The Bechdel Cast - The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - Part 2 with Anna Salinas

Episode Date: September 13, 2018

In this second and final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy episode, The Fellowship of the Podcast aka Caitlin Durante, Jamie Loftus, and special guest Anna Salinas destroy evil by throwing the Patriarchy into the fires of Mount Doom.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @badcomixbyanna on Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. In 1982, Atari players had one game on their minds, Sword Quest. Because the company had promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared, leading to one of the biggest controversies in 80s pop culture.

I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. Jake Storielli here from John Boy Media. I want to tell you about my podcast,

Wake and Jake. I've been a sports nut my whole life, and there's nothing I love more than talking about it. If you're a sports fan, Wake and Jake is the place for you. Covering all the hot topics from the sports world. A lot of baseball, a lot of postseason coverage, mock drafts, awards, guest interviews, all of it. New episodes every Monday and Wednesday.

Come watch along on the Wake and Jake YouTube channel or listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked, if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast, start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name is Caitlin Durante. And my name is Jamie Loftus. And this is part two of our Lord of the Rings trilogy episode. Hey Caitlin, did you know that movie trilogy is really fucking long? I did know that. That passed the Bechdel test. If you don't know what that is, get with the program.

Just kidding. But if you haven't listened to episode one of the Lord of the Rings podcast, we recommend, you know, maybe go back to part one. Yeah, start there. And this is part two. I mean, if you just want to listen to this one, that would sort of be like starting in the middle of Lord of the Rings Two Towers and then only watching that and the rest. Which honestly, not to betray my opinion of this trilogy, would be totally fine. Nothing happens the entire movie, so it doesn't even matter.

Disagree. All kinds of things happen. Clearly, you don't remember Gollum trying to. I remember Gollum. Anyway, so this is part two. If you haven't listened to part one, we recommend going and doing that first. But otherwise. But otherwise... But do you.

You do you. Your body, your choice. Here's part two. So that brings us to Eowyn. She is introduced for the first time in the second movie. She is the niece of King Theoden of Rohan. Why do their names rhyme? Like we said, her whole thing is that she wants to fight all the men get to fight

women are you know perceived as being helpless in this universe and that they have to be protected but she is a skilled sword fighter and she wants to do her part in this fight then in this war this impending war right but then she meets aragorn and she's like, who's that? And now all of a sudden there's a love triangle between Aragorn, Arwen, and Eowyn that has almost no tension in it. This is like the most boring love triangle in the entire world. It is because it's so clear that Aragorn is not interested. Right. From moment one. And again, in the same gender neutral way that this whole story plays out, we see her hurt being rejected by Viggo Mortensen. As everyone at the table knows, we've all been rejected by Viggo Mortensen.

It doesn't feel great. It doesn't feel great. But he's not mean to her. And there's never a particular sexual tension between them in the first place. So it's almost just like it's a crush that is unrequited. And so that is not particularly compelling to watch. Yeah, right. But like, this introduction of like, her really kind of falling in love with him, or maybe just having like a crush does not need to be there. She serves another function in the story. So for her to also be in love with a man I think like really sells out her character

and for sure and we also get one of my favorite sellouts of the female character who is allowed to do anything because I think Eowyn by far is the most active female character and she still basically has no impact on the plot but you know she's the most active by far and there's that scene where she has a sword and it's the first time we're seeing her wield a sword and Aragorn like notices and is like hey you can do what the boys do and she's like I know pretty cool right but I'll be humble and shy about it and then because he's the I think that we're to believe because he's the first man who has acknowledged she's doing it at all and doesn't really say like you're really good at that and i respect you but he doesn't not say that and i think that that is like for us supposed to be

the entry point of like she likes him because he's the only man she's ever met who hasn't nagged her for her interest i think that that's like the root of her interest in him. It's like, well, he didn't say I sucked like every man in my life does. So I guess I love him. That's relatable. That's how I date. Yeah, it's true. I'm just like, are you not yelling at me?

Cool. We're married. And then there's more to talk about with her character but where her story ends in the one of 800 conclusions of this trilogy she gets paired up with faramir because aragorn rejects her so she has to end up with some man so they place her next to faramir they might they like give each other a little like cutie eye I think there's a moment in I hate that like the last minute like don't worry she's still gonna fuck a guy you're just like oh no we weren't freaking out about it actually we were fine yeah so they get paired up

and uh heteronormativity is alive and well so I kind of want to just kind of go through each of the movies and point out a few different things we see in terms of you know the gender dynamics so in the fellowship of the ring again we open with a woman's voice we've got galadriel being sort of like omniscient narrator but she knows everything long periods of time yes like the narration is very inconsistent in the movie that definitely and then when she does appear on screen again throughout the movies, it seldom happens. And then it's, again, to deliver exposition. Narrator IRL.

Yeah. So, I mean, I guess you could argue that it's cool that, like, a woman is given, like, an omniscient point of view. Sort of. But no. Yeah. There is a retelling of this movie that puts her as the omniscient being. Because that's really what was implied, I think.

To a degree. Like, this is giving it too much credit, but by making her the narrator it's as if she's like, speaking like, this is how it all happened. So maybe in the future of Middle Earth, she became the king of the world she became the

storyteller she's like hey everybody you want to hear a story about 500 guys i met she becomes the new gandalf and that's kind of what he does right yeah it'll only take 10 hours of your time neron's like no i don't i'm good we're gonna dance um there is is a moment very early on in the first movie where like Gandalf is like riding through the Shire. And there's like all these children who are like, Gandalf, play some fireworks. And he's like, OK. And then there's like a hobbit couple. And the man is like, tee hee hee, I like fireworks too. And then his wife shows up and she's scowling because women be shrews, as we know.

And then he has to pretend like he's not having fun and not enjoying the fireworks. And it's supposed to be like this ha ha comical moment. But the first depiction of a woman you see on screen is a shrewish hobbit lady. So I feel like that really sets the tone for the whole. Yeah. And aren't. Wait a minute. And that doesn't make any sense because hobbits are supposed to be so joyful.

Right. And love fun. Exactly. So what's this woman crashing the party for? Well, she's a woman, so she can't have fun. She can't have fun. Yeah. Women are not having fun in this series.

No. No. Women are not giggling. Well, I guess they go to Bilbo's party. Yeah, but that's a few minutes of screen time, and then we hardly see those characters again. Sam's wife has fun once she marries. She had to push out a lot of kids.

Yeah, once she starts T-shirt gunning out Sam's kid. That's actually in the extended version I saw. You see Sam's wife give birth, and it's like a machine gun of baby habits. Pretty progressive moment in cinema yeah yeah yeah yeah you don't because they show it from below right right right yeah it's basically a biology yeah that's and that's in the 3d version that is in the 3d it's we're more like hobbits than you would think yeah when you see it up close so okay when we first meet Arwen on screen, again, it's not until over an hour into the movie,

it's established that she and Aragorn know each other, but we're not quite sure how or what, in what context. Her introduction is a little cool because we do meet her by her holding a sword up to Aragorn's neck. Very hot. Yes. So she is threatening his life.

But then a few scenes later, you're like, oh, they're basically engaged to be married. So it's an empty. It was like a little thing they were doing. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't into Vigo watching that movie, but I think my little whatever I was, nine years old self was like, ooh. Yeah. You're like, oh, this is kind of, what?

Ooh. What's happening? Yeah. But then a few minutes later. Yeah, think about this later. You're like, oh, it is kind of, what's happening? Yeah. But then a few minutes later. Yeah, think about this later. You're like, it's going to be a few years before I can unpack this fully. Yeah. So then a few moments later in the movie, she's, like, riding up on a horse.

There's, like, angelic music. Her dress is white, even though when it cuts to a moment later in the same exact scene, she's wearing a different dress. But she's, like in as this like angel savior to like save frodo's life she's literally glowing yes she and galadriel are never not glowing although gandalf glows too sometimes gandalf does glow he has his but but he does but never isn't he not in the white when he's gandalf the way right for that one scene but most of the time we seealf the White? When he's Gandalf the White. Right. For that one scene. But most of the time we see him on screen, he's dull.

Yeah. He's not glowing. I mean, and to be fair, all men are dull. And all women are radiant and perfect. True. Except for... And also, we don't see women who are not fabulously wealthy and conventionally attractive glow. We do not see poor people. When there are women on screen who are meant to be poor, they do not glow.

Hobbit women. Hobbit women do not glow. If you are hot, hot hot royalty you glow and even then it's i i feel like the only reason that eowyn is not depicted in this way is because with arwen and galadriel they're supposed to be these like virginal women and objects of desire where we're i sort of interpreted we're intended to see Eowyn, Eowyn, Eowyn McGregor. We're supposed to see Eowyn as more of a girl. I don't think we're encouraged to view her as like a sexual being in the same way we're encouraged to see the other two. But make no mistake, she's still part of a royal family

because her uncle is the king. So she's royalty and she's still conventionally by western beauty standards attractive yeah we only get beautiful women and the range in male characters i mean i know that's a complaint on all movies but the range in male characters man you have a whole species of thing that is ugly yeah dwarfs you gotfs? I mean, there is every... Well, I mean, you can't extend it to color. There are white men

of every shape and size in this film franchise. There's every kind of white man you could ever encounter in your entire life. You got Legolas. You got the hacker. You got Frodo. You got the hacker. You got Frodo.

You got Figwit. You got Figwit, the Brett McKenzie character. There's short hair. There's also long hair. There's hairy feet. There's smooth feet. Old, not old. Wizards, sometimes, not to be confused with Sauron the eye, he is breeding orcs and goblin men to make this like super race of crazy warriors, like great fighters, all this stuff.

They take women out of the equation. There does not need to be wombs. to make this like super race of crazy warriors like great fighters all this stuff they take women out of the equation there does not need to be wombs they are born as adults they hatch kind of they hatch out of this like pile of mud poop mud placenta but placenta is a way more i wouldn't give it placenta there's no placenta there right it's just mud yeah right it's just like a pile of mud that yeah love that band mud covered in mud i like pedal of poop lesser known yeah there's some like saran wrap covered in muddy poop and that's they break out of that and suddenly they're born so that like sure like, sure. Sure, that's how you breed Uruk-hai. Fun way to cut women out of the narrative.

Right, right. Maybe. I mean, this is also anti-feminist, but maybe the implication is that because they're making the worst kind of obedient, like, creature, they can't have women. Because that would be too good. But, you know that puts that's not yeah i'm reaching why am i trying to defend why am i trying to defend lord of the rings because it's great it doesn't deserve it but there but this is the kind of i think this is definitely the kind of like franchise that you try to find a way to want to defend because it

isn't aggressive towards women it just leaves them out and so it's harder i feel like it's a little harder to reconcile yeah it's not offensive it's not grotesquely offensive it's just so so it's a silent killer yeah omitting um and then uh there's there's a fun moment in uh rivendell one of the elf cities where gandalf is like hey elrond uh, it's like menfolk who we should like be trusting and like putting our faith in men to rule the fate of, you know, Middle Earth. Did he mean gender men or human men? Like the race of men as opposed to the race of elves or dwarves. So that's what he means means but then Elrond responds

men men are weak so I think Elrond is a feminist icon this is just all to say the feminist icon Elrond but which sounds a little too much like Elrond Hubbard I keep wanting to say Elrond Hubbard Elrond one name yeah so that's for me that those were like the notable things in terms of gender in the first movie where we're introduced to Arwen and Galadriel they're for the most part sidelined they have so little screen time that you forget that they exist they're both like these like fair maiden virginal angelic willowy creatures pasty skinned yes yeah you're like oh i wonder if this movie cares about women or not and then you remember not even a little bit um so then we get into the two towers and this is when we meet eowyn and that's when it's established that she's both a good fighter

but also she is horny for aragorn for i mean reasons that we've argued could make sense, but there's really no reason for her narratively to be interested in Aragorn. Like that choice was made, you know, I guess to just like, oh, well, there's a woman in a story and there's heteronormativity all around us. So let's make sure that she's in love with Aragorn so that we can have a love triangle. I don't know if that happens in the books or not. If you're a fan of the books or you've read the books, tweet at us and let us know if this love triangle was set up in the books or if this is just a change made in the film adaptation. I'd be interested to know that because I'm sort of skeptical. I feel like it was something that was added into the movies.

Yeah. Just to make it so that move yeah yeah so we learned that she wants to fight and that you know that's her whole thing which i think is cool i agree that she is the most active character she has the most agency of any of the other female characters which is not hard because there's only two other ones and they're basically pointless to the story. We do meet her uncle, Theoden, who is E.J. Smith from Titanic. Oh, I forgot about that major twist. Major twist. The best twist in Lord of the Rings is that the captain from Titanic wears a wig in it. It's good. Then there's a scene where Gimli the dwarf is talking to Eowyn,

and he's like, it's true, you don't see many dwarf women. In fact, they are so alike in voice and appearance, they are often mistaken for dwarf men. Right. Let's unpack that. I mean, the whole way that dwarves are portrayed at moments in this franchise, I think that there are moments where dwarves are portrayed as better, but ultimately kind of offensive to the little person community. I'd be interested in reading thoughts that either the actors or just the reaction of that community to dwarves as a whole. Because I know that dwarves take an even larger role in the hobbit franchise oh yeah yeah that's i feel like that's like i mean

hobbit too for sure smog head the smog head has spoken they went to battle yeah i think i mistakenly referred to them as hobbits earlier when i was talking about hobbit oh but they are dwarves and there was the whole to do. To confuse. So what are dwarves known for? What are their traits? In this world, they are basically capitalists because they hang out in their mines, mining their precious jewels and gold and all of that stuff. They don't want to be troubled with the outside world.

They're really just content to be confined to their caves and their mountains know mountains where all their treasures are so that's the rules that are that's like i think that's like literally what elrond says he's like they care nothing for the troubles of man do they all die right like when they go to that place and they're all bones there are yes um i don't think the dwarf race is wiped out completely but when they go to the the mines of Moria in the first movie, yeah, all of the dwarves there have been slaughtered by goblins. So, yeah, we don't see. But there's more mines.

I think. I'm not really sure. Again, I only know what's talked about in the movies. So if there's other information that's in the books, I don't know about that. So I guess what I'm wondering is, yeah, I guess those traits don't really mean anything in terms of the gender dynamics. But on the one hand, if men look like women in dwarf communities, that's interesting. But also the way he's saying it is like, if you don't look like a conventionally attractive, tall, white woman, then you look like shit. Are you even a woman? I thought that was the implication.

Yeah. Once again, I'm an apologist. I don't know how to make sense of it. Lord of the Rings apologist. You should see me watch Westworld. I mean, I can't imagine you watching Smaug after this. Big Smaug apologist. And Smaug is a woman. Is Smaug of all time. And Smaug is a woman.

Is Smaug a woman? I think Smaug is a woman. Smaug is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch. God damn it, no. Never mind, you're right. I'm mixing it up with the dragon from Shrek. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because they look super alike.

The ultimate feminist text. Oh, yeah. Well, Fiona. Oh, you know. But the whole dragon is a woman with donkey very feminist oh yeah we talked about that in our shrek episode did you really yeah oh yeah i gotta listen oh yeah strongest female character in the franchise oh yeah so while we're like hanging out with eowyn aragorn's all like here's this new woman how do I feel about

this other woman that I know and we see different flashbacks where Aragorn is basically like we can't be together you shouldn't sacrifice yourself for me telling her like let's end this without really like checking in to see like how she feels about the situation right Elrond is all like Aragorn's gonna die no matter what and you're gonna be sad about it and then you're gonna have to live on forever being sad because apparently when your loved one dies uh and then you keep living you mourn forever there's no way to get over it and uh she'll just spend her the rest of her immortal life in mourning. Because, you know, she's just so sad that a man dies that she has to basically just like kneel by his grave forever.

And that's the only thing that she can do is what the movie is, you know, suggesting will happen. Yeah. But then she keeps telling people like, no, I've made my choice. This is what I choose. But no one like Elrond, Aragragorn they do not respect her choice and they keep trying to convince her to choose something else I mean it's her choice do I think it's a good choice personally not especially and also it's like the choice foisted upon her by well I

don't know yeah it's a choice foisted upon her by two women and a man because the Arwen story that's not you that's to my understanding is not, that's not, to my understanding, is not Tolkien. That's like something introduced into the narrative by the movie, which is written by 66% women. Yeah. I really now I want to know what that process was. Well, okay. First of all, we've been over this a bit. It was the time.

There is like a conventional wisdom, and there was more so then, to how movies were written where it was like, in those blockbusters, you must have love triangles. Sure. I mean, that's still true. Yeah. Yeah. And if women are introduced because they're not the protagonists in this heteronormative space, well, what else are you going to do with them? Right. Like, what function could they serve besides being in love with a man?

I want to live in a world, and I'm sure because this franchise is so intensely documented that perhaps there are other drafts of scripts available but i like i mean because there's so much lord of the rings media i i would love for there to be a world where the female screenwriters pushed a more progressive female narrative but because it was 2001 the studio said no yeah at least there was an effort made to give i But, you know, that's just, that's my best case scenario dream. But it is something to consider. Like the studio definitely had some impact on this script. I hope so. I mean, it's the narrative.

Now that every time I see a movie that doesn't treat women well or at all that is written by a woman. I sort of go to, we talked about this in the Frozen episode a little bit, where there's, for some reason, it's very well documented how many notes the writer of Frozen, a woman named Jennifer Lee, got during the course of making that movie, where the original way the story was written was way more progressive. And it's pretty well documented where she was getting the notes of like, this has to change or we're not going to make it. This has to change or we're not going to make it.

Oh, that's great. That makes me feel better. I mean, better and worse. It at least gives you some hope in that you're like, writers do want to tell these stories. It's not that they don't want to tell it. It's that men with a lot of money usually don't want to show it yeah i don't it's an empty it does give me some peace i will say it does give me some peace well hopefully these like studio heads will start to

learn that or die right honestly probably die. They will likely die before they respect women. And then hopefully be replaced by more progressive people who are willing to fund movies that showcase women in a more positive light and, you know, not adhere to such rigid gender roles. Yeah. Here's hoping. And with that, let's take a quick break and then we will be right back good idea kaylin thank you definitely caruana galicia was a maltese investigative journalist who on october 16th 2017 was murdered there are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.

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and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible listen to spiraled on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts so a little bit more about what happens in the two towers we are hanging out with eowyn a little bit

and they're heading to helms deep because all the people of Rohan are in danger because there's Saruman's like launching an army on them basically. Classic Saruman. Classic Saruman. He loves unleashing. So they get attacked by some orcs on these warg creatures and Theoden's all like Eowyn like lead the people to Helm's Deep because the men will fight. And she's like, no, I can stay and fight. And he's like, no. So she's like trying to make a choice, like trying to be active in the story. And a man is like, no, sorry, you can't.

You have to take all the women and children who are so vulnerable and put them in caves so that they can be protected. Tee hee. Hee hee. So that's pretty much her role for the rest of the movie is that she is stuck in a cave with all of the other women because she is not allowed to fight. Meanwhile, Legolas and Gimli are making a literal game out of war. They're like, let's see who can kill more people. Won't that bring some levity to war? Yes. Well, kill more kind of people. Won't that bring some levity to war? Yes.

Well, kill more kind of people. Yeah, the Uruk-hai. Although, is there like a racial thing we should address with that? Because I just called them kind of people and now I'm like, ugh. Well, okay, yeah. Let's try to unpack the racism

in the Lord of the Rings trilogy for a moment. We can start with the racist hierarchy of wizards. In the books, there are like brown wizards and they're a lower class. And then there's gray wizards and they're above brown. And then the white wizards are the highest class. With the wizard hierarchy, my understanding was the goal is to get as white as possible. Exactly. Yes. So literally the whiter you get, the more powerful you are. So that does not set a great precedent right away. The goblins, the orcs, the uruk-hai, like all the bad guys generally have darker skin compared to all of the good guys in the movie, which are, you know, men, the hobbits, the

dwarves, the elves are all white as can be oh there's a fun uh video where you can see a super cut of all of the lines in the whole lord of the rings trilogy spoken by actors who are people of color uh believe it or not they all play bad guys oh whoa and it's only it's like less than a minute long wow it's just some of the uruk-hai who are like, get a fire going. And that's pretty much it. Oh, no, it's so much worse than I want to believe. Also, so in the second and third movie, the bad guys in Mordor are recruiting mercenaries to fill out their army of orcs so we do see some human people but all of their like recruits are dark skinned brown come from lands foreign to whatever like anglo-saxon-esque fantasy world

that middle earth is it's so vague it's like it's so racially vague yeah and peter jackson makes the same huge misstep in king kong which is like at its core the racist story that won't die right like yeah why do they keep making that yeah i'm like you're not there are some things that keep getting rebooted they're like this time we're gonna fix the root problem i was like you can't that's what the story is about. Just make a different one. Just make a different one. And there is like a weird attempt to like have quote unquote racism where dwarves and elves hate each other. Because when we first meet Gimli and Legolas, they're like, oh, gross dwarf. And he's like, oh, I'll never hang out with an elf. And then they become friends by the end.

And they're like, oh, wow. Well, it's weird because it's like you can read i think tolkien probably meant for this to be an allegory toward groups within humanity and like demographic groups but it's weird when you do that and i don't think that lord of the rings stands alone in this i think i think a lot of fantasy fiction falls into this trap but it's weird when your allegory is like look at our divisions and factions and prejudices except we're going to erase any people of color and make it all white right like it almost seems like these narratives are attempting to be like let us put this in terms you are comfortable with. Yeah. White people. And all, like, in the same, you know, like, batch of scenes,

completely disparage the only people of color in the entire movie. Oh, man. I can't call them not quite people anymore. Remember when I write kind of people? Oh, man. So, yeah, between all of that and the fact that pretty much every good guy in the movie has blue eyes like not that many people in the world have like the ratio of blue-eyed people to non-blue-eyed people in middle earth is like 50 to 1 sorry to our blue-eyed listeners i i see you i respect you i. No, I'm not sorry.

Fuck you guys. I'm also half Swedish, so, like, I have a lot of resentment toward blue eyes, you know, because I didn't get them, which is fine. I'm fine with it now. But when I was in middle school, you better believe I wore contact lenses. You did? Yeah, my mom was like, you want to fix it? You can get highlights, too. And I did.

She was, you know, she just wanted to make me more Aryan. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Because you're part Cuban, right? Yeah. She wanted to stamp out the bad part. No, the Cuban part is great. I feel like I'm getting myself in trouble. It's hard to, on this show, it is so hard to not dig yourself a hole.

We do it regularly. Oh, yeah. It is a part of the process. We contain multitudes. I'm problematic. You know what? I love Orlando Bloom. He's like kind of trash.

The rumor is that he just undresses all the time. What? What? Really? You've heard that, right? What is so funny? What? Like? Wait. You've heard that, right? What is Sophie? Yeah. What?

Like he just. He just gets naked. That's why there is that photo of him naked on the paddle boat or whatever the fuck it was. Oh, I know that picture. Yeah. Because he is. It's like a known thing in dressing rooms that he just strips down doing hair and makeup. That's very uncomfortable.

Yeah. You're. That's. Sexual harassment? Yeah. Yeah. But me hearing that at 11, I would have been like, that's very uncomfortable. Yeah. That's sexual harassment? Yeah. Yeah. But me hearing that at 11, I would have been like, that's so cool. You're like, I want to see that.

Yeah, they're so lucky. He's so open with his co-stars. Yeah. Oh, my God. I wish I could be in a movie with him where he's naked. I'm so jealous of 11 Tyler. Oh, she doesn't kiss him. Never mind.

Nicholas doesn't kiss. He's a hacker in this movie. He literally doesn't kiss. never mind legolas doesn't kiss he's a hacker in this he literally doesn't get him he's too busy he's like where are computers computers need to be invented already he probably invents computers in this world we don't we don't have lord of the rings 4 but if we did it's called legolas colon hacker He's certainly got the bandwidth for it because he's not interested in the emotions of others and has no romantic interest. Do you remember the

part with Legolas that made me, I was like, oh, he's a hacker. Right after Gandalf was like, see ya! And Free fell off a cliff and everyone thought he was dead. Everyone is displaying emotion in the way their character would. Hobbits are openly crying.

Aragorn is like, he's smoldering over it. I think Gimli is crying. Then Legolas is just standing there like, why are all you people crying? He's like, I'm not going to cry for a couple of days, and even then it will be by myself. Like, I'm a hacker. Quick thing to bring up the Hobbit again. There is like a love triangle that involves him and that Tariel character that gets shoehorned into the Hobbit trilogy.

So I thought maybe Legolas was asexual, but he is... I prefer Legolas who does not fuck. I think so too. I think that was his official title as well. That was his official elven title. Yeah, Legolas who does not fuck colon hacker. Son of Megalus who did fuck to have Legolas. Or maybe Legolas is just the correct combination of zeros and ones he was made by a computer i think sauron is a computer okay all right sauron who does not have

blue eyes he has one eye and it is red yellow fire eye it is so but what was it before that right we don't see because he's wearing a mask but a few things also to mention that happened in Return of the King. About a half hour in, Arwen, she has made a decision going against her previous decision to go to elf heaven after all. And then that's when she sees the vision of Aragorn and her small child. And she decides to turn back. And she's like, like well if I have the chance to be a mom I'm gonna go and do that and I better have a son right motherhood is great I have a mother and um not like you guys so I'm not trying to disparage mothers in any way or

motherhood but it's so often that a woman's motivation in a movie is motherhood and if she isn't a mother and it's just like like Westworld Westworld's a problematic show that I constantly apologize for and force Edgar to watch but Fanny Newton's character is motivated

100% by a child that is fake that like they designed for her to have. It's in Planted Memories, and they still ran with it to the end. Oh, God, spoilers. Computers, am I right? Computers. Similar thing happens in Kill Bill, where as soon as the bride finds out that she is pregnant,

she's like, well, I have to drop everything and become a mother, even though I had never expressed that I wanted to be a mother up until now so it's just a thing we a trope we see in a lot of movies and media where it's just like you know a woman the idea of motherhood if that is an option for her she's like oh my god like this is motivating my every decision especially because we know so little about Arwen outside of that that's like right I think that's the main deciding thing it's like it's you know obviously if you want to be a mother that's totally fine and like we we at the bechdel cast will not prevent you from doing so i will but i mean i will yeah i've i've stopped a lot of pregnancies but not abortion or anything just like i've come in and stopped it from coming

out yeah she's like, my hand there. It's because I'll just turn on Westworld and all of a sudden no one will be horny anymore. Oh, so many orgies I have killed by putting on the finale of Westworld. The worst episode. But because we know nothing else about Arwen, that's why that choice is so lazy.

Yes. Right. Yeah. And then the big thing the big you know gender thing that happens in the whole freaking trilogy is when Eowyn disguises herself as a man she puts on this big helmet she Mulan's she yeah yeah exactly exactly. Oh, yeah. She literally Mulans. She picks up Mary. She's like, we're going to fight in battle together. No one wants us to. No one's allowing us to do this. Mary, in this case, would be Mushu.

Is that the dragon? Yes. The Eddie Murphy dragon. Yes. Yes. Sorry, I need to make this Mulan. No, I understand. Mulan!

Have you guys done Mulan? Not yet. Not yet. So, okay, so then, So they ride into battle together, even though everyone's like, women can't fight. And she's like, well, fuck all that. Fuck the patriarchy. I'm going to fight in this war anyway.

And it's been established that the king of the Nazgul, the Ringwraiths, he... That was gibberish to me. He's a bad guy. But you said Ringwraiths as if it was it would make us understand like oh yeah you know the ringwraith the ringwraith you know i was a regret i was like yeah yeah so the king of the nazgul his whole thing that's silly okay sorry uh I don't know what you're talking about. So the whole thing with him is that he is unkillable.

No living man can kill him is what is said in the movie. So in battle at the end of Return of the King, Eowyn is fighting. She is slinging her sword around. She's killing bad guys, sort of. We don't get to see her fight that much. But then she is confronted. The king of the Nazgul, I don't know if he's named or not. He's right there.

And she's like, oh, shit. She chops off the head of his, like, whatever dragon. Not Smaug, but whatever flying winged creature that he is on. They fight a little bit. And he's like, you idiot. No man can kill me. And she's like, she pulls off her mask and she's like, I am no man. Stabs him through the face.

His head implodes. Jock jams start playing. It's crazy. So this is, I think, supposed to be this big empowering moment for women where it's like, holy crap. We thought that he couldn't die, but she was a woman, so she can kill him. You mastered my voice. The rules of this. I mean, I am mine. Oh my god. Holy crap.

The rules of this make no sense and are not explored at all. But we're still supposed to be like, holy freaking crap. I hate when a movie is requesting

that I emptily yass queen at the screen without using my brain. I don't like it. It is one of the things that annoys me most in movies. I hate it, but sometimes it works on me. Sometimes it works and then I get even madder at myself later. I'm like, man, you fell for it.

You got represented. You got too excited. You didn't realize it didn't make any fucking sense. Yeah. Yeah. It feels empty because logically this doesn't really make any sense like why would a female identifying person be able to kill something that a male identifying person isn't able to kill like these rules are just like not explored at all and it yes feels like a hollow victory here's my

apology of it okay here's my attempt maybe it's like the myth is that no no one can kill him no man can kill him because he's such a good fighter but he finally met the best fighter who can kill him but that doesn't this gets back to another thing that annoys me and with female characters how could she be the best fighter if no one formally really ever taught her. Like, this is her first time in battle ever. I don't buy that she'd be the best fighter. Or maybe she puts on costume to fight other times. Oh, maybe it's the first time she's done it? That's true.

I guess she never says, this is my first rodeo. Anyway, I have tips. What I hate is that she gives it all up. To be with Faramir at the end, you mean? Yeah. Right, yeah. So she's got this hollow Yes Queen moment in the end you mean yeah right yeah so right she's got this like hollow yes queen moment in the end of the third movie and then yeah and then she becomes like sort of like a

fair maiden like the rest of them where it's like oh well my role now that there's no wars to be had uh I can just hang out with this Faramir guy and ironically Uma Thurman was considered for this role oh interesting too powerful yeah they're like she's her face is too sharp she is she looks they're like we need someone who looks uh more submissive yeah that's literally what it says she looked too mean and i was like oh i love when people just say yeah this woman looks too mean. Yeah, people say that to me all the time. I have resting mean face. Anyway. I think you have a resting great face. Thank you.

And if you don't want to be happy, it's still great. I know. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Hey, let's take a quick break and then we'll be back. Daphne Caruana Galizia

was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do.

One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

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

set piece fair mare eowyn wedding scene was actually filmed and ultimately cut and not even included in the extended edition nor have any photos of the scene ever been made public but the scene has been described by multiple sources of they went so far as to have them get married on screen. So. Well, at least they cut it from the movie. But also the fact that they considered it to the extent where they wrote and filmed it. Yeah. Is troubling.

Come on. Well. What money are they rolling with where they were just like we're not even gonna show this scene to anyone was it that bad a whole thing i don't know i'd be curious at like maybe that's again i keep going back to the female screenwriters maybe they're like no but it already got past them because they built a set damn it i don't know maybe hey maybe there was a female producer at the last minute who was like we can't yeah like and that was like her falling on the sword

like that was her the last the only thing she could save right and her name was uma thurman also also eowyn and fair mirror mary in the books apparently okay oh great so she has to end up with a man maybe not the one she wanted originally but you know you can't be a woman in a story without ending up with a man and this is ironic okay Faramir and Eowyn had at least one son Elbaran and their grandson was Barahir who wrote the tale of Aragorn and Arwen oh Oh. Why was her grandkid being like, remember this guy my grandma didn't fuck? Here's a story about him and his wife.

Well. Weird. Do you think they passed on the lore of like, well, grandson, there was a man I wanted to fuck, but didn't pass on this legacy. I really hope they brought it. Sitting next to grandpa, like, you know who was my first choice? Not this guy.

I hope so. I really hope so. Wait, I just remembered a female character that we did not talk about yet. Oh, my God. The dead bones of the dwarf who died? Nope. Shelob the spider. The pronouns used for Shel lob are female pronouns so i think

what we can say here is for she lob feminist icon no uh no one in this movie we didn't even talk about golem feminist icon there we go he's so cute golem is a queer icon. There we go. He's so cute. Gollum is a queer icon. I love him. I think he's so, Gollum is so expressive and his eyes are so big and he has 14 hairs on his gigantic head. I love him. I just need everyone to know, of course I had a crush on Gollum and I don't understand. He's so cute. He's always, he so cute and Andy Serkis is a genius

no but Caitlin can let's not you said you would no you assumed the position I'll do it and then I'll probably cut this out okay well do you want to hear Gollum or do you want to hear Smeagol

oh I'd surprise us. Yeah. Okay. Here we go. My precious. That was perfect. It's okay. That was perfect.

Oh, Gollum's so cute. Hobbitses. Fulton of the hobbitses. Yeah. that was perfect it's not great it's not my best work oh great

give yourself some credit yeah we've been talking for a very long time I feel like we need to wrap up

we didn't talk about did we talk about the mom on the oh right right right there is two female characters with lines well should we talk about whether or not this movie passes, right, right, right, right. There is two female characters with lines. Well, should we talk about whether or not this movie passes the Bechdel test?

Yeah, I guess that fits in. Okay. So there is one... Well, there's two scenes that are contenders. So let's try to figure this out. Yeah. In Two Towers, the second movie, orcs and Uruk-hai are invading Rohan. And there is a mother.

It's a horse country. It's where Captain E.J. Smith of the Titanic, that's his realm. And his wig. And his wig, right. The wig that controls his thoughts. So they're about to get invaded by the bad guys. And there's a mother who says to her son and her daughter she's talking to the the boy at first and she says get on the horse with your sister and go to someplace and raise

the alarm and the little girl's like i don't want to leave i don't want to go mama and the mom says freda so we find out her name. Freda, I will find you there. And then that's it. And then they ride off on the horse. And we do find out what her name is in terms of the character. But I don't think it's ever spoken a lot by the movie. I don't think it is either. So, yeah, I would argue that I wanted it to pass.

But I think if we're going by the movie, I don't buy the argument. It's like, well, she had a name in the book. And it's like, so did Brett McKenzie's character. And people just renamed him Figwit for no reason. Right. Also, well, if you consider the subtext of this conversation, like the context and the subtext, she's basically telling them to leave because there are several male warriors coming about to raid their village.

Yeah. You shall not pass. The Bechdel test in this scene. Right. You shall not pass. That's my Gandalf impression. Also very good. OK.

And then later in the second movie, Freyda is eating soup somewhere in Rohan. Eowyn is there. Freyda says, where is mama? Eowyn says, shh. And that's that conversation. That is as close as we get. Because those characters are both named, but I would argue that Eowyn... That is technically a conversation.

It's communication. It's communication. It's verbal communication. But does she come as a line of dialogue? It depends on the screen. I would say no. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and say this movie does not pass the Bechdel test. Because even if you wanted to argue the technicalities, there's 30 seconds or less of this movie of women interacting in a movie that is over nine hours long.

Yeah, that's fair. You shall not pass the Bechdel test. Yeah, so this movie does not pass, even though it maybe seems like it comes close. And also when we say movie we mean three full three hour fucking movies exactly we didn't have we didn't discuss one conversation that happens in the first three and a half hour movie there's nothing to discuss right and those characters the mother and her daughter freda only appear in those two scenes they have no bearing on the story.

Like their scenes could be cut from the movie and it really wouldn't change anything. So yeah, the movie doesn't pass. I guess to up the stakes of the people of Rohan. But yeah, so I'm going to say that this movie does not pass. And of course that's not surprising at all because there are so few women in this entire world of middle earth it's weird because my ex-boyfriend's mom was named arwen because her parents loved lord of the rings oh that's really yeah but how sad too

she was named after this this deeply unfeminist movie by a very minor, minor character who gets, I guess, maybe in the books. Her parents were like, she's a feminist icon because she's there. Because she's there. She's literally allowed to be there. We had three choices. We did what we could do. Galadriel was too hard to say.

Aeowyn is objectively not a very good name. It's a terrible name. Oh, God. Well, gang. Shall we rate the movie on our nipple scale? Hey, what choice do we have? We don't have a choice. This is our burden in life.

Yeah, our nipple scale is we rate each movie based on its portrayal and representation of women. Zero to five nipples. I'm between a zero and a half nipple. I'll go with a half nipple. The movie has a few women in it.

Great. Not enough. Not enough screen time. I guess it gets a half nipple instead of zero nipples because of Eowyn's presence in this story and the fact that she has a goal outside of being in a romantic relationship with a man. Also, Galadriel doesn't have that goal, but she's basically there as an exposition. Yeah, she has no goals. So Eowyn has a little bit of agency agency but it just everything feels like a hollow victory with her and with every female character in the story just because they're mostly framed around

the other men in the story there's a love triangle that makes no sense to be there glad real serves a pretty flimsy function just to like deliver exposition and she has pretty much no bearing on the story like it's just it's upsetting like like you said Jamie the movie isn't outwardly hateful toward women and then it's not like saying oh women are gross and bad but it's also not giving them any chance to do anything in the narrative. So, yeah, I'll give it a half nipple, even though I think that's being generous. And my half nipple will go to Smaug. Yes.

I'm going to give it one tenth of one nipple because I can't give it zero because, like you said, it is not a franchise that is openly contemptuous of women. But I think that there is the argument that in some ways that's even a little bit worse because at least when you revisit a problematic film franchise, you're just like, don't want any part of this anymore this is out of my life and hopefully if history continues in the direction it is it will be a franchise that is by the wayside forgotten because people just don't want to see that anymore but with this film franchise because it does not put women down and just ignores them it won't go away. There's not enough of a reason for people who enjoy these movies to not continue to watch them because they're not espousing, you know, like bile at you.

They're not, they're not saying shitty things. They're just erasing. And that is almost like a little bit worse because it's like these movies will never go away. There's nothing, you know, because on paper, they're like, well, they didn't say anything bad. They just erased

everyone they didn't want there. So that sucks. I guess Eowyn, and that's why one-tenth of one nipple. And I'm giving it to Smaug. Thank you!

Well, you know what? I am going to give this, you gave it a half, you gave it a tenth. I'll give it like a fourth of a nipple because I do think A1's, A1's... Ewan McGregor.

Ewan McGregor. That moment is something, I think it's very hollow, but it's what so many movies do where it's like, here's something. It's what the entire movie of Wonder Woman kind of was. Hot take. Hot take. Yeah. It felt kind of like.

I want to revisit Wonder Woman because I think even a year later I would feel different and I was riding a high at the time we did that episode. Oh, I think I cried watching it. Because I was like was like oh this is beautiful but that's the thing when i watched lord of the rings then versus now then i was like oh cool this is fine no problem gladriel talks a lot uh and there is a step worse which is master and commander which has oh no women except for once and it's when they're like oogling and they're like, ooh, a hot woman. What about the latest?

And then there's the latest Chris Nolan movie. What did I use it for? Boy City. Oh, Boy City. Boy City. Yes. Also Dunkirk. Ocean full of boys.

Yeah. Well, at least like Master and Commander has been forgotten. Yes. Like no one revisits that. Dunkirk. I don't think anyone's going to be like, boy ocean forever. I don't think so. Hopefully.

Hopefully they have the same fate. But yeah, so I think there is a step worse. Can't give it a zero. And of course, I give that fucking

quarter of a nipple to my hero. Smaug is a she for my purposes. Her majesty. Her majesty, the queen, Smaug.

That gives Smaug from a different, 85% of one nipple. Yes. One last thing I do want to say is that Shelob is a spider. Spiders have eight legs. This is spider facts with Caitlin. I'm glad Alfred Molina was not in these movies. I think he very easily could have been, but I think he was busy.

And I think what he was busy with was Spider-Man 2. I have bad news. He was too brown to be in this movie. He was literally, and he's white. It's a high bar. Oh, Jesus. That may be true. Well, Anna, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, too. This was delightful. It was truly an epic. Yeah. An episode about as long as the movie franchise itself. Yeah. So you're welcome, everybody. Where can we find you on the web?

You can find me at Bad Comics with an X by Anna with two Ns on Instagram. I make a web comic about anxiety and depression and also thank you my lactose intolerance i'm very allergic to cheese but i'm in love i eat it every day it's my struggle um and you can also find me on twitter same handle and uh for my ucb uh my show the pickle hour every month i love the pickle thank you jamie is a many time returning guest And I perform on UCB, my show, The Pickle Hour. Yay. I love The Pickle Hour so much. Thank you. Jamie is a many-time returning guest. And Caitlin, we've got to have you on.

I'd love to do it any time. Yeah, we'll set it up after this. But yeah. No, we have to do it right now. Yeah, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks for, Jamie, I know that you were reluctant to talk about an 18,000 hour movie. I'm such a bitch. I'm sorry. I still enjoy this trilogy.

It is very bad at women, but I will watch it periodically for the rest of my life, probably. At least we have Smaug. We have Smaug. You can find us online at twitter at Bechtelcast you can find us on Instagram you can find us on Facebook you can contribute to our

matrion $5 a month is two extra episodes of listener requests only except for when it's our birthdays and then we pick so join up it's super fun and a fun way to participate in the community as well. We love you. You're great.

Thanks for listening. And I win. I win. Bye. Bye. Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Hey everyone, Jake Storielli here from John Boy Media. I want to tell you about my podcast, Waking Jake. I've been a sports nut my whole life, and there's nothing I love more than talking about it. If you're a sports fan, Wake and Jake is the place for you. Covering all the hot topics from the sports world, a lot of baseball, a lot of postseason coverage,

mock drafts, awards, guest interviews, all of it. New episodes every Monday and Wednesday. Come watch along on the Wake and Jake YouTube channel or listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1982, Atari players had one game on their minds, Sword Quest. Because the company had promised 150 grand in prizes to four finalists,

but the prizes disappeared, leading to one of the biggest controversies in 80s pop culture. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Swordquest. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. Listen to The Legend of Swordquest

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.