The Bechdel Cast - Raiders of the Lost Ark - 100th Episode Spectacular!

Episode Date: October 11, 2018

Jamie and Caitlin celebrate 100 episodes of The Bechdel Cast by discussing the iconic Alfred Molina film Raiders of the Lost Ark!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Also follow us on Twitter @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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Do-do-do-do. Do-do-do. Do-do-do-do. Keep going. Do-do-do-do-do. Do you want to know something horrible? What? When I was watching this movie, every time I was expecting the NFL theme.

You know, the one that's like, da-da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da. It's close enough. There's a lot of brass and it precedes men fighting. That's true. So you're like, ah. But I was like, that's not his song. I was like, actually one of the most famous movies of all time. Turns out it is his song.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Bechdelcast. Hello. I'm Caitlin Durante I'm Jamie Loftus and here we are for our 100th episode this is where you put in the crazy frog music cue yeah that's ding ding ding you know no okay well uh all you crazy frog heads that there will know so this is our 100th episode of the Bechdel cast if this is your first time listening I'd recommend maybe make this not your first episode yeah

because this is our celebration we're probably gonna be a little more casual no guests today no guests we're raw dogging it baby because I don't know we uh we've been doing this we've been doing it for 100 episodes almost two years We've got a lot to reflect on. Yeah. And also I have 10 pages of notes for this movie. I mean, what would be more fitting? It's a celebration, so you have to take twice as many notes as you normally would. Yeah.

So before we get started, this will probably be a slightly looser episode than you're used to. And it'll just be the two of us so hopefully you want to hang with us for a little bit this is like kind of closer to what our bonus episodes are like yeah so good or matreon yeah if you like more two chill gals just kind of shooting the shit there uh no actually uh cut that out but we do have a movie like we have a task yes okay for the sake of consistency the bechdel test was the idea our podcast is built around it is a media test a test applied to media usually to movies and television that requires there be a scene that has two female characters with names

that speak to each other about something other than a man for a total of at least two lines of dialogue that's our standard does it happen frequently no no listen on there you start the demo today i always i always initiate the demo okay uh hey jamie hey caitlin in our 100 episodes uh-huh which one's your favorite doubt doubt uh that passes yeah that passes what i could have said to make it not pass is john patrick shanley what a genius okay uh wish alfred molina had been in it but fortunately segue alfred molina's first major film credit is the movie we're discussing today it's one of caitlin's favorites that's right raiders of the lost ark before we get into it i'm just gonna get a little heartfelt here for a second and i think this will continue to pass the bechdel test because i just wanted to say jamie first of all i've had such a fun time recording really it's been it's technically when you include our bonus matreon

episodes it's been over a hundred but of our regular released episodes that are available on you know itunes spotify wherever you get your podcasts this is our hundredth one uh i have had so much fun talking and laughing with you when you track our progress from episode one to now it's there's so many different categories of progress oh my gosh yeah there's I feel like there's like progress of like our understanding of talking about gender and and blind spots that I think we definitely had two years ago that we're working on more now. For sure. And there's also the very heartwarming, I think, track of like,

we've gotten like mentions of this from listeners before, like you can sort of tell the point where we become like really good friends. Yeah. And that warms my heart too. I know. There's so many. I love you. I love you i'm like really i love you i'm really glad that we do this me too fun i have so much fun with it and i learn shit all the

time i genuinely think that like doing this show and having like the need to like i mean for us especially like to watch media critically or we're not doing our job correctly has informed everything else that I do. And just sort of a general way of perceiving the world in the past two years has changed. We were talking about this podcast pre-election, but the fact that our show came out pretty much i think like maybe a week or two after the election too it's been a doozy of two years um yeah in terms of like i think that there's stuff like at the beginning of the show that we just didn't even have language for or wasn't really discussed that much that now we do so our conversations have gotten so much more sophisticated as time goes on but also we still regularly call into question the consistency of beetle juices come so have our

conversations gotten more sophisticated and to be fair but okay if we're using that example and you know i love when we do i'm already regretting bringing it up when you think about it in terms of discourse it took us a whole year to even mention beetlejuice has come because we as a culture simply didn't have the language it was just embedded so deeply that we assumed that we didn't know what he came and we and it was a taboo we didn't know that he came and it was a taboo. We didn't think about it. It took us a whole year of the podcast nearly, 11 months till October of 2017 to be so bold as to say, does he come dry scabs or wet scabs?

And that's why people listen for this exact discourse specifically. And then also just because we are, you know, we're bringing up these conversations. They need to be said. We are giving people the language that they need to. Discuss cum. Of all genders. Yeah. Well, most of that conversation, until we started talking about Beetlejuice's cum, most of it passed the Bechdel test.

So good for us. I think we made our point. Yeah. Let's talk about Raiders of the lost ark no that's for uh football soccer sorry that's a soccer song so what is this movie it stars my least favorite uh actor i was gonna say alfred molina but he's not the star. Really, I mean, in terms of men I respect, the spectrum is represented in the first scene of this movie. Before we get there, Caitlin, please tell me, what is your history with Raiders of the Lost Ark? I would love to tell you. I would say that I first saw this movie when I was probably nine or ten. All three of the original trilogy of Indiana Jones films were

on VHS at my house. And as soon as I discovered them, I never looked back. I have seen this movie probably a good 30 times. I would say, yep, I would say i've seen last crusade even more than that because that is i would still call it my favorite but i'm beginning to appreciate more and more that raiders is a better film okay um temple of doom i've never been that fond of and it is not aging well at all that's also one that the female lead is by far the least strong right the least strong the not to detract from the cause but the most annoying and the least active as i've said many times part of feminism is being able to openly acknowledge when you do not like another woman right yeah so yeah definitely the weakest one and until crystal skull rears its ugly head in whatever year that was 2008 or something like that which by the way was my first date ever oh boy where i brought like

my date but also my best friend peter because i was scared oh i know i know basically, to sum up, I love this movie. I still love this movie. We will unpack all the reasons that there are to not love parts of this movie. But I'm gonna stand by this movie and say that it is great, even though I already have a good idea of what nipple rating I will give it and it is not high but even so I love this franchise and it is definitely in my top five favorite franchises and movies of all time so that's where I'm coming from cool my history with this movie I feel like we should have our own bingo card out for this episode to see it to make sure we hit all the right notes yeah this movie saw last night and then i wasn't gonna watch it a second time but then i was gonna go to the dmv this morning and then i fucked it up so i just watched it again watched it twice good good good

we're growing yeah uh yeah i did not grow up with this franchise i also didn't grow up with the star wars franchise i don't i don't really know why that was. You would think that I would have encountered it, but I just didn't. We weren't. We weren't a big movie household, right? We weren't a big. Well, we were like a big Disney movie household. We were a big cartoon household, which I think influenced the direction of my life. But we were we were more of a TV household than a movie household. So I just never really watched it. it mostly watched holes which we should do an episode oh yeah um but never watched it and then as i grew older i mean as as you know about me action movies just kind of aren't my thing and then as i've learned actually directly via this podcast

harrison ford also is very much not my thing and so i i had little incentive to watch this movie until i mean this movie feels important to do canonically and i will say i was expecting to come in you know just swinging my labia around like loose pastrami being like i hate this movie this movie sucks whatever but i have i have more conflicting feelings about it than i thought there were parts of this movie that i liked very much i mean and by that i mean i loved the alfred molina scene and he's so handsome he's so does it pass the bechdel test if har Ford grabs the front of Alfred Molina's pants no it passes the Bechdel test when Alfred Molina steals from Harrison Ford and leaves him

to die it doesn't pass the Bechdel test when Alfred Molina dies obviously what a crazy I mean and I didn't like that was his first movie ever. And he's on screen with a huge movie star for a long time. I was like, he's just so gifted. And he didn't crack under pressure. He gave the performance of a lifetime. He never. God, I would like literally give a finger to see him as Tevye.

But yeah, what are you going to do? So Raiders of the Lost Ark so I'll do the recap of the story of Raiders of the Lost Ark okay it's crazy because like not really that much happens oh a ton happens what are you talking about there were some scenes that go on for a long time okay so we're in the mid 1930s we meet indiana jones he is an adventurer who mostly steals sacred artifacts from indigenous cultures but we love him but we love him i think the greatest piece of acting here is us believing that harrison ford could be a teacher okay i know you hate her ford i not as an individual i hate his characters he seems he seems like a perfectly fun guy so we meet indiana jones we see him trying to take a golden

idol from a tribe in south america but who else is there well Well, Cepedo, a.k.a. Alfred Molina. It's his big day. And he's covered in tarantulas for part of the scene. But he keeps his cool. And he is, you can tell, he is like, I'm not sold on this franchise, but I'm a young buck who needs an opportunity. I can see what's going through his head. What if there is,

maybe there's a universe where he has those tarantulas on him. He gets bitten by one because one of them is radioactive and that's what makes him become Doc Ock. I love that. Oh, it's like the 23 year sleeper. And then he wakes up one day and he's doc ock i okay that's canon now yeah that's canon that's canon it says canon is dry scabs baby okay so alfred molina's there so is this character named belloc who is indiana jones's rival and he takes the idol from him

because he's friends with the indigenous culture that indiana jones is trying to steal from then we cut to a classroom because indiana jones is also a professor of archaeology a teacher who can read sure look he's an academic he has a p he has more degrees than i do he's wearing glasses i'm like this is fucking lazy but fine yeah harrison ford can read and he has glasses sure i only have a master's degree in screenwriting i don't like to bring it up but I'm like, this is fucking lazy, but fine. Yeah, Harrison Ford can read and he has glasses. Sure. I only have a master's degree in screenwriting. I don't like to bring it up, but it is from Boston University. He's got a PhD from University of Chicago.

A doctor. He's a doctor. Dr. Jones. Doctor. I know. And I love anytime someone says Dr. Jones, it is the best. Dr. Jones. That's the Counting Crows songones what oh my god have you never heard that song no oh my god it's like that amy winehouse

song me and dr jones all right shout out amy wine anyway so he he's at his university he's teaching the kids about archaeology. And then he gets approached by a couple of army intelligence guys who have intercepted a communique from the Nazis. And the Nazis are looking for the headpiece to the staff of Ra, which is a thing that's going to help them find the Ark of the Covenant. It's another piece of indigenous art that Harrison Ford needs to steal so that a more evil white guy doesn't get it. Right. But it's not suggested that perhaps this is something an indigenous adventurer could do. Only Harrison Ford could do it. He's the best.

And in this scene, he's the best and he says things as if he's read a book before. Sure. Doctor. Look, he's got a PhD and I believe it if he's read a book before sure doctor look he's got a phd and i believe it so yeah hitler phd candidates god damn it hitler is looking for the ark because he wants to weaponize it so indiana jones has to find it before he does so that that can't happen so indiana goes to nepal to get the headpiece from Marion Ravenwood, which is the daughter. Well, she goes to get it from her dad. Her dad.

And then, yeah, Indiana Jones learns that he died. It was like an old professor of his. And he and Marion have a history, which we will talk about. I was a child. Yeah. Well, there's too much to say now so we'll get there yeah so then some nazis come and try to steal the headpiece they're not successful so then marion partners up with indy by the way after he immediately comes back triggers her and then burns down her

small business and now they're working together okay great so then they go to tanis which is a city where the ark is thought to be they meet up with indiana's friend sala a white guy yeah yep we'll get there as well and then they figure out what the markings on the headpiece mean and then they make sure their staff is the right height because Belak's staff is too long. They're digging in the wrong place. Oh no. They go to the map room to figure out the right spot to find the Ark.

So Indy, he starts digging. They find the Well of the Souls. So they're in the Chamber of Secrets and they find the Ark. But Belak shows up and he's like, that's mine. Mine. So Belak takes it and he's like that's mine mine so belloc takes it and he loads it onto a plane and then there's a big fight sequence and then they're like no let's

put it on a truck and then there's another big they're like we need to have a battle scene on every mode of transportation or the movie can't end have we yet passed the point where Marion is kidnapped and then Indy shows up and he's like, actually just going to leave you here. Yeah, I glossed over that part. There's a big fight sequence in a market scene. Marion gets kidnapped and then she's thought to have died. Yeah. And then he right after he figures out the spot where the Ark is, he goes into a tent and Marion is there. She's bound.

She's gagged she's like get me out of here and he's like no i have to go get an ark cool yeah then she is taken to the well of the souls and gets dumped in there with indiana right and then they have to escape and that's when they go on this wild goose chase of going after the plane and then the trucks and then they get on a boat at one point there's some kissing it's very cool by the end of the movie they all end up on this island where belloc performs this ritual to make sure that the arc works i guess right he's doing a test run before he gives it to Hitler. Cher's ghost comes out of it and all their heads explode. Their faces melt off. Indiana is like, don't look at it.

And then... Don't look at Cher's ghost. And then that is pretty much the movie. Yeah, I liked it more than I was expecting. Well, I mean, if you like movies like, you know, The Mummy or National Treasure, those movies don't exist without this movie. That's true.

And I love National Treasure. I know you do. I love the, I feel like I've said this a million times too, but the Daylight Savings Time plot contrivance. Gorgeous. Beautiful. Why wasn't there that? I think that's what this movie was missing. Daylight Savings Time.

Well, speaking of time, I think it's time to take a quick break. But then we'll come back and we'll talk more about Raiders. 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.

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Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Anyway, we're back now so um there's a lot there's a lot here this is one of the movies that takes place in a world where women barely exist this is all of early george lucas basically where up until like three years ago you wouldn't know that george lucas had really met a woman before and then all of a sudden you know the less involved he was the more women would appear but whatever this is very much i mean i think that this is and george lucas is involved in both projects obviously but like this is like comparable to Leia in some

ways of like, we're given one female character. She does a lot of stuff. She's relatively active within bounds. I would argue that this movie would never empower Marion to the point where she didn't need Indy. Right. Which I think that in that way, she's kind of a weaker character than leah because i think that leah like it's clear that she would be okay without the guys but marion like there are clear limitations to what the movie will allow her to do before she's taken captive basically but there's no one for her to talk to no one for her to talk to and yeah as you said not that much for her to do more than i was expecting though it's interesting because with mary and there were some points where i'm like i can't imagine that

this was done super intentionally as like a meta text thing but for the sake of argument there are scenes where you know this is so common in any action movie, where Harrison Ford is tossing her to the side, getting her out of harm's way, throwing her into piles of hay. But then Marion will get up and start fighting again, and then he'll pick her up and toss her away again. And it was interesting because I don't think it was, like, super intentionally done of, like, Indiana Jones is very much a typical action hero of like my lady can't get harmed

and i gotta keep her safe but unlike you know like mary jane watson caught in a web for the climax of another alfred molina classic uh marion keeps getting up and keeps trying to fight and and like she has fighting that goes beyond like the standard woman one bonk one pan to the head wow she did it like she does have multiple battle victories yeah which i wasn't expecting sure and let's go through them let's talk about her sort of role in the story so and well before we do that i just want to kind of give a quick overview of her character. So when she's introduced on screen, she is beating a man in a drinking contest. So we know she's not like the other girls.

Right. She we know she can hold her liquor, which is a skill that will pay off later in the movie. So at least that's set up for a specific purpose we know that she's the daughter of a famous archaeologist and she has traveled the world with him but she doesn't necessarily seem to have any specific career ambition of her own or interest in archaeology right which is fine which is fine she's a small business owner but also she doesn't really seem to like that because she says, I'm stuck in this dive. I can't, you know, I want to get out of here. And we know that she's had a relationship with Indiana Jones in the past, which is a whole other conversation.

I would say, even though she is sort of presented as like a not like the other girls kind of character, I do and I have always admired her for being tough and self-sufficient self sufficient she you know doesn't take shit from anyone yeah i know it's it's pretty surface level the thing there is like it's weird because again it's like 80s convention of like surface level empowerment but even the way she's presented of like she is able to sustain a life on her own but it's not anywhere close to the level of like satisfaction she could get out of life with indiana jones and so there's like a level of like when he arrives and sweeps her off into adventure it's not that she was waiting for him to show up, but sort of, you know, like he's definitely the catalyst that turns her world upside down. Exactly. Yeah.

Makes it exciting again. Right. Which, yeah, is it's not great. But I would say overall, she's presented as a smart, capable character who advocates for herself. But the trouble is that the story rarely gives her an opportunity to do anything that has much of an impact on the narrative. For the time it's coming out, it's not bad. But there's still a lot of short-sighted around it. I would wonder how much of an influence the success of leia's character had on the way this character was written um because leia predates her by a couple years yeah so the first star wars movie

came out in 1977 this movie came out in 81 okay so yeah i mean that's good and that's i i mean her character is more complicated to analyze than i was anticipating. Yeah, because as much as it that not like the other girl tropes kind of bug me, they're at least grounded in this story where it's skills that she like you're saying needs later. I guess this is like the in between level of yes, we are acknowledging that a woman can sustain a life on her own, but she can't truly experience the joy of life without a man's and then if we're if we're taking it all the way back to the mummy episode in that movie we see rock that up we see the rachel weiss character having really important knowledge that greatly infects the direction of the story which brennan frazier needs to be able to carry on with his quest whereas in this movie while she does some things and makes some active

choices there's nothing that she contributes that's crucial to the narrative because indiana jones is given all of the necessary information and knowledge and, you know, problem solving skills to, you know, make all the important moves of the story. Because he can read. Don't forget, Indiana Jones, a character who canonically can read and has a doctorate. Anyways. So, yeah. Oh, I also just wanted to make a comment on the actress who plays marion she yes she doesn't end up doing a whole lot of stuff by choice after this movie i would just like to

throw out there no judgment just wanted to put it out there she does marry a man named kale oh a grown man named kale karen and kale karen and kale that's something people had to say seriously when making plans so that's just a little kale so yeah uh do you think kale and karen are around if you knew kale first in any case uh just a little bit of gristle for you to chew on for our hundredth episode you betchacha. Okay, so let's talk about her role and major contributions in the story. So we see her for the first time in the bar in Nepal. Some bad guys come in and threaten her.

They use violence as a way to try to get- They burn her business down. Yeah. In reality, she would have to stay and at least get the insurance money, not leave that day. Anyways. Indiana has to come in and save her. There is a fight.

She does a couple of things. Like she hits a guy with a log over the head. She drinks whiskey out of a barrel. That was the first thing where I was like, she's more active than I thought she was going to be. But she still wasn't that active. She couldn't have won the day on her own. For sure. And then as opposed to Oklahoma, Oklahoma Smith, my favorite action movie hero.

Personally, I'm partial to Pennsylvania Johnson. Pennsylvania Johnson's great. Where's Johnny Utah and all of this is point break oh okay anyway Massachusetts cruise favorite action hero okay so by the end of this scene Indianaiana jones is doing most of the fighting but marion does shoot the last bad guy who is about to kill indiana jones yeah i'd argue this is a little tropey of the woman did something yeah yay so she saves him but it is like oh wow look at it look at look at what a woman i guess that i could i think that and i think that that is partially used as like a reasoning to the audience of like oh she is a realistic person for him to take on as a partner which there's a pattern of the way she's treated in this movie i feel like almost the movie never

well it does make a decision eventually but it goes back and forth several times of like if we're thinking chess board is she a pawn or is she an actual player in the game because there's multiple times where she's used as a pawn she's treated like an object to move the plot forward there's that moment where what's the name of that character katanga katanga has her on the boat and it's like oh i think that you know we could sell her as a prostitute once we get off the boat and it's like oh i think that you know we could sell her as a prostitute once we get off the boat and that moves the plot forward and gets what needs to happen in the scene to happen but only because she's treated as an object same deal whenever she's randomly abducted that just adds stakes by her being there but then there's other moments where her skills

and presence are necessary to the plot moving forward. And the movie just kind of goes back and forth and never. I think that it settles on the decision that she is a pawn because by the end she is wearing like a wedding dress and needs to be rescued. Yeah. But for a while it's back and forth. For sure. Yeah. And then one more quick thing about the bar scene is that at the end of that, she makes the choice to accompany him. She's like, you got more than you bargained for.

I'm your goddamn partner. Right. So I'm not getting tired of it personally me either and prior to that you know we see her interacting with like the nazi guy who's like i don't know what kind of people you're used to dealing with but no one tells me what to do in my place she blows smoke in his face you, so she's more headstrong, considering the era, considering the genre, and also considering the fact that these movies were based on these sort of adventure serials from the 1930s. I have not watched that media personally, but I would wager

that those did not treat women very well and if it was a woman in the story this is probably progress built upon that yeah i would imagine so if you if you are familiar as as the audience listening to us if you have seen those you know adventure serials that indiana jones movies are kind of inspired by let us know but again i would hazard a guess that the women in those stories were just kind of tossed around and not allowed to do anything were damsels in distress the whole time yeah so yeah but you know more progress could have been made than it was i agree yeah i i would be shocked if this wasn't somehow an improvement on the source material but you know it's still 1981 right right right so the next sequence is the one in the

marketplace they are now in cairo uh indiana jones calls her stupid because there's a monkey that's their friend now indiana jones is like flirtatious enough right yeah but he's like oh do we need the monkey and she's like it's got your looks and he's like and your brains yeah and then she's like i noticed that she's smart so um and then that fight scene breaks out as soon as the fight breaks out you see marion picking something up and like starting to hit a bunch of bad guys with it. It seems to be an aluminum pan that would not inflict much damage. But hey, it's what was right there. But it's more the same thing that we see in the first fight scene at the bar where Indiana Jones is doing most of the fighting and she is not doing nearly as

much he says to her pretty early on to get out of there and then he throws her aside she falls on the ground a little later on picks up a frying pan and hits a guy over the head with it but this is something that i feel like we see a lot where if women in a movie are allowed to participate in a fight scene they're usually not given actual weapons no no that will and then very often i think that they end up using domestic items to fight which is like a weird subtext of like oh well they would never have just have weapons and so they you know yeah they know how to use this pot they've they've cooked many things let's let's have her fight in her language like what yeah totally i absolutely agree with that or another example of what happens when women

are fighting in fight scenes is she will wrap her legs around a guy's face and then pussy slam him on the floor. I can't stand that. Yeah. Yeah. So those are usually the two options. Rarely do we see a woman wielding a gun and being skilled with a gun. Now, is this something as a hater of guns? Do I want to see women firing guns all the time not necessarily but because men get to do it so much right and we see so little of women doing it in action movies it's a very noticeable disparity agree uh and then god i honestly like i did lose track of the fight scenes because it's just not a language that I speak I'm like okay there's he's gonna win like why are we what he's gonna win but we have to see him struggle before

he wins and fights but you just love it but he's gonna win we don't know that as he's fighting we do know that though but intellectually we know but emotionally the only twist in movies ever that's ever happened is in school of rock when they lose the battle of the bands that's the only act three twist you never see coming so the rest of the sequence plays out where she after she makes a few failed attempts at fighting she hides in a basket then gets captured gets loaded onto a truck and is thought to have been killed in a big truck explosion. And then she disappears from the movie for about 15 minutes. Yeah.

And doesn't appear on screen again until... Oh, no, but it's to build suspense. Doy. doy so she appears on screen again whenever indiana jones finds her in a tent where she is tied up she is bound and gagged and he's like hey there you are i thought you were dead and she's like get me out of here cut me loose and he's like no that'd be too sus they'll be on to me yeah i'm just gonna risk you dying the only thing that's more frustrating than a woman needing to be constantly rescued is a woman almost being rescued and then the guy being like actually not no and then they still end up together it's just not a cute thing to do.

I don't care what this movie tells me to feel. I don't think it's cute or charming. I understand. God damn it. He just left her with Nazis. Right. And then we cut to a scene where the Nazis are talking about torturing her to get information out of her. Yeah.

Which I think it would have been an improvement on the story if she was given information about the medallion. I agree. That she, not that I wanted to see her tortured, but if she had had, because they get the medallion and there's these markings on it that they need to have interpreted so they can figure out how high the staff of Ra needs to be. Right. It would stand to reason because she's been in possession of this thing for so long, because her father was a noted archaeologist who was an expert on this very Ark of the Covenant, Tannis, Staff of Ra stuff. You would think that maybe she would have along the way acquired some information about this. But because the movie, God forbid a woman knows anything. That doesn't become, you know,

world canon until at least the early 2000s. Women didn't know facts. But then we talked about this on the Tomb Raider episode, because we can very easily liken Lara Croft's Tomb Raider to Raiders of the Lost Ark. And even in that movie where we have a female protagonist who is driving the story, she is given most of the information she needs to propel the story forward, usually by men. So it's not even though that she knows the stuff or has a way to... Or even it's not because it's like sometimes it's a mary sue situation

where it's like how would she have known that right but it's like she could have sought out that information and found it and we could have had her be actively looking for like that but no burton said yeah a bunch of you know guys come up to her and they're like hey here's the information you know this anyways see ya you're just like who is that why is he in sag now like this is insane so after she realizes that indiana jones is not going to cut her loose and rescue her she takes matters into her own hands. Right. To her credit. So what she does is she tries to outsmart and out drink Belloc so that she can try to escape. Because her whole plan is to get him so drunk that he can't chase after her whenever she tries to run away. And there's a knife that she threatens him with.

And it almost works. Right. Until. Whoopsies. There's a Nazii behind you and he's mad he's got a coat hanger but she made that nazi so mad with her knife and she's like oh shit the nazi's pissed and uh then she is made or maybe this already happens but at some point in this scene she is made to put on a sexy white dress basically like a virgin wedding it's a wedding dress right like it's just a bit much as she's putting this on uh belloc is spying on her which means that the audience is spying on her while she's changing and that's another sneaky moment where it's a moment of blatantly objectifying a woman

but the bad guy is doing it so you don't have to feel bad about participating which is like nah dog that's not how that works. Right. So that scene concludes with them taking her and then throwing her into the well of souls where Indiana Jones is already hanging out. This seems fun. At this point, we haven't seen Alfred Molina for well over an hour. Yeah.

And we're getting frustrated. You've had to pause and watch Chocolat for a while. I had to keep pausing and watching a whole other movies yeah um it's all a feud in the middle of this movie so then um she's in the tomb and that scene starts with an upshot of us looking up her dress while she's dangling from a statue and then they now need to escape from this tomb. The snake tomb? The snake tomb. That's right. So she's less scared of

snakes than Indiana Jones. But she's still shrieking at the top of her lungs throughout the entire scene. We need to remove snake stigma as a future snake owner. Let's normalize women with snakes. I guess. I still don't support this snake thing i have a terrarium

it's too late i just need to fill it okay i got a terrarium i need to fill it so they're trying to escape and of course indiana jones is doing most of the escaping she's mostly just squealing about snakes uh this could have been an opportunity to, because she has like, because Indiana Jones has a crippling fear of snakes and the whole tomb is slithering with them. So this could have been an opportunity to make her more active and to have her be the one because she's not so petrified being the one who is actively doing stuff to find an escape route. But, of course, that does not happen. So Indiana Jones, he's whipping stuff. He's crashing through a wall.

He's doing all manner of stuff. Occasionally that theme we all know and love, da-da-da-da, will start to play, and the crowd will go wild. And as my friends pointed out because i watched this recently with nolan alex and jake and sorry everyone for hanging out with men but um that was the reality of the situation so shouts out to my friends but um i think it was my friend nolan who pointed out that he is an archaeologist and yet he is destroying an ancient historical site oh he has no regard for the culture he's supposed to dearly love yeah like and that's i mean that is perhaps

one of the more realistic elements of the 1930s being presented because like it's so well documented of like british it's like super fucking colonial shit of like if you're an archaeologist it's basically sanctioned thievery because you're white right that maybe is the most historically accurate just like he wants one thing and he'll burn down any other piece of ancient history and archaeologists should probably be more comfortable around snakes there's just a lot of like he's at very least an unethical archaeologist oh sure yeah yeah there's there's no doubt about that yeah also in this scene because she's now in her in a wedding dress he's like where did you get this dress from him and she's like i was trying to escape no thanks to you and he's like how hard were you trying right i'm like dog you had the opportunity to rescue me from nazis are you serious so she's

like well where the hell were you and then instead of answering he rips off the bottom two feet of her dress for the torch yeah and then they throw a bunch of skeletons at her she's screaming and then they get out of the tomb so she is rendered i would say more inactive in this scene than probably any of the other scenes she's in which as you pointed out it's pretty inconsistent with like sometimes she's like doing stuff and it's and it's helping and it's you know further in the cause another time she's completely damseled right so the next scene we come upon with her is the fight scene at the plane where she does some i would say pretty cool stuff here she hits the pilot with uh some wooden blocks and who is trying to shoot Indy. So she saves him there.

And then she gets in the plane and shoots a bunch of bad guys with like the big gun. But then she gets trapped in the plane and he has to save her. And then she is not on screen again for a while because there's a big chunk of the movie where he's on a truck and he's punching nazis that scene certainly was long but it's so good oh god i love it the only thing that occurred to me during the truck scene was like wow he must have really high quality pants because anyone else's pants would have just you know totally deteriorated he's dragging along at like 70 miles

an hour so you know good on his pants guy they don't like pants like they used to as far as i got into being engaged in that scene hey let's take a quick break we'll put a pause on the conversation and then we'll come back after the break. That's how breaks work. Yeah. Let's do that. 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. Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here and now is the time to get ready to dominate your leagues the best way

to crush your opponents this season is to listen to the NFL fantasy football podcast come hang out with me Marcus Grant and my pal Michael F Florio as we give you all the info you need to absolutely steamroll your fantasy league and bring home a championship you don't need to spend hours each day breaking down every stat and every stitch of game tape to set a winning lineup. That's our job. We'll provide all the insights you need to set the best lineups each week. All you need to do is listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast when it drops five times a week.

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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. It's hockey night in canada

sweet care okay that's all the sports i know jones and me i can't believe you don't know that song oh my god okay so we're back we're back and this is the 100th episode yay okay so we're we're uh finishing up marion's moments of activity yes so the next scene we're gonna take a look at here is the scene on the boat well first before marion even gets on the boat she kisses sala on the mouth to thank him right he has a horny conniption which is her choice yes but also so weird like indiana jones doesn't kiss him on the mouth to thank him so well i that part i mean it was stupid but i don't know like indiana jones he's so like you know all of his male friendships he literally like kind of no homos his own friend when his friend's like i'll miss you and then indiana jones like that's clearly too much emotion for him he's like you are a friend

like you are a good friend yeah and then you're like okay so he's only gonna get so he's he would never say he missed someone sure but and also in the very beginning with alfred melina whenever he's like grabbing onto his pants and then pulls them to the other side of this like crevice they've kind of like got their arms around each other and then indiana jones pushes alfred molina away because oh gross men touching men uh do you know you're being embraced by god and second of all i'll go on record to say I would guarantee that if we're talking canon all of Harrison Ford's early characters are homophobic not a question in my mind I don't think Harrison Ford is really an ally to or his character sorry I don't know anything about him as a person but all of his characters are part of like their like roguish charm is they're not an ally to literally anyone.

And I want to talk about him as like, you know, a man's man, but we'll get there. Oh, yeah, there's some, not the worst perpetrator of toxicity in the whole world. But you know, certainly a perp. Yeah, for sure. So then they get on a boat, she puts on another sexy white dress, which she wears for the rest of the movie, pretty much until the very last scene. Yeah. And then she spends that whole scene trying to take care of Indiana Jones, for which he is not grateful. No, which is, I think, falls into the man's man's persona of like, I don't need anyone to take care of me. I'm an independent man, blah, blah, blah.

And this is kind of like a familiar scene, too, of like the warrior is wounded and now the woman must be his nurse. And it reminded me, I was thinking immediately of that scene from Beauty and the Beast. Oh, yeah. After the beast has rescued Belle from the wolves and then she, you know, heals him. And at first he's really mean to her. But then by the end, it's like there's something here. Kind of like the exact same roadmap for this scene. Right.

Because until this moment on screen, we have not seen them be, oh, no, we have seen them be romantic. He kisses her, I think, whenever he finds her in the tent. Yeah, like there are moments, but it's just like, this is the first moment where he isn't totally negging her right and it's also one of their first like private moments that they're not in grave danger right it's like a quiet moment so yeah he's not quite as much like peacocking around but even then still it's you can tell that this character is so steeped in his own masculinity that acknowledging that he needs help from another person pains him greatly also his own physical fallibility is upsetting to him which we find out in this scene as well

which i thought was like kind of an effective choice of like okay at least indiana jones has an insecurity that we are now aware of didn't know that before so that's something yeah oh i forgot to mention that uh you know they they kiss on a boat not on like titanic they but but the spark simply isn't there and then the next thing that happens is the nazis invade this boat and then we you talked about this scene already where indiana jones hides but marion gets captured and then the ship captain katanga is like hey let's keep her because she's got value where we're headed and then the nazis are like no she's our property yeah like because she's got value where we're headed. And then the Nazis are like, no, she's our property. Yeah.

Like literally she's property in that scene. And then Indiana Jones gets on a submarine, but I don't think he goes inside. So I think we're meant to believe that he just like somehow hangs on the outside of a submarine for what seems like a journey of like several hundred miles. Sure. I'm like, I don't know the rules of this world are very unclear i mean probably a little bit on purpose we're like there's one point where indiana just gets literally shot but it doesn't seem to slow him by that much

he gets shot and then punched in that bullet wound right Right. And then he's like, I'm fine. And then later he's like, owie, but give me a little kiss. Yeah. And it's like this. But whatever. It's an action movie. Right. So then we arrive at the island where. So this scene is interesting because in many action movies,

the female lead is tied up at the end usually so the male hero can save her but an interesting thing happens in this movie where the male hero is also tied up and ends up being very passive during the climax of the movie it's so weird how sheriff's ghost really steals the... I thought that was interesting as well. I mean, and it ends up kind of, I guess, being a wash because no one really does anything. They're kind of just trapped and they're like, well, just don't open your eyes

and let's just power through to the end of this movie. It's kind of, I don't know. I mean, I guess I don't feel one way or another. It's not as bad as the normal Tobey Maguire throwing Kirsten Dunst out of the frame. Or it's not as bad as Pacific Rim where the female protagonist is launched out of the final scene via submersible. Or like in Twilight, whenever Bella Swan's like, I'm just going to pass out for the climax of my own story. Right. Or the time she like sleeps for three months because a breakup. I don't know.

But I think ultimately it just ends up being just kind of a unusual choice to disable both of your protagonists for the. Sure. I mean, I guess that I mean, I'm grateful for the world that we have this face melting head exploding shots. I'm glad that ghost looks like Cher I guess that you don't really need anything outside of that I don't know that was that was kind of yeah I mean yeah because of the the Nazis bring their own demise upon themselves so it was interesting not not a usual climax to an action movie yeah so i would say my overall thoughts on her participation in the story what's her participation grade well it's it's not very high minus she needs to be saved no less than probably five times throughout the story if not more she is i would, more active and kind of more headstrong than a lot of female characters in similar roles in similar movies.

Right. But that's not saying much because usually women don't get to do anything in these types of stories. And I think when it comes down to it, there's a lot of pluses to this character. But ultimately, the writing of her is very inconsistent, where the movie doesn't know how much they want her there, and when she's there, the rules of how much she's allowed to participate seem to be very limited. I don't know that I could state succinctly what she wants.

What does this character want besides to not work at the dive bar like there we don't really know like where the goals for indiana jones couldn't be more clear to the point where it's like i wish there was a little more but with marion it's like well what does she want and i don't think that the movie really gives that a lot of consideration oh not at all yeah i mean most kind of you know romantic interests aren't given any sort of specific goal especially you know action movies like this some of them do and that's and that's great and i think that should happen more often but yeah the movie doesn't give it a second thought so speaking of their romantic relationship here we go there i mean

i don't there's multiple ways to interpret it is the best i can say yeah where sometimes when people say child they mean a younger version of themselves because she says i mean it's also unclear how old her character is supposed to be i think the actress is about 30 but i don't know how old her character is supposed to be but she references 10 years yes since they first hooked so let me break this down oh the scene where they first interact on screen together in the movie which is when indiana jones walks into her bar in nepal she says indiana jones i always knew someday you'd come walking back through my door what are you doing here in nepal and he says i need one of the pieces your father collected and then she punches him in

the face right which is another oh that was the other thing i wanted to cite as like a not like the other girls move. Yeah. Well, let me talk about that real quickly, because I would say in movies that it's like, oh, she's not like the other girls. There are other women to put her up against. And because there are no other women, I don't think the movie is actively doing that. I'll counter that with the type of character Indy is, which is, you know, I think it's made clear to us very early on. Like he is the Eternal Bachelor type character.

And why is he an Eternal Bachelor? Because he can't find a woman who can match him, you know. And so that's I think little things like that are meant to indicate like here like Indiana Jones finally meets his match I don't know it sounds like that sort of tapers off as the series goes along but as far as I could tell because this is the only Indiana Jones movie besides the Shia LaBeouf bonus one uh that I've seen and to me it seemed like the character was like you know he's like in his late 30s and is still single unusual especially for the 30s and it's like he's just he's a he's a professional and he doesn't have time for relationships and unless it's some a lady who can really keep up with him right so that i don't know yeah i see

that um okay so back to back to this what's about to become a very upsetting conversation so she punches him she says i learned to hate you in the last 10 years he says i never meant to hurt you she says i was a child i was in love it was wrong and you knew it he says you knew what you were doing it's not good he says look i did what i did you don't have to be happy about it but maybe we can help each other out now and then she's like visibly exasperated and she says do you know what you did to me to my life this is the scene that plays out on screen let's examine a conversation between the director steven spielberg george lucas who is sort of the creative mastermind, we'll say, behind the movies.

And Lawrence Kasdan, the screenwriter of the film. I'd honestly rather not, but we must. So this is a kind of spitballing meeting that they're having. They recorded it. And then this is from the transcript of the recording. So I'll be Kasdan, you be George Lucas, and then I'll be Spielberg also. I'm going to pretend Kasdan is British. So watch out, everybody.

Okay. So Kasdan says, I like it if they already had a relationship at one point, because then you don't have to build it. George Lucas says, I was thinking that this old guy could have been his mentor. He could have known this little girl when she was just a kid, had an affair with her when she was 11. And he was 42. He hasn't seen her in 12 years.

Now she's 22. It's a real strange relationship. Spielberg says, she better be older than 22. Lucas says, he's 35. And he knew her 10 years ago when he was 25. And she was only 12. Lucas is stuck on 12. Yeah.

Oh, and then he says. It would be amusing to make her slightly young at the time. Spielberg, and promiscuous, she came on to him. Lucas says, 15 is right on the edge.

I know it's an outrageous idea, but it is interesting. Once she's 16 or 17, it's not interesting anymore. But if she was 15 and he was 25 and they actually had an affair the last time they met

and she was madly in love with him and he she has pictures of him says spielberg and that's the end of that conversation my god yeah that is george lucas so lucas wanted him he he negotiates he's like fine i guess we can't do 11 but i'm not going above 15 like no jesus fucking christ so it is unclear what they settled on because they never articulate what actual age marion raven wentz character is karen allen was 30 at the time of the movie's but i'm assuming the character's supposed to be playing younger right so because harrison for the character's supposed to be younger. Right. Because Harrison Ford's always supposed to be playing younger. And because she says, I was a child

it was wrong and you knew it because she says that to Indiana Jones. I'm guessing they went with the 15 narrative. But not over 15. I love how Lucas literally sets the parameter of like, she cannot be of consenting age or it's not hot.

That's literally what he says. Right. It's horrifying. So my guess is she is a teenager. She's 15. Also, it is unclear what happened between them. But I think we can assume that they had sex and that he statutory raped her everything i could find in the original marketing and reviews of this movie uh referred to them as former lovers

i think it's safe to say okay that's insane i was i was so ready to give a little leeway god god george lucas you fucking freak. So this is horrifying. Once you realize this, because it recontextualizes their whole relationship because we realize that Indiana Jones is a statutory rapist and that he had sex with a child. And then she is the love interest for the rest of the movie she agrees to keep hanging out with her rapist and then so this is a trauma this is literally a trauma victim who he shows up after

10 years and burns her building down so okay recontextualize this is a full-on nightmare yeah where your your rapist shows up after 10 years now he's a successful archaeologist he's learned to read he and then he he refuses like if someone you've raped is kidnapped by nazis and you're the only one who can save them save them yeah she her own rape has refused to save her from nazis yeah and and uh this movie is okay you know what she cares for him and kisses him and they are in love at the end and and in the fourth movie the fucking piece of shit that is kingdom of the crystal skull they get married at the end okay yeah this uh whoo okay so the child line was red flag but i i sort of instinctively gave it a pass of like she was she's clearly younger than him but i didn't think it was a literal rape situation

i thought it was like she was i mean i guess guess I'm giving George Lucas Toomis credit. I'm like, she's between the ages of like 17 and 21 where she's naive, but it's not a crime. She was a consenting party to this. But that is not well shit. Well shit. And here's what is also extremely upsetting to me that as a kid who's watching this movie all the way up until i would say a few years ago the implications of that conversation did not even register with me so no i didn't i bet that with most people they wouldn't sure yeah i didn't notice them as being like that whole conversation didn't notice it as being problematic until probably like

four years ago and then i was like oh my god indiana jones my hero is a statutory rapist and i didn't think anything of it until recently sentence more 2018 than that yeah that is very that is bone chilling and it just goes to show how strongly rape culture is ingrained in just culture. In everything. And how movies like this reinforce and normalize rape culture. And that conversation alone should be, like, studied. Because it's such a weird, enably conversation

where Lucas is clearly the one pushing the narrative of, like, no younger younger younger and then the other guys are like well maybe like older and then he's like nah not legal though and then by the end they've sort of become complicit of like okay not legal but not 11 like it's just such a dudes enabling other dudes kind of conversation where, yeah, there's one guy who's clearly the wrongest. Damn. George Lucas, holy shit. I mean, I knew you wouldn't allow more than one woman

to appear in your movies prior to 2015, but this is a loop. I am deeply disturbed by this. So all of my, just for clarity, all of my notes on Marion were taken without this clear knowledge. Yes. Right.

But that's sort of how I experienced this movie. And I think how a lot of people experience this movie where you're like, Oh, you know, he's, he's condescending. He might nag her every now and then. And we know there,

there's some history to their relationship. But overall, he punches Nazis. So he can't be a bad guy. And then you find out about this conversation. And then you realize that she's intended to be probably 15. At best. At best. And the Indiana Jones is a statutory rapist. can we talk a little bit about the indiana

jones school of masculinity yes um it's weird because i don't think that his character brings anything to the table of toxic masculinity that is necessarily new or even unfamiliar to most of a movie going audience but it it really does hit all the points where he has his no homo moment a staple of toxic masculine characters right he has a moment where he outright refuses to be emotionally vulnerable in front of both a woman and a male friend which i think is like a quality of toxic masculinity that isn't spoken frequently enough about, of like, he can't even be honest with his own male friend because he's just so whatever.

There is countless moments where he's straight up the game, nagging, nagging, nagging, and it works. It happens even worse in the second movie in Temple of Doom. Well, and the second movie is the one where his love interest tries to leave at the end. He whips her and is like, no. And she's like, I love you. Yep. One of the most insane.

I haven't seen that full movie. I've seen that scene a million times and it hurts my feelings. I feel personally attacked by that scene. Yeah. I mean, it seems subtler in this but all the action moves like nothing is subverted by indiana jones in terms of masculinity it sounds like maybe some action hero tropes are subverted for by him at this time in in history i would say the main one is that he's also an academic so like you know he's he's a rugged, well, here's the, let's go.

And he makes mistakes. That was something that I read was that he doesn't do everything perfectly every time. And makes him more relatable. Yeah. For instance, he's a rapist and he's imperfect. But that's the thing, though, like he is so many people's idea of what like an awesome male hero is in a story to the extent that I did kind of a little. I sourced it out to Facebook and I said, what are your thoughts on Indiana Jones as a character, especially earlier in your life? And I had responses from people saying i had the biggest crush on him

i wanted to be exactly like him i studied archaeology or anthropology in college because of him i went to the university of chicago because he went there i but he is such an iconic hero to so many people because he is sort of like the height of he's handsome. He's got a cool outfit. He punches people and he whips his whip around. He rides horses. He drives trucks. You know, he's doing all this stuff, but he's also he cleans up real nice.

And he's a professor. He can solve puzzles. He's pragmatic. You know, so it's like all these things. He has a sense of humor. He's very, you know, so it's like all these things. He has a sense of humor. He's very smooth with women. I think this exact same conversation with some small alterations apply to Han Solo. Where it's the same like rugged, constantly nagging women hero.

And again, I think that part of the reason these characters get away with being the way they are outside of clearly the time they were written in is because the villains are so egregiously bad that you don't notice like you you'll give the hero a pass on literally anything right if they defeat nazis or two nazis like, of course, we're going to root for someone to punch Nazis. Yeah. However, because the bad guys are so bad, I think that it just conditions an audience to not examine the hero really at all or like let him get away with far more than if, you know, and these aren't my favorite movies either but like the nolan batman movies you think more about like

is batman actually that good of a guy because he and the villains he's up against are more frequently his equals and have more nuance and when both sides are you know presented with nuance you will examine your hero but that's not the approach this movie takes at all. This movie doesn't really want you to examine the hero too much. He looks nice and he punches Nazis and that's all they need you to know. Yep. So that realization really puts a damper on how much you can really like Indiana Jones as a character. I agree uh so there's a lot to reconcile with this for me and i would hope for other huge fans of this movie because on the surface it you know just seems like a cool action movie where there's just like this rugged handsome guy who's punching nazis and

and he's saving the world and all this stuff and then harrison ford is a red flag if he's in the movie in a leading role it's a red flag especially we refer you to the pop culture detective video essay entitled predatory romance and harrison ford movies which examines how people especially young men watching uh I believe Star Wars Indiana Jones and Blade Runner but those are three huge fucking franchises that are to some extent all still around today and Harrison Ford is still involved in all of them and no one cares. So that's fun. And I love that. Shall we,

shall we talk about the use of brown face in this movie? Certainly. I hear, and I wonder if you can confirm this for me, that this movie of the three is not the most egregious one. Correct. That would definitely go to Temple of Doom. We would need to do an entirely other episode on temple of doom

just to unpack every horrible problematic racist thing that happens there but this movie which i also didn't quite fully realize until watching this on amazon prime and it does that fun little thing where like the actor who's in the scene will pop up and it shows you what character they're playing and then you click on that guy and then you see oh wait this person he's white and he's not playing a white person so the same for i believe he's credited in the movie as arab swordsman yeah that is also a white man in a very egregious oh yeah instance of of brown face let me just kind of quickly go through the different locations and the racist stuff that happens at each one so characters who are not white in this movie are either usually played by white people or are just background extras.

They're not given any significant screen time or characterization or anything like that. And nearly every scene in this movie takes place in a country whose population is made up of mostly non-white people. So keep that in mind. So first we open, we're in South America. What country in South America? Movie doesn't give a shit enough to tell you. Doesn't care the presentation of and i'm pretty sure they are referred to as natives in this scene is ridiculous it's like it's just they go to such lengths to make the indigenous people of they don't care what country seem like they don't have minds of their

own they will do whatever the first white guy who comes along says they're they're made to be dumb they're made to stylistically look very primitive in a way that even for 1930s is not at all i mean i guess we don't know where we are so how could we know right it could be deep in the amazon where you know western culture hasn't reached this tribe but they're made to seem like they're it's it's it's glorified set dressing which comes up again and again in all movies but like yeah like the the indigenous people of wherever we happen to be are largely treated as set dressing as people to be killed by indiana jones boy does indiana jones kill a lot of brown people in this movie blanket statement not even getting into brown face it's awful it's real bad and also his whole objective is to take something from their culture and bring it back to western white america yep that's okay

so then we are in nepal and all of the native nepalese characters are in the background there are no major speaking roles for them all of the major speaking roles are relegated to white people there is a character who is credited as ratty nepalese awesome he is played by a white man named malcolm weaver in yellow face even better there's also a character called mean mongolian he i didn't do enough research on that character but the fact that there's a character called me what else do you need to know other than it's it's just i mean and then his best friend sala is one of the the most uh egregious choices played by a welsh white man named john reese davies um he later plays gimley that's true literally gimley playing a non-white character awesome also uh don't forget he made

a bunch of anti-muslim remarks in 2004 he's also a brexiter so oh my god he's guy yep and then we've got the arab swordsman um oh sorry really quick for salaala. John Rhys Davies was... Rhys Darby. I keep trying to not say that, and I said it. John Rhys Davies was not the first choice for Sala. Do you know who the first choice for Sala was? Oh, was it another white guy? Daniel DeVito was the first choice for Sala.

What a loss for the culture. Yeah. And then there's some confusing ones. I think Alfred Molina exists in an uncanny valley of this world where he is of Spanish-Italian descent. But, you know, he's playing a South American character. So, you know, he's still of exclusively European descent. The character he's playing seems to be a native of South America. I think without question.

And is also falling into sort of that trope of the selfish, tricky native who he is presented as a guide, a subordinate indiana jones and then the first chance he gets he's he's a liar and a cheat and he's gonna sneak off and he'll be punished and killed and that is exactly what happens just for a moment of levity offer melina was born in paddington london i know we've said it before it's worth repeating wait I didn't know that he really he's he's from his origins are Paddington it's part of why he's so pure oh my god he's born in Paddington I bet Alfred Molina loves marmalade sandwiches I get along really well with Geminis this makes so much sense oh my gosh wow um anyways so I do feel a little better after saying that out loud but so if you uh yeah the situation with alfred molina it it would appear that he is in brown face as well i would i would argue he is

in brown face and and that seems to be almost a blanket rule of this movie with possibly a few small exceptions of brown people of often unclear we don't always know where we are when we do people that are actually from there are sidelined and brown people with speaking roles are white people in brown face correct uh and then in the scenes in cairo especially there's a whole fight that breaks out where a bunch of arab people are attacking indiana jones for reasons that have never entirely been clear to me yeah but it makes it seem like oh this people are just so violent that if they see a Westerner, they're just going to freaking try to hit him. Right, which is another common, I think that even goes back to a stereotype

that's referenced in the first line of Aladdin, where it's like where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face. Just irrational violence, which is just fear-mongering for Western white america right is indiana jones is justified in stealing from these people and killing these people and ruining their history yeah because they're bad and they are stupid and they don't know what they're doing yeah it's bad because then we cut to the scene where there's a character who is credited as Arab swordsman. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, flinging a sword around. We were saying the one who gets shot. Yeah. He gets shot. Yeah. Because Harrison Ford had diarrhea that day and couldn't do the fight choreography that was planned.

Movie magic. I hate it. I hate it. So, but hey, you guessed it. That character of the Arab swordsman is played by a white guy named Terry Richards. One of the only non-white characters who speaks is Katanga, who, for Harry Potter fans, also plays Kingsley Shacklebolt. Yes, he does. Oh my gosh, I didn't put that together, but totally.

Well, worth noting about that is that, yeah, so they're on the boat. We see several black Africans on this boat. They are the few people of color with speaking roles. But guess what? They're pirates. They're still bad guys. I mean, yeah, pirates, you know, the ones known for raping and stealing. Not to be fair.

Indiana Jones is known for those two things as well. So really, perhaps they're just cut of the same cloth. But yeah, it's like, OK, these are our only these are the only nonwhite characters that we're allowing to speak. And they're like, hey, let's sell the only female character into prostitution. Yeah. hey let's sell the only female character into prostitution i look yeah you know i can't you remember when i was like there's some nuance to this i honestly no longer feel that way yeah i no longer feel that way that i've got really there's a there's a storm brewing in my head about uh i mean yeah i i mean it and i have no attachment to these so it's yeah yeah yeah um few last things i wanted to bring up is that as with many action movie franchises the

hero gets older but the love interests stay the same age or in some cases they get younger so talking strictly about the actors that play the female leads in these movies so not the characters ages but the actors ages at the time raiders of the lost ark comes out harrison ford is 39 years old karen allen is 30 not the worst not not too big of an age difference a nine-year age difference not not too bad now in temple of doom kate capshaw 31 um but uh harrison ford is 42 so he's now 11 years older than her. Okay. Here's the real kicker. Okay. Alison Doody, actor who plays- Yep.

Silly. She plays the female lead in The Last Crusade. Now, is she 11 or is she 12? She is- Lucas was never clear. Harrison Ford is 47. Hot. Alison Doody is 23.

Hot. So. Oh, I just- uh harrison ford is 47 hot alice in duty is 23 hot so oh i just i'm exhausted the one exception is in crystal skull when karen allen reprises her role as mary ravenwood and uh she and indiana jones get married and that is that but um sure there's i mean we don't have time to talk about all the problematic elements of the other indiana jones movies but rest assured there are many and i don't know if we'll do episodes on them in the future we'll see but there's a lot to unpack there as well yeah so overall i think honestly like the discussion of this movie has made me like it less i started off on the fence and now i'm off the fence on the side of i don't ever want to see this movie again well that's what happens because when you just watch something at face value and you forget about all the problematic things that go into the development and the making of these movies,

because you're not aware of that because you're just watching the movie, you're having a good time. There's punching and there's action scenes and there's big set pieces. And it's a story that I would argue is fairly well crafted. There is, you know, the cinematography was good into it was put into it i mean it was like how old was the character when arizona ford first fucked her was she 11 or was she 12 there's

a lot of stuff to unpack george lucas is known for his world building so this level of attention to perverted detail really admirable i want to throw a brick at someone i'm like what the fuck dude yeah yeah yes so happy 100th episode we started in such high spirits okay let's does it pass the battle well real quick uh a few last things if anyone who's is paying attention to the anagrams of of my name caitlin durante i've got a few relevant ones for this movie to just to bring some levity back to the conversation so for this one you have to suspend your disbelief for the spelling of the plural of the word tarantula and you have to assume that it's tarantula lay it on me uh if you recall the the scene where alfred melina is covered in tarantulas, just consider that the name Caitlin Durante anagrams to nice tarantula ID.

So, you know, tarantulas have got some good dick out there and they're nice. Oh, okay. Okay. So we're okay. Yeah. We should be acknowledging tarantula sexuality. Tarantula ID. Yeah.

Tarantula sexuality yeah tarantula id and then even more relevant is uh the fact that uh caitlin dorante anagrams to indiana clutter so there's a whole clutter of of problematic shit that happens in indiana jones perhaps more pertinent than everything is that this movie does not pass the battle test no it comes closer than i thought me too because there is a quick scene where sala's wife says to his wife his wife they're at sala's house there's a monkey there marion says what an adorable creature sala's wife says then it shall be welcome in our house marion says no you don't have to keep it here just because of me the thing is we do not learn sala's wife's name so that conversation does not pass i checked yeah yeah that's a that's a miss honestly i would be more upset if it did by, you know, the skin of its teeth. I think that it's it is for the best that it doesn't.

Right. Because there are so the only scene where you see a clutter of women, if you will. Yeah, we move in clutters. Is the scene in the very beginning when he is in his classroom. And because he's such a man's man and a lady's man, the only people taking his class are a clutter of women. And one of them even has love you written across her eyelids. So it just is like, oh, look how cool Indiana Jones is.

Oh, I wonder if he ever abuses that power dynamic. Oh, I'll wager a guess. I'll wager a guess. Also, there is a queer icon in this movie, and that is Boy Who Gives Dr. Jones an apple

as he's dismissed in class. So I think queer icon, Boy With The Apple. I hope that he moved on. Doesn't pass. Honestly, I'm glad it doesn't pass. I wasn't, I'm not trying to give this movie any more points. Well, speaking of, let's rate. All right.

Okay. The hundredth nipple bestow upon. Okay. I'm going to give this one quarter nipple. If you just isolate Marion's character, and we say this for a lot of action movies, where if you isolate the one female character, she seems fairly smart and competent

and capable and if she was given her own movie that she was the hero of she could probably do a pretty good job however this makes me so sad because she is a rape victim. And framed pretty much only as the romantic interest with no other real involvement in the story. Because she is put in situations where she is damseled several times. You know, she's held captive and she has to be saved. And the few times we see her doing something active in the story it doesn't really make that much of a dent because it's usually indiana jones pushing the story forward and the fact that when the the people who were developing this story thought that she should be 11 whenever indiana jones had sex with her on purpose and then completely ignored the fact that it's

so obvious that men wrote this because yeah they don't even consider that she is a rape victim who then according to the story later goes on adventures with him and then later marries him i have an ulcer like i i can i can no longer endure what this movie is foisting upon us. Yeah, it's real upsetting. And the fact that there's just so much brown face and yellow face and the way that indigenous cultures and the way that non-white people are treated in this movie is just horrendous.

And this honestly, I love love us i love our show i love the 100th episode i feel like kind of sick to my stomach right now this makes me genuinely like it it's just so frustrated how little so many cultures have to latch on to as media that they can stand by with a clear conscience and that's sort of what our show maybe i mean i guess we're ending kind of on a somber note i'm giving it uh i'm give i'll give it a quarter nipple as well uh for letting a woman exist within very specific parameters that uh white female hetero rape victim can exist in this world but that aside and i'm giving it to tarantula uh but that aside i mean to end our 100th episode on a somber note it really is like some some days it's it sucks just to think of i mean and it is fun and and at least interesting to navigate

okay this is for you i mean this is a piece of media that meant a lot to you and influenced you i think i became as interested in anthropology as i am because of these movies there you go and so it's like there are you can trace positive effects that this piece of media has had on your life. And that is like worth exploring. And so it's kind of impossible because media shapes who we are so much. It's it's it is impossible to completely divorce yourself from a piece of media because it's already shaped who you are in some ways yeah and then like looking at in the face is super important and we need to do it but sometimes it's just like whoo i need a mike's hard lemonade which brings me i mean what if this was an ad this is just a two hour way down that's what i grabbed you know when your favorite movie is the worst oh i do i feel a little bit sick it's just it's upsetting everyone has so little to feel good about and the things that we turn to to feel good about are also bad uh so yeah cheers to 100 baby this is the burden we bear though as the host

of the bechtel cast i'm gonna puke no we're fine we're going to kill more girls trivia honestly i'm gonna cosplay as luke so i'm gonna i'm gonna go full paris tonight i'm gonna just gonna be like on it i'm gonna be a student i love my homework oh let's get out of here honestly thank you for listening we love our we love you guys uh oh i guess let's end the episode as we normally would yeah let's okay let's take a deep breath everyone with us and yes there's a lot to be upset about especially in regards to this film that I unfortunately still enjoy and will watch. But because it like, it's a part of you, it's a part of me, but I guess feel comforted in acknowledging and recognizing how problematic it is. And I hope it didn't shape me for the worse.

It's kind of hard to tell sometimes the impact that media has on you i did take four anthropology classes in college because i loved these movies so much but i a it's listen i mean tanya harding is my hero used to be my hero and she is like alt-right we all have our crosses she's not she's all lives matter she's whatever whatever everyone has these things and it's just we encourage you to just have conversations about it and don't feel guilty or like you have to bear the burden of something that shaped you when you were very young it's understandable it happens to us all but also don't shy away from having the discussion and uh you know if if you're not sober and you're you're you're willing to uh you know crack open a

mike's heart when you have these discussions we we here at the mental cast can't occur to that enough this whole two-hour episode has been an advertisement for my time lemonade thank you so when you have these discussions, we here at the Bechdelcast can't occur to that enough. This whole two-hour episode has been an advertisement for My Child Lemonade. Thank you so much for listening to the Bechdelcast. Thank you. You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at Bechdelcast.

You can rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. You can go to our website, bechdelcast.com. And we would highly recommend, if you enjoyed this episode if you enjoyed just the gals just the gals kicking it and unpacking some stuff we encourage you to sign up for our patreon aka matreon that is patreon.com slash bechtelcast for five bucks a month you get two full-size bonus episodes with just cait Caitlin and myself in a more kind of like chill format.

It's casual. Usually we're literally in a bed. In my bed. Yes. So it's also hot. So when you think about it, you're silly not to sign up. That's so true, Jamie. And also we are going to be doing a couple live shows on the East Coast coming up. We're going to be doing a mini East Coast tour starting with Saturday, November 3rd. We're going to be in Philadelphia at the Good Good Comedy Theater. Then on Sunday, November 4th, we're going to be in Washington, D.C. More details to come with that show. And on Monday, November 5th, we are going to be in New

York City as a part of the New York Comedy Festival. We're doing a show at Babies All Right in Brooklyn. So we'll be posting updates and ticket links on our social media and on our website, Bechtelcast.com. Go to the live appearances tab and we will have more details posted there. Also, we have another live show in Los Angeles at the Ruby on Saturday, November 10th at 9 p.m. So keep abreast of the information via our... She said breast. I did. Via our Twitter and Instagram, we will post the updates there.

And I'm going to be in Boston doing stand-up from October 17th through the 22nd. So check out my website, CaitlinDurante.com slash shows for more details on that. I'm also going to be teaching a screenwriting workshop on October 20th at Improv Boston. So come on down to that if you want to learn from someone who does have a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University. But again, I hate to bring it up. Check that out. Check out our live shows if we're coming to a city near you. And we would love to see you there. Yeah, I think that about does it. Also, oh thing go to our merch store tpublic.com slash the backdoor cast you can buy and send us your pics we love seeing your pics wearing the

merch it makes us very happy yes we love your permission we love posting it to our socials indeed so yeah grab your feminist icon queer icon icon, etc. Shirts, notebooks, phone cases, mugs, anything you want on TeePublic. And Jamie, thank you so much once again for being here with me. helping the world navigate through this hellscape with your many pages of notes and your color coding. And I love you. I love you. Let's go to Gilmore Girls Trivia. Let's do it. All right, everyone.

Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? 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. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app

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