Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging with Kate Cheka

On the Bechdelcast. The questions ask if movies have.

Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephyn bast start changing with the Bechdel Cast.

Hello, listeners, Just a reminder about our upcoming shows starting in a couple weeks. First, a show in Los Angeles on January nineteenth. This is a Bechdel Cast celebration. It's a variety show with special guests and lots of hilarious bits, just celebrating us doing the show for a whopping eight years.

Hi, Caitlyn, it's me your diary. Y.

Yeah, I love my cat angus and I love boys.

And that sounds probably like that's it pretty much. I would not want to hear about you having any sort of hobby or interests that would suck. Oh thank god. Okay, Well, I mean Kat is Angus is a hobby. Angus seems like a full time job.

He's a fully developed character as far as I'm concerned.

He's a piece of work. He's a real piece of work. He's the protagonist. Yeah, I mean the titular tituler. Yeah. I don't know what cat actor they had on this, but what a star? Whoa he was taking direction? I don't think that. I mean, I'm sure that there was like a fake cat in there at some point, but it seemed like he was really owning the space.

Yeah, every thing I saw on screen that resembled a cat seemed like a real cat.

It was that cat. And it's I like, I, you know, we've talked about animal acting on the show before, and like, what are the ethics of it? And then occasionally there's a born star and you're just like, I'm not going to tell that guy to get off stage. He clearly belongs there.

A star is born and it's not Lady Gaga. It is Angus.

The cat cat rip to him maybe is kind of an old movie.

Ooh, sad, but come to the cat. Sad but true, Yes, welcome My name is Caitlin Deronte.

My name is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where we talk about your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for discussion. But Caitlin, what the hell is that?

Oh?

We didn't. I think the whole beginning of it, for example, didn't pass because we were talking about the Kale cat.

Well, cats don't have gen or so I think talking about a cat is not talking about a man, a human man. I think that would say.

I do think that Angus has a very masculine energy.

Well, he is intense, but he's also so freaking chill. Did you see the scene where the little sister's putting spaghetti on his head.

And that was the real cat? I was like, yeah, how was this real cat like spaghetti trained? You're like, what the hell? And yeah, he does like et also very gender fluid with the dress. Yes, wears all sorts of outfits. Okay, okay, point taking.

And Georgia, the main character is always like stop dressing Angus and drag.

Well, Georgia has a lot of issues with gender that we'll get to. Georgia has to answer for her crimes and it's like leave angus out of it. Yeah, so that did pass the Bechtel test. Yeah.

And when you say that, what do you mean? Oh, it's just a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel. There are many versions of the tests. The one that we use is do two characters of a mo originalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other? And is it about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue or a like substantial meatia conversation. So that's the Bechdel test. We will I'm not really sure about this one.

We'll get there, but yeah, I think it's a softy as but not as much as you'd want. Yes, all things considered.

Also, I want to point out listeners that we are recording in person for the first time in ages.

It's weird because we have a guest visiting us all the way from the UK. Ever heard of it?

And stare We're all like breathing the same air right now, and so let's bring her in.

She's a comedian.

You may have seen her at our live Shrek Tannic show in Manchester, UK. Ever heard of that?

It's Kate cheka, welcome, Thank you for having me.

Wow, you really had to like sit through us doing that whole thing, didn't you.

I really enjoyed it there.

This is why I flew all the way for it to be live, because you don't get that, you.

Don't get that same experience, right, Yeah, I.

Was like, I need to be in the room for that.

Life's just many experiences stats on top of each other, and that was one of them.

Well, you're welcome, very judicious, Thank you so much for being here. Caitlin's living room. Yeah, here we are. Yeah, what a day. What a day. And we're also recording this the day before the American election, so we're to be.

Because you'll probably be listening to this listeners in January.

Yeah, so the moth might have ended.

Yeah, you might never actually be in the revolution at that point. Yeah. Yeah, so if you're listening from the from the front lines of the revolution, Hello and thank you.

Feel sady.

Here are our thoughts about it, Angus perfect snaring.

About a movie work twenty years ago.

Maybe this movie is so interesting, Yes we are. This is a very common request on the movie. I feel like it is a like millennial, like late millennial. Maybe earlier gen Z Staple movie, So I want to know what everyone's history. Yeah, okay, kid.

So I got the books, but not the first one. Someone gave me like the fourth book in the sequence of books as a present when I was like twelve, and I thought it was the funniest thing I'd.

Ever read in my hold.

Like it was just I remember like bringing it to school, like reading it during reading time in class and like laughing, and all my friends.

But why is she laughing so much?

And then they'd read it and be like, I don't even think it's that funny, but I thought it was so funny. Yeah, and then I think I read the books, and then I anticipated the movie because I loved the books, Okay, and.

Then I don't remember the movie that well.

I definitely saw it, but I think I was like, you know when you read the books and you're like, it's not the books.

The book is better.

The book is better.

My imagination's wondrous fast and you could never do what I can do in my mind, of course, of course, you know, but yeah, so, but I just adored the books.

Okay.

Did you ever go back and like read the first one?

Yeah?

Yeah, I know, I re read them all again. But then at some point I aged out of them before they've been finished being written, because there's ten in total.

There's so many more.

I aged out and I got to the point where I couldn't read them, but I wanted to, Okay, And then some one time, a fourteen year old or like child, not a child, a fourteen year old air teenage they like offered me like, do you want to borrow my ones?

And I really wanted to, but I was too embarrassed to see it.

Yeah, that always takes to me so sad, Like the first time I remember like turning away a ya classic because I'm like, I'm over it, I'm over it. Why Yeah, yeah, you hate to see it. But a day comes for us all.

And then you can get you just know a young adults. Now let me just go to be like I'm at today.

I grew up.

I've just come of age too much and I'm over this.

Yeah, but now I would read them again, and now I maybe will after this, I think I'm gonna Kaitlyn.

Did Kaitlyn Kaitlyn, who vows to never read a book on the show regularly hate read a book.

Well, let's be honest, I had an e book be read to me.

Oh, okay, this would be I mean, I feel like, if I'm remembering the cadence of the books, that it would be a fun listen.

Yeah, especially when you listen to it on like two times speed. It really makes it go nicely. So yeah, my history with this, so I did read the first book. I don't think I read beyond that first one and didn't even know there were more than two books, So my bad.

Can is wild. Yeah, I think I got to three.

Okay, I yeah, I got to the first two, I believe, and I read them when I was already too old, so this would have been the mid two thousand. I think I was still in high school. I did the same thing with Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, where I read these books that were geared toward a demographic that was like maybe two or three years younger than me.

Oh wow, yeah, same same. I read the I read I think the first three books. I loved diary style books when I was a kid. I feel like this was like probably a series I would have picked up when I ran out of Princess Diaries books to read, which were like other I just like love them and you're like, oh, it's kind of like British Princess Diaries. And I also knew I don't know. I was very like, wow, she was using all these words I've never heard of.

Whoa I know, we don't know over, you don't say slag. We don't know what it means it's like slut.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's kind of but yeah, like I had to, like, I think, if I'm remembering qurectly or maybe like came at the Scholastic book fair or something, you would get like a little glossary to be like, if you're American, here's what they're talking about.

Yes, I did think that I did have gloceries in them.

Yeah, and it was very helpful and I tried to integrate it into my like daily word usage and all my friends were like, shut up, nerdy is not a thing.

Oh, you tried to make it happen.

I was really trying to make it hatt.

Yeah.

I was Gretchen Wiener's style, like trying to make thatch happen.

Yeah, trying to make British slang app was not.

I was always trying to like get the slang from Angustong's in full frontal snogging and also just random Gilmore Girls references I didn't fully understand and just eke them into conversation and other twelve year olds were like, shut the fuck up. Anyways, I enjoyed these books, but I also did not see the movie because I think I was in high school when it came out and I

Then Okay, I've got a question. What's the feel of a Nickelodeon movie.

It's very I think I said this one yesterday. It's very like boying like, it's very like it's like what I feel like, it's weird. It's weird that this is like a movie or like a story about like coming of age and adolescence that I feel like normally would be treated with like some sense sensitivity. But it's like they sort of the parents are written in the movie to feel more like sitcom parents than I remember them

I think that it actually pretty accurately reflects the tone of the act.

Having just reread it, it's interesting, Well.

She spends a lot of the book talking about how much she hates her parents and especially her dad. Yeah so and she like, oh, they're so corny blah blah blah.

But it's also like, if you're adapting the book, you should probably assume that Georgia's words are to be taken with a grain of salt, because everyone like you shouldn't just adapt a twelve year old characterization of their parents and be like, here are these fucking weird losers.

You're just like, whoa, oh, maybe we should do that whole Maybe that's what everything's lacking.

That's true, It's true. We have to get more twelve year olds in the writers.

Yes, we're not digging the opinions of twelve year old seriously.

I mean that probably is true. But yeah, I guess that's what I mean. When it felt it felt like Nickelodeon movie like snow Day and like other ones that were just like kind of edgier kids movies.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got a question.

Was the book called Anger Songs and Perfect Snugging here? No, it was called full frontal Snogging here.

Yeah. I'm just assuming they didn't want full frontal as a name for a kid's movie, which I could understand.

I remember reading this is Gonna be I remember reading an art school about how this music movie was developed. Oh wow, yes, in like some kind of teenage magazine work an article with the director, and they said it was a nightmare to try and get filming permission in locations with the title full frontal snogging because everyone thought they were filming a porn movie.

I mean, it does sound.

To change the name to get permission to film in these locations.

Yeah, that makes sense. I was reading that the book is I wouldn't have guessed this, but it's like frequently on banned books because of George's disrespect for authority.

And that's respect for other people, would reason.

Yeah, and then and then some of the and then some of the homophobia, right.

Yeah, well it's more like just references to lgbt Q plus people at all, rather than like the homophobia itself. And then just like you know, references to like sexual like Christian Yeah, yeah, because most of what book banning is is like, yes, conservative agenda, like crystal fascists, weirdos. You know, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap, shall we, And we're back,

Able to stop. Okay we are.

We're in Eastbourne, UK, Eastbourn, Eastbourne, which is funny enough, where my mother was born and.

Where is it in relation to the only place I know London?

So if you go straight down from London, it's Brighton, and it's very close to Brighton, it's like just a little bit further along the coast.

But it is just one of those old people places, like just a place full of loads of old people.

All right. So when Georgia says it's boring, she's not lying.

Yeah, she's not lying about the vibe. Okay, Yeah, people come here to die.

God, it's the Florida.

Oh yeah, it's the Florida of the UK.

But not that's crazy, okay, not, it's very cuckock cole. Okay.

So we meet a fourteen year old girl, Georgia played by Georgia Groom, while she's heading to a costume party dressed as a stuffed all of in this like big bulky costume. And she gets to the party and realizes she's very out of place and her friends and all everyone else is like dressed in like not goofy costumes.

Except one one time.

Right, So then Georgia is humiliated and she runs home, where we meet her family, her mom and dad, who constantly embarrass her.

They're very boying and she's like stop.

Her little sister Libby, and her cat Angus, the most important character of the film, played by one of the great cat actors of our.

Time, acting his ass off.

Georgia gears up for the first day of a new school year. She accidentally shaves off half of her eyebrow. She's insecure because she thinks her nose is too big. She's worried that she'll never get a boyfriend. Stuff like that. Then, on the first day of school, Georgia is in the school yard chatting with Jazz, Ellen, and Rosie. They call themselves the Ace Gang, and they're talking about kissing, or.

Rather snogging boys.

Yeah, they're talking about having their boobs touched. They're grossed out by anything that seems quote unquote lesbiany as they put it.

Yep, they sure didn't edit any of that. Well, I guess maybe they did edit some of that out, according.

It is more prevalent in the book.

It is so prevalent in the movie that's wild.

Well it's well like triple triple it and that's the amount that it's in the book. Then these two boys walk past, who the friends think are proper fit that a sorry.

I can't sorry listeners. Kate is sinking into the floor. She's like stop.

It's like being the Ace.

Gang follows these boys around, stalks them with binoculars and every which is also.

Very Nickelodeon movie Harriet the Spy.

Coded true uh, And they discover that they're twin brothers who just moved from London.

And one of them is Aaron Johnson.

Oh my gosh, I okay. I watched like an hour of this movie before I realized.

Who that was.

I was like, because, yeah, he's kind of got like the Bieber hair, So you have to like squint really hard to be like, oh whoa is that guy.

Yeah.

So that's Robbie played by Aaron Taylor Johnson. And every time I hear that night name, I'm like, don't you mean Anya Taylor Joy And they're like, no, it's a different person I got.

I mean it's too close. It's too close.

And he just has one of those like white man faces that I cannot by, just like my eyes and my brain do not register or recognize.

I am like, what do I even know him from? He's in kick Ass. I haven't seen he's in.

He was in that Ryan Gosling movie that came out where Ryan Gosling played his stunt double fall Guy.

He's in. He's in the New Noes Foratu, So I won't he also Tenant Wild.

Yeah, don't remember him being in that. Anyway, He's a guy and he plays Robbie.

Uh.

The other brother is Tom, played by I didn't bother to look it up and.

Get his ass.

Uh.

He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page Sean Bork.

Wow, whoa Yeah. Anyway, their parents have opened up an organic grocery store in town. So Georgia and Jazz go to the store one day so that Jazz can flirt with Tom. She she has like staked her claim on Tom. Meanwhile, Georgia is crushing on Robbie the Anya Taylor joy Man and she learns that he's in a band called the Stiff Dylan's and that.

Band name and god have being fourteen having a crush on a boy and a band. What a vibe?

Yeah that is a good name for a band. It's pretty cool, correct, Yeah.

Yeah I was. I feel like that felt authentically like a teenage boy band.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, which maybe shows how cool and the musical lie music listening. I do.

You're down with the kids with the kids, Hello, fellow kids, I'm here for the stuff Llans concert.

I used to have a huge crush on this kid, Stephen. I'm the full name. I'm Stephen MASSARONI who like worked part time at the Hot Topic and played like the bass and like a scream oh band, And I was like, he's a dreaming would not talk to me, but like, well, I mean I lost Yeah, look at me now, still thinking about him. There.

So she's trying to flirt with Robbie, Georgia is and then her mom comes in and embarrasses her and talks about her farting, and she's like.

Mom, stop, she's doing the boring thing.

But Georgia keeps daydreaming about kissing and snogging Robbie. But then Georgia sees Robbie with her classmate Lindsay, who Georgia thinks is a boring slag. Though Georgia thinks she can't compete with Lindsay because she feels Lindsay is like more conventionally attractive, so.

Quote unquote developed, just like a big deal when you're that.

Age, right, And so Georgia and her friends spy on Lindsay to try to learn some tricks on how to be more attractive to boys, and they learn that Lindsay wears thongs and uses these like silicone bra inserts to make her boobs look bigger.

Which is proof that she's a bad person. Is how the movie, and it was the Lindsay thing is so wild because it's like before we even really hear her say or do anything, we learn that about her, and then it just does translate to like, so obviously she's a horrible she's a liar. You're like, I don't know, check the math there.

Right, yes, So then Georgia decides to pay a visit to a boy named Peter Dyer, who gives kissing lessons jail.

This movie runs a minute. It's crazy how much they do in one day.

Truly, like, yeah, Peter Dyer, jail.

But shout out to the huge poster. He has a few Grant in his bedroom.

Why do we think that's there? Is that for him or oh oh maybe clients? I bet it's for his That makes.

I assume the client because he wants to just stare at this.

What it's because this is hetero world, except we hate lesbians and so what's going to get a girl in the mood more than a huge poster of Hugh Grant? That makes more sense to me.

Yeah, okay, So my theory is that he just knows that in I don't know, ten years from now, that Hugh Grant will be cast as the villain in Paddington I giving the performance of a lifetime, and he's just anticipating, he's getting ready, he smuggling and yeah, yeah, yeah, he's like he's going to play Phoenix Buchanan and it's going to be the best performance of all time. I think

When I was around that age, because I was like a super late bloomer with like first kisses and stuff like that, or I was probably younger. I was like probably like eleven or twelve. But my mom was like, I don't know why I bought it, but she was like, kissing with tongue is I would never do that. I would never do that. And I was like oh, and she's like it's really unsanitary. I would never do it, and like I asked her about it years later, she's like, yeah, I guess I don't know why I said that.

What was she trying to do scam me out?

I think it's just I don't know. I guess it's like I'll do that when i'm a parent too. I'm like, I'm just gonna fuck with them today. Like, I don't know, I don't know why she I think it was like I was reading a teen magazine, but like a kissing article or something. She's like, don't do that. I would never do that, and I was like ooh, And then you know, a year later, I was doing tongue kissing. Yeah, let me just say wow.

Maybe Yeah, she knew she couldn't really hold the gates back.

Yeah, but she was just trying to buy time.

Yeah, I would never you will.

I would get the flu. That was I think part of the argument she wasn't gonna get the flu.

I will say that as a full adult who has snogged many times, I hate tongue kissing. Do not put your tongue in my mouth. I don't want to put my tongue.

Okay, So what this is huge is an American thing because I'm from Europe and we just I know.

I know it's a thing.

I will do very light, very subtle tongue, but I would I just want an open mouth kiss with I don't want anyone's tongue really near me that much.

For me, it's like a skill thing, like if you if you, if you're skilled with the tongue and you're not slobbering around like well.

Most men aren't skilled.

I know, I know, I know, So I don't know.

Maybe I should be a Maybe I should be a kissing teacher. You should be less creepy, Peter, just to teach all these.

Men how to get you a giant I must have one around here somewhere.

Because that's what you need. That's your qualification.

You have a you have a full Monty poster. It's close enough.

Yeah, then we'll just do set up a time people can come back to. That's the point of kissing.

Well, I would not mind it if people were better at it, but it's just that it's I don't know, they do it so grossly and it grosses me out.

I've been I mean, when I've been in like long term relationships. If if the kissing is not solid right away, I'm just like, look, if you're if you're hanging around, we've I've got to show you how it works for me, which does not proclude tongue. I'm like into that, but it's like, but you know, try to develop some technique for crying out loud.

It's why to me that people some people can't.

Yeah, like and also like, you know, I'm in my mid thirties, I'm like, what's happening?

How did you get this fun?

How did you gussd?

Like?

And the hotter they are, the less good they're at it, because I feel like people are just afraid to tell them or something. I don't know not me, No, not you. You've you've been doing that.

I've already kind of a kissing teacher because I have I know, I'll be like, sir, stop and do it this way and not that way.

Yeah. I had to say once. I was like, you can't like your tongue, can't hit me before your lips.

That's like that would be insane.

But there's but there's but there's people out there that they're like, they're like they're leading with the tongue.

Yeah, so wild.

I've been there. I've been like, you're thirty five, How is that awsible? Like, what's going on?

Yeah? Do you know what I mean?

Like in the olden days, you'd be dead by now and you wouldn't have even failed the thing.

Well, your life is over. You never learned to kiss skill, I mean tragic.

Okay, back to the flim. So Georgia is learning how to kiss. It's also her birthday coming up, and she's trying to convince her parents to let her throw a big party at a nightclub.

And this is another upper middle class like formative story. So it's not a money problem, it's just they don't want her to be at a nightclub.

Right, And then her dad tells her that he's been offered a job in New Zealand and that he's going there for a few months, and she's like, oh fine,

This storyline that yeah, I can't which is Steve Jones.

I don't know who that is, Okay, real quick, Steve Jones, yeah, British TV presenter, Okay, he's well, she's very, very hot and very attracted.

But he's dated so many he for a while was like he was a slack. I'm gonna I'm calling him. I'm calling it now, but dated so many Hollywood women because he'd interview them when they'd come to the UK, and they were like, this guy is really hot with a fun accent. So he's had like a thing with Pamela Anderson. Oh yeah, and Angelina Jolie asked for his number and hey didn't.

I can't Yeah that one and they had Yeah, they were like seen together on a yacht.

And can Okay, Well, good for him, and he is handsome and muscular, and George worried that her mom is having sex with Jem.

Correctly worried because he's like a flag and.

He's sure, you know how your interior decorator is topless, just like that's the boying I'm talking about. Does the adults do not behave rationally? Yeah?

So Robbie's girlfriend Lindsay seems to know that Georgia likes Robbie, so she tells Georgia to stay away from her man, and then she pushes her down in gym class while they're playing field hockey, which is very similar to a scene from a movie we covered recently, Ginger Snaps, where the popular mean girl pushes over the protagonist, but this time it's into a dog carcass, so it's a little

And it's two thousand and eight, so no one is like, hey, that's an assault we just saw. They're just like, oh my god, Georgia, you're so embarrassing, which, unfortunately, I think is probably how that would have went down at that time for.

Sure, And of course Georgia is humiliated. And then I don't know if it's like the next day or a few days later, but Georgia goes to the pool with her sister, knowing that Robbie will be there, and she tells him like, don't worry, I'm not dating that Peter boy. And he's like, oh, really, well in that case, and he kisses her. Yeah, but then he runs off because he's like, I have to sort some things out, but

Which which is another what a two thousand's move.

So in the book, Georgia learns the trick of basically playing hard to get, so she gets the idea to go to Robbie's band's gig with a friend.

Of his, This boy Dave the Laugh What a brittal nickname. They're just like they might as well just be like Dave, who no one wants to have sex with? Like that is what that is how the movie approaches You're funny, no one wants you. Yeah, and let's compare our lived experiences.

And also at this gig, the band play the Stiff Dylan's plays a cover of a song that I know exclusively from the soundtrack of Say It with Me Now Shrek Too. Really, yeah, it's the ever fallen in love parentheses with someone you shouldn't have by buzz Coos is.

The name of the love I love Buzzcocks. I didn't know that was Wow, it's in Shrek Too. I'm a fake fan. Yeah, I'm a fake fan. I should have known that. I was like, wait a minute, why do I recognize this song? And I was like, and then you're like with regrets Shrek too?

Yep. Okay.

So this plan of Georgia's to like make Robbie jealous backfires because Dave, who seems to really like Georgia, finds out from Jazz the Georgia just used Dave to make Robbie jealous. So Georgia gets mad at Jazz for like blabbing, and they get in a huge fight and they like say they're never going to talk to each other again. Plus Robbie is pissed at Georgia for hurting his friend

Dad for Also, just the signifier in the two thousands of like wearing a thong being like something bad it's gonna happen to this, something bad's about to happen. Did you I did either of you watch Degrassy No, there's such an iconic scene where it's like the character who

Now, that's how you inlerted people. You were hot and down exactly exactly.

The whale tail was what was like, yeast infections, be damned, I'm hot to know I'm hot and at.

Risk for.

I do remember being a teenager and wanting the thong look, but not being able to wear one for uncomfortable reasons.

Yeah, they're so uncomfortable. Yeah, I think I like sneakily bought one in high school because my cousin worked at Victoria's Secret. And then I got it and then I put it on.

I was like, what the yeah, what the hell is this?

Never mind, sorry, this was a mistake.

Yeah.

The only time I've worn a thong is I dressed up one year speaking of the Full Monty as like their strip costume and they wear these like little red thongs that they like expose at the end, and so I did that for a Halloween costume. No, I had the full like they're dressed is like security guards that

Now I was like nineteen at the time. Yeah, this was in college.

Cool, that is cool. It was so cool.

Thank you. It's however new you were hot now exactly.

Okay, So yeah, the whole thing with Georgie's mom maybe having an affair with Jem. So then this makes Georgia go to her dad's company to try to speak with his boss to convince him to like have her dad come back to the UK, but the boss isn't there, so she's just like crying to a receptionist. And then she goes home having decided that the whole family should move to New Zealand, and her mom's like what, oh my gosh. And then she like starts doing yoga and

Last night, and she's like, well, the teen drama, so drama.

And then she tells him she's moving to New Zealand and he's like, damn, well, let's hold hands. So they do that, and then we cut to the next morning. It's her birthday and her mom tells her she's taking her out dancing at a nightclub that night, which I don't think any teenager would want, but she's.

Like really into it.

But it turns out to be this huge surprise party that Jazz helped organize, which means that Georgia and Jazz are best friends again. And surprise, also, George's dad is there, and it turns out he's not going to stay in New Zealand after all, he's been offered an even better job right there at home. And then another huge twist, her mom has not been having sex with Jem because he's.

Gay and his boyfriend owns the club.

And guess who else is there? Robbie playing with the stiff Dylan's.

Wow, I can't believe this stiff Dylan's probably made money off of her party. Oh yeah, unless they played for free. Hard to say.

Then Lindsay crashes the party and she comes on stage and she insults Georgia, and she tries to get back together with Robbie, but he's like, no, I like Georgia. She's goofy and I like that actually, And then they kiss on the lips in front of everyone. What and they're all cheering. And now Georgia's life is perfect because she's got a cute boyfriend and great friends. Her parents are horny for each other again, and she's more confident and mature, and most importantly, her cat angus is awesome.

The end, the end. What a journey.

So let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss, and we're back.

Where to begin with this movie? I wanted to start with something I did not previously know about this movie that I found surprising, which is that this movie was co written and directed by Grinder Chada, who also wrote and directed Bend It, like Beckham and Brydon, Prejudice and all of these kind of iconic millennial movies. I did not know that she was the director behind this movie,

Ruper Grint's probably got so much money.

I mean that Harry Potter. Yeah, I was married to Ruper Grint. I may retire also, no, but but yeah, because like Angus songs and full frontals snot smogging snogging, we're in la here. It's Smoggings has like such a specific cadence and like authorial voice. But I feel like so do her movies. But it's like clear that the book got preference here. So I have a quote from her, hear saying I'd already made it, bend it like Beckham,

So she also co wrote the screenplay along with three other credited writers, and I have a quote about yes, yes, where she says quote when the project came to me, the studio Paramount had it for five years, and even though they're British books, they had these two American guys adapt the book and they couldn't get it to work.

Of course they would hire two American men about a British teenage girl.

That would have been a worrying film.

I think, yeah, I'm very glad that she got a hand in it. I wish she'd maybe gotten more of a hand in it, but I did. Like, I mean, starting with the positive stuff. I like, reading through this oral history was really nice. It seemed like, you know, everyone had a good experience. And also working with a woman director seemed to be really impactful on the young

They just think that women don't do anything like that? We just are in the house, like not doing it, like absorbing any culture.

It's so I feel like we learned that time and time again with any like non white male audience, where I mean, like, I think we talked about it on our first Wives Club episode where they're like, no one wants to see women over forty and then that movie made up aajillion dollars and like how difficult it was to get Black Panther made, And then that movie made an actual billion dollars And I was just like, it's.

Like they keep doing the conversation again with Bobby. They were like, who knew that were women out here?

And where's another billion? And women watch things? Oh my god?

What they What do they think we're up to? Or do they just not know that we're here?

They kind of just freak you out of sight, out of mind because we won't hang out with them.

But I've never seen any around but both my mom.

But those are those are some of the positive things I have to say about the movie. It seems like it was a really good on set experience, and I like the director's body of work, but this may be one maybe not as much.

Right, So I want to touch on the book because I did spend all that time.

Reading it, all those you know, all those late nights, all those.

Five hours listening to the audio book on one point nine speed. So this movie is based on the first two books in the series. I didn't read this second book, which.

Has it now I'm the girlfriend of a sex God.

Yeah, on the bright side, I'm now the girlfriend of a sex god. That's the American title. Oh no, it's okay, big yeahs.

Yes, that's so. I feel like the American title is like Saucier in that case.

Yeah yeah, just because you didn't know what Nick is, well probably.

Okay, yeah, Fortunately that we already had so much confusion.

We know what nogging, so we didn't want to confuse anyone again.

I still don't.

So in the movie they call each other mingers a lot. What is that.

You've never come across mingus? Oh, it's just like an ugly person like they're minging.

I would not they're like ugly.

Yes, I guess, I guess it's like an abject an adjective.

But they are minging.

Yeah, yeah, they are minging.

And the minging was like very much thing. I remember saying.

Okay, so is is minge something also?

And what inge is just the giant minge is separate from ming I think. I hope so, I hope they don't have the same etymology.

They might do, I don't They're spelled quite similarly. Okay, just ye clearing mingus minging. You wouldn't say ming okay, okay, you wouldn't have that, but you would say minge. But you wouldn't say, oh she minging she's having extra vagina, but.

You can't be vagina.

No, okay, just minge okay, okay.

But I would say minge, but I would say that to like my best friend now because it's funny.

Or I would say clunge because plunges. I did I know about clumb Yeah, because I alway, I think they're quite funny words.

They are really yeah wow.

Oh wait, I did know about minge because shout out to my former roommate, British Martinage. She taught me about minge. And then I was like, oh, so do you call pubic hair minge fringe?

Oh we should call it that, but we don't. But you can make that, but I will.

Okay, Yeah, I'm gonna make mine fringe happen. Yeah's watch out world. Okay.

So the book is what I'm trying to talk about. So written by Louise Renaissan, who I think wrote, who wrote all ten r I p oh, I didn't really had a passage.

She passed in her mid sixties, which is crazy. Yeah, so really sad.

So the book was the first book was published in ninety nine. The sequel, which I didn't read but the movie is partially based on, published a year later in two thousand. The format of the books is like Georgia's diary, right, So you know, middle school aged teens in the late nineties early two thousands, you know, not known for being the most progressive people. So there's a lot of problematic

Things like that, such like casual homophobia that is like it it really sucks because it's like, I feel like books like that at the time would have like reinforced the culture that already existed, which was so so so hostile that it's like a reflection of what was already acceptable, but then putting it in the mouth of like Georgia, who's supposed to be like the coolest girl ever to readers at least, like the self insert it's like it's yeah, very tender age to be getting that kind of messaging.

So there's not only that, there's casual transphobia. Where in the book, Georgia finds a garment of her dad's that she thinks as an apron I think it's implied that it's like some like sexual outfit or something.

But okay, because her parents are really horny for each other. Yeah Christ for them, I guess.

But she finds this garment that she thinks is like a feminine garment, and so she now asson that her dad is transitioning and it's like very disgusting to her.

Yeah, she keeps, I've forgotten about that.

Yeah, yeah, I honestly really just remember nervy. B that's like really all that stuck.

The only thing I remember from the book from reading it all those years ago was her being self conscious of her nose. That was the main thing I remembered.

That's interesting, Cash, I'm glad I don't remember the transphobia storyline, Like.

What the fun It's good, it's important your brain blocks out things. Yes, yeah, this isn't good, like this is.

Trash self preservation.

Yeah.

There's also it's not prominent in the book, but it is there. There's racism, where there's at least one example of Georgia making a comment that h anti Asian racism. There's a fair amount of fat phobia and body shaming, which does translate to the movie. Georgia makes remarks that are ablests that are disparaging about sex workers. She's very callous about suicide. So there's like all these very problematic things in the books.

Some of which monsters rible.

She does not deserve Robby.

A lot of it does.

Carry over to the movie, namely the homophobia and the fat phobia.

It's interesting because it's like the there are certain things that are presented in a way that is like, at least I think at the time would have been clear to me, like Georgia's insecure and sensitive about her nose. That's not presented as like and she should be. But all of the homophobia is presented very like matter of factly is never challenged in any.

Way, and all the slat shaming. But the thing is that was like having been a British teenage girl, that is what the culture was. It was a real like, oh god, we grew up in not good.

Times, yeah, but like the worst West time.

Yet this is the worst of time.

So I don't know how they managed it keeps getting worse, yeah, because.

They look back nostalgically, but then weirdly and then you want it and you're like, oh wait, this is the West of times?

Have we ever had it good?

When was the good of.

In Charles Dickens's Tale of Two Cities, it was the best of times, But then really quickly she really cooked with that.

And there is racism in the movie in the sense of how the Ellen character.

Yeah, it's like watching that, I was like, what did they just bring on this South Asian character to bully to bully her?

Which is like wild to me because Grindotata is she's I think Kenyan born British of Indian descent, but like more to the point the writer director of Bend it like Beckham.

That was where I was really like, yeah, it was very jarring.

Yeah, I have to I mean, based on what Caitlin you found about, like her having to clean this grip, I'm wondering like how much she was able to ultimately have influence over because that was just like really jarring from someone who has like made such thoughtful inclusive movies in the past.

What happened there?

If I speculate on how I feel like the UK is is that it was going to be four white girls, and then she would have pushed to be like can we.

Have one for some representation? Yeah, the one that gets buddied.

Do you know like that?

I think how it would have gone down. It's like, yeah, but she can't be cool.

We can't like her. Yeah, I have honestly believed that in the two thousands movie environment, Yeah, like yeah, poor Ellen, like I just and she disappeared for like such large swaths of the movies. She felt like very disconnected from the rest of the friend group because it's like Georgia and Jazz are the you know, core friends, and then there's two other friends. But there's there's times where what's

Yeah, And like anytime she like tries to make a suggestion or like give advice or say like what about me? Do I get a boy to have a crush on?

And they're always just.

Like Eude, shut up, shut up. Ellen.

We treat her like Jerry on Parks and Reck like it's brutal, which is a dynamic that is reflective of real life when there's a close friend group who is predominantly white, but there's like maybe one person of colar so I.

Was in there, but I don't think I was an Alan. I would like to put it. I was cool, I was saying there's no problems, but I'm like, I'm not Alan, right.

So it's not as though growing Ellen under the busy.

Why So it's not as though this doesn't happen. It's just that the movie doesn't like interrogate this at all.

Also, they left her at Peter's house, so when Geordia goes in, oh yeah, then Ellen's.

Queuing up to go in as well, like all right, we're all going to Peter now, right, and then they all leave her like the other two. Like everyone's waited for Georgia to come.

Yeah, they do not wait for Ellen. But I also was wondering, I mean, because the interests of these characters is very limited, but that Ellen seems to be obviously like really interested in boys and wants to kiss and whatever. She seems to have booked a session with Peter or whatever. She's looking at the Hugh Grant poster. You know, she's locked in, but that like doesn't really go anywhere. Like I feel like that is more presented as a joke of like, and even Ellen's doing it because that doesn't

Is that?

Who she?

So?

What's the end?

Yeah?

At the at the party.

Yeah, that's a weird moment as well. You know, any powerful your friends with other men.

I feel like that happens at the end of this type of movie so often, where they're like, which characters are still single?

Yeah?

There they go there, Yeah that.

In the movie. That'd be great.

We can have a single fourteen year old at this party, like.

What an embarrassing body? Single and fourteen. Uh.

There's also a scene where Ellen and Georgia are getting ready for the party they go to, and Ellen expresses insecurities about her dark body hair and she's like, oh, I have a mustache. I'm worried I have sideburns. And she says this to Georgia and she's like, you're lucky you don't have dark hair like me. And Georgia's just like, I know, first of all, Georgia is white, but she does have dark hair and like speaking as a white person with dark hair, like it is visible in my body.

Also, we saw Georgia shave off one of her eyebrows basically to deal with a monobrows situation.

So I don't know why she's out here talking like she doesn't have a propes.

It was just like an opportunity to have these two characters connect over something that would have made sense, and it's like yet another be like yeah, Ellen, you suck. You're like, come on, come on, and we never I mean, I don't think we meet any of the girl's families. But again, it's just I feel like we just have the least insight into Ellen, and she's like, I feel like it's worse than tokenized because they just are dumping just mean yeah right.

I was feeling like Rosy gets even slightly less characterization than Ellen, but at least she's not like bullied by her friends. And she she has like a Swedish friend, yeah, I assume, because he's yeah, yeah yeah. In the book, she talks about her very tall and yeah, I think Swedish boyfriend.

Wow, but well here's this before it breaks it, so obviously.

They could have seen each other. Yeah, Like I always, I don't know. Anytime I think about your I'm like, whoa. So if you're in the UK and then you're dating someone in Sweden, that would be like what if we were dating someone from Chicago? Like distance wise, it's so boring when we do it.

I don't know, I think unless because how long is the flight to Chicago? Like three right, so like a flight to Sweden, it's not going to be more than two, So maybe Denver.

I think.

The book makes it seem like Spinn is there as like an exchange student, so I don't think it's like long distance. But speaking of the book, I don't even remember the Ellen character from the book.

At all, so I don't she is in the book.

She is, okay, at least if she is, she's mentioned, but not necessarily as like someone who is like hanging out.

With later books, she's in the books, oh sure, she's No one's given like any race that's not white.

I just assume everyone's white in the books.

But the Ellen character and Georgia are definitely like in the same friend group but have a rivalry. Oh so down the line there's some issue. Maybe Ellen dates Tom's m okay, I don't know. Maybe Dave, the last Dave.

Oh well, that's where she ends up with. At the end of the movie.

Something happens with the kind of friends but not friends. In the books later I can remember.

At least again, I only reread the first one. I'm sure Ellen is there, but she's so little of a presence that you wouldn't necessarily like remember her. A huge focus on the friendship with Jazz in the like enemy ship with Lindsey, and then there's all the there's other girls that don't make it to the movie that like are like kind of the girls who are like, come on, let's do this thing that is scandalous and that will get us into trouble. And so there's like things like

The movie, but for people to be horrible.

Yeah, So it's just.

Upsetting, a huge, huge, huge bummer. I want to blame the three American eyes.

But let's do that. Let's do it. That's okay, sometimes you can.

But yeah, it was a real bummer and really stuck out. And also that I think it's Ellen's character who like says the first homophobic comment too of the movie, who is like, we can't grab our own boobs. That would make that.

Makes us Yeah, and that's that's sitting on their hands. Just tried.

I know.

I was like, does it feel good?

I'm not gonna lie. I did it as I was watching the movie.

You tried it? Yeah, Like.

It did feel like I was just grabbing my own boob and then my hands really hurt.

But then I had and needles.

It was really sad. It was hard for me. But I'm a grown up, so I can just have someone grab my boobs. These losers, yeah, grabbing their own boobs. Yeah,

Well, what is this storyline that's like men are so much more mature right where he is older, he's seventeen and she he's fourteen.

Yeah, so this is more clear in the book where he says.

To her, Yeah, but it was a stop dating fourteen year olds to seventeen year old maybe. Also, if you are worried that they're so immature, that feels like a really.

Easy fix on your data. Fourteen year old, easily done.

Yes, And I do remember the article being like it was very hard to cast a seventeen year old that we could get to snog a fourteen year old that wouldn't feel weird and it turns out yeah, yeah, I do remember that from the article. Wow, it was like we had trouble casting and it turned out it was Aaron Johnson who's now married to Sam Taylor Wood.

Yes, so he has no trouble snogging anyone of multiple ag He doesn't mind an age gap, he doesn' mind age up in either direction. He's good to snug anyone that.

Is such a weird thing to put in an article. Yeah, and also just I uh wow, yeah, And I think that's a good point, is that like the boys are more mature. It doesn't doesn't really track.

Doesn't track.

Yeah, but they're older, I guess, which is still.

Also the whole point is that they're not. That's why seventeen year olds maybe date fourteen year olds, right, I just I.

Feel like when I was fourteen, I was more mature than most seventeen year old place. Sure, yeah, like yeah, anyways, but I'll suspend my disbelief. I like, like, I like Georgia. I think it's like the attachment to the books as a kid, where you like you're rooting for her. I feel like it was cathartic to be like, yeah, my parents are really annoying too, but if they ever got divorced,

The thing that I connected with I think the most as a thirty eight year old person consuming this was that, you know, she values humor and being a funny person. Yes, and she learns that boys don't like girls for funniness, and so part of the movie is her like trying to like figure out what boys do like and like catering to that while also trying to like figure out who she is and wants to be like a unique person who has a personality, but like feels like she has to suppress her like silliness.

All yeah, I like a commitment to the bit. I like that she was like I'm going as a stuff, don't it this party?

And that that does I mean, I feel like that's such a great like establishing scene too, where it's like she's the only one who was confident enough to follow through on the olive and the girls are.

Like and it's a great idea for I think that would be hilarious.

It looks like so much work, like she was destroying it and I was like, oh my god.

Days days.

I love that it's become a trope for usually a character who's a woman to show up to a to a party in a mood because it happens in Bridget Jones diary, it happens in Girls, it happens in Legally Blonde, where like the person in.

Question forgot it happened in Legally Blonde, shows up.

As like a bunny, like a the same I don't know which one came first. This sends a woman in a buddy outfit to somewhere where no one's stressed.

She feels.

Then.

It reminds me of my favorite tweet ever, the Katie Dippled tweet. Yes Baba do come first? She stresses the Baba duck and everyone else is just wearing clothes. There is an example, so it does happen in real life. How did it happen? I don't know. I need to find it. It's the funniest thing.

Ever.

While you're looking for that, I can think of one example of a man, or like a male character showing up to a party in a costume that's like very inappropriate for the party he's at, which is zac Efron in a movie that I don't remember what it's called, but Michael B. Jordan is also in the movie. I think anyway, He shows up to a costume with like

Okay that no, if you say it's a dress up party, that means costumes.

Well, so he was correct. So Zach Cafron innocent.

I mean the choice of costume questionable, right for sure? Yeah? But what was he supposed to be?

Just a man with his Yeah, just like he's gonna he's like, I'm rocking out with my cock out or something like that.

Because that's a choice.

I think if I went to a Halloween Putts, I'd question, oh for sure if a man came in that outfit.

Yeah, it was a bad costume.

I don't know if I I want to chat even my bunny outfit, which I will be wearing because I'm a girl that I'm just stats.

So I won't be stuffed.

I have the tweet here. I also realized when I looked it up, because it was Halloween last week, that friend of the show Ben Rogers is sitting next to her. I noticed that here it is. It'll still so funny.

This is so good.

You can see it really sinking it. It's sinking in for her as the victures. We'll post it, We'll post it on our Instagram. I'm so glad it's so good. I love that you got to see it for the first time. It's one of the greatest tweets of all time. Yeah.

Yeah, anyway, So the point is that, you know, Georgia is like, she doesn't want to suppress this funny, like humorous aspect of herself, but she's learned, like many of us have as comedians.

We learned that like men.

Tend not to val if they value a sense of humor in a woman, what they mean is that they want a woman to laugh at all their jokes, but they don't want a woman who generates her own humor.

Especially not funnier than they are, certainly not yead forbid, which is hard because men aren't very funny.

Express a lot of your funny.

But it turns out that Robbie does like that about her.

He does, like, you know, like other voice.

But he does it in a condescending way where he's like, you're mad, you're such a nutter, But I love it.

Yes, he does call her that a lot. I don't know how much I'd love that actually if someone was like she just just nuts, but I love it.

I think I feel like that's how a lot of boomer husbands talk about their wives. They're like this broad like they're just like Jesus.

If I hadn't murder should be in the greasy Yeah I really did.

Like that's that is like a very boomer dad kind of post where you're like, easy, say something nice, like you've been married for forty fucking years, like something nice. But yeah, I I uh, he does do that. He also what is the name of the song song he writes about her bitch in a Uniform? You're like, yeah, I was like, do you like her?

Do you like her?

Well, this was after she was classist, so that's true, Like not that excuse. That's that's the tricky thing with George. I guess that was what I was trying to get at earlier, where it's like I like her, and it's hard to be too mad at her because she is canonically fourteen years old, right, and it feels weird at my large age to be like, I don't respect this fictional teenage.

Got her shit together.

But but I do think, like, yeah, she's uh, she does catch it sometimes, I think deservedly. Yeah, Like yeah, but it seems like the movie does sort of address that just not and I don't know. I feel like it's because the goal, the endgame goal for all of the young girls in the movie is to have a

Of the time, I guess yeah, and it's not a good reward, no, but but maybe is when actually is when you're horny and your teenager.

I'm sure at the time it is, but yeah, I don't know. And then they're like, oh, wait, we forgot about Ellen. She's dating Dave, like movie over.

Yeah, Okay, Actually, maybe Ellen wins in the end because she gets the funny guy, and.

Dave did seem like a nice, nice young man and he's I think like right to be hurt with how Georgia treats him. Yeah, she uses him and he finds out about it. Yeah. Yeah, it's like this is the life of a lab.

But that was a bit where I was like, I don't know, I just feel like he'll know soon that men will use women, so he'll be fine, He'll be fine.

Yeah, well, especially the way he's like he talks about what does he call He's like, yeah.

That's one of the names of the books.

It's like, yeah, that was the one I got as a present. Was knocked out by.

I, Like you started there. I will say that I was looking and I was like.

This is fab because they say fabl.

I was looking at the list of book titles and Louise Renaissan really committed to having the most British titles possible. Knocked out by my nonga nungers. We don't say that dancing Oh really.

Yeah, that's what Dave Cools breasts. Do you want to explain?

Oh, because he's like yeah, when you grab them and then let go, they go looks like the bound they.

Kind of got boing. Okay, then he ate my boy and trancers startled by his furry shorts. Lorve is a many trousered thing. Are these my bazoomas I see before me? Yeah, the title's gone.

I stopped at some point because they because it was the general vibers. He goes between rob in the books, she goes between Robbie and.

Dave the Laugh.

Because David Laugh is her age and they do have a lot, and George is funny, so they have a laugh together.

And then Robbie's kind of not that funny, but he's very hot and in a band. That's the kind of.

General viber But then they brought in a third love interest, Massimo, who's Italian.

Wait I remember him, Okay, so you remember.

And he had a little purse that he carried around. And I was like, I can't deal with a third love interest. I think that's what I checked out.

I was like, you, it's either going to be Robbie or Dave, but I can't. You can't bring in a thing.

I do feel like it is in a way like having what's a feeling about Georgia, especially when I was a kid, was like, it's very much like she is like a funny, like normal looking quote unquote girl who so many boys want to take her and you're like, oh, of course I'm going to love that book. That's that was my dream at the time. It's like, what if nothing about me changed and every hot boy I knew was like.

I love you, like, but you did have to change. You had to do yoga. Remember it's true, it's true.

True. It's not that no, no, I had to get on the mat. I wish that this.

I mean, there is obviously a component of this movie that focuses on like the female friendship, but it's all in the context of like they're talking about boys, and they're talking about how to be more attractive to boys, and.

It's all like in service of the goal of getting a boyfriend.

Yeah, they are close friends, except yeah.

But tragically.

And then I think even the way the like parental dynamic and like relationship between Georgia and her parents is framed is like, Oh, my dad's so corny, but now that he's gone, I really miss him and I don't want to have I don't want my parents to split up. Meanwhile, my slag of a mom is over here right having sex, Yeah, I with someone else.

Well, and also even like if Georgia was right, I mean again and just like she's fourteen. I get it, like you're fourteen. Probably a lot of fourteen year olds don't want their parents to split up. I know my I didn't want my parents to but then they did, and I was like, oh, that was so the right call. Wow, oh good god.

You know you guys knew cool.

You're like, oh, we should have done this years ago. But I get that it's like scary for kids when it happens. But yeah, it's like she's totally taking it out on her mom. And also her mom seems happier, Like her mom's going out, she has hobbies, she's with your friends, things that I don't. It's not implied she was really doing when her dad was around. I was like, Georgia, I think your mom like might be happier without your dad.

But she wasn't miserable. She was really horny for her. It seems like he's just really horny, basically horny for life.

She's hardy for life. Yeah, I don't know, but I just yeah, that was like a weird. There is sort of like a paternalistic frame to how the parents are shown.

But her dad also played by Alan Davies.

Yeah, where do I know him from?

Who is easing? Do you watch QI here?

No? No?

Sorry?

Did you watch Oh my God Jonathan Creek?

Is that?

What's cooled?

No?

I never watched.

Okay, he's just like a really classic British comedian actor.

Okay, I recognize him from something, and.

He in these murder mysteries. But he's just yeah, he's like, he's like my dad, if you know what I mean. You know these people that you grow up with, and it's like, yeah, I feel like I know him. I've never met him. I don't think i've met him.

He's very charming, like yeah, yeah.

He's got that kind of energy and everything.

Yeah, yeah I did. I mean it's like her parents do love each other. I don't know, I don't know. It just feels the movie is weird.

I mean, it's rare that you're allowed to break into your dad's work office to be like, I need my parents not to boss, so please send him home from his job.

I mean it's hard to do that.

We can't accuse Georgia of not having narrative agency. She literally said bring him home.

And it worked and they were like, yes, we should bring him home and give him a raise.

Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah.

I don't know.

It's just the movie and the book feel very just reflective of the times and not challenging any of the like internalized misogyny and the like focused on like heteral romance and.

Stuff like that, right, which a book of this time, I feel like it's like, if it was part of the filmmaker or writer's intent to present that and then challenge it, that could be really useful for young girls, but that's obviously like this is more of just like a reflecting the prejudices of the time persons saying anything about it.

It's I think that the success I guess of like something like Mean Girls, which is like the comparison, right of like fourteen fifteen year old girls.

Trying to get a boyfriend, and then there's one like weird one, but.

Like, because they're supposed to all suck, it doesn't matter what they say because you know they're bad characters.

But then the problem is we're trying to like Georgia, right, She's yeah, It's like.

The Nickelodeon movie style is not built for the kind of character that that Georgia is. I don't know. Yeah, I had a hard time when this look. Yeah, it's a it's a tricky one.

Yeah, it was just it's just had to deal with. Like she gets pushed into a bush by this man. I mean, missy, she's paid this man to go around his house to snog him.

And then he's, well, that was consensual.

That was consensual, and that's fine. That's a kind of sex work.

I was wondering if she does pay him. We don't see money exchanged on the screen.

Maybe maybe it's a voluntary service.

Maybe he just doesn't because he wants to snog or he's fourteen years old. I think probably best not to overthink kiss it's a consensual encounter.

But maybe he just offers it voluntarily.

I don't know for.

Sure either way. Yeah, like that that is you know, two consenting parties. It's not snogging. But then he does surprise kiss her and put.

Her into a bush. Here shelter, you shelter, and people are not sympathetic about it.

No, And then that's like her best friend calls her basically like the next thing was jazz. Jazz is so mean to her.

Yeah, like, well, your nickers were just stop.

They were too big, Mike, they were too big. Grandma whears nickers like that.

I was like we And I was like, that's upsetting because I feel like, also I remembering a teenager and that sort of thing may be kind of happening and people not being sympathetic because it is your fault.

I mean again, very reflective of the time. Yeah, there's also something that I'm glad the movie leaves out, but that is present in the book where she has this cousin who comes to visit every now and then, and then like.

Yeah, I'd forgotten about the cousin. Whoa, and you already do broadcast stuff, don't you.

So like the cousin is like a boy her age, but he's like ancestually like groping her leg and I think tries to kiss her and like, yes, like really upsetting troubling things. Again, the movie leaves this out, but again, but also the book doesn't. Like She's just like, well that was weird. I don't want to hang out with that cousin anymore. A very like you know, fourteen year old way.

To process that, honest, see how I process it? No, right, you Honestly, if that happened, I'd be like, I'm going to hang out less than my cousin. Yea, for sure.

It's just I don't know this. The book in the movie touch on things that like aren't.

Equipped to like really handle it handle right. Yeah.

Well, and I also read that Louise rennaiscing Yeah, started as like an edgy stand up and it feels like she just sort of adapted that style to her fourteen year old's voice, which like didn't work is a standard yeah, And then I guess she wrote these books in her forties, Like she didn't start as a youth writer. So it's like, I see what she's going for and it definitely worked for us at the time.

This comedy doesn't work out, I'm gonna write inappropriate books.

Famously, like don't Read Now. Publishing is very famously not a well paid, no, not a livable gig.

Something that the movie does and I think the book does to a slightly more extent, is like commentary from Georgia talking about how like unoriginal, uncreative, how dim boys are, how they're like losers who she generally doesn't want. And there's like I think one extra boy that she like dates for a little while in the book that's not in the movie, but she's like always trying to avoid him because she's like, I don't even know if I like him, but it's nice to have a boyfriend because

Yeah, and also the boys aren't very fully formed, they're very they're undeveloped.

Yeah, does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss. I wanted to just touch really quick on how they had the Lindsay character. Yeah, because they are. I felt like like there should is there a phrase for this where it was like the movie was extremely focused on her body. There was literally like a close up of her boobs because because you're seeing I think her body from like George's perspective of like she's hyper focused on So it is the female gaze, but it's still not great.

But the female game is very judgmentally yes, yes, and like which it can.

Be that absolutely and like that's sort of how I like, I don't love how they treat Lindsay at the beginning where they just sort of say she's mean, but then

Oh, and then they humiliate her by like ripping out the silicone.

Like bra and she's is having a carry moment and then but the music is like, yeah, like.

She wears faked. You shouldn't reach into people's bros.

No, that's assault. That is assault. And it's also like I don't know.

And then it's having a bad time anyway because she's already a bathday when no one's uh at the club. I also has two clubs, they're both free Friday night, and that two teenagers hire them out instead. I was like this is not realistic.

It's really I just like thought that character was so uneven in the way she was treated, especially because I don't know, like being a teen without Teddies in two thousand and eight, there would be pressure to like I remember like wearing padded bras in the two thousands because I didn't want to get made fun of for having small boobs. There's no way to win. Yeah, there's no

Hoky stics, right, Well, maybe we know she's bad.

Well because of the thing is like, if she is mean and mean to them, that is a great reason not to like her.

But if someone spy don't meet through my house, maybe I would hit them home with hoy stacks and it's.

Like her being mean is separate from her like, you know, succumbing to societal pressure to try to be attractive. But that's I think a larger reason why they don't like her, versus like that she's mean.

It seems that way they don't like her, Yeah, because she's the hall right.

It's and it's also like, yeah, it's fine to imply that they don't like her because she's mean, but it just doesn't I don't know, it just doesn't really feel like the whole story. And also it's like, I don't know, there's grown ups made this movie, like like you can, like.

You've got to remember all the time the two men and two American men, people.

In their forties made this whole thing, and so it was like so it's like, yeah, it is. I feel like there is like a level of authenticity of like I'm sure we all have examples of like whether it was happening to you or coming from you, like resenting other girls for their body, especially at this age, Like I remember being really jealous of, like and like resentful in some ways of girls who were more developed than

And she deserves to be humiliated at the end, and Georgia deserves to have the reward of a cute boyfriend.

And the end a really huge party, like it doesn't imply that Georgia is particularly popular, and there's a hundreds of and no one goes to Lindsay's party. And I was like, I don't see it, Like what, No, she did all this internal work and everyone's watched from a distance and was like, you've got really good with yogas, so now we're will come to your past.

If I was Ellen, I wouldn't even show up, Like, you've never said a nice thing to me.

Yeah, you've been bullying me the whole movie. Well, you have to remember that there are so many adults at this party, including both of her parents and.

Her grandparents and her.

And the interior decorator, which, by the way, Jem, who is like the interior decorator, is like, hello, I'm an interior decorator. Obviously I'm gay, and it's like, okay, that.

Was wild where it was like suddenly she was like no, don't an affair with Jem and everyone he was like hello, and it was like okay, but he's not actually said to hello like that the whole time, so we didn't.

Know that literally, Like it was just I was like, was this Did people see this in two thousand and eight and be like wow, representation is so important, Like.

I didn't even know that. I knew he was an interior decorator. Yeah, right, Like no, that means anything I need. We can't, of course, but she can come in all sexuality.

She calls him a builder the whole time, and then he's like why would you lie about that?

And also build, he is.

An interior decorator. Nothing about the house changes.

What did he do?

He's a bad He takes off his shirt and just sort of looks at the wall.

Yeah, what is he like when he's existing a light bulb?

And then yeah, they just go out dancing all the time.

That's what I mean when I which you don't do with your.

Question to bring them back to boying parents. That's exactly what it is like there. If you like think about what they just always do the goofiest thing possible in this scene, that's the most embarrassing. But if you think about, like, well, what are they actually doing, like, the answer is like, I have.

No fucking idea what they're doing.

They're just they were born to embarrass Georgia. That's all they do. Yeah, yeah, my last thing.

And we've already touched on this, but it's just like yet another example of a coming of age movie about teen girls that center white middle class to upper middle class characters. And that's so many of movies of this ILK. Yeah, and this is yet another entry into.

That cannon.

So Christian not Bend and I Beckham. So that's weird that I know.

Yeah, So I guess, yeah, the takeaway skip this movie and watch Bend it like Beckham instead.

Honestly, Yeah, And I don't think that the director agree with them. I think she would probably be like, no, definitely that one.

Well, I mean I found it funny but in a painful way. Yes, there were parts I had to I will.

It's like one of the movies that I understand why people liked it at the time, but like it's such a product of its time and there's so many better alternatives that I wouldn't be Like even for nostalgia. I feel like it wasn't it wasn't great.

Yeah, it was bad nostalgia. It was it was triggering.

Because it was like, oh, I did live this, but I wouldn't want. I have no desire to read of my teenage.

Yeah, nostalgia culture is wild in that way where you're like, oh, yeah, I really miss when people would bully you for fucking anything. Yeah, I mean not that that's not true now, but it's different now. Different anyways. Yeah, this movie does pass the Bechdel test, but not very much. They're mostly talking about boys, if I think it mainly passes when they're talking about angus or what they think.

About, but not frontal of the women.

Right, I was saying when they're judging each other's bodies, I think that whole like scene where they're passing around the notes of like judging each other's spot.

For each other's bodies. Out of ten Okay, that.

With my friend. I hope I didn't do that, but that's I remember boys doing that to girls. Yeah, god, yeah, I'll never forget seventh grade, there was like a list going around and it accidentally came to my desk of like the boys were ranking girls by butt and I remembered being like, I'm in I'm in the middle, just coast, just coast. Yeah, but it was like, I mean horrible, but I and I know that like young women especially that time, were you know, conditioned to judge each other too,

So, yeah, it does pass the Bechtel test, but most of the conversations, either the context or the subtext is still about boys and being attractive to boys and stuff like that, so it's like almost not pass Honestly.

Spiritually, I don't feel like it passes.

Yeah, yeah, as far as our nipple scale, though, where we rate the movie based on a scale of zero to five nipples, examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.

I'm gonna give it, like.

I'll say, like a one, somewhere between like a one point five and a two maybe, like I guess one point seventy five, just because it is about young girls and they are friends that are like mostly on good terms with each other, except for when they're bullying Ellen.

Or they're you know, fighting or horrible to each other. Yeah, it is definitely about younger.

Girls, but it's it is very much one.

Yeah, I'll go one.

Okay, I'll give all my nipples to Angus the cat obviously, Okay.

I love to hear it. I'll meet you at one point five. I And it's partially out of like my love for Garundo Chada's other work. And it was really nice reading about how, like how the young actors on set learned a lot from her and felt empowered by like watching a woman direct a movie which happened even less then than it did now, and particularly a woman of color, and like there's there are things to love about, but like, but I like the behind the scenes story

Well?

I haven't, to be fair, I have not talked about cat facts with Caitlin in a very long time.

I count my own cat's nipples and I only see, well, some of them do only have six, okay, but some of them have eight. Casper has six. Wow, I know special, unless he's got some fair tires.

Maybe maybe they'rehidden. Some of them I think are kind of smaller than the others.

His are like very out. It's weird. Yeah, yeah, like you're not even using these things?

What do you do?

I also quickly want to say, to be clear, the hetero girls liking boys is not inherently bad, Like I don't know, it's just that like the way it's framed in this movie, and also all the extra stuff of them being homophobic and fat phobic and all that kind of stuff. It's just it could have been framed very differently or thought more thoughtfully.

And I think it's like just the thing that we talk about a lot in movies like this, where it's it's not even like of course, like you know, most kids that age are becoming interested in someone. I mean, this is very heteronormative. But also they usually have a hobby or like another interest or like something that they bond over that isn't just talking about each other. It's like their whole friendship is predicated on judging each other

I'd play soccer with my friends all these things. So yeah, yeah, anyway, okay, what's your nipple?

Rab?

I think one point five is fair?

Yeah, yeah, one one and a half nipples And maybe I'm going to give them to Gem's boyfriend.

Oh wait, oh yeah. We don't learn his name, but he only no but.

He's a gay guy who owns a nightclub in Eastbourne, which is actually incredibly aggressive for two thousand and eight.

I'm surprised that there was. And he seems like he's a man of color.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

So I'm surprised that there's a man of color, a queer man of color who owns a nightclub in Eastpown in two thousand and eight because I was willing to rent it out to a fifteen year old.

I was like, maybe the business is struggling and you had to rent it out to a fifteen year olds.

But I'm like, yeah, you, yeah, you're There's a lot of representation because he's one character.

This is a very like conservative area.

Yeah, it's just like full of old people. I don't know, so I'm just I love that for him. He lives by the sea with his boyfriend. He's aner. They're doing really well for themselves.

Inspirational. Yeah, Kate, thank you so much for joining Thank you today. Where can we find you online? Where can we follow?

Yeah, Kate Checker c htka Instagram. That's basically beautiful.

Thanks for coming on and come back anytime. Thank you for having me Caitlyn from the Future popping in here. Because our memory card ran out of storage before we could do plugs, so I'm doing everyone's plugs, starting with our guest Kate Cheka. Big thanks to her once again for joining us on this episode. She has a great solo show called A Messiah Comes, which she is doing at Soho Theater in London on January sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth.

Bye bye.

The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Boord. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Vosskrosenski. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to Aristotle Assevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree slash Bechdel Cast