The Bechdel Cast - Party Girl with Liz Gotauco

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

On this episode, party girls Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Liz Gotauco go to their locial library to discuss Party Girl (1995)! Follow Liz at @cosbrarian on social media and buy her book at www.cosbrarian.com/about-fcked-up-fairy-tales.html See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Start changing it with the Bechdelcast Jamie, you can't be a librarian Your mother was a woman with no common sense What? What is the Dewey Decimal System? No, I think the response of the titular party girl Should just be like, shut up, I'm wearing the greatest outfit Ever worn by a human person.

Welcome to the Bechdelcast Party Girls. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante. This is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechtel test simply as a jumping off point. But what pray tell is that? Well, I'll tell you. The Bechtel test is a mediometric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, friend of the cast. Our best friend.

Our BFF. We have talked to her twice. And she didn't yell. So, best friends. So she originally, this was a one-off joke in her wonderful comics collection Dikes to watch out for, has since been adapted to a more mainstream, widely applicable media metric. The version we use of the Bechtel Test requires that two characters of a marginalized gender with names speak to each other about something other than a man for more than two lines of meaningful dialogue.

If you want movies that pass the bectal test, congratulations, you've come to the right movie because we're talking about party girl today. This is so true. Yeah, they're talking about libraries. They're talking about books. They're talking about the Dewey Decimal System, which is named after a man, but the system is self. A bad man, too. An incredibly terrible man.

Like really kind of like an all-timer shockingly bad man. I was on the Behind the Bastards episode about Dewey. Like, he's that bad. He's that bad. I had no idea. I did know research about Mr. Dewey. I think that that would be kind of overreach for party girl. But you can go to the Behind the Bastards episode because it is quite shocking.

But I think, let's say the Dewey decibel system is a genderless entity. I agree. Anyways. It passes the back till the test. End of episode. Bye. Yeah. Got to go.

No, we have a wonderful episode ahead of us with a wonderful guest. She is a librarian. storyteller and debut author of the book, Fucked Up Fairy Tales, Sinful Cinderella's, Prince Alarming, and other timeless classics. It's Liz Gotako. Hello, everyone. I'm so thrilled to be here. Thanks so much for joining us. But before we get into Party Grill, I want to hear more about your book. Let the listen to us know. Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. It is a collection of fairy tales for an adult audience, all retelling. So they are fairytales that have existed in folklore and essentially I'm just kind of reclaiming fairy tales and like the lessons we can get from them and the kind of bibliotherapy we can use for adults because for a long time at some point people were like fairy tales are for kids and we're going to teach kids how to be pious little babies with them when actually there's a lot of weird stuff happening in them there's stuff about our bodies there's stuff about love and sex and family baggage that I like to bring into my retellings awesome that's so cool do you have a this is maybe a boring question

question for you. But interesting to me, do you have a favorite fairy tale that you enjoyed reworking? Yes. I didn't do it exactly for the book, but my favorite fairy tale is the brother's grim. There's one called Alar Lairau, and it's got an extremely fucked up premise in that princess's father falls in love with her and wants to marry her. And she rescues herself from that situation with like three magical ball gowns that she stuffed us in a walnut shell. And she has this big, like, weird kitchen wench disguise and she goes to another kingdom and hides out until she can meet someone who isn't her dad. And that's my favorite fairy tale for some reason.

Wow. There is, in all the twists, you're like, that is ultimately somehow a relatable story for many. Just hanging out, waiting to meet a man that's not your dad. Like, been there, been there, doing something weird while waiting to meet a man who's not my dad. That was 18 years of my life. Well, I'm very excited to dig into the book. and very excited to have a real-life librarian on the Zoom call to talk about party girls. We are flesh and blood, it's true.

It's brave. And truly, our bravest soldiers are librarians, especially now, which I would also love to talk about. But first, what is your relationship with the movie Party Girl? I first saw it, I think right around when I got my graduate degree, because, I don't know, sort of like write a passageway, you're a librarian now, and you want to, like, see all the different versions of yourself in, like, library media. Is this, like, librarian cinema canon? Oh, yeah, for sure. Okay.

Okay. Awesome. And we'll talk about it, but I actually think it's a really, it's probably one of the better, like, representations of, like, an authentic library in movies. I didn't, like, totally click with this one at the time. I think I was a bit of a Judy when I was young, believe or not. Now I've gotten older and I'm appreciating more of my Mary side of. myself now you're a party girl exactly yeah because like we've seen it again now in like my 40s with more like life experience uh i just like love it so much um so it's been really excited to remiss it

now i've like 15 years of librarianship under my belt um and much better taste yeah yeah Jamie what's your relationship with the movie I only saw it for the first time earlier this year and like I watched it on a whim um um As a person trying to make my own indie feature, you're like, okay, like, what are, what is the, like, S-tier movie made for $12? That's amazing. And this definitely falls into that category. It came out in 1995 for, it was made for $150,000, which is absurd. Even in 1995 money, I love that it was written and directed by a woman.

I know there's a male co-writer, but I'm going to iconically not. include him um yeah and uh so i was just really excited to check it out and it fucking rocks it's so much fun uh i feel like this is one of the many characters mary that has healed my relationship with the bimbo stereotype i think about bimbo stereotypes a lot and have in the last half decade mainly because of the work of sarah marshall a bimbo's champion and not just in terms of like reclaiming the term but women who are like sexually open are framed and demonized so horrifically this is something we know and made to seem like not smart and not able to adapt and change and so I think if I saw this movie 10 years ago I would

have really chafed with Mary similar to you Liz yeah but seeing it now it's like I see the vision And also, because she's played by Parker Posey, Parker Posey, like, gets it. I feel like she just gets Mary to her bones and, like, shapes her into this really beautiful character. I don't know. There's so much. And I love Mustafa. I love their weird little horny, 20-something romance. Like, I just, yeah, there's a lot to love about this movie.

Also, that the directors, I don't know if it was her direct follow-up, I don't know if I'm going to get the name right. Daisy von Scherlermayer, which is a mouthful, and I celebrate that. She later directed the live-action Madeline movie that I remember vividly. I don't remember that at all. I haven't seen that one. It was, I don't think, very successful. I just know my cousin had it on VHS. Wow.

But, yeah, it stars Francis McDormand as The Nunn from Madeline. She is. I don't know if it's good. I do know that it wasn't successful, and I also know that I've seen it a lot of times. And that she is like, she's still very much working. She's almost 60. She's been mostly working in TV, but she like also did recent episodes of like yellow jackets. Like she's she's very much working and I just think her career is really interesting.

And this movie rocks. Long way of saying, I like this movie and I've seen it twice. Nice. Caitlin, what about you? I had never seen this movie before prepping for this episode. I remember you talking about it, Jamie, earlier this year when you had seen it for the first time and really enjoying it. I will say that I did not connect with this movie quite as much, nor the character Mary. I love Parker Posey so much, but I don't know.

Something about some of her behavior. I was not the biggest fan. I think there are things to like about this movie. For me, like, I don't know, the sum of its parts just didn't, it didn't all come together for me. But there's lots to talk about. I'm very excited to discuss. Should we take a quick break and then come back for the recap? Let's do it.

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Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, I'll place a quick content warning here at the top for attempted sexual assault that happens toward the end of the movie. But we open on a party that's being thrown by the party girl herself, Mary, played by Parker Posey. We briefly meet some friends of hers also at the party, including a DJ who Mary seems to owe money to.

We meet Mary's boyfriend, Nigel, played by Leves Schreiber. But soon after this, the cops show up, and Mary is arrested and thrown in jail with charges like selling alcohol without a license and possession of controlled substances. So Mary uses her one phone call to call her godmother, Judy, who apparently bails her out because we cut to Mary out of jail, ordering falafel with hot sauce, a side of Baba Ginoosh, and a seltzer,

from a street vendor named Musa. Stauffa, played by Omar Townsend, who is cute and they flirt a little bit. Then Mary goes to the library where Judy works. So we meet Judy on screen for the first time, and she is played by Sasha von Scherler, who is director Daisy von Scherler mayor's mother. Oh. Mary asks Judy for alone and or a job. at the library. And Judy is reluctant to give Mary a job saying that she's just like her mother and

her mother had no common sense. But the library has experienced budget cuts and Judy realizes she can hire Mary as a clerk and not pay her very much. So Judy gives Mary this job. That's how I got a job at the comptroller's office of Massachusetts for a few summers. That's hilarious. Yeah, that's the only nepotism I've ever been the beneficiary of. Yeah, nepotism alive and well in the public government system, for sure. Yeah. Small public government, right? So now Mary has this job, but, oh, no, she has to learn the Dewey Decimal system.

I just think this is such a fun hill to scale for her. Because it is, well, Liz, it's confusing, right? It is, it is. And for some reason, like, this. the employees of this library seem to know it down to, like, the 20th decimal as well, which I have to say, I do. That's not the kind of librarian I am. Fair. But it's one of those things where you get like the broad strokes of it before you have to get the nitty gritty. And they're kind of throwing Marion to the deep end,

I think, a little bit. It takes a lot of, a lot of training to just be like a library page or a library clerk who does the shelving. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, when I was in, school, I think both like elementary and high school, we would have like one class a week where we had like library libraries. Right. And because I think like most children would not really go to the library otherwise unless they were forced to buy a class. So we would all go to the library and we would learn the Dewey Decimal system. Oh. To this day, I still don't understand. I found a very complicated but we would have like tests on it and stuff. Oh, that's hard for. I think that's rare. I think that's rare.

Yeah, because when we went to library class, they were just like, please read a book. Any book that was sort of library class. Ours combined with like tech too a little bit, like with early like internet technology. Right. There should be, I've thought about this before, but you're like this, it's so like niche. But there should be just a bunch of interviews about what specific computer classes were like at particular times. Because early computer classes were so fucking unhinged and busy. are like there I feel like I've definitely talked about this on this show before because I think about

it constantly but we had like in middle school we had computer class and it would be like you play a math game you play a reading game and then you play a weird third game that was about internet safety and you're playing a detective and you're trying to save a kid who talked to someone in a chat room and is now being held hostage in California like it was terrifying it was just like meant to scare you into never using a computer again, even though you were at computer class. It was so weird. I don't even remember that type of stuff. I just remember, like, BS and playing Oregon Trail and, like, sending notes, but with a computer.

Until high school, when I had to take it, and it was so, I was so fucking bored. I was like, well, I'm just going to become the best typist in the world. And I am. Nice. Well, part of my computer class was, like, a typing class. And they were like, if you don't learn how to type 90 words a minute. it, you're going to fail miserably in the rest of your life. And so I was like, oh, my God, I have to learn.

Yeah, my dad was really, I never, I still type like, boink, boink, but like ASDF, JKL semi, like that sort of that style of typing. Like I never, it's, I don't know, like, I think it's like people with typewriters or maybe it was a reporter thing. I honestly don't know, but you keep your fingers, if you're writing, you keep your fingers on ASDF on your last JKL semi and the other. and then yes you know yeah but that's just i don't think that there's a single person under 50 that does that now probably not i do you do you a s df yeah i that's my default wow you were like

raised right or something like i don't even that's not true there's you were raised differently um yes anyways yeah there's so the library yeah i do think like the goal of like the school library and these classes is so that like people like Mary or whatever you can become like a self-sufficient person and like locating information not just like for school but in general in life and but it's just like never works out that way yeah and Mary is kind of she's in over her head with this library clerk job that she has just gotten she's Parker posying out about the Dewey desolate system yeah again all of those like shots of Melville doy's poster there especially like knowing what a dirt bag he was especially like haunting i know i'm like to date i feel

like daisy we weren't we weren't as a culture talking about the crimes of melville dewey in 1995 she didn't know no she talked i mean they do like briefly mention his sexism at the end of the movie but true but but not his sex crimes yeah it's like not the crimes the racism the anti-sebatism like it's just every every way you could be a bad person he gave it a shot we hate that yep um So then we see Mary back at her, like, apartment loft. She lives in this huge Manhattan, question mark, or whatever, somewhere in New York City loft. And she's hanging out with her friend Derek, who is always talking about this guy named Carl, who he hooked up with, but Carl didn't ever call him back.

She's also hanging out with her friend Leo, the DJ, we met earlier, who has kind of moved in because he needs a place to stay for, a while. And she takes Leo to this place called Renee's, the hottest nightclub in town because Leo wants to spin at this club. So she's going to introduce Leo to Renee, who we meet on screen. I'm so curious if there's any, first of all, do any DJs listen to our show? Second of all, is this an accurate portrayal of DJ? It's like, I mean, Leo seems very committed to his crap, but I was just like, I don't know. DJ is such a nebulous, fascinating job to me because you're like, what are you guys up to?

What are you doing? Yeah. I mean, and I feel mean saying that, but like I've been to so many weddings and I'm just like, it is, you are curating the vibe. Yeah. But like, I don't know. I also think that like 90s DJ where you're like literally spinning records. Yeah. very different there's a joke about this and pop star never stopped stopping where um we got to cover it

so good feminist canon but um so it's dormant to cone's character he plays andy sandberg's character's DJ and there's a joke where he's like yeah like back in the day I used to actually like spin and do stuff as a DJ and now I just hit play on an iPod Leo Leo is Leo is working he's is spinning. Yes. Yeah, he's creating a collage. A collage of vibes. Yeah. Is it my personal vibe? Not really, but I celebrate it. Yeah. And everyone around him seems to be enjoying it. Yeah. You're like, okay, I guess it must have been a 1995 thing. People liked this shit. Yeah. Also around this time, Mary breaks up with her Leveshreiber boyfriend, Nigel, saying that he lowers her worth, because it seems like he drinks quite a lot. and he like maybe like pisses in public or something and she's like you're a dirtbag i'm breaking up

with you love that right yeah good move i leave sure her then at work at the library mary tries to get the hang of things but that damn dewy decimal system is really she's really struggling with it then she goes to order more falafel from Mustafa and she tries to chat with him in arabic because she has been learning a few phrases specifically to be able to talk to him. And he tells her that he used to be a teacher back in Lebanon, but he's reluctant to teach in the U.S. because he feels his English isn't good enough. Then he asks her on a date Friday night, which she seems excited about, and we see her at home doing a very offensive dance and singing.

thing. She's being very culturally insensitive and that's how she's displaying her excitement, question mark. But when it comes time for the date with Mustafa on Friday night, she blows it off in favor of sneaking into the library and trying to figure out the filing system, especially because we just saw Judy be raiding her and again saying her mother has no common sense. neither do you and your life is frivolous and so mary has been feeling especially inadequate and aimless and so she's trying to like improve at her library clerk job and take pride in her work but then we cut to mustafa who is being stood up and he's really bummed about it leo meanwhile has followed up with rene the nightclub owner and she has given him an audition spot Friday night

night to spin and he's really nervous especially after he sees a beautiful dancer named Venus and he messes up a little bit but he recovers and he does a pretty decent job the rest of the night the next day Mary comes upon Judy as she's having a hot flash and we're like okay menopause representation in media beautiful then Mary goes to Mustafa's food cart again but he's still hurt that she bailed on their date neither of them directly addressed this but he makes a remark about

how she was dismissive of him and she's just like shrug give me my falafel and Boba Gnuch and Seltzer please and you're just like Mary Mary come on I mean I do it is interesting rewatching this movie

because I feel like in there's issues issues with it that we'll talk about but there is It's like the low-budget feel of like the plot is kind of all over the place. I feel like there's certain sequences where you're like, she's just kind of twisting in the wind. I don't understand her behavior. And luckily, I really like Parker Posey. Yeah, I mean, she's like so in the moment too, I think.

Yeah. Which is very like of her not even acknowledging that she blew him off. And she's like very impulsive. And it seems to be stuck where she is. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's like, you know, we see her learn from that over the course of the movie, but especially at that moment, I mean, that's, that's a tough one because you're like, Mustafa just like shared something very personal with you. He like really opened up to you and your response is to do a weird racist dance at your house and then blow him off. What do you mean? What do you mean? Really upsetting. Then at work, Mary is much better at her job these days, but Judy still undermines her. and compares her to her common-senseless mother,

which, of course, frustrates Mary. Then she bumps into Renee at the library, who thinks that Mary is there for an AA meeting, which is what Renee is there for, so she confides in Mary. And then there's this weird joke. We'll talk all about how Renee's alcoholism is represented and the, like, comic relief that the movie's trying to do with it, but that's there.

Then there's a montage of Mary ordering falafel from Mustafa again, but he's not thrilled about her always coming around. He has previously told her, like, leave me alone, but she keeps coming back. He tries to send her to the gentrification falafel cart across the street, And so we'll talk about that as well, but she's like, no, I want you or falafel. Then Mary puts her library filing skills to practice and organizes Leo's like over a thousand records by a filing system akin to the Dewey decimal system, which infuriates Leo because he already had a system and she fucked it up. But she's like, no, no, no, my system is better. Here, I'll teach you how to use it.

And then it seems like he kind of comes around on it. And so it was good, actually, that she interfered with his life. Then there's what I found to be a very bizarre scene where Leo takes a shower. And she's like, no, it's my turn to take a shower. So she gets in the shower with him without his permission. And they're naked. And then she kisses him. The consent here is murky at best.

It's just off the rails. Yeah. And truly goes nowhere. Yeah, yeah, and then goes nowhere. Yeah, I wrote out, I was just like, question mark, didn't love it. Like, it's so, like, because it's really unclear what the movie thinks is happening and what the character's thinker's happening. So I'm like, or if there's any precedent for this having happened in this roommate relationship before, like, just nothing but questions. I stand with what I said, which is question mark, didn't love it.

a fair assessment yes yeah then we cut to mary back at the library mustoffa comes in looking for information on becoming a teacher in the u.s not realizing that mary works there and she helps him and then they have sex in the library it's after hours at this point so like they're alone it's not like they're doing it in front of other people but she forgets to close the windows and it's pouring rain outside and the rain splashes in and it ruins several books, which enrages Judy the next day. Judy also sees, like, a used condom in the trash. So she knows that Mary had sex in the library.

And this is when she goes on... But she had a good reason. I'm very pro-Mary having sex in the library. I actually have to say, as, like, a public librarian, I don't think I would just automatically assume it was my co-worker that had sex in the library either. In a public building, it could be anyone's condom. True. Famously, anyone can go.

So it's very easy to be like, it wasn't me. It could have been anyone in the city. So true. So true. I mean, I guess to Mary's credit, she copse to it immediately. She's like, yeah, I fucked. Own it. Also, it is cool that she fucked in the library.

So why hide it? Right. I feel like, you're jealous. I hear you. And I hear that you're jealous. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then this is when Judy has a monologue about gender role.

and women being underappreciated in the work they do in libraries. Again, we can talk more about this later, but the bottom line is Judy is furious, and she fires Mary from the library. And then when it rains, it pours because Mary also gets an eviction notice. So she's really having the low point of the movie. She sells a bunch of her designer clothes to a thrift store so she can make rent and she's once again feeling very lost and aimless she doesn't know what to do with

her life Mustafa consoles her and like as he's embracing her she looks around and she's like hmm this would be a great place for a party cut to she's throwing another party one that is once again very culturally insensitive and appropriative and it's also her birthday party because it's her birthday and but she's very stressed out about like the logistics of throwing the party and she's lashing out so Mustafa confronts her for being shitty to the people who are helping her and she doesn't like being confronted so to cope with everything that's going on she takes some drugs and they make her like go off the deep end she's like falling all over the place she says the F slur to her friend Derek a bunch of times.

She sure does. Then her ex-boyfriend Nigel pulls her aside and attempts to assault her several times, but she's able to get away and she goes into her building and passes out on the stairs. She wakes up the next morning and goes to the library to be like, hey, Judy, I need to talk to you. Come over to my place tonight at 8 o'clock. then Mary enlists the help of a few of her former library colleagues and starts researching places for Mary to go to grad school and study library science so that she can become a librarian. I was like this, now the movie's becoming Caitlin Cannon because higher education is becoming integral to the plot.

She's trying to get a master's degree, but once she gets it, she will never mention it. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I feel like Mary would be bringing it up. yeah honestly it's very librarian to bring up your master's degree there's a difference between film world and and library world I think in terms of graduate studies as someone with again a master's degree in screenwriting from

Boston University I would never mention my master's degree and my master's degree is from the University of Rhode Island and I'm loud and proud about it and I am not in debt smart very smart Okay. So meanwhile, Derek and Leo are at Mary's place setting up a second birthday party for her. This one's a surprise party. And she comes home and they're like, surprise. But she is not as much of a party girl anymore. She is now more of a library girl. So she tries to break up the party before Judy arrives. But Judy shows up and she's like, I knew it. You're a frivolous.

party girl there's a male stripper who's dancing all over mary while she's begging judy for her library job back it's a very chaotic end of this movie like they're it felt like they're like oh my god we'll they have one day left to shoot i guess we're just gonna have to do everything that's left in the movie everything just kind of happens it feels very rushed yeah i kind of love it like it's just yeah very frenetic yes yes um and then mary's friends come to her defense And they're like, she helped organize my records. She helped me research how to become a teacher. And Judy is like, damn, okay, maybe you are a library girl.

And she gives Mary her job back. And everyone celebrates and dances and parties because you can do both. You can. The end. Let's take a quick break. And then we'll come back and throw a party in the library. Wee. Woo!

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with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. and we're back what feels right i mean i sort of want to start with what doesn't work about this movie so we can talk more about libraries and bimbos and and stuff that does um i think that like okay so obviously there's a lot of racial insensitivity in this movie that comes from our protagonists who were supposed to love. Yup. I think like, so this is two white writers. There is this co-writer, Harry Berkmeier, Daisy von Scherler-Mayer is both the writer and the director. So this is coming from a white

perspective. And I would be curious if she spoke with anyone of a Lebanese background or just a non-white background at all when building out this story because I think that the character of Mustafa is thoughtful asterisk for 1995 right which was mentioned when this movie first came out and there's a quote from Daisy von Scherlermeier. I'm just going to say Daisy Meyer because that's what she uses now but that people were complimenting her on like oh your your movie is so diverse and she says no that's the world you don't represent the world in your stuff why is your world so segregated i think the world is messed up and party girl is normal so she's coming from like this comes from an attempt to show new york as it is or as it was when this movie is made which i

think is like a very valiant and cool thing to do but because our protagonist is aggressively white you could say. I felt like when she was doing all this culturally insensitive stuff, she doesn't learn from it and it's played for laughs. And so it just sucks. Like it just sucks. Yeah, there's just no, if she had to like reckon with that at some point in the movie, it would be very different. Because I know I'm like an extremely white presenting woman, but my father is Filipino. And so I think it's pretty realistic actually to like feel like you're honoring someone close to their culture and to do it in completely misguided way. But obviously, if you present that and then never, like, reckon with it, then all the

wrong lessons are being learned. It's interesting. I feel like the potential, like, I don't know, like a lot of things, and I know that this was like a movie Mary much made, like, run and gun style. But, like, it felt like there was a lot left on the table with Mustafa's character in general because I really liked the story we get with him. You know so much more about him than you know about most people of color in movies in 1995, which is depressing. But like, you know, he is like a very sweet person.

Like he wants to be a teacher. He has this ambition that exists outside of our protagonist, which again, rare. But like because Mary does not learn anything about her own cultural insensitivity, it's like hard to root for. that relationship for Mustafa because you're like that sucks for him yeah yeah because so much of what she is doing is that white people thing of wearing other people's cultures as a costume because we see again that scene where she has like developed a crush on Mustafa and she goes home and does that like bizarro like feels like maybe she's mimicking belly dancing or more likely mimicking other caricatures of

era culture and dance that she has seen in Western media. Yeah. Precisely. And then there's the part where she and Mustafa are supposed to go on a date. She completely blows him off. She shows up at his falafel cart as if nothing has happened. He's rightfully

upset and says something like you seem to misunderstand what's going on here and it feels like you've you know, you met a vendor who speaks funny English and for you it's a holiday. Travel without a plane ticket, but I can't agree with this. Like, can you go? And she completely shrugs this off. She does not apologize. She does not acknowledge her shitty white privilege behavior. There's that

part where he tells her that he was a teacher back in Lebanon, but that he has like struggled to become a teacher here. And she's super dismissive about it. She's just like, well, why don't you just become a teacher in America? Like, what are you doing with a falafel cart? She's also like pretty classist in the way that she talks about doing any kind of like service jobs she's like I am not a waitress I will never be a waitress which I also feel like that I interpreted that is like her coping like because she is I don't know there is like this holly go lightly quality to her where she wants she like has no money herself but she wants to appear wealthy and so I feel like it's like she I don't know maybe I'm giving the character too much credit but it's not like she is

above any working class job like she she she needs work it's like she can't admit that to herself yes for sure I felt I felt like a lot of her classes stuff felt coping coded to me I guess yeah but the way that she treats Mustafa I just I get it like her character is supposed to be like careless and lost and like then she learns the Dewey decimal system and that somehow solves everything whatever but like I was repeatedly bumping by like you said Caitlin like that speech that Mustafa brings like he's very clear about like why he is not okay with how she's treating him he has a detailed backstory like it isn't as if the writers are not thinking about him they've like built a very sympathetic cool unique character so why is he

treated so badly like it's not played for laughs that he's treated badly it kind of just like happens and there isn't like quite any resolution or movement on on mary's part so it's yeah yeah and i can't even tell how we're how they're kind of hoping we're going to feel about it either right right i mean i certainly know like when she has the her like arabian night's birthday party or whatever and she's like tokenized her boyfriend in his uniform and is saying it's funny it'll be funny if you you know build your falafel yeah it just comes across as so wild and it i'm guessing maybe it's just supposed to represent her kind of bottoming out, but it's, I feel, feel terrible for Mufasa that it never comes around later on. Yeah, I've just, you're just like, and then he like

sticks up for her towards the end because that's what needs to happen at the end of the movie. I don't know. I just, I, I, I, it felt like there should have been a victory for Mustafa in the context of this relationship where we see him stand up for himself. It just kind of seems like everything that resolves seems to happen in a way that we don't see or is it kind of like yada yada when i think it's like very within the you know ability of this movie to like have those conversations with these characters like this movie can have uncomfortable conversations and i just felt like musta kind of got left by the wayside yeah in this in this way that feels like really gross because we we know this character we love this character but like you're saying liz like

i am so unclear on because white cultural insensitivity is so prevalent then and now that it's like this is i feel like that kind of insensitivity this is like the tip of the iceberg in the 90s so it's like hard to watch in 2025 and really like understand what we're supposed to be like are we supposed to be offended and embarrassed and upset with her in 1995? I genuinely don't know. Yeah. Yeah, the big problem here, as we've said, is that things resolve narratively, but we don't see any effort on the part of the white character to unlearn her racism or to hold herself accountable for it and acknowledge it and apologize for it. Like, we see none of that. It's just that they've made up, they've kissed and made up, and it's nice. A very similar thing

happens with what appears to be commentary on cultural appropriation with the white falafel vendors who have a food cart across the street from Mustafa's. And you can imagine that like their food is not very good or authentic, but the white people in the neighborhood are lining up for the white people falafel that they put toothpicks in and stuff like that. And, I feel like Mary always going to Mustafa's cart and not the like gentrification falafel cart is supposed to be shorthand for Mary's cool and she can hang. And that's why it's quote unquote okay for her to then turn around and throw like cultural appropriation the party at the end of the movie.

But anyway, so throughout the entire movie, it's Mustafa resenting that these white food vendors are making his culture's food and doing it wrong and it's way more popular. Like their business is way more successful than his. Which is like good commentary. So it's like, again, so you're like this movie is able to engage with these issues. But then there's like a clear point with Mary's character where they just stop. For sure. And then at the end of the movie, this magically resolves itself where suddenly no one's going to the

white people falafel cart and it's no longer popular and everyone is instead lining up at Mustafa's food cart but we don't know what changed or why it's just this sort of magical resolution that happens without again anyone learning anything or yeah it does feel like sort of like oh no the movie has to end like yeah and it's like a short movie I it feels like there's like a cutting room floor full of scenes that maybe would have filled some of this in I mean also just like 150,000 they may have just been like we can afford to shoot for 10 days and whatever we get on those 10 days ends up being the movie but like I yeah I again it's like I'm glad that that wasn't dropped but like you're saying Caitlin it was very just like happy ending in a way that like

doesn't engage with the clear commentary that that conflict was introduced with so it's like yet another thing that it's like it's set up in a way that you're like oh this could be really interesting but then it's either like dropped forgotten about or just like tied up in a very weird neat bow and yeah and just like yeah going back to the relationship with mary Mustafa because it seems like whatever these conversations well whatever the resolution with their relationship happens mostly off screen you do sort of like leave with with the impression that, and I think that this is like, again, another common thing that this movie should be commenting on instead of just doing is like, she doesn't make any movement

on her cultural insensitivity or covert racism or overt racism. So if at the end, if Mustafa was choosing to be with her, like, what choice do we have but to think like, okay, so he's just compartmentalized that and said, I accept her. Like, I will not. demand more of my partner, which is like a very, like, he deserves better. He deserves better. I also want to talk about the black characters in the movie who are very much either secondary or tertiary characters whose interior lives we know nothing about. The few who we learn by name, each one has some thing that is. not handled well, starting with Wanda. She is the library clerk who Mary works with. And we see

her now and then. We don't really get much of a sense of her and Mary's working relationship. Then there's a scene toward the end where Mary grabs Wanda by the scruff of her neck and like slams her into a bookcase and says something like, you're going to help me, bitch. Cut to, Mary is making Wanda and some of her other colleagues, like research grad school for her. So it's just like, we know nothing about this character. And then we see like Mary being violent and aggressive toward her. So that's not great. We have Natasha.

This feels like another example of Mary temporarily adopting a culture that she doesn't belong to to seem like trendy or whatever. but we meet this character when Mary goes to Renee's nightclub. Natasha is black and queer. And Mary gets up and sort of like dances with or next to Natasha, but it's mostly just Mary's standing there as Natasha is vogueing. And once again, it's just like Mary, like ballroom culture is not yours. Like what is not for you? What are we doing here?

but that's also just like a 30 second scene and then we never see natasha again then there's Howard who is a librarian who we also don't see much of until the scene at the end when mary is trying to figure out how to go to grad school we learn a little bit about how Howard feels regarding like libraries and academia and stuff like that but it's a very quick scene we don't get much else from Howard. And then there's Venus, the dancer at Renee's club, who vibes with Leo. Again, we don't learn much about her. But there is this random beef between her and Mary at the party scene toward the end

where Venus says to Mary, like, could you move your cigarette is bothering me? And Mary replies very antagonistically, like, get a last name. will talk and it's just like what is this random like do you even know each other like why are you being so antagonistic toward her i was like this feels deleted scene coded or just straight up like bad improv it was weird weird weird um yeah i think that like that is like a consistent thing throughout this movie where they're trying to capture this very diverse party scene that existed at the time in the locations where that was happening but they are not giving focus to the characters that make those parties what they were.

So it's like you, it feels like you get a very surface look at New York queer culture, at ballroom culture, at all of these scenes that existed at the time, but you really just see them in a brief flash in a way that makes Mary seem out of place and the characters, particularly the black characters, seem very like there and gone. And again, it's like, even with the way that they had to make this, like, why not have a full character? If you want to, like, show this party scene, if you want to have ballroom within the movie, then give us a character. Give us two characters, even. Although, you know, two characters is usually too much.

Too much to ask. Yes. But yeah, I think particularly with black characters, it started to feel like it was a repeating thing. And again, this movie was like praise for its diversity at the time. And unfortunately, probably it did look more diverse than most movies at the time. Well, it's structured funny too because like similar to Mustafa, I think like the first impressions you get at these characters, it's exciting. Like you see black queer people right from the beginning of the movie. You see two black librarians.

in a queer that's very, very white. And so I'm inclined to say, yay, I'm excited to dig into this more and then nothing happens with him. Yeah. Or poor things happen with it. Yeah, there's the facade of diversity because you see black characters, you see queer characters, you see immigrant characters, you see a Latinaic character with Leo, who is played by Guillermo Diaz.

He's been on every TV show on the face of the planet. His IMDB is wild. It's weeds, girls, law and order, scandal, et cetera. Every TV show. That's all of them. That's the best kind of career, I think, to have. Just to be everywhere. It is pretty cool.

But yeah, there's what appears to be a diverse cast, but the inclusion and characterization of many of those characters isn't particularly meaningful or thoughtful. The cultural insensitivity towards Mustafa is the most egregious, because it seems like their heart is maybe not in the right place with how Mary's characterized. It does feel like, you know, in terms of like, I don't know, there are moments where it's like, this movie's biting off more than it can chew if a straight white oven has to be at the center of it. I want to say, like it does seem like the director's heart is in the right place.

She wants to show a wide swath of New York culture, but like she kind of can't. with the story she's created, it's a bummer. And also, like, you see, so with, with other characters, you're like, oh, this is, this is a whole other movie, you know, like, there are certain stops at certain clubs where you're like, let's stay, I wish we could stay here, could we, you know. Yeah, she knows so many interesting people. Yeah. But they're kind of just there to make her interesting and, you know, that's too bad.

Yeah. Right. Yeah, they're there to service her character more than be characters themselves. in terms of stuff I like about the movie I do like okay so I we have a messy unlikable New York girl protagonist I'm a sucker for that I like that I mean she's amongst other things very 23 years old she doesn't know what she wants to do she's in denial and defensive about just about everything She has anxiety about being around older women, which is a very interesting dynamic that I don't think that I like understood about myself when I was in my early 20s where like a lot of older women to her are cautionary tales rather than people to talk to. And so like part of what I think her dynamic with Judy is very interesting.

That I think is like a strength of the movie. where they just do not get each other. They're projecting, like, nobody's business at each other. And I don't know. I think it's like a cool, even though both of these characters are pretty broad in the way that they are painted, like everyone in this movie is very broad. But there was more nuance in their relationship than I was expecting, honestly, and I appreciated it. This is not really a criticism, but I was just curious about how Judy is,

Mary's godmother because Judy and Mary's mother were friends once upon a time. We also learned that Mary's mother passed away. Right. Right. Which is like an element of Mary's character that goes kind of under explored. But you're like, oh, she also like lost a parent very, very young. And like that can... Yeah, has no other family.

That can lead to party girl tendencies and like looking for community outside of family and yada yada. But the thing I was curious about is like, Judy does not seem to respect Mary's mother at all. So like, why were they friends and why did she agree to be Mary's godmother? I was so curious if that was like a seed that was cut or something. Because I do, again, it's like, that's a weirdly specific detail that like completely informs how she treats. Like she's, she's like getting out all of her anger at this woman who is no longer alive by tormenting her daughter while also feeling responsible for her. And like,

That's a really complicated dynamic. Yeah, there seems to be something heavy maybe that happened there. I mean, we know that, like, this woman died in a DUI. Yeah. So maybe there's some kind of grief that she's trying to process. And that's the reason why she's sticking around with Mary. But, but again, we're filling in blanks. Right.

Yeah. And it's like a very complicated specific dynamic to be filling in blanks for as an audience. Because, again, I think, like, similarly. to Mustafa we get way more detail than I would have expected for Mary's mother where you know most movies you sort of get like Disney princess like you know they're like she died when she was young and that's why she's weird now like that's the story of so many young women in media yeah but this is like we know it's a very specific tragic circumstance and judy is taking it out But I mean, I don't know. Poor Jew. I feel for Judy. And also, Judy can be so judgmental and cruel. And like, she's really, she's like painted her picture of Mary and it's hard to see her getting out of it. Yeah. And that's, and, you know, it provides for a nice arc at the end where Judy kind of finally loosens up. And she's like, yeah, my goddaughter, she's a party girl, but she's also.

library girl and the two things can be true at once and so here's your job back yeah and we do get like an element of judy seeming like she like regrets some kind of loss of her youth or whatever in that scene where they meet up on the bench and she's having the hot flash because she just kind of imagine like oh I know what your night was like so carefree and so this and so that and I do wonder if there's like a longing there in addition to her sort of dismissal of that lifestyle but she also says something like you know I know you have so many friends because at one point, Judy, like, extends an olive branch and says, like, would you like to have dinner with me? And I forget who else. Maybe it was like the other librarians and clerks and stuff. But

Mary is just like, no, I am going out. And Judy's like, oh, where? And she's like, I don't know yet. I just know that I'm not going to dinner with you. And so they're both dismissing each other. And it, you know, there could be a generational component to it. There could be just. It's also very, like, they have a very mother-daughtery kind of antagonism about them, too. like yeah i i i'm glad you brought up the deal i think because it also ties in this movie another thing that this movie like tackles with specificity but also dismissal at the same time which is like addiction and alcoholism where if i'm putting myself in judy's head i understand i mean it doesn't justify the cruelty and the judgment which also does just objectively

does not not help but like her anxiety at seeing her friend's daughter who died in a DUI, you know, going out to parties all the time. I understand that, like, core, like, it's not, this is not a character who's written love. Like, she's just jealous and she hates young women without context and blah, blah, blah. It's like, we, we know the reasons. And she's, like, not able to quite see it or acknowledge it or, I don't know, it's like this combination of things. And then you have the, is it Renee? Renee, the club owner.

Yeah, and the way her story is treated sort of undercuts that. It's just, I don't know. Yeah, it almost seems like they were setting up these like two maternal figures in a way. And one of them is sort of on the path that her mom was and the other one isn't. But then again, we don't really get to know Renee other than small bites. Right. So it's just another question mark, don't love it moment. And again, just to briefly go through those beats with Renee and just. reiterate that she's someone who is dealing with an alcohol addiction and that is played as a comedic beat almost every time it's brought up where there's like the whole misunderstanding in the library and Renee thinks that Mary is there for an AA meeting and so she walks into the meeting with Renee and everyone there is smoking cigarettes and so Mary's coughing even though we also see her smoking cigarettes so it seems like she's a smoker so like why are you coughing?

I don't know, whatever. And it's like, it's so, like, it's like, pick a lane. Like, are you playing this for laughs or not? I mean, not that I'm like, just play it for laughs. Obviously, like, that is an insensitive, like, that's whatever, why so much comedy ages poorly. But it's so weird that it happens that there is like one track in which there is like an unusual amount of nuance and another track where it's just the total opposite. Right. Yeah.

Because the way that scene culminates is everyone. smoking a cigarette, it's causing Mary to cough a lot. And then she says, I need a drink. And then she like runs out. And it's probably that what she probably means is she needs a drink of water because she's coughing. Yeah. But the joke is, oh no, this roomful of people who are there for an AA meeting thinks she's about to fall off the wagon and go get a drink of alcohol. For sure. For sure. And ha ha, isn't that funny? And then later on at the, at Mary's birthday party, like the surprise party, Renee is there and she thinks that Mary is on drugs and she keeps being like oh no what are you on oh no you're hitting rock bottom oh my god and her concern for Mary is once again played as a joke

because the whole thing is like she's a misunderstanding what's going on and isn't that funny she's really overreacting so the way all that was handled was like really bizarre to me it's weird I wanted to I don't know like the amount of so this is Daisy Myers or Daisy Mayer's first movie. She directed it when she was 28, I think, which is offensive to me. But I did want to say she, I, once I learned more about her background, I was like, oh, this is, I mean, first of all, she was, whatever, like, she's a nepo baby. Yes, but like a very particular kind of nepo baby that I think helps you understand why she chose this story. So first of all, she is like, you know, not.

Not like she is married, but like sounds like she probably has experiences similar to Mary where she is like had financial worries, but not really because her family was fine, did run in these crowds, which is why she was able to get access to so many iconic spaces for her movies because she's calling in favors. But also that she is, in fact, the daughter of kind of an iconic party girl. she was is the daughter of an actress and comedian Sasha von Scherler who plays Judy who plays Judy yeah yes who plays so it's like there is like party girl legacy oh Judy was the party girl yeah I mean in real life it's kind of cool where it's like Sasha von Schurler was like a big time flapper and like art girl and I just I thought that was cool is like that they're that first of all that they like collaborated you're like I don't know it's so rare to find a nepo baby story where you're like, you know what, I'm okay with this. It's like when

I see Margaret Quali, I'm just like, you know what, fine. I like it. I like it. I like that sort of generational thing. Other random stuff about this movie that make it very 1995, this is the first movie that premiered on the internet, question mark. Yes. What? Yes. And that like, who knows how much electricity it took for that to happen they could only the transmission was limited to black and white so it wasn't even in color yeah i read this too i'm pulling from of course scholarly journal wikipedia yeah the movie did have a theatrical release i believe but yeah it did well uh well or made its money back premier premiered at sundance made its money back yeah but yeah it had an internet premiere and was the first movie to do so which is kind of cool i don't know just everything about it is so 90s um its strengths

are very 90s its weaknesses are very 90s its message while enduring i think it's very 90s because it's kind of like girl powery feminism of like you can go to a party and read a book which is a lesson i like but very much a lesson of its time you know and to get into the library of it all and Liz let's go to the library please inform us yeah let's get into library and representation there is that like Judy's feminist monologue

about well she starts out by berating and more or less slut shaming um sure Mary Judy's like don't fuck in my library quit behaving so stupidly and you know like diminishing your your potential and blah blah

then she says Melville Dewey hired women his librarians because he believed the job didn't require any intelligence it was a woman's job quote unquote that means it's underpaid and undervalued and then she goes on a rant about like literacy rates and people watching movies instead of reading books and how that's disgusting which is a very generational vibes yeah but i liked it i like it was a fun monologue the last thing i wanted to say about Sasha von Scherler as she was you know kind of objectified pretty heavily in her early life in her party girl days but in the 80s she got her masters in social work and then worked for

over 10 years at an AIDS treatment center in Greenwich Village so we have just like I don't know I'm I'm chalking it up as good Nepo good Nepo mother daughter collapse But Liz, tell us what, tell us your thoughts on the representation of library, librarians, etc. I think Judy toes the line of like stereotypical librarian a little bit or like old school librarian, but not totally. She never shushes anyone, which is revolutionary for that. I was shocked because Mary storms in all the time screaming. Truly. And no one ever says, shh.

And, you know, her ideas about TV and stuff. everything she says about Dewey and his added towards women is true and has like larger implications with like women in librarianship even though it's like a female heavy field you know there is a big pay gap between men in the field and women in the field I when I think of Dewey and what he thought of women in the library I think of him as because unfortunately starting the sexy librarian trope in a way because he wanted to hire women because he wants to look at beautiful women while he worked yeah but libraries are really definitely one of those feminized job that in that it's a service job in that it's a provider job everything Judy feels about it is right there's a level that we want to like uplift the job past that but also I don't know it's like wrapped up

in its legacy a little bit yeah but you think she's a good I think she's a pretty good character that to me what I see when I was watching Party Girl with the librarianship of it all is something that kind of mimic my path was that Like, when you become a librarian, it becomes like your entire thing. Like, I'm a librarian now, and it, like, infiltrates your life. It's, and it's hard to, like, separate being a librarian from yourself. And I do think Judy is stuck there a little bit.

And I do wonder if the sequel to Party Girl is Library Girl when, like, she's trying to reclaim some of the, of her old self that Mary's lost. Because she goes full librarian by the end of the movie. She's like, no fun tights. Put the hair up. Put the glasses on. We're going to type on glasses. Yeah. I'm a new person now.

Yeah. And that feels true. True to the career as well. Interesting. Yeah. I want more librarian movies. Like, are there, okay, here's another, not to put you on the spot, but are there other movies that like to this degree are in librarian cinematic canon?

Like, are there others that people are like, oh, if you're a librarian, you have seen this movie, whether you like it or not? there's not a huge amount of librarian representation and I think that I think in some ways every librarian in media or librarian in media is like you love them and you hate them because they're either like super kind of a superhero you know I think of like Buffy or like Rachel Vison the mummy where we kind of hold them up here but there's a very different part of being a librarian which I do think they kind of do in party girl where it's it's not a it's just an everyday job I mean like it's a public building you're going to clean up shit at some point it's people scream at you and which is the facet you don't see in in the movies as much so to me I like part of your for that reason there's also a great um Australian show called the library or librarians I think that like the very first scene at it is the library director scraping like shit out of the drop box and I was like wow this is really um but you know we also love our little superhero

librarians um because well who doesn't want i feel like their job is as a little it's a little bit of a superhero job it's heroic yeah yeah especially i mean i i i want to see i don't know because i i there is a world and this is like where i'm this isn't a criticism this is just like wow there's so many different ways this that this story could have gone or like other fun library based stories where i feel like this movie now would be like basically just fighting against a library's closure by a fascist government. Yeah. They have to like put on a big benefit show to save the library.

She has to throw a party. Yeah, you have to throw the like library rave or whatever to save the library. But I was, I just think it's funny. I mean, it's like I get, I'm sure that it like helps keep things like appropriately low stakes in a way that's like, okay, we could shoot that. But her main struggle as a librarian being learning the Dewey Decimal. system. It was very funny to me of just like how both high and low stakes it is at the same time. Yeah. I do think that there's something to, like her learning this like organizational system is like how she's going to put her life in order because I do find sometimes that when outside

life is like chafing me, if I go to the nonfiction section and reorganize it, I'm like, well, at least I can fix something. And so, you know, librarian is maybe the perfect job for Mary in this journey. And, and in that regard. And you see little glimpses of it in her outside life, too, with like her fashion organization and her jeans. Her jeans. Right. I missed that the first time I watched the movie, but on my second watch, she gets frustrated with her friend Derek who's like messing up the order of her jeans that she had very meticulously, she's like, they're in order. And he's like, they're just jeans. And she's like, yeah, they're jeans and they're in order. So she already, like, they planted that organizational skill in her early on and it was fun um parker posey uh so this movie

you know made less than a million dollars at the box office when it came out but it has since become like Parker Posey's I think this is like when is her I'm trying to figure out was this before was this like firmly in the middle of her like art house girl era or was it like her one of her because she oh she'd already been in dazed and confused okay Right, right, right. Post dazed and confused Parker Posey. Got it. Was this maybe one of her first, like, starring roles? Because she has a pretty small part in that movie. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's become a cult classic. The point is, many people now are familiar with this movie and love it. And people will approach her, librarians will approach her who are fans of this movie. And they tell her that party girl made them want to be a librarian. That's very cute. That's so sweet. Definitely.

That's really sweet. Yeah, and then we, I mean, I feel like we don't even really need to say this Parker Pousy iconic. Yes, I'm wearing my Josie and the Pussy Cat's shirt right now. One of her best along with like any Christopher guest movie she's in. Yeah, for sure. Like, she's just so good. I don't really love the White Lotus, but fun performance anyways. I always forget she's in that.

She, well, she was just in one season. Yeah, in the newer season. Yeah, I don't know. Did anyone else have other stuff to touch on for party girl? My last thing is really quick. There's a part where Judy and Wanda are training Mary on the Dewey Decimal System and they're shaming Mary for being dyslexic and being like, you're so bad at learning this system. You have dyslexia.

They're like being really awful about it. Which does feel also very 90s for sure. Like, I was like casual ableism for learning disabilities feels very 90s. For sure, very reflective of real life at the time and also still today. It's something that maybe someone could have challenged. No one does. It just goes unchallenged. And again, that's also, you know, like things going unchallenged is also representative of real life.

But when it's a movie and you can like decide to include something. or not include something. You could just have what a Howard walk by and be like, hey, don't say that. Yeah, Howard seems pretty cool. Right. I know. But he's also, is he, I forget what his whole deal is. He either hates or likes public libraries. He's, I, my impression is that Howard is a public librarian. He's the one who says to Mary that like, it doesn't matter where you go to school, like, just try to save money and get done as quick as you can. Right. So to him, I think he's, he's definitely more of the people's librarian, whereas, like, the collegiate librarian there who's like, well, first of all, you went to Columbia. Right, right, right.

You know, she's representing the more elitist librarian for sure. Yeah. And she's like, I hate living in a city. It's yucky. I want to live in a small town in western Massachusetts or something. And you're just like, well, you should. It's much cheaper. Like, anytime someone's like, I'm trapped in this really, I'm like, get the fuck out.

like you there's no it's really expensive to live here yes yeah but that's all i had yeah anyone else oh i don't think i have any the notes no yeah that's all i got uh this movie does pass the becktled past we said that in the opening of the episode uh but but how does it fare on the one true metric the bectal cast nipple scale yes where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on how it fares examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. I think maybe like a three, something like that. It has some very 90s elements to it

as far as the white protagonists overt racism, which she doesn't... She does not make any movement on. precisely other things of that nature as we've talked about but i do appreciate that you do have like mediocre woman visibility or like woman who's figuring shit out visibility and like not entirely likable visibility right like she's kind of a fuck up in some regards and that is relatable so you know she we see her getting into trouble we see her being aimless we see her being eventually good at her job but being really bad at it at the jump so you know again just

sort of like relatable life things so I appreciate that I'll give it three nipples and I'm gonna give I mean Parker Posey she simply must get one but I'm gonna give my other two nipples to the I kept calling them the umpalumpa guys or these two guys who were wearing either green wigs or they have like long dyed green hair and I feel like they were wearing orange I'm not sure if they were, but I was just like, you had the whole oompa, lube color scheme going on. They were, like, thing one and thing two vibes for me. Oh, okay. Oh, gosh, yes.

Yes. Yes. So I was just like, who are these people? They show up in random scenes. We know nothing about them. But I was like, those are my umpalumpa friends. So they get two of my nipples. I'm going to, I'm going to meet you at three.

That feels, that feels right for this movie. I really enjoy this movie. I feel like it is like such a cool, I don't know. I'm really into watching first features right now this is a really cool one I love the mother daughter collab I think that that's really fun but the

the shortcomings of this movie especially as time goes on are quite glaring particularly with I'm just like justice for Mustafa I really hope that he just sort of soft ghosts her after this and moves on with his life gets his teaching degree

maybe they reconnect us friends down the line who knows i just want better for him but i also want the best for mary i hope she continues on her journey like it's hard not to have a soft spot for this character because she is such a fuck up in a way that like it's hard not to root for yeah i guess i'm yeah i'm gonna go three nipples for all the reasons we've discussed you gotta give one to parker posey i'm gonna give one to daisy mare and i'm gonna give one to gira mo diaz as leo because he was really hauling boxes of records everywhere he went and it just seems like that job used to be much harder so shout out to that character to old school DJs yeah what about you Liz okay okay um I think

I'll join you in the three nipple ranking I agree with yeah everything you said I actually I think the sort of the flawed woman is across the board every female character yeah is as has her ups and dance, which I do love that. And I do think the library representation is great. I'm going to give a nipple to Mary. I'm going to give one to Judy. I'm going to give one to Renee, who I really hope had a better day than the elated smoothie.

I know. Just trying to live her life, run the hottest club in New York. But I would like to take a step further if you will allow it. And I'd like to take Melville Dewey's nipples away from him. And I'd like to give one to Wanda and one to Howard. That's great. Love that. Oh, yes, and yes, I would like to give all of my nipples honorarily to the bastards episodes about Melville Dewey if you've got the stomach for it. Pretty brutal stuff.

It's tough to listen to, but it's a good episode. It's a good couple of episodes. Judy, Judy didn't cover the half of it. All right. So that is Party Girl, 1995. Happy Birthday Birthday to Party Girl. Liz, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. This was delightful. Absolutely. Where can we find your work? Where can we get your book? Tell us everything. You can find me online, anywhere you're online, at Cosbarian, C-O-S-B-R-A-R-A-R-A-N. And you can get my book fucked-up fairy tales wherever you most like to buy books. Hopefully your local indie. Certainly you can request your librarian to stock it in their library or wherever the hell you want to buy a book. Please get mine. Hell yeah. Thank you. Congratulations on your book. Thank you.

And you can find us in all the regular places, mostly Instagram at Bechtelcast. And, of course, you can follow our Patreon, aka Matrion. $5 a month gets you two bonus episodes every single month, as well as a backlog that goes back over 200 episodes at this point. If you're running out of main feed stuff or you want to just hear us kind of goof it off even more than we do on the main feed head over there and check out the matrion great community of friends and when you come to our live shows you get a free button unless we run out and then we give you a normal button something else yeah just a little peek behind the curtain yeah and with that should we order some falafel with hot sauce aside of baba ganoche and a seltzer that actually sounds really good

right now yeah all right let's go bye The Bechtelcast is a production of I-Heart Media, hosted and produced by me, Jamie Loftus. And me, Caitlin Durante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtenen. And edited by Caitlin Durante, ever heard of them? That's me. And our logo and merch and all of our artwork, in fact, are designed by Jamie Loftus, ever heard of her? Oh my God. And our theme song, by the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan, with vocals by Catherine Voskrasinski. Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree slash Bechtelcast.

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