The Bechdel Cast - Spanglish with Melissa Lozada Oliva

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

This week, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Melissa Lozada-Oliva use their Spanglish language skills to talk about Spanglish.This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @ellomelissa 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.

Hey, y'all. Niminie here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when 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. friends and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast hola jamie voy a hablar en espanol in spanglish what sorry i'm playing the part i'm playing the part of adam sandler okay okay okay necesito decirte que esta película es la peor película que he visto en mi vida. What? This movie is the worst movie I've seen in my life.

Wow. Coming in hot. Well, I'm Adam Sandler and you're a hypocrite you're the worst movie ever even though that makes no sense yeah yeah i said it look at my hair it looks i've never seen adam sandler's hair looking so bad oh welcome that didn't pass the bechdel test at all i think if we're dumping on adam sandler that actually does pass the Bechdel test. His hair. Like, yeah, this was, what a, what a, welcome to the Bechdel cast. Caitlin, you were, you, how long have you been learning Spanish now?

Nearly two years. Although I also studied it in high school and college, but I forgot everything I learned back then. And now I've been relearning it. It's been starting fresh. Yeah. Amazing. Shouts out to Duolingo and shout out to my Spanish tutors, Adriana and Mercedes.

They're the best. Yeah. Anyway. Well, that's that. That was Caitlin Durante, you heard. Let's try this way. And that was Jamie Loftus. Yeah.

And this is our show where we take your favorite movies and take another look at it through an intersectional feminist lens and make fun of it or not. Using the Bechdel test, which is what, Caitlin? Well, it is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. There are many versions of the test. The one that we use these days requires that two people of a marginalized gender have names they must speak to each other in any language and that conversation has to be that clarification of course it doesn't

just have to be english wow it can be spanglish wow and that conversation has to be about something other than un hombre. A man. I got that. Yeah. But yes, so we use that as a jumping off point to initiate a larger conversation. And with us to join in in that conversation is a returning guest. She's a writer, poet, host of the podcast Say More. Her new book, Dreaming of of you just came out at the end of october and you remember her from our episode on 13 going on 30 it's melissa lazada

oliva hi hello thanks for having me back i shouldn't have had a sip of water while you guys were talking i almost like electrocuted myself with a spit take and my recording that was my god um i'm so excited to talk about this movie yeah yes i am so thrilled that you brought us this movie well first before we get started please tell our listeners a little bit about your book because i just want to make sure we're talking about it at the beginning and the end. Everyone's got to order this damn book. Yeah, my book is a novel in verse, I guess. That's how it's being marketed.

I think it's a rock opera. And it's about, it's poems. It's a story of a young poet whose name is also melissa um who brings to hannah pop star selena back to life through a seance and the disastrous consequences that follow and it's about like loneliness and obsession and celebrity and and death and the occult maybe and wi-fi yeah it's so good love it yeah everyone get into it if you don't already have a coffee because it's amazing hell yeah thanks and in terms of spanglish uh why did you choose this movie to discuss and what is your connection to it that sounded very accusatory uh excuse me could you fucking explain yourself like what what is your connection to history with this movie it's almost

yeah it came out in 2004 yeah yeah um i have a very i this movie is so weird. I'm still like very sentimental about it. I saw it on Christmas Day with my family because Latinos, we celebrate it on Christmas Eve, Christmas. But we all like went together as a family and it was like right before my parents got divorced. And like all of my, like my grandmother was there and my mom and my sister and my whole family was like crying because my mom was like this is the story of my life um and it was very like oh like my sister would like translate for my mom my mom never had like a weird affair with adam sandler but um and then i think yeah and then i i like re-examined it in college and saw, you know, all of the weirdness about it. And I have this like fascination with Christina, who's like main character and how, I don't know, this I'm like really interested in this idea of the like young Latin child being like a genius and like the young Latin child to Hamilton pipeline. Of like, yeah.

So anyway, I love this movie. So, but it's also, anyway, we'll talk about it. Jamie, what's your relationship with it? I also really liked this movie. I saw it when it came out. Yeah, because I was like 12 when this movie came out. I I don't know but I remember seeing it in theaters with my mom I feel like it was marketed as kind of like a mother-daughter movie and so we went yeah and I really liked it I also was like not allowed to watch Adam Sandler movies so I was like wow Adam Sandler is so boring what is everyone

like so upset about based on this movie but then this movie was also on tnt all the time so i'd watch it whenever it was on it was yeah and i really um it's interesting i haven't watched this movie in at least five years it's definitely longer than i remembered two hours two hours and 11 minutes yeah and i also wasn't i didn't remember that it was a james brooks movie which is like so bizarre on so many levels so we'll i mean we'll talk about it but yeah this is the first time i'd watched it since i like had a better understanding of like who james brooks was other than a name at the beginning of the simpsons so i'm excited to talk about it yeah i still like this movie still hit for me

a lot i was watching it like there's there's there's shit there's plenty of shit but there were still moments where i was like oh that's a really beautiful scene yeah it's there's a lot of poetry in it there is yeah oh it's nice also i adam don't sound like his hair is so distracting really it's a is it a wig like is it a wig like i don't i feel like i've never seen his hair that like thick it felt like a wig yeah maybe he just has a buzz usually it's not as though they were like lacking for a budget it's like there was a hair and makeup budget the budget for this movie was 80 million dollars and was also a box office flop because it only grossed like 55 million or something but which is like so silly because that's 55 million is i i think like pretty respectable for a rom-com

this movie just shouldn't have cost 8080 million. There was like three locations. Right. Is that just like the cost of Adam Sandler? Adam Sandler is probably like $70 million. And like, no offense to Adam Sandler, but that could have been so many white guys. Like that could have been any other guy. he was really badly miscast in that role yeah this is by far the most random adam sandler movie and it is like an adam sandler movie he's like on the front of the yeah he's like on the poster which is like in the forefront yeah it's almost like

distracting that he's in it at times because it's like the I don't know. Like I thought it was interesting that like a man doesn't I don't think speak for the first like 15 minutes of this movie. Like it's all Christina and Flora or it's like Deborah, Deborah out to her daughter and like it's all women talking. And then all of a sudden it's like and here's Adam Sandler. And you're just like, do we we need it i don't know uh caitlin what's your history with this movie oh my gosh well uh i had not seen this movie before so i had no emotional attachment to it i was going in very fresh. And I am so sorry, but I hated it so much. I hate it. I think it's very bad. I have reasons.

Here they are. The storytelling is choppy. Every scene is overwritten. So, so, so overwritten. The editing and the pacing is very weird the tone is very weird and inconsistent the tone is confusing i felt like the hans zimmer music was trying to like do some heavy lifting and like making it clearer how you were supposed to feel sometimes but yeah right it's a college essay it's a weird like random voice of the framing devices is strange.

I have never felt less compelled or convinced by a romance between two people on screen. Yeah. There are different conflicts that are like set up and then just like dropped like loose threads that get even looser and looser as the movie goes. And then all the reasons that we'll talk about in the context of like our podcast that i think are right missteps but i've never been so deeply bored by a movie in my entire life oh my god holy shit yeah coming in hot coming in caliente body so sorry but that is how i feel and i have to speak my truth fair enough there honestly some of the overriding i don't know i just like the tone gets bizarre at some points where it's like also i feel like removing adam sandler and like telling taylor leone to take it down a couple

notches could have resolved the tone issues too yeah because there was some things that was like I feel like Taylor Leone was like was maybe not communicated with very effectively of like this isn't like you're not doing like a when Harry met Sally or Kesem in this that whole

scene oh my gosh blocked that out because I was like what you don't even need me. The mother of two children right here. And then as she orgasms, she goes, whee! Which is like, in another movie, could have been pretty funny. But in this movie, it was like, what is going on? Because then it cuts to like a pretty serious

because i think that the takeaway from that scene was supposed to be like they're not connecting that's never happened before that's i thought the tone issues were kind of funny too um yeah well let's let's talk about it. Yeah, I'll do the recap and then we'll go from there. Cool. Okay, so there is this framing device where a young woman, Christina Moreno, has submitted a college admissions essay about the story that we are about to see unfold. And then we get her voiceover throughout the movie, which is like her reading this essay, telling this story. So it begins with us meeting six-year-old Christina and her mother, Flor, played by Paz Vega. They live in Mexico. Flor's husband has just left the family. So Flor decides to

take Christina and immigrate to the U.S. They go to L.A. Flor works a couple jobs. Then after six years of living there, her cousin Monica sets her up with an interview for a higher-paying job working as a housekeeper for the Klatsky family. Trouble is, Flor doesn't speak english so monica accompanies her to the interview to translate during this interview we meet deborah that's taylioni uh her daughter bernie uh deborah's mother evelyn played by cloris leachman they're a well-to-do family in la deborah's husband is her husband is a top chef he's the top chef and then they say like she she's like they do like i don't know james brooks is like i feel like he he always gives me just enough that i'm like god i guess i can't be mad at him about that i'll have to find something else where like you find out that debor Deborah used to do something, but then something, something, now she doesn't.

Now she's a full-time mom. Right. She's like an interior decorator or something. Some design person. It's like a movie job. Yeah. So Deborah offers Flor the job. So she and Christina celebrate.

Then Flor starts the job, which is when we meet John. That's Adam Sandler. She starts working. There's definitely a language barrier between her and the family. Deborah is very high strung. We see her get on her daughter's case about her weight, including when she buys clothes for Bernie that she knows are too small for her in hopes that they'll motivate her to lose weight. Evil.

Horrible. Deborah is never, like, redeemed the whole time. She's a really bad person. Yeah, she's just, like, cartoon evil. Yeah. Right. And it kind of, like, it gets worse as the movie goes on. Yeah.

Like, she gets worse and worse i don't know that thing to bernie was like i was like that's worse than when she cheated on adam sandler as far as i'm concerned that was pure evil yeah that was that was the worst thing who's that actress who plays bernie i haven't seen her in any she was i unfortunately vote it out myself as someone who has watched every episode of The Good Wife. She was on The Good, she was the daughter on The Good Wife. Sarah Steele is her name. Sarah Steele. Yeah.

So this obviously very much upsets both Bernie and John. But Deborah is all like, John, we have to be on the same page as parents. So then John confides in Flor about this, even though she doesn't understand what he's saying. But she does understand why Bernie was upset. So she takes some of the clothes and alters them so that they will fit Bernie. And then has Christina teach her how to say, just try it on in English so that she can tell Bernie to try on the jacket. And she does, and it fits. Then we get this whole sequence where this restaurant critic had come to John's restaurant, and then he reads what turns out to be a very good review of his restaurant in the times and everyone in the family is super excited and this is when we get that very weird sex scene between Adam Sandler and Taylor Leone where she's like screaming at the top of

her lungs right I don't think he's even inside of her right because he's like, he keeps saying you can do this without me. That's false propaganda about how easy it is to make someone come. Also, it's like, aren't there kids home? She's like screaming. The door is open during that scene.

The door is open. The kids were just right there reading the review like it's so confusing that scene should have cut it should have cut it kind of glad they didn't because it's just like that should have been cut like we already knew that the relationship wasn't working like why did they do that it's funny i don't i think every scene should have been cut okay the then deborah rents a house in malibu for the family to stay in for the summer and she wants flor to stay with them as well which at first she refuses because she doesn't want to leave her daughter christina behind but then debor like, no, your daughter can live here too. So Flor and Christina move into this rental home for the summer, which some drama

ensues from there, where Flor is mad that Deborah took Christina shopping and to get her hair done without telling flor um then there's this whole thing with john offering to pay the kids to find sea glass which christina finds a bunch of and then he pays her like over six hundred dollars for it and then flor calls him out for meddling in her daughter's life i mean he should have told flor that that was good. That he was giving her like rent money. I was like, you can't just give a 13-year-old $600. What will they do? Yeah. Yeah, right.

Yeah, that was kind of perverted. So she calls him out and then he calls her out for meddling in his daughter's life when she altered Bernie's clothes. Also, Christina is translating for both of them during this scene because Flor still does not speak English. And then Flor is like, you're right. I am a hypocrite. And John is like, wow, it's so cool that you admit that you agree with me and that you admit it's so cool when you tell me i'm right and then

this is the beginning of what seems like it might be a romance between them and then this is also when flor starts to learn english which she appears to do in a week it's like over the course of the summer yeah like yeah but she's already been there for a while and it just seems like she learns she becomes fluent in english very fast i do like the scene where her in what's evelyn evelyn's chorus leachman is that her name yes i do like when they're like on the couch and she's like holding a glass of wine and repeating english words with her because she's just like wasted. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I had a totally false memory of this movie that was like ended up being way too kind to the movie that in my like memory of this movie, I was like, oh, yeah, Adam Sandler also learns some Spanish. But that doesn't happen. Oh, no, he doesn't. No one in the Klatsky family learns a single word of Spanish. It that doesn't happen. Oh, no, he doesn't. No one in the Klatsky family learns a single word of Spanish. It doesn't come up. Okay, so she is learning English. And then one night, John comes home really drunk. And it seems like he's trying to flirt with Flor. Deborah is out somewhere. It seems like she's kind of sneaking around. We're not really sure what's going on there. And then Deborah gets Christina a scholarship at a private school where Bernie goes.

And Flor feels weird about it as if, you know, Deborah is still meddling in her daughter's life, which she is. Yes. And then Flor talks to John about it and they bond a bit over that. Then one night, Deborah confesses to John that she's been having an affair. And John leaves the house. And as he's leaving, he takes Flor with him, who, by the way, she was there to quit her job working for them. They keep gaslighting this poor woman into not quitting her job that she wants to quit so badly yes yes so much manipulation from everybody and then so john is like hey flor do you want to hang out and she's like i guess so then he takes her to his restaurant and he's like, I guess. So then he takes her to his restaurant. And he's like, you're beautiful.

And then they kiss. And then they talk all night. He says they should name a gender after you. But also he has that hair, what he's saying. They should name a gender after you. He's also like periodically screaming throughout the movie he's like you're just so fucking beautiful i can't even look at you right now i quit this job i feel this is like this is like an early dramatic turn for adam sandler right

because he did that paul thomas anderson movie that everyone loves yeah with the name that i don't remember. Punch Drunk Love. Punch Drunk Love. Everyone loved his dramatic turn in Punch Drunk Love. And then I think people were maybe like, because that movie was from like 2002, I think everyone's like,

oh, like he could probably do any part. But the answer was no. He can just scream. He can do Punch Drunk Love and he can do... Hubie Halloween. He can be Hubie Halloween and he can do, I keeplloween he can be hubie halloween and he can do i keep wanting to say the righteous gems uncut gems you can do cum slut gems and all the other

ones stinky stinky oh gosh they should name a gender after you so he's all like you're beautiful and they kiss and they're talking and then flor is like i love you and we're like what and then flor runs away and then the next day she tells christina and the rest of the klaski family that she quits and there's this big tearful goodbye flor says goodbye to John and they leave and Christina is really mad at Flor for quitting and pulling her out of this private school. But then Christina soon forgives her mother

and understands that everything she does is for Christina. And that's the end of this movie that doesn't have a plot. Not nice. But that's the story. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back to discuss. So y'all, this is Questlove and I'm here to tell you about a new podcast I've been working on with the Story Pirates and John Glickman called Historical Records.

It's a family-friendly podcast. Yeah, you heard that right. A podcast for all ages. One you can listen to and enjoy with your kids starting on September 27th. I'm going to toss it over to the host of Historical Records, Nimany, to tell you all about it. Make sure you check it out. Hey, y'all. Nimany here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Flash, slam, another one gone.

Bash, bam, another one gone. The crack of the bat and another one gone. The tip of the cap is another one gone. Bash, bam. Another one gone. The crack of the bat and another one gone. The tip of the cap is another one gone. Each episode is about a different inspiring figure from history. Like this one about Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl in Alabama who refused to give up her seat on the city bus nine whole months before Rosa Parks did the same thing. Check it. And it began with me. Did you know, did you know? I wouldn't give up my seat. Rosa Parks did the same thing. Check it.

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Does anyone want to start any particular place with this movie? We know Caitlin does not like it. Caitlin hates it. i'm curious to know i want to hear more about like your experience melissa watching this as a younger person with your family and like the connection you had to it culturally and yeah things like that i mean i think when i first saw it it was like okay 2004 so it was like oh my god like representation like I think my mom was really emotional about it as I said before like my older sister would like translate around for her and like my mom would like clean houses I mean watching it now there are a bit of things that are like slightly two dimensional about the Moreno family, I guess.

But I think it's still pretty good about like class and like xenophobia. I was like surprised at how good of it it was in 2004. And I don't know. I think like Christina in particular, really like I feel like I've been that like young Latin child where these like scary white ladies like see a lot of things in me. And I really think that the movie takes this like almost radical turn where she's like, oh no, like I'm taking my daughter away from this. Like she can do, she can like be successful in this country without assimilating or being like, like being part of whiteness. Sure. And I think that's,

I also like always fucking lose my shit when she says I stand firmly in my identity, like relies on like one thing. And that is, I am my mother's daughter. It kills me. It kills me. Um,

yeah, that makes sense. And that, that all tracks to me. And I think that is the movie's one strength. But yeah, for me, like one of the things that pinged me was just that for the first half of the movie, Flor is like not really the focus.

She isn't given like so many of the scenes revolve and so much of the daughter and kind of grappling with this, like, do I make an effort to learn this new culture and language and assimilate? Or do I maintain my cultural identity from Mexico? And all these things that an immigrant has to deal with and think about. I cannot think of a more boring version of this story than this movie where she isn't even the focus for the first half of the movie. And then when she does start to become the focus, it's because she's learning English and is now better able to communicate with this rich white family

and then is falling in love with Adam Sandler. And then... Yeah, I definitely felt like this movie kept rerouting. I think that there's an argument that the actual... This movie was marketed as Adam Sandler being the protagonist. The introduction to the movie wants you to believe that Flores is the protagonist but then the way the movie plays out you're like it could be Debra also like there's like it is kind of confusing yeah this is Debra's story and the

story beginning middle and end is Debra sucks like she's terrible but i yeah i felt like there were some creative traces that i wanted to like i don't know just like get everyone's opinions on because i also felt like not even i mean it feels like we're not spending enough time with flor for much of the second act but also like i felt like j James L. Brooks and I like read some interviews with him and his choice to not include subtitles in this movie was like very, very deliberate. He didn't want there to be subtitles. Yeah.

And I, I mean, I do not speak Spanish and I felt like not letting us know what floor was saying was like putting the audience in oh yeah i don't know it just like it was creating distance between me and like the protagonist who i want to know what she's saying i want to know what she's feeling but i don't know i just found that to be kind of like a frustrating experience because the performance is so good and there's like a lot in the story that i wish was like focused on more but it just felt like there was like this this distance created between i

guess me and the movie that i wish wasn't there that is so weird because it does seem to be like a movie made for like white american audiences so like the decision to not put subtitles in is like let's like further make this woman like let's like put her on this like weird ethnic pedestal where she's kind of like mute almost like and just like miming all the time yeah right yeah it was like it's like yeah it's like and not that every movie should cater to my exact, like the languages that I speak, but, but particularly because it's like a movie by like a legacy white guy. I was like, why did you do this? Like, yeah, I don't know. Brooks to be like you know who knows exactly what it is to be a woman from Mexico immigrating to the U.S. me James L. Brooks like like yeah yeah well I'm thinking like this movie is like a really good like case study on whiteness in the same way maybe um oh the white lotuses because like the person who made it like who knows whiteness better than James Earl Brooks maybe,

you know, or, or the same thing with like, I mean, Roma is a movie in Mexico, but it's about like white Mexicans. And then you're like realizing that like Mexicans can be white because you're seeing it's like in black and white and you're seeing like how much darker

skinned the indigenous like housekeeper is. But like that movie was made by someone who like grew up rich and white in mexico and was like i want to examine and like interrogate this so i feel like the klaskys are really like three-dimensional and i'm like i feel like i know people like this and then floored like her family you just see them like in like two- minute bursts like eating tamales right right it's like you don't spend any time with her family yeah and you spend so much time with the klauskies yeah right yeah in the few scenes early on where you would get some insight into flor's life like when she's communicating with her daughter or her cousin

Monica or something like that because the movie isn't subtitled it makes it kind of unaccessible to your average American movie going audience member which again it's not as though every movie needs to cater to that person no but James Loks movies do so it's just like confusing yeah when you're releasing a james l brooks movie into the u.s like chances are your again average member of the audience speaks one language and it's english so yeah it that was an interesting choice that i don't think was super effective and only served to yeah just sort of like other floor more and not let the audience get to know her and like understand what she's dealing with and what she's going through yeah yeah I've always been like um like this is like

the fifth time I've watched this movie and i'm always like struck by how floyd is just such like a i don't know this like mexican sage who has she like embodies like the best qualities of like a woman which is like like she's like the best mother and she's like curvaceous and she's sensitive and kind and like like her personality is being like a womb. Like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's very mommy.

She's very mommy. She's a huge mommy. Yeah. But I did. I mean, going back to where you started, Melissa, I mean, I think that like the relationship with Floor and Christina is like so like that's one of the most effective parts of the movie. And anytime there's. Yeah. And also just like the chemistry between those two actors was so good.

And yeah, I wish like there are so many threads in this movie that were more interesting to me then. And it's not like I didn't want her to have love. Like I also like whatever. Like it seems and to an extent I do understand what she and Adam Sandler saw in each other if I really thought about it. I'm glad that the movie is kind of like, well, obviously this isn't going to work out because she's too good for him and he's a mess but I mean I did see what they saw in each other but it just it felt like I really enjoyed scenes

with Flor and Christina and Flor and Bernie I wish that you got more with like Christina and Bernie I thought that there was like probably a cool dynamic there that you never really got to see there were some elements of Deborah that it was like, Oh,

this is like a good opportunity to, you know, interrogate whiteness and interrogate white women. And, and she very, very clearly. And the movie seems to know like that. She thinks that she is like the queen of wokeness and is doing the right

thing at all points. When in fact she can be extremely condescending. She'll shut down conflict. thinks that she is like the queen of wokeness and is doing the right thing at all points when in fact she can be extremely condescending she'll shut down conflict she'll tell people how they feel she's very entitled like all this stuff that is like you know very worth exploring and then but then in other moments she would be a cartoon character and then it's like well yeah right so what is she doing like what are you trying to say with her because no like in some scenes it was like oh she's like i mean like whatever careening out before that was a popular term right and then in other scenes you're like nobody has acted like this in the

history of the world so like oh what uh do you not say we every time you have an orgasm and then she like passed out like it was so and she starts to cry that scene was bananas i mean that's like whatever i'm absolutely flabbergasted by that sex scene all of the adam sandler reactions too were like horrible like the whole movie he's making those noises he's like ah he just like can't believe it that's but yeah no jamie you're right like this could have this movie could have been an interesting opportunity to examine and criticize what a lot of like rich white people do to marginalized communities and especially someone that they kind of like deborah clearly see like to her flor is like the help you know like she's like she's so condescending to her she never makes any effort to learn Spanish like just it's this weird power dynamic that could and should be examined and interrogated and the movie I think does try to do that to some

extent but where it lands I'm just like okay what's the takeaway here exactly like also like one of the many dropped threads of this movie was also between like trying to contextualize who deborah is and why she is the way she is yeah which honestly i didn't think was like completely necessary but they try to be like well her mother like she's the child of an alcoholic and the movie tries to like contextualize her like hyper insecurity through that lens which is like okay i see like i thought it was super underexplored and then it kind of ended in a joke where chloris leacheman is like i see what you're saying but like shut up and that was kind of the end of like exploring that but also it seems to like conflate all this stuff like she's like yes deborah's character is very

insecure and it is she is like weaponizing that insecurity against everyone in her life but like her being the child of an alcoholic is not making her racist like that you know like like deeply classist and i feel like it's like conflating all of those issues with like well she's very insecure you're like well there's a lot going on that's not right with deborah like yeah i don't know yeah confusing yeah i feel like if the movie could have been so much more about mothers and daughters it's like that's like my favorite part of it i think you know between floyd and christina and like and then also seeing like how the last generation is dealing with all of their mother's shit. Yeah.

Right. That is a really good point. That could have been the focus of the movie, where it's like you have these two sets of mother-daughter dynamics with Flor and Christina and what they are dealing with as they navigate the world. And then what are Debra and are dealing with as they navigate the world. And then what are Deborah and Bernie dealing with as they navigate the world in their like much more privileged position

and like an exploration of those dynamics and how there are like similarities and differences between these two pairs of people and like what might that look like and what could that mean and there's a lot to explore there that could have been interesting and again i think they this movie tries to start exploring something especially when it comes to this thing where deborah is hounding her daughter to lose weight which is terrible a horrible thing for her to be doing it's affecting bernie very significantly it's affecting her husband because her husband hates to see

her treat her daughter that way but then that thread just kind of gets dropped and then there's not that just like isn't part of the movie after a while yeah so yeah her daughter never gets to like heal from that or like instead i mean flo to like makes her clothes bigger and then that's i think supposed to be is like the lesson they're like okay if you're someone should be nice to you yeah that takeaway is confusing and then a little i guess a little bit later, Debra really takes an interest in Christina and it almost, and like, sort of treating her as if like, oh, this is the daughter I wish I had.

Oh yeah. Because she's like, you know, taking her shopping and taking her to get her hair done and like all this stuff that I think it's clear that Bernie would like to do with her mom, but because she doesn't like fit the image that Deborah has for what she wants her daughter to be. She instead takes this interest in Christina. And it's just like that's like such a devastating thing for Bernie to have to deal with.

And then that also just doesn't really get explored. Yeah. She's like fucking everyone over in that scene that was like i was like wow this character is playing like a game of 4d chess of making everyone unhappy because i mean it's exciting for christina in the moment but also it's like deborah's just so deeply selfish and everything she's doing there i feel like she she seemed to like take this like real pleasure in exerting control over floor and like over feeling entitled to her life in a way that the movie seems aware of but it just yeah like it doesn't really land anywhere they're just sort of like yeah this lady's fucked up but like she like

rejects her daughter and so it's like painful for bernie to see that christina isn't at a point at this point in the movie where she understands that this like rich lady is exerting her power over her for maybe not a completely altruistic reason obviously right and she's like just showing how she can control Flora's life again. Like that was so, uh, it bothered me so much. Like Debra sucks so bad.

She sucks so bad. I wonder if like her redemption is supposed to be wrapped up and how at the end she just says, I'm so glad that you came back. Like that's supposed to, and it's like, she's like giving, giving something. I don't know. Like she's like doing something like not selfish for once i but like that's like the other thing too is like the where i don't know i guess i don't really want to talk about the

white lotus but but like i think that that's like an interesting parallel to draw here. Yeah. I get like, and it's kind of like a wash, but especially because James L. Brooks is a white guy trying to write a story about a marginalized character and about mother-daughter relationships. You know, it's not against the law. It is certainly like we should keep talking about it because he misses some stuff and i thought one of the bigger misses outside of clearly having more interest in the white characters in his movie than the mexican characters that he claims that the movie is about

he also seems to like let john off for it's like oh deborah is the devil yeah um she's the most evil person and like all the sins of richness and whiteness are characteristics that she exhibits and then john's just kind of like this amazing guy who yeah it's like it's like well that's not real like what yeah it's never examined to how like maybe his career like made deborah feel insignificant like because she keeps being like who am i i don't know who i am and he's like i got too many stars on my my kitchen review i'm too good of a cook god damn it things will never be the same and he keeps like acting like he i don't know like as he and floor's connection is like deepening he keeps kind of being like oh i'm sorry about deborah there's really i i wish i could do something and it's like well you could probably could. Like, why don't you try to do something?

It's like the revolt. There are a few different scenes where it's like the movie is just like really trying to make him out to be this like sweetheart romantic hero who like, I don't know. Yeah. And the John character is like, I don't know. There were some scenes where I was like, i see what they see in each other but then in other scenes i was like he's creepy and he keeps trying to talk to her while he's really drunk like yuck yeah yeah wait i want to get into this but let's take a quick break first and then we'll come right back so y'all this is quest love and i'm here to tell you about a new podcast I've been working on

with the Story Pirates and John Glickman called Historical Records. It's a family-friendly podcast. Yeah, you heard that right. A podcast for all ages. One you can listen to and enjoy with your kids starting on September 27th. I'm going to toss it over to the host of Historical Records, Nimany, to tell you all about it. Make sure you check it out. Hey, y'all.

Nimany here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Each episode is about a different inspiring figure from history. Like this one about Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl in Alabama who refused to give up her seat on the

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Because in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Listen to historical records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption

that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. 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. 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. 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 Hahn can sing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? 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, Luge. 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. And we're back. So, yeah, the romance between Flor and John is... This movie like Buscemi tests itself, interestingly enough, because he looks and sounds creepy. Buscemi does. I want to rename it. But it basically just like if you swap out the like a supposedly romantic behavior that like a traditionally hot guy is exhibiting in a movie

and you switch it out with steve buscemi would it be creepy and if it would be really creepy then it fails the test and it's a creepy interaction so yeah like so picture like the notebook and instead of ryan gosling like stalking rachel mcAdams if it's Steve Buscemi is it now much more clear that this behavior is extremely creepy and stalkery yeah and to be clear Steve Buscemi is hot but just in terms of like yeah that's how we've characterized the test over the years a listener had pitched I think instead of Steve Buscemi gritty the mascot for that the philadelphia is it the philadelphia yeah yeah the gritty test like yeah if you just like switch out that is maybe better because it's like you know steve buscemi is hot but yeah this like until we come up for with a better name for

that test this movie fails it but also like adam sandler like looks and behaves kind of creepy for the whole movie so you don't even really need to like stretch your imagination yeah i feel like john's supposed to be bashful but instead he's just like about to explode all the time or he just like is or is the same behavior as when you're like hiding a boner he's like i don't know he's just like he's not giving me stability he's not yeah he has so many weird outbursts that i think are supposed to be comedic but i'm just like again the tone is so weird that i'm like i was i supposed to laugh at that i don't know but she's like charmed she's char right it's so confusing okay so here as far as what could tell, here is kind of the trajectory of this romance between Flor and John. So it starts where John is giving her a ride to the bus stop.

He is crying because he saw how his wife had just treated their daughter about like, you know, buying her those clothes clothes are too small and berating for her for her weight and it really affects john and flor is like impressed that he seems to be emotionally open and vulnerable there's voiceover from christina saying it's it's like the opposite of the like quote latin macho that flor is used to and that he seems to, quote, have the emotions of a Mexican woman, where obviously that framing is not great. Yeah, James L. Brooks wrote that down.

Yeah, he was like, yes. Cut and print. I like when he's wiping his tears away with a seat belt that was kind of funny it's like there are moments in this movie that are like and that felt like the right kind of funny for the kind of movie it was yeah at least yeah i get yeah closer closer than the than the orgasm scene. Right. True. True. Whee! So this didn't bother me because, well, aside from the way that some of this like voiceover is written, but the fact that Flor is impressed and intrigued by John's emotional openness and vulnerability is like something that we should as a society

value more in men especially because men are so conditioned to be emotionally repressed and withdrawn and all this stuff so that i was like okay i understand that is a reason why flor would be interested and also i i thought that that even though it was like another thread that I felt like was dropped, that felt like a really like setting something up for Flor and Christina that just like kind of went away. But that opening scene where you find out that Flor is not very emotionally open and she's like pushing tears back into Christina's head being like, you get one tear, so use it wisely. And like, I thought I was like oh okay yeah and like not even able to like show her emotional vulnerability in front of her daughter she like runs out of the room if she starts to cry so that her daughter can't see her right emotional and then at the end she cries finally yeah and asks if she doesn't want to be like her i wish that there was like i just

wish that we like got to know more about florida i feel like that moment should have like i mean it's still hit for me because i just yeah me too i have a lot of a little bitch right it was just like oh she mommy like yeah it's like that's the way that the love story worked for me was like oh they see things i mean like she sees an emotional vulnerability in him that she can't do herself and i feel like that is very attractive sometimes where you're like oh my god look at you expressing yourself i can't do that imagine if i yeah give me a little kiss their main thing is like how they they like bond over how they want to be parents i guess and also i guess that's how sometimes people get together i don't know right they like love their kids and they hate deborah

that and that's enough to build a relationship on yeah right because there's that scene where they're on the beach and flor confides in john because she's like hey it seems like your wife is kind of like meddling in my daughter's life and he's like yeah i feel really weird about it too and then she says something like i've never met a man who can put himself in my place like you do. And I was a little unclear. I was like, does she mean like put? But I think what she means is like put himself in her shoes and like empathize and understand where she's coming from. Right.

OK, so. Yeah. I was like, OK, that's also like a compelling reason to have an emotional connection. That tracks for me. But then he also, immediately after that, she's like standing on like the windy beach and then he screams at her. He's like, get out of the wind. And it's like, what is happening?

Because of your bodacious body. So there's weird stuff like that. And then to me, the kind of the final beat that makes us know like, oh, wow, like, yep, they're falling in love is a scene that does not work for me where they're arguing. She's calling him out for giving her daughter that money without consulting her first. And he's like, well, you're a hypocrite because you meddled in my daughter's life by altering the jacket and she's like yep you're right i'm a hypocrite i also interfered there's no difference um you're right and he's like i'm horny what you're not arguing with me yeah you're telling me that i'm right so weird i like disagree with that i do think it's different like i feel like there's like

multiple points where they're like that completely ignores like the power dynamic that exists between the two of them that like ignores the intent behind what they were trying to do it ignores like the like gravity of the task where it's like and like the gendered nature of the task like yeah sewing versus like he's like the man of the house who provides for everyone like yeah yeah it's felt like i was like i i appreciate about how flora's character is written that she is very clear about what her values are like she will not accept a violation of a bad or well she does because she's repeatedly pressured to not quit the job but she's willing to communicate like hey that wasn't okay with me do not do that again which is great but then also yeah and that scene

i was like oh don't give up that point. It is different. Yeah. It is different. Yes. And then something very weird to me happens where when he takes her to his restaurant and he's saying, I love you. You're beautiful. They should name a gender. Let's kiss each other. We should name a gender after you.

She at that point does not know that deborah was cheating on john so as far as she knows their marriage is fine and she's written to be the type of person who would not interfere in a marriage and like not be willing to kiss him or engage with him in any romantic way because i mean maybe i'm misreading her character again we don't know that much about her but i feel like what we do know she would be like no you're married i'm not gonna engage with this yeah but instead she kisses him and then she's like i they you know canoodle all night and then she says i love you and it, first of all, I understand you like admiring him for a few different things he's said and done over the movie. But like, you love this guy?

Okay. It makes me so sad for her. I'm like, damn. All these men in your life must suck. Right. If this is the one that you're like, this is the most scene I've ever felt. You're like, no, we got i've ever felt you're like no we gotta help her i know we gotta help her but it didn't make any sense that she was engaging with

this like romantic moment because again she seems to me like the person type of person who would be like no you're married and i work for you also like this is inappropriate like you're my employer your wife is my employer like this is not appropriate and instead she's like kiss kiss i love you right and then she's like i have to quit right and then like she has to give up her livelihood it's not fair like right yeah like based on i feel like based on what we know about this character like it's just i don't know and then the way that it felt like every reference to latin manhood and masculinity was so written by james l brooks it really hated latin men yeah except for that goofy guy who was like i'll translate forever when he yeah looks at her like taylor leonie bullies yeah

i was like was this a callback to the selena movie where someone was like anything for selena's it's that it really felt like that oh yeah it does kind of yeah it does right but yeah i felt like the james albrecht's writing kept in moments where he couldn't think of a way to make John seem like a viable romantic interest, there would just be a voiceover line that was like punching down at Latin men and Latin masculinity to be like, so of course it makes sense that you would want to date this guy. It's like, it just like wasn't necessary. I don't know. Like it just wasn't necessary.

I'm nervous about how formative this movie was for the people I date. I'm like, I was like, yeah. Damn. I just like listened to it. I only date like explosive sensitive white men. That's a bad vibe. Bad, horrible vibes. James L. Brooksoks what the hell james l brooks has to

send you a personalized college application of apology oh the framing device of this movie i mean it does it did make me cry so there you go i did cry i did cry yeah i'm i'm laughing and here's why i'm laughing because christina laughing like taylor yoni having an orgasm i'm laughing because like christina's college admission essay is about this story which is her mother's affair her mother's like the Like, this weird moment in her mother's life that, like, kind of doesn't really have anything to do with anything. Like, it's just, like... I think it's a very, like,

how-I-met-your-mother kind of framing device where you're like, no child would have this deep an interest in their parents' sex lives. Gross. Right. But who is she? The Olsen twins trying to get their dad to hook up with somebody billboard dad reference i love it uh this is a quick thing but one that it was like i paused

the movie and did some math and it wasn't encouraging math this scene where deborah and flor and um what is her cousin's name monica all meet for the job interview first of all i think that i think that someone already said this but like monica should have just been a character in the movie like that we saw with regularity like yeah to give their lives like more shape and depth and she was just i mean like i really enjoyed the actress who who played her but that scene where flor is negotiating a salary i was trying to put myself in 2004 brain and it's still like not very helpful where you know we were told that she and christina need 450 a week to survive which is what they're doing yeah and then when deborah asks what do you want and then kind of like

cheryl sandberg's for a second and it's like you gotta ask for what is worth but you can't ask for more than you're worth or then you're a bitch or like whatever she said yeah like yeah you're taking advantage right so so she's like being cheryl sandberg and then i think it's flor who says a thousand dollars a week which is like yeah and then she's like that's a joke just kidding like it's a joke but she's being asked to work a 72 hour week. That's like not unreasonable. If you break that down, because I like went back and rewatched the scene and crunched some numbers where Taya Leone was like, I need you to work six days a week, 12 hours a day. How much do you want per week?

$1,000 a week. What she ends up getting is $6.50 a week week which that math boils down to about nine dollars an hour so okay wait 1000 divided by 72 that would be less than 14 an hour for one thousand dollars a week so it's like this bizarro like joke that james l bro is making of like, how dare like floor ask for $1,000 a week is like still underneath. Yeah. It's, and I know like 2004 money is, is a little different from 2021 money,

but like not by much. Not by a ton. Right. And for a movie that's so invested in talking about class, it seems it's, it seems really like, I don't know off yeah why isn't that also if she is working somewhere between like 8 and 12 hours a day and it seems

like flor is there a lot yeah because we only ever see her there really and never yeah in her home with christina that also could be something you mine for tension and conflict like what is Flor working 12 hour days six days a week what is that doing to her relationship with her daughter like she's hardly going to be home then for her and like what does like can we explore that and like examine that? But the movie, again, doesn't really have any interest in Flor and her interior life. Right. And the motivation for her to work one job is just because she saw a boy like touch her daughter's ass. Right.

And then it's like, but you're not home that much still. Right. And you're commuting. Like the commutes seem pretty severe back and forth the commute seems awful a mile to the bus stop what and then i'm guessing in la yeah we don't ever learn what neighborhood flor and christina live in in la but it's probably pretty far from the very upscale neighborhood that the klaskys live in i thought it was like they were i mean whatever now we're just getting into la talk but it's it seemed like they were either downtown or on the

east side which yeah and then like adam sandler and taylor leone are like living out this fucking like westwood beverly hills like beverly hills something as a metro user that is an hour and a half commute if you're going clear across town like that right anyways yeah I I didn't that didn't even really connect for me of like she's probably not getting like that much more time with her daughter I mean I I understand why she makes the decision she makes but I just thought it was like especially for like a male writer to make that decision it just i didn't like quite get it yeah yeah that was bizarre but whatever that was just kind of like a weird

writing choice that i'm like this guy is is definitely a guy yep yeah i could have gone it could have really done something special talking about like women's labor you know and like emotional labor between yeah like, what Clarence Leachman is doing at the end with Talioni and being like, like, let me give this to you as my, as a mother, you know, and, and didn't. Yeah. Again, every thread just kind of is loose to begin with and then never ties up in any way or gets fully explored.

Yeah. I still cried my eyes out. Like,'s that's the thing it's like this james l brooks was weird for this one but i also do think that it's like he knows how to make people cry a lot yeah he's very good at that and it's also i mean i don't know like this is very clearly not his story to tell yeah and there was i guess i wasn't super surprised to see in 2004 that there was absolutely no real pushback about the fact that he was doing this because i feel like it's a very like a very 2004 but still like a contemporary problem as well of but he could make a movie of this budget and scale that featured like an immigrant woman as a protagonist

but that it's like this monkey's paw situation where it's like but he can't do that he can't execute that well based on who he is and so it's like uh i don't know yeah it's frustrating yeah i want to talk about the casting of pas vega who plays flor she's from spain yeah interesting so she's not from mexico and she looks so much like Penelope Cruz. She does look remarkably like Penelope Cruz. Yes. Who is also from Spain. So obviously there are a lot of Mexican people who are of white European descent. However, this movie seems to me to code Flor as a brown person.

Oh, yeah. me to code flor as a brown person oh yeah the person of color even though she is a white spaniard european yeah so right it's not a great casting choice to cast this white european actor code her as a person of color there are plenty of mexican actors who could have been cast in this role and then would have been able to like bring like the experience of a mexican person or a mexican american immigrant to their role and like have that be a part of the the role and the character but that is not what happened in the casting yeah i had no idea she was from spain oh my god i was duped i feel like they she's like damn i know i didn't learn that until this morning i was like whoa god damn it yeah i also think there's this like uh there's a really weird thing with like like her beauty in the movie where like i mean

she's like so beautiful but that's like her whole like she's like beautiful and doing housework and she's like beautiful and being a mother and like adam sandler seems to only like say that she is beautiful and so does deborah too like deborah's constantly commenting on her appearance and christina's yeah and yeah in a way that almost feels fetishy to me where they're like absolutely look at this yeah like exotic beauty that you are yeah this family like yeah very much exotifies if that's a word yeah Flor and Christina especially there's that scene where Debra is introducing Christina to the like the director of this private school. Right. Right. And then she like has a little aside with this director who is a white woman and says like, oh, yeah, like she's great.

She's so smart. She's so bright. And she's Hispanic. She like whispers in her ear as if to say, like, isn't she gorgeous? Hispanic. Right. And like, look at it's almost, look at the diversity you would bring into the school. Look at my little project. Like she's like very much. Which at least the writing seems self-aware of, of like, Debra's not supposed to seem right for that.

Like she's clearly wrong. And yeah, I mean, especially, I don't know, Debra's so awful. Where like with Deborah, it's again like a one-two punch of racism and like exoticizing Christina. And then also her like own internalized misogyny comes out in those moments too, because she can only understand women via commenting on and criticizing their appearance, which is like present in her how

she relates to flor and christina and also how she relates to her daughter yeah like yeah and herself like with the running and all like the obsessive like like maintenance of her body which is like such a i don't know i guess like i feel like i've i'll recommend it for the five millionth time on the on this show, but fearing the black body and like how American women, especially white American women are like trained to be hyper vigilant towards their own bodies and punish other bodies that don't look like theirs. And just all this. Yeah.

Just shit that is so present in her character. It's just so. Right. I feel like voice christina goes into that too and seems to like be aware of like this like sickness that american women have with like being thin but i feel i feel like initially like i may be giving the movie too much credit being like look how aware they are of like you know what the what is wrong with like white american woman but i feel like making taylor leone like such a cartoon of like a karen

before that was a term like is almost like racist but not towards her like towards flora because it just makes flora seem more amazing and like what the word? There's like a word for this where she's just like, I don't know. She's just like infinitely better because of her quote unquote brownness and her like natural, like this like naturalness that seems to be like linked to her ethnicity, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's because I'm trying to remember the way that that like line of voiceover plays out. Oh, I wrote it all down. I transcribed it.

Ready? But I feel like what you're describing is like she just like I feel like the movie starts to go somewhere with commenting on that hypervigilance. Yeah. And then, yeah, it turns to what's the line? Okay, here it is there was one particular cultural difference which i wish to explore academically at princeton because this is part of her admissions essay they had to remind you every once in a while that this is a american women i believe actually feel the same as hispanic women about weight a desire for the comfort of fullness and when that desire is

suppressed for style and deprivation allowed to rule dieting exercising american women become afraid of everything associated with being curvaceous such as wantonness lustfulness sex food motherhood all that is best in life all is best in life yeah which is just like james l brooks is writing this and so it it it does i mean mostly i'm curious as to your thoughts too but yeah it to me came off as like just very over generalizing and very like i don't know like othering yeah i mean i think like the thing with this movie is like, I feel like James L. Brooks can like really like write his way out of anything. Like he's like, seems like a very like beautiful like writer,

but that sentence, like that sentence is really beautiful and it doesn't make any fucking sense. Like, is he saying like, is he saying like, like Mexican women also are like this or that they're not like this i'm not right it seems very reductive where he's just like yeah womanhood equals curvaceous equals motherhood equals awesome right it's like equals womb equals eating like yeah that line doesn't make a lot of sense it's so i know i and you get like tricked listening to it because you're like damn like that's some bars there what he's saying and

you're like wait what or what she's saying i'm already like yeah like could he tell us what he's saying here there was this is i guess just kind of because we have, for some reason, covered two James Brooks written directed movies on the show pretty recently. So to our listeners, we'll stop doing that. What else has he done? He did Broadcast News, which we covered with Dave Schilling, a movie I like a lot. But I felt like there was like I guess just like knowing his writing style this has nothing to do with anything but I was getting kind of like Holly Hunter

neurotic woman quote-unquote and which is how James Brooks writes women I was getting Holly Hunter neurotic woman vibes from Debra but like yeah written way more scattered and all over the place because I feel like the holly hunter character in broadcast news is like very nervous and just like kind of this vibrating nerve but at least in that movie we talk whatever you can listen to the episode if you want but like it at least mostly made sense and was contextualized but for deborah it's like she's just all over the place like you just don't know yeah james brooks thinks women are very neurotic he does and he's obsessed with the idea of a woman like going somewhere in private

and bursting out into tears for a few moments and then coming back in the room because that is also what holly hunter does throughout the movie and oh my god what we seeore do at the very beginning. Yeah. Wow. The more we talked about, I mean, and again, I guess this is just like, women as James Brooks perceives them, but I wish that that trait that Flore has of compartmentalizing

her feelings for the benefit of her daughter, like, I feel like that could have been a whole movie like getting back to like what we're talking about of this movie could be about two very very different families of women and why they deal with their shit the way they deal with it and like how and that would have been cool yeah yeah i just feel like you don't get a lot of like protagonists who are women which period you could say Flor is or isn't depending on, you know, your read of the movie. I think she's supposed to be.

But you don't like get a lot of protagonists who are like women who do not express every emotion they're having. Like it just feels like a more rare thing which i don't know i i am a woman that does express every emotion i'm having so right bad writing but flor is you know i don't know what what i have a i have two questions one okay where does the sun go oh he's in the movie for like two scenes he's so random he got disappeared so random he just like keeps not being there when you would expect a young nine-year-old kid to be at home that story actually that storyline got cut he was abducted in the middle of the movie but they're just like they're like we've done too much there's too many characters

yeah it does sound like james brooks realized in the middle of the movie that there were way too many characters. He's like, they're not going to notice. Well, I noticed. Second question. What is going on with the whole like chum, the dog and the fetch thing? I thought that was going to like pay off in some way or that was going to be a thing. But that's just like a weird detail that

gets introduced and then like they do nothing with oh i thought that that was just a really heavy-handed way of saying that flor is not like other girls she throws the ball yeah oh or she's like more in touch with like nature and like nurturing you know yeah yeah like could and like nurturing, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Like could be like Disney princess can like speak to animals. I guess I do see it being like that, which is like, what the hell? First of all, why do you feel the need to say that?

What a weird way to say it. Also, there's a scene where floor is at the class key house in theory working, but she's putting together a puzzle. Did anyone notice this? Oh, yeah. She's putting a jigsaw puzzle together. And it's like, they're just like, look busy. Right.

Yeah. Can't you send her home so she can spend time with her daughter? Like, what are you making her put a puzzle together for? Like, what the fuck? Anyway, her put a puzzle together for her like what the fuck anyway i hate this movie that's deborah that's deborah being a control freak another scene that i thought was like at least like knew what it was doing a little more than other scenes was that scene that it's just like excruciating to watch it's when deborah is trying to convince flor that she needs to come on the summer trip and she can't communicate with flor she says like you still haven't learned english and then she's like i have to learn how to say that in spanish being like haha i refuse

to learn spanish and that's funny and yeah then you know like grabs the nearest spanish speaker and it's like translate for me right now so i can tell flor what to do and like just the way that she i mean we've had a lot of talk about how deborah's shitty but like this scene i just hated her so much where flor is setting a boundary she's like no i can't do that like i have a daughter and deborah is like hurt that she didn't know that flor had a daughter even though it's like you never made any effort to like try to actually communicate with her about anything did you ever ask her about her family and also yeah and then cloris leachman kind of like low-key comes to the rescue and it's like well if she didn't tell you that she's probably really private and like i'll drive her home and Yeah. And then Cloris Leachman kind of like low key comes to the rescue and is like, well,

if she didn't tell you that she's probably really private and like I'll drive her home and like, yeah, it was like, which I mean, she probably shouldn't. She drinks. She probably can't drive. But then it's like, I hope this was intentional. I think it was where Deborah like is so insulted that Flora is like talking to her like she's an employer and not a friend yeah because that is their relationship that deborah is like well now i need to punish you and you have to come live with me and you have to like be close to me and i have to have access to

all areas of your life yeah creepy oh we're just creepy deborah tentacles i know a true villain the true villain of the movie really but john's an amazing guy he's so awesome why does he like her and then she's like i don't want to think that you're out of your mind for being in love with me but it's like he is yeah there's another quick moment that i feel like, the movie starts to set up a thing that could have been explored and interesting commentary could have been made about it where Deborah and John are like not on the same page ever with their parenting tactics. And this is something that Deborah keeps like hounding John about, like, we need to be on the same page and we as the audience are meant to identify with john and his approach because again deborah because she's a woman written by james l brooks is uh written to be quote-unquote hysterical yeah so but she says you told our son that you're not mad at him and i am mad at him for something that we don't know what the

son did that never even becomes clear we have no idea oh yeah but and then he got kidnapped and then he got abducted and then we never hear from him again but she's calling out her husband for making her seem like the bad guy because she's taking one approach and he seems like the good guy because he's not mad at their son and like that's often a dynamic that plays out in hetero marriages with children where yeah like you know we've talked about this a lot on the podcast where you know women because they're conditioned to be the kind of more disciplinary just like more active and present parent, they often have to do the more kind of disciplinary stuff. Whereas dads are sort of expected to be more Oh, I'm the I'm the goof. I'm the I we throw balls around and we play catch and do fun stuff. And but again, that's just

referenced in one scene. And it does feel like the movie falls on the side of like deborah is being hysterical for bringing it up right where like deborah is wrong for bringing most things up but that thing wasn't a thing that felt like yeah it was almost like the way that the performance was right we have no context right yeah yeah that's the this movie in a nutshell to me like yeah threads or like little seeds get planted that could have been interesting things to explore but the execution on nearly everything is completely ineffective yeah that maybe just says more about like us and our family i'm just like i think i love the movie because i like love my family i'm like whoa um sure and that's fair yeah yeah that makes sense

but i also like i don't know there's like i i wish that we got to spend more time with christina as well that was like one of my big things where christina doesn't become an important part of the movie until like maybe almost halfway through like not until the summer trip do we really see her we don't know what she's up to yeah because this movie is so like preoccupied with spending time with this rich white family and how flor is interacting with them yeah that we don't see we we hear christina all the time but we don't see her for like 20 minutes at one point and again it's like i don't know like it's she's such a rich character who's so relatable to so many people i mean like

melissa you were saying like she reminded you of your sister in some ways. And it just seems like a lost opportunity to show and also a lost opportunity to give Flores character more depth, because we could see, you know, right, who is Christina with when Flores has to be at work all the time? Like, how does she relate to Monica? How does she relate to the family? Like, what, what's going on with Christina? And we don't, we only like the movie only becomes interested in what is going on in her life. Once she like enters the assimilation zone. Right. And the movie does seem to be like, ultimately like this assimilation is like not a positive thing for her. Yeah. But it doesn't show you.

I don't know. I don't know um i yeah the takeaway again i'm just like right you tried movie but you didn't really cross the finish line shout out though to shelby bruce who plays christina who gave i think an incredible performance especially during that scene where she is so cute translating for her mom with the whole sea glass thing and she's like really like communicating her mom's like intent and but like she's having to talk about herself yeah like because the conversation is about her but she's like having to refer to herself in like the third person because of the translation it's really like it's oh i just like the rhythm of that scene that was probably my favorite the only scene i enjoyed in the movie to be frank yeah because of her like incredible

performance she's so good and when she's like publicly scorning her mom i have like a visceral reaction to that yeah like i'm so embarrassed yeah like i'll never forgive you for this yeah she's having a deborah tantrum she's going deborah she's turning deborah that scene i thought yeah that scene was really really like well executed and and shelby bruce is the best part of it where i don't know i mean i i have never been in a position where i had to translate between people much less my own family so it's not something that i personally understand but it just it's i felt like the scene did get across what a stressful and kind of unfair experience that is for Christina to have to

mediate a discussion about herself that she doesn't have any say in. Like there was no opportunity in that argument for Christina to say how she was feeling because the task at hand was to communicate how her mother was feeling and then communicate back how Adam Sandler was receiving it and it's just like oh well someone asked Christina what is on her mind like she's doing a lot of heavy lifting here for this weird romance right but that scene yeah that scene was very well acted I was bummed I thought I hope that she just like didn't feel like acting anymore, but she's not acting anymore. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. But she did sign a deal with Claire's Boutique to have her own jewelry line, which launched in September 2006. Oh. Yes. I hope she's still living off of that. I hope so too. something i realized is that for again a movie that is supposed to be focusing on this protagonist who is an immigrant from mexico we learn nothing about mexican culture even though it's clear that

the character like her heritage is very important to her. And there's like voiceover in the beginning that says like, my mother kept me in Mexico for as long as possible to like connect me with my Latin roots. And then when they moved to the US, they moved to a neighborhood of Los Angeles that seems to be predominantly other Mexican immigrants living in that neighborhood. And again, she keeps speaking the language. It takes her years to start to even be motivated to learn English. So there's like all these indicators that her Mexican heritage is very important to Flor. And yet the movie doesn't tell the audience anything about the culture. Yeah. And I think it's just because like james doesn't know anything doesn't know yeah right care yeah i mean it did seem like melissa you said this earlier where it's like the most you see of the culture that we're told repeatedly is so important to flor

is a cutaway to a party with characters we don't know eating tamales and like that is yeah all he was able to do it seems like there wasn't even like google involved i don't know like i know yeah it's just like seconds it's like there's not enough time in this two-hour movie we have to have a whole subplot with this review of his restaurant which is not and him crying into some cheese the restaurant you could cut out the restaurant entirely like it doesn't matter it's so bizarre i mean i don't so much but i don't hate it but it's like whatever like that time could be better used for so many things and it's like that in particular is like james l brooks could have gotten this movie made and done the bare minimum of like hiring a co-writer who was Mexican like collaborating instead of being like a James L.

Brooks film about something that I'm saying it's about but actually it isn't like wow that's not too much to ask because I was really curious about like because it seems like and i don't want to give him too much credit i'm trying to be careful like it does seem like james l brooks even when like when he he like misses the mark a lot but it doesn't seem like it's ever coming from like a place of cruelty it seems like it's usually from a place of ignorance and kind of like right thinking he knows more than he actually does yeah yeah and like. And like, kind of like hubris of like, well, it's a James L.

Brooks movie. I can't collaborate with a second person, you know, who knows what they're talking about and can write like, so James L. Brooks did not do much press for this movie, but I was looking for an interview just to be like, what was his research process?

Was there a research process? What work went into writing this script? Because it's so all over the place. And he says that he did, and this kind of made me laugh, he said that he did research for this movie for a year. A year? Like, what does that mean? Okay. Did he like live in LA?

Yeah, exactly. Did he just like exploit the labor of a Mexican immigrant as his housekeeper for a year? That's not good enough. So what he did, I'll read it to you. It's a roller coaster of a quote. Okay. So I'll just read it to you.

This is an interview he did when the movie came out in 2004. The person asks, How much research do you do for a character? James Brooks says, enormous, enormous, enormous. Sitting around tables, sitting at my home, gathering women,

hearing great lines, seeing women with their children, having the kids translate, talking to them about that experience. That was just an accident when the kids were there with their mother one day and that led to being

the most important part of the story. Maybe hundreds of women, notebooks filled with transcripts almost 90 of them in spanish which i don't speak with somebody translating for me and the nights when you get loose the nights when you do it at night and you're just sitting around and it goes on and just when it stops being formal and some of the best of it is you're sitting back like at this certain point instead of asking questions and they're just talking to each other and somebody's just telling you what they're saying and it's great there was a 19 year old mother of a two-year-old i met and she said this extraordinary thing i had the line in the movie and i had to cut it out because i didn't shoot the scene but she said

that she well she was a very attractive woman and she said the next time she had a man who was viable at all that she'd instead of dating him and finding out these facts about him she'd want to take him to the park with her kid see him interact with her kid and make her decision on the guy based only on that and that became the heartbeat that i kept on talking to within the movie the no the quote goes on i find this so weird and confusing where he just makes it sound like he was inviting women to his house and right like at night I have so many questions yeah like he should have just gotten like a co-writer or like just funded this movie and not made it himself.

Like, oh, my God. Yeah. So that was that was his research process was women coming over his house and then him hiring a translator to write down what they said and then putting that in the movie, which is also exploitative in itself. Like, yeah, deeply exploitative. And like, were the people he was talking to compensated were they credited i'm assuming not right who's the 19 year old mom who said something that inspired the whole movie did yeah what the fuck yeah so i got my answer but it was very upsetting yeah so that's a unfortunate look into what he meant by the term research what he thinks is research which is just exploiting women that he encourages

to come to his house just hire a co-writer what the fuck are you doing man horrible yeah so sorry sorry for bringing the vibe down with that but i just was like damn no my my world has been rocked no one's read that interview in 17 years and i feel like we need to unearth it yeah does anyone have anything else they'd like to talk about i don't think so yeah well um does the movie pass the bechdel test uh yeah it does right yeah i think for a lot of like like less so as the movie goes on but at the beginning it passes a lot yeah right because the focus, I mean, there are, and there are different combinations where of course, Flor and Christina, Christina and Debra, Debra and Bernice, you know, there's different combinations. Floris Leitchman and various characters. Right, right, right, right.

But yeah, you're right. As the movie goes on and the focus becomes about again a romance that i could not be less compelled by yeah that uh these other kind of interactions drop off a bit but yeah it does it does pass um women are interacting quite a bit and often about the very mundane things that this movie is about i've never sea glass why is there a 20 minute segment about finding sea glass in the sand it's a metaphor it's not it's like so mundane that it sounds like james l brooks like had done it himself like it's too specific right very very confusing and yet i feel like it's like i don't know i would i would definitely categorize this movie under the very overused term problematic fave problematic fave for me it's a problematic least fave oh yeah hey she's edgy that's the caitlin that's the kind of edgy content

you can expect on this show yeah we're like i did not like it um the yeah this movie it's just like i want james l brooks to answer for his research process yeah yeah as far as our nipple scale goes zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens i feel like i and i i hated the movie so much that this might cloud my judgment but i feel like i would still only give it like maybe a one and a half nipples because again it does attempt to make some commentary and like you said the intentions

never seem to be malicious or like a deliberate punching down the way a lot of comedies although I would not classify this movie as a comedy except for that one scene except for the we i had an orgasm because this lady had two babies and she's still keeping it tight i'm like what the fuck is going on in this the mother of two

oh my god adam sandler's just like asleep the movie. He's asleep in a wig. Which, honestly, there's worse ways to be. Yeah. So I think there's an effort made, but it's just that that effort was not good. It was not executed well. And just between a lot of threads that get dropped and some weird coding and casting stuff. The class commentary is a bit more effective for me, but again, the movie's so scattered and choppy narratively that I don't know what the takeaway is. And it's just a big old mess for me. I do appreciate and

completely see how families and individuals could see themselves represented in a movie like this, especially because so few movies, especially ones that are like mainstream theatrical releases and not many of them deal with the experience of an immigrant family. I would argue that this one barely explores that because so much of the focus is still on the claskey drama that's going on. But I still understand that there is some degree of representation that people can see themselves in. So I don't want to diminish that or take that away from anyone. But luckily, it's not 2004 anymore. Oh, thank God. And representation in that regard has been getting slightly better in the years since. So I'm only going to give it one and a half nipples.

And I will give one to Christina. And I will give my half nipple to Flor. I feel like I'm being overly nostalgic. But like two? I'm going to go with two. You know, I think that this like movie is very much what is wrong with it is very glaringly wrong. And the more you learn about the production, the clearer it becomes why it's coming off the way it's coming off. And like what, like, I do agree that it's like james brooks wasn't

approaching this material with malicious intent but it was like it's clear that he's most interested in the adam sandler character in which case like random right like that's a different movie make a different movie or again like yeah hire a co-writer who is interested in who you're claiming is your protagonist because he just like yeah seems interested in you know again i mean can't really speak to his intent because he didn't do any interviews about this movie except the one weird one but like weird that it does seem like he takes steps to other floors in many ways in ways that i think he views is very complimentary and like no i'm not othering her i'm saying that she's absolutely perfect and the ultimate mommy and it's like well that's

other you know like yeah it's just like you were saying caitlin like and and like you were speaking about your own experience well so it's like this this movie connected for reasons that are related to writing and for reasons that are related to lack of options of like in 2004. Yeah. Like it just. I know. The only way to make a widely distributed movie about the story of two Mexican immigrant women was to have a white guy who knew nothing of that experience and didn't take many steps to include or involve, you know. Yeah. Doesn't even speak Spanish.

Like, he didn't admit, like, I don't know what they were saying. I don't speak Spanish. It's like, why would you make a movie about that then? Right. Well, he makes a creepy comment about how Paz Vega didn't speak much English and he didn't speak much Spanish. And I think he's trying to draw this parallel that's like, honey, no, that's not what was going on. Is he Adam Sandler?

I think he's Adam Sandler and she's the character she was playing. Horrible. But yeah, I mean, it's just like it's so 2004 in its flaws but i think that there are like there are strong threads and relationships that like you see parts of that seem very promising yeah and they just he just can't follow through on like oh jimmy jimmy jimmy's just not the guy to make this story but he he did his best, and it was okay for 2004. So I'll give it two nipples. And I'll give one to Christina.

And I will give one to Monica, because I wanted her in the movie more. Cousin Monica, baby. She was funny. Justice for Monica. Yeah. She got her nose broken yeah she had good side eyes at deborah i'm gonna give this movie two and a half nipples it was gonna be three nipples and then the james l brooks um research that you've told me about really took

half a nipple away um so horrible i really hate i really hate that i think i still yeah i'm still so like sentimentally attached to this movie but it's just because of like who i am and yeah it's so it's so fun to talk about too because there's so much going on there that is awry and i yeah i could i feel like i could talk about it for like maybe another half hour um but i know there's like stuff i feel like we missed but i'm just like i'm tired i'm tired i have to go to bed i know i'm gonna give one nipple to Clarence Leachman through the whole movie because she's so funny and weird. And I love I just love a drunk old woman. And I love that her purpose is just like being this like dried out like jazz singer who is just like drinking by noon and just like being funny.

I love her. And I'll give another nipple to the Christina translating for her mother scene because it is, it's pretty classic and I like that he's trying to eat the sandwich the whole time

and he can't. And then half a nipple to the final scene of the movie that just always gets to me. Even I screen capped it while I was watching it where she says um the only thing

that will define me is being my mother's daughter that really got to me james l brooks i don't know you uh i think that was like really formative to me too i've like that's like in my my poetry somewhere probably plagiarized um but i mean he probably plagiarized it from the women that he invited over to his house dang yeah i wouldn't lose sleep over it yeah but that's just half a nipple so yeah yeah oh well melissa thank you so much for joining us thanks for having me this is so fun it was fun to hang out yeah thanks for bringing us this movie uh that is such a i mean truly it's just like let people make their own movies james don't let james l brooks do it look what would happen yeah tell us more about your book and where people can buy it and check out your other stuff and follow you on social media and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, you can follow me on social media at E-L-L-O Melissa. That's my handle everywhere. I'm on the Internet way too much. And my book, like I said, is a novel in verse about bringing selena back to life through seance and it's all about identity and love and and loneliness in a way that maybe um was you know a tiny bits of spanglish are in there um i dedicate my book to james l brooks um and anyway no no He's an icon. I get it.

Right. It's like I only wrote my, everything I do is because of Jimmy Brooks. So yeah, my book is out. You can get it wherever books are being sold. It would be great

if you didn't get it on Amazon and got it on bookshop.org. They support indie bookstores. Or you could call up your local indie bookstore and buy it there i would love if you read my book yeah that's it thank you yeah i love you thank you for doing this on. I love it. Te quiero. Mi amor. You can follow us on social media on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtelcast.

You can go to patreon.com slash Bechtelcast and subscribe to our Matreon which is $5 a month you get two bonus episodes every month plus access to the very large

Beck catalog and you can get our merch at tpublic.com slash the Bechtelcast if that's you know what you feel like doing and if you don't it's none of our business live your life that's true adios bye And if you don't, it's none of our business. Live your life. That's true. Adios.

Adios. Bye. Hey, y'all. Nimany here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when 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.