On the Bechdel Cast, 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, zephim vast start changing with the Bechdel Cast.
Hello, and welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus and.
My name's Caitlin Derante.
And before we get our episodes started today, we wanted to welcome all our new listeners. This is our first episode on the How Stuff Works Network. We are so thrilled to be here. Yes, so if this is your first time listening to our podcast, we'll just give you a quick explainer on what we do here.
That's right, So we again are the Bechdel Cast. We talk about the portrayal and representation of women in movies through an intersectional feminist lens.
Every Thursday, we bring in a special guest who brings in one of their favorite movies, a movie that's really affected them, and we tear it apart based on the way that it treats women in that movie. Sometimes it does really well, times not so nice.
Yeah, Hollywood kind of has a long history of not representing women well at all what Yeah, hard to believe.
Hot take.
That's why we're here. We use the Bechdel test as a sort of jumping off point to initiate this larger conversation about representation of women.
What on earth is the Bechdel Test? Kaitlin?
Why, Jamie? I'd be happy to tell you, Okay. It is a test that originated from cartoonist Alison Bechdel in the nineteen eighties. It requires that a movie has at least two women in it who have names check. They have to speak to each other eick, and that conversation cannot be about a man.
Oh at all? Word?
I know.
Shall we demo it?
I'd love to.
Let's demo it for the people? Okay, begin test. Hi, Caitlin, Hey Jamie, did you know that this is our first episode on the House Stuff Works Network?
I did know that, Oh my god.
But like for people who are like new to the podcast, like what should listened to? Are there other episodes?
There are because we've operated independently up until now. Good for us, I know we're such strong independent women.
Queen go off.
We have over eighty episodes backlogged of a ton of different movies, so check those out. Chances are we've covered one of your favorites.
Yeah, we've got a lot of hot, spicy backlog with some hot spicy discourse. We've covered Star Wars, We've.
Covered Black Panther, We've covered Jili for some reason, we covered Gilie.
We sure did. Uh So, did that conversation pass the Vitels test?
Well, except for Gelie because Julie is a man, but up until Larry and Icon, yeah, grows up until the very end of that conversation, I would say we've passed with flying colors.
Good for us, I know.
And so toward the end of every episode, after our discussion, after our heavy but also fun discourse.
Sometimes it's heavy, sometimes it's light.
Yeah, we will determine whether or not the movie passes the Bechdel test, and we will rate the movie on our special rating system, which we will get to. But yeah, other than that, we're so happy to be here on how stuff works. We're happy you're joining us. And today's episode, we are talking about breakfast of Tiffany's. Yes, and we have a wonderful guest, so let's introduce her.
Yes. Absolutely.
She is the host of Bad with Money podcast and she is the writer of I hate everyone, but you Gaby done. Hi, Hi, thanks for being here.
Oh, thanks for having me. We're going older than we usually go today.
We haven't done a lot of movies before nineteen eighty. I would say, agree, yeah, but this is a big one. This is a classic.
Yes, I did notice that you guys don't do a lot of very old movies, which is why I suggested this one.
I think probably one of the reasons we tend to steer more toward modern and contemporary movies is that our conversations are about how we influence media. Media influences us. So today's world, not as many people are watching the older movies anymore.
Maybe I don't know my grandmother. I'm a turner classic movies.
I used to be a TCM right addict.
Yeah, Kim, it's really good.
But like, especially like with today's younger generation, who are the most easily influenced, they're watching you know, Marvel stuff like what's in theaters right now, and they're not a lot of them unless they're like film buffs, aren't necessarily going back to older movie.
Pretentious I mean. But also the thing is with this one is that like young women have this aesthetic about it, and they also like, have you know the poster of Audrey Hepburn, and like they're aware of this as like a classic that keeps keeps coming back kind of as like a cool thing, right without possibly even understanding the movie or having seen the movie.
I hope that we do more old movies. It's it's for me. I just sort of assume that anything before nineteen eighty, even though I've seen a lot of them, but like a lot of pre nineteen eighty is just straight up a wat where you're just like, yeah, that's not gonna do well. That's not gonna do well. And most movies after nineteen eighty and also most movies that come out now, but yes, in particular before that.
But sometimes they're really sneaky feminist. Yeah, like they get away with a lot of stuff. Like I was just saying, I love the movie Gentlemen before Blondes, and that is like very they get away with so many things, like Marilyn Monroe's characters they're both like so overtly sexual and it's just like completely fine. So I think there's like a lot of stuff that I don't know. It's not all like oh this is terrible and Women Suck and
there were a lot of really great like leading parts. Yeah, women back, And I don't know where we steered wrong, but.
Yeah, I would say it's probably the well, this movie came out in nineteen sixty one while the production Code was still in full effect, so I would hazard to guess. And I don't know a whole ton about this, but the production code was an effect between nineteen thirty four and I think nineteen sixty eight or nine, and this was like all the censorship of like you could, like there was no overt sexuality, you couldn't swear, there couldn't
be graphic violence, there couldn't be snaky. Yeah, there's like tons of innuendos, and that gave birth to things like screwball comedy and like a whole bunch of other things. But like, yeah, because of the production Code and all the censorship that came with that, I think reinforced more like rigid gender roles. But they have think.
They I think like limitations made people a little more I don't know them, made them a little more creative about rather than just going for like the eases.
In some movies.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I.
Just am always shocked by how overtly sexual. They're like allowed to be with these kind of innuendos or like having to write around these sort of things. Like I was saying to Jamie too before this that I read that they had the Paul character. They added more sexual stuff for him in the script so that the sensors would go after him and censor more of his things and leave Holly golightly alone. Yeah, which is smart, Which is like an interesting trick.
That's a cool misdirect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I Well, let's talk about your history with the movie. When did you first see the movie? And like, what is your history with that up till now?
When I was in high school, I was like a very pretentious asshole, and so I was kind of doing this thing where I was like I like old music,
I like old movies. I'm wearing silk gloves to prom whatever that kind of girl, And so I would start watching these old movies because I just I don't know, I was trying to be like a person who knew about things that other kids at school didn't know about, which you know, people loved obviously, like Super wanted to be friends with me, and so like I took a lot of pride in being like I know about all
this media that you don't even know about. So I think I watched it just because I had seen all these photos and I knew about like the picture of her with the with the tiara andy, but I had no idea what it was about. So I watched it in high school because I watched a lot of like Elvis Beach movies. I watched Hard Day's Night all the time. I liked Marilyn Monroe's stuff.
This was like your era that you that you into, like got in late fifties early sixtiest.
Like got into it. And then when I watched it, I was like, wait a minute, they're both sex workers. Like this is crazy, Like I this movie that is built up as being this classy kind of like beautiful thing that like an Audrey Hepburn especially who's viewed as kind of like untouchable and like a porcelain doll.
Right, And it's like not explicitly stated in either in the story or the movie, but it's so Like Truman Capoti, I liked this phrase a lot when he was asked if like A Letley was a sex worker, like years later, he's like, I like to think of her as an American geisha. Yeah, okay, okay, so you're saying it, but you're not going to say, Hey, they.
Would in the in the press for the film at the time, they were saying she was a party girl or that she They also used the word cook a lot. They were like, she's an eccentric kuk right, And it's like.
Okay, this is some really wild codd language we're pulling out. But it's like, no one will actually say it, but it is clearly what's you know.
Yeah, I mean there's it's not subtle. I mean he gives her money for the quote unquote powder room, the interior decorator quote unquote leaves Paul three hundred dollars like on the nightstand. Like it's not subtle at all. So then I was like, oh my god, this is the same movie that people lawed as this classy sort of thing that like women you know, dress up for as Halloween like in you know what I mean. I put the poster in their dorm and I was like, does
anybody else understand what this movie is about? And then I loved it because I always loved sort of subversive stuff. So I was like, this is great, and then I would watch it every so often as like a you know, to fall asleep, as like a soothing because now it's kind of like this comfort movie, which a lot of Audrey Hepburn's stuff is for me. Yeah, like just very comforting.
So it's been with you for a long time. Yeah, yeah, it's sort of similarly. I had the poster before I saw the movie. Yeah, I had the poster hanging in my room. I think my mom gave it to me, and I had it for like a full year before I was like, oh, yeah, I should probably watch this because I love old movies. My era was I was like wartime MGM movies. Okay, I had a stack of tapes and like DVDs full of TCM Judy Garland movies,
like every Judy. I was a full on Judy person, which is also one of the many reasons it's so painful to watch Mickey Rooney in this movie, because he's in all the Judy Garland movies. But so I finally got around do watching Breakfast at Tiffany's and then read the book as well, and I really really really loved Truman Capoti, who did not like this movie. But I think it's really nice. There was so much I haven't
seen it in at least two or three years. Like it's sort of the thing that whenever it's on Netflix, I'm like, oh, this is a good background thing, but I totally forgot about some of the very like moving, sad things that happened in this movie. It's and I think that that's true. There's just like this weird dissonance with this movie where you remember what Audrey Hepburn looks like, you remember sort of how she behave. Do you remember that there's parties, and you remember there's a kiss in
the rain at the end and everything else. It's you're sort of just like, oh, yeah, she's arrested. There's a character named Sally Tomato.
There's like brother does I totally forgot her brother died? Yeah, It's like an incredibly sad movie. And then it's recreated, like I keep thinking of the scene of Gossip Girl where they recreate it and Leeton Mester is her, and then it's just played us this very romantic thing, right, and people like don't know what the movie is about, which I can see why Truman Capote would freaking hate that.
He hated well, we'll get into this in a bit, but there's like the context that he wrote this story, and also that in the short story, Paul is coded gay, which obviously they completely scrap in this movie. But there's you know, there's just like a lot of interesting stuff. But yeah, this movie was with me since I think high school as well. I have a really embarrassing MySpace profile pick with the poster in the background and it's black and white and it's really horrible. No, it's really bad,
but I don't know. And then watching it this time, I don't dislike this movie. I still I still enjoyed it, but there's just like a lot that stuck out to me and just stuff I'd forgotten. Yeah, what about you.
I saw it for the first time in college during that period of time because I was not to brag, but I was majoring in film, so I was trying to watch as many movies as I could, so I would sometimes watch like two or three movies a day, and then like from that period of time, my brain didn't store anything about the story or like any of
important things about the movie. The only thing I would remember about the movies I watched back then is whether or not I liked them, and what I remembered about Breakfast at Tiffany's is a very visceral hatred.
For this movie.
I hate this movie.
You hated it the first time you saw it, so yes, oh wow, and you hate it now.
I hate it this movie.
Were you really left to have me on because of that?
No?
We like because it's fun.
I think it's fun a lot of times.
Yeah, we love talking about movies that we hate and more fun.
I think we do our best, at least to try to not let our personal feelings about the movie influence our critical analysis of the portrayal of women in the movie. Okay, So I do my best to keep that separate.
Anytime it's an old movie, Caitlin hates it. Anytime it's a movie with aliens, I hate it. We all do our, don't get me wrong.
I like a lot of old movies. This just isn't an example of one of the ones that I like. Yeah, so I like Audrey Hepburn.
She kind of plays a similar type of woman a lot.
I think the only other thing I saw her in was My Fair Lady.
Okay.
I liked that movie. Okay, and I had Red Pig Million and I liked that. I haven't seen it for over a decade, so I don't know if it holds up at all. But the reason I don't like this movie is I find the Holly Golightly character absolutely insufferable. I didn't read the novella, sall, I'm not super familiar with the context, but just there's barely a plot and I hate the character. So sorry about that. But from here on out, I'm going to be happy and nice anyway, So I'll do the recap.
Let's do it.
We are introduced to Holligo lightly. She's living in New York City. Wow city where dreams true, concrete jungle where dreams are made up? Okay, so it's the early sixties. She's, you know, living a life in New York City. Although it's never explicitly stated, there are different innuendos and hints to suggest that she is a sex worker, escort American geisha.
And early on she meets her new neighbor who moves in, named Paul, but she keeps calling him Fred because he looks like her brother and Fred.
And we know that it's a red flag because he is a blonde male adult. It's still one of the biggest human red flags you can encounter is an adult blonde male, very dangerous. Do not interact with them.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah.
So Paul also seems to have a certain arrangement with a woman named missus Phalanson.
I love missus Phalanson.
So Patricia Neil, she's amazing, so got her.
Husky voice, and then she she just she like appears in a room and like, oh, she's going to fuck him. Yeah, Like it's just such.
She's married to Roald Dahl.
Yeah, I didn't know that. That's so cool.
Fact cool.
So they have an arrangement where he he's a writer, but a struggling writer. He's written one book of nine short stories. But other than that he needs some financial security, which missus Falansen seems to provide. So Paul and Holly are in similar careers and they relate. They yeah, so they kind of They started to become friends early on, Like Holly throws a party and she meets a few different rich guys who get invited. One's named Jose Da
Silva Pereira and the other one is rust Patrolla. These men eventually become two men that Holly tries to pursue and like seduce so that they will marry her so that she can be wealthy, a wealthy man. Then Holly's husband, we find out that she was previously married when she got married. Okay, so this is going on fourteen thirteen.
This is crazy. So she and her brother were poor, their parents died. They were stealing turkey eggs from this guy's yard. He was like full grown man. He was like, oh my god, I'll adopt you. So she so he adopts her and Fred and then when she gets to be thirteen, he's like and he has kids from a previous marriage. He's like, oh, I want to marry you. So then he marries her and then they like are raising the brother and the kids together.
What so weird. And then the way that the movie presents him to me is also very bizarre, Like they present him as like you understand why she doesn't go back with him, obviously, but also he's presented it's like this really like sympathetic.
Sweet, simple man, but.
He loves her, and you're just like, no, this guy's like sucking criminal raise this saturatory rapist who shows up with his big blue eyes. He's like, come back to the farm, and you're just like.
No, she's in the right, but as played as that, like he's in the right. And also she says like, well I was I was only thirteen, so the marriage wasn't old. Yeah, yeah, I bet it was.
Yeah, that tracks like there's and also Paul pissed me up in that scene, and this is I think, in a lot of ways, just revealing of the era. Where Doc shows up. He's like, hey, that girl you have a crush on I raped her and and like I need to see her because I'm her husband. And Paul, without checking, without giving Holly any manner of heads up, just knocks on her door and he's like, hey, found your rapist outside. Was like you fucking there. You just sold her out so hard, And then Holly has to
deal with it. She does not get mad at Paul.
She's like Doc's just a sweet guy.
Yeah, I just like we we can be upset with Doc.
Yeah.
I just that scene was so like there's a few different moments in the way that Paul treats Holly that this story doesn't address that. It's really just like okay, yeah, at that time, if a man says I'm this woman's husband, it doesn't matter how the woman feels you bring him to her right, and his like this person you just met, his needs matter more than the person you're falling in love with. Sure, right, right.
So that is a fun story beat, But ultimately he's like trying to lure her back home with the promise of like, hey, your brother Paul's getting out of.
The army, said Fred.
She's like, no, I can't go back, and.
Then he like sort of threatens. He's just like, well, if you don't get on his Greyhound buzz with me, maybe you'll never see Fred again.
It was like, what friend's an adult?
Yeah, he's a man.
But so then she's like, oh, I have to marry a rich guy so that I can bring Fred to me in New York City so I can take care of him again, this adult man who has been in the army for presumably a few years.
She kind of insinuates that Fred is not smart.
Yes she's it's not stated, but yeah, she says at the beginning that he's very slow and tall.
Maybe he's like John Malkovich of Mice and Men.
Yep, that's what that's the canon I'm going with.
So she's trying to seduce these different rich men. First, she starts with Rusty Troller, but then she finds out that he has married someone else, and then she starts to go after Jose And meanwhile, like she's spending time with Paul and they're really connecting and he's catching some feels for her. But she, you know, she doesn't know she is or not because she doesn't like to be tied down to anyone. She's she's a free as a bird.
There's a hat. It's a metaphor, right right.
The cat doesn't have a name, and the cat will get a name when she feels like she can settle down, right.
Yeah, But these different pursuits don't work out because she gets arrested for her Oh wait, she I can't believe I forgot to mention Sally Tomato.
Feminiss Sally Tomato.
He was like a known gangster. This like drug scandal surfaces and because she was visiting him in prison. Yeah, she gets I guess. Yeah, I don't really understand that hole.
I read about it, and in the write ups I read, they believe that she really didn't know, like she really thought it was a weather report. But I don't know if she's that stupid.
Yeah, she's gotten through life pretty cleverly.
Yeah, But so then she she's like about to go to Brazil to marry Jose, and then she gets arrested for her involvement with Sally Tomato.
And then she is this before or after She finds out that her brother has died in a.
Before before before because Jose is still there. Doesn't Jose leave after?
Oh?
Yeah he leaves because.
She got arrested.
Yeah, all right, So she finds that out, and then she trashes her room and then she is in a cab. Paul has like picked her up from prison, and then he's just like, I love you, Holly. You need to get out of your cage that you built for yourself. You belong to me. He tells her that because he loves her, that she belongs to him.
Yeah, he won't let her go in the library and he's like, good, he's got icecript. It's very romantic.
And then she flings her own cat out of the cab.
Oh, she's like.
Kind a home here.
Yeah, there's also that one shot. This is like, I think it's the scene we found out where Fred died, where someone it's clear it's not Audrey. Hepburn throws a cat at the wall and you see the cat lie through the frame and hit the wall. I was like, you can't do that, you kitchen, you.
Had lands on the window.
Yeah, yeah, you see. Like I'm like, you just imagine like a first dad being like, Okay, I'm just gonna throw this cat really quick.
Oh my god.
Also, cats do have eight nipples. This is cat facts with Caitlin, Thank you so much.
Yeah.
So, basically, in the in the cab right at the end of the movie, Paul is confessing his love for Holly. She's like yeah, and then she's like, wait a minute, He's right. I do need to let people in. I need to let love into my life. I do need to go back and get my cat. So she gets out of the cab and they look for the cat together, they find it, and then there's a kiss in the rain, and that is the end of the movie. Okay, let's take a quick break and we'll be back in a moment.
All right, and we're back.
There's a lot that happens in this movie.
Yeah, there's a lot of plot.
Yeah, there's not on top of plot.
To me, it's like there's no like really distinct desire that she's given she has a few like micro goals, but I think that Fred.
And security or her two motivations, Like she wants to be with her brother, and she also wants to like live a comfortable life without having to commit to someone at first and then later decides she does want to commit to someone because of comfort.
Yeah, and Paul wants to be a writer. They're both kind of trying to get out of sex work.
Yeah. So this just for context of the book, which is very different. So Holly Golightly was pulled from two different sources in Truman Capotte's life. One is his mom, who literally did basically the Lula May thing where when Truman Compotti was very young, his mom and this is
like they lived in Alabama, blah blah blah. Truman's mom boots out, She's like, actually, I'm going to go to New York and like find us a cool life, changed her name the whole, like the whole Holly Galately sort except she had a kid, and then eventually move Truman Capoti to New York with her. It didn't work out.
They ended up moving back to Alabama. But so his mom, who he had like a weird relationship with his whole life basically lived this sort of Holly Golightly adjacent lifestyle for a while.
Wait are you telling me a gay creative had a weird relationship with his mom.
I can't.
I can't believe it, but I get it better.
Okay, because Paul in the story is Holly's neighbor but is not like an explicit love interest at all and is coded gay or that is like what was speculated by a lot of critics. So it's like Truman Capoti wrote this novella where he as an adult, became friends with his mom at his age and then they have this like it's it's great, and then the other one is a.
Neighbor of his right, a woman who lived downstairs from him.
Exactly. Yeah, So it's like interesting self fan fic in some ways. And then he also pulled on like he I guess he's like, I want to write a female Gatsby character, which you can see a lot of in Hollygolately as well as like, oh yeah, the self made.
Yeah is she a phony? The thing is she's a real phony exactly. Yeah, she is a prototype manic pixie dream girl.
Yeah, for sure.
The way she's introduced when he comes in and she's just talking over him so manically and like doesn't even find my shoes.
Yeah they're alligator.
And it's just very like, oh, of course I'm doing this, like and he's sort of blown away by her, and she's like, you know, just being super quirky.
Her being able to call a taxi, like her catching her on the balcony, just improvising this beautiful tweet song from the acoustic.
Guitar which is moon River, which was written for the movie.
Yeah. Yeah, but I feel like that trope is I mean, it's not even fully a recognized trope at this point, but it's commented on more than other Manic pixies where we are given the context of her background and like why she puts on this persona to survive, and like it it makes sense and is explained and commented on enough that it almost doesn't bother me really too much. Yeah it does movie.
Yeah it doesn't bother me that much either, especially because nobody is like shaming her for her flaw or like her being a sex worker is not even the problem, do you know what I mean? And so that's that's like a twist on it for me, where it's not like someone had to save her necessarily. She had to figure, she had to come to this on her own, that she she doesn't want. I don't know. I guess Paul does a lot of the work, but she like makes the choice to get out of the cab, right.
I mean, she she has a lot of agency. The ending rings where it was like my favorite part when I was younger, Like it rings a little bit hollow for me now because the way Paul behaves at the end of the movie is so entitled.
And yeah, he's very entitled, not like you belong to me, And she says people don't belong to each other, right, and she's right.
Right, But then cut to five minutes later, she belongs to him now and the cat you know, Yeah, it's it's weird that we hear her say those lines that like definitely stuck with me when I was younger, and then minutes later she goes back on it entirely, or the story has her go back on that entirely, and now she's gonna be in, you know, a normal relationship with Paul, which is apparently all she ever wanted, even though that's never really what she said that she wanted.
Which is why, like, I don't know if she has that much agency. She's not that active of a character, like so she's like, yeah, she has a few different goals and motivations, but she's the worst person.
Why didn't she like her? Why?
I have a list why you don't like her. She treats people around her horribly, most notably her neighbor mister Yuniyoshi, who will get into a whole horribly problematic oh boy thing there. But there's a lot of people she doesn't seem to care about. She uses people. She is superficial and has terrible friends, and she only cares about status and money. She is hyper materialistic. She never says anything of substance. She only ever talks about like the rich
man she wants to marry. She's unaware of her surroundings, and she accidentally lights a woman's head on fire. She is calling people ugly and fat all the time. She doesn't own any books. She's never been to a library before. She thinks that South America is a country.
I disagree on a lot almost all she does think that South America is okay.
I'll give you that.
I think that you know those things in a void are issues, but it's like she's a she's a I think she does have a clear motivation and a lot of those qualities. Especially I would argue the materialistic stuff is so rooted in that she has had to find ways to survive for so long and and it's like, it's not like these men with money that you know, like, I guess you can make the argument that she has manipulating them, but they're doing the same thing to her.
They don't give a fuck about her. They want, you know, like a piece to bring to events like it is, and like fitting in with her like background as a sex worker, even though no one's gonna say sex sex worker,
Like it's transactional in a lot of ways. And I don't know, like the whole thing with her loving Tiffany's just seems like in her life, given what we know of her, the only consistent thing you can count on our material things, because she's been let down by so many people, with the exception of her brother, who she is genuinely fighting for, but everyone else in her life, like who else can she point to is like, Oh, here's a person that is worth more than material security.
And I don't think that there is any I mean, like her husband, like, well, we already went through that where you know, the statutory rape and the you know, it's.
Like what choice. She didn't have a choice but to marry him. So it's really like because there was no way out of that situation, right, It's similar like this is like a downer, but my grandmother survived the Holocaust and she's incredibly materialistic now, And like when I was younger, I used to judge her for that, and now that I'm older, I'm like, oh, of course, Like of course she wants to surround herself with like finery. The background on that is so dark that like she's just like
I want all the jewelry. I want all the stuff. I deserve this right, Like and that completely makes sense to me, Like that tracks as like motivation totally.
Yeah, I don't know, it makes I think we're given the context for it to make sense. I get that she's like not likable in a lot of ways, and that definitely like the Manic Pixie stuff is like present and like used as oh, it feels almost like a short cut at some points to like get us from point A to point B, especially in terms of like why is Paul in love with her manic pixie behaviors, so easy for it to be like and that's why, Yeah, he lives here.
And also she's totally messed up and has a lot of problems but flawlessly beautiful the whole time. Yes, yes, I would have like sleeping with makeup on, like like she's like when she's like got the pigtails in the sweater on and she's like, we have to go somewhere where I can get in looking like this. I'm like, but shut up, but joking, you look top ten most beautiful? Are you kidding me?
Right now than any of us will ever look in our entire lives.
Great thing, right, So there is a thing of like romanticizing trauma and like making trauma beautiful, which is definitely at play here.
Yeah, and then there's there's multiple points where I think it's like three different men in this movie call her crazy and that is always like red flag. And there's one of my favorite ones just of like you know, like when you watch an old movie, there are just like some clueless ways that it will interact with its characters where Doc says to her, you're talking crazy, Lula May and she says, don't call me that, and I'm thinking crazy and then she's like, don't call me Lula May.
I guess that's the bigger issue here, because people call her crazy all the time, and it's just something she has to deal with.
She's a kook, she's an eccentric coup. Then what that was, Paul? You know what I mean?
Right? Yeah, I don't know. I was. I was like, interesting choice that she's never been to a library before, But then I forgot. I mean, there are so many details of this movie I've forgotten. I was like, oh, but she goes back later and she's like, oh, maybe there is something to this.
Whole He's never been to Tiffany's. So true, everyone's never been places.
Okay, I think it's much more common to have never been to a Tiffany's than to never have been to a library.
And the I kind of liked, I don't know the whole Tiffany's and like stealing in that whole sequence is like, this is a bit long. They like each other, but the.
Well do you know that New York City is the third character? There's everyone I just want for the listeners at home, Jamie and Caitlin both very much hated that.
No, he collapsed, did not like that at all. I need to be revived. There's that's something that happens when we have male guests sometimes where male guests love to say that locations are also characters, Like.
Thank you so much for telling me that there's Oh I mentioned in the beginning, I'm an old movies asshole, right, like that was weird to everyone.
Carrina Longworth over here, Oh god, I wish there's I know she's.
The I listened to that. I listened to that show and it's real good.
It's really good. Oh yeah, the Tiffany thing. I liked the comment that she makes inside of Tiffany's that like just reminded me of being poor, of like, oh yeah, I don't buy anything. I just like, you know, I just like ster at nize things and it just like calms me down. And that fits into the character very well. Of just like the atmosphere of materialism is more comforting than like other people.
And there's a lot of class stuff too that they like get the Crackerjack ring engraved. Yeah, Like it's just a lot of like, you know the way that the sales guy looks at them, and his judgy and that they like keep going with the bit.
And also in this world, it makes no sense that he would look at these two gorgeous, well dressed people and be like, seems sus it's like now they look like they have money.
Yeah, for sure, he's being a full on asshole.
I think we had a similar discussion on like the Mulan Rouge episode, where if you really boil down this story, it is sort of about a woman who's a sex worker who maybe is trying to get out of this lifestyle. How active she is in that pursuit is kind of up for debate, but ultimately it's about a man who comes in and sort of rescues her from it in the sense that he's willing to provide her with actual love, unlike the other men that she's interacting with in her profession.
So in that sense, this is a story like the one that we saw in Mulan Rouge and like we see in Pretty Woman, and just a lot of like, oh, you're a sex worker, that must mean that you just need love from a man.
I The counterpoint to that is that he is also a sex worker, yes, and that he gives up missus Phil he gives up her, and he gives up he starts writing again because he's like, I need to make money on my own, and he kind of also is rescuing himself and she's rescuing him a little bit.
But it's not his story, it's her story. So I feel like I wish she had more agency and more she was more active in the pursuit of whatever she wants, which again I would argue, we don't like again, some things are sort of defined, but I think there could be a much clearer definition of what she actually wants out of life.
He's very entitled, but there is the thing that he leaves her alone for a long time and then she calls him to come back to the apartment.
Which is good. Yeah, I agree with both of you on that. I think it's weird that, Like again, it's like a Hollywood third act problem, where I think all the work is done to make Holly a realized enough character that the movie does not have to end the
way it does. She could act with way more agency towards the end of the movie, and it would make sense with her character because we've been given the contacts in the background that she would have the motivation to do it, but because of how these stories are structured, she's not allowed to. There is one line that Paul says when he's breaking things off with Missus Phelanson, where he's that really, I was just like, oh, come on,
she can't help anyone, including herself. The thing is I can help her, and that's a nice feeling for a change, And so we know that he's going into it thinking that he is rescuing her and like that is even though we know that she has a lot to offer him as well. He pretty explicitly articulates what his mindset is, which is that like, I can help her, and that makes me feel good, and I care about her, so I'm going to.
And also because I love her, then she belongs to.
Me, right, So that is like a third actissue I have. And then there's also like one the other thing where they are both sex workers, right, and her motivation is so deeply rooted and survival. We also see her, you know, because she is a woman like treated worse like. At the very beginning, the motivation for their first hang is that mel blank fucking bugs Bunny is like chasing her out of her own apartment to the point where she has to leave out the way.
Yeah, these men are getting violent and like there's an implication that he's gonna rape her. Right, She's just like another day at the office exactly.
She's like, he's nice when he doesn't drink, and you're just like, yikes, okay, Yeah, so she has so so much more shit even though they're both workers. It's clear that she has to take more shit and Paul is sort of given the luxury that I don't think she really has in this movie of he has wanted to provide her yes and is allowed to have a creative pursuit and has the time to be able to do that, and that doesn't seem as possible for Holly.
I also think the belong to each other thing is interesting because it's phrased terribly, but what he means is and what she ultimately takes away from it, and what the cat provides is that.
What the cat provides my new podcast.
Is that put down roots. You have to put down roots, you have to commit to something, you have to name your cat. And that's why I like that she goes after the cat when she gets out of the car, because it's yes, belong to each other's phrased poorly, but I do think he has a point in that, Like she's she's always gonna be running, and as is this doctor SEUs. Wherever you go, there you are. Uh oh, I feel like that's a doctor Seuss thing, but maybe not.
But basically, like you you have to you're always gonna be stuck with yourself, so she can't keep running. Like in the cabs, she's like, well, I'm gonna go to Brazil anyway. I'm just gonna try to go anyway. Yeah, and he's like, you love New York, you love me, you love this cat, like deal with it. So I do think there is If she was like, actually, I do want to be this free person and he was coming from no evidence and no information, then I can
see it. But also it is hard to swallow a guy being like, here's what you need, but it is what she needs.
Well, but it's just it sucks that he has to make her see that and she doesn't come to that conclusion on her own, but.
She does when she gets out of the car because she kind of just gone to Brazil and been like, nah, fuck you dude.
Well, it's only because the long speech that he has delivered. Yeah, like it was still like his actions and his words poorly phrase though they may be that gets her to realize what I mean.
But yeah, that's why it would have been great if jose had been waiting for her, Like if she had actually have a choice, then she would have made a choice.
Yeah, right, right, right, Yeah. I don't hate aside from his very horrible phrasing of saying that she belongs to him, I don't hate the message that he's saying, which is basically just like, you need to be emotionally vulnerable if you ever want to connect with anyone and be happy, which she realizes that it just yea. I wish that she had come to that conclusion on her own, through her own you know, journey, rather than to have him very explicitly teach her that lesson.
Yeah, and also would have liked to see maybe a bit more of her throwing that back at him and being like, you do the same thing. You don't fucking write. You say you're a writer, but you don't write. You're kind of a prototype of a of a guy who's just privileged in just being like I'm gonna I'm good looking, so I'm gonna like let women, you know what I mean, Like, she doesn't give it back to him.
She was a hard challenge him.
Yeah, at all, as hard as anyone.
I wanted her to yell at him so much when she was like, why did you bring Doc to my house? But that's just I don't know why. That was the part I most strongly objected to. But I was so mad at he's so mad at me.
He ambushes her with her rabbit.
He's just like, yeah, you're gonna want to get on a Greyhound bus with this guy. I'm like, what is wrong with you?
Oh?
Yeah? Anyways, are there any the other women at the party? Is that one boisterous woman that she hates, mag wild mag Wildwood, who she hates and thinks is a bore and then who passes out and everyone just lets her hit the ground.
Yeah, that's another reason she's a terrible person. Like she knows that she's about to fall, and instead of Holly helping her fellow woman, she goes timber.
Also, no one, no one like that clear out of the way. It reminds me of that scene at the beginning of School of Rock where Jack Black tries to do the stage dive, but everyone's like he's a jerk and they just let him hit the floor. Yeah.
Yeah, but that she would be dead, you know what I mean, And like that's off, like she hits her head like it's not okay.
She would have at least broken her no, right face.
And then there's like other women at the party, irving who's like the guy the OJ the agent is trying to get with yes, oh yes, And then who's he's kind of like chasing her around. And then there's one Asian woman, yes, who does not does not speak.
Is I mean not the worst part of the way Asian culture is portrayed in this movie, for sure, but this reminded me a little bit of a few episodes ago we did the Royal ten and bombs in just like the use of Asian culture as set dressing correct and characters that are never given any.
Yeah, and she's dressed a very specific way. Yes, I mean it was interesting that she was in clue in the socialite scene. I thought that was interesting, but also dressed a certain way and doesn't.
Talk, doesn't Yeah, so we just have no context of like who she is, why she's there.
And then also there's like an interesting thing where with Jose. It seems like his family is like very important politicians in Brazil, and so there's like an implication that he can't marry a white woman, which is very interesting too.
Oh I didn't catch that.
I mean that he's like bringing her around and she's like, we're gonna get married with all his family there, and it's like very clear that that's not gonna happen.
I wasn't sure if that was because she was a call girl. Oh.
I got the impression that like she's trying to, like she was learning to cook and like trying to learn Portuguese and like fit in with his family, and I think there was like an implication that he can't marry someone who's not part of like the Brazilian political family.
Or whatever that makes sense. I thought that they were just like, hey, don't marry a sex worker.
But then she has a line well yeah, and then she has a line where she says, oh, our kids will have dark skin, but but green eyes. I was like, okay, okay, x yeah. Well, I was like, what do you mean, Holly, you don't have green eyes? Like what are you talk about? Who here has green eyes? What are you talking about?
From?
But yeah, it's it's very weird. And then of course Mickey Rooney.
Yeah, I mean we should we just do it?
Yeah, we gotta do it. I'd recommend an article that was in the Wall Street Journal from a few years ago by Jeff Yang, who talks about this role at length. So this, this is something that's been talked about for years. People have protested like different.
Screenings of this movie.
Yeah, sure, because of Mickey Rooney's portrayal of the character of mister Unioshi, which is.
Of course two thousand and eight comes out with a big old defense of ye doing it Earlier.
Earlier he had said he regretted it, he's sorry he did it, he didn't know, blah blah blah, you did this whole thing. And then he got older, I assume, more senile, and then in two thousand and eight was like, not fuck y'all.
Yeah. I I never in defense of Mickey Ronny here, but Mickey Ronnie the last couple of years of his life, pretty much anything he says is not loucid. So it's a bummer that he was even allowed to make a statement about it, because I think he was like still lucid when he was like Oh, that's incredibly offensive.
Well, I think he.
Believed, Yeah, he believed it was offensive, but I think he got upset when screenings were canceled, and that's when he was like went full defensive.
Like no one's ever complained about this role before that they have.
Yeah, it's really he has never seen a computer before.
It's really bad. It is him straight up in yellow face. He's got a terrible accent. He's treated terribly by hollygo lightly.
It's such a wee weird, horribly offensive character. It's like one of the worst, like the most racist characters ever committed to film.
For sure.
They put buck teeth in his mouth, they like taped his eyes.
Yeah, it's really bad.
That really irresponsible thing. You can think of, every insensitive thing, incredible attention to detail. It's just fucking crazy.
Because we did an episode recently also about Aliens, and we talked about the character of Vesquez being a brown face. At the very least, Again not to defend any you know, whitewashing or anything like that, or any racist characters, but at least that character of Vesquez is treated with respect by the other characters and the movie itself. Yeah, this is just like the worst example, and.
It also doesn't add anything to the story. Like I've tweeted, I've tweeted about like loving Breakfast to Tifany's and I've been like my kingdom for someone who will just cut a version of the movie without his character at all, and the movie would make complete sense.
Yeah, I mean, don't need it. There's a few different elements of this movie. Just from a story perspective, you don't need that character. You don't really need Sally Tomato, Like there's not there's some there's certain things that just like you're some weird fat trimming.
Sally Tomato comes into play because her arrest is what leads Jose to leave her. But it would make even better and just as much sense if she decides on her own to leave Jose and be with.
Paul, right she loves him.
Yeah, yeah, I think the cat has is more of an important part of the story plot wise than any of those other.
Things, right, yes, so yeah, I checked that piece out. And and then also it Warrant's saying that, you know, well, this is one of the most egregious examples of a yellow face character in film. It was happening, you know, as recently as Emma Stone, so it is something that still happens in film and will anyone ever learn ever?
Yeah, I just watched Doctor Strange until this Winton's character is supposed to be Asian as well.
It's like, what, there's so much whitewashing.
That's horrible.
Yeah, especially I think like I think because it's yellow face, people are willing to give it more of a pass than like if he was straight up in black face, people would be like, well, obviously that's not I mean, some people would say it's bad, but because it's yellow face, people are like no, it's like okay, you know what I mean, Like they view it as not as bad when it very clearly is right. And similarly with aliens too, I think they're like, that's not so bad. Yeah it is.
It is it is.
It is so bad. Yeah, and it sucks because it's otherwise like a good, feel good movie. And then you're like, like, I really do please someone out there edit together the movie without those scenes and it would be just as good, right.
It's really it's really frustrating, And at the time I was trying to like figure out like, okay, what did this add to this movie at the time, and it's just like I think it was intended as like a slap sticky, like, oh, wouldn't it be funny, which is just makes it even worse. And it's also totally at inconsistent. It's like a completely different it's taking place in a different movie. Right, It's not good. It's bad.
Can you imagine if you just like lost your keys all the time and then you woke up your neighbor.
If you have twenty six keys made to your apartment, yeah you can get in, But do you.
Like consistently like buzz your neighbor and wake him up all the time, and then in order to like appease him for a moment, you say, yeah, you can take nude pictures of me.
Sometimes I did that with my moment orn yesterday. No kind of we just just a moment in praise of Emily Eustace Phalans.
Oh for sure.
Patricia Neil, she just think that she is so cool and like for this time she's so confidently cheating on her husband that it is fun to watch. And then and then you see this breakup scene between her and Paul, which I thought was like kind of sad but also kind of I don't know, I was surprised. Yeah, because we only see her three years.
She doesn't break out. She's sort of very like practical minded about it.
She's not like, yeah, but it's a little sad too, where it's like the way that she exerts her control over the situation with her and Paul is with her money and so when he makes the emotionally based decision of like I'm falling in love with someone, I need to break this off. I can't do this anymore, she's like, oh, how do I retain my power in the situation? And she tries to give him money, and that was just like, I don't know.
My assumption was that she was I thought, I always think that she's giving him the thousand dollars check to go on a trip because she thinks that they will spend time together, realize they're not in love, and that he'll come back.
Oh okay.
I always thought that she was like saying, like, go for it. Then, like I'll even pay for it because this isn't gonna work out, so.
You know what I mean exactly, Yeah, like.
Enjoy your trip, realize you're both people, fall out of love, you'll come back, you know what I mean?
And then he goes into his closet and he's like, find another fuck boy, goodbye.
Hopefully he has the same length of arms as me, so you don't even have to go to a tailor.
Starts toss out. It's great.
So she'll be fine. She'll she'll find another young, strapping man.
Yeah, they're super hot. You want to be writers.
Yeah, I really like that character. She's a feminist icon. I love her calls Paul while her husband is in the room. This just like, Hey, my husband came home early. Gross, So I guess we can't see each other today. He's right there.
Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know why she's the icon of this movie for me.
We don't know what the husband's deal is. She just like she's just like I want to pay for sex and I don't care.
Maybe they're in an ethical non monogamy relationship.
Yeah, that's why she is able to make the call while he's in the room. My god, I don't I guess I sort of just assume, like, well, it was a marriage in nineteen sixty one, so it probably was bad and she could not get out of it and being disgraced.
Yeah, and likes likes her younger men.
Yeah, good for her. Yeah, she's also Yeah, she's like an older woman who's just I just I like her a lot.
Yeah. Well, speaking of marriage and that, like the fact that Holly is trying to pursue two different men who are rich and she thinks that she's going to be able to marry into money. I get that that is maybe a logical next step for someone in her profession. Even so, the fact that she is trying to marry for money and not actually pursue like any of her other talents or anything like that, to just try to get a job and earn money for herself.
Where would she work.
I don't know. You could go to work at Tiffany's not.
Really Yeah, yeah, well she doesn't have a bumpkin. You know, she's a bumpkin. She doesn't really have a lot of other options.
Like there have many options in something, but it's notety.
One, it's not nineteen sixty one. It's hard. There's not a lot of avenues for women. You really only had you had to get.
Married, right, It's like, well that's the sex work does seem like one of really the only routes for Holly to live the life that she wanted to live at that time, because it it seems like if her motivation, her ultimate motivation is she's waiting for her brother to get out of the army so that they can go off and live together. And she's trying to save so she doesn't want to be tied down because that means when Fred gets out of the army, then they can't
go through with the plan. And so, yeah, she has so few options. She doesn't have an education, she's.
Never been to a library, like yeah, yeah, and she is like coming from a trauma background and I don't don't think she has a lot of And honestly, like that was that was like a valid career path, Like marrying rich is like a valid career path to get out of shit.
I mean women used to go to college to meet their husbands so.
That you can like try to move up in class, move up in your station. She's already pretty wild that she got out of she's in Alabama.
Right, I don't know if she's from Texas that she got he's from Alabama.
Okay, Yeah, that she got out of there anyway to go in the sixties to be in New York.
Yeah, Like it's a miracle then she and like a testament to her own, you know, like cleverness and tenaciousness, that she is able to live the life she has, even though it is unsustainable and requires constant like hustling, et cetera. I don't know. I think I left this viewing with a better understanding of Holly. I still like that. I still like the movie. It's darker and sadder than I remember, and I think that's like a super common I know, way to.
Forget sadder and darker than I think people who only look at it for the esthetic give it credit.
For yeah, you know, and it goes without saying, but we should say it is a very white movie. It is the most prominent non white character is played by a white person. So there you go. That is just a version of New York that only exists in fiction and is frustrating.
To write and of, you know, as we come up upon on almost every movie we encounter a very hetero movie. And I think it had the movie like adapted the character of Paul as I mean, but then we like.
Then you don't get the love story well, which.
Is fine for me, but I also don't necessarily want like I mean, and this is you know, early sixties, so if there is a gay character, they would have to be coded gay because of the production code, like you know, that wouldn't have flown. But I just, man, I haven't read the book.
Is he still fucking the wife even though he's gay, he's coded as gay?
I don't know. I haven't I didn't reread the book before this. I just went to read the He is definitely still like coded as a sex worker. So I think that, yeah, it's possible that he was having sex with Valenson because she is a character in the novella A double check. Yeah, how explicit because it seems like even more so in the book than in the movie. There's I don't think it would say explicitly that he's fucking her. Yeah, right, so my guess is it would
be more implications. Okay, yeah, interesting.
It would have been a cool movie if if he was coded as gay and they just helped each other as friends. That's interesting.
Or it would have been even cooler if he was just allowed to be explicitly gay and then they were just.
Well yeah, I'm talking about nineteen sixty right right now, you remake it. Now he's just like played who's he played by Billy Eichner.
Right, well, even in the book, he does say in the book that he's in love with Holly Golightly, but it is open interpretation of like what kind of love for he's bisexual? Right, we don't know.
We don't know.
Capote's dead. He cannot tell us. And on that note, let's take a quick break and we'll be back in a second. And here we are.
We're back, We're back.
Okay.
Does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie?
No, I mean, I'm trying to remember if if it passes the Bechdel test, but we'll get there.
The only other female character that gets to speak, I'm pretty sure, is that female police officer when Holly's arrested. She goes nuck it off, and I was like, oh, a woman spoke a female police officer.
Though, yes, hey, very progressive.
Shere's no female detectives, but a female arresting officer.
Yes, there's also a female librarian who keeps yelling at Holly because she's never been in a library before and doesn't know that she needs to keep her voice down. So yeah, let's talk about if the movie passes the Bechdel Tester or not. There are very few scenes where women interact.
Mag Wildwood and Holly.
At the party.
Party.
I had that conversation is not passing because they mentioned mister Unioshi and the two mens that the Mag brings to the party, Jose and Rusty So and.
She's talking to them and Audrey Hepburn says, you're being a bore and that's kind of the only right.
So I didn't have that scene as passing, Jamie, you said I.
Had, Holly mag Darling, you're being a bore. Mag says, shut up, but that does.
And then she talks to Emily Ustace whatever, what's her life?
Hale.
They talk in the beginning with Paul when they meet outside.
Well, I didn't know that.
Paul introduces them. Holly says how do you do? And missus Vallinson says how do you do? But doesn't look at her. She looks away because she hates her so much.
Then he says, oh, this is my interior decorator.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, But that's all they that's that. It's just like, how do you do? How do you do? We see a few women interacting at Holly's party, but we don't know any of their names. Holly does talk about that librarian, but we never learned her name, or
the police officer or the police officer. Yeah, and I don't think she and the police officer are actually interactive, more like a side by side like yeah, so yeah, I guess there are a couple two line exchanges that technically pass the Bechdel test, but.
Given the movie, it should do a lot better.
You would think, yeah, yeah, and I think Mickey Rooney's character should just decimate like that's like negative one thousand points. Yeah, yeah, so any points you've earned, Yeah, it's a negative one thousand.
Yeah.
Well, shall we the movie on our Nipples scale for new listeners. We have a special rating scale that we've devised to judge the movies that we've talked about.
Yes, it is called the nipple scale. Get used to that phrase. You'll be hearing it a lot. It is where Kayla, myself and our guest I'll rate the movie we just discussed on a scale of zero to five nipples based on how the movie treats its female characters, not on how much you like the movie. The best part of the Nipple scale is you get to describe them in fact, you have to to describe them, and you get to give them two characters in the movie, or Alfa Malina if you want to right, Yep.
So that's our nipple scale for me. I think I'm gonna give it one nipple. I think it's interesting to explore a story about a woman who's a sex worker who falls in love with another sex worker. I think that this movie, though, and it could be due to some restrictions of the era and the production code and things like that, but I think it doesn't do a whole lot to explore all the interesting facets of that premise.
Number one. Number two. I think that Holly go Lightly is a bad person who is careless and who mistreats people, and she's like a prototype of the very annoying manic pixie dreamgirl trope that we've come across several times and that I don't especially care for. I think that her desires and her motivations are arguably not that well defined, and everything we do know about her and what she
wants is tied to a man in some way. She wants to marry a rich man so that she can take care of her brother, so at least that motivation isn't entirely selfish, but men are still the source of her desires, her motivations, and pretty much all she does on screen is talk about men. And then also after her brother dies, she just goes right back to wanting to marry a rich dude. So it feels like just kind of inconsistent and sort of like negates the motivations
that had been established for her earlier. Then finally it takes a different man, Paul, to basically fix her and to inspire her character arc. Also, and we didn't really talk about this that much, but her relationships to the other women in the movie are generally like very petty, very caddy. It's like women feeling though they have to compete against each other, women not treating each other with
kindness and respect. So it just kind of reinforces those stereotypes of like women are always fighting, women are caddy towards each other. And I understand that this is a movie that came out many decades ago. Things were very different back then. Historical context was very different back then, but I still find that there's not that much redeemable
about the character of Holly, about the movie itself. I just think that it could have gone in much more interesting directions, explored her experience in a more interesting way, had it so that everything that she does and wants to do isn't tied to men in some way. So one nipple from me and I will give it to missus Fallonson because she is pretty dope femino Psyiconvalencin.
Yes, I man, I hope that I'm not being too generous. I'm wanting to give it a two or two and a half. Yeah, I'm gonna go with it doesn't matter. The thing is that's a metric and it doesn't matter. But I'm so stressed sor right now, I'm gonna give it two and a half. I mean, it goes without saying that the way this movie treats race, especially in regards to Mickey Rooney's character, is abhorrent and terrible and
bad and there's no excuse for it. I agree that this movie should have it cut entirely, and it wouldn't have much of a difference on the movie. Yeah, but as it pertains to the treatment of women specifically, I do think that Holly golightly, I think she does have a motivation and I think that she it is clearly.
She comes by her fault in a way that is clearly explained by the movie and is grounded, and she loses points for the manic pixie dream girl stuff, and the movie loses points for how it sort of botches the third act. I think in a lot of ways, in the way that the message of being emotionally vulnerable is communicated as ownership to a man, and you know,
the last fifteen minutes. I have a lot of issues of how her characters treated, but in the way that she's built and the portrayal of sex work, even though it can't be explicitly stated in movies at all, at
this point, she's treated with respect. I think she's called out for faults in ways that for the most part, with the exception of her being called crazy, with the exception of her being chased out of her own apartment, with the exception of her romantic interest bringing her rapist to her door, with the exception of those things, she she is for the most part treated as if not
with respect, because she's not necessarily treat with respect. But I do think she is treated as like a capable character who for most of the movie has agency in how she lives her life given the restraints that are put on her by the world and the era.
Yeah, I think I'm I'm ignoring like the time period and the socioeconomic cultural situation of the early sixties.
Yeah, I think that there's a lot of stuff that she doesn't do here, But at the time, I think it's like it implied just because this is the world that it came out, and that she couldn't do that and that wasn't an option for her really at all. So I'm gonna give it two and a half nipples. I do like Holly, and I love missus Phalinson, and so I'm gonna give a nip to miss Phalenson, a nip to Holly, and then I'm gonna toss half a nip to the one who goes knock it up. I liked her a lot.
I agree with everything Jamie said. You put it really well,
and I just think it's so cool. In a lot of the old movies that I really love, I'm constantly surprised by the way women are portrayed and that they are just speaking purely in terms of being sexual beings, Like the way that they're portrayed as like being allowed to be that way, And I guess I had this idea in my mind of women kind of only being these like fifties or early sixties kind of like housewives, And so I'm constantly or even like that pre marital
sex might be seen as bad, but like that, there's so many characters and especially typified by hollygood lightly but just in a lot of these older movies, there's so many female characters whose motivations are sex or who like are having sex. And when I started watching old movies, I was really surprised by that because it's today seen as such a thing. Like women like movies where women are sexual are like given a standing ovation, And I'm like, but we've been doing this. I don't know why, like
we have this. I think people haven't watched a lot of these old movies, so they see it a certain way, and they think that this movie is about like an upscale woman in a tiara who just buys things from Tiffany's, and like, they haven't watched it, so they don't know that it's actually about like class and trauma and like sex work and you know, all these things that.
And that she doesn't buy anything from Tiffany.
She does.
No purchase.
She doesn't even eat breakfast inside you guys. Although fun fact, this is like the first time Tiffany's allowed anyone to film inside of Tiffany's.
Oh no kidding, that's cool.
So yeah, So I just and I and that we never we almost never see male sex workers treated with respect or like, you know, male sex workers who are with women, although I guess that show hung but like.
Who's in that show to miss Jane?
Wow, if I got that right, that would be incredible. And so I just think it's surprising, like maybe I'm giving it too maybe I'm gonna give it three nipples, and maybe I'm giving it too many nipples because I was just so shocked by how chill the movie was about so many things. Yeah, and for its era, and how like misunderstood it is by like anyone who's ever had a poster of it in their dorm room.
It is Thomas Jane by the.
Way, Wow, guys, take me on your trivia team. I know so much useless stuff and so and I think it's trying as hard as it can for its time. I will give it negative five thousand nipples for Mickey Rooney. Yes, and I can't even begin to imagine what they were thinking. I guess they thought it was it was a comic relief even racism aside, which it never is. But it tonally does not fit with the rest of the movie.
It takes so away from the movie. Even if even if the role was played by an Asian actor, even if the role was toned down by fifty percent, it would still tonally not fit in with the rest of the.
Movie for sure.
As a like screenwriter, it doesn't make any sense to me, There's no point to it.
The party scene also seems totally inconsistent because there's some like slapsticky physical humor there.
Yeah.
Just I was like, what is this supposed to be funny? Like what I think this.
Movie was supposed to be like a rom COMI thing of its time, But the rom and the calm feels so separate. But it's just yeah, there's no there's no overlap.
Yeah yeah, So some of the characters feel very grounded, and then some of the characters are in a different movie right, and that is either poor screenwriting or poor directing or.
A fun mix. Who are you giving your nipples too?
Two to Failstein Failingstein, She rocks one to all you go lightly, I guess the nipple only go to women.
They can go to anywhere you want to, men, animals, people who aren't even in the movie objects.
I want to give one to the cat idea, I want one to the cat. Absolutely, the cat is wonderful. It did its own stunts.
That was That was such good acting by that cat.
That cat ruled. I mean the scene where the scene where the cat's playing with the cigarette that I mean, that cat was trained so well. I loved it.
The cat was wet and didn't freak out care. Yeah, you're just like, what is what is this? Cat's a star acharcter a cacter.
Yeah, cat actor.
Anyway, all right, well, Gabby, thank you so much.
For being here.
Yeah, thanks for having me, and thanks for doing a movie that you fucking hate.
You're so welcome. I'm happy to make the sacrifice for this podcast and for you, Gabby.
Oh I just I wanted to try to get like something super old in here. Yeah, just for your your fans that are like seventy to eighty, like really your demo which.
We have so many of us. Yeah, I'm sure shout out to our older fans. Thank you so much for listening. Gabby, where can people follow you online? Do you have anything you'd like to plug?
Oh? Sure.
My podcast Bad with Money is currently on season three. It's out now and it's about money, but it's tries not to be stressful, just trying to break the taboo. Guys, thank you. And I'm on Twitter at Gabby Done and on Instagram at Gabby Road because I don't understand branding. Yeah, and then I had a book come out last year called I Hate Everyone But You and it was a New York Times bestseller and it's a ya novel but also like a novel regular and you can get that wherever books are sold.
Yeah, oh yeah, not at Tiffany's though, they don't sell books.
Not at tiffany.
You can go to a lot, you can go the library though, but you should buy. You should buy Gabby's book.
Get to Tiffany's, get it engraved.
Yes, you can find us. We are now in the house stuff Works Network. Wow exciting. We're network girls, We're little bitches. But you can also still find us on our Matreon, Patreon dot com slash Bechdelcast. Five bucks a month gets you two extra episodes. Wow.
Amazing for our new listeners. You can follow us on social media at Bechdel Cast on both Twitter and Instagram, and we also have a Facebook page just called the Bechdel Cast.
Nothing Tricky, Nothing Tricky. You can find me on Twitter dot com at Jamie Loftis Help.
And you can find me at Caitlin Dorante. And then for our existing listeners, thanks for always being here, Thanks for all of your support.
Thank you guys for doing this show. It's so fun.
I love it, you love doing it, and we're glad you could be here on your upgrade.
Thank you so much. And I said, what about breakfast at Tiffany's?
And I said, I think I remember the film, and as I recall, we both kind of liked it.
Well, you recall correctly because I did not like it. But that is still one thing we've got that passed the Victal test.
Yay, good eye