Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies.
Speaker 3: Have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
Speaker 3: and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy,
Speaker 3: Zeph and bast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 4: Hello, and welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is
Speaker 4: Caitlyn Dronte. And I was like, we can't do it
Speaker 4: silly intro for this because this movie's too sad. No wow,
Speaker 4: So I just went into the normal thing.
Speaker 1: Well, I was gonna say, Kaitlyn, get in front of me,
Speaker 1: Sally Field, punch Kaitlin in the face. You'll feel better.
Speaker 1: This is your one opportunity to punch a host of
Speaker 1: the Bechtel Cast. Will that not cure your incurable grief?
Speaker 5: Give it a try? And then we all start laugh And.
Speaker 4: I would let Sally Field punch me in the face.
Speaker 1: One yeah, yeah, And I think that that's a really nope.
Speaker 1: If your friend's going through it in a way that
Speaker 1: it's impossible to truly offer comfort, I'm going to keep
Speaker 1: that in the back of my mind to be like,
Speaker 1: I know you're going through a difficult time and nothing
Speaker 1: I can say will really help. But if you would
Speaker 1: like to punch me in the face. I would understand.
Speaker 1: Maybe it would help. Welcome to the back. I'll offer
Speaker 1: that sometimes. Please. Yeah, I'm sure it would be cathartic
Speaker 1: if you punch me in the face. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. We'll never know. I don't know.
Speaker 4: We'll find out maybe someday.
Speaker 5: My name is Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 1: I'm the other host of the Bechel Cast, the one
Speaker 1: that just made it sound like I have a kink.
Speaker 5: We're about getting punched in the face.
Speaker 4: Hey, which I don't wrong, but.
Speaker 1: No shame if you do. Uh well, cool opening. This
Speaker 1: is the really pro kink beginning. This is our first
Speaker 1: episode with a new addition to the.
Speaker 5: Bechel Cast family.
Speaker 1: Little kitten Casper is sitting behind me right now, and
Speaker 1: I have to remember not to lean back or I'll
Speaker 1: kill him. He's so small.
Speaker 4: Bechdel Cast more like Bechdel Cast. Asper more like Bechdel Cats.
Speaker 5: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Now we have the Bechdel Cats Fleas in the other room.
Speaker 1: Fleees really having a series of come to Jesus moments
Speaker 1: about the new guy. He kind of keeps staring into
Speaker 1: the distance, contemplating about how he used to be the
Speaker 1: center of my world, and now.
Speaker 5: Things are exactly the same. He just doesn't realize it yet.
Speaker 1: Well, talking about my two boy cats great example of
Speaker 1: something that would not pass the Bechdel test, except spiritually,
Speaker 1: in which it does well.
Speaker 4: I mean cats don't have gender, so I feel like
Speaker 4: talking about cats does pass the Bechdel test.
Speaker 1: I'll take it. I'll take it. Yeah, But we use
Speaker 1: a really amazing opening today. We use the Bechdel test
Speaker 1: as a jumping off point for discussion in a larger
Speaker 1: intersectional feminist analysis of your favorite movies in the world. But, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: what the hell is the Bechdel test tella?
Speaker 4: It is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel,
Speaker 4: sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test. It first appeared as
Speaker 4: a kind of one off bit in her comic Dykes
Speaker 4: to Watch out For in the eighties. Examining how women
Speaker 4: hardly ever talk to each other in movies and there's
Speaker 4: very little representation of queer women was the origins of
Speaker 4: the test. It has since been used more widely and
Speaker 4: there are many versions of it. Our version is, do
Speaker 4: two people of a marginalized gender with names speak to
Speaker 4: each other? About something other than a man, and we
Speaker 4: especially like it when it's a narratively substantial conversation and
Speaker 4: not just like throw away dialogue.
Speaker 1: Which we will find. There's no issues with today's movie,
Speaker 1: at least in that department, although there's plenty of stuff
Speaker 1: to talk about where. Finally doing an episode on Steel
Speaker 1: Magnolius before we bear our guest in, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to shout out because people have asked us like where
Speaker 1: is it seems like a glaring hole, woman centric movie.
Speaker 1: We did record an episode over two years ago on
Speaker 1: this movie.
Speaker 5: With iconic guest Aaron Haynes. Shout out Aaron Haynes.
Speaker 1: The audio corrupted, the podcast God said no podcast Zeus
Speaker 1: sent a lightning bolt, and we said, well fine, we'll
Speaker 1: just have to wait, and when we know, we know.
Speaker 1: And now we know because we have an incredible guest
Speaker 1: and we have a lot of thoughts that we've been sitting.
Speaker 5: On for years at this point, which you're Steel.
Speaker 4: Magnolious, it is very true. And our guest is an actress.
Speaker 4: You've seen her on Netflix's Dear White People. She's the
Speaker 4: host of the podcast Trials to Triumphs on the Oprah
Speaker 4: Winfrey Network. And you remember her on our episode on Misery.
Speaker 4: It's Ashley, Blaine, Feathers and Jenkins.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, Hi, thank you.
Speaker 6: I have like a raspy, deep tone to my voice
Speaker 6: these days. I don't know what's happening, but I've been
Speaker 6: getting a lot of compliments on it.
Speaker 2: Honestly, Okay, I just wow. But it's not my normal voice.
Speaker 6: So people that do know my voice are probably like, oh,
Speaker 6: is that Ashley.
Speaker 2: It's me, everybody, it's me.
Speaker 4: Not an imposter.
Speaker 5: The strike has changed us all the strike changed my voice.
Speaker 2: Actually, yes, that's what's happened.
Speaker 6: I'm so fatigued from the strike that my voice has
Speaker 6: been altered.
Speaker 1: Let's go with that. I feel it. Well, welcome back.
Speaker 1: We're so excited to have you, and we're really excited
Speaker 1: to be covering this movie. I guess I needed two
Speaker 1: years to think more about it because I had a
Speaker 1: very different viewing experience this time. But actually, to start,
Speaker 1: what is your history with this movie?
Speaker 5: What's your connection to it?
Speaker 6: Okay, So I was born in December of nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 6: so this movie came out in nineteen eighty nine. You know,
Speaker 6: so I was really young, but I have a sister
Speaker 6: who's nine years.
Speaker 2: Older than me. My house was really my mom, Me.
Speaker 6: And my mom, my sister, and my dad and I
Speaker 6: come from a small family, but it's mostly women. So
Speaker 6: I grew up watching a lot of women's centered films
Speaker 6: and shows. And you know, Lifetime was always on. We
Speaker 6: were watching Lifetime movies, like I have such fond memories
Speaker 6: of like sitting in between my mom's legs she's braiding
Speaker 6: my hair, or watching something on Lifetime.
Speaker 2: But because I have a sister who's almost.
Speaker 6: A decade older than me, and my mom, they always
Speaker 6: were showing me movies that they had watched.
Speaker 2: Obviously you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: But I was too young to watch and they were
Speaker 6: so excited to show them to me as I grew up.
Speaker 6: So in a lot of ways, I grew up on
Speaker 6: Still Magnolia's, Like I, if I look back, it was
Speaker 6: probably a movie that was playing when I was really
Speaker 6: young and like not able to understand what it was,
Speaker 6: but then it was a.
Speaker 2: Movie I watched many times over my lifetime.
Speaker 6: And when I think of the movie, I think of
Speaker 6: my mom, and I think of my sister and my
Speaker 6: nana and us watching it together and crying every time.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think of.
Speaker 6: Me too as a young kid who wanted to be
Speaker 6: an actor, And it also was a movie although there
Speaker 6: wasn't anybody that looked like me in the movie necessarily,
Speaker 6: it was definitely a movie where I thought, even at
Speaker 6: a young age, this is the type of movie I
Speaker 6: would want to be in though, where it's about love
Speaker 6: and it's about family, and it's about togetherness and it's
Speaker 6: about tragedy and it's about healing and you know, all
Speaker 6: of those things.
Speaker 2: So it was a movie that I was really drawn to,
Speaker 2: and the performances are just so good.
Speaker 6: So when I think about my history with this movie,
Speaker 6: I think about being deeply inspired by just like the
Speaker 6: actors in the movie, like no one missed, everyone was
Speaker 6: knocking it out of the park. And as a young
Speaker 6: woman who always wanted to act, it's a movie that's
Speaker 6: always been on my list as one that's like nobody
Speaker 6: can say anything bad about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, God, this cast is act sacking. Holy shit,
Speaker 1: It's so I was surprised that no one on this
Speaker 1: cast won in Oscar Wild. In my mind, Sally Field
Speaker 1: won an Oscar for this, and then I double checked
Speaker 1: it and she did not.
Speaker 4: Ridiculous, Oh was this not the you like me, you
Speaker 4: really like me?
Speaker 1: No? I think that was like, wait, what was that for? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Because what is that?
Speaker 2: I'm confused?
Speaker 1: She has like an iconic Oscar's speech in which she says, Kate,
Speaker 1: she's just like you like me, you really like me?
Speaker 2: Oh, I got it.
Speaker 1: Oh that was for Norma Ray, which we are another
Speaker 1: popular across we haven't covered.
Speaker 5: I still haven't seen Norma Ray.
Speaker 2: And I'm obsessed with Sally Feels and I need to
Speaker 2: see it.
Speaker 1: She's awesome and she's Oh my god, she kills it
Speaker 1: in this movie. That's Oh, that's so sweet that you
Speaker 1: have such a strong connection to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so cool, Like I truly grew up on it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Jamie, what about you? What's your relationship with it?
Speaker 1: I did not have an extensive relationship with this movie
Speaker 1: until we first watched it a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and I have returned to it. It has become kind
Speaker 1: of like a comfort movie because it's usually streaming somewhere.
Speaker 1: I think I've watched it. I watched it once with
Speaker 1: my mom over the summer because she hadn't seen it,
Speaker 1: and then I watched it again to prepare, and I
Speaker 1: also watched the twenty twelve Queen Latifa version of of Steel.
Speaker 1: Magnolias also liked that one. And there's so much to
Speaker 1: talk about with this movie, but I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I think that it's obviously rare to get, especially a
Speaker 1: story written by a man that is so generous to
Speaker 1: showing such a wide variety of like types of women,
Speaker 1: so many different personalities. Obviously, this movie is far from
Speaker 1: diverse in spite of where it takes place, which is nuts,
Speaker 1: but a wide, you know, variety of ages classes, just
Speaker 1: more than your condition to expect from a movie that
Speaker 1: came out in nineteen eighty nine. And I find this
Speaker 1: movie very comforting. This movie is like soup.
Speaker 4: You know, it's kind of chicken noodle soup.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're like, I know what happens.
Speaker 1: I know Julia Roberts, Well, spoiler alert, she's not gonna
Speaker 1: make it. I've seen this movie three times and she
Speaker 1: never makes it.
Speaker 2: She does not.
Speaker 1: But what I got out of this feeling experience that
Speaker 1: was a little different was I just learned more about
Speaker 1: the context of why this movie exists. And it was
Speaker 1: based on a play by Robert Harling, who also wrote
Speaker 1: the screenplay, and it's about his sister, like his sister
Speaker 1: is the Julia Roberts character, and so we could talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about that and sort of this journey
Speaker 1: in which like a total non writer wrote this really
Speaker 1: famous movie. Yeah, Caitlin Win's Your History was still mcnilia's.
Speaker 4: I had seen it once before in college, just because
Speaker 4: again I was making a point to see notable movies.
Speaker 4: Didn't really matter what genre or what era. I was
Speaker 4: just like, this is a movie that people have talked about.
Speaker 4: It's on lists of notable movies, so I've got to
Speaker 4: see it.
Speaker 5: The Eternal Student.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, such a student of phlim.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I will say it's not exactly my type
Speaker 7: of movie, slice of life, real world dramas.
Speaker 1: You hate women also, I hate women famously, Yeah.
Speaker 4: And their stories, and I just don't want.
Speaker 2: To see it.
Speaker 1: I don't, well Kaylen sees a woman having an arc,
Speaker 1: They're like.
Speaker 4: Enough, I'm like, boo, where are the explosions? And that's
Speaker 4: actually kind of sadly true. But you know, my tastes
Speaker 4: are my tastes, and I cannot even hope it. But
Speaker 4: I appreciate this movie for what it is, and as
Speaker 4: a stoic, I'm always like a movie is probably not
Speaker 4: going to make me cry. And every time I watch
Speaker 4: this movie, I cry so many times. It's just so
Speaker 4: heart wrenching.
Speaker 1: It's like genetically engineered to make you cry, you know,
Speaker 1: like you are made of stone. It felt like it
Speaker 1: was basic made of steel. It's true, you don't cry,
Speaker 1: but everyone maybe Weezer doesn't cry, but almost everybody cries.
Speaker 4: I think Weezer's got tears in her eyes. I mean,
Speaker 4: she's crying.
Speaker 1: She's made of steel, but she's not made of stone. Oh,
Speaker 1: this movie is too much. I just yeah, I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to talk about it.
Speaker 4: Let's take a quick break and then let's come back
Speaker 4: and do the recap, and we're back. Okay, So here's
Speaker 4: the recap. So I'm going to focus on the main storyline,
Speaker 4: which is Julia Roberts' character's story, but each of the
Speaker 4: main characters have little subplots that oh pretty much just
Speaker 4: like gloss over in the recap, figuring that we will
Speaker 4: talk about them in a lot more detail in the discussion.
Speaker 1: Gotcha.
Speaker 4: So we are in a small town in Louisiana. The
Speaker 4: movie begins on the wedding day of Shelby Eatonton that's
Speaker 4: Julia Roberts. She and her mom, Malin played by Sally Field,
Speaker 4: are scrambling around preparing for the wedding. Shelby's dad, Drum,
Speaker 4: played by Tom Scarett, is trying to scare birds out
Speaker 4: of a tree by shooting a gun at them.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 4: Sure. We are also following Annell played by Daryl Hannah,
Speaker 4: who goes to a salon owned by Truvy that's Dolly Parton,
Speaker 4: and Truvie gives Annell a job in the salon as
Speaker 4: a glamour technician. But there's also like discussion about like
Speaker 4: Annelle seems to have a.
Speaker 1: Past, Vannelle and Truvie are the best characters to me?
Speaker 2: To me, Oh, okay, I'm gonna hear about.
Speaker 4: Okay. So then we also meet Shelby's groom to be, Jackson,
Speaker 4: played by Dylan McDermott, who, by the way, we meet
Speaker 4: because he sneaks into Shelby's room and bathroom while she's
Speaker 4: in the middle of a bath without knocking on the
Speaker 4: door or anything.
Speaker 1: It's nineteen eighty nine, so we're like, aw romantic home intrusion.
Speaker 4: By yeah, and not like ooh, invasion of privacy is
Speaker 4: so sweet Okay. We also meet Weezer Uh played by
Speaker 4: Shirley McLain, the grumpy neighbor of the Eatonton family, as
Speaker 4: well as Clarie played by Olympiadcaucus. She is recently widowed,
Speaker 4: and it seems like Weezer and Clarie are like best
Speaker 4: buds but also kind of frenemies but BFFs.
Speaker 1: Also kind of queer codd There's a few moments with
Speaker 1: Weezer and Clary where I'm like, hmm, maybe it's just me,
Speaker 1: but I would like for them to kiss.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 2: I never thought that.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm just my perverted little But there are a
Speaker 1: few bombs where is is like, maybe it was just
Speaker 1: forbidden at the time, but clearly they belong together because
Speaker 1: they treat each other like it's a school yard crush.
Speaker 2: They do looking.
Speaker 1: Back to.
Speaker 4: So I'm for it.
Speaker 2: The layers, there's.
Speaker 4: So many, so many layers. It's like an onion.
Speaker 5: Such as feminist scholar.
Speaker 4: Sure okay. So Shelby and Malin go to get their
Speaker 4: hair done at Truevi's salon, during which Shelby has a
Speaker 4: medical emergency. It turns out that she has diabetes. They
Speaker 4: give her juice and we just get kind of more
Speaker 4: information about her condition, and she recently received news that
Speaker 4: having children isn't possible due to her condition. Shelby had
Speaker 4: been having second thoughts about marrying Jackson because she's afraid
Speaker 4: she would be denying him the chance to have children,
Speaker 4: but she and Jackson go through with the wedding and
Speaker 4: we see the reception at the Eaton House.
Speaker 1: Everyone's armadillo cake with gray frosting grape wine.
Speaker 4: Then we cut to Christmas time where Shelby reveals to
Speaker 4: her mom that she's pregnant. Akas pregnant, and she does
Speaker 4: she has a little Greg and she has a little
Speaker 4: Greg soon. But Melinn is not happy about this pregnancy
Speaker 4: announcement because our Gregnancy announcement, because shell be carrying a
Speaker 4: baby is very dangerous to her health. But Shelby really
Speaker 4: wants to have a child of her own. And the
Speaker 4: other women also learn about the pregnancy and they realize
Speaker 4: it's not necessarily happy news because of this risk associated
Speaker 4: with it. We cut to a year later, after the
Speaker 4: baby the Greg if you will Yes, Jackson Junior has
Speaker 4: been born patit Greg yep. They celebrate his first birthday.
Speaker 4: Then Shelby and maln returned to Truvi's salon. A lot
Speaker 4: of scenes take place there. Shelby gets her haircut very short,
Speaker 4: making her the baldest woman in charge.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know, and for newer listeners to the show,
Speaker 1: the baldest woman in Charge rule real old hold over
Speaker 1: from the show in which in movies, very often the
Speaker 1: woman with the shortest haircut has the most narrative pathwer
Speaker 1: Why is this? We don't know, but it's something we've
Speaker 1: Why is Leonardo DiCaprio fully submerged in water in his
Speaker 1: clothes in so many movies? We don't know. It's just
Speaker 1: something that you see happening and you have to speak up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you have to maybe make a letterboxed list about it.
Speaker 4: I'm going to make a letterbox list. I want to
Speaker 4: make one for the Bechdel Cast, by the way, I
Speaker 4: don't know if people know that we're on letterboxed, but
Speaker 4: we are, so you should follow us and I'll make
Speaker 4: a list of all the movies in which Leonardo DiCaprio
Speaker 4: is fully submerged in water wearing his clothes, because it's
Speaker 4: so many.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen Killers of the Flower Moon yet, but
Speaker 1: I would say it's honestly a safe bet that he
Speaker 1: will be fully submerged in all his clothes, never copless,
Speaker 1: always in the clothes. Yep, let's continue, Yes, Okay.
Speaker 4: So they're at this lawn and as Shelby is getting
Speaker 4: a manicure, Truvy notices some severe bruising on Shelby's arms.
Speaker 4: Turns out it's from dialysis because having a baby put
Speaker 4: a lot of strain on her kidneys, and she is
Speaker 4: in need of a kidney transplant, and her mother, Milin
Speaker 4: is donating one of her kidneys to Shelby.
Speaker 5: Moinn truly mother of the Century. Yeah, yeah, at Molinn.
Speaker 4: And the surgery is the following day, and everyone gathers
Speaker 4: at the hospital. They're nervous, but the surgery goes well
Speaker 4: and everything seems all right at first. Some time passes,
Speaker 4: and one day Shelby is at home taking care of
Speaker 4: Jackson Junior, and she collapses. We cut to the hospital.
Speaker 4: Her body is rejecting the kidney transplant and she is
Speaker 4: in a coma. Milnn stays with Shelby day and night
Speaker 4: trying to get her to wake up from the coma.
Speaker 4: More time passes, she isn't waking up, She doesn't show
Speaker 4: any signs of ever waking up, so they make the
Speaker 4: decision to take her off life support and she dies.
Speaker 4: We see the funeral, We get the iconic monologue from
Speaker 4: Sally Field She's just so mad she wants to hit
Speaker 4: something hard. This is when Clary is like, hit weezer
Speaker 4: puncher in the face. And they all end up laughing
Speaker 4: about it because.
Speaker 1: That scene makes me cry like a fucking baby. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: obviously Shelby dying makes me cry, but the funeral seed, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's so good.
Speaker 5: It's so good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it really is, so this kind of moment of levity.
Speaker 4: They're all laughing about it, and the movie ends with
Speaker 4: everyone accepting that life goes on. And then Annelle, who
Speaker 4: has a pregnancy of her own by the way, she
Speaker 4: goes into labor and everyone to the hospital the and.
Speaker 5: It always kind of cracks me up.
Speaker 1: I think we maybe talked about this the first time
Speaker 1: we discussed this movie. The last shot of this movie
Speaker 1: is so bizarre to me because you see like all
Speaker 1: of the women that we've gotten to know and love,
Speaker 1: and we're like, this is so cool. And then you
Speaker 1: see like Annell's husband and I think one of Shelby's brothers,
Speaker 1: and he's wearing a bunny suit. Oh yeah, and they're
Speaker 1: on a motorcycle.
Speaker 5: And that's the last shot.
Speaker 1: You're like, what I mean, it makes sense that he's coming,
Speaker 1: but I don't know this.
Speaker 6: Classic we have to end this movie about all these
Speaker 6: women with the man that we don't know.
Speaker 5: In a like menacing looking rabbit suit. I was like,
Speaker 5: what is this?
Speaker 2: It's weird?
Speaker 5: What am I looking at?
Speaker 1: Anyways? Weird last shot? But yes, so so so much
Speaker 1: to talk about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's take a quick break and we will come
Speaker 4: back to discuss.
Speaker 5: And we're back.
Speaker 1: Before we get into the nitty gritty here, I do
Speaker 1: want to know who are your faves? I would say,
Speaker 1: because there's so many women in this story who kind
Speaker 1: of come in pairs. Because you've got Mellyn and Shelby,
Speaker 1: You've got Weezer and Clarie, You've got Annell and Truviy.
Speaker 1: Who's your favorite pair of gals? I'm team Truvia in
Speaker 1: a Noell, I really like their relationship.
Speaker 2: Why do you love their relationship?
Speaker 1: I love it because I just like a mentorship story
Speaker 1: that isn't necessarily a mother daughter story. And I really
Speaker 1: like Annelle's story of you know, coming from an impossible circumstance.
Speaker 1: She's like ashamed of her own poverty, She's ashamed of
Speaker 1: having been in an abusive relationship. And then meets Dolly Parton,
Speaker 1: who is like, here's a solution to your problems. Just
Speaker 1: be more like Dolly Parton, and it changes Annelle's life
Speaker 1: and she just becomes baby Dolly Parton.
Speaker 5: And I love that. I love their relationship.
Speaker 1: I sort of wish, like, if I could have my way,
Speaker 1: I would have Annell remain Dolly Parton and not you know,
Speaker 1: be like I want to be a mother and a housewife.
Speaker 1: But I really like Annelle in act too of this
Speaker 1: movie so good where she's she's like, I have a boyfriend.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I like him. My hair
Speaker 1: looks great. I'm happy. I just I love Anel and
Speaker 1: I love how good Truvia is.
Speaker 6: It's a good transformation. She has a good like through
Speaker 6: line in the story.
Speaker 2: I think it's really good.
Speaker 6: I think my favorite I do love a mother daughter.
Speaker 6: It just gets me every time. So, you know, Shelby
Speaker 6: and Milinn and in a lot of ways, they are
Speaker 6: the heart of the movie, and like it's their love,
Speaker 6: their relationship, their commitment.
Speaker 2: To one another, that is like really just beautiful to me.
Speaker 6: And then I think like a close second is honestly
Speaker 6: like Clarie and Weezer, And it's because like this is
Speaker 6: a big cast, but you need characters like that, like
Speaker 6: you need the juxtaposition of characters like that in a cast.
Speaker 6: And I think they're so well done, like it's like
Speaker 6: done to perfection for me, So they are a close second.
Speaker 6: But yeah, Malyna and Shelby are just it's just beautiful
Speaker 6: watching this mother.
Speaker 2: It's weird because it's like you're watching her.
Speaker 6: You're watching a mother allow what she thinks is almost
Speaker 6: like allow her daughter to make decisions for herself, even
Speaker 6: though she's a grown woman. But you also see the
Speaker 6: mother intuition of her, like instinctively knowing like this isn't
Speaker 6: gonna be good, Like you can see that she knows
Speaker 6: like it's not gonna end up well, and you can
Speaker 6: also see I think that Shelby knows it's not gonna
Speaker 6: end up well, but they both are committed to life,
Speaker 6: loving each other and just hoping that maybe there's an
Speaker 6: outcome that isn't worst case scenario it ends up being.
Speaker 2: That, but also just the blessing of.
Speaker 6: You know, Shell be still having her son and like
Speaker 6: it's the lesson of like she wanted more life with
Speaker 6: her son, but she also got to experience it, and
Speaker 6: maybe that was enough for her, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 6: maybe that was okay. And sometimes that happens, and I
Speaker 6: think it's the people that are left behind that are
Speaker 6: grieving the most. But for Shelby, I thought maybe she was, like,
Speaker 6: I'm just grateful that I had the opportunity.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's so well first, can't who's your favorite parent?
Speaker 4: Oh? And I'm not just saying this to be like
Speaker 4: to say a different answer from everyone else, but I'm
Speaker 4: I'm Weezer and Clari all the day that we all
Speaker 4: have a different parent. Yeah, Weezer's my gal. I want
Speaker 4: to be exactly like Weezer when I get older. And yeah,
Speaker 4: I just I love that friendship to I love this
Speaker 4: scene where Clarity is like Anne Berlin had six fingers
Speaker 4: on one hand. I'm telling you this to make you
Speaker 4: more cultured and broaden your horizons and then we users
Speaker 4: just like I don't give a shit about that. I
Speaker 4: hate plays and movies and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So I mean and just so so so well played
Speaker 1: to like, I love Shirley McLean so much. What a
Speaker 1: legend truly. Okay, so let's go back to Molin and
Speaker 1: Shelby for a second, because I agree that they are
Speaker 1: like as close to protagonists as this movie can get,
Speaker 1: because the you know, main beats of the story go
Speaker 1: around Shelby's life and death. Basically, yes, So what I
Speaker 1: didn't know and I think that we didn't talk about
Speaker 1: this very extensively the first time we discussed this movie
Speaker 1: is you know, I think that it viewed out of context.
Speaker 1: There appeared to be some kind of trophy things at
Speaker 1: play here where I always feel like hyper tuned to
Speaker 1: like motherhood is the most important thing that anyone with
Speaker 1: a uterus can do and blow blah, and like, I
Speaker 1: think that that's true. But when I learned more about
Speaker 1: the context of why this movie exists in the first place,
Speaker 1: it's all very based in the author's life and the
Speaker 1: author's sister, Susan. So there is a as close as
Speaker 1: this movie has to an oral history.
Speaker 5: In a magazine called Garden and Gun.
Speaker 4: Question Mark, I saw that and as soon as I
Speaker 4: was like, you, you don't want to read this, and.
Speaker 1: I just unfortunately the article is quite good. I think
Speaker 1: it is like a southern magazine, so it makes sense
Speaker 1: that they would write about Steele Magnolius. It's very saving
Speaker 1: movie either way. I was put together by a writer
Speaker 1: named Julia Reid in twenty seventeen. There's interviews with Shirley
Speaker 1: maclain as well as Margot Martindale, who is the original oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah in the play love Margo. Also wow, didn't know
Speaker 2: that back.
Speaker 4: Here director Margot Martindale. Yep.
Speaker 6: So only heavy hitters can participate in anything that has
Speaker 6: to do with Still.
Speaker 1: Magnolias, right, So it's primarily the writer Robert Harling, Margot Martindale,
Speaker 1: who played Mullin off Broadway, and Shirley McLain are the
Speaker 1: three main sources for this story. But it's a lot
Speaker 1: of Robert Harling talking about how his sister was a
Speaker 1: Type one diabetic who really wanted to have a baby
Speaker 1: and died very young. Like her story lines up pretty
Speaker 1: closely with Shelby's. And he was an actor.
Speaker 5: He was Viga New York.
Speaker 1: He is from the South, he was queer like, he
Speaker 1: had all these separate struggles with his family because he's
Speaker 1: a boomer, you know, then lost his sister really young.
Speaker 1: Who was always so supportive towards him, and so he
Speaker 1: wanted to, even though he wasn't a writer, wanted to
Speaker 1: memorialize her in some way, and so wrote a play
Speaker 1: version of this, which makes Once you know this movie
Speaker 1: was originally a play, it totally makes sense because the
Speaker 1: set pieces are so like the parlor, the wedding, the funeral,
Speaker 1: the hospital. But he originally wrote it off Broadway and
Speaker 1: was afraid to tell his family because he was afraid
Speaker 1: that they would find it disrespectful. And so I have
Speaker 1: a quote from him here speaking to that where he
Speaker 1: first showed his mom the script. It's so sad. He's like,
Speaker 1: you don't have to read it. It's about you and
Speaker 1: Susan and the whole thing. But she's a steel magnolia.
Speaker 1: She was going to read it. I gave her the
Speaker 1: script and I'd walk past and she'd be sobbing, and
Speaker 1: I felt terrible. Afterward, I said, Mom, will just kill it.
Speaker 1: I can't put you through this, and she said it's
Speaker 1: wonderful because it's true. She just closed it and that
Speaker 1: was it. End of topic. And they saw the show.
Speaker 1: They were very supportive of it. The show is very successful.
Speaker 1: And then it was turned into this gigantic movie. And
Speaker 1: the only other things I think that are notable about
Speaker 1: the production, other than it being based on a true story,
Speaker 1: is that the.
Speaker 4: Director of this movie nasty.
Speaker 1: He was mean, and Shirley McLain yelled at him. But yes,
Speaker 1: the director, Herbert Ross, who also, I mean, directed a
Speaker 1: bunch of famous movies, and I guess was a shitty
Speaker 1: person and was cruel to Julia Roberts and Dolly Parton,
Speaker 1: like what kind of person must you be? But Shirley
Speaker 1: McClain got wind of it, and she said, then one day,
Speaker 1: I basically told him to go fuck himself, and everybody
Speaker 1: heard it and things got better after that. So Shirley
Speaker 1: McLain just simply not fucking around. Never has been some.
Speaker 6: One had to say it, apparently, and it would make
Speaker 6: sense that it was hard it literally, if someone was
Speaker 6: like guess who in the cast said that, I would
Speaker 6: be like, gave me the million dollars easily.
Speaker 5: So those are the sort of main production beats.
Speaker 1: But I think that it was sort of helped me
Speaker 1: work through my feelings on Shelby's character, at her relationship
Speaker 1: with Mullyann, knowing how close it was to the author.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, I'll add to that just a little bit
Speaker 4: by sharing some kind of like quotes and paraphrasing of
Speaker 4: what Robert Harlan has said. I'm pulling from a daily
Speaker 4: Mail dot co dot UK.
Speaker 1: You're like, I won't read the Garden and Gun piece,
Speaker 1: but let me take faith Brustworthy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, our sources today are really good. But they did
Speaker 4: an interview with him. Robert Harling was talking about his
Speaker 4: choice to write this. He obviously did it to honor
Speaker 4: his sister's memory and kind of keep her metaphorically alive,
Speaker 4: so to speak. He wrote the first draft in like
Speaker 4: ten days or something like that. It came out very quickly,
Speaker 4: and he speaks about trying to kind of capture the
Speaker 4: language of how the women around him spoke. And he says,
Speaker 4: I don't care what people say. I wrote down what
Speaker 4: I heard. The women in my town talked in bumper stickers.
Speaker 4: They were funny, funny people. And I'm like watching this
Speaker 4: and I'm like, is this how people talk? Is this like? What? Like?
Speaker 4: They're so quippi and I love the quippy dialogue. And
Speaker 4: he was saying, like, no, this is authentically how the
Speaker 4: people in my town spoke.
Speaker 1: And I also loved He had a quote in that
Speaker 1: oral history piece about how he was really nervous he
Speaker 1: would never admit who he based Weezer on because he
Speaker 1: was afraid that she'd be offended. Oh yeah, but that
Speaker 1: his mom saw the play, it was like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: obvious who that is. And he was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not as sneaky as I thought.
Speaker 4: Cats out of the bag.
Speaker 6: I just love that, like Weezer is described as a
Speaker 6: town ground and like it's just so funny because like
Speaker 6: every town has one, everybody knows one, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean? And I think that there needed
Speaker 2: to be one in this movie and.
Speaker 5: Play yeah, and they're always beloved character.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also I wish that this movie had the courage
Speaker 1: to let Weezer and Clary be queer. I will die
Speaker 1: on this hill. I think that that is the ultimate
Speaker 1: what should happen. But I also do think it's powerful
Speaker 1: that they gave her a boyfriend that she hated who
Speaker 1: was shorter than her. I was like, wow, representation matters.
Speaker 1: As a six foot TALLOVID who has dated many shorter
Speaker 1: men that she did not like, I felt seen in
Speaker 1: that moment. But Okaya, back to Molina Shelby. Yeah, their relationship.
Speaker 1: I think I didn't respond to it as well the
Speaker 1: first time I saw this movie.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's more just like because their relationship is
Speaker 1: so entrenched in the idea of maternal sacrifice, right like
Speaker 1: on both ends, where Molynn is not just willing to
Speaker 1: physically do anything she can to support her daughter, but
Speaker 1: emotionally we see her really struggle with accepting her daughter's
Speaker 1: decisions because she knows that it's going to hurt her.
Speaker 1: But the more I watch this movie, the more I
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And maybe it's just like getting a little
Speaker 1: older myself, where you know, I don't think it is
Speaker 1: fair that this is an expectation of women or of
Speaker 1: mothers in general, where we see we see fathers throughout
Speaker 1: this movie, but they're mostly like hindrances, incidental. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: like blowing up trees, They're like leaking your pregnancy in public,
Speaker 1: Like they're not being super helpful, which is you know,
Speaker 1: authentic to a lot of parents. Is like the mom
Speaker 1: is carrying the physical and emotional burden of her children's lives.
Speaker 1: And I think when I take it into context of
Speaker 1: we have so many other characters who are women in
Speaker 1: this movie that are not in their story is not
Speaker 1: entrenched in motherhood. I mean, we got Weezer, We've got Truviy,
Speaker 1: We've got you know, there's plenty of other people to
Speaker 1: look to for different kinds of stories, and Mulnn especially.
Speaker 1: I love Shelby, but I just I feel for Malyn
Speaker 1: so much. She's put in this horrible position to have
Speaker 1: to kind of like grin and bear it through knowing
Speaker 1: what is going to happen, and it's I think it's
Speaker 1: just like so well performed, and like what else can
Speaker 1: you do not have a relationship with your daughter when
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna lose her. It's just so sad.
Speaker 1: And then she has to raise Shelby's damn kid for her.
Speaker 1: I was like, Mulin, give this woman a break. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I don't know.
Speaker 6: I think I really I think part of it is
Speaker 6: getting older that.
Speaker 2: Allows me to connect with it even more. I mean,
Speaker 2: I always, I always.
Speaker 6: Have loved a mother daughter's story, but I think, especially
Speaker 6: as I get older, I'm like, ooh, this is really
Speaker 6: it's just real.
Speaker 2: Like my mom.
Speaker 6: Said to me once, it's just me and my sister.
Speaker 6: But she said to me once and it made so
Speaker 6: much sense. She was like, you're only as happy as
Speaker 6: a mother. She was like, you're only as happy as
Speaker 6: your least happy child, And that applies to happiness, that
Speaker 6: applies to health, that applies to.
Speaker 2: Anything, like right, some mothers really.
Speaker 6: Struggle with like being able to kind of like be detached,
Speaker 6: for a lack of a better term, from their children,
Speaker 6: like not taking everything that's going on with their children
Speaker 6: on for themselves. And I think that's what we saw
Speaker 6: with Malynne. But like I said, it makes me think
Speaker 6: about what my mom said, Like Moline is struggling because
Speaker 6: her daughter's struggling. And I think there's even a point
Speaker 6: in the movie where she almost there's this this feeling
Speaker 6: of where she's like, don't you see, like there's no
Speaker 6: other way for me to be, Like I can't enjoy
Speaker 6: my life if my daughter is dying.
Speaker 2: It's impossible for me to do, Like I don't know
Speaker 2: what you all expect from me, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like I wish I felt differently too.
Speaker 6: I'm paraphrasing all this obviously, but like that was the
Speaker 6: energy of like I can't enjoy my life when my
Speaker 6: daughter's losing hers I can't. And I just think it's real,
Speaker 6: Like it's very very, very very real.
Speaker 2: And you know, in the end.
Speaker 6: Like you were saying, you know she you know, Shelby dies,
Speaker 6: she has to raise Jackson Junior. And I think that
Speaker 6: Malynn looks at it as like, thank you God, like
Speaker 6: I still have a piece of my daughter with me.
Speaker 2: This is not how I wanted it to go, but
Speaker 2: like I get.
Speaker 6: This, Like I think she almost saw it as like
Speaker 6: a gift, like, oh my God, like she truly is
Speaker 6: always with me and I get to have a piece
Speaker 6: of her with me for the rest of my life.
Speaker 6: And I just think that's really beautiful and like the
Speaker 6: thought that, like life does go on, no parent wants
Speaker 6: to lose their child. But with her knowing that she
Speaker 6: has to keep living for her daughter's child, it just
Speaker 6: shows that like she still has a purpose in her life.
Speaker 6: She still is able to keep going on loving and
Speaker 6: giving that love she gave Shelby giving it to Jackson Junior.
Speaker 2: And she's going to be okay.
Speaker 6: There's a spirit of like she's going to be okay,
Speaker 6: especially because she has all of these women around her
Speaker 6: who love and support her and are going to make
Speaker 6: sure she's lifted through it. And so I also love,
Speaker 6: you know, the messaging of like sisterhood and community. If
Speaker 6: you were to throw all these people together, they don't
Speaker 6: really fit right, Like you would be like, why does.
Speaker 2: This person know that person? Why is this person hanging
Speaker 2: out with?
Speaker 1: Like, but when you.
Speaker 6: See what they all experience together and how they held
Speaker 6: each other through it, then you're like, oh wow, Like
Speaker 6: the only way that Melinne could have gotten through this
Speaker 6: was with community. The only way and now takes the
Speaker 6: shield was through community. And it truly is this all
Speaker 6: Louisiana town, But it's a community and it's a village
Speaker 6: and it's powerful.
Speaker 2: And that's a big takeaway for me in the film too.
Speaker 1: I think that's so beautifully put Ashley, Like how the
Speaker 1: community of women, even though we know that there are
Speaker 1: men in this community and that they're important to the community,
Speaker 1: but this story is so clearly focused on like Maln
Speaker 1: couldn't have made it through this experience without the women
Speaker 1: in her life, because I feel like often in stories
Speaker 1: about mothers and daughters, like one of the two gets
Speaker 1: lost in the shuffle. Kind of Yeah, I like that
Speaker 1: this movie, and I'm sure it's partially because the author
Speaker 1: was writing and thinking about his own mother. We get
Speaker 1: moments to like really see Milinn process and like struggle
Speaker 1: with it. There's that scene at the party where her
Speaker 1: dufus husband is like, Shelby's pregnant without seeming to it
Speaker 1: seems like he cannot engage with the stakes of that
Speaker 1: situation and he's sort of bull dozing through it because
Speaker 1: he's like, we have to be happy, so we're going
Speaker 1: to be happy. We don't really know what his journey is.
Speaker 1: I don't really care what his journey is. But we
Speaker 1: see Melynn like she feels like shit in the other room,
Speaker 1: and all of the other women, you know, they're like,
Speaker 1: why are you acting this way? And she's like, because
Speaker 1: I'm going to lose my daughter, like I think, and
Speaker 1: I like that. They Yeah. You get those moments to
Speaker 1: see her really struggling with it, and through having those
Speaker 1: conversations with the other women, get the compassion that she
Speaker 1: needs to move forward, and also the reminder that, like
Speaker 1: as horrible as the situation is, Shelby needs you. And
Speaker 1: Shelby gets those moments too where you know she is
Speaker 1: making a very informed decision, she knows what she's doing.
Speaker 1: She knows what the stakes are and it's what she wants.
Speaker 1: And I feel like it's very built into her character,
Speaker 1: is that, like, it's what she wants. She wants to
Speaker 1: have a biological child, and I appreciate that the alternatives
Speaker 1: are brought up repeatedly and she's like, no, I don't
Speaker 1: want that, because I think sometimes it's like there's yeah,
Speaker 1: like a biological child.
Speaker 5: It's the only way.
Speaker 1: But everyone's like, Shelby, you could adopt a baby, and
Speaker 1: she's like, no, it's not what I want. This is
Speaker 1: what I want to do. And you know, I think
Speaker 1: that that is as much as you want to be, like, Shelby,
Speaker 1: come on, you'd be a great mother to an adopted baby, Shelby,
Speaker 1: come on. I do appreciate, though, that her character is
Speaker 1: very clear on what she wants, is not being naive
Speaker 1: about what the stakes of that are, and is doing
Speaker 1: what is right for her, and that you see that
Speaker 1: tension between Jackson and Malynn that kind of results in
Speaker 1: that because I think Malynn is wanting Jackson to push
Speaker 1: back on it more and Jackson sort of like, I
Speaker 1: have to accept what she wants.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I also appreciate that I feel like Generally speaking, a
Speaker 4: lot of people's kind of immediate reaction to learning that
Speaker 4: someone is pregnant is like, oh my god, that's amazing, congratulations,
Speaker 4: best news ever, And rarely do you see people being
Speaker 4: pragmatic about that type of news, and like, is this
Speaker 4: the best choice financially? Is this the best choice for
Speaker 4: your health? And I appreciate that Malinn is like being
Speaker 4: very pragmatic about this, like do you know the risks
Speaker 4: because the first time you hear that, oh, it's not
Speaker 4: possible for Shelby to get pregnant, and so we think, oh,
Speaker 4: there's something about her physiology that will make getting pregnant impossible.
Speaker 4: But then we learn that what was meant by that
Speaker 4: is like, if you do get pregnant, this could be
Speaker 4: potentially lethal to your health. And later in a conversation
Speaker 4: when Mali and it's revealed to the other group of
Speaker 4: women that Shelby is pregnant. I can't remember if Millenne
Speaker 4: tellism or not, but again, their a gut reaction, Oh
Speaker 4: my god, amazing, this is wonderful because we thought she
Speaker 4: couldn't get pregnant, and it's like, no, it's not that
Speaker 4: she couldn't get pregnant. It's that she shouldn't. There's a
Speaker 4: big difference, and so they have this discussion about it,
Speaker 4: and people realize like, oh, this is this is a
Speaker 4: huge risk. And I just appreciate like the pragmatism that
Speaker 4: goes into discussing that, because I feel like that is
Speaker 4: often left out of those conversations, and I just appreciated
Speaker 4: seeing it.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 1: I also wanted to just touch on really quickly how
Speaker 1: this movie because I feel like I cannot think of
Speaker 1: many movies where there's a character who has diabetes. I
Speaker 1: don't know a lot about diabetes as a condition, so
Speaker 1: I wanted to do a little research into it to
Speaker 1: see if, because it is such a common thing, to
Speaker 1: see how people who have to type one diabetes felt
Speaker 1: about how it's portrayed in the space of this movie.
Speaker 1: And again with the knowledge that this is a dramatized
Speaker 1: version of what happened to the writer's sister. But there
Speaker 1: does seem to be a sort of split.
Speaker 5: Opinion in the community.
Speaker 1: I think some people find it to be over dramatized,
Speaker 1: and you know a way that it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: type one diabetes is certainly not a death sentence in
Speaker 1: the way that I think this movie, you could read
Speaker 1: this movie presenting it. There's a writer named Rachel Kerstetter
Speaker 1: who wrote in Healthline about watching this movie after getting
Speaker 1: diagnosed with type one diabetes. She says, I know, Steel
Speaker 1: mcnulias brings up a lot of different opinions and feelings,
Speaker 1: especially among US ladies. I mentioned to my best friend
Speaker 1: I was going to watch it, and she recommended very
Speaker 1: strongly that I shouldn't, but of course I did.
Speaker 5: She said.
Speaker 1: The reality is that Steele mcnuliaus portrays a time when
Speaker 1: diabetes management was much different from today, a time before
Speaker 1: continuous glue, the coast monitors existed, and even insulin pumps
Speaker 1: were really mainstream, before the A one C test was
Speaker 1: established as a gold standard for diabetes management, and prior
Speaker 1: to factor acting insulins and analogs being introduced. Today's reality
Speaker 1: is thankfully different, even though economic and cultural gaps certainly
Speaker 1: exists that prevent people from getting ideal treatment. But basically,
Speaker 1: she felt that it was somewhat dramatized because Shelby's character
Speaker 1: is so specific. I think there's a world and we
Speaker 1: talk about this with a lot of conditions we've seen
Speaker 1: portrayed on screen. You know, presenting a condition and presenting
Speaker 1: it in a pretty prescriptive way that like, if you
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about type one diabetes, this movie would
Speaker 1: probably scare you. And I just thought it was interesting
Speaker 1: that there was a fair amount of diversity of opinion,
Speaker 1: although everyone seems too that. I mean, the few pieces
Speaker 1: that I read, there was a general agreement that this
Speaker 1: scene where Shelby's character has a hypoglycemic attack and her
Speaker 1: mother gives her juice, that that was pretty authentic and
Speaker 1: well done, and other parts were a little more divisive.
Speaker 1: But I really, I mean, I thought that was a
Speaker 1: wonderful scene from the mother daughter perspective too, of just
Speaker 1: like I feel like it's really it's like this dynamic
Speaker 1: that I'm like, oh, that's been me and my mom
Speaker 1: at some point where like Mullin is like, you know,
Speaker 1: being kind of bullish and it's kind of like come on,
Speaker 1: like drink the fucking juice, dude, and you know, Shelby's
Speaker 1: being combat of it. Just like the steaks of the
Speaker 1: scene are very high, but there's still this just like
Speaker 1: vaguely combative mother daughter dynamic existing within that high stake
Speaker 1: scene that I thought was really good.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think That's one of the most memorable scenes
Speaker 6: in the movie. I think when people think of Still Macho,
Speaker 6: know as you think of the Orange Juice and the Punch, Yeah,
Speaker 6: like those are two movie yes, well yeah, yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 6: like those are like I would say, like, if you're
Speaker 6: talking about Still Magnolia is somebody, it's bound to be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: the Orange Juice scene.
Speaker 2: That was crazy, Like that's what people are going to say.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. It seems like Shelby is like upset.
Speaker 4: She feels that her mom is trying to like micro
Speaker 4: manage her, and it's like, well, she's trying to save
Speaker 4: your life, right, yeah, but also like, yeah, you don't
Speaker 4: want your mom interfering in all of your business all
Speaker 4: the time. It is just like a very authentic, nuanced
Speaker 4: mother daughter relationship that I think feels very familiar for
Speaker 4: a lot of people. And it's obviously caring and loving,
Speaker 4: but it's not without its faults and it's not There's
Speaker 4: a scene where Shelby tells her mom that she's pregnant
Speaker 4: and Melynn has this reaction of like, I'm not happy
Speaker 4: for I'm not really going to congratulate you, because I
Speaker 4: don't think this is a responsible choice, and all Shelby
Speaker 4: wants is her mom support, and she says something like,
Speaker 4: you're just pissed off because you can't control me anymore,
Speaker 4: Like you don't. And I remember having a similar situation
Speaker 4: with my mom where, you know, I was like a
Speaker 4: full adult. My mom was still trying to micromanage a
Speaker 4: lot of things in my life, and I was like,
Speaker 4: you can't do this anymore. I am my own person.
Speaker 4: I am very capable of making my own decisions. I
Speaker 4: have my own autonomy. You don't get to call the
Speaker 4: shots anymore, and you haven't been able to for a while, mom.
Speaker 4: But it's just such a familiar thing, yeah, for so
Speaker 4: many people, and that I.
Speaker 1: Love that line from Shelby where she's like, don't talk
Speaker 1: about me like I'm not here like I think, and
Speaker 1: just that she's struggling. But it's like that is such
Speaker 1: a dehumanizing, like feeling controlled, where Melyinn is and Melynn
Speaker 1: is talking about her like Shelby isn't sitting in front
Speaker 1: of her. And that doesn't mean that Melyn is bad
Speaker 1: or wrong. She's just trying to manage the moment. But
Speaker 1: of course that would be hurtful. I think that this
Speaker 1: movie like it rewards A rewatches so much because the
Speaker 1: first time I watched this movie, I was confused because
Speaker 1: the exact nature of Shelby's condition is like you don't
Speaker 1: find out for a while, like what exactly is going on?
Speaker 1: And the first time you're seeing it, you're like, why
Speaker 1: is this marriage? Like what is going on with this marriage?
Speaker 1: Maybe happening, maybe not happening. It felt like an interesting
Speaker 1: experience where it's just like you never know what someone's
Speaker 1: going through, You never know what's going on in someone's life,
Speaker 1: and witnessing a relationship dynamic isn't understanding it because with
Speaker 1: both Shelby and Jackson and Shelby and Malin, it's not
Speaker 1: immediately clear what's going on. I remember the first time
Speaker 1: I was watching it, I was like, why is Shelby
Speaker 1: being such a brat? Or like in different moments, I'm
Speaker 1: like why is Jackson being so pushy? Or like, which
Speaker 1: you could still like why why is the Lynn being
Speaker 1: so mean to her? Like what is and being.
Speaker 4: Like you should quit your job? Is you shouldn't be
Speaker 4: on your feet all day? I was like, yeah, whoa,
Speaker 4: what decade are.
Speaker 1: We in the context, It's like, oh, okay, even if
Speaker 1: you don't agree with every dynamic, the context of it
Speaker 1: makes sense.
Speaker 5: And I don't know, I don't feel like there's a lot.
Speaker 1: Of movies like that that when you watch it back,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, you know exactly where everyone's coming from,
Speaker 1: whether they are being overly controlling or like you know,
Speaker 1: bringing too much of themselves to the table or not.
Speaker 1: Like it's just.
Speaker 5: It's really cool. And I you know, every single time.
Speaker 1: You're just like, Shelby, come on, Shelby, listen to your mother.
Speaker 1: Mother knows best, but she's gotta she's got to do
Speaker 1: it her way. And and I love yeah that, Like
Speaker 1: for Molin, there is as happy an ending as is
Speaker 1: available to her where she's still, like you're saying, Ashley
Speaker 1: still has a piece of her daughter and has this
Speaker 1: community to raise her daughter. And then there's a baby
Speaker 1: Shelby on the way with a.
Speaker 4: Now oh yes, yes, can we talk.
Speaker 5: About it now a little bit?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 5: I love it now.
Speaker 1: I just think she's I.
Speaker 4: Don't sorry about it.
Speaker 1: I mean I've sort of said exactly why already. But
Speaker 1: there's a few She's not like a super big character,
Speaker 1: but there's a few story but it's of hers that
Speaker 1: I really appreciated that. It's just again, like stuff you
Speaker 1: don't see very often. She is very insecure about where
Speaker 1: she's at in her life. She's insecure about her own poverty.
Speaker 1: That's seen at the wedding where she is hungry but
Speaker 1: doesn't have money for food and then is told like, no,
Speaker 1: it's a wedding, the food is free, and she's like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, Like she was hungry and was like embarrassed
Speaker 1: to tell anybody and embarrassed that like.
Speaker 4: She has this torrid past quote unquote, and she was
Speaker 4: very kind of withholding about that information because she wasn't
Speaker 4: sure how she would be received. And oh, will anyone
Speaker 4: hire a woman who may or may not be married,
Speaker 4: because she like she's not sure of the legitimacy of
Speaker 4: her marriage, if it's actually legal or not. Her husband
Speaker 4: is like a criminal on the run of course, like
Speaker 4: that you would be probably like self conscious of and
Speaker 4: yeah it's and everyone's just like it's okay, we'll take
Speaker 4: care of you, and you're like.
Speaker 1: Exactly, I just I really like that. And it's like
Speaker 1: her arc is pretty simple from there again, it's like
Speaker 1: pretty prescriptive and unimaginative that like her happy ending is
Speaker 1: like finding a guy who isn't evil and having a baby.
Speaker 1: I don't think we're necessarily told exactly what Annelle wants
Speaker 1: out of life, so maybe that is what she wanted.
Speaker 1: I'm not totally clear. In my dream scenario, she and
Speaker 1: Truvy open a successful chain of salons across the globe.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I do like that she you know,
Speaker 1: it's through her friendship with these women and especially through
Speaker 1: her mentorship with Truvy that she doesn't just like improve
Speaker 1: her life materially, but also seems to like rid herself
Speaker 1: of a lot of the shame and embarrassment that we
Speaker 1: see her experiencing when Truviy first gives her a shot.
Speaker 4: So I via these relationships with all these women.
Speaker 1: We do have the classic trope though of like, wow,
Speaker 1: Daryl Hannah famously hot woman. If you took your glasses off,
Speaker 1: you'd be so beautiful. Yeah, you're like sure, great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I also love all the names. That's just great,
Speaker 2: so good character names.
Speaker 4: Weezer now which.
Speaker 6: Weezer is spelled with the oh, by the way, it's
Speaker 6: not like her bad name.
Speaker 4: Her name is I think Louisa or Louisa, Louise, something
Speaker 4: like that, And so her nickname is is Weezer, which
Speaker 4: I think is kind of brilliant.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like, how do you even come up with that?
Speaker 6: Is that a thing that people are doing in Louisiana?
Speaker 6: Like I would have literally never thought.
Speaker 2: Of that, right, And I'm going name is?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm like, and when did that? Can you
Speaker 1: imagine calling a child like Wheezer a good home.
Speaker 4: For Yeah, get your ass over here. The thing I
Speaker 4: don't like about Annelle's character is when she gets like
Speaker 4: very holier than now religious.
Speaker 2: It gets weird.
Speaker 4: But I do like that she seems to come around
Speaker 4: a little bit on the end where someone tells her
Speaker 4: to lighten up, and then she makes like a joke
Speaker 4: kind of at her own expense, and then she gets
Speaker 4: pushed cut to a few months.
Speaker 1: There's like one point where Annelle talks out of turn
Speaker 1: in like I think a hyper religious guy ambulance like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you're not going to get me to be a happy kid.
Speaker 1: My daughter died, Get the fuck out of my face.
Speaker 1: And you're like, yeah, she deserved that. She deserved that
Speaker 1: big time.
Speaker 4: And so I do like that her arc is like
Speaker 4: her lightning up and we even see her tell her
Speaker 4: husband that he has to lighten up, so it's like, Okay,
Speaker 4: she's starting to get it.
Speaker 1: Right, and she's I think also maybe the same ages
Speaker 1: shall be But I think she's maybe supposed to be
Speaker 1: the youngest character too, Like she's pretty young. And although
Speaker 1: Julia Roberts was twenty two in this movie, and she's
Speaker 1: already like fucking oh.
Speaker 4: I thought she was only nineteen.
Speaker 5: Oh maybe it was shot even earlier.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 5: She might have been nineteen and missed pizza doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think the companion character Tonel is Truvy.
Speaker 1: I love Truvy. I also I don't like that she's
Speaker 1: burdened with this like needing to reconcile with her shitty
Speaker 1: husband storyline. I would have rather that real estate be
Speaker 1: used for kind of anything else. What I love about
Speaker 1: Truvia is that she's Dolly Parton. That's great. I also
Speaker 1: love that she is like a business owner. She prioritizes
Speaker 1: giving like young women in her community opportunities. She's a gossip,
Speaker 1: she's a good friend. She's very empathetic and like the
Speaker 1: stuff with her and her husband, which by the end
Speaker 1: seems to be like way more important to the story
Speaker 1: than we were originally led to believe. I just like,
Speaker 1: I feel pretty ambivalent towards it. I'm just like, yeah, like,
Speaker 1: you're not good enough for her, You're not gonna gives
Speaker 1: me you are.
Speaker 4: Well, that's that's one of my criticisms about this movie.
Speaker 4: But I'm also trying not to be too critical of
Speaker 4: it because it is, you know, it's a very female
Speaker 4: driven story that centers this group of women and their
Speaker 4: lives and their relationships, and we get to see what's
Speaker 4: important to them, and they're you know, pursuing the things
Speaker 4: that are important to them. The things that are important
Speaker 4: to them are often what you'd associate with very like
Speaker 4: traditional womanhood or traditional femininity type of things. And again,
Speaker 4: I don't want to be too critical of that because
Speaker 4: many people men, some feminists will be like, oh, things
Speaker 4: that are so hyper feminine or so traditionally rooted in
Speaker 4: like what's expected of womanhood or whatever. I think it's
Speaker 4: overly criticized.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in a way that is that makes those ambitions
Speaker 1: see amazing salid which obviously the point Phrasem is letting
Speaker 1: everyone do what the fuck they want. It's safe, just.
Speaker 4: Do whatever the fuck they want. And yeah, this is
Speaker 4: a movie made in the eighties that seems to very
Speaker 4: much reflect the values of like southern white women in one.
Speaker 6: Very eighties it's like very eighties Louisiana, Like, yeah, they're
Speaker 6: in a parish, like.
Speaker 4: Mmm mm hmmm. And in that way, it doesn't like
Speaker 4: those things don't interest me personally. So that's one of
Speaker 4: the reasons I have a hard time connecting with this movie.
Speaker 4: But there's something to be said for a movie that
Speaker 4: centers women and allows women to talk about what's important
Speaker 4: to them, even if it doesn't reflect my exact experience.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it definitely doesn't reflect my experience, but I like,
Speaker 6: couldn't be any further.
Speaker 2: But again, I think what helps me is.
Speaker 6: That I am a daughter of a mother, so I
Speaker 6: can connect to that and community and sisterhood has two
Speaker 6: saved my life in a lot of ways. And so
Speaker 6: again that's something that I have a different perspective of
Speaker 6: it at the older I get, and I think it's
Speaker 6: the portrayal of that in this movie is actually really beautiful. Yeah,
Speaker 6: And can I also add I think something else I
Speaker 6: really like about the movie is that it highlights how
Speaker 6: in your tribe or in your community, there's a lot
Speaker 6: of diversity and I don't mean.
Speaker 2: Ethnic diversity.
Speaker 4: Do they not know as single black or brown person?
Speaker 6: Yikes, one in one thousand percent. They were avoiding the
Speaker 6: black people in the town. It's fine, I know it.
Speaker 6: We don't even have it.
Speaker 1: We're in Louisiana.
Speaker 6: They were on the other side of town. They never
Speaker 6: saw them, never interacted with black people.
Speaker 2: Probably, But.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of diversity. There's a lot of personality diversity,
Speaker 6: and I think that you know, when you look at
Speaker 6: your friend circles or your community, it's the same for you.
Speaker 6: Like you have to have different characters in your story
Speaker 6: because you never know which one you're gonna need to
Speaker 6: call on, and if everybody's the same, then that's not
Speaker 6: really helpful or productive. So I love that they're all
Speaker 6: such distinct characters, which again it happens in movies, but
Speaker 6: I think they're very distinct because it was a play,
Speaker 6: like to your point, like you know, there's a wedding,
Speaker 6: there's a funeral, there's a hospital.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I do like the diversity and personality in.
Speaker 4: The movie for sure, because even though we get you know,
Speaker 4: with Annell and Truvi's subplots, they're pretty centered around the
Speaker 4: men in their lives and those different dynamics. Then you've
Speaker 4: got Clari and Weezer, and their subplots are more focused
Speaker 4: on the friendship among themselves and they're like kind of
Speaker 4: love hate relationship where they're always getting on each other's cases,
Speaker 4: but it's out of a place of love. And again,
Speaker 4: I love the Clary trying to like broaden their cultural
Speaker 4: horizons and Weezer being like I don't like to watch
Speaker 4: movies because they only have naked people in them, and
Speaker 4: I hate books, and I hate.
Speaker 1: I love Clary and Weezer. I mean, like, again, this
Speaker 1: movie is so glaringly excessively white in Louisiana. And we'll
Speaker 1: get to in a second how there was a remake
Speaker 1: of this movie with an all black cast in twenty
Speaker 1: twelve that I believe aired on Lifetime. We'll get there
Speaker 1: in a second. But Clary and Weezer, I don't want
Speaker 1: to know how they vote. However, I do, like, I
Speaker 1: just love a couple of broads saying fucking whatever.
Speaker 5: It is so fun to watch.
Speaker 1: They both seem like pretty wealthy as well, where it's
Speaker 1: like there's that great line from Weezer where it's like
Speaker 1: people are only nice to me because I have more
Speaker 1: money than God, and I was like, whoa okay, or
Speaker 1: like Clarie doing the like you know whatever, girl bossing
Speaker 1: the fuck out, Yes a radio station so she could
Speaker 1: like be a sports commentator question Mark. Like they're on
Speaker 1: these side quests. We get those moments together and we
Speaker 1: also see I think it's like with Clary that Weezer
Speaker 1: is most comfortable showing her gentler side, even if Clarie
Speaker 1: is only going to give her shit for it. But
Speaker 1: I always think of the scene of the two of
Speaker 1: them in the grocery store where Weezer said, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of something casual and offhand about death in front
Speaker 1: of Shelby, not realizing what Shelby was going through, and
Speaker 1: then saying to Clarie when they were alone, like I
Speaker 1: shouldn't have said that, that was wrong. I had no idea.
Speaker 1: And it's just nice to see like they are the
Speaker 1: more cartoony characters of the cast, which I think older
Speaker 1: women are often written to be more cartoonish, But it
Speaker 1: doesn't bug me because we have the context for who
Speaker 1: they are and we see other sides of them. They're
Speaker 1: not just acting out these like stereotype older women characters.
Speaker 1: They get moments to be together.
Speaker 4: I don't even think they're written cartoonishly. I think they're
Speaker 4: just extentially I.
Speaker 1: Mean, whos are getting dragged around by a horse of
Speaker 1: a dog for the better.
Speaker 5: Part of it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's truth I love.
Speaker 4: But also I'm just like, I don't know, I feel
Speaker 4: like some people just be doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it all tracked for me. It didn't. No one
Speaker 2: felt too big or too small to me.
Speaker 6: Actually it all worked, and I think the small town
Speaker 6: of it all helps that. I think that if this
Speaker 6: like took place in Los Angeles that like it wouldn't
Speaker 6: work in.
Speaker 2: The same way, you know what I mean, or like
Speaker 2: Seattle or something. I don't know it, but there is
Speaker 2: something that made it really believable for me. And it didn't.
Speaker 6: It didn't bump me, and I tend to get bumped
Speaker 6: very easily when watching things.
Speaker 2: I'm always bumped.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they all feel it. And I think
Speaker 1: that like the story really takes time for every character
Speaker 1: at some point to have a moment that we see
Speaker 1: either like a more vulnerable part of them or have
Speaker 1: more information about them to contextualize why they're acting the
Speaker 1: way they are. And I just I mean, I could
Speaker 1: have watched different arrangements of these six characters for another hour,
Speaker 1: like I really wanted, I wanted to touch really quickly on. Yes,
Speaker 1: there was a remake of this movie in twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: It was directed by Kenny Leon, who was most noted
Speaker 1: before then for directing a Broadway production of A Raisin
Speaker 1: in the Sun. A black director and a black leading cast.
Speaker 1: We had Queen Latifa, Jill Scott, Alfred Woodard at Apero Adouye,
Speaker 1: Felicia Rossad, and Condola Rashad. It was I think the
Speaker 1: movie got kind of mixed reviews when it came out,
Speaker 1: and it was only broadcast on television in spite of
Speaker 1: I mean, that's like an unbelievable.
Speaker 4: Cast, truly.
Speaker 1: And I watched it two years ago when we first
Speaker 1: covered it. I haven't rewatched it same. It is the
Speaker 1: same movie, right made with I think like a far
Speaker 1: lesser budget, which seems to be very pointed, right.
Speaker 4: And we've had similar discussions about like all female reboots
Speaker 4: of like originally male casted movies, So we've seen kind
Speaker 4: of an uptick. Especially I feel like twenty eighteen or
Speaker 4: so was like the peak of I guess the all
Speaker 4: black reboot for lack of a better term, where you
Speaker 4: got movies like Death at a Funeral, what women want
Speaker 4: instead of what men want.
Speaker 5: I blocked that out.
Speaker 4: You got little instead of big. So in a lot
Speaker 4: of these cases, they were not only like black reboots,
Speaker 4: but all female reboots. The point being like with these reboots,
Speaker 4: they take an existing marketable property with either a predominantly
Speaker 4: white cast or male cast or both, and then reboot
Speaker 4: it with like, oh, now it's all women, or now
Speaker 4: it's black people or both, rather than giving women and
Speaker 4: black people a chance to just tell their own original stories.
Speaker 1: Yes, and this was in twenty twelve, so I feel
Speaker 1: like it's even a little bit ahead of that trend. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean my feeling on it, it's kind of twofold
Speaker 1: where the reboot culture, I mean, I think at this
Speaker 1: point it's played out to the point where it's no
Speaker 1: longer even financially successful.
Speaker 4: But I think it just like.
Speaker 1: Sets marginalized creatives and performers up for failure by like
Speaker 1: not giving anyone the opportunity to tell an original story.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, actually this like we know that this
Speaker 1: story works, so maybe people will like, you know, It's
Speaker 1: just it feels condescending and shitty and to be given
Speaker 1: such a smaller budget and platform than the original Steel
Speaker 1: Magnolias on top of that feels insult to injury.
Speaker 5: Even though the cast is fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure. I mean the cast is stacked.
Speaker 6: Kenney Leon is a very well known director, especially in
Speaker 6: the theater world. You know, I think for me, I
Speaker 6: as a black woman, as a black artist, I always
Speaker 6: like feel bad basically, like when I don't connect with
Speaker 6: the black version of something, it almost feels like I
Speaker 6: have to or I should.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's making sense.
Speaker 6: Hopefully it does, but there's this like guilt associated with it,
Speaker 6: like if I don't like love it, And I think
Speaker 6: for me, the biggest issue. I thought the cast was fantastic,
Speaker 6: but I think the biggest issue from me when we
Speaker 6: do this, when we do the black version of something,
Speaker 6: or the you know, LATINX version of something or whatever
Speaker 6: the Asian version of something, is that oftentimes it's trying
Speaker 6: to be too much like the original version that's already
Speaker 6: too white. So it's almost like it has to be
Speaker 6: more different, and it wasn't different enough for me to
Speaker 6: resonate with it, if that makes sense, Like it was
Speaker 6: like you, I think you said, like it was basically
Speaker 6: the exact same thing. It couldn't be the exact same
Speaker 6: thing because now we're dealing with black women. We don't
Speaker 6: live the same experience and even kind of the same way.
Speaker 6: So I needed more of a differentiation outside of just
Speaker 6: we're in a black hair salon doing black hair. It's
Speaker 6: not enough, you know. And another like this is like
Speaker 6: a small note, but kind of a big note to me,
Speaker 6: is that like I think for a short shot and
Speaker 6: Condola shots should have played the daughter. Yeah, they should
Speaker 6: have been Melin and Shelby.
Speaker 2: That would have to me. I don't know why Queen
Speaker 2: Latifa was Milan.
Speaker 6: I'm very confused by love Ql, but like I just
Speaker 6: needed And so it makes me like think like we're
Speaker 6: Felicia and Condola, like we by no means want to
Speaker 6: play mother and daughter. Like I'm just like, why why
Speaker 6: didn't she do it with her actual mother?
Speaker 2: I just don't understand that's her actual mother.
Speaker 6: I just think that would have been It would have
Speaker 6: been beautiful, I think, And because for me it was
Speaker 6: Quinn Latifah and Condola that I kind of didn't really believe.
Speaker 2: I just was kind of like, it's not your mom.
Speaker 6: Because your mom's sitting right there seeing it was contracting.
Speaker 6: It was not confusing, it was distracting. I just was
Speaker 6: watching the whole time, like, but your actual mom is
Speaker 6: sitting there and you're both fantastic actors.
Speaker 2: Why couldn't Why didn't we do that?
Speaker 6: But anyway, that's kind of like my review of that.
Speaker 6: But and I remember when this came out. I remember
Speaker 6: auditioning for Shelby.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this.
Speaker 6: I moved to LA in twenty ten. You know, I
Speaker 6: was twenty four years old at that time. Like this
Speaker 6: was the time that they were calling all the black girls.
Speaker 6: It was like a big deal. And again, you all
Speaker 6: know my history and my connection to the movie, so
Speaker 6: I was like, this is great. Condola obviously got the part,
Speaker 6: and she's lovely and fantastic. But I remember this time,
Speaker 6: and I remember being, you know, anticipating and watching it
Speaker 6: with all my girlfriends and feeling exactly what I just
Speaker 6: told you, Like, why aren't I fully connecting with this?
Speaker 2: It's my truth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I am very frustrated by that pattern. I am
Speaker 1: hopeful that it seems like at least it's not happening
Speaker 1: with the frequency that it was this time five or
Speaker 1: six years ago, but it's still Yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: It's so clear even in like, I mean, part of
Speaker 1: the reason that Steel Magnolius works is because it is
Speaker 1: so specific in the story that it's telling, and so
Speaker 1: it's like every community should have the opportunity to tell
Speaker 1: a story with that level of sephicity instead of treating
Speaker 1: it as a one size fits all kind of story.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I just saw a mother daughter movie last
Speaker 4: night in the theater.
Speaker 1: I saw X.
Speaker 4: No, I did it, well, I did see saw X,
Speaker 4: but I did a double feature of Saw X and
Speaker 4: the Persian version, which is a very culturally specific mother
Speaker 4: daughter story in which, like motherhood plays a very large
Speaker 4: role in both of their narratives, and it's just like
Speaker 4: a very interesting examination of a mother daughter relationship. Would
Speaker 4: recommend people see it.
Speaker 6: My favorite mother daughter movie is Oh my gosh, you
Speaker 6: guys want to guess what my favorite mother daughter movie is?
Speaker 4: Oh my god? Can we have a hint.
Speaker 2: One of the actors and Still Magnolias is in it?
Speaker 4: Ooh, okay, is it.
Speaker 6: One of my favorite movies of all time? Actually, but
Speaker 6: it's a mother daughter movie?
Speaker 4: Oh my god?
Speaker 1: Is it? Dolly Garden Sally partner in another mother daughter movie.
Speaker 2: I don't I'm not Dolly.
Speaker 4: Is it Julia Robbers?
Speaker 2: I can't tell you who it is, but she's in.
Speaker 2: Do you want me to tell you what the movie is?
Speaker 1: Just terms of endearment, surely, But Shirley McClain is the goat.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, her favorite endearment forever. It's beautiful. I've
Speaker 1: just rewatched The Apartment. She's just s t here. I
Speaker 1: was like, what's my favorite mother daughter movie? I need
Speaker 1: to think about it. I'm like, Freaky Friday, that's a
Speaker 1: favorite one. But oh god, we should do we haven't done.
Speaker 1: Terms of endearment.
Speaker 6: I was gonna say, if you guys do that one, please,
Speaker 6: I want to come back and talk.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, you'll be coming back.
Speaker 2: That's one of my favorite movies of all time.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, a couple of things I want to talk about.
Speaker 4: And these are just sort of stray thought. Actually they're
Speaker 4: kind of about the men in the movie. While brave
Speaker 4: of me to bring up the men in the movie,
Speaker 4: but as we've already mentioned, they're kind of not entirely
Speaker 4: incidental to the plot. But they're certainly not the main
Speaker 4: characters by any stretch of the imagination. And yeah, the
Speaker 4: way that they are often talked about or just presented
Speaker 4: on screen is like they're a nuisance, They're annoying. A
Speaker 4: drum is like just bullying Weezer the whole time, in
Speaker 4: like a kind of playful way but also sometimes a
Speaker 4: scary way.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't even know if you see Milan
Speaker 1: and him speak, I.
Speaker 4: Don't think so. But he does say He's like, I
Speaker 4: make it a point never to deal with my wife,
Speaker 4: and it's like, okay, feminist icon drum, Yeah, makes I
Speaker 4: do appreciate. So Shelby has two brothers who have a
Speaker 4: couple of lines here and there, but they're kind of
Speaker 4: barely characters, which I think is especially interesting because the
Speaker 4: writer who wrote this movie Your Sister is presumably one
Speaker 4: of those brothers, and he didn't even write a character
Speaker 4: for himself, which I think the way that a lot
Speaker 4: of male egos are would not allow for like that
Speaker 4: to happen in most cases. So I was like pleasantly surprised,
Speaker 4: I'm in this icon Robert Harlan, Yes, and then yeah,
Speaker 4: we get a few other men, like we meet Jackson
Speaker 4: a few times, and although the way he's described Shelby's
Speaker 4: like I thought he was a pest at first, but
Speaker 4: then he kind of grew on me and now I
Speaker 4: love him and it's like, okay, wow, tale as old
Speaker 4: as time. We talked a little bit about Spud Truviy's husbands.
Speaker 1: Spud gets the best deal out of anyone, and I
Speaker 1: don't understand why. At the end, they're like like, is
Speaker 1: it just because it's Sam Shepard where they're like Spud,
Speaker 1: you know, he was distant and rude for the majority
Speaker 1: of the movie, but.
Speaker 5: Shell be dying.
Speaker 1: It almost feels like I've walck to remember sort of
Speaker 1: thing where it's like it wasn't until this young woman
Speaker 1: died in an untimely way that I, as a man,
Speaker 1: learned I should be a little nicer. And you're like, whatever,
Speaker 1: what what is that trope? It's so weird.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: It's a very tiny part of this movie, but I
Speaker 5: was just like, great, Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially because I'm like, truth, he deserves the absolute
Speaker 1: best and she has to accept this, this scraps of
Speaker 1: a man.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she also has a scary son. People are like
Speaker 4: turned out, Okay, he's just a little scary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, honestly, like that'll be me one day I wanted
Speaker 1: to also just quickly shut up. Robert Harley also wrote
Speaker 1: The First Wives Club, Just something oh to.
Speaker 4: He also wrote soap Dish.
Speaker 8: I want to say, Okay, I also I hate to
Speaker 8: add this in there, please, but Pa, he's Presbyterian and
Speaker 8: he's gay, which I'm Presbyterian as well.
Speaker 2: But he also owns a plantation.
Speaker 1: I saw that, yes in Louisiana.
Speaker 6: Which says was built in eighteen thirty, who held as
Speaker 6: many as one hundred and four enslaved people.
Speaker 2: On the property.
Speaker 6: Okay, well, yeah, so he he owns a plantation. So
Speaker 6: I gotta say it's it's knocking it down on my
Speaker 6: list a little bit.
Speaker 4: I gotten fuck that guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Robert as someone to whose bread and butter
Speaker 1: is writing stories of wealthy white women, not the plantation.
Speaker 2: Robert, like I guess Jesus doing it took a turn.
Speaker 2: It took a turn for me, everybody, it's taking a turn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, take a wrecking ball to it, Robert.
Speaker 6: For Fox's sakes, it's great, but writing it in the
Speaker 6: living room of the plantation is stressing me out.
Speaker 5: Yes, oh, for fuck's sake.
Speaker 4: Well, that's the end of the episode. I think I
Speaker 4: want to say about like the way men are characterized
Speaker 4: in this movie. That kind of brings it back to
Speaker 4: the title of the movie. Moline is talking about the
Speaker 4: moment that they take Shelby off of life support and
Speaker 4: her being in the hospital room as Shelby passes away.
Speaker 4: She's describing how Drum left, he couldn't take it, Jackson left.
Speaker 4: I find it amusing. Men are supposed to be made
Speaker 4: out of steel or something, and then meanwhile, like all
Speaker 4: these men who are supposed to be you know, these
Speaker 4: very hold it together. Oh nothing affects me because I'm
Speaker 4: a big strong man kind of thing. They couldn't like
Speaker 4: handle it emotionally, which I mean fair like it is
Speaker 4: a very upsetting thing and devastating thing to deal with.
Speaker 4: But I guess just kind of like the comment on
Speaker 4: we as women, our strength is undervalue because it's emotional strength,
Speaker 4: whereas like societally, we favor like the perceived physical strength
Speaker 4: of men. Even though I don't want to be making
Speaker 4: sweeping generalizations here, but I just like this. She's like,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, men are supposed to be the strong
Speaker 4: ones made of steel, but actually we are the steel magnolius.
Speaker 4: So I don't know what my point is, but it's something.
Speaker 1: Is there any other stuff we wanted to touch on?
Speaker 4: This movie is very dense. I feel like we've only
Speaker 4: kind of scratched the surface.
Speaker 5: But I could keep going.
Speaker 2: I feel it be covered a lot about it. I
Speaker 2: feel good I've done.
Speaker 4: A great job here.
Speaker 1: Today I'm reeling from this Robert Harling situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it really puts a damper on the whole damn thing.
Speaker 2: It took a turn.
Speaker 6: Not gonna lie, but you know, I mean, also, what
Speaker 6: we have to be honest about is like I had
Speaker 6: to say it, but like, of course he probably owns
Speaker 6: a plantation, Like it's he's from Louisiana.
Speaker 2: Like it's not it's.
Speaker 6: Not that surprising, which is the sad part really, but
Speaker 6: like yeah, but reading it is like, oh wow, got
Speaker 6: I gotta got, I gotta god.
Speaker 1: Who really don't somebody someone who has like a formative
Speaker 1: influence on you as a kid, owns a plantation. It's
Speaker 1: just fucking ridiculous.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but you know what not to like turn this
Speaker 6: into that, But like it's just a part of being
Speaker 6: black in America.
Speaker 2: Like at any turn, you find.
Speaker 6: Out that something you've loved or something you've known or
Speaker 6: something you've been a part of that it's connected to
Speaker 6: slavery in some way or something that like a construct
Speaker 6: that was meant to harm my people, and like it's
Speaker 6: part of the trauma, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean.
Speaker 6: But it's also, like I said, part of the protection
Speaker 6: is like having the awareness of like I'm not really shocked.
Speaker 6: It all tracks like it tracks, but yeah, someone that
Speaker 6: ownes a plantation can also write a beautiful movie too.
Speaker 2: That back. People then made a remake up Let's see.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how do you How did you fucking sleep it?
Speaker 6: Like did they not know that? I didn't know that
Speaker 6: to make right now? So maybe they didn't either, I
Speaker 6: don't know. But like we then made a whole remake
Speaker 6: of a man's movie who Owns a Plantation?
Speaker 2: It's you know, yeah, it's a lot of thoughts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in the movie, you do see people of color
Speaker 4: every so often, but they're always people working at the.
Speaker 1: West, like a few wedding guests.
Speaker 4: It's maybe a nurse. I think there's a black woman
Speaker 4: who's a nurse who speaks to Shelby for like two
Speaker 4: lines of dialogue, but I think those are the only
Speaker 4: lines of dialogue spoken by a person of color in
Speaker 4: the entire movie. Yeah, so yeah, Well, should we move
Speaker 4: on to the Bechdel test and whether or not this.
Speaker 1: Movie, Yes, yes, it does for almost the entire movie.
Speaker 4: It Yeah, it does. They do once again, and I'm
Speaker 4: trying not to be too critical this, but they are
Speaker 4: almost constantly talking about like very traditionally feminine things, which
Speaker 4: again is neither inherently positive or negative. Do I wish
Speaker 4: we saw them talk about something other than weddings, babies,
Speaker 4: relationships with men, which obviously that part doesn't pass the
Speaker 4: Bechdel test, But you know, they're talking about the color.
Speaker 1: It's also a lot of health. Like, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of talk about health. There's a lot of talk about like.
Speaker 4: They talk about Anne Boleyn having six fingers on one hand,
Speaker 4: and that is the best pass of the movie.
Speaker 1: I mean, they are talking about a lot of traditionally
Speaker 1: feminine things, but I think that that is inherent to
Speaker 1: this community. And you're getting a big range of opinions
Speaker 1: on these issues too, Because if it would be just
Speaker 1: more like we can all agree that wedding and baby
Speaker 1: is awesome, Like if everyone was of the same mind,
Speaker 1: I would maybe be more bothered by it. But because
Speaker 1: of like this community and the fact that each character
Speaker 1: has a pretty significantly different opinion on these issues.
Speaker 4: I think it's true they do. They gossip about other women.
Speaker 4: In one case are fat shaming another woman, which.
Speaker 1: Dolly was wrong for that that woman was having the
Speaker 1: time of her life and she looked great, so bye whatever.
Speaker 4: Yes, the movie does not really pass the reverse Spectel test,
Speaker 4: meaning like men barely talk to each other. We see
Speaker 4: a few interactions between Shelby's dad and her brothers, but
Speaker 4: other than that, it is almost exclusively women talking to
Speaker 4: each other. Sometimes they're talking about men, although I do
Speaker 4: think that when Weezer, in response to something Annelle says,
Speaker 4: Weezer says, men are the most horrible creatures. They will
Speaker 4: ruin your life, you mark my words. I think that
Speaker 4: still does pass the Bechdel tests.
Speaker 1: The spirit of the line passes the Bechdel test.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Oh, and then really quickly they talk about I
Speaker 4: think it's Clari's nephew coming out is gay, and they're
Speaker 4: all kind of like, what is what is that? What
Speaker 4: are gay people? Nineteen eighty nine?
Speaker 1: Huh?
Speaker 4: And they have they all have track lighting in their
Speaker 4: homes and they're all named what is it? Like Mark
Speaker 4: Steve or something. Anyway, it was a less homophobic view
Speaker 4: of queerness than I thought, Yeah, it's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: It didn't feel especially because it was written by a
Speaker 1: gay writer. Like I was just like, yeah, is this
Speaker 1: how this writer heard people talking about him when he
Speaker 1: was growing I don't know. I sort of gave that
Speaker 1: a pass just because the writer is from this area.
Speaker 5: It is queer.
Speaker 1: I also was like, I don't really know what they're
Speaker 1: talking about here, if I'm being honest, I don't know
Speaker 1: what track lighting is. And so I have no opinion
Speaker 1: on that exchange. But what about the most important metric
Speaker 1: in the entire world.
Speaker 4: Our nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a
Speaker 4: scale of zero to five nipples based on examining it
Speaker 4: through an intersectional feminist lens. I think I'll go ahead
Speaker 4: and give this a little split down the middle, two
Speaker 4: and a half nipples. I do appreciate that it is
Speaker 4: a story that centers women dealing with everyday life and
Speaker 4: also more kind of significant life moments grief and tragedy,
Speaker 4: but also like you know, celebrations of life and having
Speaker 4: babies and you know, getting married, and again very much
Speaker 4: reflecting the values of the time and the values of yeah,
Speaker 4: like southern white women in the eighties. But it's a
Speaker 4: story that centers women and female friendships and female relationships
Speaker 4: and mother daughter relationships and all these things that most
Speaker 4: movies ignore. And it kind of sidelines men the way
Speaker 4: that most movies do not, especially movies written by men.
Speaker 4: So I thought it was a really interesting movie in
Speaker 4: that regard, and it is I think, a very nice
Speaker 4: way to honor that real life person memory Susan Susan.
Speaker 4: And the movie is so so terribly white. And although
Speaker 4: there is a little diversity among the personalities of the women,
Speaker 4: the generations and ages, the class the women, we see
Speaker 4: different classes, but it is they really just don't want
Speaker 4: to be friends with any non white people. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: that's pretty fucked up. I guess two and a half,
Speaker 4: maybe three nipples, and I'll give one to the Armadillo cake,
Speaker 4: I'll give one to Weezer, and I'll give one to Cleary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna go three. I would have gone three
Speaker 1: and a half, but in spite of things I just
Speaker 1: learned about, Robert Harling cannot So I'll go three. I
Speaker 1: think that there is Yeah, just to echo it, you
Speaker 1: said Caitlin. There is a clear lack of diversity in
Speaker 1: terms of the races of these women. It feels pointed,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, I'm gonna be thinking about the
Speaker 1: conversation we had with the reboot for a while. I
Speaker 1: think that there is an interesting kind of second act
Speaker 1: to the way that it seems like it was attempted
Speaker 1: to course correct when the reality is that there should
Speaker 1: have been a widely funded, you know, ensemble movie about
Speaker 1: black women. It didn't need to be the same story
Speaker 1: over again. So I think that for what this movie is,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of unique aspects to it.
Speaker 5: I like the mother daughter relationship.
Speaker 1: And just this like impossible, emotionally driven situation. And I
Speaker 1: like that they're surrounded by women that are so different
Speaker 1: from them who they very much need to make it through.
Speaker 1: I think that that is like the core beautiful thing
Speaker 1: about this movie, and that it has the good sense
Speaker 1: to keep the men in their life very much on
Speaker 1: the sidelines, which you never ever ever get. Like the
Speaker 1: gripes I have with the presence men do have never
Speaker 1: last more than thirty seconds, So I can live with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give this movie three nipples. I'm
Speaker 1: going to give one the Weezer. I'm also going to
Speaker 1: give one to the Armadilla Cake, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: give the final one to the woman dancing at the wedding.
Speaker 1: She did nothing wrong. Mm hmmm, Ashley, what do you think?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think I'm gonna go with three two. I'm
Speaker 6: gonna give it three nipples. You know, just everything you
Speaker 6: all said. I mean, I think kind of to go
Speaker 6: back to what you said about like the lack of diversity,
Speaker 6: I think the truth is, like I'm okay with it,
Speaker 6: only because it wouldn't have made sense anyway, Like if
Speaker 6: they had a random black friend, I wouldn't have believed
Speaker 6: it would. It felt like they threw a random black
Speaker 6: woman in there. So I mean, like I'm okay with that.
Speaker 6: It was authentic to like these women living in the
Speaker 6: small parish in Louisiana, Like it made sense. But yeah,
Speaker 6: it's still a movie I love, but now a movie
Speaker 6: that has a problematic writer.
Speaker 2: So there's that. And then I would give a nipple
Speaker 2: to Malinn.
Speaker 6: I'm going to give one to Shelby, and I'm going
Speaker 6: to give one to the black nurse.
Speaker 2: She deserves a nimple.
Speaker 4: She does, she really does I think she was given
Speaker 4: a name too. I think Shelby says her name.
Speaker 2: I can't think of him right now.
Speaker 1: And I like that we got to see Shelby at
Speaker 1: work too. I feel like you never get to see
Speaker 1: who been at works, so quick shout out to that
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, all.
Speaker 1: Right, well Ashley, thank you so much for joining us
Speaker 1: and talking about this, and please come back for terms
Speaker 1: of endearment, I mean please.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to get the email.
Speaker 5: That we're going to our resident Shirley McLean expert.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love her, she's the girls.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Where can we find you? Where can we find your work?
Speaker 1: Where can we find you online? Yeah?
Speaker 6: You can find me at Ashley Blaine on Instagram. You
Speaker 6: can also follow my podcast at Trials to Triumphs pod,
Speaker 6: which also on Instagram and Facebook.
Speaker 2: And then you can listen to my podcast each and
Speaker 2: every Monday wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, Trials to Triumphs.
Speaker 2: Listen to it and get inspired.
Speaker 1: So and you can find us as always on an
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter at Bechdel Cast. Keep your eyes peeled.
Speaker 1: We've got some live shows being announced in the next
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. If you live in California or Texas. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you can get our merch at teapublic dot com,
Speaker 1: slash The Bechdel.
Speaker 4: Cast, and also our Patreon aka Matreon, where you get
Speaker 4: two bonus episodes every month. I was like, what time,
Speaker 4: I'm fram my brain just broke all of a sudden. Okay,
Speaker 4: it's working two episodes every month, Yes, including all of
Speaker 4: the back catalog of bonus episodes, which is around one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty episodes. Can you believe it?
Speaker 1: We've had the stamp Patreon going since twenty seventeen. There's
Speaker 1: tons of content there, goodness, and yes, I am calling
Speaker 1: it content because I'm tired.
Speaker 4: It's sort of like our content creator.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, you've gone too far. You've gone too far.
Speaker 1: We're just people, okay. And with that, let's all get
Speaker 1: on the back of some guy's motorcycle and go meet
Speaker 1: baby Shelby. Hope you get your bunny Sudan.
Speaker 4: Yek got it right here, Okay, Bye bye. The Bechdel
Speaker 4: Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante
Speaker 4: and Jamie loftis produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board.
Speaker 4: Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals
Speaker 4: by Katherine Volskrosenski. Our logo in Merch is designed by
Speaker 4: Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For
Speaker 4: more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash Bechdel
Speaker 4: Cast