0:00

Burn attention

0:02

Beck to cast listeners.

0:05

We're going on tour.

0:07

We really are. And it's not

0:09

just any tour. It's a tour in the

0:11

UK and it's a tour where

0:13

we are covering Titanic

0:15

and.

0:16

Shrek brilliantly titled

0:18

the Shrek Tannic Tour. Yes,

0:21

Shrek Tornic. We're working on

0:23

it. There's a couple there's a couple months

0:26

before the tour, but yes, we're really

0:28

excited. We're currently doing five shows

0:30

in the UK, with more shows to

0:32

be added. Stay tuned at

0:35

the end of May.

0:36

Yes, starting with two shows

0:38

in London on May twenty second, once

0:41

at six point thirty that's a Shrek show, one

0:44

at nine pm that is a

0:46

Titanic show. Then we

0:48

are scooting over to Oxford

0:51

on May twenty fourth we are covering

0:53

Titanic. Okay, Then

0:57

we're scooting up to Edinburgh on

0:59

May twenty sixth and doing Strek.

1:02

If you're a Scottish Titanic fan, you are

1:04

going to have to commute. And I

1:07

know that that's not but

1:10

listen, Yeah, you live in Edinburgh

1:12

recovering Shrek.

1:14

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but also

1:16

you're welcome. And then if you do want

1:18

to see Titanic, you can

1:20

head down to Manchester. We're

1:22

doing a show on May twenty eighth,

1:25

and that's a Titanic show.

1:27

So as your Bechdel Cast allies

1:29

in the US can attest to.

1:32

Our live shows are super fun. It

1:34

is like a live episode

1:36

plus a bunch of fun stuff. We dress

1:39

up, we bring audience members on stage sometimes

1:42

we do. It's just it's big and goofy

1:44

and silly. And we're covering two

1:46

of our favorite movies that are Bechtel Cast

1:48

canon, so we want to have a good time.

1:51

We'll be bringing exclusive merch

1:54

and we will be doing meet

1:56

and greets before and after the show. We want to meet

1:58

everybody and we're really

2:00

really excited. So if you if you live in those

2:03

areas, get those dang tickets because

2:05

these shows will sell.

2:06

Out, Yes they will, So head

2:08

over to our link Tree link

2:11

Tree slash Bechdel Cast. All the tickets

2:13

are posted there. And like we said, we're

2:15

working on at least one

2:17

more show in a different city, so

2:19

stay tuned. We're hoping to announce that

2:22

soon. And otherwise,

2:24

grab your tickets for

2:26

the Shrektanic.

2:30

And enjoy the episode on

2:33

the Bechdel cast.

2:34

The questions asked if movies have.

2:36

Women and them, are all their

2:38

discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do

2:40

they have individualism? It's the

2:42

patriarchy, Zephi bast

2:45

start changing with the Bechdel cast.

2:48

Hey, mister Jamie, Yes,

2:51

mister Caitlyn, I'm mister Caitlin to you, Thank

2:53

you very much.

2:54

Yes, mister Kaitlin, I'm gonna.

2:55

Need you to give me the key

2:57

to your apartment so I can fu

3:00

a bunch of people there, and then I'll

3:02

give you a promotion.

3:03

Maybe Okay, Well, here's

3:05

the thing. You'll never see me change

3:07

the sheets. It's

3:10

maybe implied that I did, but it's not

3:13

really implied that I did. So

3:15

if you're cool with me getting promoted

3:18

and maybe sleeping on your com,

3:21

that's okay with me, mister Caitlin. Is

3:24

Jack Lemon sleeping on his boss has

3:26

come the whole mooks? So

3:29

he comes home and he's so tired, and

3:31

I like his posture

3:34

isn't that of someone who has the

3:36

energy to change their sheets?

3:38

Yeah? No, yeah, so he's

3:40

sleeping and come and I don't care about

3:42

that. I just care that you buy me a

3:44

bunch of alcohol.

3:46

I'm assuming you're not paying me enough to keep the var

3:48

stocked. But like you know, fingers crossed for a

3:50

promotion, I'm trying to boy boss my way to

3:52

the top of insurance.

3:54

I don't understand the logistics of

3:57

the sex apartment economy, but

3:59

what I.

4:00

I love it. It's so movie

4:03

where who knows why they

4:05

need to fucket his apartment but he's

4:07

sleeping, got his bosses come that.

4:10

Really, I couldn't stop thinking about that

4:12

the whole time because then Shirley McClain, I'm

4:14

like, now she's in the cum sheets

4:17

on the worst day of her life. Come on,

4:19

I know, I hope he changed the sheets

4:21

for her. Doubt it, Jesus

4:24

doesn't seem like it, because the scenes moved

4:26

so quickly. I hope the doctor

4:28

insisted. I feel like he, of anyone

4:31

in the movie, would be like, hold on, maybe we should

4:33

change the sheets. Anyways. Welcome

4:35

to the Bechdel Cast. My name's Jamie Loftis.

4:38

My name is Caitlin Derante. This is

4:40

our show where we examine movies through

4:42

an intersectional feminist lens, using

4:45

the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off

4:47

point to initiate larger conversations

4:50

but the Bechdel Test,

4:52

Yes, what is it?

4:54

Well, Caitlyn, I can tell you, as I've said

4:57

close to five hundred times before. Isn't

4:59

that scared? Anyways, They're

5:02

Bechdel. Now I'm going to fuck it up. The bechel

5:04

Test is a media metric created by

5:07

cartoonist Alison Bechdel, often

5:09

called the Bechdel Wallace Test because she co created

5:11

it with her friend Liz Wallace. Originally

5:14

appeared in Alison Bechdel's iconic

5:17

comic collection Dykes to Watch out For

5:19

and was originally about a

5:22

more intersectional test than it tends to be

5:24

used, as it was pointing out that women

5:26

rarely speak to each other in movies as

5:28

a way of talking about how queer women

5:31

are never in movies and never have relationships

5:33

with each other. In any case, it

5:35

was written as a bit and then became

5:38

a metric that people used to this day. The

5:41

version we used to start the

5:43

discussion is or end the discussion,

5:45

really is we require that there be

5:47

two characters of a marginalized gender

5:50

with names who talk to each other about

5:52

something other than a man for more

5:54

than two lines of dialogue, and it should

5:57

be meaningful dialogue. For example,

6:00

if you are the doctor's

6:02

his wife and you're talking about chicken

6:04

soup with Charlie McClain.

6:06

That may be a.

6:07

Pass wow, but today

6:11

we are continuing. It's been a Billy Wilder

6:13

year for us. It really is.

6:15

It's true because we just covered

6:17

Sunset Boulevard not long ago.

6:20

Looks like we will be covering if

6:22

we haven't already by the time this episode gets

6:25

released. But it's a classic

6:27

movie march on our Matreon

6:30

and it appears as though the two movies that

6:32

are going to win the poll are Singing

6:35

in the Rain and Billy Wilder's Some

6:38

Like It Hot.

6:38

And today we're covering the

6:41

Apartment with an incredible

6:43

guest. Let's get her in the

6:45

mix.

6:46

Let's do it. She's a comedian,

6:48

TV writer, and host of the upcoming

6:51

Jeopardy podcast entitled

6:54

What Is a Jeopardy Podcast.

6:57

You can also check out her Comedy Central

6:59

special Ice Thickeners and her album

7:02

Pasta. It's Emily Hiller.

7:05

Welcome back.

7:07

Oh my gosh. Thank you for having me so excited

7:10

to be talking about this, especially as someone

7:12

who I think, prior to

7:15

this past year, had seen zero

7:17

Billy Wilder movies and now I think

7:19

I've seen like five wow.

7:22

Wow.

7:22

So it's like it's been a Billy Wilder year for

7:24

me too nice.

7:25

What brought it out? It feels like he's

7:28

back. He's with us again.

7:29

What he's not?

7:32

Like he's Jesus, He's back. What

7:35

threw you into the Billy Wilder expanded

7:38

universe?

7:39

So I'm like, famously not a movie person.

7:42

Welcome to the show.

7:44

Yes, thank you

7:46

for having me.

7:47

I should not be here.

7:49

I so

7:52

it like it kind of takes a lot for me to like get

7:55

into watching movies, but I recently sort

7:57

of decided I want to learn how to write a

7:59

farce movie, and so

8:01

I just have been watching a ton and so

8:03

I've been getting recommendations for people and like

8:05

working my way through lists, and it just

8:08

so happens that Billy Wilder is like a master

8:10

of that genre also, and

8:13

so we watch some like it hot,

8:15

we watch Midnight.

8:16

Oh, I haven't seen that.

8:18

It's so good and so farcy

8:20

and so wild is it

8:22

Wilder?

8:23

Though? Thank you for taking

8:25

that. I was like, are we going to leave it on the floor?

8:28

No, I'm going to pick it up and

8:30

put it where it belongs.

8:31

They're professional.

8:33

It's like the most complicated

8:35

farst plot ever, where it's like this

8:37

like woman gambler drifter comes

8:39

into town and sneaks into this high society

8:42

event and she gets sniffed out by this guy

8:44

who then hires her

8:46

to seduce away the man who is

8:48

culding him. Whoa, And

8:52

she's pretending to be like a duchess the whole

8:54

time. And meanwhile

8:56

there is this like taxi driver who has fallen

8:59

in love with her, who's like hunting her down, and

9:01

it's just the it culminates

9:03

in this like incredible ballroom

9:07

scene. It's just it's really it's

9:09

really great. But then yeah, we also

9:11

watched Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment was

9:13

one of the ones where it had been kind of

9:15

recommended for the farce list. But

9:17

it's not a farce. It's absolutely

9:20

not a farce.

9:21

No, it's like, I love how like

9:24

ambiguous it is in genre

9:27

too, because it like switches a couple of different

9:29

times.

9:30

Yes, there are some like real

9:33

hard cuts between like

9:35

genre scenes too, where you're like it'll

9:37

go from the most dramatic moment of the movie to like

9:40

one of the funniest visuals of

9:42

the whole thing. But it does have

9:44

like a lot in common with his other like farce

9:46

films or just it's just like the very

9:49

tight writing and the very efficient

9:51

character intros and stuff like he's

9:54

just so good at that for

9:56

sure.

9:56

Yeah, I'm so excited that you've done

9:59

so many I want to much Midnight now, right.

10:01

It's so good. Yeah, it's kind of a b side

10:04

of his Yeah, it was really. It

10:06

was like one of those ones where it was like a bunch of the

10:08

movies on the list, like something like it Hot. It was very

10:10

easy to find where to stream that, but Midnight

10:12

I feel like we ended up watching it like streaming on

10:15

some like weird Russian like YouTube or

10:17

something, so it's harder to track down

10:20

because I mean the ending I don't I think is

10:22

like maybe not that good. But yeah, it's not like

10:24

a classic. But yeah, there

10:26

are some others on the list that I can recommend

10:28

as well. But yeah, I'm still watching farce

10:30

as. I'm still enjoying them. But it has gotten

10:33

me to watch more movies, which like,

10:35

for some reason it needs to be part of a series

10:38

like TV's really easy for me because I'm

10:40

like, I understand where this

10:42

fits in with everything else I'm watching, you know what I mean?

10:44

But for movies, it just feels

10:46

like, I don't know why it's so hard for me to like get

10:49

hard for a movie.

10:51

Oh, I love it. I'm like, give me just a

10:53

single isolated story that I

10:55

don't have to keep watching these

10:58

characters again.

10:59

The things Caitlin has seen in theaters

11:01

who would turn your head around three hundred

11:04

and sixty years it's awesome.

11:07

I saw stump the yard and theaters twice

11:10

hell yea wow, you

11:13

know, and others. But anyway, well,

11:15

before we talk much more about Billy

11:18

Wilder and the Apartment, tell us

11:20

about your podcast.

11:23

Yeah, I'm very excited. I'm starting

11:25

a new podcast with my

11:27

friend John Colin called

11:29

What Is a Jeopardy Podcast, which

11:31

was sort of born out of the fact that like

11:34

John and I became friends because we

11:36

are Jeopardy.

11:37

Fans, Oh my gosh.

11:38

And yeah, it was like I was

11:41

just like on Twitter looking for someone to say

11:43

something about something that was like grinding

11:45

my gears about a certain Jeopardy contestant,

11:47

and I found John tweeting about it. And

11:50

we also realized that there

11:52

are no Jeopardy podcasts. There's just

11:54

the official one and that's

11:56

it.

11:57

Really.

11:58

There are no like good I mean there have been like

12:00

a few that have like no listeners. Wow,

12:04

burn I listened to like one or two of

12:06

them, and they sound like they're being done

12:08

at gunpoint.

12:10

That is always I'm always,

12:12

like really delighted to find

12:14

that there are podcasts that still do not

12:16

exist, and especially because now I

12:18

get to listen to you talking about Jeopardy.

12:22

I mean, there's no comedy podcast about Jeopardy.

12:25

Forgive me. I'm sure I'll get corrected if

12:27

I'm wrong, but work on your

12:29

pr if that's the case, because I didn't

12:32

find you.

12:34

Come on the show.

12:37

But yeah, I'm very excited, especially just because

12:40

weirdly, Jeopardy has gone through

12:42

a few changes in the last few

12:44

years, aside from just like the death of Alex

12:47

Trebek, which led to that like very

12:49

tumultuous search for a new host, but

12:51

they also have new executive producers

12:53

who have been developing this like sort of

12:56

more tournament forward

12:59

culture there I guess where they're really

13:01

sort of fostering more

13:03

like Jeopardy celebs, like personalities

13:06

who they keep bringing back for various tournaments

13:08

and stuff, so you get more familiar

13:11

with the people who are on the show, and it

13:13

just feels like, there is a lot to talk about, and we're launching

13:15

with the start of the Tournament of Champions,

13:17

which was delayed because

13:19

of the writers strike and is

13:22

the biggest pool of contestants

13:25

that they've ever had in the Tournament of Champions.

13:28

Also, for the first time in Jeopardy

13:30

history, the winner of Celebrity

13:32

Jeopardy is competing in the regular

13:34

Tournament of Champions.

13:36

Wait, they're throwing a celebrity out

13:38

into yeah, among the normies.

13:41

The winner of Celebrity Jeopardy for

13:43

season thirty nine was Ike Barenholtz,

13:46

and they invited him to compete in the Tournament

13:48

of Champions.

13:48

Wow, Ike Barenholtz, that skins.

13:51

Oh yeah, he has the vibe of

13:53

someone who would excel at Jeopardy. I'm

13:55

calling him a dork.

13:57

Oh yeah, Well, he had auditioned for Jeopardy

13:59

before he was famous.

14:01

H that's cool.

14:03

So he was like, he trained, he was excited,

14:05

he was ready and yeah. So he's competing

14:07

and like he's matched up against

14:09

one of like the top five seeds

14:12

of the season, so he's gonna get his

14:14

ass handed to him. And it's very exciting,

14:17

amazing. But it's like the guy who's

14:19

probably gonna beat him is like one of clearly

14:22

the nicest people who you will

14:24

ever see on Jeopardy. And he's also the

14:27

guy who helped not

14:30

scab for the TOC.

14:31

He's like, oh, okay, I was curious

14:33

because I know that that was a huge thing with Jeopardy.

14:35

Yeah.

14:35

Yes, it was a huge thing this year where they

14:37

were going to proceed with the Tournament of Champions

14:40

even as the Jeopardy writers were on strike, and

14:42

they were going to do it using reused clues,

14:44

so they were going to do it without the writers. And

14:48

ray La Land, who is a professional

14:50

set decorator from Canada, went

14:52

online and was like, as a union

14:55

man, I cannot in good conscience

14:58

compete in the

15:00

Tournament of Champions if it's going to happen without

15:03

the participation of the Guild writers.

15:05

And all of the other top seeds

15:08

of the tournament were like, we're with

15:10

you, ray I love that, and

15:12

so yeah, it was like a beautiful

15:15

nerdy snowball that really warmed

15:17

my heart. And that's

15:19

the guy who's probably gonna kick Ike's ass in the

15:21

first round.

15:23

Good for him. I hope that, you know. I Barenholtz

15:25

is like, you know, I mean if you got to get your ass handed to you

15:27

by someone. It might as well be a good person.

15:30

Might as well be ray La Land, the sweetest

15:32

man in Jeopardy history. But yeah, so I'm

15:34

I'm very excited. Our first episode is

15:37

going to air the week after

15:39

the first full week of the Tournament of Champions,

15:41

so we're going to get right into it. Two very

15:43

big Jeopardy fans who are not smart

15:45

enough to be on Jeopardy just

15:48

talking shit about everyone's favorite game show.

15:51

Love it.

15:51

Hell, yes, Oh, I'm so excited

15:54

to listen. I also like it's

15:56

always like when I'm listening to a podcast

15:58

about a show, I'm always fifty

16:01

thousand times more likely to actually engage

16:03

with the show and like have a ritual

16:05

and oh, I'm so excited.

16:07

Oh good. Yeah, we're hoping that it

16:10

will still be like appealing to people who haven't

16:12

watched every episode from the week before.

16:14

Like it's gonna be fast moving, it's gonna

16:17

be basically covering the games from the week before,

16:19

but there's always stuff that John catches

16:21

that I missed, and like hopefully there are things

16:23

that I catch that John missed, And then there's just like general

16:26

Jeopardy chat and like we

16:28

end every episode with some

16:30

like deep dive on one of the topics from

16:33

Final Jeopardy, just so we can learn more about

16:35

it and hopefully be better at trivia in the future.

16:38

So hopefully there's enough in there even if you aren't

16:40

like a diehard Jeopardy fan.

16:41

Loveully, I'm excited.

16:43

Thank you so much.

16:44

Well, back to the

16:46

Apartment, I guess seamless seamless?

16:49

Yes, yes, wonderful dismount.

16:52

What is a nineteen sixty

16:55

movie that was marketed as

16:57

a comedy but also takes

17:00

a hard turn in the second act?

17:02

Yeah?

17:05

What is the Apartment? Anyway? So, Emily,

17:07

you had not seen it until pretty recently,

17:10

is that right?

17:11

Yeah? I watched it on Monday, Okay,

17:13

well there you go. Or Tuesday, Yeah,

17:15

I watched it very recently. Yes, I watched it this

17:17

week. I'm very excited to talk about it.

17:20

Welcome to the folds.

17:21

And weirdly, I watched it on Tuesday night

17:23

and Tuesday in the morning, I was like talking

17:25

to one of my coworkers and I was like, how's it going, what did you

17:27

get up to last night? And he was like, I watched The Apartment

17:30

was so good, And

17:32

I was like Oh my gosh, I'm about to watch it.

17:35

What a coincidence.

17:37

Yeah, something's in the air. Billy

17:39

Wilder is like, I've been seeing

17:41

that a lot of my friends are watching his stuff on letterbox.

17:44

I'm like, I don't know what it is, but he's back. He's back,

17:46

He's.

17:47

Back his ghost.

17:48

I hope the farce is back. I feel like it's been a

17:50

slow push and return

17:53

to farce appreciation.

17:55

I have a lot of reason to think that Farce

17:58

is coming back.

17:59

God that would fucking rock.

18:01

Yeah, I hope. So, not

18:03

to brag or anything, but Jamie and I

18:05

moderated a Q and a panel

18:08

for bottoms and bottoms

18:10

feels very farcy to

18:12

me.

18:13

Oh, I've got to see it. I still haven't seen it,

18:15

but that is a good argument for me to see

18:17

it now.

18:18

Yeah, it's aesome.

18:19

One of the things that my you know, not

18:21

to defer to what a man says, but

18:24

one of the things that my that my husband

18:26

said that as we've been talking about Farce just

18:29

sort of incessantly for the last year and a half,

18:31

is he was like, I feel like

18:33

the fact that maximalism is so

18:35

big now means that it

18:38

is the right time for first to come back,

18:40

because fars movies are about

18:42

like just so many plots

18:44

coming in and coming together, like it's

18:47

things piled on things. But again, this

18:49

movie is not a farce.

18:50

Right, But we'll cover more

18:52

farces in the future on

18:55

the podcasts. We

18:58

will, Jamie, what is your history

19:00

with The Apartment?

19:02

Oh, I have a pretty extensive

19:04

history with this movie. I know

19:06

that because we just covered Sunset Boulevard.

19:08

I will glaze over it quickly. But

19:11

I took a class

19:13

in college bravely

19:15

called Wilder, Allen and Kaufman,

19:19

a concept that has aged really

19:21

well across the board. But

19:24

where, oh my cat's here? Where

19:28

everyone Casper is present? Casper?

19:31

Okay, listeners. Casper's

19:33

newer to the mix, so you might be on a first

19:35

name basis with him, as you are with Flea. However,

19:39

Casper's superpower is

19:41

that he can watch whole

19:44

movies with me. He can sit motionless

19:46

for two hours, eyes locked

19:49

like Casp. I made him a letterboxed

19:51

account because he is watching it.

19:56

His system is five stars

19:59

if he did fall asleep, one

20:01

star if he did And

20:03

that's his system. But we watched

20:06

The Apartment.

20:07

Wow.

20:08

But yeah, no, I took a class where there was

20:10

a whole sort of like section. We

20:12

talked about Billy Wilder movies for a month

20:14

and I really really loved it.

20:16

The Alan portion of the class I got in trouble

20:19

a couple of times, but the Wilder

20:21

part was my favorite. I really

20:24

kind of fell in love with Sunset Boulevard.

20:26

I really loved the Apartment. I mean we were sort of covering

20:29

the hits. I wish we had been encouraged to watch

20:31

the b sides. Maybe we were and I was

20:34

drunk, I don't know, like I was twenty,

20:36

I don't know.

20:37

Yeah, but the.

20:38

Apartment was one of my favorites

20:41

that we covered. I really loved it.

20:43

I had never seen a movie quite like

20:46

it at the time, And

20:49

yeah, I have watched it a couple of

20:51

times over the years since then, and

20:53

it very least cemented

20:56

my permanent and enduring love

20:58

of Shirley maclain. Just

21:01

such a rare, wonderful

21:03

like every era of her career

21:06

is unbelievable.

21:07

I mean, especially for me, who, like,

21:10

for the first thirty years of my life, the

21:12

only thing I knew about Shirley McLain

21:15

I knew from the Animaniacs opening

21:17

theme songs that she maybe

21:20

uses a crystal ball that was all

21:23

about her that for many years,

21:25

it's still the first thing I think about when

21:27

I hear her name, because I was just the

21:30

exact right age for the animaniacs

21:32

to imprint on me that same Shirley

21:34

McLain was like a woo woo

21:36

psychic god bless.

21:38

I remember that now, but I haven't thought about that

21:40

in like twenty years. That's

21:43

so before college.

21:45

I wasn't familiar with anything she had done

21:47

when she was younger. And she's

21:49

incredible in this movie. I really love.

21:52

I feel like, for its time, it's doing so many

21:54

things that no movies are doing, which is how I feel

21:57

about most Billy Wilder movies. And

22:00

yeah, I really enjoyed this movie. I was really

22:02

excited that you wanted to revisit

22:05

it with us, And there's so much to talk

22:07

about. I mean, there's stuff that

22:09

this movie does that feels very dated,

22:11

but there's a lot of stuff this movie does that I feel

22:13

like rarely shows up in movies.

22:16

Now it's wild It's

22:18

Wilder, we

22:20

have to do that.

22:21

Every time we do.

22:23

Or or Billy Wilder's ghost

22:26

who is just haunting the world

22:28

and compelling us to watch all of his movies

22:31

will kill us.

22:32

He's so back. Yeah,

22:35

it's true. We are being haunted by Billy

22:37

Wilder's ghost. That's just

22:39

like a new marketing thing we're trying. Long

22:42

story short, I really love and appreciate this

22:44

movie. Can't Live was your history with The Apartment?

22:47

I had only seen it once before in

22:50

my span of the

22:53

two or three years where I was in undergrad

22:56

getting my first of many degrees

22:58

in film. I don't talk

23:01

about it as much because it's not nearly as

23:03

impressive as my master's degree in screenwriting

23:05

from Boston University. It is exceptional,

23:08

thank you so much.

23:10

Never done anything like it.

23:13

In any case. When I was in undergrad, I

23:16

took it upon myself to just try to watch

23:18

basically every movie that was

23:20

ever referenced in any of my textbooks

23:22

or just that had any historical

23:25

significance. So I would watch like three

23:27

movies a day. I don't know how I managed

23:29

it, because these days it takes me three days

23:31

to watch a movie. And

23:34

so I watched The Apartment, and

23:37

it's not my favorite among Billy

23:39

Wilder's OOVRA. I

23:42

think it's because I

23:44

find Jack Lemon's character to

23:46

be a spineless

23:49

pooh poo head wow,

23:52

get his ass, I will.

23:54

I just he rubbed me the wrong

23:56

way. And I

23:59

love Shirley McLay, but her character,

24:01

I just wish she was more active or just was

24:04

given the opportunity to be more active in this movie.

24:06

There were things about it that didn't appeal

24:09

to my sensibilities very much. So I

24:11

think it's a good movie, and I think it's well written in everything.

24:13

But if I have to

24:16

choose a movie that I want that I'm

24:18

gonna have a fun time watching, it's probably

24:20

not going to be The Apartment.

24:23

Sorry.

24:24

Well, to be fair, I don't think anyone's coming

24:26

to this movie for a fun time necessarily.

24:29

Yeah. Yeah, Yeah.

24:30

It's chocolate Block with characters where you're

24:32

like you want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them

24:34

and be like what are you doing?

24:36

Yes?

24:36

Yeah, CC In particular, you're

24:38

just like, oh my god, we are still

24:41

caping for like mister Pep

24:44

at this late hour in the movie, we're still

24:46

like, well, maybe mister Pep is a good guy.

24:48

Yeah, CC Baxter more like Pep Baxter.

24:51

See, I wouldn't go that far. I don't

24:54

hate CEC. I like CC. I feel like he

24:56

grows a lot. I don't think that the

24:58

end line of the movie is good. The ending

25:01

of the movie is very movie.

25:03

I don't know.

25:03

We'll talk about it.

25:05

Yeah, it's sort of like it

25:07

belongs in the sort

25:09

of like historical canon of

25:12

the like nice guy protagonists

25:15

like nice Guy are

25:17

slash nice guys.

25:19

Uh.

25:20

But I felt like it was weirdly like

25:23

a better take on that than like even

25:26

more modern films like you

25:28

root for him more than you do for like Ducky

25:30

from.

25:31

Like Yes, I was thinking

25:33

about Pretty in Pink a lot during

25:35

this movie. Okay, I mean,

25:37

I guess partially just because this movie is

25:39

now my dad's age,

25:42

dosing him much

25:45

like CC docs and stocks

25:47

fran Oh god. Yeah,

25:50

So I mean it's like old and it's hard

25:52

to not watch this movie by like not

25:54

comparing it to other movies.

25:57

But yeah, I feel like CC is at least a

25:59

more well. He is deeply imperfect,

26:01

and I feel like let off the hook for things that

26:03

a modern good movie would

26:06

not let him off the hook for. I

26:08

still think he's like doing laps around

26:11

the quote unquote underdog

26:14

loser characters of the eighties who

26:16

are like, you know, Revenge of the nerds,

26:18

like murdering and assaulting

26:20

women and still coming out on top

26:23

where it's a bad

26:25

yardstick.

26:26

Yeah, you get the feeling that he doesn't feel

26:28

as entitled to anything like

26:31

Yeah, he still wants it to go a different

26:33

way, but it feels like he takes no

26:35

for an answer a little bit better than

26:38

other movie characters. Still not as

26:40

well as he should but

26:42

better. Yeah.

26:43

Better.

26:44

We'll get into CC.

26:46

Yeah.

26:47

Yeah, there's so much to talk I mean, this movie has

26:49

shades of gray that are like challenging

26:52

in ways that I'm like, I don't know if they were intended

26:54

to be challenging at the time, but I'm excited

26:56

to talk about it.

26:57

Yeah. So let's take a quick

27:00

break and then we'll come back for the

27:02

recap. And

27:14

we're back, okay, So here

27:16

is the recap for the Apartment.

27:19

I will place a content warning at

27:21

the top here for suicide.

27:24

So we are in New

27:27

York City. Ever heard

27:29

of it? And it's

27:32

about the same time that the movie came out. The

27:34

movie came out in nineteen sixty I think the movie takes place

27:36

in late nineteen fifty nine. We

27:39

are getting voiceover from C.

27:41

C. Baxter play by Jack

27:43

Lemon. He works at a

27:45

large insurance company, and he

27:47

often stays late at the office until

27:50

it's all right for him to go home

27:52

because he rents

27:54

out his apartment the

27:57

titular apartment too,

28:00

and then from his company who

28:02

are having extramarital affairs

28:04

and who need a discreete place

28:07

to fuck.

28:08

Right.

28:09

But he's kind of like renting for

28:12

aspirational cloud, Like he is

28:14

not charging for this service,

28:17

right while he is fully stocking,

28:20

like he's providing the services

28:22

of the Marriotte, but

28:25

he is not being paid. It seems like

28:28

he's working ahead a loss. It's like doing stand up comedy,

28:30

right.

28:31

Yeah, it's sort of the rotisserie chicken

28:33

at Costco where you're like, it's a lost

28:36

leader, but it gets people in the door, exactly

28:39

same with the hot dogs.

28:41

I was curious if he was charging

28:44

or what. But I'm also like, I don't think

28:46

so. These men are

28:48

all higher above him

28:51

in this like hierarchy at the

28:53

office. They presumably get paid better. They're

28:55

like, you know, middle or up or management.

28:57

Why don't they just like go split se

29:00

on an apartment that they

29:02

would have more easy access to. I

29:04

don't know. I had some logistical questions.

29:06

I was thinking about that the whole movie,

29:09

and I think it really it ultimately boils

29:11

down to the fact that, like, it

29:14

probably just started with one guy and

29:16

then it snowballed. Yeah, So I

29:19

think at if the movie took place over

29:21

a longer period of time, we'd eventually get to the point

29:23

where it's like, you guys, just get your own place, you

29:25

know, seriously, But we're at a moment

29:27

in this guy's life where it has just sort

29:29

of gotten a little out of control,

29:32

and it was maybe a more manageable number

29:35

of people before.

29:36

I was wondering about that, and I was also

29:38

like, I mean, I think probably ultimately

29:41

the apartment thing is just a you know,

29:43

a movie thing to keep you in the

29:45

story. But logistically, yeah,

29:48

logistically it's troubling, and

29:50

I'm like, are we.

29:52

To believe, which I do believe that all

29:54

of these upper executives are like

29:57

not firing enough

29:59

sign aps to understand that they should

30:01

all share a spot if

30:03

this is the case, And.

30:05

Also that CC probably wouldn't point

30:07

that out to them because

30:10

he wants to be promoted, and that's

30:12

like his whole journey is

30:14

that it takes him so deep in the movie

30:17

to give up this idea

30:19

of professional advancement regardless

30:21

of like who gets hurt or

30:23

deceived along the way. They should

30:25

just all rent an apartment, Like it seems like

30:27

they can afford it.

30:29

That's what I kept thinking.

30:30

Yeah, but I guess I was like location is everything

30:33

or something?

30:36

Right, the apartment is one of the characters.

30:39

Well, I do think that they are also probably I

30:41

don't know if it was explicit or not, but like some

30:44

of these men do sort

30:46

of pretend like like it's their apartment.

30:49

Yes, that too, Like there is

30:51

an amount of deception there are, Like I

30:53

think some of the women who end up there are

30:55

people for whom, like going

30:57

to a hotel would maybe raise alarm bells that these

30:59

guys don't want to raise.

31:01

True, right, I was wondering.

31:02

I was like credit card statements? Was that a thing

31:05

in nineteen sixteen? Credit

31:09

cards?

31:10

Their wives would not get to see

31:12

what they were spending their money on, like that

31:14

part of it where I was like, no, that would they would very easily

31:16

be able to do that.

31:17

But in any case,

31:20

so we've got the sex apartment

31:22

that CC Baxter is like borrowing

31:25

out, not even renting out his

31:28

neighbors, including a doctor.

31:30

Dreyfus are always like, hey,

31:32

Baxter, what's going on in there?

31:35

It sounds like you're constantly fucking

31:38

you sneaky little slut.

31:40

And he's also like that's me. He's

31:43

like, yep, mister fuck

31:48

I thought that was a really funny runner.

31:51

I mean it is. It ties into like the

31:53

greater thieves of masculinity that surround

31:55

this movie, but the fact that he at every opportunity

31:58

even when it gets you know, in sometime he's

32:00

being valiant about it, but other times it's

32:02

like he doesn't mind being thought of

32:04

as mister fuck right.

32:08

Oh yeah, okay. So then Baxter

32:10

arrives home after one

32:13

such night where he has let

32:15

a guy use his apartment.

32:18

In this case, it's Al Kirkby,

32:21

someone from upper management at his company,

32:24

and Kirkaby is like, yeah,

32:26

I'll put in a good word for you for this

32:28

possible promotion. Later

32:31

that night, another guy who Baxter works

32:33

with this is mister Dobish, calls

32:36

and he's like, hey, I met this

32:38

woman who looks like Marilyn Monroe

32:40

and I need to fuck her immediately, get

32:43

out of bed, even though it's eleven o'clock,

32:45

and let me use your apartment.

32:46

Right, which is like a winky nod

32:49

to the fact that Billy Wildser just worked

32:51

with Marilyn Monroe the previous year and

32:53

some like get hot and also

32:56

seven year itch.

32:57

I don't know when the seven year itch came out. I think

32:59

it was before this could be anything.

33:01

I think it was the fifties. Anyways,

33:03

like it would seem more misogynousts

33:06

than it is if you didn't know that they

33:08

had this working relationship.

33:10

True in any case, Baxter

33:13

gets out of bed, he goes and waits outside,

33:16

but mister Dobish leaves

33:19

the wrong key after he leaves,

33:21

so Baxter can't get back into his apartment,

33:24

and he catches a cold. So the next

33:26

day at work, he's like all sniffily and

33:29

he chats to the

33:32

elevator operator fran Kubilick

33:35

played by Shirley maclain, and

33:37

they're talking about colds, and it's

33:39

like kind of flirty, or at least he's trying

33:41

to be flirty with her.

33:43

It's flirty, it's friendy.

33:45

I feel like he is like

33:48

many men before him, and people of

33:50

all genders, but I will single out men

33:52

in this regard, interpreting

33:55

friendly behavior.

33:56

As romantic interest.

33:58

She's obsessed with me.

34:00

Yeah, yes, that does tend

34:02

to happen, doesn't it. And then Al

34:05

Kirkaby, the guy from the night before,

34:07

is like, oh, Baxter, I saw

34:09

you talking to miss Kouba. Look, I'd

34:12

like to take her out, but she always

34:14

refuses my advances for some reason.

34:17

And it's like, yeah, maybe because you regularly

34:20

assault her.

34:20

We just saw you assault her. Yeah.

34:24

So then Baxter

34:26

cancels the sex appointment

34:29

that night for this other

34:31

guy because he wents to stay home and rest

34:33

because of his cold. So

34:35

he has to make all these adjustments

34:38

with the sex apartment schedule to

34:40

shift people around, and then he

34:42

gets called to the office of

34:45

mister Sheldrake played by

34:47

Fred McMurray, who we

34:50

talked about in the Double Indemnity

34:53

episode. Oh yes, yes, in

34:55

any case. So he's the head of personnel at

34:57

the insurance company, and Baxter's

35:01

like, Hm, is this about my promotion

35:03

that's been floated? And

35:06

then mister Sheldrake is like, I

35:08

know all about your little arrangement

35:11

with your sex apartment, and I want

35:13

in on it too.

35:15

He's a dog. I think that one

35:17

of the great bait and switches this movie

35:19

does is like, really, expose

35:21

mister Sheldrike for how slick

35:24

he thinks he is versus

35:26

how slick he actually is, where

35:28

he's like, I'm not like the other men

35:31

that have no respect for my wife.

35:34

I'm built different and like he isn't

35:37

And the movie knows that. And I think

35:39

the way that that rolls out is really smart.

35:42

Yeah, they really misdirect what

35:45

his feelings are going to be about the apartment, Like

35:47

you feel like he's in trouble at first for

35:49

what he's doing, which sets

35:52

him up as a person with like integrity

35:55

even though he's immediately about to be like I also

35:57

want it right, Yeah right.

36:00

I mean it's clear that he thinks he's

36:02

better than the other men,

36:04

who are also like deceiving both.

36:07

I feel like this movie does a good job of the twohander

36:10

like deceiving their their

36:12

wives and also deceiving

36:16

the women that they are with by

36:18

just lying out their asses

36:20

all the time. True, but shell Drake

36:23

kind of the worst of all because he thinks he's smart.

36:25

At least the other guys don't seem to be

36:28

suffering that delution.

36:31

Yeah, it's hard to tell. We don't get to know

36:33

them.

36:34

Very well, but their comic relief.

36:36

Yeah, right. So then

36:38

Baxter catches on and he gives

36:41

shell Drake the key for

36:43

that night in exchange for

36:46

two tickets to see The Music

36:48

Man. So Baxter is like,

36:51

hey, miss Kuberlic, do you want

36:53

to go with me to the play?

36:56

And she agrees to meet him there,

36:58

but first she's like,

37:00

I have to go meet an old boyfriend

37:03

for a drink. And it turns out to be

37:06

mister shell Drake, who she had

37:08

had an affair with over this summer. But

37:11

again, he's married, and it

37:14

seems pretty clear that that relationship

37:16

was never going to go anywhere between Fran and

37:18

shell Drake, but he's also trying to rekindle

37:21

things and he's like, no, I am

37:23

gonna divorce my wife actually, And

37:26

Fran still loves him

37:29

and she wants to spend time with him, so

37:31

she bails on the date with Baxter to see

37:33

the Music Man, and she goes off

37:35

with shell Drake two Baxter's

37:38

apartment, not knowing it's Baxter's

37:41

apartment. We cut to

37:43

Baxter being stood up at the

37:45

theater and he's all sad and

37:49

he doesn't know either that you

37:51

know, Fran is at his apartment with

37:53

another man.

37:54

You know it's the worst. I had this sort of

37:56

instinct like when have you ever

37:58

been watching TV? And then you do

38:00

the very like annoying modern thing where

38:02

you like swipe at something

38:05

that cannot be swiped at, be

38:07

like next thing. I

38:10

was like, she should have texted him,

38:12

And I was like, now, hold on, my

38:16

father is an infant, Like there

38:19

is no way

38:21

for her to reach out. Never mind.

38:26

It's true. So then at

38:28

work, Baxter has gotten his

38:30

promotion that he's been promised,

38:33

and he moves into his own office,

38:36

but he also starts kind of withholding

38:38

access to the sex apartment for

38:41

those like four men who helped

38:43

him get the promotion, and

38:46

he's withholding this access to everyone except

38:48

for mister Sheldrake. There's this

38:50

scene where Baxter's

38:52

like, hey, Sheldrake, I think your lady

38:55

friend left this broken

38:57

compact mirror at my

38:59

apartment.

39:00

And Chekhov's broken compact

39:02

mirror. That is exactly

39:04

and also it doubles as a little

39:07

metaphor for the state of the human

39:09

condition. Hello what

39:13

I'm cheering, and that.

39:14

She probably considers herself permanently

39:17

damaged by this relationship in a way that cannot

39:19

be repaired.

39:20

Yeah.

39:21

Wow, I was like, Wow, that's the moment

39:24

Billy Wilder won his oscar for this one

39:27

broken mirror to represent damaged

39:29

character. Boom, what what critics

39:33

are calling it subtle? It's wild

39:37

it's wilder, It's really

39:39

wilder.

39:40

Yes, So Baxter

39:43

doesn't know that shel Drake's

39:46

lady love is Fran still

39:48

until the holiday

39:50

party a few weeks later, where Fran lends

39:53

Baxter the same broken

39:55

mirror so that he can look at his ugly

39:58

bowler hat. Got sorry

40:01

about it.

40:02

That bowler hat really

40:04

cracked me up. He's

40:06

like, I'm a big shot. Now check out my new

40:08

hat. And it's like, you look like

40:11

Charlie Chaplin.

40:12

Now, yeah, yeah, I wrote down

40:14

red flag there when

40:16

a guy gets really drunk, He's like, check out

40:19

this cool hat I bought.

40:20

Should we go out run

40:23

away?

40:23

Yeah? No, is

40:26

like a sign of hubris to

40:28

be like I'm trying a new kind of hat.

40:30

It's a sign that the character is like on

40:32

a decline morally.

40:36

Yeah, he's gotta like let someone else fix

40:39

him and you know, circle back in a

40:41

couple of years see how he's doing.

40:43

Yeah, for sure. But Baxter

40:45

sees the broken mirror that Fran has and he

40:47

puts two and two together.

40:50

Meanwhile, Fran is very sad

40:53

because mister Sheldrake's secretary

40:55

just told Fran about the several

40:58

other women who he has had affairs

41:00

with over the years and

41:03

who he has lied to about

41:05

how he's going to divorce his

41:07

wife for them, so

41:10

Fran is really upset. Baxter

41:12

is really upset because his

41:14

crush is sleeping with his boss,

41:17

so he leaves the party and

41:20

he goes to a bar and gets super drunk.

41:23

Meanwhile, at Baxter's apartment, Fran

41:25

is there with shel Drake and she's crying

41:28

because of his shitty behavior.

41:30

He has to leave to catch a train to

41:32

be with his wife, and Fran

41:35

stays behind. We kind

41:37

of cut back to Baxter, who's coming

41:40

back to his apartment with a woman he met

41:42

at the bar. He discovers

41:44

Fran in bed. She has taken

41:47

a lot of sleeping pills and she's not waking

41:49

up, so Baxter panics.

41:51

He goes and calls the doctor neighbor

41:53

over to his apartment. The doctor

41:56

saves Fran's life, and

41:59

Baxter calls shell Drake

42:01

and tells him about the incident, but shell

42:03

Drake doesn't really want to be bothered

42:05

with it, especially it's Christmas Day, spending

42:08

the day with his family, And

42:10

finally Fran wakes up and

42:13

Baxter tends to her. He gets

42:15

her fed, they play cards

42:18

together, but she still feels

42:20

awful, both physically and emotionally,

42:23

and she's still in love with and heartbroken

42:26

over shell Drake. Meanwhile,

42:29

Fran's family is worried because they haven't

42:31

seen or heard from her in a couple

42:33

days.

42:33

Which I'm like, that's one of the things

42:35

with me. For Baxter, I'm

42:38

just like, you gotta like I understand. He's

42:40

like, well, you know, don't call

42:43

people while you are like before

42:45

you kind of get your head back on straight sort

42:48

of. But then at some point it's starting

42:50

to like before her brother

42:52

in law arrives and he sucks as well,

42:55

but like before her brother in law rise,

42:57

it's starting to feel somewhat

42:59

hostile. Yes, where it feels

43:01

like like a baby it's cold outside

43:04

style hostage. Yeah,

43:06

where he's like, well, you

43:08

know, you're not quite ready.

43:11

I mean he's covering Sheldrake's ass, like

43:13

exactly.

43:14

Yeah.

43:14

He knows that the discretion of the situation

43:17

will affect his relationship with Sheldrake,

43:19

so it's not purely like him

43:21

taking care of her. It's him being like, I have to

43:23

keep her quiet about this.

43:25

Yeah, yeah, I kind

43:27

of On this watch it was like, Wow, Baxter

43:29

is like a cad deeper into

43:32

this movie than I remembered.

43:34

That's why I don't like him very much

43:37

anyway, So her family's

43:39

worried about her. Her brother in law, Carl,

43:42

finds out where Fran is and he shows up

43:44

at Baxter's apartment assumes that Baxter

43:46

is a sleazy guy who's taking advantage

43:49

of Fran, which isn't exactly right,

43:51

but you know, Baxter is no

43:53

saint in this situation and any case,

43:56

Carl punches Baxter and takes

43:58

Fran home, and Baxter

44:00

is all like, damn, I'm in

44:02

love with Fran. So

44:05

the next day he goes to work prepared

44:07

to confront shell Drake and tell

44:09

him that he should forget about

44:12

Fran because Baxter wants to be with

44:14

her. But shell Drake is like,

44:16

actually, my wife left

44:19

me because she found out about all my affairs,

44:22

So I'm going to be with Fran.

44:24

By the way, here's another big promotion for

44:27

all your trouble.

44:28

This scene is so fucked in, so

44:30

many different directions that it's wild

44:32

but like it's wilder, wilder. I'm

44:34

sorry, sorry, it's wilder, but

44:37

yeah, I mean particularly, I was

44:39

like sort of surprised by the

44:41

sort of like nakedness that mister

44:44

Sheldrake presents, like, well, obviously,

44:46

if I'm alone, I

44:49

will die, so

44:51

because I've been rejected by someone

44:54

rightfully, I must enter this

44:56

new relationship under false pretenses,

44:58

and like he just presents it like of

45:01

course, of course said.

45:02

It's gonna happen.

45:03

Yeah.

45:04

What I really appreciated about this scene

45:06

too, is that, like you get into it

45:08

with watching CC practicing

45:11

the speech she's gonna give to Sheldrake

45:14

of like, I'll take her off your hands for

45:16

you. And whenever you see someone practicing

45:18

a speech they're about to give, you know that they're

45:20

not going to successfully give the speech, right,

45:23

good trope, and so you kind of watch

45:25

that being like, Okay, I get it, we're not

45:27

going to hear this, like, but then you

45:29

do hear the speech, it's just that shell Drake

45:32

says the exact same words. He's like, I'll take

45:34

her off your hands, And I thought that that

45:36

was like an impressive way of like subverting

45:39

that trope to make it

45:41

feel new, and I was

45:43

just like, wow, that's really skillful, because I

45:45

was kind of rolling my eyes.

45:47

Yeah, and no, I'm not anymore.

45:49

Totally, I mean, and I feel like it

45:52

gets at something that I think this movie's

45:54

doing really well, which is like drawing

45:57

your attention to the fact that they both

45:59

view her as meat. But

46:02

yeah, they view themselves somewhat

46:04

differently. They both think that they're ultimately good people,

46:07

and neither of them are consulting

46:10

with the woman that they are laying claim

46:12

to, like she is property in both of

46:14

their eyes, and both of them think,

46:16

well, the way that I view her as property

46:19

is good.

46:20

Yeah, right, which is obviously a major

46:22

reflection of the mentality

46:25

of the time and how women

46:27

were viewed by most men.

46:29

Totally, but it's frustrating

46:32

to watch. Nonetheless. Anyway,

46:34

Baxter takes the promotion that shell

46:36

Drake offers, but sometime

46:39

later, Baxter bumps into Fran at

46:41

work. She's gotten back together with shell

46:43

Drake, who is making arrangements

46:45

to divorce his wife and

46:47

to marry Fran allegedly, and

46:51

Baxter's like, oh, yeah,

46:54

I was just using shell Drake this whole

46:56

time to get a promotion, I don't even care

46:58

about you being with shell

47:01

Drake, and also I have a big date tonight.

47:03

We find out he's lying about all of this.

47:06

Then there's a conversation between Baxter

47:08

and shell Drake where shell Drake wants

47:10

to borrow the key to Baxter's apartment

47:12

again so he can take Fran there. But

47:15

Baxter has finally had enough

47:18

so he quits. He

47:20

goes home and packs up the

47:22

apartment. He doesn't

47:24

know what he's gonna do, but he just knows he has

47:27

to get out of this place. Meanwhile,

47:29

Fran is at a New Year's Eve celebration

47:32

with shell Drake, and

47:34

he's all like, we're gonna go to Atlantic

47:36

City to go to a hotel tonight

47:38

because Baxter won't even give me

47:40

the key to his apartment anymore, especially

47:43

if I'm taking you there the apartment

47:46

his the apartment. And she's

47:48

like, wait a minute, does that mean that Baxter

47:51

loves me? So she runs

47:53

through the streets as everyone is ringing

47:55

in the New Year, and I'm like, okay. When

47:58

Harry met Sally certain saw

48:00

this movie and has

48:02

some homage to pay. And

48:05

Fran goes to Baxter's apartment and

48:07

he's like, Wow, I'm so glad you're here. I

48:09

love you, and she's like uh huh.

48:11

And then they finished their card game from earlier,

48:14

and then I guess they're gonna be together

48:16

the end.

48:18

Woooooooo see.

48:21

I actually interpreted her hearing that

48:24

Baxter had quit his job less

48:26

as like, oh, my god, he loves me. I feel like she

48:28

knows he loves her throughout. I

48:30

took this to me and her being like, oh, he decided

48:33

to stop being complicit in this

48:35

horrible scheme.

48:36

Yeah.

48:37

Maybe it's giving the movie too

48:39

much credit, but to me, I sort of felt like the

48:42

movie was not like sympathetic

48:45

to Baxter's complicity

48:47

in it. It's like, only once he decides

48:50

to stop being complicit in it does he get

48:52

what he wants.

48:53

True. I think that interpretation works

48:56

well. I was interpreted interpretating

48:58

wow, okay, awesome job,

49:01

Caitlin with your brain interpret

49:05

well, Now, I don't know what the word is interpreting

49:11

likes okay. So

49:14

I thought that because

49:20

because you see her face

49:22

like lighten up as he's like, yeah,

49:24

he won't even give me the key anymore,

49:27

especially if I'm taking

49:29

you there. So maybe it's

49:31

like a combination of both because she's

49:34

like, oh wait, he doesn't want

49:36

me to be with another man. He

49:38

wants to be with me. But

49:41

I might just be having too simple

49:43

of an interpretation.

49:48

Yeay,

49:51

Kaitlyn. I feel like both reads, if it

49:53

makes sense. And I also think that it

49:56

feels kind of intended that it's left

49:58

a little bit open ended, because if it it wasn't

50:00

intended to be open ended, I feel like you would have gotten,

50:02

you know, like a kiss or something.

50:06

All we really know is that she is like

50:08

willing to I think the most generous

50:10

read I was able to get to on the

50:14

ending, which I didn't love, but the

50:16

ending shot is such a banger, Like it's

50:18

hard to not love the ending shot,

50:21

but yeah, the most generous read I was able

50:23

to get to is that at very

50:25

least Shirley McLean's character is

50:28

really happy that he

50:30

did not sell her out. Further,

50:33

I think like, I think that it could be seen

50:35

as like, Wow, this is the first time

50:38

in at least the course of this movie

50:40

and possibly her adult life, that

50:42

she has not been put

50:45

out as property

50:47

and as an opportunity versus

50:49

a person. And I feel like that connects back

50:51

to like the be men, sh be a human being

50:54

theme that the movie seems to want to do. But

50:56

I also think you're supposed to think they get together

50:58

at the end of As with

51:01

many movies, I sort of hope that

51:03

the ending to this movie is that they hook

51:06

up for a month and then break up and remain

51:08

friends. That's my wish for most couples

51:10

in most movies, is that they fucked for a

51:12

month and stay friends for their whole lives.

51:17

Yeah. I mean to me, I'm like, the happy ending

51:19

of this movie is not that they get together. It's

51:21

that she is allowed

51:24

to consider that there

51:26

is something else that's possible outside

51:28

of the system that she has

51:30

been sort of ground down to accept.

51:33

True. Yeah, I agree. Let's discuss

51:35

further after this break.

51:38

Woo

51:49

and we're back where back

51:51

Emily, where would you like to start

51:53

the discussion?

51:54

What's jumping out to you?

51:56

Oh?

51:56

My gosh, I don't even know where to start. I

51:58

mean, the first thing that I want to say about this movie

52:01

is that I just I really appreciated how

52:03

everything was paying something off, Like

52:06

there was nothing new introduced

52:09

that was like important that we didn't already know about,

52:11

Like even the sleeping pills, where it's

52:14

like they're introduced when he's

52:16

like, I can't give you the Apartment tonight.

52:18

I'm sick. I already took a sleeping pill, like,

52:21

and it doesn't feel clunky. It feels like, oh,

52:23

it's serving a purpose there. You don't expect it to come

52:25

back. But then when it does come back, when she takes

52:27

the full bottle, You're like, oh, that

52:29

was just so efficient, so well

52:32

done, very good writing.

52:34

Yeah, and the mirror coming back.

52:36

This wilder, he's got a big future

52:38

ahead. Yeah.

52:41

And I also love the like that's

52:45

how it crumbles cookie wise, Oh

52:48

my.

52:48

Gosh, I was thinking, was anyone

52:50

anyone in the chat a big fan

52:53

of Bruce Almighty?

52:56

Wouldn't call myself a big fan.

52:59

I've seen it, Okay, for all my brust

53:01

almighty heads. That's how the cookie

53:03

crumbles is very much

53:05

the Jim Carrey character's slogan

53:08

throughout the movie. And I

53:11

believe that it is a clear

53:13

reference to The Apartment.

53:14

Oh it could be the end.

53:16

Brussel Mighty heads shout out wow.

53:19

But I was feeling the Brusse Almighty

53:21

the movie. Had seen Apartment the movie.

53:24

I mean a lot of movies have seen the

53:26

movie The Apartment when Harry

53:28

met Sally.

53:29

Movies are people, and that's

53:31

how we engage with them.

53:33

One thing that I

53:35

appreciate about this movie is that I think

53:37

it's a good example of how men

53:41

fail upwards and get promotions

53:44

that they don't deserve, and how women

53:46

are often overlooked for promotions

53:49

and opportunities in general, because

53:51

men are obsessed with looking

53:54

out for each other when they engage in

53:56

bad behavior. And I think that's

53:59

one of the many reasons that the patriarchy

54:02

has perpetuated itself for

54:05

centuries. I don't think the movie is commenting

54:07

on that, but it is presenting

54:10

it.

54:11

I think it is like presenting it pretty

54:13

effectively. I don't know how I

54:16

would suggest it be shifted, but I feel like, yeah,

54:18

you're given many elements

54:20

of this like workplace patriarchy,

54:23

and as a viewer, like you're sort

54:25

of expected to put it together yourself.

54:27

The movie doesn't really do that, and

54:29

then at moments I think it kind of fails its characters.

54:32

But it's weird because I feel like there is

54:34

like all these shades of gray where it's based on what

54:36

we see of CC Baxter, Like it's

54:39

not that he is bad at his job,

54:41

it's that he recognizes that

54:43

the only way to get ahead is

54:46

to cater to everyone

54:49

around him's basest, worst,

54:51

most manipulative instincts to

54:53

the people around them, and he's fine with that. So

54:55

it's like a lot of male

54:57

characters we've talked about over the years, he

55:00

is both subject

55:02

to the patriarchy because he's so in

55:04

the middle, and he's also being

55:06

uplifted by it at the same time and

55:09

is okay with that.

55:11

Right, And you see the alternative. He has

55:13

that coworker who works at the next desk over,

55:15

who's been there longer than him, who

55:18

has done probably more better work

55:20

than him, because he's so distracted taking

55:22

care of the apartment anyway, we.

55:24

Don't see him work ever.

55:25

Yeah, and that guy is never

55:27

going to get a promotion, and he begrudgingly

55:31

congratulates Ceci when he gets

55:33

the promotion that he earned through dubious

55:36

means. And you recognize

55:38

that, like, the alternative to participating

55:41

in the sort of corrupt hierarchy of

55:43

this institution is just languishing in

55:46

the position that you're in. And so it

55:48

both like lets Baxter off the hook

55:50

for his choices in some way, but

55:53

it also indicts the institution.

55:55

Right, Yeah, and then I feel like, on Frand's

55:57

side, I'm curious what everyone thinks about it, because

55:59

I didn't remember that they tell

56:02

you that she did have higher

56:04

career aspirations but was

56:06

held back, which it

56:08

seems like she I mean, I would guess that she and

56:12

Baxter are like they're intellectually

56:14

matched, but Baxter

56:17

has the credentials the

56:20

fact that he is a white man and the fact that

56:22

he because he's a white man, he has the opportunities

56:25

to advance. And they were like, well,

56:27

sorry, you like can't spell well

56:29

enough, so you're stuck in this

56:32

very feminized working class position

56:35

of this time indefinitely,

56:37

which seems to be I mean, among other

56:39

things. But it does seem that like part

56:42

of her depression comes from the

56:44

fact that the world that she's in

56:46

does not offer her opportunities

56:49

for advancement, like nefarious

56:52

or otherwise.

56:55

I mean, I also wonder what the implication

56:57

was supposed to be of the fact that, like, Baxter's

57:00

neighbors are Jews, and

57:04

there was like a class implication there that like,

57:06

even though that guy is a doctor, they

57:08

live in this like kind of shitty apartment building

57:10

with this bachelor and there

57:13

is like for him and

57:16

for why can't I remember her name,

57:19

Shirley McLean's character, Why can't I go for

57:22

Fran Yeah, that they both don't

57:24

have the same privileges that other people

57:26

around them do, and so they are kind

57:28

of like scraping to get by. Yeah.

57:31

I was curious about that too. I mean, I know that

57:33

Billy Wilder was a Jewish

57:36

writer and included other

57:38

Jewish characters in his films.

57:41

I don't know. I mean that sort of brings me into like

57:44

some of the context for the way that

57:46

this movie was produced. There's not a ton

57:48

of it that I think is super relevant to talk

57:50

about. But the things that I guess

57:52

I would want to talk about is the fact that like Billy

57:55

Wilder had like started in

57:58

noir and you know, like did

58:00

Double Indemnity in the fifties. He does all

58:02

of these wacky comedies, and then in the sixties.

58:05

It seems like this is the first example

58:07

of him getting

58:10

two ideas he wanted to produce in the

58:12

forties but wasn't allowed to because

58:14

of the Hayes Code until the sixties.

58:17

So this was like an idea he'd been noodling around

58:19

with since the forties,

58:23

but this was the first time he actually

58:25

got clearance to

58:28

do it, and I don't know, I wasn't able to

58:30

find a lot about the writing

58:33

of the movie itself. It was co written

58:35

with a common collaborator,

58:37

Il Diamond. This movie takes place

58:39

in nineteen fifty nine, but it also feels like

58:41

a little bit out of time.

58:44

Yeah, I mean, it feels

58:46

really modern in a lot of ways, and it's sort of

58:48

like cynicism about sex and everything,

58:51

which I think is a little bit of like a Billy Wilder

58:53

homemark, Like his movies are a lot about

58:55

like cynical people

58:58

finding joy in spite

59:00

of themselves and in

59:02

spite of like them feeling sort of above the morays

59:05

of the time. But I also kept thinking about,

59:07

like what it would be like to watch this movie if I hadn't

59:09

already seen mad Men. Ooh,

59:13

right, because I feel like mad Men was so like,

59:15

oh my god, this was so normalized

59:18

and we're blowing your mind with that, and

59:20

it feels like this must have felt a bit more

59:22

radical to see before that was

59:24

like the common understanding of

59:26

what these types of businessmen were up.

59:28

To, especially because the

59:31

production code was still in effect

59:33

when this movie was being developed and released,

59:36

the kind of parameters of it were

59:39

getting more lax as time went on, and

59:41

I think it was in nineteen sixty that the

59:44

Hayes production code was like officially

59:46

dissolved and replaced with the rating

59:49

system, but it was still enforced

59:51

to some degree when this movie came out. And

59:53

so I was surprised that there were things that

59:56

this movie got away with that

59:58

I wouldn't have expected. Did it

1:00:00

to be able to talk about and like pretty

1:00:02

directly and explicitly addressed,

1:00:05

such as suicide and suicidal

1:00:07

ideation and infidelity,

1:00:10

slash, sex out of wedlock

1:00:12

and abortion? Oh wait, what's

1:00:14

the abortion component?

1:00:16

So I mean, it's not as explicit as talking

1:00:18

about the suicide, but there's a moment when

1:00:21

her brother in law comes to the apartment to retrieve

1:00:23

her and he

1:00:25

introduces Dreyfus. He's like, this is her

1:00:28

doctor, and the guy like almost punches

1:00:30

him and he's like, not that kind of doctor.

1:00:31

Oh my god. Okay, I

1:00:34

did not connect that.

1:00:35

Yeah, the implication being that like she's

1:00:37

recovering from an abortion versus

1:00:41

and obviously they don't say it, but it is strongly

1:00:43

implied that like, oh yeah, that would be the other thing

1:00:45

that the doctor would be there treating her for at

1:00:48

home.

1:00:48

Yeah, that totally makes sense. God,

1:00:51

that did not register for me at all.

1:00:53

Yeah, I barely caught it.

1:00:56

This Vivie is really good, folks.

1:01:01

But getting back to your original point, Emily,

1:01:03

Yeah, I thought it was interesting that the

1:01:06

only character that I

1:01:08

think, like we know is

1:01:10

Jewish is also the moral

1:01:12

center of the movie. And

1:01:14

also yeah, like of a higher class

1:01:17

and profession than our protagonist.

1:01:19

Yeah, but I really liked I don't know, I

1:01:22

like doctor Dryfus.

1:01:23

And his wife.

1:01:24

His wife, I hate that, like we have

1:01:26

his her name is Mildred,

1:01:29

we do hear her name, so for

1:01:31

Bechdel test purposes, she just

1:01:33

skates through, although she is mostly referred

1:01:35

to as his wife. But I also

1:01:37

was like pleasantly surprised that Jack

1:01:40

Krushian, who played doctor Dryfus,

1:01:43

was nominated for an Oscar for that part. Jack

1:01:46

Lemon, Charley McLain, and Jack krushn are all

1:01:48

nominated for Oscars. This movie was nominated

1:01:50

for a million Oscars and won

1:01:52

a bunch, not for acting. But in

1:01:54

any case, I felt like doctor

1:01:57

Dryfus, I don't know, he was interesting

1:02:00

to be because in some ways

1:02:02

he and certainly Mildred are

1:02:05

allies to Fran based

1:02:07

on what they know about the situation, but

1:02:10

they also have very like

1:02:13

nineteen sixties views

1:02:15

of sex and promiscuity

1:02:18

in general, which I feel like this movie is sort of

1:02:20

playing around with and referencing

1:02:22

how older generations versus

1:02:24

younger generations view sex

1:02:27

and promiscuity at this time.

1:02:29

Right, Yeah, I mean they're

1:02:31

not as disgusted with

1:02:33

him as they could be, I suppose

1:02:36

because they were like, not in a position to be, but

1:02:38

you are like, oh, they have sympathy

1:02:40

for her, even if

1:02:42

they don't have sympathy for Baxter, right,

1:02:45

which I.

1:02:45

Was surprised about because so

1:02:48

much of slut shaming and

1:02:50

like promiscuity shaming is directed

1:02:52

toward women. And there's

1:02:55

of course the famous double standard of

1:02:57

oh, if you're a man who's

1:02:59

fucking all the time, you're

1:03:01

awesome, and if you're a woman who's

1:03:04

doing that, you're a horrible,

1:03:08

dirty, disgusting person.

1:03:09

Or it's just like fundamentally assumed

1:03:11

that you're being deceived versus

1:03:15

participating, right.

1:03:17

Right, that too, and so for

1:03:20

like doctor Dreyfuss's his wife Mildred,

1:03:23

She's like, yes, I'll fix some breakfast

1:03:25

for her. I wouldn't do anything for you, CEC

1:03:27

Baxter, because you're a dirty, rotten

1:03:30

scoundrel.

1:03:31

He's a dog.

1:03:31

But for her because I think she

1:03:34

almost views Fran

1:03:36

as a victim, almost of like

1:03:39

CC Baxter's

1:03:41

constant parade.

1:03:44

What they perceive is like a constant parade of

1:03:46

like women coming and going out

1:03:49

of his apartment.

1:03:49

Yeah, because she's assuming that

1:03:52

Fran has overdosed as

1:03:54

a result of CC. She is going off

1:03:57

of right.

1:03:57

She knows right, Yes,

1:04:00

who knows where her sympathies would be if there wasn't

1:04:02

a suicide attun true exactly.

1:04:04

Yeah, that was something that was on my mind

1:04:07

because this is the first time and I let like doctor

1:04:09

Dreyfus does not hesitate to intervene.

1:04:11

It's not like he's unwilling to help

1:04:14

someone who he has moral questions

1:04:16

about, which is what doctor

1:04:19

should do, not necessarily what they always

1:04:21

do. But I wondered

1:04:23

how Mildred's opinion of Frian

1:04:26

would change if she was not in

1:04:28

this position. Right, But I

1:04:30

also think it's fair to assume that Ceci's

1:04:32

a liar because he is,

1:04:36

So that's something to

1:04:38

keep in mind.

1:04:40

Can we explore the

1:04:43

romance between Baxter

1:04:45

and Fran a bit.

1:04:47

Yeah, I think we should.

1:04:49

Because I find it fascinating.

1:04:52

So she's introduced

1:04:56

in the elevator. You know, he's trying

1:04:58

to be flirty with her. He asks her for

1:05:00

lunch. She like smiles but doesn't

1:05:02

express any interest and like kind of

1:05:05

shoes him out of the elevator.

1:05:07

Yeah.

1:05:07

I would say it's friendly, but it's not.

1:05:10

Yes, mortatious as he interprets

1:05:12

it right.

1:05:13

As fire as my interpretation, Wow, I

1:05:15

did it without even trying. I

1:05:17

said the word. She is

1:05:20

being cordial and professional, and maybe

1:05:22

that's why she's like not being flirtatious

1:05:25

in return, because she's like, we're colleagues,

1:05:28

you know that would be inappropriate. But

1:05:30

in any case, she's showing no romantic

1:05:33

interest. Not long after

1:05:35

that, he asks her to go to the theater.

1:05:37

She declines, saying that she has

1:05:40

another date with another man, but

1:05:42

Baxter kind of like wears her down a little

1:05:44

bit, and she's like, Okay, fine, I'll go with

1:05:47

you. It's right here. When

1:05:49

we get the I Know where you live

1:05:52

conversation.

1:05:53

Yeah, this is the part of the movie that for

1:05:56

Vah is the worst, real

1:05:58

bad, it's bad.

1:06:00

One of their earlier conversations

1:06:02

in the movie is Baxter being like, yeah,

1:06:05

you know, we're gonna go to this play, then we'll

1:06:07

go out dancing. I know this great spot right around

1:06:09

the corner from where you live. And she's like, oh sounds

1:06:12

great. Wait a minute, how do you

1:06:14

know where I live? And then rather than

1:06:16

him being like, oh, yeah, she's

1:06:18

right, is creepy that I know where she lives

1:06:21

and that I just told her that and acted

1:06:23

like it was no big deal that I told her that.

1:06:26

Instead he's like, not only

1:06:28

do I know where you live, I know who

1:06:30

you live with. I know where and when

1:06:32

you were born. I know your height, your weight, your

1:06:34

Social Security number, and your entire medical

1:06:37

history because I looked up your file

1:06:39

at the office. And she's like,

1:06:42

uh huh.

1:06:42

She's like, hah okay,

1:06:45

this, yes, I remember

1:06:48

this for the first time I watched it, being like, well,

1:06:51

that's certainly disqualifying,

1:06:54

yes, you would think, and

1:06:58

yet well that's it. I feel like, well,

1:07:01

I think that there is so much

1:07:03

to love about this character

1:07:05

and will continue talking about her. I

1:07:07

feel like there are moments of inconsistency

1:07:10

where there is like naivete

1:07:13

I think like ascribed to her

1:07:16

character that feels wildly

1:07:18

unreasonable, where it's like, yes, she is young,

1:07:21

she's in her early twenties, but like people

1:07:24

in their early twenties know, it's scary

1:07:26

to do that. Like that's

1:07:29

maybe not the guy, particularly

1:07:32

if you are already famously not attracted

1:07:35

to them. Like it sort of lends itself

1:07:37

to the wearing one down thing.

1:07:41

Yeah, I think he's benefiting here

1:07:43

from comparison to the men

1:07:45

who are physically assaulting her in the workplace.

1:07:48

Right, Yes, he's the least bad

1:07:50

guy. Yes, And like I

1:07:52

think also like in

1:07:55

that first scene where she gets spanked

1:07:57

by that guy and she's sort

1:07:59

of like tells him off a little bit, you are kind

1:08:01

of like, oh, well, she's someone who will like stand up

1:08:03

for herself if you're doing something wrong to

1:08:05

her kind of. And then so

1:08:08

when she doesn't do it to him, you're like, well, she's

1:08:10

not just placating him. Maybe she's

1:08:12

okay with it.

1:08:13

Yeah, he must be the guy.

1:08:14

Yeah, But at the same time, I'm

1:08:17

like, as creepy as that is and

1:08:19

as not okay as it is that he does that, I

1:08:21

do think that the film is

1:08:25

sort of like not necessarily

1:08:27

like judging him or holding him accountable

1:08:29

for it, but it is sort of presenting the fact

1:08:32

that he is an observer

1:08:34

of the lives of others and not a participant

1:08:36

even in his own life, Like he doesn't even occupy

1:08:39

his own apartment, right, and that

1:08:41

is like the main problem that

1:08:43

he needs to sort of rectify

1:08:46

throughout the movie. So it is like, yeah,

1:08:48

this is like kind of a messed up way to like see

1:08:50

what life.

1:08:51

Is all about.

1:08:52

Yeah, by like reading people's insurance

1:08:55

files. But yeah, that's giving

1:08:57

him a lot of credit.

1:08:59

Yeah, I don't know, but yeah, that was a tricky

1:09:01

one for me. I do like feel like that moment

1:09:03

has potential to be I

1:09:06

was like sort of hoping it would be

1:09:08

called back on in a more meaningful

1:09:11

way later, because it's like, if this guy is

1:09:13

our the guy we're rooting for,

1:09:16

and that's the way that he understands

1:09:18

how to interface with people where people

1:09:20

are kind of numbers

1:09:22

and obstacles to be overcome to get

1:09:24

to where he wants to be. I

1:09:27

just wish that that specific PLoP

1:09:29

boy was called back to because it's just like age

1:09:31

is bad.

1:09:32

I mean they did call back to it, they do, but

1:09:34

not in a super meaningful way.

1:09:35

Not No, way that felt critical of him.

1:09:37

Really, yes, they call back to it when she's

1:09:40

like, you know, she calls back like, oh,

1:09:42

you don't want people to get the wrong idea about how I

1:09:44

know about that?

1:09:45

Like right, It just felt like a flirtatious

1:09:48

callback versus like, Hey, that

1:09:50

thing you did earlier was fucking weird.

1:09:53

Like yeah, which is weird

1:09:55

because she does selectively call

1:09:57

him out on certain things, but it's everything

1:10:00

that you know, we have to keep him our

1:10:03

lead, So yeah, right.

1:10:05

I think it boils down to I

1:10:07

just wish that she had been afforded

1:10:11

more agency and

1:10:13

perspective throughout the

1:10:16

movie, because I mean, I also

1:10:18

want to talk about how she's presented

1:10:21

in comparison to the other women

1:10:23

who are in the movie,

1:10:26

mainly the women who the

1:10:29

men are having the affairs with, because

1:10:32

she's like the one respectable

1:10:34

woman quote unquote. It's like the nineteen sixty

1:10:37

version of like, she is not like the

1:10:39

other girls. But I still find

1:10:41

the way their romance plays out to be, you

1:10:44

know, not great, because

1:10:46

it's a lot of her politely

1:10:49

declining or not showing

1:10:52

any interest him kind of barreling

1:10:54

past that and wearing her

1:10:56

down. And then there's

1:10:58

the scene where he has

1:11:01

put the two and two together about oh,

1:11:03

the person who my boss is taking

1:11:05

to my apartment is fran

1:11:08

He finds this out at the holiday party, and

1:11:11

he gets so upset about

1:11:14

it. And I feel like it's

1:11:16

maybe some combination of like, oh,

1:11:19

well, I'm jealous that the woman

1:11:21

who I want to belong to me can't

1:11:24

belong to me because another man

1:11:26

has claimed ownership of her,

1:11:29

and this is maybe me reaching a little bit, but I'm also

1:11:31

just like pulling from the context of

1:11:34

this era of like, oh,

1:11:36

she's like a tainted one.

1:11:38

She's damaged goods. You know,

1:11:40

she's not this like.

1:11:41

Oh, I see, I didn't read it that.

1:11:44

Okay, I read it as it's

1:11:46

still not a super charitable interpretation

1:11:48

of Baxter. But I read that as like, oh,

1:11:51

now I care that people's

1:11:53

lives are being affected because I

1:11:56

like this person, and I like

1:11:58

that was how I read that seen,

1:12:00

where it was like people are just

1:12:03

numbers and bimbos and this

1:12:05

is just how the world works until suddenly

1:12:08

someone that you like is involved,

1:12:10

and then all of a sudden it matters, and

1:12:13

yeah, well that's not a negative thing

1:12:15

inherently to realize that if

1:12:18

someone is being emotionally, like

1:12:21

deceived or harmed is an important

1:12:23

thing. It does sort of reveal him

1:12:25

to be like someone who is kind of selfish,

1:12:28

and that is who he is, Like, he's

1:12:30

like, well, I only care if someone I like

1:12:32

is affected, which is part of

1:12:34

what he has to get over that. I feel like, you know, you

1:12:36

could argue whether he actually makes

1:12:39

that journey fully but yeah.

1:12:42

Right, but yeah, it's left a little ambiguous,

1:12:44

like what it is about.

1:12:45

That that affects him, right, Yeah,

1:12:47

yeah, it's hard to say. But he gets so upset

1:12:50

about it that he goes to a bar

1:12:52

and gets drunk and picks

1:12:55

up another woman. Which I'm not casting

1:12:57

any judgment on any of that because

1:13:00

it sounds like something I would do.

1:13:03

No, they're lonely and hanging out. I

1:13:05

always remember just the image

1:13:07

of them, like soul loosely dancing cheeksh

1:13:10

to cheek, Like it's so funny.

1:13:12

It's so funny, And it is that

1:13:14

hard cut from her making her

1:13:16

suicide attempt to them dancing

1:13:19

cheek to cheek, and you're like, the darkest

1:13:21

moment and the funniest moment in this movie

1:13:23

is just like back to back.

1:13:25

Yeah, I like that stark

1:13:29

image of like loneliness and like,

1:13:31

I feel like it could have been way more. I think that

1:13:33

in general, women who are not Shirley

1:13:35

maclain are made out to be kind

1:13:38

of well a few are made

1:13:40

out to be kind of like bimbos that are like, what

1:13:42

do you mean You're not gonna blah blah blah.

1:13:44

But I think the exception to that sort

1:13:46

of trope is Shell Drake's

1:13:49

secretary. I feel like we do get some interiority

1:13:52

for her, and I liked that in

1:13:54

the scene at the holiday

1:13:56

party, we have Shell Drake's I

1:13:59

forget what her name is, we do get a name for her, Miss

1:14:01

Olsen, miss Olsen. I

1:14:03

was calling her Elizabeth Olsen in my mind

1:14:05

because that is a famous person

1:14:08

I've heard of. But miss

1:14:10

Olsen, I thought the way that she presented

1:14:12

that information to Fran

1:14:15

while it was like drunk and

1:14:17

like not super well, presented

1:14:20

the way you wouldn't when you're drunk. I thought

1:14:22

that that was like more than I expected,

1:14:25

because I feel like it would have been very easy in

1:14:27

this setting, in this time to have

1:14:29

it turned into a rivalry and

1:14:31

a shameful thing, where

1:14:34

I think like miss Olsen's anger

1:14:37

is well placed. It's at shell Drake.

1:14:39

She knows he's a piece of shit, and she

1:14:42

literally says to Fran like, there's

1:14:44

nothing to be ashamed of. He is we've

1:14:46

seen him do this, like you are not. And

1:14:49

as someone who has been

1:14:52

young, naive and in that position being

1:14:54

told by someone like hey, this

1:14:57

guy you're with, he's a piece of shit. I've

1:14:59

been in your position too, it

1:15:01

never feels good. And seeing

1:15:03

it written by two men is never

1:15:06

quite on. But those like

1:15:08

hey, just so you know, I see

1:15:10

what you're going through, and this guy's

1:15:12

a piece of shit.

1:15:13

You're part of a pattern. You're not special.

1:15:16

This is like he's going to do this again.

1:15:18

Yes, totally, it is

1:15:20

a true warning. She's not saying it

1:15:22

to be like fuck you, like yeah,

1:15:25

she is saying it to be like I am

1:15:27

the ghost of Christmas past.

1:15:29

And totally yeah,

1:15:31

Having now been on both

1:15:33

sides of that equation, that is a very

1:15:35

meaningful interaction that we're

1:15:38

seeing there. And the fact

1:15:40

that that is what puts her over

1:15:43

the edge and sends her into

1:15:45

suicidal ideation is like, we

1:15:47

should talk about that also, something

1:15:49

that certainly happens. I

1:15:52

don't know. I was surprised by

1:15:54

that moment watching it this time, because

1:15:56

I feel like in a movie in nineteen sixty I would

1:15:59

assume that it be like a woman

1:16:01

shaming another woman of like, how

1:16:03

could you be so naive? How

1:16:05

could you blah blah blah blah blah, But instead

1:16:07

it was like a callous, imperfect

1:16:10

moment of recognition.

1:16:14

Yeah, I tend

1:16:16

to agree that her intention is,

1:16:19

you know, looking out for her fellow

1:16:22

woman who is going

1:16:24

through something that she already went through.

1:16:27

But that character is also established to be someone

1:16:29

who seems like kind of

1:16:32

devious in the sense that she's like always

1:16:34

sneaking around. She's very nosy, she's

1:16:36

trying to like stir things up. Because

1:16:38

we also see her call

1:16:41

mister Sheldrake's his wife and

1:16:45

you know, arranged to get together for

1:16:47

lunch to tell her about all of

1:16:50

shell Drake's affairs.

1:16:51

I don't think the movie judges her for that.

1:16:53

Though now I felt like that was it was

1:16:55

like a twist to reveal that she had had

1:16:57

a relationship with Shell Drake, because at first

1:16:59

you are like, oh, yeah, she's one of those nosy

1:17:02

people and that's why they need to hide it, and then

1:17:04

it sort of is like a reveal of like, oh,

1:17:06

he's talking about her like she's nosy, but

1:17:08

really she's scorned, and like it

1:17:11

is a situation that he created, not

1:17:13

a situation that she created.

1:17:15

Yeah, maybe I.

1:17:16

Was just because so many of the other women

1:17:18

were presented as being like ditzy,

1:17:21

fluozy or like naggy

1:17:24

in some way that I just sort of carried

1:17:26

some of that into that character, because I

1:17:28

do feel like a lot of those other I think.

1:17:30

The women who are brought into the apartment are

1:17:32

right, yeah, there is.

1:17:34

It seems a lot of judgment cast on

1:17:36

them by the movie. And

1:17:40

maybe I was just carrying some of that and

1:17:42

projecting it onto the Miss Sulsen

1:17:44

character.

1:17:45

I will wave a flag for miss Olsen. I

1:17:47

think Missulsen, you know, she

1:17:49

she did it imperfectly, but all

1:17:51

of her motivations to be made

1:17:54

sense, Like it wasn't just like she

1:17:56

was a spiteful, nosy person,

1:17:59

like she was fucked

1:18:01

over by her bot, like

1:18:03

she was presumably harassed

1:18:05

at work, ended up in this relationship,

1:18:08

and then for her own livelihood,

1:18:11

forced to stay and watch him do

1:18:13

this to other women. And then we see her

1:18:16

make a drunken attempt to acknowledge

1:18:19

one of those other women to.

1:18:21

Break the cycle.

1:18:22

Yeah, which, unfortunately, what

1:18:24

happens like that I don't think can

1:18:26

be pinned on miss Olsen. Again, this is

1:18:29

all traced back to Sheldrake and

1:18:31

him thinking that he is untouchable,

1:18:34

which I feel like made it hit even harder

1:18:37

and more frustrating that at the end, you

1:18:39

know, he's always going to be

1:18:41

fine even though he doesn't end up

1:18:43

with Fran and Fran escapes his

1:18:46

fucking evil spiral. You

1:18:48

know, like he will continue to be

1:18:50

fine indefinitely, which is true

1:18:52

of the time and true basically

1:18:54

still now.

1:18:56

Well, it's like anyone who decides

1:18:58

like I have a moral conscience about what's happening

1:19:01

and I'm going to tap out is lost

1:19:03

from the company. Yeah, like they

1:19:05

are all exiled, and she's one

1:19:07

of those people who's like, I'm out.

1:19:09

I guess because I exposed what's

1:19:11

happening.

1:19:13

Right, which tracks because

1:19:16

men are obsessed with getting rid of

1:19:18

anyone who will

1:19:20

not comply with their horrible

1:19:23

behavior.

1:19:24

I had a little bit about because

1:19:27

like we've sort of been talking about for

1:19:29

a while now, like how this movie

1:19:32

was marketed successfully as

1:19:35

a comedy and also prominently

1:19:37

features a suicide attempt.

1:19:40

I think, I mean that was certainly like

1:19:43

hinted at in many movies. I think this is one of the

1:19:45

more famous examples of a suicide

1:19:47

attempt being a major plot point.

1:19:50

There was a really good retrospective piece

1:19:53

that came out in twenty twenty, remember

1:19:57

that in The av

1:19:59

Club Bike Caroline Seed that

1:20:02

touches on sort of how the theme

1:20:05

of suicide is touched upon.

1:20:07

I think that in some ways, fran

1:20:10

makes what appears to be like

1:20:13

an unplanned attempt

1:20:15

on her life after

1:20:18

mister Sheldrake leaves in truly the

1:20:20

most horrific way possible, like he's

1:20:22

a He's just like such a fucking

1:20:24

piece of shit. And as she

1:20:27

is recovered from that, I felt like the movie

1:20:29

didn't judge her

1:20:31

in the way that I would expect a movie of this

1:20:34

time to judge

1:20:36

her. I think that where I get a little

1:20:38

trick is like she is portrayed as

1:20:40

so naive during her recovery.

1:20:43

I want to be generous with her there, because

1:20:45

she is recovering from something

1:20:48

extremely traumatic and extremely horrific and

1:20:50

she's still sort of coming back to who she is.

1:20:53

The moment that really sticks with me is

1:20:55

that she's not judged by Baxter

1:20:58

and I'm not like Team back, but

1:21:00

I think the way that he handled the immediate

1:21:03

aftermath was thoughtful,

1:21:05

especially in the scene where he I

1:21:08

think that up until this point in the movie

1:21:11

that I don't know how to correctly phrase this, but

1:21:13

that you wouldn't see this scenario

1:21:15

with a man because of how

1:21:18

we have been trained by this movie and by

1:21:20

society at the time to think that

1:21:23

men are knowingly dogs and

1:21:25

women are unknowingly deceived, and

1:21:28

that is like the binary we've been presented

1:21:30

with. And so when Baxter comes

1:21:33

to her very honestly and is like,

1:21:35

I once almost made an attempt

1:21:37

on my life, also over a relationship,

1:21:40

and I'm so glad I didn't, and here's

1:21:42

why, and all of this, and

1:21:45

having that be like a moment of

1:21:48

healing and recognition, even though you

1:21:50

know, I think realistically she's still not out of

1:21:52

the woods with navigating her feelings

1:21:55

on this. I thought that scene is really

1:21:58

beautiful and nice.

1:22:00

I agree, and I also found

1:22:03

it surprising, again based on the

1:22:05

context of the time and the

1:22:08

just sort of cultural mentality

1:22:11

toward suicide and

1:22:14

it's misunderstanding of mental

1:22:16

health and all

1:22:19

of that. So yeah, I found the movie

1:22:21

to be like very generous with its

1:22:24

handling of that, especially

1:22:26

for the time.

1:22:28

I love friend, and I also think that someone showing

1:22:30

up for you in that moment does not mean

1:22:33

that you have to be their girlfriend.

1:22:35

That's where I have a hard time.

1:22:39

I mean, to be fair, she does go back

1:22:41

to shell Drake for

1:22:44

reasons. I mean, who among us hasn't

1:22:46

gone back to a bad

1:22:50

relationship, even though we

1:22:52

you know, logically you know better, but emotionally

1:22:55

at that exact moment, maybe you don't.

1:22:58

So we won't blame her for that. But

1:23:01

the very jarring thing to me about

1:23:03

the recovery of the

1:23:05

suicide attempt is the scene where the

1:23:08

doctor is like treating

1:23:11

her and then like I think, giving her smelling

1:23:13

salts or something to help her getting

1:23:16

consciousness, and then he slaps her across

1:23:18

the face multiple times to

1:23:20

try to wake her up. I'm sure that was

1:23:23

standard medical practice four

1:23:26

the time, a little.

1:23:28

Oh my god, necessary

1:23:31

to show, I would say.

1:23:33

No, it was not necessary

1:23:36

to see a man slapping a woman across

1:23:38

the face like six times in a.

1:23:40

Row, especially as he was about to

1:23:42

become the moral compass of

1:23:44

the movie not two minutes

1:23:47

later.

1:23:48

Yeah, so you

1:23:51

know. Nineteen sixty

1:23:53

Although when I had my gallbladder

1:23:55

surgery in twenty nineteen, and

1:23:58

I was like, coming out of the anesthesia, I

1:24:00

was woken up to a doctor slapping me across

1:24:03

the face. What so maybe it is Yeah,

1:24:05

it was like traumatizing and I was

1:24:07

like, excuse me, is that necessary?

1:24:10

But a doctor was slapping me in the face

1:24:13

to wake me up because they thought I was dying

1:24:15

because my heart rate was low.

1:24:17

And then they're like.

1:24:18

Went vampire mode.

1:24:20

They were like, they're like, are you a

1:24:23

runner? Like do you exercise? I was like yes,

1:24:26

and they're like, well, your heart rate is alarmingly

1:24:29

low. But if you're a runner, that's actually

1:24:31

kind of normal. But if you're not, we

1:24:33

thought you were dying. So

1:24:36

they slapped me just in case.

1:24:38

And medical slap

1:24:43

sometimes I mean like, and we know the medical

1:24:45

system is so fucked is sobody ways.

1:24:47

But sometimes I don't know, Like there were times

1:24:49

over the summer where I was with a doctor. I'm like, you're

1:24:51

describing like witchcraft.

1:24:54

You're just being like, ultimately,

1:24:57

we don't know, we're gonna throw some leaves

1:24:59

at it, and guy knows what happens.

1:25:01

I'm like, I don't feel secure in

1:25:04

your abilities. I don't trust

1:25:06

you live off love.

1:25:09

I think, Okay, the last thing I have to say about Baxter,

1:25:12

yeah, is that again I think that

1:25:14

this is done unevenly

1:25:17

throughout the movie. But I appreciated

1:25:20

where we talk so much on this

1:25:22

freaking show about

1:25:25

patriarchy the guy, and there's

1:25:27

one guy who represents all the patriarchy,

1:25:30

and if we vanquished this one guy,

1:25:32

the world will be solved,

1:25:34

and we will. We've also seen racism

1:25:37

the guy, and you vanquished racism

1:25:39

the guy or it racism the

1:25:41

lady Brave, and then

1:25:44

racism is helved, you know. So it's like

1:25:46

very clean movie solutions. I like that

1:25:48

this movie does not subscribe

1:25:51

to that. I think that the tricky thing is

1:25:53

that in the guys who aren't

1:25:56

Shell Drake who go

1:25:58

to the apartment, as well as the women who go

1:26:00

with them, are made to be comic relief

1:26:02

in a way that is funny but kind

1:26:05

of ultimately a little dissonant. But

1:26:07

with Baxter, I

1:26:10

really like that he is I

1:26:13

think the movie knows he is like an agent

1:26:15

of the patriarchy because he's quite literally

1:26:17

an agent of the patriarchy.

1:26:20

He is like sharing his

1:26:23

bed sheets with them for advancement.

1:26:26

He is knowingly benefiting from

1:26:28

this and doesn't give a shit about

1:26:31

anyone in the equation until

1:26:33

it's someone who he cares about

1:26:35

who is being negatively affected by it.

1:26:38

I feel like we don't really see characters

1:26:40

like that very frequently in

1:26:43

a knowing way. I think where that gets tricky

1:26:45

is the ending implication that possibly

1:26:47

like it almost like positions Shirley

1:26:50

mcclan as the reward for realizing

1:26:52

he was an agent of the patriarchy, where

1:26:54

he's like, now that he has abandoned the

1:26:57

toxic workplace, that he has

1:27:00

walked away from it, he can have

1:27:02

girlfriend and at

1:27:05

the end of the day, isn't that what

1:27:07

it was all for? Blah blah blah.

1:27:10

So that that's a little you know, and

1:27:12

again that's open to interpretation. We've talked

1:27:14

about different interpretations of that, but I

1:27:16

just appreciated that, like normally,

1:27:19

when we see characters like that, the movie

1:27:21

completely absolves them of

1:27:23

everything, and it's like,

1:27:26

at the end, he does get the promotion and

1:27:28

he's gonna solve insurance from

1:27:30

the inside, and this movie is smarter than

1:27:32

that, right, And I love

1:27:34

it for that.

1:27:35

Yeah, but it still does reward him

1:27:37

with at least like a

1:27:40

woman's tension

1:27:43

for that night, unclear if they'll

1:27:45

like get together romantically. But

1:27:48

again it begs the question to me, what

1:27:51

does she like about him? Besides

1:27:54

the fact that he's respectful enough to take

1:27:56

off his hat in the elevator, like,

1:27:59

she's given no indication that she's romantically

1:28:01

interested in him. And

1:28:04

I don't know. Maybe you can make the argument that through

1:28:06

this journey of her relationship

1:28:09

with shell Drake and she finally

1:28:11

comes to realize, Oh, this

1:28:14

man doesn't respect me or care

1:28:16

for me the way a person should.

1:28:19

And it seems like Baxter,

1:28:21

based on the way he took care of me after

1:28:24

my suicide attempt, he's

1:28:26

the better option. I don't know exactly what

1:28:30

the implications all are.

1:28:32

I like that it doesn't tell you what it is,

1:28:35

too, because then it makes it easier

1:28:37

to love this movie on a longer

1:28:40

timeline, which I want to.

1:28:43

That is fair, I because I don't

1:28:45

have as much of an attachment to it, and

1:28:48

I don't feel like at

1:28:50

this point, or at least at the point where

1:28:52

the movie ends, that Cec

1:28:54

Baxter earned the

1:28:56

redemption that he appears to get

1:28:59

by being able to hang out with

1:29:02

friend.

1:29:03

I mean, he he did give up everything

1:29:05

he had, He did this

1:29:08

is jet including the apartment,

1:29:10

and he did get punched really hard

1:29:13

and gave up

1:29:15

his apartment and his job and his career

1:29:17

and like literally has nothing.

1:29:20

I guess I just think that, yeah,

1:29:23

I'm like, men should give up that and more

1:29:26

to deserve any redemption.

1:29:29

So I think that again,

1:29:31

it is very connected to that

1:29:34

moment of human connection between

1:29:37

the two of them when they

1:29:39

are sharing this experience

1:29:41

of like they have both been at an extremely

1:29:43

low point and like, please

1:29:46

let me share my experience with you, that you might

1:29:48

take something from it to get through this

1:29:50

difficult experience for me. Honestly, I

1:29:52

think the movie is heightened if they don't

1:29:55

end up, or even it being implied

1:29:58

that they end up together. But the generous

1:30:00

interpretation at the ending for me is that again

1:30:03

he says I love you, I love you so much, and

1:30:05

she says, okay, let's play cards.

1:30:08

I feel like it is like weird

1:30:10

thinking they are going to get together. But I

1:30:13

just what I would have loved is just yeah, like

1:30:15

another moment of like the moments of human

1:30:17

connection between the two of them. I like, I've

1:30:20

had moments of human connections with guys

1:30:22

who kind of sucked that have been

1:30:24

impactful. And you

1:30:27

know, I don't think that his life should

1:30:29

be totally but his life even he's like

1:30:31

also not for nothing. He is fucked

1:30:33

and like that that's not what movies are interested

1:30:36

in, nor should they be. But like, you

1:30:38

know, he's fucked, Like he

1:30:40

what is he gonna you know, he's he's a guy.

1:30:43

He'll bounce bounce back though, and

1:30:45

I do believe that she will as well. Something

1:30:48

I like about her character as we're not led

1:30:50

to believe that like I'm just doing this

1:30:52

job until I find a husband, Like it

1:30:54

seems like she wants to have a career like

1:30:57

it that's never brought up as something

1:30:59

that is like a temporary thing for

1:31:01

her, and judgment isn't passed on her for

1:31:03

it. I don't know I'm becoming

1:31:05

defensive of this movie, but I think that like C.

1:31:07

C. Baxter, I'm friends with people

1:31:10

like C. C. Baxter, and the

1:31:12

trick is never fuck them.

1:31:14

M that's the yeah.

1:31:16

I mean, I do think that this movie

1:31:18

is more critical of

1:31:21

the sort of social

1:31:24

understandings of the time than

1:31:27

it has to be, yeah, to tell the

1:31:29

story, and I think that it is like it doesn't

1:31:31

let this guy off the hook, even though he's not the one

1:31:33

cheating on his wife, you know what I mean, Like he

1:31:35

gets all of the consequences that are coming

1:31:37

to those guys that they never experience

1:31:41

because he's standing in and saying like, yes, I'm

1:31:43

fucking all these women, Like he

1:31:45

doesn't get to, you know, correct

1:31:47

the record about like I wasn't

1:31:50

actually fucking all those women. Other men were

1:31:52

doing that in my bed, you know what I mean. And he

1:31:54

still pays the price for it, and it is

1:31:56

still like, well he does owe something, but.

1:32:00

Yeah, yeah, Anyway,

1:32:03

I think that the one

1:32:05

hundred dollars that Shell Drake gives

1:32:07

to Fran that she should have kept

1:32:10

it because uh

1:32:13

men, oh women money

1:32:16

you read It's true.

1:32:18

I would have. I mean, if if I were a friend, I would

1:32:21

not have made a statement by not keeping

1:32:23

the money. I'd be like, thank you and goodbye

1:32:25

forever.

1:32:25

This is mine. I deserve this one hundred

1:32:27

dollars in nineteen sixties money that is one thousand

1:32:30

dollars roughly in today's money.

1:32:32

Buddy, let's freaking go to be fair.

1:32:34

She thought she was going to be dead, that's true, so

1:32:36

when she left the money, she had no use

1:32:38

for it. The only use for the money was

1:32:40

to say I don't forgive you feel bad

1:32:42

that I'm dead, which I'm like, Yeah,

1:32:45

if she knew she was going to live, yeah keep

1:32:47

the money. But she didn't, and so she got to use it

1:32:49

as a fuck you, which is cool.

1:32:51

Another example of Baxter big

1:32:53

pro shell Drake where he's like, I got one hundred dollars

1:32:55

for you, where it's like, well, just

1:32:57

let her have, you know, like.

1:32:59

When she survived. It seems like the money

1:33:01

gets returned to chldreake again, but it's

1:33:03

like, no, like, you're alive, keep it, use

1:33:06

it. It's one thousand dollars in twenty twenty

1:33:08

four men.

1:33:08

Yeah, well he didn't really know what the money

1:33:10

was at that point.

1:33:11

That's true.

1:33:13

Uh, this movie passes the Bechdel test,

1:33:15

folks.

1:33:15

It does good for it.

1:33:18

It passes primarily between

1:33:21

Mildred and Fran when

1:33:23

they are talking about her recovery,

1:33:26

which I feel like is very you know, plat relevant,

1:33:28

So it passes. I do think that Fran

1:33:31

again, like most women we see

1:33:34

in movies to this day, like it

1:33:36

would be really cool if she

1:33:38

had a female friend. Yes,

1:33:40

there's no shortage of women in

1:33:42

this workplace who are marginalized

1:33:45

in much the same way she is for

1:33:47

her to talk to, And I feel like that is the way in

1:33:49

which it sort of plays into a very

1:33:51

like sparse story character

1:33:53

wise but also just how

1:33:56

I think. So often, like iconic

1:33:58

women characters in older

1:34:01

movies are often in

1:34:03

a bubble where they are the

1:34:05

woman, where we know that she

1:34:07

lives with her sister, We assume that she has some

1:34:10

sort of close relationship with her sister,

1:34:12

even though it's like the only thing we know is like, your sister

1:34:14

thinks you're a lady. So it's like, well, maybe her sister

1:34:16

would slut shame her for being a person

1:34:18

who knows, But we're surrounded by

1:34:20

all of these potential women for her to

1:34:22

be allied with. We don't really see

1:34:25

those conversations, and when we do, like

1:34:27

with ms Olsen and Friend, it's strictly,

1:34:29

you know, centered on the shell Drake issue,

1:34:33

right, but it does pass. So there you go.

1:34:35

Well, because this movie's only interested

1:34:37

in Fran to the extent

1:34:40

that she has

1:34:43

a blossoming relationship with C.

1:34:45

C. Baxter, and outside of that, the

1:34:48

movie doesn't really have any interests.

1:34:50

And I disagree, I disagree.

1:34:53

I disagree that's not true

1:34:55

at all.

1:34:56

Then why don't we see her at home,

1:34:58

having an interior life, having friendships,

1:35:01

Like what.

1:35:01

I don't think that she's the protagonist, but I don't

1:35:03

think that means the movie is disinterested in

1:35:06

her.

1:35:06

Yeah, And I think it's interested in her outside

1:35:08

of her relationship with Baxter, because

1:35:10

I think that it's like it understands

1:35:13

that there's things about her that Baxter doesn't

1:35:15

understand because of his preoccupation with

1:35:17

a relationship with her, that she has all

1:35:19

these other dimensions that he's not seeing

1:35:22

even though he has access to her

1:35:24

insurance file, Like he

1:35:26

gets surprised with information about her

1:35:28

that we as the audience know, And

1:35:31

I think that it's like that shows that the movie

1:35:33

has more of an interest than he does in her.

1:35:36

Yeah, I guess I wish we

1:35:38

just saw more of

1:35:42

her life outside

1:35:44

of what we see in the movie.

1:35:46

I very much would have liked to see her

1:35:49

and I don't think it would even take away from where

1:35:51

the focus of the movie seems to want to be. To

1:35:53

see her interact with other people at

1:35:55

work and again, like have a friendship.

1:35:59

That seems like a fault of

1:36:01

the movie, especially because it's

1:36:03

Billy Wilder movie. It should be operating at a higher

1:36:05

level, we are introduced to a

1:36:08

lot of women, So for the interactions

1:36:10

between women to be so sparse feels

1:36:13

telling about like where his interests lie.

1:36:15

But I don't think that that means that the story is disinterested

1:36:17

in her.

1:36:18

And I also think that thematically the movie

1:36:20

is like it's about this collection of

1:36:23

some people who are who

1:36:25

when Christmas comes around, they're not needed

1:36:28

anywhere, Like that's part

1:36:30

of why, Like he is an

1:36:32

observer of other people's lives who just like

1:36:35

is doing like the insurance information

1:36:38

about like people who actually have families

1:36:40

and things going on, but he doesn't

1:36:42

have that for himself. And she is literally

1:36:44

an elevator operator who's

1:36:47

like she takes people who have somewhere to

1:36:49

go to the places that they need to go, and

1:36:51

she herself doesn't have those things. And

1:36:53

so I think even the fact that she

1:36:56

has a family the reason, Like

1:36:58

it would be great to see her with her family.

1:37:00

But I feel like what's important about

1:37:02

her character in this movie is that like she

1:37:05

is being kept on the outside of life

1:37:08

in the same way that he is, and

1:37:11

that like she is unable to

1:37:13

develop those relationships that you're asking

1:37:15

to see because of

1:37:17

being held in this limbo with this relationship

1:37:20

with Sheldrake and just like being

1:37:22

sort of an intermediary in other people's lives,

1:37:25

Like that's part of what she's struggling

1:37:27

with in the movie.

1:37:28

So yeah,

1:37:31

well, with that mind, let's get to our

1:37:33

metric, the nipple scale. Yes, how

1:37:35

you feel about the movie on a scale of one to five nipples

1:37:38

based on how.

1:37:38

Zero if sorry, wow,

1:37:41

Jamie, we've had five hundred.

1:37:44

I'm so tired. You don't understand.

1:37:47

So based on how it deals with intersexual

1:37:49

feminist themes.

1:37:50

Ooh, this is going to be a tricky one

1:37:53

for me. Again, of the

1:37:56

women we do see on screen, it

1:37:58

feels like they're is like

1:38:02

one or two respectable

1:38:04

women, and everyone else can't be taken

1:38:06

seriously because they're the

1:38:09

flings of the men who are

1:38:12

having these extra marital affairs. And I just feel

1:38:14

like a lot of kind of tropes that

1:38:16

were popular of women of

1:38:18

the time are present with a lot of these

1:38:20

characters. I do like fran

1:38:24

as a character a lot. I just

1:38:26

wish we knew more

1:38:29

about her, and maybe I

1:38:31

think I also just like don't

1:38:34

have the

1:38:36

language to understand

1:38:40

what movies from this era are trying

1:38:42

to telegraph. To audiences

1:38:46

as much as I should, because there's

1:38:48

a lot of stuff that I just don't really pick up on

1:38:50

and that I don't interpret correctly.

1:38:53

This happens every time I watch an older movie. I'm

1:38:55

just like, what are they even trying to say? What are they telling

1:38:58

me? Because I just like my brain doesn't operate

1:39:00

that way, I think. So, I

1:39:03

don't know how I feel about this movie.

1:39:06

I do want to say that, as is very typical

1:39:09

of movies of this era, which

1:39:11

is a major reflection of the rampant

1:39:14

racism of the time. This

1:39:17

is an entirely white cast. There,

1:39:20

I think, is one black man you see

1:39:22

on screen in the entire movie that's like the only

1:39:24

person of color that you

1:39:26

would clock throughout the entire movie.

1:39:29