The Bechdel Cast - Unpregnant

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

Jamie and Caitlin discuss Unpregnant and how it should be called Ungregnant.  (This episode contains spoilers) Here is the doc with info on Abortion Funds in Every State: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T-aDTsZXnKhMcrDmtcD35aWs00gw5piocDhaFy5LKDY/mobilebasic And here is the Bitch Media piece by Kyndall Cunningham "Unpregnant Is Too White To Be Revolutionary" - https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/unpregnant-abortion-race-problem For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast. Follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP on Twitter.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast. Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name's Jamie Loftus. And the world is on fire yet again. So we are recording an emergency oops, no rights episode of the Bechdel cast. Oh, we laugh so we don't cry.

We laugh so we don't cry. But we still cry. But we still also cry. Because we're laughing so don't cry. We laugh so we don't cry. But we still cry. But we still also cry. Because we're laughing so hard. Yeah. Sorry. Difficult week. You know, we're doing our best.

Hope everyone is doing well. We have been wanting to do this episode for a while. But we're covering the movie Unpregnant. You know, you clicked on the episode. You pressed play. That's on you. But we've been wanting to do this episode since this movie came out, but we kind of fast-tracked it for this week for obvious reasons. If you're listening to this at a later time,

we are recording this the week that the Supreme Court intention to potentially remove the right to abortion has been leaked. Yeah. Just to be totally clear about what exactly is going on. It's very common knowledge, but we want to just be sure. The Supreme Court is poised to make this decision about abortion on whether it's protected by the Constitution or not. This was a draft of a February Supreme Court opinion. It was leaked, and it sort of would lead you to believe that the court is going to be overturning Roe v. Wade, which made abortion legal nationwide back in the 70s.

Basically, they're trying to make abortion unconstitutional and roll back 50 years of progress. There have been protests this week. There's been a huge call to action to donate to local abortion funds, which we will, right at the top, we're going to be linking to resources in the description of this episode. We are also pledging a portion of our Patreon income this month. Also, something that I learned this week is that Planned Parenthood,

while a wonderful organization, is not the fastest way to get money to local abortion clinics and it is more efficient to donate directly so that uh so we'll be linking to that um especially in states where abortion is more difficult to access uh yes god fucking damn it sorry we'll talk about it but but this is uh this is the unpregnant episode and this is the Bechdel cast but what the heck is the Bechdel cast Caitlin I simply tell you I forget it's our podcast in which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point. The Bechdel test, of course, being a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel

Wallace test. There are many versions of the test, but the one that we currently use is as follows. There must be two characters of a marginalized gender with names who speak to each other and their conversation has to be about something other than a man for two or more lines of dialogue and ideally that exchange of dialogue is narratively impactful not going to be a problem today because we are covering the movie Unpregnant it is a recent movie it came out in 2020 on HBO Max. So Caitlin, do you have, what's your history with this movie? I did see it right when it came out because there was a quite a bit of buzz about it. It was released in, I think, September 2020. And a lot of listeners were like, hey, the Bechdel cast should cover this. And we and we're like okay we'll put it on the list

yeah our list of eight million things to cover but so I did I did see it um I'll be honest I didn't like it that much uh I think that it's doing some really good things and other things. The execution is weird. So from a storytelling standpoint, from a like, Bechdel cast standpoint, you know, there's there's something in your in your pro life. And of course, I am anti choice. Right? Right. So that I'm sure made it a difficult watch for you. Certainly, certainly. No, like, I think it's a really good premise with execution that misses the mark in some regards. But I think maybe the reason that we kind of didn't cover it right away is that it wasn't necessarily the most. Our favorite. But it is a good conduit by which we can discuss current events so that's why we are covering it

now yeah what is your relationship with it jamie uh literally identical saw it when it came out due to the buzz due to the listener interest also that was like a little all over the place it did i mean i it made me fall in love with both of the lead actors of this movie hayley richardson and barbie ferreira are so fun in this movie i feel like they are able to sell a lot of uh stuff that is not like just i don't know the pacing of this movie we we both think is weird but that's not really why we're here to talk about it even though we'll probably keep pointing it out because we're bitches uh but yeah no i was excited to see this movie come out i'm very glad it exists uh because i mean just in general there is uh a lot lacking

when it comes to the representation of abortion in media in general which we've discussed here and there on the show yeah extensively we've we covered uh obvious child on the matriarch a couple years ago at this point i don't really fully remember our discussion around it but i do remember that that movie's not my favorite like i don't know but there but there's so few options because abortion movies are so often spun as tragedy porn and like i really appreciate that and you know appreciate it when it came out two years ago that this movie it's an abortion romp while still hitting all the appropriate you know points i feel like it treats the subject matter very respectfully right yeah It's a teen road trip abortion romp. Look, I would be down for another abortion romp.

Same. Yeah. This movie is all over the place. But yeah, as far as what it's trying to do, I think it accomplishes the goal. The performances are fun. And then we got a lot of other stuff to talk about. I think it accomplishes the goal. The performances are fun. And then we got a lot of other stuff to talk about. But that's why we're covering this movie.

It's, I mean, truly, I think for our listeners, nothing that you're not familiar with already in terms of like why this is so horrible and why uh people with uteruses having uh less rights than two generations prior than them is uh just absolutely fucked beyond belief yeah but i mean the one thing that this movie doesn't hit on that i mean it's not anyone movie's responsibility to hit on everything but i do think it's an important point to make in this conversation of because this is a movie about a teenage girl, an underage girl, which is relevant to the law here is, you know, struggling to get access to an abortion without parental consent with extremely religious parents who probably would not want to do that but I think it's important to remember and point out that the people who primarily suffer when abortion is outlawed are low-income people yeah I guess it becomes very much a an issue that's

divided among class and race lines. And the further marginalized you are by American society, the less likely it is you will have access to safe abortion. So it affects everyone, but it also disproportionately affects marginalized people. Low income, people of color. Cross class and race lines. And it, yeah, there's, we'll also link to resources on that. That's, I think, just one of the, one of the few important points about abortion that this movie didn't. Completely skips.

Yes. Yeah. So, I just wanted to put that right at the top. And I think I'm just going to read it because unfortunately this Lindy West quote goes viral every couple of want to read it here before we get into Duncan on the movie, which is what we're good at. So this is Lindy West on The Daily Show a couple of years ago, I believe. She says this, quote, anti-choice people are not trying to stop abortion. They are trying to legislate who can and cannot have abortions because conservative politicians, their wives and mistresses and daughters are always going to be able to get an abortion somewhere. All criminalizing abortion will do is keep people trapped in poverty for generations.

That's the goal. And if it wasn't the goal, they would spend their time and money on comprehensive sex education, free birth control and free contraception. Unquote. Yes. Yeah. No notes notes and i'm upset it's a very upsetting time in the world yeah should i recap unpregnant yeah all right we open on veronica played by hayley lou richardson she is taking a pregnancy test in the bathroom at her high school. A girl walks into the bathroom while this is happening. This girl is Bailey, played by Barbie Ferreira. We learn that Veronica and Bailey used to be best friends, but had a falling out at some point. The test turns out to be positive.

Veronica is pregnant or pregnant. I was going to say this movie is, even though we're like, even in the depths of hell, the movie is called Ungregnant. It is called Ungregnant. That's just a fact. It was embarrassing. I mean, and I didn't want it because

it is like it's a movie that you want to root for but there it was embarrassing that literally all the marketing materials were misspelled yeah it's not a good look it's not a good look everyone uh the movie is called un-Gregnant they're saying it wrong the whole movie they messed up spelled wrong on the poster I bet it's spelled wrong i like uh hello yeah why didn't you call us to consult because that would have been our only note exactly find and replace preg with greg thank you that scene where they're on the ride at the carnival and veronica is screaming i'm pregnant she kept messing that line read up she should have been screaming i'm pregnant i was like don't we have another take of that where

she's saying the line correctly it's we're gay and pregnant we're gay and we're pregnant but yeah i mean alliteration that scene should have been really hilarious and empowering, but I couldn't get past the distraction of the of the line being said wrong over and over. Yeah. All right. Well, so she is confirmed to be pregnant. Apparently, the condoms she used with her boyfriend, Kevin, were not 100 percent effective. Veronica is freaking out she goes home and researches getting an abortion and learns that because she's in missouri and she's under 18 i believe she's 17 she would need her parents

permission to have an abortion which she can't ask for because her parents are conservative and religious. The closest place where she would not need parental consent as a minor to get an abortion is Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is a roughly 15-hour drive from where she lives. I believe this is all accurate. So far, so good. Yeah. Sadly. Yeah. Unfortunately.

Yeah. Veronica packs a bag and tells her mom that she's going to spend the weekend with her friends studying. She goes to her friend's place, but it turns out that someone had found her pregnancy test at school in the dumpster, and all of her friends are speculating on who it belongs to so veronica realizing her friends are going to be very judgy decides not to tell them that it's her who is pregnant sorry she sorry gregnant yeah i'm so sorry you sound like hayley richardson it's embarrassing she does tell her boyfriend kevin and he responds by asking her to marry him and then reveals that around a month ago after they were done having sex he noticed that the condom had broken but

didn't tell her she's very upset by this and storms out yeah parts parts of this scene uh work for me others i'm like what is going on at this definitely not an Olive Garden? Okay, so side note, Jamie and I and our friend Bryant are in a group chat called Olive Garden Friends. And as we speak at this very moment, Bryant is texting us from the Olive Garden Friends group chat, probably asking us to go to Olive Garden, I'm guessing. He's trying to get us to, though it's even more embarrassing, he's trying to get us to join his AMC A-list entourage. Which I will.

Which I, oh, I'm literally doing it right now. This is, God, our lives are quite frankly embarrassing. But we're real good at it. We're doing great. We are so good. Okay, so. Then Veronica goes to Bailey and asks if she will drive Veronica to Albuquerque. Bailey agrees.

They leave that night. That was one of my favorite moments in the entire movie barbie ferreira is so funny and charming where she's that thing where she slams the door in her face and then she opens the door again she's like i was kidding i do not have anything going on right it's so funny i love her yep very good so they set off they stop at a pawn shop so that veronica can pawn the engagement ring that kevin gave her but he shows up because he was following her yeah because he's a stalker but it's a joke but it's not but you're just like hello what he the kevin character is all over the place yeah anyways it's uh we need to talk about kevin and

we will we wow wow we do need to talk about kevin yeah i'm gonna also someday we're gonna have to cover a kevin smith movie and then and then we're really gonna need to talk about kevin oh my gosh there's gonna come a day where we're gonna need to talk about kevin who else were the other kevins kevin costner movie let's talk about that kevin pass i hate him so much he's like my least favorite hollywood figure wait who's the kevin i like kevin klein i like kevin klein kevin klein is is good a fish called wanda is a fun movie we don't need to talk about that kevin but i but i would be happy to sure anyways ranking my kevin's sorry an important aspect of the episode yeah yeah all right so kevin was stalking veronica but they get

rid of him and continue on their way along the way veronica and bailey start to bond and rekindle their friendship a bit but Bailey also judges Veronica for the person she's become she's become this like kind of like sheeple carbon copy of all the popular girls that she's friends with it's a classic it's you know that thing that happens in every movie right where one change but one is computer video game. One's a video game and one's a book. And that's not cool. And you changed.

Yeah. Because Star Trek. And I was like, all right, now we're talking. Now we're talking. She's like, we used to speak Klingon together and now we don't speak Klingon together. Because you're too busy doing your homework? Right. Anyways, who knows?

Who knows? The next morning, they set off again, a bit behind schedule. They make a pit stop for some food, and Veronica reveals that she hasn't made an appointment yet to get the abortion. Bailey reveals that the car they're driving, she stole from her mom's boyfriend and the cops are following them because of this stolen vehicle so they have to bail and abandon the car but some friends that they met at the diner where they stopped yeah they meet when he starts sexually harassing them but then he quickly becomes a hero and their friend there's a whole thing to talk about with this character but this guy named gerard and his friends kind of swoop in and give them a ride to these fairgrounds that are near a bus stop there at the fair slash derby center they meet kira matthews who is this derby racer lady who bailey

develops an instant crush on bailey comes out to veronica there's discussion to be had about this whole situation but um yep they ride a carnival ride and scream about how they are gay and pregnant but then again they say it wrong haley richardson gets the line wrong then this married couple kate and mark played by sugar lynn beard and breckin meyer you're like what huh this is where things the suspension of disbelief you have to do from this point onward it's a road trip movie but it's just like wow we're yeah they really uh they really take it to i think the second they're like ditch a car at a diner in texas you're just like all right well i guess the movie the part of the movie that made sense to me has ended. It has ceased to exist. This, honestly, this script felt like, also there's five credited

writers, which is usually indication that like, you know, there's a lot of ideas and inconsistencies and things all mashed together. This felt like a second draft of a script and it needed like a fourth or fifth draft. And it's a bummer because it's a lot of good writers, including Jennifer Caton Robinson, who wrote Someone Great. She also is a credited writer on upcoming Thor Love and Thunder. Maybe they weren't given enough time? I read that the director, Rachel Lee Goldenberg,'s also a credit of writer um that this movie was made on a very very very tight turnaround it it shows you're so mean i am mean but i'm so mean about this let me defend myself here i think a fun romp like road trip romp about girls trying to access an abortion is such a great premise.

Oh, for sure. And if executed well, it could be a movie that like people want to revisit over and over for years to come. Because there's a lot of value in a very good movie that also makes an important statement but if a movie is just sort of like executed not that well and it's not gonna like it doesn't really stand a chance of being like a cultural touchstone when a movie like this should be a cultural touchstone and i know but that's a lot of pressure to put on one movie just because it's about abortion fair i do believe that there's better movies to come that could take a concept like this and hopefully have the time and money to make a meal of it yeah because it does like at some point just take a turn for the bizarre in a way that does feel like pineapple

expressy i guess where you're just or like hangovery where you're like okay they're just this is just like we're going from set piece to set piece and where there's going to be a lot of character actors and right there's going to be a lot of really dangerous crimes that are supposed to be funny and you know i don't know yeah once the once the car thing happens i'm just like oh this is not the grounded indie road trip movie I thought I was watching. Right. I still haven't seen Never Rarely Sometimes Always. I think that might be a more grounded and probably less like fun tonally,

but just like a more grounded, probably better executed version of this premise. But I, again, cannot really speak to it because I have not seen it, but we should consider covering that one at some point too we should hey i mean they're they're you know they'll be they'll be back for our rights so there's always going to be they're never going to stop opportunities yeah yeah so uh yeah don't you worry it's on it's so depressing oh i know oh sorry if we sound weird today uh sorry it's not great it's not our fault

also the i will i will say uh one of my least favorite things about this movie is the tagline which is uh she's a type a without a plan b i was like i mean it's not the worst but i don't hate it i she's a type A without a plan B. It's like, but they didn't spell un-Greg-ment right. Yeah. What? Mistakes. Anyways.

Yeah. Breckenmeyer. Breckenmeyer and his wife. Breckenmeyer approaches you at a county fair in Texas. W-Y-D. Get in his car. He's like, hey, I overheard that you need a ride to New Mexico. We're headed there.

And they offer Bailey and Veronica a ride, which they accept. But before they head off, Bailey and Kira meet up at the fair. They kiss. Yeah. And then Veronica and Bailey leave with this married couple who have a baby so they seem harmless that's why they you know accept the ride this ride from strangers but this couple turns out to be these anti-choice crusaders who had actually overheard them talking about veronica getting an abortion and making the appointment which another suspension of disbelief

saying that i'm just like how did they hear what no anyway it's really confusing they so then they kind of abduct veronica and bailey but it's like a funny abduction it's a it's so wild and zany they steal the couple's suv and escape but breckinmeyer chases them in their scary anti-abortion rv they manage to get away and they head to a nearby town and find this guy bob played by giancarlo esposito yeah so you're like oh we're just we're just going they're like okay breckinmeyer uh tapping him out let's tap giancarlo esposito in like it's just a care it is like a character actor relay race at some point yeah truly yeah yeah bob owns a limousine service and he takes them the rest of the way to albuquerque

but on the way veronica and bailey get in a fight because veronica said some shitty things about bailey to her friends on the phone that bailey overhears so bailey storms off but veronica tracks her down again turns out bailey had gone to her dad's plant shop in albuquerque because she wants to reconnect with him but he he blows Bailey off, a la Kim Cattrall blowing Britney Spears off in Crossroads. Whoa. Hello. Okay, I did not. Thank you.

Thank you for the Crossroads representation. I literally, okay, so fun fact about me, I do work with mostly men at my day job, and that's brave of me and i tried to contextualize something i was pitching for an outline the other day in the context of crossroads and how did that go they you loved it you they were like it's our favorite movie we love it so much why isn't it easier to access uh shanta's early work is so underrated they all said that in unison of course they were like isn't that a store anyways yeah isn't that a thrift shop

all right dudes rock anyways yeah so bailey's trying to reconnect with her dad but he's being an asshole so veronica calls him out tells him out how awesome Bailey is, and then she tases him. She sure does. Then they go the rest of the way to the clinic where... I'm just glad they used the taser because it was like a Chekhov's taser situation. It was a Chekhov's taser, certainly. And that's how they decided to use it. Good for them.

They go the rest of the way to the clinic where kevin veronica's boyfriend has shown up again she breaks up with him once and for all and then veronica has her abortion it all goes well but they need to get back home so veronica has to call her mom who arranges for them to fly back to missouri when veronica gets home she and her mom have a talk her mom is disappointed that veronica had an abortion but she still loves and supports her and then the next day at school veronica tells her friends that it was her pregnancy test and then she ditches them to sit with bailey at lunch the end un-gregnant and with that we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be back after these i feel like

products and services products products 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. This summer,

the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate

a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We are back. All right. So I guess it probably makes the most sense to start by talking about how this movie treats the subject of abortion. True. Yeah, because I mean, the plot of the movie hinges on the fact that access to abortion is often limited because our society does not like it when people with uteruses have bodily autonomy. So the movie becomes commentary on how unjust and ridiculous and harmful limited access is. Yes. One thing that I liked about, so again, I think my biggest criticism of how this movie handles the protagonist of this movie even though I would argue she's not like the best candidate for it but right even if she is like there was room in

the story for that like you could cut so many things in favor of finding a way to make that very important point there are other areas that I thought the movie was more effective on. I always get, I mean, we've talked about this. Anytime there's a movie about teen girls, they have to be like middle to upper middle class or we'll, we'll simply die.

This happens with very little exception. We do see that Bailey's character is being raised by a single mom. Yeah. And that becomes important to her story. But still in general, this is like a middle class story. And, you know, when Bailey does need to be bailed out by her parents financially, it's not a problem. It's more of a beliefs issue which is something i thought was good we're like in the character of oh sorry i meant veronica not bailey it's sorry we we

understand losing my rights over here give me a break um but i did like that in one character the story was able to incorporate how she is struggling to access abortion because of where she lives and because of the laws of where she lives and what an absurd distance and this is like all true that an underage person would need to go to to get an abortion without the consent of their parents i thought that that point was like they really hammer it home in that scene on the train tracks right where she's basically giving like a speech at the senate a soliloquy yeah right but it's effective like for you know i i wish i had heard stuff like that when i was a teenager like you could argue it's a little overwrought but for what it is I'm like it's all effective sure um and also it manages to um kind

of tie in the theme of parents that would not consent and having to navigate that and and I I thought you know for all the weirdness that happens on the trip, I thought that that worked of like, Veronica, even though she needs help getting back home, she knows that she needs to get there and get her abortion before her parents can be involved and it has to be like the whole story is driven by her desire to get an abortion and uh well not desire whatever she wants to get an abortion she knows it's the right choice for her and her parents just can't be involved because of their beliefs right so yeah i thought it managed to get a lot of common issues with abortion access in, but also missed some glaring glaring ones. Yeah, exactly. Right. Because it's like, yes, Veronica has to travel close to 300 miles to be able to access an abortion.

But the movie does feel like it kind of reeks with white privilege that the movie does not interrogate any way uh money is not really an obstacle for her she starts out with i think a thousand dollars and then gets an additional 1300 after pawning the ring the ring was such a contrivance i was so annoyed by the ring i was like what's happening but yeah i mean it's like unequivocally true that black and hispanic people are most affected if roe v wade is overturned and that is just not a space that is made in the movie. Certainly not. However, I would say that the way the movie handles other aspects of abortion, I thought were generally very positive and handled well in the sense that when Veronica finally does get to the clinic to have the abortion,

the movie like walks you through via voiceover and visuals. What one can expect from the procedure, you know, it's like you change into the gown, you get the vaginal ultrasound, they'll draw some blood, they'll hook you up to an IV. You'll sit in a waiting room with other people who are waiting for the same procedure you go in for surgery the anesthesiologist will put you under

the doctor will insert a wand to remove the fetus it'll be done in 10 minutes you'll wake up in the recovery room like walking through someone step by step especially someone who's never had an abortion or like a teenager who is maybe terrified at the idea of it because there's so much misinformation out there and so much rhetoric about how evil and awful and scary and violent and murderous abortion is that the right perpetuates so like yeah if a teen is seeing this or like just any young person or a teen's parents too i mean i really do think like there's been so much generational misinformation about abortions where i know like in conversations i've had with older women and older people in general in my life that even though they are pro-choice, I think that they have some anxiety around what abortion entails that is based on like

fear-mongering from their generation, from when Roe v. Wade was passed the first time, you know? And so, yeah, I think that like truly anyone can benefit from watching that. And I have a quote from the director here because I thought that, yeah, that part was obviously like the most important part of the movie. And it seems like they took a lot of care with it. So the director, Rachel Lee Goldenberg, had this to say in an interview with AwardsDaily.com. Scholarly journal. Yeah. Okay. AwardsDaily.com. She says, quote, I've had an abortion, but I had a pill abortion.

This was new information to me, which is wild. I had this moment where I knew I wanted to do something special when I came on board. It wasn't fully fleshed out in the script yet. I went with my writing partner on a tour of Planned Parenthood in Los Angeles and asked the nurses to walk us through it. It made me realize how much I didn't know and that fascinated me. It struck me that in the moment we couldn't spend that much time with this young woman and send her behind a wall. it feels like she has come to this place where she has said the word abortion and she is confident in her choice so what do we have to be ashamed about now as an audience we should be on this journey with her as i was going through all the rooms i had no

idea there were so many i should show people that most importantly it comes from a character place and this is what veronica is going through unquote so i think that's uh that's lovely because that's like i think that you know even even people who support the right to abortion don't necessarily know what it entails and i would include myself in that same in certain respects so good scene. I found it informative and helpful and... Aesthetically pleasing. It's pretty. It's calm. It's, you know, the voiceover is very calming.

Yeah, just representation on screen of an abortion taking place that isn't like scary, that isn't a character panicking and freaking out. I'm reminded of that scene from Blue Valentine that we discussed recently, where the character seems in pain and then freaks out and then stops the abortion mid procedure. So I just I appreciate just showing an abortion as a medical procedure that is quick and not necessarily a horribly traumatic experience. And I feel like it kind of without even having to, but that speaks to the point of like how important it is to have access to safe abortions too, because Veronica has to travel, you know, a thousand miles to have a safe abortion that her parents don't have to consent to which

should not be the case i mean she states it very on the nose and broadly and that scene on the train tracks where it's like why do i need my parents permission to get an abortion but i don't need my parents permission to have a greg to to to shove a greg through my bodily canals, et cetera. Gross. But seeing her get a safe abortion that she's very comfortable with, which is, I think, yet another thing that Blue Valentine fucked up. And we've been hearing that point a lot this week. And it's something we've heard in the past because it is true that, you know, abortion being made illegal or far more difficult to access is not going to end abortions.

It's just going to make them less safe for people who need them. Yeah. So, yeah, I think seeing her finally get access to a safe abortion that she is you know there's there's never i and i think that that's like smart writing as well where she's never unwavering on her on what she knows is is the right decision for her yes it's just all the other stuff that is weird right right like everything is surrounding this specific abortion for this specific character, I think, is handled well. The lead up to it, they managed to work in some important statistics into the dialogue. I thought you were talking about the weird stuff.

Oh, no, no, no. They do. Like they do. You know, they say like at the fair, they're like, it's simply a medical procedure. One in four, you know, they say women, I would say people with uteruses, have an abortion. You know, Breckenmeier is like, did you know that having an abortion will reduce your chances of getting pregnant later on? And Veronica is like, no, that is completely false. And then Breckenmeier went, oh, my God, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. I'll leave now um so there's like some good facts and stats about abortions that uh they work into the dialogue yeah in sometimes clunky ways other times more seamless ways it feels a little edutainment at times but the info is good right right right and then the aftermath of the abortion where you know uh veronica comes out with a spring in her step she she seems to be feeling well she tells bailey that she feels relieved she tells her mom later on like i i know i'm supposed to probably feel bad about this abortion but i don't feel bad at all i know that I made the right choice for me and even though her mom says well

I'm disappointed like Veronica never apologizes or kind of wavers in her feelings of this was definitely the right choice for me so to have all of that represented on screen is great. And I think the, the movie's strongest element. I agree. I agree. And I did, um, I was also interested to read in that same interview with the, uh,

director, Rachel Lee Goldenberg, that, um, there were multiple options of how to kind of land the plane on, uh, Veronica's relationship with her mom at the end of the movie. I do kind of I think for what the movie is and what the tone of the movie is, I like where it landed because it felt a little soapy, but without being like completely unrealistic

because when she got home, I was like, it would be weird to me if the mom was just I mean it would be great in the life of this fictional character if her mom was like it's totally okay I totally accept you like yeah that is what you would want as a teenager but I like that it was it felt more grounded in a way that the vast majority of the movie doesn't where her mom says I think that the line is something like i would not have made that choice that is not the choice that your sister made because we learned at the beginning that her sister also um had a child relatively young and it just sounds like the mom is you know kind of starting a journey, I would hope towards being able to

respect a person's right to choose what to do with their fucking body. And I and I would hope that that is something that, like, I think that that's a useful scene, potentially for for older people to see. Yeah, so I, I kind of thought that was a cool choice yeah I think it it tracked for me it played pretty realistic in a movie that often um abandons realism the whole second act is like it takes place on a different planet but then it comes back to the planet for the third. I have complicated feelings about it. Cause on one hand, I like that this movie is tonally very light and a romp.

Yes. Not to say that like getting an abortion is a fun romp, but I think that this movie is lighthearted tone helps take away a lot of the scariness and you know apprehension that some people might feel around getting an abortion but there's a lot of instances where uh the movie gets very cartoonish in a way that i had difficulty suspending my disbelief for. It's so with the second act of this movie is so weird and all over the place. Yeah. Did you have anything else to sort of talk about about the fairly grounded third act of the movie? Because I don't think we can get into the

we can get into the fun stuff now. Sure. Let's let's take a quick break and then dive in. 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.

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Yeah, where would you like to start? I the fun stuff it's not all fun it's not there there is some stuff that i would say i would say the whole breckenmeyer portion of the movie like i can't even get mad about it i'm just like that what a weird way to frame an abduction like it's so goofy that i'm i don't i'm i can't in good faith be like that's bad for the youth of the world and it's like i just think it's just like kind of weirdly

written and like why yeah it's like all all well and good it makes sense that they're traveling you know through the deep south it makes sense that they would potentially meet people who are not in favor of the right to an abortion. It makes sense as an obstacle in this story. Yeah, but the execution is what I think not really doing much or it's no, it's I would i would say it's doing a lot well doing much as far as like effective commentary oh yeah no no zero but uh but was i laughing kind of but i was just like confused i you know i like brecken a lot he's enjoying the pussy that sequence was so yeah i worked with him on robot chicken he's the best he's a sweetheart right but that whole sequence was so yeah i worked with him on robot chicken he's the best he's a sweetheart but that whole sequence was very very strange i didn't understand uh there what what are other

stuff that is like i don't have really uh there's just so many set pieces of this movie that you're like okay actually we need to talk about kevin okay let's talk about we need to talk about kevin where to begin on one hand i guess the the positive thing about kevin's involvement in the story is that he is a creepy stalkery manipulative boyfriend who is actually framed as having those toxic qualities since a lot of teen movies have historically presented those behaviors and traits as being romantic so at least yes it doesn't do that i do like that i like the line that that uh barbie ferrari says where she's like yeah that say anything stuff like i thought that that you know that worked well when she was like yeah he kept asking me to go out with him until i said yes and I prefer I was like uh that sucks that's what a stalker and yeah she's

Veronica's like he stood outside my window all night one night and Barbie's like yeah say anything made that seem cute but it's called stalking I just think that when it comes to we need to talk about kevin uh i just felt like where veronica and bailey tend to be pretty grounded characters i did not find kevin to be a very grounded character and i think it would have been more effective commentary if he were because he does come off a little cartoony yes where it's not that he's not doing things that young men often do in this situation right which is be conditioned to be like you know we have to settle down together and like you know acting like they're living a hundred years ago right that like for sure happens stalking certainly happens predatory creepy behaviors in relationships certainly happened but the way it's written and

framed and like it just felt goofy and cartoony and i just didn't think it didn't land for me yeah he just seemed like a character that was written to say a bunch of stuff that men say in these situations yeah yeah like he was like patriarchy, the guy of this movie. Yeah, in a very like one dimensional way, rather than being a character that felt like a real person who also may say those things. But just I don't know if it was the performance or just like the lack of development put into this character but it did feel too cartoonish to feel like it was making any kind of effective commentary yeah I think it was like it was a lot of stuff going on but I will okay I want to I want to put that on wax and make that

an official Bechdel cast canon patriarchy the guy as a stock character yeah because i always understand where it's coming from and i rarely find it to be effective same it's never just one guy never just one guy and again even if they're even if you do have a character that represents a lot of ideology perpetuated by the patriarchy sure it still needs to be like handled in a way that makes sense we live in a society for crying out loud if if you got patriarchy the guy i want to know how he became patriarchy the guy he wasn't born patriarchy the guy tell you that much i don't know why i'm upset. I think I'm just hungry. Same. We need to talk about Kevin.

Yeah, I support the spirit of it. I didn't think it was executed in a way that made sense. What about dad tasing? How do we feel about dad tasing? That didn't work for me either. Nope. That did not work for me, I would say it plays into some tropes too. Like, I don't know. There was that there was also there's a scene where like, Bailey notices a cop following them and then they just veer off the road in a

way that makes them seem extremely suspicious but then the cop is like welp doesn't everything turn on the wee woo wee woo which they famously are obsessed with i don't understand why veronica wasn't more panicked right when barbie ferreira did that she's just like oh yeah i guess let's get breakfast like right and she's just like yeah sounds great there's a couple different times where like, there is a problem presented, and then it immediately goes away, which I just always I'm like, like, when they wake up late in the middle of the desert, and they're like, we're gonna be late. And then it's followed by a montage of them like kind of hanging out like feeding animals. I was like, so they're not late, right? So they're on time lounging at a

diner. So why did that happen? If that would happen, you would starve or go to a McDonald's. Come on. Similarly, there's a scene where Veronica comes back to the limo after she and Bailey have had this big fight where Bailey storms off. And Bob is fixing the limo because it has broken down. And she's like, well, what the heck? How long is this going to take? And then he's like well what the heck what how long is this gonna take and then he's like oh just 20 minutes and then cut to them in the limo driving off again

so it's like why did you okay this wasn't an obstacle then so cut it out of the script yeah there was a lot of stuff like that the whole just the timeline of the entire story didn't make any sense it seemed like sometimes it would be like midnight but then they were at a fair and then they were like okay let's drive for four more hours to albuquerque or it would be like five o'clock in the morning and they're like hurry we have to drive four hours to get to the appointment at eight a.m you know just like all this stuff that made no sense yeah their money and the way the money was spent was so bizarre to me they didn't use google maps on their phones the entire time what i don't that is like a major uh i mean i still believe that we as a society have not figured out how to effectively

put phones in media and anytime you hear like I'm like something annoying is about to happen and it's always like they they do the Jane the Virgin thing where it's like the text appears alongside the head you're like I guess this is about as well as we can do but it always feels cheesy and and And then to write around that by being like, she's a book, so she printed a map. I'm like, why are we using a map? What are you doing? You don't know what turns to make and what exits to take when you print out a map that spans 300 miles. Like there aren't enough details, whatever.

More importantly, I would like to talk about the way queerness is handled in the movie sure so they're at the fair veronica senses that bailey might like girls which she kind of like coaxes out of her which i would say maybe not the best approach especially since they're not really friends anymore and maybe they're not close anymore yeah Bailey does not want to slash is not ready to come out to Veronica but eventually Bailey nonchalantly says like yeah I like girls no big deal and then Veronica assumes that she's the first person that Bailey came out to and Bailey's like no I've been out to my mom for years plus this list of other people which I didn't mind it was nice to like that yeah

we didn't have to have like a yes this is my secret and and I'm finally coming out and like all the the ways that that's often weirdly handled in in media so I'm glad we avoided that yeah and if I'm remembering correctly I think that that is like something Barbie Ferreira has also spoken about like wanting to see more of because Barbie is a queer woman herself yes and seems like that's like something that she appreciates in a character so I was all for that it's like just the one offline you're like okay that works right what I am more concerned about is the kind of brief romance between Bailey and Kira. I am glad that the script gave some real estate to a queer relationship, but I felt weird about it because Bailey is still in high school, presumably the same age as Veronica, 17. Yeah, 17.

And Kira seems to be pretty significantly older she and all her friends i think are at least 21 because we see them like drinking alcohol in public that they seem to have legally purchased yeah there's other indicators that i'm like kira is like 25 at least it just would have been like again it's it's and we see this that feels like uh it's falling back on just a general teen movie trope yeah where that's how many times have you seen that in uh like hetero context in a teen movie like that's just a classically bad trope that you would think this movie would have thought to avoid yeah like why couldn't they just meet another high schooler at the fucking fair it's actually statistically more likely that you would so easy such an easy choice to make why you could have the doing the derby whatever that's called

yeah but like why not you're in texas that's probably that's a thing that's how what i pictured teenagers in texas doing i'm like they're driving soapboxes around? I don't know. Not my business. They're driving Mad Max Fury Road vehicles around a track? Of course. Yeah. I was like, it looks fucking cool. Like, no disrespect before all of our listeners from Texas are like mad at me. But yeah, I mean, I just think that that character, I think that it may have just been that the movie wanted to cast Betty

who who is like this iconic queer singer who plays the role which for sure like Betty who's awesome however yeah I think that like this movie seems very vested in steering clear of teen movie tropes and so having a teenager hook up with someone who seemed to be well into young adulthood felt like a very clear mistake really icky and especially because queerness is so infrequently represented in this genre in a meaningful way it feels like an even bigger fumble for sure especially because what happens after they meet and have flirted a little bit, they're in like a ball pit or something. And Kira turns into a music video.

Kira does ask for consent to kiss Bailey, which great. Always get consent. Sure. But then Bailey is like, I've never kissed anyone before. And like 27 year old Kira should have been like, Oh, actually maybe I shouldn't kiss this stranger. She keeps getting older in your mind.

She, she ages in dog years. Her mid to late twenties. She should have been like, I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't kiss this stranger after all, who is clearly a teenager. So that makes it seem like there's this kind of like predatory lesbian

trope happening and it just felt really icky it just it's like just cast someone else all due respect to betty who because it's like you don't want you know i i want barbie to get her first kiss sure but like from a high school from another 17 year old like yeah that was not hard to do at the very least it is queer characters played by queer actors since both uh barbie ferreira and betty who are queer but and it's like you know barbie ferreira is like 25 like it in terms of like production wise it's all about board in the story it doesn't work yes exactly so again great idea of like a queer teen getting her first kiss but the execution and that's not to say that you know teenagers don't sometimes get their first kiss from someone who is technically a legal adult i don't always like feel super comfortable

gatekeeping like a 17 year old can't kiss a 18 and a half year old like stuff like that like obviously like it's a lived experience thing I did but because it's like a movie and it seems to be a significant age gap right that is more where I have the issue sure yeah so uh yeah I I also made a note of that but you know barbie ferrera and betty who relationship irl i would take it fine fine by me why not i also want to examine so we've already discussed how the movie fails to acknowledge in any meaningful way that women of color are disproportionately affected by limited access to abortion. There's another way in which race is very mishandled. So in general, the characters of color, whether it's like Veronica's friends

who we meet at the beginning and end, whether it's the peopleonica's friends who we meet at the beginning and end whether it's the people who veronica and bailey meet along the way of this road trip right because there's a woman who owns a pawn shop yeah is a black woman who pulls a shotgun on we need to talk about kevin right you have the giancarlo esposito character um who is also a gun-loving, eccentric. Like a, what's the, oh my God, what's the word? QAnon-y kind of guy. Yeah, a libertarian type. Yes.

Yeah. And then you have the, was the character's name Gerard? Gerard, yeah. Who is presented as a predatory character who's harassing them and then becomes their friend. And I don't know how much of that is a failure of writing, how much of that is a failure of casting. Right. Because I would argue that those characters don't necessarily seem like they're written to be any particular race. Exactly. Okay. So there's a lot to unpack about that.

So in general, the people of color just serve as scenery in this white story, or like helpers of the white characters. Yeah. White or white passing. Right. Gerard is one of the only black characters in the movie. And he's also the character that draws a lot of attention to himself and creates a diversion when cops in Texas come looking for whoever stole this vehicle. That was like, so fucking bizarre. It feels like one of those things where, like you said, the character probably wasn't specifically written as black, but a black actor was cast in that role. But the script wasn't changed in any way to reflect the actions or choices that a black person would most likely make. I want to cite this great article I found written by Kendall Cunningham

entitled Colorblind Justice, Unpregnant is Too White to Be Revolutionary from Bitch Media. I'll just read a few quotes and do some paraphrasing here. Kendall says, the state-sanctioned roadblocks to abortion, it fails at developing its supporting characters, specifically Black people, who rescue Veronica and Bailey from peril and help them reach their destination. It's hard to tell whether these one-dimensional characters of Black people as benevolent saviors are part of a broad message about prejudice that the writers failed to develop, or the result of colorblind casting with no consideration of the stereotypes and problematic tropes being invoked. By the end of the otherwise charming and well-written film, I felt annoyed and exhausted by displays of empathy and sacrifice that so often go unthanked and unreturned by white people,

particularly when it comes to the larger political issue of reproductive justice in the United States. Kendall goes on to discuss how all of the black characters from Peg in the pawn shop, Gerard in the diner, Bob the limo driver, all exist in this narrative only to help this white girl on her journey. Right. And are like making personal sacrifices to often help her when she does have access to like other options right it's really funny because the pawn shop owner overpays her for her ring the giancarlo esposito character also canonically this was bothering me they would have been getting to the limo place at like six in the morning. And he was like up and running a limo company.

What are you talking about? The timeline does not track. But he drops everything. He's like, my business is canceled because a white teenage girl needs something. Like, yeah, it's egregious. And I think that my guess is that there are five white writers on this movie. Right. Yeah.

That didn't take things into consideration that they should have considered. The most egregious example for me was the Gerard scene in which Kendall has this to say, quote, at no point in the scene, and this is, again, the scene where Gerard creates a diversion to distract the cops. Quote, at no point in the scene does it feel as if director Rachel Lee Goldenberg understands the racial tension and potential dangerous situation she's representing on screen. It's hard to believe that a black man in Texas surrounded by cops would risk his freedom and possibly his life to help two white teenagers get away with a crime, even in the seemingly harmless form of patriotic expression in a moment meant to be humorous and charming. Gerard comes off as an eager puppet for white people,

unquote. Um, and then I'll just, I'll share, cause I will link this, this, uh, piece by Kendall Cunningham in all of the stuff, but I just found it very insightful. The last thing I'll quote is this. Quote, it seems as if Unpregnant is trying to create a larger point about white folks' perception of other white folks as immediately trustworthy and well-meaning, parentheses, this is Caitlin talking,

like the way that they immediately trust Breckin Meyer and family. Right. Versus they don't trust Gerard right away. Also, the movie frames him as not trustworthy right away. Because he hits on them. Yeah. And he makes them uncomfortable. Yeah.

Right. So back to the quote um white people's perceptions of other white folks uh as immediately trustworthy and well-meaning versus their perceptions of black people as threatening and unapproachable if inserted on purpose this idea rings true but is riddled with notions of respectability particularly the idea that black people should be respected because we might not be as hostile as white people may assume us to be. There's also the fact that Black people hardly receive the unmitigated compassion and support when it comes to accessing health care as white characters like

Veronica do. Kendall goes on to say, if only Unpregnant leaned into this irony a bit more, its Black characters may not have seemed as detached from reality overall the off-putting racial elements in unpregnant mostly made me long for more modern portrayals of black people getting abortions in film whose geography and economic status often impede their ability to terminate pregnancies as well unquote so, shout out to that piece written by Kendall Cunningham. And shout out to Kendall Cunningham, wonderful writer.

Certainly. Yeah, that, it, you can't let five white people write a movie. You just can't. Like, and it's, that was, I mean, of the many frustrating, sloppy elements of this movie particularly as Kendall points out particularly because this is about an issue that disproportionately affects black and brown people right yeah it's egregious it's unkind to the actors and it undercuts uh what it appears the movie wants to do which is uh be thoughtful

thoughtful and progressive progressive uh which uh the the treatment of i would say virtually all of the non-white characters in this movie are not treated uh thoughtfully or uh like like people you know like it's just uh i mean there's a lot of people in this movie that aren't acting like people but the ways that the tropes applied and the clear like even if it if if a number of these characters were not written as um any particular race like that's a cast, like you need to talk to your casting director about what their problem is. That and depending on who you cast, you need to go back and make changes to the script

to reflect what those characters would actually do and say in these situations that you've written. So there's a big failure to do that in this movie. A couple different fumbles required for it to turn out quite that bad. Yeah. A few things that I thought were not handled the worst. While there is not a whole lot of diversity in general, including diversity in body size,

you do have a character who is fat. We have Bailey played by Barbie Ferreira, especially if we're comparing this to other teen movies, especially from past decades. There is usually a noticeable lack of body diversity where you see nothing but thin, usually white, Western beauty standard bodies. So you usually get a field full of Hayley Richardson. Right. So it's nice to see some diversity in size and have that be normalized.

So Barbie is like truly the funniest it was like again i feel we're shitting on the writing of this movie a lot but do you hear how many like not well-written lines uh barbie ferreira was able to sell to me anyways i was like bless like she is just so talented and and yeah and i i also appreciated how i feel like in your average teen comedy you uh don't get to know like barbie ferreira's role in the story would normally be sidelined quite a bit and you wouldn't get to learn a lot about her i appreciate that the movie went out of its way to give her her own story uh even though sometimes i was like a dad taser that's what we're doing uh we're leaning into the deadbeat dad trope and then we're doing like this 2007

judd apatow thing okay uh yeah sure but uh in any case and and there were i think generally as far as this i mean we've seen this story of like the you changed and I'm a hot topic girl uh you know story a bajillion times but I thought that that was pretty well executed and like sure the two actors have such great chemistry that even when it like wasn't awesome I was like they clearly like each other like yeah I I like too that I think some kind of like popular girl tropes are avoided or subverted in this movie where veronica seems to run with like the popular girls but she she can read like i don't she can read she cares about her studies she's a trekkie nerd she doesn't have street smarts and she doesn't drink but she does have sex like just you know that's true various qualities that uh are usually way more rigidly represented in like a

popular girl but you know she's seems to be more well-rounded i don't know not not a huge thing but yeah it's it's like a a little a lot of little attempts taking place in uh in this movie yeah um did you have anything else i don't have anything else how about you uh no that's about all i had uh this movie does pass the bechdel test yes uh quite a bit it's mostly barbie ferreira and hayley lou richardson talking in a car for quite a bit of the movie. Also, you've got conversations between mothers and daughters. You've got conversations between popular girls. You've got all sorts. You've got conversations between anti-abortion fundamentalists

and Haley Lou Richardson. You know, you you got all sorts of conversations taking place that don't have to do with uh with men uh so yep no problem there however we're now at our nipple scale zero to five nipples based on how the movie fares when looking at it through an intersectional feminist lens. I think, setting aside that I think there's a lot of like, just like screenwriting issues, I would give this, I think, a three in that it is, it does have an agenda and a progressive agenda

that is seeking to humanize getting an abortion. And part of the agenda is to make having an abortion seem less daunting and scary. And just the normal medical procedure that it is. I appreciate that that is the agenda of the movie. As we've discussed, there's a lot of missteps in what it fails to acknowledge around the abortion discussion in terms of people of color, especially from a lower socioeconomic status. abortion is already difficult to access are more likely to have to have an abortion because of other factors not as easy access to health care and birth control not as easy access to education things like that yeah and it's it's like there there, you know, certainly Veronica's character has obstructions to access abortion. But she I just think for this story, it she's not the prime candidate for leading this story.

Absolutely. And and also it's it's like the movie has more than enough room for additional characters and perspectives. Like they're just there. You can't include the whole Breck and Meyer sequence and then tell me there wasn't time for it. There was time. And it was a massive oversight in addition to all the ways that this movie fumbles with race in general. Right. And if the writers are like, oh, I don't know. i just felt out of my depth talking about that in the movie and it's like well

then bring in other people exactly who can speak to that more effectively if george miller can do it you can do it if you right wait you haven't heard our mad max episode comes out next week yes that'll make so much sense next week That'll make so much sense in a week. So, yeah, the failure to acknowledge that people of color are very disproportionately affected by limited access to abortion, I think, is a major misstep for this movie. The way that characters of color are treated, the uh the queer relationship pans out a lot of it is just quite a few missteps i do appreciate that the kind of emotional relationship core of the movie is a is a friendship between two girls that shouldn't be a rare thing in film but um it is uh so i appreciate that i appreciate the lack of absolution for the kevin character i think that you know if this movie was made you know even fairly recently

that would not be a guaranteed thing there's definitely things that this movie is doing right but it is also doing quite a bit either wrong or just completely ignoring the glaring reality of. Right. Yeah. So I think I'll go with like, I don't know, two and a half feels a little too low for. I'm going to go three, I think. I'll go three. I'll give one to Barbie Ferreira.

I'll give one to the actor who plays peg gerald prescott and i will give my third nipple to peg's reference to the human centipede i did appreciate that yeah well delivered and a rare good line in this movie uh yeah, I'm also going to go with three here for all the reasons described. There are particularly on the issue of class and race as it pertains to access to abortion. It's like, how, how, how? How can that not come into the story?

In addition to the people of color that are in the movie and how their characters are sidelined they're just servicing the cis white teenager and and so on and so forth right it's just a huge kind of inconceivably huge miss in that regard and it uh the more we talk about it the more i'm like what the fuck um so yeah i'm gonna give this three nipples and i think i'm gonna give them all the barbie because i want her to have a spare i just think she's a delight certainly well folks that is our episode on un-Gregnant. Yes. So no more Gregs and good riddance. Again, we're going to be linking to resources on more information.

We'll be linking to the Bitch Media piece. We'll also be linking to a Google Doc of state-by-state places to donate to individual abortion clinics. We will be doing the same. Don't you worry. And we'll also post these resources to our social media. Speaking of which, that's on Instagram and Twitter at Bechtelcast. Incredible. And that's just where you can find us there.

Absolutely. You can also find us on Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon, where we do two bonus episodes every month. You also have access to the back catalog of all of those over 100 bonus episodes. Well, I'll be goddamned, uh two movies that uh handle abortion in uh ways that i mean obvious child i don't know i had to revisit obvious child sure but certainly a movie that handles abortion terribly we covered on the matriarch which is juno yes uh so they're all it's all there baby head on head on over come on down and uh you can get our merch at tpublic.com slash the bechtel cast if you are so inclined and uh we'll see you next week for caitlin's

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