Speaker 1: On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Speaker 1: Or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start
Speaker 1: changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My
Speaker 1: name is Caitlin Durante and uh, today we're covering a
Speaker 1: movie that many call Happiest Season, but I like to
Speaker 1: call turn the Car around now. Uh, but first we
Speaker 1: should tell you what our podcast is. Caitlyn, what's our podcast?
Speaker 1: I forget it? Who remembers? Um? Uh? This is the
Speaker 1: Bechtel Cast, which uh is named after the Bechdel Test.
Speaker 1: But the show, if you've been listening, has increasingly less
Speaker 1: and less to do with it. But it is what
Speaker 1: we name the show. We talked about movies through an
Speaker 1: intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel test simply as a
Speaker 1: jumping off point. A Bectel test, of course, is a
Speaker 1: media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechtel, sometimes called
Speaker 1: the Becktel Wallace Test, in which here are the criteria. Ready, everyone, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're this is school now? Yes? Uh? Two people of
Speaker 1: any marginalized gender have to have names, they have to
Speaker 1: speak to each other about something other than a man.
Speaker 1: On our metric is it has to be at least
Speaker 1: a two line exchange of dialogue. I actually think this
Speaker 1: movie in particular is kind of like uniquely suited to
Speaker 1: why the Bechdel Test originally existed, because it was invented
Speaker 1: in the context of queer representation as well, which never
Speaker 1: comes up in the conversation about it. It just kind
Speaker 1: of becomes like blanket uh women, Right, But I feel
Speaker 1: like this, this movie is kind of a little closer
Speaker 1: to what the actual like comic strip that the test
Speaker 1: is pulled from, is absolutely trying to get at. So yes,
Speaker 1: so good job movie, good job movie. It only with
Speaker 1: the Betel tests been around for what thirty years, and
Speaker 1: and this is a uniquely safed movie for it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we're doing We're This was a very very very
Speaker 1: very very popularly requested movie. I feel like the second
Speaker 1: this movie came out on Hulu, or even maybe the
Speaker 1: second the trailer dropped, it was just like everyone added
Speaker 1: as of like when is it going to happen? And
Speaker 1: so we're doing it? And also here we were just
Speaker 1: watching it anyways, Yeah, for sure. Let's introduce our guests. Uh.
Speaker 1: They are featured in the New York Times. They are
Speaker 1: in Love Life on HBO Max. It's just Tom. Hi. Welcome,
Speaker 1: welcome for being here, Thanks for having me. I'm very,
Speaker 1: very excited to get into this one with you. This
Speaker 1: movie has been polarizing. It has probably the most polarizing
Speaker 1: issue is Happiest Season on Hulu when people look back
Speaker 1: to yeah, that's this is all people will remember about, Like,
Speaker 1: what's the one thing that happened in the year Happiest
Speaker 1: this course around Happiest Season. Jess, what is your what
Speaker 1: is your I guess normally we ask what is your
Speaker 1: history with this movie? But it's been out for less
Speaker 1: than a month, so we're just gonna do general thoughts
Speaker 1: slash experiences with this movie so far. What are your
Speaker 1: general experiences and thoughts around this movie? Well? I actually
Speaker 1: feel like I want to subvert the genre here and
Speaker 1: ask you guys a question, okay, sort of to start
Speaker 1: me off. And I recognize the irony of asking this
Speaker 1: question in a movie that's about people being put on
Speaker 1: spot and made to come out when they're not ready
Speaker 1: to do it yet, But so I I don't know
Speaker 1: either of you guys in real life. Yeah, um, so
Speaker 1: what's your guys to steal? Are you? Are you queer?
Speaker 1: Are you were on the spectrum? Do you fall all
Speaker 1: who I'm I'm by cool, I am a straight person.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. That's fine. We accept we accept you too,
Speaker 1: We're in all. I I ask because I asked because
Speaker 1: like I really wanted to get sort of the lay
Speaker 1: of the land, like for our particular conversation on this movie,
Speaker 1: and like, yeah, where everybody falls on this. Um so
Speaker 1: that's good. That's good for me to know. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It was. Um, I was kind of
Speaker 1: upset by this movie initially. I have to come out
Speaker 1: as a hater. That's like, that's what I'm gonna say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you had one of the most i think like
Speaker 1: iconic tweets in the discourse of this movie. Wait, I
Speaker 1: want to I want to pull it up. Um oh wait,
Speaker 1: there are so many results. Okay, the tweet I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of is, um, leave it to lesbians to call a
Speaker 1: movie happiest season And it's one hour, forty minutes of
Speaker 1: abject emotional suffering. That's the tweeting a perfect Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's true. I think it's true. I was like, where, yeah,
Speaker 1: where are we emotionally that this is the movie we've
Speaker 1: called happiest Season, right? Like I think we need to
Speaker 1: do a little check in with ourselves. I think we
Speaker 1: need to do a little like see how we feel
Speaker 1: right now, Like do a little breathe and breathe out
Speaker 1: a litterally, drink a little water, Like how do I
Speaker 1: actually feel in this moment? Do I feel happy? Is
Speaker 1: that that feeling is the feeling happy? Or is it
Speaker 1: like a terror and anxiety? It's even even just qualifying
Speaker 1: it as happiest, like right, happiest ever? This is as
Speaker 1: happy as it gets. If this is anyone in this
Speaker 1: movie's best holiday they've ever had, it's really a cause
Speaker 1: for concern because everyone is really like bleeding emotionally for
Speaker 1: the entire movie. My takeaway from this movie was I
Speaker 1: found it to be an accurate portrayal of a certain
Speaker 1: type of being queer at Christmas experience. But I don't
Speaker 1: think that just because something is literally accurate makes it
Speaker 1: like a good movie or a fun thing to watch,
Speaker 1: and that actually, perhaps in its accuracy, it becomes unfun,
Speaker 1: definitely not happy as maybe like bleakest or something. I mean, really,
Speaker 1: I feel like I watched it and it reminded me
Speaker 1: of all of these terrible queer holiday experiences I've had,
Speaker 1: and it just like brought up a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: for me, and I was like, I really feel like,
Speaker 1: like my overall feeling about this movie is sort of
Speaker 1: a feeling of ambush and betrayal. Yes, Like I feel
Speaker 1: like it was sold to me as like, hey, just Tom,
Speaker 1: wouldn't you love a queer cute Christmas romantic comedy? We made?
Speaker 1: We some lesbians made a lesbian romantic comedy for you.
Speaker 1: And then I watched it and it was like, actually,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of bad memory, like every bad memory,
Speaker 1: like every queer holiday you've ever had? Right, Yeah, yeah, Jamie,
Speaker 1: what are your general thoughts and feelings towards it? I
Speaker 1: was really excited for this movie. It, you know, ticked
Speaker 1: a lot of boxes for me in terms of movies
Speaker 1: I want to watch. I am Kristen Stewart fan. I'm
Speaker 1: a Cleo Devolve fan. I came in with high hopes
Speaker 1: and I left. I left really said, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think that there are good elements to this movie,
Speaker 1: and like a lot of it kind of range. I
Speaker 1: just my main thing with this movie is just it
Speaker 1: feels like a lot of movies we've discussed and that
Speaker 1: it's like, wow, it's like a lesbian Christmas movie, but
Speaker 1: it's also about like white Republicans running for mayor, and
Speaker 1: you're like, well, it was that necessary? Like it seems
Speaker 1: like it's casting a very, very wide net, and I
Speaker 1: just I don't know, it was annoying to me to
Speaker 1: see a rich Republican family um also actively trying to
Speaker 1: gain power in their community for the entire movie and
Speaker 1: to be rooting for that in the year I wasn't
Speaker 1: rooting for. I wanted him to lose like that, and
Speaker 1: for Harper to be extremely complicit in that and like
Speaker 1: trying to help her Republican dad get elected. And it's
Speaker 1: just like what And to be fair, like the movie
Speaker 1: doesn't explicitly say that this family are Republicans, but the
Speaker 1: Victor Garber character is like very much coded as a
Speaker 1: Republican politician. So Harper is like trying to get her
Speaker 1: conservative dad elected. And also Harper is really emotionally manipulative
Speaker 1: and abusive to her partner Abbey, and I am not
Speaker 1: rooting for that. Relationship at all. I really felt like
Speaker 1: the the lesson of the movie was sort of it's
Speaker 1: okay if some do you treat your like ship over
Speaker 1: and over and over again as long as I tell
Speaker 1: you I love you at the end, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a textbook abusive dynamic, Like that's literally
Speaker 1: what abuse is is somebody treating you badly and then
Speaker 1: telling you but it's okay, I love you. I'm over
Speaker 1: all the same page here I was. It's I was okay.
Speaker 1: I mean, part of why I insisted you guys out
Speaker 1: yourselves to me at the beginning is I feel like
Speaker 1: one of I feel like one of the polarizing aspects
Speaker 1: of this movie is I actually feel like straight people
Speaker 1: love it. It is a movie like four straight People.
Speaker 1: It seems like it's for especially in that ending scene
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about with Victor Garber and Mary stein Bergin,
Speaker 1: where they are like, you know, we really should accept
Speaker 1: our gay daughter, don't you think? And You're like, is
Speaker 1: this two thousand and six? Like what year is this
Speaker 1: movie happening? In this movie really feels like it came
Speaker 1: out in the mid two thousands, since I was like,
Speaker 1: how is it possible Bowl that like, this is like
Speaker 1: the kind of movie I would have snuck out of
Speaker 1: a blockbuster when I was fourteen years old, like under
Speaker 1: my jacket, so my mom didn't see, Like, how is
Speaker 1: it possible that fifteen years later we're making this exact
Speaker 1: same movie And I don't know. I mean, it seems
Speaker 1: like just based on the interviews I read with clear
Speaker 1: divol surrounding this, it seems like it's it's not like
Speaker 1: her exact experience, but it's like pulled from experiences of
Speaker 1: like her and people that she knows. So just like
Speaker 1: I said it in the past, like why you know this?
Speaker 1: If this movie took place during the Bush administration, it
Speaker 1: would make a lot more sense to me than it does. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't think that there's any I mean, well, I'm
Speaker 1: sure we'll get into this in more detail, but something
Speaker 1: that really bothered me about this movie is that there's
Speaker 1: an overall lack of specificity. Yeah, so, like I don't
Speaker 1: think that I don't think that they even got to
Speaker 1: the part where they were like what year does it
Speaker 1: take place in? Like it's sort of like it's a family,
Speaker 1: it's Christmas, it's a Christmas time of year. We're Instagram
Speaker 1: and iPads exist, but that's about but we don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're lesbians. We love each other. You are my person.
Speaker 1: That's why we love each other, right, Harper. Harper's the
Speaker 1: more because I've seen this movie three times now, um
Speaker 1: and the this pass watch. When I was like getting
Speaker 1: ready for this episode, I was like, whoa Harper? Really?
Speaker 1: Just there is not one point where Abby establishes a
Speaker 1: boundary with her that she respects, never un till the
Speaker 1: very end, and from the very first second to even
Speaker 1: like the moment that they ostensibly give you as like
Speaker 1: their establishing relationship moment, the first thing that happens is
Speaker 1: Kristin Stewart goes, I don't want to go up there,
Speaker 1: and Harper goes, go on, go up there. That's the
Speaker 1: first thing that happens. Even before that, Kristin Stewart's like,
Speaker 1: I don't really like Christmas, and Harper's like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make you look Christmas. And it's just like, just let
Speaker 1: Abby not like Christmas. It's okay to not like Christmas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not like in Christmas representation. Yeah. I feel I feel
Speaker 1: so seen in this I did think of you at
Speaker 1: the beginning scene. I was like oh, it's like when
Speaker 1: me and Caitlin hang out into much like Abby's much
Speaker 1: like Kristen Stewart's character Abby, who is a pet sitter
Speaker 1: over the holidays. That's like my whole gig over the
Speaker 1: holiday season. I cat sit for like twelve different cats.
Speaker 1: Brag one cat for every day of Christmas exactly the
Speaker 1: twelve cats up Christmas. Um I yeah, I did. Also,
Speaker 1: this was the first time that it really I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it is Christen Stewart falls off of a building in
Speaker 1: the first three minutes of the movie. That's wild there. Okay.
Speaker 1: So something that really struck me as totally off about
Speaker 1: this movie is like, okay, it's it's a Christmas movie.
Speaker 1: We sort of accept the kind of exaggerated reality. We
Speaker 1: would accept that zany things happen, but like this movie
Speaker 1: happens in total realism. And then it's punctuated by these
Speaker 1: few moments such as Christen Swart falling off the roof.
Speaker 1: But because nothing like that has been happening, it's like, whoa,
Speaker 1: Like she just fell off the roof, Like check her ankle?
Speaker 1: Is her ankle? Okay, right, it's weird. Yeah, It's like
Speaker 1: it seems like maybe they were like on some draft
Speaker 1: of the script, they're like, let's throw in a little
Speaker 1: like hallmarky stuff here, but it doesn't make sense with
Speaker 1: the deep trauma that consumes most of the movie. The
Speaker 1: room scene, No, it's scary. The room of scene is scary,
Speaker 1: and it was like, why would you put this like scary?
Speaker 1: There are a few moments that will get to that
Speaker 1: I actually think are scary horror moments where like this
Speaker 1: should not be in this movie, right, just change it,
Speaker 1: take it out. And then there's other ones that again
Speaker 1: like like the other end of that tonal dissonance spectrum
Speaker 1: of like that mall security like interrogation, which just like
Speaker 1: it's funny, but it's like it also doesn't feel it
Speaker 1: doesn't align with the tone really of a lot of
Speaker 1: the rest of the movie. Yeah. Well, something that I
Speaker 1: think is like Kristin Stewart is not a comedic actor.
Speaker 1: She can be a very good actor in the right projects,
Speaker 1: but she's not a comedic actor, and I personally don't
Speaker 1: think she's right to be the lead in a romantic comedy.
Speaker 1: So like, specifically that part where she's getting interrogated at
Speaker 1: the mall, we have who is it? Lauren Labkis and
Speaker 1: I can't remember the other person, but they're doing like
Speaker 1: zany big right, and they're doing these huge characters and
Speaker 1: christ and Stewart can't even do a straight man. She's
Speaker 1: just like genuinely terrified that she's been right. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, like I don't want to
Speaker 1: watch her like suffer while these characters like harass her
Speaker 1: like because she is not responding to it in a
Speaker 1: comedy way. They're just watching characters like scare her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which made me really appreciate Dan Lovey's performance, particularly because
Speaker 1: he's such like that. If he wasn't like genuinely a
Speaker 1: really good actor on top of being a good comedic actor,
Speaker 1: those scenes with him and Kristin Stewart would have been
Speaker 1: so jarring. But he like towed the line and it
Speaker 1: was like he was wonderful. He was wonderful. I would
Speaker 1: have watched a whole movie of him. Yes, yeah, I
Speaker 1: wish he had the whole runner with like him in
Speaker 1: The Fish. I'm like, that's the level of comedy that
Speaker 1: makes sense for this movie. But then when it got
Speaker 1: to goofy or just like what is going on? This
Speaker 1: is this is an interesting rewrite that we got, um,
Speaker 1: well should I recap it chin yes, um, and then
Speaker 1: just jump in whenever we we yelled throughout the recap,
Speaker 1: I would love we love t ll Okay. So Abby
Speaker 1: Kristen Stewart and Harper is Mackenzie Davis. They are a couple. Uh.
Speaker 1: They live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Gotta love that western Pennsylvania representation.
Speaker 1: Whoo whoo Um. It's Christmas time and Harper loves Christmas.
Speaker 1: But Abby is like me about it, especially ever since
Speaker 1: her parents died ten years prior. Her plan for the
Speaker 1: holidays is to just pet sit for some people, but
Speaker 1: Harper invites Abby to come home with her and meet
Speaker 1: Harper's family for Christmas time. So then we get a
Speaker 1: scene with Abby and her friend John. That's dan lovey,
Speaker 1: and Abby is like, by the way, I'm going to
Speaker 1: propose to Harper on Christmas morning? Insane lesbian. They've been
Speaker 1: together for a year too, one year, and they show
Speaker 1: you in all in the opening credits. You never actually
Speaker 1: see their relationship. They just show you over the opening credits.
Speaker 1: So they've been together for one year and now she's
Speaker 1: to propose to her on Christmas. That was one thing
Speaker 1: that I like that was like a story issue I
Speaker 1: had that was like, you're first of all, expecting me
Speaker 1: to root for this pretty clearly abusive relationship when I
Speaker 1: know nothing about why the relationship was ever important to Abby, Like,
Speaker 1: exactly answer me this. I also think that it's huge
Speaker 1: to give her like both of her parents are dead
Speaker 1: and she's all alone, and she's been alone for so long, right,
Speaker 1: but we've never we don't really talk about it. We
Speaker 1: don't really know how it affects her. We don't really
Speaker 1: know what she thinks about it. We just know she's
Speaker 1: her parents are dead and she's alone. It's just a
Speaker 1: joke that's made constantly where everyone thinks that she grew
Speaker 1: up as an orphan and she was like no, like
Speaker 1: I was an adult when they die. But we and
Speaker 1: we also don't know. I mean, I guess we don't
Speaker 1: really need to know what happened to her parents, but
Speaker 1: it sounds like both of her parents died at once.
Speaker 1: It just sounds like a massive, massive thing to happen
Speaker 1: in somebody's life for us to not know anything about it.
Speaker 1: We do find out that they were professors at what
Speaker 1: Carnegie Me, Yeah, what would have happened to two professors
Speaker 1: at Carnegie Melon at once, what would have happened? Like
Speaker 1: it sounds like accident. Yeah, like what, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I had a question that was I I had never
Speaker 1: caught before that they were both professors and that was
Speaker 1: why she was going to get her PhD, which also
Speaker 1: never becomes relevant to the plot. Ever, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it was like Phantom of the Opera, like a chandelier
Speaker 1: dropped on them, Like what acts it happen as a
Speaker 1: freak accident in the Carnegie Melon concert hall. And then
Speaker 1: we find out at the end that Abby was out
Speaker 1: to her parents before the chandelier dropped and that they
Speaker 1: were very accepting of her. But those are like it
Speaker 1: only comes it comes up more as a joke that
Speaker 1: it comes up as like probably the most traumatic thing
Speaker 1: that has ever happened to Abbey. Like it's weird. The
Speaker 1: stakes there are confusing. Yeah, yeah for Abby. Anyway, so
Speaker 1: they're on the way to Harper's family and on the
Speaker 1: way there, Harper reveals that she never actually came out
Speaker 1: to her parents like she said that she did, so
Speaker 1: she had lied about that, and they do not know
Speaker 1: that Harper is gay nor that Abby is her girlfriend. Okay,
Speaker 1: so turn the car around. Yeah, it's easy, right, or
Speaker 1: Harper tell her at that breakfast scene, when you clearly
Speaker 1: are having major second thoughts about Abby coming home with you,
Speaker 1: maybe tell her then. That was one of the parts
Speaker 1: that really hurt my feelings actually, was that, like the
Speaker 1: whole setup is her going come home with me? And
Speaker 1: Abby is like, what, really, I never even thought to ask.
Speaker 1: I never even thought I would love to come home
Speaker 1: with you. And then the next day she's like, oh
Speaker 1: did I say that. I didn't mean that. I was like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: and I'm supposed to root for her, Like she immediately
Speaker 1: just hurt my feelings. Yeah, my feelings. It's about me,
Speaker 1: But I mean, it's it. There's there's moments where and
Speaker 1: I've seen like some i mean, the we can't even
Speaker 1: really get into the Twitter discourse on this movie. It was,
Speaker 1: there was so much of it. But I did see
Speaker 1: some people who were like, well, you know, consider Harper's perspective,
Speaker 1: She's in a shitty situation, but it's like, that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you don't offer your partner and out like
Speaker 1: the fact that she didn't like even if we get
Speaker 1: as far as I'm driving you and I was too
Speaker 1: afraid to tell you I didn't actually come out to
Speaker 1: my family. She doesn't even say in that scene like
Speaker 1: if you want, I will just bring you back home
Speaker 1: and like we can work this out later, like I'm
Speaker 1: really sorry, I fucked up. Like she didn't even give
Speaker 1: Abby an option to leave. That's like evil. She actually goes,
Speaker 1: it's not fair, it's not fair for you to expect me.
Speaker 1: Like it is immediately about her own feelings and her
Speaker 1: own experience, and immediately she positions it as though Abby
Speaker 1: is pressuring her into a situation that actually she instigated
Speaker 1: the entire time. I and and Abby is so I
Speaker 1: just Abby just get steamrolled at so many moments in
Speaker 1: this movie, just to like not rock the boat and
Speaker 1: to not upset her partner, which is another element of
Speaker 1: an abusive relationship. Right, if I had written this movie,
Speaker 1: if they had given me this exact cast and this
Speaker 1: exact premise, I would have been like, Okay, the premise
Speaker 1: is Harper says to Abby, I want you to come
Speaker 1: home for Christmas with me. But here's the deal. My
Speaker 1: family is Republican, they're conservative. They don't know I'm out.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I lied, so you can come with me.
Speaker 1: But the deal is we have to pretend that we're
Speaker 1: straight and we're friends, and they go, but they can't
Speaker 1: keep their hands off each other. Yeah, that's the that's
Speaker 1: the tension is that they have like so much sexual
Speaker 1: tension that they were like trying to be straight friends. Right,
Speaker 1: that's already better, right, But instead, Kristin Stewart and Mackenzie
Speaker 1: Davis do not really have on screen chemistry, so it's
Speaker 1: like you barely believe that they're in love. And then
Speaker 1: the cruelty of like throwing Aubrey Plaza in the mix
Speaker 1: with Kristin Stewart when they very much they have way
Speaker 1: more chemistry than her and Mackenzie Davis, and it's and
Speaker 1: it's again, it's just like, what do you want me
Speaker 1: to do? Movie? Like, I have eyes, I can sense
Speaker 1: things about people, and they're kind of start wearing the
Speaker 1: same jacket, and you don't want me to want them
Speaker 1: to be together? Come on there? Like right, yeah, there,
Speaker 1: I also there. The more I watched this movie, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, they actually they kind of don't have chemistry,
Speaker 1: which I I mean, I like, I like both of
Speaker 1: the actors individually, but together I was just like, I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm not rooting for it, right, Okay, So Harper
Speaker 1: is like, you're just going to have to pretend to
Speaker 1: be my roommate who is straight and will gets through
Speaker 1: this for the next five days. Uh. And the reason
Speaker 1: that Harper doesn't want to come out to her family
Speaker 1: is is because it's a stressful time for her dad,
Speaker 1: in particular because he's running for mayor. Her dad is
Speaker 1: literally like, Hi, I'm Eric Garcetti, Like it's so that whole,
Speaker 1: that whole element. I was like, this is just not
Speaker 1: the year to throw a wealthy, aspiring political animal into
Speaker 1: the mix. No, thank you, you can just the Victor
Speaker 1: Garber character is like Joe Biden put me in the cabinet,
Speaker 1: come on, please, Like it's just, oh, it's very depressing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Harper is just like, I'll tell them after the holidays,
Speaker 1: but I can't do it before that because it's a
Speaker 1: very stressful time with his campaign and everything, and we're like,
Speaker 1: he's trying to take away our rights. I can't do
Speaker 1: it now while he's I can't just track him from
Speaker 1: trying to take away our rights. He might have empathy,
Speaker 1: he might not take away our rights. I just need
Speaker 1: to make sure if that my father successfully removes our
Speaker 1: rights before I tell him that he has actually taken
Speaker 1: away my rights right exactly. And that's family. That's family
Speaker 1: to make and and and the insult of gay icon
Speaker 1: Victor Garber having to play this all out. It's just
Speaker 1: not right. Yes, I agree, I agree. Love. I love
Speaker 1: Victor Garber so much. He they're my favorite Victor Garber
Speaker 1: Quarantine anecdote was like Jennifer Garner made a weird video
Speaker 1: when we were in the first lockdown in like April,
Speaker 1: where she's like, I stay inside for my family, for nurses.
Speaker 1: And then it was like for Victor Garber, and because
Speaker 1: she loves him, because they were on Alias. Yes, and
Speaker 1: he shout up Mr Andrews from Titanic. Victor Garber is
Speaker 1: taking away his own rights in this movie. It's not right,
Speaker 1: confusing um. So Abby is upset by all of this,
Speaker 1: of course, but she well, she has no choice but
Speaker 1: to agree to go along with this sharade um and
Speaker 1: to like kind of make the best of it. So
Speaker 1: they arrive at Harper's house and meet her family, including
Speaker 1: her mother Tipper that's Mary Steen Virgin, her dad Ted
Speaker 1: Victor Garber, her sister Jane that's Mary Holland, who also
Speaker 1: co wrote the screenplay, and then we also eventually meet
Speaker 1: her other sister, Sloan played by Alison Bree, who has
Speaker 1: a husband Eric and two small children, also Tipper. Once
Speaker 1: I heard the name Tipper, I'm like, I know all
Speaker 1: I need to know. I was like, that's one of
Speaker 1: those names where I like, that was the first time
Speaker 1: I'd ever heard a person with that name, and it's
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I don't know who that is. Is
Speaker 1: that al Gore's wife? I was like, that's politicians wife energy,
Speaker 1: I gotta gotta get it. I really think Harper and
Speaker 1: Abby are sort of like first round fictional lesbian names.
Speaker 1: Like if I was making if I was going to
Speaker 1: write a sketch right now about lesbians, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, they're Harper and Abbey Abigail. But she
Speaker 1: goes by Abby because she's kind of boyish, you know,
Speaker 1: she's kind of a tomboy. Right. It's like we could
Speaker 1: have used another pass on a lot of these names. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because Tipper and Ted, that's like, oh yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: white Republican couple. Sure, sure, Um. So the whole family,
Speaker 1: including Abby, goes out to dinner that night, and Harper's
Speaker 1: mom has invited Harper's ex boyfriend Connor to this dinner,
Speaker 1: hoping that he and Harper will get back together. They
Speaker 1: also run into another of Harper's exes, Riley. That's Aubrey
Speaker 1: Plaza's character. So things just like kind of keep getting
Speaker 1: more and more awkward. Can I just say about this
Speaker 1: scene something that drove me crazy when I watched it
Speaker 1: a second time is I realized, Um, they're all at dinner,
Speaker 1: sitting around a table, but nobody has any food, and
Speaker 1: nobody ever takes a drink. Everybody sits at the table
Speaker 1: with their arms down. There are wine glasses half full
Speaker 1: on the table, but no one ever touches them, and
Speaker 1: no one ever takes a drink. They just sit and
Speaker 1: put their arms down. That's infuriated, right, And there are
Speaker 1: also like something else I noticed about the movie that
Speaker 1: I was like, this is why this movie feels so uncanny.
Speaker 1: Is it's dead silent almost all the way through the movie.
Speaker 1: There are very few instances of music, including times when
Speaker 1: you would expect there to be music, such as in
Speaker 1: a restaurant during the Christmas season, but there's no music
Speaker 1: at any party, right, There's no music at the party.
Speaker 1: There's no music when they're ice skating. It's dead silent. Wow,
Speaker 1: that is extremely dry. I didn't even notice that. It's
Speaker 1: like this movie is not doing itself any favors and
Speaker 1: making it less. It's literally stepping out of the genre,
Speaker 1: like you want there to be too much music. Instead
Speaker 1: there's like no music, drowned in like public Like every
Speaker 1: Hallmark movie I've ever seen is just drowned in public
Speaker 1: domain Christmas songs by like nobody in this movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which was wild because I really feel like it was
Speaker 1: marketed as having because Tegan and Sarah did a song
Speaker 1: for it, and it was marketed very, very heavily with
Speaker 1: Teagan and Sarah. So I thought it was going to
Speaker 1: have like a Teagan and Sarah like lesbian rock Christmas soundtrack,
Speaker 1: like whole soundtrack, right, yeah, the whole thing. But no,
Speaker 1: you only hear them literally during the credits of the
Speaker 1: very end. Yeah, and it's a cute song, but it
Speaker 1: was like, where, why couldn't could we not afford to
Speaker 1: use it throughout the movie? Like what is it would
Speaker 1: have been nice? I don't because it only plays for
Speaker 1: like thirty seconds or something. It's not even the full
Speaker 1: song that you get because then it cuts to another song,
Speaker 1: I think, or does it? I don't it does it
Speaker 1: cuts to another song that's like I mean, but I
Speaker 1: don't know who did it. It's not as good. I
Speaker 1: would have liked to continue to listening to the Teagan
Speaker 1: and Sarah song. Yeah, I had a the more okay
Speaker 1: as as I continued to watch this movie over and
Speaker 1: over and over. The Aubrey Plaza's character Riley. Her entrances
Speaker 1: are always very funny to me because she always just
Speaker 1: like is suddenly there. She like appears and she comes
Speaker 1: up from behind like out of like Alley's out of
Speaker 1: like she's always alone. She always just is suddenly there,
Speaker 1: And it's like I genuinely was like, does she have
Speaker 1: anywhere else to be? Like? Does she have anyone else
Speaker 1: to hang out with around the holidays? Like I started
Speaker 1: feeling bad for her. It makes no sense that she like,
Speaker 1: it makes no sense that she's at her ex's family
Speaker 1: holiday party. Why what they could have justified that through
Speaker 1: like giving her a job in politics or something, but
Speaker 1: they don't even do that. And it's awkward. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: awkward because like now they have to see each other
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, that makes sense, and as it is,
Speaker 1: like she is one of the best parts of the movie,
Speaker 1: so we need her there, but it is sort of
Speaker 1: like why where, Why is she here? But she does
Speaker 1: keep just like conveniently running into abbey, which is like
Speaker 1: I don't just like all those coincidences and like slinking
Speaker 1: out of an alley. I identify with that, I identify
Speaker 1: with that. That's me, that's me, just like popping up
Speaker 1: like did somebody say, did somebody say, did somebody say
Speaker 1: my ex girlfriend? That was It was wild realizing that
Speaker 1: she is always just she is just in the scene
Speaker 1: I had. Okay, So my page for Riley is like
Speaker 1: to keep her in this universe, to keep her in
Speaker 1: this political I want her to like be working for
Speaker 1: whoever's running against Victor Garber. There is some fun tention
Speaker 1: she's like Victor Garber's training to take our rights away,
Speaker 1: like what the funk? And then we could get for
Speaker 1: all the setup we get of like how Harper also
Speaker 1: traumatized Riley. You don't get a scene with the two
Speaker 1: of them, which I also thought was strange or I
Speaker 1: mean they weirdly shake hands at the end, Yeah, like oh,
Speaker 1: like you do with your exes. A firm handshake. Harper
Speaker 1: gives a pretty minimal apology for literally ruining Riley's adolescence.
Speaker 1: She's like, yeah, sorry about that. I hope I don't
Speaker 1: do it again, even though I are he kind of
Speaker 1: did whipsies. Yeah anyway, anyways, Oh yeah that was Riley
Speaker 1: is always slinking out of somewhere in a sexy jacket,
Speaker 1: always a blazer. Um. Oh, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: and then we'll come back from more recap and we're back. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we've met Harper's family. Everything is very awkward, especially
Speaker 1: for Abby, and then there's also an uncomfortable competitiveness between
Speaker 1: Harper and her sister Sloan Um. They seem to be
Speaker 1: competing for her their dad's approval. There's this whole ice
Speaker 1: skate race scene, and then there's this big party where
Speaker 1: Victor Garber is trying to get Um Harry played by
Speaker 1: on a guest dire Uh to be a donor for
Speaker 1: his campaign um in. In that scene, this is when
Speaker 1: Abby runs into Riley again in because Riley SLINKs out
Speaker 1: from behind a corner Um and Riley is like, hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, I can relate to what you're going
Speaker 1: through with Harper and Abbey again having to maintain this
Speaker 1: um kind of facade is like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Well, that's the scene where she also
Speaker 1: says nice jacket, right, or I like your jacket. Yes. Sorry,
Speaker 1: That's one of my top opery plasma moments of the movie.
Speaker 1: Something is weirdly happening with the production, like the production
Speaker 1: design in this movie, because it's also very it's very dark,
Speaker 1: like they're at this party. Everybody's wearing black. I'm like,
Speaker 1: we're at a Christmas party. Like, no, there's no green,
Speaker 1: there's no there's no lights. Everyone's wearing black. That's true.
Speaker 1: And like even when in the other scenes when it's
Speaker 1: just them in their casual clothing, everyone's wearing gray or
Speaker 1: brown or like a dark green, like it's a very muted,
Speaker 1: non festive palette. That yeah, it's like Harper is wearing
Speaker 1: black and almost every festive scene of this that is weird. God, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is just like becoming full Uncanny Valley. The more
Speaker 1: you describe it. Even Kristin Stewart's most festive outfit, which
Speaker 1: is the one where she's wearing the blazer with the
Speaker 1: shirt unbuttoned all the way and it's like sequence, but
Speaker 1: it's gray, right, everything is still like gray black white
Speaker 1: and right? Is this how Republican celebrate like they're at
Speaker 1: a funeral like I did? Yeah, that is really weird.
Speaker 1: Kristin Stewart also always looks cold. I think this is
Speaker 1: just sort of her thing. But I really feel like
Speaker 1: the whole movie is watching her be alone and being like, like,
Speaker 1: on the I don't know, she's making me feel bad,
Speaker 1: but I love her so much. Like I was like
Speaker 1: somebody like wrap her in a blanket and like put
Speaker 1: her somewhere safe. Um, okay. And then there's this whole
Speaker 1: sequence where Abby gets caught sneaking up to Harper's room
Speaker 1: and then she has to play it off as sleepwalking,
Speaker 1: and then the following morning, Harper almost it's caught having
Speaker 1: spent the night in Abby's room by her family. So
Speaker 1: I have a huge note for them here. Please for me,
Speaker 1: the fact that they chose to have them hook up
Speaker 1: in the guest room and not Harper's little girl bedroom
Speaker 1: tells me everything I need to know about who made
Speaker 1: this movie. That eliminates everything for me. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I get it. We're not here to have fun. That's
Speaker 1: like the dream. That's always it is a dream. And
Speaker 1: literally the way they set it up with the set
Speaker 1: where she has all those horse trophies everywhere and all
Speaker 1: those ribbons, I'm like, I'm seeing the headboard banging and
Speaker 1: the ribbons like going like this, you have to show anything.
Speaker 1: It's funny. It's funny to have them have sex in
Speaker 1: the horse trophy room. And they chose, they actively chose
Speaker 1: the less interesting choice. Yeah, just a vague ikea like
Speaker 1: that's I mean, it's it's the dream to have sex
Speaker 1: with the love of your life and your childhood bedroom.
Speaker 1: It's the right amount of growth like there, and it
Speaker 1: was right there, especially if it's if it's a Republican
Speaker 1: your Republican household and your secret lesbian girlfriend. That's so hot,
Speaker 1: that's so much fun. That's ball dropped. Ball dropped, Yeah, truly. Okay,
Speaker 1: So then the next day Abby gets arrested by mall
Speaker 1: security because Sloan's kids slip a necklace into her bag.
Speaker 1: So now Harper's whole family thinks that Abby is a
Speaker 1: criminal and she gets uninvited to this big dinner. Does
Speaker 1: not make sense to me, And if we're supposed to
Speaker 1: believe it makes sense. Why wouldn't Harper like why this
Speaker 1: is such an easy argument to win, to be like
Speaker 1: she didn't steal anything, like just let her come, don't
Speaker 1: be it, don't like leave this person who doesn't know
Speaker 1: anyone here alone to go to dinner by herself, Like right,
Speaker 1: Harper should have been like, well, if Abby's not going,
Speaker 1: I'm not going, Like I'm not gonna Like Harper makes
Speaker 1: the wrong choice every single time. This is what really
Speaker 1: makes me feel betrayed by this movie is that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, holidays and family holidays especially are a really
Speaker 1: sensitive topic for a lot of queer people because a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't get to have those moments with
Speaker 1: their families. And so I sort of was like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're giving us this movie, being like this is a
Speaker 1: romantic comedy for you for the holidays, and then it
Speaker 1: shows us this queer person being alone, like it's an
Speaker 1: experience of watching a queer person be totally alone during Christmas,
Speaker 1: and I was like, this actually feels bad, Like I
Speaker 1: know how it feels to be queer and alone at Christmas,
Speaker 1: And why is that the image time getting in the
Speaker 1: lesbian romantic comedy the Happiest Season? Right? Watching her like
Speaker 1: walk down the street alone. I was like god like,
Speaker 1: And then to have the conclusion of the movie be
Speaker 1: like and actually it was good that all of that happened,
Speaker 1: It's like, no, that's not yeah, Christens, I just being
Speaker 1: that isolated on top of already less than forty eight
Speaker 1: hours ago, a gigantic betrayal from someone you thought you
Speaker 1: were going to marry, and then to just be like
Speaker 1: thrown out into like the streets of this random Christmas
Speaker 1: studio lot, it's just just sucked up. Also, why did
Speaker 1: they do stealing black children? Yeah? Why did they do that?
Speaker 1: They shouldn't have done that, They shouldn't have been Like, now,
Speaker 1: the plot point is that the black children steal yep,
Speaker 1: especially in a movie where that is like so extremely
Speaker 1: white that there's only three black characters in this movie.
Speaker 1: It's Alison Bree's husband and then her two children. And yeah,
Speaker 1: they're stealing and stealing and receiving racism. They're only there
Speaker 1: for them to be racist to them, right, And it
Speaker 1: felt like the movie was token I using those characters
Speaker 1: for the sake of including more diversity without actually doing
Speaker 1: anything meaningful with or about those characters. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: and and those and their characters have like no arcs.
Speaker 1: I really dislike Sloan's character, so I'm just like, I
Speaker 1: just try to block out that entire story. Like but
Speaker 1: the fact that it's like if if she is going
Speaker 1: to be there with her husband, give her husband a story,
Speaker 1: Give the only black adult in this movie a story?
Speaker 1: What what are you doing? Yeah? How does he feel
Speaker 1: about like having married into this Republican family? Right? Exactly exactly?
Speaker 1: I thought that in multiple points. I'm like, is literally
Speaker 1: everyone on board here? Is there any I want to
Speaker 1: be rooting for Jane? But is Jane? Like I guess
Speaker 1: I'm just a Republican? Like, is everyone on board here?
Speaker 1: And if so, let's discuss, Like it's just so weird.
Speaker 1: Um Okay. So Abby has gotten uninvited to this big event,
Speaker 1: so instead she hangs out with Riley at a drag show. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Harper is not making any time for Abby and she
Speaker 1: is hanging out with her high school boyfriend Connor all night.
Speaker 1: So all this, like sneaking around and lying and repressing,
Speaker 1: is weighing on the relationship. Harper starts to withdraw and
Speaker 1: she's like, I need space. So Abby is like trying
Speaker 1: to figure out if she should just leave, but an
Speaker 1: uber is going to cost like a thousand dollars, so
Speaker 1: she's like, I guess I just have to stick it out,
Speaker 1: and inescapable being unable to leave a partner's uh as
Speaker 1: someone who's tried to escape someone else's family's holiday more
Speaker 1: than once. That is the most heavy moment of dread,
Speaker 1: where you're like, I can't there's I cannot go. I
Speaker 1: cannot go unless my partner cheeses to show me some grace,
Speaker 1: which they won't. I love that it's a horror moment.
Speaker 1: It's a horror moment. She's trapped. In that moment, she
Speaker 1: realized that she is trapped. I also thought that something
Speaker 1: that this movie captured very well but I almost think
Speaker 1: did by accident is the tonal shift between when they're
Speaker 1: at the drag Bar two when she goes back to
Speaker 1: straight land, and I was like, this is what it's
Speaker 1: like to like feel this like huge relief to find
Speaker 1: your little pocket, feel a huge relief where you can
Speaker 1: finally let go and like not act like anything for anybody,
Speaker 1: and then have to suddenly go back like with everyone's
Speaker 1: family and act like this again. I was like, that
Speaker 1: is real. That's a real experience. Right, that's dark contrast
Speaker 1: because Abby meets up with Harper at a bar literally
Speaker 1: called Freddy's Fratty If someone had to sometimes, I just
Speaker 1: like I have radical empathy for the people who have
Speaker 1: to create sets that are based around kind of lazy writing,
Speaker 1: where like someone just had to make a huge as
Speaker 1: sign that said Fratty's because no one wanted to do
Speaker 1: a second pass. It's it's not fair, but right. It's
Speaker 1: like that chosen family versus like biological family and that contrast,
Speaker 1: and like that's an interesting thing to explore, but rather
Speaker 1: than really doing, the movie is just like, well, let's
Speaker 1: just make Harper really emotionally abusive to her partner. I know.
Speaker 1: I feel like the tension that also gets set up
Speaker 1: but is never resolved is about chosen family and like
Speaker 1: non traditional like kind of family units versus like assimilation
Speaker 1: and like marriage and like your one true partner forever.
Speaker 1: But then it totally just drops this one and it's like, actually,
Speaker 1: the marriage thing is like what we always wanted in
Speaker 1: the end. Yeah, And it's I don't like the way
Speaker 1: that the script kind of trying to wriggle out, Like
Speaker 1: the script is very aware that the marriage end game
Speaker 1: is very like kind of a really normative place to land,
Speaker 1: and they just keep using Dan Levy's character to just
Speaker 1: acknowledge that they're aware of that, but then continue to
Speaker 1: do it anyways, where like Dan Levy is like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, another win for the patriarchy blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, and it's like, okay, so if you know that,
Speaker 1: then then well I follows through on it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of was thinking where just like the first
Speaker 1: time I was watching this, I thought, because he was
Speaker 1: so like his character John is, it was I just
Speaker 1: think of him as Dan Levy, but it's yeah, like
Speaker 1: it sounded like he was kind of like I thought
Speaker 1: that was kind of like foreshadowing for like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: like Abby's gonna like receive that eventually and be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what, I I don't need to have this
Speaker 1: very like normative relationship. You know, I can wait, I
Speaker 1: can do whatever I want. But then they're like, nope,
Speaker 1: you must get married. You must get married because the
Speaker 1: or the mayor will cry. Yeah. Um okay. So then
Speaker 1: the Christmas Eve Caldwell party rolls around, John shows up
Speaker 1: to save Abby, and Abby is like, you know what Harper,
Speaker 1: it's over. I'm done. And then Harper goes to apologize
Speaker 1: and try to kind of reconcile, and as they are
Speaker 1: doing that and kind of embracing, Sloan walks in and
Speaker 1: sees them and then proceeds to out Harper to the
Speaker 1: entire family and everyone in the room, which is like
Speaker 1: dozens of people at this holiday party. I hate Sloan.
Speaker 1: I Sloan is the only character who centers herself more
Speaker 1: than Harper. Like there Harper centers herself in everything, but
Speaker 1: Sloan literally like she takes the cake in terms of
Speaker 1: centering her like boring divorce over like this, I just
Speaker 1: I can't stand. I just can't. Like I've been saying
Speaker 1: this and I'll say it again. I cannot stress this enough.
Speaker 1: This is a triggering moment, Like I cannot imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: And I've never had an experience like that of being
Speaker 1: like forcibly outed, but I cannot imagine being someone for
Speaker 1: whom this sort of thing has happened to them. And
Speaker 1: then they're watching this movie and it suddenly happens and
Speaker 1: they're like not expecting that, you know, because I'm like,
Speaker 1: if you want to do a sad coming out story
Speaker 1: that's about a hard family relationship. That's one movie. But
Speaker 1: this is like you were telling us the whole time
Speaker 1: it's a zany Christmas comedy and then just showing us
Speaker 1: these like really kind of triggering circumstances that like real
Speaker 1: people have lived through, right, and then taking that and
Speaker 1: turning it into like physical comedy by the end too,
Speaker 1: is just so Yeah, they're having like a slapstick comedy
Speaker 1: fight about it, where like a nice painting gets destroyed,
Speaker 1: and and I just I felt so bad for Jane
Speaker 1: in that moment and in many moments based on the
Speaker 1: way that she's treated by family members. Also, Sloan did
Speaker 1: a horrible, unforgivable thing by outing Harper, and she owes
Speaker 1: Harper a huge apology which we never see. Harper doesn't
Speaker 1: need to speak to her ever again. Like that that
Speaker 1: is that could very well be the end of that relationship.
Speaker 1: Like absolutely, Yeah, Harper needs to estrange herself from her
Speaker 1: entire family and go to a lot of therapy. She
Speaker 1: needs to be alone for a while. Yeah, she needs
Speaker 1: to be alone, make some serious amends, and then move
Speaker 1: forward with her life. Has not a Republican shell. I
Speaker 1: just don't get it. I don't. I don't want this
Speaker 1: family dynamic to remain intact. But now you're allowed to
Speaker 1: be gay, Like there's a there's it's bigger, there's a
Speaker 1: lot going on. I don't know. I mean it's really
Speaker 1: like in that way, it's really a story about whiteness.
Speaker 1: And this thing that's about like the last sort of
Speaker 1: frontier to get over is like being accepted personally for
Speaker 1: being gay. And once we've passed that tire, everything is
Speaker 1: actually totally fine. When like, as you keep saying, Jamie,
Speaker 1: like it's not fine, it's not fine if the Republican
Speaker 1: gets elected as mayor and then this republicanship like it's
Speaker 1: actually not okay. Other people are going to be hurt.
Speaker 1: But yeah, anyone who isn't like as rich and white
Speaker 1: as their family is is going to demonstrably suffer it.
Speaker 1: Just the fact that that never comes up is truly
Speaker 1: baffling to me, Like, especially from it doesn't seem like Abbey,
Speaker 1: like I just the person we are sort of like
Speaker 1: told Abby is it doesn't seem like she would be
Speaker 1: okay with that. I just don't. She never gives us
Speaker 1: a point of view. We don't have a point of
Speaker 1: view from her she just sort of like suffers throughout. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then the fact, I mean this is very like
Speaker 1: I think it was like one of the I guess
Speaker 1: rom COMI troupes that is present here, is like She's like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to school for art, right, and that's it.
Speaker 1: And um no, I'm not going to talk about art
Speaker 1: literally even one time. But I'm going to school for
Speaker 1: art because my parents had a chandelier dropped on them. Um,
Speaker 1: so you're just like, all right, I guess right. Abby
Speaker 1: should take the same approach to her relationship that an
Speaker 1: August Dyer does to like examining Ted as like a
Speaker 1: like someone she might donate to, because it's like, I'm
Speaker 1: not just looking at you, I'm looking at your whole family.
Speaker 1: Like Abby should be like, yeah, I'm looking at you
Speaker 1: as a partner, but like also your whole family, and
Speaker 1: your whole family sucks again minus Jane. But and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that you shouldn't marry someone you want to
Speaker 1: marry because their family is awful. But Abby should have
Speaker 1: a choice about whether or not she spends time with
Speaker 1: Harper's family, and she isn't given a choice, and instead
Speaker 1: she was lied to and ambushed and forced to be
Speaker 1: around these very toxic people. I would not be begging
Speaker 1: for these people's approval and acceptance. Yeah, I really want
Speaker 1: Abby to like stand up for herself at any point.
Speaker 1: I mean, but I know it's like she's in this
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable position that like again Harper forced her into,
Speaker 1: like you have to keep lying, you have to maintain
Speaker 1: this charade, and like I feel so bad. It seems
Speaker 1: like we're being set up for Like I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's again, it's just like you're just saying, it's kind
Speaker 1: of just like a lack of character arc for Abby
Speaker 1: because at the end, it's like she's defined by being
Speaker 1: constantly steamrolled by others, and then by the end she
Speaker 1: is steamrolled for a final time and then she's just
Speaker 1: flat like and it's it's actually like the least the
Speaker 1: least forceful steamroll love them all. She just kind of
Speaker 1: like gives in. She's like, Okay, yeah, there's no like
Speaker 1: big turning point moment. She just is like no, and
Speaker 1: then she's like but yes, right, frustrating, I don't like it.
Speaker 1: And and again it's not to keep bringing up my
Speaker 1: little alternate Riley idea. But like even if Abby is
Speaker 1: defined by being steamrolled. Riley is a character that could
Speaker 1: challenge that in her and be like, why are you
Speaker 1: allowing this to happen to yourself? On top of the
Speaker 1: fact that you're being treated like ship, this family aspires
Speaker 1: to treat everybody like ship, Like you don't need to
Speaker 1: take this sitting down. And that's why I'm maybe Riley
Speaker 1: should run for mayor I can better. Yes, Wow, sort
Speaker 1: of like female pe movie The Youngest Mayor, The Youngest
Speaker 1: Game Mayor, Trauma of at All. Okay, there's just a
Speaker 1: little tiny bit left of the story where no, it's fine,
Speaker 1: so sloan out Harper to the whole room. Um. Harper
Speaker 1: denies it at first, but then it's finally like, yes, family,
Speaker 1: I am gay and I'm in love with Abby. And
Speaker 1: then Victor Garber pitches a fit and then um, Abby's
Speaker 1: like it's it's too late, and she leaves. But then
Speaker 1: Harper shows up at this gas station and she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, you're the love of my life. I'll
Speaker 1: make it up to you, and then they kiss and
Speaker 1: that's the big climax of the movie. And then the
Speaker 1: next day is Christmas Day. Harper's family has like come
Speaker 1: around they have a what we're meant to believe as
Speaker 1: a nice Christmas together, and then they all live quote
Speaker 1: happily ever after for at least a year. Well they do.
Speaker 1: They do exchange rings. They're wearing rings in the end.
Speaker 1: So she has decided in that moment that it's still
Speaker 1: a good times to propet just get married. Let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break, and then we'll come right back for
Speaker 1: a more discussion. We're back. We're back. That gas station scene,
Speaker 1: just that when Harper just she's just spewing the ship
Speaker 1: like it's just so when she's like, I don't care
Speaker 1: what they think, I only care about you, It's like, well,
Speaker 1: name one thing you've done in the past week that
Speaker 1: would demonstrate that, like right, one decision. I don't understand
Speaker 1: why they didn't just moviefy that moment. Like, to me,
Speaker 1: you could have given this movie a few different endings
Speaker 1: that I would have liked better. Like the one I
Speaker 1: really like is the one where she where Abby leaves
Speaker 1: with Dan Levy and they have Christmas together and it's
Speaker 1: like about chosen family and about like yeah, like we're
Speaker 1: having our little queer Christmas. The other one is if
Speaker 1: we have to have Abby and Harper end up together.
Speaker 1: How coup Harper doesn't do I huge romantic gesture? How
Speaker 1: come she doesn't do a gesture where she puts in
Speaker 1: Christmas lights, I love you, Kristen Stewart, Merry Christmas, like
Speaker 1: on the roof for the whole neighborhood to see, and
Speaker 1: it's Christmas and the music is playing, Like why don't
Speaker 1: we do something like that? Why does she just show
Speaker 1: up to a guest and then it's like nothing moment.
Speaker 1: I'm also like tracking you like that. Yeah, she's it's
Speaker 1: a stalking thing, Like she shows up uninvited, unannounced. That
Speaker 1: is not okay, It's only funny when Dan Levy does it.
Speaker 1: That's another. I mean, as much as I love Dan
Speaker 1: Levy and his character in this movie, that's like, why
Speaker 1: are you stalking people? John for Cony. Um, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I I knew that I was looking into. Like this
Speaker 1: interview is cleared of all was doing them? Like did
Speaker 1: she acknowledge any of the all over the place reception
Speaker 1: of the movie. And she does say in interviews that
Speaker 1: she was determined to have Harber and be together at
Speaker 1: the end because, um, she says, quote, there are so
Speaker 1: many lesbian movies that end in tragedy where these people
Speaker 1: fall madly in love and they never see each other again.
Speaker 1: We don't get a lot of happy endings, and I
Speaker 1: wanted them to make it, which fair point, absolutely, But like,
Speaker 1: then why did you write the characters this way? Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like there's a strong disconnect
Speaker 1: between because I also read some of these interviews and
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a really distinct disconnect between what
Speaker 1: Clo Duval thought she was doing and what she actually did,
Speaker 1: because like I read a quote where she was like,
Speaker 1: this is a story about like forgiveness and about like
Speaker 1: working through problems together in a relationship, and I was like,
Speaker 1: but they do not work together. They there is not
Speaker 1: one single moment ever where they work together to handle
Speaker 1: this problem. And there's not one single moment where the
Speaker 1: character Harper does anything to merit forgiveness, totally right, that
Speaker 1: we don't see them work through anything. No, so the
Speaker 1: actual message becomes like you should just forgive people who
Speaker 1: treat you like garbage, right, And that's I actually think
Speaker 1: that that's a dangerous message for like queer people especially,
Speaker 1: And it's like I have all, like I I likely
Speaker 1: of all, I like really respect her work. She's like,
Speaker 1: you know, she's sure, she's an icon. She's great, but
Speaker 1: it's an icon for sure. But yeah, I I totally
Speaker 1: agree with you, Jess, Like it's just a it's a
Speaker 1: weird way to kind of walk back some of the
Speaker 1: decisions you made in your movie to be like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we're all we're all struggling. It's difficult. So
Speaker 1: just if someone is emotionally abusive to you, consider where
Speaker 1: they're coming from. And it's like that, what kind of
Speaker 1: message is that? I know that's a weird message, And like,
Speaker 1: to be totally clear, I also like I really respect
Speaker 1: cleage of all and like have always, like you know,
Speaker 1: looked to her for a long time as like a
Speaker 1: lesbian icon. And so I just feel that's like what
Speaker 1: I feel disappointed by totally. It's like she can' you like,
Speaker 1: she can do better than there or I want to
Speaker 1: believe that she can do better and will. I hope
Speaker 1: she does, because it was like I hope that she
Speaker 1: takes some of the constructive criticism around this movie to heart.
Speaker 1: I think she will. I hope she will. You know,
Speaker 1: her performance and but I'm a cheerleader. It meant a
Speaker 1: lot there's just simply nothing. It meant a lot to us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's I also read I I did not know this
Speaker 1: movie existed, but I also read that there was a
Speaker 1: movie with a similar premise that came out in two
Speaker 1: thousand nine. There there have been a few movies that
Speaker 1: are almost exactly like this. What are including one that
Speaker 1: I think came out in or Steen like kind of
Speaker 1: more recently. I feel like I heard about that and
Speaker 1: I was like, why didn't that come out ten years ago?
Speaker 1: It's about Thanksgiving, but it's the same thing. Somebody brings
Speaker 1: her girlfriend home and her family doesn't know, right. I
Speaker 1: read about a movie called Make the Yule Tide Gay
Speaker 1: from two thousand and nine, where like college student takes
Speaker 1: a boyfriend home. They pretend to be roommates, but the
Speaker 1: main character like is I guess the difference is that
Speaker 1: the main character demonstrates a lot of guilt throughout the
Speaker 1: movie and like is constantly communicating with his partner and
Speaker 1: like having just doubts and like that, which doesn't make
Speaker 1: it right, but it like at least makes it like
Speaker 1: easier to not hate a character that we're supposed to
Speaker 1: love because Harpert just acts so selfishly at every single turn.
Speaker 1: I don't understand why they kept having her hang out
Speaker 1: with her ex boyfriend. I was like, this is like
Speaker 1: the wrong It's not it's just a wrong thing to do.
Speaker 1: I also was confused by that and if if she
Speaker 1: was doing that to like appease her family or something
Speaker 1: like not, not enough was done to establish like why
Speaker 1: she was doing that, and it was confusing to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like that could have been an
Speaker 1: interesting opportunity of like, because it's implied that that character
Speaker 1: is gay based on how he interacts with Dan Levy
Speaker 1: later in the movie. So it's like that could have
Speaker 1: been an interesting conversation, like, but she she shuts it down,
Speaker 1: like she is so not receptive to it. He like
Speaker 1: tries to talk to her outside of Fratty's or wherever
Speaker 1: the place was, and kind of like gives her an
Speaker 1: opening of like hey, you know, and but she's just
Speaker 1: like Nope, I'm not having this conversation with anybody, And
Speaker 1: it's like, well, then, why where are you here? Also,
Speaker 1: I think we could get rid of the boyfriend and
Speaker 1: then just include Riley Moore. Absolutely, yeah, Well you know
Speaker 1: what would if if Abby had gone to Christmas with
Speaker 1: her girlfriend's family and ended up hooking up with her
Speaker 1: girlfriend's ax. That's a lesbian romantic comedy. That's just a
Speaker 1: movie I desperately want to see. That would have been
Speaker 1: so great there, that would have been so far they
Speaker 1: should have it also would have raised this days if
Speaker 1: like Abby and Riley kissed. I like, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't condone cheating, but in this situation, it's so like
Speaker 1: Abby and Riley. Legally Cannon should kiss because Abby has
Speaker 1: just been like flogged by this situation and her partner
Speaker 1: for days on end, there's no end in sight. Going
Speaker 1: home for five days is a bad idea to begin with.
Speaker 1: That was like when I was the first time I
Speaker 1: watched the movie, I'm like, we we leave after three days.
Speaker 1: That's three days is the maximum time you want to
Speaker 1: spend with your family. But she's allowed to kiss Riley.
Speaker 1: I can't believe. I cannot believe that they don't kiss
Speaker 1: at the bar by movie law. It should have happened absolutely,
Speaker 1: chemistry law. It should have like it should have just
Speaker 1: happened organically. Yeah, um, I did appreciate. I like the
Speaker 1: look on Harper's face when she sees what happened. Jamie
Speaker 1: seems to have accidentally dropped from the him close, So
Speaker 1: just we'll just keep recording and then um, yeah, there
Speaker 1: she is. Okay, Oh my god. I just I was
Speaker 1: just got so intense about wanting Aubrey Plast and Christian
Speaker 1: Stewart to kiss that I started like fidgeting with a
Speaker 1: button and I accidentally hung up. That's on me. Do
Speaker 1: you remember what you were saying? I was just saying
Speaker 1: something like horny and then got all worked up and
Speaker 1: hung up. Isn't everybody with the button thinking about Aubrey?
Speaker 1: Plus it's true. I yeah, she she's so. I liked
Speaker 1: she when she was doing press for this movie, it
Speaker 1: was like it did make me laugh because she was
Speaker 1: just like, my goal in my performance was to make
Speaker 1: everyone be upset that Christian Steward doesn't end up with
Speaker 1: my character, like, well, you were successful. I was shocked
Speaker 1: that she was allowed to say that. Yeah, that surprised
Speaker 1: to me. I guess she can just kind of do
Speaker 1: what she wants. I don't know, or maybe she doesn't care.
Speaker 1: I have no idea. She was grumpy cat who knows
Speaker 1: it is not her first I was like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is not her first Christmas. Ever. She was in the
Speaker 1: Grumpy g Christmas movie. Um to call back to those
Speaker 1: couple of other similar similar like Christmas movies or like
Speaker 1: holiday movies with a similar premise about queer characters having
Speaker 1: to repress and like hiding their identity for for the
Speaker 1: comfort of straight families. Yeah right, Yeah, that speaks to
Speaker 1: the fact that like this is like kind of the
Speaker 1: first queer center Chris like Festival Christmas see movie that
Speaker 1: was backed by a major studio and you know, it's
Speaker 1: got bank a, bull Stars. It was supposed to have
Speaker 1: a theatrical release but then pandemic, so it got a
Speaker 1: release on Hulu. But it makes look like viewing records
Speaker 1: on Hulu, which is which is like cool enough people
Speaker 1: wanted to see a really good lesbian Christmas movie and
Speaker 1: then they just they kind of just saw happiest season.
Speaker 1: But then that's the thing, Like it's a lot more
Speaker 1: accessible than previous similar or movies have been. But that
Speaker 1: makes it all the more disappointing that it like doesn't
Speaker 1: deliver and that has like some pretty toxic messages to
Speaker 1: take away from it because it has all these more
Speaker 1: has way more eyes on it than other similar movies.
Speaker 1: But what just you were kind of alluding to this
Speaker 1: earlier is like it's it does like by the end
Speaker 1: of this movie, you're like, oh, this movie is for
Speaker 1: like straight parents, Like it's not for queer people, like
Speaker 1: it's for the flag crowd. Yeah, yeah, and it's And
Speaker 1: so I find it frustrating because we've had this conversation
Speaker 1: about like multiple movies on the show before of like
Speaker 1: a movie that is like kind of marketed as this
Speaker 1: huge win for representation, but then it's about conservative white
Speaker 1: people and it's kind of doing the bare minimum in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. To to like start, it almost
Speaker 1: feels like it's testing the waters in a weird way.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I like who I wish that Clear
Speaker 1: Daval was like if I would honestly respected a lot
Speaker 1: more if Clear Dval was like, Here's who I'm making
Speaker 1: this movie for, and was just like clear about that
Speaker 1: because it's it's so jarring at so many points, and
Speaker 1: then by the end, when you land on that Mary Stein,
Speaker 1: Virgin Victor garber Stein, you're like, oh, so this is
Speaker 1: who the movie is for. To me, this is why
Speaker 1: like quote unquote, representation is sort of like a not
Speaker 1: good enough for not full enough concept because like I
Speaker 1: feel like this movie is a great example about that
Speaker 1: because I'm like, okay, sure it is like about lesbians,
Speaker 1: Like there are lesbian characters, it was made by lesbians.
Speaker 1: Clear Dull as a lesbian. She wrote it, she directed it,
Speaker 1: but the like actual content of the movie is not
Speaker 1: really good for like a lesbian audience or a queer audience.
Speaker 1: Like you have to serve your audience, like it's right, right,
Speaker 1: you can't just like put people in front of the screen, right,
Speaker 1: you can't, and you can't just like you can't just
Speaker 1: stop it identity, like there has to be more there, right,
Speaker 1: Totally totally agree, And that's something we talk about in
Speaker 1: terms of like representation in media is often a slow
Speaker 1: and tumultuous process where like the steps are generally like
Speaker 1: there's no representation, and then after some amount of years
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, now there's some representation, but it's usually
Speaker 1: bad and offensive and harmful. Uh, and then you move
Speaker 1: on to Okay, now there's like more positive representation, but
Speaker 1: it's still it feels outdated still, or it feels like
Speaker 1: there's a long way to go. It hasn't quite caught
Speaker 1: up with like contemporary attitudes. So this feels like that
Speaker 1: where it's like, Okay, there's representation, it's a story made
Speaker 1: by queer people about queer people, but not but there's
Speaker 1: not four queer people. It's frustrating. Yeah, and this, this
Speaker 1: is like this expands far beyond entertain where it's just
Speaker 1: it's kind of like frustrating and insulting to have. It's
Speaker 1: like something put in front of you and be like, look,
Speaker 1: aren't you you should be happy? You should be happy
Speaker 1: that I think this when it's like right, no, like no,
Speaker 1: you don't just need to take something insufficient, because like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I really resent that whole like, well, aren't you
Speaker 1: happy that this exists? You're like I guess, like I'm
Speaker 1: not unhappy, but it's not it's not what we were promised.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's not what we were promised. And
Speaker 1: I'm not even saying like it shouldn't exist, but I
Speaker 1: am saying like it sucks that this is like the thing,
Speaker 1: it's the thing that we're getting and it's not it
Speaker 1: like it hurts me like I spent I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm being melodramatic,
Speaker 1: but I am like each time I watched this movie
Speaker 1: because I watched it twice. Um, I've spent the whole
Speaker 1: next day like kind of at a high level of
Speaker 1: like anger and anxiety and just like being like upset
Speaker 1: because this movie reminds me of a lot of bad
Speaker 1: experiences I've had, and now suddenly I'm thinking about these
Speaker 1: experiences that maybe don't bother me at all in my
Speaker 1: normal life, and so I'm like, that's just not like
Speaker 1: I feel like that's not the ideal outcome for a
Speaker 1: queer audience. Yeah, of course it's, especially because so many
Speaker 1: queer movies prior to this have focused on like tragedy,
Speaker 1: and there's been kind of an erasure of like queer
Speaker 1: joy narratives, and if on the surface, it feels like
Speaker 1: this would be a queer joy narrative. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's happiest season, it's Christmas time, it's FESTI wou but
Speaker 1: like we've been saying, there are so many moments and
Speaker 1: just like beats and themes in the movie that are
Speaker 1: like traumatic and triggering and like closer to horror than comedy,
Speaker 1: and like I would almost classify this as like a tragedy,
Speaker 1: Like it's kind of dick what, especially the way it
Speaker 1: ends and the fact that Hobby ends up with Harper,
Speaker 1: who is again really not a good partner or a
Speaker 1: good person. There's essentially no joy in the movie. There's
Speaker 1: essentially no Christmas joy whatsoever, like throughout the whole movie
Speaker 1: except for like the opening credit sequence and the ending
Speaker 1: credit sequence. Yeah, and also the ending he wins mayor
Speaker 1: here just like he wins You hate that. I really
Speaker 1: hate it really bothers me that. Yeah, there's I mean
Speaker 1: the fact that it concludes with the protagonist who we
Speaker 1: are rooting for, settling for someone who does not treat
Speaker 1: her right that we see on screen at least, and
Speaker 1: does not make any meaningful amends with the people in
Speaker 1: her life or works on herself even like one percent,
Speaker 1: Like what kind of what kind of messages that? That sucks? Right? Like,
Speaker 1: it's not a happy ending. Just because you tacked it
Speaker 1: on there doesn't make it like a happy ending for
Speaker 1: queer people. Yeah, yeah, I want to read a quote
Speaker 1: that I pulled from a review in l UM from MICHAELA. Phillips,
Speaker 1: who is a queer black writer. UM says, quote, I
Speaker 1: needed the film to earn its happy ending and hold
Speaker 1: Harper accountable to unpack the trauma of coming out and
Speaker 1: how queer people harm themselves, each other, and those closest
Speaker 1: to them under societal pressure. I see myself in Harper,
Speaker 1: scared to come out. I understand how time is wasted
Speaker 1: unlearning and struggling with heteronormativity, but that's not an excuse
Speaker 1: to inflict emotional pain on others in the process. Being
Speaker 1: afraid of confronting one's own personal trauma, especially a rich,
Speaker 1: privileged white family, doesn't excuse actions that hurt people. I
Speaker 1: don't want queer people accepting a partner who gaslights them
Speaker 1: because they're scared. I want queer mainstream films that delve
Speaker 1: into coming out and reckon with all the messiness of
Speaker 1: the situation. I want films that acknowledge the lived experiences
Speaker 1: of black queer people. I want queer mainstream films that
Speaker 1: go beyond coming out to showcase the complexity of their characters.
Speaker 1: End quote. I agree, Yeah, I was like, she now that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that like And I don't want to invalidate anyone's feelings
Speaker 1: or opinions. Anyone who enjoys this movie finds value in
Speaker 1: this movie, because I think there is a lot of
Speaker 1: value in this movie. There is representation that we haven't
Speaker 1: seen before in a mainstream Christmas movie. They're funny parts.
Speaker 1: So I was like, I was still crying throughout the
Speaker 1: Like I cried. I cried when the when the movie
Speaker 1: told me to cry. I was playing ball with the movie.
Speaker 1: Like that scene at the end with Dan Levy and
Speaker 1: Christen Stewart, we like, you can't you can't help weeping
Speaker 1: during that scene. Like it's so that's another scene where
Speaker 1: you're like, it's like, oh, we're so close to something, right,
Speaker 1: Like when the last time I watched it, I was
Speaker 1: watching it was my my friend Hayn Park, and she
Speaker 1: was like, at the end of this monologue, you should
Speaker 1: be like, and this relationship has seen its course and
Speaker 1: come with me. Let's get a drink at the track
Speaker 1: bar exactly because he's right. He's literally right. Everything he
Speaker 1: says is literally correct. Yeah. Yeah, So that yeah, that's
Speaker 1: and and for listeners, that's the scene where towards the
Speaker 1: end there at there's like so many scenes to take
Speaker 1: place at the same gas station at the very end
Speaker 1: of the movie, but they're outside at the gas station
Speaker 1: and John is basically reminding Abbey that Harper is like
Speaker 1: in a really difficult position even though it is actively
Speaker 1: hurting Abby. And then he shares his coming out story
Speaker 1: and that it was really traumatic and that he basically
Speaker 1: lost a relationship with his father and rejected by his family,
Speaker 1: and just because Abby was accepted by her parents before
Speaker 1: the chandelier fell, that tragic night, Um, you know, it
Speaker 1: was a huge night for her. It was the ups
Speaker 1: and downs. Oh my god, can you imagine She told
Speaker 1: them she was a lesbian at six pm and they
Speaker 1: were like, we love you so much. And then at
Speaker 1: thirty they shouldn't gone to the opera that night, but
Speaker 1: they wanted to support their clining gamel On students. But
Speaker 1: I liked where he was going with that. But then yeah,
Speaker 1: I just kind of landed like, so I don't care
Speaker 1: if you're emotionally abused by your partner, even though he
Speaker 1: spent the whole movie saying the opposite of that. So
Speaker 1: it's strange. Yeah, I I do love his character. I
Speaker 1: I do love John. And again, like a lot of
Speaker 1: what he says makes you think that, like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: movie is trying to have a progressive agenda. He's calling
Speaker 1: out heteronormative standards, different things like that. But like the
Speaker 1: progressive agenda that this movie is trying to put forward,
Speaker 1: is like it doesn't go as far as it thinks
Speaker 1: it's going. It's weird. It's weird. Can we talk about
Speaker 1: Jane really quick? Yes? Jane. I really like Mary Holland,
Speaker 1: I like love her as a performer, this character did not.
Speaker 1: I love Jane, but the way everyone treats Jane in
Speaker 1: the movie super sucks. I mean it's like she's like
Speaker 1: Jane is a like not a neurotypical character, and there's
Speaker 1: just jokes about it, and there's just like all of
Speaker 1: these references to how she has been treated like shipped
Speaker 1: by her family for not being neurotypical for her entire life,
Speaker 1: and that's the joke. It's as good. I like her
Speaker 1: author's journey, but the way she's treated by her family sucks,
Speaker 1: and like no one ever really, no one apologizes to her.
Speaker 1: I don't know what what what? Well the jokes all
Speaker 1: to me, they all feel very like mid two thousand
Speaker 1: sort of level, like where we still think it's okay
Speaker 1: to joke about that stuff. We still think the closet
Speaker 1: joke is really funny, like we are still talking about
Speaker 1: things and that it's still kind of okay to be
Speaker 1: like casually racist, casually ablest, and like that's the funny joke,
Speaker 1: and that really takes me out of it. I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is like the queer movie of like, is this
Speaker 1: joke with this sort of mid two thousand sensibility in
Speaker 1: an offensive way? It's I And then but again, do
Speaker 1: I tear up when she is doing the book reading
Speaker 1: at the end of the movie. That was the party
Speaker 1: the hardest. I found them that to be the most compelling.
Speaker 1: When she's just like and then she's like reading from
Speaker 1: her fantasy novel and she's like then they all look
Speaker 1: at each other, and it was Glenn who stepped forward first,
Speaker 1: and I was like, anyway, yeah, I really this family
Speaker 1: really treats everyone poorly, and uh, Jane gets the brunt
Speaker 1: of it a lot of the time. But the ways
Speaker 1: that it's like the parents Tipper and Ted treat each
Speaker 1: of their daughters like ship in a unique way, and
Speaker 1: the way that they treat Jane is just ablest, Like
Speaker 1: that's that's how they show that they don't respect that daughter.
Speaker 1: And then they it's just so all over the place.
Speaker 1: He's like, and then the sloan I I don't even
Speaker 1: want to talk about Sloan, what what is her story?
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, we're mad at her because she has
Speaker 1: a very successful business, like she didn't pursue law and
Speaker 1: she stopped to have a family, but now she like
Speaker 1: she she's like a girl boss. Like what am I
Speaker 1: rooting for here? Yeah? I feel like they added a
Speaker 1: bunch of like B and C and D storylines that
Speaker 1: ended up just die looting the main drama, which is
Speaker 1: Harper and Abbey, and then it sort of was like
Speaker 1: like literally over and over and over again. The last
Speaker 1: third of the movie is just people having like confessions,
Speaker 1: like all in a row, and it's like why are
Speaker 1: we having confession after confession after confession even very often
Speaker 1: following up like Harper's finally coming out moment, and then
Speaker 1: the second after that someone else is like an I
Speaker 1: I was like, why we're not talking about you? Like
Speaker 1: the movie is not about you. When Sloan makes that
Speaker 1: about her, You're just like, who even are you? Like
Speaker 1: get out of this movie. Yes, Sloan interrupts Harper's coming
Speaker 1: out by being like, well, I'm getting divorced, and it's
Speaker 1: like read the room, like we leave them. But on
Speaker 1: the writing side, I was like, why did you do this?
Speaker 1: Why did you dilude your own movie is big moments,
Speaker 1: with these little moments that nobody gives a shit about, right,
Speaker 1: I do wonder, like, what the what the motivate? I'm
Speaker 1: sure that there is a reason, but I just aunt, um.
Speaker 1: I think it's probably something like in the end, we
Speaker 1: all have secrets, we're all hiding something, and that's how
Speaker 1: we can relate. Like that was what I got out
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, And I was like, Okay, but I
Speaker 1: don't give a shit about those secrets. They're not good secrets.
Speaker 1: I don't care. I'm like, I don't care about her
Speaker 1: goop business related secrets. It's just not the same problem.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I the last thing I had was
Speaker 1: this is I was only thinking about this because I
Speaker 1: this like story popped up in my feet in the
Speaker 1: last couple of days about John. So obviously there's a
Speaker 1: lot of queer characters in this movie, but John still
Speaker 1: for me fell into like a gay best friend trope totally,
Speaker 1: which I was like, that's just another weird thing to
Speaker 1: be happening in this movie. All basically everything he does
Speaker 1: is revolving around Kristin Stewart's life, Like he just I mean,
Speaker 1: we know that he has a job, we know what
Speaker 1: his job is. It becomes relevant at the very very
Speaker 1: very end of the movie. But like he's I feel
Speaker 1: like it's another like weird mid two thousand trope where
Speaker 1: he is just but instead of being at the beck
Speaker 1: and call of some straight girl, he's at the beck
Speaker 1: and call of Christian Stewart about her relationship. And it's
Speaker 1: just the reason I brought it up was Andrew Rynolds
Speaker 1: was in that movie prom which I haven't watched yet,
Speaker 1: but he was doing an interview for that movie and
Speaker 1: basically brought up the Bechtel test and he said, you
Speaker 1: know what the Bechtel test is. I apply that to
Speaker 1: a lot of gay characters as I read scripts because
Speaker 1: I think it's a good way to figure out if
Speaker 1: they're just supposed to be a punch line or if
Speaker 1: they're human. Does he have a life? You can only
Speaker 1: do so much as an actor sometimes to flush things out,
Speaker 1: and it really has to be in the writing, which
Speaker 1: I agree with. And it's like I don't know, It's
Speaker 1: like you have Dan leave, like why wouldn't you? And
Speaker 1: he has no family, he has no boyfriend, he has
Speaker 1: no he has a point of view about everything that
Speaker 1: happens in Harper's life, but beyond that, he doesn't totally
Speaker 1: have a point of view. Yeah. Also, he makes a
Speaker 1: very confusing just like narrative choice where Abby calls him
Speaker 1: or they're on the phone and she's like everything is
Speaker 1: in shambles, like this is a disaster. I can't leave
Speaker 1: because the uber costs a thousand dollars And then John's like, sorry,
Speaker 1: gotta go and he just kind of hangs up on her,
Speaker 1: and then he shows up a few hours later. Why
Speaker 1: wouldn't he say, like, I'm coming to get you. Stay there.
Speaker 1: It feels so much better if right, Because like that
Speaker 1: moment where he shows up is like I guess treated
Speaker 1: as this like big reveal or something, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: need to be. And instead he just like he makes
Speaker 1: it seem like her problems are nothing, and then he's like, sorry,
Speaker 1: you gotta go by, but it's so that he can
Speaker 1: like get in the car really fast and come safer.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't he tell her that he was coming to
Speaker 1: rescue her. Ah, Yeah, I don't. That didn't make any
Speaker 1: sense to me. All that said, I liked the fish jokes.
Speaker 1: The fish jokes were great. I mean I have something
Speaker 1: in terms of like the varied queer representation within this
Speaker 1: quote unquote queer movie. Um is, so I auditioned for
Speaker 1: Happiest Season? Yeah? I, um yeah, I auditioned for Aubrey
Speaker 1: Plaza's role. And I know a couple of other people
Speaker 1: who auditioned for it to who have like said publicly,
Speaker 1: I know Rio Butcher said that the auditioned for it.
Speaker 1: Irene to audition for it, and like, I don't. I'm
Speaker 1: sure they put out a wide swath of auditions for
Speaker 1: like queer people in general, but like to see specifically
Speaker 1: these three people and me Irene Ria, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: so they did audition like masculine people, gender nonconforming people,
Speaker 1: trans people and me and Ria trans and ultimately they
Speaker 1: chose a cis feminine woman, which like, I'm glad having
Speaker 1: seen the movie, I'm glad Aubrey Plasa was in it
Speaker 1: because I want to look at Aubrey Plaza. I would
Speaker 1: rather look at Aubrey Plaza than be in that movie.
Speaker 1: But but what that says to me is, you know
Speaker 1: they've done It's not that they auditioned us and they
Speaker 1: cast Ruby Rose or Asia Kate Dillan or Roberta Calindras
Speaker 1: or like some other like more famous masculine gender, nonconforming,
Speaker 1: non binary person. They just looked at us and they
Speaker 1: ultimately were like, that's not what we want. We want
Speaker 1: three feminine women with long hair and femininity. And I
Speaker 1: think that that is a choice, a distinctive choice. It
Speaker 1: certainly is. That is telling, and it's another kind of
Speaker 1: marker of like this movie feels behind um to cast all.
Speaker 1: You know, there are four queer characters, all of them
Speaker 1: are siss, most of them are white. Aubrey Plaza is
Speaker 1: a person of alert, but it's still a very white
Speaker 1: and she's a person of color who moves through like
Speaker 1: whiteness in this sort of way. Right, and then just
Speaker 1: hearkening back to the Harper is like so complicit in
Speaker 1: her father's like campaign for what's clearly a Republican I
Speaker 1: know we can't get over the local politics thing, but
Speaker 1: because but like we're having a lot of these conversations right,
Speaker 1: like like our generation we have to talk to our families,
Speaker 1: We have to talk to our conservative family members. We
Speaker 1: have to talk to our parents who are well meaning
Speaker 1: but maybe not as progressive as younger generations, especially like
Speaker 1: white millennials who are anti racist, we have a responsibility
Speaker 1: to be like, hey, family, you need to stop you
Speaker 1: need to stop being shitty, you need to be actively
Speaker 1: anti racist. So for Harper to like just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna help my dad write his speeches for his
Speaker 1: Republican your campaign, it's just like it's on top of
Speaker 1: the fact that like it's it's it becomes confusing to
Speaker 1: me of like if this movie is aware that this
Speaker 1: is a problem that even exists, like it's just so
Speaker 1: treated as a given that like, well, you know, families
Speaker 1: are like this and without you know, acknowledging any of
Speaker 1: the active harm that comes with those views, and just
Speaker 1: for her to be so unchallenging of it and to
Speaker 1: just I mean, yeah, that's just like privilege operating at
Speaker 1: the highest level to be like, well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's like I don't want to make the holidays uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: and not the whole driving force behind that where it's like, well,
Speaker 1: uh sorry, Literally, the whole thing we've been saying this
Speaker 1: whole time is you must go home for the holidays
Speaker 1: and talk to your family. You must go home for
Speaker 1: the holidays and during Christmas, make your family uncomfortable, Like
Speaker 1: that's literally the discourse, right, yeah, and just this year
Speaker 1: in particular, to see that is not even not even
Speaker 1: be acknowledged by any character in the movie at any point,
Speaker 1: even characters that you would think would is. It's just
Speaker 1: like another uncanny element of this movie where I'm like,
Speaker 1: what planet, what year? What? Like? It just doesn't track
Speaker 1: at all, and it just makes it like less relevant.
Speaker 1: It works against the movie entirely. Yes, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, does anyone have any all feel
Speaker 1: good now that we all feel happy? Happy season? The
Speaker 1: We've we've discussed this on this show before, so um,
Speaker 1: we don't need to get too into this. But there
Speaker 1: was an interview that Kristin Stewart did with Variety where
Speaker 1: she gave her perspective on gay actors playing gay characters
Speaker 1: that I thought was, um, just a take. I I
Speaker 1: don't think she's ever spoken on this iss you before.
Speaker 1: And so the writer Kate Arthur asked the question, Uh,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who feel it's important
Speaker 1: that gay actors play gay characters after so many years
Speaker 1: of that not being the case. What's your stance on that?
Speaker 1: And she gives a very long answer, but I found
Speaker 1: it to be pretty thoughtful, where she um basically says
Speaker 1: she doesn't know and it depends, which is vague, but
Speaker 1: she says, I would never want to tell a story
Speaker 1: that really should be told by somebody who's lived that experience.
Speaker 1: Having said that, it's a slippery slope conversation, because that
Speaker 1: means I could never play another straight character if I'm
Speaker 1: going to hold everyone to the letter of this particular law.
Speaker 1: I think it's such a grey area. There are ways
Speaker 1: for men to tell women's stories or way for women
Speaker 1: to tell men's stories, but we need to have our
Speaker 1: finger on the pulse and actually have to care. You
Speaker 1: kind of know where you're allowed. I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: telling a story about a community and they're not welcoming
Speaker 1: to you, then funk off. But if they are and
Speaker 1: you're becoming an ally and a part of it, and
Speaker 1: there's something that drove you there in the first place,
Speaker 1: that makes uniquely endowed with a perspective that might be worthwhile.
Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with learning about each other and therefore
Speaker 1: helping each other tell stories. So I don't have a
Speaker 1: sure shot answer for that. And she kind of opens
Speaker 1: that discussion by saying like she has played, you know,
Speaker 1: so many straight roles and she's like a skinny, white
Speaker 1: CIS woman, and so, I don't know. I thought it
Speaker 1: was like an interesting answer to that question. I think,
Speaker 1: just like you said, a lot of that answer only
Speaker 1: works if you're a skinny, suys white woman exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I mean I feel like we've
Speaker 1: we've had we've had conversations around this in a few
Speaker 1: different episodes. But it, Yeah, it basically does boil down
Speaker 1: to she is operating with a lot of privilege coming
Speaker 1: into this situation. And so some people were not thrilled
Speaker 1: that McKenzie Davis was cast because she is a straight actor.
Speaker 1: Other people don't care. And it comes through, It comes
Speaker 1: comes through, It comes through, like it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: doesn't have to come through, Like I think, I think
Speaker 1: Rachel Vice plays an amazing lesbian. Um, I always forget
Speaker 1: that Rachel Vice is straight. I what's funny is like
Speaker 1: i feel like I see her like on the Red
Speaker 1: Carpet and I'm like, oh, that's like a straight forty
Speaker 1: year old mother of three, Like that's like a straight woman.
Speaker 1: But she's like such a good actor that she can
Speaker 1: get into it. But like if it doesn't come through
Speaker 1: it like weird. I always forget that Mackenzie Davis was
Speaker 1: in San Junipero, which was like another thing that makes
Speaker 1: me cry when I watch it. But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just I was wondering if that conversation was going
Speaker 1: to be had around this movie because there are a
Speaker 1: lot of queer actors playing queer parts, and then there's
Speaker 1: a few examples of that not being the case. And
Speaker 1: then we also have Victor Garber playing uh straight mayor
Speaker 1: who is homophobic, so there's I don't know. I thought
Speaker 1: I was glad she was asked the question, and hopefully
Speaker 1: this is a discussion we'll keep having. Yeah. Uh, speaking
Speaker 1: of Rachel Vice uh playing a lesbian character, I guess
Speaker 1: it's worth it, just at least mentioning that a lot
Speaker 1: of lesbian love stories in mainstream movies have been period
Speaker 1: pieces about like clandestine relationships that are kind of doomed
Speaker 1: from the start because of like the era that they
Speaker 1: take place in. I'm thinking of um, I'm thinking of this.
Speaker 1: He takes place in two thousand and seven. Right, it
Speaker 1: is a period piece. It is a period piece. It
Speaker 1: needs to be remember how it used to be. Thank God,
Speaker 1: it's not like that anymore. But yeah, like I mean
Speaker 1: like The Favorite and Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Speaker 1: and Carol um So, at least this movie takes place
Speaker 1: in the twenty century, because you know, there's there's some
Speaker 1: criticism about having like all the mainstream movies about a
Speaker 1: lesbian relationship taking place decades, if not hundreds of years ago,
Speaker 1: um so, and only with sis white women. To Y,
Speaker 1: it's just I have an especial softness for the lesbian
Speaker 1: period piece as a genre, so I like, I I
Speaker 1: feel like I am always trying to defend that genre
Speaker 1: because like I personally love it. I just feel like
Speaker 1: I would rather watch I would rather watch a lesbian
Speaker 1: period piece movie with like lush costume and set and
Speaker 1: like good writing and compelling characters and a relationship I'm
Speaker 1: rooting for regardless of how it ends. Then watch a
Speaker 1: movie that takes place in the modern day where people
Speaker 1: were close from H and M and it's a shitty
Speaker 1: relationship where I hate one of them and I don't
Speaker 1: want them to be together and I want them to
Speaker 1: break up, Like I just one of those. To me,
Speaker 1: the line is not modernity versus period It's like, is
Speaker 1: it a good movie, Like, did you write a good movie?
Speaker 1: Does it make sense? Doesn't make sense? Do we like
Speaker 1: any of these people? Do we like a single one
Speaker 1: of these people? I did? I dislike Harper Mary viewing,
Speaker 1: I just referred to The Favorite as my favorite lesbian
Speaker 1: holiday romantic comedy. So where's the for rewatching the Favorite?
Speaker 1: The Favorite does, for all of its tragedy, it does
Speaker 1: fill me with joy, fills me with joy more often
Speaker 1: than It's got joyous moments, tremendously joyous moments. The part
Speaker 1: where she kicks the ship out of the guy in
Speaker 1: the forest for like five minutes. It's hilarious. It's so funny.
Speaker 1: Every movie should have a five minutes of a woman
Speaker 1: kicking a man in the forest. It's just maybe maybe later.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I need, I need to rebound from watching
Speaker 1: Happiest Season for the third time in two weeks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is there anything else we wanted to hit on? That's
Speaker 1: That's everything I had. I think. I'm just that there's
Speaker 1: cat easier the cats. Cats get talked about, but we
Speaker 1: never see cats on screen. Rude, there is cat eraser.
Speaker 1: That's totally true. Yeah, why wasn't anyone talking about that?
Speaker 1: Why isn't that the main topic of discussion around I
Speaker 1: want to say something. Oh my god, we didn't talk
Speaker 1: about this. The part where um Harper sends Abby the
Speaker 1: like sexy selfie she's wearing like a full like shirt
Speaker 1: and Brie in bed. That was very revealing to me.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, so the sexy picture she she
Speaker 1: is sending her as a fully closed in bed, fully
Speaker 1: closed thinking of you, like wearing all my clothes. I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, that's where we're out. The way they
Speaker 1: act around each other, and like, have these women ever
Speaker 1: seen each other naked before? Like we just don't know.
Speaker 1: I just feel like Kristen Stewart was cold and Harper
Speaker 1: is straight. That's a perfect review. Yeah, yeah, that's all
Speaker 1: I had. All Right, Well, we know it passes the
Speaker 1: Vechtel test. Yes, it passes it. But I would venture
Speaker 1: to ask, is it worth that for a movie to
Speaker 1: pass the Actel test technically if they're not like, arguably, sure,
Speaker 1: two women talk to each other about something that's not
Speaker 1: a man, but what do they talk about? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: tragic It does tragically pass the Bactel test when Harper
Speaker 1: says what about me? And Abby says okay, and that's
Speaker 1: just a sign of a flawed metric. Yes, we need more,
Speaker 1: we need more ways to measure these things that we're watching.
Speaker 1: Oh well, funny you should mention because we have something
Speaker 1: called the Nipple scale, which is goodness of I mean,
Speaker 1: the most important media metric of our time. Um. It
Speaker 1: is a scale of zero to five nipples that examines
Speaker 1: movies from an intersectional feminist lens and how well the
Speaker 1: movie fares um. This one is a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of them are tricky. This one's tricky because is
Speaker 1: on one hand, it's like a mainstream queer Christmas movie,
Speaker 1: kind of the first of its kind in that it
Speaker 1: is again mainstream, big studio backing kind of thing. It's
Speaker 1: more accessible, but it wants you to root for a
Speaker 1: queer relationship that is toxic and unhealthy because of Harper,
Speaker 1: And I just can't really get behind it. And I
Speaker 1: know that Harper is under a lot of stress and
Speaker 1: is going through something very difficult of having to be
Speaker 1: in the closet around her family and having to hide
Speaker 1: her authentic self. And I know there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people today who aren't out to their families and friends,
Speaker 1: and I want to acknowledge that, and I don't think
Speaker 1: that that aspect of this story is unrealistic or anything.
Speaker 1: And if Harper hasn't felt ready to come out to
Speaker 1: her family, that's entirely her choice. But as we've said
Speaker 1: said that does not give her an excuse to be
Speaker 1: so dismissive and mean and unsupportive to her partner. And
Speaker 1: the fact that it's also extremely white and sis and
Speaker 1: weirdly Republican, it's just it's not the movie we needed
Speaker 1: in we've said before, would have made more sense in
Speaker 1: the context of it coming out in like two thousand
Speaker 1: six or something like that would have been groundbreaking pre Obama,
Speaker 1: a pre Obama game. Yeah, that's what this feels like
Speaker 1: to me. So hopefully this does that thing to like
Speaker 1: pave the way even though it feels outdated by by
Speaker 1: our standards. Maybe this is sort of one of those
Speaker 1: like stepping stone movies that we need that paves the
Speaker 1: way for more inclusive representation. But yeah, it's just it
Speaker 1: feels out day it in the way that it presents
Speaker 1: a lot of aspects of the story. So with that
Speaker 1: in mind, I hate like doing a split down the
Speaker 1: middle like two point five nipple rating, but but that
Speaker 1: that but but that feels appropriate. I think. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm so indecisive. You always like you don't do you
Speaker 1: always go first, and then you're always like, what should
Speaker 1: this is my burden to bear? But yeah, I'll go
Speaker 1: with a two point five until I'm convinced otherwise by
Speaker 1: everyone else's nipple rating, because that's how it always goes. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'll give my nipples to the reindeer that uh
Speaker 1: Christian Stewart has to lean on as she is ice scared.
Speaker 1: So if feminist icon that reindeer, I'm gonna I'll go.
Speaker 1: I'll go a two and a half as well. I
Speaker 1: just yeah, I guess, I guess I'll go down the middle.
Speaker 1: I don't want to come down unduly hard on this movie,
Speaker 1: but it is, you know, it's one of the core
Speaker 1: messages is that you should kind of work to appease
Speaker 1: your like white, Republican homophobic family, and that just is like, well,
Speaker 1: then this movie I feel like I feel like we've
Speaker 1: been talking about it throughout the entire episode, but it's
Speaker 1: just like that's like false advertising. That's not what we
Speaker 1: I would like to believe this movie was. I wasn't,
Speaker 1: but I think that Ultimately, this movie is kind of
Speaker 1: for straight parents. Like it's so in that way, it
Speaker 1: was a letdown. It's like there's so many missed opportunities
Speaker 1: for stronger character connections, for like stakes that make more sense,
Speaker 1: that serve the characters and the audience a lot better.
Speaker 1: There's it just is like messy, and I think Clia
Speaker 1: deval can and will do better in the future. Um,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I don't know. It just it was it's
Speaker 1: it wasn't even happiest and that was in the title.
Speaker 1: So that's not fair. Um, yeah, this is like it's
Speaker 1: it's another movie that is just kind of made to
Speaker 1: make white parents feel good about themselves in a way
Speaker 1: that just doesn't sit well. So yeah, I'll go two
Speaker 1: point five and I'm going to give my nipples to
Speaker 1: I guess uh Dan Levie and uh Aprey Plaza. M nice, Jess.
Speaker 1: What about you? God? Well, I said I'm I said
Speaker 1: I was going to be a hater. I said up
Speaker 1: top sure that I was going to be a hater.
Speaker 1: And I've made it abundantly clear over the course of
Speaker 1: this episode. My opinions on this movie, Um, it's got
Speaker 1: to be a one nip for me, Like I just
Speaker 1: I feel it did not deliver on any of the
Speaker 1: promises that I was like told from the beginning. I
Speaker 1: feel like I I just feel surprised. Like I felt
Speaker 1: surprised the whole time. I thought I wasn't gonna like
Speaker 1: it because I don't care for romantic comedies, you know.
Speaker 1: I didn't think it was gonna like drop like my
Speaker 1: own bad experiences, um because like I didn't think it
Speaker 1: was going to make me remember how it feels to
Speaker 1: be queer and alone. Like I was like, that is
Speaker 1: kind of the opposite experience of what I was expecting.
Speaker 1: And I feel bummed out because it was sort of
Speaker 1: like a bias for us type project, and I just
Speaker 1: want to hold us. I almost I'm holding us to
Speaker 1: a much higher standard. I hold clear duvalto a higher
Speaker 1: standard than some like straight man making a lesbian movie
Speaker 1: because of a straight man gets it wrong or offense
Speaker 1: offensive or harmful. I'm like, well, you what do you know?
Speaker 1: You don't know anything. Yeah, all of this is with
Speaker 1: love and respect, and I just want to put it
Speaker 1: out there that should Clear Duval want somebody to look
Speaker 1: over script or radical a little punch up, do a
Speaker 1: little punch up. I would have loved to punch up
Speaker 1: this script. I have ideas the second to it higher Jess, everybody,
Speaker 1: Everything I do is just just a platform for me
Speaker 1: to go and if someone wants to give me a
Speaker 1: job here. I forget who said this, but there was
Speaker 1: like some at some point in the Twitter discoursed around this,
Speaker 1: someone was like, if you're rooting for the couple from
Speaker 1: marriage story more than the couple in Happiest Season, that's
Speaker 1: really that does not bode well. M m m, yeah, brutal.
Speaker 1: This movie also kind of operates on the assumption that,
Speaker 1: like that the only type of cinematic conflict or like
Speaker 1: type of story that queer people would encounter is like
Speaker 1: like a coming out narrative. And it's like, well, what
Speaker 1: about like right, what about people who are like out
Speaker 1: and living their lives right and like contending with like
Speaker 1: what it is to be what it is to like
Speaker 1: really be queer. Not not that people who are closeted
Speaker 1: are not really queer, That's not what I'm saying, but
Speaker 1: like the whole tension in this movie is about disappearing
Speaker 1: into straight world, and like what about people who can't
Speaker 1: do that? Yeah? Yeah, we need more movies that normalize
Speaker 1: queer people's lives and romantic relationships and friendships and careers
Speaker 1: and any other aspect of a person's life like what
Speaker 1: about queer People? Or like a movie where the tension
Speaker 1: with the queer characters is not how they relate to
Speaker 1: straightness people, where that's just like not the thing. Well, folks,
Speaker 1: there you have it our Happiest Season episodes again if
Speaker 1: you if you love the movie, all good, but like
Speaker 1: you know, consider on your next one much. I hope
Speaker 1: you guys put a Christmas soundtrack over this whole thing
Speaker 1: to kind of to bring it up, to do what
Speaker 1: I wish they had done and Happiest Season put a
Speaker 1: nice little shingle bell, the teakon and Sarah song. It's
Speaker 1: just going to be on repeat. We've got the rights
Speaker 1: to it and we're going to just play it under
Speaker 1: the whole episode on repeat. Jes thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being here and talking about this movie with us.
Speaker 1: What is thank you for having me. This was the
Speaker 1: happiest season. Where can people follow you online and check
Speaker 1: out anything you want to plug You can find me
Speaker 1: on the internet on Twitter, which is my disgusting domain
Speaker 1: at just Tom J E. S. T O M. Or
Speaker 1: Instagram at just the Kid j e Yes the Kid,
Speaker 1: and the internet is where I live now, so that's
Speaker 1: where you'll find me. Indeed, tell you you can follow
Speaker 1: us also on the internet at Bechtel Cast on Twitter
Speaker 1: and Instagram and our patreon k Matreon is at patreon
Speaker 1: dot com slash pecktel Cast, and that is where you
Speaker 1: can get to bonus episodes every single month for five
Speaker 1: dollars a month plus access to the entire back catalog.
Speaker 1: What a bargain we did the new Princess Switch you
Speaker 1: want to talk about a movie that makes no sense?
Speaker 1: Princess which to switched again to part to Royals, the
Speaker 1: Royal Switching, And then you can take check out our
Speaker 1: merchant public dot com slash the Bechtel Cast. Um. I
Speaker 1: hope everyone is having I mean, the happiest season of
Speaker 1: all yikes. Well, enjoy the rest of the year and
Speaker 1: we will be back for an episode on New Year's
Speaker 1: Eve about the movie New Year's Eve Nightmare. Bye bye,