The Bechdel Cast - Sister Act with Nithya Raman

Episode Date: February 6, 2020

Attention Los Angeles residents! And also everyone! Special guest and LA City Council District 4 candidate Nithya Raman joins us for a discussion about her platform and Sister Act! Check out NithyafortheCity.com! (This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @@nithyavraman on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The patriarchy's effin' vast. Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante. And you know the deal. This is our podcast about the portrayal of women in movies we use the bechdel test as a jumping off point to initiate a larger conversation about the treatment and representation yes jamie i have a question yes please uh what is the bechdel test oh i'm so glad you asked i was like three years later i'm like oh i don't understand it what if you said it and then i was like that's not fair that sounds unreasonable well okay wait what is it jamie

for just you for my reference yes uh it is a media metric created by cartoonist allison bechdel sometimes called the bechdel wallace test Sure. In which two female identifying characters with names must speak to each other about something other than a man. And by our metric, it has to be at least a two-line exchange of dialogue. Right. Think it'd be easy? Usually.

It's not. I mean, look at the Oscar nominees. Uh-oh. What if so? I hope someone like slides into our DMs and is like, Ford v. Ferrari, pass the Bechdel test, you Eve.

But... I didn't see it what if it did what if what if the cars identifies you know and they ram it each other boats do ships are boats are women canonically canonically but i don't know we'll see yeah if anyone knows if ford v ferrari passed the bechdel test what a wild ride that would be what ride yeah because cars because cars i know what cars are uh i'm really excited for both our guests and the movie we're covering today we've been getting this request since we started the show and we were just kind of just waiting for the for the for the right guests to come along yes so i'm very excited

yeah we're doing sister act we're doing sister act we're gonna deviate a little bit from the format because uh our guests we're gonna ask some questions and interview a little bit you gotta get to know her you gotta get to know her the best because she is an urban planner a community advocate she served as executive director of times up entertainment and currently she is running for Los Angeles City Council District 4. Where we are. The election for which. We are literally sitting in District 4 as we speak.

At this very moment, the election for which is on March 3rd, 2020. It's Nithya Raman. Hi. Hi. Welcome. Hi. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for being here.

We're also, just for our listeners, we're recording literally at Caitlin's house in District 4. Yes. Right now. I mostly came because i think both of you are constituents so yes one person one podcast one person it's a real grassroots movement so if you're an la listener and you live in that district perk your ears up extra but everyone just listen up okay yeah nithya we're so excited you're here yes we're so happy we're big fans yay likewise so um yeah i want to just start about uh by talking about what motivated you to run for city council what what you know made the decision to leave your day job and uh startigning? Well, it was not, it's definitely not something I've been thinking about my whole life. So it was a big decision for me. I also have two

little kids. I have four year old twins. They're very cute right now. After initial hard, hard period when they were infants. Yeah. But now they're, they're people now. They're people, they're adorable. They're so fun. And the campaign takes me away from them a lot. And I left a very good job, a very exciting job at Time's Up to come do this. But I'm running for two reasons. One is I was pretty angry about how the city was responding to the issue of homelessness and the broader housing crisis that homelessness is just one part of. And I started a homeless coalition in my neighborhood.

I worked at City Hall a few years ago and wrote a report about the city's response on homelessness. And my report at that time found that the city was already spending more than $100 million on homelessness, but that the majority of the money was actually going to putting homeless individuals in jail and then releasing them. A policy which is both incredibly cruel and ineffective, as you can see by the growth of homelessness in Los Angeles. Five years later, at that time, there were 23,000 people experiencing homelessness. Now there's almost 37,000 in the city of Los Angeles. So it's grown by 14,000 in five years, which is a staggering increase. And to me, you know, I left City Hall, I had twins, I left the workforce for a little while. But while I was at home, I helped start this homeless coalition in my neighborhood,

which actually serves Los Feliz as well. And it's called SILA. We started as a group of neighbors who are getting together doing volunteer outreach and getting to know people who lived on the Los Feliz. Silver Lake, Echo Park, a bunch of neighborhoods that were right near the river. There's a lot of encampments near the river. And these were all areas where there were no people experiencing homelessness living outdoors before at all. This was new. And so I think a group of people who were like, what do we do? You know, this is happening and we don't know what to do. We got together and started doing outreach. And we would go out and talk to people who were living in encampments, get to know them by name. We'd bring food and water. And we would try and learn from them, you know, more about them and their stories and how they ended up there, but also what was preventing them from getting back into stable housing. And as we learned about the situation that they experienced on the ground, what we realized was that the city had made it incredibly difficult once they were experiencing homelessness for them to actually get back into housing. So in that whole region, so we served an area stretching from

Los Feliz all the way to Cypress Park. So if you know LA, that's a huge area of the city. There was no walk-in shelter beds. There was not a single shower that they could go use. There was not really a bathroom where they were welcome. There was not a drop-in case manager. Like if you wanted help and you wanted to talk to somebody to get the help that you needed, whether it be case management work, whether it be mental health support, whether it be addiction counseling, whatever it is that you needed help with, it was not available

for you anywhere in this entire area. So I started looking at the system that we had created around homelessness. And I knew this from my work at City Hall, but it was made so much more real to me once I was looking at it from the perspective of someone who was actually experiencing homelessness, was that the system we set up in LA was not really designed to help people. It was designed basically by people who don't care about this issue. Right. And I just thought, here I am. I have a full-time job. I have two little kids.

And all these other volunteers who are running the SELA program also do. And we kept asking the city for a drop-in center with a shower and a hot meal and access to case management for the area. They ignored us. They wouldn't even meet with us. Our council members wouldn't even really meet with us. Finally, we did it ourselves. We raised money. We applied for grants. We held a fundraiser. And we started operating a one-day-a-week drop-in center, which has now grown to four sites. That's amazing. Yeah, in Silver Lake. And I just started thinking if the people who were in power

felt any amount of the sense of urgency that I do and that all of these other volunteers did around this issue, I think we would just be facing a very different situation in Los Angeles. So that's when I started thinking about running. And I'm trained as an urban planner. I've thought about cities and I've worked on cities for pretty much my entire career except for my time at Time's Up. So and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

And then the second reason is actually that I wanted to run was because this election is actually an incredible opportunity. Like we have a chance right now to invite a lot more people into the municipal election, which has historically had very, very low participation rates in Los Angeles. Now it's going to coincide with the federal elections for the first time. So it's on Super Tuesday. Yeah. And I'm sure everyone's planning to vote on Super Tuesday. Yeah. So we have an opportunity to invite a lot more people into the municipal political process to say, like, when you're going out there and voting for whoever you want to vote for, you should care about this and you can transform what you see around you

like what you look what you see on the streets in la what you see here right now if this is not acceptable to you and i know it's not to most people right our message to them is you have a moment right now to completely transform it that's so exciting yay we're we're very very very grateful you're running because truly like every like um i mean you can you can check out nithya's website nithyaforthecity.com for all of your policies in detail but it just it seems like it just stands to improve literally i mean everyone's life in district four so we're very excited about it yes um i think something that our listeners are always trying to figure out um how to do is is um do you have any I guess, advice for the average citizen who's just trying to be more involved and be more engaged in local issues especially?

I think that, yeah, like you were saying, I mean, Super Tuesday is such a huge opportunity for awareness. What can the average person do to be engaged? Specifically in L.A. or anywhere? I mean, let's go for L. What can the average person do to be engaged? Specifically in LA or anywhere? I mean, let's go for LA. Well, I think, yeah, I would just dig into a little bit more this idea that part of the reason why we have an LA that feels right now incredibly hostile to lower income residents, whether it be looking through how we serve our homeless residents or whether it be looking at how we're dealing with a massive increase in rental prices that has far outpaced incomes. Like our city can do a lot to help tenants. Our city can do a lot to help people who are on the verge of becoming homeless. And over and over again, they have looked away from those powers and responsibilities.

And I feel like, I think if you're somebody who's living in LA particularly, I think it's really important to understand what powers our local officials have, whether it be at the council or whether it be at the supervisors, and get involved in those races and make sure that we're voting in candidates whose values you believe in and trust. Because right now we have a political system in Los Angeles that's really ossified. You know, it is it's like like I've been interacting with it now and it feels like you're up against some it's like whenever I deal with any aspect of the traditional system, it feels like I've gone back in time to three decades. Oh, it's like whenever i deal with any aspect of the traditional system it feels like i

have gone back in time to three decades oh it's so terrifying it's like all men like there's only two elected representatives out of uh 18 total electives at city hall so 15 council members and city attorney mayor and a city controller so only two out of those out of that 18 are women it's just like very clubby culture where everybody knows each other but just a little bit of engagement from residents could completely transform that and it has so in recent weeks and months we've seen both at the city and the county that advocacy by either homelessness advocates who want to see a reduction in punitive responses to homelessness and push for a more compassionate response have shown up at City Hall and protested

and changed policy. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, which is incredible. Yeah. And then at the county level, we've seen this huge criminal justice reform movement that has actually stopped the construction of a $3. billion dollar mental it was called a mental health jail I mean it was a mental health facility but it was really another big jail and now there have another measure on the ballot called measure R which everyone should

get informed about but in both of those situations we've seen that involvement engagement by residents can change things and it doesn't take much you know so if you can show up to like one one get on a mailing list show up to one protest yeah you know and just having those numbers invite a couple of friends to it and then go to brunch afterwards yeah make a day of it yeah yeah exactly you know so so even little things like i i love doing service like i love the idea of and we invite lots of volunteers in the coalition that I started here in Silver Lake and Los Feliz to come in and make food or to, you know, set up that whole shower program that we do weekly. And that's a great opportunity. But if you want to change the systems that result in us having to do that kind of volunteer work week after week,

then you have to go to city hall or you have to go to the board of supervisors and like show up and protest and make the change that's going to change the system. So that's what I would say to people who are getting involved is like get informed and get involved in advocacy because that can transform the city. Absolutely. Okay, cool. Thank you so much. I feel like I'm talking for way too long. We are asking you questions. That's how that works. You should have a sign or something where you're like, you know, just like scratch your nose when you're like, no, this is, you've gone on too long. We're also, I mean, just because of what our show is about, we're, we're curious about your time with Time's Up and what, what was that

experience like and what coming from City Hall to being a stay-at-home mom to going to Time's Up and what was that experience like and what coming from City Hall to being a stay-at-home mom to going to Time's Up, what sort of brought you there? What brought me there was not particularly exciting. I just, somebody sent me the job listing and I applied. But I think they wanted me because, I'm guessing, I don't have a lot of insight, but I think they were excited about the fact that I had taken advocacy and transformed it into either concrete programs or concrete policy changes in the past. And I think they were hoping that I could do something similar there, which I'm very proud to say that we did so in the in the year a little more than a year that I was the ed we put together this incredible mentorship program for the executive and producer pipeline um yeah and we actually took the money for that came out of less moon versus settlement which I was like yeah love that knife twist yeah that's so great so we had an opportunity to apply for that money so I

was like we have this amazing program already in. I applied for that funding and we were able to set it up and it was incredible. We have an incredible group of people who are associated with it, but it essentially supports people who don't necessarily have the industry connections as who are assistants or junior executives in that pipeline. Sure. And gives them this incredible network and an intensive mentorship relationship to help them move ahead. And it was a really cool program. And it's also, it has a very unique thing, which I think is relevant in the context of this pay up Hollywood, you know, this movement to talk about how little, so we had a $10,000 stipend in that program that would be given to anyone who was selected for it. Because we knew that if you came in and you were getting paid minimum wage or whatever these, you know, agencies or production companies pay you, you wouldn't necessarily have the money to go out and have drinks.

Which is where you like make the relationships that get you, you know. So I think it was a program that was designed really well, but also really acknowledged the realities of Hollywood and what it takes to get ahead in the industry. Yeah, absolutely. And we had a couple of other, we just released these resources for performers on sets, telling you exactly what your rights are when you go out and do an audition. That's amazing.

Yeah, and we compiled all these resources from different places and I kick-started that project and it was released after I left but it was very very important to me that people who are new to the industry knew not just what their rights were but where they could turn if they needed help yeah so we did that um but I would say my broader experience of being at Time's Up was really fascinating because as a relative outsider to the entertainment industry and someone who had come from an advocacy non-profit background I was and I don't know whether your experience are you're both like in the you consider yourselves in the industry right yes

yeah well I maybe I mean I would be curious about your experience but I felt like the industry's really conservative I mean I think yeah it feels like a vested interest in like making it not look that way but then once you actually start to talk to people you're like oh this is actually very fucked up interesting okay cool yeah yeah and I think like the time's up moment and movement and the me too activism and a lot of organizing that's now happened, not related to Time's Up necessarily, although some of it did happen under the Time's Up umbrella around like women of color coming together or different groups that have kind of been ignored or left out in some ways.

I feel like that is pushing for some changes, but I was kind of surprised at how conservative the industry was and how a lot of it I think is related to the way in which you get a job so you tolerate abuse because if you speak out well not just sexual misconduct but any like just like somebody yelling at you or throwing stuff or whatever aggressively long working hours or whatever it is because your next job depends on this person's referral yes right and that's that's basically like you're a freelancer but you're in a union if you're lucky. Yeah, if you're lucky. But, and in a fairly small industry where everybody knows each other and that's just

a recipe for, I think, really bad, can be a recipe for really bad working conditions. So I was really excited to be in a position where we were bringing workers together and talking about workers' rights. You know, and I think sometimes entertainment industry people didn't think about themselves as workers and didn't think about themselves as having workers rights because that's like a different absolutely you know and so it's like exciting to be like hey you're a writer but that's work yeah that's work and you deserve to be treated in a particular way so it was it was cool it was a really exciting moment in yeah

history I guess like exciting to be a part of it and play some small role in it. Of course. That's so amazing. Yeah. Is there anything else you'd like for us to touch on before we start talking Sister Act? I guess I would just say to the residents of Los Angeles, you look around, you see a city that I think is really struggling. We have a massive homelessness crisis. We have rising rents. We have bad air. We have unsafe streets. And I could go on and on and on. But all of these things are solvable. And all of these things are completely surmountable if we have the right people in office. And I'm here to tell you that you deserve better. Yes. Oh, and I feel like that

probably applies to most cities yeah like it's not this is not an la specific thing so if you don't live in la get informed god damn deserve better too yes i can't wait to vote for you so thank you for we're really happy that you're here um oh and i had one i had one fun question okay which is okay so you have two young kids at home yeah um what is something that you like? Cause we're always trying to like our whole show is just basically like the media that, uh, messed with our brains as children and talking about it now. Is there something that you can watch with your kids that you're like, I feel good about this. So my kids actually only have watched with any desire two things one is daniel tiger yes which is the cartoon

derived from mr rogers neighborhood okay it is so simplistic and it's so sweet and lovely and it's so boring but i can't i can't have you seen it yeah yeah i'm like babysat kids watching daniel tiger i'm like well nothing you know it yeah yeah I'm like babysat kids watching Daniel Tiger and like well nothing you know it's nothing bad is happening but what is happening right um and the only other thing that they watch and I have a boy and a girl boy and girl twins and um the only other thing that they watch is Frozen oh all right I mean that's we've covered that we have you know it does pretty well sisterhood you'll love to see it I mean uh so I mean, we've covered that. We have. You know what? It does pretty well, Sisterhood. You'll love to see it. So, I mean, we're always just looking to, because we're like, we don't know what to recommend to parents who listen to the show.

So if you haven't heard of Daniel Tiger or Frozen. Now's the time. To the two humans. In America who haven't heard of Frozen. you gotta check it out uh people can't can't stop talking about it right i haven't did you see this i didn't see the second one i did see the second one the second one alfred melina voices a character i know my king there's there's an interesting conversation to be had about that movie as well maybe we'll get to it someday all right great in the meantime listen to our frozen about that movie as well. Maybe we'll get to it someday. All right, great.

In the meantime, listen to our Frozen 1 episode. Yeah, I'll actually, I'll download. I didn't know you had done Frozen 1. I'll download that and listen to it. But now let's pivot into the rest of the show. We're talking about Sister Acts. That's right. Before we do, let's take a quick break first and then we'll be right back.

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And we're back. Okay, so we're talking Sister Act. It's a movie. It can't. What? What's a movie, Jamie? Now, hold on. Now, hold on.

Bear with me. Today, we're talking about a movie, baby. A movie? We are talking about a feature-length film. It came out in 1992. It stars Whoopi Goldberg. It's called Sister Act. N nithya what is your experience with this movie when did you first see it your relationship yes oh shoot i i don't even i've

seen it so many times yeah i was re-watched it before coming here today and i realized i knew lines i knew you know like i have watched you know I've just it's been so much a part of like rerun yeah yeah go home on the couch oh sister acts on I'm gonna watch it again I'm like if you if anyone has ever just like had tbs you've seen this movie like there there were certain moments where I had like I have a similar experience with it where I really liked it when I was a kid and then just like as I got older I just would like see it every once in a while. Till like some point in the movies, I'm like, oh, that's a commercial break. You know, like that kind of movie that's on TV all the time.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I'd never watched it with like any critical lens before. I just was like, I like it. And I was so pleasantly surprised watching it with a critical lens. There's so much to love about this movie. Oh my gosh.

It's a romp. It's a romp. Oh baby. 10 out of 10 on the Caitlin romp-o-meter. What's your history with the movie, Caitlin? I had seen it, I believe, once when it came out at a drive-in movie theater. I would have been about six. Oh, that sounds like such a fun way to see this movie.

But because I was, well, here's the thing. I was young and rambunctious. And because we were in the confines of a car and not like in a theater where we had to respect other people's, you know, time and attention. I don't think I paid any attention to the movie. Oh, whoops. Whoopsies. So I felt like I hadn't really seen this movie for the first time until about a year ago and I was like I haven't seen sis I've seen doubt that other non-movie there's the yeah the sister

movie it's a sister act is doubt there was I have a whole thing because I like maybe unfortunately doubt is for some reason one of my favorite movies oh it's so depressing that is the right reaction yeah that is correct i really i don't like i came out when i was 15 and i saw it in theaters twice why couldn't tell you um but there were a lot of them like oh this is just like doubt without all the problems yeah it really is right you've got your merrill character you've got your amy adams character thankfully you don't have your philip seymour hoffman character right and that's the makings of a fun movie true so yeah i had only seen this movie really for the first time until like about a year ago um because i was like i can't have i never seen so do i know what is

sister act so uh i watched it and i was like what a fun movie i like i didn't realize that was the story i thought that like whoopi goldberg was already a nun i didn't realize that she was like what a fun movie i like i didn't realize that was the story i thought that like whoopi goldberg was already a nun i didn't realize that she was like in hiding as a nun so i was like oh what fun i do i do always forget that there is a murder right there's a brutal murder and then like two seconds later the music gets very silly yes yes like they're like oh she's got to get out of there it's like do do do do do do right the 90s were wild yeah um okay so should i do the recap and we'll go from there yeah okay so um we first see dolores van cartier that's of course whoopi goldberg as a kid in catholic school she's not

taking it seriously uh we cut to her as an adult then she's a lounge singer in Reno Nevada ever heard of it sort of I hadn't really seen I'm like this movie made me want to go to Reno I've never been um I've seen a lot of seasons of Reno 911 and that makes me not want to go to Reno I would agree yeah yeah isn't that where you go to get like an old-timey divorce or something that used to be like the hot spot for like a quickie divorce yeah you could have to go anywhere in nevada oh okay right i think so i think that like that was i feel like i've i don't know i think that's the movie the women they go to reno i think yes they do that movie is so weird yeah we we have to do it someday anyway yeah if you

want to get married very quickly or divorce very quickly go to nevada that's the place anyway so that's where she's based and she is together with uh vince larocca that's harvey kytel's character playing to type in but he every way right yeah um he has a his wife he's he's married to someone else yeah and doesn't want to leave her for dolores so she's like screw it i'm leaving you and I'm getting out of here. But right when she goes to tell him that she's leaving, she witnesses him and his goons murdering another goon of his. So not wanting any witnesses to his crimes, Vince sends his goons after Dolores to kill her. And then the fun music starts playing. She's like, oh, no oh no yeah she gets out she

gets away she goes to the police and they're like wait you're with vince larocca he's this big organized crime guy and we're trying to put him away so if you're willing to testify we can do that in the meantime we have to put you in witness protection until this court date right so you gotta do the movie there's gotta be a movie yeah so lieutenant souther puts her in a convent in san francisco and she has to pretend to be a nun and the hijinks ensue baby um reverend mother boy do they they're so good reverend mother played by maggie smith uh she's the only one who knows who dolores really is and everyone else in the convent thinks that she is a nun named sister mary clarence she's basically meryl in doubt for all my doubt heads out there maggie smith

maggie smith yes she's the sister aloysius she's your oh yes that's i see i couldn't have remembered that and it's allegedly my favorite movie so she meets the other nuns including mary patrick uh who is kathy najimy yes she's very cheerful and then there's a young nun who is dressed differently and i don't know enough about catholicism to know why i don't know either but she is a sister mary robert she's a junior nun yeah it's like when you're like a brownie and then like a junior like a daisy and then a brownie and then a people who grew up catholic are like shut up it's just like the girl scouts it's basically the catholic church operates uh just like um horrible the girl scouts

and then we see them in like the church service the nuns are singing in a choir they're really bad no one's attending the services reverend mother doesn't want any of the nuns going outside because it's a dangerous neighborhood i guess or she she thinks it is um and then dolores is trying to adjust to all of this but she's not good at being a nun no she was born to stand out meanwhile vince realizes that lieutenant souther must have dolores so he puts out like a hit on her for a lot of money so now a bunch of like sleazy bad guys are out looking for her right and then there's a rat in the police department someone is leaking info to the bad guys this is all like plot that you're just like i guess i just mostly want to see the

nuns but yeah i guess there's got to be a climax to the movie yeah and then back at the convent reverend mother is like hey dolores since you have a background in music, you're going to join the choir. And she does. She made that sound like a punishment, but I'm like, that sounds like the best part of being a nun. Right. And she helps the nuns become better singers. She kind of helps update the music choices. She's mixing genres.

Yes. choices she's mixing genres yes she's giving i love that like long scene where she's like coaching them and they're listening and she's oh it's so good and then because their music is so exciting now it's bringing people into the church right people are actually the butts are filling the seats there's very like moments where you know like in a movie where they're like young people enter and they're dressed in a very like young person way there's a lot of young people enter moments and the and the reverend's like oh young people are entering welcome have a seat youngs i was like oh man it's like i don't know what the costume design situation was but i'm like oh definitely a young person palette going on here. What was also weird was that I feel like style has come back around so that when the young people entered, I was like, I want that.

Yeah. Right. And so this movie takes place in San Francisco. I spent a lot of time being like, where are they? I don't like we were just my boyfriend. I were just like, they could be. Um, I don't know. I didn't guess San Francisco. And then at some point they said it yeah yeah i think there was a shot of the golden

gate bridge yeah and so that was like the only indicator yeah right and it's also at this time that they're going out into san francisco into the neighborhood and their help trying to turn it around there's a porn store and they're like don't go in here and then then the pope hears about how good the choir is and he's like i'm gonna come see a concert because popes are good they're good and yes yeah right they're fine they're fine fine they're fine great judges of music oh yeah for sure yeah i was like this is a this is a happening pope right but it's also at this time when lieutenant souther is like hey we got you your court date dolores you don't have to really be in the convent anymore but then it's also at this point where vince finds out where dolores is

and because of the mole because of the mole right and then you're like right the mole it pays off i was so shocked i forgot yeah so vince sends his goons to kidnap dolores and bring her back to reno and then the nuns find out that dolores isn't actually a nun so then they charter a helicopter to fly to Reno to help save her. And then there's this whole big chase scene. Dolores punches the goons in the nuts, escapes. More hijinks, more hijinks. More hijinks, more silly music. And then finally the cops stop the bad guys and arrest them. And then the nuns go back to San Franciscoisco to do their concert for the pope and he loves it

he gives them a standing ovation so good and then at the end i forgot at the end there's like that freeze frame and then it switches to a people magazine and it's like guess what like witness protection none or whatever it says but i was like what a silly fun way to end a silly fun movie. Yep. So yeah, that's the story. That's the story. Where should we start? I just wanted to start with a fun fact that I learned.

Yes. Which is the actor who plays Pope John Paul II in this movie. I was like, oh, who is this? I've never heard of this person. Apparently his entire career was playing Pope john paul ii in various things he's credited on like 20 things and it's all his pope john paul ii he was pope john paul ii on alf he was he was on ali mcbeal as the pope he was on murphy brown as the pope he was on golden girls as the pope he was on everything yeah but is he in the two popes he was no he's dead oh so

so they had to get anthony hopkin i have no idea yeah they called maybe he was like a pope impersonator that was his job and then someone just saw him and was like oh you should just play the pope where we just have you standing not saying anything and by all accounts the pope thought he did a great job they're like he like, that's a good representation of me, the Pope. So that's, well, that's, I guess that's all I have to say. Thank you so much. For me, I thought this movie held up quite well. I think it has a lot to do with it only being rated PG.

So there's not a lot of like, because a lot of the movies that end up being especially comedies that end up being wildly problematic and toxic is because they have freer reign to make you know just racist jokes and homophobic jokes and because they're you know r-rated and stuff like that i don't know if that's the only reason why it holds up very well but i'm like oh you know this is a movie for like kids and families and yeah i've watched it more than once with my mom yeah oh yeah it's such a pure love it whenever it's on tv both sister act is on there truly is something for everyone in this movie everybody uh it directed by oh i want to get his name right emile artolino who also directed

dirty dancing okay was his other big so he's this guy's just churning out classics yeah wow it was also uh i i was watching it i was almost i waited to do the research until i just wanted to like have fun watching it and i was like this movie is so good that i think it may have even been written by a woman uh but it wasn't it was uh written by a man who did a good job yes imagine that but then I also read that it went through a few different rewrites yes some of the screenwriters who were brought on Carrie Fisher was Carrie Fisher and Nancy Meyers yeah so which is yeah Carrie Fisher has punched up some of the some of the best movies uh that you'd never think she was involved in it's true she's the coolest yeah but yeah i mean this movie largely is just about it's very

female driven the men are either uh the pope the priest who's in a couple scenes and then the bad guys uh but aside from that it's like just a very female driven story you know whoopi goldberg is the lead is i feel like she's at her peak here yes she's the peak of her whoopi goldberg like powers and i loved that i remember i look you know i was watching it and i remember seeing her in the movie and she's this you know sexual being you know who's the love interest for harvey kytel and i remember being really excited that there was a i don't know like just i was like oh excited you know i'm dark skinned and just to see her as this like very attractive yeah you know and i don't know it was great yeah it was like really exciting to see that when i was young and totally yeah and it was an

audience it was not directed just towards black audiences i mean it was for everybody and you know and that and that was exciting for me i remember that that's great yeah yeah and those things are hot there's a hot yeah yeah and i also read that this was originally written for bett midler who you know that it would have been a fine it would would have been a good movie, I'm sure, still. But, like, Whoopi kills it. She kills it. Yeah. She absolutely kills it. It's so good.

And what you said, Nathia, it goes to show, like, why casting diverse casts is important for representation. Yeah. Yeah. This is like, you know, when did Friends start airing? Oh, 90s? Mid-90s? Yeah. Oh, so later but still you know like i think it took friends how many seasons to have a oh my gosh yeah with like a black love interest so long yeah

yeah it's i mean it's like yeah whoopi's the impact of whoopi could i mean we could go on for days she's amazing she's like done like such good advocacy over the years too and but just like yeah just by like being herself and owning this role and like being sexual being capable being like just like strong-willed and and especially in this movie that's built around sisterhood is like so cool and impactful and yeah i was really excited that they didn't have a romantic moment between the police officer and her yeah it seemed like there were a few moments where i'm like oh are they gonna do it i was relieved though yeah they were just mutually respectful yeah right it would have been like pretty inappropriate had they gotten together it would have blown the case right first of all yes exactly that's a great point

it would have been a real problem for prosecuting harvey kytel to offer a bit of criticism about not necessarily the movie but his character he sort of does blow it when he's like there's a scene where like harvey kytel and his goons are like walking around. And then Lieutenant Souther is like, hey, you're going down. I got you. You know, something's going on. Something happened and I'm going to get you. And why would he be so confident if he didn't have Dolores and his like protections?

And that's what gets Harvey Keitel to be like, oh, he must have Dolores. We have to go kill her so it's just like his like male ego was just it it's part of why whoopi was in even more danger god damn it souther souther you should have played it cool get his ego under control i but did you i mean i thought his character was yeah really cool and in his defense he's so yeah where it's like i feel like they were almost and i'm like maybe this is just like speaking to how a lot of movies like how we've been like like unconsciously trained to interpret movies but i thought that he was going to be positioned as a love interest strictly because he was nice to her which i'm like that doesn't bode well for how movies are written because he was just like nice to her which I'm like that doesn't bode well for how movies are written because he was

just like nice to her like he was sympathetic to her situation like there were some moments where he's like well deal with it but in general like he came to her show when he was like hey probably don't do this she's like okay but are you gonna come he's like yeah it looks pretty cool like he just seemed like a supportive kind person and so yeah when I kept thinking I'm like oh I think he's good to be the love interest I'm like I think I just think that because when men are kind to women especially in movies of this time you're kind of trained to think that they're gonna want something out of it right I guess and it's just such a common like studio note to be like wait there's not a hetero romance in this

movie well then what are we even doing? Put it in there. I hope. And that also, I mean, we can't say this for sure, but I just know that like historically, Whoopi Goldberg has always had a lot of say on like what goes into her starring vehicles and what doesn't. So she also has a lot of, you know, power where you have to imagine that suggestion was made. And then, I mean, it didn't fit into the story. You didn't need it.

And also, she's got to stay a nun, right? She's celibate now. Great point. Yeah, right. So Southey doesn't stand a chance against God. Maybe that's the love story there. Right, she does get married to Jesus, so there's still a hetero romance in this movie.

Of sorts, yes. Great points. We're going to take another quick break, but then we'll come right back. 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 the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into

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

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

And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. MTV's official challenge podcast is back for another season. That's right. The challenge is about to embark on its monumental 40th season, y'all. And we are coming along for the ride. Woohoo. That would be me, Devin Simone. And then there's me, Davon Rogers. And we're here to take you behind the scenes of, drum roll please. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The Challenge 40 Battle of the Eras. Yes. Each week, cast members will be joining us to spill all of the tea on the relentless challenges,

heartbreaking eliminations, and of course, all the juicy drama. And let's not forget about the hookups. Anyway, regardless of what era you're rooting for at home, everyone is welcome here on mtv's official challenge podcast so join us every week as we break down episodes of the challenge 40 battle of the eras listen to mtv's official challenge podcast on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back um something i wanted to touch on is so we do often see in a lot of movies, women being kidnapped, damseled, fridged, things like that. There is a kidnapping in this movie, but normally the movies

we tend to see, and especially, you know, action and superhero movies, when a woman is kidnapped, it's to raise the stakes for the male hero and then he has to go and rescue her and to like be more heroic in this movie two women are kidnapped um and whoopie saves them both yeah at first she saves uh she helps mary robert escape and get away and then dolores gets away on her own yeah um i'm impressed that you can keep all the names of the nuns great because i just i mean that's only because i just watched it yeah you watched it already like who is mary robert is she's the young one she's the yeah bangs exactly where is the spin-off um bangs none we already have what is it what is the cool pope what's that show

oh there was the young pope and now it's called now there's a spin-off called i think it's like the new pope give the people bangs none we need bangs none yes none none representation has been down since the 90s it's true except for doubt except for doubt right let's not that's doubt erasure that was embarrassing how dare you um but yeah it that that whole sequence is again you're sort of like knowing the time it came out you're like oh no is that you know is it i like you half expect souther to you know burst in or just based on what you've seen before but and i feel like it because it like is still a testament to like whoopi Goldberg, where you just always get the feeling whenever you see her on screen that she is going to be able to save herself. Like she and and that scene where she is able to like get Mary Robert to tumble out of the car and not die. And not die.

That could have ended very badly. Well, she did it when they slowed yes true they were approaching a stop sign and she said okay go save yourself i'll take care of yeah this is not your problem right i'm like oh she's maybe she's done this before reno seems wild right uh but she's able to like save her friend and then yeah and then save herself like it it that's that's how yeah you know it's cool there is the moment at the very end when uh harvey kytel is about to shoot her and then um souther comes in and shoots him instead so technically that's a bit of a rescue but because we've already seen

whoopi get away on her own twice now already at the very beginning and then again at the end it didn't feel like oh she's like constantly being damsel or saved by a man and also like that's his job as a police officer to like yeah it's also like the first time we've seen like it was like we got to see Souther succeed at some point because he's just been accidentally selling her out the entire movie by being a good friend yeah um yeah another thing I think is worth talking about is a big component of this movie is like female relationships and female friendships that develop. Um, there are some relationships between women where there is some tension, which we're always like careful to analyze and see, okay, well, is it warranted or is there any context for because yeah it's like sometimes we'll see i think like a kind of modern trend that we'll sometimes see is like a female like movies full of female relationships where there's never been a problem and you're like well this doesn't feel real either

what i really liked about this movie is that with these female relationships you are generally getting enough context on the character to understand where the, cause it's like that the relationship between Maggie Smith and Whoopi Goldberg could have been so like reductive and basic and like, this nun is mean, this nun is fun. Right. Um, but with,

even with Maggie Smith's character, you get a con like that scene towards the end where she explains where she's coming from. And like, she has these insecurities about being obsolete and not belonging and you're just like oh you know you get the in to her character and i feel like you kind of get the same for dolores for the most part too for sure it's so nice and all the other nuns are so nice to her just immediately love her they love her they welcome her they follow her out

to the bar across the street there i was like god these nuns are so desperate to do something because the second they were like wait where's she going we should go yeah probably let's go to this biker bar i did have one question is maggie smith a british actress yes yes okay but i it's it's funny because in a lot of movies I feel like with nuns, I haven't seen probably as many as you two well I haven't seen Doubt you know that's fine I feel like nuns

often have British accents for some reason but maybe it was just because it was both Maggie Smith and the priest who was involved he was Irish the two heads of the church were not american right but they were in san francisco and no effort was really made to be like why are they here i do think that there's sometimes this like doofus brain thing in american

culture where they're like okay how do we make this character sound authoritative let's just hire someone british like probably like they're they should have hired alfred molina we should that's true there i mean that we're okay in addition to bangs none we need a show this sounds like a show that would exist american none you put american before anything it probably exists already or good good how many shows the good place the good doctor the good wife we need the good nun i want the bad nun um that also bad teacher oh yeah i guess bad also bad there's other bads right or is it just there's gotta be or like the something girl bad boys and but then there's also a movie called good boys there's a movie oh i forgot i just came out. Yeah. What is going on? People.

There's also the blank girl. There's so many the blank girl. The new girl. The Danish girl. Others. Amongst other titles. See that great point that just happened. But yeah, Nydia, like you were saying, the relationship among the nuns is so like there is sometimes conflict but for the most part they're all rooting for each other and you get that

relationship with bangs nun and and dolores where she brings that cute little daisy clock you're like oh she's so weird so weird she's so weird she looks like she's in her 20s but maybe she's so weird. So weird. She's so weird. She looks like she's in her 20s, but maybe she's actually 14. She could be 14 or 40 and you're like, I wouldn't be surprised. When she brought the clock was when I was like, who is it? Yeah. I thought that Dolores was very patient with her. Because I was like, if an adult woman brings you a daisy, how do you react? I read this whole article and I oh i should i should pull it

up because i don't remember what it was called or the source so you know really good journalism but it's shipping dolores and mary robert and how they have a lesbian relationship and it's like a coded lesbian relationship throughout the movie um some convincing points were made listen i'm i'm down yeah i'm down and she and she saves mary robert and then mary robert runs back to the comet and she's like dolores is my best friend we have to go to reno and everyone is like yes there's like no discussion i love that scene where they catholic guilt the helicopter pilot so good so funny it's also funny to me i felt like the level of religiosity and the fact that people wouldn't shoot a nun the fact that like a helicopter pilot would be

unable to resist the i know the advances of nuns guilting him like it was so taken for granted do you think if that was a plot twist now that everyone would be like yes that works i don't know yeah i'm like i feel like if i was faced with an aggressive nun i would probably do what she said but i wouldn't i mean i yeah i agree i feel like this movie i mean first of all is a great propaganda film for the catholic church makes it look like a blast i mean it is a blast there are no problems i mean i've never seen one there i mean just like bury your spotlight dvd or whatever um but but yeah it comes out with yeah like the assumption that the entire city of san francisco is catholic and suffering from deep catholic guilt and they will they will die for a nun at the drop of the hat which is i don't know i mean there there are some and none of them particularly

like i don't think they're really like quote-unquote problematic i just think that they do feel very of their time like assuming that everyone is religious and easily manipulated by religious figures the kind of worlds with no race that this movie is written in that i feel like is kind of a hallmark of the 90s where it's just basically any character in this movie could be played by anyone of any race and that topic is just kind of just not addressed in this particular movie. Although I will say that one of the things about Maggie Smith's character, she's like, the nuns aren't allowed to go outside. It's too dangerous.

And then when you finally get shot to the neighborhood, this quote dangerous neighborhood, it's predominantly black. So it's like, okay, well, Maggie Smith is racist. God damn it. Didn't pick up's Maggie Smith is racist. It's what we're saying. God damn it. Pick up on Maggie Smith is racist. Yeah. So yeah, that could have been avoided. Yes.

The other thing that I, I, my little, you know, ding went off. The word hooker gets repeated a couple times. Very nineties. Very nineties language. To be dispatching of sex workers. Other than that, yeah, there was, and then the then they like don't don't consume porn you know porn has a religious movie yes that like goes with the like very catholic because i feel like this was a movie that church groups could go to yeah and so but also like i grew up completely secular and i movies with religious components often don't appeal to me or you know i'm not drawn to them necessarily um but i felt like this movie was

also weirdly secular enough that i was like i can get on board with this this is fun i'm having a great time plus the great music the music is so good i will have to i have to say that when they were singing the first reproduced song reproduced under uh whoopi goldberg's production what a fun what a fun yeah and then they're doing the hymn and then they break into the more the clapping and the rhythmic portions and then people just start walking in off the streets the the the young the youngs. The youth. The youngs came in. But I will say at that moment, I don't know whether I'm particularly emotional right now or what, but I was like, oh, no. Music does unite all. It was, it was, oh, man, I was so ready to cry for that moment.

Because it's, yeah, you see the youth outside and they're like, what's that beautiful music? Oh, what's that? That's the church. I'm like, oh, I'm getting propagand getting propaganda and i love it i love it so much there was i mean i was like maybe i'll go back to church and then i was like no wait hold on um but it works man at the church where we do the the shower program in silver lake silver lake community church they have beautiful music it's like folk music and it's just gorgeous yeah i've taken my kids there a couple of times i mean we're not i wasn't raised christian we're not deeply you know

i don't practice any particular religion deeply right now but yeah it's just so beautiful and lovely to be in the presence of music with all these other people i mean i guess that's going to a concert but yeah but like it's i don't know but it's also spiritually you know it's connected to a higher yeah and their music is what brings the pope in he's like i've heard about your great choir come on down i really like that scene where where dolores you know where maggie smith is about to say you know we can't sing again just like the nuns are so game for whatever when there's like that vote where maggie smith's like should we do boring music or fun music and all the nuns are like fun music and maggie's like okay and then she like almost resigns because again she's like

feeling kind of inadequate and overruled but then it's like no i do i have to stay everyone has like a nice little arc you also have that relationship that I really like between Dolores and sister Mary Lazarus, who had been the head of the choir. She's the choir. And right at the very beginning of their interactions, she's like, I see what's happening.

You got brought in as a ringer. You're trying to replace me. But then when she sees that Whoopi is like, knows what she's doing she knows music she knows where to position the people she knows what notes or what notes and she's like oh i'm gonna step down you're clearly better at this um and there's i feel like that could have been in a lesser movie they would have tried to like pit those women against each other and just like had her be like no no this is my thing but she she like she's like no you

have the skills this is your background and then they become friends and they're friendly and they eat ice cream together i love when they eat ice cream that's that was a very nice scene there was some confusion around time for me in the movie oh interesting because you know they when we first see the church it's under construction they have all the scaffolding there and right you know and then the implication is that by increasing people who are coming into the church people are passing the hat and putting in more money right they're able to finish the repairs at the church but that would take a long it would take a long time how i guess it comes down to those montages of like, how much ground are we covering?

Because there was like a few long montages of like nuns doing various things. But the whole time that they were supposed to wait for the court date was two months. Yeah, most. Yeah, and then the lieutenant calls her and says, I got it, speed it up. Yeah.

So a month? In a month, they were able to increase attendance at the church enough to raise $10,000 or more to hire a contractor, finish the repairs enough so that the Pope could come in and be totally impressed. And win over the youth of all of San Francisco. They've saved them. I mean, Delora, she's a quick operator. And win over the youth of all of San Francisco. They've saved them. Yeah. I mean, Delora, she's a quick operator.

She really solved Catholicism. And in the beginning, it was also interesting because she was like a failed lounge singer. Right. And incredibly successful. Sometimes you just have to find your calling. Oh, that's the calling. Yeah, that's beautiful beautiful connection oh no i think i have more buried religious issues than i realized um yeah i i'm trying to think of

other i mean oh oh something i did want to bring up so we bring this up a lot on the show but usually um i wouldn't even say that this movie is marketed specifically at women i think that it's kind of a general movie whoopi goldberg is such a huge star at this time this movie is marketed specifically at women i think that it's kind of a general movie whoopi goldberg is such a huge star at this time this movie was hugely successful um it had a 31 million dollar budget and it made 231 million dollars at the box office so like the movie was it seems like everyone was seeing it but we do find especially when the film critic pool was less diverse that movies that are directed at general audiences and then usually specifically women or people who are not whatever the white male critic don't get as good a review somehow this movie only has 72 percent on Rotten

Tomatoes which hurts my feelings I'm like how does it not have a hundred percent? And we have, I have, I found a quote from our noted enemy, Roger Ebert, who always has the dumbest takes in spite of being the most famous film critic of all time. Here's what he had to say about his direct. I found to be very confusing. He said, this movie is a little bit low key and contemplative and a little too thoughtful, which I didn't like. I was like, what? He didn't like i was like what he didn't like that the movie was thinking about things it's like no hold on there's a point to all this

so that's you know so don't with the point being don't always trust rotten tomatoes some of the old guys weighing in or but i would even take issue with the characterization of the movie as too thoughtful right like it's a romp it's just immediate music it's a it's a musical yeah right with with multiple musical montages right all of which rule i don't know roger here i don't i don't know what was going on with him but he was not he didn't seem to be he didn't like fun he seemed to not like fun every you get the vibe from all of his reviews of like why wasn't this taxi driver i'm like if it's not taxi driver two stars like um now and then wasn't exactly like stand by me because there's girls instead stand by me for girls zero stars um so anyways just another reflection on the state of film criticism at

this time yes yes uh did you have any other stuff that's kind of it i have surprisingly i really don't have too much of a bad word to say about this movie I know I have to say that I'm so grateful that as part of my campaign duties I had to re-watch Sister Act it should be a job qualification for everyone

it was such a pleasure because there's so much to do right now but I was like whoa whoa whoa I will set aside time i for sister act i need to watch this don't disturb me i'm re-watching sister act yeah sometimes my mom will call me and i'm like uh sorry i i've got too much work to do right now i have to go watch the social network um i understand why my parents don't think this is a real job. I get it.

I get it. I get it. But I'm a worker. Yes. And you have rights. I have rights. We need a podcast union. We need to unionize.

Honestly, we should. Does this movie pass the Vectel test? Tons. I think almost more than any movie we've ever covered. There's whole scenes that pass the Bechdel test. I believe that the scene where Sister Mary Robert brings in the weird daisy, besides mentioning her brother one time, that entire scene passes the Bechdel test, which is like virtually unheard of.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I was like so besides the pope do the nuns even talk about another man I mean the pope or god or Jesus yeah but yeah most of the male characters are unseen because they're Jesus and god so I do like how okay so there's one scene there's a few scenes where the priest is present yes i do like how kind of generally sidelined he is but there is that one scene where like and i don't necessarily know entirely how to feel about this but there's a scene between um the reverend mother or mother reverend i don't know

maggie smith maggie smith and dolores and um she's yelling at dolores for this is pop music this is secular music uh and then the priest comes in he's like no i'm going to undermine your authority here and be like hey but he was on dolores's side i thought that he just like for me kind of was on board with the nun hive mind of like we love whoopi goldberg we'll do whatever she says that's true so in that i mean i see what you're saying yeah but i was like they should be singing fun music yeah or why am i watching um but yes uh yeah big uh many passes many passes between many combinations of characters uh yeah yeah usually if there's two women on screen talking to each other it'll pass the bechdel test at some point in the cartoon. And that's most of the scenes of the movie.

So this movie is truly, it's the one feminist text. We've found it. Distract is our feminist text. I love it. I was so happy. I mean, it's got sister in the title. What do you expect? I'm so excited that we covered this movie today.

It really made me so happy. Let's rate it. Yes, rate it on our nipple scale. We have a scale of zero to five nipples in which we rate it based on its representation and treatment of women. I'm going to go with a solid like four and a half. Yeah. There's just a few of those little like 90s jokes and like, you know, uses of certain words and you know like black neighborhood equals dangerous neighborhood but it was far less problematic than i would have expected of a movie from the early 90s you go in 1992 it's about you did it it's a movie about

a woman being accepted into this sisterhood and and even though she's like at the beginning she's like i don't like this all the nuns are still like but you're so great and you're so good at being a nun and we like you so much everyone in this movie is so accepting of each other so quick very supportive yeah and the one female relationship where there is tension is contextualized and like everyone comes around by the end so yeah it's just it's a beautiful story about sisterhood and we need more of them so i would give this four and a half nipples and one to whoopie one to maggie smith one to her bangs the bangs of the bangs none bangs none and uh i'll give uh one to kathy najimy and I'll give one to Lieutenant Souther.

Love it. Yeah. I'm going to do four and a half too. I think that this, this movie just made me so happy and no movies hold up. And this movie like 97% holds up, which never happens. It's so,

I just love how there were so many opportunities for the writing to kind of turn women against each other but it really never takes that option and like the the sisters are on board the whole time they're there to support each other even when there's a reveal of like Dolores isn't who she says she is they're like who cares she was kidnapped we're going to Reno like it's just it's so oh i just i'm like i'm getting emotional um there i mean there there's very low um representation of women behind the camera here which is like something to just be aware of there's one credited female producer but it's you know directed written by edited cinematography the whole bit is kind of men across the board

just something that we try to be aware of but the story itself and the actors that are there it's directed written by edited cinematography the whole bit is kind of meant across the board just something that we try to be aware of but the story itself and the actors that are there it's just it's just the best so four and a half two to whoopie one to maggie one to kathy and a half to banks yay yeah i'm you know i probably not because i haven't done this as much as you guys but i'm gonna give it five nipples yay uh and just look at that disgusting glee we were like yay just because yeah like I expected this to be yeah expected it not to hold up as well and I was yeah I was so happy to be able to watch a movie like this it was just so happy and it yeah it gave me unadulterated joy do I have to assign the

nipples to people if you want follow your heart i would just i would i would follow you in your assignment in your nipple assignments great spreading the nipples across the board plenty of sisters plenty of nipples i'll give the pope in one of my nipples oh okay yeah good for him he didn't get any well nithya thank you so much for being here thank you for having me tell us what you want to plug where can people find you on social media oh yeah that's great uh yeah so i'm at nithya for the city.com but if you use social media follow us on twitter nithya v ramen that's n-i-t-h-y-a and my last name is r-a-m-a-n not not quite like the noodle um but if you know if you just google nithya city council i'm the only nithya running for city council imagine that yeah um and we're on Instagram at Nithya for the city as well and um definitely if you're in

LA please look me up come out to Canvas um we have a huge volunteer army that's knocking on every door in the district to try and get people excited about this election and how they can expect change in the city um yeah so look look me up come out come meet us uh and when when's the election again oh yeah march 3rd 2020 yes yes so come out and vote everyone come out and vote yes exactly i'm sure everyone's going to be voting for the primaries yeah you should be we will not stop bothering our listeners about it um yeah thank you so much for making the time and and and carving sister act into your schedule yes thank you for giving me the opportunity to carve sister act into my schedule anytime yes i'm very grateful thank you guys where's where's sisterhood right now yes yes this is the sisterhood of the traveling

act where's that okay uh you can follow us on all the normal places twitter instagram etc at bechtel cast you can go to our website, bechtelcast.com, for our show dates and information episodes, merch. Our Patreon, aka Matreon, is $5 a month. Two bonus episodes every month, plus the entire back catalog. And I think that's about it. Yeah. Thank you so much, Nathia. Thank you.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who, on October 16, 2017, was assassinated. Bye-bye. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. There's so much beauty in Mexican culture, like mariachis, delicious cuisine, and even lucha libre. Join us for the new podcast, Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of lucha libre.

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