0:01

On the Bechdel Cast, the questions ask

0:03

if movies have women and them,

0:05

are all their discussions just boyfriends and

0:07

husbands, or do they have individualism?

0:10

It's the patriarchy, zephynvest

0:12

start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

0:16

Hi, Gone Girl, Hi,

0:18

Gone Girl.

0:19

We're just two gone girls living in gone girl

0:22

worlds where feminism has been solves

0:24

for now. That is, Oh yeah,

0:27

gone girls rule the gone world

0:30

and all of the Nicks

0:32

live to serve them.

0:35

Right, And then he has to sing a song

0:37

about.

0:38

I'm just nick, you know,

0:41

exactly exactly I honestly

0:44

maybe there are parallels. We can't talk

0:47

about it today. Welcome to the

0:49

Gone Girl episode of the Bechdel Cast. My

0:51

name is Jamie Loftus.

0:52

My name is Caitlin Dernte, and this is our

0:54

show where we examine movies through an

0:56

intersectional feminist lens, using the

0:59

Bechdel test simply as a jumping off

1:01

point to initiate larger conversations.

1:03

But Jamie, what is the

1:07

Bechdel test?

1:09

Wow?

1:09

Is it?

1:09

When two Gone Girls?

1:12

Oh? No?

1:13

How like?

1:13

What bottomized are we that? That is what I was

1:15

about to say, We're sick. It

1:18

was like when two gone girls talk about girls

1:20

being gone. For two gone girls

1:22

with god names talk to each other

1:24

about being gone outside

1:27

of the context of a man for

1:30

more than two lines of dialogue. If you

1:32

want to know the actual definition, you could listen to any

1:34

of our five hundred other episodes. But I think that for

1:36

today's episode, that

1:38

should be the new the new rule. Two gone

1:40

girls talking about being gone. I

1:43

agree, And there's sort of plenty. There's a couple

1:46

of gone Girl discussions throughout the course

1:48

of this movie, and I feel like also Amy

1:50

is in discussion with herself for so much

1:52

of the movie.

1:54

I just.

1:56

This is going to be an episode. The Bechdel Test,

1:59

if you're not aware, was originally created by queer

2:01

cartoonist Alice at Bechdel with

2:03

Liz Wallace, which is why it's often called

2:05

the Bechdel Wallace Test. Originally

2:08

created as a bit

2:10

a one off in her common

2:12

collection likes to watch out for about

2:14

how not just women, but queer people

2:17

rarely spoke to each other in movies, and

2:19

it's since taken on a life of its own

2:22

and been through three thousand discourse

2:25

cycles. Much like the

2:27

movie we're talking about today, Gone

2:29

Girl.

2:32

And we have a wonderful returning guest

2:34

here to join us in that discussion.

2:37

Alzheimer.

2:37

She's a writer and video essayist

2:40

in one of our faves. You remember her from our episodes

2:43

on Space Jam and Wild Things.

2:45

It's Princess Weeks.

2:47

Hi, Got Girls, Hi, Girls

2:49

Girls.

2:50

Oh my god, we're all together, Gone

2:52

and the three of us. It's like girls

2:55

gone Wild like

2:58

that.

2:59

Yeah, Girls Gone Wild

3:01

Things Jam. I love it.

3:06

So tell us about your history,

3:09

your relationship with Gone Girl.

3:12

Oh my god, Well, like I guess, over

3:14

a decade ago, I read

3:17

all of Gillian Flynn's books, Shop

3:19

Objects, I

3:22

forget what the middle one is called, and then Gone Girl,

3:24

and I ate them all up. I

3:26

loved it. And then the movie came

3:29

out. I saw the movie in theaters

3:31

with my ex boyfriend. Well that's

3:33

not why we broke up, but I

3:36

loved the movie, and

3:38

I, you know, woke up one day

3:40

and saw everyone was discoursing it, and I'm

3:43

just like, but I like it. But

3:45

I also understand it this course, But I feel

3:47

like as things

3:49

have evolved, especially the way this film

3:51

intersects with like race and gender

3:54

and like the true crime bubble,

3:56

I feel like part of what makes it such a

3:59

fun texted to discussed from like a multitude

4:01

of different lenses. Is that there

4:03

is what Gillian Flynn as Word of

4:06

God says about her work. There is

4:08

how people feel about the work

4:10

itself, and there's people who are responding

4:12

to jillians Flynn's work through

4:15

anxiety about what men think

4:17

about Gillian Flynn's work. And

4:19

I think in all of that you get this really

4:21

interesting storyteller who really

4:24

wants to talk about like white

4:26

female villainy looks like unafraid

4:29

of caring about what men necessarily think.

4:31

But it's hard to do that because they're always

4:33

watching. The Knicks are always

4:36

watching.

4:38

It's true, Yeah, Jamie,

4:40

what about you.

4:41

I read the book when it first

4:44

came out, and this

4:47

was again over ten years ago. I was not

4:50

really thinking about feminist theory

4:53

as much at this time. The feminist theory I

4:55

was thinking about is no

4:57

longer, I don't know whatever. It's been a while

4:59

to years for discussions like

5:02

this. I really enjoyed it. I

5:04

thought it was very different

5:06

from what I had sort of come to expect from that

5:08

genre. And then when I saw the

5:10

movie, I feel like I secretly

5:13

liked this movie for a long time. Because

5:16

I do love to throw myself into

5:18

a pit of discourse snakes, but

5:20

the Gone Girl discourse was one that I always

5:22

shied away from because I

5:25

was sort of afraid to be like. I like

5:28

this movie a lot, and I

5:30

think that it has aged in a really

5:33

interesting way. I sort of like

5:35

it for completely different reasons that I liked

5:37

it when I first saw it, which was more just like, this

5:39

is an incredibly well written and well performed

5:41

thriller. I don't know. I mean, yeah,

5:43

I wrote this down

5:46

get ready, I'm here

5:48

woman for Gone Girl. I

5:51

like, I'm

5:53

the here woman saying

5:56

that Gone Girl. Good

5:58

movie, A lot of stuff to talk about, and

6:00

it was like an interesting trip down twenty

6:02

fourteen essay Lane

6:05

to prepare for this episode. And I think

6:07

that there are a lot of there's a lot of criticism

6:10

of this movie that is

6:13

still really prescient and makes a lot of sense.

6:15

And then I think that there's some criticism that has

6:18

sort of not held up as well over time.

6:20

And I do feel like there

6:22

is a cathartic

6:24

element to watching

6:27

Gone Girl and seeing

6:30

a woman in a fairly

6:33

quote unquote I mean, and again, this is with

6:35

an enormous amount of privilege, but in

6:37

a fairly ordinary marriage

6:39

that we see in movies all the time, and

6:42

she's going to kill Neil Patrick Harris

6:45

about it. And then

6:47

other things I love in this movie. Tyler

6:49

Perry dramatic role, jump scare.

6:51

I always love that.

6:53

So good.

6:53

He's so good in this and that's always like,

6:56

wow, you range.

6:57

He's Billy Flynn in this Essentially,

7:00

I was like I would have accepted a song from

7:02

that character.

7:03

More like Gilly Flynn.

7:08

That's screenwriter Caitlin those

7:11

Hot far Wait who Billy Flynn

7:14

is from Chicago?

7:15

Richard Gear of Chicago. Yes, okay

7:17

he is.

7:18

I feel like Tyler Perry is the Billy Flynn of this movie

7:20

anyways. Yes, am Rada dramatic role

7:23

totally. I feel like there's little elements of

7:25

this movie. When I watch it every couple of years, you're like, oh, yeah,

7:27

em Rada, and then you

7:29

have like cool Tereu.

7:32

I don't know.

7:33

I always forget the carry coons in this movie.

7:35

This movie is like cast so

7:38

absurdly well except for the

7:41

fact that I will never

7:43

believe that a Ben Affleck character is

7:45

from Missouri. Unfortunately, you

7:47

just have to change the location if you're going

7:49

to cast him in the Leaf Austen. Yeah,

7:52

yeah, they should have moved to

7:54

Southee and that's just

7:57

unfortunately true. Anyways, I like the book, I like the

7:59

movie, and I'm ready to be

8:01

read for filth.

8:02

But it's true. Caitlin,

8:04

what's your history with God Girl?

8:06

Well, I'm about to say two potentially

8:09

shocking things here to

8:11

twists. Wow, maybe

8:15

twist number one. I had never seen this movie

8:17

until.

8:19

Ye shock. I love that for you.

8:22

This is shocking news.

8:24

Yeah, you saw every

8:26

movie that came out in the last thirty years.

8:28

I thought so too, but somehow, Well,

8:31

I'll tell you why, which connects to the

8:33

second twist, which is I

8:36

did read the book in

8:38

twenty fourteen, even though we famously

8:40

don't read books on this show.

8:43

What brought you to the book?

8:45

My roommate who

8:47

I was bunking with

8:50

when I did the like Be

8:53

You in LA, because I of

8:55

course would never mention that I got a

8:57

master's degree in screenwriting from Boston Universe

9:00

City. And something I probably actually

9:02

never mentioned is that I did like

9:04

an optional extra semester in

9:07

LA, which is like what prompted my move here

9:10

in twenty fourteen, and the

9:12

roommate I had during that semester, was like, I

9:15

just finished this amazing book. Here, you

9:17

can borrow it. So she let me Gone

9:19

Girl, and I read

9:22

it within the course of like a pretty

9:24

short amount of time. Usually takes me forever to read

9:27

books, because I read three pages

9:29

and then I fall asleep for two

9:32

weeks, and then I read another three

9:34

pages. Anyway, but I read it within a

9:36

couple weeks, I think, and the

9:39

book rubbed me the wrong way, in

9:42

a way that I still can't put my finger

9:45

on exactly. I have some

9:48

kind of vague ideas

9:50

of why it didn't really work for

9:53

me, and I feel like I still have

9:56

those sensations. But yeah,

9:58

I think reading the book bok made me not want

10:01

to watch the movie, even though I just love

10:04

a David Fincher thriller or

10:06

David Fincher movie in general. I mean, seven

10:09

haven't seen it in a number of years, but like it was

10:11

one of my favorite movies in my teens

10:14

and early twenties. I love the Social

10:16

Network. I really liked Girl with a Dragon

10:18

Tattoo, Like I'm a fan of his

10:21

thrillers. But I was like, this new movie

10:23

is really good too, The Killer. Yeah,

10:26

whatever, I heard that yeah, I miss

10:28

I didn't see that one yeh is on Netflix,

10:31

but uh yeah, I was like not

10:33

really thrilled about seeing this movie after reading

10:35

the book, so I just never

10:38

got around to it until now.

10:40

I think it's so funny Kylene, because I've always said it. I

10:42

think of her three books, I think Gone

10:44

Girl is the weakest. I love sharp Objects,

10:46

the most dark places of the second

10:48

one, and I felt like the

10:51

third one is the most funny

10:54

enough. It's the most normy of all of her

10:56

works, and it's the most that

10:58

gives you the twist half way, so

11:01

that I think with the rest of the books, you fund

11:03

it out later and it's much more of like a psychological

11:05

examination for like the female

11:08

character, and it's the first time she's like, it's this

11:10

dual narrative where a

11:12

man is present, and I will

11:14

get into it. I think, I think I'm picking up what your

11:17

vibe was off. But we'll get there. Yeah, yeah,

11:20

Princess, when did you?

11:21

Because I definitely I just got

11:23

the audiobook from the library because rewatching

11:25

the movie made me want to re listen

11:28

to the book because I definitely read

11:30

it over ten years ago, and all I remember,

11:34

I mean and it's cool that we have an adaptation

11:37

here that's actually adapted by the author. But like,

11:39

I just remember the book being even

11:43

harsher and like, yeah, the language,

11:45

that's because half of it is from Nick's

11:48

perspective, which I mean, you do get Nick's

11:50

perspective a lot in the movie, but you don't get the

11:52

like his inner monologue, which

11:54

I remembered and then I had to go back and confirm this,

11:57

but his inner monologue is like every woman

11:59

he encountered. He is like this bitch,

12:02

like yeah, everything, which I

12:04

want to revisit it. I haven't read the other books

12:06

me either.

12:07

Yeah. I really love Sharp Objects and Dark

12:09

Places. I think they're both really good. I

12:12

think you're so right. In the book, Nick

12:14

is much less of a victim of,

12:16

like clearly domestic violence as

12:19

he is in the movie. It's definitely more

12:21

of They're both pretty narcissistic.

12:24

But still, you know, just

12:26

because he cheats, only you technically can't frame

12:28

him for murder, though I do understand

12:31

the inclination. I think my one

12:33

big note I had about the fincherm movie

12:35

versus the book is that in the book they all show

12:38

that Amy was this kind

12:40

of way towards women, and like there's

12:42

a theme there's a woman in the book whose

12:44

life she also destroyed, which I thought was better

12:48

because then she isn't just someone who's like finding

12:50

men to fix them. It's like, no, the people around

12:53

her in her little inner circle, she like absorbs them

12:55

and then like destroys them. And

12:57

I felt like that was a little bit more balanced.

13:00

But I think for the sake of the film,

13:03

it was more streamlined to be the

13:05

more like Hitchcockian blonde,

13:08

you know, vamp sociopaths

13:11

quote unquote character versus that other

13:13

bit of it.

13:14

Yeah, it's not like I wish

13:17

that the movie was

13:19

more of like I didn't

13:22

like I didn't really want to hear Nick's inner monologue,

13:24

and the way the movie is presented, I think that was

13:26

a really smart choice and like

13:28

worked better for the format. But yeah,

13:30

the whole thing of the book,

13:33

and then at this point I don't specifically remember this,

13:36

I had to like go back and cross check that

13:38

the book like more clearly

13:41

contextualizes Nick's own misogyny

13:44

through the lens of his dad and how

13:46

his dad treated the women

13:48

in Nick's life, and like,

13:51

and that's I think that you only get like one

13:54

reference to that. It's well placed, but

13:56

it's like Marco has like you're acting just

13:58

like dad by right, you know, like

14:00

being a horrible husband. But that's sort of all we

14:02

get. But it is more contextualizing

14:04

the book. Again, I feel like in most adaptations,

14:07

we're talking about a screenwriter

14:09

deciding what stays and goes in an

14:12

author's work, and we don't have that here. And

14:14

so I was I think it's interesting what she keeps

14:17

in what she leaves, and also is

14:19

sort of relieved to read that David

14:22

Fincher kind of like deferred

14:24

to her a great deal, because you never

14:26

know, you never know.

14:28

I also don't remember the book very

14:30

well, having read it about ten years

14:32

ago, but either this was

14:35

placed more emphasis on in the

14:37

book or this just stuck with me,

14:40

maybe a little bit of both, but I remember

14:42

there being discussion of

14:44

like the concept of the cool girl,

14:47

like that really stuck out to me from.

14:49

The difference there.

14:50

I don't know if it's like now or later,

14:53

but like, I want to talk about what is in the book

14:55

that didn't make it to the movie, because I'm like, why

14:58

why Tay got this awesome whe.

15:01

Well, how about this we take a break, we

15:03

come back and do the recap, and then we

15:06

start our discussion with those

15:08

like adaptation changes. Wow,

15:12

we'll be right back.

15:24

And we're gone girl.

15:27

We were gone, we're girls. We're

15:29

back, but now we're

15:31

here women. That

15:37

should just become a facet of the show that we never

15:39

explained.

15:39

We're like and we're here women.

15:42

Okay, So here is the

15:45

recap of Gone a

15:47

Girl. It is one of the

15:49

longer recaps I've written. It is

15:51

a very complicated story and I left

15:54

out a bunch of stuff, but it's still

15:56

quite long, so bear with me. And

15:59

then we'll all will place a content warning at

16:01

the top because.

16:02

The content warning for it

16:05

everything.

16:06

There's a lot.

16:07

There will be discussion of physical,

16:10

emotional, and sexual abuse,

16:13

as well as false accusations

16:16

of those things. So

16:19

that's what we're working with.

16:20

Also, murder and murder of

16:23

Neil Patrick Harris tragic.

16:26

And that's its own subgenre.

16:29

Okay.

16:29

So we open with ominous

16:32

voiceover from Nick Dunn.

16:34

That's Ben Affleck's character, that

16:37

suggests that he has like violent

16:39

thoughts towards his wife.

16:43

Then we see him on the morning of July fifth,

16:46

Nick goes to a bar called

16:49

The Bar that.

16:51

So early twenty tens to

16:54

do that kind of cutey little

16:56

wink wink, nod nod. Although I will say

16:58

it kind of looks like I don't know if we're

17:00

supposed to hate the bar.

17:01

But I'm like, hmmm, kind of looks like a fun dive.

17:04

I go, it's a place where I would go.

17:06

I would go to Carrie Kuhon's bar where

17:09

you can play the game of life with Carrie Coon.

17:11

Yeah, I'm going, yes, absolutely

17:13

so. He and his sister, his twin

17:15

sister Margo played by Carrie Kuhon,

17:18

co own the bar together

17:21

and today is also the five year anniversary

17:23

of Nick and his wife

17:26

Amy's marriage, and every year

17:28

for their anniversary, Amy

17:30

comes up with a scavenger hunt with

17:33

riddles that he has to solve to

17:35

get his gift Amy.

17:38

Amy ex.

17:41

Her.

17:43

I know, God, that is a

17:45

little exhausting. Also,

17:48

like there was one year I think it was like the previous year

17:50

that he never solved one of the clues. So

17:52

did he just not get a gift.

17:54

That year, which would be hilarious.

17:57

My first note was that, like when I talk about

17:59

their second years, he was like, she got

18:01

me a beautiful notebook. I got her a kite,

18:03

and I was like, electric chair, I sent

18:06

him under the prison.

18:09

Yeah, if someone got me a kite, I

18:11

don't care if it's a symbolic kite.

18:14

No, no, no, thank you.

18:16

Come back with a gift.

18:18

I'm planning, like, we will be planning

18:20

your murder if we receive a kite for any

18:23

gift, for any occasion.

18:24

In general, the number one gift giving

18:26

advice is do not gift someone a

18:29

metaphor gift them a gift.

18:32

Come on, ideally,

18:34

just give me money anyway.

18:37

Okay, So we get

18:39

this flashback that's accompanied by

18:42

Amy reading a diary entry.

18:44

We will get many of these throughout the movie. This

18:47

flashback, we see Amy

18:49

played by Rosamund Pike, and

18:52

Nick meet for the first time at a party

18:54

in two thousand and five, and they

18:57

hit it off.

18:58

They have and her our

19:01

bantering.

19:02

Yeah.

19:03

I was like, I felt so bad because I was watching it. I

19:05

was like, man, I would have got caught because

19:07

I was like, I was so it was so smooth

19:09

and corny. But I was like, damn they tried

19:11

into men. Is really a curse because I really would have been

19:14

like, wow, he is so cool, he's so funny.

19:17

He's not like the other boys.

19:19

I was like, oh my god, he actually cares what I

19:21

think. We like, we hit up and the next thing you know, he

19:23

goes to me and then I'm like, what happened?

19:26

And I feel like ben Affleck can really channel

19:30

that for a guy that doesn't

19:32

Oh wait, no, we can't go

19:34

there.

19:35

Wait, Caitlyn, do.

19:36

You remember do you remember the

19:39

Ben Affleck Rayah video that we used

19:41

to really be into, where

19:43

he would.

19:44

Go, hey, it's me, oh

19:48

for Riah's briefly

19:51

obviously before he reunited

19:53

with the love of his life.

19:55

And I think this is.

19:56

Also pre Anna to Armis, who we also talked

19:58

about in a recent episode, because she was and she

20:01

had the cardboard cutout of herself in ben Affleck's

20:03

yard.

20:04

He's really lived.

20:05

But he was on Riah for a bit or

20:07

some dating app and a woman he matched

20:09

with was like, I don't believe you're Ben Affleck, and he sent

20:11

her back this horrific front facing

20:14

video where he said.

20:15

Like, Sophie, it's me.

20:18

You're just like whoa, I'm

20:21

really on the Okay, continue,

20:23

I am going to drop that video in the chat.

20:25

Okay,

20:28

So back in the present, Nick

20:31

returns home to discover that his

20:34

home has been vandalized and that

20:36

Amy is missing. So

20:39

two cops show up, Detective

20:41

Bony, which what a

20:44

silly name?

20:44

What for a character?

20:46

Okay, I did, I did, just it's at

20:48

the very beginning, guys.

20:50

Okay, yes, Detective Bonie

20:52

and Officer Gilpin played

20:54

by Patrick Fugut aka the kid

20:57

from Almost Famous. So

21:00

they start to Sam in the house and Detective

21:02

Boney sees a poster for something called Amazing

21:05

Amy and she's like, wait a minute,

21:07

your wife is Amazing Amy. And

21:10

then we get a flashback where Amy's

21:12

mom and dad made their living by

21:14

writing children's books about

21:17

Amy, where they embellished

21:19

her life and made her seem more impressive

21:21

than she actually was.

21:24

They like passive aggressively attacked

21:26

her to the tune of millions of dollars.

21:28

Yea, yeah, it's like proto

21:31

like you two family vloggers.

21:32

I was like, wow, really trailblazers in their

21:35

field, but traumatizing their

21:37

child.

21:38

I liked thinking about how that

21:40

would look with like other iconic

21:42

children's characters where they're like, wait, are you

21:44

married to Amelia Bedelia?

21:47

And Ben Affleck's like, yeah,

21:50

you can say that.

21:54

Yeah, I'm married to my wife, Madeline.

21:57

She grew up in Friends.

21:59

Yea wife, Hippi Longstocking.

22:03

Okay, so her parents got

22:06

very rich off these books, and now Amy

22:08

has a trust fund. And then also

22:11

the night where we get this flashback, there's this I

22:13

think book release party and

22:16

Nick proposes to Amy.

22:19

Then we cut back to the present. Nick is at the police

22:21

station. The cops are

22:23

already treating this as a missing person's

22:25

case, so they ask him some questions.

22:28

They learn that she doesn't have any

22:30

friends, that she doesn't have a job

22:33

or have anything to do all

22:35

day, and so the cops

22:38

are starting to get suspicious. That

22:40

night, Nick goes home to his sister Margo's

22:43

place because forensics is like collecting

22:45

evidence at his house, so he's

22:48

staying there for a little while. We

22:50

get another flashback where Nick

22:53

and Amy are two years into their

22:55

marriage and it's still perfect

22:58

and amazing and they never fight or have any

23:00

problems.

23:01

That's the scariest That's one

23:03

of the scariest ideas that the movie posits

23:06

that a relationship could be.

23:07

Like so great for two years,

23:10

yeah.

23:11

And they're

23:13

still horny for each other still, that they're

23:15

like having sex in the middle of a bookstore

23:19

offensive.

23:20

I was off, like,

23:24

She's like, don't you know who I am? I'm Amelia

23:26

Badelia. I get to fucking the store.

23:30

Now I keep thinking about this is my husband?

23:32

Do you know?

23:32

Little critter? Big

23:38

critter? Now adult critter?

23:43

Okay. So then there's a press

23:45

conference where Nick and Amy's parents,

23:48

who have arrived, address just

23:50

like kind of various things about this case.

23:53

And then Amy's parents tell the

23:55

police about various stalkers

23:58

that she has had over the years

24:00

wonder why, including a guy named Desi

24:03

Collings. Also, forensics

24:05

finds an envelope at Nick and

24:07

Amy's house labeled Clue

24:10

one, and it's one of the clues

24:13

that Amy left for Nick for her

24:16

anniversary scavenger hunt, and

24:19

Detective Bony tells Nick that if

24:22

he can solve these clues, it'll help

24:24

her track Amy's recent

24:26

movements and it might provide some

24:28

clarity on the case. So he finds

24:31

the next clue in his office

24:33

where he teaches at a community college.

24:35

There's also a pair of red panties

24:38

that get discovered there and we're like, hm, whose

24:40

are these? And then that leads

24:43

him to the third clue.

24:45

I mean, and now we're getting into national treasure

24:47

territory where it's like this clue leads

24:49

to another clue, and it leads to another clue.

24:53

Would it make this story better or worse

24:55

if Amy left a clue that was contingent

24:57

on daylight savings times?

25:00

I will never know. Yeah.

25:01

Yeah, and it makes you wonder

25:03

if this case maybe would have been solved

25:06

faster if they could have just stolen the Declaration

25:08

of Independence.

25:10

Truly, I do believe that she is

25:14

calculating enough to successfully

25:16

kidnap the precedent. Yes,

25:20

this is a case of like Amy has incredible

25:23

skills and we just need to like give.

25:25

Her a better place for them. Yeah,

25:28

exactly, put her in the White House. I mean, just the

25:30

patience she has. It's like, honestly,

25:32

if I've lead anything from being a true crime

25:35

voyeur, it's that if you don't have patients, don't

25:37

even try to attempt like a long crime, because

25:40

you'll get exhausted. That's why I just read,

25:43

Yeah, she reads a whole diary, basically three

25:46

hundred entries of make Believe Girl.

25:50

It's why, Like, and then I cross

25:52

checked in the book she's doing it even longer.

25:55

It's like over a year of planning

25:57

that goes into they

26:00

just.

26:00

Get a divorce that I

26:03

honestly think that's what kind of rubbed me the wrong

26:05

way about this story, Like the lengths that

26:07

she goes to to like

26:10

ruin his life and frame him for murder.

26:12

I'm like, just like use your

26:14

words, just say hey, I want

26:17

a divorce by I have a.

26:19

Theory about well not a theory, but like I feel

26:21

Amy has this like real fixation on

26:25

controlling a narrative because her life

26:27

was defined by a narrative about her that

26:29

was untrue and that

26:31

she had no control over. Yeah,

26:34

that she like will do anything to control

26:37

a narrative.

26:39

That makes sense in any

26:41

case. Uh, Nick not really fit, discovers

26:45

the third clue at his father's

26:48

house, but he doesn't tell Detective

26:51

Bony about this third clue.

26:54

We get another flashback. Some

26:56

time has passed and Nick and Amy's

26:58

perfect quote unquot marriage isn't

27:01

quite so perfect anymore because the

27:04

recession of like eighth nine

27:07

has hit and they both lose their

27:09

jobs. Amy's parents

27:12

borrow most of the money out of her

27:14

trust fund, so their financial

27:16

situation is very unstable. They're arguing it

27:19

becomes a gamer, right.

27:22

Truly set again. I was like, I get

27:24

it, Like it's like, like sick, She's really

27:26

right this diary for the girls.

27:28

Like yeah, she's really

27:30

pushing every and like yeah she's

27:32

she's pushing a lot of buttons where he's like, what

27:35

do you mean I'm

27:37

a gamer?

27:38

Because you don't trust me?

27:41

No, no, we don't. So

27:43

back to the present, Amy's

27:46

parents have set up this like find Amy

27:48

headquarters and this find Amy

27:51

hotline and Nick

27:53

shows up and he's kind of like schmoozing with people,

27:56

and everyone's starting to feel like Nick

27:58

doesn't seem upset enough that his

28:01

wife is miss his wife is

28:03

missing, so he's like seeming more and

28:05

more suspicious. Then we get

28:07

another flashback, another diary

28:09

entry from Amy describing how they

28:12

moved to Missouri, where Nick

28:14

is from, to take care of his sick

28:16

mother, but Amy feels that

28:19

Nick is not thrilled that she

28:22

is there with him. Back in the

28:24

present, we get a big reveal that

28:26

Nick has been having an

28:29

affair with a young woman named

28:31

Andy played by Emily Radikowski.

28:33

So the plot thickens.

28:36

Oh and you thought that was thick,

28:38

Well, wait for this another

28:41

flashback slash diary entry

28:44

where Nick and Amy get into

28:46

an argument and he pushes

28:48

her, so she is now terrified

28:51

of him, and she tries to procure

28:53

a gun for protection. So

28:56

we're like, oh my god, Nick is violent,

28:58

he's scary. He did kill

29:00

her.

29:02

I gotta say, being married to a woman named

29:04

Amy and then having an affair with a near

29:06

teenager named Andy is also a

29:08

red flag. I was like, that's very

29:11

You're not that smart. You're gonna slip up. It's

29:13

gonna be bad. You gotta go a different,

29:16

totally different first name.

29:18

Like it's just like interesting that Nick seems

29:20

so devastated by the loss of his job,

29:23

but like doesn't really try

29:25

to write again. Meanwhile, Amy's written

29:28

one of the greatest novels of all time. It's called

29:30

Gone Girl. Yeah, she

29:33

certainly is keeping her skills

29:35

sharp. But Nick, yeah,

29:37

Nick kind of for all of what is

29:39

awful about him. He's going through

29:42

a lot. He lost his mama and

29:45

I mean all this stuff. But I was just like Nick,

29:47

instead of having a teenage girlfriend, like

29:49

right, do your morning pages king,

29:51

Like, come.

29:52

On, the artist waster No,

29:54

And it's so funny. The entire time I was

29:56

watching the film, I was trying to tell

29:59

myself because we know that the this is an unreliable

30:01

narration, but it feels so close

30:03

to like Nick's own douchary that

30:06

it's like, well, how much of this is really

30:09

what was kind of happening? Because

30:12

the affair is real, the distance

30:14

is real. And I think that one

30:16

of the things that's interesting is that Nick

30:19

never does enough to make me not think

30:21

that he wouldn't push her, you know,

30:23

like it's like he never does enough in his

30:26

own you know, space to make

30:28

me think that. So it is interesting how

30:31

we're being coaxed to still believe at the end

30:33

that he is capable of being violent

30:35

in mind because we see him shows

30:38

her at the very end of the movie. Yeah,

30:40

so I'm like, well, if you weren't before, you are now.

30:42

You are right, And it's like they're both. I

30:45

think it's amazing that, like Gilliam Flynn

30:47

manages to get this across even though you

30:49

don't get the internal monologue of Nick

30:52

where it's like they're I mean, obviously Amy is like

30:54

like a generational, unreliable narrator,

30:57

but Nick also like you see him constantly

30:59

distant himself from his own actions

31:02

and constantly justify his own bullshit. Yeah,

31:04

to the point where you're like, I have no idea, who

31:07

is right here? She

31:09

really is amazing.

31:11

She's amazing Amy, Jamie.

31:16

Amazing James.

31:18

I kind of want to get an amazing Amy poster for

31:21

my house cut

31:24

for the girls.

31:25

All right.

31:26

So, now it has been three days

31:28

since Amy went missing and

31:31

Margo finds out about Nick's

31:34

affair with Andy. She's

31:37

furious. We see throughout the movie, you

31:39

know, Nick is confiding in

31:41

her and like consulting her, and she's

31:43

kind of helping him through this, but he

31:46

had been lying to her about this affair. So she discovers

31:48

it and now she's furious and

31:50

she doesn't really know what to believe anymore. And

31:53

then that night there

31:55

is a vigil for Amy and

31:58

Nick gives a speech, which is

32:00

interrupted by a neighbor

32:03

woman named Noel, who

32:05

had claimed to the police to be Amy's

32:07

best friend.

32:08

And also the twist, it's Casey Wilson.

32:11

Yes, you're like, whoa, And

32:14

so she's yelling saying,

32:17

what did you do to your pregnant

32:19

wife, or rather your gregnant

32:22

wife. It's true

32:25

she she fakes a greg and everything.

32:28

Yeah, So the

32:30

cops are like, okay, Nick, the evidence

32:33

is stacking up against you, because

32:35

they had also found a ton of blood

32:38

that had been cleaned up in the kitchen.

32:41

The vandalism from this like alleged

32:44

home invasion seemed fake. Nick

32:47

is in a ton of debt, and

32:50

it seems like he has made all these like big

32:52

ticket purchases that he denies.

32:55

He had also recently bumped up Amy's

32:57

life insurance to one point two million

33:00

dollars amateur seriously.

33:03

And on top of that, the medical reports have

33:06

just come back confirming that

33:09

Amy was indeed with

33:11

greg So it

33:14

now really seems like Nick murdered

33:17

his gregnant wife.

33:21

Meanwhile, Detective Bony goes

33:24

to Nick's dad's house in

33:26

search of Amy's body, because she's like,

33:28

I can't really make a murder case without a body. I

33:31

gotta find this body. What she finds instead

33:34

is Amy's diary a body

33:36

of work. I mean, yeah,

33:41

it's been partially burned, but it's mostly still

33:43

intact. And so

33:45

she discovers, you know, all of this writing

33:48

from Amy saying I'm scared

33:50

of my husband. At

33:52

the same time, Nick solves

33:55

the third clue that Amy left behind

33:57

and he comes upon a wrapped

34:00

gift box. It's also like in the wood

34:03

shed where she had stored

34:05

all of those like big item

34:08

purchases that Nick had

34:10

allegedly made, and

34:12

so we're like, what's going on here? And then

34:14

smash cut to Amy on

34:16

the morning of July fifth. She is alive

34:19

and well, she's driving away. Her

34:21

voiceover is explaining how she faked

34:24

her own disappearance slash death

34:27

because she wants her lying,

34:29

cheating husband to go to

34:31

prison for murder. And we're

34:34

like, wow, twist alert.

34:37

Legends only.

34:39

I like a car It's like a Carrie Underwood

34:42

song. Dude, It's just like yeah.

34:44

And I told my fiend too.

34:46

I was like, yeah, do it.

34:48

Yeah, It's it's a great

34:50

David Fincher assignment because

34:53

he will show you every single detail,

34:55

whether you like it or not. Because I feel

34:57

like it's very easy to be like, how is she even or

35:00

organizing this?

35:00

There's so many X factors.

35:02

And then you see her scary calendar with

35:04

the color coded post its and you're like Amy,

35:08

Yeah, yeah,

35:10

I mean so unfortunately, you gotta love

35:12

Amy.

35:13

I mean, you know, we love we love a

35:15

villain dotagonist and like it's

35:18

so funny. Well, then the post

35:20

is where she's like, kill self question mark.

35:22

I was like, she has a bunch

35:24

of them on a bunch of different dates. Which

35:27

month will it be? I was just like, you're so amazing.

35:29

It's like.

35:31

Wrong, Yeah, it's true what they say

35:33

about Amy, She's amazing.

35:36

Oh God, she's a planner and

35:38

I respect that.

35:39

I love them.

35:40

You're great, Yeah, such a planner.

35:43

I just found it so satisfied when she

35:45

like rips the last kill

35:48

self question mark posted off

35:50

the calendar, I'm like, ah, it's

35:52

so great, so good.

35:55

Okay.

35:56

So we get a series

35:58

of flashbacks showing how she

36:00

did this, how she accomplished this,

36:03

like framing where she

36:05

befriended Noel, that neighbor woman,

36:08

so that she could tell her stories about

36:10

her husband's violent temper. She

36:12

also stole her

36:15

pregnant pee so that she could fake

36:17

her own pregnancy. She also

36:20

purposely racked up credit card debt.

36:23

She put her own blood on the floor

36:26

and then cleaned it up and did

36:29

it very poorly on purpose, and

36:31

wrote this diary where part

36:34

of it is true, like the early stories

36:37

about them, like getting together and falling

36:40

in love are true, But then she just started

36:42

making things up about his violent

36:44

tendencies and things

36:47

like that. Then she's

36:51

says something like Nick fell

36:53

in love with a version of me that I was

36:55

pretending to be. I was pretending

36:57

to be cool girl. I was not like

37:00

the other girl's girl. And

37:03

that's something I want to talk about more because I

37:06

wish we had gotten more of that in the movie and we

37:08

don't really but.

37:09

Anyway, God, yeah, and then we'll have an adaptation

37:11

to talk about that too, because there's just I mean, it doesn't

37:13

change the story meaningfully, but they just she

37:16

cut out a lot of her own, like banger

37:19

lines.

37:19

Anyways.

37:20

Yeah.

37:21

So then Amy changes her appearance.

37:24

She dyes her hair, she puts on glasses,

37:26

she gives herself a black eye, and

37:29

then she rents a little house somewhere

37:32

in this like kind of small housing

37:36

community place. She meets

37:38

her neighbor, Greta. Meanwhile,

37:41

we cut back to Nick. He opens the

37:44

anniversary gift and letter that Amy

37:46

left him, where she implies that

37:49

she's framing him for murder, but it's

37:51

also like vague and cryptic enough that the

37:53

cops would never like interpret the

37:55

letter as evidence for that. So

37:58

then he goes to defense

38:01

attorney Tyler Perry.

38:04

Legend, what

38:07

was the last time we had a Tyler Perry dramatic

38:09

jump scare. I feel like it wasn't too long ago.

38:11

I know, we talked about this recently. What

38:14

was the movie?

38:14

It's the year of the Tyler Perry drama roll. I

38:16

don't know. I know he's in Vice.

38:19

What was the movie?

38:20

The first? But my first Tyler Perry jump

38:23

scare was Star Trek, like the yeah,

38:27

yeah, yeah, okay, I was right. I was sorry because

38:29

I was like that was I was like, what are you doing

38:31

here? Like, you're not in a dress, You're.

38:35

You're not the director of this movie. Why are

38:37

you here?

38:38

Yeah, it's gone girl. And then what else does he

38:41

I mean, it happens like once every

38:43

five years, just to keep you on your toes.

38:46

Yeah, he's like, I'm not always

38:48

medea. Yeah, sometimes

38:50

I'm in Star Trek.

38:52

When he rescued Megan and Harry from the British

38:54

that was also one of his dramas, I

38:58

know.

38:58

And then you're just like, well, it's a shame that

39:01

his labor practices are so abysmal,

39:03

because I like being jump scared. I

39:05

remember when he played Colon Powell and you're

39:08

like, huh, oh my

39:10

god, you know,

39:15

this is my favorite Tyler Perry dramatic

39:18

role jump scare by doing a good

39:20

job. Yeah, everyone in this movie

39:23

is doing a great job.

39:24

Yeah. So Tyler Perry's character's

39:26

name is Tanner Bolt and he agrees

39:29

to defend Nick, and Tanner

39:31

tells Nick to find this guy named Tommy O'Hara,

39:34

who Amy had pressed charges against

39:37

eight years ago. So Nick

39:39

talks to Tommy O'Hara, who

39:42

says that Amy had framed

39:44

him for rape. Nick then

39:46

also pays a visit to Dosy

39:49

Collings played by Neil

39:51

Patrick Harris, and according

39:54

to Amy, they had dated in high school, she

39:56

broke up with him, he harassed and

39:58

stalked her, and then attempted suicide.

40:02

But when Nick talks to Desi

40:04

about that, Desi denies

40:07

it and shuts the door in Neix's

40:10

face. He was doing the Rose

40:12

from Titanic line where he's.

40:14

Just like, you're being very rude.

40:16

You shouldn't be asking me this, and

40:19

he slams the door.

40:21

Bye.

40:22

Wow, he doesn't deserve it, but you're

40:24

right.

40:26

Then Nick and his sister Margo

40:28

get to work with Tanner to figure

40:30

out Amy's game plan and

40:33

how to unravel it and

40:35

how to get people to like and sympathize

40:38

and empathize with Nick. Meanwhile,

40:41

Amy is still staying

40:44

in this little housing complex somewhere in the

40:46

Ozarks. She's pretending

40:48

to be a woman named Nancy from New

40:51

Orleans, and she's becoming friends

40:53

with her neighbor Greta and this other

40:55

guy, except that they see her drop

40:57

a bundle of money, so they become suspicious

41:00

and then they gang up on her and steal her

41:02

cash. So now she's like completely

41:05

fucked and desperate. So

41:08

Amy arranges to meet up

41:11

with Desi Collings. She tells

41:13

him a whole story about how Nick

41:15

threatened to kill her if she left she

41:18

lost the baby, and

41:20

so he sets her up in his secluded

41:22

lake house. It's well stocked

41:25

and very luxurious, but he

41:27

seems very controlling, and it seems

41:29

like he kind of intends to kind of

41:31

trap her there and keep her there.

41:33

Right and again it's like it calls

41:36

I don't know, like what this movie does so many times.

41:38

So well is like Amy is lying

41:40

to an extent, but by how much

41:43

because based on the behavior we see

41:45

him display, like it seems like, you

41:47

know, hit, his whole thing is my protection

41:50

of you is contingent on my.

41:54

Yeah, yes, yeah, So

41:56

basically everyone in this movie is an

41:59

awful person. Yeah, okay. So back

42:01

in Missouri, Tanner Bolt is

42:04

encouraging Nick to go public

42:06

with the fact that he was having an affair with Andy

42:09

and acknowledge that he was a cheating

42:11

jerk, so that they can get ahead of

42:13

the story before Andy goes to

42:16

the cops or the press.

42:17

Because Tyler Perry knows what Emily

42:20

Radakowski's gonna do. He's got her

42:22

number.

42:23

Dramatic timing.

42:24

Yeah, so they're trying

42:26

to get ahead of the story, but it's too

42:29

late because right as Nick is about

42:31

to appear on this kind of like Dateline

42:34

twenty twenty type of show with

42:36

a journalist named Sharon, Andy

42:39

goes public with the affair. But

42:42

nonetheless, Nick gives an amazing

42:44

interview with Sharon and

42:47

it seems like he's going to be redeemed

42:49

and it works. People see the interview

42:51

and they're like, Wow, that was so raw

42:54

and honest, and like, maybe he's not

42:56

such a bad guy after all. But

42:59

then the police find

43:01

what they think is the murder weapon

43:04

with Amy's blood on it, which she obviously

43:06

planted there to make him seem guilty,

43:09

and so he's arrested. Meanwhile,

43:12

Amy is still at Desi Collings

43:14

is feeling trapped, so she stages

43:17

a scene to make it look like he

43:20

raped her, and that

43:23

night she coerces him into sex

43:25

and then slits his throat and kills

43:27

him. Then Tanner

43:30

bails Nick out of jail. Some

43:32

time passes as they await trial,

43:35

until one day, about a month later, Amy

43:38

shows up at their house.

43:41

She's all covered in blood, presumably

43:43

right after she killed Desi. She

43:46

tells the police about how Desi

43:48

kidnapped her, trapped her at

43:50

his lake house, raped her repeatedly,

43:53

but she was finally able to kill

43:56

him and get away and return home.

43:59

And so now Nick

44:02

and Amy are like back

44:04

at their house and Nick is like, you're

44:08

a liar and a scary person

44:11

and I'm leaving you. And Amy

44:13

is like, well, you can't do that.

44:15

That's not gonna look good. Yeah,

44:18

And then they do these various

44:21

TV interviews and things where

44:23

they're both pretending to be in love

44:26

in public and then in their private lives.

44:29

The dynamic is so weird

44:32

and just bizarre. And

44:35

then one day she's like, by the way, I actually

44:37

am pregnant. Now I'm pregnant

44:40

now sorry, and

44:42

then Nick realizes he's even

44:44

more stuck there, and he

44:47

feels like he has no choice but to stay

44:50

and raise the baby with her, even

44:52

though she's a lying, manipulative,

44:55

so seopath the

44:58

end, and that's.

45:00

What we call marriage.

45:05

There's a line where he's like, why are we

45:07

trying to make this work? We just resent each

45:09

other and try to control each other, and

45:11

she's like, well, that's just marriage, baby, and it's

45:14

like, yikes.

45:16

That's very, very scary. And I also

45:18

just like I don't know. I was like, what is Gillian

45:20

Flynn's writing process? And

45:23

she's like, I work in a basement.

45:26

I was like that tracks, that tracks.

45:29

It feels like you wrote.

45:30

This in a basement. Good for you.

45:32

Yeah, let's take another quick

45:34

break and then we'll come back to discuss.

45:48

And we're back.

45:49

Boy, oh boy, gone girl, Oh gone

45:51

girl, And.

45:53

Again we are we are not gone girls

45:55

anymore. We are back.

45:57

We're back women, We're back friends were

45:59

shooting start. Can I just share the

46:02

lines from the cool girl dialogue that didn't.

46:03

Make it in the fun?

46:05

Yeah?

46:05

Yeah, yeah, I can't. Okay, I have it pulled

46:07

up.

46:08

Okay, there's first of all, uh

46:10

it's a little heavy on the hot dog slander

46:12

for years, truly whoa. But

46:15

I found that the hot dog slander

46:17

was removed for the film, So I have

46:19

to imagine that Gillian learned from her mistake, got

46:22

a lot of feedback from the hot dog girl lobby,

46:24

and was like, I admit I

46:26

was wrong to say that, let's keep hot

46:28

dogs out of it. So things that are

46:30

added. So this is an extension

46:32

of what's there. Being the cool girl means I am a hot,

46:35

brilliant, funny woman who adores football,

46:37

poker, dirty jokes and burping, who plays

46:39

video games, drinks cheap bear, loves threesomes

46:41

and anal sex and jam's hot

46:44

dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she's hosting

46:46

the world's biggest culinary gang bang,

46:48

while somehow maintaining a size

46:50

too, because cool girls are above all

46:53

hot. Okay, here's another one. You

46:55

are not dating a woman. You were dating a woman

46:57

who has watched too many movies written by social

47:00

awkward men who'd like to believe that this kind

47:02

of woman exists and might kiss them.

47:04

I think this line is awesome and belongs

47:07

in the movie, But I mean

47:09

the meeting comes through and then it ends there

47:12

are variations to the window dressing, but believe

47:14

me, he wants cool Girl, who is basically the

47:16

girl who likes every fucking thing he likes

47:18

and doesn't ever complain. How do you know

47:21

you're not cool girl? Because he says things

47:23

like I like strong women. If he says

47:25

that to you, he will at some point flock someone

47:27

else because I like strong women as

47:29

code for I hate strong women.

47:32

Bars.

47:32

So there's there's a lot going on

47:34

in this.

47:35

I mean, and this this has been you

47:37

know, analyzed and talked about and

47:39

quoted at nauseum for well over ten years.

47:42

Now, what I feel like is changed,

47:44

and I saw like some criticism or just like

47:46

commentary.

47:47

I guess to this. To this effect

47:49

is that in the

47:52

movie.

47:53

It mainly and I think princess it speaks to

47:55

your point of like how Amy

47:58

mistreated and manipulated woman is taken

48:01

out. Most of the stuff that stays

48:03

in is what's critical of men. What

48:06

is kind of taken out is Amy's internal

48:09

criticism of women, because

48:12

the full cool girl speech in the book

48:14

seems to be coming down pretty hard

48:16

on women who quote unquote cater to this

48:18

fantasy, just as hard to the

48:21

men.

48:21

That kind of slurp it up. Yeah, they're

48:23

both misogynists.

48:24

And I think, you know, I think one of the hardest

48:27

things about like discourse about books

48:29

nowadays is that, like there's this assumption

48:32

that the narrator is supposed to always

48:34

be the voice of reason, which I don't know where that

48:36

has come from, because it is as a

48:38

creative of the Lilita podcast, you are aware

48:41

that like that is just not how fiction

48:43

works often. And I think that the

48:46

thing about Gone Girl is

48:49

that it became so ubiquitous

48:51

that the very worst kind of people absorbed

48:54

it and use

48:56

it to play into their own sexist narratives

48:59

while ignoring that like the

49:02

book is critical of sexism

49:04

in its own ways. Especially, I think

49:06

that what's difficult about Gone

49:09

Girl is that there are women

49:12

who really connect with Amy

49:15

because of the valid

49:18

things that she deals with in her relationship with

49:20

Nick. And I think because women enjoy

49:23

Amy, there became this desire

49:25

to be like, but do you understand that

49:27

she's a bad person. It's like, yes, we do

49:30

understand that she's a bad person.

49:32

We're not having a fight club situation where we don't understand

49:34

the text. It is just sometimes nice

49:37

to see an examination of

49:39

that with a character who is bad

49:42

enough to be like, okay, he did

49:44

a and I want to destroy his life and I'm

49:46

like, yeah, that's not a reasonable reaction. But

49:49

it was nice to watch.

49:52

And there's a lot of valid criticism

49:54

of this movie as well. But I

49:57

feel like it's like a lot

49:59

of the stuff I was sing was like, why do women connect

50:01

with it? You're like, it's just like cathartic,

50:05

and like it's cathartic to

50:07

see someone who is completely

50:10

like I don't know, And I think to some

50:12

extent acting out of her

50:14

own privilege, because

50:16

the character that Amy writes for herself

50:19

is not judgmental. She writes

50:21

herself as the cool girl, but

50:24

you know, when we see how she reacts in actual

50:26

situations that we are certain are happening,

50:29

she is judgmental of Missouri

50:32

in general, even though she writes like, I'm

50:34

a Missourian and I'm totally

50:36

okay with that. I just wish he had asked

50:38

me. That part feels true. What doesn't feel

50:40

true is like she clearly hates being in Missouri.

50:43

When we hear her talk about the Casey Wilson character, she thinks

50:45

everyone there is like not as good.

50:47

As her and not as smart as her. So

50:49

it's like this dual reality of like Nick

50:52

is a.

50:53

Terrible husband who is making who like

50:55

expects her to move there because he

50:57

needs to move there. It's not a discussion. And

51:00

then when they get there, he makes

51:02

no effort to include her or make

51:04

her feel like she belongs there. And

51:07

then on the other hand, it seems

51:09

like Amy genuinely doesn't like

51:12

or respect anyone who lives

51:14

there.

51:16

Or his own family because he's not close

51:18

to Go. And I feel like, if there's any character

51:20

who you trust is probably

51:23

Margo Go, because she's the one who's like

51:25

when she sees Emma rad Cassie, she's like,

51:28

what are you doing? You eat? Like

51:31

everything that. I love how much she shades about

51:33

that relationship at every regard because it's like

51:35

it's so not okay, and I love

51:37

that the text points it out all the time. But like she's

51:40

not even close to Amy, like she has

51:42

no roots in that community except these artificial ones.

51:45

And I think to your point, the moment

51:47

that I always think is when she's talking to Gretta about

51:50

how when she saw Nick

51:53

with Andy for the first time and

51:56

how he does the lip thing on both of them, and Greta's

51:58

like, that's the most discussing thing I've ever heard, and

52:00

I'm like yeah, I was

52:02

like yeah, because everyone has a story of like

52:05

that realization of like not only being cheated

52:08

on, but like having him do the exact

52:10

same thing with another person. And I think that

52:12

those very like n

52:14

universal gut punches of like betrayal

52:18

and expectation of like gender

52:20

performance are just so there

52:23

and clear that I feel like a lot

52:25

of people connect with it. And I think

52:27

the other thing that I think has

52:29

been made clearer more recently

52:32

as we've seen just like true crime really

52:34

pop off, is that there

52:36

are a lot of women who think these things, and

52:39

like it's not because of Gone Girl. It is

52:41

like a part of the way in which misogyny

52:45

it becomes internalized and

52:47

gets turned on each other because that's what it wants

52:50

to happen. Because it's like, she

52:53

hates Nick, but the way she

52:55

talks about Andy is like so dehumanizing.

52:59

She's like she's just like a men and night when she's got the

53:01

huge cam on me tits, and I'm just like okay,

53:03

okay, okay. She hates women right

53:05

like you hate women? We get a girl, you're

53:08

the coolest girl in the world.

53:09

She hates and it's wild that I don't

53:11

know like she It's why she's so frustrating,

53:14

and I always just get I don't know, I get annoyed that a

53:17

lot of the criticism around this seem to assume that,

53:19

like the women who are enjoying this

53:21

story can't cut through

53:24

that and understand that, Like, particularly

53:26

in the book, it's obvious that she doesn't like

53:29

women.

53:30

Or poor people like she does not

53:32

she gets.

53:33

I mean, it's she's in a bed situation

53:35

obviously when she is robbed, because

53:38

she's, you know, carrying around a

53:40

stack of one hundred dollars bills.

53:43

With her baddye job.

53:45

I read it.

53:46

But like you know, Amy set herself

53:48

up for that one.

53:49

The plot point itself, like does

53:51

it look great that we

53:54

have like very few poor people who appear

53:56

in the story and then two of the only poor people we

53:58

meet aggressively her.

54:01

That plot point kind

54:03

of sat a little flat with

54:06

me, and it felt like that was an under

54:08

examined point. But I feel like Amy.

54:10

Part of why Amy is upset is like her

54:12

money has gone. And also I think that like she

54:15

does think she's better than people, and she's like, I can't

54:17

believe I got outsmarted by poor

54:19

people. Yeah, Like there's an element

54:21

to that, and.

54:22

I think to build off of that.

54:23

The reason why I enjoyed that moment,

54:25

and I think it's I think it's more present in the film

54:28

than the book, is how Greta

54:30

is able to realize the manipulation.

54:32

And I think the thing that's really interesting

54:35

is like you have like the class element and the

54:37

racial element with Amy because she's like

54:40

this new elite white woman

54:42

who as soon as she's kidnapp it's instantly like we have

54:44

to find her, which is like, you

54:46

know, everything's being a reality around and she's so used

54:48

to everyone believing her and trusting

54:51

her and just taking her word for it. And when

54:53

she meets the first person who's actually

54:55

been a victim of domestic violence because

54:57

from like an actual work and environment,

55:00

that character is able to clock her instantly is

55:02

like, oh, you're not from here. Your accent

55:04

doesn't work, like you know, you don't respond to the name,

55:07

Like for the first time, no

55:09

one's buying her a bullshit because she's with someone who

55:12

doesn't care about all the class

55:14

and gender signifiers. That she

55:16

usually uses to get away with things. And

55:19

I think one of the issues with Gone Girl

55:21

that people talk about is like the false rape allegations,

55:23

which is very true to bring up because it is

55:26

rare, less than one percent, and

55:28

that's really important. And I also

55:30

think it's important to recognize that like white

55:33

women have had notorious cases

55:36

of not lying about rape, but lying about murder.

55:38

You know. I think of in like nineteen

55:41

eighty three, there's a woman named Diane Downs

55:43

who lied about a stranger shooting

55:46

her three children and it was really her.

55:48

There's Susan Smith, the infamous woman who

55:50

lied about her kids

55:52

being kidnapped by a black man, but

55:55

it was really her who killed her children. You

55:57

have the most recent like the Sherry Papani

56:00

kidnapping hopes for this woman lying about being

56:02

kidnapped by some Latino people. So

56:04

I think one of the most the things about

56:06

Gone Girl that is interesting is

56:08

that it does call out

56:11

the white privilege of women

56:13

who think they can manipulate the system

56:16

using their whiteness to do so.

56:20

And I think that is

56:22

very.

56:22

Key to that conversation now that we can't

56:24

also critique the use of sexual violence

56:27

and how she manipulates that. But I think she's

56:29

able to do that because people will

56:31

believe her because she is a rich

56:34

white woman. And it's not that she's lying

56:36

about it out of a gender thing. It's part of

56:38

her own narcissism of knowing that, oh, I

56:40

can get away with it, and that's what's more important.

56:43

Yeah, she weaponizes her white

56:46

womanness, knowing that there's

56:49

so much you know, media frenzy

56:51

around oh when a white

56:53

woman, especially one who is wealthy

56:56

and classically beautiful, is

56:59

missing murdered, the response

57:01

of the police when a wealthy, beautiful

57:04

white woman goes missing or murdered

57:07

is far more like, yes, we

57:09

must solve this case, versus any time

57:12

a black or indigenous woman,

57:14

for example, is missing

57:17

or murdered, you know. And so she's like kind

57:19

of weaponizing that and taking full advantage

57:22

of it, knowing that she can probably get away

57:24

with it if she plays her cards

57:26

right. And I thought the

57:28

movies not that the movie like necessarily

57:31

explicitly examining

57:33

that, but it's definitely a

57:36

component of.

57:38

The story, right, I

57:40

mean, and Princess, I feel like you have

57:42

I want to link to your true crime video

57:45

in the description because it's like one of the

57:48

clearest breakdowns.

57:49

Of this unless you don't want us to. It's

57:52

just like that's so sweet of me

57:54

to say, but like, yeah, it is really good.

57:57

It's really good, and it's I revisit

57:59

it every couple months

58:01

since it came out because it covered it's so

58:03

comprehensive and it addresses

58:06

all of these like really really messy intersections

58:09

that I think that this, you know, and it's imperfect

58:11

because it's one person trying

58:14

to do it, but I think that, yeah, it's

58:16

a slippery slope to set up a

58:19

character who is bold

58:21

enough to lie about rape

58:24

and assault and murder. It's like

58:26

you're setting yourself up to go

58:28

through a thousand rounds of discourse if anyone

58:31

ever reads your work. And I

58:33

feel like that was something that was a huge point

58:35

of contention when this movie first came

58:37

out. That makes total sense, and most

58:40

writers seem to sort of fall where we're

58:42

talking right now of like, well, women

58:45

across the board are often

58:47

sexually abused and mistreated, but Amy

58:50

is the person who is well placed

58:53

to get away with something like this. They're like,

58:55

without her whiteness and

58:58

privilege, this falls

59:00

apart.

59:01

It doesn't work, And

59:03

like Amy for all of My girl Boss

59:06

and I you know, hashtag relatable queen. You

59:08

know she's an abuser. She's an abusive person

59:11

like this isn't someone who is just like plucked

59:13

from an environment. She is a narcissistic abuser

59:17

who in the same way that like you

59:19

know, Tyler Dirdon, or like any other

59:21

male villain that we in pulp

59:24

culture enjoy despite knowing that they're a villain,

59:26

she occupies that same space. But because

59:28

she is a woman and the subject matter of the work,

59:31

and especially I think because the writer of the books

59:33

is a woman, I think if the right of the book was a man,

59:36

we'd have a totally different totalation. Because Flynn

59:38

calls herself a feminist, she and I think

59:40

she knows and she understands the discourse

59:42

that is around her work. But I think also

59:45

as a writer, it's a thing of like, well, I

59:47

also want to write villainous

59:50

women and what that would look like.

59:53

And I think we can discuss the pros and cons

59:55

of that, but I would much rather discuss

59:57

it with someone who has like the intellect

1:00:01

as a writer to know what she's like,

1:00:03

how she's putting that live wire together, than someone

1:00:05

who was just doing it passively, right.

1:00:08

So I think something that I found got like

1:00:10

lost in this infinity discourse

1:00:13

that took place in twenty fourteen and when the book

1:00:15

originally came out in twenty twelve, is that,

1:00:17

Yes, it is a risky

1:00:20

thing to set up a story that is narrated

1:00:22

by a woman who is lying about

1:00:24

all these things, but Gillian Flynn

1:00:27

does take care to put many other

1:00:29

women in the story who feel many other

1:00:31

ways, and in the character of Grete,

1:00:33

like you're saying Princess has actually experienced

1:00:37

this, And I don't know, I feel like there were sort

1:00:40

of like alarm bells set off of like

1:00:43

this book thinks that this happens

1:00:45

all the time, But I feel like there is enough

1:00:47

in the way that other women act

1:00:49

and react within the story to indicate

1:00:52

that, Like, even without reading

1:00:54

Gillian Flynn's being questioned

1:00:57

about this, it feels clear that Gillian

1:00:59

Flynn understand and there is a full on gradient,

1:01:02

you know, whether you like her work or not.

1:01:04

Yeah, And just to share

1:01:06

some quotes from her on

1:01:09

that topic. So she identifies

1:01:13

as a feminist, and she said this in

1:01:15

response to people accusing

1:01:17

her of writing misogynist

1:01:20

caricatures of women, and of

1:01:22

having a deep animosity toward

1:01:25

women. She said,

1:01:28

quote to me, that puts a very

1:01:30

very small window on what feminism

1:01:33

is. Is it really only

1:01:35

girl power, and you go girl

1:01:38

and empower yourself and be

1:01:40

the best you can be. For me, it's

1:01:42

also the ability to have women who are

1:01:45

bad characters. The one thing that really

1:01:47

frustrates me is this idea that women are

1:01:49

innately good, innately nurturing.

1:01:52

In literature. They can be dismissively

1:01:54

bad, trampy, vampy, bitchy types.

1:01:57

But there's still a big pushback against the idea

1:01:59

that women can just be pragmatically

1:02:01

evil, bad, and selfish. I

1:02:04

don't write psycho bitches. The psycho

1:02:06

bitch is just crazy. She has

1:02:09

no motive, and so she's a dismissable

1:02:11

person because of her psycho bitchiness

1:02:14

unquote. And then

1:02:17

she wrote on her website

1:02:20

she like kind of admits that her female

1:02:23

characters are quote not a

1:02:25

particularly flattering portrait

1:02:27

of women. Fine by me. Isn't

1:02:29

it time to acknowledge the ugly side? I've

1:02:32

grown quite weary of the spunky

1:02:34

heroines, brave rape victims,

1:02:37

soul searching fashionistas that stock

1:02:39

so many books. I particularly mourn

1:02:42

the lack of female villains unquote,

1:02:46

so you can think

1:02:49

about what you'd like, but you

1:02:51

know, she has a firm point of

1:02:53

view on that, And I tend

1:02:55

to agree that, you know, this idea

1:02:57

that just because women are like

1:03:00

socialized to be polite and

1:03:02

sweet and nurturing, doesn't

1:03:05

mean that all of our personalities manifest

1:03:07

that way, and that we don't have the full

1:03:10

capacity for like any

1:03:12

type of behavior or any type of

1:03:15

personality and any type

1:03:17

of context that would lead you to

1:03:19

be the type of person who would do all

1:03:21

the things that Amy ends up doing

1:03:25

so.

1:03:26

And I also think, you know, as a

1:03:28

society, but you know, we so often

1:03:30

want nuance in engaging roles

1:03:33

for women, and then when they happen,

1:03:36

we kind of discourse them to death for better

1:03:38

or for worse. Like I definitely I'm pro discourse.

1:03:40

You know, I love reading

1:03:43

all the salt Burn takes because I'm yeah,

1:03:47

we're a part of it, you know, like, yeah,

1:03:50

it just it Sometimes it goes to a point where it's

1:03:52

like, rather than just discussing like the finer points,

1:03:54

it becomes a indictment on Jillian

1:03:57

Flynn as like a woman writer and

1:03:59

like she's secretly a misogynist,

1:04:02

and I'm just like, why because

1:04:04

her books contain bad

1:04:06

female characters. That's an un that's

1:04:09

an unrealistic standard to hold to somebody,

1:04:12

especially when like they write mystery

1:04:14

thrillers. It's not like they write like

1:04:18

it's not Colleen Hoover, you know what I mean, Like it's

1:04:20

nothing. They're writing like her novels

1:04:22

imbued with like abusive behavior.

1:04:25

It's very much like these dark gothic

1:04:28

stories with women

1:04:31

at the center of it. Whether we

1:04:33

like it or not, I think that's more of what we need.

1:04:35

And you know, I think when it comes

1:04:37

to like this isn't a feminist movie,

1:04:40

and that's okay. It is literally about

1:04:42

privileged people fighting over each

1:04:44

other when they should have just gotten a divorce. It's

1:04:46

fun, it's engaging, and I and I also

1:04:49

resent that because of movies like

1:04:51

Fight Club and all the other like movies

1:04:54

and books that CIS men largely

1:04:56

misunderstand. There is this idea

1:04:58

that we as CIS women are all so misinterpreting

1:05:01

our like nihilistic text.

1:05:04

It's like no, no, no, no Amy deserves

1:05:06

to go to jail, but we're gonna enjoy the ride while

1:05:08

it's happening.

1:05:09

Like Yeah, I think it's so clear

1:05:11

she'll never like because she's protected

1:05:14

by so much

1:05:16

privileged, she'll never go to jail and

1:05:19

she's chosen or she's you

1:05:21

know, ended up with a guy who is like just

1:05:24

like thick and like

1:05:27

is not able to outsmart her, like

1:05:29

isn't and that's bad. He's

1:05:32

in an abusive relationship.

1:05:34

But I don't know, Yeah, it's

1:05:37

good storytelling, you know, it's not necessarily

1:05:39

about having the perfect moral ending. I

1:05:41

think, to me, what I enjoy critiquing is

1:05:44

like the response to it. Because I don't know if you guys are familiar

1:05:47

with the gone Girl hoax Valeo

1:05:49

incident in California. What

1:05:52

Okay, So let's

1:05:54

see about six or seven years

1:05:57

ago at this point, there was a couple that

1:05:59

was suffered a home invasion in kidnapping.

1:06:02

They were a couple in Valeo and they

1:06:05

talked about how these men

1:06:07

broke in wearing wet suits, tied

1:06:09

them up, blindfolded them, kidnapped

1:06:12

the FEMA member the couple and the police

1:06:15

did not believe them. They thought that this was a gone

1:06:17

girl hook, that's what they called it. They mocked

1:06:19

them publicly. Found out

1:06:22

she was telling the truth. They were telling the

1:06:24

truth and it was a you scandal. They sued the department

1:06:27

for like thousands of dollars because

1:06:29

they maligned them all over by

1:06:31

calling it a hoax, not even

1:06:34

bothering to investigate it. They

1:06:37

called her a bitch. The police department

1:06:39

called her a bitch. Yeah, I'll

1:06:42

leave a link to it in the chat and then you guys can share

1:06:44

that with people. And I think about that all the

1:06:46

time because I think to myself, like, if

1:06:49

you live in a society that already

1:06:52

believes that women are

1:06:54

liars, then

1:06:56

it doesn't matter that Gone Girl exists or

1:06:58

not. That's just giving them a little bit, like did

1:07:00

you see that movie? And I think that's the catch

1:07:03

twenty two is like we

1:07:06

live in a sexist, misogynistic, patriarchal

1:07:09

society, and even when you have someone

1:07:11

like Flynn making really engaging art

1:07:13

about this subject, this is also part

1:07:15

of their result and I despise it, but

1:07:18

it is part of why the discourse happens, because

1:07:21

like they called it the Gone Girl hoax, and I just

1:07:23

remember reading about it and thinking, you know, it

1:07:26

sucks that when we have these

1:07:29

texts that choose to be

1:07:31

dark with us at the focus. If

1:07:34

we are bad that becomes

1:07:36

part of the public miasma

1:07:38

of how they already view us as

1:07:41

people, which.

1:07:42

Is something that happens with men, and it's very

1:07:45

upsetting.

1:07:45

Yeah, it reminds me of when

1:07:48

Fatal Attraction came out and

1:07:51

everyone hated Glenn

1:07:53

Close, not just her character, but like hated

1:07:56

her as a person because people

1:07:58

saw that movie and they were like,

1:08:01

well, she, I'm not used to seeing

1:08:03

women this way. She's so scary

1:08:06

and evil and what if a woman does

1:08:08

that to me? And oh my gosh,

1:08:10

And just like the reaction to this

1:08:14

portrayal of a woman that

1:08:17

was kind of I guess probably more common in like

1:08:20

film noir era of like the forties,

1:08:23

but then you know, we got

1:08:26

it away from that in a lot

1:08:28

of mainstream entertainment for several decades,

1:08:30

and then when like, yeah, these like nineties

1:08:33

thrillers kind of like erotic thrillers

1:08:36

resurfaced, then everyone

1:08:38

was like, oh my god, women can be bad,

1:08:42

yi.

1:08:43

Right, and like that, I sort

1:08:45

of would to revisit Fatal Attraction, but

1:08:47

there's like a whole you know, like conversation

1:08:50

about but I feel like that's part of like even

1:08:52

contrasting it with Gone

1:08:54

Girl. It's like yes, you're getting

1:08:56

a lot of discussion. But it's

1:08:59

like so few of those

1:09:01

thrillers were actually written by women

1:09:03

and like meaningfully include them in the process,

1:09:06

And it makes Gone Girl stand

1:09:08

out because it totally changes the nature of

1:09:10

the conversation that they're having. Also,

1:09:13

I'm looking at this Vallejo piece,

1:09:16

and the cop who basically

1:09:19

perpetrated this hoax was they Detective

1:09:22

Matt Mustard. So

1:09:24

I'm just throwing that out there. I guess

1:09:27

that we got a detective Bonie, we got a

1:09:29

detective Detective Mustard. Are

1:09:31

these clue characters wherever

1:09:35

he is, I hope he's doing poorly?

1:09:38

Yes? Yeah, But Caitlin, your point is so

1:09:40

poignant because I recently rewatched

1:09:42

Fayla Trashing because I was doing something about Don't

1:09:44

Worry Darling like a year or so ago,

1:09:47

and I ended up rereading Backlash, and

1:09:49

just the way that Fayla traction went from being

1:09:52

like a man being introspected

1:09:54

about how he like ruined his own marriage became

1:09:57

like this bitch is crazy. And

1:10:00

when you read what fail attraction, I gotta tell

1:10:02

you I'm with her until the body boiling,

1:10:04

Like until that point, I was like, I see I

1:10:07

see yeah, I'm not going

1:10:09

to be ignored dad. I was like, that's right close,

1:10:11

because how dare he mess with you like this? It's

1:10:13

very much like that, and I think it ties

1:10:16

into the cool girl monologue as well, because what it

1:10:18

really is because you notice that these women are usually blonde,

1:10:20

very traditionally attractive white women, and

1:10:22

really what it is is that men being confronted

1:10:25

with the anxiety that their sex toy

1:10:27

object woman could kill them

1:10:30

because they love to call women crazy, they

1:10:32

let to say, oh my crazy is blah blah blah, but like

1:10:34

they did that she could actually be quote unquote

1:10:36

crazy is their biggest nightmare

1:10:38

to be in the reverse side of having to worry

1:10:41

about violence being done to them by

1:10:43

a person or a body that

1:10:45

they usually see as

1:10:48

not a threat. It's like, all of a sudden, the

1:10:50

thing that you just want to use as a come

1:10:53

dispensary is like, no, actually I

1:10:55

want things from you, Like I think that's

1:10:57

kind of the thing about even with Gone Girl,

1:11:00

where she was like he stopped trying and

1:11:02

then I had he had to go, and I was just like, man,

1:11:06

you really do stay around for a long time that he stopped

1:11:09

trying. You're like, maybe

1:11:11

they'll try again tomorrow.

1:11:14

Right, And it's like, I don't know. That's like part of what's

1:11:16

so cathartic about it. It is just seeing someone

1:11:18

being.

1:11:18

Like I mean and again it's like and

1:11:21

none of that makes her loss

1:11:23

of an abuser, but it's the two things.

1:11:25

Anytime two things need to be true, it's

1:11:28

gonna result in a lot of difficult

1:11:31

conversation. I have a quote on because

1:11:33

I was interested in it, Like Rosamund Pike is

1:11:36

so incredible and love her.

1:11:38

Oh my gosh, she was nominated for an Oscar,

1:11:40

I think very rightly so, so

1:11:43

I just wanted to see, like what her take

1:11:45

on Amy was when she was prepping

1:11:48

for the role, and she had a really interesting

1:11:50

quote, Yeah this is back in twenty fourteen, in

1:11:53

like how she was contextualizing how

1:11:55

Amy gets to where she's at. She

1:11:57

says, quote, I always think that people who

1:12:00

have the hardest time in the spotlight are the people

1:12:02

who have unearned fame, like the girlfriends

1:12:04

of people who are famous, or people who become figures

1:12:06

of attention not through their own merit. And

1:12:09

that's what Amy has. Because she's the subject of these

1:12:11

books. She's not only the subject,

1:12:13

but it's like she's been given a fictional

1:12:15

twin who's better than her, more accomplished

1:12:17

than her, more popular than her, and more loved

1:12:20

than her by her own parents. That's a recipe

1:12:22

for narcissism right there. Because you're entitled

1:12:24

and you feel inadequate. Then

1:12:26

that makes a very insecure adult who simultaneously

1:12:29

has very high expectations of themselves and others.

1:12:32

That for me was my end to

1:12:34

the character. And I think,

1:12:36

like that makes a lot of sense.

1:12:38

And even I don't know until I read that quote, I was

1:12:41

like, oh, yeah, Like Nick has

1:12:43

an actual twin, Amy has this like

1:12:45

sort of phantom limb of this fictional

1:12:47

Amy that doesn't actually exist. She's

1:12:50

always had difficulty connecting with

1:12:53

people. And again just going

1:12:56

back to the idea of like Amy has

1:12:58

never controlled a narrative in her

1:13:01

very privileged life, but

1:13:03

you know everything that sort of happened to

1:13:05

her, her life has been guided by

1:13:07

other people. And with Nick, you

1:13:10

know understandably, like if you're parent

1:13:12

are sick and you need to move home, okay, but you

1:13:14

have to have a discussion with your spouse about

1:13:17

that. You can't just tell them we're

1:13:19

going and then leave them

1:13:21

to rot. In this ugly assmic

1:13:24

mansion. Sorry yeah, uh so,

1:13:26

uh Meryl, Well that's great,

1:13:30

But yeah, I mean I think that like

1:13:32

Amy is very well set up

1:13:35

for who she is. I also feel like there is this stereotype,

1:13:37

but I also have met people who have this experience of like

1:13:39

just being raised by psychologists

1:13:41

and therapist. You always end up with just

1:13:44

an interesting person who maybe

1:13:47

you wouldn't guess was raised by mental

1:13:49

health professionals. And I say

1:13:51

that with love, But yeah,

1:13:53

I mean, I think like criticism of Amy

1:13:56

sometimes feels like it's taking place in a vacuum,

1:13:58

as if you're not given a lot of context

1:14:01

on not just how she gets from A to

1:14:04

B in a very extreme way, but

1:14:06

how the world enables it. And

1:14:09

again, I know that that starts as slippery slope,

1:14:11

where like I know that having it suggested

1:14:13

that like a woman can use

1:14:16

a fundamentally misogynist world to

1:14:19

bend to their will is not true.

1:14:21

But I think in the context of this story,

1:14:24

Gilliam Flynn does a good job of setting

1:14:26

up how for this story it

1:14:29

works. Prinstance, I'm really

1:14:31

interested in your feelings

1:14:34

on how this movie

1:14:37

interacts with like true crime media

1:14:39

and how these stories are reported.

1:14:42

Okay, So I got into true

1:14:44

crime mostly because I used to watch twenty twenty in

1:14:46

my room by myself, because I was that kid. And

1:14:49

I remember watching the Amanda Knox

1:14:51

twenty twenty docs and just being like.

1:14:53

What do you mean there's no DNA?

1:14:55

Why is she in jail? And that only happened to black

1:14:57

people. And I think Amanda Knox being

1:14:59

convened did for being awkward in

1:15:02

the public eye of Italy has always

1:15:05

stuck with me because I think that's

1:15:07

so indicative of how true crime

1:15:09

works. I think with Nick, even though he definitely

1:15:11

has some shady aspects to him, the

1:15:13

panopticon level of attention

1:15:16

that he got for just doing like smiling

1:15:19

too much, and I think about too like when

1:15:21

that picture happens, someone says smile

1:15:24

at him and he just responds.

1:15:26

Like a doberman, and I'm like, what even

1:15:28

his idea?

1:15:29

And just like you know, the people coming towards

1:15:32

him and trying to be like, hey, like

1:15:34

how can we help you, and him trying to be polite,

1:15:37

but that sees people going as like, well,

1:15:39

he doesn't seem sad enough, and

1:15:42

that happens so often, usually with women.

1:15:44

And I think what's interesting as well, is that like Nick

1:15:47

on paper and especially how Amy

1:15:49

writes him in the journal has all the

1:15:52

makings of a family annihilator. Girl. It's

1:15:54

like the debt, the loss of a job,

1:15:56

the income being only in the

1:15:59

woman's name, like a baby on

1:16:01

the way. Those are all like classic family

1:16:03

annihilator like tropes, which

1:16:06

you know she probably write in one of those books she was reading.

1:16:08

And so it interests out, Oh my god, her

1:16:11

little Skelter, her little library.

1:16:14

I also, oh my gosh, how much that people

1:16:16

in the movie interact with media to

1:16:18

craft this narrative, Like Amy knows

1:16:21

what's going to work.

1:16:22

Yeah, Also that she shows no one checked out

1:16:24

her library card or whatever, because

1:16:27

like he didn't see that she was ordering Helter Skelter

1:16:29

and all these other books, like what's that clicking,

1:16:31

Missouria? Okay.

1:16:32

Also I have another little plot

1:16:35

hole where Okay, we learn

1:16:37

that there's a neighbor whose name is Watchful

1:16:40

Wally, implying

1:16:42

that he's like very snoopy and like

1:16:44

always kind of like watching them and watching

1:16:47

their house. He's the guy who calls

1:16:49

Nick and is like, your door

1:16:52

is open and your cat's outside. You

1:16:54

might want to check on that. And that's how like Nick

1:16:56

ends up discovering that this

1:16:58

like Home and Asian happened

1:17:01

anyway, watchful Wally,

1:17:04

where were you when Amy was leaving

1:17:06

the house on July fifteenth? It seems like

1:17:08

you were right there having a watchful

1:17:10

eye. How did she seek a watch

1:17:13

undering a watchful.

1:17:16

I bet she had him under surveillance. I bet she

1:17:18

had like a secret camera. I just gee her too

1:17:20

much credit. I'm just like, he's just that good.

1:17:23

She did kind of think of everything, so she

1:17:25

really I also like the fact

1:17:27

that Nick, again Nick a

1:17:30

victim of abuse and objectively

1:17:32

a bad husband. Yeah, which you

1:17:34

know, I trust our listeners to be able to understand

1:17:37

that. But the fact that he all he like from

1:17:39

the beginning, when he's first asked

1:17:42

by the detective like, well, what

1:17:44

is she into? He's like, she's a big reader. I'm

1:17:46

like, oh, yeah, of her murder library.

1:17:49

She's like.

1:17:51

Reading to plan to ruin your life. You just

1:17:53

didn't notice the genre she was heavily

1:17:55

trafficking in.

1:17:57

Sure just signed that.

1:18:00

I cannot explain to you the ways in which

1:18:02

that, Like, if anyone asked me this sign,

1:18:04

oh do you want to like up your insurance?

1:18:06

No?

1:18:06

Who are you I would ask like as

1:18:09

like absolutely, I don't care about insurance. I

1:18:11

want everything to be given to the government when I

1:18:13

die. But that's

1:18:15

the true crime angle, is like the fan fare,

1:18:18

and also that there's so many

1:18:20

women around because there has been like

1:18:23

everyone's in a true crime, but definitely

1:18:25

women especially get put the forefront of

1:18:27

those situations, and like Noel constantly

1:18:30

like putting herself into conversation, the

1:18:32

Nancy Grace XP, who is just hitting

1:18:34

here, like what is this man doing?

1:18:36

And I'm just like all of it kind of just shows

1:18:39

the farce of thank

1:18:41

you. It all just kind of

1:18:43

shows the farcical nature of it and how it's

1:18:45

never based on facts

1:18:48

or a total inventory

1:18:50

of information, but just the play by play moments

1:18:53

of like intense emotion of

1:18:55

like this innocent young white

1:18:57

woman. They don't say that, but that is the path of it is

1:19:00

missing and we all just need to galvanize and protect

1:19:02

her. And her husband is being very suspicious

1:19:05

because he's not sad. And I

1:19:07

think all of those things are stuff

1:19:09

that you saw in the dep Herd case

1:19:12

of like who's more charismatic,

1:19:14

who looks like they're being their their most authentic

1:19:17

self, And how Nick

1:19:19

is able to convince everyone that he's

1:19:22

genuine by giving a highly

1:19:24

curated, highly you

1:19:27

know, feedback looped interview

1:19:29

that he's prepped for for a significant

1:19:31

amount of time, and everyone's like, Wow, he's

1:19:34

he's a good man, Savannah. The

1:19:36

media really manipulates and warps

1:19:39

the way that we via that kind of information,

1:19:41

and it wants us to view

1:19:44

it at the most surfaced level thing. And that's why

1:19:46

people go to jail when they should

1:19:48

most of the time. And that's why we had, you

1:19:51

know, with the Gabby Poto incident, what

1:19:53

that play by play wait

1:19:56

it happened online did, besides

1:19:58

being super toxic, was it left a lot of evidence

1:20:01

of people who assumed, based

1:20:04

off of nothing, that she was an abusive

1:20:06

person, only to find out that she

1:20:08

had been murdered by her partner.

1:20:10

Which is typically what happens in these

1:20:12

situations.

1:20:13

But even amongst other women, there is this internalized

1:20:16

misogyny that is so quick to

1:20:19

say that it is feminist to say that women can

1:20:21

also be bad people, and it's

1:20:23

like, yes, However,

1:20:27

we live in a society and

1:20:30

like, when a situation like this happens, typically

1:20:33

it's these ways until proven otherwise.

1:20:35

And I think it was River Kwan

1:20:38

who wrote a very good article about this during

1:20:40

the deb Per trial, which is like assummation

1:20:43

of it is basically saying that, like, we are at

1:20:45

a place where people want

1:20:47

to believe that we've moved past the point

1:20:50

of needing to believe women

1:20:52

because the default is believe women, But the

1:20:55

reality is we've never even started to

1:20:57

believe women.

1:21:00

Oh god, yeah, well, because that's like what's

1:21:02

so difficult about having this conversation. And

1:21:04

I know that our listeners are

1:21:07

like media literate

1:21:09

and competent, and it's like, I don't know, there

1:21:12

did feel like an element of like,

1:21:15

if you enjoy and want to interact

1:21:17

with this, you are endorsing

1:21:20

the reality in full that's

1:21:22

presented, where it's like you're total like we

1:21:25

all know on this gorgeous

1:21:28

zoom call that women

1:21:30

by and large do not lie about

1:21:33

this, and that the way that media is presented is

1:21:36

interesting to me. In this movie, I feel

1:21:38

like there are moments that are sort of editorialized

1:21:41

to a point where I don't know. I mean, I think that Amy

1:21:43

anticipates media

1:21:45

and the world underestimating her, and

1:21:48

she studies the narratives that have worked

1:21:51

and perpetuated in the past. I

1:21:53

think this movie really

1:21:55

smartly avoids social media because that's another

1:21:58

whole, you know, wormhole that you would

1:22:00

have to narratively unpack. But

1:22:02

in terms of like the Nancy graces of the world and

1:22:04

the exploitation with which these stories

1:22:07

are handled, like Amy studies

1:22:09

the narratives that are

1:22:11

true and have happened and take

1:22:14

advantage of them in order to

1:22:16

sort of pull this off. And

1:22:18

it's like, I also think that if you leave Gone

1:22:21

Girl being like all women are doing this,

1:22:24

that's an incredibly poor read of the movie. That

1:22:26

happens all the time, and often with

1:22:29

David Fincher movies specifically. There's

1:22:32

absolutely people that leave this movie

1:22:34

thinking like women are bitches, women

1:22:37

are liars, just as they let Fatal

1:22:39

Attraction feeling that way, and to

1:22:41

some extent, I mean, I don't know, I feel like we've sort

1:22:43

of been through the ringer of having

1:22:46

this discussion over the years of like well

1:22:48

as a writer, especially Gilliam

1:22:50

Flynn, as a woman writing this, how much

1:22:53

can you hold her accountable for someone watching

1:22:55

this movie and leaving with.

1:22:57

A brain dead take about

1:22:59

it.

1:23:00

I don't know. I think we recently had this conversation

1:23:03

about Goodfellas where you're like a

1:23:05

million people leave Goodfellas with the wrong

1:23:07

idea about what the movie was about. But

1:23:10

if you're watching it, it's clear

1:23:12

what it's about. I don't know, it's true, it's

1:23:14

true.

1:23:15

It's a large or problem, and like

1:23:17

I just started recently watching Breaking Bad

1:23:19

to prepare for hashtag content, and

1:23:22

I'd always heard about like, oh, yeah,

1:23:24

Skyle's a bitch, but that I've also been a live long

1:23:26

enough as I have seen like, but people just don't

1:23:28

know how to read her and she's technically good.

1:23:30

Later within the first season, I'm

1:23:33

like, of course Skyler is right.

1:23:35

He's being like egotistical and insecure

1:23:37

about like his balls and his money because

1:23:40

of the cancer. What's not clicking, and

1:23:42

what's not clicking is just a resentment towards

1:23:46

how do I put this? I think when

1:23:49

it comes to that intercession of like race and gender, I

1:23:51

feel like, post to the twenty

1:23:53

sixteen election, once it was

1:23:55

released that a number of white women

1:23:58

voted for Trump, it became this

1:24:00

thing to be able to say, you see, how

1:24:02

they're really the problem, and all of a

1:24:04

sudden it became an easy way to

1:24:07

not talk about race and power and gender

1:24:10

and how it intersects, but to make

1:24:12

somehow white women the seventh

1:24:15

season big bad of culture to

1:24:18

pivot away from white men. And I feel

1:24:21

like things like Gone Girl, even

1:24:24

though it came out before then, are used to uplift

1:24:27

that idea. There is this desire to

1:24:30

do woke misogyny by attacking

1:24:32

white women de facto for

1:24:34

their like white feminity and like historical

1:24:37

indictments, while ignoring that it was against people

1:24:40

of.

1:24:40

Color and not against white men.

1:24:42

You know, it's like if we stop using black

1:24:45

and brown experiences to justify your hatred

1:24:47

of white women. But I think that's a

1:24:49

part of it is that, like a lot of people

1:24:52

dislike white women because

1:24:55

of their own power, and they become

1:24:58

a symbolic way to attack all women by

1:25:00

putting them at the top of the at

1:25:02

the totem pole and then having them be the ones

1:25:04

in which she put all that harm towards. Because

1:25:07

you look at any wife in any

1:25:09

of these shows, their biggest crime

1:25:11

is being a hypocrite or being slightly nagging.

1:25:14

They're like, they're worse and the murderers. I'm like,

1:25:16

that's not true,

1:25:19

right, Camilla Soprano is

1:25:21

not as bad as tell you. A soprano. You cannot

1:25:23

tell me that because she makes ZD and wanted

1:25:26

to have sex with a priest one time, that that

1:25:28

means that.

1:25:28

She's among us who.

1:25:32

Yeah. So I think it's all connected to just

1:25:34

a way in which that we're still trying to process talking

1:25:36

about all these things, but the loudest,

1:25:39

most un intellectual

1:25:42

conversations will always rise to the surface.

1:25:44

And I think also with

1:25:46

women, this ties to Barbie and

1:25:50

something like and Ley Wonder Woman. There

1:25:52

is this need to critique

1:25:56

white women from misogynistic framework

1:26:00

that has really trickled into film,

1:26:02

and it's frustrating because it's

1:26:05

useless and not helpful, and

1:26:07

it just feels like a way of just having men

1:26:11

use the language of diversity to be

1:26:14

horrible sexist. And yeah, Gone

1:26:16

Girl is like one of those texts that they used to to

1:26:19

embody that.

1:26:20

And I have to kind of assume

1:26:23

that one of the reasons that this

1:26:25

movie and the book faced the backlash

1:26:28

that it did. As far as Gillian Flynn

1:26:30

being accused of how dare you

1:26:32

write a bad character

1:26:35

because women are good in

1:26:37

a way that like completely erases

1:26:41

and disregards the idea that

1:26:43

women and fems again are

1:26:46

full human beings capable

1:26:49

of the full range of human

1:26:51

emotions, behaviors, experiences, etc.

1:26:55

Kind of ignoring that. I wonder

1:26:57

if the reaction was

1:27:00

the way that it was because we're just so used

1:27:03

to as far as like you know,

1:27:05

pop culture movies, TV,

1:27:07

books, et cetera, the most popular

1:27:09

depictions of women have

1:27:12

just been so flat, so one

1:27:14

dimensional, so underdeveloped, you

1:27:17

know, the love interest, the damsel blah blah

1:27:19

blah. That when you do see a

1:27:21

woman that is a departure of

1:27:24

those types of like stock characters, and

1:27:27

especially one that behaves badly

1:27:29

and is abusive and is a liar and

1:27:32

manipulative and all that kind of stuff, no

1:27:34

one knows how to handle

1:27:36

it or interpret it. Or you know, we're so

1:27:39

used to seeing women

1:27:41

this way on screen and

1:27:43

then assuming that women are just probably

1:27:46

that way in real life. And again,

1:27:49

we live in a society, right, and

1:27:52

our perceptions are in

1:27:54

misogyny external and internal,

1:27:57

really warp perceptions of of

1:28:00

the behavior of women.

1:28:03

Yeah, and it feels ongoing

1:28:06

still this and again

1:28:08

a lot of the criticism of centering

1:28:11

a woman abuser makes

1:28:14

sense to me in the context of when

1:28:16

the movie was released, But there is sort of this feeling

1:28:18

of like I think sometimes

1:28:21

it's positioned as like, but women

1:28:23

just got to be characters.

1:28:26

You can't make them evil right away, you

1:28:28

have to, like, and I think it.

1:28:30

Does sort of mistakenly like

1:28:32

I feel like there's a way where you could see it as this

1:28:34

like still patriarchal

1:28:37

thinking of like, well, we just

1:28:39

got allowed, we just became considered

1:28:42

marketable, like you know, less

1:28:44

than twenty years ago, so we should spend a couple

1:28:46

of decades making movies about how awesome

1:28:49

women are and how But again, it's

1:28:51

like sort of catering to patriarchal

1:28:54

thinking because theoretically every

1:28:57

kind of women, with every kind of character,

1:29:00

that's the equity standpoint,

1:29:02

because men have been

1:29:05

behaving horrifically in movies since

1:29:08

the beginning of time and are always praised for it, and

1:29:10

a lot of those movies are amazing. But it's like, yeah,

1:29:14

centering a woman who is objectively

1:29:16

a bad person and we have

1:29:19

a lot of information about her, it

1:29:21

felt like to some extent people were

1:29:23

like, well, this is gonna set us back actually,

1:29:25

because there is not a redemptive

1:29:28

arc for her. So in like the movie

1:29:30

sense, it feels it's kind

1:29:32

of frustrating and that's complicated

1:29:34

because you have to layer it with how

1:29:37

many men go to see Gone Girl and

1:29:39

leave with the wrong message. I

1:29:41

don't think that that's Gillian Flint's problem

1:29:43

necessarily, and so I

1:29:46

don't know. Ye also watch more

1:29:48

movies if you think that.

1:29:49

I mean not to say that there isn't say that there isn't

1:29:51

like definitely a gender issues, but like you think

1:29:53

Betty Davis would just playing likable women her

1:29:56

entire career, right because she was not

1:29:58

and she got two oscars. Baby. Yeah,

1:30:01

I totally get what you're saying. And I think that's

1:30:03

been a that's always a narrative of like, well,

1:30:05

we just got this, so let's try and wait,

1:30:08

you know, ten or so five years. And

1:30:10

I get why that happens. It's just cycimical

1:30:12

because like one bad person doing

1:30:15

a bad thing does not completely

1:30:17

flip the script, you know, like one

1:30:19

notable case of like a false assault

1:30:21

allegation does not erase the

1:30:24

countless others of how

1:30:27

statistics work. And yet we're like

1:30:29

when The Joker came out, you know, there

1:30:32

was so much whinging about like what

1:30:34

it would do to like society

1:30:37

and culture and what did it do? Absolutely

1:30:41

nothing except Get Walk finally

1:30:43

Get Jaquim in Oscar that you should

1:30:45

have gotten ten years ago. That was

1:30:47

the extent of its impact, Like we

1:30:49

don't need to like enough, let

1:30:52

women be bad, let

1:30:55

women plan their man's demise

1:30:58

in peace?

1:30:58

Okay, cop, are

1:31:02

you a detective Mustard?

1:31:04

Like it's so yeah, And I think

1:31:06

it reinforces the idea that every

1:31:08

movie that centers a woman has to be about feminism,

1:31:11

and that is also an

1:31:14

extremely limiting

1:31:17

idea, or every movie that centers a woman

1:31:19

has to be an overtly feminist movie

1:31:21

in order to be considered successful.

1:31:25

Even just this like subgenre of

1:31:28

women seeking revenge, Like

1:31:31

I'm fascinated by the like hell

1:31:34

hath no fury like a woman scorned

1:31:38

premise and the many many movies

1:31:40

that we get kind of based on that

1:31:43

premise, many of which we've covered.

1:31:44

Just did Revenge, bur we did.

1:31:46

Our second revenge, per I don't even what

1:31:48

did we cover on the first revenge?

1:31:51

So many I don't even know anyway,

1:31:54

Yeah, we've examined a lot of them on the

1:31:56

show, and there it stands to

1:31:59

reason that they would all be pretty different

1:32:01

movies coming at that topic with different

1:32:04

angles and and this is just an

1:32:07

entry in that subgenre

1:32:09

that is quite different from many

1:32:11

of the other ones. It's nothing like kill

1:32:14

Bill or do Revenge

1:32:16

or you know other

1:32:19

ones that I can't remember.

1:32:23

And that's a good thing, Like yeah,

1:32:26

for sure.

1:32:27

And also Revenge is like it's like one of the

1:32:30

best things to watch and me, like Shakespeare

1:32:32

did it and like everyone said it was

1:32:34

okay when he did it, So like, what's the big deal.

1:32:36

Why can't Jillian do it? Why can't Jillian

1:32:38

have a toxic person ruin their loved

1:32:41

ones' lives, you know?

1:32:42

H Yeah, And she also

1:32:44

recently started her own book,

1:32:47

Imprint to to to

1:32:49

spread the good words, so I'm.

1:32:51

Excited about that. Yeah.

1:32:52

I feel like in terms of like how

1:32:54

because I did, I have a

1:32:56

distinct, like Twitter

1:32:59

memory of Gillian Flynn's quotes

1:33:01

about being a feminist

1:33:03

and being the author of Gone Girl. I

1:33:06

remember that and how heavily

1:33:08

discussed that was and I think it's

1:33:10

aged pretty well she

1:33:13

is. Yeah, And also I think like

1:33:15

again, there should be and

1:33:18

have been more stories

1:33:20

about women and women who are unreliable

1:33:23

narrators. I feel like you can't just let men be unreliable

1:33:25

narrators. It's so limiting and that's no fun.

1:33:28

It's just no good for real.

1:33:30

And I will say on a shallow note, like

1:33:32

you know, as a millennial in the situationship

1:33:36

era, this movie really does

1:33:38

hit different.

1:33:38

It's like, wow, uh, it

1:33:41

really do be like that sometimes.

1:33:42

And I think that's the thing as well as like a lot of like

1:33:45

female revenge movies do

1:33:47

live at this, Like I think of like do revenge what you

1:33:49

just mentioned live with this indition of like the

1:33:51

frustration it is to like be a woman

1:33:54

who has to be nice in the face

1:33:56

of like bullshit because you can't because

1:33:58

like if Amy could just

1:34:01

like cancel him on Twitter,

1:34:04

I think she would have just done that. Like if

1:34:06

she could have just done that, she would have just wroughte a long, expensive

1:34:08

tweet thread. But she would

1:34:10

be a bad person if she did that, because then people would

1:34:13

pull up her own tweet history and then she'd

1:34:15

have to be canceled. It's like, no, I have to

1:34:17

plan my death so that I can always

1:34:20

win. I love, I understand Nick

1:34:22

Dunn is a bad

1:34:24

person. One of two hundred and fifty.

1:34:29

Yeah, like like a notes app.

1:34:33

Yeah, I mean I guess my.

1:34:34

Like on this because it's like it's so funny we've

1:34:36

put taking for almost two hours, and we've really only talked

1:34:38

about the like controversy

1:34:40

around Gone Girl and how it's like received.

1:34:43

But like, I think that this movie's success does

1:34:45

not mean that we shouldn't continue to get

1:34:48

movies about more diverse women

1:34:51

doing bad stuff. I want

1:34:53

to see a movie about it, every

1:34:55

kind of woman doing something horrible. And this

1:34:57

movie is good, and we have

1:35:00

a lot of other women in the story to

1:35:03

bounce what's going on with Amy and

1:35:05

Nick around. One thing

1:35:07

that I thought didn't work

1:35:09

as well for me in the context of the movie

1:35:12

versus the book, because when we hear

1:35:14

Nick and Amy talking about Andy in

1:35:17

the book, they're talking about her, they're

1:35:19

describing her to sound like

1:35:21

kind of a I think that like she's she comes off

1:35:24

in the movie as bimbo who

1:35:27

is really naive because of her

1:35:29

youth, because of all of this stuff. And I think that Emily

1:35:31

Radakowski, who has gone

1:35:33

on to have a whole career, including a

1:35:36

book that I have not yet read,

1:35:38

but that sort of addresses her personal

1:35:41

history, being heavily objectified and

1:35:43

thought of as a brainless bimbo. So

1:35:46

if we have people who have read that, please let us know,

1:35:49

but that is like who she's cast us here,

1:35:51

She's in a prestige movie. I think that it's

1:35:53

like the signifier of Emily

1:35:55

Radikowski in twenty fourteen.

1:35:58

We're not supposed to think she's smart. It's

1:36:00

almost like a cultural signifier of

1:36:02

how she was viewed at this time. And I don't

1:36:05

think the movie does very much to challenge that. It

1:36:07

just sort of does present to the point where Tyler Perry

1:36:10

can anticipate what she is going to

1:36:12

do.

1:36:12

She is fully upon.

1:36:14

She doesn't seem to have any

1:36:16

sort of like I don't know. I think she was

1:36:18

sort of uncritically presented as a

1:36:21

brainless bimbo. And you do get moments where it's

1:36:23

like, well, Nick is lying

1:36:26

to her and that's obvious and we know that that's bad.

1:36:28

And you know, Amy is outwardly misogynistic

1:36:31

towards her when she's watching her on TV.

1:36:34

But it also feels like there could have been a few

1:36:36

small things done to make

1:36:39

her more of a person.

1:36:42

I don't know.

1:36:42

I don't think she came off very sympathetic when she is

1:36:44

like in a terrible situation, she

1:36:48

fortunately, I mean, the only good thing is that she

1:36:50

is an adult at the time of the

1:36:53

relationship. But it's like she's right,

1:36:56

she's like twenty if that, I don't

1:36:58

think Margo even believes that she

1:37:01

like you know, is still completely connected to

1:37:04

her family. She's I like the detail

1:37:06

that she's like godspell rehearsal. I was like,

1:37:08

go with Godspell, Like go with that, get

1:37:11

out of this relationship, go vi a godspell,

1:37:14

forget this ever happened. But like it's another

1:37:16

way that Nick is a shitty person. He's abusing this power

1:37:18

dynamic. And I feel like the story

1:37:21

she like symbolizes is like, oh,

1:37:23

Nick wants to be with someone who's like being

1:37:25

replaced by a younger woman and being replaced

1:37:27

by someone who's quote unquote unchallenging.

1:37:30

And it just felt like the movie kind of went

1:37:32

with that logic in a way that it felt like

1:37:34

there could have been little things done to push

1:37:37

back on mm hmmm agree.

1:37:39

I think the way that also it

1:37:42

goes pretty unchallenged where Nick

1:37:45

suggests that maybe the perpetrator

1:37:47

of this kidnapping and violence toward

1:37:50

his wife was an unhoused

1:37:52

person because there's a quote

1:37:54

unquote serious homeless problem

1:37:57

that you cops should check out,

1:37:59

and is just like shrug.

1:38:01

Well, but also I saw that as well, and

1:38:03

then I also was like, well, everyone he's surrounded

1:38:06

by would not push back on that,

1:38:09

Like that's true. He's surrounded by cops

1:38:11

who certainly like wealthy

1:38:14

white suburbanites, so right, he's

1:38:16

like he's surrounded by Nimbi's It makes

1:38:18

sense that, Yeah, no one is

1:38:20

saying anything, but yeah, I didn't think that

1:38:23

was the worst choice. But again, it's like there's

1:38:25

stuff with privilege that is like it's

1:38:27

all put out before you, but the viewer

1:38:30

is very much left to their own

1:38:32

devices to tease

1:38:34

out when people are acting with

1:38:37

their own bullshit privilege.

1:38:39

Right, No characters around

1:38:41

him, you know, push back on him saying

1:38:44

that, But then the unhoused people you see

1:38:46

on screen are like drug

1:38:49

dealer.

1:38:49

You know.

1:38:49

It's just like the same way that it doesn't challenge

1:38:52

the movie. Yes, frames

1:38:54

Andy.

1:38:55

It's giving three billboards.

1:38:57

And that yes, right,

1:38:59

and have Margo who princess

1:39:01

You alluded to this earlier. I think like Margo

1:39:04

is the closest thing

1:39:06

we have to someone

1:39:08

with their head on and

1:39:11

like connected to their brain, and it's

1:39:14

working.

1:39:15

Well for the whole.

1:39:17

Movie, which was nice.

1:39:18

Yeah, it's not I feel like you.

1:39:20

Need Margo to like justify

1:39:23

how you, as an audience member are feeling.

1:39:25

And also like I thought it was she was well

1:39:28

written in that, like she wants

1:39:31

to believe her brother. It is reference

1:39:34

that they are both still actively grieving

1:39:36

at their mom. She doesn't

1:39:39

like Amy, but also her not

1:39:41

like she says it at one point, She's like, just because

1:39:43

I didn't like spending time with Amy doesn't mean I

1:39:46

wish you were dead, Like I

1:39:48

think she has like a pretty reasoned

1:39:50

take on stuff and is the one crucially

1:39:53

I think princess you said earlier, like who is

1:39:55

constantly like this relationship

1:39:57

with Emily Radakowski is fucked up.

1:40:00

This is fucked up what you were doing. It's creepy,

1:40:02

It grows, it echoes things that your

1:40:04

father did that hurt you, Like what the fuck

1:40:07

is wrong with you? And you're having sex with her

1:40:10

when the eyes of the world are on

1:40:12

you, like you are out of your fucking

1:40:14

mind? And yeah, yeah,

1:40:16

I just like Margo. I guess that that's what

1:40:19

I have to say.

1:40:20

Same, I love her too, Same, I'm

1:40:23

rooting for her.

1:40:23

And the very like cynical ending

1:40:26

where Tyler Perry, you know, like Billy

1:40:28

Flynn he's like, well, I'm catching

1:40:30

a playing out of here. Uh, and

1:40:33

you know the cars pull away, which echoes

1:40:35

Chicago to be it echoes Ititanya where

1:40:37

it's like the caravan moves on. Your

1:40:39

moment is over and now you have to live the rest

1:40:42

of your life. And you

1:40:44

know, Nick is like, well, what am I

1:40:46

supposed to do? And he's like, I don't know, like get

1:40:49

a book deal, do a lifetime movie and

1:40:51

call it a day, which, unfortunately, I think is something we

1:40:53

are watching play out in real time again

1:40:56

right now with Gypsy Rose Blanchard. It's

1:40:58

like, I think that it's important

1:41:00

that movies like this exist, and I think it also

1:41:03

shows that it doesn't change

1:41:06

very much, Like there's very very little.

1:41:08

I mean, the mediums change. This movie

1:41:10

doesn't touch social media at all, but

1:41:13

the grind and churning

1:41:15

of like, well, capitalize on your moment and the

1:41:17

spotlight, no matter how creepy

1:41:20

or horrific it is, because people.

1:41:22

Are going to move on and you're to be left

1:41:24

behind.

1:41:25

And yeah, I don't

1:41:27

know, that's sort of That's the only thing in Amy's

1:41:29

logic that I don't understand

1:41:31

because I'm like Amy, the caravan moves on,

1:41:33

and then he could probably quietly leave

1:41:35

you at some point, right, But

1:41:39

whatever, I.

1:41:40