The Bechdel Cast - The Farewell with Atsuko Okatsuka

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

On this episode, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Atsuko Okatsuka discuss The Farewell.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @AtsukoComedy on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELPHere's the Variety article that discusses "Why The Farewell flopped in China" - https://variety.com/2020/film/news/why-farewell-flopped-in-china-awkwafina-tzi-ma-maoyan-1203471209/Here are two articles about Awkwafina's tendency to appropriate Black aesthetics: "On Awkwafina, appropriation, and Asian American identity" - https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2020/01/on-awkwafina-appropriation-and-asian-american-identity-golden-globesand"Who Really Owns the Blaccent?" - https://www.vulture.com/2018/08/awkwafina-blaccent-cultural-appropriation.html Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.

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Hey, Jamie. Hey, Caitlin. capitalism the patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast hey jamie hey caitlin everything is absolutely fine with your health right now oh okay just just so you know cool okay well that's not suspicious at all it's so and it's so interesting you say that because i funny story i used to tell people that their health was fine and it it wasn't it literally wasn't oh really but when you tell it to me i'm like okay makes sense yeah i think i think you should just believe me yeah because i'm definitely telling the truth okay yeah no okay do you want to go to lunch yeah let's go to lunch okay awesome perfect intro 10 out of 10 uh amazing uh welcome to the Bechdel cast uh I'm Jamie Loftus I'm Caitlin Durante and this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens we promised that intro is relevant to today's discussion but if it weren't that would be really

funny uh i just open every episode just being like jamie you're in good health right i was like sorry everyone caitlin is my doctor she's my pediatrician i still go to my pediatrician and it's caitlin how long did you go to your pediatrician? My pediatrician was also an adult doctor question mark so I did go. Maybe that's just what they told you. True I did go to the same doctor for the first 18 years of my life. I went to the pediatrician until I was 22 and he was like, you need to get out of here. Like they give you a hard out. They're like,

you ma'am, you could have a child at this point and you need to leave. I would never do that for you, Jamie. Thank you so much. I want to be 30 and still at my pediatrician, but some things just cannot be. Yeah.

Well, anyway, what is this podcast what's happening uh we use the Bechtel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate a larger conversation about representation in film the Bechtel test being a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. And there are many variations on the test. The one that we are using these days requires that two named characters of any marginalized gender speak to each other and the conversation has to be about something besides a man and ideally it is a meaningful plot relevant narrative really relevant conversation and not just like here's your soup okay thanks unless the soup is unless it's like a unless the soup is poisoned in which case that is relevant that is very important yeah right exactly so you know there's there's

there's shades of gray here as well it's all it's all about the context and the subtext you know the soup text um amazing we have uh we have an incredible movie today popular request has been since the movie was released and an equally if not even more incredible guest that i think i think let's go you're in like that we should like send you a jacket at this point i think that you've like entered jacket territory of how often you've been on the show i i want to send all of our frequent guests jackets oh yes yeah osco's three-time return this is third time returning guest yeah jacket tier i would love that do you have jackets we don't but we'll we'll make some i want one of those yeah like like one of those like job like football jackets

like are you cold babe and then you like but i want one of those jackets you mean like a letter a letterman jacket that's the word football jacket well for you all i am cold babe and put me on the waiting list for when you do make them oh my gosh we sure will so this of course is comedian creator of ohio and let's go let's go you know her from our episodes on shrek and austin powers so lots of mike myers it's otsuko katsuka thank you so much for having me thank you for making me not do a Mike Myers again

yeah we should say right at the top that Otsuka was not asking to do Mike Myers movies this whole time thank you thank you so much but it's just like been throughout the years you know so I'm just afraid like it's too late jamie i just

feel like you know because i feel like i did shrek with you all like years ago yeah and then i come back years later and i'm you know people are like oh god austin powers and then you know what i'm saying like for years now i think it's it's part of your brand unfortunately that you love mike myers yeah basically what happened is a while back we wanted to do an episode on shrek and we reached out to you and we just kind of like floated it we're like whatever movie you want to cover but also we do want to cover shrek if that's of any interest to you and you were like sure let's do shrek and then we also years later wanted to do an Austin Powers episode. And then we were like, let's go. Wouldn't it be so funny if you came back? But now we've tarnished your brand.

And you know, what's weird is you came to me this time, and you gave me a break, right? It's like, I just started getting good at saying no like like this year and so it sucks i couldn't like practice that even for this i was ready for y'all to ask me again you know whichever it was shrek three or whatever you know and i was ready to say no this time but then y'all switched it on me we did uh so today's movie is the farewell which is not even remotely a mike myers movie not even close so let's go what's your relationship with the farewell besides creating it besides directing it um no well i i actually avoided watching this movie for a long time because I'm super close with my grandma. And so I was like so scared.

And I hadn't heard the This American Life story of the film. Right. And so I was like, I don't know if my heart can take this movie just from even like that trailer. And I was like, oh, grandma gonna die. I don't know if I could deal with that. And I was telling people this too. Like, I'm scared to watch it. Folks who'd seen it.

None of them told me, wait, this is going too far. And I know this podcast is full of spoilers, but I don't know if I want to say it already. Spoiler alert, everyone. Yeah. People know that they're going to get spoilers. So yeah, feel free to spoil away. No one told me for years. So I watched it like two years after it had been released. I was like, fuck it.

I'm just going to do it, you know? And I was like, wait, no one told me that she doesn't die. Right. And I was telling people that's my fear. And they were like, uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, sure, we get it, uh-huh. And I was like, what are you trying to do, protect me from spoilers? I'm telling you. Like, you know what I'm saying?

You could have helped me. That's so, it's like they're making a choice between spoilers and your emotional well-being. That's what I'm saying, Jamie. It's messed up. So many people do this with spoilers, right? Like there's a special place in hell for people who spoil movies and TV shows, right?

I learned the hard way because I tweeted about this. I said, y'all didn't tell me the grandma never dies, you know? And some people thanked me because they were like, you know what, this is why I haven't been watching this movie now i can go watch it and protect my heart and you know not feel like left out from the cinematic experience you know but most of the people were like fuck you why'd you spoil it i'm like you it's been two years okay right right you had time also, I don't know. I think if, I guess I did not know that she lives at the end going into the movie. But I don't know that it would have like changed my experience of the movie that much. I think I would have just felt a little calmer going in.

Yeah, right? And that's okay. I mean, I'm a type of, I really don't mind spoilers because like I, I feel everything too much and I'll like think about it for for a long have never seen that coming it's like either she did die or she didn't and it's like those are the two options and like a twist would have been if aquafina was dead the whole time exactly that would have been a twist stop it or like if nainai was just a projection of aquafina's subconscious that's a twist yeah that she never even existed or something i would be so pissed at both of those scenarios yes yeah uh farewell who's saying farewell uh me from this movie forever okay but yeah that's i got to the movie way too late and i had no one to talk about it is my relationship with the farewell you know by then

everyone was like over it well not us not now we're here currently talking under it yes yeah thank you thank you all so much just just in time for may you know yeah jamie what about your relationship uh yeah i did not see this movie when it came out because i was away the end i i went to brag i went to edinburgh fringe the summer this movie came out. And so I just wasn't in the US when it was in theaters. So I didn't see it at the time. And then my grandma died shortly after that. And then I was like, I don't think I want to see a movie where the grandma dies for a little bit.

So again, it's like, yeah, if I knew she lived at the beginning i probably i also am not super bothered by spoilers so i'm like i probably would have watched it like a year ago if if i had known that like you fall in love with nai nai and then she's okay and it's great yeah but yeah i i just watched it to prepare for this um for this episode and i really really liked it i thought it i think it's like such a good movie and the performances in this movie are so incredible and yeah i'm excited to talk about it same i did see it in theaters when it came out summer of 2019 and because it was it was getting some buzz and everyone's like it's really good so i used my amc stubs membership i had incredible plug yeah yeah i i saw it in theaters and really enjoyed it and was very endeared by the story and the characters' relationships.

So, yeah, should we? You know, I'm starting to see why we went with, why you all went with Mike Myers. Like, when you two enjoy something, it's just nice, you know? And then it's like, well, let's just do the Bechdel test now, and we're done with the episode. Because everyone's like, well, it was really nice. The performances were nice, and we're done with the episode because everyone's like well it was really nice the performances were nice and we enjoyed it yeah well yeah nothing problematic right like honestly my notes for this are very sparse because I'm just like I really liked it

and it's good the end I have multiple smiley faces in my notes i'm like i yeah we definitely thrive in the all cap zone of like what the fuck is this i know i'm like oh yeah you know what yeah i take it back yeah let's pivot right now we're gonna do shrek forever after no there's gotta be stuff there's stuff okay all right yeah we'll find that sorry for interrupting keep going not not at all uh should we just get into the recap and go from there yeah let's do it hell yeah so this is a true story based on quote an actual lie so it's like autobiographical of writer director lulu wang's life and relationship with her grandmother um so we meet billy played by aquafina she lives in new york city ever heard of it yes you have you have heard of it i did kind of jump where there's like scenes of aquafina walking

through new York, obviously not wearing a mask. And I'm like, I need to like deprogram myself because I was like, but oh, wait, it's actually it's actually fine. And she's fine. Yeah. It's also where she's like, you know, that like that demeanor Awkwafina is known for. I feel like she got to do that just when she was in New York.

Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. This is just a performance wise performance wise you know where she's like hey girl hey I feel like that she did that to a friend she recognized in the streets of New York busy New York right right and then I feel like she had to shift performances for you know later on yeah um but so that was that was interesting yeah but yes New York city um me too me too i've heard of it well we've all heard of it amazing aquafina's performance is is so great this movie and it also it's always like the the performance that's like comedian that's like i'm That's like, I'm serious now. Like, it's like that performance for her. I feel like there comes a day and every like big famous comedian's life where they're like,

but guess what? I've got range. And you're like, all right, great. Yeah. Yeah. Are you talking about Adam Sandler?

I don't know. I don't know. I just, it was a guess. Sandler moment. It was just a wild guess. This is her uncut gems. Oh my gosh.

That movie. I was actually thinking, this is probably even more embarrassing. I was thinking about Robin Williams and Good Will Hunting. Got it. Got it. Yeah. It's a trend. It's a trend.

It's a trend. It's a trend. So Billy is talking on the phone with her grandma, Nai Nai, played by, I'm going to do my best with pronunciations, Zhao Shuzhen. Nai Nai lives in China. And then we establish that they tell little white lies to each other pretty frequently, including when Nai Nai tells Billy that she's at her sister's house when she's really at a hospital getting a CT scan. And then Nai Nai's sister speaks to the doctor. Then her sister tells Nai Nai that she's in good health. Then we meet Billie's mom and dad, Lu Jane and Haiyan. They reveal to Billie that her Nai Nai is actually dying of stage four lung cancer. She is Haiyan's mother.

Yes. Maternal. Yes. Yeah. And that she has no more than three months to live but nai nai doesn't know that she's dying and the family thinks it's better to not tell her because it's a common cultural practice in china to not tell an elderly family member that they are dying although billy thinks it's wrong to not tell her. So Billy's family is heading to China the following day for Billy's cousin's wedding

which is just an excuse so that everyone can go and see Nai Nai before she dies. They also tell Billy not to come. They're like, you have a terrible poker face and you're not invited. I know. But then Billy goes anyway, like I think like a few days after her family has arrived and she gets there and her grandma is like, you look really sad. What's wrong? And she has to pretend like everything is fine. And her family keeps telling Billy, like, do not tell grandma. And she keeps being like, well, what if Nai Nai has things she

wants to take care of before she dies? Then after a big family dinner, Nai Nai is coughing a lot, and she ends up going to the hospital. So the entire family rushes there. She gets some x-rays and the doctor confirms that most families in China would choose not to tell their grandma that they are dying, which Billy challenges and says, again, isn't it wrong to lie? Won't she be upset when she eventually does find out she's dying and uh the family's like no because nainai did the same thing she lied to her dying husband and didn't help tell him until the very end of his life and then the family goes and visits billy's grandfather's grave. And then her uncle Hyben tells Billy that they're withholding this information

because they are bearing the emotional burden for Nai Nai because the East just has a greater focus on community and like a person being part of a larger whole, while the West, which is what Billy is used to as an American, is more about individualism and like the self and taking care of one's self. Then it's time for the big wedding banquet, where different members of the family start like breaking down and crying and saying kind of like a veiled goodbye to Nai Nai I mean veiled is questionable too I mean when the uncle gives his speech this is like and of course this wedding is dedicated to my mom for some reason and you're like oh yeah and the groom's crying and i mean the more you the more you summarize i'm like the grandma knew okay the grandma knew how did she not know everyone's

falling apart around her right and it's like we get every hint that she's like really observant and calls people out of their bullshit constantly so it's like she she knew yeah and she lied too to her husband right so right like how would she not think and she's chinese and lives in china so she knows this is what people do right there's no way she didn't know anyway she's also gone to the hospital several times with what are clearly health problems yeah but it's just like a tiny cold every time or allergies, you know, but we all say that here, right? Like that's nothing.

That's something like I never hear like my family say or like when I was in Asia, allergies is definitely a thing here that people are like, oh, it's just allergies. And I'm like, no, you clearly have. I think it's emphysema. And they're like, no, it's like it sounds really bad. And everyone always says it's allergies. Yeah. and they're like no it's or like it sounds really bad and everyone always says it's allergies yeah a classic deflection right right right and i'm pretty sure you have covet they're like no no it's no it's hay fever yeah it's that season it's it's like astrology it's like gemini

season right right happy gemini season everybody wow um so billy is holding it together as best she can and then nainai's x-ray results come back so billy has to rush to the hospital to grab them and then the family has to like alter them so that they say that nainai is indeed in good health and then it's time for billy to leave china and say goodbye to nainai and then she goes back to new york oh but also nainai gives her a bunch of money before she yes and that was the moment where i'm like she knows she knows she just knows yeah she's just making sure to not say it out loud. Because maybe if you don't, yeah. Yeah.

Right. She's like, it might seem like I'm settling my affairs right now. But no, it's just because I gave your cousin a wedding present. So I figured I'd give you some money too. It's only fair. Right. I didn't think about the money part. In fact, i forgot about

it see this is why i love the summary you know every time y'all do it the the money part i was like back and forth the whole movie and like she has to know right she has to know and then when the money part happened i was like she knows she knows hard to say um but then the movie ends with a video of writer director lulu wang's real life nai nai and then there's like text that says six years after her diagnosis nai nai is still with us so she did not die she lived and we're like woohoo oh god truly look that last slide saying that the real life nai nai is okay was yeah such a relief i truly just uh exhaled i'm like wow now i can sleep tonight amazing no well i didn't sleep because then i was like well okay so i'm watching this two years after those those those uh titles were written you know what i'm saying so it's like why i don't know if

she's still alive also you know this whole movie came out okay lulu wang was at the golden globes right i'm like okay they're still keeping this a secret you know what i'm saying um i mean china sure she lives in china but it's like they have the internet you know so i was curious i went deep diving what what did you find out i think that grandma's still alive but then she kind of has an inkling now or something because of lulu wang's golden globe did lulu wang win aquafina wanted something anyway somehow like she read an article or something like there's a whole ass movie about her yeah like a really famous movie i read that she found out because of her sister because they shot the movie like a block away from real life lulu wang's nai nai like her neighbor like a block

away from where she lives so she found out while they were filming but actually that's what i read but then i heard lulu wang talk in interviews about the movie and she also made it seem like she still doesn't know maybe she just like knew that lulu wang made a movie that was about her but not the details or something yeah yeah a block away i'm like all these people are trying to get caught okay these people are trying to they just want to tell each other and that's what happens when you keep a secret that's you know a big lie like this it's like i think you want to tell them and you feel guilty so you're like i'm gonna just shoot the film a block away from grandma's you know if she goes on a walk she goes on a walk when she goes on a walk

yeah and as the grandma i'm gonna give her the money you know, as if I don't know that I am indeed, you know, have what, what was it? Stage four lung cancer. I feel for these people, you know, just the leaps and bounds and all kinds of things you go through, just like, not just tell each other the truth. It's such a burden. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere,

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Right. I have a question for you too. Yes. If you were to make a movie about your family and you did not want them to know, how far away would you film from them? Not in the same state, at least. Okay, okay, not in the same state at least. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I would, um, my family and I are separated by around 3000 miles cause they all live on the East coast. So, um, yeah, I feel pretty good about that distance. Okay, cool.

Yeah. Yeah. What about you? I would, well, okay. So my family really are super offline, except for my grandma. So, like, if it was about my grandma, my grandma would know. But if it's other family, I would probably feel safe being okay, like, filming even, like, you know, in a different area code but like even southern california or something that's that's how disconnected they are so i would probably feel safe sure yeah yeah even just like 20 minutes away that's i feel like that's all you need because it's like 20 minutes is just

far enough that it's like what are the like it would take a big coincidence for them to stumble upon one block really is that's like edging location yeah yeah no exactly like there's yeah if it was 20 minutes away you're right unless i texted them like hey you know be here right right at this location meet me for lunch that's how i send out my call sheets i'm like meet me here at this place 6 a.m bring shoes it's like a ransom note yes yes that's so funny uh i guess yeah to to start i mean there just, there's so much to talk about here. There's, like, I guess if we start with Billie and, like, who she is as a character. I mean, we, like, see her at the beginning, like, in this extremely American, like, American millennial thing where it's, like, she's, I don't know, in her late 20s and like struggling as a writer

and is applying for all these fellowships and like struggling with money but doesn't want to talk about it and like all these very recognizable things and then and then for most of the movie we're watching her kind of like straddle across I mean that's the whole movie is her straddling across the values of two different cultures and like figuring out how she actually feels it's cool i i feel like there's not a lot of uh not a lot of movies especially mainstream movies um like this that like even address that at all even though it's a very common uh a very common thing yeah yeah do is this considered mainstream you think i guess i just say mainstream because it like got so much award attention uh sure yeah yeah yeah yeah but i don't know i mean it's i was interested in like because there was a whole controversy about this movies like during award season where it was like put in i feel like this happens

all the time where it was like put in the like best foreign language movie and oh there was it oh yeah at at the golden globes and then in the at the academy awards they have different rules and lulu wang talked about it pretty extensively about, you know, just challenging those decisions and like challenging like this is an American movie. It was made by an American. You know, the main character is an American. It's an American drama. But the way that award shows are built doesn't accommodate a story like this. And like, why is that and i don't know there's she gave a

lot of really interesting interviews that kind of like challenged just i mean and that's been fortunately i think like a lot of the last couple years is just challenging what a shit show and how like extremely rigidly white movie award shows are. And I vaguely remember that being a discussion when this movie was like in the award season. But reading the interviews in depth was really interesting. Yeah. Right. It's like what 50% it has to be 50% English spoken or something.

Yeah. I think Golden Globes or something. I do remember that just because it happened again this year right um with minari right yeah where it just seems like those categories like need to be revisited and just they need to be modernized basically right a new test a new test well because maybe like y'all's goal is to like one day where the Bechdel test isn't needed anymore, right? Or I don't know. I want your podcast to keep going.

So maybe you do. I mean, I feel like as I mean, even like between the time the show started and now it's like become, I mean, not that representation's gotten so wildly better but it has like improved in the last five years the show's been on for five goddamn years no yeah well that's why like but there's so many films to like revisit from like decades ago and stuff and so there's so many more shreks, I mean. Stop it. There's a fifth one on the way. How many what?

No, stop. Wait, what? There's a fifth Shrek. Wait, I missed the fourth. And I just found out about the third, honestly, talking to you all today. And you went to the fifth. So can you just tell me, there's's kids is it like about the kids now or something they start having kids i think that's the third movie there's a new generation of shreks yes and okay and then what is shrek forever after i just remember going on a date in high school

forever after yeah i i've seen up to shrek 3 i have not seen shrek 4 there's also like spinoffs there's like a puss in boots movie which i i skipped that one true well that's your mistake i thought it was a blast uh shrek forever After they bring in Rumpelstiltskin. I vaguely remember this. Yeah. Got it. They expand the universe. That's the guy who says riddles. I think so.

Yeah. He wants to steal babies from people. So he's like, give me your, I'll spend you some gold, but you have to promise me you're first born or he's also like what's my name what's my name i forget what kinky he wants okay here's what's my motherfucking name i'll tell i'll tell you the story of rumples stilt skin and then we'll get back to the farewell yeah i don't i don't think i know this story this sounds fucked up okay so rumple stiltz skin there's like this young maiden who someone's like we need someone to spin this room full of hay into

gold or something like that and she's like i can do it and she like makes this promise that she can do it but it turns out she can she's like oh no what i'm gonna what am i gonna do with this room full of hay or whatever and then rumple stilt skin shows up and he's like guess what i know how to spin hay into gold and i'll do it for you but you have to promise me your firstborn child and she's like sure that's that's fine. Rumpelstiltskin's that guy who takes your firstborn child. Okay, sorry, I just said he's the guy that tells riddles. That was, yeah, that's so. There's so much more to it. There's more layers that I was missing.

I didn't know. I thought he was like the Riddler. And then he's like, he's like, but he's like he's like but he's like if you can guess my name i won't okay so wait but that doesn't happen yet i don't think so she so he gives her like the the hay gold or whatever and then i think a few other things happen and then she has a baby and then rumble stiltzkin comes to collect and he's like you give me your baby and she's like no i made that promise and i didn't mean it then he's like well screw you uh but if you can guess my name i won't take your baby and then somehow she overhears him saying his name and then he comes to collect the baby again and she's like no rumple stiltzkin you cannot have my baby. And he's like, oh, damn it. You knew my name.

All right, I'll leave now. And that's the story. Hold on. Okay, you need to have me back. Please have me back for this fifth Shrek. Okay, I take it back. I really want to come back. Wait, Shrek, when does Shrek 5 come out?

Shrek 5 comes out wait why won't they tell me we don't need to schedule it now but no that was really you know i was at the edge of my seat isn't that a riveting story it comes out next year oh wow i can hardly wait what's gonna happen next? Oh, I already know. Because if Shrek's having babies, right? Maybe it's one of the babies that Rebel Stillskin tries to.

I don't know. Anyway, that's my guess. Well, back to this movie. Back to the farewell. Oh, yeah. movie back to the farewell oh yeah we were talking about um awards and how they are not these like prestigious awards and how they are not accommodating to stories like this which is an american story made by an american director told from the point of view of an american and even though a lot of this movie takes place in another country and is in

a language other than English, but because a lot of awards, like you said, cater to like white American monolingual English language centric stories, and they tend to forget that a lot of Americans are immigrants or come from immigrant families and or they speak languages besides English at home or in their communities and these are still very much American stories featuring American characters but these awards institutions treat these movies like they're not it's just like operates on a really rigid version of like what being american is that like has not made sense for a really really long time yeah for sure right i just think i mean for me you know these rules the 50 50 thing it just depends on who's watching because you know people who make the i mean hillbilly elegy i would contend as a you know

foreign film for for me you know what i'm saying like if we had to go there because you know i just um don't know the world and you know what i'm saying but it doesn't make it not american here i am defending it you know it doesn't not make it american they're just as american as we are and they deserve to be at the ceremonies and it's like something i i thought was like when i was just doing like research in the background of this movie like I feel like nothing like hits that point home clearer than the fact that like Chinese audiences were not very interested in this movie it made like three dollars in China and it seems like there is a

whole variety article on it that will link in the description but it seems to boil down to the fact that this is like a very culturally normal thing to do in china and so everyone was kind of like yes so what like why is there a whole movie about this like very normal thing where i feel like to americans it's it for for a lot of americans they just didn't know that this was a cultural practice and that like you know watching an american character navigate it was like really compelling and really interesting um right so yeah i mean it's not news that award shows are like extremely out of touch and racist and not up to date in any way but there you go what's the biggest lie your family member a family member has told you and then they were like oh just kidding

oh that's a good one that's a good question i don't know i feel like my family was like too honest with me too young and it had like a different kind of negative impact where like when i was seven or eight my grandma told me at a mother's day breakfast that my mom had had miscarriages like a ton of miscarriages before me and that they were they were angels following me around and i got really scared oh my god but that was so so that's an example of like a super truthful statement that was kind of scary it was too like a super truthful statement. That was kind of scary. It was too real too soon for me anyways. Because then I got scared that there were like these teenage ghosts following me around and it freaked me out.

Oh, my God. That is like I like that they're teenage ghosts and not like fetuses. I imagine them aging as ghosts in real time. I was like, oh, they'd be she'd be like 14 15 so i like got kicked out of school for drawing all these like ghosts i was like oh these are my dead brothers and sisters they follow me around anyways it was it was so too honest was my family's problem yeah my family didn't really they didn't tell me outright lies it was more just about like oh like i'll wait till you're older and then i'll tell you that i had two

abortions this is my mom when i was like an abortion also abortion oh my gosh a lot of drama. Yeah. My mom, when I was in my mid-20s, she's like, and it was actually prompted by the death of my grandma. She was like, oh, no, I'm going to die sometime. So I better tell my children things that I want them to know before I die. So my mom called me and she's like, I just want you to know, and this might, you know, tarnish what you think of me, but I did have two abortions before you and your siblings were born. And I was like, Mom, that makes you way cooler than I thought you were. So thanks for sharing. So yeah, it was like more stuff like that. But yeah, I don't think I was like outright lied to about anything major yeah yeah because she still told you yeah oscar did your family ever tell you any like bizarro like lies when you were when you were younger yeah this was a big one um the farewell i connect to it not just because of like cultural stuff or the grandma stuff you know but a lot of it yeah where it's like even like aquafina's real life she was raised by her grandma and so was i and

i feel like there's a lot of asian asian stories where it's there's a grandma if there's like a like if it's following a woman um i think like in hustustler too not number two I mean T-O-O right Constance Wu's grandma anyway I don't want to spoil that movie because yeah I know people aren't listening to get spoiled on Hustler

right now but anyway was it called Hustler? Hustlers I forgot about that detail. Yeah, that she's like part of the reason she's working at the club is to help support her grandma. I forgot about that. Yeah.

And there's a grandma in Fresh Off the Boat. There's always a grandma. I don't know. They live long. Nora from Queens, too. Which is loosely based on Awkwafina's life. But yeah, she lives with her grandma yeah but in my case for the farewell like i feel like i was i wasn't like i was the grandma in the grandma's

position my mom and grandma lied about how long we were gonna come to the states for they lied to me about they said we were coming for a two- vacation, which is, I feel like a lot of undocumented immigrants, it's a thing the family say. We're just here. And then you just never leave. Right. Yeah, yeah. And so that, yeah, that was the main lie. But I didn't know, you know, I didn't know for a long time.

Well, I knew when I was like, well, it's been two months, y'all. And, you know, our tourist visas were only for two months long. And then my grandma was like, and then she enrolled me in school. And suddenly I was in school. And then like a year went by. And you're like, I don't think this is a two month vacation anymore. Long as hell. The rest of our stuff got shipped from Japan.

But she still tried to sit me down to tell me like when I was like 17, when I was trying to get my driver's license. I was like, I want to drive like the other kids. And then she was like, oh, you can't because you don't have a social security number because you're undocumented and i was like yeah i think i had a feeling yeah i know bitch yeah i i know we overstayed our visas i i know that it's it was just wild that she still felt the need to tell me the truth. So it was like withholding. We never talked about it because it was like maybe too painful for me. I missed all my friends.

I didn't really say, I didn't say bye to them. I didn't say bye to my dad because I thought I was going back after a summer vacation. And then, yeah, anyway. I love that my grandma still tried to tell me though. She did her due diligence due diligence she lied to me your grandma is iconic she truly i mean she's a social media star she's she's a liar that's what she is she's exposed

um i mean but that's why movies like this are so important. That's why, you know, we say it all the time, but why representation is important because they expose audiences to cultures and communities and philosophies that some people might not otherwise have much exposure to. So movies like this can be like an educational tool. Like the first time I watched this movie, similar to Billy, I was astonished that the characters would choose not to tell a family member that she was dying. But then later when different characters explained to Billy about how they're carrying the burden for her because in Eastern philosophy, there's a greater emphasis on a person's role in a group and how they are part of a larger whole, while Western and American culture is all about the individual and, you know, like picking yourself up by your bootstraps and stuff. And then I was like, oh, like, I totally get that now. Yeah.

And yeah, I just thought it was really cool that one of the major themes of this movie was the exploration of these cultural and ideological differences. And I thought Lulu Wang handled that all very thoughtfully. I think the only way they could have made Billie more American in this was if she then went on to tell it on This American Life or another podcast. Because that's a very American thing to do. To be like, well, my story needs to be heard. Well, my grandma's story needs to be heard. NPR or, you know, whatever.

Right. Or like, I'm going to start, I'm going to do stand-up comedy and I'm going to tell this story on stage. That kind of is like the full circle where it's like, Lulu Wang is giving you all this information and educating you and all this stuff. And then it's like, but ultimately, my story must be told. Yes. this stuff and then it's like but ultimately my story must be told yes i think that would be actually like that's my only note uh yeah the the the scenes where i mean there's a lot of

scenes in this movie where the cultural differences between the u.s and china are hit on and they kind of like when I was watching it back I was like oh they kind of cover like a lot of ground here where um I mean there's like the most obvious plot point is the fact that Billie is really uh off-put and kind of like freaked out at first by the idea of withholding information from her grandma about her own health and they literally they're like in america this is illegal and like that's why she's struggling with it um and then i like that scene with her with her uncle where he like he lays it out pretty clearly he says we're not telling nainai because it's our

duty to carry this emotional burden for her and watch how uh how that like affects billy and how that like changes her to an extent but not but like not entire i don't know it felt yeah realistic where it was like well she's not going to unlearn her entire american her entire this american life in like one trip but like she does she does understand it better and it's like i don't know taking that journey with her was really interesting but then there's like conversations at the dinner table about college and about like career decisions and like choosing a career of passion for less money versus like something that will guarantee you becoming rich and like they're just having these debates over dinner a lot that i was like oh this is i don't know it's so seamless in

the way that the movie runs that i didn't even like i don't know i was watching it the second time i was like oh they're like lulu wang is covering a lot of ground here and like stuff that isn't even necessarily plot relevant but it still kind of fits into the conversation. Yeah, because I mean, this major theme that the whole movie kind of hinges on is this idea of like the duality of Billy's like culture and identity. And, you know, she has Chinese heritage, but she's ultimately raised as an American with American ideology and just like grappling with that. And that's such a relatable experience for especially like first generation Americans. And there's just not a whole lot of movies that explore that so yeah it's just

really cool to see yeah I guess the like fully Americanized version would be I guess they all just tell the grandma at Thanksgiving or something yeah it's Thanksgiving dinner. And they all like tell her or like one person tells her, right? Right. Yeah. And then I don't know. I don't know that version. You know what I'm saying? I actually don't know what that version would be because that's not how my family operates either.

My family is like more like secrets. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to picture i don't know it's just like a close elder family member of mine they would just they would be the ones to find out that they were dying like from the doctor directly oh oh that's true my grandfather's been sick for a really long time but like there was never like he just is always no they're just like yeah man you're 92 oh you know what yes that makes me think you know maybe like the more american thing is

which makes me really sad actually is like people like suffer quietly like they're the ones that are dealing with it and maybe so the secret would be that like the person with the ailment or illness doesn't want to tell their family maybe they don't want to yeah actually that is i feel like i've seen a lot of american movies like that where someone knows that they're sick they are withholding that information from their family because they don't want to burden their family with it and it yeah it's such i wonder how much that has to do with like americanized health care too where like there's right you know all these stories about people who are sick but like can't afford for all these horrible reasons but like can't afford to treat their own illness

and so they just don't talk about it because they're like well what else am i gonna do or like that the burden being not even emotional but like financial like they're i've i've had family members that didn't want their family to like go broke you know treating an illness and so they just didn't mention the illness wow we're fucked yeah oh and then instead they go and do like a bucket list i feel like that's another movie i think it's called that yeah yeah yeah right they're like well i'm gonna go um like jet skiing you know it's something i haven't done before or something i don't know that am i making up movies no that movie is definitely morgan freeman and jack nicholson not gonna watch it uh i don't know i bet it starts with a cancer diagnosis though something like yeah god you know let's go do you want to come back when we talk

about that movie does it even work are there even any isn't it just men in the movie isn't it just the two of them yeah i think it's just the boys on a road trip but those are those are some fun movies because we can just uh talk about toxic masculinity the whole time wait just based on okay first of all the poster for this movie is so bizarre it's uh morgan freeman which he's got his arm around jack nicholson jack nicholson's holding a glass of champagne there's there's three pictures one of them is them at the egyptian pyramids there's a picture there's a picture there's a picture of them about to jump out of a plane together and there's a picture of them on a motorcycle together but you can tell on the poster that all of the pictures are photoshopped so i have no idea what's going on in this movie at all but like

they're not at the pyramids here and they're not on a motorcycle together it has 41 on rotten tomatoes so we obviously it's an urgent there's an urgent need to cover this i want to know what happens at the pyramid so yeah i'll probably check it out well i just want to know if they actually if they go and just take a picture outside of it like is that because that's yeah yeah or just like you know anyway hard say. Only one way to find out. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for more discussion. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist

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every thursday listen on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back uh let's talk about a little bit more about nai nai and and her relationship with i i feel like usually when we have older characters in movies at all there's so many tropes attached to grandma characters that are avoided by this movie just like because the movie is never punching down at her and we just get to know more about her like she has a like complicated history and backstory and i liked that like you know you're introduced to her as like oh she's like this really you know charismatic matriarch and we love her and she's great but then you also see scenes where she's kind of being an asshole to people you see scenes where you know you find out that she has also like engaged

with this lie before like you just get this whole backstory for her and you see all these sides of her that i feel like you don't usually get for for older characters in in family movies at all definitely yeah we talked recently on a episode that might not have come out yet but just the grandma character in a lot of movies is basically there as a joke right or that they're there to like generate comedy because everyone's like oh grandma doing a grandma thing again or oh grandma grandma forgot something or grandma couldn't hear you or something like that just like that string of betty white rolls from like the late 2000s is there a grandma test is there we should make no but we should make one grandma test if there's a grandma in the movie does she just is she just there for comic relief or does

she have like a role in this story oh we were talking about it in our knives out episode yes yes yes yes so that's coming out right around now on the matreon yeah that because that's a movie that does adhere to that trope of like grandma isn't aware of her surroundings and grandma doesn't know anything so grandma dies that should be part of the test yeah does she die she died god it's so bleak and this one this one would almost you you would think it would fail the test but then at the end it doesn't fail the test right she lives right well that's mostly to protect um potential viewers hearts right emotions uh-huh i really do feel like i wish i could have gone into this movie Well, that's mostly to protect potential viewers hearts. Right. Emotions.

Uh huh. I really do feel like I wish I could have gone to this movie knowing that she was okay. Because you just have I mean, maybe I'm sure that's a part of it. But we're like, being filled with that dread the whole movie and just like, No, I love her. Don't. And then at the end, they're like, and she's fine. You're like, Oh, okay, great. Yeah.

Great. I'm like, well, show me 30 more minutes of actual footage of her because they showed some yeah they showed some but i was like show me more show me more where's the sequel yeah she's still alive yeah from what i can tell she's still alive um or she she was alive at the time this movie came out so I hope she's doing well I feel like if she died Lu Lu Wang would tell us I don't know maybe I'm like maybe that maybe I'm being a parasocial relationship

like maybe I'm just like she'd tell me but I'm like I don't know her she could lie to us I don't know that's I mean you know so far you know I mean she did participate in that one lie so that's true I don't know

she could you know part two who knows but she's gonna tease us she's gonna like shoot it a block like in LA where we can all see it she's gonna shoot it right in Los Angeles wherever you know most of the farewell fans are or something and be like guess what we're filming you'll never know but

aquafina is in it and the same actress who played her grandma she would do that to us yeah who is who is amazing too i i looked up her history zhao shu zhen and she she was like I guess a famous theater actress in China and hadn't ever done a film role this is like her first film role but she was like wow a theater icon I was like oh that's so cool yeah Nai Nai is so interesting because I feel like she I don't I don't know how to like there should be like a word to describe this and maybe it exists and I don't know what it is but like she has these qualities that are like characteristic of her generation but it isn't like over the top and she does like compromise with Billy about it where she like says oh what are you gonna get married you need

someone to take care of you and Billy pushes back and she's like i can take care of myself i'm fine and then she brings up like nainai has this like boyfriend question mark who's just like right mr lee who is kind of trash and nainai is like oh whatever mr lee he's just here. And Billy's like, well, what about your trash boyfriend? And Nai Nai's like, I see your point. I see your point. The moments like that with them are so fun. And then Nai Nai comes around because later at the wedding, there are a group of a few older men who ask Billy, like oh are you married and she's like not yet and then

nai nai jumps in and she's like no career first like she i feel like you know she's she's becoming a feminist icon i didn't even realize those things i think i overlooked that that's cool yeah because all i heard was like, doctor, are you married yet? And I think I just like for some reason turned it off in my head. But yeah, that's cool that it was more layered actually. Yeah, they learn from each other. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I think I'm just like, maybe I have my own test where I'm like, you know, it's my people. So I get like, maybe protected where I'm like, not every grandma asks about, you know, marriage or doctors, you know, like, where I want to do that. But, you know, that's not Lulu's fault. I mean, that's also a thing that a lot of white grandmas do where they're always asking you about if you're married yet so but then they also talk about so many other things you know it's just that's not what's shown yeah that's true yeah yeah i i like how the those two characters like they both kind of compromise where i feel like it would have been like a really easy thing to be like billy's like no grandma you need to like think like an american and do like and just and then it becomes kind of like propaganda-y like western propaganda stuff right but they they like listen to each other and they kind of like meet in the middle in a way that

feels like oh this this feels like a healthy family relationship it was cool yeah yeah and i like that oh at that in that it might be in that same wedding scene where those older guys are at the table with them but you find out a little more about nainai where there's this like guy that's been like holding a what how do you holding a flame for her for like 50 years where he's like yeah you know i really wanted to marry you and like all this like you know that like where he's like yeah you know i really wanted to marry you and like all this like you know that like where he's just talking about yes how he's like i love you it's like she's a mystery he really i wonder if that's pulled from uh from real life because he was he was a he was a wild card

i feel like so much of it is lulu wang's. We're just inspired by details from her and her family's life. Because, for example, the person who plays Nai Nai's sister in the movie is Nai Nai's real sister. Like Lulu Wang's. Her great aunt. Yeah. That's so that wasn't like a trained actor or anything. That was just she put her great aunt in the movie in the same role. High level secrets are being kept.

That's so wild. Way to keep it secret. Yeah. Way to make it harder. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So many wild card elements. Wait, did they shoot in the grandma's house too at some point?

Wouldn't be surprised. Her actual house while she was sleeping maybe and then you have like the relationship between billy and her mom to like i don't know there's so many like different very specific family relationships that like you don't always get a lot of time with them but they feel like the dynamics are really well written and clear where like billy is definitely closer with nina than she is with her mom and her mom is like a little i don't even know how to like she's just like less emotionally expressive and is very like practical like i do what i have to do and i'm not gonna like she she kind of like pokes at billy for like crying and have to do and I'm not gonna... She kind of pokes at Billie for crying. And she's like,

well, I'm not just gonna cry about stuff like you do. I was like, ooh, okay, mom. But you also... I don't know. I mean, there's the... I feel like the mom... When this movie came out, Awkwafina's performance

and Zhao Shuzhen's performance were so, I mean, like, rightfully so spotlighted. But I thought the actress who played the mom was so good and, like, deserved more of a shout out. Her name is Diana Lin. dealing with having an alcoholic husband in a way that doesn't really take over the story but is like clearly a reality that she just feels like i just have to deal with this there's no point in expressing emotion about it this is just what it is um and and has like these differences with her daughter that keep coming up of like differences on how they're grieving differences on how they view america where like the mom there's like that story about the church key thing where they just view the u.s very differently and i don't know i just i liked i liked all of her story beats it felt like

she was a very fleshed out character that kind of i don't know i just really liked her yeah and then aquafina is like mom that church is not representative of all of america right but yeah i mean like the relationships and the characters in this movie yeah they're like we're just really well developed and they feel very authentic. And it's obviously because they're based on real people. Because I feel like in a lot of movies where there's like, for example, a really tropey grandma character or like a really tropey mother daughter relationship. They're written by people who are basing those characters off of tropes they saw in other movies right where like rather than like basing them off of characters like off of real people it's like this whole like tropes beget more tropes kind of thing where some writers are like

well i'm writing a movie with a grandma character in it. And this is how I've seen other grandmas depicted in movies. Yeah. So I'll just write that. It is. I mean, it's like, I totally agree with you. And you really can tell when there's like particularly male writers writing out mother-daughter relationships i feel like sometimes come off as super just dissonant of like is this how you think your family talks

when you're not around sir right yeah yeah and i mean lulu wang is just like such a good distinct writer and it just feels very very natural for sure yeah like you said like when the writer is basing things off of their real lived experiences and the real people in their lives like it's no wonder that you get these rich authentic characters and situations like you see in the farewell it's true um and then another scene i wanted to talk about was where they're looking for billy's cousin's future his wife's earring and billy has a breakdown because she's again she's been grappling with this dilemma of like, I really think that we should tell Nai Nai that she's ill and everyone else keeps being like, no, no, no, under no circumstances will we do that. kind of childhood story of how she, before her family immigrated to the U.S., she would spend summers with her grandma and grandpa, and he was sick, and no one told him that he was sick,

and no one told little Billy that he was sick. So that, like, after they went to the U.S. and he died, and then when they would go back to visit he wasn't there anymore and how like confusing and tragic that was because she never had the opportunity to say goodbye and when she was you know like her early life in the U.S. she was scared and confused and she saw that same kind of frightened look on her mother's face and you know they're just like kind of explaining all of those emotions and her mom is like yeah it was difficult for us too and just that kind of whole experience and like the performance that Aquafina is giving in that scene is just like oh that part really got me because it was like well but different

kind of story but yeah it was like like i still think about japan even though it's not my home anymore but it's such a harsh realization where it's like and i think i was always scared i always had like separation anxiety my grandma would be like well you're gonna be independent soon now you know and but it's because like grandma didn't tell me we were gonna stay here so i didn't say bye to my friends when i went back to japan when i finally could they were no longer my friends they had moved on you know when i finally got my green card i could leave the country legally yeah that part i was like oh my god um i mean not to make it about me but you know

well what an American thing to do well I am on a podcast so like you know I do want to I do want to talk about Awkwafina's great performance but also my life so what about my performance

just on this podcast I mean you're doing great yeah we should have done Shrek no no I'm just kidding

have we talked about her dad at all I don't know how much i don't think so just that he seems to maybe be struggling with alcoholism oh that was the moment with nainai where i was like nainai what are you doing where she like super contradicts herself in a way that i was like really feeling for billy's mom in that moment where like when they first arrived nai nai is like hey is he drinking again like we really need to be careful that he's not drinking too much and then like a half hour later he's drinking too much and billy's mom was like

hey stop and nai nai's like let him drink and i let him oh my god yeah what are you literally my grandma used to do that with my dad not good not good yeah i forget was she going through something is that why she changed her mind or she just did that i couldn't tell i thought that that was like an interesting character moment for her where like i feel like she has kind of like a shiny halo for a lot of the movie and in that moment i'm like you has kind of like a shiny halo for a lot of the movie and in that moment i'm like you're being a like you're being mean to billy's mom like why why i think it was just like the the wedding coming up and it was like cause for celebration and she keeps being like well this is the first time like we've all been together right as a

family in like 25 years or something. So like, let's enjoy ourselves. And I was like, but what about yesterday, Nina? You said this literally yesterday. Anyways. But yeah, the actor who plays Billy's dad is Tse Ma, who I've seen in a bunch of stuff. Like, he's an iconic character actor. He did an amazing job. Everyone, just the...

I remember him. I was like, oh, the guy from Arrival. He was in... Oh. Yeah. Because we covered that pretty recently. Right. Anyways.

So, I mean, it's just... The performances in this movie all around are incredible, including from people who are not actors, such as like Lulu Wang's great aunt. I would not have guessed that. Yeah, I wouldn't have guessed that she wasn't a professionally trained actor. Yeah. Right. I wonder who else. The bride.

Does she have lines? I forget. I feel like she didn't get to say much right she barely said anything i think she i'm going i'm looking on imdb and the cast of the movie of the ones that have photos of themselves next to their name those are like more established actors and the people who do not have photos next to their name i'm guessing they are not really established or trained actors and i would say like half of the cast are not necessarily oh cool trained famous uh yeah actors at all so um but. But that's just a testament to Lulu Wang's directing skills

and how she's able to get such good performances out of people who are not necessarily trained actors. Yeah. This is awesome. Yeah. What else? Any other thoughts about the movie? Not for me.

Not really. Yeah, I liked the um let me see if i had anything else in the car i liked the scene where they mourned the uh grandfather i that was just like learning moment for me i didn't know um hey everybody uh post episode jamie and caitlin uh i wasn't fully aware of this uh when we recording the episode, but I wanted to make sure it was acknowledged. Awkwafina has been criticized repeatedly over the years for appropriating black aesthetics, starting with her early rap career. It is, to my knowledge, not something she's ever addressed publicly. And it doesn't really apply in the movie The Farewell. But that has been kind of some of the nature of the criticism where she appropriates black aesthetics in certain roles, and then in other roles, doesn't. And so it becomes pretty clear what's being done. She is not the only person to have done this. There are,

I mean, there's a huge history in music and movies and TV of doing this, but I just wanted to share for context, this, this quote, and we'll link this in the description of the episode as well. This is an opinion piece from the Duke Chronicle from last year, a piece called On Awkwafina Appropriation and Asian American Identity by a writer named Hannah Mao. I hope I'm saying that correctly. And here is the kind of summary of what the piece is about. She says, quote, Many have rightly criticized Awkwafina for rising to stardom

through an appropriation of black aesthetics. From her viral rap song, My Vag, to her breakout role as Pecklin Goh in Crazy Rich Asians, Awkwafina has made a career out of performing a caricatured version of blackness. Co-opting African-American vernacular English, AAVE, speaking in a quote unquoteunquote black scent and playing characters that could be interpreted as minstrel-esque. Awkwafina has a worn blackness like a costume, putting it on when it commercially rewards her in Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean's 8 and taking it off when it does not, like in The Farewell and her newest project, Nora from Queens. It's a really good piece, we'll link it, that discusses other entertainers who have

have done similar things but i just wanted to acknowledge it in in this episode as well thank you jamie yeah i think that's that's kind of all i had i just like that like you see a like a ton of different like relationships between women from different generations i feel like is already like a super rare thing to see like written thoughtfully in movies especially between like billy her mom and nainai like three women with different perspectives on a lot of stuff and watching them like navigate life but still really care about each other even when like especially with billy and her mom like could not be more different but like are both coming from like very understandable genuine places i just i don't know i love i love a movie with multiple generations of women um

disagreeing on things so i think that's just a genre that i like hashtag relatable yeah same yeah hashtag i live in it um one of my favorites was gray gardens oh my god when you said when you said yeah different generations of women disagreeing with each other or you know having to like figure it out together yeah they're kind of they're kind of codependent we gotta i'm like i know it's i know it's a documentary but we should maybe just cover i was only being steel magnolias it's like all about women get a good fight like in in understandable like not baseless conflict. Because then I feel like you just get real acting performances and it's very exciting.

Anyways, I don't have any more notes. I'm excited to see what Lulu Wang does next too. I know that she's got a science fictiony project in the works right now that i'm like i don't know much about but it sounds pretty interesting and i just hope that you know that because this was like the movie that like really launched her career that she'll you know get to make a bunch of cool shit and get the kind of blank check treatment that we see with a lot of white guy directors because she's super talented.

I'm excited to see her work in a different genre too. I was like, ooh, what is a Lulu Wang sci-fi movie going to look like? Sci-fi, yeah, totally. Ooh, I hope it shoots a block away from my house. Whatever it is. Whatever it is. I just want to get a peek.

I just want a peek. What if you get cast to be the star? Or I'll just be in the background. I don't care. I'll just point out whatever the scary thing is. I'm just assuming there's a scary thing there i mean probably that's where that's where the sigh comes in yes yes yeah yeah um well the movie does definitely pass the bechdel test yeah a lot billy i think there are probably more

conversations between billy and nai nai than any other combination i didn't like track this scientifically but um yeah billy and nai nai billy and her mom billy and we didn't talk about her her aunt but billy and her aunt talk quite a bit as well yeah i feel like men are definitely present in the story, but like not not overwhelmingly. So they're there. And they're emoting too. Yeah. Yeah.

Men. Yeah. It's just like a really beautiful family dynamic that we're seeing where like different family members disagree for different reasons some of them are cultural reasons some of them are just because they have different personalities like it's just very emblematic of how families work and yeah this is just like a very relatable story about complicated family dynamics which is something that everyone can relate to. Because like, I think there's a tendency for American Hollywood, like movie studios to assume like, oh, well, this has an all Asian cast, and they're not speaking English most of the time. So there's no way this

would appeal to American audiences. Because there's just so much bias when it comes to what studios and like your big Hollywood gatekeeper people think audiences will and won't relate to. But this movie and many movies like it are just very human stories that do have a wide appeal. Yeah. Because we're all people. Unless, yeah, unless you're Mr. Lee. Unless you're Mr. Lee and then for some reason.

You're just scum of the earth, yeah. Mr. Lee didn't even, Mr. Lee didn't even make the poster. He's the only character that didn't make the poster. Yeah, so we'll figure that out. Justice for Mr. Lee. Where's his spinoff? Maybe he'll pop up in Shrek 5.

We don't know. He's going to be the lead of the sci-fi movie yeah it's a whole sci-fi story where he's like a cyborg yes uh and then as far as our nipple scale which is our scale of zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. I didn't have a bad thing to say about this movie. So it's obviously going to get a high nipple rating. She's stalling for time. I'm stalling.

Pick a number, pick a number. Look, I'm going to withhold this information for the rest of the episode. No, I don't know. I'm just like, I feel like we just recorded an episode earlier today where we gave the movie five nipples. And I'm like, wait a minute. Am I about to give two movies in a row five nipples? Yeah.

Makes you feel unsure it makes me feel unsure but i mean just based on everything we talked about in terms of the way the women are characterized the way just the family dynamics are characterized right the relationships the exploration of billy's character's experience and the dilemma that she's feeling based on this like duality of her cultures i don't know i think it's like again i don't have any criticism jamie's like jamie's like just say five nipples? I'm getting so impatient. Jamie's like you can give two fives in one day.

I know but it's so rare to give five nipples that I'm like is this a mistake? We've been covering too many good movies is our problem. We keep choosing these movies that are really good. Which is why we movies that are. Really good. Which is why we need to cover Shrek 4.

Yeah. Guarantee it's not good. What if it is 5 though? What if we were like. Rumpelstiltskin moved me to tears. Yeah. Yeah. Or wait for. Mr. Lee strikes back.

Lulu's. Yeah. Lee Strikes Back. Lulu's, yeah, response to The Farewell, the sci-fi movie. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to give five nipples and I will distribute them to Lulu Wang, Xiao Shuzhen, who plays Nai Nai, to to Diana Lin who plays Billy's mom to the great aunt whose name is Lu Hong just everyone also Aiko who plays the the bride who's just for the bride she's just trying to figure out what's happening the whole she doesn't speak mandarin so she does not know what anyone is saying. I mean, honestly, I would be so pissed at my boyfriend or my fiance.

Right. Why isn't he translating for her? Yeah. I would be like, I can't believe you're making me do this. You know I don't have to. I'm a whole person. Yeah. Where's her spinoff movie that's another moment

where Nai Nai is an asshole where she's like I I hate this girl she doesn't know what's going on and and Billy's like yeah she has no idea what anyone is saying and Nai Nai is like anyway I know and she's like I don't even want to get married to him maybe maybe not even anymore you know what I'm saying right the whole the wedding is is like a sham just to get everyone together so I would break up with him after this whole thing I would I'd be like you made me you made me like force get forced into a marriage and like goes through all that family drama you don't even say much i don't you don't even have a personality goodbye yeah you know that's what i would do yeah fair fair so yeah those are my five nipples i'm gonna i'm gonna give uh i'm also gonna give the movie five

nipples because i really like it i really like a story about multiple generations of women. I feel like I've said everything that I want to say about it. I want to give it five nipples. And I'm going to give all of my nipples to Lulu Wang's real grandma who was a block away the whole time. I feel like that

adds a whole other level to the experience of the movie. She was steps away. And I was so happy to hear that she was still with us at the end. It was in a movie full of great parts. It is the finding out that the real Nai Nai is alive is the best part. I like gasped in the theater. I was like, wow, it's a feel good ending. Yeah, I love it.

Yeah, and I'm excited to see more of Lulu Wang's stuff in the future. Yeah. Atsuko, what about you? I'm going to have to give it four nipples for Aiko and her situation. Yeah. You know, the movie really crushed the other parts. I just really, I still think about her and her situation, so.

Yeah, there was room for a subplot with her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but that's the only reason. And I would give the four stars, four nipples, four nipples four nipples to um i mean i guess lula wang good job girl am i allowed to do that oh yeah whatever you want okay cool cool cool cool yeah and her friend no actually her friend like talked right and that's why the grandma found out oh the the sister the grandma's out. Oh, the sister?

The grandma's sister who was in the movie. Yeah. She got sucked up into the Hollywood glitz of it all. Like maybe real Nai Nai was like, so what have you been up to? And she's like, oh, I've been in this movie about, oops. Right.

Yeah. We'll never know. Well, Atsuko, it's always a pleasure to have you thank you so much for being here thank you for having me of course thank you for coming back um and we'll see you soon for shrek 4 or whatever shrek 5 shrek 3 shrek 2 2 anything Puss in Boots hey count me in I already know how many nipples I'm gonna give it

where can people follow you online and is there anything you'd like to plug I'm just at Otsco Comedy and you can just see what I'm up to there on the socials. Amazing. We're in all the regular places.

We're on Instagram, Twitter, at Bechtelcast. You can follow us on our Patreon, aka Matreon at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast where we're talking about Knives Out this week. And you can get merch at tpublic.com slash Bechdelcast, where we're talking about Knives Out this week. And you can get merch at tpublic.com slash thebechdelcast if that is your desire in life.

All true. These are not lies. These are not lies that we're telling you. We're not withholding any information at this time. We are telling you the truth. So thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next week bye thank you bye k 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. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles, two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson, 26-year-old Lynette Fromm,

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