The Bechdel Cast - Lara Croft: Tomb Raider with Dani Fernandez

Episode Date: March 15, 2018

This week, Caitlin and Jamie take a break from raiding tombs to head to the studio and record an episode about Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) with special guest Dani Fernandez!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast. Follow @msdanifernandez on Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @hamburgerphone  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hi and welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name's Caitlin Durante. My name's Jamie Loftus. And we host a podcast about the portrayal of women in movies. We sure do. It's called the Bechdel cast. You're listening to it right now. This is it. What if this was a mistake is there like an autoplay the the app i use for my podcast does not autoplay but i have to assume that there

are like some autoplaying podcast apps right oh that would just like go to the next one in your playlist this thing yeah they're like have you ever heard of these broads anyways now they're talking about spoiler alert hi welcome welcome to never not Welcome to Never Not Funny with Jimmy Pardo. I'm Jimmy Pardo. Can we do an episode? We're talking about Tomb Raider. We should do an episode of Never Not Funny with Jimmy Pardo. Yeah, hear that, Jimmy?

Invite us on your podcast. Yeah, or we'll do a cover of an episode he's already done, where you'll be Jimmy Pardo and then I'll be the guest. Jimmy Pardo, if you could email us what your favorite episode of Never Not Funny with Jimmy Pardo is. And then let us know. And then we'll transcribe it and then perform it and then release it as an episode of our podcast. How come it's okay for bands to do covers of songs but podcasts can't do covers of other podcasts comedians do it around halloween at like shtick or treat and stuff yeah it's like uh i did a maria bamford joke this year

it was very cathartic and fun oh good yeah you're like oh i get to do stuff that's better than what i can write i think that's probably how bands feel when they're like oh let us let us cover a song that's way beyond our personal competence yeah sure so sure. So Jimmy Pardo, reach out. Let us know if you want us to do a cover of an episode of Never Not Funny with Jimmy Pardo. I think that that is funny that that is the podcast you pulled out of your ass. It's like, you know what we've got to cover.

I don't know why I thought of that. But hey, let me tie it back into our podcast. We just did not pass the Bechdel test because we were talking about a man. Jimmy Pardo. Jimmy Pardo. podcast we just did not pass the bechdel test because we were talking about a man jimmy pardo jimmy pardo but i would say that also unless there's other parties that i don't know about on never not funny with jimmy pardo no episode of never not funny with jimmy pardo would pass the bechdel test until he gets the two of us on it and we don't talk to him we can ignore him and only talk to each other. Jimmy Pardo.

Have us on your podcast, but please be silent. Okay. Anyway, so if you don't already know, the Bechdel cast, we talk about the portrayal of women in movies. Using the Bechdel test is just a really, just a jumping off point, a way to start the conversation. We talk about so much more. But the Bechdel test requires that a movie has two female characters who speak to each other about something other than a man there's a second jimmy parto podcast called called playing games with jimmy oh i've never heard of that one but i feel like maybe i should uh i'll add it to my my list what if we were getting money

from jimmy parto on the back end to be like i yeah, just bring Jimmy Pardo up at some point. It's fine. Yeah. I'm suspicious of everything and everyone now and I think everything is a secret advertisement, but sometimes you really are just talking about Jimmy Pardo. I just accidentally started talking about Jimmy Pardo. Every time we say Jimmy Pardo, Jimmy Pardo gives us $20. So thank you, Jimmy Pardo. We love you, Jimmy Pardo. All right. Anyway, so we are here. Yeah. So sorry.

We're here to talk about a specific movie, as we always are. We have a guest to help us. She's the host at Hyper RPG, and she's a co-host of the podcast Nerdificent on How Stuff Works. Thanks for having me. Dani Fernandez. Yay. I am enjoying my Celsius sparkling wild berry that you can catch at any Whole Foods near you.

Yum. I hear Jimmy Pardo loves that shit. Loves it. So Hyper RPG, which is like a Twitch channel, they don't care if we have drinks and stuff on while we're podcasting and whatnot. And I always have Celsius and I'm just

waiting for them to, because it's an energy drink and I need it. It's a healthy in quotes, energy drink. And I'm always just waiting for them to just send me packs. I've never heard of it. Mike's hard lemonade. Right. I'm actively sabotaging my body when I'm doing product placement. And they still, they followed us on Twitter and then they dropped the ball. Well, I think it's now on us to reach out to them. Okay, fine.

Let's do it. Okay, let's loop in direct message. Us, Mike's Heart Lemonade, Jimmy Pardo. Let's make something happen. Playing games with Jimmy Pardo. So anyway, thank you for joining us. We are here to talk about Lara Croft Tomb Raider. Yes.

So you first saw this movie when? Last night. I saw it this morning. Yeah, I saw it last night when you had emailed me and were like, would you be down to talk about Laura Croft? I was like, yeah, sure. I'll finally watch it and see what it's... I mean, I had the video game when I was young.

Actually, I didn't have the video game. It was one of the ones that my brothers and I would rent from Blockbuster. It was one of the ones that my brothers and I would rent from Blockbuster. It was one of those. I had something similar, which was Chirac Dinosaur Hunter, which that was the hunting-ish game that I would play, but I didn't have Lara Croft. And we also had Goldeneye for our N64. But you did play the Tomb Raider video game.

Yeah. What was it like? I mean, it had similar scenes from what she did in this. I haven't played it in two decades, so I don't really remember. I was curious, yeah. But she had some of the same flips

and some of the same action sequences from this movie. But it was something that we would beg my mom to rent for $7 once a month or something. So it wasn't one of the ones I grew up with I grew up with playing Diddy Kong Racing so I grew up I was a racing person I grew up with Barbie Detective on PC what yeah yeah she would go to a carnival and just stare at people and eventually you'd figure it out okay it's usually the clown yeah I think looking back I'm sure my mom was, I don't need my young boys to be like having.

I'm sure that they were having thoughts with what my mom is extremely Catholic. So I'm sure when she saw Laura Croft, she was like, oh, we're going to. She's fully video game girl. Yeah. Yeah. She actually is a 36 double D, which they made Angelina. They didn't even they made her like a 36D because they were like, we can't make it anymore.

People will start to be frightened. Yeah. Frightfully huge. I would love it if she used her tits to knock people out. I'd be so into it. To kill that robot. Guys, you know who loves Tomb Raider? Jimmy Pardo? Jimmy Pardo!

I just want to make more money from Jimmy Pardo. Yeah. He owes us thousands of dollars by now. Jimmy Pardo is racking up. He didn't give us. The problem with Jimmy Pardo is he did not give us a cap of how many times we could say it. True. So Jimmy Pardo.

When we say it in unison, it actually is a hundred dollars. It's a hundred dollars. It's crazy. And if we sing it it he's in trouble yeah uh i saw tomb raider this morning it's weird it's like one of those movies where it came out in oh one and so it's like something i've been familiar i wasn't old enough to see it when it came out for sure and i also just like didn't grow up with video games in really any way so i just was peripherally aware of it my whole life i do know that i've seen some sort of

like you know and i feel like we come up across this a lot in our podcasts is like sort of like corporatey feminist articles about like nine reasons why alara croft is a feminist icon when you're just like you sure you're just like probably i'm gonna hazard a guess and say it's a no but uh i'd seen a lot about it, but I didn't know. I didn't know this was a movie about the Illuminati. Pretty blatantly. Eye-opening. Yeah, like a pretty hardcore education in Illuminati basics.

I really was not familiar with that term until I think Jay-Z referenced it, you know, maybe five years ago. I didn't know it was a thing. Illuminati before it was hot well i was uh reading brag the da vinci code and the whatever other stupid dan brown world angels and demons that one yes bitch and uh illuminati is prominently featured in those narratives so i already knew about it there i knew i i do remember i did read that was like one of those things that you would just everyone you had to read it whether you felt attached to it in any way we had like a family copy of the da vinci code had to get her i got it like last it was dirty it was covered in you know

like cheeto dust and i was like oh i guess i've got to read the da vinci code now and then that horrible movie came out yeah where alfred molina is in out. Yeah. Where Alfred Molina is in it. Is he really? Alfred Molina is in it. Yeah. And the priest whips himself and you're like, oh, wow. That's all I remember about the movie. Alfred Molina's in it.

Priest whips himself. Yeah. Tom Hanks in it? No. Or is that Angels and Demons? No, I think he's in it. Yeah, he plays. He's in both.

He plays the guy whose name we'll never know. Dan Brown, probably. Yeah. He plays Dan Brown. Dan Brown's. He plays the guy whose name we'll never know. Dan Brown, probably. Yeah. He plays Dan Brown. Dan Brown's like, what if I was cool? Robert Langley? Is that a, I don't know. Anyway, not important.

You literally knew the whole time and you just said it. I don't know. I do that all the time. That might not even be right. I don't know. And then I name an extremely specific fact. Like, where was he last night? Was he at this address?

I'm just hazarding a guess. Sure, sure, sure. I was going to say, I didn't see this movie when it came out. I think, I was telling Kayla, this came out the same year as 9-11. And I just was like, I'm busy. There was other things going on. What time of year? And so, I didn't see this.

I also, it was the time when I was like, I was in middle school and my family had moved me to Texas. And so I just was not, I don't know, I was not watching a woman like kicking ass and some pyramids. This was pre 9-11. It was June 15th, 2001. Okay, so it was, yeah, I wouldn't have seen it in theaters anyways. But I didn't catch it at the blockbuster because of 9-11. It's so interesting we have done sort of a weird amount of movies that came out right before 9-11 shrek being the most prominent of like wow truly the last stand of innocence this is we got shrek and

then the whole fucking world fell apart draw your conclusions but uh yeah yeah i i didn't see this movie when i also didn't see shrek when it came out because my parents were. But I did see The Master of Disguise when it came out. So it's not that we had good taste. It's just that we had $20 when we had $20. Yes, that's the same with my family. Yeah, like if we had disposable income that month, then we would see whatever garbage pile was currently in theaters. Hey, I first saw Lara Croft Tomb Raider, not when it came out either, but I think shortly

after that. So I didn't see in the theater, but I want to say I probably saw it within the next year of it being out, but I only saw that once. So I didn't remember it that well, except for the only thing that I remember is her being in a towel in a scene in the movie, taking it off. And then you seeing her side boob uh-huh that was the one thing i remember about it until i re-watched it the other day i think that speaks to a lot about what this movie what message it's sending before we dive into because this is like this is sort of like an interesting thing for us in a number of ways where i think we figured out before we started that this is the first video game to movie adaptation we've done on the podcast that

we can think of. It's also, I actually played Heather's the video game a lot. So that was the, well, I played the great Gatsby video. If you guys want to have a silent Hill, you can talk about silent Hill.

Oh, silent Hill would be a really interesting one. I haven't seen the nurses are like murderers. So that game terrified me, but yeah, silent Hill. You can talk about Silent Hill. Oh, Silent Hill would be a really interesting one. I haven't seen that since I came out. The nurses are like murderers. Yeah. That game terrified me. But yeah, Silent Hill. Silent Hill would be an interesting. Yeah.

Okay. Woof. It's rough. It's really rough. But this is the first video game adaptation that I think we've done on the show. And it's also, there's a number of scenes in this movie that I would be interested to see the script for this movie because there's the first scene of this movie and then i'll let you get into the recap the first scene of this

movie i think on paper would look pretty much fine where the first scene in this movie larcroft is fighting a robot there's a bunch of fancy you know she wins you know it's an action scene and she wins but then every other part of the movie makes it so that she's like a sexual object from the way it's filmed the way this movie treats her body in frame is extremely you know objectified there's also and i feel like this is kind of a carryover from video games and literally anyone correct me because i i don't know a lot about video games but there's so many like action sequences in this movie where you hear it almost sounds like the same three like vocal reactions over and over where she's like oh oh oh like she's making fight sex noises she is mid orgasm both in like how she's vocalizing things and what she looks like

and her face through the entire movie yeah her Her face looks content like she just orgasmed. I don't know if the costume sort of is built into the adaptation, but it's like, you know, certainly not. She's not really protected in any way that we can see. So it was just like from the get-go, it's like, oh, okay, here is in theory a character that looks capable on paper and the movie is actively basically working against it, which I think is something that we see in Transformers as well. Angelina Jolie actually didn't want to wear the shorts. She said that, but then she knew that it would make the fans happy, so she wore the little tiny shorts, the Lara Croft shorts.

But you can see she switched out of them a couple of times. Yeah. To wear cargo pants. Yeah, I was like, whenever she's got sensible pants on, I was like, she still looks hot. Like, it's not like, oh, wow, she looks like shit now. Like, Angelina Jolie can wear cargo pants. Well, she's also wearing, like, this weird, like,

gravity-reversing bra throughout the entire movie where, like, it just, like, lifts her boobs. Almost pokey yeah yeah to heaven it's illuminati to the light uh okay so i'll do the recap and then we have a lot to talk about after that so laura croft tomb raider is about laura croft she is a rich lady laura or lara lara lara lara lara lara craft it's no that was no that was whereas mine's like spanish lara craft lara i'm just gonna say laura laura i don't know it'll go and i'll say whatever lara comes to me in that moment. Lara Croft.

There's a transatlantic vague accent that continues through this movie. We don't know. So Lara Croft has an ancient tomb in her house and she's fighting a robot in it. So we learn, okay, she's like, she does stuff with tombs.

Maybe she's even a tomb raider. Dare we say? Dare we say. So we learn, okay, she's like, she does stuff with tombs. Maybe she's even a tomb raider. Dare we say? Dare we say. So we meet her and establish that fact about her. Meanwhile, there's this guy named Manfred and he and his Illuminati friends are looking for... Again, classic. Yeah. They're looking for a key that when put in a certain place at a certain time, and that certain time being the alignment of all nine planets which is also known as a total solar eclipse i thought you were gonna say a total lie a total fucking lie turns out caitlin has very strong opinions about the planet that scene was so crazy of just like there's a lot of parts in this movie that you're like, ooh, that's fucking lazy.

Oh my gosh. It's just like a row of old white men in ornate chairs and they're like, this is the exposition for the scene. The planet's 5,000 years, one week, it must happen now. I was like, who are you? Like, what is this? Yeah, so this event only happens once every 5,000 years. And if they put the key in the right place at the right time, they'll find this triangle artifact thing that will enable them to control time.

The stakes are high and everyone wants this. Who's the actor playing the bad guy? His name is Ian something. He's in Game of Thrones. He hangs out with the dragon lady. His name is whatever, Daenerys Targaryen. There you go. Again, you did it again.

Whatever. I don't know. Her name is Robert Langley. Is that even the character's name from? I love that Angelina Jolie was British, British in quotes, whatever that accent was, but Daniel Craig was American? Why? Doing the worst American accent I've ever heard.

He was all over the place. I hope they were just trolling each other, like seeing how awful they could do it. They're like, let's see if anyone notices if we do the worst job ever. It's not, okay, sorry. It's not Robert Langley. It's Robert Langdon.

So I didn't even know. It was Robert Langdon, wasn't it? Langdon, yeah. Wow. Well, I rescind my making fun of you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. So back to Laura.

Laura. Laura. Laura. She has a dead dad and she really misses him. Classic. Classic. Love when the daddy's dead. So she really misses him. Classic. Classic. Love when the daddy's dead. So she's all like, daddy, I miss you.

Meanwhile, the planetary alignment starts happening and she finds this clock in her house that apparently her dad left behind. And it starts ticking. And inside of it is the key that's going to unlock the location of the triangle that controls time so of course daniel craig shows up he and her are like kind of rival tomb raiders but there's also maybe some like sexual tension there we don't know so then some bad guys come and steal the key she figures out some information that her dad left behind again about where to go and find the triangle because the triangle was broken into two pieces and they have to find both pieces and reunite them so can i just talk about that plot for a second yes because okay so she has one piece and they won't

work unless you have both pieces but yet she wants to destroy them like i was reading in the trivia and it was like goof you know how like sometimes in IMDb it'll be like movie goof. But it was the entire plot. It was like movie goof. She's trying to combine the two pieces, but she wants to destroy them so no one can get their hands on time. Right. To be able to change. They were like, she could have just destroyed the first one.

Yes. And end of movie. And that's it. And nobody would have access to be able to control time. She could have just destroyed it. Yeah. But instead she's like like we have to go find this other movie goof is the whole plot of the yeah i feel so dumb i did that did not even occur to me yeah this movie could have been 20 minutes shorter and it should have been 20 minutes shorter it could have been like a whole hour shorter like once she finds the first piece so they go to cambodia and they find the first

piece but yeah she could have just been like destroyed it and then nobody would have been able to fuck with time exactly whoa that's so stupid it's ridiculous that did blow my fucking mind when they made a second one is the second one about the illuminati too like no i just watched it for the first time last night you watched tomb raider 2 yes It's about, they find this orb which allows them to find Pandora's box which inside of it is like,

I guess, I don't even know, something, who knows? It's dumb as hell. Watching this movie made me want to watch National Treasure again.

Yeah. Where the major plot point is daylight savings. I saw that movie when I was like 11 and I was like, this is fucking dumb they're like no actually we have 45 minutes more because benjamin franklin invented it was just

like are you fucking kidding me that's how we're getting out of the bad movie this movie made me want to watch raiders of the lost ark which i'll talk about later on but i'll get there so they find the first half of the triangle in cambodia and then they go to, like, Siberia? Somewhere in Russia. They go and find the other half of the triangle. They reunite it. There's all the bad guys. The Illuminati's there.

And then she is the first one to, like, unite the two halves together, and she's able to talk to her dad for, like, two seconds, and then he's like, Is her dad John Boyd? Yes. You know what's so funny? He like two seconds, and then he's like, is her dad John Voight? Yes. You know what's so funny? He looks kind of good.

And I was like, what? Yeah, but in the picture of him, it didn't. Like I saw on her desk, there was like a picture of him, and I was like, there's no way that man would have someone this hot. And then I was like, oh, that's her real dad. Yeah. I was like, oh, that's her real dad. He looked like kind of like, I don't know.

I think of John Voight as like so old that he couldn't look. But I guess, you know, that's her real dad. He looked kind of like, I don't know. I think of John Voight as so old that he couldn't look. But I guess, you know, 2001, he looked fine. Well, he's in, have you ever seen? National Treasure. I think the first movie I saw him in as a young man was Midnight Cowboy, where he goes and basically is a sex worker in New York City. He looks like shit in so many movies, though, where Holes is another movie where John Voight looks like trash the whole time.

I guess I'm more familiar with his character actor later days. He's very good in Holes. I love Holes. I love Holes. Sorry. No, that's quite all right. So basically, she gets to reunite with her dad

for a few moments in this weird space-time thing that happens because she has the triangle, but then she's like, you're right, I have to destroy it because it can't fall into the wrong hands blah blah blah so then she destroys the triangle and that's pretty much the end of the movie she saves the day and everything's fine now that is the story of laura croft i want to say with the spinning sun planet thing that was happening in the end, just the first guy that got crushed for no reason. You literally could have just jumped off of it and he just like his spine was snapped.

It was like so many scenes like that where I was like, this is so dumb. Like I get that it's supposed to like be high stakes, but it didn't feel high stakes at all. I genuinely did gasp when Daniel Craig got knifed. Oh, yeah. But she didn't. She didn't feel high stakes at all i genuinely did gasp when daniel craig got knifed oh yeah i was like but she didn't she didn't feel shit no she didn't react she didn't react at all and then she just jumped into the pool i was like what is the move here he's he died he like you saw him die and then get hit by a second thing there i love that scene with her with with watching a man get knifed and she stood there emotionless I loved that well I think do you guys like each other like what this might be a good transition

into one of the talking points I have which is that she doesn't really have a personality as a character so like she doesn't react we don't see her really reacting to much of anything we don't see any glimpses of her having a personality like she's just sort of like i i yeah i'm interested to talk about that because it's i think some of it is like lazy awful screenwriting where really the only thing we know about her is that she misses daddy and that's why she does what she does in life and that's her central motivation for literally everything is daddy which is like fuck fine and then the other thing is i'm like curious about like adapting a video game character must be kind

of challenging because you're playing as her right in the video game so there's like an avatar basically right and there's so many like protagonist avatars that i feel like are kind of hollow in terms of personality because you're supposed to be plugging yourself in. Right. But if you're adapting, you got to do something. You got to try harder. You can't just be like, let's make the clothes tighter and hope no one notices. Right.

Yeah. Daddy. Because that's, I mean, I would love to play a game where we go around the room and try to describe her personality. I would say she had an attitude. She's kind of a saucy minx is the best way I could describe her, I think. But even then, I feel like there's just not much there. So you have a protagonist with no personality

who's just sort of going through the motions of the story. I mean, feel free to disagree. Yeah, what are you thinking? I like the fact that she didn't give a shit about anyone. She wants what she wants and she doesn't care about anyone around her so i did like that aspect of it and probably related to it where like men are telling her what to do and she's like no no i'm not gonna do it no thanks uh so i did like that i did realize that she actually i don't think and i'm sure someone could correct me if i'm wrong i don't think she speaks to a single other woman I don't

she speaks to a little girl yeah but she doesn't speak to a single other woman which is insane there were no women it's crazy the whole movie yeah I remember how we don't exist we yeah in this planet in this video game there's one the crazy movie version of New York where only white people

are there it's like the crazy like this is like the action movie world where there's exactly one woman and she's very hot like that's it's just so yeah like a parallel universe and it's crazy because it's like I don't you know if we saw if any of us saw this movie when it came out that probably wouldn't register as like oh there is not another woman because we're so used to seeing movies almost entirely populated by men. So we're like, yeah, this is just how movies are. I also like the fact that she didn't really have a love interest.

You know, she kissed, not really, Daniel Craig, like she was trying to save his life. She gave him mouth to mouth underwater. I was thinking about that too. I know. Does that make sense? Can you give someone mouth to mouth underwater? In the movies.

I'm like, aren't you pushing carbon dioxide into his mouth and not oxygen? Are you killing him? What are you doing? I was also, I was like, is this mouth-to-mouth or are they kissing? Like, I did not know. I did not know. It was not clear at all. No.

But yeah, so I like the fact that they didn't. I thought that that was semi-progressive for 2001, that she didn't have some guy she was fawning over. I also made note of that, and I appreciated that there wasn't some romantic subplot. But yeah, I guess maybe... I didn't mind her action sequences. I actually liked that a lot. I know that they did make her heavily sexual, and obviously by patting her tits so much that I do wish that she was able to use them in combat. But I understand maybe in this new one weaponize the tits. Yeah, yeah. Like one thing that they do at the beginning and the end, because the last also the last mini sequence of the movie, I also was just like, Whoa, what is happening here? Something happens at the beginning of the end of the movie, where it's some one of

the guys who like lives at her house and is one of her servants. You she comes down she's nude and she's walking around nude in front of her employees which is like is this ethical but whatever uh she's walking around nude and he's like you know you're not being much of a lady or whatever like right we need you to be a lady and then she's like yeah yeah yeah and then a lady should be modest and she's like a lady should be modest. And she's like, a lady should be modest. Yeah. She's like, sometimes it feels good to be bad. You're just like, whatever. Great. And then that comes back at the end.

We're in the last scene of the movie. She is dressed like, quote unquote, lady. Sunday brunch. Yeah. Like she has a sun hat and a white dress and she goes down and the same guy is like, oh, she's a lady now. Which nothing in the movie would really lead you to be like, and now she's a lady. But she randomly is. And then she goes down, pays homage to her actual daddy's grave and then goes back upstairs.

And they're like, time to fight another robe. They take a picture of her because she's a lady. Right. And then they're like, time to fight another robe they take a picture of her because she's a lady right and then they're like time to fight another robot i'm like is this just first of all i would hazard to guess this scene is just bad and stupid but the subtext of it is like you can be forced into a role you don't want and fight a robot like That rung a little hollow for me. I'm like, oh, I can also shoot people in a sun hat? You can do it in a dress. It looks like it was from Forever 21.

It was not a good dress. I don't know. I did notice that the screenplay, it was billed, like a woman was billed at the top, and then it was like two male writers underneath. So like three people wrote this but they made sure to put the woman first right be like it's her fault we've got yeah oh yeah i didn't even think of that yeah let's implicate her in this screenwriting crime

we've got three story by credits which are sarah b cooper mike werb and michael Sarah B. Cooper, Mike Werb, and Michael Collery. And then we've got a writing credit for the adaptation from Simon West, who was also the director of the movie. And then we've got two screenplay by credits from Patrick Massett and John Zimmes. So this movie was mostly... And a thanks to Jimmy Pardo.

As the end... Most movies, if you stay till the end of the credits, will thank Jimmy Pardo. I mean, so this is an example of a movie with a female protagonist, but made almost entirely by men. So it's going to be coming from a man's perspective in terms of like writer, director and all of that stuff, except for one story by credit from a woman. But men are largely responsible for crafting the story of croft and we see hints of that all throughout the movie especially i mean we already touched on this but like laura croft's character laura class laura is hyper hyper hyper sexualized like yes from minute

one even like you said the scene where she's fighting the robot in the very first sequence on paper that's probably a fine scene. But when we see it realized on screen, you see her in her outfit, which is this tiny little tank top and her giant pointy boobs. 1940s boobs. If you're doing that, you would be wearing a sports bra.

You're not going to be wearing this bra that makes your... I don't know. Sorry to body shame a big boob woman. But it's just so impractical. The tiny, tiny shorts that she's wearing, like bra that like makes your i don't know sorry to body shame a big boob women but like it just is so impractical that the tiny tiny shorts that she's wearing like these giant combat boots and then like just the framing of how the framing yeah the framing is male gaze shots of her hips shots of her ass like there's a point where like she's sitting on the ground and then she spreads her legs and then like a robot like hand comes down and smashes in between her legs. Yeah. Just to even make the male gaze thing more egregious,

there's a number of action scenes where Lara Croft, I mean, she is doing things. You know that whole scene where she's on a log and everyone's like, whoa, she's on that swinging log. And the swinging log has to poke something. And then the Illuminati's release. Wasn't totally sure what was happening there. But she's on the log.

But there's like action scenes where she's surrounded by men who are just kind of watching. Like literally the male gaze. I was just like, whoa. Where it's that action thing that we come up with again and again. We'll reference that McSweeney's article again where it's like anytime a woman does something that implies that she's capable in an action way, cut to a shot of a man being like, what? She can do the thing? Like that shot happens 4,000 times in this movie. Totally.

Yeah. Well, also because I mean, her choreography is like sexualized also. Like she's doing a lot of like flips and like you wouldn't see a male action hero fight the same way as you see her like oh i see men are just like flipping around and like being all like willowy and writhing the way that she is in a lot of her fight choreography so i feel like there's this idea in hollywood that action movies are for men and men aren't going to want to see an action movie that's starring a woman unless she's hypersexualized right and she like looks like a supermodel basically so that was this idea that

this movie for sure perpetuates one that sends a message to women that's basically like oh if you want to do anything physical you have to look like you're mid-orgasm yeah or you have to be fucking hot as hell like Angelina Jolie. You have to be so hot. While you're doing it. But I feel like she's, I mean, aside from this character, Angelina Jolie herself is hypersexualized in most of her roles. Yes. Especially at this time. But then in general, her action in Mr. and Mrs. Smith is all sexual. Granted, that's like a heavily sexual tension where she met her husband that was someone else's husband.

Oops. Sorry, Jennifer. That's okay. Life happens. They're hanging out again. Are they really? Yeah. Good for them.

You know, whatever. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I want to know how she felt about it. Yeah. That would be an I want to know how she felt about it. Yeah. That would be an interesting conversation is like how she felt because I feel she probably was okay with a lot of it. But I don't know. I guess I'm making that assumption.

Because she seems to have taken a lot of roles like that. That's true. Well, I mean, not to say that's irrelevant how she feels about it. But I think more importantly, just the fact that we're seeing like we're making all these movies geared toward usually young impressionable audiences. And they're like hyper sexualized portrayals of women where it's like, oh, like, look at how like I saw the Jumanji reboot movie. Same. And I think there is a few allusions that I think are direct references to Lara Croft Tomb Raider. Really? Where whenever the one character ends up in the avatar that Karen Gillan plays, she ends up in this very similar outfit, short shorts, big boots, and then a tiny tank top.

And she's getting bitten by mosquitoes and stuff like that. And she's like, what is this outfit? Are you kidding me? This is so impractical. I think that's potentially 100 and then her skill her special skill in the in the game jumanji is that she's great at dance fighting which i think is an allusion to either this movie or just this type of movie where the female action star is like this like i said like a willowy super agile so that's okay so that brings me to another thing

that i another scene that i was like what the fuck are we looking at right here when she is like in her pajamas these like billowing flowy pajamas they are purposefully not buttoned the whole way she's in she's attached to this like bungee cord setup and she's just like kind of bungeeing around her living room and then I'm like okay what is this for what is she doing is this exercise is this maybe to help with her I loved that whatever that was I was like I want to do

that in my pajamas it looks fun but like is it serving the story at all no but then I was like okay maybe it's helping with her agility and then it got me thinking that female action stars like this have to be agile yeah like that's their thing so like they can't be like their male counterparts their male action stars they can be like tough and brutish and just like kind of sloppy and they

don't have to be these like super graceful super agile yeah they're like dirty gritty yeah exactly yeah not manicured but a female action star has to still be and maybe i think this is like changing a little bit in the hollywood landscape but for sure at this time like it was just like well no one's gonna want to see this unless she's like perfectly flipping around and like being super delicate and agile this is a lot of like bush era shit yeah of like and and it does feel ultimately a little bit like i i hope that some women got something empowering out of this movie but ultimately it just feels kind of counterproductive totally like this is the sort of thing that any number

of crummy ex-boyfriends i've had would point to and be like what do you mean there's no representation in in movies um hello feminist icon. A lot of craft. Right. So ultimately, I do feel like it is, it kind of like gives crummy dudes something to point to, to be like, what do you mean, like, women are underrepresented? Here's this woman who has never existed, never will. Here's one example, yeah.

Well, so the video game, I mean, was obviously made with the intent of young men, you know, wanting, well, why would a young guy want to play a woman? Well, we're going to make her with huge tits and then that might be fun for them to play with. But it was also kind of inspired by James Bond. And I think if they had approached it more in that way, not saying that she's the same as that character, but I agree that so much of her is shot from a male gaze and James Bond is able to sleep

with like multiple women and we see his body and things like that, but yet it's not in a demeaning way. It's in a power way. Empowering, yes. It's like, wow,

look how fucking cool he is. One of the things I noticed with this, okay, there is a totally cuckoo bananas Angelina Jolie shower scene that's from the video game really yes yeah who in their life has ever flipped their hair around in the shower but my favorite thing this is a thing you see in movies all the time

where the hot protagonist stares into their shower spot this. This looks so uncomfortable. Who's looking into their, like, wash me, daddy. Like, it's so fucking weird. Clean my eyes. Yeah. Make me see. So that shower scene is from,

and I think it might be a tiny bit more graphic in the video game. And so they toned it down and the only thing that they could show in this was her side boob. Which she does have killer side boob. She does. I'm like, holy crap.

Mine is so not as perky compared to that. Well, wow. I've got a weird texture to the side boob. It's a whole thing. You've got to arrange it just so. Yeah, the shower scene did make me laugh out like LOL. Yeah, I mean, it's her her a close-up of her head but she's like again mid-orgasm where she's just like throwing her head back and like staring into hot water

writhing around in the shower no one showers like that you spend your time alone i would say if you had video footage of anyone showering alone, it would be some of the most humbling thing you ever see. I'm like, oh, it's sudsing with their pubes. Makes sense. Not fun to watch, but makes sense. Weeping. Weeping quietly. Crying.

She does that thing. Mumbling despacito. Horrible. She does that thing where she has her head down and then she flips it up and all her hair comes flipping and wet. Who has ever done that? I've never done that in my life. No one ever has. What would the purpose be?

You'd make a mess. Right. So that scene happens. And then she steps out of the shower and she's in this tiny little towel. This is when she's not a lady. Right. Yes. So her.

Also get out of the bathroom, pervert. Right. Laura. So her butler is named Hillary, but he's a man and progressive yeah progressive feminist icon slash peeping you guys remember ashley parker angel of o-town yes progressive for its time and a three name to boot yeah love a good three name so she comes out of the shower she's in this tiny towel the butler holds up a dress and this pair of high heels. And she's like, ooh, no dresses and heels for me.

And he's like, I'm only trying to turn you into a lady. And she flings her towel off. And that's when you see the famous side boob. And then he does the whole thing where we talked about where he's like, I'm just trying to. He's like, a lady should be modest. And she's like, yes, a lady should be. Implying she's not a lady. She's not like the other girls.

She's a little bit different. She wears combat boots and she drives a Jeep and she fights robots. Fine if you're not conforming to this, like, standard. But then she's also agreeing that, yes, ladies should be a certain way. I mean, this is dumb. This is like a throwaway moment. But it's just like, I feel like the movie's trying to comment on like gender and gender roles,

but like it doesn't, you don't get to do that and then also sexualize your main character in an insane way. Within an inch of their lives. It's just so, but the reason I brought up the shower scene is because we do later,

and I was sort of like, I don't know what I would call this. We do get a, not quite as egregious, but we do get a Daniel Craig shower scene and a little bit of commentary on his full frontal, which I think is the only other time we see a shot of just a woman when he answers the door and then a woman is straight up horrified

at whatever gnarled situation Daniel Craig has going on because I've never, like, who would see Daniel Craig nude and be like, ah! I was like, what was happening? What did she see down there? It was fear. I mean, I think just opening the door on a naked man is gonna shock anyone who's not expecting it.

I mean, but are you gonna be happy? Are you screaming your head off and running away? Yeah, you'd be like, okay, when you're not expecting a penis, I would probably scream. You know, we've all had the unexpected penis. That's true. So I would probably scream. Yeah, I think it's not that unusual of a reaction for her.

But the point is, in that scene, yeah, you do see a good chunk of his naked body, pretty much everything besides his dick in the scene. But he's not framed in the same way angela joly is where she's just like writhing around and like i'm having an orgasm in the shower so the way men and women are framed in this movie and many many action movies is very differently and i actually wanted to go back to danny something that you were kind of touching on which is that danny just took a swig of Celsius. Celsius, sparkling wild berry, live fit, get it at Vitamin Shoppe, GNC, Whole Foods, and Erewhon. And Jimmy Pardo's refrigerator. On your way there, throw on an episode of Playing Games with Jimmy Pardo. There's only six episodes. He needs your support. Yeah. So I think you can make the argument that men are also to some degree sexualized in action movies.

Like male action heroes are perhaps. It's a different kind of hero. It's different. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm going to just sort of like play devil's advocate here and say that they're often like very muscular, very macho, sort of this ideal standard of masculinity. You see their glistening muscles a lot of the time. But it is not the same. I think they're sexy.

They're not sexualized. Yes. I think they're sexy because they're bachelors, if we're talking about Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent. To them, it's like they have to be muscular for their job because they're saving the world. But they're not shown in a way that is hyper sexualized the way that women are and i also think that both male and female action heroes of

this era at least they're sexualized in different ways but for the same audience there it's both for men the way that laura croft is sexualized is for a male audience and and the same way that james bond would be sexualized in a different way for that same male audience. Yeah, it's basically like, oh, here's this like ideal that I want to strive to be when it's a male action hero. Right. And then when it's a female action hero, it's still like, oh, here's this woman I want to conquer and make my conquest and not actually like identify with even though she's the hero. I think. Yeah, I think that male superheroes are kind of more what I see as like athletes. Where athletes are sexy.

They have great bodies. But they're not as hyper-sexualized the way that I think female superheroes, or superheroes in quotes, because I feel like most of the women in this era were not really seen as superheroes as much as like Catwoman, Poison Ivy, things like that were like villains-ish. Right. Where they're super sexual. Totally.

To the point where they're basically like handicapped. Just like Catwoman is so horny, she can't really do her job. She cannot do anything. Well, and here's the thing though, is that they use the superheroes themselves, like if we're talking about, let's say, Bruce Wayne, Batman, like they don't use their sexuality as, you know what I mean?

So women are using their sexuality as a weapon. So that is showing how they're different as far as how they're written. And their purpose. Which doesn't necessarily happen that much in this movie, but in the Tomb Raider sequel, there's a scene where she is basically seducing Gerard Butler. They kiss, and then it's basically to distract him so that she can handcuff him to like a railing so that he doesn't run off

and do something stupid there is so that's a perfect example of like women using like women action heroes using their sexuality as like a weapon almost there's a scene that's like sort of like that again it's like i feel like lara both doesn't have much of an interest in a romantic conquest and also she's kind of an underwritten character in general so it's hard to know what she feels a lot of the time but there's a scene where she's with manfred powell feminist icon manfred powell and he's based they're in a cave of some sort he's threatening to kill her but it's a very set It's like there's one scene where it's particularly sexy where he's like, I'm going to kill you. She's like, I don't know what to believe.

And then he's like, I knew your daddy. And she's like, oh, yeah. That's when he's like, he was in the Illuminati. And she's like, no, he couldn't be. That's the other thing I wanted to say. My daddy would never be in the Illuminati. Her even her voice is like this, like, sultry, like. No, he couldn't be. That's the other thing I wanted to say. My daddy would never be in the Illuminati. Even her voice is like this like sultry like.

But that's also Angelina Jolie. But she doesn't have to talk like that. I've seen her in other movies where she's not being all like, hello, this is, I'm Lara Croft. But I think that's like a conversation of, because to me, I don't know, it doesn't bother me as much because I feel like I feel really conflicted. Like if I were in a superhero movie, I would want to be sexy as fuck. I'd want to like crush someone with my ass. But like also people respect me.

Like I feel like we're in an era where like, yeah, I want to be able to do what the guys do. I want to be James Bond and fucking like fuck some guy and be like, see ya, you know, and like hop into my helicopter and leave him a basket or whatever A-Rod does to the women he dates. Leave him a basket or whatever. Like, I want to do that. So I want to be as sexually progressive as the men. But then I want to be respected. And that's the issue where people still respect people like Jamesames bond or bruce wayne who fucks chicks and then leaves but yet we're not respected as as women much of the time there's no way they could have done that with wonder woman you know what i mean and shown

her in that way where she's just like fucking a bunch of guys and i mean they could have but uh it would have been received yeah she has to be extremely classy she has to be like a mother essentially she's like the mother of earth in a way that her counterparts in the Justice League are not. Where Jason Momoa and Bruce Wayne and people like that, they're kind of like, yeah, fuck chicks, you know, whatever. And she has to be like super classy. Well, I think, so we might get there. It's too early right now in the Hollywood landscape to landscape to have a like a female action star like that right but so i think like i think we just need to yeah i like an action hero a superhero who's a

woman i think can be sexy without being sexualized the way we were talking about how they frame male action heroes where they're like well they're buff like you've got your john mclean's and your james bonds and you're like all the superheroes who are like muscular and sexy, but they're not framed in a way that's hyper sexualizing them. So I think like we just it's not hard to do that with women. We have Jessica Jones, who I feel like is a very conflicted, you know, it shows her dealing with mental illness and alcoholism and things like that. So we do have her and she's she I'd like the fact that she's not one-dimensional, and she's not very sexualized, even though she does have sex.

She has sex with Luke Cage that they show, and probably other people. So I will say that they are working towards that, where we do have flawed female characters that don't have to be as classy and put together as Diana Prince. Right. But not enough.

Not enough. Not enough. Not yet. And I do think that the cinematography of this movie works against its protagonist quite a bit. And I looked it up. You're not going to be shocked. A man was the cinematographer for this movie. Also has done Die Hard with a Vengeance,

The Incredible Hulk, the most recent one, and then Clash of the Titans. So it's like this is not even a cinematographer who doesn't know what cinematography on an action movie should look like. But because it's a female protagonist, there are times where there is action happening, but we're looking at an ass. It's just like it's great that the ass is there. It's not even that I don't want to see the ass. But when someone's getting stabbed, show me the person getting fucking stabbed. That's just how a movie should look.

Well, I think it goes back to the fact that there's an assumption, I think still, that only men like action movies. So if there is going to be a female hero, then they're going to have to cater to that male audience. But that's like, first of all, ludicrous. Because guess what? I'm a woman and I love action movies. So the fact that like there's this assumption that like, oh, well, we can't have like a female action star that's just like, you know, a normal woman who we aren't showing her ass and tits the entire movie. Like we have to cater to this male audience. Well, with the new one that's coming out with Alicia Vikander, I noticed that they didn't bump up her tits to 36DD, so that's progress.

I mean, they let her have her tits. Her body? Yeah, her body. It's very much her body. She got to have her own body. Which is fine, you know, either way. But I mean, they let her have her body is what I meant. So if you have 36DD, I'm very jealous,

and I think you should be in a superhero movie, but I don't know if that's the only representation. Right. I was watching the trailers. And it seems as though the framing and the cinematography and stuff like that doesn't seem to be as through the lens of the male gaze as much or maybe not even at all. It's going to be hard to tell exactly until you see the whole movie. But to me, it seems as though it's a little bit more respectful of its female hero than, which is great. I hope it is. Yeah.

That would be, that would be awesome. She also looks like she's like five too. So I'm like, she's so scrappy. Yeah. I just want to see her like pull. Yeah.

Like using like a shard of glass to stab someone in the, in the neck or something, which is like what, yeah. What I want to see, like, I hate that there's that whole whole stupid like dance fighting thing that has to happen in this 2001 tomb raider which is what i think what that jumanji reference is to where she's like she's good at dance fighting because she has to be super dancey and sexy in her fight

choreography where like i think this new tomb raider is we're gonna see her be a bit more scrappy and sloppy because like i think this one is Raider is, we're going to see her be a bit more scrappy and sloppy. Because, like, I think this one is setting up that she's not already an adventurer. Like, she finds information from, that her dead dad left behind. So it's the same thing. She does have a dead dad. But, like, she's like, we're going to go on it. Like, she hasn't, she's not yet an adventure seeker.

Oh, okay. So I think it's going to be, like, a made hero type of story. That's cool. Yeah. I didn't mind how, like, Lara was set up in this movie where it's like, oh, she's already done shit. She knows what she's doing. I'm not exactly sure what she's done or why. But it's clear she's done shit. She's got bungee cords in her house.

She's shooting robots in her house. Sex dungeon. I was like, okay, she's got some sort of established something. But... Oh, actually, I have a good point about that. Get ready. Hot brag. Okay.

So Lara Croft Tomb Raider. Yeah. Is very similar in story structure to Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first Indiana Jones movie. I'll just kind of go quickly through the main story beats of both. And that they both have an opening sequence where we meet the hero and learn that they do shit in tombs because they are archaeologists i guess we for sure know that about indiana jones we're not so sure about what laura croft's credentials are they both have a bad guy who has their heart set on acquiring an artifact that will allow them to wield tremendous supernatural power we see the hero get their hands on a round medallion

type object that will lead them to said artifact and that they... Medallion adjacent. Medallion adjacent. And then they seek to, the hero seeks to destroy it so that the bad guys can't get their hands on it and abuse this power. The hero and the bad guys both travel to a different country to use the medallion key thing to figure out where the artifact is. And then the bad guys both travel to a different country to use the medallion key thing to figure out where the artifact is. And then the bad guys exploit the locals to do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of trying to figure out where this thing is. It happens in both movies. Then the round key medallion thing has to be in a certain place at a certain time to show them where the artifact is. And then the hero and the bad guys come in contact with each other. They find either all or part of the artifact, depending on which

movie we're talking about. There's some scary things that happen to the hero that they have to fight off, either snakes or statues that come to life. I totally forgot about that part. And then finally, in both movies, the hero and the bad guys travel to a second location either to perform a ritual with the artifact or to find the other half of the artifact and then basically they both end with the hero either destroying or getting the artifact away from the bad guys and them saving the day and winning so very similar movies in terms of story structure. However, there's a few key differences in that Indiana Jones is not hyper-sexualized the way that Lara Croft is. Indiana Jones is a good movie. And Indiana Jones is able to find stuff or figure out a lot of the stuff for himself. has the knowledge to like get him to the next step or he just does the work himself to figure out the next clue or to find the next thing whereas laura croft gets a lot of help and it's usually from men well yeah because she's never met a woman before she's never i think that would

be interesting that would be kind of how i would judge her character is how she treats other women yeah so would she be one of the people that's like, I'm not like the other girls, you know. Yeah. I'm a guy's girl. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

she doesn't even, well, you don't know. She's never met a woman before. But we don't know. Yeah. We don't know if she would be all like,

fuck these dudes. She might not even know that other women have, well, she knows that she had a mom, but she never met her mom. Well,

that's the other thing. Great Disney princess in that way. Her dad and her mom mom are dead but she does not give a fuck about her dead mom she only cares about her dead dad and i guess you could argue like she didn't know her she didn't remember her mom but even so like her dad it seems died when she was a child and i understand like still being hung up about it but it's basically her main character trait and this is like what else is part of your personality and also why don't you care about knowing anything about your dead mom i wrote down there's a few other movies that we've come across where there's a young female protagonist where that is the main fan of the opera the main thing we know about

christine daae is that her dad died and it's because of that she actively self-sabotages her own life and ends up making out with gerard butler who looks like shit in that one there's there's another one uh i'll all of my uh disney movies are all about the dead mom but um i have to please my or save my dad which is beady and the beast uh the little mermaid Aladdin. And that kind of brings me to the climactic scene of this movie. It is, I thought, great that at no point in this movie that I could identify it like Lara is never damseled. She always does save herself, sometimes with help. She's never met a woman before. That's all interesting.

And she even has to, she ends up saving Daniel Craig. Right. And there's that reverse that was like, okay, that is good. That is to an extent progressive. But all the stakes in the climactic scene for Lara are connected to two male

characters, which are her dad and Daniel Craig, who gets straight up knifed and she feels nothing. I love it. She didn't even blink. She didn't gasp. No. She was just like, She didn't gasp. No. She was just like, oh,

maybe she knows that she's gonna be able to reverse time and save him. I think she just was like, you motherfucker. Now I gotta do this thing. Well,

because the climactic scene, she goes into whatever, the time hole thing. Jon Voight's there. And instead of, we could have had some sort of satisfying character- driven moment where

we get to know laura a little better because we don't really know her that well but instead of her discovering it for herself john voight literally delivers the lesson to her in the time hole and it's like you know some stupid turn of phrase with like you can't steal time you have to give back time and then she's like but daddy no and he's like but daddy yes and then they touch fingers and then it's over and so she's told what the lesson is and then goes back and and executes what she was told by by by daddy but it was that was just like one of those little moments where i'm like oh that's a big missed opportunity where we could have had a moment of seeing her work through an emotional thing right which we haven't seen her do the entire movie

right instead daddy does it for her and then she goes back that's the thing anything she learns about the key clock thing anything she learns about anything else is really information delivered to her or left for her by her dad or she has to go and consult like one of her dad's old friends like you often don't really see her figuring it out for herself like she is an active character and that she does drive the story forward she is making decisions that steer the direction the story takes but unlike like i said ind Indiana Jones, who already has a lot of this knowledge or is just more active in that he is finding things out for himself. She's getting a lot of the information necessary to push the story forward through someone else. Someone else is giving it to her or helping her in a way that like I think a male counterpart action hero would not need that much help.

Agree. So that's frustrating. I don't like when female protagonists are robbed of catharsis because men can't write movies good. Bugs me. Don't like it. That's a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah.

Can I just say that there's a character named Bryce which is Lara Croft's kind of technology sidekick. I liked, I kind of liked him. I liked him too. He's squirrely. No, I like him. He's also in Paddington 2. Wow. I'm glad Alfred Molina's not in this movie.

He made it. I'm glad that he skipped this one. Also, Aristotle gets mentioned in this movie where one of the characters is like, oh, this thing that only happens every 5,000 years, blah, blah, blah, it even predates Aristotle. So shout out to our producer. Shout out Aristotle. Aristotle.

Yeah. And our other producer, Jimmy Pardo. Can I just say shout out to Jimmy Pardo? Because he does owe us a lot of money. Does anyone have any other final thoughts about Lara Croft Tomb Raider? What a classic film. It's timeless.

A feminist text. For sure. A feminist masterpiece. Couldn't be, not possible without Jimmy Pardo. I think that's all I had. I think that's all I had as well. One last thing I wanted to mention is I like how this is one of those movies

that anything could only really happen because the character is excessively wealthy like Bruce Wayne like Tony Stark yeah where like they just have a bunch of gadgets and wealth and that enables them to like go on the adventures yeah I need to go on the one laugh line for me in this movie there was like that one part where like the UPS guy shows up and her whole house is a mess because she shot she killed like 20 people the night before right and she has that line where she's just like i woke up this morning and i just hated everything i was like oh that's kind of funny now i wrote that down because i feel like that's one of the few times in the entire movie where you see a glimpse of her having a personality yeah i mean like oh she made a joke other than that she's just so like i don't know stiff and just i mean maybe that's her personality

but it's just kind of boring to watch her because she's not fun really to see her interacting with people like i said she's kind of a little saucy and like you said she's like defiant and that like sometimes men try to get her to do a thing and she's like no no thanks but other than that she barely has a personality and that's frustrating to me why do they go through that weird thing of making her dress like a lady at the end what was that commenting on what was that for i don't know yeah i guess it was something that they wanted to see because she's always been i imagine that they kind of are her caretakers in the same way that Alfred is to Bruce Wayne because her dad died. So maybe her butlers were her caretakers. Her daddies.

Her new daddies. Her daddies. She has so many daddies. Were her like caretakers. And they were like, you're always dirty, running off, you know, shooting things like you're not doing anything ladylike. So she wore a sun hat for the daddies. I't i don't know that that part really i was just like but but at the end it is nice there are so many movies with male and female protagonists where they'll go out of the way at the end to be like and don't worry they ended up together because i i was

100 expecting daniel craig to be in that last scene of like i made you an egg or whatever you know like he could have very easily been shoehorned into that scene and i kind of appreciate that he wasn't same because i don't really care if they ended up together yeah i don't think she cared either it didn't it wouldn't have made sense or mattered it seemed like they they like from the second they meet and i'm like oh these people have weird sex every couple years and that's okay let's figure out whether or not the movie passes the bechdel test oh great no no there's one scene that's a contender and it's when they're in russia trying to find the other half of the triangle and they're trying to buy these dogs from the locals and a young girl comes up to her. They speak Russian with no subtitles,

so we don't know what they're talking about. And that little girl also does not have a name and also might not even be a real girl because then she, like, Lara turns back around and the little girl's actually a jasmine flower. And then she goes, jasmine, jasmine. I'm like, what? And she trapped her.

But no, that scene didn't because they were talking about her dad right we can assume but it's in again it's in a different language

and it's not subtitled she talks to two different girls you're talking about yeah I was talking you're talking about the one where the little girl is sitting she's like sitting down

and yeah they say something to each other and then she picks she like points to the flower right there's another scene when they're trying to buy the dogs that is subtitled and she says you're making a mistake yeah at least

on my tv it was in russian or whatever and it said you're making a mistake by going back to find him and she said who are you who are you talking about she said your father okay so that definitely and plus we don't know their names And then the other little girl that she interacts with in Cambodia, I think, I don't think they actually speak. Like, she points. She just points. Yeah, so there's not even an exchange of dialogue. Such an easy thing to do, but there were no women allowed in this movie, so it was a whole ton. I guess it makes me feel good that there are no women in the Illuminati.

That's true. It's just all men. All male org. Yeah. Gosh. Well, this is certainly a movie that was released. There's no way around it. No, it actually, I think, did really well.

I was reading and it said it was like the highest grossing movie with a female protagonist since Alien. I mean, it did. Yeah. Especially when you account for international box office, I think it at least doubled its budget. So it did well. And a lot of people went to see it. But it's just If an unnamed woman screams at Daniel Craig's penis, does that interaction pass the Bechdel test? Between her and the penis. His penis actually identifies as a woman. A woman, yeah.

Feminist icon, Daniel Craig's exposed penis. Yeah, but no, I do not think the movie passes the Bechdel test. I don't think it does either. Which it would have been very easy, as you have a female protagonist you could have just seen. She could have had a woman character who lives in the house with her and helps out.

There were several opportunities for characters. There were several lazy opportunities that were missed on. But whatever. We wash our hands of it. We hope for the best for the reboot. Indeed. We hope for the best.

So with that, let's rate the movie on our nipple scale. Let's do it. We have a scale of zero to five nipples where we rate the movie based on its portrayal of women. I think I'm going to give it like a one and a half or two. I'll stick with one and a half. This movie had a lot of potential. I think on paper, it was probably a much better version than we see on screen because it's a female action hero kicking ass and saving the world. Again, we talk about how very rarely do we see women get to save the day. Like stakes are usually pretty low when a woman is the protagonist of a movie. Usually the thing at stake is, is she going to get married?

Yeah. is the boy gonna love her back yeah so it's i always like it to see when it's like a woman starring in the movie and the stakes are high and that she's saving the day but because she is hypersexualized in a way that male action heroes aren't right because she needs a lot of help and she isn't as active as she could be and that a lot of information gets handed to her rather than her seeking it out herself. Just the fact that there are no other women in the entire

fucking movie. That's the big thing. It's like where? Where are they? I'm gonna say they literally go across the globe and still no women. Where are they? This version of the world, Angelina jolie is the only woman and also there is a rogue woman who will show up and scream at daniel craigs because that

was so there's also there's it was a bit much there's a scene where she goes into an auction that's happening to yes talk to someone and she sits down and she accidentally bids on something and it's a hilarious joke that we all just laugh and laugh. We've all been there. We've all been too many millions. Extremely relatable. There's another woman who's also bidding. So that's another woman we do see in the movie. So congratulations. Wow.

Feminist icon. It would be funny if it was the same woman and she's just wearing a different disguise each time. I would love that. Like one, she just has a mustache and then another, wearing a different disguise each time. I would love that. That's the same woman who screams at people. Like one, she just has a mustache and then another, she has like a top hat. Some like ascot or like some absurd scarf. I want to read her memoirs. Gravatt.

Sorry, that was a Paddington 2 reference. Oh, wait, who are you giving your nipples to? Oh, one of them goes to Lara because I think she could have been a really great character that could have represented women really well. But because this movie was made by men for a male audience, adapted from a game that was targeted toward young boys, it's just catering toward a very male audience. And therefore, it ends up being bad. So I feel like there's a lot of potential she deserved a lot more so laura gets one of them and then my half nipple goes to bryce because he was in paddington too okay i'm gonna give it one and a half as well there's like a number of breakdowns

for why this movie doesn't work for me i like it sucks because there are scenes that I could clearly see working on paper. And then the act of sabotage that takes place is in the cinematography and in the editing and in the costume design, where it's just like a signal to me of just like, oh, we need more women working behind the scenes. And this wouldn't be fucking happening because it is a, you know, vastly male-dominated behind-the-scenes crew. And then there's other parts where it's like, well, there is a writing breakdown because there is only one female character.

So it doesn't do, doesn't bode well. I'll give one of my nipples to Lara as well because I think she deserved better. Hopefully she'll get better in the reboot. Yes, I'm hoping that as well. Cautiously optimistic, but we saw what happened with Flatliners. You can't, you can'ters you can't you can't

you never know uh and i'll give my i'll give my half nippy to daniel craig but when his nippy is stabbed okay his stabbed nippy cool yeah i i just wanted to clarify that, like, I do feel like you can be a superhero and be sexy and also have huge tits. I think all those things can happen. But I think it was the way that she was shown and portrayed in this. She can have whatever body type she wants. Yeah. Yeah. I'm afraid I might have come off as sounding perhaps body shamey to Angelina Jolie because of her ginormous boobs in this movie.

No, but I mean, but they padded them to be even bigger. What we're saying is like, dude, we know you did that for the dudes. Like, that's the way that she was made in this game. And instead with Alicia, they're kind of keeping her normal body. And so it's just like, you know, when you don't let a woman have her own,

like they didn't do that for Wonder Woman is what I'm saying. Like when you're changing a sexual part of a woman so that men will be more interested in it. Yes. I think is what we're saying. That's exactly right. Where it's like Angelina Jolie is. She already has huge tits. And that's great.

She doesn't need assistance to be looking very hot. But yeah, it's all i mean it totally it and just in the same way that in transformers you see megan fox and it's like yeah she's beautiful that's not the issue the issue is the way that we see her because we're seeing her through a male lens and in crops or you're dressing them in a way that's unrealistic for fighting crime yeah you know like that's that's something that i do like about uh so they have captain marvel is another one that's coming out with brie larson and like they just released some of her armor and it looks like she's going into battle you know what i mean it's not like a crop top and like this tiny little where she's still

hot yeah it's like shocking yeah yeah i love that scene in uh wonder woman where she puts on the glasses and etta candy's like and suddenly she's not the hottest woman you have ever seen in your life like they're still gonna be fucking gorgeous as shit they're millionaire movie model actresses so uh yeah yeah but i think what we mean is when you're altering the way a woman looks so that a man will be more interested in the movie yeah and highlighting those features of her body pretty much exclusively to cater to a male gaze. That is what I have a problem with. Not her body itself.

And that's how a lot of 90s comic book women were drawn. With tiny, tiny snatched waist. Right, that's an adaptation too. Yeah, and it's just like showing women with all body sizes would be a lot nicer to me, especially if you have superpowers. You don't actually have to be super tiny. If you have superpowers, you can do, you know. Yeah. Right.

So, yeah, honestly, if you can be. But that shouldn't be the only representation of a superhero woman. Exactly. Hard to agree. But yeah, I guess I would give it two nippies one to Laura Croft because I did think that some of her action sequences were kind of badass

and she was good with guns which I was very she ate and then my other I'm gonna give it to you know what I liked all of the husky dogs I'm a dog person the dog scene at the end where she bursts out of the tomb with the husky dogs in it. I'm a dog person. The dog scene at the end where she bursts out

of the tomb with the husky dogs, that was very exciting. Yeah, that was actually really cool. I liked that. She looked badass when she was in that scene.

So I'm going to give it to that scene. Cool, yeah. Well, Dani, thank you so much for being here. We are so excited we got in.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. How can people follow you? What would you like to plug? Yeah, I'm at Ms. Dani Fernandez. I tweet a lot about superhero stuff, so you can follow me on there.

And also anime, which that's a whole nother thing about representation of women. But some of the ones I'm into have really, you know, they have women as genius scientists and things like that. So I love that as well. I am a host over at Hyper RPG.

So you can, if you're on Twitch, you can check out that. And then my co-host Ify Wadiwe and I have a host over at Hyper RPG. So you can, if you're on Twitch, you can check out that. And then my co-host, Ify Wadiwe, and I have a new podcast coming out called Nerdificent, where we tackle different issues in nerd culture. And that's going to be on How Stuff Works. So that'll be dropping soon. Yeah. Awesome.

Oh, wait. I just want to say one more thing. I want to take my nipple back from Daniel Craig and give it to Jimmy Pardo. Thank you. Oh, yes. Yes, obviously. He's never not funny. He's never not funny. He's always playing games. I want to take my nipple back from Daniel Craig and give it to Jimmy Pardo. Thank you. Oh, yes, yes, yes, obviously. Thank you, thank you, thank you. He's never not funny.

He's never not funny. He's always playing games. You can follow the Bechtelcast on all the platforms. You can tweet at us. You can rate and review us on iTunes. You can subscribe to our Patreon. It's $5 a month, and you get two bonus episodes every month, and it helps us out, and it helps you out.

And you can... Get our merch on our website Bechtelcast.com slash merch. Merch. So many things. And you can listen to

Never Not Funny with Jimmy Pardo. You can do that as well. If you want. And check out If You Want the new Tomb Raider movie and tweet at us

about your thoughts on it. We're going to see it. I'm going to see it. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. All right. Bye.

Bye. 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 wiki leaks 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 into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas.

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-Gadston. 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.