The Bechdel Cast - Pacific Rim with Aristotle Acevedo

Episode Date: March 22, 2018

Jamie and Caitlin co-pilot a giant robot and battle the patriarchy during this Pacific Rim episode with their very special guest, Bechdel Cast producer Aristotle Acevedo!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast. Follow @aristacos on Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @hamburgerphone  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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the patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast hi and welcome to the bechdel cast my name is caitlin dorante my name is jamie loftus and we talk about the portrayal of women in movies we whoa that i think i hated that yeah we shouldn't start over we should quit the podcast no no it stays it stays we have to live with our shame yeah that's true so we use the bechdel test as a yardstick as a jumping off point the bechdel test is a test that requires that there are two women in the movie god they have to have names boring have to talk to each other. Hate it. Skip it. And they cannot talk about men. Then what will they talk about? There's nothing else. There's nothing else. I hate this test. Well, we're going to be exploring another test in this episode.

This is another movie. I feel like we've gotten this request before. And yesterday I, okay, so we all watched this movie together last night i'm just so excited because our guest i know is someone you may have heard us talking about before you might have even heard his voice on certain episodes because it's our producer aristotle thank you for being here. Wait, if you're sitting there, who's recording the episode? I know, it feels very strange sitting over here watching it happen. You'd be cool if we made one of our past guests come back to sit there and not talk.

Actually, Hampton is sitting in... I'd say it'd be fun if it was Josh Fadum. If it was Josh Fadum. And he just has to like... Josh, you cannot speak. And you just have to sit there in your horny depth. Yeah. So, Aristotle, you brought us Pacific Rim.

Yes, I did. Why'd you choose this movie? I love Guillermo del Toro. And quite frankly, if any of his movies, I would have been happy to be the guest on. But Pacific Rim, it has a special place in my heart. Because it's the first movie I saw of his as I was falling in love with him as a person. Because I had heard his name and knew who he was.

Didn't know much about him. He's a friend of the store. And so I had seen him in here a few times. And so I started to look him up more. Like Pacific Rim was announced. I was like, oh oh that sounds super cool saw it learned about him he loves monsters everything he does is children and or monsters usually both always horny oh yeah he is our horniest living director we'll get into it oh yeah he's very horny those fish butts all right Mr. Fishbutt himself I'm a fan of the fish thigh gap, personally.

Caitlin, you were the first one to spot the gap. Mind the gap. Mind the gap. As we say in horny fish culture. So as you mentioned a moment ago, we all watched the movie together because, Aristotle, you invited us over to your lovely home. We met your dogs. We saw all of your Pacific Rim toys. Oh, yeah.

And we did a couple check-in. We recorded a few little snippets. So right before we started the movie, we recorded a little segment. So we're going to periodically in this episode check in with those. So I think this is a great opportunity to check in with the first one before we started the movie. So enjoy that now. Well, here we are at Aristotle's home. It's so cool here. It's so cute. Main thing to note is that there are multiple figurines, toys, what have you for Pacific Rim. I think that the word multiple actually really doesn't give you an accurate picture of how much there is there's multiple fits there are people

with more for sure there is let's give other pacific rim collectors their due right but i can see you're a moderate collector i think i see. I can see like eight different things just within eyesight. It appears as though there's three different Jaeger robot machine things. I thought you were talking about like some weird Jaeger meister thing. You're like, look at all of Aristotle's Jaeger bombs. I was like, nope, that's the name. Well, okay. So to put this all in the context, we are here at Aristotle's house.

We are about to watch Pacific Rim. Jamie has not seen it. I have seen it a couple of times, and this is apparently Aristotle's favorite movie. How many times have you seen one of your favorite movies? Quite a few. I think I saw it once in theaters and then bought it immediately when it came out.

And now it's one of those movies that I watch every so often or I'll just have it in the background sometimes this is like a kind of rare like because it's not rare that i haven't seen a movie but it's pretty rare that i both haven't seen a movie have no idea what it's about have never met anybody who's seen it that we've spoken about like i don't i don't know. It looks like a DVD menu robot with a circly light boob and a chainsaw hand. There's tires involved. Something about a helicopter. I don't know.

Are there people in this movie? Yes. Are there hot people in this movie? There are hot people. Are there hot people that I would recognize in this movie? Yes. Who? Idris Elba? Oh, yeah. Charlie Hun movie? There are hot people. Are there hot people that I would recognize in this movie? Yes. Who? Idris Elba?

Oh, yeah. Charlie Hunnam? No. Charlie Day. Charlie Day? Why? Weird. He fits surprisingly well.

Oh, also Ron Perlman is in this movie? Oh, yeah. Oh, interesting. Are there any women in this movie? Barely. Is this a Guillermo del Toro movie? It is. Wait a second.

Mr. Fishbot himself directed this movie i had no idea this was a del toro movie it does not stylistically look like a del toro movie at all yes and no and that it's so heavily yeah based on the dvd it's so heavily cgi do people like this movie i think so and the makElmore test, as we will be discussing, I'm sure, in the episode. The McElmore test? Derives from this. Yeah. Derives from this movie. The McElmore test.

The McElmore test. Anyway. And you asked if there were people in it. And I don't know the minutes Jurassic Park style, but not unlike Jurassic Park, it's mostly people talking. When you watch it it it's not that much cgi happening that's appealing to me but it's so big when it does happen it's like oh shit this feels like it's going on forever whoa i didn't know that i've seen fish butt so many times

yeah i'm excited for this so we'll do a couple more of these check-ins i think one halfway through the movie and then one at the end of the movie just to get our you know thoughts as the movie's playing out so look forward to the next we've got popcorn there's some dogs here caitlin brought a bottle of champagne like she's like princess die like she's just it's gonna be a wild pacific rim night what does pacific rim mean is that a location or a person? It just generally takes place. Well, you'll find out. Is that a man's full name?

I want there to be a character named Pacific Rim. Mr. Rim. Yeah, excuse me. First name, Mr. Rim. Please call me Pacific. You don't see it coming. Just like you were like, whoa, Gigli is a character?

Larry Gigli? Every time you mention Gigliili i have a stroke all right so we're about to watch the movie we'll check back in later on and then just enjoy the rest of our episode wow what a fun clip wow so cool and feels like it was 12 hours ago because basically it was yeah is that what my voice sounds like? It is. I hate it. You're in the comfort of your own home.

There was one point where you were like, I've got a Pacific Rim poster. And your girlfriend, who's so wonderful, she was just like, do you? And you're like, yeah, it's in our room. But then it turned out it was behind a door but it was framed and it closed in the dark wow

it never feels like I have that much Pacific Rim stuff but once I put it all out I was like oh yeah you're like this is 20 separate objects

there's a pile individually boxed but that's also that's part of it it tapped into a lot of things that I knew I loved but I

it took time to realize like oh this specific movie It tapped into a lot of things that I knew I loved, but it took time to realize, like, oh, this specific movie is tapping into, like, all these things in my brain that are like, yes. Cool. Exactly. It is a beautiful, as with all fish butt joints, a beautifully crafted tale. I enjoyed it.

I did end up watching certain parts of it a second time, and I have a lot of thoughts. Oh, good. So do I. I think this will be a very interesting discussion. Because this movie was a little, I didn't realize, I went back to some of the original coverage of it, because I think that I talked about this last night, too, but it was like this movie, I was not even aware it had ever come out.

I don't know what. It did not do well, yeah. It didn't do well. Like, it did fine, but it wasn't until it came out in China that it made a fuck ton of money. All right, we can do the sequel. The sequel, we're releasing this movie as the sequel. Pacific Rim Rising, is that what it's called? Uprising.

Originally Milestorm, but now Uprising. Should I do the recap? Go for it. Okay, I will. What is this movie about? Well, Pacific Rim. So there's a lot of sort of exposition at the top of the movie where it takes place, I want to say... 2020.

2020-ish. The not-so-distant future. The not-so-distant future. I can't wait for it to be 20. There's one point where, like, I love when people do this in the movies of, like, not-so-different future where someone says 2017. And it's almost like a wink and a nod. That's said in this movie No they do it yeah they say the year 2017 but it's said in a way

of like What? Oh yeah I did that back in 2017 ever heard of it and it's like okay calm down I knew it was Not So Distant Future but I didn't realize how soon it was occurring until we watched it last night Yeah some of it. It's like, okay, calm down. I knew it was not so distant future, but I didn't realize how soon it was occurring until we watched it last night.

Yeah, some of it's already happened. So there's an alien invasion. Aliens called Kaiju. So there's a portal to a different dimension by which they travel through to get to Earth and then just basically invade the shit out of a bunch of

cities. They're big, they're scary, they hate large structures. Yes. Some of them sort of look like sharks. They're sea creature-like. They're a bit fishmanny. Some of them are vaginas. Some of them aren't. Okay.

And I will say there's plenty of opportunities in this movie where people are submerged and it's like, where's the butt? Well, I will say you do see robot butt. Because there's a very specific scene that I thought was kind of funny where you see Gypsy Danger walking down the street. And you watch him pass by and then bam, big old robot butt. Guillermo del Toro is so horny. What's wrong with him? Someone has to tranquilize him. He's too horny. No, he's not horny. What's wrong with him? Someone has to tranquilize him.

He's too horny. No, he's not. He's not horny enough. How does the male gaze apply when it's showing a fish robot butt? He's cornered the market on places where he's like, this is an area of horny

that can't be regulated. He figured it out. Yeah, good for him. Most directors, most male directors just have to find an unregulated horny area to thrive within. Right. Okay, so there's an alien invasion. They keep coming, so everyone's like, we've got to figure out a way to stop these because, you know, they use missiles and tanks and all sorts of other artillery and it doesn't really work.

So then they're like, what if we build these giant robots called Jaegers and we get people to pilot them? They fight the Kaju and that's just how we defeat them. And it works for a while. And a thing about the Jaegers is that they have to be co-piloted because they kind of like mind meld with each other and then also the machine so for like people's like neurons to get the robot to move around and punch people you said this very early in our viewing the science of this movie is it's like and and i know that and a lot of it's just like okay this is just like it's more visually interesting to watch it this way but it's like you get the feeling that the people inside the robots they could probably be off-site they don't gotta be in there right they could probably be in a second location and be safe

yes that is what i was thinking the entire movie there could also be like you know like uh there's two guys in there we have to imagine a billion government dollars going into at least 20 billion for each of two guys two guys one dies one falls asleep billion dollars gone government money what the fuck in in this this somewhat apocalyptic future you'd have to imagine that wi-fi still sucks i mean in two years wi-fi is not going to be that much better right but there's i was like how is there not some sort of like failsafe autopilot? If one guy dies and one guy falls asleep, people don't lose a billion dollars. And this large robot doesn't fall on whatever is in front of it. suspend our disbelief for it if we're going to enjoy the movie so we do so the main character of the movie is this guy named raleigh beckett and he's a co-pilot with his brother there's this whole sort of they got matching jackets they got matching jackets and the thing about that is that

co-pilots have to be what's called drift compatible because they're mind melding with each other and with the robot so it has to like i don't know they have to have like a compatibility for this to all work because they're kind of fighting in unison so and they communicate in this kind of like leave it to bevery super like upbeat kind of way where like the older brother's like don't get cocky kid oh yeah he lifts a line from han solo they're yeah they're communicating with Houston, basically, and they're like, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. I'm like, is this a line from Rugrats?

All very young and naive and cocky. Yeah, it's just like a bunch of dudes wearing jackets and they're like, we like each other. We got a robot, we got jackets. They look like the same man which is distracting. And then thankfully one of them dies. Because he's like

okay well this eliminates confusion so one of the so the brother dies he's all upset and then a few years pass and he goes to work on this wall

which is supposed to be the thing that's going to stop the kaiju now except it doesn't so they're like actually right let's bring Brack

Brack let's bring bring back let's bring Brack that's a that's a good character name we've got to remember that my name is Mr. Bing Brack. Let's bring back. Bing Brack. That's a good character name. We've got to remember that. My name is Mr. Bing Brack.

So they're like, hey, let's restart this Jaeger initiative and let's get Raleigh Beckett back into the picture. This is what Idris Elba's character does, whose name is something. Striker Pentecost. Striker Pentecost. Striker Pentecost. So Idris Elba is Striker Pentecost. He's hot. He speaks in a vocal style I will call iambic. Pentecost. Whoa.

Iambic Pentecost fortune cookie. Yeah. Where every line of dialogue for this character is just sort of like a vaguely motivated but like could really apply to any situation kind of motivational or stern kind of nonsense which culminates in really one of the best movie monologues of the past 10 years it's incredible so he basically recruits raleigh to rejoin this initiative, but because his brother is dead, he has to figure out someone else who he's drift compatible with. Enter Mako Mori. She's sort of like Idris Elba's assistant slash daughter. Prodigy. strong desire to want to be a co-pilot but for reasons that we don't understand at first that's

not an option for her so she has selected all these different people to sort of audition to be a co-pilot to see if they're drift compatible with raleigh and then he's like oh then none of these people are good how about you mako and she's like okay so they like do the tests and it turns out she is the most drift compatible with him. And Idris Elba's all like, no, I won't let this happen. And they're like, well, it's happening anyway. But he can't say that yet, because we've got another hour. Right.

So they basically make preparations for Raleigh and Mako to co-pilot Gypsy Danger. Gypsy Danger. Gypsy Danger. Gypsy Danger. That's a great, there's a lot of, like, almost every name in this movie is, like, pretty awesome. Yeah. We also haven't even mentioned any of the kaiju names. Those are my favorites. Oh, I don't, I never even registered.

Oh, Feminist Icon, Crimson Typhoon. Well, that was a Jaeger. That was a Jaeger. Oh, sorry. I'm going to fuck this up. Go home, Jamie. I'm going to fuck this up. Are there any women in this movie? Anyways.

Hardly. So more kaiju are coming. You know, they can tell when they're about to show up because there's this guy named Tendo who's sort of in the control room. And then there's some other co-pilots. There's an Australian father-son duo who are both adult blonde men who look exactly like which is raleigh which is personal every adult blonde male is enacting out terror on me adult blonde males just they just seem not to put you in a box but also you are the most privileged of them all adult men with blonde eyelashes you're just like what's going on here? Something's very, there's something very alien-y. Hey, speaking of aliens. Don't cut that out. It's bringing it back, I won't. Raleigh and Mako try to basically be in gypsy danger,

and Mako, since she's only ever done, like, what are they called? Simulations. Simulations, and never actual have driven one. She kind of fucks it up the first time. Simulations and never actual have driven one. She kind of fucks it up the first time. Small footnote that's an important one is that Raleigh fucks it up. He fucks up first and that's why she gets lost in it.

Oh, I didn't catch that. Because he flashes back to his brother and is like, all right, all right, I got this under control. But that's what leads her to them. To flashback. Oh, okay. to them to flashback oh okay but that allows us to learn some backstory about her which is that um the reason she so desperately wants to be a co-pilot is because she was like nearly killed by a kaiju and i think we can probably assume that they killed her whole family and like her whole community basically on an attack when she was a child right and the person who comes

and saves her and kills the kaiju that's about to kill her is idris elba's character so that's he like finds her when she's a small girl and kind of takes her under his wing if mako mori passes the mako mori test but whatever because the twist is idris elba but whatever despite that so we we learned that about her backstory. And then some things happen where, oh, crap, we definitely need Raleigh and Mako to get into the Jaeger and fight the bad guys who are coming. And then meanwhile, Charlie Day is in the movie and he's drifting with a kaiju. I enjoyed Charlie Day in this movie. It's always, we were talking about this too, where it's like in every movie he's in, it's like, did he like luck out or is he actually good at something unclear he's fun to watch yeah he's fun to watch i'll agree with that so the ultimate plan is for them to basically drop a nuclear bomb on the portal

thing that's allowing the kaiju to enter our world and then it happens and then they blow it all up and they kill all the kaiju and then we win. Hooray. Magamori is literally launched out of the climactic scene. Yes. Which was not lost on me. I know that that is like in the context of the story, it's that he was making a sacrifice

to protect her and was putting his life on the line and that has narrative importance. But she was literally launched out of the scene without her consent so right launch her out they're like oh it looks like something about it important to happen in this movie with barely any women let's just let's just get her out of here get her out of here and then say we're doing her a favor yeah that is a very frustrating moment to see so her like oxygen levels are becoming critical and i think she passes out. It's motivated.

So he launches her out, thereby saving her. So a man having to save a woman. And like you said, it makes her what could have been her contributing to the outcome of the story into the big climactic moment. She is then robbed of that opportunity. It's what we've seen in Twilight, where Bella Swan just passes out during the climax. At least she's not forced to watch. We don't even have to. We don't even have to.

It's like, no, we don't have to look at her. Yeah. So that is certainly frustrating. However, there's a lot to discuss in terms of Mako Mori's character. Yeah. And, okay, so let's start with describing what the Mako Mori test is. And where it came from. So the Mako Mori test requires that a movie has at least one female

character that's the first condition who has her own narrative arc number two that is not supporting a man's story right so those three conditions this came to be from a tumblr conversation as i understand it where a user was talking about Pacific Rim saying, oh, I wanted to like this, but it didn't pass the Bechdel test. Spoiler. Yeah, spoiler. This movie extremely doesn't pass the Bechdel test. Yeah.

So one user was kind of dismissing the movie because it didn't pass the Bechdel test, refusing to acknowledge that the Bechdel test is not the end-all be-all and that a movie can still have strong female characters and not pass the Bechdel test is not the end-all be-all and that a movie can still have strong female characters and not pass the Bechdel test. So a user responded. So this is user SpiderZan. Feminist icon. Feminist icon said it's really easy to throw away a film because of that test being the Bechdel test, which is flawed and used incorrectly in a lot of ways. If you're a white woman and can easily find other films with white women who look like you and represent you but as an east asian woman someone like mako a well-written japanese woman who is informed by her culture without being solely

defined by it without being a racial stereotype and gets to carry the film and have character development almost never comes along in the mainstream western media and honestly someone like her will probably not appear again for a very long time. So this user saying like, who cares if the movie didn't pass the Bechdel test? We still get great representation of this character in Mako Mori. Right. I think then someone proposed the Mako Mori test and then said, okay, well, let's apply this different test, not the Bechdel test,

but a movie can pass the Mako Mori test if it has one female character who gets her own narrative arc that is not supporting a man's story. And a non-white female protagonist to getting so much care and treatment and narrative importance and the fact that her backstory has to do with what's going on in the movie too and like learning by learning about her we're also moving the plot forward was really cool and wasn't just like, that was just like good writing. If only there were another female. Wow. For her to talk to. It's surprising and not like surprising in that we have this great character

that's good representation because this is also a little bias on me of why I love Guillermo is that he is a Mexican director. And so, you know, when I knew that, I was like, oh shit, a well-liked Mexican is doing cool shit? Awesome. And he

gets it, but why did he cast three white guys as the leads? It's odd. And then his career is kind of... He kind of has leaned that way more in his later movies. It's all cool, but he used to

make movies in Spanish with all Mexican actors. Right. Now he's like, what about a fish? I mean, if he's maybe trying to appeal more to the mainstream, then he's like, gotta get some blonde white guys in there. Yeah, but three identical blonde white guys in there yeah but three identical

they're supposed to be from different generations you'd have no idea there's they have to it's so funny because they're the acting in this movie and this is another thing that seemed like a little bit off brand for del toro is like he tends to cast actors who have chemistry kind of a base but no i don't know for me zero people in this movie appear to have ever met or wanted to make eye contact with each other in the fucking least like everyone i felt like every actor it's not like anyone was doing a terrible job that to the point where it's distracting but it was just like every actor was in their own bubble and they were not moving outside it like idris elba i feel like might as

well have just been in a bubble this whole movie just moving around like he's not really making he's delivering lines flawlessly is he hot 100 we're all horning for each result but it's just there is like a weird uncanny quality of how the characters in this movie and i don't know if it's supposed to be a stylistic thing it didn't't quite work for me, but just like the way that people communicate in this world feels very, even when it's supposed to be personal, feels impersonal for some reason. Well, it was 2017. What do you expect?

It was 2020. In 2020, we're not going to be able to make eye contact anymore. Everyone will just be shouting fortune cookie lines at each other. I don't know. Hey, I think now seems like a good time to check into our middle part of the movie segment that we recorded while we were watching it. One glass of champagne deep.

Yum, yum, yum. Yeah. All right, so enjoy that. We're in the middle of Pacific Rim. Yeah, we are. I'm learning a lot of things. Yes. Actually, I'm kind of really into this movie.

Midpoint check. I think I've seen three women. I noted in the Shatterdome when they're walking through, there's quite a few women in the background. Oh, are there? Okay. I didn't count, but it looked like there was, because you could see a lot of ponytails and hairs and buns.

Is that a women in STEM environment? Or wait, the shadow? I would imagine so. Okay. Is that when they're like. They're walking through and he's like, that's Gypsy Danger. That's Crimson Typhoon. Oh, okay.

So they're potentially like. Oh, feminist icon Crimson Typhoon. Right. They're like potentially mechanics or scientists or. Engineers maybe. Exactly. Yeah. For a movie with, I say so far, stunningly few women,

at least most of the ones we are seeing are probably women in STEM. So that's good. If your extras are women in STEM. All right, Del Toro. All right. We've encountered Mako Mori. We just finished the part where she gets like a really cool backstory moment that i feel like even when female characters are given backstories i feel like it's so rarely connected directly back

to the plot as much as hers was in a way that was like whoa that's so cool like right not only does she have a backstory but it's like relevant to what's happening right now yeah i feel like there's like there's a more tasteful way to put this trope but like if a movie is very lazily trying to like characterize a woman in tv2 where it's just like there's a point in the movie where like a woman raises her hand she's like just so you know i was raped and they're like okay cool now we know one thing about her and let's just keep going with the movie and like using abuse is just like a device to be like see if she's existed prior to being in this movie well it's weird because the sad truth of that is a lot of women have been assaulted however it's not the only aspect to a woman's personality well yeah that's

more than experience yeah that's more the point i was speaking to right and that the only aspect to a woman's personality well yeah that's more than experience yeah that's more the point i was speaking to right and that the only other thing we know about her other than she's gonna kiss the fucking guy at the end is this you know okay i feel like each is almost character this movie is like a character we've for sure seen before of just like vague authority figure who has a heart but sort of not oh man i can't wait till we get to the part where he delivers his bill pullman in independence day like speech the last line of his speech is the funniest thing i've ever heard in my entire life i can't wait for you to hear it jamie okay well uh we'll be checking back in at the end of the movie.

Oh, yeah. We'll talk to you then. All right. Bye. And we're back. Another thing we've hinted at is that with such a huge cast of main characters, only one of them is a woman. So we've got the ones we've mentioned in Raleigh Beckett.

We've got Idris Elba's character. We've got the two co-pilots who are the Australian father-son duo. Chuck and Herc Hansen. Right. They're 35 and 37 respectively. And yet they're somehow father and son. We've got Tendo, who is sort of like the guy

who's in the control room. Bow tie guy with suspenders. Mexican actor. So there we go. I didn't recognize him. I love Clifton Collins Jr. That's great. He's your Alfred Molina.

Oh, yes. Alfred Molina could have been. Replace one of the blonde men with Alfred Molina. Replace any of those characters with a woman. There's no reason that several of the characters... You do see glimpses of women who are helping to build the Jaegers. We don't even meet Mako until 23 minutes into the movie. And I would say it's probably around minute 45 that she says more than a few words or a few lines.

Has like a scene. Yeah. My point is that there are so few women in the movie, so many opportunities for some of the characters to be women. You've got the two science pals who are Charlie Day

and then Dr. Gottlieb. And I mean, forget about like gender equality. As I always say, forget about gender equality. It would make this movie less confusing to watch if there were more women

and diversity because it is hard to tell the the blonde man apart it genuinely i also think that tendo and gottlieb sort of look alike that you're totally right like wait it took me a while to figure out that those were two different people i could tell i knew who idris elba was i knew who mako mori was and i knew who Mako Mori was. And I knew who Charlie Day was. Everyone else, no idea. In main characters, yes. But watching the backgrounds and all the scenes where they're in the Shatterdome and walking around or anytime there's big crowds, there is a very diverse cast of background people where you see mostly Asian people, which makes sense because they are in Hong Kong. Lots of women back there walking around.

Women walking together and talking to each other in the background. Women in STEM. And then that's when you really see that this is a world issue because there's lots of different people in the background. I thought, great, good job there. The movie just doesn't consider them important enough to be included in the story. Which is pretty true for most movies.

But let's isolate Mako Mori as a character and talk about her. So one of the main things I want to point out about her is that, one, we know exactly what she wants, which is great. A lot of times if there's a female character, she doesn't want something for herself or she's just there to support the male protagonist but she says specifically i want more than anything to be a pilot of a jaeger and we also know why so we she's got the desire and she's got the motivation we find out that she wants to do this because she wants to seek revenge on the kaiju and we learn this from her sort of like memory flashback thing

but also i think idris elba has a line where he's just like, you know, revenge is not good. And which brings us to. Revenge is not good. Yes. You know, that famous saying. And her daddy Idris Elba is like, no, because your emotions are going to compromise your ability to do that. However, so I sort of can understand where he's coming from, but I think that might be a bad excuse because, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, women, they be too emotional. Right. They can't lead a country and they can't do stuff because of their emotions thinking about that line now because when that

line's spoken you don't know what their relationship is right so i think what he's he's saying like emotion because of her backstory not because she's a woman but you don't know that we don't know that and so even if that is true even if she's just like desperate for revenge and that might conceivably, you know, sort of cloud her ability to be an effective co-pilot, I can see that happening. But no one bothers to point out that Raleigh also is probably like rife with emotion about this because his brother died while he was connected to him. And he even says like, I can't do this again. My brother, we were still connected. So he has so many emotions also connected to this idea of being a co-pilot of a Jaeger. But no one's like, well, he, although, counterpoint, Mako does say,

you make a lot of rash decisions. Like, I don't think you're the right person for this mission, except that that doesn't matter because that's the only thing that's said or done to maybe stop him and then he keeps going on with it right so at least she acknowledges it but no one like idris elba isn't coming in to be like well you're too emotional rally because of your brother like no he seeks him out yeah without reason he seeks him out but he also is he's desperate because he like he, oh, did you already try all the other pilots? And it's like, we did.

They're all dead. You're the last one. You're our last resort. That's true. And I do understand from the paternal aspect of, like, you don't want to send basically your child out into what seems like mortal danger. That makes sense but that to me brings out the whole like daddy thing with this movie that bugs me in in regards to marco morris test because she is the only female character we have i think she's a really strong character obviously and and we're given

this really satisfying backstory but the the we see the first half of her backstory the first whatever percentage and we don't see idris Elba's connection to it. We see. And for me, honestly, that would have been enough. Like you could have stopped there and had it been like, I mean, the motive, there's still more than enough motivation. But then she's introduced with this new father figure. And in that way, I'm like, does Mako mori's story even pass her own test because yes that that does not tie her to the protagonist of the movie but it does directly connect her to another major male figure in the movie and so it's not totally her story it has to do with her

relationship to her father now you know i mean that relationship is explored a little bit and referenced because spoiler alert idris elba's character dies right before Mako Mori is launched out of the movie. And so I don't know. It's like there is a version of that relationship being clarified and introduced that maybe could be. And I know that you guys might disagree. I just don't think that that was necessary and that felt like, in what was otherwise a pretty satisfying, powerful story, kind of like the one of like,

oh, how are we going to get her back into all the guys? I didn't think that that was a necessary thing to do. I agree that it would have been totally fine if she was just like, vengeance, no daddy, I just wanted to fight Kaiju. But I wouldn't say that her backstory doesn't pass the mako mori just it just links and intertwines her backstory with aydas alba's backstory right yeah it's not as supportive it's just more of like here's where

all of these things fit together and this is why they work this way but also her hunger for vengeance does actually save them in one of the moments later when they're being carried off by Otachi. I forgot what Rally's line is, but it's something like, what do we do now? She's like, there's still one more thing. And she remembers the chainsword. Oh, the sword. And then she's like, before they use it, she's like, this is for my family and slices Otachi in half. And so if anything, that hunger for vengeance was a great tool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I like that she has a clear, strong, specific desire that we often don't see women having in movies, especially when they're not the protagonist. Right. And that desire is clearly motivated by something that's actually relevant to the story. Something that I didn't like as much or that I felt she was sort of robbed of is, so whenever Raleigh is sort of doing the drift compatibility test with the other candidates, Mako and, I'm going to never remember

Idris Elba's character's name, Mr. Pentecost. It doesn't feel right to not call him Idris Elba. You can think of it as close to Paddington. Striker Paddington. Striker Paddington. Okay, I'm just going to call him Paddington. So Paddington and Mako are sort of overseeing these compatibility tests.

No one seems like quite the right fit, and Raleigh's like, okay, well, how about her? Let's change this up and give her a try. And then it works out that, oh, wow, they are the most compatible. But what rubs me the wrong way about that is that her taking the drift compatibility test with him only happens because Raleigh suggests it. And then her becoming the co-pilot only happens because he insists on it. So she has the capability, but she doesn't necessarily have the agency to do things for herself.

And that's not like a huge deal to me. has the capability but she doesn't necessarily have the agency to do things for herself and maybe that's not like a huge deal to me but i think it's worth noting that her agency is a little bit she's robbed of agency in that scene and situation in particular i think that's almost another world problem too though where it's like this world even though there appear to be women in it does not listen to women very much because makamori is our only female character and usually when she says stuff even when she says it emphatically people don't listen to her even when it is character motivated that it you know idris elba wouldn't want to give her what she wants right away but it's like he's dismissive of her for the most part raleigh treats her with

respect and treats her skill set with respect but he doesn't always listen to her for the most part raleigh treats her with respect and treats her skill set with respect but he doesn't always listen to her on the first try either and you're totally right where even when she's displaying agency i think we see this in female characters all the time where sometimes we see a female character display agency and advocate for themselves but it's almost an empty gesture because no one listens. Well, I think that brings up another point, which is something that I like about this movie, where even though she isn't given much agency in that scene where she's only doing these things because other people are suggesting that she do them, and she's not necessarily super advocating for herself in that moment, but she does not have to do extra work to prove herself to the main male character.

Raleigh immediately recognizes how capable she is and he immediately respects it. Because oftentimes in movies you'll see a woman being strong and capable, but the men around her dismiss her. Until she kicks. Yeah. Until she does the kick moment. And they usually dismiss her only because she's a woman. And they just like have these assumptions. Oh, she can't do this.

She's a woman. We're not going to pay any attention to her. We're not going to listen to her. And then she goes, hi-ya. Hi-ya. And they go, whoa. What? Oh, you can do a thing.

But in this movie, which I really like it framed this way, is that she doesn't have to like, even though this is maybe not necessarily reflective of real life where women often do have to work harder to prove themselves yeah but raleigh immediately recognizes and respects her abilities and capabilities porn um it's porn so yeah it was just uh i really like that aspect of the story yeah totally agree i also say they're at every time we keep saying the Mako Mori test, I keep thinking the Mako Mori test, which is a test that has hopefully never passed.

What would that even be? Sign into law. I don't know. Let's see what happens. I assume we'll get to this, but Mako is not the only female character. She's the only female main character. Yes. But there is another.

So tell us about her, Aristotle. We do hear her name when they're walking through the Shatterdome and Pentecost is showing Raleigh all the Jaegers that they still have. And he introduces Cherno Alpha, fan favorite, my favorite. Feminist icon.

Feminist icon, Cherno Alpha. And is piloted by Sasha and and alexis kadanovsky husband and wife team and just by looking at them they're already everyone's favorite character that's the thing it's like why yeah the first shot of them is so cool that you're like who are these people and you don't really get to find out. I mean, there is like later. So would she be Sasha or Alexis? She's Sasha. She's Sasha.

Okay. I was like, they could go both ways. I was like, yeah, they both have similar names. And when you first see them, he is significantly taller and bigger than she is. But they are walking as equals. They are both equally strong. And when they're operating together, it seems like she's the alpha. She is the leader. Right.

Which I agree in that when I saw this, I was like, ah, they're fucking Boba Fett, Captain Phasma. Where you see this badass character that you want to love, but you never get the satisfaction of seeing them be truly badass. Right. Until, so I saw this movie in theaters. I loved it. A lot of people gave it shit gave me shit and then Guillermo del Toro retweeted this person

who wrote on their blog and this is where I got a lot of my ideas and fed deeper into my love for Guillermo if you want to look it up it's Storming the Ivory Tower the visual intelligence

of Pacific Rim and it's this guy who wrote a blog post about how he and his girlfriend saw it and she has a learning disability where she can't understand non-literal language,

but she interprets visual language very clearly. And so she walked out with all these great examples of the Karnovskys, of them walking around. And then when you see them later in the mess hall, you see her beckoning to him with her finger. And then when he sits down she puts her arms around him and she's like very protective of him and it's all in guillermo's very intentional visual language yeah horniest director work for sure horniest director working i hadn't noticed

that in in terms of like the visual cues they give off but like why not give them something to do why not let us get to know? I mean, we can see that they love each other and that they're good at their job, particularly Sasha, because we hear her talk. But if you, you know, like, miss her name, then it's only really said once, maybe twice. They say it once. They refer to them as the Khodanovskys again and again right I don't know

I mean especially because it's like oh man they look so cool and it's such a clear opportunity to have another female character but it's just like

it's almost like a flagrantly missed opportunity you know well I mean she gets so little screen time yeah and even while she is

on screen she's doing really cool kick-ass things but she's probably on screen for maybe a total of three minutes if you just add it all together in the meanwhile we have to watch a very damp charlie day wander through hong kong for 45 minutes and it's just like, balance it out. Right. And so, like, there's the other co-pilot pair, which is the Hansons. The Hansons. Oh, yeah.

35, 37. Striker, Eureka. The Van Hanson. The Hanson is, yeah. Taylor, Zach, and... Isaac. Isaac. Oh, I wouldn't have gotten that.

Isaac's a good name. So we see a lot of those two characters, the Hansons. We explore their relationship that we don't care about and everything. Yeah, well. Do we care about them? I don't know. I mean, well, so they're poised as these like sort of like hyper macho, like extra alpha, very like toxic masculine. They're like in an Uggs commercial.

They're just Well, so the thing about them is that they don't like Charlie Hunnam's character. They don't like Raleigh. The son does. Chuck doesn't.

Oh, okay. Herc is like he's really the problem is Chuck because he feels he's such a like a hot shot badass that he's better than everyone.

But Herc and Raleigh get in a fist fight. It's Chuck that gets in the fist fight. Wait, which is the son? Herc is the dad. Chuck is the son. And which one? So Chuck does not like.

Who allowed this? Yeah. Dads are old. Dads are. Did no one get the note? Dads are not young when they have adult sons. It doesn't happen. It doesn't make sense.

I know. I thought they were brothers for the longest time. And then Aristotle's like, no, that's a father and son. But anyway, so. Impossible. So Chuck is the one who does not like Raleigh, right? Yeah. Okay.

So they have a fight and there's this whole like, oh, I'm more masculine than you. No, I'm more masculine than you. Oh, get your girlfriend out of here. Like there's this whole exchange they have and more masculine than you no i'm more masculine than you oh get your girlfriend out of here like there's this whole exchange they have then they have a fist fight about it so it's just like to me it's like fine if that happens in the movie whatever but why does does that storyline get so much screen time but the husband wife sasha whatever their last name is who are more visually interesting ohrictly based on the fact that they're not the same exact fucking person. Yeah. I also made note of that fist fight in the hallway.

And I feel like I'm just putting all my thoughts of Guillermo on this scene, but it could also just be a bad scene. But the fight happens because Chuck refers to them as bitches, which is like you see Mako and Raleigh both being like very restrained and wanting to obviously yell at him and fight him. And then it wasn't until that that Raleigh loses his shit and starts fighting him. So I thought like, well, he's kind of defending her honor, but he also could have just been OK with it. But it also shows that she's very tough skinned and that she and that she's like, I don't care what you say. Right.

She's probably dealt with shitty dudes saying horrible things to her her whole life. And she's like, oh, it's just another day for me. I mean, yeah, if the real world is any indication, probably she has. Another thing I really like about Mako, though, is that the movie establishes that the narrative could not happen without her. Like, she is the most drift compatible with Raleigh. So the story just simply cannot play out without her or not play out in the way that it does. So I like that she's poised as a very crucial character. I wish we just, I mean, she even still isn't on screen all that much because there's so many other sort of moving parts to the story. Not a whole lot of time is dedicated to her or her storyline.

I'd be interested in how much screen time she actually has. And then there is at some point in the movie, and she comes back, she's in the final scene. There's a weird nuzzle that you and I spar over that we don't need to spar over again because it was stressing me out but there is there is a point where once she is it's determined that she is the most drift compatible we learn the back story we get the Idris Elba reveal

she disappears for chunks of this movie even when she's physically there and that is something that bugs me and something that I was pleasantly surprised with with the Sasha character it's like when she is inside of uh jaeger she's fully present and she's calling the shots and she's doing all this stuff and i understand from a character standpoint obviously mako wouldn't be immediately in charge because it's like the first time she's doing it but she's really pretty much silent when she's

working with uh i don't know why i was about to call him phoenix uh well that's the name of a city and raleigh's raleigh and that honestly probably is why uh when she's working with raleigh um she's doing i mean she's doing her job she's doing it competently but she's not speaking like they're not verbally communicating during that and i and i and it was just like why because their minds are so melded they do the vulcan mind meld and it's they don't have to verbally you can't have it both ways though because he's speaking right he's speaking out loud and she's not yeah they're again i'm referring back to guillermo because i am of the religion of Guillermo. He was very, with the exception of the minor characters,

he has noted that Mako and Raleigh have the least amount of lines in the movie, opposed to everyone else, because he wanted them to fill the world. But he intended for Mako to be very silent, but when she does speak, it has a point, and she's thought about it, and she knows what she wants, whereas Raleigh is a little more just like, I'm just going to say whatever the fuck. I think that's a totally legit character decision. But it only works in a world that's populated with other women as well. Other types of women.

Because if your only female character is like strong and silent, then we don't hear women talk. Right. Well, I did some IMDBing for Pacific Rim Uprising. And it appears as though there are way many more characters that are top-billed who are women than the first Pacific Rim movie seems to have. It's hard to say until you see the movie and actually see what sort of representation is on screen

of who these female characters are and do they have lines, do they have agency, et cetera. I bet you the million bucks this one passes the Bechdel test because it seems like they took some shit

the first time around. Yeah. Excited, but also nervously excited because it's not Guillermo. And from the trailers, it looks a little more Transformery than...

Well, that was another thing about this movie where it does, like, if you just see the poster it looks transformery and then it was like oh no there's a story here

there's stuff going on the story's more visually interesting the production design and like the coloration and stuff in this movie is really cool

I think he I this morning I tried watching it again but with the commentary and he talked about how they spent a year just designing the things in the world.

So every little detail of like, there's ladders here because people would need those ladders to climb to this, to get in there. There's escape hatches. He was very specific about what he wanted. That's awesome. Guillermo thinks it through. He gives all of his characters bio for every movie he does. He color codes everything. Yeah.

He's like, like Caitlin does. I love color coding. Oh, one last thing that I wanted to say about Pacific Rim is in a very early scene,

there is a boat, a fishing boat that needs saved and a Jaeger comes in and scoops it up and all the people in it, there's only like 10 people in the fishing boat but they all live and they save the day I'm just wondering

how Titanic could have gone differently if there was a Jaeger to save Titanic and scoop it out of the ocean I think we should open a discussion about that for the next 45 minutes or so and just see it throughout some days I mean yes it was the wrong ocean

because Titanic, as we all know, crossed the Atlantic and this is about the Pacific Rim. But there is an iceberg in that same scene. Is there? Yeah, because that's Knifehead pushes Gypsy Danger up against the iceberg and sticks his face into his heart.

Oh, my God. That fishing boat almost titanicked. Almost titanicked. It's a verb now. I wanted to, we talked about it a lot last night, but there are some vagina monsters in this. Not as egregious as other vagina monsters we've seen. And as someone who, granted, does not know a ton about

Vaginas? Vaginas or monsters. It just seems like the easiest monster decision to make. See, I don't know... It's a hack monster. Having a vagina dentata monster is a hack monster. I agree, but I don't know if I would classify the monsters in this movie as vagina monsters. Not all of them, but some of them. You're referring to Onibaba in the flashback scene, which is a crab-themed kaiju.

And so I looked up crab mouths, and it is very—that's just—that's crab mouth. Oh, it is a vaginal crab mouth. It is pretty—yeah. So it's crabs to blame. Crabs with their vagina mouths. You know what's even more vagina-like than crab faces are— No. I can't think of anything certainly not vaginas themselves muscles m-u-s-s-e-l oh my god those are just little

vaginas in a shell waiting to be eaten yeah and that's like one of those gross things that they tell teenage boys like you know it'll really turn a girl on there's that's what they do in new england anyways because i Because in high school, they told us that there was a boy who took me out on a date to Legal Seafood and got us a plate full of mussels with his dad's money because he wanted to see me eat a bunch of little vaginas.

Yeah. Real quick, they also do refer to Gypsy Danger as she. So Gypsy Danger as she. Oh. So Gypsy Danger is a lady. Okay. And then so is Otachi because Otachi is pregnant. Oh, that's right.

Oh, yeet. We didn't talk about the pregnancy twist. We got to hear Charlie Day say, it's pregnant. It's pregnant. Which I find interesting because, I mean, these are alien life forms. We do not really understand all about the intricacies of their life. But they seem like reptilian slash fish-like slash crustacean type of animals. But they still give birth to young.

They don't lay eggs. That's interesting. Right. It's a very odd choice that I can see like, okay, that's why you needed it for the story. But they're supposed to be clones. So you would have had to have cloned the baby into it. Right. Unless they're doing stuff on the other side of the riff.

It was confusing. Yeah, some more confusing science. I'm pregnant with my own clone right now. So it's actually a Czech clone. Wow. I would love to see that movie. Let's write it. Okay.

And feminist icon, Hannibal chow oh my god yeah ron perlman yeah ron perlman's literally a queer icon in this movie it's fucking crazy and i know that i've historically been very down on steampunk imagery he's wearing steampunk goggles i don't care i love it i love it let him wear him i, I was so like visually stunned by Ron Perlman that I'm not totally sure what his character was or what bearing it had on the plot, if any. He's just a mobster essentially in Hong Kong. Yeah, he has like access to black market kaiju parts. Oh, yes, yes. Charlie Day is trying to get the brain so that he can drift with the kaiju.

So weird that like Charlie Day andon perlman are in pacific it's just like yeah sure i don't know those are also several characters that could have been women i was thinking that parker posey and a josie and the pussycat style like those two characters kind of reminded me of each other in a weird way of just like they're both very visually flashy i think that park Parker Posey could have easily done Ron Perlman's part. I love Ron Perlman. I get that he's in this movie because Guillermo puts him

in almost all of his movies. But I do find it strange that this white guy becomes the head of this mafia in Hong Kong. Good point. There's another white guy in that same. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. And there's like there's another white guy in that same mob too

but it's like I almost forgot to mention that among his like mobster pals is a woman who has a shaved head. She is the baldest woman. She's not in charge

so I'm sorry to say that the Loftus test does not apply. No, no, no. Okay, let's rephrase. This movie fails the Loftus test. Okay, yes. It's not that the test isnus test does not apply. No, no, no. Okay, let's rephrase. This movie fails the Loftus test. Okay, yes. It's not that the test isn't correct.

Right. This movie fails it. Yes. Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry. But yeah, that's only one of a few other women you even see on screen. Yeah. Who, like, in a close-up sort of thing

and not, like, an extra in the background. There's also one more. When Pentecost is talking to the people, the politicians at the beginning, about the Jäger program and how it's failing, there is a woman. There's a woman. She does not say anything. She doesn't say anything. Nope. But she's there.

But she's there. So I guess good job, Pacific Rim. Yeah. Oh, okay. One last thing I wanted to mention is that as I interpreted it, there is not a romantic storyline. Oh. I thought we covered that. We covered this in the third check-in that we'll do.

So Jamie and I had a discussion after watching the movie about the possibility of this having a romantic storyline or not so let's check in with that now well we just finished watching pacific rim yes pack rim as i like to call it i think that it was funny and this movie i think is maybe the first we've ever watched that goes for horny depth and fails oh because of the lack of chemistry between the two leads yeah yeah they're given no lack of opportunity to appear attracted to each other but never quite hack it i think well does that have something to do with the fact that there's not a romantic relationship set up between them but even then they don't seem to have like a platonic chemistry. Real good friends.

That's true. I mean, I just, my vibe was that you were supposed to be feeling like, even though it wasn't as explicitly set up as most movies would have it be where it's just like basically the female characters like, and you're going to fuck me. Like, I feel like we were supposed to think like, oh yeah, they're into each other. I disagree. Really? I never.

I think that that might be because they were doing a bad job well there were so many scenes between the two of them like there was that scene where he's like you look good or like there were little there were all these little moments that didn't quite connect between those two characters so at the end when they're like nuzzling each other it's like have you met before like it's just weird i don't know i just i it struck me and it maybe was because like their lack of chemistry between the actors but i don't know i just it struck me as like their colleagues they're not setting up a romantic relationship between them like they're just like they so are though but if they're

nuzzling in the closing shot of the movie, I would argue that they're going to like, any two characters nuzzling. Jamie, we have nuzzled. Hetero-nuzzling. Hetero-nuzzling. If you're closing on hetero-nuzzling, they're supposed to be into each other. But then they would have,

I gotta go get my phone. The movie would have made them kiss then if it was like a, here's the... No, I think that that is like a trend right now and we're like whatever it might even be a forward thinking trend but the trend right now and it happens in guardians of the galaxy too where it's like here are these two characters who are very into each other and the movie is pushing together a lot but we're not gonna have them kiss yet we're not there's a lot of well sure but we as the

audience that's what is that we as the audience feel that like sexual tension yeah because they're doing a good job i don't know i would i would argue i'm gonna come to the defense of pacific room and say that the movie was not trying to establish a romantic connection between them and that instead ends on a hetero nuzzle are you kidding me oh no they're hetero nuzzling i've had a body of water with platonic friends our horniest living director but okay but okay so here's this here's what i think is that because they've mind melded it brings them closer together okay then why don't they look like friends look i don't even believe they're friends they had intimate moments eating when they were being dissed by everyone man but friends i

don't know why i'm so stuck on this but it's just like if the most they remember that scene where they ate together they didn't seem to dislike each other in that scene like there's just i just think that they're two main people i mean mako mori i enjoy her as a character i think she's disserviced in some ways but i like the actress and i think she does a good job but just like with this particular like fart of an actor there's just he just gives you nothing to work with. It's like, yeah, this guy's got teeth. Sort of. I'm going to argue that we're so conditioned to seeing a female and male lead in a romantic situation or building to a romantic connection. Because we, I would argue, do not see that in this movie.

The movie's not trying to establish that. That's maybe why it feels weird. Maybe why we don't feel as though there's chemistry i would say i'll meet you that i'll meet you there's they're just establishing a friendship their colleagues they've mind melded and that brings them closer together so maybe that's why it feels like maybe there could be a romantic i'll meet you in the middle i'll meet you in the middle and say that maybe the movie's trying to have it both ways a little bit. We could also see in

Pacific Rim 2 where we may find out what happened with that. That's true. They could have a baby. They could have a baby. They could have just gotten real mad and never talked to each other again. And the famous words of Charlie Day It's pregnant.

I think Raleigh Beckett is a bad character who's boring and should be written out of the future movie. I think he's gay. I think that he and his gay partner adopt a baby and Mako, because she's friends with him, helps babysit the baby. But if there is a baby that those are the only circumstances yeah i have to think more about the character moments in this movie which is a cool looking

movie i have fun watching it will i ever watch it again no live from aerosol's house yeah i've had a great time here tonight. We drank some champagne. We watched a long movie. It is, I'm going to guess, around 1.30 a.m. I think it's past 2 for sure. Oh, man. Oh, my God. It's 2.18. And then we'll all reconvene soon to have the full episode.

I can't wait. See you then. Yes, queen. Bye. Bye. And we're back. It's an interesting movie for for you it was like this is not this is never the kind of movie that i would gravitate towards anyways but i enjoy there's a lot of parts that i enjoyed i just it the sheer lack of women was hard well as we already hinted at the movie does not pass

the bechdel test there's's not even... And opportunities. No opportunities, no scenes with women even close to each other, let alone interacting. Right. All right, let's rate the movie on our nipple scale. Zero to five nipples based on its portrayal of women. I think I'm going to give it a three because you do see a strong female character in Mako Mori, although not as much agency as I would like. Some agency, especially later on, once she becomes one of the co-pilots, you see her have a strong desire. Her desire is motivated. She is highly capable, and the people around her acknowledge that.

And the reason that her father figure Idris Elba doesn't want her to be involved in this co-pilot program. It's not because she's not capable. It's because he's basically just sort of protecting her and not wanting to send her to almost certain death. However, there are scenes where she could have had more agency that she doesn't because basically choices are made for her. There's the scene where she does not get to contribute to the climactic moment in the movie. I think it's great that it's a woman of color as the main female character. But because there's so few other women in the movie, the only other one of any sort of prominence is Sasha Kardonovsky.

Who cough and you'll, you missed her name. Right. Opportunities that could have been capitalized on for other female characters were just totally missed. But I think because Mako Mori is a good, strong character, that has inspired this test that we can apply to other movies. Because I think it might even be a more relevant test to the things we tend to talk about on this podcast than the Bechdel test.

Right. I like that this movie has inspired this test that I think is very applicable to our discussions. Very much agree. So yeah, three nipples. I will give one of them to Mako. I'm going to give one to Sasha. And I'm going to give my third nipple to the dog, Max,

who belongs to Hanson, brother number one. Yeah, three nipples. I want to go one and a half, but I'm going to go two. Okay. I'm going to go two because I do agree that it is net positive for the world that we get this test that comes out that this movie is also a reminder for me that the Bechdel test is very important because this movie so gl time because I feel like she gets just about as much screen time as any. I mean, although I could be mistaking two men for the same man and lumping them, I honestly don't know. Get rid of those guys.

Replace them with people like... Women of color. Yeah. Easy. It's really not that hard. And it truly logistically makes this movie easier to watch because it's so good music watching this movie yeah i i liked i like the movie i just it's just so frustrating seeing like when we have to have these discussions of like where we're really

grasping at straws of like well we saw a woman bizarre she was there she's been and it's like important that we acknowledge it, but you just get Mako. And that's very summer movie, all over of like five million men and then one woman who kicks. Granted, as far as a woman who kicks goes, Mako's fucking awesome.

And we have a backstory that we wouldn't normally have with the woman who kicks trope. But I think she still sort of falls into that in some regards. Especially when she's sidelined for her climactic scene, which is like pfft. So I'm going to give two.

I'm going to give one to Mako and give one to Ron. His little steampunk goggle nipple. I too will give it three because, I mean, I wish it could have done better, but I do like that a lot of attention and focus was given on Mako. I wish we also got more attention on Sasha, though we do get that great yell from her.

She gives orders, but in their final moment, you see them drowning and she's yelling out, but it's not like a scared or painful kind of thing. She's like fucking pissed. It's a wail of fury that I could so identify with. And so three nipples. I give one to Otachi, the flying kaiju. One to Leatherback.

That like spreads its wings. Oh, that was a great, yeah, cool moment. Another to Leatherback, That like spreads its wings. Oh, that was a great, yeah, cool moment. Another to Leatherback, the big gorilla looking one. And then one to Baby Otachi. Aw. Baby Otachi. Who died almost like minutes after being out of the womb. Yep.

Aw. Cool. So, Aristotle. Yes. Thank you. Our wonderful friend, our dear producer. Oh, no problem. Thank you for having me.

Our hero. Oh, my Our hero Thanks for being here Long time coming Sorry we yelled at Pacific Rim Oh no, I totally understand We've been so glad to have you Let us know if you ever want to come back on And talk about a different movie Or just hop on the freaking mic

I can't do that Not with the chains That's true We do always tie you up And since we watched Fifty Shades freaking mic. Yeah, I can't do that. Not with the chains. No, that's true, that's true. We do always tie you up, yeah. And since we watched Fifty Shades,

we've gotten really good at it, too. But any Guillermo movie, I am happy to do. All right, wonderful. That's great. We've got to do

a Shape of Water episode. Where can people follow you online? Is there anything you would like to plug? I do. You can follow me at Ari's Tacos on everything.

A-R-I-S Tacos Twitter and Instagram. You can all follow Protein Press, which is the zine press I do with my friend Chris Saldana. Shout out to Chris, who has a Pacific Rim tattoo. We're supposed to get matching ones,

but it's kind of a... I don't know. A sore subject? No, like I just don't have money for tattoos, and there's a lot of other tattoos I want to put up higher on that list. So, sorry, Chris. But Protein Press, you can find all our cool zines, which, goddammit, I forgot I was going to bring them today to give you. Oh, that's okay.

Well, thank you. Well, yeah, check out Protein Press. Check out our wonderful producer, Aristotle, on all the social media platforms. You can also do that for us. You can check us out, Bechtelcast, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Go to our Patreon and subscribe to that. It's $5 a month and you get two freaking bonus episodes. Yes, queen.

Oh, just the one last final thing I want to say is, today we are cancelling the apocalypse. Best line in a movie ever. Thank you, Idris Elba. Thank you, King Idris. Bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption

that were turning 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. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 Catherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's

Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert

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