September 13, 2018 • 56 mins
In this second and final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy episode, The Fellowship of the Podcast aka Caitlin Durante, Jamie Loftus, and special guest Anna Salinas destroy evil by throwing the Patriarchy into the fires of Mount Doom.
(This episode contains spoilers)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy zef
invest start changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hello, and
welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante
and my name is Jamie Loftus, and this is part
(00:22):
two of our Lord of the Rings Trilogy episode. Hey, Caitlin,
did you know that movie trilogy is really fucking long?
I did know that that past the Bechdel Test. If
you don't know what that is, get with the program.
Just kidding, But if you haven't listened to episode one
of the Lord of the Rings podcast, we recommend you know,
(00:45):
maybe go back to part one, listen to it through
and and this is part two. I mean, if you
just want to listen to this one, that would sort
of be like starting in the middle of Lord of
the Rings two Towers and then only watching that and which, honestly,
not to betray my opinion of this trilogy, would be
totally fine. Nothing happens the entire movie, that doesn't even matter. Disagree,
(01:06):
All kinds of things happen, clearly you don't remember Golem
trying to anyway. So this is part two. If you
haven't listened to part one, we recommend going and doing
that first. But otherwise do you you do, you your body,
your choice. Here's part two. So that brings us to
(01:28):
a Owen. She is introduced for the first time in
the second movie. She is the niece of King Theodin
of Rohan. Why did their names rhyme? Like we said,
her whole thing is that she wants to fight. All
the men get to fight. Women are you know, perceived
as being helpless in this universe and that they have
to be protected. But she is a skilled sword fighter
(01:50):
and she wants to do her part in this fight,
in this war, this impending war. Right, But then she
meets Ericorn and she's like, who's that? And now all
of a sudden, there's a love triangle between Ergorn, Arwyn
and Awen that has almost no tension in it. There.
This is like the most boring love triangle in the
(02:12):
entire world. It is because it's so clear that Airgorn
is not interested. Right from moment one and again, in
the same gender neutral way that this whole story plays out,
we see her hurt being rejected by Vigo Mortensen, as
everyone at the table knows we've all been rejected. It
doesn't feel great and feel great, but he's not mean
(02:34):
to her. It's not and and there's never a particular
sexual tension between them in the first place, so it's
almost just like it's a crush that is unrequited, and
so that is not particularly compelling to watch, right, But
like this introduction of like her really kind of falling
in love with him or maybe just having like a
crush does not need to be there. She serves another
(02:56):
function in the story. So for her to also be
in love with them, man, I think like really sells
out her character. And and we also get one of
my favorite sellouts of the female character who is allowed
to do anything. Because I think Aoen by far is
the most active for female character and she still basically
has no my fact on the plot, but you know,
(03:17):
she's the most active by far. And there's that scene
where she has a sword and it's the first time
we're seeing her wheeled a sword and airgorn like notices
and it's like, hey, you can do what the boys do,
and she's like, I know, pretty cool, right, But I'll
be humble and shy about it. And then because he's
(03:39):
the I think that we're to believe because he's the
first man who has acknowledged she's doing it at all
and doesn't really say, like, you're really good at that,
and I respect you, but he doesn't not say that,
And I think that that is like for us, supposed
to be the entry point of like she likes him
because he's the only man she's ever met who hasn't
nagged her for her interests. I think that that's like
(04:01):
the root of her interest in him. It's like, well,
he didn't say I sucked like every man in my
life does, so I guess I love him. It's true.
I'm just like, are you not yelling at me? Cool?
We're married? Um. And then there's more to talk about
with her character, but where her story ends. In the
(04:24):
one of eight hundred conclusions of this trilogy, she gets
paired up with Ferremir because Ericorn rejects her, so she
has to end up with some man. So they placed
her next to Faremere. They might they give each other
a little like CD. I. I think there's a moment
in I hate that, like the last minute, like don't worry.
(04:45):
She's still gonna a guy. He's like, oh no, we
weren't freaking out about it. Actually we were fined. So
they get paired up and head her own normativity is
alive and well, so I kind of want to just
kinda go through to the movies and point out a
few different things we see in terms of, you know,
the gender dynamics. So in the Fellowship of the Ring
(05:07):
again we opened with a woman's voice. We've got gladiol
being sort of place like omniscient narrator. Like the narration
is very inconsistent in the movie. That definitely, and then
when she does appear on screen again throughout the movies,
it's it's seldom happens, and then it's it's again to
(05:28):
deliver exposition narrator. I r L. Yeah. So I mean,
I guess you could argue that it's cool that like
a woman is given like an omniscient point of view
sort of, but no, yeah, there there is a retelling
of this movie that puts her as the omniscient being,
because that's really what was implied. I think to a degree,
(05:48):
like this is giving it too much credit. But by
making her the narrator, it's as if she's like speaking
like this is how it all happened. So maybe in
the future of Earth, she became the king of the world.
She became the storyteller. She's like, hey, everybody, you want
to hear a story about five guys I met. She
(06:08):
becomes the new Gandalf, and that's kind of what he does, right, Yeah,
it'll take ten hours of your time. Learn's like, no,
I don't, I'm good ace. Um. There is a moment
very early on in the first movie where like Gandalf
is like riding through the shire and um, there's like
all these children who are like cand off play some
(06:29):
fireworks and he's like okay, and then there's like a
hobbit couple and the man is like, t he I
like fireworks too, And then his wife shows up and
she's scowling because women be shrews, as we know, and
then he has to pretend like he's not having fun
and not enjoying the fireworks. And it's supposed to be
like this ha ha comical moment, but the first depiction
(06:51):
of a woman you see on screen is a shrewish
hobbit lady. So I feel like that really sets the
tone for the whole and aren't wait a minute, And
that doesn't make any sense because Hobbits are supposed to
be so joyful, love fun. Exactly what was this woman
crashed in the party for. Well, she's a woman, so
she can't have fun. She can't have fun. Women are
(07:12):
not having fun in this in this series, so you're
not giggling. Then, well, I guess they go to Bilbo's party. Yeah,
but that's a few minutes of screen time and then
we hardly see those characters again. Sam's wife has fun,
she had a lot of kids. Yeah, once she starts
t shirt gunning out Sam's kid. Yeah, that's actually in
(07:32):
the extended version. I saw you see Sam's wife give birth,
and it's it's like a machine gun of baby. Progressive
moment in cinema. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because they
show it from below. Yeah, basically a biology Yeah, that's
and that's in the three D version. That is in
the three D it's we're more like Hobbits than you
(07:55):
would think when you see it up close. It's okay.
When we first meet our went on screen again, it's
not until over an hour into the movie it's established
that she and Agorn know each other, but it's not
We're not quite sure how or what in what context.
Her introduction is a little cool because we do meet
her by her holding a sword up to Aragorn's neck
(08:17):
very hot. Yes, so she is threatening his life. But
then a few scenes later you're like, oh, they're basically
engaged to be married. So so it was just like
it was like a little thing they were doing. I mean,
I wasn't into Vigo watching that movie, but I think
my little whatever I was nine years old self, was like, yeah,
(08:37):
You're like, oh, this is kind of what's happening. And
then but then think about this later, You're like, it's
gonna be a few years before I can unpack this fully.
So then a few moments later in the movie, she's
like riding up on a horse. There's like angelic music.
Her dress is white, even though when it cuts to
(08:59):
a moment later in the Dame exact scene, she's wearing
a different dress. But she's like she comes in as
this like angel savior to like save Photo's life. She's
literally glowing. She and Galadriel are never not glowing, although
Gandalf glows too. Sometimes Gandolf does glow, he has but
but he does, but never when he's gand off the
(09:20):
way for that one scene, but most of the time
we see him on screen, he's he's dull, I mean,
and to be fair, all men are dull and all
women are radiants and perfect. True, however, and also the
we we don't see women who are not fabulously wealthy
(09:42):
and conventionally attractive glow. We do not see poor people
when when there are women on screen who are meant
to be poor, they do not glow. Habit, women do
not glow. Yeah, like if you are hot, hot royalty,
you glow. And even then it's I feel like the
(10:02):
only reason that a Owen is not depicted in this
way as because with Arwin and Galadriel, they're supposed to
be these like virginal women and objects of desire, where
we're I sort of interpreted. We're intended to see Aoen
a Owen Ewen McGregor. We're supposed to see a o
(10:23):
En as more of a girl. I don't think we're
encouraged to view her as like a sexual being in
the same way we're encouraged to see the other two.
But make no mistakes, she's still part of a royal family.
Because her uncle is the king, so she's still she's royalty,
and she's still conventionally, by Western beauty standards attractive. We
(10:45):
only get beautiful women. And the range in male characters.
I mean, I know that's a complaint on all movies,
but the range in male characters. Man, you have a
whole species of thing that is ugly. Yet I mean
there's there. There is every well, I mean you can't
extend it to color. There are white men of every
(11:08):
shape and size in this film franchise. There's every kind
of white man you get ever in counter in your
entire life. You got Legless, you got the hacker, you
got you got you fro, you got fig wit, you
got fig With the Brett mackenzie character, there's short hair,
there's also long hair's hairy feet, there's smooth feet, old
(11:32):
not old. Wizards sometimes not wizards. The next thing that
I think is worth noting that happens in the first
movie is that we learn about the Urquai and how
they exist, which is that Saramon, the bad Wizard, not
to be confused with Sorrow on the Eye, is breeding
(11:54):
orcs and goblin men to make this like super race
of crazy warriors like eight fighters, all this stuff. They
take women out of the equation. There does not need
to be wounds. They are born as adults. They hatch,
they hatch out of this pile of mud poop, mud, placenta,
(12:15):
placent I wouldn't give it placenta. There's no placenta there, right,
it's just like a pile of mud. That love that
band mud lists are known. There's some like saran wrap
covered in muddy poop, and that they break out of
(12:37):
that and suddenly they're born, so that like, sure, sure,
that's how you breed urakai fun way to cut women
out of the narrative. Maybe, I mean this is also
anti feminist, but maybe the implication is that because they're
making the worst kind of obedient like creature, they can't
(12:59):
have women that would be too good. But you know
that puts that's not Yeah, I'm reaching. Why am I
trying to defend? Why am I trying to defend the
ranks because it doesn't deserve but there but this is
the kind of I think this is definitely the kind
of like franchise that you try to find a way
to want to defend because it isn't aggressive towards women,
(13:21):
it just leaves them out, and so it's harder. I
feel like it's a little harder to reconcile. Yeah, it's
not offensive, it's not grotesquely offensive. It's just so so
the Silent Killer. Yeah. Um. And then there's there's a
fun moment in a Rivendell, one of the Elf cities,
where Gandef is like, hey around, Actually it's like men
(13:44):
folk who we should like be trusting and like putting
our faith in men to rule the fate of you know,
Middle Earth. Did he mean gender men or human name,
like the race of men as opposed to the race
of elves or so that's what he means. But then
l Ron responds men men are weak. So I think
(14:05):
l Rond is a feminist icon. This is just feminist
icon l Rond, but which sounds a little too much
like l Ron Hubbard. I keep wanting to say l
Ron Hubbard n one name. Yeah. So that's for me
that those were like the notable things in terms of
gender in the first movie where we're introduced to Arwin
(14:27):
and glad Reel there for the most part, sideline, they
have so little screen time that you forget that they
exist they're both like these like fair maiden, virginal, angelic,
willowy creatures. Yes, you're like, oh, I wonder if this
movie cares about women or not, and then you remember
not even a little bit. Um. So then we get
into the Two Towers, and this is when we meet
(14:49):
a win and that's when it's established that she's both
a good fighter, but also she is horny for Aragorn
for I mean reasons that we've argued could makes sense,
but there's really no reason for her narratively to be
interested in Airgorn. Like that that choice was made, you know,
(15:09):
I guess to just like, oh, well, there's a woman
in a story, and there's head normativity all around us,
so let's make sure that she's in love with air
Gorn so that we can have a love triangle. I
don't know if that happens in the books or not.
If you're if you're a fan of the books or
you've read the books, um tweet at us and let
us know if this love triangle was set up in
the books or if this is just a change made
(15:30):
in the film adaptation. I'd be interested to know that
because I'm sort of skeptical. I feel like it was
something that was added into the movies just to just
to make it so yeah. Yeah, So we learned that
she wants to fight and that, you know, that's her
whole thing, which I think is cool. I agree that
(15:51):
she is the most active character. She has the most
agency of any of the other female characters, which is
not hard because there's only two other ones and they're
basically pointless to the story. We do meet her uncle, Theaden,
who is E. J. Smith from Titanic. Oh, I forgot
about that major twist. The best tressed load of the
(16:14):
rings is that they captain from Titanic. Where's a wig
and it um. Then there's a scene where Gimley the
Dwarf is talking to a Owen and he's like, it's true,
you don't see many dwarf women. In fact, they are
so like in voice and appearance they are often mistaken
for dwarfmen, which hack that I mean the whole the
(16:38):
whole way that dwarves are portrayed at moments in this franchise.
I think that there are moments where dwarves are portrayed
as better but ultimately kind of offensive to the little
person community. I'd be interested in, like reading thoughts that
either the actors or just the reaction to that community,
(16:58):
to Dwarves as a whole, because I know that Dwarves
taken even larger role in the Hobbit franchise. Yeah, that's
I feel like that's like, I mean to for sure
the shad they went to battle. Yeah, I think I
mistakenly referred to them as Hobbits earlier when I was
talking about Hobbits. But there to confuse, what are so
(17:22):
what are dwarfs known for? What are there like trade
in this world? They're basically capitalists because they hang out
in their minds mining their precious jewels and gold and
all of that stuff. They don't want to be troubled
with the outside world. They're really just content to be
confined to their caves and there, you know, mountains where
all their treasures are. So that's the rules that are.
(17:45):
That's like, I think that's like literally what l Rond says,
He's like, they cared nothing for the troubles of men.
Do they die when they go to that place? There
are yes, Um, I don't think the Dwarf race is
wipe out completely. But when they go to the minds
of Maria in the first movie. Yeah, all of the
dwarfs there have been slaughtered by goblins, So yeah, we
(18:09):
don't there's more minds, I think. I'm not really sure. Again,
I only know what's talked about in the movies, So
if there's other information that's in the books, I don't
know about that. So I guess what I'm wondering is, Yeah,
I get that those traits don't really mean anything in
terms of the gender dynamics. But on the one hand,
(18:29):
if men look like women in dwarf communities, that's interesting.
But also the way he's saying it is like if
you don't look like a conventionally attractive, tall white woman,
I thought that was the implication. Yeah, once again, I
don't know how to make sense of it. Lord of
(18:50):
the Rings Apologist, you should see me watch West World.
I I can't. I mean, I can't imagine you watching Smiles,
thanks alcohol and SMI is a woman. Smile is voiced
by Benedict Comback. Never mind, you're right mixing it up
with the dragon Strick. Oh yeah, yeah, because they look
(19:13):
super alike. I know that. Oh yeah, well, the whole
dragon is a woman with Donkey, very feminist. We talked
about that in our Struck episode did really yeah, oh yeah,
strongest female character in the franchise. So while we're like
(19:37):
hanging out with a win Aergorn is all like, here's
this new woman. How do I feel about this other
woman that I know? And we see different flashbacks where
Ericorn is basically like, we can't be together. You shouldn't
sacrifice yourself for me, telling her like, let's end this
without really like checking in to see like how she
feels about the situation. Elrond is all I Airgorn is
(20:00):
gonna die no matter what, and you're going to be
sad about it, and then you're gonna have to live
on forever being sad because apparently when your loved one
dies and then you keep living, you mourn forever. There's
no way to get over it. And she'll just spend
her the rest of her immortal life in mourning because
(20:21):
you know, she's just so sad that a man dies
that she has to basically just like kneel by his
grave forever and that's the only thing that she can do,
is what the movie is, you know, suggesting will happen. Um.
But then she she keeps telling people like, no, I've
made my choice. This is what I choose. But no
one like l rond Ergorn, they do not respect her choice,
(20:42):
and they keep trying to convince her to choose something else.
I mean, it's her choice. Do I think it's a
good choice personally? Not especially? And also it's like the
choice foisted upon her by well, I don't know, it's
a choice voiced upon her by two women and a man.
Because the Arwin story that's not you, that's, to my understanding,
is not Tolkien. That's like something introduced into the narrative
(21:06):
by the movie which is written. Yeah, yeah, I really
Now I want to know what that process was. Okay,
first of all, we've been over this a bit. It
was the time there is like a conventional wisdom, and
there was more so than to how movies were written,
(21:28):
where it was like in those blockbusters, you must have
love triangles, and I mean that's still true. Yeah. And
if women are introduced because they're not the protagonists in
this heteronormative space, well what else are you gonna do
with them? Right? Like? What function could they serve besides
being in love with a man? I want to live
(21:50):
in a world and I'm sure because this this franchise
is so intensely documented that perhaps there are other drafts
of scripts available. But I like, I mean, because there's
so much leather rings media, I would love for there
to be a world where the female screenwriters pushed a
(22:11):
more progressive female narrative. But because it was two thousand one,
the studio said no. At least there was an effort
made to give but you know, that's just that's dream.
But it is something to consider, Like, the studio definitely
had some impact on this script, I hope. So. I mean,
(22:32):
it's the narrative now that every time I see a
movie that doesn't treat women well or at all that
is written by a woman, I sort of go to.
We talked about this in the Frozen episode a little
bit where there's for some reason, it's very well documented
how many notes the writer of Frozen, woman named Jennifer Lee,
(22:53):
got during the course of making that movie, where the
original way the story was written was way more aggressive,
and it's pretty well documented where she was getting the
notes of like this has to change, or we're not
going to make it. This has to change. That's great.
That makes me feel better in some at least gives
(23:13):
you some hope in that you're like, writers do want
to tell these stories. It's not that they don't want
to tell it, it's that men with a lot of
money usually don't want to show it. Yeah, I don't.
It's an empty It does give me some piece, I
will say, it does give me some peace. Hopefully these
like studio heads will start to learn that we're die honestly,
(23:39):
probably die first. They will likely die before they respect
women and then hopefully be replaced by more progressive people
who are willing to fund movies that showcase women in
a more positive light and you know, not adhere to
such rigid gender rules. Here's hoping. And with that, let's
(24:00):
take a quick break and then we will be right back.
Good idea, Klin, thank you so. A little bit more
about what happens in the Two Towers. We are hanging
out with a win a little bit and they're heading
to helms Deep because all the people of Rohan are
(24:21):
in danger because there's sarmons like launching an army on them,
basically classic class. He loves unleashang. So they get attacked
by some orcs on these ward creatures and uh, Theadin's
are like a win like lead the people to Helm's
Deep because the men will fight, and she's like, no,
(24:43):
I can stay in fight, and he's like no. So
she's like trying to make a choice, like trying to
be active in the story, and a man is like, no, sorry,
you can't. You have to take all the women and
children who are so vulnerable and um put them in
caves so that they can be protected. He um. So
that's pretty much her role for the rest of the
(25:04):
movie is that she is stuck in a cave with
all of the other women because she is not allowed
to fight. Meanwhile, Legolis and Ghimli are making a literal
game out of war. They're like, let's see who can
kill more people? Won't that bring some levity to war? Yes,
well kill more kind of people. Yeah. The ural Kai, although,
(25:28):
is there like a racial thing we should address with that,
because I just call them kind of people and I'm like, well, okay, yeah,
let's let's try to unpack the racism and the Lord
of the Rings trilogy for a moment. We can start
with the racist hierarchy of wizards. In the books, there
are like brown wizards and they're a lower class uh.
And then there's gray wizards and they're above brown, and
(25:50):
then the white wizards are the highest class with the
wizard hierarchy. My understanding was the goal is to get
as white as possible exactly. Yes, literally, the wher you get,
the more powerful you are. So that does not set
a great precedent right away. The goblins, the Orcs, the
uru Kai, like all the bad guys generally have darker
skin compared to all of the good guys in the movie,
(26:14):
which are you know, men, The Hobbits, the dwarves, the
elves are all white as can be. Oh, there's a
fun video where you can see a super cut of
all of the lines in the whole Lord of the
Rings trilogy spoken by actors who are people of color.
Believe it or not, they all play bad guys. And
(26:36):
it's only it's like less than a minute long. It's
just some of the uru Kai who are like get
a fire going, and that's pretty much. It's so no,
it's so much worse than I want to believe. Also,
so in the second and third movie, the bad guys
and more door are recruiting mercenaries to like fill out
(26:57):
their army of orcs, so we do see some human
people but all of their like recruits are dark skin brown,
come from land's foreign to whatever, like Anglo Saxon esque
fantasy world that Middle Earth is. It's so vague. It's
like it's so racist vague. And Peter Jackson makes the
(27:20):
same huge misstep in King Kong, which is like at
its core, the racist story that won't die, Like why
do they keep making that? There are some things that
keep getting rebooted there like this time we're going to
fix the root problem. I was like, you can't. That's
what the story is about, just make a different one,
(27:41):
making a different one. And there is like a weird
attempt to like have quote unquote racism where dwarves and
elves hate each other because when we first meet Gimleian Leglis,
they're like, oh, gross dwarf and he's like, I'll never
hang out with an elf, and then they become friends
by the end and they're like, well, it's weird because
(28:02):
it's like you can read. I think Tolkien probably meant
for this to be an allegory towards groups within humanity
and like demographic groups, but it's weird when you do that.
And I don't think that Lord of the Rings stands
alone in this I think I think a lot of
fantasy fiction falls into this trap. But it's weird when
(28:22):
you're allegory is like, look at our divisions and factions
and prejudices, except we're going to erase any people of
color and we get all white right. Like it almost
seems like these narratives are attempting to be like, let
us put this in terms, you are comfortable with white
people and all like in in the same you know,
(28:46):
like batch of scenes completely disparaged the only people of
coloring the entire movie. Oh man, I can't call them
not quite people and what kind of people? Oh and
so yeah, between all of that and the fact that
pretty much every good guy in the movie has blue eyes,
Like not that many people in the world have. Like
(29:09):
the ratio of blue eyed people to non blue eyed
people in Middle Earth is like fifty two one. Sorry
to our blue eyed listeners. I I see you, I
respect you, I cherish you. I'm not sorry, guys. I'm
also half Swedish, so like I have a loud of
resentment toward blue eyes, you know, because I didn't get them,
(29:30):
which is fine, I'm fine with it now. But when
I was in middle school. You better believe I wore
contact like I did. Yeah. My mom was like, you
want to fix it. You can get highlights too, and
I did. She was, you know, she just wanted to
make me more arian. I don't think there's anything wrong
with that because you're part Cuban r Yeah, she wanted
(29:53):
to stamp out the bad part. To know, the Cuban
part is great. Uh, Like, I'm getting myself in trouble.
It's hard to on this show. It is so hard
to not dig yourself a holeway do it regularly. It
is a part of the process. We contain multitudes. I'm problematic,
you know what. I love Orlando Bloom He's like kind
(30:14):
of trash. The rumor is that he just undresses all
the time, which you've what like, he he just gets naked.
That's why there is that photo of him naked on
the paddle boat or whatever the picture. Yeah, because he is.
It's like a known thing in dressing rooms that he
(30:34):
just strips down doing hair and makeup, which comfortable. Yeah,
you're that's sexual harassment. Yeah, but me hearing that at eleven,
I would have been like, that's so I want to
see that. Yeah, they're so open with his co star. Yeah,
oh my god, I wish I could be in a
movie with him where he's naked. So jealous of a
(30:56):
live tyler. All right, she doesn't kids under my Lecholis
doesn't kiss. He's a hacker in this he literally doesn't
get me. He's too busy. He's like, where our computers?
Computers to be invented already? He probably invents computers in
this world. We don't. We don't have learning before, but
if we did, it's called Legois Colon hacker. He's certainly
(31:20):
got the bandwidth for it because he's not interested in
the emotions of others and has no romantic interest. He's like, like,
do you remember the party with legolists that made me?
I was like, oh, he's a hacker. Was right after
Gandolf was like see yeah, and you know Free fell
off a cliff and everyone thought he was dead. Everyone
(31:41):
is displaying emotion in the way their character would. Hobbits
are openly crying. Are Gorn is like he's over it?
Gimli is crying yeah. The Legolis is just standing there
like where are you people cry? He's like, I'm not
gonna He's like, I'm not gonna right for a couple
of days, and even then it will be by myself,
(32:03):
like I'm a hacker. Quick thing to bring up the
Hobbit again. There is like a love triangle that involves
him and that tari Al character that gets shoehorned into
the Hobbit trilogy. So I thought maybe Leglis was a sexual,
but he is. Um. I prefer Legolis who does not fuck.
(32:25):
I think so too. I think that was his official title. Yeah,
Leglis who does not fun Colan hacker, son of Megalis
who did fun to have or maybe this is just
the correct combination of Zeros and once he was made
(32:45):
by a computer. I think Saron is a computer. Okay,
all right, Saron who does not have blue eyes? He
has one eye and it is red yellow fire eye
it is. But what was it before that? Right? We
don't seek he's wearing a mask. But a few things
also to mention that happened in Return of the King
(33:05):
Um about a half hour in our way is she
has made a decision, going against her previous decision to
go to elf Heaven after all. And then that's when
she sees the vision of Airgorn and her small child,
and she decides to turn back, and she's like, well,
if I have the chance to be a mom, I'm
gonna go and do that, and I better have a son, right,
(33:29):
Motherhood is great. I have a mother and um not
like you guys. So I'm not trying to disparage mothers
in any way or motherhood, but it's so often that
a woman's motivation in a movie is motherhood and if
she isn't a mother, and it's just like, really, I
don't West Girls are problematic show that I constantly apologize
(33:51):
for and for sadger to watch. But Bandy Newton's characters
motivated by a child that is fate that like they
designed for her to have. It's some planted memories and
they still ran with it to the end. Right Computers.
Similar thing happens in like Kill Bill, where as soon
(34:12):
as the bride finds out that she is pregnant, she's like, well,
I have to drop everything and become a mother, even
though I had never expressed that I wanted to be
a mother up until now. So it's just a thing
we a trope we see in a lot of movies
and media where it's just like, you know, a woman,
the idea of motherhood if that is an option for her.
She's like, oh my god, Like this is motivating my
(34:34):
every decision, especially because we know so little about our
win Outside of that, that's like I think that's the
main deciding thing. It's like, it's, you know, obviously, if
you want to be a mother, that's totally fine, and
like we we at the Bechtel Cast will not prevent
you from doing so. I will, but I mean I will.
(34:54):
I've I've stopped a lot of pregnancies, but not abortion
or anything. Just like I've come in and stopped it
from coming out. Yeah, She's like, because I will just
turn on West World and all of a sudden, no
one will be horny anymore. I'm so many orgies I
have killed putting on the finale of West World the
worst episode. But because we know nothing else about our win,
(35:17):
that's why that choice is so lazy. Yes, right, Um.
And then the big thing, the big you know, gender
thing that happens and the whole freaking trilogy is when
a Wyn disguises herself as a man, she puts on
this big helmet. Yeah, yeah, exactly. She pick she picks
(35:41):
up Mary. She's like, we're going to fight in battle together.
No one wants us to, no one's allowing us to
do this case be moushoe. Is that the dragon? Yes,
m dragon, yes, yes, sorry, I need to make this move,
I understand, have you guys done? So? Okay. So then
so they ride into battle together, even though everyone's like
(36:04):
women can't fight, and she's like, well, funk all that
funk the patriarchy. I'm going to fight in this war anyway.
And it's been established that the King of the Nasal,
the Ring Wraiths, he he's a bad guy. But you
said ring Raiths as if it was it would make
us understand, like, oh, yeah, yeah, you know the Ring Ring, right,
(36:28):
you know. I was like, yeah, yeah, So the King
of the Nasgal his whole thing that's silly. Okay, sorry,
I don't know what you're talking about. So the whole
thing with him is that he is unkillable. No living
man can kill him, is what is said in the movie.
(36:51):
So in battle at the end of the Return of
the King, Awen is fighting. She is slinging her sword around.
She's bad, guys, sort of. We don't get to see
her fight that much. But then she is confronted the
King of the Nascal. I don't know if he's named
but not. He's right there and she's like, oh shit.
She chops off the head of his like whatever dragon
(37:15):
not smiled, but whatever flying winged creature that he is on.
They fight a little bit and he's like, you idiot,
no man couldn't kill me, And she's like She pulls
off her mask and she's like I am no man
stabs him through the face. His head implodes. John Jams
start playing It's crazy. So this is I think, supposed
(37:42):
to be this like big empowering moment for women where
it's like, holy crap, we thought that he couldn't die,
but she was a woman, so she can kill him.
Voice the rules of this God. The rules of this
(38:08):
make no sense and are not explored at all, but
we're still supposed to be like, holy freaking crap. I
hate when a movie is requesting that I emptily yes
queen at the screen without using my brain. I don't
like it. It is one of the things that annoys
me most in movies. I hate it, but sometimes it
works on me. Sometimes it works, and then I get
(38:29):
even madder at myself. Later, Man, you fell for it,
you got represented, you get too excited. You didn't realize
it and make a fucking sense. Yeah. Yeah, it feels
empty because logically this doesn't really make any sense, like
why would a female identifying person be able to kill
something that a male identifying person isn't able to kill?
(38:51):
Like these rules are just like not explored at all,
and it it feels like a hollow victory. Here's my
apology of it. Maybe it's the myth is that no
one can kill him, No man can kill him because
he's such a good fighter. But he finally met the
best fighter who can kill him. But that doesn't This
gets back to another thing that annoys me and with
(39:14):
female characters. How could she be the best fighter if
no one formally really ever taught her. This is her
first time in battle, ever fight costume to fight the
first time she's done it, that's true. I guess she
never says this is my first rodeo. He would have tips.
(39:34):
That I hate is that she gives it all up
to be with Faremire at the end. Right, Yeah, so
she's got her like hollow yes queen moment in the
end of the third movie. And then yeah, and then
she becomes like sort of like a fair maid and
like the rest of them where it's like, oh, well,
my role now that there's no wars to be had,
(39:55):
I can just hang out with this faremire guy and
fair was considered for this role interesting too powerful. Now
they're like, she's her face is too sharp. She is
she looks like we need someone who looks more submissive.
That's literally what it says. She looked too mean. And
I was like, oh, I love when people to say
(40:16):
this woman looks too mean. Yeah, people said that to
me all the time. I have resting mean face. And um, anyway,
I think you have a resting great face. Thank you,
And if you don't want to be happy, it's still great.
I know. Thank you so much. Hey, let's take a
quick break and then we'll be back. One more thing
(40:40):
on on a and I'm reading is According to the
DVD commentaries, an entire set piece firmare au En wedding
scene was actually filmed and ultimately cut and not even
included in the extended edition, Nor have any photos of
the scene ever been made public, but the scene has
(41:01):
been described by multiple sources of they went so far
as to have them get married on screen, so well,
at least they cut it from the movie, but also
the fact that they considered it to the extent where
they wrote and filmed it is troubling. Come on, well,
I what money are they rolling with where they were
(41:24):
just like, we're not even gonna show this scene to anyone?
Was it the whole thing? I don't know. I'd be
curious that, Like, maybe that's again, I keep going back
to the female screen rights. Maybe they're like no, but
it already got past them because they built a set,
damn it. Maybe hey, maybe there was a female producer
at the last minute who was like, we can't and
(41:46):
that was like her falling on the sword, like that
was the last the only thing she could say, right,
And her name was Uma Thurman, also Owen and fair
mirror Mary in the books. Apparently great, so he has
to end up with a man, maybe not the one
she wanted originally, but you know, you can't be a
woman in a story without ending up with him hand
(42:08):
and this is ironic, Okay, faremir and a o And
had at least one sin l Baron and their grandson
was Bara Here who wrote the Tale of Eric Gorn
and Arwin. Oh, why was her grandkid being like, remember
this guy and my grandma didn't fuck. Here's a story
about him and his wife. Well weird. Do you think
(42:29):
they passed on the lore of like, well, grandson, there
was a man I wanted to fuck, but didn't pass
on this legacy to grandpa, like you know who? I
was my first choice, Not this guy. I hope, So,
I really hope. So wait. I just remembered a female
(42:52):
character that we did not talk about yet. Oh my god,
the dead bones of the dwarf who died she Lob
the spider. The pronouns used for she lab are female pronouns.
So I think what we can say here is for
she lab feminist icon. No, no one in this movie.
(43:15):
I didn't even talk about feminist. So cute is a queer.
I love him. He's so gone, is so expressive, and
his eyes are so big, and he has this gigantic head.
I love him. I just need everyone to know. Of course,
(43:38):
I had a crush on Golub and I don't understand
so he's always He's and Andy genius. No, but Caitlin
can let's not. I No, you do it. You assumed
the position. I'll do it, and then I'll probably cut
this out. Okay, Well, do you want to hear gall lumber?
(44:00):
Do you want to hear I'd surprised us. Yeah, okay,
here we go. Um My, Bresh, it was perfect. It's perfect.
Oh yeah, that's perfect. It's not great. It's not my
(44:26):
best work. Give yourself some credit. Yeah, we've been talking
for a very long time. I feel like we need
to wrap up. We didn't talk about did we talk
about the mom On the right? There is two female
characters with lines. Well, should we talk about whether or
not this movie passes the pectel tests? Yeah, I guess
that fits in. Okay, so there is one Well, there's
(44:50):
two scenes that are contenders. So let's try to figure
this out. In two towers. The second movie, Orcs and
Oroquai are invading Rohan, and there's a mother. It's it's
a it's a horse country. Um, it's where it's where
Captain E. J. Smith of the Titanic, that's his realm
(45:10):
and his wig and his wig right the way that
controls his thoughts. So they're about to get invaded by
the bad guys. And there's a mother who says to
her son and her daughter. She's talking to the boy
at first, and she says, get on the horse with
your sister and go to someplace and raise the alarm,
(45:32):
and the little girls like, I don't want to leave.
I don't want to go, mama, And the mom says Freda.
So we find out her name, Freda, I will find
you there, and then that's it. And then they ride
off on the horse, and we do find out what
her name is in terms of the character. But I
don't think it's ever spoken a lot by the movie.
(45:53):
I don't think it is either. So yeah, I would
argue that that I wanted it to pass. But I
think if we're going by the movie, I don't buy
the arguments, like, well, she had a name in the book,
and it's like, so did Brett Mackenzie's character, and people
just renamed him fig Wit for no reason. Also, well,
(46:15):
if you consider the subtext of this conversation, like the context.
In the subtext, she's basically telling them to leave because
there are several male warriors coming about to like raid
their village. Yeah, you shall not pass the test. In
the scene, right, you shall not pass. That's my Gandolf
(46:39):
impression also very good, okay um. And then later in
the second movie, Freda is eating soup somewhere in Rohan,
Aowen is there, Freda says where is Mama? Aowen says
sh And that's that conversation. That is as close as
(47:01):
we get because those characters are both named. But I
would argue that a Owen that is technically a conversation.
That's it's communication, communications, verbal communications, a line of dialogue.
It depends. I would say, no, here, okay, I'm gonna
go and say this movie does not pass the backtel
test because even if you wanted to argue the technicalities,
(47:23):
there's thirty seconds or less of this movie of women
interacting in a movie that is over nine hours long
shall not pass. Yeah, so this movie does not pass,
even though it maybe seems like it comes close. And also,
when we say movie, we mean three full three hour
(47:44):
bucking movies. We didn't have We didn't discuss one conversation
that happens in the first three and a half hour movie.
There's nothing to discuss. And those characters, the mother and
her daughter afraid to only appear in those two scenes.
They have no bearing on the story, like their scenes
going to be cut from the movie. Uh, and it
(48:05):
really wouldn't change anything. So yeah, the movie doesn't even pass.
I guess to up the stakes of the people of Rohan.
But yeah, so I'm going to say that this movie
does not pass. And of course that's not surprising at
all because there are so few women in this entire
(48:26):
world of Middle Earth. It's weird because my ex boyfriend's
mom was named Darwin because her parents loved Lord of
the Rings. Yeah, but how sad too. She was named
after this like deeply unfeminist movie by like a very minor,
minor character who gets her parents were like, she's a
(48:50):
feminist icon because she's there, because she's literally we had
three choices. We did what we could do. Gladriel was
too hard to say. Awen is a ejjectively not a
very good name name. Oh hell, gang shall rerate the
movie on our nipple scale. Hey, what choice do we have?
(49:12):
We don't have a choice. Yeah. Our nipple scale is uh.
We rate each movie based on its portrayal and representation
of women zero to five nipples. I'm between a zero
and a half nipple. I'll go with a half nipple.
The movie has a few women in it, great, um,
(49:34):
not enough, not enough screen time. I guess that it
gets a half nipple instead of his zero nipples because
of a Owen's presence in this story and the fact
that she has a goal outside of being in a
romantic relationship with a man. Also, glad Reel doesn't have
that goal, but she's basically there's an exposition. Yeah, she
(49:56):
has no goals, So a Owen has as a little
bit of agency. But it just everything feels like a
hollow victory with her and with every female character in
the story, just because they're mostly framed around the other
men in the story. There's a love triangle that makes
no sense to be there. Glad Reel serves a pretty
(50:19):
flimsy function just to like deliver exposition, and she has
pretty much no bearing on the story. Like it's just
it's upsetting, Like, like you said, Jamie, that movie isn't
outwardly hateful toward women, and then it's not like saying, oh,
women are gross and bad, but it's also not giving
them any chance to do anything in the narrative. So yeah,
(50:44):
I'll give it a half nipple, um, even though I
think that's being generous and my half nipple will go
to small. I canna give it one head of one
nipple because I can't give it zero because it's, like
(51:05):
you said, it is not a franchise that is openly
contemptuous of women. But I think that there is the
argument that in some ways it that's even a little
bit worse because at least when you revisit a problematic
film franchise, you're just like, oh, I don't want any
part of this anymore. This is out of my life.
And hopefully, if history continues in the direction it is,
(51:28):
it will be a franchise that is by the way,
so I've forgotten because people just don't want to see
that anymore. But with this film franchise, because it does
not put women down and just ignores them, it won't
go away. There's not enough of a reason for people
who enjoy these movies to not continue to watch them,
because they're not espousing, you know, like bile at you.
(51:52):
They're not they're not saying shitty things. They're just erasing.
And that is almost like a little bit worse because
it's like, these movies will never go away. There's nothing,
you know, because on paper, they're like, well, you didn't
say anything bad. They just erased everyone. They didn't want
their um So that sucks. I guess a o en
(52:14):
and that's why one tenth of one nipple and I'm
giving it to smount you know, uh, well, you know
what I am going to give this. You gave it
a half, you gave it a tenth. I'll give it
like a fourth of a nipple, because I do think
a one's a wins. Uh you and McGregor, that moment
(52:40):
is something I think it's very hollow. It's but it's
what so many movies do where it's like, here's something.
It's what the entire movie of Wonder Woman kind of was. Yeah,
it felt kind of like I want to revisit Wonder
Woman because I think even a year later, I would
feel it different. And I was riding a high at
the time. Oh I think I cry I'm watching it
(53:01):
because I was like, this is beautiful. But that's the
thing when I watched Lord of the Rings then versus now, then,
I was like, oh cool, this is fine, no problem.
B Glade Drill talks a lot, and there is a
step worse, which is Master and Commander, which has no
women except for once, and it's when they're like googling
(53:22):
and they're like a hot woman, what about the latest
and then there's the latest Chris Nolan movie, Boy City. Yes,
also Dunker Ocean Ocean Full of Boys. Yeah, well, at
least like Master and Commander has been forgotten, like no
one revisits that Dunkirk. I don't think anyone's going to
be like Boy Ocean forever. I don't think hopefully, hopefully
(53:44):
they have the same fate. But yeah, so I think
there is a step worse. Can't give it a zero.
And of course I give that fucking quarter of a
nipple to my hero. Her smell gi is a sheet
for my purposes, Her majesty the Queen about that gives
smile from a different franchise of one nipple. One last
(54:09):
thing I do want to say is that she Lob
is a spider. Spiders have eight legs. This is Spider
Facts with Caitlin. I'm glad Alfred Billina was not in
these movies. I think he very easily could have been,
But I think he was busy, and I think what
he was busy with with was Spider Man taking bad news.
He was too brown to be in this movie. He
(54:30):
was literally and and he's white. It's a high bar.
Good Jesus that that may be true. Well, Anna, thank
you so much for being hearing you too. This was delightful.
It is truly an epic, an episode about as long
as the movie franchise itself. So you're welcome everybody where.
(54:53):
Can we find you on the web. You can find
me at Bad Comics with an X by Anna with
two ends on to Graham, I make a web comic
about anxiety and depression. And also thank you my lactose intolerance.
I'm very allergic to cheese, but I'm in love. I
eat it every day. It's my struggle. Um. And you
(55:14):
can also find me on Twitter same handle and uh
performer used to be my show, The Pickle Hour. Jamie
is a many time returning guests and Caitlin, we gotta
have you want. I'd love to do it anytime. That
will set it up, so we have to do it
right now. Um. Yeah, this has been a lot of fun.
(55:36):
Thanks for Jamie. I know that you were reluctant to,
you know, talk about an eighteen thousand hour movie. I'm
such a bit and still I still enjoy this trilogy.
It is very bad at women, but I will watch
it periodically for the rest of my life. Probably at
least we have smog. We have. You can find us
(56:02):
online Twitter at back Teldcast. You can find us on Instagram.
You can find us on Facebook. It can contribute to
our Matreon five dollars a month is two extra episodes
of listener requests only except for when it's our birthdays
and then we picked uh so so join up. It's
super fun and and a fun way to participate in
(56:24):
the community as well. We love you, You're great. Thanks
for listening and our sine
On the Beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy zef
invest start changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hello, and
welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante
and my name is Jamie Loftus, and this is part
(00:22):
two of our Lord of the Rings Trilogy episode. Hey, Caitlin,
did you know that movie trilogy is really fucking long?
I did know that that past the Bechdel Test. If
you don't know what that is, get with the program.
Just kidding, But if you haven't listened to episode one
of the Lord of the Rings podcast, we recommend you know,
(00:45):
maybe go back to part one, listen to it through
and and this is part two. I mean, if you
just want to listen to this one, that would sort
of be like starting in the middle of Lord of
the Rings two Towers and then only watching that and which, honestly,
not to betray my opinion of this trilogy, would be
totally fine. Nothing happens the entire movie, that doesn't even matter. Disagree,
(01:06):
All kinds of things happen, clearly you don't remember Golem
trying to anyway. So this is part two. If you
haven't listened to part one, we recommend going and doing
that first. But otherwise do you you do, you your body,
your choice. Here's part two. So that brings us to
(01:28):
a Owen. She is introduced for the first time in
the second movie. She is the niece of King Theodin
of Rohan. Why did their names rhyme? Like we said,
her whole thing is that she wants to fight. All
the men get to fight. Women are you know, perceived
as being helpless in this universe and that they have
to be protected. But she is a skilled sword fighter
(01:50):
and she wants to do her part in this fight,
in this war, this impending war. Right, But then she
meets Ericorn and she's like, who's that? And now all
of a sudden, there's a love triangle between Ergorn, Arwyn
and Awen that has almost no tension in it. There.
This is like the most boring love triangle in the
(02:12):
entire world. It is because it's so clear that Airgorn
is not interested. Right from moment one and again, in
the same gender neutral way that this whole story plays out,
we see her hurt being rejected by Vigo Mortensen, as
everyone at the table knows we've all been rejected. It
doesn't feel great and feel great, but he's not mean
(02:34):
to her. It's not and and there's never a particular
sexual tension between them in the first place, so it's
almost just like it's a crush that is unrequited, and
so that is not particularly compelling to watch, right, But
like this introduction of like her really kind of falling
in love with him or maybe just having like a
crush does not need to be there. She serves another
(02:56):
function in the story. So for her to also be
in love with them, man, I think like really sells
out her character. And and we also get one of
my favorite sellouts of the female character who is allowed
to do anything. Because I think Aoen by far is
the most active for female character and she still basically
has no my fact on the plot, but you know,
(03:17):
she's the most active by far. And there's that scene
where she has a sword and it's the first time
we're seeing her wheeled a sword and airgorn like notices
and it's like, hey, you can do what the boys do,
and she's like, I know, pretty cool, right, But I'll
be humble and shy about it. And then because he's
(03:39):
the I think that we're to believe because he's the
first man who has acknowledged she's doing it at all
and doesn't really say, like, you're really good at that,
and I respect you, but he doesn't not say that,
And I think that that is like for us, supposed
to be the entry point of like she likes him
because he's the only man she's ever met who hasn't
nagged her for her interests. I think that that's like
(04:01):
the root of her interest in him. It's like, well,
he didn't say I sucked like every man in my
life does, so I guess I love him. It's true.
I'm just like, are you not yelling at me? Cool?
We're married? Um. And then there's more to talk about
with her character, but where her story ends. In the
(04:24):
one of eight hundred conclusions of this trilogy, she gets
paired up with Ferremir because Ericorn rejects her, so she
has to end up with some man. So they placed
her next to Faremere. They might they give each other
a little like CD. I. I think there's a moment
in I hate that, like the last minute, like don't worry.
(04:45):
She's still gonna a guy. He's like, oh no, we
weren't freaking out about it. Actually we were fined. So
they get paired up and head her own normativity is
alive and well, so I kind of want to just
kinda go through to the movies and point out a
few different things we see in terms of, you know,
the gender dynamics. So in the Fellowship of the Ring
(05:07):
again we opened with a woman's voice. We've got gladiol
being sort of place like omniscient narrator. Like the narration
is very inconsistent in the movie. That definitely, and then
when she does appear on screen again throughout the movies,
it's it's seldom happens, and then it's it's again to
(05:28):
deliver exposition narrator. I r L. Yeah. So I mean,
I guess you could argue that it's cool that like
a woman is given like an omniscient point of view
sort of, but no, yeah, there there is a retelling
of this movie that puts her as the omniscient being,
because that's really what was implied. I think to a degree,
(05:48):
like this is giving it too much credit. But by
making her the narrator, it's as if she's like speaking
like this is how it all happened. So maybe in
the future of Earth, she became the king of the world.
She became the storyteller. She's like, hey, everybody, you want
to hear a story about five guys I met. She
(06:08):
becomes the new Gandalf, and that's kind of what he does, right, Yeah,
it'll take ten hours of your time. Learn's like, no,
I don't, I'm good ace. Um. There is a moment
very early on in the first movie where like Gandalf
is like riding through the shire and um, there's like
all these children who are like cand off play some
(06:29):
fireworks and he's like okay, and then there's like a
hobbit couple and the man is like, t he I
like fireworks too, And then his wife shows up and
she's scowling because women be shrews, as we know, and
then he has to pretend like he's not having fun
and not enjoying the fireworks. And it's supposed to be
like this ha ha comical moment, but the first depiction
(06:51):
of a woman you see on screen is a shrewish
hobbit lady. So I feel like that really sets the
tone for the whole and aren't wait a minute, And
that doesn't make any sense because Hobbits are supposed to
be so joyful, love fun. Exactly what was this woman
crashed in the party for. Well, she's a woman, so
she can't have fun. She can't have fun. Women are
(07:12):
not having fun in this in this series, so you're
not giggling. Then, well, I guess they go to Bilbo's party. Yeah,
but that's a few minutes of screen time and then
we hardly see those characters again. Sam's wife has fun,
she had a lot of kids. Yeah, once she starts
t shirt gunning out Sam's kid. Yeah, that's actually in
(07:32):
the extended version. I saw you see Sam's wife give birth,
and it's it's like a machine gun of baby. Progressive
moment in cinema. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because they
show it from below. Yeah, basically a biology Yeah, that's
and that's in the three D version. That is in
the three D it's we're more like Hobbits than you
(07:55):
would think when you see it up close. It's okay.
When we first meet our went on screen again, it's
not until over an hour into the movie it's established
that she and Agorn know each other, but it's not
We're not quite sure how or what in what context.
Her introduction is a little cool because we do meet
her by her holding a sword up to Aragorn's neck
(08:17):
very hot. Yes, so she is threatening his life. But
then a few scenes later you're like, oh, they're basically
engaged to be married. So so it was just like
it was like a little thing they were doing. I mean,
I wasn't into Vigo watching that movie, but I think
my little whatever I was nine years old self, was like, yeah,
(08:37):
You're like, oh, this is kind of what's happening. And
then but then think about this later, You're like, it's
gonna be a few years before I can unpack this fully.
So then a few moments later in the movie, she's
like riding up on a horse. There's like angelic music.
Her dress is white, even though when it cuts to
(08:59):
a moment later in the Dame exact scene, she's wearing
a different dress. But she's like she comes in as
this like angel savior to like save Photo's life. She's
literally glowing. She and Galadriel are never not glowing, although
Gandalf glows too. Sometimes Gandolf does glow, he has but
but he does, but never when he's gand off the
(09:20):
way for that one scene, but most of the time
we see him on screen, he's he's dull, I mean,
and to be fair, all men are dull and all
women are radiants and perfect. True, however, and also the
we we don't see women who are not fabulously wealthy
(09:42):
and conventionally attractive glow. We do not see poor people
when when there are women on screen who are meant
to be poor, they do not glow. Habit, women do
not glow. Yeah, like if you are hot, hot royalty,
you glow. And even then it's I feel like the
(10:02):
only reason that a Owen is not depicted in this
way as because with Arwin and Galadriel, they're supposed to
be these like virginal women and objects of desire, where
we're I sort of interpreted. We're intended to see Aoen
a Owen Ewen McGregor. We're supposed to see a o
(10:23):
En as more of a girl. I don't think we're
encouraged to view her as like a sexual being in
the same way we're encouraged to see the other two.
But make no mistakes, she's still part of a royal family.
Because her uncle is the king, so she's still she's royalty,
and she's still conventionally, by Western beauty standards attractive. We
(10:45):
only get beautiful women. And the range in male characters.
I mean, I know that's a complaint on all movies,
but the range in male characters. Man, you have a
whole species of thing that is ugly. Yet I mean
there's there. There is every well, I mean you can't
extend it to color. There are white men of every
(11:08):
shape and size in this film franchise. There's every kind
of white man you get ever in counter in your
entire life. You got Legless, you got the hacker, you
got you got you fro, you got fig wit, you
got fig With the Brett mackenzie character, there's short hair,
there's also long hair's hairy feet, there's smooth feet, old
(11:32):
not old. Wizards sometimes not wizards. The next thing that
I think is worth noting that happens in the first
movie is that we learn about the Urquai and how
they exist, which is that Saramon, the bad Wizard, not
to be confused with Sorrow on the Eye, is breeding
(11:54):
orcs and goblin men to make this like super race
of crazy warriors like eight fighters, all this stuff. They
take women out of the equation. There does not need
to be wounds. They are born as adults. They hatch,
they hatch out of this pile of mud poop, mud, placenta,
(12:15):
placent I wouldn't give it placenta. There's no placenta there, right,
it's just like a pile of mud. That love that
band mud lists are known. There's some like saran wrap
covered in muddy poop, and that they break out of
(12:37):
that and suddenly they're born, so that like, sure, sure,
that's how you breed urakai fun way to cut women
out of the narrative. Maybe, I mean this is also
anti feminist, but maybe the implication is that because they're
making the worst kind of obedient like creature, they can't
(12:59):
have women that would be too good. But you know
that puts that's not Yeah, I'm reaching. Why am I
trying to defend? Why am I trying to defend the
ranks because it doesn't deserve but there but this is
the kind of I think this is definitely the kind
of like franchise that you try to find a way
to want to defend because it isn't aggressive towards women,
(13:21):
it just leaves them out, and so it's harder. I
feel like it's a little harder to reconcile. Yeah, it's
not offensive, it's not grotesquely offensive. It's just so so
the Silent Killer. Yeah. Um. And then there's there's a
fun moment in a Rivendell, one of the Elf cities,
where Gandef is like, hey around, Actually it's like men
(13:44):
folk who we should like be trusting and like putting
our faith in men to rule the fate of you know,
Middle Earth. Did he mean gender men or human name,
like the race of men as opposed to the race
of elves or so that's what he means. But then
l Ron responds men men are weak. So I think
(14:05):
l Rond is a feminist icon. This is just feminist
icon l Rond, but which sounds a little too much
like l Ron Hubbard. I keep wanting to say l
Ron Hubbard n one name. Yeah. So that's for me
that those were like the notable things in terms of
gender in the first movie where we're introduced to Arwin
(14:27):
and glad Reel there for the most part, sideline, they
have so little screen time that you forget that they
exist they're both like these like fair maiden, virginal, angelic,
willowy creatures. Yes, you're like, oh, I wonder if this
movie cares about women or not, and then you remember
not even a little bit. Um. So then we get
into the Two Towers, and this is when we meet
(14:49):
a win and that's when it's established that she's both
a good fighter, but also she is horny for Aragorn
for I mean reasons that we've argued could makes sense,
but there's really no reason for her narratively to be
interested in Airgorn. Like that that choice was made, you know,
(15:09):
I guess to just like, oh, well, there's a woman
in a story, and there's head normativity all around us,
so let's make sure that she's in love with air
Gorn so that we can have a love triangle. I
don't know if that happens in the books or not.
If you're if you're a fan of the books or
you've read the books, um tweet at us and let
us know if this love triangle was set up in
the books or if this is just a change made
(15:30):
in the film adaptation. I'd be interested to know that
because I'm sort of skeptical. I feel like it was
something that was added into the movies just to just
to make it so yeah. Yeah, So we learned that
she wants to fight and that, you know, that's her
whole thing, which I think is cool. I agree that
(15:51):
she is the most active character. She has the most
agency of any of the other female characters, which is
not hard because there's only two other ones and they're
basically pointless to the story. We do meet her uncle, Theaden,
who is E. J. Smith from Titanic. Oh, I forgot
about that major twist. The best tressed load of the
(16:14):
rings is that they captain from Titanic. Where's a wig
and it um. Then there's a scene where Gimley the
Dwarf is talking to a Owen and he's like, it's true,
you don't see many dwarf women. In fact, they are
so like in voice and appearance they are often mistaken
for dwarfmen, which hack that I mean the whole the
(16:38):
whole way that dwarves are portrayed at moments in this franchise.
I think that there are moments where dwarves are portrayed
as better but ultimately kind of offensive to the little
person community. I'd be interested in, like reading thoughts that
either the actors or just the reaction to that community,
(16:58):
to Dwarves as a whole, because I know that Dwarves
taken even larger role in the Hobbit franchise. Yeah, that's
I feel like that's like, I mean to for sure
the shad they went to battle. Yeah, I think I
mistakenly referred to them as Hobbits earlier when I was
talking about Hobbits. But there to confuse, what are so
(17:22):
what are dwarfs known for? What are there like trade
in this world? They're basically capitalists because they hang out
in their minds mining their precious jewels and gold and
all of that stuff. They don't want to be troubled
with the outside world. They're really just content to be
confined to their caves and there, you know, mountains where
all their treasures are. So that's the rules that are.
(17:45):
That's like, I think that's like literally what l Rond says,
He's like, they cared nothing for the troubles of men.
Do they die when they go to that place? There
are yes, Um, I don't think the Dwarf race is
wipe out completely. But when they go to the minds
of Maria in the first movie. Yeah, all of the
dwarfs there have been slaughtered by goblins, So yeah, we
(18:09):
don't there's more minds, I think. I'm not really sure. Again,
I only know what's talked about in the movies, So
if there's other information that's in the books, I don't
know about that. So I guess what I'm wondering is, Yeah,
I get that those traits don't really mean anything in
terms of the gender dynamics. But on the one hand,
(18:29):
if men look like women in dwarf communities, that's interesting.
But also the way he's saying it is like if
you don't look like a conventionally attractive, tall white woman,
I thought that was the implication. Yeah, once again, I
don't know how to make sense of it. Lord of
(18:50):
the Rings Apologist, you should see me watch West World.
I I can't. I mean, I can't imagine you watching Smiles,
thanks alcohol and SMI is a woman. Smile is voiced
by Benedict Comback. Never mind, you're right mixing it up
with the dragon Strick. Oh yeah, yeah, because they look
(19:13):
super alike. I know that. Oh yeah, well, the whole
dragon is a woman with Donkey, very feminist. We talked
about that in our Struck episode did really yeah, oh yeah,
strongest female character in the franchise. So while we're like
(19:37):
hanging out with a win Aergorn is all like, here's
this new woman. How do I feel about this other
woman that I know? And we see different flashbacks where
Ericorn is basically like, we can't be together. You shouldn't
sacrifice yourself for me, telling her like, let's end this
without really like checking in to see like how she
feels about the situation. Elrond is all I Airgorn is
(20:00):
gonna die no matter what, and you're going to be
sad about it, and then you're gonna have to live
on forever being sad because apparently when your loved one
dies and then you keep living, you mourn forever. There's
no way to get over it. And she'll just spend
her the rest of her immortal life in mourning because
(20:21):
you know, she's just so sad that a man dies
that she has to basically just like kneel by his
grave forever and that's the only thing that she can do,
is what the movie is, you know, suggesting will happen. Um.
But then she she keeps telling people like, no, I've
made my choice. This is what I choose. But no
one like l rond Ergorn, they do not respect her choice,
(20:42):
and they keep trying to convince her to choose something else.
I mean, it's her choice. Do I think it's a
good choice personally? Not especially? And also it's like the
choice foisted upon her by well, I don't know, it's
a choice voiced upon her by two women and a man.
Because the Arwin story that's not you, that's, to my understanding,
is not Tolkien. That's like something introduced into the narrative
(21:06):
by the movie which is written. Yeah, yeah, I really
Now I want to know what that process was. Okay,
first of all, we've been over this a bit. It
was the time there is like a conventional wisdom, and
there was more so than to how movies were written,
(21:28):
where it was like in those blockbusters, you must have
love triangles, and I mean that's still true. Yeah. And
if women are introduced because they're not the protagonists in
this heteronormative space, well what else are you gonna do
with them? Right? Like? What function could they serve besides
being in love with a man? I want to live
(21:50):
in a world and I'm sure because this this franchise
is so intensely documented that perhaps there are other drafts
of scripts available. But I like, I mean, because there's
so much leather rings media, I would love for there
to be a world where the female screenwriters pushed a
(22:11):
more progressive female narrative. But because it was two thousand one,
the studio said no. At least there was an effort
made to give but you know, that's just that's dream.
But it is something to consider, Like, the studio definitely
had some impact on this script, I hope. So. I mean,
(22:32):
it's the narrative now that every time I see a
movie that doesn't treat women well or at all that
is written by a woman, I sort of go to.
We talked about this in the Frozen episode a little
bit where there's for some reason, it's very well documented
how many notes the writer of Frozen, woman named Jennifer Lee,
(22:53):
got during the course of making that movie, where the
original way the story was written was way more aggressive,
and it's pretty well documented where she was getting the
notes of like this has to change, or we're not
going to make it. This has to change. That's great.
That makes me feel better in some at least gives
(23:13):
you some hope in that you're like, writers do want
to tell these stories. It's not that they don't want
to tell it, it's that men with a lot of
money usually don't want to show it. Yeah, I don't.
It's an empty It does give me some piece, I
will say, it does give me some peace. Hopefully these
like studio heads will start to learn that we're die honestly,
(23:39):
probably die first. They will likely die before they respect
women and then hopefully be replaced by more progressive people
who are willing to fund movies that showcase women in
a more positive light and you know, not adhere to
such rigid gender rules. Here's hoping. And with that, let's
(24:00):
take a quick break and then we will be right back.
Good idea, Klin, thank you so. A little bit more
about what happens in the Two Towers. We are hanging
out with a win a little bit and they're heading
to helms Deep because all the people of Rohan are
(24:21):
in danger because there's sarmons like launching an army on them,
basically classic class. He loves unleashang. So they get attacked
by some orcs on these ward creatures and uh, Theadin's
are like a win like lead the people to Helm's
Deep because the men will fight, and she's like, no,
(24:43):
I can stay in fight, and he's like no. So
she's like trying to make a choice, like trying to
be active in the story, and a man is like, no, sorry,
you can't. You have to take all the women and
children who are so vulnerable and um put them in
caves so that they can be protected. He um. So
that's pretty much her role for the rest of the
(25:04):
movie is that she is stuck in a cave with
all of the other women because she is not allowed
to fight. Meanwhile, Legolis and Ghimli are making a literal
game out of war. They're like, let's see who can
kill more people? Won't that bring some levity to war? Yes,
well kill more kind of people. Yeah. The ural Kai, although,
(25:28):
is there like a racial thing we should address with that,
because I just call them kind of people and I'm like, well, okay, yeah,
let's let's try to unpack the racism and the Lord
of the Rings trilogy for a moment. We can start
with the racist hierarchy of wizards. In the books, there
are like brown wizards and they're a lower class uh.
And then there's gray wizards and they're above brown, and
(25:50):
then the white wizards are the highest class with the
wizard hierarchy. My understanding was the goal is to get
as white as possible exactly. Yes, literally, the wher you get,
the more powerful you are. So that does not set
a great precedent right away. The goblins, the Orcs, the
uru Kai, like all the bad guys generally have darker
skin compared to all of the good guys in the movie,
(26:14):
which are you know, men, The Hobbits, the dwarves, the
elves are all white as can be. Oh, there's a
fun video where you can see a super cut of
all of the lines in the whole Lord of the
Rings trilogy spoken by actors who are people of color.
Believe it or not, they all play bad guys. And
(26:36):
it's only it's like less than a minute long. It's
just some of the uru Kai who are like get
a fire going, and that's pretty much. It's so no,
it's so much worse than I want to believe. Also,
so in the second and third movie, the bad guys
and more door are recruiting mercenaries to like fill out
(26:57):
their army of orcs, so we do see some human
people but all of their like recruits are dark skin brown,
come from land's foreign to whatever, like Anglo Saxon esque
fantasy world that Middle Earth is. It's so vague. It's
like it's so racist vague. And Peter Jackson makes the
(27:20):
same huge misstep in King Kong, which is like at
its core, the racist story that won't die, Like why
do they keep making that? There are some things that
keep getting rebooted there like this time we're going to
fix the root problem. I was like, you can't. That's
what the story is about, just make a different one,
(27:41):
making a different one. And there is like a weird
attempt to like have quote unquote racism where dwarves and
elves hate each other because when we first meet Gimleian Leglis,
they're like, oh, gross dwarf and he's like, I'll never
hang out with an elf, and then they become friends
by the end and they're like, well, it's weird because
(28:02):
it's like you can read. I think Tolkien probably meant
for this to be an allegory towards groups within humanity
and like demographic groups, but it's weird when you do that.
And I don't think that Lord of the Rings stands
alone in this I think I think a lot of
fantasy fiction falls into this trap. But it's weird when
(28:22):
you're allegory is like, look at our divisions and factions
and prejudices, except we're going to erase any people of
color and we get all white right. Like it almost
seems like these narratives are attempting to be like, let
us put this in terms, you are comfortable with white
people and all like in in the same you know,
(28:46):
like batch of scenes completely disparaged the only people of
coloring the entire movie. Oh man, I can't call them
not quite people and what kind of people? Oh and
so yeah, between all of that and the fact that
pretty much every good guy in the movie has blue eyes,
Like not that many people in the world have. Like
(29:09):
the ratio of blue eyed people to non blue eyed
people in Middle Earth is like fifty two one. Sorry
to our blue eyed listeners. I I see you, I
respect you, I cherish you. I'm not sorry, guys. I'm
also half Swedish, so like I have a loud of
resentment toward blue eyes, you know, because I didn't get them,
(29:30):
which is fine, I'm fine with it now. But when
I was in middle school. You better believe I wore
contact like I did. Yeah. My mom was like, you
want to fix it. You can get highlights too, and
I did. She was, you know, she just wanted to
make me more arian. I don't think there's anything wrong
with that because you're part Cuban r Yeah, she wanted
(29:53):
to stamp out the bad part. To know, the Cuban
part is great. Uh, Like, I'm getting myself in trouble.
It's hard to on this show. It is so hard
to not dig yourself a holeway do it regularly. It
is a part of the process. We contain multitudes. I'm problematic,
you know what. I love Orlando Bloom He's like kind
(30:14):
of trash. The rumor is that he just undresses all
the time, which you've what like, he he just gets naked.
That's why there is that photo of him naked on
the paddle boat or whatever the picture. Yeah, because he is.
It's like a known thing in dressing rooms that he
(30:34):
just strips down doing hair and makeup, which comfortable. Yeah,
you're that's sexual harassment. Yeah, but me hearing that at eleven,
I would have been like, that's so I want to
see that. Yeah, they're so open with his co star. Yeah,
oh my god, I wish I could be in a
movie with him where he's naked. So jealous of a
(30:56):
live tyler. All right, she doesn't kids under my Lecholis
doesn't kiss. He's a hacker in this he literally doesn't
get me. He's too busy. He's like, where our computers?
Computers to be invented already? He probably invents computers in
this world. We don't. We don't have learning before, but
if we did, it's called Legois Colon hacker. He's certainly
(31:20):
got the bandwidth for it because he's not interested in
the emotions of others and has no romantic interest. He's like, like,
do you remember the party with legolists that made me?
I was like, oh, he's a hacker. Was right after
Gandolf was like see yeah, and you know Free fell
off a cliff and everyone thought he was dead. Everyone
(31:41):
is displaying emotion in the way their character would. Hobbits
are openly crying. Are Gorn is like he's over it?
Gimli is crying yeah. The Legolis is just standing there
like where are you people cry? He's like, I'm not
gonna He's like, I'm not gonna right for a couple
of days, and even then it will be by myself,
(32:03):
like I'm a hacker. Quick thing to bring up the
Hobbit again. There is like a love triangle that involves
him and that tari Al character that gets shoehorned into
the Hobbit trilogy. So I thought maybe Leglis was a sexual,
but he is. Um. I prefer Legolis who does not fuck.
(32:25):
I think so too. I think that was his official title. Yeah,
Leglis who does not fun Colan hacker, son of Megalis
who did fun to have or maybe this is just
the correct combination of Zeros and once he was made
(32:45):
by a computer. I think Saron is a computer. Okay,
all right, Saron who does not have blue eyes? He
has one eye and it is red yellow fire eye
it is. But what was it before that? Right? We
don't seek he's wearing a mask. But a few things
also to mention that happened in Return of the King
(33:05):
Um about a half hour in our way is she
has made a decision, going against her previous decision to
go to elf Heaven after all. And then that's when
she sees the vision of Airgorn and her small child,
and she decides to turn back, and she's like, well,
if I have the chance to be a mom, I'm
gonna go and do that, and I better have a son, right,
(33:29):
Motherhood is great. I have a mother and um not
like you guys. So I'm not trying to disparage mothers
in any way or motherhood, but it's so often that
a woman's motivation in a movie is motherhood and if
she isn't a mother, and it's just like, really, I
don't West Girls are problematic show that I constantly apologize
(33:51):
for and for sadger to watch. But Bandy Newton's characters
motivated by a child that is fate that like they
designed for her to have. It's some planted memories and
they still ran with it to the end. Right Computers.
Similar thing happens in like Kill Bill, where as soon
(34:12):
as the bride finds out that she is pregnant, she's like, well,
I have to drop everything and become a mother, even
though I had never expressed that I wanted to be
a mother up until now. So it's just a thing
we a trope we see in a lot of movies
and media where it's just like, you know, a woman,
the idea of motherhood if that is an option for her.
She's like, oh my god, Like this is motivating my
(34:34):
every decision, especially because we know so little about our
win Outside of that, that's like I think that's the
main deciding thing. It's like, it's, you know, obviously, if
you want to be a mother, that's totally fine, and
like we we at the Bechtel Cast will not prevent
you from doing so. I will, but I mean I will.
(34:54):
I've I've stopped a lot of pregnancies, but not abortion
or anything. Just like I've come in and stopped it
from coming out. Yeah, She's like, because I will just
turn on West World and all of a sudden, no
one will be horny anymore. I'm so many orgies I
have killed putting on the finale of West World the
worst episode. But because we know nothing else about our win,
(35:17):
that's why that choice is so lazy. Yes, right, Um.
And then the big thing, the big you know, gender
thing that happens and the whole freaking trilogy is when
a Wyn disguises herself as a man, she puts on
this big helmet. Yeah, yeah, exactly. She pick she picks
(35:41):
up Mary. She's like, we're going to fight in battle together.
No one wants us to, no one's allowing us to
do this case be moushoe. Is that the dragon? Yes,
m dragon, yes, yes, sorry, I need to make this move,
I understand, have you guys done? So? Okay. So then
so they ride into battle together, even though everyone's like
(36:04):
women can't fight, and she's like, well, funk all that
funk the patriarchy. I'm going to fight in this war anyway.
And it's been established that the King of the Nasal,
the Ring Wraiths, he he's a bad guy. But you
said ring Raiths as if it was it would make
us understand, like, oh, yeah, yeah, you know the Ring Ring, right,
(36:28):
you know. I was like, yeah, yeah, So the King
of the Nasgal his whole thing that's silly. Okay, sorry,
I don't know what you're talking about. So the whole
thing with him is that he is unkillable. No living
man can kill him, is what is said in the movie.
(36:51):
So in battle at the end of the Return of
the King, Awen is fighting. She is slinging her sword around.
She's bad, guys, sort of. We don't get to see
her fight that much. But then she is confronted the
King of the Nascal. I don't know if he's named
but not. He's right there and she's like, oh shit.
She chops off the head of his like whatever dragon
(37:15):
not smiled, but whatever flying winged creature that he is on.
They fight a little bit and he's like, you idiot,
no man couldn't kill me, And she's like She pulls
off her mask and she's like I am no man
stabs him through the face. His head implodes. John Jams
start playing It's crazy. So this is I think, supposed
(37:42):
to be this like big empowering moment for women where
it's like, holy crap, we thought that he couldn't die,
but she was a woman, so she can kill him.
Voice the rules of this God. The rules of this
(38:08):
make no sense and are not explored at all, but
we're still supposed to be like, holy freaking crap. I
hate when a movie is requesting that I emptily yes
queen at the screen without using my brain. I don't
like it. It is one of the things that annoys
me most in movies. I hate it, but sometimes it
works on me. Sometimes it works, and then I get
(38:29):
even madder at myself. Later, Man, you fell for it,
you got represented, you get too excited. You didn't realize
it and make a fucking sense. Yeah. Yeah, it feels
empty because logically this doesn't really make any sense, like
why would a female identifying person be able to kill
something that a male identifying person isn't able to kill?
(38:51):
Like these rules are just like not explored at all,
and it it feels like a hollow victory. Here's my
apology of it. Maybe it's the myth is that no
one can kill him, No man can kill him because
he's such a good fighter. But he finally met the
best fighter who can kill him. But that doesn't This
gets back to another thing that annoys me and with
(39:14):
female characters. How could she be the best fighter if
no one formally really ever taught her. This is her
first time in battle, ever fight costume to fight the
first time she's done it, that's true. I guess she
never says this is my first rodeo. He would have tips.
(39:34):
That I hate is that she gives it all up
to be with Faremire at the end. Right, Yeah, so
she's got her like hollow yes queen moment in the
end of the third movie. And then yeah, and then
she becomes like sort of like a fair maid and
like the rest of them where it's like, oh, well,
my role now that there's no wars to be had,
(39:55):
I can just hang out with this faremire guy and
fair was considered for this role interesting too powerful. Now
they're like, she's her face is too sharp. She is
she looks like we need someone who looks more submissive.
That's literally what it says. She looked too mean. And
I was like, oh, I love when people to say
(40:16):
this woman looks too mean. Yeah, people said that to
me all the time. I have resting mean face. And um, anyway,
I think you have a resting great face. Thank you,
And if you don't want to be happy, it's still great.
I know. Thank you so much. Hey, let's take a
quick break and then we'll be back. One more thing
(40:40):
on on a and I'm reading is According to the
DVD commentaries, an entire set piece firmare au En wedding
scene was actually filmed and ultimately cut and not even
included in the extended edition, Nor have any photos of
the scene ever been made public, but the scene has
(41:01):
been described by multiple sources of they went so far
as to have them get married on screen, so well,
at least they cut it from the movie, but also
the fact that they considered it to the extent where
they wrote and filmed it is troubling. Come on, well,
I what money are they rolling with where they were
(41:24):
just like, we're not even gonna show this scene to anyone?
Was it the whole thing? I don't know. I'd be
curious that, Like, maybe that's again, I keep going back
to the female screen rights. Maybe they're like no, but
it already got past them because they built a set,
damn it. Maybe hey, maybe there was a female producer
at the last minute who was like, we can't and
(41:46):
that was like her falling on the sword, like that
was the last the only thing she could say, right,
And her name was Uma Thurman, also Owen and fair
mirror Mary in the books. Apparently great, so he has
to end up with a man, maybe not the one
she wanted originally, but you know, you can't be a
woman in a story without ending up with him hand
(42:08):
and this is ironic, Okay, faremir and a o And
had at least one sin l Baron and their grandson
was Bara Here who wrote the Tale of Eric Gorn
and Arwin. Oh, why was her grandkid being like, remember
this guy and my grandma didn't fuck. Here's a story
about him and his wife. Well weird. Do you think
(42:29):
they passed on the lore of like, well, grandson, there
was a man I wanted to fuck, but didn't pass
on this legacy to grandpa, like you know who? I
was my first choice, Not this guy. I hope, So,
I really hope. So wait. I just remembered a female
(42:52):
character that we did not talk about yet. Oh my god,
the dead bones of the dwarf who died she Lob
the spider. The pronouns used for she lab are female pronouns.
So I think what we can say here is for
she lab feminist icon. No, no one in this movie.
(43:15):
I didn't even talk about feminist. So cute is a queer.
I love him. He's so gone, is so expressive, and
his eyes are so big, and he has this gigantic head.
I love him. I just need everyone to know. Of course,
(43:38):
I had a crush on Golub and I don't understand
so he's always He's and Andy genius. No, but Caitlin
can let's not. I No, you do it. You assumed
the position. I'll do it, and then I'll probably cut
this out. Okay, Well, do you want to hear gall lumber?
(44:00):
Do you want to hear I'd surprised us. Yeah, okay,
here we go. Um My, Bresh, it was perfect. It's perfect.
Oh yeah, that's perfect. It's not great. It's not my
(44:26):
best work. Give yourself some credit. Yeah, we've been talking
for a very long time. I feel like we need
to wrap up. We didn't talk about did we talk
about the mom On the right? There is two female
characters with lines. Well, should we talk about whether or
not this movie passes the pectel tests? Yeah, I guess
that fits in. Okay, so there is one Well, there's
(44:50):
two scenes that are contenders. So let's try to figure
this out. In two towers. The second movie, Orcs and
Oroquai are invading Rohan, and there's a mother. It's it's
a it's a horse country. Um, it's where it's where
Captain E. J. Smith of the Titanic, that's his realm
(45:10):
and his wig and his wig right the way that
controls his thoughts. So they're about to get invaded by
the bad guys. And there's a mother who says to
her son and her daughter. She's talking to the boy
at first, and she says, get on the horse with
your sister and go to someplace and raise the alarm,
(45:32):
and the little girls like, I don't want to leave.
I don't want to go, mama, And the mom says Freda.
So we find out her name, Freda, I will find
you there, and then that's it. And then they ride
off on the horse, and we do find out what
her name is in terms of the character. But I
don't think it's ever spoken a lot by the movie.
(45:53):
I don't think it is either. So yeah, I would
argue that that I wanted it to pass. But I
think if we're going by the movie, I don't buy
the arguments, like, well, she had a name in the book,
and it's like, so did Brett Mackenzie's character, and people
just renamed him fig Wit for no reason. Also, well,
(46:15):
if you consider the subtext of this conversation, like the context.
In the subtext, she's basically telling them to leave because
there are several male warriors coming about to like raid
their village. Yeah, you shall not pass the test. In
the scene, right, you shall not pass. That's my Gandolf
(46:39):
impression also very good, okay um. And then later in
the second movie, Freda is eating soup somewhere in Rohan,
Aowen is there, Freda says where is Mama? Aowen says
sh And that's that conversation. That is as close as
(47:01):
we get because those characters are both named. But I
would argue that a Owen that is technically a conversation.
That's it's communication, communications, verbal communications, a line of dialogue.
It depends. I would say, no, here, okay, I'm gonna
go and say this movie does not pass the backtel
test because even if you wanted to argue the technicalities,
(47:23):
there's thirty seconds or less of this movie of women
interacting in a movie that is over nine hours long
shall not pass. Yeah, so this movie does not pass,
even though it maybe seems like it comes close. And also,
when we say movie, we mean three full three hour
(47:44):
bucking movies. We didn't have We didn't discuss one conversation
that happens in the first three and a half hour movie.
There's nothing to discuss. And those characters, the mother and
her daughter afraid to only appear in those two scenes.
They have no bearing on the story, like their scenes
going to be cut from the movie. Uh, and it
(48:05):
really wouldn't change anything. So yeah, the movie doesn't even pass.
I guess to up the stakes of the people of Rohan.
But yeah, so I'm going to say that this movie
does not pass. And of course that's not surprising at
all because there are so few women in this entire
(48:26):
world of Middle Earth. It's weird because my ex boyfriend's
mom was named Darwin because her parents loved Lord of
the Rings. Yeah, but how sad too. She was named
after this like deeply unfeminist movie by like a very minor,
minor character who gets her parents were like, she's a
(48:50):
feminist icon because she's there, because she's literally we had
three choices. We did what we could do. Gladriel was
too hard to say. Awen is a ejjectively not a
very good name name. Oh hell, gang shall rerate the
movie on our nipple scale. Hey, what choice do we have?
(49:12):
We don't have a choice. Yeah. Our nipple scale is uh.
We rate each movie based on its portrayal and representation
of women zero to five nipples. I'm between a zero
and a half nipple. I'll go with a half nipple.
The movie has a few women in it, great, um,
(49:34):
not enough, not enough screen time. I guess that it
gets a half nipple instead of his zero nipples because
of a Owen's presence in this story and the fact
that she has a goal outside of being in a
romantic relationship with a man. Also, glad Reel doesn't have
that goal, but she's basically there's an exposition. Yeah, she
(49:56):
has no goals, So a Owen has as a little
bit of agency. But it just everything feels like a
hollow victory with her and with every female character in
the story, just because they're mostly framed around the other
men in the story. There's a love triangle that makes
no sense to be there. Glad Reel serves a pretty
(50:19):
flimsy function just to like deliver exposition, and she has
pretty much no bearing on the story. Like it's just
it's upsetting, Like, like you said, Jamie, that movie isn't
outwardly hateful toward women, and then it's not like saying, oh,
women are gross and bad, but it's also not giving
them any chance to do anything in the narrative. So yeah,
(50:44):
I'll give it a half nipple, um, even though I
think that's being generous and my half nipple will go
to small. I canna give it one head of one
nipple because I can't give it zero because it's, like
(51:05):
you said, it is not a franchise that is openly
contemptuous of women. But I think that there is the
argument that in some ways it that's even a little
bit worse because at least when you revisit a problematic
film franchise, you're just like, oh, I don't want any
part of this anymore. This is out of my life.
And hopefully, if history continues in the direction it is,
(51:28):
it will be a franchise that is by the way,
so I've forgotten because people just don't want to see
that anymore. But with this film franchise, because it does
not put women down and just ignores them, it won't
go away. There's not enough of a reason for people
who enjoy these movies to not continue to watch them,
because they're not espousing, you know, like bile at you.
(51:52):
They're not they're not saying shitty things. They're just erasing.
And that is almost like a little bit worse because
it's like, these movies will never go away. There's nothing,
you know, because on paper, they're like, well, you didn't
say anything bad. They just erased everyone. They didn't want
their um So that sucks. I guess a o en
(52:14):
and that's why one tenth of one nipple and I'm
giving it to smount you know, uh, well, you know
what I am going to give this. You gave it
a half, you gave it a tenth. I'll give it
like a fourth of a nipple, because I do think
a one's a wins. Uh you and McGregor, that moment
(52:40):
is something I think it's very hollow. It's but it's
what so many movies do where it's like, here's something.
It's what the entire movie of Wonder Woman kind of was. Yeah,
it felt kind of like I want to revisit Wonder
Woman because I think even a year later, I would
feel it different. And I was riding a high at
the time. Oh I think I cry I'm watching it
(53:01):
because I was like, this is beautiful. But that's the
thing when I watched Lord of the Rings then versus now, then,
I was like, oh cool, this is fine, no problem.
B Glade Drill talks a lot, and there is a
step worse, which is Master and Commander, which has no
women except for once, and it's when they're like googling
(53:22):
and they're like a hot woman, what about the latest
and then there's the latest Chris Nolan movie, Boy City. Yes,
also Dunker Ocean Ocean Full of Boys. Yeah, well, at
least like Master and Commander has been forgotten, like no
one revisits that Dunkirk. I don't think anyone's going to
be like Boy Ocean forever. I don't think hopefully, hopefully
(53:44):
they have the same fate. But yeah, so I think
there is a step worse. Can't give it a zero.
And of course I give that fucking quarter of a
nipple to my hero. Her smell gi is a sheet
for my purposes, Her majesty the Queen about that gives
smile from a different franchise of one nipple. One last
(54:09):
thing I do want to say is that she Lob
is a spider. Spiders have eight legs. This is Spider
Facts with Caitlin. I'm glad Alfred Billina was not in
these movies. I think he very easily could have been,
But I think he was busy, and I think what
he was busy with with was Spider Man taking bad news.
He was too brown to be in this movie. He
(54:30):
was literally and and he's white. It's a high bar.
Good Jesus that that may be true. Well, Anna, thank
you so much for being hearing you too. This was delightful.
It is truly an epic, an episode about as long
as the movie franchise itself. So you're welcome everybody where.
(54:53):
Can we find you on the web. You can find
me at Bad Comics with an X by Anna with
two ends on to Graham, I make a web comic
about anxiety and depression. And also thank you my lactose intolerance.
I'm very allergic to cheese, but I'm in love. I
eat it every day. It's my struggle. Um. And you
(55:14):
can also find me on Twitter same handle and uh
performer used to be my show, The Pickle Hour. Jamie
is a many time returning guests and Caitlin, we gotta
have you want. I'd love to do it anytime. That
will set it up, so we have to do it
right now. Um. Yeah, this has been a lot of fun.
(55:36):
Thanks for Jamie. I know that you were reluctant to,
you know, talk about an eighteen thousand hour movie. I'm
such a bit and still I still enjoy this trilogy.
It is very bad at women, but I will watch
it periodically for the rest of my life. Probably at
least we have smog. We have. You can find us
(56:02):
online Twitter at back Teldcast. You can find us on Instagram.
You can find us on Facebook. It can contribute to
our Matreon five dollars a month is two extra episodes
of listener requests only except for when it's our birthdays
and then we picked uh so so join up. It's
super fun and and a fun way to participate in
(56:24):
the community as well. We love you, You're great. Thanks
for listening and our sine
The Bechdel Cast News
Hosts And Creators
Caitlin Durante
Jamie Loftus
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