The Bechdel Cast - The Avengers with Anney Reese

Episode Date: April 26, 2019

Superhero squad Jamie Loftus, Caitlin Durante, and special guest Anney Reese chat about The Avengers franchise! This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @AnneyReese on Twitter.  While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project.

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from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, They're just dreams. so much information out there about flaxseed, pelvic floor, serums, and anti-aging. So I launched a newsletter. It's called Body and Soul to share expert approved advice for your physical and mental health. And guess what? It's free. Just sign up at katiecouric.com slash body and soul. That's K-A-T-I-E-C-O-U-R-I-C dot com slash bodyandsoul. I promise it will make you happier and healthier. 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 effing vast.

Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. And my name's Jamie Loftus. And we're superheroes. When it comes to analyzing media from a feminist lens. God, what a boring superpower. Honestly, I'm asleep. But I'm asleep during most Marvel movies, so it's fine's fine sure i uh like them but we'll get there that's kind of our dynamic that's kind of when you think about it it's basically that is how each of us is defined wild welcome to the bechdel cast this is our

feminist movie podcast where we look at famous movies or or in this case, famous movie franchises, from a feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as the jumping off point. That, of course, being the media test devised by evil genius Alison Bechdel. Media test that states that there must be two female identifying characters in any piece of media that talk about something other than a man and they must have names. And for our purposes, we just require a two line exchange. Very low bar. And yet a lot of these movies that we're talking about today. Do not pass. Don't barely even try. Even when Joss Whedon is the director.

Yeah. Mr. Buffy, why didn't you do better excuse me mr male feminist excuse me joss whedon kicking down the door saying like what what is that shirt feminism is the law now what is that shirt i don't have it i don't know the feminist shirt everyone has oh the future is female yes i thought I'm not as feminism as the law now. Same thing. Look out for that in our merch store. Yes. So today we are talking about essentially the entire Avengers franchise.

However, for the purposes of this episode, I have only seen the first Avengers movie. Yes. of this episode i have only seen the first avengers movie yes so recap wise we're talking 2012 but we're going to also talk about themes in the entire i've got well that's the thing i'm doing the the recap a little differently today i've got short paragraphs for each movie so you'll you'll see the whole jesus i know i know this this is we're going off the rails here baby i'm loki over here I'm fucking Loki-ing. You're such a fucking creep. Sometimes I'm good, sometimes I'm bad.

Tom Hiddleston looks like a straight-up bug as Loki. He looks like an insect. I don't like his hair, sure. I don't like his hair. So yeah, things are going to be a little bit different. We are not talking about Avengers Endgame. We have not seen that yet. But we, for the sake of this episode, are covering the Avengers fromgame. We have not seen that yet, but we, for the sake of this episode, are covering

the Avengers from 2012. We're focusing on that one, but there are a few things to be said about some other Marvel ensemble movies like Avengers Age of Ultron, Avengers Infinity War. There will be some references to Captain America Civil War because that's basically an Avengers movie. So fair warning, you may hear some spoilers for those movies. This all sounds like another language to me. I watched the first one. Just you wait. Let's introduce our guest before we go any further. She is the host of the podcast Saver and the podcast Stuff Mom Never Told You. It's Annie Rees. Hi.

Hello. Thanks for joining us. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I kind of low-key. Oh, there's always a low-key joke when you say low-key. Anyway. High-key. Why isn't Thor's name high-key?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Missed opportunity. Funny joke. He really is the more low-key one though anyway yeah some poetic irony there I kind of like invited myself to do this uh when the both of you were on my podcast I'm very happy this is happening yes we're excited you are you're a big fan correct yes um as of like two nights ago I have watched all 21 MCU movies in chronological order.

Whoa. Yes. That is an undertaking. Did you take pee breaks? Nope. Or did you just wear a diaper? Just wear a diaper. I was going to say, if you were a true fan, you wouldn't take pee breaks. That's how I test anyone's fandom of anything i'm like dup

all right well we've got a lot to cover so let's just kind of dive right uh so um jamie really quickly what's your history with the franchise and mcu in general so i am feeling insecure going into this episode because every time that i have not seen a huge movie franchise people swan dive into my mentions and call me a fucking loser. However, this is one of the massive franchises that I have interacted with. I've only dipped my toe in. I've seen one of the Captain America movies. No idea which.

I saw Ant-Man and the Wasp. I saw Captain Marvel. Black Panther you've seen? I've seen Black Panther. I'm pretty sure. And now you've seen I've seen Black Panther that is I'm pretty sure and that now I've seen the first Avengers got it that is all I've seen cool um so I think I do think I have with some research a general idea and then I have through osmosis I've experienced a lot of people talking about it around me but I just it's just never been my genre. It's never been my thing. Please don't get into my mentions about it. I don't care. Yeah, leave us alone.

Leave us alone. Listen, but then but then don't engage. Feminism is the law now. Annie, what is your brief history and relationship with the MCU? Well, it's interesting because I kind of became a reverse. I was as as a kid, I really liked comics, and I read about, like, Thanos and the Infinity War, and then it kind of became, like, not cool for girls to like that, and now it's, like, cool for people to like it. Because the future is female. I just remembered Spider-Man 2 is in the MCU technically, right?

Not really. But it's Spider-Man. Yeah, but it's not in the Marvel. Oh my gosh. Fuck you guys. All right, never mind. It is Marvel, but it's not in the MCU. This is why I hate comic book movies.

Everyone's like, oh, actually, Spider-Man isn't the movie. I was like, fine. I'm going dark. I'm sorry. I interrupted you. The Tom Hiddleston spider-man okay i'm so sorry i actually there's a whole contract thing involved in that and i'm a big legal nerd so i won't go into it but i could i'm just gonna tell you okay i love legal drama

more than i wonder what alfred's take on all of is. He's not canonically a part of the MCU. Alfred Molina. Correct. That is a federal crime. It's a crime. People should be in jail. That is very fucked up. Okay.

Well, sorry. Annie, I keep interrupting you. No, no worries. So I saw Iron Man when it came out because I remember it was like a big deal. And then I didn't really see another one until the Avengers. My family just liked going movies. I can't recall why we went to go see it. But then after that

I was like, wait a minute. I am in. Yeah. And I was converted. You're one of the Avengers. I am. And also, I cosplay every year as the Winter Soldier. I was seeing your Instagram post about that. So that's

pretty cool. Thank you for saying it's cool. I appreciate that. No, of course. My history is kind of the same as yours. I didn't read any of the comics, but I did start with Iron Man because that was the first MCU movie, if I'm not mistaken. Right. And I saw it in the theater

and then I watched others in the theaters sporadically. But as of now, I have seen I think every MCU movie except for any of the Hulk ones. Oh, yeah. Well, there's only the one. So, wait. Is Edward Norton canon? No. Okay, good.

Yeah. I'm okay with that that movie is like in the mcu but they just kind of recast him but tony stark appears and he's like yo i'm looking to put together this group oh yeah i mean ruffalo over norton any any day agree hard agree yes okay so let me really quickly do the recaps yeah and then we'll go from there there's what 19 phases starting with the avengers from 2012 the story of that is that loki shows up on earth he's thor's brother he steals the tesseract which jamie you might be familiar with from feminist icon the tesseract

from captain marvel is where i recognize it and they refer to her they refer to the tesseract with she her pronouns oh interesting i forgot about that the avengers oh wow so feminist yes indeed or well a woman we don't know if she's like with us or not sure sure so loki steals the tesseract from shield and they need to get it back because it's important we don't really know what it does i don't think shield recruits iron man captain america black widow and the hulk to go after loki and then all these superhero people capture him and then Thor shows up. And he's like, hey, brother. And then he takes Loki back.

Like Arrested Development style. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. He takes Loki back. And we're like, oh, no. Thor, what's going on? But it's OK because Thor is one of the good guys. And we know that from all the Thor movies that we've seen up till that point. And then they put Loki in a cage,

but they still don't know where the Tesseract is. They learn that Loki is building a portal with the help of some of the good guys that Loki put under spell, including... He put the female Tesseract into a phallic-like object and is using it to suck people's hearts out. Symbolism? Maybe.

Possibly an accident. Perhaps. So one of the good guys that he has under his spell is Hawkeye, a.k.a. Clint. Fabulous stand-up comedian, Jeremy. And then also Stellan Skarsgård, who is a character from the Thor movies and he's in isn't he in Mamma Mia he certainly is hell yeah yes okay speaking my language

and then Loki escapes and all hell breaks loose and then Black Widow hits Hawkeye really hard and it turns him good again and then Loki unleashes... She fixes him. She fixes him, yes. Loki unleashes his army on New York City. Ever heard of it? That arrives via the portal that he was building. And then the Avengers... Long fight.

Band together. They fight back. There's a big flying metal reptile and then they kill it. then they win we don't know how the reptile identifies we don't which could make a difference yes so that is a brief overview of the story of the avengers yes moving on to age of ultron is that the one that joss whedon directed that people didn't like as much? Correct. Got it. That is the one. Alright, I'm following.

So the first thing that happens is the Avengers retrieve Loki's scepter from a bad guy named Strucker. Who's that? We don't really know. It doesn't matter. I think he dies shortly after that. Cool. I think. Again, I probably don't have all the

details right. I'm probably going to fuck some stuff up. So probably don't have all the details right i'm probably gonna fuck some stuff up so also don't slide into my mentions either i'm just still traumatized from the lord of the rings episode honestly like just leave us alone we're doing our best yes there's a gem inside the scepter and that'll become important later we always need an object to circle these movies around because why write a movie right exactly we need a mcguffin right so then tony stark wants to create ai named ultron as a peacekeeping program to help the avengers and then he uses the coding question mark from the gem that's inside the scepter to make Ultron. But as soon as he does, Ultron is mad.

And he's mean to Jarvis, which is Iron Man's friend. Don't be mean to Jarvis. Slash suit man. God. We also, we should mention that Gwyneth Paltrow's lurking around, too. She's around sometimes. Probably has a jade egg in her vagina. She's smearing goop all over her face.

That's where she derives her power. Anyways. So then Ultron embodies one of Iron Man's old suits, and he shows up at Tony Stark's party. And he's like, hi, I'm here and I'm a bad guy. And then the Avengers are like, rats. D'oh! This was such a good party.

Yeah, exactly. Then they try to fight him a little bit. Ultron gets away. He takes the scepter and he enlists the help of the Maximoff siblings. I think they're,

are they twins? Yeah, they're twins. That reminds me of, who are those murderer, the Menendez brothers I think they're, are they twins? Yeah. That reminds me of, who are those murderer, the Menendez brothers I was thinking of. Nevermind. So the Maximoff twins

are Peter or Petrie. I don't know. Also Ultron is James Spader. Yes. Yeah. Peter's really fast. Wanda has like mind control and telekinesis powers.

So the Avengers, they're trying to stop Ultron. Meanwhile, Ultron tries to build a real body for himself using this like high-tech regeneration pod cradle. And he takes the gem out of the scepter, which we eventually find out is the Mind Infinity Stone, which is going to become really important in avengers infinity wars how many fucking rocks and scepters oh man and none of them are the heart of the ocean i know it's the fuck complete heart of the ocean erasure okay so then he puts this mind infinity Stone into this body's head. But then the Avengers get the cradle back from Ultron.

And Tony Stark wants to use that body that Ultron has been making to upload Jarvis into it. So everyone is like, Tony, you're crazy. Don't upload Jarvis. Well, guess what? He does it anyway. And the Jarvis man turns out to be good, so it's fine. And they need his help to defeat Ultron. They name him Vision.

And then meanwhile, the twins have realized that Ultron is too evil because he wants to cause a mass extinction. So they leave and they join the Avengers. And then there's this big battle at the end where the Avengers fight Ultron and his robot army in Sokovia. The good guys win, of course. There's only one casualty among the Avenger people. Who dies? Which is Peter.

Who's Peter? Peter is the really fast guy. He goes off and becomes an X-Men or something. I don't know. Well, rest in peace. And so now the Avengers have more friends, like Wanda, Falcon, War Machine, and Vision. So, yay! And it only cost them one Peter.

Yes. So that's the story of Avengers Age of Ultron. What's the next one called? So the next movie that I'm going to talk about is Captain America Civil War. I might know this one. Let me describe it and you let me know if you've seen it. Okay, cool. Cool.

Okay. And the reason I'm doing this one is because it is not technically an Avengers movie, but it has almost all of the characters that exist within this world and you kind of need to know the story of this movie to understand a lot of what happens in infinity war the next avengers movie so okay that's why i'm including this one so we open and the world is pissed off at the avengers for destroying sokovia which we just saw them do and new york which we saw them do in the first movie and all these other places and they want the avengers to agree to operate under the supervision of a united nations panel and then half the avengers are like yeah that sounds reasonable yeah we did help cause a

lot of destruction i bet tony's not on board tony is on board t Tony's on board? Yeah. Tony Stark. He's like spearheading it. He's good? He's good. Okay. Well because this is Captain America's movie he is positioned as the bad guy in this kind of because we're rooting for Captain America even though

Captain America personal bias over here. I think he sucks. Anyway. I just don't even know which Chris he is. So that's Chris Evans. Sure. But isn't there another Chris in the main cast? Chris Hemsworth is Thor. And then by Infinity War, we also have Chris Pratt because he's in Guardians of the Galaxy. There is. Sure. The only main Chris we're missing is Chris Pine, and he's over in DC World being in Wonder Woman. He's in Purgatory.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so the Avengers who are on board with the Sokovia Accord are Iron Man, Black Widow, Rhodey, and Vision. And then the other half of the group, like our hero Captain America, Falcon, Hawkeye, and Wanda, they refuse to sign. Because they don't want to be supervised or controlled by anyone. Yeah. So both sides recruit other super people, such as Spider-Man, Ant-Man, and Black Panther. And they have a big fight, a civil war, if you will, at an airport.

And then also the Bluth stair car is in the background. So another Arrested Development reference. Wait, really? Not technically, but there is a stair car that looks exactly like the bluth stair car so wild i definitely haven't seen this okay you might you might have seen winter soldier maybe um i feel like the rest of the plot for this movie is not really important for our discussion so the main thing is that captain america and iron man fight each other and it ends up breaking apart the Avengers okay so that's the story for Civil War Annie have I missed anything glaring so far I

don't think so it's a lot to there's a lot these movies are very dense yes yes okay So I'll move on to Infinity War and then we'll go from there. Okay. So Avengers Infinity War, we open with Thanos. He is collecting all of the Infinity Stones to put on his glove. God. So that he can snap his fingers and kill half of the population of the entire universe. He already has the purple power stone. And in the beginning of this movie, Infinity War,

he gets the blue space stone, which could very easily have been the heart of the ocean from Titanic. Right, but it shows not to invite James Cameron into the negotiation process. Rude. Rude. Yes. So he gets the blue space stone from the Tesseract. So that thing comes back. And then there are four more stones that he needs now. Two of them are on Earth. Doctor Strange has one of them. He has the green time stone. And Vision has the yellow mind stone in his head. Remember that from that other movie I described?

Sort of. So Thanos sends his friends to go get those two stones that are on Earth. And then Tony Stark has to get the Avengers back together. Because remember how they were all split up at the end of Captain America Civil War? Yes. So he's like, come on, let's get back together. We got to stop Thanos. And then Spider-Man shows up. He's like, hey. So he's like, come on, let's get back together. We got to stop Thanos. And then Spider-Man shows up.

He's like, hey. And he's so adorable. Yes. And then Thor goes out into space. He meets the Guardians of the Galaxy. Wow. Wow. People like those movies.

Yes. And then Vision and Wanda are attacked by Thanos' goons who are trying to get the Mind Stone. And then Black Widow, Captain America, and Falcon show up to help Vision and Wanda. And they take Vision to Wakanda, the home of Black Panther. Okay, I'm back. To get the Mind Stone out of his head so that they can destroy it before Thanos gets it. Is Lupita in this movie? She is not.

Damn. But Okoye's, Danai Gurira's character is. Oh, cool. And Shuri. So we get to see some of our friends. Nice. So meanwhile, Thanos gets the reality stone on a planet called Nowhere from this guy, the collector.

I hate it and then he captures his daughter who he abducted when she was a child gomorrah and he gets the soul stone by sacrificing her so she has to die unfortunately yeah we'll talk about it uh and then Thor gets a new axe in the place of his old hammer. I forget what happens to his hammer. Probably that's explained in Thor Ragnarok. I don't remember. The planchette destroyed it. Oh, right, right, right, right.

Oh, okay. I'm for that. Thanos gets the green time stone from Doctor Strange. And then Thanos shows up at the big battle that's been happening in wakanda and he gets the mind stone from vision uh so now he has all six stones baby and what do you think he does doesn't he kill a lot of people yeah he kills like half the world or something that's right see i just went to three parties and I know that. I just saved myself $100 in movie tickets.

So half the people vanish into dust and everyone's sad. And do we know who's dead and who's alive or is that part of the fun? No, we see who dies. Spider-Man dies. Oh. I know. Wait, does he get no more movies well he's coming back for spider-man far from home right so one with zendaya yes love it so he i think it's

revitalized we'll have to see in avengers i forget who lives and who dies, but yeah, half the people die. And that's the end of the movies to date. So why don't we take a quick break and then we'll come back for the discussion. 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.

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Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Woo! Okay, so the first thing I kind of want to do is do an inventory of the characters in the Avengers franchise slash the Marvel ensemble movies, which includes Captain America Civil War. Side note, these are often not the first movies that we see these characters in, and we see crossovers in other MCU movies.

But these are the movies that these characters are added to in these big ensemble cast Marvel movies. The point I will eventually make is that they keep adding a bunch of men and very few women. So, for example, in the Avengers from 2012, we've got Iron Man, Tony Stark. We've got Captain America, Steve Rogers. We've got Thor. We've got Hulk Man Tony Stark we've got Captain America Steve Rogers we've got Thor we've got Hulk Bruce Banner we've got Hawkeye Clint Barton um those are the super people yeah and then we've got from what I could tell from the from the first Avengers movie we have uh three female characters who are identified or participate in the plot in virtually any way at all, where we've got Black Widow. We've got Pepper, who is lightly involved in Tony Stark's storyline. And then we've got Cobie Smulders, who basically just gives lines of exposition to Nick.

Yeah. Which sucks because, I mean, and I'm sure it goes without saying, that it is kind of abysmal and frustrating that there are so many men who are introduced into this universe and like black widow has not had her own movie yet right exactly because i mean i was surprised i assumed because i hadn't seen the first avengers movie i assumed that she had a much smaller role in it and that is why she didn't have but she's such a huge part of the story yeah and still doesn't have like that is just pointed yes't have. But she's such a huge part of the story and still doesn't have. Like, that is just pointed. Yes.

And ridiculous. And as much as I love and really enjoyed Captain Marvel, I'm like, why did we introduce? Like, we have. Scarlett Johansson's been here for 10 years. Yes. Can we give her? I mean, not that, you know, whatever. They're making that movie right now.

They're casting. I'm glad. Oh, yeah. Why did it take so long? Well, yeah. Because I think she shows up for the first time in Iron Man 2, I want to say. Yeah. So, yeah, she's been around.

She's been around. But all that to say, in the first movie, Black Widow is a very integral part of the main action and is very involved all the way up to the climax of the movie uh but the other two women are we see shots of them just watching the act like right they're they're virtually sidelined because the only man who's sidelined is fury right because black widow slash her name is natasha romanoff she's the only one who is actually like a superhero. Pepper Potts and Maria Hill, which is Colby Smulder's character, either work for S.H.I.E.L.D. or work for Stark Industries. Like they're not part of the like world saving superhero stuff.

I will say just based on the research I did of the women in the MCU, while it's like disproportionately they're not represented they do at least all appear to be in high positions whether that be like Pepper is like the CEO and like she's in charge even though she only gets 12 percent of the credit which is an exchange that I loved um you know it's like we've got women in STEM littered throughout this universe and uh Kobe Smulders character what is Kobe Smulders character character, what is Colby Smulders' character's name? Mariah Hill. Is it Mariah? Yeah, I think so.

Okay, yeah, Mariah Hill. Does she ever get to do anything later on? She, not anything that's hugely significant. Colby Smulders. For some reason, I stan Colby Smulders, and I wanted more for her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, indeed.

Okay, so those are the main players in the first movie. I stan Cobie Smulders and I wanted more for her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. Okay. So those are the main players in the first movie. Then we move on to Age of Ultron. The male characters that get added into the ensemble are Vision, Quicksilver who does die. That's like the Peter Maximoff character. And then we've got Falcon slash Sam wilson and we've got war machine slash roadie that's don cheadle's character so uh those are the men who are added the women who are added in age of ultron are the scarlet witch aka wanda maximoff um that's elizabeth olsen

she's the only superhero that gets added compared to these, the four men who get added, who are superheroes. We do, we are introduced to a couple other female characters. There's Dr. Helen Cho, but she is not a superhero and she dies. She dies in the movie. And then we're introduced to Fridayiday which is iron man's new female voiced operating system thing that's inside of his suit oh cool so a woman as a robot a service robot not familiar with the concept because vision got promoted to having a body so he has to he hired he hired a female we're out here having bodies now? Sick.

Bottom line there is that four men get added to the ensemble versus only one woman. And then in Captain America Civil War, the men who are added are Black Panther, Spider-Man, Ant-Man, and the Winter Soldier. Versus, guess how many superhero women are added in Captain America Civil War is it none it's none amazing yes we do meet a new character named Sharon Carter she is not a superhero and she is only I believe of the Marvel ensemble movies she's only in that movie and not others okay so let's talk about Infinity War. The men who were added to the ensemble in that are Star-Lord, a.k.a. Peter Quill, that's Chris Pratt, Drax, Rocket, Groot, those are the Guardians of the Galaxy,

and then Doctor Strange. We do get a bunch of women added in Infinity War. So we've got Gamora, Mantis, and Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy, and then Shuri and Okoye from Black Panther. Right. So the balance is a little bit more equal in this one. And not like zero. Not zero.

Which is great. But the fact remains that when you crunch the numbers, it's still very largely a male cast. Oh, of course. Yes. I mean, look at the posters. I mean, yeah. Tell me about it. So that's the inventory of all the characters we're working with who are, you know, the super people in the franchise.

So let's talk about, let's focus on the avengers from 2012 we've got pretty much the one main female character in black widow slash natasha romanoff yeah there's i mean it's her introduction is she's wearing a sexualized outfit and she's tied to a chair yes yep i wonder how scarlett johansson feels about how she's very often introduced in movies i feel like it is not an unusual thing to see a scarlett johansson movie where she's introduced in this very sexualized way um i don't know why i'm thinking of that coen brothers movie um hail caesar but that's like another example of a movie where she's introduced very sexually. But it's weird. That scene feels peak, corny, or what I view to be like a really corny treatment of a female character in a movie like this.

That I was hoping that like especially I was hoping that the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer could do better than. Because the way that scene plays out is, like, she's tied to a chair. And, you know, then she gets a call from Coulson saying, like, you got to come in. You need to be a superhero. And then it turns out she wasn't a damsel in distress after all. She could have saved herself the whole time. She just didn't feel like it. I guess, yeah, she was waiting to get the information out of the bad guys.

Yeah, she was doing an interrogation on them, basically. Which we see her do later on Loki. Right. Where she's pretending to be emotional and she's using, like, I'm a woman who cries as a tactic to get men to, I I guess lower their guard and reveal the information she needs and I don't really know how I feel I feel like that's very low-hanging fruit to do like oh I'm reacting like a woman would just kidding I'm not like to me I'm like that's I don't know that it just demonizes emotions right away that I think way that I think I mean, like, I think Captain Marvel tackles that situation of like dealing with emotions and combat situations far better. Right. And it kind of just like feeds into the idea that like women are devious and we're, you know, like we're manipulative and we're doing emotions to trick you to trick men.

Totally. I'm just like, she's crying, but she's actually planning to kill you. Which we also see happen all the time. Not so much in this movie, but in many other movies where women use their sexuality to get what they want. That also ends up demonizing women's sexuality where it's like, I'm using this to get what. But like on one hand, I'm like, well, that's not good.

On the other hand, I'm like, well, if, you know, if idiot men fall for stuff like that. That's the thing. And that's the tool that we can use to get what we want. I don't know. I constantly have conflicting feelings about this. The only redeeming thing for it is at least that is like one of the tactics in an arsenal of tactics that she has, because we get to see Black Widow fight hand to hand with a number of men in this movie, which I think that there's a lot of male directors who would not have let that happen. Sure. In such a big movie. But it's clear that she is like just as capable of fighting as any of the other Avengers, which is super important because she's the only woman who's allowed to be there at that time. So I was psyched about that. Like she knows what she's doing. She's a good fighter. She's making her own calls. There's like that one part where captain america aka chris is like are you are

you sure you can do this and then she's like you know fuck you and then she does it yeah um which is great we should we should all say fuck you to more people named chris sorry to all our chrises out there yeah another thing i want to say about the scene where she's introduced is that in order to get out of like the bondage she's in and to escape these bad guys she does the classic wrap her legs around a guy's head and pussy slam him into the ground move right and that's like a move that comes back right that's like one of her signature moves we see her do it twice in age of ultron. I don't know if we see it in the other ones because maybe people were like, hey, stop making her do that. There's so many layers to moves like that where you're just like, it feels like such a creepy dude having their cake and eating it too.

Where they're like, look, no, she's fighting. She's kicking people's ass, but with her pussy right you're like gross yeah that is a huge thing about this franchise is that you you do see a fair amount of at first a woman fighting and then as the movies go on a few women fighting but this very much feels like that mcsweeney's piece um yeah as the token female member of this action adventure team my job is to kick uh by juliana gray if you haven't read it it's one of our faves yeah to borrow a few quotes from the article that apply to this movie quote i wear black leather pants i wear spike heeled boots when i kick i pivot like a goth ballerina and drive a heel into a

villain's face, end quote. There's another one that is mostly I kick. I can throw a knife with pinpoint accuracy. I am a wizard at zip lines. I probably know how to drive a car, but my male team members always take the wheel while I follow on a motorcycle leaning low over the bars, my eyes focused, my ass taut and hovering just above the seat. I do not wear a helmet and my hair streams behind me. And it's, God, I love that piece so much, but it hurts. It's like describing this to a T. And then another one, the final quote I want to read is,

I do not have a sense of humor except for an extensive repertoire of one-liners about penis size, which like applies of applies to black widow sort of in the sense that she doesn't really here's the thing i feel like we have less of a handle on her personality and characterization than any of the other members of the avengers i think that partly has to do with the fact that she doesn't have her own movie and we didn't really get to know her kind of one-on-one. Right. Yeah. And she just is characterized as this like sexy spy who was trained as a spy from birth and like she has no she had her personality trained out of her. Right. That was the thing that bothered me. It's like we first you're totally right like we just don't know her as well because uh hollywood right but it's also that the one scene where we sort of get some idea

of who she is and that scene where she's talking to loki and loki's there and he's looking like a fucking tarantula you're like man and she is just like talking about you know she's talking about her relationship with colson yeah and how like you know she explains that he came in was essentially her savior and then she became she went from being a baddie to a goodie because of his influence he decided not to like kill her or whatever and you know sort of took her in and like retrained her to be an avenger so So her, you know, the only information we really get to know about her, we are learning about her. And it's like suggests an interesting background story that's worth exploring. But we really only find out about how a man saved her and how she, you know,

she is internally indebted to him. Yeah. Which comes back towards the end of the movie. And it's like, that's, you know, if that is what how the story goes it's these movies are always tricky because they tie back to like baseline stories back when women truly didn't count in any meaningful way but it's like there there's there's more there and we only get to really hear who she is in in relationship to colson or that's how i felt about it right yeah and then if that is the storyline for one of the female characters fine if we have several other female characters who we learn what their origin story is but we don't we just have black widow and then that's our like one way that she's characterized right um we gotta take another quick break but

we're gonna come back for more. Don't you worry. 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.

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To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts,

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Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I felt too seen. Um, dragged. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies.

On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. There we are.

Annie, I feel like, what are your thoughts on all this? It's one of those things where, kind of like you were saying, I'm very conflicted about a lot of it. Because I was reading, preparing for this, I was reading up about people's thoughts on Black Widow. And a lot of people said she is this strong, badass female character. There aren't enough female characters, but at least she is a strong one. I've definitely done an episode on, and we talked about this, when you were on um stuff I've never told you but like she's never included in any like t-shirts with the Avengers on them she's not on there toys she's not included in that stuff and it started like a kind of a whole twitter kerfuffle um right yeah and it is strange because that suggests to me that then she's only there

to be the woman that is there but she's not like truly part of the team or at least she's so tokenized and then yeah yeah which is frustrating because it's like it's clear that there's a lot there's so much to the character that no one is willing to or like the the company has just not been willing to explore and and now especially with Captain Marvel it's so like they Captain Marvel as of this recording just crossed a billion dollars yeah yeah like there is clear like demonstrable value in including women and Black Widow. Right. Well, that's the thing. So of the kind of main characters in these ensemble MCU movies, here are the people who don't get their own movies or haven't as of this, you know, recording. Black Widow, Wanda, the Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Hawkeye,

Rhodes, and Vision. Four of the six of these are either women or people of color. The exceptions are Hawkeye, that's Jeremy Renner. I mean, let's skip it. Skip it. Skip it. Don't need it. And then Vision also, we get his origin story within the, like, I feel like that's skippable too, but the fact that the large majority of the characters who aren't given

their own franchises their own movies are either women or people of color so that is you know very telling and then pointed and then we find out you know through black panther and captain marvel movies that have both made a billion or more dollars worldwide that if you do give movies to women and people of color people really want to go see those they arguably want to see it more than they've ever wanted to see any of the chrises literally any of the chrises yes yep and that's why these movies are are worth talking about because the mcu is the highest grossing franchise of all time it's earned 18 billion dollars worldwide across is it 28 films it's some it's it's 21 21 okay and then it will be more in development. Okay. Yeah. Geez. Yeah. Is there any sign of them stopping?

Would they be willing to consider it? I mean, with the money they're raking in, probably no stopping it. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah. And to be fair, these movies have evolved a bit from, say, the Spider-Man 2 days. Right. You know, the women in those movies are being captured they're helpless they need to be saved all the time but that does not mean that this franchise

is without its many flaws right i mean it seems like it's definitely evolving i think that there's a weird trope in superhero movies that i've like slowly uh the more I've been forced to watch, picked up on where there is, there is like this kind of exciting number of like, you've got a lot of women in STEM, you've got a lot of women in high positions, because I think that like these people making the movies understand at least that just damseling a woman in a movie now is no longer acceptable. Like we want to know what she does. We want to who she is but there's sort of this like double-edged sort of like there's a lot of women i'm thinking of like natalie portman's character in thor or something like that where she is a she's a woman in stem she's very qualified but she really still only serves the purpose of a love interest but

they're like but she's like really smart though also in avengers they show a picture of her and rather than like rather than including her character in the movie we just see the picture we get an explanation that she was sent away to be kept safe basically sure well didn't she like not want to be in the mcu anymore wasn't she just like over i mean maybe that's she was in thor 2 after that though so i don't know oh so maybe she wasn't quite over it yet damn it hard to say give Portman her Portman bucks when I was doing the research for this and I was compiling like all the characters

I noticed of the women that are involved there is a lot of white women with red hair because like when you brought up Spider-Man 2 I was like oh yeah Mary Jane is one as well oh yeah damn because black widow often her hair color changes throughout the franchise but she often has reddish hair changing your hair yeah yeah that's our main thing yeah about us that's how i define myself i did find a an article that said, I think it was from Vulture, that Black Widow got the third most screen time in Avengers and she had the most uninterrupted dialogue of any of the six Avengers.

Interesting. That's great news. There are, especially watching the first one, there were certain things where you're like, okay, Joss Whedon, I'm glad you're here. Because that is, I mean, that does sound like, unfortunately for 2012, that's like an accomplishment of like, no one's interrupting her. That's awesome. Yeah. That's something.

Another thing that's worth noting about her character is that in the first movie, she goes to recruit Bruce Banner to bring him into the Avengers team, essentially. And this will mark the start of a friendship that later evolves into a romance as the movie goes on. Because you can't have a lady without making her be with a man. Right. Another problem that they seem to be fixing with Captain Marvel. Yes. Yep. There's a lot of things that I noticed with the Black Widow character that I was like,

okay, at least they're trying to course correct that in future movies. Another thing I wanted to talk briefly about is the men's powers versus the women's powers especially early in the franchise the male heroes usually have some sort of super strength or high-tech equipment or suit or they're literally a god like some they're shooting lasers out of their penises right which i thought was a bit they've got these like awesome abilities right and then if we're looking at Black Widow, she does not have any out-of-this-world ability or tech, really, because Iron Man has his suit, Captain America has his shield, plus he had this serum that made him a super person.

Thor has a hammer. He's a god. Bruce Banner turns into the Hulk. And then Black Widow, she... She fights really well. She's a good fighter. She sometimes has guns. And if that's a canonical issue with that character within the comic books, okay. But then we need more than one woman there.

Right. Because that's... What you described is crazy disproportionate. Where it's like, okay, if described is crazy disproportionate where it's like okay if there is a character who's a great fighter who is a woman amazing but we need more than that and there's so many like I like was drowning in listicles of Marvel like female Marvel characters who could have been introduced into these movies that never were um for you know I mean as much as i feel like people

fall on the like well the characters were written in a different time so it's kind of hard it's like well there are still people making decisions of which characters are brought into the universe and which aren't and it's mostly men and some of the men they're bringing in are fucking boars and they're like captain america i just a lot of a lot of like they're like we're gonna hire every actor named chris and uh women can't vote like that's yeah this changes whenever wanda is introduced in age of ultron because she does have these awesome oh that's great telekinesis mind controlling powers and she she does damage. Yeah, she's super powerful. But in this first movie especially is like, woof.

All the men get to be awesome. The woman kicks in her leather suit. I mean, and at least she is good. Like, you know, she does damage. I was glad that we got to see her fighting. We got to see her do damage. We get to see her get results but that's kind of the bare minimum you can ask of a superhero in a superhero movie yeah she is the one who figures out to how to close the portal yes and I do want to point

true yeah I do want to point out that you both kind of did this there's a running joke that everyone forgets Hawkeye yeah you didn You didn't mention him then, and earlier you were saying Coulson. It was actually Hawkeye that she was like trying to, he was the good guy that turned her. Oh, damn, really? You're just cracking me up. Dude, Jeremy

Renner is first of all a misogynist who sucks, and he's also a failed stand-up comedian. And he's also a really terrible actor. I can't think of one thing he's good at. So that's too bad. Maybe that's why everyone forgets him,

because he sucks. He's not good at his job. He's forgettable. Yeah. We have to wrap up pretty shortly. There were a couple other just like quick things I wanted to mention that we see in the later movies so i'll just kind of go through like a list of problematic shit that happens

where there's some like fridging that happens in age of ultron where dr helen cho one of the only women of color in the movie gets killed to advance the story uh black widow gets captured by ultron and bruce banner kind of has to come and rescue her. And then they briefly consider, oh, let's run away together because we're so in love. And then they're like, wait a minute. No, we should stay and fight. And then, oh God, Iron Man has a horrible line

where he's like, hey, you two, you better not be playing hide the zucchini. Because Hulk. There's also that line at the end of The Avengers where Tony Stark just comes out with this homophobic light zinger where he's like, didn't anyone kiss me? And all the Chris's are like, no. And you're just like, oh, gross.

There's a couple no homo moments at the end of every movie. Wait, really? Yeah, at the end of every movie. Wait, really? Yeah, at the end of Age of Ultron, Don Cheadle saying to Iron Man is like, hey, you think I can't hold my own? And Iron Man's like, if you get this, I'll hold your own, which I guess is like, I'll hold your dick. I'll hold your dick. And then Don Cheadle's like, you had to make it weird. And then later. I i mean that's weird that's a weird thing to say to your to someone and then later black widow is like to uh captain

america and iron man something like are you guys done gazing into each other's eyes or something like that it's all just like yeah so there's there's a lot of that. Yeah, we don't really have time to cover a lot of the other stuff that happens in the later movies of the franchise. But kind of the last thing I want to say is great that Captain Marvel is now going to be introduced into the ensemble. However, to me, it feels like it's too little too late like they had so many movies so many opportunities to introduce more dynamic well-developed female characters who are doing things to contribute to the narratives and they just missed a lot of those opportunities. Yeah. And it's great that Captain Marvel has made a billion dollars. It's great that we have this new character who's going to be introduced into Avengers Endgame. But again, it's just like, okay, well, what about the other 21 movies?

It took like 17 movies to include women and people of color in a meaningful way or something crazy like that. So it's just like, well, taking that long to course correct. And it does sort of track with what moviegoing audiences were demanding based on the beginning of the MCU going up to now. But yeah, I totally agree. Unfortunately, I don't know really what the resolution of that is because no one's going to be like, well, scrap it. We'll start over. This time we'll treat everyone fairly and make it more, like that's just not going to happen.

So I am glad that the course correction that is happening is happening. I hope it will continue to happen. I hope that uh we can get a non-franchise movie into a movie theater ever again wishful thinking does this movie pass the bechdel test i know no women don't even interact and it does not get much better than that in the other movies of the franchise. We do have a little bit more female interaction. Has Scarlett Johansson ever even heard of Cobie Smulders?

I don't know. I feel like if she was asked in an interview, she'd be like, whom? But yeah, The Avengers 2012 does not pass the vector test uh so let's let's rate the movie on our nipple scale the first avengers yeah let's start with the first one all right i'll give it a one and a half the fact that we do see a woman who kicks ass you know she is making important moves in the story she uh annie like you said she's the one who figures out how to stop the or how to close the portal but the way that she is characterized or not because again what's her personality i barely know the way that she is just very clearly

you know the token female character the way that she is pretty hyper-sexualized, especially with the, you know, pussy slam, wrap my legs around a bad guy's face thing. And the skin-tight outfits and the, you know, like, quippy. I mean, everyone's got some pretty horrendous quips in all these movies. It's canonical to the genre. But, like, hers are always, you know,

feminine quips. Right, right, right. Like, what are you doing, boy? Yeah. So it's a step in the right direction from where we were with earlier superhero movies. But we had a long way to go, and we are slowly course correcting. But, you know, it's not great what we're seeing, at least in this in this first avengers movie so yeah one and a half i guess one to scarlett johansson and my half nipple will go to goop young group the website goop.com the business yeah everyone check it out i'm kidding they would never do not check it out um I'm kidding. Do not check it out. Okay.

I will also go with one and a half. I feel like we're given some, we're really thrown some scraps in this movie in terms of like female characters who are interesting and it seems like there is a lot to them. And then we proceed to find out nothing about them that isn't directly in correlation to a man who gets far more context or already has existing movies in this universe.

I'm glad they're there. And I'm glad that future movies have begun to course correct. Not really for any of the characters we see in Avengers, in the first Avengers, unfortunately. But in a more general way. That said, I mean, you know, Joss Whedon is now a polarizing figure that I honestly have not interacted with his work or the coverage around that enough to have a strong opinion on.

But, you know, he has been known in the past as an advocate for women within his work, at very least. So I sort of was hoping for for a little bit more yes in this movie because you know he really toots his own horn about it and it's like well he didn't interrupt the one female character right uh so that's something i mean he could have delivered on that way more and we know that he's capable of more based on his other work and of course there's like a million producers in marvel and the patriarch like the patriarchy

in general to push back against it's not like he got the call of everything but you know it's it it it sucks to see like even one of the biggest advocates allegedly for for women in in narratives like this still was not able to get that much in. Right. So I'll go a nipple and a half, and I'm giving both to Alfred Molina because he should be in the MCU. Why isn't Doc Ock the main villain of this movie? Why isn't he in the MCU?

That's bullshit. Legal reasons, legal reasons. Get the man his check. He shouldn't have time to do the Bechdel cast. Right. He should be have time to do the Bechdel cast. Right. He should be on every single MCU movie. He should be in all of them. Annie, what do you say for a rating?

I guess I'll agree. I actually recently did watch the old Sam Raimi Spider-Man for this really ridiculous project I'm working on. And I was shocked at how like I hadn't seen it in a while but it was the portrayal of Mary Jane was so bad it was rough

yeah and so watching that recently and then seeing the Avengers I do think it was a step in the right direction I do think like she's smart she's actually the first avenger to like sign on and she kind of helps bring the group together she's an important figure to it figures out how to close the portal but yeah she doesn't have the outside movie she doesn't have the same story and also yeah i was watching it and some of the camera angles. I'm like, this is this is more sexualized than it really needs to be.

OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which which I'm sure has something to do with the behind the scenes makeup of the crew, which is most of the major players in this movie. The cinematographer is a man written and directed by a man. There is a shout out to Lisa Lassick. There's one of the two editors on this movie is a woman. So shout out to Lisa. Yeah, so I'll give Black Widow, I'll give my nickel to at the end um there's this I don't

know her name but she's an actor that plays that she does the voice acting for one of my favorite video games ever um Ellie from The Last of Us so oh shout out to you I don't know your name but I love you well Annie thank you so much for joining us sorry we didn't have more time to go into a deeper dive but we're so happy to have had you where can people follow you online what would you like to plug people can follow me you can find me on saver podcast

so that's S-A-V-O-R for international listeners you can find us online at saver pod across all of the social medias you can listen to the podcast. Please do. Stuff Mom Never Told You is a bit more complicated. But so it's at mom stuff podcast on Twitter and at stuff mom never told you on Instagram.

Please check that out as well. And my name is easy. A-N-N-E-Y. If you type in Annie Reese, easy to find because no one spells it that way. And that's how I am on social media. And thank you so much for having me. Of course. Anytime you want to talk about this, I will come back.

Awesome. Hell yeah. You can follow us at all the spots at Bechtelcast. We've got our TeePublic store for merch. We've got our Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon. $5 a month gets you two bonus episodes plus the entire backlog. So over 40. We've crossed the 40.

And April is Portman July. Yes. So we covered. The theme is Portman July, although it's April. It's complicated. You have to join our community to understand. If you're feeling FOMO, then fork over $5, honey. Like, I don't know what to tell you. So if you missed Natalie Portman's character in the Avengers movies,

you can hear us talk about her in Garden State and Annihilation. Two identical movies. Thanks for listening, everybody. I guess go and see Avengers Infinity War. Nah. It's Endgame. Yeah, endgame. Endgame.

Just kidding. We're very invested in this. And to everyone considering jumping into our mentions, do not. Yes. Talk to you later. Okay, bye.

Bye. 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

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