The Bechdel Cast - There's Something About Mary with Katy Stoll

Episode Date: August 29, 2019

There's something about this episode, and it's that this episode is about Caitlin and Jamie and special guest Katy Stoll talking about There's Something About Mary.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @katystoll 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.

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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, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. 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 Katherine 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. 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 effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast oh boy there's something about a terrible movie don't you think caitlin yes i do think that wow hi i'm jam Loftus. I'm Caitlin Durante. And this is The Bechdelcast. It's our podcast. Beloved, I would say.

Beloved, yes. There's something about this podcast. There's something about The Bechdelcast. Is it that we are emotionally abused and stalked all the time? Because anyways, this is The Bechdelcast. It's our podcast about the betrayal of women in movies. It's not really betrayal. Betrayal.

Well, movies usually betray women, yes. Yes, and we use the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for discussion. But what is that? Well, it's just a media metric that was developed by cartoonist Alison Bechdel that you can apply to a movie like There's Something About Mary, for example.

A movie will pass said test if there are two named female identifying characters who speak to each other about something other than a man. Yes. So that's it. Here's an example of it. Hey, Caitlin. Hey, Jamie.

Your hair is so short and cute and great. Thank you. You are abiding by the loftest rule i am now the baldest woman in charge yes you're you did it i think by the time this episode comes out i will have gotten this haircut quite some time ago but but that's just a little peek behind the time of this recording i got this haircut today yeah it's fresh yes fresh snips there's there's like hair particles on my like shirt still i'm like itchy about i like it and that passed the bechdel test it really did that was one of our better ones i honestly i don't think we're actually not that it's hard i mean

it is hard it's but also that it goes against everything we say in every episode but it is kind of hard we talked about like appearances and beauty, so wasn't that good of a conversation? It counts. It counts. Yeah, we're great examples. Please donate to our Patreon. Let's introduce our guest. Yay.

She is an actress, a producer. You know her from Some More News, and she's a co-host of the podcast Even More News. It's Katie Stoll. Hey, guys. Hi. Welcome. I feel so welcomed. some more news and she's a co-host of the podcast even more news it's katie stole hey guys hi welcome i feel so welcomed and i had to like quietly laugh so that i didn't blow my cover people knew someone was here i could have laughed you're very funny i like your vibe oh thank you we do our best yeah we are beloved so yes you are we're we have to navigate this new hair vibe yes the hair vibe has changed yeah it looks so good thank you so much we'll post some pics if you haven't seen them already we will i don't know everyone by this yes by the time they hear

this they're like that's old news they will have known although maybe you'll have already gotten it retrimmed so maybe i'll have a shaved head yeah i was gonna say i was talking about with this doesn't pass the bachelor's test but i was talking about it with miles upstairs and i was like the balls woman's in charge i'm gonna go shave my head or even better decapitate myself and then and then who's in charge then you'll win yes Because we are constantly in competition. Women are always in competition with each other. When we're not shopping, that is. Right.

Yeah. So today's movie is There's Something About Mary. Oh boy. We were going to have to do it eventually. And the time is now. Absolutely unbelievable. Unfathomably upsetting. And worth saying, considered by some i i would i would doubt this would make a bit shout out to the movie doubt i has i always say it i have such

doubts but by some this is considered one of the greatest comedy movies ever produced. It's on the AFI list of best comedies ever. How? They need to revisit it. I mean, Farrelly Brothers? More like the Feminist Brothers. That's my first bad joke in my notes. This is a zinger. I mean, one of the men responsible for this movie went on to make Green Book.

So the atrocity is no bounds for these men. We can see the progression for him starting with there's something about Marion ending at Green Book where things went wrong. What kind of person do you have to be? Well, not long after this, they made that movie The Ringer about Johnny Knoxville pretending to be someone with a developmental disability so he can compete in the Special Olympics. The Farrelly brothers, I would say, have, and it's very obvious and there's something about Mary too, but they have a fixation on mocking disabled people.

Yes, absolutely. I don't know where this is rooted in their lives, but it's like they've made a career out of mocking disabled. It's not just one movie. It's literally all of them. It's clearly from their childhood in some capacity. I don't know. But there's two major plot lines

that involve that in this film. And they also made Dumb and Dumber. They made the movie you just described. They made Shallow Hal, a.k.a aka fat shaming the movie um they they've made they're responsible for so much harm in in the world and now one of them has an oscar for a movie that many would consider harmful rightfully so i mean it's you know let's talk about our history but there is something about m. Yeah. Katie, when did you first see it?

What's your relationship to the movie? Don't. I mean, what year did this come out? 98? Yeah. 98, yeah. So I was in middle school. I guess I saw it back then.

I remember having seen it. I also remember that I didn't like it. Good. I will say that. I'm proud of younger me for not liking it. Well, little Katie. Little Katie knew what's up. But I don't have very many memories of it other than thinking Cameron Diaz is a babe, which she is.

She's a beautiful woman. Which is true. That is not the important takeaway. No. God. Caitlin, what's yours? I watched it, I would say probably three or four times as someone who was about middle school aged also because i was i guess i would have been like 12 when it came out and i enjoyed it like my seventh grade year and then

didn't watch it again since then yeah so totally forgot all of the horrible problems that are just running rampant in this movie but uh yeah i did see it uh at least a couple times as a younger person i am horrified to admit you know but i don't even know if i thought it was funny i think it would just be like on at sleepovers or something i wasn't i never sought this movie out i have a horrible admission to make, which is that I did laugh at exactly one scene in this movie. Which one? When Ben Stiller's fighting the dog. Yeah, I mean, there's something funny. Well, because the dog is clearly fake.

Like, there's something about the way his little legs are sticking out that that's funny, I guess. And the way it's edited, it's all sped up. And you're just like, look at Ben stiller fighting this this like fucking taxidermy anyways that made me laugh and i have to live with that for the rest of my life i mean it's okay you you've admitted it and that's true acceptance is the first step in your recovery we're all about processing here we're just uh yeah my history with this movie, I definitely didn't see it when it came out. My mom, especially, was very not about raunchy comedies. She was very against them, morally opposed to them. And I don't think it was her, but I do have a memory of, it could have been one of my friend's moms,

but Peter and Bobby Farrelly are uh from new england famously and someone's mom described them as the worst of us they're not wrong at a sleepover yeah so um i i hadn't seen i don't think honestly i don't think i've ever seen a farrelly brothers movie at all so this would have been i watched it the other day with friend of the cast melissa lozada oliva and uh you know there's there's really not a good thing to be said about it i'll say that i liked uh jonathan richmond did the music and he's that guy that pops up throughout it singing he's actually a really i love him you guys should check him out so when you first start to sing i'm like like, is that? Oh, it is.

Maybe this movie won't be so bad. Never mind. No. Yeah. So I like that about it. That's fun. I did like the dog fighting scene. But I didn't like the scene where they let the dog on fire.

It was kind of fickle with the dog scenes. There's two different way too long because the entire movie is way too long. So much of this movie could be. Scenes. What? Why is a comedy movie longer than like 100 minutes anyway it's a style of comedy also that's like it's really painful to watch where and i don't know if it's just because it's not funny or but this situation where you're like you just keep grinding in and this cringeworthy scene and i feel like we've, maybe I'm wrong,

but it doesn't feel like a lot of our comedies are that kind of comedy. Do you know what I mean? Lately, it's more absurd or whatever. But just that like, oh, this isn't funny. It's just painful. There are no jokes. It's just gross out humor.

And it's all very stupid. It's really juvenile. I feel like this, like, because this sort of era of, because there's a lot of 90s and early 2000s comedies that, like, kind of fit this bill. Yeah. And then that sort of transitions into Judd Apatow comedies, which I also hate. Yes. So it just sort of evolves. And are also too long.

And are, I mean, talk about, just cut the camera, Apatow. Jesus fucking Christ. You don't need to let everyone's improv sit on screen. 900 hours of Seth Rogen hits the cutting room floor every time. I hate it. Okay, I'll do the recap

of this wretched movie. Okay. It's 1985. We meet Ted. That's Ben Stiller's character. He's in high school. He's a dweeb. They're doing a whole Pen15 thing at the beginning.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And there's this girl, Mary. There's something about Mary. That's Cameron Diaz's character. She's hot and badly written. That's the something. That is.

Thank you for putting your finger on it. I was like, what is it about her everyone thinks she's awesome ted is like oh who's that hubba hubba but then his friend is like oh no she's got this boyfriend named woogie sure uh then payoff on that is exhausting then there's an incident in the schoolyard where some guys are bullying mary's brother warren and ted steps in to help so then mary's like oh my god a man did a heroic thing i'm just gonna automatically like him now yeah uh and she and this is the first motif of abusing disabled people yes appears uh-huh because it is recurring it is bad yeah she

asks him to prom she's like oh i've broken up with woogie why don't we go to prom together and he's like oh my god but then on the day of prom there's this whole mishap and then he accidentally zips his peepee and his balls into his pants zipper and i i knew this was the only thing i knew about this movie yes was that this happened like this is the thing that everyone remembers i didn't even know about the whole hair cum thing those are the two big ones the cum hair and the zipper i knew about the zipper yeah that was it i was like was that same thing about Mary? So he tries to fix it. It gets worse. And then he's rushed away in an ambulance.

And that's the last time that Ted sees Mary. Cut to 13 years later. He's recounting this story to his therapist. There's like a weird gay joke that continues into the following scene with Ted and his friend dom chris elliott's character uh and ted's talking about how he's still in love with mary 13 years later but she moved to miami and beyond that he doesn't know how to find her he literally doesn't know anything about this is definitely like a pre-facebook problem movie like none of this happens now you could cut you could i mean you could kind of

mercifully cut out 20 minutes of the movie if there was facebook because then you wouldn't have the whole pi lying thing that takes it takes up so much time you're just like this ben stiller's the star of this movie where is he for like a half hour he's not in the first half of the movie hardly really at all because it's it's all matt dylan and you're like what the matt dylan why why why is he agreeing to this and i and i think a spectacular waste of chris elliott who i think is so funny and man i hope he got a boat with this or something yeah because this is like this is a this is not a good look. No, it's not. He was in a bunch of problematic stuff around this time. His solo stuff is great, though.

Yeah. So Chris Elliott's character, Dom, recommends that Ted hire Pat Healy, Matt Dillon's character, because he's a private investigator. I guess he freelances as one or something. I don't know. This income something, some sort of like, he tracks down people for money. I don't know. It's like income something, some sort of like you track down people for money. I don't know. Well, the same,

like everyone's job in this movie is kind of unclear. No one's really going to work. Ben Stiller leaves work what appears to be indefinitely to stalk Cameron Diaz. Well, he's always like, I'm a writer or trying to be.

So what do you do for money? Right. Yeah, it's very. And then also like Cameron Diaz is like a doctor of some sort. Yeah, she's an orthopedic surgeon. When? Absolutely. You never see her at work.

That infuriates me because absolutely nothing about her is a person that's observant or like, you know. She cares about people and stuff, but she's not an – she doesn't present as an academic. And then they just give one scene in her office where she walks in and walks out. Yeah. But that could be an office for anything. Yeah.

Exactly. But they just dropped – oh, yeah, she's an orthopedic surgeon. She's great. I feel like – yeah, I feel like that is at best that's like the farrelly's being like see we're like feminists because absolutely we do believe women can be doctors she has it all she looks perfect and she's a doctor oh god yeah but only one of those is relevant to the plot i mean she's a woman in stem and she is characterized as being a fucking dumbass but we'll talk all about that okay so pat healy finds mary and he immediately is like hubba hubba who's that because she's

hot hubba hubbas today caitlin you know there's there's more to come she's hot she's unmarried she works with people with disabilities uh and you know there's more to come. She's hot. She's unmarried. She works with people with disabilities. And, you know, there's just something about her. So he falls in love with her immediately. Which just means she's hot. Exactly. There's something about her. It's like all these guys who don't know her are falling in love with her.

So it's like, I wonder what. I hate it. Yes. So then he tells Ted a bunch of lies to make him not interested in her. And that's a scene that we will unpack. We'll get there. Yikes. And then Healy moves to Miami so that he can try to go and make a move on Mary.

Because he's a freelance detective. Or something. And then he lies about himself a lot to make him seem more appealing to mary and then she falls for it based on all the things that he she's he's spied on her her say that she wants right this for me is where mary's character tips from being kind and perfect to being stupid she remains for the rest of the movie. Yes. It's very upsetting.

It's very upsetting. Yeah. So then he takes her on a date. And then this is where we meet Tucker, a friend of Mary's. He's sizing Healy up. The thing about him is he's British. And disabled. And also disabled.

That turns into a whole other thing. Yep. Lots more to talk about there as well. So meanwhile, Ted hears from his friend who is a chiropractor who we meet earlier in the movie. Throwaway character. Who cares? Really there for exposition. Right.

That Mary is actually a fox because he saw her recently. So Ted decides to go to Miami because if Mary's hot, he has to go look at her. Maybe that's the one time that being an orthopedic surgeon is plot relevant because the reason the chiropractor saw her. He's like, well, you know, she's an orthopedic surgeon. So I saw her at a conference. It still doesn't make sense because the reason Ted goes to a chiropractor is that we see him moving furniture, which I guess is his job, but we don't really know. But that all just feels so wedged in so that we have an excuse for him to hear about Mary through another source. But like, it's just horrible writing.

Another thing that could have been rectified by poisonous social media being present at this time. Yes. have been rectified by poisonous social media being present at this time yes so ted he's on his way to miami but he gets arrested because a hitchhiker that he picks up leaves a hacked up dead body in his car and that is also in the same scene where again no time for it now and why is that involved in this why why it's an extended an extended homophobic gag that is sickening and has nothing to do with anything. To boot. Other than earlier on they'd made that gay joke about how rest stops are where gay people hook up. And you gotta pay off on that homophobic joke with an extended homophobic

sequence a raid on gay men yeah we'll unpack all of that and then he gets to miami and he stalks mary until she notices him and then he's like oh hey long time no see let me take you out to dinner so that we can catch up and she agrees to it and then chris elliott's character is like oh ted you gotta jerk off before your date and he's like oh oh okay i'll touch my peepee they sound like 14 year olds right and then tucker mary friend, goes to Mary and he's like, hey, this Pat Healy guy that you've been seeing, he's a murderer. But then we find out that Tucker also isn't who he says he is. He's not a British architect. And he's not disabled. He's putting on a whole act to get closer to Mary because he is also in love with her.

Because again, there's something about Mary. It's just like every person who falls in love with her, the amount that they have lied and the amount of their life they have sunk into that lie increases. And it still gets worse from there somehow. All right. Right. So then Mary and Ted go on a date and she accidentally puts his jizz in her hair. Hilarious.

Because again, she's a fucking idiot or written to be that way. That scene is. Like she didn't look in the mirror afterwards. Right. Who also just grabs a glob of something off someone else's ear? You're just like, this is. Also why. It was also a huge glob.

Even if that was gel it's too much it's too much that much and then also well that's i mean what's sick is the consistency no that is not the consistency of cum who is who is doing props on this movie yeah that wasn't cum no or maybe trust me i know cum cum con. Actually, we all jerked off and contributed to the cum for that shot. Fun fact. No, I bet one of the Farrelly brothers just gave a bucket of their own disgusting, viscous cum. And they're like, this is what cum is. I'm so sorry I said that.

They've been saving it for months. Oh, my God. Oh, God, yeah. They're like, this is really congealed and become a solid. Oh, my God. I'm sick. Okay. So she puts juice in her hair it's supposed to be funny and then she just has a like a mohawk to the date like you do right and then pat healy and tucker whose real name is norm team up to try to stop ted from getting with mary

because again they're both in love with mary uh and then they drug mary's neighbor magda who's another person we'll talk about uh poor magda they drug her dog uh magda's dog yes and then we have the second scene of the movie where we see just flagrant animal cruelty that did make you laugh jamie so that's on you okay it's so clearly fake caitlin don't cancel me over that the dog is funny looking sure it is listen i'll throw melissa under the bus too we were laughing all right okay not the part where the dog is set on fire i didn't like that okay good when he fights the goofy dog i laughed and i don't want to talk about it anymore okay i'll never bring it up again okay so then ted and mary they're continuing to

see each other they're getting closer but then mary finds out that ted hired pat healy to spy on her and she's like get out of here ted so then he goes to confront healy about it who is still hanging out with norm and then he discovers that norm has a long history of trying to get rid of men that mary has been involved with and then we find out that chris elliott's character dom is mary's high school boyfriend woogie who she had to like get a restraining order against because he was stalking her this is revealed as something very funny right like it is supposed to be the joke the movie's been leading up to right this whole big payoff finally and we're and this is also supposed to explain why chris elliott has been covered in disgusting hives for most of the movie. Yeah. Sure. So then all the men who are obsessed with her converge in her house, including Brett Favre.

Okay. So like he was the ex-fiancee that Norm had driven away. Yes. Also, a fun fact about Brett Favre is that he was like the fourth choice for the football player they wanted yeah they wanted drew bledsoe they wanted drew bledsoe he was uh he was a new england patriot that's the only reason i know who he is okay but anyways brett farve was like choice number four all right well good for him sure so then ted is Ted is like, all right, I'm going to go. Mary, you should just be with Brett Favre.

But Mary sees how good Ted is. And like, Warren likes him. I mean, she thinks that he's good. Is how I'll rephrase that. The movie has been telling us the whole time Ted is good. Yes. And he deserves to be with this woman. He deserves the prize of Mary.

Yeah. And she falls for it and she's like, I would be happiest with you. And then they kiss and that is how the movie ends. So let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back to discuss

this movie. I need a cold shower. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks.

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. 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 Lost Culture East. 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.

And on camera, yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Luigy. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it.

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Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Yes. Okay. So to begin, the title of this movie blames all of the events of the movie on the title character. That's something that we simply love. It's egregious. Right. I also would argue that the title of this movie is just another way of saying she's not like the other girls. I think so, too. But I think it's even worse than that. It's just almost like she needs to be held accountable for this. There's something about her that we can't control ourselves around.

And yeah, we're just good guys that lost our mind for Mary. If she wasn't like this, we wouldn't be acting this way. Just a few words before we get into like the the characters i did a little background research about because i was just like there has to at this point in time be some bad press about the fairly brothers um and there is a little bit not as much as you would expect given what they have unleashed upon the world but uh the fairly brothers did i forget which fairly it is i'm pretty sure it's peter honestly doesn't matter i don't care i'm pretty sure it's peter but uh the there was uh kind of a frenzy around them at this time they

were like the hot comedy directors of this moment so there's a lot of glowing press written about them at the time that people dug up 20 years later and were like fuck this is gross i would like to share it so and peter fairly had to you know really swerve away from a cancellation ahead of the release of green book um so an article from 1998 and newsweek promoting the movie describes the, quote, sick pranks that the brothers enjoyed. While quoting Cameron Diaz as saying, quote, when a director shows you his penis the first time you meet him, you've got to recognize the creative genius. What? Cameron, what the fuck? I also I mean, I would I in defense of Cameron.

I mean, what is she supposed to do at this time? What options does she have? And like that story probably wasn't received. Everyone's like, yeah, you're right. That's funny. Like, yeah, this was this was perceived as OK at this time. So I don't halter that against her at all. But like, yikes.

She's quoted in a 2000 article in The Observer saying, quote, I just adore those guys. Bobby's a little more shy. He doesn't pull his penis out as much. That's Peter's behavior. Bobby moons us. According to another article in The Observer, Peter Farrelly says he's pulled his penis out

at least 500 times. So there's like- Makes me so mad. They're the fucking worst. Last year, Peter Farrelly, let me see if I can find... I imagine him now on his sets. It's just not the same. You just can't pull out your dick whenever you want.

No, he does just like a lame-o apology. He says, last year, I was an idiot. I did this decades ago, and I thought I was being funny, and the truth is I'm embarrassed it makes me cringe now i'm deeply sorry which is i mean at least he addressed it but this is like fuck you you're he's he's done too many shitty things like he did have to i mean i don't know i'm like at least he had to be confronted with it but so so all that to say they're as bad as they seem. They're as bad as their movies would make them sound like. And they're whipping their dicks out at the cast, it sounds like, constantly.

500 times. 500 times. So that's the tea on what shitheads the Farrelly brothers are all right some helpful context thank you that's Jamie's context corner thank you so much you're welcome so I mean should we just start with Mary let's start with Mary let's start with Mary there's something about her is the thing yeah um so she the thing that's not that makes her so special and again, like not like the other girls is that in many movies where people try to do this, they basically just take a like flat underdeveloped female character and give her traditionally masculine interests or traits to make her seem cool. And again, not like the other girls. Yes.

Because she likes football. She likes to golf. She wants to be taken to the big game and eat corn dogs and drink beer. We have to talk about that scene because that scene is so... The corn dog scene? The scene where she talks about the corn dog. Oh, the needle and stick. With Sarah Silverman.

Sarah Silverman and her friends. So that scene, just because I had to go back and watch it twice to be like, that really did happen. Where we try to pay attention to when are women shown eating in movies because it never happens. And that is a scene where she's at some bistro with her friends. They're at brunch because women be at brunch. They're all eating salad. They're all eating salad. They're all eating salad. And Mary, who, as we know, I mean, she's Cameron Diaz.

She is Western beauty standards to the most egregious extent. She's very thin. And she says, I want a guy to play 36 holes with and still have enough energy to bring me and Warren to a ball game. Sausage hot dogs and beer, not light beer, real beer. So she's like, truly, I mean, the guy's gal rhetoric is through the roof. It's there. But she's saying this like, oh, I just want to eat and drink as she is sitting in front of a salad. Yep.

And none of the women in the scene even eat a bite of the salad. Right. It is unhinged. Yeah. Yeah. It made me crazy as well watching this. What a hollow piece of shit thing that is. Because if a woman of any other size had said that line, it would have been played as a joke.

Yes. But because it is this extremely thin, cishet white lady saying it and she's not in the back of your head and it's like, she's not actually gonna do that. It's presented as sex. That's the thing about her is that she's presented. That's the thing about her. There's something about her. Is that she

she's presented as being this like guy's gal, not like the other girl's type, but she fits the mold of exactly what is considered, quote, an ideal woman based on, you know, Western standards of beauty and appeal because she's thin. She's conventionally attractive. She's blonde. She's rich, like upper class. Like she's all these things that fit into this like rigid mold.

She's everything, but she's cool. You know, she can hang with the guys she wants a man yes just i agree with you guys another way that i think that this like this sort of stock character is formed is because the guys in the movie are portrayed as like losers and so like a lot of movie quote-unquote losers they think that they're entitled to women that don't want to have sex with them um and the way that this is sort of avoided is like anytime there's a very attractive woman in a movie who is who turns out to be nice to everyone uh that is very fetishized even when it's not logical for them to be nice because i feel like there's

the opposite of that is like the very hot lady who doesn't have the time of day sure for for the losers and she's a bitch yeah uh so the fact that mary would like deign to talk to them is like we'll stalk you for decades like yeah so there is something about her. That's the thing. We've talked about how she's just so dumb. I don't want to call a woman dumb. Right. But it's hard. She's characterized.

She's written by four men. It's just hard not to like completely unobservant, does not pick up on these obvious lies that are happening all around her throughout her life. Also, we didn't. this stood out to me. Why didn't she learn her lesson about, like, changing in front of windows? I mean – Three different times in the movie she dresses or undresses in front of wide open windows. Unbelievable. This happens in movies all the time.

Have you ever done this? I, for one, close my shades. I'm terrified of being – one close my shades i'm terrified yeah well i've got a weird neighbor across the street that was being like always around asking me out and i realized my windows were like right into his house so i always close my blinds yeah no i always always always even when i'm like home alone i will close my blinds i. And I don't want to sound like we're victim blaming or anything like that because she is a victim of being spied on and lied to in many of these scenes. Yes. What we're saying is that because she's an underdeveloped female character who is written by men, she is behaving in a way that probably no woman would actually behave or really any person would behave regardless of their gender. Yeah.

Those scenes are just clearly only in the movie, written into the movie to satisfy the male gaze because her behavior just makes absolutely no sense and is just so wildly unrealistic. It's exhausting. It's fucking exhausting. It is. And the first time that's done is during like the flashback sequence when they're teenagers and there's just like this little like shitty fairly brothers message where ted is gazing at birds and fantasizing about what a crush he has on mary and then he looks up and mary and her mom think that he was gazing at her.

And then he's like, no, it wasn't like that. And they're like, oh, my God. And it's just like there's like that little message that like guys aren't actually leering at you. They're looking at a bird. They're looking at songbirds. You're being a bitch. You're overreacting.

I hated that. But if I had that experience at 18, even if I thought the guy was staring at me, I probably would learn my lesson from it. Yes. Right, but she doesn't. But she does not. She continues to get naked in front of her wide open windows all the time. Maybe the nuts are something about her. Yeah.

There's a lot of somethings about her. Here's a couple more. We already talked about the person who just grabs a glob of goo off of someone's ear, thinks that it's... Also, how did it get there? And again, what the fuck is that consistency? But anyway, so she sees the jizz and she's like, oh, better run this through my hair. And leave it there. And not look in a mirror.

And leave it there and like not look in a mirror and leave it there and then she's also repeatedly given information that pat healy is a bad person she like finds out he lied about a bunch of stuff but then he's like oh i just like i did it because i wanted you to like me or blah blah blah and then she's like oh you're right and then like falls for even more lies she also watches him violently push down a bunch of people with disabilities while they're all playing touch football. And then she's just like, oh, that's just what he's like. Okay, I mean, there's a large discussion to be had about disability in this movie

and in the Farrelly brothers. Or whatever the fuck you say that word. But there's, there's so much. And we're also like, we'll just say at the top, like we totally open this discussion to our listeners. And if you have any insights or like strong opinions on this,

we definitely want to hear it because we're sort of just reacting to it. Yes. But I felt like, because we haven't really talked about this yet but Mary's brother Warren has an intellectual disability. I felt like that character's disability

was there mostly to make Mary seem nice because she was so she was very good to him and very empathetic to him which is a good thing to see on screen but it just it just felt like slimy and exploitative oh yeah because at the very beginning of the movie like you said like like ben stiller's character stands up for warren when he's being bullied and

you know ben stiller stands up for him which which is good on paper but again it just feels like his intellectual disability is just being used to show how nice the people who are not intellectually disabled are we don't get any i mean we don't get any look into his life i feel certain that no research was done absolutely none um yeah well because it's just so it's i mean and it's just exploitative because it's just used as like a narrative shorthand to explain what the something about Mary is. She isn't openly cruel to her intellectually disabled brother. Wow. Like, it's just, oh, it's so gross. It is so gross.

And there's almost no disability visibility in mainstream Hollywood movies. It's just virtually absent. Which is why this is so egregious. When it is present, it's often not handled well. See most of the Farrelly Brothers movies. It's the joke. I mean, characters with disabilities will be played by actors who do not have those disabilities.

Yes, which is the case for this movie. And then we get some really extremely cringeworthy performances because of that and then the characters with disabilities are often shown as being very helpless dependent incompetent and then the disability like you said will often be the butt of a joke or the character will be mistreated exploited bullied or othered in some way so this is sort of like what the groundwork that's been laid by mainstream Hollywood. And that's extended to the point where when Mary is an adult, she volunteers with intellectually disabled people, which starts out fine, and then quickly,

the second Matt Dillon enters the picture, it just becomes a nightmare. Yeah. And it's like they have some amount of awareness. They're like, OK, I'm not going to say the word, but he calls them an offensive word. The R word. The R word. Yes. And she says, I'm not sure that that's really politically correct. And then he keeps behaving like that and we move on.

So it's like there's this acknowledgement. It's almost worse when you're like I know that this is wrong and we're doing it anyway. Do you know what I mean? And then she like stands her ground for a brief moment but then like is won over by this creep and then like later kisses him and stuff.

Well that's the end of the line right there. You let it go far enough. And that's like the point where her character for me completely disappeared and went from like attractive, successful woman to be desired to that plus just completely irrational. Yeah. Yeah. And then Warren is the one main character with a disability who we really get to know at all. I mean, with Tucker, he's faking it, so that doesn't count.

No, and there's also... Also, the way they portrayed that, that whole scene in the office with the keys and, like, struggling to get it. Is this supposed to be... It's obviously supposed to be funny, and it absolutely isn't. No, it's so cringey and horrible. So Warren becomes, like, sort of... He's he's like the representative of all people with disabilities basically for this movie.

Yeah. And then the way that that is framed and the way that he's treated and the things that that character is made to do in the story, just like it's just all so not good it's bad yeah and then and then I guess the the last thing I have to say about the Tucker character is that he I mean that just like perpetuates the idea that you know he basically says he was like oh I was pretending to be disabled to stay close to you but it's it's sending the message that disabled people are not desirable in any way. Right. And that is like what – that's literally what he says. And that was why he was doing that.

It's just – I mean it's like the mental gymnastics the writers of this movie had to do and the amount of like prejudice they had to go in with is staggering right well that might be this might be a good time to talk about that scene where matt dylan's character is describing to ted what mary is like he's he's lying but all the things he says to make her seem unappealing are basically just like body shaming, slut shaming, disability shaming, because he's like, oh, she weighs 250 pounds. Because according to this movie, being fat equals being bad and unattractive. He says that she is a mother, which is just, I guess, made to be unattractive. He says that she has had many different partners and has four children to three different men which is slut shaming.

She uses a wheelchair which is just shaming people with disabilities again. She lives in a housing project which is code for that she is low income and then that's also bad. It really is the what's what of things to be shamed and then

later he's like oh she's going to japan to be a mail order bride and then ted says what are they desperate she's a whale so he has to then get in on this horrible uh behavior and then the way that that is like the next and then it's like, you know, Ted is, you know, leaves that interaction being like, oh, man, I thought I wanted her to be the way I wanted her to be. And then he later decides, you know what? In spite of all that, I'm such a good guy that I want to see her anyways. And that's one of the many ways that this movie is like he's actually really nice in when you're just like no he's fucking right terrible he's awful like that's the best they can do to paint a nice guy someone that hired a private investigator to find somebody that

hasn't talked to him in 13 or 15 years however long it's been right what is wrong with him that he is still in love with a girl that he knew 13 years ago who he barely knew then i'm curious none of us will be able to answer this but like we said this is pre-facebook problems but like was this charming then like the idea of someone needing to look you up out of the blue and hire someone to track you down even though she's gone anonymous because she had a stalker so she didn't want to be found but is that charming i think that at this time it was still like a viable movie tool like there's so much like stocky romantic stocky but this one is like i mean this one is like insane just wonder if any woman if none of the other bad stuff had happened if healy hadn't gone rogue and all this stuff if if that seems like a romantic gesture to people in the 90s we don't have that answer

but i just kept asking myself that i guess it i mean we were also fucked up in the 90s, you know? Yeah, you're rough. But like, I mean, this is just such a stalker narrative. And it's also confusing because Ben Stiller's character, Ted, will acknowledge that a lot of the stuff that people are suggesting to him, like hiring a private investigator and stuff like that, is creepy and stalkerish.

He says that. Yeah. But then he goes through with it every time. Yeah, but it seems like the Farrelly brothers just be like, well, if he acknowledged that it was weird, but then that makes it okay. His intentions are good, so who cares? Right.

Exactly. Like, he doesn't think like them. He just does what they tell him to. Why is he pining after a woman who he hasn't seen in 13 years and barely knew in the first place? I mean, that is very weird. It is. God damn.

We got to take another quick break. God, we do need a break, guys. We've earned it. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country

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let's, I'm ready to get into the homophobic parts of the movie. Why not? Mary herself, I mean, there's like the extended scene, but once Mary and Ted start hanging out, Mary herself makes like a bad homophobic joke. She

jokes about being bisexual yes um to ted who is like oh i well i guess i could be okay and then she's like i'm just fucking with you and so that is just like was that ever funny like oh oh oh gross so. Ugh. Gross. So edgy, guys. It's so edgy that they are making these jokes. Peter Farrelly is on the other side of the camera with his literal dick out. Yeah, you're just like, ugh. God. Do we need more cum?

Because you've got to- Do we need more disgusting, viscous cum? You've got to jerk off before a date because if you go on a date with your balls full of cum it's like going out there with a loaded gun and the reason because digs it right and the reason that like you like feel better after you come is it because after you've come your jizz everywhere it makes you think like a girl and girls like that hate it i it. I'm paraphrasing, but this is from the movie. I honestly, I just like wrote down for that. I'm like not even going to try to unpack that.

Yeah. Like I don't know what the fuck that's supposed to mean. I don't want to know. I don't care. I just, I just, I do like wish unhappiness and a lack of success on the Farrelly brothers. I hope someone steals that Oscar. It won't affect them. Let's do it.

Let's do it. But now I've put it on this podcast. We're implicated now. Okay. Yes. So there's that horrible joke that Mary makes, you know, turning bisexuality into the butt of a joke um there's the whole thing that we already talked about where the joke is set up in ted's therapist's office where the therapist is like oh you you go to rest stops you know that those are homosexual hangouts they're the bathhouses

of the 90s for many many gay men is what he says and then oh a few scenes later, Chris Elliott's character is talking to Ben Stiller and he's like, well, you know, you are a writer and writers are artists. Oh yes. And most artists are a little foofy. That's right. I wrote that down.

Foofy. Foofy. What? And then this all pays off whenever Ted pulls over to pee at a rest area and then stumbles upon what's essentially a huge orgy of gay men having sex in the shrubs, the shrubbery. And then that scene concludes with the reveal that Chris Elliott is watching cops and receiving oral sex from his wife.

We had to talk about his wife character. We have to talk about his wife character. We have to talk about his wife character. Be his wife character. Made me so angry. Oh, my God. And all the women. Okay, so Mary is this, yeah, you're perfect on paper gal, gorgeous,

but also one of the guys. Chris Elliott's wife, we first meet her serving them beers, going inside to bake cookies. Asking if they want cookies. Giving him a blowjob. And I think I was just saying this to you we're like at first when i'm watching it i was like very angry and i was like hold on maybe

there's going to be some sort of payoff where she leaves him nope no nothing never addressed that's just one and he's actively trying to cheat on her yeah like it's just horrible and then he so in the blowjobs scene she like comes up into frame and she's like, see, I knew Ted was gay. And then he shoves her head back down. And I was just like, oh my fucking God. That was a joke. I also, there's zero self-awareness of what that represents, obviously. Because even in that first scene when we meet her and she's serving the beers and cookies and stuff.

And Chris Elliott's character, what's his name? Dom. Dom, sure. At that point. He's like, yeah, this is the. scene when we meet her and she's serving the beers and cookies and stuff and chris elliott's character what's his name dom dom sure at that point he's like yeah this is the life and ben stiller's like yeah that's what i want i want that you want that you want a domesticated servant basically who is a baby factory because that is how his wife is presented in this movie. Yeah. Horrifying. It's really not good. Yeah. And she only shows up three times before we find out that Chris Elliott's character is stalking Mary also,

which I think is a fun segue into the stalking motif. Oh, yes. One last quick moment of homophobia where uh so ted is arrested and then as he's being let out of jail there's like this big guy on the prison cell bed like he's like spooning him and that's also like played as like a oh how gross that poor little ted has to have a man wrapped around him yeah yeah that people, I mean, the homophobic stereotypes around prisoners and just, none of it's good. Also, that has literally no place in the movie at all. Why is it there?

Also, if they needed to have Dom's character there, he could have just gone on the road trip with Ben. You know what I mean? This whole thing didn't need to happen. And again, would have made the movie much shorter and more pleasant. It's so long. I don't know if anything will make this movie pleasant. Really, it all goes.

The stalking narratives. I think by the end, there's how many? Four or five men who have been stalking, deceiving, lying to her is. Well, we don't know if Brett Favre has been stalking her or not. So I think it's four. She's got to be have some real damage here. I mean, interest issues. It implies that that one of the things that I was like, oh, that's so like it's just I mean, it's all very fucking bizarre.

But she it does sound like she like says she's been traumatized by it to the point where she like changes her name and like unlists herself from like the phone books and stuff. So when and this is again like it's packed with irrationality because when Ted goes to see her, he's driven the coast to go and see her in Miami. And then he's just like, hey, so I'm here. What's up? And she is explaining like she is anxious about hanging out with him because she had – she doesn't give the details. But she was like something happened in college. I was stalked. It was really bad.

I had to change my name and move. And so I'm just not comfortable doing stuff like that um the irrational part I felt like was like why is she not concerned about why he's here right um and has found her already but I mean she says that she has been traumatized by this and then it happens to her four times at once it's just so like yeah and that scene where they're all there so okay oh they all they woogie's there and they come running to her rescue and then ben stiller shows up ted with brett farve and there's this whole scene and he's just like here's the guy for you and i know that that she ultimately doesn. But she's not overwhelmed by this.

Her reaction to all of these men being there is so, like, blase. Right. Her female roommate is there and also doesn't really react to the fact that this is happening. Like, it's all, like, she's just like, oh, my God, this is so crazy. I don't know. And it's like we're supposed to think what's going through her head during that is like, who do I pick? And not like, I should call the police.

Also, one more stalker, the guy that Magda is fucking. Oh yeah. Yes, oh my God. He's just like, I was only fucking you to get closer to Mary. Yeah. God, it's so horrible.

And so the whole long play of this movie is that Chris Elliott was wo so the whole like long play of this movie is that chris elliott was woogie the whole time and that he's been obsessed with mary for many years he breaks out into hives when he thinks about her it's which is very which is another like there's something about implication of like what she is and who she is she me react yeah she's she's so awesome that she'll give you an allergic reaction and it's like her fault that he has this skin condition whatever but like and and you know like she rightfully rejects him it's kind of framed that she's going to reject him which we could unpack unpack, but I don't really want to. And then,

and because the point is, this character is breaking the law by being in this apartment because she has a restraining order against him. And it's for every time it comes up, he's like, oh, well, whatever. And like that, that's how it's brought up.

And then at the end, when she rejects him, it looks like, you know, there's that whole thing where like, oh, she doesn't know who to pick. And then they tell her who to pick. They're like, actually, Brett Favre. So she doesn't she doesn't.

It almost ends with her not getting to choose. So they tell her who to choose. And she's kind of like, OK. And then Chris Elliott pops back up. And then he's like, Brett, could you sign this like pump, this shoe for the wife and kids? And then Mary says, what? And then he says, oh, shut up, cock tease. And we're all like, ha, ha, ha.

This man is breaking the law. And again, her response to I would imagine she would have some sort of like maybe post-traumatic stress, you know, the triggering of this trauma. Yeah. But instead, she's just like, weird, crazy. She's like, definitely not you is my new boyfriend. Like, you changed your name and left the state. And she does go out. So, yes, you're right.

Like, it almost ends without her having any agency. And then she comes running out after him to give and makes the worst yeah to get yeah to give him his keys and then ends up i'd be happiest with you you don't have to choose any of these men she shouldn't you don't they should all be in jail and there's another i mean yet another infuriating moment where the movie is trying to humanize ted is at the end of that scene when they told Mary who her new boyfriend is Brett Favre Ted makes this big speech and he you know he says like I'm no better than these guys they don't love you they're just fixated on you because

of how you make them feel about themselves true that's not love that's I don't love you. They're just fixated on you because of how you make them feel about themselves. True. That's not love. That's, I don't know what that is. True. So there is like this moment where he says the first true thing we've heard in the whole movie. And then he leaves, which, you know, could have been a choice the movie could have made that might have made sense. Mary could have called the cops. And then she could have moved on with her life or something like that. If Mary had some agency, he realizes this was very wrong. I'm lucky I'm not going to prison.

Like, let me never do this again. But that's not what happens. Instead, like by being self-aware for one second, he is rewarded with the trophy of Mary. Because he's the only one who displayed a dialogue line worth of self-awareness that said that he shouldn't be with her because he's been stalking her. And then he's rewarded. It's just. It was my read also because right before he leaves he pulls warren's like headphone away from his ear and then she is like oh that must mean that warren trusts him that's

my signal that ted is the best guy after all yeah which like another exploitation exactly very exploitive and then another like i don't think we see like Ted earning Warren's trust. Like why would he? And like even if that were the case, like he doesn't deserve anybody's trust because again, he hired someone to stalk her and then he started stalking her himself. He's not dating warren himself right so like like she has no agency i think mary is the most passive female main character in a movie possibly ever like she everything happens to her she doesn't make any active choices on her own i would say the only thing she does is maybe ask him to prom like that's the one active choice she makes but like other than that she does nothing it's everything all these like creepy things happening to her i just her not doing anything it's so what this is a stressful episode yeah yeah i mean i don't know it's my first one but

my heart has been like a little bit in in my chest. We usually have more fun. I mean there's just so much with this movie too that it's like oh we've only got so much time. I spent the whole time angry and I couldn't watch it in one sitting. I started watching it and I got halfway through and it was like there's an hour left.

I can't. I can't finish this right now. I got a headache in the middle of the movie. And yeah, I had to watch it in two parts. It's just like it's repulsive. There's not one redeemable thing about the... Except for Jonathan Richman, I guess. I made a list of three things that I didn't absolutely hate.

Would you like to hear them? Yes. Okay. I do like that Mary is the one to ask Ted to prom. Yeah. Because I always appreciate seeing a woman taking initiative in like a romantic situation because straight women are conditioned to be passive and wait around for men to ask them out. But she only did that because her brother was taken advantage of by the plot. Right. Yeah. Good point. So maybe not so good after all uh the second thing is that

mary's stepdad who we meet in one scene is a black guy and there are no weird jokes made about that it inherently is the joke there's that moment at the front door where like a black man answers the door and he's just like i must not be in the right place because how could a black man be in this house of white people so right yep never mind strike it from the record hit us with one more let's see let's see if anything survives shoot him down this also won't be good um i said at least ted doesn't lie whenever she asks if he hired Pat Healy to spy on her. He lies for a second and then he comes clean right away. I feel like a lot of movies would have had him lie for a pretty

extended amount of time. But he instead says, yeah, I did do that. But he just lies about other things. He could have come clean immediately. Just said, oh my god, here's a thing about Healy. I've thought about you this whole time. And I hired him and now he fell in love with you and I'm really sorry.

You know what I mean? Does he say that? I think he does. I mean, the first time he sees her. I hate when movies present you with a group of men and then the female character is by the movie forced to choose the one who is the least awful right even though they're still awful because a lot of the men in this movie are like cartoonishly bad like i think chris elliott and matt dylan even though their behavior has happened but they're the way they like it's very cartoony the way that their characters act

and like they're breaking out in hives. And they're shoving people. And they're doing all this, like, very physically goofy stuff. And so Ben Stiller's presented as the least bad of them. Which is true. But, like, he's still not a good person. Except Brett Favre, from the movie's own admission, the only reason she broke up with him is because Tucker had poisoned it and said a lie. So actually, he was.

Maybe Brett is the best of them. I think he is. And we didn't, as far as we know, didn't try to convince her, let her go when she broke up with him. That's true. He accepted her decision. But still loved her and showed up, even though this is a crazy story. Why did he show up? Why did he show up?

Because Ben Stiller somehow got him on the phone. Found him. You know, he just called up Brett. Brett Favre on the horn. I don't know. Expectedly, I like to bring up Roger Ebert, my enemy. Oh, sure. Yeah.

Because he can't clap back at me because he's dead. He gave this movie three out of four stars. Oh, Roger. Saying, what a blessed relief is laughter. It flies in the face of manners, values, political correctness, and decorum. It exposes us for what we are, the only animal with a sense of humor. First of all, I've met a lot of animals with a sense of humor. First of all, I'll fight you. I have met a lot of animals with a sense of humor,

so fucking Roger Ebert. Secondly, horrifying. Okay. Just like to remind everyone that He's got an 8 out of 10 on Rotten Tomatoes. Oh yeah, people, I mean, which goes back to our discussion of like

why people who are not just like straight white dudes should review movies. Because then, you know, this movie had a $23 million budget, made $370 million at the box office. It was hugely successful. And this movie was made off of the success of Dumb and Dumber which I don't even want to think about I'm sure we'll do an episode on it one day that would be one to do no I'll cancel the show I refuse

people love Dumb and Dumber they made a sequel like a couple years ago and a prequel I'm going to have to rewatch it I'll do an episode by myself I'll watch it with you you'll be my guest co-host I'm curious. I'll do an episode by myself. Do it alone. I'm going to bury myself. I'll watch it with you. I'll watch it. Okay, okay.

You'll be my guest co-host. I just, I'm putting a kibosh on Farrelly Brothers movies. God. Well, there's a few more horrible things to talk about, shall we? Ageism. Magda. Magda. Let's definitely get in on Magda.

So she is Mary's neighbor. They don't technically live together, but she's constantly over at Mary's place because because she's old, she's made to seem lonely and pathetic, essentially. That's how this movie feels about people who are older. Well, there's like that huge visual gag made at her expense. Oh, with the male gaze. There are so many shots of like Matt shots of voyeuristic male gaze. Another window shot. Yeah, Matt Dillon is trying to leer at Mary with binoculars

because he's a great detective. And he's sitting literally outside her house with binoculars, very subtle. And he's trying to look at- It's like Keanu Reeves in Point Break when he's just constantly like, I'm an undercover FBI agent. It's like Keanu Reeves in Point Break when he's just constantly like, I'm an undercover FBI agent. My name is Keanu Reeves.

I mean, what's my character's name? I mean, I know I'm in broad daylight, but let me just get out my binoculars and look around. Anyway, go on. Poor Keanu. I love him. So, yeah, Matt Dillon is trying to leer at Mary with his binoculars. But he misfires because he's stupid and he accidentally looks in magda's window and there is a clearly prosthetic piece of costuming that is meant to be like an older woman's body and it's he goes it's made to seem

very grotesque yeah yeah it's made it out to be this fucking body horror scene. Right. That is very bad. Yeah. And Magda. So we've got the Mary. We've got the wife that the wife that just his wife goes down on him. Give him some cookies. And then Magda is this eavesdroppy, catty, gossipy, wears all pink, obsessed with tanning, obsessed with kind of a cougar, obsessed with men.

And that's it. That's all she is. That's all we know about her. These are the women. These are the female characters we have. These are the women in this movie. Also, she's given a line of dialogue that she says about herself, which is ageist also where she

says the last time i had a pap smear the guy needed leather gloves and an oyster shucker so like they wrote her to make fun of herself for her age i mean well let's give it to them at least they understand female anatomy these male writers they did their research of what happens in menopause is an oyster and you need an oyster shucker to get it open and it's funny because it's like i know that we kind of get like uncomfortable talking about the female characters in this way because we won't we don't want to be disrespectful but it's like with stuff like that it's like i mean we kind of just have to say it because they're fictional women written by four straight white dudes. And so they just are so not real.

Yeah. Yeah. And Magda, I think, gets an especially raw deal in this movie. Yeah. Because there's no other older women. Like, it's not like there's several older women characters. And one is, I mean, one is insultingly pictured and there's different types. She represents every woman over 30.

Right. Like she's, it's just, it's bad. Yeah. Can we talk about Mary's three friends who we see in two different scenes? One of them is Sarah Silverman. Sure. You know, as a comic, I like her. I mean, Sarah Silverman has engaged

in her fair share of problematic shit. This is her, she was very young, not to say, but I have to imagine this is at least one of your first big break type situation things. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to hold the female actors accountable. Yeah, it is.

Because it's like, what else is available to them? If I was back then, young, I would have done the movie. You know what I mean? And there's also Candy Alexander plays one of the friends. Yeah. Are they even named? I don't know if we even know their names. They're named in the credits.

I don't remember if they're named in the... I see Brenda and Joni as Sarah Selberman and Candy Alexander. And then there's a third woman there, too. But I super don't know who that was supposed to be. They're all very interchangeable. Yeah. One of them is the one woman of color in the entire movie. That's Candy Alexander.

But she's basically just Mary's token black friend who we see in those couple scenes not eating salad not eating salad and we don't know anything about her they all get immediately i mean so they're that whole scene where they're now eavesdropping on matt dylan's character everyone's just constantly eavesdropping on each other has some systemda has some system, some things. Neighborhood watch. And can hear what he's saying. But he knows, so he's planting all this information. And they immediately are like swooning over him too. Even though what he's saying is ridiculous.

It makes no sense. It's absolutely absurd. But they're immediately like, and like wanting to get a glimpse of this hot new guy. It makes no sense. because all the women in this movie are written to be dumbasses right like who are obsessed with gross dudes they're god yeah every everything about that character is just like coded to be ageist like i think that even like the inclusion of like she loves her dog too much like there's

like implications she's too close with her pet because and i feel like the subtext of that is because she's an older woman who's single right so she's got a french her dog like they're like she's not a crazy cat lady we're gonna update this and give her a dog right right one last little quick thing and we touched on this a little bit already but the just the excessive use of of male gaze style cinematography where mary is framed in three different scenes in the movie as being like the object of very voyeuristic male gaze the first one is ted accidentally uh looking in on her through the window and that's when he zips his peepee into the also how did that even work they're across their windows are

across from each other i know what is this that does not right do they do they have a courtyard in their house i was thinking the same thing that does not i mean they are shown to live in a big house they seem to be very upper middle class but it didn't look like a U-shaped house. Right. No. I didn't even think of that. The blueprint of this home. Yeah, it must be like a horseshoe house.

Or some Hogwarts situation where things are shifting. I don't know. What if Mary is a wizard? Now, that would really be something. That would be something. I mean, and literally that would be something. At least it's something. That would be something. And literally that would be something. At least it's something. That's the something.

She's a wizard. It's not you're a wizard, Harry. It's you're a wizard, Mary. Oh. We are breaking this wide open. Cracked the case. There's a, yeah, the way that the camera like leers on women in this movie is gross. And there's also, I think, just like another Farrelly brothers fixation on severe emasculation and the trauma of severe emasculation. Because that like the two moments that people remember from this movie are moments when Ben Stiller's, you know, the good guy of the movie is emasculated and it like

you know we're led to believe at the beginning when he zips his dick into his pants that that affects the rest of his life so why did they just cut the goddamn pants off like just cut around the zipper you know what I mean like that could have been a start anyway

and the thing that like the thing that sucks is like I mean exploring the topic of emasculation and how that affects men down the line of their life. Sure. That's a topic worth exploring. But are these the men to do it? No. No, no, no. For the male gaze.

Same like you say I don't want to like be bashing female characters, but also these are female characters written by men. Mary never wears a bra and her nipples are always really hard. Always visible. And I mean, I don't care. Good girl. Live your best life. But those men put her in that outfit over and over again. She's not doing it to be empowered.

She's doing it to satisfy the male gaze. Yes. And it upset me. Yeah. Add it to the list. That's another very 90s trope-y thing. I mean, it's like, I didn't watch Friends. I was too young to watch Friends

for most of the time it was airing. But I do know that Jennifer Aniston's nipples were very present. And I knew that, and I hadn't even seen the show before. That was a selling point. It's a thing.

She had a haircut and she had nipples. Exactly. That's what we knew about Rachel. And that was who she was. And like it's just, yeah, our wonderful producer, Sophie, also pointed out like what a shitty poster and marketing there is for this movie where it's just a very classically like she's you know it's Cameron Diaz is on the poster she's wearing uh like a tiny dress that we don't even see her in the movie and there's in some versions of the poster there's the dog in a full body cast next to her like you're just disgusting it's horrible yeah she's like leaning over to like give full shot of her cleavage. Yeah, it's unnecessary.

There's one line that Tucker says when he comes into, he's always just showing up places too. He shows up to, everyone's just showing up and no one questions it anyway. Because stalking is not a crime in this movie. Tucker brings Magda a bottle of like scotch or something like that. he says she's like oh you're so sweet and he says no i just want to get you drunk so you'll pass out and i can give mary

a good rogering yep first of all gross slang every right yeah every attempt at a joke in this movie I don't even know how it was funny in 98 that's what I keep coming back to and I guess it was because people 370 million dollars like ah it's just like

oh my god I think that people that think that this movie is funny haven't watched it in a long time. That must be the case. I'm very excited. Now that the 30-year cycle is coming around for 90s nostalgia, I think we will all get to realize that it was actually not as great as everyone says it was. Never good. Yeah. I mean, at least it means 80s nostalgia will end.

I'm very done with that. Yeah, we're ready to be on with it. Now we've got to move on to the early aughts. God, that's maybe the darkest time of all. And there's nothing to be nostalgic about now. Oh, God, we're going to have to think. I mean, I think the world will be over 30 years from now, so we won't even need to worry about the nostalgia factor for now.

Fingers crossed. The reports are correct. So we know that this is the worst movie of all time, but twist, does it pass the Bechdel test? Well, folks, I think. I had it pass in the Bechdel test. Really? Yeah. Where?

There is an exchange with Mary andda uh when we first see them together where they talk about the neighborhood watch and they talk about neighborhood watch but she's talking about and they talk about tanning they talk about tanning she does the neighborhood watch conversation evolves into a conversation about a man cheating on his wife so she does start talking about a man the whole conversation doesn't pass but there are there are some snippets okay there's parts of that conversation that incredibly against all odds pass because women interact more than i thought they would in a movie like this i'm surprised i was surprised magnet even is there

and that she's given friends but they only ever talk about Ted or Pat Healy. Or hot dogs. Only men and phallic items. It is a slight pass and just another example. It just needs one conversation. Two lines of dialogue. By our standards, yeah. That's a low standard.

I mean, there are various renditions of the Bechdel test. We use one where it just has to be a two-line exchange that passes. But not even all versions of the Bechdel test require that a woman be named. So there's a lot of – We're just scraping by on this one. Right. We truly are. It is a barely pass.

And, you know, we've said it before. We've said it again. It wasn't designed as a media test. Originally, it was an iconic queer comic by Alison Bechdel. It's not a perfect metric. Right. It's just something to start with. Well, you know, what is a perfect metric? Our nipple scale. Yes. Now let's move on to the perfect metric. Right, right, right. So we assign zero to five nipples based on its representation of women. This gets a zero nipples for me. Zero nipples for sure.

Yeah, there's no – I'm giving it negative two. Can I give it like a belly button? Yeah, if you want. Because it's like – I have an any belly button. I know, opposite of nipples. Eh, whatever. I was trying something. Zero nipples.

Zero nips. I'm getting a negative two, and I'm throwing them at Ben Stiller's stupid head. God. Yeah, everything about this movie is mishandled. I would hope that, because I don't know. I mean, I haven't heard anyone, and maybe your experience is different, but I haven't heard anyone defend this movie.

Yeah. And I don't think people are even watching it for fun anymore. I would hope. I feel like people remember like, oh, I laughed at the dick scene in 1998. And it's on. But the problem is it is on like

the AFI best comedy that's a hundred years a hundred laughs that needs to change someone should update that can someone please revise that list is what I'm asking yeah don't watch this movie it's not it's it's genuinely hard to watch don't pay for the

rental on Amazon or wherever you watch things don't do it don't give any indication that you're interested in this movie. Don't even listen to this. Honestly, this movie is so... Why did we do this episode? I'd like to hear what they have to say about it now. The people involved, I'd like to hear. I bet they defend their choices

for some stupid reason. Well, Peter Farrelly says, I'm so sorry I whipped my dick out 500 times. Not him. Ben Stiller, who's done, you know. Oh, yeah. Like, I'd be interested to hear what he has to say. Cameron Diaz, I'd be interested. Yeah.

Cameron Diaz, she's, I mean, she's retired now. She's. Oh, did she retire from acting? Yeah, she, like, publicly retired a couple of years ago. Maybe she's just, she's just like, I'm done. Well, she always gets the same kind of parts. Yeah. Like, the same character, which sucks.

Yeah. Because she looks the way she does and, you know, there's one part that she can play. Reinforcing beauty standards like that hurt literally everyone. Yes. Including because it's just like, yeah, I mean, she doesn't have the worst problem out of everyone. But it's like, you know, no one ever really took her seriously because she was never given a substantial part. Right. So we don't even know if she's a good actor really we like never got the chance yeah except actually shrek she is well in shrek shrek 2 shrek 3 shrek 4 really we do get to

shine we do i mean she's really doing her best yes so zero nipples across the board. Katie, thank you so much. This was delightful. Even if it was an awful, stressful movie. I have to go and, I don't know, drink a shot of, eat a corn dog and have a beer. A real beer. Not some pussy

light beer. I need to go be not like the other girls. I'm simply not like them and then you know what i've been saying this for years i'm not like there is something about jamie there and thank you there's something about you there's something about katie there's something about katie there's definitely something about caitlin i i definitely think so but you know sound off in the comments because what is it about these women? Tell us the things that are something about us.

I like to think that I've been responsible for a man breaking out in hives. I have no proof of it. I'd love to have that power. But I think that that is the one power attributed to Mary that is pretty cool. I mean, I've had had to make a pervert breakout in hives across state lines a gift that's in far reach a wizard uh yeah i mean she there she's a wizard you're a wizard i've had men lie to me but not because they were obsessed with me it's because they didn't like me so that's my cross my that's my that's all of our crosses to bear it's we've all

we that's like par for the course now not to diminish your pain i'm just saying there's solidarity i'm breaking out in hives now yeah yeah to be fair i've been covered in hives this whole time oh i didn't want to say anything that's the something about me and i appreciate you for not saying it that's something about me is I'm covered in hash. Are you woogie? Have you been woogie this whole freaking time? No wonder you love Chris Elliott. How dare you? I'm a fan. I'm a Chris Elliott. I'm a fan of his. Listen, it's not worth

going into now. Also, his daughters are very talented. Yes. Who's his daughter? Bridie Elliott is the one I know. Bridie Elliott and Abby Elliott, who's on SNL. Anyway, Katie, thanks for being here. What would you like to plug and where can people follow you online?

You can follow me on Twitter at Katie Stoll. It's Katie with a Y. Most people spell it with an I. That's the something about me. The thing about Katie is that I spell it with a Y. And you can check out my podcast, Even More News,

that I co-host with Cody Johnston and our show, Some More News. If you want news, that's where you can go to find some. We all need news. It's one of the better places to get news. There's something about news. Thank you very much. There's something about the news

that is just overwhelming and debilitating. Honestly, is it more painful to watch the news or to watch this movie? Well, I thought, so we record the podcast and I was like, well, I'm going to go watch There's Something About Mary. This will be a nice unwinding activity. Yeah, this is all bad.

Really painful, yeah. No, but it was fun to be here. Thank you for being here and thank you for, I mean, let this be the death knell for this movie. We're done. It's done. No more. You can follow us at, you know, the places. Facebook,

Twitter, Instagram, all at Bechtelcast. You can join our Patreon aka Matreon. $5 a month gets you two bonus episodes every month. Pretty incredible. Very worth it. And you get access to our backlog.

So you're basically getting 50 episodes all at once. Oh, yeah. Good stuff. You can get merch at our TeePublic store at teepublic.com slash the Bechtel cast. Get all your Bechtel cast merch. There's the feminist brothers. No, I'm kidding. That will not be merch.

And otherwise, gotta get the cum out of my hair. Gotta go. Bye. Bye. 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. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do,

like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. 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 Katherine Hahn on Lost Culture East. Listen to Lost Culture East on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.