Toss Popcorn is a production of iHeartRadio. Hi. I'm Sienna Jacole and I'm Leanna Holsten, and welcome to Toss Popcorn, the podcast where two idiots watched every film on the AFI's one hundred Greatest American Movies of All Time, the very slightly less Racist tenth Anniversary edition, And we are now watching movies directed by women, Sorry about it.
This podcast is a safe sweatshop factory, summer factory coming of age for people who don't know anything about movies. Today we're watching Real Women Have Curves. Good warning, there will be spoilers about this sweaty old film.
That's true. Mm hmm that's r m hm.
Oh a content warning. We will be discussing a body image, the concept of bodies, fatness, fat phobia, phobia.
It's two thousand and two. It's two thousand and two, baby, yeah, so get ready yeah.
Mm Sienna, had you seen this before?
I had? Oh my god?
Okay, well, then in that case, please could I hear your prediction for the movie Real Women Have Yes?
Of course. Also, I have to tell you something that I realized after this prediction. I realized something. Oh great, okay, all right, okay, Leanna, I'm about to watch real women have curves. Also, this is Sienna. I saw this movie a long time ago, and I love America Ferrera and I remember really enjoying it. I think it made me cry. Uh, and I look forward to watching it again. Maybe I'll remember some stuff. I think that she's like wants to leave town and maybe her family works like a factory.
Did they make jeans?
In my mind?
Oh, I know what you realize, Probably there's just jeans in the movie. Well, no, you know, can't wait to see it again. See what we think? I love you, goodbye.
Were you thinking of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants?
I seem to combine them in my mind because I remember the clothing was part of it. That it was like, oh, I can't wear these clothes, but like this, I'm making these clothes and yet I could never wear them. Yeah, but yeah, I was afterwards, I was like, jeans, I am thinking of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. That's why I'm picturing her looking at jeans. Yeah. Yeah, so sorry about that, but I was close. Otherwise, Leanna, I'd love to hear your for this film.
Okay, here it is. I Sienna, it's Leanna. I'm about to watch real women have curves. I predict I don't know, like early two thousands energy around the concept of a female body.
Yeah, oh, you got it.
And it probably was revolutionary at the time, but it might be annoying now, love you bye, you got it.
You got it. Mm hmm. But on top of that, it's Mexican bitches.
Yes, so Mexican American. And is it Catholic this time?
Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. Because the weird Christian Cheeto movie they made it weirdly Protestant. It was to be beloved by people who I do not connect with, but this one was for me. And can I tell you something, I remember something about what. I watched this for the first time, and I watched it. I wonder how much of this will be capable. I think it's okay. I watched first when I was for some reason home. My family was gone, which very rarely happened. I think they
were traveling for some reason. I had to stay home for some school thing. I think it was my the summer after senior year for me. Oh, I'm really I was apped, but I was home and I was I My grandma had just like taken a fall or something. So I was one of the people like hanging out with my grandma and making sure she was all good and it was me and my t o and oh the amount of guilt that was thrown my way. That would be like, Sienna, you can go home now because
I'll take care of her. You know, I have a lot to do today, but I'll do it. And I'm like, no, no, I can do it, and they're like, no, You've done enough. And I'm like I was here for two days straight, like is that not enough? And it's like it's okay, I know you have to go do your things anyway, have fun, Sienna. And also you said you want underwear shopping sweat. That's like I love my family, but let
me tell you I will. While watching this, I was like this is cultural, this generation, generations, the guilt, the weird like purity thing but like we want you to be married, but like, also, you're supposed to be pure and I'm just like you can feel it. And also I can't wait to talk to my mom about this.
Shout out to my mom because I'm sure she feels it even more being like yeah, yeah, anyway, but I remember watching it at a time where I was like, wow, I can I'm really experiencing my family in it, because I'm not usually the like main point person, but being like the eldest daughter who was home when no one else was, I was like, wow, my god, Wow, my god, this is this feels I can feel it. I can feel Yeah, whoa, anyway, that's a fun little fact. Yeah, so this movie is pretty much is in many ways.
I was like, yeah, I don't have anybody in my family as heinous as her mom.
But oh my god, her mom was so oh she sucked. Yeah, her mom sucked.
That was crazy. Oh god, I really want to k about this movie. But first, yeah, hey girl, Oh.
Yeah, hey girl. What's up.
How's it going?
Did you get left behind at a party last night? There was something about.
Okay, yes, I textedly on and I was like, can we just do it just a little bit later because I just And by the way, that extra half hour was exactly what I needed makes all the difference, it really does. But no, it was fine. It was like I went to a party with people I would I was tagging along to a party. I knew it was kind of their party, and I was attending, So I knew that there was a world in which I would go earlier because like my roommate, for example, it's her graduation,
like she should hang out with her friends and stuff. Yeah, but when we were all leaving, they were all like, we don't want to stay long. I'm like, oh, I bet you will, but I bet you will. No, it was a good time. I'm glad I went. I had fun. But on the ride home, I was like, that's fine, guys, like, have fun. It's your graduation. I'm I'm going to take an uber home. It's been like probably a year since
I've taken an Uber. This Uber driver was crazy. Oh and normally I'm like, literally, you're driving someone around all night like whatever, Like I don't really care about much. I don't have high standards for what an Uber ride is. But this person was driving so fast. Oh. I actually was like, oh, this could be when I die. Like there was a point where I was wondering, like is he mad at me? Did I do something? This just doesn't feel like the way that you drive unless you're
making a point or try to cheap. It felt like teach somebody a lesson type of vibe. But yeah, maybe this is just how this person drives and that's freaking insane. Oh. I got so carsick and was really like, I guess I should worry about my life at some point. And also I was like, is he gonna get mad because he knows that I know that this is not a
good ride. It was so weird, so awkward. But then I got home and my tummy hurts so much and I ate a big chicken sandwich and fries because my roommate went out of town and he was like, do you want to take this? And I was sandwich and I got to I got to eat it. Oh. So it saved my life. I felt so much better and I went to bed alive.
The sandwich that saved my life.
Yeah, that sandwich saved my life. Yeah. It was crazy. It's been a long long time since I've been in a yeah, inexperienced like that. Leanna, hey girl.
Hey girl, oh girl. I was in Brighton for the past two weekends. Brighton, which is by the sea, oh the south uka down by the seaside doing they have the Brighton Fringe Festival for the month of May, so a lot of people who are going up to Edinburgh in August will take their shows and work on them in Brighton, And we went on two Sundays in a row, and on the second Sunday, my Sweet Sweet Split Bill
partner and I were both unexpectedly hungover. No, and before the show, which is at one in the afternoon, we have to do a lap around the town with our poster telling people that we're doing a stand up comedy show in an hour and please would they come and you can scan the QR code to buy tickets and it's at this venue around the corner in one hour. And we survived that. At one point Michael said to me,
I can never feel this way again. And then we got to our venue and it turned out so we had stopped by the box office for the bright and Fringe the week before, and Michael happened to know the person who was working at the box office and was like, oh, hey, we're doing a show at one forty five. If you feel like telling anybody, let him know. It turns out they told the chair of the festival, who then came to see our show. We meet this guy. We're both
so hungover. After our lap of postering speaking to strangers in the sun, I was about to ask get into the makes it so much worse. It makes much of course, it was sunny. We get into the venue and he introduces himself and he says, oh, I'm the chair of the Festival and we both go oh hello, Not really, I think he's coming to the show. Three minutes beforehand we find out he's in the bar of that venue
because he's seeing our show. So I duck into the venue where just Michael and I are setting up, and I say, the Chair of the Festival is coming to our show.
I feel sick for you. I feel I feel hungover for you. And do you know what? It went so well? I bet it did? It went really well. I bet it did.
Yeah, we really pulled it out. We did it and we are thinking about doing Sober Fringe for Edinburgh Susk.
God it was too much. Oh so funny. One thing that that you can do one thing, if Leonna can do anything, it's pull it together.
It's get it.
Want heritage business done? You're like, well it's businessess done, So I'm gonna turn time for businesslf.
Off Yeah yeah, yeah, special skills get business done. I'm getting business.
I'm so proud of you. Congratulations, Thank you.
Thank you. It was a really fun show, really fun day. Then we ate so much Tai food after all.
Oh that sounds amazing.
Yeah, it was really nice.
Well, Leanna, can you hear that?
I can, but it's very faint, okay, you know, speaking of I mean that's helicopters are classic La and speaking of La.
Speaking of La and helicopter parents kind of.
And being kind of near the downtown Sienna, could you please give us a synopsis of the film Real Women Have Curves?
Of course I can do that. Here I go, Real Women Have Curves. There's a lot of pressure on Anna in the summer following high school. Her teacher wants her to apply for college, but her family needs help at the dress factory. Anna's mom is pretty heinous to her,
stressing about Anna's weight, purity, and allegiance to her family. Also, Anna likes this white boy who is highly sensual, but also highlights that he has a completely different life than her, her being a Mexican American girl with no financial cushion and real freedom and him being just a white boy who's kind of bored. But they have a very They have a very cute time. But in the end, girls who slay find a Way the end yay.
Ooh that white boy, that skinny white boy.
Wow. There's an undercurrent of the fact that she just like there's certain things she can't do because her family just has to be working all the time. Yeah, she has a specific experience of la being Mexican and like
she's the first going to high schol Beverly Hills. Yeah, she's like very she's precocious, but the first you know, her family, her mom is just very limited and is like in terms of what she thinks a life should be, and she clearly has a lot of insecurity and pain herself from her own life, and she's like inflicting it on her daughter. Now, it's a really complex mother daughter relationship that I think they captured well. But it's hard.
It's hard to watch. Yeah, and then also there's an undercurrent of that and an overcurrent of her being fat is kind of how the movie talks, which is also I mean, yeah, she's mid sized.
But this in two thousand and two, Oh Sienna, let's get into our phone notes, the segment of the podcast where we read the notes that the other person took on their phone. Oh Sienna, your first note that you've highlighted is last time I watched this, I didn't even know this was La.
It was crazy to think about. I remember watching it the first time and kind of taking in. I just didn't really think about I didn't really process what city they were in. But now I just like have seen all these streets so much. It's crazy. And the AUNI you have said, Wow, I do not miss La. Yeah, it is really funny the shots they're showing. I really
was thinking, like, wow, this city is disgusting. That her showing her like neighborhoods and the Mexican neighborhoods and stuff that that was cool and nice and everything, but like they had shots of her driving to school mm hmm, and the shots of the skyline it is so smoggy and disgusting and hot. It's just like, this is not an appealing place to be. This is a place you just.
Like cementwhere so much concrete.
Yeah, yeah, I I while watching it, I was like, I'm happy with my life right now, and I've come to terms with La and and I get the parts that are cool about it. But even watching this, I was like, yeah, I have no real love for this place.
Oh yeah, is your mother chasing you around, insulting you.
I am so sorry. We'll be back in three minutes to distract you more. Okay, yeah, we got to talk about this. This is not this happens in so many movies. You said Columbia taking applications in June for fall semester. I don't think so.
I don't think so.
The last day of school, he's like, should you can you apply to college? And she's like yeah. The last day of school, he says, my CLI for Columbia.
He goes, oh, what are you doing for college? She's like, I'm not going. He's like, but I know the dean of Columbia you do. I mean I guess like a super rich Beverly Hills school maybe, but not in June of the same year you had to commit by May first.
Yeah, girl, you're talking about Oh my god. Maybe things were different a little bit, but yeah, and this is also the kind of Later she's like, I only applied to Columbia.
Like this is also where I'm like, I didn't feel when she got into Colombia. I was like, slay, But also, why what do you mean I didn't think we were seeing like, oh, prodigious behaviors from the she she kind of was just a teen, right, I mean we get that she's like smart, right, but right, we mean that
must have been a hell of a personal statement. Yeah, it just wasn't, like I guess because college admissions in the US are so like you have to have been an astronaut by the age of sixteen to be considered for admission, that it was like, well, but what is it? What's her thing that they're like, Oh, we have to make room for this student, right.
He doesn't really even say like, but you're an amazing writer. No. I think it's no, he doesn't. She's a good student. I will say I felt. I felt, from my small viewpoint, like I was interested in what she was condemning culturally, you know, like the curses, the generational curses she's trying to break. M Also, I think it's a I don't know, I commend this film. It's a vulnerable thing from a position of like a marginalized community, to like put your culture on blast a little bit.
Ah, that's true.
Yeah, And I think that they did a good job of like both loving her culture and also being like mom, I need to move on and like find what works for me, mm hmmm, because you're being crazy. Also, I love we found out you slowly find out that her mom is like insane, especially like not just in that there are some things like she thinks she's pregnant, which is actually crazy but actually kind of sad that she's
so very uneducated about her own body. But later when the other ladies are like, girl, calm down, like your daughter's not ugly, and she's like, why what are you saying? I'm an angry witch.
Yeah, she really was an angry witch.
Leanna. You said, you said, maybe we could hang out. I've got to go. Every time I ask someone out he says maybe I can hang out or maybe yeah, I have to go.
Oh all right, So anything about oh forever, oh, permanently out of my life?
Oh?
I just thought maybe like for an hour on another day. Note, Oh I should kill myself. Oh you're okay, we'll never speak again. That's not I don't know that it has to be one or that either.
Hello or hello hello. Oh my god. Wait, we have to talk about Leoni. You said, look at this insane computer program I found on the web. Oh computer program computer which is Spanish swear words.
And it's like Google Translate. He finds Google Translate.
What program is that?
Well, it's an early version of Google Translate. Look at this insane computer program I found.
On the web. Calling it the web is so a period piece. This is such a period piece. I mean it really is.
On a landline, a corded phone landline about an insane computer program you found on the web.
Oh, took me back. It is such a period piece. How did you feel about their little relationship or this boy?
Yeah, I mean he was really skinny, very physically frail, and I was surprised that they went from four tongueless kisses to full sex. She was rearing to go, which I thought, respect she was ready. She was like I've missed something, additional things.
And then she's like, never call me again. Yeah, she was pretty slag about it.
I know, I thought it was I thought it was unbearable to watch at the beginning, and then it won me over because I thought their sex scene was very sweet.
Yeah, they were a little bit more like cute and respectful to each other than they had to be for the time. And that that's when you go, oh, sure, this is directed by women.
Directed by a woman. Yeah, that's how you know, just like I really appreciated that they were laughing together meet during their their actual sex scene. They just seemed like comfortable with each other. They seemed to like each other.
And.
Hats just seemed to like have things in comp like they enjoyed, Yeah, spending time together.
I agree again, that's when things are directed by women. I'm sorry, there's just more of that that felt like a human interaction. To me. It was like, oh, I.
Think their relationship probably felt the most human of maybe that and her and her grandpa. Those two dynamics felt the most. Like, Yeah, I'm getting I've seen this on planet Earth before.
The things I still think were cool and like felt revolutionary. Doesn't feel like the right word, but like felt different from what you see. Is when they did strip down because they were all so sweaty, I'm like, yeah, okay, I really love all these women of different ages and different body types. Just like non sexually giggling in their underwear. Yes, Like, that's actually a very something you do not see in any movie.
No, non sexual giggling is really not allowed from women on the film.
In their undies. It was just cute.
So there was so sweet. I kind of I teared up a little bit at that scene. I think I would have cried if I could, you know, were I off my meds, then I would be crying.
I love that. I guess the all the stuff about like the conceit of the the name of the film itself speaks to your time when you have to like I mean, it's putting other women down the name of the title, right, Like yeah, but I was thinking about it, and first of all, that's so of the time, and again like unfortunately that was a necessary part of probably what we've got. We're now proudly in the time of
body neutrality, the body neutrality movement. But I think unfortunately in two thousand and two, literally you had to be like, Okay, well not everybody's a skinny girl like that, so fuck you. Women of full body sizes are also beautiful, and so you know what real women look like me Like, I think, yeah, totally was a necessary part of moving towards like you know it it was a negative time towards women.
It feels like this movie feels like an important feature on the timeline of the body movement, Like if you were making a timeline and included like social and like socio political things that happened that moved the needle forward.
This should be on it.
Yeah, at the two thousand and two mark.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's just also so funny. I'm sorry when she's like, oh my babes are enormous, she looks amazing. You wrote.
The idea that this smoking hot babe is questioning her body in front of this little boy is highly comical.
It was so comical. I know that there's everybody's complex feelings about their bodies. We still live in a society blah blah blah blah, but like.
It was crazy to hear huge boobs be spoken about in a derogatory way. I did not remember that that was the time we had two.
Thousand and two. Is insane, Like youw you have more body that looks amazing T shirts she looked, And again I don't want to make it all about looks, but I'm sorry. She was a smoking hot babe and this little scrawny boy's like, you're beautiful, You're not fat, you're beautiful. Oh there it was. There was the line.
I said, everybody take a shot.
He said it, you're not fat, you're beautiful.
It's like, no, no, two things can be true. Excuse me, I I truly that was the biggest moment where I was like, oh, we have progressed because I forgot that people genuinely would say you're not fat. It's like, no, I am, but that does not cancel out the fact that I also am beautiful. Yeah, which is I mean, we're still confirmed where we haven't not everybody has.
Unfortunately, Oh my god, that's right.
What's going on in LA? Is everybody skinny over there?
Yea dude, Wow, Lehana, I have to read some of your notes about her mom. You said, well, you said her mom is her sleep paralysis demon. Oh my god. She keeps like sneaking into her room and being like, I'm pregnant. I'm pregnant. Wake up, I'm pregnant. You're my god, I'm pregnant.
Hello, I hate you.
You've said if you don't like your ugly kids, then maybe don't be ugly yourself. Again. Sadly, I think this is how people work, where they're literally like you're fat, you're ugly, and it's like stock that's how.
You feel about yourself. You're just externalizing your insecurities, right. But yeah, if you're ugly. That's not my fault.
I can okay, can we get that straight. It's not my fault you're ugly. I know you want to blame me.
I'm sorry, but you're ugly and you hate yourself. I'm actually doing my own.
Thing, Leanna. You also noted that her mom said you're not only fat, now you're a puta. That was crazy. Her mom is so much. She is so mean. Again. I don't use this term life, but she was a bitch, that's what a.
She was really horrible. I was like it. It almost was as if the mom would have been better, the character of the mom would have been better if it was instead like an externalization of her inner monologue. Like it felt like no one. I've never seen anyone be that mean to someone else. I have seen people talk that meanly to themselves.
She's relentlessly cruel, yeah, like unflaggingly. So yeah.
I think the issue that I had with that character is we don't see any arc to her.
It's tough. I mean, I don't know. I kind of didn't. I don't know. My brother just saw the musical version of this in New York and he said at the end he didn't know there's a musical. Yeah, maybe it's closing this weekend or something, but that one does have redemption for the mom, and he said it actually felt worse.
Yeah, And maybe it's just my white ass wanting like a happy and comfortable ending or something, and my white American ass.
I think having been lucky to have. I mean, I just don't want people's parents to be this horrible. Yeah, it's nice to watch. Also that if I hadn't already known that this would be the ending, that's probably the main thing for me of why it wasn't so upsetting for me. But I don't like that either. I don't like when they end not it's just like that's that's terrible. Yeah. I her mom doesn't even say goodbye to her at
the end. She's just too I know. But it's really like, I think part of what the movie is saying, and again it makes sense to be in play form, is like you can't wait to be understood or wait to be accepted by a certain people in your life, certain societal expectations and stuff like, you just kind of gotta.
Just just just you gotta, I gotta do my life, you gotta, I gotta do my life.
She's gotta do her life. Uh, Leona, your last note is, girl, you need to get uptown. Wait, you need to get uptown stacked. You are going to be late for class. Yeah, she's walking through Times Square.
She's at the TKTS booth. I'm like, girl, you need to get to the Upper west Side. You are nowhere near your college's campus. Do you have to finish one hundred and eighty five dresses? Start stamen, We'll be right back.
I loved her outfit at the Oh, well that I can say that for bades.
Yeah, and I liked her hair.
Yeah.
Let's move on to badges and trages, where we award badges for body neutrality and tradges for.
Treating your daughter like shit. This was a bad mom. Sorry my gosh, yeah, mom, uh huh. She was so dramatic.
I have to agree. I have a badge for corded phones. I love I love a cord. I love to twist a chord while I'm gossiping with my girlies on the phone. I do miss that about the past.
I have a badge for all of her outfits. I don't know if this was supposed to be her well, no, she just wears really cute T shirts. Again, she looks amazing in T shirts, and all of her little tea's and stuff were so twenty twenty five chic. And then her last outfit when she's like walking through New York and her brown coat and her I really wasn't joying her outfits. I would have worn any of them. I wouldn't have looked as good as that.
I liked the one she wore to the movies. Yeah, or on her first date. I forgot. She didn't go to the movies, right, She went to meet up with a boy because she's a slot. That's a badge for a badge for On that date, she says to the boy, I made this list of things to talk about so that we wouldn't run out of things to talk about. And that is so something I would do. I on dates or things I thought were dates, have said, my greatest fear is running out of things to talk about.
She's so real badge for that. This movie loved La. It's not my favorite place, but it was really it was really thrown ass for La. Yeah, I mean it was really really showing the city and also like Mexican La.
Yeah, that's true, that's very true. Yeah. I liked that that that little boy that she's dating always came to her neighborhood. Yes, he was because he has a car, because they family gave him a car.
He wasn't interested.
Boy that he's weird confront his privilege. Neither of them seemed to Yeah a badge for Okay. That kiss was cute. Their first kiss I thought was very sweet.
Yeah, I think they were cute. This was again it was a romance written by a woman and you Caneah, Yeah, it was chill. It was a chill romance page. For George Lopez, I'm sorry I imprinted on him at a young age, and I'm always happened to see him, even when he's playing an insane role like this and acting only okay, only a little, but I'll still be happy to see him always. It's so funny that it's like a movie with Mexican people. Okay, George, get in.
There, come on, George badge four. Yes, during their sex scene when they are able to just be laughing and relaxed with one another, they were just so relaxed.
Yeah, they were relaxed. I loved that she was a chiller badge for her. Grandpa is such a homie. I thought he was gonna die. I was convinced he was going to die because he was just so old. Well, if you're old and nice and like the anvolent, normally that means you're going to die. To move the protagonist's platforward, like in Moana, Oh my God, Yeah, but he he When she wants to hang out with a boy, she just can tell her grandpa and then he because he trusts her and he respects her.
Yeah, well he's he's still I couldn't believe he was talking about a treasure in the Sierra Madre. I can't prospector vibes. Then my final badge is a badge for it. This movie is I think revolutionary in its way because that scene where they're all just like hanging out in their bra and underwear because it's so hot and they have to get the work done. I was like, even today, no, you don't see that, this would still be groundbreaking.
It would just like women of different ages and body types and they're all poc like.
Also, just like the concept of people being comfortable in their.
Body and they're comfortable at work and comfortable in their honests. Yeah, badge for her mom. She is insane. She's not a good mother. But I think that this woman is a comedy genius and I would love to see her in more comedic roles because I have a badge for her mom's blank look. In response to honest saying that women have thoughts, she like goes over when they had talked about like, oh, she had sex before the wedding and then he just left her at the altar because she
had sex. And then she's like, mom, I think that it's fine and women should be able to like do what they want. And her mom is like eating this pastry, just staring at her, like what the what and her face, her blank stare is so funny. Yeah, this woman is a great actress. It's too bad, yes play Apparently she also is the one who kills Selena in the Selena movie.
Oh wow, so.
She's always playing a Mexican villain. Hell yeah, villainy badge for the line manches me. Do you remember this? The it means I love gossip.
My love is gossip. Okay, Okay, I knew that.
I just wasn't confident. The old woman. There's one old woman who works at the who works Maybe it's the mom but she's so they did you watch the end credit scenes. Yeah, she's the old woman in it. Who's the one who's singing opera. Yes, yes, she's the oldest woman. But they're talking about like gossip and whatever, and she's like, I love gossip. It's so funny. Yeah. And then uh, final badge for just I love Anna. This movie is it's it's two thousand and two. But she just like
she just is cool. She's a cool girl. And badge for there's just certain commentary that I really appreciate and enjoyed. And yes, and they're sweet things that are just like like when her mom when she hurt her hand and she goes Sna, Sanna, Sanna, Sana. That's yeah, was the thing in my household growing up. Oh oh that's really cute. Yeah.
I love hearing that. That's always so interesting to hear from people who it's like, oh, yeah, I did see my experience reflected in this.
Cool It's very cool. Trag is trag.
Trag is trage for the last day of school is way too late to be checking in about college applications to be done a year ago.
The college thing. I don't think that people who write movies know anything about college, which is crazy because I know that, especially these days, most of them know it. But like it's like once they're sitting down to do it, they forget everything. Yeah, it's like, I don't know, you apply at some point. But you know, in their defense, if I were trying to remember everything I did right now, I don't know. I don't know when I took the essay ts, I don't know.
Yeah, I wonder why I take such umbrage with getting the details of the college application piece.
That's frustrating.
I think it's irresponsible.
It is irresponsible. It feels like a Hollywood throwaway sort of thing. Also true when I'm like, are you kidding me?
I also don't like I just I never like the idea of like, yep, I spent two minutes on the application and I got into the only place I applied to. It's like, no, you spent eighteen years like becoming a person, right right, right, and then had a breakdown every Monday working on your application essays.
Oh not everybody did that, Okay. In movies, they're almost always going to an elite school, and I guess, yeah, two girls who.
I want to be I need to be an elitist about it, I think, is what's happening. I'm like, not everybody gets into these as somebody whose dad and brother went and that's why I got to Ye, but I.
Did not have any fun in high school. But yeah, can I tell you something. But it was because I was doing work and not because I was working at the dress factory.
I was I was working doing very privileged extracurriculars. I was doing incredibly expensive extracurriculars. That's what I was doing exactly.
Uh, trage for trage for the title and the toxicity even, Yeah, the ways that it's fighting against toxicity that I mean, it's like any period piece where it's like it's fighting against something toxic in a way that with the itself time. Yeah, the tools of itself also have some toxicity within them, so all of the fat phobia stuff. Also, she's like a teenage girl, so some of it she's like insecure and like asking this boy to make her feel better and like, yeah, I mean, which is like what it's
teenagers are like. But yeah, anyway, Yeah, there's definitely you can feel the two thousand and two I would say, yeah, trage about this and the title itself, I think is very antiquated, because that's not really yes, talk about.
It, but I don't. Also, the concept of real women is so tied in with transphobia now that it's like, well, let's maybe avoid that phrase entirely. Yeah, very related. I have a trage for you're not fat, You're beautiful.
Crazy crazy.
That felt crazy to hear.
I think what I appreciated about this movie was it feels truly very nuanced in terms of the Mexican American Yeah, aspects except for George Lopez. Okay, but like that's a part where I think it wasn't you know, versus for example, flame and hot being like family is everything, the perfect family, you know. Yeah, And on top of that, it just
like was a more it was just her experience. Like it wasn't beyond just showing that this family can be toxic blah blah blah, not just that, but just like it was just an honest representation of her experience, but versus trying to like prove something to audiences. But one place that I think it continues to be a bit toxic. Hm, all the boys are good and all the bad characters are girls. Oh my god, that is like exactly what
machismo is is. It's like or exactly this, Like, oh, but the boys are so sweet and they're doing their work and they don't think very hard, but at the end of the day they're there for you. And girls are temptresses and they can be really mean. Holy shit, you're so right. The whole movie. I was like, you're joking, Like the one who helps her is her male teacher, the one, and it's very sweet, and it's like it's sweet.
It's like the grandpa effect of being like that's so nice, so cute that he's for me, and like it means so much that, like this man who could be so stoic and could not pay attention to me at all, he's being so sweet. And then like whoa, it's all the girls who she works with who are like mean and they're tearing each other down. And yeah, anyway, I think it's both a commentary on that and also I was like it runs deep. Mm hmm, it runs deep. So that was a big trage for me.
Wo, man, that's such a great that's such a great point a trage for Yeah, I find stories about someone whose whole family hates them really really tiring. Oh my god, it'd be nice if people, if people liked each other a little bit.
Yeah.
That there wasn't even like fun banter. There wasn't like sibling banter at all. It was just like I hate you and you're a burden.
Yeah.
Oh.
My next trage is for her mom hates her. She hates tragic. She really is so tragic. She really it feels like she's bringing all of her anger towards herself and stuff just at this daughter.
Yeah, a trage for Okay, I'm sorry, but was the actor playing Estella so bad?
I didn't really think about that, but yeah, probably.
I found her unbearable to watch. She really was saying lines out loud very much, and really related to that. My last trage is a trage for all of the exposition in the film is communicated via dialogue.
I love when the guy when the her crush or when they're hanging out and he goes, oh god, it sucks that I'm going next in two weeks to teach your school. Ohe in two weeks. That sucks. Oh my god.
When Stella is like, now, remember we have to get these one hundred and eighty five dresses done in time, otherwise they won't pay us, and then we can't pay for the bills.
And I was like, wait no, And my final trage is wait, does Anna never wear the dress that Estella makes for her? Oh my god, she doesn't. Oh my god, Wait my god, what a waste. Literally this is so two thousand and two that they go the very end of the movie, she goes, I made you this dress.
Anna goes, that dress won't fit me, and Estella goes, she unveils the concept that they didn't have in two thousand and two, which is that they can have dresses of different sizes for different body ties, and she says, I've made it for your exact proportions, and honest, like what, that's not possible. There's no such thing as that. She goes,
I did, and then she never wears it. We never get to see her in the pretty dress moment, which she talked about, Like, because she talked about wanting to have a pretty dress moment, did they cut.
That out to start? They needed to start in this movie in January of her senior year, because then there's at least a chance that it makes sense that she's applying for colleges. Wait then, she can go to prom and wear the gorgeous dress that her sister made for her, and then end.
Up in New York. I don't know why they did that.
They could have sex on prom night. That's what a lot of people do, like, there's so many different Oh my.
God, I don't know why they did that. I can't believe we didn't see her in the dress. That's a crazy anyway. God, Leanna on to our next segment, which is, of course, how to pretend you've seen this film? This is you are? You are on the bus in Los Angeles. Sorry, I'm sorry to hear that. And Jimmy comes up to you and he says, you're not fat. It's the bus. You say, what, what are you? You're not fat? Huh, We're on the bus. I'm sorry, I don't even understand. Oh God, I don't want to talk to you about
whatever it is that you want to talk about. He says, Oh, La, La, La, I love any movie that's a love letter about La. Yeah, to La. That's the whole reason I watched this movie. And there's a whole lot of stuff about girls, and I just think that chick is beautiful, not fat. You go, Oh God, no, no, no, no no, I can't do this. And uh, there's this movie called Real Women Have Curves.
You probably like it because it's about like women's rights and stuff, and like it seems like you might like that because you're a woman.
You go, oh, okay, And in order to stop the bus and boot Jimmy off of it, we're gonna give you a few sentences you can say to pretend you've seen the film Real Women have Curves. Yes, Jimmy, I've seen real women have curves.
You know what I wonder?
And I don't want you to answer this because I don't care about your opinion on it. Is if Greta Gerwig was very influenced by this movie when making both Ladybird and Little Women, because there are moments and real women have curves that are so later seen in Little Women and in Ladybird. In Little Women it's Sir Charon and speech about like women have thoughts and minds and souls, which America says. In this movie, Anna has like a
little monologue that's very similar. And then the other thing is a really tense mother daughter relationship in Ladybird, and then like her going off to college in New York at the end, and the way that the mother and the daughter say goodbye to each other is very, yes,
formative to their the rest of their relationship. For the film, Okay, two things on that, first of all, amazing observation, and two things on that my roommate while we were watching it said, this is like Ladybird, This is like Latina Ladybird.
Yeah, it's like, oh my god, you're right. And she would go on to be in a very famous Gretiger Wig movie Barbie Oh oh Ye, where she also gives a speech that will someday probably feel quaint. Yeah, that someday was two years ago when the movie came out. Yes, Jimmy,
I have seen the film. Real Woman Have Curves. A very sad piece of trivia for Leonna and I to chew on is the producers put out a cast and call for girls who were fat or overweight, and had thousands of girls show up who were clearly not fat or overweight, but all thought that they were. Ah, that is such a fraught thing to say. Oh, that is a very very fraught piece of trivia. That's fraught, guys.
Two thousand and two. Two thousand and two frought about that thank you God for letting me be a teenager. Not in two thousand and two.
Yes, Jimmy, I've seen real women have curves. Something you'd resonate with is the incredibly white statement that Jimmy in the film gives talking to America about her summer plans when he says Europe is so cool. That is something white people say, that kid was so white fun. That's something white teens who've been to Europe with their rich families say.
Yes, Jimmy, I have seen the film Real Women Have Curves. This movie got a bunch of awards in two thousand and two. Okay, so awesome. It got it one. I'm counting just on Wikipedia one, two, three, four, five, six seven it won seven, was nominated for three at least
on uh Wikipedia here. Real Women Have Curves has received or it was received with critical acclaim for its point in commentary on challenges face facing Latina women, especially at the time, and it made put America forr on the on the map for being an awesome lady who is often in movies about body image slang.
She rules, Yes, Jimmy, I've seen real women have curves. There's an interesting dichotomy in it of a like like its title, there's a moment of cognitive dissonance in the movie where somebody punches down again when Anna and Estella are arguing about when Anna calls what the women making the dresses in the factory do cheap labor and Stellas like, this is not cheap labor. We work hard here. You were out flipping burgers And I was like, okay, so
we're still we're still really hit hits people. Nobody can not catch astray.
Yeah. Yeah, in the world of this film, we're taking everyone down, taking them all down with me. M It just makes you grateful that at least this movie is trying to talk about things that should be better. Yeah, unlike the many, many movies from the same time that everyone catches astray and it's just making jokes and stuff.
Hmm, true, very true.
Yes, Jimmy, I have seen the film. Real Women Have Curves. This was America Ferrera's debut bless Up, and was the was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, who deemed it culturally, historically, and esthetically significant in twenty nineteen, which is awesome.
Yes, well, Leanna, oh my gosh, let's move on. We must move on to our next segment, should you watch this or in which we tell you if we think you should watch this movie or if you should do something else with your summer wetty body. Oh yeah, summer Seanna, What would you say?
I like this movie. I think it's worth watching if you want to, if you're looking for like critically acclaimed whatnot. It is a period piece, but I personally am a fan. A lot of it though for me is I enjoy movies about Mexican American culture. Some of it is just what was in my household, and it's interesting seeing what I can see in my family and he and also I like seeing La from different perspectives that aren't just like Quentin Tarantino.
Oh yes, god, that's so true.
So I think this movie is a good one to watch at least once. If you don't want to watch that right now, you could watch America Fara in Barbie, you could watch her in Superstore. You could watch a Shrill which is a show that I love oh so much. That's sort of a more modern take on body image culture. Yeah.
Yeah, like being a fat person in America in close to modern day it's.
Much different than how it's regarded in this one. Yeah, but I do personally enjoy it, but you you should go in understanding to take it with a two thousand and two grain of salt for sure, and then it can be kind of seen as what it is. Leanna, what about yourself? And it's okay if the white hook, thank you.
I did feel I was maybe on the white hook for this one.
I think.
I really appreciate what this movie did. At the time that it came out, I didn't love it, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend watching it because it's still got a lot of harmful messaging in it that's not like helpful today.
I think, if.
Now here's what I wish I had, I wish I had a recommendation for something that still speaks to like the Latina experience specifically in America. Instead, what I have are two podcasts that are both by fat comedians who at various points during the podcast talk about their experience like having the body that they have in America. But it's also not all about that.
It's like.
It just comes up every now and again. One of them is Nicole Bayer's podca why Won't you date me, Yes, Oh my god. And then the other one is Caleb Harn's podcast So true. I think again it's it's not the defining thing about their podcasts by any means. It's just it's something. It's a part of their identity that's informed their experience and their perspective on the world, which I think is always interesting to hear. See. I know, what would you rate the film Real Women Have Curves?
I would rate Real Real Women Have Curves. Oh, it's just such a it's very it's complex. Yeah, I will give it four Heinous Mothers out of five. I really enjoy what it makes me chew on. But I think it's easy for me to accept this movie and its fault. Even the title itself. I was thinking, I was like, it's not like, Okay, women who don't have curves aren't real and there are people who aren't real. It's like, we are all real women and before that reason, we
all have curves. Whatever that means to you. But yeah, it's really melancholy and there's definitely some really toxic stuff at it, and I understand the take of like it's kind of feels bad. It is kind of feels bad at the end, I was like, Oh, I forgot that nobody is nice in this movie anyway. Yeah, again, I give you. I give you the white right to rate this however you'd like.
I will rate the film Real Women Have Curves three sweaty Bras out of five. Really appreciate what it did at the time it came out during really genuinely appreciated the like the sex scene that she had with the boy she was seeing, and that it just all felt like super comfortable.
Man.
I just struggled with the dialogue in this movie. Oh it was painful, really really painful. I just don't think it was good. I said, what was happening? Yeah, they said what was to happen? I think that was my really big issue with it, and just the relationships didn't feel I couldn't get my bearings in a lot of the relationship dynamics. There just wasn't quite anything for me to connect to in a lot of the the ways that they were treating each other.
They were heinous. Yeah, there was some real heinosity going on.
Yeah, But I also really appreciated that America, for I was like, wow, like her character on is like I just happened to like myself, like it's just not that deep, Like body stuff doesn't have to be all consuming.
Yeah, yeah, it's.
Not all of who I am. She thought that was that was very very progressive for the time. Literally, she had no that's like so much closer to how we now are talking about bodies. She modern day.
It's true she had no reason to love herself based on how people talk to her. It was all and being like, yeah, screw this. Yeah, well, Leanna, thank you for watching this movie with me.
Oh my god, thank you.
We have now rot.
Gracias.
Thank you so cool. Your is so cool. Europe is so cool. We have watched the movie Real women have curves. Thank you everybody so much. We are at Toss Popcorn on Instagram and uh you can we just freshly they have recorded the monthly toss for this month. Maybe you'd like to follow us on patreon dot com slash toss Popcorn to hear about our tic on modern movies. Enjoined us next week when we will be watching the Prince of Egypt. Hello, thank you, we love you.
Bye.
You can find us on Instagram as at Sienna Jaco and at Leanna Holsten. Please check the description for the spelling of our dumb names. We put on episodes every Tuesday, so make sure to subscribe so that you don't miss an episode. See you next week on Tossed Popcorn. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, check the iHeartRadio app. I really think that this movie is very nuanced about it talk about like its cultural uh the It's just very honest and about the Okay, let me start this again.
I thought of too many things at once. Yes,