The Bechdel Cast - Wonder Woman with Jessica Chobot

Episode Date: June 8, 2017

If you're wondering what wondrous hosts Jamie & Caitlin and the wonderful Jessica Chobot thought about Wonder Woman, listen to this episode!(This episode contains spoilers)Follow @JessicaChobot on Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @hamburgerphone Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, y'all. Niminie here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app,

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

like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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? patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast hi welcome to the bechdel cast my name is jamie my name's caitlin this is our podcast about women in movies hey are they doing a good job sometimes a lot of movies well

they're doing a great job but like but sometimes movies do a pretty good job and how they treat women that's what our podcast is about the portrayal of women in movies. It's inspired by the Bechdel test. If you're not familiar, it's a test that you apply to a movie. It requires that the movie has two female characters. They have to talk to each other. And their conversation has to be about something other than a man. Today's episode is special for a number of reasons, I would say.

Yes, I agree. First of all, it's by listener request. A lot of people were asking us for an episode about this movie that we saw together anyways. So, you know, thank you for reminding us of something we probably should have thought of. And we've both seen it twice now. Also, this episode is special because my brother is here and he's sitting in the dog bed. Yes, in the corner. By my request.

Yeah, and Aristotle was like, you can sit in a chair. And he was like, I'm fine with the dog bed. He's like, I know my place. All that to say the men in my life are very well trained. And they know when they're told to go to the dog bed, they will stay. Yeah, he's being very quiet right now. Good boy. Yeah, throw him a treat.

He's good. But yeah, I'm excited. I'm so excited to talk about this today especially because if you haven't seen the movie that you know you clicked on the episode you know it's about if you haven't seen this movie twice you gotta see it twice you gotta see it twice it's better on the second viewing it really is yeah we saw it so it's today is uh we were recording this on june 6th the movie came out on j 2nd. Yes, we saw it on June 2nd. Yes. And then we both saw it on June 4th, but separately that time.

Right, right, right. But before we get into the movie and any more discussion about that, we should introduce our guest. We should. She is a host at Nerdist.com. She also is the creator and host of a podcast on the Nerdist Network called Bizarre States. Jessica Chobot. Hi, everybody. Thank you for being here. Yeah, my pleasure. Jessica Chobot. Hi, everybody. Hi. Thank you for being here.

Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. We're stoked. So we're talking about Wonder Woman, the doi. Oh, yeah. I've actually seen it twice as well. Wonderful.

Great. And you're right. It is better on the second viewing. That said, its problems are also more glaringly obvious on the second viewing. Yeah, I'm excited to talk about that too yeah this is the first movie that we've done where our episode is being recorded and will come out very very shortly after the movie is released to the public if we have fans in germany i don't even know if this movie's out there yet so sorry oh but yeah i don't know but here we are talking about wonder woman we've seen it twice i just want to

put it out there that i loved it and i thought it was great not without its problems it has some flaws here and there but overall i was pretty blown away by the movie i liked it the first time and i loved it the second time the first the first time honestly there's it's interesting because i i did a podcast of uh talking about it the day after i saw it the first time. The first time, honestly, it's interesting because I did a podcast talking about it the day after I saw it the first time and hadn't seen it the second time and was really stuck on the fact that I had no idea who Chris Pine was.

Yeah, that was so surprising to me. I thought I knew who Chris Pine was, but I was dead wrong. Because I leaned over to you in the movie theater and I'm like, who is this actor? And I said, his line reads, remind me of Brendan Fraser, which I stand by. No, can't agree. Oh, I gotta disagree too. theater i'm like who is this actor and i said his line reads remind me of brendan fraser which i stand by no can't oh i gotta disagree too they're they're reminiscent of that kind of like side eye little winky winky very winky charming yes kind of delivery but um i feel like brendan fraser

for those kind of movies that were familiar with him in The Mummy, let's just say, is a little bit more winky-winky, charming, but kind of doofus-y. Whereas Chris Pine was a little bit more sexy. He is definitely a little more sexy. Not that Brendan Fraser is not sexy. Don't get me wrong here. We would all let Brendan Fraser take us where we stand i am having a stroke one because we're talking about brendan frazier two because our conversation isn't passing the bechdel test i was actually just gonna bring that up but is it okay if we talk about men

as objects yes yes always fine i um but i i think that okay for all you brendan frazier heads out there i know you're out there i know you're listening i know you're like what are they gonna talk about brendan fraser in the episode about the movie he's not in um the scenes where chris pine is specifically under the influence of the lasso of truth the line where he's like i'm a spy that's very brendan fraser i stand by it okay i'll let you have and we can close the book on brendan fraser now yes please if you want to I'm a spy. That's very Brendan Fraser. I stand by it. Okay, I'll let you have it. And we can close the book on Brendan Fraser now. Yes, please.

If you want to hear more, listen to our episode about The Mummy coming out soon. I'll start releasing mini-sodes about just my thoughts on Brendan Fraser. Can I jump in really quick? Absolutely. His acting in that scene I thought really justified what could have been a really cheesy weapon like I let me preface all this with I'm a massive Wonder Woman fan yes and so when I saw the trailers leading up or like the sneak peeks leading up to the movie when they would start showcasing her using the lasso I was really nervous because it was just such a bright color against everything else's

muted colors and I was like is going to look too cartoony? How are they going to make a lasso of truth, not a cheesy weapon, in a movie that's supposed to be an action movie? And I think his acting actually really justified it and turned it into something believable. I think he did a good job. I'm a Chris Pine fan now, and I know who he is. This might be his best acting yet, in my opinion, because I was not a fan of him. I was like, oh, just another generic dude in Hollywood. Yay.

Literally a man named Chris. There were so many Chris. I was like, is this the Chris from the- Have you seen that lineup? Yes. Yes. There are so many wealthy Chris's out there. I can't keep you straight.

Chris Pine, Chris Evans, Hemsworth, and now Pratt. Yeah, and Pratt too. But they did like headshot lineups of all of them from like red carpets and stuff. And they look so cookie cutter exactly the same. Well, just like... Thank God they're good to decent actors. That's all it takes when you look like that. If you're good to decent, you're good to go.

Also, as of yesterday, there's now four men named James on Late Night. Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, James Corden, Jim Jeffries. Jim Jeffries, yeah. I didn't even think of that. Yeah, so, you know, welcome to the fold. Another James. If your name is Chris or James, be fine here by banned from my life no chris's or james allowed in caitlin's life yeah there's some kevins that i could do without

like if we're if you know we'll plan out the revolution more carefully later on sure but wonder woman yes so jessica you're super familiar with the the comic books and everything like that yep i'm not at all i have never read, I don't think, any comic book ever. So whoops on that. So it's great that you're here to, you know, if there's any context. Because I'm experiencing Wonder Woman only through having seen this movie. The only thing I think I know about Wonder Woman otherwise, just from like pop culture knowledge, is that she has an invisible plane.

Maybe. Yeah, maybe. It depends. I actually am a fan of the invisible jet because that's kind of when it started getting used in comics is when I kind of got into comics at that age. So for me, it's kind of a nostalgia thing.

I don't necessarily need to have it show up in movies or comics currently, but I'm not like, burn the Invisible Jack, you know? There were moments where, so she would be able to, I think when she first started, she was only able to jump really high and far. At some point, she got Hermes winged sandals, which allowed her to fly. And then at a different point, she got the jet, and then she just was straight allowed her to fly and then at a different point she got the jet and then she just was straight up able to fly like Superman

so she's had a couple different variations on how she got around but I think now the default is just straight up flying because she's a demigod in the movie Ares calls her a straight up goddess

but that could be debatable too because technically I think Right, right. She can just fly. In the movie, Ares calls her a straight-up goddess. Yeah. But that could be debatable, too, because technically, I think her mother, Hippolyta, would have to be a goddess for her to be a pure goddess. So she would be a demigoddess, since she had one, depending on what Hippolyta's backstory is then, one human mother or human-esque mother and one actual full-fledged godfather. Godfather. God, comma, father. or human-esque mother and one actual full-fledged god father god father god comma father but then the you know it's the greek god so they'd kind of do whatever the hell they wanted and if they wanted you to be a full-fledged god or goddess they just would make you one is that origin story part of the comic books too so this is she's got a, her typical comics backstories. I actually liked her being made of clay and just had, you know, given a breath of life. And so she's, you know, her original, original backstory was that she was just straight up the daughter of Zeus. And so now the movie has it where they imply that the Amazons were actually created by the gods as kind of messengers to men, and that there's just some random uprising because men are starting to suck and be dicks.

And so all of the warrior women are like, fuck this shit, I'm killing you all. It kind of does this weird uprising, but they never say why the real they just imply that it's because of the evilness that men are in men's hearts it's all yeah well it's like implied that like super vague professor lupin is whispering to guys like what if you did a bad thing and that's why men are bad now but i don't know i don't know why you would call it an uprising it It would just be a war. So like what? Because when you uprise, you uprise against usually being held down because of something. And they're just kind of just attacking. So I don't know that they might have done that vaguely on purpose for potential backstories in the second iteration, if we get it. And I think then so they so Hippolyta has been saying she's the daughter of Clay in order to hide her from Ares.

But then it comes out in the wash that she's actually just a straight up daughter of Zeus as well. So, you know, it's all kind of nutty and all over the place. Yeah, kind of got it. I think that's a good transition into the recap. Ready? Recap. So we open on this paradise island called Themyscira, full of Amazon women warriors, not a men among them, just these like badass warrior Amazons. They're strong. They have

horses. Right. They've got bows and arrows and they kick ass all the time. As a child, Diana, her mother is the queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta. And Diana's all like, I'm a kid, but I want to start training. And she's like, no, I'm not going to let you start training. Because her aunt, Antiope, which is like anti-Antiope, you know? She's her aunt. Get it? So Antiope, they start training her in secret.

And then Diana becomes becomes this also this like great warrior meanwhile there's like this hint like maybe diana's something else besides an amazon we don't know robin red's dropping hints dropping hints dropping hints that's what her character's for she's there to kick ass and drop hints and then die she's grown up now she's kicking ass everything's great until a plane flies into i'm also forgetting a lot of like backstory where like zeus he created diana and then his son aries the god of war is this bad guy and he's all like blah blah i'm gonna kill you they're training to fight the win the war that may end all wars because the war with the Ares is going to come back. So that's what all the Amazons are preparing for.

And then Chris Pine shows up in a plane and he's like, I'm from World War I. And I don't know where I am because the island they're on is protected. Zeus is like, no one can come here and I'm going to protect you. No one knows where this is. But somehow Chris Pine makes his way through. and she's like whoa i have questions about that too she's like wow i've never seen a man before you're cute maybe and that scene that is shot for shot the scene from the little mermaid uh-huh where he's like boy she's pretty and she's like against the sky and she's like crap i never thought of that you're totally right it's it's definitely a little mermaid minus her bursting into song we were rudely talking

about it in the movie theater but like what like it's because she rescued his plane crashes into the ocean and then she dives in and pulls him to shore and then it's like looking over him but she's just there and she's like shaking her head and is somehow very beautiful in an upshot and you're just like fuck you, you know. I know. Yeah.

Not a good angle for anyone except for Gail DeGoe. What happened because this is my problem. I'm bad in all my angles but an upshot. Like that's the only one

I can pull off. Everything else is just like oh the lighting is so bad. You're a unicorn. Like there's only the upshot looks good.

But then everything else, because everything else just drips. And then you're just like, oh, she's obviously so tired. There's not, I mean, Gal Gadot does not have a bad angle that I know of. Oh, no. If you meet her in real life, too, it's just so annoyingly perfect. Have you met her? Yeah, and she's nice on top of it which makes it suck even more I know

you're like oh and you're nice I don't even have the luxury of disliking you because you're just cool this sucks love her damn her curse her but it's okay but also I support her 100%

but yes that scene is exactly like the little mermaid for sure so uh they discover that he's from the war to end all wars and she's like well this is what we're trying to do we have to go out and stop this war and her mom's like no that doesn't sound like a good idea that sounds dangerous and she's like no i'm going so diana and chris pine's character whose name is steve. Love that one. I mean, I read a few of the early comics back in high school. I just love that Wonder Woman's boyfriend's name is Steve. It's like, great.

My high school boyfriend's name was Steve. And so I was like, it's a parallel. You're Wonder Woman. He's Steve. You are merely Steve. So they go to London. He's a spy for the British army. He's a spy?

I'm a spy! And he is trying to infiltrate the German army to gather intel on their weapons and stuff like that. So she goes with him because it's her duty to stop the God of War, Ares, because she's sure that this is who's responsible for this war that's happening and everyone's like the god of war aries no that's dumb turns out she's right because he's the big bad played by professor lupin from harry potter which come on that's bad casting we were saying that okay yes yeah i'm glad we're all in agreement i mean good actor but bad physical casting agree and then also just i don't know like i felt nothing when that twist happened he's not dangerous looking enough yeah where it's like oh it's just like oh this dork

is really angry at me all of a sudden like all right and then he dresses up in cosplay okay that's a little creepier i guess like whatever when professor lupin did the lava eyes thing where he's like and now i'm a lava god and you're just like fuck you you know i i liked the twist that it was professor lupin it's like oh my god did you not see it a mile away i instantly knew the minute he popped up on screen i'm like oh there he is really absolutely i knew that ludendorff wasn't gonna be the big bad i feel like i knew he was just a pawn but i i wasn't i didn't know i thought it might have been um dr maru dr poison i hope it was her i would have preferred it to be her but at the minute i saw i'm like there's our

yeah there's the herring like that's i knew it honestly because of the casting believe it or not it made no sense to have him in the movie like such a high level actor that's so recognizable to just randomly pop on screen as a side character i'm like nope he's the one he's that was yeah that i i was like i feel nothing like i get that this is where the story needs to end but i mean i would have preferred it was dr poison and her weird reverse phantom of the opera mask i thought that was fun yeah and then they never explained why she was the way she was it was just like and then exposed at the end that you could see her screwed up face and which is like of course that's what it was yeah like what else like that's not a scary reveal

really no or shocking and then okay so show me fine if that's the scene you want to keep. Right. But then justify it somehow with some sort of backstory other than just her regular picture on a war room, like, whiteboard. Right. Where you're just like, oh, she has nice cheekbones. Right. And I was like, well that yeah she's those look good yeah i just it made no there were so many bad edits and weak story holes yes the third act i feel like it could have been

tightened up a bit i thought that dr poison she was like the one female character that i felt like was kind of disserviced by the story because i thought i mean when you see her she's interesting to look at she's clearly maniacal but but then they sort of end up throwing that character away by being like professor lupin whispered to her and then she was getting some ideas and then there's that whole scene that i really liked between her and chris pine where she's basically like oh you're not actually interested in me because fucking Wonder Woman's here and I was like oh there's something there there's a little bit of character where maybe she's a little bit insecure and in the end Wonder Woman gets the

opportunity to kill her and then is like I'm not going to and I don't know if I would have rather she killed her but like with Wonder Woman's moral code Dr. Po poison is just as bad as ludendorff was why why does she get to live maybe that's like a story thing i don't think so the only thing i can justify with that is maybe she knew that aries was setting her up it seemed like this was her moral choice that if she ended up killing poison for whatever the reason that it would justify kind of punishing all evildoers without actual like consideration of rehabilitation or that kind of thing which is what she's sort of supposed to be about and um giving people a fair shot and stuff and that then had she killed poison she would basically have kind of agreed to join with Ares,

that humanity in general sucked, and that once we get rid of them... To wipe it out, yeah. It'd be better off, the world would be better off. I mean, but that's the problem, right? The storytelling was so randomly weak in spots that it just doesn't really give you an ending. And maybe that could have even been rectified if there was just a line of dialogue exchanged between them after Ares is killed, but we never see her again.

Where there's that scene where the Germans are like... Or even just tie her up to something so that when the police come in, they know she's there instead of she's just running away. She experiences some sort of consequence. Because it's like that character, there's so much set up for how evil she is. And that's cool and exciting.

And we see Ludendorff, you know, pay the price for his. But we just, we don't know what happens to her. And I don't think that that is a set up for a later movie. If they do use her again, don't use her in the second film if there is one. Like save her if this continues to be a successful franchise. Save her. Flush her out and save her and her better storyline for three movies in. Ooh, okay. Bring her back once people have kind of forgotten what the point of her was.

But really rework it and have her come back as a legit, hardcore character. And it's fine if she's not the main big bad i was fine with that with this one it's just that she needed to have a stronger relationship either with aries or with ludendorff right like either aries could command her to do things in her mind and she felt like she was being invaded and that's why she was getting all these epiphanies on the poison maybe that would have been a good better connection rather than just like because it killed me when she's sitting in her office the first time we kind of see her in ludendorff when she gives ludendorff the like pick me up speed potion and the cocaine and uh she's sitting there and she has all of her notes on her desk that she's obviously

gone through and worked through gazillions of times before he's walked in. And all of a sudden the wind blows and she picks up this one random note that's been sitting there. She's like, oh, well, hey, here's one of my notes. Got it. See, what I assumed was that was Aries being like, hey, here's the note. Yeah. But yeah, that's what they that is what they imply, but I just

thought it was kind of weak. I love that she wears a Phantom of the Opera mask. I think that revealing what was underneath her Phantom of the Opera mask was borderline pointless because like, what was it going to be? Her hot face? Yeah, definitely she was disfigured in some way. Especially the speech that came

along with it from Ares where he's saying don't you want to destroy these people?'re evil they're evil and then her mask blows off and i don't know if that was supposed to show that it elicits pity from wonder woman and so that's part of the reason why she spares her is because it occurs to her like she's been injured in the past maybe there's more to her story and i think that that's me being very generous to the storytelling yeah or i assume that that's me being very generous to the storytelling. I assume that was her own... I mean, I could be wrong, but I was like, oh, she probably just spilled.

I don't think it is. Isn't it that she got experimented on or something happened to her? Oh, that's a way better story. That's the thing, right? And so then Ares is on this hate all human speech and using her as the tempting little bug to smush for Wonder Woman to bring her over to the dark side. And then the mask flies off.

And so I couldn't tell if it was meant to elicit pity from Wonder Woman, which I think is me really filling in the gaps for the storytellers. Or if it was more like, which is even more insulting, like, oh, look, she's really ugly, which means she must be evil. And I'm like, Jesus Christ. And so you've got to kill her because she's not hot. I'm like, what the heck? Is that the implication? Because that's such a weird, like, and that feels like a stretch in the other. Like, I just didn't know what they were saying.

Yeah. With that moment. I don't know. It's fine that Wonder Woman didn't kill her, but because she didn't kill her, which makes sense in story, just give us something. Let us see that character one more time.

Can we talk about the sword edit? This really pissed me off. That goes into his hand? No, no, no, no, not even that one. Okay. So she finally tracks down Ludendorff, who thinks he's Ares, stabs him on the top of the roof,

right? And now her sword's up there. She comes down, and she sees Ares, who's Lupin, inside the little, like, watchtower that they're in, and she doesn't have her sword with her, and they make a very distinctive close-up shot of her kind of going

to grab for the sword and realizing it's not there, that she left it on the roof right yeah and fucking aries is in like a pane of glass away from her having this fucking speech about how he's aries and she's an idiot and then it cuts to something else like trevor doing something shoots back to wonder woman and it's her jumping off the roof with her sword in her hand now and aries is still chilling in the same spot he was the first frame. Right. So I'm thinking, you're the god of war. You spent all this time to kill Wonder Woman.

And you're just going to be like, oh, yeah, Diana, it's chill. Go ahead, get your sword. I'm just going to hang back here and finish my speech when you get back. Well, is it because he knows he can get rid of the sword in a second maybe probably i guess but again filling in the blanks for the storyteller like right why not show a whole battle scene where it starts off like the battle starts off with her realizing that she hadn't grabbed the sword and he's just standing there super chill in his little like british suit and she jumps up to try and get the sword and he fucking swats her out. Oh yeah, that would have been

the error is already up there because they already did that trick a couple times in there. I just, oh god, fuck. Who edited this fucking film? Like I don't get it. Yeah, I guess if you bother to build that tension in the first place then yeah fucking pay off on it. I did, I thought it was like so, I was like

giggling when, you know, Ares is doing the thing where he's like, and now I'm over here and now I'm on this side of the window. Where am I now? I'm behind you. It was just like, okay, we get it.

Yeah. You're Aries. Can I talk a little bit about how the world is receiving this movie and how it, uh, broke box office records for having the biggest opening ever from a female director, Patty Jenkins. For the opening weekend, it earned, I think, $103 million domestic at the box office, beating out such movies as the first two Iron Man movies in their opening weekends, as well as the first two Captain America movies. So it's one of the higher grossing superhero movies also i mean i don't know if we're counting things like catwoman and electra but

i don't and so to me this is like the first major motion picture that's a superhero movie that revolves around a female character so it it's just awesome that it's... And Catwoman and Electra were always kind of side characters. Like, this is one of the main Trinity from DC that's never gotten her due. So, finally. Until now.

It's awesome, and it's getting pretty rave reviews. Audiences and... Which is... Yeah. there's a lot of say it just say it because I agree I don't think that it is as good as I feel like there is and I'm sure

that there's a word for this that I don't know but I do think I think it's called White Nighting yes I think that that is and not that you know Patty Jenkins did a wonderful job it's a good movie I like it I saw it's called The White Nighting. Yes, I think that that is. And not that, you know, Patty Jenkins did a wonderful job. It's a good movie. I like it. I saw it twice.

I'm thinking about seeing it a third time. But I think that there is that, you know, halo effect of like, oh my gosh, a woman did what a man does all the time. Let's, you know, like, and here's your crown and all this stuff. And it's so amazing to people that a woman did something that a man does all the time. That there is this weird halo effect and it's regarded maybe. But I don't think historically this will be 97% unwritten to me. I'm not articulating myself the way I want to. I agree with you. I'm actually going to take it a little bit meaner.

Go for it. Go for it for it again let me preface massive wonder woman fan so i was going in really nitpicky fun movie definitely worth going to see if you have young children like this is perfect especially young girls who want to have like a hero to look up to perfect for them and young boys this is a good solid family superhero movie you know the plot holes and the editing and things like that that i have issues with can be easily fixed you know i don't know why they didn't the first time but that's just i'm glad it exists and i liked it that, I think that the overwhelmingly glowing reviews in regards to the white knighting, while I do think, yes, it's definitely part of reviewers out there who are afraid to come out against the movie because then they are going to be vilified, whether rightfully so or not so i think a lot of people are giving this movie a bigger pass than maybe it deserves on the technical aspect of the thing because of their fear of being dragged by society that's fascinating because i mean and that opens up a whole other

rabbit hole of you know who are the critics and it's again a very male dominated field and and which it's good because yeah you should be fucking afraid of us but it's bad because if we really want things to be fair then we need to look at this movie the way that we would look at any dc film Right. Who's giving the actual honest. Yeah. No one that I've seen. And the thing is, the major plot holes, some of the stuff we've talked about already, that I've heard from a number of people, male, female, whatever,

that I didn't see any of those noted in any of the reviews that I read. Oh, the fact that Wonder Woman became Wonder Woman because Steve Trevor, a man, was able to sacrifice himself for the greater good instead of her just coming out of the gate like a total fucking badass like she should be. No, I'm not bitter or pissed at all about this. Like, what the fuck? Well, let's talk about that. Yeah. Well, how about when she, like, does her, like, wrists crossing each other and this whole, like, shockwave on the island. It's like that Dolby Digital sound.

And then no one, that's not addressed then like no one's like what was that why wasn't she like what was that thing i just did what about power i have what that was weird i've never done that holy shit i need to go on a nature walk right now right and then cut to steve steve showing up questions okay these are more nitpicky logistical jamie doesn't understand comic book world questions seeing the mascara steve pops on through that made sense to me he literally flies through what appears to be a force field of sorts kind of yeah right and then so he so i understand why he bursts through it because he's like crashing. And then Wonder Woman saves him. They have their Little Mermaid moment.

But then the moment where the Germans are peeking through the force field, are we to believe there is truly just a thin layer of fog? And this is the first time in 800 years that anyone has peered through a thin layer of fog. That part was confusing. Yeah, I'm trying to remember in the comics how they justified it. I think it's gone through a couple different iterations where it was just kind of a foggy force field that you just didn't notice. I mean, World War I, there were still areas of the world that weren't completely... There were blind spots.

So I'll give it kind of a pass. I think other times there was alternate dimensions that it was on and that that's what i assumed it was yeah it didn't seem like that was actually what it was because that guy like sticks his head and he's like hey it's pretty in here and then i kind of always think of it the way that you're supposed to think of atlantis in pop culture where it potentially exists but nobody really sees like Bermuda think of like Bermuda Triangle right you're flying through but the Bermuda Triangle and everything suddenly disappears I mean don't get me wrong I'm glad the Germans get through and I'm glad that we get that awesome battle scene right that was so good it was so good like that was so cool to see a zack snyder style you know holographic card fight scene where half of the people battling are women and they're so that was

fucking really cool like that was so exciting and then they the women win they defeat all the men all the men die all the men die except for grisvine most of the women survive except for robin wright and that's a sad emotional scene right and then wonder woman pulls a sorry to keep going into my disney princesses but she pulls a pocahontas and she's like no don't kill him he's my friend even though it's like you don't know that yeah but whatever you know for the story let's give him b the d and another aerial moment where he's in the hot tub and he's moving his legs around in the lagoon and being all

charmed about the water. Both times I saw it. Staring at his toes. Big laugh when Chris Pine looks at his little toes. I actually didn't mind that so much. That I thought was a cute little nod but now that you've connected the other one

to it for me as well now I'm like oh shit I mean who isn't though really I know I mean I love the little what what's cool about this though uh not that she is a Disney princess but uh Diana no she has a mom unlike she does have any Disney princess oh good yeah and is very comfortable with the illusion that she doesn't have a dad that's not like chill right because i feel like that's a common trope in i mean male and female characters of like you don't know who one of your parents are and so you feel like a part of yourself is missing and you know she never seems to have a problem with the fact that

she has no like male role models because she has 400 female role models uh and we get that funny scene when uh she and steve are on the boat back to london love that scene and um he's like well i'm the first man you've ever seen what about your dad she's like i was made from clay and then zeus brought me to life and he's like okay oh a lot of brendan fraser reads slash these are the scenes that remind me more of marvel movies where it's like yeah gives like, oh, here's a superhero answer. And they're like, oh, okay. Chris Pine has 400 moments where he's like, oh, wow, that's weird. And then everyone's like, ha ha, we're with him.

I got to say, though, it's some of the best banter that I've seen in a DC movie yet. It's good. It's funny. Really? The two of them together was the highlight of the movie for me, was the banter back and forth. I thought they handled it really well, where they're just two people hanging out

and just not really knowing a hell of a lot about each other and just kind of goofing, but getting along. I never felt like it was geared one way or the other too hard, whether it was male gaze or or the other too hard whether it was like male gaze or was it female gaze it just was it was just people relationship steve is a very well written character chris pine does a great job with the part uh but i think that this you know speaks to a lot of superhero girlfriends and you know girlfriends and movies in general where usually it tends to be the hottest

woman around ends up being the romantic interest of the developed male protagonist and here it's like wonder woman's a very well-developed character i have no problems there but you know steve i get why she likes him because we get to know him a little bit and we get to know his backstory we're given a whole section that's important to the story. Like Steve's backstory is critical to the story. He has, there are times when they work together, there's times when they disagree, there's, you know, and this obviously huge spoiler, when he dies at the end, you really like feel that. And it's, you know, you're sad to see him go. And that is, I feel like a luxury afforded to very few female romantic interests in any movie. And it's so like, I really liked their relationship and it was really fun to watch. Well, so then that brings up the question, is this movie really about Wonder Woman or is this movie about Steve Trevor?

Well, I had a problem with the love and just because it was like a romantic heteronormative love with a man was like what gets her to be like, I'm powerful. And like when he dies, that's the catalyst that makes her tear through all the bad German guys. And then it's what gives her basically the strength at the battle at the end to be like, finally, now I can defeat Ares. Because like she has a whole flashback where before you couldn't hear what he was saying to her. But then in the flashback, he like gives her the watch and he's like, I love you. She's like, oh, wait wait someone loves me now i'm strong enough to kill aries and it's just like come on yeah i had a big problem with that too less because of the love connection because i just thought okay well there's and i liked the love story up to that point so i was like all right fine i just mine was more just that they felt it necessary

that to turn her into the fully realized Wonder Woman that she could be. The love of a man. It was the love of a man that ended up sacrificing himself for the greater good. You know, it just, it turned it all to become about Steve Trevor again. And I just didn't think that that was necessary. I was fine with the relationship. I just didn't like that that's what kicked it off for her to become fully powerful. Agree.

Also, would he have needed to even sacrifice himself if she was going to defeat Ares anyway? Hello, guys. Let's plan ahead a little bit, right? Maybe wait off on your suicide mission to see if I can kill this bad guy first. I wonder how the impact would have changed if she defeated Ares and then Steve died. That might have been like a more... Well, the whole thing, right, was that they didn't want the plane on the ground because she was going to fight Ares and they were afraid. This is what I took out of it. They were afraid that if anything happened to the ship and it exploded, it was going to wipe out everybody besides her.

So they had to get it off the ground. So they had to get it off the ground and kind of out... Oh, but you know what it was? It was flammable. So he knew he wanted to take it off the ground and then also blow it up so that it would burn into the atmosphere and not trickle down. I answered my own question. That's what it was.

Because it was flammable. He asks one of the guys that he's with if it burns. Is hydrogen flammable? I've never been to second grade before. And then the chief says honestly oh hey honestly if you'd asked me that question i would not have been so i was like it's hydrogen i'm like everything's flammable everything um just to backtrack just a tiny bit i i liked that in so many superhero movies where there's a man as the lead,

there's almost always this whole thing where it's like, I can't let her know who I am. I'm Superman. I'm Batman. I'm Spider-Man. I'm any other number of people. But she can't know my true self. And I just liked it.

She'll never understand. There was nothing about this movie that was bogging, like that was never bogged down. Like there was just yeah i'm this i'm a goddess and and you're a man and take it or leave it yeah they kind of even poked fun at that too at themselves because when she was trying on all the different outfits yeah and he's finally like she comes out with the one that she ends up wearing and steve trevor's like i told you not to be so distracting, and gives her a pair of reading glasses a la Superman Clark Kent. And Etta Candy is literally like, oh, yeah, because that suddenly changes the way that she looks. And they just kind of turn the screw a little bit on themselves.

It's like, okay, cool. I wanted more Etta Candy. Well, she was another character who I really, I mean, obviously the polar opposite of Dr. Poison, but we get a great introduction to both of those characters, and then we never get to really follow through on that character. And there are two characters that I assume are not going to come back, so it sucks that they don't get the full... I think we will see them. Really?

This goes to my theory a little bit. I'm wondering if, so in the tv show with linda carter they had two different kind of timelines going i think the first season was world war one or world war ii i'm sorry it was one of the ones but um i can't remember it's been a long time but then it became like more modern like in the 70s kind of thing she knew steve trevor then and they justified bringing the same actor back to the other seasons later on in the 70s kind of thing. She knew Steve Trevor then, and they justified bringing the same actor back to the other seasons later on in the 70s as being that man's grandson from so many generations.

Oh, interesting. I could have sworn I heard that Chris Pine has signed a multi-deal contract with them, that if they have another one, he's involved, in which case he'll probably come back and possibly then all the old characters that we didn't get a lot of flushed out storylines back as well as modern versions of themselves i think i like that i kind of fine with it because the tv show justifies it right so i'm okay now that you've suggested that Chris Pine will come back, of course Chris Pine will come back. Oh, yeah. But I was so afraid that somehow, someway, Steve Trevor would have lived.

And if that happened, I would have been so mad. Passed away. I would have ceased to be. What if he only lived because she was able to save him? Just straight up save him. If her love saved him. Picked him up like a woman and carried him to safety. I don't know. Like, just straight up save him. Like, picked him up like a woman and carried him to safety.

She saved him once before, which is a great, I love it when a woman saves a man. I like the part where she meets all his dumbass friends and she's like, I plucked him from the sea. We don't need to talk about that right now. I would have been, I definitely think him dying makes sense. I would have been fine with both of them being successful in their missions

and then just choosing to have to part ways at the end because she has bigger and better things to do. Like save the world. And then he just has to pine, Chris Pine for her. But like goes on to live his life perfectly fine doing whatever he does. And then he could have his grandkid and then they could meet up hundreds of years later and she can bang

that one. And then that gets real creepy. But does that mean that Steve Trevor was just a bad daddy and he had a kid somewhere and he's like, I'm not going to raise this kid. Well, he does come off as kind of a playboy so who knows who, when he was visiting one of the ports during World War II. Spies fuck. Or World War I,

II. He fucked in the trenches. He had a trench baby. Using one of the ports during World War II. Spies fuck. Or World War I, II. He fucked in the trenches. He's got a trench baby. One of those sheepskin condoms probably broke. Oh, no. I mean, his dick is... One of those mud condoms. He's got an above-average dick, as we learn. So he's probably slinging it around.

Did he say he had a bigger dick or was he just like, I more virile i don't think he would be like i come harder i don't think that that's a hot thing to say my dick might be small but i come hard like that to me is a terrifying visual just a tiny penis just like like that's that's the kind of vigor that i think no one is looking for. But there's plenty of them out there. Small dicks coming hard. Oh, you know it. Let's never talk about this again.

I would like to open a dialogue. Can we talk more about the relationship between Diana and Steve? Yes, please. So there's a concept called the born sexy yesterday trope, which is very common in sci-fi where there's a woman who's from another world she's either an alien or some sort of like magical creature or a cyborg or something like that you see it in tron you see it in the fifth element in splash and a whole bunch of movies like this where they are physically mature women who have like gone through puberty and everything like that but they have a very like infantile naivete and it's this whole thing where like i i've never seen a man before

and i don't understand how the world works and what's sex what's kissing and it's like this whole thing where there's like this weird power dynamic where the one man that she meets they become like love interest for each other, but he has to teach her about the world and specifically about sex. And it's this weird, what I think is a power struggle, where why is she this weird little sex baby? And he's like, I'll show you how it works. It's that Lolita effect.

Yeah, absolutely. And this movie could have followed that trope. And it does a little bit in terms of like, she's from a world. She's not familiar with contemporary society. She's never met a man before. But I think it also generally subverts the trope because she's very well versed on human sexuality. She's read all 12 volumes of whatever work that was. Cleo's treatises.

An anthology about sex, basically. And, you know, she's like... Anne Rice is the claiming of Sleeping Beauty. Got it! So it was just nice to see that trope not happen again when it could have happened based on some of the details that they were setting up in the story. I mean, I guess the closest was when she was on the beach and she was like, you're a man. Yeah. But then, yeah, they took a left turn there.

Right. Thank God. Well, and then also there's that moment where she's like, what is snow? There are a few blind spots in her knowledge where I'm like, she knows every language in the world, but she snow. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah. She's like, what is this? And then he's like, this is how you dance.

And you pull someone and she's like, I see. And no, well, see, I would. She's like, that's not fucking dancing. I know how to dance. That's sway. I want to see the Amazon's dance. First of all. Yes.

But yeah. Right. Because that's going to be amazing. Right. Like there's a lot of stomping and kicking and maybe even punching each other in the face hell yeah i'm on board and i guess in that scene we know where she's learning to dance she's sort of like i'm horny you know and that's okay but you know what i let it go because when they're finally in the room and

it's implied that they have sex she grabs him first and i'm like okay she takes charge yeah cool yes i noticed that as well and it's like a little switcheroo there so i'm like all right fine i'll let the dancing pass i would say the the closest thing we got to sort of going back to this born sexy yesterday trope of like her not recognizing that she has sexuality which is a big part of this trope like the the women these mature women in these roles in this trope like they don't know that they're hot and naked. They don't know they're hot and naked. They don't know that they're.

Help me. I don't know I'm hot and naked. What's the next CBS reality show? Hot and naked. I'm hot and naked. Get me out of here. They get the like disrobe in front of men, not realizing that that's like maybe not an appropriate thing to do or like that they they don't realize that they have sexuality that happens in like the fifth element stuff like that and like she sort of does take her robe off in the middle of the store that

they're in but it's not because she's like i don't know that i'm a sexy baby it's just she's like this is just what i wore this is my outfit from the Amazon island. I was dreading a makeover. I was dreading it. I think I vocalized to you that I would commit seppuku if there was a makeover scene. And they did do it, but it didn't bother me the way that I thought

it was going to bother me. It was quick, and it was just mostly a commentary on how impractical women's clothing is. It made sense for the story. if it hadn't yeah if they forced it i'd have been and then you get that line about like oh sometimes i engage in a little bit of fisticuffs and that was fun and and even the silly like she's carrying her shield of her sword around like i don't know that didn't really bother me because i i i can imagine a fish out of water male superhero where it's the same kind of goofy.

Like, he doesn't know to put his sword away. And it blows over pretty quickly. And she adjusts pretty quickly. It's like when the Hulk doesn't realize his size and accidentally knocks over an entire building. But he's not doing it on purpose kind of thing. It's a trope, but it felt more like a superhero trope. Right. And yeah, I didn't mind the way they handled any of that in this movie.

And when she's like, ice cream, it's delicious. You should be so proud of yourself. I did some reading about that. That was so sweet. Apparently that happens a ton in Wonder Woman. It happens in the comic books. It's happened in cartoon series like Wonder Woman and ice cream. That's like a thing.

Oh, she loves ice cream. I'll try to remember to put this up on our twitter and instagram and so there is like a photo like timeline of wonder woman with that exact exchange receiving ice cream tasting it and saying you should be so proud like that's an exact thing that happens over and over yeah that's a nice little easter egg i never even noticed that myself yeah cool it's a fun one um if you just keep harping on this subject one of the like aspects of this trope is that like you know she's super naive which is not at all what diana is because at one point steve is like where am i and who are you people she's like we are the bridge to a greater understanding like she

she like has been alive for presumably hundreds if not thousands of years patty jenkins quote patty jenkins Jenkins, 800 years. 800 years? Yes. Which begs the question for me of like, how long does it take for this growing up sequence with Robin Wright? Like between like tiny Wonder Woman and 12 year old Wonder Woman, is that actually 300 years?

It might be, yeah. It could be. And then Hippolyta realizes for the first time after 300 years, that's where she's going. Like, anyways. Well, they all age. I don't know. Their aging has been weird, too. I think if they get rid of their wristbands at some point, they would age. If they left the island, they would age. It was a gift from the gods and none of them age. Or they just age really slowly over time. It's all kind of different. And then a quick comic book question.

Why can't Wonder Woman ever go back once she's left? If it's so easy for Steve to just show up, why can't Wonder Woman ever go back? I don't think it's like, well, the way that I took that is that it's not that she's physically unable to go back. It's more like, well, for this movie and like even in the TV show and a couple of the other comics, it's implied that she's not allowed to come back because she's disobeying her mother and so it's kind of like if you want to take this step fine but then know what you're doing because part of the deal in the comics that wonder woman became wonder woman she wasn't just born wonder woman necessarily i mean she was born better than the other amazons as are all all three of us. But there was apparently Wonder Woman before her that she actually had to compete in a competition,

like a skills competition, against other Amazons to be able to win the mantle, which is the outfit of Wonder Woman. More like one mantle. And that the only reason it's in the colors of the American flag is because it is uh shifted to identify with whatever country they're going to help so she's wearing that red white and blue because she's gonna go help america or if she let's just say for whatever reason wonder woman

was gonna go help russia it would be different colors so that's not really touched upon in the movie it's just they don't see that at all and we're just like oh that's the outfit I didn't even question it because I'm like oh my god the outfit anyway point is I don't think she's physically unable to come back it's more like this is your duty you took this upon yourself you're supposed to be an ambassador to the man's world that means you need to live there

you can come visit she's visited Themyscira once or twice in the comics just to like hang and be like hey guys what's up? Chill. Yay. Christmas was great. Whatever. Whatever we're doing. And then had to go back, though. Okay, so that wasn't...

I interpreted that as you physically will not be... Okay, that makes more sense. Well, who knows? I don't know what they're going to be doing moving forward with the movie. Do you want to hear my theory for number two? Who the bad person's going to be? So, they made such a big stink that Zeus is actually her father. Well, Zeus has been the father of many children in Greek mythology, all of whom were either tortured or their mothers tortured by Hera, because Hera is a super jealous wife who, when she finds out that Zeus is... Because Zeus is fucked and he shouldn't be fucking other

people. Well, like, go after Zeus though. Don't go after the other ones, you know. Don't go after the kids. I mean, Hera's anger is justified. I just feel it's slightly misplaced. Misplaced, okay, yeah. That being said, I would love it if Hera and this allows then for all

the other Greek gods to come back. I would love it if Hera decides to either go after Hippolyta and then forces Wonder Woman, even if it's just like a brief scene, to come back to the island and try to defend slash save her mother and Paradise Island in general. Or if Hera is just straight up for the entire movie is the next big bad. Which would be cool because then you have a female big bad, which you often don't see in any movie. And probably an older female, too. Yeah, Hera would be dope. Or Cersei would be good, too.

Game of Thrones? Yeah, I'm going to toss Game of Thrones in there. Ladies, don't fuck Zeus. Just as a rule. You will get pregnant. He's extremely fertile. The problem is, sometimes he doesn't give you a rule. Don't fuck with... You will get pregnant. He's extremely fertile. The problem is, sometimes he doesn't give you a choice.

Zeus is a bad dude, man. Oh, yeah, Zeus is a rapist. Okay. Yeah. Zeus is not the best. That's a different podcast. We can't get into it. A few things I wanted to...

Just either lines of dialogue or just moments I really enjoyed. The scene when they're on the boat. Man, favorite scene in the whole movie. I love that. When they're heading to London, they're kind of like skirting around sex and sleeping together and oh my god, do you sleep with women? Do I sleep with men? I don't

know. And she's like, they've concluded that men are required for procreation, but when it comes to pleasure, not necessary. Good night! And then she like rolls over and faces away from him it's i love it so much um yeah and i wasn't doing that to a big name chris right and he's all like man you know where i come from i'm not i'm above average i'm a spy and i've got a lot of um you

know stamina the word vigor is invoked yeah uh but she's just like shrug um another part that i really enjoyed okay so there's a bunch of times where steve is like you can't come in here can't come into this room you we can't do that we like she's constantly told no and then she does it anyway which is great uh so she goes into this room and they're having all these men are having this meeting and she's like shame on you you're oh i'm not that cowards just oh yeah fighting from afar you know and then chris pine says she's with me and he's she's like no i'm not yeah like yeah um and then so later on or maybe before that i can't remember exactly when it happens but um he just keeps being like sorry there's like there's nothing we can do like we can't stop the whole war.

What I can do is bring this book back to my superiors. And like, that's pretty much it. We can take it to the men who can do something about this. And she's like, I am the man who can. And I was like, yeah. That was a very Yas Queen moment. That was a part of the movie that doesn't necessarily relate to the theme of our podcast but what that I thought was very interesting about

the Steve Wonder Woman dynamic which was basically just the Wonder Woman and normal people dynamic of you know her mission and it makes sense that's who she is is to do the grand gesture of this is what you do and if she were mortal

she'd be dead in 45 seconds very sad what an idiot fortunately she is not you know not easily killed and all this stuff but the interesting part like one of my favorite scenes in the movie that is between Wonder Woman

and Steve is after she kills Ludendorff and then realizes that it's not that easy to stop bad things from happening is killing one Alfred Molina lookalike. You can't just kill one Alfred Molina lookalike and then everything's fine. He doesn't look anything like Alfred Molina. First of all, go after Alfred Molina if you're going to do that. Second of all, Alfred Molina would have played that part better.

But, you know, he did a fine job. And then Steve says, you know, words that get me horny maybe i'm the problem which is great but there's that great interaction where wonder woman sort of has this crisis of like oh no people might just be horribly shitty horribly shitty and then you know in the end sort of goes back on that but she at that moment i was sort of just like i thought that was going to be the lesson it's like well people can be shitty sometimes and you can hang out or not which is sort of how i feel about it isn't that kind of what she concludes and then she's like then there's a big speech i love there's so much more yeah i didn't necessarily need speech i could have had it

just be the i've just decided to stay because i just decided to stay pretty much the only one who can fucking help right yeah and then i thought um because that bugged me at first the first time we saw it and there was that whole speech of like they're all you say but there's so much more but then again if i was an eight-year-old girl seeing that that would be like an amazing that would have been my favorite part if i was like a little kid seeing that so i was like okay that wasn't for me and it and it kind of bugs me but also i get why it's there well maybe because as an adult you've heard that kind of speech portrayed in these kind of movies so many times that you're just already aware where we're going with this but as like a little yeah like an eight-year-old girl who this is the first time you're gonna ever see a movie like this right it would blow your mind

right and then you're got how many years ahead of you where you're gonna hear the same shit over and over and over so yeah i agree i would have been as an adult i would have been totally fine with her just being like it's cool i i'm happy to be here and that's right i think i mean i think i'm gonna go i think it's like the cooler, stronger decision to be like, oh, people are bad, but what can I do to help? But then also from both the superhero standpoint and the kids are seeing the movie standpoint, I get how the big final face-off and then like,

love is better than Professor Lupin in his lava suit. We got to stick the moral in there. Right, right. For the PG-13 rating. Exactly. Other scenes were like, you know, if I'm a young girl or if I'm the woman I am today, which I am. Seeing it, I was like, yeah, cool. Any time that she's doubted or someone like tells her to stay put maybe presuming that she can't help because

she's a woman which is sort of said directly in the scene with the bar whenever steve is gathering up all his like ragtag demon guys who are going to go with him to help save the dude do the mission charlie the scottish guy is like that guy he's like i'm not gonna waste time protecting some loss that was my wonderful scottish accent fuck that guy he was kind of a waste of a character yeah i would have kept the chief and the guy unfortunately his name i forget right now uh samir and i think the guy the guy yeah yes i liked him and i liked the chief the scott guy, I was, oh God. In that bar scene, he's like, fuck this lady. She's going to slow us down. And then some other dude goes up to try to initiate like a bar fight with him.

And Wonder Woman grabs a guy and then throws him across the room. And it's like, oh, really? Is she going to waste your time, you piece of shit? But at the end of that bar scene, that's when we get that fun line from Sam Raimi he's like i am both terrified and aroused which big laugh line in the theater uh and then they're laughing they're gooping i also like when she's introduced to that character he like goes in to hug her and and she's just like don't touch me can we talk about the no man's land scene sequence i mean i cried both times yeah but i felt manipulated but i did cry both times uh it is emotionally manipulating but like in a good way i think first of all i didn't pick

up on this the first time because i'm dumb but i was like whoa no man's land no man can cross it but a wonder woman can but yeah they're all just like, you can't go out there. There's no man's land. And she's like, I can do it. Yes, queen. Yes, queen. I do wonder why the German soldiers when they realized she had a big gigantic shield and could deflect their bullets, they didn't just start aiming at her feet.

Her legs! Yeah, I was like, shoot this woman in the legs. Who is trying to still hit her in the head? It's not working. She can't shield her legs as easily with her wristbands. Get her in the legs. Who is trying to still hit her in the head? It's not working. She can't shield her legs as easily with her wristbands. Get her in the legs. It's not like her shoes

deflect bullets. It's just her wrists. And even if her shoes do deflect bullets, we don't know. No one ever tries. We could have used a scene where they shoot her in the leg and she has those boots. No one ever gets her. No one ever snags her.

That's fine. It's fine. I mean, I know that's part of the character. I did totally think of that, though. I was like, huh, I would have shot her in the foot. Right. Well, because I and I also like read the God, there's so many fucking clickbait pieces about this right now. But like, you know, I read like, well, why does Wonder Woman wear a skirt?

Why does everyone on the island wear a skirt? And that's like greek shit i get why they wear skirts because greek men also wore fucking skirts yeah sometimes i think they went into battle naked and they definitely competed in the olympics naked right right so it's like the the costume wasn't confusing to me i had no problems with the costume and i and i loved from the movie standpoint how we she was never out of the costume for too long like they put her in that dress with that woman did she kill her or there's a german lady where she's looking at her or she's just like naked in the woods somewhere i think she's probably just oh passed out naked

in the woods somewhere right before the gala yeah she got uh yeah she got roofied by wonder woman and you know or it was like a pressure point was hit and then she wakes up in her Before the gala. Yeah. She got roofied by Wonder Woman. Or it was like a pressure point was hit. And she wakes up in her, however many layers she had underneath that dress. I did want to talk about her costume, her outfit. I like how it was like sexy, but not sexualized. Also, there were nipple spaces. Well, and everyone in the mascara, too.

The breastplates had space for nips. Oh, good. Yeah. There was space for nips. I guess. I mean, they were all smooth. They weren't like pointy nipples, but there was like a groove. They didn't do What's-His-Face Batman nipples.

Yeah. They didn't do Clooney nips. Yeah, they didn't do Clooney nips. Thank goodness. They kept it real smart. Schumacher,ips. Thank goodness. Shout out to Joel Schumacher. Thank you. I would agree. I dug all the outfits, even for the Amazons on Themyscira. I thought all of it was sexy

but not over-sexualized. No male gaze. It seemed relatively practical. That's, I think, one of the benefits of having a female director and an intelligent director in general is you never get that shot that is so easy to get away with in movies like this, in any blockbuster, of the pan down of the outfit. You never get that.

You never even get sectional body shots of the outfit that I can think of. You kind of do when she's going up the ladder to get into no man's land. But it's kind of secondary because it's unavoidable. They're really trying to get shots of her feet climbing her weapons and her shield. It's never like her ass or her tits. But the problem is, is like the shield is by the legs, you know. And so that's always the fine line, right?

But yeah, it's like could we get that same shot of a male superhero? I mean, they are superheroes so they need to be stylized because they're supposed to be stylistic versions of humans. Better than ourselves but still reminiscent of ourselves. And so it's hard, I think,

to showcase that kind of stuff without having it happen on its own a little bit right i mean it's the way it was done because i remember what you're saying now yeah but there's been plenty of beefcake shots of like the marvel guys and stuff right like it didn't feel exploitative in a way that felt like here's the lady kind of if anything i like that we get that scene where uh steve hops out of the i could have done that hot tub and he's making he's like holding his junk and i could have done that like oh my gosh everyone needs to know what a big hog i have like i could i get i get why it was like oh pg-13, we gotta see. I kind of dug it. Hogs out, though. We gotta say, hogs out for one of the wealthy Chrises.

See, I watched it and I was like, huh, I was not a big fan of you before, but I feel myself slowly being convinced. I've been fully won over by Chris Pine and I'm like low-key furious about it. My only problem really with, I mean, maybe I'll watch it a few more times and pick up on

some other things. Let's go see it again. Let's do it. I'm free right now. With Diana's character, my main problem with like her development and characterization

is she's like maybe almost too perfect. Like, she's classically beautiful. She's very smart. She's resilient. She's a superhero.

Right. That's the thing. She's a demigod. But I get what you're saying. Because that's actually her problem. And as a fan, that's my problem with her in comics. Like, she's almost too goody two shoes. And it kind of is the same.

It borders on that same issue that some people have with Superman. where it's like too good for your own good, literally. And that's one of the main reasons I to fight, and will fight if pushed. So I'm cool with that. But yeah, I get what you're saying. It's like almost too good. And there's not any real struggle for her. Maybe we'll see that in the next movie, or maybe we'll start seeing it in JLA, which would be nice.

I think maybe now that it's done so well, not only will DC and Warner Brothers give Jenkins and jenkins and gadot or gadot how do they pronounce it i've seen a variety of different ones but at least that for gal gadot maybe they'll end up giving them even more input on the story and to give her a little bit more of like you know something to really fight against as well as um you know i mean i think the mother daughter relationship and her taking off would be a great one to delve into but i totally get what you're saying a pretty white movie although some of the amazons are women of color and then some of the the team of uh the ragtag crew who's trying to go on the mission i think i mean and then if we're i could use more diversity in the Amazons, especially in more primary roles rather than just kind of secondary in the background.

For a while, when they were first introduced, I felt like I was watching a little bit of like Amazon's Beverly Hills, you know? The two most powerful ones are hot blondes. Because Hippolyta in the comics is dark haired like her daughter. Oh, really? She's not blonde. Yeah. Okay. I don't know about

antiope i sort of wondered about that because i'm like well she at least did i mean and i guess the excuse given by the movie is like well she was carved from clay or that's the story so she's just like you know what we let's get some dark hair in here there is one and not to be an apologist because i think there can always be more diversity. There's a scene right after they're like, do we kill Chris Pine? Do we not? Where Wonder Woman is arguing that they should not kill Chris Pine. And there is a woman of color who argues against her.

And she says, Senator. Yes. And you're like, okay, so there's, you know, that she's got a leadership role.

That's nice. Yeah. Which isn't necessary, which isn't enough. I mean, she has two lines. It's not bad. It's nice. Yeah. Which isn't enough. I mean, she has two lines in the movie. It's not bad. It's just it could be more.

And maybe it's because some of that stuff was cut for time because we weren't really on Themyscira all that long. So if we go back there, I assume we're going to see a big uptick and all that stuff. Right. I do think it's interesting. I love one of the things that always appealed to me and i think specifically as a little girl why i'm so hung up on one roman is she is a main character superhero female who is dark-haired like you always have these blonde disney princesses but the exception of like now as we've you know we've had pocahontas with the disney movies and right ariel with the red hair and you know which i thought the the Moana thing,

where Wonder Woman's always like, I am Diana of Themyscira. I remember being like, I am Moana of... Motunui. Yeah. You aboard my boat. Anyways.

So it's good for girls this age that are growing up now to experience that kind of stuff, even on such a basic level as hair color. But for me growing up, it was all blondes all the time. Unless you're just like,

well, okay, Belle. I'll fuck a dog fine you know fine you're a brunette girl you fuck a dog that's why that's your option let's talk about whether or not the movie passes the bechdel test no see i would say for sure oh it's most of the first act scene but they're always talking about aries who's a dude they're talking about Ares a lot. And Zeus. Some training conversations. That's what I was picking. Like, can I train yet? You're too young. No. Those are kind of the only ones, though.

To clarify the Bechdel test a little bit, the whole conversation doesn't need to pass. It needs to be two lines of dialogue. Oh, well then, yes. Because even between her and Etta Candy, granted it was about clothes, but it was about clothes. Well, because there's a lot of movies we've done where technically the movie passes, but it's so by the skin of its teeth where, I mean, Pirates of the Caribbean we had a big problem with because there was literally one exchange between Elizabeth Swann and a maid that you could argue passes but also a man is implied but it's not state right so you can get into the weeds with it but i think this

is more like clearly because they're talking about training and it's a substantial enough conversation we also don't think there's any question yeah i suppose training yeah it just happens that there's the bad guy that's the man this time. But she would need that training for a variety of other issues that come in the future. Sure, yeah. We also got a great tweet from a listener of the podcast named Molly Young, who tweeted at us yesterday, posting a screenshot that her mom had sent her since they started listening to the Bechdel cast, saying that, according to Molly's mom, Wonder Woman passes the Bechdel test in the first scene. So we taught Molly's mom what the Bechdel test is.

Yay! So shout out to Molly's mom and Molly. Yeah. Cool. And when they are talking about men, they're being like, oh, Ares is a piece of shit. Hey, this white guy that just showed up on our island, we don't trust him.

Like, it's a... I am a spy! Yeah. Brendan Fraser would have done that. Blah! Same read! So while those scenes do not pass, So it, I am. So I, yeah, Brendan Fraser would have done that. Same read. So while those scenes do not pass, I do enjoy if women are talking about men,

it's mean as if they're, yeah, they're insulting them or they're being like, we don't trust you. Kind of like real life. Right. Behind the door, you know,

there's not, there's not a ton of scenes outside of the that pass. The scene where Diana and Etta talk about clothing. And where Diana speaks with that, and this makes me sound disgusting, with that trench woman and her trench baby. Oh, right. Yeah, she's like, trenches? They discuss trenches. That's true. Yeah, because she's like, oh, my village is under attack. We've all been enslaved.

And that's actually a good point, because then that kickstarts her into arguing with Steve and crew about, like, we're going to end it my way. And he's like, no, no. And she's like, you can go fuck yourself. I'm climbing up this ladder and I'm going to make sure I don't get shot in the foot. There's more opportunities. I think that there are more opportunities between her and Etta. I think for sure there I see no reason why there was never an interaction between Dr. Poison and Wonderta. I think for sure I see no reason why there was never an interaction between

Dr. Poison and Wonder Woman. There should have been some sort of conversation. They were in the same scene multiple times and we just never got to see that. I would have rather Wonder Woman had a run-in with Dr. Poison for a minute at the gala than that weird, lecherous

moment with Ludendorff where he's like, you know, he like grabs her and he's like, the Germans are good. And it's like, okay, I get it. You're the villain for now. But that was like the one opportunity for it to pass the test again and just like enhance the story that I felt it was like a missed opportunity.

Yeah, true. Despite that, you know, well, let's rate the movie on our nipple scale. We have a scale that we rate the movie on based on its portrayal of women. It's a zero to five nipple scale. So I'm gonna... Five being the best. This is hard because I'm inclined to kind of want to give it a five out of five because Diana, you know, she's a developed character. We see her constantly kick ass. We see her never doubt herself. She's often told, no, you can't do this or you can't come along or blah, blah, blah. And she's like, no, I'm doing it.

I'm doing it. You know, we see the there are other female characters oftentimes, you know, in a superhero movie, there's one woman and she's a love interest and she doesn't have much bearing on the story. Whereas here she's driving every, pretty much every story beat. So I think it does a really good job portraying women, especially considering the genre that this movie belongs to. I think I'm gonna say

five nipples it's a five nip yeah it's five nipples for me describe the nips please the nipples i'm gonna give two of them to chris pine which we see when he's coming out of the hot tub so two two i like to horny sammy sammy was very horny and he just wanted to hug. Unapologetically so. Wait, who's Sammy? Sammy's the little... I think he might be Moroccan? I'm not sure. But Sammy's one of the

frag tag groups. He's given an interesting... I'm white, so I can't. I'm white, so I can't. But there's an interesting moment with Sammy where he's like, I wanted to be an actor, but I was born the wrong color. Oh. And that was interesting. I would be interested in hearing what listeners thought of that moment because I, you know, that felt like, okay, they wanted to acknowledge their non, you know, a non-white character and that's cool, but we never hear more about it. Oh, yeah.

This actor, at least, I'm not sure what the character is, but this actor is from France, born to Moroccan immigrant parents. But I like the scene where he and Diana are having a language off, where she's like, I can speak Spanish. Well, I can speak Chinese. But can you speak ancient Greek? No, you can't. I win. And then Chris Pine says, oh, you're done. And he gets one of those other lines like, oh, I'm handsome. In the theater, everyone laughs.

Big laugh. Big laugh for Chris. Sorry. Yeah, I've run out of characters to give nipples away to, but there's five of them and I liked it. I like the movie. I'm going to give it four and a half. It doesn't get get five for me because i really was like frustrated about the missed opportunities with dr poison especially but also i mean just like the tangential female characters if we had to watch that fucking chode charlie the scottish guy you know and then we get the whole story of

like sometimes he sings like fuck that guy kill him tell me more about dr poison that uh so it loses a half a nibble but i mean in terms of a blockbuster movie that represents women well that never happens and and gal gadot does like is perfectly cast she kicks ass she's not objectified in the way that we're sort of expected that she will be based on literally any other blockbuster movie. Four and a half nipples. Two are going to the Trench Baby. Trench Babies have nipples, too.

What do they leak? Mud? We don't know. Depends on the gender of the Trench Baby. Give two of the nipples to Trench Mommy, and then half a nipple to the fallen robin right and those are that's where my nipples are going so i'm gonna give it four i'm gonna deduct a nipple not only for the reasons that you both mentioned because i think

that that's where my same issues lie but also uh some of the technical choices in regards to edit and story holes really bothered me and were really glaring so that's where i deducted that half point i guess i'm gonna give my nipples to the battle scene on themyscira um the banter between chris and wonder woman really good yeah can i just split two to two? Two and two. Yeah. That's kind of, that's kind of it. I thought, um, yeah, definitely wonderful movie needed to be done.

Wish it would have been done sooner. Happy that it was done at all. I read somewhere that it was in development since 1996. I actually have a script from a friend of mine, this guy named Steven Lissberger, who was, uh, the creator and director on Tron, the first one. Interesting. Who had been called into, I can't remember who it was, maybe WB, maybe DC, to come up with a Wonder Woman movie.

Wow. So scripts have been going around for a long time. Yeah. I would like to just plant this now now and i hope 20 years from now we all reflect on this and it's like wow it's insane that the baby actor who played trench baby is now the most famous actor in the entire world okay i'm playing the scenes for trench baby right now all right um trench baby if it's the future and you're listening, I always believed in you. Stay in that trench.

Wonderful. Jessica, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me, guys. This was so fun. Sorry if I over-talked. No, no. Wonder Woman, it's been a long time coming and a long time waiting. And so it's like I am so full of emotion and yet

I think I was fair and balanced. We're thrilled we got a Wonder Woman expert too because we don't have the comic book background. I don't know if I'd be an expert because I think I got some of my info wrong. But let's just say a knowledgeable fan.

I'll take that. Where can people find you online? So you can find me over at Nerdist.com or any of our other offshoots like Nerdist's YouTube channel. For the Bizarre State stuff, you can find us on iTunes. For my personal stuff, my Twitter's at Jessica Chobot. My Insta's Jessica underscore Chobot. So that's kind of it. Wonderful.

Yeah. you can follow us at bechtel cast on twitter you can email us at the bechtel cast at gmail.com i guess so you can follow us on instagram too at bechtel cast if you choose to rate and review us on itunes all that fun stuff hey go for it oh we are doing a show oh yeah because it comes out this week yes uh jamie and i are co-hosting a comedy show at nerd melt in los angeles hey that's downstairs right downstairs i could like drop a vat of acid and it would i could stomp really hard would create in the floor fyi and then we'd be looking down it's haunted oh no just letting you guys know that i love when i believe in ghosts first of all let's do the movie Ghost and talk about it.

So we're doing a show on June 10th at 9 p.m. It's called The Special Occasionally Show, and it's a benefit for Planned Parenthood. We've got some friends of the cast on the show. We do. Deb DiGiovanni is on it, and then also Nikki Glaser was, but she actually can't make it anymore. So we brought in another friend of the cast. That's right. And now Debra DeGioia is on it. So friends of the cast, come on down.

All the proceeds will go to Planned Parenthood. We're trying to pack the house so if you're in the LA area, no excuses. No excuses. Come and hang out with your cool friends that you'll bring to the show. Yeah. Because we are not those friends. And it's a great lineup and tickets are $15 if you buy them in advance.

And that's that. Again, thank you so much, Jessica, for being here. It's been a wild ride and a blast. And I'm trying to think of like a fun. Go Trench Baby. Go Trench Baby. All right. Bye.

Hey, y'all. Niminy here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist

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