time but we're mostly floating around uh the internet on twitter and instagram and Letterboxd. I'm at Brooke B. Solomon. Join HGOS.

And together we're at Queer Quadrant. You can find the Queer Quadrant on Spotify, on Apple, wherever you get your podcasts. Give us a tweet or a DM and tell us what you might like to see us cover in the future. We always want to hear about your gay takes. Love it. Oh my gosh. Thank you again. Come back anytime. And Jamie had to leave listeners. So I'll just give the plugs real quick. You can listen to our Matreon episodes at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast, where you get two bonus episodes every month for five bucks. And it's always centering around some hilarious, awesome theme. You can follow us on mostly Instagram these days, at Bechtelcast, and then you can scoot over to tpublic.com slash thebechtelcast for our merch. You can check out our linktree, linktree slash Bechtelcast, for some goodies over there, including our letterboxd.

And yeah, with that, should we go fly around and look for people to eat? Yes, yes. Because we're vampires. Let's go vampire cruising. Let's do it. It'll be a good time. All right. Bye.

Bye. The Bechdel cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Voskrosensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus. And a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree.com. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was assassinated.

Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united

than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams.