The Bechdel Cast - Promising Young Woman with Sierra Katow

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

Today's episode covers Promising Young Woman with special guest, Sierra Katow!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @sierrakatow 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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Trust us, it's out of this world. Hey, everybody. Jamie and Caitlin here. We just wanted to give a quick content warning at the top of this episode. We are talking about Promising Young Woman today. And so there's going to be a content warning for um sexual abuse there is uh we we tried our best but there are obviously some descriptions um that take place within the movie and we just want everyone to take care of themselves

yes indeed on the pectocast the questions, 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 is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where we discuss movies that you won't stop asking us to cover from an intersectional lens. And then sometimes movies that, you know, in the case of The Human Centipede, for example, that no one asked us to cover. Oh, are you sure about that? I would check the numbers. I think there was a good two, three hundred. Bagging, frothing even. Two? I would check the numbers. I think there was a good two, three hundred. Begging, frothing even.

Two, three hundred thousand. Yes. Our listenership is just astronomical and just really wanted to know how we felt about feminism in The Human Centipede. Spoiler alert. It's perfect. It's a feminist masterpiece. Feminist text.

As you heard on that episode. But today's movie falls into the category of our listeners were relentless to the point where I was like, I don't want to do it. And then it was like, well, we're doing it. We're doing it. Here we are. This is the Bechdel cast and and and so we we um we analyze movies using an intersectional feminist lens jumping off from uh the Bechdel test but what is that Caitlin anyways well gee whiz I'm happy to tell you it is a media metric created by queer cartoonist

Alison Bechdel sometimes called the Bechdel wallace test that for our purposes our little version of the test two people of a marginalized gender have to have names and they have to speak to each other about something other than a man for a meaningful conversation conversation is what we're going with these days sure so some movies do it with ease others simply have never thought of the concept of women of people talking to each other makes them sick to even think about it really truly so yes that is that's the show. Today's episode is Promising Young Woman, which I understand why we got so many requests. Yes. There's a lot to discuss. Yes. But also I'm mad at all of you. It's a very challenging movie. And we have a guest joining us that we're delighted to have she is a comedian

actor writer she voices a couple characters in raya and the last dragon she's a writer on close enough on hbo max it's sierra cotto hello hello hey thanks for me. We're so excited to be here. We are so excited to have you. So normally we do like, oh, what's your like history with this movie? But since it's such a new release, I guess tell us your just kind of like general notion of the movie, general thoughts and feelings surrounding it. Sure i mean i think i i really liked it i had just watched it like without knowing anything about it which was you know kind of a lot to take in obviously because it's like if you don't know the cover that the cover of the movie is like girl with like kind of pastel colors and i don't know you know i was just like oh okay

interesting i wonder what this is gonna be about but like Carey Mulligan and like the fact that you know it seems to be nominated for a lot of stuff that's good um so then I watched it and then I watched it again almost like the next day because I was so um yeah I was just like so intrigued by it and the fact that um you know I guess movies with those heavy topics sometimes you gotta watch it again just to be like oh wait I gotta catch what everything you know what was going on because now I know what it's actually about so so yeah nice um Jamie what about what about you this was this is honestly this was a tough movie for for me not because I think it's not good I think it's very good um and I really enjoyed uh well enjoyed maybe isn't I didn't enjoy watching this movie

either time I watched it I had a really horrible time I just uh yeah I this is like a movie that hits very close to home for me in a way that is like just tough i don't know i i tried to kind of prepare myself going into it and made sure i had like a clear-ish idea of um of what was going on but it was i don't know the first time i saw this movie it was at a drive-in for some i mean the reason was covid but also horrible movie to see at a drive-in. And it just like it truly did like trigger a lot in me. I don't really want to get too too into it. But I like had an experience with campus assault that is not identical to Promising Young Women in any way. But a lot of the dynamics at play were very similar. And it seems to have happened around a similar time-ish that they're referencing.

The specificity with which it was really hard. So by the first time I finished watching the movie, I honestly had no idea if I liked it, didn't like it, or anything. I just was really affected by it, it like really fucked me up and i texted you caitlin and i said i do not want to cover this movie on the show like it just was so i don't know like and i it's even i don't i still have this like tiny angel lord inside of me that is like don't say triggered but that was the response was like it just fucked me up for two days seeing this movie and just brought up all these um old bad feelings you know and but but after a while it was like you know i i think it's been like two months ish since i first i saw it like

pretty close to when it was released and i you know it just like seems like okay you know what the requests aren't going to stop coming it is uh it is a a an important movie you know an important current movie I think and um Sierra is like I couldn't think of a better guest to talk about it with and so yeah going back through it this time um I feel like I experienced it as a as a viewer and not as like a person trying to keep their brain in check and yeah i have a lot of thoughts i will say that if you haven't seen this movie and this is like a triggering topic for you like definitely tread lightly yes i kind of wish i knew a little more going into the first thing or I wouldn't have for example seen it at a drive-in or even seen it with another person you know it's it is very

sensitive stuff and if this is like a topic that is is particularly difficult for you take care of yourself I wish I had taken a little better care of myself the first time. Yeah, but there's so much to talk about. Caitlin, what's your experience? Yeah, I had a similar kind of reaction to the movie in the sense that I did not enjoy myself while I was watching it. I recognize that it's a good movie that is like well crafted and tackles a lot of important things worth tackling. But I just I was very challenged by it regarding like some of the things that happen in the story. I also found it triggering and I don't want to watch it again. I'll say that. That's a tricky.

Yeah. It's like the kind of movie where it's like, I love it. It's important. I never want to look at it ever again. But I would hope that just based on what I've, you know, gathered about Emerald Fennell, question mark, Fennell, Fennell, we may never know. Shrug. But based on what I've gathered around her interviews, that does seem like something

she wouldn't have a problem with. I don't know. I think she's so cool and so gutsy and brave for having made a movie like this. And the performances are incredible. I really, really like it, but I never want to watch it again. It's just one of those things i'll listen to the soundtrack great soundtrack yeah it's got a good soundtrack yeah i feel like i i listened to a few interviews about it with her and um i think that was also

helpful because it kind of was like you know certain decisions that they that she made honestly like her talking about it yeah i think was like oh this is a good way to like unpack this without having to like relive through the scenes or any of that totally and like so this movie is it was originally supposed to be theatrically released in I think April 2020 which obviously we were excited about this movie yeah years ago I remember I was talking about this like late 2019 like oh it's gonna be good and I like I had seen the trailer like what felt like dozens of times and I was like oh like this is gonna be so good and I'm going to love it. And I don't I don't I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but it didn't quite match up with what the movie ended up being. Caitlin, OK, and huge spoiler alert if you haven't seen the movie, but like, did you not expect perhaps for the protagonist to be brutally murdered at the end of the movie?

Because I certainly did not expect that. I will say I did not expect that. And again, that's not even a criticism. I think that that is like an incredibly like not, I mean, cool, you know,

all things considered filmmaking choice, but it was like, I was expecting like revenge movie where, where she wins. I was also expecting that, you one of those i actually well okay liked is that is a tough word that's no but i think what i appreciate about that ending and i think this is something i also appreciated more when i heard um the director talk about it is that it made uh because because it is just it's so sad it feels the most realistic just from my own

perspective that it's like yeah sure i would love to i don't know i guess have revenge in these situations but i just don't do that um because i out of safety you know and then i think that like sometimes when the revenge does happen that makes me almost feel worse because i'm like well god i guess i should just do that you know but then obviously this kind of clarifies like okay i think we're doing this out of survival if we're letting it go or not even letting it go but you know what i mean like i think it did show that like this is kind of another way that these outcomes can happen in movies, hopefully, right? But yeah, so I don't know if it almost kind of like presented another way. I guess also speaking from a survivor's perspective myself, I guess it does feel like, you know, the relationship that I have with that is like, well,

I guess, I don't know, maybe I could have done more to prevent this, right? And so then I think that kind of was like, okay, or... Or that could end very badly. We don't have a lot of choices, you know? Yeah, we don't have a lot of like options here. So I kind of appreciated it for that, even though totally brutal what actually went down in the scene right just like whoa um yeah yeah oh i i totally hear you and it's it's one of those endings where uh in the movie parallel i'm coming up with i really hope that someone could think of a better one but um just a movie in which like there is this quest that like an oppressed character is on and at the end they lose it doesn't necessarily mean that that is like not it may it may not mean it's an empowering story but it doesn't mean it's not an

important or impactful story and unfortunately what i'm thinking of is rosemary's baby and that's not great but that that you know if you think about like rosemary's quest to overcome this she's met with only obstacles and at the end she fails in that quest and it's like she is crushed under the pressure that she's been you know pushing against and that I feel like it's like a similar thing that happens to to Cassie she does everything she possibly could do and it's just it's too much Like it's too much for one person. Yeah. The movie I kept coming back to is like a comparison was Thelma and Louise. Oh, that's way better.

Another one. Let's go with that. But I don't think your example is bad. I think like there are major similarities between all of these types, but it also just goes to show that we need more stories about this that explore different coping mechanisms, different outcomes, different ways in which trauma is dealt with. And so that we just see a wide variety of possibilities, because I think there's, there's like a tendency to assume, oh, well, if this has happened to you, if you're a survivor, here's the way to do it. Here's the way to deal with it.

So and it's never just a like one path that anyone's going to take, you know. So the more and again, I don't necessarily want to watch all of these movies all the time. Here's the 12 movies you asked for caitlin but there is a need for you know just different explorations of this story yeah and so that was the and i know i know this we're we're structuring this episode slightly differently but it's just there's so much heavy shit even before we talk about what happens in the movie um Something that was sticking out to me in the way that this movie was reviewed was there was a lot of speculation on whether the protagonist, Cassie, who is on this perhaps disorganized revenge mission but like but but this protagonist cassie um if like is she a good person or not which i feel like is not something that we ask of like male revenge protagonists and so there were i have a few quotes that i can bring up later in the episode because i just don't care to scroll

at this moment uh sure but but yeah just a lot of speculation on like well like in this revenge movie you know she's not like a perfect you know she's not the perfect person and it's like yeah when what have you have you ever said that about like liam neeson in any movie like what do you just even i don't know it's so interesting to me because it's like this movie literally just came out and you still see those like to me they just like feel like bizarre questions to be asking and they're a little pointed and like oh this person seeking revenge is not completely pure and but so fucking what like right since when is that the promise of a movie like this like it's just such a bizarre even, like, premise. I don't know.

Truly. Yeah, I hadn't seen those. Hmm. And then, well, I mean, this is something we can also talk about. But, you know, there was that critic who deservedly got a lot of backlash for who, like, wrote that review in Variety being like, well, Carey Mulligan wasn't pretty enough to play this character and like for that to be criticism in a major publication that is happening in the year that's like a tweet draft that you get rid of sir like that's that's not a publishable thing to say yeah oh god um people's reactions uh still need work on things so um anyway should i i'm gonna do a kind of shorter less detailed more condensed version of the recap just in the interest of

keeping things kind of uh tight um we just don't want to like talk about this movie for two and a half hours. We could, but in the interest of everyone's mental health, we're not going to. Wait, Jamie Pitch, remember how we did a nearly three-hour episode on the Santa Claus 3? Yes. I don't see why we can't

do the same thing for this. Here's my answer. Absolutely not. Santa Claus 3 is good for your mental health what about that two-hour episode on flubber um what about that three-hour episode on coyote weekly we can keep going good wait santa claus three is that the one with jack frost that you are correct okay Okay. Thank God. So scared. I was going to get that wrong. Then of course, you got to do at least an hour and a half on that.

Jack Frost portion. We did. Good. Then you're good. Yeah. Okay. So here's the recap and just trigger warning for this recap, as well as what I imagine will be a large chunk of the discussion,

trigger warning of rape and sexual assault okay so we meet Cassie that's Carrie Mulligan who routinely does a thing where she goes to a nightclub pretending to be very drunk she waits for a man to come over to her under the pretense of helping her. Well, it's Adam Brody, but yeah, we did warrant stating it is Seth Cohen. When he inevitably takes her home and tries to take advantage of her, Cassie drops the act of her pretending to be drunk and teaches him a lesson we see her do this with a few different characters throughout the movie um early on she bumps into ryan played by beau burnham a former classmate of hers from med school uh which we learned she dropped out of he asks her out they go on a couple dates he brings up med school he

wants to know why she dropped out he mentions a couple students that they used to be classmates with including madison mcphee and al monroe uh thus begins uh care cassie cassie mulligan carrying out cassie cassie mulligan for simplicity cassie mulligan pretty much her carrying out a revenge plot cassie out cassie cassie it's okay we all make mistakes um what had happened is that cassie's best friend nina was raped in med school by al monroe which led to her dropping out which led to cassie dropping out and which eventually led to nina's death right which we don't fully know yet yeah we don't fully know yet. Yeah, we don't fully know. So this revenge plot includes Cassie teaching a lesson to Madison, who's played by Alison Brie. She didn't and still does not believe, you know, the circumstances of what happened. She didn't believe Nina when she came to Madison for help.

Cassie then teaches a lesson to the dean of the med school connie britain baby connie britain character actors are out in this movie also a lot of comedians or comedic actors especially in like the guys who were played or who were cast to play like the creepy men yeah i mean sam richardson fedora sam richardson what a moment what a moment indeed uh coke addled christopher mince plassie oh yeah mclovin has a scene i'm like it's almost like i always wonder if i i wonder if she's spoken to this it almost seems like emerald finnell like cast all these familiar feeling faces in all these roles of like people that you knew from like the 2000s and early 2010s that you're like oh i know this person i trust

this person and then it's like guess what they are horrible yeah yep um cassie teaches a lesson to dean walker who had dismissed nina when she reported the crime to her. Cassie also goes to the lawyer played by Jamie. It's Alfred Molina. Alfred Molina. His scene is two minutes long but the

impact is felt. I'm like was he on set for three hours? We don't know. Probably. We can imagine it was maybe a day or two um but his impact you know as always i mean honestly i have opinions on the way his character's treated but but you know in terms of was the performance there the pathos he's on his knees honestly okay if there if i had no context for what this movie is about, seeing Alfred Molina open that door and be like, I've been expecting you is a dream I've had. I want you to someday knock on his door and he opens it and you say, Alfred, it's your day of reckoning, which just means that it's just the beginning of your and his romantic relationship.

And he says, I've been expecting you. And it's like, oh, my God, this is great. And then once inside, it goes much differently. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Anyway, so this lawyer is the one who defended Al Monroe and who bullied Nina until she dropped her case and cassie's goal with all of these things is to get these people to reframe their thinking regarding assaults and victim blaming

and believing women meanwhile cassie and ryan are getting closer and falling in love. There's a Paris Hilton stars are blind song about it. Oh my God. I almost forgot existed, but we, but it's important that we don't forget. And so I'm glad it was there. I mean, I was glad to be reminded of it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's back. Then Madison comes back and gives Cassie a phone with a video on it of Nina being assaulted something that had been sent around to the various like med school classmates after this assault took place Cassie discovers that her boyfriend Ryan was one of the people watching this take place she basically blackmails him to get information on where Al Monroe's bachelor party is, which she goes to to enact the final piece of her revenge plot, where she

confronts Al Monroe for what he did to Nina, and him not wanting his reputation and life to be ruined by this, he attacks and suffocates Cassie to death. He and his friend, a.k.a. Max Greenfield, get rid of the body together. But Cassie anticipated something like this might happen to her. So she had arranged for the evidence that she had to be sent to Alfred Molina's character to report it to the police, which leads to Al Monroe being arrested for Cassie's murder. And that is how the movie ends. So let's take a quick break and we will come back to discuss. 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. and she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app,

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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.

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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're back. Sierra, is there anything in particular

you would like to start with? Or we can kind of jump in from any which angle. Oh, um, hmm. Oh, I know. Maybe we could talk about like the sort of easter eggs along the way of knowing that maybe brian was not this good guy or just talking about the concept of like the good guy that they kind of played with in this movie sure yeah oh my god i i that was like one of the things i liked the most about

this movie was like the deconstruction and sometimes it's a little heavy-handed but like the deconstruction of the of the nice guy is not something you see very often i don't think this is the first time we've seen it but it's it's definitely not something that happens often in a movie that gets a ton of like acclaim and and like is given a lot of positive attention and we've talked about this on the show a lot of how like when when um i don't know i mean there's like two things that play here the first is like when there is an assault on a woman in a movie you know very often it's by this like it's a stranger it's stranger danger or it's like someone who is like who an average male viewer will definitely not see themselves in and yeah it's like the whole like twisty mustache like pure evil villain that is like unrecognizable to anyone or just like huge muscly guy that's like a henchman

whatever it is right and then and then also the fact that the the woman is assaulted becomes her like the only thing about her but what i what i like about this movie a lot is it takes a lot of different like very like specific examples that are, oh, God, of guys that think they're nice and have been conditioned to think they're nice, but have also been conditioned to mistreat women and, you know, assault them and do different degrees of abuse and manipulation and exerting their authority over women while still thinking they're nice guys. Like, it's so frustrating. But it's so well written, I thought. Yeah, I have to say that the first time I watched it, I did not see Ryan, like, the reveal that he is an absolute piece of shit.

I did not see it coming. I was like, oh, and maybe it's just because I like Bo Burnham a lot, but I was like, no, Bo, don't be like that. Which I think that just means that that character was handled really effectively because like Jamie, you were saying, and we have talked about this a lot on the show,

although I think we it comes up more in our like matreon patreon episodes than in the main feed but there is this tendency to paint characters who are abusers and and predators as being so cartoonishly evil that no one could possibly recognize them or see themselves in them so when you present a character like ryan who is like goofy and funny and endearing then you're not expecting him to end up being like a rape apologist um yeah so i thought that was effective the way that character was handled but then like you said sierra in terms of like those little easter eggs those little hints that get planted along the way i honestly like did not fully

notice them until i re-watched the movie and i was like oh he's kind of stalking her he's not taking no for an answer he's wearing her down well and he's kind of stalking her. He's not taking no for an answer. He's wearing her down. And he's also like constantly anytime these guys come up are like, they're not that bad. Like, which I, that was like what really stuck with me. Classic Al.

Right, right. Like, and anytime Al comes up, it's like this, I don't even know if there's a word for it or a phrase for it, but it's like, oh yeah, that's not great but also it's not that bad like this weird like sure wishy-washy like i don't want to deal with

this i don't want to have the conversation so let's just move on anytime they come up yeah that that really stuck out to me on on a second watch too is like oh yeah he doesn't like he doesn't think anything of how these these guys act yeah yeah even like him saying or even the way he addresses it too it's almost like he does kind of um he knows something's going to come up so he gets ahead of it you know he's kind of like oh yeah i mean those guys can't get rid of him it's almost like he has to apologize for just like hanging around them so you know something's wrong but it's like it's the way that oftentimes guys talk about their problematic friends you know is like they know something's up but they're yeah like you said not willing to deal with it so getting ahead of it by sort of

minimizing it right away and then being like but you know that's him or whatever yeah it's so like i don't know the second watch of this movie was, I mean, you really start to not like Ryan very much. He is like, and it's, it's frustrating because I mean, but I think like he is like, as funny, like not funny, because they are like, being really sexually aggressive. the specificity and the humor of like the Adam Brody character and the Mick Levin character who we see earlier in the movie being kind of like these just pompous asshole guys who feel entitled to having sex with a girl that they don't think is going to remember um which is you know like I mean that very much fits into this um this narrative but in ryan you see like someone who yeah like the movie fully gets you to to root for i mean i feel like the bo burnham casting that was really smart because you're like oh he's it's bo burnham they're falling in love and also like you want i mean

that's like one of the really like gut-wrenching things about this movie for me is like you you want Cassie to have that and like you like oh it's so awful when it's like it kind of like on on this watch was like oh I guess like ultimately I don't know exactly what the movie is saying I don't like i whatever i i but but like the fact that you know cassie very clearly deserves you know to have a you know fulfilling connection with somebody and and then when she does become vulnerable and when she does trust herself with someone it turns out to like reinforce her original viewpoint of the world which was that you shouldn't trust anybody and that like there there is just such a wide degree of complicity that no one is safe no matter how much you want that connection and it's such a like it's so bleak. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, get started fast.

Yeah, because Cassie is engaging in some pretty self-destructive behaviors. She's, you know, consumed by the guilt she feels, the trauma that was inflicted upon her friend. She's bearing the brunt of some of that trauma. I mean, obviously this movie has an agenda, you know. It's a condemnation of rape culture. It's commentary on victim blaming. Like, these things are all clear but then the the takeaway i know i'm similarly like well

i guess it's like you can you can stand up and fight the abusers and the rapists and like the larger rape culture and lose there's a good chance you'll lose well that yeah but she did get them legally apprehended i suppose yes so i saw that as a win a little bit even though justice was served but at the expense of the lives of two women yeah which doesn't feel great to me right right sure and also it's like once a guy like al is in custody is he really going to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law of course not we've seen how those trials play out yeah he's a rich white guy he's gonna be like he he will probably go to you know probably he'll probably be incarcerated for for a while but will he you know learn anything or be held to held to task for real no that like that i mean but also i think that it is like kind of an like when i say that i

don't know what the takeaway of the movie is that's an unreasonable expectation coming from me is like why didn't emerald finnell one person give me the solution to conquering rape culture like of course she doesn't have that none of us fucking have that and so i i sierra like um referring back to what you were saying earlier about like how unfortunately like what happens to cassie is like a realistic outcome it's not cathartic but it is you know like was clearly a very likely possibility to the point where she recognized that and had planned for that, which also was just like such a bleak thing that she went into this knowing like pretty good chance I don't get out of this alive. I mean, and maybe that is the point is like, you know,

it's not a one person job. It just isn't. And there's not like one brave hero who is going to kill rape culture. True. It's just, I mean, yeah, it's just not. anything else in the sense that I think I just have such like negative dark thoughts and feelings thanks to my depression and anxiety that I just really struggle with with movies that have such a bleak ending and I um I think it's just it's like I'm glad this movie exists. I think it does a net positive for the world. But I'm like, I don't know if this is, this is not for me. I don't need to see, I don't, I already know this stuff.

So it's like, I want men to watch this. I want like. I would argue that this movie is, you know, is good. And I'm glad that I watched it. But like, yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of frustrating. Because I feel like, like, we are made it's kind of frustrating because I feel like we are made to be the target audience of a movie like this when it's like no this is like

love it but like I know you know it's like people who don't know should be the target audience for that movie but also you know people who are not the target audience are notoriously difficult to get to watch the movie but I you know uh people who are not the target audience are notoriously difficult

to get to watch the movie but i totally difficult conundrum i totally agree with you like i you know i think that for this movie to have you know the like to really act out the the agenda that it very clearly has it's like yeah the mclovens of the world have to watch it, you know and like be made uncomfortable by the behaviors they see in themselves that are reflected in these characters and like and in the Ryans of the world of like I'm an amazing guy. I have grown as a person but also like how do you reckon with your past and That like something I really appreciate about this movie. And also like I don't dislike the bleak ending. It like makes me fucking so sad, but I don't dislike it.

And I like how many for the most part I do like in terms of like how this is kind of targeting a very particular area of rape culture too which is also like i don't know i feel like anytime there's a movie like this that comes out around a large pernicious issue that is never discussed in movies like rape culture it's like this one movie has to speak for all of it which is impossible this movie is like very much in the like subcategory of like campus rape culture yeah and and i do appreciate the different perspectives it explores around that specific area of rape culture of you know like in through ryan and mad, you have people who are viewed as like, generally good people. They're not super villains. They're navigating the world, you know, normally, but they were okay with this. They didn't do anything when they had a chance. And what is an appropriate punishment for that? What is an appropriate penance? Like, I don't have that

answer. And then with Connienie britain you have like these escalating crimes of like with connie britain's dean character you have like someone who was in a position to do something about it and didn't because she wanted to be quote-unquote fair and she had internalized misogyny and all this boomer lady baggage that we see in her. And then we get up to Alfred. And honestly, I'm sorry. I feel like I'm talking. I just know with Alfred.

I feel like he gets off a little easy in this movie because he is at the top of the the crime thing. It's like the whatever. I mean, you can feel any way about it. I don't know how we feel about it but it's like cassie very much does approach anyone who negatively affected this situation as equally deserving of punishment regardless of the severity but alfred melina i feel like is clearly the worst of the bunch like he was the lawyer who got Al off at the expense of aggressively pursuing to like take down Nina like that is such a huge trauma and yeah like an adult man's bullying like a teenager or young woman who had been assaulted like there are levels here at play where it's like no one wants to say that they were the bystander that did nothing in the way that Madison knew and like clearly knew and did nothing.

But then you have Alvar Molina who profited off of aggressively doing something. And I don't. Yeah, I guess it's I'm still kind of processing that of like, it's tough. Yeah, the movie frames that where he's so wracked with guilt to the point where like he can't work anymore. And like begs for forgiveness. He feels bad, so. And then she grants him forgiveness. And I'm like, I just don't really care if you feel bad.

Yeah, I also don't believe that that kind of person would feel bad sure because it was like multiple cases that he supposedly you know his law firm did right right like in the past too even when he was like we used to have to dig through the trash now we just have to find a drunk photo on social it's like so you were pre-social media doing this yeah like for decades like yeah jesus yeah like yeah you should feel bad you should feel really bad right yeah yeah yeah it's like age is not believing that somebody in that profession would even have a compassion or feel anything sorry not not lawyers at large but just like in his specific

case um and then also i guess like yeah maybe her her revenge i mean thing it did seem like she was very forgiving overall you know i think she it was the misdirect of like whoa is she like doing something really really bad to these people or okay well then we slowly find out oh she just wants like regret and like that's all she's asking for that's pretty low stakes you know yeah totally and it's like but if you don't that's all she's asking for. That's pretty low stakes. Yeah, totally. But if you don't demonstrate that regret, she's going to have you assaulted. I saw some critics kind of being like, but her practices are bad, which is not untrue. But I don't even really want to touch that here I just in general in terms of the the clear I mean they're literally there's five people like Kill Bill style who are on her list of people

that she particularly thinks had a negative impact on on Nina's case right and yeah I mean it's I guess I don't I don't dislike it, but they're I don't know. I don't know. The Alison Brie thing was tricky for me on the first watch. But I think that that is also kind of personal where I don't like that's the sort of thing where I feel like it's it is a kind of survivor to survivor situation where I had friends and people in my life who were not inclined to believe me or help me in any way when things were going on

that over time I was able to find some empathy for and some forgiveness for. But that's also not everybody's situation. And then also it's like you have to keep in mind that this is not nina enacting revenge this is cassie enacting revenge on behalf of nina right which which is why i kind of i liked that at first in like the molly shannon character which is like there's another comedian in this movie who plays nina's mom who you know kind of tells like cassie like you need to move on like this isn't helping me it isn't helping nina you're you're just kind of acting in this really self-destructive way and like please move on

which is like well that's the point where you need to like her mother told you to cut it, you know, and I don't know. I mean, that's that's like the tragedy, right, is you don't know what Nina would want in this situation. She's not there to tell you. And so Cassie's kind of guessing what she might want. But a lot of that is enmeshed in her own guilt and her own problems and and so any of the revenge enacted is kind of like there's all these levels to it because it's not like this happened to me and I want revenge for it it's like this happened to my friend this is what I am guessing she would want and also I would want for it it's just like it's so messy and complicated right and you get the sense that like she was just going to kind of target random men for like maybe for who knows how long but her until

jennifer coolidge uh kicked her out of the house right until she filled up her notebook with tally marks yeah she's like well my notebook is is full, so my job here is done. And it's not until she learns that Al Monroe has moved back to the area that she starts this more targeted revenge plot to the people who she feels need to be, you know, brought to justice. And yeah, I struggled with some of that in terms of like, because the movie kind of tricks you into thinking, oh, is she like killing these men that she meets at the nightclub? Is she, did she actually arrange for Madison to be assaulted so that she'll learn her lesson? Did she actually abduct Dean Walker's teenage girl to teach the Dean a lesson? You know, it's all a question mark. No, right. And so it's, but like, I just, I don't know. I mean,

maybe that's just like, the effectiveness of that storytelling. But I just found all of that kind of unsettling. What I really take issue with is there are a couple scenes where Cassie is being assaulted. And I feel like we saw more than we needed to see. That we were kind of lingering on that. I don't know. It was just like, do we do this need to be on screen? I kind of disagree with that. I feel like that depends on who the target audience of this movie ultimately is i think if it is like

you know like for uh people who have experienced that or who have felt like that is a looming threat over them all the time like yeah showing an assault is not really a responsible filmmaking choice but i think that if your if your target audience is like men generally who have displayed these behaviors who need to who need to see it like I don't know I mean there's definitely a bunch of different perspectives there I think that in terms of like a man who might see himself in kind of this goofy way of like oh yeah I I kind of act like McLovin and blah blah blah and then seeing that escalation I think could actually have like an effect on like oh shit like have I done something like that is that an instinct I would have I think that there is like it felt

like it didn't feel like throwaway at least it felt intentional sure but I also you know it is like triggering as well it's yeah it's definitely there's like a lot of sides there especially when it comes to like killing cassie you know it's like that's a long drawn out yeah moment i thought for sure like i couldn't believe it i mean of course anytime a main character is killed i think i was just like really waiting for like that next twist of like she's she's faking it and then she's a vampire now yeah yeah she's gonna do the thing and it was like maybe just i think i remember going over my head like it maybe there's somehow and then you know it just I guess gave yeah same time to be like oh there's

just no way I guess this happened like I don't know but yeah yeah and and I did feel like that like I mean it's again it's like it's not a rewatchable scene it's like no one wants to see that scene happen over and over and over but it did feel intentional that like especially with a female director who I believe is a survivor as well and you know it's like I don't know it's like you it's not going to be for everyone but especially it's like I don't know if she wants me to sit with it for this viewing okay it's gonna feel like shit but it's supposed to feel like shit and it sounds like that reaction that we all had to be like no she can't be dead like this like super motivated revenge

character that never dies can't be dead and like but she is and that is so affecting and you see her like go down fighting and just all this stuff and i don't know it's i didn't i didn't enjoy it but i did i did feel it was effective i don't know sure yeah let's take another quick break and just just for us this time just it's this is for us and we'll come back to discuss more 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.

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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're back. Where do we go from here i think something worth discussing is yes this is a movie centering on like women's empowerment and condemning this larger victim blaming rape culture we live in, but it still centers a cis, middle-class, able-bodied white woman. And not that those stories are not worth telling, but that demographic has been who most of stories of this nature have been focused on, not only in like movies and TV, but you know, real life news. So this just kind of adds, that's just another tally mark to the, that type of story about that demographic. And again, not that this movie shouldn't exist, because it's about a blonde white woman, but there, it just speaks to the need for other people to have their stories

told it is still a largely white cast we have gail who is played by laverne cox who is of course a black trans woman but she has no i mean she has no story outside of her relation to cassie which is this movie came out in 2021 how are we still having like one of the only non-white characters be a best friend we know nothing about outside of relation to protagonist kind of you know deal yeah i was i was disappointed in that especially because laverne cox like really makes a meal of what she's given like she's so funny and they're like why couldn't her character be more actively involved in the story why couldn't we know more about her could we have maybe like cut a random character who appears for one scene and given laverne Cox an arc like yeah yeah I was that

that was like one of the more disappointing parts of the movie for for me yeah I think she's only I didn't like time it out exactly but I would guess that she's only in the movie for a total of like a couple scenes five minutes five to seven minutes in an almost two hour movie that was disappointing and i mean i think that it's like in in these kinds of stories that like you always see a story around like a social issue centered around a white character first right and that is like it may be a very good movie it may be an effectively told movie but it's that like i feel like we come up against movies like that quite a bit on this show where it's like oh like this movie was a step forward of like this is not a commonly discussed film topic

but when it finally is able to get made and able to get seen it's done in a way that feels very like hollywood safe of like well but it's about carrie mulligan so like you know and it is still centered around like a cis white character yeah i totally see what you're saying yeah i wish i i thought yeah one of the like well missed opportunities but also kind of unbelievable thing would be that like if cassie's character and gail's supposed to be like her best new best friend in her new life which isn't attached to her med school life which i guess she's trying to get rid of so like wouldn't she loop her into like at least something more but their relationship is really like nothing like it's like what is what does gail think cassie does yeah Gail doesn't know much about her.

Yeah, like, other than work there. But yeah, I mean, it was very, I guess, kind of stock BFF coming into like, fluff your fabrics and leave, you know. Which also is like a story. Yeah, like you're saying, that's a missed storytelling opportunity of like, this is her only, I mean, we're to believe believe her only friend but her only friend doesn't know anything about her and they just like kind of communicate in these like what do they talk about all day who are you dating right now like who's that cute boy and it's like come on you you have

laverne cox like yeah almost all of her lines have to do with Ryan. Like she's another, I mean, yeah, we've, we've talked about this a number of times recently where like, there's a character who is just like a queer character specifically who is present to like, just wonder what's going on in the romantic lives of straight people.

Right. So, yeah, it's like, it's so it's like a trope that is so easily identifiable that i am truly like so frustrated and shocked when it still ends up in a mainstream popular movie it's like how how many times does it need to be said that was yeah that was super super frustrating yeah um what's let's see there's there's other stuff

going on here oh i did like just in terms i mean in general i guess this is like a genre thing where i feel like in the revenge genre and correct me if i'm like completely off here because this is not like my genre right but like i feel like the person seeking revenge sometimes you kind of don't know that much about them and i always find that so frustrating and i also found that frustrating in this movie but i think that's just the genre where it's like mad max my daughter and then you don't know anything else about him like kill bill my daughter and then you don't find out anything else about her taken my daughter my. Like it's very often. Or is it like John Wick is like my dog or something?

Or is that my wife? It's my dog, but he's also sad about his wife. Okay. So it's like this is this doctor. Doctor. And for Cassie, it's like my best friend. And you don't know much about her outside of it. I just I mean, maybe this is just like me chafing with this genre, but I'm like, but I would have liked to know a little more about her and like what her because I do like that.

They, you know, build out a life for her and you get the feeling of like oh here are her parents they have no fucking clue what to do even though they love her which plays out and I thought like yeah casting Jennifer Coolidge there was so great and she is like the perfect mom who does not know what to do for generations and she's great and and I like that this world is built out for her and you also kind of understand for the most part of like the only I mean it's like the only reason that Cassie is able to live this revenge life is because of like her own privilege like if she actually had to like work to live and didn't have the ability to stay with her parents and plan revenges, then her life might look really different. And that didn't even like hit with me remotely in the first one.

I was like, oh, yeah, if she didn't have like this nice ass house to hang out with with her parents and like plenty of space to conceal her secrets her life would just look really different that's not here nor there i was just like oh wow you just you can't just live that revenge life you know someone has to be bankrolling that revenge life because you can't really live that revenge life on a barista income speaking for personal experience right by the way her like we said her mom who is jennifer coolidge and her dad who is clancy brown who is most famous for being one of the henchmen in flubber his best known role yeah i didn't make that connection and i love i really did like the the parents in this movie i feel like they they really give they real oh that scene where her dad is like we really miss nina but we really miss you and you're like that's so

i did appreciate like there are little things that happen in this movie that like speak to survivors experience or survivors guilt that were like really specific in a way that was like yeah i mean certain things and and of course it's like it is written in a kind of campy way at times where like carrie mulligan she gets quippy in some scenes you know she's not firing off things you would know off the top of your head but like who gives a shit i love that um but like the the knee-jerk defenses that you hear from from the dean the knee-jerk defenses you hear from ryan especially when ryan is backed into a corner the way he suddenly behaves is like oh there you are you know there's who you actually are. And then with her parents, like you,

you like, I feel like something this movie does do effectively is shows that when an assault that barely affects the life of someone like Al, the ripple effects are huge. I mean, it's, it's completely altered the course of Cassie's life, but it's also like,

you know, affecting her family and affecting, you know, it just, it's completely altered the course of Cassie's life, but it's also like, you know, affecting her family and affecting, you know, it just it ripples out so far. And yeah, there's never a space made for that. For sure. Yeah, I think one of the things this movie does effectively that I haven't seen a lot in other kind of similar movies or movies that tackle similar subject matter is it shows that the perpetrator of the assault is not the only villain in this scenario there are enablers there are cheerleaders there are bystanders who did nothing to intervene there are authority figures who gave the abuser the benefit of the doubt there are you know peers who didn't believe the victim because she had a certain reputation you know there's there's all these people that i think get that tend to get overlooked in other stories of this nature that I did really appreciate about this movie. Yeah, I know one interview with the director was, she actually described, I think the characters as like good people who are doing bad things,

which I was really fascinated with, even like she would say, Ryan or you know some of the other like characters that were like oh that's a bad person like i think right that's what she was trying to convey here which you know as we said with the casting and stuff did a really good job because we trusted these people and like some of these people seem like they could be your buddy you know um and so yeah i think that was oh well yeah actually your buddy. Our best friend. So, yeah. Friend of the cast. Yeah, I mean, a true knock on his door. You know, we know the drill.

But, yeah, it is really, like, I think that's what was so unique because it's, like, of course we know rapists equal bad. Like, we got that, hopefully. If you don't know that, then, like, lost cause. Who cares? Don't watch movies um but like you know i think this was like more of the like yeah the enablers of people around that and being like examine your own actions or people close to you because that's going to be much more possible that you might be that person instead of the al monroe but like you might be uh madison mcfee or whoever yeah the madison m McPhee character in particular,

like some of our viewers are having an issue with her. But I mean, I think that that is, I mean, that is the case for women watching this movie of like there is that internalized misogyny. And also the way that Cassie speaks with her because they're talking about an assault that took place seven or eight years ago but it's been a seven or eight years where the conversation around campus assault has completely changed like from 2013 it's completely different

now and there was no culture of believe women then and there was a lot of like and and and having her present that was like I mean it was like painful and frustrating because it's like behaviors that you recognize in in I don't know like being in school at that time you're like oh yeah that was absolutely like a constant conversation going on but but but then like we were talking about earlier for cassie to set the bar so low as to just be like can you demonstrate remorse for how you behaved then and she can't do it she can't and it's that is like the worst feeling in the world if like like you're saying sierra that like emerald was saying in an interview that like they're not bad people but the fact that it's like if madison's

not a bad person and she has spent eight years sort of in the back of her head being like well you know these things happen and like i mean that's just like a very real thing that exists in the world. And it's, I don't know. There's, there's so much, most of the criticism around this movie, I've,

I sort of received as like, you know, how is one filmmaker going to give you a definitive answer for this problem? I don't know. Like it is such an ambiguous and changing conversation and everyone feels different about it. For sure. Um,

to your point a little earlier, Jamie, in terms of us not knowing a whole lot about Cassie, I, I think we do get to know her a little bit better than kind of similar characters in similar movies. But let me know if this is not a fair assessment. But because there is a tendency in narratives like this for the survivors to be predominantly defined by their trauma i feel like we were getting traces of that maybe not to the extent that we've seen in other stories

but with cassie like her whole narrative i mean her whole goal is like this all consuming trauma, guilt, feelings surrounding this assault that had happened to her friend. And I mean, that's also kind of the nature of storytelling. It needs to be focused and specific and like you know we've been talking about she she is given more of an interior life than you know again other similar characters we've seen and a part of the movie that i like part of the trajectory of the story that i appreciated and enjoyed was when she goes to talk to nina's mom molly shannon and she's like, Cassie, this is not doing anybody any good. You're acting like a child and you need to let it go and move on. And it seems like Cassie takes this to heart and that, cause that's when she starts to get closer

and open up a bit more with Ryan. and she like lets what appears to be a healthy relationship into her life and it's only until she sees that he was a bystander of this assault that she decides to carry out the rest of her plot uh her revenge plot that yeah I see what you're saying and I feel this way about a lot of movies I it's I don't really feel that I don't know for the way it struck me was like and maybe it was not done in the you know 100 best way possible that you know whatever no movie is perfect but i i i felt like what cassie is experiencing is like it felt like to me like the how how an event like this takes over you know has the potential to just take over your life and yourself and not in terms of like a bad writing perspective but in terms of like i think that that there are ways

that these storylines are written where it's like, oh yeah, the trauma is the defining woman, like moment of this woman's life because plot, plot, plot, plot, plot. Whereas like her friend's death was the defining moment of her life. She can't move on,

but we do get indications that she might want to through like this potential relationship and through her, you know, talking to Molly Shannon and being and being like yeah i'm clearly like but she can't let it go and i don't know i found that relatable of like you know you're trying to get out of this toxic cycle of behavior but you just like and you and also i'd like i agree with you there is like that moment with molly shannon she like she knows she's fucking her life up i don't think she's just like

she doesn't think that but it's like she cannot get there she can't let it go yeah and i don't know like it's it's it's an extreme example but i there's a part of me that's like yeah I get it yeah I don't think it's bad I don't think it's bad writing no but like I I and I see what you're saying I just I don't know yeah it's it's there's moments where I'm like Cassie's like more of a symbol than a character to me at different points where like she is this like symbol of like trying to break past this traumatic event and trying to hold people accountable and it's too much for one person it's impossible it's already killed one person and it's i don't know like i i this is i don't know what this says for the movie but i like don't even really think of her as a character as much as like this central symbol for the harmful effect that this is.

And like the precedent and like what had me just like fucked up for days after seeing this movie. The first time was like for Nina, right. Of, of like the only way she got justice is to have a friend willing to like give up years of her life and die and it still wasn't enough you know it's just like so sad and so frustrating and and not completely untrue

and yeah so it's I don't know I feel like I I think of Cassie almost as like this like symbol of like the impossibility of these of these situations for people. Right. Yeah, I see that. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think I think also she'd been described, you know, again, referring back to probably an interview or something that I some meta data on the show or whatever like that. She kind of had already like her life had already been over by that event and I think that I wonder like if it's kind of like the way that people you know when I mean the whole movie right it's called Promising Young Woman because I guess it's a play on you know well he's a promising young man why ruin his life and it's like always oh well a life's

already been ruined why didn't we care about that? So I feel like maybe, you know, I kind of mapped that concept onto her. It's like her life has been ruined and it's not that she's ruining it. It's that he ruined her life and Nina's life, obviously. And so then this is the result of that. So, you know, and it's, it's obviously just awful thinking about it, if you're thinking like, what would she have been right, like, think of the possibilities if she had if this hadn't, if he hadn't done that, and then she had become a doctor and saved a bunch of other

people's lives, you know, so I think that's kind of reminded me of like, whenever we talk about like, I mean, not to bring it back to literally something too close to home but like when people complain about oh my favorite dude actor or comedian or whatever and now I'm not going to get to see his movies anymore because we're canceling him and it's like well what about the literal like several creative women typically whose lives he ruined like we didn't get to see their work or whatever right so that's already been sacrificed apparently and now we only worry about his future work but i guess that's sort of like yeah she was a character she was a symbol and it was almost like

she wasn't she didn't get to live the character's life because that was already over yeah it reminded me this is like the like worst observation of my life especially after sierra that was like so well put and but i i the way i saw this movie ending originally just as i was watching it unfold and before the second act fuckery started going and you're like oh no i'm hurting this my oh no my body um was i thought it was kind of going to go the way of teeth which is one of my favorite vigilante justice movies ever and at the end of teeth spoiler alert everyone should go watch teeth the you know, like she, you know, the, the, the girl with teeth in her vagina. She does not win per se. Right.

But she does survive. And she goes on to say, I'm going to enact that. I'm going to continue this vigilante vagina crime that I've had going. And like, it's not, it's a very imperfect outcome. It's not like she got what she wanted, but she still is, you know, she has this mission. And that's kind of what I saw happening for Cassie. And throwing a wrench into that in like, very sudden realism was like, fuck, I mean, it's it, it, I don't even know, like, at what point I'll be like, I've fully processed that filmmaking

choice. Like, it's, it's a lot. don't even know like at what point I'll be like I've fully processed that filmmaking choice like it's it's a lot but but I'm yeah that that level of of realism and and then they really I mean Emerald Fennell makes you fucking sit with it they light her on fire and you see this character that you've built this emotional connection to to like oh she was so close to getting some of you know maybe making some progress in her life and like maybe this is the last big thing she needs to do. And then she can move forward. But but like you were just saying, Sierra, it's there should be space made for for people who who do not get to have that triumphant other side of the story. Because there's many

people that through all these different factors don't get to have that and then i became a doctor and justice was served like that is just not the norm like even in this i find it like i mean i know they have to wrap up the movie but al getting arrested i'm like so fucking what what is actually going to happen to this person like if this is commentary on the brock turner case nothing is going to happen to him if it is commentary on the Brock Turner case nothing is going to happen to him if it's commentary on the Brett Kavanaugh case nothing is going to happen to him but that's another movie right like that's another series that's another thing but it's yeah I don't even know what my point was teeth two things I just spent the last 30 seconds trying to figure out if vigilante

anagrams to vagina something at all because you did say like vagina vigilante instead of listening to my incredible point that's interesting jamie i can multitask i can i can i can anagram plus anything i does it come out to anything? It's, it's not quite, there's a, there's an extra A that we need, but it's, let me, I'll keep working on it. Um, the other thing is, uh, I read on our favorite scholarly journal, Wikipedia, that Emerald Fennell originally planned to have the ending of the movie be that Cassie's body her body is disposed of and she's burned and uh that's how the movie ends without any justice being served in terms of Al Monroe getting arrested but that the investors in the film did not want that bleak of an ending um so she rewrote it to include

um the ending that we get the other ending she had considered was where apparently cassie does not die she appears at the wedding and then kills it just says responsible men. So Al Monroe, whoever else. Ryan, Max Greenfield's character. I mean, that would have been the teeth ending, right? Like that's the vigilante ending that you're expecting. I mean, I do kind of like that she subverted that. And I also appreciate that it wasn't the worst thing she could think of. And the reason that she didn't go with that ending of like her

just like vigilante killing everyone was that emerald finnell deemed it unrealistic which goes back to what we've been talking about is that it isn't super realistic and the ending that does play out is more aligned with what tends to happen in real life a fun fact that i found that is like so dorky but i was like interesting uh cassie is a that is a reference to like a greek myth um it's a reference to cassandra who is the truth teller prophetess who was never believed. And so it turns out that was a very deliberate name choice. And I was like, damn, she's good. Emerald Fennell went to a library. Emerald really did her Wikipedia. She's good.

And that knowledge. Is there anything else anyone else wanted to touch on? I'm pretty emotionally exhausted so i'm that's uh yeah yeah we covered on covered all of it solved all of it i think yeah i think we really fixed rape culture today yeah we did it your move promising young woman to just kidding please oh yeah the sequel the 10 part amazon series right yeah like let's make this uh more painful for everybody i'm very glad this movie exists but i don't want to see it again um but does it pass the bechdel test it does there are yeah right it's like is it even relevant for this movie but it does it does uh cass talks to Gail, her mom, Nina's mom.

As far as our nipple scale, where we rate the movie, a zero to five nipples based on an examination of intersectional feminism. Okay, I guess I'll give this four nipples. Because I agree, I'm give this four nipples because I agree. I'm glad this movie exists. I do think it is a net positive. I think it's, and I'm glad more movies are tackling this issue of just this kind of societal ill of rape culture, victim blaming. This movie has a very clear agenda. And I think that for the most part, it handled it all pretty effectively, especially because it's handled in a way that it is like palatable for a wide audience, which it shouldn't have

to be. Movies like about this shouldn't have to be palatable but it does help and there are some movies that were there was a movie i saw cited i'll post it in the in the notes of the episode but there there are a few movies that have in the past five years explored campus rape culture but this is the one that took hold and i think that it does have to do with what you're saying, Caitlin, with like it being the most palatable star studded attempt to touch on this subject. Because I know that some of the synopses I was reading for movies that have come out in the past year about campus rape culture were fucking brutal. Yeah. Not bad, but just brutal.

Sure, sure. So, yeah, I think that's helpful especially that plus it's gotten a lot of attention a lot of award nominations which means more people will see it and i'm i'm glad that is the case and i'm glad i saw it but as i've said i don't want to watch this movie again i've seen it three times now to you know for yeah and that i filled my quota for at least 10 to 20 years so uh but even so four nipples um yeah uh i'm gonna honestly i'm gonna skip rating this i'm not gonna rate it because i still don't i feel like i'm still processing it sure um fair but i i will i will say that i am very glad this movie exists

i i think it is like a big step forward in having this discussion in the mainstream i don't agree with every choice made we didn't even have time or the emotional energy to get into like the hyper hyper hyper specifics. But I also think that there's a lot of pressure on movies like these to be perfect and to have a message that is palatable to everybody. To have a message that is like meaningful to men who may display these behaviors and also to people who have been on the receiving end of them. Like it is such a huge burden. It's such a huge topic to take on as a it's such a huge topic to take on as a filmmaker and such a huge topic to even get something like this made and i think that this does kind of fall and and this is not a slam on emerald finnell in any way she's clearly very

talented but there is like you know she we see many or most directors that kind of pop out who are women recently are already established white actresses um and that is that's not fortunately is not exclusively the case but it is a clear kind of trend of like you have to have already been a successful blonde woman for a decade and then you can be creative we'll let you direct a movie. It's not the fault of the women, but it bums me the fuck out. That's neither here nor there. I'm very glad this movie exists. I think it challenges a lot of things that are not challenged at all. And I hope that we can see different takes on this topic.

I hope that this is not the rape culture movie. It shouldn't be. There's so many different perspectives and communities and, you know, all of that shit. It's just sub, I mean, this is like a campus rape movie with a particular view.

This shouldn't even be the only campus rape movie, you know? And that makes me sad to say out loud too, but I hope, I hope that this movie's success makes room for, like blazes a trail for other filmmakers to explore similar themes and be able to do it their way in the way it seems like Emerald Fennell

really did it her way here, which is amazing. So I am not granting nipples at all today. And the movie is good. Yes. Sierra, final thoughts. You're, you can award nipples or also pass,

you know, pass on that up to you. Yeah. I mean, I think also a good four nipples is a good range for me as well for this movie at large and i think um i've also was thinking about it in the sense of like sort of how rom-coms like it had a lot of rom-com tropes in it you know we're talking about like the the kind of stock best friend and then you know and then it flips it on its head of of course, with like Ryan being. Even aesthetically. Yes, yes, totally.

Music, soundtrack. Yeah, the way they just did all the like glances and they look up at each other and all these things. So, yeah, I think it was I that was another thing that I think resonated with me as somebody who feels betrayed by all rom-coms. Why were they so problematic? But I still like them, but they're always i can't watch them again because they have problems um so i think that kind of was another thing that i thought was interesting about it liked about it um yeah but yeah i agree there's like definitely it feels like sometimes with these uh topics these heavier movies like it's like they almost can only tackle

one thing at once like we're babies and they almost can only tackle one thing at once, like, we're babies, and we have to only do one thing. So they have to. Yeah, we can only do this and has to be this kind of person with this kind of, you know, thing. And, you know, okay, so hopefully, we'll move past that soon. But, but yeah, similar feelings for sure. Yeah. And I mean, we've had a really interesting discussion. I'm glad that there are movies like this more and more that generate these deep, thoughtful, amazing discussion. Oh, wow. Look at us. We're so amazing.

Wow. We're so smart. But no, like I appreciate that this movie challenged me in the ways that it did so kudos to the movie for that Sierra thank you so much for joining us

in this discussion thank you for having me so you know we dove right in you know so I'm glad I feel very honored to be here yeah I feel like honored to be here. Yeah, I feel like, yeah, let's like, let's decompress. How have you been? How's things?

You know, yeah, everything's light and fun. So you got that side of me. But yes, for sure. You know, I'll come back for a light one someday. But it was good to kind of have this conversation because this movie has kind of been, you know i'll come back for a for a light one someday but it was good to kind of have this conversation because this movie has kind of been you know it's a quarantine time i only got to see it in my lonesome and like stew on it in my own head and maybe read a few articles but it's good to talk it over with real humans who are also very thoughtful about it. And even though it is very heavy and probably will, you know, require some,

I'll have a little white tea after this, you know, do a little self-care. Oh, yeah. I'm going to take a bath. Yeah, please. Take the night. Yeah, yeah. You guys.

Let's all take the night. Kick up your feet. Yeah, there you go. Thank you so much. we where can we find you online where can our followers come and come and find you is actually really scary yeah what where can they dox me please do not go and find her um but do follow her on the on the yeah in the digital sense um yeah thanks i i am on instagram at sierra cotto s-i-e-r-r-a-k-a-t-o-w uh twitter same thing that's just my name and i have a podcast called stay pod-sitive that i have kind of lapsed out a little bit but um you know it exists there are episodes would

love to have you both on someday if you would be so open to it. It's, you know, it's very, it's more light, I would say, than Promising Young Woman. But, you know, we talk about just how people keep their heads up in tougher times, stuff like that. And I am on, oh oh i'm on tiktok brave same name as well i mean i don't do that much but i love to watch them no i have some i put some videos um yeah i'll uh that those are the main things excellent thank you thank you again for coming on come back You know, if there's a Christmas movie, for example, that you want to talk to us about for three hours.

Where's Santa Claus 4? Or our podcast. Let's do it. Hell yeah. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtelcast. You can check out our Patreon at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast, which is $ dollars a month it gets you two bonus episodes every month plus access to the entire back catalog you know take a bath take a nap you're gonna be you're gonna be fine drink a tea drink a tea you know and and really practice self-care now and always.

I watched the first half hour of my Big Fat Greek Wedding after finishing Promising Young Woman last night because I'm like, we just need a palate cleanser. Yeah. It's a good one. Yeah, indeed. Okay, bye-bye. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you.

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