The Bechdel Cast - Minions

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

Bello!!! Caitlin and Jamie are discussing MINIONS!!! FYI, talking about Kevin, Stuart, and Bob passes the Bechdel Test. Okay poo-pye! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, Karl Rove, and David Axelrod. But we're also gonna have some fun,

thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee and Charlemagne the God. We're gonna take some viewer questions Thank you. podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. into a mafia state. Available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Trying to figure out how to do things that no one on the planet knows how to do. From creating a drone delivery business to building a car that can truly drive itself. Listen to What's Your Problem on the iHeartRadio app 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. Bello. Bello Minions. It's the Minions episode of the Bechdel cast. I could cry. I could cry. Wow. Hi, Minion Jamie.

It's me, Minion Caitlin. Bello Caitlin. Bello Jamie. Wow. Hi, Minion Jamie. It's me, Minion Caitlyn. Bello Caitlyn. Bello Jamie. God, I just love these damn minions. I'm in a great mood. I mean, Back to the Castle listeners, it is important for feminism that you go see Despicable Me 4. So to help facilitate that. And to be clear, we are in no way sponsored or affiliated with the Minions.

And that is a source of pain for both of us. But all of the raw enthusiasm you're about to hear is uncompensated for free. Simply because it's Minions season, baby. It's Britney bitch. It's Minions bitch. It's Minions bitch. I have two Minions season, baby. It's Britney bitch. It's Minions bitch. It's Minions bitch. I have two Minions in my lap. I was with you when you got that. Tell the listeners what we're looking at, Jamie.

Oh, yes. Sorry, I forgot that we've been in an audio medium for eight years. So I'm holding a little Dracula Minion. I forgot. I honestly forgot because we got this around. Caitlin and I went to Universal together, as we were wont to do, around Halloween. And I was like, Dracula Minion, gotta have it. Forgot that there is precedent for Dracula Minion, as we'll discuss today. This is a Minion that's appeared. And then I also have just my Kevin at hand all the time. Although I did get some new Minion merch.

I'm kind of bummed, honestly. Well, we'll get it. We have to say what the podcast is first. I guess in Despicable Me 4, they're kind of like doing a spy thing so I have some spy minions okay yeah yeah they change professions every so often because you just want to see them in different little outfits it's that simple it's like Barbie in that way it really is the minions are Barbie the minions are Barbie uh the minions are this summer's Barbie and I'll go on a whole rant about why another

movie that we have no affiliation with Inside Out 2 don't see it. I'm sick of emotional intelligence being encouraged when you can simply go watch Minions. I will not be listening to a nuanced discussion on the

topic. I literally got into an argument with my therapist about it the other day okay yeah because minions didn't come up at first but she's like i just saw inside out too i think you'd love it which is also a way of calling me unable to regulate my own feelings which is why i'm there but she's like you should say inside out too and i was like no and she was like i think you'd like it and i was like i'm gonna go see minions and whatever and that's okay well jamie to add to your collection and we will get to the bechdel test boring yes which this movie doesn't pass whatever no it doesn't we'll talk about it but we have minions business to tend to yes okay you may or may not remember this jamie but your birthday

two years ago i mean of course you remember it being at medieval times yes hashtag red night won the day you were given many gifts and then you couldn't take them with you i think because you were going onward to another place you couldn't carry them with you yes i have been hanging on to this well actually our friend bryant has been hanging on to it forever and then i was like give me that back so that i can give it to jamie on her upcoming birthday. Oh, I love that. Here it is. Ready? Oh my gosh. It's a little stuffed bob. It's hand knit. Where did you get it? I got it in Edinburgh, Scotland. Ever heard of it? Wow. When I was there two years ago. Two years ago. I'm so excited. I don't have a Bob. Well, now you do.

I have so many Kevins. And no, well, I guess this is, I don't even know. This is like. That's somebody else. The Despicable Me. Well, we should tell them what the backdoor cuss is. But the Despicable Me movie is pound for pound versus the Minions spinoff movies. It's Minions every time.

Gives the people what they want. I don't care about Gru's interpersonal i honestly i said this in my letterbox review of this movie if the girls were sent to boarding i think that he should send them to boarding school i said get them out get them out divorce kristin wig like i don't care about his personal life. Leave it at the door, go to work, steal the moon, talk to the minions. That's all I want from Gru. Yes. All right. There's so much to unpack already. The Bechdel test. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Your name is Caitlin. My name is Jamie. First things first. Yeah. The Bechdel test is a media metric that we use simply as a jumping off point created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. Many versions of it. The one we use, do two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other? And is their conversation

about something other than a man or about minions? Because the minions are boys. And we like it when it's a substantial media conversation and it rarely happens to this day. everyone had interpreted them to be. But we'll get into that because I think I have so many theories as to why he is doing what he's doing. Pierre Coffin, this is your trial. You're on trial. Yes. And before we go into our personal histories and relationship with the Minions, listeners of the show might know that any chance we get we bring up the minions not unlike every chance we get we bring up titanic or every chance we get we bring up shrek yeah and much like shrek it started as a joke and then slowly became real when we were like wait a second these movies are actually very funny and rewatchable. And there's certain, you know, cultural phenomenons that it's easy to

make fun of because you're like, whatever, like, I don't get it. But the Minions, if you don't get it, baby, you're the problem. Like, they're undeniable. Jamie, what is your relationship with this franchise? I love them. Okay, so my history with Minions is actually, and I know for listeners who are Matreon subscribers that listened to our Despicable Me episode two years ago. And so if you're interested in hearing us talk about it more, you can go over to the Matreon, patreon.com slash Bechtelcast, $5 a month.

So this may be us rehashing something similar from two years ago. So sorry for that. But I was a bit of a latecomer to the Minions. I saw Despicable Me 1 in theaters in high school. And I was like, wow,

I really liked that. That was a really sweet movie. And I love those little guys because if there's anything I love in this world, it's a little guy. I love a little guy so much. I truly, like, when iHeartRadio starts approving limited series again,

I do want to do an entire series on the appeal of the little guy because little guys are just incredible. And also, like, little guys in, like, primary colors. Yellow is a color for me. Minions, Spongebob woodstock like you could keep going with like just the the very visually appealing for children little guy and having them like represent be represented there's because they're so vague looking like they're just tic tacs like they could represent anything it's the best but, I saw the first Despicable Me movie and I was like, wow, that was fun. And then I fell off. And then I came back for this movie, for Minions.

This movie came out in 2015. So at this point, I'm an adult. I didn't see it in theaters, but I just remember being like, oh, the origin story for the Minions. I am actually interested because I think the worst part, and this sucks that this is lining up with Despicable Me 4, the premise of which I think is just rancid. I hope the movie is good. It's also written by Mike White, which is wild. Oh, right. Yeah. I think we broke that news fairly early because because we care.

But yeah, the people are the least interesting part of despicable me expanded universe and i was like oh they're just gonna give me only the parts i like which is the minions doing looney tune shit because i firmly believe the more i watch minions because after this movie i'm like i'm in i'm in for all of it i'll show up for any of it. I saw Rise of Gru opening weekend. And then my mom is a second grade teacher. So it like, actually, I think it actually did help like heal our relationship a little bit, where it had just been a really, really, really long time since my mom and I had a common interest, or just like something that we could like text about that was like easy and fun. And so when I went from being like minions are fun in an ironic sense and achieve nirvana and

was like the minions are actually really funny. And Kevin Stewart and Bob, I think this movie makes a strong case that is only increased in Rise of Gru that they are like our Marx brothers. And like, I know that that's verboten for some people to say, but that's clearly who they're supposed to be. And they're really good at it. They're like Bugs Bunny. They're Marx Brothers. They're like all of these like classic comedy, goofy slapstick boys. Yeah. So, yeah, then it was really fun to like share that with my mom because I was like, this will help you connect with your seven year old students who definitely watch these movies. And overnight she became a Minions mom.

And it brought me something because there's like also whatever, like precedent for the ironic interest in this. And then also the fact that I think it's like it has to do with the fact that the Minions are cute and so generic looking. It almost reminds me of another little guy who is yellow Tweety Bird another character that you see on a lot of graphic tees with some sassy phrase this happens to all of the little guys Snoopy is one of the little guys that you just see like Garfield is a little guy it's endless people. People love to put a sassy, sassy wine mom phrase next to a little guy. And so my mom got into it, which only intensified our mutual interest because we bonded over it. And now it's just like it's for life. I love these damn minions.

And I think this movie is I would say this movie is not as good as Rise of Gru. But it's still I still enjoy it more than any Despicable Me movie. I think it's really fun. I just thought of another little guy, Winnie the Pooh. It's just all of these little guys. The little guys. Caitlin, what's your history with Les Mignons? Okay, I'm going to say some stuff that might be controversial.

I'm going to say some stuff that might be controversial. I'm going to say some stuff that might be full on blasphemous. I had until very recently only ever seen Despicable Me 1. That's okay. That's okay. And Rise of Gru. So I saw both of those movies in theaters. We were both in at Rise of Gru. Yeah, I saw it when I was in Amsterdam on the same trip where I got your Bob in Edinburgh. Oh, I love to hear it. But here's the thing. I was asleep for a lot of it. I was very tired and I needed a nap.

So I did sleep through a large chunk of Rise of Gru. But I saw it before I ever saw Minions 1, which I saw for the first time on a plane coming back from a different trip to Europe that I came back from like three weeks ago. What a traveler. I know, I'm so cultured. So I had never seen Minions 1 before and I don't think I've seen any of the other Despicable Me movies. So I'm not as immersed in the lore. Well, I'll be real and raw with you for a second. Yeah. Because I do. I really appreciate your forthcomingness. You're welcome. And I also think, honestly, a lot of people who are fans of the Minions, it's not like they've seen all five, now six movies. I'll be honest with you i haven't

seen despicable me 3 i've just seen clips on youtube i've seen despicable me 1 and 2 i've seen minions 1 and 2 i haven't seen despicable me 3 because i know that it's about like grew finding his twin brother it's just always too much grew interpersonal problems and so i just like was not really in a rush to see despicable me 3 however i have watched one clip of minions from despicable me 3 easily weekly like sometimes truly and this speaks to my own emotional intelligence like if it's like late and i'm like tired and i'm like cranky, my boyfriend will be like, let's watch the Minions in jail scene. And it will always put me in a better mood

because I'm a baby. I don't know what for, but in Despicable Me 3, the Minions go to jail and they immediately take over the jail. And everyone is so scared of them. It's very Paddington 2 coded. I was gonna say that's what happens in Paddington 2.

Yes, but except no one learns a lesson. No one learns about themselves, which is part of what I love about the Minions. I feel like it is across children's media. A lot of stuff is important. I think it's a really, really positive thing that there are so many successful children's franchises that are rooted in empathy and understanding. Paddington definitely qualifies as one. Inside Out 2, a movie I refuse to watch, would be another. I think Pixar movies in general are generally encouraging empathy. But I feel like it is just as valid to have children's entertainment that is bonking each other on the head repeatedly and i feel like

when the minions like debuted in 2010 they were soft launched in despicable me one yes which you can listen to our patreon episode about like how the rules of the minions have changed because in despicable me one they're employees that are paid money. Right. Which this movie directly contradicts. For sure. Whatever. That's a canon problem. But I do feel like

around 2010, like where Pixar was at its like greatest success, up it just come out. It's like all of these really emotionally complex children's movies. There was kind of this

like empty space for like, what if something was just goofy and like Looney Tunes-y and it felt like the minions just like rose to the occasion. And I kind of appreciate that they haven't backed off of that, which is again, it's like the despicable me, like Gru always learns a lesson. The minions, they don't.

They don't. And I love that about them. They're so me for that. They never improve. They never learn i think that shrek farted so that the minions could bonk themselves on the head it also just like i this is so like this sounds bad this sounds antithetical to what this podcast is i like minions cartoon violence i love it i think it is so funny the fact that john ham tries to hang

kevin yeah in this you're just like and it's a pg movie and we're fine with it when i watch this on because at the time we're recording this this movie is streaming on netflix at the beginning with like the rating it just said like rudeness was the content warning like CW these guys are rude little dudes well here's the other controversial slash blasphemous thing I have to say which is that the movie Minions 1 I think is a bad movie I think the story is flimsy I think it's uh-huh I'm not saying I don't love the Minions that I don't love the minions in the movie. But as far as the story goes, if I'm looking at it through a screenwriting point of view, I think it is legitimately bad. And I think it's badly miscast. I don't know why Sandra Bullock is there. I don't know why Jon Hamm is there. I don't think they're doing very good jobs. Why isael keaton in the movie i always forget michael keaton's in the movie which can we all at least agree that jeffrey rush was a great choice he is a good choice for narrator i'm glad that he's there he gave it his all he kept saying the minions the minions

he clearly had much like bill nighyy did Detective Pikachu for his like grandchild. I feel like Geoffrey Rush made a similar play here and we're better for it. Yes, I agree. And then Pierre Coffin. He is doing a great job as the Minions. And I do love the Minions. Again, I like them in this movie. Any scene that there are other characters in it, I'm not really enjoying myself, I will say.

But I love the minions. And I love Bob. Little Bob. I love that you love Bob. He's just a baby. He's just a little baby. And I normally don't like babies or children, but I want to be Bob's mom. And that's wild coming from me.

I love that you love Bob. I bought, well, here's my other little item. It's a little Bob enamel pin that I bought from Universal the other day. I was like, I've almost bought that before. I recognize it. Gosh, I have to get back to Universal presently so I can get all this hot merch.

Yeah. I just renewed my pass. So let's go anytime. Me too. Okay. Yeah, I think it is, if you're not a fan of the minions and you're watching this movie for i mean even if you're watching this movie as a like a parent or a parent age who like doesn't like the minions or like don't think the minions are funny i understand

why this movie doesn't have a lot of narrative cohesion it honestly feels like a series of shorts as opposed to a movie it feels like a bunch of looney tunes shorts in a row where it's like yeah before we get it i mean i don't think it'll take long to summarize the plot of this movie anyways but well that's what you think it's actually deceptively complex but like the way that i'm still able to like engage with the minions ironically is like they're hugely a commercial product. Like you can tell that a lot of what is fun about the minions is also very calculated at best, devious at worst, because these are like they're they're literally designed to be global products the language that they speak are an amalgamation of the most popularly spoken languages in the world so that a kid from any country can watch this movie and instantly connect with it and feel like oh i know what that word is i know what that word is like it's the way that minyani is again this will be in my thesis limited series podcast on this topic like they are designed to be globally appealing

but it works it works i was just saying this on a recent matreon episode i don't know what episode it was but i think i'm fluent in minionese i don't think i could speak it but i can understand it reminds me of this is like just connected to like something that was important but do you like in the series of unfortunate events series of the three orphans one is a baby who always says like what sounds like gobbledygook but then you're it's translated within the book to be like she said this which meant this and she's basically speaking minyanese where like when you grow up you're like, that's a Japanese word that she said. That was like what, you know.

And so, and the Minyans just take this to an 11. It's really cool. Wait, I want to look up the list of the most prominently featured languages. Okay. English, Filipino, French, Hindi, Korean, Spanish are all tied into Minyanese. And I feel like that doesn't even include sometimes where it's just like a made up word.

Or it's like an English word that is just adjusted so that it sounds kind of gibberish-y, but it also sort of sounds like English. Because they say, they also just say like bellow and poopai, which is just baby talk. But I think they're really funny funny but they're also just like fascinating because it does feel like they were like successfully made in a lab to be a globally appealing little cartoon marx brothers and this movie made at the box office 1.159 billion dollars that's so off of a 74 million dollar budget which is wild and the other thing that's interesting about the minions oh no like is between minions one and

two i feel like you can sense a distinct cultural shift because I think ultimately the goals of these movies is to make money and to appeal to the widest audience possible. Obviously, the merchandising on the Minions do huge numbers in no small part thanks to us. I mean, we're buying a lot of it. Yes. But in like 2015, this movie comes out and its interests are strictly in the West. The cities we see heavily featured are New York, Orlando and London. Fast forward to 2022, a lot has changed in the global economy because the economy is what this movie is concerned by. And in Minions 2, there is a vested interest in the East and in China specifically. And it's like, I feel like you can weirdly trace

the like direction of the global economy to where the minions end up. It's very weird. Hmm. Yes. I swear to, I know I sound like I'm wearing a tinfoil hat, but I feel so sure that I'm right. No, I, yeah. I didn't even remember exactly where because they're in San Francisco. Yeah. But there's a Michelle Yeoh character who's teaching them Kung Fu. And there's a big Chinese New Year celebration. Yeah, that is like the climax of and most of the merchandising for that movie was drawn from the Chinese new year imagery my key i well i'll show you my keys are at a minions chinese new year oh yes okay so it's just i don't know

listeners feel free to tell me that i'm watching too many minions movies it is true but i i do feel like it's like because it is like these movies are such a like cravenly commercial product. It's interesting to see like what cultures they choose to represent in some years versus other years based on how much money they think they can make. So that's just Minions commerce observation. No, I love it. Should we do the recap? Let's take a break and come back because we've already been talking about minions for a half hour. All right.

We'll be right back. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days, fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God.

We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who, on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.

My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project.

All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session, 24 hours. BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people.

There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television iheart radio and realm listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back we're back and here is the recap for minions one 1 from 2015. And of course, it immediately gets complicated. Well, the movie opens and we see, I would estimate, about 3.5 billion years worth of evolution of the Minions.

They start as single-celled organism Minions. They are following the biggest, baddest creatures in the primordial soup. Then one day, they emerge from the ocean, having evolved into the modern minions that we recognize. Yes, the minions do subscribe to the evolution theory. This is a godless world in which they live. Which again like you're like okay minions i feel like part of this was in response to like there were so many memes about the minions in the early years of despicable me where they would be like do they have skeletons what do they look like with their goggles off you know just like sort of a bunch of like sorry but like

really loud guys on youtube being like, what is this? Like, you know, and I feel like all of those questions are answered in the opening sequence of this movie. But yeah, the minions, they're Darwin-ing. They're evolving. Yes. They also, as Pierre Coffin has said, they don't reproduce. And ostensibly, from what I can gather, they don't reproduce. And ostensibly, from what I can gather, they don't reproduce,

which would make sense because it seems like they can't die. They might be invincible. Yeah. I mean, maybe there's some wild shit going on in Despicable Me 3, but of the four out of five movies I've seen,

and I double checked this to be thorough for this episode, the closest you see to a minion dying, which I guess maybe does make the cartoon violence a little more palatable as you're like led to believe like they're bonked, but they're never actually hurt. There is a minion at one point that gets, I think it's despicable to be one who like ends up getting sucked into space. Oh. But he's just like floating up getting sucked into space. Oh.

But he's just like floating in space. They can't die. They're immortal and they don't reproduce. Jealous. I know, truly. So we get voiceover from Jeffrey Rush. He's so good. The minions came to the shore.

His Pirates of the Caribbean residuals, you know, diminishing returns. And he's like, I need a new living room or something. And so he did this movie. I think it's like he wanted to impress his grandson. He wanted his grandson wasn't old enough to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. He's like, all right, check this out. I can't say for sure but anyway he's explaining when wait do you remember when Bill Nighy said mew too mew too it feels like that yes it does okay so Jeffrey Rush is explaining that the minions goal is to

serve the most despicable master that they can find, such as T-Rex during dinosaur times. And then many millions of years later, they start serving humans in caveman times. And then we see them in ancient Egypt. They serve Dracula for a while, later Napoleon, but they always accidentally kill their boss. Which also like would make just, you know, potentially we're recording this before Despicable Me 4 comes out. It would be awesome if they eventually killed Gru. I mean, they can't die. So this whole opening sequence, it's been talked about to death in minions culture yeah but yeah the fact that like just the minions were not just present but critical in the development of life with the dinosaurs with the cavemen yes they not just killed an ancient

egyptian pharaoh they also built the pyramids yes that killed said pharaoh. They also built the pyramids that killed said pharaoh. They are sometimes serving someone who is fictional, like Dracula. They are sometimes serving someone that people might argue is too real, like Napoleon.

And what I think is really interesting that they do, and again, it's like this is applying an adult brain to a kid's movie about little guys bonking each other in the head. But I think like Napoleon already feels like if they have to go to the most evil master, Napoleon makes sense. If you know anything about the Napoleonic Wars, wild to imply what they might have done while working for him but it feels like this like franchise in general just makes kind of like slapdashed i mean and also pierre cofan is french so it feels like he's fucking with french history in a way that feels a little tongue-in-cheek yeah but like the things that they I feel like sometimes the Minions movies will just

decide like, well, we're over that. We're not over this. We're in this. They're like, well, the Napoleonic Wars were so long ago. People won't care if the Minions were there. But there is a very deliberate decision for the 150 years before the movie starts that the Minions are out of play for any human atrocities that happened between the civil war the minions were not there and onwards like basically anything from the last century and a half or so the minions were out of play i think that that's a really smart move i know people have like made fun of it a lot but it's like if these are canonically who we've said the minions are technically when they were introduced in 2010 they were side characters

no one really like you could guess but like no one would have guessed they would have become a global phenomenon and now they have their own movie i think it's very smart to put them in a cave for 200 years right what's the movie gonna do be like yeah and then they worked for hitler no right they fought for the confederacy like no no because we want to love the minions we do they should not have worked for napoleon but they learned their lesson and they migrated to the north pole or wherever the fuck they went right they go into seclusion in this ice cave but after a while in the cave they're growing restless and depressed about not having an evil boss to serve until one day a minion named kevin kevin lemignon to be exact i love how this is like

kevin's movie the way that like the movie is called mad max but it's about furiosa the movie's called minions but it's about kevin so wait bob is Minions but it's about Kevin so wait Bob is we I guess we didn't have him in this but Bob is your favorite Bob is my favorite yes you're a Kevin head I love Kevin I just love Kevin he's tall and he has leadership qualities I love him yeah I love Bob because he likes animals and he carries a little teddy bear around. He's adorable. He's the cutest and sweetest. Yeah, Bob is an empath.

I love when he meets Poochie. My mom does this thing called Minion Mondays in her second grade classroom where you get some sort of like if you wear yellow or blue on a Monday if you're just like minion cosplaying on a Monday she'll give you like a treat or something but on every minion Monday my mom will be like asking the kids like okay who's my favorite minion and everyone will say Bob and then my mom will be like and who does Jamie want to marry and then they'll all go Kevin because I said that to them oh I know it impacted I didn't realize what an impact it would be to say that I wanted to marry Kevin the Minion but I do feel like he has the qualities outside of being like a proven war criminal apparently like he has many of the qualities i'm looking for

like having leadership qualities and and giving you a little kiss oh he is nerd he wipes the crud off of bob's face and then when he's all big spoiler alert he kisses all his friends he does it's really nice the minions they care about each other. They love each other. And I love that they all have like fuck boy names. That is like a feature of the minions. It's like Kevin, Bob, Stuart, Chris. Dave.

Just like random guys. Mel. Yeah. Okay. So one day, Kevin declares that he's going to go back out into the world to find the baddest boss around. Yeah, he's like elected himself as Luke Skywalker. He's like, I just realized I am the protagonist. So here I go. I'm the chosen one. He recruits some help some minions within minions. When you think about it. Okay, layers, like onions have layers, ogres have layers, blah, blah, blah.

Shrek. The help, the minions, are Stuart and Bob. Stuart's a bit of a rock star. He's got a bit of an ego on him. He's a little horny. He tries to have sex with not one, but three fire hydrants. Yeah, yeah. He's a little horny. He tries to have sex with not one, but three fire hydrants. Yeah.

Yeah. He's trying to initiate a threesome at one point with two fire hydrants. I love it. And that's pretty cool. Yeah. I think that's really forward thinking. Yeah. Polyamorous King Stewart. Okay.

So the three of them, Kevin, Stuart, and Bob, set off, eventually making their way to New York City. Ever heard of it? The year is 1968. And boy, will they do. We were joking about this in our recently recorded Madam Web episode about how that movie at some point in production was decided to be in 2003. And they really bonk you over the head with like, remember this? And it doesn't bother me when the Minions do it because they do it so much that it starts to be parody. Like how expensive was this soundtrack?

It was every single song that dads like. The Beatles, the everything was in this movie. Oh yeah. So everything was in this movie. Oh, yeah. So they are in New York and they learn about something called VillainCon, a convention in Orlando, Florida, where villains gather from all over. special appearance by scarlet overkill the world's first female super villain okay feminism alert wee woo wee woo okay you're joking but i feel like scarlet overkill we've talked about this of like how the girl boss phrase is so liberally given out and And I feel like sometimes it's just like a term that's weaponized to be like a woman I don't like who has more power than me is like labeled as a girl boss, when the definition of a girl boss is a woman who uses feminist language to accrue conventional conventional patriarchal power. And that is Miss Scarlet Overkill to the hilt.

She is a girl boss. And the minions are enthralled by Scarlet and they want to work for her. So they hitchhike to Orlando with a family who turns out to be bank robbers who are also headed to villain con another weird page like we didn't need that that could have been anyone right the mom and dad of this family are voiced by michael keaton and allison jannie which i genuinely didn't even know until this viewing

oh really oh wow yeah i didn't clock their voice and then when you know you know but that kind of bumps me out i feel like the art of voice acting is a very specific one and it's just sort of been like mowed over by like celebrity stunt casting in the last since like lindsey ellis has a good video about it since like aladdin so like the last 30 years yeah that's why i don't like john hamm in the role i don't like sandra bullock in the role i like them as actors in general but like they're not as strong voice actors as actual voice actors yeah every time I watch this movie I think that it's Jason Manzoukas and not Jon Hamm does that connect at all every single time I've watched this movie I was like wait and then I

remember it's Jon Hamm but it feels like it's Jon Hamm doing a Jason Manzoukas I mean I'm a huge Jason Manzoukas fan I think he would actually be a great choice for that character because it just sounds like him anyways. Right. No, I see that. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways. But yeah, the celebrity stunt casting, it's like this movie has a fairly low budget for what it is, but it could have been even lower by just not doing that.

I don't know. Right. I feel like no one is more likely to see this movie because Michael Keaton plays a bit part. Like, it just doesn't make sense. No. I don't know why they do that. But anyway, the family that they're hitching a ride with robs a bank and the minions help them get away by basically killing a bunch of cops. So the minions say ACAB.

I mean, but if they're working for the most evil people. But they do kill, like, another thing about this sequence I've always sort of like paused by is how obviously dead those cops are. It's like that car crash is so bad. They killed them. They killed cops. Yes.

And, you know, God bless. Love you guys. Yep. So then Kevin, Stuart, and Bob arrive at VillainCon and watch this, like, presentation thing from Scarlet Overkill, voiced by Sandra Bullock, where she says she's looking for new henchmen. And whoever can steal the ruby she's holding gets the job. So a bunch of kind of wannabe villains try and grab the ruby, including Kevin, Bob and Stuart. And also there's like a meaningless plot point added here that like Kevin has a crush on Scarlet Overkill. Right. But I was like, because they canonically don't experience desire that it was just like he wanted her validation or something i don't know that's my husband i couldn't tell if it was

like a romantic crush or if he was just enamored by the idea of working for her because she's presented as being like the awesomest supervillain at the time. Right, of her acceptance. I'm going to go with that because that's literally my boyfriend. He's taken. Well, the minions are asexual. Canonically, they don't reproduce. Yes, they're canonically asexual. I mean, even though we were not allowed to receive them as genderless icons,

as non-binary icons, we can still accept them as asexual icons. Well, that doesn't explain why Stuart wants to have sex with those two fire hydrants then. I think that Stuart is just kind of, watch me like totally deflect. I think Stuart's just kind of like doing his own thing. Okay, sure. Let's his own thing. Okay. Sure. Let's go with that.

Yeah. In any case. So these villains are trying to pass this test from Scarlet Overkill, including Kevin, Bob and Stuart, who end up being the ones to take the ruby from her. And Scarlet is impressed. She hires them and then she takes them to London, England. Ever heard of that? And the reason she goes there is because Scarlet wants Queen Elizabeth's crown. And if you're wondering, are we going to meet Queen Elizabeth in 1968? Yes, we do. Yes. Another canonical girl boss. And also we're like, okay, if the minions work for the most despicable

person around, would that not be the royal family of England? I know. I know. At any year? The rules are unclear. And we're not given

a list of Scarlet's crimes. I know. It's like, it really does feel like evil is like just sort of applied to like general vibes

and aesthetics versus actual things done. But whatever. Probably better for the kids. Right. I don't think the kids need the details. Yeah. Well, I don't know.

I think kids should learn about the atrocities of imperialism and colonialism of the world early on but that's just me i agree but not in a minions movie not in a minions movie right like that's like we'll kick that to pixar and see how they do but i do feel like there is value in escapist media and that's minions i just like if you're going to minions to learn you gotta get a library card like grow up right kids okay so scarlet wants queen elizabeth's crown because it's established that she has some possible unresolved childhood trauma and she wants to be a princess so that everyone will love her yeah and she wants the minions to steal the crown for her we meet her husband herb played by john ham he gives kevin stewart and bob some gear and some weapons and then they head to the Tower of London where the Queen's crown is kept.

They use Herb's devices to try to steal the crown, but then it gets delivered to Queen Elizabeth, voiced by Jennifer Saunders of Shrek 2 fame. No way. Wait, I didn't know this. Yeah, she plays the fairy godmother. Whoa. Yeah. This isn't even a dreamworks

thing it's just a coincidence that's nice it's that universal umbrella i guess wow i know i love it so the minions are chasing queen elizabeth they're flopping all over london there's a lot of you know minions slapstick happening. They get stomped on by the Beatles. Like it truly is like all of these micro. And I also feel like while this movie is such a global product, it also feels weirdly personal to the like people at the top of illumination who grew up in the 60s and 70s and that's why these minions movies take place when the creators of this product happen to be growing up like there is also a level of like old guy nostalgia to like what if we put the beatles in here what if we did this what if we did this where it just clearly feels like stuff that like pierre cofant kyle balda and chris melandroni liked when

they were kids which is not a criticism it's. Yeah. It's like they're doing the nostalgia thing. It's like if I made a Minions movie. And I should. And was like. And here's a Backstreet Boys song. You know. Whatever. Oh.

I can't wait till we get that. In. I don't know. 20. 30. 8. Or sooner. Yeah.

Come on. Give me some credit. Yeah. I mean. And every Minions movie tends to advance by like a decade. Where they're in the 60s, they're in the 70s. The next movie, theoretically, they'll be in the 80s. We'll see.

Wow. I'll wait till the end of the recap to get there, but I have a timeline criticism, but I'll save it. Okay, fair enough. Okay, so the Minions are flopping all around town and some cops are chasing them. So Bob pulls the legendary sword in the stone out of the stone, I guess, to fight off the cops. But that makes him the rightful king of England. So Queen Elizabeth has to hand over her crown, which makes Scarlet overkill upset because she wants to be royalty. She thinks the minions are betraying her and like claiming the throne for themselves.

The girl bosses have turned on the minions. It's bad. It's bad. But we do get the amazing, according to second graders, because I've watched it with them. There is nothing a seven year old loves more than the King Bob sequence. It's so good. Second graders love King Bob, especially because it's like, I think Bob is probably the most emotionally intelligent, like easy insert for kids. Because it's like, he's really excited.

And then he gets the job of king of england and then all of a sudden he's nervous and he just wants his friends and it's really cute i know and they also destroy buckingham palace like they're agents of chaos yeah i really don't think that if left in power the minions would colonize places i think they would just jump on the bed and like eat it's true they would eat bananas right because we're told they're bad but they're bad in a directionless way if left to their own devices they will just jump on the bed yeah and then they kill their bosses so yeah honestly they should work for more evil people and then accidentally kill them.

I think we actually have to we should be thanking them for killing so many bad people. Yeah. Well, anyways, we've also been periodically cutting to the rest of the minions who are still in this like Arctic cave. Kevin had called them at one point to tell them that they have a new boss. So now all of the other minions are on their way to England to serve Scarlet Overkill. Back in London, Scarlet storms in on Bob being king. She's furious at the minions for betraying her. But Bob willingly hands over the crown and his royal position to Scarlet,

even changing the laws to make that legally possible. He's just a baby. He's just a little baby. And now the minions think they're going to serve Scarlet, now that she's queen. But instead, she locks them in a dungeon. And this is when Herb tries to torture them and tries to hang Kevin. Truly a shocking image.

The setup is like, oh, I'm going to get the minions with all these medieval torture devices, which feels very, you know, like Looney Tunes-y. And there's never a fear that the minions will actually get hurt. It's nothing like that. But it's just like the fact that they lead with, I'm going to hang the minions, which is something that like, I think they should have maybe started that sequence

with something that no longer exists. But the fact that they started with publicly hanging the minions, it was just wild. It was wild. Yeah. And then Kevin goes, bo minions. It was just wild. It was wild. Yeah. And then Kevin goes, whoop. He just falls through. Yeah, they're little minion bodies.

I love them. I love them. They're so smooth. It's true. Now, they find a way to escape and they make their way to Westminster Abbey where Scarlet is getting ready for her coronation because they want to

apologize to her but they accidentally almost kill her because again they're always killing their bosses by dropping a chandelier on her and Scarlet thinks that the minions did this intentionally so she sends all of the other villains slash like wannabe henchmen who were at VillainCon after the minions. Kevin, Stuart, and Bob get separated from each other during this chase. And the bad guys capture Stuart and Bob.

What their plan is is so unclear. Where at some point this movie just becomes like Scarlett v. Kevin. Mm-hmm. And you're just like, now what did Kevin ever do to you? And the answer is nothing. All he ever did was love you. But Scarlett threatens to kill Stuart and Bob if Kevin doesn't come back by dawn.

We cut back to Kevin. He sneaks into Herb's room of supervillain devices, and he accidentally ends up in this machine that makes him huge, like the size of a 10-story building. And he saves Stuart and Bob, who are about to be blown up. But Scarlet has this rocket dress that she's using to attack them it's great i mean the scarlet overkill looks are great for me i love it the other minions the ones who are in the cave they show up and she's trying to kill them too so giant kevin takes her rocket and he puts it in his mouth and then he grabs Scarlet and Herb.

And it seems like they're all about to explode. But surprise, Kevin is alive and he's back to his normal size. So we're not really sure how that happens. No, it's important to emphasize the global impact of when Kevin got big. Yes. No one saw it coming. And I feel like at some point with the minions that they're also doing in Despicable Me 4

where they're leading the marketing heavily with the mega minion. Yes. Which I hope is not just an echo of we've had evil minions. We've had mega minions. We've had minions with braces in the form of Otto in the rise of Gru yeah big Kevin was a watershed moment for minions because you realize like they're little guys but that's not always going to be true the fact that they

blew Kevin up like like, just again, like, cartoon violence moments that I feel like rarely happen in contemporary movies, where we talked about this in some Pixar episode where, like, I expressed some frustration of, like,

it now feeling like there was a necessity that a villain be redeemable or, like, defined by trauma or, like, that there would be some defense and that like i understand the like i understand where that comes from but i just like don't find it very fun to watch to be like at the end of toy story 4 where if we forgive the villain and they were actually more complicated than we realized and then at the end of minions kevin blows up like his whole body he swallows a rocket

and he blows up and then we are allowed to believe if and it also like if i'm five years old i believe kevin has died yeah of course the minions are humming taps which is so funny. Because also, like, theoretically, this is the first minion to ever die. Yeah. And then he's fine. Like, I just I love that sequence so much. It just it makes me happy that we have our own Looney Tunes where you're like, he's immortal. Kevin never truly blew up. But it's also like, whatever, narratively important that bob believed he could have died

i mean we gotta feel those stakes somehow and then he has poochie kids also love poochie the little rat yes bob's rat friend yeah wow what a special movie yeah yeah then they get knighted and you're like all right okay yeah so here's how it ends. There's this big celebration where Queen Elizabeth, who has been reinstated as the royal leader, commends Kevin, Stuart, and Bob for their's crown, but she is immediately stopped via an ice gun that belongs to, drum roll please, Gru. And the minions see him and they're like, hubba hubba, who's that? And that's how they find their new boss. The end. And here's my timeline issue. Okay, so Minions 1 takes place in 1968. At the end of the movie, we see Gru

for the first time. He appears to be 10, 11 years old. Minions 2 takes place in 1976. That's eight years after the first movie. Gru says he's almost 12. So in eight years after the first movie. Gru says he's almost 12. So in eight years, Gru has aged nothing, no amount of time.

What's up with that? I don't have answers. I have no answers. I guess what I can say is that Gru is obviously built different, you know. But in terms of an answer, that's about as close as I can get. Yeah. No, I don't know. And I feel like Gru will be 13 in Minions 3 and it will inevitably be 1987.

So I don't know. These movies are so vibes. And also like part of why I think I just really have a bone to pick with Gru where he is just like the like he is necessary I feel like this movie does prove he's necessary you do need a human character grounding all these little guys and Scarlet Overkill is comparatively random to have done so so I know Gru's necessary but it is kind of nice to have one movie that it's like,

oops, no Gru. Yeah. But Rise of Gru is a better movie. I would agree with that. It has a slightly more cohesive story. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to discuss. Hey, everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what

democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.

My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

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

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

This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. and we're back here we are okay where do you want to start i would like to talk about the gender of the minions yes which will directly intersect with a critical interview in minions in Minions lore with Pierre Coffin. Yes. So here's my thing with it, where Minions creator

Pierre has said explicitly that the Minions are all male. They, of course, are always voiced by actors who are men, including Pierre Coffin himself. he told The Wrap in 2015 regarding the gender of the Minions, quote, seeing how dumb and stupid they often are, I just couldn't imagine Minions being girls, unquote. First of all, using ableist language to characterize the Minions, not cool. I'll give him the pass of like, we were also using those words in 2015. Be serious. Fair for fair. Yeah. Secondly, yes, the minions are silly and slapsticky and childish, and they're usually not able to apply logic in many situations. But girls can be that way too. People of any gender can be anything. And I'm sure Pierre meant this as a compliment,

but a very narrow view like this perpetuates very rigid binary expectations of gender. And then I was thinking about slapstick comedy as a medium or slapstick humor in movies and entertainment. And yes, goofiness and physical humor and slapstick has often been associated with men and especially white men. You've got your Charlie Chaplins, your Buster Keatons, the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges. Right, which has everything to do with like, who is allowed to be in movies at that time. For sure. Women have been figures of slapstick comedy throughout history. I was researching a few examples from like early Hollywood, such as Mabel Normand, Marion Davies, Mary Pickford. of course, more recent contemporary examples, actors like Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy. So women are participants of physical comedy and slapstick humor in entertainment, but it's just that they're often not associated with it and they never get the same level of fame and recognition. And I think what Pierre actually is saying when he says this quote is, I don't think

women are funny or capable of physical humor. I think you're being really mean. I disagree with you. I mean, I think that where he's pulling from is like a clear mid 2010s feminism of this sort of like, well, to imply that a woman would be incompetent would be sexist, right? Like, it just feels like a retconning of like, I would really be curious what the minions were originally intended to be. I think that no one was really thinking about it. They've always been given traditionally male names. Yeah. What I wish she had said, because what I feel like is probably closer to the truth is like, I really liked the Marx Brothers and I just wanted to make a million Marx Brothers. I do think that like there is some like gender discrimination built into that. I don't think it is like supervillain levels of because, again, like the language. Fair enough.

But like this is 10 years ago and those words were not commonly considered to be ableist at that time. Fair. But I think even in 2015, the decision to say definitively that all of these characters are men is bizarre because why not just say they're whoever you want them to be? I know. Because I feel like in children's media, especially like I would also think it would be weird if he was like, no, explicitly. Some are women. Some are not. Like, it's more just like, who cares? They're little guys.

Guys in the genderless sense. Like they're little guys. They're whoever you want them to be. If you think they're funny, then you like them. I think it's interesting that he went out of his way to declare them to be men. I don't think it makes him a bad person. I think it is an interesting choice. Given his background, and this is a little bit speculative, he had a French father and an Indonesian mother. And his mother was a very prominent Indonesian feminist novelist

of her generation. So Pierre Coffin, like he's not just being a de doy guy. He grew up around feminism and feminist ideas. And so the fact that his most notorious creation, he goes out of his way to say like I am insulting women by implying that, which I agree is completely misguided. And like slapstick is for people, people fault that like, but I do wonder if there is some like Gen X disconnect happening here, where it's clear that he definitely grew up around intense feminist ideas. His mother, I don't know how to pronounce her name. Honestly, I'm not familiar with Indonesian culture. But her name, her first name is spelled NH. Her last name is Dini. And she and his father, they got married, his father was a diplomat. And she became a prominent Indonesian feminist novelist. So I don't know. I mean, I don't feel comfortable speculating why anything happened in any direction. Because when

Pierre Coffin gives interviews, he seems to have more of a bone to pick with his father than his mother. So, you know, I think the easy answer is like he had an issue with his mother's feminist ideas and wanted to rebel. I don't think that that's actually the case. It seems like he had a lot of love for his mother. She passed in 2018. So she also lived to see the Minions. Both of his parents did. in a 2015 interview with The Guardian to promote this movie is that Minions were not particularly inspired by his parents because he found his parents as a serious novelist and a diplomat to

not be very funny and that he was interested in cartoons. he was interested in humor, and it wasn't necessarily something that was encouraged. So he says in this interview, quote, My dad said watching TV was too passive and didn't make you think, so I found this other side. I needed some sort of distraction, so I drew a lot, I read a lot, and I listened to a lot of music, but I never considered a career in the arts. I was surrounded by people who were better than me, but that gave me inspiration to find out how they did it better. A diplomat isn't like a really funny guy. And my mom's stories are biographies, mostly about how she used to live in Indonesia during the Dutch colonies. So it wasn't really fun. I have no clue where that humorous gene comes from, but France does have a culture of cartoons.

And then speaking to his parents a little later, he talks about how his kids inspire Minions jokes and whether they work or not. But in 2015, so a few years prior to his mother's death, he says, quote, My mom had the life of an artist, so I'm living her dream a little bit, and she's super proud of me. But my father, who is nearly 90, it's fair to say he's not really embracing my success. This is not serious for him. As soon as I started saying I really want to make movies, I'm not going to say he never helped me, but he never encouraged me to do this. We're not getting along that well because he's got that little resentment about him being wrong and not admitting it. So it's very tricky. He always has this idea of me working in show business, meaning that I'm strange. He never wanted me to do this. He never wanted me to

have a serious job. And that's how the interview ends. Whoa. And so I do think it's fascinating when like you have something like the minions were this like cultural symbol at this point that were invented as and he like talks about this in the interview how he wasn't thinking particularly hard about the minions in Despicable Me 1 he was thinking like what is like a funny like I need minions but I need like these assistants for Gru but the difference that will endure the audience is that he will know all of their names and that will make kids and audiences think like oh they all have names he knows their names maybe he's not such a bad guy and then the only other thing he was thinking about with the minions per this

interview is that they need to be you know sweet enough that Gru knows their names and they have to be easy for kids to draw, which they definitely are. Yeah. And that was it. And so I don't know. I just think it is like really, really fascinating that the son of this prominent feminist went out of his way to say all these creatures are men. But it's because he thinks men are less smart than women. I think that there's a lot of like, ultimately he's wrong, right? Like that anyone of any gender should be welcome into this world of slapstick.

I don't understand to this day why he wouldn't have just said, I don't know, whatever you want. I feel like that is the smartest answer across children's media or maybe just art in general to be like, I don't have to answer that question. Like, I don't owe you that answer. Right. I will always think it's confusing that he did. But I'm a Pierre Coffin defender. I don't think that he did any of this maliciously based on how I knew he grew up. Yeah. I don't think it's malicious. I think it's more just like he has the way many people still do a kind of narrow view of gender. And the other thing I think is fascinating is the minions are just far more gender fluid or gender neutral than Pierre gives them credit for. Yeah, they are male coded, but we often see them in drag. They're dressing up as a woman to go to the Tower of London. Which is like so Bugs Bunny coded. I can't even stand it. Like,

the history of drag within cartoons is like, I love that the Min minions are continuing that tradition in minions too one of them dresses in drag to pick up grew from school pretending to be his mom bob's in drag on the plane one of the greatest oh the minions plane scene is like one of the greatest sequences in comedy. It is. It just is. It's very funny. Bob wears a thong, even though he's a baby. So that's curious. But like, what does a baby mean in Minions years? I just would say, you know, don't overthink it. Well, that's true. Yeah, you're right. You're right. So there's the many drag examples. Again, physically, their body shape isn't associated with any gender. They are just little tic tacs, little pills. Yeah. I also feel like their voices could be interpreted as being gender neutral.

Yeah, they're certainly like, as far as I know like edited right so yeah yeah I think the minions are actually genderless icons yeah I would be happy to defer to the fan base on this over the creator I think that like I want to believe that the creator would defer to like it would be really weird and telling if he was like no no, I'm not open to other answers. Like, I'd be curious if someone asked him this question again 10 years later, because it's also whatever the way that like stuff is presented in media. It felt like that headline was presented as a more like definitive thing than it actually was, where what he's saying is like, like well i always thought about it like this for this reason and that was made the headline of like right pierre coffin says minions are men and you're just like yes that is what he said but it wasn't like i feel like it's presented as like he was saying it with his whole chest like i'd be curious to hear this conversation

revisited because i feel like the minions should be interpreted as like the minions are whoever you want them to be yeah they should be you know open to any gender identity they're so special i agree do you have anything else to say about the minions themselves? The minions themselves? I don't think so. Yeah, no, I just, I think that they're the best. I love them.

Let me see if I have anything else about them. I mean, I have a few more things about Scarlet Overkill. Same. But in the primary sense, no, I think like the minions, I wish that they were

open to any gender identity. And I still think that that is possible. Because first of all, like the minions are out of Pierre Coffin's hands at this point. I don't mean to say that his any more than I feel like J.K. Rowling is an easy comp there of like that the creator's opinion, like you do not need to live and die by it. It's like if it's important to you, interpret it as you will. But I just wanted to give more context for his stuff because I feel like he's been presented as sort of someone who is like, no, they're men. And like, I just don't. It doesn't seem to be true.

Yeah. But that's all I have to say about the Binions other than Kevin is the best one. Well, but then consider Bob as. And then I see Bob and I'm kind of like, grow up. I'm kind of like... Well, see, Kevin just like doesn't really know how to have fun. Stuart knows how to have fun. Bob knows how to have fun.

Kevin's sort of like the straight man. Oh, yeah. But like, how are we going to get anything done if Kevin isn't showing up to work? Kevin is not pursuing fire hydrants or feral rats. He's at work okay if i had to determine which minion i was i think it would be kevin because i often i'm like all right let's get shit done but i don't think i would be kevin but i like i'm drawn to kevin i don't even know who i would be of the three i have no idea maybe you are bob And so it's an interesting flip. And that's why you and I are drawn to each other.

Wow. That's beautiful. I wish I had. I like that like Bob has kind of like Kate Bosworth eyes. Oh, yeah. What's that called when your eyes are two different colors. I forget what it's called, but I think it is like both just like a very sweet feature on that character. And also makes sense when you really need people to be able to tell minions apart because they look so similar. Yeah. Anyway, I think that who we are and who we are drawn to can be very different characters. And that's beautiful. And that's beautiful. And that's beautiful. Let's talk about Scarlet Overkill.

Let's do it. So when she is first spoken about before we even meet her on screen, there's like a news broadcast about VillainCon saying, there's a new bad man in town and that man is a woman. Yeah. I feel like that was like a tongue in cheek 1968 and that man is a woman. Yeah. I feel like that was like a tongue in cheek 1968 thing. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

And then she's announced at VillainCon as being the world's first female supervillain. So the Minion world, the world that this movie takes place within is presumably a patriarchal place like ours. It doesn't seem to be like alternate timeline. It just seems like we as people have neglected to see the influence the Minions have had on our world. Right? She's rising to fame and notoriety in this patriarchal world where villains have historically been men. And she's like, no, I'm going to break the glass ceiling, the villain glass ceiling, and I'm going to be the first. That's right.

The first supervillain who's a woman. And she's like the favorite among everyone everyone wants to work for her the minions want to work for her we have that scene with the little girl who's like you know in the bank robber family she's in the car and she's telling one of the minions that she really looks up to scarlet one of the more impactful women in the plot line i would say is this little girl yeah because she's like wow i want to be a super villain here's this super villain who's a woman who i can look up to and be inspired by and that's why representation matters but then we have this presentation from scarlett who says, like, when I first started, people said I could never rob a bank as well as a man. Well, times change. So she faced sexist backlash when she was, you know, I guess a young woman trying to be a villain and a bunch of men told her she couldn't do it maybe women also told

her she couldn't do it right which is very like in line with the like girl boss narrative of like other people doubted my ability to do the same evil thing and like it feels like intentional enough where i mean i don't know because I know that we weren't quite having that conversation now where it was like 2015. Any woman in power is a force of good. And so maybe it's just like that era. But she's also being coded as a villain. I wish we had her resume. I know that it would be harmful to have her resume, but I would just be curious.

It seems like she's just stealing stuff. Yeah, she seems kind of like a petty criminal and i'm like meanwhile there is queen elizabeth like you know who ends up being a hero of the story because this movie has to play in every single theater in the world so you can't actually say anything overtly political right yeah so she is the villain of the movie. She did face adversity becoming the most powerful villain at VillainCon, at least. So did Sheryl Sandberg. She's been pushing. She is good at fighting.

So we see her fight off a bunch of men. And so that was impressive. We also see Queen Elizabeth kick some people's ass right but i feel like that is actually maybe actively harmful is like showing at that time a living colonizer to be like a fun no nonsense girl it's just like yeah that's uh one of the most notorious colonists that's alive like i wish Bob had killed her. Tell me about it. He should have taken that sword and chopped her head off.

Yeah. I think that scene where she's in the pub after she has been dethroned and she's like telling stories and drinking pints of beer and stuff like that. I was getting very Rose from Titanic vibes where she like gulps down some beer and I almost expected her to be like what you think a first class girl can't drink i mean i think that like devoid of any historical context that was like kind of a funny beat yeah the other thing i guess with scarlet's character for me is that and we've had this conversation over and over again at this point but in animation men are often designed to be whatever body shape and size but women or at least the main characters who have narrative significance in a movie who are women often have very you know western beauty standards bodies yeah there's even this like random scene

in the movie where herb is tightening her corset and she's like must have tiny waist and i'm like why is this scene in the movie it has nothing to do with anything yeah but it just feels like it's emphasizing the fact that she has like a very small waist which is true like if i were them i would not be pointing out how very much you're leading it because i mean the whole franchise is guilty of that including like the design of the christian wick character i feel like the most purport like the children are a little more proportionally normal but there are characters that are not wildly thin in terms of like women in this franchise, but they're never characters that are presented as desirable or meaningful.

In terms of adult women that are presented as narratively important, it's very all the same. And that's also true in Rise of Gru, where the most important supervillain is still very, very thin. Yes. I will say that Rise of Gru has a little bit more racial diversity than the first Minions movie because it's almost all white characters, at least the human characters in the movie. And I feel like that's pretty true of the Despicable Me movies as well. So yeah, a lot of like harmful tropes of animation present in this movie. There's the, I would say, queer coded stylist character who gives Scarlett like a makeover right before she's about to be crowned the queen. So we have that tropey character. His name is Fabrice, not unlike Fabricio. Yes.

So just pointing that out. Something to think about. Something to make you think. I don't know if I have much else to say. The only other thing I would say about Scarlet Overkill that I would say is positive is that I think it is generally good to have a woman villain. actually out of touch vibe that Pierre Coffin had when he was like, no, the minions are men, because I don't think women would be so not smart. You know, like, I'm glad that there is a woman villain, and that that woman villain has a loving partner that she also loves. I feel like that is very rare and that you are often encouraged to see when you do get a woman villain, that part of why she is a villain is because

she has a loveless life and that she resents the world and like she's getting back at the world because she doesn't have a boyfriend. And like this movie does pretty clearly subvert that i honestly the first time i saw this movie i remember thinking that like herb was going to end up being evil and like resent her and want to get but that relationship is presented kind of matter-of-factly like where she is the dominant person in this relationship he's her minion kind of yeah i mean even though she's a piece of shit to everyone else including kevin it is kind of rare to see a woman villain who has like who has a loving relationship like that is not the source of the villainy and you know it is kind of like lazy to be like oh it's

some yada yada childhood something whatever but i genuinely prefer that to like i don't have a boyfriend so i'm going to be the queen of england or whatever because i feel like that it's like a common fallback on like a woman scorned so i just wanted to point that out i don't think herb is a great character i like i totally agree that like the celebrity stunt casting, I can take it or leave it. I don't think it's like an active hindrance to enjoying the movie. But I do like that at least they didn't fall back on so many women villains that it's like always exciting to get one. And then I feel like occasionally or often it's like it's because this guy didn't love me. And that's not the case here. Right.

So that's nice. What is the case now that I'm thinking about it? And maybe I'm overthinking it, but she makes a reference to how when she was younger, she was penniless and maybe implies that no one likes her because of that. And that's why she's so hell-bent on like being a princess and having a crown and being royal so there's like a class yeah element to it which kind of implies that like which at least seems more i don't know i

mean no matter what the reason is the movie is not implying that she's right to think it right but at least that's something that like i haven't seen as much of like it's rooted in her own class anxiety and feeling of rejection on the basis of class right which there's plenty of villains you could put in that category too and they all suck because they're villains but like a woman villain whose like root issue is class anxiety it feels a little less usual yeah interesting villain avoids some tropes i think she's like a better villain than we have too many villains in the second minions movie the whole crew yeah which i know is the point but i mean i i like scarlet overkill and i also like don't miss her when she is trapped in ice or whatever. But yeah, I know that she is sort of the groove stand in for this movie because they need a person around for it to work. Yeah.

And she's fine. She's fine. They certainly could have done much worse. And the fact that they went with a woman in the first place. I mean, I'm probably over rewarding them but like in a kid's movie with a villain i mean what disney movie that was formative for us could you say that for it's weirdly like older movies like witches and blah blah blah like ursula yeah that's true there's some but as we've pointed out on the podcast before, there's a trend of if the protagonist is a woman, that's the only condition where the villain would also be a woman.

As if to say, sure, a woman could not be a formidable opponent if the protagonist was a man. So not true here. Not because we've been aggressively told they're all men. Yeah. And the fact that the minions, they genuinely do just want the most evil boss. They're not concerned about the gender of the boss. They were like, oh, Scarlet Overkill's the most evil person? Great. Like, you know, which I don't know.

These movies are not meant to shape your mind in any way, shape or form. Like, whatever. I don't think it passes the Bechdel test, and I'm giving it five nipples. The closest thing I could come to it possibly passing because... Is it in the car? It's in the car. Tina is the little girl in the robber family. She says, after the bank robbery,

I tripped the alarm i stink her dad says you're still learning her mom chimes in and says your father's right tina he wasn't this good at being evil overnight your time is coming tina doesn't respond so at no point are women you know characters who are women or girls actually meaningfully interacting. So I'm going to say a no. Yeah, I would say no. It doesn't pass the Bechdel test. It doesn't meaningfully move the needle, I think, in any direction.

Like, I don't think this is pushing forwards or backwards. I'm giving it five nipples. I'm going first today, I've decided. Oh, no, that's fine. I'm giving it five nipples because I like it and it's fun to me. And I'm giving one to Bob. I'm giving one to Stuart.

I'm giving one to Kevin. I'm giving one to Scarlett Overkill and I'm giving one to Kevin. I'm giving one to Scarlet Overkill. And I'm giving one to Poochie. And that's what I'm doing. I love that. And I can't wait to see Despicable Me 4. Oh, wait. The last thing I wanted to say was that I really like the Minions movies compared to the Despicable Me movies.

Because the Despicable Me movies do something that I feel like a lot of kids movies do that it's whatever the Despicable Me movies are predicated on grew adopting three children yes fine adoption is a very complicated conversation but I feel like the Despicable Me movies have like a more traditional agenda of like reinforcing nuclear family values. Because as the movies go on at first, it's like he's a single father with three adopted daughters and they're very happy. But then as the movies go on, it's like, but he needs a wife in Despicable Me 2. And like Despicable Me 3, can't speak to it, haven't seen it. Despicable Me 4, he and Kristen Wiig wife have a baby.

And it's just like building out. That's the premise of the fourth movie is now there's evil baby he already has a baby it's Bob exactly I mean it's like that I really do feel like that side of the franchise grows increasingly entrenched in these very traditional family values which is also not where it's coming from. It comes from a like less traditional family. Yeah. But it grows increasingly traditional as the movies go on in a way that just like doesn't feel, whatever, a family is a family,

but it just feels like a little like growing increasingly conservative in its values. Whereas the Minions movies are Minions bonking Minions on the head, which is literally all anyone wants anyways so minions movies are superior minions 3 comes out on july 4th 2025 see you there whoa god bless america just kidding well yeah i'll be there. I'll see you. I was like, anyways, we'll be there. What is your nipple scale rating for minions? Oh my gosh. Since I don't feel any need to take the nipple scale seriously on this episode,

because we normally take it so seriously. This is a silly one. This is the most important metric of all time. So we normally, you know, take careful consideration. But this time I'll give it. Why not? I'll also give it five nipples. Yeah.

And I'm giving them to Bob and I'm giving them to his little teddy bear, Tim. Oh, I forgot about Tim. Bob is a sweetie. I just love them all. And also the Despicable Me movies feature like B-side minions. Like they, for some reason, don't prominently feature the minions that we know and love. Like they're like, Mel, Chris. Who? I don't know them. Where is Kevin? Where's Kevin? Where's Stuart? Where's Bob? And then in Minions 2, Otto. Otto. And I love Otto.

Otto rocks. Otto has a pet rock. Oh, that's right. I love Otto. Yeah. Aw. And he has braces. I like they're like, how do we differentiate this minion?

He has braces. Who gave him the braces? Don't worry about it. What does he get in the moth? Probably never. Never. Never. Yeah. It'll be so

many years because they're immortal they're like tuck everlight they're the cullens like they just do not die and i'm grateful for that yeah well listeners that has been our minions episode thanks for tuning in thank you so. I'm in a great mood. We, I guess, have to cover the other movies that have Minions in them. I feel like a precedent has been set. I mean, if you enjoyed this episode, please let us know.

Like, we've covered, yes, well, this is a great transition. Other ways to get other episodes from us is to go to our Patreon, aka aka matreon where every month for five dollars a month we cover two new movies just caitlin and myself for five dollars a month and by signing up you also get access to a back catalog of over 150 episodes and yes one of those episodes is about despicable me one if you want to more, please let us know because we want to. Yes, we do.

I have to talk about Bob as much as possible. Yeah. And then you can also follow us on social media, mostly Instagram at this point, at Bechtelcast. You can go to our merch store at tpublic.com slash the Bechtel cast. I feel like we need some Minions merch, Jamie, not to put you on the spot, but I'll get right on it. I'll get right on it. We have baby Grinch. Like, come on. Come on. We have that and not Minions. Yeah. What the heck? I know.

It's on me. So thanks for listening and poo-bye. Poo-bye. The Bechdelcast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan, with vocals by Catherine Voskrosensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus. And a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo.

For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree.com. Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's to help me out,

like Ezra Klein, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, Karl Rove, and David Axelrod. But we're also gonna have some fun, thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee and Charlemagne the God. We're gonna take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I'm Jacob Goldstein. I used to host Planet Money. Now I'm starting a new show. It's called What's Your Problem?

Every week on What's Your Problem, entrepreneurs and engineers describe the future they're going to build once they solve a few problems. I'm talking to people trying to figure out how to do things that no one on the planet knows how to do, from creating a drone delivery business to building a car that can truly drive itself. Listen to What's Your Problem on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.