Aliens with Andrew Ti

In this episode, Caitlin and Jamie mostly discuss the representation of women in Aliens with special guest Andrew Ti...mostly.

(This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bell 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 and best
start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hello, and
welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante.
My name is Jamie Loftus, and we talk about the

(00:21):
portrayal of women in movies on our podcast. Yeah, we
do every week, every freaking week. How many weeks? Now?
So many? I'm like coming into this episode worried, how come?
Because we're in a genre that I hate, and so
I'm skewed. I see, we're in my least favorite genre.
I'm I'm sorry, real negat Well, um, we're in I

(00:45):
would say, my favorite genre. So can we even be friends? No?
After this? No? No, But but we should be because
this is our I mean, I think, our our our
best director and have one very big Jim Cameron joint
that we love and appreciate very much. Um that being,

(01:06):
of course Ghosts of the Abyss. Honestly, James Cameron. The
thing with James Cameron, he should have just been an
oceanographer and saved us all sometime I disagree because he's
directed a lot of movies that I deeply love. What
movie is he not submerged in? Is he submerged? Terminator? Terminator? Two?

(01:27):
Does a terminator not swim? I do not believe he
would short. Oh wait, because he's a robot. Yeah, he's
one zeros. I like robots right now, Well that you
got one in the movie we're talking about today. I
know he is a man, though, and that means this
conversation did not pass the Bechtel test. Hey wow, that

(01:47):
was actually a very great transition. Thank you so much so.
On the Bechtel Cast we discuss, as I said, the
portrayal of women in movies. We use the Bectel test
as a jumping off point to initiate a larger versation
about the portrayal of women. The Becto test being for
us to female identifying characters have to have names, they

(02:09):
have to speak to each other, and their conversation cannot
be about a man. Right, Can we beta test it
really quick? I have I have a thought I'd like
to express, and I think it passes the Bechdel test.
But you know, it's sort of it gets a little
murky at Hey, Caitlin, Hey Jamie, I think the Deadpool
too is for losers. You know what, Jamie, And I
won't go I see what you're saying, and I think

(02:31):
this already does not pass the Bechdel tests because Deadpool
is But I'm not talking I'm talking about the movie.
I'm not talking about the guy. Well. I mean, you
can't talk about Deadpool the movie without recognizing that it's
about Deadpool, the character who is male identifying Deadpool two
is for losers. And I'm not going to go. Well, Um,
t J. Miller, isn't it? And he can fuck right off,

(02:52):
He can funk right off, but he won't. He will not.
He never will anyway. So um, that was not necessarily
the best example of a conversation passing the back door
test example of discourse, It sure was. I agree. Hey,
let's introduce our guests. He is the host of the
great podcast. Yo? Is this racist? Ander? T O? Hi? Hi,

(03:15):
thanks for being here, Thanks for having me. So you
brought us aliens. Wow, I feel like it got brought
to all of us. Let's not. It got hatched for us,
got hatched from an egg and then implanted into our
chest cavities for business for Yeah, for capitalism for business,

(03:35):
business bads as this movie. So that's cool. We have
done the movie Alien on this podcast already with guests
Eliza Skinner. I went back and re listened to that episode.
It is one of our grosser episodes, and that we
spend almost the entire time talking about either jizz or jizz,
blood or vaginal flaps. Can we can we unpack that

(03:58):
a little bit? Why do you think just just blood
and vaginal flaps are gross? I think that's actually like
a beautiful thing. Well, is a good point in part
of the human experience? My bad? Um? I just I
guess I suppose the language we were using was invoking
some imagery that might flaps be considered unpleasant flaps. Yeah,
I would like to talk about I wasn't going to

(04:20):
talk about I didn't have any flaps in my notes.
But maybe that's because we've just grown over the next year. Well,
that's the other thing about that episode is that there
wasn't a whole lot of discourse that we had necessarily right.
But I think this episode is going to be different.
It's going to be so discourse heavy that are our
flaps will come on? Our flaps will start kidding. There's

(04:42):
a there's a lot more direct flap imagery in this
movie than in Alien, I believe. I think this was like, well,
I guess that's more of everything. There's more of every
every gross thing. That's the plural. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's it's it's all of them. Um. So, Andrew, what's
your history your relationship to Aliens? Just aliens in general,

(05:04):
not the movie? Oh good, well, I guess I had
my first encounter. Aliens is probably a movie that I
mostly saw in pieces in edited on TNT. Probably did
they edit out the flaps? They must have, you know,

(05:26):
But I think I think the thing, I think if
you edit out any of the like over alien vagina imagery,
you have to edit it like like it is actually
really hard to draw the line. It's like, oh this
is too much. Well then how come the last thing
wasn't too much? And then I don't think you could
have a movie, because the whole point is Dixon Vagina's right.

(05:47):
I mean, the vagina monster is a is a tale
as old as time, of course, but you see, you
can't help but look at the vagina monsters and all
these James Cameer movies and be like poorcast from Bigelow.
Wait all these Yeah, I think this might be the
only one. There's no two the well, both alien movies

(06:09):
are flat heavy. But he had nothing to do with
the first one. He didn't know. I have to go
or the third one? Right, and that's also the most
underwater one. So are just all our narratives? No? The
fourth one is, yeah, they swim through a big room
full of watered Winona writers. There. That's right, Oh, you're right,

(06:31):
it is for Yeah. I have since seen all of
the except minus any of the Alien Versus Predator. I
have not seen those, but those are to be totally honest,
as far as these movies go, probably the best ones.
They're the ones that absolutely know what they are. They
do exactly what they promise. They do not think they're

(06:54):
smarter than they are. I'm deadly serious. Any of the
Alien Versus Predators are better than any of the Alien
in movies or any of the product or movies. Wow,
well you know what, I'm gonna argue with you a
little bit on that one. I have not seen any
of the A B movies, but um, I mean I
really like alien and I really like aliens and that's
where it stops from. So, Jamie, you said that you

(07:16):
don't like this genre. I like this genre a lot,
and I especially like aliens. And I didn't really grow
up with this movie. I don't think it's not until
somewhere in my twenties. Yeah, yeah, same, sorry to finish
my history. Yeah no, no, that's it. You just reminded me.
It's like I watched parts of it a lot as
a kid, and then I think I must have watched
the whole thing. I don't know, hungover in my twenties

(07:36):
at some point. I don't know, it is kind of
a hangover movie. Yeah, And that it's a little to
twenty minutes long, and that Bradi Cooper and Zachal in
it carrying around a baby. I might as well. I mean,
new is sort of baby that they're carrying. Yeah. There
were three different points where I was like, oh that

(07:58):
I like. In my notes, I wrote the climax to
the movie, and for three days I was like, when
is it going to Then there's just more of vagina
monsters in the next scene, and it's like, yes, Queen,
go off, or I want to go home, Like I
just I just I don't know, do you think it
was too long, or do you think we could have sorry,
like kept on going too long, or do you think

(08:18):
they just took way too much exposition at the top,
because that's where I was like the exposition was. It's
so slow. It's very slow. There's a lot of like
and fake outs. There's like a boring scene that is
a fake out where you're like the like the opening scene,
where're like, it's boring, and then briefly horror, and then
it was a what why? Who cares? Who cares? It's

(08:42):
establishing her mindset, the horror that she experienced. I think
it's there for a reason. It's just eighteen. You would
do that in literally under one second. She would look
at one photograph and then we'd be like, we get it. Yes,
this movie did come out in nineteen eighty six, which
is also the year I was born, so much so Jamie,

(09:05):
you saw it for the first time Saturday Saturday night,
did not like it. But it's like one of those
things where it's like I can recognize that this movie
succeeds on a lot of levels and also never want
to see it again. Sure, yeah, Well should I get
into the recap? Yeah? Recap Okay, let's recap. So the
story basically picks up where Alien leaves off, which is

(09:27):
where I forget what happens in the first one. At
the end of Alien, the alien has infiltrated the ship,
killed everyone. The main frame, killed everyone on board except
for Ripley. She's the only survivor. She gets into and
Jonesy the cat queer icon I would say eight nippled icon.
Cat facts with Caitlin. Also, hey, wait, just real quick,

(09:51):
I I have learned another cat factor to what that's
not part of the bit. People have been really upset
that I only know the one cat. So here I
am proving to you all that I know that a
group of cats is called a clouder. That's fun rights
fun d cloud clouder. Oh that's pleasant. How did we

(10:14):
not know that? I don't know, but now you know.
And this is cat facts with Caitlin. Also, a cat
can jump up to six times its own length, and
cat owners are seventeen percent more likely to have a
graduate degree, which I think is a great transition into
my graduate degree, which I do have, a screenwriting Masters

(10:34):
from Boston University. I don't like to bring it up,
but the cat, uh not at this time, not right now,
but I have in the past and I will in
the future anyway. Okay, So the end of Alien is
Ripley is the only survivor. She gets into an escape pod,
objects the alien out into space, and then goes into hypersleep,
which is where this movie picks up. She has found

(10:57):
kind of just like floating around the universe, like, hey,
who are you? When what And she's like, oh, no,
I've been asleep for fifty seven years. That her daughter
that we didn't know she had in the first one.
I don't think. I think grew old and passed away,
which I will say, she does react to this. This
is part of the Ripley character that I find very interesting.

(11:19):
She's able to compartmentalize that devastating fact pretty efficiently, like
which I mean, we'll get into the more when we
discussed the character in depth. But she whip saws trauma
around a lot in these movies because a lot of
terrible ship happens to her, like incessantly. Nothing good ever
happens to her ever once she's cursed. But I was like,

(11:44):
amazing that, Like, you do see her react to it.
It's not like the movie ignores it, but then it
kind of In the next scene, she's like at a meeting,
I was like, whoa, Yes, she's like having bedridden for years,
she did have she had a dead daughter. Yes. In
the next scene, she's like giving a deposition of sorts

(12:06):
about this alien attack, basically recapping and doing a Ripley's
famous recap of the first Believe it or Not recap right,
believe that's the big No one believes her because they're not.
They're they're mad that she destroyed their expensive ship and
they demote her. She did. They made a big deal

(12:29):
about how that ship was a total ship hole in
the first who cares? And also what company fifty years
later would be like, We're really like, that's if some
if now someone was like that thing that happened in
the late sixties were still extremely salty about, like when
you crash my car. Fifty years when I quit my
last day job, I made sure to walk away with
an extremely powerful fan that I'd stolen from my office

(12:51):
from a set where I'm going to make fan out
of you carrying a large fan out of a fan
are a fan of fan? But then also, wow, I'm
holding a fan. I'm a big I'm a big I'm
a fan of fan, I'm a fan of the fan,
so it's really a triple fan kind of thing. Yeah,

(13:12):
I'm personally a fan of fan fan art. So nanis
anyway tidy coming out of yours. So they Ripley's believe
it or not. They do not believe it. They do
not until they learn of an alien attack on the
same planet that they had like honed in on the

(13:33):
beacon in the first movie and found the alien ship
and all of that. Since then, people have been colonizing
it and trying to like terraform it and all this stuff.
And she's like, we'll check out that planet, and they're like,
we have, and nothing's there except there is something there.
That ship is still there and the alien there's also

(13:56):
in that whole meeting scene because we're supposed to be
in the distant future at this point, because the because
alien is in the distant future, and then Aliens is
fifty seven years after the distant future, but everyone still
has the same terrible haircut from and using computers from
that era as well. They're using big fat, thick computers. Yeah. Look,

(14:20):
I don't know why you're criticizing this perfect movie. All right, anyway,
I have a double collar situation going on, Like I
don't think he actually does, but his vibe feels like
he does. Like two shirts. He feels like two shirts,
two shirts. You good name? Yeah, a good white rapper names.
Also Bill Paxson's in this movie. Yes, I'm almost almost there.

(14:43):
He's not doing a good job. So the company and
all these people don't believe her and her alien attack
story until these aliens attack the people on this planet.
So Ripley is called in to help, and she eventually
agrees and she's like fine, and then all these marines
are also the kind of black her. They're like, you're
a dock worker, but you can go all the way

(15:03):
from being a dock worker to like fifth in charge
of like a shitty shitty ship. Right. They basically give
her title back, which they took away for not believing
the thing that happened to her. Um, they this movie
starts with someone not believing what a woman says in
spite of ample evidence. Right now, timely m hm. So

(15:23):
this whole crew of marines joined her on this sort
of like recon rescue mission. So there's Gorman, he's like
the commanding officer type of dude. Burke is Paul Riser,
the guy who like speaks on behalf of the company. Yeah,
he's Mr Bear's. Yeah, there's Bill Paxton playing Hudson. There's
a Charter named Drake. There's Hicks, there's a Poem, there's Frost,

(15:43):
There's Bishop, he's the artificial person. Those are the dudes
of the women. There's Vesquez, Pharaoh and Dietrich and then
I think I'm probably leaving some people out, but those
are kind of the main players. I feel like they
take they do take pains to kind of integrate the military,
Like there's women and they are doing all of the
available jobs, like Akas is the big guns. Yes, yeah,

(16:07):
well oh yeah, well we'll talk about this, but yeah,
dare you Okay. So they arrive on the planet, they
scope the place out. They find Newt, who is like
the sole survivor of the alien attack on this colony
of somewhere around a hundred or more people. Um, Newt
is an eleven year old girl. She's dirty, she's dirty,

(16:28):
and Riley is like, I used to have an eleven
year old girl, and this one's here now, so I'm
going to treat her like she's my new daughter. Adorable.
It's cute, adorable. I love it. Just grimy, weird acting
little child. Okay. So then the crew goes in. They
find the big alien nest. Some aliens attack them, a

(16:51):
few people die. They try to leave the planet, but
an alien has gotten into their like spacecraft and kills
all the flight crew and then the space crashes and
they can't leave the planet now, so they're stuck. They
go back inside the facility. They set up some gun traps.
Bishops like, hey, I'm gonna go find another ship and
like do a manual override and saying, oh gosh. So

(17:18):
the aliens come back. They're like closing in on them.
Burke is like I'm a capitalist, and everyone's like you motherfucker. Oh,
And he tries to have Ripley and New impregnated to
get past quarantine. It's a whole thing. It doesn't work,
and then it gets captured. So Ripley's like, I gotta
go back in for she's still alive, and she is
like the planets about to fall apart, planets covered and flap,

(17:40):
it's just very flapping. It's flat planet. So yeah, Ripley
like she ties some guns together. She goes in and
gets newt and then she stumbles across the Queen Alien
and her like whole nest of eggs and she's like, oh,
ship and then they managed to escape, but the queen
gets on the ship and then there's this big battle

(18:00):
at the end and Ripley puts her forklift suit on
and kills the queen being delivers a line and it's
like God, away from her, you bitch, and then slap
clap and we clap, and then the flap when the
flaps are squirting in a man is torn in half,
but he's fine, and and then the little kid is

(18:24):
released and she delivers a line and then it ends.
That's it. So that's the story of Aliens. I just
call Alien too. Yeah, well we've been so easy. It's
I feel like this is so confusing. Yeah, and then
the next one they call Alien three three, but it's like, cue,

(18:46):
what so stupid? And now when they sell all of
the movies together they call it a quadrilogy, which is like,
I just want to say, it's tetralogy or would be
if it's four, oh, like tetrahedron for I think, don't
correct me. Quatrilogy sound yes, it sounds okay. I have

(19:11):
a lot of thoughts on this movie because, unlike most
action movies of this era and then all of the
ones to date, I think it does a fairly good
job portraying not just one female character, but a at
least sizeable bullish cast of them. Yes, between Ripley and Vasquez,

(19:34):
which there's plenty to talk about with that character. Um,
But then also Newt. I think in a lot of
movies like this, a small child, especially a female one,
would be treated like a huge burden and be the
source of a lot of like obstacles and like we
have to rescue you and protect you the whole time.

(19:55):
But like new it's actually doing a lot to sort
of contribute to. Well, yeah, there's a few different moments
where her knowledge is like key to moving the plat forward,
Like when they go into the too be things where
you grew up and she knows how to navigate them,
And yeah, you need a greasy tunnel child to fight
greasy rat, the greasy bugs. She's a she's a street rat,

(20:16):
and they need that. They need that, and just a
bunch of marines can solve it. But no, you need
just fucking filthy child. Well, there's there, we're outsourcing it.
We've got a third party client. There's a dirty kid
we found. There's a great conversation between Bill Paxson's character
and Ripley where Bill Patson's like, we won't let seen

(20:40):
out here and Ripley's like, this little girl lasted longer
than that without any weapons or training, and he's like,
let's put her in charge then, and it's like, honestly,
let's like, okay, let's not take it to the place
where we're putting a dirty child in charge of the ship. Lastly,
I think that would be very progressive. And I want
to see that movie. It's called Jimmy Neutron. The kids

(21:03):
are in charge and it's a nightmare. I think, Oh,
here's as a retroctor theory about Jimmy Neutron. It was
a really fun movie designed to keep kids in their
place and they're like, you need parents, see or you'll
end up like Jimmy Neutron. Yeah, usaid have a crush
and the one who peed in the shower. Anyways, Yeah,

(21:26):
the character of new there's also a few different moments,
like the scenes between her and Ripley are generally very nice.
Um and aren't too heavy handed with like that I
am your mommy now, which I feel like a less
good movie would have really played those moments up to
be like obnoxious kind of this movie doesn't. And then

(21:48):
there's also that kind of like fun little subversion where
Ripley patronizes New a little bit by being like, your
doll would be brave, and she's like, it's a doll's plastic.
It's not feel shit, Sigourney Weaver, don't patronize me. And
then Sigourney Weaver apologize this, and I was like, I'm sorry,
You're right, that was weird. I was like, Wow, what

(22:10):
a pleasant discussion this was. It would be fine if
that little girl was smoking a cigarette that entire movie, like,
it would not be out of place if she was
just like, you don't know the ship I've seen lady.
She is wise beyond her years, and the fact that
she's the only survivor of what seems like mostly adults
is like, I think, pretty remarkable. She's a slippery little
tunnel kid. Don't funk with this little sh I wasn't

(22:34):
paying close enough attention because I got real bored in
the first acts. It's she the kid from the family
that finds that that gets sent Okay, so right, Yeah,
So I'm honestly I'm pretty impressed with the movie's depiction
of that child character because I think a lot of
movies will be like, oh, well, here's this extra burden
that you have to deal with that like really just

(22:56):
has to be dragged along. But in this movie, she's
like given a purpose and like actually contributes to the
progression of the plot at some points, and like the
connection she makes with Ripley makes a lot of sense
for both of them. Uh and um, like you said it,
it's like not too heavy handed. I think the movie
shows a lot of restraint in that relationship, which I appreciate. Yeah,
like a lesser movie would have had like a lot

(23:18):
of embraces and music swelling where this movie actra and
that does happen. In Alien four, we're Succourinea. We were
talking to Winona writer and basically it's like you're my
daughter now, and then they hug and and and smooch
and are pretty much it's like on that vector of like, Okay,
I gotta say that's also a bad movie. Well that's

(23:40):
the one where she makes that backwards basketball shot. Though
it makes it for real and everyone freaks out and
they can't cut it in time before I think it's
Ron Perlman is like literally you can see him saying
holy shit in the back of the frame because she
was supposed just toss a basketball over her head and
then there was supposed to cut it, but it actually
goes in the basket. Yeah, from like the three point line.
It's hilarious. She's amazing. Man. There's not a lot of

(24:04):
movies in general, regardless of the genre, that treats like
you know, in a movie where the cast is largely adults,
child characters are not usually treated with any respect or agencies.
So for younger kids who saw this movie, I'm sure
that was like cool. Yeah, wait, how young It would
be real fucked up to show this to any kids.
Don't show this to your kids. That's slippery. Little tunnel kid.

(24:29):
If I died, here's your here's your bucket of old
motor oil, here's a shovel, go have fun in the backyard.
They said, Okay, but the evolution because Alien is alien,
like Sigourney Weaver is the star of Alien because of
the final girl tropes of horror movies. But now she
gets in an action movie, and they do a good

(24:51):
job of like not And I guess she's not very
final girly in Alien because it's it's just that narrative structure.
But then otherwise it's very like it doesn't follow a
lot of the tropes that the final girl that the
movie movies who do have like a final girl trope
do because it's like it's all like she survived because
she's the virgin. Yeah, so it doesn't adhere to a

(25:12):
lot of those the whiff of that, Yeah, I think
like on paper it would look more similar than actually
what it actually is because she, I mean an alien
to she has like so much like college and age,
Like how you're just gonna you're insisting on calling an
alien to alien? Oh and and oh no, I was
calling it an alien sorry t o O in Alien

(25:33):
the first one, she's Yeah, she is kind of like
I didn't even thought of that. She is kind of
like a final female because it's a horror movie. It's
a slasher movie, yeah, just set in a garbage space.
But it's like the twist there is that she actually
has skills and abilities and that's why she survives, or
a big part of why she survives, right, and then

(25:54):
that carries over into Aliens where she isn't given a
whole lot to do in the first I would say
maybe hour of the movie, because she's really just called
in as a sort of consultant because they recognize, oh wait,
actually you have gone through this. Um. So I think
that was at least cool that, Like in a lot
of times, if there's a movie where like an expert
needs to be called in, it's a man. So the

(26:16):
fact that like she is called onto the scene because
of her expertise in her experience and also given a
role of like authority and power because I think she
resumes her position is is it lieutenant or something like?
I think they do that shitty action movie thing where
they have the scene where Sigourney Weaver she has to

(26:39):
prove her abilities and all the guys have like unchanged
their draws. They're like, well, the girl can do a
thing like that. My my least favorite thing that happens
in actually movie superhero movies in a lot of different
genres of like we see the main female character demonstrate
even a monica with something like robotics or like whatever,

(27:03):
and they should not be shocked because they know, like
that was like part of her job. But they're like,
oh my freaking god, this chick in a robot suit.
Everyone's a half mass. But they're also like, wow, she
can do it. I guess we'd better like give her
an entry level job, you know, And I okay, So
that is a bad tripe. I didn't bother me so

(27:25):
much in this movie as it does in other movies,
because one usually when that happens, usually when that female
character like has to prove herself for like, as we
always talk about that McSweeney's article where she's like, I'm
the token female and this action Blackbuster and I usually
when that happens, the female character is sexualized in some

(27:46):
way or like what she's doing is presented as like
this very sexy thing, but also like, look how competent
she is, but she's also extremely sexy while doing it.
And in this movie, it's her like clamoring into a
forklift basically and then like lifting up a thing, and
they're like and yeah, the guys are like t he
he Wow, I didn't expect she could do that. Yeah,

(28:09):
I don't know. It just it didn't bother me as
much as it does another It's not the worst example
of it. When I do, I always do want to
make sure that I point that out because in that scene,
I think that the guys are supposed to sort of
represent the audience to an extent of like, Wow, look,
she really can do it. You can trust this character
moving forward, you know, like just reassuring the audience that

(28:30):
she is competent, which isn't necessarily a thing that you'd
have to happen given what we know about this character. Sure,
and she's from the past, so that's true. She's like
a hundred and eighty to them. She's their grandma. There's
not enough like unfrozen caveman jokes in that, like like
there's a lot of opportunities for her to like so
what do you what music do you guys listen to it?

(28:51):
They're like, what what is this? Yeah, that's a good point.
Those are the jokes of the Alien franchise. We need, Yeah,
we gotta, we gotta make a power sheet of some
unfrozen Sigourney. We should. Yeah, when's like the comedy heist
alien movie coming out, I want to see that credits
and robot parts. But in that scene, whenever the guys

(29:17):
were like whoa I couldn't believe she could operate a forklift.
That almost certainly would not have happened if she were
a man. They would not have had that reaction. And
I don't think that there would have been such like
a narrative dragon in the first act of the movie
of if. I mean, let's just go there. If if,
like there was a male character who was frozen in

(29:39):
the past who came back, I feel like it would
be a more likely narrative choice for this era to
you know, like treat him as a returning hero and
just be like, hey, you're probably lying and you're probably
traumatized because of what happened with your kid, you know
where they assume and and part of the reason that
she's kind of discredited in that first scene is because

(30:00):
it's like, well, you've been through a lot, and we
don't really believe what you're saying. Basically, it's like she's hysterical,
is the h and that's what they Yeah, that's what
they say. They say something like I don't remember the
exact quote, but they suspend her license because of it.
They remove all of her credentials, which is a very
frustrating scene to watch because it's basically her talking to

(30:22):
a room full of mostly men and being like, here's
this horrible thing that happened to me, and they're like,
but I don't believe you, and it's kind of your
fault when you think, yeah, is her fault, right, and
then she gets very angry for not being believed as
one would and then they're like, oh, actually it seems
like you're crazy, so bye. Right. It's very frustrating. Yes,

(30:44):
but that's not like the movie doing a bad job.
It's just the being by a corporation exactly. This movie
is anti corporation. It is which if you look at
movies that came out, and I mean this is like
Pete Reagan kind of unusual for I mean where I
said it before I say it again. Ghostbusters is the
most pro corporation movie of all fucking time. And it

(31:06):
is like the same. Yeah, it's like they're just like
a fucking start up, their startup bros, start up gros
who get a bad loan. Yeah, those guys they're bad
and they hate the e p as is the worst
startup of all time. That's true. I genuinely prefer the
new Ghostbusters because I'm just like, it's just I hate
it turns out I hate anything made before, like everything

(31:30):
is so slow. Thankfully Jimmy Netron came on, so it
qualifies to be your new favorite. So in a lot
of action movies where the protagonist is a woman, I
feel like a lot of them still don't do a
very good job because they don't spend that much time
developing that female protagonist, or they're just like sort of

(31:52):
the vehicle to propel this story but aren't given that
much characterization. I'm thinking of movies like Laura Kraft tomb
Raader and we did an episode on or in movies
where like there's like a female action star among other characters,
like Black Widow in like the Avengers Marvel Universe had
a question about that um that my friend who watched

(32:14):
Avengers with brought this up. Well, no, okay, this is
stealing this question from Todd Levin, but it is, you
know relevant, we're ever going to get away from the
like Avengers part where they can only fight other women
in a big battle scene. It's like, who brought this up? Oh,
it was um Ify on our Black Panther episode where
that yeah, that is that is a huge trope where

(32:36):
if there's a big battle scene where a group of
people are fighting each other and there are like women
on either side there. It's like they always have women.
Spond movies always do that. Fast and Furious movies always
do like they have to bring in women on the
not they have to, they should. I guess you can
have criminal women, it's great, um, but we can do anything.

(32:57):
They specifically clearly cast the men on the other to
literally be the equal or the foil for the woman only.
And I think in like this is who you get
to beat up. And there's a few examples where women
are I mean, I thought of Killed Bill right away,
where the main female action protucitist is fighting men. But
the offset of that is that character is sexualized pretty

(33:18):
intensely throughout that entire movie. So I don't know, I
can't think of or I guess maybe it's it's and
you can have female like heroes beating up like faceless dudes.
But and I guess I'm about to answer my own question,
which is like, you can't have like Captain America, like
beating up the poor thanos because that is a bad look.

(33:40):
I guess hits a lady. My instinct is not good. Sure, yeah,
but woman's been killing people and blah blah blah. You
know that's the argument. It's sexist not to beat her
ass you know what I'm saying, Right, that's like, that's
an interesting I bet that there's stuff written on that too.
I mean, I think it depends on the kind of character.
Like obviously Captain America can't hit any woman he wants. Yeah,

(34:05):
that's bad, right of course, But it's like it's such
a start. You're just like you knew when there was
like a bad fo woman that she would have to fight.
Well in terms of villain parity, well, but if we
if we go into like Disney lore, I think that
there's some examples of male heroes killing female villains. Oh

(34:29):
little Mermaid, Little Mermaid, also sleeping Beauty. Um, he slays
the dragon who is maleficent. I think that there are
some examples of that. But yeah, it's always that's an
interesting Yeah. I mean, obviously we don't you know, violence
against women is bad, but they're definitely that trope exists
of like if there's a bad woman, only a woman

(34:52):
on the good side can fight her. Although I thought
what you were where you were going, and that's why
I brought up the like black Panther discussion is like
to Challa's army is all women. You see them fighting then,
so it's not like they're yeah so yeah, I mean
I like seeing that. I would watch women beating men's asses.

(35:12):
That's the only time it was real gross. In a
recent movie that I remember was I think john Wick
two where Keanu Reeves like just beats up Ruby Rose
and it's like, this is fucking terrible. No, it's really unpleasant.
I didn't see John Wick or John Wick to John Wicks,
but he just beats up Ruby Rose and she is

(35:34):
a teeny tiny, skinny lady and like whatever. Of course
it doesn't really matter, but the optics of it are
so fucked up that I'm just like, why would you
agree to I don't know where I land on. That's like, yeah,
that just see that's a murky area because you want
to have parody in every and everything, right, but also
what it because media is so like effective, like if

(35:57):
you if you're a teenage boy and you see that,
you use that to justify bad behavior. I don't know.
I don't think we have an audience and we probably
never will have an audience. That's sophisticated enough. It's like
it's like having the N word and huck fan. Everyone's like, oh,
you know, this is a good like teachable moment, and like, yeah,
it's also a moment for a bunch of white fourteen
year old to yell the N word. To use it

(36:19):
is permission to do something that wasn't the intent, or
maybe it was the intent, who knows. Anyway, it's quite
all right, no, no, no, I I think that that's
like an interesting Well, if you're listening, we would love
to hear your thoughts or if there's any like pieces
or anything that's been written on this that you could
direct you to share, please, And if you're not listening,

(36:41):
then especially if you're not listening, that's a yeah, I'm
in the fence about it. It's one of those that's
like it's easy. Yeah, you kind of you feel like
you have an idea of it in theory, but almost
every time you see in practice you're like nope, I
think yeah, it's like I want to say, as of
right now, I want to be like, hey, no that

(37:01):
you know, there can be parody in fight scenes, but
I also can so easily see the wrong type of
person seeing that and using it as an excuse of like, well,
this must be okay to do to anyone I want,
because people who see movies are stupid. Excuse me especially well,
because I mean, feminism is all about equality among the

(37:25):
genders and like women being equal to men. So in
theory you could be like, well, yeah, like if men
and women are equal, then women can be beat up
by men and it'll be fine. But I think too soon,
too soon, too soon, And that's also just so weird
having your cake and eating it too, of like the

(37:45):
patriarchy has had the cake and now eating it too
means that you can hit us on screen now, right
because women have been the victim of so much violence
at the hand of men. Yeah, we're not anywhere near.
There should be a solid only five years of just
when kicking men's asses in movies, and then we can
bring this question up, yes, right now, and maybe maybe

(38:07):
too soon. Not impossible, but too soon, I think. So
all that discussion, yeah, I agree, And to conclude, the
original point I was making is that like the female
characters in action movies, if they are participating in the action,
they're usually not characterized very well. They're underdeveloped. We don't
know much about them. Yeah, they just don't have any

(38:28):
real traits beyond being kind of like badass. Whereas with Ripley,
I think a pretty I mean a lot of characterization
goes into her. We know that she's very smart, she's
very capable, she's highly rational, um, but she also has
like a nurturing side with where we see with Newt,
and I think she's a much more developed in multidimensional

(38:50):
character than we are used to seeing, especially in women
characters in action movies. I think it's also like a
very of the moment at that time statement, like a
female character being a very capable mother figure at least,
and also being very good and very capable and self
sustaining at her job, because at this time it was

(39:10):
still relatively new for women to be in the workplace
and also be viewed as, you know, able to be
a good mother. Right. Oh man. I feel like when
this came out like the same way any time anything
happens in pop culture now, like right wing people are like, well,
this is actually like a conservative movie. You can just
see like all the fucking like Daily Mail, like this

(39:32):
is actually about Margaret Thatcher, and like this is you
know this is really about how conservative women can do everything.
Doesn't just feel like that definitely happens. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I kind of hate when movie they're co opted for
a bizarro cause, like, yeah, it's it ruins it, but
they I think that it just means that this movie

(39:53):
is a well written movie too, which by and large,
James Cameron movies do pretty well. Uh, in in its
treatment of female characters, weren't good. Oh, I don't know Titan,
I've ever heard of it. Some great, like almost all
great female characters, and in The Terminator at least the
first two movies, I don't I'm not super familiar with
the ones after that. But um, Sarah Connor is a

(40:17):
huge badass, and I know, like his movies have been criticized,
his treatment of women has been criticized to some degree.
He's also come out and said pretty stupid things in
recent years, Like he had a quote about Wonder Woman
which was kind of dumb, where he's basically like being
very self congratulatory, was like, well, look at how I
treat my women in my movies. I'm done like that,
And it's just like you're missing the point. Yeah, at

(40:39):
the end of the day, he is uh, straight white
man born before and therefore is wrong about most things.
But it's also like dog, keep your mouth shot, and
you can still be like actions Paul Feig, like you
just be quiet, like everyone will grudgingly be like, ah, well,
at least the movies are more or less on point

(41:00):
if you just fucking shut your mouth when people ask
you about the state of feminism, Yeah, why say anything?
It would Yeah, it would have been so easy to
just be like seems pretty good. Liked the movie, liked
them that I needed to say, super easy, jam What
are you doing? Do you all ever call him jam Cam? Jack? No?
I love that. That sounds like a good reality shows

(41:21):
throwing it out there, Cam James Cameron prank show Jack. Well, so, Jamie,
you mentioned Titanic, and I think this serves as a
transition into my next talking point because Vasquez, the character
in Aliens, is in Titanic as the Irish Mummy. Oh

(41:43):
my God her, which means which is a good transition
into I didn't notice that because in Titanic she is white.
She is as a person, she is white. Vasquez, who
is a Latina character. The actor is Janette Goldstein, who
is she is Jewish, Jewish. She is of Russian's, Moroccan

(42:07):
and Brazilian. She's Jewish from Beverly Hill, but she's a
white lady. She's Jewish from a can say. I found
a little excerpt that says that Goldstein was outfitted with
dark contact lenses to hide her blue eyes, and even
covered in full face and body makeup to cover up

(42:27):
her white skin. She is literally in brown face. There's
poll quotes from her talking about at the time complaining
about how the makeup made it hard for her to
do the part. But because she's like sweaty and wet
the whole time, maybe you should have just cast a
Latina actress in that role and you wouldn't have had
to do that. Yeah, that's troubling. Yeah, it's just I mean,

(42:54):
and I guess I don't know the state of brown
face in movie is in specifically, I have to imagine
if you know, is on the I don't know. I mean,
I genuinely don't know. But it's obviously unacceptable and I
don't understand. Yeah, I just don't understand. Yeah, it's kind

(43:17):
of a bummer all around, where you're like, why he
is so unnecessary? It's such a weird choice. I think
it's because she she's a pretty beloved character, and it
would have been greater. It is great to have a
woman of color character be such a beloved character, but
the fact that the actress playing that character is not

(43:37):
actually a woman of color just feels like a hollow victory. Right.
But there are a few things I do want to
say about this character that I think are worth noting,
aside from setting aside that actresses in brown face, and
if there's a silver lining, it's not played for laughs
at all. I mean, they even attempt to make like

(43:59):
a like an anti Latino a joke about illegal immigrants,
and she tells him to go fuck himself basically, which
makes it all the more baffling that they didn't just
hire the right actor for Bartley. It just doesn't. Yeah, yeah,
because the character is treated with respect pretty consistently, and
it's like proves herself again and again, and he's a
well written character. There's nothing wrong with the character. It's

(44:20):
all the execution that's wrong. Right, Because so Vasquez is
I think it's interesting that we see on the screen
a fairly mask presenting woman. You don't see a lot
of representation of that on screen in like mainstream Hollywood movies,
she's a spaceman unless yeah, I mean unless it's like
that type of character is the butt of a joke,

(44:41):
which there's a brief moment where Bill Paxton says something
like fascas, have you've been mistaken for a man? And
she comes back with no, have you and then she
slaps high five and goes off, Yeah got me, God,
I got packed at jam Cam. Aside from that, though,

(45:03):
like her sort of mask presentation isn't like the butt
of a joke, and by and large she's very respected
and seen as an equal among her male colleague. That's
accomplished very quickly, Like in that scene Paxiston comes out
or with that she shuts him down, and then her
other friend is sort of like, yeah, that's good, as
you rule, and then she slaps him in the face

(45:25):
and I was like, whoa, She's coming in hot in
every regard it was exciting. Well, she just woke up.
She was also doing she's doing a pull up. Someone
does another pull up. Someone's pretty good scene. Yeah, I
was like, what a space marine. Holy sh it. So
through the rest of the movie she is one of

(45:46):
the people who survives pretty close to the very end.
Oftentimes she is like leading the way. If they're like
going into a new area that they're unfamiliar with, She's
like going in first, holding the biggest gun. She's charge,
Like who's in charge on the ship? Like, who is
the person who's in charge? Well, it's the gormless new
guy is technically in charge, and then the older black dude.

(46:08):
And then yeah, opone dies pretty quickly, so he was
like sort of the highest ranking. So Gorman is like
delivering orders from behind the scenes. Oppone dies, So then
the next in command ends up being Hicks at some point.
The reason I ask is I don't know how to
at the loftest rule of factors into this movie. I
think it might not succeed in this movie because I

(46:30):
would say Ripley is ultimately the woman most in charge
and she has the most hair. Yeah she is not,
but in Alien three she shaves her head and she
does become the baldest woman in charge. So Alien three
passes the longest games, the franchise passes this maybe specific movie,
and she doesn't have a lot of hair. I mean,
you could argue that the Alien queen is bald, that

(46:55):
she's all flaps, hairless flaps. But she in charge, which
is an unfair press, is in charge of her alien,
of her organized family. It was really an empowering movie.
The flaps would have hair. Yeah, you're right, don't wax
my flaps. That's what my shirt in any case, don't

(47:16):
try about me a little flat Vasquez though, Yeah, I
mean she like the men are never like, oh, we
have to protect her. She might be one of the
crazier ones. Yeah, she's kind of unhinged, right in a
way that you would normally see like a male character
like Yippy caying around a little bit. Right. If anyone

(47:38):
has rode rage on that crew, it's maybe her, Yeah,
which I guess she could have rid rage steroids too.
That's right. Women can do it. If we can be criminals,
we can abuse steroids, you name it, we can do it.
Pharaoh is a little bit chiller, and another woman with
part hair. Yeah, she's the pilot. And then there's another

(47:58):
woman on the team. Her name is Dietrich and she
seems to be like a medic technician of some kind.
She is one of the first people to die, though,
so we don't see a ton of her on screen,
But you were mentioning this earlier is that the movie
kind of goes out of its way to be pretty
inclusive in terms of having women be a part of

(48:19):
the marine team, which compared this movie to write compared
this movie to The Rock exactly where it's kind of
similar and that like there's just like someone who has
a certain specialty that gets called in to advise on
this rescue mission and aliens. It's Ripley. In The Rocket's

(48:42):
Sean Connery his wife my favorite shots. But in The
Rock there are hardly any women seen on screen at all.
In this movie, women have a ton of screen time,
which makes sense and not insight. Unlike The Rock, it's

(49:03):
only allowed on screen during The Rock if they're wearing
a feather boa and proposing and gregnant anyway. So yeah,
I think it's really cool to see so many women
in like military positions in this movie. Yeah, more progressive
than our current military and our current like movies about military,

(49:27):
Like there's I would say, if there is a movie
being made about marines right now, I can't imagine it
even having the parody of this movie. Yeah, or it's
like a big deal, like a G I. Jane where
you're like, oh, can you believe it? This is such
a struggle, what a noble struggle. I mean, no one's
gender really gets aside from that one joke that Bill

(49:48):
Paxton says in the beginning, like there's gender isn't Oh
there's one other scene. Uh there. It was a part
of the movie where I said where I shouted locker
room talk. Oh. Yes, because there's a scene where they're
all at lunch and this is like right after Ripley
gets there and she's like, oh, I wonder if people
respect women in the future, and it's like nope. Uh

(50:11):
where Oh I have I have the quote one of
the marines says, Oh, we're going on this mission because
the juicy colonists daughters need rescuing from their virginity. Yeah,
they say the phrase juicy colonists daughters. Now that's a
fundamentally flawed phrase as well, because are they saying that

(50:33):
the fathers are juicy or that's a misplaced qualifier. They're like, oh,
the juicy colonists thin daughters. Like we don't know. I
simply don't know. Jim really camped himself on that one. Yeah,
that is I don't know why that line is in
the movie. It feels kind of out of place, and

(50:55):
then they're okay. There is also later on they all
did suffer at the hands of the many juicy daughters
on the planet. So that's true. I mean there were
a bunch of juicy daughters, meaning the aliens, the slap Monster.
I would say that they did. Yeah, it was a
wet plane, slippery as hell. Please come see my new

(51:18):
student film, wet Planets, just Clammy Planets planet. Um. Okay, So,
aside from a few quick moments, gender isn't really addressed
in this movie. No one's like, oh, you can't do
that because you're a woman, or I'm not going to
listen to a woman. Right Yeah, So, um, I think

(51:39):
that's that's very well. I do feel like the whole
meta plot of Paul Riser faking presumably now that I'm
I'm not sure how it's you're supposed to read it,
but I kind of thought the beginning was supposed to
be revealed to be like a setup and part of
the manipulation, Like so he got her fired, believed her
the whole time, but was like this only way I

(52:00):
can get her on the planet. Maybe, I think so? Maybe? Okay,
So given that like it is a little bit like gender.
The way that all went down, it felt like, I
don't know how I can see that just kind of
manipulate a woman in that way, whereas I assume that
you could. You wouldn't, Yeah, you wouldn't do that to
a man like a corporate right, that's probably not And

(52:21):
especially because he targets Ripley and Newt as being the
ones that he's going to try to get the face
huggers to impregnate, essentially so that he can carry the
yeah exactly, so he can carry the yeah. We didn't
even get to the fact that he's raping for business
in this movie, but the one other I mean, this
movie calls less attention to gender, I think to its

(52:44):
strength a lot of the time and shows again it's
like an element of restraint. This movie shows that most
movies today would not because every male dominated art form
right now is dying to tell you how much they
respect women simply gushing. But I will say that this movie,
like and And if it is true that the conservative

(53:05):
values like we're felt represented by this movie, I think
it is because we have this very strong, capable female protagonist.
But you do have and it works in this story,
but it is a deliberate choice to have the maternal
b plot added of like, oh, but also she can
be maternal and gentle and she longs for motherhood and like,

(53:27):
this is an element of her that cannot be denied,
which is not the case and not representative of every woman.
So you can't just save a child because you don't
want to see a kid die, Like, come on you, mmy, Yeah,
I can see that happening and being justified more if
in the first movie it's set up that she has
a daughter that she left behind, but they deliberately add

(53:51):
that detail into this movie that hadn't previously been established,
so that means that that did not need to be established.
And if they do just find a kid, yeah, she
doesn't necessarily need to be extremely maternal about it. She
can just be like, Hey, I'm going to help make
sure this kid doesn't die. This greasy little Girls your boss,
which could have another option, greasy little boss. Yeah. I

(54:13):
guess the Jim really intentionally shoehorns that in and and
again I think for this movie, it does work, and
it helps build out the backstory and interior life of
Ripley in a way that the first movie kind of doesn't.
But also the fact that he defaults to, like, oh,
how is a way I can give this female character

(54:34):
some depth? Mommy, Yeah, that's all I can think of?
Is right, Like, it's effective, but it's also kind of
a default. But that's also a trump that is usually
given to men. So I think it's at least interesting that,
like the dead daughter Trumpe being used to characteristic characterized characters.
Usually it's not mad Tom Hardy and mad Max Fury,

(54:55):
Max my daughter, I miss her. I'm quiet. My movie
is bad, that's my Max is so good. I'm I'm
I'm completely alone in that opinion, and that just has
to be fine. I've been alone in that opinion for
years and I'm fine. Yeah. You just don't like difficult,
spiky places. I don't like steampunk imagery. I don't like

(55:18):
that's what this is too. I don't like the Orange
and Blue movies. I guess this is Yeah, bio punk
is another triggering phrase. There any any movie where it's
like the Orange Blue movie posters? Yeah, that's all. Yeah,
I love I'm here for it. Here. Let me talk
about some of my favorite moments that demonstrate Ripley as

(55:41):
being a smart person, as being a smart smart smart,
a good, a big smart. She's the one who figures
out that the soldiers can't fire their weapons in a
certain place because it'll basically cause a nuclear reaction. So
after the first alien attack, a bunch of people die.
Gorman is like, who don't know what to do? And
she grabs him, shakes him and screams do something. He

(56:06):
doesn't do anything, So then she basically takes over and
starts giving orders and takes the wheel, drives whatever vehicle
they're in, and goes and saves the survivors. There's a
point where Bill Paxston is throwing a fit and screaming, screaming.
She yells diamond um. She says, I'm stickier bullshit, because

(56:33):
while he is freaking out, she is level headed and
knows what needs to happen. She's like, give me the
fucking plans so that we can find the air vent.
Since ship do you think it's? Sigourney Weaver and Bill Paxston.
We're friends, I hope, so that would be so nice.
Oh I'm gonna look it up. Okay, say yeah? And

(56:53):
then oh Ripley screams at Burke for being a capitalist. Also,
this movie I feel like is anti colonialism as well,
for sure, because all the colonists die the end. Also,
I think this movie is a pro choice because Sigourney
Weaver kills the alien flat babies with a flamethrower, which, okay,

(57:17):
leads me to one of many climactic sequences in this
movie where she does like the last big rescue at
the end, she goes in and rescues Newts, and that
whole sequence is all female characters because it's Ripley Newt,
the alien queen, and the automated female voice, which I

(57:40):
don't know if we ever learned her name or not,
but like basically the like and the tone of the
automated female voice is kind of actually, she's got a
little tuned and that voice. At first, what's that phrase
she kept saying. It was something to like get out.
She's like, yeah, you only have like fifty minutes. Excuse
doing here? Excuse me, just a quick update. Sigourney Weaver

(58:06):
was sad Bill Packson died. Okay, she looks like, I'm
go good finally. But so in this sequence, all these
surviving male characters, which is only Bishop and Hicks, are
treated the way that a lot of female characters are
in action movies, which is that they are completely sidelined
and not given anything to do. Ripley saves herself, She

(58:30):
saves Newt. She does not need to be saved by
a man a little earlier there. Yeah, she is saved,
but only because, like, she tries very hard to save herself,
and these things have proven to be nearly impossible to
fight off and it takes like three or four men
to pull the thing off of her. So I didn't

(58:51):
hate that, especially because then she does go on to
save herself and have all the agency at the end
of the movie. I agree. So I was. I was
worried because that was the point of the in the
movie where I was like, this could be the climactic scene,
because this movie could be over soon because it's pretty
much done, but because it's actually sixty five scenes before

(59:11):
the movie actually answered so long, Well, we need that
scene where she's just got away from her you rich, Yeah,
but let's just go to that scene. Did we need
the scorpion scene? Although I did really like when she
and Knut were banging on the glass and they're like,
is can anyone hear us? I was like, I feel you. Um,

(59:32):
I feel like one of the reasons I brought this
up it was because when like shitty film guys talk
about the backdel test, specifically the like well technically like
the queen aliens like a woman. That's That's kind of
why I thought it would be funny to bring this
to the podcast. But then I forgot that at least
and aliens probably an alien. There's like enough other stuff.

(59:55):
I actually thought this whole podcast was going to be
a debate about whether, like screeching violently constitutes dialogue. What
is the queen saying? We don't know, is she talking
about a man? She might be like, you killed my son?
You killed my son? Should be like I think Bill
Paxton's doing a great job in this movie. Fine, he's fine.

(01:00:16):
Big Love is a good show. He's a capable character actor,
but no one calls him a character actor because he's hot.
Rest Paradise, Rest in past in Paradise, Rest in Paxiston.
Oh Paxton, my Packiston. Oh there's another quick scene I
wanted to talk about, where it's wearing. They first find

(01:00:37):
Newt and Ripley is like cleaning off nuts face and
she's like, oh, hard to believe there's a little girl
under this, because again she is covered in just slime
and goop and dirt. She's a slippery little girl because slippery.
So yeah, she's like hard to believe there's a little
girl under this dot dot dot and a pretty one too,

(01:00:58):
which is not a line that Ripley needs to say.
I mean, I don't know. Maybe she's trying to lift
her spirits because granted, her parents were murdered by aliens
and she's the only one left alive on this planet.
But I think it's just goes to show that girls
and women are often only appreciated for the way they

(01:01:19):
look and only talked about in the context of the
way they look, whereas little boys are complimented about being
smart and being athletic and being all kinds of other things.
I think, and and that's like one of those interesting
little uncanny moments where you're like, oh, this movie was
written by a guy, like it's just one of the yeah,
but then a movie that large, because how else would

(01:01:41):
a guy imagine you comfort a little girl exactly exactly
like how would a mom comfort a young girl call
her pretty? But then there's several scenes later where Ripley's
like she survived without any training or weapons, Like, she's
clearly very competent. There are those who seems where she
kind of condescends to her and new It is like,

(01:02:03):
I'm not an idiot, I know that plastic dollheads can't
have bad dreams. And she's like, oh yeah, like I
mean that's I like that moment. Yeah, exactly. So it
would have been awesome in that like training our weapons
monologue if she then was like, and that's why I'm
giving this four year old girl a plasma rifle. Here
you go, she's eleven whatever? Sorry, yeah, I think so

(01:02:26):
that's crazy. I was seven, I said for because my
brain shut off. She might not be. Maybe I'm just
thinking she's eleven because that's how old Ripley's daughter was whenever.
She's probably eleven. I don't know how old any kid ever. Anyway,
Look I'm saying, is preteen with a plasma rifle. I'm
for it. I would see it, Yeah, I would see it.
I'm mostly for it. Mostly. Oh my god, you're making

(01:02:48):
so many of those jobs for the child. Actor who
played Newt is a teacher. Now, Oh cool, isn't that
what happens in the beginning of Alien three, they're just
like title hard style, like, oh Newt died spaceship crash. Yeah,
they do kill her. They do kill her. They're like,
she had the call to pursue the most noble profession.

(01:03:12):
There's actually a couple of things I did want to
say about Alien three, because it feels like the first
of the Alien movies where gender is largely commented on,
because it's generally pretty ignored in the first two Alien movies.
Ripley crash lands on to a planet where there's like
a penal quality full of men with why y chromosomes,

(01:03:35):
which is not a real thing. I don't but I
guess they're implying that these men are so masculine that
they have many white chromosomes. And the whole time everyone's like, oh, no,
you're a woman, and we're going to be horny because
we're murderers and rapists of women, and she's going to
cause trouble. Real come fueled decision. Also, in Alien three,

(01:03:59):
Ripley is given a love interest, So there's some interesting things,
and by interesting I mean things I don't I don't
like about Alien three. Do they kind of try to
give her and Hicks a moment and it seems like,
oh yeah, I did actually want to talk about where
there's that scene where she's trying to learn how to
use his plasma rifle. He's like standing behind her and

(01:04:21):
like has his arms kind of around her, showing her
how to do different stuff, and that's played in a
lot of movies. Were like, look at this flirtatious moment
where like a man's trying to teach a woman how
to swing a tennis racket, and it's like all hot
and flirtatious, like what Jim Cameron does on his dates
with like how to use the personal submarine. Oh my god,

(01:04:42):
it's like I've actually got some pretty cool summers. You
want if you want to drive it, you want to
try didn't hold the wheel. But in this movie, I
think it's handled better. And yet I think there's like
a hint of like maybe they're in each other. Right.
It's very weird and very unnecessary. But in the scene

(01:05:02):
where she's like learning to use that gun, at first,
I was like a scene where a man's teaching a
woman how to use a thing. But I'm like, gosh,
she is from the past, so she probably wouldn't know
how to use it. Well, she also asked him how
to use it, So yeah, he wasn't telling you something
she knew right right, So he was not man splanning
to her. He was just explaining. Sometimes man can't explain
without man splaining. Sometimes, don't tell them that, mostly don't.

(01:05:26):
Mostly they can do that mostly anyway. Um, does anyone
have any final thoughts about Aliens? Alpha Molina could have
been in this movie? Um as newt Oh, he's a chameleon.
He could have played a slippery kid like do it
with forced perspective, like standing in really far away a

(01:05:49):
very expensive process. Or he could have played any of
the aliens in a Little Green. He could have gone
full Andy Sirkus, sure you played the aliens, or he
could of play well he could, you know, he could
play Jones the cat. He also could have played the
queen mother. You know, he's that versatile. One last thing

(01:06:10):
I wanted to talk about was all of the vaginal
birth straight up upskirt of an egg laying. Yes, so
the Queen Aliens for that was in there. She has
what seems to be an external vagina, which I think
is extremely sex positive if you ask me, and very

(01:06:33):
perfectly detachable because she literally rips herself off of it.
It looks painful. I don't need this right now, and
I feel like one of the scariest things about like
this movie and the first Alien movie is like the
way the aliens jest state and like like the queen

(01:06:54):
lazy eggs and then inside those eggs like face thing
and that attaches to your face and pregnant your chest,
and then that dies, and then an infant alien bursts
out of your chest and then it takes what seems
like only an hour to grow to adulthood, and then
and then it becomes this terrifying thing. So I don't
know if like, is that like the writers and filmmakers

(01:07:16):
who are largely men uh in these movies, is that
a way for them to be like, look how gross
and scary childbirth is and how little we understand. The
movie monsters in general, right are just like manifestations of anxieties,
and men are scared of vagina is a lot because

(01:07:36):
they don't understand it. Some movie monsters represent communism, other
movie monsters represent women because it's something that the author
is uh afraid of and doesn't understand. For for this movie,
it works because when we see like male protagonists slaying
the vagina and conquering the vagina monster, that is net negative.

(01:08:02):
Having a female protagonist confront and defeat the vagina monster.
I don't know what that is. It's more interesting. I
don't know. I mean, I think it's it's definitely a
trope being recycled here, but it didn't bother me in
this movie. Yeah, I don't think any real commentary is
being made. I don't think so either, But I don't
think it's setting things back either. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I

(01:08:24):
would agree with it's not regressive, But it's also like
it's all just just like, well, here's you haven't seen this.
I think you seen a giant queen bee alien rip
her own external vagina off of her to a woman
to fight a woman. Yet until nine, right, isn't that
the whole thing with the hr Geiger. It's like all

(01:08:45):
those drawings are like, you know, everything is infused with
like sex organs from everything, and it's like the idea
is like the horror of that. So, quoting a paraphrasing
what I would imagine they would say, it's like the
horror of that confus fusion is what some Swedish dude,
w h think something like some white dude thinks it's

(01:09:08):
the scariest thing in the world. Yeah. Um, let's talk
about whether or not this movie passes the Bechtel test
a few times. There is a moment where Ripley and
Basquez are talking and she's talking about what happened in
the first alien movie, and then Basquez like the first Yeah,

(01:09:30):
what happens um. Vasquez is like, look, man, I only
need to know one thing where they are? But she
does say, look, man, so interesting and they they is ambiguous.
Well do we know the sex of the aliens? I think, well,
I think a caveat for the Bechtel test is that

(01:09:52):
are they talking about human men? And if it's an
animal or a xeno more for whatever, it doesn't matter.
I don't think yeah, so I would say that passes. Uh.
And then Ripley and Newt talk a lot um. Sometimes
they mentioned nuts little brother or like her dad, but

(01:10:13):
several of those scenes to pass the Backtel test. The
scene where Newts says we should go back inside because
they mostly come out at night. Mostly that passes the
Bechtel tests, Thank you so much. And then there's the
scene at the end where Ripley says, get away from her,
are you bitch? And then I think all the scenes

(01:10:34):
between Sigourney Weaver and the Jack Vagina's past, whether there's
dialogue being spoken or not. Yeah, it's a massive asterisk scene. Yeah.
So the movie passes the beachdel test. Let's gotta go, right,
oh ship, Yes, I very much have to go. Guys, sorry,
this was so fun than you. Yeah, thanks for I

(01:10:56):
didn't want you to be too late. Oh no, thank you.
I spy. Okay, So let's write the movie on our
nipple scale zero to five nipples based on portrayal of women. Um,
I would give it. I'm gonna give it a four.
I'm gonna take nipples off for the character of Vesquez
being a Latina character but not being played by a

(01:11:18):
Latina actress. Dog, and one for brown face. Yeah, yep.
There's a few other, you know, small gripes where, yeah,
like Ripley does have to do this thing where she
has to prove herself to a man. She's like, hey,
look I can drive a forklift that you didn't think
I could do, and they're like, oh he he wow wow.
But I would say, by and large apart from a
few like lines of dialogue here and there that are

(01:11:40):
just like that could have been cut and the movie
would be better. This movie does. I would even go
so far as to say an excellent job depicting women
in an action blockbuster, especially considering the error that it
came out in the mid eighties. Ripley is in the
movie because they need her. She's the only one who
can provide the information that they need to get their

(01:12:04):
mission accomplished. Right. Without her, the movie cannot take place right. Also, yeah,
she's level headed, she's smart, she's a good, strong leader.
And the other female characters, the fact that they're in
the movie at all is shouldn't be surprising, but it
was considering, right, But I do like that it attempted

(01:12:24):
to be more inclusive than most action movies, especially of
this era, and that those female characters are generally pretty
well developed and interesting. Yes, so I'm gonna give it
four nipples, and all four of my nipples go to
the Queen Alien Cool. I'll give it for as well. Obviously,

(01:12:45):
we don't need to tell our audience that actors of
any gender in brown phase is absolutely unacceptable, and it
just it sucks because that casting choice to some extent,
like lessons the impact of what is a very well
written character that pisces me off. But for all the
reasons you said, the fact that this movie cannot the
plot can't move forward without its female characters, which even

(01:13:07):
in action movies where there are capable women present, the
presence of those women isn't necessarily critical to the core
action of the movie taking place. That's not the case
for this and that is amazing and also shouldn't be
amazing obvious. Yeah, I think that jim cam to this
one pretty pretty damn well. Yes, I think it was

(01:13:28):
a solid Jim Cam. I still think it's so fucking boring.
I'm sorry. It was very long and vaginal imagery will
get me in the seat. But the fact that it's
a it's a real blue and orange, and that's that's
when I'm calling every movie I don't like from now on. Yeah,
it was never gonna be for me, but the way
it treats this female characters is by and large pretty exceptional.

(01:13:52):
So four nippies, I'm gonna toss two to slippery Little
newt Uh, and then I'll give the other two to
Paxxton Cool. Sorry, Sigourney from me. Yeah. Wow, that was
a surprising turn of events. Just now listen rest In Paxton.
Andrew had to leave before we could get his social media.

(01:14:14):
I'll plug it. Yeah. You can find Andrew T online
at andrew T I believe across all platforms. It is
just his name. The last name is spelled T. I
like the rapper um and you can also listen to
his wonderful podcast he is this racist. Highly recommend yes, indeed,
so thank you Andrew T for being here. Hey, thanks

(01:14:37):
you wow, thank you. Thanks for and you can follow
us on social media as well at bectol cast on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.
You can subscribe to our Matreon. You will get to
bonus episodes every single month, and we appreciate all of

(01:15:01):
our matrons so much. Shout out to our matrons. Everything.
In conclusion, don't see Deadpool two. Mostly mostly okay. Bye,