You.
Oh, oh my god, oh my god. Oh it was so big, Oh my god. Ew that wasp was like literally could pay rent in my room.
It was so big.
She's sheen im me no me not my.
N yo yo yo no, what is your childhood?
I have.
Your life's going down the floor like.
Round on the docket for a discussion today, Rose is Drag Race All Stars. The first two episodes all Stars.
And something.
Eight.
Okay, good to know eight. I honestly thought it was seven.
The more you know.
Do you have initial faves from the jump or like a kind of impression of the cast as you started watching.
I don't necessarily have early favorites. Actually, no, that's a lie I do. I am obsessed with James Mansfield and I want her to win. Oh and by the way, this is like a virgin the show we give yesterday's pop culture today's takes. I'm Rose Daumu and I'm fran Torado. What I appreciated about the cast is that it has a very early drag Race mix of girls. And here's what I'll say. The season feels very off the rack.
I tally agree off the rack and honey, it did not look as good on the Hangar as it did on the body.
You know what I mean, Yeah, I mean I like that vibe for drag Race, especially because like with All Stars specifically, and coming ran off the tails of All Stars All winners, like that was the most polished, the most like custom costume, lip injections, filler blah blah blah, like it could be. And this season feels a little more haphazardly, like slapped together with quite a random assortment
of queens. And I like that, but it did kind of show in the first two episodes it did not feel quite up to the level.
I'll say that I have to agree with you. I felt like my first impression, I am very happy with this season so far. I actually think it's giving us some good drama and some good competitors. My initial reaction was that, speaking of filler, there are too many filler queens, and when you have an All Stars season, there.
Should be no fillers period, Like even the fillers are stars.
Like if you think about All Stars past, someone like Cocoa Montrees who went home first for All Stars two or All Stars three or whatever she was in when she went home first, it was like devastating because you're like damn, like someone like Cocoa is going home first, like she's not even I don't know that it was devastating. It was pretty it was pretty deserved. It was deserved. It was a totally deserved and same thing with this one. Like, you know, the people that went home I think were
deserved were the people that were limited. I think deserved to go home, but they were filler queens with All Stars two or whatever, three whatever, Coca was not a filler queen. She I wanted her to be there. She was like such good TV. She was so funny. She's still a good competitor. And so I think that that's kind of something that's incredible about All Stars. It's like, because the talent is supposed to be on another level,
everyone should be gagging us. And I just felt like like Monica and Nasha didn't need to be there.
You know, I don't really feel like, what is it? Is it not?
Is it Jessica Wild Like she kind of feels like filler to me. Alexis Michelle also feels like filler to me. Although no, Babe, I think Alexis Michelle is making.
It to the end.
She's the moment.
Yeah, I don't gag for her, but I think she is very polished. Yeah, her looks are good. She has a very clear perspective, she's good at the interviews. She's like, I see her making it to the end. Maybe not if there was a different lineup of queens, but with the one that exists. Yeah, I think she'll be like in the top four.
I honestly so, I didn't even remember what season she was in. Justin had to jog my memory on all things Alexis Michelle and reminded me that she was the girl that did the green lettuce look like she is kind of like I guess her thing is like just kind of being aloof and unaware of how she comes off.
You didn't watch Untucked, did you?
No?
Okay, so I don't ever think watching Untucked is worth it. But Justin was like, you have to watch Untucked for these episodes. It's actually really juicy, and Alexis Michelle in the first episode of Untucked does something so fucking funny, like it's literally performance art. Actually, I can just describe it to you if you if you want to know
what happens, since you want to watch it. So Monica, who I am really worried for emotionally and spiritually because what the way she's eliminated, and her heartbreak is like truly so palpable, Like I don't know if I've seen heartbreak like that on a first Home Girl since like Miss Vangie. She's like realizing that she's going home in Untucked, like there's no other way. It's shaking out. They're not going to vote off Darien Lake, and so Untucked is
basically this. It's this like goodbye to Monica. It's like really sad, and she's like devastating. Everyone's holding space for her, and all of a sudden, Alexis Michelle, out of nowhere, starts making the conversation about her and her how overwhelmed she is by like being in this show and.
It's so funny.
You have to watch it. I'll send you a little clip or something. But Alexis Michelle is doing performance right, like she's so kuockoo bananas.
To me, I think calling it performance art lends it an air of intentionality. You don't think it is real?
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah. Clarification Yeah, I mean, I you know, obviously, like I'm gonna watch All Stars, I think more so than with a normal dry Grace season, Like I will get bored if this one quicker and probably like tune out and let the episodes accumulate and then like binge.
It all towards the end. But you know, it is a nice thing to watch, like on Saturday, Like every Saturday morning, I go to the farmer's market and it's nice to come home afterwards and watch All Stars as I'm having my like basil pesto croissant that I love.
Drag Race on a Saturday morning, I did the same thing.
It's like Saturday Morning cartoons. The drag queens are like cartoon characters.
Yes, Saturday Morning cartoons.
Okay, so cartoon character is speaking of back to James Mansfield, what is what is the moment about her? I also love James. I would not have picked her for my number one, but like I do think that it would be incredible to see her in the final four.
I love how crazy kooky she is. I really like her drag aesthetic.
I love like the the like.
Vintage glamor of it, all the hair, the exaggeration. I love someone who treats their drag character as a character from head to toe, exact complete with a different voice.
And then on the flip side, I think she's really good in the confessionals in like as you know, I won't say, and as a boy, like I'll just say out of drag she's the whole package to me, and like she is someone who I think, like after she was kicked off of her initial season, like, did a lot of work within the drag race community to become this respected figure. Like she does all her own hair. She has a YouTube channel. I've watched some of her
YouTube videos before. She's very funny. I also like that clip of her rolling from her season of Tumbling will never not be funny to me, It's so good. So I live for her, and I thought all I thought her. All of her looks in this episode were fantastic. I thought she was great in the second episode in the you know like sketch comedy SNL Ripoff Challenge, which how weird it was to not have because this isn't Bowen a guest judge later this season, how ye to have him judge.
That episode made no sense, no sense at all, But I'm sure maybe it was like a date conflict or something.
Yeah, but yeah, I live for her. I live I M James.
I love James extremely polished drag, like classic polished, like almost pageant drag. And she also is a little bit of a drag queen's drag queen because she does hair and garments for like all of the girls and is just known for her artistry. And like I don't know if it's the first episode or the second episode, I think it's the first. There's a look, like a whole look that got destroyed and root to drag race, and she had to make the entire look in her in
her hotel room the night before. Like she is on another level I think when it comes to like making clothes and looks, and I really think that that will hopefully help her survive all the way to the end, because I do not want her to be a philler queen.
I think she has set herself up not to be, which is great. But I also I was just thinking about this. I love after the last All Stars where it was all winners and no one was eliminated and they didn't critique the queens at all. I'm so happy we're back to eliminating queens after critiquing them, because they need to be critiqued.
They do they need to be crituck they need to be crotuked. I one hundred percent agree. I feel like that, like just as I said, like their philer queen should not be here, so the girls need to be put in place. And I think that my probably my current top four would probably be Jimbo, Candy, I guess, Heidi, and maybe James Heidi.
I love Heidi.
I love Heidi.
I'm worried about her because I think Kahanna, who I forgot existed, is like starting really strong and people really love her.
And I don't really literally who is she.
I don't know what.
She's from season eleven allegedly allegedly allegedly and she went home very early.
I guess she was.
Yes, I think she was a first home queen, fourteenth place Jim Okay. The thing with Jimbo is like, what's your jim theory? I do like Jimbo's.
Drag, but something about her just rubs me the way, and I think it's like, specifically when she's out of drag in the Confessionals, she has an extremely punishable face.
Her face is very like like mayor of Huvil.
Yeah, and like the hair, and I just like h I don't like her, but I like but I like her drag and like her performance in the challenges, but I don't like her.
So okay, I am a huge Jimbo stan from uh Drag Race Versus the World and or UK Versus the World and her Canada season, but justin honestly started to push me a little off of the Jimbo train because of the way she behaves off screen, just as you said.
And I think that there's this kind of I'm too good for this kind of vibe that doesn't sit right with a white queen and with her attitude based on how she treats the other girls, And like, I think that when she's throwing shade, it's like good, but like when she's just being like I'm better than everyone and I'm too good for this what she doesn't say, but that's like kind of how she acts the vibe. It's
the vibe, and it's not cute. And I think that there's some things that happen in UK Versus the World that I feel like in terms of her behavior toward the other girls and the way she felt entitled to basically win that season, which is like how she was thinking about it before her extremely controversial and dramatic elimination. Yeah, I think that kind of lowered the veil for me on Jimbo, but I'm still she still probably is my
number one like I do. I do want to see her take it because I felt like she was robbed of of truly competing in UK Versus the World. But my biggest issue, by number one issue with Jimbo is that she can't lip sync at all, like he doesn't try at all. So I'm so glad it was really really sad. Did you watch You Versus the World? I watched a couple episodes, but I couldn't do it.
So you didn't watch the Pangina Jimbo elimination?
I think? I yeah, I think I did see that.
Okay, I think?
And so were you gagged when Pangina came out of the lip sync Assassin door to go up against Jimbo.
I wouldn't say it was gagged. I understood why it was gag worthy, but I personally did not gag.
Okay, okay, thank you for that clarification. It had unfortunately been spoiled for me. But I was still gagged.
That was a bad lip sync all around, though they were both not.
I totally disagree. I thought Pangina was amazing and served Puss, and I honestly think Pangina is one of the greatest queens to have ever competed in the Drag Race cinematic universe.
Like to me, like if RuPaul.
Dies tomorrow and they have to replace Rue with a queen or a panel of queens, it's like Jinx, Sasha Colby, and Pengina, like those are probably the three that I would think about to replace RuPaul.
Like I do.
I think that she I just want to see her compete in everything, and that lip sing was very satisfying for me because I really needed her to win against you.
Interesting, I thought I kind of sucked, but I thought the lips thing from the first episode was great. And Aja shitted all over what's her face?
Yes, shit did?
Aja used to be my number one, like one of, if not my number like one of my favorite queens to ever compete in this show. And she kind of retired from drag right, Like, I'm really glad that she came back.
Yeah, it was good to see her on the screen just like made me think of the days when I used to like book her to perform at Macray Park for twenty five dollars.
Yeah, I mean that's noice so far.
She's truly I mean when she was like underage, Yes, that's something that I love about Asha's like origin story is like she started doing drag when she was like fifteen or sixteen, and the way she would book shows was like going to the bar at like three or four pm before they start karting people and just staying there until the show so that she could like stay in a bar underage. Like that is like the kind of queen that I want to see on a season.
And they just, to be completely honest, don't make queens like Asa anymore. Like I think that Aja is a part of a generation of queens that we just don't see growing up in drag in bars at fifteen.
Like well, yeah, because now all of the younger queens are.
Bedroom queens, bedroom queens, Instagram queens, TikTok I mean yeah, now TikTok queens.
Which does you know yield good results in some cases like sugar and spice, Like sugar and.
Sp oh but you know, loved loved Asa. When I found out she retired from drag or whatever, I.
Was like, what the like she she used to.
I think she was online always talking about like about her experience of drag race, like really negatively, which is fair, but to say, like none of that art like mattered, Like none of that art matters. And now I'm just gonna be like a rock a rapper or whatever she is doing. I know she's like in the House of
leave Asia. She's doing ballroom and she's rapping, which is cool, but like I was like, don't like, I'm just like taking this very personally, but like there's no reason to like denigrate your art from like a former life, Like.
You like what Aza did on and.
All Stars three or whatever she was on is like but it's ballroom, Like she is like such an expert performer and everything she does on the art level on that show is totally worthy of, like you know, the rest of her body of work. I just I don't get queens that like move on from the show and they're like that was the old Median like fuck that or whatever, you know what I mean.
The old So I'm sorry, the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now, why cause she's dead. Did you see that video that was going viral over the weekend of Taylor yelling at the security guard at her concert because he was like bugging this group of girls. Yeah, it was no funny. Like in the middle, it's like in the there were just these girls who are being harassed by a security guard and Taylor was on stage performing bad Blood, and she's like, baby, now we got
bad Blood. Leave her alone. You know it used to be mad Love. She's not doing anything. You made a really deep cut. Stop stop.
Oh my god, that's kind of funny.
Yeah, it's great. You should watch the video.
I'll go watch.
And then I saw the girl who was the one who was like the subject of it all. She made a TikTok about it and just like explaining, and they got free tickets to go back for the second night of the Era's tour, which I'm very jealous about because the Aras Tour is coming to New York next week and I still don't have tickets for it, and I feel like I'm not gonna go. But it's okay because I did just get Beyonce tickets and I'm very excited.
And it's funny because I think we weren't we just talking last week about how I was like, yeah, I'm probably not gonna go to Beyonce.
Yeah, well what pushed you over the edge?
Watching all the videos from the tour, I was like, oh, I think I actually do need to see this. And then I was looking for tailor tickets and there was nothing lower than like twelve hundred dollars. And then I went looked at Beyonce tickets and there were tickets as low as like two hundred and fifty dollars, and I was like, okay, oh, I mean that's not how much
I paid. I paid more than that for better seats, but it was just like much more accessible and like, you know, the Aras tour like in a way is more of a you know, once in a lifetime moment because Taylor is doing all of her albums. But I don't know, just from what I've seen the videos that have come out of Beyonce, it's just it feels like this is a very special tour. It's like she is like having fun in a way she maybe hasn't in
a while. It's like her gayest tour ever. And I just want to be there and be part of it. And I've never seen her before, so I'm so excited.
I I'm so excited too.
I wanted to I have not I have not really talked to you yet about what I'm doing for Beyonce, and now I'm so ashamed. But this is like, so this is but this is actually an extremely mean thing. Beyonce is the artist of my life, as you know, as we've talked about on the show of bar Sure, there's no artist that has like more significant, like personal like lifetime and value than Beyonce or maybe possibly Solunge,
and I've never seen her. So this is like, if I'm gonna pay a stand crisis for something, this is it.
That said, I have.
Talked about on the pod and talk to you a lot about how I'm in the most financially precarious situation that I've been in a very long time.
So how am I gonna pull this off?
I posted on Instagram about how I honestly thought people were crazy for flying to Europe to go see Beyonce, and now I'm just like damn, like that actually was the move because I can't wait until July twenty ninth to see Beyonce.
Like I can't.
I can't. I simply can't.
I physically cannot, and like not only will the whole tour be spoiled for me by then, but like, I need to see her now. And so Zach staff good Judy DMed me and was like, girl, there are people in our group that are like trying to sell tickets. And the tickets happened to be sold by a one Jay Wortham, who's a friend of mine. And I messaged them and I was like, just let's say I was maybe considering thinking of maybe possibly going to London to see Beyonce. I heard you're selling tickets.
Oh You're going to Turf Island to see Beyonce? How fun?
Jay said, oh yeah, our section is front row gold section, seats fifty and fifty one. And Jay sold them to me for three hundred and fifty dollars each.
Wow.
So the cost of this ticket and my flight to London will be about the same as a ticket to Beyonce in Jersey.
So I was like, the decision has been made, Justin and I will.
Be That's exciting.
I'm really excited because I haven't been to London in ages. I'm putting the whole trip on a credit card because yes, I am me and also Justin and I can both take meetings there so we can write the Pultu off great.
So I don't think I've told you this, but I'm sort of on this kick at the moment to try to watch a bunch of movies specifically that I have never seen before that people consider to be very good or have told me I would like specifically movies because I'm just I'm not have I don't have a great attention span with TV right now. It's why it's taken me so long to like watch Dead Ringers, you know, because it's just I kind of can't do more than one episode at a time.
It's also dark as hell. It is like so dark.
It's been like generally across the board with TV. It's like one thing if I'm binging something I've already seen and I can like be on my phone during it. But the thing with a movie that's great is like I can say, you know, I mean, for the most part, it's like two hours maximum. I can sit there, pay attention for that length of time and then move on with my life and go watch a video essay about
like teen Wolf or something. Yeah, so the latest film I watched that, somehow I had never gotten around to seeing. Was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
A completely baffling fact to me because it is so tumblr core, if not perhaps one of the single most prevalent tumbler movies of my generation, next to like what five Hundred Days of Summer like.
Yes, and Virgin Suicides. I would say Virgin Suicides.
Yes.
Gifts of those gifts of those movies are like what Tumblr ran off of anyone for anyone who doesn't know. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a two thousand and four movie directed by Michelle Gondry. It stars Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood.
Mark Ruffalo, I forgot about him.
Yeah, he plays one of the technicians. So it's about this man, Jim Carrey, who discovers that his ex girlfriend has used this service to have him erased from her memory, so he does the same in retaliation. The film is, you know, sort of like gentle sci fi. I guess you would call it. What can I say? I do find it surprising that y'all were doing all that on Tumblr over this movie.
Because it's like slow, weird and sometimes boring. Yeah, I just like didn't really like it all that. I mean, I know I.
Liked it, yea, what did you like?
And dislike?
I liked it. I guess I was expecting this feeling I have sometimes when I watch these films that have been so hyped to me that you know, they are like slotting into this place that almost had been waiting for them in my own internal like canon of media. And this didn't really do that for me. I thought I was really gonna love it, and I thought it was good, but I didn't think it was like groundbreaking or anything. Maybe I would have if I had seen it in two thousand and four.
I think that's I think that's part of it, is it it's a movie most effectively watched before you're maybe well, okay, here's the thing. I think it's a movie that is maybe in its tone and how it's executed, most effectively watched when before like your balls drop, I guess, or like, yeah, I said it, And I feel like I feel like
that is because the romance. There's so much romance around, like heartbreak and relationships that I think is even more dramatic if you haven't had your first heartbreak, right like, I think a lot of heartbreak. Movies are actually better when you experience romance because you get to like taste that suffering and that Catharsis.
You get to romanticize romance.
Yes, but I also think that it is a movie that can be really impactful if you have just ended a very significant relationship. And I know that it's like I imagine, so yeah, it is really like it speaks volumes. I'm sure if I had seen this movie when I was in high school, I absolutely would have made it
my entire personality. I really do think that's the thing of it is, like as as millennials like this is a movie that would have I mean, for me two thousand and four, Like I was a sophomore junior in.
High school, so like, yes, this Well, also what I realized is, okay, I will say this, this movie is what I would call Garden State Corps. There was this spat of indie films in the mid two thousands that gained mainstream prominence in a way that that those hadn't really happened.
Empowered by you know the Shins.
Yes, the Shins, freu frough, you know, image heap was all over the place.
Postal service.
Also, I think part of it is that all of these indie films, the ones we're talking about specifically, had movie stars in them that brought them that mainstream attention and commercials success that I think up until then, indie film hadn't really experienced, especially these like smaller romantic comedies
or romantic dramas. And I did see Garden State when it came out, and I did make it my whole personality, and I still love it and I'm obsessed with it, and it's like one of my favorite movies and like a kind of story that I would love to tell. And Eternal Sunshine, I mean, yeah, if I had seen it was when I was a teenager, I think I would have been totally obsessed with it. And now seeing it as a very jaded adult, ye, I'm like.
Doesn't have the same? Sure have the same? Like punkdum It's yeah, it's not the same.
Doesn't have the same?
What punk them a word?
What does that mean?
I think I've actually, I think we've had this exact same conversation on the podcast before. But punk them is a term used in like, particularly in photography artistry, about the unnameable, like kind of sublime way that an image just makes sense and hits like there's something indescribable about what you're seeing visually that just hits you and you're like, this is exactly right.
It's a punk dum.
Okay that that term is very helpful, And yeah, I did not experience that when watching this movie. I was kind of bored watching it and was kind of waiting for it to be over, That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, it gets a little slow, which is kind of a Michelle Gondry thing. A lot of his movies are slow, muted, like palettes, like weird, like kind of hard to grasp sometimes.
And you know, there were parts of it that I really liked. I thought Kirsten Dunst was great, and I actually thought that her storyline was maybe the film I
was more interested in seeing. But it would have been a very different movie, probably like a much darker one her storyline, and I guess like that's with this specific premise, like that is maybe the road I'm more interested in going down, Like we don't get a lot of small sci fi movies like this, or like sci fi romantic comedies or romantic dramas, like there's this movie that came out in like I guess kind of around the same time, like early two thousand's called Timer. Have you ever heard
of it? It's a movie in which there's a world where you can get a timer, like a sort of stop watch, installed in your wrist, and it counts down to the moment that you meet your soulmate. Oh and it's a romantic comedy. And I initially watched it because a Coffield who plays Anya and Buffy was in it, and I just became obsessed with it. And you still
rent it from Blockbuster all the time. It's like one of those yes, but yeah, I there we You know, we're now in such the age of like big sci fi blockbusters and superhero movies and that kind of stuff that we don't get these smaller, quieter sci fi films, and like specifically, I think sci fi romances, And you know, this is not a movie where the science fiction is sort of like incidental to the plot. It's like the movie wouldn't be happening if it if it weren't for that.
But I do appreciate that it's sort of like still kind of a gentle sci fi in a way. It's all very internal. Also, Jim Carrey is so hot in this movie. And I mean your type in this movie, I know. I mean, I have long known that I have a thing for Jim Carrey.
I didn't know this.
I haven't know about fuck Baby Baby. Waita wait, by what movie?
Is he the hottest? Is this the hottest he's ever been? A? No?
I mean I am. I am partial to young Jim Carrey. He was in this movie Once Bitten, this nineteen eighty five movie that's about an older female vampire. It's gonna be about a vampire who wants to suck the blood out of young Jim Carrey. And it's so hot and he's so hot in it. I want to see that.
But also, is it a Christmas movie if it's called Once Bitten? No, it's a it's a vampire movie, I know.
But like Once Bitten and Twice.
Shy, I mean I think the movie predates that song because it's eighty five.
Oh yeah, oh so that might.
Oh, once Bitten twice Shy is probably like an expression that I've never.
It is, and it's famously an expression that is used by that song.
Wait, oh wait, what does what does the expression mean?
I don't know?
Okay, wait, no, let's find out right now once bitten twice, shy and unpleasant experience inducing caution, that's pretty generic.
So yes, I would suck Jim Carrey in this movie kind of at all times. I'm interested to know.
Oh, you would even suck ace Ventura. Oh yeah, I mean he is actually he is actually really like his he is kind of a like a jungle Austin Powers in that movie.
Jungle Austin Powers. Can you explain that?
Yeah, because like he, I mean a Sventra is like horny and thrusty and like has all these jokes about being this kind of like Johnny Bravo esque, like Macho man.
And yeah, I think.
Where's the jungle part of it? Though?
Ace Ventura takes place in the jungle like it's all right, No it doesn't yet, Yes it does.
It like takes place like in Africa. A lot of it takes place in Africa. And this is.
The second one does where he comes out of the rhinoceroses butt yeaheah.
And maybe also maybe I don't remember the first one, but I think maybe I'm just.
Oh, the first one is the first one is extremely transphobic.
Oh I thought they were both transphobic.
Probably probably, but the first one is the one that specifically has a trans character who is the villain and her clocking is played for laughs at the end of the film.
I'm my jaws dropped.
Well, I'm glad I misremembering this because I used to, like my might of course, like my dad loved these movies, which is like insane because my parents wouldn't let me watch anything at all, and yet these movies were offensive sexual, like you know, all these things like what the heck? But yeah, no, he's he is Austin Powers meets Doctor Doolittle in a Hawaiian shirt.
I mean he's you know, a comedian doing a character in a movie, you know.
Right, or that as something.
Okay, So on the note of like this being like a bit of a slow movie, it's I think it's worth noting that Michel Gondry primarily directs music videos. I think definitely before this film, and I think mostly after as well. And you can definitely tell because I think the movies beautiful, like visually, like I think it's stunning.
You can tell why.
It's like Tumblr viral, how like every frame of it can be a gorgeous gift that you would reblog for clout and but I've never seen his other his like other film that everyone talks about, which is called The Science of Sleep, which is about like a young guy who has like vivid dreams that are interfering with his waking life. And it's about like dreams and imagination, me love and.
So like weirds recently.
Yeah, but it's it's very his stuff is is very weird, and I think that that was like part of the appeal of this is like, even though now it feels like it's a it's a part of this kind of cliched or over played, like Indi Slee's Machine. Like at the time, you know, if you were like, oh, my favorite movie is like Eternal Cension of the Spotless Mind, you kind of felt cool because you thought you were participating in cinema because this is a weird post rising movie.
You're like, it feels counter cultural, but in fact it was just the cultural.
It was the culture exactly exactly.
If this service that exists in this movie existed, iro, would you use it?
I mean, short answer, no, But I actually have a really funny story about that. Sometime last year, I don't remember why, but I was kind of like thinking about Eternal Sunshine because it did used to be my favorite movie. I was one of the Tumblr kids that said Eternal Sunshine is my favorite movie or in my trucks or in my top five favorite movies because I love you know, top vibes, and I the other day the other year last year, I was thinking about it. I was like, oh, yeah, that movie.
Oh yeah.
And I haven't actually revisited the movie in adulthood. I kind of wish I was able to watch it before the record, but if I do, well kind of hang back to you. But I was like googling, like does the memory erasing technology of Eternal Sunshine like exist? Like that seems like something that in a dystopian age of science in the twenty twenties, like that people would have someone would have developed by now, like some sort of
mad scientist. And I, you know, read this like article about how you know, no people are developing a kind of technology like that. But right now, the closest thing people get is like taking certain medications to help them stave off like memories or intrusive thoughts related to their trauma or traumatic experiences in the past. And I look at the drug at the at the drug that they were referring to you, and.
I was on it.
What do you mean?
I was on propinolaw, which is this the drug that they were referring to. And I was like, oh my god, here I am like googling if I can erase my brain and I actually already figured out a way to kind of do.
That a little bit.
I love that it was lovely.
What about you? Would you? Would you press no?
I will know I want to. I want to turn this back on you because I don't believe you're I don't believe you're no answer. So I'm going to force you. If you if I held a gun to your head and said you have to erase, okay, something like okay, an ex, lover, a job, an experience, what would you use this technology on?
Okay, you should prepare your answer as well. I think I'll definitely say if I could erase. This is tough because, as you know, the thematic consequence of the film teaches us the hurtful things in our past actually make us who we are, and so to erase such a large chunk of your past is to kind of you'll still
feel this like vacuous hole in your life. And and and therefore I mean yeah, I mean kind of yeah, but I I yeah, no, You'll the even if you were to erase your life right like looking back on if you if it didn't exist in your brain anymore, the the empty presence of that memory would still be
something that you're reckoning with. And so I think that's I say that because like the thing that I would probably erase is like my childhood, like I have and I've been doing unfortunately a lot of writing on this upcoming book project, and so that's like part of it.
But I just have so many poignant.
Memories from grade to around like my sophomore junior year of high school that really, I guess damaged my relationship to my gender, damaged my relationship to my queerness, and
kept me away from myself for literally twenty years. And I always think about, like, if I didn't have this formative memory around, you know, something trans that happened to me in first grade, if I didn't have this like really hurtful thing that happened to me around general conformity in my freshman year of college, like would I have started would I have like found who I am earlier?
You know, as opposed to where I am now in my murm redacted age shut up, but bleep that phoebe Okay, So what about you?
What would you erase?
Well, I mean, as as we know already, as listeners of this podcast know, I famously already remember, you've already horrible memory.
You've already done many street drugs in your early twenties to have effectively erased much of it.
Here we are two empty headed girls.
Yes, I think I have a specific ex who I think I would use this on, because every six to twelve months he will reappear in my life, either through like contact or just me seeing him online somewhere, and I will just get sucked back in. I'll go and read all of our dms to each other, like I'll look through my phone at photos of us like that I have not deleted and never will. And you know, he still has this power over me even when it's not him that's like actively seeking me out, although usually
that is what it is. And if I could just erase him from my memory, because I do think that is the only thing that would take this power that he has over me away, as if I did not remember being in love with him, obsessed with him. Yeah, I would absolutely do that because I don't think he brought anything good into my life that I would miss in erasing him from me. Yeah.
Well, honestly, now that you're saying that, like I would erase my first boyfriend, like absolutely, and you know the opposite of you, I actually never hear of this man ever, Like he's not on social he does. I don't keep up with him, like, I don't have any mutuals with him, and I don't have images of him on my phone like I because we were in high school, Like this year and a half long relationship is just so far
away from me now. And yet the residue of that relationship and the things that I learned in that relationship that like were really hard to learn because he was kind of, you know, for lack of a better way of putting it, emotionally abusive. I am now paying for
that relationship in every future relationship. So I feel like every relationship I've almost every relationship I've had in my adulthood has these like TIFFs or fights or pain points that are a consequence of this really really negative experience that I had.
With my first kind of partner.
MM hmm, wow. I know. And the thing is, the thing is that I still feel like kind of a liar, and saying that I would erase him this hypothetical sense is an exercise it because because the reality is, I have the option to erase all of the parts of him that still exist in my life. I could block him and delete all these photos and delete his number
and all this stuff, but I choose not to. And you know, this movie, because of the time when it came out, it does kind of pre date the ways in which relationships, friendships, experiences that were no longer part of or able to live on in our lives. Like we didn't have the same kind of you know, digital paper trail that exists now. And I mean that's what some of the best sci fi does, is like it.
You know, it's speculative fiction and in a way like what Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett do and like deleting each other from their brains, Like we can do a version of that with our phones, and we choose not to.
Yeah, I think that blocking people is I don't The main reason I don't like doing it is if that person finds out that they're blocked, then they know that I'm thinking about them, and so I prefer muting, which I do for lots and lots and lots of people, not just exes, but people that I don't want to see online anymore. People that you know bring up memories that I'm just like, I don't want to care. I don't care about you, and more, I don't want to
hear your take on anything. I love to mute, and I will say uh to argue against the theory, the thematic question of eternal sunshine, like when I have muted someone for so long, like if I've had someone on mute for years and then all of a sudden their like name pops up somewhere and I'm like, oh, I forgot that person existed, Like that is so powerful to me, like.
I forgot I have a got it.
Oh my god.
Sorry side note, side note. The only song that I no, no, no, that's not true, not the only song. I love that song and Cruel Summer I know everyone song is ass I love it, love love love it. But maybe I love that song because the extremely hampested lyrics of it speak just to me personally, like I forgetting that someone else existed is like my favorite favorite thing. I think it's like it has this it has this power that
I really revel in. And I don't know if you know this about me, Rose, but revenge is one of the primary motivational forces in my lifetime, Like from high school. I do know that, Yes, from high school to where I am at now. I have a lot of my success to think from.
The bullies and abusers.
Of my past who told me that I couldn't do the things that I want to do, and then I went out and did them and proved them wrong and was like more successful than they ever were.
Sorry, and I so ugly.
It's not ugly, it's honest. But you you still want to be visible to the people that you are no longer engaging with.
Yes, that you want an eternal sunshine scenario. This is a little different.
I do think, like I get where you're coming from. On the like the idea that blocking someone telegraphs something to them, potentially about some kind of power they still have over you. I don't necessarily see it that way. I see it as like creating the only boundary you can create in this modern world and cutting off any access they have to you. And in fact it's like I think it's like a bit more of a of
a fuck you than that. And I certainly don't. I certainly don't see like blocking someone as like giving them giving them power. No, yeah, because because like I also do sort of like I feel the same way about people who I'm like no longer in contact with, but
like haven't blocked or anything. And and I do like the idea of sometimes I'll go and like look at my my Instagram or Twitter or something, and I'll try to look at it through the eyes of someone else and like try to understand like what that's presenting to them, Like who is the version of me that they're seeing like that? And that's just like a sick consequence of social media. I don't I don't block people a lot. I wish I did more. And it's more it's more
because of me. It's more because I still want the ability to access the information. I'm still a little bit of a not not really a creeper, but you know, you're a human. I'm a human.
I will say I wasn't like necessarily prescribing that muting versus blocking.
I know, I'm just not just digging into the conversation.
But like not even to you, like to the virgins, Like it's like it's like what works for you, And like I would not prescribe revenge as a motivational force in your life, you know, Like that is like not something I'm proud of. It just so happens to be a fact of me.
And if it works, it works.
If it works.
Look, it has been working at every turn I have. I have so many moments in my life that are just this crystal clear Taylor Swift backed moment where I'm like, oh, not only did I forget that you existed, but like I am so happy without you, oh honestly, also very like Billie Eilish coded with her Happier Than Ever banger, which is maybe top three Billie Eilish songs for me.
So rose.
I have not seen Garden State since it was shown to me as a teen, and I don't even remember yes, and I don't even remember the I don't even remember the plot of the movie.
It's it's one of my favorite movies. And I know that I know that there's something about that that makes me like a kind of basic in the way that we've been talking about. But I like fully don't care because I do love it, and it just I watched
it at a very formative time in my life. And I mean the same way that you feel about Eternal Sunshine, That's how I feel about Garden State, which is about this struggling actor played by Zach Braff who goes home when his mother dies and just has this transformative couple of days as he meets this woman played by Natalie Portman andrina reconnects with his hometown friends and like kind of pass it out with his dad. And he's also coming off of the like mood stabilizing medications he's been
on his whole life. And I don't know, there was something about that that I really responded to. I think like the Judaism was part of it because the main character is Jewish. I really liked that, And I don't know, I just saw like a lot of my own, like family dynamics in that. And I don't know, it's weird because it's not like the main character is not someone who I necessarily identify with, you know, he's this like straight guy.
And whatever happened to Zach Braf, I like never watched Scrubs.
Well, he dated Florence Pew and then they did.
That is I had no idea about that.
Yeah, I really want to do a Sofia Coppola episode, because you know, I love Sophia and Sofia Coppola ran Tumblr like.
The Navy, and I famously don't really enjoy Sofia Copla films outside of Marie Antoinette. But the reason I tend to not enjoy Sophia Copla films is the reason is part of the reason maybe you didn't enjoy Eternal Sunshine is this kind of slow, this slowness, this like this a lot of like dead air, these like muted textures and like kind of monotonal dialogue, like a lot of style over substance exactly which I look. I love style
over substance, like I still stand Baz Luhrman. Okay, but I know, and that was I think those A lot of Sophia Coppolo's movies are very slow to me. I've never enjoyed Lost in Translation the Virgins are going to come from. I don't really like Lost in Translation either. Such a relief to hear you say that. I feel crazy whenever people talk about it, like it is like, you know, the fucking.
Greatest movie I've not read it.
It's not one of my favorites, but Virgin Suicides is one of my favorite movies and one of my favorite books. Marie Antoinette is tied for first place. My favorite movie, The Beguiled is really amazing.
Some is directed by Soyvia Gobbla. Yeah I didn't know that.
Okay, I do love The Biguild, But that's kind of crazy considering that The Biguild is literally Virgin Suicides, but with the Hatchet and with Colin Farrell with with Hatchet and Colin Farrell literally the same almost the same plot.
But in the what is it right?
No, no, no, no, I'm pretty I'm pretty right about this. I'm I actually I feel like I am saying this accurately. They are pretty much the exact same movie.
No, because in the Virgin Suicides, like they're like malaise is like turned in words, and and in The Beguile that's turned onto an external force, which is Colin Farrell to each their own.
Also, the Beguild is like told from.
The women's point of view, and the Virgin Suicides like famously about a bunch of boys who are like spectators looking in on the women, right, which is why.
But that's like kind of it's infuriating that that is the lens that Sophia took with the book, because.
Isn't that's the lens of the book.
Then I will just say I hate the corrective voice of this cultural entity because like, why I don't want to hear from the boy's perspective. I guess, like, I guess, actually I'm saying this stupid.
It's kind of the whole point. Yes, it is because these girls are these girls are unknowable.
Yes, and also you have to hear it from an outside perspective in order for the allure of their of their story to make sense. But I just maybe that that's just that's just me being like I don't want to hear men talking.
Slide into our DMS at Like a Virgin four twenty sixty nine and let us know what you would erase from your memory if Eternal Sunshine technology existed. Next week we will be back with Gabe Bergado to talk about all things Disney Channel, d coms, et cetera.
Such a good episode.
Yes, Also make sure you follow us at Like a Virgin four twenty sixty nine on Instagram. Buy our merch at Like a Virgin four twenty sixty nine dot com and follow us online. You can follow me anywhere you want at Rose Daumu.
And you can find me at France.
MISCHEO Like a Virgin is an iHeartRadio production. Our producer is Phoebe Unter, with support from Lindsay Hoffmann and Nikki Etor. Until next week Areva May