118: 364 1/2 Days (with Hannah Giorgis)

take a night email test. You want to read it. I would love to hello Nightcall. As I prefer to remain anonymous, I won't reveal my name or the venue where I work, but I can say that the measures taken to protect the staff are next to non existent, so distancing is not enforced, and one of my managers

were as an N ninety five mask against company policy No. Less, which facilitates his breathing, but as you can surmise, does nothing to prevent a potential asymptomatic spread of the novel coronavirus. While everyone is required to wear face masks and wash their hands, the only social distancing is between guests. As we were returning, one of the higher ups had tried to convince us, rather poorly that any leaked candid images, which was achieved through a certain vantage point where people

looked clustered. But we're standing far apart working here. I can honestly say the space situation is like sardines in a can. I don't begrudge working hard for a living, but I find myself disgusted with how little care is being provided for the staff. And and we should say, like this person, um. We won't say where they work specifically, but it is like it's a theme park, it's an attraction, which you know. Obviously a lot of them are back up and running. I think probably a lot of them

never closed in the first place. I believe they they all did close because they had you UM And this is the first time, just because I follow a bunch of theme park enthusiasts Instagram's um and there's like a real schism because there are some people that are like traveling to theme parks. UM and the workers have been posting about a lot, but they're also afraid of retaliation from the companies they work for, which is why we're not going to name any companies that anybody works for.

If you call in and tell us about your experience, we will keep you totally anonymous. But we would love to hear more from people that are going back to work under COVID and uh seeing the sort of chaotic situation, because it doesn't seem like anybody has a plan that is going to work, like the right and all the safeguards feel completely um, patchwork and not at all cohesive. I mean even in Japan they reopened a theme parks.

This is like a big thing that was going around Twitter today that I sent to you guys, and um, they were asking guests to refrain from screaming on rights because you know, screaming exerting your vocal cords creates more droplets, uh and spreads the disease war and I believe their their their advice to guess was please scream inside your heart, which is um, yeah, note taken the slogan of the year,

already doing it. But yeah, so it's just like stuff like that, like at a certain points, like well, why go on a ride that like screaming on a ride is more or less involuntary. It's like laughing at a funny joke. Um so why put yourself in a position where there's a high likelihood that you would be screaming like why do all this these gymnastics to be like, oh no, you can do it as long as you don't have the most reasonable reaction to the thing you're doing.

They're all doing insane backbends to try and you know, have a reason to be reopening to make money. It's all like Joe else said last week, it's all Jaws, it's all Drassic Park. Um. And they must think the profit margins are worth it, you know, they must think the bad press isn't gonna overwhelm the influx of cash. And as we saw a lot of these big companies

also got bailed out. So it's all pretty gross. Do you guys see twenty one pilots got PPP loans like like I guess as a band the stewary and money.

Um so I haven't gotten anything yet, but if twenty one pilots can do it, I don't think we've talked about it on the show yet, but just to have a mini sports uh sports call nightball segment the NBA reopening that they're trying to do um around Disney World seems like extremely fraught and like everything is already going wrong and they're still going forward with it because that's how badly they don't want to lose profits on sports capitalism. And it's it's just wild to see all these companies

and industries pouring all this money. I mean the bubble, the NBA bubble, you know, as jankie as it looks and as unwise as it looks from here, it can't be cheap. Like that's a very a lot of logistics in that. And you see these industries pouring so much

money into this stuff. And like meanwhile here in l A, our biggest COVID testing site was shut down, uh for a holiday and also possibly I was seeing some some reports that like it would just had to like figure out its funding, and that's not something that people are like Sean Penn apparently was behind the funding for our COVID testing site, Like that was not Yeah, like truly when you have when you are relying on the goodness

of Sean Penn's heart, the bars on the ground. Yeah, So it's just like and and and and you know, the COVID testing sites are kind of like dystopian in and of themselves. Like I don't know if you guys have gone there and not to the Dodger Stadium one, but like all this stuff that people set up as sort of these stop gaps is all a little bit dystopian. But that at least is like, you know, potentially for good and for prevention of the virus. Like I just

feel like it's like there's no real escapism. So anyone claiming they're going to create a space where you'll be like totally safe from the virus and it doesn't exist there selling you a fantasy like Las Vegas just reopened as well in Sanity City. I saw some pictures of Atlantic City. All the um the slot machines have individual barriers, plastic barriers around them like little sweatboxes. Yeah, it's all

just so sounds fun. Yeah, it's it's also patchwork. Like you said, it's like clearly nobody in charge has a plan, which is something we've been seeing for a lot of things. Well, I took um my son to the doctor yesterday and it was the first time he had been inside a building since March. That was not our He was super anxious about it. Uh, he wore a mask the entire time. It ended up I think being the right decision, even

though it was just to check up the kids. His age only get checked up once a year, so I felt like it was important. But we were driving on like these huge lines to get into a snow cone store and also a vintage store. Yeah, and I was just like, wow, I'm like keeping my kids to the doctor. We're sweating, we're so nervous about this. And meanwhile there's like just maybe thirty five people lined up on Melrose, not distanced at all, waiting to get a snow cone.

It's very strange. I mean, as long as they weren't going into a snow cone store, I guess I think I think they were, But I think with a vintage store, it's just that they have to wear a covering in their can't pill in there. But it just shows you, like when the priorities and I'm not faulting any small business owner at all, like I I think it's the problem is is much higher up the chain than what

an individual store owner is doing. Right. They should have paid They should have paid everyone to stay home from the beginning. They paid everyone to stay home, and they should still be doing that, we should still be under like the first lockdown, but they like open back up, and immediately everything got real bad. One thing that nobody knows for sure if it's going to open back up is schools school. Let's take a break, and when we come back, Emily will enchant and amaze us with details

of dark academia. Welcome back tonight call today. Emily is the professor and we are all her students, and her specialty is something called dark academia. Well, academia has gone dark, uh, you know, obviously in the last several months, but now it's going figuratively dark on TikTok and Instagram. I want to reiterate, and I think this might come up later when we're talking to Hannah. But like, I don't know

a single thing about what's going on with TikTok. I don't have a TikTok account, So this is not firsthand knowledge. This is not something I've observed. I read a New York Times trend piece about it. I'm an old person. Uh, but they're also if you want us to do a night called dark Academia TikTok, you know, let us know. Sure, I don't. I would not know how to go about that.

But there's this article by Christin Bateman called Academia Lives on TikTok and it is about the recent uh TikTok and Instagram and and I think it also kind of started on Tumbler aesthetic project what what whatever you want to call it, U called dark academia, which has taken on some you know, particularly interesting meaning right now as most of the teens and early twenty someomethings that are participating in this trend are not in actual school and

don't know when they will be back in actual school. Um. But the article, uh, the article kind of describes what, you know, what the vibe is, and it's very you know, it's it has images to which you can instantly kind of get the vibe from the images. But um, Kristen Babman writes, a typical post may involve teens showing off There are gyle sweaters to classical tunes, followed by a series of photos of leather bound books, handwritten notes, a page from Weathering Heights, and a shot of a class

and a shot of class Greek architecture. It's not unusual to see fans dressing up as their favorite book characters are posting vintage photos of the novelist Donna Tart, author of the Secret History Dark Academias Essential text Um. She also kind of pitches it as an alternative to cottage core, which I can't remember if we have talked about specifically on this podcast, but we didn't end up talking about

cottage core. The cottage core is big right now. Can you describe what cottage core is a little bit and why it's like possibly problematic? Um, cottage core. The reason cottage core is possibly problematic is it's like being into home studding kind of. It's like a little house on the prairie kind of you know, rustic pioneer ship. Um, but you're like wearing cute sweaters and stuff. And is it more pioneer or is it more I kind of

understood it. It It was almost like a like I was thinking, like, oh, is Miyazaki cottage core because Miyazaki is super into like you. It's a type of like a girl that's like into yeah, kind of like a European forest uhal fairytale, more apesthetic, maybe mixed in with some Japanese pop culture. I learned about it recently because I learned about I was just reading about the girls and going down a hole about

cottage core. But there was a thread recently where somebody was like, watch watch out for the next wave of like e girl fascists that are all really into cottage core. And somebody was like the sentences inscrutable, and I was like, I know what they're talking about, which is just any kind of like back to the Homeland movement, even a virtual one can definitely veer into like nationalism at a certain point. But couldn't it also just be people who like don't can't buy groceries in and now like I

should grow my own food. It could be totally benign. I guess they're like a reaction against what we think of as being the most like mainstream Instagram social media aesthetic. Like right, it's like an aesthetic that wouldn't have social media, but then you're using social media to film it. Um. I learned about it because I was reading about Belle Delphine, who is a gamer who sold her bath water and then recently reappeared on the internet with an only fans

and like YouTube video. I just like learned a lot about what's going on on the internet now. And she had it was like she's now like now she hasn't only fans and she does like sexy photo shoots, but she started as sort of just a cause player and her thing was totally cottage core. Um, not in a fascist way, just in like sort of a Miyazaki way like you were saying. It was like her she does a tour of her room and she has all these like dollhouses stacked up dollhouses and like some sort of

like leaves hung from the ceiling and stuff. Uh. I think, well, you know, we watched Shirley Last Planning. Yeah. To me, it just makes me think of like when you're a teenage girl and you're like, I'm going to make my room so cool and like beautiful and I'll want to hang out and all the time. And maybe you don't actually end up doing that, but you're like, what if I could just decorate my room like exactly drawing your plans for your dream room. It's a very big activity

of being like a tween. I feel like, um, yeah, well so so like okay, so if cottage core is that, which is like kind of it feels from from what I've seen from your description of it feels a little um, like goop adjacent again. I feel like it's all kind of like training for planning your wedding. Like it's like that kind of um right, it's like party planning for your house. Yeah, like like at a at some foliage. Uh, you know, run through some flowers in a mock Malick

type shot or whatever. Right, because it's still like a lot of things. It's about like accumulating things, like getting new things to be part of your aesthetic. Yeah. So so in this article about the dark academia, the author says, like, to be a part of dark academia, you don't have to have access to a country house, a field of flowers, a big kitchen for baking, or an expensive prairie dress. Most of the most of the clothing and dark academia fans where is vintage and can easily be found in

second hand stores or sites. Um. And this like worms to be very dark academia. It warms the cockles of my heart. I I just like the the vibe that these kids have and will link to the article is like very It's exactly where I was when I was that age, and all these kids are like so much more put together and hotter than I was then, but like it's still like I the the the aim and what what is romantic to them? Feel I'm very sympathetic

to uh. And I think that that kind of egalitarian aspect of it is is like super important because like I was into that at a public school. Like I think that most of these kids who are participating in this, like if they like they're not they're not the like kind of Ivy League, Like they're not a part of

the academy. They are taking the aesthetics of the academy and molding it to their own purposes, which I think is like a very good thing, because I think one thing we've learned over um at least the past few months, if not longer, is that the academy is more or less broken, uh, And so why not just take the look, especially if nobody's going to be going to school anyway, like public, like the average American public school public high school is like the least romantic place in the world

if you're a teenager. And so if you're going to not be going to that specific physical place, like why not build this school of the mind that you live in. It's like vaguely like goth and and and and nerdy, Like I don't know, I'm I'm supert late. I feel like that aesthetic is just so prevalent in fiction. Um Again, I'm a little concerned that maybe the thing cottage core and dark academia have in common is sort of like a fetishization of like England, like British, you know, school

uniform aesthetics. And then I was like many of the things you are describing also described Caroline Callaway, who is very into the academia aesthetic um and has also done cosplaying as a bunch of like literary characters recently. It's kind of like it's like movie Twitter for books or something.

It's like, yeah, it's the it's the fetish as they sh of the objects and signifiers of like being a smart person, which is like I think when you're a teen, fine, like do not hang onto that as you go into adulthood. Like I think that that can be very stunting in a way, but I'm like fine, like whatever, Like it's it sucks to be a teenager right now, and it sucks to like do school right now as a young person,

whether that's college or high school. And you know, I think the other thing is that like this is all coming at a time when like Harvard, for example, I'm sure other you know, some of the other most expensive schools in the country are you know, all moving to online for next year and still charging their same tuition. And Harvard is still charging fifty dollars a year for online school. So if you were going to Harvard for like the vibes, like, you don't get those vibes anymore.

You might as well just do the vibes part for free and go to like Phoenix University or whatever for like it doesn't like don't go to college and just editing or whatever or just or like, you know, if you need to get a specific degree to get a certain kind of job, like an associates degree or whatever, do that. But like it can be you know, you can some of the stuff can be democratized. You can find that you can find the excitement and like romance of learning in in your own way, and it doesn't

need to be this like classest thing. I also think as a test will say you have to not live in New England in order to romanticize New England. It's true, But I also I think I have to say though that I think it's wonderful to you know, I think what Emily saying is wonderful, and I definitely think that it's great to try to like see some of the

plus sides in this. But every time I think about UM kids who were hoping to go to any college in the fall not being able to, and honestly, when I think about what kids in general are going through right now, it makes me so depressed. I mean, it's hard to even talk about like embodying the aesthetic of UM, the school that you hope to go to. Even I think it's absolutely insane that Harvard is charging fifty dollars

with the size of their endowment for online classes. But I also just think of, like, you know, a kid who's who just was so excited to move away from home and go to school, and I, I, my heart is, like I've rarely used like this earnestly the words like my heart breaks for someone, but just all of the when you think about like all of the kids who really like needed to to get out on their own

and who are living in bad situations. Sorry to take it down a dark path, but you know, I I just it's so so heavy, and I guess, like if the kind of like cause playing you know of like you're still going to college and you can kind of like play pretend makes them happy, that's great. But I'm also just like god, I wish that people could get it to gather, to figure out a safe way to like allow kids to like be able to to continue

on going to school. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just like they're trying to find the bright side and things and and that's wonderful. I mean that that's like with many things that are going on right now. It's like you there's like this glimmer of goodness and like happiness, but then you just kind of zoom out and you're like, man, it's so depressing, Like it's it's just really hard to

think about being in that position. I mean, I think also a lot of the people who are doing this who you know, and I don't know how much of an overlap there is with somebody who was going to go to a respected American institution or you know, your Oxbridge or whatever um and people who participate in dark academia. I don't actually know, like I can't really really get a handle on what that overlap is. But like a lot of the people who are doing it are not

living in the US. Like one of the main, uh, main originators of the whole vibe is a Brazilian girl. UM, and I think that at a certain point, like it's it's like I think that it has nothing, has nothing to do with like what what those places actually are, Like, I think it is it. It exists on its own. After a while, it's like it becomes its own sort of um like point of inspiration that's almost like divorced

from the institution. And I think and I think like and and and Harvard is going to let some people on campus this year, not everybody. I think that they're going to be like thirty percent of UM their enrollment is going to be allowed to live on campus, but

everybody is going to be UM online and uh. In the meantime, a ton of people who have student visas international students, and those a lot of those students are the people who really were counting on having an on campus experience at a school, more so than like somebody in the U S who's like you know, whose parents

are paying their whole way to go to Harvard or whatever. Like, those those people are like in a position to do a romanticize Harvard the most and be be most the most affected by school not being in session, and so like and and and ice is going to be now like not honoring these student pisas so like kids who are planning on living here, whether it was on campus or like in in a near campus apartment, like they might not be you know, safe in the country anymore,

and that should have super fucked up. Um and so I I do. There's a part of me that just like it feels very kind. It is it's it's it's a bummer, it sucks and it's sad, but it's also like I like that this like the Internet finds a way somehow to like persist. Yeah, that's what I mean though, I mean it's like it just makes you think that people you're like, that's very plucky during a time when it's hard to be. And I think like, in a way, I guess the thing that's the saddest to me no

matter what situation. But I thought you brought up great points, Emily, is you know, I think the whole like aesthetic is really just so tied to being a young adult and being independent and like being able to have a style that matches a place that you chose ideally to go

to school or whatever. Like, you know, there's many different college aesthetics and I like pretty much all of them because I just remember, like I don't know, just just the feeling, the like excitement of being of reinventing yourself. I guess as like a young adult was very powerful and it it you know, it's really hard to think about the different layers of like how this kind of affects people's psyches. But those people get to put their

new identities online. Yeah, And I think one thing I have learned from the little that I've been exposed to TikTok is and especially when you're talking about these aesthetics, is that they are so mutable and that people are changing their identities all the time in very very conscious ways that they announce and they show how they are changing their looks. There are a lot of the dark academic videos are this. They are like, I'm I'm being dark academia. Now here's my here's my wardrobe. Um, here

are all the like slubby sweaters I got from Goodwill. Um, it's very cute like and like, and I think that there I I think that there is a lot of opportunity, especially with the Internet, for people to try on those new identities, whether they're living at home or whether they're going out into the world on their own. Like I think, I think that kids are result teens, especially with social

media accounts, are very resilient right now. Fores um, I don't know, but yeah, I would uh, I would recommend checking out the article at least because it's just sort of a trip. It's just like we're now at a place where this is this is what school is now. I'm just imagining like if we had had TikTok and stuff. I guess we had YouTube, but like during the recession and we're all just making videos that were like I thought I'd be a grown up now oops, here comes

a recession. I mean that was me in high school anyway. Like I mean, like I think that this look was sort of more my core. But like then I would be like, Okay, it's goth day to day, Like I'm going to get my goth stuff out and like I would have, you know, these specific look days and be like I'm doing this this week or whatever. In a

very kind of tiki taki homespun way. Tiki talkie and I And that's like some of the stuff I'm most nostalgic about about being young is like even if you don't have money or resources, like it feels like the idea of the self that you're building is so endlessly mutable. It's like very I don't know, it feels it feels fun. It feels like anything is possible. But yeah, yeah, it's also just like it's funnier to cause play the secret

history than like Harry Potter. And I'm sure that all these kids who like also according to this article, are like super super progressive, like very like gender queer, like like you know, are very very woke, uh are I'm sure that they're all abandoning their their child love of Harry Potter right now, and they're all like kind of all over like be careful with referencing classicism and stuff,

which is like hilarious. It's like they're already doing it, like right, I read it a great There's like a quote from Ursula Kyla Gwen about how Harry Potter was kind of a rip off of the Earth Sea books that she wrote, but she was like, but they have no class consciousness, so they're like not good they're like, I guess she was. She was really funny. She was like, I guess they made someone a millionaire. Yeah, like not me. She also like apparently stole from some um like Neil

Gaiman book that look looked like really bad. Yeah yeah, like look up like Google and Neil game in Books of Magic at the covers look exactly like Harry Pottery Painter books are like not well written, picular. I would just like I would disagree with that. They're like they move along. Yeah, that's what a why book has to do. Yeah, but there's better, there's better magical young fantasy. Y A. You know what I really liked this was my dark Academia was the worst witch. You love the worst witch,

get into the worst. I definitely seen the worst, which wasn't that. Um what was that actress was from? Yeah, okay, there we go. Yeah for all that's phenomenal. There was also it was like a series of books, and there was also a I believe it was a British show that they then dubbed in with either American or Canadian voices, So it had a super weird feel to it that I didn't pinpoint until later. Yeah. Yeah, that was like

a made for TV movie or something. Yeah. Yeah, Witch Academies always always, which you watched a good animey about a witch academy too, right, me? Yeah, it was magical Modocca, not a it's not it's not now. But there's like Little Witch Academia, which is very possitive. Watched it. But yeah, we're all we're all graduating summa kum laude from Little Witch Academia. Um. Well, we're gonna take a break and when we come back, we're gonna bring Hannah Georgis on

to talk three sixty five days. Welcome back to Nightcall. We are now joined by Hannah Georgis. She's a staff writer at the Atlantic and she's here to take a very special night call with us. Hey, guys, a long time, long time. I just watched three D sixty five days. Uh, the erotic film that's kind of sweeping TikTok and is currently number ten on trending movies on Netflix. Um, and I'm very curious to hear your guys thought as kind of the resident erotic thriller, you know, experts. All right,

thank you, by wow. I feel very honored right now. Um. I have to say though, as maybe uh, not exactly a erotic thriller expert, not in the way that this collar says that we are. I did not know about three D sixty five days until I read Hannah's Peace in The Atlantic about it, um, which had you know, a headline I'm sure just like was caddip to me like why is everybody watching this mysteriously awful erotic thriller on Netflix? And I was like, click right now, why

why was everybody watching this mysteriously terrible erotic thriller on Netflix? Well? Um, you know, I think it's a bunch of things. It's like Netflix and their algorithm being mysterious, as they always are. Um, but also it's just so weird and outlandish and I think removed from what kind of sex, if any, is happening right now in the world, and so there's something like ha ha, like this is just outrageous. Look at these people they're having sex outdoors, and like there's something

like fabulous and wild about it. Um. But I think appealed to people right now in this moment where human beings are not really touching each other. Yeah, there's something like that's the opposite about COVID and lockdown, about like the drone shots of like right, the opposite of where we are right right, Like that's always a ridiculous thing for most people, and now it's just like, what an outrageous concepts They're outdoors having sex. It's like, no, this

would always be weird. But yeah, any human contact is now science fiction. That's true. Yeah, I do think like in your piece you also touched on this thing that I want to like dig into more about this movie and about like anything that can even vaguely be called an erotic though or erotic drama that comes out now, which is it Like it's sort of inevitably about like luxury and stuff like like that's the big thing with fifty Shades of Gray, which is this Obviously there's a

kind of spiritual resemblance too. In a lot of ways it inspired it. So did the book was inspired by it directly because these are based on Polish books, correct Polish books. The woman who wrote the trip it's a trilogy, and the woman who wrote them was formerly a cosmetologist and then a therapist and a hypnotist. Uh And she said she was inspired by Gotta Have Her On Total

nightc material. She said she was inspired by fifty Shades of Gray and a personal holiday trip to Italy Sicily specifically, which obviously but yeah, I was like, I mean the fifty Shades is very, very baked in fifty shades was

was itself Twilight fan fiction exactly. It's just a lot of iterating yeah, yeah, And it's like, you know, it's funny because like I'm like a very I'm like a big lurker on like Archive of our own and like all fan fiction forums and like what pad and ship like that, and it's very funny because like if you look, if you search Twitter for people talking about three in sixty five Days, there's like a meme going around where it's like like, uh, like people watching through in the

sixty five Days for the first time, like Wow, it would be so cool to have a dangerous mafia boyfriend. And then it's like people who live on what Pad and it's a it's like a screen grab of James Franco from The Ballad of Buster Scrugs when they're like getting hanged and he's like first time. Because it's just like the template of this movie and like the way that the plot works is like just ground level fan fic um like erotic fanfic stuff. Um, yeah, there's something.

I mean, I think that that there's there's some appeal in that too, right, that people can just put can graph whatever their own personal things are onto this movie because there's not actually really coconesive storyline or real characters to latch onto. Like these aren't people so much as they are like stock characters to sort of im you

with your own whatever. Honestly, it makes so much sense that beloved genre tonight call softcore would come back during Lockdown because everyone's trapped at home at all times, and I feel like one thing the streaming wars have been missing is like the soft core element that made premium cable such a hit, and that maybe spawned a lot of these erotic thrillers because we've said a lot of it's like you can get away with anything if you

say it's European totally. Well, I was gonna say, like also on top of that, like next to the need for softcore during during Lockdown, there's like the need for a hunk, which I think you like get into the start whose name I was trying to look up again, who's become kind of yes, yes, he also sings a bunch of the tracks which are really in its own Okay, So the audience who may not have seen this movie, such as me, can you give me a brief rundown

of you know how many of the nightcall erotic, thriller, bingo things are getting checked off in this movie. I should check you know, what happens in this movie. So he's a millionaire and he kidnaps her. I want to hear Hanna try and do it and we can jump in because I feel like your piece made us watch this movie. And so to all every time you say that, I'm like, what have I done? We're grateful, We're grateful.

Thank you. So this man, me Massimo, who's played by Michael Moroney, this liken car throb figure who becomes to something. Um sees his father, who's a like the Sicilian mob boss, be murdered right in front of him, like he gets

flattered with his dad's blood. It's like right there. And as this is happening, he looks off into the distance and they're like on this like lighthouse structure near the sea, Like they're just kind of in the middle of the ocean, on the structure, and he looks out and as his dad gets shot, and he sees this woman in the distance and he decides like that she's like some apparition and he has to find her, and he becomes obsessed with her, and like ages later, you find out like, okay,

it's just you know, Laura, the woman who's the Laura taking turns out that she this balds woman. Fast forward, and he kidnaps her and tells her that she basically has three hundred and sixty five days to either fall in love with him or he'll like release her, and she, you know, shockingly like does soon on soon into the arrangement, and then they have just a lot of really outrageous and impractical sex. But that's mostly there's like some other

stuff that happens. Please describe the sex more on this spit aspect, which I feel is really the zeit geist here. I still kind of they let me do that in one scene. There is a lot of spit. Really. Yeah, So the first the way that the first actual sex scene when she decides that like this is going to happen comes to be is that she falls off of the side of the yacht. It kind of looks like she jumped, but she falls they're having to fight. They're

having to fight, it's like almost violent. Yeah, But then he jumps in to save her and she's overwhelmed with gratitude and decides that you know, she loves him. Now they're going to have sex with the wrong So thus begins this like incredibly long sequence where they're having panoramic shots like the yacht, the wa the iseland, like anything that you and like you can see them as like tiny little blips on the yacht having sex, but they're

just there. It's from so many different angles, and the kind of closer up ones one of them he's like about to go down on her and fits and that like there's a whole sort of close shot of that. People really responded to it is there is there full frontal in this movie. Not for no, not not quite. It's like, you know, it's soft. But also I should say that I found this movie so unsexy and it's really for a few reasons, right, But okay, Hanna, was it also for you because of the soundtrack? Then the

soundtrack is insane. As soon as you start to be like, hum, maybe then they play either um, Mikaela Marons like his tracks, which I think have some really goofy names like hard for Me, It's so bad. But then there's also these songs by a band called Everybody Loves an Outlaw and they're from Texas, and that's the more kind of like weird, easy listening, ish soft rock kind of thing. They're like, I think there was some streaming platform that had the

Hills for a while and UM replaced. They had to replace all the songs because they couldn't have the right. They didn't have the right, So it was just like weirdly anonymous pop that sounded, you know, kind of just off a little bit because it was made in a lab. That's kind of what sounds like. Yeah, it sounds like it's supposed to. Soundtracking would be about a girl who like goes to college somewhere in like the Pacific Northwest. It just like like, this just doesn't fit what I'm

being asked to consume. Yes, it is so far from a sexy vibe. It's like a like studying hard vibe. Yeah, I feel like we all, we all did not have like a particularly sexy reaction to nine and a half Weeks, which is another classic You didn't you mean you're saying you didn't have a sexy reaction in half weeks. I mean it felt sort of clinical. No, no, no, I had an opposite reaction on your face. Sorry, wait, Hanna, have you seen nine and a half weeks? I haven't.

It's like a really good anaduct to this. I think I think it's kind of great. There's a long tradition of movies that get really bad reviews and then are really popular with people because they're so horny, and it sounds like, yeah, sometimes that's what you want. I uh So I went into watching this, you know, I was, you know, I'll prep to to watch a certain thing after reading your article. And then there, um, there was

this sort of controversy that surrounded it. Um the singer Duffy uh pendant kind of open letter basically taking Netflix Netflix to task for what she said was romanticizing and glorifying um, what's essentially a kidnapping in a trafficking story. Uh And and she herself had been a victim of this kind of crime, I guess a couple of years ago, so she was just so. I I kind of went into it being like, oh, no, is this like more radioactive? Then?

I thought, I like, like it was more radioactive thing than I thought I was getting myself into UM, and I think, like, and so it made me more tuned to the kind of um, the kind of violence and like fucked up psychology that was going on in this like in a way that I was for nine and a half weeks UM just because I think that that's like just a good movie about that that's like depicts that stuff. But this is a bad movie that depicts

that stuff. But I was still very like attuned to it and thinking about, like, I think especially we watched we watched UM Starship Troopers last week, which is a great movie and perennially relevant especially now, and I was thinking about, like how much that movie is about like violence and force and taking things by force and like

a culture built around force. And there's so many times in this movie where, like, especially in the first half, where she's like where he's like kind of getting in her, like getting in her personal space, like kind of threatening her sexually, and she always says like, or what you're

gonna kill me? And I always thought that was so interesting because there's this thing where it's just like this guy is so aggro, but all he can threaten is violence and in a way that's like constantly questioned by the female character in a way doesn't feel like he might actually kill her, That's my question. I mean, he's like a murder. He kills other people, like that's the whole mafia boyfriend trope. If he's sexy and he like

keeps his secrets. Yeah, yeah, I definitely felt like he is capable of violence for sure, But I do think that, you know, at least for me, I never felt like he was actually going to kill her, right, like, because the whole, the whole thing of it is like here's this like a guy who kills people and he does all this bad stuff, but like, really he has this intense for you. It's like that's so messed up on

like a million different levels. And also like he does kind of hold to having a thing, however messed up it is. I feel like everyone litigated this a lot. When Fifty Shades of Gray came out, there was a lot of like, well, if it's fantasy, like can it show something that's really fucked up, you know, and we acknowledge that it's fucked up? Or does just the act of showing it always like fetishize it. I still don't know what I think. I think it's case by case.

Um obviously, like I understand why Duffy doesn't want to watch it, you know. Um, I feel like something like this. I'm like, it's a this is a bad movie, but I'm kind of grateful for like there is something that a movie like this is uniquely positioned to be able

to expose about, like attitudes about sex and violence. Um. Yeah, Pulverhoven said that about Start Ship Troopers, who is like, you can, yeah, you can show as much violence as you want, but you can't show a Tit can't show a titty in American movies or they'll give you like an m C seventeen, which is totally true. So I think also just having a movie that has a lot of semi full nudity uh and sex in it is is always how they've marketed a certain type of European

art movie to Americans. And yeah, I think a lot of people it's like it's not so much the Europeans. You know, if a movie is like high salutint enough obviously as you can put lots of sex in it and it will get Oscars. But like this seems like it's kind of trashy and tremendously trash, and that the dissonance is all between like how sexy it's supposed to

be and how like skin Crawley it actually is. Well, it also makes no sense, and I think Hanna brought that up like really well in your piece when you kind of said that it it reflects our surreal reality and and how things feel very off, and this movie, everything about it feels very off. We were talking earlier about how it has a lot of like The Bachelor

kind of baked into it as well. I was like ninety Day Fiance, which I've been watching a ton of of the like you know this kind of weird the like the ticking clock of on the romance, these kind of contrived, weird meetings with like um, he meets her parents at a wedding and like we're very strange. Strange. Well, that's what's so weird about Fifty Shades of Gray too. And I think this entire genre is, like it's not

really about sex. It's about this like deep soul connecting romance that like starts with sex but then becomes like an all an, all consuming obsession. It's like Wuthering Heights style. You know it's fucked up, but everyone involved just into how fucked up it is, which is what makes it okay. It's like the movie. I feel like most of these movies make it clear that it's like a little consensual and in fifty Shades of Gray. They like sort of interrogated whether it is at the end of the first

one at least, and then walked it back. How did do you think this would be popular without COVID and without lockdown? Like obviously that the appeal of a cheesy, globe trotting sex movie is is one thing, But do you think that, like there's something that's still in the air, regardless of if we're all locked up at home in our own prisons, where uh yeah, where this would still like take off. I can see it being really big around the holidays, like you know what I mean, Yeah,

being trapped in someone else's house. Yeah, there's just some stuff going on where people look to entertainment that is sort of slightly outside of what they might normally consume and also against at least a real slightly bizarre and not necessarily made. They're just like obvious sidelines. Yeah, and I think that all humors have that ability to like have a curveball hit. It just makes sense that, you know, after rom comms would come erotic thrillers. Is this movie

erotic or a thriller? I don't think it's a thriller. Really, it's an erotic and erotic drama, which is the same genre as uh nine and a half weeks. So what movies do you guys think are legitimately sexy? Well, it's it's funny because I think that a lot of the stuff that sticks out in our memories when it comes to like sexy movies, like sexy mainstream movies are like stuff that left a big impression on us as young people. Right, no,

you could show that in a movie. But but yeah, there, once you become an adult, I feel like it's less about just the pure shock or titilation and and like okay, but what's actually sexy in a movie? Like how do you compose? Like you know, the work of intimacy coordinators and stuff like how do you make something hot? I'll give my answer to step Up Eat Mama Tambian. M hmm. Yeah, it sounds kind of sad though. That one always bums me out a little bit. Though we're not mutually exclusive

exactly that you can play that game. So that's a great movie, I mean honestly, because I think anything with Marsh Chestnut and it is like by default just gonna be sexy, especially that era. But I do think that they there was a particularly interesting thing that they did with like the gender dynamics and that like in retrospect, not always perfect, but like there was interesting kind of play between the two of them, and I enjoy it back and forth, um like that. Yeah, it's totally. That

is like a great screwball comedy. Yeah, like nineties screwball comedy. Love a Battle, Yeah, literally, just keep thinking of movies where people fight. It's just not even going to go there. It's also I mean, it's it's interesting when you think about in terms of directors who are good at it, Like I do think the car Own is really good at at at sex scenes. Um like two Momcomb and it's like, you know, one of the more memorable examples, but I think in general he's just like good at

intimacy in movies. And I think that's such an interesting thing too, because I think it's really important to have directors who can who are like smart and sensitive about that stuff. But it also like sometimes you end up with a name to your line who I think is really good and depicting that stuff. But when you learn about how the sausage sausage was made, it's sometimes a little bit like, oh, sounds like it wasn't a fun set to be on. Sounds like people are really uncomfortable.

So you know that's not always and that's not always apparent from from watching the thing itself. Like I can't imagine that the Three five Days director, whose name don't even have in front of me right now, but like, I can't imagine that they that this was a particularly nuanced or like progressive set, just because it's not a particularly nuance to progressive movie. But um, maybe it was.

I don't know, we don't know, we don't know. I tell you who directed this movie, by the way, it's Barbara and Thomas Mandy's yes, and and and I like that it was written the writer's name is Blanca Lipinska. I mean, I think that kind of lends it a little bit of I don't know, not insulation. Like Duffy's letter was really obviously it was important to read that perspective.

She had only recently talked about this publicly, about her experience of being kidnapped and abused and everything, so it was you know, I definitely respect that she took everyone to task for this, and it was something that I felt it was important to keep in mind, uh watching the movie. But I do think the fact that, like fifty Shades, it was written by a woman and it has like there's knowing that it kind of does inform

like how you can choose to view the movie. Well, this is interesting though, because my big takeaway from this movie is that it is a girl boss porn for women to write a movie about sex. It is not necessarily like chill. Joel Just our producer Joel just chimed in on chat to suggest Bound by the Witchowski Sisters. The witch Howskis are also really really good at that stuff. I was just like going on and on about cloud Cloud out lists recently, which like for all its faults,

I think is really good. It's just like intimacy. I just realized none of us have mentioned Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Everybody was what are horny for? I seen it and what I want to say. Also the Handmaiden, Oh yeah, m extremely good horny movie from recent times. Yeah, I think it's it's you know, people were really into showing saliva on screen when I went to a Vienne

and like twenty whenever. Um, and a lot of like women especially we're very into like I want to show like crazy rough sex and like just because I'm a woman doesn't mean that I don't want to see that. Um, And so I think that, Yeah, I think this movie is like it's intended probably it's just sort of like a fantasy. Uh, it doesn't seem like a realistic depiction

of maybe anything. Right. It's when you should see teens respond to it, especially on the TikTok Yeah, yeah, they're so Betty tik talks about this movie, um, and a lot of them are just about how Masson was like super hot or which like fine, but there's so many that are like you know, or tweets that are like it's always like you know, what are you doing? Never like want to recreate the gaps? And do you actually want to recreate you know? But it's just like it's

just good joke for me. And I am also curious about like what a teen audience thinks of essentially like right now or with with other stuff that's kind of out there in this moment, like how do you necessarily watch normal people and then watch through sixty five days?

Like where where does this fit kind of in that graph. Yeah, it's interesting that even though that you know, porn is accessible now and you can see like hardcore sex, you know, a lot of Like the thing about erotic thrillers was like these were movies you would see on premium cable late at night, and that was like, especially for girls, probably like your main access to anything pornographic unless you

wanted to go to the store and buy something. But it's interesting that like even with as much access as kids have now that they still Yeah, it's like people like the romantic sex scenes um or the sex scenes is just a part of a narrative, you know, and then like the slow burned thing and everything. Yeah, they like they like raphoria, you know, the zooms, and then

it's again like bring it back. But this is also a movie about wealth and like conspicuous wealth, and it's not just like somebody cannots you and takes you to their basic and it's like you're going to fall in love with me here and my like you know, dingy whatever, it's like fall in love with it. Honest, Yeah, you don't have to be here, but we're on and up. Isn't that cool? Yeah? Yeah, no, and it's it's it's I mean I end up thinking, I mean, I ended

up thinking this about fifty shades. I end up thinking, I think it's really hard to have like for what I guess the erotic photos that are getting green light right now, it's it's hard for them to not feel like they're inevitably about capitalism and like working within it and like negotiating with a captor, like negotiating with like a system that you actually can't get out of. But then it tricks you into thinking that you have made

a choice. Okay, we should definitely do show Girls sometime, Yeah, because I think it's about that. I think that's another movie that's like not at all sexy, but it's like it's not really about sex, it's about capital. And they're is this idea built into everything that like if you have enough money, you can buy anything you want, including people, as you know, sex objects. Uh that these movies are not critiquing. These movies are just like and that's great.

I don't want to be like a sugar baby. Well, I actually like it. Maybe it's just like the confluence of watching these things at the same time. But like, just because I've been watching I made a story you

right now. Um, I was just thinking about the like the weird kind of territory that these two work share oddly, especially when it comes to like, yeah, like what you think are your choices within a given set of parameters, and like what um like the idea of lost time, like she has in in in in three to sixty five days. She has some sort of heart conditions, so she's constantly swooning. And at first I'm like, oh, that's so goofy, like the swooning lady who keeps having to

get rescued by this gangster. But then I was like, there's this weird sort of non linear feeling to it where it's just like and then I passed out and I woke up and I was on a yacht like, which is very like also Ebsteini too in a weird way. Like, but this idea of just like losing like truly losing agency at times and not even realizing it is really creepy.

Like it's very um yeah, it's and I was just thinking about, like, you know, you could watch something that deals with that in a lot more like Nuance and with I May Destroy You. But those things are on

my mind, I guess going in UM. I thought. One of the reasons I'm hypothesizing wildly here that people, especially teens might have connected more with three sixty five days than if it were presented to them at a time when they weren't under quarantine is it's also kind of a fantasy about not having to make any decisions, like the decision anxiety that we all feel, particularly when it comes to travel or being in unfamiliar surroundings or being

around other people. I was like, because I was wondering at one point it was like, this kind of reminds me of the trip, like the trip to Italy, the trip degrees. I've been like rewatching some of the trips over quarantine because all I want to do is just see people in like unfamiliar places, places where I'm like, will I ever be able to leave doing the exact same thing but with below decks? Oh yeah, totally. UM The greatest show in the world UM on Bravo about

people who work on a yacht. It's so good because it's about the people who work on the yacht rather than like the like is they're constantly like dogging on the rich people and being like who would pay for this? Like there's a podcast on iHeart right, Yes, I think

Anna is on that. Maybe I wanted to say. Also, though it seems like just in that idea of being trapped in your house with your family, unless you live in like a high house, unless you're like a fully advanced team who uh lives by themselves in a high house, is that it's like fantasy is also about privacy in

your head away from other Well. One of the most fraught things though right now is the fact that when you make a decision to leave your house at all, even just for your own survival, like to get food or you know, to seek like emergency medical treatment, there is the feeling that that could be a horrible decision

that you're making. And I think, like, you know, at one point, um Laura says of Massimo that you know, one of the things that she really loves about him is that she feels like a little girl because she feels like protected and defended and basically she's like he makes he makes all of her decisions for her. They only fight when she like decides to make her own decision.

Obviously that's a problematic thing in general, but right now, when it's so scary to make decisions, I think like the fantasy aspect of it is partially like someone shows up and they just put you here and they tell you to do this, and they tell you to do that, and you get you either enjoy it or you don't, but you don't have any responsibility for that decision making. I would pay so much money to bet for just like a man, right, And this is obviously not that

very different. And also like if I could just assign somebody else's decision for a little lot, Yeah, it's the sub fantasy. I think the algorithm is part of that fantasy because I think people also want to be told what they should be watching. Yeah, a little bit. And yeah, I think that top ten works really well as just propaganda to make you be like, what is this? Shall I dive in? Other people like this? Right at lately? That is um like that you actually really genuinely love, right.

I've also been watching I May Destroy You, I watched for West Night, um, I started see you one of true Detective because a friend recommended it and it has been trying to get to get me to watch it for ages and it's amazing, and also like I need to find another show because I can't only be watching I may destrow you in True Detectives. So I'm I'm probably gonna start below Deck to kind of counter down. Oh yeah, because it can't. It's right now, it's pretty.

It's pretty literally like those two things. And then my partner not and I watched Dexter every night, which is like lovely and also again, yeah, this is like hardcore because my preferences are so far outside of that normally, I'm like, what rom com is there? Like is there a show? Can I watch something? And now I found myself watching three like very heavy and like lightly murder slash Crimes. Yeah, yeah, always one, like one of the first shows I remember I couldn't eat while I was

watching it. There was too gross, Like I'll season four and I'm like, how did I get here? I can't do I'm not good at like murders show like violence, it doesn't you know. But we watched Barry before that, and I was like, this is funny. I can maybe do another serial Pillent Show and Dexter's Bloodier. You're getting all of Emily's respect for what having like the slate I just need to read. This is not I don't think any of us are on our usual slates though

right now we're all branching out in ways. I truly. I just watched Below Deck and I'm at like different points in the timeline because I go to the earlier seasons. I just watched the pilot yesterday for the first time, and yeah, it's just they're always somewhere you want to be. It's always like, you know, they're in the south of France. Is that water there in can? Right? I can use another Love Island season, honestly, I would like for one

to materialize. You watched that, right, Molly, You're Love Island. Oh yeah, I find British reality television too. But then that also, like Love Islands, some funked up stuff happened with the host and uh, nothing is like just pure escape isn't anymore? And also Toast of London. I was going to say, the opposite one of everything you've been watching is Toast of London. You know what else is what what we do in the shadows? I find to

be like so silly and enjoyable. Yeah, just like silly stuff is good right now, I think, yeah, it's that weird stuff that weird. Yeah, like it's so it just makes me happy, which is like I'm trying to watch something. But I would argue that three sixty five days is that for me, especially the line that you like, I was very glad you highlighted and like, I'm not a bag of potatoes that you I cackled. I cackled during this review, So maybe it was like my friends about it.

Honestly might have been my I don't remember what time, you know, conversations are anymore. But whoever responded to it like that's really European to reference potatoes and an argument? Oh my god. So it sounds like what you guys are saying is that three and sixty five days fails as an erotic thriller but succeeds as a horror comedy. That's actually maybe right, Yeah, that's true. It's in the ballpark. Yeah, I'll give it. Sounds good. Well, thank you so much

for joining us this sweet onna. Um. Where can people find you online? Um? As we mentioned, you're on at the Atlantic as a staff writer. But yeah, yes, I'm also unfortunately still on Twitter very periodically. Often we can't help it. I know it's well everyone's while go off, but now is not one of those times. UM. So it's the open like I and any difference ending I will change it one of these days days not that day. Um, that's obviously. UM. Well, yeah, I think this is so fun.

I was so glad to have you on us. I'm so sorry for doing this to you. You cannot say how thankful weird. Yeah, you took us aboard your yacht, showed us your heart. Thank you getting wet probably for very long time. Well, thank you so much on it, and we will hope to have you back again soon. And thank you for listening to Nightcall. We'll be back next week. We can find us on social media at Nightcall pot on Twitter, Nightcalled Podcasts on Instagram and Facebook.

Subscribe to us on iTunes and leave us a rating and review please, we would appreciate it very much. You can also support us on Patreon at patreon dot com slash Nightcall, where you can get our newsletter, books, episodes, merch and all sorts of fun stuff. And we will see you all next week. By