Broadcast News with Dave Schilling

or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start changing it with the bec Del cast. Hey, Caitlin, Yes, Jamie, what do you think the devil looks like? Well, the movie would have you think, or at least the character of Aaron in this movie would have you think that it looks like William Hurt. But I think it looks like Albert Brooks's character. Oh and he's the devil. I think that I the devil looks like who in this movie? Who does the devil most look like? This is actually

a challenging question. Is it is it Jack Nicholson? Could it be him? He's refused to give up any of his salary to save any anyone else's job. It was all a big joke to him. Oh my gosh, that part. I was just like, I can't wait to talk about it. Also, honestly, he looks like how I would imagine the Devil would look like, just like eyebrow Wise, do you remember the movie which is of Eastwick where he was play the Devil? Yes? I do. And there's like some production crossover between which

is of Eastwick and this movie. It all comes together. Did Jack Nicholson confirmed the Devil? It's hot here first that he's played the devil. It would have been a real waste of waste of his vibe if he did not. At one point, I hate to see a vibe wasted. So that's right. Yeah, well that was my little opening. Although I loved it the Bectel Cast, I was gonna

do do you want to hear what I would have done? Yeah, if if I were opening it, I would have said breaking news do do do do, and then like done some like news jingle, and then I would have been like, this is the Bechtel Cast. I like it. I like it, Thank you. I think we have two strong options. I think everyone should sound off in the comments of what they the stronger opening was, and that will be that will be helpful for us moving forward. We love feedback,

especially with unsolicited Oh good grief. Okay, well, this is breaking news. This is the Bechdel Cast, and this is our podcast in which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test simply as a jumping off point to initiate a larger conversation. The Bechdel Test being a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace test, in which are standard

these days. Two people of a marginalized gender have to have names, they have to speak to each other about something other than a man, and ideally it is a conversation that is narratively meaningful, right, and it's and it really cannot ultimately be about Albert Brooks, which is where I struggled in this one. Uh, there were somewhere I'm like oh, and then it's like, oh, but that was about William Hurt or Albert Brooks, wasn't it? You know? That was What was the name of this new station?

What was the name of the fictional w Oh who cares? W who cares? Recovering broadcast news today we are I'm I'm really excited to talk about this movie. There's so much to talk about. There's a lot to unpack, and we have an amazing guest. We certainly do. He's a writer. He's a host of the new Polygon podcast Galaxy Brains. It's Daveilling. Hello, Welcome. What a pleasure it is to be here today to talk about a movie that is

one of my favorites of all time. But I also do believe that it is in fact not going to pass the test. We'll go through it later. But when I racked my brain thinking about this movie that I love, that I've seen many times that I own a blue ray, I think no, definitely. First of all, huge flex with the blue ray when someone drops a blue ray physical

media baby. Um yeah, Well, I I think I I have um a compulsion towards owning movies that I love because they do disappear often, like they leave streaming services, um for years at a time, sometimes more than that, you know, decades. So I want to make sure that when I want to see my favorite movies, I I have them. For instance, the movie Crossroads, which we always get requests for, but it's literally not not accessible to us.

It is unavailable. We've even set up episodes for this and then been like, wait a second, this movie has been disappeared. Why is that? I don't know, erased from human existence? You can buy it on DVD, but the DVD is also like sixty dollars. What is going on

with that? There's another movie that I think you two should do at some point, um, Catherine Bigelow's movie Strange Days, which was really on my mind quite a bit last summer during during all of the protests and uprisings over the George Floyd killing, because as that movie was about, you know, our relationship with law enforcement and all of that stuff, and it's nowhere. You can't buy it on on physical media. You have to you have to find,

you know, a used copy on eBay or something. I just happen to have one from college because I was a physical media collector when it mattered back then. But otherwise just unavailable. And it's a shame because that's a movie that people need to be watching right now. That is so I yeah, I've I've never seen it and now I have no options. You can borrow my pan and scan DVD if anyone has copies of either of those movies lying around. We do have a po box.

I like Crossroads was sorry to go basket to cross Road. Cross Roads was written by Shonda Rhymes, Like, there's just so much going on for cross Roads. I completely forget what happens in the movie. Maybe it's really fucked up and they don't want us to see it. I don't remember what happens right. I haven't seen it. It feels like I never will because of it being so inaccessible. We might be fucked uh So, Dave, you said that Broadcast News is one of your favorite movies of all time.

What's your history? Boy? I must have seen it for the first time in film school because that was when I first started getting into Albert Brooks movies. Um. You know, Unfortunately, if you are a young film enthusiast at a certain age, you are and you are like me Jewish, I'm I'm I'm Jewish on my mother's side, you are pushed into a filmography of someone who we don't have to talk about that he's out there and he made a lot of movies for people of that ilk and Albert Brooks

is was never given that same amount of credibility. With the film community. He was never a box office success, he's never won an Academy Award, but his movies are so much more rewarding than other people playing in this kind of nebushy jewish millie you because in every film that he is in, at least the ones where he's written and directed them or co written them and directed them. Uh, and this one he did not do either, but it's

still fit into that sort of vibe. He's the villain, he's the bad guy, and I was glad that we got to do this because it does This movie and in his work in general, really underlines certain toxic qualities about the masculine id and the masculine id of people who believe themselves to be smarter or better or more self aware. In reality, they're the least self aware people

that there that there is. But he's kind of the fake ally in this movie because he says to Jane, like, you know, I'm your best friend, I'm your only friend. We have this special connection. He's gaslighting her the entire movie. He is manipulating her the entire movie, and he's created this codependent relationship with this person. Uh that is damaging to her to an extreme degree, and I think it's really brave of him to have been willing to play that character in all of these films, and to write

and direct movies where he's playing this unlikable character. I think the only movie that he is in that he wrote or co wrote and directed where he's not unlikable is Defending Your Life. But the rest of him, he's kind of like he's the reason why everything is going wrong. And I think that's a really laudable, wonderful thing. And uh so that's one of the reasons why I love this movie is it it shines light on certain things that we don't like to talk about about masculinity. Yeah, totally.

He didn't write or direct this movie, but a different Brooks did, Yeah, James L. Brooks, which I was like, are they related? And I don't think they are. They're not. James L. Brooks though, was in another film that Albert Brooks is and one of Albert Brooks's directorial efforts, Modern Romance. He plays a film director. Um I don't believe he's playing himself, but he does play a film director in that movie. Um. So they were kind of friends from

the comedy community of that time. A kind of alternative comedy scene of that moment um. And I believe that he was also in um he was in terms of endearment before this too, Like, yeah, there's all sorts of fun overlap. It seems like James L. Brooks really, I mean I I sort of knew this, but you know, in researching the production of this movie, I was like, Oh, he has like a crew that he works with over

the course of like what like forty years at this point. Yeah, and co creator of the Simpsons, And that's one of the reasons why Albert Brooks was in so many Simpsons episodes in the early part of the run of that show. Wow, Jamie, what's your relationship in history with this movie? I liked this movie. I think I also first saw it in college. I remember liking it then, and I didn't revisit it for a long time after, and then I don't I

think it was. It wasn't until a friend of the cast, Karina Longworth, put out an amazing season of her show You must remember this last year about Polly Platt, who was really integral in this movie, worked with James L. Brooks a lot and produced this movie. And when I was listening to that series. I think, like last summer or fall, I was watching kind of her filmography as I was listening, and so I revisited this movie and was like pretty blown away by it and was really

excited to revisit it for this show. I think that this would have been kind of my introduction to most of these actors. When I saw these I wasn't like a huge film buff in high school or anything. I was very very normal in my tastes. I take no shame in it, but it but it was true. Like to before I saw this movie, I was like, like, literally most of these people were Pixar characters to me, because Albert Brooks is the dad and finding Nemo and

Holly Hunter is Mr is incredible. So long story short, I've I've never worked in broadcast news, but I have worked in news news, and it was really interesting to watch after having some experience in that space, and I'm really excited to talk about it. What about you, Caitlin, I too, saw this movie for the first time in film school and push on. Yet they really want film students to watch broadcast news. I think it's one of the only movies they want to show that's like entertaining.

It's like, oh, this is funny. We're gonna show this funny movie instead of you know, yeah, maybe that's why I remembered because I was there were so many movies in film school, like in the film program I was in, and I was like, I wow, boy did I hate that. I'm sure it was competent, but what a drag? I am going to sleep through this? Yeah, there would always be an intermission like Okay, we're gonna pause for a little bit so you guys can go to the bathroom and stuff, and I would just go back to my

door to sleep. I don't want to watch The Blue Angel by Max Offals. I want to sleep. Well, I'm about to be the villain the Albert Brooks of this episode and say that I wasn't as enamored with this movie and I find it to be longer than it needs to be. Well, that that's absolutely true. I will not pretend that that it's not true. Why is this movie two hours and thirteen minutes. It could be a breezy minutes. I'm not sure why it's as long as it is, and therefore I find it a boring movie

punctuated by some really fun scenes. It's not really my type of movie, although I you know, it is obviously competently made, incompetently written and directed, and the performances are really good. But it's just I don't know, it's not really my jam. But there are many things to talk about. I'm excited to unpack it, and I will never not be better that it's two hours and thirteen minutes long. It used to be longer. There's an entire subplot that was cut out. Oh my gosh, it was a longer movie.

I know. Do tell what was what else could have possibly happened? Um? I believe these scenes were shot because I think they're on the criterion. But the shooting script that I read had a sub lot where Tom be friends a State Department official or employee. I think he's kind of a low level State Department person, but his roommate knows a bunch of people, and so there is um a transference of information for uh, flirtation that occurs, um. And that's where Tom gets a lot of the information

that he uses to then advance in his careers. Is because this the State Department person finds him attractive, and Tom is kind of guileless He's just like, oh, yeah, we're just friends, but he wants to, you know, take things to the next level with Tom, and he doesn't understand why it. On the page it read really offensive and I'm glad they cut it out, But that was a whole like it must have been an extra twenty pages of screenplay. Thank you. Yeah, this movie is definitely

already a bit long. I feel like that's just like any outour movie is going to be too long. But I still think that there's so I don't know that, and I think that this is like one of those movies that sometimes like when I learned about the production of a movie, I like it less by the time I've learned more. This is the opposite. The more I learned about the production of this movie, the more interesting I think it is. Cool. Well, shall we talk about

the story and then go from there? Yeah, okay, so here's the recap. We meet our three main characters when their children. Tom who is a nice looking boy but who doesn't get good grades and therefore he will be a future news anchor. Aaron is like smarty pants brainiac he will be a future news reporter. And Jane writes letters to Pen pals and like job like it's her job achiever. She cares very much about precision, and therefore

she is a future news producer. I really loved that scene with with Little Jane where she tells her dad off for like not being specific enough in his criticisms of her and like it's so fun. And then Jane grows up to be Holly Hunter, who is in fact a news producer. She works with and is good friends with,

adult Aaron, who is Albert Brooks. We see Jane give a speech criticizing the state of like news reporting and newscasting too soft, and afterward, Tom, who is William Hurt, approaches her and he's like, hey, great job, so she asks him about for dinner. It seems like things might get romantic. He also was talking about how he's not good at his job and that he's been sickly failing upward and she's like, well, okay, get better and try harder,

which upsets him and he leaves. I hate Tom. I hate Tom, so I feel like we I know, I know that Aaron is very much a villain, but I do hate Tom the most out of everybody. I hate. I dislike both of the men that we're supposed to be that. I don't. I mean, I don't know that we're really supposed to be rooting for any relationship. I don't think even know that we are. Yeah, it's it's not a movie that is neutral in its moral judgments. I think it does judge every character in time in

the film. And that's one of the reasons why I like it so much, is because it casts skepticism on all three of the protagonists, which is very rare in movies. I think most of the time, when you watch a comedy like this, or even a dramedy something that has, you know, gravitas, you're watching and the movie decides, this is the person you're supposed to like, This is the one that's going to make all the good decisions, or is at least going to um reverse course on the

bad decision at some point. But I think at a certain juncture in the movie, for all three characters, and I think for Aaron, multiple times through the movie, the movie points fingers at him and says, you are a bad, bad person, you are making wrong choices, you are a

selfish person, and um the movie judges him accordingly. It's really it's it's fascinating, like going through the moral gymnastics of this movie, because there's multiple points where you have to like think about what someone just said and be like, Okay, they said that for a selfish reason, but I don't totally disagree with what they were saying. But they're doing it to be emotionally manipulative, and ultimately I don't like

any of them. I wanted to read Tom's character's description on the Scholarly Journal Wikipedia page because it made me laugh a lot. Uh. It says Tom is tall and someome likable, intelligenic, but lacks news experience, general knowledge, intelligence, and language skills. Like I mean, I think that that that is certainly true, but also what it's not a stretch to say that he is all those things. But the one thing that makes Tom a special, interesting, complicated

character is his intense self awareness of his faults. That is a cool thing to me. Not that I like Tom. That I walk away from this movie saying, ble, I wish Tom and Jane got together because they're just great for each other and he's so cool. No, he's he's a manipulator. He is a figure who is really just out for himself. But he doesn't know that he's not savvy enough to understand of his problem, but he can

point out some of it. Yeah, that's what's cool about the movie, Like, Okay, he gets it, but he at the end he expressed is this belief in what he did being okay even though Jane is like, this is the worst, most unethical thing you could possibly do. So he's self aware to a point, but when he gets something out of his naivete or his perceived lack of awareness or ability, he doesn't mind. Yeah that's a very

American thing, isn't it. It's it's like he knows that this is not a meritograhy and that is going to work to his advantage in every way. Yeah, what's the line what's the exchange of dialogue where Jane is like, you could get fired for that, and he's like, I got promoted for that. We're like, yeah, heikes. Through the process of the movie he is learning the full extent of his devious powers and that it's it's sort of like the origin story of a Marvel villain. Yeah, it is.

It's I'm so I'm like, what does that character look like twenty years down the line, because it's like he's almost like ahead of the curve and where news ended up going to the point where like the central ethical conversation around this movie would barely even be a discussion. Oh he's Brian Williams. Yeah, yeah, yeah, did the same thing of a similar thing to what happens in this movie, where he's like, I was you know that helicopter and boy it was scary. That was a lie. That was

a whole lie. Yeah. Side Well, Tom leaves Jane's hotel room, but then he calls her right away and he's like, by the way, I've gotten a job at your network, so I'll see you at work. And this is the beginning of a like will they or won't they get together kind of thing between Jane and Tom. Then we see this great sequence where Jane, Aaron, and some other staff like this editor guy Bobby, as well as Blair

who's played by Joan Cusack. They like are putting together this segment and they have to like really quickly get it all together and like rush the tape to the people so that it gets on air, and they like have like not a second to lose some great Joan Cusack, I feel like Hillary Duff one day would watch that tape of the Sheer Pratt follery of that sequence beautiful. It's it's really an obstacle. Course, she made a real career out of playing that character in in the eighties.

This and Working Girl. It's just like, Wow, Joan Cusack knew how to play this kind of harried, low level employee in a high stakes work environment. She's just fantastic in this movie, very very funny. She almost impaled herself on a water bubbler at one point. It's like there was just like I was like, oh my god, that had to have really hurt, and the shot continued for twenty seconds after. She's amazing. So meanwhile, Tom keeps wanting

to pick Jane's brain and she's like, I'm busy. But then he starts getting better as a reporter, and Jane is like, oh am, I still attracted to Tom even though I don't respect him, And wow, this is happening.

Aaron is starting to feel overlooked and unappreciated. Then some like big breaking news is happening about a fighter plane and their boss, like the network president Paul wants Jane to executive produce this story and wants Tom to anchor it, even though Aaron is far more qualified, and Jane confronts Paul about this, but Paul doesn't budge, so they cover the story with Tom as the anchor, and it goes

surprisingly well. Jane and Tom have a great rhythm, and she's back to being attracted to him, But then he goes off with another reporter, Jennifer, and they have sex and then and then she is unceremoniously written out of the story. I know, you can't get deported to Alaska, but she gets deported to Alaska essentially because of Jane. Jane is like, we need to send her there to

cover this story because she's jealous. Um. It also should be mentioned that throughout the movie we have seen Jane have these like very short outbursts where she just like bursts into tears for like a minute when she's by herself and then composes herself and like gets back to

whatever she's doing. She's an Olympic compartmentalizer for sure. So then Tom pitches a story to Jane a about women being sexually assaulted on dates, and he wants to do this story and he puts it all together and part of it is him interviewing a woman about being a survivor of date rape, and she's crying while she's telling

her story. It cuts to Tom crying as well, and after Jane watches this, she's like, well, I don't know about you, like cutting to your reaction, but otherwise this was a good segment, Like it was very moving, so let's put a pin in that, shall we. We also learn that their boss, Paul, has to fire a bunch

of people because of a major budget cut. Aaron thinks that he might be fired, so he wants a chance at anchoring the weekend news to prove that he can do a good job, and he begrudgingly has Tom help him prepare, who tells Aaron like, you know, you're not just reading the news, you're selling it. You're a salesman. And Aaron is like, that scene is gross, but it's funny. And then when Aaron does that like weekend news spot where he anchors it, he starts sweating horribly and the

whole thing is quite sloppy. Meanwhile, Jane and Tom are together at a correspondence dinner and they're flirting and they kiss, but then Jane has to go see Aaron after his big night. So she goes to him and she's like, by the way, I think I'm in love with Tom, and Aaron is like, well, Tom is the devil. Also I'm in love. So you're like, oh, okay, so this is a completely unbiased opinion. Good. Um. So then things kind of fall apart between Jane and Tom. The layoffs happen.

Jane gets promoted to bureau chief. Tom also gets promoted. He's being sent to London. Aaron quits and Aaron is like, hey, Jane asked Tom how he was able to get a cutaway to his reaction during that story where we see him, you know, reacting and crying when he only brought one camera with him. So then Jane goes back through the footage and it shows that Aaron got that reaction shot after the interview that he was acting, and then he edited it into the story. And Jane is just completely

disgusted and appalled by this. And she was supposed to go away with Tom before he left for London, but she confronts him at the airport, which I thought was a fun subversion of like, you know, people go to the airport and like makeup and kiss. But she goes there too to scald his ethics. Yeah, She's like, you make me sick. I'm not going on this trip with you. You committed a terrible breach of ethics. Screw you forever. It's it's also one of the great pre nine eleven

airport scenes because she's just kind of wandering around. She's not sure if she's gonna go or dot. She doesn't have a ticket because he's got the tickets. He's wandering around with like funny hats and like, hey, the airport is a fun place to be. Is great. She's like, no, I'm gonna break up with you. And then he's like, Okay, I guess I'll just walk through this single piece of security and get right the one metal detector and that is it. It's just very very interesting. Yeah, it's like

walking into a J. C. Penny basically. Yeah. I think people just go to the airport to have lunch. Oh there's a Binny Hotta in the airport. Yeah, let's go there. I can't relate. So that's the end of them. Then we cut two several years later, where Jane, Tom and Aaron all and into each other. Jane is considering taking an even higher position as a managing editor, where she would be Tom's boss. Tom is engaged to someone else.

Aaron is married and has a young son. So they've all, you know, like moved on with their lives doing other stuff. And then the movie ends on Jane and Aaron catching up. So that's the story. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back to discuss. And we're back.

Where should we start. I mean, I have a lot of info on on the background of this movie that we could maybe start by just like ping ponging off each other about There is a lot of stuff that maybe appreciate certain parts of the movie morphed for for knowing about it. So this is this is a James L. Brooks movie. It's his Ohtour period shortly pre Simpson's. He made this movie with um Polly Platt as a producer.

She is not even on the Wikipedia page for this movie, which, after listening to Karina season on it is baffling and frustrating, but also fix it right now, let's franks it now. By the time you hear this, she'll be there it. I mean, it is pretty like ridiculous that she's not. She had worked she had worked with James L. Brooks on his I think it was his immediate previous movie in terms of endearment. James L. Brooks had a pretty good track record in centering women in stories, particularly women

in the workplace. He was a producer on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. He centered women and women's stories at a time where it was kind of unusual to do so as a white male. Ohtour, So that was his background. Polly Platt came on for this movie. She had previously

worked in terms of endearment as well. She had worked on a number of Peter Bagdanovich's best movies when they were married, but she was never credited as an actual producer, and that was kind of the story of her life up until broadcast news that she had been repeatedly contributing on a producer level but was never credited. That way was always overlooked. Was supposed to direct her own movies.

There was like a time in I think the late seventies early eighties where she was projected to be like, quote unquote the first great female director. But she never did direct a movie for a lot of reasons, but you know, one of the big ones was how frequently she was erased from the projects she did contribute to on a really high level and broadcast News was the first movie that she was actually formally credited as a

producer on. I have a question, did she receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture for this or was she not one of the credited producers on that? That's a good question. Let me let me check that that the because is it the executive producer who gets the nomination for the Best Picture Academy Award? Is that the case?

Possibly she she I'm not seeing that she was. I'm not saying that she was nominated for an Academy where she was nominated for an Academy Award for Art Direction on Terms of Endearment, which was kind of her It's so into like that that and we'll just like link to that series because I'm going to like fumble my

way through the summary of her life. But a lot of the ways that she was credited and she worked in an art director capacity really frequently because that was, you know, considered more traditionally to be women's work in film, and also she was really good at it. But she you know, she didn't really have much trouble getting credited as an art director, but when it came to the

actual production, she was never credited. So yeah, I don't think that she was an executive producer, and it doesn't look like she was nominated for the Academy Award, which is ridiculous. Yeah. I don't know if the requirements for being the Best Picture nominated producer have changed since then,

but they certainly should have because of that. Um. She was the executive vice president of James EL Brooks's production company, Gracie Films, so she was involved in quite a few of the movies that he was involved with, both as a director and a producer going forward. Yeah, and if it wasn't for her, the Simpsons wouldn't exist. She introduced Matt Grinnig too, if that's how you say his name

to dubious James L. Brooks. So she's like, she's like she is the reason that Cameron Crow had a career, which I guess Wes Anderson, she her whole career was like making things happen for men and never getting credit for it. But yeah, I highly recommend listening to that.

You must remember this season because it will shine a light on somebody who was primarily in her career overshadowed by people who didn't deserve the limelight as much as she did, right, Yeah, because she was for the most part, very much like the common thread in like their best work. So it's like, well, you know, who is here for all of your best work, and especially for like Peter Bogdanovich, which I guess film majors can jump in my mentions

if they feel like it. But she was involved with his two best regarded movies ever and his career, you know, kind of that kind of absolutely certainly did take a downturn after he decided to divorce her. Yeah, he had an affair with um Civil Shepherd. Shepherd on the set of Last Picture Show, and that was kind of the swan song for him being considered a top level a tour. Yeah.

So Polly Platt, which I just want to make sure she gets her her do And it also sounded it sounded like there was a really good on the ringer. There was a really good piece on the production of this movie. It's been written about pretty extensively at this point, but there were elements of Jane's character that were pulled from both Susan Zarinsky, who I think was like the main source for Jane's life, who ended up becoming the head of CBS News up until like this year, I guess.

But but there are elements of her character that we're pulled from Polly Platt and James Brooks's relationships, so she's

very present in the movie. She she also had to take on the movie that I super disagreed with, but I thought was interesting because I think from her perspective it makes a lot of sense because she, you know, her career was very much the story of like trying to quote unquote have it all and have a successful marriage and a successful career in film, and she was never able to have you know, both at the same time, as is somewhat common experience, especially in the you know,

seventies and eighties. Um, So she really really really wanted Jane to be able to go with Tom at the end of the movie, even if the relationship was doomed. She was really frustrated that James L. Brooks wouldn't let Jane have some sort of romantic Catharsis, even if it

was like not the guy for her she was. She seemed really really like upset about it that but then she says in her unpublished memoirs that Karina Longworth read a lot from in her series that she's She's like, I suppose I am a living example that you can have the career, but you generally don't get the man. So I think she wanted this ending for Jane that she didn't get for herself, and that also didn't happen in the movie. I think that that would have sucked

in the movie. But perspective it makes sense. I think you know, a lot of creative people will do this, where they will project themselves onto the characters, and that's I think a function of the fact that when you become a creative person, it's usually because you have a surplus of empathy. Sometimes it's because you are a sociopath, raging narcissist, super narcissist. But I think, you know, for the people who really do the best work, the people who you know, we we are beginning to laud more

than those narcissists, it's empathy. It's being able to put yourself in the characters and see their perspectives. And I can see doing that. But James L. Brooks was a d percent right. Jane going with Tom is a rejection of bathing that Jane stood for as a character. Right, It's just wrong and it would have been terrible and it would have made you dislike Jane even more than you might have just through the course of the movie. So I'm glad that it is the way that it is.

And Jane does get a boyfriend in the in the flash forward, Yeah, she does, and and I'm all for and we've we've you know, gone back and forth about this on our show for Forever, Caitlin. It's like, yeah, I don't know, it's like she she It's clear throughout the movie that she does want some sort of companionship, and so it's like, yeah, I'm rooting for her to get a companionship that is equitable and good for her. But like, I'm definitely glad she didn't end up with

either of the men in this movie. When I'm watching, yeah, when I'm watching the film, I don't think of her having a boyfriend or a husband or something as the goal. The real goal for her. It's to have peace, you know, internal peace, like the feeling of of intentment and this is enough. And that's the part of it that I relate to. And I think a lot of people probably relate to is I need more. I need more. I need to be more successful. I need to have more

esteem from my peers, more acclaim. I need to be a bigger personality. I need to be like the most huge and loved human being within my sphere of influence. And that's what she wants, and that drives her to kind of struggle internally for the entire movie, and she thinks, maybe Aaron will be the person to give me that piece, Maybe Tom will be the person to give me that piece. But she has to find it in herself, and by being able to say to Tom, no, you are wrong.

I'm gonna stand up for myself. I have limits, and then to be rewarded for her talent and her and her intelligence and her ability, that's what gives her the piece at the end, and I feel like she she's the one who wins the jackpot. At the end, Tom gets what was always coming to him because Tom is the white man, the handsome white man in a world

run by handsome white men. And Aaron gives up and he decides, I'm just gonna go to Portlands and you know, start growing weed, you know, do local news and stuff. Jane is the one who gets to really feel like she's accomplished what she wanted to accomplish, and she worked for it. Tom didn't work for anything. Tom is the scion of the American capitalist system. The way in which he fails upward and is aware that that's what's happening, it's just so frustrating to watch. And yeah, but the

movie is really astute about pointing that out. In the eighties when we were lauding those people more than anybody else, those were our heroes. Yeah, for sure. Well let's let's kind of I mean, this is kind of a good opportunity, I think, to kind of pivot the discussion to Jane as a character. I guess the last thing I wanted to say about the production of the movie was that, um, because again, Caitlin, like we talked about this on the show all the time of like, when men are writing

female characters, what kind of research are they doing? Who were they talking to when they're preparing for a person's experience would be wildly different from their own? And it does seem like James Brooks is pretty at least by the accounts that I read that he was pretty solid in this department, And I think it does come across in the movie where he researched women who were working in broadcast news in the early to mid eighties pretty extensively.

He interviewed Susan Serinski for I think over the course of months, but he spoke to I think it was like as many as ten women working in that field, and you know, just kind of doing the work of trying to figure out what the common threads were, um in the struggles they experienced at work. And so I did. And and also Susan Zarinsky was an associate producer on this movie too, so she was also you know, like

cut in and worked with Holly Hunter. And as as far as you know, a male author writing a female character, I was. I was like, I mean, I guess it's like the the bar is so extremely low, but I was like pretty impressed. I was like, Okay, he actually did his homework. He brought someone into the production who is an authority on this field in this specific role, who worked with the actor, and like it seemed, you know,

I was um impressed light with that. I thought that that was cool that she was like accredited producer as well. I can't speak for how how women respond to this movie. But it always felt natural to me, like it didn't feel as though he was making things up. And part of that probably is his own background in journalism and working in in I think of a CBS news when

he first started. That might have helped him see how he needed to go about the process of actually making this is not to just make it up pull cloth, which is I think how a lot of male writers and directors will approach a woman's story, and this is ultimately Jane's story. He looks at it. It seemed like he looked at it more from a journalistic standpoint and and said, I need to bring some fair similitude to a story that I have some understanding of but not

the full picture. I'm I'm all for male writers doing their homework like it's just it's a breath of fresh air. It's really nice. Yeah, let's talk about Jane. Jane, sweet Jane. She I mean some just pretty obvious stuff here. She is extremely competent at her job. We see this constantly, which is something that I feel like in a lot of movies that center a female character or female protagonist,

even that is good at her job. We are mostly only like told this or like other characters talk about how good she is at her job, but we don't actually see any like visual evidence of this. So the fact that we constantly see her working and see the ways in which she is good at her job again bare minimum stuff here, but uh, you know, it's it's worth noting that that's a very important aspect of her character. We see her be appreciated for the work that she's doing.

We see her being valued and recognized. There's one scene where the president of the is it the network president or I think the head of the network news the network news division. Yeah, because this is a broadcast network. This is this is like an ABCC major yeah, right, right, right right, as opposed to like today news channels and stuff. Then right, so their boss Paul is like observing her working. There's a scene where she's like screaming into the phone

at someone about like a parking issue. She does like body shame someone during that, so we don't love that, but she's like getting the job done, and Paul says something like I had no idea she was this good, and then that leads to her eventually getting like a major promotion. So even though it's perhaps not always the most realistic thing, especially for a woman in the eighties, to be like really acknowledged for the hard work they're

putting in and being rewarded for it. Because I mean, again, looking at Polly Platt and how often she was overlooked, it's not uncommon for women, especially of that era, to do amazing work and never get any recognition or acknowledgement for it. But on the other hand, to see that on screen as an example of something that can happen and should happen was just really cool to see. So I appreciate that aspect of her character. The other kind of major thing about her is that she's looking for

love in all the wrong places. Yeah, yeah, I think that. I think there's a little bit of the well, this is who is who is the closest person to me? And I think that that's probably true of a lot of people, um, you know, in in a variety of different fields, but especially in these kinds of high stress, um high impact jobs. You look for someone who understands your plate, who understands why you're freaking out and you're unhappy.

You're bursting into tears once a day every day exactly yeah, it's so she looks for these people who are going to fulfill her. But boy, you know these are not the best options, but they're the only options. I know. It's like I wanted and this is so I mean, it's like so upper middle white issues that that everyone in this movie is having, if not just like full blown rich person ship going on. But I'm like, we gotta get Jane on Riya, like we gotta we gotta get Jane like some we gotta get her on up

on a dating platform. She needs to date someone outside of this industry who understands high stress environments but not the one that she's in every day. I just was like, let's let's get let's get Jane into like two thousand and twenty one and see and see what's up then, because give her a yoga class, some crystal juice regimen, get her good, some goop. Tell Jane about Goop, like you just you know what, girl, wash your face, Okay,

watch your face. The thing with Jada is she is an unrepentant girl boss and like the kind it's it's true, and it's like and it bearss saying that. The kind of news that's being done here which I guess it's like it's hard for me to go into like seven audience brain here because now I feel like there's been there's been so much discussion around news bias and mass media news bias um that now when you see this kind of stuff, you're like, oh, this is this. You know,

this news has a very clear tilt. It's always going

to prioritize the West. It's always going to prioritize the white West, and and on and on and so in some ways, it's like, if I'm looking at Jane on paper, No, I don't really like her that much, but I do appreciate her commitment to two ethics and I can empathize with her on I mean, I guess on I got kind of like lost in my how how I actually like fall on this because we see Jane have these like literally like power cries at multiple points in the movie, and I do think it kind of becomes a joke

as the movie goes on that like she's going to just take any moment she can find to herself, which is not often, to like have a power cry, and then she'll either pull it together or someone will walk in and she'll be forced to pull it together, which I think is like, you know, I don't hate that choice. I don't know she she is so tricky. I mean, it's like there's no one in this movie that you are rooting for because it's like, Okay, I want you

know Jane too. I don't know. I mean, I guess I I like her on the Okay, where is this going? I think that Jane has a problem that I don't think he's really often seen in movies, where Jane is like primarily valued for her skill at her job, which I don't think we see female characters valued for primarily

at least in movies very often. But it also shows the offset of that and what I what I think is like a pretty logical thing that she feels is missing from her life is like, oh, people value me for my ability so much, but like what about me? And like what about who I really am? And like my desires and what I want in life? And both of the men in this like sort of love triangle we're being presented with do seem to value her ability over who she actually is. And that I thought was

like a pretty interesting thing to see on screen. And I don't think that there's a lot of movies that have really done that because I think that, like there is this whole current wave feminism of like it is really good to be valued for your skills, which it is, but also like to be valued for your skills and not yourself, Like that sucks and that feels bad. And I I think it's interesting that that comes through in

her character and her storyline. I think that there's still a an element of vampirism to the relationships she has with both men. Is even though oh great, you know they value her her ability, they want that ability for themselves. The seduction in this movie, the grand scene where Tom is like, whoa Jane? Okay, now I really notice her, is when she allows him to do the nightly news without ruining it, without saying something inappropriate or you know,

getting something wrong. She guides him to where he needs to be in his career. Aaron similarly, is constantly looking to her for approval and acceptance and some kind of help in his career. And he said, Aaron is always saying, you know, I know you better than you know yourself, for like we're best friends, were doing all this stuff because that's Aaron needs her to give him this validation.

So they're constantly just taking from her, but they never asked her how she's doing, or what's going on in her mind, or why she feels the way that she does. It is just it's constantly like psychically sucking the energy out of her. And that's why she has to pick neither of them, because if she went with either one of those guys, they would just like whittle her into a little tiny nub. Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm very

glad that she picks neither of them. I would have been simply furious if the movie had her ended up with one or the other of them. It would have sucked.

But then you have this yet another example of a movie, and this is something we've talked here and there about on the podcast of a very career driven woman who is very successful in her line of work and very competent, who doesn't it's sort of that like women can't have it all thing where we see her not able to you know, she again she's looking for love, she has trouble finding it, and when she does find something that seems like it might be a romantic prospect, she can't

maintain a relationship. And even at the end when she has this like boyfriend who she's known for like three months or something like that, and you know, we don't know how serious it is or if that's going to be kind of fleeting or whatever. But well, that's also like one way of looking at it where it's like, you know, she's she's really good at her job, but that's the only thing she gets to have. She can't

have love because women can't have it all. But then there's also like, but then you could see it like, well, she doesn't need a man. Her her passion and her love is her job, and so I'm kind of torn.

But it's like she wants one, but she wants love. Yeah, right, I think that that's such an like it's interesting and I don't think I don't know, it's almost like an impossible puzzle to solve right where It's like I feel like if she if this movie resolves with like her being like, oh wait, there was this guy I knew from college who respects me and like fulfills me in every way, like that would be I guess it's like I was struggling with that too. Or it's like it's

like it's idealism versus the reality. Of her time and her profession, which which does come off as bleak because

it is. And that's why I was really interested in how frustrated Polly Platt was by how her story ends, because we all agree that she shouldn't have ended up with one of the assholes in the movie, But it seems like Polly Platt very much wanted the more idealistic ending to this, which is that she was able to be fulfilled on every level, which I know is possible and I know that women of this era were able

to have that. But I would be interested to hear from our listeners of this generation who are women uh in the workplace at this time as well, because it does seem like there is kind of this very bleak realism to Jane's character of or that's like one way to look at it, Like I can see it as like, well, funk James L. Brooks for not giving this very motivated,

intelligent female character at the happy ending she deserved. But then I can also see it as like, well, what, we're very intelligent, highly motivated women in the workplace at this time actually getting and what does this movie reflect

of that? And I don't know, Yeah, it's it's really thorny and tough, and I mean, I I like that this movie kind of engages with that, but it is like it's a bummer for I Like, I feel it is kind of a cool choice to at the end add the flourish of like, maybe this is going to be the relationship that works for her, and maybe she is like on the brink of having it all because she had to deal with all this bullshit and got her career in line and rejected these two assholes and

moved on with her life. But but we don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I've always liked the kind of ellipsus, the elliptical nature of it, where it just kind of leaves you wondering. I hope she gets what she wants, but you don't know because she's still herself and she still is grappling with these things because she hasn't had the complete like revelation, Oh, this is how we solve

the problem, because none of us really ever do. That's the thing that I think separates great films from very good films is the acceptance of the fact that most of us will never solve the one big problem in our lives because it's hard. That's work that never ends. We're constant only trying to perfect ourselves and and perfection

is impossible. Um. It is worth noting that the year after this movie came out, that was the year of Working Girl, directed by Mike Nichols, starring Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, and that movie, in contrast to this one, is about where where Jane is kind of you know, um, I think, always destined for success, upper class kind of person,

lauded for her her intelligence. Melanie Griffith's character in that movie is considered lower class and doesn't belong on Wall Street, which is certainly a less morally upright profession than broadcast news at that time. Neither are great, but that one's definitely you know, yeh, like yeah, on the list. At least you know they were trying to tell the truth

on some level, but not really. Um, Mellie Griffith gets everything she wants the end, She gets the corner office, she gets all the fancy clothes, she gets Harrison Ford at the end, even though Harrison Ford in that movie is kind of a jerk. Oh god, she sucks, he sucks, yeah, exactly, Like, but like that was the inverse of this. And if I like Working Girl because it's funny and it's it's

kind of like an amusing fairy tale. But of the two, Broadcast News is far superior to me because it does paint the realistic picture of human beings constantly stepping on themselves, trying to succeed and trying to be better people and failing miserably. And that's how I feel as a human being all the time. Yeah, And it's like and I think, like, and that's part of why it's like a tough pill

to swallow. But it's like this this movie doesn't present itself as the bizarro like Reagan era fairy tale that Working Girl does. And you and listen to our episode about Working Girl on on the Patreonic that we did I think a year and a half ago, even years ago,

yah know when that was. We've covered it. But but yeah, I agree that, Like, I think that this movie has endured more and it's partially for those reasons, Like I don't know, it's it's I I like that Jane's ending is pretty ambiguous and like opens up this kind of discussion. It's cool to have these discussions, and you know, how the discussion of a woman's career in seven would be

different than now, hopefully in some ways. And it does seem like a cool I don't know, just like marker of of where things were at, especially because and again I don't want to give James Albert too much credit here, but he was he was engaging with very popular female characters who were in the workplace, um for fifteen years before this movie came out, and he or over fifteen years where he was working in the Mary Tyler Moore Show,

which was like a huge component of second wave feminist entertainment, where it was like a huge deal that a career woman was being centered in any way, regardless of what she was doing, even and and now it seems like pitally nothing because you're like, okay, a white woman working in an office like I'm asleep, but but you know, like, but that wasn't always the case, and it's he he seems to have been engaging with kind of this story, you know that not this story, but just like this

social movement pretty consistently, and it's interesting to watch it kind of bear out in this way where like by the late eighties, it's clear that characters like Jane have benefited from second wave feminism and that she is highly respected in her profession, but she's still a person, and she is still experiencing sexism in this space, and she is still being you know, vampired and used by the people around her in spite of the successes of the

past you know, ten fifteen years of feminism. It's wild. One thing. I do think that in terms of like how her character has written that I feel like there was room for that. I would have liked some of the time to be reallocated. I'm not advocating for the movie to be longer, but um I will it's it's four hours. Why not. I wish that she had a

woman to talk to in the story. I feel like those characters were present, especially with right there, like I I understand probably I can imagine James Brooks's argument for like, well, she was intimidated by her and blah blah blah. But it's like there was room for two women in this workplace to have meaningful conversations that would have lifted the story in general. And I wish that there had been room made for that because the characters are literally there,

like it's frustrating that they don't engage with that at all. Yeah, the conversations between Joan Cusacks character Blair and Jane are really minimal, to the point where every time Blair popped up again in the story, I'm like, all right, John Cusacks in this movie, Like, she's there so infrequently that you could basically write her out of the movie and it wouldn't be different at all. And as much as we love to see her run through that obstacle course to get the tape in on time, that kind of

could have been anyone. So the fact that she's not a more important character is pretty glaring. It stands out only because of the performance. But the female character that I want to talk about before we move on that always chaps my ask the most is Jen of her played by Lois Childs, who was also in the James Bond film Moonraker and I believe was a model for many years. Interesting that, Yeah, I think that was maybe her first movie. But um, I mean, she has done

no favors in this film. She is there specifically to be derided and to be an obstacle of a sort for Jane, and I think they have one conversation and this is I guess getting ahead of ourselves about the Bechdel test. But they have one conversation and I believe it is specifically about Tom. Oh yeah, and there is nothing else going on there. They don't have any rapport related to their unique position in a broadcast network newsroom in they don't talk about their own hopes and dreams.

They don't talk about UM, the struggles that they have, or or the conflicts that they have. It is just about Mom. And I mean, she's played for UM for comic relief the entire time, and we're supposed to be so amused by the fact that she has banished to Alaska, which but I feel bad. I feel bad for her. Tom was cute. She just wanted to hook up with Tom. The thing is, like, I like Jennifer. I feel like

Jennifer is. I wish that she's been written out more, and I wish that Jane had been taken to task more for doing what she did, because she derailed did Jennifer's life and career entirely where I thought it was like I thought. I mean, I don't know, Klin, I'm interested in your opinion on this as a well, But like when when Jennifer goes up to Jane at whatever that news hard Heart and it's like, hey, I'm interested in Tom, Like I wasn't sure if there's something going

on with you. I just wanted to check in. I was like, wow, O, that's like she didn't technically have to do that. They weren't friends. It was like I thought, I was like, oh, that's that's what a what a nice person does um or if not nice, conflict a verse. I could relate with it. But she she was just like, hey, I'm interested in Tom. Is there anything going on? And then she gets a feeling from Jane that oh Jane is interested and she's like, okay, fine, then I'll back off. Fine.

And then Jane is the one who acts like, you know, just bizarre about it, and it's like, oh no, go fuck him right now, kind of like she's very immature about it. And then Jennifer is like okay, and then she does, and then she's punished for it, like, yeah,

it's not cool. I think that, like Jane is written to be cool, and so the fact that she is like so unceremoniously written out as a punchline rather than like it, it would have been like another interesting thing that could have happened is like and again I'm just like, yeah, tell James Brooks what I think he should have done

thirty years ago. But like, you know, there are other you know, maybe there's another person in the at the news station who would have been piste off on Jennifer's behalf for the fact that she was clearly banished to Alaska, Like, did Jennifer have any friends that we're going to stick up for her? Why is no one mad about this? Nobody?

Because Jane was Jane was being an asshole, and like that is one of the things that for me watching in one, I was like, Oh, Jane can be a real like, you know, really weaponize her insecurities against other people. I mean, especially because she gets on her high horse

about ethics in reporting the news. And then she's she makes this choice too, because she had the choice between a character named George, who we could also talk about, and Jennifer as the person who they're going to send to Alaska to report on some Alaskan serial killer, and without a moment's hesitation, the second Jane, here's Jennifer's name

as an option. She's just like Jennifer Son, Jennifer and it's because she's trying to get rid of her so that she can move in on Tom, who, by the way, had called the reason that Jane was like, yeah, Jennifer, you can go after him, I don't care is because Tom went up to her and he's like, you look so pretty and clean, because normally at the office you have this gross layer of film on you. Oh my god.

She was like, well that, thank you. It's so it's so frustrating, yeah, because it's I mean, it's like I think, I hope that we're supposed to you know, that's supposed to be like audience wise, a strike against Jane, and clearly like you know, she she's like you're saying, Caitlin constantly on her high horse about ethics, but then in practice her record is spotty or than she'd like to admit.

But the most frustrating thing is if Jane had just been straightforward and been like, no, I'm interested in Tom, like I would appreciate if you didn't hook up with him. It sounds like Jennifer would have been like okay and moved on with her life and this never would have been a problem. Jennifer is kind of cool. She's cool. She's a very chill lady, and she's just kind of like, yeah, I was living my life whatever Tom's. There's a scene

where I felt bad for Jennifer too. I think it's pretty early on where all the reporters at the station are kind of like asking each other ethics questions where they're like, oh, would you tell a source you love them to get information out of them? And they were

all like, yep, of course I would. And then when when like Jennifer confirms that she would, Aaron is like, yeah, Jennifer didn't know that there was any other option, as if to be like, wow, Jennifer, what a floosy She's out there loving and having sex with all of her sources.

I do wonder, basically, I do wonder if there was, like in My Okay two things like, I wonder there was some sort of deleted scene where this is addressed, because it does seem like Jennifer is a pretty like heavily set up character to completely disappear with a throw a joke. It does feel kind of bizarre to me, given the rest of the characters in this movie. Nothing else for Jennifer. She is long gone to Alaska, that

is the end of Jennifer. I liked this scene. I liked the other like one of her moments where after she and Tom do hook up, Tom notices that she has like a spare room in her apartment maybe that is like for her clothes, and Jennifer gets defensive before he even says anything, and it's like, oh, well, I had that extra space, and you know, it felt like kind of you know, however you feel about it, like commentary on how female news anchors have a higher pressure

to look a certain way than their male counterparts, to the point where she felt the need to like get ahead of his potential criticism. And that was like another like pretty thoughtful moment, I thought. And then she just she just disappears. I hope that she wins a Pulitzer in Alaska. That's my head canon for she catches the serial killer. They make an incredible docuseries about it, and Jane is kicking herself. Yeah. I mean, I think this is, like you said, Jamie, a very very tricky movie because

it isn't cleanly moralistic. It isn't cleanly one side or the other. It is very messy with the perspective, and I think that that is one, as we've all pointed out, a fault of the fact that it came out of but also I think it's because this is a movie that is conflicted about its own subject matter. It's conflicted about the idea of the news and whether or not the news is good as it is portrayed in the world. Um, there's the that whole sequence when they're in the um

involved in the the war. I don't even remember what country, nicarag I'm glad that they actually had a country instead of just like, we're in a war zone and there are people that don't speak English. Um, it's it's played not for laughs necessarily, but they are oddly not engaged with anything. They're kind of detached from the fact that they're in a war zone, that there are people losing

their tea. Yeah, it's opportunistic. It is not empathetic. It is not oh my goodness, this is this is a situation where people's lives are being lost, that there's political upheaval and you know whose side are we on? You know, why is this happening. It's just here's the thing that happened, and can we get a shot of the boots? Okay, we got a shot of the boots. Great, nobody got shot, Okay, wonderful.

It's just very matter of fact. And I think today, you know now we would say, you know that detachment is actually bad. That the the people who are nostalgic for the days of the news being told for thirty minutes every five five o'clock every day and we're objective is not realistic or feasible. You can't be objective in the news when horrible things are happening. You have to speak out and you have to tell it not like it is, but tell people what it shouldn't be, if

that makes sense. Um. And so this movie I think has that ambivalence about the news, and it's satirical about that world. So it makes every character's decisions more glaringly negative. Um, everybody is doing the wrong thing because the movie isn't sure if the thing that the career, the industry that

they have given their lives too is even good. Yeah, And I think that's that's kind of where like Jane's Girl Boss angle does kind of come in is like, yes, you you are, like ten did as an audience member and as someone who generally is like women succeeding could could be good, uh to say like, well, look, she's succeeding at a really high level in this field, but what is she actually doing and like what are the ethics and what is the impact of what she's actually doing.

It's not like it's not universally good at all. And I like that the yeah that the movie like that that the scene where they're reporting in Nicaragua, I feel like at least now like comes off as pretty embarrassing for them too. It's like they can barely communicate with the people that they are supposed to be reporting on

and about. And then it's ultimately kind of played as this little romantic tension when they're in the middle of like you're saying, to have a war zone where people are dying, and they're kind of like, wow, this is so exciting. She'll be kiss no, and it's like they're just like centering themselves in this way that looks ridiculous. Yeah, And I think the movie, to its credit, does recognize how ridiculous it is, right, Yeah, Yeah, I I do.

I do. I do like that because it's like there, you know, it's what what Jane is fighting for in this industry is I guess on this watch for me. It was like, it's like she's just fighting for like a two percent better thing than what she's currently doing, which is better. Like, I agree that Jane's version of the news is better than Tom's version of the news, But is it better enough to justify rooting for it? No?

But is she right? Yes, it's the eighties were an era of incremental progress, the nineties eighties, Yeah, you're the two thousand's. On some level, it's like, okay, well, you know, we we've made some strides, right, ladies, right, everybody. You know, black people can be senators now, isn't that amazing? Dude? Dude? Do dude, dude? And is Obama and Hillary and oh you know, black people can can operate drones to like this,

is this wonderful? We can have a Korean head of the CIA or whatever it is that like we're starting to like look at it that way. And now people, finally, you know, in in this era, are seeing it's not enough to just have incremental progress to put people of color or marginalized groups into these jobs that are fundamentally

bad for the planet. It is not just about having a person of color as the head of the CIA, because it's the CIA that is the problem, right, that those are the things that we couldn't fathom or grapple with. That now people are are are able to to to grapple with because we don't have the illusion that the

system itself is good. And I think in broadcast news and in a lot of other quote unquote feminist movies from that era, baby baby boom, um with um Diane Keaton, you know, that's like, oh, look at how great it is that Diane Keaton is able to have a kid and you know, be a boss. Like, that's not good. What does her company even do? It's probably like selling

arms to the Contras or something. I don't know. This isn't right, baby, So we did, and that baby is going to end up inheriting millions of dollars and probably being a bad person. Um. Yeah, it's it's just a different way of looking at the world. And I'm glad that we are outside of the expectation that incremental progress is going to save us. It is not. Yeah, let's take another quick break and then we'll come back for more discussion. And we're back. Is there any other stuff

we wanted to talk about? Jane? Before we started going into I have like a few little things, but to take it away. UM. Oh well, one of the one of the exchanges that I really did like, and I watched the scene back a couple of times because it was like, I don't know, Hollyhunter is really good in this scene where I I do again, it's like, this is in the context of what Jane is doing is

ultimately not good for the world. I do think it's like there are a few elements of her character where she she is a huge advocate for the people who work for her, um in a way that I thought was was really cool, Like when she's trying to get Aaron to be the anchor on the story about Libya because he actually knows what he's talking about, has expertise in this area to an extent, and you know, can unlike Tom, can like do the job that Tom admits

he cannot do. UM. I thought it was it was cool to see her really, you know, go up against the superior and advocate for someone who she knew would

do a better job. And that whole exchange of like, you know, being patronized and like she it's that complicated girl boss thing where you're like she is being met with some misogyny but doesn't justify the ends, not really, but you know, it must be terrible being the smartest person in the room is, you know, being kind of patronized by her boss, and she says it's awful, and it's like she means it. I loved that. I loved I mean because it's like she she's right, she is

right in this situation, and we know she is. And there are still these like these little misogynistic ways where she's treated where I feel like with her relationship with Aaron, there's this expectation that she's going to be maternal towards him in a way that in terms of a working relationship makes no sense at all. But like that he, you know, feels entitled to bargein in her life in whatever way he pleases. He feels entitled to her emotional

energy at the drop of a hat for reasons. You know, It's like she has to go see him the night that he anchors the news she has you know, she adjusts his clothes, She does all these little maternal things that are not her job, but she clearly feels, you know, compelled or obligated to do for him. That does feel like very I don't know, it's interesting to see those like moments that you're like, oh, this is very intentionally.

I felt like it was like written very intentionally. It was like a half step towards progress of like is she technically his superior, Yes, but look at how he still feels so entitled her time and her energy in

spite of that. This this makes me think about the concept of the work wife, which is I think best left in the twentieth century, but it's the thing that people still talk about a lot, maybe less so now that we are in a post COVID world where we are not going to offices and there isn't that forced

camaraderie between employees and in a workplace anymore. But there was certainly for many, many years this idea of oh boy, those two they just like they're like peas in a pot, you know, that guy and that woman, and they just have this great relationship. And she's my work wife and he's my work husband. And it's a blurring of the lines that people thought was funny. That was the cause of you know, there was the launching pad for a lot of sitcoms and things of that nature. But it's

really like inappropriate ultimately. Uh. And I can look back on you know, workplace relationships friendships where it's like this is we should just be co workers. But because we no one talked about this stuff back then, it was like, oh, this is just how it's supposed to be, you know, we we can you know, have this kind of a meshed codependent work relationship that is allegedly platonic but not necessarily so. And I think that holds back a lot

of workplace equality. Is this idea that you can't have these platonic relationships with people, um where you don't have a line, there is no line in the sand of this is okay, this is not okay, and this is work and this is personal. And Aaron certainly has that work wife relationship with Jane that has become terribly inappropriate and it is gendered, as you pointed out, that he is having her mother him. Yeah, he wants her to be his mom, he wants her to be his girlfriend,

he wants her to be his best friend. Like it's it's really icky. Yeah, yeah, And it wouldn't be that way if she was not a woman in this situation, that she was not you know, she wouldn't be that for him if she didn't fit the the idea of what he wanted romantically, and if she wasn't a woman, you know, if it was a man, he would probably be intimidated by him, because he's very clearly intimidated by Tom in constant and chech Nichols. Yeah, every event around him,

he's constantly being like, well, I'm smarter than you. You know that, right, And it's likely he was a child and he rightfully gets beat up. Scene. Yeah, I was kind of on the bully's side. I hate to say it in that first, I mean to get into the air and stuff. I agree with you, Caitlin that he is definitely the character I like the least of these three, but all I don't know. But it's like, also, I really do hate Tom. I don't know, I have a special kind of hate for Tom. I hate them for

different reasons. I guess. I don't know which one's more. I guess. Yeah, it's like the rankings will become clear with conversation. A tough choice. They're both so little bad,

Aaron Is. I mean, it's I do feel like it's at least I guess again, the amount of intention because it's It does kind of evade me a little because they feel like there are so many characters that you know throughout history of old media that we're supposed to be like, oh, the lovable misogynist guy, and like, sure he's a little insecure, and sure he punches down to every woman he comes in contact too, but he's a door. He's insecure. And the eighties are like the peak of

that had a sad sack. Nebish is the hero in so many of these movies, and you realize in retrospect they are the the antagonists in all of these movies. They're the cause of every problem. It comes off the worst, and it's it's because it's like constantly air And is kissing his female coworkers without their consent, just like really lunging and making a go for it. He feels entitled

to their time. He makes comments like like that comment you mentioned Dave to Jennifer that was or Kaylie, I forget who said, but like that completely inappropriate, like oh you you must you know you would tell anyone you love them, uh kind of thing. The way he acts when the date rape segment is at when you know he's the worst person in the world if there was any doubt he is horrible, and like, I mean, we'll we'll get into that segment because that's like very very interesting.

But you know, he has a lot of uh, dislike and just dismissal towards women even when and I think it is kind of like I mean, we've talked about this all the time of of how it tends to be at least more narratively interesting and you know, applicable to see male characters who male audience members can see themselves in. And I can, I can see, you know, watching broadcast news. The casualness of his misogyny and the casualness that he feels entitled to feels not unrealistic. And

it's not like a cartoon villain of a misogynist. It's someone who is just projecting onto people who he doesn't think are more powerful than him, and people who he clearly doesn't think are gonna, you know, bring it up or do anything. And I feel like his character is so emblematic of that. He's like, what do you mean, I'm a good guy? Like he's that kind of character, But it's written, so I don't know. I like how

his character is written because it does. It feels like a recognizable person who is saying despicable stuff really regularly. But it's so it makes sense that it's normalized in this Yeah, I think it's. Um it's important to note that they cast a comedian in this role. So then and if you cast a comedian, most likely you're going to look at that person as sympathetic, especially when that

that type of character was considered heroic. Um. So casting someone who is used to kind of begging for affection

in the way that all great comedic performers do. Even if you if you have ever performed out a stage and try to get people to laugh, you know how kind of desperate that is, and how like he doesn't want to be loved and I know, right, And so Albert Brooks is able to bring that and that is I think why he was only successful to a point playing the lead in movies like this because one, he and his co writer Monica Johnson, we're writing characters that

were loathsome and satirical for him most of the time. But also because even when he's trying to be likable,

he's kind of annoying. You kind of don't like this person because he just has this um like you said, this, this underlying kind of menace and misogyny to his characters, um that is softened in probably his most popular movie, like I said, Defending Your Life, where he is the romantic lead and he is trying to be a better person, and he does get the girl at the end, and he does kind of almost maybe possibly sort of deserve it, but he's still it starts the movie as this self centered,

narcissistic person um. So I think there was never a point where he was when he was going to be a super duper movie star on the level of Steve Martin or other other contemporaries of his because he was so attracted to these parts that when a comedian had to be unlikable in a in a lead role in a movie, he was the one you went to because he could be just likable enough but not afraid to

be completely unlikable. And that is again why I love his work so much, is because he projects projects this awareness in this vulnerability and also this um menace that is recognizable. I think for a lot of people, a lot of men who are looking at themselves and saying I'm not so great. You know, there's a realism and in an honesty to it that is incredibly rare. Even when you're playing the most loathsome character in a TV show, if you're Steve Carrell in the office, you still kind

of want to be liked. Albert Brooks most of his movies, he's like, you don't have to like me. Stink and does does he stink? That scene towards the end of the movie where Jane is like, I'm going on this trip with Tom, this is my last chance to see you.

Let's have lunch or whatever, and he and they're like kind of saying goodbye, and they're like talking about their futures and stuff, and then he says something like, oh, here's what's here's how it's going to go down, will you know, drift apart a little bit, and then we'll reconnect a few years down the road and my son will be there and he'll say something really mean to you, and I'll have to jump in and be like, it's not nice to say something about lonely fat women like that.

And it's just really a painful scene. Bad saying that to your best friend. I was like, she still kind of forgives him. Yeah, she I feel like there is very much a vibe of like, that's our erin and you're like, but why, why why are you friends er this jackass? Yeah, I think she feels that way. I don't think the movie is saying that it's okay. I

do think that the movie judges him harshly. And but then when they like, the movie ends on what I think is meant to be this like tender moment of them reconnecting after like seven years and they're catching up, and it's like, Jane get away from him, like this guy sucks. You know, you've got your issues too, but you can do better. And I was just I don't know,

I was just very disappointed. Yeah, it would have been nice to have some Catharsis for her at some point where she could really tell him off, But the movie does not grant her that, or any of the characters that really. I guess the scene in the airport where Jane gives it to tom And and expresses her outrage at his behavior is the only scene where any character

is truly dressed down. Everybody else kind of gets away scot free with their with their problems, at least at least their actual problems, you know, when when Aaron confronts Jane in that restaurant at the end, he is not saying anything true about her. He's not he's not expressing any real issue that she has in her personality. He's just being cruel for the sake of being cruel. Yeah, I mean, he just like very much projects. I mean,

he's just he's the worst. And yet he is not totally wrong about everything that he says, and that is like, I feel like that kind of dovetails into the Tom discussion a little bit. We're that scene with with him and Jane where Jane is like, I think I'm falling in love with Tom, and Aaron is just being a total fucking baby about everything. He's like, but you're my mom and my wife. What like, He's like spiraling, having a total meltdown and just like peeing his diaper about it.

But then he brings up a point that is a pretty good point about how Tom approaches the news and how you know, you know, he said as Tom is the devil and which is dramatic, but but also he does bring up a point that Jane doesn't want to hear, which is also kind of I thought, like a pretty interesting thing that is like brought into her character of like she knows, she's well aware that Tom doesn't know what he's doing, and she knows that because she's doing

it for him a lot of the time, and sometimes Aaron's doing it for him. In the case of that big story about Libya where uh, you know, Aaron called Jane and gave Tom the information he needed to look good. She knows that because she told Tom off when she first met him, like why are you whining to me? Learn how to do your job? Then like why are

you telling me this? Like fuck you? But she's still attracted to him, and she's struggling with that, which I guess like if you're a comedian who's head sex with a comedian, then you can understand that maybe that I was like that interaction. I was just like I see my life in this at times relatable, Like why doesn't anyone laugh when I talk? I'm like, that's a you problem? Um. In any case, like Aaron's view of Tom isn't wrong, and that like Tom does it is kind of the

antithesis of what Jane claims to stand for. But she thinks that maybe she could get an area of her life filfelt that she hasn't had fulfilled in a long time through him, and so she's getting to the point where she's like, well, maybe I can overlook the ethics of it, and Aaron does bring her back to earth, and it's like, are you sure you can see overlook

the ethics of it? And it's just so like everyone in this situation sucks and is making a huge compromise of their morals And I hate that it's Aaron that makes a good point, but I do think he he makes a really good point there, Like he's simply not wrong in that case. I almost wish that it had been her to put the pieces of the puzzle together and figure it out on her own. That Tom had like brought only one camera and that he must have

staged it, and like, yeah, I don't. I feel like the fact that it's Aaron doing it out of spite and rage and selfishness is it takes some of the thrill of victory away. But I wonder if you know that too. Is The point is is you know, Jane is so lost in her fantasy of who Tom is or could be that she can't see so it has to be someone else. But it has to be someone acting in self interest as opposed to someone who really cares,

because none of them really care. All of them are self interested at the end of the day, none of them are truly altruistic in their behavior at all. There is no truly good person in this movie. Everyone just once love or approval or acclaim or esteem. Nobody is thinking about how can I help someone else? I guess on some level there is some altruism from Jane in regards to her her coworkers a little bit, but not really. Or Aaron choosing to leave instead of sticking around so

somebody could keep their job. Maybe, but not really. It's still about yourself and self interest. Yeah, not enough not to take the promotion. She's very nice to the people who are laid off, but she still takes the promotion. You know, in the same way that like Jack Nicholson, when everyone's laid off, he's the clearest valid where they're you know, they're like, oh, you want to shave a million off of your salary, and he gets like, he's

like yeah. He starts histing and spitting, and then Paul is like, I'm so sorry, that was the worst joke I've ever made. What a silly joke I made. I would never that is why I was not being serious. It was very much a joke. And then Jack Nicholoson goes but then it's like, but but Tom and Jane are very involved in this too, where they you know, they're they're nice to the people who were laid off, but they take their promotion and they're going to go

on vacation about it. Like I got to clear my head. Oh boy, that's that was hard for me. Okay, I have a job so hard. I better go to wherever they're going to go about it. Like you know, if if you're if you put yourself in the in the shoes of you know, Joe Cusack who just got laid off, you'd be like, fuck you, you're going on vacation for what.

And I do like that exchange between um, Joe Cusack and and Jane where she's like, except for socially, you're my role model, which I think passes the Bechdel test. I think that's as close as we get. Wow, that's that's something right, that's something something. It's kind of a

funny path. I like it, But I did want to talk about the the actual story read that I think is like, you know, I feel like there's this little ambiguity of like, Okay, so Tom is self aware that he doesn't know what his job is, but how far is he willing to go? Is he just going to fail upwards passively or is he going to actively fail upwards?

And the moment where he the story he chooses is particularly It's again, it's just like this like such an ambiguous thing, or it was for me when I like put my seven goggles on, because he does a story on date rape, which in n was barely a term that existed. It was not a popular discussion and at that time would have been a risky broadcast. And I feel like that is reflected in the way that it's received,

I mean, especially by Erin's like this isn't news. But but I don't think that that is like as despicable as a reaction as it was. I don't think it would have been an uncommon one um at the time. If this isn't the salt to nuclear dis armament talks, who cares? Right? That was? That's the Aaron Altman attitude about the news, and to a certain extent, Jaane's attitude about the news, which is it has to be about powerful men and countries and money changing hands and that

kind of stuff. But in this I mean, I thought it was really well done the way the way that scene was like shot, especially where we know as an audience by the end that Tom spotlighted this story for completely selfish reasons. He does not actually care about women who are, you know, experiencing date rape. He does not

actually care about their stories. This is a side note, but the woman who appears on screen and that news item is accredited as date rape woman, so that's unfortunate and in any case, uh like he's doing it for selfish reasons, but he is championing a story that would probably not have been told on the news otherwise, so

that's difficult. And then also watching the way that the women in the room react to that story as they're watching it was also really interesting where I think that was one of Joan Cusacks more plot relevant moments where she tells um she tells Jane like, oh, that happened to someone I knew, And there's other women in the room who were like reacting in a way of like, oh,

I recognize what she's talking about. And there is this clear, Like, you know, we can't know because it's fiction, right, But like I would guess that a story like this, even though it was done for the most despicable, selfish, manipulative reasons, which is why Tom did it, had probably a net good impact because it had the potential to start a conversation no one else was willing to have, to the point where it even got to Jane, who Jane is like, well,

you know, fuck you for cutting to yourself, like literally

a Brian Williams move. But I was moved by the story, which is a lot from Jane, who does prioritize these stories about war and politically influential men, and for for her to kind of hand it to any reporter about a story that is about something that commonly happens to women, those don't seem to be the kind of stories that she champions, And so I feel like that makes that almost I don't know, maybe I'm like reading too far into it, but I feel like that that almost from

her perspective, makes the betrayal of him doing it disingenuously even worse of Like, you know, he got her to consider something as news that she hadn't previously considered as news and then it turned out to be for this really selfish reason and so not only is it unethical, it was like he locked he you know, he was able to get through her bullshit meter, which she can. You know, it seems like she can handle almost any level of bullshit, but he it was. It just is

like a betrayal on so many levels. There's another kind of side note love to this where when this movie was being filmed, William Hurt who plays Tom and again another trigger warning here for sexual assault, but William Hurt sexually assaulted his girlfriend at the time. Oh my god, Marley Matlin, Wow, I did not know that. Yeah, I

didn't either. So you have this actor playing this character who's like championing this story for very selfish reasons, and an actor who is committing these atrocities that his character is speaking out against, and the whole thing is just

a huge mind fuck. I mean, yeah, I think that that's the movie makes a point about our society and how we function with each other and the reasons why things happen and why people what motivates people, and that particular story is really telling because you know, you can look at this movie and say, oh, this you know, this was a movie that projected a lot of good things about a gender equality and all of all that

into the world. But then, you know, you hear about something like that and you say, oh, well, this person, this real human being who's in this movie was in this movie that you know, a lot of people hold up as as as a step forward for feminism in in entertainment. He did it for selfish reasons, the same for the same reason. You know, the character he plays in the movie puts this story onto the news, and that, unfortunately,

is why anything happens in a capitalist society. That is the that is the form and function of capitalism when it is going well, which is people will do good things to satisfy themselves in their own egos, and that is how it works. And that's good. You know, good things will happen if people have you know, a financial or personal stake in it. But that's ultimately not a

positive for the world. It is not good for people to claim to be doing the right thing but for it to really be you know, just for their own benefit, and hypocrisy grows and grows and grows because that is how we think the system should work, which is giving people a praise for doing things in their own self interest as opposed to doing things collectively, or doing things altruistically or for a good reason that is centered on other people as opposed to ego. It really breaks your brain. Yeah,

does anyone have any other things they want to talk about? Shockingly, little black or brown faces in the movie. Oh, this is a very very very white movie about a very white industry. Oh and that, Yeah, that's there is one black reporter, George, who, similar to Joan Cusack's character, could be written out of the movie and you wouldn't notice because he is in it so infrequently, and his character is extremely insignificant to the larger narrative, which is extremely

unfortunate yet not surprising for a movie. Tokenism was certainly very popular back then and still is to a certain extent. Yeah. Yeah, and it's like of of of the many I mean, it's of the many things that James Brooks seems to want to point out, like, Hey, isn't this exclusion or like, you know, change funked up in this industry? Whiteness never comes into the equation. He that's like he interrogates the gender dynamics of this workplace, constantly, but he never, never,

never interrogates the race dynamics of the workplace. Yeah. I think there was a point in American culture and we only recently got past it where there was this idea of well, racism was solved in the sixties. We solved it and everything's fine, and there's a black person in the newsroom, and isn't that cute boy? He's got a job and everything and died a little tie and su wow, amazing and does he do what's his life? Like? It doesn't matter? Um, yeah, it is not about him, So

move along, sir. Uh. That that is a very common problem, and it is why we go from you know, the gains of civil rights to seemingly regressing so significantly to this point is because we were told the fiction that it was solved through things like film and television and literature the news like yeah, look at this, look at we have diversity. The United Colors have been it on.

It's real. Everybody's equal. And I think token is had the exact opposite result of what they wanted it to have, which is that it it made people, um unaware of the prejudice that exists. That it made people think that things were fine. It created a fiction, and the actual fiction perpetuated that that deception for decades until now when it's all starting to boil over and people are finally talking about it again and saying, it's not enough for there to be a black judge in a movie. It's

not enough for the cops to be black. It's not enough for there to be you know, one Latino actor, um, and they happen to be playing a criminal and like, well, no diversity. Look, we have this whole gang of of of criminals and they're they're diverse, Like that is not how it works. And it took forever for people to see that that is just as harmful as having nothing but white faces in a movie, if not more harmful. I think it might be more harmful because it perpetuates

the fiction. The lie. Definitely. James Brooks, I feel like it's just simply ill equipped to like he's he's he's accomplished a lot, but commentary on race in any meaningful way. It doesn't seem to be anything He's ever even really attempted, and when he does, it seems like it is never gone. Did you see spanglish? Oh wait, I forgot Spanglish did solve racism? Am I right? Correct? Um almost ended his career.

It was so bad. I saw Spanglish I think in elementary school, and I thankfully don't remember a single minute of it. I've never seen it. You're fine to say he did he direct that? Yes, that was he was full on tour still at that point, you know, as good as it gains has just recently come out Banglish. Yeah, I think it was based on his actual housekeeper. No, wait,

this is all don't quote me on that. Looking up on literary and academic resource Wikipedia if you want to be sure, but I believe that he said something about how it was inspired by his own life. Wait, this is boom, holy sh it. Okay, this is news to me, and I'm upset. This is broadcast news, this is brought. Yet I feel a deep sympathy for James L. Brooks. Just kidding. Yeah, well, fuck, folks, just take this as a lesson if you are if you think you are

the hero of your own story, you're not okay. And that is what I think movies and TV shows and literature have done for men of all races, is to say you are the hero of your story and everyone wants to hear your story. Isn't that great? No? Now, Albert Brooks was right. He is the villain of his own story. I am the villain of my own story, and all I can do every day when I wake up is to be slightly less bad. I don't think I'm horrible, but I think that I make tons of mistakes.

And uh, this movie is it has its heart in the right place ultimately, but it is very unsuccessful at a myriad of things, and I think we pointed most of them out. I'm sure we missed some, but you could always be better, folks. That is. That is the one thing I hope everybody takes from from life is like, man, we're messing up all the time. We can try to

be a little bit better tomorrow. Maybe you know where where a work in progress all of us, and some of us are progressing at a different rate than others, or backwards or going the other way. We're simply refusing it. But we said enough about this movie, haven't we? I think so. I think it does pass the Bechdel test. In the like again, Blair is like, hey, Jane, can I tell you something? Jane? Yeah, Blair, except for socially,

you're my role model. It also, I does think passes while they're watching the broadcast of the date rape story where Blair says that happened to my cousin Donna and Jane says really. So those are two extremely bleak passes, potentially their technical passes that again are not I think they are like impactful towards this story, but they're they're not particularly uplifting or long. I would say that this

does technically pass, but not well, can I disagree it passes? Okay, So two reasons why I think it does not pass. Number One, in that scene in question, where there is the video package about date rape, they are talking not just about the thing that has happened to junqu sex character's friend, they're also talking about the package itself that is produced in Stars Tom. So Tom is still kind

of centered in this conversation. They're not able to separate the contents of the package from the fact that it is made by Tom, so they never really have a true conversation about that issue. It is in reference to this thing by a man exactly. And then when um, she's talking about how Jane is her role model except for socially you could interpret socially to mean romance of a heterosexualat and so I just feel like it so marginal and so fleeting that it would be unfair to

the test itself to pass this movie. This happens all the time where we'll come upon conversations in which a man is not explicitly mentioned or talked about, but it's like implicit or the context or the subtext is still about men do to quote a great to quote Homer Simpson, a James L. Brooks creation, perhaps dough. I'll give it a light pass, but also ultimately it's a flawed metric that we barely with all due respect to Alice, Yes, yeah, but but the nipple scale, though, is an amazing metric.

That's what I call em. Actually is awesome, and that's what I call a metric. Um So the nipple scale is our scale of zero to five nipples based on an examination of intersectional feminism as it applies to the movie, or how the movie fairs looking at it through that particular lens. As we've discussed, this is a challenging movie.

This is a complex movie. This is a very interesting movie that tackles a lot of things, that explores characters and develops them in such a way that they are far more just like complex and interesting than your average romantic comedy dramay narrative. And like Jane, especially the way that she's depicted, the way in which the toxicity that the men are displaying, the way that all these characters in these situations are being commented on. I mean, there's

a lot happening. Um how effective it is. You know, it was the eighties, so certain things get overlooked, but other things, like the commentary is very clear and present and interesting. And I'm just stalling because I have no alright, is there a number? How many nipples? I give it? Yeah? Maybe it's just sort of like a split down the middle, So maybe a two point five nipples situation. I wish I don't know, I don't even know what I wish for this movie or for movies like it. I wish

we could all kick William Hurt in the face. How about that. I want to kick him, give him a big old wedge. I want to thank you for that context of him too, because I did not know that, and that is, yeah, very upsetting. I came upon that in my research a link to there's an article pulls quotes from Marley Matlin's memoir Shout Out Marley Matlin Who Rocks, in which she details the nature of her relationship with William Hurt, which sounds like it was extremely emotionally, physically

and sexually abusive. So fuck William Hurt, his character, the character of Aaron. Everyone just needs to go to therapy. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna give it to you and a half as well. I feel like this is like a really really I think the movie is really great, and I like every time I watch it, I get something new out of it that I didn't get before. I think in terms of commentary on women, it's pretty limited just based on the setting that we're being put in.

We're really only getting to know a single woman who is very complex but also very ethically complex. And you know, I'm not like saying that every email character needs to be a role model. That's an unnecessary thing that's pushed on a character that's marginalized in any way of all of a sudden, they have to be a role model

for fucking everybody. That's not true. But Jane is ultimately a girl boss who's in it for herself, like I don't think we're getting a ton of I think that we do get some really valuable insight into the ways that she has to suppress herself and she has to suppress her own emotions. She's under a lot of pressure. There is a lot of pressure for her specifically to succeed. If she fails, it indicates something larger to this industry

than an individual failure. Like I think that that all comes across and the fact that like you, like you mentioned earlier, Davi, the men around her are vampires who um. I think it is an interesting look at a character that it has been, you know, somewhat liberated by the feminist movement as a you know, upwardly mobile white woman. You know, she has been liberated to an extent, but there are still all of these asterisks associated with her being able to function in this space. She's still going

to be treated like a mother. She's still going to be you know, if she's valued for her intelligence, it that is at the sacrifice of something else. And there's still a lot of stuff that play there, and she she shouldn't have done that to Jennifer, you know, like there was an opportunity to explore the relationships between women in a workplace like this that didn't end up happening in favor of this, you know, love trianglly bizarreness, like

there was just room for more. But I do think that what is explored holds up maybe in a way that's kind of unfortunate, that is like, oh, maybe not, you know, maybe James Brooks hoped that more would be different by now. I don't know, but it's definitely like a really well thought out movie. And you know, and and go Polly Platt. I'm glad that she got her first. I mean, like her story alone and how it intersects with this movie is a fascinat ending look at women

in the workplace at this time too. So give it two and a half. I'll give one to Polly, I'll give one to Holly, and I'll give a half to Joan. Give it to Joan. Do I have to give nipples? Yes? Please?

All right? I mean I feel ill equipped to rate this on any sort of inter sexual, intersectional feminist scale because I'm a guy, and because I think for many years I saw this as a paragon of feminist theory in thinking, and that is because of my own Um, you know, lack of understanding or awareness of of these things, because it's not we're not taught these things in school, you know, we're not taught how to look at things differently and to empathize and put ourselves in the shoes

of marginalized people were taught to be. It's like I said, it's very selfish and very self self centered, and to look at the world through a white male lens. So it's hard for me to say this is acceptable or unacceptable, or this is enough or this is not enough. But I will say just from my own perspective and what I took from it as a man who is of a certain age and from a certain generation, and seeing the flowering of of people's perception of the world and

our our collective common struggle. Um, it was enlightening to me every step of my life. Every time I watch it, I think I learned something new, like you do, Jamie, every time I watch it. And you know, when I watched it the first time, it was, oh, this is a you know, this is a feminist masterpiece, etcetera, etcetera. When I watch it now, I get so much more from the male characters because I can put myself into the shoes of these loaths and male characters and say, oh,

here are things that maybe I thought before. We're okay and aren't okay. And I can understand my effect on people a little bit more. I can understand my effect on women in the workplace a little bit more. I can understand why I want or need certain attention from women a little bit more, and why that may or may not be damaging to them. That is what I take from this movie more than anything else, is it forces me to be a bit more introspective about who I was raised to be and who I would like

to be going forward. And I think that's that's what makes it a movie that I keep coming back to, is because it is ultimately a satire about how we talk to each other and why the world is the way that it is from the micro level of the news and the macro level of how men and women or genders or sexuality functions in the world. So, yeah, I will give zero nipples, but I will give it two thumbs up, just like my good friends Siskel and Ebert. Yeah, I just I just don't think I could. I can

judge it that way. I have to. I have to judge it based on like what I'm learning from and I think totally fair. Well, Dave, thank you so much for joining us. What an I could have continued to talk about this movie for another two hours, but that's just that's too much. We went as long as the actual movie right to do Right tell us where people can follow you on social media, plug anything you'd like to plug. Uh, I am at Dave underscore shilling on Twitter.

Please when you have time free, spare time, subscribe, follow, Listen to Galaxy Brains. Uh. It is my new podcast. My co host and I Jonah Ray talk about movies, television, all of the pop culture things that we love, but from a kind of comedically analytical perspective, hence the title Galaxy Brain. So we we we will take a an outlandish theory about a movie or a television show and extrapolate upon that too. It's most absurd uh logical or

I guess illogical conclusion. We've done episodes about the Zack s Nyder Justice League where we talk about the nature of Superman and I end up giving a kind of passionate speech about why Superman should be sad because he is responsible for everyone else in the world. And why he should be black. We talk about Godzilla versus Kong and try to figure out what Godzilla represents in that movie. Uh. We have an episode about Mortal Kombat and my moral

Kombat and professional wrestling are basically the same thing. Uh. We talked to Patton Oswalt about Star Wars and uh, the efficacy of animation versus live action in that universe. And the episode I'm most excited about that we just finished recording is a look back at Joe's and the Pussycats for the anniversary, and we discussed whether or not Josie and the Pussycats is not just a feminist film, but also is it the most anti capitalist socialist movie

of all time? And our guests for that episode are the writers and directors of Josie and the Pussycats, Deborah Kathleen Harry Elfont. They were such a treat and spoiler alert, they agreed with everything we had to say, and they were very much appreciative of our reading of the movie.

So I hope you listen to that one at the very least, because I think that's the one I'm the most proud of because we got to really chop it up with the people behind the movie and hear their perspective on why they were able to and what they hope to gain from making a movie that was so very much about collective action and socialist thinking and feminist thinking.

I mean, Josie and the Pussycats is the best movie ever joined the army because we did talk about subliminal advertising too, and how it clearly worked on me because I've seen the movie so many times. Oh my gosh, it's same. I have not one, but two T shirts. Did you get to do your T shirt? No, but I have seen it on super yocky and I am getting ready to buy it. Yeah. I know. Um well, Dave, thank you so much for being here. You you can follow us on social media at Spectacle Cast on Twitter

and Instagram. We've got a Patreon a k a Matreon to subscribe to. It's five dollars a month and it gets you access to two bonus episodes every single month, plus access to the entire back catalog. And you can grab some merch over at t public dot com. Slash the betel Cast. Get some masks if you're still getting masks, Got some T shirts if you're still wearing shirts. Live your life not my business. Uh and are we signing off?

Oh my gosh, good night and good luck more at eleven A great way to end it.