Speaker 1: Hi everybody, how are you? Okay? Cool, very smooth intro
Speaker 1: to the show. Okay, so we don't have the ability
Speaker 1: to play our theme song tonight. So here's what we're thinking.
Speaker 1: You guys know the words right, yes, okay, we have
Speaker 1: a solid four people willing to participate in this sick
Speaker 1: exercise we just came up with. Okay, should we just
Speaker 1: count a man? One two three? No one started there? Okay, wait, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna count to three and then someone someone take
Speaker 1: the lead please Okay, one, two three, good job, thank you,
Speaker 1: that's the show. Just kidding. Hi, Hello, wow, so ah,
Speaker 1: what's ukon? I've been wanting to say that since I
Speaker 1: saw What a Girl Wants? What's up in London? Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for being here. We're so excited. Is
Speaker 1: our first show in London or out of the country
Speaker 1: at all? We're so psycked. Thank you for singing our
Speaker 1: song for us. That was truly better. You just put
Speaker 1: a bunch of female musicians out of a job. Hateful.
Speaker 1: So this is this is the Bechtel Cast? Where is
Speaker 1: it the women in Film show? As the sign indicates,
Speaker 1: we got dumb our own venue? Close enough? No, sounds
Speaker 1: like a good show. Yeah, we are the Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Dronte. My name is Jamie Loftus
Speaker 1: And uh. We talked about the representation of women in movies,
Speaker 1: as you probably know because you're here. That was where
Speaker 1: actually we got the name for the podcast, which is
Speaker 1: the Women in Film Podcast. But the the real, the
Speaker 1: canonical name of the podcast is the Bechtel Cast. Just
Speaker 1: clapping up. If you have listened to the Betel Cast before,
Speaker 1: I love it. Uh and then uh and it's okay.
Speaker 1: If if you have been brought here and you haven't
Speaker 1: listened to the show before, please also clap yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: a few see what they did. Brave, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: That was that was a thinker. That was a time, real,
Speaker 1: real hand scratcher. But yeah, we're the Becktel Cast. We are.
Speaker 1: We talk about women in film and we use the
Speaker 1: Bechdel Test as a jumping off point for our discussion. Yes,
Speaker 1: and if you're not familiar with that, what that is.
Speaker 1: It is a media metric creative our cartoonist Alice and
Speaker 1: Bechtel also sometimes own as a Becktel Wallace test. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it requires that two female identifying characters with names
Speaker 1: talk to each other about something other than a man,
Speaker 1: and you would think it would happen all the time,
Speaker 1: But then there's most of the Star Wars and also
Speaker 1: other movies. Shall we demonstrate it? Yes? Please? Okay? Um,
Speaker 1: I have one ready. Yes, I wrote it down to
Speaker 1: hey Jamie, yes, um, Sorry I almost sucked it up.
Speaker 1: Did you know that we have someone here in the
Speaker 1: audience tonight named Kay whose birthday it is? Yes? I
Speaker 1: did I read that? Dear where's Katie? Oh? Hai? Kay?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? Happy birthday? Sing too. We already know
Speaker 1: you can sing you sick aus? Wait can we sing
Speaker 1: happy birthday? Okay? You guys know how to do it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't one to Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday,
Speaker 1: Happy dear Caseyay? Wow. Isn't anyone else's birthday? Birth? Okay? Wait,
Speaker 1: it is your birthday? I know someone isn't. Someone tweeted?
Speaker 1: Someone just tweet there like it's my birthday and I'm
Speaker 1: in the front room. That was you? Wait, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's everyone's birthday. This is so Wait whose birthday is it?
Speaker 1: It's you birthday Friday. We'll get out of here, god, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I Happy birthday, Happy belated birthday, Virgo, what's your name?
Speaker 1: Don't know what that means? Claire, Happy belated birthday? And
Speaker 1: what's your is it your birthday? Oh? Okay, it was
Speaker 1: also Friday. What's your name? Clementine? Happy birthday, Claren, Clementine.
Speaker 1: Like so many good sea names, hard continent love a
Speaker 1: hard continent really gets the night started up, right, man?
Speaker 1: So yeah, we were so we're so packed to be here.
Speaker 1: We tried to choose movies appropriately. So this this one
Speaker 1: really works because it doesn't take place in this country,
Speaker 1: but it's close. Yeah. Point for effort. Yes, uh. And
Speaker 1: we have a guest here to join our discussion. She
Speaker 1: is a comedian from Glasgow. She is a co ho
Speaker 1: of a live show they're in Glasgow called The Salon.
Speaker 1: Give it up for the very funny Rachel Ann Clark. Hello,
Speaker 1: what's up? Thanks for being here, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to be here. So Women and Film,
Speaker 1: Women in Film and their podcast, So we're talking about Brave.
Speaker 1: Of course, this is my This is the best movie
Speaker 1: for us to cover because I can just say Brave
Speaker 1: all the time. So everything that happens in this movie
Speaker 1: is brave. Yes. And the show, the show that we're
Speaker 1: doing after this one is the favorite, and if you
Speaker 1: mash them together, it's the Braver Wite night there. So
Speaker 1: I was very impressed with it, thank you. Not anyone
Speaker 1: else was, but by round of applause, who has seen
Speaker 1: the movie Brave? Brave? Is there is there anyone who
Speaker 1: has not seen Brave? Clap coward? It's called an inversion. So, Rachel,
Speaker 1: and what's your history your relationship with Brave? Well, apart
Speaker 1: from the obvious, he came out in and I was
Speaker 1: unemployed because I just graduated and media, so you know. Um,
Speaker 1: so it was like Brave was coming out, not really
Speaker 1: into the whole Disney princess vibe usually, but I was
Speaker 1: like so quick to scrape up the last of my
Speaker 1: dull money, just like unemployment benefacture. Thank you. Even then
Speaker 1: we were very stupid. I was like counting the coppers
Speaker 1: like quick quick when you go see Brave And yeah,
Speaker 1: just like skipped to cinema to see it, and did
Speaker 1: you like it? Loved it, like really loved it for
Speaker 1: so many reasons that I will get into, but yeah,
Speaker 1: like definitely, like definitely my favorite Disney favorite. Oh the
Speaker 1: favorite this is. I really saved my bravorite, Caitly, what
Speaker 1: about you? I saw it, I don't think in theaters,
Speaker 1: but as per usual, like not long after it came out,
Speaker 1: and um, I liked it just fine. And I think
Speaker 1: it was that that was the only time I saw
Speaker 1: it until prepping for the show. But I have a
Speaker 1: greater appreciation for it now. I think I wasn't that
Speaker 1: fond of it at the time because I hadn't discovered
Speaker 1: my love of Bears yet. I needed I needed Paddington
Speaker 1: to come out two years later and then and now
Speaker 1: I'm like, Bears, what about you? What's your history? I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen it. I was. I was in college when
Speaker 1: this movie came out, so I was probably just like
Speaker 1: busy torpedoing my life. So I wasn't seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of movies at that time. But no, I hadn't seen
Speaker 1: it before. It's been on my list of just like
Speaker 1: things I wanted to watch forever. So I saw it
Speaker 1: when we were prepping a k yesterday, and um, I
Speaker 1: liked it. There were some things of it. It's so weird.
Speaker 1: I feel like, even between twenty twelve and now, the
Speaker 1: way that leading female characters are treated in movies has
Speaker 1: already changed quite a bit, and so there are it
Speaker 1: already feels in some ways to me to be a
Speaker 1: little bit dated, even though it just came out seven
Speaker 1: years ago. Um, but I think it was like a huge,
Speaker 1: like step forward in a lot of ways. I would
Speaker 1: the Okay, the thing that through me the most about
Speaker 1: this movie is in the marketing of this movie, they
Speaker 1: did in no way indicate that it's about a bare,
Speaker 1: freaky Friday. I thought it was about like if they're like,
Speaker 1: she doesn't conform to the rules, she shoots arrows. I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is fucking cool. I love this, and then they're like,
Speaker 1: also her momma mom is a You're like, where did
Speaker 1: that come from? I was truly, I was like shocked
Speaker 1: when that happened. I was like, why do that? But
Speaker 1: I guess we'll just unpack it for the next hour.
Speaker 1: But I just I didn't see the bear coming. I'm like,
Speaker 1: why did they Why was there so much bear erasure
Speaker 1: in the marketing? Like, I had no idea this is
Speaker 1: about a mom bear situation. I know. Confusing. Well, shall
Speaker 1: I get into the recap? Yes, okay, recap recap we're
Speaker 1: from We've been here for two days, so we're from here,
Speaker 1: so kind of how it works, okay, the story of
Speaker 1: Brave Mereda is a little girl in medieval Scotland and
Speaker 1: she's the cutest and she's a princess and her parents
Speaker 1: are the King and Queen. That's how that works, yep, okay,
Speaker 1: And she loves archery, and for her birthday her dad
Speaker 1: gets her a bow and arrow. Uh. And as she's
Speaker 1: practicing with it, she comes across a bunch of wisps,
Speaker 1: which are these like ethereal little like blue whispy things
Speaker 1: basically like stolen from studios. Hep right uh and as
Speaker 1: legend has it, these whisps lead you to your fate. Uh.
Speaker 1: And just then a demon bear, not Paddington, the opposite
Speaker 1: named more Do attacks Meredith's family and she and her
Speaker 1: mom escape as her father fights it off. Now we
Speaker 1: cut to ten years later. Her father, Fergus, has lost
Speaker 1: his leg in this bear attack to the mean bear
Speaker 1: bear moore Do. Mereda has three little brothers, now Hamish,
Speaker 1: Hubert and Harris, just like a little juggling balls, very cute,
Speaker 1: and Meredith's mother Lenor is teaching her how to be
Speaker 1: prim and proper so that Mereda can rule is queen
Speaker 1: one day? Uh and then when yes, there's there's stuff
Speaker 1: to talk about. When Merida, when she can, she escapes
Speaker 1: the pressures of princess life to borrow sort of a
Speaker 1: phrase from Aladdin um and she ventures off and practices
Speaker 1: her archery, which she is not. There's music playing in
Speaker 1: the background your life sure. And one day Mereda learns
Speaker 1: that three young male suitors are coming to visit from
Speaker 1: each of the neighboring clans and they're going to compete
Speaker 1: in some games and the winner will be betrothed to Merida.
Speaker 1: And this makes her furious because she does not want
Speaker 1: to get married and how old does she supposed to be? Also,
Speaker 1: she seems like I would guess like I would guess
Speaker 1: closer to six, the standard prince a stage. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: oh boy right, And so she and her mom argue,
Speaker 1: but Mereda realizes that she has no choice but to
Speaker 1: participate because it's tradition. So all they like cartoony Daddy's
Speaker 1: bringing their Scottish boys to woo her. They are McIntosh,
Speaker 1: which I think is a nod to Steve Jobs, who
Speaker 1: wanted The other major twist of the movie a tribute
Speaker 1: to Steve Jobs. At the end, You're just like what
Speaker 1: but there was because he had just died, and I
Speaker 1: guess we were still we were like, oh, he's a
Speaker 1: nice guy. Like I don't know what we were thinking,
Speaker 1: yeah something, Yeah, I mean doesn't mean he was a
Speaker 1: good person. We've all seen the Ashton Kutcher Jobs starring
Speaker 1: Ashton Kutcher. The man was a monster. So McIntosh, he's
Speaker 1: giving off off some strong William Wall spraveheart vibes mcguffin,
Speaker 1: which is a film term. And I know that because
Speaker 1: I studied screenwriting and I have a masters in it
Speaker 1: from Boston University, but I hate to mention it. I
Speaker 1: think you're getting your money's worth on that just by
Speaker 1: repeating it. Right. He's like a tall dude that no
Speaker 1: one understands when he speaks. And then Dingwall he's I
Speaker 1: don't even know what that's a reference to. That's a
Speaker 1: that's a very sophisticated reference. Yes, yes, no, I'm kidding,
Speaker 1: I don't know. He's like this little dweepy guy. So
Speaker 1: each of the suns are presented, and none of them
Speaker 1: are appealing to Meridath. And then there's too much masculine
Speaker 1: energy in the room, so a fight breaks out. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Queen Eleanor explains how the games will go,
Speaker 1: and Meredith perks up when she hears that only the
Speaker 1: firstborns of each clan are eligible to compete. So Meredath
Speaker 1: chooses archery as the thing that they'll all compete in.
Speaker 1: She should be a lawyer. That was a very clever
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, a brave choice, I would say. And the
Speaker 1: three young men all shoot with like varying degrees of success.
Speaker 1: And then Meredith is like, um, actually is the firstborn
Speaker 1: of clan done Brock, I will be competing for my
Speaker 1: own hand. This is the best part of the whole movie.
Speaker 1: It's so exciting. Everything that happens before the bear twist
Speaker 1: is my favorite thing I've ever seen. And then the
Speaker 1: bear stuff happens, uh, and she like fucking creams. The
Speaker 1: three boys archers their arrow and like exciting, Um, does
Speaker 1: cream means something that I'm I mean, it means the
Speaker 1: same thing, and these guys does it mean? Come? Does it?
Speaker 1: What does it mean? Everyone laughed when I said, mean
Speaker 1: it's come, Kaylyn, I'm being told it means that do
Speaker 1: not for us too? Right? No, Well, I don't know
Speaker 1: my pants for Nicholas Hole. Right, just an example. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're for the favorite show, you'll I'll say that again,
Speaker 1: you go. But for us it can also mean brutally defeat.
Speaker 1: But you could also use it both ways. I could
Speaker 1: be like I cream for I cream for Alfred Molina,
Speaker 1: but I could cream him in a fight. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: so I mean, god, we're just also different here now,
Speaker 1: poor choice of words for me. She started a dialogue
Speaker 1: that was good, and Eleanor is furious about Mereda, like
Speaker 1: making a mockery of the whole situation. And I have
Speaker 1: a huge fight, and Mereda takes a sword and slices
Speaker 1: this tapestry of her family, and then she runs away.
Speaker 1: And Meredith comes across some wisps, the same ones that
Speaker 1: she saw as a child, and they lead her to
Speaker 1: the cottage of a witch. I like to call her
Speaker 1: convenient plot, which we we have fluids to naim, like
Speaker 1: is that a common thing? And mered is like, Hi,
Speaker 1: can you please cast a spell that will change my mom?
Speaker 1: And then which is like mm hmm, I got you, yeah,
Speaker 1: And she makes a magical cake for her mom to eat,
Speaker 1: which Eleanor does and which turns her into a bear.
Speaker 1: And then you're just like, wait, what movie of that?
Speaker 1: She turns into a bear? Yes, and they both freak
Speaker 1: out for a little bit, and then Mereda realizes it
Speaker 1: because of her father's bear vendetta. If if he steal
Speaker 1: was this the bear vendetta? Uh? If if her father
Speaker 1: sees the queen as a bear, he will try to
Speaker 1: kill her. So now Meredith has to protect her bear
Speaker 1: mom from her bear killing dad, who is also just
Speaker 1: doesn't notice that his wife is gone her like two days.
Speaker 1: And then at the end she comes back. Spoilers, she
Speaker 1: comes back, and then at the end he's like, there
Speaker 1: you are. I was like, what is this? What there?
Speaker 1: I thought he was supposed to be nice, Like he
Speaker 1: doesn't notice his wife and three of his sons are
Speaker 1: gone and meredith whole family has gone and he's just
Speaker 1: sitting around like I sure do hate bears yea. So
Speaker 1: also Meredith has to figure out how to change her
Speaker 1: mom back to being a human, and they escape from
Speaker 1: the castle and go back to the witch's cottage, but
Speaker 1: the witch isn't there anymore. That's how plot witches work.
Speaker 1: They're only there for the one scene. Yeah, but she's
Speaker 1: left a message that says by sunrise on the second day,
Speaker 1: the spell will be permanent unless she reverses it, which
Speaker 1: she needs. In order to do that, she has to
Speaker 1: mend the bond torn by pride. But they're like kind
Speaker 1: of getting some like Ursula energy there with the wording
Speaker 1: of the curse. Yeah, except but not plot relevant, like
Speaker 1: Ursula appears again and has a reason to be there,
Speaker 1: but this which is like I went to Coachella, like
Speaker 1: girls like okay, so they don't know what this means.
Speaker 1: And Mereda and her bear mom are out in the woods.
Speaker 1: They're fishing their bonding. Then her mom becomes feral for
Speaker 1: a second and Mared is like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: gotta fix this soon. Mom is becoming a bear. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So then some wisps show up again and convenient plot
Speaker 1: whisps I like to call them. They follow the whisps
Speaker 1: to this old castle, where Meredith figures out that the
Speaker 1: demon Bear more Do used to be a prince who
Speaker 1: wanted too much power and then like trying to change
Speaker 1: his fate, which was foreshadowed by convenient plot, which foreshadowing
Speaker 1: also being the beast. Yeah right, because the least was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: you're the big scary. Yeah yeah, and there's also foreshadowed
Speaker 1: whenever her mom like, it's like legends are lessons, don't
Speaker 1: try to get too much power at the end um
Speaker 1: women having power and bed. Anyways, I'm a bear. Now
Speaker 1: there's like a twist. So then Mereda realizes that men
Speaker 1: the bond torn by pride means that she has to
Speaker 1: fix that tapestry that she cut up with the sword
Speaker 1: because women being yes, yes, this was pre shopping days,
Speaker 1: so they had to be sewing rather shopping for threat sometimes. Yeah. True.
Speaker 1: So they go back to the castle and all the
Speaker 1: men are still fighting about which son will get to
Speaker 1: marry Mereda, and she distracts all these guys with this speech.
Speaker 1: During this the bear mom plays a game of charades
Speaker 1: to communicate that she now supports Merida in breaking tradition
Speaker 1: by not getting married. So uh there there, I mean,
Speaker 1: you don't see the bear change coming. But then just
Speaker 1: the repeated bear an text, you're just like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: bear charades is the climax of the movie. Bear Charades,
Speaker 1: give me a break. And then they go and find
Speaker 1: the tapestry, but just then Bear Mom turns feral again,
Speaker 1: and then bear hating Daddy barges in and tries to
Speaker 1: kill bear Mom, but Daddy locks Merida in the room,
Speaker 1: and then an angry mob chases after Bear Mom and
Speaker 1: then Merida escapes with the help of her now bare brothers. Also,
Speaker 1: her brothers are bears, not too important that you know.
Speaker 1: They ate some of the cake now they're tiny little
Speaker 1: bears because they love desserts. Their most favorite dessert seems
Speaker 1: to be a pastry that looks exactly like a boob
Speaker 1: they love. Oh yeah, they make a lot of weird
Speaker 1: boob jokes. They also make a lot of jokes kind
Speaker 1: of at the expense of the woman who works at
Speaker 1: the castle. I don't remember. Yeah, yeah, there's justice for Marty,
Speaker 1: my god. So Merida escapes. She shows up the tapestry
Speaker 1: and goes to find her mom, and then outside all
Speaker 1: the men are trying to capture Bear Mom, and a
Speaker 1: more do shows up the demon bear. Wait, not enough
Speaker 1: bears in the scenes bring the other bear back and
Speaker 1: he and Bear Mom fight more Due gets crushed by
Speaker 1: Scottish Stonehenge. Scottish or that was probably offensive. Okay, your kids,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe it was their first and Stonehenge copied the
Speaker 1: Scottish Yeah so the bears crushed, more dues crushed, and
Speaker 1: then the sun starts to rise, but bear mom is
Speaker 1: still a bear, and Mered is like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. And it
Speaker 1: turns out that all that needed to happen was an
Speaker 1: apology to mend the bo All she had to do
Speaker 1: is apologize to her mom, who was punishing her for
Speaker 1: no reason. She was so wrong to have not wanted
Speaker 1: to get married at sixteen to a stranger. Mereda, you
Speaker 1: goof yes, and then uh Eleanor finally turns back into
Speaker 1: a human and they all have happily ever after. There's
Speaker 1: a lot to discuss here. There's an So it's a
Speaker 1: movie about a young woman who is actively defying tradition,
Speaker 1: traditional patriarchal values, and rigid gender norm So that's not
Speaker 1: something we generally see out of a Disney Princess movie.
Speaker 1: It's about a mother who at first tries to uphold
Speaker 1: these patriarchal values and traditional gender roles. But then when
Speaker 1: Meredith turns her mom into a bear a k. When
Speaker 1: Meredith does something like very drastic to show her mom
Speaker 1: that she's not fucking around, well, when she just says, yeah,
Speaker 1: I disagree with you, and I'm sixteen, so I wish
Speaker 1: you were different. Right. She didn't ask for her mom
Speaker 1: to be a bear. That was just plot which kind
Speaker 1: of going off in her own direction. But when that happens,
Speaker 1: Eleanor starts to realize how toxic her views are and
Speaker 1: how it's destroying her relationship with her daughter, and then
Speaker 1: the story becomes about doing away with these toxic views
Speaker 1: and repairing the mother daughter relationships. So at the core,
Speaker 1: that's to me what this movie is about. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mostly agree with that, but then there's a little part
Speaker 1: and me that's like, as her mom just saying that
Speaker 1: because she's a bear, Right, you would say anything to
Speaker 1: not be a bear? Yeah, just say I'm a bear? Night.
Speaker 1: What do I know? What's more important as hard not
Speaker 1: getting maddied and then maybe I'll not be a bear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a real survivalist instinct coming on her. I hadn't
Speaker 1: thought of that. I honestly I am neither. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: we don't know where she's coming from there there. If
Speaker 1: it does feel kind of very rooted in its time
Speaker 1: in I will like I wish I had grown up
Speaker 1: with this movie, and I wish that I had more
Speaker 1: examples of especially princess movies, because they're so prevalent um
Speaker 1: and so heavily marketed at young girls, to like see
Speaker 1: if these movies are going to continue young girl who
Speaker 1: has agency, who has very clear desires and what she
Speaker 1: wants to do, and is very capable and is willing
Speaker 1: to define in order to do that. I just think
Speaker 1: that at some point in the movie, for me, it
Speaker 1: kind of there is still a weird blaming element towards
Speaker 1: the women in this movie that don't apply to the
Speaker 1: men in the movie at all. So I guess like
Speaker 1: where I'm coming from from there is you have like
Speaker 1: these kind of stock characters and kind of besides, this
Speaker 1: is like another point, but the way that the characters
Speaker 1: are animated are kind of classically, like the male cartoons
Speaker 1: are look like cartoons, and the female cartoons look like
Speaker 1: hot women, like normative Western beauty hot women, And that
Speaker 1: is something that is like an issue and animation over
Speaker 1: and over and over where like you know, men aren't
Speaker 1: actual gigantic triangles like like every man and and and
Speaker 1: they're really cool. The character design on the male characters
Speaker 1: is so much more fun, like the Baby's heads are gigantic,
Speaker 1: like it's there, it's ridiculous. But then you see like
Speaker 1: Merrit and her mother are very clearly Western beauty standard
Speaker 1: women because merchandizing or whatever. But yes, she has comedy,
Speaker 1: she has serious comedy boops, and they're out the whole time.
Speaker 1: And there's that oh god, the one that I was like,
Speaker 1: are you fucking kidding me? The one where the baby
Speaker 1: bear swan dives into her cleavage. I'm just like, because
Speaker 1: I've had enough there. But the way the way that
Speaker 1: the patriarchal structure is represented here, from the way I
Speaker 1: was viewing it was that all the men in this
Speaker 1: movie are so goofy that it makes it. It suggests
Speaker 1: that the patriarchy doesn't exist and that all men just
Speaker 1: need to be it has to be suggested to them like, oh,
Speaker 1: have you ever thought that maybe a teenager shouldn't marry someone?
Speaker 1: And there and in the movie there's literally that whole
Speaker 1: scene where all the guys are like, oh doroy, yeah,
Speaker 1: we should totally okay, we're gonna go now, like it's
Speaker 1: like and that just that lets the concept of patriarchy
Speaker 1: off the like totally off the hook to by suggesting
Speaker 1: that those standards aren't in place very much on purpose,
Speaker 1: and then all of the kind of like criticism is
Speaker 1: placed on her mom, who is the one who is
Speaker 1: doing the kind of the the I mean she, I
Speaker 1: think she, especially at the beginning, is framed very kind
Speaker 1: of shrew stereotype of like you have to do this,
Speaker 1: you have to do this, you have to do this,
Speaker 1: And it's hard to understand where that character is coming
Speaker 1: from because it doesn't seem like the men around her
Speaker 1: are enforcing that norm right, it's basically only the mother
Speaker 1: who is And then the dad's like, yeah, girls can
Speaker 1: do archery, fucking well, I'm cool, Billy Connolly and I'm
Speaker 1: nice Billy. Well, Billy Connolly does have a thing in
Speaker 1: his contract that he'll only play cool day. But they're
Speaker 1: just that way of just like we're supposed to be
Speaker 1: angry at and we just don't really have much context
Speaker 1: for why is mother character behaving like this, and it's
Speaker 1: made to seem like it's more of a personal flaw
Speaker 1: of hers rather than a flaw of like the society
Speaker 1: they're living in. So that like that kind of kept
Speaker 1: coming up for me as we were as we were
Speaker 1: going through it. But that's it I mean it's like,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have that wouldn't have hit with me as
Speaker 1: hard when I was a kid. That's because is kind
Speaker 1: of the way that we're watching it now. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: criticism is is totally valid, but um, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot that this movie does really well,
Speaker 1: especially considering the intended audience. And I too, I wish
Speaker 1: I had seen it like grown up with this rather
Speaker 1: than you know, the very damaging movies that we've covered
Speaker 1: on the podcast already, like you know, snow White, Little Mermaid, Aladdin,
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Because if you do compare Brave to
Speaker 1: earlier Disney princess movies and they're referenced a lot in
Speaker 1: this movie, like by a lot of different scenes, you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's kind of from there, you know, right, because like
Speaker 1: in a lot of these other ones, just to name
Speaker 1: a few, snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping be Beuty, Little Mermaid,
Speaker 1: Beauty and the Beast, Pocahon's a Laddin, the mom is
Speaker 1: absent in those movies, and the princess's whole story arc
Speaker 1: is about ending up with a man. Brave still about
Speaker 1: a princess, but this is I think the first Disney
Speaker 1: Princess movie where the princess does not have a romantic interest,
Speaker 1: which helps with it being like not technically Disney, right,
Speaker 1: but this is also I mean, like seventeen years into
Speaker 1: Pixar and this is their first female whet. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have a whole spiel about that. But so not only
Speaker 1: does she not have a romantic interest, she explicitly states
Speaker 1: that that's something that she's not interested in at all,
Speaker 1: or at least like in this juncture in her life.
Speaker 1: So that's a huge But also I mean, like girls
Speaker 1: were getting married off at age nine ish during this time,
Speaker 1: so it's actually very progressive. So like, yeah, her not
Speaker 1: having a romantic interest and not having an interest in
Speaker 1: getting married is becomes a huge plot point. And then
Speaker 1: her mom is not only alive in this movie, but
Speaker 1: the story is largely about Meredith's relationship with her mom.
Speaker 1: I would even argue that it's and I don't even
Speaker 1: know if this is like the best writing choice, but
Speaker 1: the story gradually becomes more and more about Mereda's mom,
Speaker 1: to the point where Merrid's mom is the one to
Speaker 1: make all of the climactic decisions and moves, where like
Speaker 1: Mereda is about to be like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get married and then bear charades. So Mereda's mom
Speaker 1: is is taking the reins in that scene and then
Speaker 1: in the big bear fight with the other bear. How
Speaker 1: many chimes are you say? Bear? Uh? That Like Meredith's
Speaker 1: mom is is in charge of of that scene as well.
Speaker 1: So it's like it I feel like the main arc
Speaker 1: in this story kind of belongs to her mother, because
Speaker 1: we go from Merida not wanting to get married to
Speaker 1: Merida not wanting to get married. Like she she is
Speaker 1: a pretty consistent character where married's mom has this whole
Speaker 1: ideological shift. Or does she because she's a bear? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that to ponder. Yeah, but it is interesting, like
Speaker 1: they're like the mom kind of starts off as the
Speaker 1: closest thing we have to a villain besides the other bear.
Speaker 1: She has kind of this cool redemptive arc that I liked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. A few other like key differences between Brave
Speaker 1: and other earlier Disney movies is, for example, like when
Speaker 1: Meredath is locked in a tower at the end of
Speaker 1: the movie, which her dad does to keep her safe
Speaker 1: from the various bears, she like tries really hard to
Speaker 1: escape and then like manages to do so, whereas like
Speaker 1: and other manipulates her bear brothers, because in other like
Speaker 1: princess narratives, the princess generally passively waits sitting by, waiting
Speaker 1: to be rescued by like, you know, Prince Charming kind
Speaker 1: of or Shrek Um or Shrek right in some of Shrek,
Speaker 1: never forget Shrek Um. And then when Meredith does need
Speaker 1: to be rescued from more do at the end, it's
Speaker 1: only after she's put up a good fight herself and
Speaker 1: it's her mom who rescues her. Not not an right, right,
Speaker 1: I do that. I do wish that Meredith had fought
Speaker 1: more at the at the end. I mean, she's she's
Speaker 1: like she'd she launches some arrows. I just sword. I
Speaker 1: think that that's like a personal preference thing. I was
Speaker 1: just like, whoever makes like the killing blow, it's their
Speaker 1: movie and mom and it's Beare Mom, And I think
Speaker 1: that it is arguably kind of Beare Mom's movie. She
Speaker 1: has the biggest she I think everyone is brave at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, Thank you so much. We're
Speaker 1: also true. Here's my spiel about Brave being the first
Speaker 1: Pixar movie with a female lead. I have a lot
Speaker 1: to say this about this as well. Okay, do you
Speaker 1: want to go first? Um? Sure? Uh? So this was so,
Speaker 1: as we were started referencing earlier, this is the first
Speaker 1: Pixar movie to ever have a female lead. Uh and
Speaker 1: this is seventeen years after Toy Story took a long
Speaker 1: fucking time. Not coincidentally, is also the first Pixar movie
Speaker 1: to have a female director. Brenda Chapman, who I think
Speaker 1: kind of has this really interesting place in animation history
Speaker 1: because she is like one of the She was the
Speaker 1: first woman to ever direct a major studio animated film.
Speaker 1: She directed The Princes of Egypt. Anyone remember that classic
Speaker 1: probably doesn't hold up well, but I saw it in
Speaker 1: the church summer camp. They're just like, how do we
Speaker 1: get you to be quiet for an hour? So she
Speaker 1: she had directed The Prince of Egypt. And there's still
Speaker 1: to date from what I could find, or there's under ten,
Speaker 1: arguably under five women who have directed major animation studio
Speaker 1: projects literally ever. Um, Brenda Chapman ended up co directing,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into this movie. And then there was
Speaker 1: also uh where what's her name? Jennifer Yo directed and
Speaker 1: co directed Kung fu Panda's two and three. Um, and
Speaker 1: then there was also a female co director of Frozen,
Speaker 1: but there's still never been a movie only directed by
Speaker 1: a woman in animation. And I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: been alive for the past two years, but Pixar has
Speaker 1: a spectacularly bad record with how they treat women. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so the deal with Brenda is she had been working
Speaker 1: in animation at Disney or uh DreamWorks for Disney adjacent
Speaker 1: since the late eighties. She started working with them on
Speaker 1: The Little Mermaid doing like in between drawings and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. She like put in her time, right and
Speaker 1: uh then for for Brave, this was going to be
Speaker 1: her big opportunity to direct, and she had co written
Speaker 1: the script and she conceived of the story based on
Speaker 1: her own relationship with her daughter, right, and so it's
Speaker 1: like great, okay Brenda, and who fux it up? But
Speaker 1: you know who already John Mothers fucking Lasseter ruining everything
Speaker 1: since apparently toy story like he is this piece of ship. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we haven't heard from Brenda Chapman in a in
Speaker 1: a bit, but what we do know is that she
Speaker 1: worked on this project for years and years. It was
Speaker 1: her baby, and it was the payoff for all of
Speaker 1: this work she had done for all these years, and
Speaker 1: then she was replaced with eighteen months left, and for
Speaker 1: a movie this big that is pretty late in the game.
Speaker 1: She was replaced by a man because of her disagreements
Speaker 1: creatively with John Lasseter. So in the end she only
Speaker 1: gets co directing credit for the thing. That is very
Speaker 1: clear she did the bulk of the work on and
Speaker 1: she leaves Pixar the second this movie comes out. She's
Speaker 1: sucking out of here. And she said publicly at the time,
Speaker 1: she's like, I will not be coming back like she is.
Speaker 1: She really like it's and in twelve that's not a
Speaker 1: small thing. This is extremely pre me too, and extremely
Speaker 1: like when John Lasseter was still kind of this like
Speaker 1: golden god in the animation industry. But she was just like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to work with him. He's a piece
Speaker 1: of ship. And coming from the only female director he's
Speaker 1: ever worked with, that's not nothing. So shout out Brenda Chapman.
Speaker 1: She's a she. She she fucking and the movie still
Speaker 1: turned out incredible in spite of all that like behind
Speaker 1: the scenes insanity, and she has said that she feels
Speaker 1: her like original vision was generally maintained, and she's still
Speaker 1: very proud of it. Um I have a few quotes
Speaker 1: from her from various pieces. She penned a piece in
Speaker 1: The New York Times in twelve entitled stand up for
Speaker 1: Yourself and mentor others uh, and she says about Brave,
Speaker 1: this was a story that I created, which came from
Speaker 1: a very personal play as a woman and a mother.
Speaker 1: To have it taken away and given to someone else
Speaker 1: and a man at that was truly distressing on so
Speaker 1: many levels. Then, in an interview with Polygon in she says,
Speaker 1: I'm very very proud of Brave. Much of my work
Speaker 1: that they had initially tried to take out once I left,
Speaker 1: they ended up putting much of it back in because
Speaker 1: there was really nothing wrong with the movie and there
Speaker 1: was no reason creatively to take me off the film.
Speaker 1: When asked what they tried to change about Brave, she
Speaker 1: said they tried to make it more about the father
Speaker 1: daughter story opposed to the mother daughter story. It was interesting,
Speaker 1: and it didn't work. And then, going back to her
Speaker 1: New York Times piece, she writes, sometimes women expressed an
Speaker 1: idea and are shot down, only to have a man
Speaker 1: expressed essentially the same idea and have it broadly embraced.
Speaker 1: Until there is a sufficient number of women executives and
Speaker 1: high places, this will continue to happen. Yes, So basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, from what I can tell, John Lasseter wanted
Speaker 1: to ruin the story. Brenda Chapman was like, no, don't
Speaker 1: do that, and then John later because of that, and
Speaker 1: then realized that the changes they were trying to make
Speaker 1: didn't work, and then they just ended up making the
Speaker 1: movie that Chapman originally envisioned, but now without her right,
Speaker 1: which is something that happens all the time. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're a big little lies head like myself on
Speaker 1: the on the second season, a very similar thing happened
Speaker 1: this past year where uh female director even the reins
Speaker 1: for the entire season, and then in the last three
Speaker 1: months of editing, her work was taken from her and
Speaker 1: completely re edited and redone and then credited to a man.
Speaker 1: So it is prevalent issue everywhere. I'm I'm really glad
Speaker 1: that Brenda Chapman is like spoken to this, especially in animation,
Speaker 1: which is so incredibly male dominated UM and and also,
Speaker 1: I mean it is an extremely extremely white industry, and
Speaker 1: so the fact that she you know, she spoke up
Speaker 1: and like defended her. Like that's not an easy thing
Speaker 1: to do, so drama behind the scenes. You love to
Speaker 1: see a feminist icon Brenda. Good for her. I really
Speaker 1: admire that. I also enjoyed The Prince of Egypt, so
Speaker 1: long time fan. Every Yeah, Vacation, Bible School Baby. More
Speaker 1: about just this movie being the first Pixar film with
Speaker 1: a female lead. Yes, that is true, but it's also
Speaker 1: the one that most closely resembles a typical animated Disney
Speaker 1: princess movie because the other pis are movies about the boys,
Speaker 1: get to be about toys, bugs, monsters, cars, fish, robots,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Uh. But the good news is after Brave,
Speaker 1: there were more female protagonists in Pixar movies were inside Out.
Speaker 1: We spend the time inside a woman's brain, a confusing
Speaker 1: place that none of us understand. Oh it's ust but
Speaker 1: finding Dory, I mean yeah, um, but all the same,
Speaker 1: like this, you know, is the first one with a
Speaker 1: female lead. It's still is like a fairy tale about
Speaker 1: a princess. And while I would say, especially by standards,
Speaker 1: it is a feminist text, uh, it is still showcasing
Speaker 1: a very specific type of like female archetype, which is
Speaker 1: a rich white, young princess girl, yeah, who can go
Speaker 1: to plot Witch's house and be like I have gold,
Speaker 1: Like they're just like relatable. Um uh yeah. No. I also,
Speaker 1: I mean think that that is kind of another indication
Speaker 1: of how male dominated Pixar and that entire industry is,
Speaker 1: but especially Pixar, because there are so many demonstrable examples
Speaker 1: of women's opinions just being absolutely shut down at any
Speaker 1: opportunity of it's not. It's like kind of disappointing. Even
Speaker 1: though I like Brave and I'm glad it exists, it's
Speaker 1: disappointing that the only female led story they were willing
Speaker 1: to take a chance on was something that was a
Speaker 1: clear clearly demist like a princess movie. Like there's really
Speaker 1: not even though there are like inversions and like really
Speaker 1: really smart ones done by I'm assuming the female writers. Um,
Speaker 1: they're still not taking a real gamble by doing this,
Speaker 1: I don't think. I mean, I think it was a
Speaker 1: gamble by their standards, but making another princess movie is
Speaker 1: not a huge risk. And I was curious about is
Speaker 1: this story rooted in any sort of like Scottish lore,
Speaker 1: folklore and Rachel anne Um as our resident expert, is
Speaker 1: there is that the case. I'm not from medieval Scotland,
Speaker 1: but but you don't know what everything about Scotland has
Speaker 1: ever happened. I don't. I don't think so. I think
Speaker 1: the will of the wisps, like a whisp is as
Speaker 1: a thing, and like the stones are a thing. I've
Speaker 1: been to the like Scottish stonehenge, yes, thing, well, this
Speaker 1: one that I was at was in the Hebrides. But
Speaker 1: there's like there's more than one, like there's more than
Speaker 1: one stonehenge. They're just not all called stonehenge like stones,
Speaker 1: stones and a big circle are a thing. Sure, no
Speaker 1: one knows why. Maybe that's where they had the bear
Speaker 1: fights back there, like we've not we've not quite figured
Speaker 1: out why they're there and ask for like turning into bear. No,
Speaker 1: I've not that not, that's not part of Scottish lore.
Speaker 1: Maybe me once a month, but like no, like I've not,
Speaker 1: I have no. I'm still I'm just like, what is
Speaker 1: going on with the bear? I just the bear? Try.
Speaker 1: I honestly, if this movie had played out the way
Speaker 1: I thought it was going to, which is a movie,
Speaker 1: I think I would have liked better would have it
Speaker 1: would have been like Mereda going off and you know,
Speaker 1: like leaving the kingdom that she is from, you know,
Speaker 1: and and going out finding her own way making coming
Speaker 1: back with the lessons she's learned. I mean, basically invert
Speaker 1: the hero story that we've seen with male characters a
Speaker 1: billion times and seeing it with this really cool, empowered,
Speaker 1: capable female character. And then we kind of get caught
Speaker 1: in the weeds of this whole bear situation and she
Speaker 1: doesn't get much further than two miles from home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like there's not really a lesson for her learn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she doesn't want to get mad, and then she does,
Speaker 1: which which is cool. I mean, like in itself, that's
Speaker 1: a subversion, but I do think that like they're and
Speaker 1: I don't even I'm like, is this a feminist critique
Speaker 1: or is this just like weird writing of just not
Speaker 1: much about her changes and what does change about her
Speaker 1: kind of made me feel weird of by the end,
Speaker 1: like the the action that Merida takes at the climax
Speaker 1: of the movie to unbear her mom is that she
Speaker 1: apologizes for her firmly held values, and that was just like,
Speaker 1: what are we supposed to be taking away from that.
Speaker 1: Like this the like the first twenty minutes of this movie,
Speaker 1: which I've loved, and you know, when she's like doing
Speaker 1: the archery, she rips her dress, she's like, funck this,
Speaker 1: and you know, like that is all so incredible. But
Speaker 1: then it feels like she's apologizing for all of that
Speaker 1: having happened, being like, oh, I didn't respect patriarchal traditions
Speaker 1: and so and now my mom's a bearer. I'm so bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree that she kind of has. I mean, she
Speaker 1: should maybe apologized to her mom for turning her into
Speaker 1: a bear, but but she didn't. Yeah, the fact that
Speaker 1: she apologizes at last, Ursula clearly states what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: That's true, even makes her sign a contract and know
Speaker 1: is basically a scientist and a lawyer. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: And then this plot which apparently only knows one spell,
Speaker 1: which is to turn people into bears. She's also Emma Thompson.
Speaker 1: She's also a Coachla, You're just like, who is this
Speaker 1: character now? Emma Thompson's the mom? Emma Sorry, sorry, so
Speaker 1: you're right. Who's Who's Julie Waters? Julie Walters? Yeah, Waters
Speaker 1: are walters mom and Mrs Bird from Paddington's. Yeah, then,
Speaker 1: let me just take a quick sidebar to note the
Speaker 1: Paddington's parallels, sure the obvious, both being bare heavy movies.
Speaker 1: Julie Walters play is the Witch, who is of course
Speaker 1: Mrs Bird in Paddington's. Emma Thompson, who voices Eleanor is
Speaker 1: from Paddington, England. And you know who else is from
Speaker 1: Paddington England? Whom Alfred Molina? What? Yes? You know that?
Speaker 1: Did they not lay him in the movie? Why didn't
Speaker 1: he get asked? I don't know. I bet he was
Speaker 1: busy and he didn't want to. Oh my god, wow, wow,
Speaker 1: he's from Well, if we're talking about who Alfred Millina
Speaker 1: could play in this movie, and I know that we're
Speaker 1: aiming for a Scottish heavy cast, but we do have
Speaker 1: Emma Thompson right, and she's she's English, right, mama is Scottish,
Speaker 1: her mom is okay if we're but but you Rachel
Speaker 1: and also told us before we came out on stage
Speaker 1: that so Kelly McDonald plays Merida, and she I think
Speaker 1: is best known from train Spotting as famously only woman
Speaker 1: in Trainspotting. But she voices Mereda, but apparently it was
Speaker 1: originally supposed to be Reese Witherspoon. Yeah wait, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pull up the quote because it is very Oh stop
Speaker 1: trying to make Reese Witherspoon happen. She's already famous. I
Speaker 1: love I loved her at role. That's the other thing
Speaker 1: where we were just like, have we ever heard Reese
Speaker 1: Weatherspoon be anyway like play in Non America? I don't
Speaker 1: think so. So the whole Reese situation. Uh so they
Speaker 1: hired her. She was attached to the project forever. No
Speaker 1: one was like, wait a second, Reese got a coach.
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm Scottish now, this is this is the
Speaker 1: new Reese legally Scottish. And and then and then I
Speaker 1: guess she quietly left the project because she turns out
Speaker 1: she isn't Scottish. And then she like said in an
Speaker 1: interview later, she was like, yeah, my Scottish was like dogshit,
Speaker 1: it was really mad. Yeah, so you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: didn't miss reason this one lover though, for sure. But
Speaker 1: when became back to what you were saying about Merida's
Speaker 1: arc and where she goes from the beginning toward the end,
Speaker 1: that that also hit for me as well. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean like if her mom didn't turn any a bear,
Speaker 1: nothing would happen, right right, Like nothing, nothing would have happened.
Speaker 1: It would have just had a bed round and then
Speaker 1: she might have got married like she probably would because
Speaker 1: I think her mom wouldn't be so like do the
Speaker 1: bear she would be as she wouldn't be like as
Speaker 1: invested in changing it if she wasn't a bear. Right.
Speaker 1: I really like this this line of thought of like
Speaker 1: the mom is just trying to get out of this situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not nothing. I do really feel like much would have changed.
Speaker 1: And then, like I loved the film so much, and
Speaker 1: then right up to the end, I was just like
Speaker 1: absolutely winded because man, it does like this is all
Speaker 1: my fault. I've been so selfish, like she says, I
Speaker 1: am selfish. I'm selfish, Like you know, I'll do anything
Speaker 1: to take it back, like I've changed. I'm so sorry,
Speaker 1: Like this is all me, and her mom's just there,
Speaker 1: she can't speak because she's a bear, right right, and man,
Speaker 1: it just like pulled in her heart and her mom's
Speaker 1: just like move I'm bear. That was a good I
Speaker 1: was devastated as I wanted them. Mom should be apologizing,
Speaker 1: but as you said, she's a bear. It is I mean,
Speaker 1: the fact that Meredith has to go so far to
Speaker 1: apologize for the character that we all fell in love
Speaker 1: with at the beginning of the movie just feels off, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. And then and then and kind of
Speaker 1: like getting back to what we were talking about at
Speaker 1: the beginning, the dad's lack of accountability and this whole situation. Right,
Speaker 1: first of all, he doesn't notice his family has vanished.
Speaker 1: But also that like in this whole thing, anytime that
Speaker 1: the that Queen Eleanor is saying like this is what
Speaker 1: you need to do, this is your expectation of society,
Speaker 1: the father always kind of gets off scott free again,
Speaker 1: well that's what uh brave of you. But he kind
Speaker 1: of he kind of just like, is you know a
Speaker 1: big triangle and he's like, I don't know. And then
Speaker 1: and Meredith like, my triangle Dad is so awesome, and
Speaker 1: you're like your triangle Dad is complicit and a lot
Speaker 1: of Shita wake up. I have I have some lists
Speaker 1: of things, has various lists like so I would say,
Speaker 1: unlike a lot of its predecessors in terms of other
Speaker 1: like fairy Tale Disney Princess movies. This one does a
Speaker 1: lot more to comment on things like femininity, masculine city,
Speaker 1: and gender roles, because there are various scenes in which
Speaker 1: Queen Eleanor says, like what a princess does and does
Speaker 1: not do. A princess does not chortle, she does not
Speaker 1: stuff her gob uh, she does not raise her eat them,
Speaker 1: she does not raise her voice. She does not have weapons.
Speaker 1: She is compassionate, patient, cautious, clean, and above all, a
Speaker 1: princess strives for perfection. I like this scene the way
Speaker 1: Emma Thompson does it, but I prefer it the way
Speaker 1: Julie Andrews did it in The Princess Diaries. Yes, but
Speaker 1: it's she's basically saying like, you're a woman, and women
Speaker 1: can only do certain things and they should not do
Speaker 1: other things. Meanwhile, whole feminist icon sort of, her dad
Speaker 1: is like, as a loser, I agree, but at first
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, he's actually really cool because he's like, here,
Speaker 1: have a bow, learned to shoot. But I won't stand
Speaker 1: up you in public or care that you're missing for
Speaker 1: forty eight hours. Bad. So the movie does also comment
Speaker 1: on masculinity. I think to some degree where the groups
Speaker 1: of men that you see are constantly trying to flaunt
Speaker 1: their masculinity. They're always trying to one up each other.
Speaker 1: They're always breaking out into huge violent fights, and this
Speaker 1: is always made to look very like stilly and and foolish,
Speaker 1: um and toxic. By the movie. There's that especially one
Speaker 1: suitor who's like this toxic bro fuck boy. He's oh yeah,
Speaker 1: He's like he definitely like does like pick up artist stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then and then he like throws a tantrum whenever
Speaker 1: he like doesn't get the bull's eye. And then like
Speaker 1: Meredith sarcastically, he's like, oh that's attractive. Um. Just the
Speaker 1: legend of the prince who wanted the strength of ten men.
Speaker 1: He wanted all this power and then bad things happen
Speaker 1: to him because he turned into a demon bear. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Meredith's dad is like on meredith side for
Speaker 1: a lot of the movie, but I'm anti dad. If
Speaker 1: you can't stand up for your daughter in public as
Speaker 1: a man with power, you, I don't funk with you.
Speaker 1: Fergus and do it. And he has such a strong
Speaker 1: bear vendetta that he almost kills his wife. Okay, but
Speaker 1: to be fair, it's hard to be fair. It would
Speaker 1: be really hard to look at it bear and be like,
Speaker 1: this is my wife. I was true. I was kind
Speaker 1: of empathizing with him on that where it's married is
Speaker 1: like no, this bears mom and he's like no, but
Speaker 1: but if he just listened to Meredith. But he doesn't
Speaker 1: like to listen to women, is the thing, right, right?
Speaker 1: That's fair and women when they say other women are
Speaker 1: bears and important and don't lock them up in a tower,
Speaker 1: definitely don't do that. He wasn't a good He's not
Speaker 1: a good character. He's not He's not good. And then
Speaker 1: he shoves her out of the way the in the
Speaker 1: bear fight at the end, she also she also like
Speaker 1: she she fights him. Yeah, I'm glad that she does that.
Speaker 1: And that was I mean, that was like a really
Speaker 1: that was like when the Meritive, it felt like the
Speaker 1: Meratith from the beginning of the movie came back for
Speaker 1: a second. You're like, oh, cool, Like when she's escaping
Speaker 1: the tower and when she like fights like sword fights
Speaker 1: with her dad, Like, yeah, this is the Meriti I
Speaker 1: wanted to see the whole time, not this whole barre
Speaker 1: negotiation thing. Sure to sum up there is some commentary
Speaker 1: on like you know, like gender roles, masculinity, femininity, but
Speaker 1: it's still it's not perfect in this movie. Um, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about sate. Oh right, Brave, because most
Speaker 1: movies that have fate as like a theme or a
Speaker 1: big story element have male protagonists. Um, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of talk about destiny and Star Wars, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of talk about fate in The Matrix Terminator much any
Speaker 1: like Chosen One narrative, Jesus of Jesus. Sorry, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to participate. These all have like fate as a
Speaker 1: theme or through line, and they're almost always male driven stories.
Speaker 1: If fate or destiny is something that gets talked about
Speaker 1: in a female driven movie, it's almost always something about romance,
Speaker 1: and it's like something to the effect of this is
Speaker 1: the man I'm destined to be with, or it is
Speaker 1: like a tragic fate where there's all those like faded
Speaker 1: to die to advance the male protagonists fated to die.
Speaker 1: So KIANU Reeves can begin the movie like that that
Speaker 1: kind of fate. Sure. Yeah, However, Brave has very strong
Speaker 1: fate themes and it has nothing to do with romance.
Speaker 1: It's all about like carving out your own path, being
Speaker 1: free to choose your own journey in life, and not
Speaker 1: being bound you are. Oh wow, someone said bear ahead
Speaker 1: to and like not being bound to rigid patriarchal traditions.
Speaker 1: So I still wish we had gotten to see more
Speaker 1: of a journey for her, though, I still I still
Speaker 1: think we see more of married as Mom's journey than hers.
Speaker 1: She doesn't get very far from home. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think it's nice to just have a like,
Speaker 1: a headstrong young woman whose like values we know. She
Speaker 1: she never wavers for them until she's apologizing for no
Speaker 1: reason at the end and the very end, which I yeah,
Speaker 1: that is I think a mistake narratively, which is probably
Speaker 1: something John lasted or decided to do because it doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. But this movie doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: We've mentioned the bear also, I wanted to mention really
Speaker 1: quick there there are four credited writers on the screenplay,
Speaker 1: and there is gender parody here. Uh so, Brendan Chapman
Speaker 1: is a credited writer, as well as Irene Metchi. I
Speaker 1: think it's how you say her name, who's like a
Speaker 1: Disney standby. She had writing credits on The Lion King
Speaker 1: Hunchback Hercules Fantasia two thousand and she wrote the TV
Speaker 1: version of Annie that I liked from so it did that.
Speaker 1: That is also I mean for any Disney, Pixar or
Speaker 1: any movie period um having some parody in the in
Speaker 1: the writing was was nice to see. For sure. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about Merida as a possible queer icon
Speaker 1: question mark, question mark, question mark. So a lot has
Speaker 1: been written about whether or not Mereda might be coded queer,
Speaker 1: either a lesbian or maybe asexual because of her lack
Speaker 1: of interest in getting married to a man. Um She's yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm also not interested in getting married to a man,
Speaker 1: and I'm straight. It's just good instincts and a lot
Speaker 1: for any one. True and different members of the queer
Speaker 1: community have embraced the idea that Merida might be queer.
Speaker 1: Others have speculated that she could just as easily be
Speaker 1: a straight person but doesn't want to be, you know,
Speaker 1: locked into a marriage when she's a teenager, as we pointed, up,
Speaker 1: straight person with a good head on her shot a
Speaker 1: good head of so much hair there. Then I think
Speaker 1: about like the rendering times on her head. You're like,
Speaker 1: I'm sure people were like at the brink of their
Speaker 1: own sanity over like this gorgeous cartoons head. They had
Speaker 1: to develop a like animation program specifically just for her hair,
Speaker 1: I mean worth it. Yeah, it's great anyway. The movie
Speaker 1: doesn't spell out her sexual identity or preference one way
Speaker 1: or the other. But I would say for those who
Speaker 1: have embraced Meredith as being a queer character, it's nice
Speaker 1: that for once, it's not a villain. Um, this time
Speaker 1: it's the hero. Because historically we've talked about this a lot,
Speaker 1: the queer, coded, uh or ambiguous characters, and Disney movies
Speaker 1: have pretty much all been villains. So um, I think
Speaker 1: that's a nice change of pace and I just love,
Speaker 1: I mean that element of this genre of movies. For
Speaker 1: all the issues that come with the Princess movie, I
Speaker 1: feel like there is a very like active discussion and
Speaker 1: open to interpretation element that different communities have made for themselves.
Speaker 1: I was really when we were doing the Little Mermaid episode.
Speaker 1: I was like pleasantly surprised and really interested in the
Speaker 1: number of different reads that can be done on a
Speaker 1: movie like this that is designed to be pretty broad
Speaker 1: and for you to plug yourself into the main character
Speaker 1: and to see um, the different meanings that people get
Speaker 1: out of it, and it's just it's cool. And I
Speaker 1: think Meredith is like that kind of character that is
Speaker 1: just kind of like open and I appreciate that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's truly the absolute least they can do, but by
Speaker 1: not doing a hard specification like that, that was really cool.
Speaker 1: For sure, possible quer icon. We don't know, true, She'll
Speaker 1: let us know. I think my last point was about archery. Okay,
Speaker 1: go off. We had a similar discussion on our Hunger games.
Speaker 1: With Brave, you get to see a woman using real
Speaker 1: weapons for once. It's not a frying pan or other
Speaker 1: kitchen of pines, although you do see Mahdi grab a
Speaker 1: frying pan to try to hit the three Little Bear
Speaker 1: brothers with at one point, again, she really reminded me
Speaker 1: of a character, a similar character from The Little Mermaid.
Speaker 1: It's like the woman who worked at Eric's castle is
Speaker 1: the same character. They're they're pulling a lot. Is it lazy?
Speaker 1: Is it homage? Sometimes it's both. Yesage is just kind
Speaker 1: of another word from like like so here different enough
Speaker 1: at though we see Mereda defending herself against more Do
Speaker 1: by firing arrows at him, she's often wielding a sword
Speaker 1: and according to a study by the Gina Davis Institute
Speaker 1: on Gender and Media about archery, fellow mens, Yes, um,
Speaker 1: this study was about archery, which is the fastest growing
Speaker 1: sport in the US. Apparently seven and ten girls said
Speaker 1: that Catnets from The Hunger Games and Meredith from Brave
Speaker 1: influenced their decision to take up archery. Hell yeah, that's incredible.
Speaker 1: So it just goes to show that when young people
Speaker 1: see someone like them on screen represented doing something, especially
Speaker 1: when it's a thing that they usually don't see themselves doing,
Speaker 1: like a girl doing archery and also being the very
Speaker 1: best at it, which the movie goes out of its
Speaker 1: way again again where she's, as you said, creaming them,
Speaker 1: creaming she's very very good like and that that is
Speaker 1: cool to see, Like she's not just their peer, she's
Speaker 1: like she's creaming them the right. So, yes, whenever girls
Speaker 1: are shown doing things that like maybe aren't traditionally feminine
Speaker 1: things to do, what empowers the audience to say, Hey,
Speaker 1: I could maybe do archery too, It just feels more possible. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Does anyone have any other thoughts about the film? What
Speaker 1: if I was like, I'd like to talk more about
Speaker 1: the bear on No, No, that's all. That's all, uh,
Speaker 1: that I really had for this. I think I mean
Speaker 1: to start wrapping up. And I think that this movie
Speaker 1: has like a very unique place in time, um where
Speaker 1: this is definitely a step forward, and it was like
Speaker 1: Pixar's first attempt to show a female character. And I
Speaker 1: think that the ways that they succeeded and failed are
Speaker 1: kind of telling, especially behind the scenes, and it is
Speaker 1: kind of weirdly encouraging that I was frustrated at so
Speaker 1: many places in this movie, because that just means that
Speaker 1: we have better options now. Um, So it was like
Speaker 1: weird the for the for the parts, I was frustrated
Speaker 1: that I was at least grateful to think, well, there
Speaker 1: are movies that exist, now would it exist off the
Speaker 1: work that Brave did? That kind of resolves some of
Speaker 1: the issues. It's a it's a good stepping stone hinge,
Speaker 1: Scott stonehinge, someone did boo Yeah and yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like we've talked a lot about the bear,
Speaker 1: but I feel like we've cannot overlooked Angus a little bit.
Speaker 1: Oh the horse, which is a very strange name for
Speaker 1: the horse unless they're going to like eat them later, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a thing. Yeah, yeah, just to show out
Speaker 1: to Angus. We never really we were like, he doesn't
Speaker 1: really do much in it. But then that's also the thing.
Speaker 1: When she has running off to save her mom, she's
Speaker 1: not even really you know, got Angus there to be like, Oh,
Speaker 1: come on, she's just sitting to buy animals, just doing
Speaker 1: it on her own. Sure, no one can talk to her.
Speaker 1: She's brave, she's grave. Yeah, how she's another Disney princess
Speaker 1: with seemingly only animal friends. Yeah, why doesn't she have
Speaker 1: a like a human friend. We don't see any of
Speaker 1: the people there. There's a major peasant erasure. We don't
Speaker 1: see anyone who's valued at less than six figures in
Speaker 1: this movie, except for a plot which we don't maybe
Speaker 1: is like a chamber maid or something like a line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she plays subjectified, brutal like Marti, plays into like the
Speaker 1: hysterical woman's stereotype because she's always a true woman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and are a few of our only I mean iconic
Speaker 1: brave of them to include these troups. I I blame
Speaker 1: anything that isn't like good or that's kind of trumpy
Speaker 1: about this movie on like John Lasseter, Sure, because I
Speaker 1: feel like Brenda Chapman would have, you know, not done
Speaker 1: that stuff. We firmly stand Brenda. Yes, we stand Brenda Chapman. Um.
Speaker 1: I think we have time for a few questions or
Speaker 1: comments from the audience. Oh, yes, how many nipples to be?
Speaker 1: The question? Was the question? I don't know off the
Speaker 1: top of my head, so I'm going to look at it.
Speaker 1: So I learned this recently that the number of nipples
Speaker 1: and animal has is dependent upon the number of offspring
Speaker 1: they generally have per litter. So bears I think generally
Speaker 1: have like maybe two or three cubs that time. I'm guessing.
Speaker 1: But but you double double it, so twice as many nipples?
Speaker 1: Is it? Do they have six? Wow? I got it
Speaker 1: on the first try. The way this will be edited. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: so six nipples is Thank you so much for your question.
Speaker 1: Any others? Yeah? Do you think the cake that was
Speaker 1: given was a bear nipple? Oh? The witch's cake? I
Speaker 1: think that is what a bear nipple looks like. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's like kind of flat and like squarish and delicious,
Speaker 1: and if you eat a bear nipple it'll turn you
Speaker 1: into a bear. Yeah, that is kind of Um with
Speaker 1: more do like with the other Bear story. It felt
Speaker 1: like that didn't need to be there at all, but
Speaker 1: it could have been really interestingly looked at, Like you
Speaker 1: end up with Mother Bear killing Patre So do you
Speaker 1: think there could have been any way to make that
Speaker 1: actually part of the story rather than just this kind
Speaker 1: of like oh, there's I mean there, I could have
Speaker 1: done with either a lot more or a lot less bears.
Speaker 1: It doesn't The amount of Bear is confusing to me.
Speaker 1: This was like there, I didn't I saw. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like I watched the trailer. I didn't show up
Speaker 1: ready for Bear. There there because there's also there's another
Speaker 1: Disney movie called Brother Bear where a human turned to bear,
Speaker 1: and that movie I hope we never cover because it's
Speaker 1: a fucking disaster there. I've never seen it, but I have.
Speaker 1: That's it's a it's a it's a Phil Collins joint,
Speaker 1: which I do. I mean in England we stand Phil Collins,
Speaker 1: do it? We don't we fuck them? There? I know
Speaker 1: I know things. Yeah, no that I do think that
Speaker 1: like the patriarchy Bear added at the end there, and
Speaker 1: then you get this like I don't know, there's like
Speaker 1: the the fact that there were four writers on this
Speaker 1: movie is very obvious because everyone wasn't. I feel like
Speaker 1: maybe Patriarchy Bear was added after Brenda Chapman left because
Speaker 1: you there was even this moment where it's kind of
Speaker 1: it reminds me of that moment. There's a scene in
Speaker 1: the Rock his wife, his wife where there's like a
Speaker 1: soldier who dies. We don't know who this soldier is.
Speaker 1: He's played off with like twenty seconds like a one gun.
Speaker 1: So they're like it's some guy and they're like, We're like,
Speaker 1: who is this guy? I felt the same way about
Speaker 1: Patriarchy Bear when his ghost appears above the Bear at
Speaker 1: the end and Meredith is like, I'm so glad you're
Speaker 1: at peace. We're like, who are I don't care about
Speaker 1: your soul? Like, who are you? He was a bad guy?
Speaker 1: He was, I again, but she's like, good for you?
Speaker 1: What the second there? I don't even know if there
Speaker 1: needed to be one Bear storyline, much less too u
Speaker 1: Shian in the back there so to to repeat it
Speaker 1: into the mic. The question The comment is basically because
Speaker 1: her dad permitted Mereda to go off and like do
Speaker 1: outdoorsy journeys and stuff like that, she has the wherewithal
Speaker 1: in the knowledge to know that like the berries that
Speaker 1: bear Mom tried to collect and eat for breakfast, because
Speaker 1: bare moms be making breakfast. Uh, they would have died
Speaker 1: because Mereda wouldn't have known that they were poisonous and
Speaker 1: that there were worms in the water. I can see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: point for fergus on that one not all bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I agree this movie could have been called Mother Bear.
Speaker 1: The comment to summarize is, uh that when women are
Speaker 1: given weapons, they're generally long range weapons as opposed to
Speaker 1: hand the hand combat, which is something that you kind
Speaker 1: of see, um, I mean in these two characters alone,
Speaker 1: which is it makes me glad that Mereda at least
Speaker 1: gets to do some sword wielding at certain points, but
Speaker 1: it does seem like it is still kind of an
Speaker 1: unnecessary limitation and in some ways kind of indicates there's
Speaker 1: still some cultural weirdness around seeing women into combat hand
Speaker 1: to hand. Common women are allowed to be snipers but
Speaker 1: not have swords and knives. I would say, an exception
Speaker 1: to that, Yeah, I think that's generally very true. An
Speaker 1: exception is one of three female characters in Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings, a Owen that's everyone's name, that like, why
Speaker 1: why wasn't you and McGregor cast in this Scottish movie, right,
Speaker 1: what did he do? Maybe? Brenda Chapman was like, no,
Speaker 1: and I won't talk about it, but a Owen we
Speaker 1: alds a sword. But yeah, I would say in general
Speaker 1: that's totally true where women are only allowed to use
Speaker 1: long range. That's one thing Game of Thrones gets right
Speaker 1: sometimes is that you get to see women really brutally
Speaker 1: murdering people. Gotta love it for that. A couple more
Speaker 1: questions talk for it's just factor married as a queer icon. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the rather terrible ABC show Once upon a Time addressed
Speaker 1: that they tried to force a romance between her and Macintosh. No, like,
Speaker 1: there was like a whole arc where because she she
Speaker 1: didn't defend her father, who you know, big sword building
Speaker 1: triangle because she didn't defend him and he died on
Speaker 1: her watch. She was more the being queen. There was
Speaker 1: like a whole thing she'd to go and prove herself
Speaker 1: again and Bulan was involved. It's way, I had no
Speaker 1: idea all these characters were in that show. Yeah because
Speaker 1: it Yeah, it Disney owns ABC, so they can just
Speaker 1: do fucking weird, problematic fan fiction on their stupid show
Speaker 1: all the time. It's a mess. I didn't know there
Speaker 1: was ameretat that sucks them to the ground. McIntosh is
Speaker 1: the brave, hearty one. I love when people funk up
Speaker 1: their own good work. That's and I'm back. Okay, so
Speaker 1: they did have some queer relationships in there. Okay, it
Speaker 1: was oh good as long as it was bad and
Speaker 1: set things back. Oh god, that's brutal. Thank you for
Speaker 1: sharing that very upsetting infoun Yeah, I think one more
Speaker 1: yes on the topic of Mere does more ark. I'd
Speaker 1: like to add a few more elements and here your
Speaker 1: reactions to them. It seems pretty clear that the reason
Speaker 1: right how the they need to resolve their bare problem
Speaker 1: is to solve solve their issue with pride, which shows
Speaker 1: Marrider's actions has been overly prideful. And then when they're
Speaker 1: in the ruins of the odd Castle and they see
Speaker 1: that the man who became bad Bear was trying to
Speaker 1: be selfish and not be part of the community, the family,
Speaker 1: and that was wrong, and this leads Merrider to then
Speaker 1: try to explain to all the lords that she's been bad,
Speaker 1: and she apologizes, as you've talked about. So the only
Speaker 1: thing that isn't embracing the patriarchal system in that moment
Speaker 1: is that she gets to choose who she wants to fuck,
Speaker 1: and that that's basically it other than that thing. And
Speaker 1: even now we've kind of learned that she only chooses
Speaker 1: amongst the free men who she had a choice of anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that it still seems like she basically her faults. Her
Speaker 1: mol arc is to learn to embraset the patriarchy with
Speaker 1: slight comma that I get to choose the dick, right,
Speaker 1: and so that she doesn't become a bear. Of course,
Speaker 1: Yeah it is, I I do. Yeah, I I have
Speaker 1: some issues with with Mereda's arc. And I also feel
Speaker 1: like when they when they do that scene and they
Speaker 1: try to set up like prideful, we'll make you into
Speaker 1: a bad bear, like that's felt like very false equivalency,
Speaker 1: because all she's trying to do is have some ownership
Speaker 1: of what happens to her. She's not trying to inflict
Speaker 1: harm or control over literally anyone but herself. And I
Speaker 1: feel like comparing her to this prince that no one
Speaker 1: gives a funk about was kind of like, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was just another way that I feel like the plot
Speaker 1: subtly would punish Mereda and her mother and kind of
Speaker 1: invent this thing that Merida has to feel bad about
Speaker 1: when the only person she's trying to extraly has control
Speaker 1: over is herself. She's not trying to force anything on anyone.
Speaker 1: So fuck that prince. What was that? That was too
Speaker 1: many bears? Yeah? One more question in the corner there, Yes,
Speaker 1: um So the question was how the movie represents curly
Speaker 1: hair and like the element of a wild nature and nonconformity,
Speaker 1: and how that's often tied with curly hair. So I
Speaker 1: had like made into hair and a past life, and
Speaker 1: like I had like very wild, ginger curly hair, and
Speaker 1: after a brave I grew it so it got even
Speaker 1: longer and even wilder. Um I don't know if that
Speaker 1: if I was influenced by that, but um, I like
Speaker 1: proper waiting for it. So I had like ginger cuddles
Speaker 1: down to like here. It's hard to imagin hi brave,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I guess that is a good point. She
Speaker 1: is the only one to have has there been other
Speaker 1: princesses that I've had, Like, I don't think so, And
Speaker 1: most of the other princesses have been white woman women
Speaker 1: and curly hair is not exclusively, but um, women of
Speaker 1: color and curly hair is there are connections there, um,
Speaker 1: So I think, yeah, I think it's just a matter
Speaker 1: of like all the princesses in like fairytale history being
Speaker 1: white women who like various degrees of like adventurous. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know totally how to answer your question, but
Speaker 1: I think that it's definitely something that like, I'll be
Speaker 1: on the lookout more for. Yeah, I know that there's
Speaker 1: more written on this, and I know just with the
Speaker 1: amount of knowledge I have, I'm not qualified to really
Speaker 1: speak to it. I did kind of view that as
Speaker 1: an attempt at some sort of subversion of the princess
Speaker 1: archetype that they seem to try to be commenting on
Speaker 1: a lot of like this, you know, like where there's
Speaker 1: I can't really think of a princess besides Ariel whose
Speaker 1: hair isn't somehow like styled or controlled in some way,
Speaker 1: and so it seemed like a character designed to indicate
Speaker 1: something about her. But I definitely see what you're saying,
Speaker 1: and then that's something that yeah, I would just need
Speaker 1: to do more research on, thank you sharing that up
Speaker 1: to Yeah, for sure, So does this movie pass the
Speaker 1: Bechdel test. Yes, and it passes the bark that was
Speaker 1: like a bad pun on the level that I usually do.
Speaker 1: I know I was. I was just like, wow, I
Speaker 1: didn't know I had to it anymore, Jamie, honestly brieve
Speaker 1: of you. Yes, it passes between um Merida and eleanor
Speaker 1: it passes between Merida and the witch, who isn't technically named.
Speaker 1: But I think that she's plot plot, which I think
Speaker 1: she is an important enough character because like the name
Speaker 1: Caveat is like do we see this woman for five
Speaker 1: seconds or less? Uh? And but yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: think I would count. It doesn't pass as much as
Speaker 1: much as you would because her almost a bear for
Speaker 1: the most of the time. I can't talk, but she is.
Speaker 1: But they are communicating, and I think that there is
Speaker 1: like I mean, bytel cast, bytel test, oh my god,
Speaker 1: bytel tests is you know, not a precise metric because
Speaker 1: it wasn't designed to be that. I think that, you know, like,
Speaker 1: even though a lot of the communication between Merit and
Speaker 1: her mom are nonverbal, it's still I would absolutely the
Speaker 1: charades bear scene counts. That's communications between female identifying characters. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: bears be damned bears. They speak their own language. What
Speaker 1: would we rate this on the nipple scale zero to
Speaker 1: five nipples based on its representation of women. Um, I
Speaker 1: would give this I think a four three and a
Speaker 1: half four. I think for the time especially, it was
Speaker 1: like it was paving the way for other like feminist
Speaker 1: texts targeted at young girls to be made. I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff in Handles really well. It
Speaker 1: subverts a lot of tropes and but as we've talked about,
Speaker 1: there's some missteps in again they're probably all John Lasseter's fault. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't like that, like the burden becomes
Speaker 1: is placed on Merida to have to apologize for just
Speaker 1: being like a feminist icon. That's her for seeming like
Speaker 1: patriarchy with her idea somehow. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of weird things like that. But um, I'll split the
Speaker 1: difference and I'll do a three point seven five. Now
Speaker 1: everyone doesn't imagine slicing a nipple like that. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: And I will give one to bear Mom, to to Merida,
Speaker 1: and I'll give my three quarters nipple to Paddington, who
Speaker 1: should be in this movie. If you if you're going
Speaker 1: to have two Bears, Why not a third bear? Rule
Speaker 1: of threes Paddington, I'm gonna do. I was, I swear
Speaker 1: to I was thinking the exact same number that three
Speaker 1: point seven five nipples. Yeah, I mean because meeting this
Speaker 1: movie in context and on its terms for twelve, this
Speaker 1: was kind of the only movie of its kind that
Speaker 1: was coming out, so for all the reasons that the
Speaker 1: way that it deals with the idea of patriarchy was
Speaker 1: kind of frustrating, But it does seem like there have
Speaker 1: been movies since that have learned from the lessons that
Speaker 1: this movie sort of taught us. And the fact that
Speaker 1: this is like one of the first female held fun
Speaker 1: the other guy who worked on it for a year
Speaker 1: and a half, don't care, is Brenda Chapman's movie, Like
Speaker 1: that is a really cool step in the right direction,
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, since she left Pixar, she hasn't been able
Speaker 1: to direct another movie. So I really, really, really hope
Speaker 1: that those opportunities continue to be available. So so I'll
Speaker 1: do the only three point seven five, give two to Merita,
Speaker 1: one to one of the brothers, whichever it was your
Speaker 1: okay if uh, and then I'll give the last three
Speaker 1: quarters to bear Mom and how you Um, I'm not
Speaker 1: as good at maths, so I'm going to go a
Speaker 1: solid three. I just think that it was going, you know,
Speaker 1: relatively well until she decides she doesn't want to get married,
Speaker 1: and then she poisons her mom. She's like, I know
Speaker 1: what to do. I'll poison my mom. And then her
Speaker 1: mom turns into a bear and she's like, maybe that
Speaker 1: was too much. Maybe we could have slept on it
Speaker 1: and spoke about things in the morning and she would
Speaker 1: have came around, but she didn't. She's so she's a bear.
Speaker 1: And then and then it's her fault. It's essentially it's
Speaker 1: it's her fault that her mom's a bear, and we
Speaker 1: forget that. She's like not like wanting to get married. Now,
Speaker 1: she just has to change her mom back by apologizing
Speaker 1: profusely for something that she didn't mean to do, and
Speaker 1: then she's like borderline thinking about getting married. At the end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, so she also made a really irresponsible purchase
Speaker 1: by buying all of those wood carvings. What was that
Speaker 1: for income? Was that the plot just being like, get ready,
Speaker 1: there's a lot more bears with this Carol. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: three nipples day. Yeah, I think that's the show, damn shows.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much again to our guests Rachel
Speaker 1: and Rachel and what would you like to plug? Where
Speaker 1: can people find you online? So I'm on Instagram Rachel
Speaker 1: and dot comedians like all these are a c h
Speaker 1: e L A double n E. And I'm on Twitter
Speaker 1: tweet Rachel A and r A c h E L
Speaker 1: A double n e. Um. You can also follow my
Speaker 1: comedy night which I run, which is in Glasgow, but
Speaker 1: you know, if you're around, it's Ambish the salon. So
Speaker 1: we have a sketch grip called Ambush and we run
Speaker 1: a live home tonight and it has stand up and
Speaker 1: sketch and all sorts of alternative feminist comedy that wouldn't
Speaker 1: make you wins get it up for one more time
Speaker 1: giving up for yourselves. Well, thank you so much for coming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll be hanging out. We're gonna be selling us some
Speaker 1: merch and taking pics. So come say hi on your
Speaker 1: way out by coming. And that was our brave episode.
Speaker 1: It was so much fun, our first international episode. Can
Speaker 1: you believe? Brave of us? Brave of us? So thank
Speaker 1: you again to our guest Rachel Anne Clark. She is wonderful,
Speaker 1: so funny, so amazing. Thank you to the Albany in
Speaker 1: London for hosting us, for listing us as the Women
Speaker 1: in Film Podcast, which we have as you know, by
Speaker 1: now officially rebranded US. Thank you to my beloved Isaac
Speaker 1: Taylor for recording for us under duress. Oh no, I'm kidding, okay,
Speaker 1: I was like what he volunteered and we paid him big.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Sassy for working the door checking people in
Speaker 1: Sassi as a champion. Thank you so much, and thank
Speaker 1: you to everyone who came and everyone who bought merch.
Speaker 1: We are eternally grateful and we hoped to be back
Speaker 1: in London soon and we have another live episode from
Speaker 1: London coming out in the near future, so look forward
Speaker 1: to that. Stay tuned. Bye,