The Bechdel Cast - Pleasantville with Jessie and Leonard Maltin

Episode Date: May 2, 2019

Caitlin and Jamie are transported to another time and place so they can discuss Pleasantville with special guests Jessie and Leonard Maltin.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @jessiemaltin and @leonardmaltin 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.

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On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked. If movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands? Or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast, start changing it with the Bechdel cast Hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast, my name's Jamie Loftus My name's Caitlin Durante And this is our podcast about the representation of women in movies, is that correct? That's correct, Jamie would you say that the representation of women in movies is like generally like pretty good i wouldn't i wouldn't say that wow yeah interesting

just a general very very bad how many episodes have we been going for now five million yeah yeah i think the general consensus oh this comes as a surprise to me but uh i'm interested to hear more it's okay i have to 50 first dates you every morning remind you that the why haven't we done that movie oh god that movie would do so i've never seen it it's very fucked up but i really loved it when it came out i thought it was the most romantic thing ever it's spoiler alert adam sandler has to show drew Drew Barrymore this like weird DVD he made to like tell her it's 2006 or something every morning. And he's like, so all this stuff happened. The Clinton administration is over. Also, 9-11 happened.

Also, Arnold Schwarzenegger is in office. Like the events he chooses to cover and the order is so wild it's an insane movie but i really liked it when it came out but almost i almost never want to see it again just so i can well we're we gotta cover it so sorry but you gotta see it again oh no shout out to all my 50 first dates i mean it'll be 100 first dates for you? It'll be, yeah, exactly. Two laps of first dates. So we use the Bechdel test as a way to initiate a larger conversation about women in film. And the Bechdel test, if you're not familiar, is a media test created by Alison Bechdel. It requires that a piece of media has two female identifying characters they have to have names they must speak to each other and their conversation cannot be about men and for our

standard it's a just a two-line exchange very low bar and yet it still does not happen nearly enough yeah so that's what we're working with here i'm excited for the the movie we're talking about today it's one of your favorites am i yeah talking about today. It's one of your favorites, am I correct? Yeah, I would say that it's one of my favorites, although upon this rewatch, I was like, oh boy. There's some stuff. Some things happen. But before we get into it, let's introduce our guests. We've got today, very exciting, the hosts of Malton on Movies podcast. It's Jesse and Leonard Malton. Hello. Can I tell you you when I first became aware of this? Yeah.

It was as a parent. When I started taking Jesse to movies when she was a little girl, and I became alarmed at the lack of role models for her. Yeah. I don't know how enlightened you would rate me as being. I like to think I am. And so when Jesse was growing up, we'd go to these Saturday morning or Sunday morning screenings that they have here in LA for

family-friendly movies. That's how they have their media screenings. One time we went to see The Karate Kid Part 3. Classic. A film that no one would call a classic. How dare you. And that got generally poor reviews. But Hilary Swank is a key character in that movie. She's the lead. Along with Mr. Miyagi. And I came out with a different point of view about that movie than almost any of my critic colleagues. Because I was watching it through her eyes.

And I said, well, it's not a very good movie, but it has a nice lesson, a nice moral for her. I liked the takeaway from that movie. That was my first kind of, I don't know if you call it an epiphany, but it was a realization that if you're trying to be a responsible parent, an enlightened parent, and especially in this case the parent of a daughter, there are other considerations besides is it great writing? Is it outstanding cinema? It's the takeaway. Right. True.

And I refer to that all the time because it made such an impression on both of us. Karate Kid 3, who knew? Who knew it was such a monumental film? Give it a rewatch. It's so funny because it's like, yeah, as recently as when we were growing up, there were still relatively slim pickings for positive role models for girls outside of the Disney princesses that we've talked to death on this show yeah but you know finding active young girl roles like I think almost everyone I grew up with was like oh yeah Harriet the Spy and Matilda like those were the two little girls okay so Pleasantville what are each of your history and relationship with this movie? It's one of my favorite movies ever. Yeah. I loved it

ever since the first time I saw it. And I remember seeing it and obsessing with it, you know, over it. But yes, it's one of my favorites. I know damn near every word. I love it. My parents, though, had not seen it, I think, since it came out. And so I said to my dad, do you remember it? And he said, I do, but not as well. And my mom was the same thing. She couldn't remember exactly. So we sat down, the three of us, one evening and watched the film. And the best part for me was watching the two of them.

And they were really enjoying it. Because I didn't need to watch it again. I know it. But I liked watching them watch it. So you as a family watch each other watch movies because you were watching Jesse watch Karate Kid. I suppose that's true. It is true.

I'm a people watcher anyway. I'm an only child, so I'm very much like the I sit in corners and stare at people. So with this, for me, I kept watching the two of them. And when it ended, my mom said, I can't believe I don't remember this movie. I love this. This is so good. She was really, really pleased with it. And you had a similar reaction. I did. Really pleasant rediscovery for me because I had not seen it since it came out. I come to it from a slightly different perspective than any of you, just on account of

the fact I'm older. I grew up watching Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best and Ozzie and Harriet and all of those TV shows that didn't take place in the past. That was my present. That was my present day. So I lived my life and absorbed what they were telling me was the ideal, the ideal of American life. I was a baby boomer. And these were baby boomer shows in the post-World War II era. And they were hugely popular. And they all had long runs, those three shows i just named and then endless reruns so they were always there they were part of the fabric of american life jamie what's your history um i think that this was a movie that i i feel like was on ifc or the sundance channel like constantly when i was in high school so i saw this movie a bunch of

times in high school, aided by my Tobey Maguire crush, which really would maybe, you know, very likely to watch this movie more than once. And I always really liked it. I hadn't seen it in, I think, four or five years. And there were some things that stood out to me at this point that I I feel I feel almost a little silly for not registering for me sooner same uh but I I mean I in general I still think it's a really fun movie I forgot how uh emotionally affected I was by it and um yeah I really like it yeah it is a movie that I really love as well. Although, as you said, Jamie, there are some beats that happen, especially like toward the end of Act Two, where I'm like, oh, you're introducing this metaphor. Oh, and then, okay, we'll talk about them.

Miles Gray is upstairs and we're like, oh, yeah, we're covering Pleasantville today. He's like, oh, yeah, the movie about racism with only white people in it and we're like yes and he's like oh cool yeah so uh we'll we'll dig into that in a bit but um yeah I I first saw this I think in probably I mean it came out in 98 I think I saw it in like 2000 and have been watching it pretty steadily since then but uh yeah uh i'm excited to dive in yeah i'll run through the recap and then uh and then we'll go from there so we meet david that is toby mcguire's character he is a teenager he's in high school he's a i think they're seniors i i'd imagine i think in high school um he. He's a bit of a nerdy type. And he's obsessed with a show called Pleasantville,

which is this old-timey, black-and-white, very wholesome, clean family. It's Leave It to Beaver. It's also Father Knows Best. Yes. And in this show, Pleasantville, it's about a family with a mom and a dad and a teenage son named Bud and his sister Mary Sue. Very nuclear America nuclear very nuclear family unit um and then we meet david's twin sister jennifer uh she's played by reese witherspoon

she is this popular girl in school she likes this bad boy and she has made plans with him to watch this concert on MTV that night. But it's at the same exact time as this Pleasantville marathon is happening that David wants to watch. This is a great 1998 problem. There's a lot of 1998 problems at the beginning of this movie that I very much enjoyed. So they're fighting over the remote and it flings against the wall accidentally and shatters. So this TV repairman shows up magically right then and he sees how big of a fan David is of the show Pleasantville. And he gives him this special remote control. You just said Don Knotts.

I would say Don Knotts. Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show. The Nervous Man from The Steve Allen Show. I grew up with Don Knotts. Gary Ross, the filmmaker, very cannily and deliberately cast Don Knotts in that role. Because he knew it would get the kind of reaction I just had from aging boomers. All the Don Knotts heads are coming out. That's right. That's totally what they're called. But I interrupted. Oh, that's what the recap's all

about. So they've got this special remote control now and david and jennifer continue to fight over it and they accidentally hit this button that sucks them into the world of pleasantville i like to wonder what happened to the two actors in pleasant right i'm like where did they go to the 1990s that would be fun but we just don't know what happens to them pleasantville too yeah unpleasantville yeah yes they're just horrified by 90s culture the whole time right because david becomes bud and jennifer becomes mary sue right so they're like what the frick what get us out of here like what's happening and the don knotts character is like no you're staying it begs the question why this man is going around looking for teenagers to replace the current cast of

pleasantville like i don't know like he's just like i've been looking for people to do this for years you're like why don knots why wouldn't that ruin the show which as we see it does like why would he do that i kind of i'm like you know i don't have to know but i am curious why that was his i never really questioned the logic of it until this recent rewatch but i was like why does he do that i just don't question those yeah that's the whole meeting on meeting on a movie's terms it's like if you're saying that you want to send them back there then that's where they go yep i trust on that's right to move the plot forward that's right so they realize that they have to play along existing in the world of pleasantville until don knots shows up again and is willing to like discuss sending them back to

their actual time and so then they meet um their mom and dad betty and george parker that's played by joan allen and William H. Macy. So David has an easy time fitting into Pleasantville because he knows the show so well. But Jennifer is like, this place fucking sucks because it's like this utopia of wholesome pureness. No one has sex. Books are blank. Nothing burns.

Everyone's eating meat and cheese and gigantic stacks right but then this character skip martin played by paul walker is like hey mary sue i like you let's go on a date paul walker is great in this movie he is such a little cutie pie watching him be all bamboozled and what's the part where he's just like i don't know what's happening to my body i was like oh my god paul walker has a boner and he doesn't know what's going on it's a great scene so she takes him to lover's lane and they get into some heavy petting and i know i'm so sorry oh my god i I'm so sorry. The family show, which is all new to Skip, as you just hinted at, Jamie, because like, again, everyone in Pleasantville is basically asexual. and black and white it's red and we're like the color of sin are are this new bud and mary sue perhaps changing things in pleasantville so now this sort of incites these changes where teens

are making out they're listening to rock music there's that great scene where paul walker tells all the other teenage boys about sex yeah Yeah. What's that? Yes. And then no one can shoot a basketball anymore. It's great. And then more things are showing up in color. And then Bud's boss at the diner, Mr. Johnson, that's Jeff Daniels' character. He's like learning to be more independent and he's enjoying the changes. And he's like, I love painting.

I want to paint more. But Bud is sort of like resistant to things changing. He's like, let's maintain the status quo here. And also. Bud's family life is terrible. His parents are divorced. They fight all the time. So for him, Pleasantville is the escape he dreams of.

So the reason he doesn't want things to change, because he says, I love the idea of having my mom and dad home and loving each other and dinner on the table every night. Whereas Reese Witherspoon's character is saying, why the hell am I in this horrible bra and I'm not allowed to talk to boys? There are no toilets here. You know, all those sorts of things. All of which were true in Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet. There were no toilets? No, you never saw a bathroom. Well, you could see a bathroom. You see a mirror, a vanity, you never saw a bathroom. You could see a bathroom. You could see a mirror.

A vanity, a sink, and a mirror. But it was kind of a joke that you never saw a toilet. And the beds? Married couples? Separate beds. I don't think of I Love Lucy for that. I Love Lucy is the same era

and the same ground rules. You may know that when Lucille Ball became pregnant in real life, they wrote it into the show. So Lucy Ricardo was pregnant. They couldn't use the word pregnant. Yeah. I didn't know. Whoa. What did they say?

Pregnant. Expecting. She's expecting. Oh, okay. Okay. Cute. But those shows were, even at the time, but we didn't criticize them for that. They were not just idealistic.

They were antiseptically idealistic. And there were no four-letter words. There were no double entendres. There was no violence. There was no irony. No irony. It was all straight-faced and sincere. And America loved,ica embraced these shows

america of that time embraced these shows fully and wholeheartedly because they represented what was considered the ideal and yes they were all white yeah they were whiter than white and this black and white TV show presents a world that he would be very comfortable living in. It's his escape. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It would bring him happiness, he feels. Sure. So the next major thing that happens in the story is that Mary Sue teaches her mom about sex and masturbation. And then her mom gets into the bathtub has a little fun little time with herself that's what I call masturbation I know I'm so sorry and she has an orgasm that causes a tree to spontaneously combust outside which

is what happens every time a woman comes true you know yeah you know which is not more people should be talking about that I know i know i know yeah that's why there are so many forest fires so then bud goes to the fire department and then how to has to teach them how to put out fires but this uh incites a curiosity in people where they're like well uh fires and all but also what's outside of pleasantville and what are these books about and right this girl named margaret shows an interest in bud and they end up going out and then bud starts to like open up to things changing right um meanwhile betty is vibing with mr johnson mary Sue is turning down sex with Skip to read instead. Right.

And then. For the first time. For the first time in her life, pretty much, yeah. And then George, their dad, is freaking out about his, like, dinner not being ready on the table for him. Yeah, he's freaking out about change, as is the mayor and a bunch of other, like, old men

in the community. And they are very resistant to all this change. Meanwhile, like the TV repair man is like, what are you guys doing to Pleasantville? And Bud's like, screw you. This is what you wanted, Don Knotts. Yeah. You've made your bed.

So basically the mayor is like, make Pleasantville great again. And tries to enforce like segregation because all these people are turning to color and they're yeah they they hit you over the head with with what they're doing yeah well they're afraid of the other the others right and then they i mean they go so far as to say like coloreds. Yes. Like they go for it. We'll unpack that. There's like Proud Boys who are like burning books and vandalizing storefronts and stuff like that. Also Betty and Mr. Johnson.

Betty and Mr. Johnson fall in love. They're out there fricking. I love it and the mayor creates this like code of conduct that prohibits all the stuff that has been changing about pleasantville and then in an act of defiance very footloose it's like no more dancing and fun music right only john philip suza marches for you kids um so in an act of defiance, Bud and Mr. Johnson paint a mural. An objectively ugly mural. It's not very cute.

But I like the message. Right. It's depicting everything that's been happening lately. In vivid colors. Yes. Very vivid colors. There's a copy of my favorite part that I thought was silly on the mural was a copy of Catcher in the Rye flying to heaven I was like oh my god but sure why not so the two of them are put on trial Bud is defending them

against the mayor and he's trying to prove the point of like well maybe some things are better than pleasant like stuff like being silly or being sexy and then he gets his dad to turn to color and then the mayor gets so pissed off that he turns to color and then everyone goes outside and the whole town is in color and everything's changed for the better is is the message of the movie and then toby mcguire goes back to the 1990s to spread the message of... I like to picture him going to his friends after a bit, because I've been stuck in a TV for a bit. They're like, oh my God, he's on DMT.

And then Reese Witherspoon decides to stay in Pleasantville. Yes. And that is the movie. Well, she starts to stay in Pleasantville and pursue her studies. Right. Yes. She says, I've done the slut thing. Yeah. And now she starts to stay in Pleasantville and pursue her studies. Right. Yes. She says, I've done the slut thing. Yeah.

And now she wants to try something different. Is also worth unpacking. She's done, yeah. There's one word you haven't used in your description. Repressed. Yeah. Yeah. That may be the ultimate adjective to describe all the people.

Right. And the society in which they live it is wholly and resolutely repressed yes not just sexually repressed but repressed in other other ways too which seems to be what makes it so appealing to david in the first place where there's that scene that i i mostly liked where uh when they're still in the 90s and his mom is on the phone and she's having an argument about custody and all this stuff. And he's just watching Plaza and Phil and totally ignoring it and repressing any of that. And you're like, oh, it makes sense that a very repressed environment would be appealing to him.

It's like, oh, no one has problems. And if they do, it's not discussed. Sounds like the kind of place I want to be. And he goes there. Where we know from the beginning that that's not Jennifer's deal at all. She's very forward about what she wants to do, and so, of course, she would hate it there. Right.

We've got to take a quick break, but then we'll come right back after these messages. Ooh. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered there are crooks everywhere you look now the situation is desperate my name is Manuel Delia I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged.

I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with.

But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits? on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. loves. The Biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels with the image

of the Biscuits. It's right here in black and white in print. They lion. An individual that came to the school saying that God sent him to talk to me about the mascot switch is a leader. You choose hills that you want to die on. Why would we want to be the losing team?

I'd just take all the other stuff out of it. Segregation academies, when civil rights said that we need to integrate public schools, these charter schools were exempt from that. Bigger than a flag or mascot. You have to be ready for serious backlash. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Okay, so the big thing about this movie, my big issue with it, and then we can talk about some of the other stuff, and we've already touched on this a little bit. But the movie attempts to become this metaphor for, because it's borrowing like language and imagery and other socially relevant things from civil rights era.

The race subplot on this viewing didn't do much for me, even though I understand contextually what they were trying to do. I just didn't feel like this setup lent itself particularly well to making the point that they were trying to make. And also that's introduced so late into the movie where it's like the movie is almost over and they're like, no, now it's about race. And you're like, why? Like what? Right. Because the world that's been established, which makes sense for the context of what the show Pleasantville would be, which would be an entirely white cast. Right. But then that means that the world that everyone's existing in is made up entirely of white people.

And then to introduce this race metaphor using only white people just doesn't work when we're watching it through the lens of 2019. Yeah, that part of the movie did not age well for me. But we're curious about what you think. Well, see, it's all a matter of perspective. Having grown up then, there were no black people on TV in those sitcoms that I can recall. Right. Certainly not in recurring roles, if at all. And being pre-civil rights, which all those shows were, although some of them drifted into the era, that was, for many people, a definition and an absolute snapshot of American life.

I remember they did throw in, it sounds silly, but they threw in a couple of black people into the, like when you go to Pleasantville. That's like two. But they're there. Oh, really? I don't. It was so minimal that I didn't spot them. like when you go to Pleasantville that's like two but they're there oh really I don't yeah it was so minimal that I

didn't spot them sometimes but I think they did that first of all we are not big analyzers in general because we watch

so many movies if we sat and went through absolutely everything I think we'd all lose our minds but also welcome to my life.

Our life. But also it's the kind of thing where I don't necessarily think that everything has to be analyzed deeply. And so for me watching the movie, it would be weird if suddenly instead of turning to color, they turned black. Like that's not what you want to have happen. That's even stranger.

I just feel like that would have worked at all. The racial. I'm just saying it's to work that in since they do choose to go down a race road um it would have been stranger to suddenly have a black person pop up so i think the the problem with this movie is that they are introducing this like civil rights metaphor into it when they didn't need to do that if it was just about sort of like the enlightenment of people in terms of like women's sexuality which is the thing that gets established and then they leave the race thing alone because they're only they only have white people with which to carry out whatever metaphor they're trying to carry out um yeah it

just felt like wouldn't have they even taken a big hit if they hadn't addressed it at all i mean that's kind of the yeah i just think that there may have been a better way to to do it i don't i don't know and i don't have an idea as to what that may be but i don't know i just felt like the movie bit off a little more than it could chew and in in terms of like addressing all the evils of this era it didn't seem equipped to address civil rights if one of the particular things about the movie is because it takes place in this all-white sitcom how i don't know it's just like it almost seemed like it it for me, it attacks the women's sexuality and women's liberation so effectively that that seems like it was very well equipped to do that and not so well equipped to deal with civil rights. Do you remember feeling any of those things then?

The first time I saw it? No. Right. Because that's the other part of it and that's what is so tricky about looking back at movies is that movie is now 20 years old, which is crazy. First of all, that's crazy. But it's 20 years old, and it's really hard. And I think the reason that my dad and I are sort of used to turning certain parts off is because we watch old movies.

My dad raised me on certain things. And there's definitely stuff that we'll watch sometimes that I can't. The step and fetch it characters I have a really hard time with. Do you know that term? No, no. So we saw Charlie Chan. There were

stereotypes. Yeah. Common stereotypes in movies for many decades. Every Irishman was a cop. Yep. Every Chinese person was a laundromat or woman. Yeah. Every Italian was a grocer or a fruit vendor or an organ grinder, if you can believe that.

Every Greek person owned a diner. And every black person was a Pullman Porter on railroad cars, or a personal maid to a fancy white woman. So Step and Fetch It. Step and Fetch It was the name of a performer, a stage name of a performer's name was Lincoln Perry, who played the laziest person on the planet. So because that was his stage name, that became sort of a name used for that kind of a character. So a step and fetch it. And you know, heckle and jekyll and dumbo? Yeah. That sort of a thing. But watching those today, I sometimes will watch something and I'll say to my dad, this

is too much. Like, I can't. It hurts me to watch this. At the same time, we watch so many things where, I mean, you name it, it happens. And so I think that we are used to turning parts off because you can't look at a movie with today's eyes. You just kind of can't. We have to compartmentalize. Yeah.

When we watch. Yeah, I see what you're saying. And I've had to, like, I mean, even when I go to watch movies at the theater, I often have to like, you know, take off my Bechtelkast goggles just to enjoy anything. Right. But what we so often find when we do analyze movies for this podcast is that the movies that we've seen, you know, pre 2018, you know, like like i mean and and also 2018 right right they send messages or they they erase certain things or they portray certain people in certain ways that have negatively impacted society at large and on this podcast you know we have to be like, oh, you know, when I watched, you know, Indiana Jones growing up, like that fucked me up. There's all these characters, white characters and brown face. There's all these, you know, not good portrayals of women, you know, stuff like that.

So, like, yeah, I know we have to in order to enjoy any entertainment kind of have to shut off our analytical brains sometimes. Specifically, though, to me, when it's older. I don't mean now, because if you walk in and see something like that now, you go, really, guys? Right. Really, guys? Right. But if you're even just 20 years ago, even there, you start to hit these kind of roadblocks. I think there is a way to have it both ways.

Oh, absolutely. A little bit. Yeah. Where it's, it's like, I was when, when I watch, I totally agree with you where I, when I watch movies for this show, I watch it differently than if I'm just enjoying it. Um, because otherwise, you know, it's just harder to enjoy things, but it does, I don't know. It's, it's been helpful for me and it hasn, like, with some egregious exceptions, most of my favorite movies haven't necessarily changed as a result of turning off my compartmentalization to watch it. It's just, I don't know, just creates a more aware picture of something that I know I like.

And it was, I mean, with this movie, which I still think is a good movie, and, you know, it's still one of your favorites, and it's just, I don't know know it is interesting and I think it's very entertaining yeah yeah entertaining movie that I wouldn't call it a message movie but it's a movie that makes a point or two yeah so with the entertainment and the enjoyment. And the cast. Such a good cast. Jenny Lewis is in this movie. And production design, too. Yeah. Beautiful. Stunning. Jean Appelwall? I think so. Yeah, Jean Appelwall.

Brilliant. And it leaves you with something to chew on. Right. How hard you want to chew is up to you. What I mean when I say that sort of the turning certain parts off, it's that we won't notice something. And then if you say, this made no sense,

or I don't like how that worked out, for both of us, we'll sort of go, yeah, that is a thing. But when we watch something initially, we're pretty good at sort of not doing it. So how does this movie fare on the Bechdel scale? Well, we'll find that out shortly. There's still a bunch to talk about for me. Yeah, so basically,

I think the biggest issue I have with this movie, and then we can get into some other stuff that I think we think the movie does effectively, is just, again, to reiterate, the fact that it's equating white people who have turned from being in black and white to color, equating them to actual people of color, and then trying to make this metaphor just doesn't work when we're looking at it through today's lens. Yeah, it's a case of false equivalence and then sort of a weird victory lap at the end of like, we solved racism in Pleasantville.

It's like, well, that would be pretty easy to do. Right, because there are no people of color. It's only white people. But with that, we're going to take a quick break and then talk about the portrayal of women. Yeah. 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 unhurarts 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 iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged.

I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in.

Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, your podcasts. The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels with the image of... It's right here in black and white in the prints of a lion. An individual that came to the school saying that God sent him to talk to me about the mascot switch.

As a leader, you choose hills that you want to die on. Why would we want to be the losing team? I'd just take all the other stuff out of it. On the segregation academies, when civil rights said that we need to integrate public schools, these charter schools were exempt from that. Bigger than a flag or mascot. You have to be ready for serious backlash. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, we're back. Yerp. So in terms of the female characters in the movie, one of the first things that I noticed upon this rewatch that I, I guess was like kind of subconsciously aware of, but like hadn't given it much thought until watching the movie for the podcast.

But I was like, Oh, a woman's sexuality is what incites all the changes in Pleasantville. Like that's the catalyst that gets things to start happening. That's the catalyst. I mean, I think that there are some other things. I mean, women seem to prompt most of the changes inside. And it was pretty sexually heavy at the beginning where Jennifer is the one who I thought pretty effectively, you know, meets Skip and is forward and like, this is what I want to do.

And, oh, you don't know how to do this. Here's how you do it. Want to do it? Great. And they do it. I should say do it more. Yeah. And then the same with Betty's character who literally sets the town on fire by masturbating once. Right.

But then that word repression. Yeah. That's how repressed she was. Mm-hmm. It's almost like a cartoon exaggeration. Right. But that's why it's such a funny moment. Right.

It's a great – I mean, I love that. I forgot that moment happened because I just hadn't seen it in a few years. And I was like, oh, my God. I guess that is what happens. That is like the scene I remember from this movie. Oh, wow. Because it is, I think, the first movie I've ever seen where you see the suggestion of a woman masturbating. Yeah, incredibly rare.

And the suggestion of a woman havingating i have yeah incredibly suggestion of a woman having having an orgasm in a movie like that was the first time i had ever seen that and i was like oh what a difference 20 years can make yeah but truly uh-huh yeah i mean and it's still i mean it's still not super common but that this was definitely one of the first movies where female masturbation was suggested right and visually implied as well in a way that didn't seem like talking down to it of like it literally is a catalyst it's also discreetly filmed yes oh yeah which i love i love the way that the thing that will drive us both nuts is anything gratuitous and that is whether it's foul language where someone's saying fuck

every five seconds and somehow that's supposed to be, you know, the script. Funny or whatever. It's lazy. Same kind of thing. Nudity. When nudity fits and makes sense, none of us react to it. Not in a big way. Right.

When someone is standing there naked and you understand that it's because they want them to stand there naked, that's when I say I don't like this. So what I appreciate about that scene especially is we all understand. No one needs to see what she's doing. We all get it. Right, right. And whether it's just that she's pampering herself, that's the other part too,

is that if someone didn't know what she was doing, let's just say someone younger watching it didn't know what she was doing, they may just think that she's pampering herself and she's never does that she's drawn a bubble bath which narratively could work the same absolutely just like her doing something for herself yeah she lit candles she lit candles there she's in that bathtub having her time so it could work either way i wouldn't have minded that but i i think the good thing about the you i mean i think it fits with the story too we're like in what world of pleasantville the tv show are you going

to see like titties yeah not uh and also it just allows it to be pg-13 right and so i mean i think this is like a cool movie for young women to see. Right. I mean, and like gratuitous female nudity is something that we come up against a lot on this podcast where we're like. And the other thing is that oftentimes female sexuality is something that's villainized in a movie where a villain, a female villain will be like overly sexual. And that's something where we as the audience are meant to think like, oh no, she's like loose. And that's part of what makes her evil or whatever. But in this movie, the female sexuality, it's what leads to an increased curiosity from like different people in the

community to be like, basically like what's a fire and why does it, what's the word? Burn. My favorite thing, honestly, is Tobey Maguire going fire yeah fire fire cat and every time it makes me laugh every single time cats do have eight nipples this is

and i think it would have been such an easy lazy choice for the men to become sexually aware first and sort of gone in a more fratty direction with it. Sure. And the fact that Jennifer's character is basically the sex ed teacher for this entire world. Right. Was really cool. And the fact that, I mean, and there were like little moments where

I thought Jennifer was maybe, the character was sort of talked down to and made to be like, oh, she's like a high school slut. Like that was sort of that. But she's so in charge of her own sexuality and so calling the shots at every point in the narrative. And then where her character goes, where it seems like, I mean, the rules for what makes you technical or aren't cut I mean it's just like some emotional response or something new that is fulfilling to you because at first it seems like oh if you have sex now you're in technicolor but then that doesn't happen for Jennifer because she's been having sex so it's like not new and exciting and what is new and

exciting is education and learning stuff which was the one thing I was waiting to happen because I had never watched this movie with this lens before of like oh it would be a bummer if it was only sex that you know activated women but but then you do see a few different things and Jennifer's story was really I don't know I forgot that that was her the mayor turning color is that he gets angry but angry in such a serious way he becomes unpleasant exactly

but that's it each person you say it's something within them so it depends on what you need who they had been established previously and then once they undergo their character arc what you need. It depends on who they had been established previously. And then once they undergo their character arc, whatever it may be,

that's sort of what is the catalyst for their changing of colors. And then for David, he changes colors when... Whenever I say changes colors, I think of the horse from The Wizard of Oz. But he changes colors when he has to defend his tv mom right from the pleasantville proud boys who are lunging at her because there was a nude painting done of her by jeff daniels which i don't does he ask her if that's cool or does he just do that we don't that all happen happens off screen and i have to assume that she's consenting to it. I think so.

Yeah. It doesn't feel like he's done something terrible. Clearly. Because she's not mad at him. She wanted it. And then she's there with him painting. Which. That's true.

That's true. Going off of like the Mary Sue character, like having all of her agency and being sex positive, essentially, and like spreading the gift of sex to people. That then inspires the Betty character to also have her agency when it comes to her sexuality because she's the one who keeps approaching Bill Johnson. That's his name, right? Yes.

Yeah, Jeff James. And she keeps going to him and saying, let's experiment. I i mean we can presume a lot of this kind of happens off screen but we do see her approaching him kind of with the intent of like let's get naked the women in this movie are forward and state what they want and usually the men are like oh sick but then but that would be a great line in the film. Jeff Daniels just goes, oh, sick. You want me to paint you naked?

Radical. Someone says cool in this movie. And it's a big deal. Cool PJ. Cool. Yeah. Cool. But then where the Mary Sue character leaves off, I don't know quite how to feel about this.

Well, even before that, where first she's the one whose sexuality like sets the wheels in motion for the whole town of pleasantville but then later when she chooses like reading and studying over sex and then she says later on like i tried the slut thing it got kind of old yeah i didn't like it's great that she's like trying to enrich her life intellectually but then that means she ends up sacrificing her sexuality which we don't know if that's kind of a mixed message i don't think that i think that i think that her saying i've done the slut thing is her sort of saying that i've tried different parts of myself i've looked at different parts of myself so now it's the sort of thing where you

feel like she'll do it when she wants to i think that's the difference is as opposed to doing something because she has a reputation or she wants to be more popular you know she wants she has that she's leading the you know the women and stuff like that it's it's in this case she's sort of saying this is what i want to do right now in the same way that when skip comes to her window is like hey and she's like i'm studying so i thought we could go and do i'm studying and she closes it yeah right so that's sort of to me it's more so that that it's her saying i've made the decision that this is my focus now yeah i don't think she's saying like and i'll never have sex again and the nunnery is next because we do see a shot of her at the very end at university and

she's like flirting with a man and she's got a book open in her lap in front of her so yeah she's having it she's having it she's got it all that's great another thing that kind of not necessarily rubbed me the wrong way but is at least worth mentioning is that the thing that gets Jennifer to want to play along in Pleasantville is a man so it like and that makes sense for her character like she had been established as this kind of like boy crazy teen but the fact remains that a woman is motivated in a movie to engage with what's happening in the story by a man oh i think you could say the same thing of the betty character if if that's the yardstick we're using because she i mean yeah i mean betty gets it's interesting because i love the relationship between jennifer

and betty and i almost wish we saw a little more of that because the scene that we the scenes we see them together in are so like they're great and they're talking to each other about stuff that women were not supposed to talk to each other about and learning and educating each other but then I mean I guess this would probably be realistic for that time but Betty you know goes from one man to another man and so it's a combination of you know she gets some of the motivation from what she learned from Jennifer. But would she have left her husband if there weren't a Jeff Daniels waiting in the wings? We don't know.

But see, we don't know that they get together. My dad and I were talking about this. Oh, interesting. Because you see that she goes to him, but we don't see her with him. And at no point do we see her, because as I say, we were just talking about this in the car. She does what she wants to do. And if she did, what I feel like is if she did just go straight to Jeff Daniels, everything would sort of be lost. Right. Because then you go, well, all the stuff you just did, you just went from one man to the other. We don't know that. And that's why the very

end where you see the three of them sitting on the bench it's sort of like yeah she can do whatever she wants so we don't really see anything but that's it you don't really see anything that tells you that now she's with him we understand that they sort of had a romantic night but we don't know what they're going to do from there he really jack dawson's her right he does a jack dawson glass mural. I want to paint you. Yeah. Hello. That is a relief. I guess, yeah, I sort of was like projecting that

foregone conclusion. I hope, yeah, that Betty's character, you know, she explores her options. I think if she wants to get together with Bill, she can do that.

Yeah. But the difference is wanting. Right. She wants to choose this person person and that is a big difference to everything else yeah right because her arc basically goes from her starting out as this like cheery housewife who's making the meals she's eat up yeah subscribing wholly to this to the status quo of pleasantville and then she for the kids and the day. Eat up. Yeah. Subscribing wholly to the status quo of Pleasantville.

And then she learns about sexuality and she knows her husband won't go for it. So she masturbates and pleasures herself. Poor William H. Macy. When they cut back to him

when she's in the bathroom and he's like trying to get comfortable and he's in his twin size bed like, ah! So funny. and then shortly after that she turns to color but she's too ashamed and she's not really ready to embrace this another repression moment right so she covers herself all up with makeup and that's a very

sweet moment though yeah with her with her and toby mcguire that's a very sweet it's a very tender um because on the one hand obviously she's trying to hide that she's turned color. But at the same time, that's a really sweet moment with them. And then, of course, later on when they when Jeff Daniels ropes off the makeup, that's the other. Weeping. Yeah. You're beautiful just the way you are. Which is like.

I loved I loved that scene with her and Tobey Maguire especially because it was – I mean, you could see the repression and the shame of like I've changed and I'm not ready for people to know that. And he – even though he knows she may be happier if she is just herself in the world, he accepts that she's not ready and helps her out. It's not appropriate. It's very nice. She will be – she knows she will be ostracized. Yeah. If not burned at the stake. Yeah.

Right. By the Pleasantville Proud Boys. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Oh, boy. And then where her arc ends is, well, before the kind of conclusion of her character arc, we see William H. Macy's character being like where's my dinner like still expecting

her to be like the homemaker caregiver role and then whenever he confronts her about it she's just like no i'm not gonna do that anymore because he's like he lays down some like terms and conditions like you're gonna go to this town meeting you're gonna give her a real raw deal every day yeah i like that he's made out to be the doofus idiot who we're not supposed to like in that scene. She's just like, no, I'm going to do whatever I want and you can't do anything about it.

Then you get the sincere growth of his character too where we see him be like, I don't know how to... I'm eating olives. Which, relatable. As someone who can't cook and eats olives a lot. Lots of olives. Lots of them.

Yeah. The scene in the courthouse where Tobey Maguire is talking to William H. Macy, and in that moment saying, doesn't she look beautiful? Don't you love her? And he's crying, and you're just like, oh, my God, she's so beautiful. Right. Because there, too too it's a nice thing they don't make william h macy's character evil no he's not a bad man where

the mayor is sort of seen as this oafish i think he's as close to a villain as we get that's it yeah yeah but william h macy if he was terrible then you would have no yeah leave him why would you want to be with that guy? But he's not that. He's just clueless. Yeah, but this is also what he knows. Well, it's like in the courtroom scene where Tobey Maguire is trying to basically get William H. Macy to turn to color. He's saying, like, it's not just the cooking and the cleaning that you enjoy.

Maybe it's because you actually like her for her personality and it's like and it never occurred to him before which like is a very cartoonish thing but also these are cartoonish characters I really ended up appreciating the William H. Macy character

something that I don't think is super common in movies even now is to see a male character who has entirely the wrong idea about women who is you know spoken to directly and then is made to seem capable of change i feel like that is something i'd like to see more of in movies because it is like cathartic and exciting for me to see a guy be, you know, punished for being an asshole. And I'm all for seeing that. That can be a positive thing to see someone who is not treating women the way they should be and then seeing them be called out and then begin to change and making that seem like a viable course of action is something that younger boys should see more of. I was concerned for Jesse growing up not having good female role models. I was also, just as a person, aware that there weren't very many good male role models. Yeah, almost none. Yeah. Which is crazy because there's so many. You know, where was, again, nuance, three-dimensional characters,

something to pattern yourself, pattern your life after. Oh, that guy really has his act together. Yeah, right. And he is smart. He's capable. He's, I don't want to keep using the word enlightened, but that's the one that seems to come to mind. Sure. And there are a damn few of those then or now.

Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Something I love, and I thought about this then or now. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Something I love, and I thought about this then and I think about it now, but the whole thing of both Jeff Daniels and William H. Macy being good people means that it's not an easy decision. And the film that I always relate that to is The Notebook. Now, I'm not a diehard Notebook person. I like the movie fine, but i do know it but but i've always really appreciated that the two men she had to choose from from

were good men ryan cossing and james marsden james marsden yeah can you imagine that is a choice that is a choice but the whole thing is you know normally there's the there's like the jack dawson and you know and rose where she's with a terrible man. So there's no question that she should go to the other guy. It's much more complex to say both of these are good options. And so with Joan Allen, if Joan Allen, if William H. Macy's character was one-dimensional and just like, I don't care about you, I just want my food, then it's no question. Go to the other guy. Yeah.

But when you layer it and you say, no, it's not cut and dry like that. It's not that simple. I appreciate that. I appreciate doing something different. Absolutely. You know? And then I think with, like, the Tobey Maguire character and his different, like, whether he's being David or whether he's being Bud,

like, he's a sensitive guy who is, like, there's a whole scene where he puts makeup on his mom. Like, how many, like... But then the last scene with him and Jane Kaczmarek. Right, exactly.

Same thing. Where he's comforting her because you know she's having romantic problems with her boyfriend or whatever yeah he's cleaning up her makeup yeah so that's it's obviously a callback that you see you know you see him with joe allen doing it now he's doing it with his real mom but that makes that moment so much more tender because you believe, I feel like. And his character doesn't go from like bad to good. He just goes from repressed to less repressed, which is like a cool arc to see someone go through. Any other final thoughts about the movie?

I think it holds up really well in general. I think it holds up really well. The performances still all feel real. That's the thing the pieces even if the whole is not perfect to me the pieces are absolutely worth it and if you can sort of deal with the other stuff of course someone watching it for the first time is going to have a completely different experience. And that's true of all movies. Sure. If you love something, you love it. And so I can't look at it now and say, well, let me be completely objective.

I can't. I love the movie. I've seen it a million times. Right. But I do think, compared to some especially, it holds up well. Yeah. up well yeah i think aside from like the very like late 90s idea of like progressivism of like white people who turned to technicolor is the same thing as the civil rights movement but aside aside from that like yeah i do genuinely think this movie holds up pretty well i still enjoy it

i'll still watch it um i just have to point out that there's like trivia in the beginning where David's like practicing for the marathon. And one of the questions is, what did Bud and Mary Sue name the cat that they found in the gutter? The answer is marmalade, which I have to. I thought of you for that. You know, Paddington is his favorite food. So just have to mention, just shout out to Paddington. Is there a part you feel like Alfred Molina would have played well in this movie?

Oh, I think he would have been a good mayor because he's, oh, you know what? He plays basically. I'm guessing he was the villain. Well, he plays basically that same character in Chocolat. I know. I would like to see him as Mr. Johnson. I was going to say, I love Jeff Daniels,

but I love Alfred Molina in a romantic role. Sure. Yeah. That would be my pick. Okay. Yeah. That's great. That's my final thought on that movie.

Does this movie pass the Bechdel test? Yes. It does. It does a couple times. A few of them are just like very throwaway moments where Joan Allen is like, I just love that sweater on you, Mary Sue. It's so flattering she says thanks thanks um and then there's a couple other like have breakfast now or like

get off to school okay and she's like i'm not hungry but the the big scene is the one where jennifer as mary sue is teaching joan allen character about sex. They're doing the dishes. Yeah, they're doing household chores, but they're talking about masturbation, which begs the question, where did Mary Sue and Bud come from if Joan Allen's character has never had sex? Well, they live in a universe where they started.

I was going to say, that's your problem with two people going into a TV show where's the sex happening why aren't they having sex I guess it's just like the stork brings the baby they all showed up when season one started and they were

the way they were but yeah there's a fairly long scene where she's like yeah they're talking about heterosex. So whether or not that passes the Bechdel test is up for debate because you're talking about like having sex with a man. But then it turns to masturbation. I would give that scene a pass for that reason. Yeah.

I think so like it the the context for me is like sex for pleasure and like sex for female pleasure yeah yeah it's not about men it's about them yeah the man is the tool literally right but he's the vessel yeah but yeah i'll give this a pass for sure yeah uh so that i mean that i just loved that scene in general same shall we rate the movie let's rate it on our nipple scale zero to five nipples based on its portrayal of women um i think i'm gonna go with a three um i'm gonna take some nipples off because of the the whole discussion we've already had regarding like oh white people solving racism that's my big problem with the movie but then um looking at yeah i mean the female characters who have agency especially in terms of their own sexuality

the margaret character we didn't really talk about a lot or at all but that's the teen woman who bud marley ends up yeah ends up dating she kind of really only exists in the story to kind of like further develop bud's character and she doesn't really have any bearing on the story so she's just kind of like one of these sort of flat one-dimensional characters. But yeah, of the characters we do get to know, Betty and Mary Sue slash Jennifer. Yeah, I really like the message that they help perpetuate in the story. And yeah, so I'll give it three nipples and I'll give all of them to the cat named Marmalade who we never meet on screen. Although maybe that's the cat that gets saved by the fireman.

Oh, yeah. In the very beginning. Marmalade visibility is high. Yes. I'm going to go. I'm going to strictly do this rating based on how this movie treats women uh because i mean i i also did not care for the way this movie tried to throw in civil rights uh in the kind of this bizarro way uh but strictly based on how the movie treats women i'm going to give it a four only docking it really for the the b

characters that are kind of a little bit tropey like like the friends in the 90s and the 50s are kind of reductive, bimbo-y characters. And then I sort of agree with you about Margaret's character. It seemed like there was more there, but there just wasn't time or real estate given. But they were very sweet together. Yeah, they were definitely sweet. I don't know anything about that character

outside of she's sort of you know there to move his his storyline is there also like a garden of eden reference where she's like here take that apple yeah yeah biblical biblical imagery i mean the bible is of course a feminist text. But yeah, in general, I really like that women becoming less repressed and challenging norms is the catalyst for really most of the change in the movie. And I thought it was really well done. I still enjoy it. So I'll do four. I'll give one to Reese, two to joan and one to paul walker because why not why not yeah r.i.p yeah four nipples yeah cool solid four yeah i've got a solid four two on

that basis yes cool sounds great awesome well thanks so much for coming on the podcast appreciate it happy to be here having you uh Is there anything you would like to plug? Where can people follow you online? He is at Leonard Walton. I'm at Jesse Walton on Twitter and Instagram, and he has a Facebook page, and there's leonardwalton.com, and he writes movie reviews there,

and does book roundups, and that type of stuff. And then, May 10, 11, 12, is Malton Fest. Ooh,

tell us about that. Our very first film festival. It's a hidden gem film festival. I'm so excited. It's a hidden gem film festival. So we're not showing new stuff. We're showing recent movies that flew under the radar for most people. Recent, but also some older ones just to keep things interesting. Ooh.

But yeah, it's the idea of just, it's film appreciation. And our goal always in kind of everything we do is community. The internet does not treat, people don't treat each other very nicely. And I think that it's really important to continually get them away from the computer and into real life. We want to bring people together. You want to take them out of Pleasantville, the show they're stuck in, to put them into the real world. We want to bring people together we're going to do it in the heart of Hollywood

at the Egyptian Theater that's so exciting and it's over Mother's Day weekend so on the Sunday my mom, we're having a Mother's Day thing for her that's so lovely cool, we'll check that out

and listen to Malton on movies and uh yeah thanks again for for being here you can follow us on social media at bechtelcast you can go to our website bechtelcast.com we've got our episodes there we've got our merch store there merch yeah like what's on my person what you're wearing right now. Oh yes, Jessie came correct. That's right. Obviously. I bought this right after we first met. No way. On the day of Meltdown when we had Alfred Molina on our show. Wow.

And that's the day we met you guys. That is actually necessary context for this episode. Yeah, Aristotle. The world's best engineer. The world's best engineer. A shared engineer. That's right. Found out through Jessie that Alfred Molina was going to be on Molten Eye Movies.

So I took the day off. Caitlin and I went to Meltdown and I was, I totally wimped out and I was too afraid to talk to him. Fast forward a year and a half, he was on the show. Wow. And now we're best friends. He's one of the loveliest human beings. He's perfect. Such a delight. I adore him.

I absolutely adore him. And of course, an astonishing actor. Oh my god, one of the greatest actors honestly living. He's incredible. Totally agree. Friend of the show, Alfred Molina. Speaking of, you can get feminist icon Alfred Molina merch.

It's true, which he was low-key horrified by. I think he loved it. feminist icon, Alfred Molina merch. We've also got, which he was low key horrifying. I think he loved it. You can get other merch designs like a queer icon, feminist icon, strong female protagonist, as well as a few newer ones. The whole bit.

Yeah. So check out our T public store as well. We have merch on T public. Oh, yeah. Yep. Grab some of that while you're at it. And also, don't forget about our Patreon, aka Matreon.

You can go to patreon.com slash Spectlecast. It's $5 a month and you get two bonus episodes every month, including all of the backlog of all of our past Matreon episodes. We're addicted to creating content. We simply can't stop. Addicted. So check that out and we'll be here next week.

Bye. Bye. 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, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Hey, everyone. This is Jimmy O'Brien from Jamboy Media. I want to quickly tell you about my podcast. It's called Jimmy's Three Things. Episodes come out every Tuesday, and for 30 minutes, I dive into three stories in Major League Baseball that I want to talk about or I do a stat deep dive sometimes I create my own stats it gets weird it's now your go-to podcast for staying up to date and in the weeds with Major League Baseball no topic is off limits or too small bad umpires great pitcher catchercatcher duos, new rules, old rules, three things that I want to talk about. Listen to Jimmy's Three Things on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. Jake Storielli here from John Boy Media. I want to tell you about my podcast, Wake and Jake. I've been a sports nut my whole life, and there's nothing I love more than talking about it. If you're a sports fan, Wake and Jake is the place for you covering all the hot topics from the sports world.

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