The Bechdel Cast - Taken

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

On this episode, Caitlin and Jamie use their very particular set of skills to discuss the movie Taken. Here's the Polaris Project guide we mention in the episode -- https://polarisproject.org/telling-the-real-story-of-human-trafficking/     See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Jen Psaki,

Astead Herndon, Karl Rove, and David Axelrod. But we're also gonna have some fun, thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee and Charlemagne the God. We're gonna take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Back in 1969, four young musicians from Texas were hired to impersonate the British psychedelic rock band, The Zombies. It was one of the most bizarre and audacious cons in rock and roll history. And now the entire story has been uncovered in a new podcast. All episodes are available now. Listen to the true story of the fake zombies on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search true story of the fake zombies and start listening. Guess what, Will? What's up, Mango?

I've been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we've done over 250 episodes, we don't really talk about murders or cults. I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy. We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money. And then of course, can you game a dog show? So what you're saying is everyone should be listening. Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the United States.

One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts.

On the Bechdel cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast Start changing it with the Bechdel cast Hey Jamie What Caitlin? I have a very particular set of podcasting skills

Skills I have acquired over a very long career in podcasting Skills that make me a blessing for people like you my co-host of the podcast yeah wow i mean if charisma were a defense mechanism maybe we'd stand a chance but unfortunately in the world of taken we're fucking cooked what are his skills exactly not that sorry um finding people and killing people i mean i guess that's what he promised i guess in that way he does deliver yeah it is frustrating that even when you're like this movie is a force of evil face or at least a force of like foolishness the monologue still hits you know like you're just like what is with that why is it such a good monologue like even in the middle of you're like oh hate it hate it hate it no stop no no and then the monologue starts and

you're like all right let's hear right, let's hear him out. Let's hear him out. You're like, okay, this guy's got a thing or two to say. And I'm listening. He has a particular set of what? You know, like, let's let's hear him out. It's too bad. Anyway, it's the taken episode of the Bechdel cast. Hello, my name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus. And yeah, we have a very particular set of skills that would not get us out of any emergency situation. Because this is the podcast where we take your favorite movies and look at them using an intersectional feminist lens. And we have chosen a movie that I think is both on an easy and high difficulty level, depending on the way you look at it.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, but we're going to use our particular set of skills to really analyze the shit out of this movie. It's true. We are talking about the 2008 thriller action blah, blah, blah, blah, blah taken this week. but first caitlin could you let me know what the hell the bechdel test is and by the bechdel test i mean of course spoiler alert a media metric this movie has no interest in none whatsoever uh yes the bechdel test is a media metric created by queer cartoonist allisonchdel, first appearing in her comic Dex to Watch Out For. It was a test that appears to kind of examine how women don't really talk to each

other in a lot of media. Or often there's just not two of them. There just aren't two women. And if there are two women, they're talking about men usually. So that's the test. There are many versions of it. The one that we use is do two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other? And is there conversation about something other than a man? And yeah, this movie, even if it like passes on a technicality, which I honestly was not even paying attention to because it doesn't okay i absolutely was keeping track so i was like wouldn't it be funny if this movie somehow passed no i think that there is one arguable pass at the end when kim is untaken and she's back from the airport parentheses not reported to the authorities and she says mom and then her mom says kim and you're

like you're like i guess that i mean that is important because that means she got home but but we can't we can't no on vibes alone this movie completely and utterly fails so very true well that's the episode bye yes we were talking about taken this week i did not realize who some of the primary players in this movie are which i feel like is revealing as to perhaps why it is the way it is but first cait, what is your history with the movie Tay-Can? Well, Tay-Can is a movie I have seen before once, though not when it came out. I slept on it for a long time because as much as I do like action movies, this is a subgenre of action that I don't give a shit about at all. How would you qualify the sub action? Well, I guess just like toxic dudes saving a woman? Question mark?

I don't know. It is sort of like, I guess you could put it under a revenge movie. Yeah. Like kind of thing. And I'm fine with some revenge stories. i don't like inherently dismiss all of those the action movies i do like are ones that are like action adventure or i love like a kind of espionage you know mission impossible james bond kind of thing generally and ones that have some degree of like comic relief or fun or rompiness to them this movie is not a romp because it's just not it's not light at all it's not fun it's too dark no the parts of this movie that are funny are completely by accident yes my biggest laugh of

this because i will talk about my history with it in a second but like i just hadn't seen this movie in a long time and i forgot the inciting act is that a 17 year old girl in 2008 is going to follow you two around europe i was like these fucking like also luke bassan uh screenplay and we'll get to him i mean but like a known sex criminal co-wrote this yes but the fact that they couldn't even bother to look up act young women are interested in like they're like who would have who would i have followed around 20 years ago oh you too i guess i just can't imagine a world where and now there's like one millennial U2 fan shaking their fist. But I'm just saying statistically unlikely. Especially because we're introduced with like, she's a huge fan of this pop singer, but she's willing to put her life on the line to see U2. In multiple cities following U2 around Europe.

Get a grip. Young women these days see U2 strictly by accident like it's just so that's the funny part of the bit but no yeah this movie takes itself very seriously that's a non-starter with a lot of action movies for me i don't like when it's just one guy i prefer a group i prefer a little a little bit of levity adventure yeah this is not an adventure this is very punishing for sure so i didn't see it for many years but i kept seeing the meme the i have a particular set of skills blah blah and i was like should i see this movie i guess and then i watched it and i was like well that was fucking racist and shitty and sexist and all the horrible things so i didn't ever revisit it what is your

relationship with the movie jamie shockingly i saw this movie in theaters when it came out because i was in i mean primarily because i was in high school when this movie came out sure and it was friday i i think that that the extent of it. I remember going to see this movie with my friend Kim, which was a source of fun because the girl who's taken's name is Kim. Yeah. And so for weeks, months, years after, we'd be like,

Kim, where are you? So that's my primary association with this movie is just sort of a pleasant night out with friends. But having lived it, I can say this movie I didn't remember because I'd only seen it once because even in 08, I was like, this is not my kind of movie. I just like I'm I'm here for the ride, whatever. Yeah, but I do live more so than any detail in the movie besides the monologue. I remember like people were the theater was absolutely packed. This movie was wildly successful in spite of what it is, which is like also I feel like

it is interesting to revisit movies from like this specific set of years right now because we're heading into I think a similar era in movies where it's just like recession era movies and movies that have bizarrely I think or like disproportionately right-wingy themes are becoming you know like critically and commercially successful in a way that they might not be outside of a recession anyway I saw this movie during the recession and yeah the crowd was freaking loving it i just remember like every line like every monologue line liam neeson gave the crowd was like yeah like it was just it was a very the vibe was electric the movie i thought then and more so now at the time I was just like oh this is boring

depressing and I don't like it and now as an adult feminist it's just like this movie is boring depressing and also racist and pro-military and hates women so yeah I didn't like it then but I do vividly remember seeing it and i don't mean this as a positive this is a neutral statement but i understand why this movie was successful when it was successful and because we're going into another era of recession era movies i think it's interesting to revisit i also knew i was aware of the sequels i can't say i ever took interest but i was like, I wonder if they first of all, get rid of Luke Besson

at any time. They do not. Or like, what happens? I was also curious. I was like, does the daughter just keep, does she get taken? I can tell you. Please indulge me. Taken 2, Lenore is taken. Yes. And then it seems that Kim

sort of helps during the second act but then she is removed from the help by the end of the movie so i feel like taken two might be the closest to women being involved in the plot just off of wikipedia kim is helpful at some points yes but it seems like mainly through executing what her dad tells her but she does do things taken three is a return to form but even worse because lenore is murdered yeah brian aka liam neeson i'm not gonna call her this character brian liam neeson is accused of her murder now kim is pregnant she's heavy with greg pregnant yeah she's pregnant and taken three and then she is taken again so so taken three feels just like what can we do to these women we can get them pregnant and we can kill them and I do feel like that is ultimately the politics of this world is

what are women good for sex and property property. Because that's the thing, like when it comes down to it, I don't know, this movie, it reminds me of a lot of, a lot, a lot, a lot of movies.

And some of them are better than others, but it's just like, I kept hearing the like Sean Penn read of it from Mystic River, where he's like, my daughter, like, it's like, that's all this movie is.

Is it's like taking all of the tropes around specifically the relationship of fathers being possessive and overprotective of their daughters and creating a world in which this is the most rational behavior that could possibly be. Yeah. I think it's like a pretty like 4D chess vile kind of movie. But it was, I mean, yeah, I didn't really remember much about it. So I was coming in pretty fresh here. Well, let's take a quick break and then come back for the recap. Let's take in. Let's take it.

No, Kayla. Yeah, don't get taken during the break, Jamie. They're going to take you to an ad break. Describe the products and services. Well, quite frankly, we don't know what's about to play. But say it as loud as you can on the phone. Okay, BRB. 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. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, and I'm exhausted.

But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee,

Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other,

a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows. That we're surprisingly more united than most people think.

We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. With the help of Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. It's really tragic. If cynicism were a pill, it'd be a poison. We'll see that our fellow humans, even those we disagree with, are more generous than we assume. My assumption, my feeling, my hunch is that a lot of us are actually looking for a way to disagree and still be in relationships with each other. All that on the Happiness Lab. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours.

BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it.

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller

from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Okay, we're back. We're back. Don't you think it's funny that, I mean, I understand the, I guess I sort of, I don't understand. I don't even know if the writers understand but when kim is taken and then liam neeson goes to france that he gets under the same bed and it's like

my daughter was under this bed it's a little goofy yeah it's an extremely goofy movie this horrible movie but But anyway, sorry. Welcome back. Let's find out what happens in Taken. Let's rip the bandaid off. Yeah. First, I'll place a content warning for things like coercion, abduction, human sex trafficking, things of that nature. Okay. Liam Neeson is a guy named Brian Mills, and he has a 17-year-old, his daughter, named Kim, played by Maggie Grace, who I recognized from Lost, I believe.

Oh! Yeah. I didn't watch. She's in Lost. Anyway, Brian doesn't see his daughter Kim that often because he was a bit of an absentee father. He had this very demanding job for a long time. And now he and his wife or his ex-wife, Lenore, played by Famke Janssen, are divorced. And Kim lives with Lenore and her new husband, this uber rich guy named Stuart, not to be confused with Stuart the Minion. Although, you know, we can't rule out that that is who he's inspired by. We cannot. We cannot rule it out at all unlikely but not impossible so brian is now retired and trying to reconnect with kim but he's not making much progress like he tries to go to her birthday party and give her a karaoke machine because she's always wanted to be a singer but she's like

that's cool but what about this horse that my stepdad, Stuart just gave me? I was like, was she younger in the original draft of this? Okay. The way, the way she acts and the present she's given. I'm like, it's giving 13.

Like it's not giving 17 at all. 10. Like, yeah, it's right. I think these men who made this movie just don't know what 17 year old girls are like. Yeah. Because I was like, if I met this girl, I would be like, sure, Kim.

Like, I wouldn't be like, she's so cool. She's so hot. I feel like she's weird. She's weird. Yeah. Why is she acting like a 10 year old? Yeah. So the point is, Brian is trying to kind of reconnect with his daughter.

Then Brian has a boys night with three of his, his little buddies, who are all former CIA operatives or something. I have no idea. Like I just listeners are gonna have to understand. I don't understand who they're working for. I know it's the government and it's bad and they think it's good and that's as far as i was willing to reflect yes yes and he agrees to do a job with his buddies i love calling adult men and their friends buddies well that's what the minions do that is that's why you love it buddies they say buddies the little minion you gave me i keep it on my desk oh it's really cute it's my security minion well speaking of security he is a security minion brian agrees to do a job with his buddies being security escorts for this pop star at a concert and we're like wait a minute lady raven trap alert i was like wow how cool would it be like in the world

where this followed the rules of trap like bono would end up untaking liam neeson's daughter like he would be on FaceTime being like girls you've got to get me out of this bathroom everyone go see Trab whether you like it or not I just want to I'll give M. Night Shyamalan money forever

I know he doesn't need it but I'll keep giving it to him well that's your prerogative so in this movie it's not lady raven it's a pop star named shira yeah and after the concert a man tries to attack shira with a knife and brian steps in and saves her he fights the attacker off in a highly trained combat kind of way. And we're like, hmm. Yeah, very particular set of skills vibes. Exactly. And Shira is very grateful to Brian for saving her life. And she wants to help his daughter, Kim, become a singer. The following day, Brian, his daughter, Kim, and Lenore have

lunch where Kim reveals that she's going to Paris with her friend Amanda and Amanda's cousins, and she needs Brian's written permission. But he isn't comfortable letting her go, because it's just going to be a bunch of, you know, teens and young women traveling around Europe on their own. But he does give permission eventually on the condition that Kim let him know where she is and who she's with at all times. It's very much implied that he is pressured into doing this. By Lenore. His ex-wife.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Because Lenore is framed as being... She's made out to be like and this is his bitch ex-wife yes which we'll talk about which is absurd if you go through what we know about lenore in no way like i feel like the way that she's written is to seem overly severe but there is a read of this movie at multiples almost every scene where the two parents are talking i'm like if this was a movie that was marketed towards women she would be the hero of the story and

liam neeson would be the like deadbeat dad antagonist basically right like she's not doing anything overtly unreasonable not at all yeah it's him who's unreliable unstable scary and she seems to be doing a pretty good job right and regardless it's not like she is like i feel like the movie treats it like she's forbidding him from being close with his daughter where it's like she's not she's clearly not thrilled to be spending all this time with him, but it's not like she's preventing him from being around her. She's just trying to enforce healthy boundaries, understandably, because he was so negligent towards her and Kim by both of their accounts. She's like not thrilled, but she's like, OK, well, if Kim wants it, it's like in the scene you're talking about at the cafe where she says something like she's going to you know like you have to let her grow up or she's going to push you away like that is a line

in an independent coming of age movie about teenage girl where the mother is completely correct like it's just so weird that it's presented like oh how could she but it's because we know she's going to be taken and that liam neeson cannot be wrong in the world of this movie he's never wrong right yeah it's very frustrating to watch so kim and her friend amanda head to and when they arrive, this man named Peter asks them if they want to share a cab ride with him from the airport. They get to the flat where they'll be staying and this guy Peter is like, wow, nice place. And Amanda is like, yeah, teehee, we're staying here all by ourselves. And he's like, cool, want to come to a party tonight? And Kim is like, um, we don't know this guy. But Amanda is like, yeah, let's party. And then as Peter is walking away, he makes a very suspicious phone

call, giving someone the address of this flat. And he says like two girls around 18 years old. And we're like, oh no, what's happening? Now, shortly thereafter, some men come into the flat and abduct Amanda, which Kim sees from a different room while she's on the phone with Brian. And he's like, okay, they're going to take you, but I need you to shout out any details that you notice about them, because he's going to use those details to track them down and find them and kill them. So the men grab Kim and she yells out like six foot beard tattoo on hand of moon and star. And then one of the abductors picks up the cell phone. And this is when Liam Neeson delivers the line.

I have a very particular set of skills. I'm making the fart noise, but also maybe this is like, unfortunately, like a millennial sleeper cell where i hear the speech and i was like i did like really lock in because there are certain sequences of this movie where it's just hard to pay attention to sure but yeah the speech i was there i mean to this day i feel like it is a cultural osmosis moment at this point where you can quote sections of this speech and not even fully know what you're quoting or the context you're quoting it in. It is for sure. For better or worse, iconic. A similar speech for me is the Bill Pullman president speech in Independence Day.

Like I have the same visceral reaction when I hear any segment of that. See, okay, so it is maybe it is like a micro generation, because I think I couldn't tell you what that speech says. But if you gave me a line from it, I'd be like, Oh, yeah, I know. Right. Anyway, so, you know, Brian delivers this whole monologue, and the man on the other end says, good luck, and then the line disconnects. Thus starts Brian's search to find his daughter. And based on the dialect of Albanian that the kidnappers were speaking and the hand tattoo that Kim had noticed,

Brian learns that this is a group of organized criminals who traffic women, get them addicted to drugs, and then force them into prostitution. And based on the data, Brian learns that he has about a 96-hour window from the time they were abducted to a point where they'll never be found. So Brian arrives in Paris and he breaks into the flat where Kim and Amanda were going to be staying. He finds the SD card or whatever from the smashed phone of Kim's. Yeah. Good 2008 detail. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And he looks through the photos that were on the phone and finds a picture

that peter took of kim and amanda at the airport which shows a reflection of peter and the whole action movie thing of enhance you know zooming into a very pixelated photo that suddenly magically becomes very crystal clear a lot of like yeah hacker who codes yada yada yeah yeah it's kind of fun and so now brian knows what peter looks like and he finds peter at the airport trying the same taxi sharing trick on another woman brian attacks him and chases peter who gets hit by a truck and killed so then brian links up with a friend slash colleague slash french cop named jean-claude who tells him about a specific area port de clichy i don't know. Yeah. Where these traffickers are known to hang out. So Brian goes to this area and talks to a trafficked person who has been coerced into prostitution and asks her a bunch of questions. He's stalling, knowing that a, like, pimp will come up and hassle him, which is what he wanted so that he can plant a microphone on this guy.

Played right into his hands. Yeah. And so then Brian has a translator interpret the conversation that these traffickers are having in Albanian, which is about a construction site and a problem with the quote-unquote new merchandise right cut to this construction site we don't know how brian figured out where it was or anything like that but he can conveniently and magically find a very particular set of skills which is telepathy his particular set of skills is that he actually has a copy of the script taken. Yeah. And he knew exactly what location to go to.

Yeah. So he goes there. And this construction site turns out to be a derelict brothel. And he's looking around and he finds the jacket Kim was wearing when she flew to Paris. But the woman in this like enclosure is not his daughter. He takes this woman with him. He takens her. He takens. Yes. But not in a bad way. He takens her in a good way? Yeah. Question mark. Taken for good. After he fights off several of the traffickers, and he gets to a hotel room and provides medical care to the woman. She seems heavily drugged. And she eventually comes to and tells Brian

that Kim gave her the jacket while they were in the house with the red door. And she remembers what street it was on. So Brian goes to the house with the red door, pretending to be a guy he spoke to on the phone who told him good luck right it's this boss named marcos they play the voice and i was like it honestly doesn't sound doesn't sound the same similar i was like what uh-huh i guess yeah if you say so but i was like that could have been most guys yes exactly but somehow he identifies marcos and he kills the dozen or so other men in the house he finds a bunch of trafficked women there one of whom is kim's friend Amanda, who is dead from an apparent drug overdose, but he does not find Kim. So Brian tortures Marcos, who reveals that they don't keep women who are virgins. Instead, they sell them to different traffickers. This particular

boss named Patrice St. Clair, but Marcos doesn't know where to different traffickers. This particular boss named Patrice St. Clair. But Marcos doesn't know where to find this guy. Then there's a scene where Brian goes back to his cop friend, Jean-Claude, to his house, suspecting that he might be involved in actual extortion and collusion that the French police are doing with the traffickers. And Brian is correct in this assumption. So he shoots Jean-Claude's wife in the arm to show him that he means business. And then he has Jean-Claude look up Patrice Sinclair in the police database and get an address for him. So Brian goes to this address. It's a mansion. There's some kind of

party happening. And there's also an auction happening where this Patrice guy is auctioning off these trafficked women for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Brian goes into this private room of one of the buyers and forces him to buy Kim. And he thinks this is going to be how he rescues Kim. But then Brian is knocked out by one of Patrice's minions. Brian wakes up, he fights back, he finds out where they're taking Kim. She's being loaded onto a yacht. So he kills Patrice and then goes after this yacht that belongs to a sheik who had bought Kim. Brian jumps on board, kills everyone and saves his daughter. And then the movie ends with Kim safe at home with her family and Brian surprises her by taking her to the home of Shira the pop star from earlier so that she can help Kim with her music career the end

oh my god stressful let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss. 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. Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God.

We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President

Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer.

This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier

and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. With the help of Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. It's really tragic. If cynicism were a pill, it'd be a poison. We'll see that our fellow humans, even those we disagree with, are more generous than we assume. My assumption, my feeling, my hunch is that a lot

of us are actually looking for a way to disagree and still be in relationships with each other. All that on the Happiness Lab. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you.

Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up?

Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago.

We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. From having taken a break. Yeah, we're back at having taken a break.

Yeah, we're back at LAX after narrowly escaping our doom. Where to begin? I mean, I want to say like, I just want to lead with the fact that I felt like there was no amount of research that I could have done that was going to be appropriate for this episode. This is a deceptively complicated movie to talk about. Yes. Because of all of the various heavy themes that it is attempting to address.

Not a heavy lift to say that maybe it's not sufficient. You know, I feel like this movie suffers from a lot of the tropes we're used to seeing in action thrillers, that being a really, back on any of those very common problems but on top of that it's adding the deeply complicated issue of sex trafficking yes in a way that i honestly i mean it's an issue that i am undereducated on and is particularly for a group of writers that include a known sex criminal. Known sex criminal, Luc Besson. Using sex trafficking in what appears to be a very callous plot driven way. Like just add sort of an extra layer to this movie where, you know, like at this point you know you can talk about

the tropes that surround action thrillers and we have on this show quite a bit and we will again today but like and i guess i would be curious what i was struggling to find i don't know if you found anything to this effect and i'd be curious if listeners have thoughts on this is like is there a reason that that layer is being added in this particular moment you know where it's like there's plenty of action thrillers that have come out before and since that do not include this element is this a unclear why this is a moment where sex trafficking is being introduced into the action thriller space or is there a particular reason why the late 2000s, like there was a, I mean, obviously not interest,

but like a market for this particular theme. I really like, I mean, if I had had several days to get ready, I would maybe understand better. But that layer added to, again, just all of the things that we are used to pushing back on in this genre was very jarring. Yeah, I didn't find anything about possible like cultural context that might have informed why that layer was added. It could just be, well, we haven't seen many movies yet where this is the thing, so let's try it. I have no idea. What I do know is that they horribly misrepresent what human sex trafficking

is. I found something from the Polaris Project, which is a nonprofit organization that is leading a survivor-centered and justice and equity-driven movement to end human trafficking. And they put out an online guide entitled Telling the Real Story of Human Trafficking. And it basically gives a bunch of information about what human trafficking actually is like. Right. Because this movie so frequently conflates sex trafficking with sex work, which is like one of the more dangerous things that it does. Right. And this guide offers guidance. Imagine that. On how to make content and tell stories about human trafficking,

if that's something you're interested in doing, in an accurate and responsible way, saying that, quote, in the anti-human trafficking world, taken has become a shorthand for how not to make content about human trafficking. Yes, I saw this piece as well. Yeah. So I'll just share another quote from it. And then I'll share several others as the conversation goes along. But this guide starts by saying about the film Taken, quote, unfortunately, it has the unintended effect of completely miseducating the public about what human trafficking is, how it happens and who it happens to. Nearly 15 years later, those of us who work

in the anti-trafficking field are still managing the consequences. Indeed, we often start out saying things like, you know that movie Taken? Well, that's not really how trafficking happens, unquote. Right. I mean, and I remember that being a conversation at the time the movie came out. I don't know, as we're talking about it, because I'm also seeing that there was, it's interesting because I feel like this is sort of side to take in, but I guess just in terms of the issue of sex trafficking and miseducation around sex trafficking being prevalent in American culture at this time, there were congressional laws culture at this time. There were

congressional laws passed around this time, but it had to do more with cyber sex trafficking, which is really not what Taken is talking about at all, which I think is interesting. Like it is off of a real world encounter. Just I don't know, this is like bring I wonder if I've ever brought it up on this show. I know I've talked about it previously, but I remember as a kid having cyber sex trafficking cautionary tales told to me a lot at school. There was a computer game in computer class. I feel so old. I'm wondering if there's any other young millennials listening that we had computer class. I feel so old, but like this is, I'm wondering if there's like any other young millennials listening that like we had computer class and we would play three games in the course of class. It would be like a math game, a literacy game, and then an anti-cyber sex trafficking game. And the game was called, oh gosh, I believe it was called Stolen. This was before Taken came out. But you are playing as the father

of or like an investigator working with the father of a child who has been abducted and is being cyber sex trafficked. And it is your mission as a 12 year old computer game player to save this child and learn about what was at least purported to be the common showings of cyber sex trafficking at that time so for example the character met a man who lied about his identity on a message board and then was flown out to california is a big thing with the game where they're like california the world whatever it was not a good education but I do remember like this being something that was like pushed to me at a public school of like a fear of technology which makes more again you know Americans are just miseducated on this subject wholesale I'm not saying that I'm so glad I

played this computer game and it kept me safe. It was I remember being quite afraid of it. But sowing a fear of technology, at least that like holds a little like more consistently than I don't know, again, taken, it just seems so random and based in just like the various prejudices and interests of the writers it's not even like like there's a million horror movies about ai right now because that is the technological development that people are afraid of and at the time it would have just been the internet conceptually would be like what you would say is going to kill you or sex traffic you or do the the worst thing you can think of right i don't understand why this movie was so popular. Right.

I wonder if, because the movie Hostel came out a few years earlier, and that was a movie about, if I'm remembering correctly, it's a movie about American tourists going to Europe, and I also don't remember exactly where they go, but it's a place in Europe that the movie is like actually this area is really unsafe and if you stay in a hostel you'll be murdered so I wonder if Taken was almost kind of using that playbook of like beware of travel to Europe and beware of eastern Europeans because they're so scary.

Which in some ways is like hearkening back to the Red Scare, which has also never really left us. And like, I don't know, I would be curious if a listener has a clear, concise reason why the 2000s were littered with this particular kind of story. I mean, I also think we were, you know, came up in the age of like the Elizabeth Smart abduction. And another thing that I think this movie is very guilty of and doesn't examine at all is missing white girl syndrome and how, you know, to expand a little bit on our discussion of how sex trafficking and human trafficking in general

is used as a plot point in this movie. And again, we are not experts, but that how this movie intentionally centers a privileged young American cis white girl. child in this story when it is statistically far more likely for young people and particularly young women and femmes of color and indigenous people to fall victim to this specific type of crime but I feel like as is very often in media both fictional media like this and just who receives attention from local and national media when they are taken missing whatever it is far more statistically likely since the beginning of mass media for white women to receive priority in terms of who gets the attention before, during, after. And I mean, there's infinite media to this extent. We've talked about it on the show of how many Indigenous women regularly go missing or are killed. And it rarely, if ever, breaks into mass media. Whereas if a white woman

experiences the same horrific event, it is far more likely to be discussed. Again, it is horrible when this happens to anybody. But in terms of where priority is given, in terms of even acknowledgement, if not resources to be assisted and rescued and preventative measures. I mean, the human trafficking world is no exception to that, to the point where, I mean, again, not to say that, well, I guess I can't say that taken would not happen. But it's just, I don't know, it's like a wealthy white young Torah, like it's right, of course, someone's gonna come looking for her. She's like a millionaire's, a billionaire's stepdaughter. And yeah, while it's not impossible that a wealthy white girl would be targeted for trafficking, it's far more likely that a person more marginalized than someone like Kim would be targeted. To quote more from this Polaris Project guide, it says,

quote, people of color, indigenous communities, immigrants, people who identify as LGBTQ plus are disproportionately victimized. People living in poverty or foster care or who are struggling with addiction, trauma, abuse, or unstable housing are all at higher risk for trafficking. There was also discussion of how people with disabilities are often targeted and exploited. So it's just not as likely that, again, someone like Kim would be the target of human trafficking. Right. And it's not to say that we have no empathy for this character of course we do but of course it is yeah i mean given the fact that again this is a luke passan co-write even outside of his personal crimes uh go back and listen to our

leon the professional episode who you know someone with a notoriously bad track record yeah on women and also on the issue of sex work and sex trafficking it's just really hard to take this story at face value because it's bringing in a very serious issue completely misunderstanding it and not really acknowledging at all how like you're saying and and I've read that Polaris Project piece as well, like how the people who do suffer under this are disproportionately marginalized. And that is not an interest. Like this story has nothing to say about human trafficking.

Certainly not. Furthermore, the protagonist doesn't really care about the issue outside of how it affects his daughter. Okay, so that was one of my big things. He literally says repeatedly, I don't care. I will not report you. Just give me my daughter back. Yeah.

Yeah. It's confounding. I kept having this question, like, by the end of the movie, does he make any effort to save all of the women who have been trafficked or just his daughter and the answer is his daughter plus that one other woman who he only saves in order to get information about his daughter but i think that we're supposed to yeah we'll get into liam neeson in a second the other thing i wanted to say as it pertains to human trafficking. Again, I feel icky. I hope that we're not completely missing the mark here. But the fact that there is an emphasis put on Kim's virginity in terms of what makes her valuable,

that is based in some truth. I did some background research research we can link to it that of course it is this is all immoral and very fucked up but virginity is brought up as a plus in this very twisted world so it's like it's reflecting something what bothers me besides everything in the movie, but it's like I feel like the writing rises to agree with the sex traffickers in this where there is a morality attached to virginity and a slut shaming between the characters specifically of Kim and Amanda, the two friends that go to Europe together. Amanda is presented as hornier, basically, where... For sure, yeah. She's more rebellious. She says like, oh, should I hook up with this guy? And Kim, when they first arrive, is like, but you don't even know him.

Oh my gosh, blah, blah, blah. Which is like, whatever. Teenage girls, you can feel whatever way you want. But there is, by the the writers a moral application because amanda we are sort of indicated she she is not a virgin and so she dies and liam neeson does he call her apparently what happens does anyone get in touch with this girl's family we don't know not that maybe maybe it's referenced and taken to but like there is almost say like it is again like her death is a plot thing where liam neeson's like okay kim was here but now she's not because here's amanda and she's dead and amanda seems like she died because she

was not a virgin essentially like that i think is the internal plot logic and that it's the morality that is attached to kim's virginity that keeps her alive long enough to be rescued it's just so fucking dark so even though it's like even if that is based in a reference point that does take place in the real world it's written to i think like reinforce it in this real world, it's written to, I think, like reinforce it in this weird way where it's like horror movie logic of like a girl who has sex is going to die and deserves it. There are other implications that we'll get into because this is a whole separate conversation about the racism and xenophobia in this movie, the implications revolving around a very reductive view of Islam, but we'll get to that in a second. The other thing I wanted to say about this movie

misrepresenting sex trafficking is that, and again, this is according to that piece from the Polaris Project saying, quote, people in sex trafficking situations almost always know and even trust or love their traffickers. Traffickers target vulnerable people who have needs that the traffickers can fill. Sometimes they offer material support, a place to live, clothing, a chance to get rich quick. Other times they offer love emotional support or a sense of belonging kidnapping victims and forcing them into the sex trade through violence is rare unquote right so this movie presents it is like oh these scary boogeymen from albania who just target people kind of at random right that's who sex traffickers are

and like never talk to strangers because they might be a sex trafficker so this is just another way in which this movie doesn't really understand sex trafficking yeah and as you already alluded to, it's media like this that conflates sex trafficking with like consensual sex work. And it's movies like this that position sex work as something that people are doing against their will. And it only happens because they have been trafficked and things like that and just the things that contribute to the stigma and negative perception of sex work and of course there's a huge difference between people who are coerced and forced into prostitution which according to the Polaris Project because that's a word that I like kind of eliminated from my vocabulary but then right this piece was like that's a term that's generally accepted when it's used to refer to this type of thing versus sex work.

Okay. I honestly wasn't sure what the appropriate usage of that because, yeah, we haven't used that term in a while here, but I understand what you're saying. Yeah. Sex work is like there's agency involved in sex work. Sex work is legitimate work that people are doing consensually and on their own terms versus, and I think I have this correct. If there's anyone who knows better than me or who has a better understanding, feel free to chime in. But the term prostitution is still like used in legal spheres and is accepted to mean something that like people have been forced and coerced into.

Anyway, so the movie kind of, it doesn't directly conflate these two things necessarily, but it does, I think, contribute to this larger stigma of a just kind of misunderstanding of sex work being separate from coerced prostitution. I mean, just having seen this movie when I was a teenager, I would say it does directly conflate the two because I can tell you seeing this movie as a 15-year-old,

I did not understand the difference. As a naive kid that did not understand what human trafficking nor sex work really was outside of the scope of movies, I think that this movie actually kind of does dangerously conflate the two because even in the scene where Liam Neeson is approaching who I thought was a sex worker. She is reacting with the same amount of fear and coercion as we see people we know to be human trafficking victims are. And so I can say for sure, like if you're because I mean this is I mean I wouldn't even

say that majority teenagers are going to see movies like this but this is a genre that does touch from teenagers to old heads and I can say for sure that like when I first saw this movie I did not understand the difference and the movie did nothing not that it is the job of any movie to like educate you on the nuances but it is the job of the movie to be clear and i just don't think that this movie really was at all because otherwise like this movie takes place in a vacuum where sex work does not exist you know right i think it is like tacitly saying that all sex work is human trafficking which is like a very dangerous and wrong thing to imply I feel like I had a similar perception of it for at least some amount of time in my youth I mean I'm talking about when I was a kid like I just was I had no

fucking clue about right and it's because of media depictions like this that don't understand the distinction. Absolutely. And just, again, contribute to this horrible stigma and assume that people who engage in sex work consensually are not actually doing so consensually. They are being forced and coerced into it. And that also comes with a lot of like victim blaming and shaming of people struggling with addiction issues and a whole slew of things. But yeah, this movie is very guilty

of just painting things in a very broad way and ignoring all of the nuance when it comes to this topic. And again, it's not a shocker from a co-writer who is an accused sex, just absolutely horrific woman, although he was not formally convicted. That doesn't mean shit. That's something that we can take up with france yeah well france is also fucking harboring roman polanski and shit like that so that's what i mean yeah france is famously uh bad on this issue not that america's any better anyways right yeah so i mean i think that that was all i had to say on the sex trafficking versus sex work conflation front. The one last thing I have is just to go full circle on the does Liam Neeson attempt to save any of the other people who have been targeted for sex trafficking?

And the answer is pretty much no. No. Which is a version of that like patriarchal value when a man says, I love and respect women, they feel some type of ownership over. Because men like this like never care about women's issues. They never care about like the devastating effects of rape culture or anything like that. They just care about women who they feel belong to them. And this movie is very much giving those nasty vibes so and it seems like the entire franchise does because yeah i think it wouldn't have improved the movie meaningfully but like even a cliffhanger if you're trying to make this into a franchise of like okay i have liberated my daughter and now i'm gonna go back and liberate the rest of the victims of this human trafficking ring. Something, some indication that he has an interest in anyone

who is not married or blood related to him, but there isn't. And it doesn't seem like that ever really changes. Yeah. From there, should we get into the racism and xenophobia of this movie because this was something that while i did not have the education to understand the completely incorrect messaging around human trafficking and sex work that this movie provides i was able at 15 to understand that this movie is extremely racist yes Yes, absolutely. All the good guys are white Americans and all the bad guys are non-American and or not white. Which is wild because this is like a half French movie and even the French guys are generally bad people. The white French guys. Yeah. There's an exception, which is Patrice St. Clair, who is a white American man, or at least he speaks English with an American accent.

We don't know his nationality necessarily. Yeah, the guy that's like, it's just business. And then you're like, all right. But by and large, we have a group of Albanian characters. And then later on in the movie there are arab characters and both of them in some overlapping in some different ways are portrayed in just awful ways where they're criminals they're the human traffickers they're violent they're barbaric there's a whole town in albania that

is characterized as being a breeding ground for like the scum of the earth that would become human traffickers that kind of thing it is just like a like comical lack of nuance to anything anything at all yeah it is like deeply xenophobic where the second they meet someone who isn't American within moments of arriving, they haven't even walked in the door and they're already being targeted by like nationality is but it's like a very stereotyped character who's working at the karaoke machine business the electronics store yeah where at very least there are a few lines in this movie that it doesn't make it worth the journey but it is fun to hear liam neeson say the line, who is Beyonce? Just kidding. Just kidding. Because you're like 2008. I don't know.

No, she's been really famous since the 90s. For a while, yeah. He's like JK, JK. You're like, why put that in there? There are a few lines. I mean, and then at the point where it's like they're following U2 around the country, the script has already given up on interacting

with youth culture in any way, shape or form because a 17 year old girl is acting 10 years old. And yet she also wants to follow you to like nonsense. I feel like Beyonce was added by a punch up writer. I don't think that either credited writer would have known to include Beyonce as a then actually successful artist among young women. Well, also, whoever wrote that line of dialogue, because they're talking about a karaoke machine and the electronic salesman is like, yeah, this is the karaoke machine that all the professionals use.

You're like, what? Examples, Beyonce. And then he lists like two other. Beyonce uses this karaoke machine? Yeah. Pop stars aren't using karaoke machine like they just don't understand what pop music is and i have a whole spiel which i'll save for later just about the way the buddies talk about the pop star who's not lady raven though she should be but

anyway yeah the the way non-white and non non-American characters in general are portrayed in this movie is heinous to the point where in 2019, the Albanian tourism board produced an advertisement in order to kind of counter the negative perception of Albanians that this movie like directly caused. So they created this kind of movement, you can sign a petition. It's called Be Taken by Albania, where they are challenging. I would maybe change the name. But sure, I get I get that. I appreciate the message. But I guess they were like, it's a pun. But anyway, they're asking, they're inviting Liam Neeson to visit Albania and explore the beauty and the culture and the food and the tourist hotspots. There's a video that I watched that the actor who plays Marcos is in briefly at the end. But it's mostly like people in Albania being like, see, we're a really nice country

and we have all these beautiful things and we're really nice people. Which is like absurd that they even have to do that. It reminds me of our conversation around Kazakhstan's reception of Borat, where it was like, it did not irreparable, but significant harm to the global perception of the country because of this like dumbass movie that was successful. Like it's yeah.

Anyone who is like, it's just a movie. You're like, well, well, why do we have so many examples of movies influencing perceptions of things on a global scale? Then if it's quote unquote just a movie. Yeah. And then again, the way the Arab characters are portrayed in this movie is the way they often are in Western media, which is being violent and hostile and corrupt and uber wealthy. They covet women who are virgins, which, again, is just a very incredibly reductive portrayal of Muslim characters and Arab characters. And, again, has real world consequences and contributes to like anti-immigration rhetoric and policy that is still affecting so many countries around the world. The line I wanted to draw attention to

to sort of illustrate what the internal politics of this movie appear to be, it's said by Liam Neeson in the scene where he's like, oh, you're the guy from the phone. And you're like, first of all, you don't recognize a guy's international call on a Razor phone in 2008. Be serious.

But he is lecturing the group of Albanian men in a country where he does not live, but says, you come to this country and think because we are tolerant, we are weak and helpless. Your arrogance offends me, which just implies all of these really ugly narratives around immigration in general, where like, I think the word tolerated is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. It's where it's like, you are being permitted to live here, so long as you do A, B, and C to basically, I mean, just feels like assimilation tactics. It feels like anyone who immigrates to a country does not actually have a right to live there it's conditional and just i mean all of these really i mean this movie is a conservative movie and that line like in particular which is weird because i think if we saw a comparably conservative movie today that language would probably be much harsher

but even so it's like you can read between the lines where it's like this movie is clearly anti-immigration and it is clearly deeply xenophobic which not for nothing is wild because liam neeson is from northern ireland so but he's america whatever i mean the same thing happens with bondo a lot i've been working on a story for 16th Minute about the Super Bowl and how like U2 was the Super Bowl act after 9-11 and they were wearing American flag jackets. And you're like, they're Irish. What? Anyways, very weird.

And Liam Neeson, I know we've I think we talked about this in our episode on Widows, also has had his share of controversies around talking about race. So unfortunately, it is not shocking to me that he ends up in this very conservative action thriller written by a sex criminal. Yeah. Also, Liam Neeson saying that line about, you know, we tolerate you being here that's in response to the albanian characters saying oh you think that just because we're immigrants you can exploit us and take advantage of us and all this stuff which fair point that does often happen to immigrants but it's undermined by the fact that what they're doing is illegal trafficking it's like well point not well taken because of what but it's of course like these filmmakers writing these eastern european characters in this way and it it's just such a mind fuck

it's hard to talk about this movie because there are so many major consequential issues being conflated with each other that it just feels like an intentional way of like, well, the only immigrant characters in this movie you're going to see are going to be engaged

in the most horrific crime you can think of. So how can you have a conversation around immigration when that is the puzzle box that a sex criminal has put in front of you and you're like well i guess i don't know i guess i don't know the answer to that question and i resent being asked right yeah it's all horseshit like this movie is horseshit is and not to go back into the racist tirade that liam neeson went on back in i think it was 2019 where yeah he said that he would go into black neighborhoods looking to start a fight so he could justify unleashing violence upon them and he did that

in response to a friend of his saying that she had been raped by a black man and he was just like well then i'm just gonna go and beat up any black man i find was his response basically which is like kind of what his character does in this well you remember that and then you watch the scene in taken where he beats up a black man at the airport and with that context in mind it's just so horrifying the thing is like liam neeson did not creatively partake in this movie but no he doesn't disagree with what the movie is doing which is just maybe something to keep in mind yeah the other co-writer of this movie uh co-wrote movies in Karate Kid franchise and The Fifth Element and now owns a vineyard in Sonoma. And that is all I know about him.

His name is Robert Mark Kamen. Anyways, both men who wrote this movie were pushing 50, if not over 50, when writing this movie about teenage girls, which is why they're following you two around Western Europe. Yeah, which is why she squeals when she's given a horse and she loves milkshakes with extra cherries. Not to say that 17 year olds can't love horses and can't love milkshakes. But the way she's framed in this movie feels like writers just like infantilizing this girl slash having no idea how a 17 year old girl actually behaves let's get into talking about kim and lenore because it's like yeah the way that kim is introduced clearly she's very wealthy we have neeson's character is not as wealthy he lives in an apartment we don't really know what his financial status is but she you know lenore has remarried a very very rich man and kim lives with them but it's made a point to make lenore look rude to say like uh why did you get her a karaoke machine she was really

into that when she was 12 as if to say you don't know your daughter very well because you were not around for all of her formative years which becomes clearer as the movie goes on yeah not that it really goes anywhere but it is made clearer that like kim agrees with this kim felt very estranged from her father while growing up but then to say for lenore to say that and then have her be like what she really wants is a pony you're like well is she an adult or not like especially because the movie opens with like video camera footage of kim's like fifth birthday where she's given a toy horse and she's like teehee look at my little horse i'm like okay so you're all infantilizing her and she she appears to love it. Like, poor Kim. I mean, the actor that plays Kim.

Because it's just, like, so divorced from an existing... Like, she's very much, like, a daddy's girl character. I have, yeah, just some notes. Again, in the, like, conflating things and airtight logic that this movie has a vested interest in creating is yeah the relationship between fathers and daughters and like the like overprotective father trope which we see in movies constantly depending on who the movie is centering it can be framed as like a force of oppression and then in other movies it's made to seem very reasonable this movie it is made to seem almost as reasonable as i've ever seen it to the point of absurdity of like

and and connects to like if you want to go back hundreds of years connects to you know how fathers are trained to see their daughters as their property and as a bartering tool and you know i don't think that they're thinking that hard about it but there is a clear reason why this trope exists it is rooted in something real but this movie just doesn't want to talk about anything but yeah it's like he you know she is his property it's tricky because in some ways it's like okay he wants to right some wrongs he's retired he wants to have some sort of connection with his daughter he's relocated to do it i don't even object to that as long as kim feels okay about it which she appears to and that they're trying to make it work but like again it's just his over protectiveness which is made to seem

so wildly correct and like the idea like any of lenore's boundaries are made to seem cruel or ridiculous as it folds out where the first time we meet lenore she is setting a boundary with him saying like hey this is we agreed that this was going to be the way this was going to go and he's like oh well I don't care and then Kim shows up and she's like oh I don't care either and then Lenore looks mean for having set the boundary and then the next time we see her she is encouraging Liam Neeson to let Kim go on this trip to Paris and like give her a little bit of freedom. She's a teenager. She's going to push you away if she feels hyper-surveilled by

you. And he says, okay. And the one time he gives into something she recommends, she, who it appears has entirely raised her daughter, she is dead wrong and is not able to participate

in the movie further. She doesn't, I don't think she... Well, she doesn't have a particular set of skills, Jamie. She has no skills. Her skills are wife. But we also don't know, did she ever have a career?

We don't know. I mean, I guess the most I can say for that is that at least they bothered to explain why the marriage fell apart and why his relationship to them is so tenuous. Yeah. But even so, it is just made to seem like there's no point where Liam Neeson is not correct and that the world revolves around his feelings about people and boundaries and relationships to be correct like the world will shift on its axis to to meet his logic and that's at the expense of the two women in the story yeah and this reminds me of a trope that we talk about from time to time where in any story where there's a woman who ends up as a damsel in distress and the man protagonist saves her, by the movie's logic, that entitles him to that woman.

Because he saved her, this is the prize he gets in return for saving her. And she's obligated to be with him and to kiss him because he saved her. I feel like a similar logic applies here where because he saved his daughter, his daughter, he has redeemed himself as a father and now he's gonna be allowed to be an active participant in her life and he's entitled to her time and all that kind of stuff. And that is not necessarily true just because a person does one good thing does not redeem them for a lifetime of wickedness. And yes,

that is a quote from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but I, wow. It just came out of me. Unproblematic king. Yeah, no, it's true. And again, it's like the way that these issues and dynamics are proposed

makes it hard to talk about in an analytical way because, you know, like if I'm putting myself in a parent character's head, like both of the parents to me are acting weird where it's like lenore has no concerns about this whatsoever that also feels weird like i would of course like if my kid was like i want to go to europe alone with people you basically don't know i would i would be worried i don't think it's unreasonable to express concern and express like, OK, here is where, you know, like here is how we're going to approach safety. Here's how we're going to approach communication and blah, blah, blah.

Like in a way that feels pretty healthy. But like neither of them are proposing that. Yeah, they're both on opposite ends of that spectrum. Like, well, she's too aloof and he's too overprotective yeah so if that's the case whose logic does the story favor and it's liam neeson it makes lenore look negligent and foolish for feeling any other way right this is why i find action movies like kind of eye-rolly in general where it's just like it's just creating a you know a structure in which one guy is the coolest guy on the planet and so of course

it's not going to make any sense uh it sounds like the stepdad is at least you know i don't know what he's like as a father but he certainly you know he's like an oil he has deals with shell i was like i here's something where my brain wasn't working. Where Liam Neeson was talking so fast. He was like, well, you have a bunch of deals with shell corporations. I was like, shell corporations or the shell corporation? Good question. What is his job?

What is he doing? It doesn't sound good. It definitely doesn't sound good. You don't get a house like that doing good things generally. But like. Certainly not. But like. Certainly not. But what. But it feels like that character is there and behaving like that.

Just again, in service of making Liam Neeson look cooler. Like this, like, you know, suit fucking sucks. And like he doesn't know what he's talking about. And she should have stayed with me. I'm awesome. Even though I was negligent and a horrible husband and a horrible father,

which actually is at least acknowledged by the story. And then we have how Jean-Claude's wife, his wife is treated, which is so absurd. Liam Neeson shoots her for no reason other than to send the message also her job is dinner

yes her job is dinner she lets a stranger like you would think someone who is the his wife of someone this high profile would know maybe to not let a random stranger into the house but that is like clearly not the case here knows him because they go way back so that i can kind of buy that like that he's a family friend it seems like they already know each other i guess so yeah but that doesn't excuse any of the other ways she's portrayed which is like yeah she's like here have dinner have dinner. And then, again, he shoots her. She is not involved at all in this situation, but he needs to send a message to his new enemy, Jean-Claude,

and he does that by shooting her in the arm, threatening to shoot her in the head. It's a flesh wound. You're like, oh, fuck. Yeah, but you still shot her. King king and then after he gets what he wants from jean-claude which is like the information on that patrice guy the scene ends with brian saying please apologize to your wife for me and the exits brother and then we never know what happens to the wife isabel and also jean-claude treats his wife like garbage you know

like and jean-claude also a bad guy it's not like you know there's he's being presented as like the peak of morality that's liam neeson and he shoots her but like you know he tells you his wife he tells her to shut up he's like you know he's being very rude to her when she understandably has no fucking clue what they're talking about. And he's like, shut up. And then she's shot. And you're like, wow, I don't know what I expected from a Luc Bessard screenplay. But here I am watching it. It's just like it's like comical.

It's ridiculous. And also, yeah, this movie was produced by Luc Besson. The director, Pierre Morel, was Besson's go-to cinematographer. So this is very much the predatory racist boys club movie. And it made a quarter of a billion dollars. It made its budget back almost 10 times. It was wildly successful. Again, had these two shitty sequels and i guess also a tv show yeah which i missed it's uh not liam neeson it's the same character but played by a different actor it's kind of like a re-envisioning guy named clive standen wow what a wild last name for an actor, Standen. Sort of feels like a death sentence. Anyways, yeah, this movie has, and speaking to the campaign run in Albania to reverse the misinformation of this movie,

to speak to the fact that this movie comes out on the Polaris Project, this movie did very well. And feel like I mean it's weird because I feel like a lot of times on this show we cover like well it's unclear what if any net harm resulted from this it's rare to talk about a movie where there is demonstrable net harm done by the movie's success but this is one of those movies absolutely no question in my mind this movie did bad things for people's understanding of extremely important issues for sure and written by again like truly the last person you want weighing in on issues around human trafficking the last person you want

whose creative work you want to see really period end of sentence and granted at this time this you know in 2008 this conversation around luke bassan was not happening yet that wouldn't happen for almost 10 years afterwards but looking back on it now but all you had to do was watch leon the professional and feel like i mean but a lot of people like it took a long time for the conversation around that movie to come all the way around. It took a really, really long time. I mean, not that not to discount anyone who was having the conversation when it started, but just in the like majority public sense. That was a beloved movie when it came out.

I just yeah, Luc Besson, I really wish him the worst. Yeah, same. May he rot the worst. Yeah, same. May he rot in hell. Yeah. The last thing I have is the way the buddies talk about the pop star, Shira, where the guy whose name is Sam, I think, calls her a pop diva. And then he's like, I don't know if you'd call her a singer more like a cash cow and it's just like demonstrating the way that men often are disparaging about performers or media that is targeted toward women because they pulled from personal conversations that the

people who make this movie have probably right exactly so it's just like oh these men hate art by and for women because they think oh if it's not for me then it must be bad yeah it's and also in that scene the one other i forgot to say this earlier but the way that his friends it's just something that we talk about on the show all the time but how the fact that liam neeson has taken it upon himself to be an active presence in his daughter's life uh on her 17th birthday is presented as like this heroic feat and just how low the bar is for father participation in a child's life and they're like they literally like has she thanked you you're like like it really seems like he sees her one day a year like why would she thank him uh but

also the way she's written she might you know like she's like daddy because she's my milkshake and my horsies where's my milk and my horsey? Classic 17-year-old behavior. Like, this movie, it can go. It can go. Like, I, again, love the movies you love, but this movie I feel like is best enjoyed ironically. And it did just, I will not be revisiting it after this. I just, I don't know. Rare that my 15-year year old self was right,

but she was, she was really cooking on having no further interest in this movie franchise genre, et cetera. I love that for young Jamie. Yeah. It doesn't pass the Bechdel test. I don't care if it does. It doesn't.

It doesn't. It spiritually doesn't. And this movie on our nipple scale, where we rate zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens i give it zero nipples i give a zero i have nothing to give yeah we haven't talked about the concept of fridging in a while or at least not defining it by that but like like, I just also want to point out, like this is fridging the movie. For any listeners who are not familiar,

we're talking about a common trope in the action genre, but it also, you can see it in any genre, but it was a term coined by comic writer, Gail Simone in 1999. It describes a term coined by comic writer Gail Simone in 1999. It describes a trend in storytelling where characters who are women will face disproportionate harm. They'll be killed, maimed, assaulted, abducted, anything like that, in order to serve as plot devices to motivate the men in the story. Usually it's a smaller plot point of a larger story, but like in the Taken movies,

it's the whole story. Fridging the movie, the whole plot hinges on... There's no movie if it doesn't... Yeah. Yeah, there's no active person in this movie besides sex traffickers and Liam Neeson. Outside of that, there's not even a, you know,

I think what is more common now in sexist movies where it's like the woman will maybe kick once or twice. No, we're not even rising to that. Uh, there is nothing. It's just shaking, sobbing,

crying. And, and all the information that is being conveyed is not thought about. I mean, this movie is just like saying, it's weird, this movie isn't saying nothing. It is just saying a lot of wrong things in a way that sticks with you harder than you might expect because there are so few movies,

especially like widely released movies that address issues like this. And so the ones that do, if they get it wrong that makes a big difference exactly and the legacy of this movie says that so yeah zero nipples it sucks you know the the monologue sure sure sure but watch it on youtube and and fuck the rest and it's a monologue that could be said by many characters in many different movies. So it's not even though it's specific to him. I think that the nice thing is most people who know that monologue forget the plot of Taken.

And that is the best case scenario there. So with that, we're back at LAX. I guess we don't care that our friend died and let's just go home yeah i just i'm ready for my singing lessons by this diva kim is also implied to be trauma-free the second she you're just like okay uh anyways we can't we can't talk about this movie a second longer. No. Thank you for listening to our back to school episode, which was taken. Wow. Thank you again for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, you can follow us online.

Follow us. We're mainly on Instagram at Bechtelcast. We're still on Twitter occasionally. And if you want more hashtag content with just Caitlin and myself, you can go to our Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon, where for $5 a month, we cover two bonus episodes. You also get access to our over 150 episodes of back catalog. We've been doing the Matreon forever. And every month we choose a special silly theme and cover some of your popular requests this month it is john hughes buember and we're covering uh john hughes movies that we get a lot of requests for that we

haven't covered yet uh so head on over there it's a great way to support the show indeed and you can grab our merch at tpublic.com slash the Bechtel cast. You can, Hey, why not rate and review us? Give us five nipples on whatever podcast platform you use. And with that, Jamie,

let's use our particular set of skills as friends. Uh-huh. And go hang out. Okay. Okay. Bye. Bye. The Bechdelcast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskrosensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus. And a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree.com.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. October 3rd. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, Karl Rove, and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take

some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Back in 1969, four young musicians from Texas were hired to impersonate the British psychedelic rock band, The Zombies. It was one of the most bizarre and audacious cons in rock and roll history. And now, the entire story has been uncovered in a new podcast. All episodes are available now. Listen to the true story of the fake zombies on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search true story of the fake zombies and start listening.

Guess what, Will? What's that, Mango? I've been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we've done over 250 episodes, we don't really talk about murders or cults. I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy.

We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money? And then of course, can you game a dog show? So what you're saying is everyone should be listening. Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the United States.

One was the protege of Charles Manson. 26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus only on Apple Podcasts.