Independence Day with Lindsay Ellis

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello us, it's us. You're about a year. An episode
on Independence Day with Lindsay ellis the one, the only.
But first a few plugs. Yes, we have a few
shows coming up and multiple countries, multiple continents. First, we
have our last l a show for a while at

(00:20):
the Ruby on July thirteenth, recovering Anastasia for my birthday.
I'll be cosplaying as Respude and of course um that's
on July thirteenth. Go to backtal coast dot com click
on live for tickets there. I'm also doing my show
one more time on July twenty at the Lyric Hyperion
Boss Home Is Girl, if you want to check that
out before we leave the country to go to dot

(00:42):
dot dot London and Edinburgh. So yeah, you're doing your
show bossum Is Girl July July at the Bill Murray.
Tickets are already running loads in London. That's in London.
It's the show I'm taking to Edinburgh Fringe Fest called
Boss Home Is Girl. It is say skewering satire of
corporate feminism in the vein of Cheryl Samburg, Elizabeth Homes, etcetera.

(01:08):
It is very fun. I've seen it many times and
I'm going to see it more when we are both
in Edinburgh. Yeah. I'll then be doing the show every
single night at Edinburgh Fringe Festival at the Pleasants Baby
Grand from July thirty one to August. Tickets for that
are also on the Becktel Cast website or on my website.

(01:30):
I will be selling tickets at any cost. And then
after that run ends, we will be going to London
for to an evening of two live Becktel casts that
I'm really excited. It's our first, it's our first international performance. Sorry, Canada,
so we'll come. We'll be there soon, Canada, don't you worry.

(01:53):
But first we'll be in London on September one, two
back to back shows. That evening. We are covering Pixars
Brave and The Favorite, so hopefully that's appropriate. Enjoy it.
We know that Brave does not take place in London,
but we've already done Paddington's so with that and we're

(02:13):
pretty sure that's the only Listen. We're not covering the
King speech. You don't want to hear it, we don't
want to do it, so we'll be at the Albany. Uh.
Tickets are officially on sale. They can be found at
bechtelcast dot com in the live tab and we hope
to see you there. And then, don't forget I'm doing
a couple of stand up shows in Edinburgh as well
in late August. I'm doing some in London and I'm

(02:35):
doing some in Dublin as well, so if you live
in those parts please check me out. All my stuff
will be on my website, Caitlin Dronte dot com. Love
it so. Without much further ado, Happy Independence Day episode Yes.
On the dog Cast, the questions asked if movies have

(02:57):
women in them? Are all their discussion just boyfriends and husbands?
Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zeth in best start
changing it with the beck Del Cast. Good morning. In
less than an hour and a half, we will have
finished talking about the movie Independence Day, uh and many

(03:23):
from around the world will have listened to it, and
we can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We
killing you're such an inspiring leader, really, this is why
you keep getting reelected. We will be fighting for our
freedom from the patriarchy. Should we win, today will no

(03:48):
longer be considered an American holiday, but a day that
we were declared in one voice. I'm like in the crowd,
high on math, ready to tear my shirt off at
any moment. So you're a Randy Quaid. We will not
go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without
a fight. We're going to live on, We're going to survive.

(04:13):
Is really today we celebrate the Bechtel Cast. Welcome to it.
Oh gosh, I did so many twists and turns. I
really nominate this one for for something anything. Thank you.
You told me I could do the intro, and that's
I thought would be the best choice. I was just
going to be like, I got dental surgery. My mouth hurts,

(04:36):
mind us too. I know, it's kind of I feel
like that's our version of a glow up, is that
we are getting our serious dental problems taken care of. Uh,
you know, three years of work and we're finally able
to see a dentist. Mine, to be fair, mine is
a group on dentists. But she was very nice and
she did all the procedures at once, and I feel

(04:57):
like my skull is on fire. Oh my goodness, I'm
just are you no, it's good anyway, healthy good. I'm
Caitlin Darante I'm Jamie Lofton, and we talk about movies
with our perfect teeth, with our with our now perfect teeth.
So this episode will be flawless. Yes, it's not like
Bruckheimer flawless. We don't have vineers gigantic veneers protruding three

(05:19):
inches out of our head. We examine movies through the
lens of how they treat and represent women. We use
the Bectel tests as a jumping off point, and that,
of course, is the metric invented by cartoonists Alison Bechdel.
That is a test applied to media for our purposes.

(05:40):
It means that there has to be a scene in
a movie that has two female identifying characters with names
to talk about something other than a man for two
lines of dialog. Doesn't sound hard, but et cetera. Yeah,
I'm assuming this isn't your first episode. If it is,
you know, you can find that in a different episode. Yes,

(06:02):
so today we're talking about Independence Day. Yeah, and today,
the day this episode comes out is also Independence Day. Yeah, amazing, Yes,
we're recording it, perhaps not on Independence Day. Salivating Independence
Day is like weird now, Yeah. Yeah, there's like some
people that I don't I don't even remember what I did.

(06:24):
I think I was with you last year. But there
are some people who were like being real irony bros
about it and like, well, I hate that worse than
celebrating it. Sincerely, I don't know what a strange time
to be alive. It certainly is. And hey, let's introduce
our guests. She's a video essayist, she's an author, and
you remember her from our Phantom of the Opera episode.

(06:46):
Passions were flared. Goodness, it's Lindsay Ellis say thank you
for having me to talk about the best movie and
the history A cinematic masterpiece might be the best piece
of art. I mean, yes, it is. It's a feminist texts,
it's a piece of art. It's a scholarly text. Yeah,

(07:08):
so we are talking about Independence Day, Lindsay, what is
your history relationship with this movie? That's a good question.
I feel like it's very like baked into the fabric
of my d NA, Like it just like fused with
me the moment it came out, and we've been one
ever since. Like when you mentioned the author part, like

(07:28):
when my book comes out next year, you're gonna be like, oh, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah,
that tracks. I just it was kind of one of
those movies of the nineties where like because for the
most part, I I don't really experience nostalgia. I'm actually
a deeply cynical person. But I think like Independence Day
is just like where every piece of nostalgia of my

(07:51):
brain is funneled because it's such a deeply stupid movie.
But I also argue, I feel like Independence Day raises
a very interesting philosophic question, which is, can a stupid
movie be good? I think we're going to talk about
that today. Certainly. Yeah, I think yes, Jamie. What's your history.

(08:11):
I don't have a ton of history with this movie.
I do remember that, for some reason, it was the
our first DVDs in my home were this and Holes.
This was, for a very long time, the only two
DVDs I had. I loved Holes and my parents loved
Independence Day. And that was simply the way it was.
And those were the two DVDs. So I have seen

(08:32):
I had seen this movie. I hadn't seen it in
like years, but in my head, I'm like, oh, that's
what my mom and dad would watch right after I
finished watching Holes. So like, it's our turn with the
DVD player, Jamie. Yes, just a really a lot of
draconian battles over the DVD player. Um. So yeah, this
is for me mostly the movie that would come on
after Holes Got It. What About You? This came out

(08:54):
when I was ten, and I believe I saw it
in a drive in movie theater at age ten and
then I did not watch it again after that. Ever,
did you like it? Do you remember? Like I remember
liking it? But then Men in Black came out the
next year and I was like, I like this Will
Smith alien movie way better than Independence Day. So Men
in Black was my ship. I think Men in Black

(09:16):
was my Will Smith entry point. That was probably the
first time I've ever like seen him. Independence Day was
definitely my my Will Smith gateway drug. But Men in
Black Will Smith was like my Will Smith heroin Like
that was the one I really developed a problem for.
There was a sort of that one to punch. Which
is funny because like Will Smith will talk about how
he didn't want to be known as the alien guy.

(09:38):
But like arguably his two most influential movies are different takes,
like very different takes on you know, conspiracy theory Americana
and It's funny because neither of neither of these films
can decide if the Deep State is bad or not.
They're like, I guess the will the Deep States there,
it's do what it's best too vague. Yeah, they're trying

(09:59):
slap some cute faces on the deep stays feel about
the Spiner, Yeah, he's really excited about the lights. Brent Spiner,
who I was like, oh my god, it's the villain
from the Master of Disguise. Yes, well, that is a
deep cut data on Star Trek, which is how I
think most people did not know that beloved Broadway actor

(10:21):
Brent Spiner character actor. I did see Independence Day, is
it Resurgence or whatever? They saw that. There's different love
for that one because it's so ambitious and like just
so out of time, because like you know, like because
I did a video about this, which I'm sure we're

(10:42):
going to kind of at least touch on, which is
how like Independence Days a movie that could only exist
in the nineties, and then when you have the sequel
that just does not make any sense in like a
post nine eleven Alex Jones world, and and so the
movie they made was just like, well, I guess we're
going to invade them, right, didn't For the new one,
it's basically everyone is back except for Will Smith. Like

(11:04):
most people except really recast the President's daughter, which is
kind of bewildering because Whitman, Whitman is an actual star.
They recast her with a hot nobody her, Yeah, her,

(11:24):
and then recast her. Okay, I'll just jump into the
recap and then we'll go from there. Yeah, let's roll.
There's This movie is also famously two and a half
hours long. It is. It is so long, right, there's
nothing compared to the norm today. That's true. I mean,
but for a first movie, I don't know. It's like
a short Marvel movie. Very long, that's true. Yeah, So

(11:47):
it's July two one, Yes, Act one? Did they tell
you exactly where the act breaks are in this movie?
It's kind of a masterclass in that way. I should
teach a class on this movie. Should screenwriting with Roland?
So an extraterrestrial radio signal comes in and everyone's freaking out.

(12:08):
Jeff Goldbloom is there. He's a science guy. It's still again.
I'm totally sure what his specific job is. Well, he's
a science guy. He's a cable repair he's a cable repairment,
as his dad jokes, and that's yeah, I think that's
not quite accurate. I think he's a technician at a
cable company, got it, only to become a hacker later on. Yeah,
well only makes sense. He knows that he knows the fiber,

(12:28):
that's true. He's got a Mac used the same os.
I love the vague techno jargon used to this movie.
He's like, I put I put a virus into the
aliens and they're screwed. And everyone's like, oh my god.
Another thing that only works in nineties six. Like, people
see the movie Hackers and they're like, sure, Hackers. My

(12:51):
favorite part of Hackers is that a lot of the
cast is wearing crew next wed shirts that say VCR
Like it's just like, I just love the green ones
and zeros that like oh yeah, they're like they like coding,
use their consciousness with the computer because that's how hacking. Yeah. Absolutely, okay.

(13:12):
So um, Randy Quaid is drunk, He's dusting crops. It's Tuesday,
then playing the type. Then we meet the President of
the United States played by Bill Pullman. It's President Thomas Whitmore,
and no one's taking him seriously. Because they think he's

(13:32):
too young and that he's a whimp. Oh my gosh,
I love that his central issues like I'm too hot,
No one i'll take me serious. There's a lore behind that,
Like apparently in earlier scripts it was like there was
there was like a whole thing about how he tried
to introduce universal healthcare, because it was like they're very obviously. Yeah, yeah,
they're very obviously. Like if you go into the Independence

(13:53):
Day wiki, which I never have, like there's like a
whole backstory about how like he tried to introduce universal
health carried it failed, and then the Republicans regained control
of Congress and that's why his approval ratings have crashed. Well,
I mean that would be less dumb than I'm too
hot and I'm just too cares about. They couldn't fit

(14:14):
that backstory in, so they're just like he's just too
it's not even in the director's cut, too many alien
punches to fit in. There's only so much time exactly,
So he's too hot to be president. So he's too hot.
And then his press secretary Connie is relaying a lot
of this information to him. She's just like, no one
thinks you're cool. Then uh, it turns out the signal

(14:35):
that's coming in is from this enormous alien mothership that's
approaching Earth. And then several huge space crafts break off
from the mother ship and then like head towards Moscow,
New York City, d C, some other major cities around
the world. I mean just like hover over those cities
for a while. They're just hanging out. The presidents like,
I don't care, I'm staying in d C. Okay, They're

(14:58):
ominously hovering over like all these major cities. It's probably fine.
And then canonically this movie is taking place in right,
so it is also a few months before the election,
right right, Oh yeah, there's an election coming up. So
if you're hot president and people are already like he's

(15:20):
too hot, I was like, oh, they would say, pretty
boy ran away from conflict. Hot man, must be strong
for re election, Connie, I gotta stand my ground. I
gotta be sexy and here. So then we finally meet
will Smith, the genie himself. We finally his character, which

(15:42):
is Steve Hiller. Twenty minutes into the movie. They really
make you wait. They make you wait. He is military.
He has to report to his base to deal with
these alien spaceships. He thinks there's no danger, but his
girlfriend Jasmine is like, I don't feel good about this.
There is a thing about seeing Vivica a fox in
a one floor house that made me want it to

(16:05):
be the beginning of kill Bill. Yeah right, She's had
better scenes in one flour house indeed. So back in
New York, Jeff go bloom. He figures out that the
signal that they received was actually a countdown that all
the spaceships are using, and then when they get to zero,
they're going to attack. So he and his dad played
by planets with satellite satellite system already installed and love

(16:29):
an arbitrary countdown in it's like stealing it out. It's
like when you steal your neighbor's WiFi. That's just what
these aliens are exactly the satellite. That's why they went
for the inhabited planet. It's like their version of like,
it's only three days until the talent show. So then

(16:50):
Jeff Goldblum's character's name is David and his dad played
by Jed Hirsch. They drive to d C to tell
the President, but before like really anything can be done
about this countdown news, the aliens start blowing ship up,
including the iconic White House explosion scene. Um so, then

(17:10):
the President and his staff they get to safety, and
then Jasmine and her son Dylan get to safety, but
a bunch of other people die. Now we're in July
three a k a. Act two. Will Smith and his
marine buds going for a counter attack against the aliens,
but the alien ship has his force field and they're

(17:31):
fighting back on their own little like fighter ships. And
Will Smith is the only survivor of the Marines in
this counter attack, so he goes over right, he goes
over to an alien ship that he took down and
then punches an alien in the face and then he
starts dragging this alien back to his base. Meanwhile, in

(17:53):
the l A area, Jasmine finds the First Lady in
some rubble Hillary Clinton herself in a pile of dirt
and red headed Hillary that actor plays the president in
Battlestar Galactica. So she goes from first Lady to the President.

(18:14):
Thing that didn't happen, And that did not happen. That's unrealistic.
I mean, at least Hillary Clinton doesn't die of internal bleeding,
so there's that. Yeah, she still got time aliens might
arrive tomorrow, might be in a helicop. So then Randy Quaid,
who is again in this movie, and also it's so important.

(18:39):
He becomes more important as the which is wild. But
he is with his kids somewhere outside of l A.
They're in a desert. He keeps talking about how aliens
had abducted him ten years ago. This is really very
Randy Quaid like. And Randy Quaid may not have even
known it. Yeah, I don't. I don't think Randy Quaid
knew this was fiction. I think he started was making

(19:00):
a documentary and he was just testifying personal experience. Every
line of this is improvided. There was a lot more
like I think the director's cut in the script. There
was a lot more rape jokes, like, oh did the
aliens rape you? Rust boy? You sure did get raped
by those aliens. There's already so much of that quite
a bit. Yeah, there's these guys who were bullying him,

(19:22):
like sexual stuff to you, and it's an odd, odd
place to go. So Randy Quaid picks up Will Smith
and the alien that he's dragging around and who he
had punched in the face. He picks him up in
the desert and then the President and his friends are
taken to Area fifty one because there's an alien research
facility there and that's also where Will Smith and Randy

(19:45):
Quaid go. And then the scientists at Area one start
to dissect Will Smith's alien. But it's still alive and
an alien less vaginal than your average movie aliens. True,
but it's pretty bad it does they they like slice
it open and then it like falls open into these
like yeah, it gives a big flap. Yeah, there's a

(20:07):
scalpul in. I feel like it's somewhereculum in the middle
of like from not vaginal at all to like which
one is like like Stranger Things Season one, like erupting
pussy monster and then which I'm going to confuse the
alien or aliens one of them has or maybe both have. Yeah,

(20:32):
so yeah, so this semi vagina alien, it's still alive
and really are the ranking page for like vaginal inspired
alien design. There's a video yeah really like goopy too,
and they like and then you're like this has gone

(20:53):
too far, like you have not seen I think it's
the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. But the Kraken
shows up and is like a vagina monster to end
all vagina. It just makes me wonder about like alien
metabolism that they are always covered in goo, Like even
like the Independence Day aliens, they are always kind of
have that like low level sheen going on, and it's

(21:14):
just like maybe they're just sweating. Maybe they're fair sweats
there are in the desert like Glossier models, Like they
just look kind of wet, just always kind of wet
because it's never it's not quite scaly, it's moist. There's
a moisture going on, a towel off definitely. So this
alien uses its telepathic abilities to communicate through this guy,

(21:35):
doctor Oaken, which is Brent Spiner's character, and the President's like, hey,
why don't we just like try to co exist peacefully?
And the aliens like no, I want you to die
your favorite sceneries, Like can we find a way to coexist?
And then the alien just goes no, and then they're

(21:57):
kind of like well as Worth asking was like hey,
hey I tried, and then he doesn't even go why,
He's just like Okay, he said no, Okay, some real
lemus one on one President hottie. So yeah, then Jeff
Goldblum is like, no, we can't use nuclear weapons against them,

(22:20):
that this is a horrible idea, and he's right. They try,
it doesn't work because the shields are still up on
the alien spaceship. So then Will Smith borrows a helicopter
and somehow knows exactly where to go to find But
why would he think they agreed to meet there, because
like whenever he leaves, he's like, come to me at

(22:41):
the base after you go stripping right, And she's like, okay,
So that's where she's trying to get the whole movies,
trying to get to the base, and then when she
gets there, it's been destroyed by the alien pod. So
they meet up and they're like, oh my god, and
then a great kiss. There's a kiss and then glit.
The president is reunited with his wife, but she's bleeding

(23:06):
eternally and then she dies. It is now July, fourth,
act three. Baby, everyone's at their lowest point. It looks hopeless. Yes,
those alien shields are down because impenetrably, guys, what are
we gonna do? We arbitrarily killed one of the women exactly.

(23:27):
The music swelled. It was very emotional, it was. And
then Jeff Goldblum, he's throwing a fit, and his dad's like, hey,
get off off this freezing floor before you catch a cold,
and Jeff Goblin's like, that's it. We have to give
the alien ship a computer virus and then like zeros

(23:48):
and once begin to rain into the screen like a screen.
Will I mean, like, my favorite part of this scene
is he is drunk, like he is lit when he
comes up with the computer virus idea. And I like
to like my head cannon of this scene because like
the whole thing like happens over the course of four hours,
so you don't sober up after four hours. So like

(24:08):
he comes up with this idea while he's wasted. He
pitches it while he's still drunk. He's still drunk when
he gets in the craft with Will Smith, and it's
only that whenever he goes, oh, I was I thinking
that he has sobered up, my head canon, and he's
like about to throw up, and it's like, sure, he
gets like airsickness, but it's also because he's like he's

(24:30):
been drinking the whole movie. So then they figure out
that they have just they're going to fly this small
alien ship that they have into space to the mother
ship and infect it with the virus, which will cause
all the shields to like retract, and then Will Smith
is like, I'll do it. They organize the attack, They

(24:50):
gather up all the pilots they can, including Randy Quaid
by just asking like, Hey, does anyone here know how
to fly? And he's like and then he's just like
but but the best part of that scene is the
contrivance for why they have enough planes but not enough pilots,
because there's like a newscast where they're like, yeah, a
bunch of military people are hiding in the mountains because

(25:11):
they're scared. I missed that. Yeah, that's that's that's the
real Like, that's the the exploitation is just like, our
brave troops are actually quite cowardly when which comes to
shelve anythos. We'll deal with them later. Honestly, the most
of the third act, like the logic behind every decision

(25:31):
was very cryptic to me. That's why I'm here, Yeah,
because like it's one of those really pedantic movies where
every time you're like, but why did thing, it's like, ah,
there was a throwaway line. There was away line because
I was like, because as I was watching it and
and you know, I mean it's like you barely have
to Like I'm glad that you're able to follow if

(25:51):
you're really paying attention, but you barely have to be
able to follow. You're just like it's gonna happen. So
someone's going to fly into the spaceship and then someone's
gonna kiss and then it's over. Two things that need
to happen in this movie, and Alien Corpse parts will
fall from the sky and the music will swell, and
and Bill Pullman's on the ground like seemingly forgetting that
his wife died less than pretty good. He's got so

(26:16):
many people die and then the people who should react
to that do not react to that. Yeah, like the
like the next day, the first scene of Act to
July three is like Will Smith and friends like getting
cigars and like ready, whoop beat's ass. And it's like
Jasmine is presumed dead. Ye has is pretty much the
entire population of l A County. I assume you have family, sir, right, yeah, yeah,

(26:41):
no one cares. And then when Randy Quaid dies, his
son is just like I'm so proud of him. It's
like are you crying? Like why not? I mean that
was a complicated relationship between father. Yeah, because like most
of the director's cut is like extension of the Randy
Quaid plot, and it's like convoluted in because like he
like that the son is actually his stepson because Randy

(27:04):
Quaid married his mother, so the brother is actually a
half brother. But I think the oldest is just like
the only stepson. Mother died at some point. I'm pretty
sure she's Namive American, and so that's like a whole thing,
strange amount of details. And so they and then like
the middle child is has like a medical condition and
they spend like a long time trying to find meds

(27:26):
for this kid. Yeah, so agonizingly long. A lot of
that state. I mean, like the sick kid is still
there and you're just a puke. He does puke. He's
definitely sick. I'm like, I don't, are we who is he?
Like whenever those kids, I know that they're like Randy Quaid's.
It's just weird how much this movie is just like

(27:46):
people love Randy Quaid and and they're going to root
for him no matter what groups say more Quaid, and
yet there's no time to develop any of the female characters.
Wild you don't want to die a virgin. I can't
wait to talk about that. So then Bill Pullman gives
his famous speech. Will Smith and Jeff Goblin fly off

(28:07):
into space. They go, They upload the virus to the
mothership their friends now they're their best friends. The pilots
fire at Will at the spacecrafts on Earth. Randy Quaid
sacrifices himself to save everyone, and then the boys come
back from space and they get the lady folks run

(28:28):
into their arms and they beat beat yes, and then
that is the movie. We've got to take a quick break.
They'll come right back and we're back. Oh man, Okay,
where to begin. Well, so, lindsay, you did a video

(28:50):
essay on Independence Day versus War of the Worlds, and
we're kind of just interested on your take on how
the this movie Independence Day can kind of only exist
in the time frame that it came out in and
just give us a recap, so to speak, of your
video if if you wouldn't mind, Well, it's it's interesting

(29:12):
because to jump onto another nineties classic, The Matrix. I
remember when that movie came out, and part of the
whole premise of the Matrix is that, like was the
peak of human civilization before I started declining. And I
remember at the time thinking that's ridiculous, and in hindsight,
I'm like, oh, I think there might have been something

(29:34):
to that, because the nineties was a weird, kind of
uniquely stable time in world history. And I feel like
when I put that out, people are like, oh, but
this thing, but this other thing is like well in
the in the Grand Scheme, you know, like it was
between the Berlin Wall goes down and and so a
result is that the media is um kind of bored

(29:57):
and really drawn to disaster. And so Independence Day kind
of fits in like sort of aven diagram of like
fascination with aliens that was very rather specifically like aliens
and like American conspiracy theory, like the three biggest examples
of that being The X Files, Independence Day, and Men Black,
And it also kind of falls under disaster movies, which

(30:20):
neither X Files are in black cars, so it's like
too the biggest like genres dated genres of the nineties,
and both of those things died when nine eleven happened
because suddenly conspiracy theories weren't so cute and fun anymore,
and also nobody wanted to watch disaster movies. It's kind
of interesting now and how it's like swung way the

(30:42):
other way, like all the disasters you see on movies,
and I guess now on television Game of Thrones are
like they love Boy, they love they love their nine
leveny imagery. Um, so I think it just it takes
an approach. Audiences were, of course totally down with at
the time because it didn't really take this idea of

(31:05):
international disaster seriously. It's such a fun movie, like you said,
everyone kind of reacts to this horrible disaster with like
ready to kick the tires and light the fires. Big Daddy.
Harry Connick Jr. Drives me fucking crazy and stuff doesn't
crazy with love, crazy with desires. I was supposed to

(31:25):
be Matthew Perry original I didn't know this cast, and
then I don't know. He's like I gotta go the
worst character and friend instead of the worst character. In
Independent Ferry is almost always the worst part, and I
like him, but he's the worst part of seventeen again,

(31:46):
the worst part of a lot of stuff, and that's
why we love him. It's the worst part of the
movies that star him. The whole nine yards he was
on that show that was called go On, but it
was stylized so it looked like the name of the
show was a goon that I got canceled after three episodes.
That's one of my favorite Matthew Perry failures. Sure. Sure,
that's a whole other podcast. So I think so there's

(32:09):
a super producer. Sophie is cracking up on this episode.
She likes Matthew Perry, Shade Perry's pitfalls go On. So
when we when we do a sociological study of um

(32:30):
uh yeah. So there's an interesting sort of trend going
on right now that is is kind of in its twilight.
But this is this is true like any twenty year cycle,
because you know, it's like you'll have twenty year cycles
that appeal to cirtain certain age groups and thirty year
cycles that appeal to others. So that's why there's like
an interesting sort of like parallel right now with nineties
nostalgia and remix and eighties nostalgia and aesthetic. Like I

(32:53):
think the two biggest phraightes nostalgia right now, or it's
the franchise and Stranger Things, um, but with nineties nostalgia,
it'll be like remakes or reboots of nineties things. And
boy does the ones like Men in Black Internationals coming
out like or came out already. That was a movie
that happened. It sure didn't see it. Uh. And Independence

(33:17):
Day Resurgent came out in two thousand six or SI
and Uh, the X Files reboot was also a thing
that happened. But I wish we could talk about Ben
in Black International and how it did if we had
the time. It's interesting that, like, you know, Independence Day Resurgence,
it was too different from the old one because it

(33:38):
couldn't piggyback off of the you know, conspiracy theory Americana
that it was written around. And X Files didn't know
what to do with the way conspiracy theories are now
part of the culture and how you know, in both
movies are extremely um naive. I would honestly say borderline
I responsible, especially the X Files because Roland Demrick has

(34:03):
this really interesting preoccupation with conspiracy theory because I genuinely
think he doesn't believe it, but I don't think he
understands that a lot of people do. So so yeah,
it's it's it's interesting. It's sort of like as a
as a as a study, like an anthropological case study
of a time in history that you know, it's just
we can't ever go back. Yeah, I mean a lot

(34:25):
of the movies we cover on the podcast we you know,
talk about how they are very much a product of
the time that they come out in, because you know,
they will be just ripe with homophobious, sexism, all all
manner of problematic things that you know, we in are like,
oh my god, how was that ever okay? And not

(34:46):
that it ever was, but you know, culturally we were
in a different space ten years ago, twenty years ago,
on and on. But yes, this is this movie is
kind of a product of its time in a different
way than we normally discuss. But there are still somethings.
There's plenty to talk. I mean, it is like it's weird,
Like it was like genuinely jarring. As much as I

(35:08):
enjoyed this movie, but it's like a little bit jarring
in some way to see a disaster movie with such
like an optimistic tilt, like you don't really ever like
there are moments, but you don't really ever see anyone
on earth consider that they will lose like well, I mean,
that's such part of this just this American ness, because
it's an American story filtered through the lens of a

(35:31):
German who was raised very wealthy, so he he is
the essence of privilege. Which is interesting because like Roland
Imerick was at the time pretty much the only out
gay director, like Brian Singer wasn't out yet, and plus
he wasn't really famous yet because you know, usual Suspects
had just come out. Double check that, um. But it's

(35:54):
it's like going through that filter is very interesting because
I don't I don't, I don't know if an American
would be shameless enough to make a movie like this,
but Americans really reacted to it positively in a way
that like Roland was never able to Land was never
able to recapture that level of success even though he's

(36:14):
basically been grandfathered into you can make whatever movie you
want until now I think he's finally lost that. But
it is like the perfect moment of just like USA
U s A. There's so many moments here that I
feel like you could show that same clip and put
it in a movie from and it would be like
a jokey thing or a sinister thing to see someone

(36:35):
like like a group of mostly white dudes going like USA,
U s A. That's scary to people now there, like
this is like the peak of them, or it would
be a very different for a different crowd. Like I
could see a really conservative tilting movie do that. But
I think like this movie because like you know, Roland
is liberal Hollywood liberal. But like I think that this

(36:56):
movie is made for made for democrats. Let's put it
that way. It's a movie for democrats. I got the
Clinton's in office basically, they just they only they don't
like him because he's too he's too hot to cool.
He all but like cool. He puts a saxophone too much,
he all but pulled out too many times. It was

(37:18):
I mean, but this movie was seventy five million budget,
eight hundred seventeen million box office because it's great. It
was very success. It was the number I think it
was the number one movie of the year. It was
one or two. Surprised me. Also, just a stray observation
about disaster movies. Before nine eleven their orange. After nine eleven,

(37:40):
they're blue. Yeah, they're very gray. Yeah, because again like
with with Game of Thrones as an example, where we
got eleven that color palette never let up until the
threat was stabbed. But yeah, it's just it's just like
I think there's something about just like the suppressive palette,

(38:01):
like the sort of blue gray that before nine eleven
was mostly associated with, like you know, holocaust movies, and
even after eleven, like there there was something just like
this very like Russian work camp, prisoner of war, like
we saw that in the like The Pianist had a
very blue color palette, even the beginning of X Men,

(38:24):
first X Men movie. But it's just like it's the
blue plus the haze, you know, is like there's so
many examples like Avengers, One Man of Steel, a lot
of Game of Thrones Endgame kind of did it game
was kind of purple. Yeah, like a purple haze. Sanos

(38:44):
was there and he was very purple. He just hit
her baby. Okay, So let's talk about the women in
the movie. Schallouive so many his wives, so this is
a huge wife that's a speaking of product of its time.
Like think that's another thing that people just didn't really
bat an eye at, which is there's no women in

(39:04):
leadership positions. There's like none of them contribute anything valuable
to the plot. None of them come up with any idea.
I guess the closest is Vividate a fox taking the
initiative to drive a truck people anyway, Um, and you know,
that's just something that you would never see in like

(39:26):
I think even in two thousand five with Four of
the World, it felt a little off that there that
the girl child was just so helpless and never like
grew or learned anything. Like even even then it felt
a little like I was suppresed. There weren't even like
any like Mary Sue moments in this movie. I'm like, oh,
someone's going to be able to like do because you

(39:46):
are presented with two female characters that have the illusion
of power. You've got the first lady who is like
this Hillary Clinton cipher. So it's like, okay, maybe she
might be doing something. No, uh, then we have what's
her name? The character's name is Connie, the Press secretary,
the Press secretary, and it seems like, oh, she's in

(40:06):
a position of power. Perhaps she will impact the plot
at some point. But then the twist is she's Jefical
Bloom's wife. Yes, yes, exactly, because there, yeah, she wanted
to be a career girl and he was like, but
I love And then in the end she realizes actually
she think he was right now too, She's like, yeah,
I definitely want to talk about that conversation enough. But yeah,

(40:29):
so we meet. We meet three main female characters in
this story, and they are all introduced in the context
of them being the romantic partner of one of the
important male characters. Um, we don't know that Connie is
romantic partner until about a half hour in, right, because
then we can all breathe a sigh of really, she's

(40:53):
not a single woman over thirty. Thank god, we were
so worried. Yes, So they all end up being just
there to basically further characterize the male characters who they
are romantically linked to in some way. Yeah, right, because
I was like, oh Connie, Okay, well I didn't even
first I didn't. I don't think they name what her
job is. So they did pretty early, do they? Okay,

(41:14):
she goes, I mean it's another one of those like
there is a lot of dialogue and a lot of quick,
quick exchanges and it's very blank and you'll miss it. Someone. Yeah,
someone does say like, like, you're the press secretary, this
is your job? You know? Okay, we we know her job,
we see that she's a woman in politics. She seems important, right,
like you said. But then the respect of hot president.

(41:37):
They have that fun exchange about how he's hot. We
can't say it enough. But then as soon as we
find out that she is the ex wife of Jeff
Goldblum's character, she does nothing in the story except for
like hold his hand and like look longingly at him.
He realized the meaning of love. They realized that, you know,
the world is burning, and you know they should have

(42:01):
valued each other. But now they have this second chance
because they didn't explode into bull of fire. I don't
know if I'm more frustrated by Connie or by the
first lady, because both of them are just like you
start out with, like, you know, at least the feeling
of like, oh, there's some potential here. They could do something,
And then it's just the male characters in their lives
just slowly sapped them of their agency until they either

(42:22):
die or retire. Um, there's no government anymore. They don't
need a press secretary. They blew up the White House.
Where is there to do government at way? Starting jewelry company,
start etty store, and she and Jeff called bloom Will,
I don't know, build a cable company together. So then

(42:43):
pretty early on Will Smith's character and his girlfriend Jasmine
are separated physically. Uh, and we kind of waited Jasmine
more than I thought we would. I figured, like we
would just kind of forget about her, she wouldn't be
a character. Yeah, because it's like to give this movie
some like small ribbons. You know, Roland likes to I

(43:04):
don't know if he's overstating it, but like he he
would talk about how he had to fight the studio
to get Will Smith cast because, um, you know, Captain
Hiller is probably you know, the closest thing to a
main character, and like they really didn't like the idea
of a black lead. I'm not surprised, and it was
not bankable, and especially combining that with the fact that,

(43:25):
you know, Jasmine probably has more screen time than even Connie,
so she probably has like she's like the most fleshed
out female character in the movie. She probably has the
most screen time of all the women, so you know,
and it's just like, well, for a woman of color
to get a bigg ish part in like, you know,
the biggest movie of the year, it's like, okay, you're
you're a gold star, you're one, You're one who And

(43:49):
then one of the other main characters is identifiably Jewish
and that I feel like it's a pretty it looked
like a wheel. Yeah, judge her good sport. Yeah, I'm
talking about Jeff Golbo. But representation win. Representation win, I

(44:10):
mean is like you can there's sort of like the
iffy optics of a German Man writing this character, and
it's like, sure, sir, where do you stand? Okay, getting
back to Jasmine, she is she is, like I mean,
she's my favorite female character, mostly because we knew more
about her and we saw her more than any other

(44:31):
female character. We find out that she is a stripper,
so we find out what her job is. Again, it's
like kind of weird optics on that too, where I
feel like, you know, like, we get these two rich
white ladies in these fancy white lady jobs and then
the only woman of color is a strip so the
optics there are, and we contrived a way to get

(44:54):
her in her like stripper outfit, her Las Vegas show
girl stripper out I was like this club, Yeah, it's
like that's like a samba outfit. She even explains how
like that is just sort of forced into the movie.
She was like, I just showed up to work to
get my paycheck and they made check, and like it's
just like we had to this gratuitous who is who

(45:16):
is coming into the strip club on the day of
the alien invasion? Why is anyone at work? Like whatever?
Like Mario, who's the guy who owns the club? Mario
is still yelling at her. She also did bring her
child and her dog to the strip club, but she
shouldn't get a sitter. Yeah that' said. Okay, So even
though the optics on that are like funky and questionable,
at least they do not you know, like the they

(45:39):
don't use it as an excuse to degrade her. She
like advocates for herself when Hillary Clinton's like, oh, I'm sorry,
you're a sex worker, and She's like, no, I'm not sorry.
It's like that's how I make Like I make money,
and like I do it for my son, who is
worth it, Like yeah, it's there's no like, well, one
day I won't have to do this, you know. It's
just like, you know, I'm fine with it. It's it's cool.

(46:00):
They have their sex positive conversation. It ends with Hillary
Clinton being like, maybe it is cool, hadn't thought of
it anyways, internally bleeding to death. Thanks for talking to
me in my last moment. Kind of fun that that
was her final lesson. She's like, man in life, I
should have respected sex workers more. Anyways, I mean, at
least it's just like, well, if a woman had to
get fridged, at least it's not the woman of color,

(46:22):
that's true. That's like an old star representation win maybe.
But then we have Harry Connick Jr. Telling Steve Hiller, Oh,
you're never going to get to fly a spaceship if
you marry a stripper because Will Smith is trying to
be in NASA, and Harry Connick Jrs. Like, don't marry
a stripper? An arbitrary? I know? To me, it makes

(46:44):
perfect sense. That makes one million sense to me. Yeah, yeah,
just like the optics of astronauts are. I actually I
just met an astronaut over the weekend. Uh. The people
they select to be astronauts have to be perfect on
so many levels, Like not only are they like, you know,
incredibly like extroverted and charismatic, they also like all of

(47:06):
them have like the perfect nuclear family. So I think
it is, yeah, the the you know, because like right
now they're prepping up for a crew dragon as SpaceX,
and you know, whenever they talk to the people who
work at SpaceX, they always like whiplicked to play up that, like, well,
I can't wait to come home to my children. Boy.
I sure do you have children? Boy? And have children?

(47:29):
Please don't blow us up. So yeah, I think I
think I think that it's just like as as silly
as it is, I think it's like, yeah, that that
would absolutely be a concern. Sure. But also Harry Conna
Junior's character sucks so fucking He's like imitating Jesse Jackson
at one point because he has the role normally of

(47:50):
the like goofy black friend who dies. So it's like
and he's doing that voice. It's like so bizarre. Yeah,
it's interesting because it's almost like they that for a
black guy Will Smith, and then they reversed the part.
I think Cass Matthew Perry before your Econic right, so
like it was always intended for an annoying white guy.

(48:12):
It's so weird. I don't know Harry Conny Junior's performances
we've got to take up. We must take a break
from Harry Connick Jr. And then we will come right back.
We're kind of wrapping up the discussion on Jasmine, where
it's like there's a there's a lot, there's pros, there's cons.

(48:35):
She kicks down the door. She kicks down the door
because women went in action movie must kick something. At
some point she has she's like, you know, de nearest,
she's the unburnt. Yeah, we're just kiddy. She manages to
survive that closet. It's heat resistant, don't worry, But there
is there is like another kind of she is a

(48:56):
caretaker and a motherly role. For the majority of the movie,
we do get to know what her job as we
do get to see her talk about herself and advocate
for herself, but she is protecting her child. Not to
say that she shouldn't, but she is kind of put
into that maternal role and then also uh starts to
rescue people and then also briefly kind of becomes Hillary
Clinton's mommy nurse. So I mean, there's nothing like inherently wrong,

(49:23):
Like there's nothing wrong with being a good parent, right,
But I think one thing you like, I think that's
only kind of very recently started to change. Is like
when you have action movies and disaster movies, men's narratives
tend to be we are here to solve the problem
and fight the problem. Women's narratives tend to be survival narratives.
And I think hers is you know, kind of like

(49:44):
the horror version of that where it's like during the
you know, disaster, she is the face of humanity who
had to endure it, and she then has to survive
until she is rescued by Will Smith. Um, so yeah,
you see, you see that a lot like you know,
like Hunger Games is you know prime like is the
first one is a survival narrative. An they're like, weird
thing about this movie that I don't know. I see

(50:05):
a movie like this and I don't expect to see
great fathering, but there's pretty much like everyone is a
good parent in the movie Hot President and a good parent.
Hillary Clinton is a good parent, Vivica A. Fox is
a good parent. Will Smith is a great step dad.
Even Randy Quaid, you know, he's doing his best and
probably lay off the sauce, but sick kid gets his medicine.

(50:26):
Judd Hirsch is like, don't get off the cold floor,
and he thinks that the idea for the computer virus.
So it's like like the fathers and the mothers are
are parenting equally well, but the you know, fathers get
to go off and do cool ship and right, whereas
the mother. Yeah. So that's that's the my favorite shot

(50:47):
of the movie, because I have all of them are.
My favorite shot of the movie is where after the
aliens are beat and you know, Robert Loggi goes, we
got him beat Tom, and then he goes, how about
our boys? Are they back yet? And then in the
background you see vivid a Fox and Connie like step
into the frame and be like, yeah, for boys are back.

(51:11):
Just yeah, they're they're completely just sidelined for the I
mean whatever act three. Jeff Bull, Yeah, well I do
say you better come back right, yeah, because they both
say it like in their own and Connie goes, why
does it have to be you? Why can't some other
like human sacrifice go And then the boys come back

(51:32):
and then the two women run towards them, and then
the kids looks not like she's just been through the
end of the world. Another thing I want to say
about her character is and I'm curious what everyone thinks
about this, but she is the only one who seems

(51:55):
to voice any concern about the impending alien invasion. She's like,
I don't feel good about this, and then Will Smith
is like, well, they didn't find ninety billion light years
just to like kill us all, and it's like, of
course they did, Like I mean, they might be asking
for help. Maybe could be like it could be like

(52:17):
an Octavia Butler's lil It's Browed trilogy where just like
we need some genetic diversity. Randy Quaid, you're looking pretty.
There is a moment during the and this is just
like maybe laugh when Will Smith is like leaving um
and then there's something, you know, apocalyptic happening in the distance,

(52:40):
like a fox runs out to him. She's like honey, honey, honey,
and like doesn't notice the apocalypse until Will Smith says, look,
how this could you not see it? Yeah? I had
someone on because I was like, where is this? Because
this is obviously a place and that exists in the
real world, and so I'm like, you know it is
because the magic of Twitter. Someone like within five minutes

(53:00):
was like, here's the address. It's in Glendale. What a
great gallery in Glendale. So the point is, so Will
Smith drove from Glendale to Orange County like kind of
the south part of Orange County. I mean it makes
sense because Jasmine has to go through downtown l A
to get to El Toro. So that's why I mean,

(53:23):
so it kind of makes sense that she had she
works in downtown l A. She had to get her
paycheck and then she got talked into work and so
she was on her way. But I think, like everybody's
like getting out, and I feel like it needs it
must needs be remarked. President Hottie is not a good president.
He is quite bad at the presidenting. Like his first

(53:43):
you know, like maybe let's not evacuate the city's like, yeah,
he's too busy. Why does he fraid he's going to
offend the aliens? I think he's secretly like, okay, let's
alien nuke the states that don't vote for me. Yeah,

(54:04):
And I'm just like I have some like and Jeff Goldbloom,
come on, even if they knu every single alien ship
that would not cause nuclear winter? Do you know how
many nuclear tests there have been, Jeff Goldbloom, It's been
um so anyway, So Jasmine is like, hey, I think
there might be something bad. I have a bad feeling
about these ominous alien ships that are hovering over every

(54:26):
major city in the world. So I'm wondering it is like,
does that is that kind of playing to the trope
of like a woman's intuition kind of thing where like
think she's the only person looking at the gigantic doom machine.
I mean, like, let's be real, like black people do
tend to have a better self preservation instinct, so I
think it's like speaking to that truth of like all

(54:48):
the white people are like, you know, they're probably here
at a party. But then says that too, and he's
like he's a guy, you know. Yeah. I mean it's
I'm glad that someone said it, because it is very
weird to be like people seem remarkably unconcerned nineties. They're
just like, yeah, the aliens are here. I love et.

(55:09):
So I guess it's good that like we see like
the one person who like voices any sort of concern
and ends up being right about it is a woman.
On the other hand, there is Mary, his wife whitmore
a k Hillary Clinton and her she's away. Do we
know what she's doing. She's away on first Lady business.

(55:29):
She's like doing first Lady stuff at l A. Right,
So she's she's away and she's you know, talking to
hottie president and he's like, hey, I think, like, babe,
I think the world might be like ending, so you
should come home, and she's like, no, I I have
to finish doing this, which is like dumb, but whatever.

(55:51):
She said no to her husband. Fine, but there is
a gold star. But then but then she is later
unished for that decision because she dies because she didn't
leave when he told her to. She does end up dying,
and in her with her dying breath and it's just like, oh,
like all right, with her dying breath. She apologizes to

(56:13):
her husband for not coming home when he said she
shut up and that you know, if only she had
listened to her husband, she would she wouldn't have died,
an amazing lesson, and her her last word is liar. Yeah,
like they he's just like kind of one of those
things where it's like it is it is difficult to write,
like in jokey banter between two characters because it's like

(56:36):
it's hard to translate, but they're weird like relationship. And
joke is he'll like say an obvious lie and she'll
go liar. And the first time they do that is
when he wakes up and she calls him and he's
like he's got his daughter in bed with him, and
he's like, I have a confession to make. I'm lying
next to a beautiful brunette and I'm like, weird, Yeah,

(56:57):
it's weird joke to make president your child. Yeah, And
she's you know, she's like and there was the other one,
like he'd say like an obviously and she'd go liar.
And like the last little in jokey banter they do
is him going the doctors think you're gonna be fine,
a horrible thing to say, you're dying like blood purple

(57:22):
song out of her esophagus. And also no one is like,
no one is worried enough about little May Whitman. Like
she gets a hug from her dad. I'm like, doesn't
I really understand what's going on? Because the next day sleeping, Yeah,
she's asleep. And now it's the more the July and
there's you know, alien arms around fire and we're smiling,

(57:43):
like the two children. Vivica a Fox's son and May
Whitman like when they're hiding in the bunker and like
it's like I love nineties movies because like children do
not act like children where they're just like quietly sitting
while chaos us is erupting around the people are screaming.
And the little boy says to her, are you scared?

(58:05):
And she quietly nods and goes and he goes, me too,
cut carnage outside, liar, And she shakes her head and
he goes, liar, like your kids, you're crazy. Can we
talk about the conversation between David Levinson a K. Jeff
Goldbloom and Connie, the Press secretary where they talk about

(58:29):
the first time they're on screen together. They're talking about
a fight that David and the president got into where
David punched him in the face because he thought his
wife was having an affair with Whitmore so you know
it wasn't, but she did later but right or something.
I don't know, I'm doing it. I'm presidents in an
open marriage. They're cool with it, liar, h. So that's

(58:53):
a fun thing that happens. And then they have this
conversation about her career when they're an area fifty one.
She is talking about working in the White House and
how the president is a good man. Oh yeah, he's
he's getting drunk or through them the scene, she's like,
the president is a good man, and he says he'd
better be. You left me for him, or you know
your career, and she says, you know, it wasn't just

(59:15):
my career. It was the biggest opportunity of my life.
I wanted my life to make a difference. I wanted
my life to mean something. And then he says, and
I wasn't ambitious enough for you. And then they started
talking about him and how smart he is, but how
unambitious he is, which he's like just every redditor like
I'm a secret I'm a secret genius. Or it's just

(59:35):
like you know what I could be really like successful,
I'm just I'm a genius. Who's lazy. I'm just lazy.
I'm just too tired. Right, And it's like he refused
an underachiever. He apparently refused to correct that problem, and
so she left him, like right, well, it's just like
he just would not move for hers. What it seems
like he just seems comfortable in his rut in New

(59:57):
York being a you know, engineer at Comcast or whatever.
I love that male narrative of just like, well I
am smart enough to do something like better, but I'm
not going to. But you know I could. I just
haven't been presented with the correct opportunity like an alien
apocalyptic invasion. Yeah, now's my chance and see babe. But like,

(01:00:18):
I feel like this could have been a much more
interesting conversation about like how he resents her career ambitions
because of his like fragile male ego, which is something
that happens in a lot of you know, hetero couples.
And then she could like call him out for not
respecting her and her agency and all that stuff, which
is where it seems like the conversation is headed. But

(01:00:39):
then they just end up talking about what a genius
he is, and then it ends with her saying I
never stopped loving you, and then that's the beginning of
their romance. Rekind was enough? Was it? It reminds me
of like the like Michael Bay does the mean version
of this a lot like Transformers one, which steals a
lot from Independence Day Um also kind of steals that

(01:01:01):
narrative of like a guy who's like a slacker and
useless that you know, given the opportunity, can um rise
above and you know, be the successful boy. But I
think the thing is like with you know, a character
like Sam with Wicky, he is absolutely meant to be
like the Cipher, he is the self insert character um.
And I think there's a reason why the the you know,

(01:01:22):
these movies are always written like this, like it is
basically you know, meant to appease the way men see themselves.
You know, that is reflective media, where media reinforces a
societal norm. You know, people internalize that, and therefore media
is created that you know, is sympathetic to like this
particular worldview and back and forth and then like that,

(01:01:43):
just the cycle continues. So I think you know that
of course, that that that conversation was never ever going
to challenge him, because it, you know, was meant to
validate that that self image of I'm just a secret genius,
I'm just lazy. You're the problem because you don't see
my secret genius and like you wanted too much for yourself.
And also just like equating, like it couldn't just be

(01:02:05):
that she wanted a career. It had to have also
have been another man. Yeah, he's like, oh, your work
for the president, so you must be fucking the president,
which I mean with Bill Clinton. I mean maybe Jeff
gold just not a very good He's not a very
good partner. I know. It's jealous of her job and
of her being in the same room with other men,

(01:02:27):
and like she's like in politics, most of the people
she's going to be in the same room with they're
gonna be men. Maybe, and he just like he maybe
you just knew that about himself. He couldn't deal with it.
And like the Jeff Goldblum character just kind of speaking
to what you're saying about, like reinforcing how men see themselves.
It I feel like it even goes a step further
because it's not just saying like, oh, like there's a

(01:02:49):
large amount of men who you know, feel that they
are secretly capable of more than the opportunities that they're
given and they're angry about it. But in Jeff Goldblum's case,
they make they also make that true and so everyone
around him is like, you are a genius, like because
it's like you need to be, you know, presented with
extraordinary circumstance in order to realize your potential, and it's

(01:03:10):
as it's a very appealing narrative. And I think it's
like it tends to star men because they know tend
to need the most validation, but also like I think
I think they're you know, male audiences are going to
respond a lot more strongly to this idea of like
I'm a secret genius than women are. As why you
never really see like women characters that are just like

(01:03:30):
I'm just a shlub until like until because they, like
women have to, they start hyper competent and good at something,
and then they get more hyper competent. And I was
like Captain Marvel or Catanists or every female Marvel character. Yes,
it's fortunately all men are secret geniuses. You're all very smart.

(01:03:52):
The same thing kind of applies to the president, where
in the beginning it set up the public thinks that
he's a whimp, he's not like the fierce leader that
Americans thought they elected, and then he redeems himself by
going into battle as like a fighter pilot, as a
soldier to fight off the alien invaders. So it's like
the idea of like a man showing his worth by

(01:04:15):
like being a warrior, a protector, like that's how men.
That's how men show how awesome they are and that
they're not whims. And I mean it probably got him
re elected in the upcoming election because he's anymore. I
think it's like it immediately descends into fascism, yeah, because
you know, there's like alien survivors, there's alien Guantanamo Bay.

(01:04:38):
It's you know, and it's very controversial because it's just like, well,
should we treat them the way they treated us? And
then it's like in District what was it? It's like that,
but worse, like there's torture. They try to hide it.
It's District nine, just like July five in the World
of Independence Day. I feel like if this movie extended
to July fifth, Yeah, it would get very dark for

(01:05:00):
quickly because then May Whitman needs to learn that her mother.
Everybody's pushing aliens in the head, right, it's just going
to be a disaster. Yeah, But you know, it's funny
because like it depended day resurgence. It was It's like, uh,
I guess it took a very humanity after the Black
Plague approach to rebuilding because everything's great, We've got all
this technology, world peace achieved. You know when like you're

(01:05:23):
just like we were built really well, everything's great. Um,
Hong Kong's looking pretty nice. I have I have a
question for the table. Do you think yes or no
that this movie was approved of and partially funded by
the Pentagon. It absolutely was not. It was not I
would have guessed though, Yes, I guess that it was.

(01:05:43):
And then I did some researches because we've talked like
briefly in the Transformers episode and I think also in
the Rock of just like movies that were signed off on,
I mean the Transformers, the entire I mean you know, so,
I mean like here's the thing. It's like, yeah, it's
it's actually really hard to get numbers on this sort
of thing because like for the Pentagon it's classified, and

(01:06:04):
for Hollywood they don't have to open their books. So
it's like from project to project, you don't know what
the subsidy looked like, but you can you can tell
that it's probably a lot more sizeable if there's actually
a tie in ad campaign like Man of Steel had
that and Captain Marvel had that. Yeah, Captain Marvel is
like one of the more recent movies that it majorly
promotes the Air Force um, like, I mean, it goes

(01:06:26):
back to like after Top Gun came out, like Enlistment
went way the funk up every Transformers movie, a couple
Marvel movies, not all of them, like Winter Soldier, Iron
Man one and two, but not the Avengers because I
guess the no, they didn't. Actually Avengers got shot down
for a pretty similar reason that Independence Day got shot down,
which was they didn't like the shadowy cabal of the

(01:06:49):
Powers that Be in the Avengers that were like giving
secret orders to Shield. That's what they didn't like. And
in the Independence Day they didn't like Area fifty one
other thing that they didn't like about Independence Day that
I found because it's it's I mean again, it is
hard to find details, but it seems to kind of
come down to this one guy, Phil Strub. Until like

(01:07:11):
Phil Strub, he does not even his job anymore. He
was removed at the end of last year. And oh
he was he was there for like the entire eight Yeah,
he was there for like almost thirty five years. Yeah,
I went in a phil Strub hole. Yeah. Fil Strub
is interesting because he's like he's like the shadow man
that like no one can get an interview with him.
He is like so he for for our listeners, he

(01:07:31):
is like the connection between Hollywood and depending on the military,
like any movie that receives their seal of approval have
to go through him directly. And it was like that
since possibly like it's like the eighties, and it was
the eighties, like early eighties, like top Gun was definitely
in there all the way up until the end of
eighteen and there was never a press release. But he's

(01:07:52):
no longer in that position as someone else had no idea.
It's confusing, but he so one of the reasons given
for Independence Day, and it's like again, he will never
state this, but I guess that Will Smith's Navy pilot
dating a stripper was a problem for the Pentagon as well.
You're right, yea, So yeah, so this movie did not

(01:08:15):
get the Pentagon Salver approval and I guess as a result,
like had to develop effects even better because they didn't
have any really assistance, So there was some special effects
that so more of the story, Uh, feminist icon the Pentagon,
and I mean this, I feel like this movie does
do a fair amount to like normalize sex work and

(01:08:37):
stripping more than a lot of movies we have seen,
which we'll just have a scene that takes place in
a strip club for no reason and then they're just
like naked women there as scenery. So at least we
don't you know, at least it goes a few steps
beyond that. And to roll in Emeric's credit, you can
kind of tell the movie wasn't directed by a straight guy, right,
you know, it's just like he clearly the camera clearly

(01:08:59):
has no just in Jasmine sexually like he like he
thinks she's pretty, but like the camera never leers on her,
like if you can again compared like the obvious comparison
being Michael Bay, but like they like there's never any
leering shots that are like objectifying or fetishizing, like she's
always very human the first time you see her, she's
like fully clothed and plaid and has a ponytail, like

(01:09:22):
and that the one stripping seems a very very short,
very show girly Yahd's like the way it's shot is
just like you know, like, yeah, I like women, Yes,
I like yeah, looks good, like just it feels a
little like I I respect with like I don't really
know how to make a woman look sexy because I
don't really want that. But like a lesser director probably

(01:09:45):
would have like been like, oh, we're not going to
get Penticon money if we leave a stripper narrative in
because it could technically be removed from the story and
not affect that much, um which you know, does that
speak to how much the women affect the blo Yes,
But it's like I thought it was like cool that
he didn't cut it, even though that was one of
the reasons given. But she's positive, she's she's here to

(01:10:10):
normalize sex work to Hillary Clinton, she showed her a
thing or two about a thing or two with your assumptions.
I make good money. I own a house in Glendale. Yeah,
I'm not a ballerina. I'm like, I can't have heard
a house in Glenda. Let's say, who can? This is
such This is such a like an Americ centric movie
for being directed by a German guy because his follow

(01:10:33):
up was The Patriot. Oh yeah, Stroland has an interesting
an interesting I think it was The Patriot and it
was either Godzilla or The Patriot. Actually think Godzilla was
next in The Patriot came after that, right, But yeah,
he has an interesting filmography. But it's just like all
the people in the movie who were like the most capable,
the ones who were going to figure out how to

(01:10:54):
crack this alien problem are all in America and everyone
else in the rest of the world was just like
sitting around twiddling their thimbs like a bloody time. Best
scene ever, he's also the Day After Tomorrow, right, that's
him to the other best movie. He loves a disaster,
loves a disaster because that was when he was like

(01:11:17):
trying because I think that's like her post nine eleven Roland.
It's like, yeah, where he's like I'm going to use
my you know, disaster movie powers to make money, which, again,
to Roland's credit, he's like one of the few was
one of the few people people keeping non franchise films
alive because you know, you think of like the biggest
grossing movie in being Independence Day. You know that would

(01:11:38):
never happen now ever, ever, ever, But yeah, because like
you know, back when, so like Day After Tomorrow him
trying to like I'm going to make a point and
I'm going to make people take this seriously, and I
think it probably had the opposite of what a goofy
that's like a chillen Hall Emmy Rossa, and it kind
of does the same thing with like President Dick Cheney
at the end where it's just like he's trying to

(01:11:58):
be sympathetic because the Power that be and give them
the benefit of the doubt. Loved that where they was
like all the Americans like breaking into Mexico on right?
Is Dennis Dennis Quaid, isn't that movie? Yes, speaking of
a quake, I wanna stay just a little bit about
Randy Quaid's kids. Yes, Oh, yes, so that we learned

(01:12:21):
in the back story that there's no mom because I
feel like all the moms are dead or die in
this movie for the most part. Yeah, exactly, because Jeff
Goldblum's mom is dead and then the first lady also dies. Um.
So Randy Quaid has two sons and a daughter. The
sons get to talk a lot when we see them,

(01:12:43):
you know, they're in the scene there in the foreground,
whereas like the daughter hardly says anything. She's usually in
the background. The one scene where she is the focus,
she is with a boy who is trying to convince
her to have sex with him, to lose her virginity
with him, and then her brother comes in and He's like,
come on, we gotta go, and she's like, I'm not
going anywhere, and then her brother yanks her away. That

(01:13:05):
happens to her twice too, because Randy Quaid does that
to her one of the times where she keeps being
like I want to do this, and then someone around
her just like no, Sam, what's her name? Wow, it's
finally something about into Pennis Day. I don't know. I
do not know those character's character's name. I was trying
to I like grew wound scenes. I was looking for
it because I knew this older sister and Mrs doutfires

(01:13:27):
and yes, because the girl's brother. According to according to IMDb,
it's her character's name is Alicia. I mean nothing. She
she never appeared. I don't think her name is ever mentioned,
at least in the theatrical cut. I think it might
be in the director's cut, because again, like the director's
cut is like so much meandering of like you know,

(01:13:48):
there's a lot more of like mcguil being resentful of
Randy Quaid and fairness. He has a good reason to
be resentful, like the Q man, he needs to lay
off the sauce. He's not being a very good father.
I just feel like, sure, Randy Quaid does comment at
the very end and saves the day, but I feel
like his storyline should be cut entirely. Have someone else

(01:14:08):
save the day. Have the fucking president's save of the day.
I don't care, but just like there should be more
real estate any quay the president cut the pullman to me,
anything is worth Hello, boys, I'm back yes, And then
that the crowd cheers, Yeah, they're actually uh in preparation

(01:14:29):
for this not really um one of the in the
distant past episodes of Game of Thrones that left are
really bad taste in my mouth. And I had like
I had some people over for a watch party, as
like we're watching an Independence Day because it's like it's
just especially like if you have really you know, a
nice like home system, it's like it's just hold like

(01:14:51):
the you know, the effects hold up really well, but
it's just like the you know, joyous dumbasstery like of
of like you know, Randy Quaid's ca eliminating moment. It
always makes me. And then like the music swells and
alien body parts of ringing from the sky and it's
just so like you know, you say that it is

(01:15:12):
so it's so and it's like I can't think of
any other screen moment like that. Where again, it was like,
if if there was a suicide moment played today, it
would be extremely grim, we would, you know, But this
is like a blaze of glory moment, Like it's not
meant to be sad at all. Like when three children

(01:15:33):
have just lost their fathers. There's three children are I'm
so dad, we inherited the RV. It's fine, they're right
there now there's just three kids in an RV, which
is a series I would watch. I mean, I just
think that we should have cut the Randy Quaid subplot
and spent more time developing the female characters. I loved.

(01:15:54):
Have to say Randy's got to stay, but give Randy's
daughter more to I say, cut one of Randy's sons.
Don't need, we don't need have her be the puk.
We actually don't. We can get rid of both so
we can make her uh mad at Randy Quaid and sick.
And then you have a daughter like you're not my father. Yeah,
I don't know. I kind of like that. It's a

(01:16:14):
boy who's like, you're just wried. I think that's in
the director, So movie has got a middle part, You're
like ninety six? Yeah. Um. Can we talk briefly about
how this movie handles queerness, which is that we see
Harvey Firestein in the movie The Gay of the Early
Nineties played the same character in Uh. Yes, you know.

(01:16:39):
It's a pretty stereotypical portrayal of a gay man. H
then he dies almost immediately. And then there's another moment
where Steve Hiller is at base with Harry Knnick Jr.
Harry picks up the ring that he's going to propose
to Jasmine with, So it looks like Harry Connick Jr.

(01:16:59):
Is like on his knees proposing to well Smith. That's
what it looks like. And then and then this other
guy walks in and then he sees them. I love
that joke, and then he like walks away that He's like,
you guys, you guys are having a moment. I'm going
to leave you to it. I'm glad that you have
that interpretation. I interpreted more as like, oh, I don't
want any part of this. Let me slowly back away,

(01:17:21):
and then I run because I am coming at it
from the like knowing Roland Demrick and his background it
was just like a being a gay man, be being
incredibly naive. That does that context us, yes, because I
think like he thinks, like obviously he thinks Harvey Firestein
is hilarious. Um, And I don't think he sees it
as self deprecating or like as playing into stereotypes. I

(01:17:43):
think he sees it as isn't Harvey fires hilarious? Isn't
it funny? When he goes forget my lawyer, like and
cracking up. Yeah. Yeah, Like he's like, oh, it's just
like the fact that his death is oh crap, you know,
like again something you wouldn't never ever seen a press
like it's like not even played for pathos. It's just like,

(01:18:05):
well we lost another one. So strange because like to me,
Harvey Forresting plays way less into queer tropes and more
into Jewish tropes. But he he's like calling everybody and
he's like you gotta go stay with an Esta, you know.
And then like he's on the phone with his lawyer.
He's on the phone with like every you know, every
person he hasn't even a remote business relationship. He's like

(01:18:25):
for three an hour, like you can put me through
to his house in the Hampton's. Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, that didn't that that didn't bother me too much,
just knowing that it's a queer director and it's like,
you know, he but also Roland Emrick made, you know,
he made. I think Roland is very like he's got
some weird I know, I think he just like and

(01:18:47):
this is not to excuse it, but I really do
think he comes from a place of incredible privilege because
he was raised incredibly wealthy. He was like, you know,
lived in boarding schools his entire childhood, and then he
just immediately got a ton of money and started go
making movies. So I think he was really insulated from uh,
you know, the struggles because you know, he doesn't he's
not really a part of any community except for the

(01:19:08):
community of the incredibly wealthy. So I think he's incredibly
detached from any kind of conversation so interesting cultural. There's
a when I was doing more research on just him
in general. One of the first thing that pops up
as an interview he did in headline Roland Emeric being
gay in Hollywood has been easy just like, Yeah, I

(01:19:28):
think I think that is true because he does he's
easy to work with. By all accounts, he stays on budget.
He doesn't rabble, rouse, he doesn't agitate, he doesn't advocate.
And it's interesting because Stonewall was a passion project of his,
Like that's basically why he made Independence Day Resurgence was
so he could get funding for Stonewall. And you can
also and you can really tell just that he has

(01:19:49):
no connection with any queer communities. He just he's he
sees it as like, yes, these are my people, but
he does not engage with them at all or some
and would have been like, buddy, this is a bad
another queer person literally any like no, I just think
he just he's very isolated and the fact that he

(01:20:11):
just kind of you know, plays the game and it
doesn't seem to ever occur to him that to ask
for rights for anyone but himself. He literally he really
has not had a hard time, especially because he had
like two big hits right out of the gate and
he could just write his ticket to make any movie
he wanted. Because you know, it's just because like he's
I mean, he was out, but he never did any advocacy.

(01:20:34):
I mean, I think he considered making Stonewall advocacy. Yeah, alright,
I love an eccentric rich person. And the other final
thoughts about the movie before we wrap up, Um, it's
just fun. It's fun. I love it so much. The
shot with the dog. I liked that when the dog

(01:20:55):
when the dog, Like, I was like, that's this is
a big budget movie because there is a dog doing
something heroic. I just I have I have infinite love
for Like again, it draws back to the question of
can a stupid movie be good because it's because I
was thinking about like the uh months ago finale of

(01:21:16):
Game of Thrones, which was, you know, it was kind
of dumb, like and you know, it's just like you
have a show like Game of Thrones, which can't be
dumb because it was falling from such a like a
place of you know, internal consistency and sharp dialogue and
you know, character consistency, and then it just kind of
got dumb in service of the plot. And for that

(01:21:38):
reason it was not good. But Independence Day is deeply
dumb and very naive and like just just you know,
incredibly like myopic and you know, hypernationalist. I I'm just like,
I don't want to say I excuse all of it,
but I think I can I can make a good
case for it being a very tight, well made movie
in a way that Roland Nemrick has never been able

(01:21:58):
to replicate. So I think that Independence Day gives hope
for stupid stories everywhere. I mean, that was a speech
as beautiful as you, like, Hey, hey, editor, you need
to put Bill Pullman's like powerful music under under my
speech about how dumb movies can be good. Actually, and

(01:22:20):
the movie does pass the Bechdel tech. Yeah, a couple
of times talking about sex positivity. Even that conversation, Yeah,
that okame as a surprise to me. Jasmine and her
colleague who gets named as Tiffany talk about the welcome
party for the Aliens and how Jasmine tells Tiffany that
she should not go, even though Tiffany goes and then dies,

(01:22:43):
and then Jasmine, yeah, the first lady to talk about
the conversation starts with her son and then about will Smith,
but then for a few lines they talk about her. Yeah.
There's a few tiny exchanges between little May Whitman and
her mom too that are just like hi, mommy. But
I mean just think there was especially that scene with

(01:23:03):
Jasmine and the first lady. You're like, all right, we've
got some there's some moves to this, there's some substance here, actually, Presca,
I mean, we may need to go back on this,
like review this, but I actually think most of Roland's
movies passed the back testing. I think Godzilla might be
the Godzilla and the Patriot might be the two right.
Also though, remember that probably percent of the dialogue is

(01:23:26):
not passing the backest sole minimum another tiny ribbon, A
lot of tiny ribbons on this gigantic movie. And then
there's like a lot of red pins, like some gold stars,
a lot of red pins. That's why I like, I
love movies like this that are like super watchable but

(01:23:47):
deeply flawed. Like that's another reason why I like I
love Transformers. Oh seven was that was the only one
that was watchable of the group. But it was so
like just so much to deconstruct, like you know, the
mill of Terry and the terrible characters and the way
it shot, Like I mean, I could go on your
incredible serious serious about that. Let's write the movie on

(01:24:08):
a nipple scale, uh zero to five nipples based on
his representation of women. I'm going to give it like
a half nipple because even though there are some kind
of like pleasant surprises in the movie, like it passing
the backde tests. We know what each of the women
does for a living, stuff like that. But also they're
all just like characterized by the relationships that they have

(01:24:30):
two men. Really, no time is spent developing them as
people who are important to the story in any way.
It's just the women are there because they want to
kiss the boys. So half nipple and I will give
my half nipple too. Is the dog's name, Boo Boomer Boomer,

(01:24:51):
I will give it one nipple. Also, Alf for Melena
could have been a hottie president. He could have been
Randy Quaid. He's so yeah, he can do anything, so
he can really be us anyone in this movie. But
I'm gonna give it one because sex positive question mark.
I thought that was like a pleasant thing to see
there be even though women have no effect on the

(01:25:11):
plot in the movie whatsoever. If you removed all the
women from the movie, it would just be different, thirty
minutes shorter. And then they fridged a woman and that's
just so lazy and boring. But I did like that,
you know, they went out of their way to uh,
you know, fully characterize a sex worker in a way
that wasn't shamy or shitty, and but then they fridged
someone immediately after, lots lots to consider. I'm gonna get

(01:25:35):
give it one nippy and I'm gonna kick it back
to Baby May women. All right, Yeah, well, you know what,
I'm super biased. I'm gonna I'm grading it on a
curve because nineties not even too just because I love
Jasmine so much. I think it is super curvy. Because
when I think of, like, you know, like even a
movie like Men in Black with its one woman, you know,

(01:25:56):
and like everything else again Jurassic Park with its one
woman and another one child woman, which there is a
Jurassic Park reference whenever Jeff Goldblum at the end when
they're trying to fly out of the mothership, he says,
must go faster, must go faster, which is also what
Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park Brave of Him. So yeah, cool. Well, Lindsay,

(01:26:17):
thank you so much for being there, for having We
love having you every time. What would you like to plug?
Where can people follow you online? Et cetera. You can
find me on Twitter at the Lindsay Ellis Because I
made that account two thousand and eight, but realized I
had to live with it forever um and on YouTube.
My YouTube channel is just my name, and my debut novel,

(01:26:39):
which totally has a title, has such a title. St.
Martin's press in hopefully and it does. It does does
definitely have whispers of Independence Day. Aliens are involved. Love
it good, Yes, read her book when it comes out.
Watch Lindsay's It'll such a title, so much of a title, incredible.

(01:27:03):
I can't even say it. It's just like I don't
want to give it that power, and then I don't
want to be too successful. And then watch all of
Lindsay's video essays we have and we like they've informed
some of our takes. Yes, indeed, so thanks again. You
can follow us at us ever heard of us at

(01:27:26):
bectel cast on the social media platforms that you tend
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(01:27:51):
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(01:28:14):
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feminist icon from Lena etcetera at t public dot com,

(01:28:37):
slash the Bechtel cast. Yes, um and uh until what's
our And we will not go quietly into the night.
We will not vanish without a fight. We will live on.
I was going to survive. That was way better than
my plans. Just started singing America the Beautiful So that
was you kicked my ass. Today we celebrate our Independence

(01:28:59):
Day a beautiful source. Fine

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