500 Days of Summer with Brandie Posey

To celebrate 500 Days of Bechdel Cast, Caitlin and Jamie invite special guest Brandie Posey to discuss 500 Days of Summer.

(This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the dol cast, the questions asked if movies have
women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and
husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef in
best start changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hello and
welcome to the Bigtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus.
Oh hello, I guess we're doing these accents. I didn't know,

(00:23):
but here we are. I just want to incense our audiences.
I just want to polarize them right at the top.
So yeah, of course. My name is Caitlin Durante, Danny
and um. We are here to talk about where the
portrayal of women in film. The Bigteal Test is the
metric that we use in order to in order to

(00:47):
talk about how women are portrayed. What the Bloody Hill
is the bigtal tests? It will It's something you usually
applied to cinema but can be applied to all media.
How long are we going to do this it's a taste. Well,
we're we're. I don't know, because there's no reason to
do it too, because this movie is an alto Australia.

(01:08):
Australian I think anytime when I see Miles Grey, I
just begin to talk this way and it's it's had
to break out of um. Well, so the Mecktel test there, Yeah, okay,
we're back to our our regular toad speak. The Becktel
test is the metric we used to discuss it. It
is a test that requires there are two women in

(01:29):
a scene who have names who talk about something other
than a man. Not many movies past we talked about
other tests as well, but that's our jumping off point.
Shall we demo it? I would love to, hey, Jamie, Yes,
what's up? Have you ever? Have you ever been to Australia? Might?
I've never been, but everybody thinks I'm from there because

(01:51):
my very convincing accent that no one finds annoying. And
I actually think it's very cool. I like how you
go into like a Liverpool accident towards the end, it's
very cool spectrum. When I passed the Bechtel test, so
it's true. Yeah, So it doesn't mean that everything that

(02:12):
passes the Bechtel test is not annoying. It can be
very annoying. Sure, so you know, let women be annoying.
It's our time to be any damn it. Times up
men being annoying. I get to be annoying. Now, well,
well today we really we we have a banger today,
a bang a bang a. We we got a real,

(02:35):
a real bing bog today. I'm very excited to talk
about this movie because it is a movie that is
nine years old, and yet I feel like the public
opinion of this movie has changed drastically since the movie
is released. Days of Summer, Here with Us, Summer, Here
with Us to talk about the film is a friend,

(02:56):
a very wonderful person, a comedian. Sorry, I'm going to
go back to how I usually talk. She's a comedian.
She's one of the co hosts of Lady to Lady podcast,
and she's got an album out called Opinion Cave. Brandy Posey, Hello,
go nice, Hello, top of the Moon Into Yeah. If

(03:21):
this is good or not, it's good and in fact
it's great. We have alienated all of our internationals. Hello,
international listeners like, Okay, I'll just talk American over here.
That's fine. Well we here on the big okays. We
that was my attempt at a Southern accent. Uh, we're

(03:42):
blowing it. Hey, y'all, let's just get into it. Let's
get into the discourse. So, Brandy, what is your history,
your relationship with the movie Five Hundred Days of Summer
Um that I say it all. I watched it last
night for the very first time. Yeah, I don't like

(04:04):
Zoey's whole thing. This movie like seemed like it was
peak whimsy. The man I Pixie dream Girl thing just
like really irritates me. And this seemed like at the
time when I came out that it was like the
most that and I know that that's not necessarily a
popular opinion sometimes, so I just was like, if I
don't see it, then I don't have to talk about it.
And then nine years later I was booked on a

(04:25):
podcast where to talk about it to strangers of them listening.
It's all right, thank you for your sacrifice. Yeah, it's
all good. I was watching this with my boyfriend last
night and he he got about halfway through and then
he was like, stuffed water boarding me with twee. I'm
going to bed. That is basically what this movie is. Yeah, oh, Jamie,

(04:46):
what's your history? I'm guilty of loving it. I was
sixteen when this movie came out, and it really got me. Yeah,
I really love this movie when it came out, But
but I I within a few years had turned on it,
which is why I think that a lot of people
had that experience of this movie. When it came out,
I was like, it's it love and this is what

(05:08):
I want. And then I remember watching it, I think
in college just a few years later, and being like, oh,
this is like kind of horseship, you know, I will
I will say, I don't think it is a movie
that is self aware. It has no idea what it's doing.
But there's a few different ways to watch it, all
of which I think are sort of interesting because there's
when I was watching it this time, because this is
probably I've probably seen this movie five or six times

(05:30):
over the years, and every time I will watch it
watching it from this perspective knowing that the message is
ultimately like net negative kind of um. It's interesting to
watch this movie as if it knows what it's doing,
because if it was a self aware movie, it might
be brilliant, but it has no idea, and so it's

(05:51):
down selfware in terms of it knowing that it's Joseph
Gordley killing of the movie, which I don't think the
movie has any clue. Because then I was reading about
the production and the guy who wrote it was like
I was going through break up and like, you know
my heart and me, you know, very very SENSI boy

(06:12):
bull shit. Oh yeah, this is a guy that has
put holes in all of his hoodies for his fingers
through where even Joseph Gordon Levitt now recognizes. I mean,
and Joseph Gordon Levitt, I just I don't I don't
know that he's done anything wrong. I do find him annoying.

(06:32):
That's whatever I'm here for. Joseph Gordon. I am a
fan of his. I grew up watching Third Rock from
the Sun a lot, so I liked him from an
early age. And yeah, I don't know. I just I'm
not gonna join his fan club or anything like that,
but I's gonna join him. This is going to sound
contradictory of me. But Joseph Gordon Levitt is is a
bit in your face about how very wokey is and

(06:53):
I that's just an equality and men I find annoying,
not harmful, but annoying. Oh for sure. I sweed this
movie last night, um because I was just furious watching
it and I had subtly And here's the thing. If
you say that you don't like five days of summer.
Several wokemen will explain to you the movie as if
you just don't understand what it's really women are, women

(07:19):
are objects, They're people who can think for themselves. Honey.
Oh and several several several guys did that to me
last night. She was still We'll say for Joseph Gordon
Levitt is like as early as twelve he declared himself
the villain of the movie. Yeah, so it is interesting
where they're there. He and Zoe additional both spoken of

(07:39):
this movie in retrospect and pretty close to it coming out,
is like, yeah, that wasn't a good story or not
as good as everyone thought it was in two thousand nine. Well,
and like I could see reading that script and being like, oh,
the intent is that I'm my character is a villain,
but it's just executed really poorly. But I also don't
think that was the intent of the thing in the
first place. I don't think so. I think they were

(07:59):
like it made me want that movie, though, I would
let like a movie where the you know, SENSI indie
boy is like punished by the narrative. For sure. Well,
it's funny because this movie aspires to be garden State,
which is what a horrible goal? Can you imagine what
your gold like? I just want to be garden State,
striving for Braft like well, whenever we get around to

(08:24):
uh Natalie November or whatever time, we do the funniest. However,
I don't know why it was, but yeah, I loved
this movie when it came out and turned on it
within a few years. Yeah, the same thing happened with me.
I saw it pretty shortly after it came out, really
enjoyed it. Thought it was, you know, a subversive example

(08:44):
of like the rom com genre that I had come
to hate, just crazy because it subverts nothing, and that
was what people thought when it came out. Yeah, well,
you know, I was not, as you know, aware of
things back then. So and then I think probably only
once or twice between then and now, and and now
that I've rewatched it, it's a whole new world. So

(09:07):
shall I do the recap of the story, the recap
of the film. Are you going to start with the
opening where there's just like several lines of texture, Yeah,
the great place to start. So the author's note that
happens over black before we see any even images in
courier grow up, where we can assume the screenwriter, the director,

(09:29):
whoever's story this is, says the following is a work
of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is
purely coincidental. Next frame, especially you, Jenny Beckman. Next frame,
bitch right away, Yeah, I mean start with a three pointer.
I like stood up in my house. I was like,

(09:52):
oh cool, so this is the movie. I would love
to watch you watch this movie. I just punching a
pillow entire and he's I have said so just in
case you weren't sure how this movie views women. Um,
it thinks they're all bitches basically witches, skanks, and horse
all three words are he's super skank is invoked. God.

(10:15):
I mean this was like the Late Hots where it
was and you know all of history, but when it
was the sniveling loser was getting fucked for some reason.
But it was just as misogynist as the jock, and
it was just like, well, what, yeah, what's the difference here? Um,
So we meet Tom Joseph Gordon Levitt's character, and we

(10:37):
meet Summer Finn Zoe Desianelle's character Tweet, and so Tom
is our protagonist. He loves love he's a sensi boy,
and he is like on the lookout for the one
something about him just as like he totally has called
someone like we're like Jack and Sally, you know, like

(10:58):
he has that like hot topic adjacent five Like I've
never said this to anyone before, but you're kind of
the salary to my Jack. I'm like, I'm going to
yes for sure. Has like a mix of just songs
that are about two names, you know what I mean.
He's just like, Okay, these are going to be awesome.
This man made a sex playlist in two thousand seven

(11:20):
has not updated it to this day. He's like, what
do you think about beach House? Like that's like he's
going to figure you to a beach House album. He's
done it a million times and then he'll yell at
you later. I hate him, mad that you're not getting
off usher. Okay. So so Tom and Summer meet at work,

(11:44):
and the movie follows their relationship in which they are
either together or not, basically him having feelings for her
over the course of five days. And the movie tells
the story out of chronological order. What is they think it?
It's pulpit? Ever heard of non linear narrative kind of
cool thing this movie does. I think that sometimes when

(12:05):
movies go nonlinear, it is to mask that it is
a boring movie. Almost always it's like, put in sequence.
This movie fucking sucks. Absolutely, Oh, but the past is
happening now when it started good and then it got bad.

(12:28):
Like I feel like the out of order adds almost
nothing to this. That's just a yeah, I would tend
to agree. Um, So we see their relationship unfold and
their breakup unfold over the course of the movie, and
it's taking place not necessarily in chronological order. We do
kind of start at the beginning though, where they meet.
He sees her and he's just instantly enamored with her,

(12:51):
and she is ambivalent. She barely notices him, and then
he gets closer to her. Other characters would say that
he stalks her, which he listens to the Smiths, thank
you very much, so could not commit a crime, said,
we don't see him stalking her the way other movies

(13:14):
portray a romantic pursuit a lot of the time. But
he is like he's taken an interest in her and
he is trying to get her attention, and then eventually
that does happen and they have like a work hang
at a bar in which his friend Mackenzie says like, Hey,
do you wanna boyfriend? And we'll talk about this whole
conversation when we get to the discussion. But basically she

(13:35):
says that she's not really into having a boyfriend. But
they He's like, she's saying it, but she doesn't mean anything.
Change her. Me and my fourgnch penises are going to
change her life. Woman mind doesn't know what it needs.
He's most flaccid man to ever take breath, and she

(13:56):
will be mine. Yeah. So then they do start dating,
and throughout the whole course of their relationship, she tends
to be kind of distant. She tells him that she's
not really looking for anything serious. He is meanwhile in
love with her. Um Whenever he thinks that she's not
into him or whenever she breaks up with him, he

(14:17):
falls apart and has to consult his toxic friends and
his sister, who is a character who has never existed
in the world. So we'll talk about that child, A
wise child. Yeah, we'll get into that weird child child
troupe ruins me. I hate it. It's so fucking lazy.

(14:37):
Do you think they all go to school together? Does
the most insufferable group of pretentious little like actually kids
that should be That should be a YouTube video of
just like cutting all of those kids in conversation. Every Yeah,
it's horrible, and the I feel like it's also and

(14:57):
we can when we talk about that character more in depth,
I feel like she that character is fully exploited as
a way to make Tom seem like not a bad guy,
because it's like, oh, he's so nice to his little
sister and he's clearly a good role model for her
and they're so close. But like, if you deconstruct that
even a little bit, it's just like the screenwriter grasping

(15:18):
at straws of like, how can I make this guy
not look like a ship head? Let me put the
story out of horridor. Let me give him friends who
are worse than him. Let me give him a sister,
so it's like he doesn't hate all women. He has
a sister. You know, it's such such sneaky ship to
play here. So basically the story ends with them breaking up,

(15:39):
him being distraught over it, and then she gets engaged
and then married and he's all like, but you said
you didn't want a boyfriend and now you're somebody's wife,
and what I don't understand what was wrong with me
that he didn't love me? And then this sort of
this is the catalyst that gets him to be like, oh,

(16:01):
I should pursue my architect degree. I'm going to go
on a job interview to become an architect, and they're
another lazy movie job that like architect that's almost like, oh,
does Zoe Deschanelle work at a gallery. This is also
our second recent episode we've done that features the greeting
card company trope one I hate from the movie Her

(16:24):
Her there. And then now this of like another coded
SENSEI boy thing of like he's too sensitive for the
greeting card company. We love him? What a beta? And
I want to be clear that we do. I am
fine with men in real life who are emotionally sensitive

(16:46):
and vulnerable. I don't want to sound like we're being like, oh,
sense boys, but the way that movies often depict that
character is that they are still extremely toxic those men,
but we are led to believe because they're so sensitive
and because they know how to write I love you
into a greeting card, we are supposed to sympathize with
them so much, it's just a self serving sensitivity where

(17:09):
it's only they're still selfish. Like it's like no, like,
I mean, I'm dating a very sensitive guy, but he
thinks out of himself all the time, who cares about
other people and put them before him And like, at
no point, doesn't do any of these guys in these
movies ever do that. It's only about them. We love
when men are expressive. It doesn't happen enough in the
real world. But this, but this character, like the reason

(17:31):
I feel fine making fun of it is because it's
all false. It's not real at all. So yesterday Jack
O'Brien brought this to my attention at Joseph Gordon Levitt
revisited this too, and he tweeted, literally yesterday, it's August
seven today he tweeted this. Yesterday someone tweeted still haven't
forgiven Zoe Tashanal for what she did to Joseph Gordon
levin Five Days of Summer, and then j g L,

(17:52):
to his credit, responded, watch it again. It's mostly Tom's fault.
He's projecting, he's not listening, he's selfish. Luckily he grows
by the end like, oh, okay, so good anyway, So
so the movie and he goes on this interview during
which he meets a another hute gal and he's like, oh,

(18:14):
I'm going to seize the day. I'm going to ask
her out. Then he's like what's your name? And she's
like Autumn. We're like, I also stood up at that point.
It's just a series of me just standing in rage
and it's come back down and I felt trapped in
my own home that time. I did actively hiss and

(18:37):
because I forgot that happened at the end, it's like, no,
so does that mean whenever they break up? He meets
a girl named Winter, like what are we meant to
be here? He's going to end up with a solstice
that's his kind. He's like, I need something more whimsical
than Summer, please. So that is the story. We've already

(19:01):
kind of touched on some of the tropes that we
see from different characters. Some of the problems that the
movie just slaps us in the face with, well it supposed.
A good place to begin is the way that a
lot of the characters use language to disparage women, to

(19:21):
disparage queer people, other marginalized groups of people like so,
for example, whenever Tom's sister, whose name is Rachel, comes over,
this is the very beginning of the movie. She comes
over to console Tom after his breakup with Summer. His
friends are there as well, and they're all like, oh,
maybe she's just in a bad mood. Maybe she's hormonal.

(19:44):
His sisters like p MS. It was so bad. I
was like, Oh God, it's just her hormones. Don't worry
her having agency and making a choice to not be
in a relationship anymore that she didn't want to be in.
That's her having p MS. Yeah, Queen has sign up

(20:05):
for one second. This movie also takes place in Los Angeles,
but it does not feel like Los Angeles. It like
desperately wanted to be in New York, but they couldn't
do it anywhere, couldn't afford it, so they were just
downtown the entire time. Because when the little girl comes
over Rachel and sister, she she's just like it's speeding
over on a bike. And then she takes off her
helmet goes inside, and I was like, literally, no one
in l A wears helmets. Whatever we are. And there's

(20:25):
a scene where it's like pouring rain. Yeah, and it's
supposed to be this like emotional thing where like she
shows up in the rain, she's drenched, and it's like
it rains in l a once a year. Yet one week,
one week a year, and it rains, and then it
doesn't really nice to him. I just felt gas lit
at every moment of this movie, especially in the setting
of it, where I was just like, I know what

(20:47):
Los Angeles is, and this does not feel like we're
in Los Angeles. I also took me a while to
realize that the sisters Chloe Grace Moretts too. So man
not inn auspicious beginning, no, no, but thankfully she graduated
to better material like the Luisy k movie, Oh that one.

(21:09):
Oh she Is She Is, He is Daddy, So there's God.
I mean, should we start with tom or Summer? I
don't know. I started because Summer isn't a person, right,
I said, I would argue, we know very little about Summer,
and we know a lot about a construction of Summer

(21:31):
that isn't an actual person, which is something we can
talk about right after the break. Yeah, so we'll be
we'll take a quick break and we'll be right back
Hala hala. We actually like very quickly went to Australia,

(21:53):
and so yeah, let's talk about Summer her. The backstory
she's given ring the kind of opening sequence of the
movie where we're learning a little bit about her and
about Tom. What we know about her backstory is some
voice over narration that says, after the disintegration of her
parents marriage, she only loved two things, her long, dark

(22:16):
hair and how easily she could cut it off and
feel nothing. And it's just like, really, these this is
how you're characterizing this person. Like it's such a one
dimensional characterization that it's embarrassing, Like the writer should feel embarrassed. No,
it's really embarrassing. Don't don't worry. He's very proud of

(22:38):
what he's done. As also, it's just like, so you're
setting her up to be a murderer? Is that what
you're trying to do here? As she got older, she
loved just torturing cats and feeling nothing, like what are
we talking about? But it's made to be very cute
and attractive. He doesn't And Okay, Zoe d Chanelle, how

(23:01):
do we feel? Because I feel generally that Zoe Deschanelle
gets a bad rap that is not necessarily fair and
perhaps a little bit gendered in the way that she's
been treated in her career. And I like her. Okay,
you're allowed, It's okay. It's the way find I've heard
personal stories that she's a piece of ship, so that

(23:24):
colors a lot for me. Yeah. Um, And like the
leaning into the tweenness of it is just like, I
get it. We all have brands and stuff. I just like. Also,
this movie was very hard to watch with the world
that's happening around us right now, because I was like,
shouldn't you be like rollerblading at a march or something.

(23:45):
I feel like you should be doing something like tween
in a space that matters of some kind. You should
be like phone banking and footy pajamas or some ship. Right, Yeah,
I would say, I I'll follow in the middle of
YouTube being just kind of vambib and about her. Like
I watched several seasons of New Girl. I thought it
was generally pretty funny. But yeah, I don't dislike her.

(24:07):
I don't like her. I'm but I would agree that
many of the roles that she takes in entertainment are
this like very tweet. I don't even know if I
would classify at least this role is a manic pixie
dreamgirl type. It's more like a chill pixie dream girl.

(24:28):
But she dresses like her mom is the CEO of
mod cloths, Like it's a whole well, and it's like
it's more like the embrace of Like the thing is
that stereotype is like a sacred text of like the
instell nation, basically like the man pixie dream role and
for her to like take on those roles without like
being like, but this is wrong and stupid all the time.

(24:51):
To me, it's like feels a little irresponsible. Sure, Yeah,
I just I just feel like generally and I know
nothing about this woman personally, but I guess where I
fall on it generally is I think if man was
doing the same thing that she does in that she
takes the same role frequently, it's not a positive role,

(25:12):
people come down harder on her and she is more
reviled because a woman. No, I think that's definitely true. Yeah,
So that's just something I don't know, and and this
is something that I guess it's more warranted for her
than you know. There it was just like this very
popular hot take to have for a while, Like Anne
Hathaway is a bit just I hate her face and

(25:34):
I hate but and like it was very cool to
not like Anne Hathaway and think when Anne Hathaway literally
didn't do anything, uh, and that's just something. I mean,
she like Zoe Dishell's peak twee white lady, and that
has its own set of issues to unpack. But I
just it does like I don't know, the the like

(25:56):
hot take of like Zoe Dictionel sucks and like her
and bangs and blah blah blah. I mean every I
don't know, every actor has that. Every actor has the
role I take over and over and they don't examine it.
It doesn't make her better. But I just feel like
people come down on her harder. I mean, you're right,
because there are plenty of you know, actors who have
been pretty typecast who I mean, Bruce Willis plays the

(26:20):
same role over and over again. They all they all
play you know, archetypal character in almost every movie that
they're in. But we as a society love those guys,
and then we do come down harder on people like
Zoey Deschanel for doing the same thing those characters that
she accepts are vastly different from the arte types that

(26:42):
like you know, your action heroes take, but it's still
but are also not available to her right exactly. So yeah,
I guess to me, it's also like whenever I see her,
she channels that in real life a lot too, on
like couch pieces and stuff like that, where she also
leans into it in person so much too that I'm
just like, just be genuine, I want to know who

(27:03):
I don't know who she is and never seen that
in an interview, and if this issue who she is,
then that's that's one thing. But I don't believe that
that's true. So just like there's like a disingenuous about
all of it that kind of just like, but why
what's going on here? Because she used to be like that.
I remember when like she was in yes Man and like,
um early like i've seen her yes man, Yeah, I've

(27:25):
seen her in early stuff. I remember being like, oh,
she's like she's fine, and then she just was like, oh,
this is my thing, and I'm just like always going
to have ukulele every time on one cone and and
like right that you is yeah a lot, Yeah, you girl.
I can't stand for that So that's just my just
to get because I for this episode, I'm just like,

(27:46):
oh my god, everyone's going to go into our mentions
of like Zoe desianalz dectional. That's just there. We got
it out of the way. Now let's talk about the characters.
So I would say that one of the main things
that you do learn about her or you find out
that she cuts her hair off and loves it or
feels nothing or whatever, loves the feeling, loves the addicted

(28:08):
to theo. So her main thing is she married the annoyed.
So her thing is that she doesn't want to be
in a relationship. Really, she's fine with just kind of
being independent. And I appreciate that you see a depiction

(28:33):
of a woman in a movie who is not obsessed
with finding a boyfriend finding husband, because so many movies
would have you believe that it's all women think about
because one movie is be very heteronormative and too they
just depict most single women as just being obsessed with
finding a boyfriend or someone to marry. Um a maz she.

(28:54):
But then that's like another thing that's interesting about I
don't know. Watching it this time, it was like, oh,
summer is way more independent and explicit about that than
I remembered. But the movie also does think, like, but
she does need a good guy. She's just like she
says that, but it's a defense mechanism and she really

(29:15):
does need a man. Like the movie doesn't even believe
the character that it wrote right right, Yeah, and it
demonizes that trade about her, where like she's like, yeah,
I don't need no man, but because she doesn't want
to be with Joseph Gordon Levitt, our hero, the movie
would have you believe that she is an uppity bitch

(29:37):
and they literally call her uppity better than everyone's super skameing. Right.
I want to see more depictions of women in movies
who are not obsessed with finding a man and that's
like their one goal throughout the whole story, but also
to not have that be demonized like it is in
this movie. Yeah, for sure, what this movie needed was

(29:57):
like the scene it like the party at the end,
where there's like his expectations versus reality. They needed a
split screen of how they both saw every interaction that
they had, Like they never gave her an actual stay
in any at any point in the movie. Even at
that point, you're like you're like, oh, poor him, he
didn't get the thing that he wanted. Like, it's still
not like from her point of view, she's like, oh, yeah,

(30:19):
somebody my friend over. I think we're like cool now.
You know. It's that at no point do you understand
what is going on in her head whatsoever. And he's
such an unreliable narrator because throughout the whole movie he
is so like fraught with emotion that he is not
seeing things clearly. And I we can see that when
we watched this movie. But I wonder if, like when

(30:43):
this movie came out, because we're led to believe that
he's like this sensitive guy who deserves love and and
fuck her for not being in love with him back
that we're you know, meant to believe that he's this
great guy. But yeah, we don't see things from her
point of view, but we're still like supposed to empathize

(31:03):
with him so heavily. It's very bizarre all the toxic
traits that are passed off as sensitive man. And it's like,
you know, ultimately bad, a bad movie for young men
to see. And this was like one of the movies
that young men were seeing and they're like, I literally
remember my high school boyfriend being like I kind of

(31:24):
liked Five Days of Somewhere as you know, to like
really show his hand, like I'm a sensitive boy. But
it's like the if you, you know, emulate those behaviors,
you're a bad man. This is a movie about the
worst kind of man, because he is and he feels
entitled to her. He is extremely possessive. The second he
meets her, she starts to view her as property. Something

(31:48):
that I again on this viewing, that I noticed is
like around a third of the time we see Zoe
additional on screen, it's not even the character, it's him
thinking about her. So we're seeing the construction of her
almost as much as we're seeing the character. And whenever
we see the actual character, it's usually an argument or

(32:09):
it's usually she's being a bitch or like that's what
the movie would have you believe, And the times where
she's like soft and so in love with them, it's
usually stuff that doesn't even happen, yeah, or or or
at least, you know, a third of the time it's
something that doesn't even happen. Literally like constructs her body

(32:30):
and it's like I love this birthmark and your knees
and like this part of your hair, and like the
weird imperfection on your thing. And it's like, oh, you're
just like literally just like pulled her body apart, and
we're like, oh, these are the five parts of you
that I would make into a soup and drink every day.
Cool dude, It's like, I just want to turn you
into a broth and share. They do this to Matthew

(32:52):
Gray goobler anyway, Sorry, that's just been like on the
tip of my tongue this whole time. I love goobs.
I do not understand that reference. I love a little
bit of goog He plays one of Joseph Gordon love
It's terrible friends, the black curly hair guy or like
the blondie, little Blondie. Paul, Yes, Paul, Paul, the Blondie.

(33:15):
I love me some goobs. Give me the goob. I
said it before, say it again, give me the goob.
But his character is insufferable. His other friend, Mackenzie's character
is insufferable, which so I want to go to that
conversation where we aren't. So they are at a bar
like a work function, singing karaoke. So it's summer, it's

(33:38):
Tom and it's Mackenzie sitting in a booth and Mackenzie
goes to summer. He's like, so, do you have a boyfriend?
And she's like a no, and he's like why not.
She says, because I don't want one, and he's like,
come on, I don't believe that. And she says, you
don't believe that a woman could enjoy being free and independent,
and then he responds with are you a lesbian? She said, no,

(33:58):
I'm not a lesbian. I just don't feel comfortable being
anyone's girlfriend. I actually don't feel comfortable being anyone's anything.
And then they talk a little bit more, and later
on she says, I like being on my own. Relationships
are messy. People's feelings get hurt. Who needs to be
We're young, you might as well have some fun and
do serious stuff later. And then Mackenzie says, holy sh it,

(34:20):
you're a dude. You're such a dude for saying that.
And it's and that, so we can assume the movie
things that wanting to be single and not wanting to
be in a relationship is a guy thing. Yeah, it's
a guy quality. She's so cool, she's a man. Rightly,
I mean, that's like the guy's gal trove that shows
up all the time, right of, like that's something to

(34:43):
aspire to, like be devastatingly hot and have all these
traditionally feminine qualities but also act like a dude, but
don't look like why don't have a feeling? Don't yeah
yeah yeah, just like be fucking cool, bef getting cool,
but also be fucking hot, be cool in the exact

(35:04):
way that I want you to be cool, like be
completely aloof until like I desire you and then be
so into me just like dude, right, it is it,
but she like I forgot how explicitly she states it.
But again it's like that there are those good moments
in the movie that seemed like almost like it's a mistake,

(35:26):
and then it's later weaponized against her as like she
is a dude and like, you know, Joseph Gordon Levitt.
And it's also so such a slippery slope for them
to characterize Joseph Gordon Levitt's desire for a relationship as feminine,
because the way he is in a relationship is scary
and weird. And got there's that scene where the scene

(35:48):
where they're in the elevator and he asks her like,
how our weekend was, and she's like a little dodgy,
doesn't seem to really want to talk to him, just
like it was good. And then immediately he gets so
mad she's not good enough for me anyways, She's a
bit blah blah, she's sucking so much, and it's like,
oh my god, he calls her a skank again. Yeah,

(36:09):
and yeah, so god, there's there's a lot of Eliza
scanning me at this point on Twitter, So I don't
want to like me a friend of the She was saying,
how like there are so many moments where she's just
trying to be like early on where she's just like
a woman trying to just navigate being polite to people
in her office that he interprets as like one thing
or another where it's like the Smiths thing. To her,

(36:29):
she's probably like, oh, yeah, we're an elevator, let me
just say something. Oh yeah, I also like the Smiths.
And he was just like, oh, it's on yeah, And
it's like how many times are you just like in
a space with a guy and you're just like yeah, hey,
I mean it makes small talk for a second, because
it's weird to stand in silence with you, right, And
it's just like so much of her is just trying
to exist in a space and he's interpreting it, which

(36:51):
is why he's such an unreliable narrator and why it's
a problem for the movie to be like, hey, look
how great this quiet is. But yeah, so she yeah,
she's just like yeah, I like the Smiths too, And
then she like exits the elevator and you see him
like visibly sploshing in his pants, being like, oh, she
loves me and I love her. God, yes, Morrisey's an assholes.

(37:16):
That's great. Of course you love Morrisey. Piece of ships
literally peaked Smith's fans. Absolutely, of course. I just have
such a problem with the way the movie ascribes certain
traits as being masculine and other traits as being feminine.
Whereby she doesn't run a relationship, so she's a dude.

(37:38):
That's a guy thing, and he wants a relationship, so
that's almost like emasculating, and that's like him being feminine.
And it's just like those qualities are not like mutually
exclusive to any gender, and it's like so it subscribes
to these like very rigid gender norms It's interesting because
I feel like men and women have had very different

(38:00):
actions to this movie, Like, at least based on my
Twitter conversation, it's been defended vehemently by guys and like women,
I think like a lot of women like especially as
you get older and you watch it as you get older,
you're kind of just like, I know this guy. We've
we've all like known this dude, and like the way
that they're sneaky about like how what piece of ship

(38:20):
they are? They like hide it until they show it,
and you're just like, yeah, no, this is like something
I've had to like dodge my life and had to
look out for. Like guys don't have these kind of
warning signs to be looking out for another and like
women like so I think they they're just like, well, yeah,
like it's just we're just watching two different movies. Because
women are just like, well, yeah no, this is um,

(38:41):
this is a to me, this is like a it's
a warning manual for what not to go after, and
men are just like, oh man, you can't have it all.
I think that's a lot of people use this movie
as a manual, but from very different things. Guys are like, oh,
this is you know like they viewed Joseph Gordon Levitt.

(39:02):
I like you're saying it's like scorned, mistreated. They're God.
The scene where he's like, I say we're a couple,
God damn it, and you're just like no, you know
where is that where he runs down the staircase and
he's like, no, you'll go ahead, and there's two women
in the hallway and it's like you're an angry piece
of ship. And then that scene is followed with her

(39:25):
showing up at his door drenched from the rain and
she's like, she's like, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gotten
mad at you. Because this all happens after he punches
a guy at a bar because he threatens his masculinity.
So there's a scene where a guy comes up tries
to hit on Summer. She's very clear about saying I'm

(39:47):
not interested. I'm flattered, but I have no interest. Please
go over there and leave us alone. She handled it. Yeah,
it was done, and the guys all like, really, this
guy is your boyfriend, and then Joseph Gord Lovett stands
up and punches him in the face and then gets
punched back. Yeah, and she is very mad at him.
Understandably so well, and she he punches that guy because

(40:11):
he's not her boyfriend. He punches him because he can't
punch her. Like, to me, it's like that that whole
scene is just him being like, I'm not even the
thing that you think I am. And then fuck you,
Summer for not letting me be the thing, because it's
like he calls so earlier, could have been like, hey,
back off, dude, and then just like like there were

(40:31):
moments that he could have also like backed her up,
and he never backed her up. The only time that
he got mad is when like he was called a
boyfriend and he's not a boyfriend. Well, he only cares
about her as it pertains to him. The outside of that,
he has no interest in her, right, And on that note,
we're to take a quick break. Everyone just take a lap,
to take a lap, and we're back. Yeah. I mean,

(41:00):
it's so weird because it's like we're trying to have
a conversation about Summer, but we literally don't know enough
about her. We know these few tweet like next bus
facts about her hair, her parents are divorced, she loves
cutting her hair off because she feels nothing. Well, there's
a divorced narrative too. I feel like it's used to
be like, oh, well, that's why she doesn't believe in love.
It's like maybe she just doesn't right, she doesn't need that.

(41:23):
We see that also in The Holiday with Cameron Diaz.
His character like Cameron Diaz, like her parents got divorced
when she was fifteen, and her whole thing now is
that she cannot cry. She has not cried since she
was fifteen years old because she's so damaged from her
parents being divorced twenty years ago directly. But yeah, so

(41:48):
we see so, yeah, we we understand. I guess why
she's so emotionally damaged, and it's because her parents split
up when she was younger. It's a's all so crazy
because everybody has friends whose parents are divorced, if their
parents aren't worse themselves, who live perfectly fine lives, and
it's just like such like a lie that It's like,
it's really insulting. Yeah, it's lazy and insulting to make

(42:09):
that like a thing that we know about her. There's
a few scenes in this movie that I wanted to
just go through because I feel like they have become
like semi modern iconic in ways that are weird. The
expectations versus reality scene like as constantly cited as as
a joke at this point, but is something that comes

(42:29):
up all the time, and I mean, I think we
might have even covered it already, Brandy, because it's like,
we don't see that from Summer's point of view. And
that scene is very serving to the Joseph Gordon Levitt
character where it gets a lot of sympathy for him,
where he's like, he just wants a girlfriend, but he
drinking a beer at the rooftop party alone, like he's
at the rooftop party. An. There's scene that I loved

(42:52):
the first time I saw it was the dance scene
after he has sex with her, Yeah, which rung to
you this time sinister as like a conquering kind of thing,
right because she makes it clear. And the other the
last iconic seen I wanted to talk about the Ikea

(43:13):
scene where that was oh my god, when I was
a teenager, forget it. I was like, this is the
template for love. This is also something I can afford
to do. Let's all go to barback. Can you imagine?
Can you imagine the horrible teenagers? Just the sweaty, hormonal teenagers.
The summer this movie came out just laying just spread

(43:35):
eagling and dry humping all over the ikea. The poor
summer of onine. Probably not a good time to be
working at ikea. But she finger on top of none.
But yes, but like she makes it clear to him
in the ikea scene, she said, you know, she kind

(43:55):
of establishes the boundary before they have sex, of like,
this is fun, your fun, like, don't text me walls
of text the second you leave my house kind of thing.
Have a good time. This is fun, you know, it's
it's it seems pretty clear. It was not clear to
me when I first saw it, but she does make
that clear. And then he doesn't have sex with her,
and then it's this yeah, the fucking returning conqueror sensitive Boy,

(44:20):
where again the movie has no idea that it's doing this,
but just the implication that that is, like he got
what he wanted. Yeah, he was pursuing this like girl
that he was pining over, and then when he finally
gets to have sex with her, it was like the
best moment of his life. Where there's like dancers in
the street and marching band I passionless missionary. When ye

(44:45):
passionless missionary. Oh god, nothing was going on. That was
some really boring head round nonsense that was happening. Doesn't
at one point like the only other relationship he had
when he's like in fifth grade or something, that's like
a line that they say, like yours. He's talking, he's
saying that to his friend. He's like, you, you don't

(45:06):
know what you're talking about. The last girlfriend you had
was in seventh grade. You dated for three hours, So
we don't. We don't know a ton about Tom's but
we do know a little bit about Summer's relationship history
because he asks her about it and she's reluctant to
talk about it, but he kind of presses her and
she's like, okay, fine. And the one thing I want
to mention about that is she's like, oh, for a

(45:28):
brief time in college, there was Charlie. And it cuts
to what his imagining of Charlie to look like, which
is like a guy in a punk band or something
like that, and then Summer says she was nice, and
then his face goes what what what? And then it
cuts to a woman in the same band. What is
happening there? To me, is it's glossing over a queer relationship.

(45:50):
She could not say less about this character Charlie Um.
And it's also like a suggestion of oh, it happened
in college, so it was just her experimenting. It was
a phase, like very dismissive. And that leads me to
so I want to go back to how characters talk
about women, queer people, etcetera. For example, there is a

(46:12):
moment where Tom is talking to his friends Paul Mackenzie,
and they're all like, well, what's going on with you?
And Summer like well, are you boyfriends or what in it? Yeah?
And Tom's like boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, Like we're adults, we
don't need to put labels on it. And the Mackenzie
for no reason says you sound gay and Paul says

(46:33):
you really do, and it's like what that was was
baffling where I mean, it is like two thousand nine,
and like I would say, we're peek no homo around
this time, and this is not to just really take
every opportunity to take a gigantic dump all over jut Apataw,

(46:55):
but I will this was like around the time where
the jutt Appataw no Homo was like unfolding where it
was like, oh, men can be friends now as long
as they constantly state that they could not be gay,
and they always have to be when they're friends, they
have to be shipping on women. But you know, real,

(47:15):
real lateral move of like men are allowed to be friends,
it's not gay to be friends as long as you're
always saying it's not gay to be friends. The implication
is that gays are bad and women are bad. I
love that guy. Also demonstrated in Cool but totally, especially
in Coach. There's a moment Korea, so we still need

(47:41):
to talk about the sister character, but there's a moment
where his sister is like giving him advice about like, oh,
you just need to like ask her what you guys
are doing when your relationship and he's like that sounds
hard and she's like, just do it and just don't
be a pussy. And it's like using that language calling
a man a pussy is suggesting that he is weak

(48:05):
and effeminine and bad especially and then like his twelve
year old sister calling him a pussy, Like, so let's
let's talk about that character. I don't even know if
I have anything to say other than what an insufferable
trope that I hate. It's awful. Yeah, we're it's so lazy.

(48:27):
It's a way too for like usually male writers who
don't know how to write children or you know, pre
adolescent girls. Let's just make her wise beyond her years,
make her know exactly how to be an adult. So
we see this trope in a couple of the movies
that I could think of off the top of my head,
which was like the Nice Guys. I feel like this

(48:48):
happens in Kick Ass, Paper Moon. People were talking about that. Um,
I know it's other places. I just can't remember. Jeremy
Jared McQuire kid is a real smart right, but I'm
talking about specifically, like ten to thirteen year old girls
who seemed to only hang out with adults, seem to

(49:12):
know how to give the best advice for adult situations. Like,
it's just such a lazy trophy. This character, she does
not exist. You never met a twelve year old girl
like that for sure. And it's just she's not even sweating.
I'm like, twelve year old girls are never she's playing
soccer and she's The line that she says is because

(49:36):
she's giving him a relationship advice. She tells Tom, you
don't want to ask her because you're afraid you'll get
an answer that you don't want, which will shatter the
illusion of how great the last few months will been.
It's like that I'm not smart enough to say that,
and I'm bitch, I'm thirty two. It's incredibly lazy. It's
and the way it's using this character is kind of

(49:57):
like she's not like the other girls in that kind
of deal where I don't know, it's this whole movie
is is very in cell, but it's for sure, Like honestly,
I was like, there's a subreddit. We're just shitty little
virgins just talk about this movie constantly and are just
like good summer. Every summer is a stacy Like that's there. Yeah, there,

(50:24):
it's a Chloe Grace morats. I mean, I feel for
her because she seems like a smart young lady, but
boy has she been thrown some real crumby parts since
she was a very young girl. So bummer. Yeah, So
that that character absolutely sucks and is like Anna is

(50:45):
used to say mean things about women, is and is
sold out by the male screenwriter to be like, well,
if a girl says that women are bitches. Then it's
like his little get out of jail free card. It's
too mean coming from his grown aus adult male friends.
So I guess we'll just have the little girls say
and that's her whole purpose. It is just to be

(51:05):
like another bro. And then the other tool I feel
like he uses is like when the movie came out,
it is the narrative does a lot to mask what
a shitty guy Tom is. But another way they accomplished
that is by giving him shitty er friends, um where
they're like, well, he's the best one out of them,

(51:26):
so of course you should settle for him. We haven't
met a man who's better than him, but he's awful.
He just happens to be the most you know, nice
passing guy in in this movie where everyone else is
just straight up they just which is almost more admirable,
Like at least I know who you are. Where Tom God,
the whole thing where he's sketching out the skyline, I'm like,

(51:48):
do you know that architects build one building at a time?
What the funk are you doing? There? Is there isn't
how you're act. This is not how to be an architect.
You're just painting your drunk skylines. It's us being an
architect's I was like, is he going to is his
dream to build twelve building? He just wants to build
Los Angeles. That's history. Those buildings are already done. I

(52:11):
just want to He's it's done. Yeah, I just want
to sketch the most boring postcards. I think that's he's
moving from greeting cards to postcards. In this scene where
he's like this is bullshit and you know, and he's
like lashing out at work. He's like, love is actually
more complicated than a card, and it's like, wow, hot,
take you genius. Yeah, what a fucking ned. He's basically

(52:35):
a cop. I hate him. Yeah, definitely abolished in the
In that monologue he's giving, he does say that it's
like pop songs and green cards and movies that have
like fed him the lies of what romances, which goes
to show and it's also true in the very beginning,
like the voiceovers saying that he had this belief that

(52:56):
he wouldn't never be happy until he met the one,
which them from sad British pop music and a total
misreading of the movie The Graduate, which just goes to
show how influential media is, how movies lead us astray
all the time. I also, on that note, there's I
guess a visual joke. It's a scene where Tom and

(53:18):
Summer go to the movies and it shows the marquis
of the movie that they're seeing and it reads part vampire,
part giant the Giant, which I guess is supposed to
be a vagina joke, but it's not my least favorite
joke I've ever heard, and I have to that's something
I have to fight. Yeah, I didn't care for that.

(53:44):
The bar Is Solo. My favorite part of the movie
is when it cuts to a screen that Han Solo
is on and he gives a little wink. That was
that part of the glimmer of Star Wars was my
favorite part of Five Days of Summer. I like the goop.
I honestly just kept watching and being like, you know,
what to make this movie great? If like she took
off her skin and was an alien. At one point,

(54:06):
I just kept being like, what would make me like this?
And I was like, oh, if like all of her
like I don't want a relationship is because she's she's
just from Mark. Well. At one point whenever Tom is
on the date with this other girl and I want
to talk about that, so but he's all like, I
can only come to two conclusions. She's either just an
emotionless stupid bitch or she's a robot. And that would

(54:28):
have been like, I wouldn't just like turned out to
be Alminator. Yes, there that's a great I love that
make that turn in the movie. I was like, where's
that third act where she's just like and then she
fights Mathra great done. I was reading um. I was
just sort of going through some of the stuff that's
been written about because a lot of people's viewing of

(54:50):
this movie has changed over the years, rightfully. So I
found an interesting post from I don't know what her
full name is. Her name is Jen and she wrote
a really wonderful, comprehensive piece about this and she names
because the conversation around this movie is a very manic
pixie dream girl, and that's true and that's present in
a lot of movies. But she names the Joseph Gordon

(55:10):
Levitt character depressive entitled Fantasy lad d f L. And
I really like that because that's absolutely what he is.
The entitlement is something that just never hit with me
the first time I saw it. But it's so you
know that line, I love how she makes me feel,

(55:32):
you know, like he doesn't love her at all, and
just that it's such a common thing in relationships coming
from the man, especially just in my personal experience of
like someone just having an idea of you and then
getting to know you makes them angry, which is horrible,
And that's exactly what happens in this movie. The better

(55:53):
he gets to know her, the less he likes her,
because he doesn't actually like her. He wants he it's
a specific thing, and has found the correct vessel to
project onto. But also how could he like her because
we know nothing about her, Like, nothing about her personality
is really established. There's a moment towards the beginning there's

(56:14):
more voiceover narration where the voiceover says there's only two
kinds of people in the world. There's women and there's men,
which one that fails to acknowledge that gender is a
background and that there are many people. What about all
the people who do not fall within that gender binary anyway, uh,

(56:34):
And then it goes on to say that Summer Finn
was a woman whenever she worked at an ice cream parlor,
everyone went to it, and whenever she tries to rent
an apartment, everyone gives her discount, and like all this
stuff where I recently learned about the Mary Sue trope,
and I was curious to see what you guys thought

(56:55):
about whether or not she falls into that trope if
you're not familiar Mary sus And it's kind hard to
classify because a lot of people kind of interpret it
different ways. But from what I gather, Mary Sue is
a trope female character in which she is essentially perfect.
She has no real discernible flaws. Her beauty is coveted

(57:16):
by everyone. Everyone thinks she's marvelous and great. But aside
from that, she's also just underdeveloped. Like those are the
only things we really know about her. It's more common
and I think fan fiction from what I understand this trope.
But but there's also like Bella Swan is cited as
like the quintessential Mary Sue, where like everyone loves her
even though she's like ordinary, She's from Twilight. Oh I

(57:38):
don't know, yes for sure, not for me. Look of
sheer shut down rejection that came over Brandy's face just now,
Oh no, no no, no, no no no, that's going
to be now. But I guess I didn't hear that
term until Fury wrote came out because Charlie's Throne's character.

(58:02):
I mean maybe it's been around before that, but because
to me, everyone was like trying to tear down that
movie because Charlie's character is is a Mary interesting. That's that.
That's how I think of it as like more of
like an action In my head, it's more of like
an action here, like she could she has all of
the skills to solve a plot point kind of. I
became aware of it through yes, super hero movies of

(58:24):
like the token woman in an action movie or the
token woman in a superhero hero movie, because that is
like almost uniformly the case until very recently and still
sometimes Anyways, Okay, yes, I think there are those kind
of different interpretations where I also, I like watched a
video where people were saying that Ray from the New
Star Wars is a Merry Sue type because she can

(58:44):
do everything right away and she's perfect and everyone loves her.
But I don't necessarily think Summer fits this guy. And
the more like I was watching it this time, I
don't necessarily even know that she is a manic pixie
dream girl in the way that like Natalie poor Man
is in or Kristen Dunson Elizabethtown was like where the

(59:05):
was the source of Nathan Raybond, the writer for The
A V Club, even naming the trope. But because she's
not manic is the thing. But she I would say,
is a pixie dream girl. But that's because we see
her so often in someone else's thoughts, you know, where
it's like, I don't know the character itself. It seems
like there's more there that the movie just isn't interested in.

(59:27):
So I don't really know what to do with that
where it seems like there is like some complex stuff
about her that Tom never inquires into because he doesn't
really care. Yeah, so we see her as a manic
pixie dream girl, or at least a pixie dream girl.
But I don't think that that's actually what the character
is wants. Yeah, that's what he wants. He wants her
to be that, so he's like he stops looking beyond.

(59:50):
He's just like your favorite beetles ringo, you're such a
pixie dream girl. Meanwhile, I don't know who his favorite
Beetle is fucking coward. How about you match it and
you tell me who you think is the no. You
know he likes Lennon because he wants to hit a
woman really bad. For sure. He's definitely a John Lennon guy.

(01:00:11):
Oh yeah, I love John Lennon and Morrissey and they're
just like really good. God. It's it's like, oh, are
you also investing in crypto? You fucking psycho? He loves bitcoin? God,
he loves crypto. Yeah, that should be added to that
an entitled bitcoin bro, Lad you accept crypto for this?

(01:00:33):
Morrissey Vinyl, Hi, I'm a murderer? Like, can we talk
about the one of the only other female characters in
this movie, which is the girl that he goes on
a date with after he's been broken up with. This
character's name is Alison. Um, how that that's her first mistake?
She should have been new Moon. Her name is January

(01:00:57):
and um. So they go in to day. He treats
her like absolute shit. Um. He tells her very upfront,
saying this isn't going anywhere because basically, I'm in love
with someone else. He only talks about summer. He only
talks about how he's heartbroken over her, and then we
see a moment where she's like, Okay, let me get

(01:01:17):
this straight. She never cheated on you, she never took
advantage of you, and she told you upfront that she
didn't want a boyfriend. And we as the audience, were like, oh,
maybe he's going to come to a realization at the moment,
and instead he goes, I have a great idea, let's
go to sing karaoke. So like you see him continue
to be the entitled guy that he is, having no

(01:01:38):
self awareness, having no idea how he has approached this
whole relationship with Summer has been completely wrong and entitled
and bad. Yeah, yeah, he learns nothing. Poor Yeah Alison,
she didn't do anything wrong. She was so patient with him.

(01:01:59):
She was good for her for second locationing with him, right,
Like I would have been like, I think I've done.
I really saw Alison do some serious emotional labor. Yeah,
for a strange man who hated her, which it's like
I've been Allison. I don't know. I think we have
probably have ever gone in a day with the man
who's like, let me talk about my ex girlfriend the

(01:02:21):
whole time and also I hate you, Like, oh cool,
I'll sank six months into this, let's do Also, it's
a former karaoke host. This guy for sure doesn't tip.
You can tell he's not a tip definitely not to
see it in all of his choices. He has a
four Chan account like this, there's something wrong with this man. Also,
like one of the many points where I had to

(01:02:43):
be like, do not check out? It was also when
she's sang sugar Land or whatever, that song with sugar
Sugartown Nancy. Yeah, she's saying Sugartown. But they didn't have
born to run in the karaokee, right, it was just
a way to drop. I also like Bruce Ringstein, how
dare you how as a former kJ, that's not how

(01:03:04):
the books work. Karaoke jockey. Yeah, that's what we're called kJ.
I'm surprised that that wasn't included in your intro. I
was going to plug it in the outro, Ladies, your
former kJ, just like a former kJ. Yeah, that just
made that. I was like, she has to sing the
tweetest song just to like make her like even more,

(01:03:25):
you know, like ethereal and everything. Right, Well, the song
that she chooses as a frequent karaoke attendee a k A.
If you will. You want other people to sing fun
songs that you can sing along too, and I'll have
an uproarious time. Her song choice is stupid, like, no

(01:03:46):
one wants to sing along with that. No one's having
a good time with that song. Rude, yeah anyway, and
hot karaoke takes. I'm too scared to do karaoke. I'm
a baby, really, I've never done it. But the trick
is you have to get really drunk. I'm good at that,
not the karaoke part, I don't know. I want to

(01:04:06):
talk about the scene that happens in the copy room.
After that. There's a surprise kiss in this movie where
it's the Friday night where they're all at karaoke. His
drunk friend Mackenzie is like, he likes you, account for sure,
he's h now and then whenever Summer's like, is that true?

(01:04:31):
Do you like me? Joseph Gordon Levitt's like, no, his
friends maybe, but like you because he's an immature little asshole.
Then the weekend passes and they're in the office together
in the copy room. They kind of look at each
other and then she just like saunters up to him.

(01:04:52):
And plants a right on his face. First of all,
this is there at work not appropriate technically assment, workplace harassment,
and you know he's into it because he fucking loves
her or loves the idea of her. But yeah, it's
just like really, that's how so much of it. It

(01:05:14):
was also like looking back as it is recollections of
him I'm always have with the movie, I was like,
is any of this even the way things happened and true?
Like is this all just like your memory of like?
And then she saundered up to me and she fucking
planted one on me in the copy room? How ordered
it happen? Where he was like leering over her? And

(01:05:35):
then she turned around and he was like, oh her
turning around me? She wants to kiss? Yeah, and then
I kissed her and then she was was my ward
for Also it's it's fully two days of summer and
then two hundred ten days of Joseph Gordon Levitt not
being able to accept a breakup. They break up on

(01:05:56):
day two ninety and then he stalks her and then
can we talk at where the movie leaves off? This
is Juseph Cornlovitt decide he's gonna build five buildings, he
draws another skyline. He's like, me going to get a job.
I was like, for what for? You have to pick one?
And they can't be believed that are already to design

(01:06:18):
your own Building's so stupid. He has not had an
original thought in the entire movie, and that includes being
an architect. It's like stid. But there's a scene at
the end where he was once again drawing buildings that
already exist outside and sees summer and she's in a
new relationship because she has to be in a relationship

(01:06:39):
and he kind of got good luck chucked where she
met someone who wasn't a total I mean maybe he
is a total choked. We don't know because the movie
doesn't care about summer. But she's like, I'm with someone now,
I'm in a relationship and I'm happy. And I think
that this is a sticking point for a lot of
the insults who were like she was she she was lying,
she did want a relationship the whole time, and she

(01:07:00):
was just leading him on. Well, she never leads him on.
She always tells him that she doesn't want to be
in a relationship. But then probably because he sucks, and
then at the end, he's the hero because he's able
to sort of accept it and now he's going to
build a building that exists already. Yeah, exactly, I hate him,

(01:07:21):
And again we're meant to believe, Like whenever they meet
up again at the park towards the end of the
Five Days of Summer, you know, she's like, HiPE, somebody's wife.
How crazy is that? It was fate? I just knew
when he like, he's the one, And the movie frames
it so that the audience is supposed to think, oh man,
what a what a bitch for not choosing him? What

(01:07:43):
a bitch for not choosing Tom, this sensitive, wonderful guy
that we've grown to love, And it's like no, Like
the movie so irresponsibly frames so many of those scenes
and situations like that, and you know, when we revisit
this movie, we realize, oh no, Like, yeah, he is
the bad guy. He is a possessive for creep. Well,

(01:08:04):
even like the way that she talks in that scene
feels like him telling Mackenzie what happened at the park
to be like I know, I'm a wife. Oh my god,
This whole bangs take place in his head, Like do
we ever actually meet Summer, the whole. It's just like
the most insufferable being John Malcolvic of all time inside

(01:08:26):
like the head of a insult. I do want to see,
like somewhere like talking to her friends of like, yeah,
there's a guy on dating and just like whatever. It's
just because I don't know. I've been in situations like
that where I'm like, yeah, just like really nothing else
is happening, and you know, I don't think he's gonna
kill me. I can't. Sometimes I'm just like I don't
think he's gonna murder me, and they're so sure, great, Yeah,

(01:08:48):
it seems like it would be more trouble because he's
an emotional psychopath and so it would be more difficult
to break off than just like have sex with him
every once in a while and appeas this emotional vampire.
Um exactly. That's how I picture her talking about him, like, well,
he bought me Swedish meatballs once, so he has two dollars,

(01:09:10):
so that's fine. I want to talk more about that
I Kia scene where when they're like goofing around, they're out,
they're having fun and their sink is broken and like
t they're lying on a bed at one point and
then he looks up and he's like, Summer, I don't
know how to tell you this, but there's a Chinese
family in our bathroom. And then it cuts to this

(01:09:30):
family and they're like and then they walk away, And
it's just another example of how the white, straight characters
in this movie talk disparagingly about marginalized people, where it's like, one,
how do you know they're Chinese? Specifically, to like that's
played for a joke, is in like, oh, what's this
ethnic family doing here? Ruining our perfect white head moment? Exactly?

(01:09:53):
Why would they want to look in a bedroom? Right?
Why would they be in a Swedish blonde store? And
this movie is painfully Caucasian. That Nicole Brown is in
it for a second, yes, and her talents are way
underused because I love her. I think she's very funny's great.
But and then there's there's a moment in the park
where they're screaming penis over and over again, and then

(01:10:16):
people are like, why are they screaming penis? And they're like,
it's okay, we have touretts and it's like, no, okay,
you're making fun of a disability. Now, cool? There's another
moment when they're also like, you're not in tenth grade,
like you know, I hate, like they're like in their
late twenties. Yeah, if you can vote, you can't play
the Penis game anymore. I'm sorry, you're done. I love

(01:10:36):
that limitation. I hate I remember after that where boys
were doing that again at school, and you know, listen,
I'm a grown adult and I have been since I
was thirteen years old. I do not play the penis
game bag and yeah, that's I guess that's all I have. Also,
why is it got to be the Penis game? Why

(01:10:57):
can the Vagiana? Yeah? Yeah, that feels that I don't
I don't want to either grow up. I do want
to go see the movie The Giant. Yeah, what's it about?
I don't know. I can't wait to do our episode
on teeth. Oh yes, that'll be a thrill. There's also
a moment where Tom is on the phone with Mackenzie
and he's like, are you coming to this wedding? And

(01:11:17):
Mackenzie's like, I'm not going to go to the wedding.
It's going to be old people, because old people are gross.
Old people also turned out to be code for black. Yeah,
that wedding is very weird. I was like, what's happening.
I don't know what to do with this information because
they're the basically the only two white people are like

(01:11:37):
an all African American wedding, and I was like, what
is this choice? Who's whose wedding was that? That was
some of their colleagues, co workers. I was like, what
did you realize you needed to be diverse? And you're like, well,
we have the weddings, we have one scene. Yeah, put
all the black people in one the wedding scene, and
none of them get to talk or you know, have
any planning significant role in the story. It's like dressing.

(01:12:00):
It's the West Anderson thing of using minority as a
set dressing, so that if anyone ever challenges why are
there only white people in your movie, he's like, oh, no,
they're in the background all the time, you know, like
and where they're in the background, not talking, not having
any characterization. Also, we're saying that Mark Webb, who is
just the throbbing chowd behind this movie, has gone on

(01:12:22):
to have a very successful film career. He directed the
Andrew Garfield Spider Man movies. Those are bad, though, especially
the second one, he's bad. And last year he made
a movie that I couldn't get through. I tried to
go see as a joke and I could not get
through it. That movie gifted about the child we're talking about,

(01:12:43):
the like the really smart kid, like it is kid. Yeah,
but yeah, I mean on that note, this movie is
directed by a man, written by two men. It's the
story is being told through the lens of this male character.
It's like so much bad effective to Yeah, yeah, it's crazy,
like it would have been. This movie would have been

(01:13:04):
interesting with a female director to like tamper some of
that and to be like, let's balance this more and
like there's a way to tell this story correctly. Sure,
you know, but not this movie. This is not it.
I do Yeah, I do want to see a version
of this movie where he's punished. Yeah, absolutely, what's out

(01:13:24):
one of her tendrils at the end. It's just like
I was marsh and the whole time. Slurp, chomp, chump jump.
Does anyone have any other final thoughts about this movie?
This movie is bad. People should stop watching it. Yeah,
it's not a fun hate watch. It is just it's

(01:13:46):
it sucks and it'll remind you of a version of
yourself you won't like very much. Yeah. The movie was
like very well reviewed when it came out, big success.
My favorite glowing review of this movie was that it
was the best romantic comedy since love. Actually, great movie. Yeah,

(01:14:07):
it's really I scream wrapping a little reviews because they
made me very, very freaking angry. This is great. Sometimes
you never ever truly figure out why these mysterious creatures
break your heart. That for a line, mysterious creatures being
robot slash alien. Yeah, I will say. The World Socialist

(01:14:27):
website gave it a negative review. They're very they're very
smart for doing that. They were like, this is bad.
It sucks. I mean it sucks from every angle to
where it's like lazily written bad for women, bad for men,
bad for the entire spectrum of gender is punished in

(01:14:47):
this movie. It's a bad, punishing experience. Yeah, everyone loved it,
and it's it's also like tries to play itself off
as like I feel like now the damage control has
been but it's satire and it's like it's not. It's
it's not it's never the intent. That's not the intent
of this movie at all. Comments on nothing. Nothing is

(01:15:09):
subverted by this movie. One of my Twitter chodes was like,
it's like it's just like Starship Troopers. And I'm like, hello,
how dare you? Number one? Do not come? Starship Troopers
do not come? Ever, Yeah, you don't deserve to come.
You're done, You're done coming. Um. But he was like,
it's a satire just like that, and I was like,

(01:15:29):
that's not that's not the point of it. I guess
I need to revisit Starship Troopers. It's pretty fun, right
that one probably actually does pass the back. I'll test.
I think I'd be surprised. I'd be interested in that. Well,
speaking of it's like I love a good transition. Tell
you know my good podcast that was like, I see

(01:15:50):
the clock, I see where we're going. So Stranger does
five hundred Days of Summer pass the back to test?
I don't think we avoided it. Yeah, really goes out
of its way. And I don't think two female characters

(01:16:11):
even interact in this entire movie. I think this movie
is over if two women talk this movie, because they'd
be like, um, Joseph Gordon Levitt is kind of a
fucking jerk. And then there and then you know, we
cut it off at day four and I'll go home. Yeah,
oh yeah, you're right. Imagine the conversation between Allison, the
girl that he goes on one date with, and Summer

(01:16:32):
and they just like, remember when we like spent any
time with that guy? He sucks. He's another guy. Yeah,
Like in retrospect Joseph Gordon Levitt, it's like, oh, remember
that weird guy at work who was obsessed with you. Man,
he's trying to be an architect now, but I don't
think he knows what he's doing. He just draws skyline

(01:16:53):
existing building, Yeah, just buildings that are already there. Doesn't
fundamentally went to school for it. I just don't know
how he has a degree. They're already exists, they're done.
He's just drawing the World Trade centered over and over again.
What's it's empty point of building? Yes, and then make one. Also,
you know that iconic l A skyline. So this movie

(01:17:17):
does really want to take place in New York very badly,
very badly. Shall we rate the movie on our nipple scale?
So we rate the movie based on its portrayal of women,
a zero to five nipple rating scale. I'm going to
go ahead and give it. I'll say a one nipple.

(01:17:37):
I'm giving it that many and not fewer, because I
do like that for a split second. If we just
kind of ignore all the other context of the movie,
we see representation of a woman who is not like
marriage obsessed and not going gaga over, you know, trying
to find a boyfriend. But because that trait of hers

(01:17:59):
is demonized in this movie and made to seem like
she's a bit because she doesn't want to instantly marry
Joseph Gordon Levitt's character. That is one of the many
problems of this movie. Smell is also extremely white, extremely hetero.
It doesn't do as badly as some movies we've seen

(01:18:20):
in queer bashing, but it's certainly not an ally that
there's no queer character. So unless you count summers one
queer relationship in college, which again is so glossed over
that we can hardly even begin to understand what that was. Yeah,
and it's just it's us supposed to be sympathizing with

(01:18:41):
an extremely entitled, possessive guy who the movie would want
you to think is this supersensitive, wonderful person, when in
reality he sucks and Summer's character is wildly underdeveloped. The
sister care her is that stupid trope that's really done.

(01:19:04):
Troupe does not no twelve year old girls are like that. Yeah,
there's just so many problems with it. And I give
it one nipple, and that nipple belongs to I guess Allison,
the girl that he goes on one date with and
treats like ship. She deserves more. And yeah, she was
like the one rational female character that we see. Yeah, exactly,

(01:19:29):
I'm giving this movie no nipples at all. I would
give it negative if I could. I stand for Zoe
Desanelle and that I find her to be more sympathetic
than and and whatever already went through that. But I
think seeing this movie as a teenager had a negative
effect on my life, and I resent that it affected

(01:19:53):
for sure, my behaviors around boys. Uh, it affected how
I would allow my self to be treated. And like
where it's like you see a movie where and then
this is I mean, this movie is not the sole
source of this, but just like because I was the
exact right age to get all the wrong messages from
this movie when it came out, and so was everyone

(01:20:15):
I went to school with. Yeah, I mean it it
affected the way I've viewed myself. It affected the way
I assigned value in a relationship. Yeah, I think that
it just it. It did nothing good for anyone, and
it did make Joseph Gordon Levitt a huge star, and

(01:20:36):
then he went on to play the role a million
times and no one ever gave him trouble about it. Anyways,
this movie fucking sucks and I have no nipples to give.
I will give it also zero nipples, or like I
had a breast production a few years ago, I'll give
it the leavings of my old You get a couple

(01:20:56):
of You get my tips, scraps. That's all you deserve,
because you should be confronted with something that is real
at some point, so that's what you get. The only
way that you should be allowed to watch this movie
is what a woman in your thirties sitting next to
you with a remote control that they can pause and
then hit you with the newspaper if you agree with

(01:21:17):
something that just happened. It's the only way that you
can watch this movie. Everyone. See if Brandy will agree
to watch this movie with you, remember her a million
dollars and maybe she consider it. I would love to
watch you watch us. Really, I was just angrily petting
my dog, just like you just became a therapy animal. Yeah,

(01:21:38):
this movie is garbage. It's it's done. I wash my
hands of it. Yeah. Well, Brandy, thank you so much
for coming on this journey with us. Has of talking
about summer. Where can people follow you online? What would
you like to plug? On Twitter and Instagram? At brand
Dazzle you can find me air um. And then my

(01:22:01):
website is Brandy Posey dot com and that has all
my tour dates and deats I do. I'm on the
road like four or five months out of the year,
so I go all over the place. I'm a stand
up so um, I'm pretty fun. Live, come hang out.
I promise, I'm promise, I'm a good time. And then
I have a podcast called Lady to Lady that's myself,
Barbara Gray and Test Barker and we have like a
different guest on every week and you guys have both

(01:22:21):
put on. Yeah, it's a real it's a real, real,
silly fun time. We just kind of gab and have
a good time and basically live our live a Beackdale life.
At all times. It feels feels real good. Yeah, I
find me there. Um, I have a show in l
a monthly called Picture This that's comedians paired up with
the animators and they live animate your jokes behind you
during their set and it's very silly and it's The

(01:22:42):
Virgil Monthly. And then we do that around the country
a little bit too. But brand as Ale and Brandy
posey dot com has all that info. And of course,
don't forget your illustrious career as a k J Yes
karaoke yea. Where where did you kJ back in the day? J?
All Star Lanes and that's us. I like that place. Yeah,

(01:23:06):
bowling alley, dive bar, karaoke lounge, Chinese restaurant. It's a
really great um. You can follow us the Bechtel Cast
on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook at Becktel Cast. You can subscribe
to our Matreon. It's five dollars a month and you
get to bonus episodes every single month. It's August, so

(01:23:28):
that means on the on the Matreon. This month, we've
got the episode everyone's been asking for Doubt. We have
a Doubt, and then we'll also have hackers because Caitlin
is being very patient with me. This month, let's your birthday,
your birthday months. So I got to pick my favorite movie,
Doubt and a movie I haven't seen, Hackers. So go

(01:23:51):
to the Matreon for all of that, and you can
go to our website becktel cast dot com and we've
got all kinds of merch there at our episodes there.
Just yeah, check us out online. And I'm going to
go sketch a building that exists. I'm gonna go talk
to a Latin next person in Los Angeles at some

(01:24:11):
point today. Yes, please God, it took place in Los
Angeles and it did it. Goodness, well, you know, blessings,
good tidings to you, bless your heart, God, bless us everyone.
Goodbye bye