The Bechdel Cast - Weird Science with Bridget Todd

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

On this episode, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Bridget Todd boot up their 80s desktop, hack the mainframe, and create the perfect podcast about Weird Science (1985). Grab tickets to our upcoming tour at linktr.ee/bechdelcast Follow Bridget on instagram at @bridgetmarieindc and check out her audiobook, Love at First Prompt at loveatfirstprompt.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Each week, we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stillard,

and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Munges Chatekular and I'm back with a new season of my podcast, Skyline Drive. This time I talked to scientists, biopunks, kermudgens, blues owners, super seniors, and Goa's top cryotherapy lab to try to understand this obsession with living forever and what it means for all of us.

And I get into a bit of trouble along the way. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. To make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the. Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island to serve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture, with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them.

Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's eff and vast. Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Attention, Bechtelcast listeners. We are going on tour. And not, wow. Okay, Oprah. And you get a tour date and you get a tour date, but only if you live in the Northeast.

This is the kickoff leg of our 10-year, whoops, we didn't dismantle the patriarchy anniversary tour. And we are hitting up cities in the Northeast that we haven't toured to in many years. We're very excited. Caitlin, where the hell are we going? We are going to New York City at the Bell House on October 12th, Baltimore at Creative Alliance on October 15th, Philadelphia. Philadelphia at Philomoka on October 17th. State College at Manny's on October 18th. Pittsburgh at Bottle Rocket on October 19th.

And finally, Boston at the Brattle Theater on October 21st. We are so excited to be celebrating the show. It's going to be a big silly variety show. There will be videos. They'll be recap of the Bechtel cast. There's going to be an ode to the dead wife. we're going to get into all of that incredible post-me-to cinema from men who didn't understand what that was supposed to be about. There's just been so much going on. And we'll also, as always,

have exclusive merch that we, and we're our own merch people, come hang, come take pictures. And we will also have free merch for our matrons. That's right. You get a button. So now's a great time to join the matrient. Another reason to join the matrient is that matrons get access to a promo code for a discount on tickets. So if you're not already a matron, sign up today, get that discount. Now, where can we buy tickets you're wondering? Well, we'll tell you. Well, it's at Linktree slash Bechtelcast. Pretty simple. Pretty simple, not that hard to remember. And also, final, final thing, if you have pre-ordered my book, The Tower, you can also get free merch at our merch table. So really, just come, hang. And if you are coming to these shows specifically, dress up. It's

Halloween time. No wrong answers, but a crowd full of Doc Ox would certainly be interesting. Yeah. Dress as your favorite movie character, we will be doing the same. Yes. And if you don't live in or near any of these cities that we listed, fear not. Over the course of the next year, we will be visiting other regions of the U.S. and Canada to do the show. So fear not, we will be coming to a city near you. soon. Save the date. We're getting married to our own body. This is the longest relationship of my life, I will say, and it's not even close. It's not even close. We are common law married. We are common law married, and we are common law married to our listeners. Is that excessively parisocial? Don't think about it. Come to the show and be excessively

parisocial at us. And we will see you in October. See you there. The Beckdale Cast. All right, Caitlin, our parents are out of town, and we're We have to create the perfect podcast. Oh my gosh. Let's give it the sexiness of all these playboy models and the intelligence of Albert Einstein. And let's give our podcast huge hunkers. And then this is actually, you know, for everything we're going to be talking about, about the movie word science today, it was kind of a nice walk down memory lane because our podcast also.

emerged out of the fog in one of our bedrooms about 10 years ago and then said, so what do you little podcasters want to do first? And we said cover kill bill very poorly. And that's what we did. And not what we did. Cover kill bill with actually no understanding of what we were saying. True. And that's why that episode would eventually be deleted and redone. Lost media. Welcome to the Bechtel cast. My name is Jamie Laughness. My name is Caitlin Durante. This is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechtel test simply as a jumping off point, which of course is a media metric created by our dear friend of the show, Alison Bechtel, first appearing in her comic collection, Dikes to Watch Out for in the mid-80s, has since been sort of repurposed as a more mainstream media test. There are many versions of it. The one that we use is, do two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they have a conversation with each other?

And is that conversation about something other than a man? And we particularly like it when it's meaningful dialogue and not just like throw away nothing dialogue that you could delete out of the movie and nothing would change. And crucially and crucially, I just want to say in light of what we'll be talking about today. Yeah. Just because, I mean, we've been saying this. but just because a movie maybe technically passes the Bechle Test doesn't mean that it's good for the culture.

I just want to get ahead of it. Yes. I just want to get ahead of it because when this movie actually does pass the Bechtel Test, I was kicking and screaming and I was like, well, now my life is hard. This sucks. This sucks. Flawed metric. Two women talk about another woman.

Yes. And in a conversation I'm actually very interested to talk about because I feel like like happens maybe a few, a handful of times in these movies. I'm like, ooh, that's the start of something maybe more interesting. And of course, it goes nowhere. Yes, indeed. We are covering, again, in the running trend of our 10-year anniversary, we're covering a movie you would think we would have covered years ago, but we have in fact been avoiding

for many years. But we have been outpaced because we have an incredible, wonderful returning guest. And so we are recovering for, um, for, We're, I said we were recovering. We are recovering from Weird Science, 1985. Yes. And let's get our wonderful guest in here. I'm so excited to see her.

She is the host of IHeart's podcast. There are no girls on the internet. She's the author of the audiobook, Love at First Prompt, AI, and the Future of Intimacy. And you know her from our episodes on Eves Bayou, Reality Bites, BAPS. It's Bridget Todd. Welcome back. I'm so thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk about weird science. Oh, goodness gracious, us too.

I'm so curious because I know, first of all, our listeners, I feel like there's a ton of crossover in our listenership, I'm sure. But if you are a Bechtalcast listener that is not listening to, there are no girls on the internet, not following your content. Like it's just you are doing the good work week in and week out. We're so stoked to have you back. Thank you so much. Of course. And we'd love to hear more about your book. Tell us about it. Yes, the book is called Love at First Prompt.

It is an audiobook. You can get it at love at firstprompt.com. It really explores why we are so fascinated with the concept of humans and technology like AI having intimate connections. So whether that's romantic connections, sexual connections, platonic connections, you know, I'm interested in exploring that from a perspective where I'm not actually trying to cast judgment on individuals who say that they feel like they have some sort of intimate connection with AI. But instead I ask, what is driving this? Like, why are we so fascinated with this? And what does this mean for all the tech companies that are essentially trying to commodify intimacy, connection, sexuality, romance, friendship, and all of that? I mean, I'm so, so excited to listen to it.

And also there's certain, when I, when I read about it, when I read your announcement, I was like, Bridget truly is just like doing the work that needs to be done, but must be really frustrating to do sometimes. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. But it is interesting because I, in researching the book, I kind of had to go back and realize that this was a topic that I've been fascinated with since it's almost since childhood. I remember watching the movie Blade Runner. Like the idea that a human and a. a piece of technology would forge even a friendship. You know, I used to watch, oh, God, why am I blanking the name of that movie?

80s movie with the robot and his name is Johnny J5. Oh, why am I blink in the name of that movie. I'm also blanking on it. Short circuit. Yes. Oh. I wasn't even close. I don't know what that is.

Oh, my God, short circuit. So this is, I'm like dating myself, but it was an 80s movie where a, like, a guy, who is like a toy engineer makes a robot and then him and this robot kind of create a like a real bond ever since my like my whole life I've sort of been asking this question of what happens when a human and a piece of technology become friends, become lovers, become, you know, they have a romance. It's something that, you know, it's, we seem to have a real fascination with it in culture. We really do. Yeah, I'm so, I'm so excited to hear your thoughts on this movie as well because as I was watching this even though like you know hard to find a more

dated movie uh at least like with its tech stuff at amongst other things than weird science but it does feel as if I'm curious how this sort of factored into your research and your work that media has such a stranglehold on how we view like artificially created characters and I mean, to the point where I'm trying to think of the exact example. Oh, I'm thinking of like we recovered her last year, I believe. And how, you know, like Samantha was such an influential character that she's cited by Tech Bros. Now trying to make Samantha and how like, you know, all media tends to be like this and a lot of pop. But it seems like especially really, really sticky in this area specifically.

Yeah. It's so funny because Sam Altman. the CEO of Open AI has cited her as his favorite movie. It was that motherfucker, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. And he said that, you know, he has cited her as the inspiration for the way that he wants humans to interact with his company's AI. But then he will also say, oh, but I don't want people having intimate connections or

like sexual or romantic connections. And I'm like, did you? We'll see her. Yeah. Because intimate and sexual connections is like part of it. It's a huge part of it. It's kind of the reason. and people liked the movie.

And also how, I mean, now I'm just like, I'm talking your ear off. I just need to listen to the book. But how we are in media, I think, conditioned to really empathize with these AI characters and to be rooting for them. And how that, I mean, at least I personally struggle to bring that energy to the real world. You know, I see a clasp. anchor in the wild, they want to kick it. Yeah. Yeah. That's such a good point. And it totally aligns with when people talk about AI. Like it's, I mean, I make tech content all day long and I catch

myself saying, oh, well, you know, like personifying AI as if it is real, even though I know that it is not. And it's important to maintain that it's not because it absolutely, you know, empowers tech companies when we talk about their technology in this way where it's something that it's not. When we talk about Chad GPT, like it's sentient or it can do things, when we say things like, oh, GROC did X, Y, Z. And it's like, no, no, no. GROC didn't do anything because GROC's not real. You mean humans used GROC to do X, Y, Z, right? And so it's always this constant friction that I do very much think, to your point, Jamie, is like really enabled by media about technology, media about sort of like, you know, a babe come to life or a robot, you know. Did you all

Have you all covered the movie Companion? Yes. Pretty recently, like within the past year or so. Yeah. That's a great example of a movie where like by the end, you're rooting for the AI bot, you know? You're like, get it, girl. Same with X Machina, where you're just like, yeah, kill him.

And it is tricky because when I rewatch movies like companion or X Machina, I'm always rooting for her. It's impossible not to. I was thinking a little bit about, I forget what the name of this. that your character and companion is, but how she has control over her own intelligence and all of that. He set it way down because he wanted her to be a moron. Yeah.

Okay, that's another thing. That appears in this movie. Right. That happens in this movie, although I think they eventually decide to like make the woman that they create have Einstein level intelligence. Yeah. But like another part of this conversation is like one of the reasons I think that that people are fascinated with the idea of like having an AI companion or like creating a fembot

or whatever it is, is the fantasy of being able to create or be with the quote unquote perfect partner, specifically the perfect woman who they can design to have the exact qualities that these men think that they want because real human women come with. all of these flaws. But of course, these alleged flaws are often just a woman having opinions and agency and autonomy. But yeah, just this idea of like designing the ideal woman, quote, unquote, and the implications therein. And we'll talk about how in the movie Weird Science that concept could have been thoughtfully explored, but isn't really. Yeah. I guess it's like this, before we like really get into it, I know that this is like,

maybe a very silly question, Bridget, but like, does how the two guys in Weird Science creating Lisa kind of square with how a lot of people use AI to simulate intimate experiences? Oh, as I was watching it, I was like, this actually, I mean, it's, we can get into some of my issues with the movie, but I was surprised by how much I recognized the scene when they're trying of kind of build their bot babe, how much I recognize that in the research about how people interact with AI when they're sort of building or training AI for things like romance or erotic role play, right? You see people saying, I want you to talk to me like this. I want you to treat me like this, you know, really kind of down to the most specific minutia, essentially building

their own bot. I was really, really reminded of the scene when their feet, they're, their feet, eating in like, oh, here's the, there's the lip she's going to have. For some reason, here's Beethoven's hands for some reason, which they feed in and I guess never returned to. Which is like one of the biggest missed, like dropped threads in the movie where you're like, and what if she used that to do anything else? But whatever. That's why companion exists, I guess.

Yeah. Well, I'm so excited to jump into it. And I know that there's going to be so many other questions that come up around this. intimacy simulation slash mommy girlfriend, sister wife situation. But let's get into our history with this movie. Bridget, what's your history with Weird Science? So I had never seen it all the way through. I was pretty familiar with it.

But weirdly, when I was growing up, I was obsessed with the short-lived, I guess, miniseries sitcom version of this that used to be on the USA Network. I've seen it every episode. Well, it's not even that short-lived. It was 88 episodes. Oh, my God. And ran over four years. I guess that that's like old-school short-lived, though.

Everything used to get like 300 episodes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but sorry, keep going. Yeah, the sitcom, I mean, I was like probably eight or nine when I was watching it. I have to imagine that it was worse than the movie, but I still, for some reason, had a real deep soft spot for it. Mm-hmm. And then this was your first time watching the movie.

Yeah, I had seen it in bits and pieces. I don't think I had seen it all the way through. And something that I remembered when I was rewatching it for this episode is that in the very first episode of my podcast, there are no girls on the internet. I was interviewing a tech historian named Claire Evans, who was amazing. And I was asking her, I was like, you know, why do we see technology as this sort of boys field when the reality is that women and marginalized people were at the start of technology and computers since the very beginning? And she cited a lot of kind of marketing that really kicked in around the 80s that seemed to suggest that technology was, you know, two computer nerds building a babe, like in the movie Weird Science. And so that was the first time that I was like, oh, yeah. But according to this tech historian, weird science was a big part of this marketing idea that made people associate technology and computers with kind of horny, nerdy guys and not the women and girls who had been at the whole.

forefront of computer since the very beginning. That's fucking infuriating. Yay. Woo. Jamie, what about you? What's your relationship with this movie? I guess just mainly one of avoidance. Yeah, this is a movie that I knew we would cover one day.

There would come a day. But I had like a cultural osmosis understanding of this movie. Basically kind of rooted in what you just said, Bridget, of like the horny boy. Like I've seen this movie compared to like, a send up of Frankenstein and a send up of Pygmalion. I see obviously there's like clear parallels between both of them, but it is kind of its own thing. And I don't really mean that as a compliment. But yeah, I guess I hadn't seen it all the way through. And I have to say I didn't, I'm not a John Hughes fan in general. Yeah, me either.

He just like does not connect for me. And so I'm, there's so many interesting things to talk about in this movie, the movie itself, I thought it was quite boring. And it made me do something that I didn't know it was possible, which was want Bill Paxton to get off my screen. I've never had that feeling before since.

But I think Bill Paxton, bless his heart, is giving one of the most annoying performances I've ever seen. And I love Bill Paxton so much. I can't believe that they did him like this. No, I agree. And he's, pretty well known for giving like a quite outlandish performance.

Yeah. Yeah. And he's usually like loud and kooky. I mean, I'm thinking of his character from aliens and stuff like that. But like this is just like what in the hell is going on? This is a mess. He looks bad,

which also is basically impossible to do to Bill Paxton. Terrible haircut. Yikes. He's supposed to be like a teenager, older brother, but he he's visibly 30. Yeah, he's like visibly balding he has a receding hairline. It's true. I can't believe they did my dear friend Bill Paxton

like that. But yeah, he is obviously 30. And that, I don't know. I struggle with like, Gen X Cinema in general. I think I kind of struggle with. But when I say that, sometimes I think of just talking about John Hughes movies because he is sort of like the name. And this to me is like the worst of John Hughes

where it's like aggressively miscellified. There's not really much of a story. It's very episodic. And all most of the episode, most of the episodic pieces have some sort of like very poorly aged either element of racism or sexism. Homophobia. And it's boring. It's a terrible screenplay.

And it's just boring. And that's the biggest crime of all. I read online that he, John Hughes wrote this movie, even though he's known for writing quickly, he wrote this very quickly. He wrote this screenplay in less than two days. And I was like, yeah, that checks out. That checks out. No trouble believing that.

Men need to stop bragging about how fast they write. Because it's like, we can tell. Maybe we should have done a second pass, man. Like, what do you mean? But yeah, anyways, this movie, I just, I guess the nice thing I will say is there were more interesting elements and like potential for it than I thought. Yeah. I was surprised that Lisa has so much power.

an agency in theory. I didn't think she would have basically magical powers. She's a wizard question. She's kind of a wizard. She can freeze your grandparents in time. I guess I just wanted more of that. It's almost like she's a genie. She is getting into like Aladdin a little bit. Yeah. So I was just, I was surprised that even though like as we'll get into it, like she doesn't really get to do very much for herself. We don't know her. She's basically a genie. wizard and I like that idea. Right. Yeah. Caitlin, what's your history with this movie? I saw it for the first time, I think like six or seven years ago. It was after we started the podcast, but not super recently.

Like it was long enough ago that most of the details were pretty foggy. And I'm also wondering if I even finished it because nothing about the back half of the movie was familiar at all. I was like, what is this Bill Paxton blob? What is this Mad Max motorcycle gang that shows up? Like, I didn't remember any of that. So I'm wondering if I just like started it, got like 40 minutes in and was like, well, this fucking is terrible. I hate it. Well, no one's paying me to do this.

And then I just turned it off. But yeah, yeah, I have no nostalgia for most John Hughes movies aside from there are a select few. I like trains, planes, and automobiles. I kind of like Uncle Buck. I've never watched it critically, but I remember being like, I just like John Candy, maybe. Sure, yeah. I mean, John Hughes has stuff that I like. Yeah.

Especially things that he has written but not directed, you know, Home Alone and Beethoven. Never forget. Never forget. He wrote the screenplay for Flubber. Oh, there's his hit. There's his hit. Flubber Slaps. That's a good movie.

I'll stand by that one. Wow. And that totally actually, whoa, do you remember how we got really into it, even though, unfortunately, he is, a lot of negative stuff has come up about him, how Danny Elfman wrote the Flubber Mambo. I'll never forget. Who could forget? And their working relationship goes back to this movie because Oingo Boingo wrote the theme to weird science. Right. Wow. Yes. So, you know, her web connects them all. And we wouldn't have the Flubber Mambo without this movie, I guess. We sure wouldn't. But yeah. But yeah. I really struggled with this one. I am sorry to fans of this movie, but... I don't think fans of this movie are really... I don't know. Truly, listeners reach out directly.

Send us an email if this is one of your favorite. Because it's just, I... Is this anyone's favorite, like, one of someone's favorite movies still? I will say, I enjoyed it more than I expected to enjoy it. And I think there's... I went back to see, like, what were the reviews of this movie like? And I think it was the Roger Ebert review. that I kind of agreed with that there's a misdirect that I think is interesting where in the first 10 minutes of the movie,

you think, oh, they're going to make this robot sex slave who just does whatever they say, and that's going to be their girlfriend. They're going to, like, have sex with her and date her. And I think that that would be a much worse version of the movie, and that's what I was expecting. So I'm not saying it's a good movie, but I think they did make a, they, they zigged where I thought they were going to zag, which I will, I will, I will appreciate that. Fair. They did make her into, that's, I think, the most interesting choice in the movie and the biggest missed opportunity is turning her into a wizard. Right. Well, we'll talk more about it. But first,

let's take a quick break. My SUV is worth more than ever. Time to upgrade. There's never been a better time. At Plaza Auto Group locations get top value for your trade and shop hundreds of new and pre-owned vehicles across 11 locations. And if you can't come to us, we'll come to you. With best in class pricing, unbeatable trade values, and 70 years of trust. It's easy to see why families choose the Plaza Auto Group. Plaza Auto Group, celebrating 70 years family owned and operated. Visit Plaza Auto Group.com.

On the new podcast Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is all. offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinero, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people, and they were like, you smiled at us.

Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is, and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us.

Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head, right? How about we flip the script? What is the surprised woman who actually you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird?

Scott, this entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never expect. I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you.

I was like, is that weed? Nope. It's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, what's a state. Everyone's so dumb.

And fake. Right, fake and also not interested. Or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show. show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. If your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

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Listen to Pro Society on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Okay, so here's the recap for Weird Science, 1985. We meet two teen boys, Gary, played by Anthony Michael Hall, and Wyatt, played by Elon Mitchell Smith, two stars with three names each. Childstar Proxas, child star serial killers. Yes. And Gary and Wyatt are uncool and unpopular.

They're in gym class, ogling at all of the girls doing gymnastics. They're fantasizing about showering with them. They're fantasizing about throwing a huge party where everyone is invited and all of their classmates come and they think they're so cool. and they particularly have their eyes on two popular girls named Deb and Hilly, though we will not know their names for about 45 minutes. No, and don't let yourself be gaslit by this movie. They really make it seem like you should have noticed earlier. Yeah.

Totally. So these guys are looking at these two girls. But then the two, like, popular jock boyfriends of these girls come up behind Gary and Wyatt. this is Max and Ian. Ian played by a young Robert Downey Jr. He was just going by Robert Downey then. When I saw it in the cast, is that the same Robert Downey as Robert Downey Jr?

And it was. Yeah, I forget he's Robert Downey with his original teeth. He's so cute. Preveenier's teeth. Well, I do feel like Marvel stars. It's a similar pipeline to Jerry Bruckheimer stars of the 90s and SNL stars to this day. At some point, the boss makes,

a call and you just get a new set of teeth. That's right. Feige said, we're re-uping his contract, change his mouth, make his mouth the right shape now. Yeah. Give us those chompers. A lot of teeth shaming in the industry. Same length chompers. This is my, this has been my beat for many years.

But yeah, it's nice to see someone's original set featured. Indeed, yes. So these two popular boys come up behind Gary and Wyatt and pants them in front of everyone. So Gary and Wyatt are humiliated. We cut to Gary is staying over at Wyatt's for the weekend while his parents are out of town. And they're watching a Frankenstein movie. I don't know which one. And mind you, this is about 30 years before I Frankenstein would come out.

So I'm sure otherwise they would have been watching that one. They would have been. Absolutely. Yes. But them watching Frankenstein gives Gary an. idea, what if they use Wyatt's computer and programming skills that, by the way, have not been previously set up, which is bad screenwriting? What if they use these things to create a woman, to simulate a girl on the computer for them to talk to and do sex things with? Yeah, I also, I mean, I feel like

the reason we don't learn why he's good at programming is because John Hughes wrote this in two days and he doesn't appear to know how that works because much like a movie recovering later in this week that is much better. 2001 of Space Odyssey. This is, I will say, one of the strengths of this movie is when it randomly like very much loses the plot and it's like hacking sequence and it's just like kind of vintage screensaber. So like bloop, loop, loop, loop, looop, loo, loo, It's like, okay, so we're really not going to give him a third day to write this. Fine. Nope.

I do have a question of this whole time. Somebody that he knew had the ability to conjure up humanoids out of whole cloth using their computer. And he just sort of knew that he had this ability the whole time. And it wasn't until watching Frankenstein that he was like, oh, yeah, we should make a babe. I don't know. Shrug. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. It's very like first draft logic that they're going on.

I mean, I guess you could argue that they don't know that they have that ability and it's not until they do all of these like experiments slash like a ritualistic seance with a Barbie doll. And a bra bras on their heads. And bras on their head. Right. It's baffling. It also reminded me, did Caitlin, I know you didn't grow up with decommission. But Bridget, have you seen the movie Pixel Perfect? It's the Disney movie? It's a Disney Channel movie from the 2000. Yes, yes. I have seen it.

That was the other. I was like, what is another example of like a very, because obviously there's a lot of like women's cyborg movies, but I'm like a teen boy, like just goofing around and blah blah blah. And Pixel Perfect feels like the closest thing. But I think he created a pop star to help his friend. He created like a cyborg pop star. Yeah.

So it wasn't just as this movie will lead you to believe because they're horny, they're horny and bored. Yeah. And another Disney Channel classic smart house where I don't know if you all have seen that, but the kid wins a house that comes with like a essentially an AI mom who is running their smart house. And yeah, it's like it's like he has lost his mother. So it's almost like a grieve. Like, it's interesting that movies so often it's, oh, I'm creating a woman, a tech woman to help with some sort of issue. Help my friend. Help me grieve.

But this one is like, we're horny. That's the reason why we're making a baby. Help me squeeze one out. We really go down to the basis level. And as we'll talk about, she takes on, of course, also this maternal quality towards them that confusing. is everything. And anyways, let's just keep going to fight. Okay, so Gary and Wyatt design her appearance and her intelligence level.

We will talk about this sequence in a lot more detail. But they're designing her. They're hacking into the mainframe. They hook up a Barbie to the computer somehow. Are her boobs big or her boobs small? No, they're big. Is she a fifth grader? No, she's a genius.

I do appreciate it. It doesn't really follow through in Gary's character at all, but he's like, no, she has to be a genius. We have to hack the government or something. You're like, why does he think that? Like, because it doesn't really, he doesn't seem to appreciate intelligence and women outside of this one scene. Right.

But I think maybe he's like, oh, this is my, like, more thinking like, I need a super smart cyborg versus smart women are more interesting. to be around. Yeah, that's the impression I got. Same. He does mention that if they make her smart, they can play chess with her. Yes. Yes. Which I would have liked to see. I would have like to see. There's a lot of Chekhov's robot like specifications where they give her Beethoven's hands and there's a piano in the house. And I kind of was like, where's the scene where she plays piano good or plays chess good? Nothing pays off. No. Where is this? She doesn't do like Einstein while, you know, I hear a pretty smart guy that was not a wizard who could freeze grandparents.

Who could just conjure cars out of nowhere and change your outfit with the snap of a finger. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Well, that's the weird science of it all, I guess. And speaking of weird science, they do that like seance thing with the bras on their head. And this like turns the sky red. There's lightning striking. all of the electronics in the house are going haywire,

which I will say there are some cool effects in that sequence. Yeah, yeah, cool practical effects. Dog walking on the ceiling. Kind of cool. Pretty cool. And then the next thing they know, the Barbie doll has transformed into a quote-unquote real woman. And she is played by Kelly LeBrock,

who I wasn't super familiar with. And I kept thinking she was Elizabeth Huron. but she is in fact not no she she has been in a few things but I think she is primarily a model she popularized the phrase wait I wrote this down because I thought it was interesting she popular she was the spokesmodel who said the line don't hate me because I'm beautiful that was her so cultural impact felt I looked her up after watching the movie because I thought you know it seemed like she was poised to have a big career and all the reviews I read of weird science, they all praised her her in this movie.

Yeah. I will say I looked her up on Instagram, posted some pretty intense stuff around the COVID times. I will, I will say that about her, her current digital footprint. So I was like, oh, okay, that's what's going on. Yikes. Wait. A woman in her 60s having some questionable ideas around. Oh, well, that's, that's unfortunate.

that I I yeah I think this is the only thing I've seen her in and I do agree like she gives I think like an interesting performance for a character that could not be more all over the place oh my so all over the place I also wonder if the reason she reminds me of Elizabeth Hurley is that I feel like her character is quite similar to Elizabeth Hurley's character in B-Dazzled is that the name of that movie yeah I'm the Brendan fraser I was thinking the same thing okay where she's playing the devil though Jesus. I'm like, what is going on with Lisa? Is she a wizard? Does she, like, is she, where is she from? Right. Well, they both have magical powers that allow them to manipulate different things in their environment.

So that's true. I'm like, basically same character. Well, it's so silly. Yeah, because like this movie and others suggest that the most, I get, because like this movie conflates magic and science so thoroughly. I feel like the movie would sort of lead you to believe that the most powerful, like, like source of energy in the world is like a horny teenage boy, which I really hope is not the case. And that would be very upsetting.

We as we know, the greatest source of energy available in the world is children's screams. There's a documentary about it. Oh, a documentary called Monsters Incorporated. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, of course. Yeah.

Anyway, so Gary and Wyatt have created this woman. and they will eventually think to give her a name, and that name will be Lisa, but it takes a while. She asks them what the boys would like to do first, which is showering with her, while she is fully naked and the boys still have on their pants and shoes. Then Lisa takes them out for a night on the town. She changes their outfits. She has a pink convertible now. and takes them to a place called the candy bar where the boys feel very out of place. But eventually, Gary gets super drunk. And what follows is another scene we'll talk about.

But it's absurd how long this racist pit continues. It continues like three scenes after. Yes. Like when they leave the club and they're like driving back and they're transitioning into the next scene. And you're thinking, surely this is, we're abandoning this little bit. It's still going on. It's still going on when he goes home. Like, he has to be fully unconscious before we can be freed of this, this horrendous bit.

That it's, I don't know. I know that, like, both of the guys are, I don't know, Anthony Michael Hall. Like, he's a teenager in this. Tell him to knock that shit off. But it seems like John Hughes perhaps wanted it. Yeah, he's, Anthony Michael Hall is like going for it. I feel like someone was like, really. give it your all with this because he's really going for it he's really going for it yeah and if you're

not familiar with the movie slash don't remember here's what we're talking about Gary is talking to a group of mostly older black men and he's putting on a black scent and telling them a story about a girl that he had a crush on last year and then you're like surely this isn't getting it worse and then it immediately does it keeps getting worse Lisa says a slur Lisa says a homophobic slurb in moments later. You're just like, ah, get me out of here. Yeah, everything about this scene is horrendous. Then they head back to Wyatt's house where Wyatt's older brother, Chet, played by Bill Paxton of Titanic Brock Lovett fame, has arrived home from military school.

And as we were alluding to earlier, Chet is this like very unstable, agro dude with a terrible haircut. He torments Wyatt and Gary. He's like blackmailing and extorting them for money. Gary drunkenly tells Chet about a woman they made, but he doesn't believe them. You also keep thinking that something's going to happen with like Chet finding out about Lisa and that's going to have consequences and bearing on the plot of this story, but kind of never because Chet just disappears for a while. this movie leaves you with such narrative blue balls where like every time they seem to like stumble upon potential stakes for his scene they will just get rid of them as quickly as possible. I think the sequence that made me most frustrated was like it takes them an hour, but they're like, oh, someone's going to come to the house during the party. It's the grandparents.

Stakes, stakes. And then the second they get there, they're, while you're like, oh, actually Lisa is a wizard. So there's no problem. I was like, this was the first problem we've seen. It is. Yeah, and it's like what, like, the buildups, the grandparents scene is a great example because they build it up so much where, like, they show you, the grandparents don't just happen to stop by.

The movie takes you to the grandparents, like, having dinner and being like, you know what we should do after dinner is go, go pay a visit to our grandson because grandkids love when their grandparents visit. Like, they really spend a lot of time building up these things that in the end, And I don't even think we see the grandparents get unfrozen after they're frozen. I don't think so. We don't know if Lisa shows them mercy in the end, I guess. I was, I will, I know we're like getting a little ahead of ourselves.

But I think that even though the grandparents are very stereotypical presentation of older people, their camp to me. Those performances were so funny. It seemed like those actors were having a fun time being like, my great. grandson. What do you mean? This is my daughter's house. Right. The way John Hughes writes parents, I'm like, you know your parrot age, right? But whatever.

Yeah. Didn't he do something similar with the grandparent characters in 16 candles, I want to say? Oh, I don't let myself think about 16 candles. So I'm not sure. And that's understandable. Okay. So then we cut to a random scene where Lisa, approaches Wyatt.

She is standing directly behind them, behind him. He does not notice for a while. He's like, Lisa, where are you? And then she's like, Hey, Stud, I'm right here. Let's kiss. And then we see an adult woman who was 24 in real life kissing a teen boy who was 15 in real life, which is something that John Hughes does all the time.

Constantly. Yeah, it's like you couldn't be less surprised to see it, unfortunately. Like this is his, it happens in, I would say, most of his movies. What's going on there? I mean, we'll refer back to it because we talked about it in our, probably our 16 Candles episode and definitely a pretty, our pretty and pink episode, but that Molly Ringwald has written pretty extensively about just like how she feels about the experience of working on John Hughes movies, how she feels they've all aged rather poorly.

She feels weird showing them to her own. children and like I don't think we covered pretty in pink did we I don't I I'm who can say but yeah that like this is this is very much and and it's like John Hughes it's easy to like single him out as like the culprit but it's just like the culture of the time was so permissive of this I mean you think of like any of the raunchy comedies of the 80s 90s into the 2000s I mean even there's like a running bit about that in Booksmart, which is like a five or six year old movie about, I think it's like a teacher played by maybe Jessica Williams, like a cool older teacher who comes to the kids party. And like,

this is a trope that like, you know, adults hitting on children exist in raunchy comedies to this day. And being played as either funny and hilarious and a joke or romantic and sexy. It's, it's not tricky. Like, nothing in this movie is particularly tricky. or subtle, but like, I think because of in story, it's tricky because the question of like, well, who is Lisa? Like, what is Lisa is kind of confusing? Is she? Because she's not a person that she's a, she's a, like, I don't know.

I agree with you that the optics of an adult woman kissing a teenage boy is gross, regardless of the Turing test of it all. Right. But, like, in story, it's also. very bizarre and off-putting, I thought. Definitely. And we'll talk more about that later as well. But they're kissing. It's framed as romantic. And then off-screen, they apparently try to have sex, but we'll learn that why it passed out like 10 seconds into it. So they don't keep going with that. Another John Hughes classic is suggesting things.

Yes. Another John Hughes classic is the sexual assault usually of a minor. Yes, while they are unconscious. We cut to the next morning. Wyatt and Gary wake up and they think that maybe this whole thing with Lisa was a dream. The theme music from The Exorcist is playing for some reason. Oh, yeah, that was weird and also never explained, really. No, I was not understanding. Okay, I'm glad that you both said that because I was like, I've seen The Exorcist many times,

and I'm not understanding the reference here. Because it makes no sense. Yeah, okay. But then Wyatt gets out of bed and he's wearing Lisa's underwear. And Lisa is downstairs making the boys breakfast because in addition to fulfilling their sexual fantasies, she's also doing domestic labor for them. She's also their mommy, of course. Yes, of course.

She's also their mommy and sexual tutor. Nothing weird about that. no strange precedence set there. Nope. And then Chet comes in and bullies Wyatt some more. This happens every few scenes. And Chet freaks out about the panties that Wyatt is wearing. There's a whole transphobic runner there.

You do get Bill Paxton showing his butt cheeks. This is true. It's cold comfort. It's cold comfort. But yeah, there is like that transphobic runner that I, also like this is not the point of it but I also was like it took me a second to figure out what was going on because they're very I thought gender neutral underwear. Yeah, like they're just briefs. Yeah. But his brother is like those are those are women's underpants. This is there's no amount of money you could ever pay me to not make a huge deal about this. Right. You were like I honestly wasn't I I didn't realize that at first because they seem kind of like anyone could wear them. Which is not even the point because there's also, I think, a very, how did this make the final cut of the movie? Why are we still watching it?

Like, close up of an underage boy's crotch leading into that scene too, which you're also like, that's just fucking disgusting. Okay. So then we cut to Wyatt and Gary at the mall buying perfume for Lisa, but their bullies, Max and Ian, are there. and they dump flushies onto the boys' heads. And then the bully's girlfriends, Deb and Hilly, whose names we still don't know, contemplate dumping their boyfriends for being jerks, but they decide against it because dumping them

would hurt the girl's social status. Then Max and Ian see Lisa at the mall, and they're like, hubba, hubba, awuga, cartoonish like they're chasing after her. They're going up the down escalator to get to her. It's very hijinks. Yeah. And then they watch her get into an expensive sports car. I don't know if this is the Porsche or whatever, but Gary is driving it and she gets in and she's like, hey, babe.

And so Max and Ian are like, what the hell? How does this fucking nerd get this girl? blah blah blah and then Lisa invites Max and Ian to a party at Wyatt's house that night because she's trying to help the boys seem cool and to get more popular that is her mission objective or whatever right which we never see fully outlined again it's kind of like and after a while you sort of like say okay I guess that it is Lisa's programmed like because it's so unclear what they're making her for and it just seems for strictly perverted reasons. But her understanding of what her purpose is, her function is, is to make the boys cool not to listen to them. And that becomes

like a back and forth throughout the middle chunk of the movie and like everything with this movie, it goes nowhere. But it's another interesting question that has kind of dropped where there's a series of scenes where Lisa has quite a bit of agency. She's not. She's not. not listening to them. She's not being servile. She's acting to what I guess her mission is, which is to make them cool whether they like it or not. And like doing whatever she knows how to do, which is like includes but is not limited to being a wizard to make this happen for them. And there's like a few scenes where the boys are like, this doesn't make any sense. We made her. She's ours. Why isn't she listening to us? Which is an interesting thing to explore if you were

capable as a writer of doing so. Right. This reminded me, I mean, not that I think that John Hughes was thinking about this back in 1980, whatever, when this movie was written. But this bit of it actually quite reminded me of what it actually feels like to use technology like AI, where, you know, you're told that you're sold this promise that it's going to listen to you and make everything easier and better. And then in the end, you're like, why, it's not listening.

It's not doing, I asked it to do X. So now it's doing why. That I actually thought that they actually captured the experience of using AI actually quite well. What it doesn't actually do what it is you're expecting it to do or want it to do even. Right. I mean, it's like that's an interesting question. And I feel like that sets up. I don't know.

I mean, like I don't know where I wanted this story to land because I am so like, it's so all over the place. But like that stands to introduce some like interesting stakes and consequences for the boys. Like, will they regret having done so if all of a sudden, not a person, a being that, or not even a being, what do I, Bridget, what do I call her? What do we call her? What is Lisa? It? I don't know. That sounds dehumanizing, but she's not a human.

So, you know. So, like, they're like, okay, we made this thing. And I'm not making women objects, but Lisa's not a person. Like, we made this thing. And it's more powerful than we realize. And it's now outside of our. control, what are we going to do? This movie seems like so unwilling to really think about that question crucially. And like, and I am not a fan of the movie her at all. I think it is done kind

of quite a bit of net harm intended or not. But at least that movie is willing to explore like, you know, an AI is sort of designed to move past you. But that is not, you know, I'm sure it has to do with just like the technology was not nowhere near where it was, even when her existed. But like, but Lisa, we have no insight into where Lisa will go from here. Once her mission is accomplished, it seems like she gets a part-time job as a gym teacher at the end. Like, I don't know. There is like an opportunity that has since been explored. It's not like this is net.

This thread has been totally dropped. But like, what is Lisa? what does Lisa do when this task is like why would Lisa have any loyalty to these boys if she has we know she has the intelligence due to the whatever scans of Beethoven she has to like Albert Einstein's face equally just as genius level of intelligence like that is where it's face that's I mean I do think there's a better even for the kind of movie that it is there's a better version of of that movie hiding in this movie. Maybe if it wasn't written in 48 hours, we would see it. But that question that you just posed is like the thing that I was left with, which is the boys start out by saying,

we want to get laid, we want to babe, this and that. I understand that. What is happening with Lisa that she interprets that the way that she does? And it's like, oh, they hardly ever have much sexual connection with her. They kiss and they shower. But it's not like Lisa becomes their girlfriend. So my question is what, like, what is going on with Lisa that Lisa interprets that is I need to make them confident. I need to, you know, set up all these situations where they can feel confident and powerful and like, you know, talk sternly to motorcycle mutants and stuff.

That's the question that I have. And then again, at the end, I know we're going to get there. But so it's just her directive to just be around teenage boys forever, like Shepard. them into more confident adolescence or what? Right. And why? I mean, I wonder if the movie is implying, and I don't necessarily think this is true, but maybe it's saying that she's imbued with so much intelligence that she very quickly

realizes that these boys having some sort of like romantic or sexual relationship with her is unsustainable and not good for them. So she's like, okay, how can I turn this around and help them get girlfriends and be in relationships that are sustainable? Again, I don't think the movie is necessarily smart enough to be suggesting that that's what's happening. But maybe, no, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if I'm underthinking it or overthinking it.

That makes sense with this movie. It's what or maybe it's both. Because nothing's clear enough in the in the movie. Yeah. I mean, it's, it is interesting. Like, there, I don't know, there's a lot of interesting questions that are posed, especially in the framing of now. I mean, I know we're, I mean, we're about to get into a sequence that is really just like

bigoted hijink after bigoted hijank. Like, we're entering that phase of the movie at this point. But I was, I mean, I'm just going to say it before it, like, leaves my brain. But the way this movie ends, which we'll talk about more detail, but sort of leaves Lisa in kind of like it seems like they don't know what to do with her after she's outlived her use to the boys. She's just kind of put somewhere as a visual gag more than anything else. And I think about AI, if Lisa is a femme bot, I don't really know how to classify her. But like, when I think about how AI movies that have feminine presences coded now, they so often end on like a good for her note.

Ex Machina companion. Her, I would argue as well. Her, yes, and that these stories are crucially all written by men. And I feel like that gets so messy, including in the way that I'm sure that Caitlin, like, you and I have talked about it in the past because it's hard not to be like good for her. But then you're rooting for an AI. And I just find it interesting that all these stories are written by men. I guess they're, I don't know. I don't know.

See, I find the ending of this movie the opposite of good for her because. Yes, for sure. You know, at the end of the movie her, Samantha and the other AI's, I guess they're. They find enlightenment and they fuck off to some other plane of existence. Yeah, they evolve to a new plane that humans can't get to or whatever. You know, companion were left feeling like, okay, she's on the road. Ex Machina, like all of these kind of good for her endings. Lisa, it seems to be trapped in perpetual servitude to teenage boys.

It's very much the opposite of good for her, bad for her in my book. Yeah, no, I totally agree. I just think it's interesting that that's how. the ending to this story has evolved over time because it seems I I'm sure that there's other I haven't seen all AI I'm sure you've seen more than we have Bridget but it's like the big ones from the last 10 years sort of see to have this repeating beat that definitely wants you to root for an AI sort of under the guise of feminism it's also impossible not like it's I can't not root for Sophie Thatcher at the end of companion are you kidding me like but what's

are the implications? I just, I would be so curious to see anyone but a cis man try, like take that premise and find a new ending for it, for sure. Yeah. And I'd never really put together until you said that, that oftentimes the bots are feminized. The bots usually have to go up against some sort of masculine threat or masculine power structure and a lot of the movies do have this sort of like rah-rah sisterhood feminism kind of undercurrent what's the what are they saying about women

you know what I mean like like what's the I've never really thought about this before but what are they saying about women that this is that the feminism is being sold through these like ladybots that you that aren't real right because these movies if there are human women characters in them. They're like secondary or tertiary characters. They're not the focus.

And they're often presented as direct foils to the Fembaugh who are rooting for. I'm thinking of the, I don't remember the character's name. I'm going to pull up Scrawley Journal Wikipedia. But the secondary character in companion is presented as a direct foil to our hero Fembaugh. Okay, character named Cat. Or the Olivia Wilde character in her, who is like, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. wife character and her?

Every other woman in her. The human women and her are like, who would want to deal with this irrationality? Am I right? Bitches be crazy. Look at this human woman. All her hang up. All divorcing. You know how human women be divorcing?

And then also at the end, I mean, ultimately her is about a man who can't not get divorced because even Samantha divorces him. And what does that say about you? What does that say about you? you if your AI divorces you. But yeah, that like are the, I'm like, maybe this is a totally different podcast because you're totally right, Bridget. Like Lisa's ending is like very kind of ghoulish in a very different way.

But that in those stories around AI women coded characters from the last 10 to 15 years, we're not generally given a human woman to root for. It's really just the AI that we're rooting for. And how does that shape our view and how does that shape the public view of AI, I'm sure, quite a bit. Bleak. Very bleak. In any case, here's what happens in the rest of weird science. So it's been vaguely established that Lisa's goal or objective or whatever is to try to get these boys to seem cool and to get more popular.

So she throws a party more or less. Lisa goes to Gary's house to pick him up for the party and has a conversation with his parents who are like, um, who is this adult woman you're hanging out with Gary? This thing goes off the rails. This scene is absolutely nuts. They try to forbid Gary from going to the party. An argument breaks out. And then Lisa pulls a gun on Gary's father.

It's later revealed that this is just a squirt gun, but no one knows that because it looks like a real pistol. And then also apparently Lisa erases Gary's parents' memory of this interaction, but now Gary's dad doesn't remember his son at all. So she also has mind-erasing powers. I kind of love that Lisa can do these things, but it's just deployed completely at random. Like that scene, I mean, I think that performance in that scene is good. Also, the way that John Hughes writes parents, in his like broad comedy specifically, he does have that that's what's so frustrating about him is like we know he can't write a more nuanced parent. So when he doesn't, he's choosing not to. Yeah.

Whatever. The way that the mom reacts when she finds out her, her like 17 year old son has jerked off before, piss me right off. I was where she's like, you what? I was like, I look, if you know the parents of a teenage boy, they're aware. They're aware. If you've had a brother, you're aware. I fully did not understand this scene. I had to rewind it because I was like, did I miss something here?

I fully did not understand what was going on with this part of the movie. No, it's just, yeah, character, parent character is being written as caricatures and it's baffling. But anyway, Gary is now able to go to the party. So we cut back to Wyatt's house. People show up for the party. It seems like hundreds of their classmates are there, including the bullies, Max and Ian, as well as their girlfriends, Deb and Hilly, which is, I think here is where we learned what their names are. Yeah.

There's a scene where Wyatt and Gary are in the bathroom kind of hiding because they're like, we don't know how to be at a party. And then the two girls come in and then Wyatt and Gary have a little sidebar where they're like, Lisa's great and everything. But these girls are awesome. And we want them to be our girlfriends. Are they? Because I was confused.

Like, do they know each other and the girls just forget? Or do they genuinely all not know each other? Because to speak to the writing of this movie, the boys are still introducing themselves at the end of the movie to them. So I'm like, don't they go to school together? I'm confused. Aren't these the girls they watch at the beginning of the movie in gymnastics class? Yes. So it seems like the boys know the girls, but the girls don't know the boys.

Like these boys are too loserish, quote unquote, and nerdy or whatever for them to be on the girl's radar. But they also saw an icy get dumped on them like yesterday. day. Like, right. I don't know. The way that the way, obviously, like, these characters are not written out or thought about their, like, random, they're like sentient trophies that wander the plot. But like, but yeah, I, I, I, because it keeps happening, I was like, no, you guys go to school together. How big is this school? Anyways. There was a scene with the girls in the bathroom that I wanted to ask about because I genuinely don't feel like I understood what I watched where the girls are like they come into the bathroom. The boys go into the shower and they make, they make,

there's like a kind of a cute scene where they make the game plan of like, we're going to talk to these girls, but we still like Lisa. And then they look out of the shower and it's two completely different girls. Oh, yes, here's my read of that scene. Yeah. I think it's implied that the boys have just been in there so long, like in the shower deliberating that the other girls have left and two new people have come in. And the joke, is that these girls are gross and ugly simply because they're fat. And so it's just like casual fat phobia. Right.

And they're also, and they're like wearing different. Like they're people who don't exist. Like they're a cartoonish. There's more caricatures. Yeah. Of like, quote unquote, women were not attracted to. Which is like, again, a John Hughes staple. Indeed.

Yeah. Fatphobic, also hacky, very hacky joke. and like a little muddle. Right. It's not even clear. Confusing. Especially because Lisa is a wizard and she is able to change anything. Right.

So I thought there was Lisa. Like when I first saw that scene, I was like, oh, maybe Lisa turned them into, quote, like the ugly girls because she wants to keep them from connecting with these. Like when there's a wizard in the plot, John Hughes, you got, you got to be aware that stuff can happen. And the audience is like, oh, this is like. like wizard shit and it's like no no it's just a confusing half-baked joke that doesn't really make sense. For sure. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's more bad writing. It's confusing. Yeah. Anyway, so the boys are now

interested in these girls, Deb and Hilly. Meanwhile, Lisa is talking to Max and Ian, the bullies, telling them that she belongs to Gary and Wyatt and she does whatever they say. So Ian and Max go to Gary and Wyatt and ask them if they can borrow Lisa. And if they agree to that, diabolical. They will let Wyatt and Gary have their girlfriends, Deb and Hilly, talking about these two girls as if they are objects that can just be traded around. This is so wild.

Like, yeah, we're truly, like, moving, you don't need to even be like, they're acting as if women are, like, they're just saying. They're just doing it. Women are property and whatever. this movie is never like because of the time it comes out this movie can't have the conversation of like Lisa is not a real person but like so if we're to view Lisa as a woman which this movie does women are property and let's trade zies and consent is whatever um we do get one interest again one of the like interesting like huh what's that that goes away is because there's so much in this like jocks versus nerds

dynamic that John Hughes also loves that is really entrenched in masculinity and women are always pawns in this exchange of like, you know, you have to beat down on someone you view as less weak to prove your masculinity. And if you're masculine, then you get girls. We don't get to see how women view each other. And we get one exchange that if we're viewing Lisa as a woman, or, I mean, these characters are perceiving Lisa as a woman, that they're like talking about how they're both kind of threatened by her, but they're also fascinated by her. And she's so glamorous and she's so cool and like, oh, my God.

Whoa, how can we compare to her? Her British accent. Her burps are charming even. Yeah. And you're like, okay, it's very of its time. But it's like interesting to be like, oh, that's unfortunately kind of the most personality you see out of these two characters is like how they're like kind of enchanted by this older woman, but it doesn't go anywhere.

So nope. Yeah. That's the, like the seed of the more interesting movie that I think is in there somewhere. If John Hughes had just given it another 24 hours that might have come out. But yeah, the way that these young girls see Lisa, they're like, oh, she doesn't have a Zid on her body. Like, oh, my God, they're threatened by her, but also enchanted. That would be an interesting plot point of how do the young women in this community and in this school react to Lisa, not just the horny boys.

Yeah. Yes. But that is unfortunately not what the movies about. God damn it. So the bullies pitch this idea of like, if you let us have Lisa, we'll let you guys have our girlfriends. But Gary and Wyatt have a better idea. They're just going to make a whole new woman for Max and Ian.

So they design another woman on the computer and they do the same ritual thing with the bras on their heads. And all the weird science stuff happens again with the sky turning red and a bunch of furniture goes flying out of the house. The whole kitchen turns blue for some reason. And they create something. But oh no, the boys forgot to hook up a Barbie doll. And instead, the wires were laying on like a Time magazine or something with a nuclear warhead on the cover. So they accidentally create a giant missile that crashes through the middle of the house. And if you're wondering, does this pay off in any way?

Are there any consequences here? Nope. None whatsoever. Yes. Again, it's like a long sequence where the bully guys are like, we want her to have these kinds of boobs and this. And the sequence when the weird science bit happens and the sky turns colors is so long. The furniture goes out the chimney. And there's, there's a woman who is stripped naked and like thrown into a lake for some

reason. Yep. It's such an extended scene for this to just result in a missile that later just disappears. Has no payoff at all. No, none. It's so, and it's so expensive because you're like, it's practical. You know, it's practical. You're like, this is such an expensive thing to not.

the way through and the throwing a woman off the top of a building was, you know, that was something. Mind you. Well, thank you. No, I mean, Bridget, going back to something, you said a while back, that was where I was like, because she's a unnamed character who is plot stripped by the wizarding strength of horny men and then tossed off a building. We have no idea who this character is. Not that I wanted this to happen to Lisa, but when I saw her sitting at a piano, I was like,

wait, doesn't Lisa know Beethoven, but instead we just invented a new character. Like, it just is so, what the fuck is going on? There's a few things that I'm just like, men are so powerful because they can get a budget for fucking anything. They can turn Bill Paxson into a Poo Poo Poo Poo Poo Poo Monster and they don't even need to write a script that makes sense to get a Poo Poo Monster budget. Yeah. John Hughes was so preoccupied with whether or not he could that he didn't stop to think of he should. Yeah. To quote Jurassic Park. And one of his other kind of main things, again, that we, like, know that John Hughes is like equipped to handle, but not, doesn't seem to want to in the scope of this movie is the idea of class because we're in the turbo up, we're dealing with very privileged nerds. This house, it has like a fucking moat. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So the nuclear missile appears. And rather than it having any consequences, Lisa comes in and is just like, when are you boys going to learn that people are going to

like you for who you are, not for what you can give them? And we're like, okay, is that the, is that the theme of the movie? Is that the less? I don't, what? And then there's the part where why it's grandparents decide to stop by. So Lisa makes them catatonic and puts them in the pantry. And then Lisa is like, Hmm, I should do something to boost the boy's confidence and let them demonstrate that they have strength and courage. So she summons a Mad Max-style motorcycle gang that crashes the party, terrorizes everyone, mocks Wyatt and Gary, who are hiding in the closet for a little while. but then they rise to the occasion and face the motorcycle gang, especially after they damsel the girls that they like. And then we're still like at this point, you're like, what's happening? What are these girls' names?

Right. What's one detail about these girls? Yeah. And the boys are still like, hey, I'm Chet. They're still. You have both scenes with each other by this point. They're like, they're like, I love you. That's coming soon.

but you're like, no, you don't. Whatever. You've done me for two hours. One plot question, and maybe this is unanswerable, am I to understand that Lisa, like, Jeannie conjured up these Mad Max motorcycle mutants and that there is no real danger that she has, she has just sort of, like,

created this fake emergency for them to rise to the occasion so that they can be confident and get the girls to like them, but they are not in any real danger. because she's taking care of it. Is that sort of the vibe? Yes, because she sometimes, like, mutters to herself. She does it after the stakes of the grandparents are, after the grandparents are, like, frozen. She, like, says to herself, I think the boys need a little challenge.

And then moments later, the motorcyclist show up. So I think that she's, like, conjuring them. I don't know. I want to spend an hour inside of Lisa's mind because I'm just, like, how she gets from A to B is sometimes kind of beyond me. I'm interested, but what is going on? What's going on? And I guess a real Mad Max guy is in this sequence, right?

I'm not a Mad Max head, but I read it. I think that's right. It's true. So the girls have been damseled by this motorcycle gang. So Gary pulls the gun that Lisa had earlier on them, and the gang leaves. But ha-ha, it turns out to be a real gun this time. because I guess Lisa has the wizard powers to make a squirt gun, a real gun. Who knows?

But Deb and Hilly are now like, wow, you boys are so strong and brave. So they just get together with the boys. Wyatt goes off with Hilly. Gary goes off with Deb. So the brunettes together and the blondes together, of course. I know. And I'm just like, if we're doing something this like, obvious. Can we at least swap hair colors? It's looking sibling. It's looking very sibling to me.

It's creepy. Yeah. And at least one of the girls expresses feelings of self-consciousness about the boy's connection to Lisa. But the tune has sort of changed here and the boys are like, nah, she's more of a sister to us. Which is why you wanted to shower with her, why she was grabbing your ass earlier. Right. Like why, yeah, that you've both had. extensive sexual contact with her. Right, right, right, right, right, right. So then we cut to the next day. Chet comes home.

Who knows where he was, but he just disappears from the plot from time to time. But he comes home and he's yelling at everyone. He threatens to shoot Gary and Deb with his shotgun or whatever. And Lisa is like, don't worry, I'll handle this. So the boys leave with their girlfriends and Lisa turns Chet into a like gooey blob poop monster. Kind of like a jibb. Is it an actual Henson prosthetic? It looks like it.

It could be. It reminded me of Pizza the Hut from Space Bowls. Yeah, that's what it was. I was trying to put my finger on what it was at this. It's familiar. Yeah. Yeah. I saw it.

Yeah. Yeah, but it's slimy and gross. And she does this as punishment for Chet treating Wyatt and Gary so badly. So Chet learns his lesson because I guess Lisa's job is just to like teach boys lessons. Well, and she also around this point confidently states what I think the movie thinks its own thesis is, but makes no sense in any world. What are you going to learn that people like you for what you are and not for what you can give them? I'm like, what about anything we've seen would suggest that these boys are a likable or be, like that message is like not really present in the movie at all. But it stated so confidently at the end because we need the girls to end up with the boys and Lisa to sort of be the fairy godmother stewarding all of this.

It's so confusing. It's like that bit in The Simpsons, Lisa, the point of Moby-Duby. dick is be yourself. Right. You know, it's like, that's the moral we're going with after all of this. That's where we've landed. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Whatever. Like, sure. But it was, yeah, it's just such a mess where I don't know, even the way that Kelly LeBrock is delivering that line, like, we all know that's not what the message of the movie is. The message of the movie is no one knows. It's really unclear.

It's nothing. Well, because the next thing that happens, we, we cut to. Gary and Wyatt are driving around their new girlfriends in the various expensive sport cars that Lisa has conjured out of thin air. There's a random car chase for no fucking reason. But then with all of the confidence that Lisa has given them, the boys give their girlfriends a smooch. And then Gary admits that he's not even cool, but he wants Deb to like him for who he is. And she's like, don't worry, I do. Which would be a good message if he wasn't also a despicable misogynist piece of shit.

A despicable misogynist. Yeah. Yeah. It is just like nonsense. Yes. And then Gary and Wyatt come back to Wyatt's house and approach Lisa to be like, hey, we got to talk. And she's like, oh, you guys found girlfriends. Don't worry.

that's all I ever wanted for you. I'm so happy you guys learned all these lessons. And she's like crying. And then she's just like, okay, got to go. She leaves. And it seems like she kind of disappeared from whence she came. And then the house transforms back to normal. The nuclear missile disappears.

Everything returns to the way it was just in time for Wyatt's parents to arrive back home. And the boys are like, ha no we didn't get into anything wacky this weekend it was a very normal time for us yeah and then the button on the movie is we cut to the school Lisa has not disappeared she's there and she's a gym teacher now and all the boys all the teen boys are ogling at her they all faint they're so surprised it's hot gym teacher in a hot gym teacher's outfit yep it's simply so confusing so that's the end of the movie. Let's take another quick break and then we'll come back to discuss. My SUV's worth more than ever. Time to upgrade. There's never been a better time. At Plaza

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I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, is that weed? Nope, it's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times, out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is.

You know what I mean? They're like, oh, what's a state? Everyone's so dumb except for you. And fake. Right, fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life, I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy.

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What would you like to dive into next? You know, it kind of, I mean, this is going to be a weird comparison, but it almost kind of reminds me of a lot of Judd-Apato movies where you've got the like stoner guy and the way that you, the way that the audience is meant to understand that he has gotten himself sorted out is he gets a girlfriend or maybe a job or an apartment. And in this movie, the way that Lisa can feel like these guys are confident and have got themselves sorted out is that they're able to get these these girlfriends like that's the only marker of some sort of character development for them is like whether or not they're able to

express themselves to these these young women yeah right which yeah it's sort of it feels like kind of the cousin of like women are the prize to be won after men have learned their lesson or defeated the big bad or whatever. Well, I feel like the plot only really works if we as an audience believe. I think what like, at least my like cultural osmosis takeaway about weird science prior to watching it was that this is a movie about nerdy male entitlement. And it's like one of the big movies about nerdy male entitlement, which feels very in conversation with a lot of early Judd Appetown speaking to your point, Bridgett, like, if you don't believe at a fundamental level that these boys, regardless of how they behave, are socially entitled to have sexual access to the women in the story, then none of the story makes any sense. And a lot of it doesn't make sense anyways.

But I feel like that is like the foundational understanding that the movie assumes that you have. So these guys are dorks and they are bullied by mostly other boys at their school. therefore they are owed sexual attention by women and like that I don't know I mean I think that's like one of the big things that this movie just like it doesn't even like that that's sort of established in the opening sequence where they're bullied while they're fantasizing about having sexual access to girls that they don't know and the rest of the movie is about they create a sexy wizard to give them what the wizard believes and what they believe is their God-given right, which is to have sexual access to girls.

And without, I don't know, I feel like without that logic, this story truly makes no sense. And that's the foundation, not to keep bringing it back to tech, but that's the foundation of so much of our literal current tech landscape is entitled men who feel kind of like marginalized and depressed because they're nerdy, or whatever perceived thing, feeling like they need to use technology to build a world where they have access to the commodity that is women,

women's attentions, women's bodies, and women's sexual selves. You know, in this movie, I do think they make a one-to-one thing where in the beginning of the movie, when they're watching these girls do gymnastics in their class, they're talking about how in their fantasy they don't just have, like, hot babes.

They also are really popular. They're also like ladies men and how women and feeling entitled to the commodity that they see women as, that also comes along with a kind of lifestyle where they are in power, they are on top of the, you know, the top guys in the social status of their school. It just, yeah, it's just, it really comes down to women and girls as this commodity and using technology to build a world where that is what's going on. Which the movie and movies like it, such as, you know, revenge.

of the nerds utterly fails to acknowledge because as we've talked about many times before, both these nerd boys and the like jock bullies are vehement misogynists. But the movie frames the misogyny of the boys. Well, it doesn't even it's you're not even supposed to notice it. And if you do, well, it's endearing actually. It's not the evil misogyny that the jocks are doing. Right. It's the cute misogyny that the nerds are doing. Right. It's like they're made out to seem harmless in a way that we're also seeing in the same scene is just actively untrue. And I think that like all, you know, unsafe presentations of masculinity are harmful. But I think we can see and I hope I'm not like overstating this hashtag not all men. However, like I feel like we really see the legacy that you were, I mean, going back to what you're talking about at the beginning of the episode, Bridget, in. the attitudes that a lot of men in tech have are reflected by, like I think are influenced by

the entitlement that this subgenre of movie encourages. You are owed something. You have been cheated by the world. And I think what that creates that often results in cultural, if not direct violence towards women is like, how dare you not give me the attention and the relationship that I deserve? And then, you know, there's, I think in the case of the AI cohort, it's like, I'll just make my own woman, fuck you. Yeah. Or, you know, as the case may be, like, I'm going to punish you physically, emotionally, whatever, because I didn't get what I was promised.

And what was promised to you was not promised by women. It was promised by patriarchy. And when you look at some of the marketing language around consumer AI products that are AI girlfriends or AI companions that are specifically designed for erotic role play and like adult content and explicit content. In the marketing, that very attitude is almost made explicit. You know, they'll use slogans like, oh, download this AI girlfriend. She'll never say no. Download this AI girlfriend. She'll give you what your human girlfriend won't give. This idea that it's all for the taking because it's yours anyway. You know, there's a point in the movie.

wrote down the quote where they say something along the lines of she's ours and yet we can't get close to her. And I feel like that that kind of at least to me kind of sums something up that they're like she's supposed to be hours and yet, you know, fill in the blank. They made her too smart. They gave her Einstein level intelligence. So now she has autonomy question mark, which is something that they like addressed directly in like a movie like companion, in, you know, like 40 years later. But yeah, like, it's the idea of, like, entitlement and control. And that once, I mean, I think part of what makes Lisa's fate so kind of chilling

is because they, like, get what they feel they deserve, which is the relationships with the girls that are, I think, are so poorly written and so not considered in terms of, like, if this person were real, what would they be feeling? Because I think that, you know, the girls have also kind of been bullying them and passively watching as they're aggressively bullied by their boyfriends. So in a world where these characters are people, they actually kind of have a little bit to answer for. And so do the boys. But like, because their prizes and objects, their function is to be turned over, right, to the nerds. But that, like, Lisa at the end, I think why she ends up in this, like, weird gym teacher gag is because

she's outlived her function. And they're like, well, we got what we deserved. So how do we talk to you about the fact that we're discarding you? We don't like, there's no question of like, what do you want? I mean, they don't even have to have the painful breakup. They don't even have to say like, listen, we've got girlfriends now. We got what we feel we were entitled to. It's not you.

It's us. She just knows. She just says, oh, I'm no longer needed here. I guess, you know, it's like the end. of a movie with a nanny where it's like, you kids don't need me anymore. You know, she just is, I guess, designed to be such that she never, it's like they never owe her anything. She has no needs of her own that they don't even have to say, we no longer need you. You've outlived your usefulness. Please go become a gym teacher now. And then they seem to be relieved that

she, and that's, that's it. That's it. Not to mention the way that the things end with the girls. I mean, it's like, I don't even know how to talk about the human girls in this story, because it just makes no fucking sense where he says, I love you. I'm like, I didn't even know what this character's name was until 10 minutes ago. What do you mean? I love you. Get a fucking grip. Like they've been interacting for all of 12 hours. And then on the other side with Anthony Michael Hall dating a girl that looks like his sister, where he, you know, he's like, I need to come clean. Like this is supposed to be the big arc, right? Even though nothing about this story has indicated that he, his problem is that he can't be accepted authentically.

Like, what the fuck are you talking about? But he's like, just so you know, all that stuff, it's not real, except the fact that he seems to be fabulously wealthy, which is real. But I don't have my own Ferrari. The one I'm driving around is fake. Do you still like me? And she's like, yes, of course I do. I like you for you.

And I'm like, you don't know him. You don't know him. And if you did, you would know that he's a piece of shit. Yeah, they're both kind of piece of shit. They're horrible. No, they're absolutely horrible. And I guess I just don't understand, nor do I agree with this idea that they seem to be uncritically presenting toward the end of the movie, that the movie is about the boys

learning that they don't need material trappings to get people to like them. That seems to come out of nowhere. That does not seem to be a point of the movie that is made and that is established or even hinted at until the end. Like everything else in this movie, it's random as hell. Well, and it's like in and again, we know that John Hughes can tell or has told class stories. But to suggest that material has anything to do,

he has intentionally set this story, I think like a lot of teen hijinks comedies in a wealthy setting so that you can do these big expensive set pieces. So to add in like a little flourish like that at the end, like it just doesn't make sense with anything we've seen. Because yeah, maybe he doesn't have a Ferrari, but he probably could.

We have no reason to think he couldn't have one. Right. But then we're also told his father was a plumber And I'm like, do plumbers live in mansions in the 80s? I don't know. Oh, well, I guess we don't see much of Gary's house. But Wyatt's house is the one that we spend most of the movie in. And that is for sure a mansion. Sure.

But class isn't a thing that even crosses this movie's mind. No. I will say one bit about the, having done the research for my audio book, Love That First Prompt, about how people are using AI companions for intimacy and sex. One thing that I think the movie gets right is that one of the questions I get asked a lot is, are you worried that people are going to be replacing their human relationships and human connections with AI? And I'm not worried about that for lots of reasons. I guess the biggest one is that I just don't ultimately think that humans can be replaced

by technology, human labor, human intimacy, human relationships or connections writ large. But also, what we actually see from the research is that oftentimes people who experience intimacy with AI, they're doing so in service of being brought closer to other humans in their lives. And so if you look at subreddits like Beyond the Prompt or my boyfriend is AI, those are humans who feel that they are in an intimate relationship with AI and they're going on to Reddit to talk to other humans and connect with other humans about that intimacy with AI. And so something that I did like about the movie is that, you know, Lisa does not become their girlfriend.

And ultimately, whatever Lisa is brings them in deeper connection with, like, other, their, they're human peers. You know, I think there's a version of this movie where they just team up with Lisa and, you know, that's that. I like that ultimately, they're not relying on Lisa as like a substitute for human to human connection with the women in their class. Yeah, I was thinking about that. And I think all of the movies that we've discussed on the podcast that deal to some degree

with people having an intimate connection with AI or a femme bod or something like that. It never goes well for anyone involved. Like the relationship is utterly unsustainable. And sometimes the men die at the end. Sometimes the men realize, oh, I should be focusing on the human girls in my life. So there are various outcomes, which we were already talking about. as far as like the good for her endings versus whatever this movie does. But the bottom line is if any of these movies get something right,

it's that like, yeah, these relationships are not sustainable. Certainly not. Yeah, that's so interesting to hear Bridgett because it's like, that does seem to be sort of encoded into all of these movies. And it sounds like in these forums they're like, but my relationship with an AI is going to be, It's going to be the one to defy the odds. Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

And I think, you know, I just wish this movie was better. I really feel like there was a better movie that kind of teases out some of that complexity somewhere buried in this script. Yeah. Yeah. But unfortunately, that's not the case. And then there are all these other problems with the movie, such as the casual racism, the casual homophobia, you know, the casual abelism. I wanted to talk briefly about

one of the Mad Max gang members, you never hear this character's name on screen because I don't think they're not introducing themselves as they're crashing the party. But one of the characters is credited as mutant biker. He is played by an actor named Michael Berryman, who was born with a condition called hypohydrotic ectodermal dysplasia. I recognize him from other things. He has worked a lot, and he has a bunch of film and TV credits. Unfortunately, a large number of his roles were him playing some type of, quote-unquote, mutant character or a creature or something like that.

He's still alive and still working in Hollywood. But yeah, for that to be his character's name and the way that character's is framed by the story. Although he says one of the very few things in this entire movie that made me laugh as he's leaving as like the two boys best this motorcycle gang and they've admitted defeat and so they're leaving the house. That character says, don't tell anyone about this. I could lose my teaching job.

That actually, I actually laughed. That got a laugh out of me. That scene when the bikers are retreating, call him. me, we'll do lunch. That was actually the scene that actually made me genuinely laugh. Yeah. Yeah. But all this to say, there are all these just, and I mean, the whole scene with, we already touched on it, but Wyatt doing the black scent and just like all of the racist caricatures that are present in that scene. I feel like I haven't seen a ton of John Hughes movies. My understanding is they all take place in Chicago. And I do think that there is like a thing where

you know, if you were in a suburb of Illinois or a suburb of Chicago, the idea that just outside of the suburbs is the city and there's black people there and it's very urban. A lot of movies in the 80s, I feel like, had some scene where kids from the burbs go into the city and Oh, yeah, Adventures in Babysitting also does this. Yeah, yes, exactly. Don't they end up singing in a, in a, blues club in that movie as well? It's like a thing, yeah. It's a mess. Yeah, this is, I mean, this is like such a period of, and this continues, but I think I associated it strongly with the 80s and 90s. I've just like, the middle class or above white teenage perspective is, we're told, like, the perspective. And unusually it's like men.

Sometimes it's a white woman or like a white girl. Like rarely are we looking outside of this. And that the way that we look at the world and anyone who is not middle class and white, is through this other lens. For sure. Yeah. Looking through my nose to see what else there is. I just, I bet, I mean, I'm, I'm good to call it.

It's fucking hot. It's hot and there's just so much. Well, this movie does pass the Bechal test. Weirdly, it does. Weirdly, it does. Does that make it a feminist tax? Yes. It's a feminist masterpiece.

did it. No, it's kind of an offhand pass. It is in that like kind of, we talked about it. It's kind of intriguing where the girls are talking about Lisa and how they're like fascinated by Lisa conceptually. And I guess that that is, that is predicated on the idea that we believe Lisa is a woman and not a robot type character. But for the sake of the way this movie views Lisa, I would say that that's a pass. And an interesting one at that. But, it doesn't go anywhere. So it's not a feminist movie, obviously. Right. Well, I guess if I had one last point and I'll make it quick because it is truly broiling outside. I was like, what the hell is going on with Lisa? Like from a characterization, sitting down to write a screenplay and develop a character

point of view, what is this? Like she's inconsistent. Nothing she does or says makes sense. But then I was like, well, maybe that's the point because she's such an amalgamation of a bunch of just random shit that these boys like feed into a computer, which is, again, like, disembodied breasts and legs from Playboy magazines. It's a photo of Albert Einstein. It's an image of Harry Houdini for some reason. Wait, is that why she knows how to conjure things? I guess maybe that's why she's a wizard. Oh, I didn't even think of that. Houdini was a magician, not, a wizard. I don't know.

He wasn't supernatural, but... Right, exactly. But I'm, so I'm just like, well, maybe that's the point. That's maybe why she's such an all over the place character because she's just this, like, weirdo, like, amalgamation of so many things. But then that doesn't lend itself to an interesting or good movie character. So that's, it's still bad writing. But yeah, it's a mess.

The girls do talk about her, though. So it passes the pectoral test. but we've got the Bechtelcast nipple scale to think about a scale where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I'm going to go zero nipples on this one for all the reasons that we've already talked about. I think there's kind of nothing redeeming about this movie and anything that might be kind of redeeming is just overshadowed by all of the other horrible stuff. I'm going to give it a half because I think that Lisa has interesting aspects to her character that are all ignored.

But I was intrigued and I guess I enjoyed the performance. But like the writing, everything that men had to do was kind of a disaster. But I think that there were a lot of missed opportunities with Lisa and I felt the potential. That's fair. But do not mistake this for a desire for a reboot of any kind. Please let it die. Well, there have been talks about either remakes of this movie or a sequel that would star Channing Tatum.

Yeah, but nothing has materialized. Yeah, that was ages ago. Who would part would even play? Yeah, would that have been like a gender flipped? Like, Channing Tatum is the genie? That sounds awful. I bet. I would watch a Channing Tatum genie movie.

Oh, watch that. That is when they kept, like, that era was when they were gender flipping all those movies. Like, what men want instead of what women want. Right. And all of those other terrible movies like it. So, Jamie, you're giving it a half nipple. A half nipple. And I'll give it to Lisa.

Bridget, how about you? I'm going to give it one nipple. Although I will say, talking through this movie, I liked it a lot less than I, when I finished it, I was like, oh, that wasn't half bad. Talking through it, I'm like, yeah, no. We have that effect. Yes. My one nipple goes to the one unsung hero of the movie in the mall scene when Lisa walks by and all the teenage boys are like, wow, she's so hot.

There's one lone, like, new wave lesbian who also gives her the eye, and I love that character. My one nipple goes out to that one lone 80s, new wave lesbian who checks out Lisa because I thought that was a cool character. Hell yeah. even though she doesn't speak. God bless. Well, is she the one who like flicks her cigarette in Lisa's direction? Yes.

I almost interpreted that as like, who's this bitch who thinks she's so hot flick of the cigarette. Maybe I'm projecting like queer desire where there is none. I mean, I like that read a lot better. So let's go with that. Otherwise, I'd have to remove my one nipple and have to go down to zero. Let's keep it. Well, Bridget, thank you so much for joining us once again. come back anytime. Oh, this was a blast and a half. Thank y'all so much. Tell people where they can find

your audiobook, plug anything else you want to plug. Yeah. If you are interested in conversations about what drives humans to be interested in intimacy with robots like AI, please check out my audiobook, Love at First Prompt. AI and the future of intimacy, you can check it out at love at first prompt.com. Amazing. You can check us out on Instagram at Bechtelcast. You can also subscribe to our Patreon, aka Matrion. Best way to support this show. We alluded to a bunch of other episodes that we've covered on similar movies. So I'm trying to think of any of those are on the Matron specifically, or if they're all

main feed ones. They're all over the place. Yeah. We've talked about it extensively. And I'm so glad that we covered this with you, Bridget. I think you've given us so much to chew on. And I'm so excited to listen to your book. Congratulations.

Thank you so much. That means a lot coming from y'all. Absolutely. And with that, wow, now we're sexy gym teachers. Drop and give me 20. Wow. Bye. Bye. The Bechtelcast is a production of IHeart Media, hosted and produced by me, Jamie Loftus. And me, Caitlin Durante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtenen. And edited by Caitlin Durante. Ever heard of them? That's me.

And our logo and merch and all of our artwork, in fact, are designed by Jamie Loftus, ever heard of her? Oh, my God. And our theme song, by the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan. With vocals by Catherine Voskrasinski. Iconic. And a special thanks to the one and only Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree slash Bechtelcast. Hey, this is Hayes-Davonport.

And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Each week, we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stillard, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Munga Shatigula and I'm back with a new season of my podcast, Skyline Drive. This time I talked to scientists, biopunks, cramudgeons, blues owners, super seniors, and Goa's top cryotherapy lab to try to understand this obsession with living forever and what it means for all of us.

And I get into a bit of trouble along the way. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. To make it look more defined. They say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, How to Live Forever on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. On the new podcast Solita.

We share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast Guaranteed human