The Bechdel Cast - The Da Vinci Code

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

On this unlocked-from-the-Matreon episode on The Da Vinci Code, Jamie and Caitlin discover that the Da Vinci Code is "apple." P.S. listen to Jamie's new series, Ghost Church, available wherever you listen to podcasts!  (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast. Follow@BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP on Twitter.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. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. 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. What was that?

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? 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. Curious about queer sexuality,

cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast or wherever you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. 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.

Hello, Bechdel cast listeners. It's me, Caitlin Durante. And me, Jamie Loftus. And we're back for yet another episode of the Bechdel cast. But wait, it's a little different today. Oh my gosh. We're unlocking one of our Patreon, aka Matreon episodes. Gasp.

I know. We do it every so often. And this week we're doing it for a special little occasion. Tell me more. Okay, I will. So I have a new solo series coming out. It's one of my, one of Jamie's little investigations.

Woo! It does not have a ton to do with the subject matter of today's movie, which is The Da Vinci Code, which spoiler alert, is Apple. But in any case,

no, we're unlocking an episode today because it's an episode about kind of religious conspiracies and esoteric, bizarre shit. And that is what my new show is about. It's out starting now. It'll be releasing episodes every single Monday. It's called Ghost Church. And what it is, is it's kind of half investigation, half history of a fringe religion in that's it's across the West called spiritualism. And so what the show is about is it's kind of two tracks. The first is the history of

spiritualism, which is really, really fascinating. It kind of came up in the mid-1800s, beginning with two young girls. Wow, girlbots go off. Just like us? Well, if we were 11 and 14, they're very, very young. Which we are.

Which we are. We had to get permission slips to record this today. But yeah, it kind of on one side tracks their story. Their names are Maggie and Kate Fox. And they kind of accidentally started a religion that is built around the concept of being able to communicate with spirit or ghosts and communicating with the dead, which is just like a very roller coaster-y kind of story that I couldn't possibly summarize for you here. And I won't because you got to go listen to that damn show. That's right. And then on the other end, because the religion is still very much around, mostly in small camps throughout the country, two in particular, and I spent a week at one of them

in Florida in the Orlando area. I hung out with a bunch of mediums all week to learn more about what the religion looks like now, kind of how a fringe religion develops over time, what brings people to it, and watching people communicate with the dead in real time. It was a weird one. It was an adventure. And so I won't spoil anything else from there. If you're into spiritual stuff, I would recommend you check it out. If you're not into spiritual stuff, I would also recommend you check it out because I'm not trying to really sway anyone one way or another. It's more just a very bizarro journey. And I had a lot of fun putting it together. It's a show for everyone. It's for everyone. You think we can talk to ghosts? Well, you better check it out. You don't think we can talk to ghosts? Well,

there's plenty of people on the show who feel exactly that way me i don't fucking know it's it's the more i talk to people the less i know wow i'm sure there's a folk song about that somewhere but that is true i it's such a it's such a fascinating topic everyone feels strongly one way or another um And I'm just kind of floating in the goo in the middle, you know, trying to trying to not get yelled at by mediums in Florida. Nice, which isn't too hard, but you'll have to listen to the show. In any case, that is what we're celebrating on the show today. We'll have another episode coming up that will also sort of be addressing this kind of stuff. The Da Vinci Code today, this is a little more of like on the like weird religion side of stuff. And what I will say for spiritualism is it is nowhere near as fucked up as Christianity.

So buckle in because, yeah, we recorded recorded this when did this come out this came out I believe sometime on the matrion last year yes March 2021 I believe okay in that ballpark and so this if you're not a matrion subscriber this is also a reminder that if you are uh running thin on episodes on our main free feed we do two bonus episodes a month with just caitlin and myself most of the time over on our patreon aka matreon there's over 100 episodes there this is just one of them we keep it loose do a lot of do a lot of bits i'm sure i shout the da vinci code is apple no less than 7,000 times in this episode. Conservatively, yeah. So yeah, enjoy it. And we will be linking to the Patreon,

aka Matreon, if you're interested in joining that community. It's such a blast. Indeed. But first, before we get into it, we over on the Matreon, we assume that everyone uh knows what the bechdel test is right and what the show is because you know you're you're there you're you're part you're in the in crew you know yeah we don't waste time being like oh here's who we are here's what the bechdel test is i love how you're making fun of what we're about to do. But that said, even though Caitlin thinks it's ridiculous, apparently, we are going to do it right now. We are going to tell you that this is our show, The Bechdel Cast, in which we examine

movies through an intersectional feminist lens. Oh, hell yeah. Using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point now the bechtel test of course is a media metric created by queer cartoonist allison bechtel sometimes called the bechtel wallace test whereby our version because there are many renditions of the test but the one that we currently use requires that two characters of a marginalized gender have names, speak to each other about something other than a man. And ideally, that conversation is narratively meaningful. Yes.

So if you've seen The Da Vinci Code, don't hold your breath. But, you know, if you're a Tom Hanks fan, also don't hold your breath but you know if you're a tom hanks fan also don't hold your breath it's not his best and with with no further ado without further with no without without without much further ado hello oh my god without further ado please enjoy the unlocked Da Vinci code. It's Apple. The Bechdel cast. Welcome back, Matrons. Wow. Is this the main event? This is what this entire podcast has been leading up to.

He he he. i am really excited in a way this movie is all my favorite parts of i frankenstein mixed with all my favorite parts from national treasure treasure but when all of the fun just sucked out through a straw it's shocking uh-huh this is a very similar premise but none of my favorite parts it's it's wild that a movie as toxic as indiana jones and the last crusade is a far more enjoyable movie to watch for me at least than this suck fest you didn't have fun watching the Da Vinci Cove the Da Vinci I honestly it was like such a journey it was such a joy because it was like I started out being like oh yeah this movie is just people saying words this could could be fun, right? Because there's that whole, oh, my God.

The moment where I was like, wait a second. What if this movie fucking rocks? Is when Tom Hanks is staring at the Mona Lisa. And then he just goes, moons, sermons, charms, demons, sermons, monks, ranks, rocks. And I was like, oh, this movie is nonsense. I'm going to love it. But then it gets but then it gets really boring for like an hour and a half and then it gets funny again at the

end like it starts funny and then it's boring for a long time and then it gets funny again at the very end where he's like okay first of all matrons if you were wondering, if you went into the Da Vinci Code thinking, I don't know, I like did not, in spite of the fact that I definitely like interacted with this property at in its heyday, I did not remember what the Da Vinci Code was. And I was knocked on my, do you know, have you been watching WandaVision? I have not at this time there's a scene where a character is sent through like 45 walls in a row and that's how i felt when i found out that the da vinci code is apple and i have i have a whole theory to go with. Okay, Caitlin, this episode is going to be chaos, by the way.

Yeah, of course. So the Da Vinci Code is Apple. That's the funniest thing I've ever heard in my entire life is you've been watching this movie for six hours. And then they're like, oh, the Da Vinci Code was literally Apple, not Apple in Latin, not Apple in just Apple. So if you were reading the book, which I definitely I read it when I was like 11, maybe. And I was like, oh, I really understand this. I did it. you have to imagine once by the time you it's just kind of like aggressively mean towards the reader because you you have to probably find out that the da vinci code is apple on page like 500 and

you're like i i went all this way for this the da vinci code is apple here's my theory yes please and keep in mind uh neither of us have reread the book and we're not going to i thought about it but guess what for some reason on the library app every copy is checked out whoa it's still i genuinely was thinking about i'm like oh maybe i'll get like the audiobook and like fuck around a little it could be be fun. It's a waiting list around the corner to get. Even in the year 2021, people are still reading The Da Vinci Code. It's shocking. So I don't know.

I'm sure stuff is different in the book. If you're yelling at someone about what happens in The Da Vinci Code book versus the movie, you have to move on. Right. move on right uh-huh but my theory is because in the movie it's one of the funniest scenes in the movie because it's ian mckellen is literally like i'm the spy like it's full star wars he's the spy uh audrey i'm just gonna call her amelie the whole episode sorry amelie doesn't know what the da vinci code is because she doesn't know anything. Right. The whole movie.

And then Tom Hanks is like, I know what the Da Vinci Code is. And you're like, huh? What? How? And then he's like standing and he all of a sudden sees the solar system. It reminds me of that meme where a bunch of math problems happen in front of that lady's face. It's that. But it's supposed to be really serious. And then he smashes the cryptex.

He figures out. So here's my theory. The Da Vinci code was not Apple. We never saw him put the code into the cryptex. He broke it and he smashed it. And then he, the Da vinci code was not apple it was something else it was i like how he just said it so matter-of-factly and we're so conditioned to trust like you know men with bad haircuts and also like you know professors right but there's

there was no proof that the da vinci code was apple and that's and honestly i don't think that da vinci was which is weird what the da vinci my theory is tom hanks was dead wrong and we'll never know we'll never know because the movie too much i would argue cuts to flashbacks that look like absolute hell they look like shit they look like it's like a really but you can tell it's expensive too but it looks like it was edited in like windows movie maker yeah they put some weird filter over the flashbacks to like let the audience know don't like don't be confused this didn't happen now this happened before like they look like shit but we didn't there there's just so many scenes there will be a

flashback to like to clue the audience in oh you weren't sure how this came to be here's a flashback to fill in the gaps but it doesn't do that with it doesndon putting in Apple into the cryptex. So yeah, he just sees the solar system and he's like, ah, it's Apple. Yeah, maybe in the book, it's like definitively he puts it into the cryptex. The cryptex goes, it opens. In the movie, I'm going to say canonically, there's no way it was Apple. That is a ridiculous answer. Everything else that happened in this movie in fucking latin and anagrams the ant the da vinci code was not apple a fourth

grader could figure that out but that's kind of part of the point that's part of the appeal of the da vinci code is it just like makes you feel really smart but then you're like wait a second i didn't understand a word of that and i'm pretty sure that it's all made up. But it's good. I kind of like this was a kind of an interesting case study for like, I mean, it's not an easy thing to do. And I would argue this movie fails at doing it by trying to like take something super complex that requires this vast knowledge base and make it easy to understand for like the widest audience possible yeah like i can't think of an example of it of that going well because when the people it's like this movie stops every two seconds to explain to you something that happened three

thousand years ago and then you're like huh and then they're like it's? And then they're like, it's fine. The Da Vinci code is Apple. Like they make it sound really hard, but the solutions are like not that hard. And they kind of and they like make basically no sense. But you feel smart because you like Ian McKellen read 45 Wikipedia articles at you about how he's a male feminist. This movie is I was cracking up i was this the beginning and end of this movie it just really puts you in a really specific time and place because we really were just like sitting in our seats in 2006 it's the fucking bush administration and we're like the da vinci code is apple that like i would you couldn't pay me to go back there okay what was going on what is your relationship with the da vinci code the book the movie

dan brown's oeuvre in general robert langdon first of all sunny Sonny loves Robert Langdon. Oh, of course, Sonny. The dog loves Robert Langdon. He's like Robert Langdon, literal genius. Robert Langdon should be in the MCU. That's his whole thing. He thinks that Robert Langdon could really make a killing in the MCU. Wow. My history with the Da Vinci Code is that I don't know.

I mean, I think that I was like just old enough to participate. And I was really excited because the book came out in 2003. So I was like young, but like I could read. I could read. So I thought I could understand everything. So I was really excited. I remember that there was like a raggedy copy of the Da Vinci Code that made its way across my entire family throughout probably 2004, 2005 or something. the course of like eight hours and then I got sick because you don't sit in a bath for eight hours that's gross but I did and I just remember feeling really cool that I read the book sure and

I remember low-key being like I didn't catch a word of it but I read every word and that's what counts and then I did see the movie but by that point I think even like for because I was like 12 or 13 when the movie came out and even by then I think I was like I already did it you know I was like that that's so whatever like sixth grade or what um but then I I don't know I and I also I learned because I haven't revisited it since that i retained like nothing all i remembered going in was fibonacci numbers oh i just remember the phrase i don't remember what it meant okay but i remember fibonacci numbers but but it was interesting watching the movie because it was like plot points were slowly coming back to me like it was just a long forgotten sure dream like as i was like oh because like when ian mckellen came on screen i'm like there's

something going on with this guy but i don't remember what and then he's like i'm the spy and you're like right he was the spy i forget sure yeah so that's uh that's my history what about yours well i too read the book in probably 2003 i was nearing the end of high school at that point and i did you understand it yes i was old enough to nice yeah yeah i understood the Da Vinci Code. Genius. And I'll be honest, you know, this is a property that is very easy and popular to dunk on now. But if I'm being perfectly honest with myself and others, I fucking loved this book when I first read it as a... It was exciting at the time. I remember like the trajectory of it too so basically like

it got published word caught on that it was really fun and really good so i will i read it all my high school friends read it we were like this is the best book i've ever read then i read angels and demons and i love oh i did read angels and. And I was like, because like this type of story is like very up my alley in terms of just like an adventure quest, like let's follow clues. And it was like, again, reminiscent of Indiana Jones. And I was like, cool, fun, fun. And then I also just appreciate as a lifelong devout atheist, I appreciate anything that like criticizes and comments on christianity so i just like felt very cool and i was like oh this is like uh anyway it was exciting so i read the book rather those two books i have not read inferno but there's apparently a fourth one also origin oh oh my from 2017 i did i remember reading angels

and demons and then being like wow it's so cool to know what robert langdon was doing before the da vinci code didn't they make that into a movie too yes and inferno is also a movie that came out in 2016 you're lying i'm telling the truth tom tom hanks is in it yes as is i think it's zoe de chanel but i truly only looked at one still image of the movie and i don't know if that's who it is or not that's so bold because it's like who is who cares anyway so anyway so i had read those books and by the time the movie came out i was in college and i went to go see it in theaters i remember like my enthusiasm for the books had definitely waned by that point but i was excited enough that i still like went to go see the movie opening night whoa and then the movie was such a turd that i was like oh you hated

it yeah i was like this is bad like i could like i still probably enjoyed myself and like because i was i went with friends and we were like we a night out on the town but um i knew then that the like the dialogue especially was just like clunky. I hated Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon. I don't know who I thought Robert Langdon should have been played by, but definitely not Tom Hanks. I was picturing someone a little more young. I don't know. I just didn't.

I forget how old Robert Langdon was, but I like the book. I don't know if the book wants you forget how old Robert Langdon was but I like the book I don't know if the book wants you to kind of have a crush on him but like as an 11 year old I'm like wow he's so cool and so smart like you picture kind of like a movie maybe Tom Hanks 10 years before this movie came out maybe with a different haircut with a different what I his haircut is so distracting that I like I don't even know what the movie's about i just was looking at this terrible haircut the entire time do you remember um do you remember if in the book the da vinci code is there a romance in the book or is it also scaled back because i was like are they scaling it back in the movie because the age gap is so icky or like what's going on if i'm remembering correctly and this is again strictly

from my memory bank so i might be wrong about this but there is no romance in the book between sophie and robert langdon in the da vinci code however in the movie i feel like they want you to want it but they don't want it but i think there is a like romance and like i think even robert langdon has sex with like the female lead of the book of angels and demons i've not seen the movie angels and demons i don't know if they include that or not, or if even I'm remembering this correctly, but I remember being like, oh, wow, Robert Langdon fucks because he like fucks the lady.

I remember him being like a sex. Maybe that's why I was thrown by it being like Woody because that would have been like, I'm like, why is Woody playing like this character? I was told was like this kind of like low-key intellectual sex god like that's not what he's serving me in this movie and and i feel like okay of this i think that you are like you are supposed to think that you want them to kiss at the end and then they don't right like that scene was so yeah it was so icky because it was like even in 2006 nobody wants that like nobody wanted

woody to kiss amelie like no no no that's gross but there's like there's that like there's like a few moments where i'm like i think they want me to want this to happen where like when robert langdon goes i never knew a girl who knew that much about a cryptex. And I'm like, no, gross. Get away from her. And then that part at the end where they like hug for a weird amount of time and then he kisses her forehead. And you're like, creepy uncle energy. Don't like it.

Well, should we? I guess we should just get into it. happy alfred melina month on the patreon alfred march lena melina march welcome he's playing is his character italian what what is his character i think his character is from spain but i oh i'm not certain wow that would actually be al Molina Cannon. Because, yeah, he is speaking. Well, he's speaking Latin a lot of the time, but he's also, I believe, speaking in Spanish to Silas on different occasions. Yes.

Oh, yes, he is. But I also, I cannot detect a Spanish accent from an Italian accent as an uncultured American. So I don't really know. Here's how simple my understanding of the Catholic Church is. I was like, oh, well, the Pope lives in Italy, so he's Italian. I mean, I see your logic. I'm probably wrong. I think he's from Spain? Wait, what is your... I know that you're an atheist now, but were you raised Catholic at any point? No, I was raised an atheist.

You were raised atheist. I was baptized Catholic, but then we immediately went to a different flavor flavor of Christianity and then when I was 11 my mom was like man this is boring and toxic so my like most of my family is Catholic because they're from Massachusetts and that's like the law sure and but I feel like yeah I only I only understand I don't understand the ins and outs of Catholicism like canonically. I just understand the negative traits it brings out in New England families. Sure.

Yeah, I know very little about the mythology, if you will, of Christianity. Like I know the main Bible stories that most people know. But beyond that, i know very little i mean i kind of appreciate that this movie does like you're you don't need to know that much to watch this movie they're gonna tell you everything they're like this is jesus and you're like thank you thank you i'm with you and then literally the most iconic movie speech i don't know why it's not on an afi list moon sermons charms demon sermons monks rank rocks madonna of the rocks madonna of the da vinci and that's how this i was like this is genius this is genius dialogue the dialogue

sucks so bad and its delivery is terrible what a mess i don't know what it is like because ron howard has made very enjoyable movies i like ron howard he made the grinch i yeah i mean it's like i i don't think he's a bit but this is like oh boy the way people are talking to each other is like so it just sounds like they're not even in the same room like the conversations feel so like dissonant i don't know what it is i've never in my life seen such expository dialogue in every single line of dialogue it's just like i mean i i am very pro like don't talk down to your audience, but if you want this to be like, this is just a really difficult

it's too dense to I feel like fit into a fun movie. It's just too much. You have to stop and explain things every two seconds and then that's just most of the movie. Whatever, they tried.

The Da Vinci Code was literally Apple, so it turns out none of it mattered. and then that's just most of the movie right yeah whatever they tried the davinci code was literally apple so it turns out none of it mattered i can't get over it i find it interesting that you're you're like isolating the davinci code into that one particular code that you punch into the cryptex to me the davinci code is like it's a feeling it's a sensation it's the whole experience it's the roller coaster ride that is the whole movie oh i thought it was silly me i thought it was the code you put into the da vinci thing no that's wrong yes you fool there i don't know what or the da vinci code the da vinci code was either apple or women unclear to me oh my god i can't wait to talk about this goofy is so male feminist like it's like we were talking about this in our last episode of just like the most like it's like when a guy's like oh i'm i'm such a male feminist and

then they just explain what feminism is to you for two and a half hours and then you're like oh i'm i'm such a male feminist and then they just explain what feminism is to you for two and a half hours and then you're like wait i haven't talked yet and he's like yeah i respect you so much but i don't even want to know a thing about you like i just it's so exhausting the fact that there are so many like opportunities to bring sophie into the narrative and bring her expertise into the narrative constantly and she's literally a cryptologist not that you'd know based on how many codes she solves like and then just ian mckellen shows up he's like oh actually i know everything that it would be way more interesting if the if the only woman in the story knew.

But let's just tell her. Let's just tell her what's going on. And then she goes, wait, that can't be. Like, that's everything. She said, wait, that can't be. And it's like, you're Jesus's niece. Get used to it, lady. And then she's like, well, I don't know any of this stuff because I hate history.

And then Tom Hanks goes because i hate history and then tom hanks that was funny yeah you hate history what what do you mean no one hates history they hate their own histories and it's just like robert langdon what are you shut up that's a really annoying thing for robert langdon to say but also i would argue that's a really like bizarre thing for so like who's like i hate history like that is such a broad concept to hate like you've hated everything that's ever happened ever like what do you mean what do you mean when you say that she's like i hate history i hate everything that's ever happened is i just hate it like well i don't know what to tell you oh my god i love i'm just laughing laughing laughing

this whole movie it makes no sense also the character names are so silly teabing a ringa rosa you're just like i'm sure it's all i'm like maybe it means oh here's something fun uh there this was okay so when i was like younger like probably more like high school-y i used to love when like famous writers would give information on like this is my writing routine and like this is how i write and i used to like look up whatever i would love stories like that and dan brown has done this several times. I guess he most recently did it a couple years ago. I'm thinking of something from like 15 years ago. But he like discussed his writing routine. And it's like, so fucked up. Like, what is it? He wakes up it sounds like do you remember when like Mark? What's his name? The evil one from Ted.

Mark. Wahlberg. Wahlberg. Mark Wahlberg released his like workout routine. He's like, I wake up at 3 a.m. and scream. Like it's like scary. Dan Brown is like that. But for writing shitty books about Robert Langdon, like he's he wakes dan brown is like that but for writing shitty books about robert langdon

like he's he wakes up at 4 a.m and drinks like a spinach milkshake and then he writes for like 15 hours and then he's like then i whatever like give my son a encouraging pat on the back and go right to bed i was like you sound you sound like the worst he just sounds like he's horrible oh well he has a master class we should watch it we should he just seems like such a like snobby jerk i think he think i mean he probably thinks he's robert langdon i bet i yeah well shall we uh i need to get some wine yeah go get some wine phil um fill your chalice and by that i mean your womb my child oh my god wine and drink your womb wine out of your vagina because that's what this movie's about because woman is mother okay i'll be right back okay

definitely 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. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a 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.

Señora Sex Ed is not your mommy sex talk. This show is la plática like you've never heard it before. We're breaking the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in Latinx communities. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z. We're covering everything from body image to representation in film and television. We even interview iconic Latinas like Puerto Rican actress Ana Ortiz. I felt in control of my own physical body and my own self. I was on birth control. I had sort of had my first sexual experience. If you're in your señora era or know someone who is,

then this is the show for you. We're your host, Diosa and Mala, and you might recognize us from our flagship podcast, Locatora Radio. We're so excited for you to hear our brand new podcast, Señora Sex Ed. Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Okay, I'm here. All right right welcome back i'm gonna do the recap i am going to uh skip over a lot of details because there are just too many things and i'm gonna flash back and say exactly what happened and be like it has to do with constantine actually constantine was a pagan. And I'm just like, shut up. Shut up. I feel like it speaks to this movie's exhausting nature that I never want Ian McKellen to shut up.

But in this movie, I really wanted him to shut up constantly. I was like, stop talking. But not as much as I wanted tom hanks to shut up i know it's really taking like icons that are pretty like culturally untouchable at the time of this recording right and makes you just like absolutely despise hearing their voice it's remarkable so yeah i skip over a lot of things in in the recap uh so it might not make any sense but i i did my best so the movie opens in the louvre oh my god the closing shot of this movie at the louvre speak okay this movie much like ralph breaks the internet except this movie is horrible and it's i would say that this movie much like ralph breaks the internet except this movie is horrible and it's i

would say that this movie is like almost camp it's so bad like this movie ends 45 different times but the the the final ending is the funniest one where robert like did runs back to the louvre and like kneels on the louvre like it's's, oh boy. It's remarkable. It's perfect. Okay, so we're in the Louvre and there's a monk named Silas played by Paul Bettany. And he is trying to get some information

from Sonier, this man who, I don't know if he's a curator there. I don't know. He's in the louvre and the monk gets the information and then shoots sonye uh then we cut to robert langdon played by tom hanks of course and he is a professor of religious symbology giving a presentation in paris and then he is approached by the french fbi and they want to talk to langdon the french bi if you will um the french bureau of investigations

they want to talk to langdon about the murder that we just saw take place then we cut back to silas the monk he is talking on the phone with someone who he calls teacher. And guess who else is talking on the phone in a different scene with the teacher? It's Alfred Molina. And he's doing an accent and we don't know what the accent is. I love to see him in his catholic hat it's i mean he feels like he's playing a very similar character to me i mean we know him as a great villain he plays the hell out of a villain yes he's playing a very similar villain to me as a character he plays in Chocolat. I totally agree, except with none of the lovable.

I'm like, what if they're just floating some ideas for our reboot of The Da Vinci Code? What if there were a cake scene? Where was the cake scene in The Da Vinci Code? Where is the scene where this bishop of Opus Dei is refusing to indulge in any sort of sweets or chocolates until he hits a breaking point in which he just goes balls to the wall, eating every bit of chocolate in sight to the point where he's basically having sex with chocolate. Why isn't that seen in the Da Vinci Code? What's going on the there are a few like really iconically good shots of alfred molina the first was like paul bettany wakes up and alfred

molina's just like standing over him and i was like this is for me ideal like i wish i were paul bettany in the scene um and then there's the the clip that you sent me of alfred molina like launching out of a car like it's so good it's really that is the literally the best part of the movie because there's this really like epic music playing and it's like one of the few times in the movie where like interesting camera work is actually happening and like i'm not normally a big snob about like the mechanics of filmmaking in terms of like cinematography and editing and stuff like that but like this movie does everything so poorly that you like can't help but notice it but like there is one moment where i'm like oh look at this camera work where the camera's kind of like it's tracking with one person and

then it kind of shifts over to focus on alfred melina getting out of a car and then he like sees something and then starts sprinting out of frame and it's just like this beautiful fluid movement and oh it's a scene from a better movie I was like that was a singular gorgeous shot indeed uh I wish I knew I wish I didn't know what movie it was in um okay so Alfred melina plays bishop aaron garosa who is a religious figure of opus day a sect of catholicism that seems according to this movie pretty scary and he is like silas's mentor so meanwhile langdon is taken to the louvre and captain fash aka jean reno who you're literally like fashist and then i was like i don't know and then i just kept watching because that's how you that's the only way you can watch the davinci code is to be like

hmm maybe that's something and then you're like well i don't know okay something else is happening now now we're talking about constantine and the holy wars yeah so captain fash is john reno and he is he's they literally cast amelie so we're like okay she is french so it's yeah audrey tattoo or however you say any name in french and love her wish she had been given a single thing to do in this entire movie truly i hope she made so much money that's it would give me peace to know that audreyu made a lot of money. But I have a feeling that she probably made much less money than literally every man on screen. That's probably true. Yeah.

And that's upsetting. Her character is a cryptologist for the French police. And she's like, hey, Robert, they think, the police think that you killed sonye also by the way he was my grandfather and as he was dying he left all of these clues so you and i have to work together to solve them because basically sonye had put himself in the position of the vitruvian man and then he also wrote a bunch of words on the floor in invisible ink which read how long was this man dying like this i had a funny because i forgot what the because i remember like as a kid being like whoa the like long ass codes where he's just stumbling around the loo like writing poems and shit and but i was i couldn't remember and so i was like what if it was what if he just smeared some pig out in blood?

Like that would be a more interesting choice to be than whatever the fuck he did. Thoughts? Something to consider for our reboot. Yeah. Like could be a fun, iconic message to leave. Also, I forget who someone it might have been friend of the show matt rogers but like someone recently tweeted like what uh what a like weak endorsement that was on the part of charlotte and her web like we're like who's this guy i don't know some pig he is some pig

and everyone was like wow he must be really special you're like well that's not what she said oh goodness listen to women and what they weave in their web okay so um sonye had written oh draconian devil oh lame saint and langdon figures out that these words are an anagram and shout out to anagrams and my very anagrammable name please and thank you true um true that anagrams to Leonardo da Vinci the Mona Lisa and then we're like wow da Vinci code alert it's starting so they go over to the Mona Lisa and there's another clue there and that leads to another clue and then another and it's like national treasure all over again it's yeah national treasure except way longer and worse way less fun and there's no where's my bartha where is my nary a bartha in sight i feel like this movie really would benefit from a bartha type character like because yeah you have the similar set because

whatever in the national in the da vinci national treasure frankenstein code it's like you have it's kind of like a sacred a sacred triptych right like you have your like aggro hero in nicholas cage you have a woman who will not be allowed to do anything but is there in the form of abigail and then you have little cartoon squirrel guy in the form of justin bartha and i feel like the da vinci code could really have used the justin bartha character to keep us to keep us having some fun in a movie that is really not that fun to watch. Right. Yeah. We need some kind of comic relief or squirrel relief or Bartha relief. It's not like Justin Bartha wasn't available, you know?

He was. His availability is open. Okay. So then they pick up the fleur-de-lis, which is this like key like object as they're going around the louvre discovering clues but then langdon and sophie have to run because the cops are chasing them and while they're on the run langdon tells sophie about the priory of scion which is a secret

society that protects a secret treasure the holy grail. So now I guess the story is about finding the Holy Grail. Right, which I was like, oh, right. That was another thing I was like, oh, right. That's what the Da Vinci Code was looking for. Question mark. Yes. So meanwhile, Silas has followed the clue that Sonia had given him, but it turns out to be a decoy. And he is so mad that he murders a nun about it.

He really is on a mission from God. And that mission is to kill as many nuns as he possibly can because he kills a lot of nuns. Yeah. So then we cut back to langdon and sophie they take the fleur-de-lis key thing to this like very fancy bank i guess where in a safety deposit box there is a smaller wooden box with a rose on it. And inside that box is the Da Vinci code. That's the only thing that Sophie knows in the entire movie is like how the Da Vinci code works, but she doesn't know how to unlock it and she doesn't try.

And yes, she knows what a cryptex is, which is the thing that's in this little box. And it's this device that you have to spell out a five-letter word to unlock it and retrieve like a little piece of papyrus inside but if you break it then the vinegar also inside the cryptex will dissolve the papyrus and then the secret's lost forever right so that's a lot of exposition that she very clunkily delivers to us. Messy.

I liked it better when it was just squirting like lemon juice on the Declaration of Independence. That was a little more my speed, but whatever. They made a choice. Sure, sure, sure. But now they've hit a dead end because Langdon doesn't know enough stuff about the Grail legend. So they go to Lee Teabing, a.k.a. Ian McKellen, who is a Grail historian who is also a billionaire. And it's not clear how he has any of his money. That was my thing.

Like, once you find out he's the spy, you're like, well well of course he had to have some grift going on because like grail historians that has to pay four dollars a year like what who is like i feel like that's not like a thriving job market where you would have a like entire zip code to yourself maybe he's nepotism we don't know could. Who cares? Being a grail historian is the type of job that you would have if you're like the kid of a very wealthy family and you don't have to actually have a real job or work or anything. I got so bored at this part that I started to do a thought experiment of like, what if you were on a date with someone and you were getting along and then you're like, what do you do? And they were like, I'm a grail historian. Would you feel like I need to go? Or would you say I'd better stay?

I feel like I would be kind of turned off by a grail historian. I'm inclined to agree. Yeah. In the same way many people are like, comedian have to go and it's like i get it um that's how i would feel about a grail historian and actually maybe i would feel a little superior i'm like oh you found a job that's more embarrassing than mine yeah true um so they go to lee teabing and lee explains that the Holy Grail is not a cup, which is what it is commonly thought to be. It's a woman, but not just any woman.

It's Mary Magdalene. And not only that, Mary Magdalene was Jesus's wife. What? And then, but wait, there's more. There's more, which is that- She's pregnant. That she was pregnant as hell with Jesus's Greg. That wasn't in Jesus Christ Superstar.

My mind was blown. Once that plot point came up, I'm like, oh, I do remember reading that in the book and being like what how could it be or like just all this like you know it's like high key bullshit but it is fun like i don't know maybe it was more fun in the early 2000s when like online conspiracies were not um killing people at the same rates they are these days. But at the time, I was like,

oh yeah, there is no cup in that painting. It must mean that Amelie is Jesus's niece. It's so conspiratorial and weird. I mean, those kinds of scenes are really fun to watch, especially when they end up being correct. You're like, wow, you made a big swing and you were right. Yeah. So basically, Teabing is making the argument here that Da Vinci had left all these clues in his work that Mary Magdalene was Jesus's his wife and that she is the actual grail and that it's not this like chalice thing anyway so he's like going through this whole powerpoint presentation

and then he says that once Jesus was crucified Mary Magdalene fled to France and gave birth to a daughter so basically the secret that the priory of scion has been protecting for the past 2 000 years is the fact that jesus has a bloodline and this whole string of heirs makes you think and the reason that like silas and alfred melina's character and like opus day exists is that they are trying to kill jesus's family the descendants of jesus's family because the the revelation that jesus was like a mortal man who can get people pregnant would kind of unravel the church's teachings of like the divinity of jesus christ we can't be having that it was oh my god it's so silly and this whole scene takes like 20 minutes it takes a lot they cut away to

other stuff every once in a while but i'm like you think i don't notice that ian mckellen and tom hanks have been debating for 20 minutes about mary magdal because I do. Audrey Tattoo is barely there. She's like, it can't be. What? No? And then like, Ian McKellen keeps asking her rhetorical questions that she gets wrong. Like, that's the whole, it's so much. I think that it's worth mentioning, just in keeping with our male feminist king narrative that uh robert langdon he's written a book and you know because we see him reading his own book at multiple points in the movie and it's called a feminine sacre the sacred feminine and you're like god he's so toxic but he like the whole it's so 2006 but it's still kind of like

something that doesn't not exist now where it's like sure like cis het men who are so invested in proving they respect women that they just speak over women for hours on end without even noticing like that's every man who's like good quote unquote in this movie it's just talking over women and explaining women to them and to extend is being like no i am obsessed with women i respect them but only if they are cis reproducing wives. Does that make sense? And you're just like, okay, the way we're defining womanhood is also toxic Robert Langdon.

Oh, yes. So it's at this point in the story where after all this stuff has been explained to the only woman in the narrative. Who has no idea what's going on right lee starts to decipher the cryptex which is again supposed to have a map inside that's going to lead to the holy grail but just then silas sneak attacks them so they have to flee in lee teabing's plane which he has a private jet he of course has a plane and they go to london and they take silas

as a hostage and on the plane robert finds another clue in the box that the cryptex came in so they go to the tomb that this clue speaks of and they're they're trying to get more information or something this is a whole this is another like and then or something happens where I don't really know why anyone is doing anything. So they're trying to find some information. But Teabing's servant man, Remy, kind of turns on them and he turns out to be the teacher. But oh, wait, just kidding. It's Lee. Ian McKellen is the teacher.

He was the spy teacher he was the spy I still like again another wide swing that ends up working out for Ian McKellen I'm like how did you get away with that he's calling from his home phone number like being like oh yeah

I know Jesus's niece don't worry about it like just weird stuff weird stuff i don't know um but so he's not he's the bad guy yes and then so he he in like langdon and sophie have kind of like gotten away from each other but then they cross paths again and he's trying to get them to like solve the cryptex and he his whole thing is he wants the secret of the grail to be exposed. So that's why he's like obsessed with like finding the location of, I don't know. They're looking for like Mary Magdalene's sarcophagus.

I don't even know what's happening. I don't even know. And then Robert Langdon, it's at the bleh. Right. That also made no sense to me. I'm like, so the Louvre is just, why do they have it? And who put it there? I guess the Priory of Sion put it there, but how did they manage that?

I feel like these are questions that weren't intended to be asked. No. No. So then we see a scene where silas accidentally shoots alfred melina but no he survives so it's okay yes but silas guess what he dies he dies and then um let's see okay so this is where lee finds sophie and langdon again and he's holding them at gunpoint, trying to make them open the cryptex. And then Robert breaks it on purpose, knowing that it's going to destroy whatever's inside.

But he knows what the Da Vinci Code is, Caitlin. And right, I didn't even, I like skipped over the whole apple thing in my recap. Because I was like, this is too preposterous. I can't even include it. It's the most important part of the movie. When Tom Hanks turns away from where Audrey Tattoo's in the middle of being damseled, rude of him, right? He turns around, envisions the solar system, figures out the Da Vinci code was Apple.

They smashes the Da Vinci code just in case it wasn't Apple. And he doesn't want to embarrass himself. That was, I think, I think that audrey tattoo should have been like she seemed okay like she seems just like kind of like not invested enough in what's going on as even though it like is theoretically she's got the most on the line here she seems kind of indifferent towards a lot of the events of the movie when he smashes the da vinci code later she's just like why did you smash the da vinci code i was like dude like jesus's map was in there like why are why do you care so little it's just like her character is just so underwritten that she's like oh yeah why would you smash a da vinci code he's like well it was apple and she's like you're so smart like so the da

vinci code is apple question also there's just really bad storytelling here where somehow i mean everywhere in this movie but yeah here especially where the police come in and arrest lee because fash had figured out that he's the bad guy. And I don't remember exactly how that happens, but they know that Lee is bad. So they arrest him. And as he's getting arrested, he like somehow realizes that Langdon had figured out the cryptex

and he's like screaming about it. He's like, you figured it out. That's awesome. Good for you. So he's like carrying on as he's getting arrested, which spoils what should have been a reveal that yes he did figure it out and he had he did know that it was apple and he had taken the map out i still think it was a lucky guess i still think it's a really lucky guess

because there's no way i just have call me a da vinci truther but i just think he would have thought it out more than apple in in modern english but it doesn't make sense well i think because that is like sonia was the one who devised that cryptex because they gotta like figure out like as the secret gets passed on down the centuries not not to be a da vinci defender defending the da vinci code being apple i i'm actually fully defending this choice i think it's brilliant i think the the clue of like fleshy red seeded womb equals apple that's a perfect clue it It's so gross. The more you think about the Da Vinci code being appled, the worse and grosser it gets. Yes.

Anyway, so the reveal gets spoiled that, in fact, Langdon did solve the cryptex and he took the map out. just another clue which leads them to roslyn chapel which is this like church of many faiths built by the priory of sion or something and then they find this secret room with a bunch of documents about the grail and langdon discovers that sonye was not actually soph Sophie's grandfather. He was just protecting Sophie because she is the Holy Grail. She is the heir of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. At this point, I'm just like, who cares? Not Sophie. So why should I care? Sophie literally could not react less

to being Jesus's niece. It's so, she just once again is like, it can't be. I'm like, you're in the national treasure basement. Like what is, what are you talking about? She's so just, we're getting nothing from her, nothing. If you thought you were Jesus's biological niece, you would react. Yeah, one would.

I wouldn't say nothing. Everyone would react a little different, but I wouldn't say nothing. And God, God. So frustrating. I'm like, wow. She really just said, huh. Huh. Wow.

Me? But I'm so boring. And it's like, you're not wrong there. So then, meanwhile, all of the Priory of Scion has gathered because they live a half hour away or something. Locally, yeah. And they're like, hi, Sophie. We've known who you were this whole time. So creepy. And then her grandmother is there.

Is that her biological grandmother? I don't know. I was really unclear on that. I'm like, is that Jacques Saunier's wife? Right. Or is that her biological? Because they were like, oh, Sophie's the only living person. And I'm like, but wait, what about that lady?

Yeah. We don't know. She doesn't have, her womb doesn't work anymore. So she is rendered obsolete. And guess who doesn't have her womb doesn't work anymore so she is rendered obsolete and guess who doesn't give a shit either way sophie she doesn't ask a single question she just goes oh what a day what a day i'm having like yeah gosh okay so then robert langdon and sophie say goodbye but later langdon's like hang on mary magdalene's sarcophagus wasn't there where was it the mystery still isn't then he reads his own book again he reads his own book to find the answers and he's like bloodline roseline

rose what does it all mean and then then he realizes... Sarcophagus. Rocks, rinks, socks. He realizes... I'm just like, I don't think he figured anything out. I think he just stumbled around, found an old library, and then he's like, I can't believe Mary Magdalene's buried at the Louvre. Like, what a perfect ending shot, though.

So expensive looking. So, yeah. So he goes to he realizes somehow that Mary Magdalene's sarcophagus is under the Louvre or like somewhere in the Louvre. I don't know. And then he kneels down and he prays. And that's the end of the movie. 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, The situation is desperate. and she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a 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. How do you feel about biscuits?

Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels with the image of the biscuits. It's right here in black and white in print. A lion. An individual that came to the school saying that God sent him to talk to me about the mascot switch.

As a leader, you choose hills that you want to die on. Why would we want to be the losing team? I'd just take all the other stuff out of it. On the segregation academies, when the civil rights said that we need to integrate public schools, these charter schools were exempt from that. Bigger than a flag or mascot. You have to be ready for serious backlash. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Questions?

No, it made total sense to me i this movie is hilarious like there's just it's just so expensive it wants you to think it's it it like i don't know it is like fun to watch a movie that really thinks it's doing something you know and it's like so like sweeping and engaging and you know that people really liked it when it came out and that there was like i mean there was such a huge controversy around this movie and everyone was like you know but but then you watch it and you're like this is ridiculous i wanted to start by I want to just kind of uh start by talking about how um albinism is portrayed in this movie and many so that's I think one of the biggest missteps in the I mean just the story as a whole because I know that that is uh I believe canon to the book as well yes i believe so so um so yeah i mean there is just a very traceable history of um not just uh prejudice

against albino people but prejudice against albinism in movies specifically and uh using albinism as a shorthand for demonizing a character. I have an article that came out at the time this movie was released in summer 2006. It was in shout out Penn State News. Oh, I found that one as well. I thought, you know, it's kind of a cursory overview, but kind of gives you a short history of villains who are albino in movies. There's also, I mean, I think it's worth saying that there is part of the reason this shows up in movies a lot is because there has been prejudice that has been extremely violent towards albino people from all over the world for like hundreds of thousands of years there were people who were sent to prison for hunting albino people as recently as 2009 like it is like a very very

pervasive prejudice that is really really rarely discussed and it's very present in this movie through the character of silas who is played by paul Bettany, who we know is not an albino person. So I just wanted to read a quote from this piece from the Penn State News to kind of open the discussion. It's from Mary Beth Oliver, who is a Penn State professor and talks about the psychological effects of media, basically breaks down that a lot of albino stereotypes are connected to vampires, going back as far as Nosferatu and just associating paleness and like really, really light pigmentation of the eyes, of the hair and of the skin with uh zombies with vampires and just

with inherent badness right so and and uh the article kind of goes down to and silas in the da vinci code is kind of the most recent version of this prejudice seeping into a villain because it is in no way necessary to Silas's character for him to be an albino character. He is a religious extremist with a traumatic past that can be literally anybody. So the choice for him to be an albino character in extremely underrepresented population in movies is really intentional, you know, and so Marybeth oliver says quote to portray any group as one dimensional is a problematic thing even if negative portrayals are infrequent if it's the case that every time albinos are depicted it's negatively then the images become connected

demonization of any group runs the risk of affecting us in ways we might not be aware of and then kind of notes that silas is symptomatic of this prejudice, but is in no way singular. This is like a very distinct media trend that is like very rarely discussed. Yes, indeed. It sucks. I did a little bit of research on this as well and wanted to share something I found from the tri-city

herald okay shout out um so this was published in 2017 it talks about a study from university of texas that examined heroes and villains the the top 10 heroes and villains from the AFI's 100 Greatest Heroes and Villains list and found that 60% of the villains had some form of skin disease and none of the heroes did. So just like extending beyond albinism, there's like just a huge, we've talked about this before in terms of like disability often being ascribed to villains. Absolutely. And then therefore demonizing disability. And then, quote,

the study also mentions the widespread trope of the evil albino, in which TV shows, movies, and other media treat albino characters as untrustworthy, ill-intentioned, and villainous. According to the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation, 68 movies released between 1960 and 2006 feature evil albino characters, with a large portion of those coming after the year 2000. It talks about how this movie was protested by the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation. Noah. But, you know, the filmmakers still made the choice to include this trope. And this is a quote from Michael McGowan,

the president of NOAA at the time that he did an interview with the Associated Press in the early or mid-2000s, said, quote, The problem is that there has been no balance. There are no realistic, sympathetic or heroic characters with albinism that you can find in movies or popular culture. So it's the same end quote. So it's the same thing. Yes. The we see all the time with villains being othered in some way that ends up being very toxic and harmful for people. For the extremely marginalized group. And yeah, it's I mean, and on top of that, I mean,

in the same way that we've been having ongoing conversations about how disabled characters and just are very rarely played by actors who have that disability. And Paul Bettany is a wonderful actor, but certainly cannot speak to that experience. And it's just, it couldn't be more obvious in the context of this movie that albinism is used to other this character. It is used to make the character look different from other people and to some extent like justify well oh they look so different from what i'm used to of course

they're not going to be the good guy in this movie and it's it's it's so it's really i mean i think that this is the first time we've talked about it extensively on this show but it is like such a long-standing issue and there are still not like i mean i can't think of like an extremely successful albino actor even though there are you know many who are working and so yeah i don't know i mean this yeah it's just for me it's like the worst part of the movie by a long shot like and we'll link in the description of the episode some resources where you can learn more as well yeah yeah i mean that's where it just, there's absolutely no argument to be made by perpetuating this stereotype in 2006 in a way that like, it couldn't be less necessary. This is a religious extremist character, right?

You don't need to marginalize a community to get across that religious extremism is not good like it's just so absurd that it it it's it's really upsetting to watch and then similarly one of the other characters who ends up being a major villain lee teabing aka ian mckellen is a character with a physical disability he uses canes and they like repeatedly refer to him jokingly as he oh he's a cripple and like everyone is like making fun of his and it's like you can still see it it's being done for this very unnecessary ableist narrative reason it's like oh we need to make him look you know harmless so what will we do let's give him a disability and it's like that is just i mean it we talk about it a lot but it's

just it's so harmful and lazy it's really it's it sucks and then also that you see like him like pushed around while he's navigating with canes and just like it's it's so it's just so aggressively unnecessary absolutely that is trash it is simply trash and we do not like it um but wait there's more there's more that we don't like. I mean, we already started to kind of get it. Like, let's just get, like, we're going to get all the, like, truly harmful evil shit out of the way and then we're just going to dunk on the Da Vinci Code. But yeah, I mean,

this movie's view of valuing and respecting women is so fucking goofy it's it's first i mean it's extremely cis normative where it's like well the reason that mary magdalene is important is because of like her womb i'm like it's just like creepy turfy language and then on top of that it's like i feel like we're supposed to believe that robert langton and like what lee teabing are like feminists because they acknowledged a woman's existence like it's just so bottom of the barrel and then even but even so it's like well of course we valued her because she was a wife and a mother but we acknowledge that she was a real person and also uh don't say she's a sex worker because i don't like that and like that offhand comment of like ian mckellid

being you know horrified that it was suggested that mary magdalene was a sex worker which as we I mean it's just another extremely marginalized and stereotyped community in film and it's just god I'm like this is this the feminism you ordered I guess this is Bush administration feminism is so a man a man screaming at you that it's okay to be a wife and a mother like shut up a huge component of this movie is like the symbology surrounding oh this symbol equals male and this symbol equals female and holy grail equals woman's womb and is as you said just like reductive and cisnormative and but the characters are presenting this information as if they're like actually it's awesome that the holy grail is mary magdalene's womb and her bloodline and it's and it's because of the church hated women and they and they burned witches at the stake but

women are actually cool because of their ability to have sex with men and give them children it's so uh it's it's like just so frustrating that they're like this is what women this mel gibson thought he knew what women wanted this is what women want to be called oh god it's obviously we say this all the time too it's like no disrespect to like people who have babies and people who give birth like amazing keep it up if you want to right but yeah it's just like the most basic reductive incorrect way to define it's just so annoying they don't say anything about mary magdalene except that she was a wife a mother and moved to france like and not a sex worker and on top of that i this kind of like dovetails into what there is to discuss about

sophie it's like they're just talking at a woman the entire movie who is like again it's it's kind of i don't i guess it's the opposite of a mary sue i don't it's a it's a susan marie where where we're presented with a woman who should know how to do a lot of things but is not allowed to do anything like we meet sophie as like a well-respected cryptologist i i kind of like how she's introduced she like enters very authoritatively she's like i am sophie i am a cryptologist everyone takes her very seriously like it's immediately she's in control of the situation she gets a little code across to to langdon and yeah i thought it was like generally kind of a strong introduction to that character

sure but then it's just like she proceeds to contribute nothing to the story not seem to really care what's going on in the story even though it very much concerns her like and it's just like she she's she's damseled several times even though usually when she's damseled several times, even though usually when she's damseled, she's damseled first, but then everyone's damseled. And you're just like, okay, what? It's just, there's just like, we find out. I mean, I guess the things I can say about her are I love Audrey Tattoo. She's great.

We do know more, I think, like sophie's background than we know about robert langdon's like all we really know about robert langdon is he teaches at harvard and he fell in a well uh true but i would argue that a lot of like men who are writing a female like a strong female character oh well she's defined by her trauma exactly it's like a character who has a tragic backstory and then it has turned them into this kind of like stoic almost cold emotionless personality lists like is that even what she's supposed to be coming off as like it's so unclear how we're supposed to be receiving her because there's just nothing it's just i just woke i just woke flea up with my screaming about the da vinci code but yeah i mean she just like she's devoid of any kind of personality humor emotion of any kind

nothing she's like i hate history i was like but what do you like like do you even like breaking codes it sure doesn't seem that way right because you don't have any you don't seem to be able to do it because we don't see you do it at any point except she knows that ps equals princess sophie i'm which is like well if i guess, we're in the reductive zone. Why not? Like, I'm going to, I'm going to try to coin this. She's a full on Susan Marie. She should know how to solve a number of problems that are going on in this story.

We're introduced to her as a person who is extremely qualified to solve this. But instead of her solving anything, we are introduced by robert langdon to other characters who should be able to break a code and it's like but she's right there like it's uh it's so fair and it is like doubly frustrating to me that she just doesn't even seem interested in codes and it's like well if you're not interested in codes why were we introduced to you as a code expert like if she was just i would i would feel less insulted by this choice honestly if she was just like a regular person she's like i don't know i own a i own a plant shop i don't know shit about this like that would make more narrative sense given how little she does if she

had no expertise in this but we're told she has extreme expertise and then she's just like i don't know like when ian mckellen has a gun to her head and he's like what's the davinci code she's like idk idk idk my bff jill i guess you'll just have to kill me and like she doesn't even try she has't think for a second about what the Da Vinci Code might be. She doesn't seem to care. Like, it's just so bizarre. And then when they're like looking at all the invisible ink scrawled all over the floor and he's like, wait a minute. The Fibonacci sequence, they're out of order. Maybe that's a clue that the letters are out of order and she's like oh

an anagram and then rather than trying to solve an anagram as a fucking cryptologist she's like shrug can you do it robert and he's like you betcha um and then and then he iconically says moon sermons charms demons sermons monks he says sermons twice also monks ranks rocks like at least robert langdon for someone who is not a cryptologist uh seems interested in breaking codes like it's even though he clearly sucks at it and he thought the da vinci code was apple which i am increasingly convinced it was not okay here's another thing i'm i'm realizing in real time here so bear with me but okay okay so sen what's his name senye i don't i don't know how french i feel i also think that dan brown maybe i'm totally right if we have french matrons uh

please correct me if i'm right but it does just sound like Dan Brown is writing down the most French names he can think of. He's like, Jacques Saulier. Sure. Yeah. Print it. I'm a billionaire now. Watch my masterclass. I'm going to watch his masterclass and he's going to tell me to wake up at 4 a.m. and

eat spinach and I'm going to turn it off. And then you're going to be the most successful writer of all time, Jamie. Okay, so Jacques Saunier, who we learn through flashbacks, has been training Sophie to break codes and follow clues. And he's been prepping her for her entire life for this kind of thing. Why doesn't she care? She doesn't care. And he has so little faith, apparently, that she will be able to solve any of this stuff that he explicitly tells her, find Robert Langdon, even though he is not a cryptologist and is not an expert in deciphering code.

I was kind of wondering that. I'm like, why? Because Robert Langdon himself says, I don't know why I would be the person to go to. Right. But the entire plot of this movie hinges on the fact that a man had so little faith in a woman to be able to propel the story forward

that he's like, okay who i know find this man over here because he'll be able to help you okay but also canonically it was he wrong it wasn't like sophie could solve any of the codes she solved zero of the codes she just knew that one thing had a code inside of it true but that is just because the writing is such dog shit well yeah like of course it's because dan brown doesn't actually care about women right that's obvious but like in the canon it makes total sense to me that jacques sonnier would have very little faith in sophie's ability to solve this code because she doesn't solve a single code right and the movie's four hours long I'm also realizing I have all these notes saying Robert and Sophie

Robert and Sophie Robert and Sophie and I'm like literally oh my god oh my god Robert Evans and Sophie literally are friends I wrote it down 500 times last night and I literally at one point I'm like this feels weird I feel like I've written this before uh it's because uh wait wait what if that's of my closest friends wait a minute what if what if that's code what if the movie is trying to tell us something about our friends robert and sophie i hope not let's just say as someone who really detests both of these characters i hope not i hope oh my god that's so funny though they should they should star in our reboot oh yeah yeah absolutely robert and so except this time sophie uh does know how to do things and uh robert isn't he's just carrying guns around yeah he just has he

he doesn't really yeah he just has the he's kind of the muscle of the operation. I don't know who Ian McKellen is in this situation. We'll figure it out. Yeah, let's think on it. Who's the spy? Yeah, to kind of go back to just like a lot of this plot is men explaining things to women. This happens a lot in a lot of movies across many genres where it's like basically a storytelling device. I think it actually composes like the vast majority of human interaction as well. I've had so many things that I already know explained to me by men.

It doesn't come from nowhere. Right. So what happens here with this kind of trope even is that there's a story that requires a lot of like world building or exposition. And the writer needs to figure out a way to get this across clearly to the audience. So what they usually do is pull in a character, like, you know know an audience proxy

who the other characters can explain things to so that the audience can get this information what usually happens or what often happens is that this character is like the only woman or one of only a very few number of women in the story i remember talking about this in the casino royale episode this happens in laura croft this happens literally i mean i think it's like honestly part and parcel to every genre but i feel like it's prevalent in the action genre like action sci-fi yeah world building genres especially and i think that it has a lot to do with, I would guess, that genres that people assumed for a very long time that men are the main audience for this genre, that it features a lot of men talking at women. Right. And it's just like it's just it's a trope that operates under and reinforces the assumption that like women don't know things. Women don't know as much as men.

Women aren't smart. Men are smart. Men need to explain things to women. And like that is just like such a widely held belief still, particularly by men. But this one is like even it just feels like a very weird mutation of that trope because it's men talking at women, not just about anything of like, this is how spaceship work. This is how computer work over or like extremely binary assumptions of like men know about this thing. Women know about this thing. These are men who are talking about women at a woman.

Like it's it's like worse than the normal one because like it's all bad but it's especially annoying to hear men explain women to them like that is just like what are you doing like the room couldn't be less red in this scenario there's a that scene is fucking 20 minutes long where they're explaining birth and marriage and like just and what aren't they explaining about cis women to a cis woman who's sitting right there right it's just so and then it just means that like because the two men already know things about this and they've formed their own theories they get to like debate and like actually have a discussion whereas sophie is just talked at and explained to and it's just but again the thing is like sophie should be able to engage with this

discussion to some extent based on what we know about her. She just, the writers, Dan Brown slash the guy who wrote this movie, don't let her. That's why it like really bothers me. It's like, we have been told that she has a level of knowledge that at least, even if she doesn't know jack shit about the Bible, she is a cryptologist. She's a very critical thinker. Like she would be able to engage with this conversation actively, even if she wasn't the expert on the subject. She would at least be able to intelligently interact with this topic. But she just doesn't.

She just doesn't. They don't care. They just make her sit there and like be like, huh, what? That's not what I heard. And then they cut to Audrey Tattoo who like wakes up from the nap she was taking because she hasn't, they haven't put a camera on her in 14 hours. And she goes, that can't be. Or she goes like, but wait.

Or like Eve McKellen, like at multiple points in that scene, asks her questions that he knows the answer to that he knows she doesn't know the answer to. And then she will answer it wrong. And then he'll be like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. No, you absolute fool. It's Mary Magdalene and she's your mom. And then you're just like, oh, my God, this is exhausting. It also makes you wonder why Jacques Saunier would not tell Sophie anything about her true identity or her history. It's not like she's too young.

She's like in her 30s. It's not like, oh, I couldn't tell her. She was only, you know, she was 10 years old. She couldn't handle the truth yet. It's like, no, she she was 10 years old she couldn't handle the truth yet it's like no she's like she's 33 years old and i think the movie tries to like explain or this this story the book whatever tries to explain this away by like saying oh no they lost touch but why would the grand master of the priory of scion let that happen let himself lose touch with the last living heir of jesus if his whole thing is protecting this air like he literally had one job he had one job and then he like i just it's so

i would love not let's scale that down i think it would be really funny like the amount sorry to go back to the whole like invisible ink in the louvre but like we must how long must it have taken like and you never see you see i think i mean were to assume all of the invisible ink he had on hand when he died at the louvre uh but his his hand never falters it's all in the same font it's all in like comic sans b and he just is like whoop whoop whoop he's doing like anagrams in his head as he's like bleeding out from his stomach like oh god that okay yes so ultimately the point so and and we didn't caitlin and i agreed we're not going to get into the extreme sexism in catholicism or organized religion in any way because it is just too vast and we wanted to have fun today okay yeah but i do feel like dan brown uses extreme misogyny in organized religion to make his misogyny look not that bad i feel like he kind of offsets it

like anytime he we is there's like a scene of a woman being talked over, ignored, whatever. It's, you know, a crime against women that is far more violent is like invoked almost as if to say, like, sure, I'm an asshole to women, but I wouldn't murder one in the holy wars. Like, it's just kind of this weird equivalent. I wouldn't burn a witch at the stake for free. Like, it's just, yeah, I think he, again, I just really think he thinks he's doing something. When it's like, Audrey Tattoo is technically in this scene, but she hasn't had a line of dialogue in 45 minutes. It's just ridiculous yeah i this is just such a it's it's just like a female character who is couldn't be more important to the story and couldn't be worse written less engaged but i feel like it's just like whatever it's 2006 and having a woman physically present is like we did it.

You know, it's just so half assed and annoying. She's just right. She's just there to basically be a big reveal. Like her function in the story is to like be the twist. She's just he's just carrying around chekhov's womb right so but if that is something you want to do in your story fine i guess but also you have to spend the rest of the story carefully characterizing her and not just like having her tag along the other thing that really annoys me about it is that um they keep referring to once they like they're like yes i guess let's

agree that the holy grail is a human as the son the heir to the heir of jesus and they keep using he pronouns you know whoever this living heir of jesus is oh yeah because they just assume because they just assume but it's also i think an error they can take seriously that but it's also i think just done to like throw you off the trail of the big twist that it's sophie so it feels like that thing where it's like oh the person who was like riding that motorcycle and had a helmet on who you thought was a man oh they took the helmet off and it's actually a woman it feels like adjacent to that right and then it's like end of observation i've got i've got i've got a quote i've got a quote okay this is classic bechdel cast uh citation process this is the abstract of a paper i would have had to pay

40 to read so i'm going to go into the abstract. I would like to find this paper for not $40. No disrespect to its author. This was published in 2008. It is by a professor at the University of Maryland. Robert Langdon? By Christy... Robert Langdon.

Feminist King. Sorry, go ahead. By Professor Christy Maddox. Robert Langdon, Feminist King. Sorry, go ahead. Written by Professor Christy Maddox. And it is called The Da Vinci Code and the Regressive Gender Politics of Celebrating Women.

And I really should read this paper because the abstract, I feel like really concisely boils down the kind of like bothiness of like them thinking they're being feminist while ignoring all female characters so here's what christy maddox says uh quote the public outcry prompted by the da vinci code accused the novel of being a radical feminist text with potentially dangerous implications for christianity the novel celebrates, the quote-unquote sacred feminism,

and quote-unquote goddess worship, which on one level gives it ideological kinship with the important tradition of difference or cultural feminism. This analysis, however, argues that the novel undercuts its feminist moves through its persistent recourse to the private sphere and its unremitting celebration of the biological. The narrative falls victim to the problem that commonly inheres in difference-slash-cultural feminism. It redefines the binary system of gender as well as resulting heterosexuality. Through these anti-feminist impulses, the Da Vinci Code makes plain that celebrating women does not always make for feminist progress.

Instead, the Da Vinci Code highlights the dangers inherent in cultural-slash-difference feminism. Finally, the Da Vinci Code highlights the dangers inherent in cultural slash difference feminism. Finally, situated with its religious context, the Da Vinci Code demonstrates the possibility for feminism's co-optation by moral reform politics, which I think is just kind of an academic way of saying like sort of what we've been circling around this whole time which is that you know dan brown this movie in general seems to be saying that by you know celebrating women in any narrow extremely cis binary way is enough of a win to call itself a feminist text which wasn't helped by how this movie was received because it was you know like denounced by the catholic church and i mean it's like i feel like we both kind of remember

and like which only ever helps a movie ever right like but part of the grounds it was banned on was like well they're deifying women and we don't do that in catholicism which is you know true right but it it resulted in this property being cast in this like radical feminist lens in a property where there's only one female character who has nothing going on like at any point and so um yeah i wanted to shout out Christy Maddox. I feel like she very intelligently said something that I felt strongly watching this movie, but couldn't, like, get into those words.

It's like, it's just, it just speaks to, I think, this bar on the floor at this time. Well, it's kind of operating under the same logic that like conservative like the way that the patriarchy values women because you'll find plenty of like misogynist people out there who are like no i love women they're sacred we have to protect them because they're our mothers and our wives. And our daughters. And our daughters. Literally like Ted Cruz style.

Like, I have a daughter. I cannot possibly be a bad person. Like, you're just like, sir. Right. And it's just like operating under the same logic of, well, women are so special to the world because they're the ones who give life and who are wombs walking wombs which is like no disrespect to people with boobs that you don't want to have

babies with the womb right of course just the reductivism of of the thing that it just excludes so many people. And it, oh, God. I mean, just like cis men are never reduced to a biological function in this way, ever. Like, to the point where as Robert Langdon is explaining male and female symbology to Sophie, he's like, the V, the triangle, whatever. I don't even know what that symbol is, but like an upside down V. That's the symbol for man. It's a rudimentary phallus known as the blade,

represents aggression and manhood. And then he's like, as you might imagine, the exact opposite of that is the female symbol as if male and female are opposite things like that well i mean i think i guess not in defense of him but like i i i do understand like that it is like a historical like that is like a symbolic thing that's existed for a long time but he just presents it as kind of like this is a fact you know right i mean which i think is is extremely of the time it's like in 2006 there i don't think there i mean there really wasn't much conversation in depth in the mainstream about challenging gender roles and like the cis

binary gender dynamic in in really any way and i feel like the scenes like that really it takes like an ancient symbol and obviously the further you go back the worse gender politics grow like but it's still presenting it in in a very matter-of-fact way of like well of course this is boy and this is girl and there is no because of v it resembles the shape of a woman's womb and it's like why why is this the way you're presenting this information i mean it's like it's it isn't surprising in any way like i didn't expect better of this movie but it's yeah it's just like it's an extremely of its time movie that like the fact that that is like a very matter-of-fact line of dialogue delivered in a movie that is supposedly progressive on gender politics is like well that's all you need to know you know right i wanted to go

we touched on this also a little bit about like the lack of romantic subplot in the story. It almost seems like maybe it was going to be there, but then it's not. I think they wanted us to do a well there, won't they? But I cannot think of a single... Was anyone in the audience like, like well just right i wasn't feeling that i appreciate that they didn't force any kind of like romantic subplot although there's this one moment it's the scene where lee he's like holding them at gunpoint and he's threatening to kill robert langdon and he's talking to sophie and he's like oh by the

way that you've been looking at your hero you wouldn't let him die would you and i'm like is the implication there that like she is romantically interested in him and he's sort of like using langdon as leverage to get what he wants because he thinks that sophie's in love with him uh-huh and i was like what is what why is that there i it's just like i don't i don't want to think about it i don't i ew ew ew ew the fact that we are like to i mean yeah it's again it's just makes me so tired caitlin to even think about like first of all impossible to root for because it's like even large age gap aside which is another like tropey tropey tropey element of this genre specifically uh action genre loves an enormous age gap and that is not to i want to be a little clearer on that because i i feel like there is just kind of like a general feeling that

any age gap is not okay that is not you know that that's not true i mean there's many relationships in which an age gap is present and the relationship is perfectly healthy and it's fine and like right i i don't mean to like cast that net so widely as i think we have in the past sure i i just i just think that it is in this case i think pretty clearly done because of the value that a woman's youth has on screen and how that is not as much of an issue when it comes to a cis male actor and that is i think a you know a huge reason why we see those age gaps present is because even in 2006 it was only acceptable to see a female lead in an action movie you know you cannot crest the age of 40 or all of a sudden, you need to be an Oscar winner,

or extremely famous, or we have a problem. And like, there's just kind of this unspoken set of rules. And then on top of that, if you're Tom Hanks and Audrey Tattoo, and you have no chemistry, and part of the reason I don't even want to put that on them too much, because it's because they didn't write Audrey a character. Right. Like maybe there would have been some chemistry between them if she had had anything to do or say or think. Right. Like I feel like that whole thing speaks to like a series of small issues that it's like I mean I think we've like talked about this recently is like we're not like

completely against a romance in a movie the romance just has to like be healthy and make sense like it's really like i mean it is kind of a high bar to clear just speaking from experience but like it is not an impossible thing to be rooting for a romance in a movie even a hetero rim romance like it it can be done we've done it yeah maybe we'll do it again we don't know but but it's just the way that this is set up is like oh god i mean it's impossible to root for because we're just given nothing we're given tom hanks and the expectation that we want Tom Hanks to fuck. And it's like, I'm just not really there. Like he, you know, he can mind his business.

And but it's yeah. Okay, that was my Jamie's little rant. No, please. And to just add to that, the age gap thing, another component of how it can become problematic is when there's like a series where we see the same male star aging. James Bond syndrome. Yeah. And then the female lead cast alongside him is usually different in every movie. It's literally McConaughey shit.

Like they stay the same age and he keeps getting older like exactly yeah we've talked about that before on different episodes but it and it it's i mean with let me look up what the hell is this movie called inferno it's felicity it's felicity jones oh who is younger so it's not zoe de chanel got it uh similar haircut I think you were you were tricked by the haircut because she does have bangs in this movie. But it's Felicity Jones, who is, I think, almost 10 years younger than Audrey Tattoo. Because the movie came out 10 years later. So they legally need to be 35 no matter what. Even if there isn't a actual romantic subplot in a movie like this it's still framed as like look at these two people doing action scenes together and they're spending a lot of time together and

they're both attractive especially the woman no doubt that it's presented as if it is romantic because if you look at the i mean even on the uh da vinci code Code poster on Wikipedia, I think it's pretty unambiguously like Audrey Tattoo is like afraid and pressed against Tom Hanks's chest. Like, yeah, you are supposed to be thinking of this as a potential for romance. Like it's right. Pretty unambiguously. Like that's what you're supposed to think. And even if they don't even actually like kiss or have sex or anything like that in the story.

And thank God they don't. Just like the quest, the adventure, the like close proximity they're in is just like, yeah, it's like presented as this like sexy thing. The fact that she heals him with her Christlike power. She cures him of his fear of falling in a well again with her christ-like hands and you're just like i mean fucking whatever it's just it's just annoying i just i wanted to bring up that age gap thing because i was thinking about um how florence pew took a ton of shit and even like i was like on the wrong side of that issue originally where like florence pew is dating zach braff they seem to be very happy together and people were you know giving them a ton of shit for their being

and not insignificant age gap i guess in that relationship and she was like i am an adult i'm like 26 years old shut the fuck up like stay out of my life and it's like yeah point taken like live your life like it's it's just it's but in terms of like this kind of universe I think it has I don't know it's I feel like it's slightly it's kind of a different discussion between like people that exist in the world and are in love in the world versus a forced movie couple with absolutely no chemistry. Like it's two different discussions. And we're having the movie discussion here. And because like at least where I usually come from is like because a woman's youth

is usually valued far beyond other qualities about them. Sure. It's just something that always pings me. And we see these trends in media of age gaps that usually have the implication of demonizing a woman aging. And, you know, there's this idea that men are allowed to age, but people only want to see women on screen who are young but again it's worthwhile to examine this on a case-by-case basis rather than making any kind of sweeping

generalizations about it it's a fair i mean it's a really complicated issue and i will fully admit that i have like had kind of an unfair take uh in the past in some cases in cases like this i feel like it's kind of unambiguously like uh what the fuck right uh so you know it's the da vinci code i don't know what we expected the da vinci code Apple. So any questions? None. There were a few scenes where I was like, where Sophie participates in the action that I was kind of surprised. I was like, oh, she like bashes Silas's head against the ground after he attacks them at the chateau. And then later she like picks up Lee's gun after he's been like disarmed.

And then I was like, oh, right. She does that because she's a cop. Like, I forgot that she was like what her even background in training is because the movie cares so little about letting you know anything about her that she would like have some like combat skills and she would know how to handle a gun but it was just like oh well okay she's allowed to she's not like fully sidelined every time she actually does participate in some of the action and then i was like oh right she knows how to do that because she's like a trained police officer anyway so i was like well i guess points and then points taken back away the other thing is that like and this is just this is probably neither here nor there but she is wearing high heels and a pencil skirt throughout the entire movie. And if it were me and I found myself in the middle of a Grail quest, the first thing I would do is be like, hey, can we go to a store or like to my apartment so I can change into like pants and well it's comfortable clothes i also like going back to the romance plot for a second the fact that we're supposed to like they have spent a maximum of 36 hours together like i understand that a good old-fashioned trauma bond but it's not been that long yeah i do and i think that that is a the problem you're describing is a Howard specific problem, because was that not the exact same thing that came up with Bryce Dallas Howard when she was in those damn Jurassic Park movies I didn't watch?

Yes, that is exactly it. It was like she was wearing high heels, but she was a genius scientist running running the Jurassic Park. Yeah. Like, yeah, it is kind of a similar thing where it's like, again, it's frustrating to me because it's like we know as lovers of cinema that Audrey Tattoo is an incredibly dynamic

like character actress. She can pull off a lot of looks. She can pull off a lot of different energies. Like she's really talented and we're just thrown into like i feel bad for her watching this movie because it's just like she's just thrown into this generic ass role where it's like she's dressed generically her character is written barely and when it is it's generically and it's like god you were like you've been given this

incredible it i mean to invoke another french actress who people try to like inject into like aggro male american movies it's like uh marianne cotillard in inception where you're like here's this enormously talented actor who is like being given just wife shit to do it's just yeah it's just annoying man it's it's like if you if you want to i i resent that like these really talented female actors are hired because they're talented and then they're not given anything to do that would showcase that talent in any way it ends up making them look bad and that's like just not fair like that's such an unfair exchange to have to make to but it does feel like very often with like and this is again this is changing over time and it is more significant in marginalized communities and but this exchange of like to go

from like being an indie darling to being a mainstream star means that you need to kind of like sacrifice everything about yourself that was interesting and showed like that you were like this you know dynamic actor like it's just when that isn't true for for most cis male actors they're allowed to you know take the charisma that made them successful and carry it into the mainstream because that fucking makes sense like why would you hire a really interesting talented actor and then give them i just don't get it it's like in that case then hire fucking anybody hire someone who sucks at acting you wouldn't even know the difference you know like it's just weird yeah hire me i suck at acting and yeah but i wouldn't you would never know because i wouldn't have to say anything but

can you wear a shoe like that's all you just have to be able to like talk at tom hanks like and just be like what no that can't be it couldn't be like it's any any you know human person who could say it couldn't be could have played that role so it's it's extra shitty that they took a very talented actor who meatier mainstream role and was given nothing well anything else i think i've said everything the da vinci code was apple ultimately did this movie pass the bexel test i honestly i'm gonna guess no i don't think so i did did forget to pay attention. Two and a half hours. Because the only other female characters who we see are like the occasional nun or are there any? I really don't think so. The fact that we're talking about women this entire movie, barely any appear. Yeah, I do not believe that this passes the Bechdel test it's what a what a stinker wait i

just i just googled that this is funny okay so there is this website that i don't think we've ever directly cited even though it's a hilariously perfect thing for us to talk about it's bechdel test.com and it's it's a pretty i think it's kind of an old website it looks kind of htmle and then it just you can just look up the name of a movie and then people will comment whether they think it passed the bechdel test or not by our metric i do not think it passes but here are the three comments dr space goat said this dr space. Space Goat said, it passes. Sophie and Sister Sandrine, the latter of which is killed off in the first third of the movie. I'm like, well, I don't know who Sister Sandrine is, so that's a no.

Maybe she was credited on IMDB. I didn't hear that name spoken. But I don't think she and Sophie even talk. Do they talk to each other? I think she's the nun even do they talk to each other she's i think she's the nun who gets killed by silas uh see the fact that we even have this question is i mean maybe it's another nun does she talk to a different nun sophie does talk to her grandma who is maybe not actually her grandma and she's like i'm your grandma so does i don't know okay so larissa 5656 had

something to say about that okay larissa says the grandmother doesn't count as a named character while book readers will recognize her as marie chauvel she doesn't say this in the movie and is credited only as elegant woman at rosslyn in the film's credits so i'm gonna say that doesn't count wow so you know there's a little and then there's a guy named greg who threw his hat into the ring and said it did pass but okay this is fun greg says sophie and her grandmother have a conversation in the end it is about giving her up to jacques sonnier i don't think that is really about a man and it's like greg do you hear yourself when you talk um so i'm gonna say based on bechdel test.com i can't think of a better resource uh that doesn't pass i guess

that sophie does talk to someone who identifies as her grandmother but we only know as elegant woman at rosslyn well if we're going by my new caveat that i'm going to add into the mix from now on which is does the interaction between women is it meaningful to the story could it be taken out and the story would be or feel no different and And in this case... Well, you could take Sophie out of the story. You could take Sophie. The thing is, ultimately, Sophie could exist in the narrative and be off screen the entire movie. Yeah. Period. And that does not bode well.

Like, they could be like, there's this woman named Sophie. She's Jesus's niece. I've never met her. And the movie could basically play out the same way yeah more or less outside of one or two bonks on the head so uh this for me is a no as far as passing the test i'm gonna say no um it's also a painfully white movie. Absolutely, yes. So this movie sucks. And I would give it, I guess, like, I don't know, a half nipple, zero nipples. I don't know.

Does it deserve anything? I'm giving it zero. I'm giving it zero for hubris because it really thinks it's doing a lot. And it's just not i'll say i love the first and last 20 minutes of this movie are just hilarious they're so funny there's so much going on you have no idea what's going on and it's just like happening at you and you're like like it's it's very it's a very engaging experience because you're just like why are they yelling at me and they're like i've got it moon sun star isaac newton like it's just

it's really funny on that like it's it's hilarious but it is it's not doing anything for anybody it's just it's just a bunch of bullshit you know whatever some guy that has like a christ complex made a million dollars off of it and now we can watch his master class but it's just it's no nipples what it what what it's like the most reductive interpretation of women period that excludes a great many women it's it's like defining womanhood in a very disingenuous way, which is having a womb and being married to Jesus. Well, guess what? That's a really weird bar to clear.

Well, as someone who identifies as a womb first and second as Jesus is his wife, I take offense to that jamie well honestly you are the target demo uh it's just a disaster like it it's just it's reductive in so many ways it's ableist it's all white people really i mean it's if i had a n, I would give it to that hilarious Tom Hanks, Moon Sermons charm, Demon Sermons, Monks, Rank, Rocks, Madonna of the Rocks, Da Vinci. That should be on the AFI best movie lines list. And I think it is attempting to, with some success in a very narrow amount of time, attempting to include women at a fundamental level in Christianity, which is not an insignificant attempt, right? Like that is, that's not the worst thing I've ever heard of. Sure, let's get women in there.

Let's throw a girl boss into christianity see what happens but but ultimately i just i'm just kind of like rolling my eyes at like how much this movie thinks it's doing versus what it's actually doing which is being really long and boring zero nipples yes but shout out to alfred melina a character who i also I think could be taken out of the movie and the movie would really be not that much different but we're so glad that he's there we're thrilled he's there he's really he's I mean he's great

in the scenes he's in I don't know what he's fucking talking about like every time they brought up the name of his cult they're like Opus Dei and I was like what is that is that like a computer but it's a group uh i have no idea what he's talking about at any point but i did love to see him yeah so this is weird this is like i mean speaking to life of a character actor much like alfred melina is an

iconic character actor but he's in both movies we've covered this week, really not that much at all. Very minimally and pretty like kind of villainous, antagonistic roles. Let Alfred Molina play the lead. Yeah. Why can't he play the lead more? Come on.

Zendaya thinks he's nice. Well, tune back in at some point down the road for March Frid Molina Part 2, in which we will cover an education as well as species. I insist. I want to see Alfred Molina have sex with an alien. So no pushback here. It's on Hulu. It's quite accessible. it's on hulu it's it's quite accessible it's on hulu are there ads no oh yeah oh i thought you were like oh yeah there's a ton of there's nothing but ads okay i'll watch it i'm excited um but i i think as it stands um first of all to everyone for to all over 400 of you who voted for the da vinci code i hope you're happy i don't know what you wanted or what you expected we basically included the da vinci show the da

vinci chode okay i've had two glasses of wine and i'm fucked up the dimension that's that's what our our reboot is called it's called the davinci jane oh boy uh i would say you know i don't know what you what what this little joke was that you were playing but yeah you're happy pranking us it feels like the matrons are pranking us by voting for a new Fiji code. I think that the matrons historically like a movie that it seems like we'll have nothing to say about. And then we always have two hours worth of something to say. Two or more hours worth of things to say. My little theory is people don't come to the matron for productive discussion. Sound off in the comments if you agree that this is where we drink wine and get confused

uh this i yeah this movie is uh trash what i think is going to be really fun is that guaranteed like maybe if the if the world isn't burnt to a crisp in 10 years, I will watch The Da Vinci Code again in 10 years and have no recollection of anything. And this is just kind of like a once a decade thing we can experience where we're like, wait, The Da Vinci Code is Apple? That's, what the fuck? And we can just have this.

I think in that way, it was all worth it because we just get to have this gorgeous experience of realizing that that we've been watching this long ass movie for the worst twist of all time i'm tempted to because even though i've read the book angels and demons i simply don't remember anything about it so now i'm tempted to watch that movie and just have a similar experience angels and demons april they don't want it they don't want it you know what what if we what if we punish the mate what if we punish the matrion by being like oh you wanted the da vinci code well now we're doing angels angels and demons and inferno hope you thought that little joke was

funny everybody because we're never gonna stop talking about the robert langdon universe oh my god robert langdon is the most basic name for a man they're robert langdon oh length and uh study was like just absolutely going off well um well thanks for tuning in matrons to alfred marchlina we love you we resent you for this one but we love you um i'm gonna go guess what i'm about to do jamie read every word of angels and demons without pee breaks I'm gonna sit in the bathtub for eight hours I literally got sick my mom was so mad at me she's like why are you sneezing I was like I didn't leave the bathtub until I finished the Da Vinci code it was like the most 2004 interaction I've ever had that's impressive that you read it in eight hours. I don't know.

I think I read like I finished it. I probably came in with it like whatever, a percentage of the way done and then refused to leave until I had full on pneumonia. Well, I'm about to suffer the same fate. Are you going to read it? No. Oh. What I was going to say is that I'm going to go eat an apple.

It better feel really symbolic. I want you to think of my womb when you... Your rosy, fleshy womb. My rosy, fleshy, fertile Jesus womb. Full of seeds. And then I want you to run i want you to sprint i don't want you to take a bus or an uber or i don't want you to drive i want you to run to the louvre and kneel at the louvre and think of my fertile womb because that is what it's all about that is the real apple the sacred feminine honestly i feel like

ultimately you can get all the same story beats out of i frankenstein and it's way more fun to watch like the holy wars are literally it's just like the battle between demons and gargoyles it's the same it's all the same yeah and i I Frankenstein's a more fun movie to watch. Justice for I Frankenstein. Fingers crossed for this year's Oscars. Oh, gosh. Well, all right. I gotta go.

I gotta go lay down. Lie down? I don't know. It's fine. Okay. Thanks, everyone. 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 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. Kay hasn't heard from her sister

in seven years. 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. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? 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.

Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.

Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.