The Bechdel Cast - Jumanji (1995) & Jumanji (2017) with Brodie Reed

Episode Date: April 26, 2018

In this episode, we tackle both Jumanji (1995) AND Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017). But first, Jamie and Caitlin and special guest Brodie Reed start playing a mysterious game in which they have to figure out if movies have named female characters who have conversations that aren't about men. (This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast. Follow @ayobrobro on Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's right, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories,

and of course, the culture. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism?

The patriarchy's effin' vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hi, welcome to the Bechdel cast. Hi, I'm Jamie Loftus. Hi, I'm Caitlin Durante and there's also a dog in the room. We might have heard. Excuse you. What if we were fighting and you were just saying something really mean about me?

There's also a stupid dog in the room. Aristotle's dog is here. His name's Jeff. We don't, there's two, we're outnumbered today. Yeah. There's a lot of, there's a lot of negative energy coming in. Well, there's also, this is the last podcast that we are recording in this location. Yes. Yes.

I know. It's sad. It's sad. Brody just clapped, but it's actually really sad. It's sad. I was... Okay, so we are unfortunately not going to be recording at Meltdown anymore. Rest in power.

So we are the Bechdel cast. We talk about the portrayal and representation of women in cinema from a feminist lens. Okay. Yeah. It's good. It's good to remember what we talk about sometimes because everyone in our reviews are like,

well, it takes so long for them to get to the point. Anyways, review our podcast on iTunes and say whatever you want. Yeah. But try to be nice. Yeah. Anyway, so.

We have an exciting theme today. We have a theme. Yeah. This is an ambitious episode. This is the first time we've tackled two movies at once. Yes. And here's our guest fist pumping into the air. He's so ready.

He's so ready. So our guest today, he is a very funny comic. And you should check out his videos on his website. Brody Reed. Yeah. Hi. Great plug. It was the plug you asked me to plug.

It was. Check out the videos on my website. You guys remember those? Dot coms. The dot coms. Et cetera. I love the dot coms. It's great to be here.

This is the first time I've recorded a podcast up here. First and last. I think first of many. You're just going to keep scrambling in here. This place looks like a war zone. I'm going to come in here when it's condos and continue to record this podcast. That's right. We're being turned into condos.

We're going to be so rich by then. We can just open up our own studio in the condo that we own. On this block. Bechtel Glen is what it's going to be called. Yeah, welcome to Bechtel Grove. It's a gated community. Yeah, it's our scary Stepford community where we record our podcast. So Brody, when we were asking you what movies a few

movies you might want to discuss and then you had said jumanji either the old one or the new one and then we got an idea why why choose both i was hoping you guys would do this really hoping my heart of hearts like when i said could be either was like, what if they pick both? So welcome to the Jumanji versus Jumanji episode. I think we could put in a little, like, a ding there. Or not, and just leave this description. You can put in versus, but to be clear, I'm rooting for both movies equally. Okay, so Jumanji and Jumanji. I'd seen exactly two-thirds of one of these movies.

Oh, wow. Actually, I would say closer to one-half because with, obviously, from here on out, spoiler alert, I went to see Jumanji, the new one, with my movie pass. I didn't have time to see the whole thing. I'm like, I'm going to stay

until Nick Jonas shows up. So I stayed for an hour. Sure. And Nick Jonas showed up. I'm like, oh, thank God he's here, but I have to leave. He didn't miss much. Yeah. No? It's not a star-making performance. Wow. thank God he's here, but I have to leave. He didn't miss much.

Yeah, no. It's not a star-making performance. Wow. Wow, bitch, we are. And we're off. Nick Jonas is a star, very talented. Yeah, I came running. So, Brody, when did you first see, did you grow up with the original one from

95? I grew up with the original Jumanji. I was born in 88 so i was a straight up 90s kid um definitely hit me at a time like i would say close to like space jam of just like oh this movie was just destined to be in my life from like an early point same uh-huh uh i've definitely seen it um on tv or otherwise probably 10 times or so and it's just like ingrained into my memory and as I was like looking up this movie to remember stuff for the podcast I was like

oh it wasn't as like critically well received as I thought it was in my head it's like a perfect movie and it has like 58% on Rotten Tomatoes or something huh yeah that's surprising the new one was pretty well-reviewed.

Which was... And you know what? I loved it. I loved the new... Well, anyways. What's your experience with Jumanji Caitlin? So, it came out in 95 when I was like 9 years old. I was the exact right age to just be obsessed with this movie. You're 31, bitch.

Bitch, I'm 31. Love it. And I saw this movie you're 31 bitch bitch i'm 31 oh love it and i saw this movie dozens of times growing up and i probably haven't didn't watch it for a good two decades or so yeah but this was a huge movie from my childhood my like family would yell at me because all i would do is just explain the plot to them and they're like yeah caitlin we've seen it it's a pretty lengthy plot. It's a rich plot. There's a lot of story beats. There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on in the first Jumanji. I have lots of questions.

I was too young to see Jumanji when it came out, and then I think when I was getting older, it was one of those weird movies where my mom's like, it seems inappropriate, or we just didn't watch we were not a jumanji home we were a titanic home we were a peewee's playhouse home we were not a jumanji home so i saw it obviously this morning of course i saw jumanji this morning immediately before i got here did you even watch the jumanji cartoon no we didn't watch that either i didn't know i knew there was a cartoon but what was what

was the cartoon about was it like it was far removed it wasn't far removed at all it was about the alan character who lived in the jungle it was just about them like going to the jungle that he lived in so it was like animated that time between i don't remember this cartoon at all oh it was it was really cool because instead of being in the real world and having the jungle come to there they were just like in the jungle the whole time not unlike not unlike the jumanji welcome to the jungle 2017 it's good so it's pretty sweet and there's also that movie zothura a space oh yeah story that was like this is the spiritual sequel to jumanji i forgot about that movie and it kind of was it was it was okay sort of it was like space jumanji yeah i never saw it

it was very moody and weird it was a little too moody yeah kristen stewart was the lead oh it was a little too moody for a fun movie you can't just be like kristen stewart's the lead and it's a really fun movie yeah jumanji at his heart is like well first of all very like a fun movie. You can't just be like Kristen Stewart's the lead and it's a really fun movie. Yeah. Jumanji at its heart is like, well, first of all, very, like a dangerous movie

and a very fun movie. The stakes are extremely high. I'd say those are the two things. Yeah, they are. It's wild. Yeah. Roger Ebert reviewed this movie.

I can't wait to get into this conversation. The original Jumanji, he said, is a gloomy special effects extravaganza filled with grotesque images generating fear and despair 1.5 out of 4 that's what i loved about it i i it is that ebert you freaking ebert dork ebert's a narc he's a fucking dweeb listen i love him but he's

wrong he's wrong a lot well even in 95 when c CGI was pretty brand new, I knew that the CGI in this movie was terrible. Oh, it's really bad. As a nine-year-old, I was like, oh, God, this is bad, and I hope it gets better. I thought it was pretty good. It is. Like a good mix of special and practical effects. Yeah. I liked the lion.

I love the lion. Oh, I hate it. The monkey. I like the monkey. I love the monkey. The monkeys were uncanny valley as hell. I was like, this this is no one knows where to look the island's insane they're like looking across the room and it's like look a monkey and

it's like somewhere else it's all over the place oh gosh uh so wait okay so let's tackle this we'll go old jumanji new jumanji then jumanji versus Jumanji ultimate showdown which is the superior Jumanji the twist it's okay there's a lot of great things about the first Jumanji I it's weird I feel like I enjoyed the first Jumanji more okay yeah that makes sense but they were both so fun and the second one is like

I feel like richer and like I don't know. They're both good. They're both good. And they're wildly different. They're wildly different. It's decades removed in its shows. The people who made the first one had nothing to do with the people who made the second one and I still like both of them.

But it's still all dudes. The new Jumanji it is kind of wild Blue Maid the second one and I still like both of them. But it's still all dudes. That is something that is... The new Jumanji, it is kind of wild like how it was written by four dudes. It was directed by a dude. It was produced by three dudes. And it's still not the worst. Like it does

well but it's still... I was so hoping I was like, oh there's four writers. All dudes. They asked their girlfriends at some point. Hey, babe. They're like, can you read this draft? And let me know if it's problematic. Does it pass a Bechdel test if Jack Black is a woman?

We had a lot of people tweeting at us when this movie came out asking us. And there was a whole discussion. And so we'll dive into that later. First Jumanji. I have to say my favorite part of the first Jumanji is the fact that Lilith from Frasier is in it. Oh, is she Aunt Nora? Bebe Neuwirth, baby.

That's Lilith. I didn't watch that show that much. You never get to see Bebe Neuwirth look not extremely severe and yelling at Kelsey Grammer. And it, you know, it was great. Cool. It was great. Now she was just, she's kind of caffeine out in this movie. She's kind of like, you know, like kind of running around like where, where are the orphans

kind of thing. But I like her and I shipped her and the police officer. Yeah. Oh, David Allen. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, oh, they had the smallest of moments and you're just like, I would watch that. This movie is David Allen Greer's

whole career to me, personally. Like, I know he's got a rich career. I've seen nothing else. Not even Dag on NBC or whatever network. No, I haven't seen Dag. I've seen a little bit of, you know, In Living Color that I can remember.

And Blank Man and stuff. And Kinney and Kel. But I mean, this is it. Right, this is it. David Allen Greer, hot. Let's just get that. Pretty hot. Sure, yeah. A hot man.

In this movie, hot. He's got a feel. He's, you know, he's... Okay, should we do the recap? Yeah, let me do the recap. I'm sorry, I'm having a panic attack. Yeah, we're all... We don't...

We're doing two movies and we don't even know how to handle it. Let me be your guy. Arguably. Let me be your jungle guy you're our like nigel billings you're our rise darby or reese right reese reese darby yeah i was happy to see him in that movie there's too much to talk about today so okay we start

jumanji lore begins in basically 1969 where a a young kid named Alan Parrish has a daddy who is not very nice to him. And it's a daddy. He's a daddy. He owns a factory. A shoe factory. And somehow they're enormously wealthy. Yes, daddy. Played by the guy who plays Mr. Ismay in Titanic.

Totally didn't realize. You're killing it with the recognizing people in Titanic. I'm forgetting. Thank you. Who would have knew? This takes place in New England at a shoe factory, which I literally do think is a reference to my hometown, Brockton, Massachusetts.

I don't know if you've ever seen my tote bag I carry everywhere that says Brockton, Massachusetts, the shoe city. But there was at one time in my hometown, only shoe factories. And now they're all abandoned buildings. It's a troubled place, but there's still one shoe factory open called

Foot Joy. Oh, good. Check it out. Well, that's joy.com, I'm assuming. I want you to know I have a respect for cobbling and all kinds of shoe making. I'm from a cobbling town. And so immediately it was resonating. And then they say New England. I was just like, wow.

Yeah, this takes place in like Brantford, New Hampshire. It's basically Brockton, Massachusetts, the shoe city. Yeah. Home of Rocky Marciano. So Alan Parrish, he's like getting bullied and his dad's all like, you need to be more of a man. Be a man. And he discovers not far from the shoe factory, this like board game. And he's like getting bullied and his dad's all like, you need to be more of a man. Be a man. And he discovers not far from the shoe factory, this like board game. And he's like, what's this?

A cool wooden board game. It's a wooden board game. It's nicely tarnished. It looks expensive. It's a hot prop. It's a hot prop. It's a hot prop. Shouts out to the prop guy.

Woman. Sorry. Or non-binary person. We don't know who made the prop. We don't know. It was the 90s. They didn't have non-binary person. We don't know who made the prop. We don't know. It was the 90s. They didn't have non-binary back then. Tweet at me.

Was the prop master queer? We don't know. So he brings home his board game Jumanji. And his friend Sarah comes over. And they're like, well, what if we just play the game that we found mysteriously uh yeah there's drums beating it's like oh it's tense so only kids can hear the drums it's like the polar express but not bad so they start playing this game and right away they realize it's not like other board games oh i know a manic pixie Dream board game.

It is. It's got like, I have my handcrafted little figurines. I don't have a mind of my own. I've got etching. It's like something you'd find on Etsy. Right.

So there's something mysterious about this game and it's like, you know, bad things come out of it. There's bats all of a sudden and then Alan Parrish gets sucked into the game. And the girl, Sarah, runs away.

She's freaked out. She doesn't know what to do. Are you not a strong female protagonist if you can't handle a house full of bats? Right. Yeah. You dumb bee. Well, she gets a chance to redeem herself. I call her protagonist.

That's true. That's true. That's true. 26 years pass. 26 years pass. Wrap that around your brain. 26 years past 26 years past wrap that around your brain it's referenced that okay i have a serious plot question yes i can't tell how much of this was true or how much of it was like speculation on the part of the guy this is a biopic is jumanji a memoir second, no, there's like a part where they imply that like everyone thinks that

Alan's dad killed him and chopped him up into bits and hit him around the house. So did his dad like go to prison? No. So he just, in theory, everyone thought he murdered someone and got away with it. It was just like town gossip. They saw him yelling at him at the shoe factory when he ruined a machine. Yeah, they're like, he's got motive. Daddy's ruined the machine.

Well, he did. I mean, that is actually kind of like when he was insisting that Alan get his ass kicked to build character. I'm like, oh, maybe he is. No, but Daddy could never kill. No. So, yeah, he just disappears. And then, you know know they never figured out what happened to him and then his parents die in 1991 or something like that you see the the gravestone

so it was a murder suicide they don't address that in the plot so just uh that's the next one so 26 years pass and there's now a new family moving into the big parish mansion again they are millionaires and they got their fortune from their shoe factory lilith the aunt whose name is aunt nora in the movie is it a different shoe factory um wait what what sorry never mind go ahead it's and then orpins move in kirsten Dunst and the voice of Tails from Sonic. Oh, wow. Yeah. And Chip from Beauty and the Beast.

Oh. Oh, wow. Okay, now you're impressed. Okay. Not Sonic. It's fine. Those characters' names are Judy and Peter, and they're like, I don't know, 12-ish and 9-ish, we'll say.

Yeah. And their sister and brother and their parents died in a tragic car accident. Skiing accident. No. They went to go skiing, but they died in a car crash. A car crash on the way. Get your freaking facts straight, Brody. I was just like, that's way more interesting than me, so sorry.

Okay, so they move into the house with their Aunt Nora, and they discover the board game Jumanji that had been left behind. There's drums. They're like, what's the source of these drums? So they go up into the attic and they find this board game and they start playing it. But the two pieces that were used by Sarah and Alan in 1969 were still there. Still there. So they're like, what's this all about?

They start playing. Some mosquitoes show up. Some monkeys show up. And they're like, I think this came out of the game. What's happening? And then little Peter rolls a five or an eight. Who remembers a five? And then Alan Parrish, 26 years later, as Robin Williams, shows up.

And he's been living in the jungle this whole time. Whole time. What a twist. What a twist. What a twist. So they're like, oh my God, you need to help us play this game because it's scary. And he's like, monkeys and mosquitoes are scary. And he's like, no, I just finally got out. I'm not going to do more Jumanji stuff.

This is so, this whole sequence is so sad. First of all, as in most Robiniams movies in spite of the fact that this is a very like complex interesting plot robin williams i feel like he's just like in his contract he's like i'm going to be shouting 40 of the time yeah a lot a lot of very sad dialogue is screamed but uh there's like he comes out he thinks he's still nine, which is confusing. Because even a nine-year-old would know that they were like 40, but whatever. He thinks he's nine. He went through puberty and most of his adulthood in the jungle by himself.

He's still a virgin, though. Yeah, he's never kissed a girl. Whoa, I didn't even think of that level. Yeah, Rob Williams is never fucked in this movie. He loses his virginity to an extremely adult Bonnie Hunt. That's wild. But he like tears through the town, finds out his parents are dead. Like just like all these horrible things.

And then the kids are like gaslighting him into continuing to play this board game that ruined his life. Right. Which he agrees to do. And then they find out, oh we there's still another player we need to go track down sarah who has turned into this like psychic mystic type person and she has like suppressed the memory of alan disappearing all those years ago and then all of a sudden now she's like oh like the thing that i had to convince myself was not real it's real so they finally all sit down and start playing and then all this other crazy stuff comes out of the game there's the lion there's some quicksand there's a hunter who

hunts british colonialist also played by the dad by daddy yes daddy daddy there's an earthquake there's a monsoon um a stampede yeah yeah so they're you know dealing with all these obstacles that are coming out of the game and then the way to make it all go away is the first token to reach like the center of the game and they call out jumanji and then it's all over that ends up happening they win all the stuff gets sucked back into the game and there's like some denouement at the end where right um young alan is like how many degrees do you have oh several yeah so then young alan is like oh we're young again and i can like appreciate my dad who is also mean to me but whatever he still doesn't super like very at the end suddenly becomes a very good guy and it's like actually yeah boys can cry and you don't have to go to boarding school i love you

and you're just like where did this come from daddy are you i think daddy's drunk and that's you just got like sauced up and he's like actually feelings are fine gotta go so then while they're still young alan and sarah dump the jumanji board game into a river and then the last shot of the movie it we i think are to believe that it washed up ashore in a different country because yeah in france right in France. Right. Somehow. Oh, yeah. Somewhere. That's confusing. Oh, no. So that is pretty much where Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle 2017

picks up. That's the whole title. Where a guy who is running on the beach still in Brantford, New Hampshire finds,

lodged in the sand, the board game Jumanji and he brings it home to his son and his son is like, oh, and he brings it home to his son. And his son is like, oh, who plays board games? Young Metallica. I'm all about video games. So then Jumanji transforms itself into a video game.

I love that. I think that's so dumb that I love it. Yeah, it really is. It makes Jumanji just like this kind of like science fiction. It's like a deity. It's like this predator monster thing that takes whatever form it needs to and that changes everything. Which is like, if we're to believe Jumanji is that smart, wouldn't it be doing something different? Jumanji is like officially like an evil thing.

It's not just a board game. Yeah, it's an anamorph. Jumanji is a straight up anamorph can turn into a video game and also so it changes into a video game but it's still like not a video game that they super want to play they're like oh this video game's old i'm like why didn't it turn into a better video game it turns into in 96 the kid who's fine he, oh, this is like right up my alley. And then he gets sucked into the game. And then 20 years pass. He's Nick Jonas. 20 years pass.

And his kid has been gone for that amount of time. And then we're in present day, circa 2017. And there's a group of four teenagers who all get detention. It is Bethany, Martha, Spencer, and Fridge. A nerd, a jack, a hot girl, a popular girl,

and just a girl who hasn't figured out who she is. A girl who needs to discover herself by being in a ridiculously hot body. That's how she's going to find herself. Somebody psyched on Fridge. They all get detention, and ridiculously hot body. That's how she's going to find herself. Somebody's like, it's on fridge. They all get detention, and they find Jumanji, the video game,

and they're like, well, what if we do this instead of their, like, detention duties? So they start playing the video game, and they notice that one of the characters is already taken. So they take the other four, and then they all get sucked into the video game and end up in Jumanji the Jungle.

Yeah. They all pick very specific characters to play. Yes. It's very important. And they don't totally know what these people look like. They just go based on their descriptions of like what their skills are, like brave or, you know, knows maps and stuff. Right. And then they just jump into this world where their bodies

are completely different. And then they're played by an all-star cast. Some of the highest paid celebrities in all the land. So I had a nickel for every time The Rock pokes his own muscle in this movie. I'm so strong.

Spencer. I'm for it every time. I love it. Every time I'm like, he's having so much fun. And we love him. And if you don't love The Rock, you're a violent psychopath. Yeah. It's strange how this really stupid device to see celebrities on screen is like, I don't know, like, yeah, every time he flexes, you're like, fuck yeah, look at that nerd flex. You know, it's really dumb.

Right, it's great, though. It's like, oh, man, I know. It's great. So Spencer's the nerdy kid. He turns into Dr. Smolder Bravestone, played by The Rock. Fridge turns into Franklin Finbar, played by Kevin Hart.

Bethany turns into Shelley Oberon, played by Jack Black. Andany turns into Shelley Oberon, played by Jack Black. And Martha turns into Ruby Roundhouse, played by Karen Gillan. So this is our new cast that we're following for most of the movie. And basically they are tasked with returning this, it's basically the plot of Moana.

Oh, they're returning that. There's a green precious stone. I kept writing it down as a hard flubber that too they've got a rock of flubber we gotta get to a second location some old flubber and they have to return it to this jaguar statue to lift this curse that has been plaguing the jungle for some time because this evil dude named Russell Van Pelt. Van Pelt is also the name of the Manhunter from the first Jumanji.

Oh, wow. Hot ref. Take that, Zathura. So they're given this green stone and they have to return it to the Jaguar. That's their mission throughout the rest of the movie. The mission kind of barely matters. It barely matters.

It barely matters. Yeah, it's more about their friendship and their teamwork and all that stuff. So they have different strengths and weaknesses. And then they eventually meet up with Nick Jonas' character, who is the kid who got sucked into the game in 1996. What a cool guy. What a stiff performance. Okay, the best part, one of my favorite parts about the marketing for Jumanji is that the main billboard for this movie,

and I guess it's sort of a twist that Nick Jonas shows up, but it wasn't enough of a twist to justify this. The people on the big billboards for Jumanji are Jack Black, The Rock, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan. Yes. And there is a fifth spot. It's an alligator. Nick Jonas, not invited to the poster.

There were separate. That wasn't him? No. He literally got replaced by a CGI alligator. I was like, that is fucking, that is cold-blooded towards Nick Jonas. I saw it, like, the first couple days it was in theaters, and it was, like, a genuine surprise for, like, the whole theater. Like, yeah, Nick Jonas!

Nick Jonas! People were collectively like, oh, oh, okay. Like, a whole theater. It was awesome. So many people were whispering like wait who's that and I'm like

Nick Jonas and I was like oh okay 2008 2008 2008 so anyway they you know

they go through all these different levels of the game and there's these bad guys after them and there's different obstacles they have to overcome

and then they finally at the end return the flubber the fossilized flubber to the jaguar. And then they call out Jumanji. And then they're returned back to their normal lives in Brantford, New Hampshire. Brockton, Massachusetts.

Right, in Brockton, Massachusetts. They literally took the BR. I really think that that's... Anyways. And then they meet up with this kid, Alex, who is now Colin Hanks. Which I buy. Nickonas to colin hanks well nick jonas is the avatar so none of the avatars looked like the actual but still but even metallica kid kind of looked like nick jonas kind of looks like a little bit yeah i mean they're all like black haired white kids anyway Anyway, yeah, so that's pretty much the end of the movie.

They're all like, oh my God. And then there's like a subplot where Spencer likes Martha and they like each other. And then they like get together at the end. Kissing. And there's kissing. Kissing. Okay, so. So now do we talk about all of the women in both movies?

I don't know how to do this. Let's just start with the 1995 version. Yeah. And then we'll go from there. I mean, there's what, five between them? Yeah. Five women total? Not a ton.

Okay, if we're going Jumanji versus Jumanji, which would you say has the stronger portrayal of female characters? Because I could, I don't know. Okay, well, let me talk through this. Okay, so in the first movie, the main characters are Judy and Sarah Whittle. And for the most part, there's generally, although it's not totally balanced, but sort of equal, like, male characters doing stuff to, like, save the day or get themselves out of a sticky situation. And female characters doing the same.

I would say Peter gets several big moments and Judy gets almost none. And then, of course, like, Robin Williams is, like, doing stuff all over the place. And then to a lesser extent, Bonnie Hunt's character Sarah is doing stuff so I think there's more the male characters driving the story and kind of saving the day but also the female characters aren't necessarily damseled that much. Because they're all saving each other pretty consistently I remember even watching it as a kid I was like this is an equal

this is a good group name. It's a team they do function as a kid, I was like, this is an equal. This is a good group, ain't it? It's a team. Yeah. Like, they do function as a team. Right. I don't know. There is, like, I agree that, like, Judy and Sarah, like, I would have liked to see Judy and Sarah talk to each other more. There are plenty of opportunities. And they do, like, I get that one of, kind of like one of the stronger themes in the

first Jumanji movie is, like, don't pump your young son full of toxic masculinity which is kind of cool because of you know daddy and the whole thing so we see a lot of like Alan and Peter I think for that reason of like oh now Alan's daddy aged and he's telling a kid to

you know nut up and then he's like no I'm sorry he's like wait no I don't want to become my daddy 26 years in the jungle and i still became my daddy because he's a wolf boy i forgot to mention at some point because he tries to cheat and then he turns into a wolf boy yeah well those are the rules of dramachi i love the wolf boy makeup. It's really good. My favorite, the part that sticks in my brain the most is when Alan pulls Peter aside and he just like rips his pants. And he's like, better? It's such a dumb scene.

Judy, it's weird because she's kind of set up to be kind of like a more complex of like, oh, she's processing her parents' death in a weird way. Where the first time we hear her talking about her parents' death, she's like laughing. Where she's like, yeah, and it was so much like she's kind of like being silly about it. Well, she's also like making a lot of shit up about them. Yeah, she's a big liar. Yeah, she's like, she's got a big imagination and she's just like lying to strangers about it. Right. She's not like the other orphans.

She's making fun of her parents' dad. I mean, that's the kind of angst I identify with. It's like, oh, she's a creative type. Right. Well, there's an interesting dynamic with that like brother-sister duo, which we see a similar situation in Jurassic Park, where it's an older sister, older blonde sister, younger, darker haired brother. And because I think we can assume the sister is a little bit older, she's doing more of like, I'm going to protect my younger brother. I'm going to do more stuff. I'm going to take more action. And I thought we were going to see more of that in this movie as well.

But- Kind of drops off in the middle. It does. Yeah. The first challenge that comes out of the game is the mosquitoes and in that scene peter is like keeled over he's hiding he's scared he's not doing anything but um judy like grabs a tennis racket and starts like hitting the mosquitoes out of the window so she's active in that scene but after that she isn't doing a whole lot to contribute to the events of the story but like i mentioned a moment ago there's several scenes where like peter has this big moment where he either gets the game back after

the pelican took it away or he gets rid of van pelt in the store by like launching a canoe at him or he like goes and gets the axe and then uses it to chop some spiders away so he's like doing all these things it's like saving people or like having a big redeeming moment whereas judy like doesn't get any moments like that really yeah at least after the first like she's set up as a character who's like they're the kids are grieving in different ways it's like interesting but her arc definitely like kind of falls off in the middle there's one they sort of try to like lazily tie it up where at one point she's like in jumanji injures her somehow and she is like you know and then like peter goes over to her and she's like actually i am sad our parents

died i'm like wow you only had to be assaulted by a board game to be like i'm sad our parents are dead uh and that's sort of where she drops off. I feel like the more interesting choice and also a better use of the Sarah character would have been to give them similar moments of like Robin, I almost get why Robin Williams is like bonding with Peter more

and all that because he views Peter as himself. But it's like Sarah and Judy could have had moments like that. and and judy could have had moments like that you know we could have had you know maybe a stampede glass or something and by the time we're at the end of the movie and they see the kids again after the years or whatever and then they like it's like kind of an emotional moment because they could finally get to see him again i that part i'm like looking at sarah i'm just like, I guess she got to know him

like at parts we didn't see, you know what I mean? Like in the in-between. Yeah, like they don't know each other as adults at all. This movie is also a very weird like chain reaction of various people triggering other traumas of other characters the whole movie. Like everyone, like the kids are like dealing with the recent death of their parents

robin williams pops out and they're like actually you have to stay near this thing that oppressed you for 26 years and he's like rats i guess i do and then they go find bonnie hunt she women be faint and passes out they clearly without her consent towed her over to a second location you know how you just take an unconscious person without their permission to a second location uh they bring her to the house and then she is like fully like losing it yeah she's like calling her psychiatrist it was like ah and there's like it's a weird like not very 90s attitude towards women going to therapy of like oh that's kind of like stupid like she's kind of crazy yeah she's phoebe from prince yeah yeah like what a you know she she goes to therapy because something's wrong with her and then they're

like you know the most upsetting moment of your life you have to stay and also sarah's character i'm like she i understand why alan is a cartoon character right because he's been trapped in a board game jungle for a quarter century. Sarah, I don't understand why she's like, you know what, let's involve two random children. She doesn't ask any of the questions. Yeah, I mean, that would have been a longer movie at that point, but I don't disagree. I was like, man, there's no reference to the fact,

I'm like, these are not their kids. Well, they all have to play now because they're all in the game which i guess it's good that the movie requires there to be two female characters like the narrative is like oh well we wrote it this way so there has to be these two women right a lot of movies don't bother to require there to be women there including the majority of the second Jumanji movie there's no portrayal of women in the first Jumanji where I was like oh this is bad but there's just it just was like all just like underused or missed opportunities I feel like um I mean you know I feel that way about most black characters in movies so yeah totally but

David Nalangar is used to great effect. He is in every era of this movie. I love him when he's making a shoe. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. So the first Jumanji, I mean, it's very of the time where in the mid 90s, you know, filmmakers weren't like, oh, we got to make sure we're servicing our female characters well. Right.

So I think it does. OK. OK. Yeah. Yeah, I think it does okay. It does okay, yeah. Yeah. But fast forward to 2017. Should we not talk about the Bechdel test with the first one? Oh. Or should we do it all at once? I don't know.

Again. I don't know. What are the rules? We're making this up as we go. Let's do it now. Okay. So the first one I think does pass the vital test yes i agree it does there's a scene where aunt nora and then we learn the real estate's lady's name after she has died

after i'm pretty sure bitten by a mosquito she looks very dead she could be she looks dead she's alive in the new timeline but that's true judy says isn't that mrs thomas the realtor so we find out her name and she and aunt nora have a conversation about the house that mrs thomas is showing everybody and she and judy have a conversation where there was a one-line exchange that passed where she wasn't talking about daddy right right right um yeah because they're like oh i'm gonna put a bar over here and she's like that sounds lovely you and your kids are gonna be very happy and she's like actually they're orphans which is like actually your realtor doesn't need to know that but cool judy and nora talk a few different one-line exchanges between them and then judy and

sarah but not that much well there's a scene between judy and aunt nora where judy's like we found out why you got this house so cheap. A child was murdered here. And Aunt Nora is like, I'm sick and tired of all your lies. You're grounded. And then she's just like, fine, there's nothing to do in this stupid town of Brockton, Massachusetts anyway. And she's right. And FYI, it wasn't a lie.

But I don't know. Alan Parrish does get mentioned because she's like, oh, Alan Parrish got murdered. Yeah, but there were two lines there. Yeah, there were yeah that i would say passes and then later on judy and sarah judy says uh what's going on and then sarah's oh they're right outside that like discount supermarket store yeah and sarah's like oh apparently there's a sale going on i don't know if that's supposed to be a joke or what but it didn't land for me and then some monkeys go by people love expendable income it was flush people were flush they are the only characters who know what's happening in the story first term clinton shit baby they see just chaos happening and they're

like it's a sale it's like no it's all the shit that you unleashed from this game. Anyway. I think that was some like capitalism humor that they were shoo-hooning in of like, sales are crazy because people are always shopping brick and mortar. Speaking of, there is, well, here, I'll get to that in a second. So then three monkeys go by on a motorcycle and Sarah says, did you just see three monkeys go by on a motorcycle? And Judy's like, yes. And then Sarah says, good girl. Passes the Bechdel test.

It does. It sure does. Not written down, too. I also think there's commentary, not deliberate, but it feels as though a statement is being made retroactively. Where whenever Van Pelt goes to try to buy a gun in the store, in the gun shop. He's like, I need to acquire a new firearm. And the guy's like, oh, well, there's a waiting period and you're going to have to fill out some forms. And then Van Pelt dumps a bunch of like ancient coins in front of the guy.

And he's like, or I could fill these out. And then they give him this like insane assault rifle right away. And I feel like that's a commentary on how easy it is to get very dangerous weapons in this country. I think it's a commentary that anyone may be mean to make. Right. Like that might have just been like, this is how it is. Because this is from the same director who directed Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Oh, hell yeah.

And Captain America, the first Avenger. Whoa. Interesting. Wow. What a long, illustrious career he's had. Interesting. Good for him. White guy, if you can believe it.

I can't. Yeah, directed, but he's directed a lot of good movies. Does it pass the battle test if it's BB New Earth screaming at monkeys? Yes? I'm going to say hard no on that one. The monkeys are screaming back. But what are the monkeys saying? I don't know how they identify. But what are the monkeys saying?

They could be talking about men. Right. The monkeys are certainly talking about men. They could be MRI monkeys. We don't know. You're right. You're right. You're right.

That was just a question I had. Sure. I appreciate the tough questions you're asking. Thank you. Oh, another thought on the first one. What if this is the prequel to Flubber? Because then, fan theory. Okay, fan theory.

We see them, they're married, Bonnie Hunt, Robin Williams at the end. And they're like, we rescued your parents. Weird joke at the end of like, we're going to save your parents from dying. Hilarious. I actually thought that was funny. But then, we don't know what Alan does for a living, do we? Does he say? No.

We just know they have money? He needs their dad's marketing expertise. For Flubber. For Flubber. It's the shoe company. Okay. Wait, you're totally right. He is the head of the shoe factory.

Oh, shit. Okay, so she has to be. I was so close to be like, they need to be marketing this new consumer product, Flubber. Also, Flubber does not hold up. I've never seen Flubber. That's fine. I haven't seen Flubber in at least 10 years. It does not hold up.

Well, on to... Sorry to break up. Please don't mention Flubber in my presence. Caleb, you just sounded triggered by don't mention flubber in my presence. Caitlin, you just have been triggered by a mention of flubber. Both this Jumanji and the 2017 Jumanji have several cats. There's a lion in the first one. There's some jaguars in the second one.

And I just want to take this opportunity... Do cats pass the back door? No, but... If it's cats. Cats do have eight nipples. This has been Cat Facts with Caitlin. Juma, definitely so much. I don't know if Alfred Malignac could, he could be in Jumanji. I think he could be, he could have been daddy.

Oh, yeah, he would have been a great daddy. I think he would have been a good Van Pelt in the new one. Oh, he would have been a good daddy there too even though Van Pelt isn't like daddy but like he he's given those vibes he's like

a lot of daddy he's like uncle daddy heavy there's I mean like both of these movies kind of have these overarching themes of like

what does it mean to be a man what is a real man like yeah true that's like they're written by men right because it's written by a bunch of frothy dudes who oh's like one of the written by men right because it's

written by a bunch of frothy dudes who oh that's one of the things i wanted to mention in the first movie so alan's mother is present and there but if there's a dad and a son usually in movies only that relationship gets explored like the father-son relationship and the mother is often totally sidelined or just like not even bothered to be written into the scenes insanely so where i in this movie i don't even think the mom finishes a sentence successfully one time yeah right where daddy's always like actually you dumb bitch get in the car like and it's just like oh no we don't know what her name is we don't know anything right so yeah that was uh there could have been an opportunity for you know some mother-son

relationship exploration but of course jumanji was written by the same author as the polar express no way chris van alsberg is addicted to sounds that children can hear that adults can't. He's recycling material. Lazy. Stupid. Hot take. Chris Van Halenberg. Kiss my ass. Is he still alive? He's still alive.

Kiss my ass. I'll fight you. Is there anything? Oh, another last thing about the first movie. Sarah tries to surprise kiss Alan when there are adults. She doesn't try to surprise kiss him. Well, she leans in for a kiss. Right. And he rejects her. I would say that's not a surprise kiss Alan when they are adults. She doesn't try to surprise kiss him. Well, she leans in for a kiss and he rejects her.

I would say that's not a surprise kiss. I'd say that she made an offer and he made a refusal and she accepted that decision. True. She didn't Brandon Franger and the mummy lunge at him through a cage. But then they do share a kiss at the end when they're both like 12 and she's like

I want to do something before I feel like too much of a kid. That's weird. And then she like leans in and kisses him. And he's all like. That's your pickup line. That's my line I use. Yeah. But yeah, so then they do share a kiss.

And it's fine. I mean, I don't know. Obviously, the first movie is very white and hetero. There's a lot. It's very 1995. I think for 1995, it does. It does. All right.

And it's a fun movie. It's a fun movie. It's a fun movie. Yeah. Do we move on to the second one now? Yeah. Let's do it. Okay.

I mean, this movie sets an interesting precedent where one of the, so there are two female characters and two male characters in this movie. There's Spencer and Fridge and there's Bethany and Martha. But as soon as they turn into their avatars, which are the characters we see for the most part in the movie on screen, turns into three men and one woman. So Martha, she gets into Ruby Roundhouse's avatar body. Right. So she stays as a woman. But Bethany ends up in Jack Black. Becomes Jack Black.

Yeah. And then there's that beautiful line read of, I'm an overweight middle-aged man. Jack Black says, basically looking to camera. Which, when you realize that it's Bethany, the one saying that she's fat shaming herself, her avatar. She is,

but she's also stating effect, which is that Jack Plank is an overweight middle-aged man. Yeah. I mean, he's kind of fat shaming himself. Yeah. I mean, as an actor,

but as a character, right. There's a lot of meta. It's so, it's so meta. It's very meta. Yeah. That's the world we live in. 2018 is a meta year well what's even crazier than that to me is the fact that so she is

now in a male body there's that whole scene where she has to pee does the scene where she says come look at my dick martha no thanks pass the vechdel test I don't know this is our age old thing because when we talked about this before because a lot of people were asking us about this yeah if whenever Jack Black's character who is effectively a female character talk to

Martha does that pass the Bechdel test and I think we concluded that no because the representation is still of a man on screen but then watching it through a second time i'm now like i'm willing to see it either way when i when i didn't watch the whole movie for some like there were a few scenes between those two characters that i didn't see the first time and and then i was like oh but there there were some scenes between those two characters that i did not like. Like, let me teach you how to be sexy

instead of using the skills that we know you have. Like, shit like that was like, okay, this movie was written by four dudes. But there was like other scenes where they were like getting to know each other and like getting to understand each other. And it's weird because like

the four teenage characters are all badly written of like, there's no shades of gray in terms of like nude, junk, weird girl, hot girl. And so it's like all these like kind of badly written jack black and karen gillen where they're like in the jungle and jack black's kind of like you know you're i thought you know they were like we thought we hated each other but actually we didn't and that's good yeah that's like kind of a stronger uh like female friendship than was formed in the first movie so Right. It's a mind fuck. Yeah, I'm in the camp of, I still think that the character

is still that girl. So I think that it does pass it. It doesn't change the fact that it's still an on-screen representation of a man playing a woman's character, which is essentially, you know, I don't know what the face term is for that. It's a cheat code.

It's a Hollywood cheat code. It's a cheat code it's a hollywood cheat code it's it is a cheat code it totally is but it's played for laughs and in a more like equal worlds then it would be cool i if it was the opposite maybe then maybe well that's okay that's that's what i was trying to grapple with because i was like, okay, well, we have a teenage girl character ending up in a male avatar body, which takes away one of the female characters that we see representation of on screen. Couldn't we then also have one of the male teens end up in a female avatar body? Because that would even out the representation. But then I was like, well, what are the implications of that? Because as a horny teen boy who, if it's a movie, he's probably hetero because, you know, movies be very hetero. He would probably be like, oh, I'm going to basically, I don't know, assault my own puppy.

I feel like that could have happened. It didn't have to happen. If that is how the story went, I'm. I mean, if you gave Jack Black enough time, he would have jerked off. Oh, 100%. I can't even... Because he even says goodbye,

or Bethany says goodbye to her penis at the end. But she's like, bye, little dude. Which is, I say goodnight to my... Bye-bye. There's, I don't know. Something I thought was weird was, like, three of the characters, when they're put into the video game, are put wild. Like, everyone's out of their element physically. Yeah.

They are all in different bodies, if we've got to be fair. But the protagonist, Spencer, is put in a body with no disadvantages or any, like, is at no point, like, it's different and it's uncomfortable because it's different. But in terms of, like, skills, weaknesses, none. Like, hot, strong. He's really not at a physical disadvantage where, in theory, he upgrades. Right. where in theory he upgrades, right? And then everyone else is challenged by their new fleshy prison of like, Fridge is suddenly small and not as strong.

And like, you know, well, I guess it's like... Well, with Martha... I would say that's true, but like considering that like the Jumanji methodsumanji method has to be such a team dynamic. Being hot and strong and all that stuff is fucking sick, but really those are all physical things. When it comes to if I've got to read a map or if I've got to figure out what poison this is, those are his weaknesses. He needs to rely on those people. I mean, that would be cool if his weakness was like,

has to rely on the people. Codependent. Codependency. That would be my video game character weakness. Good at walking long distances. And it is played for jokes. Weakness, codependency. I like how efficiently they use all those things as jokes,

like eats cake. It wasn't useful. I, like, burst out laughing when I'm coming, because I thought that he was just, like, I didn't know where that joke was going, and then he literally just popped. I, like, totally saw it coming, but then it just happened. The whole, like, style of this movie is completely different

because it's just this, like because it takes place in a video game so these bigger things can happen. And it sets up that the characters do have lives and die multiple times before it's like, ooh, the last one or whatever. It is thrilling in a way that it really does remove a lot of the danger, but it just throws a lot of jokes in. Some silly, silly deaths. Super silly. the rock flank is shoved off a cliff kevin hart explodes jack

bryant's eaten by a hippo like lots of like really violently it's a funny movie i really it's fun it's a it's a fun there but it but it like on a on a discourse level is like, what do we do with this? What do we do with this? Another thing is, so we talked about this in the Lara Croft Tomb Raider episode where Karen Gillan's outfit is, we can assume, the movie commenting on how unreasonable female video game characters present and how they're dressed and all that stuff. But again, I feel like that is the movie in the same way that it's like, we're making female video game characters present and how they're dressed and all that stuff but again i feel like that is the movie in the same way that it's like we're making jokes and acknowledging

that jack black is taking up the space of a female character the way that karen gillen's dressed for the entirety of this movie is the movie trying to like have its cake and eat it too where it's like we're gonna acknowledge that this is like weird and it is sort of calm it's but it's not really it's not challenged it's like liana it's just acknowledged yeah it's like mainstream feminism where people think that what people want from feminism is that like oh i'm a woman and i can be sexy that's just like there's a lot of screen time devoted to just like be confident girl the whole yeah that that was like the main source of like the female characters. Like aside from the mindfuck of Jack Black, which I just don't know that we'll get to the bottom of.

That maybe it'll just take years and time and papers will need to be written about this decision that was made. And Bethany and Martha, basically Bethany, hot Instagram girl, is teaching Martha who verbally abuses a gym teacher and is like deified for it. She's like, I don't like sports and I hate gym teachers. And then the gym teacher is like, she 100% went home and like cried that night. But sure. But so but then there's that scene where like i guess it's like martha has to distract some male characters yeah and we already know she is a two male characters we know that she's a karate master they do throw in that weird dance thing where in the second i saw that i'm like that's the only thing we're going to get to see her do is the sexy thing

or that'll be the thing we see her do the most and that's exactly what happened where the whole team for they're usually a good team but there's this one moment where they're all like Martha you have to go be hot at those men and if you don't want to you can do it it's two guys we've never taken on that many

guys at once it's two guys the rock is right there two guys we've never taken on that many guys at once it's two guys like a dozen of them there with the rock the rock is right there they're like it's there were so many options yeah and none are it was such a weird choice it was oh god yeah there's there's a very very long scene where bethany is jack black teaches and that's think, played for a lot of jokes, too, because it's, you know, Jack Black pretending to be this, like, teen Instagram model teaching her how to be desirable to a man. And Martha is not good at that. So she doesn't successfully seduce them or distract them really she only accomplishes what she set out to do which is to you know

distract them or whatever defeat them by actually utilizing her skills and her strengths and fights the fighting mostly dances i feel like dances but well i don't know i think there's a decent length scene where she is fighting her three minutes to beat up two dudes and then and there were constantly like throwaway little things where a male character would come out and be like oh it looks like you got this it's just like did i see that in during the rock scene no no no yeah the fighting was sexier there were moments where she was like you know kind of scrappy and like actually felt tough and like felt like she was actually fighting and not being all objectified like

female action moves which is like which is a style of like there's always that move where the woman like jumps and like attaches her crotch to a guy's face and then flips him down i'm just like does that need to be in every movie like what do something like that yeah i feel like the way she's she fights is kind of is kind of sexualized in a video game-y kind of way. They make her dance before she fights. They make her do this long, goofy improv exercise. It just looked like an improv 101 class of a woman being forced to, like, goofily squish her breasts together to make, you know.

I'm sure she called her manager after that. Some real UCB 201 shit going on in this scene. And I just like, you can cut that scene and the movie isn't different. You can have her fight in that scene. And it's just, that was some real mainstream movie shit that didn't need to be there. And I would argue that there's no part of that scene that is good just a bad bad five minute chunk in an otherwise pretty fun movie I mean how I think that it should have gone is because they do need to get into the transportation shed and there are those dudes

guarding it so I feel like it could have been the rock and ruby whose skills are fighting and physical strength. So they should have approached the two guards, like fought them in like hand-to-hand combat while the other three sneak into the shed and like get the helicopter. Like it didn't, yeah, it didn't need to be just her. It didn't need to be... Them knocking the guards out could have been like 10 second cutaway of just like, well, we did it, now we're in.

Who gives a shit or if they wanted to go into that storyline that badly a choice that could have been made that doesn't end with like and conventional hotness saves the day is that if everyone is like hey go do this go be hot at these guys and distract them and then we see her decide not to and, you know, show her skills instead. And then they all have to be like, whoa,

maybe we shouldn't have said that. Yeah. That would have been pretty cool. Actually. Yeah. It's like, if like they did the Jack Black training thing and just like, you know what,

this is stupid. I guess. Yeah. I'm just going to go punch them in the face. Right. We can have the Jack Black improv scene. Ooh, you know, right. You got this girl and shit. Yeah, I'm just going to go punch them in the face. We can have the Jack Black improv scene. I'm like, ooh, you know. Right.

You got this girl and shit. Yeah, and then as long as the takeaway is like, but that's not how you would actually resolve a problem. But I feel like that doesn't fully come across. Right. I don't know. Hated that. Yeah, that scene could have,

that whole sequence could have been handled in a much more empowering way for Martha. Hated it. There is a moment, I think shortly before that, where Spencer is consulting with Fridge. And he's all like, I'm really into Martha. I don't know what to do about it. And I think Fridge is like, well, she likes you, but she's into you. Fridge fucks. Fridge into you. Fridge fucks.

Fridge fucks. Fridge fucks. That's made clear to us very early on. Yeah, half the cast fucks. The Rock says, what if she tries to kiss me? And then Kevin Hart says, then just kiss her back, man. And then The Rock says, what if she tries to kiss me without warning? Oh, you mean a surprise kiss?

Boom, boom, boom. What I'm trying to say is just ask for consent, everyone. If you want to kiss someone, just check in with them and see if it's okay. Yep. Anyway. Good point. Thank you so much. Good point.

Yeah, this movie is so weird weird i don't know and then nick jones shows up and it's like you know apparently i'm the only person in the world who's like love it keep him he belongs here you you spend a lot of time with like the cast who in their own right are like well sort of defined characters in like a comic way even yeah and then nick comes along he's just like well here i am he just makes a bunch of jokes about 1996 yeah like that's literally all he does there's also a moment where he's like getting introduced to all of them and then they point to jack black and they're like this is bethany and he's like you're a girl and she's like woman yeah and then uh fridge says in real life you'd probably want to hit that and it's like oh okay

so like there was a split second where she was like feeling empowered and she's like i'm not a girl i'm a woman let's deflate that as quickly as possible but you want to fuck her for sure by feminist icon kevin hart i think at the end of the day you know you can make the argument that Jack Black's character is a woman because that's just an avatar that a female character is playing the game as. But at the end of the day, the on-screen representation is basically four dudes and one woman. Because between The Rock, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Nick Jonas, That's four dudes to the one woman figure that you see on screen. I mean, that means that if a woman had gone into another female avatar body,

that means that that actress would have been paid for that role. But instead, Jack Black is the person who got that payday. It sucks because I love Jack Black. I think he does a good job with what he's given given that that was the choice i think he's and you usually hate jack black yeah i really i really like jack black i think he does a good job in this movie but yeah it's like this movie tries to have its cake and eat it too in a way that i think will probably be a continuing

trend in mainstream movies yes where will try, you know, attempt to represent any sort of movement or progress while basically keeping things the same exact way. I think this is a weirdly egregious example of that. And kind of a wide swing on the part of this movie. I think it works in the plot, but it doesn't bode well for the world. Yeah, it works in a popcorn way,

but I mean, like, even side characters, I mean, Reese Darby's character could have been a woman, Batman could have been a woman, all those kinds of things. Very true.

All of the bad guys, right? There's tons of, yeah. We do see two moms. We see Spencer's mom and... We do see three female teachers. Oh, that's right, yeah. Yeah.

None of them are given names that I noticed. Same. But the gym teacher is a woman, the teacher who yells at Bethany for FaceTiming during class is a woman, and then the teacher who catches Spencer in fridge cheating is a woman. So this is no

excuse. And then also it's tricky to say to say like oh martha and bethany are like kind of trope characters majorly trope characters but so are spencer and fridge yeah you could argue just the characters are not very well and i think like narratively that almost makes sense because you have to have pretty simple characters there's so much exposition in this movie right where it's like if you're going to you can't put an extremely complicated four extremely complicated characters into four different bodies and then have them get to know each other and so i don't know this movie's weird yeah like we i see a lot of meta trends

like that in like big blockbuster movie these days, my favorite movie from last year was Power Rangers, Saban's Power Rangers. Wow, hot take. And same thing of some subversions, like they have a kid with Asperger's and stuff, but then it's very much like, I'm an angry lesbian, or I'm a jock who his dad fucking doesn't understand him. Right.

But it's still like, it work it's i know it's like for the movie it works but it's like it's like okay you're yeah it's confusing this movie's confusing and i now i feel like i can fully understand why so many of our listeners were like i'm struggling with jumanji yeah but it's it is nice to see even though they're stereotypes they don't like treat each other super shittily and they do solve problems in a way that I feel like is modern and we're going to get to the root of your emotional issue and then try to fix it this way. So it's like, it oddly shows progress on the first movie

just because it took place 20 years after, but I mean, not like consciously. It's weird, yeah. Don't try and make a statement or nothing like the male relationship definitely still takes precedence over the female friendship uh but less so in the second movie we at least see a friendship i think start to develop between them and then it's kind of sold out later on but there was that good scene that i like between karen gillen and jack black where they're like we don't have to hate each other where it is normally assumed

there's two teenage girls in a movie they hate each other or they're fighting over a boy or and that doesn't happen here and that's nice and they state that pretty explicitly that's good because as i mean as opposed to in the first jumanji where it's like, there's a sail. Good girl. You saw Monkeys, right? Cool. Yeah. So the second Jumanji movie is just, you have to watch it. You have to. It's a wild movie.

But it works. I wonder if this will be one of those movies that just gets forgotten and no one talks about it in a couple years? Or do you think it's going to... People will remember it, but they will still talk about it as a joke. Right. I mean, how commercially successful was this jumanji movie oh oh shit okay you know what this movie almost made a billion dollars yeah total but like holy shit this movie made so much money. My blood pressure just rose

at seeing how much money Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle made. It's the type of movie that's going to crush in international markets. It was in theaters forever. For a million years. Oh my god. This movie made so much money.

That's crazy that they wouldn't put Nick Jonas on the poster. That's so violent of them to do. Oh, Nick Jonas. You know, he doesn't have an acting career ahead of him. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. He's just got a rich career crushing pussy forever.

Listen, Nick Jonas is going to be fucking for a long time. Oh, God. I used to. Oh, hot brag. jonas related brag my best friend one of my best friends growing up lois was really into the jonas brothers that's brag number one she would drag me to jonas brothers concerts even though i was more of a bright eyes girl myself that's brag number two but i would go because I didn't have any other friends. That's brag number three. So there was one Jonas Brothers concert in 2007, I think.

We were like freshmen in high school. And they were filming a music video. So if you look at Listener Challenge, if you go to the music video for When You Look Me in the Eyes, 2007, you can see me in the background looking very bored at a Jonas Brothers concert. Wow. It is clearly me. I look the same as I did when I was 14.

Huge brag. Huge brag. Sorry about it. But, you know, people have to know. Well, congratulations. I'll post it on Twitter. Yeah, please. Yeah, do it.

Does anyone have any other thoughts about either of the Jumanjis? I love any movie that cooked into, like, saying the name of the movie over and over throughout the movie is cooked into the title. Where the climax of both of these movies have to be shouting the name of the movie. I love it. Yeah, I really. I love it. I've watched the second movie twice, and both times I did not appreciate the end beat where they were like why isn't it working

say the name oh yeah welcome to the jungle no just Jumanji oh my god even another parallel to Moana where at the end Moana's like I know your name

and her name's Jumanji I am Jumanji ever that amazing moment in Titanic where they shout Titanic as it sinks oh man

well this is... Is there a better way to end our time at the beautiful... Jeff? Oh, dog Jeff. Jeff? Simmer down. Cool it, Jeff.

No, this was the best way to do it. So let us determine whether or not Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle passes the Bechdel test. There are a few scenes where women in women identifying body. I don't know how they even. Okay. So hard to know.

So where Bethany is talking to her friend Lucinda, whose name we do find out that does not pass because they are talking about a man and then the teacher comes up and interrupts them. But the teacher doesn't have a name. There's three different interactions. Or no, there's two different interactions with teachers that could pass if the teachers have names, but they don't. But they, yeah. Because moments later, Martha yells at her gym teacher and then gets detention.

If a woman's shaming a woman for her profession, does it pass the Bechdel test? Not in this case, but it could nope there is a moment when they're in detention and martha says to bethany are you going to help or are you too pretty and bethany says i'm too pretty and that technically that does pass i had that written down i was like yikes there's we've been encountering a lot of problematic passes recently i know we'll never top she's all that. You should kill yourself. But we can get close. Yeah, we can get close.

There's a few moments after that in the movie. They're like trying to figure out whether or not they want to play the Jumanji video game. And Bethany says, oh, she's not big on fun. And then Martha's like, fine, okay. And then Bethany says, this might be the lamest thing I've ever done. And Martha says, I highly doubt that. Shout out to the movie Doubt. Shout out.

Thank you. You said it, I didn't. Doubt's out. Everyone take their doubts out. I don't know if this passes or not because they're more talking into a void than to each other. So I'm not really sure about that one. And then, okay, there is the scene where we've already talked about it, where Martha and Bethany, but as their avatars,

so Karen Gillan and Jack Black are like, oh, well, there's a moment where Martha's like, I need to borrow your jacket because I feel like I'm wearing a bikini. So that's like, but it's not nearly, again, her outfit is not challenged nearly enough. No, no, I think not at all. I think that then there was, I remember seeing that like clickbait written about

when the first posters were released and then it was immediately diffused by like, oh, it's okay because they're making fun of video games. It's like, but no. Also video games are still bad, so. Yeah, yeah, it's like that will change nothing yeah I really hate the excuse of we're putting it in this context like as

a commentary but we're still doing the exact same thing yeah I think the more effective choice there is to even if she starts that way have her change yeah exactly they go to a bazaar surely there's like some clothes she can she could have gone and then we can have women be shopping.

I love it when women shop. Take a try on a hat. You can still be shopping. Oh my gosh. The Wonder Woman montage where they're like, we can't make you less hot. Love a montage. But yeah, in that scene, Bethany's all like, quit judging me. And then Martha's like, I don't actually hate you.

And she's like, really? And she's like, no, you just live in your hot girl bubble where you're either being treated like a princess or an object. And she's like, well, also, but you're just kind of mean. And maybe you just decide you don't like people so that they can't not like you. That's the best conversation between women in the movie. And it does end with like, you're kind of hot. So just like own that. the best conversation between women in the movie and it does end with like you're kind of hot so just like own that yeah she's like okay i will and she's like i'm hot me and oh god it's it is hot when women own it as a man i'm just gonna put that out there as a teenage girl i'm 14 uh no but like when you're a teenage girl seeing a movie there's

nothing more like especially if you're like a weird a teenage girl seeing a movie there's nothing more like especially if you're like a weird looking teenage girl who is i don't know wearing a back brace and will never fuck right i'm just pulling out of nothing but like it's going to see a movie and seeing a very hot like young actress be like i'm so weird and ugly it just makes you just want to like murder someone yeah likeenty of weird looking young actors out here. We walk past them on the street all the time. But the question is

does this scene pass the Bechdel test? I don't know. I want to say it does. It's Karen Gillan talking to Jack Black. I think it passes

on a real technicality. Right, but it's Bethany and Martha talking. About the best. But just in bodies that are not their own.

So, I don't know. I think it does, but I can't make it. Well, if the man that they're talking about is the body. Oh.

Is that? Oh, God. This movie is mean the scene the scene after this where they talk again where basically bethany is teaching her how to be desirable to men doesn't pass because she is being like here's how to be hot and distract men yeah but yeah this one is is a contender but yeah i guess we say it passes because these characters still identify as Bethany and Martha. And they're talking as Bethany and Martha. So I guess it does. Yes, I still think it's cheating, but yes.

Yeah, it's a gray area. Well, the Bechdel doesn't have these kind of modern filters. Yeah, how could Alison Bechdel have predicted that Jack Black would be cast as a female lead? So the movie, even if this scene didn't pass, the movie would still pass from a couple earlier scenes between Martha and Bethany in their own actual bodies. True. scenes yeah between martha and bethany in their own actual bodies true and then a scene at the very end where bethany is like hey lucinda let's go camping and she's like what you want to go backpacking in nature and she's like yeah yes so yes queen i learned so much in the jungle queen so there you have it uh both movies passed the bechdel test but but jumanji versus jumanji

which jumanji jumanji's the hardest i say moana jumanji zathura versus moana which is the better jumanji movie okay i'm gonna say the first one's more iconic it's got more feels i mean the second one is more like a remix it's it's like such a different thing like i appreciate it the same way i appreciate like some of the lesser like star trek series where i'm just like you're not as good enterprise but you're i guess still in the same universe, so I still love you. Sure. Well, loser talk with Brody has started and finished. Loser, I'm very cool. It's true.

It's true. I think the first one, too. Yeah, I mean, I think the nostalgia alone for me to just having grown up with this movie and seeing it so many times. But the second one also is good. Fun. They're fun movies

shall we write them on our nipple scale let's do it based on the portrayal of women so the first one i mean all things considered i think for me when it comes down to if you examine like the big moments that the male characters have in influencing the direction that the story takes it's almost always either alan or peter doing like oh we i fixed it or i saved everybody or whatever and the women get much fewer of those moments and that i think is the biggest problem for me for this movie so i'm gonna give jumanji 1995 two nipples and they belong to the lion who mostly just camps out in the bed the whole movie. So it gets to have a nice little relaxing time. Good for lion. Sleighbitch. Sleighbitch, yes, queen.

And for Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle, I think because it was made decades later and had the opportunity to maybe correct some of the issues from the first movie, represent women better, give them more bearing on the story, give them more on-screen representation, all of that, it missed a lot of opportunities.

And also the only woman we really see on screen is a conventionally hot white lady. Right. For the duration of the movie. Yum yum. This has been Lady Talk with Brody Reed. Yum yum.

You saw my dating history. You would laugh harder. This is Brody's dating corner. Right, both movies are very white. So, you know, very little women of color representation yeah basically nothing in either movie right i think for jumanji i think welcome to the jungle is also going to get two nipples from me yeah um i do like that both movies touch on like kind of toxic masculinity being spread from man to man and how that isn't serving

anyone and how that's not the best way to approach things but yeah i don't know again there were more opportunities for things to be commented on and female characters to have more bearing on the story for both movies so yeah both of them get two nipples and the jaguar from the second movie gets my other two nipples uh i'm down to go two and two as well and i'm more annoyed with the second one for having to give it two the first one is all kind of i feel like par for the course 90s missed opportunities and not like thoughtless just movies did not consider much you know back then so i i don't really have anything to add there yeah this the second one sucks because it is like it just it it feels like a sleazy like executive somewhere is like he he we got all the themes in but we said nothing like it's just

like it just like they they reference it it's very anything remotely feminist that's explored is commercial you go girl feminism that says nothing still doubles down on but you gotta be conventionally hot and like it's funny to like not have a perfect body for like an hour you know and yeah in in that regard i was like frustrated of like there was potential they took some wide swings in some regards, but in terms of like making any meaningful commentary, which is you go to a Jumanji movie and you expect some meaningful commentary. Right. But it was like there,

there could have been, you know, a better choices could have been made and I think weren't intentionally. So two and two, throwing one to Bonnie Hunt. Throw one to David Alan Greer. Throw one to Nick Jonas and the alligator

that he will resent until he dies. How many nipples? Out of five. Out of five. Zero to five. Got it. I think I'm going to go two and two also. I never had a problem like

thinking of the female characters in the first movie as real people so that's cool um both nipples go to bonnie hunt um and then the second movie i think i feel the same it's like like for the reasons you guys have explored it's not the most feminist movie but it does like give screen time to trying and i'm like i'm like i'm like all right you know what i mean like i appreciate the effort dudes um so i'll give it two one and a half nipples and i'll give them to the hippo and famous icon the hippo yeah and probably the snake. Oh, yeah. This is crazy, but I do think Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle is one of the hardest movies we've ever covered on this show.

I think it was a challenging... There is arguably a scene where she says, Martha, get over here and look at my dick. No, thank you. That passes the Bechal test, maybe. Well, I mean. We don't have to talk. But it's like, that's crazy that that is an issue.

That's a talking point. Confusing movie. They're talking about a part of a man, a cis man's body. Well, we don't know if the man, I mean, the man, are any of them technically cis? Because they're just like shells, you know? Are any of them technically cis? Because they're just like shells. Are any of them sexual beings? But it is a man that it's up to her if she identifies as it. You know what I mean?

Right. And the video game characters, I would argue, aren't sexual beings. Because all the sexual vibes that we get are from the characters and not the video game characters. So they're not combating against any sexuality from the video game characters. So they're not combating against any sexuality from the video game characters so I'm assuming it's not there. So then I think that would pass the battle test.

One of our wildest passes yet. So yeah, as Chuck Flock would say, fuck. Oh my god, Instagram. Okay, well Brody, thank you so much. Hey guys guys thanks for having me on the last

podcast oh yeah we're ending it sorry hey keep it crispy you guys we uh this is just the last episode we're recording in

this location so don't cry it's the last time we're gonna be extremely hot in this tiny room yeah hopefully next spot we'll have an

air conditioner Brody where can people find you you can follow me on twitter at Aobrobro. You know, I'm trying to release a lot of short films this year. You can check that out at BrodyReed.com backslash videos. Cool. Yay.

Yay. You can connect with us and find us on social media such as Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. We've got some merch to buy. Some buttons. Some stickers. I just went on a little tour and I saw people across this great nation sporting their buttons. Sporting their little pins. Shouts out to the group of people in Chicago

that all showed up with their little feminist icon pins. Oh, that's so cute. The true heroes. The true heroes. Also, subscribe to our matrion. Yes. That's great. Yonki.

And as always, thanks for listening and we can't end this episode until we all say the magic words. Do mine. I didn't realize you were doing that. I was like, oh man, I never listen to the end of the podcast. until we all say the magic words. Juana. Juana. I didn't realize you were doing that. I was like, oh man, I never listen to the end of the podcast.

Good job, everybody. 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

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