January 12, 2017 • 61 mins
Myq Kaplan joins Jamie and Caitlin to talk about The Princess Bride? This is absolutely, totally, and in all other ways conceivable! They make some puns and discuss how Buttercup is utterly useless.
(This episode contains spoilers)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bedel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef and best
start changing it with the Beckdel Cast. Welcome to the
Bechdel Cast. I'm your host, Caitlin Torante. Your other host,
Jamie Latus, and here we are. We are going to
(00:23):
talk about movies. That's what we do. That's what this
podcast is all about. Ye And why why must we
do this, Jamie? Impossible to say, Just kidding, We have
a great reason. It's because women are almost always underrepresented
or misrepresented in film. So that's why we started the podcast.
(00:43):
And we use the Bechdel Test as sort of a
guideline for how how some of our favorite movies are doing.
What is the Bechdel Well, we're doing really well, so
far smoother than ever. The Bechtel test is a test
where you apply it to a thing like a movie.
(01:06):
What what's a movie? Wait? A second movie passes the
Bechtel test. If there are we've explained this, our listeners know. Basically,
two women speak to each other in the story about
something other than a man. Right, So that's what that is?
I saw? Oh no, do we do all the intra
(01:26):
stuff pretty much? We can. We can do our thing
where um, I don't like to bring this up, but
some people want to know that I do have a
master's degree in screenwriting. Sorry, because they like, what what is?
What are your credentials? Girls? What do you want you?
This part is really evolved where yeah, we between the
(01:46):
two of us, we have three degrees and film. You
have two bachelors. And I just skipped straight onto The
Masters The Master, which would be a really interesting episode
of this. Oh you mean to discuss the movie The Master.
Oh yeah, I did a I wrote something once for
(02:07):
the Bota Globe a couple of years ago where I
watched The Master and The Master of Disguise and I
tried to decide which one was more valuable. What did
you conclude Master Disguise? Yeah, obviously of course I hated
The Master. Anyway, it was an hour too long. We
have a guest, as we often do, to talk about
a specific movie, and let's let's introduce our guests. It
(02:30):
is our friend and a very funny comedian, Mike Kaplan. Hey,
thank you for having me. You're welcome, Yes, you are
allowed to speak. Now. I heard my name, so I
thought it was time. That's your cue. I didn't know,
we didn't really, I didn't know for sure. I made
a choice. We have to make sure pectel cast passes
the Bechtel test. You talk to each other first and
(02:51):
about something besides a man or you or we did it?
Can I ask? Can? I ask a quick question? Because
I've heard their versions, like alterations or variety of the
Bechdel test where some some people require that the women
both have names. There is that caveat which I don't
know know if we've discussed, but yeah, i've heard happy
to be a man bringing it up. Also, I don't
(03:11):
really identify a man. Please, man's plains to us, Well,
the thing is about me. I don't really have a gender.
I just seem to be a man, so people assume
I'm a man, and I'm like whatever, thank you, I'm privileged.
Do have another question? Also? This one is going to
sound sincere, but it's really mostly just so I can
make a joke. But you say that sometimes women are misrepresented,
(03:33):
and it's fun to think of miss represented, miss what
you might call a woman. Sometimes? Are you represented in
this movie? I'm misrepresented. I'm Mr representative. Hey, at least
she had a name. She has misrepresented misrepresented here. Yeah,
that's true. That isn't something we've discussed yet, but I
(03:53):
have heard that caveat that both characters have to have
been named in whatever narrative piece it is. I think
I don't know if we've covered a movie yet where
that has come into play. Maybe Beauty and the Beast.
I don't know if the chest of Drawer's head a name.
I don't think she does either, but Chester Chester, I
believe that was her name in life. It was, but
we don't. We discussed, well, we concluded that that movie
(04:16):
does not pass the Bechtel test anyway because they only
talk about although the Beast is technique he's a man,
he's not a man, he's a male creatures along podcast,
just quick question. I mean that is I think the answer.
I think I will understand the answer as I'm saying it.
But like say, you watch the animated Robin Hood where
(04:39):
none of the characters are humans, but there are still
you know, male female relationships. Yeah, we um since they
are humanized anthropomorph Yeah that's the way. Thanks for being
here with your words or I have a master's degree
in linguistics words masters in the house, I call it
(05:01):
a mistress's degree, though you may thank you anyway. So
why don't you talk to us about the movie that
you that we all watch. We're gonna be discussing. I
chose the movie The Princess Bride. That movie I chose.
Do you want me to tell you why I chose it? Uh?
(05:21):
It's a movie that when people ask you often people
will say what's your favorite movie? And I have some
new stuff I'm talking about on stage about the idea
that favorites don't even like as an adult. There's so
many things, Like when you're a child, it makes sense
to be like, I've seen three and so one of
them is favorite. But like you know, as an adult,
you can like I don't like to have the things
(05:42):
that I love compete against each other. And sometimes when
you tell somebody this is my favorite movie, they're like,
but what about this one? And this one? And and like, well,
I don't want to feel bad just thinking about all
the wonderful movies that I like. Like, but this is
the one. If I ever if people just tell me
what your favorite movie, I would be like, fine, the Princess,
but it was definitely it was at a time my
favorite movie, and so I remember it as sort of
(06:02):
my first favorite movie. How old were you when you
first saw it? I think it came out in around
Oh my god, I was wrong. I was in probably four. Yeah,
I was in fourth ish grade. I was like nine,
around nine years old, and we watched it in school,
and I hadn't heard of it, like some of the kids, like,
we're watching it on a video obviously because it was
(06:25):
in school. We didn't have a movie theater at school,
but I didn't know what it was. So some of
the kids had seen it and they were super excited
by it. And when it first started, you know, there's
like just the scenes with like Fred Savage in his
home in bed, and I'm like one of the princess
right wondering he does this make any sense at all?
And everyone's like it's good. And we also watched, like
at the same time, like in the same time period,
(06:45):
a movie about a hedgehog, Like it was a myth
about called Hans My Hedgehog. And so these two movies
like had for a while equal weight in my mind.
I'm like the two movies that I saw this year
are these two and people are like, Hans my headge like,
but yeah, the Princess Ride. It was so wonderful. And
then like I went, I bought the book at one
point and I read the book, which is written by
the same guy wrote the screenplay, William Goldman. William Man
(07:09):
trigger sorry, guys, Willamette gold Woman. William Goldman is a
fascinating dude. He's like, yeah, I have a bunch of
his books, brag. He's wonderful. Okay. And Jamie's comment, No,
that was great, thank you for contributions. I have a drink.
(07:31):
Thank you. Yeah. So it was just a movie that
I've loved for a long time. And also I have
seen it so many times, but I hadn't thought about
it in the context of, like, I wonder how many
female characters are there? I mean, I can't remember all that, Like,
there aren't that many. Even a movie that has both
the words of the title are female thing, princess bride,
(07:53):
which I tend to not like any movie that has
any sort of wedding or bride or princess not my
kind of movie. But um, but this title is not,
you know, indicative of what the movie is like an ear.
I wonder why it was called that in the first place,
because it's not really like a movie that seems directed
(08:15):
at girls. It work, per se, it did work. I mean,
you guys are girls, and you you were a young person.
You were not alive when this movie came out. I
was not just one year old. So you saw it
when you were one, and you saw it many years recently.
Just now, and how did you like it? I didn't
really like it. Okay, well let's talk to Caitlin. What
(08:38):
didn't you like? Well? I mean, I just because I
have no sentimental attachment to it. I didn't have any
problems just sort of seeing the problems with the movie
jump out. Harsh realities are problems. Well the problem I mean,
there's just scenes that Princess Better comes in where she
doesn't she's there, but she doesn't seek that. We'll talk
(09:01):
all about it, right like that, that's infuriating. The other
female characters that I can remember at the top of
my head were like poor Wenches who would scream about yeah, yeah, yeah,
and uh. And also I just like I didn't like
Wesley very much. I didn't understand, like I I couldn't
(09:21):
stand the beginning where they were like they see each
other once a day and he says one sentence and
now they're in love forever and they are bonded, and
they didn't there weren't so many people back then. They
were you had to fall in love with your farm
boy because I was the only other thing you could
funk was a horse. But then it's five years later
and suddenly he has a personality. I'm like, where did
that come from? All of a sudden, he's like, he's
(09:44):
like a sassy boy and he's just like, I have
a lot of one liners taught him how to be
just like you were a fucking drag at the beginning,
and now you're a drag in a different kind of
smuggy kind of way. You can't have it both ways.
You can only just like him at one of the boys,
like him as a farm boy, or like him as
nothing is a farm boy. He's just like I'm a
(10:08):
true I am just. I am also prejudiced against adult
blonde males. I don't know why, but I find them creepy.
I feel like that's something you should I don't like
any area in looking people, but um of any age,
I do like that she kind of like puts him
in his place. Hey, farm boy, do this fucking thing
for me? And then there are so she's poor too,
(10:29):
like they're weird. It doesn't make any sense, um that
like a poor like farm family has another poor servant.
I'd write, I call it a farmily. There are so
few moments in this movie where she displays any sort
of agency that like her. Even saying farm boy, do
this is like wow, like you go moment for her. Yes.
(10:53):
So I first saw the movie when I was in
high school, probably like a sophomore junior, So I was
like sixteen or so venteen or so, did you like?
I did like it at the time, and I still do.
But upon the two rewatches I did because I'm a
crazy person and to prepare for every podcast, I rewatched
the movie twice. Yeah, I don't. I don't know master
(11:14):
life behavior. It's true, I have to. I have to
watch it once for each degree I have half. Oh
my god, I thought you only had one, right. Yeah,
I watched it for for each degree that Jamie has.
So upon rewatching, I was like, oh, this is pretty problematic,
as all the movies that we talked about are. Um. Yeah,
(11:38):
at the time. I liked it enough to like buy
it on DVD and I own it on DVD, and
I'm like, oh, what a great little movie. And I
wrote a paper about it in grad school. I plan
to read all of it on this podcast. I don't,
I'm kidding, but I should. It's a few sentences that
(11:58):
I might share. Maybe just you have it. But you're
something for a class, Yeah, for a genre class? And
what was the genre? The genre of the Princess Brian
Well Like? For example, IMDb lists five different genres for it, Uh,
(12:18):
family adventure, romance, far adventure, romance, and comedy. Was that five?
Family adventure, romance, comedy? Maybe action? I can't remember. My
thesis was something along the lines that I don't remember.
I'm gonna have to I'll tell you later than you
(12:38):
because but it was like the Grandfather, I got an
a on it. Great inflation anyway, because it wasn't that
well written. Who you were you were younger, they say, yeah,
that's true. I was like twenty seven back in a dummy.
You could write away better paper today, I will say
my one part of the line that made me laugh
(13:02):
was the line, please consider me as an alternative to suicide?
It's like that hit me like I was like, wow,
I've been of relationships where maybe that would have been
a very appropriate thing to say. That's funny. Yeah, there's
some there's a few lines in this movie. Why don't
we just do a very quick recap of the story
in case our listeners are unfamiliar. There's a there's a
(13:25):
farmerly so we meet a Buttercup and she bosses this
little farm boy Wesley around, and then they decided that
they're in love with each other. And he's like, I
don't have any money because i'm your servant, so I
have to set off to the seas and seek a fortune.
And she's like, all right, okay, bye, I guess why
are you doing this? And I'll take care of us.
(13:46):
I'm a modern woman. Then she discovers that he has uh,
he was attacked by the dread pirate Roberts and he's dead.
And then Prince Humperdink what a name body? Yeah, I
mean it was already Angelbert's name, right, that's must be
there's an Angelbert humbered Incus. Oh yeah, and singer. I'm
(14:10):
not familiar with that person. I'm pretty sure it would
be weird if I was making it up. I don't
think I'm making it up. And he is a singer
and he kind of looks like Yannie. Oh oh wait,
that's not the way. He's a musician. He is a singer. Yeah, okay, yeah,
he's like a singer that old people love. Yeah, much
like Yannie. Right. Prince is like, yo, you common or woman,
(14:33):
marry me, and she's like, mo, I'm not doing anything else.
And then she gets kidnapped by these three dudes, a
giant and then a swordsman, and then a little genius
little man, a little genius, the most important to which
played by Mandy Pitinken. The swordsman his name is and
(14:55):
he's got a father who's dead and he's prepared to
kill it. That's the quote wrap, I'm prepared to kill.
So she gets kidnapped. They take her to the cliffs
of Insanity and up the hill and all this stuff.
But then there's a man in a black mask who's
following them, and he and he has a personality, doesn't
(15:15):
suddenly not a personality because surprise reveal it's Westley the
farm Boy, an adult blonde, and then he bests all
these three dudes and he's like it's me as you wish.
Blah blah blah. They go into the fire swamp and
there's a whole adventure there, and then they come out
(15:37):
of the fire swamp. And this is where I stopped
liking this movie. The first half is cool, it's exciting,
and then it gets dumb. It's okay, But Whence catches
up to them, yeah, and and she's like, oh, surrender,
we surrender, take him away. And so she makes a
(15:59):
lot of decisions are really stupid and that I but
she is allowed to. She can make her own decisions.
She doesn't accept what Wesley is doing. Although, but I
just don't woman the right to make dumb decisions. That's
what she wants to do. I'm trying to separate. Don't
let a man tell you how to be smart. That's true.
(16:22):
She's like, I'm gonna be a big dumb idiot. God
damn it. She is motivated by She says like, spare
his life and I'll go with you and be your wife,
which reminded me of the Being and the Beast thing
with Belle and her dad. Yeah, there we go. Huh.
I still don't know. I mean I don't I obviously
don't think that was the best decision, but that that
was like one of her I made like a note
(16:44):
of that. I was like, like, one hour into the movie,
she makes a decision that changes the plot line. That
is true. That is pretty much the single moment where
in the narrative that that happened. They could have just
lived happily ever after from that point, the same way
that they eventually did at the end where they're running
away from the same people. Right, yeah, yeah, it just
(17:06):
seems like, oh, there's a moment where the movie could
have vented. It's just what I don't like about it
is the decision she makes. I get like, I don't know,
it's just she's so naive to think it bothers me
how naive she is basically, but you know that that
it maybe it's just her. She overcomes out as a
character flaw that she grows to. She's like, oh wait,
(17:26):
I was dumb all this time. I stilly girl. Anyway,
that is what changes from then to the end. She's
not dumb anymore. I still think she's dumb. I don't
like hearing all this woman and woman hate. I know
we shouldn't really be That's true. Everyone in this movie
is a dumbass, I think, except for Mandy Pattenkin and
Under the Giant, yeah probably. So then something's happened. I
(17:51):
don't even remember. Wesley is taken away. They've lied torture,
steam punky machine that sucks the life out of you
one year at a time. Right, yeah, right, And then
Anigo and Fasick the Giant are reunited and they're like,
we gotta go find this guy because he's going to
help me kill this man who killed my father. They
(18:13):
do that, and they storm the castle and they're told
to have Billy wife another woman, a strong woman. I'm
not a witch wife. She's very memorable for she was
very memorable. Must she might have a name as well.
She may he may name her. They may have yelled,
(18:38):
he may have yelled it at her. Yeah. People are
listening at home are like, it's we can't remember I
remember Max a miracle worker's name anyway, So yeah, he
gets survived. There's a miracle. He comes back to life.
They stormed the castle and then Prince somber Dick is like,
I'm going to sit down and let you tie me up,
and then they jump out of a window and that's
(18:58):
pretty much how it is, and then many protecon does
get to kill the six fingered guys so and then
presumably becomes dread Pirate Roberts himself. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
let's not spoil. Oh yeah, they definitely. He says to him,
I think you'd make a great dread pirate Roberts. We
can presume he's like, oh, perhaps, Yeah, it's very important
(19:22):
that there be a pirate who everyone thinks kills people
and probably sometimes does. Right, It's like, well, maybe we
could just end it somewhere, how about the dead pirate
Roberts fell about it. You're welcome. So that's the story.
We've already sort of revealed some of our thoughts and
(19:43):
feeling we all love about Forever. So let's just jump
into As we already alluded to the fact that Buttercup
she's the title character. She is not the protagonist, though
I would not say because she there are large chunks
of time where she's not even on screen. All the time.
(20:03):
When she is on screen, she's not doing anything or talking.
That scene between Wesley and the baby genius who drinks
the wine and dies, I w oh, yeah, you see,
I I don't have any But she's in that scene.
And that scene is like seven or eight minutes long,
and she doesn't move, don't say anything. She's not really
(20:26):
restrained besides, like her hands are bound in her she's blindfolded.
She thinks he could have a knife to her throat.
She's scared. She doesn't look anything though, She's just a
blank slate of like, let me listen to how this
plays out. Well, eventually she becomes the very powerful wife
of the President of the United States of America. Card
(20:48):
I think we were doing I thought we were doing
a scandal. That's great too, Yeah, is she in that?
But also she's sort of like the title character of
the Raiders of Lost Art. She's like the Lost arc
Like it doesn't appear that much in it, but it's
like kind of what it's all about. Sure, she's the
vehicle that Wesley is like, Okay, I gotta save this
(21:10):
this lady, this play, this object. And that is what
continues to happen. I wrote down all the times where
someone has to save her, because it's several. The first
time is when she okay, she does make another choice
that doesn't really influence the direction of the story takes,
but at least she does something, and it happens kind
of early on whenever she's been captured by the three
dudes and they have run the ship and they see
(21:33):
that someone's following them, so she jumps into the eel
infested waters. So she does that, but then she needs
to be saved pretty much immediately because a neil is
coming for her, so the giant pulls her out. That's
the first time. The second time is when they're in
the fire swamp and Wesley has to save her like
(21:53):
three different times from the bursts of flame that whole
fires sequence. I was just like at one point he's
like just carrying her through it. She's like, I can't walk.
When that rat dog attacks him, she just watches. She's
just like Wesley, I was like, what are you doing.
(22:15):
You've got hands, he said he had under control. No,
it's infuriating to watch. They're like the worst couple ever.
I don't like either of them. Have you ever met
any couples? That's true, that's true. There are a few good.
When the road in some unusual size come and attack,
(22:35):
she just she stands there and watches for a long time.
She does pick up like a branch and sort of
hits it in the face a little bit, but like
almost immediately falls over and then doesn't do anything. She
gets back up and does land a blow to the
face of the r O U S, but then just
continues to stand there and not do anything untill find he'll.
(22:59):
Finally Wesley like pushes it into the burst of flame
and then stabs it several times with the sword. And
just before that, there's that moment where I forget what
he's saying to her, but it's it's another one of
his like, well do you think that it's just never
been done before, because and now we're going I don't know,
like one of his weird one liners. And then she says,
(23:19):
hmm okay, and then she falls into a hole. Immediately
I was like, Jesus, She's like, we'll never survive. He's like, ridiculous,
You're only saying that because no one ever has, and
he's like okay, and then she falls into all It's like, Jesus,
that's it. She couldn't tell it was not right, but
she could have been formulating a response instead of like
(23:43):
checks out. She deserved to fall into that quick Sandys.
That is one of the other times that she needs
to be saved by a man. Okay, Before they go
into the fire swamp, though, we find out that Wesley
is kind of a dick. Well, he became a pirate,
that's true, he didn't. You don't mean to be shooting
on your favorite movie, my favorite movie anymore. I'm happy
(24:07):
for you guys to say what you want. It's a
fun show. It's not me. I didn't make the movie.
I did. It's from over thirty years ago, or almost
thirty years ago. A great reveal if you're like there
were there's a bunch of lines he has about women
that she just takes lying down and I was like,
(24:28):
that is a crotch kicking offense. Oh right, not at
the time. This is a long time ago. I mean
the players, but I feel like the men in the
movie are given like more contemporary I don't know, they
felt like they had like values of the eighties and
she was stuck into a very artick. Just to be clear,
(24:50):
I'm joking on your side. I don't know's we're bad.
We don't know anything about comedy problem. Just kidding now
we're joking. Oh god, I gotten a spiral just doing
it for the listeners. I know you guys understand. I
assume your listeners don't know anything about comedy, as we're
(25:11):
in a feedback loop right now. God, it's like two
rors facing each other. Um. Anyway, at one point he
raises his arm to hit her. Do you remember this?
And then he says that was a warning, highness. The
next time, my hand flies on its own. For where
I come from, there are penalties when a woman lies, right, yeah,
(25:34):
I had that written down to It's just like I
think this is when he's still masked a K pretending
to be a dread private. Why does he do that
so long? Why does he like mask off? Hey, Buttercup,
it's me. Remember I'm going to be an asshole to you.
And then once we tumble down the hill with hilarious
a d r H, then this is like that is
(25:59):
how you would sound r um. It's audio recorded after
like they bring them in and they're just like, just
make a bunch of oofs and then he's like I
love you, and you're like when really all now? Um?
I mean, isn't the explanation that they would give, or
(26:20):
that they did give for why he stayed mass so
long is that he was mad that she immediately married
another dude, Well, I mean, she is terrible. That doesn't
I would be upset too. But also he let her
believe he was dead for a long time, and I
don't understand exactly why that was. Right. Yeah, he's mad
because she's gone off and gotten engaged to someone else,
(26:41):
but he was also gone for five years' monogamy guys
themselves everything. Yeah, it would be very unreasonable of him
to be like, you think I'm dead, but stay single forever,
just right? And then those like those exchanges they have,
and I know that are supposed to beautiful, but I
was just like, man, like, death cannot stop true love.
(27:04):
I was like, oh, she's not allowed to move on
with her life. And then she says, I will never
doubt again, and I'm like, no, doubt do sometimes discussion
to the movie Doubt right now? Oh my god, that's
one of my favorite movies. Yeah, that's no one's favorite movie.
But my brother and I used to do this double feature.
(27:25):
We still do it. Sometimes we'll watch There Will Be
Blood and Doubt back to back. No reason is there
a movie called Fire, because then you could watch Doubt
and Fire and then missus doubt Fire. Didn't think there
you go that's a closer. All right, good night everyone
in doubt Glenn Close or Meryl Street, I always get
(27:47):
them confused Closes Wonder they're both great. Okay, So he
Weslie is a dick. He threatens to hit her, he
does all kinds of ship oh, and then in the swamp.
But afterward after he's like, it's me Wesley. They're in
the fire swamp and he's explaining to her how he
(28:10):
became the dread Pirate Roberts and he's like he's so patronizing.
He's like, with me, so far does this make sense
to you? And it's like it's not a hard story
to understand, right, It's just like, hey, dummy, you get
it stupid And I also don't like maybe I missed
something because it was the first time I saw it.
(28:30):
But like he becomes the dread Pirate Roberts and that
becomes more important to him than getting back to he's alive,
and like that's never from what I gets, all that's
never explained of like why couldn't he just under that
like persona she she was still there. Maybe it didn't
move locations until she was kidnapped, but maybe it had
(28:51):
just happened. Maybe I mean for a while, because he's like, oh,
I was training and doing all kinds of like fencing, right,
they didn't give an exact timeline. Well, it's convenient for this.
It's kind of a plot device because as soon as
she gets kidnapped, now she needs someone to rescue her.
So it's it just happens to be at that moment,
(29:12):
and he puts his plans on hold. He was like
whatever it was, He's like, well, now it's important because
she has been kidnapped. That maybe he was. Wesley's just
I guess he just he Oh, now I'm gonna I'm
gonna go back for her. Oh. Convenient that she's been captured,
because now this cool story can unfold, called the Princess Bride.
Maybe he did find out that she was kidnapped. Maybe
(29:33):
I don't know. He's pure speculation to the ground. And
here's just a you know, this is an unnecessary, dumb
defense of him being mean to her and treating her
like she's dumb. She is dumb. She is this particular
person that he's talking to has been dumb before. How
did he get this way? Though? I don't understand. It's
(29:54):
like in the first, you know, when they're falling in love.
At the beginning, they say maybe twenty words to each other,
it's as you wish, as you wish, I love you
and I'll never leave you goodbye. Just yeah, And I'm
just like, Okay, these are very horny, blond adults, and
I'm not okay with any of that. I'll also add,
I do think that it's not nice to be it's
not good to be mean to dumb people, even if
(30:16):
they are dumb. I don't know about that. That's what
I'm saying. That's my position is, Mike takes one position
still to dumb people. I say, for sure, cyber bully
dumb people. Maybe not to their face, because dumb people
could be very strong, m M I understand what they
might be. Andrea the giant, and they might just Andrea
(30:37):
crushes it and he's a good he's a poet's great anyway,
She's maybe not dumb, but extremely naive, Yeah, which I
could understand if she had like grown up a royal
and like wasn't exposed to the world and like was
just oh, I'm a princess. I'm like, I don't haven't
have a new life experiences, but she's a commoner. I
(30:58):
feel like she should know her have some street smarts. Yeah,
there's no streets. That's old dirt path smarts. Actually because
she she goes on her daily ride. She rides all over.
But she should know stuff I don't know. But she
and I don't want to sound victim. Blame me because
(31:19):
she's captured against her will and she's a victim, and
but she is. She was wearing her capture me boots.
She also threatens to kill herself this movie, like the
towards the end with humber Dick. She you know, she
goes and she was like, well, if you do, you know,
I'm not going to marry you. I'll just kill myself.
(31:41):
And I was just like, you could try to escape.
There's so many, Yeah, alternate paths other than like killing
yourself because you can't be with this asshole. I don't
know totally. Um she does, like it said, she makes
that one escape attempt when she jumps into the el
infested waters. Why not try that again? There are like
no one's really holding her captive, Like what's it? Humberdink
(32:04):
is like off planning her murder. She doesn't like she
can just go like Lee like get on a horse
and ride out of town. Yeah. I don't understand her
at all. She seems like maybe she's just depressed and
she just doesn't know it, because she from the beginning
of the movie is like, maybe I'll just kill myself
(32:25):
if I can't be with Wesley. Maybe she has mental
health issues, and that's why she's falling back on this
suicidality because it's not just codependent on which brings me
to the point that of the pretty few lines of
dialogue that she does have at the course of the movie,
they are almost all about either Wesley or love or
(32:49):
being in love with Wesley. She doesn't talk about anything else.
We don't know anything else about her. Yeah, exactly, isn't
there the scene where the old lady says that she's
just garbage, and so that's like two ladies talking and
it's just but both of them. But so it does.
I've concluded that it does not pass the Bechtel test
(33:10):
because even though those two women speak well, the old
lady speaks at her, Buttercup doesn't really ever respond. But
we're going with the name thing too. She doesn't have
any she doesn't have a name, and they're talking about
the context of their conversation is Buttercup's portrayal to Wesley,
So it's about a man, and therefore, do not think
it passes the Betel test. But don't feel bad, Princess Brian.
(33:33):
A lot of movies don't. Also, don't feel bad because
you're a movie. Can I tell you a funny story
about the movie? I was. It's actually kind of a
touching story as well. Maybe only that who can say.
I'm not going to tip it any further, but about
two years ago, a friend of mine got married and
I was at the wedding. The person who was getting
(33:54):
married my friend. Her friend was officiating, and so the
at the beginning of the wedding, this prest was like,
I've never married anybody before. I just got the credentials
so that I could marry my friends. So it's really
a beautiful experience for me to get to do this.
And since I've never done this before, I may never
get it again. I was wondering if you guys would
indulge me for a moment while I just quote one
(34:16):
of my favorite lines from The Princess Bride, and it
was like, okay, great, sure, And then she says and
all right, everybody the shrieking eels okay, anyway, so now
we've it was super fun. Also, I don't know if
you guys know this, but getting a master's degree in
scriting screenwriting does automatically like ordained you to officiate weddings.
(34:39):
I also like that you called it scriting. I don't
know how to talk masters thing. Yep, it was a
joke that wasn't good to begin with, and I ruined
it because I don't know how to talk scriting. Can
we talk about the line that almost closes the movie
there's a shortage of perfect breast since the world, first
(35:02):
of all, and I come at this as someone in
a similar predicament of having perfect breasts. Uh no, she
she she is pretty flat chested. And not to shame her,
because I'm right there with her. But if someone said
I had perfect breast, I would be like, where you know? Uh?
(35:22):
And second of all, what an obnoxious thing to say.
And I hate that he said that. Yeah, I would.
It's like the people who are like fighting breast cancer
by being like, we've got to save the breasts, right right.
It's just I don't know. I wanted to harpoon him
more than ever at that moment, I need to harpoon
him the whole movie. I will say that, you know,
beauty is subjective, So if somebody ever tells you that
(35:45):
you have perfect breasts, I would say thank you. I
would rather harpoon someone than say thank you. Yeah, no
compliments please her. Yeah, it is. It's a silly moment. Also,
I just mean if it's like somebody that you care
about and like you're in a relationship, not just like
somebody on the street, sir. But I also think that
(36:07):
they just have a toxic, terrible relationship and you shouldn't
talk to her at all. Yeah, their relationship is very
This is one of those things where they fall in
love because one of them is a man and one
of them is a woman, and which is how it
worked for centuries. Work with my parents. Do you know,
do you read as on Sorry's Modern Romance book. Yes,
(36:29):
there's like in the first chapter there's like a thing
of where he interviewed people who are like the oldest
you know people today about their dating experiences. And there
were some numbers about like one in six people over
half without within a mile of them, and one in
six grew up in the same building. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, sure,
(36:50):
this was before the time, hundreds of years earlier, and no,
but people fell in love because even if they yeah,
they were near each other, but then they were, they
also had to be compatible. But there's like, no, there's
like they're like, oh, you have blond hair, I have
blond hair. We look like siblings, but we're not siblings, right,
(37:13):
So that's what's sexy about it. I'm really attracted to
the fact that you're in not my siblings. I guess. Yeah,
standards were not very high back then. Well, I mean,
I do think that there is something to you know,
like tribal sort of connections. You know, like sometimes like
Jews are attracted to other Jews, and you know, like
tall people are attracted to potentially, I mean, it's not
(37:35):
it's not a guarantee, but you definitely can see couples
that look alike as long as they know they're not
from the same actual family. Sure, you mean formally. I
don't know, I never heard of this think. Yeah, I
mean I do agree with that. I just think that
they're both insufferable in different ways. Well that's the thing too,
it's together. The thing about stories is that you can
(37:59):
build the world old and developed the characters and explain
why they're good for each other. Not not do that.
That's some scrider talk, gold Man. Come on, The book
actually goes way more in depth than a lot. I've
not read the book. I'm sure it also has some
of the same problems. But I did really I did
really like the book as well. I thought it was
(38:20):
very funny. I don't read books of a master's degree,
so I don't I actually don't know how to read,
so oh I wanted. We already touched on this a
little bit. But there is a chunk of time between
around minute thirteen whenever they reached the cliffs of Insanity,
(38:41):
to somewhere around minute thirty four, so almost twenty minutes,
which is right when Leslie beats the little of the
Baby Genius in the Battle of Wits, where she does
not say a single thing, but she is in the
in the scenes the whole time. She well, she only
has a few like sliver of screen time. Even during that,
(39:01):
I kept forgetting she was in that scene with the
Baby Genius and Wesley. I kept forget, and then she
would be sitting next to the baby Genius, and I'd
be like, oh, yeah, I guess she is just sitting
there like that was so that was like the most
frustrating part for me was watching that scene. My favorite
part of that scene is that the scene he had
just set up a little picnic for the There was
(39:23):
like graps and cheese and apples and like goblets and wine,
and it's like, what were you going to do? Like
you didn't decide to have the battle of wits until
Wesley showed up and suggested it. Like it wasn't get
a table I didn't even think of that. I think
there was a stone, okay, but he had like a
table cloth and stuff. He just like comes ready for
(39:43):
other people. He was like, oh man, I hope he
suggests that we have a battle of wits because I've
got at all laid out ready to go. He made
it happen. I did appreciate that he died, yeah, because
I was like, oh no, he's not gonna be there
to say that one word anymore inconceivable. I did not
(40:04):
find that charming. I don't think that he was meant
to be charming. I know, but I know that you're
supposed to like you like that's the fun thing. What
a bit of comic relief, and it's not. The Little
Guys did a funny thing. And I remember when I
first watched that movie the fact that he always like, oh,
I put poison both cups like I spent the past
few years growing up in immunity, I have caine powder.
(40:26):
And I was like, brilliant self really enjoyed them. It
was it was good, it was a clever thing to do.
I had one note, because Baby Genius and and Andre
the Giant are paired up to be like this, like
little guy big guy team. It's very fun. It is fun.
(40:47):
But I would argue that the best little guy big
guy team that I know of is in Jesus Christ
Superstar with Honest and Caiaphas. Oh I a little guy
big guy team to remember Jesus Christ Superstar would be
a very hard podcast. I have never seen it. I
(41:08):
thought you were going to say, what is it Junior
with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and oh, twins is what I mean? Yeah,
not Junior Junior. What's Oh that's one where he gets pregnant.
What I want a career? He said, yeah, baby in
him and they're like, let's see if a man can
(41:29):
carry a baby. I want to see that movie. I
just say, it's like a little noise, I got so excited.
I don't remember it super well. It's been probably two
decades since I've seen it. Okay, I didn't see it,
and I bet we wouldn't love it. Uh yeah, I
don't remember it being very good. The poster is terrifying. Wow, yeah,
(41:51):
it was inconceivable. Is that the tagline? Oh my god,
that is crazy that that happened, because that's the word
we were just talking about that. That is a good slogan.
That's a good slogan for that for that movie. Yes,
good catchphrase. It's like, you know the one for Doctor
(42:12):
Strange that I like that I've seen on posters. It's
the impossibilities or endless like that. Yeah, sometimes they're very bad,
like almost always. I'm like, I look at these posters
for movies and I'm like, if I'm gonna either see
the movie, I'm not going to see a movie. Like
I can't imagine the person that the tagline, you know,
(42:32):
pushes it over either to yes or no, like you know,
the gang's all here. What don't even just save some letters?
Show us the pictures of the people giving people what
they want. When I was in college, I made a
student film called Baxter the Clown, and it was about
a clown who was to George Knows, I don't know
(42:57):
what twist with bas Okay and he decides to run
away from the circus. That's fun twist. And he switched
his places with his brother. She was like a businessman.
His brother's name was Oliver, I think, and they switched places,
so Oliver's like, I'm going to run away enjoin the
(43:17):
circus and perfect brothers place. And Baxter was like the
twin in office. They weren't, so it doesn't make a whole.
But I didn't have access to all the idea of
twins right anyway, so you couldn't have two people. That's
exactly like I didn't have high tech c g I.
(43:39):
And then the Baxter has to decide whether or not
he wants to pursue this life as a businessman or
to return to the circus. But the tagline that I
wrote for this movie is he's climbing the corporate ladder
to the big top. Guys, I'm so clever. We've been
(44:00):
shooting on this movie, specifically, better cut the character for
a while on that every what characters do you like.
I do like an ego and yeah, so yeah that's
the Chandler and Joey of and Miracle Max. That's a
(44:20):
fun little cameo. But as well, yeah, sure, we do
have to take into account the genre, which is why
I wrote this. I chose this movie to write this
paper on because sure, like things are going to be exaggerated.
It's for kids, it's for the fun for the whole family.
So like, characters are going to be pretty like archetypal,
(44:42):
they're not going to be super nuanced, right, sure, hang on,
let me find that really cool paragraph. Oh yeah, cool paragraph,
come in right up. She doesn't read, but she does write.
I don't know how it works once the words are down.
She well, my thesis statement for this because I say, oh,
(45:04):
I am dB lists all these different Oh yeah, let
me see if I got it right. Uh, family, adventure, comedy, romance,
and fantasy. That's the one I left. And I said
that fantasy is the most prominent genre of these in
The Princess Bride because the story within a story highlights
the fantastical setting, characters, and narrative by juxtaposing them against
the ordinary, realistic world of the grandfather relaying this story
(45:28):
to his grandson, which we haven't really talked about yet,
And I say, but it is not just anywhere in
the middle fantasy. The Princess Bride is self aware to
the extent that it playfully satirizes its own genre. So
you guys, it's very academic plus today. And then I
go on to talk about how the love story portrayed
(45:52):
in this film is kind of the most fantastical and
unrealistic element of the movie. That's fine, that's good think
because like The Matrix, right, Hey, we already talked about
that movie. Did you know that, that's what we did
last week? I didn't know. Oh my gosh, I mean
you're in the Matrix? Uh Matrix, I am the one, actually,
(46:13):
I uh. We talked about it with Matt donnaher And
when I got home I was so mad at myself
because we had been talking about, like, oh, why isn't like,
why couldn't Morpheus have been a woman? Why couldn't one
of the agents have been a woman? Why? Like, why
couldn't one of the two brothers been a sister? And
then I was like, fuck, why couldn't they have been neo?
Like why couldn't a woman be the savior has to
(46:38):
be a man, But why couldn't everybody else? I was
just like, the patriarchy is just I've been so socialized
to think that the hero of a movie has to
be a man that I didn't even suggest that. I
was mad at myself for not suggesting it. But you're forgiving.
We're doing it now, Thank you, thank you. I pilled
up a paper I wrote in college, but it has
nothing to do you can. What's it about Andy Warhol
(47:02):
and the allure of photography? Don't worry? This is the
solid be Mechanical reproduction is the phrase that sticks out
when summarizing Andy warhol staggering volumes of artwork in the
four decades he was a working artist. That sounds right. However,
(47:22):
he uses this concept within so many different mediums in
different phases of his career that a primary process becomes
impossible to nail down. Wow, amazing that I have. I
don't even know what this class was. This guy is
hard to nail down. This guy, Yeah, you can't nail
him down. I'm pretty sure that's what I just repeat
(47:43):
for the rest of the Remember that was the class
that I passed out in once you do that. I didn't.
It wasn't on purpose. But what you did? What you do?
You like faint or did you? Yeah, I'm a I'm
a delicate flower and sometimes I I faint every couple
of years getting there are men around to save. To
(48:06):
my Andy Warhol professor, presumably, basically, I would have liked
to have seen just a more active female character. I
could have had more agency. Yeah, she could have had
a more fleshed out personality. She could have done she was.
She was put in several situations where she could have
made a decision to be like, oh, I should do this,
(48:28):
or I should try to help this person, or I
can save myself because I hear the popping sounds that
precede every little fire burst, like why don't I jump
out of the way instead of having the guy fling
me out of the way. And yeah, sure, it's a
fairy tale. She's a princess, she's a damsel in the
stress she had. He's gonna be saved. She's a delicate
little flower. Um, but if they're gonna The thing about
(48:52):
this movie is that it's look at this fantasy, but
it's like it's not. I don't know I feel like
every scene Buttercup appears in is a missed opportunity in
one way or another. Like there's either an opportunity for
her to do something that she doesn't, or there's an
opportunity in a scene, you know. And and I'm sorry
to bring up the baby Genius Wesley scene again, but
(49:15):
like there could have even been a witty interjection from her.
There could have been something at any time. And there's
all this time that we could hear. What has she
been doing for five years besides being sad and contemplating suicide? Right,
and all we know is that she likes to ride
a horse. And at the end, that's still all we know.
(49:37):
She likes to ride a horse, and she loves Wesley,
and it's just I don't know, she's pretty flat. Yeah,
she is a very one dimensional. There's no shortage of
flat chested. I'm just echoing what Jamie said. I'm not
adding my own. I stand by the comment. Yeah, it is.
(49:59):
It's movie full of missed opportunities. Or she could have
contributed so much more to the to the story and
to the dialogue. And maybe she'll do it all in
the Prince Groom. Love it, Love It love it. I
was like, oh, we can play a fun game and
we'll call it the Battle of the Tits or the
Battle of Clits. And then I forgot to act I
(50:21):
named the game, and then that's except for the Labyrinth episode.
We will have something for the Labyrinth. We're going to
talk about the Labyrinth soon with our friend Jenny, and
we have a game all planned out. I would know
we have the name of the game, and then nothing yet,
But there's time. There's time yet time. Let me ask you, guys,
(50:41):
here's a game on account of three. I'll ask the
say say question, and then I'll say three to one,
and then you guys, give an answer to this question.
Would you rather be if you could only be one?
A princess or a bride? Three to one neither princess
bred fun right, we'll see. If I was a princess,
(51:05):
I'd use that platform of like fame and influence and
power to change the world and make it a better place.
If I was a bride, I'd just be like, oh god,
I'm just married now. If I was a brad, I
would do anything I want because you could be married
to do anything you want. I mean, you can do
being married doesn't give you like superpowers. I would fly
(51:27):
whether or not you were married. It wouldn't change right now,
I'd do the same ship that I'm doing now, except
for like being on Tinder. That would be probably the
one thing I would stop. I see, Yeah, you can
still do that too. Hey, why you wanted married? True,
that's true. That's true if I was a princess. I don't.
(51:48):
I don't know. I just wouldn't want that. I feel
like it's kind of limiting it. Sure, I mean that's
what Aladdin is all about. Let's talk about that. I
should spend more time thinking about why I don't one
of you. So, I think we've come to a moment
where we can we can rate the is there anything
(52:09):
we want to any other topics we want to we
don't really discuss, like humber Dink or the story within
a story. Yeah, so, like what does make sense about
him is that he hires those three dudes to capture
her and start a war because he wants to start
a war with Guilder. For most of that just didn't
(52:34):
matter to me, Yeah, because it was like, whenever you're
saying that, I like, whatever he's trying to do will
not work. Out. He's a he's a sociopath and he
just likes to be you know, he likes power. He
likes to be. He doesn't care about love. He just
wants to be in power, and he wants to have
a reason to go to war with this neighboring land
that they have some treaty with. So if he could
frame them for you know, kidnapping her, then he could
(52:56):
be like, now a reason he just likes. He likes
far Wad. Yeah, we should. We should do shkar f
a r C. It's family adventure, romance and comedy by Caplet.
Everybody plus Fantasy is another farcus spelled with two f's
(53:17):
far Quad. Oh gosh, I liked the story within a story.
I thought that that was fun. I wasn't like friend savage, Yeah,
I mean, how could you not. Yeah, that's that's what
my whole That was what my paper was about. How
like to frame it in this like the Princess Bride
inside of another story was like it was allowed it
(53:40):
to like poke fun at its own genre. The book
is like that too. Yeah, There's there's like a chapter
in the book where it's like and this chapter is like,
you know, we've it's like they're they've discovered this old
you know, like they're like, I'm gonna do a modern
revamp of this old story from this you know, fake place,
but they're presenting it as real. And they're like, in
this chapter in the original it was about seventy three
pages of just the describing the princesses dresses. So you
(54:02):
don't need to hear that, so we'll just skip ahead.
Oh that's fun. I like that. Yeah, it is fun. Well,
you know, does a fun thing like that? Have you? Guys?
Head the book A couple Hood by Paul Riser. He's
one of the first comedians that I ever saw like
on TV and I loved it, and so I got
his book couple Hood, and I got it on tape
and him reading drive around listening to it, and I
believe the book, the physical copy of it starts on
(54:24):
page like a hundred and forty three. That's the first
page listed, and he's like, we're starting on page three
because it's so hard to get into a book. And
you know, like sometimes if if somebody like looks over
your shoulder and they see your on page like two,
then they judge you. So it's like this way like
if somebody on the train they're like, wow, D forty four,
that's pretty great, right, so nicely you feel like you're
already in the middle of a a hundred three. That's where
you start. Great guy, Paul Riser, was that like a
(54:46):
novel hero? Oh? It was. It was like a sort
of a memoir, but mostly about like his you know,
his relationship and relationships in general, his wife, like being
in a couple, the hood of a couple of nous,
a couple of I'll read it one day. I like
Craig Ferguson wrote a great novel that I would used
to be I used to vouch for maybe a little
bit too much in high school. Between the bridge and
(55:08):
the river and it's there. I just remember there's a
prominent character who's a televangelist and that he wore an
orange robe, and at sixteen, I thought that was very fun.
Orange robe like a prisoner. I thought of him a
prisoner of his own belief. That was so when we
(55:29):
rate the movie, what is the scale that we use
nipples from one to five nipples and more nipples is good?
Always more, always more? Five is the highest five nipples
of the high pers rating. You could give a movie
just to be I mean, we're reading it in the
context of its representation of female characters, and you have
to describe the nipples also really yeah, Like last week
(55:51):
we had like chrome nipples because we're talking about the Matrix. Oh,
I understand, yeah, but perfect breasted nipples I think. I
also just don't like the phrase perfect breasts. I feel
like that's something I would be comfortable hearing at KFC.
But I'm not directed at me. But that's a lot
of things too. Well. We've all got our own baggage.
(56:13):
I'll take please, all right, I would not be okay
someone saying that about my body. Bucket to Jamie, what
order do we go? I'll go first. So I grew
up liking the movie, and then the more I watch it,
the more I'm like, oh, this isn't as good of
a movie as I once thought it was, especially considering
(56:34):
it's portrayal of women as being stupid idiots who can't
do anything. For this podcast, I would give it like
two nipples. One from Physic the Giant, which is going
to be huge and Harry that's a lot of nipples,
and one from Baby Genius Fazzini, which is going to
(56:56):
be small and Harry. I'll give it one nipple, which
sounds harsh because it maybe is a little bit, but
it's buttercups nipple and it's really soft and afraid and inverted. Wow.
I like this might sound harsh because it is the
worst rating I can give it, but hear me out.
(57:19):
I would never say no nips. O there zero. You
can give no nips nips not me. I want at
least one, but also I'm fine with none. They're not
deal breakers to me. Any number of nips. It's fine
by me. I'll give it one point five. I give
(57:42):
it the highest rating, and I give it one point
five nipples because I have done an average of the
two ratings that you guys gave it. Because I'm bowing
to your experience in the issues of this female related matter.
What do I know? Very no, all of you what
a noble cause. We respect your decision and thank you
(58:05):
for recognizing that we are correct the true masters. Yes, great, well,
thank you so much for coming on, Thank you for
having me. Yes, sorry for a ship to go to
a movie you liked for an hour. I am literally
don't care. It's not it's not part of who I am.
You also could have shut on me for an hour
(58:27):
and we didn't. We did not, thank you. I think
anytime we have a guest who's a man or who
presents as a man, because you say that um open
with a quick road genderless, I would say we just
should on them the entire time. Give them a taste
of how the patriarchy has treated up. Give me a
bucket of that. Contact. Oh, I'm on your bucket list.
(58:51):
Thank you. Is there anything you'd like to plug? Where
can people find you online? Which about your stuff? If
you put my name into online anywhere Mike Kaplan where
Mike is spelled weird sorry m y q Kaplan spelled
the quote unquote normal way. My caplan dot com is
(59:12):
my website. You'll find you can find my Netflix special
you can find my albums. I have a podcast called
hang Out with Me. Everything should be available through my website.
But if you also go to you know, any of
the places Twitter and Instagram and not buying anymore Facebook,
the things whatever, whatever things are, Yeah are good these days.
I maybe have it. Oh, I'm there, thank you. Yeah.
(59:36):
Check out Mike Caplan on the internet and in real
life I performed places. There's there's two dates on there, Jamie,
anything you wanna, I thought of something that's okay. Uh.
You can find me on Twitter at Hamburger Phone. You
can find me on website at Jamie loftus is innocent
dot com. I'm also do it, uh plug in any crime.
(01:00:00):
I did not do it except I drive with a
little license. But that because let's it gives me anxiety
to say it all loud, but for good reason, I
should be afraid. But I also I just haven't gotten
there I'm doing. I'm doing a long show in Boston
on doing an hour in Boston on December six. If
(01:00:21):
you happen hopefully in this podcast or this episode comes
out by then, I was being optimistic, I'll be. I'll
be in Boston on January twelve to fourteen at Laugh Boston.
I love that place. Free diet cokes backstage. I remember
we're free diet cokes. Are sure. It'll be my first
time there. I didn't even know forward to it. Maybe Hey,
(01:00:44):
it's me Caitlin you I'm me on Twitter at Caitlin
Durante and some other places. I have a website Helan
Dante dot com. Also, if you live in l A,
which why would you live anywhere else? Our friend Mikey
years in a different place, and so do probably the
majority of the country. Definitely, most people don't live in
(01:01:08):
Los Angeles. But if you do live in Los Angeles
and you want to check out a new weekly comedy
show at Nerd Mount which is the place world. It's
called rabbit Hole with Jay and Rory, hosted by Jay
Larson and Rory School and I helped do things with it.
So when does it happen? The first one is November
(01:01:29):
and then it's every Wednesday. That'll be fun. And I
think that's it. We've had a great time, guys. We
have farewell, we have thank you. Wait what does he
say as you wish? Okay, bye bye bye bye. We
did it. We
On the Bedel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef and best
start changing it with the Beckdel Cast. Welcome to the
Bechdel Cast. I'm your host, Caitlin Torante. Your other host,
Jamie Latus, and here we are. We are going to
(00:23):
talk about movies. That's what we do. That's what this
podcast is all about. Ye And why why must we
do this, Jamie? Impossible to say, Just kidding, We have
a great reason. It's because women are almost always underrepresented
or misrepresented in film. So that's why we started the podcast.
(00:43):
And we use the Bechdel Test as sort of a
guideline for how how some of our favorite movies are doing.
What is the Bechdel Well, we're doing really well, so
far smoother than ever. The Bechtel test is a test
where you apply it to a thing like a movie.
(01:06):
What what's a movie? Wait? A second movie passes the
Bechtel test. If there are we've explained this, our listeners know. Basically,
two women speak to each other in the story about
something other than a man. Right, So that's what that is?
I saw? Oh no, do we do all the intra
(01:26):
stuff pretty much? We can. We can do our thing
where um, I don't like to bring this up, but
some people want to know that I do have a
master's degree in screenwriting. Sorry, because they like, what what is?
What are your credentials? Girls? What do you want you?
This part is really evolved where yeah, we between the
(01:46):
two of us, we have three degrees and film. You
have two bachelors. And I just skipped straight onto The
Masters The Master, which would be a really interesting episode
of this. Oh you mean to discuss the movie The Master.
Oh yeah, I did a I wrote something once for
(02:07):
the Bota Globe a couple of years ago where I
watched The Master and The Master of Disguise and I
tried to decide which one was more valuable. What did
you conclude Master Disguise? Yeah, obviously of course I hated
The Master. Anyway, it was an hour too long. We
have a guest, as we often do, to talk about
a specific movie, and let's let's introduce our guests. It
(02:30):
is our friend and a very funny comedian, Mike Kaplan. Hey,
thank you for having me. You're welcome, Yes, you are
allowed to speak. Now. I heard my name, so I
thought it was time. That's your cue. I didn't know,
we didn't really, I didn't know for sure. I made
a choice. We have to make sure pectel cast passes
the Bechtel test. You talk to each other first and
(02:51):
about something besides a man or you or we did it?
Can I ask? Can? I ask a quick question? Because
I've heard their versions, like alterations or variety of the
Bechdel test where some some people require that the women
both have names. There is that caveat which I don't
know know if we've discussed, but yeah, i've heard happy
to be a man bringing it up. Also, I don't
(03:11):
really identify a man. Please, man's plains to us, Well,
the thing is about me. I don't really have a gender.
I just seem to be a man, so people assume
I'm a man, and I'm like whatever, thank you, I'm privileged.
Do have another question? Also? This one is going to
sound sincere, but it's really mostly just so I can
make a joke. But you say that sometimes women are misrepresented,
(03:33):
and it's fun to think of miss represented, miss what
you might call a woman. Sometimes? Are you represented in
this movie? I'm misrepresented. I'm Mr representative. Hey, at least
she had a name. She has misrepresented misrepresented here. Yeah,
that's true. That isn't something we've discussed yet, but I
(03:53):
have heard that caveat that both characters have to have
been named in whatever narrative piece it is. I think
I don't know if we've covered a movie yet where
that has come into play. Maybe Beauty and the Beast.
I don't know if the chest of Drawer's head a name.
I don't think she does either, but Chester Chester, I
believe that was her name in life. It was, but
we don't. We discussed, well, we concluded that that movie
(04:16):
does not pass the Bechtel test anyway because they only
talk about although the Beast is technique he's a man,
he's not a man, he's a male creatures along podcast,
just quick question. I mean that is I think the answer.
I think I will understand the answer as I'm saying it.
But like say, you watch the animated Robin Hood where
(04:39):
none of the characters are humans, but there are still
you know, male female relationships. Yeah, we um since they
are humanized anthropomorph Yeah that's the way. Thanks for being
here with your words or I have a master's degree
in linguistics words masters in the house, I call it
(05:01):
a mistress's degree, though you may thank you anyway. So
why don't you talk to us about the movie that
you that we all watch. We're gonna be discussing. I
chose the movie The Princess Bride. That movie I chose.
Do you want me to tell you why I chose it? Uh?
(05:21):
It's a movie that when people ask you often people
will say what's your favorite movie? And I have some
new stuff I'm talking about on stage about the idea
that favorites don't even like as an adult. There's so
many things, Like when you're a child, it makes sense
to be like, I've seen three and so one of
them is favorite. But like you know, as an adult,
you can like I don't like to have the things
(05:42):
that I love compete against each other. And sometimes when
you tell somebody this is my favorite movie, they're like,
but what about this one? And this one? And and like, well,
I don't want to feel bad just thinking about all
the wonderful movies that I like. Like, but this is
the one. If I ever if people just tell me
what your favorite movie, I would be like, fine, the Princess,
but it was definitely it was at a time my
favorite movie, and so I remember it as sort of
(06:02):
my first favorite movie. How old were you when you
first saw it? I think it came out in around
Oh my god, I was wrong. I was in probably four. Yeah,
I was in fourth ish grade. I was like nine,
around nine years old, and we watched it in school,
and I hadn't heard of it, like some of the kids, like,
we're watching it on a video obviously because it was
(06:25):
in school. We didn't have a movie theater at school,
but I didn't know what it was. So some of
the kids had seen it and they were super excited
by it. And when it first started, you know, there's
like just the scenes with like Fred Savage in his
home in bed, and I'm like one of the princess
right wondering he does this make any sense at all?
And everyone's like it's good. And we also watched, like
at the same time, like in the same time period,
(06:45):
a movie about a hedgehog, Like it was a myth
about called Hans My Hedgehog. And so these two movies
like had for a while equal weight in my mind.
I'm like the two movies that I saw this year
are these two and people are like, Hans my headge like,
but yeah, the Princess Ride. It was so wonderful. And
then like I went, I bought the book at one
point and I read the book, which is written by
the same guy wrote the screenplay, William Goldman. William Man
(07:09):
trigger sorry, guys, Willamette gold Woman. William Goldman is a
fascinating dude. He's like, yeah, I have a bunch of
his books, brag. He's wonderful. Okay. And Jamie's comment, No,
that was great, thank you for contributions. I have a drink.
(07:31):
Thank you. Yeah. So it was just a movie that
I've loved for a long time. And also I have
seen it so many times, but I hadn't thought about
it in the context of, like, I wonder how many
female characters are there? I mean, I can't remember all that, Like,
there aren't that many. Even a movie that has both
the words of the title are female thing, princess bride,
(07:53):
which I tend to not like any movie that has
any sort of wedding or bride or princess not my
kind of movie. But um, but this title is not,
you know, indicative of what the movie is like an ear.
I wonder why it was called that in the first place,
because it's not really like a movie that seems directed
(08:15):
at girls. It work, per se, it did work. I mean,
you guys are girls, and you you were a young person.
You were not alive when this movie came out. I
was not just one year old. So you saw it
when you were one, and you saw it many years recently.
Just now, and how did you like it? I didn't
really like it. Okay, well let's talk to Caitlin. What
(08:38):
didn't you like? Well? I mean, I just because I
have no sentimental attachment to it. I didn't have any
problems just sort of seeing the problems with the movie
jump out. Harsh realities are problems. Well the problem I mean,
there's just scenes that Princess Better comes in where she
doesn't she's there, but she doesn't seek that. We'll talk
(09:01):
all about it, right like that, that's infuriating. The other
female characters that I can remember at the top of
my head were like poor Wenches who would scream about yeah, yeah, yeah,
and uh. And also I just like I didn't like
Wesley very much. I didn't understand, like I I couldn't
(09:21):
stand the beginning where they were like they see each
other once a day and he says one sentence and
now they're in love forever and they are bonded, and
they didn't there weren't so many people back then. They
were you had to fall in love with your farm
boy because I was the only other thing you could
funk was a horse. But then it's five years later
and suddenly he has a personality. I'm like, where did
that come from? All of a sudden, he's like, he's
(09:44):
like a sassy boy and he's just like, I have
a lot of one liners taught him how to be
just like you were a fucking drag at the beginning,
and now you're a drag in a different kind of
smuggy kind of way. You can't have it both ways.
You can only just like him at one of the boys,
like him as a farm boy, or like him as
nothing is a farm boy. He's just like I'm a
(10:08):
true I am just. I am also prejudiced against adult
blonde males. I don't know why, but I find them creepy.
I feel like that's something you should I don't like
any area in looking people, but um of any age,
I do like that she kind of like puts him
in his place. Hey, farm boy, do this fucking thing
for me? And then there are so she's poor too,
(10:29):
like they're weird. It doesn't make any sense, um that
like a poor like farm family has another poor servant.
I'd write, I call it a farmily. There are so
few moments in this movie where she displays any sort
of agency that like her. Even saying farm boy, do
this is like wow, like you go moment for her. Yes.
(10:53):
So I first saw the movie when I was in
high school, probably like a sophomore junior, So I was
like sixteen or so venteen or so, did you like?
I did like it at the time, and I still do.
But upon the two rewatches I did because I'm a
crazy person and to prepare for every podcast, I rewatched
the movie twice. Yeah, I don't. I don't know master
(11:14):
life behavior. It's true, I have to. I have to
watch it once for each degree I have half. Oh
my god, I thought you only had one, right. Yeah,
I watched it for for each degree that Jamie has.
So upon rewatching, I was like, oh, this is pretty problematic,
as all the movies that we talked about are. Um. Yeah,
(11:38):
at the time. I liked it enough to like buy
it on DVD and I own it on DVD, and
I'm like, oh, what a great little movie. And I
wrote a paper about it in grad school. I plan
to read all of it on this podcast. I don't,
I'm kidding, but I should. It's a few sentences that
(11:58):
I might share. Maybe just you have it. But you're
something for a class, Yeah, for a genre class? And
what was the genre? The genre of the Princess Brian
Well Like? For example, IMDb lists five different genres for it, Uh,
(12:18):
family adventure, romance, far adventure, romance, and comedy. Was that five?
Family adventure, romance, comedy? Maybe action? I can't remember. My
thesis was something along the lines that I don't remember.
I'm gonna have to I'll tell you later than you
(12:38):
because but it was like the Grandfather, I got an
a on it. Great inflation anyway, because it wasn't that
well written. Who you were you were younger, they say, yeah,
that's true. I was like twenty seven back in a dummy.
You could write away better paper today, I will say
my one part of the line that made me laugh
(13:02):
was the line, please consider me as an alternative to suicide?
It's like that hit me like I was like, wow,
I've been of relationships where maybe that would have been
a very appropriate thing to say. That's funny. Yeah, there's
some there's a few lines in this movie. Why don't
we just do a very quick recap of the story
in case our listeners are unfamiliar. There's a there's a
(13:25):
farmerly so we meet a Buttercup and she bosses this
little farm boy Wesley around, and then they decided that
they're in love with each other. And he's like, I
don't have any money because i'm your servant, so I
have to set off to the seas and seek a fortune.
And she's like, all right, okay, bye, I guess why
are you doing this? And I'll take care of us.
(13:46):
I'm a modern woman. Then she discovers that he has uh,
he was attacked by the dread pirate Roberts and he's dead.
And then Prince Humperdink what a name body? Yeah, I
mean it was already Angelbert's name, right, that's must be
there's an Angelbert humbered Incus. Oh yeah, and singer. I'm
(14:10):
not familiar with that person. I'm pretty sure it would
be weird if I was making it up. I don't
think I'm making it up. And he is a singer
and he kind of looks like Yannie. Oh oh wait,
that's not the way. He's a musician. He is a singer. Yeah, okay, yeah,
he's like a singer that old people love. Yeah, much
like Yannie. Right. Prince is like, yo, you common or woman,
(14:33):
marry me, and she's like, mo, I'm not doing anything else.
And then she gets kidnapped by these three dudes, a
giant and then a swordsman, and then a little genius
little man, a little genius, the most important to which
played by Mandy Pitinken. The swordsman his name is and
(14:55):
he's got a father who's dead and he's prepared to
kill it. That's the quote wrap, I'm prepared to kill.
So she gets kidnapped. They take her to the cliffs
of Insanity and up the hill and all this stuff.
But then there's a man in a black mask who's
following them, and he and he has a personality, doesn't
(15:15):
suddenly not a personality because surprise reveal it's Westley the
farm Boy, an adult blonde, and then he bests all
these three dudes and he's like it's me as you wish.
Blah blah blah. They go into the fire swamp and
there's a whole adventure there, and then they come out
(15:37):
of the fire swamp. And this is where I stopped
liking this movie. The first half is cool, it's exciting,
and then it gets dumb. It's okay, But Whence catches
up to them, yeah, and and she's like, oh, surrender,
we surrender, take him away. And so she makes a
(15:59):
lot of decisions are really stupid and that I but
she is allowed to. She can make her own decisions.
She doesn't accept what Wesley is doing. Although, but I
just don't woman the right to make dumb decisions. That's
what she wants to do. I'm trying to separate. Don't
let a man tell you how to be smart. That's true.
(16:22):
She's like, I'm gonna be a big dumb idiot. God
damn it. She is motivated by She says like, spare
his life and I'll go with you and be your wife,
which reminded me of the Being and the Beast thing
with Belle and her dad. Yeah, there we go. Huh.
I still don't know. I mean I don't I obviously
don't think that was the best decision, but that that
was like one of her I made like a note
(16:44):
of that. I was like, like, one hour into the movie,
she makes a decision that changes the plot line. That
is true. That is pretty much the single moment where
in the narrative that that happened. They could have just
lived happily ever after from that point, the same way
that they eventually did at the end where they're running
away from the same people. Right, yeah, yeah, it just
(17:06):
seems like, oh, there's a moment where the movie could
have vented. It's just what I don't like about it
is the decision she makes. I get like, I don't know,
it's just she's so naive to think it bothers me
how naive she is basically, but you know that that
it maybe it's just her. She overcomes out as a
character flaw that she grows to. She's like, oh wait,
(17:26):
I was dumb all this time. I stilly girl. Anyway,
that is what changes from then to the end. She's
not dumb anymore. I still think she's dumb. I don't
like hearing all this woman and woman hate. I know
we shouldn't really be That's true. Everyone in this movie
is a dumbass, I think, except for Mandy Pattenkin and
Under the Giant, yeah probably. So then something's happened. I
(17:51):
don't even remember. Wesley is taken away. They've lied torture,
steam punky machine that sucks the life out of you
one year at a time. Right, yeah, right, And then
Anigo and Fasick the Giant are reunited and they're like,
we gotta go find this guy because he's going to
help me kill this man who killed my father. They
(18:13):
do that, and they storm the castle and they're told
to have Billy wife another woman, a strong woman. I'm
not a witch wife. She's very memorable for she was
very memorable. Must she might have a name as well.
She may he may name her. They may have yelled,
(18:38):
he may have yelled it at her. Yeah. People are
listening at home are like, it's we can't remember I
remember Max a miracle worker's name anyway, So yeah, he
gets survived. There's a miracle. He comes back to life.
They stormed the castle and then Prince somber Dick is like,
I'm going to sit down and let you tie me up,
and then they jump out of a window and that's
(18:58):
pretty much how it is, and then many protecon does
get to kill the six fingered guys so and then
presumably becomes dread Pirate Roberts himself. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
let's not spoil. Oh yeah, they definitely. He says to him,
I think you'd make a great dread pirate Roberts. We
can presume he's like, oh, perhaps, Yeah, it's very important
(19:22):
that there be a pirate who everyone thinks kills people
and probably sometimes does. Right, It's like, well, maybe we
could just end it somewhere, how about the dead pirate
Roberts fell about it. You're welcome. So that's the story.
We've already sort of revealed some of our thoughts and
(19:43):
feeling we all love about Forever. So let's just jump
into As we already alluded to the fact that Buttercup
she's the title character. She is not the protagonist, though
I would not say because she there are large chunks
of time where she's not even on screen. All the time.
(20:03):
When she is on screen, she's not doing anything or talking.
That scene between Wesley and the baby genius who drinks
the wine and dies, I w oh, yeah, you see,
I I don't have any But she's in that scene.
And that scene is like seven or eight minutes long,
and she doesn't move, don't say anything. She's not really
(20:26):
restrained besides, like her hands are bound in her she's blindfolded.
She thinks he could have a knife to her throat.
She's scared. She doesn't look anything though, She's just a
blank slate of like, let me listen to how this
plays out. Well, eventually she becomes the very powerful wife
of the President of the United States of America. Card
(20:48):
I think we were doing I thought we were doing
a scandal. That's great too, Yeah, is she in that?
But also she's sort of like the title character of
the Raiders of Lost Art. She's like the Lost arc
Like it doesn't appear that much in it, but it's
like kind of what it's all about. Sure, she's the
vehicle that Wesley is like, Okay, I gotta save this
(21:10):
this lady, this play, this object. And that is what
continues to happen. I wrote down all the times where
someone has to save her, because it's several. The first
time is when she okay, she does make another choice
that doesn't really influence the direction of the story takes,
but at least she does something, and it happens kind
of early on whenever she's been captured by the three
dudes and they have run the ship and they see
(21:33):
that someone's following them, so she jumps into the eel
infested waters. So she does that, but then she needs
to be saved pretty much immediately because a neil is
coming for her, so the giant pulls her out. That's
the first time. The second time is when they're in
the fire swamp and Wesley has to save her like
(21:53):
three different times from the bursts of flame that whole
fires sequence. I was just like at one point he's
like just carrying her through it. She's like, I can't walk.
When that rat dog attacks him, she just watches. She's
just like Wesley, I was like, what are you doing.
(22:15):
You've got hands, he said he had under control. No,
it's infuriating to watch. They're like the worst couple ever.
I don't like either of them. Have you ever met
any couples? That's true, that's true. There are a few good.
When the road in some unusual size come and attack,
(22:35):
she just she stands there and watches for a long time.
She does pick up like a branch and sort of
hits it in the face a little bit, but like
almost immediately falls over and then doesn't do anything. She
gets back up and does land a blow to the
face of the r O U S, but then just
continues to stand there and not do anything untill find he'll.
(22:59):
Finally Wesley like pushes it into the burst of flame
and then stabs it several times with the sword. And
just before that, there's that moment where I forget what
he's saying to her, but it's it's another one of
his like, well do you think that it's just never
been done before, because and now we're going I don't know,
like one of his weird one liners. And then she says,
(23:19):
hmm okay, and then she falls into a hole. Immediately
I was like, Jesus, She's like, we'll never survive. He's like, ridiculous,
You're only saying that because no one ever has, and
he's like okay, and then she falls into all It's like, Jesus,
that's it. She couldn't tell it was not right, but
she could have been formulating a response instead of like
(23:43):
checks out. She deserved to fall into that quick Sandys.
That is one of the other times that she needs
to be saved by a man. Okay, Before they go
into the fire swamp, though, we find out that Wesley
is kind of a dick. Well, he became a pirate,
that's true, he didn't. You don't mean to be shooting
on your favorite movie, my favorite movie anymore. I'm happy
(24:07):
for you guys to say what you want. It's a
fun show. It's not me. I didn't make the movie.
I did. It's from over thirty years ago, or almost
thirty years ago. A great reveal if you're like there
were there's a bunch of lines he has about women
that she just takes lying down and I was like,
(24:28):
that is a crotch kicking offense. Oh right, not at
the time. This is a long time ago. I mean
the players, but I feel like the men in the
movie are given like more contemporary I don't know, they
felt like they had like values of the eighties and
she was stuck into a very artick. Just to be clear,
(24:50):
I'm joking on your side. I don't know's we're bad.
We don't know anything about comedy problem. Just kidding now
we're joking. Oh god, I gotten a spiral just doing
it for the listeners. I know you guys understand. I
assume your listeners don't know anything about comedy, as we're
(25:11):
in a feedback loop right now. God, it's like two
rors facing each other. Um. Anyway, at one point he
raises his arm to hit her. Do you remember this?
And then he says that was a warning, highness. The
next time, my hand flies on its own. For where
I come from, there are penalties when a woman lies, right, yeah,
(25:34):
I had that written down to It's just like I
think this is when he's still masked a K pretending
to be a dread private. Why does he do that
so long? Why does he like mask off? Hey, Buttercup,
it's me. Remember I'm going to be an asshole to you.
And then once we tumble down the hill with hilarious
a d r H, then this is like that is
(25:59):
how you would sound r um. It's audio recorded after
like they bring them in and they're just like, just
make a bunch of oofs and then he's like I
love you, and you're like when really all now? Um?
I mean, isn't the explanation that they would give, or
(26:20):
that they did give for why he stayed mass so
long is that he was mad that she immediately married
another dude, Well, I mean, she is terrible. That doesn't
I would be upset too. But also he let her
believe he was dead for a long time, and I
don't understand exactly why that was. Right. Yeah, he's mad
because she's gone off and gotten engaged to someone else,
(26:41):
but he was also gone for five years' monogamy guys
themselves everything. Yeah, it would be very unreasonable of him
to be like, you think I'm dead, but stay single forever,
just right? And then those like those exchanges they have,
and I know that are supposed to beautiful, but I
was just like, man, like, death cannot stop true love.
(27:04):
I was like, oh, she's not allowed to move on
with her life. And then she says, I will never
doubt again, and I'm like, no, doubt do sometimes discussion
to the movie Doubt right now? Oh my god, that's
one of my favorite movies. Yeah, that's no one's favorite movie.
But my brother and I used to do this double feature.
(27:25):
We still do it. Sometimes we'll watch There Will Be
Blood and Doubt back to back. No reason is there
a movie called Fire, because then you could watch Doubt
and Fire and then missus doubt Fire. Didn't think there
you go that's a closer. All right, good night everyone
in doubt Glenn Close or Meryl Street, I always get
(27:47):
them confused Closes Wonder they're both great. Okay, So he
Weslie is a dick. He threatens to hit her, he
does all kinds of ship oh, and then in the swamp.
But afterward after he's like, it's me Wesley. They're in
the fire swamp and he's explaining to her how he
(28:10):
became the dread Pirate Roberts and he's like he's so patronizing.
He's like, with me, so far does this make sense
to you? And it's like it's not a hard story
to understand, right, It's just like, hey, dummy, you get
it stupid And I also don't like maybe I missed
something because it was the first time I saw it.
(28:30):
But like he becomes the dread Pirate Roberts and that
becomes more important to him than getting back to he's alive,
and like that's never from what I gets, all that's
never explained of like why couldn't he just under that
like persona she she was still there. Maybe it didn't
move locations until she was kidnapped, but maybe it had
(28:51):
just happened. Maybe I mean for a while, because he's like, oh,
I was training and doing all kinds of like fencing, right,
they didn't give an exact timeline. Well, it's convenient for this.
It's kind of a plot device because as soon as
she gets kidnapped, now she needs someone to rescue her.
So it's it just happens to be at that moment,
(29:12):
and he puts his plans on hold. He was like
whatever it was, He's like, well, now it's important because
she has been kidnapped. That maybe he was. Wesley's just
I guess he just he Oh, now I'm gonna I'm
gonna go back for her. Oh. Convenient that she's been captured,
because now this cool story can unfold, called the Princess Bride.
Maybe he did find out that she was kidnapped. Maybe
(29:33):
I don't know. He's pure speculation to the ground. And
here's just a you know, this is an unnecessary, dumb
defense of him being mean to her and treating her
like she's dumb. She is dumb. She is this particular
person that he's talking to has been dumb before. How
did he get this way? Though? I don't understand. It's
(29:54):
like in the first, you know, when they're falling in love.
At the beginning, they say maybe twenty words to each other,
it's as you wish, as you wish, I love you
and I'll never leave you goodbye. Just yeah, And I'm
just like, Okay, these are very horny, blond adults, and
I'm not okay with any of that. I'll also add,
I do think that it's not nice to be it's
not good to be mean to dumb people, even if
(30:16):
they are dumb. I don't know about that. That's what
I'm saying. That's my position is, Mike takes one position
still to dumb people. I say, for sure, cyber bully
dumb people. Maybe not to their face, because dumb people
could be very strong, m M I understand what they
might be. Andrea the giant, and they might just Andrea
(30:37):
crushes it and he's a good he's a poet's great anyway,
She's maybe not dumb, but extremely naive, Yeah, which I
could understand if she had like grown up a royal
and like wasn't exposed to the world and like was
just oh, I'm a princess. I'm like, I don't haven't
have a new life experiences, but she's a commoner. I
(30:58):
feel like she should know her have some street smarts. Yeah,
there's no streets. That's old dirt path smarts. Actually because
she she goes on her daily ride. She rides all over.
But she should know stuff I don't know. But she
and I don't want to sound victim. Blame me because
(31:19):
she's captured against her will and she's a victim, and
but she is. She was wearing her capture me boots.
She also threatens to kill herself this movie, like the
towards the end with humber Dick. She you know, she
goes and she was like, well, if you do, you know,
I'm not going to marry you. I'll just kill myself.
(31:41):
And I was just like, you could try to escape.
There's so many, Yeah, alternate paths other than like killing
yourself because you can't be with this asshole. I don't
know totally. Um she does, like it said, she makes
that one escape attempt when she jumps into the el
infested waters. Why not try that again? There are like
no one's really holding her captive, Like what's it? Humberdink
(32:04):
is like off planning her murder. She doesn't like she
can just go like Lee like get on a horse
and ride out of town. Yeah. I don't understand her
at all. She seems like maybe she's just depressed and
she just doesn't know it, because she from the beginning
of the movie is like, maybe I'll just kill myself
(32:25):
if I can't be with Wesley. Maybe she has mental
health issues, and that's why she's falling back on this
suicidality because it's not just codependent on which brings me
to the point that of the pretty few lines of
dialogue that she does have at the course of the movie,
they are almost all about either Wesley or love or
(32:49):
being in love with Wesley. She doesn't talk about anything else.
We don't know anything else about her. Yeah, exactly, isn't
there the scene where the old lady says that she's
just garbage, and so that's like two ladies talking and
it's just but both of them. But so it does.
I've concluded that it does not pass the Bechtel test
(33:10):
because even though those two women speak well, the old
lady speaks at her, Buttercup doesn't really ever respond. But
we're going with the name thing too. She doesn't have
any she doesn't have a name, and they're talking about
the context of their conversation is Buttercup's portrayal to Wesley,
So it's about a man, and therefore, do not think
it passes the Betel test. But don't feel bad, Princess Brian.
(33:33):
A lot of movies don't. Also, don't feel bad because
you're a movie. Can I tell you a funny story
about the movie? I was. It's actually kind of a
touching story as well. Maybe only that who can say.
I'm not going to tip it any further, but about
two years ago, a friend of mine got married and
I was at the wedding. The person who was getting
(33:54):
married my friend. Her friend was officiating, and so the
at the beginning of the wedding, this prest was like,
I've never married anybody before. I just got the credentials
so that I could marry my friends. So it's really
a beautiful experience for me to get to do this.
And since I've never done this before, I may never
get it again. I was wondering if you guys would
indulge me for a moment while I just quote one
(34:16):
of my favorite lines from The Princess Bride, and it
was like, okay, great, sure, And then she says and
all right, everybody the shrieking eels okay, anyway, so now
we've it was super fun. Also, I don't know if
you guys know this, but getting a master's degree in
scriting screenwriting does automatically like ordained you to officiate weddings.
(34:39):
I also like that you called it scriting. I don't
know how to talk masters thing. Yep, it was a
joke that wasn't good to begin with, and I ruined
it because I don't know how to talk scriting. Can
we talk about the line that almost closes the movie
there's a shortage of perfect breast since the world, first
(35:02):
of all, and I come at this as someone in
a similar predicament of having perfect breasts. Uh no, she
she she is pretty flat chested. And not to shame her,
because I'm right there with her. But if someone said
I had perfect breast, I would be like, where you know? Uh?
(35:22):
And second of all, what an obnoxious thing to say.
And I hate that he said that. Yeah, I would.
It's like the people who are like fighting breast cancer
by being like, we've got to save the breasts, right right.
It's just I don't know. I wanted to harpoon him
more than ever at that moment, I need to harpoon
him the whole movie. I will say that, you know,
beauty is subjective, So if somebody ever tells you that
(35:45):
you have perfect breasts, I would say thank you. I
would rather harpoon someone than say thank you. Yeah, no
compliments please her. Yeah, it is. It's a silly moment. Also,
I just mean if it's like somebody that you care
about and like you're in a relationship, not just like
somebody on the street, sir. But I also think that
(36:07):
they just have a toxic, terrible relationship and you shouldn't
talk to her at all. Yeah, their relationship is very
This is one of those things where they fall in
love because one of them is a man and one
of them is a woman, and which is how it
worked for centuries. Work with my parents. Do you know,
do you read as on Sorry's Modern Romance book. Yes,
(36:29):
there's like in the first chapter there's like a thing
of where he interviewed people who are like the oldest
you know people today about their dating experiences. And there
were some numbers about like one in six people over
half without within a mile of them, and one in
six grew up in the same building. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, sure,
(36:50):
this was before the time, hundreds of years earlier, and no,
but people fell in love because even if they yeah,
they were near each other, but then they were, they
also had to be compatible. But there's like, no, there's
like they're like, oh, you have blond hair, I have
blond hair. We look like siblings, but we're not siblings, right,
(37:13):
So that's what's sexy about it. I'm really attracted to
the fact that you're in not my siblings. I guess. Yeah,
standards were not very high back then. Well, I mean,
I do think that there is something to you know,
like tribal sort of connections. You know, like sometimes like
Jews are attracted to other Jews, and you know, like
tall people are attracted to potentially, I mean, it's not
(37:35):
it's not a guarantee, but you definitely can see couples
that look alike as long as they know they're not
from the same actual family. Sure, you mean formally. I
don't know, I never heard of this think. Yeah, I
mean I do agree with that. I just think that
they're both insufferable in different ways. Well that's the thing too,
it's together. The thing about stories is that you can
(37:59):
build the world old and developed the characters and explain
why they're good for each other. Not not do that.
That's some scrider talk, gold Man. Come on, The book
actually goes way more in depth than a lot. I've
not read the book. I'm sure it also has some
of the same problems. But I did really I did
really like the book as well. I thought it was
(38:20):
very funny. I don't read books of a master's degree,
so I don't I actually don't know how to read,
so oh I wanted. We already touched on this a
little bit. But there is a chunk of time between
around minute thirteen whenever they reached the cliffs of Insanity,
(38:41):
to somewhere around minute thirty four, so almost twenty minutes,
which is right when Leslie beats the little of the
Baby Genius in the Battle of Wits, where she does
not say a single thing, but she is in the
in the scenes the whole time. She well, she only
has a few like sliver of screen time. Even during that,
(39:01):
I kept forgetting she was in that scene with the
Baby Genius and Wesley. I kept forget, and then she
would be sitting next to the baby Genius, and I'd
be like, oh, yeah, I guess she is just sitting
there like that was so that was like the most
frustrating part for me was watching that scene. My favorite
part of that scene is that the scene he had
just set up a little picnic for the There was
(39:23):
like graps and cheese and apples and like goblets and wine,
and it's like, what were you going to do? Like
you didn't decide to have the battle of wits until
Wesley showed up and suggested it. Like it wasn't get
a table I didn't even think of that. I think
there was a stone, okay, but he had like a
table cloth and stuff. He just like comes ready for
(39:43):
other people. He was like, oh man, I hope he
suggests that we have a battle of wits because I've
got at all laid out ready to go. He made
it happen. I did appreciate that he died, yeah, because
I was like, oh no, he's not gonna be there
to say that one word anymore inconceivable. I did not
(40:04):
find that charming. I don't think that he was meant
to be charming. I know, but I know that you're
supposed to like you like that's the fun thing. What
a bit of comic relief, and it's not. The Little
Guys did a funny thing. And I remember when I
first watched that movie the fact that he always like, oh,
I put poison both cups like I spent the past
few years growing up in immunity, I have caine powder.
(40:26):
And I was like, brilliant self really enjoyed them. It
was it was good, it was a clever thing to do.
I had one note, because Baby Genius and and Andre
the Giant are paired up to be like this, like
little guy big guy team. It's very fun. It is fun.
(40:47):
But I would argue that the best little guy big
guy team that I know of is in Jesus Christ
Superstar with Honest and Caiaphas. Oh I a little guy
big guy team to remember Jesus Christ Superstar would be
a very hard podcast. I have never seen it. I
(41:08):
thought you were going to say, what is it Junior
with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and oh, twins is what I mean? Yeah,
not Junior Junior. What's Oh that's one where he gets pregnant.
What I want a career? He said, yeah, baby in
him and they're like, let's see if a man can
(41:29):
carry a baby. I want to see that movie. I
just say, it's like a little noise, I got so excited.
I don't remember it super well. It's been probably two
decades since I've seen it. Okay, I didn't see it,
and I bet we wouldn't love it. Uh yeah, I
don't remember it being very good. The poster is terrifying. Wow, yeah,
(41:51):
it was inconceivable. Is that the tagline? Oh my god,
that is crazy that that happened, because that's the word
we were just talking about that. That is a good slogan.
That's a good slogan for that for that movie. Yes,
good catchphrase. It's like, you know the one for Doctor
(42:12):
Strange that I like that I've seen on posters. It's
the impossibilities or endless like that. Yeah, sometimes they're very bad,
like almost always. I'm like, I look at these posters
for movies and I'm like, if I'm gonna either see
the movie, I'm not going to see a movie. Like
I can't imagine the person that the tagline, you know,
(42:32):
pushes it over either to yes or no, like you know,
the gang's all here. What don't even just save some letters?
Show us the pictures of the people giving people what
they want. When I was in college, I made a
student film called Baxter the Clown, and it was about
a clown who was to George Knows, I don't know
(42:57):
what twist with bas Okay and he decides to run
away from the circus. That's fun twist. And he switched
his places with his brother. She was like a businessman.
His brother's name was Oliver, I think, and they switched places,
so Oliver's like, I'm going to run away enjoin the
(43:17):
circus and perfect brothers place. And Baxter was like the
twin in office. They weren't, so it doesn't make a whole.
But I didn't have access to all the idea of
twins right anyway, so you couldn't have two people. That's
exactly like I didn't have high tech c g I.
(43:39):
And then the Baxter has to decide whether or not
he wants to pursue this life as a businessman or
to return to the circus. But the tagline that I
wrote for this movie is he's climbing the corporate ladder
to the big top. Guys, I'm so clever. We've been
(44:00):
shooting on this movie, specifically, better cut the character for
a while on that every what characters do you like.
I do like an ego and yeah, so yeah that's
the Chandler and Joey of and Miracle Max. That's a
(44:20):
fun little cameo. But as well, yeah, sure, we do
have to take into account the genre, which is why
I wrote this. I chose this movie to write this
paper on because sure, like things are going to be exaggerated.
It's for kids, it's for the fun for the whole family.
So like, characters are going to be pretty like archetypal,
(44:42):
they're not going to be super nuanced, right, sure, hang on,
let me find that really cool paragraph. Oh yeah, cool paragraph,
come in right up. She doesn't read, but she does write.
I don't know how it works once the words are down.
She well, my thesis statement for this because I say, oh,
(45:04):
I am dB lists all these different Oh yeah, let
me see if I got it right. Uh, family, adventure, comedy, romance,
and fantasy. That's the one I left. And I said
that fantasy is the most prominent genre of these in
The Princess Bride because the story within a story highlights
the fantastical setting, characters, and narrative by juxtaposing them against
the ordinary, realistic world of the grandfather relaying this story
(45:28):
to his grandson, which we haven't really talked about yet,
And I say, but it is not just anywhere in
the middle fantasy. The Princess Bride is self aware to
the extent that it playfully satirizes its own genre. So
you guys, it's very academic plus today. And then I
go on to talk about how the love story portrayed
(45:52):
in this film is kind of the most fantastical and
unrealistic element of the movie. That's fine, that's good think
because like The Matrix, right, Hey, we already talked about
that movie. Did you know that, that's what we did
last week? I didn't know. Oh my gosh, I mean
you're in the Matrix? Uh Matrix, I am the one, actually,
(46:13):
I uh. We talked about it with Matt donnaher And
when I got home I was so mad at myself
because we had been talking about, like, oh, why isn't like,
why couldn't Morpheus have been a woman? Why couldn't one
of the agents have been a woman? Why? Like, why
couldn't one of the two brothers been a sister? And
then I was like, fuck, why couldn't they have been neo?
Like why couldn't a woman be the savior has to
(46:38):
be a man, But why couldn't everybody else? I was
just like, the patriarchy is just I've been so socialized
to think that the hero of a movie has to
be a man that I didn't even suggest that. I
was mad at myself for not suggesting it. But you're forgiving.
We're doing it now, Thank you, thank you. I pilled
up a paper I wrote in college, but it has
nothing to do you can. What's it about Andy Warhol
(47:02):
and the allure of photography? Don't worry? This is the
solid be Mechanical reproduction is the phrase that sticks out
when summarizing Andy warhol staggering volumes of artwork in the
four decades he was a working artist. That sounds right. However,
(47:22):
he uses this concept within so many different mediums in
different phases of his career that a primary process becomes
impossible to nail down. Wow, amazing that I have. I
don't even know what this class was. This guy is
hard to nail down. This guy, Yeah, you can't nail
him down. I'm pretty sure that's what I just repeat
(47:43):
for the rest of the Remember that was the class
that I passed out in once you do that. I didn't.
It wasn't on purpose. But what you did? What you do?
You like faint or did you? Yeah, I'm a I'm
a delicate flower and sometimes I I faint every couple
of years getting there are men around to save. To
(48:06):
my Andy Warhol professor, presumably, basically, I would have liked
to have seen just a more active female character. I
could have had more agency. Yeah, she could have had
a more fleshed out personality. She could have done she was.
She was put in several situations where she could have
made a decision to be like, oh, I should do this,
(48:28):
or I should try to help this person, or I
can save myself because I hear the popping sounds that
precede every little fire burst, like why don't I jump
out of the way instead of having the guy fling
me out of the way. And yeah, sure, it's a
fairy tale. She's a princess, she's a damsel in the
stress she had. He's gonna be saved. She's a delicate
little flower. Um, but if they're gonna The thing about
(48:52):
this movie is that it's look at this fantasy, but
it's like it's not. I don't know I feel like
every scene Buttercup appears in is a missed opportunity in
one way or another. Like there's either an opportunity for
her to do something that she doesn't, or there's an
opportunity in a scene, you know. And and I'm sorry
to bring up the baby Genius Wesley scene again, but
(49:15):
like there could have even been a witty interjection from her.
There could have been something at any time. And there's
all this time that we could hear. What has she
been doing for five years besides being sad and contemplating suicide? Right,
and all we know is that she likes to ride
a horse. And at the end, that's still all we know.
(49:37):
She likes to ride a horse, and she loves Wesley,
and it's just I don't know, she's pretty flat. Yeah,
she is a very one dimensional. There's no shortage of
flat chested. I'm just echoing what Jamie said. I'm not
adding my own. I stand by the comment. Yeah, it is.
(49:59):
It's movie full of missed opportunities. Or she could have
contributed so much more to the to the story and
to the dialogue. And maybe she'll do it all in
the Prince Groom. Love it, Love It love it. I
was like, oh, we can play a fun game and
we'll call it the Battle of the Tits or the
Battle of Clits. And then I forgot to act I
(50:21):
named the game, and then that's except for the Labyrinth episode.
We will have something for the Labyrinth. We're going to
talk about the Labyrinth soon with our friend Jenny, and
we have a game all planned out. I would know
we have the name of the game, and then nothing yet,
But there's time. There's time yet time. Let me ask you, guys,
(50:41):
here's a game on account of three. I'll ask the
say say question, and then I'll say three to one,
and then you guys, give an answer to this question.
Would you rather be if you could only be one?
A princess or a bride? Three to one neither princess
bred fun right, we'll see. If I was a princess,
(51:05):
I'd use that platform of like fame and influence and
power to change the world and make it a better place.
If I was a bride, I'd just be like, oh god,
I'm just married now. If I was a brad, I
would do anything I want because you could be married
to do anything you want. I mean, you can do
being married doesn't give you like superpowers. I would fly
(51:27):
whether or not you were married. It wouldn't change right now,
I'd do the same ship that I'm doing now, except
for like being on Tinder. That would be probably the
one thing I would stop. I see, Yeah, you can
still do that too. Hey, why you wanted married? True,
that's true. That's true if I was a princess. I don't.
(51:48):
I don't know. I just wouldn't want that. I feel
like it's kind of limiting it. Sure, I mean that's
what Aladdin is all about. Let's talk about that. I
should spend more time thinking about why I don't one
of you. So, I think we've come to a moment
where we can we can rate the is there anything
(52:09):
we want to any other topics we want to we
don't really discuss, like humber Dink or the story within
a story. Yeah, so, like what does make sense about
him is that he hires those three dudes to capture
her and start a war because he wants to start
a war with Guilder. For most of that just didn't
(52:34):
matter to me, Yeah, because it was like, whenever you're
saying that, I like, whatever he's trying to do will
not work. Out. He's a he's a sociopath and he
just likes to be you know, he likes power. He
likes to be. He doesn't care about love. He just
wants to be in power, and he wants to have
a reason to go to war with this neighboring land
that they have some treaty with. So if he could
frame them for you know, kidnapping her, then he could
(52:56):
be like, now a reason he just likes. He likes
far Wad. Yeah, we should. We should do shkar f
a r C. It's family adventure, romance and comedy by Caplet.
Everybody plus Fantasy is another farcus spelled with two f's
(53:17):
far Quad. Oh gosh, I liked the story within a story.
I thought that that was fun. I wasn't like friend savage, Yeah,
I mean, how could you not. Yeah, that's that's what
my whole That was what my paper was about. How
like to frame it in this like the Princess Bride
inside of another story was like it was allowed it
(53:40):
to like poke fun at its own genre. The book
is like that too. Yeah, There's there's like a chapter
in the book where it's like and this chapter is like,
you know, we've it's like they're they've discovered this old
you know, like they're like, I'm gonna do a modern
revamp of this old story from this you know, fake place,
but they're presenting it as real. And they're like, in
this chapter in the original it was about seventy three
pages of just the describing the princesses dresses. So you
(54:02):
don't need to hear that, so we'll just skip ahead.
Oh that's fun. I like that. Yeah, it is fun. Well,
you know, does a fun thing like that? Have you? Guys?
Head the book A couple Hood by Paul Riser. He's
one of the first comedians that I ever saw like
on TV and I loved it, and so I got
his book couple Hood, and I got it on tape
and him reading drive around listening to it, and I
believe the book, the physical copy of it starts on
(54:24):
page like a hundred and forty three. That's the first
page listed, and he's like, we're starting on page three
because it's so hard to get into a book. And
you know, like sometimes if if somebody like looks over
your shoulder and they see your on page like two,
then they judge you. So it's like this way like
if somebody on the train they're like, wow, D forty four,
that's pretty great, right, so nicely you feel like you're
already in the middle of a a hundred three. That's where
you start. Great guy, Paul Riser, was that like a
(54:46):
novel hero? Oh? It was. It was like a sort
of a memoir, but mostly about like his you know,
his relationship and relationships in general, his wife, like being
in a couple, the hood of a couple of nous,
a couple of I'll read it one day. I like
Craig Ferguson wrote a great novel that I would used
to be I used to vouch for maybe a little
bit too much in high school. Between the bridge and
(55:08):
the river and it's there. I just remember there's a
prominent character who's a televangelist and that he wore an
orange robe, and at sixteen, I thought that was very fun.
Orange robe like a prisoner. I thought of him a
prisoner of his own belief. That was so when we
(55:29):
rate the movie, what is the scale that we use
nipples from one to five nipples and more nipples is good?
Always more, always more? Five is the highest five nipples
of the high pers rating. You could give a movie
just to be I mean, we're reading it in the
context of its representation of female characters, and you have
to describe the nipples also really yeah, Like last week
(55:51):
we had like chrome nipples because we're talking about the Matrix. Oh,
I understand, yeah, but perfect breasted nipples I think. I
also just don't like the phrase perfect breasts. I feel
like that's something I would be comfortable hearing at KFC.
But I'm not directed at me. But that's a lot
of things too. Well. We've all got our own baggage.
(56:13):
I'll take please, all right, I would not be okay
someone saying that about my body. Bucket to Jamie, what
order do we go? I'll go first. So I grew
up liking the movie, and then the more I watch it,
the more I'm like, oh, this isn't as good of
a movie as I once thought it was, especially considering
(56:34):
it's portrayal of women as being stupid idiots who can't
do anything. For this podcast, I would give it like
two nipples. One from Physic the Giant, which is going
to be huge and Harry that's a lot of nipples,
and one from Baby Genius Fazzini, which is going to
(56:56):
be small and Harry. I'll give it one nipple, which
sounds harsh because it maybe is a little bit, but
it's buttercups nipple and it's really soft and afraid and inverted. Wow.
I like this might sound harsh because it is the
worst rating I can give it, but hear me out.
(57:19):
I would never say no nips. O there zero. You
can give no nips nips not me. I want at
least one, but also I'm fine with none. They're not
deal breakers to me. Any number of nips. It's fine
by me. I'll give it one point five. I give
(57:42):
it the highest rating, and I give it one point
five nipples because I have done an average of the
two ratings that you guys gave it. Because I'm bowing
to your experience in the issues of this female related matter.
What do I know? Very no, all of you what
a noble cause. We respect your decision and thank you
(58:05):
for recognizing that we are correct the true masters. Yes, great, well,
thank you so much for coming on, Thank you for
having me. Yes, sorry for a ship to go to
a movie you liked for an hour. I am literally
don't care. It's not it's not part of who I am.
You also could have shut on me for an hour
(58:27):
and we didn't. We did not, thank you. I think
anytime we have a guest who's a man or who
presents as a man, because you say that um open
with a quick road genderless, I would say we just
should on them the entire time. Give them a taste
of how the patriarchy has treated up. Give me a
bucket of that. Contact. Oh, I'm on your bucket list.
(58:51):
Thank you. Is there anything you'd like to plug? Where
can people find you online? Which about your stuff? If
you put my name into online anywhere Mike Kaplan where
Mike is spelled weird sorry m y q Kaplan spelled
the quote unquote normal way. My caplan dot com is
(59:12):
my website. You'll find you can find my Netflix special
you can find my albums. I have a podcast called
hang Out with Me. Everything should be available through my website.
But if you also go to you know, any of
the places Twitter and Instagram and not buying anymore Facebook,
the things whatever, whatever things are, Yeah are good these days.
I maybe have it. Oh, I'm there, thank you. Yeah.
(59:36):
Check out Mike Caplan on the internet and in real
life I performed places. There's there's two dates on there, Jamie,
anything you wanna, I thought of something that's okay. Uh.
You can find me on Twitter at Hamburger Phone. You
can find me on website at Jamie loftus is innocent
dot com. I'm also do it, uh plug in any crime.
(01:00:00):
I did not do it except I drive with a
little license. But that because let's it gives me anxiety
to say it all loud, but for good reason, I
should be afraid. But I also I just haven't gotten
there I'm doing. I'm doing a long show in Boston
on doing an hour in Boston on December six. If
(01:00:21):
you happen hopefully in this podcast or this episode comes
out by then, I was being optimistic, I'll be. I'll
be in Boston on January twelve to fourteen at Laugh Boston.
I love that place. Free diet cokes backstage. I remember
we're free diet cokes. Are sure. It'll be my first
time there. I didn't even know forward to it. Maybe Hey,
(01:00:44):
it's me Caitlin you I'm me on Twitter at Caitlin
Durante and some other places. I have a website Helan
Dante dot com. Also, if you live in l A,
which why would you live anywhere else? Our friend Mikey
years in a different place, and so do probably the
majority of the country. Definitely, most people don't live in
(01:01:08):
Los Angeles. But if you do live in Los Angeles
and you want to check out a new weekly comedy
show at Nerd Mount which is the place world. It's
called rabbit Hole with Jay and Rory, hosted by Jay
Larson and Rory School and I helped do things with it.
So when does it happen? The first one is November
(01:01:29):
and then it's every Wednesday. That'll be fun. And I
think that's it. We've had a great time, guys. We
have farewell, we have thank you. Wait what does he
say as you wish? Okay, bye bye bye bye. We
did it. We
The Bechdel Cast News
Hosts And Creators
Caitlin Durante
Jamie Loftus
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