The Bechdel Cast - Mission Impossible with Alex Schmidt

Episode Date: July 26, 2018

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to listen to Caitlin Durante, Jamie Loftus, and special guest Alex Schmidt as they discuss Mission Impossible.(This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @AlexSchmidty Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project.

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On the Bechtelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus. And we host a podcast about the portrayal of women in movies. We sure do. I can't really see you.

I know. This is weird. There's a bunch of mics in the way. Here we go. This is better. Hi, Jamie. Missed you. So we talk about the representation of women in film and how it's usually bad.

Yes. That's our go-to. We use the Bechdel test as a jumping out point for discussion. A test created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in the 1980s that features a... Hey, what is it? Do you want me to say it? Yeah, I forget. The Bechdel test requires that a movie, let's say, has two female identifying characters in it with names.

Yes. They have to speak to each other and guess what they should not be talking about men can we can we test drive it right now please yes hey caitlin hey jamie what's up there's something about the movie we're discussing today that i found very distracting what is it the bone structure of the lead actress was, it was too, does it pass the Bechdel test if I'm body shaming a hot woman's face? But I do like, okay, the main actor, who is even the main actress in this film we're discussing today? Because it looks like her bones were stung by bees. Her cheekbones are so out of her face i believe you're talking about the character claire played by emmanuel i don't know what this last name is anyways that did pass the it did but again i don't know why we're judging a woman by her looks or even talking about it

that's i mean but but her her bones did get stung by bees and I wanted to raise awareness. Someone get help for Emmanuelle Bilt. Get the bees away from her. Yeah. Anyway, so usually we don't body shame women on the podcast. I was doing that to prove that the Bechdel test is actually flawed. Wow, Jamie. Yes. There was a method.

It's not a perfect system. No. Mistakes are made. Which is why we always have a larger conversation about just the treatment of women in general in the movie. So we are talking about Mission Impossible. And we have a guest here with us, as always. Yes. He is a comedian a writer, and host of the Cracked podcast, Alex Schmidt. Hey, great to be here. Hi, thanks for being here. I'm so glad to be doing this. I got to go back to the 90s by watching the movie. It's great. I'm feeling really good. So what is your history with Mission Impossible, the movie, the franchise? I'm someone who grew up on a lot of james bond movies my grandma worked at our local library and they had only very specific things on vhs and one of them was the entire james bond franchise and so i saw all of them when i was really really young and then i

just needed more movies along those lines and so i got into the mission impossible franchise oh nice like it's kind of i feel like it's kind of a filler placeholder for when you're out of James Bond movies. You can watch Tom Cruise. Yeah, it's kind of diet James Bond. What if James Bond were American and way shorter? Welcome to Mission Impossible. And then I feel like when you're out of Mission Impossible movies, you're like, let's see what Jason Bourne is doing. And then when you're out of Jason Bourne, you're like... Because Matt Damon's not even fun to watch. At least Tom Cruise is fun to watch. Yeah.

And Tom Cruise and Matt Damon are both way bigger stars than basically everyone who's played James Bond, except maybe Sean Connery. But it's just a much more interesting character somehow, James Bond. I feel like especially Ethan Hunt is so... He's like a robot boy. name is ethan i'm just like yeah i dare like there i'm only going to to sympathize or feel for a character named ethan to a point there's just you got to be a really stellar ethan for me to go the extra mile for you right they can't have a super secret agent named Braden. You know, I'm not on board.

Right. Like, I'm out immediately. Man, people are going to listen to this podcast in 10 years and be like, what's wrong with Ethan? Ethan is our president. What if we had a President Ethan? That's what I'm saying. It would be confusing.

Sure, yes. I don't know how the Canadians adjusted to a Justin. Right? Having a man named Justin in charge just feels like, is he ready? Regardless of how qualified he is, his name's Justin, so is he ready? I don't know. He sounds like he's 14. Yeah, I see what you're saying.

Anyways. Anyway, so you grew up, what'd you say, with this franchise? I'm way into spy movies, yeah. I'm pretty sure I didn't see this one in theaters because it came out in 96, so it didn't quite line up. But I'm pretty sure I saw the rest of them in theaters and also needed to Google all of them to remember the plots or what happens. Well, not to brag, but in preparation for this episode. She went full dummy on this one. I went like deep cover into Mission Impossible.

You were in the mainframe. I hacked into the mainframe. I am now a member of the IMF. I'm so excited of like how much we get to talk about hacking today. Can I just say I'm so thrilled. There's so much. Also, the IMF, I think in real life is some kind of World Bank sort of thing. It's very distracting every time they say it in the movie. Yeah, I think they're gonna do loans or something.

I don't remember that actually being the name of their organization in the movies. Okay, so my history is that I, well, I just rewatched all five of them within the span of 48 hours. Brag. Yeah. I'm so sorry, or proud. Okay okay i like this franchise um it's fine yeah i have fun with it i don't love it i don't think they're cinematic masterpieces but especially as they go on i think they get better and i enjoy like ghost protocol especially i liked rogue ghost protocol is my son's name really Because that's my stripper name. And they both can be president. Right.

President Ethan. Go Ethan, my president. But I similarly grew up with this franchise. So the first one came out in 96. I was 10. So I don't think I saw it right away. I think I saw it when I was like 12. If you had asked me at that age what my favorite song was, I would have told you it was the Mission Impossible theme song.

It's a very good theme song. Yeah. It's great. It's great. Like James Bond. It just works. Yeah. And then I did see Mission Impossible 2 in theaters at a drive-in movie theater.

No way. In whatever year that was. And if you'd asked me that year what my favorite movie was, I would have told you Mission Impossible 2, even though that movie stinks and is bad. But then and then all the other ones I saw like in theaters, I enjoy them and I'm excited about Fallout coming out. So yeah, I would say I have a certain soft spot for Mission Impossible. Yeah, it's also it's like the Fast and Furious franchise where it's gotten better lately too. Like they're on an upswing. So with a new one coming out,

I'm stoked. See, I tapped out at Tokyo Drift, I think. I haven't seen any. Tokyo Drift is, wait, is that,

was that a joke? No. Fast and Furious. Oh, we're talking. Wait, I just got so confused. Mission Impossible,

Tokyo Drift. Can I say something about this movie which is that i don't understand a thing i felt insane watching this movie because this is a movie for the public it's not supposed to be like you can't see mission impossible unless you have a graduate degree which by the way caitlin does don't know that jamie you know that i hate to bring it up so thank you so much for bringing up that i do have a graduate degree, which, by the way, Caitlin does. Don't know if you know that. Jamie, you know that I hate to bring it up. So thank you so much for bringing up that I do have a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University. But yeah.

I took the Mensa exam the other day, failed. And it's because I don't understand what happens. I can't make heads or tails of what happens in this fucking movie. And like I was telling you guys in the elevator, like, I thought something was happening. And I was like, okay, let me just check Wikipedia to make sure this is what is actually happening. Something totally different was happening that also makes no sense to me. This movie is for intellectuals. I'm literally too stupid to watch this movie.

It felt very bad. No, I don't think that's true. I only barely understand what happens in the movie because I've seen it several times. It felt very bad. No, I don't think that's true. I only barely understand what happens in the movie because I've seen it several times. It doesn't totally make sense. So your history, Jamie, is that you just saw it. I watched it this morning. And I was

sitting so... I didn't start watching the movie as close to my television as I ended. I kept getting closer because I was just like, maybe it'll make more sense if I get physically closer to this movie. I don't understand what... Well, shall I give you the recap, Jamie? And maybe it'll help you understand what happens in this wonderful movie. Yeah. But all that said, I think I liked it. I just don't know what

happened. Oh, sure. Well, okay. You're not wrong in finding this movie to be hard to follow because it's certain. Mission Impossible is about Ethan Hunt. He is a spy who works for the IMF, which stands for the Impossible Mission Force. Is that it? I didn't know that's what it stands for and i've seen all of these yeah that is what it's something like that it's definitely impossible mission

something that's bananas yeah how do they recruit anybody right well i think it's somehow affiliated with the cia but i also don't totally understand that because in the later movies like the cia hates the imf so like who knows please don't at me and tell me I wish to remain ignorant of this but anyway okay so Ethan Hunt works for this like spy organization and he and his like team of people get assigned a mission and among the team is um that okay well we'll get there but um first it's Jim Phelps, which is Jon Voight's character. My guy named Jack, which is Emilio Estevez. And then Sarah, Hannah, and Claire.

So this is the team that is tasked. Gender parity on the team. Yeah, exactly. Equal down the middle. It had been a long time since I saw this. And since the very first person I saw was Emilio Estevez, for a second, I thought, oh, is he the lead of all of these?

I forgot. Did I just super, super forget who is the main character in the movies? Because it's just Emilio Estevez for about a minute, which feels like an eternity. I glitched a little bit when I saw him, too, because I was like, oh, that would be kind of better. But then you pan up and you see his frosty tips you're like oh he's a hacker he's a hacker now i understand i you know what i was let down by the fact that he was not wearing tiny glasses which is kind of the hacker's uniform he had the frosty tips he didn't have

the tiny glasses he did have the black turtleneck so it's like he was two-thirds of the way there he went a little rogue by not having tiny reflective glasses. Well, people go rogue in these movies all the time. Yeah. Rogue Nation. Oh, I was going to say, isn't that the name of one? Yeah. Rogue Ghost.

But then there's a... Ghost Nation? Ghost World. There is another hacker who I thought you were talking about, who we meet later on. Yes, the second hacker. The second hacker. That's his character's name. Hacker Redux.

Okay, so this is the team. We've barely begun the recap. It doesn't make any sense. So they are tasked with finding a bad guy who has a list of code names of spies. He has one half of it already and he needs the other half to like actually figure out the identity of the spies. So they're going to basically get evidence that he's trying to steal it and then stop him and figure out who the buyer is and stop him as well. But as they're trying to do this, things start to go wrong and people

start to die and everyone dies seemingly except for ethan um so then he has a run go ethan president ethan i just want to remind everyone we're rooting for ethan because it's hard to remember so ethan hunt is the only one left alive on his team so he calls like his pals at the imf and he's like hey kittredge who's a superior of his he's like, hey, Kittredge, who's a superior of his, he's like, something's happening. And he meets with them and Kittredge believes him to be a mole. And he's like, this whole thing was set up as a mole hunt. And it looks like you're the mole, Ethan Hunt. He's like, no, I'm not.

Your last name is Hunt in everything. Maybe you're the one we're hunting for. I'm in the cia you're like oh this guy's smart yeah yeah yeah so ethan hunt runs away because he's like i'm not the mole but i have to figure out who is now so ethan hunt learns about this mole who's collaborating with an arms dealer named max so he's like i gotta go go find Max and figure out who the mole is. And there's this whole thing where it's like the mole is working with Max on this job that they call

Job 314. And then it's actually that the mole goes by the name Job, and it's a biblical reference. And then he's like, okay. He gets distracted from an Arrested Development stance when they start shouting Job all the time.

And then Ethan Hunt sends an email to Max at job space three colon 14. And that works. Can we talk about the internet in this movie? The internet is the most compelling character in the entire movie. It has the most charisma out of everybody doing laps around our Tom. The way the internet works. There's one point where it says, like, there's a window open that says internet. And then he types in access.

Yeah. And then it says, like, faking. I was like, what is this is a misunderstanding dial-up like what it's like one of those old text adventures where it's like you're in a cave turn left and then you like but somehow it's hacking the internet both hackers talk about the internet in like a way that it's like oh whoever wrote this movie was just hoping no one would ask a follow up question. Because there's the second hacker.

I don't know what his name is, because he comes in over an hour into the movie. Very cool thing to do. Just introduce 500 characters, hour 15 in. Sure. But the second hacker, Luther, says in the same sentence, he says like mainframe, motherboard, hacking, access. And then Tom is like, well, we've got to figure this out. You've got to. And I was like, what are you talking about?

I just want you to know that I just sent an email to max at job space 3 colon 14. And it did not work an error message came up right away and said this address is not recognized the cia wiped them out yeah it's clean wow or scientology got involved they're like this is this was shelly miscavige's email and it's gone now do you guys ever when i see a tom cruise movie i give him a little bit of credit for just not wedging Scientology into it all the time, even though he doesn't deserve any. You know, every time I see a movie with him and it ends, I'm like, oh, it didn't come up once. How about that? Yeah.

I'm like a little bit proud. There's moments where it's like, oh, he could very easily just break the fourth wall and start pitching us. He's got our attention. Right. wall and start pitching us he's got our attention i'm surprised he doesn't use his platform to like hawk scientology but now he he keeps a separation of church and career again yeah all right so the rest of the story is so he is trying to figure out who this mole is named Job 314. This is where I get very lost. So he meets with Max, who turns out is a woman.

Whoa. Whoa. I hate that. How many times are they going to do this twist? The androgynous name twist. Yeah. Hilarious. Love it.

It's so cool. Great. So he meets with Max, and he's like, by the way, Max, who is an arms dealer. Yeah, I'm like an undercover spy and I'm going to get you that list that you wanted. Pay me a bunch of money and reveal to me who Job is. Vanessa Redgrave is fabulous in this part. Yeah, she's great. Yeah, she's great.

But he basically just reveals his whole identity to this person and then he's like i'll get the thing that you wanted this you know list that will compromise the identity of however many undercover spies i think all of them all of them yeah all of them yeah yeah just give me like 10 million dollars and i'll get you this list and i just want to know the identity of the mole and it it's like, that's not a good deal. But we accept it because, you know, we don't understand really what's happening. I also can't hear the plot over the sheer volume of Dutch ankles in this movie. You're just like, I can't. I have no sense of space or time.

Oh, God. So many. Vanessa Redgrave does not, I'm'm pretty sure with the exception of two or three shots never isn't in a dutch angle in this entire why i don't i didn't notice that very much this is a movie for dumb people there's only geniuses and stupid people will understand this movie and appreciate it us gray area people there's nothing. Us like kind of smart people. Okay, so then he compiles this new team of people. Among them is Luther, the new hacker, hacker number two. And they plan to infiltrate the CIA and steal this knock list of the list of all

the names of the spies. And then they do that. And this is supposed to be the impossible mission, because how do you get in? There's a voice activation. There's a retinal scan. The room, if it increases temperature, if there's any pressure on the floor. Hacking, hacking, hacking, hacking. So all this stuff happens. They get the knock list.

Then it's revealed that Jim Phelps, John Voight's character, was the mole all along and he set set everyone up and him not dead at all him not dead at all and his wife Claire who does come back I forgot to mention um and helps Ethan Hunt in his impossible mission Ethan Hunt gropes her and then she's like I'm sad John Voight is dead and I'm like why were you dating him but then they were married they were yeah oh god i was just like i mean of all the uh there you have to suspend your belief a lot in this movie but the fact that she would date john voight who in this movie that is 20 years old is already 500 years old it's just a lot i did and they introduced that marriage very early on and that was it was like an estivus

thing where i was like okay so it's a fake marriage right like it's definitely she's she's part of a scheme and then no actual marriage like that's real everything else is an illusion right yeah the one moment for the claire character that i was actually very, I was like, oh, that was a good acting beasting. When she pretends to find out that John Voight is dead, she goes, Jack is dead? And I was like, oh, she's so sad. She did love him, even though she never sat near him or spoke to him on screen.

It's so confusing. So yeah, the end of the story is basically Ethan Hunt confronting John voight's character and learning that his wife claire was like a double agent and had like crossed him and then she gets shot dead and then he has to like prove to kittredge that he's not the mole he's like here i found the actual mole there's a whole helicopter thing. There's an explosion. There's a train. There's the glasses. There's the John Voight mask.

Right. You're wearing John Voight's face and then you're not. And that's exciting. Yeah. And that's an underrated part because it's they convince Claire to go in a train car and then Tom Cruise masked as John Voight is waiting for her. And then after they speak, real John Voight immediately pops out from a closet, like two feet away from Tom Cruise. So for an indeterminate amount of time, real John Voight

was just watching fake John Voight from very close quarters. Why would you do that? And also, why wouldn't Ethan Hunt sweep the room and make sure his enemy, John Voight, isn't hiding in a closet nearby? Who made that mask? And how were they able to do it on such a quick turnaround?

Well, the later movies show the mask making process and it's really eye opening. Yeah, this franchise is like obsessive about masks. They're way into it. And it's the best. We'll talk about this a little later, but there's certain like recurring things that happen in every Mission Impossible movie.

I'm down for that. I mean, a goofy rubber mask reveal is always very fun. It's not as effectively or tastefully done as it is in The Master of Disguise, which is one of my favorite movies, where James Brolin rips off a mask of Bo Derek and the audience stands in cheers. James Brolin is in that movie? Yes. Or Josh Brolin.

No, James Brolin is in that movie? Yes. Or Josh Brolin. No, James Brolin. The old one. He plays Dana Carvey's father. Dana Carvey's 46 in that movie, but his character is supposed to be 23. It's wild. Oh, my gosh. How dare he? Anyways.

Well, anyway, so that's the story of the first Mission Impossible movie, as far as I can explain it. Let's take a quick break and we will be back in a moment. 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 iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Hey, it's Jay Shetty and welcome to On Purpose. I started this podcast to have real conversations that help you live with more meaning, whether it's navigating navigating relationships working on your mental health or figuring out what you're truly here to do this week i welcomed back dr andrew huberman a neuroscientist and professor at stanford university known for his insightful work on brain development neuroplasticity and the intricate connection between the brain and body letting go and not

trying to control everything but also pushing oneself to be more resilient and tenacious and things of that sort. I feel like all of life is like that. All of life is about, yes, you need to take care of your physiology. You need to get your sleep at night. But it's also okay to get a bad night's sleep every once in a while. It's okay to not do every protocol. In fact, it's encouraged to not do every protocol.

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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.

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Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Hi. Hello. So, Mission Impossible, there are... Sorry, can I just rip off my Jon Voight mask really quick? Yeah, please. It's getting very hot.

Jon Voight, I thought that was you, but it turns out it was Jamie Loftus. No, John Voight is actually out on the balcony. He'll come in now and we'll have a confrontation. As we hinted at during the recap, it seems like there's like a parody within the team. At the beginning. At the beginning of the movie, where it is three men and three women,

but once they all die because they all die uh within the first like 20 minutes except for well claire comes back but um basically two of the three women die two of the three men die so we're left with ethan hunt and claire is like kind of the main players right um in the movie and then it was was president ethan was he dating hot lady with the red lip was that like a thing or were they were just or were they just pretending because of spies do you know what character you're talking about oh kristen's got thomas yes i don't think they were dating i think there's a very classic spy move of the two of us need to pretend to make out so there's a reason we're just in this alley watching somebody. I think they were just doing that.

So they were just, okay. So I was like, I don't know how attached we're supposed to be because then they're just killed. So it starts gender parity and then becomes the opposite as the movie goes on, which is great. Which is great. Because pretty much all the new characters who were introduced aside from max is a man yeah because then we meet kittredge we meet luther we meet krieger because i was like when i was first watching this i was like i didn't super remember it that well i was like oh wow is there gonna be a bunch of women in this movie that's pretty cool forgetting that they almost all die right away also i realized like oh what a pair

what a gender parody on the team but then i think they did gender parody so they could kill female characters to like create weight you know i i think that's kind of why it's such a female team honestly like to give it like if it was an all-male team and they all die it's like less feeling maybe is probably actor producer tom cruise's opinion i think it was pretty rough yeah and then he gets to have the moment with with kristin scott thomas of like you wouldn't have that if that was an all-male team of like oh we get a we get a kiss and we get a i don't i don't like that they bring all the women and then they're like okay well we're gonna murder them but we're gonna bring the model back uh and she's john voight's wife yeah yeah actually if he and a male agent did the fake out make out in the alley that would have ruled would have been great that was their

move like fake out let's make out yeah let's start a band called fake out make out right like what would he have done if the spy that he had been like paired up with was a man and it just yeah it feels gross that it's like oh well she's a woman so what choice do you have but to pretend to make out with her and it's like no which is something that happens a lot in these movies where and this one the first one specifically so uh claire comes back after ethan hunt thinks that she is among all the people who have died on his team. But she comes back and he's extremely suspicious of her because he thinks maybe she's the mole or maybe the mole sent her. So he like pretty violently grabs her, rips off her coat, like manhandles her, pats her down.

He grabs her boobs. Pats her down in a very like sexually aggressive way throws her on the bed gets on top of her she's crying he's like who sent you who sent you she's like no like this is the rendezvous we're supposed to like meet at oh 400 he's screaming at her his face is like inches away from hers and it's like take away the context of the scene and just look at the image and it could easily almost look like a sex scene where he's like they're on a bed right he's on top of her so it's making what's very like a very violent and angry moment and sexualizing it very heavily for no reason yeah it's and also keep in mind he just screamed at her that her husband died right he's, your husband's dead. And then he, like, kind of attacks her.

And we're like, what is happening? And then the way that, like, bothers me with this genre of movie in particular is that we see this scene and it is aggressive. And then later we find out that she's lying and that she's, like, a double agent. And so that sort of, to an audience member justifies like well it's okay that he did that because she was lying and well she's a bad guy exactly yeah right and then well another interesting thing about the Claire character is that so because she was married to John Voight's character we find out that that's what's motivating her to help Ethan because as far as we know in the beginning before we find out that he's alive and that he was lying and

he's the mole and that she's also like collaborating with the bad guy her being married to him is what's motivating her to help Ethan which is like a reversal of a trope that we usually see where it's like my wife or my daughter. His wife. Yeah. His wife. His wife. So for Claire, so we're seeing instead my husband, basically. Right. My husband. My husband. Ethan.

Help me. My husband. I don't know how interesting that is. It's certainly like a role reversal, but it still feels kind of tropey. I think it does and also it it ensures that her character for most of the movie as far as we know her motivation is strictly tied to two men and it's also sort of implied that she you know it's like that she's at the end john voight basically speaks on her behalf for a whole scene and is like she was just seducing you she doesn't think you're hot tom cruise i was like she thinks i'm hot john boyd like the twist

that's the real twist of the movie but it was like basically he he's saying and she's again one of those my favorite action movie tropes which is the woman can watch the last scene of the movie but she cannot participate um so she's fully audience and sometimes she'll be like ethan but john voight is just stating what her double agent thing was when she easily could have and is also, I sent her because she had to seduce you. That was clearly what his character saw the value. And then he's, what was that thing you said about like, I got a taste of it.

Or something disgusting like that. Yeah, it was some gross thing like, I've tasted the goods. The goods, yeah. I've tried the goods myself. And so I was like, oh my, she's there, you know, right? Like she can hear you saying that. Standing right there.

But then he shoots her like two seconds later. Yeah. He's like, my waifu, it seemed like they were on the same page and actually loved each other because they were working side by side. It didn't make sense that he shot her, right? No. Or unless he's like, no witnesses. Right.

But even so, like like i don't know it just what had been established about their relationship is like totally negated whenever he shoots her for no fucking reason right his character is confusing to me her character is also confusing to me and it sort of is explained at the very end but we don't know why she's doing that job outside of her loyalty to her husband really we don't know anything about's doing that job outside of her loyalty to her husband, really. We don't know anything about her. And then her husband kills her. Right.

So I have a question. Did she and Tom Cruise hook up? Was that fade to black a suggestion that they hooked up? Or did she just lick his hand and then he was like, good night? In real life, second thing. For sure. night i mean in real life second thing for sure uh i mean this also these movies the few ways they're different from bond movies i feel like between tom cruise being the star of all of them and being the producer of all of them and there's there's not really a lot of other carryover between

them like it's basically james bond but asexual not that there's anything wrong with being asexual if you are but like there's no i feel like tom cruise as a person in life doesn't know how to deal with women at all and so it just carries over to the screen so it's a james bond movie where james bond has no interest in women but it's just like doing the beats of it you know it's like a hot woman to be around bond but i don't want to kiss yeah yeah. Bond is like a womanizer, like always. But well, actually, so because I watched all of the Mission Impossible movies for Rag, I made a few notes on each one. And I just basically some recurring motifs and whatnot. So for Mission Impossible 2, which came out in 2000,

there's basically only one female character in the entire thing played by thandie newton there's a scene where she and ethan hunt are in a bathtub hiding from like a bad guy or something and he's on top of her and she's like actually i like to be on top so then she like wraps her legs around him and like flips them over so that she's on top of him she's then straddling him while she's like stealing some jewelry um are they wearing clothes they are wearing clothes but they're they're wearing turtle she is she is using tools to steal this jewelry that are disguised as a makeup compact and a lipstick you know when you're a woman and you're like a thief or spy spy, your tools have to be disguised as makeup. Those are

the rules. Right. Because it reminds me of in this first movie, I feel like the famous thing is stealing the thing in the CIA vault and Tom Cruise floating over the floor. Totally. All three of the guys have very male jobs in it and then Claire's job is to just squirt stuff into coffee. That's right.

Yeah. She gets the most boring shit to do out of every, consistently. In like a very, and it's also kind of like, she has to be like flirtatious because she's sitting next to the guy. They're like on the same side of the table. No one's across from them.

It's like a really weird, they're just like sitting side by side. She like touches. She's way too close to him. He like looks up, she smiles at him and he's like, oh, pretty girl smiled at me. Yeah. And in the script Tom Cruise sure uh the scene was probably like she uses girl powers to do it and like that's it like

he doesn't know anything about women so he's just like their power is girl stuff like that's it note to self ask nicole what girls do and put in the script. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wait. Oh, so there's a couple. My favorite moment of Mission Impossible 2. Anthony Hopkins is in this one.

And he is trying. Was Voight busy? I guess. No, Voight dies at the end of Mission Impossible. I thought that. Is it bad that I sort of just assumed he would come back? It seems like characters in this franchise can kind of just come back. I'm like, oh, he's probably fine.

Well, I want to talk about that in a second. So Anthony Hopkins is trying to get Ethan Hunt to recruit Sandy Newton's character to join their team because of her past relationship to the man that they're trying to get close to. And Ethan Hunt, who is developing a romantic relationship with her for no reason other than they need to see a hot guy and a hot girl kissing on screen, he says, no, she doesn't have the training for that kind of thing. And Anthony Hopkins says, to go to bed with a man and lie

to him? She's a woman. She's got all the training she needs. It's like, okay, we get it, Anthony Hopkins. you've been dumped stop projecting honey just clearly keeps talking about one x like who's beth i don't know oh really really quick um the use of gadgets in Mission Impossible is great. The gum, impractical.

If you sat on that gum, you would blow up. It doesn't make any – I was like, what if Tom Cruise, God forbid, put that gum in his back pocket? He would explode. And then the glasses flip. Sorry. Anyways, Emilio did a great job. Also, Emilio, in this movie, and I and I double checked to make sure this is true, for some reason elects to go uncredited in this movie.

His name is not in the credits. He's uncredited. Why? He's in it more than a lot of people. Yeah, he has quite a few lines. Yeah, he's like really in it. Yeah, it's not just a cameo. He's uncredited.

His death is so gruesome, by the way. He gets like a elevator spike to the face like final destination is horrible so talking about your point of like recurring characters jamie of all the movies in the franchise it's always the same leading man of tom cruise playing Ethan Hunt. And there's quite a few recurring side characters who are, except for one example, all men. Because you have Simon Pegg's character who comes. I think he's introduced in the third movie. And then he's in, I think, all the other ones after that.

Yeah. Luther is in, I think, every movie or every single movie but one. Yeah. Luther comes back. He keeps. He's always hacking. Yeah. Luther is in, I think, every movie or every single movie but one. Yeah. Luther comes back. He keeps. He's always hacking. Yeah. Jeremy Renner's character gets introduced later on.

And he's in a couple of the movies. So it's several men. And then there is one character who, I think in the third movie, Ethan Hunt gets married. To who? To, what's her name michelle monaghan right i don't know if that's how it's pronounced yeah and then she shows up again in another movie but only for like a split second so it's really any of the notable characters who are recurring are all men and of the women who so in the movies there's usually one main woman. They're not really a romantic lead because, yeah, he is often like kind of asexual.

The asexual Bond girls? Well, so it's not asexual because they are usually sexualized in some way. And there is often like a moment where they either have like a flirtation or some sort of sexual tension. But there's like a female lead. She changes every single time in the movie. There's no recurring female leads. Usually as the movies go on, they stay the same age, but all the other like, you know, Tom Cruise and everyone gets older.

Well, we don't. Tom Cruise could be drinking the blood of young people and could very well be immortal. Sure. We've all seen Interview with a Vampire. So that tracks. True. There've all seen Interview with a Vampire, so that tracks. There being no recurring women in the movie, I feel like sends a message to everyone who's seeing this, especially the men, that it's, like, cool to be a playboy,

and it's cool to have, like, a bunch of different women. And whenever you get bored with one, you can just, like, dump her and move on to the next. I feel like the Bond franchise is much more guilty of this than Mission Impossible. Yeah. But it's still implying that like women can be replaced that they're basically just like objects that you can cast aside and recast in a new movie i want to see a movie about the island where tom cruise sends women when they turn 30 i wanted to see a movie about all of tom cruise's former co-stars who he shipped off to an island on their 30th birthday.

Yeah, because that is such a trope of this genre and of, I mean, but it really spans all genres where rom-coms are often very guilty of this. know in historically male entertainers tend to get more opportunities to do things later into their lives and are also just given i mean even john voight's character in the first movie the massive age gap between him and his wife uh not not to shame anyone who has a may december romance but this is fucking ridiculous like it's it's crazy. It's pretty much often the only representation we see of, like, a hetero-romantic relationship where it's a much older man. It's like, if there is a movie with an older man as the lead, it's very rare to see his romantic partner be his contemporary. Yeah.

She's almost always, like, 15 like 15 20 25 years younger than him and it's interesting because i think that these tropes in this movie in particular are kind of like it's very clear to see them because there is this whole kind of sexless vibe to this movie where you see these tropes and it's like they've plugged in all the like young woman dates old man hot women interested in the lead but it's presented in such a non-sexual way for the male lead that it's almost just like this weird roadmap of like oh yeah this is how all action movies are regardless of whether it makes sense for the plot or the characters. Right. Because in James Bond movies, it's so knocking you over the head. It's so sexual.

But this one, it's almost like there's a little bit of an uncanny quality to the way women are treated because it doesn't make sense in such a non-sexual movie for women to be presented this way. Right. But it's just like, well, this is what we do in these movies. And it's just, again, it's very bizarre to me that he works in every of the movies there's a spy who's a woman who he works with and who proves herself to be very competent and yet why don't we ever see her again sometimes well sometimes she dies in the movie but if she doesn't it would stand to reason because other of the like

male characters who are recurring like luther and sim Pegg's character and Jeremy Renner's character, they come back. Why don't any of the women get to? Right. And this also got me thinking that, so even in this first movie that came out in 96, a few of the main men are Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, John Voight. Three famous, recognizable dudes who are still, even, like, over 20 years later, still famous, still recognizable. The women, whose characters' names are Sarah, Hannah, and Claire, I, off the top of my head, don't know those actresses' names,

even though I just said one, Emmanuel. Like, I've never, I don't know her. They might be sort of familiar faces, but I don't recognize them by name, certainly. And it got me on this like train of thought where I wonder if lesser known women get cast in these parts opposite men. Because it's like, are they worried the women, like a more famous woman is going to upstage the man? You know what I mean? Maybe.

But that varies from franchise to franchise for sure as well but in in this one especially like in the later movies the woman who gets cast opposite tom cruise is usually familiar but not like a household name like and maybe it's like oh well they're giving like an up-and-coming actress her chance is it bad to say actress I feel like it's just actor an actor who's a woman uh her chance but I also wonder if it's like well like Tom Cruise doesn't want to be upstaged by like a woman just as famous as him I don't know this might be all pure speculation but I think this is true of and it does vary from franchise to franchise but I think this is actually pretty common for like action franchises like this i

think that this this rule definitely applies to transformers this that's the franchise that came to my mind where megan fox became such a big name off of that movie and then she kind of got like blackballed from that franchise because she was kind of like too big and was asking to be treated fairly and they're like oh no we'll just get someone else. Yeah. Instead of treating you fairly and like your work has impact on this franchise. We will literally just recast you. Yeah.

Yeah. I think because I think with a lot of these franchises, too, you can just see those Hollywood machine parts moving of, oh, we just need a new lady, new lady. And then Mission Impossible, it's sort of extra weird, because I think it's also just partly driven with Tom Cruise, the person being like, he's probably bad at hanging out with women or like being around them. Like he clearly wants the exact same dudes on set every time around. Like this new one, I think is the first repeat director, but it's only been male directors. It's the same guys on the crew all the time. He just wants Alec Baldwin and Ving Rhames back all the time. But constantly new women all the time he just wants alec baldwin and ving

rames back all the time but constantly new women all the time just everywhere yeah yeah tom cruise i mean and and we just we just don't have time to unpack tom cruise today but there's when will there be time you know there's so many levels of fuckery to the career of tom cruise and tom cruise as he pertains to women shouts out to Katie and Nicole boy they have to deal with some shit yeah really bad you can read up on it if if you want but yeah I mean I would imagine I'm just shot in the dark here Tom Cruise probably does not want an actress who is his equal experience wise on screen with him because it seems like he has a pathological fear of being upstaged. Yeah. Oh, yeah, probably.

Yeah, that would be that would be another thing, I guess. I will say I didn't know that Emmanuel Bayard is within a year of the same age as Tom Cruise. Sure. In this movie, when he is young. She is an age appropriate person for him in this movie. She is not age appropriate for John Voight, who, as I said, was born in 1896. If you can believe John Voight was born in 1896. That's so crazy that he's still working. Sure.

I mean, like, yeah, she is age appropriate in this movie. Yes. But 22 years later, when this franchise is still going on and the women who are cast opposite him are still 30. So let's take a quick break and we will be back shortly. Woo. 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.

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And we're back. Another thing I wanted to talk about, and Alex, you touched on this, is like that very iconic scene where Tom Cruise is like dangling on the rope, like suspended kind of in midair when he's like trying to steal the knock list. That scene has been like spoofed, parodied, alluded to in like bazillions of things in pop culture.

One of them being Paddington. But that's neither here nor there. But please go check out the movie Paddington and Paddington 2 if you haven't. Anyway, so it got me thinking about very famous and iconic movie scenes like this. I made a list, which will take probably too long to go through, but you can, there's like super cuts on YouTube of like, you know, iconic movie scenes, or

like famous movie quotes, and you'll find that almost all of them involve men. Not a woman to be seen. Shut up. I know. And if there is a woman to be seen, it is usually in like a very romantic hetero context. So if we're thinking like.

You had me at hello. Right. She's declaring her love for a man. She's sometimes if she's in a Harrison Ford movie, chances are she's being grabbed by Harrison Ford and kissed forcibly. God, I hate Harrison Ford. Everyone's dream. Oh, God. Push him out a window.

But I do, I want... Yeah, I believe it. About the iconic scenes, yeah, for sure. Yeah, so that's unfortunate. Fortunately, I think we, at least in the past 10 years, have more female action heroes to choose from, which is great, but it's still, yeah, in terms of the history of cinema, it's really just straight ladies kissing straight dudes. And

sometimes they get in a line. And sometimes if they're lucky. And sometimes you get Scarlett O'Hara shaking her fist at the sky. You're like, oh, that's exciting. But there's almost always a scene where Ethan Hunt does something to a female character that is not a sexual act, like hiding from a bad guy or like searching them, because he thinks they're suspicious. But the movie always frames it as something very sexual, because he isn't usually ever given a romantic interest in the movies so like you know whatever director producer writer is like well we still have to have you know tom cruise fondling a woman on screen or who's gonna want to see this right he's like i have to prove that i am a man who likes girls and everyone needs to see yeah yeah i don't his vibe is so creepy and and not just this movie like

top gun a lot of things from this era in particular he the way he deals with women is like very intense to me like it just seems really creepy and and watching this movie i started developing a fan theory that he's just like two teenagers in a long coat or something and he like doesn't know what to do so he's doing bad things he's five four he's one teenager in a long coat or something. And he like doesn't know what to do. So he's doing bad things. He's 5'4". He's one teenager in a coat. It is wild how just like such intense, insecure masculine energy is broadcast to the largest possible audience. It is fascinating.

So sociologically, Tom Cruise's career is fascinating because you're like he's so insecure about whatever who knows he won't tell us but but we all have to we all have to watch it and i love it and he's always running have you seen the supercut of him running no there is an 18 minute long video just of someone took all the scenes in every movie he's ever been in of him running. It's 18 minutes long. Oh my God. It's actually amazing. Wow.

There's five minutes of Tom Cruise running in 2018 alone. Wow. Wild. Yeah. You can watch like one of those Christmas log videos. Like it's just the same thing endlessly. It's kind of calming after a while. It's great. Yeah. You can watch like one of those Christmas log videos. Like it's just the same thing endlessly. It's kind of calming after a while. Throw it on at a party.

It's great. Yeah. A few of the other trends I noticed is that there's often violence against both men and women in these movies. But often when a woman is killed, it's because she's been like captured and tied up and you know murdered in cold blood kind of thing whereas when men die it's usually because they're like in combat and they're like fighting for themselves there are a few exceptions where there's different agents who are like kicking ass and fighting in fact there's one scene and i think it's uh it's either a ghost

protocol or rogue nation but um there's a woman who's like fighting a room full of bad guys and like Tom Cruise is tied up so like he can't help right away so it's like her like kicking ass wow he's Mary Jane yeah yeah yeah wow and she has to like save him and help him um so every once in a while there will be like a role reversal like that but for the most part in these movies women are sexualized in some way very needlessly they are often damseled there are a few you know characters who come and go who are like oh yeah she's pretty cool she's a badass but she of course isn't given a personality or anything like that but so yeah the treatment over the span of this franchise

of women is peculiar um because they don't just entirely because some you know action franchises the women will just be damsel and she can't fight for herself she can't do anything um she's given no skills no personality anything like that and these movies at least there are like women agents who are like fighting and like doing cool stuff and some of them are hacking even and some of them are like you know doing this and that but the first like in the first movie at least it seems like tom cruise and john boy respect the women they're working with don't call their qualifications into question which is a low bar to set. But in most movies like this,

you'd have that moment of like, can she really do her job and be so very hot? And then she has to prove it. There aren't those proving moments in this, in the first movie at least, but it's still, it's like they treat women like neutral to light negative. And I think do what a lot of these movies do and what the vast majority of movies do which is kind of just like forget about

its female characters for large swaths of the movie and then go back to them when they need something sexy to happen right but there's not really any character motivated reasons that we ever cut to Claire. It always has to be like, oh, a sexy thing needs to happen or Jon Voight is going to enter the room soon. Those are mostly her cues. And so it's just like, I mean, I can't believe that Tom Cruise can't write a female character. I can't believe it. I mean, is he writing these at all? Is he? I'm sure he's probably like,

I need my character to do this thing in this movie, but like... The fifth one and the upcoming sixth one, the director is his previous script doctor on these. It's Christopher McQuarrie. So I think he does the Will Smith thing where he has a script guy that he puts in. So he's not like writing, writing it, but he's telling someone what to type.

Right. All that said, this is a fun movie that does not treat women. It doesn't treat women well. It doesn't really treat women at all. It is a very non-sexual action movie, which is unusual. Yeah. Because I feel like action movies so often tip into outright misogyny. This one doesn't because it just isn't.

It's like this movie doesn't know how to talk to girls. Like literally this as a text does not know how to talk to girls and largely doesn't. Yeah. It's in like the corner of a middle school dance. It's just like, what do I do all the time? I work so hard on my outfit but i don't know how to talk to anybody but that said because it just is like kind of awkward in the way it treats its characters a lot of the time i still was able to enjoy it i don't know like i i was like this

movie makes no sense you have to be a literal genius to understand what's going on here that's not true the story is not well written and like why would a arms dealer want a knock list of spies like that just doesn't make a whole lot of sense i kept googling her job to figure out why she would need it at all right is she an arms dealer and a list dealer? Like, she's just going to flip it or something? I don't get it. She's going to side hustle. Why would Ethan Hunt, whose job is a spy and a huge part of being a spy is to not let other people know that you're a spy. He loves telling people he's a spy.

Tell Max that he's a spy. is it that's a classic bond move too he just like goes into a casino and they're like you need to do some detective work here and he just walks up to people and he's like i'm james bond where's the villain it's great it's really fun yeah like oh sure okay i guess we're just going full dummy on this great so it's not that you need to be a genius to understand this movie it's that this story i would argue is not clear or that well written but the john voight mask rip really does make it worth the time the mask reveals especially as the franchise goes on are very fun because you're like this person that i thought was philip seymour hoffman is actually someone else oh my god ethan you got me again i wish every time that happened someone went ethan

come on you're so crazy where'd you get these masks if someone photoshops Mission in Parmesan do it please send it to us now I feel like you've been holding that in for an hour the five seconds I thought of it and then said it it was real hard it's going good though oh boy

does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie? oh real quick I actually wanted to talk about the character of max who so before we see we meet max on screen max has talked about a lot and the pronouns that are used are he because everyone assumes that max the arm dealer is a he and then there's a big reveal that whenever we meet max on screen it actually a woman, which we've covered here and there on the podcast before, where it's, I don't know how commonly recurring this trope is, but it's definitely a trope where, you know,

a character who you thought was a man, surprise, either they take off their mask or they take off their helmet or whatever, or, you know, we just meet them and it's actually a woman. And it bothers me that like someone's gender is like used as a big surprising reveal but it also might be like providing commentary on how gender normative everyone is where it's like oh this person who's a an arms dealer or you know driving a motorcycle or a doctor who you think might be a man just kidding

a woman can be those things too yeah it's a shitty reveal and it's recycled over and over and over i feel like most commonly in a movie like this but sometimes it's kind of crosses genres as well yeah yeah and i don't know how much there is to talk about her character aside from that, because she's just sort of there being a plot device, essentially. She's pretty much given no characterization. And also what she does want makes no sense, because again, she's an arms dealer. I don't understand what her situation is. She's just like, I think it's one of those situations that it's not quite Walken and Gigli. But sorry, that's a really highbrow reference to Christopher Walken's one scene those situations. It's not quite walk-in and geely. But sorry, that's a really highbrow reference to Christopher Walken's one scene in Geely. It's not quite walk-in and geely where it truly appears that the actor in question was told they would be given an amount of money to wander on set and just hold a cup and be like, here are some words off the top of my head. But there is a quality to Vanessa Redgrave's part where it's like she's sort of just acting like herself

or like kind of a caricature of herself of like a very posh, like smart woman who isn't going to tell you everything. You know, like her character doesn't make a ton of sense. I am, that said, I am glad she's there. I love her. I love her. I love her. Her scenes with Tom Cruise are weirdly...

I think it's because they're so non-sexual, that's why they're compelling. I'm just like, how does Tom Cruise view this woman? Does he think of her? How does he... It's very unclear. I think a more interesting movie than this one would have been an exploration of an arms dealer

who's a woman and what that life is like like is she taken seriously by her buyers and other male arms dealers let's explore that let's unpack yeah because if she we never see her like knock anybody's heads together or anything so clearly she did a lot of that before and that would have been really exciting to see right man you know like nobody gets to that position without enforcing first you know yeah where's the origin story i like it yeah i mean but that's none of the characters here are well written or really make any sense yeah so that's why it's a good movie that's why i love it i mean it's just a weird movie. It's just a weird movie. Tom Cruise is a weird man.

He's got terrific teeth. Tom Cruise is problematic as hell, but I honestly quite enjoy him, and I like a lot of his movies. He is an actor who leads with his teeth, which is wild. If you watch Tom Cruise act, his teeth somehow are first. Like, you know, like, some people lead with their hips. Sure. Some people lead with their... But Tom, he's just, like, going into every role tooth first.

Chances are Tom Cruise is running toward you or running somewhere. Teeth first. Teeth shining. I think he just has one gigantic tooth and then draws in the lines he's a complicated man look this movie the first mission possible movie is not that great i have never seen any of the um tv shows so i don't really i'm not at all familiar with the source material my understanding is that it's kind of goofy yeah it's just i'm sure it's like campy 60s like super camp kind of thing but as the movies go on they get better and better i think ghost protocol might be my favorite um i liked three enough to buy it on dvd mission possible 2 is objectively a bad movie but the

rest are like pretty pretty decent And I think easier to understand. So I think the first one, and the first two are just like, what the fuck is happening in this movie? Ethan. Ethan! Cut it out! But I think they get better as they go on.

But yeah, so this is a franchise I enjoy when I'm not looking at it through the Bechdel cast lens. But when I am doing that, it through the Bechdel cast lens, but when I am doing that, you know, it's not hard to see that this franchise does not treat women especially well. There are certainly franchises that do a much worse job. There are some that maybe do a better job, but an action franchise, you'd be hard-pressed to find one that, like, is a feminist masterpiece

because i can't think of any off the top of my head that are well there's uh alien that's true yeah i mean there are like good female action heroes some of whom we've covered on this very podcast but as far as this particular formula goes where it's like a male action lead which is 90 of them i'd be interested if any of our listeners could come to us with a male action-led franchise that has female characters that are treated well yeah because certainly like as we discussed already bond does not do a good job um indiana jones does not do a good job. Real bad. Indiana Jones does not do a good job. Real bad. Yeah.

So, yeah, action franchises have a long history of not treating women well. Woo! Speaking of, does this movie pass the Bechdel test? No. Not even close. No. Women don't even make eye contact in this movie. It's crazy.

And I wrote down, I was like, this scene where and like i wrote down i was like this scene where they're all prepping this scene where they are prepping the scheme is like the seven minute mark i was like they are gonna have women talk to each other we're gonna get it and then they don't and then there's never even two women in the same room again they really tease you at the top yeah with like they don't even look at each other i went back and re-watched the scene partially to check out emilio's tips but mostly to see if women even look they don't even look at each other there's no acknowledgement it's mostly tom cruise being like can we get a cappuccino machine in here my name is ethan and i want a better coffee than i have and then

and then john voight's like yeah my wife made that coffee and then she's like i made that coffee end of scene yeah yeah because if people haven't seen this movie in a while it's like tom cruise trying to do what he thinks adults do at work when they joke around. It is really, really weird. Or grown up. It's really weird. He flipped through some Dilbert and was like, this is probably it. Yeah, they talk about cappuccino, a boss, a room.

Good enough for me. My name is Ethan. So let us rate the movie on our nipple scale, where we rate the movie based on its portrayal of women zero to five nipples i'm gonna have to give this one i think like a one and maybe that's even being too generous like i had such high hopes starting out because i was like oh three of the six people on this team of spies are women. Like, this is going to be dope. And then they pretty much all instantly get murdered. So it's not the feminist text that we were all hoping for. The women who do survive and don't get murdered, yeah, their motivations are not totally clear

or they are attached to a man. They aren't really given much cool to do on screen. Like we already talked about Claire, like when they're like going in to steal the knock list, she just has to like look cute in a red dress and poison a guy. And that's like pretty much all she gets to do. And other than that, yeah, she's either like groped by Tom Cruise or screamed at or she gets shot by her husband. So that still makes no sense that that would happen. And then with Max, like, I don't understand why she's in the movie or why an arms dealer would want this list and why. It's just none of that makes any sense to me so yeah the women who are in the movie pretty much don't make a whole lot of sense and overall the movie just does not

treat women well the franchise does not treat women especially well we are not surprised by that but maybe mission possible fallout will do a better job. Yeah, I wonder how the Mission Impossible franchise is going to tackle the Me Too movement. That's really the text we're waiting for. Also, as we often come across, this is an extremely white movie, you know, very hetero, everything like that. In fact, I had to watch the first scene when they're introducing all the members of the team i had to watch that like three times because i was like okay wait which woman is sarah and which one is claire and which one is hannah because they're all

three white women who look very similar they all have the same hairstyle who who gave them all the same hairstyle i i had no idea who was who yeah Yeah. Until two of them died and I was like, okay, this one's named Claire and she's still alive. And okay. Like, I don't know, maybe put some diversity in your movies and you wouldn't have to tell so many fucking white people apart. Anyway. So, yeah, let's go down to a half nipple and the half nipple I will give to Max because I like that actor. I guess I'm going to give it one. And this is almost an unfair yardstick to be using, but put against comparable series, it does not abuse women.

That's true. To the same extent that most franchises in this genre that are equally successful do. But that's such a low bar. But I think that that is worth noting as it pertains to this movie because it does make a difference in the way you view the movie. This movie just doesn't know how to talk to girls. The groping is absolutely unnecessary. The way that that character is spoken for while she's in the room and then killed in the last scene is like borderline ridiculous, because it doesn't make sense. So not only is it not based in reality, from a gendered standpoint,

it is also very bleak. Yeah, I mean, i think of the few merits this movie has it's nice to at least see female characters in an action series whose skills aren't constantly called into question i think part of the reason that is though is because they're not given that much to do and or they are all killed at the beginning of the movie which again yeah that first scene is just like so frustrating because it's like oh we've got almost a movie here and then we i think alex you're totally on the right track with being like well there's gendered parity at the beginning so you can see a lot of women die yeah and have emotional stakes attached to that so it's it's weird like this there There's just a weird uncanny valley quality to the way this movie

deals with gender, because I don't think it knows how, because Tom Cruise is involved. So I'll give it one nipple for the women that are there. None of the characters make sense, but the female characters in this movie don't make sense and don't have any existence outside of the male characters that also make no sense. So I'll give one nipple and I'll give it to Alfred Molina because I think that he really could have shown up in this movie in almost any part in an effective way. I would love not to, you know, if emilio really didn't want to be credited in this movie freddie would have taken the credit he would have taken the credit he would have hacked the mainframe we don't get to see thick hackers a lot and that would have been an interesting move so there you go so alfred gets mine i would watch a franchise called thick hackers

thick hackers it's like kind of my type. Yeah. I mean, you both nailed it. I would give it, I think, one whole nipple because, yeah, it doesn't go as overboard with brutality toward women as a lot of action movies. Like we said, incredibly low bar, but also it does a lot of things wrong, too. And especially, like, this was the least I've ever liked it watching it because I was thinking oh this was maybe much more feminist than I remembered and then it super isn't all of a sudden like it's just a sudden hard left turn yeah I think if Tom Cruise could have gone and like just been on an island by himself and made whatever movie he'd want to make it would be this movie with absolutely no women in it like there are only women in the film because he knows that's like a consideration that the rest of human civilization and the species wants.

And otherwise it would just be boys hanging out. And that would be the entire thing. Can't wait for that franchise. Yeah. We could rename maybe 80% of movie franchises to boys hanging out. But there were sometimes boys hanging out with guns. Ooh, yeah. Well, Alex,

thank you so much for being here. Oh, it's great. Yeah, thank you for having me. Of course. Where can people follow you online? Do you have anything

you'd like to plug? Yeah, my Twitter account is at Alex Schmitty. It's my name with a Y on the end. And then my website is alexschmitty.com and that has show dates

and other info and more. Awesome. And the Cracked Podcast. Please listen. Please listen to us. Yay. We're fans. You can follow the Bechtelcast on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook at Bechtelcast.

You can subscribe to our Patreon. It's $5 a month, and it gets you two bonus episodes every single month. Check out our website bectocast.com you can buy merchandise from our online store there yeah and you can follow me at caitlin dorante on twitter and instagram you can follow me at jamie loft's help on twitter and jamie loft or jamie christ superstar on instagram because i don't play by the rules. That's right. I'm a ghost protocol. Rogue nation. I'm a rogue ghost.

I'm a thick hacker. This episode will self-destruct in five seconds. Hee hee. All right. Bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot

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