Clue

The crime of patriarchy has been committed, and Jamie and Caitlin have to figure out whodunnit on this episode about Clue!

(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 inum, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start
changing it with the beck Del Cast. I know who
did it? Who was it? It was Caitlin in the

(00:23):
bedroom with the microphone. Yeah, by it do you mean
recorded a podcast? Because if so, then yes, it was
me who did it. Yes, and that past the Bechdel Test. Well,
welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus,
my name is Caitlin Darrante, and this is our feminist

(00:45):
movie podcast where we use the Bechdel Test as a
jumping off point to analyze famous movies. We're we're in
the quarantine zone, as is everyone at this point. Um,
So you know, I don't know. I don't remember life
before this anymore. I don't either. So we had hinted

(01:06):
possibly doing this movie during our National Treasure episode, right,
because we're just trying to stick to the romps. We're
trying to stick to the romps. I feel like it's
particularly fitting in the Quarantine because it's a movie pretty
much exclusively taking place in one location, one house, no
one really leaves. Some people come in and then they

(01:26):
die their self. Yeah, and that's what you get when
it's a metaphor. They weren't wearing masks when they came in,
and they didn't wash their hands. They did not. They
didn't know when you don't see anyone wash a single
hand and the house looks not you know, it's all
it's inherently dirty. And and there's a doctor present. He
should know better. He should be telling people there's literally

(01:48):
someone from the World Health Organization there, and and he's
not like scrub scrub, big issues, big problems. Obviously that
that's just the beginning of the critique we'll be talking
about today. And this are like our first who done it?
So this will be a fun episode. Um, But first
we should tell you what the Bechdel test is. Sure, Caitlyn,

(02:10):
do you remember what it is? Oh? No, it is
flipping my mind if memory serves. It is a media
metrics sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace test. It requires that
two female identifying characters have to have names such as
Mrs Peacock, Miss Scarlet, Mrs White, the Cook, the the

(02:36):
nameless cook. They have to speak to each other and
that conversation cannot be about a man. I want to
see if we can figure out the Bechdel Test version
of the of crimes. Here, here's a pitch. Okay, please, Yeah,
if two women with names commit a crime that has
nothing to do with a man, it passes the Bechtel

(02:59):
test crime edition. Crime edition. Yeah, I'm into that, right.
I don't think that any of the crimes would pass
the Bechtel Test crime edition in this movie, in this
particular movie where it's it's usually connected to a husband
or something like like with Miss Scarlett, it was like
men were always tangential to what was happening for sure.

(03:22):
You know, we've got to do better. We've got to
do better crimes. Although if the crimes are committed against
men who are behaving badly, that that's okay to me.
I think men should be stolen from and like, that's true.
But then most of the women in the movie, everyone
in this movie is basically bad, so you're like, Okay,

(03:44):
everyone's rich, so that's not you know, except for the
cook who and we don't even get to know what
her name is. You know, she's the only woman of
color in the movie too. Yeah, and she's killed and
made fun of fuck John Wanna than Lynn? God damn it?
All right, Well, we have a lot to talk about

(04:04):
and no guests today, just us today, So the girls, Jamie,
what is your relationship history with the movie Clue? I
liked this movie. I didn't see it like when I
was growing up or anything like that, but I've seen it.
I think like it's like a good comfort movie. I
love Who Done It? And thrillers and stuff like that,

(04:25):
so a comedy Who Done It's right up my alley.
I think I've seen it, like yeah, like three or
four times. I rewatched it, most recently after seeing Knives Out,
which I think that I mean, I was not alone here,
but I watched or rewatched a ton of Who Done
It's after Knives Out came out because I really really
liked Knives Out same, I loved it. So yeah, there,
I'm a I'm a clue head, I'm a Who Done It? Head?

(04:48):
What about you? I also didn't grow up with it,
but I saw it sometime, I think, in like my
late teen years for the first time, and I think
it was just that once that I saw it, I
remember thinking it was fun. But like I also, I
didn't play the game really at all. Ever, growing up,
I think maybe I did play the game, not heavily.

(05:10):
It's more of an operation kid. Yeah, I was a
scrabble kid myself smart. That's smart kid culture. Well, it's
why I went on to later get a master's degree
in screenwriting, which I hate to bring up, but there
it is, us one degree. Heads were just poking at
the guy's like liver in Operation and they're like, he's dead.

(05:31):
I forgot. I don't forget how that game works. That's
more or less it. If you lose Operation, does he die? Oh?
That's yeah, what are the stakes? I don't lose? Does
a man die? That's really dark. I actually don't remember.
I haven't played in stuff. Oh, Jamie, I played a
Shrek version of Operation. Oh. I forgot about that. It

(05:55):
was right before I had my sludge surgery. For those
of you who don't know what I'm talking about, get
with the program the whole podcast about it. But I
had my gall bladder removed. Um, but I was told
that I had sludge in my gallbladder. Anyway, It was
a whole thing. But the Shrek, So you perform operations

(06:15):
on Shrek and right around where a person or Ogre's
gall bladder would be it said, like slugs. So it
looked not unlike sludge, and you had to remove the
slugs out of his gall bladder area. And it was like,
so the Shrek operation game was kind of like an
oracle for you. Yeah, exactly. I never forget Shrek. Actually

(06:39):
I don't, now that we're talking about it. I think
I've only played the Clue board game proper a few times,
but I did. My cousins had Simpson's Clue, and so
that was just like you could be like Mr Burns
did it. That's it. It was fun. It's a fun game,
and it's a fun movie. I'm excited to talk about

(06:59):
it in this whole genre. I do love who done
it indeed, and also, um, I know we'll probably go
through all of them. But for in case you're not
familiar with the stick of this movie, there's three different endings,
and so if you went to theaters in you would
have seen one of the three endings. But in the

(07:20):
in the cut that we that they distribute, now you
just the three endings in a row and kind of
like none of them makes sense or satisfying. Um, So
that's part of the thing. Yes, indeed, so should I
recap it somehow? I don't know this is this is
a difficult movie, do it, But I'll do what I can.

(07:40):
Thank Yes, same. We have no guest mucking up the
place today, so we should be fine. No disrespect to
all of our wonderful guests. What if this was the
What if we did have a guest and they tried
to murder us? Oh? Wow? Things. I don't know about

(08:05):
everyone else, but my mental state is unraveling. Oh I'm
deteriorating rapidly, really having some weird thoughts. Weird weird thoughts. Oh, yes, yeah,
well bear with us, okay, yep. So the movie Clue starts.
We're in New England. Ever heard of it? Yea, it's

(08:27):
nineteen fifty four, the year that my mother was born.
Shout out to Laurie. Hi, Laurie. Yeah. It's a dark
and stormy night. And Wadsworth the butler played by Tim
Curry our king and Icon also the the second most
popular Tim Curry movie that starts on a dark and

(08:47):
stormy night in a mansion. Wait, the other one being
Oh Rocky Harker, Oh my gosh, yeah, he's all about
that dark and stormy mansion. Yeah, Tim Curry, he does
just kind of look like he belonged in a dark
and stormy mansion. That's true, it makes sense. It does
make sense. Yeah. Um. So he arrives at said mansion
because there's a dinner party that night. He and other

(09:10):
staff members are making preparations. He checks in on the
maide A k Yvette, then he checks in with the cook.
Guests start arriving. They've all received a letter from a
man who lives at the mansion question Mark and has
invited them to this dinner party. He has given them

(09:32):
all an alias, so when the guests arrive, they are
addressed as Colonel Mustard. He gets there first. That's Martin
Mole icon Gene Parmesan from Arrested Development So Good. Next
to arrive is Mrs White that's Madeline Cohn, then Mrs

(09:53):
Peacock played by Eileen Brennan in Year. For a second,
you're like Susan Sir Randon, because you're so to seeing
her in Tim curry movies about dark and stormy nights.
But it's not her. See, I think miss Scarlett looks
like it's right, that's who I was talking, That's who
I was talking about Mrs Peacock is has like the
feathered hat. It is very hard to keep the character's

(10:14):
names straight, truly, is I kept My notes might be
jumbled also because most of them, I would say, except
for Mrs Peacock, have a name that is related to
a color, either a color specifically or like mustard yellow.
Of course, there's Mr Green, he shows up. Next, there's
Mrs White, Miss Scarlett, that's a color, and then Professor

(10:38):
Plum Plum purple purple, but no one wears the color
of the name that they are given, which is um rude.
So then Mr Green shows up. That's Michael McKean. And
then outside down the road we have Miss Scarlett that's
Leslie and Warren. She has car trouble, and then Professor

(11:01):
Plum played by Christopher Lloyd, who was having a great
year in Because this is also when Back to the
Future came out. Yeah, I think that if Back to
the Future had come out before this, he probably wouldn't
be in this movie. So this is like the last
chance you get Christopher Lloyd in like a supporting, supporting role.
So he drives by, picks up Miss Scarlett, and they

(11:23):
both arrive at the mansion and everyone sits down for dinner,
but no one knows what's going on really who anybody
else is. But they all start chatting and they figure
out that everyone has ties to Washington, d C. And
it's also like the McCarthy era, so you're it. It
took a while for me to like click in what
they were doing with the historical like setting, because I

(11:45):
was like, why were they going through the trouble of
having this? But it's all vaguely. I'm like, is this
movie trying to say something? If so, I don't know
what it is, but I think they might be sort
of trying to say something by setting it in the
McCarthy era. And it's like a bunch of Washington elite
in the McCarthy era because a little later on we
find out that this Mr. Body guy is blackmailing everyone

(12:08):
because they're like, you're an American and instead of reporting
you to the like house an American Activities Committee, I'm
gonna make money guys camping it. It's like it's very
campy commentary where that's the one moment where you're like, oh,
that's what they're trying to say, okay, Like and then

(12:28):
in all three endings, you find out that communism was
a red herring, and it's like, what are you talking about? Right?
It's so campy that I'm like, I don't know, I
don't know how much of it is like camping, how
much of it is like good Americans? You know, Like
I also, Jonathan Lynde is British, so he might just
be making fun of Americans in general. We don't know.

(12:51):
We don't watch this movie for the message. Okay, speak
for yourself, Jimmie, I'm looking for inscsive political commentary. Clue
a movie. It's an allegory for the red scare, now, Okay.
So then the seventh guest arrives, Mr Body and Wadsworth

(13:11):
is like, hey, everyone, the reason that you're all here
is that you're being blackmailed. And then we find out
the various reasons each character is being blackmailed, such as
Professor Plum is a former psychiatrist who lost his license
because he assaulted his female patients. Yikes, and that's a joke.

(13:33):
Huh huh, So we'll talk about that. Um Mrs Peacock
takes shady political bribes on behalf of her politician husband.
Her husband, her husband, um Miss Scarlett runs an escort service.
Colonel Mustard is a client of that escort service. Mrs

(13:55):
White probably killed her husband, and then you later find
out probably killed. Mrs White's character gets better and better
as the movie because she is fine. And then Mr
Green is gay and has to stay in the closet
to keep his job in the State Department. So those
are all the reasons they are being blackmailed. I do

(14:16):
at least appreciate that Mr Green opens by saying, I
am not ashamed of it, but it is basically I'm
not ashamed of it. However, it is ninety four. That's
more than I expected of So I'll give a little
tip of the hat. Yeah, there's a whole conversation to
be had about the way all of that is framed.

(14:37):
But and then we learned that Mr Body is the
one who is blackmailing everyone. But Wadsworth is like, good news.
The police will be here in forty five minutes and
you can tell the police that you're being blackmailed and
Mr Body can be brought to justice. Then Mr Body
gives everyone a weapon, which are a candlestick, a new pipe, wrench, gun,

(15:02):
and dagger, and he's like, here's the thing. If you
expose me, you're also exposing yourself for whatever it is
that you're being blackmailed for. But if one of you
kills Wadsworth, then this whole thing can be over. So
Mr Body shuts off the light. Then there's a thud,
a gunshot, and a scream, and when the light is

(15:24):
turned back on, it's Mr Body who has been killed.
Your Body is a great character name. I don't know why.
It's so like, it's so achy. Um, yeah, you can't
kill Tim Curry this early in the movie. It doesn't happen,
certainly not. Tim Curry is such a champion in this movie,
where like if you think about, like how much more

(15:45):
dialogue he has than everyone, because he's just like paragraphs
of exposition at a time, just on a You're like,
what a professional, right, incredible. Everyone starts freaking out. No
one knows who killed Mr Body or with what weapon.
Then Wadsworth reveals his motive for wanting Mr Body to

(16:06):
be brought to justice, which is that his wife. His
wife was being blackmailed by Mr Body, which led her
to end her life. And this is where we get
the whole Like Mr Body thought you were all doing
something un American. Right, So everyone's bad, no one's good,
No one is good. And that's part of what makes

(16:27):
Who Done It's fun is that people everyone is usually
everyone's a suspect and it's well, I can't wait to
talk about Who Done? It's in class anyways. Um okay,
Then they find another dead body. The cook has been
killed in the kitchen with the dagger, the only woman

(16:51):
of color, the only person whose name we don't learn,
and then she gets like one or two lines of
dialogue before she is murder. Yeah. Yeah, this movie was
not thoughtful in terms of um, non white characters really
at all. True. Um So, then they all come back

(17:12):
into the room, which and I was losing track of
what room was what in this movie, but I think
they're in the study and Mr Body's body is gone.
But then they find it again, in this time it
is bloody and he is definitely dead. Right. Then a
motorist shows up at the doorstep and needs to use

(17:34):
the phone because his car broke down, so they locked
him in the lounge. I think, there's so many it's
a mansion. You're just like too many fucking rich people
in their many many rooms, and they are they're like, oh,
a library, a study, a billiard's room, a lounge, especially
right now where we're all like locked in small spaces

(17:56):
to various capacities, and like, how dare you stiple floors
grow up? Not fair? Um, So they locked him in
the lounge, and they decided that they should search the
rest of the house to make sure there's no one
else who might be in there who is just like
popping up to commit a murder and then like go
back into hiding. So they split into pairs and search

(18:20):
the house, and everyone still suspects everyone else of being
the murderer. We don't know who has done it. We
don't know. They also like kind of uncharacteristic for who
done it, Like they don't. The movie doesn't super try
to convince you it's any specific person. I feel like,
usually who done it? Movies are like, oh, this guy
is looking pretty suspicious, but you're kind of just like

(18:44):
watching people walk around a really nice house. But but
it's fine, that's true. I'm surprised there's not a character
named like Mr. Red Herring. Oh, yes, he was the
Red Herring, of course, but communism is the red Herring.
I guess that's like I'm like, sure, I don't like
And then by the time this comes out, it's the
reggae administration, so God only knows where everyone's values were at,

(19:07):
so the disaster. So they're searching the house, and while
they're searching, we see the motorists get murdered with the
wrench in the lounge. But by whom, who done it,
whom don't know, whom done it, whom's done it. Then
Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlett discover a secret passage, which

(19:31):
was how the murderer snuck into the lounge to kill
the motorist. Uh. And then a random cop shows up
and searches the house and they have to pretend to
like make out with the dead bodies. I forgot about
that part. I've always forget about and it makes me
laugh so much. It's such a funny theme where they're
like making out with the corpses, especially the one where

(19:52):
they're holding like the cook between two people, and you're
just like, oh, it's so it's so cross um, it's
a Then Mustard and Scarlet find another secret passage that
leads from the kitchen into the study. Then the murderer
turns the power off in the house and then in

(20:14):
the dark, I know spook and in the dark whoever
the murderer is, kills Yvette, the maid with the rope
in the billiard's room, then kills the police officer with
the pipe in the library. I think there's a book

(20:36):
in there. There's a library, could be possible. Um. And
then the murderer shoots the singing telegram lady who shows up.
So now there are six murders total. And then Wadsworth
is like, guess what. I know what happened and who's
behind it. He's figured out who done it. How does

(20:58):
Tim Curry not get a olden globe for this ending performance?
Oh my gosh. The writing is like not really doing much,
but he's like he's like Sebastian Maniscalco, like running around.
It's so he's zipping, he's dashing. Um. Yeah. Basically what
happens is in order for any of this movie to

(21:21):
make sense, he's like, I have to take you through
the events of the evening step by step, and then
he basically goes into a Caitlin's famous recap where he
just recaps the entire movie that we've already seen. If
you like fell down, every five seconds of the recap,
it's basically the same thing. Yeah, it's just like prop
fall after prop I should start doing that. You should, Yeah,

(21:44):
you'll get a golden globe, thank you. Um. But here's
the thing. Some new information gets revealed during this recap,
which is that when they first found Mr Body dead,
he was only pretending to be dead. And then we
also find out that Yvette and the Cook were Mr
Body's accomplices that helped him collect info on the people

(22:06):
who he would later blackmail. Then Wadsworth figures out that
Yvette killed the cook and then killed Mr Body. Um,
but who killed Vette and the others who done it? Well,
it was miss Scarlett and for reasons that I've already
forgotten right in this ending, So this is ending a y.

(22:27):
I also was reading about an elusive fourth ending that
they shot but cut from the movie because it was
They were like it was too stupid. I'm like, oh,
it would have had to have been really stupid, because
the three that you get are total nonsense. Yeah yeah,
um the second one ending b like the movie says,

(22:48):
that's how it could have happened. But what if this happens,
and it's that Mrs Peacock is the murderer again for
reasons I forget what her whole mom about her husband
and something no clear physicist, some plan for a fusion
bomb or something. It's all very nineteen fifty is. You're

(23:10):
like sure, but then we get how the movie claims
is what really happened, which is that so basically everyone
each person killed one other person. So Plumb killed Mr Body,
Mrs Peacock killed the cook, Colonel Mustard killed the motorist,
Mrs White killed Yvette, Miss Scarlett killed the cop. Wadsworth

(23:33):
killed the singing telegram lady. That's so it's so funny
when that they killed the singing telegram lady. She's just like, up,
it's so funny. And then it turns out that Wadsworth
is Mr Body, so Mr Green shoots Wadsworth because he's

(23:54):
an FBI plant. And then all the FBI guys come
in and they're like, who we saved a day. We're like,
who cops. So that's the story, with its various endings.
Let's take a quick break and then we'll come right
back to discuss, and we're back. Uh okay, you know what,

(24:19):
I think this is a good challenge feminism in clue
the movie. I guess I wanted to start with just
a little like women in Who Done It's at large
because I've seen many, many, many of them. There's pros
and cons to the portrayal of women and who Done It?

(24:40):
So obviously our most recent who Done It? That did
really well was Knives Out. I really enjoyed that movie.
I feel like, hopefully we'll probably do an episode on
it at some point probably, but yeah, I think that
the female characters in that story are fully fleshed out,
Like the hero of the story is a woman in
and not a person that's in this like, I don't know.

(25:04):
Nine of these stories concern wealthy white people. A lot
of it comes down to like and I think that
in some way, I hope that we get Who Done
It to take place outside of that world. The closest
thing I could find is Identity, which is technically who
Done It? And that's like a gritty who Done It?
Oh yeah, I saw that John Cusack is in it.

(25:26):
I think, yeah, and that at least doesn't like concern
rich people. It's still all white people, but it's not
all rich people, and it's supposed to be great. I
don't know, it's like a fine movie, but in general
it concerns wealthy white people trying to figure out who
murdered a wealthy white person, and the answer is always
another wealthy white person. Um. So, so that is kind
of the history of the genre. It's definitely capable of more,

(25:49):
but that's basically what it's been so far, kind of
including and like with some even though Knives Out has twists,
it's still concerns a wealthy white family. Anyways, as far
as women go, more women right who Done It? Than
men in literature where there is like a huge legacy
of female mystery authors that go into the present. Obviously

(26:11):
Agatha Christie is the most famous one who wrote who
Done It specifically, but there is a huge legacy of
female mystery writers, female who've Done It writers and female
detectives in media like your Nancy Drew's and Murder she
wrote and on and on um And even though her
her Keel Poiro is a guy who was written by

(26:32):
Agatha Christie's so there's a lot of female representation in
on the novel side, there is no female representation in
the movie adaptations of these female penned stories. None of
this super applies to Clue because it is being adapted
from a board game. Uh was written and rewritten by

(26:54):
like four different men before the director ended up getting
the writing credit. But there was like so many Anthony
Perkins did a draft of this script. Stephen Sondheim did
a draft of this script. Tom Stoppard, like the famous playwright,
did a draft of this script, didn't. John Landis also
work on it, see like he has like a story
by credit. He'd yeah, he he was involved in it

(27:16):
in the beginning. He was originally supposed to direct. But
it's with the exception of feminist icon Deborah hill Um,
who also produced. We've talked about her on the show
before because of her um spearheading the Halloween franchise. But
with the exception this movie, it's it's like the original
stories are written by women, and in Hollywood they've only

(27:37):
i mean, down to Ryan Johnson, basically only been adapted
by men. So that's kind of the thing. I think.
I'm curious in your opinion on this, Caitlin. They still
definitely work misogyny into this story, and they work misogyny
into most of these stories a lot of times. When
you see the room full of rich white people, the

(28:00):
women in the room, are someone's his wife, or they're
defined by their sexuality. They're never defined by their job.
They usually take place in the past, which I think
people use as a justification for them to not have
a job. But what I like about this is like
a real but like just because of how Who Done
It has to work? I like that for the story

(28:22):
to work, you have to give the female characters agency,
otherwise you're not going to suspect them. That's true. So
in that way, I feel like it's one of the
only movie genres that like. Empowering your female characters to
a certain extent is like a necessity, And so that
is partially why I like Who Done It's they're just fun,

(28:45):
But that makes sense, I don't know. That's that's uh
my context corner for the Who Done It? Appreciate it,
thank you. It also reminds me of we've had this conversation.
Not a ton, but I've noticed in various slash or
movies I've watched that there seems to be gender parody
in the cast of usually teenagers. But it's because they

(29:07):
need women there to have sex with the boys that
are there, so that the women can then be killed
for having had sex the Um. Yeah, yeah, this is
this is weirdly. I mean it's not a very horny
movie and I and I like that for this movie.

(29:28):
This movie does feel like it could have very easily
been a cartoon, and I mean that is a compliment.
It is quite cartoony. Yeah, um, so that's the this
is by far I think, like the goofy like it's
basically a parody of Who Done It movies, which is
kind of weird to watch now because they're not very
popular anymore, or they just became popular again, so you're

(29:49):
like there are certain tropes that they're making fun of
that you're like, oh, is that a thing? I guess,
so whatever. Yeah, I feel like it was far more
popular in like the film noir era and I have
a whole thing, a whole spiel on them fatalels. But um,
it has a resurgence in the seventies as well. There's
a bunch of like solid ones from the seventies. The

(30:10):
best one, I m oh being the Last of Sheila,
which is a which is a boat Who Done It?
And it's really it's really it's super super fun and
and Anthony Perkins was involved in writing that, which is
why they asked him to write Clue. Um, it was
just like it's a lot of people quit clue. No
one could crack the story, and some could argue they

(30:30):
never did, they never did. I love when movies are
adapted from a board game or a Disney park ride
like and then sometimes they have the audacity to be
fun movies, but it's no wonder when the stories are
often flimsy at best because the source material is a

(30:54):
game or a theme park ride. But yeah, and in
the seventies, you had Murder on the Orient Express, the
original one, you had the Last of Sheila, you had, uh,
what else did you have? The Beast Must Die? That's
a that's a weird one. Death on the Nile, that's
a good one. So like this would be coming like
off of people would have more of a frame of
reference than they do for it now, like we basically
just have knives out. Is really the only who done

(31:15):
it of our generation? More contemporary one? Sure? Well that
that brings me to a section of my notes that
I have entitled women be Murdering. So I'll start there
hit it and this kind of focuses on the endings
of the movie. So we've got the three endings. So
in ending A, which is the one where Yvette kills

(31:40):
the first two victims and then Miss Scarlett kills the rest, right, Um,
so that's the that's ending A. Ending B is when
Mrs Peacock has killed everyone. In all versions of the story,
Mrs White is thought to have killed various husbands of hers.
So when you include Mrs White between these first two endings,

(32:03):
there are four people who have committed murder in either
the backstory or on screen, and they are all women,
which reminded me of sort of the film fatale archetype,
which is something we haven't talked about a lot because
we haven't really covered any film noir or neo noir.
I think the closest we got to really talking about

(32:24):
it was in our Who Frame Roger Rabbit episode, which
is behind the paywall on the Matreon. But yeah, yeah,
we haven't discussed it much. Yes, So I felt as
though at least a few of the female characters in
the story have some fem fatale traits, especially Miss Scarlett.
Miss Scarlett for sure, Mrs White. I feel like there's

(32:47):
some things there. Um. I would like to cover of
film noir sometime soon, because I think it would be
really interesting to talk about the film fatale trope. Get
on our Cariina Longworth wave. Oh yeah, what's the what's
the really famous one? Double Indemnity. I haven't seen that
since film school, where I only went once. In any case,

(33:12):
I was like, oh, this is a you know, it
feels like there's these film Fatale like characters present in
the story, which I couldn't help but notice that, like,
at least in the first two endings, it's like, oh,
there are like four evil women who be murdering everybody.
My main thing is because it's like we have to

(33:35):
like it is I I kind of wonder and they've
never leaked what the fourth ending was. I like, was
there murder parody if you had all four endings, because
it definitely does lean female heavy, and like, because there's
a fourth one, maybe it ended up being closer. But yeah,
with the way it ends. My my issue is I

(33:55):
kind of like that they end up doing the murders
because at least I'm like, well, at least they're doing
you know, they're active. But my my main thing is
more how they're like just in a movie that's so
goofy and you can write anyone as anyone. They're still
relegated to being wives, with the exception of Miss Scarlett,
who I feel like, you know, she she runs a business,

(34:17):
but I feel like she even is like shoved in
a corner of like, well, of course she wouldn't work
for the government like all the men in the room,
you know, she runs. I don't know. I mean, I
like all the female characters, and I like they're also
cartoony and fun, and it's kind of a bummer that
all these male writers couldn't imagine past them being wives

(34:38):
or sex workers like that is I feel like very
telling of the offers because I don't think that there's
clue I don't I actually I'll look that up. I
don't know if there's board game canon of like the
people that these are supposed to be, because they're given
like board game canon names. But the characters, like the
Washington d C Neists is totally inherent to the movie,

(35:00):
so they could be anybody. Um. So I was bummed
out by the endless choices and then they were still
relegated to the same kind of stereotypical roles. And I
have a feeling like the writers and the filmmakers would
have justified that by being like, well, we said it
in the fifties, when you know, women were housewives, and

(35:21):
it's like, first of all, not every woman, and secondly,
you didn't have to do that, and right yeah, like
uh yeah, that's always such a weak excuse to me.
I'm just like, no one has a gun to Jonathan
Lynde's head, being like, you better said it at a
time that was difficult for women, that you could have

(35:42):
easily said that in the eighties, And you're right, like
women were in the workforce in the fifth plenty of
women had careers in the fifties. It's it's just kind
of it's just a bummer choice in general, because it
could be more satisfying to see them do the murders
if they were given I mean, just like comparable motives

(36:04):
to to the male characters. I guess the only like
it's I feel like it's a total waste of Mrs
Peacock and also there's like mrs and ms and like
they're always given these very like feminine you know, identifiers
of like is she married or is she not married
exactly exactly. I mean that's not a problem in her

(36:25):
into clue, but whereas like there's Professor Plum, there's Colonel Mustard.
You know, they have these like they're defined by their
jobs jobs, right, So I was disappointed in that. I
still I Mrs White. I feel like Mrs White is
at least like there is some I guess I wouldn't

(36:47):
call it like commentary necessarily, but at least with her,
I feel like they are like poking fun at a
trope that is seen in these movies of like, I
feel like she's almost like a little bit of a
like satirical fem faytale because she femd faytale's in the
same way over and over and over and over um,

(37:09):
which is kind of funny. She has a line of
dialogue when she says, um, husbands should be like Kleenex, soft,
strong and disposable. Yeah, and we're like, yes, feminist icono
Mrs White, because like it's right in that moment when
we find out she's had five husbands who she has
presumably killed them all, and someone asks her like, how

(37:32):
many husbands have you had, Mrs White? And she's like
mine or other women's or something like that, and it's like, oh,
so she also like sucks a bunch of other people's
husbands as well, right, and then she tries to like
seduce Wadsworth at the end, and you're just like, or
one of the ends, I guess, I don't even remember
which one. They're My favorite Mrs White, Bote is when

(37:52):
she goes, it's a matter of life after death. Now
that he's dead, I have a life, and you're like
it's all so right around then that she says life
after death is as improbable as sex after marriage, and
it's like she's like a Cathy comic, Like she's such
a like she's like a magnet on your mom's fridge,

(38:15):
Like do you think she's just like really horny. And
she marries a man and once they get married, they
don't want to have sex with her anymore, so she
just kills them so she can like marry the next guy.
I kind of like that it's not specified. I feel
like it would have been a very easy throwaway jug
for them to like label her as like a gold
digger or like something like that. But we don't know

(38:36):
why she kills all her husband's were like, that's just
her thing, that's what she does. I stand Mrs White.
I really like her, and that I found out that
that this was like a very heavily scripted movie. But
at the end though, like one bit of improv that
made it into the movie was whatever the ending is,
where she's like explaining why she did it, She's like,

(38:57):
the flames were in my face, the flame the names.
I guess you just made that up and it stayed.
You can tell that's improvised because it's not very tight,
because that makes no sense. Um, let's take a quick
break and then we'll come right back and we're back,

(39:22):
all right. So my main issue, or one of my
main issues with the movie is the violence that is
enacted against women, which be so okay. So this is
a movie where there's a lot of cartoony but still
pretty brutal violence that happens to a lot of different
characters of all genders, such as a bunch of people

(39:44):
are murdered, but but the way it's done to women
is different. It's different. Women are assaulted physically or sexually
to a greater extent, and it's sometimes like not even
as a murder, sometimes it's just as a site gag
exact where there's a few examples. Yeah, so I I
have a list of examples, Professor Plum grabs Miss Scarlett's

(40:06):
ass at the very beginning get its own insert shot.
So why it's I guess to establish that he is
horny because we later find out his backstory of having
his medical license being revoked because he assaulted his female patients, which, again,
like you mentioned, Jamie is played as a joke for

(40:26):
the most part, and he continues to assault women throughout
the movie. Mr Body grabs Yvette's asked at dinner. Mrs
Peacock is screaming after she thinks she might have been poisoned,
and Mr Green slaps her across the face and then
he goes like what I had to get her to

(40:48):
stop screaming, And then later Wadsworth slaps her again when
he's recreating that moment with his little recap Yeah with Caitlin,
and Caitlin has never lapped someone during her recap for
the record, Um, it's true, but yeah, I mean, I
think there's a few moments there where it's just like

(41:09):
the joke is, like women be hysterical, right, there's a
lot of like moments of I mean, and there's a
few moments where men are screaming, but it's far outnumbered
by like usually Mrs Peacock, but also it's it's the
Yvette at one point. But it's just like, you know,
women be hysterical, is alive and well in this movie, right,
women be overreacting, women be the women be fainting. We

(41:32):
have several different it's and I think it's mostly Mrs Peacock,
but she faints a number of times. Then we see
the cook. She pretty early in the story gets murdered.
Her dead body is lugged and dragged around, dropped, trampled on.

(41:54):
They also like mock her body as well, like they
make it seem like she's she's really difficult to lift.
It's just it's so like, I mean, there's only two
people of color in this movie and they are both
killed almost instantly. And to add insult to injury, yeah,
the cook does not even get a name, and they
like make fun of her. They body shame her corpse,

(42:15):
and you're just like what on earth? Totally because she's
a plus sized woman and the movie goes out of
its way to show how difficult it is for the
other characters to lift her and carry her. And she's like, yeah,
she's totally body shamed, even after her death, and it's horrible. Yeah,
but it's a very body normative casting process, so it's

(42:38):
very like, it's very agreed aus the way that that's presented.
For a few more examples on this list is that, um,
the characters are looking at Colonel Mustard's compromising sex photos
and Mrs White says, no one can get into that position,
and Professor Plums like, sure, they can, let me show you,
and then he like grabs Mrs White kind of pushes

(43:01):
her down on a couch and then gets on top
of her to demonstrate this thing, and she's like, get
off of me. Oh. We see Professor Plumb rest his
hand on the cook's but again after she's dead, for
no reason, just just to a visual jokes. I guess
there's a Yeah. I mean, I think most of the
like assaults on women and the I mean none of

(43:22):
them are not jokes. They're all they're all jokes that
the logic is very like this is how you treat women.
But at N eleven right, yeah uh. And then there
was I think one more that I noticed, which is that, um,
Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlett are searching the house together,
they like go into a dark room, and he's like,

(43:43):
what room is this and she says search me as
in like I don't know, But then he starts groping
her and she has to be like, get your mits
off of me. So, yeah, it's just women being assaulted constantly.
And then I would argue and there's a whole conversation
to be had about Mr Green's sexuality. But except for

(44:03):
in the third ending when they like undo him being
a queer man, you assume for most of the movie
that he is gay because he identifies himself as such. Um,
but I would argue that he is also more brutalized
than the other straight male characters. There's a bunch of
scenes where like there and again, there's a lot of

(44:24):
scenes where like a lot of the characters are being
rough with each other. But I feel like Mr Green
gets the worst of it because you see that scene
where you know, Wadsworth is dragging him around and throwing
him down on the floor during the recap, and then
he's also slapped twice by two different men at the
end of the like at the second ending, I feel
like that is supposed to like directly imply that you

(44:46):
would treat a queer man the way you would treat
a woman. It's just, yeah, the only part of I mean,
it's Mr Green's character. I mean, it's just it's complicated,
it's weird. I mean there's one yeah, there, you're right,
there's one ending where they totally undo it and they're
like just kidding, no homo. And that's like the ending

(45:07):
joke of that version of the movie, because he says like,
I'm an FBI plant and I'm going to go home
and have sex with my wife. Because like, I couldn't
tell if that was like, if that was undoing it,
or if that was him like lying to his coworkers.
I wasn't sure what Oh, I didn't even consider that.
I thought maybe that the way I interpreted it, although

(45:28):
like I think that it's easily interpreted your way as well.
Was that he because he says at the beginning, like
I'm a gay man, I'm not ashamed of this um,
but if my workplace finds out, I'll be fired. And
at the end he's in front of all his coworkers,
So I thought he was like, I gotta go have
sex with my wife. By that very well could be
the case. My interpretation of it was that, like and

(45:50):
this is maybe just like my beck dol goggles like
clouding my vision a little too much sometimes and me
being very cynical. But I was like, oh, because he's
allowed to be the hero in this version of the story,
they're not going to allow him to be gay. His
declaration of of being a gay man is was fake.

(46:11):
Listeners sound off. Yeah, I think that there's different ways
to look at it. I guess I'll optimistically hope that
he is like just kidding, I'm going home to my
communist boyfriend. I hope. I hope that too. Um, but yeah, no,
I do agree that he's like treated physically different than

(46:31):
the identified hetero guys in in the story. Um, it's
it's frustrating because it's like we have a queer character
who it's not coded. They stated there's no shame involved
with it, but even in that scene where he says
like I'm not ashamed of it, you cut to three
different characters who clearly think it's gross for sure, where

(46:53):
everyone's like what and then and then it's kind of like,
I mean, like every every like suspect character, you don't
just there's too many. You can't spend that much time
with them. But then it just kind of like disappears.
I don't know, I don't like I like that choice
for a character, and like in the era they choose
to set the movie in which they did not have to,

(47:15):
but like they do. I like that there's some queer representation.
I just don't like that how it unfolds and how
it's really handled. So it's it stinks. The first like
thirty seconds of it is like really cool, and then
it becomes not cool anymore because in addition to him
saying like I feel no guilt or shame about that,
the movie allows him to come out himself, like because

(47:38):
is he's outing everyone else's wrongdoings or whatever it is
that they're being blackmailed. Four And then finally it comes
to Mr Green and he stands up and he's like,
here's my thing. So like no one outs him. He's
the only person that's done nothing wrong. Also exactly totally right, um,

(47:59):
but yeah, he like he comes out himself. No one
outs him because like Wadsworth was, you know, revealing everyone
else's secrets. But Mr Green comes out himself to the
fact that he was. The movie allows him to do
that was interesting and unexpected for me. I kind of
wonder because there were so many drafts of the script,
it's kind of impossible to track who that belonged to.

(48:21):
But Anthony Perkins was a queer writer. I'm like, maybe
that's an Anthony Perkins thing. I don't know, I wonder,
I wonder, but um, queer visibility in the movie Clue.
But yeah, I'd be interested to hear what our queer
listeners think about that, and if you have any additional insights,
let us know. Yeah, we already touched on the very

(48:44):
limited number of of people of color in the movie.
The cook the cop are the only two. They are
not given actual names. They're both minor characters who were
killed not long after we meet them. They didn't need
to kill the cop, Like I was like bummed. I
was bummed out, um, and I always am bobbed out
that day because he's of such a fun character. He

(49:07):
enters and it's kind of fun to have like a
bumbling cop character who's like everything looks fine to me,
and everyone's like, you know, humping corpses and it's funny,
and he's like they're just having a good time, right,
It's so it's so funny. He's like this man's drunk
like dead drunk dead, right, There's there's so much dumb
word play in this movie. I like it. Um yeah,

(49:30):
there was no I don't think that that character needed
to die, and he like that's a fun character to
keep in the mix for the rest of the movie. Sure. Yeah.
And then let's not forget the reveal that Mrs Peacock's
favorite recipe was monkey brains quote, though popular in Cantonese cuisine,
are not you know, often found in Washington, d c.

(49:53):
Or whatever. So just a racist little detail that absolutely
didn't need to be there. Yeah, this movie. It's weird
because it's like this movie is very of its time,
and then it's also very of the nineteen fifties. So
it's just like two eras that don't farewell for most
people that are not straight white guys. In one movie,

(50:16):
Tim Curry can't say it enough though he's great, Oh
love him. Things Uh facts about there. There was like
a pretty good um oral history style piece about Clue
that came out, Um, I think in two thousand thirteen
that just kind of tracks there's not I mean, there's

(50:37):
not a lot of you know, wildness behind the scenes
of this movie. It was written and rewritten by a
bunch of different men, a bunch of writers quit to
the point where the director had to finish it. The
closest thing I could find at any controversy behind the
scenes was the costuming. I guess that Jonathan Lynn definitely
needlessly had his female actors where really constrictive corsets during

(51:02):
the course of which is like wasn't even a thing
in the fifties, really, So what is this Titanic right
doing up roses corset? So they all had to like
wear these brutal corsets, and they just like laid out
these like diagonal boards so that if the women like
felt short of breath, they could just lean against the

(51:23):
board and catch their breath and keep shooting. So that's
that's not very thoughtful. Meanwhile, I read that um like
between takes because there's the billiards room where there was
the guys with typical stuff. The men would play pool
and the women had to like, you know, lie down
because of their painful costume. That's cool. Well, and then

(51:47):
speaking of costumes, we've got yvettes French made costume, yes,
which and she's like a French character. I don't even
know what to even say about out Besides like that's ridiculous.
Her whole character is essentially a visual joke in many
different ways where it's like her her boobs are very

(52:08):
much out, it's a very short like it. It's more
of a French made costume that you would see in
like a soft porn than or like on like Halloween,
like people like I'm a sexy French maid, right, And
it's like the the the actress who who played um
Evette let me get her name, like Colleen Camp, she
was like completely on board with it. Um. She thought

(52:30):
it was funny. It wasn't like it wasn't the situation
where she like she didn't want to be presented in
that way. She was, you know, fine, fine with it.
But I mean, it is just it's such a male
gazy Like there's that really long shot from the top
of the stairs down into her cleavage. That is just
it's a long shot strictly because you're supposed to be
ogling her boobs. Like that's just as they make they

(52:53):
make a visual joke of her a lot. And I mean,
I guess that the the only argument for it is
that the actress was in on the joke in okay
with it, but it's still it's just like it's just
juvenile and dumb, right, Yeah, I mean, if she wanted
to wear it and she was cool with it, you know,
her body, her choice. But but yeah, I mean, I
think in the costuming department, and because it's clear that

(53:15):
the character was written as being presented that way, it's
like a pretty clear like male gaze visual joke. But yeah,
she's cool. So oh. Also, so let's talk about the weapons,
shall we. I was wondering, are there, because we talked
so much about women's weapons, are there any actual weapons

(53:36):
given to women? I couldn't track which weapon went to
which person. Here's what I remember. I didn't write down
exactly who was gifted what, but from memory because there
are some household objects, but then there's also some weapons.
Professor Plum receives the gun. Okay, Mrs Peacock receives I
think she's the one who gets the dagger, Miss Scarlett.

(53:57):
Miss Scarlett gets the candlestick. So is a woman who
gets the household item at very at least this is
board game cannon, but that's yeah. Mrs White gets the
rope um. Colonel Mustard gets I think the wrench okay,
sort of a weapon, I don't know, a tool more
than anything. Mr Green, which one does he get? Oh?

(54:20):
The pipe? So the main one that's a like domestic
you know, like kind of more. I guess none of
them are very gendered items, except maybe you could argue that,
like the candlestick is like a more decor than anything else,
and if we're yeah, that's I mean, I guess we
do see it in various And again I'm like, I

(54:43):
can't track the endings of this, but the we do
see Yvette shoot a gun, like there's like women do
get to use weapons in this movie, and especially because
in two out of the three endings they are the
culprits for the most Yes, we get to see them
using them. We see if also stabbed the cook with
the dagger, and yeah, that one ending we also but

(55:06):
then we see Yvette kill Mr Body with the candlestick,
which is again, of those items, it's the one that's
the most sort of like domestic item. But then Professor
Plumb uses it too. Can we also revoke him of
his professor title because he's a fucking rapist um While

(55:26):
it's the fifties, he'd never get fired for being a rapist.
Mr Plumb, I'll call him. Uh he uses the candlestick.
So yeah, it feels like there's kind of like it
doesn't feel to me that the movie subscribes to anything
like the women have to use like quote feminine items
and the men get to use like actual weapons. That's
a relief, okay, because I I was I liked that

(55:47):
in I mean, I don't really like all the endings
kind of suck, but but the fact that you do
get to see women like they're not relegated to certain weapons,
that is that's a pro Yeah, feminist. I on lead pipe, Yes,
I love to see a lead pipe connecting. Um, that's good,

(56:07):
that's good. Yeah. Carrie Fisher was supposed to be Miss
Scarlett in this movie and then um she wasn't able
to do the movie. So that makes me sad she
would have been so goodness, I know. Well, speaking of
Miss Scarlett, I don't remember exactly how much we touched
on this or not. But so she's like a sex worker.
She runs she runs her own business, she runs an

(56:28):
escort service, and she seems to be like proud of
her work. Um, so whether or not, other characters are
obviously other characters think that her work is on savory
because she's being blackmailed for it, But um, there's no
shame that she feels attached to her work. I like,
I mean, I guess my I'm like, and this is

(56:48):
like asking more of clue than I could possibly give you.
But it does. Some of the endings get into like, oh,
this was a former employee of hers and blah blah blah,
where I'm like, cool, she has her own business. She
is like sex worker representation. But then I'm always like,
but if she's the boss, like, I need some more information.
How does she treat her employees? Also all women? Is

(57:11):
she protecting them? Is she selling them out too? Well? Yeah,
because and that brings that will bring me to some
like motive things I want to talk about. But um,
I think it's the like ending a the first one
we see, she says the line like all members of
the oldest profession, I'm a capitalist. So apparently she loves capitalism.

(57:35):
She well, everyone in this movie loves capitalism so much.
Um yeah, so I like, like, it's like some representation,
but I don't think it's it's particularly everyone everyone in
this story except for Mr. Green is a horrible person
just canonically their whole bad, bad bad What is it?
Isn't it? Colonel Mustard, you find out that he like

(57:56):
took like radio parts from different like World War to
um like fighter jets and then it killed a bunch
of like American soldiers and he's like, what, I love money,
I was confused about that. I love I mean that
actor Martin malt like, shout out to him. He's he
is Jane Parmesan, he was, He's bent. He was um
Willard Kraft on Sabrina the Teenage, which he was on

(58:21):
Danny Phantom, and he was on my favorite obscure seventies
um soap opera, Mary Hartman. Mary Hartman, not familiar with
that one. He's a he's a camp icon. He's wonderful.
Everything he does is so goofy um. So yeah. I
want to talk about a little bit about um, the
various women's like motivations for committing murder, because again, in

(58:43):
various endings, we have some of the female characters being
murderers or not um, but the ones that we do
find out about, like in ending C for example, we
learn that Mrs White's motive for killing event was like jealousy,
like a vent and her husband and had an affair.

(59:04):
So I thought about that too, but I ended up
landing on being like I kind of it kind of
ended up being a wash for me because she at
least it's not the situation where it's like the woman
will just kill the woman who cheated with the husband,
and the husband gets no come up and she kills
all of her husbands too. Yeah, good point. So, I mean,

(59:25):
I don't like the jealousy motive, but at least if
it had to be any of the female characters killing
someone out of jealousy, at least with her character, it
bugs me less because you know, she's already killed five men,
that's true. Yeah, So let's let's examine some of these
other ones. We've got. Miss Scarlet killed the cop in

(59:46):
ending C, so that one doesn't really Mrs Peacock killed
the cook, so that's a woman killing a woman. But
I forget even why she was the informant or something.
I mean, no one's motivation for murder ring makes sense.
The plot is often nonsensical and it is very difficult
to track. So yeah, maybe, I mean the one that

(01:00:07):
did stick out to me the most was like the
Jealousy one and ending see at least um and endings
A and B you have Yvette and Miss Scarlett killing
everyone or ms Mrs Peacock killing everyone. I really have
to go back and rewatch what all the motives were
for those women to kill the other women. So maybe
this conversation is just moot. It is kind of hard

(01:00:30):
to track in terms of the endings, like what is
like somewhat success and what is just simply bad writing. Um,
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Let's see.
I wanted to point out that, Okay, so a lot
of attention is brought to the fact that Tim Curry
steps and dogshit at the beginning of the movie, and

(01:00:50):
I kept thinking that was going to pay off in
Someone Does It at All. There's a few insert shots
in this movie that you're like, why did you draw
our attention to? Right? Is that another? But then if
it never but I can't bear red Harry if it
never comes up ever, exactly just like it's just bad writing. Um. Yeah,
it was like, oh, there's probably going to be like

(01:01:12):
a poopy footprint that like is a clue, but that
never happens. No, Yeah, I also didn't I mean, I
didn't love another like Mrs White choice was. I didn't
love when they had her like try to seduce Wadsworth
at the end. I didn't think that that was super necessary.
But it's I don't all the ending suck. I'm like,

(01:01:34):
just the endings are just a full like I don't know.
Maybe this goes back to the kind of sem fatale conversation,
but um, in the beginning of the movie, Colonel Mustard
quotes Kipling, Yes bad person, saying the female of the
species is more deadly than the male, and it's like, okay,
is that foreshadowing of some of those endings. I feel

(01:01:56):
like maybe that's as close as the movie gets for
you to be like, oh, suspicion. But it is weird
how little the movie tries to get you to suspect anyone.
They're just like, I don't know. Also, just another fun
fact I learned was that Mr Bean almost played Tim
Curry's part, but he wasn't Mr Bean yet and people
said he wasn't famous enough. Rowan Atkinson. Mr bean visibility

(01:02:20):
very low in this movie, very low in this movie.
You know, Frank Confurter visibility high. I love to and Curry.
I was thinking about. I think I'm going to watch
the Tim Curry it soon. I have never seen it.
Oh my god, Oh it's pretty good. I have some
issues with it, but Tim Curry as it. I know,

(01:02:41):
it's like it has to be great, amazing, love it.
I'm excited. Um yeah, I think that's about all I
had to say. Do you have anything else to me? No?
I mean it's the Rampa Meter. I mean I say
it's pretty high. It's a ten out of ten on
the Caitlin Rampo Meter. Everyone's romp in a way, especially

(01:03:02):
Act three when Tim Curry is dashing around the house.
It gets so so so rompy. Then yeah, I I
don't know. I mean it's like this movie is so fun.
It puts me in a good mood. I love Who
Done It? And I love Who Done It's that don't
take themselves super seriously? And this is like on the
far end of that spectrum, but like there's I mean,

(01:03:23):
Who Done It? To take themselves very seriously can be
such a drag. That movie Gosford Park, It's like three
hours long and you're just like, oh, I need to
rewatch that. I barely remember that one it's not great.
I mean it's I think it was like critically acclaimed,
but it's deeply boring. It's so boring, like you know,
who done it? They've gotta be fast and they gotta
be fun and this is a clue? Does it? It's great?

(01:03:45):
There's a movie I think you would like. It's not
really a who Done It? But it takes place in
the context of like rich family and it all. It
mostly takes place within their mansion. But that movie ready
or not? Oh, I haven't seen that. It was fun.
I liked it a lot. I'm down. I'm like, I'm
looking for for fun, like thrillers and Who Done It?
Are are my ship? Like it puts me in a

(01:04:08):
good mood. Yeah, So does this movie pass the Bichtel test? Honestly,
I have no idea because I was too busy trying
to follow the plot to pay attention to that I was.
I was also a little unclear. I think that there
are passing things where there's a few times where like
Mrs Peacock will say something to Scarlett and Scarlett will respond,

(01:04:28):
but there's no there's no scene between two women. There
is only like women talking to each other in passing
in the crossfire. But the but often the subtext of
the conversation is who killed this man? Uh so? Or
there's a man will respond to a quiet like I
would say soft. No, there might be some barely passes,

(01:04:49):
but I would say probably not right because even though
there is like pretty even there's like gender parody. Generally
some of the side characters who come and then get
murdered right away. If you include everybody you see on screen,
there are probably more men. But as far as like
the core cast, it feels like there are. It's pretty
split down the middle. But anytime like characters have to

(01:05:12):
pair off together, it's always like a man paired with
a woman. There's there are no which is kind of
a bummer. Yeah, definitely no extended conversations between women. Yeah,
like you said, it might just be like oh, two
line thing here and there. But again I didn't even
notice there were. I wrote down my favorite um exchange
between two women. This is uh ms Scarlett asking Mrs

(01:05:35):
Peacock at dinner. I think this is in response to
Professor Plum Mr Plum saying that he doesn't practice medicine anymore,
and Miss Scarlett says, I think most men need a
little practice, don't you, Mrs Peacock. But of course that
doesn't even pass because she says men right in the
damn sentence. But yeah, I kind of stopped. I forgot

(01:05:58):
to keep paying attention after the inner scene of like
women talking to each other. But there are a few
like again to line exchanges between women, but they're always like, hey,
Mrs White, what does your husband do? Uh? That's like
Mrs Peacock asking her things like that. So basically I
know I would say no, and I guess let's just

(01:06:19):
jump on over to the nipple scale. So this is
our our nipple scale on a scale of one to
five nipples. How well do we zero? Zero, zero, sorry,
zero to five. I've been on this show before the
zero to five. Based on how well we feel it
represents women, I'm going to give it. I think between

(01:06:41):
how often we see women be assaulted, and even if
the women push back against the man who is assaulting
her in that moment, the movie always frames it as
a visual joke, and just between everything we've talked about,
I'm going to give it maybe a two. Because some
of the women, like women do often, like you said, Jamie,

(01:07:02):
have agency. They have motivations for murdering each other and
also murdering men. They're doing stuff their active participants in
the story. I feel like of the discoveries that get
made or the clues that get found, and like the

(01:07:22):
characters piecing things together, I feel like it's mostly men
doing that, and it's honestly mostly Wadsworth, like Tim Curry
seems to be doing a lot of it. But even
like when they discover like the secret do okay, I
remember what's his name? Colonel Mustard discovers the one secret passageway?
Do you remember if it's miss Scarlett that does the

(01:07:42):
other wonderful time? I took that as a note as
well that I forgot to REVERI right. Yeah, all of
the plan making after them as the murders are being committed,
all of the plan making is initiated by male characters,
and all of all of the major discoveries, unless there's
something We're my thing, are made by male characters. But
it's like Colonel Mustard at one point says Okay, this

(01:08:04):
is what we need to do, and then Wadsworth takes
over and it's like, okay, we're gonna do the short
stick thing and blah blah blah blah blah, Like women
don't really initiate the plan ever. Okay, in that case,
I'm going to drop it down to one and a
half nipples. Then it is a really fun movie that
I enjoy. But yeah, women aren't given enough to do.
They're not given any sort of like skill because like

(01:08:27):
with the Colonel Mustard thing, being like I'm military, so
I have a good strategy, Like he's given a background
that enables him to like do stuff, whereas all the
women have her husband's and that's how they are identified,
except for Miss Scarlett, and even just ends up using
her sexuality to like try to seduce people sometimes, but

(01:08:47):
then she also gets assaulted. It's a mess. One and
a half nipples, uh, and I'll give I guess I'll
just divvy them up between Mrs Peacock, Miss Scarlett, and
Mrs White, but also a vet and also the cook. No,
just kidding, gonna give all one and a half nipples
to the cook. She deserved far better than she got
before I give Well, I'm also going to give it

(01:09:08):
a one and a half. But I think Alfred Molena
could have played Tim Curry's part very well. He would
have really been If there is ever a Cluery boot,
bring him in, he would kill it. And Alfred Willna
is never allowed to be identifiably British, so it would
be a great opportunity for him. True. I think alf
Milena could have played every single party like this is

(01:09:31):
a movie made for him. It's like kind of disappointing
that he was not in it. But and I don't
mean every character would have been good for him. I'm
saying he should be cast in every single role all
uh nutty Professor Eddie Murphy. Yeah, yeah, like when Deep
Roy was every Opa loompa in the Yeah, that's what
I mean. And all Alfred Molina reboot. I swear to go,

(01:09:55):
mark my words, one day Alfred Willna is going to
starve my rescpute in movie and then it's over for everybody. Um,
I'm gonna give this movie one and a half as well.
I think that the Who Done It genre has a
lot of potential for women because you have to empower
all your characters on a fairly even keel. But I
don't think this movie does the best of um making

(01:10:16):
use of that freedom and necessity. UM. I think if
there had been a female writer involved or more women
involved in general. Um, that would probably not be the case,
but I like, I mean, I just all the performances
from female actors in this movie are great. Um, I
I agree that the cook deserve better, the cop deserve better. Uh,

(01:10:38):
it's a very I mean, it's a very white movie
and it's a very white genre. Um that is due
for you know, like some just different perspectives because it's like,
I'm sure that there's ones I don't know about, but
like all the major who done it canon is straight
white guys. Yeah, listeners, if you have any suggestions for
ones that deviate from that mole, let us know. That

(01:11:01):
would be great. Yeah, I mean, and it's like and
I love Ryan Johnson, but including Ryan Johnson. Uh anyways,
uh yeah, one point five. I'm going to give mine
to Mrs White because I like that she's a stone
cold killer. Yeah. Yeah, that's the episode gang. That's all, folks,
Thanks for listening. You can follow us on social media

(01:11:23):
on Twitter and Instagram. I'm about to disable our Facebook
page because I we don't check it, so if you
want email us instead, if you want to send a
message on Facebook or something instead, we have an email address,
So we always forget to give out. But it's the
Bechtel Cast at gmail dot com. It's infinitely more likely

(01:11:43):
that we would see that than anything on Facebook. Sorry,
um so r I p Facebook in general? Uh but
um but yeah, contact us and then now is also
a great time to get on the Matreon wave if
you haven't. We've been welcoming a lot of new members
to the matrio on um but that's Patreon dot com
slash Bechtel Cast. There are I think over sixty episodes

(01:12:06):
at this point, um, just additional movies, a lot of
popular requests that haven't been on the main feed or
over there. And this month is gathering before a wedding month,
and we're we we did Bridesmaids and we're releasing our
Hangover episode soon. So yes, all that and more over

(01:12:27):
in the Matreon indeed. Ah, you can also get our
merch at t public dot com slash the Bechtel Cast.
Oh here's another thing I would like to plug. Remember
when I talked about Sludge earlier, listen to my Sludge
podcasts were crying out loud. The season two is great,
Thank you, thank you for listening. Um. Yeah, it's a
focus on The first season is a focus on my

(01:12:49):
personal experience operating within the broken health care system in
the US, where I was diagnosed with sludge a k a.
Gall stones and all the hoops I had to jumped
through to get any sort of treatment. Season two is
an exploration of other people's stories, with a particular focus
on the bias they have been on the receiving end

(01:13:12):
of when it comes to health care professionals being biased
towards various marginalized people, and how how certain patients have
had a more difficult time accessing health care because of
the patriarchal system that we live within. So check you
out and listen to my Year and Mensites as well.

(01:13:34):
It's been out for a while, but hey, if you
didn't now, now now you could. It's not against the
law and you should give it a shot. Not like Mooderies,
not like murder. Yeah, so, uh you know, it's great.
I love it so much. Listen to my Year and Mensa,
listen to Sludge and um thanks for tuning in. Take

(01:13:56):
care of yourselves, yeah, do what you can for people.
Take care of you, your brain and your body, and
we love you, We love you. Bye bye,