You're listening to Comedy Central. How Hollywood works. This is Hollywood, home of the major motion picture studios who produce all your favorite movies. The filmmaking process begins with the writer's idea for a new story. The writer toils day and night to turn that idea into a script. The studio then throws away the script and green lights a reboot of an older idea. After the scripts selected, the movie's cast with children of celebrities and actors the producers want
to have sex with. Now that the movie's cast, it's time to go into production in Atlanta, where tax advantages and lower wages attract all of Hollywood's left wing executives. Once the movie has been shot, a rough cut set to Beijing, where sensors make sure the film doesn't offend party leadership. After a few edits, the film enjoys a red copper premiere with stars dressed in eveningwear, and then
a wide release with the general public justin sweatpants. And finally, it's very deep in the menu of a streaming service where a few people will ever find it. But that's all right, because chances are the movie was terrible anyway. And that is how Hollywood works movies. They're like books, but louder. Ever since I can remember, I loved going to the movie theater intentionally burning myself with hot butter
and trying to sue the theater. But as much as I like the movies, there's nothing better than seeing one crash and burn. The new Hollywood release Dear Evan Hanson is inviting internet mockery and an unwelcome reception from critics, not the least over its decision to cast twenty seven year old Ben Platt in the role of a high
school student. One reviewer called the age defying portrayal disturbing, while a writer for The Guardian wrote the attempts to make Platt seem younger somehow renders him both older and inhuman an active near sabotage so distracting it basically renders the movie unrecoverable. You're telling me that you are supposed to be seventeen. I'm pretty sure I saw this guy at a strip club in the eighties, and nothing against
this actor. He's talented. I'm sure he'd be a fantastic lead in a movie about a guy going back to school for his second master's degree. But I find it very hard to believe this kid recently grew his first cube. It doesn't matter how good an actor is. If I see anybody that old and a high school parking lot, I'm calling the cops. And yes, I'm also in the parking lot, but not because I'm a creep. I'm just there to sell them beer. But let's be fair to
dear Evan Hanson. Hollywood is a long history of trying to make it stars appear younger, and an equally long history of failing at it. When you see the next Will Smith and Robert and Nero movies, you may be shocked to see the actors look decades younger. The Irishman drew attention for its extensive use of digital technology to d age the actors, allowing to Nero and others to appear to be decades younger. At age seventy six. He's joked that the technology will allow him to prolong his
career indefinitely. Yes, digital technology afore so powerful it almost gave Lebron James the ability to act. And while the Irishman was able to make the Nero's face thirty years younger, there was one small issue. His body was still older. Ship. Look at him trying to beat up that guy. The ten man is watching that scene going and I thought my joints were up. If you ask me, the most impressive thing about this scene isn't the c g I. It's the actor who's pretending to be injured by de
Nero's orthopedic shoes. And this is the problem with trying to d age actors. At a certain point, it just doesn't work. I mean, yes, Rob don Narrow is one of the greatest living actors, but the man is seventy. Of course he's gonna move like C three p O with shingles. But hey, as badly as dear Evan Hansen and the Irishman failed, at least they put in an effort. Because the truth is, sometimes Hollywood is too lazy to use weird makeup or c g I affects the d
age their actors. Sometimes they just throw an old person in there and hope nobody notices. Hannah Montana's brother was a twenty nine year old. Sixteen year old Sonny and Rizzo were twice as old as a high school teenager, and those girls from Penn fifteen must be like whatt five. My point is Hollywood has done this for pretty much every actor in the entertainment business. It's desperate, it's embarrassing.
God damn it. I want in. That's why I've made a real showcasing just how young I can pull off. Roll it, dude. I just saw Kyle's I get He Tucked miss and Green feels totally busted it for saving during our algebra That is so razing. I don't want to go to soccer practice. I just want to stay home. But watch pap Patrolledy. That's lolly Bam progamner. Well, someone please give this poor baby at That ain't Hollywood. I'll
be waiting. When you think of black horror, you think of hits like Get Out, Well, this year's remake of candy Man, which reminds me, speaking speaking of that, candy Man,
candy Man, candy Man, candy Man, Candy Man. I knew we wouldn't show up cheap bastard on me fifty dollars, but we wouldn't have Jordan's peel if it weren't for the pioneering black horror films that today are mostly forgotten, movies like Son of Anaga, which in ninety became the first horror film to feature an all black cast, and unlike a Medea Halloween, they were all played by different people.
Son of Angagy book stereotypes by showing a black middle class family battling a monster in their home, paving the way for the Windsdal family to do the same thing against Steve Herkel suspenders. And on top of that, the scientists in this movie is an old black Woban. It was like a scary Hidden Figures. Although I have to be honest, I found Hidden Figures to be pretty scary too.
Oh that damn math. Another major film in black horror was Night of the Living Dead, starring Dwayne Jones, the first black actor to play the lead role in the mainstream horror hit. He's a hero for most of the movie and then his character ends up getting shot by white folks who to stake him for a zombie. It was a profound lesson on racism. It is the living who are racist, and we should all strive to be more like the zombies who will eat the brains of
any race. Wait is that the lesson? Once the nineteen seventies hit and black exploitation films got big, horror movies got a little bit wild. We had movies like Blackula, Blackenstein, dr Black Mr. Hyde and of course at It. It was originally titled The Black so System, but they got in trouble for copying that movie. But a Little White
Girl Tinkles on the living room carpet. Then there was Pete Wheat Straw in nineteen seventy seven, Dollar Mighte star Rudy Ray Moore plays a comedian who was killed by his rivals for being too successful. Today, they would have just found his old tweets. That's how you get written. Anyway, The comedian makes a deal with the devil to come back to life and get revenge on his killers by using the devil's magic pimp cane. Now, the first question is why would the devil have a pimp cane? I
do not know. I will be honest, which I don't even know. Why pimps have pimp canes? Does pimp and call sprained ankles? Is that why pimping ain't easy? I don't know. This movie raised many questions for me. And finally, one black horror character that doesn't get the credit she deserves was Rachel True's performance as Rochelle and the movie The Craft. Now, although The Craft is not technically a
black horror movie. The soundtrack does include a song by Jewel, and there's few things more terrifying the black people than that who Jewel. But Rochelle Rochelle was a groundbreak character for black women in horror. She takes revenge on a racist bully at school after becoming a powerful witch, which is literally black girl magic. And this character was especially important because it was the nineteen nineties. Teen horror was in the midst of a renaissance, but black girls didn't
really get to see themselves in anything scary. All they had was scary spice. She wasn't even that scary. Posh was the scary one. Always looked like she just got back from poison. And James Bond, Well, that's all the time we have for today. I'm Roy Would, Julian, this has been CP time and remember before the culture try this again, Candy Man, Oh there you are, where's my money? Daniel. It's no secret that women's on screen portrayals have evolved
throughout history. We've gone from playing secret Harry's being saved by James Bond all the way to nuclear scientists being saved by James Bond. But I want to focus on one specific aspect of female depictions, the orgasm. It's when a woman is stimulated to the point of climax, causing a physical and neurological response that scientists referred to as fantastic, and over the years, depicting female pleasure on screen is something that's changed more than the batteries in your vibrator.
The first known female orgasm on the silver screen was in the nineteen thirty three German film Ecstasy, when Hetty Lamar took the broad Worst Express all the way to pleasure Burgh. Turns out the world wasn't ready for this. Everyone denounced it, from Hitler to the Pope, And if you ask me, the Pope has no place weighing in on sex scenes. He's celibate. I mean, when we need your opinion on the best stayin removers for white fabrics,
then we'll call you. Unfortunately, being the first actress to climax on screen followed Hetty Lamar for the rest of her career. She was typecast as the ductress, even though she was literally the smartest person in Hollywood. Yeah. As her side hustle, she was a brilliant scientist who invented the basis for all modern wireless technology. Without her, no one would be orgasmy because we wouldn't be able to
watch porn on our cell phones in the bathroom. And that was the last big on screen female orgasm for a while, because around the same time the Hayze Code was enforced in Hollywood. This was a set of censorship guidelines that banned movies from explicitly showing or discussing sex. Even married couples had to be shown in separate beds, or as it's now called, the reverse chocolate factory before you bedridden. For the past twenty years, it takes a lot of work to keep this family going. No one
was getting off. The Hayese Code finally ended in the late sixties, which, as timing goes, is like having your dry January and at an open bar in Cabo. America was embarking on a sexual revolution, so female pleasure came
back on screen. Unfortunately, it was often treated as a novelty that existed for men's amusement, So you've got scenes like the one in nineteen Barbara Ella where evil doctor Eyebrows over here traps Jane Fonda and a machine that's supposed to give her orgasms until she dies, except that she climax is so hard she breaks the machine. Goodness. At the time, it was considered a camp be sexy thing,
but looking at it now, it's a violation. Remember everyone, if you're going to put a woman in a machine that orgasms her to death, uniquely sent first. Another major moment came a few years later with the movie Deep Throat. It tells the story of a woman who keeps giving men oral sex because her pleasure zone is in her throat.
That is not how it works, but Deep Throat became the first porno film to go mainstream and inspired both my uncles to become Dennis The female orgasms and Barbararella and Deep Throat were basically male fantasies about how women experience pleasure, so it was appropriate that the next onscreen
orgasm to make a splash totally debunked those fantasies. Nine, When Harry he Met Sally famously includes an extended scene of Meg Ryan faking an orgasm in a Delhi to prove to Billy Crystal that maybe he wasn't the cunnelingest king that he thought he was. Oh yes, yes, yes, Oh. This scene was groundbreaking for a few reasons. It told all the women watching who had faked orgasms that they
weren't alone. It taught men to try to be attentive to their partner's needs, and it catapulted pastronomy to become the top aphrodisiac of nine nine. It also started a conversation about the performative nature of the female orgasm. Women face far too much pressure to satisfy their partner's ego instead of themselves. I mean, no one ever has to fake it for their vibrator. If they don't get the job done, they just go back into the drawer and
they think about what they did. In the years that followed, female pleasure became more and more common on screen, but they were still often treated as punchlines, like Jennifer Anniston getting unexpected magic Maxis includes Almighty, or Katherine Hygel accidentally orgasm me at dinner when a little boy grabbed her remote controlled vibrating underwear. Okay, there is so much wrong
with this. It's non consensual, it's a kid doing it, and it perpetuates the dangerous myth that vibrating underwear gives you anything but a five alarm electrical bird. And even when orgasms weren't meant to be funny, it could be hard to take them seriously, like in Forty Days and Forty Nights when Josh Hartnett makes his partner orgasm by caressing her with flowers, which, believe me, is not that easy. Not to be a size queen, but we're gonna have
to use at least a sunflower. The odds weren't a step forward for orgasms, but they weren't a step back either. They still needed to step a little to the side, now the other side, then back and forth. Yeah, right there. Thankfully, in the present day, we're starting to see much more realistic and positive depictions of women pop in their Turkey timers. These days, you can hardly turn your TV on without seeing a woman getting off. And finally, movies and shows
are doing this through the female gays. And if you don't know what that would look like, then you haven't seen Bridgerton. It's a show about nineteenth century British society taking care of their little women. She's a Beth in the streets, but a Joe in the sheets. Thanks to Bridgertain, there haven't been this many female orgasms since well since
everyone started watching Britain. So that's the history on the female orgasm on screen, and who knows what the future holds, but it is important because the way women are portrayed on screen holds a mirror up to how they're treated in real life, and as all women know, sometimes holding up a mirror to something is the only way to get a good look and figure out how it works. Watch The Daily Show weeknight Central on Comedy Central and
stream Foo episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast