The Bechdel Cast - Suspiria (2018) with Alissa Nutting and Alyson Levy

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

This week, a coven of witches full of Jamie, Caitlin, and special guests Alissa Nutting and Alyson Levy, get together to dance and discuss Suspiria (2018). (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Hey, Jamie. Hey, Caitlin. Sorry, that's Mother Caitlin to you? Oh, yeah. No, I'm sorry.

I'm definitely not a mother also. No, no. Yeah, it's in a way we're all mothers and we're all here at this dance academy and something something world war ii something something cold war and it's all feeling kind of profound isn't it and we're witches surprise mean, that's not really a surprise. You figured that out pretty early. Yeah, yeah, yeah. True.

The real question is, why does Tilda Swinton look like the Six Flags guy when she's playing the... I could not... I guess I went into the movie knowing that she plays the psychologist, which great. But why does she look like the Six Flags guy? She does. As the psychologist? Yes. Yeah.

I think she looks more like the Six Flags guy for that character who doesn't speak and stabs herself in the neck. Oh, that's true. Because that has the glasses element yeah she's so versatile um i that is tilda swinton in that role too right yes that one i think is more obviously tilda swinton that would be an interesting uh piece of clickbait to read is tilda swinton characters ranked by how much they look like the six flags guy sure sure she should play the six flags guy in a biopic i'm not mad about it um okay hello and welcome to the bechdel cast yeah that didn't pass well yeah six flags but i think if if you're talking about the six flags guy as played by tilda

swinton i think it does but she's playing a male character i don't know six flags guy tricky let's get semantic right at the beginning of the show i think that that would really hook in listeners it's just like dakota johnson hooks her vagina question mark we'll get into that later. Oh my God, the hooks. Yeah. Anyway, this is the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus. And this is our podcast where we look at your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for discussion. But Caitlin, what is that? Well, it's just a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test, originally appearing in Alison Bechdel's comic Dykes to Watch Out For in the 80s as a bit, as a goof.

It's since been used as a popular media metric by people such as us. But again, we only use it as a jumping off point. Our version of the test is that two people of a marginalized gender must speak to each other about something other than a man, specifically the Six Flags guy, for two lines of dialogue or more, preferably some narratively substantial conversation. Yeah. A lot of movies don't pass. This one does.

And so, you know, you can just sort of wash your hands of wondering. It passes very early and consistently. And no one talks about the Six Flags guy. And that's actually one of my bigger criticisms of the film. Yeah, yeah. But historically, they couldn't. I think he wasn't, you know know a popular figure till the 90s let's get our guests in here talk about two guests who uh love to explore grotesque motherhood in a very different way

indeed yes they are the creators of teenageage Euthanasia, which is currently available to stream. It's Alison Levy and Alyssa Nutting. Hello. Welcome. Thank you. I don't think they talked about any man in this movie at any point, let alone for two lines in a row. I am wondering if the Six Flags guy is its own marginalized gender, perhaps. And then what if Tilda Swinton actually is the Six Flags guy? That was my, like, do we know that she's not? We don't know that she's not. That would be a really good long con. It's like when

you learn that J.K. Simmons is the yellow m&m and you're like what it all comes together oh caitlin i love that i got to tell you that he's been the yellow m&m for like at least 10 years probably longer oh yes i know it's also like when that one stormtrooper in the force awakens who has like two lines of dialogue and is getting like force mind controlled by ray as she's like discovering her powers is daniel craig what but you never know because he's in a stormtrooper costume good good for him um i find that fascinating personally anyway i it's it's no yellow eminem for me'm i'm happy for him yeah that's a fun okay okay we're talking about cesperia uh the 2018 adaptation by oh god italian name i am not

i'm gonna fuck it up luca guagnino guadagnino guadagnino guadagnino e Ewan McGregor. Yep. Just a list of names I've never said correctly. Luca Guadagnino. Most famous. It's his first movie. I didn't realize this was his first movie after Call Me By Your Name. Yes. Kind of a wild follow-up. But obviously not the first adaptation of this movie.

That was in 1977 by Dario Argento. And we'll sort of talk about the like changes made to the 2018 movie. Cause it's a lot. It's about an hour's worth of stuff. They're very different movies. Yeah. And I imagine we will just cover the 1977 Suspiria in a different episode at some point. Yeah.

It's very, it's very, very different. Um, yeah, but first I guess with i i would expand this to either suspiria alissa let's start with you what's your history with the suspiria expanded universe um okay i i do want to like i read that that tilda wore a prosthetic penis when she played the German psychoanalyst.

Yeah. And that kind of eclipses a lot of sort of like what I, I don't know, thoughts I had about the film initially. And there's a great gif of her from this movie, Eating Wings. That's also just like a gift. Yeah, I want to put out there if people haven't seen that gift, like you can send it, you can send it for almost anything. It's kind of one of those universal, it's like, oh, blood, you know what I mean? Like any, any situation can use Tilda eating wings. But yeah, I mean, I loved, I loved the original and was really excited for the new one.

I didn't expect it to be as different. I guess I'll begin there. But, you know, I like being aroused and frightened at the same time. So I'm a big fan of both. Sure. It's a horny movie and it's a scary movie. It's accomplishing a lot of emotions. Check.

Check. Allison, what about you? Either Suspiria, both Suspirians. Well, I see like two horror movies a decade. I'm like, I don't like the feeling of being afraid. I don't like the manipulated feeling of fear. But for some reason, I did see this movie when it came out in the theater, which, again, highly, you know, not regular for me to do. And I liked it a lot, which also at the time seemed, you know, people just decided they hated it or something. But I don't know. But I liked it a lot which also at the time seemed you know people just decided they hated it or

something but I don't know but I liked it and I watched it this morning at kind of yap speed to prepare for today and I liked it at yap speed too it's I don't know it's really beautiful and and I also think I didn't realize how much mother stuff was in there, actually. And now that's probably why I liked it, too, because that is one of my more favorite topics. Jamie, how about you? I had seen both Suspirias before, but not for a while. And I know that when I saw the Luca Guadagnino one, I was like probably not fully paying attention because it's streaming on Amazon Prime, which means if a movie is long and it's streaming, I'm going to be in and out of the room. I'm going to be peeing and not pausing.

I'm going to be missing some things and not really worrying about it. So it felt like a fresh look at it. I'd seen the Argento one. I don't know when, but I remember like, I don't know when but I remember like I don't know like it's not really doing much in the way of like subverting slasher tropes as as much but it's beautiful and the score rips and I just remember liking like even though it wasn't like whatever doing much in the way of um subverting any sort of witchy tropes or whatever because we've been talking about so many witch movies recently that i feel like on witch patrol where i'm like nothing

really new there but it just like the way it's stylized is pretty incredible and really memorable and so um i liked it i re-watched it before watching the new Suspiria just to get a full idea of like how complicated the new narrative is in comparison and I don't know I feel like I'm I I was not expecting to be like meh on this new one and I am open to being swayed I didn't really like it very much I thought it was like doing uh it's so weird because it's like, whatever, this show was airing when this movie came out. It's only five years old,

but it already feels like kind of funky to me of like a male auteur trying to craft a reaction to the Me Too movement. I think if I watched it in 2018, I would have liked it more than I liked it now but now it just felt like oh yeah that was like the series like the you know

stretch of a couple of years where all of our male auteurs were like don't worry you guys I get it and like it I don't know like parts of this movie were from certain angles I really liked this movie I liked what it tried to add with like historical context and like giving you more than just sort of your standard slasher characters. But then there were other parts that I was like, what is he on about? What? What's all this then? Yeah. Yeah.

It's kind of like not loving this movie the way I was expecting to. Anyways, Caitlin, what's your history with Suspirias? I saw the first Suspiria in the early 2000s. And I've seen it a few times since. And I generally like it, although I find the story just sort of like, what is this about again? But witches are mean and they need new ones. Right, right. It's a tone poem, I would say, between like the color scheme, the lighting, the score, you know, it's like, it's just sort of something you put on and kind of like, vibe to in a horror way, you know, and I appreciate that. The new one, I find more narratively compelling,

because I feel like it tries to have more of a plot. But I have similar gripes as you, Jamie, as far as I mean, we'll get into it. But I did see in theaters, I was one of like, I don't know, 11 people who saw it because this movie tanked. Yeah, I also saw it in the theater. We must have been in the same show. It was just us. Yeah. I think I would have liked it better if I had seen it in the theater the first time, too. Because it's like it seems like the sort of movie where it's like if you're like in it, it probably hits harder.

That dancing, too, is really cool. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. The dancing was amazing. And again, as much as I dislike horror, I also dislike dancing. And so it like sort of doubly seemed problematic for me, but no, maybe like they cancel each other out,

but I liked all the dancing on the big screen because the sound is really cool too that you probably don't hear if you're like wandering around your apartment while you watch it. The sound is pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. There's cool stuff. I mean, there's there's things to like, certainly.

And the dancing's amazing. The costumes are incredible. Makeup. It made me realize that there's apparently a whole like sub genre of horror that's like ballet or dance horror. Yeah. Center parts. A lot of center parts. Yes.

Middle parts. Yes. Yeah. So I'm excited to get into it. I feel even though I watched the movie twice and did a bunch of reading, I still feel underprepared because there's just there's so much there's a lot of lore that was established by Dario Argento yeah and Daria Nicolodi who co-wrote the first Suspiria movie is that correct um yes so there's all this lore and then this Suspiria movie from 2018, being set in Cold War, mostly West Berlin, and a bunch of stuff that I still don't understand. Every time I try to learn about the Cold War, I read so much, and I still do not really quite understand it. Let me paint the picture for you.

I'm just kidding you. Fortunately, the three of us are Cold War scholars. I know. It's like we mutually figure, I don't know, because I was texting you while I was watching the movie as well, and I'm like, it's just not coming in. It's not coming in. I actually can paint the picture a tiny bit of the Berlin part.

If this is if this helps at all. I've been to Berlin a lot of times and I had friends there. So I think why it's set there and why it was interesting to me and the whole Beider Mann half stuff. It's like, you know, the 70s in Germany, they're like the people who were born after the war are like confronting their disgusting parents who were Nazis. Right. So they're all like coming of age and realizing they have to confront this, like not in some theoretical construct, but with their actual families. And so that it's like a whole 70s, like apocalyptic, political thing where everything's like busting apart and there's like actual terrorists that are creating havoc.

And then the whole East and West is this like crazy schism, right? You guys know, like you couldn't go from one to the other. It's like families are divided again. Yeah. And then the whole East part, like when he goes there, the other thing I thought was kind of cool is because it's famous for like the Stasi,

which was like Google before Google, like IRL Google, where there's like people keeping track of every single thing you're doing, what you're saying, you're being recorded all the time. But there's like actual humans writing this down. where'd she go, who she's meeting with, and everyone's telling on each other. So it's like this absolute state of paranoia, which I think is what the therapist thing is about. But it's real. It's like how this is real, there really are

riches. And there really is this entire state of paranoia that they're all living in but that's you know my that was why i thought it was set in germany this time yeah no that's that's super i and i think that like it it i thought it was a cool concept for them to set the 2018 movie in germany at the time that the original came out with the benefit of knowing what happens and how to... Yeah, there's so much talk about generational trauma through World War II specifically

and also just how generational trauma exists between mothers and daughters. And I like all of that. but why don't i like this movie well let's explore i won't even convince you that you should you know i don't know i don't know but i just like and maybe it was just too long but i don't know it's very long and not very quickly paced there was a post-credits sequence. Yeah, which I don't understand. It's just Dr. Strange-ass approach. I think I missed it.

Well, let's take a quick break and then come back for the recap. 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,

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Without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline 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. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here is the story which is set in mostly west berlin in 1977 and we meet a young woman named patricia played by chloe grace moretz who pays a visit to her psychologist, Dr. Klemperer, who is an old man, although it's Tilda Swinton in makeup. One of the many characters, the Six Flags guy, some would say, one of the many characters that Tilda Swinton plays in the movie. And Patricia tells him, they they're witches although we don't know who or

what she's referring to yet we also hear chloe grace moretz say the iconic line they're going to eat my cunt on a plate my hollowed out cunt on the plate you're right yeah yes it's a fun cross stitch you know as like that's a fun cross stitch, you know, as like, that's a fun, that may be, is the first time that sentence was written down. Yeah.

And I like that. I'm like, I'm in it now. I'm in it. Right? You should get points for that. Right? I will.

I'll be its defense attorney. Right? Like, I mean, come on, like how many points for that? Right? I mean,

even if it's, even if it didn't do anything else. Yeah. Yeah. You had me a ton on a plate you know the stakes are high okay so then we cut to a mennonite family in rural ohio we meet a young woman named suzy banyan played by dakota johnson as she sits by the bedside of her very ill mother. Then we cut to Susie in Berlin. She arrives at the Marcos Dance Company for an audition.

And even though she has no formal dance training, she gives an audition that impresses the people in charge, one of them being Madame Blanc, also Tilda Swinton. And Susie is accepted into the company in a building where like the dancers also live. So like the performances are there, the dormitories where the dancers stay are there. It seems like all of the matrons who are like the faculty and staff of this place,

everyone lives there right and there's when she gets in there's sort of this like definitely does not appear in the Argento version but it's like taken they take a moment to emphasize that all of your needs are taken care of and that a woman's financial independence is not lost on them and is very important to them and that is originally what makes i mean suzy almost bursts into tears upon hearing that because it seems like she grew up with not very much yeah then suzy meets a few of the staff there are instructors administrators a house mother again the matrons not to be confused with the matrons of our matreon yes um patreon has a

patriarchal stance that we don't like um yeah i would say that about maybe one third of the women who uh run this school are tilda swinton yes Yes. But there's others as well. And the rest, the rest are more conventional hacks, which is again, I'm pretty into that. I'm really into hag core in general. And it's a wonderful and diverse body type of hack.

I do like, yeah. Like all of the like older women in this, I mean, I, it reaches a point sometimes where it's like, I don't know, but as far as the administration goes, I'm like, Oh, yeah, women that are

like, look their own age, and are not constantly belittled for it. Yeah, yeehaw. Yeah, imagine all are welcome. The dance company, you assume they're all ex dancers. So they seem they seem pretty live. Is that the right word they're pretty they seem like they can move pretty good i've been kind of jealous of that but anyway there's the witchcraft too that probably that's probably helping that keeps you limber yeah yeah if i could i would cast spells on myself so as to not wake up in pain every morning anyway so suzy meets the matrons she also meets another dancer named sarah played by mia goth and they become friendly i like mia goth so much i forgot she was in this movie she's great yeah she's an incredible like horror actor

specifically like i'm excited probably like one of the best yeah yeah yeah i just saw infinity pool oh she's the standout beyond beyond standout and i know that people really like x and pearl neither of which i've seen yet but i'm too afraid too afraid i really liked of the two i i loved pearl i thought pearl was awesome we should cover pearl at some point and she was great in emma anyways hope she's well i hope she's well i hope she's well i hope she's well um also worth noting that everyone at the dance company the dancers the matrons uh etc everyone is a woman almost as if it's a coven of witches yeah there wouldn't surely there wouldn't just be a group of women never a group of women equals a coven not in the

70s something's afoot um okay then there's a scene where the matrons are casting votes for either Marcos or Blanc, and it's voted that Mother Marcos will remain in charge. Then there's a conversation about how they have to choose the right girl to perform some ritual, because Patricia, aka Chloe Grace Moretz, didn't work out. And now Patricia seems to be missing the other dancers particularly sarah is worried about her and they don't know where she is which is interesting because in the in the original version that is suzy i mean there's like suzy's whole narrative in this movie is unique to this movie but originally it's like the american girl shows up and finds out something's afoot and immediately starts investigating it and doesn't. I don't know.

It's just like the character is totally different. But that's more Mia Goth's vibe in this movie. Yeah. And they're wondering if Mia Goth's character, Sarah, might be the right choice for this ritual that they will be performing. Sarah then helps Susie get settled into her dormitory. And then the dancers start rehearsing for an upcoming performance of a dance called Volk, which, and they're doing like contemporary dance

slash German expressionism modern dance. I don't know exactly what genre this is. But it's not ballet like it is in the first Suspiria movie. Yeah, they're pulling from like this specific German choreographer named Mary Wigman. And I guess that that is like who Dakota Johnson studied. She's a modern dancer during this time. But the reason she is not explicitly credited or referenced within the movie is because I think a lot of what you were referring to of one of the narrative complications of this movie, Alison, where she was likely connected to Nazism in some way so she had a lot of influence in german dance but is uh not really discussed today although i think it's her work that's being pulled from for this choreography interesting

so they're doing they're they're prepping for this performance uh for this dance called volk uh the one dancer olga is is upset that Patricia is gone. And she calls Madame Blanc a liar and a witch. And she runs out intending to quit the company. So now they don't have a protagonist because Olga was supposed to dance that part. But Susie volunteers, even though she's brand new and people are skeptical of her skill level. She's like, I can do it. And she starts dancing.

She's so Christine Daae in Phantom of the Opera, where she's like, me? I guess I could. And then she fucking kills it. Yeah, she's dancing. And as she's dancing, we see Olga trying to leave. But she gets trapped in a room. And it's as if Suszy's dance movements are puppeting olga's body and so it's contorting her in this really gruesome violent way it's breaking her

bones and twisting her all around i know this movie came out afterwards but it reminded me very much of a similar dance scene in us. Oh, yeah. That's right. That came out the year after this. So I think it's a coincidence. But while this setup was on people's minds. Right. We are also occasionally following Dr. Klemper around. He visits, I think it's his old house in East Berlin,

where he used to live with his wife, who went missing many years ago. We also see him looking through Patricia's journal, and he sees some peculiar stuff about this dance company, and he calls the police and reports Patricia missing. Now, back at the company, some of the matrons find Olga's grotesquely contorted body. They barely react. They stick some large hooks in her and drag her away. So it seems like this is just par for the course at the old Marco's Dance Company. A lot of hook imagery in this movie.

Yeah, truly. Then we hear a conversation, which, so some of the conversations in this movie seem to be happening telepathically, where the matrons slash witches are communicating with their minds. You didn't like that part, Jamie? Oh, no, I did like that part. That was a good part, I thought. That was really good. Like when they're just having a dinner, but then this whole thing is happening. I kind of loved that. Jamie oh no I did like that part that was a good part I thought that was really good like when they're just having a dinner but then there's whole thing is happening I kind of loved that

I thought that was great yeah no that like there I didn't hate this movie let me be clear I just feel like I don't know I'm excited to talk about it later in the episode where I felt like there were so many elements of this movie that I liked and I didn't really, I don't know, like I just where it landed, I found confused. I was like not happy with the way that it ended, I guess. Anyway, so we hear this conversation where they are rethinking their choice of Sarah and instead maybe they should try the new girl, Susie, for the ritual they're planning. Then two cops show up to the dance company trying to find Patricia. But some of the matrons seemingly put them in a hypnotic trance. They're taunting them, they're taking their pants off and like touching. That was my other favorite part.

Yeah, they're touching them with the hooks, like they're like kind of prodding the one guy's penis with one of the hooks and it's uh really something um the dancers continue to rehearse with madame blanc instructing them she's working closely with suzy training her's like, jump higher. Then we see this hand, this like close up on a hand with these like long, gross fingernails. And apparently it's Mother Marcos from like the depths of this building, wanting to feel Susie's energy. Then Dr. Klemperer approaches Sarah about Patricia and her belief that a coven of witches is running this dance company. And he's like, Sarah, maybe you should check this out. And she's like, I don't know what you're talking about. I see no evidence of this. Leave me alone. But Sarah starts to get a little suspicious and she does start investigating the building and finds a room with some weird stuff, including those large hooks.

And she also hears some screaming coming from another room. character with the big plastic framed six flags guy glasses yes who we had seen picking up a knife and stabbing herself in the neck for reasons for yes that we definitely understand movie reasons yeah yeah i think that she and the psychiatrist should have hung out because they had a similar tilda smitten six vlogs guy aesthetic i feel like they would have made sense together as friends even you know exactly okay so sarah is you know hearing and seeing this freaky stuff so she runs out and she goes to see dr klemper again who tells sarah about what patricia had written in her diary about the three mothers and i'm gonna try to pronounce their names it's mother tenenbrum the royal tenenbrums um it's mother it's like being drunk at a party and trying to remember the name of a movie yeah

mother oh god i don't let let's not lock reamerum marum i don't know and then mother suspiriorum or something i don't know if i said that one right anyway uh mother marcos claims to be one of the three but there is dissent among the group of matrons hence that vote we saw earlier as to who should be in charge and it seems like madame blanc is also insisting that she is one of the mothers this is kind of the bitchiest part of the movie but then kind of like in cat fighting between them which which old witch is in charge which witch yep then sarah confronts suzy accusing her of making some kind of deal with the witches and suzy's like no nothing is wrong everything is normal teehee and we're like wow gaslighting much uh then it's the night of the show that the company is putting on

and as the dancers are getting ready sarah snoops around the building again and she finds patricia and some of the other dancers i think olga maybe the one who had been like badly contorted they are alive but their bodies are badly injured and they're like decaying they're kind of being kept in storage it looks like yeah they're like being held against their will some kind of catacombs underneath the dance yeah yeah it's really scary and sarah is freaked out and she's trying to escape, but she falls and breaks her leg because like the witches are preventing her from escaping. And then some of the matrons find her and put her into a trance and heal her leg. Meanwhile, the performance is going on upstairs

with Susie dancing the lead and Sarah in her tranceance joins in but she falls and cries out in pain and dr klemper who is there to watch is like wow something weird is definitely going on i was right they changed the eye color too but yes yes this is very weird and switcheroo you don't realize what is happening and then you sort of realize it I know like toward the end of the movie I was like wait was Dakota Fanning's eyes were they always brown?

Dakota who? Did I say Dakota Fanning? I knew I was going to do that Oh my god I'm so sorry everybody Inside of everyone there are two dakotas north and south or east and west like that's true berlin anyway okay so then there's another day of rehearsals and madame blanc is like okay it has to happen tonight. This ritual with Susie, where Susie will be some sort of vessel for Mother Marcos.

And Susie seems to be in on it. She is a willing and knowing participant. Meanwhile, Dr. Klemperer's, his wife, who again went missing decades earlier, suddenly reappears. And she's played by Jessica Harper, who played suzy banyan in the original suspiria from 1977 and who has been on this show friend of the cast on the rosemary's baby episode yeah anyway so uh dr klemperer and his wife anka have a tearful reunion and they're walking through the city at night and then she brings him to the dance company

and then immediately disappears because it was a trick. The witches tricked him into going there because they're going to use him as the witness for the ritual. The ritual starts. We're in this big underground room. The dancers are naked naked they're dancing and writhing around sarah is getting disemboweled mother marcos is there we finally see her in the flesh she is also played by tilda swinton and she is a sight to see a vision a vision a legend you know we'll talk about that character more but basically she's she's made to look very how many times do we talk about that happening yeah seriously reminds me of i feel like that goes back to not like cinematically just like times we've talked about it i feel like the shining maybe shining we talked about it and And the Vavitch, countless times this conversation is always coming up.

Midsommar. Yeah. Comes a plot. And then Susie is like, I'm ready. And we think she's going to be sacrificed. And then Madame Blanc is like, something doesn't feel right. We have to stop this. But before she can, Mother Marcos kind of like half decapitates Madame Blanc. And then

Marcos is like, okay, Susie, let's keep going. And by the way, you have to kill your mother back in Ohio, because I'm the only mother you need. But then another super witch, I don't really know who this is supposed to be. But a very scary being shows up. And Susie's like, hey, Mother Marcos, for which mother were you anointed again? And she's like, Mother Suspiriorum. And Susie's like, well, that's interesting, because I am Mother Susiriorum and then the super witch kills mother marcos and anyone who had voted for marcos by exploding their heads into a burst of blood then suzy goes to patricia olga and sarah and they all ask to die they're you know in pain and they've been you know brutally tortured and stuff so Susie slash the new mother Suspiriorum releases them from their mortal coils and the other dancers are still dancing and Susie's like yes keep, keep dancing. She also rips open her own chest at some point for reasons.

It's because she's got like a heart of darkness. Yes. Mother Suspiriorum vibes. Truly. I think she's like, she's not a person. So you're just like, it's whatever this is. Yeah. This spirit, this magic.

It does sort of look like a hollowed out cunt in her chest. Oh my God. Sorry. I'm just quoting the movie. Anyway. I'm open to it. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Then we see the aftermath of all of this, where one of the matrons escorts Dr. Klemperer out of the building. We see the remaining matrons whose heads didn't get exploded. They're cleaning up the bloody mess from the night before. Madame Blanc is still sort of alive, but who knows. Then Susie pays a visit to Dr klemper at home and she's like you deserve to know the truth about what happened with your wife and she tells him that she was killed in a nazi

death camp in 1943 and that she was thinking of him when she died. And then Susie erases his memory of his wife Anka, of Patricia and Sarah and Susie herself, basically all of the women that were his undoing. And then the movie ends with an image of the house he lived in with Anka and this like engraved, like their initials engraved with like a heart drawn around it which he will never remember because the witches don't want him to remember the end so that's the movie let's take a quick break and we'll come back to discuss. is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right, the queen of comedy herself.

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I mean, I just to for people listening who have not seen either movie or have only seen the 2018 movie the differences between the two suspirias are pretty significant uh i would say that there's obviously a lot of love and care put into the 2018 version to pay homage to the original the protagonist name is the same uh suzy comes from america to a dancing organization in berlin in both times uh there the dance company is full of witches both times but the argento version is plot wise pretty cut and dry as far as which stories go. I think that what makes it different is, you know, unlike most slasher films of this era and still to some extent now, depending on what you're watching, it's not men butchering women. It's women butchering women, although it's shot very similarly.

And it's sort of a straightforward, an innocent young woman comes to Berlin and finds witches and she survives till the end and is sort of this pure figure throughout. This one is obviously very different. But for those who haven't seen the Argento movie, that's basically what it is. And it has all these separate issues

that the 2018 movie does not share with it. So we'll save that for another episode. Yeah. I also want to share some of the like lore of the three mothers, which I didn't realize until I started researching for this episode. But it's I wasn't sure if like the three mothers were based in some sort of myth, like existing mythology. And it was inspired by existing mythology. But basically, Dario Argento conceived of this trio of mothers and made a trilogy about the three mothers. So

Suspiria from 77 is one of the movies of this trilogy that focuses on, you know, Mother Suspiriorum. He also made a movie called Inferno and another movie called Mother of Tears, which each of those movies focuses on the other two of the three mothers. And throughout the course of this trilogy, you learn that it's these like, you know, ancient witches who I think invented, it was like three sisters who invented witchcraft, and then started just like going around Europe, amassing wealth throughout the centuries, amassing power, leaving death in their wake wherever they went. They were able to manipulate world events on like a global scale, you know, killing anyone who got in their way or discovered who they actually were, and they were determined to rule the world. Now, the witches wanting world domination doesn't come

across super clearly in this movie, which is actually one of my criticisms about it, because I kept being like, okay, what is their motivation? Like, why are they doing what they're doing? I wish there was, I don't know, I guess, and we'll talk about this the way like, these witches are feminists, which obviously, I mean, further discussion, but like, I was like, are these witches like trying to smash the patriarchy, quote, unquote, or like, what are they doing exactly it never becomes quite clear and so I was left wanting I guess more of a reason or an explanation of like why they're doing what they're doing but we can get further into that sure yeah does anyone have like I mean I sort of like I think the way that I think about this movie changes depending on like which perspective I'm looking at it from.

Which perspective? Which. But there's, I think that there's a lot of like generational stuff going on in this movie. And that it's, or I sort of took away that like this coven was just trying to sustain by any means necessary which you could say of like basically any societal setup uh but this one is hyper feminine and also supernatural but it i it just seemed like for me like i don't know i was not i'm surprised i did not know that about the argento expanded like lore because it yeah i think i just read especially because of like the historical context that they were however like however they had to survive uh as even like

an idea or a structure that they were not above brutalizing or getting rid of anyone who didn't sort of fall into line with what they needed which is like you know a patriarchal structure even though this one is dominated by women but anyone who falls out of line in this world and I think this is true of the Argento movie, too. But like anyone who falls out of line with the big leaders is not just eliminated, but like tortured and humiliated and then eliminated and like discredited. And that felt clear to me. I just like, i don't know i guess it i'm less sure of like what the goal was of showing this happening in a strictly like matriarchal world well i mean to me what i thought it was

about which was very interesting to me was like female creativity because to me like it really they were a dance studio they weren't just like a schoolhouse or something and i think that's their thing they're fucking amazing at dancing um and that's a super interesting tension of like their creativity and the woman who's kind of in charge is the kind of creative the most creative one but they're all kind of vying for like who's you know can kind of get into it the best or the best dancer and I thought like that was their point but maybe that's just you know what interests me is female creativity and I there's very few movies about female creativity and so I like that a lot and then again so I have teenage daughters and I'm an elder hag. And so the tension between the hags and the young women is real.

I just, a personal story, I just spent two days at my 14 year old daughter's overnight camp where all the mothers come. It's called Mother's Weekend. And it was mothers with their daughters for two nights at an overnight camp and you see these like daughters and then you see them walking with the mothers and they kind of look alike but there's kind of some I don't know like they're all like the mothers are kind of like swollen and sweaty and like you know wearing shorts that don't fit them and the daughters are all just sort of like these like glorious like young full of life you know things and it's like real to me when I just watched again it was super like that tension of like older women younger women the kind of physicality of it I don't know i mean does it all like is

there like a straight line that you can call it you know no but it made me think about all that stuff and that's all interesting to me yeah well that's like one of the things so like mother marcos and when we finally get her reveal on screen, and there's been hints about what this ritual is going to be for, why it's happening. And you eventually realize that she's basically looking for a new body to inhabit because the body that she currently has is... And this is what we were alluding to as far as like the discussions we've had about this trope but it's like a woman who is not young or thin is therefore disgusting and the way that like this character is designed where she's got like extra appendages growing out of her it seems like there's like a baby head like kind of drooping from her belly

oh i was thinking about the baby hand on her arm there's a lot of extraneous yeah yeah so there's like it's it almost seems like she's like externally pregnant is the best way i could describe it either way like she's she's just characterized as being this grotesque hag and her goal here the reason this ritual is happening i don't know like it's so that she can inhabit this new thin young body is it for vanity reasons is it for just that she needs a body that will like last longer so that she can keep ruling as like mother Suspiriorum. That's sort of what I interpreted that as was like that she is trying, I guess that that was going with like how I was viewing the movie by like,

how do I sustain? We're, we were talking, I don't know why we were talking about the Star Wars reboots, but it felt like a similar thing with like Emperor Palpatine is like, you need to go on. And like, you know, he's kind of similarly characterized as very, very grotesque, although not in the same way.

He's wearing a robe, but like is trying to maintain this immense power that he has that not most people see or recognize by enlisting younger bodies but then there's like i think that yeah like the fact that this older body is a woman's body that complicates things because there's like the way that like any older woman's body has been shown specifically in horror tends to be really pointed and like aren't older women's bodies horrific and therefore evil which is like what we talked about in you know when jack nicholson sees an old lady's butt in the shining he can't handle it it's it's too evil stuff like that i don't know like it it's tricky i i and then with like younger women's bodies i mean i think that the younger women in this movie don't have a lot of power and like they and it feels like this i don't know how like effectively it's done but i

guess i don't know like how the older women in charge have the actual power but they need to execute it through the bodies of these younger women which theoretically on a long enough timeline these younger women will do to other younger women and it's like this you know whole churning cycle of power and manipulation yeah so that or maybe that's mommy i don't know i'm not mommy well if there's mothers there has to be daughters i guess right so it is children yeah well yeah of any gender but yeah in this case of this movie it's like yeah the mother quote unquote the mother, quote unquote, the mother generation, and then like the daughter generation, and like the tension therein, which I do want to talk about further. But

so the thing with me for this movie is that throughout the story, there's this idea of this dance company is a matriarchy. It's women looking out for each other. It's like, you know, the mother is nurturing this younger generation. And these witches are feminist icons, where you get like lines of, like when one of the matrons is explaining to Susie that, you know, like, you mentioned this already, Jamie, like at this company, we understand the importance of a woman's financial autonomy. There's a scene where Susie and Sarah are talking about Madame Blanc and how she's awesome. And Sarah says, like, when the Third Reich wanted to shut off women's minds and keep their uteruses open, Madame Blanc was there to, like, provide a safe space for women to have like freedom and bodily

autonomy um the matrons berate Dr. Klemperer saying like you had years to get your wife out of Berlin before she disappeared like it's your fault that your wife is dead and then they also berate him for not believing women when they come to him about like their concerns, and he instead, you know, says they are delusional. So it sort of presents this idea of like, wow, look at this matriarchy who's all about women's autonomy and, you know, believing women and women looking out for each other. But then, like any woman who doesn't want to be a part of the witch stuff, is imprisoned and tortured. And there's like this one true leader. And if you don't pledge your undying loyalty to her, she'll explode your head

off. So there's like this power structure. To me, me it's like like even that scene where they're hypnotizing and taunting the cops who are the only other two male characters besides dr klemper who have any kind of like narrative significance and it seems like on the surface that could be some kind of like feminist win but i don't know like they're just having fun like i like to see them laughing they're having like they're having a time and it's kind of nice to see what makes them laugh like that was like they had like the best time ever um but like you know i don't know if it was that but yeah i don't know like women abusing men the way that men have abused women is not feminism as much as I like to goof around and joke that it is it's not like matriarchy is not just gender swapped patriarchy like smashing the

patriarchy doesn't mean we're going to like replace it with an equally toxic and violent power structure and like the power structure where some women have way more power than other women that they violently wield over the women who have less power like that's not feminism that's not matriarchy so I don't know exactly what the movie is trying to say and I feel like the director thought he was making a feminist movie but I just I feel like the director thought he was making a feminist movie. But I just I feel like the takeaway from this movie is everything you've heard about a group of women actually being a coven of witches. Well, that's true. And a group of women, especially one who is like not dependent on men in any way. That's something to be feared because those women are evil and they're power hungry they want power

over the world over men and over each other because women be petty and that is my takeaway i am willing to entertain other reads of this movie because i do think you could look at this movie and read it as a feminist text but to me it's like, there are too many tropes of women as evil witches present that I don't know what the movie is doing to exactly challenge that. That I come down on the side of like, so what's the point? Like, what's the takeaway again? I mean, maybe I'm just I don't think it is a feminist movie. I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know what it was. Yeah, they're bad women and it's a bad matriarchy.

Yeah. Like they're real evil. Yeah. It's not a feminist movie. I just still it tracks for me on like a million levels. Like actually because I'm like a mommy dearest level you know and that's like kind of what I see this movie you know like in in a lot of ways you know sorry oh no I was just saying when I came up I was a visual artist and I was in New York and worked for a lot of

really amazing middle-aged female artists who were hella mean. I mean, the meanest I could ever be would like be like one 10th of how mean they were, but they, what they had to get through to be even in the position they were, I was just like in awe of them and like whatever they, you know, I really could identify with the young dancer to the old woman thing. And, you know, I don't think the movie's feminist,

but it's an experience that, like, I don't think it has a point. Like you're saying, I don't think we should be like, oh, this is really insightful about some, you know, changing the face of feminist thought. But it does sort of track with the timeframe of what it's about. Women,

creativity, women artists that is potentially, you know, at least I, I feel like it wasn't like science fiction. So no, I mean, it feels familiar. I guess I'm just like annoyed that this movie that was written by a man and

directed by a different man has women valuing things like women's financial and bodily autonomy or at least saying that they value that on the surface and then like saying that people should believe women uh and then they turn around and they're like just kidding which also does happen where like people have a very like public facing feminist persona but then they turn around and are like evil sexist capitalists and stuff like that so i don't know maybe i'm just like i yeah i guess i i'm sort of coming down somewhere in the middle here because i i also think that this yeah I agree with you Caitlin that like the most evil characters in the movie saying the most progressive things definitely

does not bode well I don't think and I would have I think appreciate I think it would have maybe made I I don't know first of all I cannot really tell what the intended effect was for the writer and the director. I truly could not figure out what they wanted me to take away from it, which is fine, but I just couldn't tell. But yeah, some of the most technically progressive statements in this movie are made by who end up being the most evil characters. And that is, I guess it would have been, I don't know. Like I would have appreciated more of some sort of diversity of opinion among the older women.

And if there was someone who had sort of like dissented to the general, like, cause I think that existed in the younger cast where the younger women tend to feel a variety of ways about a thing. The older women tend to sort of fall in line with the same thing. And that sort of muddled the takeaway for me. The thing that like really genuinely bothered me about the way this movie ends and maybe and I think that there is some like worldly truth to this. But because the end of the movie was so jumbled for me, I just didn't like it, was that, you know, at the end,

in a way that is like, knowingly self serving, Susie goes to the Six Flags guy, and presents him absolution, and men in black memories apps him from the horrific things that he has seen. And he, you know, receives this sort of full arc of he learns this horrible thing that has happened to his wife that he is clearly carrying a lot of guilt about that seems to be implied why he is attempting to help women even though he is applying rationality to an irrational world all this shit right yeah but the fact that yeah, that he's the only character in the movie that gets that grace and that absolution just in general bugged me. Maybe that was the point, though. Maybe that's like, you know, men are extended a level of grace and absolution that women are not.

I don't know, really. And maybe Susie was just acting you know in the best interest to sustain the coven and for someone on the outside to know anything about the inside is bad for business and so we're not going to do it but that was the thing that like I don't know going out especially because there are so many like characters inside of the dance studio that I feel like did not get a satisfactory arc to like go out of the way to give that to the literally the one male character in the movie and give him kind of like a happy smiley ending. I just like that. That was the thing that really bugged me about the ending. Like, do you think it's happy smiley though? If like he has no memory now of like his wife and like the love they

shared. That's true. You know, I mean, I, I don't know, like to me, it's like the ending is prioritizing like the history, you know, and the atmosphere over the dance, you know, like over the witches, you know, like even essentially, right. It's like reaching out, like just, you know like over the witches you know like even essentially right it's like reaching out like just you know to me and my interpretation to like this like larger metaphorical you know um space

that that sort of like engages like the you know the whole like context and setting and the holocaust and you know um yeah all of it you know and so i mean yeah i I think like that's kind of, and like I mean this in a caring way because I appreciate, you know, like being sort of you know like taking the story of like this coven and you know this dance troupe and these women um that you know like ultimately it has to leave them to serve that you know kind of like level I guess of of like thematics I don't know um so so that that was kind of like my yeah yeah, my thing with the ending. It's like, I understand, but it also did feel like a historically male narrative choice, you know, to leave the female characters behind, you know, like in favor of capital H, you know, history and, you know, yeah, just kind of like saying what we'll say about war.

I don't know. Yeah. I thought it was also, maybe I was reading too much into it, yeah, just kind of like saying what we'll say about war. I don't know. Yeah. I thought it was also maybe I was reading too much into it, but I thought it was like some kind of like collective psyche that that guy like embodied of like being because he doesn't really feel like a person. No one does in the movie. But, you know, it's not like it's a realistic portrayal. It's so like stylized and heightened but he to me was like

you know whatever and Freud and like talk about Lacan like they're like deep into like European intellectual uh you know theory within the film and they're letting you know that but I think like that's what I thought it was some sort of like, she's now maybe whatever her reign has, you know, if you have the witches, she's sort of coming in, and now it's her thing. And it's like, she seemed more benevolent, because the other woman was clearly batshit, the one that

she got rid of. She maybe was the one causing so much chaos. She was a fraud. Yeah. Right. That lady's the fraud. so when Dakota not family Johnson she's like you know and clearly her mother was so mean which we didn't talk about at all like whatever that was that took you know for Alyssa and I I think that lady tracks the most from our world the the actual mother um who's like cursing her one curse is her daughter

that was a real bummer that was a real bummer for me yeah that's a bummer and and so i just felt like okay this girl is like gonna maybe bring upon this like more benevolent thing because she gets rid of all the people who voted the other girl oh i think she keeps her people on yeah they seem like maybe the hags that were always kind of like you they would always cut away to them like oh no what's she doing now you know the ones that lived through to the end they they seemed a little more suspicious of the original witch hack oh no definitely so i don't maybe she's a better yeah oh i think she is i mean i i do think that it's like about you know a sort of like uh comeuppance right to those in power who abused their power right but i'm also just kind of

wondering like what it says about you know like like secrecy is such a thing you know sort of like within even like the building you know and like the the mirrors and like reflections and like who people literally are and lineage you know um with like the mother you know and just sort of like yeah where we came from being like so hidden and that's the whole Lacan thing right it's like you see your mother you see yourself and as I was saying on the camp where you see the mothers and daughters together and it's this weird funhouse mirror between the two I mean the movie's not a feminist movie but it's it's like they went for it in this movie and I personally I like people who really go for it yeah it did not hold back and they they did not take the easy

road here no they did not they did not yeah I mean it's like I don't know it's so weird because it's like the the stance like he comes in at an 11 this entire movie but I'm still that's something but there are still whole sequences where I'm like, not sure what he's trying to say. I liked that. Like with this psychiatrist, I don't know. Like I liked a lot of what was going on with him until the very end, the ending. I just found frustrating, but towards the beginning,

it's clear that he's like trying to like apply this very, like, I guess new ish European psychological standard to his patients that is not working. Because Patricia is telling the truth. And he's like, well, you just have issues with your mom. And so, like, let's work this out. Which I think is like an issue I have with my therapist as recently as tomorrow. Where sometimes I'm like, I hear you, but it can't just be that. Like, we cannot just keep going back to my mom. You know, I think that he's like applying a lot of theory to patients who are kind of just telling him what is happening to them. And I, I thought

that that worked. And I like that he's sort of like his comeuppance being forced to witness the reality of what Patricia was telling him in the first scene of the movie felt appropriate. And like, you know, she almost feels feminist, right? Like, at that moment, I'm like, okay, you know, like, I think it does, you know, approach it in moments. I think part of my, like, I don't want to say, you know, like, I want to appreciate it on its own terms, right? You know, like, not everything is, you know, like, a vehicle for feminist theory. But I think what's so frustrating to me about the movie is like, it so easily could have been, right? Like, like like there are so many you know kind of like moments and windows and and avenues that you know like do get it right or you know do point out i mean it's also like a really fun takeaway you know that like in you know 1977

like berlin like to to be as evil as a patriarchy like to get enough power where you can like express that power and be that evil like you literally have to be as evil as a patriarchy, like to get enough power where you can like express that power and be that evil. Like you literally have to be supernatural witches. Like it's the only way, you know, that like women can like amass that much power, you know, and that much like independence and, you know, financial freedom and et cetera, et cetera. You know, I think like there are a lot of like feminist vectors, right. In, in the movie. So movie so I mean I think like maybe like that was kind of one of my um peeves I guess you know at certain points where I thought it was like gonna you know like realize this um and then it doesn't but I I do feel like it's also kind of like

saying you know something interesting about um history and uh atonement um you know or even just kind of like validation of kind of yeah witness um and hollowed out cunts you know like i mean it's bringing good stuff to the table in other ways in other ways it felt like i guess at the end i felt like the what this movie was seemed like it was trying to say about history and what this movie was trying to say at different points about women felt like it got kind of muddled and jumbled which i guess is true of the world but it is a movie and so i was just sort of like it felt like you know there there was it was like the culmination of this psychiatrist view of his women patients that comes true when he's forced to witness it but the way that his arc resolves is more related to history and less related to

the other stuff and it just felt like I just was frustrated by it but i get that you know like everyone will feel yeah well i i mean the other thing is i mean i i was reading a little bit about them how the second one came to pass and it took it was in development for a very long time first of all this is not like a slam dunk movie to make it was you know and it made no money so clearly they were you know had some problems but it was it was originally David Gordon Green was going to direct this, which is like mind numbingly confusing to me, even though I really love David Gordon Green. I just don't, I don't somehow get it. And that would have been fascinating to see.

But I mean, who, the people who did make this movie, like did choose to make an entirely female cast of this movie. That's whatever you want to say about the context of what it is that's a choice that's an unusual choice and then again I'm gonna harken back to the like whole concept of like female creativity I think like there's you know and my one of my daughters isn't is an athlete there's so few movies about female creativity and female athletes. I'm considering how many movies are about male creativity. It's like, it's mind-blowing to me. And would it have been interesting if a woman made this movie?

I'm sure it would have been. But I think it's still an odd choice for anyone to want to make a movie about this much about, you know, with this whole women cast, you know, it is like whether or not it's a feminist movie, they're certainly tried to make some, they tried to do something. They took some big swings here. And I don't think it was, I think, I don't know.

I think that's interesting. Like if they had, if these were the people that got the script, which this guy like got Argento to give him the rights to the movie to make it. You know, I don't know. I mean, Dario Argento is way problematic. We haven't gotten into it, but in terms of his own personal behavior, which I is, you know, slightly more upsetting than the film, I guess. But yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, another reason I have, you know, like, another soft spot, I guess, you know, that I have for the movie, that's, you know, kind of like one of my own, like, problematic trials, I guess, like, as a creative is like, how you represent, you know, female, like, evil and female violence without, you know, falling into, like, stereotype and trope, you know, and things that, like, reinforce messages that are out there, you know, falling into like stereotype and trope, you know, and things that like reinforce messages that are out there, you know, that are already very harmful and, you know,

have historically been very harmful, you know, like that. Yeah, that's just something like I'm really interested in and that I struggle with a lot. So I mean, I guess like I also appreciate both sides of that struggle. Right. It makes me, I want to go back to something. I think Allison, you were talking about it earlier about sort of the complicated and generally bummer that was Hugh, Alyssa message around or just around Susie's specifically arc with mothers and motherhood. That goes back to me for another, I guess, like chafing I was having with how this movie portrays witches. Because I feel like there's a few different examples in arcs in this movie where we're seeing this horrible thing happen between um suzy's mother and suzy where

suzy's mother is saying that her youngest daughter is this agent of satan that she is her sin that this is the worst thing that's ever happened to her which is essentially like it you're led to believe suzy's been at least emotionally abused And it's also implied physically abused for most of her childhood, which makes total sense. You want to get the fuck out of the country if that were the case. But then at the end, Susie's mother is kind of like, quote unquote, proven right. Because actually Susie has been an agent of Satan this whole time. She is evil and she is horrible. And so you're like,

well, what is that trying to say? If we're shown this horrific parent-child dynamic, and then at the end, the abusive parent is correct. Like, it's just bizarre to me. I like couldn't get my head around it. Okay, I thought it and again, I'm just my like dark-sided soul and my own experience but I read it as Susie is an artist right Susie's dancer Susie's this artist person growing up in like some kind of I don't know what that was Amish Mennonite Mennonite right Mennonite thing and you know I had parents who were like you want to what? You know, you're going to be an artist. Like, you know, just this real, like, negative supermodel. And again, I don't know how bad she is at the end. You know, we could agree to disagree on that one.

But to me, I don't know. Maybe, you know, they just couldn't handle her levels of, like, ambition and creativity back there in Ohio. You know, but maybe I'm just, you know, that's just the way my brain goes on it. Alternatively, is it the abuse that Susie endured from her mother that led her to become the witch she now is? Like, did she start out as like a, well well because I do want to examine Susie and her arc more closely because like we meet her we see her I don't know if she's like tending to her sick mother but she's like sitting by her bedside and I feel like the movie maybe I'm just sort of like reading into this but I feel like it's implied that the reason her mother is ill is because Susie has

been making her ill with her like, witchcraft this whole time. That's not clearly stated one way or the other. But anyway, we meet Susie, she is set up to be this, you know, innocent, she's pretty shy, quiet, she's kind of awkward. She comes from this Mennonite family the implication being that she has lived a pretty sheltered and modest life but then she comes to Berlin she's like at the dance school for a day and she's like hang on a minute I can dance the lead in this thing because I saw a documentary about it I went to the library and watched it a hundred times. Okay. That was like me when I was starting standup though. So be careful. I'm not judging her. I just think it's funny. I could do this because I watched it on TV.

I mean, I think that that is like a lot of young artists where it's like, especially if you are Susie and you grow up with very little access to art like how else do you learn you want to be an artist other than watching it and whatever's available oh yeah no I'm not passing any Satan or help you chats to you about it at night yeah Alyssa Alyssa grew up in a very religious household that as an artist yes so that you know did you how did you feel for suzy escaping the midwest like you know i think that there can be a okay i don't know that this is like the right opinion to have i'm just gonna lay it out there let's go on the assumption that it is well it isn't um like there was something kind of refreshing about seeing like the that you know twist and that

reversal leaned into like in a way that like exists completely outside of like religious propaganda you know what i mean like just like to, yeah, you know, that this was actually like true. And, you know, like maybe all of those assumptions, right, that we have about, you know, like our like willingness to kind of like see this, you know, young woman as a victim, yada, yada, you know, know ha in your face um like I know that that's that's kind of like an overdone and and like dirty trick but um I don't know I mean there there's just something about like going for it at 11 like you say that I don't know it kind of interested me and I liked thinking back then on the movie you know and being like okay well was i seeing you know like how was i seeing this and like how would i see it if actually like she was a vehicle for seeing this whole time you know or like actually like she was tuning into this or you know like her mom did see you know this this in her or this was her life or you know she wanted

to be here for like all of these different reasons or she was lying to her friend when we thought that she was you know being like completely honest and vulnerable like I don't know you know it was just kind of a fun little like rewind and I don't know that that I don't know that that you know even like led to like a good read of of the movie um i don't know i i mean i i do i mean i think that like something like a huge difference between the argento one and this one that i liked was that like in the argento one suzy is like the like american girl next door character you you are sort of like led to believe she's inherently trustworthy because she is like young and pretty and white and from america and so you're like well yeah sure this

is a little sweetie pie i trust her and i like that the that the 2018 one is like yeah i did sort of assume that of the dakota johnson I was like, Oh, she's just a little girl from Ohio. Like she's out of her element and, and to like give her more intention and more power than I had. Like it challenged, whatever my assumption of that character. And that was cool because it's like, you know,

not every, and, and like this movie, I, I'm all over the place about it but this movie does clearly have an interest in the idea of like what purity is and what it means because it's something that comes up over and over and over and one of the things that like was I think like easiest to get rid of from the 70s one is like there's sort of a vague implication of like a love interest for Susie from a male dancer because it's an all genders dance studio in the first one and they get

rid of that really quickly but I don't know just like the idea that like being involved in this coven in a meaningful way also has to do with some sort of purity and that's kept pretty vague you don't know like what you need to be pure of or about but it felt like the 2018 one had some interest in the idea of purity i'm not really sure where it fell but i thought it was interesting that it brought that idea up because that was something that in the first one I felt was like assumed and very much like played on your assumptions about who you're looking at where the Jessica Harper character you're like oh yeah sure I trust her and this one too there was no like exploitation I didn't feel of their sexuality at all like male gaze women sexuality like whatever was going on with them sexually, which was something quite vague,

was also something very internal, which I can, you know, I'm there for that. You know, like it had nothing to do with almost other the sexuality in this film is very self generated and not that much, which is a really rare um when that many beautiful women like naked in a film um i can't really think of another that didn't even broach that barely i don't know i like that a lot and whatever we didn't talk at all about the dreams that she's having which i thought were really cool visually whatever that is in this light and whatever the like indoctrination thing that their spell they're putting on her i don't know i really enjoyed that and that again was whatever this like auto sexuality that's

happening um i don't know i thought that was very unique to this film yeah because so well i brought up the like her um she's like i can do it because i watched a documentary just to demonstrate that she's very confident and she's like so for her to be like yeah i can dance the lead and it turns out she's right i mean she ends up being the best dancer it's implied yeah at the company and which just feels i guess like kind of foreshadowing of what's to come as far as like twist i'm mother suspiriorum and i have been all along but i just like you were saying jamie like playing to people's expectations of like a you know a soft-spoken quiet woman being trustworthy and just inherently nice and the person we're going to root for I feel like was set up to better serve the twist that she's actually the meanest witch of them all but is she the meanest because she does like show compassion to

you know sarah and patricia and olga who are like begging for death and she's like yeah babe got you no problem may we all have a friend so merciful to provide the sweet release of death. Right. So I don't even know if I have any kind of like conclusive thoughts on this as far as like the way Susie is portrayed and her arc and the way she's initially characterized versus like her coming into her own power. And like you were talking about, Allison, like her sexuality in a way that is completely separate from men and it's just like her kind of having sex with the ground sometimes like kind of writhing around and just sort of fucking the ground here and there and then there's that scene where i mean we've all done it um yeah i mean if you get too close to a dryer and it's in heat a dryer in heat yeah yeah exactly and then there's like that scene that conversation between madame blanc and suzy where where mad Blanc is like how did it feel to dance and she's like it felt like what I imagine it feels like to fuck and she's like oh like to fuck a man and Susie's like no I was

thinking of an animal which I don't quite know how to interpret that that's that's my language i i was like in it with that like i was way more interested than if it was about a man like thank god yeah yeah like that's a redemption yeah scene for sure we all know what that feels like yeah yeah i don't know and i mean like let me just say something else awful um like they're like they're so i just as a viewer you know now it's like i see so many things that you know in in a good way you know are are trying not to equate female sexuality with you know being like out of control or you know morally wrong that like sometimes it's just maybe especially like in like if you can't do it in horror I don't know like in horror I think sometimes it's just fun

that like you're really horny because of the devil I was raised Catholic like I don't know but like for me that was just kind of like yeah you know like you you leave the farm you know like you get the devil and like, then like, you know, you are like an erotic fucking dancer, you know? Um, and I mean like they, they are dancing like so fucking erotically. Yeah. Yeah. Like maybe because of Satan and I just enjoyed that. Sorry. Sorry. No, no, no. I'm just processing there's i we're pretty dark-sided so like you know you just you should have known who you were discussing this movie we should have done true beverly there because it would have been a much better yeah take we would have had

little do you know that i am Mother Suspiriora. I'm sick of devil. I am Satan. You are the hollowest cunt of all. Thank you. Finally, someone admitted it. I don't know. I think that, like, especially with scenes about sex impurity,

there's, like, a bajillion ways to look at it, some of which I think are really horny and cool. And then it's like, others are not. And that's part of why it's a movie and you can see it however you want. But don't the costumes help? Like, I mean, I think they're like showgirls level. You know what I mean?

Like, I feel like too, if you're like sexy and like an interesting enough costume, this is just me. I just feel like you like transcend gay, like somehow. You just like, you go outside of like the like normal realm of just kind of like sex objectness. And even the middle-aged woman, as a middle-aged woman, were really sexy too in this movie,

in a completely unusual take on, you know, no plastic surgery, no like, I'm trying to look young, but I'm actually 60 years old. Like, they were all kind of sexy in this really fun, different, I don't know, European people get to do that or something way that I was personally very impressed by and got some maybe style tips like again for being super cool and you know I don't know I thought they were great it's all about the middle part baby middle part there yeah I mean it's because I read I tried to read a fair like swath of criticism and praise of this movie and I read some writers who came down firmly that the way that Susie's sexual awakening is framed kind of plays into tropes of how women's sexuality is seen as dangerous and devious.

And how like women's confidence is seen as like inherently bad if you view the ending as Susie being inherently bad. But you can also see it in a way that's like really fucking cool. And a way that the fact that like the way that sex is or even just like horniness in general in this movie is shown is very like individual. Like no one is hooking up at all. Like the way that people view sex, like they're fucking themselves and they're fucking the ground. It's like women figuring out sex in a very individual way, which you don't really see a lot. And like, I, I kind of, I don't know. It's kind of fun to see a gorgeous woman fuck the ground i liked that part but then i read criticism of it and i was like was i wrong for liking the part where dakota johnson fucked the

ground and i was like no i'm not no two things can be true we're all correct i didn't read any criticism of the movie but i will say no i will say no i i have a quote here i i wanted to share it because i was looking for sort of like if there was any sort of thesis statement that Luca Guagnino had made about this movie, about what we were talking about specifically. And there was an interview he did when the movie around when the movie came out on Mupi that sort of addresses this. And it also addresses his Suspiria in relation to argento's suspiria so this is for the room uh he says this in 2018 quote the focus of dario's movie was the idea of older women recruiting younger women the relationship between the girls and the matrons of my dance academy is quite different as they are terrible mothers aside from casting their magic spells i deal in the concept of the uncompromising force

of motherhood a mother is supposed to be caring nurturing unbiased and devoted but what if that is all our own prejudgment even if you are the most radical person you think of motherhood adhering to accepted norms but real danger lies in that presumption as motherhood adhering to accepted norms. But real danger lies in that presumption as motherhood comes from deep conflict, the banality of postpartum depression, the refusal to bond with the child, and the complexity of the relationship between mother and daughter that can often turn into a competition. If you make a movie about witches, basically a group of women bound to a pact of solidarity and sorority with power within themselves you have to be open to the possibility that they aren't just simple evil characters

they are very complex ones and it's not all about nature and nurture unquote so that's what i've got with luca and the girlies wish i hadn't heard that. I'll say. I really usually read absolutely nothing about movies and I don't like to read what people say about it. That's less interesting than my thoughts on it.

At least I was in understanding that any kind of mothers have to be one way or another. There's a lot mothers have to be one way or another like there's a lot of ways to be a mother and I don't you know so I don't I apologize for sharing that quote but I did it on purpose because I just feel like I don't know like I'm not trying to imply that it is impossible for a man to make a feminist movie. We have found on this show that that is absolutely not true.

However, it is statistically unlikely. And sometimes if they do it, it is sometimes by accident. Or maybe it is like the way that the movie is received in the general sense or received by women and feminists is not necessarily the way like it's sort of a mistake and you kind of stumbled into this which is like still net good for the world if there is a feminist movie out there even if you didn't mean to but I just do I think that I'm trying to think of I know that there's at least one other example of a movie we've covered on this show that it's like a movie about women that is two times over been adapted by only men and i feel like that more often than not results in kind of what we've been bumping up against this whole episode like for

better or worse like a lot of dissonance and like not a lot of clarity which can be fun because it means it's sort of like a fun house whatever it's Olga's death room it's a fucking fun house mirror full of ways to view right what you think is being told based on who you are and how you feel about it but it just feels like I don't know this movie for all the parts that I liked and all the parts I didn't it just felt a little ultimately kind of muddled and unclear and i cannot definitively say it's because it's a story like it's a story about a coven of women that is only that has been told conceived of and i did even deeper research all of the texts that are cited as being influential on like psychology also men it's just like in the way that we i think oh i'm thinking about carrie

uh about how carrie is written by stephen king and adapted by de palma and other men where there's a lot to love about that movie and there's a lot that we loved about that movie but there's a lot of dissonance because it's sort of men guessing around women's experiences in a way that when it hits it's great and when it hits, it's great. And when it doesn't, it's completely baffling because you're like, what are they trying to say? And that's,

I think kind of ultimately where I come down in this movie. Yeah. There's like, it really is. Yeah. This isn't like the super insightful movie about mothers or women. I would definitely not like, I,

you know, for me, that maybe be like Terms of Endearment, James Brooks. Like, you know, that's like a great mother-daughter-by-a-man movie. Okay?

I haven't seen that movie in forever, yeah. That's a really, it's one of my favorite movies. I also watch a lot of stuff about mothers and daughters and it's like a whole, you know, again,

I like the Gilmore Girls a lot too. But I don't think this is that and i wouldn't want to hear whatever the director's name is thoughts about motherhood but i um you know i personally am often more interested in like uh you know the bad mother story than the super wonderful redeeming isn't she just the greatest mother ever story yeah even something like everything everywhere which is a mother-daughter story a little saccharine for somebody like me but like so just for my own personal taste like I prefer like a big you know swing at just an insane rabbit hole of motherhood, then like, you know, it's just really try to, as a man get into that mother daughter bond,

I'm going to, I'm going to crack the code on that one. You know, I don't know, just stay out of it. But if you, if you're going to get into it, like I'd rather see this, I guess. I mean, nobody comes out unscathed, right. You know, motherhood, nobody, you know, like, yeah like yeah he he got that part we all have baby hands on us at the end of the day you don't know what's underneath this muumuu i'm wearing you have no idea what's under it yeah you don't want to i guess like for me it's i think there is room to examine stories about mothers and their children and specifically mothers and daughters and every way that dynamic could possibly go. Like that is those are relationship dynamics worth exploring in movies that rarely are explored because most movies, as we always joke about, but it true are about fathers and sons and so it is rare to see

a mother-daughter relationship or just like a depiction of motherhood on screen period even attempted to explore right and then and then often when it is it's it is sometimes still told by men which means it's probably not going to be very nuanced or it's going to come from a very male perspective. It's like, well, this is how I saw my sister interact with my mom. And they were always fighting because women are mad at each other all the time. So that's what my movie is about. You know, that kind of thing and that even that's rare but i'm like oh if my brother made a movie about how he thought my mom and my relationship was it would just be incorrect

it would just be all made up but that's on him and that's a personal call out yeah all that to say like there should be more stories about motherhood there should be more stories that explore nuanced relationships between mothers and daughters or mother figures and a younger generation you know that kind of thing and about like not totally virtuous perfect moms the way that we see them yeah flawed mothers maybe watch teenage euthanasia teenage euthanasia is a good one uh better things pamela adlon show is one of my other personal favorite uh mother daughter her mother you know like a three generation mother story this one had i guess other than the creepy super melty witch woman was maybe their grandmother i don't know anyway i i do like a sort of multi-generational mother story.

Yeah. Another one we, I'm trying, I mean like Gilmore girls, another really fun one we just covered recently, Miss Juneteenth. That's a great mother daughter story. Like there's so many good ones. And I, you know, I think sometimes even though this movie was you know technically a a flop men work forever they it's very hard for them to fail and so even though this was technically a fail like a financial failure for this director he's fine he has three movies in production he's fine I haven't seen this is unrelated I haven't seen his next movie, Bones and All.

Oh, I didn't see it. But here it's horny and bloody. Is that true? That is true. I would use other words to describe it. Mostly that I didn't like it very much. But that's just my personal opinion. Either way, I mean, i like stories about motherhood and there's i i feel like

it is not a hot take to say that the best ones tend to be uh written by mothers i think that's fair to say so brave of you and we have evidence in this very zoom call that that's the case does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss uh no that's it for me i i would just say that like um i i i love the extremity you know of this movie um and i love how like um like the depths of of how horrible a lot of the mother figures get to be are just two things um two plugs since we talked about a lot of antis i want to make sure i represent that absolutely hell yeah uh i just want to make sure I represent that. Absolutely. Hell yeah. I just want to touch on that this is a very white cast. There are a few members of the staff and dancers who are women of color, but they rarely get lines of dialogue, they get little to no characterization.

All of the important characters to the narrative are white and it just feels especially pointed that the cast does include some women of color but they are really only there to be tan in the background yeah and not at all in the foreground yeah only the white characters get any manner of character arc in this movie. Yeah. Yeah. I've never seen any other films by this director. They're Italian,

but I don't know what their deal is on that topic. Is it a one-off of that or yeah, you know, they're casting their movie. I don't, I honestly don't either. I still have controversially not seen call me by your name. I haven't seen it either. So I, I don't either. I still have controversially not seen Call Me By Your Name. I haven't seen it either.

So I don't know. I did not see Bones and All. But yeah, I also found it frustrating that it's like if the director clearly wanted to have a diverse cast, but didn't have an interest in any character outside of the white actors. So that feels double bad to me i will say bones and all the main character is a woman of color so he course corrected in that movie yay lucas i think they probably got the money for this for tilda swinton and dakota yeah yeah being in it i assume that's how this thing was funded yeah um and then moved out from there

but yeah i i doubt this was an easy funder whoever paid for this i i whatever yeah yeah can you imagine like finance bros who are like yeah i'll help fund your movie wait it's about a group of women um or even no we're gonna have tilda swinton play the six flags guy we need 20 million dollars minimum all they would have had to do is show a clip of the floor fucking like honestly i think the finance pros would have been in no i think no you think i don't know i don't they they didn't even show anyone's breasts that was the major people right like i don't. They didn't even show anyone's breasts. That was the major people, right? Like, I don't know. You see an outline of Dakota. It's not until the end in the freaky blood covered security footage that you see pretty much everyone. You see Mia Goth naked. You see, I mean, whatever. Now it sounds creepy and like I'm keeping count. So I'm removing myself from this conversation i've seen him throw

money at you know less yeah i was keeping a count of how many nips i saw and that's feminist just kidding well speaking of nips though first we'll before our nipple scale we will passes the back once again remind you that the movie definitely passes the Bechdel test almost easily and over and over yeah yes yes except for scenes with the six flags guy or exchanges about the six flags guy that's pretty much it which again played by a woman and we talked about gender swapped casting recently on the Hairspray episode because John Travolta plays a woman and how it's very rare for a woman to play a male character. And this movie is actually one of the few examples I can think of where that happens. And I think Tilda Swinton does a great job in that

performance and in every performance in this movie and just in general and every movie she's in but she does such a convincing job that there were members of the cast of this movie who didn't know that that was Tilda Swinton so should that be allowed like should that be allowed that does seem to see what do you mean like in like a Brad grandpa kind of way? Like, you know, like, what do you mean? I like I just wonder if I'm like at work doing my job not consenting, you know, to like not know who people really are. That's fair. I don't know. I don't know. Oh, so if you're like, oh, my God, Tilda's such a bitch. And then you like, you tell the old guy, you're like. Yeah.

If I'm like, thank fucking God I'm not painting the barn on Tilda Swinton today. Her pores are huge. And then you're like, oh, no. I've been fired. It can happen. She's a chameleon to everyone else's professional detriment. I don't know. Yeah.

That's the only thing because yeah that's the only thing i specifically remember about this movie's like press run was that at some point it was revealed that tilda swinton was the six flags guy and once it was in like the new york times like tilda swinton announces she's the six flags guy and once you know I still don't see the resemblance the Six Flags guy doesn't have hair once you see once you know that that character is played by Tilda Swinton it is very clear in like the voice mostly but um I just thought that that was funny that that I don't have a opinion on it but But that's like the thing I most clearly remember. I don't remember it being like it's a reinterpretation of this beloved slasher film.

It was like, did you know that Tilda Swinton put on a lot of makeup every day? Just like when Jim Carrey was the Grinch. And I didn't know that. And then I proceeded to not see it in theaters. So what does that say about me anyways uh so on to our nipple scale where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based feel about the movie. I think things are presented that allow for a read of like, this is a movie about almost

entirely women who are powerful and who are expressing themselves creatively. And the dynamics between and among them are interesting, you could argue, and there are strong themes of motherhood and of female creativity and other things that we tend to talk about. So on the surface, I think it's like, pretty cool, a lot of the things that this movie is doing. But I can't shake the feeling that it I think if this a similar premise was handed over to a writer and director who was a woman, and who had a much closer relationship with motherhood or being a daughter who had a mother or has a mother of being a woman who expresses creativity like and just like knowing how groups of women as witches are so often represented in film and maybe trying to subvert some of those tropes and subverting the tropes of an older woman being grotesque and wanting to steal the body of a younger woman,

you know, things like that. But I do. I'm old and I want to steal a young body. Wait till you get there. Wait till you get there. I'm just saying. Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. But here's what i'm gonna i'm just

gonna suck the blood of young men and that's how i'll stay youthful they're not as nearly as beautiful i'm sorry that's true it's my own opinion one woman's opinion i wouldn't cross the street to suck their blood no i i don't know i think this movie there there's interesting things i think uh visually it's cool and beautiful uh i just still don't know quite what i'm supposed to take away as far as like the filmmakers intentions i think there's some muddled stuff there that to me appear to just be relying on tropes of, well, powerful women who are near each other. Well, they are witches, and they're gonna kill you. But also, it could just be an examination of power, regardless of gender, of the gender of the person who is wielding that power like that power needs to be kept in check and you know just because a woman has power doesn't mean that she

should abuse it or something i don't know there are a lot of different ways to read the story of this movie but i don't know i just i'm so tired of like women are witches and evil stories um so i think i'll give the movie like i don't know two two and a half nipples and i will give one to dakota what is it? Johnson. Johnson. Dakota Johnson. I will give one to Alec Weck, who plays one of the matrons. She is, I think, the only black woman in the movie who has lines. And she only has, like, two of them.

And I'll give my half nipple to friend of the cast, Jessica Harper. Yay. Uh, yeah, I'm going to go down the middle on this movie as well. Um, I do think I,

I'm like, maybe this opinion I will, will be changed as with most opinions that we've had at various points on this show over time but this does feel very much to me even though it was in production and in development for so long the way that it came out feels very of a very specific cultural moment where I think you get a lot of male auteurs attempts at having women meaningfully included in their movies and i think that this very much depends from director to director level of success level of possibly pandering or guessing

their way around an experience that they don't share i just like it just feels very men are making movies post me too and look at this one a lot of like like we've been talking about for the past two hours it not all of it works for me i think that yeah there is a lot of saying the right thing but the theme kind of undermining the right thing quote unquote that was said and then there was a lot of like i think interesting ideas in this movie i like the historical context it puts everyone into i i like building out the worlds of the women that exist within this coven i like the fact like i like the just general idea because i feel like in this same span of time and i think this is continuing now,

there is this sort of very naive assumption that if women ruled the world, everything would be perfect. And you're like, well, that excludes literally every other possible element of being a person in a way that is ultimately, I think, reductive to women to think that women would completely get it right when they're still very much human and there's all these other elements that factor into being a person so i like that the women in this story are uh imperfect in different ways but overall especially after reading how the director was kind of gaming it out i think a lot of it doesn't work and it's not something I will revisit, but you know, it, I would love to see as much, I like, I like that Luca Guadagnino did this, but I would

love to see more Coven stories that are written by women. If they're going to majority include women, it still feels like that isn't happening on the level it should be. And in conclusion, I think that's why people should watch teenage euthanasia. And so I'm going to give this two and a half nipples. I'm going to give one to Dakota Johnson's architectural digest house video, which you can watch on YouTube. It is is so funny she's lying on her ass the whole time she's some of the only good nepotism available as far as i know uh i love her i'm going to give one to mia goth and i will give the remaining half nipple to the six flags guy the actual one. Oh, sure.

Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Yeah, exactly. And so on. Well, I'm not going to defend this movie to the ends of the earth, but I enjoyed watching it and I enjoyed watching it the first time and this time. I like things that are kind of a mess that you don't know what to make.

That's, again, a personal preference. I don't like a straight line. I don't like a straight line. I don't like a, I like a pretzel. And I don't like when people tell me what to think because then I immediately stop thinking it. So for those people, you might like this. And then I thought it was, again, I'm all into anything about women creativity.

So I don't know, I'm going to give it a three nipple. I'm not going more than that, but I'm going to go a little higher and I'm going to give one to Mia Goth and one to the production designer and the wardrobe hair team because it was really fun. Editors were good too.

It was a well-made movie. Yeah. Technical. No denying that hell yeah can i can i give hollow cunts instead of nipples yes please absolutely okay um if it didn't have tilda eating chicken wings i i think then i would give it a three, but it does have that. And it was really hard to watch all of the bone breaky thing.

You know, like it's very, very difficult, you know, to make me look away. And I thought that, yeah, a lot of like the bone breaky horror was good. And- um bone breaky stuff was about the chicken wings the most painful views i mean if we could have extended that sequence yeah then it could have been five hollow cunts i'm gonna i'm gonna go 3.5 hollow cunts I'm gonna do that like it's just a weird one you know it's a problematic weird one and I

liked the ride and I'll give all of the hollow cunts to the super witch mother creature she needs all the teats and the cunts that she can find you know hell yeah she's collecting them for an undisclosed later project that she's had in development for the amount of time this movie

was in development exactly well thank you both so much for joining us for this discussion yeah this was fun anytime tell us about teenage euthanasia and where you can check it out. Well, you can check it out on Adult Swim. New episodes drop on Wednesday nights at midnight, and then they're available the next day on Max. You can slide right into season two. You don't need to watch season one first you can uh you can kind of like dip you know dip your hollow cunt in the water with season two and then you know if you like how it feels you

can watch season one but they are season one is up in its entirety on max to stream and available. And it is about, yeah, we have we have definitely the dysfunctional matriarchy family funeral home that is run by a woman. It's three generations of, you know, female characters passing their trauma down to the other in kind of like a parallel universe, post-apocalyptic Florida. And if you like hollow cunts, you might be disappointed because the main character's vagina is filled with crotch beetles, magical ones. She's a zombie reanimated corpse and who has death powers. And also it's animated. We don't have Suspiria level budgets here. So this is an animated program. Yes.

No, still amazing. It is. It is. If you like the opposite of a hollowed out cunt and just one that is full, just an over, a cornucopia of various. Teeming with insects. He is a teeming cunt. Well, then do we have the show for you? I feel like I should also full disclosure.

I'm a writer on this show and I love it very much. And I think you should watch it because it rocks and it's teeming with, you know, vaginas full of beetles. And you, I've got to say, have just brought the grossness and the body horror to a level that I think Allison and I could have only dreamed of in our conception of teenage euthanasia. So we are just so in our gratitude to you for that. Yeah. A tip of the cunt to you, Jamie. It's just an absolute pleasure. Oh, my cunt runneth over. Thank you so much. No,

I it's, it's the absolute best. I love shoving new, disgusting insects into our characters. And you can find the battle cast and all the regular places. You can find us on Instagram and whatever they're calling it now on at Bechtel cast. You can follow our Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon. Wow.

Pretty scary German dance studio of us. For $5 a month, you get two bonus episodes a month. Imagine that. Imagine that. for five dollars a month you get two bonus episodes a month imagine that imagine that you can also grab our merch at tpublic.com slash the bechtel cast for all of your merchandising needs and just a little reminder that all of our merch is designed by a one jamie loftus so even more reason to get it cunt runneth over ideas for merch. With many talents.

There you go. Okay, let's go into the basement and dance around naked. Tear our chests open, revealing our rotting hearts. Bye. Bye. 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, Catherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture.

Don't miss Catherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. It's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. Don't miss Catherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. 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.