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availability

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may vary by market

1:09

goes around

1:27

can to another episode

1:29

of you must remember this

1:32

podcast dedicated to explain

1:34

the secret and i've

1:37

forgotten history it's of

1:39

hollywood's first century

1:42

i'm your host korean a long war

1:45

and this is part thirteen

1:48

of our ongoing series

1:51

erotic ninety six

1:56

six six

2:00

You're a woman who's sexy. Just

2:02

sex, not love, just sex. And sex

2:04

just isn't cool without condom for protection.

2:08

You're a hooker. He talked about

2:10

pornographic material. He

2:15

gave me a lot of pleasure. So

2:17

we can show the sex act all

2:20

over the place. I

2:25

have seen one or two things in my life,

2:28

but never. Never anything

2:31

like this.

2:35

In our last episode, we talked

2:38

about a People magazine cover story

2:40

from April 1993 about a so-called trend of so-called

2:46

difficult women in the

2:48

spotlight. As

2:51

Kim Basinger, one of the actresses

2:53

lumped under this rubric, was quoted as

2:55

saying in the story, you know

2:57

what the term difficult means

3:00

in Hollywood?

3:01

Difficult means that I'm a woman

3:04

and I can't be controlled. Last

3:08

week, we also talked about a piece simultaneously

3:10

run in Time magazine, in

3:13

which some women in Hollywood suggested

3:16

that quote-unquote difficult women,

3:18

on screen and off, were

3:21

doing more harm than good for the

3:23

cause, even if those

3:25

movies made money. As

3:28

producer Linda Oppst put it, we've

3:31

got a lot of women as bad guys. It's

3:35

a reflection, I think, of

3:38

men's fears about women. This

3:41

is stated like it's a bad thing, but

3:44

for historical purposes,

3:46

I think it feels extremely

3:49

valuable to have the fears of that

3:51

moment, in terms of gender roles

3:53

and sexuality,

3:54

captured on screen.

3:58

Today we're going to talk about two films that are films

4:00

released in 1994 that

4:03

feel like cries for help from

4:05

a male populace totally

4:08

discombobulated by their combined fear

4:10

of, and attraction to,

4:14

dominant women.

4:16

One was a surprise hit, an

4:19

indie film which originally went straight

4:21

to HBO, and then was

4:23

given a theatrical release,

4:25

turning its lead actress into

4:28

a sensation. The

4:30

other was an engineered blockbuster,

4:33

based on a best-selling novel, and

4:36

starring two extremely bankable

4:38

actors who had become associated

4:41

with representing the roiling gender

4:43

divides of the time. Both

4:46

of these movies put forth an image of women

4:48

in the workplace as monsters

4:51

who use their sexuality to

4:53

destroy men.

4:55

Both The

4:57

Last Seduction, which debuted

4:59

on HBO in the summer of 1994, and Disclosure, which

5:04

had its theatrical release at Christmas 1994,

5:07

just under two years after the Michael

5:10

Crichton novel became a sensation, seemed

5:13

to reflect a trend described

5:16

by Tad Friend in

5:18

the February 1994 issue of Esquire. Drew

5:23

Barrymore was on the cover of the magazine,

5:25

labeled the

5:26

21st Century Fox,

5:29

but the theme of the issue was

5:31

what Friend coined, Doomy

5:34

Feminism.

5:37

This was somewhat different from

5:40

Slut Feminism, the term

5:42

coined three years earlier in

5:44

Playboy to disparage

5:47

Madonna.

5:48

Madonna had essentially been accused

5:51

of hiding feminism behind

5:52

sluttishness. According

5:56

to Tad Friend, the Doomy

5:58

Feminists were women who rejected

6:01

the aspects of feminism that

6:04

got in the way of their expression of sexuality.

6:08

For years, Friend writes, radical

6:11

feminists such as Catherine MacKinnon

6:14

and Andrea Dworkin have held sway,

6:17

declaring sex bad and men

6:19

worse. But now comes

6:22

a generation of young women who

6:24

have read the theory, thought

6:26

about it,

6:27

and rejected it.

6:30

One of the women Friend quotes is

6:33

Belle Hooks, already

6:35

in 1994, a legendary

6:37

black feminist and critic

6:40

of white feminism.

6:42

Friend offers up Hooks

6:45

as an exemplar of what the doomy

6:47

feminists are demanding. As

6:50

he quotes her as saying, if

6:53

all we have to choose from is the

6:55

limp dick or the super hard

6:58

dick, we're in trouble. We

7:00

need a versatile dick who

7:03

admits that intercourse isn't all there

7:05

is to sexuality, who can negotiate

7:07

rough sex on Monday, eating

7:10

pussy on Tuesday,

7:12

and cuddling on Wednesday.

7:15

Friend takes it from there. Quote,

7:19

sounds great, right? Right?

7:22

I'm guessing there's an uneasy silence

7:25

among all those versatile dicks

7:27

out there. A suspicion

7:29

that now that what they said

7:32

they wanted is here, smart

7:34

women who will discuss and do

7:36

the nasty without thinking it

7:38

nasty,

7:40

they aren't ready.

7:42

Besides, even some of the women who are

7:44

trumpeting their sexual urges,

7:46

worry about being seen as hussies,

7:49

doxies, strumpets.

7:52

In stirring the deep muck of

7:54

our ideas about sex,

7:56

the doomy feminists are

7:58

turning up a wide.

7:59

widespread fear

8:01

of untrammeled female

8:04

sexuality.

8:07

The quote-unquote, do-me-feminist

8:10

phenomenon is filled with

8:12

contradictions that friend, on

8:14

behalf of men everywhere, has

8:17

trouble reconciling.

8:20

More than once, he invokes Lorena

8:22

Bobbitt, who had become notorious

8:26

the previous summer when

8:28

she enacted revenge on her brutish

8:30

husband by cutting off

8:32

his penis and tossing it in

8:35

a field. The

8:37

implication is, if we

8:39

let women have control, aren't

8:41

we running the risk that they will

8:44

cut off our penises and

8:46

throw them in a field?

8:49

Both the last seduction and

8:52

disclosure could be

8:54

considered dramatizations of that fear to

8:57

very different ends. Join

9:00

us, won't you, for part 13

9:02

of Erotic 90s.

9:10

When we first see Linda Fiorentino's

9:13

Bridget in the last seduction, she's

9:16

prowling around the call center she

9:18

manages,

9:19

like a gender-swapped parody of

9:21

Glengarry Glen Ross. Come

9:23

on you eunuchs, Zeke's closing his sucker

9:26

six, seven

9:26

times and he's got twice as many sales as

9:29

the rest of you bastards. Spend

9:31

Sunday

9:31

here too if you don't take these bills from me.

9:34

Bridget has convinced her husband

9:37

Clay, a medical student played

9:39

by Bill Pullman,

9:40

to sell a bunch of pharmaceutical

9:43

cocaine.

9:44

He pulls off the sale, just

9:46

barely, and now they have

9:49

a windfall that will let them live it up

9:51

and pay off his loan shark. Except

9:55

that while Clay is in the shower,

9:58

Bridget skips town. with all the cash.

10:02

She ends up in a small town near Buffalo,

10:04

where on the advice of her lawyer,

10:07

she decides to hide out while serving

10:09

clay with divorce papers.

10:12

There, her next mark comes

10:15

to her. Played

10:17

by future director Peter Berg,

10:20

Mike is a local boy who has returned

10:22

to his hometown with his tail between

10:24

his legs after a brief

10:26

marriage. In this

10:29

shitty town's single bar, he

10:31

is telling his friend all about how he

10:34

can't wait to leave again.

10:35

I cannot spend the rest of

10:38

my life here. I know what's gonna happen each

10:40

and every day.

10:44

So when do you leave? How

10:48

long does it take to grow a new set of balls?

10:51

And then Bridget pops into his life.

10:54

Still wearing her business suit from work, she

10:57

walks into this bar looking like a visitor

10:59

from another planet,

11:01

a much more glamorous planet,

11:04

and tries to get a drink. The

11:06

bartender ignores her,

11:08

but Mike is paying attention.

11:10

Jesus Christ. Who's

11:12

a girl who's got a sucker around here to get a drink? Wow.

11:19

City trash man, he ain't nothing that. What

11:22

do you see in there? Maybe

11:25

a new set of balls. Give

11:28

me a Manhattan. Ray, a Manhattan for the lady,

11:31

please.

11:35

Sure might.

11:38

He buys her a drink, and then

11:41

he does what he has to do to hold her attention.

11:44

Could you leave?

11:46

Please. Well,

11:50

I haven't finished charming you yet. You haven't started. Give

11:52

me a chance. What

11:55

are you doing? Go

11:56

find yourself a nice little cowgirl, make nice little

11:58

cow babies. Maybe some beef

12:00

meal.

12:06

I'm hung like a horse. Think

12:08

about it. Let's

12:14

see. Excuse

12:16

me? Mr. Ed, let's see. She

12:19

goes on to unzip his pants in the middle

12:21

of the bar to check the veracity

12:24

of his boast.

12:25

Bridget, who will soon be calling herself

12:28

Wendy,

12:29

has the haircut of Jean Tierney

12:31

in Leave Her to Heaven.

12:33

But in other ways, the last

12:35

seduction has the aesthetics of

12:37

the 1990s indie film that it is.

12:42

The screenplay for the last seduction

12:44

by Steve Brancic

12:46

takes everything that would go unspoken

12:49

or coded in a 1940s film noir and

12:52

turns it into direct dialogue.

12:56

Wendy slash Bridget gets a job

12:58

as a manager

13:00

at the same insurance company

13:02

where Mike works as an adjuster

13:05

and they continue to see each other.

13:07

But she rejects his overtures

13:10

for real intimacy. I'm

13:12

having more and more trouble with this, Wendy. Don't

13:15

worry, you'll get the hang of it. I

13:18

mean, you're keeping me at arm's length all

13:20

the time. I'm certain if you like some kind of a... Sex

13:23

object. Yes, exactly, a sex

13:25

object. Live it up. Why

13:36

don't you just stay over? You gotta get back. Well,

13:38

then I can come over, that's fine.

13:41

My place, my space, Mike, don't get sticky.

13:43

What are you so scared of, huh? What are you so

13:45

scared of? I

13:51

don't know. I guess it's because

13:53

I've been hurt before. I

13:56

just... I don't want to get close to anyone right now.

13:59

You're different than the others, Mike.

14:02

I feel like, oh no, maybe I could

14:04

love you. I just, I don't want that

14:06

to happen, really. Will

14:10

that do?

14:11

Fucking

14:14

doesn't have to be anything more than fucking.

14:19

As this scene shows, Bridget

14:21

slash Wendy knows exactly

14:24

how to play her mark. And

14:26

she also knows he'd rather be a mark

14:30

than understand the truth of what's going

14:32

on between them. She doesn't

14:34

tell him she's still married. Even

14:36

after she does tell him that she's on the run

14:39

from a detective, who she knows

14:41

was sent to find her by Clay.

14:43

Clay isn't a total pushover.

14:46

We see him slap her in their first

14:49

scene together, hard. But

14:52

he's not very bright. None

14:54

of the men in this movie are, or at

14:56

least, they're easily disarmed

14:59

and distracted by her seductive

15:01

talents. For every

15:03

man Wendy slash Bridget gets involved

15:06

with, it proves

15:08

to be their last time getting seduced.

15:12

At the end of the film, she's responsible

15:14

for the deaths of two men and

15:16

the probable imprisonment of another.

15:20

But she gets away with everything and

15:23

walks away a rich woman. Not

15:27

once throughout the film has

15:29

Fiorentino revealed any genuine

15:32

vulnerability

15:33

or desire for anything

15:35

other than sex or money. Throughout,

15:38

men ask her things like, are

15:40

you even human? I'm

15:43

honestly not sure if it's a feature or a bug,

15:46

but while it shows a lot of male frailty,

15:49

the last seduction never clues

15:51

us into its female protagonists,

15:54

real humanity.

15:59

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By the time

16:54

The Last Seduction premiered on HBO in July,

16:55

1994, there was

16:57

a well-established sub-genre of

17:01

erotic thrillers being made to bypass

17:03

theaters and go straight

17:06

to cable or VHS. The

17:09

Red Shoe Diaries movie was part of this

17:12

trend, which exploded in 1992 when independent producers

17:17

began looking for ways to cheaply cut the cost

17:20

of the ways to cheaply capitalize

17:23

off of interest in basic instinct

17:25

before

17:25

that movie was available on

17:27

home video.

17:29

Even Blockbuster loosened its

17:31

policy against unrated films to

17:34

make room on their shelves for the movies of

17:36

Shannon Tweed, the most bankable

17:38

star in what the industry called DTV,

17:42

in which the actress and model was often

17:44

naked from the waist up. The

17:47

rental chain categorized this

17:49

kind of fare as 17 plus, and

17:53

it was hugely profitable, if

17:56

often forgettable.

17:59

The last.

17:59

was not meant to be filed

18:02

in with tweed films like Illicit

18:05

Dreams. Funded by

18:07

a British television company called ITC

18:10

Entertainment,

18:11

the last seduction was programmed

18:14

to premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

18:17

But before it could make that premiere,

18:20

ITC sold the rights to HBO.

18:23

Then indie distributor October

18:25

Films bought the theatrical rights. Because

18:29

of this complicated release pattern, which

18:31

had it premiering on TV before it played

18:33

in US movie theaters, even

18:36

though it was already a hit in England

18:38

and elsewhere,

18:40

the last seduction was ineligible

18:42

for Oscars, which became

18:44

part of its promotional narrative.

18:47

See the most exciting female performance

18:50

in years, which the State

18:52

Academy refuses to bend its rules

18:54

for. Perhaps

18:57

understanding that they were already late

18:59

to the party, the American

19:01

media rushed to embrace Linda

19:04

Fiorentino as the indie

19:06

version of a throwback bombshell

19:08

star, like Sharon

19:10

Stone for people who were mourning the

19:13

recent death of Kurt Cobain.

19:16

Vogue photographed her in a gold

19:18

LeMay Anasui original.

19:21

For a profile in Premiere magazine,

19:24

she was styled with the noir essentials

19:26

of trench coat and lit cigarettes.

19:30

The New York Times compared her to Barbara

19:32

Stanwick. Tad Friend,

19:34

chronicler of the doomy feminists

19:36

himself, wrote of her last

19:38

seduction performance in Vogue, Fiorentino's

19:42

mickel-mouthed aplomb instantly

19:45

furthers the legacy of Lauren

19:46

Bacall and

19:48

of Gloria Steinem.

19:51

Friend also consulted actor Chaz

19:53

Palm and Terry, who, like

19:55

Fiorentino, was in the midst

19:58

of filming Jade.

19:59

A film we will talk about

20:02

more next week. Palm

20:04

and Terry compared her performance in The Last

20:06

Deduction to, quote, Brando

20:09

in A Streetcar Named Desire or De

20:11

Niro in Raging Bull. Now

20:13

Linda has taken the femme fatale to a whole

20:15

new level. Many female stars

20:18

wouldn't take the risk to play that role, because

20:20

stars want to be loved. But

20:23

after what Linda did, you will see

20:25

women playing unforgivable characters,

20:28

playing more like a man.

20:29

Get the fuck over here. Do this, do that,

20:32

do me. Now get out. Writers

20:37

were eager to compile evidence that

20:40

The Last Seduction

20:42

had to some extent allowed her

20:44

to play herself.

20:46

Friend got some of that evidence from

20:48

Fiorentino's sister Terry, who

20:50

said,

20:51

She's so clear about sex and how it keeps

20:53

her alive as a woman.

20:55

If we felt like having sex when we were younger, we

20:57

just did, whether or not a

20:59

man had made the first move.

21:02

Or as Fiorentino put it in

21:04

an Esquire interview in 1995,

21:07

My sister Terry and I would just go into a bar

21:10

and say to some guy, I don't know your

21:12

name, I don't care, let's go. We

21:15

couldn't remember which one of us fucked which

21:18

one. We would share these men. We

21:20

were like guys. It

21:22

was all a game. It was all for fun.

21:25

In one interview, Fiorentino

21:28

acknowledged that in her real life,

21:30

she was well versed in her character's

21:32

ability is to use a man's desires

21:35

against him.

21:37

If I see a glint in their eye,

21:39

then I'll stay in that mode, feeding

21:41

what they need to believe. She

21:43

said,

21:44

let's call it the trap.

21:47

That I'm aware I can do that makes me sad.

21:50

Men are very simple. They

21:53

just want to have sex.

21:55

You want the other person to be as complex as

21:57

you are, and he's not. You

22:00

can see it in their eyes, the response to what

22:02

they saw on film. It's fear. If

22:05

I were ever with her, what would she do

22:07

to me? Peter

22:09

Berg, who played Mike in last seduction,

22:12

said, I truly learned

22:14

from working with her what it means to be treated

22:17

as a sex object. The

22:19

film's most talked about sex scene

22:22

features his character pinned

22:24

standing up

22:25

to a chain link fence outside

22:27

the bar by Wendy, who

22:29

straddles him, her pencil

22:32

skirt pushed up and her workaday

22:34

pumps hooked into the fence.

22:38

The actress played an active role

22:41

in blocking this scene. As

22:43

Berg recalled, we're all standing

22:46

around, Director John Dahl, myself

22:48

and Linda, trying to figure out what to do.

22:50

And Linda sort of let us throw a few misogynistic

22:53

suggestions around and finally she said,

22:55

all right, shut up, Peter,

22:58

get up against the fence. And she

23:00

just crawled up there and started attacking

23:02

me. As Linda

23:04

remembered it, he said,

23:07

make me look good. And I said,

23:10

I'll make you look like you have the biggest cock

23:12

on the face of the earth.

23:14

Afterwards, to get off of him, I

23:16

lifted myself up like two feet.

23:19

Even

23:22

in an age of so-called doomy

23:24

feminism, no one seemed

23:27

quite sure where to chart Fiorentino

23:30

or the character she played. Was

23:33

this image of take no prisoners

23:35

strong womanhood good for

23:37

women in general? Was it

23:40

a commentary on male fear

23:42

of women? Or an indictment

23:45

of feminism as emasculating?

23:48

Were men allowed to find her

23:50

and her character sexy?

23:53

Or did that make them cucks? A

23:56

lot of florid writing was

23:58

produced trying to answer.

23:59

these questions.

24:01

As Interview magazine put it,

24:04

America, at least white

24:06

male America, is

24:09

terrified by those of its daughters

24:11

who turn out malignantly

24:14

sexy. But it

24:16

cannot get enough of them.

24:20

According to an Esquire profile

24:22

of the Fiorentino, quote, they

24:25

have always been with us, the

24:28

femme fatales, each era

24:30

calling forth its own succubi.

24:33

Dark ladies who slipped the

24:36

knife deep into the prevailing

24:38

erotic angst. But

24:41

Linda Fiorentino gave us

24:43

a femme fatale perfectly

24:45

tailored to this choked, constricted

24:49

age.

24:50

She nailed the current gender

24:52

angst. Dressed in her

24:55

designer suits, invincible

24:57

behind her contempt and confidence, her

25:00

daunting brains and lust and ambition,

25:03

she was every corporate climbers

25:05

nightmare. She was

25:07

the spike heel through the glass ceiling,

25:10

the dominatrix every

25:12

broad with a corner office is assumed

25:14

to be. A fiend

25:17

who used men and

25:19

then impaled

25:20

them on their

25:22

own illusions about women.

25:25

Premier magazine described the character

25:27

as a high-heeled, brain-twisting,

25:30

man-hating, triple-crossing psycho

25:33

bitch who steals $700,000 from her

25:35

husband and gets away with

25:37

murder. Make that murders.

25:40

Men get dumped, humped and

25:42

bumped off in this slick thriller, all

25:45

by a woman who gets her way, acting

25:48

like a man. It's the kind

25:50

of sexual aggression that makes the famous

25:53

spread in basic instinct

25:56

look pretty basic indeed.

26:00

There is a lot of reactionary

26:03

critical language here, i.e.

26:05

man-heating psycho bitch,

26:08

as well as the suggestion that Wendy

26:10

slash Bridget

26:12

isn't a real woman,

26:15

but some kind of exception, feminine

26:18

in body,

26:19

but otherwise acting

26:21

like a man.

26:23

Of course, people said the same kind of

26:26

thing about Sharon Stone

26:28

as a way of trying to make sense of a film

26:30

in which she played a sexual aggressor

26:33

who happened to desire both men

26:35

and women.

26:37

But interestingly, when

26:39

talking about Fiorentino's character

26:42

acting like a man,

26:44

critics always seem to ignore

26:47

or sidestep

26:48

a plot twist in the last seduction,

26:51

which adds layers to its ideas

26:53

about gender.

26:55

In the final act,

26:56

Wendy discovers that the wife that

26:59

Mike ran away from and refuses to

27:01

talk about in detail

27:03

is, in fact, a trans

27:05

woman. He apparently fell

27:07

for her and eloped without

27:10

understanding that, and then

27:12

ran away from her when he learned the

27:14

truth.

27:16

In the last seductions denouement,

27:18

Wendy, now revealed to be

27:20

Bridget,

27:21

mercilessly mocks Mike for

27:23

not seeing his wife's maleness,

27:26

adding transphobic insults

27:29

to what Mike considers to be a

27:31

disfiguring injury to

27:33

his sense of manhood.

27:36

When you watch the last seduction today,

27:39

this plot twist and the way

27:41

Fiorentino's character uses

27:43

it makes her seem all the

27:46

more brutal and monstrous.

27:48

But in 1994,

27:50

it seems like it was read as more

27:53

evidence of her superiority

27:55

and Mike's failure

27:57

as a man. Whatever.

28:00

the intention was, in the reception

28:02

of the last seduction,

28:04

Fiorentino saw an advance

28:06

in liberation

28:08

as far as how bad it allowed

28:11

a bad girl to be.

28:13

Quote, it's funny because

28:15

I never saw that character as a role

28:18

model for little girls,

28:20

but I've had women come up to me and say, I saw

28:22

your movie and I've been walking around like a bitch

28:25

ever since and I'm driving my boyfriend crazy.

28:28

It makes me feel really strong and really great.

28:31

Even in something like film and Louise where you have

28:33

these two very strong characters,

28:35

they have to die in the end.

28:37

What's so special about the last seduction

28:40

is that none of that happens.

28:42

Had a Hollywood studio made that film instead

28:44

of an independent, it would have been

28:46

very different. She definitely

28:49

wouldn't have gotten away with what she gets away with.

28:51

With Fiorentino

28:53

wouldn't have been cast if last seduction

28:56

had been a studio movie.

28:58

She had made her screen debut in 1985, playing

29:02

an older woman in a relationship with a high

29:04

school wrestler in Vision Quest,

29:07

which was the first film she ever

29:09

auditioned for.

29:11

But by the early 90s, she

29:13

was considered a has been in her

29:15

early 30s. Making a comeback

29:18

after having squandered opportunities that

29:20

had been offered her, when she and

29:23

an ex-boyfriend spent years

29:25

trying and failing to make a movie about Andy

29:27

Warhol and Edie Sedgwick.

29:30

She then paid the price for it by doing

29:32

time in what Tad friend described

29:35

as straight to video hell.

29:38

She had been considered for the Jean Tribblehorn

29:40

part in Basic Instinct. But

29:43

when she told Verhoeven she'd rather play

29:45

the lead,

29:46

he stood up, bent over

29:48

and said,

29:50

but Linda, you're hanging over

29:52

somebody and you're making love to them and

29:54

there would be nothing hanging down.

29:57

Fiorentino

29:58

later said.

29:59

He didn't mean to insult me. It was

30:02

funny. I thought, is

30:04

this conversation about my tits? Because

30:06

if it is,

30:07

it's over.

30:09

She had a reputation for being difficult.

30:13

And before casting her, Seduction

30:16

director John Dahl asked her

30:18

to answer for that reputation. He

30:21

recalled that she answered, you

30:24

guys hire me to play these sexy bitches

30:27

and you don't expect a little bit of that to rub off?

30:30

If an actress speaks her mind, she is a bitch,

30:32

she told friend.

30:34

She did not stop speaking

30:36

her mind even as the last Seduction

30:39

revived her career prospects. She

30:42

became the toast of the town in late 1994,

30:45

winning the New York Critics Circle

30:48

Prize for Best Actress. She

30:50

still went on David Letterman show that fall

30:53

and accused Mark Canton.

30:56

Yes, the same Mark Canton

30:58

who in our last episode was

31:01

saying that studios should stop making

31:03

R-rated films and that there

31:05

was no woman in Hollywood who could be considered

31:08

consistently bankable

31:10

of having sexually harassed

31:12

her when she starred in Vision Quest.

31:15

She didn't seem to have a self-protective

31:18

instinct. My

31:20

friends, she said in one interview,

31:23

think I'm the freak, but

31:25

I'm not. I'm who they

31:27

would be if they weren't so afraid.

31:31

When she was shooting her next film, Jade,

31:34

she told Esquire that she did want

31:36

to play the game to a point.

31:40

I feel like things were on the right track career-wise

31:43

and now I wanna reap as many benefits

31:45

as possible

31:46

because chances are it's going to

31:48

be a disaster soon. I've

31:50

learned from experience. Fiorentino

31:54

didn't get a chance to reap nearly as

31:56

many benefits as some might have expected

31:58

from the way she was written about it.

31:59

about post last seduction.

32:02

We will talk about what was next for

32:05

her next week, but I

32:07

wonder to what extent what she had to offer,

32:10

particularly to those who appreciated

32:12

her performance in last seduction

32:15

and the blurring of the line

32:17

between the character and the actress in real life

32:20

seemed to sour after the success

32:22

of another film released at

32:24

the end of 1994 in

32:27

which a character styled almost

32:29

identically to Fiorentino in

32:31

last seduction attempts

32:34

to use her sexuality to destroy

32:36

men and fails. In

32:40

that movie, the stakes were much lower,

32:43

hardly life or death, but

32:46

the morality was much more simplistic

32:49

and the threat represented by the

32:51

brunette business babe much

32:54

easier to overcome.

32:56

After the break, disclosure.

33:02

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34:05

In between basic instinct and

34:07

disclosure, Michael Douglas

34:09

had starred in Falling Down, which

34:12

we touched on a few episodes back,

34:14

as the ultimate aggrieved white

34:16

male of the early 90s. Then

34:20

he went to Sierra Tucson, a

34:22

rehab clinic,

34:24

to undergo treatment for substance

34:26

abuse. As he recalled,

34:29

for me, somebody would never done any

34:31

therapy or counseling before.

34:33

Sierra Tucson was brutal.

34:36

Insert your men would

34:38

literally play characters who have sex with

34:41

bisexual and murderuses and go on rampages

34:43

against every minority in Los Angeles before

34:45

going to therapy.

34:47

Joke here.

34:49

He told Vanity Fair that his primary

34:51

addiction had been to alcohol, and

34:53

that any gossip about other addictions

34:56

was off the mark.

34:57

Quote, I want to make

34:59

this really clear. I want to

35:01

be a plane about this. So listen, there

35:04

was a lot of tabloid journalism about

35:06

my supposed sex addiction.

35:09

Bullshit. It's all bullshit.

35:12

That was a good story, but not

35:14

the issue for me. I mean, come

35:16

on. I never pretended to be a saint, but

35:19

give me a break.

35:20

He refused

35:22

to talk in detail about the problems in

35:24

his own marriage, although in

35:27

the same story, his wife, Deandra,

35:29

held little back.

35:31

A few months after this story ran,

35:34

Deandra would file for divorce. Douglas

35:38

insisted that the real him had

35:41

been conflated in the public imagination

35:43

with the characters he played.

35:46

And started with the guys I played in basic

35:48

instinct and fatal attraction. These

35:50

characters were sexually driven. The

35:53

media got this great handle from the film

35:55

and wrote it.

35:56

I can't believe people are so titillated

35:58

by this made-up shit.

36:01

In an interview published ten years

36:03

later, Paul Verhoeven used

36:06

that in his view, Douglas' relationship

36:08

to his characters was sort of the other

36:10

way around. Quote,

36:12

Having lived through many problems in his own

36:15

life with alcohol, womanizing, whatever,

36:17

I think he knew all about these things

36:19

and they are all elements of film noir,

36:22

the diabolical force of the woman

36:24

and the man as victims. There

36:27

is a lot of that stuff going on there. And

36:30

I think that's something he likes, that kind

36:32

of danger.

36:34

His

36:34

personal issues aside, Douglas

36:37

had gone from being perceived as a creature of

36:39

the 60s and 70s, a

36:41

playmate of Jack Nicholson and

36:43

Warren Beatty, to embodying

36:46

the twin poles of corporate masculinity

36:49

in two hits of 1987, Fatal

36:52

Attraction and Wall Street. Now,

36:55

he seemed to be poised to represent

36:58

the 90s man.

37:02

Disclosure was the subject of the February 1995

37:06

Libby Gilman-Waxner column

37:09

in Premiere Magazine.

37:11

Libby is the sometime pseudonym

37:13

of Paul Rudnick,

37:15

a playwright and the screenwriter of

37:17

Adam's Family Values and In and Out.

37:21

Libby is a fictional character

37:23

through which Rudnick can refract Hollywood

37:26

through the eyes of a middle-aged, middle-brow

37:29

Jewish mom, a

37:30

demographic that wasn't publishing a

37:32

lot of professional film criticism

37:35

in the days before the internet.

37:38

Libby Gilman-Waxner may be a

37:40

work of satire,

37:42

but her read of disclosure

37:44

is astute. She calls

37:46

Michael Douglas, Hollywood's

37:48

Bill Clinton, quote, with

37:51

their forgiving spouses and

37:53

full heads of hair. Bill

37:56

and Michael are both weak-willed, but

37:58

well-intentioned, new men. men

38:00

with the same old urges. The

38:04

novel on which the film was based uses

38:06

the concept of a man accusing

38:08

a woman of workplace sexual harassment

38:12

as a scaffolding on which to hang

38:14

a discourse about the old versus the new,

38:17

which airs quote unquote

38:19

both sides, but

38:22

pretty much always comes down on the idea

38:24

that what one character refers to as

38:26

feminist bullshit

38:28

has gone too far.

38:31

In the ultimate battle of he

38:33

said versus she said,

38:35

she is revealed to be a liar

38:38

who seduced him

38:41

in order to get him fired so that she

38:43

could blame him for a manufacturing

38:45

problem

38:46

caused by her own incompetence.

38:50

Released in 1994, Disclosure

38:53

was author Michael Crichton's first novel

38:55

after the massive success of the

38:57

film adaptation of his book Jurassic

39:00

Park.

39:01

Two months after its pub date

39:04

with the book still one of the top ten best

39:06

sellers in the country, Variety

39:08

reported that Warner Brothers had paid $3.5 million

39:11

for the film rights and

39:14

had already cast Michael Douglas

39:16

and Demi Moore and planned

39:18

to start shooting just two months after

39:20

that.

39:22

Barry Levinson, father

39:24

of Euphoria creator Sam Levinson,

39:27

would direct. Levinson

39:30

had been nominated for two Oscars for

39:32

Bugsy in 1992, but

39:35

had followed that film with two major

39:37

flops, Jimmy Hollywood

39:40

and Toys.

39:42

He joked that he was the right person to

39:44

direct Disclosure

39:45

because it was just like his breakout movie

39:48

Diner, quote,

39:50

except it has older men hanging

39:52

out in corporate offices, but they still

39:54

don't understand women. Entertainment

39:58

Weekly sent two reports.

39:59

one male and one

40:02

female

40:03

to visit the Seattle location

40:05

set that July.

40:07

The running joke of this cover story

40:09

is that Michael Douglas literally

40:12

whines and dines the female reporter,

40:15

Rebecca Asher Walsh.

40:17

While the male reporter, Benjamin

40:19

Svetsky,

40:20

struggles to get substantive time

40:22

with either star of the movie.

40:25

Even Donald Sutherland complains

40:27

to a publicist in earshot of reporter

40:29

Svetsky that he needs to

40:32

establish intimacy with a reporter.

40:35

And, quote, I think I

40:38

have that with her and not

40:40

with him. The unspoken

40:42

irony is that these men feel more comfortable

40:45

revealing themselves in situations

40:48

that they can treat like a hetero

40:50

date.

40:51

It's the flip side of the male insecurity

40:54

depicted in the movie, sparked

40:56

by a man's submissive position

40:59

to a hot woman in the workplace.

41:02

Consider the different ways in which Douglas

41:04

says the same thing to the two different

41:07

reporters.

41:08

I think there's a gender war going

41:11

on, Douglas told Asher Walsh

41:13

over oysters and chardonnay. Everything

41:16

is breaking down and harassment

41:18

is an issue one can identify with more

41:21

clearly,

41:22

but it's existed throughout time.

41:25

We're not comfortable with each other and

41:27

we're acting out in lots of different ways.

41:30

To the male reporter, Douglas

41:32

takes a less gentle approach,

41:35

ultimately insisting that women say

41:38

they want equality, but

41:40

they really want to be reminded

41:42

of their relative weakness and inferiority.

41:46

Quote, it goes back to

41:48

men dragging women by their hair into the

41:50

cave. It's just that now it's become this

41:53

issue. I think guys are confused

41:55

these days. I think they feel their role

41:57

has been usurped. Who's the provider?

42:00

Who's the nurturer? Who knows anymore?

42:03

I mean, if we followed the rules, we'd

42:05

all be these sensitive, upstanding,

42:07

compassionate men.

42:09

And no women would want us.

42:12

Women want aggressive guys who lay

42:14

it on the line. It's really confusing

42:16

for men these days.

42:20

Douglas'

42:20

views of who men

42:22

and women essentially are and what

42:24

they essentially want and how they

42:27

want to be seen.

42:28

Color some of the choices made

42:31

in adaptation.

42:32

In the first scenes of both film

42:35

and book, we meet Tom

42:37

Sanders on a busy morning at home,

42:40

where he has to take on the burden of taking

42:42

care of the kids for his lawyer wife.

42:45

Never mind the fact that Tom himself

42:48

has a big morning at work. A

42:51

mid-level manager at a Seattle tech

42:53

company that's on the verge of a merger,

42:56

Tom is expecting to be promoted

42:58

to vice president that day to

43:00

oversee a spinoff of his division

43:03

into a separate company.

43:05

In the book, we have access

43:07

to Tom's seething in our

43:10

monologue. In the book,

43:12

the wife doesn't even have to be in the office

43:14

that day. And yet, Tom

43:17

observes, she was not

43:19

good at managing the routine

43:21

at home. He's frustrated

43:24

that the wife can't even manage to

43:26

do what he considers to be the bare minimum

43:28

of wife stuff. And author

43:31

Crichton directly ties

43:33

Tom having to help out at home

43:36

to his position of weakness in the workplace.

43:40

The movie adds a scene in which the wife

43:42

drives him to the ferry station just

43:45

in time for him to run and make the boat.

43:48

She sends him off with a kiss and

43:51

a thanks for this morning. And

43:54

everyone on the ferry cheers as he

43:56

runs on board, as though what he's

43:58

being thanked for was...

43:59

morning sex rather

44:02

than just helping out a little bit with

44:04

breakfast.

44:10

Not

44:30

unlike the last seduction, disclosure says all the quiet

44:32

parts allowed.

44:49

On the ferry, Tom

44:51

is trying to maintain a cell phone

44:53

call while a downsized

44:55

grump complains about how the world

44:57

is changing.

44:58

28 years with IBM. Did

45:01

I ever tell you what they told me? I was surplus.

45:04

You ever hear that word? The

45:06

hell's going on down there Eddy? What?

45:09

Oh that's crazy. They wanted a euphemism, they

45:11

should have said Sutter-Mise. They're not gonna sell the Austin

45:14

plant. That's just a rumor. It's a rumor floating

45:16

around. You know, times like this. You don't see it coming. You

45:19

just go on right along and then one day there's no room. Boom.

45:22

No more room for you. Smaller,

45:24

faster, cheaper, better. I don't want to mention any names. I'm on

45:27

a cellular, okay? No names. I'm

45:28

just telling you it's not true. It's a rumor. I

45:30

was making 150 a year. Big money. Boom. It's

45:34

probably what you make, huh? Eddy, hang

45:36

on just one sec here. Why don't you call Cindy and make an

45:38

appointment. I'll

45:41

see if I can help out, all right? Thanks, Tom. Eddy,

45:46

they are not gonna sell Austin, all right? I mean, I'm telling

45:48

you they're not gonna sell if I'm telling you who else you don't

45:50

believe. Cindy. Pretty

45:52

name. At least they have fun with the girls.

45:54

Nowadays, she probably wants your job.

45:58

When Tom gets to work... work where he's in

46:01

charge of a department which is developing and

46:03

manufacturing a new high-speed CD-ROM

46:06

drive. He

46:07

finds out that he didn't get the promotion

46:09

to Vice President that he was expecting.

46:12

Instead, the job has been

46:14

given to a woman

46:16

who is being transferred to Seattle

46:18

from Silicon Valley.

46:19

Her name is Meredith, and she

46:22

is played by Demi Moore.

46:24

Tom knows Meredith.

46:26

Ten years ago, before he

46:28

was married,

46:29

they used to date.

46:33

In the book, Tom understands

46:35

that he needs to at least outwardly maintain

46:38

a calm facade about

46:40

being literally topped by

46:42

a woman he once knew intimately.

46:46

But in the movie, Tom

46:48

is played by Michael Douglas. That

46:52

Vanity Fair story in which Douglas

46:54

insisted he was an alcoholic and not a sex addict begins

46:59

with a quote from Kirk Douglas, in which

47:01

he says of his son, Michael's closed doors give him mystery. Like Brando,

47:03

Michael has an element of danger

47:09

he

47:12

could erupt. The

47:15

scene you're about to hear takes place

47:17

after Tom finds out that Demi Moore's

47:20

Meredith has been given the job instead of

47:22

him. Douglas' character storms into a

47:26

meeting of the staff he supervises, all

47:29

men except for one semi-butch woman. You

47:32

may recognize the voice of comedian

47:35

Dennis Miller in his first film role.

47:37

He's

47:49

got her installed in the office, and they're bouncing

47:51

back and forth like it's a fucking Tonight Show. Who? Meredith

47:53

Johnson. This isn't going to affect

47:55

the spinoff.

47:56

This is a technical division. She has no difference between

47:58

a cashmere sweater. Hey, come

48:00

on now, what aren't you telling us? Hey, I might be out of a

48:02

job, Lewin. How about that? Is that enough? You

48:04

know what it's like out there? He did say something

48:07

about the spinoff. They didn't tell me about

48:09

me. You think they're gonna tell

48:10

me about the goddamn spinoff? Yeah.

48:15

This is the worst

48:17

day of my life, all right? The

48:21

worst day of Tom's life

48:25

only gets worse.

48:26

When Meredith invites him to her

48:28

office at 6 PM to have a drink

48:33

and discuss the manufacturing

48:35

problems he's just been alerted to,

48:38

he allows her to flirt with him. When

48:41

her overtures start to make him uncomfortable,

48:44

he says, it's different now,

48:47

you're my boss. She

48:49

asks him to rub her shoulders while

48:51

he explains the manufacturing thing,

48:54

and he does.

48:56

Then he pulls out his cell phone and

48:58

makes a phone call to Dennis Miller's

49:00

character,

49:02

and she comes up behind him

49:04

and starts kissing him.

49:06

This is one movie sex scene which

49:09

actually works great for a podcast,

49:11

because throughout the action, they

49:13

keep most of their clothes on, but

49:16

have a lot to say.

49:19

Disclosure is definitely rated

49:22

R for language. In

49:24

this clip,

49:25

we're going to join them about two minutes

49:28

into the action. She's been

49:30

performing oral sex on him when

49:32

he pulls her off of him.

49:35

No, no, no, no, wait a second. Wait a second.

49:37

Wait a second. No, wait a minute.

49:39

Just stop. Stop. What?

49:42

Nobody has to know. Nobody

49:44

gets hurt. It's just

49:47

a meeting between two colleagues. Just

49:50

another dull day and the computer missed us. All

49:55

right, now. Now.

49:59

No, honey. No.

50:04

No!

50:08

Now he stops saying no

50:10

and takes control, throwing

50:13

her down on some construction

50:15

scaffolding? You want to get fucked, huh?

50:18

Yeah, come on, do it. Do

50:21

what you want. Do

50:23

what you want. Do what you

50:25

want. No. Just

50:31

stay hard. Okay.

50:36

This goes on for a while, almost

50:38

a full minute of screen time. And

50:41

then, Douglas catches a reflection

50:44

of his face in a window. Oh,

50:47

God, look at us. Come

50:49

on, I want you inside me. No, no,

50:52

no, no. I can't do this.

50:55

I'm not gonna do this. Come

50:57

on, now! No, no, no. You

50:59

can't stop. No. You can't just

51:01

stop. No, no, no. Get off.

51:12

You stick your dick in

51:14

my mouth and then you get an attack of morality?

51:20

This never happened, all right? Maybe

51:23

I will. You never used to be this way. I

51:30

have a family now. Yeah, well,

51:32

a family made you stupid.

51:36

You take those two champagne bottles in

51:39

your refrigerator and you go

51:41

fuck them. Oh,

51:44

you son of a bitch.

51:47

You get back here and finish what

51:49

you started. Do you hear me? Do you

51:52

hear me? Get back here and finish

51:54

what you started or you're fucking dead. Do you

51:56

hear me? You are fucking dead!

52:01

If the question is, who are we supposed

52:03

to root for here? The

52:05

answer provided by the rest of the movie is

52:08

him, obviously.

52:11

The next day, she tells their boss

52:13

that he sexually assaulted her.

52:15

Rather than settle it quietly and

52:17

accept a transfer to another city,

52:20

he consults a sexual harassment

52:22

lawyer

52:23

and decides to make a counterclaim

52:25

against her.

52:27

When he tells his wife what's happening,

52:29

she just doesn't get it.

52:31

In the middle of this scene, unfortunately,

52:34

an Asian nanny interrupts

52:36

to complain about the noise. When

52:39

do we all get to be on hard copy? I'd

52:41

love to hear what you'd say if it happened to you. You

52:43

know how many times this has happened to me.

52:45

Wait a minute, you never said this ever happened to me. You're

52:47

so goddamn narcissistic. Nothing ever happens

52:50

until it happens to you. Well, if somebody did this to

52:52

you, you should have said something about it. Well, women have always

52:54

done, Tom. I deal with it. I do not make a federal

52:56

case out of it. Now go in there tomorrow and work

52:58

it out. Oh, yeah, I guess you're right. You should just shut up and

53:00

fuck her. I mean, what the hell? I'll just apologize, apologize and

53:02

get your job back and get off of it. Apologize? What are

53:05

you doing? Shh. The shoe didn't have

53:07

sleeping. Well, wait

53:09

a minute. I got a better idea. Why

53:11

don't I just admit it? Why don't I be

53:13

that guy that evil white male you're all

53:15

complaining about? I like it. Then I can fuck everybody.

53:17

Tom, stop it. Hey, chow men, come on down

53:19

here. What do you want to exercise my dominance? Scaring her.

53:22

I'm getting a patriarchal urge. Tom, the children.

53:24

Yeah, my

53:24

children, all right? My children that I provide

53:27

for and protect. That they can come

53:29

in here between me and my wife, move

53:31

my family out, take my job and take the family in

53:33

the house that we have made.

53:35

And I apologize to them, Susan.

53:38

They called me a rapist and I apologize. Oh, come

53:40

on, Susan. This is some kind of joke. Sexual

53:44

harassment is about power.

53:48

When did I have the power?

53:51

When? They

53:54

go into arbitration. The

53:56

company is definitely on Meredith's

53:58

side. I'm thinking

53:59

about that. Things seem to be going her

54:02

way until Tom realizes

54:04

that everything that happened between them was

54:07

recorded on the answering machine of

54:09

the person he had been calling on his cell

54:11

phone

54:12

before she attacked him.

54:14

They play the tape at the harassment

54:16

arbitration.

54:18

The male voice you hear in the next clip

54:20

is Meredith's lawyer, and

54:22

then Tom's lawyer and Meredith

54:24

have an exchange about consent. Young

54:27

lady, the only thing this tape demonstrates is

54:29

consensual sex between two adults. However,

54:33

it may have appeared the morning after. Mr.

54:35

Sanders' regret is not my client's harassment.

54:38

Miss Johnson, is that your position today?

54:41

Yes, it is. Miss

54:44

Alvarez? Miss Johnson,

54:46

just so I'm clear on what today's story

54:48

is, would you define for me

54:50

consensual sex? Sex

54:53

where both parties are willing participants.

54:56

How many times did we hear Mr. Sanders say no

54:58

on that tape? I don't know,

55:00

I was too busy listening to my underwear being

55:02

torn off. 31 times.

55:06

Doesn't no mean no? Sometimes

55:09

no means that person wants to be overwhelmed,

55:12

dominated, but we can't talk about

55:14

that. The way we're supposed to have sex nowadays,

55:16

we'd need the UN to supervise it. No means

55:19

no. Isn't that what we tell

55:21

women? Do men deserve

55:24

less? Well, when

55:26

he really wanted to stop, he didn't seem to have any

55:28

problems doing it, did he? And that's when you

55:30

got angry. Of course I got angry, so would

55:32

anyone. Don't we tell women that they can

55:34

stop at any point? Haven't you ever said

55:36

no and meant yes, Mrs. Alvarez? Up until

55:38

the moment of actual penetration. The point

55:41

is he was willing, that tape doesn't change

55:43

anything. The point is you

55:45

control the meeting.

55:46

You set the time, you order the wine,

55:49

you lock the door, you demanded service, and

55:51

then you got angry when he didn't provide it. So

55:54

you decided to get even, to get

55:56

rid of him with this trumped up charge. Ms.

55:58

Johnson, the only thing you have...

55:59

is that a woman in power

56:02

can be every bit as abusive as

56:04

a man. You want to put me on trial here? Let's

56:06

at least be honest about what it's for. I

56:08

am a sexually aggressive woman. I like it.

56:11

Tom knew it, and you can't handle it. It

56:13

is the same damn thing since the beginning of time.

56:16

Vail it, hide it, lock it up, and throw away

56:18

the key. We expect a woman to do a man's job,

56:20

make a man's money, and then

56:23

walk around with a parasol and lie down for a man

56:25

to fuck her like it was still a hundred years ago. Well,

56:27

no thank you.

56:31

If Disclosure was really about

56:33

this, that would be interesting.

56:36

But Disclosure is not about

56:38

the double-bind, a professionally successful,

56:42

sexually aggressive woman might find

56:44

herself in.

56:45

In this movie, Meredith's

56:48

sexual aggression is a false flag,

56:50

part of a cover-up. The movie

56:53

is not about a woman who pursues

56:55

sex because she loves sex, nor

56:58

is it about men who are scared off by

57:00

her.

57:01

It's about a woman using her sexuality

57:04

to get ahead and to cover

57:06

up her incompetence at work.

57:09

It's a movie that suggests the only

57:11

good woman in her workplace is one

57:13

who leaves her sexuality at home,

57:16

who uses her power subtly and

57:19

smartly behind the scenes and

57:22

is inclusive and mothering

57:25

rather than dominating. When

57:28

Meredith is revealed to be a schemer

57:30

and a fraud, she is replaced

57:32

not by Tom or another man, but

57:35

by an apparently post-menopausal

57:38

female colleague

57:39

who everyone agrees

57:41

put in her dues and deserves

57:44

the position. Disclosure

57:47

doesn't say that women shouldn't have power in

57:49

the workplace. It says

57:51

that women who are sexually exciting

57:53

shouldn't have power in the workplace and

57:56

that if they do get it,

57:58

they probably don't deserve it.

58:01

In an essay in The New York Times,

58:04

Karen James suggested disclosure

58:06

may offer a delayed reckoning

58:08

with Anita Hill's allegations of

58:10

sexual harassment during Clarence

58:13

Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation

58:15

in 1991.

58:17

Hill was not a perfect victim,

58:20

and in fact, was discredited

58:23

by many

58:24

because she continued to work with

58:26

Thomas even after the harassment

58:28

became a problem because she

58:31

felt it would be damaging to her career

58:33

to leave.

58:35

As James writes, she

58:38

was ambitious, as many women

58:40

realized what few said at the time of

58:42

the hearings, to admit that

58:44

baldly would have been disastrous, tantamount

58:47

to appearing before the country as

58:49

a witchy woman. James

58:52

adds, if the role reversal

58:55

in disclosure is illuminating, part

58:58

of what it brings to light is the danger

59:00

of a woman in Anita Hill's position, admitting

59:03

her ambition.

59:06

Certainly disclosure is playing

59:08

on male frustration over the ways in which

59:10

the concept of sexual harassment

59:12

has changed the workplace. But

59:16

to compare it to Anita Hill's very

59:18

real experience is almost pointless

59:21

because the story of disclosure

59:24

in the novel and in the film is

59:26

not about a genuine instance of

59:29

sexual harassment. It's

59:31

about a woman, so ambitious

59:33

and so evil, that she

59:36

uses sexual harassment as a contrivance

59:39

to get what she wants in the workplace.

59:43

There may have been instances in

59:45

which female bosses actually

59:47

harass their underlings, but

59:50

as James points out, sexual

59:53

harassment is a lot of things. It

59:55

is seldom anyone's first

59:58

choice as a profession.

1:00:02

Instead of finding drama in what James calls

1:00:04

the confusion that surrounds so many real cases of sexual

1:00:06

harassment, films like Disclosure quote, allow

1:00:11

audiences to vent their anger

1:00:13

at the changing rules of power. They

1:00:19

also allow audiences

1:00:21

to fantasize that what they find threatening about

1:00:24

attractive women with power can be

1:00:26

a part of the world's most vulnerable power

1:00:29

can easily be vanquished,

1:00:32

just as easily as Glenn Close's

1:00:34

which was exterminated in fatal attraction.

1:00:38

Both movies conclude with Michael Douglas

1:00:41

moving on with his life, as

1:00:43

if this could never happen again,

1:00:46

as if he will never again encounter

1:00:49

a woman who threatens his status,

1:00:52

his security, or his masculinity.

1:00:55

Both movies say that attractive women

1:00:57

don't belong in professional positions where

1:00:59

they could pose that kind of a threat.

1:01:02

Attractive women belong at home with

1:01:05

the kids, and women in the workplace

1:01:07

should be butch, sexless, and

1:01:10

or old, and it's too much

1:01:12

to ask of men to expect them to accept

1:01:15

the muddling of those roles.

1:01:18

Disclosure the movie actually

1:01:20

declines to take an opportunity offered

1:01:22

to it by the novel to

1:01:25

spell this out through dialogue.

1:01:27

In the novel, the Douglas character

1:01:30

sends his kids and his wife, who

1:01:32

in the book is openly bitchy, away

1:01:34

for the week so that they won't be in

1:01:36

his way while he deals with all of this.

1:01:39

On the last page of the book, he

1:01:41

picks the wife up at the airport,

1:01:44

and she tells him she's going to pull back

1:01:46

from work so that she can spend

1:01:48

more time at home.

1:01:50

He says, that'd be nice,

1:01:53

and then spots the Demi Moore character,

1:01:56

buying a plane ticket to fly out

1:01:58

of his life.

1:01:59

The witch gets on her broomstick

1:02:02

and his wife is transformed from

1:02:04

bitch

1:02:05

to happy helpmate.

1:02:08

In the film, the wife, played by

1:02:10

Carolyn Goodall,

1:02:12

is by her husband's side through the

1:02:14

whole arbitration.

1:02:16

The screenplay invents a scene between

1:02:18

her and Tom's lawyer,

1:02:21

played

1:02:21

by Roma Mafia,

1:02:22

which allows the both sidesism

1:02:25

of the book to come out of

1:02:27

the mouths of two women. So

1:02:30

how are you holding up? Are you

1:02:32

married? Chandler, Pogue,

1:02:34

and Alvarez. I'm Mary Chandler. You're

1:02:37

married your boss. Classic case of

1:02:39

sexual harassment. He asked me out five times

1:02:41

before I said yes. Today, if I had said

1:02:43

no once, he would have been afraid to ask again. Tom

1:02:47

tells me you're a lawyer. Ten years.

1:02:50

You want to switch hats? Tell me what you're thinking. I

1:02:53

don't look good in hats. You're

1:02:55

afraid she might be telling the truth, aren't you?

1:02:56

Yes.

1:03:00

What he did, he did out of weakness. That

1:03:03

hardly makes it better, does it? Look,

1:03:06

I can't get in the middle of your relationship

1:03:08

with your husband. But the fact of the

1:03:11

matter is she broke the law, and that's

1:03:13

what makes the difference. Miss Alvarez, 48

1:03:15

hours ago, my husband's penis was in another

1:03:18

woman's mouth. I don't think there's

1:03:20

anything in the law that's going to help me deal with that.

1:03:22

Disclosure

1:03:25

was a fairly big hit. It

1:03:28

made $83 million domestically.

1:03:30

On the list of top 20 grossing

1:03:33

films of 1994,

1:03:35

it ranked higher than Ace Ventura

1:03:37

Pet Detective,

1:03:39

lower than Pulp Fiction.

1:03:41

Demi Moore barely mentions this

1:03:43

movie in her memoir.

1:03:45

As we noted a couple of weeks back, she

1:03:48

devotes many pages to Indecent Proposal,

1:03:51

a movie which, as you know, I quite

1:03:53

like,

1:03:54

but which won the Razzie Award

1:03:56

for Best Picture of 1993.

1:04:00

The only significant thing

1:04:02

Moore has to say in her book about disclosure

1:04:04

is that it made a lot of money, and

1:04:07

so when she was negotiating for her next

1:04:09

film,

1:04:10

she quote, wanted

1:04:12

to get paid accordingly.

1:04:14

Her next movie was Stripty's,

1:04:17

for which her $12.5 million salary

1:04:21

made her the highest paid actress to that

1:04:23

point.

1:04:26

If Demi Moore doesn't seem to

1:04:28

have much to say about disclosure

1:04:30

today, it's understandable.

1:04:33

She gives it her all, but there's

1:04:35

no way to make Meredith truly empathetic,

1:04:38

even though the things she says about the double

1:04:40

standards for women aren't wrong.

1:04:43

Moore did a fascinating interview with Rolling

1:04:45

Stone in 1995,

1:04:47

in which she performed a few

1:04:50

contortions to humanize her disclosure

1:04:52

character. Quote, she

1:04:55

is a sexually aggressive woman who doesn't

1:04:57

apologize for it. And there's

1:05:00

nothing wrong with that part of her, that's

1:05:02

not the negative. I don't even

1:05:04

think her ambition is the negative, and I

1:05:07

think she's good at what she does, which is also

1:05:09

different in the book.

1:05:10

But she's dishonest, she's manipulative,

1:05:13

and she's willing to dispense with people if they don't serve

1:05:15

her, and those are the negatives.

1:05:17

When I say in the end, I played the

1:05:19

game the way you guys set it up and I'm

1:05:21

being fired, it's the truth. So

1:05:26

the reporter asked, you're not

1:05:28

worried that the portrayal demonizes

1:05:31

women? Moore responded,

1:05:34

no, because I think it's very human.

1:05:36

But what do you mean demonize? You mean

1:05:38

is she like a devil woman?

1:05:41

I think Meredith is just an opportunist

1:05:43

in a way that's gender neutral.

1:05:45

So the reporter

1:05:47

pressed, she's a role model?

1:05:50

No, no, Moore clarified,

1:05:53

she's a role model for what women shouldn't be.

1:05:56

Of course,

1:05:58

women shouldn't create.

1:05:59

fake sexual harassment scandals,

1:06:02

especially as a ploy to get ahead in the workplace.

1:06:06

But it didn't seem like there was much

1:06:08

danger in actual working

1:06:10

women not understanding that, given

1:06:13

that in this way and others. Disclosure

1:06:16

throws a bone to paranoid men

1:06:18

who would love to have proof

1:06:20

of their suspicions that with more women at

1:06:23

higher levels in the workplace,

1:06:25

surely some of them are for reasons other

1:06:27

than merit.

1:06:29

The bigger danger was that people would watch

1:06:31

disclosure and think,

1:06:33

this is why sexy women can't be trusted,

1:06:36

especially at work. Or

1:06:38

that they'd believe that a man in the Michael Douglas

1:06:41

character's position had really

1:06:43

been stripped of his power.

1:06:47

In that same interview, Moore

1:06:49

was asked if she believed that things were

1:06:51

really getting harder for men. And

1:06:54

she said,

1:06:54

harder for them? I don't think

1:06:57

so. Maybe because the rules are changing

1:06:59

and they're having to shift their understanding. They

1:07:01

think so, but really, what's

1:07:04

more difficult? It can only be

1:07:06

difficult if they're threatened by a woman who has some

1:07:08

strength within herself.

1:07:10

But if that's the case, then deal

1:07:12

with it. It's sort of ridiculous.

1:07:15

If you can't cope with something, go figure

1:07:17

it out. Go do something about

1:07:19

it.

1:07:21

Moore did not convince the

1:07:23

world that sexual harassment of

1:07:26

men by women was a widespread

1:07:29

problem. Entertainment

1:07:31

Weekly polled 62 males

1:07:33

leaving Los Angeles-era showings of the film

1:07:36

and asked, if Demi

1:07:38

Moore was their boss and came on to them,

1:07:41

would they have sex with her or Sue?

1:07:45

The results overwhelmingly suggested

1:07:47

that Michael Douglas's character had done

1:07:49

the wrong

1:07:50

thing. Quote, 47

1:07:53

men, including three who said they were

1:07:55

gay, admitted they would go

1:07:57

for it.

1:07:59

whatever social conversation the filmmakers

1:08:02

were going for.

1:08:04

Disclosure had trouble moving

1:08:06

the discourse forward, as

1:08:08

long as the culture was stuck on the joke

1:08:10

of, to me, more could sexually harass

1:08:13

me anytime.

1:08:16

As I've been writing the last few episodes,

1:08:19

I've been thinking a lot about that

1:08:21

Cali Curry quote, when she called

1:08:23

out Sharon Stone as a sellout for,

1:08:26

quote unquote, spreading her legs

1:08:28

in basic instinct.

1:08:31

I don't know if Corey knew that Stone had

1:08:33

said from the beginning that she

1:08:35

hadn't intended to show her vagina

1:08:38

on screen and had been tricked

1:08:40

into that exposure by Verhoeven. It

1:08:43

really doesn't matter to Corey

1:08:45

and some other women who identified as feminists

1:08:47

in the early 1990s.

1:08:49

Anything that seemed powerful about

1:08:51

Stone's character didn't really count,

1:08:54

because the power was accrued

1:08:56

through conforming to male sexual

1:08:58

desire. As she said

1:09:00

it,

1:09:01

sex isn't power,

1:09:03

money is power.

1:09:06

That's a very firm binary.

1:09:09

If the age old question for feminism

1:09:12

is, should women focus on fighting

1:09:14

for equality in the bedroom or in the

1:09:16

boardroom?

1:09:18

Obviously we need to do both, and we'll

1:09:20

know we haven't achieved anything like real

1:09:22

equality if

1:09:23

we're still seeing it as an either

1:09:25

or.

1:09:27

And how do you apply that binary to the two

1:09:29

movies we've been talking about today?

1:09:31

Both of which are about women who use their

1:09:33

sexuality to beat men at male

1:09:36

games and male spaces, one

1:09:38

of whom literally gets away with

1:09:40

murder,

1:09:41

while the other can't even get away

1:09:43

with a little corporate malfeasance.

1:09:46

To me, the last seduction feels

1:09:48

subversive, and

1:09:50

the disclosure feels regressive.

1:09:53

One is a revenge fantasy against

1:09:56

stupid, failing upward

1:09:58

men, albeit one.

1:09:59

and soured by its heroines cruelty

1:10:02

and inhumanity.

1:10:04

The other is a revenge fantasy against

1:10:06

women

1:10:07

who have made it more difficult for men

1:10:09

to hang on to the power that they used

1:10:11

to accrue by default.

1:10:14

But it's easier to make those distinctions about

1:10:16

the movies and the characters

1:10:19

than it is about the actresses who played them.

1:10:21

After the last seduction,

1:10:24

Linda Fiorentino was seen for a short

1:10:26

moment as a female Brando

1:10:28

or De Niro, a woman who could play

1:10:31

complicated, villainous characters

1:10:34

without any concession to patriarchy.

1:10:37

But as we'll see next week when we talk

1:10:39

about Jade, the period

1:10:42

when it seemed like Fiorentino would have

1:10:44

a chance to erase the gender binary

1:10:46

in acting

1:10:47

was short-lived.

1:10:50

Meanwhile, Demi Moore at this moment

1:10:52

was really testing what money

1:10:55

is power actually meant

1:10:57

for a woman in Hollywood. Michael

1:10:59

Douglas was paid $12 million to

1:11:02

start in disclosure.

1:11:03

Demi Moore earned just $5

1:11:06

million.

1:11:08

And yet, she was still derided in

1:11:10

the press for having too much.

1:11:13

As Rebecca Asher Walsh wrote in that Entertainment

1:11:15

Weekly cover story,

1:11:17

she appears to be one of those women who

1:11:19

make life quite hard for the rest

1:11:21

of us. She's got a brilliant career,

1:11:23

a rich, famous, successful

1:11:26

husband, three kids,

1:11:28

and a body a 17-year-old would

1:11:30

kill for.

1:11:34

Moore, who grew up poor

1:11:36

and as a movie star was criticized for

1:11:38

working too hard

1:11:40

and working out too hard and

1:11:42

achieving too much,

1:11:44

clearly couldn't control the way she was

1:11:46

written about.

1:11:47

But she was able to use the fact

1:11:50

that Hollywood had grudgingly

1:11:52

come around to acknowledge that she was a

1:11:54

good investment to spread

1:11:56

the wealth to other women.

1:11:59

That disclosure was in theaters, she

1:12:02

was shooting now and then.

1:12:04

And as the producer of that film, which

1:12:06

was written by a woman, Moore

1:12:08

hired a female director, a female

1:12:11

editor, even a female gaffer.

1:12:14

And when she would finally begin getting

1:12:16

paid more than her male co-stars,

1:12:19

those paychecks would come for films,

1:12:21

Strip Tease and G.I. Lane,

1:12:24

that continued to explore what we

1:12:27

expect of women and their bodies and

1:12:29

ask questions about whether there is any

1:12:31

possibility, to paraphrase

1:12:34

disclosure,

1:12:35

for women to compete in the game

1:12:38

men created. Next

1:12:41

week, in our final episode before a

1:12:43

brief hiatus, we will

1:12:45

talk about perhaps the

1:12:48

ultimate exploration of that theme

1:12:50

of this era, showgirls.

1:12:54

Join us then, won't you?

1:13:05

Thanks for listening to You Must Remember This.

1:13:08

The show is written, produced, and

1:13:11

narrated by Karina Longworth.

1:13:14

That's me. This

1:13:16

season is edited and mixed

1:13:19

by Evan Viola. Our

1:13:21

research and production assistant

1:13:23

is Lindsey D. Schonholz.

1:13:27

Our social media assistant is Brendan

1:13:29

Whalen. And our logo was

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too. And if you

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go to our website, youmustrememberthispodcast.com,

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be back next week with an all-new

1:14:54

tale from the secret and or

1:14:56

forgotten histories of Hollywood's

1:14:59

first century. Join

1:15:01

us then, won't you? Good

1:15:04

night.