The Bechdel Cast - Twister

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

On this episode, tornado scientists Caitlin and Jamie analyze Twister (1996).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, Karl Rove, and David Axelrod. But we're also gonna have some fun,

thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee and Charlemagne the God. We're gonna take some viewer questions Thank you. podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. into a mafia state. Available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Trying to figure out how to do things that no one on the planet knows how to do. From creating a drone delivery business to building a car that can truly drive itself. Listen to What's Your Problem on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast.

Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hey, Jamie. Twisters hate my family. Like, honestly, Caitlin, as a militant feminist, everyone in this movie needs to get away from Helen Hunt. She is leading them to danger. Yes, she is. I mean, everyone is being led to danger. Everyone here has a near-death kink, obviously.

Right? Like they get off on it. We see it repeatedly. However, there's only one character who the Twister hates back with a vengeance. And it's Helen Hunt. Because we are in, from what we can understand, we're led to believe, you know, like we're with Oklahoma natives. We are with people who have grown up, live, understand Tornado Alley. But with Helen Hunt around, there are six unprecedented twisters in the space of,

it seems like 72 hours. Yeah, 72 hours generously, but we never see anyone sleep. And no one changes their clothes. I think it's one nightfall. I think it's 48 hours maybe. Just when you think there's not going to be another i watched this movie with my brother today and he we were repeatedly shocked at exactly how many times twister delivers on the titular promise like i thought we had reached the final twister and then i checked the runtime I'm like hold on

and then there is like a you know whatever diegetic newscast that's like up next the biggest twister in 30 years I'm like they literally just finished one it's shocking how many twisters and they seem to hate Helen Hunt and her extended family well I think it's personal with the twisters like i don't know what helen hunt's family did in ancient times to a twister but the twisters have it out for her specific the twit like i would be like helen i love you joe love you but clearly twisters hate you. Like, you need to move out of the area. I think when Joe and the twisters are chasing each other, I think that that passes the Bechdel test. I was going to ask you that because they do use she, her pronouns for twisters.

In the same way that, I mean, there's so many, I mean, truly so many parallels between this movie and Jurassic Park, but also a lot of parallels between this movie and Titanic. You know, she, her, Titanic. She, her, the Twisters. She, her, Tyrannosaurus Rex and the raptors and all the other dinosaurs. And when it all comes together. And yeah, I mean, there really are the Michael Crichton of it all. The gorgeous science woman lead wearing a tank top,

whereas everyone else is wearing three shirts as a man of it all. The guy calling Bill Paxton boss of it all. It really does boggle the mind how what a what a clear line there is with disaster movies with thrillers with white men wearing minimum three shirts as the romantic protagonist like it's just twister is a part of a cultural moment. It sure is. And I personally feel, as someone who at the time of recording, I have not seen Twisters. I don't think I could or like if I wanted to see Twisters, I would need to be sitting in a movie seat at this exact moment. No, it's not even out for another week at the time of this recording.

Okay, fuck it. I'm busy. I'm not, I don't think I'm going to see it. And here's why. Glenn it. I'm busy. I'm not, I don't think I'm going to see it. And here's why. Glenn Powell, I like him. I like him. I have enjoyed the performances of his I've seen, but I just feel like it's a losing battle to be like,

hey, new guy, have the raw charisma of Bill Paxton in his prime. Like it's, I just don't see it. How could anyone? He's so distinct. May his soul rest in peace. May it indeed. I would say this is one of Bill Paxton's more subdued roles

because he's normally screaming even more than this in most of his movies. I agree. And also I think it's really funny that his name is Bill. Like they made it, they put him, not that this movie is on easy mode. Like as an actor, clearly there's a lot of physical demands that come with this movie on top of like normal acting challenges.

But I just always think it's funny when you know it's Bill Paxton and they, I don't know if I'm casting an actor, if the perfect actor for my lead role has the same first name, I would consider changing it because it is a little like, they keep calling him Bill, and you're like, Oh, you made a mistake. But they didn't. The character's name is Bill. Yeah, it's pretty funny. Um, hey, listeners, welcome to the Bechdel cast. Whatever. Fuck you guys. We love you guys. Happy summer.

My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus. This is the Bechdel cast, the podcast where we talk about your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens. What's the Bechdel test? Well, look it up on your own time. We're kind of busy tonight because we have to talk about Twister 1996. Yeah. Okay. Jamie, what's your relationship with the movie? I've seen it a couple different times over the course of the last 20 years. I've seen Twister probably three or four times. Yeah, I have a memory of watching this movie with my aunt during a vacation I have a memory of

watching this movie on a plane like this is a movie that I didn't see in theaters I was too young to see it in theaters for sure but I just have memories of like knowing of its existence and I have a feeling that the reason I don't watch this movie more, while I do think it's good, and it has a lot of the elements of what I like in a movie, there are so many movies that came out in close proximity with similar actors, with a similar premise, that I think are better, that while this movie was, I think, rightfully very successful, I don't return to it very often.

I feel like the reason I mainly think about this movie is because of the attraction that existed about this movie at Universal Studios Florida right and then Bill Paxton's in the video and he's like hi because that's like his whole vibe hi you might be wondering how did we make the twister? And you're like, dude, I was like six. I did not wonder how you made the twister. But they had, you know, if you're 9,000 years old like us, there was a live demonstration at Universal Studios Florida where they basically demonstrated something I would probably be more interested in now than I was as a child, where they would

sort of demonstrate behind a pane of glass how they did a lot of the practical effects in Twister, which is part of what's really cool about this movie, is how many really challenging, and as we'll talk about, very dangerous practical effects that were done during this movie. And I was kind of surprised on this viewing it'd been at least six or seven years since I'd seen it and I don't know that I've ever watched this movie paying 100% attention if I'm being honest sure so a lot of plot points I'd forgotten I totally forgot Philip Seymour Hoffman is in this movie like there's so many people i i don't think i knew

who alan ruck was the last time i saw this like there's this movie has a ridiculous amount of heavy hitters yeah but in any case yeah this was the first time that i had truly paid attention to it and i was pleasantly surprised at at least how relatively well I feel like the special effects hold up, which makes sense when you know, or I learned after I finished watching the movie, that this movie was basically pitched as a special effects demo versus a story to endure, which it's, I would argue, not. Wow, rude.

Sorry, the story sucks. The story sucks. But whatever. Famous climate change denialist Michael Crichton wrote this movie, you know, sort of offset from Jurassic Park. It just feels like he's pulling from the hits to write this special effects demo that became the movie Twister. Sure. Also, I i mean the practical effects

yes very good the cgi not so good but it was 1996 so what could they have done i think the practical effects are amazing i think the cgi effects for the time for the time yeah are pretty good and i i really got a kick out of learning that the cow which is iconic i remember the cow from the trailer whenever i saw the trailer on like a vhs or whatever also twister 1996 caitlin yeah from what i heard and from what i heard is from director jean de bont and it was so funny because i again i this was a rewatch that I just watched the movie with my brother. And then I did all of the research after I did. No research before we started watching.

And I said several times, I was like, wow, this feels pacing wise like speed. Like every single time there's a twister, there's like a brief quippy exchange. And then there's just another twister, which is how speed works. It's like there is a car thing. And then Keanu and Sandra are like, that was wild. That was wild.

I have a crush. No, I have a crush. Oh, my God. The baby. Like it was kind of it was cons like. And that's kind of the pacing of this movie as well where it's like sexy quippy another twister sexy quippy another twister and then two hours later the movie ends and then to find that they have the same director so it actually makes a lot of sense this was just

like the action thriller pace of this director yeah at this time What's your history with Twister 1996? I did not grow up with this movie, despite it being one of two VHS tapes at my grandma's house. So anytime I would go to visit and she's like, do you want to watch a movie? And I'd be like, yeah, what do you have? And she had exactly two VHSs. And I don't even remember what the other one was which is the one that I watched all the time I just remember that was it dirty dancing no my grandma had dirty dancing and slap shot okay okay and oh my god and river dancing

because she was Irish fun okay uh no I'll have to ask my mom if she remembers but i would be so curious i feel like that's a very formative detail like the if especially when there's only two and you would think i would remember the one that i actually watched but i don't i only remember fucked up were you watching like basic instinct with your grandma i'm guessing it was like aladdin or just something that I was watching all the time anyway. But I was always like, what's this other movie? Twister? I don't know.

I don't know about it. It seems it seems there's adults in it. I don't know. And so I just because I was like 10. Yeah. And so I just like wasn't that interested. I get it. But I do remember that she had it, but I didn't see it until decades later.

I think I watched it for the first time in my 20s. And then again, kind of recently, like within the past year, I was like, oh, wait a minute. This movie rules. It's awesome. It does rule. I mean, I'm surprised. And I'm glad you have it now because it feels like a movie that is like you are the target audience for. I know.

It's a romp. It's intense. It's sexy. It's fun. 10 out of 10 on the romp-o-meter. Yeah. I don't need Dorothy to take those measurements. I can safely say for myself that it's a 10 out of 10.

Oh, my God. It made me laugh again. My brother and I were laughing so much this morning at how, first of all, the, and it feels very, I don't know. I read Michael Crichton books when I was too young. Brag. And I like, thank you so much. Even though we don't read books for this podcast,

I do love reading. And like, I remember reading Michael Crichton books when I was a kid and like getting them from the library and just feeling, you know, I'm sure he researched and knew his shit, but it just always felt like such yada yada science. And so when you get to twister and it's like science balls, like this whole thing is like,

we have to throw the science balls into the twister and it's like science balls like this whole thing is like we have to throw the science balls into the twister so Helen Hunt can cure her father wound like it's all so bizarre that like my brother and I every time the science balls came out we're like well here they are again Helen Hunt is just like having a conniption because the science balls have spilled and they surely as scientists they would know to put a net on top of they but they're always spilling the science they're loose loose science balls just rolling around and they have so many dorothys because they present it as like this movie is funny to me because i think it is like fun but not good because there's so many things that are wrong that are going on there's an antagonist who like doesn't need to be there the antagonist should be the twister like we don't need carrie elwes there how dare you say

that about my friend carrie elwes we need him in saw we don't need him in twister unfortunately but like it was just like every time he'd show up and he looks a little bit too much like bill paxton and you're like huh oh right and he's like i don't have any science balls but screw you guys but they present i i thought they present dorothy the science machine at the beginning like we made Dorothy there is only one Dorothy but it turns out that's not true they have like at least four of them four Dorothys just in case the other three got ruined by tornadoes which is what happened Dorothy okay according to scholarly journal wikipedia was inspired by toto an instrumented barrel-shaped device used to research tornadoes in the 1980s and if you look at a picture of toto it looks

very similar to the design of dorothy so they were you know basing this off of real science i don't know about the science but they were oh a big barrel full of science balls and they're like this is real i don't buy it i don't buy it but i i don't care i mean when it comes to science and movies honestly the less you tell me the better i don't need you know the big short someone turning to camera and being like here's what's going on with the science balls they're the science balls they need the silence balls to get into the twister to cure helen hunt's father wound which reminded me of oh my god contact no i was thinking of clock stoppers weirdly oh i've never seen that actually no yes No, yes, we have. We covered it. What? No.

What is the movie I'm thinking of? Julia Roberts, sci-fi father wound, clock, Oliver Platt. Oh, no, no, no. Flatliners. Flatliners. Clock watchers. Flatliners. Listen, this show's been on for 5,000 years.

Well, we covered not clock watchers but rather flatliners i contact is a way better point of reference like in every way but i was thought of i think it's maybe the first time that we talked about like a sci-fi movie where the primary woman who is also the romantic lead, her entire plot line is connected to men via a romantic interest with the male lead and then with a vague traumatic father wound from the 1960s. Yeah, true. I have to say, and I apologize to any of our listeners

whose father was like fatally pulled into a twister but the cgi in that scene made me laugh so much it's a bit silly if your daddy got pulled into a twister you can send me a mean email and cancel me but like i just feel like daddy getting pulled into the twister is funny because the cgi and that is bad you can just see that it is an extra on a green screen being like whoa like i was laughing sorry yeah well i was like okay a movie that opens with a natural disaster in which the patriarch of the family dies what is this paddington one okay see the parallels yeah we're seeing through the matrix and this but i do feel like this movie it makes sense to me why this movie was very successful, but not particularly remembered. Because it just has elements of similar movies that came out around the same time

with similar, if not the same actors that were better. But it is kind of like, it's like cooked in a lap to be a fun summer movie i don't even mean it as a criticism but like you know any plot point or element of twister that you like was done better in another movie in two years yeah right before or after yeah the movie is it a cinematic masterpiece perhaps not but damn if it isn't a fun romp that I'm always going to enjoy. I'm smiling. It's fun. It's so fun. Let's take a break and Well, the election is in the homestretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast,

Next Question, starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days, fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people.

So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017,

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

To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a 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 okay here's the plot of twister the movie opens when it's 1969 in oklahoma what do you mean nothing jamie nothing at all i'll tell you when you're older yeah tell me yeah tell me tell me when i'm 35 please yeah yeah yeah um okay so we're in ok Oklahoma. A storm is blowing in. There are tornado warnings on the TV. We meet a young girl named Joe, as well as her parents as they head to their storm cellar. There's a very intense tornado that blows little Joe's dad away and he dies like it it's sorry it's campy it's too campily done for what is a tragic death that affects the main character right for the rest of the movie yeah you can't have cgi like

that and expect me to be like weighted with grief for the remainder of the movie i also thought it was equally campily funny yeah that any time there was this repeated image connected to the opening scene that later on when who knows the fourth fifth sixth ninth twister they're plowing through the wreckage of yeah that helen hunt will often see this recurring image of a mother father and a young girl who looked like her in the but the dad in these subsequent images thankfully has survived and she gives them the dirtiest little look like she's like I wish your father got sucked into the twister it is wild that there is such a through line runner basically joke of how like many movies of the 90s and 2000s and backwards that therapy is ridiculous because no one needs

therapy more in the entire world than helen hunt's character yes oh my god like if melissa had really sat down with joe and we just got built out of there. He's the weakest of this, you know, His Girl Friday, like whatever, the movie they're pulling from, His Girl Friday. The man is the weakest player. Let's sit these ladies down and have a therapy session because that's what Joe needs. We don't need Joe running into the eye of a storm that's going to kill her we need joe to go to therapy for one second i will say and we can talk about this further in the discussion but it's a very common choice for a man haunted by something from his

past specifically something related to his father and that being his motivation for the rest of the movie. That's something we see time and time again in movies for male leads, but this time it's a woman and that we don't see that much. So I was like, I agree. Like I had the same thought that you don't see that much, but I don't think that gender swapping it makes it a like more compelling thing to see because the the takeaway is still the same is that like falling in heterosexual love will cure this deep psychic wound which is a bad lesson for any person true fucking bill paxton will fix some of your problems but you know could not fix yeah i thought that too and i and i think that there's some value in it but it just feels kind of like whatever it feels like ghostbusters 2016 where you're just like oh now woman can do it and

you're like well i just would rather she not. I don't know. Or like have whatever. Whatever. That's not what this movie is about. This movie is not about progress. It's about twisters. It's so true. Eight of them.

And that makes you wonder how many twisters are going to be in the movie Twisters. Apparently a lot more. Yeah, if you're going to add the S, I feel like you're hard pressed to have more twisters in the space of a movie i've never gotten more bang for my twister well because the movie alien has one alien in it the movie aliens has dozens of aliens but the movie twister has multiple twisters and then i guess the movie twisters is going to have an exponentially greater number of twisters. So there are going to be millions. Millions of twisters.

It's going to be like Snoke. They're like, oh, we have jars full of twisters. Palpatine has made so many twisters. Wow. Jamie making a Star Wars reference? Never thought I'd see the day. I love Star Wars 9 because I love Babu Frick so actually I'm the opposite of a Star Wars fan because I just made a joke about Star Wars 9 the one I like yeah yeah no I I didn't count I meant to but then I kept

like gasping every time there was another twister. I would say that set piece wise, there are four large twisters because there's four Dorothys, which says rule of threes, fuck you. Never mind. Well, also in one of those, there are three twisters in one kind of moment. So I guess that means there are six. Is that six? one kind of moment so i guess that means there are six six none of this lines with conventional story logic at all like four and six are just not story logic numbers whatsoever but these are the twisters we get and like i honestly i mean i i forgot what the climax i mean i i remembered it involved a twister but i didn't remember that it involved

them literally getting sucked into the twister without as much as a scratch they were just kind of like it was like they had just been on the jurassic park ride like they were like a little wet and very horny and like that's how i have always historically felt getting off the jurassic park like tell me about it they're so fine it's like this movie is like everything that's fun about a blockbuster where the stakes are always sky high but also like paradoxically low at the same like there's never a risk that someone's gonna die except for that one guy who knows carrie elwes who i thought was killed brutally and needlessly well carrie elwes is in the same vehicle he dies too i know but only his friend gets speared oh well yeah but then you're

led to believe that carrie elwes is also gonna he dies i mean he he dies but i was just like this poor guy like this guy because we're led to believe in the whole scene leading up to it that it's like he knows he knows that they need to turn back and then we kill him like he'll carry elwes yeah like final destination style yes in a movie that is other like otherwise i think like very deliberately avoids those kind of kills yeah this is one guy who we just met and they're like fuck this guy and they just like absolutely i mean i liked it but i was i was shocked yeah it's shocking well anyway so Well, anyway, so that's the first scene of the movie. Then we see Joe's dad blow away in the tornado. We cut to the present day, a.k.a. 1996, which is when the movie came out. We meet Bill Harding, played by Bill Paxton, driving in a truck with his fiancée played by jamie gertz melissa innocent

melissa did nothing wrong yeah uh played by a fellow jamie although she spells her name j-a-m-i no e at the end you can say it wrong yes anyway they are heading to see adult joe played by helen hunt she is a tornado scientist so you know woman in stem alert she's got a team of people working for her they chase tornadoes to gather scientific data on them the team includes philip seymour hoffman alan ruck todd field when he was still acting it is a wild crew yeah a woman who's forced to wear a okay here's something i thought was interesting there is one woman on the crew this token is a well i guess including joe there's two women on the crew right but in terms of our side characters on the crew, there's,

there's several men. There's one woman. She wears a hat the whole time. Uh-huh. Until there's three women. Well, okay. Three women who are tornado chasing in the movie.

Uh-huh. And then also the auntie. Aunt Meg. Yeah. Aunt Meg. What a, I don't respect women. I don't need to remember her name there's three women on the storm chasing team if you count melissa which you sort of have to

for the purposes of this movie yeah i feel like this movie has the patience for two women and then at the point spoiler alert where melissa voluntarily exits the plot rather abruptly all of a sudden the woman in the hat removes her hat we don't see her sans hat before melissa is gone and i'm like is the production team like we cannot see more than two women's full head like it was so weird because at the same time like my brother and I would be like oh yeah there she is in her hat again and she is treated like I think slightly less equitably than the handful of men where clearly Philip Seym hoffman is the sort of most present yeah of this b crew i would say alan ruck is after that and then the other three are kind of like have a line here and there and the woman in the hat so the name of the character is haynes and

the name of the actor is wendell josephers so like she has a name you're hard pressed to find it in passing in this movie for sure i was calling her the woman in the hat like one would talk about the baba duke um but then all of a sudden when the second narratively consequential woman exits she takes her hat off i did not even notice that i was getting conspiratorial about it i was getting so i was like oh now she can take her damn hat off because at first i was like the hat is a part of her personality she loves to wear the hat the hat is a part of her but then all of a sudden the hat disappeared the hat gets blown off by a tornado i think that's obvious i was perseverating about the hat.

I was like the importance, the narrative, like this, the contextual, like subtextual importance of the hat. And then my brother was like, shut up. There's another twister, which I think is the proper response. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Silence by men again. Wow. True.

Ben. Speaking of men, there are several more on the team the other ones include a guy who looks like steve buscemi but isn't a guy who looks like paul giamatti but isn't and a guy who looks like william h macy but isn't and then there's a another guy who was in the show lost so there's a large team yes yes i it took me until halfway in the movie to realize that and then you realize and then i looked you know i read scholarly journal wikipedia about this movie and it turns out that bill paxton is just a guy who you call when tom hanks isn't available which in 1996 actually does make total sense yeah yeah yeah what can you do but anyway so also

also sorry just one more cast shout out yeah i did not realize this on first watch but the child actor who plays young helen hunt is alexa vega of spy kids oh whoa she is the sister in spy kids imagine that well fine don't be impressed i thought it was interesting and now she runs an mlm so how do you like that i don't i don't like it either yeah no one likes it no one likes it but you know that's not what journalism is about all right so anyways what happens in the movie so i just laid down no i love to keep these rants going thank you um okay so bill and his fiancee melissa show up to where this like team of tornado chasers has gathered. Bill used to work with Joe. And he is married to Joe currently, but he's there to get her to sign divorce papers

so that Bill and Melissa can get married and Bill can start his new life as a weatherman. I really like this. Have you seen His Girl Friday? I have, but it's been probably like 20 years. I just saw it for the first time late last year and really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to hopefully covering it on the show one day. And this is a gender swapped His Girl Friday situation. It's very exciting. And do I think His Girl Friday is better?

Yeah, I do. But's very exciting. Yeah. And do I think his girl Friday is better? Yeah, I do. I mean, but there's no twisters. They didn't have the technology. So, you know, we're having a different conversation.

Yeah. They show up to get Joe to sign the papers, but she's like, maybe stalling for reasons. Oh, we'll find out what they are. She moves her ring around. Kind of fun.

Kind of sneaky. Then Joe shows Bill a machine called Dorothy, something that Bill conceived and Joe built. It's a first of its kind data collecting machine that releases these science balls into a tornado. And they'll take all these measurements that will provide information that's never been gathered before about tornadoes. And this data may allow tornado warnings to go from three minutes in advance to as much as 15 minutes, giving people more time to get to safety. And you would think, you know, if the technology were that consequential,

they wouldn't be so easy to spill all over the ground during gale force winds. But that's just not the situation in Twister 1996. It's so easy to scatter these damn science balls. I liked that even at the peak of the movie when the science balls are finally swept into the cyclone and everyone's like yes yes we're never gonna die the science balls like we still don't totally know what they're doing we don't you're like they're up there they're up there they're reading the tornado

information yes science balls my thing was this there's gotta be a better way for them to get close to the tornado and for them to release the science balls into the tornado because they're just driving a bunch of trucks near tornadoes like i'm like can't they get in like a helicopter and then have like i don't know a t-shirt cannon launch the science balls into the tornado from afar like everything they're doing is so dangerous which is like yeah the plot of the movie right but it's like you don't need a product placement jeep to throw your product placement pepsi helicopter science balls into the cyclone like yeah to get my brother and i were just uh i mean this is maybe dark brother and i were like is her dad still up there like what is her end game like her dad is like up in the top of every cyclone sipping tea being like

you go get them joe just get these science balls up there like grief looks like anything you know well i know but like we've covered this plot point so much and maybe i'm just like being personally irritated by it but i just feel like there there's so many female protagonists that it's like you cannot conceive of what would possibly be the source of their distress. And it either goes to sexual assault or something related to their father. And that's not to say that it is not a very real thing that happens in the world. I've experienced both. But like, I do think it's just a very lazy writing, especially when the creative team is majority men. I do think it's like, when men are writing like a problem for women, they immediately default to their relationships with other men,

whether it is romantically or in their family life. And this movie is guilty of both of those things. Yeah, I agree. In any case, the point is that it's very difficult to get Dorothy in a position to release the science balls. And they're explaining all of this to Melissa, Bill's fiance, who doesn't know anything about tornadoes because she's a therapist we will find out that she's a reproductive therapist which i didn't know that was a thing which makes total sense but it's like the more specific they get in pointing out how ridiculous the plot of the movie feels melissa's job is the more i'm just like oh so not only is therapy ridiculous but trauma in relation to reproduction is even more ridiculous like you're just it's it's like

goofy brainless ari aster shit that we talked about recently where it's like, why get so specific with something that you're putting in there to either make fun of or just serve as a plot point? Yeah, or demonize the way Ari Aster keeps doing. Yeah. Yeah, it's weird. But anyway, the point is, she's not a tornado expert. So we, the audience, are like, why are she and Bill even together if she doesn't know anything about tornadoes? Clearly, he needs to end up with Joe.

But before we can think much about that, the team receives word about a tornado that's materializing nearby. So Joe and her team get in their vehicles and they haul ass in that direction. And then Bill and Melissa go with them because Bill still needs the divorce papers from Joe. And Melissa is like, well, I want to learn about tornado. I'll come with you. Right. Bill discovers that another rival team of tornado scientists led by Jonas Miller, aka Cary Elwes of Saw 1 fame, is also chasing this tornado. But Jonas isn't doing it for the science. He's doing it for money. Because you know how lucrative tornado science is.

I love that line where they're like he's in it for the money not the science and you're like this is actually weirdly kind of what bill paxton is more sensically accused of in titanic of like yeah he's doing it for the money not the titanic which makes more sense when you know that there's money in artifacts from the titanic he's searching for a diamond that is worth more than the hope diamond so yeah there's a lot of money but like they're just vaguely like you know tornado money like it's just you're just like uh so maybe anyway jonas has a machine of his own not unlike dorothy and bill is furious that jonas stole his design so now it's a race between joe and her team and the evil mercenary jonas and his convoy of dodge minivans to be the first to collect the tornado data.

Yeah, that's something I liked about the movie is it is so transparently product placement-y where it's like only Pepsi cans and Jeeps will survive the storm or whatever. Yeah, yes. And so while they're waiting to see when and where this tornado actually like touches down, two women talk to each other, Joe and Melissa, but oops, it's about Bill. So it doesn't pass the Bechdel test. But Melissa is basically like, you're still in love with Bill, aren't you? And Joe is like, teehee, no, I don't know. And it's clear that she i wonder yeah

then bill who has agreed to join the group for one day he spidey senses where the tornado is going to form yeah so everyone drives in that direction a tornado materializes but bill kind of miscalculates and they miss their chance to release dorothy not to mention bill and joe are almost killed under this little like bridge thing and joe's truck gets destroyed along with one of the dorothy machines though it's established that there are three others the team goes back out again, chasing another tornado in the area. This one turns into two tornadoes, then three, and they call them sisters.

So we've got some sister twisters on our hands, okay? We do. And they're determined to destroy Helen Hunt's family. Yes. But the important thing here is that they're women apparently yes also cows are flying through the air I love it yeah and that that the CGI cow was built off of the CGI zebra in Jumanji which I thought was very interesting yeah they just were like turn that zebra into a cow. Same color scheme. Make it happen.

And they did. They're like an animal with hooves. Go. Close enough. Yeah. Okay. Cows are flying around. But then suddenly the tornadoes dissipate.

But the storm chasers are still thrilled because this is like the beginning of a long day full of tornadoes. melissa is terrified again she can't really hack it in the tornado industry i kept kind of like assuming based on how she was styled and was reacting to tornadoes conceptually that she was quote unquote from new york like it just seemed like she wasn't from there because that was something that i was repeatedly bumping up against when i was overthinking the plot of the movie that there were characters in this movie who were shocked that there were tornadoes but you weren't told that they weren't from oklah Oklahoma but that makes no sense like that they would be like oh what is doing what like even though there's rarely like in the course of this movie 700 tornadoes in the course

of and I'm sorry and I know someone's going to email me and be like tornadoes and twisters aren't the same thing well bad news I didn't fucking know that. So anyways, like these large cyclical storms, you know, usually 20 of them don't happen in the course of a feature length film. Like, right. It still felt like Melissa was like, what is this? And I was like, are you not from here? Like, where are you from? I we don't.

Well, she's not from New York because she speaks with an accent from the American South. I'm not good at detecting what accents are from what regions of the South. No, but it did feel dissonant to me. I feel like narratively, if a character did not know about twisters, it would be stated or indicated in some way that they were from a region that did not experience twisters right but that wasn't done yeah we needed a line from melissa where she's like i'm from georgia we don't get these here or something right like somewhere in the american south that just like was not in tornado alley but it was just bizarre like they i felt like you're sort of led to believe that everyone is from around here but yeah she doesn't understand what

a twister is for class reasons which doesn't make any sense no like i i love a class narrative but not knowing what a popular weather phenomena in your region is due to class does not make sense. Right, because it's established that I think that she lives there now, even if she didn't grow up in tornado territory. Right. She and Bill Paxton live there now. I just think it indicates how kind of like underthought her character is, because I think the team at the time would say everyone

from this movie is generally from oklahoma from tornado alley but there are characters who are shocked by theoretically something that they would have known about for decades at that point yeah i don't know in any case the most recent tornado dies down and the group pays a visit to Joe's Aunt Meg, played by Lois Smith. She makes them steak and eggs and they share a bunch of stories. They talk about a scale that measures the intensity of tornadoes. The ones they saw today were F2s and F3s. And even more intense one is an F4. And then there's the rare but devastating F5. And the only one of the group who has ever seen one of those is Joe, because that was the tornado that killed her father. Another incredible narrative moment melissa minding her own

business is like what does f5 mean which is a fair question yeah considering that she just moved to oklahoma three days ago and then everyone's like oh and they answer so evasively when it's like helen hunt isn't in the room just say just say it also the guy who looks like william h macy says it's the finger of god oh my god and that's just a very funny phrase i think yeah fingered by god like it's just yeah fingered by god there's so many awesome creepy bizarro turns of phrases in this movie and some of them are used in the context of her sexual harassment but bear with me what was it the suck zone that's the first jump scare yeah philip seymour hoffman is always talking about the suck zone philip seymour

hoffman's character i don't know if it is written, improvised, whatever. He is surprised kissing every woman he meets. It's made to seem charming. I love Philip Seymour Hoffman, and yet I don't find this charming. Although Sock Zone is funny, and I was laughing. I believe, let me know what you think here. I believe, and my brother and i firmly because i did not remember what happened in this movie due to its like washing over you kind of effect i firmly thought that we were being set up that melissa and dusty were gonna kind of strike

something up because they are repeatedly nonsensically thrown together where ultimately part of why I think Bill Paxton's character Bill is a bad guy because he's like almost always like no I have to be with my ex-wife right now and my wife-to-be you just have to hang out with this guy i know who famously sexually harasses people and yeah he and it's philips who were hot men so we're like oh i love him but like you know objectively that is he's repeatedly putting this woman who he knows is wildly out of her element there's multiple points of this movie where i don't know it's a blockbuster but i'm in a bad mood and so like why does he say yeah keep coming like at the first time she follows the twister bill doesn't know and that's what like she's joined this journey she's freaked out but it's like you know uncharted territory And then the second Twister sequence, it's like the love triangle is in a car.

They're in a, you know, like sponsored by Jeep. And it's interesting. But after that, when they go to Aunt Meg's house, why does she continue? Because there is a cast off scene as they leave Aunt Meg's house where Bill Paxton says, you go with Dusty. she says okay and it's like realistically that character is not going if she's continuing she's going with the one person she knows not Dusty who she met today like I thought that in some draft of this script because I know there were multiple drafts of this script because i know there were multiple drafts

of this script like joss whedon revised the script but then he got a cough and then like whatever but like the script was revised in the way that blockbuster scripts are i believe that there is a version of the original script of twister where they're like um yeah and then melissa started dating dusty i'm glad she didn't but it felt like for a good portion of the movie we are being led to like they're together more often than she's with her fiance yeah anyway what happens next well the storm picks back up again you'll never believe it but another twister is coming so the group heads back out to chase the next tornado also joe and bill are vibing melissa is in another car probably with dusty feeling uneasy they almost

crash into jonas who is also heading into the storm but bill and joe get there first but things go wrong a telephone pole knocks dorothy off the truck all the science balls go flying because they're just very loose in this barrel and she's crying she's crying she wants to stay hurt she's science balls and because of her father trauma father right this is supposed to be a reveal when you're like do you think i'm six years old which i guess is like people who saw this movie were six and maybe it was shocking for them maybe yeah but bill is like you can't stay here it's too dangerous this won't bring your dad back stop living in the past and look at what's in front of you right now aka me which melissa hears because the radio slash like walkie-talkie thing

is picking up their entire conversation somehow we don't know why or how that's happening but it's one of the science that one of the science balls narcs one of those one of the science balls and i thank them as a team melissa i'm team melissa period and yeah one of the science balls and I thank them as a team Melissa I'm team Melissa period and yeah yeah one of the science balls told Melissa guess what writing's on the wall and thankfully she listened and even more thankfully to whatever subsequent writer was like do not just make her end up with dusty like let her return to her work as a doctor melissa wins the plot because even even though at the end it's like do do do do do do and they kiss and they're back together like two years from now they're for sure dead yeah they have two years they're like those volcanologists that yes

the lava yeah yeah and it's like it's beautiful but it's also just like okay that's kind of like you're not me being like okay the volcanologists that got swallowed by the volcano that's their business but like kind of it is and that's how i feel about the twister couple like all right if you want a twister to just suck you up instead of going to therapy like i just like don't have the emotional energy to be like no we should help them like that's that's their choice yeah their life their choice they're consenting adults that want the twister to eat them helen hunt if she had just had a conversation with melissa melissa could have referred her to someone who could have helped out with that or at least helped her understand that better in a way that wouldn't involve her dying by twister yeah i wonder if they acknowledge in twisters well that bill paxton and

helen hunt absolutely got sucked into a twister and died because they're begging for that to happen to them i bet glenn powell is that his name yeah plays their son and that helen hunt and bill paxton died in a twister accident and okay so let me be the third generation of someone who refuses to go to therapy and also chase twisters with an indie darling like fine fine i'm just tired caitlin like yeah no jamie i'm sorry um the point is that melissa overhears what's basically a profession of love from bill to joe because the plot needed that to happen. So now Melissa knows this, and it's not great for her. She's sad. And then during another lull between tornadoes, Joe signs the divorce papers. But before she can give them to Bill, another huge storm comes on very suddenly right where they are, which is at a drive-in movie theater so everyone has to

take shelter then the tornado heads to wakita where aunt meg lives so the group goes there too but not before melissa ends her relationship with bill and she says bye you can go on ahead but i'm not going to be here when you get back well yeah which is a great moment for Melissa yeah and she's like I'm not even sad about it what does that say and he's like uh shrug but don't worry the movie will express no interest in her from here forward we have no idea what happens we do not but the characters we are meant to care about are Joe and Bill. They head to Aunt Meg's house with the other tornado chasers. They see the destruction along the way, families who have lost their homes.

They save Aunt Meg, who is trapped under the rubble of her house, as well as her dog, Mose the dog. And now weather reports are predicting a possible F5 tornado. That's one of those big, nasty ones. That's a daddy killer, folks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then Joe has the idea for how to make Dorothy fly because she and Bill were having concerns

about not being able to get Dorothy up into the tornado. But she looks at Aunt Meg's like wind chime things. And she's like, oh, let's fashion a bunch of pinwheels out of Pepsi cans and attach them to the science balls so that they'll fly up into the tornado. Yeah. Thankfully, this tornado crew only drinks classic pepsi yeah and and they fashion the little propellers with the with the logo visible and my boyfriend's dad worked in product placement during this era and you're like okay that was whatever that ridiculous plot point ended up being was hard

fought by some guy it's like no cut the cans in a way that we can see that it says pepsi the poor pas that had to fucking like exacto knife those ridiculous science balls it's just uh i hope that helen hunt got to keep a science ball yeah i'm sure she did anyways anyway so the team heads out again to chase this impending f5 twister bill and joe place the third dorothy machine in the path of this huge tornado. But once again, something knocks it out of the way because this twister is kicking up so much debris. It throws a semi truck at them. This is also when Jonas and some of his team are killed by the tornado. Yeah, they're speared.

I sort of thought that like I was kind of hopeful. I thought it would be a fun plot point, at least, that, like, Jonas and Bill would end up, like, their teams would end up having to work together on opposite sides of the Twister, and that Jonas could learn that, you know, that Joe and Bill's approach to Twister via science balls was actually thoughtful and like they would have to collaborate but instead he is he is like saw like slasher movie style killed for his hubris which is also fine yeah I just don't understand why if that guy was going to disappear for 45 minutes and then be speared to death.

Like, why even have an antagonist if it's that unnecessary? I guess it's to establish that you shouldn't be into tornadoes for the money and you should be in them for the love of the game. Right. In a way, Cary Elwes is Cary Elwes in Saw. Bill Paxton is the other guy in Saw 1, Lee Wannell. Lee Wannell, yeah. And the Twister is Jigsaw. And he's playing a little game with these boys.

Exactly. Except you don't get the satisfying flashback to show that Carrie Elwes was cheating on his wife in a room that looks like every other room in twister that is actually something i really like about this movie is the movie is so obviously expensive and the action sequences in this movie i'm bitching a lot about the plot which i do think is nonsensical and ridiculous in the way that a lot of 90s disaster movies can be with the exception of titanic and others but like the action sequences are awesome it feels like speed which makes sense it's the same director

where it's like the wildest most elevated thing you could think of with a set piece is what they do where bill paxton and helen hunt are driving full speed in a jeep toward a house in the middle of a twister and he's like we better drive through it and then we see them drive through the house at every conceivable angle and it just looks so expensive and dangerous and it's awesome it's fun yeah yeah um so that's about to happen so basically joe and bill drive into a field and place the last dorothy and this time it finally works the science balls fly up into the tornado and collect all the data that they've been trying to gather the whole movie but oh no the tornado is still coming for them so joe and bill outrun the tornado on foot sure yeah and don't worry they linger for a long time in spite of being at the top of their fields

to not know to run in the opposite direction of a twister i just can't anyways oh they're just looking at it and they're like, wow, the majesty of nature. Wow. Should we kiss? Also, at no point are they wearing any kind of like protective gear, like no weather appropriate clothes? No, because Helen Hunt has to be wearing a tank top or or the movie cannot be released. Yeah. Anyway, so they go and they hide in a barn and the barn is full of so many pointy tools and the tornado is throwing the sharp pointy things at them yeah it's tearing the barn apart joe and bill almost get blown away but then they anchor themselves to some pipes that are secured in the ground via some leather belts okay kinky and this tornado dissipates and everyone

is safe and joe and bill kiss on the lips about it in front of all of their friends the end so that's the movie let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss and we're back um yeah this movie is i don't know there's a lot of interesting things going on with it it's tricky because our podcast obviously addresses the narrative story and characters the most that's not necessarily what this movie is about that's not why this movie made a ton of money it is very much i think a really great example and even though i've just spent an hour being like oh the story sucks but i think that we are given interesting compelling characters where you know this movie is directed by and i'm honestly afraid to try to say his name because i feel like i'm wrong he's dutch his name is jean de bont this is not the first time we have covered

his work because he also directed speed and he was tangentially involved in. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch and I'm exhausted, but turns out the end is near right in time for a new season of my podcast. Next question. Starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean,

isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours.

BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it.

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm.

Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A number of other movies that we've covered, he started as a cinematographer, which is, I think, a really cool career pivot because you just get movies that are narratively less good but look cool. And that's Twister, to a fault. Written by Michael Crichton, as well as his wife, writer. Yeah. Co-writer and Marie Martin,

who was then married to him, had also previously been an actor. Yeah. I think this was the only movie she wrote, or at least the only movie she was credited on. Yes. Yeah. She mostly worked as an actor.

It's hard to, you know, as far as writing goes, you know, Michael Crichton, I feel like is the big name involved, but it is kind of hard to know like who, as far as writing goes, you know, Michael Crichton, I feel like, is the big name involved. But it is kind of hard to know, like, who to get annoyed with. Because it's a blockbuster and also because this movie did famously go through a lot of rewrites.

Joss Whedon was a rewriter. It's also implied that the actors had a lot of say and there was a fair amount of improv in the action of the movie. Because there was an incident where Helen Hunt and we don't know what this is even in reaction to I'm assuming she's right but I don't even know right that Helen Hunt was said to have been frustrated with the interactions that had been originally scripted between her character Joe and withissa saying that it felt very like shrill and shrewy and argumentative yeah caddy was the word that she used so basically like she felt that the interactions between them were sexist and so i don't know if that means what was there was

rewritten or just cut because what we get between these characters is very minimal, which I think is a huge lost opportunity. Yeah, this movie is supposed to be like Tornado Alley, His Girl Friday. And I still feel like His Girl Friday, a movie that came out over half a century before, still is a little more thoughtful in its characterization of women. And so time is a flat circle. But the thing is, like, we're given a love triangle and i like both of the women in this love triangle yeah i don't hate bill but i don't like him i like bill paxton i don't like bill the guy yeah but whatever like you know we're given three interesting characters who are struggling with their own individual things. But I just feel like they're they're kind of like

unevenly characterized. I well to come to the movie's defense. Okay, because I enjoyed the movie. And I think there are some interesting things as it relates to gender, where a lot of movies would be about a guy who really wants something and he's going out and he's doing it. And there's a woman who he's allowing to tag along. pretty flipped where it's, you know, we do have dual protagonists in Bill and Joe, I would argue. So you have a man and a woman at the center of this story, and they kind of share protagonist functions. They have the same overall goal as far as like gathering the data on the tornadoes, but it's the woman who has the backstory that we know about, which is giving her a more clearly defined motivation. He is the one with a subplot with his relationship with Melissa, but that kind of peters out and it turns into a romantic subplot with Joe. Another thing is like he was the one to design Dorothy, Joe was the one to actually like build it

and see it into fruition she's the one who's still doing the storm chasing she has a team of men mostly and we'll talk about haynes but you know it's mostly men yes i hear what you're saying and i do think that there are things that are subversive and i think ultimately just gender swapped to what a traditional narrative would be you know and for 1996 that is impressive but i still feel like there's a lot of tropes present where it is one thing to say like yes she is in a what i'm assuming i don't know shit about what tornado science was like in the 90s i'm assuming that most science was still male dominated in the 90s, right? I'd imagine so, yeah. So the fact that she has a majority male team working for her is subversive, but also,

it just feels swapped. It feels like, you know, there's a world where you could, you could flip the characters of Bill and Joe. I'm glad that it's not that way. It does feel swapped. But I would argue that this movie is doing better than a lot of similar blockbuster movies from this era, by having a strongly motivated woman in Joe, who we know things about, who is helping to drive the narrative in significant ways. Because again, similar movies from this time would generally only position the woman as a love interest to the male lead, or maybe the woman would be allowed to tag along, but wouldn't really be allowed to do anything and wouldn't have any expertise in what they are trying to accomplish. And so I think this movie, I think

Twister, could be considered an example of a stepping stone movie for more meaningful inclusion later on. I agree. I mean, I agree to some extent, but I just feel like the ways that it's subversive still feel like it's leading on a lot of classic crutches which is like the things that we know about her are exclusively in relation to the men in her life and so this is still not a world where her relationship to women has informed the direction of her life it's that her father died in a cyclone and that her father's death, we are led to believe repeatedly,

is what led her to pursue her current thing. That is very normal for a kid to want to pursue something based on a passion or event that happened in their formative life. But again, it's just all related to men. And even though we are given Aunt Meg, who is obviously a very formative and prominent woman in Joe's life,

all we see Meg talk about is Joe's relationship to Bill. Yes. And we see Joe in, you know, very, like, 90s PG-13 or whatever this ended up being. Like, a very blockbuster, like, contemplative, my hair is dry but I'm in the shower scene thinking about, oh, I love Bill so much. And then she gets out and then her aunt is like, don't you love Bill so much? And she's like, I don't know. And so much and she's like i don't know and so we're given i think the framework of like yes in the abstract like she

is i think like she's i think it's like a very girl power thing where she is ostensibly in charge but the things that we learned about her have nothing to do with her power have nothing to do with her sense of authority it's very quippy and it's all in relation to the men who have driven her story before and and like during the actions of this movie so i just kind of don't buy it no i see that it is very like surface level i mean again this is like yeah it's a blockbuster that's not i just don't think this movie is like subverting or informing the future in any way like whatever no no but i'm just like thinking of other movies from this era that like do such a shittier job so i guess maybe I'm giving the movie too much credit because I'm comparing it to other like very sexist movies from the mid 90s. Not to say that it's doing a great job. But again, I think better compared to so many of the like extremely

sexist action blockbusters from this time. I do find it interesting that the movie kind of explores this power struggle between Bill and Joe, where for the most part, again, Joe is leading a team of men who we never see like, question her judgment or question her authority or try to undermine her the way that men who work under women often do we don't see that and i found that refreshing until bill comes into the mix and then there's always this like no we need to go over here no we need to go over here no i'll drive no i'm driving which again does feel very like and just because i've seen his girl friday recently yeah i kind of liked these sequences even though they feel out of place

in the 90s disaster genre but they are kind of like weirdly copy pasting these like 30s quippy like no yes no yes I don't you don't let's kiss no like that sort of like

back and forth Frank Capra era dialogue into the 90s and it doesn't totally work and I thought it was really weird until I knew what they were trying to do and it's still really weird and it feels like that like based on what I was reading felt like it was kind of a director thing where it was written one way and then the director decided on set that it sounded weird and then encouraged the actors to improvise which probably made it a little weirder and I don't know I like a lot of the setups that happened in this movie like a love triangle in a jeep driving toward a twister is a great setup. That's a winner. Yeah.

But the way it plays out, not as good. I do imagine that a lot of this power struggle between Joe and Bill is more about their relationship history. Yes, totally. Because they are married. They apparently split up but didn't officially divorce yet. We find out that Bill was the one who walked out according to him it was because joe wasn't a great partner he says that you know you have no you had no idea what it meant to be married commitment stability supportiveness a house

all kinds of neat stuff like that hilarious line of dialogue yeah which just feels yeah that feels like very like bullet points of like i just googled marriage right which is very i don't know i liked that line too yeah it was funny but um yeah i don't know it was just uh interesting that again like the reasons for their breakup and the reasons that bill cites as Joe not being a great partner are often things that are attributed to men when they're not great partners in relationships. Again, it just feels like maybe another gender swap thing, but the lazier thing would have been to make Bill

a very stereotypical tropey man and to make Joe a very stereotypical tropey woman and it make joe a very stereotypical tropey woman and that kind of flips that so i do agree with that i like that joe was you know presented as the one who is too sucked up in work to be able to commit fully to the relationship i don't think it was fully demonstrated what bill was doing to fully demonstrate because it is also sort of implied that he was also very consumed with his work. But I feel like the fact that he is, you know, it seems like in this

very misguided rebound relationship with someone who does want to settle down, which it seems like is what Bill wanted and what Joe was unable to really give him in their marriage, does demonstrate that like they wanted different things again it's blockbuster logic i don't really know what happens in the course of them almost dying while driving into six twisters in two hours like how that demonstrates

that joe is actually now ready for a long-term relationship like maybe not maybe not um but but i mean yeah no i i did appreciate that like that in this like fairly common relationship dynamic is swapped in a way that was i think effective i guess i just didn't understand narratively like how it was resolved through the events of the movies the movie's not interested in that which is why i honestly found myself getting a little i mean i think like bill is arrogant but to your point less characterized than joe but i found much of what was characterized with joe to be very frustrating like i it felt like the of what was characterized with Jo to be very frustrating. Like, it felt like the way she was characterized was pretty standard for a woman character. It's like, my hero's journey is begun by something, something, my father, and is continued by something, something, my husband. And like, there is this implication of ambition,

and that we know that that is a lot of what drives her. We know that's a lot of why her marriage failed. But it doesn't seem like she really meaningfully grows throughout the movie. I don't really understand what changes about her. It almost feels like it almost diminishes why they broke up, which it seems like was they wanted different things and I don't think that changes at the end of the movie I just think they have whether they've gotten horny from another like half dozen natural disasters like I don't think that anything has changed which is why I'm team Melissa well let's talk about Melissa although really quickly before we get there uh it's in this scene where Joe and Bill are discussing why their marriage failed where some very dated views

on therapy come up where well that's Melissa's whole story it's a whole runner where it's like yeah oh my god if you're in therapy, you're ridiculous. Because, um, actually, you could be driving into a twister. And it's like, well, guess what, if any of these motherfuckers had been to therapy, they wouldn't be driving into a twister. So, you know, match point. Yeah. But yeah, just in general, the suggestion that someone might need therapy is taken as a grave insult. You know, Bill Paxton's character is like, what could I possibly need therapy about? And it's like, sir, everyone needs therapy. That is not an insult.

That's just a neutral statement. actually ages very well because you know whatever like 18 years later it's so obvious that everyone on the twister team needs therapy yeah and they actually look sillier but yeah at the time it's very clear like it's such a well because this movie is i think you know sort of like control c control v out of well-worn tropes in a bunch of different genres ranging a half a century to make this movie work. And that's one of them. And I feel like that is really prominent from the 80s to the 2000s.

I think the first time that we talked about it in detail on this show was during Freaky Friday. And also in the Santa Claus, Neil is a therapist. Like, it's just a very well worn trope. And that the person it's weird, because I feel like they're sort of made to seem like, you know, rich people and their problems, which has a lot to do with access to mental health care. But I feel like the problem problem is like it's made to seem that like therapy is something that is only for rich people because it's fake not that therapy is something that is accessible to rich people because of how health care is structured and almost everyone

would benefit from it anyways that's what's happening here. And the vague people, I feel like there's always, I want to say in Freaky Friday, it's like Jamie Lee Curtis's character is calling someone named Jonathan over and over and over who's calling her with the same problem that is made out to be very ridiculous and very absurd. And we see that with a couple of characters in Twister where Melissa is talking to the same few clients and it's made to seem like they're very weak and very pathetic for seeking out her help and that Melissa is slowly realizing

that there are bigger problems than mental health because you could have accidentally assumed that when someone said they drove into Twister's for a living, they were speaking metaphorically which is also ridiculous like i was so i mean i was very glad that this movie subverted or at least at best avoided what i thought would happen in a movie in 1996, which is that they would just push her off on someone else. And I did think she was being pushed towards Dusty in multiple scenes. Thankfully, that doesn't happen. She walks away.

It's her idea. I do kind of like, it feels abrupt. And I do wish that she had had a more meaningful interaction with Joe yeah but for 1996 it was on her terms I do think she walked directly into a twister and was dead 12 minutes later but fine but it is her whole profession is still unequivocally made out to be ridiculous. And that's just like a trope. Yeah, very representative of the, you know, extreme stigma surrounding mental health and therapy at the time. So the movie is just taking the thing and reinforcing it. As far as Melissa's like function in this story, she's there to create

this, you know, pretty classic love triangle situation. I will say at least she's not characterized as being like, mean and awful the way that like, well, to reference another Lindsay Lohan movie, Meredith from The Parent Trap, it's more that she's just like not compatible with Bill. They don't share the same core interests. And that's why. And I did really like that she was the one to say, and I'm not even really sad about it. Yeah, yeah.

I feel like it is implied that, and again, it would have been helpful if we knew, because with Bill, while well i agree like it is unusual that we know the most about joe of anyone in this movie we at least know with bill that it sort of seems like he wanted to be in a stable more traditional marriage and career and that is why he ended up with melissa we don't know why melissa ended up with Melissa we don't know why Melissa ended up with Bill we're not even totally sure why she's from and why she doesn't seem to know what a twister is but I do like that at the end of the day that she is the one to state the problem

say that like they have very likely been incompatible the whole time i do think it's annoying that she says the thing i was predicting with my brother that she would say which is that clearly she needs you and is not allowed because the thing is with love triangles, there is this implied graciousness to the third party that I would love to see subverted. But Melissa is a class act about all of this. She's too accommodating maybe. I just would love to see more people who, okay, in future love triangle movies, and it has happened happened but i would like to see it more that the third party who ends up with no one in the love triangle is pissed off about it even if the other two people belong together they're like yeah well what the fuck this feels

horrible yeah kind of like james marsden in know? Like, well, what the fuck? I'm a nice person. I deserve love. I imagine it's a case. And look at my life. I mean, I imagine it's a case-by-case basis thing where, yeah, sometimes it makes sense for the person to be, like, really hurt and upset. I'll tell you what, though. Like, there's so few people that are like, you know what?

It makes sense. You're totally right for each other and i realize this and i don't need help getting out of the twister especially because he takes the their truck so how is she even gonna drive away anywhere else she dies caitlin i hate to break it to you but she does not make it out of the two subsequent twisters that happen after her character's exit. Where does she go? Where does she go? Well, here's the thing. I think a sexist choice would have made Melissa, you know, once she realizes that Bill and Joe are destined to be together,

a lot of especially, you know, writers who are men would have made melissa be really cruel to joe and be like really possessive over bill or something like that which could at least have the potential to feel very like oh women in conflict with each other in a way that like men don't understand because women are petty and they're catty so at least that didn't did you not feel that the conversation we had between them was like inherently that i mean yeah you mean in the diner or whatever when she's when melissa's like you're still in love with bill aren't you yeah a little yeah it felt like a little bit of like a little bit of that conversation was and that conversation doesn't accept in passing pleasantries past the bechdel's ass because they're talking about Bill

the whole time which is what they have in common but like that conversation to me did feel a little bit like both of them were very uncomfortable which makes sense I don't know maybe I'm overthinking it but like I think it could have been worse I guess I was just like primed for worse in the 90s yeah but I just like it's in a world where they were given something to bond over and talk about that wasn't the mutual guy they'd fucked. Fair. Another thing that kind of rubbed me the wrong way about Melissa's character is that she becomes this sort of like audience insert character in the sense that like, she's the only one who doesn't know anything about tornadoes. And the movie assumes that the average viewer won't know much about tornadoes. And the movie needs a way to

deliver exposition so that the audience can understand what's going on. So you see a lot of other people, mostly men, explaining stuff to Melissa. And I'm always wary of a story that requires a bunch of men explaining stuff to a woman. Now, granted, we see Joe explain things here and there to Melissa as well. But it just still pings for me when like, yeah, the character who needs to have a bunch of exposition dumped on them to be like one of the few women in the movie i agree and i also think that's like part of why i get even more defensive of melissa's character because she is ultimately the audience insert because most of the science

in this movie based on my research is made up and so you do need someone to explain made science balls to you yeah but it's made that she's very naive and it's like wait what is this we're just like yeah this is made up but it's yeah but it is like recontextualized as a woman who needs something to explain to her mainly by other men well something else i noticed is that the two characters in the movie who speak with accents from the american south melissa and jonas are the characters who were not rooting for obviously like jonas is the villain melissa is positioned as someone who ignorant is like an obstacle ignorant and yeah like an obstacle for bill and joe and and ignorant i mean what i'll say is that at least the movie doesn't depict them

the way a lot of media depicts people with southern accents as being like unintelligent and inarticulate and like backwards and all that kind of stuff both of these characters are highly educated one of them is a doctor one of them is a scientist but they are but i would say that they're still both ignorant well that's what i'm saying like the two characters with southern accents are the ones who are like positioned as obstacles and who are positioned as like not having either the same like intuition about tornadoes or just being completely ignorant of them so i feel like there's still like a demonization of the american south in that regard which again like if if that is the case it makes no sense because they all appear to be from the

same area that yeah i mean we have no idea i guess yeah but but even that is like speaks to uncare like a lack of characterization right the only character we know where they're from is joe because we see her as a kid in oklahoma i guess we don't really know where anyone else is from we can only assume the only person we know is because of daddy trauma and then we have have Aunt Meg, who Aunt Meg is, I feel like, kind of a quirky older woman kind of stock character. And this stock character exists across gender boundaries.

And I appreciate at very least that she's there to sort of expand the characterization of Joe. And that they have a very close bond and that, know meg has a close bond with the entire storm crew but again the only thing you see aunt meg and joe talk about is bill yeah if i got out of the shower and my aunt immediately started talking to me about how the man I recently

divorced downstairs should actually still be my husband and I don't care that his fiance is down there like he's here you might as well go for it it's just a movie a man wrote like I know Anne Marie Martin has her I don't want to like discount the fact that there was a woman co-writer, but it just feels very like yada yada patriarchal. Like, okay, we have to have these characters interact. I don't even feel certain. I don't know. Like, do we know is Aunt Meg her father's sibling?

Yeah, we don't know if it's her brother who died in the tornado. We don't know if it's her brother who died in the tornado we don't know if it's her brother-in-law we don't know if it's just like aunt meg used colloquially but like not a blood relative yeah we don't know yeah so like the movie is badly written is my point also aunt meg is more excited to see bill than she is her own niece than she is to see Joe she's always like she's more excited to see Flipsy more she's more like dusty king like

you know and not to say that like your relatives cannot perform more excitement to see others than you like been there but regardless like it just feels all very like half cooked and it just feels like aunt meg is put there because at the end of the second act we have to pull aunt meg and her golden retriever out of the rubble because yada yada yada and it ultimately serves to make bill

paxton look like a hero because he saves her and the dog with joe but at the end he goes back twice and it's you know i just think that like even the most consequential relationship between women in this movie which i do think is between joe and her aunt is still almost exclusively in reference to men yeah so so whoops the last thing i want to talk about is the one other woman on the storm chasers team mrs hat mrs hat aka haynes once again the actor played haynes is named wendell joseph her there's not much to say because you barely see her on screen you barely see her and joe interacting you would think there would be some camaraderie i would guess and i hope i wonder if this is true that all of the science side characters outside of dusty were written to be gender neutral and yet

only one woman was cast yeah that is very frustrating maybe someone would argue well realistically the people who were doing tornado science back then were predominantly men yeah well guess what bitch it's a movie it's a movie and you can do whatever the fuck you want yeah and again the most frustrating thing to me is that like you rarely see haynes and joe interacting in a situation like that where like because i mean we've been there in the comedy sphere where like we're two women on a show that has like eight other men on the lineup and you like develop camaraderie with the other people who are like you and you would think there would be more camaraderie between joe and haynes but again you never see them interacting because the movie

doesn't actually care anything about Hanes. So that's frustrating. Oh, do you have anything else you'd like to discuss? No. This movie, I think, passes the Bechdel test in the way that maybe we should have defined it at the beginning. Because I feel like this movie does pass the Bechdel test, but in ways that we generally find to be unsatisfactory. It's pleasantries, it's hellos, it's quippy asides. I think it does technically pass the Bechdel test,

but in terms of like meaningful interactions, I would say no, it doesn't. I think, yeah, the closest thing would be a line where Joe says to Melissa, if you have to pee, do it now because there's nowhere to stop along the way on our path of tornado chasing. Which is useful information, but could be cut from the movie. Could be cut, yeah.

That's the thing is like, I feel like there's very, at this point, because as we talk about all the time, the Bechdel test is a general metric just to get a feel for are people of a marginalized gender interacting in meaningful ways in this movie and i do feel like while there are subversive elements to the movie the answer to that question is no no that women are not interacting in subversive ways. They're only interacting in relation to men, even though there are ample opportunities for that to not be made the case. And so it feels to me like a classic 90s version. I mean, I know I say 90s. I mean, I know that it happens in every generation where every generation feels like feminism.

We actually got it right. And no one has, including our generation right but like this feels like a very third wave 90s version of like yeah we get it and it's like no you don't because you were still talking about bill paxton the whole time um and so for me it doesn't pass there also would have been a great opportunity because there's a scene early on where Haynes tells Joe about, I think it's the first tornado that arises in the movie, but Joe does not respond, at least to Haynes. She like then addresses the whole group. Yeah, she just like turns to the boys. for Joe to be like, wow, thanks, Haynes. Now we know your name. And what else do you have to say about this? And there could have been a couple back and forths that would have passed, but the

movie didn't do it. So yeah, spiritually, I would say, no, the movie does not pass the Bechdel test. But our nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples, based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. I mean, as much of a romp and a fun time I think it is, I still will only give it, I'll give it like one and a half, maybe two. I'm feeling a little generous, just because I think it does some interesting things compared to similar blockbuster movies of the same era. Most other movies from this time and that were of the same ilk did way worse. They were so deeply sexist and like outwardly hateful toward women. Whereas this is like, well,

what if a woman was in charge? And what if we knew more about her than any of the other characters who were men? And you know, a few things like that. And I think that there's something to be said for that. Not a lot. Again, it's not doing the best job ever. But by 90s standards, I was vaguely impressed. It's a very, very white cast, no diversity whatsoever. The treatment of therapy and mental health is dated and is presented in such a way that perpetuates the stigma of mental health and therapy. So there's not great things in it. But I don't know. I like, I like Joe's a character. She makes jokes. She makes quips. She says, I'm going to head

southwest to the counter. Oh, how was the tornado? It was windy. These are funny lines that I laughed at. And so I like her and I'll give the movie two nipples. And I'll give one to Toby the dog which is Joe's childhood dog and I'll give the other to Moe's the dog Aunt Meg's dog the end yeah I'm gonna take this movie one and a half because I do think that it is like vaguely subverting stuff but in a way that is very unsatisfactory I feel like the success of this movie mainly is that like you were were saying earlier, and I wish, yeah, like I think I was too irritated by other elements of the movie to fully appreciate. But yes, Jo is the best characterized person in this movie, and that is rare. I still think she's mainly characterized as it pertains to the first man she met and the man she married, which is very reductive. And to me, reeks of a story that is written

and shaped by primarily men. I also think the way that she is clothed and generally, I mean, it's not excessively harping on her body, but if you look at the way that her team is clothed versus her it's obvious that she's showing more skin this movie came out two years after jurassic park and she is dressed far more scantily than laura durd's character like it just feels a little more and which sucks because i think helen hunt does a great job in this movie. I think she's really talented. And I think that the physical endurance, which we didn't really get to,

but the fact that like Helen Hunt and the entire cast of this movie were obviously put through because so much of the movie were practical effects, which again, I love, but that, you know, Jan de Bont was kind of a tyrant, a bit of a James Cameron, which makes sense as he was considered as a director for this movie,

but he was busy with Titanic. But everyone was put through the physical rigor, but the only person who was called out as being a little clumsy was Helen Hunt. Yes. And Helen Hunt stood up for herself in retrospect when she knew of that quote. And it's just like,

it's even being a better characterized movie in a blockbuster as a woman is still entrenched in this very of the time sexism I am very in a lot of it is because I have no nostalgic attachment to this movie but like watching it I just don't feel a lot of reasons to excuse that and I think Helen Hunt and Jamie Girtz give great performances I think their characters are really good and I feel like they're underserved and ultimately two greats of 20th century cinema into 21st century cinema because obviously i mean philip seymour hoffman's later performances are incredible i would also shout out bill paxton's performance in nightcrawler one of my favorite movies is a great later performance from him unfortunately

they're no longer with us it's a great way to and obvious and and alan ruck in the entirety of succession like you have a lot of great actors here but ultimately yeah i understand why this movie was kind of forgotten in spite of making half a billion dollars in 1996 money and that's saying something it is it does just feel like the best elements of better movie is put into a movie that is pretty good and i guess we'll find out what twisters is all about so i have a feeling i have a feeling is it gonna be about twisters do you think yeah and i don't think that anyone cares so uh, yeah, I'll give it one and a half nipples. I'll give one to

Helen Hunt, and I'll give half to Jamie Girtz, because I think, and the character of Melissa, because I think that they were great, and that this movie would have been vastly complicated in a good way, because this movie needed more interpersonal conflict versus

random twisters between the two women at its center. It would have been amazing if they formed an allyship and forced Bill to reveal information about himself. But no one was thinking this hard about it, and so I just felt a little underwhelmed by the product one half nipples from Jamie well listeners that's our twister episode you can follow us at Bechtelcast on Instagram you can go to our Patreon aka Matreon where we have two bonus episodes every month on a brilliant genius amazing theme that we cook up plus access to the back catalog and that is found at patreon.com slash

bechtel cast and it's five dollars a month wow and then we've got our merch store tpublic.com slash the bechtel cast where you can buy a bunch of merch that Jamie designed. So do it. And with that, Jamie, let's get in a truck and drive away from the twisters toward safety. Bye. Bye. Bye. The Bechtelcast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo Laborde.

Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan, with vocals by Catherine Voskrosensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus. And a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree.com. Hey, everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's,

to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, Karl Rove, and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, thanks to some of my friends,

like Samantha Bee and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist

who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere 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. I'm Jacob Goldstein. I used to host Planet Money. Now I'm starting a new show. It's called What's Your Problem?

Every week on What's Your Problem, entrepreneurs and engineers describe the future they're going to build once they solve a few problems. I'm talking to people trying to figure out how to do things that no one on the planet knows how to do, from creating a drone delivery business to building a car that can truly drive itself. Listen to What's Your Problem on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.