The Bechdel Cast - The Haunted Mansion (2003) with Akilah Hughes

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

Real estate agents Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Akilah Hughes visit a spooky house and discuss Disney's The Haunted Mansion (2003). (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast Follow @AkilahObviously on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante, and @jamieloftusHELPSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Hey Jamie. Hey Caitlin. Do you want to talk about The Haunted Mansion 2003 with me? It'll only take 20 minutes tops. Oh I wonder if you're a dad that likes to work too much. The scariest thing of all. Someone who loves working in real estate. It's terrifying. And whose wife.

My wife. My wife. My his wife. Seems like she could really take or leave real estate. Yeah, she's my partner, my business partner. But also you never see her doing her job teehee yeehaw yeah sure i'm in let's do it awesome uh hello i'm caitlin dorante i'm jamie loftus and you're listening to the bechtel cast a show where we take your favorite movies and look at them with an intersectional feminist lens,

even if they're 83 minutes long. This movie is really wonderfully short. It really made me feel amazing. Yeah, we're covering a couple of movies from the early 2000s coming up, and I just was like, wow, there was a time where children's movies were aching to be 90 minutes and not like circling the two and a half hour mark just great stuff we're talking about the haunted mansion 2003 starring eddie murphy and i say who it's starring because i feel like he i think he's actually

credited before the title of the movie which is very movie star behavior i love it yeah eddie murphy's haunted mansion basically that's how i thought of it when i was like it's and by the end of the movie spoiler alert it is eddie murphy's haunted mansion he's got the deed he does own it yeah yeah um well first we should tell people what the show is uh we use uh so we're an intersectional feminist podcast we use the bechdel test as a jumping off point for discussing eddie murphy's haunted mansion but uh caitlin what is the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for discussing Eddie Murphy's Haunted Mansion but uh Caitlin what is the Bechdel test well gee whiz I'll tell you it is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel often called the Bechdel Wallace test

which has many different versions but the one that we use requires that two characters of a marginalized gender, they must have names, they must speak to each other, and their conversation has to be about something other than a man. Ideally for us, it's also a like narratively substantial conversation and not just like throwaway dialogue. And yeah, I guess we'll just get into it. But first, we have an incredible returning guest returning for i i love just when a guest has a wide swath of movies they want to cover because you've heard this guest on many shows including her own show but for for our purposes we did center stage and now we're doing eddie murphy's haunted mansion i mean the early 2000s gave and they took away uh it really did it was incredible uh and our guest of course is writer comedian and podcaster akilah hughes hi thank you for having me back we survived

the pandemic uh mostly intact if you want to call the surviving hello we're all rocking back and forth yeah we are we're all just in the womb great welcome back um akilah now if memory serves i was like we have to do the haunted mansion because the new one is coming out and you and i had been talking on instagram and i was like wait a minute here's this movie we want to do. Do you want to be the guest? So I basically forced you to do this and I'm so sorry, but also you're welcome. Yeah. Thank you so much. Um, so what is your relationship with the haunted mansion? Parentheses, Eddie Murphy. Um, well, I love Eddie Murphy, gotta say. You know, just a real king of comedy. I would say that, like most Eddie Murphy fans, really centering on, like, early 90s, late 80s,

Eddie Murphy was really my sweet spot. I did fall off. You know, I believe this is in the same era as Norbit, and I haven't seen Norbit either. So, you know, that gives you a sense. I was more of the nutty professor. I wonder if this show will last long enough that we would cover Norbit someday. Oh God, I hope no one has to see that.

That's how you know it's like, you know what? No, we're doing it. I think that we've run our course. Exhausted. We've exhausted the good movies worth talking about. Sure. And so I would say that I'm more of a fan of Eddie Murphy than I am of The Haunted Mansion. I did work at Disney World in 2008 and then again in 2010.

So I love the idea of The Haunted Mansion. As a person who worked there It was the only job that in Tower of Terror where you weren't forced to smile So like I had a lot of reverence for those people they didn't have to do the fake bullshit all day like the rest of us And so I I am like excited by the concept, but I this was my first watch you know i clearly wasn't interested back when it came out it also was like around the time where it was before disney was like in marvel so it's like it was kind of like they were just doing rides as movies like i believe pirates of the caribbean was in that era as well the same year yeah one of them we think about sometimes it has like a

soundtrack that's memorable the The other is Eddie Murphy's Out to Me. Didn't the Country Bears also come out very close to this? I think they were just throwing shit. They were throwing IP at the wall. And then like Pirates of the Caribbean was like the standout.

I think the Country Bears was O2. Don't ask me why I know that. I don't know some of my cousins' names. Loved it. Yeah. Okay, 2002. I was right about that. Yeah, this was clearly early Iger strategy.

They're just like, why do we use all this crap from the park that no one thinks about regularly? Yeah. Well, and they're still doing it. The Jungle Cruise movie came out last year. I saw it. Can't wait for matterhorn the tiki room is that a movie oh god not yet yeah yeah give it a couple years wait for it yeah wait for ai to do its thing and i feel like at this point because there's uh we've

well i mean this is like not a new point to make at all but just because of like how aggressively IP-ish movies are currently and it's like whatever I took the Barbie pill wholesale but I was reading this morning about how Mattel is like getting the wrong idea and they're like yeah so we actually

have this oh what was it it was J.J. Abrams is making a Hot Wheels movie which i wish i was joking stop that that's enough and then that's enough there's no more to be had the movie cars exists oh my gosh also that grand turismo or whatever turismo movie that's coming out why is that a thing vin diesel's doing rock'em sock'em robots where's the hungry hungry hippos movie where's the polly pocket movie daniel kaluuya is doing barney the dinosaur in an a24 type film that is heavily inspired by the work of charlie kaufman i was like enough yeah but i will see i

will see it will i see it yet yeah will i? Of course. But I shouldn't have to. I shouldn't have to see it. I don't even want to think about it, but, you know, I will see it. That sentence, I was just, I don't know. It was like Monday morning and I read that sentence. I was like, mad lib. Absolute mad lib. But yeah, I will see it.

We can't help ourselves. Jamie, what is your relationship with The Haunted Mansion? Oh, I loved this movie so much. I thought this was cinema. I thought it was great. I definitely came into Eddie Murphy firmly in his kids' era and then worked my way backwards later. It's impossible to not be a fan of Eddie Murphy.

I know we've talked about him on other episodes. We've covered a lot of his movies. Donkey alert. I know. How do you go from donkey to this? I'm sorry. I'm jumping ahead. If you don't have enough money, Eddie, what is this anyway? I don't know.

I know we've talked about Eddie Murphy murphy's like personal life in the past we're not gonna get into that today today we're talking about he's firmly in his children's entertainment bag he's making a shitload of money i think that my first eddie murphy movie would have been well this isn't an eddie murphy movie but he's in mulan right and he's firmly in mulan my first clear memory of seeing a movie was Eddie Murphy Dr. Doolittle yeah he's like I think I mean I guess he's the only doctor no I did see Robert Downey Jr. Dr. Doolittle oof I brave how did they already reboot that I was the only one that was I was I

was the only one I was like on mushrooms and it was still it was just a disaster um Eddie Murphy is is Dr. Doolittle I remember that really clearly because my cousins and I all went and they were passing me starburst and they were telling me remember this story yeah and I was I assumed that my cousins were unwrapping candy for me for some reason because I was little and I was just eating Starburst wrappers the whole movie and then at the end I was like I feel sick and full of paper and that's my first movie memory and then by oh three yeah he's had he's Shrek'd out he's got the Shrek yacht but he hasn't had enough and at 03 might be my peak eddie murphy year because he's in haunted mansion and daddy daycare this year and i was obsessed with daddy

daycare it's eddie murphy and steve zahn which of stewart little fame yeah Snowball's best friend in Stuart Little he capitalized on his success from Stuart Little to be Eddie Murphy's friend in Daddy Daycare Regina King plays his wife and it inspired, Caitlin and I started texting about this

the other day because I was like oh wow there is like a whole sub-genre of movies that's just men taking care of children and how weird is that yeah yeah we were thinking about a matrion theme so matrons if you're interested in that let us know Mr. Mom Three Men and a Baby and then the Peak of Cinema Daddy Daycare anyways I was I definitely saw this movie in theaters I definitely I remember being really scared of it, especially the zombie part. And I was surprised that the reviews of this movie were not, I know it wasn't like a huge success, but I was surprised that they weren't positive. And I thought it was very weird that all of the reviews were like, it wasn't scary enough.

And you're like, well, are you seven? Because it doesn't seem like you really are allowed to say what's scary. You're a grown man. Of course you weren't scared yeah hopefully like say thank you like that'd be great to read a roger ebert review it's like i was pissing myself at eddie murphy's haunting man anyways i loved it uh and then watching it back i was like huh what's this where's the plot yeah this is really it's it's a it's a very thin movie plot was not a lot going on uh caitlin to history with eddie murphy's haunted mansion i had never seen it until a few days ago. Wow.

I had never ridden the ride at Disneyland also until about probably a month ago. I am now firmly a Disney adult. I'm so sorry, everybody. It's a good place. Do have a pass. During a strike, Katie. I know. I'm crossing the picket line.

The parks aren't struck, right? It's true. I actually had a question. I had a question about that. I was like, can I go on the Minions ride? Or is that scabbing? And the answer I got was, we're not sure. It's like, okay. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of it's just like a haunted house. It's a loosely themed haunted house. Well, yeah. And so I was at the park. And we were approaching. what I didn't realize was the ride and I was like what is this plantation ass looking house why is this here and my friends were like that's the haunted mansion

that's the ride we're about to go on I was like okay and then I rode the ride and the whole like elevator thing and I was like oh my god spooky and you know it's a pretty underwhelming ride to me as far as like thrills go the production design is pretty cool I suppose but you know it's again it's for seven-year-olds and so you're like yeah pretty scary yeah I wasn't able to afford to go until I was doing my internship there. So I have to tell you how disappointing it was. The first day of training at Disney, they just point out all the shit that's fake and what's like. Like they kill the magic for you. And I was like, I've never been here.

Like I have one day. No, they're like, that's fake and that's fake. And these are the exits. And if you get stuck on the ride, you go through this room. And this is what happens. And I'm like, shut up. I know they have to do that. But it's like, especially if you're an intern, you're like, I'm not even getting paid for this magic.

Right. It's so little money. Oh, my God. So I'm still a Disney adult. They couldn't kill it, you know. But they tried. Yeah. I will say, I mean, these, these like the theme park movies in the like

early 2000s were like hit or miss and i saw like a youtube video that uh from i think it was a yohara zahid video uh we'll we'll link it if i'm correct about that uh but just like how like not all of them are great some of them the plot leaves something to be desired maybe, but it was like great for like kids who couldn't afford to go to Disneyland. It's like as close as you could get for a while and, and kind of ends up overselling it in a way that, except maybe the country bears. I haven't seen them in a long time. I feel like I saw that movie five times in one weekend and then never again.

Yeah. Like I remember it, but it's more then never again. Yeah. Like I remember it, but it's more of a trauma. Yeah. But like the Haunted Mansion, I feel like is the movie that feels, cause like, I mean,

I love the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but that doesn't have shit to do with the ride. Like this one is like, it's, they're trying to deliver on the ride, like reverse engineer a plot based on the ride and you're like that yeah that's not how to write a screenplay but but it's how someone gave them the money and they were like you're gonna have a script by this date and the guy the night before was like fuck you to ride the ride

again yeah like can you imagine what a fucking nightmare disney notes must have been like on this movie they're like um i don't know you didn't have the scary guy with the head you're gonna have to write in a wallace sean character and you're like oh my god i mean i was thrilled to see you know wallace sean i also definitely did not know who jennifer tilly was the last time i saw this movie 15 years ago yeah so there you go anyway so yeah i saw the movie for the first time very recently. And I was like, oh, this is, I guess, more fun than I was expecting. But then on my second watch, I was like, oh, no, this movie is not good. Wow.

Those are my thoughts. I couldn't even finish it in one sitting. Like, objectively, just to, like, pull back the curtain. We were supposed to record this, like, four days ago. And I had only watched half of it because i couldn't stomach anymore and then i forgot that i needed to finish it for the podcast so we pushed and i really i really had to bite down and just you guys i had a lovely time my dog wanted to take a walk every time my dog wanted to take a walk i was like now's the time no better time than in the middle of this shit anyway yeah we before we get into it so yeah the reason that we are originally

covering this is because there is a reboot of this roller coaster adaptation because that's just kind of where we're at in the world at this time since that uh since we sort of made that plan there is now a both a wga strike and a sag strike so this means a lot of things we talked about the wga strike over on the patreon and i'm hoping to expand that to talk about the sag strike akilah are you double striking right now i am i am And the worst thing is like the optics for me. So my foot, I have a foot surgery on Friday. So my picketing is like every other day for like 30 minutes. And then my foot's like, ow.

And I just feel like, you know, there's nothing else to post online right now. But striking and I'm not. And so I feel bad. So that's just my personal thing. But it is, it's a weird time to be in either industry. I guess they're all the same industry, but any part of it, especially in LA, it's just like, I already lament that I moved here

for a podcast job that then I did from home for 400 episodes. And now it's like, there's no work so um it's tough it's a hard time i'm glad you all are still doing the podcast i feel like at least there's somewhere i can talk about my love of entertainment because it's not on this picket line i mean come back anytime for any movie every week and i guess we should be clear on on the main feed that uh the bechdel cast is not affected by the the wga strike because I just know there's so much confusion about it. And there's also confusion for us.

And so like we have double and triple checked to make sure that everything we're doing is above board. We'll continue to do it because it is very confusing, especially if it's your kind of first go around on a strike. But one of the ways that this has affected the timing of this episode coming out so one of the big elements of of striking or one of the elements is that if you're a SAG-AFTRA member you cannot promote projects that you have coming out and so there you could see there are some preventative measures taken where they pushed up the barbie premiere so that happened over a week before the movie came out because it seemed like there was going to be a strike the oppenheimer premiere was canceled oh i thought that it happened but then the actors walked off of it like in the middle of the premiere

multiple premieres that happened at one okay and then another one was canceled entirely got it got it and then something in the middle happened at the haunted mansion reboot premiere that i just am like disney is i mean bobe has been fucking up monumentally franz yelling at him as she should yeah all that to say they did not cancel even though none of their actors can come and it is primarily a like celebrity reboot movie it's uh starring lakeith stanfeld uh t Haddish, Danny DeVito. I mean, it's all really, really famous people. Jamie Lee Curtis. Owen Wilson is there.

And none of them can come. And Bobi Gara says, no, we're doing it. And instead of anyone in the movie who are now barred from attending, he brings in costumed villain characters from disneyland yeah what they did it at disneyland they literally have mickey and minnie in like purple halloween costumes cruella deville is walking the premiere carpet maleficent is walking the premiere maleficent's a fucking scab maleficent i and i'm like i guess all these people would be scabs mickey and minnie definitely scabs true but like yeah but it's just like i mean first of all while they

didn't cancel it second of all decided to have their most evil characters walk to promote this movie is just like so corniest thing i've ever's so weird. And so they kind of left the director of the movie, I believe Justin Simien. He's kind of left on his own. And he's basically only asked questions of like, well, how do you feel about all that shit? Bobi Gare is talking. And he's kind of like, um, not great. It just like, it was a mess um and these are the times that the haunted mansion reboot reboot is coming into it did i say a haunted franchise wow seems like just deeply

haunted curse 100 i'm also just like he's such a good director why i know i know but it's like dude anyways i just i need to close the tab that i have open in front of me because it's it's a guardian article that says the hot wheels movie will be emotional grounded and gritty but why i'm why indeed yeah why generally about all of it? It's a fair question to ask. They're not going to outperform Lightning McQueen, but I guess they're going to try. Wow. Damn.

That's my one and only card. Well, let's talk about Eddie Murphy's Haunted Mansion. Yes. Let's take a quick break first, and then we will come right back. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh, my God, I would love it. I have to watch Lost.

Oh, you have to. No, I know, I'm so behind. Katherine Hanken's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love. I'm so behind. Katherine Hanken's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music.

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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. Okay, here's the recap for Haunted Mansion starring Eddie Murphy, 2003. Don't think it'll be long.

Yeah, it's only 84 minutes long, the movie. Okay, so we open on a flashback of an old-timey masquerade ball in a huge mansion is it about to be haunted maybe during the ball a woman dies via drinking poison followed by a man hanging himself, which they show on screen, which I was surprised about for a Disney movie. I was kind of like, you know, a kid's movie, a kid's movie. That happening during, like, because usually I will sometimes fast forward the opening credits. And then I was like, oh, oh, I can, there's like. Things are happening.

I was, I was like, oh, oh, I can. There's like things are happening. I was I was surprised. I was like, whew, they're really getting into it right away. Because I think that when you see that really gruesome image, it's also telling you who the director of photography is. Like, this is like very bizarre. Yeah. So then we cut to the present where a boy rides up on his bike to the mansion he's like a paper delivery boy i think and something that appears to be a ghost whooshes at him and scares him away and he drops a bunch of flyers for evers and evers real estate which is very similar to me to the opening

of casper of casper. Of Casper. Yes. Except it introduces so many questions, including did Eddie Murphy hire this random kid to advertise his real estate? On a bike, door to door. How would he answer any follow-up questions about real estate? We don't know. Then we cut to Jim Evers. That's Eddie Murphy. He's a real estate agent don't know um then we cut to jim evers that's eddie murphy he's a real estate

agent and he's selling wait real quick yeah have you ever met a black guy named jim no definitely not i don't think so when i found out that was his name i was like they recast this last minute they were like let's just get into eddie murphy eddie murphy truly is i mean this is true i guess of a couple eddie murphy kids movies but like he is like this movie's saving grace this movie is yeah there's nothing else i think that's why i thought i liked it the first time i was like eddie murphy he has so much charisma. Yeah. Not enough. It is really a testament to how Eddie Murphy can sell nothing. Like, yeah. Sorry, continue.

Okay, so we've got a black guy named Jim who is a real estate agent. He's selling houses. He's closing deals. He's really good at his job, but he's neglecting his wife sarah played by marcia thomason and their kids michael and megan he's late for the anniversary dinner with his wife he's missing his kids soccer games and stuff like that so he's like fine i'll take the weekend off and we'll go on a family trip to the lake. I was really frustrated for his wife. Well, I'm frustrated for Sarah basically the entire movie. Things don't improve for her meaningfully at any time.

But when he comes home with a watch, I was upset with him. But then you're like, it's Eddie Murphy. I can't stay mad. I know. That's how he gets you. He was upset with him. But then you're like, it's Eddie Murphy. I can't stay mad. I know. That's how he gets you. He'll make it up. Yeah.

So before the family goes on this trip, Sarah answers a phone call from someone who wants her to sell a house because she's also a real estate agent. Not that you would know because not that we ever see her doing her job like we mentioned before well you see her considering doing her job

right it's fun call she's been in houses yeah yeah i come down pro sarah on this because we know this is like classic whatever like crummy kids movie writing where you're like dad's working too hard it's all these gendered stereotypes but i'm like no sarah is in a union and she is just simply saying i don't work outside of these hours i don't it's friday at 7 p.m i'm not setting up a viewing true and that's a fair boundary as a professional i agree that's how i feel because we only see her on the weekend maybe she's 9 a.m on monday she's fucking at it sure i mean yeah it's not her fault that we don't see her doing her job it's the movie's fault they could have made the movie longer i had at least six minutes of wiggle room let's i have a feeling

if we see sarah on tuesday we would get a very different sarah for sure where's the sequel anyway uh well it's well yeah it just had its awesome premiere um okay so so jim he interrupts this phone call and he's like, wow, I know that address. That house is huge. Let's go. So on the way to the family trip, Jim insists on taking everyone to this big mansion to discuss putting the house up for sale. They arrive. It's spooky. It looks abandoned. There's a huge cemetery outside. It's almost as if it's a haunted mansion. Then it starts

pouring rain, so the family hurries inside, where they meet a butler named Ramsley, played by Terrence Stamp. Did anyone know who Terrence Stamp was? I guess he won an Oscar once. I recognize him from another Eddie Murphy movie, one of my

favorites, Bowfinger. Oh! What a career yeah also real quick the rain had it not rained like are we to believe that the mansion controls the weather because if it not didn't rain they could have left exactly but i guess the mansion also has its own climate it does and we're in are we canonically in i know this movie was shot in new orleans but are we canonically in new orleans they so jim drives a bmw we see the license plate i'm pretty sure it says louisiana so it's like assumed i think i read that the bridge that they spoiler alert they get out of on in mansion uh when they're driving away that's like a bridge in the

new orleans area but it seems like this like big like antebellum mansion i have so many questions about the internal logic of this movie uh including just a lot of i just have a lot of questions about terrence stamp's character it really seems like he has consistently not had a plan for like 150 years. He's had so long to get a cohesive plan together. Well, I... Alive and dead. And he just never does. I'm prepared to make the argument that this movie has basically the same exact plot as a recent Matreon episode, What a Girl Wants.

Whoa. Because both movies involve a rich guy who lives in a big house, who is with a woman who the rich guy's butler does not approve of. So the butler sends the woman away slash murders her, spoiler alert, which begs the question in both cases, why is a butler so concerned about who the rich guy marries like how does this i guess maybe that affects affects his job status but if i'm a working class person working for a rich piece of shit i don't give a shit about his personal life like i don't why i don't know

anyway they're the same movie he's like we're scringing it he's like trying to like make him see his the air of his ways he's like no she's ruining that there should do we should do a whole episode on butler logic it is really confusing yeah because I feel like it's always just like a one sentence explanation and it's like I made a promise to your father and you're like what that's the whole batman philosophy yeah oh my god yeah i'm like is your dad still paying you like you can go like no offense he died like you don't need to work here yeah and when i die what's your plan like are you just gonna have a family of butlers that are indentured like well like i think we talked about this on the beauty

and the beast episode where it's like why are these servants who have had their life absolutely taken away and destroyed because of their like loyalty to their boss no yeah but they're deeply invested in him becoming a better person they made a they made a promise or something but it's like terrence stamp's thing is like i'm just gonna lie to him until i don't feel bad about killing a lady like yeah he's a disaster yeah like quitting never entered the possibility no like another butler job he's like i like this fucking house i'm staying yeah it's very bizarre anyway so ramsley the butler is creepy and when the whole family shows up he's like oh we were not expecting

others we just wanted sarah to come and we're like what's going on with that uh and then the family meets the owner of the house edward Gracie, played by Nathaniel Parker. And his sideburns. And his sideburns. He's paying extra attention to Sarah as well. And we're like, hmm. And then Edward's also like, hey, do you guys believe in ghosts? And everyone's like, teehee, what?

There's a really funny, I think that it was that line or there was some line that the butler says that sounded like a just like ai garbled version of that line from pirates of the caribbean of like do you believe in ghost stories because you're in one and sorry the correct the the uh could you do it with the accent please yes you best start believing in ghost stories. You're in one. And the Haunted Mansion script just doesn't really have that juice. Because the butler's like, hey, do you believe in ghosts?

Because maybe there's one. Over there. And Eddie Murphy's like, don't talk about ghosts to sell your house next time. Next time. Yeah, embarrassing.im is very unfazed similarly unfazed when he sees actual ghosts he's just like huh interesting it's all about the sale he's like all right fine so there's ghosts yeah um so then ramsley is like by the way the storm has flooded the road so you guys have to stay here tonight.

And the family's like, um, okay. So they go to their rooms. Sarah is upset about missing the family trip to the lake. And then Ramsley comes to fetch Jim because Edward wants a private word with him. And as Jim is waiting for Edward in his his rich person room his study or something like that jim finds a secret passageway and he goes inside and gets trapped meanwhile in the kids room a

ghost ball appears and it wants megan and Michael. Bless these kids' hearts. They are not looking at the same tennis ball in this shot. No. They are just like. Really not. Like one's in the middle distance. Not their fault. Not their fault.

That's on Rob Minkoff. Oh, my God. Who directed Stuart Little? Synchronicity. Wow. This guy loves to direct a mediocre kids movie. He loves it. Good for him. Listen, he found a specialty.

Yeah. So anyway, the ghost ball wants Megan and Michael to follow it, so they do. Meanwhile, Sarah is like, where's my husband? And she goes looking for him, but instead she finds Edwardward and he starts to

tell sarah about a woman named elizabeth because every live action disney movie from 2003 has to have a character named elizabeth yeah and she's got to be she's got to be in the thick of it. Like she's the main character. Cut to Jim as he's finding his way out of the secret passage and into a hallway with scary art and bulging doors. Things that are basically direct references to the ride. There's a scary mirror that makes him look like a corpse and he's like eee. And at no point though is he like, oof, can't sell a house with a door like that.

That mirror's gotta get out. He's still thinking about selling the house but never commenting. He didn't ask anyone the square footage. How much do you really care about selling the house? I really, this part, these sequences are so, because at the time, if you hadn't about selling the house? I really, this part, like these sequences are so, because at the time, like if you hadn't been

on the Haunted Mansion ride, you're just like, whoa, this is so weird. But it was like, I don't know, I feel like Eddie Murphy all but turns to camera and is like, and if you like this, you're going to love this amazing attraction at Disneyland. Because it's

just like the ride for some sequences i'm not mad at it walking uphill for a long time now we're turning to the left exactly spooky okay so eddie murphy's like looking at all these spooky things then meanwhile the kids are still following the ghost ball which leads them to an old painting of a woman that looks exactly like their mom. And right then a couple servants show up, Ezra and Emma, according to IMDb, although I don't think we really ever learn their names. I was like, well, it's Sean and that lady. Cookies is what I was referring to. The cookie servants, yes.

Yes, they are the cookie people. Every mansion has two cookie people. Yes. You're like, wow, that's a really robust staff they have. Because what was his job? It's like she seems really like she made the cookies. He's just there to be like, no. Right. He's not the butler.

Ramsley's the butler. They say he's a bumbling footman okay so that's his job he's a bumbling foot he's just on the payroll he's like he's like in any entourage it's just a guy yeah he's getting paid so yes it's Wallace Shawn and an actor named Dina Spivey Waters. Whoa. And yeah, it's true. That's a haunted house name. Yeah. And they help the kids hide from Ramsley.

Then back in Eddie Murphy land, he finds a room with a crystal ball. And inside is this like fortune teller lady named madam leota jennifer tilly who i just love that they put jennifer tilly's head in a ball for a whole movie i think that that's who jamie lee curtis is playing in the new one oh that that tracks oh good work if you can get it i guess right although tiffany haddish is also in like fortune teller garb at least from what i've noticed of like the promo stuff so yeah i don't know no idea anyway madame leota in 20 years when we do the podcast about that we'll know yes we'll clarify then. So, Madame Leota, who I'm like, is that Ray Leota's wife? I don't know.

It's his mom. He's show business nepotism too. Son of the crystal ball. She is talking about how Jim needs to lift the curse and release all the trapped spirits and he's like freaking out he runs away beauty and the beast coded yes for sure he runs away and he bumps into his kids and the cookie servants who are ghosts by the way but again no one in the family reacts to

i kind of love that this whole family is just like super underwhelmed by the ghosts like where yeah or actually kind of the the youngest michael is i think made out to seem like what he has to overcome is fear and i was like i think that we should all be more afraid i think we should all be matching michael's energy but yeah i like it i like the kid characters like they weren't you know they're written but i liked them especially because just the daughter is just like not afraid of any she's just like it's a ghost ball let's follow it and and then when like ghost Wallace Shawn turns up, she's like, hi, I guess I would like a cookie. Great. Yeah,

exactly. Like, please introduce yourself to this, the two children in the room. Is it logical? No, but I would like to navigate the world that way. I wish all their seeds were just them screaming.

Like, it's just like, these happen. They're just like, no plot for them, except for horrified their hair turns white i won't even michael's like a little unfazed there no one goes into shock it just collapses you're like okay well because like michael is really only afraid of spiders it seems yeah which i thought was a really i i guess that um the actor who played it, Mark John Jeffries, three names.

That's how you know you're working with a child actor. True, true. Child actors and serial killers. That's three name way. Mark John Jeffries, I guess he was a fan of Ron Weasley. And so he asked to have the fear of spiders added because Ron Weasley was afraid of spiders. Isn't that sweet? That's cute

do we believe that i or is that just an adult child that was my idea yeah i came up with the spider thing it's like it was in one scene they never follow up and there's no spiders in the haunted mansion weird well there is spiders in the crypt later so it does kind of pay off yeah that's true he has to get over that one like you're right you're right i forgot that part that was the part i memory hold i was clawing for the credits at that point yeah the last stretch of this movie i was terrified as a kid but as an adult it's like it's the last 10 minutes drags. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so we cut back to Edward telling Sarah about this mysterious woman, Elizabeth. He says that his grandfather, but it's actually him because guess what? He's also a ghost.

Although Sarah does not yet know this. That basically Edward and Elizabeth were in love, but they were from different worlds and couldn't be together. Interested to discuss what they might mean by that. And so she died by suicide. And then the man, unable to bear it, also took his own life. So that's what we see in that opening sequence like the credit sequence and then edward's like yes and now this this man's soul haunts the house waiting for her to return and sarah's still like huh interesting interesting also like why is it never like clear why like her her ghost isn't

haunting the mansion too well because she's the ghost ball i don't know why she can't take a more like yeah like human form she's the ghost because that would make too much sense for this movie yeah maybe she would have run into the woman who looks just like her who's barely a real estate agent been like hey are you my are we related at all? Ghost Ball Lady has more personality than Sarah's given. Unfortunately. Yeah, true. Sad, but true. Yeah. Yeah. She was cursed with being Eddie Murphy's wife in a movie because I looked at a lot of his movies and very few to the women ever get to act in anything major again. Like some have broken out, but mostly it's a lot of just beautiful women who fade it sucks yeah yeah but i guess the directors of these movies are like well we've got eddie murphy

so his partner doesn't need to have a personality like he's gonna do all the heavy lifting and it's like yeah no i and i wonder how by design because it's like occasionally you get someone with a really really famous actor like Eddie Murphy and then you can like launch someone's career off of like playing Eddie Murphy's his wife in a movie if you're if you receive a character right exactly if anyone notices you in the film right right so it's I mean who knows i i'm not familiar with um this actor's work i went to imdb it was pretty much nothing after that seems like she played a lot of lawyers the kids played kids and things for a while which was cool yeah yeah and then they i think you know i think that they stopped working as actors which is the right decision you know

especially now especially now yeah get into crypto kids even the crypto kids from crypt to crypto oh that's a gnarly i bet i bet that exists that's in zazlo's back pocket he's gonna hit those kids there's uh i sorry this is a fun i because i was looking for behind the scenes information on this movie because i was trying to figure out was this movie like speaking back to what you were saying earlier akilah i was like was this movie written for eddie murphy like i could it's just really hard to find out any significant pre-production information about

this movie and you find the same five fun facts over and over and over including this one i've seen a million times now this was the first film to air on the disney channel to contain any profanity beside hell or damn it also contained the phrase big ass termites i've seen this fun fact a million times and i cannot figure out if the movie was written for henny murphy or not anyways interesting it must have been right like in the way that I imagine Jungle Cruise was written for the rock right yeah right like because otherwise there's no reason for this movie to exist if if any Murphy isn't in it yeah unfortunately yeah with all due respect to Wallace Shawn

uh okay so meanwhile Madame Leota is giving this same information about edward and elizabeth to jim and his kids and she tells them that in order to break the curse and rescue sarah they must enter the tomb under the great dead oak and find a crypt wherein lies a key that will reveal the truth so and we're like uh-huh okay interesting it reminds me of um when rose duet becater gets directions on how to get to jack in the boat where you're just like it's a lot of steps. You go down the crewman's passage, and you'll come to us. You're like, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. I'm like, I'm just going to start yelling Jack, and he's going to, someone's going to know where he is. I'm going to get about three steps deep,

and then I won't be long. I'm coming back to you, and I'm going to be like, what was after the hallway? Okay, I made it this far. Did I make the wrong turn? Is there someone I can talk to in the hallway so I don't have to remember all of it? Maybe a map that says you are here. Okay, I made it this far. Did I make the wrong turn? There's someone I can talk to in the hallway. So I don't have to remember all of it.

Maybe a map that says you are here. So the two cookie ghosts take Jim and the kids outside to the cemetery where they see hundreds of other ghosts whose souls are all trapped there because of this curse. And they find the tomb and Jim goes inside. It's very Phantom of the Opera vibes down there. Yes. His daughter Megan comes along. And then little Michael, who is afraid of everything, gets left outside in a cemetery. Which is...

And they're like, he's fine. Yeah. Well, Idie murphy tries to prevent it from happening but not very hard not very hard and then his sister just abandons him he's just like all right well i guess i would have ditched my my youngest child as well he's like wife first then maybe the crying little boy is. Is it feminism to not care if your son lives or dies? Sound off in the comments. Oh, poor little Michael. Okay, so Jim and his daughter Megan find the crypt,

and inside is a skeleton holding a key. And Jim grabs it. But a bunch of other skeletons come to life and start chasing them. Jim drops the key at one point. Megan has to go find it underwater. Yuck. Titanic vibes. Titanic. Exactly.

How many more Titanic parallels can there be? I wonder. Then they get trapped inside the tomb the skellingtons are chasing them blah blah blah and then this is when michael has to face his fear of spiders and he saves his dad and his sister yeah i thought it was nice it's the most basic thing that could possibly happen but i'm glad but not every movie makes it that the only thing that happens michael's one thing let's let him do is one thing yeah and then eddie murphy's like it's okay to be scared sometimes and i'm like well okay but like he's at the haunted mansion like obviously he's scared yeah this isn't a weird place to have an emotion. They're just yelling at him like, don't be scared.

Like every week they end up in a shitty house where the mom's about to be married to some dead guy. It's a really crazy time. This again. It takes Sarah so long to catch on. I'm just like, Sarah, look at his outfit. I hate how oblivious she's written to be. It's ridiculous.

So then they take the Skellington key to Madame Leota, who says that they have to use it to open a trunk, which Jim does. And inside there is an old letter from Elizabeth to her beloved Mr. Gracie saying that she will marry him. And they're like, wait a minute. She didn't take her own life. She wanted to be with him. So someone else must have murdered her and given Mr. Gracie the wrong letter.

And it turns out that it was Ramsley, the butler, which, you know, you could have seen coming, especially if you'd already seen what a girl wants and they yeah but then you're just like what right and then what he does from there is even more confusing yes because he opens a portal to hell which is something he can do but he won't just go there but then he's he just like shoots himself

in the foot so spectacularly because he's like let me open a portal to hell who's the only person in this room that belongs in hell oh me and then he just he gets dragged dragged to hell he's like he dragged me to hell yeah yeah well it's also confusing because so he's the reason so maybe it's not he's the reason that the curse happened to begin with because of this whole secret murder and him secretly keeping the lovers apart and now he's the one trying to i guess rectify his mistake but he never really acknowledges that this was his fault to begin with. And he sort of acts like, thanks to me, this curse will be lifted because I'm finding this Sarah woman who I'm going to convince Edward is his long lost lover. And it's going to be great. And it's just like, but you're the reason this happened to begin with.

I don't know. Anyway, we don't know. Ramsley did not want the lovers to be together for reasons reasons that he refuses to disclose even in death after being dead for hundreds of years right they've had so many years to talk about this so the whole thing was that he he made edward gracie believe that elizabeth didn't want to be with him and then ramsley poisoned her and it caused the whole curse so yeah ramsley is now trying to undo it by having edward and sarah get together uh but an alive person can't marry a dead

ghost so ramsley's like oh sorry jim but i'm gonna have to kill your his wife and then ramsley traps the kids in a trunk and throws jim out of the house meanwhile this is when sarah is all like haha what's happening because again it takes her so long to understand that like ramsley's orchestrating this whole thing where he's trying to get Edward to marry Sarah and convince Sarah to go along with this plan. And he's like, if you don't marry Edward, I'm going to kill your children. So Sarah puts on Elizabeth's wedding dress and is about to go through with marrying Edward. Outside, Jim is trying to get back into the house, but he can't and he gives up and Madame Leota rolls up in her crystal ball. And she's like, you have to keep trying.

So then he drives his BMW into the house, which works for some reason. He saves his kids and then stops the wedding just as Sarah drinks poisoned poisoned wine and he's like by the way edward the truth is that ramsley killed your beloved elizabeth and here's the letter to prove it and then this is when ramsley is like damn you all to hell and then a fire demon comes out of the ground and drags him to hell like what did he think would happen oh well it's the first time he's opening it movie's almost over yeah he's like all right last ditch effort right doesn't work sarah starts dying because of the poison and then the ghost orb who was elizabeth all along shows back up goes inside of sarah and uses her physical form to kiss edward okay we'll talk about that and she's like babe

let's go to heaven by the way eddie murphy thanks for releasing me and he's like no problem and then sarah comes back to life and edward gives jim the deed to the house and all the spirits ascend to heaven and then the movie ends with the evers family driving off madam leota in her crystal ball is with them. And they are now presumably headed to their family trip to the lake. The end. Yes. Beautiful. We love it. Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.

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Yeah, where shall we start? Where would everyone like to start? Just my deep sighs. Let's just start there. Sucks. Should we talk about sarah yeah let's i i definitely think that there's like so much to say yes who wants to start well we've already mentioned that she and her husband have the same job although we never see her doing her job really um there's a scene where she's on the phone with ramsley and she's like no my husband and i work as a team but again you never see that because

you only ever see jim working solo yeah yeah it feels like a very like early 2000s like way of being like well you can't say that we're not you know like being equitable to women because you know what she's in it but it's like she only acts as like a wife and mother she never acts like her job is not yeah i mean the movie can't happen without eddie murphy's job but like you can't say the same for her definitely yeah and then on top of that she's presented as being like a nagging wife the way that so many like woman and wife characters are portrayed in movies where what's usually actually happening is that they are expressing a desire for their partner to be an active participant in the relationship and in the

household they're expressing a desire for affection and emotional availability from their partner they're expressing a desire to establish boundaries in the relationship you know things like that but this is always framed as yeah it's like why my wife won't stop nagging me i gave her a watch why is she still talking yeah why is she mad i'm just i feel like but the subtext of that is always like i'm just trying to provide for our family and it's like well theoretically she's doing the same fucking job and is being a parent and it's like i just don't get that like if they're partners then they're both making the same right like it's like it's their company it's like, I just don't get that, like, if they're partners, then they're both making the same. Right.

Like, it's like it's their company. It's their real estate business. So, like, she's obviously aware of the fact that, like, he's doing that job and saying, you can do it less. We have enough. And I'm like, a man, a man doesn't want to hear work less. Then you hate your family. The subtext here is in the real version of this movie they go to the house all the kids would get sucked into that trunk the wife would get kidnapped by the dead guy and he'd bounce he'd be like okay like he got in the car it wasn't raining anymore he could just

could have been a force majeure is that what that movie is about anyway yeah like she's just so attractive it's like such a bummer it's like then she should really just leave him like that's the whole time like you don't have to go through with marrying somebody to save these kids and your husband seems like you and the kids are basically you know doing your own thing anyways um right and then so like for the whole second half of the movie she's extremely damseled like we already mentioned she's characterized as being very oblivious and overly trusting because like edward is being so creepy ramsley is being so creepy she doesn't seem to notice and it's just like in real life the world is an unsafe place for women particularly women of color true and so women have to move about the world in a very specific way where they are hyper aware of

their surroundings they sense danger very yeah wet like and she's just like do do what i mean the fact that they're having a fight about their relationship at the mansion to the point where she would be alone in a room in a place where they have to stay overnight. They don't know those people. I'm like, I'd be like, get your ass in here. We're going to hash it out.

No one pushes. I don't care if some man wants to talk to you. Right. It's so bizarre. Yeah. I mean, I just feel like, yeah,

they don't write a character for her at all. We get the set like in everything she does as Sarah and then eventually as Elizabeth is to service the like whoever the man in the scene is because it's like she's there at the beginning saying you need to spend more time with your family to set up Eddie Murphy's conflict. She has, like, she's got nothing. And then at the end, she comes out of the ghost orb to resolve whatever his name, Grimsby's, Eddie, bleep blurps conflict. So she can kiss him and then he can, and then they can die. Like, you're just like this,

this actor's like double fucked in this movie it sucks right her body is used so that a ghost can inhabit it so that the ghost man can kiss her and i was like right why like i was asking that question that we posed before like why can't elizabeth's ghost take a more like corporeal form is that how you say that word um killed it and that like that's the form that can kiss edward like why does sarah's unconscious body have to be used and then i remembered oh because disney movies are obsessed with men kissing unconscious women yeah because like a few moments later you do see ghost elizabeth in her like human body form it's like why couldn't edward have kissed her then like well i think that the reason it is is to set

up the like eddie murphy or i guess jim whatever eddie the eddie murphy character joke where he's like oh no this ghost is kissing my wife like that's the joke that's being set up by the ghost possessing his wife's unconscious body where he keeps i mean he's eddie murphy out yeah i can't take it from him yeah but it's also like since we know that his wife is not the ghost right like the ghost is confused why does he ever like once that is established to the ghost guy the other orb should become a person i know she doesn't have to be in the look-alike body if they're not even related there's no story here i don't know why this happens it makes no sense at all it's just like they needed the actress to do something active at some point so they were like the ghost you the ghost look-alike you from the 1800s is gonna kiss this ghost white man and

then they're gonna go off to heaven why did they have to be married to go to heaven oh yeah i didn't even think of that like just leave god disney movies are so like sometimes you don't even realize the amount of like weird institutional thought that's going it's like well of course uh you can't go to heaven if you're living in sin so you're gonna want to get christian married and also like all the other people in the house okay like the house gets cursed because they both kill themselves so why is everybody else even there like They didn't die that night. They died in the house. Yeah.

What is that about? Did they eventually die and then they just had to stay there for plot reasons? Yeah. It's really confusing. And then there's like a whole thriving. Yeah, because I guess they do kind of act as if like a bomb went off in the haunted mansion

after these deaths took place because everyone is still there from that night including hundreds of other ghosts you're like yeah is this like oppenheimer like what's happening like yeah why so many ghosts in one place there yeah did they all live there at once that's a thousand people is a lot to live even in a huge mansion and would you stay there if somebody like two people died you'd be like i'm never going yeah get me out of here did i drink the poison like i'd make it about me we're not sure it's almost as if this movie was uh based on a ride with no narrative and they just had to make shit up and none of it makes

sense make sure every ghost in the ride was in the movie and don't question yeah exactly they were like that weird puppety one from the end that's sitting between you and the ghost oh my god why are the singing busts why do they have a whole scene yeah to themselves because caitlin they're on the ride i'm so sorry we're part of the ride i hear there was like that rumor that one of the ghosts that are singing is like walt disney but that's just not true it just looks like him oh people are so goofy they're like well if it looks like they're extremely goofy human voice they're like it's some other guy just like a lot of people look like Walt Disney or something. Yeah. White guys with mustaches.

They're everywhere. Yeah. A couple other things I want to say about Sarah is that she saves her kids by having a wedding versus Jim saves the kids and his wife by, you know, crashing his car through a wall. He's fighting sentient suits of armor he's doing a bunch of like action stuff because men do action and women have weddings yeah also she drinks the poison which i'm pretty sure she knows like the wine is poisoned and she knows this because ramsley puts the poison into the goblet right in front of her. And I'm like this, why wouldn't she figure out a way to like not drink it or any,

like she just makes, because women in this world see things and it does not compute. Yeah. Like also like no struggle drinking it. Like I would have been like, yeah, she's like, yum, yum. right killing myself she makes absolutely no active choices to get out of this very dangerous situation she's in which is like you know classic damsel behavior and then meanwhile the man is making active choices right and left and fit like

figuring out how like how to overcome the obstacles that he's in and do this and that she does nothing it's very frustrating yes um also i started on my second watch of the movie i because on my first watch i noticed how often jim says my wife and so I started tallying it and I feel like I missed a few times but I counted 14 times where he's like my wife my wife my wife I also I think he says it more often than yeah he beats Borat by three whole years to this amazing catchphrase uh but I think he says it more than he says her name which is like i also counted how many times sarah says my husband and unless i'm missing some i only counted four times huh so big difference well yeah i feel like she said the kids names more

frequently too yeah well i also thought it was interesting okay so contrasting with sarah where it seems like adult women i guess of which sarah is the only like character of importance who's an adult woman in this movie because cookie i mean no disrespect to cookie lady but they're kind of a package deal but she's like the only woman that even has something resembling an arc, even though it's just in service to the two men. But, but, and then on the other hand, for some reason, the daughter is like, I don't know, she has more to do than her mom and has, you know, at least it's a very like Disney channel personality where like, I can do anything. I'm not

scared. I'm the big sister but it was like that worked for me fine i liked that she like and i think that more like it's it's you know i can't it's like it there's not massive uh it's like not earth shattering oppenheimer style plot developments but like you know it's nice to see the like the courageous like really smart kid be the daughter that's always nice i liked when eddie murphy yelled at her for knowing latin sure yeah you said it was a dad language it's like well he's right he's right like she does motivated choices like like she had a few like she had more moments than i was expecting for sure she is given things to do she remembers the

whatever clues that um madam leota says she goes into the tomb to help her dad. She is the one who finds the key that he dropped. Like she's doing things, but it does take a while for her participation in the story to feel significant. Because up until that point, there's a lot of focus on Michael, especially because like this arc for him is being set up. Megan doesn't really get an arc, but I'm like, okay, that's fine. Because like she is given more to do. And then Michael gets an arc but I'm like okay that's fine because like she is given more to do and then Michael gets an arc like that feels like a pretty balanced like narrative characterization kind of thing yeah um but Michael's arc is weird to me because so it's set up that he's a scaredy cat and he's especially afraid of spiders and his dad is like you have to learn to face your fears

you should never be afraid of anything, which is very much like. And it was very and he directly ties it into like, it's time to be a man. Yeah, you're 10. Yeah, exactly. Go get a job at the real estate firm that your mother. We need to be Evers and Evers and Evers. I did for Evers and Evers. It's not the worst. It's not the worst turn of phrase it's so clever um it's pretty cute it's the best part of the movie the advice that fathers

give their sons in movies is almost always like the worst advice possible it's always like here's how to be a man and then he proceeds to say the most toxic and reductive thing ever and then at the end it turns out he was right yeah and then madame leota also kind of has to tell eddie murphy's character jim to be a man because he's like she's like don't give up and then he's like okay i'll ram my car through the wall which is like maybe take the car and get it's not really what she was asking for uh sure that's being a man who's wrecking a car so then so michael's arc culminates when he has to like face his fear of spiders to like open the door to let his dad and sister out of the tomb and

jim is being like hey remember before when I said that you shouldn't be afraid? Well, guess what? It's okay to be afraid. I'm afraid right now. And I'm like, I like that that's what Jim is saying and that he's kind of going back on his toxic mindset about like fear being for losers kind of thing. But I'm also like is jim just saying this because you would say anything to get out of being murdered by skellingtons like because they never have a final beat of that where they like have a calm conversation when they're not in danger in danger exactly so i'm just like how does jim actually feel about? I feel like we never know.

So I don't know how to feel about that. But yeah, but I do appreciate, like we were saying, that Megan, even though she doesn't get an arc like her brother does, she does get to play a more active role in the story, especially toward the end of the second act. Totally. Yeah. Which is like, again, that only that only goes so far because the movie is like still not awesome but you're like all right all right movie i'll take i'll

take what i can get something happened yeah the whole time i was just hoping that somebody would like come and burn the house down like just put us out of our misery like no one is committed to being here except for the butler and he's dead already why is he so committed to it i don't get it like did he get cursed to stay there because the dude killed himself like i just don't get like free yourself as a butler you're a butler in death i yeah i do not understand the logistics of the curse it must be like trapping them there physically yeah i don't know. But they have cookies.

So it's like not all that. So it's actually fine. Yeah. And they don't really have to work because the lady's dead now. It's true. So, you know. Kind of cookies and sulking. Like, it could be worse.

It's better than my present. Like, they're complaining a lot. Honestly. They didn't survive a pandemic like yeah they're not on strike they don't have a union they don't have a union and they're not really working to begin with can we talk about madam leota briefly sure the main thing to say here is that a word that is largely considered a slur for romani people is used to refer to adam leota we've talked about this situation a lot on the podcast and it still happens in movies now which blows my mind but yeah it still does happen yes uh and then this character exists in the story in the same way that romani people are almost always characterized in popular media which is like she's a fortune teller she's a mystic of

some type she speaks in riddles the romani people in any given movie are almost never like the protagonist of the movie they're just like a side character who's there to help or hinder the protagonist the protagonist is usually a white character that is not the case for this movie um so progress but right now you too can discriminate and then they're often not played by romani actors uh Jennifer Tilly is not Romani. Yeah, and it doesn't seem like, if I'm remembering correctly, and Jamie Lee Curtis is, in fact, the actor who plays Madame Leota in the new movie, that has not been improved in the interceding 20 years. Yay.

Oops. Yeah. eating 20 years yay oops yeah what uh i think that this was something when i was um just looking for kind of um i don't know i feel like for every millennial movie regardless of quality really there is a number of essays about why it was important to somebody or um stuff like that i was looking for people who have been fans of this movie over time um like what sort of keeps them coming back to Eddie Murphy's Haunted Mansion and there were two reasons that I was finding consistent one was just like it's a movie for kids and uh I think part of the reason it was reviewed harshly was as if it were it was supposed to be scary for adults. And to that I say grow up like watch your own movie.

Yeah. Go watch the Babadook like you're fine. And then there's also the fact that this is one of the only children's children's movies period but also children's horror movies that features a black family. Yeah. Which in 2003 was not happening anywhere i would extend that even to just movies in general that feature a black family that is the type of movie that a white family would generally occupy that totally role it's like Black Casper. Right, right. I mean, Casper made more sense and was better, but...

And that's not the black people's fault. That's just the movie. That's just, yeah, the movie was written by a white writer who... Yeah, like if you would put black people in Casper, it would be the same movie. Yeah, totally. If only the ghosts were as interesting. Yeah, exactly. Or hot.

Yeah. Why aren't the ghosts hotter in casper um none of them are really only one was trying to date and frankly um but yeah i mean so few hollywood movies that feature black people as the main characters allow them to be in a story where they are dealing with the same type of stuff that white people deal with in movies all the time such as like accidentally going to a haunted house the way that white people and movies go to haunted houses all the time yeah that's like one of the main reasons i wanted to cover this because i was like this is such a rare example of and I think we talked about this maybe on the episode on the movie Us as like another rare example of and specifically like horror movie but um

yeah of like a black family being allowed to deal with the types of conflicts that we normally see white people dealing with in movies yeah and just being liberal I mean and and there was I mean there was just a uh there's just a movie dedicated to like exploring this trope of like yeah it's i finally got to see it uh last week and it's so good so much so funny it's really funny and i mean i think especially yeah in the horror space there are so many racist tropes and so even though you know is eddie murphy haunted mansion a masterpiece no absolutely not no but no one's asking no one's asking it to be right like the ride's not a masterpiece it's doing justice to the ride i also just like you know

maybe the way to update it is like have the ghosts be black like i think that at least for us like the movie us like the movie Us, the spooky thing, the spooky element, the tethereds, some of them are black, so that's kind of interesting. I do think it's funny,

the conceit of a black family having to deal with these 1800s white people ghosts who are progressive and want to marry the black woman. They have the right politics, allegedly. We don't want to dive too deep into it right and i'm like i guess i'm glad that they didn't like get deep into yeah can you imagine century racism but the way that it's skirted the movie's bad enough it is it is like

vaguified to a wild degree that it's just like for a bit different what like everything they're saying could also be applied to classism but because of like you're just like okay okay movie fine all right whatever right like all right you tried it i also think like an important point and i think that like eddie murphy does this more in his movies than most other like major black movie stars who are men is that his spouse in the movies are almost always black women. And so to see a full family that is like, black love and black everybody is like, I feel like that was still, even today, is very rare.

It's usually a black guy and his hot Latino wife, his hot white wife. And then the kids are you know a light skin color and then it's fine but i think um yeah that was at least interesting to watch for like more than an hour was like wow four black people they really all got paid right it almost feels like the trend the current trend of that is like we're progressive because look at us featuring a mixed race couple yeah isn't that exciting isn't that subversive it's very i mean you know maybe one day a black woman will get a role that like is it four lines um and that she actually has a character yeah it was

it felt dated even then i i would think. I didn't see it then. But it's like, I, yeah, I guess, like, they don't really make, well, maybe they do. I haven't watched a lot of kids' movies since that era. Like, that was when I stopped. I was like, I'm a teen. I don't need this. Same, yeah. And to, like, to see it, it's just, it felt very 90s. Like, it felt like, oh, this is a Jim Carrey movie.

This is a, there's, the premise is this, and there's no plot beyond that. And the woman is no one. She's just disappointed by her husband. And that's it. Yeah, for sure. And then maybe they get a divorce at the lake. Like, she's like, that shit sucked.

You were only there because you're greedy. Ooh, I hope that she's like, I don't you were only there because you're greedy oh i hope that she's like uh i don't know if you're paying attention jim but they actually made out the deed to me specifically yeah and you're a bad husband a bad father and you're eddie murphy so you'll be financially fine and i'm out of here you'll go on to be in Shrek 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 if we're lucky if we're lucky while they're young and alive but

yeah I just appreciated that because again white people and white families in movies get to do anything and black characters are rarely afforded the same range of narratives the same genres and um so i i appreciated that this is again a rare example of a movie that um

lets black people get into spooky hijinks in a haunted mansion yeah family vacations gone wrong people dealing with ghosts yeah they got to have a lake house we never saw it but they had some sort of wealth going true he drives a bmw well one thing about jim ever's he's a closer he's always be closing he always be closing. What's that movie? The most boring movie I've ever seen. Jerry Maguire. No. Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross.

Oh yeah. It's always so frustrating when a movie's title is more fun, is more fun than the movie. Right. Fun title. It sounds like it's about a fantasy cartoon world, but it's not. Unfortunately, no no never that

well does anyone else have anything to say about eddie murphy's haunted mansion 2003 uh i mean i don't think it passes the bechdel test i don't want to spoil is that is that where we're headed yes we are indeed things were headed that way my bad i honestly forgot to pay attention. If anything, it would be Sarah talking to her daughter, Megan, which I don't actually. It was always about the dad, I felt like. And I even thought maybe the scene where the cookie lady is talking specifically to the girl about the cookies, but it's not enough dialogue and they both they don't both talk about the cookies so i i mean maybe i i'm wrong but i didn't get a sense i think no i think yeah i think the only real shot at that would have been i don't think it happens between megan and her mom and i think the only other opportunity would be megan and cookie lady or madam leota i guess

yeah i don't know but weren't they talking they're probably talking about the dead guy well she also only really talks to eddie murphy to eddie murphy so i'm gonna say spiritually spiritually it just doesn't we're gonna we're gonna go with no and if you want to talk to us about a technicality i don don't think we want to hear it. Yeah, I don't actually care if you think that. You can keep that to yourself for evers and evers. Now to the metric that matters. That's right, our nipple scale.

A scale of zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. I would say based on the general piss poor treatment of sarah her being characterized as being nagging even though she's just like once a partner who is not ruining their marriage um she is so oblivious to all the creepy stuff going on around her she isn't allowed to make any active choices all that kind of stuff i do again i do appreciate that this is a and a it's a high budget movie and it grossed a decent amount at the box office it's a 90

million dollar budget grossed twice that at the box office so it's a movie that people went to go see uh that features a black family that isn't explicitly about those characters struggling with racism or issues related to systemic racism things like that it's just they go to a spooky house and they have to deal with the curse that's happening there so i appreciate that even so i feel like it only gets like a one and a half all of those things considered yeah and i'll split my one and a half nips between sarah and megan good for them they can they can use it they need those nips yeah they need them uh yeah i guess i'll meet you at one and a half um for for all the reasons you described i think that uh i mean i i I mean, I loved this movie when it came out for reasons being that I was eight. Or however old I was when this came out.

I don't remember. But yeah, I think that this is like, it's just like a simple kids movie. I think that, yeah, it's important to have Black families represented in this genre outside of all of the tropes that i think unfortunately kids may have been familiar with going in seeing this movie but as far as giving the women in the story much to do it's either yeah it's either um sarah is just left out to dry the entire movie and then the other women in the story are just kind of giving Eddie Murphy various clues. And I think Megan is the best written woman in the movie. And wowie wow.

Amazing. Worth mentioning because we tried to touch, oh God, jump scare. I still had the country bears Wikipedia page open. That while this movie centers a black cast i don't believe that there are any black creatives involved uh at least at the highest level in this movie i feel like there's moments where that shows and also just i think important to keep a movie in

check and when they're doing on-screen representation and less than nothing off-screen. One and a half nipples. I'd show this movie to a kid. Why not? It's fun. And I will give my nipples to, I don't know. I don't know.

Megan, The Bridge. Yeah. The Bridge. Megan and The Bridge. I liked The Bridge at the end. I've never been to New Orleans. And it made me want to go to see that bridge. Let's go, Jamie.

I Googled the bridge. I Googled Haunted Mansion Bridge. It was beautiful. I thought it was like they were driving to Hawaii or something. I don't know why I thought Hawaii. Oh, because he had the Tiki's drinks in the beginning. Okay. I was like, why is that in my head?

What about Hawaii? Yeah. This bar is just like Hawaii, right? And he believes them. So I'm going to say, you know, one and a half nipples feels fair. And it's not just because I'm trying to be agreeable. I think that, like, Megan deserves one. I'll give half to Madame Leota because she did have some.

She had more dialogue. And even if it was all in service of Eddie Murphy figuring out the stupid dead people mystery, it was at least three pages worth of words. True. Yeah, everything you all said is correct. I think it's so important to have any representation, especially in horror, especially for kids' horror. I just feel like I always thought it was like white people had supernatural shit when I was a little kid. Black people just couldn't afford ghosts or something.

Now I'm like, okay, so if you're a realtor, you could go to the haunted house. You don't own the haunted house, but at least we're making progress. But the movie is just so unfortunately horrifically bad. Like I cannot stress enough that like if you're watching it you're setting yourself up to i think maybe entertain children for the full almost 90 minutes i think as a kid i would have been like we can leave like i like i really had a low tolerance for movies where nothing happens but i think you know in service of the ride excellent it's exactly the ride there's some stuff from the ride even that's not in it that I'm like wow they could have had like

busts that follow you with their eyes that could have happened um but yeah I don't know I just think that the movie was so bad and like truly Sarah is such an afterthought. Yeah. So much to show that like, I think the painting of her is more impactful than the actual actress. That reveal, you're like, oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah, I'm like, did someone really paint that? Did she get to keep it? Like, that's all I could think was like,

that would be great if someone painted a picture of me and I looked that good in it. Like, that's awesome. So that's what the one and a half stars goes to. I guess it could be madame leota little girl and a little bit to whoever painted sarah they did a great job hell yeah akilah thank you so much for joining us once again thank you for having me i love it here it has been such a delight come back anytime uh Come back in 20 years for Haunted Mansion 2023

when we're striking again. Yeah, we'll all be on that one tiny pinnacle that's left of land on the earth. And we'll be doing a podcast for the seven other people on the compound. Yes, we will all be on fire. But we'll have to find some way to entertain ourselves. And that will be by talking about Lakeith Stanfield's haunted mansion.

Where can people check you out on social media, plug anything you're able and willing to plug? Yeah. I feel like it's just such a hard time to plug with. So if you're on the picket lines, I tend to be at Paramount, but it's too hot right now so they've got us

elsewhere but yeah I'm always online follow me on threads at Akilah H it's also my Instagram handle and I'm not gonna plug Twitter anymore I'm done I'm done screw Elon I'm over it

so mostly just there waiting for the world to come back and you can follow us on i guess twitter but you don't have to uh and also instagram should we get on threads jamie i barely understand no no right uh no we're not getting you will not be finding us there we refuse to assimilate don't do anymore if anything go outside now now we've been freed yeah we're done we're done yeah go outside while the air is still breathable which it barely is a little bit anyway um you can you what you should do definitely is subscribe to our patreon aka matreon at patreon.com slash spectral cast where you get two bonus episodes a month plus access

to the entire back catalog of around 150 bonus episodes all for five dollars a month amazing and you can get our merch over at tpublic.com slash the Bechtel cast and And with that, let's load in the car and drive down the cool bridge because we're going to the lake, baby, and we're bringing the annoying statues with us. Bye. Bye. Bye-bye.

Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Catherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. That's right, the queen of comedy herself.

Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. Don't miss Catherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden.

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app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.