Hello listeners, big announcement. We have officially added the Dublin show to our Shrek Tannic tour, so come see us in Dublin on May twenty ninth at the Irish Film Institute. We are covering Titanic and we are so excited to be able to finally confirm and announce that show, so please come to it. And then, speaking of Dublin, I am putting on a stand up comedy show in Dublin on my birthday on May seventeenth at Hysteria Comedy Club.
There are going to be some amazing local comedians on the lineup, and then I'll be doing a longer stand up set, so please come to that as well. It's my birthday, so you kind of have to be there. And then we'll all go out for a little birthday pint at a birthday pub after the show. It's gonna be so much fun. And then tickets are of course
still available for the rest of the tour. The two shows in London on May twenty second, the show show in Oxford as a part of the Saint Audio Podcast Festival on May twenty fourth, the show in Edinburgh on May twenty sixth, and the show in Manchester on May twenty eighth, and then again Dublin on May twenty ninth. All of the ticket links for all of these shows can be found at link tree slash Bechdel Cast. We're so excited and we can't wait to see you there.
On the Bechde Cast, the questions asked if movies have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zephim fast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Bojo Bojo, bonapadie.
Oh my god, this movie is so silly. I think my favorite part in the movie is when Jane Lynch and Meryl Streeper are just yelling in muppet voices for like twenty seconds and they're.
Like, whooooooo.
You're like that is sort of like the experience of having a sibling, but just like on a noise strictly noise level. I love it. I love it.
Yeah, I love their sister relationship.
Can you imagine how thrilled Jane Lynch must be every time they're making a movie about a woman that's sticks to like She's like, I'm in a cast. Done. Yeah, you can't not put her in a movie that requires there's So, okay, let's can we start. I'm just excited. Name's chef Jamie.
Oh, and my name is Chef Caitlin. And this is the Bechdel cast. Although so we get this sent to us a lot where people are like, if one something something cooking ingredient speaks to another blah blah blah, but then it passes the Bechamel test.
What maybe I don't read the messages we get.
I don't know if I'm saying it correctly. Bechamel sauce question mark.
Is a thing, right, Okay.
And there's this like I don't know meme where people are like if one something or other talks to another something other because bechamel looks very close to Bechdel when it's spelled out just a few extra letters, so people are like ha ha ha. And so I feel like this episode, this movie is the most relevant episode to bring that up on.
It's true, we did it, we did it.
Do I know what bechamel sauce is or what any of the ingredients are? Absolutely not?
Wait, what's your not to be? Like first day of college? But like, what's your favorite food? What's your favorite food? Ice breaker time?
Oh my gosh, I don't even know how to answer that question. I love food, though I eat it every day.
I'm realizing I don't think I know the answer to either. I think obviously hot dogs hot dog from Waltz. But I think all So is the Philadelphia role the least respected sushi role because it's my favorite. I feel like sushi heads are like, sure, you know, but I don't know. I might be projecting.
I mean, it's very tasty, but I feel like it might be like a very like American eyed bastardized.
Kind of for babies. A little bit could be well, I like it, Wait what's in it?
Salmon, cucumber and cream cheese?
Okay, yeah, and.
The cream cheese. I think the cream cheese is where they're like, do you really need it? And like I need it badly. It's important.
I want my sushi to taste like a bagel.
Yes, exactly.
Anyway, So yeah, I don't know. I mean, I love food. Indian cuisine is probably my top, but also I loved Taigh food, and also I love sushi, and also I love Mexican food, and I love Peruvian food, and I love French food, and I love Brazil. I like basically every food.
Wow, I always forget until I rewatch this movie what we mean when we say French food. So that's okay. Anyways, great opening to the episode. This is the Bechdel Cast, where we talk about your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens. But Caitlin, we don't know what the Bechamel test is because we have unrefined palettes. But what's the Bechtel test?
The Bechdel test is a media metric commonly called the Bechdel Wallace test because it was sort of co created by Allison Bechdel and Liz Wallace, and it is a media metric that has many different versions. The one that we use is do two characters of a marginalized gender? Do they have names? Do they speak to each other? And is the conversation about something other than a man? And then a little caveat that we like to add, is is it a narratively relevant conversation or is it
kind of throwaway dialogue? So that is the Bechdel test, the Bechamel test, We don't know, but yeah, let's introduce our guests. Yeah, we're so excited to have her. She is a Palestinian American poet and author of the book I Could Die Today and Live Again with Game Over Books. It just came out. It's Summer, Farrah.
Hello, welcome, Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to talk about this movie.
Oh my gosh, we're so excited. What is your relationship with this movie?
To Julie, to Julia? Also, we're covering Julia and Julia. Have we said that yet?
Oh?
Yeah, probably didn't say it recovering Julia.
So yeah, Summer, was your history with this movie or to either of the food people women in it? Yeah?
So I did not say this when it came out in theaters, but I think my family rented it on DVD as soon as it did come out, and basically since then, I don't know. I think that was like twenty ten. Maybe it was on the DVD. I've it every year since. It is my biggest comfort movie, and it also has shaped a lot of like it was my first exposure to food writing, I think, and like understanding food writing is something that people do and care about. And I mean, I'm not a food writer, but I
am a poet who writes a lot about food. Both in my poetry and in my critical work on poetry, I look at food as image and motif, and I think cooking and the kind of culinary stuff is very important to like my identity formation as a Palestinian, very like kind of typical daughter of immigrants, like my mom cooks food for our culture, and those are the only
words I know in Arabic kind of things. But yeah, and I think a lot of this movie kind of made me start thinking about that critically and like, oh, well, this is actually something that could be important out side of the home, in the kitchen, And then I think later now when I watch it, I think about parasocial relationships.
Yes, yes, it's a movie.
About parasocial relationships and how they're good.
I don't know, to be determined.
Yeah, well, if we're going to figure it out today. Yeah, wait, so we just get to ask you what is your favorite food?
Oh yeah, oh goshm okay, top of my head, shishbrook, which is like lamb dumplings cooked in yogurt broth, is my favorite food. It is it's not that labor intensive, but it's more labor intensive than like other things, because you gotta like make the little dumplings and fill them. But it's so good. The broth is like with garlic and lemon and mint, and it is my favorite food in the world.
God, that sounds incredible.
And most of the time our restaurants do not have it, and so it's very much a thing that I only have at home. But yeah, and so now I write a lot of poems about parasocial relationships because I want to recover from them, and so this movie is like, it's got everything for me.
Nice Jamie, What is your relationship with the movie?
I saw this movie when it came out. I don't remember if it was in theaters or shortly after, but this was a movie I definitely saw when it came out. I was sort of wondering, I think that they're like on the rewatch because I haven't seen this movie in years, but I think I have seen it like four or five times now. It's a fun movie to have on and I was wondering, I'm like, is this the viewing that Julie is gonna win me over? And I also like want to be careful to separate real life Julie
from movie Julie. And this was not the time I feel like since I saw this movie for the first time, I was just like, Wow, this Adam's story keeps interrupting this Meryl Streep story that I'm way more interested in. And yeah, I still honestly do sort of feel that way. Every time they cut back to Amy Adams in that goddamn wig, I'm like, here we go and the wig is I have questions about the wig that we need to talk about the Wig. However, I really like this movie.
I think, especially talking about it in the context of this show, there's a ton to talk about. I'm really interested in Julia Child's life. I couldn't get through. Did either of you give the new HBO series from last year a try?
Yeah?
Yeah, I thought it was weird, and.
Well, we can talk about it later if it's not.
I mean, like, watching that make me appreciate Julia and Julia Moore because ultimately we got Meryl Streep playing Julia Child like that feels like a victory in and of itself. And this is Nora Frown's final movie, and I think, like Norah f on Is, I don't know, like so many themes from her work and her writing are coming
together in this movie. Whether I like Julie or Not, where it's like women turning their lives around and women connecting with food and the cities they live in, and you know, very little diversity, just like things that are inherent to the Nora Efron canon. And I love nor ef I especially, I think more so than any of her movies. I really love her essay collections the most. Everyone should listen to a Nora Efron audio book. They're
very soothing. But yeah, my issues with this movie have been very consistent, but I think they are really fun to talk about because you get to be like, you're never gonna believe what Amy Adams character talks about all day at work, and it is nine to eleven. You don't expect nine to eleven to be such a major plot point in the Julia Child movie, but that's why this movie's built different. Caitlin, what's your history with this movie?
I will tell you in a second, but first I looked up Bechamel sauce. Oh my god, I'm gonna tell you what it is in my finest Julie Child impression. Bechamel sauce is one of the mother sauces of French cuisine. This sauce is made from a white roue and milk seasoned with ground nutmeg. The main ingredients are butter, flour and milk. The end. That's what I pulled from Wikipia.
That was really good.
We're standing and cheering. That's pretty good.
Anyway.
My relationship with this movie, I had seen it once before, not long after it came out, and I was like, wow, I like Meryl Streep.
You're also part of the movie Julie Hater Patrol.
Well, sorry if this is blasphemy, but I've never been a fan of Amy Adams. I find her a bit irritating most roles she's in.
Sorry, everyone really fucked up to say.
I can't help it.
We've done a whole Amy Adams months on the Patreon and we've never talked about this.
Wait did we?
Yeah, we did Amy Adams. She can do it all month?
Oh whoa wait?
Okay, arrival and enchanted because she can do it all.
Yeah. I guess I was just like holding my tongue because I was like.
This is shocking to me. This was like two years ago.
Yeah, I remember now, but yeah, I don't know. I've always found her a bit I don't know, just not for me, not for me.
Look, it's okay, speaker truth, thank you.
Really brave to come forward with.
That, honestly, really brave because Amy Adams fans don't fuck around. There's like a whole section of YouTube that's dedicated to discussing why Amy Adams does not yet have an oscar. And I've watched a lot of videos.
Well, don't ask me that question because I'll be mean about it anyway. But I do love Meryl Streep and I love Stanley Tucci, so I'm having fun when they're on screen. I generally like the movie, you know, I like Nora Efron's work, and I'm excited to talk about it. Although if it's a movie about like French food making, I'm gonna choose Chaco Lot every time. I mean, okay, Alfred Molina alert.
For Velina Chocolate coma like hard to top. I think that there's like a bunch of actor parings in this movie, where like Meryl Streep had just worked with Amy Adams on Doubt the year before, so they're like engaging in a pretty severe vibe shift in this movie, and then she had also worked with I mean more famously, I guess worked with Stanley Tucci. And Devilwaar's Prada a few years before this. Right, anyways, that's six degrees of Beryl.
I do think it's weird that, Yeah, doubt and then this movie coming out less than a year apart is bold.
Yeah truly. Yeah, but in a case, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap.
And we're back.
Okay. So here is Julie and Julia, based on two books, based on two true stories. It's the late nineteen forties. When the movie opens, we meet Julia Child played by Meryl Streep and her husband Paul Wait.
I kept meaning to look up how tall Meryl Streep actually is. I was just gonna ask because I thought that there are so many, like funny, practical camera tricks to make her Yeah, she's five six, Julia Child is six to two. I appreciate that the movie is like, she was six too, and we'll prove it. Jane Lynch
is her sister. But I feel like the whole movie, Meryl Streep is standing on an apple box in a lot of shots, and she's often standing a little closer to the camera than everyone else, so she looks bigger and I was like, wow, movies are amazing.
It's just like Lord of the Rings.
It's true.
Yeah, Gandalf is so tall in The Hobbit, and so in this scenario, Stanley Tucci is a Hobbit Merylyn Streep is gandalfrual, brutal.
This is a good short King movie as and also it's I was looking at the letterbox reviews for this movie and one of the top ones was like, this movie takes place in a fictional world where husbands are supportive, and I was like, yeah.
I cannot wait to talk about the husband one. But anyway, so we meet Julia Child and her husband Paul, played by Stanley Tucci. They have just moved to Paris. They are Americans, but Paul is a diplomat, so you know he's abroad working.
He's in the CIA, which I feel like, where is really He's in the literal CIA, and they didn't call it the CIA yet, So I feel like the movie really gets away with not being like Julia Child's career is brought to you by the CIA, much like here comes my Bummer thing I love to bring up. Ina Garten's career is brought to you by the Blackstone Group aka some of the darkest, most fucked up Wall Street
money in the world. In a Garden's adorable husband Jeffrey, Right, Jeffrey he worked for Nixon, Ford and Carter and then went to Wall Street working for Lehman Brothers and the Blackstone Group. That can't be good, Like, there's just so there's just like two extremely iconic women chefs who got some kickback from some of the worst institutions in the world. But the Julia Child's CIA pipeline, I don't know. We'll talk about this in the context area too, because this
movie is not going to touch the CIA stuff. They're like, well, they're a good part of the CIA, right, so already we're struggling.
I was unclear what his job was because in an early scene he seems to be at like an art exhibit for art that he made question mark. I was like, okay, he's an artist, but wait a minute, he works at the embassy. But also he's a spy question I don't. I don't.
Season two of Julia on HBO.
Is oh very.
Much about their past, catching up to them.
Look at you. Watching season two.
I had like a fever for like four days, and I was like, well, my school what you do?
Yeah, that is how you end up watching something like that. Wait did they get into it in a meaningful way?
I still walk away from it uncertain of both what they did during World War two and what their politics were after World War Two. But basically the last half of the season is about the TV station where like the Julia Child Show is made getting investigated by the FBI for leftist dissidents, and they rally everyone together to thwart the FEDS so that they can all keep on doing their progressive work.
God it yay.
But it's very much like we believe in anti war movements. We believe in fighting against institutionalized racism, but we do not believe in communism. Don't think that we do. It's very funny, not like funny, haha, but like, oh I don't understand what's happening.
Yeah, So like, tell me what do you believe in? Rent it bag?
I really don't know. I think personally, I like to imagine Paul Child was a bisexual communist.
Yes, God, I would love that. I want to believe. I mean, it's like this movie. He certainly succeeds in making you want to believe the best in him because you don't cast Stanley Tucci if you want to be rooting against him unless you're watching The Lovely Bones, and in that case, very much so. But yeah, I know the history stuff. It's so the Cia origin story. We can get more into it. She like had to do with the invention of shark repellent. It's all very bizarre. We'll get back to it.
Yeah, okay. Still on the first sentence of the week, Julia Child and her husband have just moved to Paris Frans ever heard of it? And they are eating delicious French food and Julia is just like reveling in it.
She's making noises. She's like, oh, so many cummy noises. It's in this movie. Across the twentieth century, people are making coummy noises.
That's true. That's because eating is like basically better than sex. I would say in almost every example. Damn, yeah, take that. All of the men that I've had sex with, take that sex.
You weren't very good the tight race for me, I don't choose between my passion.
Mmmm. That's brave of you. Anyway. We cut to two thousand and two and we meet Julie Powell played by Amy Adams and her husband Eric, played by Chrismasina. They have just moved to Queen's. She works at this government call center answering like devastating phone calls all day from people affected by nine to eleven.
Her job is nine to eleven. Yes, well, Summer, you've read the book. I don't quite understand the movie. I don't think does a great job of telling you what her job actually is.
From what I remember, it's like she's processing insurance claims of people affected in the various aftermath of nine to eleven. But what's fun about her book is she doesn't about nine to eleven. She's writing very soon after the events and with an apathy that I have only seen in like shit posters in the twenty eighteens.
That is a great way to Yeah, there is like a moment in the movie where it's like, oh no, she cares, Yeah, But most of it is like these phone calls are so annoying, and the people that are trying to get their insurance claims processed are bombing her out and they're rude, and you're just like, yeah, now, Julie, like.
And it is a department made specifically after nine to eleven to deal with nine to eleven, which I think is interesting in just like how do you get into that? And it was as temping, which you know, temping is a great way to get a full time job, but you often don't care about it totally to it.
Yeah, and her job is established to basically be like what a hard job she has? So she comes home and finds comfort in cooking. Ye, because that becomes her whole thing. And then after a string of events where Julie's mean friend writes a rude article about her and then starts a blog. This sort of also happens in
Sex and the City too. Yes, do you remember this from Sex and This happens to Carrie Bradshaw at one point where they're like you're so cool and yet you're thirty And then there comes out like this woman sucks, like on.
The cover of a magazine.
Yeah. So Julie is inspired to start her own blog about cooking because she's like, well, if my mean friend can have a blog, I can have a blog.
She doesn't have a nice friend, It's like not really and also she's not a nice friend. No, it's interesting, and I was like, Nora, what are you getting at with this. I don't understand, not sure, but yeah, that first thing with her friends, all of her friends are like, Julie, shut up, Like anytime she opens her mouth, they're like, can you stop talking? They're just like calling her a loser. And then you're like, I feel for Julie, And then later on I'm like that she is the worst. Wait
a second, would I bully her? I don't know, movie Julie.
In any case, she decides to start a blog about cooking, and specifically, she will blog about cooking her way through Julia Child's cookbook entitled Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she'll do all five hundred and twenty four recipes in the book over the course of one year. We then cut back to Julia Child in Paris again. Paul is a diplomat and he's busy with that, and so Julia wants to find something to do with her time.
She tries a few things like making hats and playing bridge, but what she really loves to do is eat, so she decides to take up cooking. She tries to buy a French cookbook in English, but no such thing really exists, so she decides to go to culinary school. We cut back to Julie Powell. She has started her blog and she started cooking the recipes from Julia's cookbook. It's a rocky start. It seems like no one is reading her blog. Her mom is not supportive of this project.
Who can relate? Who can relate? You're writing for no one and your mom doesn't understand what your job is.
Also, one of the recipes requires that she bone a duck, and she's dreading doing that, and that's going to pay off later in a not very significant way.
Check out's duck.
Yep. Meanwhile, Julia starts at Li Corombleau and she ends up in a class with men who judge her because her skills are are not as advanced, so she works extra hard to prove herself. She's chopping onions about it, and then soon she outperforms everyone else in the class. Back in Queen's Julie's readership is growing. People are leaving comments on her blog.
We mostly hear about people that as her blog is growing through something that I remember noticing the last time I watched this movie. The only non white character in the movie whose face we see once we see her face once it's aggressive. She has a friend. I guess, do we ever learn what her name? Should?
We do?
We learn her name? But she's on screen for a total of maybe five seconds, and that might even be generous.
Part of it is doing a cute little like hand class.
They're good enough friends to have a secret handshake. She also works at nine to eleven. That's all we know.
Her name is Ernestine. Yes, and I'm going to try to figure out. Oh, she's played by Crystal McCreery. Again, she's on screen for five seconds, but yes, that is one of Julie's friends, and she's talking about this project with Ernestine at work. She's also talking about how by doing this project, Julie feels like she and Julia Child have this like deep spiritual connection and that it feels like Julia is always in the kitchen with her watching over her. But also along the way, Julie has several
meltdowns because, oh, she's got a murderal lobster. Oh, some of the recipes are hard. Oh, she drops food all over the floor. But then she gets a call from a journalist at the Christian Science Monitor who wants to arrange a dinner with her and a very special guest, but we don't know who it is yet because then we cut back to Paris. Julia Child meets two women, Louisette and Simca, who are teaching French cooking to Americans,
and they invite Julia to join them. Then there's this whole sequence where Julia's sister, Dorothy played by Jane Lynch, comes for a visit.
N The economy of Jane Lynch's time is so amazing. She's in there for like a weirdly really long scene that just seems to be there so that she and Meryl can be like yelling together and it's really fun. And then they're like, we're going to introduce you to a tall guy, and then instead she meets a short guy. Cut too. They're married, and then she's gone from the movie right wild.
But before she's gone, well I get after she's gone, she sends a letter to Julia saying that she's gregnant, that Dorothy has gotten gregnant, and this is basically there to establish something that's not like explicitly stated, but it seems like Julia has she's like struggling with infertility, and yeah, she really wants to have children, but she and Paul are not able to and so like. Learning that her
sister is gregnant is better sweet. Obviously she's happy for her sister, but she's like, but I want to be gregnant too, And she's sad.
But I think is true to her life as well.
Yeah, I believe so. Meanwhile, Julia's friends Luisette and Simca ask Julia to collaborate with them on their cookbook. Their publisher had rejected them, saying that they need to make the book more accessible to Americans, so they ask for Julia's help in doing that, and she is delighted to help. We cut back to Julie, who reveals her mystery dinner guest. It's Judith Jones, the editor who was responsible for getting Julia Child's cookbook published, and Julie is making.
I love try to say.
I'm like, how do you say this?
Bof Aby Adams doesn't sound one hundred percent?
No, I love the like legend of that dish recurring throughout the movie. I've never eaten that in my life. I've only heard of it in the context of this movie. Speaks to my ignorance towards French cuisine. I do not care. It's beautiful it's a mystical dish.
I just love the word bof Boo's how it's like trying to say ewan regret.
Boof is it? I'm good for yes, absolute you. So Julie is making this dish and she prepares it the night before the dinner, but she falls asleep while it's still in the oven and it gets all burnt and ruined, and she's freaking out. We cut back to Julia. She's working on the cookbook right now. It's just a bunch of recipes. There's like no fun or flair, and so
she's trying to liven it up. I guess. Julia sends some of the pages of the book to her pen pal, Avis, who then we learn is a literary scout or something. She works in publishing, and she shows them to an editor at the publishing house Hutton Mifflin in Boston, who loves the book and wants to publish it. Julie meanwhile makes a new for her dinner with Judith that night, and Julie is hopeful that maybe she'll get a book deal after a meeting with Judith, but then Judith cancels
at the last minute and they never reschedule. I guess I know.
I was like damn, wow, Like yeah, she really ends up getting her ass handed to her.
Julie is very upset and her husband Eric is frustrated by this whole project and all of her like mishaps and meltdowns and he can't wait till this year's over. He feels like she's being very self absorbed and that she's focusing more on her readers than their marriage. And they argue and he storms off, and she's very upset. She keeps blogging, but she stops cooking for a little while.
What I think is interesting and this like is kind of dropped within the movie, but like he makes a point I think reasonably to say, like, well, please don't write about this argument or me in your blog. And then she almost does, and then she doesn't, and you're like, okay, she's like learning how to set boundaries a little better. But then she just does any eyes and then he's like, all right, I'm back. I was like, she didn't you made one request, like and I don't know. I was
kind of on his side on that. I was like, yeah, if someone doesn't, I feel like it's the same deal. Like if you're in like stand up. I'll always like be like, is it okay if I talk about un stage? If not, I won't do it. He's like, don't blog about me. She's like, okay, but what about in one day and he's like, okay.
It's fine, okay, So back to Julia. She and Simca go to Boston to meet with Julie's penpal Avis in real life for the first time. They also meet with the publishers at Hutton Mifflin, but they think the book is too long and complicated, so Julia and Simca get to work on revising it. Meanwhile, Julie and Eric make up and she starts cooking again, and then a writer from The New York Times comes over for dinner to do a piece on her. And once it's published, people
are calling her left and right. She's got publishers, lit agents, TV producers. They're offering her deals and then one person calls her who is writing a piece about Julia Chi Child's ninetieth birthday, and apparently Julia knows about Julie's blog and thinks that Julie is not serious or respectful.
So crushing, I know.
So she's like speculating as to why Julia thinks that she's so sad.
Her real life comments were not as bad.
What did she say?
So, the piece that I am pulling from is from tastingtable dot com. I don't know if this is a historically verifiable source, and so I can't vouch for tasting table dot com. But it seemed like the comments sounded very cruel, and they like certainly weren't nice. But it had more to do with Julia Child didn't understand what a blog was.
Yeah, she's a ninety and was.
Like, why would she cook all of my recipes?
Like?
So she said she must not be much of a cook, meaning like she must not be able to write her own recipes. Why would like she didn't understand the concept of a stunt blog because she was ninety. So, but I believe obviously that like if you just heard that quote out of context in your Julie crushing, miserable, horrible, never meet your heroes. I hope your heroes never learn
you exist. Yeah, I don't know. I guess I think it had more to do with her being old and grouchy and being like, what what is this?
Yeah, this sceneedd instill like a deep fear in me, just like, oh, like, I never want anyone that I ever admire to ever know about me or see what I do or comment on my work ever, because I won't be able to handle it.
And I think it's like interesting too, at least for the script. I don't know where the book lands on it, but like where the movie lands on it, where Christmasina is like all that matters is that Julia Child that lives in your head. And I was like, hmm, I don't know that I agree with that at all. It
feels kind of like a bizarre moral. I don't know. Yeah, I was having difficulty with where because it's like it is crushing and I think it's a really interesting thing to explore, but that She's just like, well, I guess I just am gonna go with the fictional character Julia instead, right, But that's the parasocial relationship conversation we get to have, I guess.
And then Julia Child I think, dies before Julie Powell ever gets a chance to meet her in real life. And then I'm just like, oh, I did feel bad for that is sad Julia in that moment, But yeah, what I wrote in the recap here is Julie's very sad about Julia Child, thinking that she's not like respectful or serious. But then Julie realizes that what Julia thinks of her doesn't matter. What matters is what Julie thinks of herself question mark or something sort.
Of really unclear. I don't know. I was like, Okay, if I had like made all of act cast right and then found out that Kathy guys White was like, You're not a serious person, it would be crushing. But I feel like it would just be really weird to be like, I actually don't care what she thinks because it's like so obvious that I really do or why would I have done any of this? But then it's
I don't know. I feel like maybe it's just like the Christmas in a line of dialogue sort of being like, and this is the lesson because Julie, it seems like Julie at the end, she goes to the exhibit and is like, I love you, Julia, but like which Julia the one in her head or the real one?
The real one? Will never know, We'll never know. In any case, we cut back to Julie Child, Houghton, Meflin rejects the book, and so Julia is unsure what to do next. She feels like she's wasted eight years of her life writing this book. But then, thanks to her pen pal Avis, the book comes across the desk of a publisher named Judith Jones, the one who was supposed to meet with Julie and then it was raining, so she canceled, and then they never rescheduled. A question mark not sure, but anyway.
I mean, I'm on Ja's side there too.
I love to cancel plan.
I know surely she's like, yeah, it's a little far, sorry.
But yes. We meet Judith Jones when she's a young publisher and she loves the cookbook and she wants to publish it and she thinks it's going to revolutionize cooking in the US, and Julia is ecstatic. Back to Julie, it's her last day of this year long project and the last of her five hundred and twenty four recipes where she has to bone the duck, and it is presented by the movie as though it's gonna be this big event because they keep referring to it, and it
feels like it's really building up to something. But then she's like I did it and there's no special moment or anything anyway.
Yeah, the cookie scene I remember is the lobster scene from this movie. Yeah, the lobster scenems fun.
That seems much scarier to me. Yeah, especially, I mean, hygiene doesn't really matter in a movie, right, but like she's like touching the phone with her raw chicken hands. She's like, yeah, on the yenging on the ground with raw chicken residue, and she's like very brave, unafraid of that. Yeah, and so like the grossest thing to me about deeboning the duck is like touching raw meat. Yeah, but she
seems fine with that, So I don't know. The live lobster thing, I was like, oh, I simply would never do that, but yeah, the raw meat is gross.
The rob meat is pretty nasty. Yeah, the lobster. I think the lobster scene sticks with me mainly because I would be petrified to do that, and because I like the music choice, like putting Psycho, Like it's.
So silly, it's really fun.
Yes, there's talking heads in the Meryl Street Julia Child movie. That's fun.
Anyway, So she bones the duck and it is fine. There's no problems and she celebrates with her friends, and then Julia and Eric go to the Julia Child Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Ever heard of that?
And then text on the screen at the end of the movie says that mastering the Art of French Cooking is in its forty ninth printing. Julie Pal's book Julie and Julia was published in two thousand and five and then made into a movie, and we were like, I'm sorry, you mean the movie that we are watching right now?
What?
Yeah, which is sad because it's like the last frame that Nora Efron ever produced. But my boyfriend was like, oh, fuck you. Like when they show at the end where they're like and it's a movie, You're like, I know, I know where I've been the last two hours.
Yes, So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss and we're back.
Is it cool if we talk about the real life women before we get into sultanly, because this is the first time I've seen this movie since Julie Powell passed. Yeah, she passed away very young, She's forty nine. It was a brief sudden illness and so I want to be clear when I'm talking about the Julie of this movie, I'm not talking about Julie Powell by all accounts. She's a lovely person, and God help you if you are judged by blog posts from the early two thousands for
the rest of your life, truly. Yeah, So I just wanted to share a little bit about her. There were a number of lovely essays eulogizing her when she passed in twenty twenty two. That also touches on something that I memory hold but vaguely remember about the time that this movie came out, which was that Julia and Julia came out in two thousand and five. It was a
very successful book. It was turned into this movie in nine and Julie Powell released her only other book shortly thereafter, and she was torn to shreds over it because it dealt with the marriage that we see presented very lovingly, and they remained married until her death. So I don't know about it, but there was a lot of infidelity between the two of them, and Julie Powell wrote about it. I haven't read the book, but I guess pretty honestly.
In this book that came out three months after the movie. So I think the idea was the movie is going to really endear everyone to Julie Powell, and then we'll want to read her new book. But I think it sort of ended up in a way that feels very connected to late Aught's misogyny, kind of blowing up in her face in an unfair way where she's writing very I mean, I hope with her husband's permission and they
remained married. Let's hope, so but you know, being too imperfect or writing about something that was so at odds with the movie character that had done so well over the summer. And I vaguely remember that, and it seems like in retrospect it was like very unfair to her. They wanted to just share something from an essay by I write her named Emily Ferris in Bonapetite that was released in late twenty twenty two, shortly after she passed away.
That seems really kind, because I guess Julie Powell became very well known for mentoring young writers, which not enough people do. She said, when I was broken in between apartments, she paid me to house it when I probably should have been paying her to sublet. When I cracked the screen on my laptop. A few weeks before my book was due, she took me to the Max Doore in front of me the money for a new one until
I got my next advance check from my publisher. And when I found myself without a place to stay while covering a food blogging panel, she sent me to her parents' house. Even when her life got messy, both peron similar professionally, she continued to give to me, to her other friends and families, to animal rescue organizations, and to a public that seemed to turn on her when she showed them more of who she really was. So yeah, I just wanted to shout out Julie Powell and yeah, gone far too soon.
That's so sweet. Oh my god.
I know I was like anytime I read about like mentorship in general, but especially like mentors between like women and famis, I'm like, ugh, she seemed like a really lovely person. And I'm kind of curious about her second book me too.
I never read it. I read her first one, and you know, she writes about her husband so wonderfully. I think that's like, honestly bummer. But my favorite part of the book, it's the way she writes about her husband, and I think it'd be I don't know, I kind of do want to read the second one, and just I don't know if you're going to read blogs and personal essay writing and then be cruel to people when they're honest. It's like, well, read a different genre.
Right right. It's like they only like the version of her that is rom com her and actual her is not acceptable. Yeah. The book is called Cleaving, a Story of Marriage, Meet and Obsession, which, according to scholarly journal Wikipedia, details her experiences learning to butcher at Fleischer's butcher Shop in New York and the effects of affairs by both her and her husband on their marriage. And yeah, it seems like most of the negative reviews were just like
how dare you talk about this? So fuck that? And then we have Julia Child, who was in the CIA, Like just she's in the CIA, unclear. I also like, don't trust anything that is published on the CIA website. Julia Child has her own like clickbait page on c i A dot gov. You're like, this is some skill, good Jesus. So if there's ever been a time to consider the source, it's here. But yeah, the Julia Child CIA landing page says that she was with the so it was called the OSS at the time. That turns
into the CIA, the Office of Strategic Services. It is said that she joined the CIA because she was too tall to be in the military. What a sentence. Okay, so this is very CIA website. Working as a research assistant in the Secret Intelligence Division, Julia typed up thousands of names on little white note cards. What what are the names? What happened to the why? That's all it says about what she was up to, and then it gets to the fun part, which is the shark repellent.
Julia then worked with the OSS Emergency c Rest You Equipment section, where she worked in close proximity to offers who developed shark repellent, and that she met her husband in the CIA, and then he got promoted in the
CIA and they got to move to France for the CIA. Okay, So it feels like this very bizarre two hander where on one hand, she is a woman in the early twentieth century who clearly very much wants a career in a way that was not acceptable at the time, and then the career is in the CIA, and so it's like a real girl boss pickle that we're getting ourselves into with all this. And she's also comes from a lot of money and is basically rich her entire life, which I think is the way that class is dealt
with in this movie. I think is really interesting. That's my context corner. Nora Afron not much to know other than she like, I love food, and so that's why she wanted to make this movie. She loved food.
To speak to the movie, because a lot of that stuff, especially with Julia Child, is like pretty glossed over as far as her like former work in the CIA, and
what Paul's job is. Again, I thought he was like an artist or an architect or something, because they're like he designed the rooms that won World War Two, and I'm like, what is his job anyway, So as far as what the movie presents, I do appreciate that this is a movie largely about women finding purpose and pursuing something that they love and sticking with it despite obstacles along the way. And maybe those obstacles are lobsters, maybe
they are McCarthyism, you know, who's to say. But I also appreciate that it's very rare that there is a movie where we can talk about a female character and her husband, because it's almost always talking about a female character because she's his wife. So I like the kind of framing of everything here, and I do want to talk about the husbands and their level of support, but yeah, I just I like that this is a movie where it's like, Wow, women should pursue their dreams.
Or even just to like speak to the in even lower Bar a movie where like women are eating as much as they want the whole time, and it's like two women who love to eat and they're not like caught in like Gilmore Girl syndrome where they still look like they go to forty pilates classes a week even though all they do is eat, like you know, and it's still very movie fied. But that yeah, like there's so few stories about like women and food that is like celebratory, so right.
And I think there's minimal there. Definitely is like just mentions of like, oh, I'm gaining a lot of weight because I'm eating fattening food, you know, But there's way less like kind of yeah, body shamey or like language that would lead you to have an eating disorder in this movie that I think you would expect right, which is fun. It's another reason why I like it so much.
It is so much about the indulgence and enjoying food and allowing yourself to enjoy it, you know, like Julie doesn't stop cooking because she feels tired from eating a lot of butter. You know, Yeah that happens. And yeah, it feels very counter to other films of this type and time. You don't really walk away from it being like, oh god, you want it, you want to eat the chocolate cake.
Yeah, you don't leave the movie being like they should have eaten less.
Like, yeah, more, they should have eaten more. Yeah.
There are definitely like dated and it is a period piece even at the time is coming out. Yeah, like dated ways of talking. But it was mostly negative self talk. I can't think of a lot of examples. I don't know if any of like someone commenting Onlie and Julia's body. It was more of mostly Julie being hard on herself. But I mean again, Barra on the floor. But I think, you know, like a lesser movie would have had like
the husband's commenting on their bodies. True, and the fact that it was mostly relegated to some good old fashioned negative self talk felt at least like a less bad version. And I also don't know from Julie's book if that is like something that is from the book. I just don't know a little bit.
Yeah, she's funny, you know, like she has the Quippi Bloggie early two thousand's voice. And I think that kind of self degradation that is mostly a joke is just like kind of part of the flare, you know. But I think in the context of the movie, it adds like a realistic character dimension. It makes Julie feel like, yeah, she's she's messy, it's.
Fun, she's just like me. She hates herself. Yeah right, yeah, I mean just the idea of a movie about women and food. And I mean I get like the parallels between the two of them are significant. I think that an interesting big chasm between them that the movie doesn't really look at. And also it's like, I don't know, I don't go to Nora Ephron for thoughtful commentary on class, but this movie, Yeah, it's interesting because of the stories
they're based on. Class has to be present, and we're still firmly in the middle to upper middle class when it comes to Julie. But there is a not insignificant class difference between Julie and Julia, and I feel like a lot of how like listening to Julie be like,
why can't I be more like Julia? And I kept being like, money, Yeah, money kind of your personality, but it's a lot of it is money, Like where Julia Child, for all of her valid struggles, never had to worry about money, and that tends to make you a more pleasant person if you never have to worry about jack shit like and the ways that class colors Julie's story, it is kind of a Cinderella story where she has to write her way out of her insurance claims job,
but even stuff with like she can't afford to live in the area of town she wants to and that has an effect on her career when she gets canceled on because it's too far, which again I celebrate that cancelation, but like, there's a little class stuff in there, and I don't know, it's not perfectly done. I just thought it was, Like one of the more bizarre parts of this movie to be is that doesn't seem to really register in the constant comparison between these women's life trajectories.
I think Julia Child is often used as like fake deep inspiration of like, Julia didn't learn to cook until she was in her forties, and it's like, well, because she lived a very privileged life in which she didn't have to learn how to cook for herself and then had an incredible abundance of time in which all she had to do was what she wanted, right, And I don't see that really being engaged with culturally until recently,
maybe even it's a member. I think a lot of us are very distracted by the reality of what growing up wealthy can do for a person and trying to like we don't all have the same hours in the day, the like part, especially like coming home to cook six hour meal, Like that's so commendable. I would I when I did have to go to an office when I came home, I would never do something that would takes
that long. And just thinking, well, if you have a husband who's supporting me, you have theoretically family money, although you know she doesn't have a great Julia didn't have a great relationship with her father as we see, But of course you can do the thing that takes hours and hours and hours right, it's not glamorous to think about that, I guess.
Right, Yeah, But it's like with Julie, do you do see that, Like it's taking more of a toll on her life than it took on Julia's because she has to have a normal job and commute and do all the things that most people need to do. Yeah, and she's still privileged to be able to, you know, find the energy to have the hobby. Like there is still
a degree of privilege in that. But yeah, they're operating in different levels of privilege, which feels kind of wild to say because they are, you know, they're both white women that have you know, sort of the world bows to them both eventually anyways, And again, like Nora Afron, this is not really anymore than I'm not trying to compare them outside of this, but Nora Efron also grew up very wealthy, you know, the odds she had had a lot to do with misogyny and not a lot
to do with class. And I feel the same way about Emerald Finelle, where you're just like, here's a director that I'll always give their stuff a shot, but I'm not going to them for valuable insight on class. Because they're just like not equipped to do it.
What you didn't think Saltburn had important comment to And I'm kidding.
Well, it's like she's like a jewelry heiress or something, and you're just like, yeah, this is not the director I'm going to for this. But I like to look at pretty thing.
I do like the way the PayPal is a detail of a plot point to show that Julius readers love her. Yes, I love the early two thousands and of it. I love the beginning of blogging and just hearing those things. It's so fun. I love when Christmasina explains blogging.
It's really great, just like the herculean effort of beginning a blog on Salon dot com. You're like, wow, what a moment of time. Or when she gets competitive with her friend who's it just is like the way that female friends work in Julie's world is weird to be in Julia's world. I kind of love it, Like I don't really have any notes there Julie's world. I'm like, what is Nora try to say to us here or Julie.
I'm not sure where it's coming from. But the friend that humiliates her also has a blog about having sex in a plane question Mark and yeah, honestly not out of the I don't know. Early blogging was so wild. People were just saying.
Whatever, yeah, yeah, Well, to speak a little bit more to Julie's friends, yes.
What's going on?
She has the mean girl boss friends who are very condescended. One of them is Casey Wilson. The other one writes this like rude piece about Julie becoming thirty or something. I don't even know what the topic is.
If I were Julie, that would have affected me far worse. I was glad that for Julie. She was like, oh, I need to start writing again. I was like, oof, My takeaway would have been far more negative.
How could a friend write a hit piece on you and then you just keep going?
When it happened on Sex and the City, it wasn't her friend, No, it was a person.
It was a person.
I don't know. I really love viewing this like incredibly inaccessible version of female friendship to me and like, I simply do not. This doesn't register to me, just incredible like coterie of girl bosses.
I don't know, Yeah, I don't know what the intent is there. But then she has another friend, Sarah played by mary Lynn Rushcub, who seems not mean, She seems to be supportive. She comes over and helps Julie cook. Sometimes she doesn't have that much you know, screen time or narrative significance, but at least like Julie is given a friend who is kind to her and we like that, especially in contrast to her mean friends. And then she has these other friend that we mentioned Ernestine. It's Julie's
one black friend. It's like the only person of color on screen with any sort of speaking.
Role, truly. Shot for shot, you see like her eyes was, you see the back of her head several times, and then you see her whole face in the final shot she appears in like it could not be more careless.
Yeah, the movie doesn't care at all about her character. But then so there's a scene where I think it's Julie Eric and her friend Sarah. Sarah comes over and Julie's like, what do you think it means if you don't like your friends, referring to her mean girl boss friends.
Right, who she's right to not let like?
Right?
Yeah, that seems so confusing.
And Sarah responds with it's completely normal to not like your friends. And then Eric says, well, men like their friends, and then Sarah says, we're not talking about men. Who's talking about men? Which I think passes the Bachdel test.
But anyway, it also I'm like, okay, Eric, where are your friends at haven't seen them in the movie? Where are these friends you like so much? Doesn't seem like they're really around, are they? Yeah? That felt very boomery logic to me. I like couldn't quite get my head around it because it was like, if we're talking about that friend, Yeah, she shouldn't be your friend anymore. They're me like she betrayed you and like humiliated you in a national magazine. I don't think that has to do
with like friendships between women. It has to do with this woman being a bad person.
Right, And to Julie's credit, it seems like they're not friends anymore, at least in the context of the movie. They don't hang out after that, but who knows what the real life situation was.
But it's like, do the other girl bosses cut her out? Like what?
It was really interesting in all of the Dinners when she has people over, Yeah, those women do not return, And I wondered if it was like, would they not eat the food. They wouldn't, they wouldn't let her.
Have a friend's Oh yeah, they were like stop eating. Yeah, that whole scene. I watched it a couple of times because it's like way all over the place. It's just really bizarre.
It feels atonal for the rest of the movie too.
Yeah, I agree, it feels cartoonish. But then the way that friendships between women are in Julia Child's world, I thought were like really thoughtful and gentle and like not without conflict, but still there's a ton of support and like there are friends of Julia Child's that are, you know, on equal footing of like narrative importance as her husband, and that's really nice. I mean, I love the scenes
with Juliet and Simca. I love that they're like, we're gonna cut our third friend out of it, and then they experience a little pushback and Julia's like, never mind, because I would have done the same thing.
Yeah, because they're confronting Louisette because she's not doing her share of the work, and Julia and Simca are frustrated, rightfully so, because they're doing all the work and they sit Louisette down and then she's like, I'm going through a divorce and they're like, ooh, yeah, okay, but then they still kind of negotiate her down to like only receiving eighteen percent or something like that. Yeah, and they're like, your name has to be small, but then Julia is like, no,
your name can be big on the cover. It's fine.
I love a fellow conflict avoidant.
Yeah, sure, but I do appreciate, like, I really liked that dynamic between those three friends and how I like have to confront the one friend and yeah, it felt authentic. And then she also has a deep friendship with Avis, who she like is penpals with for eight years, and then they finally meet on screen and the.
AVS reveal is so honestly, this is really sweet and also so weird because you're like, wow, it's AVS and then it's just like a tiny Avis.
I love that so much. I feel very close to Julia Child in that way. I have many friends that I've only communicated with online for many years pre Tumblr a pen pal. It's so sweet.
I think that Julia story just is less messy in general, But like the Julia story navigates like, yeah, meeting a friend you've only written to for the first time in this really sweet and cathartic way. But the parasocial relationships in Julie's worlds are weird confusing. Julie's world is weird and confusing. Yeah, in general, I think she should divorce
all of her friends. I did like the Marilyn Ris cub character, like she is a sweet, supportive friend, but also, yeah, you're being a bitch, like, I mean, you know, language choice, eh, But she is being unbelievably self centered in that scene because she's like, by the way, I'm going through a really big breakup and Amy Adams is like, oh my god, I totally forgot anyways back to me, and I was like, whoop, bad friend.
So funny.
Yeah, she is like not a great friend either. I don't know, MESSI is.
That a good transition to talk about the husbands, because that's yeah, Julie's husband, Eric's big problem with this whole project, and I have Okay, here my thoughts on it. What do you think? Okay, So we see him being generally supportive to Julie, especially at first he helps her set up the blog. He encourages her verbally and with compliments
and stuff like that he loves her cooking. But then there's that rocky part in the middle where he gets frustrated and he bails for a little bit, and he calls her narcissistic and all this stuff, and I feel like we are not given enough information to know if him, you know, being pissed off and accusing her of being self absorbed is justified, or if it's just a man
expecting certain behavior from a woman. And also another component of it, which the movie doesn't like frame it this way at all or examine, But this happens a lot in real life in hetero couples, where men feel threatened if their wife is doing better than them professionally or financially, or if they're like, you know, their wife is having success in some regard and men feel very threatened by
that a lot of the time. And I was like, okay, is there a component of that with the Eric characters, he threatened by this success that his his wife is finding kind of suddenly, And again the movie doesn't examine that or really acknowledge that, But I was like, hmm, this does happen a lot, So I wonder if that was part of it, or if it's just Julie being selfish and uncompromising. But you know, who can say yeah.
I was also struggling to yeah. Summer thoughts.
I don't know. I think every time I watch the movie, I feel a little differently about their fight. I watched it twice before this, and so I watched it last week and I watched it last night, and between those different times I felt differently. I think it is very alienating for someone who you love and who supports you to make you feel worse when you're having a meltdown by responding in a way that is like, you know, like she's very upset because something is very important to her,
and his response is kind of brushing it off. I don't even think I feel like it wasn't kind of a twist of like, well, let's be positi if we have good food and you can reschedule, you know, like with Judith Jones rescheduling, It was a little like why is this important? And that can feel really devastating and horrible, especially if you are someone who is prone to meltdowns.
And I think having a meltdown when something goes wrong valid and apecially saying yes, Oh, it is very devastating and overwhelming in the moment, and so I don't know. Every single time I watch it, I wonder where that comes from, Like whether it is not believing what she's doing is important and it's like, yeah, no one will be mad at you if someone canceled on you for dinner. And I think that's something that she needed to hear.
This projection of like responsibility on her readers. It's warped and it's unhealthy to feel like you owe something to other people when you don't really because otherwise I think he's a fantastic husband. He's so kind, he's having such a good time with her, and he's very supportive, and I think sometimes I wish we'd seen maybe a little bit more of a build up of his frustration, or in what ways is she distracted from their marriage outside of like she spends all her free time making really
good food. I don't know.
Yeah, it feels like it comes out of nowhere.
I wonder if there's like a missing scene or something. I just feel like, I it's really hard to fall on like a hard interpretation because I just feel like I don't have enough information because it's not like we haven't seen examples of Julie brushing off other people in favor of herself and her own problems. We've saw her do that with her friend, so it's not like there's no precedent for this. But also we haven't really seen
her do this to him. We don't really know. I mean, I feel like we're usually having this conversation in the reverse, but like we don't really know much about it, Like, no, I don't really know, like does he feel like her pursuing this dream? There's no space within the relationship for him to pursue his like what would he rather this time be used for? Because it also is such a valid and common thing to be like, actually, you know, this started fun, but now you're getting too much attention
and I'm not comfortable with it. Yeah, but that wasn't really who I understood that character to be up to then.
So it was just feels, honestly like an end of Act to Contrivance where he leaves and then comes back three days later in spite of the fact that the one thing he asked for she blatantly ignored, which also made me be like, maybe he was right to be hailing her for a while because he's like, please just don't write about me and your blog right now, and then she did, and then he's like, actually, I don't care, and you're like, this is just bizarre.
Is the implication being that, like she writes in a way that is like, I had a fight with my husband who wasn't being supportive enough, and then she deletes that, and then she writes in such a way that it's like she's acknowledging her own fault in the fight as it relates to what her husband is concerned about. And then reads that and he's like, Wow, she's acknowledging that she was wrong, and that's why I'm coming back to her. That's the impression I got, Yes.
But it's like that also is so dissonant because he's reading about it because she didn't do what he asked. I think that they're both acting very weird in that sequence, and that it felt like a contrivance that this movie is too good for kind of I.
Think like a kind of overall issue with the movie is that it doesn't affirm. It's very much about external validation on the Julie side, not on the Julia side. Julia is so confident in herself. But everything with Julie is she is performing like for her readers, huh, like I am, yes, I am a selfish person and a bad wife sometimes for her readers, and it's not for her husband. It's not for herself, right. And it's in that like ending monologue where Eric is like, the Julia
in your head is what matters. It's still not about like finding confidence in your art and your life, in yourself. It's still this sort of manifestation of external validation. And throughout the movie her mother is like, this isn't important. She needs to know it's important herself, and that's kind of what their argument feels like it's about. But it doesn't land because she doesn't find value in the work she's doing because she's doing it. She still finds it because people are reading her.
Right, yeah, which is again like that's an interesting thing to explore and so many I mean, I've been that writer at various points one hundred percent, Yeah, you're given something interesting, But then it turns into this bizarre the way it's like touched on it has to do with the relationship, and all of a sudden he seems threatened and frustrated by her, and he has never seemed that way, and we're like, what am I so about? Like am I supposed to think this was in him the whole time?
And then like you're saying, Caitlin, like it's unclear, like does she owe anyone an apology in this situation? It feels more like this is a battle that needs to happen internally for her, and they turn it into a relationship battle instead in a way that's.
Confusing hard to say.
I don't know. Yeah, I felt weird about that too. Other than that, though, it's like the two romantic relationships in this movie are pretty lovely.
They're beautiful. They're like my favorite romantic relationships in movies, I think, especially.
Merrily and Tucci.
Come on, come on. Yeah, So paul and we've already talked about the level of privilege that Julia Child experiences that allows.
Cia legendary, the Cia romance of the century.
Right, But the thing with Paula is that like he's only ever shown to be completely supportive of Julia. He's never calling her narcissistic or anything like that, and that feels especially unusual considering this is like the nineteen forties slash fifties. This is when women were not encouraged to have careers, especially married women. So for him to be like, yeah, do whatever you want, Try make a hat, try cooking, do anything, and then she pursues that dream and he's
like so supportive along the way. I'm curious to know if that's how that relationship actually manifested or not. But at least as far as what we see in the movie, Paul is like unwaveringly supportive of Julia Child and I
appreciated seeing that. It's not as though other men around her are unwaveringly supportive, because you have that kind of series of scenes where she starts that cooking class at les codne Bleue and it's all men in the class, and it's all people who are like already professional chefs. I guess they're honing their skills or something. But they judge her.
You know.
She says something like, you should have seen the way those men looked at me, like I'm just some frivolous housewife looking for a way to kill time, and that is probably what they assumed when they saw her. And she is shown having to put an extra effort and work extra hard to prove herself, the way that many women and marginalized people in general have to do to earn any level of respect or to have access to the same opportunities as their counterparts who are more privileged.
And so we see Julia doing all of that extra work to try to like fit in and prove herself and all that stuff, and then a letter to Avis later on, she says something like, and now I'm way ahead of the others in my class, all men, all of them unfriendly, until they discovered that I was fearless. So then they come to respect her because she displays a trait that is traditionally considered masculine.
Right, It's like you have to be exceptional to deserve respect kind of, right.
Yeah, you know, she's brave and she's fearless. She's not this like, you know, quote unquote timid woman that the men expected her to be. But she's like, I'm gonna kill this lobster, and they're like, wow, she's so cool, and then she, you know, garners their respect. I thought all of that was, like, you know, not a huge part of the movie, but I'm glad it was touched on to some degree. Yeah.
Again, it's like it's a very like rom commy way of touching on it, but it touches on it. I was curious more because again I just like mainly know about Julia Child through this movie and through what is
largely considered to be a wildly historically inaccurate mini series. Yeah, there's literally a scene in the mini series where Betty Fridan yells at Julia Child and it is like you're not a real feminist, which never happened, and they're like, well, but like we wanted to explore, You're like, you can't
do that, that's cheating. She was a person. Anyways, I was curious, especially after seeing how wildly like over the top the miniseries went, what Julia Child's relationship to feminism was, because she was prominent as second wave feminism was becoming a conversation and second wave feminism we can save that
for another day. However, it was interesting where Julia Child never really allied herself with a feminist movement, but she also in her time caught some shit from feminist movements because it was characterized as like she's encouraging women to stay in the kitchen, which I see the thinking behind it.
But I'm kind of grateful that most feminist movements have moved past that, because what Julia Child was doing, as we see in this spoofy, was extremely difficult for women to do, even with the degree of privilege that she had, And cooking does not have to be an inherently oppressive task, but it has been put on women in that way. But Julia Child was cooking for joy, she was producing her own stuff. She was like bi all accounts. I guess she was a reproductive rights champion, like she you know,
wasn't a full blown feminist. But I think in her time was kind of unfairly criticized for pushing something that it didn't seem like she was ever pushing really, like she was a woman who enjoyed cooking and wanted to make a show about it, and it was I don't know, I think kind of like unfairly politicized to make her look worse.
I think cooking and having the ability to cook and the skills to cook well and in a way that is like pleasurable, like you're creating something for yourself that is good and creating something for others that is good. There's very interesting conversations around that being like a bougie thing or a privileged thing when it feels like it should just be the most basic human right, like knowing how to use ingredients, where to get them from, how
to use them, and to nourish yourself and others. It is a very interesting, contentious sort of conversation, and you know, there's degrees of course, like again, like having ten hours a day to slow cook something is a different kind of conversation. But the act of cooking and being able to cook for yourself and especially not relying on you know, like the scene when they're in the first publisher meeting and they have the book of like the Quick Houselife
kind of things. I think being able to break out of sort of mass consumerism notions of feeding yourself and food is a radical act and not just you know, not to say like Julia Child's methods are radical that. I think that a lot of relationships in like anarchist food movements is knowing what you're using, how to use it, and how to not use things that are destroying the planet in our bodies right.
Well, there's also a difference between the expectation for women to do these domestic chores such as cooking and you know, nurturing and nourishing her husbands and children and stuff like that, and cooking as a career because historically men are chefs, women are housewives who cook for their family.
Yeah.
Yeah, So for her to pursue being a professional chef, and as we see in that scene where she like goes to that class with other professional chefs who are all men, and like, that's still a cultural thing, but
it was certainly more pronounced back then. So for her to be like, yeah, I'm a woman, but I'm like a professional chef who can teach it, who can like create my own recipes and like sort of innovate different ways to do certain things like that was not the most common thing for women to be doing back then. So again, the movie doesn't necessarily like examine that that thoroughly, but you know, just from the context that we know about it, it's like, oh, that is cool.
Yeah, And I think there's so many ways to look at what Julia Child. I don't know, it seems like we're all fans in the chat, but like there's like so many ways to sort of talk about it. But yeah, I feel like what a lot of the criticism of her missed was also that, like, what she's doing is cool from a class standpoint. She's teaching you how to make fancy seeming food that I think a lot of people with less money would assume that they wouldn't be
able to have at home. And you know, her whole thing was anyone can cook very ratitudey yet in that way, like anyone can cook with ingredients that are affordable. I mean the real cost is time. But also that she's broadcasting on PBS, so anyone can watch her do it, Like, I think that from a class standpoint, while she benefits from all this privilege, like in her later career, she kind of pays it forward by making what she's learned very accessible and that's really cool too.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
There's also a small conversation that the movie kind of has in regards to who the cookbook is targeted toward, because it's specifically for American housewives who don't have servants to cook for them, and this is like nineteen fifties, like to me, peak housewife.
Era, particularly like white housewives culture.
Yeah, and so the publishers of the book in the various scenes where you know, they're meeting with publishers and being like, well, this isn't gonna work because housewives want something quick and easy and this book is seven hundred
pages of sauce recipes and like how is that? And so there's like this battle that the characters have to deal with as far as like catering to the specific demographic that has all of these like gender roles and engendered presumptions, you know, foisted upon them, right, and.
Like how the people telling her who her book is for is a room full of men?
You're right, yeah, yeah, you don't want to work with someone who belittles your assumed audience, right, Yeah.
She's cool. I love that Meryl Street played her.
She's so good at it.
I just wish she had gotten to do it for the whole movie. Sorry, Julie, I just wish it be the whole movie.
I think the gender dynamics with Julie and Eric as well are interesting in that she cooks dinner for them truly because she likes it. At least the movie doesn't sort of imply that she's doing it because she is
the wife, right. I don't remember how that's depicted in her book or in real life, and you know, there's always going to be the pressures of who does that in a heterosexual relationship, but it sort of kind of knocks it out of the way that it's like she's doing this because she finds joy in it, and they both eat such like gusto the way that like Christmasina eats is like kind of gross, but it's.
So too enthusiastic.
You're having so much fun.
He's going for it. Yeah.
Yeah, it feels like a good kind of like efficient way to kind of knock that, like she's doing this because she thinks cooking is fun.
Right, Yeah, sir. Anything else that y'all wanted to touch on for.
I want to talk about parasociality, Yes, yes, let's do it. I mean I am someone who gets hyper fixated on things pretty easily, and that often lends itself towards parasocial relationships. And it is something that is when I was a teenager, is quite damaging to your psyche. The belief of people that you do not know are your friends or oh anything to you outside of maybe like if you saw them on the street, maybe a basic respect as you
would treat your other human kind of thing. But I'm so fascinated with the way that this movie decides in the end. What is good in these sort of relationships, both with Julie and Julia and then Julie towards her readers. The reliance on her readers for validation, as well as the continued like mantra of you're not a writer until you're published, so interesting, people don't say that anymore. The over affirmation of you're a writer if you write is
very prevalent. Also, you're a writer if you don't write, and if you just want to, you know. But I walk away with it with feeling very strange. You know. I do think that thinking that someone you look up to doesn't respect your work is quite crushing. And I think a lot about in a Gilmore Girls when Mitcham tells Rory she's not a journalist and she steals a boat, Like, I think that's appropriate response.
Yeah, On my most recent rewatch, I was like, wow, I really turned on her when she did that the first time, but the benefit of time, like it was a victimless crime. Everyone should steal a boat, I think, so a hero.
But in the case of this, like, I don't know what does it mean to value the image of someone in your head over their actual personhood. If she did meet Julia in real life and they did have some sort of working relationship, I think Julie Powell went on to do like a Julia Child show on Food Network or something I don't know, maybe like a docu series or something I don't quite remember. But what does it
mean to hold on to that? And I think it is dehumanizing in a way that in this case seems harmless in the context of a film, but can have greater rampifications towards celebrity, towards art, like what do we expect from someone? And I don't know, can you continue a relationship with the person in your head if the real person does something legitimately harmful?
H It's really tricky. I don't know. Like the movie has a very light touch with it, and I find it a little frustrating. But I'm also like, that is such a especially in two thousand and nine, if like that conversation, like was it even really happening? Yeah, And I've been in the position of Julie as well, where it's like you're really evangelizing about someone whose work you really love, that truly been informative to you, and then
to find out, you know, it's different. To find out who they really are is troubling or even just not who you doesn't square with what your image of them was.
I think on this viewing what I felt. I really felt for Julie because it wasn't like she was actively asking what Julia Child thought, Like she sort of found out what Julia Child thought about the project against her will, which is a risk, you know, doing it and it become But I really felt for her where it wasn't like she was banging down Julia Child's door being like, do you like me?
She just got a cold?
Was like, hey, just so you know she doesn't like
that is devastating, yes, you know. But also on the Julia Child part, what is her responsibility to Julie Powell, who objectively, I mean, we could talk about this in the context of this very show, like if we found out Alison Bechdel fucking hated us, right, it would hurt, but we would have to deal, you know, like it's not like us doing this show for seven years doesn't invite some sort of response from her should she choose to And yeah, it is like that parasocial question of
like how do you navigate? Like how can you love?
So?
Because I think what Julia is doing is beautiful in its way where it's like she's drawing inspiration from another person to navigate a really hard portion in like her life, and that's what art can do and that's amazing. Yeah, and you know, I guess the only way to get around it is to just never become famous enough for the person to hear about what you're up to, and
then you're safe. But I don't think Julia Child owes her anything because at that point, Julie Powell is profiting off of perceived proximity between the two of them, which is also a valid discussion to have. But I also like feel really awful when Julie finds out that Julia doesn't like her against her will. That is devastating, I don't know, complicated. Yeah, Anyways, anyone who has a parasocial relationship with any of the three of us, we're so normal.
And cool, we're so and actually, well to tie it all together, if anyone wants to see me in Paris because you feel like you have a parasocial relationship with me and you're a fan of my comedy Harris Social whoa. I can't even continue after hearing that, but I will. I will be doing some stand up comedy in Paris in early May, ahead of the Shrektannic tour that Jamie and I are doing. But I'm going to Paris early
and I'm doing comedy, so everyone should come and see me. Sorry, I'm just plugging my shows.
I'm going to Paris after the tour. Wow, and leave me alone, I talk. I don't want to. I want to be alone. I want to be alone.
Fair. That's totally fair. Okay, any other thoughts or No, that's everything I had.
I don't totally mean that. I mean it like mostly though.
Yeah, no, that's fine.
Yeah, okay, let's see, let's see. I think that's everything that I had. Honestly.
Yeah, I'm good.
Yeah. I could talk about parasastional relationships forever. But then sometimes it works out because that's like how like I admired your work before we I met, Like it all kind of worked out.
Yeah, I fully had a para social relation with the book. If you're been a listener to this podcast.
And now you're here, wow, yeah, and look at us.
Sometimes it's fine.
Well, folks, this movie passes the Bechdel test a whole lot. Oh yeah, all the time. It's mostly women talking about food and publishing deals. Yes, what a life kind of rocks.
Oh wait, okay, the missus Joy of Cooking paid fifty seven thousand dollars. I got her book public.
I can't poor.
What was her name, Irmaurma rum Bar.
Yeah, I think that scene was so. I didn't fact check any of that, but like, so, yeah, that was like such a great Nora Ephron scene where it was just like, I feel like Nora Efro movies sometimes you're like, and here's women being really weird to each other for five minutes. You're like, all right, so good. It was awesome.
Yeah, but yes, it does pass the Bechdel test lots and lots, but as far as the one true metric are Nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on examining the
movie through an intersectional feminist lens. Like I said, I appreciate that the movie is about women finding purpose and pursuing inactivity that they love, and they have men around them who are supportive and to some extent friends around them who are supportive, except when it's Casey Wilson and all the mean girl bosses I.
Love us, Like wow, Peak twenty twelve is Casey Wilson in one scene and you're like, should have been more. I love Casey Wilson.
So on the surface, you know, there's some nice things going for the movie that I appreciate. But as we've discussed, there's other things that the movie either kind of glosses over and doesn't examine very thoroughly in a very like Nora Fron movie kind of way, such as like the class component and the level of privilege that the women and especially Julia Child had access to that allowed her to do all of these things. Because like, yeah, this conversation is happening.
More and more.
I see a lot of it, just like you know people on TikTok and Instagram examining how like oh, yeah, the things that we used to think were like a brave thing to do, like ooh, you moved to a new city, or you pursued this dream of yours or you did X y Z. It's not because you were like brave, It's because you had access to money that enabled you to do that. And that feels very much like the Julia Child of it all. But in any case, you know, there's things like that, there's the one character
of color who has five seconds of screen time. Yeah, things like that. I do appreciate Julia Child's relationship with her sister Dorothy. I would have liked to see more of it. They seem really sweet together. So it's things like that. It's different relationships and again, women pursuing their dreams that I like to see. But it is a very like middle to upper middle class white woman version of all of that without the movie like really acknowledging
any of it. So there's that, and with that in mind, I'll give the movie maybe like two and a half or three nipples. So I think is where I'm landing, and I'm gonna give them all to Julie's Orange Cat.
Oh, I'm gonna go higher. I think I'm going to go three point seven five. Wow. Because I agree with everything that you said, Caitlin. I think the whiteness of this movie is undeniable. It's like showing you class, but not the kind of just leaving everything on the table, if you will.
Right next to the bechamel sauce.
Yeah, exactly. But this movie is written and directed by one of our most iconic women directors and also based on the writings of two women, you know, And I think that that is unusual enough, and also the fact that this movie did very well. It's uneven and in some ways flat out weird, but I think that there is a lot being explored here. A lot of it isn't fully explored. But yeah, sorry about women and like their ambition and how that ambition is interpreted in different
historical periods. There's like little touches where you don't really get a lot of beats about fertility in movies that doesn't then consume the whole movie, where you're shown like this is an element of Julia Child's life, but it doesn't define her. What defines her is her relationship to people and her relationship to her work. And I thought that was like a very subtle and well done. Yeah, it's all over the place, but I feel like there's a lot to love here, and yeah, so I'm gonna
give it three point seventy five. Maybe that's too many, but it's just how I'm feeling today. I'm gonna give one to Jane Lynch. I'm gonna give one to Merril. I'm gonna give one to mary Lynn rys Cub and I'm gonna give the rest to Simca. Yeah, nice Summer.
I think I will go three point five. It is a movie about two real white women, and so I think my expectations towards racial diversity is like, well, that's kind of probably who they filled their life with. But yeah, similar reasons. I think that there's like a hint of class analysis. I think it is mostly beautiful and loving towards the act of cooking and what it means in
a gendered capacity. I will give all of my nipples to Judith Jones because I love women who edit books as a woman who is technically an editor, an unemployed one, but someone.
You are an editor.
God damn, this is my sister in arms in book publishing. But uh, I want to recommend a book to your listeners.
Yes, is it Raw Dog?
Okay? So I mean I do have a food writing section on my shelf, and I do have Raw Dog next to a book by Alicia Kennedy called No Meat Required, and it's a really beautiful dichotomy of a book about like cultural history of plant based eating next to it Raw Dog, which I love. But it is called Tastemakers by mayk Sen and it is a group biography of
seven immigrant women who change cooking in America. And so if you're interested in non white women who kind of created foundational texts in culinary history in the US and introduce different cuisines to home cooks, I would highly recommend it. It's beautiful. There is a little Julia Child interlude in it, just to kind of affirm her importance as a not immigrant women, but kind of the reverberations of her influence on those who came around and after her.
I just placed a hold on it at the library. Wow, brave, shout out the libraries.
Yeah, it's really good.
And tell us before you go, please tell us about your book, which is currently out. Yeah.
I wrote a checkbook of poems that are inspired by the legend of Zelda. They are weird and sad and about Palestine. And yeah, you can get them on gameover books dot com or you can check in with your local bookstore. They should be able to order it. And I'm doing a mini tour. I'll be reading in la in March, late March, and then maybe I'll you know, I'll be around but Yeah, it's my first book with an ISBN and so I'm very happy.
Oh congrats, I'm.
So excited to read it. Congratulations And where can people?
Where can people establish a parasocial relationship with you online?
Yeah?
Please find me at Borders bookstore on Instagram.
Someone had to take up the mantle.
Yeah, if Borders ever makes a comeback, they owe me a two point five million dollars for the handle O me I else play with it.
That's the only way that we're going to be able to be home owners is by getting the good handles and.
Then Twitter and far more active at.
Some a this nice.
Yeah, well, thank you so much for coming on this show.
Thank you for having me come back anytime please, Yes.
Hopefully I can come back for the Zelda movie.
Oh my gosh. Yes, you're both gonna have to school me because I know that you're both well versed.
I just restarted Tears of the Kingdom because I'm sad and I was like, I need something that I can do for ten to fourteen hours a day, all in one chunk to take my mind off of that. So I'm replaying Tiers of the Kingdom. Brag anyway. You can follow us at Bechdelcast on social media. And speaking of tours, we will be in London, Oxford, Manchester and Edinburgh and we're doing the Shrek Tannic Tour. What does that mean. Well, sometimes we're doing a Titanic show, sometimes we're doing a Shrek show.
Not that complicated.
You'll just have to go link tree slash Bechtel Cast to find out more details. But we will be doing those shows in May and then, like I said, I'll be doing stand up in Paris, Berlin, I'm working on some shows in Copenhagen. I don't know if you know anything about the Copenhagen comedy scene, listeners, please.
Let me know.
I'm also going to be doing some shows in Dublin, so be on the lookout for all of those.
And you can also always sign up for our Patreon aka Matreon, where you get for five bucks a month, access to two new episodes that are exclusive, usually just me and Caitlin, and access to one hundred and fifty episodes of back catalog. If you can imagine, we're doing a bunch of classic movies this month. And you can also get our merch over at teapublic dot com, slash v Bechdel Cast. Follow us on Instagram or Twitter. If
you're so inclined, you'll know how to find us. And with that, oh, actually, wait, Summer, you're gonna be like Julia Child at the end of the movie today when you open your book for the first time.
Yeah, oh my gosh, I'm doing my own boxing.
And you're gonna have your Julia moments and there will be a freeze frame.
For no reason. I love it.
It's the club for some reason.
Sure.
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Vosskrosenski. Our logo in merch is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit link tree slash Bechdel Cast.