The Bechdel Cast - Thirteen with Maggie Mae Fish

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

Teenagers Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Maggie Mae Fish discuss Thirteen. (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast Follow @MaggieMaeFish on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante, and @jamieloftusHELPSee 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. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty and I'm the host of On Purpose. This week, I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Andrew Huberman. Dr. Huberman is a neuroscientist and professor at Stanford University School of Medicine,

known for his research on brain function, behavior, and neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to adapt and rewire itself. The expectation on us is not perfection, it's being able to toggle between these different states. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Trust me, you won't want to miss this one. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years.

I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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. Hey, 13-year-old Jamie, it's me, 13-year-old Caitlin. Hey, 13-year-old Caitlin, it's Caitlin is 13 year old Jamie um I'm about to who how do we okay listeners we were struggling with an intro who is okay here's a question the central question of 13 I thought when I was 13 I was wrong yeah uh is who's the bad guy uh-huh did not occur to me that the bad guy was society uh but I you know of the two of us who is the bad influence oh good question I know oh my gosh

well it's hard to say I actually now wait now I'm really thinking about it. We have kind of equal amounts of like we both have chaotic instincts, but they're like not the same instincts. So I guess it depends on like there are certain things. Right. That you're the bad influence on. And then there's certain things I'm the bad. And that's why we create a whole bad person. Because I was going to say like we have equal amounts of like tattoos because tattoos. a whole bad person because i have one bad person collectively hell yeah because i was gonna say

like we have equal amounts of like tattoos because tattoos equals bad tattoos are bad do you what is your peers i don't have i i wanted a belly ring so bad in middle school it was physically painful and my cousin tammy who everyone in the zoom call has met oh yeah um we went to um IHOP with her and had minions breakfast ever heard of it some really some real bad girl shit we were doing at the IHOP but she was allowed to get a belly ring and I wasn't and it was oh devastating I'm sure and it was she was like even we were both such like goody two-shoes but she was even goody two-shoes er so I think my aunt was like we got to give this girl some edge yes you can get a belly ring love that for Tammy shout out to me

the only thing I have pierced are my ears but I have like double piercings in the lobes and then like a cartilage piercing. You're not like other girls. Cartilage. Okay. Cartilage is like, that's cool. And it was the first piercing I got before I even got my lobes pierced, which is kind of wild. You went directly for the bone?

Um, I mean the cartilage, but yeah. Okay. Oh, okay. Nerd. Nerd. Um, there's a difference oh actually thank you resident biologist you're welcome you're so welcome that one's painful though it's so painful and it was like infected for a year and because i got it done at claire's obviously and it was just not the best

experience then i got my lobes pierced a few years later. Which it's nothing comparatively. Right. I don't like being in physical pain even for one second. And so my lobe holes closed like a year ago. And I have yet to go to Claire's to resolve the issue. My mom and I have this. This is a very mother-daughter episode yes and then we're

gonna start the show is my mom used to love to do this thing when I was a kid where if I was getting something exciting done my mom would be like what if I one-upped that and so when I went to Claire's to get my lobes pierced at I think I was like six seven something like that she just like we were at Claire's at the Westgate Mall in Brockton yeah and then she was like I was like six, seven, something like that. She just like, we were at Claire's at the Westgate Mall in Brockton. And then she was like, she was like talking to this 16 year old. This is my memory. So she's more of a villain in my memory than probably was happening in real life. But she's talking to like the 15 year old who worked at Claire's.

And she's like, should I get my ears pierced? Should I get my cartilage pierced? And I was like, Mama, this is my day. And she did. And she still has it. Jill stole your thunder. Jill goes hard. Jill goes hard.

She's like, she's like, oh, little girl, you think you're going to get your lobes pierced? Well, guess what? Mommy's going for the cartilage.

All right. We might cut that from the episode. It's hard to say. Welcome to the Bechtel cast my name is Caitlin whoa sorry I don't know that was exciting this never happened well again we are together one whole person so we do have to speak in unison yes take me Dorantes oh yeah we'll figure it out we'll workshop it we'll workshop it there's time this is our show though where we analyze movies through an intersectional feminist lens

using the bechdel test simply as a jumping off point the bechdel test being of course a mediometric created by queer cartoonist allison bechdel sometimes called the bechdel wallace test that has many different variations but the one we use requires that two people of a marginalized gender have names speak to each other about something other than a man and ideally that conversation is like substantial narratively relevant etc not a huge deal in this movie there's's a lot of interaction between teen girls and women. It's really not a problem. Yeah. Yeah.

And we have an incredible returning guest today to cover this 2003 Catherine Hardwicke, Nikki Reed, Evan Rachel Wood classic. Please, let's get her in the room, shall we, Caitlin? Let's do it. She's a writer actor and video essayist you remember her from our episode on edward scissorhands it's maggie may fish hi welcome back welcome sorry i meant to say um 13 year old maggie may fish We're all 13 on this episode. Oh, no. Oh, no. I'm already sweating. Just as I remembered.

Hi, guys. It's so great to be back. Welcome. Welcome back. This is and what a what a vibe shift for for this episode. Yeah. Although both like, you know, kind of like trying to be like edgy in a way. A lot of angst.

A lot of angst. Each director had their own approach. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I'm very excited, confused. Like, honestly, going into preparing for this episode, we'll talk about our experience with this movie in a second.

But this is a really really tricky movie to talk about the more you learn about the production the more you learn about like it's I'm coming in with my opinions a little malleable and the more I watch that there's been a lot of interesting retrospective work done like both lead actors and Catherine Hardwick have been super open about talking about this movie almost 20 years down the line now. It's just there's there's a lot to discuss. So to begin, Maggie Mae Fish, what is your history with the movie 13 2003? Oh, man, I felt like my experience of this movie is very iconic. It was a cool girl having to sleep over in her very fancy house that was close to the beach,

as all the cool houses were and all the cool people lived. Yeah, she was turning 13. Sleep over. We watched this movie. I think we also rented it behind her mom's back, I think. Same deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When this movie came out, we definitely were, because, yeah, we were, I think. Same deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When this movie came out, we definitely were,

because, yeah, we were, like, younger than 13. We were not allowed to watch it. Right. It was not allowed. Right. But the movie was called 13, and they were sticking their tongues out. Exactly. And they're piercing.

So you did have to watch it. Yes. It felt very underground in a way, you know? It was, like, a movie for people our age, quote unquote, even though it's not. And then watching it, I read, that's my big question. Who was this movie for? Who's this for? Who's this movie for?

Yeah, I do remember. And it came back to me as we were watching it. I remember the overall feeling of being like, how are we supposed to feel about the mom? And are we getting creepy vibes from her? Or is this just, she's jealous of, like if we were all very confused, none of us had a relationship with our moms like this.

Even though we all had very complicated relationships with our mothers. So yeah, that was just upon first impression. And we did feel very cool watching it. I mean, I mean, that's what that is. Jamie,

what's your history and relationship with the movie? I don't remember exactly how we got our hands on this movie because this movie, I think we probably, I probably saw it like maybe the year whenever it was like became available at I'm guessing Blockbuster but I very clearly remember watching this with one of my closest female friends who was like a neighborhood friend who I had a very close, maybe a little bit unhealthy relationship with. Yeah, I will not name her. She's doing great now. She's the best.

But we were super close growing up and like especially like in middle school, we like did dance classes together. We did after school stuff together. We like watch things we weren't supposed to watch we weren't doing like 13 shit but we were like we were like we could do that you know like i don't know it was just like a very like my close friend who i loved sleeping in the same bed as and we would watch degrassi and 13 is basically like x games degrassi. And so we were like, oh, we thought it goes there on Degrassi,

which was the tagline at the time. Well, guess what? 13, it actually scared us. But also it was like that sort of thing where when you encounter something like this when you're at that age, and I'm guessing I was probably 11 or 12 when we watched it, there's a part of this movie that makes you want

to do everything in it and that's a part that i'm very critical of uh-huh and we've talked about this on the show before it's like i had the same kind of feeling towards degrassi like there's certain things that happen in this movie that i think are like wildly unethical to show on screen and it's anyone i was looking through stuff at the time it just like this movie was co-written by a 13 year old it's absurd to think that 13 year olds would not find this movie and so in some ways I'm like this is really unethical and then in other ways it was a very effective cautionary tale about stuff that like I don't know again like I was a super goody two-shoes and like watching this movie, I almost definitely didn't hadn't heard of or didn't understand most of what they were encountering or a lot

of what they were encountering. But yeah, I think I only watched it like once or twice. I mean, for as long as the blockbuster rental lasted, but we like talked about it and we were like, who's Evie? Who's Tracy? Blah, blah, blah. Like we were talked about it and we were like who's Evie who's Tracy blah blah blah like we were really into it and then I didn't revisit it for years and years and it was a wild thing to re-watch because the first time this came out uh for example I didn't know who Vanessa Hudgens was she wasn't famous and now we know now we all know who Vanessa Hudgens is. The Princess Switch herself?

Yes. Yes. Yeah, she really did something there. And yeah, it was like this movie, I have such complicated feelings towards it. And as I was preparing for this episode, I was struggling to untangle my middle school self and analyzing it as a crusty adult.

So let's see how this goes. Caitlin, what's your history with the movie 13? Well, I did see it not long after it came out. I think like also when it became available to rent on like DVD, maybe even VHS back then. That cover is hard to ignore.

I think it really got all. It's so 2003 too. It's so like scrapbooky looking. ignore. I think it really got all of it. It's so 2003, too. So memorable. It's so like scrapbook-y looking. Yeah. Loved it. So I was like 16 or 17, 16, I think, when this movie came out. So I was, you know, still an impressionable teenager, but older than the characters. Yeah.

13-year-olds are famously feral i feel like by the time you're 16 you're a little less feral right i mean i guess it just depends on the person maybe you're more feral by then some people are that's true and some people stay feral their whole lives why are you looking at me but um i was also uh i was i was quite the the goody two shoes myself so i found this movie like understandable but also disturbing at the time and i think that's the same impression i have of it now i find this movie more stressful to watch than Uncut Gems. Wow. I guess that that is like the go-to stressful movie to compare it to. But for like different reasons, obviously. Yeah.

I mean, I will say before preparing for this episode, I knew nothing about the production background about the movie and i sort of went into this rewatch thinking this movie had to have been strictly a cautionary tale like in the way that i feel like every generation has its like grand cautionary tale i know that my mom gave me a copy of her generation's cautionary tale go ask alice oh shit, shit. Yeah, I read that book. Right, when I was a kid. And like that, for listeners not in the know about Go Ask Alice culture, it's very bizarre. It is also a cautionary tale about a young girl. I don't remember how old she is in the book, but it's supposed to be like an anonymous

journal from like the 1970s of a young girl who gets into drugs and sex very young it destroys her life later on it was revealed that it was not a anonymous journal by a 12 year old girl who i think canonically dies it was written by an old lady under an assumed name to scare young girls out of doing anything it's far more complicated than that but this is like a recurring i feel like every generation has a story like this but the kind of like wrench in that for 13 is that nick Reed was extremely involved in the writing of this so there was a 13 year old girl and it's like based off of her life right and it's like so a 13 year old girl's perspective is like absolutely canon to this movie and re-watching it back it was like oh I feel like that actually does come through again we'll get into the ethics of it

but yeah this is a really sticky interesting movie indeed shall I recap it yeah good luck I love this part of the podcast by the way Caitlin thank you so much for doing it every time truly she's braver than the troops for this. Oh my goodness. Wow. Thank you so much. Well, actually, let's take a quick break first, and then I'll come back and recap. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who, on October 16, 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. 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, Amy Robach here along with TJ Holmes,

and we have a very exciting announcement to make to all of you. We are expanding. We are now going to be coming to you Monday through Friday for a new part of our Amy and TJ franchise, if you will, The Morning Run. We're going to help listeners navigate the busy news cycle and the historic political season that the country is facing. And we're going to do this now each and every day. Wow, we have a news franchise now. I like the way you put that. We're going to be covering all the latest news headlines for all of you. We'll have entertainment updates and we'll even give some perspective on the current events

that are happening right now. And this, by the way, is in addition to our already established biweekly podcast that we hope you guys are tuning into as well with more in-depth conversations and interviews. So we're going to be with you Monday through Friday with Morning Run. Listen to Morning Run on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I've been 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

iheart radio and realm listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we are back and here they are with the famous c Reca. Oh, wow. First, I'll do a content slash trigger warning for everything. For everything. Self-harm, teen drug use, teen sex and sexuality. That's mostly suggested and not. But like some of it is kind of shown on screen. What else? mostly suggested and not but like some of it is kind of shown on screen what else i mean discussion of uh sexual abuse and physical abuse depictions of overdose yes kind of name it it's referenced or happens in the movie right yeah so the movie opens we meet two girls who are presumably 13 years of age one of them is tracy

played by evan rachel wood we see her friend also who will turn out to be evie zamora they are inhaling like keyboard cleaner like some kind of thing from an aerosol can yeah they're getting high they are punching each other because they can't feel anything and they're trying to see if they can like sense pain we then cut to four months earlier tracy is a you know quote unquote normal kid she comes from kind of like a lower middle class background, working class background. We meet Tracy's mom, Melanie, played by Holly Hunter. Did not know who Holly Hunter was the first time I saw this movie. Totally forgot she was in it.

Me either. I did because Oh Brother, Where Art Thou was one of my favorite movies at the time. Team Caitlin. Yeah. You're so cool. Oh my gosh. Melanie is a single mom. She works as a hairdresser. She's in a 12-step program. We also

meet Tracy's older brother Mason, played by Brady Corbett, who goes to school with Tracy. It seems like he's like a year or two older. We also meet Tracy's friend Noelle that's Vanessa Hudgens wild how Vanessa Hudgens was like just they're like oh we need a good girl yeah we gotta get Vanessa Hudgens in the mix like she was so good girl canon in this era

high school musical much the goodest girl best girl find me a better girl we see Tracy and Noel on their first day of first day I'm not sure a day of seventh grade there's another girl at school Evie Zamora played by Nikki Reed who again co-wrote the screenplay this movie is based on her experience from like ages 12 to 13 also the use of the name Evie I was like okay Bible okay that's interesting is there a biblical character named Eve I've never read the Bible well oh there is Eve eve the og temptress wow okay how do i tell them this i have heard of eve i i that my guess is because this movie does makes a lot of broad writing choices that the use of eve was intentional because she goes into a garden and then there's like a snake there and the snake is like eat this

apple and eve is like okay well i feel like much a story right that's exactly how it goes like the the moral is um women are bad um except for vanessa hudgens except for vanessa hudgens who gets written out midway oh that scene where poor sweetie vanessa hudgens is in her like puppy shirt or whatever and it's like evan rachel would hang out with me and they're like and they just like bail on her you're like oh vanessa sad and then she goes to a ski lodge with her family and her life changes because she meets zach i like to think that that's canon she's like i have to my only friend broke up with me i have to move to east high exactly okay so there's this girl evie she's like very popular she's cool all the boys like her all the girls think she's super cool. Tracy's feeling very insecure about like her clothes and just sort of her whole persona

because some like girls make a mean comment about what she's wearing. So she comes home. She like throws away all of her Barbies and stuffed animals. And she wants to be more mature, more grown up. And part of this is her approaching Evie at school and like trying to befriend her and Evie is like why don't you call me after school and we can go shopping on Melrose and I'm like oh okay I guess we're in Los Angeles ever heard of it there this is already where I feel like me and Tracy diverged in a wood at that time because I would never be brave enough to talk to a popular girl especially if she then gave me a fake phone number I would um I would walk into the ocean if

that had happened yes but this does not deter Tracy and she goes and somehow knows exactly where Evie is shopping at this exact moment and she goes to this store because she does try to call Evie and like the number's not in service so it's like oh I guess Evie gave her the wrong phone number on purpose question mark but Tracy goes to find her and she watches Evie and her friend shoplift which Tracy's like oh my gosh this is new. But then she goes and steals a woman's wallet at a bus stop. That poor woman. She was having a bad day. She was having a bad day.

You could hear her. And then her wallet was stolen. And it's full of cash. So Tracy, Evie, and Evie's friend Astrid, I think we learned her name is. They go to Skechers and buy a bunch of shoes I know the Skechers they go to really do you guys know the Skechers I think it's still there if it's the Hollywood Boulevard Skechers I'm like I've browsed there okay I've browsed there wow I can't believe I went to the Skechers from 13 I didn't even know amazing I know great story um so back home tracy's mom melanie her on again off again boyfriend brady played by what's that

guy's name jeremy sisto yeah how do we know who jeremy sisto is every time i see him i go oh yeah oh yeah him is that who indeed what is he famous for how do we know who oh he was in six feet under that doesn't help because i didn't watch that show but i think that that's what people know him from oh he's in clueless i think that's what i recognize him from as elton elton oh oh yes yes yes yes yes he's the guy that you're supposed to want to share with and then he turns out to be an asshole and he bails on her right that's jeremy sisto got it yes he is an addict like recovering addict who um it's suggested that like he and melanie know each other from the 12 step program he also seems to like bail on melanie and kind of only be

around when it's convenient for him so tracy really resents him and the way that he treats her mom and also has been like exposed to him withdrawing from drugs in a way that i think was really scary for her or its position as for sure yeah the way this movie treats addiction i thought was interesting like where it's like you can totally understand that from a however old she was then 11 or 12 year olds perspective that's a really scary thing to see and also that that's not that doesn't make jeremy sisto a bad person right yeah yeah so tracy and evie get. Evie turns out to sell acid. She and Tracy go to a park. They get high.

They're kissing some boys. They're spending more and more time with each other. And Tracy is spending less and less time with her mom. Less and less time with Vanessa Hudgens. That's a red flag. I know. You're going down a bad path. I feel like, so Evie is sort of like the Vanessa Hudgens character in Princess Switch 2.

The bad, what was her name? Fiona. Honestly, amazing that you remember that. I think that that is true. I would not have gotten that with a gun to my head and then vanessa hudgens character in the movie 13 is vanessa hudgens the chicago baker oh my god the worst vanessa hudgens as far as i'm concerned the flop vanessa hudgens i hate that the main vanessa hudgens is like the worst one it's like give me more bad British accent Vanessa Hudgens where she is what I'm saying yeah exactly hard agree

so Tracy you know she's again she's kind of bailing on her her like former friends and family she's slacking off at school she's dressing more suggestively she gets her tongue pierced and we're like okay Evie perhaps is a bad influence on Tracy and then Evie confides in Melanie that Evie's guardian this woman Brooke who is Evie's older cousin yeah that Brooke's boyfriend is physically abusive to evie and then this is kind of the start of a relationship between evie and melanie that we can unpack but there's some kind of there's a dynamic happening here that's worth discussing very complicated to me the movie starts to get like uh yeah this is where yeah i mean this is where i come undone you're just like yeah but but evie essentially moves in to the family home because everyone is allowed to move into the

family home right because there's a friend of melanie's who is played by the same actor who plays bella swan's mom in twilight which makes sense because they're both this like i mean this whole this is like ground zero katherine hardwick yeah which is why i i never connected that that's why nikki reed is a cullen right yes she plays rosalie is that right yeah and that's how I feel like she became super, super famous. But I totally forgot that that is why she probably got cast in that movie. Wild. Didn't even make that connection until like two days ago. Yeah.

Well, I didn't realize and we'll get into it. I didn't realize that Nikki Reed like grew up with Catherine Hart. I mean, I guess why would you infer that right but like their relationship is very close and like still I mean I watched a bunch of interviews from like just a couple years ago it seems like the three of them Evan Rachel

Wood Nikki Reed and Catherine Hardwick are still very close which I think is sweet but then also the ethics of this movie are so weird okay pretty bizarre we'll circle back we'll circle back the point is though that um that melanie is extremely accommodating and whenever someone needs help she kind of bends over backwards to help them so she has this like friend who has a young daughter who uh stay with them for a few days and she's again

a hairdresser who seems to like feed all of her clients days. And she's, again, a hairdresser who seems to feed all of her clients all the time. She's just very accommodating. It's hard not to love Mel. She really cares about people. But then sometimes it's like, but you're fostering a not healthy environment for your kids. But also sometimes you're like,

but I get why she wants to like help people out no yeah she's a complicated lady meanwhile tracy's dad uh who is obviously like separated from melanie he bails on spending time with tracy which upsets her as does melanie continuing to see this guy brady so there's a lot of stuff with tracy's family that is upsetting to her and tracy's relationship with melanie is getting more and more tense uh we're also seeing like evie trying to get closer to tracy's mom in this weird and arguably manipulative way a lot of times um we also see tracy self-harming we'll circle back to that because i really don't think they should have shown that you can address

that without showing 13 year olds how to do that yes get back to that yes then this guy Javi wants to like hang out with slash go out with Tracy and so he and some other guy go over to Evie's place and hang out with Tracy and Evie we see the two kind of pairs of them making out and then it's later implied that Tracy gives Javi oral sex things are continuing to get more and more out of hand. Tracy and Evie like sneak out when they're supposed to be at the movies. Tracy gets all fucked up. She's been like experimenting with drugs this whole time, drugs and alcohol. Her brother Mason catches her.

He's ready to tell on her. He like slut shames her. Things like hit critical mass at home where melanie finds out a bunch of stuff she finds out about tracy's different piercings tracy's really acting out and melanie wants tracy to go live with her dad a bit but he's too busy with work and just kind of absent overall so he's not able to take her in and then Tracy's like well I think I would get along better with everyone if Evie could just live here which very much puts Melanie on the spot but because she's so kind of like accommodating she doesn't like challenge this

at first um then we cut to the scene we saw at the beginning where Tracy and Evie are huffing the aerosol and getting high and punching each other. Melanie sees the aftermath of this and is like, what the fuck? And there's also this at the time. It looks honestly a little goofy now. But at the time, I was like, wow, iconic. As she descends into 13 year old debauchery, the aesthetic of the movie, the movie just gets bluer and bluer and bluer.

And then by the end, it looks like a scene from Twilight, which is a famously very blue and gray movie. It's just like you're watching Catherine Hardwick arrive at her Twilight aesthetic throughout the course of this movie. And it is like watching it now, I'm just like, this feels like such a cautionary tale

where it almost feels like a PSA creative choice. But at the time I was like, I know you're like, oh my God, genius, genius. Never seen anything like it. Genius. So Tracy, she misses a big school project she lies to her teacher she's basically hitting rock bottom especially after evie starts blowing

her off because melanie was like sorry evie i can't let you live here so tracy now feels abandoned by evie and the other popular girls. She feels abandoned by her dad. She self harms again. She then learns that she might fail the seventh grade and get held back. And then Melanie and Brooke, again, Evie's guardian, hold basically like an intervention after finding a stash of drugs and money that was hidden around Tracy's room. Stuff that Evie had put there, but is not taking the fall for it. She's kind of dumping all the blame on Tracy. And Evie and Brooke act like Tracy is the one who had been a bad influence on Evie. But luckily, Melanie sees through this bullshit and kicks them out tracy is just sobbing melanie

comforts her she discovers tracy's injuries from self-harming and then just embraces tracy and the movie ends with melanie spending the night holding and comforting tracy so that is how the movie ends let's take a quick break and then come back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. 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. Hey everyone, Amy Robach here along with TJ Holmes, and we have a very exciting announcement to make to all of you. We are expanding. We are now going to be coming to you Monday through Friday for a new part of our Amy and TJ franchise, if you will, The Morning Run. We're going to help listeners navigate the busy news cycle and the historic political season that the country is facing. And we're going to do this now each and every day. Wow, we have a news franchise now. I like the way you put that. We're going to be covering all the latest news headlines for all of you.

We'll have entertainment updates and we'll even give some perspective on the current events that are happening right now. And this, by the way, is in addition to our already established biweekly podcast that we hope you guys are tuning into as well with more in-depth conversations and interviews. So we're going to be with you Monday through Friday with Morning Run. Listen to Morning Run on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I've been 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.

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i am blissfully ignorant of what went down so this is like a very i don't know i mean throughout the course of researching this i feel like my personal opinion changed several times so i was surprised to see that nicky reed who was 14 when this movie was shot, is a credited screenwriter on this movie. Not, you know, call me ageist, but I didn't know 14 year olds could write movies. But here is the situation. OK, so Nikki Reed, this is at the time she said heavily pulled from her own life. So she from like the year before this movie is shot. That's where I get like because I was just like, oh, if I made a movie about my life when I was 13, it would also be very overdramatic and paint my family as villains.

So it's a complicated thing. And she's I have some quotes from her in later years of her kind of reflecting on this, which I think are really interesting. The good thing is that it seems like the three main people involved here, Evan, Rachel would Nikki Reed and Catherine Hardwick all do stand by the movie. They've done reflecting on it and it doesn't seem like anyone,

anyone's, you know, life was wrecked by this movie having made. I still think it's an interesting discussion. So Nikki Reed grew up in L.A. Her dad was a production designer. Her mom was a hairdresser. They got divorced very young.

She has an older brother. She did not, apparently in retrospect, she said like, well, I didn't actually do as much as I said I did at the time but she did she did um you know I think have to grow up very quickly and felt as a kid kind of neglected to varying degrees by her parents so in the movie like Tracy is the insert for Nikki Reed and Evie is more of a construction of general debauchery I guess as far as I know Evie is not based on any particular person but Tracy is very much the Nikki Reed character stand-in which is confusing because Nikki Reed plays Evie but in real life Nikki Reed was the Tracy character, not the Evie character.

Which I guess was very intentionally done. Right, right, right. For sure. Because it was like, you don't want to just like react out your own trauma as a kid. It's still complicated no matter what. So where Catherine Hardwick fits in is she dated Nikki Reed's father for a while. Because Catherine Hardwick also started as a production designer. So I'm assuming they knew each other through work.

Don't really know. But she dated Nikki Reed's dad when Nikki Reed was like five years old. I don't know when things broke off, but I know that Catherine Hardwick was very close with the kids, Nikki Reed and her older brother, and that even after the breakup, Catherine Hardwick wanted to stay involved in the kids' lives. There's a lot of gray area here.

It's hard to figure out the particulars, but basically Catherine Hardwick said she wanted to stay involved in the kids' lives, so she started seeing their mother to get her hair done question mark like i i that is i guess what happened but so she and nikki remained close and per both of them uh around the time nikki was turning 12 and 13 entering entering middle school. She, I mean, in the way that a lot of like kids going through puberty go, like she, you know, became moody. She was like going out when she wasn't supposed to. She was playing her divorced parents against each other and sort of, you know, doing, I think, kind of a diet version of what you see in the movie 13. So Catherine Hardwick, I get like the way that

they tell the story is that Catherine Hardwick was concerned about Nikki and wanted to give her a productive creative outlet to think about and talk about what she was going through that wasn't acting out and potentially hurting herself and other people. So she invites Nikki over to her house. And over the course of six days, they write out the plot to 13. So they built it together. Catherine Hardwick had not directed a movie at this time, but then becomes really into the idea and starts to say like, okay, I actually do want to make this movie. Nikki, I want you to be in it. And, like, we're going to make the movie.

And that is how it comes to be. Thoughts? Wow. I think it's hard. I mean, ultimately, as long as Nikki Reed feels okay now, that's the most important thing. And it's like our opinion doesn't super matter. But I do think Catherine Hardwick was a little bit wrong for that. I think it's one thing to be like, let's do a creative writing exercise.

Let's reflect and let's work together. But it's like thrusting a kid into that like the the negative consequence of this movie for Nikki Reed was I mean on the bright side she got a whole ass career out of it she gave an incredible performance she is credited as a co-writer which I feel like not every adult would do yeah and like she does get a well-deserved career out of this. But also she has said, and we'll link this in the description, there's like a really interesting Refinery29 like retrospective on this movie where it's the three of them talking. And, you know, Nikki Reed and Evan Rachel Wood are in their 30s now. But for years, like this movie most directly affected Nikki because it was her telling her perspective of her parents' divorce. As we'll discuss, neither of the parents come off particularly well.

And she's, you know, when the movie comes out, she's like 14, 15 years old and still living with her mom. And her mom has to see Holly Hunter play her. And like she had a really, really tense relationship with both of her parents after this movie was released and I guess that she didn't speak to her father for years they later repaired their relationship but it like per I don't have a direct quote from her on this or maybe I do but her general thing was like she 10 years after this movie came out when she was in her 20s expressed regret at being kind of harsh on her parents she oh I have a direct quote about this you do okay I would uh because I it's buried in my nose I pulled it from scholarly journal

wikipedia but the the quote is pulled originally from I think you found it in like People or something. I think like a Huffington Post maybe piece. Point is, here's the quote. Nikki Reed in 2012 says, and this is paraphrasing, but that she regrets the way she portrayed her family in the movie 13 saying, quote, I wrote this movie about them and their flaws and imperfections and what it was like growing up. It was from one kid's perspective and not a well-rounded one.

You get older and it's like, how dare I portray my father as being a totally vacant, careless schmuck, unquote. So, um, which I think is like, I like i mean again only she knows what her childhood was really like yeah but it this does seem to it's definitely the most loaded experience for nookie reed specifically which i do think kind of opens a portal of everyone's going to have a different opinion on this of like katherine hardwick is you you know, in her late 40s, when she makes this movie, you would have to know that like, that is going to affect this kid you loves relationship with her family. And I feel like it's like, on one hand, you want to respect her creative voice, and you don't want to like, tell her that her perception of what's happening in her life is wrong.

Like certainly not. But on the other hand, she's a kid. And because I am ultimately glad that this movie exists. I feel like there's truly nothing else I've ever seen like it. And so many, I mean, and this movie can skew a little preachy at times. But like, but in terms of like pulling from an actual kid's experience and making her voice really, really important to the movie, like there's there's not a lot of movies like that. Right. And then on the other hand, it negatively affected her life for a while. She had to drop out of high school. Like there's a there's a quote from Nikki Reed. She says, quote, religious people who don't even know me are calling my mom, telling her she should burn in hell and that God hates her.

My mom can't defend herself to the world. She is such an amazing woman with such an open heart. It's a real hard line. And I crossed it. So, again, she's a kid when these decisions are made. And it's, I don't know, it's a real mire. Meyer and well yeah on top of that you have a movie where you're casting literal teenagers because Evan Rachel Wood and Nikki Reed were both 14 years old during the filming of this movie and then I think Evan Rachel Wood turned 15 during the shoot which was like a 24 day shoot, but they're like teens, right? They're very young. And so them as actors are made to do things on set that are inappropriate for

like teenagers to be doing. I felt, and I think like the filming of it was probably handled as responsibly as you can handle something like that. But like you're having two 14 year olds, like straddling teen boys, like making out with them, their bra, like their shirts are off, their like bras are exposed, you're having teenagers like smoke cigarettes. And yeah, they were filled with catnip, according to something I read.

Right. But that was the way that was presented was like, well, don't worry, it was catnip. I also don't want my 14 year old smoking catnip according to something i read right but that was the way it was that was presented was like well don't worry it was catnip it was catnip i also don't want my 14 year old smoking and then i i read that um like the crushed pills that they were snorting were actually quote harmless dietary supplements and it's like i'm sorry dietary supplements are not harmless yeah and then like i read that um all the scenes where tracy was inflicting self-harm they were all shot in a single day and that ever and rachel would her brother would have to like yeah like go to her brother for emotional emotional support between the takes of these scenes because i think just filming that was very traumatic understandably yeah so yeah you're having these actors like do these like very sexually explicit things on camera like

simulating drug use that's I mean and I that kind of brings it back to the thing where it's like there's no other movie like this but that is for a reason and like right yeah this i i don't know if this is a story that you could possibly tell ethically which unless it's like animated which would also make for some weird probably like tonal disconnect right well i mean or older actors right which which i feel like that is kind of tends to be cw net negative anyways and right right and then you don't get that actual perspective that is appreciated in the movie of like you know someone's perception of their own experience at 13 is like this intense and that's also something that isn't often captured it's like it, it's a real, it's a real, yeah.

And like reading how, what Evan Rachel Woods experience was. And at this point she was like a well-seasoned child actor. Like she'd been performing for some time. I think her dad was also an actor and that's a whole, like, I feel like we're having the most recent round of child star discourse, which I respectfully tap out of um but but i mean i i think that i mean in this in the case of this movie it's very relevant because and and i can't think of another situation like it where it's like it's very common that teens teenagers

especially teenage girls are exploited in movies like this and and like you know made to do like put in sexual situations in movies very early on there's always some sort of pressure especially with an indie movie like this where it's like doing this whole movie in 24 days also doesn't seem like it's possible to do completely ethically spotlessly with not a lot of money right like on a low budget where you can't hire probably all the like people you need to hire to make sure. I mean, I'm speculating here. And to be fair. So there's there's a scene which I think we should talk about for other reasons.

But there's a scene where the two girls more or less assault this guy, Luke, this older guy who seems to be friends with Mason. They come on to him. He is very reluctant. He's like saying no. He's pushing them off. We have Nikki Reed and Evan Rachel Wood like kissing this guy, kind of like getting on top of him, all this stuff.

On set were just a few crew members. There were social workers and parents present so there were at least people there just kind of like making sure this was like again as safely and ethically done as possible and that does seem pretty consistent with this production but it's like i don't know my opinion that is like okay i'm a 14 year old actor acting out this scene like i appreciate that my parents would be there to look out for you and make sure you're not pressured to do anything you don't want to do but on the other hand i don't want my parents watching me do that shit i'm 14 years old like what the fuck i don't know it's like it's there's no winning

and it's just the fact that it's like okay two 14 year olds make out with this older guy this older actor to do that at all to do that on camera like it just felt icky of all the many vignettes in this movie that is so cuttable that i it was like why is this like you achieve the same downward spiral without having two 14 year old actors do that? It kind of didn't it didn't add anything like looking at it just from a story perspective. It's so get rid of all and not in any way. I don't know. Yeah, I didn't. Yeah. Did not like that scene.

Yeah, I'm trying to think if there's any other. Oh, I just want to say that the last thing for Nikki Reed and Evan Rachel Wood, I think a little heavier on Nikki Reed side. But this also feels very 2000s. And probably still now I'm probably giving the present too much credit. But Nikki Reed co wrote this movie had a huge hand in shaping it and making it what it was she gave an amazing performance and then her career very quickly became her playing other heavily sexualized teenage characters right for years and years and years until she did Twilight and then was able to like access more roles but it was that sort of thing where it was like she did i mean she did a pretty like amazing thing here and then instead of being treated as like wow this kid can like really write and perform they're like oh just do that again yeah yeah we liked that we liked that yeah like do the part where you're exploited over and over and like which is very of the era and like not at all surprising but also like i don't know this movie did a lot of good things for the people involved

and i feel like it had like a pretty negative i don't know there's i was like was katherine hardwick was like a little bit wrong for this and i but I also know that this movie means a lot to a lot of people and I don't want to like discount that either I know it's very I mean it was like formative for me and there is nothing like it right but there's all these like weird asterisk situations that you you don't you can't ignore and the ethics of this movie are all over the place yeah it's just like it's it's a it's a bit of a mind fuck uh-huh it's one of those things where i think people will be like well the ends justify the means because like and i'm not saying that's what i believe i i'm i don't think this movie should have been made like this exactly i think you can explore a very intense yet authentic experience that

a lot of adolescents have without like exploiting the young people involved in exactly yeah but um again like you said jamie this movie is because it is thanks to the very close involvement from nikki reed like telling her own story this does feel authentic not to everyone's experience of course but plenty of impressionable teens who are dealing with a whole array of difficult like societal pressures struggles at home exposure to like addiction from people they know and that kind of right being a path for their own addiction like all this stuff gets explored that is worth exploring and like worth representing on screen but it's i just feel like there's like if you isolate it like scene by scene choice by choice there's a lot that I wish had been done differently right I do I mean it's like we could talk about this all day of like is there a way to ethically make a movie like this

on this budget I don't know like I don't know right I'm not unhappy it exists it seems like the main people involved are very happy that they made it but also I think it's interesting that like I don't I also thought it was cool that Nikki Reed was like so willing to publicly reflect on the effect that it had yeah that's true yeah yeah I mean I think I think a lot of of actresses would feel pressure to be like, no, it was great and I'm grateful for it. But her being like, you know, yeah. Yeah. And I do think that Catherine Hardwick was like made some irresponsible creative decisions by putting young actors in sexual situations that are not just, you know, kind of unethical on its face at all but also don't even move the story forward so what the fuck are you doing right right like it feels like secondhand exploitative like

when you're watching it and especially as a young girl i don't know it was very like yeah why are we watching this specifically yeah yeah because it does feel like when you show something like that especially when you got squishy pubescent brain you're like oh well they have to be showing that this for a reason and i think these girls are cool so this is cool like it's just like that baby lizard brain thing where you're just like oh this must be like remember thinking like, even though you know when you're 12, you're like, they're doing bad stuff. You want to do it. It looks cool.

You do want to do it. More exciting than what we're doing right now, yeah. Well, even from like a young actor's perspective, like being asked to do a scene like that, I mean, you're just like, absolutely. Yeah, I can, I feel feel gross yeah i can do this like and it's all play pretend and you don't realize until later that even if that was true in the moments yeah the power dynamics you like had no grasp on yeah you didn't understand who was going

to be watching this what they were going to be getting out of it. Like all of those things are very, yeah. And that's on Catherine Hardwick to take care of and like manage. And I just, I don't know. There's, I'm glad everyone still stands by the movie, but some Catherine Hardwick shit in here.

I'm like, you're what you were very much an adult. It like it. And also this girl, like you you you've like helped raise this young girl like why are you putting her in this situation and I mean whatever everyone's relationship is but like it's hard because I don't want to come off as like super judgy if they're all fine with it now but it's just like it's kind of a mind fuck um i would not want a production like this to happen again right that's for sure right that's what i know 100 and also nikki reed was saying in this refinery

29 interview that at the time you know when she was collaborating with katherine hardwick on this script that she was doing the very 13 year old thing that the characters in this movie do which is like overstate their level of experience so Nikki Reed was also saying she had done stuff that she hadn't actually done at that point in her life and then had to simulate something she had actually never done and was lying about to her like to a trusted adult yeah Catherine Hardwick it's just confusing right because when you when you're that age you think you're mentally and emotionally more prepared for things than you usually are and then right if you do go through with an experience you might not even fully realize how traumatic that

was until that trauma manifests later and which ironically I think this movie illustrates pretty well with its characters there is a lot of irony in this film yeah so it's wild that it's also doing the thing that it's like illustrating pretty well so anyways um listeners we're also interested in your perspective on this. It's, it kind of broke my brain. Because I am always pro people telling their own stories. But also, like, when you have, you know, a kid telling their story, you just have to be really, really careful. And you have to think of, I feel like it's on you as a director and a creative collaborator to think of the the kid telling their story in the moment and also think of their well-being

five ten years down the line because if you're 13 years old you're not thinking past next week like right right you it's like on you as the adult collaborator to look out for a minor's best interest. Doy. Okay. Doy. Anything else we wanted to talk about on that end before we get into the story? I guess the only, oh, I guess, well, before story. I don't know.

You guys pick when we talk about this, but I do want to talk about the mom and the portrayal of her just because I was so confused about it as a kid and even when I rewatched it I was I don't know confused is the right it kind of reflects Jamie what you're talking about of like the some things I like some things are it feels very like I don't know. All right. Yeah. For me. So I remember having a discussion like this on the like Mrs. Doubtfire episode where when we were kids watching that movie, we all thought the Sally Field character was like such an overprotective kind of overbearing mean shrew of a mother. And then watching it as an adult, you're like, oh my God,

no, I am so on sally field's side and like she was just trying to be a responsible parent and yeah she might seem like a killjoy but she's just like trying to like from a kid's perspective but we as adults realize you know she's just trying to like keep her kids safe right right right seeing this movie as an adult looking at the holly hunter the mom character melanie i was very sympathetic toward her and and thought that is she someone with faults and is one of those major faults being that she kind of lets people walk all over her and she's too accommodating for sure um but like also i relate because i can be that way sometimes yeah but like to me as far as the portrayal of her character and like that mother

daughter relationship she felt to me like a just very overly accommodating, but extremely loving and supportive and like doing her best. Did she maybe sometimes ignore some red flags? Perhaps you could chalk that up to like, you know, not wanting to interfere too much in like your kids, like self-exploration and growth during this especially very kind of like pivotal confusing scary time relationships like this for the people who have experienced them can be just like so complicated and tricky and i think this movie does a really good job of of representing what felt like a very authentic dynamic between Tracy and Melanie. And at least from where I'm coming from, and feel free to, you know, everyone's going to have a different perspective on this. But like the Melanie character to me, like I was just like, she's like just doing the best she can.

She's a working class person. She's raising two kids as a single parent the the co-parent tracy's and mason's dad is seems to be like largely absent this is like unrelated but i'm also like katherine hardwick wise i'm just trying to put myself in her head i want to understand but like that's that's like her ex-partner that she's like ripping to shreds. Putting through a human shredder with his kid. I'm like, that's just, I mean, that's just a lot. Maybe, I mean, maybe it's deserved. Maybe it's undeserved.

We don't know. Nikki Reed later says it was not deserved. Which is like wild. But anyways, sorry. That was just a thought I kept having. I was like i was like wow she's really going for it she's really saying my ex is trash so um which is you know true more often than not but i just i just like once i knew the production stuff i was like

wow pretty wild choices were made but sorry continue i guess my point is to me that relationship felt authentic and complicated and obviously like that relationship is is very tense and Melanie is dealing with a handful but also I could see another perspective where Melanie is being negligent as a parent and not interfering enough and being ignorant, possibly willfully, possibly not. And I can see if you're watching this movie as a youth, you would be like, oh, the mom is such a drag. She's trying to control me. She's invading my privacy. She's, you know know doing this and that but I'm looking at it like no she's

just trying to make sure you don't get yourself killed Tracy right I don't know that's my thought on it Maggie what was your perspective on that when you were a kid versus now because I because I definitely had like uh because I Caitlin I totally agree with you. And I also did not see it that way when I was a kid. Right. Yeah. I remember, I mean, especially with that scene with the mom and, like, Nikki on the bed where it starts to get, like, I don't know. It almost felt like, you know, inappropriate parent territory. I think that really threw us off only because i yeah it threw out most of the film she's depicted as this like archetypal um overbearing in a way

which i think a lot of us saw in our own moms and not in a bad way. You know, I think, like, the way that she, like, cares about her kids, we very much, you know, saw and identified with. And we were all, like, straight edge, so we weren't doing any of this stuff. So it was kind of like, yeah, our moms would be that mad if we had done any of it. If a guy had wanted to make out with us, I'm sure that, like, this is how it would have gone down. But that scene did stick out and i like i don't think any of us had really had that much experience with like adults you know treating us in that way or

like seeing us in that light or um i guess you know just speaking for myself i was very like naive um and i guess in a good way like protected from that as a kid you know I had very good relationships with most of the adults I knew um so that I think rubbed all of us in a really weird way I think it was like maybe some of the first media that we saw where you know like a kid and adult had a encroaching upon a inappropriate relationship of speaking to, you know, like young women's experience of like older people kind of being too into their business. But I think this was the first time we saw one, like a woman being involved and that it was like a mom, you know, and we all knew each other's moms.

We were all like very close, small towns. I think it was in a weird way eye opening maybe not eye opening but i think more more so than like the drugs and stuff because that you know we kind of just assumed was happening and like we knew kids older than us were taking drugs and so i think that threw us less for a loop but i think that was like relationship dynamics i think all of us were like whoa um yeah whoa see i have a complicated thought on that because so so there's also kind of a mother-daughter relationship between Evie and Melanie or like mother figure. Yeah.

When I was a kid, I thought that the relation I thought that like I viewed Evie as trying to basically like single white female Tracy. I was so on Tracy's side when I was a kid that I would get frustrated with Melanie, even though like, I don't know know watching that character now I feel like it's interesting that other mothers saw that movie and went after Nikki Reed's mother because I thought Melanie is actually like written and especially portrayed by Holly Hunter really sympathetically yeah um and like she has a lot of layers but when I was a kid I definitely was like Mel Melanie isn't like she's she's all over the place with tracy she like and i had like not a totally dissimilar really i mean not identical at all but like when a parent wants to be your friend but also needs to parent at the same time that's just like a difficult

situation for both parties because at the beginning it is clear that like melanie wants to be a cool mom because she's a chronic people pleaser we see that in every area of her life and it doesn't and her daughter's a big part of it where you know it's like when that scene that really like hit for me with when evan rachel wood comes home and she's like someone made fun of my socks i'm not a kid anymore and her mom takes her out shopping and she's like, someone made fun of my socks. I'm not a kid anymore. And her mom takes her out shopping. And it's like, okay, you're growing up. Like, she's not doing the weird, like, I want you to be a little girl forever. And she wants to be the cool mom that takes her daughter to get clothes that she likes.

And, but then later on, you know, you see Melanie's always trying to kind of have it both ways. And it's not possible to have it both ways in a lot of situations. And that comes up again with when she brings Evie and Tracy to the store that they love to shoplift from. And, you know, Mel is like, wait, I need to call your guardian. But it's still like in a cool way, though. And then she like has she's like, well, your guardian said that you you can't be alone but i'm cool and i'll get you pants and like yeah but as a kid i saw i saw mel and sort of was like why isn't she why can't she see what tracy needs why is she letting this

guy stay around and like i just didn't understand the adult dynamics i still think that brady shouldn't be around those kids and especially if she had whatever like the promises that your parents make you when you're a kid are sacred and the fact that she told her kids okay he's not going to be around anymore and then he was still around that's a huge deal and like that is a failure of parenting on her part I thought then and still now but now I can understand the Melanie like she it sounds like she's been through the fucking ringer and had moments in her life where she really needed love and support from some from other people and she wants to be that person when people she loves is in trouble but sometimes it's like you can't save everybody and like it's just right this whole I don't know

yeah my my I've my opinion on her when I was 12 was not super favorable and now it's like I think that she's like Holly Hunter did an amazing job and I guess that she Holly Hunter like asked to be an executive producer on the movie so she could help shape the character in a more sympathetic way. Right. So she's the best. Yeah. And to go back to I think like the dynamic that you were talking about Maggie between Melanie and Evie. Were you talking about so there's like a scene where like Evie kisses Melanie on the lips yeah

so there's a few scenes similar that was the most extreme but there's examples throughout the movie of how I perceive this was Evie is an extremely manipulative person right she perceives that melanie is very accommodating and is very much a people pleaser and knows that she's going to be very easy to manipulate and exploit so she does different things where she like for example that scene where she kisses melanie on the mouth you can see how like taken aback and weirded out Melanie is by that and there's another scene where Evie confides in Melanie that she was abused by her guardian's boyfriend right and and then like you know Melanie's like oh my god and then there's like kind of a weird hug that they share that like Tracy walks into and she's like what the hell

is going on here and it's also I mean I watching that back now I've I used to feel more like I think because it was just like whatever you're 12 and you have your own mommy problems but like I was like Evie is stealing Tracy's mom and like right and Mel isn't doing enough to like draw boundaries with her and that has to be hurtful for Tracy because anytime like your parent like is like I don't know like you get jealous in this weird way when you're a kid and your parent is like paying attention to someone who isn't you or your sibling right my mom ran a daycare so I was constantly like oh man this is my mom and like you know like that that does stick with you but i i thought like what i what i didn't internalize is that mel would have seen a lot of herself in evie and wanted to help her

and like they do connect in that scene where evie you know i mean it's it is tricky where it's like there's kind of this question looming over evie's character of like, what is the truth and what isn't? I feel like it is heavily implied that she is not telling the truth about everything or she's overstating a lot of stuff and is willing to throw other people under the bus if she feels backed into a corner. But it seems like she knows exactly what to say to appeal to Mel. And, you know, Mel was like, well, I didn't have a mom around when i was growing up either so if you need a mother figure i guess sure you can stay here like right where like i think you can see it as evie being legitimately desperate for a supportive mother figure you can also see a lot of those interactions as Evie manipulating Melanie to get what she wants and possibly lying about some stuff it could be

both things because Evie is clearly someone who comes from a very rough background and you know is probably doing a lot of this stuff as like a survival technique or some kind of coping mechanism so like obviously her behavior didn't happen in a vacuum we don't really know that much about her background because we also don't know what is the truth and what's not because we see her lie effortlessly effortlessly effortlessly right constantly so you don't really know what she's telling the truth about and what she isn't but we can assume that she you know had a pretty unstable upbringing and yeah which informed a lot of her behavior so it's just so complicated and the fact that like melanie is like kind of and it's not her fault that she's easily manipulated but

you also kind of have to like examine yourself like you know different things when you're a parent and in your kids safety is at stake here so like it's just so complicated but this is all like such real stuff that a lot of people deal with so right like it's she can be frustrating but i think like watching it now it's like she does come by all of her problems honestly and in the in the writing of the movie it's like that's not something that comes out of left field that she would be very easily manipulated by someone who is like i don't have anyone else in the world will you help me because that's how her relationship with her boyfriend works and that's how her relationship easily manipulated by someone who is like, I don't have anyone else in the world. Will you help me? Because that's how her relationship with her boyfriend works. And that's how her relationship

with her friend works. Like people know if they show up at Mel's house, and they're like, I need a place to crash. I need a hot meal. I need some like, if she can give it to them, she will, which is like a really hard quality to dislike about someone totally but i do i think that it's kind of a rare example of seeing you know that that kind of behavior no matter how honestly you come by it and how well intentioned it is can hurt other people and it can result in like neglecting other stuff and i think i mean i do remember like when i first saw the movie being like how does she have no idea what's going on her daughter's coming home all the time visibly fucked up and is rarely called out on it and that is something that I still sort of felt

on that I feel like that like I don't even know if that's a criticism it's just like something that has always stuck with me because I know that that happens and I know that like you know whatever none of us are parents and you know her kid is clearly in trouble and it seems like she doesn't know what to do so she's ignoring the problem which definitely happens but it's frustrating to watch or it's just like oh your kid needs you Mel I know and then i think her being a recovering addict informs a lot of just sort of you know like how how she is how she parents right well even like the not addressing things it's probably an overcorrection of well if i am really strict with her she'll just go towards it more you know like right right like a self

that's how i did it so you know right yeah right i do like that it's complicated though because i feel like a lot of these movies especially ones that are written from like a teenage perspective and you know she has said in retrospect that you know things are exaggerated and stuff which like even as a 13 year old i was like yeah this this is a little melodramatic if we're, you know, going to label it something. But I do like that it's complicated, because I think that is so much rarer and feels more real than a lot of the other, like, go ask Alice. Like, that is so, you know, like, tunnel vision, uncomplicated, don't do drugs. Right. Yeah.

This, you know, adds a lot of human layers to the story of, you know, teenage girl rebelling. For sure. Part of that, too, something that I thought was handled in like an interesting and nuanced way was the way that media influences the teens yeah where there's like often a lot of shots of like billboards advertisements ones that are like are using sex to sell and like using western beauty standard images to you know influence people to buy things and like convince people they need to look a certain way and and you see shots of this and you see, it's not necessarily, it's more like, I guess, implied that these things are affecting the girls, but it's not a hard.

I like that it's not super, I mean, and there are some points where it's literally like, zoom in on Calvin Klein billboards. I felt like they kind of bop you over the head with it a little bit without them talking about it. Which did feel authentic to me because it's like you don't necessarily realize that that's what's

happening but they're surrounded by it. Especially like these LA kids. Oh baby. You're super surrounded by it. And then like it's implied that Tracy kind of stops eating or is barely eating it seems like evie doesn't eat that much she mentions like you know if you drink 10 cups of ice water a day you'll burn 300 calories like it's clear that these girls are

very concerned about the way they look how skinny they they are. And, you know, there is a known correlation between media images and disordered eating, especially in young people, young girls, especially. I mean, like, I feel like early 2000s, it was at its fucking peak. Even seeing the low-rise jeans culture of this movie is so triggering. You're like, oh! So, yeah, I guess my point is, like, I think this movie is so triggering you're like so yeah i guess my point

is like i think this movie not super overtly or like at least not in dialogue but more in just like images explores how influential media is especially to teens who are so susceptible and you know easily influenced by the images they consume. And there's also a scene where Tracy is, like, about to go out with that guy, Javi. And Evie is like, you don't even know how to kiss, do you? And Tracy's like, yeah, I do. Noelle and I practiced with cruel intentions 50 times. I know.

Which I think the implication is there that they kissed each other. Yeah. times which I think the implication is there that they they kissed each other yeah the way that Selma Blair and um Sarah Michelle Gellar do in Cruel Intentions so it's like yeah media influencing like a movie influencing these girls and like I mean I do love it I like I think it's so like and and the way that I mean I guess kind of transferring to there was a scene that I mean when I was watching it and I was a kid uh I was like oh they kiss wow because and and I I thought that that scene I mean ethics wise we could get into it with what that means for the actors as far as the characters go I thought it was pretty well done and felt very

like whatever when when you're 13 your sexuality is very elusive um I know that I was definitely kiss kiss kissing my friends when I was 13 and the fact that they're framing it as practice and maybe it is and maybe it isn't, like it just felt like a very authentic experience. Having two young actors do that in a movie, that opens up another door. I will say that Evan Rachel Wood, who came out as bisexual sometime in the early 2010s, later was like, I had the biggest crush on nikki reed and it was so embarrassing that my like mom had to watch me kiss my crush and i couldn't tell anyone that i

like i mean in the early 2000s i mean the discussion around bisexuality in the early 2000s fucking forget it yeah but i thought of that i mean we've seen so much queer baby scenes that like don't work. And that I don't know. That's not how I interpreted that scene. That felt very like authentic to experiences that I either had had or wanted to have at the time of watching this movie. I don't remember. Of all the things that happened in the movie that was a scene that felt like retrospectively important for me to see and that you know I'm and I'm glad it was like treated in

that way um yeah there was still some like you know like teenage of that era like I don't know just sort of attitude toward it because like Tracy says something like oh you want me to prove it to you you like lesbo right i mean but also like that's defensive kid shit like exactly yeah yeah yeah just another thing that like you know problematic kids saying problematic things because kids are you know can be problematic kids are problematic they're still problematic i mean honestly i would argue like that like a kid saying that in defensively in 2003 I probably would have done that if I was because well sure there was no discussion around bisexuality at that time so you're like um I don't know like what am I what's wrong with me like I felt weird about myself all the time. You know, it felt it felt very authentic.

Yeah, it's for sure. Yeah. Speaking of kissing, here's a I love to start every sentence that way. Speaking of kissing, always. Something that I took big issue with, but I'm also interested to hear different people's perspectives on this, listeners' perspectives. But it felt to me, so obviously this movie centers whiteness in a pretty big way, as many coming of age stories do.

And it felt to me, so you, there are a number of characters of color, teens of color, and we learn a few of their names. One is Javi, one is KK. There's another guy named Ruben. I don't know who Ruben is, but his name gets mentioned it seems like he's like kind of dating evie anyway it felt to me as though because so much of this movie is like look at the risky dangerous wild things these girls are getting into yeah that black teens are being used by the movie to imply that like kissing a black yes kid is yet another dangerous thing that they're doing and it wouldn't be as wild if they were kissing white boys but because they're kissing black boys yeah it felt like very coded and and that was one of the things where it was like, not oddly shallow. Some things in this movie are shallow. That felt like a very shallow, like surface level decision that had no, you know, like.

Especially because we don't learn anything else about those characters. Except that like one of them likes to beatbox. Like we don't know anything about them. I think it's bad writing. And if it wasn't intended that way then you need to give characters context exactly a black teenager's experience exists in a void whereas like tracy's life is extremely complicated which it is but it's like we need to extend that to everybody katherine hardwick right yes like they could

have added you know there's no reason not to like why don't we know those kids why didn't why didn't we get introduced to them at the beginning of the movie you know like why aren't they characters right yeah they're just not given characters at all and right there's a lot of I felt like I mean and this is kind of like a wrench is thrown in by the fact that this is like Nikki Reed talking about her own experience but even the idea of like casting a like blonde pale white girl as like being corrupted by a young girl with just darker features than her is just like it's so like in terms of the parts of this movie that doesn't work, it's all very over the top, not challenging anything in terms of like who this movie considers as worthy of context and empathy and who isn't.

And then like the only thing this movie does to attempt to like comment on race at all is Tracy says says something like if everyone married someone from a different race then in one generation there would be no prejudice which is such a naive way to the most white girl shit i've ever that's okay it um it made me cringe it made me uncomfortable yeah and then we cut to the next scene right right yeah i i also felt like it's i mean and we've touched on this on the show before where like it's not enough to cast inclusively like you need to like there needs to be care and thought given to characters of all races like it it sounds so goofy simple. Right.

But this movie doesn't do it. It feels like white people not knowing how to write black characters. It felt like a boomer white lady made the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly.

Yeah. Because this movie does subvert a fair amount of things. But yeah, in terms of like challenging what characters are given grace and which are not that we barely learn characters names I think we learn the names of the the boys that they hook up with but they don't

exist outside of that context right so versions I did like I liked um he wasn't in the movie a lot but I did like the brother character I thought that that was pretty well done of like he's a pubescent boy and therefore sucks but also like does care a lot about his sister and is visibly frustrated with his mom and his sister for reasons that make a lot of sense but also he's a kid and there's not really a lot he can do and i thought that character was well written what did we think of brady opening the floor thoughts on brady brady i was like it was scene to scene is he the role model of the century no but he's also someone struggling with addiction he mentions like wanting to relapse uh because, because in it, in like

kind of being triggered by the environment in this household is sort of, it was like kind of dangerous for him and too tempting. So he, he leaves, but then you also see him like be someone who does seem to care about these kids and who wants to be as present as possible you know it's just like a person going through a lot trying their best again I think that I think that addiction is given more empathy in this movie than we usually see in media I agree but I don't know I just I didn't honestly pay him that much thought as I was watching I don't know I was trying to figure it out because I guess my main thing and again I'm bringing my youth baggage to this as well was like did did he know that Melanie had promised to her kids that he wouldn't be around because if so I feel like he shouldn't

be around and it's disrespectful to the family to be around if he was aware that the children did not want him there and that it had been said he wouldn't be there. That was something that like pinged for me when I was 12 for personal reasons. Yeah. But I do agree that it's like he does care about the family. And like he does i i thought like that moment where mel is just at the end of her rope and she's tearing up the shitty floor and like she's just like had it he shows up for her in that moment and like everyone's doing the best they can and yeah i agree i i yeah i remember

really not liking that character when i was a kid and And I was like, why is he here? He shouldn't be here. But then as an adult, I'm like, there's more nuance that exists in the world than I realized when I was 12. Yeah. Go figure. Yeah. We had someone, you know, close to our family. And I'd be over that all the time. And they would have, you know, a Brady who, you know, would change with the seasons.

You know, aady for every season um yeah so it was something that was like recognizable um yeah yeah and especially like in the moments where he is there for her you know and you can you know when you're around that you'll see that peek through every once in a while like oh like a genuine like caring moment or just like something that you know makes it seem like it is making the mom's life happy or you know something for them yeah i agree yeah i think that like when i was a kid i viewed him as being very selfish but then like watching it as an adult i was watching it from tracy's perspective as a kid and i was like she doesn't like him he must suck yeah yeah which like he did like did enough for

them to be like he's not coming back right but i thought it was interesting yeah i thought that this movie of the things that we are critical of and rightfully so um addiction was something that was handled i think with a fair amount of nuance um my last big thing and we mentioned this already but i just want to hit on it again because i really don't like this when it appears in movies is when it's inevitable that young people are going to find a movie don't show them how to self-harm on screen. That is so fucked up. It's one of my least favorite coming of age movie choices. Any sort of self-harm, if there is a chance that a kid is going to see it,

imply. You don't need to show. An adult audience will know what you're fucking talking about. I really hate that they showed that i don't like that evan rachel would even had to act it out you know you can even show like whatever scars in my my opinion it's like you can show that people will get it it will be very upsetting and it won't show kids how to self-harm. Yeah. Peepy poopy. So some irresponsible choices were made in conclusion. Yes.

But it's also a movie that, you know, feels very authentic in many other regards. So this, I mean, this is, talk about a mixed bag of a movie. Right. Talk about a mixed bag of a movie talk about a mixed bag um yeah i'm very curious of what our listeners experience with this movie is i feel like there's a wide spectrum of people's opinions and experiences with it i know that there's a lot of young people that really glommed on to it as a kid and felt seen because there's not a lot of movies about young girls growing up in uh unstable households that show a lot of sides to a lot of people like i understand why a lot of people felt

seen by this movie and then there's also whatever we've had we've been talking about it for two hours there's a lot of shit going on i'm also curious listeners if you have an answer for this of like more modern or maybe you know less ethically ambiguous but within the same style or like you know more modern depictions of this if that makes sense or like what did what did 13 open the doors for you know i feel like euphoria is like gen g's kind of version of this which also makes some questionable choices well i would say and i think they're worse off for it because i don't like that euphoria is famously written by an adult man and like right you don't have a nicky reed in the mix with euphoria which is i think like for the ethical fucking black hole it opens up i think what makes 13

really unique is that a kid's voice was heavily prioritized and i think that that is like part of what makes it special versus versus a euphoria where it's an adult guessing their way around youth experience yeah right had the same criticism about eighth grade but no one wanted to hear that people didn't know they were ready they were ready into yeah people are never ready i really love that movie but it's like yeah anyways yeah right um does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie 13 no no i think we covered it uh it definitely passes the bechdel test no doubt about it most of the movie i mean not that i mean talking about kissing boys and talking about difficult relationships with father brother and brady comes up but like a large portion of the movie is women

talking to each other and coming of age and yes all that stuff yeah also like an example of mommy issues which i think is becoming more popular i mean tangled you know great great mommy it's been a big week for mommy issues on the bactal cast honestly yeah but yeah i i agree i think that the the more glaring issue is it's all uh white women talking to each other for the whole movie yeah it's very glaring yeah yes um so that brings us to our nipple scale zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens um tricky one well also this movie is like kind of a biopic basically which like are always tricky to rate on the nipple scale because it's like this is about a real person's experience

but also it is fictionalized because evie is not a real person's experience but also it is fictionalized because evie is not a real person that oh that was the last thing i wanted to say i thought that the the character that was developed the least well was evie which makes sense because that's literally the only character that's not based on a person in nicki reed's life yeah sort of a writing criticism right i read something that like so nickki reed when she was like 12 or 13 her friend got arrested for selling acid and like that's kind of who evie is based on but like not fully it's just sort of like that experience of like a teen kid getting arrested for selling acid let's sort of map a character onto that experience and that's like how it was born a little more like

general than because it's like Tracy is so specific right and it's so like demonstrably Nikki Reed where it's like Evie I mean part of the movie is like you're supposed to be guessing around what is true about her life and what isn't right which I feel like honestly I would have I would rather have done away with that and let us like I think it's more impactful if we do know what her life experience is versus because I feel like that takes her into like this villain territory

or that's how I interpreted it at the time right unreliable narrator yes yeah right when it's like that character deserves empathy but we but in order to truly empathize with her, we would need to know who she is. More things about her. Yeah. Right.

So, oh gosh. So as we have discussed, there are, you know, kind of like behind the scenes things that you can call into question as far as the ethics of you know making teen actors do sexually explicit things on camera it was handled probably as responsibly as possible if you're going to make the choice to do that but you could say maybe don't make that choice at all because it's unethical to make the choice at all um so there's that there's the way again blackness is treated and and used to uh suggest to suggest danger yeah danger which is such a fucking harmful thing to do because of like white america's perception of of blackness is and black youth especially is often correlated with danger and it's so harmful

and so sinister and that the movie makes suggestions at that is really fucked up um but then like on the other hand this is like a story about a teenager's experience told from the perspective literally co-writing the script of a teenager some things were clearly exaggerated for like cinematic effect i don't know it's it's tricky it's a it's a mixed bag as we've said i would give this movie i don't know the things that it handles irresponsibly like really are upsetting enough to maybe even knock it down to like i'm thinking somewhere between like a two and a three and maybe it's just like a 2.5 kind of thing i don't know not the nipple scale what does it even mean look it's also a flawed metric there's no it's perfect i think i'm gonna i'm gonna go three but I might be leaning a little bit on nostalgia there um

yeah and also I think that my opinion would be heavily swayed by how the actors feel about it now and sure that's my justification for going with three I also just have like a bizarre attachment to this movie um it feels like a very microgenerational movie um but because Nikki Reed I mean I I really feel terribly that it had a negative effect on Nikki Reed's life she was a kid how would you possibly fucking know what would happen and but listening to that interview that they did reflecting on this time and knowing that everyone feels okay about it and that they don't regret having made it I feel a little more lenient on that point however do I think movies should be made this way no like no no this is like strictly viewing it in in retrospect like i would not advocate for this

style of filmmaking i think it's potentially could have really really been horrible yeah and it's very lucky that it wasn't and i'm glad all the precautions that were taken were were taken but also even that wouldn't have guaranteed like even though every precaution was taken this still had a negative effect on the child's life who is telling her story. Maggie, how about you? Yeah, I think I think I'm also going to go with a three for similar reasons that it feels almost like a relic of this very specific time and it feels like it captured some things especially like the things are insinuated like the the diet culture the this the that um i think the other reason i'm gonna give it a three is purely the aesthetic of it because i feel like that

like defined the aesthetic for a long time of both low-budget films and things that wanted to be critical darlings kind of took on this grungy blue color for so long that I think its at least visual lasting impact, I think we maybe don't give enough credit to it. I think part of that is the backwards, like, oh, you know, especially men watching it. I didn't know that, like, a movie about, like, girls and women could be this, like, you know, like. Gritty.

Yeah, this gritty, you know um which is a thing all its own but i think because of that the style and aesthetic influenced a lot of directors that were working around the same time um or you know were up and coming and kind of became shorthand for like no no take my movie seriously um yeah which i think that alone watching it was like damn like that just the look of this did a lot and of course then we had all of the uh twilight series which paid homage to this blue gray this became the hardwick house style but katherine hardwick only directed the first one. I know. And that is, I mean, for all the rightful criticism around Catherine Hardwick in regards to this movie, she still should have been allowed to direct the other Twilight.

Oh, my God. Absolutely. Yeah. But, yeah. So, you know, if you haven't seen this movie, maybe watch it for the aesthetic. I think, like, it kind of communicates a lot where the story may stumble here or there or the characters are sometimes, you know. Viewing it as a moment in time, I think, is the easiest way to interact with this movie now. Very time capsule-y.

Yeah. I don't think that movies like this. But also, do I think that this is like more authentic than a euphoria in some ways yes i do like that it like focuses a mother-daughter relationship and a complicated one at that that's very relatable for a lot of people and i think it is important to see things like this issues like this things that teenage girls deal with to be given the like cinematic respect of like yeah it is a big deal to deal with these things um yeah for sure yeah uh as far as caitlin's romp-o-meter goes sorry to give it a zero out of ten yeah i don't no twists there uh uh last thing because i just didn't

know this and i guess i wouldn't have guessed it for a movie this indie um holly hunter was nominated for an oscar for this movie yes it got a fair amount of awards attention it got some golden globe attention i think some like bafta stuff yeah but yeah i um i thought i thought holly hunter did an incredible job in this movie i really miss is incredible herself like forget it oh i can't i mean it's holly hunter really i feel like we've covered a fair amount i feel like we we always mentioned that we love her but like she's just special she's got range baby she does she really does well oh well there's our chat on 13 and on that note i will say i'll tag on that if anyone watched this and like kind of liked it uh maybe check out the films by greg araki who does

he worked more on the 80s but he does extremely thought-provoking queer cinema, usually depicting young, younger, not this young, but like younger teens that feels very much like their perspective is like respected and feels important. He's just also just a great director. So, yeah, I don't know, check out some of his stuff. Hell yeah. and feels important. He's also just a great director. Cool. Yeah. I don't know. Check out some of his stuff.

Hell yeah. Cool. Well, Maggie, thank you for bringing us this real, really complicated text. Brain scratcher. Yeah.

Rich text, yeah. Where can we find you on the World Wide Web? Oh, man. Unfortunately can we find you on the World Wide Web? Oh, man. Unfortunately, I am still on the internet. One day no longer. But, yeah, you can find me on Twitter. Just my name, Maggie Mayfish.

M-A-E, like my dead great-grandmother. Not like the month. The real ones, no. And also on YouTube. I have another video coming out. don't know when this is being released but uh we have a video on jim carrey's depiction of dr eggman from the sonic series and was he doing an elon musk wow fascinating I know yeah so that's our rich text for the next month is Sonic

amazing yes everyone please check out Maggie's stuff and then you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtelcast throw us a little rate and review and give us five stars if you're feeling

five nipples five nipples while you're at it nipples and uh we've got a matreon at patreon.com spectrocast where you get two bonus episodes every month plus access to the entire back catalog this month we're you know knocking out a couple popular requests and it's september so we're doing back to school so we're doing never been kissed and pitch perfect oh my god pitch perfect god i'm finally my big boss my big boss of factual cast episodes have you never seen movies i've been avoid no i've seen it i just don't like it and i know everyone loves it and so everyone's gonna be pissed at me maybe i'll love it i I've seen it. I just don't like it. And I know everyone loves it. And so everyone's going to be pissed at me.

Maybe I'll love it. I haven't seen it since it came out. Maybe I'll love it. Maybe. I just have a thing against acapella groups. So like it was never going to be. That's the thing. I really, as a former acapella radio producer, sorry to out myself.

Shamey. I produced an acapella radio show for no less than two and a half years and did it traumatize me? Obviously. No wonder. Yeah. Yeah, I was never the same. My goodness.

Well, I guess tune into our Matreon to hear Jamie unpack all of her acapella related trauma. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. related trauma yeah yeah yeah could i at one point name 20 boston area acapella groups and rank them by preference maybe whoa but we don't want to literally this show's been on for six years and i have not been able to go there oh my goodness i had no idea yeah well if you need some merch, you can go to teepublic.com slash the Bechdel cast and grab yourself some teas, some stickers, some pillows, and other items. Follow your heart. We've got pillows.

I love my Bechdel cast pillows. Not gonna lie, might get some more. Oh my goodness. And with that, let's repair our relationships with our moms. Let's do it. Let's do it. Bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated.

Crooks everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. and I'm the host of On Purpose. This week, I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Andrew Huberman. Dr. Huberman is a neuroscientist

and professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, known for his research on brain function, behavior, and neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to adapt and rewire itself. The expectation on us is not perfections, being able to toggle between these different states. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Trust me, you won't want to miss this one. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

Can Kay trust her sister, Or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.