The Bechdel Cast - Romy and Michele's High School Reunion with Danielle Perez

Episode Date: February 21, 2019

 On the way to their high school reunion, Jamie and Caitlin have a dream where they meet up with special guest Danielle Perez and discuss Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. (This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @DivaDelux on Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you.

You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories,

and of course, the culture. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hey everyone. Hey, it's us. It is us. You're about to hear a live episode that we recorded in Los Angeles at the Ruby. Yeah, with the fabulous Danielle Perez about the movie

Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, a movie I'd never seen. Yeah. Yeah. But before we get to that, we're just going to plug a few things at the top of the show, if that's all right with you. Sorry. First and foremost, our next live show in L.A. is. It's a little different. Because we are joining up with the Daily Zeitgeist.

So we'll be with Jack and Miles. And it's a themed show where all of us will be talking about the year 1999. So there's no shortage of garbage. Lots of material. Cinema. Y2K, remember it? Yeah, remember? Because 20th century Was the century of Women

Right? They retrieved really well That century Very good Very good Yeah Yeah So check out that show

It's on March 9th 2019 20 years later Yeah At Dynasty Typewriter For tickets Go to Backtalkcast.com

Click on live appearances And grab those tickets Cool Got anything else you want to play yeah i have a screenwriting class i'm teaching at the ruby quite a normal spot thank you so much i do have a master's degree in screenwriting from boston university but i don't like to mention it as you know so that starts on march 10th it's sundays for four weeks so if you want to learn about screenwriting, maybe you want to write a movie with a strong female protagonist.

You can learn how to do that at my class. Or maybe you don't. And then Caitlin can discipline you at her class. That's true. Yeah. To sign up for that, you can go to my website, Caitlin Durante.com,

click on shows and the registration link will be there. Amazing. Yeah. What do you want to plug Jamie? Uh, I'm going to be doing a weekend of standup comedy. Ever heard of it in Indiana? Ever heard of it? Wow. And, uh, smack in the middle of March. If you're in Indiana, love to see ya. We'll be, uh, in Indianapolis on the 15th at black circle Indy. And on March 16th, I'll be at the Tiger Room in Fort Wayne. The way you can get tickets is Google it. Okay, great. Yeah.

I love Googling. Yeah, but hope to see you there. Hope to see you there. So that's all we've got to plug for right now. Enjoy the episode. Yeah, enjoy. The Bechdel Cast. Hi, what's up? welcome to the show welcome welcome welcome

this is the bechdel cast well welcome to the bechdel cast uh as you know well i guess we'll do our our live survey so uh clap it up if you have heard the show before the bechdel cast go on all right oh i see some some wide eyes okay clap if you have not heard the show before oh okay i did see a couple all right okay cool thanks for coming with your friend we're not scary promise uh well welcome if you've never heard this show before i suppose we should just give you a quick primer we talk about the portrayal of women in movies and how generally it's very bad um and we use the bechdel test as a jumping off point we use it to

initiate a larger conversation about representation. And if you're not familiar for, you know, the people listening at home who are just tuning in to the Romy and Michelle episode as their first step. Whoops. You had to click on it. You see,

you know what they got. And for those of you in the audience who might not know, the Bechdel test is a media test that you generally apply to movies. And it requires that there are two named female identifying characters who speak to each other and their conversation cannot be about a man. Sounds like an easy metric, doesn't it? Well, guess what? Most people fuck it up because men make most of the movies. Boo.

Boo. most people fuck it up because men make most of the movies boo and they i do think that i do think that of course the number one reason that movies don't pass the bechdel test is good old-fashioned misogyny but i think that there is a level below that just below that where it's like men who are like i could write a female character but i don't know how to talk to girls. How would I know how girls talk to each other? Better make them guys. Yeah. Which is worse than misogyny. I think that is a branch of misogyny.

Yeah. Yeah. So. Cool. Well, that's the show. Thanks for coming. Thanks for coming. Thanks for waiting.

Hope that was worth it. I'm wearing my Crocs today. You look great. Listen, I was fishing for a compliment, but I wanted to give some quick background on my Crocs before we bring our guest out. brief vacation with my mom in Florida in our cursed timeshare where my family has been paying like six dollars a month for 900 years on a timeshare that allows us to go to Florida in the winter once every three years for five days and we went and my mom and I did not do anything except go to the Crocs outlet. And my mom made deep spiritual bonds with each and every one of the employees.

Very nice. Thank you. Now, this has just turned into a brag of how emotionally available my mom is. But we both got matching Crocs. And sometimes we talk about, like, oh, you're wearing the Crocs today? And today she was wearing the Crocs, so I'm wearing the Crocs. Aw. Isn talk about like, oh, you're wearing the Crocs today? And today she was wearing the Crocs, so I'm wearing the Crocs. Aw.

Isn't that nice? Women, wow. I love it. I don't have any such mom story, so. I'll text your mom and be like, can I mail you some Crocs? To really improve the relationship that's already good. Yeah.

Yeah. Shout out to our mothers, all of our mothers. Or, you know, or if they suck yeah all right we're off to a great start with the show everyone loves us um we're doing really well we had to thaw our cold audience yeah shall we bring out our guest yes Yes. Oh my gosh. A returning guest. You remember her from our Hocus Pocus episode. Ever heard of it? She's a hilarious

comedian. Please welcome Danielle Perez. Hi. Hello. Welcome back. Thank you for having me. Of course. This is exciting. Yeah.

We're so excited for you to be here. I'm sad that I don't have Crocs. That's when I feel like this is such a leisurely look. It's like velvet, but make it house with the Crocs. That's honestly why I felt the need to address it. It's like the disparity between the Velvet and the Crocs is so vast that

the movie we're discussing today is, and I keep wanting to say for some reason, Romy and Michelle's Summer Vacation. That's not what it's called. It's called Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, which is the same number of syllables almost. There should be a Summer Vacation Romy and Michelle movie. school reunion, which is the same number of syllables almost. There should be a summer vacation

Romy and Michelle movie. That would be amazing. It seems like it should be a franchise. Well, there was a sequel, but we don't need to talk about that. It was a series or a movie? It was not a movie. It was a movie?

It flew so far under my radar. The movie came out in 97, so I think this was 2000s Katherine Heigl. This is, I mean, the movie came out in 97, so I think this was like 2000s Katherine Heigl. Like, this is like before Grey's. Oh, okay.

It was like a made-for-TV movie. Oh, that's why I don't know about it. Weird. Okay. Caitlin's like, I don't know. Weird flex.

Weird flex. I grew up without cable, so I've never seen a single television show in my entire life I am to TV Jamie what you are to movies oh that is true yeah I know all bad television uh okay so we're talking about Romy and Michelle's high school reunion yes clap if you heard of it yeah yeah clap if you've never seen it hell yeah right with the same people who have never heard the same people who have not heard our show before also have not seen the movies how did

you get here we're so sorry who took you hostage blink if you're okay there's always one stray at every live show and I simply love it. That's wonderful. There. Yeah. Danielle, what is your history with the movie? My history with the movie?

I'm obsessed with the movie. I love the movie. I saw it when it first came out in 1997 in the theaters with my mom and her best friend and her best friend's daughter, who was kind of like my de facto best friend but i was like yeah i was like 12 yeah i saw this movie and i was so in love with it that's like that sounds like the perfect circumstances to see this movie it was great that's amazing yeah because like i don't like i never watched friends i don care about... That was the one show I have seen.

I've seen Friends. Of course you have, Caitlin. What? Caitlin would watch Friends on Netflix. Excuse me. I probably would. I did the worst thing with Friends, which is that I never watched it,

but I was like 11 or 12 when it ended, and I taped the last episode and watched it over and over as if i was very attached to it because i was conditioning myself to be an absolute fraud sure from a very young age beautiful so danielle this is one of your favorite movies it's absolutely one of my favorite i love it so much beautiful it yeah caitlin what about you i saw it a few times in high school i think or maybe i was like in junior high i don't know i saw it like shortly after it came out not quite right away but somewhere in the early 2000s and i remember liking it a lot of the time but i didn't like

really revisit it after that which is a mistake because it's a fun silly movie that i really enjoy the dance scene with alan coming at the end oh my god i learned that dance i made my sister and my mom's best friend's daughter who's like my de facto best friend i made her learn it's so rude i keep saying that about her it's such a thing though because she's not like at the time but not anymore and it wasn't like we're ex-best friends but it was like circumstance sure we were 12 yeah my de facto best friend and i ended up gaslighting ourselves into being like no we're friends and we're friends to this day man i saw this movie this morning wait so you've never seen this movie? I've never. No, no.

And it seems like for, I mean, on every level seems like a movie I would really love. Yeah. And one of the few entries in Alan Cumming's, you know, like entire body of work that I haven't seen because I am an Alan Cumming stan. Girl, and you've never seen this? I've never seen this.

And so this movie really delivered to me on a lot of levels. It's so good. Alan Cumming is like in this movie. He's in it. I watched it earlier today because I haven't seen it in years, but I realized I'm like,

oh, I feel like so much of my humor and my love of weird art theater people. You know, like Janine Groff, like it's so nineties, but it was like, I was aware of those things. Like it made me feel grown up. Yeah.

And I feel like I learned a lot of stuff just like stuck in my brain that didn't come out till later from this movie. This is an iconic movie. I mean, it's for, for all of its faults that we'll spend the next rest of the show unpacking. Wow, she's got a list. It is, like I'll say right at the top, a relief and weirdly progressive to see a woman's in a movie and she's the main person in

the movie she must be perfect in every way she must be unkillable she must have a specific set of skills but not be liam neeson and like she has to be perfect and so to see like two female like kind of like idiots be and i don't know i was like that's cool you don't see that inspiring yeah we're almost every comedy is led by a mediocre man like i just appreciate mediocre female representation well that's what equality is exactly yeah exactly that's what it is mediocre everything it's 2019 for crying out loud shall i do the recap yes okay cat well first of all the opening scene we've got romey we've got michelle they are in their beds that are side by side they are making fun of a movie so it's like they're us pretty

well they're jamie and i it's pretty well except kayla and i are usually in the same the same bed michelle has a cat there's a cat present it is it's us michelle used to have a back brace but i know oh my god we'll get to the back brace represent i was i really i didn't know she had a back brace in this movie and i thought that it was only dini who had ever had a back brace that horrendous judy bloom book that makes me sick to think about. Hi, back brace girl. Oh, back braces make you cool is the thing. But yeah, they're basically recording a Matreon episode,

except minus the recording part of it. Yeah, they're watching Pretty Woman for the 35th time. They're saying some pretty regressive things about kind of their thing the people in the movie but uh yeah so they're basically us that's not true she gets really happy when they finally let her shop yeah that's i think shows a lot of empathy but before that she's like yeah those shop girls are whores too and it's like, hey, yikes. 35th watch. There's a lot of stuff going on. Anyway,

so they're, they're best friends, Romy and Michelle. They've lived together for 10 years. They live in Venice Beach, California. That's right. And yet only one of them is part-time employed.

Supporting both of them. Very, the finances. Exposed brick. Right. A huge apartment. I mean, I mean. I know this is the 90s and Venice Beach isn't what it is right now, but. But the finances of this movie are baffling.

Right. So one day when Romy is at work, she runs into Heather Mooney. That's Janine Garofalo's character. Who is just this week softly canceled yeah she was defending louis ck pretty vehemently and literally quote leave louis ck alone unquote which is yeah a wild stance to take at this point in time yes but you know maybe by the time that who knows a soft cancel right at the time of this recording she's made some missteps but who knows maybe she'll redeem herself anyway so probably not i don't know 2019 anything can happen yeah all your faves are on alfred melina can be on the podcast

anything can happen well the one uncancellable man thank god we'll never need to call back to this clip because he'll never do anything wrong so she runs into heather mooney and they went to high school together and heather's all like oh you're going to the high school reunion and she's like what we didn't get an invitation which does not get explored any further than that well so much of this movie would not happen if there were any semblance of social media. So we sort of just have to, like if there were Facebook, everyone would know what the people are doing

and there's almost no need to go to a high school reunion. And I feel like that's probably why a lot of people don't because they're like, oh, these people are doing better than me. Let me remove myself. Yeah. Right. Yeah, the high school reunion's like built up

to be this really huge thing that I don't know if it is anymore. I didn't go to my junior reunion. It was like Romy having that cell phone was like such a big move. Showing up with a flip phone. Yeah. So and then Heather wants to know if Michelle married Sandy Frank. That's Alan Cummings' character.

The Frankazord? I'm sure. I could not get through this movie without saying every lie. I love annoying my friends with that very habit, yes. I wanted to just take a survey of the room to see, do the teenage age people look older in this movie or wet hot american summer it was neck and neck for 35 year old people playing 16 year olds alan coming being like no i'm 16 when alan coming and he's a terrific actor but you can see the fear in his eyes as he tries to

play a teenager he is soft 40 in this movie but then you've got justin thoreau who i forgot was in this movie looking like a major punk oh my god to be fair mostly concealed by a hat okay anyway so um heather is all like oh no did michelle marry sandy frank because she had a whole thing for him and then we cut to sorry i was very much very much in love it was not a thing then we cut to romey and michelle going through their high school yearbook which triggers this whole like uh flashback sequence when they're like oh which group were we a part of were we a b or c group and then they're like wait a minute we weren't part of any group and then um which sounds kind of insult but in their case is cool we're loners look at us alone they like there's a picture of

like a group and then they're just like in the background the background we see sandy frank being in love with michelle we see who is a back brace high school girl yes important detail we also must mention the perm the perm yes the perm yeah the perm is is vital it's a huge plot point they're like how do we age these characters down what can we do and then we see romi being in love with this guy named billy christiansen he's like the popular jock kid at school um there's like these mean popular girls and the leader of those is christy she's putting magnets on the back brace it's a whole they have a special bag for it which they're like honestly i kind of love i know this is a very anti-bullying time

but if you're gonna do it go hard be prepared i enjoy the use of props that spoke to me of like maybe christy is in fact the loser if she's doing homework to bully someone good bullying is off the cuff improvised uh okay so then they yeah so they're going through their yearbook we see them at prom uh billy and christy play a mean trick on romi where she's like dance with me and he's like okay and then they leave they leave romi behind we also have to suspend our disbelief for the entire high school sequence that like Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino are not hot. Oh, yeah. They're like, ooh, Madonna twins. It's like, yeah, wouldn't they be the dopest girls in school in 1987?

Right. Wearing mini dresses and like boosties and then like christy's always dressed like it's fucking easter and they're like oh the hottest girl in school i was like this doesn't make sense to me you know what i did appreciate is that her color was purple and not pink and i was like look at that that's really that i feel like that was breaking some mold you know yes for like the head bitch you know not to choose pink but she's also dressed she and all the popular girls are still dressed like it's easter in 1997 true but then but then the stepmom from the parent trap is there meredith blake yes in a power suit and she's like actually romi and michelle are hot and then the easter women are

like no it's crazy precisely what happens i love when meredith showed up wait can we talk about how the last day of high school is prom yeah what it's like we're not gonna see anyone ever again it's the last day yeah prom is usually like two or three weeks before the last day of school right no it's like two or three months it's in the spring wasn't prom like wait when did your school end prom was like in april april or march yeah i feel like it's april may prom was after my graduation no wait maybe the week before what i don't know i all i remember so confused i feel like prom was a good two months before graduation i don't know but also i'm 34 years old brag wow just FYI what I remember about my prom is that I don't remember when it was exactly but I do know that someone's tampon fell out on the dance floor oh someone got loose and then and then someone procured you drop it on the dance floor okay

that's how you drop it wow Someone was doing some serious work at prom and misplaced their tampon on the dance floor. And then I forget, like some dork had it. He said he had a DNA tester at his house. No, he didn't. And he could figure out whose tampon it was. What he did was steal a used tampon. He sucked that tampon.

So that's just something that haunts me. Progressive. Okay, well, that was great. I haven't thought about that in a long time. This says they have a DNA tester at their house. What a wide swing. Did he think he went to school in the 80s and no one would question him on that? google search

DNA tester that person later invented ancestry.com yeah he is now the CEO of 23andme and when he goes to his high school reunion he can be like I invented DNA testing i'm

a billionaire with a helicopter he probably choked to death on a tampon nine years ago i have no idea i have no idea what happened death by misadventure that's not you can't go out on top all right so he stole the tampon okay he wasn't gifted it yeah it's a different story if it was gifted to him all right so we cut back to the present and and rami and michelle are like yeah we're gonna go to this reunion people will be so impressed with us because we leave these like awesome lives in la but then they're like filling out their forms for the reunion and they're like wait a minute we are not that impressive let's try to find jobs and boyfriends and there's a one of the my least favorite like their eternal weight loss narrative yeah they're like in two weeks we're

gonna lose weight get boyfriends and get sick jobs and then we're gonna go to our high school reunion and shake our fists or whatever mind you you, they are already very thin. And they're like, we need to lose weight. Yeah. Well, it's really more Romy. Because Michelle's eating that bag of Doritos. And she's like, I hate to say it, but I do think we could lose a few pounds.

And then she takes away a vintage bag of Cool Ranch. Cool Ranch Doritos. Sponsor! and she takes away a vintage bag of cool ranch doritos sponsor they're oh shout out robert evans to the doritos oh yeah behind the bastards okay so then they're like yeah what's the point of going to the reunion if we can't impress everyone so they like try to like whip themselves into shape career wise and like partner wise and fitness wise but none of it works works so they wear a lot of great outfits doing it so many great outfits oh yeah romi's treadmill outfit really spoke to me on a lot of levels i was like where do i get it you gotta make it michelle yeah at their boutique which is probably on rodeo drive i mean let's go i love i remember when

everything was like a math question like it's like you gotta get like x miles on a rowboat to get to town and who wants to go to town anytime a guy was lame in high school it's like he probably drives a rowboat that's a good burn to this day it still works yeah so then Romy and Michelle are like well wait a minute what if we pretend to be successful and then we'll impress everyone so they make themselves some business suits they borrow a jaguar from the dealership the rummy works at a jack what did i say the car a car not an animal no i okay you said jaguar weird did i yeah oh what did some people say jaguar jaguar oh yeah some people say it like that

which thing did i say jaguar jaguar jaguar what is it jaguar jaguar okay i just need to say i know the difference between an animal and a car i'm like so wait a second are they on a horse? That's a Mustang. Okay, so Jaguar is wrong then? I don't think that... Jaguar. I don't know what's... I mean, I know Jaguar is right, but that's not to say Jaguar is wrong.

They get an expensive car, and they go to the... They drive to the reunion, but on the way, they're like, oh, wait, what are our jobs gonna be? And so they decide that they're gonna say... Well, a woman asks them. And then they're like, oh, wait, we our jobs gonna be and so they decide that they're gonna well a woman asks right oh and they're like oh wait we forgot to be specific because they really made a big deal about being business women so then they decide that they're gonna say that they invented post-its

but this leads them to fight because romi's like yeah i invented post-its but Michelle you like design them and Michelle's like wait a minute do you not think I'm smart enough yellow so then they start fighting about like what they think of each other and then they're like you're not cute you're not cute and then they decide that they're not going to be friends anymore and that when they get to the reunion they're gonna part ways and go off and do their own thing then something wild happened that i had to rewind to make sure actually comprise 15 full minutes of this movie really the dream sequence it's amazing but you didn't when did you realize something was amiss i hope this isn't too late but when

alan cumming could fly that's exactly because i was watching it because i knew that it was a dream sequence and i was like but when does it really start to get weird and it was like and the music starts to get kind of funky it's like whoosh well because someone is like over the sunroof and i'm like how could you be at that angle then alan cumming can fly you're like huh see true so far into the sequence yeah it's great it's really awesome it's so good but here's the thing true alan cumming fans know that he can actually fly so that didn't register as weird for me was it the christy ballroom with all the giant posters of christy in it was it that

oh i didn't even notice that made to be like fruits and vegetables that Oh, that was fun. I did notice that. The carrots and bananas. The Christy ballroom. I was like, oh, okay. Now my... The cars waiting for them. Inside. Indoors. Michelle being voted

most changed for the better since high school when she hasn't stepped foot inside the reunion all night. And is only wearing a bra and no shirt. I mean, I feel like that has changed for the better. This speech where she's like, I can't find my top. And everybody's like, woo!

It's great. Anyway, so there is like a 15-minute dream sequence. Without the dream sequence, I don't think this movie is feature length. No. No way. It is a right there 91 or 93 minutes yeah otherwise it would be like a 70 minute movie like the master of disguise that's the thing with this movie though i know i love that about the 90s i loved an 87 minute movie

love it yeah the thing about this movie though is that there's about 10 minutes of plot and the rest is like dance sequences that have no bearing on the story like there's almost nothing that happens in this movie and yet it is terrific um there's so much internal friendship sure but like plot wise i mean not a ton happening but not a bad thing i'm just saying like they try and they fail and then realize friendship is the most important thing and then the helicopter oh baby do you know what that's worth oh heaven is a place on earth the soundtrack is incredible oh god okay so then the the dream sequence happens everything's weird but they get a lot of it right like they know that sandy frank is rich somehow so then for real michelle and romey go into the reunion and they're like hey we invented post-its and

everyone's like no you didn't and then their secret is exposed because heather comes and is like no some other guy and then they feel dumb because everyone laughs at them but then they're like wait a minute friendship is important they're we're it's stupid that we're fighting and then they put their great outfits back yeah they're like let's go out there and be ourselves and then sandy frank shows up in his helicopter and he's like the only thing i don't have in my life is you michelle and then and then the dance and we're literally just like yeah sure very few actors could get a yeah sure from me for that kind of bizarro scary plot twist yes i'm like well it is coming out of alan cummings mouth so i guess we're rolling with it. And then we cut back to them in LA.

They have opened up a fashion, like a clothing boutique. Presumably, do they state explicitly that Sandy venture-funded their thing? Yeah, she's like, I feel like we can pay him back this week. And she's like, I think we're like two years away. Two years away. So, yes. Sandy don't care.

He's unhinged. And that is the end of the movie. Wait, but you forgot. In the dream sequence, they each win the medal for most change for the better. But then they each go off with their respective love interests. Right. And then we flash forward to 70 years later. 70 years.

So they are 98 years old. And then they still hate each other. Michelle on her deathbed giving Romy the finger. A beautiful moment in cinema. It's, I really like that. So great.

Because once you find out you're in a dream sequence they're like okay now we're just gonna turn it up to a 13 ratchet up i one of the weirder things about the dream sequence is in the dream sequence christy has a career but in the real world she doesn't which was right one of the only things that i was like, oh, 1997 was a strange time. We're only in dreams. Could a woman have a career? But the one who no longer hangs out with the A group,

Lisa Luter. Lisa Luter, she is like an associate editor for Vogue. Yeah. Businesswoman. Elegant cream suit. It's good to see Meredith be able to play a hero. True. I know, just for saying, all in all, they're not bad.

She's the hero. And then just a year later, she is in that scene in The Parent Trap where they're out in the woods with Dennis Quaid and a lizard crawls into her mouth. Yes. What a wild couplels into her mouth. Yes. What a wild couple years. Wait, is this a Lindsay Lohan one? Yeah, she plays Dennis Quaid's new wife.

Huh. Who's like Ev. I learned what Evian was from her. 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, When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do,

like resume specialist Morgan Sanner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote, what is it, like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn

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the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhard in you. Oh my God. I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know.

I'm so behind. Katherine Hanken's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person?

I got to hawk this slalom, Lugie. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

So where should we jump in with our discussion? Oh gosh, where to begin? What if we were just like female friendship? Yes, queen. That's it. That's all. I mean, I do love that like female friend, like this movie just celebrates female friendship. Like that's it. Like you're saying like there isn't really a lot of plot and you just get to see two women who are adults,

like genuinely care about each other. And I think that's honestly like very refreshing. Like you just don't really get to see that in movies or TV. And it's like they have this atypical lifestyle where they i mean it's like implied like by their like lucy ricky setup in their bedroom that it's like they're like in it like they need permission to fuck from the other person uh and like they're i don't know like they're they have like their lives are built around their friendship and then prior to this uh reunion coming up they don't seem to be unhappy

with that like they're they have fun going out together even when they go out to like it's like they're sort of like we're here to meet guys but they still seem to want to hang out with each other anyways yeah like the two Cokes with extra cherries. And it's like the bartender knows that's their order. It's like, okay, wait, they're party girls, but they're like not. They're sober. They're not getting wasted. They're not doing anything crazy.

They just love hanging out. Like that part of it, i just thought was like awesome and then it's like the problem comes from their whatever the world they come from isn't wouldn't think that's a cool way to live and to be fair they should have like like michelle should have tried to get a job at some point but in this world you could get a five room apartment in venice for you know like a part-time jaguar cashier salary what i don't know i'm like i'm like michelle has rich parents we don't know about is the only thing i can think of well yeah this lifestyle i mean maybe michelle was on unemployment. Maybe. Maybe.

But then she goes out for jobs and she's like very picky. And, and unemployable because she keeps like messing up during the interview. Well, she was good in Versace.

She was. Intel. She was like, you look like shit in that shirt. I was lying when I said you looked good. I'm just really good at telling people they look good in things. But that is, so. I feel like it's just, I love watching Lisa Kudrow be Lisa Kudrow.

She's so good. She's terrific. It's so good. And this is like mid-Friends where you can just tell that Lisa Kudrow is dying to not be on friends for two seconds. And she's so good. I also forgot how much I love Mira Sorvino. She's so good in this movie. I haven't seen Mira.

So I've only seen Mira Sorvino in like one other movie that like, did you guys ever see wise girls with Mariah Carey? No, it's ridiculous. We still have to do glitter. Oh's ridiculous. We still have to do glitter. We have to. Will you come back for glitter? I will come back for glitter.

I'm obsessed with glitter. I really love glitter. Mariah Carey thinks 9-11 is the reason glitter did not succeed. Oh, Mariah. Yeah. 9-11 is personally very difficult for her oh my god what an iconic scapegoat for mariah carey so yeah i mean this movie is largely about

female friendship yes that is the crux of the movie but then there's also parts where it's like okay well a big part of these two main characters is that they feel their lives are inadequate because they don't have boyfriends. And then by the end, at least for Michelle, she ends up with a guy, I think we can presume. I don't know. I don't even know that that's true. I mean, he's in love with her

and gives them a bunch of money to open up this shop. So either way, it's... I'm kind of all for letting someone think that you're in love with them and taking their money yeah i'm down with that i think that's a feminist message it feels like reparations to some degree but maybe uh maybe i'm but i i think the the not thinking their lives are good enough like like, that's for sure coming from Romy. Because Michelle seems very, like, okay, I'll go along with, like, your plan. Like, sure, why not? Yeah, that's true.

Michelle's, like, fine either way. Like, she's still, like, even after, like, their plan to make their lives better or whatever goes kaput, she's like, I still really want to go. Yeah. Well, because Michelle, like... She's the one that, like, kicks Romy's ass, kind of like, like hey our lives are

great and i always thought they were great like we didn't have to do all of this true yes i like michelle is like the loyalist loyal friend possible and we can get into like the message that extends beyond that but michelle throughout the whole movie whenever romi is having an issue of like feeling inadequate like michelle goes above and beyond to alter her behavior to make romi happy or be inclusive in moments that like i don't know i feel like if instead of when when sandy's like oh michelle i just want to dance with you like mich Sandy's like, oh, Michelle, I just want to dance with you. Michelle's like, include Romy. Yeah. Which to Sandy is a wild challenge.

But he's Alan Cummings, so he knows what to do. He just goes, sure. He's like, I have the choreography ready. Thankfully, this choreography is for three. But Michelle often, in comical ways, will include Romy to keep her friend happy and feeling secure in a way that Romy like not that Romy loves Michelle any less. But it seems like Michelle is the friend in the relationship who goes above and beyond. Usually, which I love about her. And I'm also like, man, you don't have to do it every time you could dance

with sandy but i don't even know if she wants to that's the thing is i think she i'm just like i hope that after the helicopter took off alan cummings like so you're in love with me right she's like no and no but thanks for the helicopter ride here's a million dollars do we see them kiss they do okay and then she's like happy that he didn't bring his big notebook so they probably bang she feels his erection i guess is that what she's implying yeah tight she feels alan cummings big old bonar so i don't know i for me it didn't seem like a sure thing that they ended up together. Because it doesn't seem like that kind of movie. Right.

Because the end is he's referenced in terms of him investing in their business. But we don't see him on screen again. So the emphasis is still on their friendship between Romy and Michelle. Yeah. They're going to be terrible business owners. That's how you know at the end. Yeah, they're going to sink their door into the ground. But their clothes know at the end. Yeah. They're going to sink. So cute. They're so good.

Outfits are so good. It was, it almost looks like dash or something. It looks like that sort of venture is perfect. Yeah. Um, I would say the other kind of bigger issue that I have with this otherwise perfect movie,

um, is that several of the plot points revolve around many different pairs or groups of women not getting along with each other. So it's yet another movie, I would argue at least, where we see women just in conflict for reasons that aren't clear, just because it's like,

oh, well, you know, they were like bratty high school bullies so i think at the time this movie came out if we were to put it in context of the time it came out and i do agree with what you're saying this seems to be like the given for like well in movies this is what high schools are like there's nice girls and there are mean girls and that what i was almost bummed out and sort of started talking about it before but like between the dream sequence and the real sequence where in high school christy was this mean girl and like that is an exaggerated version of dynamics that sometimes exist in real high schools sure and yes media should be challenging those and you know giving young people different

ideas of how high school dynamics can work but it is a reflection of something that does happen in high schools heightened to a major extent but during the dream sequence i forget which of them goes up to christy and christy's like oh yeah i'm the most successful weather girl in tucson which felt more like the reality of christy felt to me like less realistic and more reductive in terms of the story than than the dream version of christy because in the real version of christy she is like the popular girl who is always like i'm gonna be famous i'm gonna do all this stuff and then she ends up marrying her high school sweetheart and having three kids by 28. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the movie tells you there's something wrong with that.

The movie has a really weird view about motherhood where it's suggesting that it's... It's actually quite nasty. Yeah. I'm sorry. At least Romy and Michelle didn't get fat, you know? But according to the movie, Ry used to be chubby i know it's like huh and then people keep calling her that and it's like what are you talking about the high school dynamics in this movie are dated as fuck yeah like. Like really, really dated. And don't do that much to challenge

those dynamics. I'd say the most, the furthest it went to challenge, because in high school everyone's focus is to like find a heterosexual partner

and do well. And then 10 years later everyone's goal is to have a heterosexual partner and do well in their career. And so like nothing

is really challenged there except by Romy and Michelle who are like we're losers we're getting in a helicopter see ya and that's well I mean I get that yeah there's like the mean girls and a lot of these is kind of reductive high school tropes but I did appreciate they you know it happens with um when they're like talking to like heather mooney about like who they each thought they were in high school and it's like oh everyone made someone's life a living hell where like in hindsight you can like you experience it and you feel it this way and so that's your truth but then in actuality it's oh no, it seemed like you guys were having fun and you had it made.

And I wish I was like as cool as you and doing all the stuff that you guys were doing. And I think that's like a very real true thing. Totally. And then she's the Heather Mooney character is very pleased when she finds out that she has made the Toby Walters characters life a living hell. Cameron. She's like oh hell yeah i was a horrible wretch to you and that's great um just to go back to the how the movie views like motherhood really quickly it's this like weird idea it suggests that like

women who choose to be mothers have like given up and or that they also can't have careers like it's this weird i feel like it feels like leftover from second wave feminism kind of thing where it's like the focus is on women having careers which is amazing but it's almost like women can have careers and if you choose not to have a career fuck you like it's not a very inclusive view it's progressive and yet also it is mean to mothers that the world requires because then like christy even says a line that's something like she's saying this about the lisa luder character who's like the vogue editor she says something like such a great outfit um she says like unlike

a certain ball-busting dried up career woman we know we're all happily married and then like lisa's like yeah keep telling yourself so it's right it's like this we yeah that was not handled especially well it's very nice those are the only three mothers we see like they're all the same amount of pregnant they're all the same amount of pregnant they're all the same amount of pregnant they're all the same amount of bitchy and rude and mean that's it that's they're all dressed like it's a star it's crazy yeah and then at the end i didn't like the last beat for the christy character where like her dress blows up and you see her pregnant stomach and everyone's like

from their helicopter i'm like this is a bit much right she because well the where the christy character ends and like the popular girl characters are dealt with very weird and not like not super thoughtfully i feel like it's almost just like a cookie cutter idea of who a popular girl is which i thought was challenged in the dream sequence but then they were like no actually we didn't want to think about it yeah and at the end in like the last 10 minutes of the movie you get a very tragic uh setup for what's going on in christy's life and her marriage to the book i'm like i don't think she like she put yeah she put magnets on your back piece i wouldn't people did that to me too and i wouldn't wish this on them like where her husband, popular Bobby, comes up,

and it's implied that he's not as conventionally hot as he used to be. And he comes up to Romy, and he's like, my wife lied about my job. He got married to Christy. He's like, no, I don't have a job. I do drywall for her old man. You do drywall for her old man, an alcoholic. He's also an alcoholic.

What does that mean? But then he's like, yeah, and I cheat on her all the time. You know, he basically was like, Christy's life is a sham, and I don't care about her, and I want to cheat on her now. And then we still are supposed to laugh at her at the end. I felt so badly for her when that happened. Well, it's supposed to be this cathartic moment for Romy where where she's like oh i get to do to billy what he did to me by like leaving me at the front yeah i guess the thing is it's like he never seemed like he was never like any sort of real

fleshed out character he was supposed to be this objective hot guy in high school and i was like he just looks whack like he's not even that hot he's not like Alan Cumming in high school would bang you know 100% also and he's attentive right yes the Alan Cumming in the dream sequence where when he has like plastic

the new present to himself it's like oh Christopher Walken was your present face he looks but like Michelle's like oh christopher walken was your present face he looks but like michelle's like oh you picked a great face you're so dreamy but he is truly frightening looking he looks badly rendered so great it's so wonderful but yeah polar express character but like what is the deal with bobby being like the hottest guy in school ever i mean he's not that hot he's super dumb it's like why does she even like him i mean we all made horrible mistakes

but the fact that rami is still so hung up on him that feels like a weird choice for that it doesn't yeah it just like doesn't seem like the best. It's like they're like, well, how much can we make go full circle in this movie? Where I think if this movie came out now, I think what the writers might do is instead of them laughing and pointing at Christy at the end,

Romy would tell Christy and then Christy would be like, I'm going to start anew and go to night school. And then she would also get on the helicopter and then all the women would be friends. And then Regina Hall would be there. A crossover event. It would be incredible. See, it felt a little to me like the end of Jurassic Park when they all get on the helicopter away from the dinosaur island anyone else no okay is that how that movie ends i forget yeah oh okay and then

and then sam neill is like look pelicans they're just like dinosaurs or that's what dinosaurs evolved into or i don't know it's a great cinematic moment did you know sam elliott got a star in the Walk of Fame this week? Nope. Who is Sam Elliott? He's in A Star is Born. He has one role. He's the old, yeah, it's his debut. And they gave him a star. Anyways. Awkward for him.

He was snubbed anyways. A star is a star. 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 unhearts

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Oh my god. I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hanken's thing. I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song?

Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Lugie. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it.

It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another thing that I found to be not so great about this movie is one of the things that like temporarily breaks up their friendship is them being like, you're not cute. No, you are not cute they're like arguing over how that each other look who's the marion who's the rhoda that's real that's real that's a real thing we were arguing today about who's the romi and who's the michelle oh yeah um let's

just let's just ask yeah we've got a crowd oh yeah okay clap if you think that me caitlin is romey and that jamie is michelle clap if that's what you think okay oh this might be tight clap if you think the opposite that i am michelle and that jamie is romey oh well there you have it, there you have it. Well, there you go. I do identify as a Romy. I identified as a Michelle. I'm pleased with this outcome. Wow, our fans know us so well.

Oh man, I do feel a lot of relief after this. Alright. To the one person who was wrong. No no i'm kidding um anyway so yeah that's that's a weird moment that i don't think if this movie was like came out today i don't think they would be like you're ugly no you're the ugly one like they don't say you're not cute it's just who's cuter yeah yeah and i think it would be like or it would be more thoughtfully addressed because i mean i think that i had a

note about that too but it's like the i don't know if we're operating on the idea that it's like the high school reunion and the ideas within the reunion that gets between them that argument makes sense but the fact that it only goes i think if it was written out it would be about their looks their career it would be about the three things they were worried about and not just like who's hot who's not like that sort of thing like it would probably be a more thoughtful discussion of like i mean they barely talk they only mentioned that lisa kudrow has never worked a day in her life once. Well, she used to have a job. She used to have a job.

She was a sales person. Romy carries her. Yeah. Right. So then that explains a lot of Romy's like, hey, I don't know. I'm the one who invented Post-its, okay? Right. Because I pay the rent, which is fair.

But then Michelle's the one that always gets us to dance first again very true of our relationship jamie you you pay my rent yes and no one asks me to dance thank you so much um um yeah i think that that's like something that like does happen can like happen in like real friendships where it's like you kind of, you get into these roles, you know what I mean? Someone's always maybe the leader more and someone goes along with like the ideas. Yeah.

I feel like the relationship dynamic is, I mean, I found it to be very relatable, but the fact that like one of the main things that they argue about to the extent that in their dream sequence, when they're 70 years older and still hate each other they're the thing that they're still beefing over is no i'm the mary so i feel like i get it if like that is like maybe a sentiment that people have in a in a friendship

that they're like maybe self-conscious or you know whatever but um yeah the fact that that's like i would say probably the main thing that the argument is focused on where they do bring up like yeah i carry you like this and that different things about their kind of professional lives and stuff like that but the fact that that is the main thing it's very 97 the way it's presented and i think that that is think that you can boil down most critiques of this movie to like, yikes, thrilled it's no longer 1997. For example, but I'm not grateful it's 2019 either. So what do we do? A few of the other 97-based issues that this movie has is...

There's that queerphobic joke made by elisa kudrow at the tippity top of the movie like the like it's essentially a no homo joke when they're dancing at the club when they're dancing right romi says something like i swear to god sometimes i wish i was a lesbian and michelle says well do you want to try to have sex sometime just to see if we are romi says yeah right michelle just the thought of having sex with another woman creeps me out but then there's a beat and then she says but if we're not married by the time we're 30 ask me again this is which like 1997 all over uh-huh i mean that's like essentially like the plot of like my best friend's wedding right like is it if we're not married by the time we're 30 yeah let's marry each other that's a movie that's my best friend you guys

haven't done my best friend's wedding no i am shocked it's crazy that i haven't seen that movie and yet i've seen i now pronounce you chuck and Larry. That's fucked up. Wow. Let's never do that. Don't. Let's not right now. I never want to see that movie again. I would love to see if Paul Blart mall cop passed the Bechdel cast. Can we do Blart March on the Patreon?

Sure. Okay, both Blarts. If you're not on our patreon there's two right it's back in blart or something i don't even want to know how much money that movie fucking made oh blart march to look out i would also say that there's some like the way the movie handles race is also a very again 1997 way of doing that. Is there anyone of color? There is.

I would, I think there's one. Jaguar employees. Yeah. Oh, all the guys. Yeah. Ramon.

Ramon. Right. I would do that. I would just yell that at my sister. Just yell out, oh, Romy, you were looking hot today.

Just like, what is wrong? Is it dumb 12-year-old? Just an idiot. Right. So the only person of color in the movie that has lines is this like creepo, like predatory guy who's constantly harassing Romy at work. There's a few. Well, there's there's a few people of color who have lines, but they're all they all work as mechanics at the Jaguar.

Do we see them talk even? Well, they're really just they're going like, oh, that's my boy. Oh, yeah. Like, oh, he's really doing it. They're like listening to like, OK, it's a featured extra. They're like listening to, like, okay. There's a featured extra. Are there men here? There are men here. If you knew your coworker was banging someone at work,

would you excitedly creep up to the door to listen? They all but have a tin can. Right there. That scene is, like, weird, it's like a there's an easy a vibe to that whole scene right which was fun but then it's also like okay it's another example of like cigar like no one's smoking a cigar at work when they but near oil when yeah you work in the mechanic like you should have a lip cigar that scene is interesting because it's like she dresses up all you know sexy and she's like i need a a jaguar uh is how

i would say it and um so she's like kind of intending to flirt to like get her way into it and then he's like well what's in it for me and then she's like i'm not gonna have sex with you so like to some degree she's like using like a slight bit of her sexuality to get what she of his crush on her right i'm for that that's the thing is like it's the same thing as taking alan cummings venture money like it depends on your personal code of what what you want to do sure that i would take alan cummings money just like that also means it's like they need a man the help of a man to get what they want but then also it's like well but it's set up in a very specific way i don't know i mean i i do see what you're saying and then also the fact that like the only non-white people we see like work at the jaguar dealership or there's like one very brief part of the high school reunion where lisa kudrow's talking at a group

of people of color and they're the joke is that they are not allowed to respond like it is right they're like the asian kids that went to school that don't have names don't have any backstory and she just talks at them so they either is it a joke that they don't understand what she's saying is that that is that what it's supposed to be that doesn't make that doesn't make any sense because they went to high school right right in tucson arizona that joke was uh weird and insensitive uh there and i mean i i i was reading back most of this stuff i saw in my research of like criticism done of this movie which in 97 was largely uncritical what a fun romp and they're not wrong it has like a 76 rotten tomatoes though which's hating on it?

Yeah, probably Roger Ebert, that motherfucker. I... Read the movies, Roger Ebert. Roger Ebert had some deep-seated issues. But anyways... He wrote Valley of the Dolls, too. He also... He didn't understand anything that wasn't men.

But anyways, a lot of what I read was written less than two years ago for the 20th anniversary of this movie and reading some of the more modern criticism of it is interesting and there was one piece specifically I read that was published in bitch magazine ever heard of it in 2017 that was a point that I hadn't really thought of during my viewing of it, but the whole thesis of it was that this movie is built around the idea that white women are allowed to be mediocre, and that is a goofy, funny joke.

But if you swap anyone else out, it becomes a joke that mainstream America probably probably couldn't have accepted in 1997 which i thought was interesting that's true we'll link it yeah i really killed the room on that i'm just pondering the i mean i think i mean isn't i mean the harold and kumar movies i have only seen one but like the one that you go to white castle but is that it's a stoner stoner so it's a little different but it's like they're just regular dudes do they have impressive jobs i feel like i don't know i don't remember what if they were fortune 500 but also like what is an impressive job you know like let's redefine what that means i know i do think it's really refreshing that they

are so unremarkable. Yeah. You know what I mean? I think that that's, I don't know, as someone who's like a girly girl who has vocal fry, says like a lot, all that shit, I really do love that they are fully just ditzy girls that get by somehow and figure out how to survive. It's funny. It's's refreshing i don't know i think it i hate that like women have to be like exceptional to just be thought of as competent you know exactly yeah that infuriates me yeah so it is i think nice to just see but that's what i noticed you're not that they're real people

but it's like not everyone's gonna be like a straight A student and go to grad school like me with a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University some women are just like okay that's fine

and they both accept each other and love each other which is I think the greater and more important thing right is that there's genuine like friendship and support there right and it's the expectations of the world that bring in the conflict i would say though and this isn't really a criticism but it was just something i noticed that is that they are both like very stereotypically like hyper feminine in their you know appearance and their behavior and their interests and stuff like that like we don't know that much about them aside from they love fashion they love you know wearing unique outfits and fun for ski use of color

it's so weird that they're just i don't i don't know where everyone keeps this movie gaslights you in a number of ways whether you're like lisa cujo and mirasorvino are ugly and that their outfits make them look cheap well that they think that about themselves or that they know in high school everyone's oh sure like they're like supposed to be these ugly ducklings and they're hotter than everyone there yeah confusing that is Yeah, and that their clothes are stupid when we all know that their clothes are great. But then they think about themselves that they need to lose weight.

And one of the things they're fixated on is weight loss and stuff like that, which is, again, for 1997, a very stereotypical, I feel like... The kickboxing class so i again like this isn't a criticism but they're just like very hyper hyper feminine who wrote the movie how did this even happen truly it is written by robin schiff based on a play that she also wrote um directed by a man Directed by a man, David Merkin.

Merkin? Is that right? Merkin? I'm sorry. Feminist icon. Don't need to know anything else about him. His last name is Merkin. Let me just make sure I didn't mistype this.

I'm going to go on IMDB. Is his name David Merkin? It is that right? It is. What else has he directed? Okay. So, yeah, I mean, do we have any other final thoughts about the film? I don't know.

I mean, I can't think of. Cameron Mann. Yeah. Oh. What a sweetheart. Go fuck yourself, Toby. That was really. I love that she was like, please don't tell me to go fuck myself.

It really hurts my feelings. I mean, that's so real and vulnerable. I know. Like, she's like, clearly I've been to a lot of therapy, worked on herself, worked it out. She's done the work. She's setting boundaries boundaries creating an expectation i like it i like it i i mean i i would assume this movie paved the way for a lot of other

like because this movie is like very well loved it was loved when it when it came out which never happens uh especially in 1997 of like a female-led major comedy movie. It broke a lot of barriers in many ways for all of its fault. And just a mediocre female friendship you don't see anywhere, even in an era where I feel like now we're getting more female representation than in past years, but there is still that symptom of the Mary Sue of like the women who are allowed to be the leads and movies are superheroes or they are they're perfect

you still can't be like a fucking idiot like I just true progress is female idiot representation and this is it and it's it's great and pure and like very i don't know i i really like this movie i will say that it is yet another movie with a female lead or in this case two female leads uh that ends in like a formal social event usually it's a wedding a prom a ball this i would say the high school reunion they don't like it don't watch it it ends in their store okay but a big component of this movie i would argue is the reunion expand well let me it's different from those like the typical examples of it being like a wedding or a prom which is what it usually is but it's still i feel like female centered stories feel like they always have to end in some sort of like big formal social event because that's what women like to do

the only thing i would say there is that a reunion is less of a gendered seeming event where everyone's whipping their dick out real or figurative putting it on the table at the reunion saying this is what i've done yeah i think that if it ended if it truly ended at the reunion and they go in the helicopter and that's it like i would be down with that but it's like but they have their store they become the successful business woman that they set out to be yeah yeah true i mean for a pair of mediocre dum-dums they're girl bosses now they are girl bosses girl bosses they have a troubling term giant baby that curses and says shit a lot yeah oh jeannie that character that character is fun too the character comes full circle yeah the fact that they like help each other out instead of like continuing their sort of like antagonistic

she has friends now yeah does she raw dogs uh janine raw dogs the the cowboy so that's always good news you know that's raw dogging in a field yeah oh usually good news usually how optimistic are you usually you know i guess there's no way to say it without revealing too much of my personal history. Should we take any questions or comments from the crowd? Oh, yeah. We have time for a few. What did we miss?

Hi, I'm right here. What's your name? Spell differently. Let's fight. So as soon as we saw feminist icon cat eating junk food on the couch we got very excited for a potential cat facts with caitlin so i was hoping i could request that set her up it's michelle she's flipping through the magazine she's like i don't understand how models work or magazines and then in the background background, it's eating cake, the cat. It's a piece of cake.

They're fine with it, too. Yeah. The cat's alive. Yeah. It's not alive woman. What Romy and Michelle are eating are jelly beans and nothing else, it seems. There's a lot of great product placement in that scene. There's a whole shot where you're just like we've just made twenty thousand dollars

but you're right there is a cat in the background um that is eating cake and just in case anyone was curious cats do have eight nipples this is cat facts with caitlin although i recently learned that that is not necessarily true sometimes cats wow sometimes cats have it's a cat alternative facts it's this is please represent cats with all numbers uh sometimes cats have as few as four nipples or as many as 10 apparently so i've been wrong the whole time. But an average of eight, I believe. I'm shaking to my marrow. I know. Any other questions, comments?

I guess we nailed it. Yeah, we nailed it. We killed it. Let's discuss whether or not the movie passes the Bechdel test. Yes. It does. Yay! In the very first scene, in the very first lines that are spoken,

like Romy and Michelle're talking about pretty woman and how the sales women in that movie are whores so it's maybe not the most progressive passing that we've seen but i also think that there's a sub pass in that scene where the scene in pretty woman is also passing oh sure ohdel test. Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. So it perhaps is a new record. Wait, do the saleswomen have actual names? That's what I was going to ask. I don't know. I've never seen that movie. Mary Sue! Wait, what? When the man is like, when she

goes to the shop where they do help her, he's like, Mary Beth, Mary Sue, help this woman. Help this woman. But do they speak i would imagine i think they do because they're having some sort of conflict in the store she's like go get me this shirt and then that's and she's like okay that's that would be a pass i'm gonna i'm gonna hope and pray that it's a our first double pass oh Yes. And then several of the passes are also Janine Garofalo telling Toby to fuck off.

They have a fun dynamic. A lot of the scenes do pass. A lot of the conversations do pass. And yeah, it's a hard yes. Yeah, absolutely. Let's rate the movie on our nipple scale. All right. Nipple scale.

Okay. Well, has the nipple scale changed now that we have this new cat fact oh my god oh yeah anywhere between four and ten nipples is the new scale or we could stick with the old one which is to rate the movie uh zero to five nipples based on its portrayal and representation of women um i'm gonna go with a three i think for this um because while it is you know it's a celebration of female friendship always love stories like that there is still a lot of like antagonism among different women in the story and you know the way that the movie handles queerness and race is not well and also there's that weird incest joke where she's like yeah you lost your virginity to your cousin oh yeah i wouldn't brag about that

yeah so it's like again like the very like 1997 based attempts at humor that are generally regressive, but the female friendship aspect of it and the fact that they, even though they're like feuding for a little while, feud a show that Alfred was snubbed for at the golden gloves last year. So they're feuding for part of the movie, but they're, you know,

their friendship is pure and beautiful um and i love it so three nipples and uh i will give them all to the unnamed orange cat who eats cake uh i'll go three on this one as well uh i i agree with what you're saying where there is definitely some dated dynamics between some of the female groups that i think could have it wouldn't have been that hard to resolve or at least subvert a little bit i feel like there's not really much subversion done with the high school dynamics where for sure it's one thing to present like popular girls not popular girls and then the way they interact with each other 10 years later could be telling or or reflect something about how people grow over time. But this movie doesn't really go for that.

And in fact, it ends on a joke making fun of a pregnant woman. So that's not great. I mean, yeah, 1997, it's a very white movie. Sometimes I couldn't tell Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow apart. I'm sorry. but it is confusing. But mediocre female representation needs to take hold in culture. That's the marker of true progress. When non-exceptional women can be in charge of a movie

and capture the hearts of millions without being punched down at all the time or made a mockery of i think that's great also back brace girls and that's you know i if you've read denie by judy bloom you'll know that seeing a back brace girl that's not Dini is critical and Alan Cumming is handsome so I include that in my representation of women's score uh three nippies and I'll give one to Romy one to Michelle and one to Alan five because I'm a stan. Yeah, it's problematic. Everything's problematic. It's 2019.

It's a beautiful movie. She does the which guy will I have sex with at the reunion. That's in a movie. It's amazing beautiful someone wrote it down and then they spent money shooting it lighting it sounding it i just i love that it's so girly and that they get to be so girly and unapologetically so like very also was anyone getting thelma and louise vibes when they're like driving through the desert in a convertible they've got scarves on their heads what an homage i love i was thinking recently i was like what if we try we went on youtube and we tried to do the thelma and louise challenge which is you just drive off a cliff with your

friend and that can't be real no it's i'm gonna make it happen that's how we're gonna kill the and tape it on your phone. What? No, it's I'm going to make it happen. That's how we're going to kill the Paul brothers. The Thelma and Louise Challenge. It's a good idea. Tell it to anyone you hate. I so hope that catches on. All right, well, Danielle,

thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Give it up for Danielle Perez perez where can people follow you online what would you like to plug follow me online at diva deluxe noe at the end on twitter and instagram and check out my show dates at the danielle perez.com hooray thanks to all of you for being here thanks to the ruby for having us and get home safe have a great night thanks for coming bye hey real quick yeah something we didn't mention during the live show but i think it is worth mentioning definitely is that mira sorvino who plays romey in the movie basically got blacklisted in hollywood

by harvey weinstein yeah for a while our king jk uh fuck him straight to hell some of the reading that i had done said that uh he sexually harassed her and uh then told peter jackson to not consider her for a role in lord of the rings awful terrible but i would you know i hate lord of the rings i know you do you're a sorvino so for me that works out but she did not deserve any of what she got um also she had worked with Woody Allen in a movie that earned her an Oscar. Yeah, shortly before. Shortly before Romy and Michelle. And then she later apologized to Dylan Farrow for having previously praised his work and for kind of ignoring Dylan Farrow and the things that she had been saying about Woody Allen. Yeah. Mira Sorvino tends to be on the right side of history

in every way so we tip our hat to her and yeah that just is worth the mention yep for sure thanks for listening and speaking of thanks we wanted to say thanks to the Ruby for having us as always to all of their staff

for all of their help to everyone who came to the thanks to the ruby for having us as always to all of their staff for all of their help for to everyone who came to the show to watch to sammy to sammy for recording for us friend of the cast friend of the cast and uh yeah and thanks to you listeners for doing just that listening oh you can find us uh on social media in all the regular places, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, et cetera, at Bechtelcast. Yarp. You can join our Patreon, aka Matreon. How do you do that?

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And then another thing you can do to support the show is to rate and review us on iTunes or wherever you listened to the podcast. Yes, please. And you can go to our merch store, tpublic.com slash the Bechdel cast and buy yourself a little feminist icon,-binary icon queer icon feminist icon alfred malina amongst other many designs yeah as always thank you for listening thanks for listening see you next time daphne caruana galicia 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.

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