The Bechdel Cast - National Treasure

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

Treasure seekers Caitlin and Jamie search high and low for good representation of women in National Treasure.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP on Twitter. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

and of course, the culture. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Joe Gatto. I'm Steve Byrne. We are Two Cool Moms.

We certainly are. And guess where we could find us now? Oh, I don't know. The iHeart Podcast Network? That's right. We're an official iHeart podcast, and I'm super excited about it. I am too. I thought Two Cool Moms was such a fun podcast, but now it's even more funner and cooler and heartier.

That's right. It's more iHeartier. I knew it! Check your heart rate. We're here at iHeart. Yeah, you can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts or on the iHeartRadio app. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast caitlin i can't do this podcast what why it's just gonna lead to another clue and that's gonna lead to another clue and

i've lost 20 years of my life to this and I can't do it anymore I'm not gonna do the podcast no that's me cosplaying as John Voight that was great wouldn't it be funny if you're like I can't do this podcast it's just gonna lead to a spinoff podcast and that's going to lead to another podcast. Which is how that works. Yeah. And soon enough, we'll have wasted 20 years on this bullshit. Welcome to the first quarantined Bechdel cast. Yes. We are recording separately in separate places.

We're meeting up over Google Hangouts. Shout out. Wow. Shout out to Google, my king. King Goog. So it's going to be the two of us today, and we are doing National Treasure. Yeah, I mean, we figured, you know, it's a tough time. We got to bust out some of the best movies in American canon

to really tide you over during this bizarre time. And we also, we will be able to have guests over Google Hangouts. Everyone is very quickly adapting to this new and terrifying world we're in. So that's good. Yes. So we will do some quarantine episodes with guests. But for today, it's just the two of us. We really wanted to pick

a bit like a really escapist media get get people's minds off the the pandemic i thought we chose it because it's a very timely critique of i thought i thought we were like, now more than ever, the content of National Treasure is very relevant. I mean, I cannot wait to talk about the socialist ending sort of of the movie. Right? The redistribute to the people vibes. You're like, okay, Nick Cage, pretty good. Who are you, Bernie Sanders? I mean, I don't even know where to start with Justin Bartha. I forgot that we... My God.

So we're going to just have fun today. We hope that you enjoy the episode. We got very positive feedback when we tweeted that we were going to be doing it. So, oh my God, Justin Bartha's Wikipedia picture is literally a headshot from 20 years ago how embarrassing for him what okay well we're talking about national treasure today and it's gonna be an absolute treat it will yeah you're welcome everybody um and if you're if you're not familiar with the podcast this is your maybe first episode i hope so i hope people are getting into it in the choir on you know those like um instagram story templates that are going around where it's like

my favorite podcast is this the one that makes me laugh the most is this one and then what like some of them are like the one i just discovered and a bunch of people have tagged us like under that category is like the one they've just like a podcast they've just discovered so i think yeah there's some newcomers still every every day welcome and that will lead and i'll lead to another podcast and that'll lead to another podcast and then we'll be locked in our house for 20 years there's there's so many perfect line reads in this movie it really boggles the mind oh my gosh nicholas cage what what what is he doing truly an icon what is he ever doing that's why we love him so anyway we uh we are a feminist movie podcast we use the bechdel test as a jumping off point to initiate a larger conversation about representation of women in cinema. The

Bechdel test, of course, is a media metric created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. And it requires that two female identifying characters who have been named speak to each other about something other than a man. And by our standard, it just has to be a two-line exchange. So we'll see if National Treasure can manage to pass the Bechdel test. But if you're just listening at home, take a wild guess. Do you think that... What do your instincts tell you? And then for this movie, really trust those instincts.

Caitlin, what is your personal history with National Treasure 1? I decided to take it upon myself to watch it for the first time, maybe like two years ago. Wow. Wait. I had never seen it for sure gonna cover this pretty much um you're right yeah i don't know i never saw it i didn't see in theaters never saw it growing up never saw the sequel until yeah just a couple years ago and i was just like i wonder if this is any good i'm gonna watch to watch it. And then I watched it and I was like, you know what?

This is surprisingly better than I thought it was going to be. But I didn't see this sequel until like yesterday. And I was like, fuck it. I'm going to watch National Treasure 2. I mean, the scene, I have not seen National Treasure 2.

And the scene you sent me is so like, is this going to be the first episode where we have to use audio clips? Because it's so... Literally, yes. You can't describe it, really. Let me play the one from the first movie. Oh, you have them both? Yes.

Thank God. So here is... Oh, okay. Here we go. Okay. Okay. I'm gonna steal it. What?

I'm gonna steal the Declaration of Independence. Woo! Oh, my God. He was born to deliver that line. And then, wait, do you have the one from national treasure too so i have the one from national treasure too which is basically a freakishly identical line read for an equally wild line okay so how am i gonna get him alone i'm gonna kidnap him i'm gonna kidnap him i'm gonna kidnap the president of the united states oh god incredible john voight is in this in that scene too where he goes why is john voight in this movie i just like i mean I can't with John Voight okay I will say

just a couple words when we get into this discussion about National Treasure 2 because we are focusing on the first one but I like Helen Mirren is in it I did know that what does she do oh just wait oh I'll leave some clues and then maybe you'll figure out what the clues mean and then maybe you'll she is nicholas cage's mom so i'm just giving it away okay so she's oh she plays john voight's his wife yes well his ex-wife his ex-wife right but i feel like the the first movie makes you think that she's dead but she's not they bring her back to life and it's Helen Mirren. Oh, okay. Because they do.

Yeah. And the first one, John Boyd's like, you need to appreciate the time you have, like the time with your mother. And I'm just like, that's a weird way to describe a divorce. Right? If that's the way. Like what? You should have just been a better husband.

I don't know. And she addresses that Helen Mirrenren is like you were a really bad husband who didn't pay any attention to anyone but your stupid treasure stuff so yeah oh he's this poor family and their treasure related trauma it's so sad yeah it's tragic so anyway jamie what is your history and relationship with national treasure i love this movie so much i saw it in theaters twice it's still i oh i was i was 12 when this like i was like yeah i was the target demo for national treasure i loved it my cousins loved it my brother loved it my favorite bad movie season of all time the holiday

movie season of 2004 you've got Phantom of the Opera you've got National Treasure you've got the really bad series of unfortunate events movie you've got all hitters of like shitty enduring movies that profoundly affected me I loved the first National Treasure when I tweeted that we were doing this my mom also my mom loved this movie so much to the point where she brought us to it a second time. And she had the hots for Bartha because she responded to me with like, oh, Riley Poole, what a dreamboat.

She loves, and she remembered his character's name 500 years later so wow yeah that's impressive that's upsetting Jill I yeah I'm I don't I think that I had maybe grown out of it by the time the second one came out or something because I didn't see the second one but I loved the first one so much and I like it's one of those weird like childhood movies where i found myself like remembering lines from it like i for some reason the twist maybe one of the stupider twists in the movie that has to do with daylight savings time yes you've referred to that on the podcast before numerous times yes oh yeah like for some reason really stuck with me and then seeing where it fell and like where in the second act it fell you're like that's so stupid what was the point of that that's

so easily but there's oh this movie's like all flash like guess what guess what america the founding fathers and then at the end they reveal this stolen treasure it's all still like the optics of the treasure is not good i mean that's the case with most of these adventure like treasure seeking narratives same with indiana jones yeah that's not yours hey hey i think um dora and the lost city handles it well so if anyone is out there looking for a kind of adventure treasure movie that does a good job, Dora was a great film and I loved it a lot. Check that out. You love to hear it. Yeah.

No, it's so one of my childhood faves, but I hadn't seen it in probably 10 years or something. So, but I still remember too much. Turns out it's monumental. Get it? Monuments? Hey! Turns out, I mean, and then looking back now, I'm like, this was a weird couple of years for Justin Bartha.

This was like maybe his biggest role to date at that time and this was maybe his quote-unquote star making i mean if we're calling justin bartha a star which i guess we're not um either way national treasure was his first big role of course his smaller role before that being in gili which today was an absolutely cancelable offense. But in the early 2000s, there were no rules and you could just be in Gigli and the next year you could be in National Treasure and the year after that, you could be in Failure to Launch.

There were no laws back then. It was very different. It was chaos. So anyways, this movie rules. It rules. and speaking of chaos uh let's do the recap oh how do you read i do not envy you right now how does one recap national treasure i did my best from the writers that brought you snow Dogs and Bad Boys 2 comes this. Yes, the credited screenwriters for this movie are Jim Koff, Cormac Weberle, and Marion Weberle. So two men and one woman.

I'm glad that there is a female writer on this movie. And I think that perhaps Abigail's character is slightly better written because of her presence. I'm speculating. I mean, I would hate to see what this movie would be without this, without one woman. Cause she,

it seems like she's the only woman involved at like the higher level. But I will say that a lot of times that you see a female writer it's like it seems like the quote like she like i i don't mean to lessen her role in it like she it seems like she did a lot of i mean it's national treasure it's a classic but a lot of times where it's like the one female writer on the team is a part of a husband wife writing team as opposed to just being like hired on you know right right right it's just it's a thing that we've the one female writer thing has popped up for us a lot and a lot of times it is because of a husband I don't know I don't feel any particular way about it but I noticed it yeah same anyways so here we go with the story we meet ben gates aka benjamin franklin gates um of course

he's named after benjamin franklin gaitlin my brother whose name has been was so i remember like he was just like immediately like if someone in a movie has your name you're like yeah that is me yeah i like spit out my drink when christopher plumber is there as his grandpa like when he's a kid and he's like okay benjamin franklin gates what are you doing up here imagine being christopher plumber one of like the best actors ever and then having to say that like it's so like it's wild yes okay so we meet him as a young boy snooping around the attic of his house and his grandfather christopher plumber comes in and he's like his name george washington gates we don't know what his name is right um paul revere gates and he is like, you're finally old enough. I'll tell you about

like our family history. So he tells them about this ancient treasure that's been passed around century after century. And these guys called the Knights Templar. They're like some old Christian organization that's vaguely scary. Right. They found it. They were kind of protecting it for a while. And then they later became the Freemasons or like a certain chunk of them broke off and became the Freemasons. And some of them were the founding fathers of the United States. And they hid the treasure from the Britishish because they're like fuck the british we have our colonies

now we're cool they hid the treasure and they planted all these clues and maps to the treasure in different places but all these clues eventually got lost or forgotten there's so many clues they'll just lead to another clue and then that clue will lead to another clue also john voight's character's name is patrick henry gates so they literally just the naming convention in this family is to just have a founding father and then gates yeah that's all you embarrassing really honestly so embarrassing for them like more to find to have to admit your name is benjamin franklin gates they're an embarrassing family um okay so all the clues have been lost or forgotten except for one. And this one clue is the secret lies with Charlotte. I remembered this from 500 years ago when this movie came out.

I'm like, oh, right. The secret does lie with Charlotte. But it's the place, not the... And right. So we learned that several generations of Ben's family have been trying to find these clues so they can find the treasure and it all dates back to like christopher plumber's grandfather who like was hanging out with this i don't even remember the guy's name but he was like the last surviving member of like the people who'd signed the declaration of independence and he's like

the secret lies with charlotte and then with with almost any plot point in this movie you can end the sentence with like or something and it doesn't really change your interpretation of it you're like i don't know like that they're the clues are gone or something and so it's not good well here's something that i just realized in real time here okay so the clue that they have is the secret lies with charlotte and as we're about to find out nicholas cage's character finds the charlotte so like what were all those generations of families doing like what clues are they talking about because like he just goes from that one clue that they have and he finds the Charlotte. But like, what are all these other, like, how did they waste?

Weird to believe that they have been looking for this treasure for hundreds of years and have really not gotten past the first clue. So, right. What are all these clues that Jon Voight is talking about when he's like, and that'll lead you to another clue. Like, which clues? Like, Ben Gates is just going off of that one clue and he finds the charlotte like what are what are they talking about where has he been

snooping around for all these centuries i don't know i don't know really understand it but i do think it's fine i mean i want to believe that screenwriter marianne wibberley is making commentary here on male mediocrity and saying that because it has to do with the knights templar and especially the freemasons which still doesn't allow well i have that in context corner but like a a group uh famously hostile towards women it's just been these guys fumbling around looking for what charlotte could mean for for 200 plus years do you think they like went into shopping malls and they're like the secret lies with charlotte charlotte ruth i thought that maybe we're on the same wave like that was like the secret lies with Charlotte Ruth. The secret lies with Charlotte from sex in the city.

Oh, could be the secret could lie with Kristen Davis. We don't know. Yeah, we don't know. These are things people don't think about. And if they, if they had asked a woman,

they would have been like, have you considered Charlotte Ruth? If you had asked her, you know, it's good. It's, it's's it's something to consider it is indeed okay so we cut to ben as an adult he has grown up to be nicholas cage and he is searching for charlotte which turns out to be a ship buried in the ice in the arctic and they explain how that would have happened but i don't understand or something yeah it doesn't matter he has his i guess is this his apprentice like who

is riley to him it's like his little sidekick he is basically the animal sidekick think of riley as like a little animated squirrel right voiced by justin bartha he basically serves the same function he's like a sexless creature who delivers punch lines right because i always this is a disney movie and we cannot forget that i think that they are using the disney renaissance formula but they're like well we can't get an animated creature but barth is available and barth is the next best thing so they got him in the mix i think that justin bartha actually does like he still does make me giggle a couple times i think they let him improvise a little bit i like when he says this car smells weird and i remember when i was a kid cracking up at the end when they find the treasure

he's like it's a tall bluish greenish man with a strange goatee and then he hugs him and then he hugs i'm like bartha's funny but he is just a little like cartoon assistant yeah and speaking of like people who cannot be critical of others goatees justin parthas goatee in this movie is glaring did they give him that facial hair it's so weird i think that they just are like no he's an adult you know because he just looks he has such a baby face may i don't know but like in the first scene when they're in the arctic he has like just kind of like a five o'clock shadow but then by the next scene when they're in like the library of congress or whatever they've shaved it down but it's very it's still just like stubble it's not like a full

beard it's so weird it sucks and it never goes away it sucks um anyway so riley pool is there with ben in the arctic so is ian that's sean bean's character and then like one or two of his friends yeah so they find the charlotte this ship and they go into it and the next clue they find on a pipe and the clue is a riddle that ben figures out something must mean that there is a map an invisible map on the back of the declaration of independence and then we're like this rules this is the best day of my life there's a map on the back of i wonder do you think this okay well actually i kind of know the answer but this seems like the part that nicholas cage was born to play but i i don't was what do you know it was he the original i mean he was i know that he ended up being cast in 03 but this project was in development

in the late 90s as well i'm like i wonder who else was considered for this part because i can't picture literally anyone else on the planet playing benjamin franklin gates than nick cage and i don't mean that as a compliment i just can't think of anyone else who could who could do well okay so they're clearly pulling a lot from indiana jones except character wise like in no way does nicholas cage and his character benjamin franklin gates resemble indiana jones at all and i and i and i think that that is a compliment compliment uh yes sure but like nicholas cage isn't the type of like he's not an action star but for some reason he keeps getting cast in action movies it's a beautiful mistake of history that like one of the strangest men to be born has been pegged as an action hero for some reason right i cannot make sense of it but like i don't know who else was considered i truly don't know why they ended up casting nicholas

cage in this role but i'm also i'm similarly confused by tom hanks being cast as the what's-his-face character from The Da Vinci Code. Oh. Whatever. That movie, ugh. I read that whole book and was like, this is amazing. And then the movie sucked in spite of Alfred Molina's involvement. Right. Alfred Molina is in it.

He's fully in it. He's back in the robes, baby. You gotta get Molina in the robes. Well, the Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons are basically like national treasure, but in Europe. So, you know, it's the same type of narrative and weird casting choice, I think, with Tom Hanks, weird casting choice i think with tom hanks weird casting choice i think was nicholas cage i don't know but who could you picture playing benjamin franklin gates who could you picture saying i'm going to steal the declaration of independence with such conviction oh sure okay so so the way this script is written yes only, only Nicolas Cage can do it. I think if they had written another draft for a normal person, it would have gone differently. Not like the other boys.

Okay, really quick, just because we are in the choir, I wanted to say that Freddie Molina has been posting the nicest quarantine content to his Finsta. I love it so much. Here's my fave post. So the picture is this. It's Freddie's easy chair with a pile of books next to it. Caption says, stay at home and avoid close contact. Please.

Actors have been doing that for generations and then it's the drama emoji and then it's the film clapper emoji and then it's a heart and i'm like you know what we are gonna be fine he's amazing what a what a funny guy why do the imagine parody when you could just post that you know ridiculous freddy would never participate in something like that and that is partially why um he's one of the only men allowed on the show anyways um well that feels like a good place to take a break even though we're in the middle of the recap but you know it's unhingedhinged here in quarantine Bechtelkast land. So we're all out of sorts. So let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back.

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. Hey everybody, this is Matt Rogers. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right?

Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Catherine Han is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh my God, I would love it. I have to watch Lost.

Oh, you have to. No, I know, I'm so behind. Katherine Hahn can sing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hahn can sing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music.

I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Luge. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, Rudy. Not hawk, the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee,

my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

your podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm N.K., and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me?

Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to basket case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we're back. And we've got more recap to do. Yeehaw.

Okay, so Ben has just figured out there must be an invisible map on the back of the Declaration of Independence. And then Sean Bean's character, you'll never believe this, but he turns out to be a bad guy. Because 99% of the time, Sean Bean is playing the bad guy. Well, except for when he's in Gamble Thrange. That's true. That's one of the few exceptions. But he's normally the bad guy. And this movie is no exception.

And he says, well, I'm going to steal the Declaration of Independence. And everyone's like, oh, my God, what is that a hairpiece? That hairpiece? pendants and everyone's like oh my god what is that a hair piece that hair piece it took me 20 minutes to realize it was sean bean because of that weird blonde hair piece they like super glue to his scalp it's really bad i just assumed is that just not his real hair if it is he's in deep trouble i like that i have to believe that that's not his real hair or it's the weirdest dye job I've ever. It's a bad cut. I mean, I know that he's like a natural blonde.

Yeah. Well, sound off in the comments. But I think I'm just really bad at telling when someone's wearing a wig. I just assume everyone's hair is their actual hair. I don't know. Now that I'm looking at his natural hair hair like it could be his natural hair but if so like for shame on whoever was styling these actors because they gave justin barth of that goatee and sean bean that haircut i mean nicholas cage's hair is well but when has that been good i mean it was fine and moonstruck i think but like maybe since the late 80s he's had some really

weird is he are those hair plugs is that's what so what's happening i think he's rocking some plugs in that trej i also have curiosities about because this is a produced by jerry bruckheimer it's a bruckheimer joint so that brings veneers into the mix. Because if you're new to the show, we can't stop talking about it. Jerry Bruckheimer famously, along with Lorne Michaels, makes his actors get veneers.

And I was keeping an eye on it. And I mean, Cage for sure has veneers. I think it's hard to say whether Bruckheimer was involved or whether he got them of his own volition diane kruger i don't know she may just have gorgeous naturals uh sean bean for sure veneers and justin bartha another person who's a kind of in the air for me but bruckheimer does not let nary a crooked tooth on a set you will yank them out and throw in some porcelain ones like it's just it's very dark the reality of a brookheimer set i can't even imagine anyway okay so you know we've got nick cage he's got his weird hair he's got also in the second

movie at least in the first movie his hair looks passable because he has some small sideburns but they shave his sideburns in the second movie so he just has this weird like mop with no it's so weird you jamie i insist you watch national treasure 2 i really I mean, based on that clip alone. Right. Incredible. It's out of control. And his hair is somehow worse. Anyway. So Benjamin Franklin Gates is like, you can't just steal the Declaration of Independence. And Sean Bean is all like, well, I want treasure. So they have an altercation about it there's this big explosion there's a bunch of gunpowder then they all kind of run away and part ways and ben and riley have to warn a bunch of government agencies that the declaration of independence is going to be stolen yeah including they tell abigail chase and she works at like the national archives i think so i think i wonder i'm curious about the historical accuracy i'm like is her office really just behind the declaration of independence is that a location that exists i don't know i don't know either it didn't seem real no but uh she's there and she

works in the archives and um she doesn't believe them no one believes them so ben is like well i guess we have to steal the declaration of independence for ourselves love it he wants to steal it to protect it from sean bean before he can get to it so then there's this heist sequence and they successfully steal the declaration of independence but abigail is suspicious of ben while this is happening this is all happening during a gala and she's kind of tailing him and then sean bean is also there trying to steal the document and then there's this big chase scene with ben the bad guys and abigail they fling her out of a truck oh my it's a whole thing she's damseled and then she's damseled kind of for a second time she's double kidnapped right so ben

saves her aka he kidnaps her from her previous kidnappers and he and riley and abigail get away with the real declaration of independence and abigail is understandably very mad that they stole it but they're like stop yelling there's so much to talk about with that sequence um but basically she refuses to let it out of her sight so she agrees to go with them to ben's father's house enter john void which for context during his difficult years with his daughter angelina who by the way okay so another movie or another franchise that is very similar to national treasure is laura croft tomb raider john voight plays basically the opposite. The same, but the opposite in the sense that in Lara Croft, John Voight's character is dead, but he loves treasure hunting and he loves the clues. He loves leaving clues behind.

That's true. In National Treasure, he's alive and he is so over the clues. He doesn't want any part of it. He's like, actually, treasure treasure is over he's so sick of treasure he makes all these weird claims to like i i also another john voight line that i remembered from this movie for some reason is when he invites everyone in and he says something sexist at the door and then he lets them and then he lets it's also it's like the most frustrating kind of misogynist line because it doesn't even make sense where you're like i don't even know

where this is coming from but he lets them in and then he's like so there's pizza in the other room and you're like what is that line like what how why does Jon Voight have enough pizza for four people cooling off? And then Justin Barth is like, yum, yum. Some of that. He's a squirrel. He's a little animal. He's a creature. He's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no.

The first draft in the first round of National Treasure. Justin Barth's character is a little squirrel. I love Peter. No, no, no, no, no. Poor Justin Barthas. I mean, whatever. If you see his performance in Gigli, you'll never feel bad for him again.

That's true. Oh, my God. His character is so weird. It's so weird. So, yeah, they go to John Boyd's house weird anyway so yeah they go to john void's house yes they go to john boy's house and then they use lemon juice it's literally invisible ink that you would use in like the fourth grade i know and they bring it out by using lemon juice and hair dryers and they reveal this secret code that is on the back of the

document and it turns out to be a cipher but they need these letters the silence do good letters or something that were written by benjamin franklin the original not benjamin franklin gates oh so frustrating it's so embarrassing oh i love it i hope that they like there's national treasure like i think national treasure three is allegedly happening i've heard that yes but i hope that it's like there's like now another kid in the mix and it's like james madison gates needs to steal like george washington's teeth because there's a map inside i mean i think that if that's not the plot then someone in hollywood is fucking up okay so they're like okay we need the the silence do good letters but john voight does not have them anymore because he donated them because he thinks treasure hunting is silly he's over it treasure hunting made him a bad father

right and now he's making amends by apparently never hanging out with his son so now ben riley and abigail have to go to the franklin the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia to decipher the code using these letters. That leads them to the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. And it's also at this point in the story when Ben and Abigail start vibing. It's like in a dressing room. Right, in an urban outfitters they literally are yeah they're like a forever 21 being like so like what's your story like what the fuck is this um also and this has already been happening but um harvey kaitel is in the movie

and he is i think is he fbi i don't know he's leading the investigation to find ben and recover the declaration of independence i like harvey kytel and he's in it just enough you almost forget he's in it and then he's in it again and then he's gone for an hour and you're like this movie is also too long for what it is over two hours long yes far too long also harvey kytel is kind of playing the same exact character that he played in thelma and louise where he's like law enforcement but he's also like but i want to be your friend like i'm trying to help you help help me help you kytel has good has like big not all cops energy and i'm like i don't know how productive this is right like this doesn't

seem like i'm i'm not on board with it but then when you put harvey kytel in the mix you're like i don't know it's confusing also i wanted to just quickly shout out diane kruger a woman that only existed for about three or four years and then she disappeared yeah i don't know if i've seen her in really anything else she actually has but i'm not giving her enough credit but she i remember her from um inglorious bastards she's in that um she was also in a movie i never have seen and never will but troy comes out the same year i did see that yeah i saw that in theaters that's the that's what i was seeing in 2004 so she she was helen in troy oh helen of troy got it yeah she started the whole

war it's all it's all women's fault um so she was like a she was a big thing in like the mid 2000s but she's still she's still working she um i don't mean to downplay her talent but she this was like i think peak her her like this and and inglorious bastards were her two like big moments so far is she from germany she is yeah it seems like i wonder if they kind of reverse engineered the character to be for her because she is German-American. She like started as a model and then got cast as Helen of Troy. And then unlike some model actors, ended up being a pretty like a solid actor and is still a working actor now. Nice. Good for her.

There you go. I ask because so she has a German accent that Ben Gates detects when he first meets her. But that interaction is so weird because he says, oh, your accent. Are you Pennsylvania Dutch? And Pennsylvania Dutch, for anyone who doesn't know, refers to Amish people. I'm pretty sure. So he's asking her if she's Amish. And then she's like, like no Saxony German or something like why does he think she's Amish or why does I don't know it was just like am I maybe I'm

missing something or maybe I'm misinterpreting that but I'm just there's no such thing in this movie like that was a very bizarre and I mean that whole interaction is it it is unfortunately the most like one of the more empowering moments for for abigail where you're like oh she's in charge of the scene she's telling nick cage that what he's asking for is unreasonable and stupid but he's still oh god and then when he oh my favorite line in the movie that I'm like, what is this? Is when, you know, how he like sends her whatever the campaign button that she didn't or something. He sends her something that she wanted and is like, hey, babe, good talking to you today. LOL.

Love Paul because he's Paul in this scenario. But when that arrives, it's one of the only interactions with two women in the entire movie it's like her I think her receptionist brings it to her and then what did she say she says I have it written down she's like oh what is this I hope it's not from Stan and you're like who's Stan and why are you why they the fact that they went through the trouble of writing that line down and we never find out who stan is or why she can't get rid of him is he an ex is he a creep like what is his right especially because like if we or if we used like the metric of the bechdel test that like we didn't need to know the character's name because I don't think we learned her assistant's name but like they do have an interaction where the assistant is like this just came for you and then Abigail responds by saying

I hope it's not from Stan but if she I know she ruined she wrote like that could have passed the like that small interaction like by someone else's standards that maybe could have passed but like for no reason she's like but i have to mention a man's name yeah like writers would rather invent a fictional male character like a person that i mean they're all fictional but like a character that never appears on screen or is referenced again and that's why it doesn't pass the easy bechdel test right bechdel test light um but i just uh i was really i was and then i paid really close attention to the rest of the movie seeing if stan ever comes up he doesn't i don't think so no no no good grief all right well anyway so they're in philadelphia now and ben finds a pair of old

timey 3d glasses that benjamin franklin the real energy invented and he looks through them and sees a clue on the back of the declaration of Independence about a wall here at the wall, but they don't know what that means yet. And Sean Bean and his goons are right there. They're right on their tail. They chase them on foot. And then Sean Bean manages to get his hands on the Declaration of Independence. And then this is when Harvey Keitel catches up with Ben Gates and arrests him. And, you know, because it's the low point of the movie, honey. Yeehaw. Then Sean Bean arranges for Ben to meet him. What is Sean Bean's case?

I think it's Ian. Ian arranges for Ben to meet him in New York with the glasses so that he can get the treasure. And they all go to a church on Wall Street. And John Voight is also there now because I guess he's been kidnapped by the bad guys. But when they go to the tomb where they think the treasure is going to be, it's empty. And Ben and his dad are like, oh, like oh well the lantern that must be another clue we have to go to boston and sean bean's like okay i'm going to boston and but they he leaves he's shipping out to boston the job kick murphy's swish but he traps ben and his friends and leaves them behind so

while sean bean is gone ben is like psych the treasure is here and then justin barth is like because he's a squirrel he makes yes yes yes yes um and then so they hit some like wall buttons and they reveal a secret door that leads to the treasure room but oh no it's also empty but then they're like wait this can't be it there's got to be treasure here and then they find like a thing on the wall and they put the pipe in it and that unlocks the door to the real treasure room which is enormous and it's full of treasure and everyone's like yay we did it and then this is also the i mean we know the whole time that like like 80 percent of movies it's signaled very clear to us that ultimately this is a movie about fathers and sons right yes john

voight's like oh my god i'm so proud of you you're so cool ben you're so smart you did it dad's in the audience start tearing up like uh i wish he had said that to me um and then ben calls harvey kytel who also turns out to be a freemason interesting right which you're like weird reveal does that pay off in national treasure 2 at all or is that just kind of a thing that happens sort of because he does harvey kytel is back for the sequel baby everyone is back everyone's back everyone's back yep i mean bartha for sure is back he's got nothing better to do he's he's not doing anything sean bean is not back uh because he gets put in jail spoiler alert but he gets replaced with ed harris that's a that's well no no offense to bean but

that's an upgrade i think that honestly national treasure is a of all the jokey ways that we insert alfred molina into various cinematic universes, I feel like his absence from the National Treasure Extended Universe is actually glaring. It is noticeable. This seems like a franchise he would be involved in. I think either as like a professor

who helps reveal a clue or if he goes Molina villain which we love to see but i know why i i want to say that molina was offered beans part but you know and i know what alfred molina was doing in 2004 was he being um a doc ock yeah he had bigger fish to fry that year, honey. But I'm just saying, for National Treasure 3, it's not too late. And he does, this does seem to me like a franchise that

he would get offers within. He'd thrive. Right. Well, because he's in Raiders of the Lost Ark, playing a villainous character. Yeah. Right? Wow. This is his vibe vibe like he if he is not in national treasure three something is seriously wrong unless he's of course starring in the rasputin movie that i will be writing and directing incredible okay so so ben calls harvey kytel

he turns up out to be a freemason and And Ben is like, don't put me in jail. Also, this treasure should be donated to museums all over the world. Give it back to the people. Also, send Sean Bean to prison instead of me. And then Harvey Keitel is like, cool beans. You got it, dude. That's literally what he says. Direct quote.

He's like like cool freaking beans then we cut to um ben and abigail they are together they're holding hands they're kissing they've negotiated that ben and riley each get a small percentage of the treasure i think they're they split one percent but that was enough to allow ben to buy an enormous estate riley has bought a very nice car he thinks they should have gotten more of the treasure well and also riley only got credited as an assistant which doesn't necessarily seem fair seems like he was doing half the work it's better than what Abigail gets, which is no credit at all. I know.

Well, that's true. They were like, just don't fire her. Yeah. And I'm like, are you? I have a whole spiel about that. But let's take another quick break and then we'll come right back to discuss. 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.

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Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh my God, I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know.

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I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm N.K., and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl.

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I mean, Abigail is the bulk of the discussion to be had here. I mean, I feel like very typical of this franchise, which is like, this is like action for kids, but it's still an action movie basically but in like many action franchises uh there is one female character who is vaguely written to seem vaguely empowering but ultimately kind of isn't and then she never has a woman to talk to and i feel that that habit trend mistake is held up in national treasure who is it yes indeed um because and I feel like like down to kind of I almost want to see if you can map out like how this happens because I feel like this I mean shout out if you have any similar people that you can think of in this genre but the fact that she is

at first presented to us as hyper competent and in a place of authority but that's the only scene where that is ever so it's almost like this like whatever trick that writers will kind of play on you where they're like oh she is really good at her job. She's really empowered. She has expertise that is needed for this mission. But you're never going to see her in a leadership role again. She's never going to impact the plot in a meaningful way. And the next time you see her, she's going to be damseled. So I feel like this does happen. I mean, does that happen in the Indiana Jones franchise as well?

Definitely. does that happen in the Indiana Jones franchise as well definitely especially in the like the first in the third one the female characters in those are presented as being like there's kind of a reason that they end up being the woman in the story because for the first one Raiders of the Lost Ark Marion Ravenwood has the medallion that he needs. So that's why he approaches her, and then they get partnered up from there. In Last Crusade, Dr. Schneider, she's a professor of antiquities

or some expert in the field of antiquities, and she links up with Indiana Jones because she is also looking for the holy grail and the second movie like the one female character in that movie just gets like dragged along by accident it's frustrating i think it is kind of like almost a little magic trick that writers will do to ward off the feminists to be like no we do know what her job is which is good but bare minimum shit and like yeah she is good at her job which is good but it's bare minimum shit and then she's relegated to the sexy sidekick role who hangs out with the squirrel right exactly because so she's

the only major female character in the story which is very typical of this genre she is only important to the story because she gets dragged along not because like she made any real active choice to be a part of the story she gets like literally dragged into the scenario which she acknowledges in the movie um in that line where you know john voight's like oh did marston drag you guys into this and she's like yes literally um but like that's not good enough really that doesn't excuse that being the reason that she's there um and then like you said like she's she we know what her job is she's good at her job she has this expertise in historical documents and u.s history i guess and that is occasionally shown but but it's never information that

nicholas cage doesn't already know yeah like they literally recite information in unison at multiple points right because so that i found that really frustrating on the rewatch because i'm like oh she does know stuff but then as you keep watching you're like but it's nothing he doesn't know already and so it's another empty gesture so she does nothing to ever propel the story forward and the one time i was like oh she kind of does something that he doesn't or can't do it's when she puts the lemon juice on the back of the declaration of independence because she's like he was about to do he would have been able to do he just like

might have done it a little more haphazardly than her but like and john voight is the one to know is the one who knows how invisible ink works and he's like you have to apply heat and then they do that sexy breathing flirtatious creepy thing they go and then you're like oh my god gross uh what does nicholas cage's breath smell like oh my god i don't want to think about it i mean diane kruger please report from the trenches like what does nicholas cage's breath smell like um yeah so that ended up being an empty gesture too because it's like he it's presented like he lets her do it she literally just swabs lemon juice onto it and then doesn't know to breathe on it so right yeah and i mean the only times that she impacts the story i mean they're all easily written out because it's like you could write out her being kidnapped by sean bean and then unkidnapped by Sean Bean and nothing would really change.

She is the one, I mean, I guess it's like her mistake or her like panic during the chase that loses them the declaration. So something's her fault. And then- Right, but that's like her being, that's a passive thing on her end. Exactly, like she trips,

which is like, that has nothing to do with her and then the payoff we get for that is nick cage later says it wasn't your fault and then he surprise kisses her after okay yes so i kind of want to go through just sort of like beat by beat every story point that she is involved in and what exactly happens starting with the way she's introduced which is another case of like the person you thought was gonna be a man is actually a woman because what happens here is ben and riley are waiting outside of dr chase's office they don't know who dr chase is is or what gender Dr. Chase is, but they assume that Dr. Chase is a man.

Feminist icons. Right. The assistant comes out and says, Dr. Chase, we'll see you now. And this is in the middle of Riley making a comment about, you know, being kept down by the man. The door to the office opens, that dr chase is a woman and then riley is like a very cute man because he's like kept down by the man a very cute man and then you're like okay squirrel that's enough

all right so next thing that happens is we're at the night of the gala when ben is trying to steal the declaration of independence he's like handing her a glass so that he's able to get her fingerprints later and then riley is like on the little like earpiece on his like com link or whatever he's riley is a hacker he's a hacker he's got whole setup. He's in a separate truck or something. Yes. And so, you know, Ben is talking to Abigail and Riley is like, who's that? Is that that hot girl? How does she look?

And we're just like, you're like, can you relax, squirrel? Like, please. He also later says that mean declaration lady is behind you. And it's like, why do you think she's mean? Like she was just doing her job by not letting you look at the declaration of independence that whole scene of them like like ping pong negging her and calling her annoying and telling her to shut up like i have some of them written down because yes so egregious because it's like we know as human beings that she was just kidnapped by sean bean flung out of a truck and then kidnapped by nicholas cage and she has to protect the

declaration of independence she's having a horrible day and so she's allowed to say anything she wants but it's like nick cage the second she gets into the truck immediately begins nagging her um he says she really can't shut her mouth can she and then later he once they're parked he lets her hold the declaration of independence he's like you can hold this if you promise to shut up yes there's so i have them all written down at first he says can you please stop shouting she's yelling give me that referring to the declaration of independence he says you're still shouting and it's really starting to annoy you would do well to be a bit more civilized in this instance he also says when

he says to annoy and not annoy me that is low-key an iconic nick cage moment where he's like and it's starting to annoy you're like oh what you're like where did you learn to be a person okay yeah who taught you oh yeah and then you're like wait he's an apathism who knows right right right um then she is continuing again understandably to like she's freaking out she's yelling she swears in german. And then he says, you're shouting again. And Riley's like, pretty sure she's swearing, too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And Riley's also loving it. No one stands up for her. Riley's like, tee hee hee. Nick Cage is epic.

I love him. I love him. I want him to be my best friend forever. And then later, when Ben is telling her about the silence do good letters he keeps saying you know quiet please now shush she really can't keep her mouth shut can she yeah i'll let you hold on to this if you promise to shut up please she's like reacting appropriately and he just non-stop, shut up 100 times. He's so, and then he like mentions it as a pro later when she's like fake working with Sean Bean. And he's like, she never shuts up. But by then he's like, means it in a way that he's like,

I love my girlfriend who never shuts the fuck up. Like he says it in a different context, but it's equally insulting. I love my girlfriend who never shuts the fuck up. Like he says it in a different context. Right. Equally insulting. And also patently untrue. Like she's never like it's she's not a blabbermouth. She's not given enough lines to be considered one. She's just like upset that she's just been kidnapped twice in a row by people who are actively trying to steal the decor like she's

responding appropriately and then they're just like wow this shrill woman will not shut the fuck up about being kidnapped and me stealing the declaration of independence what a bitch she's presented as a bitchy obstacle at first she oh she's fully presented as a bitchy obstacle at first. Oh, she's fully presented as a bitchy obstacle, but then she becomes a complacent sidekick. And then the love interest. And then the love, yeah. So it's bad. There's that weird line we've already referenced

that when she, Ben, and Riley go to Jon Voight's house, Jon Voight answers the door and is like, what are you doing here in the middle of the night is she pregnant i'm like you don't even know who this person is like what are you talking about he he like pole vaults to that weird conclusion and nick cage instead of saying what are you talking about nick cage is like well if she is do you want to let the woman carrying your future grandchild stand outside in the cold and you're like what is this family this family is so fucked up they make no sense and then he has pizza for four inside like he's just like so weird and then

yeah he just lets his dad think that he's had sex with this poor woman who he's been screaming at all night to shut up. And then instead of having her character reply logically, they write in the line, do I look pregnant? Yeah. And then you're like, come on, you're going to make fun of this German supermodel's body? Like, what? What? What about the rest of us? Like, it? What? What about the rest of us? Like, it's just.

And then from that scene on, she is love interest sidekick. And that is how she is portrayed. We don't really ever learn any more about her character, except that she said, I love you to more than one person. Right. Which is a cutie little fact. They learn that at the Urban outfitters that they fall in love with. Oh, maybe one of them was that Stan guy. Maybe it was Stan. Maybe it was Stan. I'm also like, maybe she and Stan

were trying to work shit out and Ben swoops in. Benjamin Franklin. Oh my god. Benjamin Franklin, Mr. Steal Your Girl Gates. Swoops in. Some other stuff that happens to her, she needs to be saved again when the bad guys are chasing after them the declaration of independence gets flung out of her hand onto the street

she runs after it and almost gets hit by a truck and then riley has to grab her and get her out of the way and then a short time later when they're in the tomb in the church they're like all filing in they're kind of being held hostage by sean bean and the other bad guys and there's this moment where like abigail walks in front of ben and he grabs her and says come here pulls her toward him and then surprise kisses her it's so like that bothers me on a number of levels the first obviously being it's an egregious surprise kiss the second being that i strongly suspect that that was like a studio note because it it is connected to nothing else going on it's almost like the screenwriters were told we need them to kiss before this part because other than that it's prompted but he just grabs her and he's like oh

right we forgot jerry brookheimer wants us to kiss and then they kiss and then it's and then it you don't find out and then that's it that's also yeah that's that's the kiss of the movie that's the most wedged in surprise kiss of any kind surprise or not most wedged in kiss i've ever seen in a movie it's just like and i mean god love diane kruger like the most passionless kiss yes you'll ever see in your life she does not i think that she's like i cannot believe i have to do this at what cost will i be a star like they have no chemistry even a little bit nope you hate to see it um okay so then after this kiss they are in the tomb. The stairs are starting to crumble under them as they're like making their way down into the treasure room. There is a moment where Ben Gates like slips and

falls and he's like hanging by something and she's like, here, give me your hand. So she kind of saves him, but that is immediately undone by a moment later, she falls and then he has to grab her and pull her up and save her so she has to be saved three different times in this movie by either and there's that moment where he drops her oh right he drops her on that like platform he's like do you trust me and it's like what is this aladdin right i felt the same way but then it's not really like that because he drops her presumably to her death she did she makes a hard fall on wood that there is no way on earth nicholas cage could be sure would save her i know it was rickety down there so by a miracle of screenwriting she survives and then afterward he does i mean nick cage does apologize to her several times in the

movie and he's like sorry i dropped you i had to save the declaration of independence and instead of first of all incredible line and incredible delivery yes but then instead of her responding logically she's like horny by the fact that he dropped her to her death and she's like it's fine i would have done exactly the same thing if i if it were me and then he's like really and then that's and you're like what the fuck is going on that reminds me of the moment i think they're in philly still and they're deciding to split up because like Sean Bean and his like cronies are looking for them. They're being British. They're being British because they have to keep the treasure away from the British because it's 300 years ago.

And we still care about that for some reason. God, exhausting. for some reason god exhausting anyway so um ben is like all right i'll take the glasses and like the container and i'll go this way and abigail has the actual declaration and ben says take care of her now riley thinks that ben is talking to him about abigail abigail thinks ben is talking to her about the declaration of independence so they both say both riley and abigail thinks ben is talking to her about the declaration of independence so they both say both riley and abigail say i will but we don't know which one ben means like was he talking to riley about abigail i feel like i want to probably i want to give him the benefit of the doubt and feel like these freaky freaky freemasons refer to documents with she her pronouns like they do

with fucking boats and buildings i feel like he is like the the declaration of independence identifies she her which first of all don't tell the declaration of independence how they identify right we don't know we don't know don't gender a piece of paper that a bunch of men touched. I know. Gross. Got their grubby hands on. Dirty. Dirty.

So that's a very brilliant critique we both had. Anyway, the point is, yeah, she has to be saved many times, constantly damseled, and then foisted into the like okay now she's with nicholas kate like they're together and you're just like god and at the end they move into this huge stone house or whatever and also the math does not like okay i didn't do the math but they estimate that the treasure is worth 10 billion dollars and then riley gets one half of one percent which would be millions of dollars right but he only gets a car i know i don't get it i don't but i i totally agree with you that like riley is not credited properly but more pressingly ab Abigail is not credited, period.

Oh, she simply doesn't lose her current job. I was furious. And like, she's not unhappy, but she's just like, he's like, okay, I want, here's my terms and conditions, Harvey Keitel. Harvey Keitel's spinning his weird ring. Like, he's Freemason-y. Gross. Yeah, Ben is like, okay okay i want the credit for the

to go to the entire gates family with the help of riley pool but like abigail was there the whole time helping them doesn't get credit at all all he says is like um no criminal activity should go on her record by the way like i cannot believe he does not credit her for helping him find the treasure anything it's it's bad it's really bad i was like are you fucking kidding me right now benjamin franklin gates i know bf he's also oh i wrote this down brilliant critique coming in already he's the bfg big he's literally friendly giant except he's benjamin franklin gates which is worse um which is worse oh okay so this movie is exhausting i it. It is better than I thought it would be. I do enjoy it. I love I mean, it is a romp and a half. I mean, talk about a romp half the things I feel

like as with most romps, most of the things that do happen don't necessarily make sense. But it's such a good romp that you don't even care. It't matter it's just good it doesn't matter i think maybe two other women have very short short moments on screen oh okay so i i had there's the woman who is abigail's like assistant or receptionist or whatever there's the woman in the market in philly where abigail which I think is an interesting scene, maybe worth talking about where Abigail is running from Sean Bean's cronies and she hides behind this like counter. And this woman says, if you're not a steak,

you don't belong here. And Abigail's like, I'm trying to hide from my ex-husband. The woman responds with a domestic violence joke. Yeah. She's like, honey, you can stay here as long as you like.

And I was like, okay, that's a really nice moment of like a woman helping another woman in a moment of need. But those were the only two women I noticed. Was there another one? There was an FBI woman as well who says, silence, do good, aloud. Right. Harvey Keitel has a female employee that speaks several times and is seen several times, but we never know what her name is or anything like that.

I take issue with that whole deli scene in general because I feel like there is very much a racial trope going on there as well. The two women of color we see are like service workers there for a punchline, which almost feels like it's pulled from the Michael Bay playbook, which hello, Bruckheimer. It's a Bruckheimer play as well,

where they're just kind of there to like provide the white lead with like a funny moment. And on top of that, the joke that's kind of being made is like, oh, she's running from her abusive ex-husband. Ha ha. Like, yeah. So that I mean, that that was just like stinky for me through and through. I guess it didn't occur to me that they were playing it as a joke, but I can see that now. So that is not not great because all the the woman says is like who i wouldn't want to be married to him either and you're like that's not funny i yeah they do

kind of end that on like that little comedic button if you will yeah i mean if this were in iran you would hope that another woman would be like, can I help you? Instead of offering you a piece of raw meat and being like, yikes, he seems mean. But this movie just isn't well written. No. And they're only talking about men and we never find out what her name is. Sawyer. Whoopsies.

But before we dive further into the Bechdel test discussion just a few fun things so nicholas cage is trying to find the password to open the door in like the archive building or whatever wherever they are where the declaration of independence is where they're like trying to steal it from justin bartha is listing off several anagram possibilities that like the letters could form based on like the fingerprints the letters that like the fingerprints have touched um so just a good time or something or something um but this is a perfect time uh speaking of anagrams to remind everyone that caitlin dorante anagrams to such things as latin dancer uti lauren d titanic and speaking of titanic did you notice jamie that in the beginning when they are

going down into the charlotte after they've like uncovered it in the ice and it's like bluish and they're like walking through did it not remind you of the beginning of Titanic with like Bill Paxton? Oh, I had it written down. I was. Okay, wait, what did I write down? I had a cute little note. Okay, here's my note. Kind of like the beginning of Titanic.

A big treasure is found, but then the treasure isn't what it seems. But what if this movie like what if titanic went like that like instead of like starting to talk to rose the whole movie was just about like was like national treasure but it was about the titanic and it was just bill paxton being like i'm going to steal the titanic oh my god amazing there's a message on titanic and if you squeeze a lemon on the Titanic there's a map um especially because Bill Paxton is another actor like Nicolas Cage who when he acts and when he's like doing line reads like they are absurd 99% of the time like he would have turned in a similar performance so that would have been perfect also just like visually it looked so much like that scene in titanic when they're like going through with like the snoop dog vision um little submarine with the camera and stuff and like going through

in and out of the ship and i was like oh my god this looks exactly like titanic when they're going through the charl Anyway. Right. So back to the anagrams. We've got Lauren D. Titanic. We've got Nine Tit Dracula. We've got Tan Clarinet IUD. We've got, here's a new one. I just tweeted this the other day.

Rude Italian cunt. Whoa, that one is wild. But cunt spelled with the U. Instead, it's like a little asterisk because I don't have to use in my name and the U is taken up with rude. So it's like, C asterisk and T. I'll allow it. Thank you so much. Thank you. You're welcome. So that Yeah, those are some just important anagrams to be aware of in case my name is ever a clue for something and you need to like anagram it um it is a big national treasure energy to include anagrams i know right i had a really quick context corner on um freemasons oh yes just because um this movie i mean this movie also doesn't seem to know anything about the freemasons so i didn't i didn't like tire myself doing research for this honestly but

just i i mean famously freemasons do not allow women in the group it is like this mysterious group that i pretty sure is just like uncles talking to each other about fucking nothing um my uncle's a freemason and i'm like they're like i i don't know i've never i've asked him and he's like i can't tell you and then you're like all right whatever like but i'm pretty sure it's just uncles talking about whatever uh but it's supposed to be this big secretive thing it's existed for as long as um this iteration of america which is going really well, I think. Anyways, Freemasonry, but I thought that from the beginning

women weren't allowed, and that was not the case. There is a whole sub-website devoted to women's history in Freemasons. So they weren't encouraged to join, but there were some multi-gender branches of the Freemasons towards the beginning. And then it wasn't until the late 1800s that it was a hard rule that women could not participate. But there was a whole system for women entering. They qualified to be apprentice or female apprentices so you could be

a female apprentice a journey woman a mistress or a perfect masoness and I don't know what any of these mean but these were the four roles that women could have

until the late 1800s when they were like actually get them out but there's a whole there's like even a few famous female freemasons but there hasn't been one in 130 years because men be excluding people it's true there was also a question conflict that came up in 2018 about

transgender women and Freemasonry in England it was this whole big thing so here is a quote that the United Grant Lodge of England released. And I don't love the wording of this, but this is how they phrased it. It says, quote, a Freemason who after initiation ceases to be a man does not cease to be a Freemason. So you see what they're saying, but the wording of it is, I don't like it. Oh, right. Yeah. There's some like... Misunderstanding. of it is is i don't like it oh right yeah there's some like misunderstanding yeah but that was the conclusion that they came to so trans women can be freemasons if they were freemasons pre-transition

very calm like how many good people i mean i don't know how many people this applies to but oh true there it is to say i think the french freemasons is like the group that low-key lets women in but in america definitely still no england they had all the all the questions around um trans people and freemasons and that's all i care to know about it's a stupid club but i wonder are there any bechdel cast listeners who are freemasons if so what the fuck and uh let us know yeah indeed um so basically are we to understand that the gates family are all like ben gates and his many ancestors are all freemasons or are they just i think so yeah trying to find

the treasure okay but that also makes you wonder like why aren't they involving the freemasons i don't know right he's just like well i've got one sidekick who may or may not be a squirrel so like that's all i need and then this woman that I've kidnapped who then becomes my girlfriend. Nice. Which even like Riley pull comments on at the end. He's like, well, you know,

you got this huge house and you got the girl and all I got was this Ferrari or whatever the car. It would have been way cooler if a squirrel was driving the car. Mistakes were made. Yeah. It's like when those, when those hamsters drive the kias oh my god what a weird reference jamie there i think about those hamsters a lot Oh, we have fun. The team on this movie directed by, this will surprise no one, but directed by a man, John Turtletaub. We've got several writers and story by credits, but all of them are men except for um marion wiberly so we're not surprised that the treatment of women is what it is in this movie i i would be like i marion come on the podcast

were you trying to advocate more for abigail to be you know a stronger more active character were you shut down what happened there i'd like to know well i mean for sure i mean female writers are shut down uh almost exclusively but it would be interesting to hear like the ins and outs of like what was okay to pitch what wasn't what went over well what did i mean i'm sure i'm sure marianne's got stories come on the pod anytime open invite caitlin yes does this movie pass the guidance i'm gonna say a big hard no on that from me as well there are those couple interactions that she does have with another woman, but those are characters who are not named. They only have an exchange that is very minimal and could have been taken out of the movie. There was no attempt to meaningfully include women in this story at all. And that includes Abigail's character, because as we discussed, she does really nothing except for get dragged along and contribute none of her expertise or anything like that. Yeehaw! As far as our nipple scale rating, zero to five nipples

based on its representation of women, I mean, I'll give it a half nipple for, you know, again, this happens a lot too, especially in this genre of film where the one female character who they do choose to include at all is not a bad character. Like when you just isolate her and, you know, examine her as an individual, you know, they often are perfectly competent and smart and, you know, we know what perfectly competent and smart. And, you know, we know what their jobs are, they're good at their jobs, things like that. But her role in the story is so minimal in terms of what she's allowed to contribute narratively. And then also the things that happened to her, like having to be saved three times, being surprised kissed, being foisted into the love interest role. All those things really are extremely frustrating.

Kind of every mistake in the book. And by mistake, I mean it was done very on purpose but like yeah every action trope in the book as it pertains to women is made in national treasure and i have a feeling that because it's like a children family like it's geared toward a wider audience it's like a pg rated film oh for sure um i think that that's probably why we don't get more like fridging and violence toward her but i think if it were like a pg-13 or an r-rated movie we would have seen like violence enacted against her and things like that but because it's so i guess you know it's a disney movie so we can't we can't hit her but we can just not write her um yeah i'll agree with you

i'll go a half nipple as well uh who are you giving your nippy to um well you presented um an interesting scenario of justin barthel being a squirrel i wonder how many nipples squirrels have but i'm going to give my half nipple to the squirrel version of riley pool i'll do the same one full nipple for the squirrel hurrah yay and and and there you have it gang the first quarantined episode of the bexell cast i feel good about it i had fun i had a blast what a treat and i think jamie i don't know about you but I found some treasure in this episode I think this episode is a treasure and we had to uncover it see I feel like you know because we're gonna keep doing it for me it's just another clue and that's gonna lead to another clue and that's gonna lead

to another clue these clues being episodes other episodes we're gonna do so i'm gonna start referring to episodes as clues so on this clue we're gonna be covering moonstruck what if we should cover the movie clue i love the movie clue oh that would be such a fun quarantine episode too what other one were we thinking about doing we were thinking about doing um crossroads crossroads i mean there's some heavy shit in crossroads but it would still be a fun one i've never seen it a bunch of people were tweeting that we should do armageddon right now you know something to think about sure you know what i'm not gonna to say no. No. We'll see.

We'll see what happens. Yeah. Anyway, thanks for listening. You can follow us on social media at all the places, especially Twitter and Instagram at Bechtelcast. Now is a great time, if you haven't already, and if you're able to financially join our Patreon aka Matreon because you'll get access to more content, more episodes of the Bechtelcast. If you're breezing through these main feed episodes, you know, burning right through them and you need some more, we've got a bunch of good stuff on the Matreon. And there's been a couple of people asking us what is the best way to financially support us during this stuff.

We're fine, but the Patreon is the way. The Patreon Matreon is the way to do it. Indeed, yes. And with that... Well, this clue, like you said, Jamie, it's not over. The search for the Bechdel treasure. Treasure. It's speculated that cartoonist Alison Bechdel has a hidden treasure and her

books. And you have to get all of her books and read them. Or what if we've been laying out clues in every episode? What if every time I say like cat facts with caitlin or every time you say here's what role alfred melina should have played what it's a cipher that was a cipher this whole time you'll have to figure it out listeners yeah just, just keep finding those clues that we've been sprinkling into the episodes. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist

who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman 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. Hey everybody, this is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. That's right.

The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Joe Gatto. I'm Steve Byrne.

We are Two Cool Moms. We certainly are. And guess where we could find us now? Oh, I don't know. The iHeart Podcast Network? That's right. We're an official iHeart Podcast, and I'm super excited about it. I am too.

I thought Two Cool Moms was such a fun podcast, but now it's even more funner and cooler and heartier. That's right. It's more iHeartier. I knew it. Check your heart rate. We're here at iHeart. Yeah, you can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts or on the iHeart Radio app.