Fried Green Tomatoes with Francesca Fiorentini

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
start changing it with the Bell Cast. Hey, Jamie, yes, Caitlin,
I made some barbecue and also a man might be missing.

(00:25):
But the two things have nothing to do with each other.
Do you want some of my barbecue that I made?
I'm going vegan? Is it vegan? It's well? Um, is
there a reason it wouldn't be vegan? Well, barbecue tends
to have animal byproducts. Okay, Okay, you know what you
sold me. I'll try it. Okay, it's gonna you're gonna

(00:47):
love it. It's the tastiest barbecue you've ever had taste.
It's a little tough. This has been a fun role play.
We could have just kept going, and why don't we?
What an episode we have for you today? This is
the Bechdel Test. No, no, oh my god, I fund

(01:10):
I found like people who are reviewing us who haven't
actually listened to the show, They're like, it's the Bechdel Test.
Is the Bechdel Test podcast? Right, That's what it's called.
I'm a huge fan, it's the Bechdel Test. You're just like, oh,
you're a liar, Okay, Um, how polite Southern politeness. Uh,
this this is our show where um we use the
Bechdel Test as a jumping off point for discussion to

(01:33):
have an intersectional conversation about some of your favorite movies
in the entire world. Truly, Yes, well what what on
earth is the Bechdel test? Though? Well, if you don't
know what the Bechdel test is, does that ever happen
to you? Caitlin, Like, I feel like something that has
happened to me many times where people don't know and
I have to explain it, know that they're pretending to know,

(01:54):
but they're calling it the Bechdel Test over and over
and over, and it's very clear that they haven't listened
to the show, which is fine to say that for
the name of the podcast. Yeah. Yeah, all the time
we've done, we've been guests on other people's podcasts where
they're like, she's the host of the Bechtel podcast. I
mean they're like, not wrong, but it's not right. The

(02:16):
best one is when we did this show in London,
Brag remember going places? Uh, and they put out a
Marquee that said the Women in Film podcast, and we're like, well,
this is all this is. Again. It's not incorrect, but
it's weird to list a theme instead of a title. Um.
In any case, the Bechtel Test is a media metric

(02:41):
invented by queer cartoonist Alice and Bechtel, sometimes called the
Bechtel Wallace test, that requires the following for our purposes.
There's many permutations at this, but for us, UM, we
need two non male characters to speak to each other.
They also have to have names. I'd like to go back.
They speed to each other about something other than a

(03:04):
male character for two lines of dialogue. Does it usually
happen in movies? No? Not a lot today? Yeah? Yeah yeah.
That's my other favorite mistake that people make when they
explain my podcast to me is that they say, oh, yeah,
you and Caitlin talk about whether a movie passes the
Bechdel test for two hours. I'm like, what would that

(03:26):
conversation be? Like we go through every single minute of
the movie and be like, well, does that did that scene?
Did that exchange past? Yes? No, okay, let's move on
to the next one, and do you have any observations
on this. Okay, let's move on. What if we just
did that for all of Indiana Jones and we're just like, okay, minute,

(03:47):
no women, no women, let's move on, and only what
about just like a taboo buzzer just like you know,
I thought it was mostly buzzer. That's what I thought.
The podcast was just dings and buzzer. Oh yeah, we
should have been implementing that from day one. I don't
know why we didn't think of that. So we're talking.

(04:07):
We're talking about Fried Green Tomatoes today. And the voice
you just heard is that of comedian journalist, host of
news Broke on a J Plus, host of the Bituation
Room podcast. It's Francesca Fiorentini. Hey, welcome, man. I'm so
excited to talk about this film. Thanks for being here

(04:30):
we're site. Thank you for having me. It's a it's
a treat, and thank you for bringing this movie to
This has been a fairly popular request. It's been requested
to us many times over the years. And it's the day.
So we're talking about Fried Green Tomatoes. What is your
history with this movie? Okay, so I watched this when
it came out, so ninety one and I was like

(04:50):
eleven ten around then, but kind of like, yes, I
missed some of the jokes around like women examining their
own vaginas and like marriage marital stuff. You know, it
was me just like looking at my Teddy bear, like
totally you know, like one of my I don't didn't
really get that, but I definitely understood how moving, how
important this film was, what it meant about female friendship,

(05:13):
how men are trash? Um? Have you read the book?
Has anyone read the book? I? We have not read
the book, but I have read a lot about the book.
There's there is a lot of really really interesting, complicated
context between the book and the film, and I'll have
a good adaptation discussion. That's that I have not read

(05:37):
the book. Should I wish? I cool? We're all in
the same boat. Um, But yes, we have a fair
amount of context about the book. My document is horrifying
this week. Oh we're so Southern polite, We're so polite. No,
after you, after you? Oh, thank you, thank you. Um.

(05:58):
I saw it for the first time. It was one
of those movies that as a young film student in college,
I was like, this is an important movie. I need
to see it. I need to have seen it in
my life. I watched it once as a freshman in college.
I want to say I was one of those ones
that I saw but don't know how much I was,
like actually paying attention to it. I only remembered the

(06:20):
cannibalism at the end. Yes, I suffered the same, only
remembering that this movie. Yes, I remember enjoying it. Um.
A lot of times I will remember my response, my
emotional response to a movie, more than I remember the
movie itself or the story or anything like that. Um,
I remember enjoying it, but I just didn't I had

(06:45):
no recollection of what the story was about, and I
had only seen it that once. All you had for
years was just secrets in the song right in your head.
I feel like, and I'm curious to hear back from
our listeners. I feel like this is actually something that
pretty common in terms of just how I don't know
sometimes with with movies, no matter how well done they are,

(07:08):
and this movie does a lot of things very well,
uh that there is just one completely unrelated thing taken
away from the movie that people are like, Yeah, that's
what I remember. And I also only remembered the cannibalism.
I saw this movie. I have like a very lovely
memory associated with this movie, in spite of the fact

(07:30):
that I don't really remember what happened obviously, But my
grandma showed me this movie. Um. She was the best.
She loved showing us movies that she liked and talking
loudly throughout them, which is probably why I don't know
anything that happened in the movie. But this was like
a movie that I watched at her house in Maine

(07:52):
when I was like maybe, I don't know, like maybe
maybe around the same age like tennis, when you're allowed
to start watching these movies, um, but like with your relative.
So I watched it with my mom and my grandma
and I didn't get along, but they got along for
the duration of this movie, and it was really nice memory.
And I missed my grandma. And I didn't remember anything

(08:16):
that happened in the movie except for the cannibalism. Maybe
that just has to do with being very young when
you see this movie. We're so I mean, for sure
a great deal of it was over my head. And
also my grandma was most likely just talking at volumes,
screaming about how cannibalism was going to happen. That's my

(08:37):
I love how you're like these movies when you are
allowed to watch them, and by these, I mean movies
about cannibals. Remember that time when your grandma and grandfather
just sat you down, like you're like, okay, honey, it's time.
There is like there was like a time I think
it was around the time I was like between nine
and eleven, where like my mom, because my mom was
very in control of like my media diet, and she

(09:00):
would be like, Okay, we're gonna start introducing mature themes,
you know, Like this was like one of those movies
light petting, light petting, light petting, cannibalism, cannibals, maybe just
the idea of cannib but the kind of a lighthearted
cannibalism by a very villainous character. So you're like, oh,
who cares, which is a feeling I uphold to this

(09:24):
day about the cannibalism. Um. But in any case, let's
talk about what happens in the movie. Yeah, let's do it.
So we start in rural Alabama in the I believe
it's set in the eighties, I think it, and when
the book was written, so like, yeah, movie comes out

(09:47):
in ninety one, but yeah, I think it's sort of
a period piece by like four years um and we
meet Evelyn Couch a k a. Kathy Bates or Queen
Um and her her husband ed Um. They go to
a nursing home to visit his aunt, who hates Evelyn,
so she starts to wander around the nursing home and

(10:08):
runs into a woman named Mrs Threadgood, but she goes
by Ninny, and Ninnie starts to tell a story about
a murder that took place many years ago. You're like, oh,
it's a little Julie and Julia. It's a bit of
a story within a story which I also fully did
not remember me either. I did not remember that, but

(10:30):
I thought Kathy Bates was right there with everyone else.
I was wrong. I feel like the parallels between Fried
Green Tomatoes and Titanic are many there. And you also
mentioned you also mentioned at the notebook as a movie
with parallels. I saw some parallels. Portrait of a Lady

(10:51):
on Fire. Also, the poster for this movie kind of
leadsy to believe that all four of the female leads
are together in the movie because they all on the
poster and it's kind of photoshop to make it seem
like they're together. Looking at the post where you would
believe that it is for women and a freight train
that star in the movie. I just see a green

(11:13):
tomato in this poster, but it does make me think
that a tomato is the main character, so I would
get I get the confusion. I will send it to
the chat. One of the main posters for this movie
is for women in a freight train, and you do
have to hand it to them for not putting a
single man on the poster, but also being like, we
have to include the train, the murderous train. Perhaps the

(11:38):
train keeps it's killing some teenagers, it's ripping limbs off
of kids. This train hates men, this feminist dot com,
this train train, this train listens to the beach dil cast.
We don't indoors killing beloved brothers and sons. I think

(12:01):
that the actions of the train weren't rather ruthless, and
especially because the men and boys who get killed or
injured in the story seemed to be perfectly nice and respectful.
She doesn't choose her targets very well, that I'll say
about this train. She needs to like there are men
in this community who deserve to be hit a train.
I mean, we there are many members of the KKK

(12:25):
who should have been there's the clan, and there's cops,
and there's racists. Yeah, but they're just hitting people. In fact,
this train seems to have a very specific fvendetta against
people named Buddy. That's true. This train. I'm quickly not
on board for the train anymore. What was she thinking? Bad?

(12:46):
Bad train? Bad trad? Okay? Also, I was like, is
it progressive for the sudden death of a teenage boy
to change everyone's life? Because in every movie it's we
have to kill Shaleene Woodley, or how is this guy
going to learn a lesson? And we have to kill

(13:07):
Mandy Moore in a Walk to Remember? Or how is
this guy going to learn a lesson? In this one,
we kill Chris O'Donnell with a train right away, and
then she learns the lesson of I'm a lesbian. I
don't know if Chris o'dollig getting hit by the trade
teaches her that, but it does move things in that,
you know, it keeps these characters together. Okay, So what's

(13:28):
happening in the story? Um Ninny. Ninny starts to tell
a story from her past to Evelyn Ak Kathy Bates,
and we cut to a flashback as she's beginning to
tell the story. We are now in post World War
One era. We meet i g Thread Good, she's a
little girl, she 's a tomboy, and then we also

(13:51):
meet her beloved older brother Buddy. Buddy is in love
with Ruth Jamison, who is playing what from the Bug?
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um. That is not the
case in the book, um, but in the movie they
are little love birds. Ruth is played by Mary Louise Parker,

(14:11):
and one day they're all out for a stroll and
Buddy gets his foot caught on the railroad track and
he is struck and killed by this bad train. It's
extremely old timey and sad, especially because you see a
very quick shot of him finally pulling his foot out
of his boot, and I think he's gonna survive, but

(14:32):
then he's still killed, and I was very confused on
the physics of that. It was a strange editing choice
to incuture him getting out of the boot. I don't
know if that was a part of the book the
way it was edited. I thought that he had survived
and maybe would be like injured but okay, but they
were like, Nope, he didn't. He's dead rip yes, and

(14:53):
he's on the train tracks because he's trying to get
Ruth's hat is starting to blow away, and you're like
in either like this is bad. This is bad. What
if the train and the hat are working together and
it's like collusion and they're trying to kill all the
Buddies of the world. Yeah, crime, green tomatoes, this is

(15:18):
this is the most things named Buddy, I feel like
our dogs. Let's just be yeah, Airbud, Yeah, exactly, Airbud.
Because we just roasted the editing on this movie. I
just did a very the quickest Google of my life.
Brag uh. And so there is a female editor on
this movie. Deborah Neil Fisher. Her resume is so extensive.

(15:43):
She edited Sonic the Hedgehog this year. She she edited
two thirds of the Fifty Shades of Gray franchise. She
edited every Hangover movie, she edited Baby Mama, she edited
all of the Austin In Powers. She she's just She's

(16:03):
edited You, Me and Dupre She's edited all sorts of movies.
So just if you were worried that she lost work
because she showed Buddy getting out of his boot and
confusing us. Um, she did not fine, She's fine. In
every single one of those films, someone is hit by
a train. I think if the Common Thread, that's her

(16:24):
signature thing, even if it has nothing to do with
the movie. She edits it into the movie. She right, Yeah, Well,
editors are often you know, the real authors. It's weird.
I don't remember Sonic the Hedgehog ever getting hit by
a train, but in this movie he does. I think
of all the movies, that's the one I would definitely
assume it happened. Dupre for sure get hit by a train.
Oh yeah, you me and what name a fifty Shades

(16:48):
movie were to go to? Johnson doesn't get hit by
a train. It's it's her trademark. It's okay. So back
to the movie. Um, he is He's killed by the train,
and g is heartbroken over this. Um. It's also around
this point in the story where we formally meet Big
George um, as well as less formally meet his mother

(17:12):
Sipsy Yep. They are two black people who work for
the Thread good family because they're like a rich, wealthy
white family who has help, and Big George does a
lot to look after a g specifically. Um. Okay, so
the story is unfolding, but just then Kathy Bates his

(17:32):
husband comes in and interrupts typical man, and we see
them go back home a little bit. Evelyn Couch has
been going to these marriage counseling classes. I think she's
kind of trying to connect with Ed better, but he's
not into it. He does not appreciate her. This whole

(17:53):
plot point will come back to it and only counseling
women all together, not couples. Yes, the husbands are not present.
Yeah no, no, Ed is asked nothing, which I appreciate
that commentary, but they I feel like the movie kind
of goes out of its way to make women trying
to get in touch with their sexuality better to seem

(18:15):
ridiculous and perhaps hysterical. I didn't like how those were framed.
Sure anyways, Yeah, we'll talk about it. Um. So then
sometime later, Evelyn goes back to the nursing home and
here's more of the story from Ninny. So we flashback
to i Gy, who is all grown up now, and
she is Mary Stuart Masterson and she has not really

(18:39):
recovered from the loss of her brother Buddy and Ruth
who again was Buddy's young love, comes around and befriends her.
We see them getting into all kinds of high jinks.
They're giving out food to poor people. There's a scene
with Honey and Bees, they play poker, they get drunk

(18:59):
to other things like that. I love the b scene
so much it truly I was brimming with anxiety. And
though the movie never makes this explicit, it's pretty clear
that Igy is a lesbian who is falling in love
with Ruth, and Ruth also loves her well. And we'll

(19:21):
talk about all of this later. But um Ruth gets
married to a man named Frank Bennett, and we already
know from the beginning of the story based on what
Ninny said, this is a murder mystery about ig being
accused of murdering Frank Bennett, but we don't yet know
how or why or when or anything like that. And

(19:42):
then we meet Frank Bennett and we're like, thank god
he got murdered. Yeah, he is a truly, truly a
piece of ship. So she goes off newly married. They
moved to Georgia, and after a few years, ig drives
to Georgia to pay Ruth a visit and discovers that
Ruth's husband is physically abusive, so Ig gets Ruth out

(20:04):
of there with the help of Big George and says
to Frank, if you ever touch her again, I'll kill you. Ruth,
who was pregnant when she left her husband. I'm sorry. Oh,
I'm sorry, Ruth who was gregnant? That's right. Sorry, I
don't mean. I don't mean to like tone police, but

(20:25):
you did say that word. I said the word in correctly.
She was gregnant with a greg named Buddy Um. Right,
that's just his nickname, though his name is Gregg Um.
And then g and Ruth open a restaurant, the whistle
Stop Cafe, where they served fried green tomatoes. I love

(20:47):
the name of the movie and barbecue that Big George makes.
This becomes important. Frank shows up a couple of times
trying to get his baby. His baby. One night we
see him. One night, we see him being knocked out
by a shovel I think, which he then presumably dies

(21:08):
from because, yeah, he's trying to kidnap a baby. Yeah,
he's got baby basket in the hands. He's about to
make away with the baby. He's also a member of
the KKK. We find out so we are not sad
that he dies. Later, some police from Georgia show up
to the cafe to see if Ig or Ruth know

(21:30):
anything about Frank's disappearance, and they're like no, and he's like, well,
I don't trust you, but I do love your barbecue,
Nom nom nom. And then Ig tells Ruth like you
don't have to worry about Frank coming around anymore, and
is like, well, did you kill him? And she's like, no,
I didn't know, but I know he's for sure dead,

(21:51):
and yeah, but I definitely know he's dead, but I
want I felt for Ruth in that moment because she's
just like, Okay, I don't think you're a murderer, but
you're saf doing an awful like a murderer and Mary
Stuart masters and it's like, just be cool, please stop asking.
Then several years passed and one day Frank's pickup truck

(22:15):
is found in a river, so I Gy and Big
George are arrested for his murder and she has tried,
but the judge throws out the case because he's like, well,
you know, Frank just probably got drunk and drove into
the river by accident and got eaten by river creatures,

(22:36):
which it seems like i Gy is such a beloved
person in this community that the judge kind of just
didn't want anything bad to happen. Like that was my reader.
It was the role of the priest, remember, right, because
the priests kind of lie and then the judge kind
of did a bad job. But it like worked out

(22:56):
the way it should have, right, it works out well
for the characters who we are rooting for. But I'm
also just like, is this how the justice system worked
in nine? Not at all? Definitely, if there was a
black man accused of killing a white man, he probably
wouldn't have gotten enough. And especially if there was a
white woman who everyone knew was gay, that's not what

(23:19):
would have happened. But look, this is Hollywood, all right,
this is fantasy. This is amazing. That's why this movie rules.
Things turn out the way they should. Yeah, and like
human flesh breaks down into a great sauce somehow that
no one can taste. You know, we don't know, we
have we ever tried to ask the train We don't um,

(23:44):
But yes, justice was served to the characters who we like. Meanwhile,
back in the present, Evelyn has begun this journey of
kind of self liberation. She's knocking down walls in her house,
She's crashing her car and other people's cars. She goes
back to see Ninny, who continues the story about Egene Ruth.

(24:06):
Ruth has gotten sick and dies of cancer, which is
so sad, heartbreaking. I was bawling. It was, yeah, story
of the ducks. Yeah, the duck story. I'm like, this
story is so boring and I don't get it, but
I'm crying. Um. And then back in the present, Evelyn

(24:28):
thinks that Ninni has died, but it turns out that
it was just Ninny's roommate at the nursing home who died.
So Evelyn goes to find Ninny, who tells Evelyn the
final bit of the story, which is that it turns
out it was Sipsy who killed Frank Bennett and I
Gy and Big George. Do they barbecue his body or

(24:51):
do they turn his body into the sauce? I was
not super clear about that. There is a long night
of like Robert Durst style dismemberment that takes place that
we don't see, but they go full dirsk that night,
and we just don't have to watch it, and I'm
fine with that totally. In any case, they feed his

(25:14):
remains to the cop who had been investigating his disappearance.
So that's like the big reveal at the end of
the movie. Hence the cannibalism that Jamie and I remembered. Yeah,
that's the story. Let's take a quick break and then
we'll come right back and we're back. Uh. That sounded like, Hey,

(25:42):
what's that movie? They're back? What we're back? A dinosaurs?
Oh that's Poultergeist. We're here. No, No, we're so young,
so we just don't know. Um, yeah, I think it's Poltergeist.
Sounds right, but she says something like they're He's I
think a good place to start talking about this movie

(26:04):
is the way it was adapted, because I feel like
that leads into a lot of the discussion that kind
of needs to be had about this movie. So there's
there's so much context for this movie, and a lot
of it is very interesting and some of it is
kind of frustrating. So we have the very rare example

(26:24):
here of the author of an original work co authoring
a screenplay that is amazing. Fannie Flag who I wasn't
familiar with her, but now that I learned more about her,
she's awesome. She is. She is a queer writer and
comedian who like got started in the sixties went on

(26:46):
to become a really popular game show personality on Match Game.
If you grew up watching Game show Network with your grandparents, Uh,
that was a thrill. And later in her career was
openly uh an out lesbian who had I mean just
a murderers row of girlfriends. She dated Rita may Brown,

(27:08):
another really famous queer writer, and a fit really famous
soap opera star named Susan Flannery. If you want to
look up the relationship between the three of them, it's
very interesting. Not necessarily not relevant to the podcast, but
I was hooked in any case. She wrote this novel
in and then was approached by the director of this movie,

(27:30):
John Abnett, to write the movie herself. She had never
written for the screen. I feel like this is very
rare for any marginalized writer to get an opportunity to
go from zero to writing their own screenplay of their
own work. Um, so that's incredible. She enlists her friend
Carol Sobieski, who also wrote the script for Annie. Uh.

(27:55):
They work on it together. Carol unfortunately passes away before
the movie comes out, but they are both honored with
an Academy Award nomination, so it's a it's a beautiful
story in that way. What I do think is interesting
is um. And again we haven't read the book, So
if you have read the book and you have a
more detailed, nuanced take, I'm just going off of the

(28:18):
academic pieces I was able to find about the adaptation
of this. And although Fanni Flag is an openly queer writer,
there seems to be a lot of debate on UM.
I mean, for sure, in the movie it is coding, coding,
coding till the end of time, coding. In the book,
there does seem to be a little bit of debate.

(28:40):
It is definitely less coded, but it is also never
explicitly stated. There are some fans of this book who
say it is not coded. It is very clear, but
the wording that Fannie Flag uses is a little obscure,
so there are some people that argue that it's still coded.
I don't know. I have read the book. It's my

(29:01):
understanding that the word lesbian never appears in the book,
but other pretty specific indicators that we'll explicitly say that
they are a couple who are in love and romantically
involved are very present in the book. So there's again
the debate gets kind of really nuanced because people who

(29:23):
are fans of this book are like, go super hard
and I was like in some forums and yes, so
from just what I read, it seems to me like
it is not coded in the book. But they also
like people who are like, well, they never like kiss
There's not a lot of physical interaction or affection shown

(29:44):
in the book, and so some people are like, it's
not it's not explicit enough because they are not like,
you know, they're they're a married couple that aren't kissing. Hello,
you know. So there, there's all that. But there are
these very like to me, like very romantic passages that
I was like, oh, read this book. Um, there here's
a quote from the book. Oh and also the word

(30:04):
like wife, girlfriend, partner that never comes up. Uh. They
are pretty exclusively called friends and business partners in the book.
So you know, if you're a fan of the book,
let us know. So, okay, when Igy this is from
a scene when ig Um is upset that Ruth is
leaving to go Mary Frank Bennett towards the beginning of

(30:25):
the book and she says, oh, no, you don't love him,
you love me, you know you do. So it is
it is way more explicit of like, don't marry him,
stay here, be my girlfriend. But so, wow, that's very
different than the movie. Yes, yes, so I think it's
really interesting, like an interesting case study that Fannie Flagg

(30:46):
wrote both that passage and this movie where the relationship
is presented very differently. Ver that said, this movie did
win a glad Award for portraying a lesbian relationship. So
it was I think clear to queer audiences what this

(31:10):
movie was. But it isn't explicitly stated, even less so
in in the movie than in the book. But it
also it's I don't know, it's kind of it's it
was an interesting watch because like watching it, you're just like, oh, yeah,
they're obviously in love and they're like, you know, this
is like this longstanding you know, marriage, they have a

(31:33):
child together, like it's they raised a child together, they
run a business together. Very yeah, but but it, I mean,
it's coded. I couldn't remember looking back, and when I
rewatched it, I couldn't remember whether they ever kissed and
the time when they would have kissed. I think is
when they were like drunk and lying by the river
bank and talking about how she's going to probably have

(31:54):
to get married soon and they know yeah, I mean,
I mean she kisses around the cheek and then Ruth
does and then jumps into the water and it's all
very oh my god, it's it's lovely, but but the
relationship is so deep even though there is i mean
physical they're like they have a food fight, and that
food fight was the director, director John Avnett saying I

(32:19):
think on the DVD commentary that he wasn't he intended
for that food fight to be seen as symbolic of
love making yeah, which which I do think is first
of all, it's like, um, sir, how are we supposed
to know that it is? It is like a really
sweet scene, and I love Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary

(32:40):
Louise Parker plays so well off of each other. I
like fully by that they are in love and they're
like it's so sweet. But it's like, if you're a viewer,
in're like they were in a food fight. That was
not It wasn't. They weren't like, you know, like, it
wasn't that was him like, that's sex. You're like, sir,

(33:02):
have you heard of sex before? In any case, if
you view if you know that that is how he
was thinking of that scene. It is kind of interesting
to watch because right after they are like caught having
a food fight, the cop friend comes over who is
pursuing Igy and says like, this isn't right. Women shouldn't

(33:24):
be doing stuff like this. And if you're reading the
scene as a food fight, it's a very strange comment
to make. But but if you're reading it as, uh,
they have a relationship with each other, I do believe
that that's how he viewed that scene. I just think
that it's weird that he thinks that that that is
an extremely clear read for a viewer, because I don't

(33:47):
think it was. But I love that scene. It's very sweet.
I love I love them. I just think all the
all the language in the film that refers to ig
is both it's like ninety nine one and then very
Jim Crow South like forties fifties language around like she's different,

(34:11):
she's a little weird, she's not like other girls. You know,
she wears pants, Like there's just a lot of like hilariously,
you know, skirting around the fact that she's gay and
pretty much everyone knows it. It is funny. There was
a lot of elements of Igy's character that reminded me
of Katherine Hepburn characters. Um where, like so many Katherine

(34:33):
Hepburn characters were just thoroughly, thoroughly thoroughly queer coded, and
it was through like the tomboy aesthetic. It was through
like all these coded phrases that yeah, that are just
frequently used to just avoid letting a queer character be
a queer character. I also found an interesting Mary Stewart

(34:53):
Masterson apparently is the realist one of all time, because
I was able to find an interview that he did
in with queer writer Kate Arthur, who also wrote a
really great piece about this movie and just breaking down
what it meant for its time. But she does a
great interview with Mary Stuart Masterson and it straight up asks,

(35:15):
like you know, she says, because she loves this movie.
Kate Arthur is like, this is a like a movie
for lesbians, like don't you agree, essentially, and Mary Stewart
Masterson responds with like some kind of like righteous frustration
and says that okay, so I'm just reading from Kate
Arthur's piece here. The movie is, as Masterson once told me,

(35:36):
quote unquote redacted. So Mary Stuart Masonson says, quote it
wasn't a love scene, but they were like clearly a
love relationship type of fight or jealousy. There was some
more sensual kind of stuff in there. We were clearly
playing that. So they're deleted scenes from this movie that
make the relationship more explicitly clear, even though it seems

(35:56):
like much like in the book the language of you
are my wife, this is our marriage that was certainly
not going to be in the movie, but like relationship
scenes were in this movie and then later cut. She
goes on to say, at that time it was just
about friendship. I think at the time when it was released,

(36:18):
if it had been labeled frankly that way, I think
the fear was maybe that it would have alienated all
the people, older Southern women who had those kinds of permanent,
lifelong friendships, the aunts who lived together but never married,
would have been alienated from watching it and allowing themselves
to love the characters. I think I think that they
might have been afraid. So that was Mary Stuart Masterson's take,

(36:39):
and she is just generally frustrated that they weren't allowed
to be in a relationship, because she says, Mary Stewart
Masterson and Mary Louise Parker were like, yeah, we were
the characters were in a relationship, and we played it
that way right. So I don't know though that responds
from Mary Stewart Masterson, like I appreciate her frustration, but
her thinking it's going to alienate like old southern aunts

(37:02):
who lived together romantically. That threw me a little bit,
like I don't think that's who it's going to alienate, Like,
if anything, they would be the people who would potentially
connect most to this movie. Like, if it's going to
alienate anyone, it would be homophobes, which in was a

(37:23):
large portion of the population. So like, to me, it's
clear that the movie was trying to play it safe
and appeal to a larger audience by making the relationship
between it Gy and Ruth way more like subtextual and implicit.
The movie is very feathered edges. I mean it sounds

(37:44):
the story is cool. I bet the book is way
better because the movie version is super hollywood ified, like
you know, que music and yeah, We're not going to
get too deep. We don't know the relationship. Like, it's
just it's not edgy. It's probably not what would have
even though it's igy, but not edge um, not what
might have done to the story exactly. So going even

(38:07):
deeper on what so, I was like, Okay, well, how
does Fanny Flagg feel about this? Because she wrote a
queer novel that does you know, goes all the way
up to the line of saying, these are this is
the relationship, this is a marriage that takes place. How
does she feel about the changes that were made to
the movie? We know movies get written all the time
and ship gets cut out, and so it's not like

(38:29):
this is you know, her complete script that was shot, right,
But she again kind of surprises you with what her
answer is. She she has said kind of throughout that
she was basing ruthan Igy partially on relatives in her
own life. She's from the South. She said it was
based at least the idea for them having a business

(38:50):
and running a business came from her family and not
a queer relationship. But she's she's a queer writer writing
about a queer relationship. So in any case, Uh. Someone
asked her this question, like, how do you feel about
the relationship being far less explicit, and she says to
Entertainment Weekly, quote, it's a mainstream movie. People are taking children,

(39:12):
they're taking old people. It speaks to everybody. That's why
it's wonderful. They can make up their own minds. Which
is very much the vibe of the reviews of this movie,
because I was curious about, like, well, how did an
audience receive it was your average you know, film bro
Journalists just kind of like not picking up on it,
like what was the vibe? Almost every review I read,

(39:34):
we're well aware they're like, oh, this is a queer relationship,
but they kind of tow the line in the same
way that Fanny Flag does and says, well, you can
see this as a relationship or not. Either way. I
liked the movie, but it's very like wishy washy in
the way that it's approached. Um, you would think that

(39:55):
would have just dropped after they didn't win an oscar
and feel like, you know what, fuck you, it was
gay the whole time. Yeah, there's like this review from
thy Ber that says, uh, it's also an Entertainment Weekly.
He says like in the novel Tomatoes, uses female friendship
as a metaphor for something taboo. But the story is
in no way diminished if you choose not to buy

(40:16):
into it. There are hints of earthly desires. Nevertheless, I'm like, Okay,
the most virginal thing I've ever read in my whole life.
But but, but, like that is kind of the tone
of how this movie was received by critics. Of like,
I really liked it. It seems like there's a queer relationship.
I didn't think about it too hard night night, Like

(40:36):
that was just I had. I have a couple additional
quotes from Fannie Flag about the movie, saying that quote,
it's not a political film at all. It's about the
possibilities of people being sweet and loving each other. Another quote,
It's a story about love and friendship. The sexuality is unimportant.
So but even outside of the queer relationship, it's very explicit.

(41:00):
We have political film, like and a book. So yes,
on a number of levels, Yeah, exactly. I'm the most
interested in what this queer relationship meant and means for
Evelyn in the eighties, Like what Evelyn if Ninny told her,
Like yeah, so then we slept together, you know, would

(41:21):
she be like you, you know, when she freaked out? Like,
I'm curious in the book how they play it for Evelyn.
You know, is Ninny sort of dampening down that part
for Evelyn? Does it say anything about Evelyn's sexuality and
her relationship with Ed? I have to be honest, I
kind of like don't care that much about Evelyn or

(41:45):
her life. I do. I'm like a fan of that character,
and we can we can talk about her and a bit.
But like, yeah, that is that is something I hadn't
fully considered because like Evelyn does go through this sort
of like liberation, and like, is that due in part
to kind of learning about this queer relationship and because

(42:06):
a lot of what I G does in addition to
having a woman as her lover, Um, she's challenging the
status quo in many other ways as well, Like you know,
how she presents herself, how she dresses, she doesn't go
to church, she drinks, she gambles, she plays baseball, she fishes,
She does a lot of things that would have been

(42:27):
considered unladylike by like polite society and especially in this
era and especially in this region. But yeah, she's like,
she's like funk all that, I'm gonna do whatever the
hell I want. I'm cool. That is an aspect of
her character that I really appreciated. I love her, I
love she reminds me of a Katherine Hepburn character. But
the twist is she doesn't have to marry any old

(42:50):
guy at the end, like she doesn't have to marry
Carrie Grant, I mean even down to the and this
is like a trope that I'm kind of less fond of,
but it does kind of line up with that Katherine
Hepburn parallel I'm trying to draw her of, Like she
is like the wealthy daughter of a white family that
understands like the working man, and that that is like

(43:13):
another hallmark of that kind of character archetype that I
g kind of plays to a t here where she
does come from a lot of privilege, but she's she's
not like the other girls. It's very is yes. Well,
what I also what I think is particularly interesting about

(43:33):
this whole situation and adaptation and what gets omitted and
not is that like if this movie was like almost
made like twenty years from now and it was the
exact same thing, we would almost. I think we could
like look at it, like, wow, look how normalized their
lesbian relationship is. Like, look, they're just their beloved members
of the community. Everyone loves them right like and like

(43:57):
by not identifying, like not being like and they're definitely
lesbians together kind of normalizes it. But it's not what's
happening in the movie because in the context of when
this came out in nine, audiences were so conditioned to
expect hetero relationships between assists Hett Man and cis hette

(44:17):
woman in mainstream Hollywood movies, like, audiences were not at
all conditioned to expect queer relationships. We were so starved
for queer visibility on screen that like media needed to
then and still needs to actually identify characters as queer
so that we have that clear visibility and we can

(44:40):
we as audience members, know that about those characters. Again,
we're hopefully we will move to a place at some
point down the road where there is more normalization. But
but that's a really interesting thing that you that that's
a really interesting point right there, because here you have
this queer women woman writing the story that she she's like,

(45:01):
I want this to be universal, and we're talking about
it on a podcast about the Bechtel test, which never
gets past in movies, and now it's like, well, can
it only be past if two women are in a
romantic relationship with one? Like, is that is that the minus?
You know in the mathematic equation. It's like unless they're fucking,
it doesn't count, you know what I mean? Like, well,

(45:23):
the context of the Bechtel test, which first appeared in
Alison Bechdel's comic Dikes to Watch Out for Her, characters
were talking about how they saw so little visibility of
lesbians on screen and movies that they had to imagine
that two women talking to each other about something other
than a man. If that happened in the movie, they'd

(45:45):
be like, well, now we can ship them together as lovers.
And that's what spawned the Bechtel tests, which is so
why Yeah, It's like, is maybe one of our only
movies we've ever covered that connects it pretty exactly of
like this is what the fact was actually supposed to
be about. This is also like a kind of a

(46:06):
big cultural moment for movies of this nature and this
exact framing of like friendship, friendship, friendship, it's just friends
because Delmott Louise comes out just I think a few
months before Fried Green Tomatoes. So ninety one is huge
for movies that have a huge cult following today and
pretty significant queer following that. At the time, We're very

(46:28):
framed of like friends friends, which well, it is interesting
because I think that the framing device is truly just
two women becoming friends in a way that I found
to be like really effective and like lovely and sweet
of like, oh these are it's an intergenerational friendship. They're

(46:48):
able to help each other through different phases of life
and struggling with aging and all this stuff, and like
that was so beautiful, But it is like frustrating to
see what is pretty clearly a queer relationship kind of
not not that like friendship is a reduct but like
when you're in a relationship with someone, you don't want
someone to be like that's your friend, that's your business partner,

(47:10):
Like no, this is my I'm raising a child. All
you do is fry tomatoes together. We're doing We're rearing
a child. We're not just frying tomatoes here, Like uh yeah, well,
I kind of wanted to bring up the haze production code.
It's not the most applicable thing to this movie, but

(47:30):
I think we see remnants of it in movies long
after the code was lifted. So just a little background
from someone who has not one but two degrees in film,
Thank you very much. I hate to bring it up.
I feel eighteen again and I was like, oh, the
haze cut. So the Production Code was a set of

(47:50):
censorship rules more or less that films had to abide
by in order to get any kind of wide theatrical release.
This was enforced from four to I believe nineteen sixty
eight um and the rules where such things as like
there could be no graphic violence, there could be no swearing,
there could be no overt sexuality. When it was lifted

(48:11):
in nineteen sixty eight, it was replaced by the mp
A rating system, which is like the rated G rated PG,
rated r PG thirteen came later, etcetera. This is according
to again our our favorite scholarly website Wikipedia, it says
in terms of homosexuality, while the code did not explicitly
state that depictions of homosexuality were against the code, the

(48:33):
code bar the depiction of any kind of sexual perversion
or deviance, which homosexuality fell under at the time, gay
characters on screen also came to be represented as villains
or victims who commit crimes due to their homosexuality. So
I feel like part of it is just kind of
the cultural climate around queerness. I mean, during this era,

(48:58):
as well as many years before and after this, most
filmmakers who have historically been since white men, either had
no interest in including queer characters or felt like it
was too big of a risk to include queer characters
because of the rampant queer phobia in our society. Even

(49:18):
Fanny Flag is referencing like this movie is for everyone,
and the subtext being well, like a queer relationship can't
be in a movie for everyone because it is something
that is other. I don't want to dig into her
personal life. It does seem because she dated another really
famous lesbian writer who did not could anything. It seemed

(49:40):
like this was kind of a tendency in her work
of wanting to write in a universal way, but the
definition of universal kind of ended up mothering her own experiences, um,
which isn't fair And yeah, I mean like could have
been her also caving to societal pressures to con form

(50:00):
to heteron normative standards. Or maybe she did try to
push back more and just wasn't able to get results. Yeah,
I mean, And in that same really good BuzzFeed essay
that I'll refer you to again, it's called why Fried
Green Tomatoes as a lesbian classic? Yes, lesbian that's the title.
I read that too, but um Kate Arthur is also

(50:23):
putting this in francesk you also kind of references because
it applies in a number of ways in this movie.
But like, this was a movie that came out like
at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and when you know,
the first Bush administration was completely uh completely ignoring an

(50:44):
epidemic that was ravaging queer communities. And this was a
queer story, however, coded that essentially outside of the whole
cancer death ended well and ended beautifully and they were
accepted by their commune nity and on I mean, and
we haven't even started to talk about the race plot

(51:05):
line of this movie. But you know, black Man is
brought to court and he is successful and in beloved
by the community and like just it's societally speaking kind
of like a fairy tale, especially for when this hotal
fairy tale, like where and when this takes place, you
have to imagine none of this would go the way

(51:26):
it goes. But but I wasn't framing it, and like,
oh yeah, is especially for like in a movie market
where there are is not certainly no like lesbian relationships
being released in on a massive scale, and to like,
this movie was so successful it made its budget back
thirteen times or something like that, and it kind of

(51:50):
like frames everything in this like and it all basically
ended well and everyone had a beautiful relationship and except
for Ruth went on to Live Lovely Live, and they
met Kathy Bates. Maybe because Jessica Tandy is Mary Stewart Masterson.
That is definitely not in the book, and that is confusing.

(52:10):
That twist ending I thought was excellent. I mean, there's
just like that layer of the plot of Ninny being Igy,
Igy being Ninny is so good And I just want
to sequel where we find out what happened to Igy
in between all that time after Ruth dies, but before
we meet her in the retirement home. Yeah, yeah, that's
definitely it's made. It's there's a clear distinction in the

(52:32):
book that ig is not Ninny. The fact that it's
suggested at in the movie is something that I think
a lot of the fans of the book absolutely hate,
but not all, but readers aren't better than watchers, everybody.
Just the Titanic reference, I thought the second I saw
that like reveal of like, it was like, the woman

(52:53):
in the picture is me? That is so what happens?
It's the woman in the picture here was her? Okay, fine,
she has a picture of Mary Louise Parker on her
desk whatever. Like it didn't bother me. But I also
if I had read that book and was a big
fan of that book, I would have been really bothered
by that change, for sure. I don't know. My main take, Like,
there's my takeaway from this movie is I still have

(53:16):
a crush on Mary Louise Parker after all these years. Uh,
she is so beautiful and so funny, and I am
in love with her. We got to take a quick
break and then we'll come right back and we're back. Uh,

(53:37):
one quick thing and then and then we'll move on that.
The one other movie change that they very explicitly made
for the adaptation that I'm like, are you serious was
that they changed the introduction of Ruth is She's introduced
as a love interest of doomed brother Buddy who gets
hit by the train. In the book, I think in
a way that takes a layer of coding, a way

(54:00):
she is not introduced as like, you know, a girl
who is interested in a guy she's She's introduced as like,
here's a girl who's staying with us for the summer,
and that's just it. But in the but the movie
kind of goes out of its way to say that
she is interested in men uh the first time we
see her. So yeah, I guess according to the movie

(54:21):
she is bisexual but also straight, but also question mark
because it's for everyone, it's annoying. I read too that
in the book we have a clear understanding of why
she marries Frank Bennett, which is that she and her
mother needed his financial support or else they would have
probably had to experience homelessness. Because this part of the

(54:45):
story takes place during the Depression, so a lot of
people had fallen on very hard financial times. So Ruth
in the book marries Frank because she needed a financial
support system. Another titana parallel. Yeah, they could have given
I think Ruth a little bit more backstory. Iggy had
so much backstory and Ruth was just kind of appeared
in the movie. Um, and that would have been a

(55:07):
nice I love when Iggy is fishing and Ruth is like,
come on, spend time with me. It'll be fine, and
it's like fine, and then they fall in and she's like, fine,
get on a train with me. We're gonna be socialists
redistributing the well. And then Mary Louise Parker gets all
wet and it's just a good movie. Um yeah, okay,

(55:30):
so uh this will sort of bring us into the
next area of discussion. Is another thing that is done
in the book that is very Hollywood whitewashed in the
movie is in the book. And again I was not
able to find a ton of hyper specific details. Caitly,
let me know if you have more than I do.
But in the book, the black characters in this community

(55:53):
and in the lives of Ruth and Igy have actual
stories and there I mean, they just are more characters
than they are in this movie. Because there are so
many scenes in this movie where black characters are actively
involved in present where they do not have dialogue, where

(56:14):
you are not really given a look into what they're thinking,
how they're thinking. There is at least one character from
the book that doesn't even end up in the movie
at all. And yeah, I was just I mean, especially
when it's like you cast Cecily Tyson and you're not
gonna you're not gonna give her anything to do when

(56:35):
she can do anything. It was. Yeah, so this this
movie is like heavily whitewash. Yeah, the one thing she
does ends up happening off screen for the most and
the best. Yeah, this is kind of a classic case
of a story that is about white people in which
there are a few black characters who are kind of
there to serve as scenery or to help and serve

(56:59):
the white characters. We never learn anything about their lives
in the movie. I don't think we even learn Sipsy's
name until like an hour into the movie. Yeah, you don't,
it's not I don't think it's established that Sipsy is
Big George's mother until the very end, Like, so we
don't even know what their relationship is exactly. She's his

(57:21):
adopted mother. And then there's also a sister in law
who doesn't appear in the movie. There there's like a
whole family They have a whole family dynamic in the
movie and they're sorry. In the book that is just
kind of done away with in the movie entirely. Yes,
it is annoying that it's not actually more present, but
like they are pivotal in the actual like what happens,

(57:44):
the killing, the sauce eating, the cannibalism, it's pretty cool,
which makes it even more frustrating to me that they
are in spite of the fact that, like it's clear
that the material being adapted, Big George and Sipsy are
really active characters, but in movie you don't actually get
to see them doing much. It's a plot point that
you don't see what what Sipsy does. It's a really

(58:07):
weird storytelling choice to make an extremely pivotal moment in
the story of of like Sipsy killing Frank Bennett. So
have her be, have her character be very important in
that regard, but prior to that, barely. I mean, she
will be in the background, she'll be she's present, but

(58:28):
she's not she's ever given the focus. They're putting Cecily
ti Uson in the background too many so much. There
is one scene in particular where I feel like these
problems are especially on display, and again we want to
hear from our black listeners of of what you made
of every choice this movie made as well. Um, but

(58:50):
there is the sequence where basically we we find out
that Frank, Ruth's ex husband is in the KKK and
that KKK is inciting violence against Big George, also right
outside the store, but it takes Mary Supermasters in a
very long time to hear it for some reason. It
is happening literally right outside the window. But whatever. Uh,

(59:12):
so we it's just this whole scene that is pivoting
around KKK violence that somehow ends up becoming about the
relationship of the white women in the story. Like our
our takeaway from a KKK Violet scene is that we
are very concerned with the personal lives of these white women.

(59:34):
I love those characters, but that just felt so it's
the hollywood ization erasure. Also, I mean, I just think,
like in the same ways that this film sort of
appeals to people's homophobia and like sort of dances around
it and coddles it, it's sort of caddles people's racism too,
Like we're not going to have these characters say or
do much more. In fact, all they're doing really is

(59:56):
being like super ride or dive for I g and
Ruth for no reason other than they're employed by them.
I mean it seems right, but it's like, but would
but we still will put our lives on the line.
You know, Big George is beaten and whipped by the KKK.
But and you kind of assume it's like, well, yes,
he loves Igy and Ruth. Right. We are told constantly

(01:00:19):
this great relationship that Igy has with Big George, but
we're not shown it. No real estate was dedicated in
the story in the movie Virgin even have a conversation
that's just the two bairly, yeah, or if it is,
it's just like a very impassing like you know, how's
the barbecue today? You know, yeah, it's just it's not

(01:00:39):
it's very inconsequential. I thought Big George got her out
of trouble once, like he goes to meet with her,
am I misremembering their Well, here's a troubling scene to
me where after ig has discovered that Ruth's husband is
abusive and she basically goes to rescue her. She brings
Big George and her brother Julian, and they show up

(01:01:00):
and you know, Frank is being an abusive asshole, and
Julian the brother says, you know, I wouldn't do that
if I were you, you might upset Big George and
he's crazy. And then it cuts to Big George pulling
out a knife, and that to me was like, because
there's been so much propaganda perpetuated by white people throughout

(01:01:21):
the centuries painting black men as brutes and as violent,
like perpetrators of violence, and for them for him to
like use that and be like, he's gonna kill you.
Look how you know big and scary he is is
basically what's being implied in this scene. I was like,
oh no, right again, this, this book and movie take

(01:01:44):
place in this kind of wilful fantasy version of the
Depression era South, but this is the Jim Crow era.
Like there are so many and it's it's lightly referenced
by characters were supposed to like, Uh, there's was that guy,
that guy Grady. Uh Are we supposed to like him?
I think we are. I think we are supposed to

(01:02:07):
like him, which is wild because he is homophobic and racist,
uh and a cop? He's a cop. And then there's
also a reference to like and you and your boys
when you put on you you know, your sheets and
you walk around, she's like, you're in the KKK and
he's like shrude, like Grady's also in the KKs K. Yes,

(01:02:29):
but but it's like, uh Igy hangs out with them
a lot, they do a talent show together. So I
don't think that we're supposed to hate him because no, no,
we're supposed to like him. Yeah, they were supposed to
like him, and so that is so. I mean, I
guess maybe that is one of the more realistic characters.
But it's it's it's frustrated. I mean, and again it's

(01:02:53):
the author of this book and both of the writers
of this movie. Everyone, I mean, there is there are
not many black people behind the camera for a movie
that is trying to make a statement on race. Uh
Fannie Flag is a white writer, Carol Sobieski is a
white writer. And I was not able to find a
ton of writing to how race is handled in this movie.

(01:03:16):
But it is deeply Hollywood. It ignores the historical context
in the same way that the queer storyline ignores the
historical context, which is kind of seems like it's very
intentionally done to give you a story book ish ending too.
I mean, Alabama in the ninet thirties, not a place
known for its tolerance. Yeah, if it didn't gloss over
those two things, it would be a completely different story. Yeah,

(01:03:39):
it would not have I mean, it doesn't have a
happy ending, but it would have even less of one.
And the catharsis of I mean it is movie was
the catharsis of an evil KKK abusive husband. Like name
one thing that Frank isn't He's every bad thing pat

(01:04:00):
into one character. It is very satisfying to see him
get turned into sauce, right, so, which so and or
not see him but imagine right, So in every way
it's satisfying to see him, like really defeated. There's no
doubt that this movie wants him dead. But in order

(01:04:22):
to get there, there is so much context that is
just ignored, skimmed over, and it happens kind of at
the expense of us getting to know the black characters
in this movie. I feel like it is like a
problem that starts foundationally with the book. Even though the book,
you know, we know more about them, we know more

(01:04:44):
about their character journey, but it's you know, everyone involved
in the telling of this story for the most part,
is a white person, so they do seem it's very
much like uh, backdrop, hey, backdrop characters, and even though
they're pivotal and what happens in the story and kind
of a comfortable second class citizen ship, you know, not

(01:05:05):
they're not comfortable, but like the story is comfortable with
the second class citizenship, which which is I would say
probably historically accurate for that moment. Like, I'm not the
idea that some a white woman like ig would be
both friends with a cop who also sometimes moonlights in
the KKK. But he's not that much of a dipshit

(01:05:27):
like Frank is, but he has a crush on her,
right and is homies with like you know, the help
quote unquote right, Like that feels real for something like
I feel like there might have been many many Iges
who are like, well, I'm not going to treat the
person who works in my house as inhuman, but I
also have to like get along in a small town

(01:05:49):
with this cop who does something I don't agree with,
you know what I mean? Yeah, I think. I mean
people contain multitudes, and sometimes those multitudes are extremely country victory.
I'm not interested in the multitudes of a racist cop
like I mean, I wasn't alive in the nineteen thirties spread,

(01:06:09):
but I have to imagine that that wouldn't have been
uncommon where it's weird because like among her things that
like show her kind of challenging the status quo. In
addition to you know, she dresses in like kind of
masculine clothing and stuff like that. She employs black people
in her cafe and has a like black section in

(01:06:31):
her restaurant, and you know, Grady comments on that and
he's like, well, some people around her you don't like
it that you serve black people at your restaurant. And
she's like, well those people can go funk off. Um. So,
like she's shown as being an ally I guess by
nineteen thirties standards, but I mean those standards were just
you know, not enough it. Yeah, And I just I mean,

(01:06:56):
I know, I keep coming back to this point, but
the fact that they if you haven't had the pleasure
of reading about Cecily Tyson's life, first of all, she's alive,
she's ninety five years old. She is but an award
away from an egot. She's like a true legend. And
the fact that she is like she was so well
established when this movie came out, and it was a

(01:07:18):
big deal that she did the movie, and then they
gave her nothing to do basically for the whole movie.
Um as an injustice that I will not recover from.
She's also still working, right, She's on How to Get
Away with Murder? Yeah, yeah, well she was. Yeah, I
don't think that shows on anymore. But what I mean
it was she she is, um, she's thriving. She was

(01:07:39):
also in The Help. She wasn't The Wealth, which we oh,
let's uh, we can't cover that movie ever, we probably
probably probably will, But I mean it goes to show
that like prolific black actors such as her have to
take roles such as the one in this movie, such
as the one in The Help. Is that's often all

(01:08:01):
that's afforded to black actors is these underwritten or trophy
black characters, which is tragic. Even though she had a
really small part, is sipsy, she crushed it like she did.
She did a she did a good job, ear right,
she needed way more screen time, right, I mean, I
feel like in the movie we just truly don't know

(01:08:22):
enough about her. Where Big George, what we do know
about him? Is that he has worked in a service
role for Iggy's family for a really long time and
then he kind of just goes with her through life
and is with her because it's like, if I g
is at home, he's working for that family. If ig
is running a restaurant, he works at that restaurant, like

(01:08:45):
which is also kind of never explained. It's like he
works where I Gy is. And and going back to
Cicely Tyson, I she had been nominated for an Academy Award,
and just I mean, there is so there. I'm gonna
reference uh video that I need to pull it up

(01:09:07):
and remember the name of the YouTuber. But there's a
really good YouTube channel that I like that examines best
Actress oscar races year to year UM that has done
a lot of work in examining especially when women of
color are nominated for Academy Awards. Uh, their careers go
very differently than white actress who is nominated and then

(01:09:28):
gets gets rules, worles, roles, world roles for abnominated, not
necessarily winning, just nominated, not even necessarily winning. So Cecily Tyson,
she hadn't won an OSCAR at this point, but she
had been nominated and the fact that she can, you know,
achieve that level of prestige and still be relegated to
such a small kind of like there's not much for

(01:09:48):
her to do in this movie. I don't like it.
It's in conclusion. Humph uh. Yeah, I think we need
to reboot once again. She's she's still around, right, Sipsy
back in not a reboot? Remake is remake? Yeah? Do
Sipsy justice this time? Yeah? Okay, but we haven't talked

(01:10:11):
about Kathy Baits yet. No. Yes, that's the other big thing.
So with I love Kathy Bates. I do like Evalence
character a lot. I enjoy her evolution over the course
of the movie, her character arc because she basically goes
from a like polite, subservience southern woman to like learning

(01:10:35):
to be empowered in learning independence, and this is happening
while she is hearing this story from Ninny, So it's
like learning about like becoming friends with Ninny and learning
about a g and Ruth is like part of what
empowers her to enact change in her own life. Yeah,

(01:10:55):
take charge. There's just some great scenes. You know, the
scene where she is imagining wearing all cellophane to her husband, Like,
how did I not remember that? But I remembered the
cannibalis of it. That was incredible. I will say standards,
watching a white woman freak out in a grocery store

(01:11:17):
brings up a lot of Karen images or a new
continue I was like, is this the origin story of Karen? Like,
you know, they too much to Wanda, too much Cathy baits. No,
but uh, she's going off on other you know, younger
hotter ladies, Karen's or Becky's. I guess it's kind of

(01:11:39):
the next generation of Karen, but she is, Yeah, she's
going up against but that that like, you know, it's
the eighties feminism one, and yet I still make my
husband dinner every day and he grabs it and sits
down in front of the TV and doesn't pay attention
to me, and there's no love in our lationship anymore.

(01:12:00):
Like I was feeling that, you know, she's trying, she's
going to these classes, she still thinks it's her and
then she just stops giving a fuck, and that's when
everything's wonderful, and she starts to like, yeah, I don't know,
she just kind of takes charge, you know, she's just
like this is a part of who I am, and
I'm going to embrace it. Um and yeah, I like

(01:12:21):
the like again the evolution of what we see where
at first she's taking these classes to help her with
her marriage, which of course she as the woman, is
expected to do all the emotional labor of fixing anything
about their marriage, and then he gets to just like
sit at home and watch baseball all day. Then her

(01:12:42):
friend Missy is like, screw this, we need to wait.
What does she say? She's like, what we really need
is an assertive training class for Southern women. But for you, Evelyn,
that's a paradox because you're living in the dark ages
and everyone's like, oh no. So then they start to
go to ease. I guess these assertiveness training classes for

(01:13:03):
Southern women, and these are kind of cartoony where the
woman's like, okay, now take off your underwear everyone and
look at your vagin. I remember this scene from being
a little kid. I was like, what that's a thing,
But like, I mean, I don't know, was that a thing?
I didn't I think I mentioned this really. I thought
that the way that the other women in that class

(01:13:24):
were characterized was like kind of cartoony and not super fair.
It did feel like they were so aggro And then
I think Kathy Bates's character is supposed to be the
voice of reason of like, well, I'm all for feminism,
but this is a bit much like that is kind
of I choose to read it as because Kathy Bass's
character is so repressed that it's going to feel very

(01:13:46):
cartoony and absurd to like get to know your body
and to learn to be empowered at first. But then
she does a one e D eventually where she's like
she gets a tiny like I'm going to shoot some
it like yeah, I'm so glad that Frank died. I'm like,
fuck all the life beaters and their genitals should be
shot off. Like She's going on this tirade to Ninny,

(01:14:09):
and Ninny's like, oh no, what have I done. She's like,
oh my god, she stresses Ninny out. I like that, Ninny. Uh.
And some of it is like a little bit like uh,
I feel like advice you would get from a grandma,
which makes sense because that is Ninny as a grandma.
But I love that there is I mean, their whole
storyline is just like two women at different phases of

(01:14:30):
aging being comfortable with themselves, and like Ninnie offers her
wisdom about like, oh, have you considered like taking hormones
if that is going to make your process of going
through menopause easier? Try that? And Cathy is like, oh,
going through the change, going through the change. And then

(01:14:51):
she said something that sounded so much like my grandma,
which she was just like, Oh, you're unhappy with your life,
put on some makeup, get a job healthier. I was like, okay, Grandma,
but like, but but it's your hormone, and it's very
well intentioned. My mom would be a different person without hormones.
Less hormones. I am not looking forward to the change.

(01:15:14):
I'm going to need all the hormones I need. But
I like that there's no the way they talk about it.
There's no even though Kathy Bates's character is like not
comfortable having these conversations at first, there's not like really
any stigma around it. They're just talking about it. If
Cathy Bates doesn't know something, she says so or she's

(01:15:36):
like oh what, and then Ninny just explains what she means,
and then Cathy Bates says, oh, and like Natty is
never trying to make her feel bad about herself and
she's so comfortable and who she is. That's exactly right,
Like it's it's less an exploration. I mean, it is
very gendered, but it also is just like, oh, just

(01:15:56):
being comfortable with who you are and finding yourself off
and realizing you're you don't have to be the perfect
wife and it's not on you to do all that
emotional labor. Super liberating. I wish she dumped Ed, but
I know Ed was not gonna Do you think Ed
was going to improve? No way, He's not gonna redeem himself.

(01:16:17):
I like when he threw the sushi, Oh yeah, Oh
my god, that's that's my favorite scene. He's like, what
the hell is this and she's like, it's a low
cholesterol meal, Happy Valentine. He's like, are you trying to
kill me? And then she's like, if I was going
to kill you, i'd use my hands. And she's like
bouncing around on this little exercise trampoline. It was perfect.

(01:16:37):
I really enjoyed the guy who played her husband. I
really enjoyed his performance. I've never seen him before. He's
been done a lot of character acting, but I mean
I thought he was last He gave a great performance.
He knew exactly what he who he was playing. Best
line is one of the best lines, how in the

(01:17:00):
hell do you hit a car three times on accident? Accident?
I really like that. I mean that scene, and that
scene is like kind of a little cartoony and portrays uh,
younger womenist just evil shrews that will just whip their
head around and be like deal with an old lady,

(01:17:22):
which I have never seen happen, but uh, you know
it for for for her character growth, the caredness of
it all is very present, but it is also kind
of satisfying to watch her deliver that weird like that
smug insurance line of like she's like, I'm older and
I've got more insurance. Now you're being classics, Cathy Bates,

(01:17:44):
But I get what they were going for. I was
on board just because of how like Kathy Bates can
just give the line read of a lifetime and then
do something fun and like, I'm never not going to
love that when she says, um, I'm too young to
be old and I'm too old to be young, it's
like I already feel I felt that so hard to

(01:18:06):
And it's weird though, because when I first watched Us
as a like ten year old in a way I mean, God,
that an't I mean, yes, the movie does a lot
of things poorly, but representing women in their forties and
in their eighties, it did a pretty good job. And
it was like, oh, that's interesting. Oh that's a whole
stage of life. A oh marriage, not gonna do that? Oops?

(01:18:27):
Did it um? Then? Undid it um? But like there's
a lot of that that I think sticks with you
from a younger age. As a young woman watching this,
I think, uh, it's nice. We don't have a lot
of that now. Definitely not in the early nineties. And
I don't know now, like what if what are some
solid like women in their forties films Like I didn't

(01:18:48):
see Steel Magnolia's then, but I saw Beaches We'll look Back.
Definitely problematic, but forty year old women centered. And I'm like,
I don't know, movies now are like you're just supposed
to be twenty eight forever, right right? I mean book
Club that's but that's women in their seventies. It's like

(01:19:09):
between I I don't think that there's still not a
lot of like I mean, it's like it maybe an
indie movies, it's more but but a lot of times
it's I think that there is I wish I had
more like receipts to back this point up, but maybe
maybe you'll both see what I'm saying. I think that
there is a lot that there is like a lot
of like we see a lot of actresses over forty,

(01:19:32):
but they're very rarely playing over where they're like, wow,
this is so cool, she's over forty and working, but
she's playing a twenty eight year old, Like, so, you know,
women being allowed to play roles their age is still
I don't. I think that we're still there's a lot
to be desired. I mean, yeah, they're just hardly any

(01:19:54):
roles written for women characters who are forty and above.
So the fact, yeah, the fact that like this movie's
focuses on two of them, they should have focused on
Cecily Tyson too, But whatever, where not whatever, I don't
hung up. I just okay, um and and again this
is and I feel like it proved every time we

(01:20:16):
cover a movie featuring a first wives Club is another
example of like a movie that features women over forty,
and these movies always do super well because people want
like older women want to see themselves represent it like
and it, Like this movie did incredibly well. And I
think the other trend that is connected to getting movies

(01:20:38):
made about older women is that the only way a
Hollywood studio will greenlight it is if there are huge
stars attached where movies about older guys you can kind
of have been in, like you could have played a
corpse on n c I S twice and they're like,
you're hired. But for these movies like and again, First

(01:20:58):
Wives Club is a good exam bold like three really
incredibly popular actress has had to sign onto that movie
for it to be possible. Cathy Bates and Jessica Tandy
had both been nominated for Oscars in the last two
years when this movie was Greenland, so they were at
this time especially they were like, oh, people will see
a movie like yeah, and you have to imagine that

(01:21:23):
if they were not kind of at the top of
their game critically at this time, like, it would have
been a lot harder to get a movie like this made.
But yeah, there's definitely not enough like good substantial roles
written for older women where they can talk about that,
you know, where aging can be a theme and not

(01:21:43):
something that is like, Oh, it's a huge success if
you're able to conceal the fact that you're aging, versus
discussing it in detail the movie. So their relationship is
really nice. Yeah, I wish that. Uh you know, I mean,
I don't know how this would have been financially possible.
Maybe that's why she doesn't dump Ed, but she s

(01:22:04):
don't know. She becomes a very successful Mary Kay worker
like all of my friends moms. So where's the problem.
She should have kicked Ed out and then been like,
all right, Ninny, you were roommates, were best friends. Ed
is going to have to make his own dinner from
now on. That's the ending we needed. That happens. I

(01:22:25):
like to imagine that happens. Yeah, that's my head cannon,
the fun. The last thing I wanna say is, uh, well,
I think we would be remiss not to mention um
Ninny's horrible purple hair dye job that she gets from Judgy.
That was very judgy. But she's objectively living to the fullest.

(01:22:51):
She likes it, and that's what matters. The other thing
I did, I did cackle where that happened, because you
just don't see that coming. And then it's not super
relevant to the plot, so you're just kind of like like, well,
I think it's part of it is like showing that
Evelyn is still abiding by these like this like southern

(01:23:11):
politeness mentality of like, oh this is awful, but I
can't say anything because I'm too polite. But also like
she's not going to be like your hair looks like ship, Ninny,
because it's like, I don't think anyone would say that
I work for Mary Kay. Now fix your face, Ninny,
deal with it. Uh. This is also high visibility for
UM makeup products at home, like this stretch of years

(01:23:33):
because we have we have Edward her scissor hands Avon Lady,
and then a year later Mary Kay gets throws their
hat in the mix and they're like, no, I guess
Avon who Anyways, they're both MLMs, so whoop sees UM. Well.
As we hinted at a lot, the movie definitely does

(01:23:54):
pass the Bechtel test. It is passing between Evelyn and
Ninny Tons, it passes between Ruth and a g Tons
almost yeah, almost every I mean I feel like outside
of discussing the murder or ed men do not come

(01:24:16):
up that much. And so yeah, right, which is great.
I love I love that for this movie. Unfortunately, though,
it if we're applying like the Veto Russo test to it,
it does not pass because the characters are not identifiably queer.
That's one of the contingencies of that test. Um. And
it certainly does not pass the Duverne test because um,

(01:24:38):
black characters are just not allowed to be full characters, right,
they are only there to serve the white characters. So
with that in mind, let's go to the nipple scale. Yes,
so zero to five nipples. Examining the movie through an
intersectional feminist lens I would give this movie. I think
three would have gotten higher had it not mishandled the

(01:25:04):
representation of the black characters and sideline them and failed
to give them any kind of interiority or deeper characterization.
I think it would have gotten more had the character
has been allowed to be identifiably queer. And let us
see some actual kissing. Let's see them embrace, Let's see

(01:25:24):
them be romantic with each other. Keep the food fight,
but give us a you know, a kissing. Let the
food fight turn into a steamy set scene. Don't start, Okay,
but I do, I do, really like the character. The
female characters that we get to know, love Kathy Bates,

(01:25:45):
love the Ninny character. I love Ruth and i Gy
and their relationship. Would have liked to see more Sipsy
of course. Also, we didn't talk about this character, but
there's a character named Smokey who seems to be person
experiencing homelessness. He's characterized as like a depression era like

(01:26:06):
drifter type, and while he doesn't play an enormous role
in the story, I appreciated that some work was put
into humanizing a person experiencing homelessness because so little media
does that. Um, there's a lot to love about this movie,
but it is very much of the nine Oscar bait

(01:26:26):
frame of mind. Yeah so yeah, and the Oscar Bait.
I feel like, really, I mean, a lot of the
choices this movie makes, I feel like directly ties to
the Oscar bait elemental. If the Academy is going to
think that we have gone quote unquote too far, then
what's the point of making it? Which is like it's

(01:26:47):
like that to this day. But it's also like I
probably just edgy enough for nine one that it's like
like we're doing something, We're making statements here. Yea, there
are a few lightweight statements being made for sure, But
we look back on it almost thirty years later and
we're like, well, yep, that was thirty years ago. That's
just that's where we were. Yeah. Um so yeah, three nipples. Um,

(01:27:09):
I'll give two to Sipsy and I'll give my remaining
nipple to Cathy Bates. Uh yeah, I'll go with three
as well. For this movie, I think, you know, for
its time, it's doing a lot of things that a
lot of movies aren't doing where I mean, I do
think it's like a huge deal that a queer writer
was given authorship over her own work in film adaptation

(01:27:34):
and that there were like resources put behind it. I
think Norman Leears production company was involved, which famously very progressive,
like wonderful person, so that's great. But I do agree.
I mean, I think that it's like pretty clear that uh,
white people are the creative force behind this movie because
of what it gets wrong or what it erases or

(01:27:57):
and and they Cecily Tyson and then I don't use
her and they don't even show her the biggest moment
for the character for like suspense that doesn't who cares
about the murder mystery. Really like, that's not really why
we're here. Um, like you're saying, I want, I want
an actual queer relationship. I like, it's so frustrating to

(01:28:18):
know that, like the actors playing these characters were like
thinking that and we're this was informing their character, but
the finished product is not allowed to show that. So
that's frustrated. Dig But I really enjoyed this movie. It
made me cry a lot. You never see women talk
about aging on screen. You don't usually see a lot

(01:28:40):
of intergenerational friendships. I always think that that's really nice,
and it was done in this like really lovely, not
condescending way. Um you also get, um, there's not much
body diversity. But with Kathy Bates, you know she's she
talks about kind of her insecurities with her size, and
is it handled the way we would want to see exactly?

(01:29:03):
Perhaps not, but the fact that the language is very name.
She does a bit of fat shaming of herself, which
is something I've done a lot throughout my entire life.
She also has a line at some point where she
says something like I just wish I had the courage
to get really fat, which is another thought I've had

(01:29:25):
quite a bit. Uh So you know, I just I
guess I just found her her attitude toward her body
to be very relatable. And then part of her evolution
is like, well, I'm not gonna She's like, I'm going
to start exercising. I have to change the way I look.
And then she refers to her like former self as
a blob from a horror movie. So like, I don't

(01:29:46):
love I do. I do think that it very least
it's framed that she is like doing the exercise stuff
for herself and not for her husband, which is I
don't like the language she uses around it. But I
did appreciate that they made it pretty clear that she
was making these changes for herself, and she was like
happier for having made these changes for herself. So in

(01:30:10):
that way, I was like, good for Kathy Baith. Yes,
this movie is is lovely and and I really I
mean when Ruth died, I was I was so invested
in that relationship and when Ruth dies, I just cried
so much. Um So I'm gonna give three nipples as well.
I'm gonna give one nipple to Cicely Tyson. I'm gonna
give one, and and then I think, I just I

(01:30:33):
love Mary Louise Parker so much, I'm gonna give I
I want to know what Mary Louise Parker has to
say about the film. She's the one person I don't
think we have heard from you, wonder Let's call her. Yeah,
give her a little ringy poop. Come over, Francesca, what
about your nipple rating? What do you think? I'm gonna

(01:30:54):
give it four nipples, but only because I am new
to this and it is Mary very much stuck in time.
It is stuck in ninety one interpreting the thirties, and
it is Oscar bait. And I don't expect all movies
to be all things to all people. It is very
problematic in a lot of ways. But I think you

(01:31:17):
got four very strong and very different female characters. Evelyn, Ninny,
Igy but maybe they're the three, maybe they're the same,
and Ruth and they're excellent. Yeah, would a love more Sipsy,
But you've got four strong female characters with backstories, with
interesting lives. With all these things, you get four. They

(01:31:37):
have a bunch of conversations that don't involve men. Yeah,
it made me cry. Three times four times, However, many
times needed to be more nipples. If they had actual nipples,
you'd get the five if we had seen some steamy
sex scenes. When I really boosted that, Okay, so frantastic

(01:31:57):
Because you asked, I was like, has Mary Louis Perker
said anything about this? Uh? She did think about it
in two thousand and eight, so this was on Ellen. Uh,
twelve years before she was handily canceled. But anyways, Mary
Louise Parker goes on Ellen Ellen asked her about this movie.
Mary Louise Parker says, uh, you know, I love my

(01:32:18):
lesbian fans. Um. And then she talks about something that
does not so she so we know that. Uh. And
then she goes on to say later in the interview
that um or after Ellen interviewer, I don't know who
was doing interview whatever. Uh. Do you ever wish the
storyline and Fred green Tom's was a little bit more?

(01:32:38):
Mary Louis Parker says, yes, well, in some ways I do.
I tried to make it a bit more articulated at
the time, but they didn't want to go that way,
And in many ways I wish it was. Then. In
some ways, I think maybe the audience wouldn't have gone there.
So I don't know. I have mixed feelings about it
because I really tried to push it at the time
and they didn't want to go there with me um
And then after Ellen asks who didn't want to go there,

(01:32:58):
and Mary Louise Parker said no one uh. And then
after Allen says not even your co star and Mery
Lewis Parker says, oh no, Mary Stewart definitely did, and
Fanny Flagg did, but not the director, not the producer,
nobody else. But I was really trying to push it
and they were like no, So none of the men,
none of the none of the men who get the
final say on this project about women. So I we

(01:33:21):
we know that the three main you know, women involved
in this storyline really wanted it, and they said no, no, no,
no no. So maybe Fanny Flagg was being diplomatic in
those interviews with those Maybe um, we should ask her.
Let's let's call her to um Well. Director Jon Evnett
famously said about this movie and his approach to the

(01:33:43):
relationship between those two women. He says, quote, I had
no interest in going into the bedroom. It's like, then
get out of the movie Stinky You're gonna have sex
in the kitchen, as you said. Yeah, um, so that's
that's frant Thank you so much for thank you for

(01:34:06):
letting me talk so much about this film. Where can
people check out your stuff online? Follow your social media
at Francie Feo on All the Things Twitter, Instagram, and
the Situation Room podcast. Yes, listen to that. Please, let's
find that and thank you guys, thank you, of course,
thank you for being here. You can follow us on

(01:34:28):
social media at Bechtel Cast on Twitter and Instagram. You
can check out our Patreon a k A Matreon. It's
five dollars a month. It gets you two bonus episodes
every single month. What a bargain. And you get access
to the entire back catalog of our bonus episodes, which
is now over seventy of them. You love to hear it.

(01:34:49):
You can get our merch over and t public dot
com slash the Bechtel Cast. You can get a mask
now pretty fun, pretty cool, um and we love you
some talk tea Next week to Wander to wa

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