I, Tonya

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bell 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 in best
start changing it with the Bechdel Cast. Hello, and welcome
to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Dronte, my
name is Jamie Loftz, and it's your birthday episode, Jamie

(00:24):
the episode. I'm so excited. Oh and boy do we
have my favorite movie of all time for you today.
So what we are doing today on the Bechtel Cast
and we will get you up to speed. If you've
never listened before, welcome, It's my birthday. We're gonna tell

(00:45):
you what the podcast is about in a second. But
for for returning listeners, we are unlocking an episode from
our patreon ak Matreon back from eighteen yeah early, which,
as we'll discuss, was in a way five thousand years ago.
But but yeah, it's an episode about Titania, one of

(01:08):
my faves. And so if you're not a member of
the Matreon, this will be your first time. And if
you also, if you're not a member of the Matreon,
you know, think about joining us. It's a great little
space for for everybody, beautiful community. But yes, uh, it
is Italian Day on the cast. But first we have

(01:29):
to tell everybody what our podcast is about, because we
don't do that in Patreon episodes. If you're on the Matreon,
you already know what you're getting into. But this, but
on the main fade, we have to We have to
be respectful of the fact that maybe it's your first
time here because you're just an itonia stand and you

(01:50):
couldn't help but click so true. So what we do
on the Bechtel Cast is examine film through an intersectional
feminist lens, focusing on the representation of women, but extending
the conversation further to other topics. And we use the
Bechdel Test as a just inspiration jumping off point, if

(02:14):
you will. And that is a media metric created by
queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test,
and it requires that for our purposes, are version of
the test that too, people of any marginalized gender. They
have to have names, they have to speak to each

(02:36):
other about something other than a man for at least
two lines of dialogue. Let's try it, Okay, let's do it. Okay,
Hey Caitlin, Yes, Jamie. Um, do you ever feel like
in a biopic you're like, this biopic is so amazing,
and then you learn about the subject of the biopic
and you're like, oh, jeez um, yes, I have done

(03:02):
that before, especially when the biopic is about a woman.
It makes you think and then it passes the Bechtel test. Yeah,
it doesn't have to be perfect, doesn't have to make sense,
just really some bare minimum stuff. Most movies don't do it.
You will not be shocked to know this movie is
an exception. It's true. But yes, so we're gonna get

(03:25):
the episode started up. We're gonna kind of cut you
in at the recap, right, yeah, slightly before the recap.
So what I was thinking, because since we've recorded this
two and a half years two and a half years ago, right,
so a little um, a little peek behind the curtain everyone.
We recorded this early. It was when we were still

(03:47):
recording our Matreon Patreon episodes on my iPhone. In my
bed was the one that was on your eye. They're
usually pre COVID. They were all in your bed, but
not all on your I've uh, there's a clear timeline
if if you're right, we the early UM Patreon episodes

(04:07):
we recorded on my iPhone, so the sound quality is
not bad. But if it doesn't sound top notch, that
is why it was early days in the in the majors,
then we upgraded to some fancier equipment, but in any case,
so that if you're like, this doesn't sound as good
as it normally does, that's why UM. Also before we

(04:28):
jump into the episode, we wanted to address something that
we have had the habit of doing in the past,
but we have been we've become more aware of this
thing that we're doing and we have been phasing it out.
And what it is is the use of certain phrases
or just certain language that is disparaging of mental illness

(04:52):
and is able list and what I mean what we
mean by that is we use in this episode and
others passed phrases like oh, that's crazy or that's insane
or um etcetera. From from that line of thinking, this
is still very common language that a lot of people use,
and we would encourage you to try to scale back

(05:15):
on it, get rid of it, not include that in
your language anymore, because like we said, it is disparaging
of mental illness and is able list. And so if
you are interested, we will leave some uh some links
in the notes of this episode, UM in case you
have any questions about um certain words, uses of words.

(05:36):
We want to UM educate our listeners just as our
listeners have educated us. These are words that have since
been worked out of the show and our lives, and
we hope to continue to do better. And you know,
if if these are still words in your daily rotation, uh,
there are so many wonderful substitutes. That's the thing about words.

(05:56):
You don't need to use uh, words that are disparaging
to be well because guess what, there's other words. It's
true synonyms exist, so we wanted to acknowledge that as well.
Oh and another thing we want to be better about
doing moving forward is to include content warnings for episodes
in which we discuss topics that are sensitive and potentially triggering.

(06:17):
So in this episode, we'd like to include a content
warning regarding our discussion of physical and emotional abuse. So
there's that, And and we also wanted to update our
history with the movie because we uh we recorded this
episode just a couple months, I mean the two maybe

(06:39):
months after this movie came out. Um, and so you
know the the movie has like whatever eight couples in
age that we talked about eight couple that's not even
accurate or whatever. It's older. It's much older, right, And
and you're especially your relationship with that Jamie has grown

(07:00):
and gotten more special, grown and deepened. Yeah. So for me,
I mean we both saw the movie in theaters a
couple of times. I really enjoyed it. I haven't watched
it though since we recorded the episode, aside from when
I rewatched it a couple of days ago, just too
because I know we were doing this episode and wanted
to refresh my memory. Um. But for you, Jamie, the

(07:23):
reason so you're releasing this as your birthday episode because
it's become such an important movie for you, So tell
us about that. It's well, I guess when this movie
came out, I knew it was one of my favorite
movies already because I saw it nine times in theaters,
which I have never done before and never did since
this episode Slash. This movie came out during this wonderful

(07:47):
time where movie pass was a thing that worked and
it actually cost ten dollars, and so the only thing
I used my movie pass for was to see I
Tania at nine times and I unsubscribed and then movie passed.
Employ did and no one has heard from her since.
But so I saw this movie nine times within two months.

(08:08):
I think I just loved it. There is like I've
always been very attached to the Tanya Harding myth. Basically
it's a culture, you know, an American myth. At this point.
I my first cartoon I ever made was about Tanya Harding.
Remember that. Really it was like, yeah, it was forever ago,

(08:28):
but I really always I'm sure to talk about in
the episode two, but I was always very attached to her,
just kind of as like someone who came from like
the lower middle class. I think Tanya came up from
an even lower class than than I was from. But
I just was really, I really it really spoke to
me how determined she was and how she didn't take

(08:50):
shipped from people, and kind of how that attitude results
in being punished by the culture that you live in,
especially at the time that she was skating. And I
think the movie is so well done. It's written and
directed by a man, and yet I like it and
it's sometimes men don't do horrible work. Really, they really

(09:12):
figured it out this time. I I rewatched this movie
last week, and I still love it so much. It
makes me cry a lot. It's the only time I've
ever been impressed by Sebastian stan Uh, Margot Robbie's at
her best. I just I think it is such a
fun and engaging movie that manages to make I think,

(09:32):
like takes a lot of very serious topics and treats
them with the weight and the respect they deserve, but
also don't make it like a depression experience. I think
it's still like a super engaging and fun movie. And
after the last time I saw this movie in a theater,
I was seeing this movie in theaters as late as July. Wow,

(09:55):
because I think you remember this when I say it's
because as they did a rooftop screening of Ae Tania
in downtown Los Angeles and Tanya Harding was there, And
it's here that I wanted to just acknowledge because it's
just interesting, I guess of like, I mean, obviously, never
meet your heroes, but this one stung a little Like

(10:17):
Tanya Harding very sweet, but she gave kind of like
some opening statements and I actually I'm going to cite
myself here. I wrote a piece about it at the
time for a paste magazine called Falling out of Love
a Tanya Harding, and that kind of says what I'm
saying now. Just like Tanya Harding was a kind of
a hero of mine, and like she overcame so much

(10:41):
and was like, you know, maintained her dignity through a
really difficult experience. But then when you hear her talk
about her political views, you're like, oh, dear, she didn't
get explicitly into her political views in that, but there
was enough. There was some uh so bat signaling to

(11:01):
some things I really don't agree with, and it I mean,
and I'm sure like our our listeners, everyone at some
point in their life realizes that you have to idolize
the idea and the message and not the person. But
this was one of those moments for me where I
was just like I wanted, you know, I wanted to
agree with Tanya Harding on everything. I wanted her to

(11:23):
have like views that I aligned with, but um simply
wasn't the way it went. But I still really love
the movie. I feel like it is just my favorite
movie ever. I watch it all the time I wanted
to fall asleep. I watch it to call like, I
just it's my movie. I love it. Yeah. Cool, Well,

(11:46):
I think with that we can just launch into you know,
in a movie when they do like kind of like
it's some sort of call that effect. It's like transition
is like a ripple, like like the ripple effect, like
the dream, like the flashbacks. It's imagine that whatever the

(12:08):
audio version of that is. We that's so okay. I
Tania is if You're not aware? Is the new Tanya
Harding biopic starring Margot Robbie as Tanya Harding and Alison
Janney as Tanya Harding's mother, and a guy from Gossip

(12:30):
Girl as Jeff Lally hot hot hot Jeff really hot
hot hot in this movie distracting, can't deal with it,
and I'm very upset that I think he's hot because
his character is horrible. His character is and as a person,
he's a horrible person, and real life Jeff really not hot.
Basically everyone real life in this story not hot. But

(12:50):
it's a movie so hot. Sorry, I just explained how
movies worked like regular but like way hotter. So So
it's about for Olympics, where a media frenzy surrounding Tanya
Hardening when she allegedly was involved with whacking Nancy Kerrigan,
who is barely addressed in this story very intentionally and

(13:13):
we'll get there too. But so it's got a lot
of buns of Marco Robbie. People loved her performance, Alison
Janny queer icon, Alison Jenny's character Janson Janny and Jenny
queer icon, but I would argue Alison Janny and a
fur coat with a parent queer icon like easily. So yeah,

(13:34):
that's the movie. If you haven't seen it, I would
highly recommend sing it. I think it's such a fun,
well done movie. I love it. Are The one thing
I was surprised about with this movie is I mean
when they say I Tanya, they're not kidding. Nancy Kerrigan
is like left out of this story, which I think.
I don't even think she has any lines except for

(13:55):
when she's like why after she gets hit exactly yeah no.
And then they have whoever the actress that was on
set for two or three days playing the part of
Nancy Karen, They just have her basically reenacting news footage,
which is weird because it's like in all like the
more recent documentaries about this, there's a lot of talk

(14:16):
about how like Nancy was also done a huge disservice
by the media and not I mean, not as significant
as Tanya obviously, but you know, Nancy didn't do anything.
I feel like Nancy often gets framed as like this,
like prissy bitch when Nancy, which they this was like
the thing that I was like, Oh, they're really not

(14:36):
going to mention this in the movie at all. Nancy
was just as poor as Tanya Harding. She was not
from an abusive family, but she was also like a
blue collar gal who was reframed by the media to
not seem like that and was like held accountable for like, oh,
look at this rich bitch when she wasn't. And so
that's all I have to say. I just thought it

(14:57):
was she she's really glossed over. I mean, this movie
is we're seeing it through Tanya's eyes, and so I
guess it's like Nancy's a pressy bitch. But I thought
a little more could have been done to just acknowledge that.
May I posit a theory sure that this movie is
the first of a figure skating extended universe cinematic universe

(15:18):
and there's going to be and I Nancy. Could I
play Nancy Kerrigan? Yes, I cast you rememb Burnett from Massachusetts.
I could do it. Yeah, you've done ballet figure skating.
His ballet on ice, right, dude, exactly. Don't send me
hate mail for saying so. I feel like there's someone

(15:38):
out there. No, it's I mean figures hard. I could not.
I couldn't hang. I tried it when I was little,
couldn't do it. I got really good at roller skating
as a kid, and not roller blades roller skates. Oh sorry,
yeah they're different. Sorry didn't but I never I never

(16:03):
ice skated until like a couple of years ago. Uh,
and some of the skills do transfer over. Because all
my friends were like falling because I've never like roller
skated or ice skated before. But I was like pretty
good beginner and they were like, Caitlin, how are you
so good at this? I'm like, bitch, I roller skated.
You're you have a lot of interesting hidden talent. You

(16:24):
really do. Thank you. Recap. Yeah, let's recap Tania. So
it's this cast of actors reenacting both interviews that are
like direct to camera and then also the story events
as they unfold. So every actor we see, we see
they're basically playing the same character over the course of

(16:46):
almost three decades. Like I think Margot Robbie plays Tanya
between ages fifteen and forty and then yeah, so you
see like older Tanya played by Margot Robbie in interview style,
same thing with what's his name, Stan Sebastian Stan Stan
hot hot Okay, I know he's so hot as young

(17:09):
Jeff Gluely, as older Jeff Gluey without weird goatee horrible.
The mustache is better. He's got somehow, he's got a
face that works for a real life Jeff Gluly did
look like straight up disgusting with the mustache. But I
mean this again, it's like movie hotness of just like
I guess you can just wear that and it's hot.

(17:30):
Well shit, Okay, my favorite performance in this movie. Margot
Robbie is awesome. Alison Jenny is awesome. My favorite performance
in this movie. I have to look at this guy's
name because he is like, I think this is his
big first like the guy who plays s Yeah, unbelieving
Paul Walter Houser. I hope he's in everything. He was
so good. This is a breakout role for him. I hope. So, dude,

(17:53):
he was so fucking funny. I know, and I wasn't.
I didn't realize that I've never done like a real
deep dive on Sean Ekart and I didn't realize how
fully delusional he was. And then when they do at
the end, they do like the side by side to
see how exactly they re enacted interviews. The Sean card
interviews are crazy. He's like, probably work in covert ops,

(18:14):
counter terrorism, like espionage, and you're like, what, They're like, Sean,
but you don't. He goes but he's like, but we
checked in, you don't. He's like, oh, but I do.
I do? And I He's so fucking funny, and like,
I just shout out to Paul walter Hauser wherever you are.

(18:35):
I'm sure you're listening. I just thought he was like brilliant,
and I hope he's in everything now. Yeah, he was.
So he was so great. So I Tania the story.
We follow Iitania through her ice skating Iania harding, how

(19:00):
are we going to record another episode after this? It's
gonna be great. We followed Tania where I think she
is named through her finger skating career, which starts when
she's a soft four, which means three. So we meet
her mother, Lavanna, who is how to describe her, She's overbearing,
she is emotionally abusive, she's physically abusive. She is one

(19:24):
of those parents who look at all the sacrifices I've
made for you and you don't appreciate anything. And she's
a very bad parent. We'll hit on this in a
bunch of different places, but this movie. People have differing
opinions on how this movie does with the topic of class.
I think it does pretty well, especially based on the

(19:44):
fact that from what I get, and if you know differently,
please hit us up. But pretty much every event described
in this movie is based on anecdotal evidence and interviews.
So it's kind of tricky to make the argument of
like they're making these white trash people look like a joke,
and it's like, well, they did confirm that this is

(20:05):
what they did down to like that guy Derek's like
running through a fucking pane of glass to get like
that really happened. There's footage of that happening. Yeah, Like
all the stuff in the movie basically is stuff that
real life idiots. Did Wait, did it happen where he
bash just head through it? Because he had the baton,
he could have broken the glass with I guess that's possible.

(20:27):
I don't know anyways, the way this movie deals with class,
because it does make a commentary without changing the story.
But I don't know. I mean, I was fortunate to
have parents that were not abusive and are great. They're
my problematic faiths, But I do think it was like
interesting setting up this dynamic and showing this dynamic that
I saw in a lot of my friends growing up,

(20:49):
of like parents in poor communities being too hard on
their kids, with the implied logic being like I needed
toffen you up for the world, or you're going to
end up just like me, which is kind of the
message that's kind of Tanya's fear throughout the movie is
that she's going to be exactly like her mom and
be a waitress, which she is for a while, and

(21:13):
it seems like and it's never explicitly stated, but my
takeaway was that like Levana was basically like, I'm going
to be really, really really hard on you to the
point where it is illegal abusive. I'm gonna throw a
knife at you, but the overarching thing to be like,
I have to toughen you up because you're being set
up to fail by the world, and that is like

(21:35):
a parent child dynamic I've seen before, and I feel
like I haven't seen a ton on screen, so I
thought it was I mean, it was like scary, but like,
I don't know it worked for me or if you
do see it on screen, it's I feel like it's
often not the main character. It will be like the

(21:56):
main character's friend who who needs rescuing. Yeah. An example
that comes to mind as the craft where sure right right,
And I'm if I thought about it, I'm sure I
could come up with others, but yeah, I don't know. Like,
so there were certain moments with her. I was like, oh,
that seems like my aunt or like my friend's mom
of like some lines I wrote down where like you

(22:17):
were soft nice makes you ship like basically these repeated
enforcements like you have to be really tough on yourself
and on everyone in your life or you're not going
to survive um, which is you know, I see where
she's coming from. I don't hard disagree with our approach
to literally everything, but but I think the more common
depiction in media over arch, Like there's so many FU

(22:41):
movies about like rich children and their distant parents, not
poor children, and they're overbearing to the point of abusive parents.
But I think in the real world those are just
as common. I mean, so there's I think it'll take
me the whole episode to get through the recap, but
essentially it just it follows Tanya and her figure skating career,

(23:02):
starting from a very early age. She's a standout. She's
very good, even if like she's a she's a stand
up comic Harshly Season three, Tiny Harding story, the marvelous
Mrs Harden. So she is great, she trains a ton,
her mom does pay for all of her lessons, and
is supportive in her pursuit of becoming a figure skater.

(23:26):
But again, that's like kind of like another class commentary thing,
where like I think we're like children of poor families
often feel like they are an investment if they're doing
anything extra, where like kids who are from wealthier backgrounds
are able to try more extracurriculars and and there's less
of like a pressure to be like, well, you better

(23:46):
have fucking fun. Supportive in the sense that she was
paying for it, that she was there, but also inflicting
a whole lot of psychological warfare on Tanya. It was
like it was basically a contract for abuse of Like,
in order for you to do the thing that makes
you happy, I have to be able to fucking be
all out abusive to you at all times. And that's

(24:08):
the only way she could keep doing it. Right. So
we see Tanya's progress as a figure skater into her
teens in early twenties, and this is also around the
time that she meets Jeff Galuley. I don't know how
old he is when they meet, but she's only fifteen
and he's probably I think he's I think he's supposed
to be nineteen or twenty. Well, that's upsetting. So they

(24:29):
start dating and then he starts becoming abusive toward her
as well, both physically and emotionally. Her career starts to
take off. She starts winning a lot of competitions. She
moves out of Lavana's home because she's had it up
to here with her, so she moves out with Jeff.
The abuse continues with him. Like she's winning national competitions

(24:52):
and the Olympics are on the horizon and then she
gets a death threat called on her, and so this
is there was like a weird and this is all historical.
It's not weird because it you know, happened, but like
there's like, she goes to the Olympics and two she
does not deliver. It's implied it's because she's like maybe
like drinking too much and like got out of shape,

(25:17):
which you know, is a little shamy, but also seemed
like there was some truth in that and that was
like had to do with why she which ties into
her abusive relationship with Jeff. But she was in an
abusive relationship and was not medicating exactly, like she didn't
she didn't deliver at the first Olympics, which would normally

(25:40):
be a death sentence because by the time the next
one Olympics come around four years later, she would be,
in theory too old, which is crazy. She would have
been twenty five, but I guess an ice skater years
too old. But then there's this thing that really happened
where they're like, actually, I don't know what the rationalists,
but they're like, we're going to have the Winter Olympics
again in two years, which would be like perfect timing,

(26:03):
and so there's kind of this there's a bunch of
great montages in this movie again, just like a series
of really stellar training montages that I really loved to
having handed music. It was great. So she trains, she
starts training again, and she's kind of like she got
it back. She dumped Jeff. She's like on a tear.

(26:25):
She's doing great, and then she takes Jeff back and
then okay, right exactly, So she takes Jeff back because
she's doing competitions and the judges are like, you're just
not the image we want to project. We want a
wholesome American family, and she's like, I don't have that.
So she gets back with Jeff to basically placate the

(26:46):
judges and be like, look look at this family I
have because they get married at one point earlier in
the story. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's it's like to basically,
yea project the image that they're going for. And then
there's like this big competition and that if you place,
I forget exactly what it's called. It's like, if you
place in this competition, you are considered for the Olympic team.

(27:07):
But if you don't place in the competition, you can't
be considered for the Olympic team, so high stake ship.
And prior to this, a death threat is called on
Tanya and it freaks her out and they're like, oh crap,
like this is going to ruin my chances. And then
this is where you know the stories where Paul walter
Hauser really starts to fucking shine. But he has this

(27:30):
idea where basically Jeff wants to impress Tanya or somehow,
like I think, honestly, like get her to be indebted
to him a little more so she won't leave him,
because that's how he thinks, because he's a manipulates, a manipulator,
but he's so stupid that he's not even good at it.
But so he's saying like, oh, it'll approve Chania chances

(27:52):
if we call it a death threat on Nancy. And
then Sean, who also called in the death threat Antania,
we learned later and that's true. Sean has literally he's
just so fucking like he was just smart enough to
be extremely infuriating because he's like just smart enough to
be like you should have known better. But whatever he's smarted,

(28:12):
I don't like, is he Sean smarter than Jeff, but
that's saying nothing. Jeff's literally dumb as a rock. So
Sean's like, because I think that the movie goes way
out of its way to be like toxic, toxic, toxic.
This character, Sean, especially his toxic masculinity, is kind of
uses a punch line over and over in this movie,
which I hadn't seen it portrayed in other places. But

(28:35):
I don't know. I thought it was funny, and I
thought it's good to make toxic masculinity, you know, projected.
It's like, you look like a fucking idiot. But so
He's like, oh, we need to do something to Nancy,
and Jeff said, okay, let's mail in letters snail, which
is like, you're a snail mail a death threat. Incredible idea. Anyways,

(28:55):
Sean takes matters into his own hands and plans the
fucking whack that the whack hurt around the world, right,
which is carried out by people who are somehow even stupider.
It's just a well of stupidity that just a gaping
mom of idiots, and how involved Tanny was in the

(29:17):
planning and execution of these letter death threats. Question, you know,
and I'm not even going to bother positing my own theories.
We'll never know. We can hit on this later too,
But like, I don't think Tanya Harding is like a
good or nice person, and I don't think that she's

(29:38):
like completely telling the truth. But I don't think that
that makes her story any less valid or interesting or
worth telling. But it's like I don't know, I mean,
she it's it's clear that she knew about some portion
of it. I think this movie plays it down press
a little too much, but like we'll never know. Sure,
So the attack on Nancy Kerrigan's knee happens, and then

(30:02):
I think that the sequence of events is that Nancy
obviously can't compete after she's whacked. At these trials. Tanya
does really well at the trials places it looks like
she's going to be on the Olympic team. The question
is will Nancy be allowed to be on the Olympic
team since she couldn't compete in the pre limbs And

(30:22):
that part is like it makes sense that it's left
out of this movie, but it is pretty like incredible
how she completely I'm like crying, she like she like
totally buckled down, did not pay attention to any of
the media coming out and just like had her her
like family and support system totally blackballed everyone who was like,

(30:43):
she's training, she's getting better, and in six weeks went
from like whacked me to like that recovery time was insane.
It shouldn't have been like it is. Pretty I just
don't think Nancy gets enough credit. I think she's also
she's not as interesting historical figure as Tanya Harding, but
she was pretty fucking cool. So because Nancy is able
to do this amazing turnaround, she's allowed on the Olympic team.

(31:05):
And also because and then I think that this is
explicitly stated in the movie too, and has been said
by Tanya Harding and interviews. It's like the media who's
been like investing all this time and energy into this story,
is not just going to be like, we're not gonna
let Nancy compete like people wanted a huge event. Yeah yeah.
And then the movie ends with they both compete in
the Olympics, both Tanya Tanya and Nancy. Tanya does not place.

(31:31):
Nancy Kerrigan gets the silver medal. Tanya's skating career is
over also because she goes to court and the judge
is like, you're never allowed to skate in any sort
of competitions ever. Again, She's like pleading with the judge,
please you have like, this is my whole life. This
is the only thing I know want to do. I
don't have an education. That was like the most impactful
part of the entire movie for I did not see that.

(31:54):
That was like I felt like one of the big
successes of them because I knew that that was how
the story ended, but it never really occurred to me
exactly how devastating that was for her. Where that was
like truly all she had. So if her involvement was
as low as the movie would have you believe, that's
horrible and it's like it does show how women are punished. Yeah,

(32:18):
that was That was such a gut wrenching moment to
watch of like that would be I was thinking, I
was like, that would be like if someone told me
that could never do stand up again. But then I
was like, yeah, it's like would be the worst day.
I would be like, you know what, I wouldn't cry.
I wouldn't cry and offered to do jail time instead

(32:40):
when the people are that's so fun. It was like
I'd rather go to jail than not be able to
go to an open like ever again open jail. So
it doesn't. So then she becomes we see her like
stint as a lady boxer. I have an autographed picture
or of Tanya Harding during her boxing days. Yeah, I really,

(33:04):
I'm deep into it. And I only say lady boxer
because that's what she calls herself. She's just a boxer,
ay for her. Yes, So that's the story. Let's take
a quick break and then we'll come right back. There's
a lot to digest here. There's a lot to discuss.

(33:24):
One of the main points I wanted to bring up
was the kind of ongoing theme she's talking about, how
figure skating is this sport where like the judges want
you to be this old timey version of what a
woman is supposed to be, and her sort of recognition
of how she was never going to be that because

(33:45):
she didn't have the money to afford all the pretty
costumes and she chopped wood every morning, so like she
didn't have just sort of like a little delicate frame
and everything like that. That was one thing that I
thought could have been touched on a little more. I
aggree with me that I was surprised it didn't because
that is such a big that informed the direction of

(34:06):
her career. So Mutch and I think that that was
like why the people who liked Tiny Harding really liked her,
because she, like, she was so athletically good that there
was no you know, like even though she was not
traditionally feminine and like had an athletic build, which makes
fucking sense for an athlete, but you weren't supposed to uh,

(34:27):
and didn't have a ton of money, but she was
so good that people like could not deny her, you know,
like that was cool, but it's we see we see
it a few times. She gets into an argument with
judges and says, I'm making my costumes, which is true,
she was making. She had so many disadvantages, but they're

(34:48):
just like, yeah, we're not really well we're looking for
but you're so good that we can't tell you to
go funk yourself until they found the first excuse to
tell her to go funcker. And I think that that
also directly ties into how she's treated. You know, she
was characterized right away. It's like white trash who they
were looking for an excuse to get rid of her,

(35:09):
and the second they found one, they got rid of
her forever. And not only her sort of like appearance
and the way she presented herself physically. It was also
like from what I gathered, like her music choices, you know,
she did a lot of like hard rock and metal.
She like wore the blue nail polish that her coach
was like, no more of that. Like DAR say, she

(35:30):
was a product of her fucking environment, you know, but
that's not an environment that that sport respects, right exactly.
So watching this, I mean I related to her because
there's a part where she's talking about how she operates
a forklift, chops wood and works at a hardware store
and some like that, And I didn't read that exact
same experience. But I grew up in a blue collar family,

(35:52):
you know, working class. My dad had a forklift and
a bacco. Part of my chores were to go into
the woods and Sylvan because we lived in the middle
of the woods. We would gone in the woods, we
would gather firewood. I'd have to like load it onto
this like wagon that was hooked up to the tractor.
I had to drive the tractor like a farm girl.
I'm not a well, I'm a wood's girl. We didn't

(36:14):
have a far that we had a wood wood There's
there's one. I had to fucking break leaves all the time.
I had to mow grass all the time. I had
to plow our driveway with a We had a pickup
truck that my dad attached to snowplow too, So I

(36:36):
had so many physical chores that I had to do
all the time growing up, and I resented the hell
out of it. Was like at school, I was like
trying to be friends with like the popular kids whose
parents were doctors and who didn't have to do like
shovel dirt all the time. I was just like, please,
no one find out about my home life. You know.

(36:56):
I was kind of I was trying to fit in
with like the quote unquote like what women are supposed
to be and what you know, teen girls are supposed
to be interested in and all that stuff. And I
was just like like there was just like this whole
internal struggle that I was like going through. But I
also was like it's cool that I can like do
all this stuff and like, but but that's not the
message the world was sending you. No, no, no, no.

(37:19):
At that time. I was city poor person, so we
didn't do a ton of outside things. But like like
a city mouse in a country mouse, we really are
I forget what a country mouse to were, Like, I
have no outdoor skills. But my first like full understanding
of class in a meaningful way, it was. It was weird.

(37:41):
I wasn't that aware of it growing up because everyone
was poor and I'm kind of grateful for that, where
there really wasn't. There was a class divide that I
thought about a lot when I was watching Lady Bird
of like there are people who had like more money
than us that my parents would be like, Oh, just
don't act like a fucking idiot around that. You know.
There's little stuff like that. But I largely didn't become

(38:03):
aware of my upbringing being poor until I was in
college with a ton of rich Camerson richies. Yeah, and
that was like that was like an upsetting experience where
for my entire college experience I started out by like
I had to work full time through college or I
would have had to drop out. And for the first
half I would not tell anybody, and I was like

(38:25):
very embarrassed about it, you know, I would just be
like I'm busy. I can't like go to whatever. But
it's because I was working till three am at the
scary pizza place run by a sexual predator. I called
the police on but like but and then in the
second half of college, I I'm really glad that I did.
But it's like I just was like, you know what,
rich people are actually trash and I'm working really hard

(38:47):
and I don't want to be like it sucks enough
having to work these awful jobs, so I'm not like
hide the fact that I'm doing it on like whatever,
I'm working harder than you. Fuck you. All I had
to say is like she had so much exs stuff
to have to do and she was still one of
the best, that's so the best, and they still didn't
want to give it to her and I and I

(39:08):
totally get that. That is like, a that's fucking frustrating
to be like, I am working against so much more
than the average person and you're still not you still
won't give it to me, which is a thing that
I mean, this is Poised is more of a class
struggle than a gender one in this movie, at least
because we were only seeing women figure skaters in this movie.

(39:31):
There are certainly gender specific things to talk about in
this movie, but for her it was more of a
class struggle thing. But I think it is still very
much like a parallel situation where women have to work
a lot harder to get recognition, to be taken seriously
than their male counterparts a lot of the time. Right,
and then just like every time you're in a marginalized group,

(39:53):
and then you add another marginalization on top of that, right,
it gets infinitely we call that intersection, yes, Queen. So
I enjoyed that this movie at least posed this theme
of like a woman, her background, her appearance, the way
she presents herself, the way she talks, her tastes and

(40:16):
things doesn't align with the quote unquote old timey version
of what a woman is supposed to be. As for
the judges of this sport, and how that was a
struggle for her, and how she sort of had to
like suppress who she was to be able to fit in,
but also how she was kind of like unapologetically being
like fuck, there's that scene where that's the best she

(40:36):
tells the judges, like how am I going to get
to her a chance? Like why do you hate me?
So much, and they keep saying like we also judge
on presentation, and then she says like suck my dick,
and it's like like you're like, oh no, but you're
also like that so cool, like and she really did
that do just like so cool. I mean, yeah, I

(40:58):
wish that that was dug into a little bit more,
but I do love that she I mean, she had
and it comes up a million times. The triple axel
is like her secret weapon to be able to stay
in skating because she was the only one that could
do it. Yeah, the movie makes a point several times
to say that she was the first woman to attempt
and complete it and be really good at it, Like

(41:20):
ever right, her secret weapons weapon. Um, Okay, we would
be remiss to not talk about the two central abusive
relationships in this movie, one between Tanya and her mother,
the other between Tanya and Jeff. We touched on her
mother already, but I did think it was like kind

(41:41):
of a different, unusual And again, it's a biopics, so
they are just sort of displaying real alleged events and
interactions with them. But it was interesting seeing a relationship
between two women where I think that like it's a
trope basically where it's like the older character is going

(42:02):
to bully their student, as it were, into greatness. Whiplash
is that exact thing. There's a I mean that there's
other I had some written down, but I feel like
it's usually it's either between like a male coach and
a male student, or it's between like a male coach
and a female student, and it's a sexualized relationship, which

(42:24):
we see in Black Swan. Another example of a male
coach and a female student is A Million Dollar Baby.
I don't think I don't remember that movie super well.
I don't think there's any sexual component of their relationship.
But at first he's like, I don't trying girls, and
she's like, I'm the best though, I'm really good. He's like, okay, fine,
I'm Clanniswood and or whatever, boring Clanniswood, fun clanny, but

(42:47):
like yeah, but he like kind of you know, they
develop a friendship, but it's like he a lot of
that movie is him bullying her into getting really good.
It's a dynamic we've seen a lot, I just we
rarely see it between two men. And that is a
component of Tanya and her mom's relationship, and it's abusive.
I think it's like more of you see a more

(43:09):
whiplet she kind of relationship. That was the closest parallel
I could think of. There's a couple of different scenes
where Levana just as like Tanya did her best when
she was angry, and so we see Lavanna paying people
to tell Tanya she sucks before she gets on the ice,
like all this fucking sadistic, manipulative ship with the goal

(43:32):
being in that way she'll do really good. And the
other way that she would do that is by withholding
praise at any cost. Where even when you know Tanya's
landing triple actuals, doing stuff no one else can do,
it's always well, this is what you did wrong. And
Levana is abusive on so many different levels. It's just like, well,

(43:52):
which do we pick. She is abusive on like a
coachy kind of level, which is crazy because she can't
fucking skate. But I think even more so than Tanya's
actual coach Diane, who is not great and is very
I think that she falls more in the bucket of
like Tanya, you're not feminine enough, right, That's sort of

(44:12):
the space she occupies. But Levana is like, you suck
you're bad, and I'm going to tell you you're bad
because that will make it good. And she gets enough
results by doing that that she continues to do it
and and it's bad. We sort of already touched on
the class component of her abuse of like making it
feel like Tanya owed her something, which is I think

(44:35):
it's very common with kids in parents. Yeah, just like
a kid feeling like an investment and like they have
to do well because their parents are struggling in order
for them to be able to do anything, which is
an unfair pressure to put on a kid. I don't know.
I mean, it is so complicated, the issue of class
in America. If you can believe no one, that's a

(44:57):
complicated thing. But they're is that element, there's also just
the element of like Levana is a fucking bad person
who wants everyone around her to suffer and and I'd
be curious. I mean, we see very little of Tanya's
dad in this movie. It seems like they had a
good relationship and that he was kind of the beta

(45:20):
to Levana's alpha, to the way where twenty says later
in the movie, well you hit dad, was like, Oh
she hit dad? Okay, that's you know, an unusual abuse dynamic,
but it's it seemed Levana is framed in the movie
as a character who, for a number of reasons that
are explained, wants everyone around her to suffer. And Tanya

(45:41):
certainly suffered, and and also Levana is completely aware that
Jeff is abusive towards Tanya and does basically nothing to
stop it. And and it really just makes that one
comment in that scene they have together where she says, like,
what I forget The exact wording is like, um, you're
done piece of ship who thinks she'd deserves to get hit?

(46:01):
Right where you know, we can get the subtypes of
what she's saying, which is that you don't deserve to
get hit, but she's leading with you're a dumb piece
of ship, but also she's hitting Tanya exactly and then
and then Tanya responds by being like, well, where did
I get that idea? The implications of that are obviously like, oh,
I think I deserve to get hit because you hit

(46:22):
me my entire life. There's yeah, and there's no subtlety
in the way that issues presented. Yeah, but that's like good.
I don't think that there should be like shades of
gray presented like should this be? But it is interesting
to me And Jeff is the less fleshed out character
of the two between him and LaVona, but it is
interesting to see, I think as of right now, I

(46:44):
feel like, ultimately it is an interesting and I think
kind of impactful choice to characterize an abuser a little bit.
And you know, Alice and Jenny, there is a part
in the movie where she says, like, my mom was
nice and nothing happened, you know, and like, and that's why,
that's why I amounted to nothing. I think was the

(47:04):
implication of like, nice parents in poor communities raise unremarkable
children seems to be her belief and that is a
moment that reveals so much about that character and who
she is. And it's like, do we want to see
a three dimensional depiction of an abuser? In some ways,
it's like you don't really want to introduce so like

(47:26):
I don't want to be able to empathize with this person.
But real life abusers have motivations and have elements and
probably you know, not every single thing they have done
in their entire life is the worst thing ever. And
that is something that you struggle with, and that's part
of the reason why abusive relationships are so hard to

(47:48):
get out of because people are in them and people, right,
I think it's dangerous to depict an abuser in a
way that we might be empathetic or sympathetic. It's hard
to them. I think it is though important to present
them as kind of like three dimensional people, because then

(48:10):
we can kind of start to learn, Okay, why are
you this way? Is there anything about you that can
be helped and made to not be that way? Like?
Because oftentimes, yeah, and abuser depicted in media is just
like very one dimensional. They just are sort of like
pure evil kind of thing, and we don't understand why
they're that way, or if we do, it's, you know,

(48:32):
be an interesting villain character, but it doesn't if the
objective is to get people to recognize people like this
who may exist in their own life, that is not
the way to go, right, Yeah, So I think it's
it was actually like pretty responsible in the movie's part
to depict Levana the way that she was, because she
is a fleshed out character, But the movie also doesn't
absolve her of anything, which is important and I thought

(48:56):
was also effectively do I think there was one moment
where I was like, giving this abusive women laugh lines,
oh right, especially that part where she it's like whenever
Tanya and Jeff's relationship has kind of like taken off
and we don't see a while, and she's like, my
fucking storylines disappearing right about now, and we're all like
big laugh line. It's like, I don't know, there's some

(49:19):
shades of gray there that I'm not totally comfortable with.
But by and large, how she's treated in the in
the movie narrative wise, I thought was interesting. And if
that's the choice they're making to have a three dimensional abuser,
the movie doesn't absolve her. It's clear that what she's
doing isn't the wrong, but it offers some insight into

(49:39):
why that maybe, and I thought that was an interesting choice.
We don't get that as much with Jeff. I don't
particularly care. Another element of the abusive relationship that I
thought was very interesting and ultimately pretty effective was Tanya
is the abused in both of these relationships. She's on

(50:02):
the receiving end with her mother from the second she
emerges from the womb, and then you know, shortly after
it seems like she and Jeff had like three weeks
that were really pleasant and then seven or eight years
that we're fucking nightmare. But I think that and I
need to do more thinking on this, and I want
to bring more effective examples to the table in the future.

(50:23):
But I feel like in general, there is this media
trend of when women are portrayed as being an abusive
relationships on screen. And I think actually a recent example
with be Nicole Kidman's character in Big Little Lies. She's
abused by her husband pretty brutally in that show, but
her character is presented as kind of a perfect character

(50:47):
of like, here's this woman who works really hard, does
all of her domestic chores, is basically bringing her husband
his meal and he wax it out of her hand
and hits her. That sort of thing where we are
seeing a depiction of abuse that is like hard. I mean,
it's very hard to watch, and and it is I'm
sure realistic to some people's experience, But these flawless women

(51:11):
in abusive relationships, I think it's kind of a media
trend where it's like, and she never did a whole
thing wrong in her entire life, how could this person
abuse her? Whereas in Tanya's abusive relationships. Tanya is a
very flawed character. She focks up a lot, and and
there are examples of times where she focks up in

(51:32):
ways that have nothing to do with Jeff, for her mother.
She fox up independently like a person would. So again,
it's just like showing real people in abusive relationships. There's
examples of Yeah, like Tanya fox up a lot in
this movie and in her life, and like, it couldn't
be more clear that just because you don't even have
to like her to recognize that she doesn't deserve this abuse.

(51:54):
And I just thought that that was something that I
really haven't seen that much of, Like especially a woman
in an abusive relationship where she can be a funk
up and she is doing stuff. She's not a perfect
person and she's receiving abuse and she doesn't deserve that.
Where Yeah, seeing a seeing a character like that just
sort of drew my attention to how rare it is

(52:15):
to see a flawed character receive abuse in a way
that it's still very clear that it's like, Yeah, that
was something I thought about a lot. You know, that's
really interesting. I think that's a symptom of so many
movies that do depict an abusive relationship. It's caricatures almost.
It's a lot of like archetypes. It's you know, not
real people who are the characters of the story. So

(52:37):
they don't seem as fleshed out or they it's you know,
you see the writer being well, I want to make
my character this way and and to me in some
crazy way that justifies or doesn't the abuse they receive
sort of things. So they're just like these not real
people who the storyteller designs in the way that they
think is going to serve their story bests. And oftentimes,

(53:00):
like you said, it is like the what's the show called,
pretty Little Little, Pretty pretty much? Yeah, I like to
call it the Laura Dernan and I patch our. I'm
never going to know the difference between Pretty Little Liars
and Big Little Lies, two amazing shows. It's all you

(53:21):
need to know. So it often we do see you know,
a very kind of like perfect, prim proper woman who
doesn't really have any flaws is the victim of abuse.
I think that that's almost like another way to justify
writing a female character that's unrealistically passive. Yeah, yeah, where

(53:43):
like the female character receiving abuse is not doing anything
wrong in any area of her life and she's punished.
But and I think the writers of stories like that
are like, look how tragic this is. They're like, look
how much she doesn't deserve this, Whereas I think like
those same people would be like, oh, but if the
character's flawed, it makes her somehow deserve it a little

(54:04):
bit more. And that's obviously not the message that anyone
should be sending. So yeah, I think it is really
interesting that Tanya is depicted as a flawed character and
that does not make her deserve abuse. Just that was
like something that really struck me with this movie. Or
it's like that is so cool that And also I
think that, like I'm saying, it's trumpe writing, like the

(54:26):
perfect woman who is abused is also just like lazy writing. Yeah,
it's easier to not write a character that behaves like
a human, but but in this, in this movie, I
just that was like one of my favorite elements of it.
That was cool. Not that I want to see abusive

(54:46):
relationships on screen every second of my life, but that
was I thought, like really effectively done. Yeah, And and
they really they don't spare the audience in the way
the abuse is depicted. I mean, it's it's it's hard
to it's yeah, it's hard. Let's take another break and
then we'll come back for a more discussion. But speaking

(55:12):
of real people, which is what this movie is about.
That brings me to something I wanted to talk about
regarding biopics and how most biopics are about men. Some
of them are tortured geniuses. Other ones are about fucking
mediocre as Helmet, including The Disaster Artist and Edward. Throw

(55:33):
a fucking stick and you'll hit a man who has
somehow had a movie made about his unremarkable life. So
few biopics are about women. I did some quick googling
and found a list of about twenty or so that
people have heard of. There's more of film history. Yeah.

(55:54):
A few of the more notable ones include this one
Aitania FRIEDA hidden figure is Elizabeth the Iron Lady. A
lot of these are kind of recent to Jackie, Lena, Queen,
Julie and Julianne. And there's also What's Love Got to
Do with It? Selena Gia, Aaron Brockovich, Monster Monster, Anternet,

(56:15):
propoliss Love, Vien Rose, The Passion of Jona Ark, which
is a long time ago that was a coal miner's daughter.
So there's only there's a small handful of biopics about
women and every other I mean, and the biopics is
such a massive genre. There are so many. Oh, just
any loser can have a movie made about their life

(56:37):
and they're they're a man, and often in the case
of Steve Jobs, which oh my god, if you have
not seen the Ashton Kutcher Jobs vehicle, I saw it
on my twenty first birthday and it was it's truly
so remarkably bad that you have to see it, you
would be you're just if you don't watch Jobs and

(56:59):
figure out what the rules to the drinking game is.
It just the movie basically gives it to you. Like,
but if Auschers in a field talking about computer, like,
what is happening? There's a time where Acton Gutcher is
having an argument through a beated curtain, You're just like,
what is happening? Yes, you gotta watch it, but but

(57:19):
if you if you look at the list of biopics
about women, by and large, they're about white women by
and large. They're about straight women by and large. They're
about women who have had massive success that have led
these amazing last from what I can pick out, you know,

(57:40):
like they're mostly triumph tales, with the exception of Titania
and Monster. Those are the two I can see on
on this list that involves a woman failing. Right, pretty bleak, Yeah,
pretty pretty weak. And one might argue that, oh, well,
there aren't more biopics about women because there aren't more
no figures in history, And well, I would argue, yeah,

(58:05):
history is written by the victors, which are there men? Yeah,
people named Victor, written by metal bitch named Victor, So
there are plenty of And if it seems like there
aren't more notable figures from history who are women, it's

(58:28):
because they don't get talked about, they don't get written about.
I've been written. Or if there are actually fewer, it's
because women haven't been allowed to be fucking politicians until
two seconds ago. It's because women weren't allowed to be
any like so many things, leaders of any industry or
even allowed in the industry can't wait for I RBG.

(58:50):
The RBG movie is gonna be fucking tight. Also, there
is sort of a weird trend in some of these
biopics where it's like, and this is I think this
is a biopic trend overall, but it is maybe because
there's so few about women. It's like, come on, there
is some that it's like and at the end she's murdered,
where that's that is several on this list of like

(59:11):
what made her life so remarkable was that she died
in a gross sexy way, and you're just like, fuck,
we come on, we got watch James Franco saw his
leg off, and you can't have a movie about Ruth
Bader Ginsburg grow up. There's movies about sucking civil like

(59:32):
the Wrong Side of the Civil War, and there's biopics
about Southern generals and the come on, what do you
how many times is Leonardo DiCaprio going to play someone
in the nineteen twenties Before I get my Ruth Bader
Ginsberg movie, I'm now married to it. There there's not
to say that there's not good biopics about men. There are,

(59:54):
but the fact that there are so many male figures
that have more than one biopic about them that is
not a problem that the female equivalent has. You're not
finding like God, which Steve John's biopics should I watch?
You could? Literally there's three of them. There's three of them.
Should I watch Lincoln or should I watch Young Mr Lincoln?

(01:00:17):
And all of them? And this doesn't even include all
the fucking stupid like History Channel documentaries blah blah blah,
what or whatever like And I mean, if we just
major release rainstream Hollywood biopics, if we go before n
I mean, there's a million male biopics about the random
ist men in existence, like a randomized video game character.

(01:00:39):
They're like, we have to have a three hour epic
about this amazing man's journey. ACTO. Just take this opportunity
to say that Citizen Kane, which is loosely based on
such a drag William Randolph Hurst, Yes, it is the
worst movie I've ever seen. I hate Citizen Kane. Funk
that movie. It's so fucking bother your sucking sled, get

(01:01:01):
over it and suck off. I don't like Citizen King.
I don't know. It's not that I don't think it's
the worst babe of all time. I dated a guy
who's really into Citizen Kane for a while, to the
point where he tried to remake Citizens with with and
you're exactly we're talking about with prop comedy oh, and

(01:01:22):
it was halfway shot before someone told him it was
a fucking terrible idea, which is like one of my
favorite anecdotes of all time because I was I was
complicit and being like everyone thought it was a bad idea.
But people hate telling men that their idea is the
worst idea of all time. And that's why so much

(01:01:43):
mediocre mill art is out there because people love telling
women their ideas are bad, but men they're like, yeah,
remixt fucking idiot. Oh well a few other things. Yeah,
I wanted to mention, we see what has become a
trope of Oh I noticed the cal a woman being

(01:02:06):
good at fixing cars as a way to show her
is that I'm not like the other girls. But in
this movie, yes, and there are examples of this where
it doesn't feel tropy or it doesn't feel like it's
a weird tact on trait to make her feel I'm
not like one of the other girls. This is an
example of a movie that does it well. But like
Tanya walks up to Jeff, he's like fiddling around with

(01:02:27):
his truck and she's like, oh, you gotta do this
thing or blah blah blah, and she like reaches in
and she also has braces. It's so cute. He's like, okay,
um yeah, this scene and it's like, you don't know
what to do. She's just like he's the part where
and you and you know, like if you didn't know
he was about to become a historically notorious piece of ship.

(01:02:51):
That story beat when the very heavy handed Romeo and
Juliet begins to play, when he's like so pretty yeah,
and she's like no, I'm not, you're and you're just
like kiss and then end of the movie and then
break up immediately. But that was a nice moment. But yeah, no,
I totally believe that she was good at fixing cars,

(01:03:14):
just based on her background, but the fact that they
show it, yeah, yeah, because it happens again in a
in an episode that we've either just done or is
about to come out as Josie and the Pussycats, where
it's like that one, Hey, that one doesn't make sense
in the context of the story. No, not at all,
Like why but Alan Cumming does give a break the

(01:03:35):
fourth wall glanced at the camera at one point in
the movie, and I can't a wait to record that episode.
I'm gonna explad like and it's to a meat low song.
It's like that was designed with me in mind. I
can't even believe anyway, okay, I'm shifting like I'm getting okay,
But but that's going off of the fact that that trope.

(01:03:57):
I would agree that trope is present because that was
intentionally shown. But a wait, this movie, it would have
been very easy. I wonder if the director of photography
for this movie was a man or a woman. I
don't know. This movie is directed and written by a man,
which I was surprised at two different Yeah, but this movie,
I mean a movie about figure skaters in general, it
would have been a very easy choice to sexualize the

(01:04:18):
way the movie is shot, and it's not shot that
way at all. And when you see figure skating scenes,
you're looking at either Tanya's face to communicate how she's
feeling about herself, or you're seeing the athletic focus you
see like the triple actual a million times. So I
thought that was really al wostly impressive because that's just
how it should be. But I agree, yeah, I mean, yeah,
that's what it should default too. And yet so many

(01:04:40):
movies and it's shot in such a way where it's Hey,
we're shooting this with the male gaze cameras, which has
magnets that are just on the German right. And and
the and the way that I mean skaters were sexualized
in this time would have made it a very easy,
cheap choice. And they don't make that choice in a

(01:05:02):
cinematography by Nicholas know that last name, but I'm gonna
try Karro Kansas Arts US film Editing by Tatiana Tatiana Regal. Yeah,
she eded large and the real girl I just learned anyways,

(01:05:24):
I hope she I I genuinely just based on I
haven't seen all the Oscar front Runners, but this was
like the best editing I saw in any It was shot,
very well, edited, very Yes, it is a terrific movie.
It is so good. I mean, not as good as
Paddington too, but I mean I wanted to talk really
quickly about the role of toxic masculinity in this story

(01:05:45):
as it pertains to Jeff. I think we've we've already
sort of covered that relationship a little bit. We don't
get to know Jeff very well in this movie, and
that doesn't bother me, but of the two abusers, we
know Jeff far less well, but what we know about
Jeff that when Tanya doesn't behave the way he wants,
he hits her and he you know, it's a pretty

(01:06:07):
cut and dry dynamic, and we see that over and
over and over. But the moment in the relationship where
and they both acknowledged this in interviews, and I thought
the way it was portrayed, like there's that moment where
they're like after the triple axle, everything changed where to me,
that indicated a shift in the power dynamic of like
when Tanya basically was just growing more confident in her

(01:06:30):
abilities and ability to succeed, their relationship worsens. And to me,
I felt like that was a response to a man
not feeling in control of the relationship any Yeah, feeling
inadequate or like, oh, this woman is more successful than me,
she's better than me. And because he doesn't really have
he doesn't have he's a job, but he doesn't have

(01:06:50):
special skills the way that Tanya do is right, And
so we see examples of like he's very on paper,
would appear to be supportive in that he is present,
he's there, but he you see him taking credit a
lot for stuff, and you see him repeatedly asking to
be noticed and appreciated for you know, it's not wrong

(01:07:11):
to want to be appreciated, but it's absolutely wrong to
hit your wife. So, you know, I think I think
that it's it wasn't a brand of toxic masculinity that
we haven't seen displayed, but I thought it was whatever
effectively presented, especially for a character we don't know that
much about in terms of his background. We know that
he's poor. He says a little bit about himself, but
that's basically you know, Sean. I think it's a more

(01:07:32):
interesting case study here, and I love I want to
be his best friend. Sean is a different kind. It
reminds me of that pop culture detective essay about like
the toxic masculinity of like nerdy guys of how sort
of for years and movies like Weird Science, where it's
like the nerds will rise up and fuck every woman where.

(01:07:57):
You know, it's presented that narrative of like nerds don't
get to have sex with girls, and what a massive travesty,
and they should be allowed to enact. They should allowed
to be just a shitty women as popular guys. I
just watched sixteen Candles last night for the first time,
you won't get But my God, is not the worst
movie I've ever seen. I think we should do it.

(01:08:18):
We should done special because it's despicable. But presenting toxic
masculinity as a punch line was like another very deliberate
choice this movie makes that I thought worked really well.
There were some moments where I was like, he's doing violent,
terrible stuff, but by and large, I think presenting that

(01:08:40):
character as a fucking joke. Who literally, I mean, he's
he's speaking in like pretty broad strokes of like I
never do anything wrong, cut to like him doing something wrong.
That was another great follow that when he's in the
back of the car, he's like, they'll never break me,
cut to a montage of him just bragging about Nancy

(01:09:01):
care Think, yeah, that was me and my crew, and
it's like and also he lies like five dys like
I got page sixty dollars, Like did it were you
talking about? It? Was just like it was, Oh God.
I mean I think that that the way that character
is presented was really interesting choice that maybe won't work
for everyone, but I thought it was a way that

(01:09:22):
we don't see toxic masculinity displayed a lot that can
be effective. True, Yeah, I agree to. Another couple of
things I wanted to point out about her abusive relationship
with Jeff is that at one point, you know, she says,
you know, I thought it was my fault that he
was hitting me. Then I just thought it was interesting
just to have it be pointed out, because that's such

(01:09:44):
a common thing for abuse victims to feel, because their
abuser is often also extremely manipulating and makes them feel
as though it is their fault. And the fact that
it even gets said I thought was important. Moments like that,
like this is weird to say about. I wish that
this movie had come out when I was a teenager

(01:10:05):
because there's so much presented here that is presented really
explicitly and directly, even when they're like painful truths to
be very direct about. But I'm excited for like young
girls who are seeing in this movie and and can
hear these messages stated so clearly, like that's awesome. Another
good message that I think the movie sends is it

(01:10:26):
starts with you see like a tiny, tiny scene of
her stepbrother, creepy Chris's this guy was living with me
at the time, and I remember my first date with
Jeff because I had my my creepy stepbrother arrested that
day because you see a scene where he comes up
and gropes her and like fondles her breast, and then
she blings him down and calls the cops on him

(01:10:48):
and like has him basically arrested and kicked out of
the house. And then there's a number of other times
in the movie where she calls the cops on Jeff
and nothing is and has restraining orders violent and against him.
He often violates them. They even get divorced because they
get married and then divorced, but she takes them back
after that. When you shoots her, he shoots her co

(01:11:12):
a cop pulls them over, pretending to her bloody face. Yeah.
And then and then while he's kind of talking his
way out of it in the background with a cop,
you see another scene where Tany is directly addressing the
camera seeing like you can talk this way and anything.
The cop has left me there like it was I mean, yeah,
how women are disserviced when you can't make the argument

(01:11:36):
that she didn't try to get out. She did. She did,
but you know the abuse cycle. It's Yeah, the last
thing I wanted to talk about was the media aspect
of it, which feels especially relevant right now. Of a
lot of the reason this story unfolded the way it

(01:11:56):
was was four ratings and four you know, there is
that side of it, But ultimately it was that people
just didn't believe Dan yet, Like they did not believe
what she was saying. I think this movie makes a
really great point of like her whole life, no one
believed her, even when she was saying over and over
like this is the abusive relationship I'm in. This is

(01:12:19):
how my class is getting in the way of me
achieving my goals. Say what Juel about her? She's a
very direct character for in person, and and she's just
kind of shoved aside, and reasons are found to dismiss her,
and sometimes even including like the fact that she's very
direct is used as a reason to discredit her. It's
like you're too blunt, like we it's trashy, did not classy, right,

(01:12:41):
And the ultimate message being that, like people just didn't
believe what she was saying. And there was a lot
of ways that people were biased and prejudiced against her
that informed that reaction. You know, like there's a lot
there's certainly a lot of gray area in this story,
but that she was done a huge disservice by the

(01:13:02):
media that ended up robbing her of a career, that
it seemed like people always wanted to rob her up anyways. Yeah,
um it just yeah. There's a line that she says
in the movie. She's talking about Nancy Karrigan, and she says,
the press wanted Nancy to be the princess and I
to be the pile of crap to sell papers. So
basically they had decided even though they came from similar
economic backgrounds Nancy and Tanya, which is the movie should

(01:13:26):
have said, I should have said, but because Nancy was
maybe not his crass and maybe a little bit more
refined in her appearance, and the press just held onto
that and we're like, yeah, Tanya is white trash, forklift
driving welder lady who was like gross and her competitor.
Of course they were. Well, the thing is like that sucks,

(01:13:48):
is like Nancy was from a similar background, but she
just she was willing to play ball, as it were,
by not really saying anything about her background. She was
very like old interviews with her, they're just you know,
in the way that you see a lot of teenagers
who come to prominence and stay there. She's not really
saying that much. She's saying like she's thanking people. She

(01:14:12):
you know, she's not stating her opinions as much as
Tanya is. And I think that, like there is a
big element of like people wanting her to apologize for
something that she she she's an unapologetic person and people
did not like that, and I it's I mean, we've
hit on this before, just like an unapologetic man Sky

(01:14:35):
is the limit for those types of characters, and a
lot of biopics that is like the center of it.
Like he never apologized for doing what he thought was right,
and that's what we see Tanya doing. And you know,
you can see the real historical result is that her
life was ruined because she wasn't willing to play ball
and was unapologetic about who she was. I don't know

(01:14:57):
if this is an appropriate parallel to draw, but remember
when Mike Tyson bid off someone's ear and everyone's like, oh,
Mike Tyson, Oh this slap on the wrist. But actually
you can still be in the public eye and you're like,
what a silly guy, and did it? And I think
that ties back to the femininity issue of like the

(01:15:19):
sports she was in it, just like she wasn't supposed
to be tough and that sports she's supposed to be
traditionally feminine, and there was no wage room. But then
also just the way that like the press and media
treated both cases, where like Tanya was to some degree
involved in violence against Nancy Karragan and Mike Tyson was

(01:15:41):
no doubt involved with violence around there's an apanage of
it by fighting his ear off, but he got some
ship for a while, I remember. But now, like Mike Tyson,
you can see him in movies like he's still check out,
Please God, don't watch the overr but like exactly like huge,

(01:16:02):
he's still a person that people. Yeah, and often he's
the butt of a joke, but the fact that he's
still But honestly, that was then I ended. I'd argue
that ultimately that was a boon to his career. Yeah,
whereas with Tanya it was easier to villainize her because
of the patriarchy, that little shifty patriarchy. Back again, he
thought we got it last time, recommended viewing for people

(01:16:26):
who enjoyed Itonia first of all, watched the documentary it's
made by I forget what her name is, but a
really great documentary. And also I think it is relevant
that the source material for this movie was curated and
presented by a female filmmaker, really really, really good. And
then follow up, I would watch the Netflix documentary about
Amanda Knox, where you'll find a similar story of I mean,

(01:16:51):
there's no limit to the stories of women being victimized
in media. That's why our Shall exists. But in terms
of like real life stuff, Amanda Knox the I mean
the story being that she was accused of murder when
it was clear very early on that she did not
do it and it was done by someone else who
admitted to it. But for years it was like did

(01:17:12):
she do it? And was pushed by the media. And
I think that this movie pulls from that a little
bit because there's that shitty media guy that we see
in the talking heads over and over who's like he
and I popped her tires like the that seemed like
almost directly pulled from There's like this British tabloid journalist
in the Amanda Knox documentary who couldn't be more thrilled

(01:17:35):
with himself for ruining her life and I just want
to shoot him. But recommended viewing. Hey does this movie
about the bachtel Pst. I wonder it certainly does. For sure.
You've got Livona and the coach talking, You've got Tanya
and the coach talking. You've got Lavanna and Tanya talking
to each other. You've got we didn't talk about this character,
but Tanya fires Diane her first coach, and then hire

(01:17:58):
someone named Dottie or something. And then when she sucks
up the ninety two Olympics, Diana ends up coming back
with that great scene at the diner where Time was like, well,
I'm just like my mom. I'm a waitress, I'm poor,
I'm out of shape, and the good news is I
also am on skilled. It's like that was fun. That

(01:18:20):
was fun. But yeah, I mean the movie passes dozens
of times. It's not even worth counting how many, because
it knows this movie is from moment when women take
up the screen for the majority of the movie, and
again it is worth saying, it's white women again. Tricky,
it's a biopic. Tricky. We're in Oregon for most of

(01:18:40):
the movie, but worth staying. Oregon, which was founded as
a white supremacy state. If you didn't know, I didn't know. Horrible. Yeah,
I wouldn't even let black people live there until sometime
in the nineteen twenties. I want to say, well, that explains,
and it was like a white state. It was found
like this is going to be a white haven for

(01:19:02):
any white people who want to live here and not
be around any people. Not know that. That makes sense
of every place I've ever seen an Oregon well, very white,
fucked up man. She'll be right the movie. Yes, I'm
going to give it a five nipple. I think I
think I am to No, No, I'm gonna give it
four because and I know it's about Atonia Harding. But

(01:19:26):
I do think that Nancy was robbed, was was villainized.
She was Margo Robbie. I think she was, and I
understand why this choice was made, but I don't like it.
She was villainized in this story that she was not.
She couldn't be less of a villain or even a

(01:19:47):
willing participant in I thought that there were several small
opportunities to flesh her out a little bit, but the
movie shows no interest in giving Nancy's character any to mention,
which I that really did bother me. However, every other
woman we see on screen is flawed, has motivation just

(01:20:09):
I don't know, just like a lot of human women
are shown in this movie and are shown together and
are shown in conflict, are shown not in conflict. There's
actually kind of everyone in this movie is in conflict
at all times, regardless of gender, pretty much without exception,
down to the fucking we didn't talk about this where
we think we're getting a reconciliation scene with Tanya and

(01:20:30):
her mom and they're like, nope, she's being paid by
someone to get to admit she did something that she
may not have actually done. Amazing, but yeah, I mean,
I think that this movie is terrific. I just wish
justice for Nancy. Baby. Nancy, to her credit slash to
my low key fury, still to this day, has no

(01:20:51):
interest in talking about it. They're like, have you seen Titania.
She's like, nope, she will not talk about it. She
has no interest. I mean, is weird because Nancy Kerrigan
ended up kind of making a killing off of this incident,
although obviously she was not. Again, she's not a willing
participant in this, but she did make that amazing comeback
and then off of that amazing comeback, she one second

(01:21:13):
place made a face, which I'm just like, that's the
only time we've seen Nancy Kerrigan behave human is that
because she was so like conscious and perfect and then
when she was just like kind of There is like
a great clip when Nancy Kergan gets the silver medal
in the Olympics where the girl who wins it was
like a Russian girl is like taking a while to

(01:21:35):
get off the ice because she's crying so much, and
Nancy is just like, there's like a clip of Nancy
kirk and be like, why are we gonna just We're
just gonna keep filming her crying. I was like, okay, fine,
she's a person, you know. In fact, I like that.
First of all, I make faces all the time. I
always have a scowl on my face. So and also
that's basically telling telling a woman to smile smiling when

(01:21:56):
he smiled. She lost, after all, she there like she frowned.
But but the movie cast her as in I mean,
Tanya cast her is in the wrong for doing that,
and the movie makes no commentary. And the fact that
that is probably a little petty of her, because you know,
Nancy Anyways, clearly I'm a Nancy stand I love her,

(01:22:19):
I love Tanya too, I love this movie. Yeah, I'm
gonna I'm gonna stick with my five just because I
don't have the same emotional attachment to Nancy Carrigan as
you do. So I just thought it was great that
we what feels like because they actually are real people depicted,
because other biopics will be about a historical figure and

(01:22:40):
totally glass over them and make them not that Tom
Hanks movie about Walt Disney. Also that Tom Hanks biopics
are fucking problematic. Charlie Wilson's War is an atrocity to nature.
Charlie Wilson was like a senator I'm pretty sure who.
Literally the whole movie is like he's a using women

(01:23:00):
and it's sucking cool. Tom Hanks. Some biopics no more
the post funk off. Well. An example I saw recently
was the Greatest Showman, which is the worst movie I've
ever seen. I did go to see it because zac
Efron is in it, and that's my cross to bear,
but that movie totally glossed over all the horrible ship P. T.
Barnum did in his life and does not depict him

(01:23:23):
as an interesting or compelling or multidimensional character the way
that Ionia does. So, I Tany was very responsible in
presenting these characters, flawed as they may be, as dynamic,
multidimensional characters and people, and exploring things that movies don't
often if they do explore, they don't go into enough

(01:23:44):
depth about or make any real statement about, which is
you know, class struggles and abuse and the media's portrayal
of women and things like that. So it tackles a lot.
It tackles a lot, and I think it does it
all for the most part, pretty responsibly. And on top
of that, it's just, you know, a woman's story. It's

(01:24:04):
a woman driving this story. It's a fun movie. It's
good because there is kind of like sometimes a tendency
of even in movies that farewell with the Beachtel tests,
in portrayal of women of like, yeah, we're seeing strong
female characters, but we're not seeing a strong, flawed female characters,
and that's something this movie does very well. Yes indeed,
so yeah, I give it a five nipple and my

(01:24:26):
nipples go to I think that Sean Eckart has eight nipples.
You think it's a cat he's a cat. How great
would it have been if Alfred Willina was in this movie?
I gonna say there's not really any older male parts
in this movie though, so it might have been impossible.
And also how amazing is it that there's no older

(01:24:46):
male parts in this movie? Um? So ali from Willina? Unfortunately,
I think, I mean he's a feminist icon. He posted
a first trap along with a caption that's like donate
to Times up and it's like, um, what bitch, But
like I love it, You're get So you're giving Sean
Akhart five nipples? Nipples, I'll give him two of mine,
which brings up his count to seven. So maybe he's

(01:25:10):
just like he's got like a spare time. Because I
love I can't wait to see Paul Walter Hauser in
every movie that comes up from now on. I literally
can't wait to be tired of him. Um, and am
giving my other two nipples to Nancy? Sorry? Yeah, that's great. Yeah,
And I also think that I look more like Nancy
Kerrigan than the girl who played her in the movie.

(01:25:31):
I'm just throwing it out. So like all the casting
agents were patrons on are you can't wait to play Nancy? Karrigan. Well,
that was the episode, folks, thanks for listening. I had
given the I didn't remember this, but I had given
the movie five nipples, um and and Jamie you had

(01:25:54):
given it four. I think I wouldn't necessarily give it
five if we like to backpedaling on her nipple writing again,
Caitlin backpedal, Durante strikes again. I don't know. Maybe I
would still give it. I might. I might even scored
a little lower. I don't know, maybe it would still

(01:26:14):
be around of four for me. I think I think
I would drop it down to like a four point five.
For the reasons that you cited in the episode. I
was just too I was too gung ho about it.
I guess I was just like Ed had just come
out and we were all excited. We were like Alice
and Janny's gonna win that Oscar and then she did.

(01:26:35):
So yeah, I feel like, oh, and I was a
final note that I think in the two and a
half years since, this movie has kind of slipped out
of the zeitgeist in a way. I do not like.
I feel like people don't talk about Titania really at all,
and I feel like it's it's you and dummy A
did Jewey bay or the only people talking about Titania

(01:26:57):
and we need to fix that. Me and Demi's thread
is pretty much all about Itoni, like it's just like
watching it again, Like it's just we're both watching it
a lot. He and I have a similar text thread
about Paddington's, so that makes sense. Demi is that friend
because he's a man of passion. Um. But I would

(01:27:19):
encourage you if you like Titania, tell someone who hasn't.
It's on Hulu. For crying out loud, It's not hard
to watch Titania. It's so accessible. Just bring it to
your friends, bring it to your loved ones. They deserve it. Okay,
that's I'm getting off my subbox. Also, Jamie, I can't
believe we went through that entire episode and you never

(01:27:39):
mentioned anything about Zamboni's which is I mean, that is
for a reason one of my one of my only notes,
not a Zamboni in the whole movie, not a damn Zamboni,
which is first of all, erasure, Bodi Erasure, there's for sure.
And like Tanya heart thing is like she's like a

(01:28:01):
working class hero. She would be talking to the Zamboni
drivers she would be forging lifelong friendships to the zamboni drivers.
I bet she knows how to drive a zamboni and
like everything. Now I want to just quote the whole
movie again. She does chop on every day, she does
drive the zamboni every day. Yeah, that would be. I mean,

(01:28:22):
that would just be if this were a fictional story.
They're like, well, yeah, Tanya pays for her lessons by
driving the zamboni, which is something that I would do
for anything for free. Oh sure. Like to refer to
a recent episode on The Cheetah Girls when the one
character works at the community center to pay for her
for her dance lessons, it could be just like that.

(01:28:43):
That's a very common way to get children to do
labor they shouldn't necessarily be doing. Um was my I
did the same thing for dance classes in in uh
in high school. They're like, oh, to help teach the
little kids. And then we'll look the other way, and
you're like, look the other way, I'm doing a job. Anyways,

(01:29:04):
Titon your rocks. She should have been on a zamboni. Also,
I've written a zamboni and we seen. Um. Well, thanks
for listening everyone, Um you can follow us on social
media at Specto Cast on Twitter and Instagram. Really be
sure to follow those accounts because that's where we post,

(01:29:26):
you know, certain events that we have. Maybe you were
maybe you were hanging out on our Titanic live stream
last week. We're hoping to do more of those. So
just stay in touch, don't be a stranger. You can
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(01:29:48):
as well as access to our back catalog, which is
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there's just if you're running low on main feet, it's
a great place to go. And it's also a great
commune any You can get our march at t public
dot com, slash the Bechtel Cast. There's just options upon
options upon options of ways for you to form paras

(01:30:09):
social relationships with us. You should, um make an Itonia
design for okay, don't tend to be Also, I wanted
to pitch this go for it a crossover of Ionia
and I Frankenstein. What if they exist in the same universe.

(01:30:31):
We should honestly, I now I'm like, should I change
my other birthday? Patreon episode two I Frankenstein? Honestly, something
good thin I fregate side is there was two perfect
movies combined. It couldn't be done. Oh god, I love

(01:30:52):
I freak it said so much like the scene where
he's on top of the mountain and he's just swinging
around nun chucks, but there's no when there. I love it.
I simply don't remember. I think I've seen it, but
I don't remember anything about it. Aaron Eckhart really wishes
that you didn't remember anything about it. I would I
would gladly record a bonus episode on it, though, if

(01:31:15):
that was your birthday wish. Maybe that's the move about
to make my wishes come true. All right, Well, thanks
again everyone, and we'll see you next week. Bye.

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