On the Bechdel Cast. The questions asked if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zeph and vest start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Bello below Minions. It's the Minions episode of the Bechtel Cast. I could cry, I could cry.
Oh, hi, Minion, Jamie, it's me Minyon.
Caitlin Bello, Caitlin Bello, Jamie God. I just love these damn Minions. I'm in a great lude, I mean, Befel Cast listeners, it is important for feminism that you go see Dispicable with me for so to help facilitate that. And to be clear, we are in no way sponsored or affiliated with the Minions, and that is a source of pain for both of us. But all of the raw enthusiasm you're about to hear is uncompety for free, simply because it's Minion seasoned baby. It's Britney bitch, It's
bitch's bitch. I have two millions in my lap.
I was with you when you got that. Tell the listeners what we're looking at, Gane.
Oh yes, sorry, I forgot that. We've been in an audio medium for eight years. So I'm holding a little Dracula Minion I forgot. I honestly forgot because we got this around Caitlin and I went to Universal together as we were wont to do around Halloween, and I was like, Dracula Minion, gotta have it. Forgot that there is precedent for Dracula Minion. As we'll discuss today, this is a minion that's appeared. And then I also have just my Kevin at hand all time. Although I did get some
new Minion merch, I'm kind of bummed. Honestly. Well, we'll get it. We have to say what the podcast this first, but I have like that, I guess in Despable before they're kind of like doing a spy thing. So I have some spy minions.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
They changed professions every so often because you just want to see them in different little outfits. It's that simple.
It's like Barbie in that way.
It really is.
The minions are Barbie.
The minions are Barbie. The Minions are this Summer's Barbie. And I'll go on a whole rant about why another movie that we have no affiliation with, Inside Out too don't see it. I'm sick of emotional intelligence being encouraged when you could simply go watch Minions. I will not be listening to a nuanced discussion on the topic. I literally got into an argument with my therapist about it the other day. Okay, yeah, because Minions didn't come up
at first. But she's like, I just saw Inside Out too, I think you'd love it, which is also a way of calling me unable to regulate my own feelings, which is why I'm there. But she's like, you should see Inside Out too, and I was like no, and she was like, I think you'd like it. And I was like, I'm gonna go see Minions and whatever.
And that's okay, well, Jamie, to add to your collection mm hmm. And we will get to the Bechdel test boring.
Yes, which this movie doesn't pass. Whatever, No it doesn't.
We'll talk about it, but we have Minions business to tend to. Yes, Okay, you may or may not remember this, Jamie, but your birthday two years ago, I mean, of course you remember it. Being at medieval times, yes, hashtag red Night one the day you were given many gifts and then you couldn't take them with you. I think because you were going onward to another place you couldn't carry
them with you. Yes, I have been hanging on to this. Oh. Actually our friend Bryant has been hanging on to it forever. And then I was like, give me that back so that I can give it to Jamie on her upcoming birthday.
Oh I love that.
Here it is ready. Oh my god, it's a little so fub bob. It's hand knit.
Where did you get it?
I got it in Edinburgh, Scotland. Ever heard of it?
Wow?
When I was there two years.
Two years ago. I'm so excited. I don't have a Bob.
Well, now you do.
I have so many Kevin's and no, Well, I guess this is I don't even know.
This is like that's somebody else.
The Despicable Me. Well we should tell them what the Bechtel Cousins. But the Despicable Me movies pound for pound versus the Minions spinoff movies. It's minions every time. Give the people what they want. I don't care about groos interpersonal. I honestly I said this in my letterbox review of this movie. If the girls were sent to boarding, I think that he should send them to boarding school. I said, get them out, get them divorce Kristen Wig like, I
don't care about his personal life. Leave it at the door, go to work, steal the moon, talk to the minions. That's all I want from grew.
Yes, all right, there's so much jun pack already. The Bechdel Test.
Yeah, oh yeah, you're Kaitli. My name is Jamie first.
Yeah. The Bechdel Test is a medium metric that we used simply as a jumping off point, created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test. Many versions of it, the one we use. Do two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other? And is their conversation about something other than a man or about minions? Because minions are boys, and we like it when it's a substantial media conversation, and it rarely happens to this day.
Yes, it's so frustrating that the creator of Minions, who is I guess technically the person to at least be able to canonically make that call, would not just let the Minions be genderless icons as everyone had interpreted them to be. But we'll get into that. Because I think I have so many theories as to why he is doing what he's doing. Pierre CoFe, this is your trial. You're on trial.
Yes, And before we go into our personal histories and relationship with the Minions, listeners of the show might know that any chance we get, we bring up the Minions, not unlike every chance we get we bring up Titanic, or every chance we get we bring up Shrek.
Yeah, and much just like Shrek, it started as a joke and then slowly became real when we were like, wait a second, these movies are actually very funny and be watchabule. And there's certain you know, cultural phenomenons that it's easy to make fun of because you're like whatever, like I don't get it, But the Minions, if you don't get it, baby, you're the problem. Like, yeah, they're undeniable.
Jamie, what is your relationship with this franchise?
I love them? Okay, So my history with Minyas is actually and I know for listeners who are Matreon subscribers that listen to our Despicable Me episode two years ago, and so if you're interested in hearing us talk about it more, you can go over to the Matreon Patreon dot com slash back to past five dollars a month, So this may be us rehashing something similar from two years ago, so sorry for that. But I was a
bit of a late comer to the Minions. I saw to Spick on Me one in theaters in high school, and I was like, wow, I really liked that. That was a really sweet movie. And I love those little guys because if there's anything I love in this world, it's a little guy. I love a little guy so much.
I truly like when I heard Radio starts approving limited series again, I do want to do an entire series on the appeal of the little guy because little guys are just incredible, and also like little guys in like primary colors, yellow is a color for me, Minions, SpongeBob Woodstock, like you could keep going with like just the very visually appealing for children little guy and having them like represent be represented there's because they're so vague looking, like
they're just tic TACs, like they could represent anything. It's the best. But yeah, I saw the first Despicable TV and I was like, wow, that was fun, and then I fell off and then I came back for this movie for Minions, This movie came out in twenty fifteen, so at this point I'm an adult. I didn't see it in theaters, but I just remember being like, oh,
the origin story for the Minions. I am actually interested because I think the worst part and this sucks that this is lining up with Despicable Me for the premise of which I think is just rancid. I hope this movie is good. It's also written by Mike White, which is wild. Oh right, yeah, I think we broke that news fairly early because because we care. But yeah, the people are the least interesting part of Despicable Me Expanded Universe.
And I was like, oh, they're just gonna give me only the parts I like, which is the Minions doing looney tune shit, because I firmly believe the more I watched Minions, because after this movie, I'm like, I'm in. I'm in for all of it. I'll show up for
any of it. I saw Rise of Grew opening weekend, and then my mom is a second grade teacher, so it like, actually, I think it actually did help like heal our relationship a little bit, where it had just been a really really really long time since my mom and I had a common interest hmmm, or just like something that we could like text about that was like
easy and fun. And so when I went from being like, minions are fun in an ironic sense and achieved nirvana and was like, the Minions are actually really funny and Kevin Stewart and Bob, I think this movie makes a strong case that has only increased in Rise of Grew that they are like our Marx brothers, and like, I know that that's verboten for some people to say, but that's clearly who they're supposed to be, and they're really
good at it. They're like bugs, Bunny, They're Marx brothers, They're like all of these like classic comedy, goofy slapstick boys.
Yeah.
So yeah. Then it was really fun to like share that with my mom because I was like, this will help you connect with your seven year old students who definitely watched these movies, and overnight she became a Minion's mom. And it brought meself because there's like also whatever like precedent for the ironic interest in this, and then also the fact that I think it's like it has to do with the fact that the minions are cute and
so generic looking it almost right. Oh, another little guy who is yellow Tweetybird, another character that you see on a lot of graphic te's with some sassy phrase. This happens to all of the little guys. Snoopy is one of the little guys that you just see, like Garfield is a little guy. It's endless. People love to put a sassy, sassy wine mom phrase next to a little guy. And so my mom got into it, which only intensified our mutual interest because we bonded over it. And now
it's it's just like it's for life. I love these damn minions, and I think this movie is I would say this movie is not as good as Rise of Grew, but it's still I still enjoy it more than any Despicable Me movie. I think it's really fun. I just thought of another little guy winning the poop. It's just all of these little guys, the little guys. Caitlin, what's your history with le Mignons?
Okay, I'm gonna say some stuff that might be controversial. I'm gonna say some stuff that might be full on blasphemous. I head until very recently, only ever seen Despicable Me. One.
That's okay, That's okay.
And Rise of Grew. So I saw both of those movies in theaters. We were both in at Rise of Grew. Yeah, I saw it when I was in Amsterdam on the same trip where I got Your Bob in Edinburgh.
Oh, I love to hear it.
But here's the thing, I was asleep for a lot of it. I was very tired and I needed an app so I did sleep through a large chunk of Rise of Grew. But I saw it before I ever saw Minions One, which I saw for the first time on a plane coming back from a different trip to Europe that I came back from like three weeks ago.
What a traveler, I know.
I'm so cultured. So I had never seen Minions One before, and I don't think I've seen any of the other Despicable Me movies, so I'm not as immersed in the lore.
Well, I'll be real and raw with you for a second. Yeah, because I do. I really appreciate your forthcomingness.
You're welcome, and I.
Also think, honestly, a lot of people who are fans of the Minions it's not like they've seen all five, now six movies. I'll be honest with you, I haven't seen Despicable Me three. I've just seen clips on YouTube. I've seen Despicable Me one and two. I've seen Minions one and two. I haven't seen Despicable Meat three because I know that it's about like Groo finding his twin brother. It's just always too much grew interpersonal problems, and so I just like was not really in a rush to
see Despicable Me three. However, I have watched one clip of minions from Despicable Me three easily weekly, like sometimes truly, and this speaks to my own emotional intelligence. Like if it's like late and I'm like tired and I'm like cranky, my boyfriend will be like, let's watch the minions in jail scene, and it will always put me in a better mood. Because I'm a baby. I don't know what for.
But in Despicable Me three, the minions go to jail and they immediately take over the jail and everyone is so scared of though it's very Paddington two. Coded I was gonna say, that's what happens in Paddington two, Yes, but except no one learns a lesson. No one learns about themselves, which is part of what I love about the Minions. I feel like it is across children's media,
a lot of stuff is important. I think like it's a really really positive thing that there are so many successful children's franchises that are rooted and empathy and understanding. Paddington definitely qualifies as one, you know, inside out to a movie I refuse to watch would be another. I think Pixar movies in general are generally encouraging empathy, but I feel like it is just as valid to have children's entertainment that is bonking each other on the head repeatedly.
And I feel like when the Minions like debuted in twenty ten, they were soft launched in Despicable Me One, Yes, which you can listen to our Patreon episode about like how the rules of the Minions have changed because in Despicable Me One their employees that are paid money, right, which this movie directly contradicts. For sure, whatever that the canon problem. But I do feel like around twenty ten, like where Pixar was at its life greatest success up
it just come out. It's like all of these really emotionally complex children's movies, there was kind of this like empty space for like what if something was just goofy and like looney tunsy, and it felt like the Minions just like rose to the occasion. And I kind of appreciate that they haven't backed off of that, which is again it's like the Despicable Meat like Grew always learns a lesson. Yeah, the Minions they don't. They don't, and I love that about them. They're so me for that.
They never improved, they never.
Learn I think that Shrek farted so that the Minions could bunk themselves on the head.
It also just like I this is so good, Like this sounds bad, this sounds antithetical to about this podcast is I like Minions cartoon violence. I love it. I think it is so funny the fact that John Hamm tries to hang Kevin. Yeah, in this movie, you're just like and it's a PG movie and we're fine with it. When I watched this song because at the time we're
recording this, this movie is streaming on Netflix. At the beginning with like the rating, it just said like rudeness was the content warning, Like CW, these guys are rude little dudes. Well, here's the.
Other controversial, blasphemous thing I have to say, which is that the movie Minions One I think is a bad movie. I think the story is flimsy. I think it's Oh. I'm not saying I don't love the Minions and that I don't love the Minions in the movie, But as far as the story goes, if I'm looking at it through a screenwriting point of view, I think it is legitimately bad and I think it's badly miscast. I don't know why Sandra Bullock is there. I don't know why
John Ham is there actually doing very good jobs. Why is Michael Keaton in the movie.
I always forget Michael Keaton's in the movie. Which can we all at least agree that Jeffrey Rush was a great choice.
He is a good choice for a narrator. I'm glad that he's there.
He gave it his all. He kept saying the Minion the million. He clearly had much like Bill Nyh. He did Detective Pikachu for his like Grandchild, I feel like Jeffrey Rush made a similar play here and and we're better for it.
Yes, I agree, And then Pierre, he is doing a great job as the Minions, and I do love the Minions again, I like them in this movie any scene that there are other characters in it. I'm not really enjoying myself, I will say, but I love the Minions, and I love Bob, little Bob.
I love that you love He's just a baby.
He's just a little baby. And I normally don't like babies or children, but I want to be Bob's mom, and that's wild coming from me.
I love that you love Bob.
I bought Well, here's my other little item. It's a little Bob enamel pin that I bought from univers.
I recognize, I was like, I've almost bought that before I recognize it. Gosh, I have to get back to you Universal presently so I can get all this hot merch.
Yeah. I just renewed my past, so let's go anytime.
Me too, Okay, Yeah, I think it is if you're not a fan of the Minions and you're watching this movie for I mean, even if you're watching this movie as a like a parent or a parent age who like doesn't like the Minions, or like don't think the Minions are funny, I understand why this movie doesn't have a lot of narrative cohesion. It honestly feels like a series of shorts as opposed to a movie. It feels like a bunch of Looney Tunes shorts in a row,
where it's like, yeah, before we get it. I mean, I don't think it'll take long to summarize the plot of this movie anyways, but well that's what you think. It's actually distinctively complex. But like, the way that I'm still able to like engage with the Dominions ironically is like they're hugely a commercial product. Like you can tell that a lot of what is fun about the Minions is also so very calculated at best, devious at worst, because these are like they're they're literally designed to be
global products. The language that they speak are an amalgamation of the most popularly spoken languages in the world, so that a kid from any country can watch this movie and instantly connect with it and feel like, oh, I know what that word is. I know what that word is, Like it's the way that Minnie is. Again, this will be in my thesis limited series podcast on this topic. Like they are designed to be globally appealing, but it works. It works.
I was just saying this on a recent Matreon episode. I don't know what episode it was, but I think I'm fluent in minuonis. I don't think I could speak it, but I can understand.
It reminds me of this is like just connected to something that was imparted to me. But do you like in the Series of Unfortunate Events series of the Three Orphans, one is a baby who always says like what sounds like gobbledygook, but then you're it's translated within the book to be like she said this, which meant this, and she's basically speaking mininie, where like when you grow up, you're like, oh, that's a Japanese word that she said that was like what you know? And so and the
minions just like take this two and eleven. It's really cool. Wait, I want to look up the list of the most prominently featured like Okay, English, Filipino, French, Hindi, Korean, Spanish are all tied into minniese, and I feel like that doesn't even include sometimes where it's just like a made up word, or.
It's like an English word that is just adjusted so that it sounds kind of gibberishy, but it also sort of sounds like English.
Because they say they also just say like below and POOPI, which is just baby talk like, but I think they're really funny. But they're also just like fascinating because it does feel like they were like successfully made in a lab to be a glade appealing little cartoon Marx Brothers.
And this movie made at the box office one point one five nine billion dollars.
That's so off of a seventy four million dollar budget, which is wild. And the other thing that's interesting about the Minions, oh No, like is between Minions one and two, I feel like you can sense a distinct cultural shift because I think that the ultimately the goals of these movies is to make money and to appeal to the whitest audience possible. Obviously, the merchandising on the Minions to huge numbers in no small part thanks to us.
I mean we're buying a lot of it.
Yes, But in like twenty fifteen, this movie comes out and its interests are strictly in the West. The cities we see heavily featured are New York, Orlando, and London. Fast forward to twenty twenty two, A lot has changed in the global economy, because the economy what this movie is concerned by, and in Minions too. There is a vested interest in the East and in China specifically, and it's like I feel like you can weirdly trace the like direction of the global economy to where the Minions
end up. It's very weird. Hmmm, yes, I swear to I know, I sound like I'm wearing a tinfoil hat, but I feel so sure that I'm right. No.
Yeah, I didn't even remember exactly where, because they're in San Francisco. Yeah, but there's a Michelle Yo character who's teaching them kung fu.
And there's a big Chinese New Year celebration that is like the climax of and most of the merchandising for that movie was drawn from the Chinese New Year imagery. My key, well, I'll show you my keys are at a Minions Chinese New Year. Oh yes, so it's just listeners, feel free to tell me that I'm watching too many Minions movies. It is true, but I do feel like it's like because it is like these movies are such
a like cravenly commercial product. It's interesting to see like what cultures they choose to represent in some years versus other years based on how much money they think they can make. So that's just minions commerce observation.
No, I love it. Should we do the.
Recap, Let's take a break and come back, because we've already been talking about minions for a half hours.
All right, we'll be right back, and we're back. We're back, and here is the recap for Minions one from twenty fifteen.
And of course it immediately gets complicated.
Well, the movie opens and we see I would estimate about three point five billion years worth of evolution of the minions. They start as single celled organism minions. They are following the biggest, baddest creatures in the primordial soup. Then one day they emerge from the ocean, having evolved into the modern minions that we recognize.
Yes, the minions do subscribe to the evolution theory. This is a godless world in which they live. Yes, which, again, like you're like, okay, minions. I feel like part of this was in response to, like, there were so many memes about the minions in the early years of Despicable Me, where they would be like do they have skeletons? What do they look like with their goggles off? You know, just like sort of a bunch of like sorry that like really loud guys on YouTube being like what is this?
Like you know, and I feel like all of those questions are answered in the opening statements of this movie. But yeah, the menions, they they're darwinning, they're evolving.
Yes, they also, as Pierre Kofun has said, they don't reproduce.
And ostensibly, from what I can gather, they don't reproduce, which would make sense because it seems like they can't die.
They might be invincible. Yeah.
I mean, maybe there's some wild shit going on in Despicable Me three. But of the four out of five movies I've seen and I double checked this to be thorough for this episode, the closest you see to a minion dying, which I guess maybe does make the cartoon violence a little more palatable, as you're like led to believe like they're bonked but they're never actually hurt. There is a minion at one point that gets I think it's Despicably b one who like ends up getting sucked
into space. Oh but he's just like floating in space. They can't die, they're immortal, and they don't reproduce.
Jealous, I know, truly, so we get voiceover from Jeffrey Rush.
He's so good.
The minions came this sure his Pirates of the Caribbean residuals, you know, diminishing returns, and he's like, I need a new living room or something, and so he did this movie.
I think it's like he wanted to impress his grandson. He wanted his grandson wasn't old enough to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. He's like, all right, check this out.
I can't say for sure, but anyway, he's.
Explaining, bru when you ruwen Bill Nye, he said, mew too, mew two. It feels like that.
Hmm, yes, it does.
Okay.
So Jeffrey Rush is explaining that the minion's goal is to serve the most despicable master that they can find, such as t Rex during dinosaur times, and then many millions of years later they start serving humans in caveman times, and then we see them in ancient Egypt. They serve Dracula for a while later Napoleon, but they always accidentally kill their boss.
Which also like would make you know, potentially we're recording this before Despicable and me before it comes out. It would be awesome if they eventually kill Grew killed Grew. I mean, they can't die. So this whole opening sequence, it's Ben talks about to death in Midians culture. But yeah, the fact that like just the Minians were not just present but critical in the development of life with the dinosaurs, with the caveman. Yes, they not just killed an ancient
Egyptian pharaoh, they also built the pyramids. Yes, that killed said pharaoh. They are sometimes, i'mes, serving someone who is fictional, like Dracula. They're sometimes serving someone that people might argue or is too real, like Napoleon.
Uh huh.
And what I think is really interesting that they do. And again it's like this is applying an adult brain to a kid's movie about little guys bunking each other in the head. But I think like Napoleon already feels like if they have to go to the most evil master, Napoleon makes sense if you know anything about the Napoleonic Wars, wild to imply what they might have done while working for him. But it feels like this, like franchise in general,
just makes kind of like slap dashed. I mean, And also pierreco Fan is French, so it feels like he's fucking with French history in a way that feels a little tongue in cheek. Yeah, but like the things that they I feel like sometimes the Minions movies will just decide like, well we're over that, We're not over this. Where in this they're like, well, the Napoleonic Wars were so long ago, people won't care if the Minions were there.
But there's a very deliberate decision for the one hundred and fifty years before the movie starts, that the Minions are out of play for any human atrocities that happened between the Civil War, the Minions were not there and onwards, like basically anything from the last century and a half or so, the Minions were out of play. I think
that that's a really smart move. I know people have made fun of it a lot, but it's like, if these are canonically who we've said the Minions are technically when they were introduced in twenty ten, they were asside characters no one really like you could guess, but like no one would have guess they would have become a global phenomenon, and now they have their own movie. I think it's very smart to put them in a cave for two hundred years.
Right, what's the movie going to do? Be like?
Yeah?
And then they worked for Hitler.
No, right, they fought for the Confederacy, Like, no, no, because we want to love the minions, we do, should not have worked for Napoleon. But they learned their lesson and they migrated to the North Pole or wherever the fuck they went.
Right, they go into seclusion in this ice cave. But after a while in the cave, they're growing restless and depressed about not having an evil boss to serve until one day and men, you named Kevin Kevin le Mignon, to be exact.
I love how this is like Kevin's movie the way that Like the movie is called mad Max, but it's about Furio. So the movie is called Manias, but it's about Kevin. So wait, Bob is we I guess we did? Haven't benished with it? Bob is your favorite?
Bob is my favorite? Yes, you're a Kevin head.
I love Kevin. I just love Kevin. He's tall, and he has leadership qualities. I loved him.
Yeah, I love Bob because he likes animals and he carries a little teddy bear.
Around and he's adorable.
He's the cutest and sweetest.
Yeah, Bob is an mpath I love when he meets Pucci. My mom does this thing called Minion Mondays in her second grade class room where you get some sort of like if you wear yellow or blue on a Monday, if you're just like Minion cosplaying on a Monday, she'll give you like a treat or something. But on every Minion Monday, my mom will be like asking the kids, like, Okay, who's my favorite Minion and everyone will say Bob, And then my mom will be like, and who does Jamie
want to marry? And then they'll all go Kevin. Because I said that to them, Oh, I know it impacted. I didn't realize what an impact it would be to say that I wanted to marry Kevin the Minion. But I do feel like he has the qualities outside of being like a proven war criminal, apparently like he has many of the qualities I'm looking for, like having leadership qualities and giving you a little kiss.
All he is nerd. He wipes the crud off of Bob's face.
And then when he's all big spoiler alert, he kisses all his friends.
It's really nice the Minions. They care about each other.
They love each other, and I love that they all have like fuck boy names, like all that is like a feature of the Minions. It's like Kevin, Bob, Stewart, Chris, like like random guys mel Yeah.
Okay, So one day Kevin declares that he's going to go back out into the world to find the baddest boss around.
Yeah, He's like elected himself as Luke Skywalker. He's like, I just realize I am the protagonist. So here I go.
I'm the chosen one. He recruits some help, some minions within minions when you think about it, Okay, layers like onions have layers, ogres have layers. Blah blah blah. The help the minions are Stuart and Bob.
Sure, it's a bit of a rock star. He's got a bit of an ego on him. He's a little horny. He tries to have sex with not one, but three fire Hydrants.
Yeah. Yeah, he's trying to initiate a threesome at one point with two fire Hydrants. I love it, and that's pretty cool. Yeah, I think that's really forward thinking. Yeah, polyamorous king Stuart. Okay, so the three of them, Kevin Stewart and Bob set off, eventually making their way to New York City. Ever heard of it? The year is nineteen sixty eight.
And boy will they do. We were joking about this in our recently recorded Madam Web episode about how that movie, at some point in production was decided to be in two thousand and three, and they really bonk you over the head with like remember this, and it doesn't bother me. The minions do it because they do it so much that it starts to be parody. Like how expensive was this soundtrack? It was every single song, the Dad's like the Beatles, the everything was in this movie.
Oh yeah. So they are in New York and they learn about something called Villain con a convention in Orlando, Florida, where villains gather from all over and this year it will feature a special appearance by Scarlet Overkill, the world's first female super villain. Okay, feminism alert, we wo we woo.
Okay, you're joking, but I feel like Scarlet Overkill. We've talked about this of like how the girl boss phrase is so liberally given out and I feel like sometimes it's just like a term that's WEAPONI is to be like a woman I don't like who has more power than me is like labeled as a girl boss when the definition of a girl boss is a woman who uses feminist language to accrue conventional patriarchal power, and that is Miss Scarlett Overkill to the hilt. She is a girl boss.
And the minions are enthralled by Scarlet and they want to work for her, so they hitchhike two Orlando with a family who turns out to be bank robbers who are also headed to villan Con.
Another weird page, like we didn't need that, that could have been anyone, right.
The mom and dad of this family are voiced by Michael Keaton and Alison Janny.
Which I genuinely didn't even know until this viewing. Oh really, Oh wow, Yeah, I didn't clock their voice and then when you know, you know, but that kind of bummsy out. I feel like the art of voice acting is a very specific one and it's just sort of been like motover by, like celebrity stunt casting in since like Lindsay Ellis has a good video about it, since like Aladdin, so like the last thirty years.
Yeah, that's why I don't like John hamm in the role. I don't like Sandra Bullock in the role. I like them as actors in general, but like they're not as strong a voice actors as actual voice actors.
Yeah, every time I watch this movie, I think that it's Jason Manzukus and not John Ham. Does that connect it all? Every single time I've watched this movie, I was like, wait, and then I remember it's John Ham, but it feels like it's John Ham doing a Jason man Zukus. I mean, I'm a huge Jason Manzukus fan. I think he would actually be a great choice for that character because it just sounds like him anyways, right, No, I see that, Yeah, anyways, but yeah, the celebrity stunt casting.
It's like, this movie has a fairly low budget for what it is, but it could have been even lower by just not doing that. I don't know, right, I feel like no one is more likely to see this movie because Michael Keaton plays a bit part, Like it just doesn't make sense.
No, I don't know why they do that, but anyway, the family that they're hitching a ride with robs a bank and the minions help them get away by basically killing a bunch of cops. So the minions say, acab.
I mean, but if they're working for the most evil people, but they do kill. Like another thing about this, he was, I've always sort of like paused by, is how obviously dead those cops are. It's like that car crash is so bad.
They kill them.
They killed cops, Yes, and you know, God bless love you guys.
Yep. So then Kevin, Stewart and Bob arrive at villain con and watch this like presentation thing from Scarlet Overkill voiced by Sandra Bullock where she says she's looking for new henchmen and whoever can steal the ruby she's holding gets the job. So a bunch of kind of wannabe villains try and the ruby, including Kevin, Bob, and Stewart.
And also there's like a meaningless plot point added here that like Kevin has a crush on Scarlet Overkill, right, But I was like, because they canonically don't experience desire, that it was just like he wanted her validation or something. I don't know, that's my husband.
I couldn't tell if it was like a romantic crush or if he was just enamored by the idea of working for her, because she's presented as being like the awesomest super villain at the time.
Right of her acceptance. I'm gonna go with that because that's literally my boyfriend. He's taken.
Well, do minions are asexual canonically they don't reproduce.
Yes, they're canonically a sexual. I mean even though we were not allowed to receive them as genderless icons, as non binary icons, we can still accept them as asexual icons.
Well, that doesn't explain why Stuart wants to have sex with those two fire hydrants.
Then I think that Stuart is just kind of the watch be like totally deflect. I think Stuart's just kind of like doing his own thing.
Okay, sure, let's go with that.
Yeah.
In any case, so these villains are trying to pass this test from Scarlett Overkill, including Kevin, Bob and Stewart, who end up being the ones to take the ruby from her, and Scarlet is impressed. She hires them and then she takes them to London, England ever heard of that? And the reason she goes there is because Scarlett wants Queen Elizabeth's crown. And if you're wondering, are we gonna meet Queen Elizabeth in nineteen sixty eight. Yes we do.
Yes, another canonical girl boss.
And also we're like, okay, if the Minions work for the most despicable person around, yes, would that not the Royal family of England?
I know, I know in any year the rules are unclear and we're not given a list of Scarlett's crimes. I know. It's like it really does feel like evil is like just sort of applied to like general vibes and aesthetics versus actual things done. But whatever, probably better for the kids, right I don't think the kids need the details.
Yeah, well, I don't know. I think kids should learn about the atrocities of imperialism and colonialism of the world early on. But that's just me, I agree, But not an Amnions movie.
Not an Aminions movie, right, Like, it's like we'll kick that to Pixar and see how they do. But I do feel like there is value in escapist media, and that's Minions. I just like, if you're going to do Minions to learn, you got to get a library card, like grow up up, right, kids?
Okay, So Scarlett wants Queen Elizabeth's crown because it's established that she has some possible unresolved childhood trauma, and she wants to be a princess so that everyone will love her.
Yeah, and she.
Wants the minions to steal the crown for her. We meet her husband, Herb, played by John Hamm. He gives Kevin Stewart and Bob some gear and some weapons, and then they head to the Tower of London, where the Queen's crown is kept. They use Herb's devices to try to steal the crown, but then it gets delivered to Queen Elizabeth voiced by Jennifer Saunders of Shrek to Fame.
No way, wait, I didn't know this.
Yeah, she plays the fairy Godmother.
Whoa. Yeah, this isn't even a dream Works thing. It's just a quizidence. That's nice.
It's that universal umbrella, I guess.
Wow. Wow, I love it.
So the minions are chasing Queen Elizabeth. They're flopping all over London. There's a lot of you know, minions slapstick happening.
They get stomped on by the Beatles like it truly is like all of these micro and I also feel like, while this movie is such a global product, it also feels weirdly personal to the like people at the top of illumination who grew up in the sixties and seventies, and that's why these Minions movies take place when the
creators of this product happen to be growing up. Like there is also a level of like old guy nostalgia to like, what if we put the Beatles in here, what if we did this, what if we did this, where it just clearly feels like stuff that like Pierre Goa, Kyle Balta, and Chris Mellon Johnny liked when they were kids, which is not a criticism, it's just like, yeah, it's
like they're doing the nostalgia thing. It's like if I made a Minions movie and I should and was like, and here's a Backstreet Boys you know whatever.
Oh, I can't wait till we get that in I don't know, twenty thirty eight or sooner.
Yeah, come on, give me some credit. Yeah, I mean. And every Minions movie tends to advance by like a decade where they're in the sixties or in the seventies. The next movie, theoretically they'll be in the eighties. We'll see.
Wow, I'll wait till the end of the recap to get there, but I have a timeline criticism, but I'll save it.
Okay, fair enough, Okay. So the minions are.
Flopping all around town and some cops are chasing them, so Bob pulls the legendary sword in the Stone out of the Stone, I guess to like fight off the cops, but that makes him the rightful King of England. So Queen Elizabeth has to hand over her crown, which makes Scarlett Overkill upset because she wants to be royalty. She thinks the minions are betraying her and like claiming the throne for themselves.
The girl bosses have turned on the minions. It's bad, it's bad, but we do get the amazing. According to second graders, because I've watched it with him, there's nothing a seven year old loves more than the King Bob sequence.
It's so good.
Second Graders all love King Bob, especially because it's like, I think Bob is probably the most emotionally intelligent, like easy insert for kids, because it's like he's really excited and then he gets the job of King of England and then all of a sudden he's nervous and he just wants his friends, and it's really cute, I know, and they also destroy Buckingham Palace like they're agents of chaos. I really don't think that if left in power, the
minions would colonized places. I think they would just jump on the bed and like eat.
That's true, they would eat bananas.
Right, because we're told they're bad, but they're bad in a directionless way. If left to their own devices, they will just jump on the bed.
Yeah, and then they kill their bosses. So honestly they should work for more evil people and then accidentally kill them.
I think we actually have to. We should be thanking them for killing so many bad people.
Yeah. Well, anyways, we've also been periodically cutting to the rest of the minions who are still in this arctic cave. Kevin had called them at one point to tell them that they have a new boss. So now all of the other minions are on their way to England to serve Scarlet overkill. Back in London, Scarlet storms in on
Bob Bean King. She's furious at the minions for betraying her, but Bob willingly hands over the crown and his royal position to Scarlet, even changing the laws to make that legally possible.
He's just a baby.
He's just a little baby. And now the minions think they're going to serve Scarlet, not that she's queen, but instead she locks them in a dungeon, and this is when herb tries to torture them and tries to hang Kevin.
Truly a shocking because they're like this setup is like, oh, I'm gonna get the minions with all these medieval torture devices, which feels very you know, like loo ne toun and see. And there's never a fear that the minions will actually get hurt. It's nothing like that. But it's just like the fact that they lead with I'm going to hang the minions, which is something that like, I think they should have maybe started that sequence with something that no
longer exists. But the fact that they started with publicly hanging the minions, it was just wild. It was wild. Yeah, and then Kevin goes whoop, he just falls through ough.
Yeah, their little minion bodies.
I love them. I love them. They're so smooth, It's true.
Now they find a way to escape and they make their way to Westminster Abbey, where Scarlet is getting ready for her coronation, because they want to apologize to her, but they accidentally almost kill her because again they're always killing their bosses, by dropping a chandelier on her, and Scarlet thinks that the minions did this intentionally, so she sends all of the other villains slash like Wanta be
henchmen who were at villain con after the minions. Kevin, Stuart and Bob get separated from each other during this chase, and the bad guys capture Stuart and Bob.
What their plan is is so unclear where at some point this movie just becomes like Scarlett v. Kevin and you're just like, now, what did Kevin ever do to you?
And the answer is nothing.
All he ever did was love you.
But Scarlett threatens to kill Stuart and Bob if Kevin doesn't come back by dawn. We cut back to Kevin. He sneaks into Herb's room of super villain devices and he accidentally ends up in this machine that makes him huge, like the size of a ten story building, and he saves Stuart and Bob, who are about to be blown up, but Scarlett has this rocket dress that she's using to attack them.
It's great, I mean, the Scarlet overkill looks are great for me. I love it.
The other Minions, the ones who are in the cave, they show up and she's trying to kill them too, So Giant Kevin takes her rocket and he puts it in his mouth, and then he grabs Scarlet and herb and it seems like they're all about to exp blowed, but surprise, Kevin is alive and he's back to his normal size. So we're not really sure how that happens.
But No, it's important to emphasize the global impact of when Kevin got big. Yes, no one saw it coming, and I feel like at some point with the Minions that they're also doing and despicable me for where they're leading the marketing heavily with the Mega Minion Yes, which I hope is not just an echo of We've had evil Minions, We've had Mega Minions, We've had minions with
braces in the form of Auto in the Rise of Grow. Yeah, Big Kevin was a watershed moment for Minions because you realize, like they're little guys, but that's not always going to
be true. The fact that they blew Kevin up like just again like cartoon violence moments that I feel like rarely happened in contemporary movies where we talked about this in some Pixar episode where like I expressed the frustration of like it now feeling like there was a necessity that a villain be redeemable or like defined by trauma, or like that there would be some defense and that like I understand the like I understand where that comes from, but I just like don't find it very fun to watch,
to be like, at the end of Toy Story four, if we forgive the villain and they were actually more complicated than we realize, And then at the end of Minions, Kevin blows up, like his whole body, he swallows a rocket and he blows up, and then we are allowed to believe if and it also like if I'm five
years old, I believe Kevin has died. Yeah, of course the minions are humming taps, which is so funny because also like theoretically this is the first minion to ever Yeah, and then he's fine, Like I just I love that sequence so much. It just it makes me happy that we have our own Looney Tunes where you're like, he's immortal. Kevin never truly blew up, but it's also like whatever narratively important that Bob believed he could have died.
I mean, we got to feel those steaks somehow.
And then he has Poochy. Kids also love Poochy the little rat. Yes, Bob's rat friend. Yeah wow, what a special movie. Yeah yeah. Then they get knighted and you're like all.
Right, okay, yeah, So here's how it ends. There's this big celebration where Queen Elizabeth, who has been reinstated as the royal leader, commends Kevin, Stuart and Bob for their heroism gives them gifts nights Kevin, but oh no, Scarlet shows up again and steals the Queen's crown, but she is immediately stopped via an ice gun that belongs to a drum roll please Guru, and the Minions see him and they're like, hubba, hubba, who's that? And that's how they find their new boss the end. And here's my
timeline issue. Okay, So Minions one takes place in nineteen sixty eight. At the end of the movie, we see grew for the first time. He appears to be ten eleven years old. Minions two takes place in nineteen seventy six. That's eight years after the first movie, Grow says he's almost twelve. So in eight years, Grew has aged nothing, no amount of time. What's up with that?
I don't have answers. I have no answers. I guess what I can say is that Grew is obviously built different, you know, but in terms of an answer, that's about as close as I can get. Okay, yeah, No, I don't know. And I feel like Grew will be thirteen in Minions three and it will inevitably be nineteen eighty seven. So I don't know. These movies are so vibes and also like part of what I think, I just really have a bone to pick with Grew, where he is just like the like he is necessary. I feel like
this movie does prove he's necessary. You do need a human character grounding all these little guys, and Scarlett Overkill is comparatively random to have done. So, so I know Grew's necessary, but it is kind of nice to have one movie that it's like, oops, no groove. Yeah, but Rise of Grew is a better movie.
I would agree with that it has a slightly more cohesive story. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to discuss.
And we're back here we are, Okay, where do you want to start?
I would like to talk about the gender of the Minions.
Yes, which will directly intersect with a critical interview in Minion's Lore with Pierre Coffin.
Yes. So here's my thing with it, where Minions creator Pierre has said explicitly that the minions are all male. They, of course, are always voiced by actors who are men, including Pierre Koffin himself. He told The Rap in twenty fifteen regarding the gender of the Minions quote, seeing how dumb and stupid they often are, I just couldn't imagine minions being girls unquote. First of all, using ablest language to characterize the minions not cool.
I'll give him the pass of like we were also using those words in twenty fifteen. Be serious, fair for fair. Yeah.
Secondly, yes, the minions are silly and slapsticky and childish, and they're usually not able to apply logic in many situations. But girls can be that way too. People of any gender can be anything. And I'm sure Pierre meant this as a compliment, but a very narrow view like this
perpetuates very rigid binary expectations. Of gender. And then I was thinking about slapstick comedy as a medium or slapstick humor in movies and entertainment, and yes, goofiness and physical humor and slapstick has often been associated with men, and especially white men. You've got your Charlie, Chaplin's, your Buster Keaton's, the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges.
Right, which has everything to do with like who is a low to be in movies at that time?
For sure, women have been figures of slapstick comedy throughout history. I was researching a few examples from like early Hollywood, such as Mabel normand Marion Davies, Mary Pickford. There's of course more recent contemporary examples actors like Kristen Wigg and Melissa McCarthy. So women are participants of physical comedy and slapstick humor in entertainment, but it's just that they're often not associated with it, and they never get the same
level of fame and recognition. And I think what Pierre actually is saying when he says this quote is I don't think women are funny or capable of physical humor.
I think you're being really mean. I disagree with you. I mean, I think that where he's pulling from is like a clear mid twenty tens feminism of this sort of Like well, to imply that a woman would be incompetent would be sexist, right, Like, it just feels like a ret conning of like a million. I would really be curious what the minions were originally intended to be. I think that no one was really thinking about it.
They've always been given traditionally male names. Yeah, what I wish she had said, because what I feel like is probably closer to the truth is like I really liked the Marx Brothers, and I just wanted to make a million Marx Brothers. I do think that like there is some like gender discrimination built into that. I don't think it is like super villain levels of because again, like the language fair enough, but like this is ten years ago and those words were not commonly considered to be
ablest at that time. But I think even in twenty fifteen, the decision to say definitively that all of these characters are men is bizarre because why not just say they're whoever you want them to be? I know, because I feel like in children's media, especially like I would also I think it would be weird if he was like, no, explicitly some are women, some are not. Like it's more
just like who cares. They're little guys. Guys, but in the genderless sense, like they're little guys, they're whoever you want them to be. If you think they're funny, then you like them. I think it's interesting that he went out of his way to declare them to be men. I don't think it makes them a bad person. I think it is an interesting choice given his background. And this is a little bit speculative. He had a French father and an Indonesian mother, and his mother was a
very prominent Indonesian feminist novelist of her generation. So Pierre Cofet like, he's not just being like a d doi guy, like he grew up around feminism and feminist ideas, and so the fact that his most notorious creation he goes out of his way to say is explicitly male coded. I wonder what that is like. I wonder if it is like some like generational, Like I don't want to seem like I insulting women by implying that which I agree is completely misguided, and like slapstick is for people,
people fall down like. But I do wonder if there is some like gen X disconnect happening here where it's clear that he definitely grew up around intense feminist ideas. His mother, I don't know how to pronounce her name, honestly, I'm not familiar with Indonesian culture, but her name, her first name is spelled NH, her last name is Deni, and she and his father they got married. His father was a diplomat, and she became a prominent Indonesian feminist novelist.
So I don't know. I mean, I don't feel comfortable speculating why anything happened in any direction, because when Pierre Koft gives interviews, he seems to have more of a bone to pick with his father than his mother. So, you know, I think it was the easier. It was like he had an issue with his mother's feminist ideas and wanted to repel. I don't think that that's actually the case. It seems like he had a lot of love for his mother. She passed in twenty eighteen, so
she also lived to see the minions. Both of his parents did. What he says in a twenty fifteen interview with a Guardian to promote this movie is that Minions were not particularly inspired by his parents, because he found his parents, as a serious novelist and a diplomat, to not be very funny, and that he was interested in cartoons.
He was interested in humor, and it wasn't necessarily something that was encouraged, so he says in this interview quote, my dad said watching TV was too passive and didn't make you think. So I found this other side. I needed some sort of distractions, so I drew a lot, I read a lot, and I listened to a lot of music. But I never considered a career in the arts. I was surrounded by people who were better than me, but that gave me inspiration to find out how they
did it better. A diplomat isn't like a really funny guy, and my mom's stories are biography is mostly about how she used to live in Indonesia during the Dutch colonies, so it wasn't really fun. I have no clue where that humorous gene comes from, but France does have a culture of cartoons. And then, speaking to his parents a little later, he talks about how his kids inspire Minion's
jokes and whether they work or not. But in twenty fifteen, so a few years prior to his mother's death, he says, quote, my mom had the life of an artist, so I'm living her dream a little bit, and she's super proud of me. But my father, who is nearly ninety, it's fair to say he's not really embracing my success. This is not serious for him. As soon as I started saying I really want to make movies. I'm not going to say he never helped me, but he never encouraged
me to do this. We're not getting along that well because he's got that little resentment about him being wrong and not admitting it. So it's very tricky. He always has this idea of me working in show business, meaning that I'm strange. He never wanted me to do this. He never wanted me to have a serious job. And
that's how the interview ends. WHOA And So I do think it's fascinating when like you have something like The Minions, where this like cultural symbol at this point that work invented as and he like talks about this in the interview, how he wasn't thinking particularly hard about The Minions indspicable me one. He was thinking like what is like a funny like I need minions, but I need like these
assistants for grew. But the difference that will endure the audience is that he will know all of their names, and now will make kids and audiences think like, oh, they all have names. He knows their names, maybe he's not such a bad guy. And then the only other thing he was thinking about with the minions per this interview is that they need to be, you know, sweet enough that who knows their names, and they have to be easy for kids to draw, which they definitely are. Yeah,
And that was it, And so I don't know. I just think it is like, really really fascinating that the son of this prominent feminist went out of his way to say all these cruisiers are men. But it's because he thinks men are less smart than women. I think that there's a lot of like, ultimately he's wrong, right, like that anyone of any gender should be welcome into this world of slapstick. I don't understand to this day of why he wouldn't have just said, I don't know,
whatever you want. I feel like that is the smartest answer across children's media, or maybe just art in general. To be like, I don't have to answer that question, Like, I don't owe you that answer, right. I will always think it's confusing that he did. But I'm a Pierre co Fen defender. I don't think that he did any of this maliciously based on how I knew he grew up.
Yeah, yeah, I don't think it's malicious. I think it's more just like he has the way many people still do a kind of narrow view of gender. And the other thing I think is fascinating is the Minions are just far more gender fluid or gender neutral than Pierre gives them credit for. Yeah, they are male coded, but we often see them in drag. Right, they're dressing up as a woman to go to the Tower of London.
Which is like so bugs bunny coded. I can't understand it. Like, yeah, the history of drag within cartoons is like I love that the Minions are continuing that tradition.
M hm in Minions to one of them dresses in drag to pick up grew from school pretending to be his mom.
Bob's and drag on the plane one of the greatest Oh yeah, the Minions plan scene is like one of the greatest sequences in comedy. It is, it just is.
It's very funny Bob wears a thong even though he's a baby, so that's curious.
But like, what does a baby mean in minions years I just would say, you know, don't overthink it.
Well that's true. Yeah, you're right, you're right. So there's the many drag examples. Again, Physically, their body shape isn't associated with any gender. They are just little tic TACs, little pills.
Yeah.
I also feel like their voices could be interpreted as being gender neutral.
Yeah, there's certainly like as far as I know, like edited right.
So yeah, I think the minions are actually genderless icons.
Yeah, I would be happy to defer to the fan base and this over the creator. I think that, like, I want to believe that the creator would defer to Like, it would be really weird and telling if you was like, no, no, no, I'm not open to other answers, Like, I'd be curious if someone asked him this question again ten years later. Because it's also whatever the way that like stuff is presented in media, it felt like that headline was presented as a more like definitive thing than it actually was.
Were what he's saying is like, well, I always thought about it like this for this reason, and that was made the headline of like, right, Pierre Coffences, minions are men, and you're just like, yes, that is what he said, but it wasn't like I feel like it's presented as like he was saying it with his whole chest, Like I'd be curious to hear this conversation revisited because I feel like the Minions should be interpreted as like the Minions or whoever you want them to be. Yeah, they
should be, you know, open to any gender identity. They're so special.
I agree. Do you have anything else to say about the Minions themsels selves?
The Minions themselves, I don't think so. Yeah. No, I just I think that they're the best. I love them. Let's see if I have anything else about them. I mean, I have a few more things about Scarlette overkill same, But in the primary sense, no, I think like the Minions, I wish that they were open to any gender identity. And I still think that that is possible because, first of all, like the Minions are out of Puerkofan's hands at this point. I don't mean to say that his
anymore than I feel like JK. Rowling is an easy comp there of like that the creator's opinion, Like you do not need to live and die by it. It's like, if it's important to you, interpret it as you will. But I just wanted to give more context for his stuff because I feel like he's been presented as sort of someone who is like, no, they're men, and like I just don't it doesn't seem to be true. Yeah, but that's all I have to say about the minions other than Kevin is the best one.
Well, but then consider Bob.
And then I say Bob, and I'm kind of like, grow up. I'm kind of like.
We'll see Kevin just like doesn't really know how to have fun. Stuart knows how to have fun. Bob knows how to have fun. Kevin sort of like the straight man.
Oh yeah, but like, how are we gonna get anything done if Kevin isn't showing up to work. Kevin is not pursuing fire hydrants or feral rats, He's at work. Okay.
If I had to determine which minion I was, I think it would be Kevin because I often am like, all right, let's get shit done.
But I don't think I would be Kevin, but I like I'm drawn to Kevin. I don't even know who I would be of the three. I have no idea.
Maybe you are Bob and so it's an interesting flip, and that's why you and I are drawn to each other.
Wow, that's beautiful. I wish I had I liked that, Like Bob has kind of like Kate Bosworth eyes.
Oh yeah, what's that called when your eyes are two different colors?
I forget, I forget what it's called, but I think it is like both just like a very sweet feature on that character, and also makes sense when you really need people to be able to tell minions apart because they looks so similar.
Yeah. Anyway, I think that who we are and who we are drawn to can be very different characters. That's beautiful.
That's beautiful.
Let's talk about Scarlet Overkill.
Let's do it.
So when she is first spoken about, before we even meet her on screen, there's like a news broadcast about villain con saying there's a new bad man in town and that man is a woman.
Yeah. I feel like that was like a tongue in cheek nineteen sixty eight thing.
Oh for sure, yeah, yeah, and then she's announced at Villain Con as being the world's first female supervillain. So the Minion world, the world that this movie takes place within, is presum be a patriarchal place like ours.
It doesn't seem to be like alternate timeline. It just seems like we as people have neglected to see the influence the Manias have had on our world.
Right, So she's rising to fame and notoriety in this patriarchal world where villains have historically been men, and she's like, no, I'm going to break the glass ceiling, the villain glass ceiling, and I'm gonna be first. That's right, the first super villain who's a woman. And she's like the favorite among everyone. Everyone wants to work for her. The minions want to work for her. We have that scene with the little girl who's like you know in the bank robber family.
She's in the car and she's telling one of the minions that she really looks up to Scarlet.
What are the more impact full women in the plot line, I would say, is this little girl?
Yeah, because she's like, wow, I want to be a supervillain. Here's this super villain who's a woman who I can look up to and be inspired by, and that's why representation matters. But then we have this presentation from Scarlett who says, like, when I first started, people said I could never rob a bank as well as a man. Well times change, So she faced sexist backlash when she was you know, I guess a young woman trying to be a villain and a bunch of men told her
she couldn't do it. Maybe women also told her she couldn't do it.
Right, which is very like in line with the like Girl Boss narrative of like other people doubted my ability to do the same evil thing, and like it feels like intentional enough where I mean, I don't know, because I know that we weren't quite having that conversation now where it was like twenty fifteen. Any woman in power is a force of good, yeah, and so maybe it's just like that era. But she's also being coded as
a villain. I wish we had her resume. I know that it would be harmful to have her resume, but I would just be curious.
It seems like she's just stealing stuff.
Yeah, she seems kind of like a petty criminal and I'm like, meanwhile, there's Queen Elizabeth, like, you know, who ends up being a hero of this story because this movie has to play in every single theater in the world, and you can't actually say anything overtly political.
Right, Yeah, so she is the villain of the movie. She did face adversity, becoming the most powerful villain villain con.
At least, so did Sheryl Sandberg's it pushing like, she is good.
At fighting, so you know, we see her fight off a bunch of men and so that was impressive. We also have see Queen Elizabeth kick some people's.
Ass, but I feel like that is actually maybe actively harmful. Is like showing at that time a living colonizer to be like a fun, no nonsense girl.
Mm hmmm.
It's just like, yeah, that's one of the most notorious colonists that's alive. Like, I wish Bob had killed her.
I tell me about it. You should have taken that sword and chopped her head off.
Yeah.
I think that scene where she's in the pub after she has been dethroned and she's like telling stories and drinking pints of beer and stuff like that. I was getting very rose from Titanic vibes or she like gulps down some beer and I almost expected her to be like, what you think a first class girl can't drink?
I mean I think that like devoid of any historical context. That was like kind of a funny beat.
H Yeah. The other thing I guess with Scarlet's character for me is that And we've had this conver station over and over again at this point. But in animation, men are often designed to be whatever body shape and size, but women, or at least the main characters who have narrative significance in a movie who are women, often have
very you know, Western beauty standards bodies. Yeah, there's even this like random scene in the movie where herb is tightening her corset and she's like, must have tiny waist, And I'm like, why is this scene in the movie. It has nothing to do with anything, Yeah, but it just feels like it's emphasizing the fact that she has like a very.
Small waist, which is true. Like if I were them, I would not be pointing out how very much you're leading it, because I mean the whole franchise is guilty of that, including like the design of the christed Wig character. I feel like the most purport like the children are
a little more proportionally normal. But there are characters that are not wildly thin in terms of like women in this franchise, But there are never characters that are presented as desirable or meaningful in terms of adult women that are presented as narratively important. It's very all the same. And that's also true in Rise of Grow, where the most important supervillain is still very very thin.
Yes, I will say that Rise of grou has a little bit more racial diversity than the first Minions movie because it's almost all white characters, at least the human characters. Yeah, in the movie. And I feel like that's pretty true of the Despicable Me movies as well. So yeah, a lot of like harmful tropes of animation present in this movie. There's the i would say, queer coded stylist character who gives Scarlet like a makeover right before she's about to
be crowned the queen. So we have that trophy character. His name is Fabrice, not unlike Fabricio. Yes, So just pointing that out something to think about, something to make you think. I don't know if I have much else to say.
The only other thing I would say about Scarlett Overkill that I would say is positive is that I think it is generally good to have a woman villain, and like, in keeping with the like I think I'm doing a good thing, but I'm actually out of touch vibe that Pierre Coffin had when he was like, no, the minions are men, because I don't think women would be so not smart, you know, Like I'm glad that there is a woman villain and that that woman villain has a
loving partner that she also loves. I feel like that is very rare and that you are often encouraged to see when you do get a woman villain. That part of why she is a villain is because she has a loveless life and that she resents the world and like she's getting back at the world because she doesn't have a boyfriend, and like this movie does pretty clearly
subvert that. I honestly, the first time I saw this movie, I remember thinking that like herb was gonna end up being evil and like resent her and want to get But that relationship is presented kind of matter of factly, like where she's the dominant person in this relationship.
He's her minion kind of yeah.
I mean, even though she's a piece of shit to everyone else, including Kevin, it is kind of rare to see a woman villain who has like who has a loving relationship like that is not the source of the villainy. And you know, it is kind of like lazy to be like, oh, it's some YadA YadA childhood something, but I genuinely prefer that to like, I don't have a boyfriend, so I'm going to be the Queen of Angelt or whatever, because I feel like that it's like a common fallback on,
like a woman scorned. So I just wanted to point that out. I don't think herb is a great character. I like, I totally agree that like the celebrity stunt casting, I can take care to leave it. I don't think it's like an active hindrance to enjoying the movie.
Hmm.
But I do like that at least they didn't fall back on so many women villains that it's like always exciting to get one, and then I feel like occasionally or often it's like it's because this guy didn't love me, like, and that's not the case here, right, So that's nice.
What is the case now that I'm thinking about it, and maybe I'm overthinking it, but she makes a reference to how when she was younger, she was penniless and maybe implies that no one likes her because of that, and that's why she's so hell bent on like being a princess and having a crown and being royal. So there's like a class element to it, which kind of implies that, like, which.
At least seems more I don't know. I mean, no matter what the reason is, the movie is not implying that she's right to think it, right, but at least that's something that like, I haven't seen as much of, Like it's rooted in her own class anxiety and feeling of rejection on the basis of class. Which there's plenty of villains you could put in that category two and they all suck because they're villains. But like a woman villain whose like root issue is class anxiety, it feels a little less usual.
Yeah, interesting, villain avoids some tropes.
I think she's like a better villain than we have too many villains in the second Minions movie, The Whole Crew, Yeah, which I know is the point, but I mean, I like Scarlett overkill and I also like, don't miss her when she's trapped in ice or whatever. But yeah, I know that she is sort of the groove stand in for this movie because they need a person around for it to work. Yeah, and she's fine, she's fine. They
certainly could have done much worse. And the fact that they went with a woman in the first place, I mean, I'm probably over rewarding them. But like in a kid's movie with a villain, I mean, what Disney movie that was formative for us? Could you say that for It's weirdly like older movies like Witches and blah blah blah.
Like Ursula. Yeah, that's true, there's some but as we've pointed out on the podcast before, there's a trend of if the protagonist is a woman, that's the only condition where the villain would also be a woman, as if to say, sure, a woman could not be a formidable opponent if the protagonist was a man.
So not true here, not because we've been aggressively told they're all men. Yeah. So, and the fact that the Medians they genuinely do just want the most evil boss. They're not concerned about the gender of the boss. They were like, oh, Scarlett over kills the best evil person great like you know which I don't know. These movies are not meant to shape your mind in any way, shape or form like whatever. I don't think it passes the Bechdel test, and I'm giving it five nipples.
The closest thing I could come to it possibly passing because.
In the car.
It's in the car. Tina is the little girl in the robber family. She says, after the bank robbery, I tripped the alarm. I stink. Her dad says, you're still learning. Her mom chimes in and says, your father's right, Tina, he wasn't this good at being evil overnight? Your time is coming. Tina doesn't respond. So at no point are women, you know, characters who are women, are girls actually meaningfully interacting? So I'm gonna say a.
No, Yeah, I would say no. It doesn't pass the Baxxel test. It doesn't meaningfully move the needle I think in any direction, like I don't think this is pushing forwards or backwards. I'm giving it five nipples. I'm going first today. I've decided, Oh no, that's fine. I'm giving it five nipples because I like it and it's fun. To Me, and I'm giving one to Bob, giving one to Stewart, I'm giving one to Kevin, I'm giving one to Scarlet overkill It, and I'm giving one to Poucci.
And That's what I'm doing. I love them and I can't wait to see Despicable before. Oh wait, the last thing I wanted to say was that I really like the Minions movies compared to the Despicable movies, because the Despicable Me movies do something that I feel like a lot of kids' movies do that. It's whatever the Despicable of Me movies are predicated on grew adopting three children. Yes, fine,
adoption is a very complicated conversation. But I feel like the Despicable Me movies have like a more traditional agenda of like reinforcing nuclear family values, because as the movies go on, at first it's like he's a single father with three adopted daughters and they're very happy. But then as the movies go on, it's like, but he needs a wife. And Despicable of Me two and like I, Despicable Me three can't speak to it. Haven't seen It'spicable of Me four. He and Kristin wigwife have a baby,
and it's just like building out. That's the premise of the fourth movies. Now there's evil baby.
He already has a baby. It's Bob exactly.
I mean it's like that. I really do feel like that side of the franchise grows increasingly entrenched in these very traditional family values, which is also not where it's coming from. It comes from a like less traditional family. Yeah, but it grows increasingly traditional as the movies go on
in a way that just like doesn't feel whatever. A family is a family, but it just feels like a little like growing increasingly conservative in its values, whereas the Minions movies are minions, bonking minions on the head, which is literally all anyone wants anyways, So Minius movies are superior. Minions three comes out on July fourth, twenty twenty five.
See there, whoa yeah, God bless America. Just kidding. Well, yeah, I'll be there, I'll see it.
I was like, anyways, we'll be there. What is your nipple scale rating for Minions?
Oh my gosh, Since I don't feel any need to take the nipple scale seriously on this episode, because we normally take it so seriously.
This is silly one.
This is the most important metric of all time. So we normally, you know, take careful consideration, but this time I'll give it. Why not. I'll also give it five nipples. Yeah, and I'm giving them to Bob and I'm giving them to his little teddy bear, Tim.
Oh, I forgot about Tim. Bob is a sweetie. I just love them all. And also the Despicable b movies feature like B side minions, like they for some reason don't prominently feature the minions that we know and love, like they're like mel Chris, who I don't know them? Where's Kevin?
Where's Kevin? Or Stewart Wor's Bob? And then in minions too, Auto and I love Auto, Auto.
Rocks Auto has a pet rock. Oh that's right, I love Auto. Yeah, and he has braces. I like, they're like, how do we differentiate this minion? He has braces? Who gave him the braces? Don't worry about it? What does he get them off? Probably never?
Never? Yeah, it'll be so many years because they're immortal.
They're like Tuck ever lad they're the Collins, like they just do not die. And I'm grateful for that.
Yeah. Well, listeners that has been our Minions episode. Thanks for tuning in. Thank you so much. I'm in a great mood. We I guess have to cover the other movies that have Minions in them. I feel like a precedent has been set.
I mean, if you enjoyed this episode, please let us know. Like we've covered just yes, well, this is a great transition. Other ways to get other episodes from us is to go to our Patreon aka Matreon, where every month, for five dollars a month, we cover two new movies, just Kaitlin and myself for five dollars a month. And by signing up, you also get access to a back catalog of over one hundred and fifty episodes. And yes, one
of those episodes is about Despicable Me one. If you want to hear more, please let us know because we want to.
Yes, we do. I have to talk about Bob as much as possible.
Yeah.
And then you can also follow us on social media, mostly Instagram. At this point at Bechdel Cast, you can go to our merch store at teapublic dot com slash the Bechdel Cast. I feel like we need some Minions merch, Jamie, not to put you on the spot.
But I'll get right on it. I'll get right on that. We have Baby Grinch, like, come.
On, come on, we have that and not minions.
Yeah, what the heck? I know it's on me.
So thanks for listening, and poopie poopye. The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Volskrosenski. Logo in merch is designed by Jamie Loftus and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash Bechtelcast