D.E.B.S. with Ellie Brigida and Leigh Holmes Foster

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Beckel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start
changing it with the Bechdel Cast. Hi, welcome to the
Bechtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. Name Jamie Loftiz.

(00:20):
And what do we do here? Jamie? Sorry to go, No,
it's fine, it's a test. Well, this is our this
is our podcast about the representation of women in movies,
using the Bechtel Test as a jumping off point for discussion.
How did I do? That? Was so wonderful? Thank you
so much. And the Bechtel Test, if you're not familiar,

(00:42):
if perhaps you're tuning in for the very first time,
is a media test. Um. And actually I wanted to
go into a little bit more detail than we normally
do because I think this is like the perfect episode
and the perfect movie to provide just a little more
context and talk a little bit more about the origins
of the Bechtel Test than we normally do. You're being

(01:05):
a real lead deb right now. I am the squad leader.
The squad leader. We're going to get into a fight,
but by the end we will make up and our
French one of us will be in love and the
other one will be in charge. So you'll be in
love and I'll be in charge. That's because that's how

(01:25):
our normal lives are right now. Okay, anyway, so Alison
Bechtel queer icon. She inadvertently created the Bechdel Test in
her book Likes to Watch Out For published in UM.
I feel like some people think that she like deliberately
set out to create this specific media tests, but it

(01:48):
was more than it appeared in the book, and then
that was later co opted into the tests that we
now use, and that is widely used to apply to
you know, media and movies and things like that. Alison
Bechdel credits the idea to her friend Liz Wallace and
to the writings of Virginia Wolf, specifically Wolf's essay A

(02:11):
Room of One's Own Um, which is a feminist text.
The Bechtel Test is sometimes referred to as the Bechtel
Wallace test um, which Alison Bechdel is said to prefer.
But we are jerks, so we only call it the
Bechdel Test. I love and friends, credit friends. Yeah, it's
critical it's it's great um. And then in the comic

(02:33):
des to Watch Out for Um, it has to lesbian characters,
and the context of their conversation is that there is
so little queer women representation in movies that the only
way for them to imagine that a female character in
a movie might be a lesbian is if she is
seen talking to another woman and they are not talking
about men. So that is the origin of the Bechtel test.

(02:58):
And I just wanted to share that to our listener.
I'm less sure the original comic on our on our Twitter. Well,
I know it's readily available, so we can do that
as well. Indeed, this history Corner, Yeah, a new segment
on every episode. Please got no? Shall we introduce our guests.

(03:19):
Let's do it. I'm so excited. We've got to today,
very exciting time. They are the hosts of the lez
Hangout podcast. It's Lee Holmes Foster and Ellie Bridgatta. Hi
did I say that right, Brigata? It's Bridget Bridgeta. But
I think you should change. Honestly, I love it, Brigata.
It sounds a little bit more like the things that

(03:41):
I love sounds like it sounds like a beverage or bread.
So sorry for fucking up your name, but welcome. It's
all good. They literally messed up my name at my
graduation and I waited for them. I was like, you're
going to get it right. So they said it like
seven times that I finally walked does an incredible flex.

(04:03):
So tell us, Lee, let's start with you. Um, what
is your history your relationship with the movie. Oh, by
the way, today's movie is Debs. Yes, Debs is a
cult classic two thousand technically two thousand four, but released
widely in two thousand five rom com technically, although it
feels like a d com to me in a lot

(04:25):
of ways of getting a lot of d com vibes. Screens, Yeah,
so many green screens and like goofy like kind of music.
Very d com. It's so great. What is your experience, Lee? Okay,
So my experience so because I'm going to say, yeah,
I feel like I first saw Debs in college, which

(04:47):
would make sense. That was like right after it came out,
And I would say my experience with Debs is that
for a really really long time, when we would try
to talk to like friends or people about like queer movies,
we would say for a long time. There's like one
like good queer movie that's like a real movie which

(05:09):
has imagined me and you. And then there's like two amazing,
like campy movies, and those are Debs and But I'm
a Cheerleader. Um, And so for a long time, Debs
was like that go to of like it's so terrible
and amazing just all at the same time, and there
just wasn't a lot else out there, so so you'd
kind of just watched those. We talked about this on

(05:32):
our But I'm a Cheerleader episode where our guest was like,
there are only two fun lesbian movies, and one of
them is but I'm a Cheerleader and the other one
is Debs. It has been like a request for a
long time. Yes, it's such a classic. It's such Yeah,
it's such a horribly amazing movie. The first time that
I ever saw it actually was when I watched it

(05:53):
with Lee podcast yeah called Less Central. I had never
in it. Yeah, it was the first time that I
had seen it, And I don't know why I hadn't
seen it before. But I'm also a bit younger than Lee,
so I was I was definitely not a lesbian or
I was a lesbian, but I wasn't out when Depths
came out. Um, so I saw it for the first

(06:16):
time then and have since watched it probably five or
six times. Yeah, yeah, because everything else is so depressing.
Like if you want to watch something to beat and lesbian,
like that's it. Yeah, Jamie, what's your relationship? Like most movies,
I've never seen it before until today and I watched

(06:38):
and I watched it twice in a row, and it's
like it's so at my alley in so many ways.
But it's just like the low budge vibes you get
from it, the multitude of like the character directors are
out in this movie, some wild character actor choices. Uh,
that outfits are weird. I just it's it's everything. Uh,

(07:01):
it looks like it costs seven dollars to make. And
I love I loved her, Donna Brewster, and it was
just she's so good and it's weird because I don't
I haven't seen I mean, I guess I'm mostly judging
her catalog from seeing on her on my mom's soaps
when I was really young, because she started as a
soap star and seeing her in The Fast and the

(07:22):
Furious movies, but this is the most personality I've seen
her ever display ever. It was just like, I really
like this movie. Yeah, what about you? Um I had
not seen it either. Um, I knew of it just
because it had been request It's a common request for
us to do on the podcast, and that was the
first time I learned about it. I think it's just yeah.

(07:46):
I remember someone in like a college film class I
took presented on it and being like college myself of like, oh, yeah,
I'll watch that, and then I was like, no, I
gon't watch a movie, don't work it somehow flew under
my radar, which is unfortunate that this like fun queer
movie was not even in my like wheelhouse or I

(08:09):
just I wasn't aware of it, because I feel like
I have a pretty good handle on most movies. Even
if I haven't seen them, I've heard of them or
I know about them. Twice. Thank you so much for
bringing it up, because you know, I don't like to
mention that I do have a master's screen screen running
from Boston University, but uh, yeah, it just when did
you go to be you? I went there between Oh,

(08:34):
we were probably there at the same time. Yeah, Boston. Yeah,
it's where I did my PhD. So okay, trying to
I'm sorry, are you are you trying to upstage me?
I'm sorry. I found that much more impressive degree there.
At the same time, though my blood not even a

(08:58):
very stressful But what did what did you study? Chemistry? Oh?
A woman? That's that's why it's like, not impressive at all,
and no one ever wants to hear about it. You
know you're I'm not impressed by your PhD in chemistry
at all. I think we also overlapped with a Casio
Cortes though, didn't we? Oh she was I think she
graduated inn I think something like that sounds right, Yeah,

(09:23):
so I I missed her. So she and I overlapped.
So once again, this is a this is spicy cast sy.
I'm never getting invited back to anything ever. You have
a PhD in chemistry, you can do whatever the funk
you want. Yeah, and I didn't earned it. I didn't
mean for my reaction to be like, oh, it was

(09:45):
more like, oh, I wasn't expecting that. I am actually
very impressed, and you're a woman in stem so that's great.
Let me tell you the most common response that I
think I've gotten when I if I tell people that
I have a PhD in chemistry, I think the most
common resp bonses what else do you do? Um? Really,
so I'm not offended by any who are these people

(10:07):
do that? That's fine? I want to fight these people,
Lee has spot them. Oh good, good fight. I just
tell them about my awesome lesbian podcast. That's all. I
just have two very niche things. It's cool. Oh, also
really quick. I also got some just taking the temp
from the room. I was also getting some Josie and

(10:27):
the Pussycat vibes from this movie visually, like if Josie
and the Pussycats had like a fourth of the budget
kind of like that, that's my statement, and like a
zillionth of the star power exactly. They're like, we have
Hall and Taylor, but we only have her for three
hours so naked account and she'll only film in one

(10:51):
rooms green screen it every time this movie takes place
in the same room, and I love it. Okay, So
should I do the recap of the movie debs? Yes? Please? Okay.
We start with some wild voiceover that says that there
is a secret test hidden within the s a T

(11:13):
that measures a student's innate ability to lie, cheat, fight,
and kill, and those who score well on this test
are recruited into a secret paramilitary academy and they call
themselves Deb's d e b s. The like first thirty
seconds of this movie, I was like, what's like? Watch

(11:36):
it three times to just be like I get the
feeling they're not going to explain this again, and they don't.
They do we ever find out what DEBS stands for? Yes,
we do, end game? Yeah, what is it stand for?
It stands for discipline, energy and beauty. Oh but it's

(12:00):
also like debutantes because endgame is like prom basically. Yeah,
but yeah, she does doesn't like Holland Taylor indirectly define it,
like ten minutes before the movie is over. Yes, when
she's reprimanding Amy. A choice was made being a big
old lesbian. Yes, your one to talk, Holland Taylor one

(12:24):
to talk. I know there, but this was like pre
Holland Taylor didn't come out until a few years ago, right,
she was not out when this movie was made. She was.
She was leaving breadcrumbs for all of us. Yeah. Okay,
so that's some of the background on debs um. Then
we meet several of the Debs as they're on their

(12:48):
way to Deb's academy. Um, almost like Santa University was
almost like Santa Universe. Yeah, for sure, for sure. We
meet Dominique. She is French. She's always smoking a cigarette,
very sex positive, She's got many different dudes in her
bed over the course of the movie. We meet Janet.

(13:09):
She's a little absent minded, she's a little slighty. Um.
We meet Max, she is the squad captain, and then
we meet Amy. She is the top student at Deb's academy.
She's a great spy and she is in the middle
of breaking up with her boyfriend Bobby. Bobby, what a chick.

(13:32):
They did not do They're like, no, no, nothing that's
likable for Bobby. Hey, Jeff Stults would have been like
hot off of his Seventh Heaven run at this point, right, true, Oh,
I I forgot that that was where I recognized him from.
There are so many people in this movie where you're like, oh,
I know that you're from somewhere. I feel like he

(13:55):
wasn't much more likable in Seventh Heaven to me. I mean,
he's pretty horrible in this movie though. It's the worst.
I mean down to the pokah shells. Oh my god,
always bragging about his dad that belonged to his father, right,
what is that? Yes, he's like my dad shells. Like,
please started this on therapy, keep your shells out of this. Yeah.

(14:18):
For he carries around a collection of his father's bracelets
for some unknown racing and it's always like urgent for
him to put the bracelet on her in midair. It's like, no,
you gotta put it on my dad's bracelet. Now I
love it. Okay. So the four of these debs meet
up with Phipps, who was played by Michael Clark Duncan

(14:40):
and Ms Petrie who is Holland Taylor and Queer Icon,
and they're like, hey, Lucy Diamond is back in the States,
and Lucy Diamond might be a reference to something, um,
nothing that I've ever heard of, don't really do a
general name. So weird that those two were to be associated.

(15:01):
I don't know. I feel like it's completely original and
not an allusion to anything. Sick, just checking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
So she Lucy Diamond is a smuggler, she's the leader
of a crime syndicate. She's turn to Brewster, She's ridiculously hot.
She's very hot, which Amy definitely recognizes. Yeah, oh, I

(15:25):
just didn't expect her to be so good. She's straight
out of like many shampoo hair commercials, even though no
one's ever survived an encounter with her, right, yeah, yea.
And she is planning to meet up with an x
KGB turned assassin named Nkotchka. I like Nikotchka a lot more.

(15:50):
I simply cannot pronounce names. I think, yeah, Nikotchka were
joining out um, And so Phipps is like, hey, to
do surveillance on Lucy. But here's the thing, it's very
dangerous because Lucy has never fought anyone who has lived
to tell about it. Amy is especially excited because she's

(16:11):
writing her thesis on Lucy Diamond. Of course she is.
And are they supposed to be at the same age?
That was quite I was like, are you right? Was
she writing her thesis on some some in her age
or is she supposed to be a little bit older.
It's really unclear in the same way that it's unclear,
like it seems like they're supposed to be in college
through this, but they treat them like high schoolers the

(16:33):
whole time. And they're dressed like stereotypical private school high
school students. Well, I don't know, typical private Yeah, I
think they would definitely be sent to the principal's office. Yeah,
they're dressed like a Halloween costume. Oh yeah, well we'll
talk about that. But yeah, I think they're meant to

(16:53):
be like seniors in college basically because they say they're
in their fourth year of Deb's academy. So Lucy is
just like a a gay dropout who blazed her own
trail and thus is essay material. True. Yeah, hard to
say how old Lucy is meant to be. I got
the impression that she was maybe a few years older
than the debts. But again, she's right, UM's what we know.

(17:16):
She's hot. She has a friend named Scud. Yes, I
don't have any more questions. And we meet the two
of them, and we find out that Lucy is planning
to meet up with this ninotchka woman because they are
going on a blind date, and we're like, whoa, Lucy
is a queer icon. As it turns out, Scud is

(17:38):
really wanting Lucy to be in love because that's such
a good wing man. Scud is like, it's practically his job. Like,
we don't really see him do much else other than
be like, you gotta be in love, Lucy, move on,
you got this. I was like, damn, Scud, you're really
rooting for her. Scud is like a walking Lesbro slash

(17:59):
motivational poet during human form. Yeah, you have to be
open to love. You're so supportive. It's great. Peaks good.
So the debs go to the restaurant for this steak
out and Lucy shows up and she's there with her
date and it's not going very well. In a very
tall restaurant, the ceilings are like eight ft high, and

(18:24):
no one ever looks up. Lucy. It actually is a pool,
if anyone noticed, I just noticed this time. Yeah, it's
it's definitely an empty pool that they turned into a
restaurant because on the wall it says like something about swimming,
and if you look on the sides there are little
things that say the height of it, which is six ft,

(18:45):
so it's not that tall. Excellent budget they had, They're great, great, great.
So Lucy does spot the debs who are just like
hanging out in the rafters and so this lee to
a big shootout. Whoa, whoa, wait, it's not that she
spots them, it's that Bobby checks, as you're so wont

(19:14):
to do when you're hanging in little swings from a
restaurant's thirty foot ceiling on an espionage didn't. They're all
in like circus swings is part of the plan. And
then like every single one of Bobby's dad's bracelets is
a Chekhov's gun the second it comes out, because it's
just gonna happen. I would also like to believe that

(19:36):
there's an entire semester's class of Deb's Academy that is
solely devoted to balancing on those swing seats because they
like move they can like shift them back and forth,
and they returned at all, and the swings don't swing
that much. They seem pretty stationary. I'm interested in this technology. Same.

(19:58):
So there's this big shootout and to uh, Lucy and
Amy find themselves face to face, but instead of killing
each other, they sort of vibe that scene. Yes, it's great.
And then Lucy gets away and she goes to Scutt
and she's like, hey, I met someone. Her name is
Amy Bradshaw, and Scott is like, you can't like her.

(20:20):
She's a deb she's been, and she's like, not, she's
she's she's the perfect score, which again we just have
some very subtle coded language in here. And then Lucy
sneaks into Amy's room and she's like, go out with me.
If you do, I'll tell you what you want to

(20:40):
know for your thesis. Janet crosses their paths one of
the other debs, and so she and Scutt get dragged
along to this like nightclub that they end up going to,
and Amy and Lucy start to get to know each
other and then they almost kiss, and also Scott and
Janet or five pool table. There's a lot a lot

(21:00):
going on. There's a pool table. There's a bunch of
people that are like straight out of your you know,
mid two thousand's small hot topic, so many mohawks, it's
a lot of like giant metal ball necklaces. There actually
is the guy with a potato stack on his end.

(21:21):
I've seen this movie so many times that the last
time I watched it, I paused it at a certain
point because I was like, is that a potato sack?
And it was so just letting, you know, look out
for that a lot of Easter eggs because I will
watch this movie again. I think it's so much fun. Yeah,
it's so. She and Lucy almost kiss, but Amy is
confused about her sexuality, so she gets up and leaves abruptly.

(21:44):
Now we're back at Deb's academy and MS Petrie is
all like, hey, Amy lead this investigation to find Lucy,
and she also gets promoted to squad captain because they
survived the Lucy encounter. Yes, so everyone's like, wow, what
a hero. And then Max is all upset because she's like,
wait a minute, I'm squad captain. This means there's some

(22:06):
tension between Amy and Max, and as they stated whilst
on the swings, they're best friends. And also Max did
something that I'm like, Okay, this isn't what a great
friend would say, but it did make me laugh of
when she was just like, promise you'll never go to
art school. I'm like, I wish I had a friend
who had said that to me, right, Because Amy doesn't

(22:29):
have that much interest in being like a spy. She
wants to go to art school in Barcelona exactly, which
is just like, I feel like the default for any
like broody girl in the nineties two thousand movie you
just want to be an artist for a lesbian I
mean just any less either or right. It should have
been a hint read the science, Amy read the science.

(22:52):
So then, um, Lucy robs a bank just so that
the Debs will like go and try to stop her,
because she's trying to lure Amy there so she can
get closer to her. And then Amy's like, ah, sorry,
but I'm not romantically interested in you, Lucy. But then
also but and then in that scene, Lucy also almost
kills the Debs and it's like it's a booby trap,

(23:14):
and like, um, excuse me, you almost killed the Debs.
She's like, what a good prying. I didn't laugh about
this later, I just like, I don't know if I
want to be in a relationship with this woman now.
I mean, we'll talk about the nature of their like
the whole um. There's some strange twists. Yeah, So that
they kiss, Lucy and Amy kiss and Amy is all

(23:37):
like she changes her mind. She goes with Lucy. The
Debs all think that she's been kidnapped, but it's really
just them hanging out, spending time together and having a
great time, which is a great montage. Also, they do
appear to be in plain sight almost all the time. Right. Also,
the montage is confusing time wise, because it to me,

(24:00):
this montage appears to take place over the course of
like many moons. Yeah, but they do mention later that
she's only kidnapped for a week seven days. Yes, so
they really they just kinda made it seem a little
bit more than it was. Maybe they move really fast.
I guess that let's let's not talk about lesbian stereotypes

(24:21):
quite yet. But you know, also they're in their college
aged I feel like in college a million times I
would tell I would tell anyone I loved them. After
a week, like yeah, They're like, do you love me?
I'd be like, sure, I don't know. Could be true.
So then um, Miss Petriet orders a search for Amy,
and the Debs find her while she and Lucy are

(24:43):
naked and kissing, and so, in an effort to cover
up what would be a scandal for Deb's academy since
like Amy was consorting with the enemy, they planned to
instead they're going to name her deb of the Year
at the big end game event. And it's Max's idea.
It's Max's idea, and she's very smart, and she's going

(25:04):
to give a speech to accept this award, so to speak,
and her ex boyfriend Bobby is going to be there
with her to make it look like they're together. Nobody
has ever been more excited to take out a girl
who has no interest in them than Bobby is to
take her to anything. When they're dancing on the dance floor,
she's literally like standing still. He's like busting all these

(25:27):
moves not he doesn't look at her at all. Bobby
is such a child, it's wild. I was pissed when
Max called Bobby when they had a lead on where
Amy was. I was like, man, Max, that's not what
a friend does. Don't call the ex boyfriend who's who
wears Puka Shell's never call him. Never guy. Ever. So

(25:53):
we're almost at the end of the movie. Um, everyone
is mad at Amy for her whole like wording with
the enemy thing, and she's forced to suppress her feelings
for Lucy, and she say that she's not in love
with her, even though we know that she is because
she's wait, sorry, super quickly, we missed a really important

(26:14):
part of the movie. What the montage where Lucy Diamond
decides to reform her ways? Oh God, yes, because in
order to be in love, you do need to change
everything about yourself. So Lucy's like, I'll do whatever it
takes to win Amy back, and so she starts to
return all the money that she stole from people with
the help and support of Scott. Scott is they're they're

(26:35):
singing karaoke together and what appears to be her bedroom,
like they're just it definitely is her bedroom that they
pan out and there's four other people there. Dan say,
so it's like every crime operation has their backup dancers. Okay, yeah, yeah, true,
especially during a reform montage trying out, she has a

(26:56):
little batman signal that's Lucy Diamond that turns into Amy
be mine. That's great. So now we're at endgame, which
was essentially this ball prom kind of thing, and Amy
is giving her speech and Lucy shows up to be like, hey,
I actually love you and we should be together, which

(27:16):
was sort of Scott's idea. Um, and then Amy is like, hey,
here's my speech. It's such an honor to be a
deb and blah blah blah, and then she's like, but
just kidding, and then she's yeah, she literally gives the
whole speech, and then she's like Comma j K. And
that is why I actually need to tell you that
I love Lucy Diamond. Also, wait, can we just come

(27:39):
it real quick? On the speech accepting the deb's highest
award ry, Jane, Oh was that a week? Didn't get it?
It's just they're throwing them left and right, damn. Like
it's taken many viewings of this movie to just really
pick out all of the first subtle hints and you know,

(28:01):
just hidden language in there. There's a lot of, first
of all, really funny jokes, and I feel like a
lot of them are fairly subtle, Like there was stuff
I was picking up on I didn't pick up on
until my second viewing, and I feel like there's still
a lot of stuff that I missed. So yeah, I'm
excited to go back and rewatch it. So Amy's like
she professes her love for Lucy, Lucy is there. There's

(28:22):
this big fight that unfolds, and then Lucy and Amy
are running around the cross paths again at the same
place that they did the first time they meet, and
they're like, oh my god, let's be together and all
the debt shop and they're like, wait, what does that mean?
That endgame took place in the pool restaurant. Oh, I

(28:43):
guess the oncation scenes they did have one building for
ten days, but that takes place and it's like a
warehouse that they're running around in. So maybe there's the
basement warehouse under the pool restaurant, which is also in
Dev's academy. Maybe Dev's academy. The exterior may have been

(29:04):
mostly a green screen. I'm not totally sure. I don't
I guess they sort they could have been in the
pool restaurant. So then Amy and Lucier like, yeah, let's
be together, and the DEDs are like, okay, we accept you.
And that is pretty much the end of the movie.
They right off into the sunset they got in Janet

(29:26):
Get Together too. Yes, Yes, happy endings all around. Indeed. Um,
then she has to be like, this is my boyfriend's scud,
which is too bad. So that's the story. We're going
to take a quick break and then we'll come right
back and we're back. Hi. Hello. There's so much to

(29:50):
talk about, lots to talk about. So to start us off,
Lee and Ellie, we just wanted to get your take
on just kind of the overall representation as as we
already kind of talked about. Um, this is one of
a very few, like fun queer women movies that exist

(30:11):
at all, um still to this day. So we just
want to kind of get your initial thoughts on like
the representation of queer women in this movie, and just
sort of your initial take on on that. There's a lot.
There's a lot so much. I mean, one thing we
will say is I wish it wasn't so accurate to

(30:34):
be like, oh, here's one lesbian, she's a crime lord,
and here's the other lesbian, she's an overachieving student, and
they're gonna like move in and fall in love in
approximately three hours. Um, well we have you hauling, which,
like we like to say, is a lesbian trope that

(30:54):
honestly is true. Like you know what you're like, that's
a stereotype. But then you look around at all your
friends and they're all lived together and they've been together
for like six months. So describe for us what you
hauling means. Okay, So you hauling is a lesbian term
where basically there's a joke what does a lesbian bring
on a first date? A U haul? Basically that move together,

(31:19):
move in together very quickly. I've never heard that term before.
That's funny. Oh really I thought that, like everyone knew
you hauling, But we just live in a lesbian world,
so yes, So it's just this, it's a stereotype that
lesbians moved very quickly, fall in love very fast, and
go through like every stage of the relationship very quickly.
So seven days isn't really that unrealistic. I know, I

(31:43):
wish it was less accurate, but yeah, that's pretty accurate.
I do want to talk a little bit about one
of the things that I think is problematic about Lucy Diamond. Yes,
even though I love her and she's so beautiful, she
is the predatory lesbian stereo type, yes, like, which what
I mean by that is you have in lesbian movies

(32:06):
usually one person who is already out and a lesbian
or bisexual however they identify it, but they're already out,
and then you usually have someone who's in the closet,
and you have this person who's already out pursuing them
very aggressively and then kind of like trying to coax them,

(32:27):
that kind of trying to turn them in a way,
which is very problematic. So Lucy Diamond at one point
says she's into me, but she just doesn't know it yet, right,
and then continues for the entire movie to basically hold
Amy hostage in order to get her to fall in
love with her. Yes, right. I found this to be

(32:50):
very similar to another problematic trip that we come up
upon in hetero romance movies, just sending predatory a manse
in general, right, like basically framing stalking as romantic, where
she does so many different things, where she shows up
in Amy's room various times and uninvited, She threatens her

(33:14):
with a weapon to get Amy to go out with her,
She robs a bank and then almost kills her friends
to again try to get closer to her. I still
can't get over the whole movie track excuse him, like,
who are you kidding? And Amy also is like, it's
very sweet that you did that for It's like, I
don't know if that's the right term. I feel like

(33:35):
they're all things where if any part of this movie
was even a little bit serious, it would immediately fall apart. Yeah,
for sure, because this is a very silly, campy movie.
But yeah, that was one of the biggest things I
noticed as well, where Lucy she is basically stalking Amy,

(33:57):
but it's framed as romantic and this method of seduction
yields successful results because they end up together and not
for nothing. I found it interesting where I totally agree
that that there's are like elements of predatory romance between
Lucy and Amy. But Bobby kind of does the same
thing to Amy at the beginning of the movie, where
she can't get away from him and he's like, why

(34:18):
did you bring up with me? Why did you break
up with me? And he's like popping up on all
her devices, and then he slides in on his freaky swing.
He's like, he's like, why did you bring up with me?
Here where my dad brings let and like it. It
seems like a pattern in Amy's romantic life, but this
story doesn't really address that well. And when when Bobby
is doing it, it's framed as she feels as though

(34:39):
she's being pesterred, and which is true, it's a valid
But then when Lucy does it, it's like, oh wow,
look how much she likes Amy, and look at all
the efforts she's going through to try to get with her,
and fan keeps almost killing other people shouldn't be with them.
In fact, Lucy even says at one point to Amy,
She's like, you say, I can't see you. I see

(35:01):
you anyway. It's this little game we play and it's
supposed to be this like, you know, cute moment, but
it's like, no, you're right. It's like, is it a
game or do you have a tracker that somehow can
identify everyone in the world is either not Amy or Amy?
And she does have that, yes, And then when the

(35:22):
and then when the writing also indicates that like being
stalked is secretly what Amy really wanted anyways, and Amy
really did want Lucy coming after her because this is
what she like. It just it's it's just not a
good message for for young impressionable No, not really, even

(35:43):
even if that predatory lesbian returns giant cartoon sacks of
money with dollar signs on them, which just not enough. Well,
that was another I mean, I mean, that was another
thing that sort of bugged me about their relationship. And
I guess, I mean, it is such a campy movie
that it was. It's not like I feel like, no,

(36:05):
I wish she was a mean bank robber forever, but
that but that felt like another well worn trope of
like one person needs to change everything about themselves for
this relationship to work, like you have to where there's
literally that scene with Scud I guess can't say it enough.
We're like Lucy's like, man, I really love Amy, and

(36:27):
Scuds like, so, do you want to give up everything
you've worked for? And Lucy's like yep. Well. And it's
funny too because there's this huge running theme in the
movie about like finding yourself right, and they have that
whole conversation when she's kidnapped, being like, you know, you
should be doing what you love and Lucy's like, I

(36:47):
am doing what I love. But then she like tosses
that out the window. You know, maybe she could be
a pirate though that was so weird too, but it
was like Lucy, pirates are criminals and He's like, whoofs Oh,
everything I want to be falls under the criminal category. Yeah. So, now,
what what's she going to do after she's returned all

(37:09):
this money? Like can she even afford to live now?
It seems like she probably can't afford rent on her
a big way. People cannot live on an art grad
student salary. I just say, if Lucy's about to go
to grad school, they're fucks. I do not assume that
she did very well on her S A T S
because she definitely assaulved that dude there. Yeah, there's I mean,

(37:34):
who knows. There's a lot of parts of that relationship
that just don't work in terms of setting an example.
But there are other scenes between the two of them
that I really liked. I really liked that scene where
they were talking about, you know, Amy is going with
the path that she was put on without questioning it,
and then Lucy's challenging that, and she was like, yeah,

(37:56):
I do bad stuff, but it's like that was a
choice I made and I stood by it, which makes
it weirder that she dials back on it later. But
I liked that scene between them a lot, Like they
do seem to challenge each other in a lot of
ways and don't hold back, which is nice because Amy
doesn't do that with her friends as much. Right, Yeah,
you do. I feel like in so many mainstream movies,

(38:19):
which of course are mostly hetero, you see the romantic
relationship if there is one in the movie, you rarely
get a sense of like why the two characters like
each other, or what they connect about, or what they
even talk about. But I feel like in this movie,
you get more of a sense of why they connect,
and it is I mean, for the first chunk of it,

(38:41):
Lucy is using some very questionable tactics and not even
just the stalker stuff. It's like she's also kind of
like negging her and or like being condescending to her,
Like in the scene when they're in the nightclub, she's
just kind of like being mean to her in a
weird way. Well, that's that's flirting, right, That is flirting

(39:02):
you right y? Yeah, yeah, the timeless tactic that works
on us all. The thing that comes out in the
scene in the club that made me laugh the most
was like you can tell that maybe at some point
Angela Robinson gets the story note that like, uh, we
should make it like, don't make Lucy too bad because

(39:24):
in that like Amy's like, well, haven't you killed a
lot of people? And Lucy's like, no, they died of
various diseases and or froze to death, so I'm actually
a viable love interest and is like because I'm not
a murderer, I'm just a robber. Yeah. That made me
I don't know, I thought that that was like very
fun camp be on purpose. Bad writing and I enjoyed it.

(39:47):
I hope it was on purpose, because if not, that
is nuts. Right. Well, and that's and and that's sort
of the one line where Amy's like, you're just not
what I expected, you know. Yeah, ah, yes, they're I'm
sold on this now. Yeah, you know. And you ask
someone if they murdered someone and they say no, you
just believe them if they're hot. But only if they're hot, yeah,

(40:12):
only if you want to kiss them. Yeah, And yeah, Well,
and I think it's believable too, because their actual sexual
chemistry is really believable, which we don't get very often
in lesbian films because you have less of them, so
the percentage of like good chemistry is going to be lower, right, Sure,
But I actually like them together, Like when they're romantically together,

(40:36):
they're cute together. They're believers, super cute together. I was
rooting for them that montage. It's adorable. A lot of
sitting on cars, the milk yeah, yes, spooning on cars,
milk shakes, I'm like, yeah, sure, gifting each other handcuffs,
just just cute stuff. The thing I wanted to talk

(40:59):
about is in terms of like the queer representation. I
feel like if there is a character in a movie
who is like identifiably a lesbian. In mainstream movies, she's
I feel like she's often she will often be fairly
butch presenting. Unsurprisingly, a lot of these movies are written

(41:20):
by straight people who have like a very specific idea
of what lesbians look like and how they present. Um,
So it's like pulling from those stereotypes and then helping
to reinforce them. In this movie, the two queer characters
who we see are very fem and I feel like
you rarely see that, and not that this is an

(41:42):
especially mainstream movie, but like I said, in in mainstream movies,
you're seeing these very stereotypical ideas of how lesbians present,
and it's always like plaid flannel, wearing like short hair,
like you know, nice pair overalls. Yeah, yes, well, and
this this is also one of the only movies that

(42:03):
you have both of them being femi. I do feel
like a lot of the times you have one super
butch lesbian and then one bisexual feminine woman, like that's
like a very common pairing, but to have both of
them be fem presenting is not as usual. That's what
I was because I think they are trying to be like, well, look,
there are different lesbians, but only if one looks like

(42:24):
a man and one looks like a woman, and like
they there they have this like heteronormative look to them
even though they're lesbians. Right, Yeah, so I thought that
was the very least interesting that you see that on
screen when it's normally not that way. Well, while we're
on the topic of how characters are presented in in
this movie, just like a quick a quick moment for

(42:47):
wardrobe choices. So it's a camp movie. I get that. However,
I mean I think that this this movie. It's confusing
because this movie is so over the top campy at times,
and I'm like, I don't know if you if you
were making a point or if this is just what

(43:09):
was in the budget. I had the second It's hard
to know. Sometimes I wasn't sure if the costumes were
commentary or if they were just not good enough enough
money for more fabric yet the budget being whatever they
found in Angela Robinson's pockets that day. Yeah, right, because
they are wearing private schoolgirl plaid skirts like that are
way shorter than even the other students at Deb's academy,

(43:33):
who said earlier than it looks like Halloween costumes. That
seems like the perfect description, which one is not appropriate
for the spy stuff that they're doing. Like no, because
some of them are wearing heels swings too. If anyone
ever looks up exactly if anyone looks up in that
huge restaurant, they're going to be like, you know, I

(43:53):
you know, I don't know, we do know, we know
what you're getting at here. I don't they're the wardrobes,
and this falls into like I don't know. I mean,
there's there's a lot of this movie seems to be
parodying movies like Charlie's Angels, but it seemed to just
sort of be making some of the same choices without
much commentary at times, Like if there was ever a

(44:15):
point in the movie where it was pointed out that, like, hey,
this outfit doesn't make sense for what we're doing, then
I would sort of be more willing to be like, oh,
it's satire. But they they're just kind of always dressed
in ways that they could be so easily killed and
not practical. And also where you just have to wonder,

(44:37):
I mean, for how many guns they carry in this film,
where are they keeping them. Where do you hide guns
in that skirt? That's what I wanted, and they're huge,
huge guns. Yeah, I had a lot of these very
same questions. Also, when you consider the what I imagine
as the intended audience of this movie, which is queer women,

(45:00):
then becomes I guess catering to like the queer female
gaze rather than the male gaze, because you know, it's
these traditionally by Western beauty standards, traditionally beautiful women who
all have the same body type. They're wearing these tiny skirts,
some of them are wearing shirts that reveal their middrift like,
some of them are in heels. So it's catering to

(45:23):
I would think, a different gaze than we're used to
seeing when it's you know, a mainstream but the alps
are the same. But they are the same, and it
is still showing like this very specific and rigid standard
of beauty because again, they all have the same body type. Yeah,
there's no there's no like diversity in terms of body

(45:46):
type in this movie really at all. I mean, Max
is a little shorter than the rest of them. My
I was talking to my boyfriend about this movie today.
I guess he saw it on the Sundance Channel when
his mom wasn't home and he was twelve, and he
was like, it honestly changed my life. It's one of
Isaac's favorite movies. No way, I didn't realize girls could

(46:09):
kiss other. He's like, my mom wasn't home and I
just like I taped it. It was like a um,
we have to take another quick break, but we will
come right back. Speaking of the where do they keep

(46:30):
their guns question, there are women with actual weapons in
this movie, and it makes sense for the genre. But
we've covered so many movies recently where if a woman
has to fight someone because they're a woman, they're fighting
with kitchen appliances or cookwear or knitting needles or fighting

(46:52):
fighting words. So in this movie, at least, the women
have guns. Not that I'm pro by any stretch, but
in an action movie, it stands it's appropriate. Yes, I mean,
there are a lot of ways in which I have
to say the women, you know, they get guns, they
have agency, they're smoking, they're you know, like sneaking boys

(47:15):
into their rooms. Like there's a lot of things where
they don't they don't really kind of treat them like
they're not able to do the things that they're supposed
to be doing. It's just in a very very campy way. Yeah. Well,
and even in their hand to hand combat, I don't
think a DEB has ever been knocked out, but like
all the men are just incapacitated. That is one of

(47:36):
the cool Yeah, I totally agree is their abilities are
never called into question, which although I have one important
question about Deb's abilities, which is when you have endgame
right and Lucy crashes endgame and Amy runs away with
her and everyone sees Lucy Diamond and that dude sounds

(47:56):
the alarm and everyone freaks out and starts running. Isn't
every single person at endgames supposed to be a highly
trained lose their minds? They're like, why are those four
dead's the only debs who seem to have any idea
of what they're doing? I just think that when I

(48:18):
was during my first viewing, and then for some reason
during the second viewing, I was like, I guess I
don't care, but like at the DEB school and like,
why are they the only four that ever get to
do anything? Are the other debs just not ready or
are they doing stuff we just don't know? They're freshmen?
What are their classes about I think they're the top squad,
like the top squad. Maybe they get gun privileges or something.

(48:40):
I don't know. Seniors. And then here's something I wasn't
totally clear on. Is Deb's academy like an all women's
school or there? Do men go there as well? It
doesn't look like it. But also I don't know, because
but then what is Bobby's deal because he's always wearing
something that says homeland curity. Yeah, I don't think he

(49:01):
goes to Deb's account. How did they meet? Spy mixers? Oh?
He was like, oh yeah, I'm dating a Deb part
of Homeless Security. You meet on a steak out at
the pool. Alright, nice meet, cute, very cute. But they
do make Bobby look like an idiot, like in Always
He Can, they can never find Lucy Diamond. At the end,

(49:25):
he gets beat the crap out of by Lucy Diamond
with literally one kicks out. So the men in this
movie are not great, except for Scud. He also gets
knocked out though by Janet, but he loves her because
he's in love. He's into it. Yeah, feminist icon Scud
because love is Hardie war is easy. Love is hard.

(49:52):
Another thing that we don't get to talk about that much.
And this movie I think goes kind of halfway as
you don't get to see women eat in movies a lot,
which is also crazy, but we uh, there is that
scene at the very beginning when they're with Michael Clark
Duncan where all four of them at least order breakfast,

(50:12):
and you hear that at least Max appears to eat
food and the rest maybe not as much. But Dominique
literally just gets a coffee coffee, but she's all she
She just exists on coffee and cigarettes and that's it,
like all good French people do. Coffee, cigs and sex
are new podcast. But I was I was like, we

(50:35):
didn't get to actually see women eat, but they did order.
I feel like that's not quite enough. It's a step in,
you know, getting the order of that progress. I wanted
to go back quickly to sort of the conversation about
basically just the fighting that we see, which is often
the women fighting men. And we've talked about this on

(50:59):
different episode odes where it's like, Okay, well, in a
in an ideal world where we have gender equality, shouldn't
women like shouldn't men be able to like fight women
in these action scenes and like maybe even knock them
out and stuff like that. It's been a complicated subject
that we don't really know how to broach, especially because

(51:21):
in movies so far in where there's action sequences where
there are women fighting, it's usually they're fighting other women,
so or they're only given a rolling pin to defend themselves.
In this movie, like we said, we see like women
fighting and then usually kicking the ship out of the

(51:42):
men that they're fighting, which you know, I enjoyed. I
feel like that's a step in the right direction. And
I think that the reason that it doesn't really like,
I feel like that conversation, as important as it is,
doesn't become super relevant to this movie because it's so
campy and so it's not like, you know, we know

(52:02):
that the Debs are better fighters than all the guys
they are going up against into going into it, so
it's never like a battle to the death with like
with a man finding and what like you know the
dev is gonna win and that the man isn't gonna die.
So the Steaks don't feel quite as like you're like, Okay,
Bobby's going to get his ass kicked and we're gonna

(52:24):
love it well. And there is also some way in
which it a little bit helps the cheesy high school
Catholic school girl outfits. Is that you know, when you
look at Bobby and like the CIA guys and all
those other spies are out there with like their suits
and their outfits and their things and their boat proof vests,
and they're you know, like big commando boots and everything,

(52:46):
and the Debs are just like whatever, all I need
is a tiny little skirt, maybe a flimsy button down,
some heels, and like a giant gun and I'm still
gonna kick your ass, right it like it kind of
has that same thing as like Buffy Allay did, where
it's like she's just gonna out there and her jeans
and her big blue dustard coat and and she'll always
win exactly. Yeah, I don't know, it was weird. It

(53:11):
was weird, I mean, seeing I agree that that the
way that the like, I think because the ability of
the Debs is never in question, nor is the ability
of Lucy that this movie, I mean, maybe that's what
makes it so easy and it's so comical how the
men are defeated that right, Like, it's because No, one

(53:32):
doesn't like watching Bobby get punched in the faith. It's
different than seeing like Wonder Woman versus Captain America and
one of them is going to kill the other, you know,
like it's Jamie. Different comic universes, you know, I don't
care a funking I never will that the day Lucy
Diamond shows up in like the m c U. That's

(53:53):
just does that mean? Wait? Does that mean that if
they're in different universes they can't meet Captain America and
Wonder Woman? Ever, they can never made? Don't imagine? Well,
I mean, who knows. Maybe Marvel and DC will you know,
ten years down the line have to cross over. Hard
to say. I hope that maybe there will be a

(54:13):
Justice League versus Avengers movie. In fact, I'm pitching that
right here and right now. They should just hear that, Hollywood.
They should just stop making all there's too many. I
think there should be more Spider Man into the Spider
Verse movies for sure, and I think there should be
at least twenty of those. But yeah, they can take
a break with I have a feeling there there will

(54:34):
be if you just give them time. I'll be patient. Um. Well,
that's One of the things with the movie Debs is
that our four main deb characters are all women. The
main villain is a woman. The head of Deb's academy,
which is someone who all the Debs look up to,
is a woman. All of the male characters are secondary

(54:57):
or tertiary, Like you don't this is a movie populated
almost entirely by women, and the men who aren't in
this movie are hardly in this movie. Yeah, they, I mean,
at the beginning they try to do like Michael Clark
Duncan is very much like doing an angel's wake up
kind of thing, and then it's immediately revealed that holl
And Taylor is his boss. And if we're going to

(55:20):
talk about problematic things though, can we just real quick
touch on Mr Phipps, who I mean, while we talk
about Lucy breaking into a oh my gosh without permission
all the time, can we talk about how he can
apparently just like operate preparation like with no warning and
then has the audacity to give an inspiring monologue when

(55:43):
he gets there. It's like, are you kidding me? And
is it inspiring? After you just told someone that your
basic test for aptitude is how good of a liar,
you are right, I don't. It sounds like Deb's should
be the bad people based on the way they describe
the test right, how they can lie, chat, fight and kill.

(56:06):
But then they're like, and you're the best at it,
so you're a goody two shoes. They're like, what what
It's confusing? Who knows? But yeah, I mean there's a
few scenes where there's a room full of people. Miss
Petrie will be there, the debs will be there. There
will be like maybe one or two men in the scene,
and the men are just treated the way that women

(56:27):
often are in action movies, which is that they are
basically scenery who are extras who don't say anything. Um.
There's the scene where Miss Petrie is promoting Amy too
Squad Captain, and she's accompanied by two men and another woman,
and the two men don't have any lines in that scene.
It's only women talking. There's another scene it's like the

(56:50):
aftermath of Amy being discovered, um, having a romantic relationship
with Lucy, and all the debs are there, Miss Petrie's there,
Bobby and Phips are there, but I think Bobby has
one line in that scene, and otherwise men do not
talk in that scene. It's just like and it's only
after Max tells him exactly what he's doing, right, you're
going to She's like okay, yeah, so yeah, Bobby's basically

(57:14):
in that scene to be offended that anyone might find
out that his ex girlfriend is into a girl, right,
which he which he later dials back on with a
gross comment on the swing, which I don't think it's
any mistake that that statement and the pooka bracelet are
in the same scene. You're like, yeah, he's like, oh

(57:35):
that lesbian thing, it's actually pretty hot because it's night.
He's like, I know you still love me and your
whole lessie thing. That's kind of hot, And yeah, I
think that that and Janet has one line at some
point when when she's trying to like shame Amy for
the whole thing, and she's like, you're just a slut again.

(57:57):
I think those are two of the worst lines for
me in terms of, you know, problematic things in the movie.
For sure, there's a few other things that are pretty homophobic,
I would say in the movie, but I think because
it's so campy, you I think you do realize, like
those characters are clearly they're making it portrayed that they're wrong.
Even Miss Petrie tells Amy like, you were out having

(58:19):
your college lesbian experiment, right, Like this is just a
phase that you're having, and you you embarrass the debts
by being an experimental lesbian, which is obviously problematic. Right.
Were there any characters that made those comments that didn't
receive come up in later because I was trying to
keep track of because once Bobby made that comment in
this scene. In both of those scenes, it's I don't know.

(58:42):
My head just went to like, Okay, he has to
get his as kicked or this movie isn't doing what
it's supposed to be doing. Well. I think Janet gets away.
It's got free and she's probably the most homophobic of
everyone because she is shaming Amy so hard. Are liking
Lucy Diamond when they almost kiss she's so offended. Yea,

(59:05):
she has that whole like she almost kissed you and
you almost her. That's the thing that I'm interested in,
and when everyone thinks about like the story, I feel
like protects itself in a lot of ways, in a
way where it's able to say kind of problematic things.
But because they set it up as like Amy's a
hero and Lucy's a villain and conflating those the two

(59:29):
issues is sometimes they're saying something about like it's kind
of coded language of like sometimes they're talking about like, well,
the hero doesn't like hook up with the villain, but
they're also not talking about that. I don't know. It
seems like the Janet character, especially kind of gets away
with stuff like that by couching it with well, she

(59:50):
kills people, so you can't be with her. Also, the
thing I'm not fully saying except for the times that
she does fully saying, and because that's the thing, Janet
is doing all of the same stuff at the very
same time, like she's also in contact with Scott and
having this whole flirtation because he's a boy. M But

(01:00:12):
I would I would say, at least my read on
it is that in most cases, in many movies, if
a homophobic thing is stated, that is how the movie
feels about it, rather than how a character who is
framed as being wrong by the movie feels about it.
So I feel like, with the exception of Janet and

(01:00:34):
her sort of weird take on everything and then getting
off Scott free about it, I feel like generally the
homophobic things that are said are said by characters who
we as the audience understand that feels more satirical and
a lot and or yeah, I mean even and and
even with Holland Taylor's I kind of wish Holland Taylor's

(01:00:55):
character was a little more double down to like her
being clearly very wrong. But we always know that she
I mean we we it's already set up that she's
a problematic person in general when she doesn't give a
funk about any of her mentees until they do something
that makes her look good. So she's already set up

(01:01:17):
as like a very petty person, and so when she
goes on to make comments like that, it's like, well,
we already don't like her. Yeah, yeah, I feel like
ms Petrie is not the the redeemable character in this.
I feel like it's the arc is supposed to teach
you about finding yourself and being true to who you love,
and it does that not using her. It's kind of

(01:01:39):
you know, you're watching that with Lucy and Amy Max
to a certain extent as a character who I think
is shown having that growth of realizing like, oh, well,
a true friend will support you no matter what. Right,
I agree Max. I mean, well, we haven't talked about
that friendship a lot yet. But Max and Amy's friendship

(01:02:00):
is also very interesting, and also because their power dynamic
in that friendship shifts a couple different times in the
space of the movie, where at the beginning it's clear
that Max is in charge of the friendship. She's like, Hey,
if you get to art school, I'll kill you, and
Amy's like okay, and so it's like, okay, Max is
in charge, and then you see her have like that crisis,

(01:02:23):
and it's the thing is like when Amy's put in
charge of the debbs for not being killed by Lucy.
I don't know exactly where the movie how the movie
wants you to feel, but I was like, oh, if
I was Max, I would also be upset because Amy
is always talking about how she doesn't want to be
a debt. Max is busting her ass and then has
it taken from her because Holland Taylor's character isn't paying

(01:02:46):
close enough attention to what the truth is and and
so I was like on Max's side for a good
portion and then she is very professional for the most
part and like compartmentalizes and like his like Okay, we're
on the same team, so I'll do it, and then
Amy immediately fox up and almost gets all of her

(01:03:07):
friends killed. So I'm double on Max's side. But then
at the end the Dynamics whitches again when Max is
like Okay, deny everything and like play by the rules,
and then I didn't like her again. I don't know
that character is all over the place. But then she
and then at the end she's like yeah, She's like
it's almost like careful character development was not the most

(01:03:29):
important thing. She's just flip flopping all over the place.
I was on I was on Max's side for a
lot of the movie, and then she she really lost
me in that scene where it's explicitly Max who is like,
this is my idea. Deny, deny, deny, get back with
your homeland security pooka shell got I like, yeah, this

(01:03:51):
thing and she suggests body, it's all downhill for you
from their Max and literally puts words into her mouth.
I wrote for you say everything that I say, even
when the other girls are like what if she's in love?
What if she makes her happy? I hate that. Amy
and Max had a long discussion after the movie, so

(01:04:12):
for really sorted their next pops up from the backseat
in the car and they talk out their feelings. Oh good, Well,
what I couldn't help. But notice about that relationship dynamic
is that the two non white debs in the group
are When it comes to Dominique, she has very little

(01:04:33):
screen time and or bearing on the story. She's basically
just there is a visual joke who's always smoking a
cigarette or and having sex, which is pointed right, And
someone even calls I think it's Amy who calls her
like a sex addict, and it's like, no, maybe she
just that whole line because she calls people crazy and
sex addicts and like that whole line can go. Um.

(01:04:56):
So it's either Dominique not having any bearing on this story,
or it's Max, whose actions are often presented as an
obstacle for Amy, so she ends up being sort of
an antagonistic force for Amy a lot of the time.
And meanwhile, you know, Amy is a blonde, white lady,

(01:05:16):
and the characters who are people of color are either
not doing much in the story or they are in
some way in antagonistic force. Yeah, I mean they're They're
very much there to help Amy's story develop, and not
much else. There's they're not very consistent. There's no real

(01:05:37):
growth or any like, you know, there's not as much
given to them as characters. Yeah, they're they're kind of
props and and we're superwhere we want to know from
our listeners, like how you read that scene. I've had
that that's that was the one reason why Max pushing
back and being so frustrated when Amy just gets promoted
out of nowhere. That's kind of like one of the

(01:05:59):
reasons why that story point worked for me, because it
is just like this blonde, white girl who accidentally does
the right thing is is immediately put in charge, and
then one of the only people of color in the
entire movie who we know really cares about what she's
doing has gone unrecognized. Her work's got unrecognized forever, and

(01:06:21):
she's just displaced immediately, and she's like she calls her
friend out on it, and not for that explicit reason,
but I don't know that. That was part of the
reason why I was like, oh yeah, Max, yeah, fuck that,
like that's that's horrible. But then but then they kind
of sell that character out through poor writing. Oh sid

(01:06:43):
oh well, uh movies are bad. Um well, there's another
very quick problematic line that gets said by Scud whenever
they are doing this bank heist to Lord. I know
that line he says, he says the R word, and
you know he does. I used that. It's good and

(01:07:07):
it's funny because the way that he says it and
the sentiment behind that line and his delivery of it
is perfect, and that line just needs to go. Is
the thing. It should have been a different word word right,
like if it had been any other word. I mean,
it's definitely one of those things where it's like it
is a byproduct of a movie that was made in thousands,

(01:07:28):
and like you'd never see that line of dialogue these
I mean, I also think that's true of the guns.
I feel like you would never see the movie done
this way with the guns the way they are or
the outfits. I bet, like, I don't think the outfits
would be quite that way. Yeah, I think that I
didn't realize that the R word was used in this movie.
I would not to cut a break in any way.

(01:07:52):
But I do sort of agree that that is a
byproduct of the time it was made in Yeah, it is,
but that's what I'm surprised that it didn't jump out
of you because it is. It's so noticeable. I feel
like when you watch the movie. To me, it immediately
was like this beacon where you're like, oh, you can't
say that, like, you know, because if you were watching
it today, you'd be like, who approved this line? You know?

(01:08:13):
It was too busy whacking off to Scud to listen
to what he is saying. That might be the single
worst sentence you've ever said, Jami the Scud, I think
that's a fun phrase. Oh goodness, Um, I did wanna
just quickly point out Amy's thesis. She says, my central

(01:08:36):
hypothesis is that as a woman operating in a male
dominated field, you felt the need to overcompensation. She's talking
to Lucy. You felt the need to overcompensate by being
exponentially more ruthless and diabolical. Then you're established male counterparts,
and I think that these psychological forces combined to create
a kind of emotional void in which you're incapable of

(01:09:00):
loving or being loved. Honestly, Amy's thesis sounds like a
feminist text that I really do want to read. But well,
I don't know. I thought I didn't really love that
thesis of like, I feel like that that that thesis
to me, almost came off a little blamy of like, well,
if women didn't resent their male coworkers so much, they

(01:09:21):
wouldn't be killing so many people. And I was like,
hold on, I don't know that that felt a little
product of its timey and that's phrasing. Yeah, I didn't
give it. Something else that I also really love about it, though,
is like from a queer perspective, you know, I think
there's that whole idea of it's like, it's not that
you can't love, you just don't love the way everyone
expects you to, you know. I kind of like that

(01:09:42):
part of it. Yeah, I like that whole scene because
I don't know every scene where Lucy and Amy are
pushing back on everything the other person says is good
to me, it is there's a way in which it's well,
it's thought that it's bad. It's just there's a way
in which I'm gonna completely undo everything we just finished

(01:10:04):
saying about how like the depths are just so competent
and they can do everything that men can do in
heels and skirits, and they don't need anything. Everyone in
this movie is the worst spy every and that scene
is one great example where Amy's like, I have you
at gunpoint, but like, oh hold on, let me just
tuck my gun under my arm to shake your hand
and introduce myself and tell you about my thesis. And

(01:10:24):
the only place where people are even worse spies than
that is when the entire search and rescue operation descends
upon Lucy Diamond's lair, finds her in a sheet and
doesn't arrest her. Still, they just leave. They just walk
away and leave her there. Even Max, who's supposed to

(01:10:46):
be like the secret genius of the Depths, is like
unbelievable and just like beats, it just leaves and they leave,
and they don't even drive any home. They leave her
a walk that they're not very good spies. I'm just
gonna throw that out there. The last thing I had

(01:11:07):
to say about des was I I went back and
I watched the short film it was based on. Yes
it is, I mean it is. So it won a
ton of awards. Uh the year it came out. It
came out in two thousand three, so it seems like
this short film did really well and it was immediately

(01:11:28):
put into production to become a movie with the same budget,
with with the same budget, except most of the budget
went to paying Holland Taylor. But the short film exactly
high end puka shells. If you're listening and you haven't
seen the short film, highly recommended. It is even it

(01:11:49):
moves even faster. It's like raunchier. And if I'm not mistaken,
I think that the short film does have an all
queer cast, while the theatrical movie does not, or at
least a majority queer cast, which I don't know. I mean,
I think that. Yeah, I'm not the most qualified person
to make this comment, but it does seem like very

(01:12:13):
often queer films when they're adapted for a larger audience,
are dare I say, sanitized a little bit, and straight
actors are cast in queer roles. I'm fairly certain, I
think if my research didn't fail me, Amy and Lucy
are played by straight actresses, and in the original short
film that was not the case. Wait, is Claire Kramer queer?

(01:12:36):
Am I like just learning this now? In the Amy
and in the in the in the short film, the
original short film, Oh no, you're right. I think it's
the four debts that are that are queer. There's a majority.
Why would you taught us like that. I'm sorry, I'm
so sorry. My whole world is opening up there no

(01:12:58):
also Kramer of lerificous fame from both I got really
excited that she was I'm so sorry now she she
appears to be the only straight women in the movie.
Or fine, I'm just going to cry myself to sleep tonight.
It's no problem. I've fully ruined everyone's life. The one
the one carry over from the Short Films cast is

(01:13:20):
Jill Ritchie who plays Janet, who fun fact, is Kid
rocks sister. So just a wild amazing thing. There is anything.
Debs is one degree of separation from Kid Rock, who
knew something we all needed to know. Yes, Lee and Ellie,
do you have any other final thoughts about the film Debs?

(01:13:45):
I do have one final thought, which is just I
think while we it's so fun to wrag on Debs,
and I love writing on Debs because I love it
so much, um, I do think it's important to also
mention that while we make fun of their their low
budget and the effects and everything, that it is interesting
to see the transition from Deb's to what Angela Robinson

(01:14:05):
can do with a budget, which is Professor Marston and
it's such a far cry between those two movies that
I just think it's at least worth pointing out. You
know that Angela Robinson is still a beautiful human being
forgiving us Stebs and Professor Mark Pressor Marston. And it
goes to show when you have a queer woman writing

(01:14:27):
and directing a movie about a queer love story, it's handled.
This is not to say this movie is not without
its problems, but it is handled much better than when
these stories are attempted by non queer people. And usually
those stories aren't even attempted by non queer people. But

(01:14:50):
it helps when the person who is creating this story
and this content is someone who has experience and knowledge
about these topics. And it's hardening to see that someone
making their perfect art about the queer spies can go

(01:15:11):
on to have an incredible I mean, she's had an
incredible career. Professor Marston is amazing. She didn't she write
and direct quite a few uh l word and True
Blood and like she's like making Banks, she's chilling. Is
she a woman of color? Yes? Yes, that it surprised

(01:15:32):
me then the way that the women of color are
treated in Debs then, but I would guess maybe it
was producers could be. Yeah, I also feel like I
think it stands out more with Max. I don't know
that Max is that much less consistent of a character
than everyone else in this movie. I mean, I think
it's just everybody who is not Amy and Lucy kind

(01:15:52):
of gets short shrift in this for true Um and Lucy.
Jordana Brewster is part Brazilian. I don't know exactly how
she identifies in terms of her ethnic identity, but she
perhaps identifies as at least mixed. Not totally clear on that,
but you know there's a text her, whose text her?

(01:16:15):
And let us know what you find out. So does
this movie past the BACKDL test? Yeah, big fat yes
on that. You know. An easy way to pass the
backdel test is have two women and instead of having
them talk about a guy, I have them talked about
how much they want to owe each other sure fire

(01:16:36):
away Um. And in one of the very few scenes
that I found where they do talk about men, they
are talking about Bobby and Amy's like, I broke up
with Bobby and someone says why and She's like he
was just so boring, and then someone else says, yeah,
he's an ass so when men are being talked about,

(01:16:58):
it's usually in an insulting way, which is great. Um,
I think. Also a super producer, Sophie pointed out that
this movie would not pass the reverse spectal test and
that there are not two men I don't think even
talking to each other in the whole movie, but there

(01:17:18):
might if there is. I do think that's that doesn't
sound Yeah, it doesn't. I don't think. There's that scene
where Scuts playing bingo with some guys but nobody responds
to him. Yeah, and they certainly don't have names. Yeah,
we don't know who any of those guys are. The
name of my new band is Scuds playing Bengo. Um.

(01:17:40):
And this is a rare case of a movie passing
the Vito Rusto test, and a few listeners are not
familiar with what that is. Um. The Vito Russo test
requires that a film must contain at least one character
who is identifiably lgbt Q, plus that character must not

(01:18:01):
solely or predominantly be defined by their sexual orientation or
gender identity. In other words, they should be made up
of the same sort of unique character traits that are
commonly used to differentiate straight characters from one another treated
like people. But yeah, so strange. Um and the l
G B t Q character must be tied into the

(01:18:23):
plot in such a way that their removal from the
story would have a significant impact. So this movie without
question passes the Veto Russo test as well as the
Bechtel test. So, in fact, I would say, in terms
of the Bechtel test, this is a sort of like
an estimated guest but I would say around seventy in

(01:18:44):
the movie is characters passing the Bechdel test. It's like constant,
constant conversations with named women who are not talking about men. So,
and just imagine if they had cut Bobby's character, it
could have been like, I mean, right, I think we
need more Bobby Eraser. Yes, except when it's King of

(01:19:05):
the Hill, and in that case, more more Bobby. Okay,
that's an interesting take. Um, we can have a Bobby
de So let's rate the movie on our Nipple scale
rating of zero to five nipples based on its portrayal
of women. Um, I this is hard, this is a

(01:19:28):
this is I'm gonna give it. I think four nipples
because there are brief problematic moments here and there, and
the movie does, as we discussed, subscribe to some of
the stereotypes that we see of queer women. But the
fact that the main cast is almost entirely women, and

(01:19:51):
and and a pretty diverse cast fairly yes, more diverse
than your ordinary movie, but certainly but still no diversity
in terms of body type, at least among the main
four debts. Yeah, I think that aside from a few
problems that the movie has, which I think can be

(01:20:12):
attributed to it being a movie of two thousand four, um,
I would say it does fairly well in terms of
showing women who have agency and who are propelling the
story forward. And it's fun to watch. It's a it's
a funny movie. It is silly as fuck, but like,

(01:20:32):
there's so little movie without the women, and without any
of the women is based on a swing with some
bracelets screaming at the top of his lungs. Right, the
movie doesn't exist without the like six main female characters
that are needed for this story. So good playing Bingo.

(01:20:55):
I would watch that short film. Yes, um, so it's great.
And the fact that it's, as we discussed, one of
only a very small number of like fun queer women
comedy movies in existence. Um, I think that's great. So yeah,
I'm gonna go with four nipples, and I'll give one

(01:21:18):
to each of the four debts. I'm gonna go three
and a half. And the reason we didn't touch on
this very much, but something that always kind of bugs
me in in movies is when friendships are disrupted by
a relationship, and a new relationship suddenly destroys your friendship

(01:21:41):
structure entirely and send your entire life into chaos. And
I was trying to like go through that entirely. And
I do think that in some ways, like Amy's relationship
totally shakes the foundation of like her relationship with all
of her female friends. And that was the thing that

(01:22:03):
I didn't I don't know, even though like her character
ultimately grows and I think finds the best of both
schools of thought and whatever moves forward, that was like
one thing that I was, like, I didn't love that.
I don't know, I mean, and I guess movies need conflict,
and if you have a majority female cast, there's gonna

(01:22:25):
be a lot of conflict and in fighting between women.
But just the whole new relationship completely destroying friendship group
for the most part, wasn't my favorite thing, but it's
also basically a queer d com, which is incredible. I
don't know. I mean, it's like, it's such a fun movie.

(01:22:45):
I haven't enjoyed watching a movie twice back to back
in a very long time. And it's great. I mean,
for all the fun ragging on the low production values,
it's a good movie and it's funny. The story is
tight for the most Yeah, I mean it's a it's
less than an hour and a half long. What more
could you ask for? And so I thought, I mean,

(01:23:06):
if that was the last, uh so I'll give it
three and a half or three and three quarters, I
don't know. Somewhere somewhere it's a scientific there's a Wikipedia page.
Did you see that? Where people are leaving? So now
I feel more conscientious of my nipple ratings and I'm
like losing sleep over it. There's a Wikipedia page for
for us and then they write down it's really stressful

(01:23:28):
actually about the page. I didn't know that they were
like documenting all of our nipple games, updated rather frequently. Okay,
so for whoever is making the Wikipedia page, I say
three point seven five and I answer yes, final answer,
I'm gonna give also, if you are making the Wikipedia page,
let us know that it's used so that we can
credit you if you want. So, I guess I'm gonna

(01:23:52):
give one to each of the debs, except I'm giving
slightly less of one to Janet. Okay, sorry in it,
but you are a kid rock sister, so life's Hardlee.
Do you want to go next with your Yeah? I do,
And I'm so torn as well because I feel like,
if I vote with my heart and my nostalgic love

(01:24:14):
for this movie, I want to give it four nipples.
I do also feel like I think it comes in
slightly lower than that, and I think my problems do
have to do somewhat with the fact that I think
Ellie and I both have our issues with the whole
predatory lesbian trope, and I also do have an issue
with the fact that I feel like they really toy

(01:24:35):
in this with um the age that they're supposed to appear,
and so when you combine the predatory lesbian trope, but
the fact that they're very much casting them as like
high school girls, even though they try to make it
clear that they're not, but it sort of keeps presenting
them that way. Like I that I have a hard
time with. So yeah, I mean maybe maybe somewhere around

(01:24:58):
you know three and a half? Can we do we
get to assign them as well? Yes, this is so exciting.
I wasn't I didn't prepare well enough to this. Okay,
if I have just signed three and a half Nipples,
I'm going to assign one to Scud for his excellent
motivational quotes. I'm going to give one to Max because

(01:25:20):
I just I think Max should get something more in
this movie. I'm going to give one to h Angela
Robinson for you know, just the gift of this and
other things that she has given queer women. And I'm
going to save my last half of Nipple and I'm
going to gift it to Australia because like, what did
Australia do to you? Australia gets sank or their attitude

(01:25:48):
all right, Well, I think I have to agree with
Lee that it's around three and a half. Mine is
because of some of the homophobic comments that just like,
even if you're saying them in sad higher, I think
they create a problematic message of friends not being supportive
of their friends in lesbian relationships. And I think also

(01:26:10):
the relationship between Lucy and Amy were of course, I
love seeing them together, but when you actually take their
relationship and put it on paper, it's very stockery, so
I really don't like that. That being said, I am
going to give a nipple to Lucy Diamond because nobody
has given her a nipple, and just what a hero

(01:26:32):
she needs one? All right, um, I'm also going to
give a nipple to Max of course, and Miss Petrie
because I love the time, and then half we'll have
to go to Dominique because I feel like she's the
underdog of this. She has a lot of agency and

(01:26:52):
she's very sex positive to me, so Amy calls her
a sex addict. So love it. Well. I think you
to both of you so much for being here with us.
This has been such a fun episode in such a
fun movie to discuss. You like having us. Thank you.
Where can people find you and follow you online? Is

(01:27:14):
there anything that you would like to plug in terms
of social media? You can find us at les Hangout
Pod on all the social media's Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook,
and we also have a YouTube channel YouTube dot com
slash Let's Hangout Pod and we post songs on there.
We actually write original songs based on lesbian movies. You
can see some of those on our YouTube channel. Yes, um,

(01:27:37):
you can also follow us individually. Are our social media things.
I'm on Twitter and on Instagram at ls H Foster
and I'm at Ellie Bridgeta and we do want to plug.
We have our very first live show coming up on
February eighth at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn. UM, so we
will be doing some fun things there about movie that

(01:28:00):
should have been gay even if they weren't. Oh that
sounds awesome. Yeah, take a trip to New York. Probably
going to do one in l A at some point,
so hopefully catch you there. Yeah, let us know. Well,
thank you again so much for being here. You can
follow us The Bechtel Cast on social media platforms at

(01:28:22):
Bechtel Cast. You can subscribe to our Patreon a k a.
Matreon where you get two bonus episodes every single month
and it's only five dollars a month. You can go
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or you can go to t public dot com slash
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(01:28:42):
cool merch, all of our designs, all of our items
are right there. Get it for your sweetheart, oh yeah,
or yourself, anybody, or your brother or your sister, literally anyone,
whatever it flows through. But I just gave my dad
a beckdel Cast mug because my dad is a dad

(01:29:04):
and therefore he likes mugs, Dad's love mugs. And I
sent it to him and he sent me back a
text of his mug full of pens and the caption
was my pens. So beckdel Cast mugs are great for pens,
mug love mugs, my dad's dating profile, uh and rate

(01:29:27):
and review us on iTunes and all that fun stuff
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