Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have women and them, are
Speaker 2: all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they
Speaker 2: have individualism? It's the patriarchy, z ephibast start changing it
Speaker 2: with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 3: Hate Jamie, Hey, Caitlin, did I ever tell you about
Speaker 3: how my dad actually died in a graphic motorcycle accident
Speaker 3: where his body was strewn all over New York City?
Speaker 3: Ever heard of it?
Speaker 4: What? Oh my gosh. Now I'm actually sorry that my
Speaker 4: mom was being a huge bitch to you a second ago.
Speaker 4: I wasn't before, but now I am.
Speaker 3: No, I understand, but just so you know that my
Speaker 3: dad definitely died in that exact way.
Speaker 4: Totally. Wow, this movie is kind of like Mean Girls,
Speaker 4: isn't it?
Speaker 3: At least the first act? Yeah, because I had not Well,
Speaker 3: we'll get into this, but I was.
Speaker 4: Like, what, it's a warm up. I think it is
Speaker 4: a warm up, yeah for me and girls. Anyways, Welcome
Speaker 4: to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 3: My name is Kitlyn Drante or is it Ooh wow,
Speaker 3: it's Mary. They're a liar, Mary Durante. This is our show.
Speaker 3: Where we analyze movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
Speaker 3: the Bechdel test as simply a jumping off point to
Speaker 3: initiate larger conversations. But Jamie tell us tell me, Okay,
Speaker 3: Caitlin aka Mary Mary, and anyone else what the Bechdel
Speaker 3: test is?
Speaker 4: Please yes, well. It is a media metric invented by
Speaker 4: queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Sometimes it's called the Bechdel Wallace Test.
Speaker 4: Originally made as a bit for Alison Bechdel's famous comic
Speaker 4: strip Likes to Watch Out four in the eighties, but
Speaker 4: it has since become a popular media metric. Lots of
Speaker 4: different versions of here's the one that we talk about.
Speaker 4: Towards the end of every episode, we require that there
Speaker 4: be two characters of a marginalized gender with names who
Speaker 4: talk to each other about something other than a man
Speaker 4: for more than two lines of dialogue, preferably a meaningful exchange.
Speaker 4: And spoiler alert. Because it's such a small part of
Speaker 4: the show, we're not going to have much of an
Speaker 4: issue on this show. There's not going to be a
Speaker 4: lot of teasing things apart not for this movie. This
Speaker 4: movie is about girls lying to each other. About kind
Speaker 4: of whatever and that passes, and that's beautiful, and we
Speaker 4: celebrate that this is a movie about women's wrongs. Yes,
Speaker 4: because we are covering Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen,
Speaker 4: a two thousand and three movie starring Lindsay Lohan.
Speaker 3: It's so true. And I also did not realize this
Speaker 3: was a Disney movie. We've been covering so many live
Speaker 3: action Disney movies recently.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so I do feel the need to repeat,
Speaker 4: you know, I will piss on Bob Iger's grave, etc. However,
Speaker 4: this is the show, and the show is about formative
Speaker 4: movies and whether we like it or not, Confessions of
Speaker 4: a Teenage Drama Queen its impact was felt.
Speaker 3: Sure, let's get our guests in the mix. I'm very excited,
Speaker 3: so excited to have hosts of the podcast Black People
Speaker 3: Love Paramore. It's Sequoya Holmes. Hello, Hello, and welcome.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here talking about this movie
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yes, tell us all about your relationship with this movie.
Speaker 1: So I was a Disney Channel kid, and I would
Speaker 1: like to specify that that is different from a Disney kid.
Speaker 1: I was not a Disney kid. I was a Disney
Speaker 1: Channel kid. This movie was in constant rotation on Disney
Speaker 1: Channel at a point probably around the year came out,
Speaker 1: maybe the next year. They had the promos everywhere. I
Speaker 1: could say certain lines from the movie word by word
Speaker 1: because the promos were so seared in my brain, although
Speaker 1: I had not seen it in about fifteen years, So yes,
Speaker 1: I watched it a lot as a kid.
Speaker 3: Nice Jamie, how about you?
Speaker 4: Similar deal? I think I saw this movie in theaters
Speaker 4: when it came out. I feel like I was like
Speaker 4: the target audience for this movie and also huge dcom fan.
Speaker 4: We just covered Smart House, Oh, one of the al timers.
Speaker 1: O fantastic one.
Speaker 4: It's so good. And this movie does feel like a
Speaker 4: high budget d com and that's a compliment, yes, where
Speaker 4: there's a lot of like sound effects, a lot of boyings,
Speaker 4: a lot of splats, and a lot of reinforcing the
Speaker 4: family unit. And that is how you know you're watching
Speaker 4: a d com. Yeah, boying, splat, mommy daddy, and that's
Speaker 4: kind of how it goes. And I ate that shit up.
Speaker 4: And I also loved Lindsay Lohan still do she just
Speaker 4: had a baby.
Speaker 3: Oh she did, Oh my goodness, she.
Speaker 4: Did keep up, So congratulations to her. I found it
Speaker 4: out from Jamie Lee Curtis's Instagram. Doesn't matter, but that
Speaker 4: is who broke the news to me.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Well, because she is Lindsay Lohan's mom more or less.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, she seems to still kind of feel that way,
Speaker 4: and I thought that was really sweet.
Speaker 3: And at one point she was Lindsay Lohan. That's a connection.
Speaker 3: You don't forget very.
Speaker 1: Much that that's true.
Speaker 4: They literally swapped. Yeah, so two thousand and three Lindsay Lohan.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think we're kind of approaching because I
Speaker 4: guess Mean Girls is peak Lindsay Lohan. But two thousand
Speaker 4: and three we've got Freaky Friday and Confessions of a
Speaker 4: Teenage Drama quhen she's firing up to reach her peak,
Speaker 4: and I was so. I just remember loving this movie
Speaker 4: and returning to it. Yeah, there were certain things I remembered.
Speaker 4: I remembered the entire Sid Arthur song, which I wasn't expecting.
Speaker 4: I remembered every lyric to the Girl was a much
Speaker 4: Oh it's so good, so good. I didn't remember that
Speaker 4: there were guys with blue hair dancing behind her. And
Speaker 4: I still don't understand what happened.
Speaker 1: I don't get there.
Speaker 4: Was no answers were given, but I'm so excited to
Speaker 4: talk about it. I think that some parts of it
Speaker 4: hold up in an interesting ways, and other parts of
Speaker 4: it are parts of the movie. Yeah, yeah, sure, Kaitlyn,
Speaker 4: went's your history with this one?
Speaker 3: I had never seen it. I think this was targeted
Speaker 3: toward a younger crowd than I was at the time
Speaker 3: of this movie coming out, because I was a junior
Speaker 3: in high school. I think so I was like, movies
Speaker 3: about fifteen year olds, No thanks.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, grow Lola does need to grow up. She
Speaker 4: has a lot to learn, but I love her.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I had never seen it. I also get
Speaker 3: this movie confused with Confessions of a Shopaholic, and for
Speaker 3: a while I kind of just thought they were the
Speaker 3: same movie. I was like, oh, yeah, Confessions of a
Speaker 3: teenage Drama Queen. That's the one with oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: what's her name? Fisher?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's also like same naming convention, same hair color.
Speaker 4: You know, one can't be blamed. I've never seen Concussion
Speaker 4: of a Chopoholic.
Speaker 3: Me either, but I think we've gotten requests for it,
Speaker 3: so I'm sure we'll cover it someday.
Speaker 4: I mean, maybe I remember reading those books because I
Speaker 4: think that my mom let me read them because they
Speaker 4: were pink question Mark and we were, you know, like
Speaker 4: we were still figuring out how society works.
Speaker 3: Sure we still are.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's like pink book. My daughter can read it.
Speaker 4: And that's how I learned how people with Vagina's masturbate.
Speaker 4: I didn't know. Oh, and then I read that book.
Speaker 4: When I was like ten, I was like, you can
Speaker 4: what That's wild interesting.
Speaker 3: I learned you can masturbate by masturbating.
Speaker 4: And likewise, I really needed instruction wholesome and that depressed
Speaker 4: Compulsive Shopper really helped me out. And and this this
Speaker 4: is an early I mean, we couldn't have known it
Speaker 4: at the time, but this stars very early Megan Fox
Speaker 4: role in kind of her peak mean girl era, which
Speaker 4: I have a lot of thoughts on. I'm excited to
Speaker 4: talk about it.
Speaker 1: Same. Yeah.
Speaker 4: The DDR scene, Oh say that you will about this movie.
Speaker 4: The DDR scene. You can't take it from us.
Speaker 1: It's so good, so funny.
Speaker 3: Shall I get into the recap and we'll go from there.
Speaker 4: Let's do it, and so I feel free to jump
Speaker 4: in whenever.
Speaker 3: H Okay, we're in New York City, we meet a
Speaker 3: teenage drama queen Mary. That's Lindsay Lohan, although she wants
Speaker 3: to be called Lola instead of Mary, so I will
Speaker 3: refer to her as Lola. She is fantasizing about being
Speaker 3: able to live in New York by herself, when in reality,
Speaker 3: her mom, Karen played by Glenn Headley Headley Rip, she
Speaker 3: is moving Mary and her two little sisters to a
Speaker 3: suburb called Dellwood, New Jersey. And this is something that
Speaker 3: Lola deeply resents.
Speaker 4: Can I just shout out really quickly. At the beginning,
Speaker 4: the first thing that unsettled me physically watching this movie.
Speaker 3: Was, oh, my gosh, I know what you're gonna say,
Speaker 3: the flip.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, I was unsettled by the flip at the
Speaker 4: beginning when that's wild that you knew, I was unsettled
Speaker 4: by the flip. Uncanny Valley stuff really does not sit
Speaker 4: well with me. It's at the beginning when Lindsay Lohan
Speaker 4: is like mother Darling and we're like, okay, her British
Speaker 4: accent hasn't improved since the Parent Trap no offense. Yeah,
Speaker 4: she's you've had half a decade but whatever. Anyways, But
Speaker 4: then she's like, I yay, I live in New York, ghippie.
Speaker 4: And then she flips and it is like, it's the weirdest.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 3: Okay, the thing that the guy does and singing in
Speaker 3: the rain where he like runs up the wall and
Speaker 3: then like flips backwards. She does that against a tree.
Speaker 1: How did I miss that? Oh my?
Speaker 3: She's like, because it's so noticeable.
Speaker 4: She does a full on like CGI stunt. It was alarming.
Speaker 3: It looks really weird.
Speaker 1: How odd you have to go back?
Speaker 4: It's really funny.
Speaker 1: I have to.
Speaker 4: And they've like piped in ad r over it to
Speaker 4: try and distract. So it's just like Lindsay Lohan being
Speaker 4: like yippie.
Speaker 1: Wooo oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, this is I
Speaker 1: do remember this part. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean we prepped for this episode a couple of
Speaker 4: days ago, and I've thought about it at least twice
Speaker 4: a day since. Again, it's like the flip. How do
Speaker 4: we not know at what point Lindsay Lohan's love interest
Speaker 4: becomes relevant to the story, But we can't cut the flips.
Speaker 3: It's haunted. Okay. So Lola starts at a new school
Speaker 3: where she meets Ella. Also the two main characters being
Speaker 3: Lola and Ella. They sound too similar. That was a
Speaker 3: screenwriting problem anyway. Ella is played by Ellison pill Baby.
Speaker 4: Allison pill fun.
Speaker 3: They both love this band called sid Arthur and it's
Speaker 3: lead singer Stu Wolf, and they become friends immediately based
Speaker 3: on that.
Speaker 4: That felt authentic to me at like the moment of like, yeah,
Speaker 4: just seeing someone at school where we're like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: one thing in common, I'm not alone in the whole world.
Speaker 3: It's nice, yeah, for sure. And then Lola meets Carla Santini.
Speaker 3: That's Megan Fox and her band of mean girls who
Speaker 3: think that New York City is gross and dangerous and
Speaker 3: they're not impressed that Lola.
Speaker 4: Came from there, the Princesses of New Jersey. I loved
Speaker 4: Carla's entrance is so funny. It is prompted by nothing.
Speaker 4: She just comes in hot for no reason. She stops
Speaker 4: in and she's like, Hi, I'm Carla Santini, and you're like,
Speaker 4: who asked? Like I love it. They're just like Megan
Speaker 4: Fox go and then she did yeah is.
Speaker 1: Luigi's oh playing while she yes entering? It was such
Speaker 1: a big song that year. Yeah, Like it was all
Speaker 1: over mean girls. I think mean girls come out in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four? Am I wrong?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's correct.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, it was just Lindsay Lohan Codd.
Speaker 4: I guess it's so weird because it plays so many
Speaker 4: times in this movie. It's like almost every time Carla's
Speaker 4: in this scene, you're like wow.
Speaker 1: Every time it's like there's trouble. Uh oh Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: I loved that song.
Speaker 3: That's a good one.
Speaker 4: It reminds me of like it's I don't know. There
Speaker 4: are some songs to me though, I will forever associate with,
Speaker 4: like school bus and that was a big time school
Speaker 4: bus song.
Speaker 1: That's fair It feels like being driven to school summer
Speaker 1: two thousand and three to me. Yeah, wow, it's nice.
Speaker 3: So then Ella introduces Lola to this boy, Sam, who
Speaker 3: Lola thinks it's cute.
Speaker 4: For some reason, Like, right, I don't know anything about
Speaker 4: the actor who plays Sam, but even he seems confused
Speaker 4: as to why he's in the movie. Yeah, he's just
Speaker 4: like hi.
Speaker 3: I'm in the scene now.
Speaker 4: I guess wild.
Speaker 3: So Lola thinks he's cute, but she doesn't want a
Speaker 3: boyfriend right now because she's trying to focus on her
Speaker 3: acting career.
Speaker 4: Fair enough, I love that for her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, yes.
Speaker 4: Inspiring, but don't worry. She's gonna get one anyways. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: like whether she likes it or not. It's the Disney movie.
Speaker 4: It's two thousand and three. You're getting a boyfriend.
Speaker 1: They're always lurking somewhere.
Speaker 3: Oh, and he is.
Speaker 4: It doesn't seem malicious like some teen movie boyfriends. But
Speaker 4: there is just a feeling that he's just out of
Speaker 4: frame for whenever the moment is right.
Speaker 1: That's fair. He doesn't feel malicious. But the other guy
Speaker 1: in the movie, Oh, harder to say. We'll get there.
Speaker 3: I have many thoughts.
Speaker 4: What is going on with stew and her father. I'm like,
Speaker 4: what are these men? Yeah, that's yeah, spoiler alert. She's
Speaker 4: got a dad and he's a fucking mess. Not that
Speaker 4: that's a spoiler for most dads. Really, Yeah, the truth
Speaker 4: are people, but he's pretty bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, So Lola keeps hanging out with Ella. She
Speaker 3: goes to Ella's house. Ella's mom doesn't like Lola or
Speaker 3: Lola's mom because she thinks that they're weird, and she
Speaker 3: doesn't like that Lola's mom is a single mother. She's
Speaker 3: like very rich, white, conservative suburb type.
Speaker 1: What's funny is I feel like those moms are most
Speaker 1: often married but still single moms, as in the dad
Speaker 1: isn't doing anything anyways, so you're also a single mom,
Speaker 1: so you should feel in camaraderie with Lola's mom anyways.
Speaker 1: Totally yeah, you should be unionizing.
Speaker 4: Actually, totally right, they should be unionizing.
Speaker 3: But Lola's mom is a potter. She makes pottery, I
Speaker 3: think for a living, and which.
Speaker 4: I suspect after I just rewatched The Princess Diaries recently,
Speaker 4: and that movie, I do still feel like they didn't
Speaker 4: make a single mistake in it. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1: That one holds up for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think that there's tropes from the Princess
Speaker 4: Diaries that were ripped off for years after that, including
Speaker 4: cool artist mom. And I think that that's why we
Speaker 4: have a potter mom a couple of years later here.
Speaker 3: Yes, So Lola is not happy that her family is
Speaker 3: being insulted, and then she tells the story of how
Speaker 3: her mom and dad met and fell in love and
Speaker 3: it was so romantic, but then her dad died in
Speaker 3: a motorcycle accident when she was very young.
Speaker 4: Also that she was splattered across two street. That was
Speaker 4: a funny lot of detail.
Speaker 3: They say that they found him strewn across ninth Avenue
Speaker 3: and tenth. The distance between ninth and tenth Avenue in
Speaker 3: New York City is long, so it's like it did
Speaker 3: his bond.
Speaker 4: Those are like the super long blocks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it takes like five minutes to walk from one
Speaker 3: to the next.
Speaker 4: And she knows that she's so shameless.
Speaker 3: And the tone with which she's telling this is extremely goofy.
Speaker 3: I would say, it's an extremely goofy tone, and it's
Speaker 3: almost as if she's making it up, but we don't
Speaker 3: know that yet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I kind of like, I've seen, you know, varying
Speaker 4: opinions on how dated those imagination sequences, Like I thought
Speaker 4: they're fun though.
Speaker 1: They're in on it, that's the thing for me. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's dated, sure, but they're definitely in on the.
Speaker 4: Joke, right, And that's where all the goofy like beep
Speaker 4: beeps and likes. Right, Okay, so if this isn't a lie,
Speaker 4: it's been very poor taste.
Speaker 3: She is like making a meal out of the story
Speaker 3: of the death of her father. Yeah, and Ella is like,
Speaker 3: oh damn, I'm so sorry. I had no idea. Then
Speaker 3: at school, Carla is talking about how she got the
Speaker 3: lead in the upcoming school production of Pigmalion and how
Speaker 3: she's envisioning a modern day retelling of the story set
Speaker 3: in New York City where Eliza is a cashier or
Speaker 3: something like that. But then Lola's disappointed because she was
Speaker 3: hoping to audition for the role. But then she learns
Speaker 3: that auditions haven't even happened yet and that Carla was
Speaker 3: just being very arrogant. So Lola shows up to the
Speaker 3: audition her teacher, Miss Bagoli, played by Carolcane.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I feel like Carol Caine was even
Speaker 4: better than I remembered, and I don't think I knew
Speaker 4: who Carol Kane was the last time I saw this movie.
Speaker 1: Was so good a highlight, truly a highlight.
Speaker 4: And I thought that there would be I feel like
Speaker 4: a trope that we see a lot with like goofy
Speaker 4: teacher character is that like the main girl will give
Speaker 4: her a makeover to like show how selfless she is,
Speaker 4: Like it happens and clueless. It happens in a bunch
Speaker 4: of different movies, but I like that it doesn't happen here,
Speaker 4: and Miss Bogoli is just like allowed to be a
Speaker 4: weirdo Carol Kane character the whole time, and we love
Speaker 4: her and she just really cares about the drama club.
Speaker 4: It felt true to life.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, and she's in charge of this production.
Speaker 3: She describes the adaptation that they're doing. It's this like
Speaker 3: modern day version that Carla had been describing. So it's
Speaker 3: clear that Carla either like influenced or probably bullied Miss
Speaker 3: Bogolie into doing this version of the story called Eliza Rocks.
Speaker 4: Kind of inspired of Megan Fox to think of that.
Speaker 1: There's somebody like l names like Carla, Ella, Lola, Eliza, Bogolie,
Speaker 1: Miss Bogoli. Like, there's way too many l's are going on.
Speaker 3: This is a conspiracy Stu Sam that men.
Speaker 1: All have what's her dad's name?
Speaker 4: Oh god, do we even get to find out? I
Speaker 4: don't know he might his name is Callum Callum step well.
Speaker 1: Step Lola step Yeah.
Speaker 3: Interesting. There's that scene where Lola is overhearing Carla being like,
Speaker 3: here's what I think this version of Pygmalion should be, Like,
Speaker 3: we don't live in England, it's not the nineteenth century.
Speaker 3: Let's update it to the modern world and give this
Speaker 3: like fresh, new, modern lens on it. Meanwhile, Lola is like, no,
Speaker 3: the classics should stay classics. And I'm like kind of
Speaker 3: on Megan Fox's side in that argument, not gonna lie,
Speaker 3: but yeah, I just.
Speaker 4: Feel like, why rule it out? You know, let's let's
Speaker 4: see what she wrote down before we rule it out.
Speaker 1: Well, naturally I can rule it out because Lola is
Speaker 1: worldly of the world and Miss Santini is just a
Speaker 1: little New Jersey girl. That's the whole is so.
Speaker 4: Wild because it's like positioned as classism, but it makes
Speaker 4: it seem like rich girls from New York are protected
Speaker 4: class It's really You're like, what is this rivalry? I'm
Speaker 4: pretty sure you're both fucking loaded. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 4: Lindsay Lohan character therefore underdog exactly.
Speaker 3: So then Lola is like, wait, I'm at an audition,
Speaker 3: but I don't have anything prepared. So I loved it.
Speaker 3: She like knows what she's there for. And they're like, okay,
Speaker 3: you sing a song, and she's like, but I didn't
Speaker 3: prepare anything.
Speaker 1: I love it. I loved it.
Speaker 4: It's so good. And then cutting to pissed off Megan
Speaker 4: foxexpression dot m P four, You're just like, yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, because Lindsay Lohan's vocals just obviously killed it, crushed
Speaker 1: it naturally, So of course Megan.
Speaker 4: Changed the game.
Speaker 1: So changed the game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because she has sung a song by her favorite band,
Speaker 3: said Arthur. People are blown away that kid Sam is
Speaker 3: in the back and he's like wow, and we're like
Speaker 3: a star is born.
Speaker 4: Wow, a solid high school alto.
Speaker 1: Sam was just in the back, very high school musical coded.
Speaker 1: There was so much about this movie that like had
Speaker 1: other like reminded me of other movies, the two twins
Speaker 1: in the beginning, reinding me a parent trap along with
Speaker 1: her British accent, loom To's oh is very mean girls,
Speaker 1: And there's some other things that I'll point out when
Speaker 1: we get to them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Sam looming in the back just reinforces my theory
Speaker 4: that he's on the side of every scene, just because
Speaker 4: I feel like Sam is the most studio notes part
Speaker 4: of this movie, and so I feel like they're like,
Speaker 4: we're just going to keep this kid on set and
Speaker 4: whenever a Disney executive calls and says, where's the boy,
Speaker 4: We'll just throw him in there and see what he does.
Speaker 4: Poor kid. Just write him out of the movie, leave him.
Speaker 3: Alone, Okay, so then the cast of Eliza Rocks is announced,
Speaker 3: Lola is nervous that Carla beat her out for the
Speaker 3: leading role, and then there's this whole like obstacle course
Speaker 3: where they're running through the hallway lawn forard the cast list,
Speaker 3: and they discover that Lola has been cast as Eliza,
Speaker 3: which she's very happy about, and then Carla's like, well,
Speaker 3: my part, Missus Higgins, is actually more interesting, and that's
Speaker 3: the part I actually wanted all along.
Speaker 1: Okay, girl it.
Speaker 4: I loved that. I was like, wow, that is extremely
Speaker 4: drama club behavior where you're like, actually, it's Reno Sweeni's
Speaker 4: best friend who really has the story, and you're like, yeah, totally,
Speaker 4: surely that ever helps you sleep it go for that.
Speaker 3: I just saw Theater Camp, which I absolutely loved. It's
Speaker 3: so funny. Everyone should go see it, although by the
Speaker 3: time this episode comes out it might not be in
Speaker 3: theaters anymore. Anyway, I loved it, but there are things
Speaker 3: about this movie where I was like, wow, I get
Speaker 3: it now because I've seen Theater Camp.
Speaker 1: That's very funny. Also, one of Carla Santini's little background
Speaker 1: friends is the girl who played Casey on Life with
Speaker 1: Derek which is also a Disney Channel Yes, a notorious,
Speaker 1: clorious Disney Channel show that was canceled because the two
Speaker 1: lead characters were supposed to be step siblings and they
Speaker 1: had too much on screen chemistry and seemed sexual and
Speaker 1: they actually were dating in real life. So I was
Speaker 1: distracted by her a lot of the time too. I
Speaker 1: was looking at I was like, this is the girl
Speaker 1: that couldn't keep Life with Derek on air because.
Speaker 4: Like they were too horny to write play steps of.
Speaker 1: And they were actually fucking so wow.
Speaker 4: I feel like every time I hear the Life with
Speaker 4: Derek saga, it's like a fever dream because you're like,
Speaker 4: that is so scary and also just so Disney. It's like, no,
Speaker 4: they have too much chemisty. The kids are going to
Speaker 4: get the wrong idea.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it at all as a child. I
Speaker 1: thoroughly did not see it. But other kids swear they
Speaker 1: saw it. Now that we're adults, are like, no, I
Speaker 1: always thought it was weird. No, you didn't.
Speaker 4: You were sure Disney executives sealing children's jobs because they're
Speaker 4: a little too good at their job. That's Life with
Speaker 4: Derek was. I think that was like the tail end
Speaker 4: of my Disney Channel career. Fair to the point where
Speaker 4: I was basically watching in secret and I don't remember
Speaker 4: seeing it, and I was too old to be watching
Speaker 4: it so fair.
Speaker 1: I might have been a little bit too. It was Canadian.
Speaker 1: That was another thing about it was like a little like,
Speaker 1: you know, Canadian television has a little weirdness to it.
Speaker 4: Did you watch Degrassy?
Speaker 1: I was huge, huge to Grassy.
Speaker 4: My cousin and I the first eBay purchase that I
Speaker 4: ever made. We did it in secret on my aunt's
Speaker 4: account because we bought a bootleg DVD of the abortion
Speaker 4: episode of Degrassi.
Speaker 1: They yes, Yes, I watched it one time and I
Speaker 1: was like, why did I never see this episode again?
Speaker 1: They aired it one time.
Speaker 4: On the end, I would watch a three hour documentary
Speaker 4: about why that wasn't I mean, I know why it
Speaker 4: wasn't shown in the US, but I want emails.
Speaker 1: I really want to know. They showed so much wild
Speaker 1: shit on de Grassy all of the time. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is so far I don't understand.
Speaker 4: Okay, they showed the episode of de Grassi where Emma's like,
Speaker 4: I go to the woods and have sex for different
Speaker 4: colored bracelets and that was just something that writer's made up.
Speaker 1: Right and got goner rhea and she calls it a
Speaker 1: social disease, and it's like a whole traumatizing thing. Like
Speaker 1: if you're watching as a child, you're like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: Like I can't fucking ever get gone ariha or something.
Speaker 1: It's just a lot.
Speaker 4: Gagassi is a lot and this's voice is forever locked
Speaker 4: into my head. You gave me a social disease.
Speaker 1: Like she really felt that with her whole heart.
Speaker 4: Wow, Oh I love that show anyway. What oh, because
Speaker 4: Life with Derek Canada Confessions.
Speaker 1: Had a lot of leaves there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was beautiful to watch.
Speaker 4: But if you were born within a five year period, you.
Speaker 3: I missed all of that. Okay, thank you for the best. Okay.
Speaker 3: So then Lola hear's the news that her favorite band,
Speaker 3: Said Arthur broke up because the lead singer Stu Wolf
Speaker 3: has left the band, and she's devastated. Then there's the
Speaker 3: DDR scene where Lola challenges Carla to a DDR contest,
Speaker 3: during which Carla tells Lola that she has insider info
Speaker 3: that sid Arthur is playing one final farewell concert in
Speaker 3: New York next month. Plus there's an after party, but
Speaker 3: it's very exclusive and it's invite only, and Lola lies
Speaker 3: and says that she and Ella already have tickets and
Speaker 3: invitations to the party.
Speaker 1: Now, this scene is a maze amazing. Lola's outfit from
Speaker 1: this scene. She has on like a backwards trucker hat,
Speaker 1: Bary Britney Spears Circle two thousand and three and a
Speaker 1: jersey and it is so Miley Cyrus in the twenty
Speaker 1: three music video coded to Me Very I'm in the
Speaker 1: club high Off Perp with my jays on, and I
Speaker 1: loved it so much. I was thoroughly entertained.
Speaker 4: I read that this was so intense that Megan Fox
Speaker 4: had a body double for the DDR scene really because she's, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: which I don't know. I mean, I guess she was
Speaker 4: doing like kicks and stuff. I don't know. I just
Speaker 4: love It's like I had a whole headcanon thing when
Speaker 4: I was rewatching that scene because this movie is written
Speaker 4: by Gail Parent who's like a legendary writer and but
Speaker 4: was in her sixties when she wrote this, so I
Speaker 4: feel like she probably just like asked her like granddaughter
Speaker 4: or grandkid, like, hey, what's something like dynamic that kids do,
Speaker 4: so this scene isn't boring and they're like, DDDR baby.
Speaker 3: I find it very funny. So there are a lot
Speaker 3: of popular girl tropes present in the Carla character. But
Speaker 3: then also she's a theater kid who's a DDR champion,
Speaker 3: which is wow, extremely subversive for a popular.
Speaker 4: I remember being like, it's weird that she's really good
Speaker 4: at DDR, and people are like, this is cool. I
Speaker 4: don't remember that being the general narrative. I remember, like
Speaker 4: my best friend from like first grade to forever, like
Speaker 4: was really good at DDR. But being good at DDR
Speaker 4: first of all did not mean you were cool. And
Speaker 4: second of all, it did not mean you were a
Speaker 4: good dancer. That's the most important part. It just meant
Speaker 4: you could stomp really fast.
Speaker 1: Now, maybe it was cool because Carla Santini was into it,
Speaker 1: and so maybe it was cool. And then New Jersey
Speaker 1: suburb that they were from, because Carla could do it.
Speaker 4: I could see it. I can see it, low raise jeans,
Speaker 4: DDR perfect, terrifying.
Speaker 1: It did look hard. I wouldn't have been able to
Speaker 1: do it either, So I understand her having a body double.
Speaker 1: That tells me Lindsay did not have a body double,
Speaker 1: and she decided to do that on her.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna learn the choreography.
Speaker 1: Good on you, Good on you, Lindsay, couldn't be me,
Speaker 1: but you got it.
Speaker 4: Good for her.
Speaker 3: Okay. So now Lola has to scramble to get tickets
Speaker 3: to the concert, but her mom won't let her go.
Speaker 3: So then Lola goes on a very culturally appropriative hunger
Speaker 3: strike to talk about that, and then her dad, who
Speaker 3: turns out to be alive. He is not dead and
Speaker 3: smeared all over the streets of New York City at all.
Speaker 3: He's alive. He offers to take Lola. So now Lola
Speaker 3: is going to the concert, and Ella agrees to go
Speaker 3: with her, and they're about to buy tickets, but oh no,
Speaker 3: they're sold out and they have no idea how to
Speaker 3: get an invitation to the after party.
Speaker 1: Right, Lola says that she cannot go with her dad,
Speaker 1: and she doesn't explain why, and it's because she's told
Speaker 1: Ella that her dad is dead and strewn across New
Speaker 1: York City and so she's like, no, no, no, he
Speaker 1: can't go, and so she somehow convinces her mom to
Speaker 1: let her and Ella go alone or Ella's parents will
Speaker 1: be in New York City for some reason to.
Speaker 3: Pick them up from the statation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so she's like, okay, whatever, you can go.
Speaker 1: But little does Lola know her mom has actually had
Speaker 1: her dad go into the city and tail that stocks them.
Speaker 4: Yes, I think this mom character is I mean, there's
Speaker 4: not much to her, but I feel like maybe it's
Speaker 4: just like the actor, but I feel like there's more
Speaker 4: to this mom character than I thought, because it felt
Speaker 4: like she's both very like she clearly loves Lola, but
Speaker 4: is also so sick of her shit at all times.
Speaker 4: There's no scene she's in with Lola, or she's not
Speaker 4: completely exhausted when the scene starts, like they don't even
Speaker 4: get into arguments because she just like doesn't have the
Speaker 4: energy for it.
Speaker 1: From like speaking to my own mother about raising me
Speaker 1: as a teenager, I liked to think I was a
Speaker 1: delight Allegedly that's how a lot of mothers feel about
Speaker 1: their teenage children, and I was nowhere near a dramatic
Speaker 1: as Lola. My mom was so over by the time
Speaker 1: I was about fifteen or sixteen. She was like, I
Speaker 1: was so overparenting you, Like it wasn't even a joke.
Speaker 1: I was so exhausting, So sure that checked.
Speaker 4: I liked it. Yeah, especially because she had like twins
Speaker 4: who were young and then the most dramatic teenage shatter
Speaker 4: of all time. It does seem exhausting. I liked the
Speaker 4: performance because I feel like, usually the mother's either goofy
Speaker 4: or like helicopter, but this, this one's just tired.
Speaker 1: It's realistic.
Speaker 4: She just wants to make pottery in New Jersey, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'm an only child, so the two twins, I'm
Speaker 1: sure she was over it.
Speaker 3: Oh, I can't even imagine. Yeah, Okay, so they don't
Speaker 3: have tickets, they don't have an invitation, but Lola is like,
Speaker 3: don't worry, we'll go buy tickets from scalpers and we'll
Speaker 3: figure out the rest from there. So they make arrangements
Speaker 3: with Ella's parents to pick up the girls when they
Speaker 3: get into the city, and then so they're all set
Speaker 3: to go to the concert. Lola tries to pick out
Speaker 3: an outfit. There's a toll kind of montage. She can't
Speaker 3: figure out what to wear from her own clothes, so
Speaker 3: she asks Sam to steal her Eliza costume so that
Speaker 3: she can wear that, because we're like, I guess Sam
Speaker 3: needs something to do. He hasn't been in the movie
Speaker 3: for twenty five minutes, so that doesn't.
Speaker 4: To be why that's there. There's a scene where I
Speaker 4: think this has already happened at this point, but where
Speaker 4: like I had like a meltdown and I rewound and
Speaker 4: I was like, no, rewound ough that maicsy sound so old.
Speaker 4: I went back in the file I was watching because
Speaker 4: at one point you just cut to all three of
Speaker 4: them are hanging out, and you're like, when did he
Speaker 4: become involved with this friend? Grip and I checked, and
Speaker 4: we don't know. We don't off screen he became friends
Speaker 4: with them because she has a crush on him. It's
Speaker 4: implied that Ella knows him. It didn't seem like they
Speaker 4: were friends.
Speaker 1: I'm confused.
Speaker 3: We don't know who they are to each other La Sam. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess they're friends, but we never see them interacting,
Speaker 3: so we don't know they're dynamic.
Speaker 1: No, I guess New Jersey small Town is what I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to take.
Speaker 4: From it, Like, I guess, So it was so confused.
Speaker 4: I like went back and watched the scene where she's like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's Sam, and I guess I like misinterpreted it and
Speaker 4: have my teen movie goggles on where I thought she
Speaker 4: was saying that's Sam, like he's he would never talk
Speaker 4: to us, but apparently she's like, that's Sam my good friend,
Speaker 4: but we'll be with him. It's so hard to know.
Speaker 3: Okay, So Lola is getting her costume stolen for her. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: opening night for the play that I kept forgetting was
Speaker 3: part of the movie. Opening night is in one week,
Speaker 3: so that's coming up, and then the concert is that night.
Speaker 3: So Lola and Ella go to the concert, but oops,
Speaker 3: they've lost the cash to pay for the tickets from scalpers.
Speaker 3: They try and fail to sneak in, and so Lola
Speaker 3: is like, all right, don't worry. Well, we can still
Speaker 3: go to the after party. So they walk sixty seven blocks,
Speaker 3: not sure why they don't take the subway, especially because
Speaker 3: it's pouring rain, but they walk to Soho.
Speaker 4: They lost their money, oh.
Speaker 1: All of it, Like damn, Nola didn't have her own wallet.
Speaker 3: I'm confused, Yeah, don't they have like five bucks for
Speaker 3: who knows? So they get to Soho where the party is,
Speaker 3: and Lola's dad is there like tailing them, keeping an
Speaker 3: eye on them, and she's like, Dad, go away, and
Speaker 3: Ella doesn't realize that this guy who is following them
Speaker 3: is Lola's dad. She just thinks he's like a stalker and.
Speaker 1: She's panicked behind it. Mind you, she's freaking out that
Speaker 1: this grown man with a dog is stalking them in
Speaker 1: the rain, these two girls in these dresses. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: too would be scared.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember maybe having this thought when I first started,
Speaker 4: or the last time I saw it, where it's like
Speaker 4: a feeling of internalized shame when you're watching a movie
Speaker 4: and they're like, we can't give up now, and just
Speaker 4: knowing in my heart I would have given up by now.
Speaker 1: Oh a long time ago.
Speaker 4: I would be back at the hotel. And also they're
Speaker 4: staying at like the Ritz or what I'm like, I.
Speaker 3: Would be back at the hotel something like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's get out of here.
Speaker 1: I could always just go home, not a problem. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love going home.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it so much. It's raining,
Speaker 1: I'm going home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have to walk more than five minutes. I won't, No,
Speaker 3: thank you, I'm going home. Yeah. So they finally reach
Speaker 3: Stu Wolf's loft where the party is, and Stu comes outside.
Speaker 3: He's played by who I forgot to write it down.
Speaker 4: He's played by Adam Garcia, who I don't know any
Speaker 4: I think he's mostly at the other guy.
Speaker 3: Okay, So Stu comes outside. He is drunk and he's
Speaker 3: making a scene, and Lola and Ella rush over. They
Speaker 3: find him passed out in a pile of trash bags.
Speaker 3: They take him to a diner, and then there's this
Speaker 3: thing where he drunkenly throws a doughnut at a cop.
Speaker 3: So they all get taken to a police station, and
Speaker 3: then Lola's dad has to come and bail them out,
Speaker 3: which is when Ella learns that Lola was lying about
Speaker 3: her dad dying in that motorcycle accident. And Ella is
Speaker 3: furious that she made up such a horrible lie, and
Speaker 3: Lola's like, well, I wanted to seem more interesting, and
Speaker 3: also your family was shaming my family, so screw you.
Speaker 3: They get cleared to leave the police station and Stu
Speaker 3: is like, you all shall come to my party. So
Speaker 3: Lola and Ella and one of the cops goes to
Speaker 3: the after party.
Speaker 4: I kind of forget that the cop tags along.
Speaker 3: And don't remember that, Yeah, she's there still in uniform.
Speaker 3: One of the few people of color with a speaking
Speaker 3: role in the entire movie. And so at the party,
Speaker 3: Lola and Ella they chat, they make up their friends again,
Speaker 3: and they see Carla there, who is visibly pissed that
Speaker 3: they managed to get into this exclusive party with Stu
Speaker 3: Wolf hanging out with Stewolf.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, Carla is Dia Ballacle. I forgot how she
Speaker 4: handles the situation the next day, and a classic situation
Speaker 4: where a problem could be resolved by having a digital camera,
Speaker 4: which most teenage girls or many teenage girls did in
Speaker 4: two thousand and three, just photo evidence. But what can
Speaker 4: you do?
Speaker 1: For some reason, I remember a digital camera. They didn't
Speaker 1: have one though, because they didn't have photo evidence.
Speaker 4: They did not know they didn't. I was like, I
Speaker 4: guess that you would have to be in a certain
Speaker 4: like class to be But it's like they're all rich.
Speaker 1: Maybe they left it in the bag with the money.
Speaker 4: It's true, Yeah, they left it. I love that a
Speaker 4: critical thing happens, like where they lose all the money
Speaker 4: mid montage. You don't see it coming, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So then at the party, Lola has like a
Speaker 3: one on one chat with Stu and she realizes that
Speaker 3: he's not the like poet and lyrical genius and deep
Speaker 3: thinker that she thought he was. He's actually just a
Speaker 3: drunk loser. So she and Ella leave. Cut to them
Speaker 3: back at school and Carla is like, Lola, you didn't
Speaker 3: go to that party. You're lying. Also you lied about
Speaker 3: your dad, and also your name isn't even Lola, it's Mary.
Speaker 4: Carla is taking big swings twenty four to seven, and
Speaker 4: she's hidden without well almost without fail. She's about to
Speaker 4: take her biggest and most illogical swing and it almost
Speaker 4: plays out for her, which is wild.
Speaker 3: Right because this scene happens in a classroom, and then
Speaker 3: the following scene happens when they're rehearsing for Eliza Roxx
Speaker 3: and Carla humiliates her in front of the whole cast
Speaker 3: and miss Bagoli and.
Speaker 4: He laughs at her.
Speaker 3: Who on it? Yeah, She's just like what a loser
Speaker 3: this Lola is? COO.
Speaker 4: I did kind of of laugh. I was like, you know,
Speaker 4: miss bag is underpaid, she's allowed to laugh at her
Speaker 4: students every once in a while.
Speaker 3: Miss So now everyone thinks that Lola is a big liar,
Speaker 3: and she gets is, yeah, that is so true.
Speaker 4: Now that that justifies Carla. But she is a big lie.
Speaker 1: She's imaginative.
Speaker 3: But this is the one thing she didn't lie about.
Speaker 3: But you know the cry Wolf, that whole thing.
Speaker 1: Whoa is that? His name is Wolf?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, Wow another conspiracy.
Speaker 4: If that was a coincidence and they I would be
Speaker 4: kicking myself.
Speaker 3: So everyone at school is against Lola. She's very depressed.
Speaker 3: She fakes being sick so that she can get out
Speaker 3: of like doing the play and being friends with anyone.
Speaker 3: But then Ella shows up and she gives her this
Speaker 3: heartfelt speech about how Lola has inspired her and how
Speaker 3: she can't give up, and so Lola gets up and
Speaker 3: goes to the school. The play is about to start
Speaker 3: with Carla playing the role of Eliza, but then Lola
Speaker 3: shows up to reclaim her role, much to Carla's dismay.
Speaker 3: Then the play goes well, and a star is indeed
Speaker 3: born in Lola.
Speaker 4: Absolutely I love their unhinged adaptation. It looks good, it's fun,
Speaker 4: it seems like it is all Lindsay Lohan narration with
Speaker 4: some other kids in the background. I just love it.
Speaker 4: I've never seen Pygmalion or My Fair Lady. I know
Speaker 4: the story, I know the overarch. I just like I
Speaker 4: feel like I've only seen like millennial coded adaptations of it,
Speaker 4: including this montage She's all that, yeah, like stuff like
Speaker 4: that where it's like you see clueless and then you're like, oh, Emma, right.
Speaker 1: We should.
Speaker 3: I bravely read Pygmalion in high school and then I
Speaker 3: have seen the movie My Fair Lady. We should cover
Speaker 3: it sometime on the show.
Speaker 4: We should. I'd be down to do that anyway.
Speaker 3: So the play happens, It goes well, and then there's
Speaker 3: an after party at Carla's house where Stu Wolf shows
Speaker 3: up to return things to Lola because she left her
Speaker 3: iconic coke bottle cap necklace behind and he.
Speaker 4: Is colluding with Lola's father. Uh huh in showing up
Speaker 4: where you're just like her father is such a disaster.
Speaker 1: What is going on here?
Speaker 3: Yeah? He has a famous dog or something or is
Speaker 3: he a children's book author? I could not understand what
Speaker 3: his job was.
Speaker 4: It's confusing that Stu Wolf recognizes the dog from a
Speaker 4: cartoon when it is sort of just like, right, an
Speaker 4: Encyclopedia picture of a dog, right, But I guess he
Speaker 4: makes children's books about his dog.
Speaker 1: Yeah, weird. Anyway you spin it, I'm gonna be nice
Speaker 1: and say the Stue Wolf is twenty five, and that's
Speaker 1: being full certain that the man is forty hanging out
Speaker 1: with high schoolers, colluding with the father, or not very
Speaker 1: very odd bad.
Speaker 3: Bad, I would say bad, unbelievably weird, real bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, didn't look good to me.
Speaker 3: The optics are horrible.
Speaker 1: And if I were the parent of one of those
Speaker 1: extras at the party, feel like, Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: An adult man showed up at the party and y'all
Speaker 1: were just chilt turning a.
Speaker 3: Necklace that eighteen girl left at.
Speaker 1: His house overnight. Oh confused, what's happening? Yeah, please explain
Speaker 1: it slowly. I need you to explain it slowly before
Speaker 1: I get mad. Explained it slowly.
Speaker 4: It's so like because there is a line between I
Speaker 4: don't know. Like I wanted to see a Bright Eyes
Speaker 4: concert when I was fourteen, and I didn't want my
Speaker 4: friends to know that I wasn't allowed to go by
Speaker 4: myself because they were like sixteen or seventeen, And so
Speaker 4: my dad got a ticket and then stood in the
Speaker 4: back incognito mode for the whole concert, and then waited
Speaker 4: while I went to a diner with my friends, and
Speaker 4: then I met up with him and went home. And
Speaker 4: you're like, that's it's one of my my dad's the best.
Speaker 1: That is like very very exceptional. I love that story, right, And.
Speaker 4: Also just like my we were dad had a whole
Speaker 4: Bright Eyes concert. Yeah, like and he was like on
Speaker 4: the back wall with other parents who were almost definitely
Speaker 4: doing the same thing. But it was like that was
Speaker 4: like clutch parenting. But then there's a line where it's
Speaker 4: like if Connor OBErs of Bright Eyes says, hey, fourteen
Speaker 4: year old girl, let's go to a party.
Speaker 3: Your dad should intervene and say no, adult man, you're
Speaker 3: not gonna hang out with a child.
Speaker 4: At a minimum, right, And then you're like, your child
Speaker 4: will hate you for years, But it's what you have
Speaker 4: to do. It's what you have to do. Is Lola's
Speaker 4: dad is so invested in being mister cool dad that
Speaker 4: he is actively endangering her so much in the space
Speaker 4: of like forty eight hours.
Speaker 1: Several times there's a point where they're considering walking down
Speaker 1: the alley or something to go see where Sue is.
Speaker 1: He's like pass out in the trash can in the alley, yeah,
Speaker 1: and Lola and Ella are considering walking down the alley,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, where the hell is Lola's dad. Right now,
Speaker 1: if I'm watching my child consider following a grown man
Speaker 1: down an alley, I don't care if I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: be incognito. You're not walking down the fucking alley right.
Speaker 1: There were so many times I'm like, you're negligent. What
Speaker 1: the hell is going on with you? Are you okay?
Speaker 3: Even the teen girls are concerned. They're like this seems dangerous.
Speaker 3: And then Ella's like, I'm not going and Lola's like, yes,
Speaker 3: we are.
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I'm not, and they.
Speaker 3: Say, oh, we're with an adult, referring to Stu Wolf
Speaker 3: Sue Wolf.
Speaker 1: So what is happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll talk more about this in a bit, but yeah,
Speaker 3: that does definitely all happen. Anyway. So Stu showing up
Speaker 3: at the party and giving this necklace back shows to
Speaker 3: everyone that Lola wasn't lying about meeting Stu, and so
Speaker 3: now it's Carla's turn to be humiliated. But because Lola
Speaker 3: is nice, she's a nice girl, she's not a mean girl.
Speaker 3: She extends an olive branch to Carla, and then the
Speaker 3: movie ends with Lola and Stu slow dancing at the party.
Speaker 3: But then Stu turns into Sam and now Sam and
Speaker 3: Lola are dancing, and she's like in voiceover saying, well,
Speaker 3: now I have a boyfriend, because now I'm a star
Speaker 3: and now I can make time for romance.
Speaker 4: The end, sure, the unbelievably confusing the fact that they
Speaker 4: end on Sam.
Speaker 3: We're like, who is he?
Speaker 4: Yeah right, I.
Speaker 1: Couldn't remember his name? Was like, who am I looking
Speaker 1: at it but don't know who that is.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break and we will come back
Speaker 3: to discuss further.
Speaker 4: And we're back. Can we just start with Sam, Let's
Speaker 4: get this out of the way, like just not a
Speaker 4: necessary person.
Speaker 1: For the movie.
Speaker 4: And I was frustrated. I feel like I will This
Speaker 4: is like so common in movies that are marketed at teenagers,
Speaker 4: especially like teen girls and fems. It's just like unnecessary
Speaker 4: boyfriend character. And it still happens. I don't think with
Speaker 4: the same amount of frequency, but it definitely still happens.
Speaker 4: And again, it's like we've talked about this on the
Speaker 4: show a million times. If a relationship makes sense in
Speaker 4: the story, if it's a part of their coming of age,
Speaker 4: then like whatever, If the actors have chemistry, if we
Speaker 4: know who the character is, whatever, There's movies where that
Speaker 4: makes sense. But this movie is so about girls in
Speaker 4: conflict or like trying to understand each other that it's
Speaker 4: just like I've never seen I don't know, I think
Speaker 4: this might be the most obvious one from this era
Speaker 4: where it's like who is this guy to the point.
Speaker 3: Where it seems like all the scenes were already written,
Speaker 3: and then someone was like, wait, we need a love
Speaker 3: interest to her age and a classmate of hers because
Speaker 3: the only other one we have right now is this
Speaker 3: creepy adult musician man. So then they were just like, Okay,
Speaker 3: there's a guy named Sam. We can stick him in
Speaker 3: this scene. We can stick him in this scene, we
Speaker 3: can stick him in the third scene, and that's that's
Speaker 3: his character.
Speaker 4: He'll still the dress when it's like and when I
Speaker 4: was thinking about it, I was like, ooh, I bet
Speaker 4: in the first draft with this movie, Ella steals the
Speaker 4: dress or like literally anyone makes so much sense? Yeah, totally,
Speaker 4: because I really like the like sort of dual storylines
Speaker 4: between like Lola and Ella's friendship and how they like
Speaker 4: affect each other and also Lola and Carla's rivalry, Like
Speaker 4: those are the sort of driving forces. Like you could
Speaker 4: argue that if I mean, I guess like Lola will
Speaker 4: be a drama queen no matter what. But it's like
Speaker 4: it's when she meets Carla that like this becomes her
Speaker 4: purpose in life is to show up this girl.
Speaker 1: Certainly, it's like Carla's effect on both Lola and Ella
Speaker 1: is very felt and very funny too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ella is so goody two shoes, like buy the book
Speaker 1: until Carla says something that irritates her, And it happens
Speaker 1: a couple of times throughout the film, and every time
Speaker 1: she just turns into Lola, like for avere second, she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we are going to be at that concert. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: it's idiot exactly, you know, debt, and it is so entertaining.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're very broad characters, but it feels like grounded
Speaker 4: enough in reality of like making a friend that just
Speaker 4: brings something out in you that we're not comfortable enough
Speaker 4: to do. Like I definitely had friends like that when
Speaker 4: I was in high school, where I was generally pretty shy,
Speaker 4: but around the right person, I would be loud, I
Speaker 4: would be obnoxious because you just feel like, well this
Speaker 4: person can pull it off, let me give it a shot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're like energy rubs off on you. They empower
Speaker 3: you to like have more confidence that kind of thing,
Speaker 3: which is like an interesting thing to examine, and that
Speaker 3: is the focus of the movie. But it also begs
Speaker 3: the question why is this weird romantic storyline between Lola
Speaker 3: and Sam wedged in because it's like barely there to
Speaker 3: begin with. I don't know. To me, it's more annoying
Speaker 3: versus the romantic storyline between Lola and Stu Wolf is
Speaker 3: like straight up troubling, scary.
Speaker 4: Do we want to go over there? Do we want
Speaker 4: to go friendships? Where do we want to go?
Speaker 3: Let's just get the men out of the way and
Speaker 3: my friend and then we'll go to the girlies my favorite.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the stewold stuff is just like straight up predatory,
Speaker 4: like in a way that I'm like, oh, the movie
Speaker 4: seems semi aware that Sam is pointless because he's just
Speaker 4: thrown in there and random points. I don't think that
Speaker 4: the movie is aware that Stu is an absolute creep
Speaker 4: in the way that he very obviously is if you
Speaker 4: think about it for one second.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the movie frames this is like, yeah, like they
Speaker 3: can't really be together, but let's let Lola have this
Speaker 3: like fantasy moment where she gets to dance with this
Speaker 3: guy and hang out with him. She's like in his
Speaker 3: bedroom wearing his clothes at one point, just like nasty stuff,
Speaker 3: and the movie frames it is like, isn't this such
Speaker 3: a fantasy that she gets to live out, which, like
Speaker 3: a lot of teen girls would probably feel that way
Speaker 3: because they they don't know that it's or you know,
Speaker 3: especially in this era where this kind of shit was
Speaker 3: so normalized, where it's like, yeah, that would be awesome
Speaker 3: if I was like fifteen hanging out with a man
Speaker 3: ten to fifteen years older than me. That was just
Speaker 3: so normalized. But you know today we're like, yikes and
Speaker 3: gross and illegal and predatory.
Speaker 4: Well that's the thing that is like this very misguided
Speaker 4: choice was made in an attempt like calming off of
Speaker 4: like a huge boy band era and craze to give
Speaker 4: some sort of wish fulfillment to like mostly tweens, because it's.
Speaker 3: Like that's who's watching it.
Speaker 4: With movies like this, you subtract three years from the
Speaker 4: intended audience like tweens that would love to meet their
Speaker 4: idols from boy bands, girl bands whoever like their fans are.
Speaker 4: And I think that there's a way to to give
Speaker 4: that wish fulfillment in a really fun way that doesn't
Speaker 4: go like creepy wattpad fan fiction, which is like the
Speaker 4: way that this goes.
Speaker 1: I agreed. There's this actual dcom stuck in the suburbs
Speaker 1: where there's like a pop star who's also older than them,
Speaker 1: and it kind of gives that wish fulfilment without the
Speaker 1: level of creepiness that we get in this film.
Speaker 4: That's true. Oh, we should cover that someday. I really
Speaker 4: love that one.
Speaker 3: I think an easy fix is just to make stew
Speaker 3: also a teenager, like that's not unheard of for there
Speaker 3: to be like guys and boy bands who are like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, sixteen, seventeen, seventeen, yeah, and then maybe
Speaker 3: like age Lola up to just make them age appropriate
Speaker 3: for each other and she can still like meet him
Speaker 3: and see that he's like a mess or he's not
Speaker 3: you know, this poetic genius that she thought, and that's
Speaker 3: off putting to her. But even if that was the
Speaker 3: case where he wasn't like an adult predator and they
Speaker 3: were like age appropriate for each other, the way this
Speaker 3: pans out is really weird because like she talks to
Speaker 3: him at this party and realizes that he's not who
Speaker 3: she thought. She's disappointed that, you know, he's not the
Speaker 3: way he seems, and so she leaves like kind of
Speaker 3: out of disgust. And I don't know if it's that
Speaker 3: like his drunkenness is like the most off putting thing
Speaker 3: to her. I don't really know, but she leaves and
Speaker 3: she doesn't want to hang out with him anymore. But
Speaker 3: then when he comes back to the party and he
Speaker 3: has gotten sober, she's like, wow, now we can dance,
Speaker 3: and it's like, well, what about I don't know, it
Speaker 3: just like I wasn't quite sure what was happening.
Speaker 4: And this is maybe getting really into the weeds. This
Speaker 4: is a little thing because it's like, ultimately Stu is
Speaker 4: a creep no matter which way you spin it, because
Speaker 4: it's like either he's their age and there's a romantic connection,
Speaker 4: or he's not their age and it's clearly of friendship.
Speaker 4: You just have to make a choice for a kids movie.
Speaker 4: But I also I felt like the way that they
Speaker 4: presented his addiction problems were super broad and fanficky feeling,
Speaker 4: where like it was just very like you're a drunk
Speaker 4: and like in making that scene, like with like two
Speaker 4: things are true here with this Stu Wolf character specifically,
Speaker 4: where it's like they both choose to make him this
Speaker 4: like mismatched predatory character, and they also choose to talk
Speaker 4: about what we later learned was a serious addiction problem
Speaker 4: in a very like shamey way that they just could
Speaker 4: have used a second draft on the way that that
Speaker 4: character in general has handled because I think that there's
Speaker 4: a way you can have the pop idol who's a
Speaker 4: mess treated, but it just felt a little undercooked in
Speaker 4: a way that didn't serve the target audience, I guess.
Speaker 3: Also Stu cites the reason that he decided to get sober.
Speaker 3: He's like, I did it because Lola, you told me
Speaker 3: I was a drunk loser and I didn't like that,
Speaker 3: So you're the reason I got sober.
Speaker 4: And it's like it's like I fixed you wish fulfillment
Speaker 4: too that and yeah, it's like, oh.
Speaker 3: I can't lose this wonderful person who I like, so
Speaker 3: I have to get sober for them, which is similar
Speaker 3: to like the way that when they reunite at Carla's party,
Speaker 3: it's very much framed cinematically, is like the romantic interests
Speaker 3: are reuniting, and like the music is swelling and it's
Speaker 3: like he puts the necklace on her.
Speaker 4: But then it's more confusing when it changes to the
Speaker 4: boring yet age appropriate level, Like that comes out of nowhere.
Speaker 4: Men in general, I feel like, don't really have a
Speaker 4: role in this.
Speaker 3: Don't you get them out of there?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: That tells me that the writers did know that that
Speaker 1: was weird and they had to change it to Sam
Speaker 1: at the end because they're like, true, Okay, we're gonna
Speaker 1: she's a drama queen. Maybe she's imagining this right.
Speaker 4: It was so bizarre. Yeah, you're totally right. Like switching
Speaker 4: him to the age appropriate person is sort of like
Speaker 4: admission of like, but she obviously can't end up with
Speaker 4: this guy. Yeah, and you're like, well, what if you
Speaker 4: just wrote, first of all, this movie doesn't really need
Speaker 4: a love interest, But if it's two thousand and three
Speaker 4: and you need one, then just make the pop star
Speaker 4: age appropriate question mark, make him Sam's age. Exactly why
Speaker 4: do we need a Sam? We don't know. I think
Speaker 4: that Sam's going to drag down her acting ambitions and
Speaker 4: she should really think.
Speaker 1: Twice he put her dress under the hood of a car.
Speaker 1: Do you know how angry I would be if you
Speaker 1: put my dress under the greasy hood of a car.
Speaker 1: What are you good for saying?
Speaker 4: He's so smug about it? I'm like, what do you
Speaker 4: think you've done? That's so good?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I don't like Sam No, I.
Speaker 3: Don't like samoo and I hate Stu. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 3: shall we talk about the gals?
Speaker 4: Well, let's talk about Dad. Oh right, I think we
Speaker 4: almost basically just covered that in the recap. But the Dad,
Speaker 4: I don't mind that he's there, but I disagree with
Speaker 4: every single choice he makes. I guess that's all I'll say.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure that sounds cute dog though, good for him,
Speaker 3: lovely dog dog. Okay, So aside from those unnecessary male characters,
Speaker 3: what we have otherwise is, I mean, there were a few,
Speaker 3: like you know, teen girly movie tropes happening. We've got
Speaker 3: a lot of like clothes trying on montages. We do
Speaker 3: have a centering of female relationships, whether those are friendships
Speaker 3: or like adversaries. Yeah, we've got different kind of like, oh,
Speaker 3: there're scenes at a mall, you know, scenes where they're
Speaker 3: putting on makeup, but those are like goofy and like
Speaker 3: never really a makeover scene anyway. We've got some tropes,
Speaker 3: and we've got some subversions of tropes. I thought that
Speaker 3: the friendship between Lola and Ella was more nuanced than
Speaker 3: a lot of friendships I've seen in teen girl movies.
Speaker 3: Where so movies like this usually involve a brief falling out,
Speaker 3: like around the low point around the end of act
Speaker 3: two of the movie of the Friends, like the two friends,
Speaker 3: some truth gets revealed, or some fight happens where they
Speaker 3: have a falling out, and sometimes it feels like very
Speaker 3: contrived and it's based on like, well, girls be petty trope,
Speaker 3: so they obviously have to fight for no reason. But
Speaker 3: this one I thought was like very interesting where Ella
Speaker 3: learns that Lola had lied so many Elle sounds lied
Speaker 3: to Ella about Lola's father dying. She tries to brush
Speaker 3: it off and then says, well, you know, I had
Speaker 3: to seem more interesting. But also I had to defend
Speaker 3: my mom from your snooty parent being judgmental about my
Speaker 3: mom being a single mom, which might be a separate
Speaker 3: conversation about like the kind of attitudes towards single moms
Speaker 3: presented by various characters in this movie.
Speaker 4: But yeah, but I also feel like that awareness was
Speaker 4: like baked into the movie where Lola is like really
Speaker 4: angry that her mom is being judged in that way
Speaker 4: when it seems like the only fair point made is
Speaker 4: the very early two thousands appropriated chopsticks and the hair. Now,
Speaker 4: I think Ella's mom accidentally made a good point there.
Speaker 4: I don't think that that was why she said it, though, right,
Speaker 4: But yeah, I appreciated that. I think it's like a
Speaker 4: general good thing that instead of what might be more
Speaker 4: realistic is like hearing that from another parent and internalizing
Speaker 4: it and feeling shame and confusion about it about your
Speaker 4: own parent. Like Lola is like, no, fuck you, Like
Speaker 4: you're not going to talk about my parent that way.
Speaker 4: And I also like that that presents a more kind
Speaker 4: of nuanced dynamic between Lola and her mom because they're
Speaker 4: always in conflict, but if someone fucks with her mom,
Speaker 4: she's like, not gonna hear it.
Speaker 3: Love it for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then once this lie gets revealed and they
Speaker 3: have this argument about it and they make up and
Speaker 3: Lola earnestly apologizes for lying, and you know, Ella says, promised,
Speaker 3: you'll never lie again. She's like, I promise. But I
Speaker 3: also think that Ella owes Lola an apology for like
Speaker 3: being complicit in her parents' judging us absolutely of Lola
Speaker 3: and her family, which Ella never apologizes for that, but
Speaker 3: they make up and Ella says that, you know, she
Speaker 3: was miserable until Lola came to New Jersey, and before that,
Speaker 3: Ella thought that she just had to do whatever she
Speaker 3: thought she was supposed to do and whatever people wanted
Speaker 3: her to do, and to never question anything. But because
Speaker 3: of Lola, like she felt brave enough to try to
Speaker 3: be different. And also I was like, does Ella have
Speaker 3: a crush on Lola? I was kind of getting vibes anyway, I.
Speaker 4: Would believe it. I feel like Alison Pill, while not
Speaker 4: a queer one herself that I'm aware of, played many
Speaker 4: queer coded characters during this time, so maybe it's also
Speaker 4: just like what we associate with this character. I love
Speaker 4: Alison Pal She's so fun, true, and I like that.
Speaker 4: I mean, in two thousand and three, it's going to
Speaker 4: be kept ambiguous whether you like it or not. And
Speaker 4: especially because what they initially bond over is like this
Speaker 4: band that they're both really into, and it's just like
Speaker 4: this intense friendship between girls, and we don't really know
Speaker 4: how they feel beyond that. But it's like an intense
Speaker 4: teenage friendship and I love seeing those. And yeah, I
Speaker 4: felt like where apologies are so fumbled in these kinds
Speaker 4: of movies, it felt like it was done in like
Speaker 4: a more sincere way than I was expecting. I liked it.
Speaker 3: I also appreciated that they become fast friends based on
Speaker 3: their love of said Arthur. And then there's a scene
Speaker 3: that reminded me of like when Malfoy goes up to
Speaker 3: Harry Potter when they first get to Hogwart. Sorry to
Speaker 3: be making a Harry Potter reference right now, but Malfoy's like, hey, there,
Speaker 3: you don't want to fall in with the wrong crowd,
Speaker 3: you know, you want to make friends with the right people.
Speaker 3: I can help you there. And then Harry's like, I
Speaker 3: can tell the wrong crowd from myself, thinks, And then
Speaker 3: he becomes friends with Ron and Hermione instead Carla. Like,
Speaker 3: Malfoy's over to Lola and she's like, you don't want
Speaker 3: to hang out with Ella. She dresses like a politician's wife,
Speaker 3: She's a dweb. You have so much potential. I can
Speaker 3: help you be cool, which is also extremely like the
Speaker 3: plot of Mean Girls.
Speaker 4: Mean Girls. Yeah, but what if Lindsay Lohan made the
Speaker 4: opposite decision exactly.
Speaker 1: I think Megan Fox would be great and mean Girls.
Speaker 1: I don't know if she had the acting chops at
Speaker 1: the time, but if they were developed a little bit,
Speaker 1: I think she would have been a great addition to
Speaker 1: Mean Girls personally.
Speaker 3: True. But yeah, so Lola is like, I'm gonna hang
Speaker 3: out with my friend who likes the same music and
Speaker 3: who is nice, and you're visibly mean and awful. So no, thanks,
Speaker 3: I don't really care about being popular, like I'll make
Speaker 3: my own way. And I thought that was just a
Speaker 3: very nice way for the story to play out.
Speaker 4: I liked it. I thought it was lovely, and I mean,
Speaker 4: I guess, yeah, the other main conflict between women, although
Speaker 4: we have Miss Bogoli, who is you know, a very
Speaker 4: like broad character. But I guess this is like grading
Speaker 4: on a curved scale. But she wasn't treated as badly
Speaker 4: as I would expect her to be treated. True, Yeah,
Speaker 4: so I kind of don't have an issue with it.
Speaker 4: Like she was obviously very goofy, but also like she's
Speaker 4: good at her job. She wasn't like completely I don't know.
Speaker 4: I feel like sometimes adult characters in kids movies and
Speaker 4: this makes sense, but they're just treated as like on
Speaker 4: another planet, like so goofy, and.
Speaker 3: She's like goofy but also not grounded like I would say,
Speaker 3: like goofy, but ground's perfect. She was perfect.
Speaker 4: It was Carol Kane with the tightest perm anyone's ever seen,
Speaker 4: Like just really good.
Speaker 1: So I laughed out loud repeatedly at her.
Speaker 4: So when she does the like that, I laughed so hard.
Speaker 4: It feels like good teacher representation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: I think that she needs to learn to grow a
Speaker 3: bit of a spine though, because she lets Carla steamroll
Speaker 3: her in the adaptation of Pigmillion that they're doing, and
Speaker 3: then she like was again laughing along with Carla against
Speaker 3: Lola towards the end.
Speaker 4: I just can't be mad at her.
Speaker 1: I care.
Speaker 4: Wait, I just feel like should be allowed to drink
Speaker 4: at school one day a week, and they should be
Speaker 4: allowed to laugh at their students sometimes unless they are
Speaker 4: given a raise.
Speaker 1: Wait, there's that one part in the auditorium where Lola
Speaker 1: asked Miss Bogoli if the adaptation was her idea because
Speaker 1: Carla had been touting it as her own idea, and
Speaker 1: Miss Bogolis like, of course, it's my idea. Why would
Speaker 1: you ask me if it's my idea or not? And like,
Speaker 1: it's unclear who was lying there to me?
Speaker 3: And I think it was Carla, right, because it could
Speaker 3: have been miss Bogoli who was like, I rewrote this
Speaker 3: whole thing.
Speaker 1: I think it was miss Bogoli's idea.
Speaker 3: I interpreted it as Carla bullying off screen, Miss Bogoli,
Speaker 3: I see how you can get to do that, But
Speaker 3: it's open it could have been the other way around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because her and Lindsay Lohan's character exchanged. This look
Speaker 1: as if like Carla's uncomfortable that she has seen right now.
Speaker 4: That Carla is certainly not lie herself. It is so wild.
Speaker 4: I feel like, in some ways it does makes sense
Speaker 4: to me that Carla and Lola don't like each other
Speaker 4: because they are very similar in positive and also deeply
Speaker 4: negative ways where you're like, I, yeah, they're basically the
Speaker 4: same character, but we are just told to like one
Speaker 4: of them right, where they both are like rich white
Speaker 4: girls who are into theater and DDR and telling lies
Speaker 4: like they are doing the same thing and they like
Speaker 4: the same band and.
Speaker 1: Have a lot of unearned arrogance.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, so it's like they're basically the same character.
Speaker 4: But this kind of this is not a fully big thought.
Speaker 4: I feel like it's been expanded on more thoughtfully in
Speaker 4: other places. But just how like Megan Fox is positioned,
Speaker 4: especially in her early movies. We talked about this a
Speaker 4: million years ago in our Transformers episode, but she's more
Speaker 4: positioned as the girl next door. I think in her
Speaker 4: early roles, which include this. Before this, I think she
Speaker 4: was in a she was the bully in a Mary
Speaker 4: Kayden Ashley movie. And like, I think that the way
Speaker 4: that Megan Fox was treated repeatedly and her early career
Speaker 4: especially is like too pretty or too conventionally pretty to
Speaker 4: be sympathetic too, and like you have to hate her
Speaker 4: because she is too pretty to be quote unquote relatable,
Speaker 4: and in a way that is like ends up becoming
Speaker 4: cruel to Megan Fox in a way that I think that,
Speaker 4: especially in the two thousands, felt like women frequently joined
Speaker 4: in on and so it's just like a dog pile
Speaker 4: from all sides. And this role, Like, I don't think
Speaker 4: that this role like stands out in her treatment of
Speaker 4: that way, but it feels kind of consistent in the
Speaker 4: way she was treated.
Speaker 1: Definitely Also, I think there's always, or often not always,
Speaker 1: the main protagonist generally has light hair, and the mean
Speaker 1: girl generally is brunette with dark features.
Speaker 4: Going.
Speaker 3: That's like the early animated Disney movie formula too. It's
Speaker 3: true blonde princesses and dark everyone's white. But yeah, of
Speaker 3: course the villains have black hair, right, absolutely.
Speaker 1: And I wonder if this is like if this was
Speaker 1: originally a d com Disney Channel original movie with a
Speaker 1: big budget and Lindsay Lohan, who was really popping at
Speaker 1: the time, and so they gave it a theastrical release
Speaker 1: and called it a real movie.
Speaker 4: I read that this role in a way that I'm like, wow,
Speaker 4: there were three teenage girls at this time, allegedly, and
Speaker 4: they were Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes, and Hillary Duff. This
Speaker 4: part was originally written for Hillary Duff, yes, and then
Speaker 4: given to Lindsay Lohan. I think a smarter move. I
Speaker 4: don't know that Hillary Duff can play dramatic drama arrogance. Ye, Like,
Speaker 4: she's very pure in her screen presence at least everywhere,
Speaker 4: and still now I like follow her on Oh my.
Speaker 1: God, raise every voice I don't remember, but yes, that's.
Speaker 4: Wait, someone in this movie is in Raise Your Voice.
Speaker 4: I think it might be Sam. Sure, I think Sam
Speaker 4: may also be the boy from Raise Your Voice. Anyways,
Speaker 4: it doesn't matter. That movie is dog.
Speaker 1: Shit, real bad. It's so bad. I saw that one
Speaker 1: at theaters and I remember leaving like what. I was
Speaker 1: a kid, and I was like, this was really bad.
Speaker 4: It was also like there's a I just remember that
Speaker 4: it's really sad in addition to being really bad, and
Speaker 4: you're like, what are.
Speaker 3: We doing here?
Speaker 4: Anyways, I'm glad the part went to Lindsay low Hid.
Speaker 4: But yes, it's so broadly written that you're like the
Speaker 4: bully character. We don't get an insight into her really
Speaker 4: at all, to the point where, like you were saying,
Speaker 4: this is a quite like it's hard to know when
Speaker 4: she's telling the truth or not. When we always know
Speaker 4: whether Lola is telling the truth or not.
Speaker 3: So with the Carla character. I mean, this movie gives
Speaker 3: us a very familiar storyline of teen girls being mean
Speaker 3: and or competitive with each other. We've seen it a
Speaker 3: million times in movies, and this extends not just to
Speaker 3: teen girls but like adult women as well. It's a
Speaker 3: very familiar narrative device. We've seen it a million times.
Speaker 3: We've talked about it on the show a million times,
Speaker 3: and as we've discussed, this trope doesn't come from nowhere,
Speaker 3: Like teen girls and women can be cruel to each
Speaker 3: other in real life, it's just a matter of like,
Speaker 3: does the story recognize and contextualize why this happens, which
Speaker 3: is that girls and women in our patriarchal society are
Speaker 3: conditioned to think that they have to compete against each
Speaker 3: other for the limited spots that girls and women are
Speaker 3: allowed to occupy. This movie does not dive too deeply
Speaker 3: into this, but I do think it does a decent
Speaker 3: job examining that. Like carlas you know, the Megan Fox
Speaker 3: character clearly feels deeply threatened by Lola and her talent
Speaker 3: and her looks and her status. And when Lola doesn't
Speaker 3: want to be friends with Carla, she turns on Lola
Speaker 3: because Carla is a very insecure person.
Speaker 4: YEA.
Speaker 3: Insecurity is a very common experience for teens in general,
Speaker 3: but especially teen girls who are taught that their value
Speaker 3: comes from very specific things, especially how physically attractive they are,
Speaker 3: how much like social status they have.
Speaker 4: Things like that.
Speaker 3: Lola is also insecure, which is I think why she
Speaker 3: lies and embellishes a lot. Yeah, she's more concerned about
Speaker 3: like seeming interesting. But they're both you know, like experiencing
Speaker 3: similar emotions and situations. They just handle it differently. But again,
Speaker 3: the movie isn't providing a lot of like heavy analysis
Speaker 3: on these things, but it's presenting to them in a
Speaker 3: way that feels authentic more or less to me at least,
Speaker 3: which you know, not all movies do that. A lot
Speaker 3: of them are just like, well, I'm a male screenwriter,
Speaker 3: and I've seen teen girls be really mean to each
Speaker 3: other and I don't know why, but I've seen there's a.
Speaker 4: Guest, here's me just throwing shits along. Yeah, it does
Speaker 4: feel like as goofy as it can be. It does
Speaker 4: feel kind of like clear to me that women wrote
Speaker 4: this movie or had a high creative hand in it,
Speaker 4: because even at the end, I mean, it's like, again,
Speaker 4: very movie, but the fact that like Lola makes a
Speaker 4: gesture to Carla like pulls her out of the water fountain,
Speaker 4: It's like, Okay, so this movie's like internal code is
Speaker 4: not that women hate each other forever, because I feel
Speaker 4: like if it was like a very general dude coded movie,
Speaker 4: you know, Carlo would be tossed off a cliff whatever.
Speaker 4: But this one is like, there's a road to reconciliation
Speaker 4: for these characters and great for them whatever. I wanted
Speaker 4: to quickly shut out the fact that this movie is
Speaker 4: written and directed by women, both white women. We have
Speaker 4: a director, Sarah Sugarman, who this is the only movie
Speaker 4: of hers that I recognized, but she's got a whole career.
Speaker 4: She was an actor and also a director. And then
Speaker 4: Gail parent who is iconic to me. I really love her.
Speaker 4: She started as a writer on the Carol Burnett Show
Speaker 4: way back in the day, and then she co created
Speaker 4: one of my favorite shows ever, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,
Speaker 4: which I would recommend to anyone listening. It's like it
Speaker 4: was a Norman Lear I think helmed show that came
Speaker 4: out in the seventies that was a parody of soap operas,
Speaker 4: basically a feminist soap opera parody about seventies housewives and
Speaker 4: how they were treated and this sort of general quote
Speaker 4: unquote housewife character who starts cheating on her loser husband,
Speaker 4: amongst other things. It's the best. I love it. She's
Speaker 4: a legend to me. And then when I found out
Speaker 4: that the writer of this movie was into her sixties.
Speaker 4: I'm like, yeah, I believe it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe that's why Miss Bli was so good.
Speaker 3: Right. This movie is also adapted from a book of
Speaker 3: I Think the Same Name, written by American novelist Diane Sheldon.
Speaker 3: So yeah, the creative voices behind this story are for
Speaker 3: the girls before girls by Girls, but it's also for
Speaker 3: everyone who.
Speaker 4: Wants to enjoy. So gil Parent also wrote on Golden Girls,
Speaker 4: and she also wrote Cadet Kelly's Let's just continue to
Speaker 4: give her her flowers.
Speaker 1: We love her, My time for the lady, right, she's
Speaker 1: the coolest. I also feel this is kind of separate.
Speaker 1: Disney wanted to give Lindsay Lohan a music career real
Speaker 1: bad because she has this song at the end of
Speaker 1: Confession between John Queen. She also has a couple songs.
Speaker 4: In Freaky Friday I'm Sick Oh yeah, and then the.
Speaker 1: Same year it might be the next year Rumors is
Speaker 1: her first single.
Speaker 4: Well, honestly, I'm like noe. With all due respect to
Speaker 4: Hilary Duff. If Hillary Duff had a music career, why
Speaker 4: didn't Lindsay lovehand?
Speaker 3: Good question?
Speaker 4: And I kind of wonder if the way that she
Speaker 4: was treated in the media, interfered with it because it's
Speaker 4: like most Disney slash Nickelodeon music careers. It's mostly like
Speaker 4: an extension of marketing that we love to this day.
Speaker 4: Like there's a few exceptions to that, but we don't
Speaker 4: need to get into it.
Speaker 3: Can we talk about Carla's two mean girl friends. It'll
Speaker 3: be a quick conversation because we don't really ever hear
Speaker 3: them talk. But obviously Carla is like, you know, the
Speaker 3: Queen Bee, She's the Regina George type. This character in
Speaker 3: movies often has two friends who follow her around. They
Speaker 3: barely speak. I feel like often one of them is
Speaker 3: a white girl and one of them is a girl
Speaker 3: of color. In this movie, the black girl who is
Speaker 3: friends with Carla, I would say, is on screen less
Speaker 3: than the white friend, because like she's not at the
Speaker 3: after party Stu's after party toward the end, whereas the
Speaker 3: white friend is, and I think she doesn't speak at all,
Speaker 3: whereas the white friend has at least one line. I mean,
Speaker 3: neither of them get any narrative significance here. But I
Speaker 3: feel like the white girl is like favored a bit
Speaker 3: more as far as like a few lines of dialogue
Speaker 3: and more screen time, and it just got me thinking
Speaker 3: about how like this type of like sidekick mean girl character,
Speaker 3: like the different versions we've seen, I mean, in this
Speaker 3: movie is obviously like they don't have characters, but speaking
Speaker 3: of she's all that. There's a similar situation with the
Speaker 3: Gabrielle Union character where she's like one of the mean
Speaker 3: girl sidekicks. She's the black one and then the other
Speaker 3: one is like the white girl. But unlike most of
Speaker 3: those archetypal characters, she has a personality, she has dialogue,
Speaker 3: and she even has an arc where she becomes friends
Speaker 3: with the like female protagonist by the end of the movie.
Speaker 3: So I was just like, well, that would have been
Speaker 3: nice to see or would have been nice to see
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, anyone in this movie who wasn't a
Speaker 3: white person given any narrative significance, but yeah, oops, we
Speaker 3: forgot to do that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I feel like that is like so often
Speaker 4: built into or like tacitly justified by a class, which
Speaker 4: also does not make sense if you've ever been to
Speaker 4: a middle class, upper middle class community, Like, they are
Speaker 4: still predominantly white, but they're not entirely white the way
Speaker 4: that these movies present them and Also it's like it's
Speaker 4: a movie. It's fake. There's like Lindsay Lohan's dad fake
Speaker 4: dying in a cartoon accident. You can diversify this boring
Speaker 4: New Jersey suburb as much as you like.
Speaker 3: Also, just quick mention of Lola's hunger strike where she's
Speaker 3: like emulating Gandhi's hunger strike, but like the clothes she's wearing,
Speaker 3: the music that's playing in this scene, it's all very
Speaker 3: like her appropriating like vague Indian culture. Basically.
Speaker 1: So there's this book that's like a classic book, said Artha,
Speaker 1: which is I have a hard time with this band
Speaker 1: because I keep wanting to call the band, said Artha.
Speaker 1: But it's called Sir Arthur. But if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: and I very well could be, I think, said Artha,
Speaker 1: the main character of the book goes on a hunger strike.
Speaker 1: I could have made that up. But I was like,
Speaker 1: I wonder if they know that they're making that. If
Speaker 1: that is the case, I wonder if they if they're
Speaker 1: doing that on purpose. Either way, it's wrong, but I'm
Speaker 1: wondering what they were thinking when it would.
Speaker 4: Be curious, like what the logic justification was so interesting? Okay,
Speaker 4: it's like see where we don't read books and so
Speaker 4: we wouldn't know this. This is really helpful.
Speaker 1: I read it in high school. Who's to say what
Speaker 1: actually happened in that book?
Speaker 4: Brave?
Speaker 3: I mean, the whole thing is clearly like she's dramatic,
Speaker 3: She's a drama queen. She's gonna like go to the extreme,
Speaker 3: which like could mean of what ends up being a
Speaker 3: fake hunger strike because we find out that she's eating
Speaker 3: like Domino's pizza the whole time. But if she's gonna
Speaker 3: make this dramatic choice by going on a hunger strike,
Speaker 3: she doesn't also need to appropriate another culture while she's
Speaker 3: doing it. But I feel like that was one of
Speaker 3: the few examples of like like a very dated, problematic
Speaker 3: choice like that in this movie, because like two thousand
Speaker 3: and four was the peak for a lot of these,
Speaker 3: and you wouldn't see it as much in a Disney
Speaker 3: movie or a movie targeted toward younger people, but like
Speaker 3: this was also the peak of like, let's take homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism,
Speaker 3: et cetera, and just like make that what every joke
Speaker 3: in a movie derives from.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so well. And I also liked that it's
Speaker 4: a subtle theme in this movie, but just the concept
Speaker 4: of names that just like, this is the name I
Speaker 4: go by, and at the beginning of the movie, her
Speaker 4: mom does not respect that. At the end of the movie,
Speaker 4: her mom does respect that. And I appreciate that that
Speaker 4: was like taken and I don't think that I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't know, it doesn't seem like the movie it
Speaker 4: was intending much more than just acceptance from a parent.
Speaker 4: But that's a broad enough theme that it like that
Speaker 4: works for everybody. Where at the beginning, her mom like
Speaker 4: doesn't really take her daughter seriously enough to take that
Speaker 4: at face value. It kind of weirdly reminded me of
Speaker 4: Ladybird in that way where you see a very similar
Speaker 4: sort of like my name is Ladybird, and then at
Speaker 4: the beginning is like I refuse to acknowledge that, And
Speaker 4: at the end there's motion there. And I think that
Speaker 4: that is like a nice thing to see for parents
Speaker 4: and for kids in a movie like that, because I'm
Speaker 4: sure as many parents saw this movie as kids, whether
Speaker 4: voluntarily or not.
Speaker 3: Does anyone have anything else they would like to discuss
Speaker 3: about the movie.
Speaker 4: Why did the backup dancers have blue hair? That's the
Speaker 4: last thing I have to say, Oh, in the play,
Speaker 4: I thought.
Speaker 1: It was something about pigmillion.
Speaker 4: The understand because of like, why do they look like
Speaker 4: the guy from Team Rocket in Pokemon?
Speaker 3: And they all know, well, they're they're modernizing pigmillions and
Speaker 3: modern equals blue hair hair.
Speaker 4: It was wild. I guess, like, I don't need to know,
Speaker 4: but I just would like to know how to The
Speaker 4: thought was, I would like to no judgment.
Speaker 3: No, Well, this movie does pass the Bechdel test a lot,
Speaker 3: a lot, not when Lola is lying about her father dying,
Speaker 3: because she's talking about a man they do also talk
Speaker 3: about like Stu Wolf and Sam some but there's lots
Speaker 3: of conversations about the play and clothes and stuff like
Speaker 3: that between many combinations of characters. So yeah, heftily passing.
Speaker 3: They say, but what about the most important magic in
Speaker 3: the whole world? Oh my gosh, are you talking about
Speaker 3: our famous nipple scale, in which we rate the movie
Speaker 3: on a scale that no regrets on a scale of
Speaker 3: zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through
Speaker 3: an intersectional feminist lens. I will give this oof maybe three,
Speaker 3: maybe two and a half. I think it's doing some
Speaker 3: interesting things as far as relationships between teen girls go.
Speaker 3: I think it's clear that the creative minds behind this
Speaker 3: story were women, drawing from their experiences, possibly at the
Speaker 3: very least have a better idea of what it is
Speaker 3: to be a teen girl than the men who often
Speaker 3: write these stories about like female characters being in competition
Speaker 3: with each other and or being friends with each other,
Speaker 3: because men also don't understand what female friendship looks like
Speaker 3: a lot of the time. So I thought like the
Speaker 3: nuances in those relationships were interesting, including the mother daughter relationship,
Speaker 3: although that's not super focused on, but I enjoyed that relationship.
Speaker 3: The two romantic interests are like, best case scenario annoying
Speaker 3: and unnecessary. Worst case scenario predatory and disgusting. So that
Speaker 3: takes several nippleage points off.
Speaker 4: Yeah, reretitor, skip it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Also, not a diverse cast in anyway, lots of
Speaker 3: straight CIS white people, So I guess it's going to
Speaker 3: be like a split down the middle for me two
Speaker 3: point five nipples. I will give all of them to the.
Speaker 4: Dog, perfect, thank you. Yeah, I'll go the same, right
Speaker 4: down the middle. I think that, hey, you're getting more
Speaker 4: than you average early aughts teen girl movie in this movie,
Speaker 4: but that doesn't mean that you're really seeing that much.
Speaker 4: I appreciate the friendship dynamics that are a little more nuanced.
Speaker 4: I think that you representation of women behind the camera
Speaker 4: is very rare for most of these movies. And again, like,
Speaker 4: this movie is helmed and stars white girls and women,
Speaker 4: and there's clearly no effort or thought into anything but
Speaker 4: upper class white girl experiences, which is this movie does
Speaker 4: not move the needle in this genre at all, because
Speaker 4: I mean, that's so teen movie, that's so dcom Like
Speaker 4: so much teen girl media is entrenched in white girls
Speaker 4: of this class specifically and the sort of problems slash
Speaker 4: non problems that they have. But I do think you
Speaker 4: can feel that this movie was written by people who
Speaker 4: have some understanding of what teen girls grow through and
Speaker 4: their friendships, the intensity of their friendships, the intensity of
Speaker 4: like the things that they care about, whether it's rational
Speaker 4: or not, in a way that didn't feel like even
Speaker 4: when it was intense and dramatic, and like Lindsay Lohan
Speaker 4: wearing a funeral dress to school when the band broke up,
Speaker 4: which we should have given more attentions, I thought that
Speaker 4: so good. That's one of the things I always remember
Speaker 4: it's both really dramatic and goofy, but it's like not
Speaker 4: making fun of her in a way that I feel
Speaker 4: like that's a really hard balance to strike without having
Speaker 4: lived that in some way yourself.
Speaker 3: I thought I was going to be really annoyed by
Speaker 3: like the movie in general, and especially by the drama
Speaker 3: queen character, because like, I don't want to see someone
Speaker 3: being like irrationally dramatic all the time, Like that's very
Speaker 3: annoying to me. But Lindsay Lohan's playing it, so I'm like, oh, like, yes,
Speaker 3: she's being dramatic about a lot of things, but in
Speaker 3: a way that's like very funny, and her like monologues
Speaker 3: about certain things are like extremely well written, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: if did you just improvise that? Because that was poetry.
Speaker 4: Gail parent Like, she's a really good writer. I really love.
Speaker 4: Everyone should watch Mary Hartman. Mary Hartman. It's on whatever
Speaker 4: that thing is that isn't YouTube daily Motion for some reason,
Speaker 4: who knows why, But I highly recommend it. It's really
Speaker 4: really good. So yeah, I'll split it down the middle
Speaker 4: because all of the men are creepy and unnecessary, and
Speaker 4: so I will give one to Gail parent. I will
Speaker 4: give one to Lindsay Lohan and then I guess, oh,
Speaker 4: I guess I'm gonna split the last quarter nipples. Pretty cruel.
Speaker 4: But Alison Pill and Meghan Fox, I mean two icons
Speaker 4: and I'm Carol Caine.
Speaker 3: You see. Ah, I'll give one of mine to Carol
Speaker 3: Kane and I'll get the dog one and a half.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 4: I can't believe you ranked Dog above Carol Kane. History
Speaker 4: will remember that, Caitlin, that's just.
Speaker 3: Me being dramatic.
Speaker 4: So, Kraia, what do you think?
Speaker 1: I agree? I was leaning two point five to three,
Speaker 1: so I'll stay in that two point five range. I
Speaker 1: really like that it makes teen girls. It makes it
Speaker 1: clear that they are worthy of redemption, and just because
Speaker 1: you do something bad once or a few times doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you are bad and that's who you are
Speaker 1: as person. And I feel like a lot of the
Speaker 1: time that's not the message that teen girls get in media.
Speaker 1: So grateful for that. And then, of course the men
Speaker 1: are unnecessary and creepy and weird and gross and disgusting,
Speaker 1: and so that definitely deducts some points from there. I'm
Speaker 1: going to give one full nipple to Megan Fox because
Speaker 1: she as we talked about earlier has been mistreated because
Speaker 1: of the way that she's been type cast. I will
Speaker 1: give one to Lindsay Lohan because she's Lindsay Lohan and
Speaker 1: she deserves and the half nipple can go to Carol Kine. Yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's great, like actually fantastic. Considering moving it up to
Speaker 1: three so she can have an entire nipple herself.
Speaker 3: Whatever you want. Yeah, well, Seqoya, thank you so much
Speaker 3: for joining us. This has been a treat, so much fun.
Speaker 3: Where can people check out your social media? Check out
Speaker 3: your podcast for sure?
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me first of all,
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for indulging one of my
Speaker 1: teen child's moments anytime. It was great. It was a
Speaker 1: great refresh to watch it again. You can find me
Speaker 1: across social media at Sequoia b Holmes. You can find
Speaker 1: my podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts, including YouTube, and
Speaker 1: you can find it on social at BPLP.
Speaker 3: Pod awesome amazing. You can check us out on a
Speaker 3: guest Twitter and Instagram at Bechtel Cast. More importantly, subscribe
Speaker 3: to our Matreon at patreon dot com slashpactel Cast, where
Speaker 3: you get two bonus episodes every month, plus access to
Speaker 3: the back catalog of like one hundred and fifty bonus episodes,
Speaker 3: fun themes, lots of dcom's over there, lots of good
Speaker 3: you wouldn't believe.
Speaker 4: I mean, we also just this is not a decom movie,
Speaker 4: but Decom code and we just did what a girl wants.
Speaker 4: So you can hop on over there for that and more,
Speaker 4: and you can get our merch at teapublic dot com
Speaker 4: slash the Bechtyl Cast. And with that, does anyone want
Speaker 4: to go end up with a really perfunctory, boring end
Speaker 4: of movie boyfriend, because that's how this movie ends.
Speaker 3: No, but I do want to star in Eliza Rocks
Speaker 3: and ooh sing with blue haired people behind me.
Speaker 4: I want to be one of the blue haired people.
Speaker 4: I'm not aiming too high.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the part that you actually wanted all along.
Speaker 3: That's the most interesting role.
Speaker 4: Actually, I'm really getting into the story.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, bye bye,