The Bechdel Cast - Peggy Sue Got Married with Jackie Kashian

Episode Date: January 20, 2022

This week, Jamie and Caitlin travel back in time to high school to chat with special guest Jackie Kashian about Peggy Sue Got Married.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @jackiekashian on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson.

26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus, only on Apple Podcasts.

I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me? A show about the ways that mental illness is shaped by not just biology. Swaps of different meds. But by culture and society. By looking closely at the conditions that cause mental distress, I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane, what we can do about it, and why we should care.

Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdel cast, the questions asked, if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast,

start changing it with the bechdel cast jamie i've got the eyes i've got the teeth i've got look out the window i've got the car look at the look out the window of the basement i just dragged you into to yell at you in after nearly trying to suffocate you to death. It's me, Nicholas Cage. I'm just trying. I'm in my uncle's movie right now. In one of my most dialed back performances of my career, oddly enough.

Oh my God. I know. Isn't that, I thought that too. And I was like, that is shocking because he is being so weird. Truly. Well, Caitlin, now that you have yelled all of your qualifications of why I should marry you,

I guess I will settle for you not once but twice. Thank you so much. Love that. Love our future together. Hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus. And this is our podcast where we take a look at your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for a discussion. Caitlin, what is, I mean, you got the eyes, you got the teeth, you got the hair, you got the car. I got the car. Which is true. I don't have the car. You do have the car.

And you always have. You really rely on me. I kind of do. To get from point a to point b sometimes i do uh art imitating life yeah you're the nick cage in our relationship which uh i don't know what that says i'm honored so uh we use the bechdel test as a jumping off point for discussion but caitlin what is that anyways the bechdel test is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test.

There are many different variations of the test. The one that we use is that two people of any marginalized gender have to have names and they must speak to each other about something other than a man for at least two lines of dialogue. And ideally for us, it's a more meaningful conversation to the narrative. If that happens, we are cheering. We are clapping. We're celebrating.

We're saying, yes, queen, go girl boss. Way to have a conversation. Yeah. Especially if it's in a movie that is uh directed by a man because you just don't see it coming oh my gosh i cannot believe francis ford coppola directed this movie what a weird choice he really pulled this one out i wouldn't there are a few we were talking about this earlier there's like a few shots in this movie that you're like oh yeah this is a coppola movie where like when the cake is rushing towards her you're like oh right that guy that first mirror scene yeah the scene that is supposedly in a mirror that is not a mirror not a mirror right okay i was like are my

eyes just failing me right now or is this two actors who are pretending to mirror each other? Okay, good. There's so much going on. We're covering Peggy Sue Got Married Today and we have a returning guest that we're so thrilled to have back. Let's get her in the mix, baby. She's a comedian. She's got a new special coming out and a new album both called Staycation. You remember her from our episode on groundhog day it's jackie

cation yay it's me i feel welcome welcome back well we love having you here yeah and staycation's out it's so out it's been out for like three weeks it is out currently okay but it's super fun it's free find it my last name stay the word staycation k-a-s-h-i-n do whatever you want but uh incredible yeah it's out there it's out in the world there's no excuse not to listen to it and watch it it's free jackie what is your relationship with peggy sue got married my relationship is a little complicated my brother russ is a delightful human being in many ways, and a button pusher in other ways, because he's my brother. But he loves movies, and honestly, loves some terrible movies. He has been known to say out loud, if it has one good scene,

I'll watch it. And you're like, that is a low bar, my friend. But he is an econ professor. He did an episode of the Dork Forest about Hallmark movies where he showed me his spreadsheets last Christmas. His spreadsheet? Yeah. Yeah. He did a great spreadsheet about how much they cost to make, who got most of the money, who were the recurring directors and actors and actresses. And yeah, it's pretty outstanding. And this is one of his

favorite movies okay really wow how weird is that yes yes he says that he calls it an adult back to the future okay i think it kind of is interesting yeah i would call it a less fun back to the future right which is a way of saying adult. Yeah. True. Right. And it has, I mean, the thing about this movie that was fascinating, I mean, there's so many things that are fascinating about this movie, but those tiny scenes of the powerlessness and the repetition of women in this thing.

He's like, he also called it sort sort of he said it was like diner but it was only about the women yeah i could see that there's so much about this movie that's fascinating to me because it does take like such a high concept premise and focus it so much and it like chooses to focus on things that are pretty like pragmatic and mundane. It's very interesting because a movie like Back to the Future is largely focused on the external goal of trying to get Marty McFly back to his timeline in 1985. Right. So it's very like rompy and plotty. Whereas this movie takes that high concept, like you said, Jamie, but it's like, but let's

explore the character arc. It's more of a character study than anything. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. By the time he was talking about it, I was like, yeah, no, it is kind of a great movie. I mean, just because she goes into this thing and you can't change time. So she's going to make this mistake again but the character

herself has changed fundamentally because of whatever time travel coma whatever this was right and she comes out of it more in charge like because she went in going i feel humiliated remember that line it was uh do you feel humiliated do you feel less than do you feel worthless yeah yeah and good good because that's how she felt when when nicholas cage went with janet right and and she comes out of it with more power i think that's an interesting argument i would argue the other the opposite oh really i think there's so many ways i I'm still kind of figuring out how I feel about how this movie goes because I feel like there is a way to read it where you're like oh this is the first time I saw it it made me sad at the end but then the second time I saw it it didn't

make me as sad like it's just I don't know I really like taking a huge premise and then taking it in a weird direction because this is just like a woman in her early 40s taking a look at the choices she's made in her life so far in a back to the future style premise which is like so right weird but it's but it's i've never seen anything like it and i saw this movie i saw this movie in 1986 in the movie theater. And I was infuriated. It was sad. It was, it was, I found her kind of pathetic and irritating. And I was like, why did you make these choices? But watching it again, I was like, every single person in that, in that timeline were like, well, marry me and go work at this chicken farm for me so that I could write, marry me and support me while I'm a musician, marry me and give me great tech ideas so that we could be billionaires. And which I that would have been the option I would have gone with

is like, I'm going with pantyhose guy, right? And then every like her and her, and her mom and her grandmother. And, you know, there was nobody who said, don't get married. Nobody who said, are you going to go to college? Nobody said, what do you want to do ever? Right. So I left that movie the first time going, ew. And the second time I watched it last night, I was like, this is a real slice of life of some Americana here. Because it was 1960, right? Her dad is in the fucking hat business.

Do you know when men stopped wearing hats? 1961. He's about to be so fucked. He is so fucked. And he just bought an Edsel. Because they stopped wearing hats because john john kennedy didn't wear hats oh so hats went completely out so if you owned a hat business you were forgotten blowing my mind that is so like there i'm i'm excited to kind of dig into

that side of it and like kind of the historical because that was something that stood out to me as well of like something that is frustrating to witness but also seems authentic to that time of like she is and and it made me wish ultimately that we had spent a little more time in the 80s with her because I feel like the movie started in such a cool strong place where it's like she's you know kind of torn between this you know middle class white woman 80s paradigm of like do I want to be a liberated woman do I want to strike out on my own or do I want to stay in this domestic situation and figure out who I am there and she has one friend on each side and right with Nicolas Cage in a wig who's like I think 22 in this movie but but he's playing 45.

Whatever. But I like that push and pull. And Sofia Coppola? Yes. Yeah, baby Sofia. Yeah, played her younger sister. Jim Carrey's in it. Helen Hunt is in it.

Helen Hunt. Joan Allen is in it. Yeah, Joan Allen's in it. Was that Wilford Brimley? Was it? Maybe. Maybe. I might be be wrong i don't know who played her grandfather who had that great line why have a lodge if you can't have funny hats or something that was a great they were obsessed with hats um yeah i just like there's there's so much going on

i'm excited to get into it because this I my history with this movie is that I had never seen it before. I just knew that I liked Kathleen Turner and that I was going to like it based on the fact that I liked Kathleen Turner, which did bear out as expected. She's so amazing. But I yeah, I knew very, very little about this movie. I feel like it's a movie that's maybe I don't know if it's like, you know, it's not very discussed, I don't think. True. But I think it's very worthy of discussion.

Like once I watched it, I was like, oh, there's a lot of shit to chew on in this one. I'm very excited to talk about it. And even though so much of it made me sad, I liked the movie and I'm glad that it exists and it exists kind of the way that it does because it feels like such a almost like a weird kind of like little historical document of taking a woman who you meet her at this crossroads and then you go back and get context for like well how do you get there which is cool and I feel like you don't especially I mean I just

don't expect that in a Francis Ford Coppola movie is to get like a deep character study of a middle aged woman didn't know, didn't know, didn't Yeah, did not call it. And everybody and I thought the depiction of what 17 year olds are kind of like was kind of great too. And the fact of all this emotion and all this angst. I was like, yeah, not for $100 would I go back. They were real horny. It was stressful to watch. Super horny, super emotional, very confused. Caitlin, what's your history with this movie? I had also never seen it. I was a big fan of, again, Back to the Future

throughout my whole life and still today. But for some reason, a similar movie with a similar premise that came out one year later. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Didn't see. It's a very different movie. I mean, I think the main plot of Back to the Future is don't be attracted to your son. And like the main thing is like don't do it it's it's right like that that is the message is that you know it's weird and it's not okay be careful who you fall in love with in high school because it might be your time traveling son which is you know a very specific and not very relatable theme but hilarious hilarious weird B-plot. Hilarious weird B-plot.

It's very, very strange. Yeah. And yeah, this movie explores a far more, in theory, compelling character arc. But again, the way her arc kind of pans out is up for debate. I think it is compelling. I think it's something that can be depressing and compelling at the same the same time absolutely it just made me sad the way it pans out but we'll get we'll get there yeah in the meantime i will do the recap okay jackie feel free to jump in at any time yes okay so it is 1985 again this movie comes out in 1986 but but we open it's 1985. We meet Peggy Sue. That's

Kathleen Turner. She is getting ready for her 25 year high school reunion. She and her, I guess, early 20s daughter, Beth, Helen Hunt, are talking about Beth's dad slash Peggy Sue's ex-husband or soon to be ex-husband Charlie. I went into this movie completely cold and so at the first scene I didn't note that she travels back in time in it so I was like why do these people keep saying that they're 45 they're very obviously not um but I did like that um I feel like there are so many movies that there are so many movies that if there's a time jump, like the facial changes will be so distractingly large that you can't even really engage with the movie. But instead, I like that the casting split the difference. And they're like, well, we're going to cast people in their late 20s, early 30s. So they kind of don't look like a teenager and they kind of don't look like a 45-year-old,

but you could buy into either and it's fine. It's a very community theater approach and I think it works. So Peggy Sue and her daughter are talking about Charlie, who we see on a commercial on TV. He is played by Nicolas Cage. Peggy Sue hates and resents him because he was cheating on her throughout their marriage, which has led to them getting divorced. Maddie Maddie is Joan Allen Walter played by Jim Carrey also this guy Richard Norvick who used to be a nerd and now he's a millionaire I sort of forgot that when a nerd becomes a

millionaire that didn't used to be a scary thing in a movie it used to just be like a thing that happened where now you're like oh no you know elon musk you have to get away from this person but at this time it was like oh no he's lovable right right he's he's just a he's the lovable um success guy who got pushed around in high school right yeah reminds me of alan cummings character in romeo and michelle's high school reunion yeah yeah oh yeah exactly exactly also directed by coppola no yes could you imagine oh my goodness so peggy sue is talking to her friends she tells them about how her marriage fell apart uh she explains that she and charlie got married too young and they ended up resenting each other for all the things they feel they missed out on peggy sue never even dated anybody else she mentions this guy Michael Fitzsimmons who she

wishes she had gone to bed with in high school when she had the chance she says uh if she knew then what she knows now she'd do things a lot differently Peggy Sue is so self-aware from the moment one she knows exactly why her divorce is I'm like are you in therapy like you're killing it she's like i know exactly why she's like i hold anger for him but also you know neither of us got to explore our lives before we settled down she's emotionally intelligent that peggy sue i like her truly i wish she had a better husband right i wish she had chosen such a mess of a kid. I know. Twice. In some ways it is a Shakespearean tragedy because imagine picking the same loser twice.

Frustrating. And that loser is Charlie who right then shows up at the reunion. It's awkward between him and Peggy Sue. Then the reunion elects a king and queen. Richard Norvick is the king and Peggy Sue. Then the reunion elects a king and queen. Richard Norvick is the king and Peggy Sue is the queen.

But as she's giving her acceptance speech, she faints because women be fainting. I know that women be fainting. Women be fainting, but I liked this faint. I don't know what it was about this. I mean, I do know what it was. It was just him for a minute like i feel like that scene did a good job of putting you in her head of like because sometimes women be fainting in a void but i was like at least in this i understood why she was be faint it worked for me too yeah yeah yeah and you got to move the plot forward

so good for her then faint theaint. The plot must go on. That's true. She got to bonk her head or the movie can't start. Right, right. Can't happen. So when she wakes up, it is 1960. She is in high school again. Her friends are there. Charlie is there. She has the memories and consciousness of her fully adult self but everyone perceives her as her high school self even though she is visibly in her 30s right funny and he has always looked 40 always yes i don't care if he was 20 years old he has always looked 40 even though he's 22 in this it's he did not look yeah yeah what a goony looking dude man truly he i was i mean i

will get into this a little later but there was a lot of like sparring about how the production of this movie went and like kathleen turner and nicholas cage ended up getting into a lawsuit over stuff like yeah there was some interesting stuff going on it sounds like everyone was being messy this was just a messy one messy yeah yeah so then Peggy Sue's friends take her home she reconnects with her mom her younger sister Nancy played by Sofia Coppola because nepotism she reconnects with her dad who also gets her in trouble for getting drunk because she's like i'm 43 i can drink whiskey straight from the bottle and he's like no you're a teenager anyway the next day charlie picks her up to go to school and he's like hey remember how we talked about

how we should see other people i think it's a good idea to do after graduation that way i can focus on my music for a while and then we can settle down and get married and she's like fuck it let's break up now and it's the best line because you're like oh good good she's not gonna do this again right right right which makes it so i'm like oh you were so close it's so like and and i get it because sometimes you you you break up with someone you're like this isn't right and then you date a different person you're like oh this sucks in a totally different way but then date a third person yeah don't go back to the first person there's always a third person out there that's gonna hurt you in a new and interesting way right you're gonna build

and then and then a fourth person and then a fifth person and so on and so on and it'll go on and you'll never find someone literal story of my life so then uh she is not dating charlie anymore so she's kind of like focusing on school for some reason she's uh she flunks an algebra test she admires that classmate michael fitzsimmons who she wanted to bang back in high school he has some hot takes on literature and she's like wow he's so intellectual it's kerouac oh my god yeah you're just like i don't like hemingway i like kerouac i was like they're the same guy right one has bulls and the other one is like the road man and lsd and you're like shut up truly it's so i mean it's kevin j o'connor right yes yeah it's so funny because i feel like the

movie has to keep telling you he's a good writer because when you hear him talk you're like this sucks they also have to tell you that he's good looking and uh because you're like that guy like the picture of him running you're like right what is like the picture of him running, you're like, right. What is with his face anyway? So, I mean, there's classically good looking and then there's Nicolas Cage movie good looking. So you got to have some. I mean, Jim Carrey's in this thing. So Jim Carrey is looking beautiful as usual.

Nicolas Cage is really actively distancing himself from how he looks in this movie which i also was reading production notes about where he's like whatever uncle uncle daddy like i want to wear a wig and fake teeth and talk like gumby and he was like okie doke nick do whatever you want have a career on me when k Kathleen Turner was fuming. Right. She's like, there's not a chance she would go with this guy ever. He's such a dweeb. Wait, Jamie, real quick. Yeah. Jim Carrey hot, you say?

Question mark. Oh, I was going to let it go. I was going to let it go. But I, are you kidding me? I'm sorry. Are we not all on the same page about Jim Carrey hot? No. Interesting. but I are you kidding me I'm sorry are we not all on the same page about Jim Carrey hot no interesting I feel like if you saw young Jim Carrey and you didn't know he was Jim Carrey

you would say hot that's my opinion not for me there might have been a window when you saw Jim Carrey and you're like that guy's giving me the peter tingles and uh and then that's enough but look I've been known to have eccentric taste, but I say I've said it before. I don't know if I've ever said it on the show, but I'm glad we're putting it on wax. Jim Carrey hot. Okay. You're alone there. So sorry.

Sorry to not back you up. I'm alone on the Zoom call. Anyway, so we're told that this Michael Fitzsimmons guy is brilliant and hot and kathleen turner likes him so we're like okay i guess then peggy sue approaches richard norvig the current nerd future millionaire she asks him if time travel is possible and then she convinces him that she has time traveled from 25 years in the future i like that he believes her that's so sweet yeah it is such a nice moment i do wish there are multiple moments in the we'll get into this but in the flashback i feel like the 80s premise sets you up for a movie

that's going to be about her relationships with her female friends but then once you go back to the 60s it's all about yeah these three guys i was hoping you would spend more time with the with with the three friends you're right but i also like that richard believes her yeah yeah yeah good point and then one friend disappears entirely there's a character named rosalie who will also discuss but she appears in the uh flash forward and is kind of introduced as like a close friend of hers yeah and then she's like not there in the who was she married to right because the movie keeps defining women by who they are or who they will be married to yeah but uh we don't know anything about her character named rosalie testa but then she like doesn't

appear at all in the flash i don't know i that was i think that was like my it was jarring my actual like writing disappointment it was like that you were just focusing on like kind of richard michael and charlie i mean and you do get the relationship with her mother and her sister like it's not just them but i in terms of like at school i kind of was like more carol more maddie that relationship with their sister was kind of cool you know where i was just like where she's like i regret you're like i wanted to know how did you break that what did you do to nancy right that you don't hang out with her anymore you're busy hanging out with charlie i thought that maybe nancy had died like yeah the way that she's so excited to see nancy i'm like what happened to nancy in the current in the

current timeline do Do we know? Do we ever find out? No, we never do. I would have liked to know. I think a more interesting version of this movie would be you spend more time in 1985 learning about Peggy Sue's kind of broken life and failed relationships. And then her traveling back. One of them can be a romantic relationship. Fine. her traveling back one of them can be a romantic relationship fine but i'd it should be like a bunch of different areas of her life and a bunch of different relationships that like she has to

with all of this hindsight she can now figure out like how to repair this or how to not make the mistakes in the first place you know stuff like that but instead it's just like i'm gonna date one guy and then kind of another guy and then be friends with a third guy and give him give him a bunch of million dollar tech ideas and then the end anyway um okay so she has convinced richard norvick that she is a time traveler and this is the beginning of a friendship with him meanwhile charlie is trying to win peggy sue back he takes her to a party uh she sees him perform music and she's kind of smitten again even though she's like his music ambitions are going nowhere because he's an appliance salesman in 25 years um well i thought that that scene in his when he's um

he works at a record store and she's like do you know anything about classical music and he's like no sales is sales right you know essentially he's a salesman yeah he is not a musician right which is like tells you everything you need to know about him. But his life story is so sad, too, where it's like he gives up on his... God, where that scene at the end... When we get to the end of this movie, the last ten minutes of this movie are such

whiplash. I watched the last ten minutes back a few times because I was like, is there any world where I can interpret this as good for them? I was like, is there any world where I can interpret this as like good for them? I just couldn't get there. What we know is that they all lived and Helen Hunt seems to have her shit together. But the thing is, is it's so weird because to back up a little bit when she drinks all that whiskey, and then finds out that he's and we find out he buys an edsel and then we find out that he's in the hat

industry and um and then like a couple of scenes later she comes home and her mom is selling her jewelry oh i missed that oh there's this tiny scene where she's like i'm gonna vote democrat don't tell your dad right she was talking to a pawnbroker. Right, right, right, right, right. Oh my gosh. So her dad is a guy who cannot get his act together either. It's so- All the men in this thing, except for Wilford Brimley, if that was Wilford Brimley, seem like just not really great dudes, right? Right, right. Who have these grandiose ideas of themselves that never manifest.

And the women around them are picking up like she's always done for charlie i thought that that was i i totally agree like that setting up her dad is like this guy that obviously she loves very much yeah and like even when he like makes the reckless purchase that clearly puts the family into debt of getting this car she's like oh you always do stuff like this and like when you're it's so interesting there's like the little moments in this movie that i really like a lot of them are with her family it made me wish that you saw her family in the 80s or at least knew what sort of became of them right right because she has a son right where's he at scott who is not named after wilford brimley but the daughter named after the grandmother. Yeah, God. But it's

like you see, you see why she's kind of attracted to I mean, whatever. It's kind of a hereditary thing. She's used to a guy who really puts on a show, and then has the woman in his life, pick up and tolerate stuff after him. And I like that little moment with her mom, that I think might be in that same scene or in a similar scene where her mom is sort of gently warning her against this personality type where she's like you have to learn how to stand up to Charlie because we've just seen a scene where she is quietly cleaning up her husband's mess and it's clear she doesn't want that for her daughter and that's such a generational thing. I feel like especially for these two generations of you can't fix this problem loudly or that's not customary.

But she wants a better relationship for her daughter than she had for herself. Yeah. And then that doesn't happen. And it's so sad. Like, it's just so sad. Well, but there is a recurring theme that does sort of sell the fact that we all just go through life. And then at the end of it, you can't really change anything. So you have to be psyched about the things that you do still love, like that you did right.

And she always talks about missing her kids. Yes, I do like that. Yeah. And that was kind of beautiful. And it was just it was also in the moment, like in the time, it made you go, yeah, you know, I, of course, that's all you're accomplishing is you brought it, you brought a couple of kids and, and they aren't a mess, I guess. Right. And that's like, I hope Scott doesn't work for Crazy Charlie. I hope Scott has a music career. Yeah, it's, I was, there's so much about Peggy Sue that it's like, we are never. And I wonder how, I guess I'm curious of what you both think of like, she's never presented as someone who is particularly ambitious. That's strictly attributed to her

husband who had a huge ambition and failed in a spectacular way and took out his anger at failing on Peggy Sue. We're never told that she has a particular ambition, but she's also very emotionally intelligent and highly motivated to understand the choices she's made in her life but none of them are in relation to her work or like we're told that she i think owns a bakery question mark right right yeah that's right she owned a bakery where's that at right we know nothing about that i forgot about that yeah i think it's a little complicated because it's like not not everyone has huge career ambitions and that's not like a prerequisite for being a person and that's like okay to see

reflected on screen for someone that isn't like I want to have this huge fucking career and do this this and this but I was I was kind of like but like nothing you know nothing outside of your romantic relationship you want to examine yeah it was jarring that nobody asked her right it was jarring that she never said anything right like there's that scene where she's with michael and they're gonna have sex and she's like all right i want to be a dancer and then he's like let's go to utah and you could raise chickens for me and she was and you're, you want to dance? Counter offer. Yeah.

Since when? If she does want to dance. I would love that. But is that true? Or is that just like her being like silly in the moment? We know nothing about. Was she just stoned? Yeah.

Right, right, right. Like we don't know enough about her kind of backstory or like any of her yeah her ambitions or or just interests it would have it would have been cool to just explicitly know you know because it's like even if the answer to that question is like what i want in life is to enjoy my family and my friends and to like work as much as i need to but like work isn't the most important thing to me but it's just like tell us what does she want besides to understand Charlie who sucks because there are some genuine beautiful moments in this movie and some real cool nuggets and some revelatory moments of of of stuff but

this movie genuinely feels like I'm watching real time. Someone make bad life decisions. Yeah. It feels like a real slice of life where you're like, this is a life I didn't want to see a slice of. And parts of it are very beautiful. And so I get why my brother loves this movie because he he he has such eclectic taste like he loves every kind of movie from hallmark movies to like cinema paradis like foreign films and he he likes right now he's into german musicals whatever from the 60s anyway um but i will say that yeah i just i do want it to have a good ending, though.

I want her to come back and be able to say to Charlie, I need some time. I don't want to be with you. You could come over on Sunday for lunch with your kids in the house you paid for. It's so, like, yeah, it's so, I think that you say, maybe I'm trying to, you know, overly empathize with this person who doesn't exist, which I've been known to do. But but yeah, like a slice of life from a life you don't necessarily want to see a slice of. I feel like sums up this entire movie in a way where you're where even and it's like you see these kind of close brushes that she has with something more. But then she has no interest in it like even

there oh i wrote at some point in my notes like that thing about her giving richard the idea for pantyhose and then her becoming like the biz like he has the science and she could have the business acumen and he literally says to her like you're amazing you could do this we could do this you're like that's a whole movie that i would want to watch is them stealing the idea for pantyhose and like seeing how that affected the future timeline but it is like the way that even the way that time is treated in this movie is is kind of depressing because it's treated like well no matter what she does differently here this is an exercise for her internally. It's not going to affect anything in her future. It's never even suggested that it might change anything in her future.

Well, in the existing timeline, but I, I would posit that she comes back stronger. I would posit that she has learned from this history and has come back stronger for sure. But she does look at the end of the movie. Like she's going to make the same mistake.

Right. Right. She is. I think she comes back with more, I guess, just like a clearer understanding and more. She comes back wiser. But the choice that she makes is what makes me argue that she's kind of succumbing to. I don't even know, like cultural expectations or something. It's so it's like, I don't know what maybe there expectations or something it's so it's like I don't know what maybe there's a maybe there's a German word for this where it's like she goes back gets so much more information really really thinks about it and then makes the same bad so she's making a more

informed version of that it's more sympathetic the first time when she's a kid and she doesn't know any better but she's like no i'm 42 years old and i've really looked at all of my choices and i've decided that this fucking guy is is is all that i'm gonna the one yeah and you're like oh goodness let me finish the recap really quick yeah We've had half the discussion already. That's true. That's true. It'll make our jobs easier later. Okay. So where was I?

Charlie is charming her. She's getting horny about it. There's a scene where she suggests they have sex. He's like, what? I thought we were going to wait till marriage. And we are like, wait, this character is a teenager and her character is in her 40s and it's absolutely not okay. Either way, he freaks out and takes her home.

So then Peggy starts to pursue Michael Fitzsimmons, the like, I love Jack Kerouac guy. Jack Kerouac fanboy. They bond, they smoke pot, they kiss. And then do they have sex or is it implied that they have sex yeah they do it's implied that they have one starry night right okay he writes a poem yeah they have so much sex she gets a whole book about it that yes right yikes he loved that night yeah yeah he really it's it's stuck with him. That's the only thing that it changes in the timeline, isn't it?

That with the book, the starry night gets that reminded me. Maybe this is a reference for no one. There was an Aaron Carter music video and an Aaron Carter song called How I Beat Shaq. Do you remember this song, Caitlin? No, I don't. I'm sorry. Okay. It's Aaron Carter, Nick Carter's little brother from the Backstreet Boys.

He's probably nine or ten he made a little song a little song a great song called How I Beat Shaq it was about him having a dream about beating Shaquille O'Neal in basketball there's a fun twist at the end of the music video and song where he wakes up he's like oh it was all a dream I can't believe it I didn't I a tiny little nine- nine year old boy didn't beat Shaquille O'Neal at basketball. But then he wakes up in a jersey that says Shaquille O'Neal suggesting that perhaps he did beat Shaq. Oh, the starry night dedication is, for me, the inspiration for the music video for how I beat Shaq by Aaron Carter. I'll link it in the description. It's a delight. Have you guys seen the Katy Perry Pokemon song

called Electric? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Man, there's so much. Very weird. Music is magic. Wow. Yeah. And then there's Katy Perry singing Electric. It is.

I mean, she loves Pokemon. I'm not going to say she shouldn't. She's really expressing it in the most interesting way she could think of. Okay. So Peggy Sue keeps hanging out with Richard. She helps him invent some stuff that she knows will be popular in the 80s. And then she also gets boomboxes. She also gets the idea to invent pantyhose. Then Charlie comes around and apologizes for freaking out the night before. So she's kind of like, do I take him back or not?

Her friends and her talk about their futures and who they might marry and they're supposed to grow up on a cul-de-sac with their kids growing up next to each other but when when in the beginning of the movie she goes to the reunion it doesn't feel like she has spent 25 years with these people no she hasn't seen it doesn't i which i think is kind of a fun detail is like of course the way you say things are going to be when you're 17 with your best friends is unfortunately famously never how it goes right you lose touch you felt like what was it the Helen Hunt character who's like I'm fucking off to New York or wherever and I'm having a whole sex in the city side quest like everyone's gonna go off and do their own things and then you're I don't know I am still pretty close with my friends from high school,

but not like, you know, living on the same street close. Yeah, yeah. Oh, sure. I talked to one friend from high school and the rest, I know nothing about what their current situation is. They come out after about 25 years. You meet them again. And then you're like, oh, you're okay.

You grew up in the ensuing 25 years you're no longer that jackass i mean i don't know that i would ever want to see vicki emberts again that's because she made me eat dirt in junior high so oh my god yeah she beat the hell out of me and jammed my face into the mud this is so an anti-vicky podcast fuck vicky ended up at the cop shop you guys anyway um it was the it was the 70s it was the 70s we said cop shop good lord anyway anyway how does it end well speaking of violence um then then there's a scene where charlie considers smothering Peggy Sue with her pillow while she's sleeping because he is upset that she was hanging out with Michael Fitzsimmons. They have a fight. She tries to break it off again, knowing it doesn't work out for them in the future.

But he's like, I love you. But then he storms off. The weird thing is when he shakes her when they're in the basement. Oh my God. That felt actually very much more violent. I thought that the pillow might've been a joke, but the shaking, I was like,

calm down. That's dangerous. Yeah. That was like, that was a very scary thing to do. I was like, is, is there violence in their future relationship?

If this guy's gonna shake her well it's like i mean i might be extrapolating the second he asked her to go to the basement yeah it's like this is where i'm gonna lose the body right right yeah i mean that there are so many reasons for the odds to be stacked against charlie as like a viable right i mean there's so many reasons for her to break up with charlie before we even go to 1960 oh yeah but that one i was just like this is if she ends up with him which i was convinced for most of the movie that she would not i thought that she would do uh you know i'm gonna be single for a while i'm gonna figure so i'm gonna figure myself out i'm gonna take some time and not and And not less than 20 seconds.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, fresh out of a concussion. And you're like, yeah, this is a great time to agree to go back with your piece of shit husband. Oh, God. Give her a day. Yeah.

Charlie, come on. Yeah, we're almost there. First, there needs to be Freemasons and their time travel ritual um wild hats lots and lots of hats so weird okay so then peggy sue breaks things off with michael fitzsimmons and goes back to charlie and they talk about his musical ambitions and she seems to be warming up to him again but she's also freaking out about still being stuck in 1960. So then Richard Norvig is like, well, you can change your destiny and marry me. And she's like, no. Why?

Which, fair enough. Oh, my God. Right. Right. Fair. Then Peggy Sue visits her grandparents. This made me cry. Right.

Because in her present, they have died long ago. And her parents. Everybody's dead. It seems that way yeah yeah and maybe nancy maybe nancy we're not sure either she's on the outs with nancy or nancy died i'm like what was there a fire like what i think she's just as maybe estranged from nancy yeah but anyway she tells her grandparents that she time traveled and they also believe her she's like i miss my children there's also this locket

that she has that uh has pictures of her children as babies or so she thinks question mark um well no no because the locket in the beginning of the movie they were color pictures of her babies when he actually gives her the locket it's black and white pictures and it's them it's them as babies yeah they just look the same because one's a boy one's a girl and they are breeding and whatever okay yeah that was confusing super clear breeder logic but it it turns out that peggy sue's grandpa is in a Masonic cult in the Freemasons. Stag films and poker. Right. America!

And they perform this ritual to send her back to her present. But before that can happen, Charlie comes in and snatches her away. And they all just go, get the cards. It worked.

Right. As far as they're concerned, they helped a teen woman who's actually in her 30s time travel. But that didn't happen. Instead, Charlie is still like, hey, marry me. I can support you. My dad gave me 10% of his business. And she's like, no way.

I'm not out of my mind enough to marry you twice. But then he gives her her beloved locket. And then he's like, I love you. And she's like, wait, I love you too, Charlie. And you're like, no, no. I know. And then she wakes back up. And you know what sends her back in time?

That dick sends her back in time. Isn't that the greenhouse she gets fucking pregnant in right doesn't she like i think i think nick cage's dick sends her catapulting through time and space which i would believe god yeah um so then she wakes up in 1985 like in a hospital bed charlie is there professing his love for her and she's like wow you never gave up on me and then she invites him over for dinner and it seems like they're going to get back together she is literally all he has she is literally the only constant in his life yeah she deserves better we did miss we did miss uh miss when she goes with Michael to the R&B to

the Black Club. Yes. And sees him singing R&B. And then she wrote a hit song that was, I was like, is it the Beatles? What is she stealing here? It sounded like she was trying to write the Beatles and he couldn't execute it. And she's like, wow, he really is a terrible musician. Right. And he changed all the oohs to yaz or all the yaz to ooze right right right i love you yeah yeah and he changed him to ooze and you're like oh my god yeah no instincts no at least richard took her word for it and invented pantyhose or whatever so yes uh my favorite invention from history. The leg's egg. It might have been him.

Let's take a quick break and then we will come back to continue discussing. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president.

One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current.

Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours.

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

You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we are back. We're back. All right, so we have already discussed a good chunk of the movie. I guess since we've already discussed it so much, let's put a little bow on this discussion about her marriage, maybe, because I think we've been discussing it throughout the recap.

I did find, I mean, the last 10 minutes of this movie, where you're spending half of it with her and Charlie in the 60s spending half of it with her and Charlie in the 60s and half of it with her and Charlie in the 80s just made me so profoundly sad for her and in a way that it's like I'm so sad about what happens but I don't think that it makes it a you know a bad movie it's just like wow what a bleak you know this is something that happens I mean of course like particularly women women who grew up in the environment that we're seeing her grow up in, where the idea that she could do something on her own has never floated, suggested, encouraged in any way, shape or form. The only way that she is

like, you know, spoken to is like, well, who are you going to marry? And how are you going to survive, basically? And so you're given the context of why she makes these really sad choices but this first scene where i mean it's just so sad for both of them where you're like oh god you guys are both just like such a prisoner of this era where nick cage comes into the greenhouse after yeah like smuggling her out and like physically like he's too i don't like how he is touching her the whole movie i don't like it smuggles her into this greenhouse and then says some of the most depressing shit i've ever heard he's like look i just decided today i'm gonna give up on my dream uh my dream is dead the dream is dead and i and i'll get you pregnant right now and then the dream will be double dead

what do you say like it's what if what if i just gave up on fucking everything right now is that sexy to you yes or no and that's and then and then you flash forward and then and then it's like it's almost scary where she's like she says in both of these scenes she says no and then she thinks about it for one second and then she says yes okay that happens in the 60s. And then the dick catapults her to 1985. And then she's in the hospital room. And the same thing happens again, where he's like, I love you. You're the best. What do you say? Like, let's try it again. And she says, I need that scene. Yeah, yeah. She basically says, like, I need some time. I want to think about it. And then he like kind of pouts in the same way he did in 1960. And then she says,

okay, fine. Actually, you can come over tomorrow. And it's implied that they're going to get back together. And it's like, oh, so you learned nothing.

Peggy Sue, you learned nothing. Well, the weirdest thing for me was that she, he asked her to marry her in 1960. And she goes, no, you gave up your dreams.

You're going to resent me for it. And it's going to poison our entire relationship. And then you're going to get with Janet. And he's like, you're nuts. You're a hysterical woman saying things that aren't true. And she was like, am I? And then she's like, all right, I guess we'll get together. But I do think that the locket thing triggered that thing

that is reiterated through the entire movie where the only thing she's proud of are those two kids. Yeah. And I think it's that more than the dick that catapults her back into that relationship. Yeah, that was my read as well. I have this question. If there had been different casting, wipe your mind of Nicolas Cage and his weird hair and teeth issues.

And it's Tom Cruise. And they cast Tom Cruise or Michael J. Fox. I think it would be a little different. I mean, I still ultimately, the way it's written, I can't see myself ever being like, she should end up with Charlie. I do think that if it was, I don't think Nicolas Cage's performance

really helps you in endearing yourself to this character in any way. Shape or form. He's impossible to root for. He's impossible. He's unlikable. It is ridiculous. Well, this is something we notice on the show a lot

where like if, and we have formerly called it the Steve Buscemi test, you know, we're tweaking the name. But let me say that's not nice. You gotta change it. predatory behavior, a lot of times a movie will present that behavior as being actually cute and charming as long as it's a classically handsome man who is doing it. But if you, you know, plug in Steve Buscemi and Con Air, then it's more noticeable for people to see that it is actually the creepy stalkerish behavior that it is no matter who is displaying it yeah but the movie is trying to suggest that oh no it's actually charming when

ryan gosling threatens to jump off a ferris wheel in the notebook to try to get rachel mcadams to go out with him etc right so it's like this movie doesn't maybe doesn't recognize because it's like such i mean and i and i like nick cage a lot but like it is such a nepotism casting choice to do um that maybe the movie doesn't recognize that they're actively demonstrating this test that we've been talking about for years of like what if we did put someone deeply unlikable in the romantic hero position how do you you feel? And the answer is not great. Not wanting Kathleen Turner to end up with him. Because conversely, she's in Romancing the Stone with Michael Douglas.

Right. And Michael Douglas is not... I still haven't seen it. Oh, you haven't seen Romancing the Stone? Well, that would be an excellent choice because it's, he's not great either. He's a mess. Right. Yeah.

And they spend most of the movie hating each other. But then, of course, what happens at the end? They fall in love and kiss. Kiss, kiss, kiss. The classic Hollywood formula. Yes. But for me, the big thing with this movie is setting up this idea that she feels she missed out on some stuff. And it led to resentment in her marriage, which for Charlie manifests as him having affairs.

And she even says, you know, if I knew then what I know now, I'd have done things differently. But then she doesn't do things differently. She makes the same mistake. And then she's given this second chance where she time travels back to her high school self and then she uses it to she blows make out and have sex with a teenager like let's not forget that that is that's tough but it's like but i i mean just like the core thing of like everyone is like oh what if i could do this over what if i have a second chance and it's like but what if you just fucked up in the exact same way oh like that is but i don't think that's what the movie is saying though i don't think the movie i know but that is what that's what's happening

right the movie is positing like oh but they're such a good match and it just took her needing to go to travel back through time and see how devoted he was to her for her to realize that they should be together i think that's like what the movie's saying i think yeah we're watching this and just like noticing this missed opportunity for her to go back and like learn things about herself and to discover new interests and discover things that she did miss out on and then she can actually pursue now but instead is just like no she should make this horrible mistake twice and and the weird thing is you said is is she's a 42 year old woman and we see her using her knowledge of psychology and and maturity and growth to shut down the asshole woman, the woman who's a real,

yeah. Yeah. But she's, she's an asshole in the eighties and she's an asshole in the sixties. So she never gets better. But Peggy Sue uses her, her maturity and her, and her,

the knowledge of being a 42 year old woman to shut her down in high school and the bad teacher. But she also uses that same 42 year oldness to to get to sleep with michael what's his face right and he's 17 again is creepy and that's creepy and i don't think i really thought about that until you said that that was creepy caitlin so i think you're right but well the movie doesn't present it that way at all yeah but again because she's in her like 43 42 or whatever year old consciousness that she has all of those memories all that wisdom she's has the mind of a 43 year old and she's having sex with a teenager and that is gross and she does that with two different characters because it's

right and it's like even if it's consent legal it's fucking weird and i think that's something that we've yeah we've talked about that in so many episodes because it's just like this little sneaky hollywood trick that is used constantly i feel like in this movie it also is downplayed by the casting choice which is like both of these actors are in their late 20s, early 30s. So it looks completely above board consent wise. It looks okay. Right. Consent wise. And it's a woman doing it to a man, which I don't know.

Yes. I mean, as it's become, because it was never, it used to, I remember when I was a kid, guys being like, if I could get some older woman, you know, to fuck me, that'd be great. And you're just like, no, no, it's still not okay. And then sometime in the late 80s or the 90s, it started coming out with women teachers sleeping with their boy students. And adult men going, no, no, that's a rite of passage. That's a thing.

And it's become more and more like, no, it's still an adult thing. No, it's also predatory. like no it's still an adult it's also predatory right it's super predatory and but it yeah it is this hollywood trick that they're playing in 1986 because it's a woman and it's somehow okay and there's so many yeah so many like media i mean that i mean we we don't even have time to get fully into it. But the whole, you know, like long media tale of like tolerating that and presenting it as a rite of passage, I feel like that has so much to do with it. It's like because, you know, media of all types presented this as like, oh, well, in certain cases it can be predatory. But when it's an older woman preying on a younger boy, generally, well, that's just a rite of passage. And you should be grateful that it's happening.

Or if it's an older man in Gigi. I don't know if you ever saw Gigi. Yes. The musical Gigi. But it's an older man with a girl who's 12, 11 years old when he meets her. And he essentially is, she's being groomed for a guy just like him. And then they get married. And then it's this, the greatest love story in the world.

My 94-year-old great aunt was just talking to me last weekend about how much she loved that movie. Such a beautiful story. And I was like, run it back. We'll link Lilia podcast in the description. I have a historical note that i don't know if it'll derail us from the actual bechdel but um it's you know it's 1960 he's 17 years old why doesn't he go to vietnam oh he doesn't go to college interesting oh charlie yeah whoa is he a draft dodger on top of everything yeah he dodged dodged the draft. I mean, not the worst thing, but yeah, hard to say.

Well, I had a historical note as well. I mean, this movie clearly is making the choice to, I mean, it's so hyper focused on Peggy Sue's, a very specific corner of Peggy Sue's life that I feel like, you know, you're given this, something that we see in a lot of movies movies this very like rosy look at the past especially with this era I feel like you get it a lot with the 50s this is technically 1960 but it looks like the 50s where there's no real acknowledgement of like social upheaval like you were just saying Jackie like there's all of these you know it's you're in an American white suburb and it's presented as like now these were the days which always when when I see this now it always

feels a little insidious because it's like well so much has to be erased for us to just like live in this basically like poster this kind of like false version of reality um right that again it's like this movie has it's it's so bizarre to me that i can't like it's just bizarre to me the direction this movie chooses to go because it's so like specific where it goes that and it feels like kind of a lot of these story opportunities are left along the way because it's so focused on Peggy Sue's how like why Peggy Sue got married that is the movie's only intention that is its mission why did she get married when it's like there is like I mean 1960 there's a fuck ton of stuff going on yeah that could have been integrated into the story in a more interesting way. I was honestly surprised that because it did feel like there was room for commentary on the values of the 60s. Right. And how maybe those

values clash with the more modern values of the 80s or like, you know, how Peggy Sue with her knowledge of history, how you know, she could have some takes user powers for good right something like that but the movie doesn't bother to go in that direction at all and not to say that like every movie has to have like biting socio-political commentary or anything like that but the movie just completely ignores it and the only for example the only people of color in the entire movie which takes place during the civil rights movement are kind of in the background seen on stage with nick cage because he's secretly he secretly performs at like an r&b club sometimes yeah which is just presented as like something that makes him quote-unquote cool because of his proximity to black culture and then it's just dropped

it's just and then it's gone yeah yeah would have been cool for the movie to explore and comment on the cultural landscape of the 60s. And how it compares to the culture of the mid 80s. Especially since Peggy Sue would be viewing the 60s that she's in right now through this more modern 80s lens that she just came from. But that's not what the movie is about i guess yeah uh let's take a quick break and we'll be right back with more discussion Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.

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

available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife

working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you.

Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out?

I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams.

Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I just want to close out my thought on the just bizarro direction this movie takes, especially because, again, what's what to me feels like is being set up is her being given this second chance to discover some interests, discover some ambitions, to learn about herself, to not make the same mistake over again with Charlie. And it feels like that's really the direction it's going to go in when she's giving this speech to, I think it's Richard, when he proposes to her. And he's like, you know, you can change your destiny and, you know, marry me instead. And she's just like, no, Peggy Sue got married, case closed.

And then she says, I don't want to marry anyone. I know. case closed and then she says i don't want to marry anyone i know as if to say like she has been defined by the fact that she got married very young and she doesn't want to be defined that way anymore the movie is like setting up this arc where peggy sue realizes that her value has more than just her relationship with charlie and that she's like gonna discover all this stuff about herself but then it just ends with her realizing that she's actually loved Charlie this whole time, and that she should get back together with him. Right. And how is anything gonna change? Right, right. I mean, it felt like a Hays Code moment almost at the end where,

where like he and she invites him over to the house right it's either that or it's like is this an existential piece you're like you can you can search the world for answers but but yeah you know you're you're fucked baby you're fucked like you're just like this is your destiny it's so bleak and i want to be clear that like as we've always said a woman having a hetero relationship with a man is not anti-feminist like we are just simply commenting on the cultural expectation that a woman should get married to a man or must be married to a man well and i think it's like the lack of anything else is exactly what i'm concerned with here it's like you know whatever a relationship is a wonderful part of any life if it's if it's good

and it's what you want but it's like but this is the defining event of her life and and she resents that she seems to resent that but then the movie has her continued to be defined by it at the end and it just like it's so dissonant and weird it's so weird it makes me so sad for her right it makes it weird it makes it weird and sad even if there are some amazing filmmaking there's some really cool storytelling within it for sure that that really does an amazing job showing us some depth to these characters like i i don't want to watch it but i'm more interested in a movie about her mother yeah you know like her mother just making ends meet chipped beef with rutabagas her father's favorite what a weird what dish that i that you know what it feels it feels like she's

making ends meet and she's convinced peggy sue's dad that that's his favorite and right I can't yeah uh it's very yeah it is like a very very strange I mean I've just never seen a movie like it so high concept and yet so preoccupied with something and the ending is so like you just don't expect a back to the future style premise that came out right after back to of the future to end in this kind of sad way like why is it end so sad i know that the movie doesn't want you to think it's sad right even if if even if you don't think it's sad it's a very quiet ending to a very high concept story yeah there's no like delorean there's no and the loop is closed there's not going to be Peggy Sue got married too.

I'm trying to imagine when a Peggy Sue got married too. She goes back in time. It's actually now the 70s and she just thinks everything's going great, but he's sleeping with Janet. And then at the end, she is like, well, I guess I'm just going to stay married to him again. And then it'll just keep happening and happening. God, so depressing.

Poor Peggy Sue a few stray because I know we're running short on time a few stray things that I wanted to note um so I think we already kind of touched on this but I I felt like the the beginning of the movie gave her a pretty interesting connection to the women she went to school with and then that kind of went under examined in the 60s they to the point where there's a joke made about it like she Peggy Sue asks her friends to spend a night with her some time with her yeah and they're like ha ha ha no and then you never get that scene of them talking to each other really like so that was a bummer literally they're sitting in three chairs going did you screw Michael and that's the only real moment they have and then it's it's date night walter's coming over and you're like what and she's like let's have a sleepover

let's hang out and they're like grow up grow up and then that's it like which is like a funny joke but i was like oh we're and then we're just never gonna see them talk again interesting it makes me want to see diner because if it if this is, my brother thinks this is the woman version of Diner. I don't. I've never seen Diner. I saw Diner. I've never seen Diner. But this movie, I feel like this movie doesn't deliver on the relationships with women that are set up.

Because I really liked that when she goes to the high school reunion, she goes to her female friends right away and they start gassing her up. They're like, oh, that's great that you're getting a divorce. Do you blah, blah, blah. It's really nice. And then also when she goes back to the 60s, the first people she wants to see are her mother and her sister. And like she, you know, kind of blows Charlie off at first. She's like, I don't want to see you. I see you all the fucking time.

I want to see my mom and I want to see my sister and I want to have like this bond and like the same thing with her grandma like she has very very strong connections to the women in the story but you just don't really get to see they don't play out or have an arc with them you only see the arc with charlie right so that was a big bummer um yeah does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie i like that it has a quiet ending i like that that feels more cheerful than just more of the same yeah i i like to think but i'm a lady in the tiger kind of person and where i want i wanted to be the lady i want her to have like what she's learned is she's got better boundaries now with Charlie. That's what I hope happens when we stop watching. I mean, I hope I hope that at least there is an adjustment made.

I mean, if she really wants to stay in that relationship. But I just I don't know if it's going to happen here. I love that she loves her kids, though. That is nice. And she seems to have a really good relationship with her daughter. And we see that actually on screen. Yeah. Oh, I love that first scene where her daughter's like, mom, you got this.

You're hot. Wear your weird dress. And she's like, all right, I'll do it. It's cute. I take comfort in this. Since the ending, it's kind of ambiguous. We don't know for sure if they will get back together, even though the movie is clearly heavily implying that. But because it doesn't explicitly state that, and we don't see a scene where they're renewing their wedding vows or something like that, or they don't sign the divorce papers, maybe

it is just that she's like, okay, you can come hang out with our children and we can try to be on friendly terms, but i'm gonna go i'm gonna turn this bakery into a into an awesome gig what about the bakery where does this fucking bakery come from and then they they take time out in the like they make a point in the 80s for her to say oh are you the manager no i own the bakery and you're like so you own a bakery like why couldn't that be something that you always wanted from the 60s so we can give this woman something yeah that she wants to own a bakery it's the most rom-com thing in the world but whatever give her her bakery right have her want that like oh geez anyways yes such a bizarre

ending and the freaking weird like 11th hour Freemasons time travel ritual they perform is not even the weirdest part okay I thought that was that was I mean Freemasons are like chaotic evil but I thought that was a very fun I mean it's Coppola choice that was another thing that was like oh Coppola movie okay I guess but maybe this where does it come from it feels so out of place in this movie. I mean, I didn't hate it. I think it's very funny that this is randomly at the end of the movie, but totally another dissonant thing. Yes.

The movie does pass the Bechdel test. It does. We see Peggy Sue talking to her sister about board games. We see her talking to her mom about different things like her hair and her clothes and her grandma. I think most of the conversations she has with her friends don't pass because they're always talking about boys. Right. My favorite scene that does not pass the Bechdel test is when her mom is like, have you ever heard of a penis? And Peggy Sue is like, and her mom is like well stay

away from them right iconic yeah hilarious uh but even though a lot of scenes between women they are talking about men there are a fair number that do pass the Bechdel test so yes there's that it ain't nothing ain't nothing as far as our scale, the nipple scale, in which we evaluate the movie from an intersectional feminist lens, zero to five nipples, I would give this, oh gosh, I'll give it a one and a half. What's gotten a five? Very few things.

Almost nothing. And we don't even stand by all of our fives over time right i think like moana got a five have they gotten zeros we've given zeros we've given negative nipples um it's you can do freeform jazz on the i mean it's on the scale yes i'm giving it a one and a half because I like Peggy Sue as a character. I like that we see this emotionally intelligent woman who is confident in herself. And it's just that all of her potential is squandered because the movie has her make choices that don't even align with the character that they developed for her it doesn't make sense like i feel like there's another 20 minutes of

this movie that is sitting somewhere yeah maybe there is maybe there is i read that there was a lot of this movie that didn't it was shot very quickly and it sounds like there were there was stuff that either wasn't shot or didn't make the movie including the character and i think also the only disabled character we see in the movie rosalie who's in the beginning and then is cut from i think that she was supposed to be in the whole movie i read but um there wasn't time or it got cut i mean and again it's like and i don't believe that that character is played by a disabled actor. Yeah, I don't know. There were threads that you're just like, well, where did that person go?

Where did that story go? Right. I want to believe that there was more, but I don't know. Right. There's got to be. But with what we're given, it's dissonant and it doesn't make any sense. And like, Peggy Sue is a level headed character who seems to understand herself very well and understand her surroundings. And yet the movie makes her make this choice to get back with Charlie,

even though it doesn't seem like that character would make that choice. But Hollywood is like, we need a happy ending. And a happy ending is when two hetero people kiss and are in love, even if the man is terrible. Even if we've been spending two hours realizing why this is a bad idea for both of them. What a treat. So, yeah, it feels like a very like of the era. I think if like this were to be remade today, it would be like, again, the thing that i pitched of like peggy sue being like wow hindsight is 2020 and that guy sucks and i'm not gonna get back with him and i'm gonna yeah learn

uh how to invent boom boxes myself i don't need a man it's interesting because it could have been that in 86 too like it could kind of could have gone either way in that era and this this one uh just does not it didn't i was thinking of my mom the whole time and i'm like well at least my mom made a different choice in her one timeline at some point you know she actually did do the divorce yeah she actually made a divorce like there you know was the right idea yeah yeah she was yeah peggy she was right from the get-go. Get out. Yeah. You still do have your kids. Right, right.

You don't lose your kids if you divorce Nicolas Cage. That is just famously a truth of this world. Right, look at Elvis Presley's daughter. Exactly. Oh, right. I forgot about that. Oh, gosh. So two nipples, or sorry, a nipple and a nipple and a half one and a half nipples i'll give one to

kathleen turner and i will give the half nipple to helen hunt her daughter who's in the movie for four minutes i'm gonna do i think i'll go two for this uh we didn't get to talk much about the production but this movie was uh written by a married couple one of so there there is a woman co-writer on this movie i i think that it is you know unique that there is a francis ford coppola movie that's a character study of a woman in her 40s uh that is scraps but i do think it is it is interesting. I am so depressed by what happens to Peggy Sue. I want better for her. But I do appreciate that she is the character that we learn inside and out, even when we

find her frustrating, even when we're like, you're fucking up so bad. I feel like the reason that we're so frustrated that she's fucking up so bad is because we really get to know her we get to like see I feel like there's often in in stories like this it's like oh she's the protagonist but then you spend the whole movie learning about like her boyfriend's family for some reason and this movie does not go that way you really do learn who Peggy Sue is where she comes from the culture she came up in, and why that culture, you know, motivated her to fuck her life up with Nicolas Cage. It's not a happy story. I know we're supposed to think it is. I don't think it is. But I but I was really, I don't know.

I mean, I feel like this movie has to be doing something right if I'm so sad for Peggy Sue at the end of the movie. Right? Right, right. So a uniquely bleak take on a time-traveling movie. I don't know that I will want to watch it again soon, but I love Kathleen Turner. I liked seeing her in a role like this. Just watch Romancing the Stone with me. Or War of the Roses, where they kill each other and she throws Michael Douglas's hand off of her dying body.

Oh my God. Holy shit. War of the Roses is brutal, actually. I don't recommend it. Danny DeVito directed it. Oh, right. I did know. Okay, okay.

I haven't seen it, but I did know that he directed it because I think that Polly Platt was supposed to direct it originally. Oh, wow. Okay. seen it but i did know that he directed it because i think that polly platt was supposed to direct it originally oh wow um okay so so yeah i'll go to i think it's an interesting character study that made me want to die um so and also you know super white movie it didn't need to be there were story opportunities to you know do other stuff that this movie just didn't do yeah i'm gonna give one nipple to kathleen turner and then i'm gonna give one nipple to kathleen turner and then i'm gonna give the other nipple to penny marshall who almost directed this movie and i would have loved to see the penny marshall version of this movie same oh me too yeah holy smokes what

a different movie that would have been yeah and it would have done it would have solved my problem which is nicholas cage being in it at all right right right yeah i uh i i just because of how beautifully shot some of it was and and how these there were these nuggets in it that kind of reminded me of jaws in the way that it has these background stories these complete stories that are in the background the hat thing i didn't notice until my brother told me about it are in the background. The hat thing, I didn't notice until my brother told me about it, but I'll tell you that hat thing, the fact that the guy's in the fricking hat business in 1960 and buys an

Edsel and she sells his jewelry, this jewelry business. And that sort of that tiny plot of that and the, and the, you know, just sort of these like really weird kind of and the the draft thing and there were just sort of there were interesting parts of the movie that that i liked it i'm gonna give it two and a half nipples i'm gonna go halfway i love it because

i'm glad i watched it again because I had such a visceral when I saw it on the list of possible movies to watch I was like that damn movie but so who am I giving the nipples to I guess I'm giving them to Kathleen Turner and then I have to give it to I gotta give it to the mom

the actress who played the mom and I think I'm gonna do kind of a trifecta I liked Sofia coppola sure i did i thought she did a good job i'm gonna give it to the to the generations i almost went grandmother gonna go little sister yeah yeah go little sophia well jackie thank you so much for coming back and discussing this movie with us what a treat it's been. It was so fun. What a deep dive you guys do into every movie. I love it. Thank you for coming on. Come back anytime. Bring us bring us another wild card.

We're ready. And if either of you want to be on the Dork Forest, you're always welcome to be on the Dork Forest. Oh my god. Yeah, that'd be amazing. Speaking of the Dork Forest, tell us about your podcasts. Tell us about your special and your album and all that stuff. Oh, I have a podcast called the Dork Forest. We are in our 16th year of different episodes where people talk about what they love. The Dork Forest could be about anything. It could be about bees. It could be about Canada.

It could be about Bob Dylan. I just did a Sandman LARPing. It could be about Bob Dylan. I just did a Sandman LARPing. It could be so nerdy. It's a live action role playing five games covering Neil Gaiman's Sandman over 15, 20 years. And it was amazing. Have you ever done Chuck E. Cheese? No, but I would love to do Chuck E. Cheese. Caitlin, what might you?

What do you got? Oh my gosh. Paddington Bear. Paddington. Paddington Bear. Yes, I would love that i did have not seen either of the movies she'll sit you down she'll sit you down all right hook me up and then so that's the dork worst and then i do a podcast with laurie kilmartin every week where we discuss stand-up comedy and we celebrate and bitch about it and so we do a lot we do our own little bechdel test with it and uh turns out stand-up comedy fails it on a regular and then

i have uh yeah i have five albums out they're all streaming on pandora amazon itunes they're playing on series xm uh spotify just took them down because of some sort of, I wanted more than four hundredths of a cent for every spin. How dare you? How dare I? And so, but the new special and then the album, which is of the same name, is called Staycation. Get it? We were all home for a little bit.

And my last name's Cation. And it's a mask. I love it. Hilarious. And it did good on the lists and it's super fun and it's free. So YouTube, Google, Staycation. S-T-A-Y-K-A-S-H-I-A-N. And you can watch for free on YouTube.

Or you can listen to it wherever you like. And thank you very much for having me on. Jackie, you're the best. Thank you so much for coming back. You can find us online across platforms except for Facebook. Because fuck Facebook. You can find us at Bechtelcast on Instagram which is owned by Facebook. But you can also

find us on Twitter which also sucks. You can also join our Patreon aka Matreon where we, for $5 a month, you can get two bonus episodes based on a theme that we choose or you choose and we ignore. So we're finally going to get around to

covering those Jane Austen movies. Just you wait. Any day now. Just you wait for Austen August, which could happen any time. Yes. And that's at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. You can go to tpublic.com slash the Bechtel cast to grab some merch. And I guess let's all time travel back in time to our senior year in high school and see what lessons we might learn.

You couldn't pay me to do it. Bye. Bye-bye. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before. Tried to assassinate the president of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson.

26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This season on the new podcast Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts. I'm NK and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me? A show about the ways that mental

illness is shaped by not just biology, swaps by not just biology, but by culture and society. By looking closely at the conditions that cause mental distress, I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane, what we can do about it, and why we should care. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free,

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