The Bechdel Cast - Barbie

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

It's the Barbie episode from our Barbie Tour! Thanks to everyone who came out to see us live! Special shout out to STAB! Comedy Theater, SF Sketchfest, Stomping Ground Comedy Theater, and Austin Film Society! And grab tickets to the Bechdel Cast *Shrektanic Tour* this May at linktr.ee/bechdelcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that?

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller

from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality,

cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. Just jumping in with a quick announcement, a very exciting one. In addition to the shows that you'll hear Jamie and I plug on this episode for our upcoming Shrek-tanic tour. We just added a show in Dublin on May 29th. We will be at the Irish Film Institute and we are covering Titanic. So come to that show that we were finally able to confirm in Dublin. We're so excited for it. And then speaking of Dublin, come to my birthday show. I'm doing a stand-up comedy show with me and local comedians on my birthday on May 17th, also in Dublin. That show is at Hysteria Comedy Club. Tickets to both shows, as well as tickets for all of the other shows on this tour, can be found at linktree.com. Enjoy the episode.

On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Hi Barbie Caitlin. Hi Barbie Jamie. Hi, Barbie Caitlin. Hi, Barbie Jamie. And hi, Barbie listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in. This is the Bechdel cast.

My name is Barbie Jamie Loftus. And my name is Barbie Caitlin Durante. And this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point. And this is a special episode because we went on tour covering the Barbie movie. We went to a bunch of cities. Yeah. What you're about to hear shortly is the live show that we did. This is the audio from the Sacramento show we recorded. This tour was such a blast. In the past, I mean, let's get into it, folks. You know, you're our family.

You're our emergency contacts and vice versa. So, yeah, we were really excited to do the Barbie show live. This is sort of our first time doing it. We did a five-city tour, but we only covered two two movies and most of them were Barbie and uh yes it was a really cool experience because I feel like we got the opportunity to build out I mean I feel like a lot of the time with the live episodes we've built out an episode but this time we got to build out a show and like it was just such a blast. We went to San Francisco, Sacramento, Dallas, Austin, and San Diego. Four out of five of those cities were the first time that we were going and meeting

folks. And it was just truly the best. And I mean, it was just really cool to see, you know, like a real sense of camaraderie among Bechtelcast listeners. We had a lot of people dressing up like just we come out of live performance and most of the time are cooped up in our homes uh intensely discussing film and it's fun discourse and then it's just like really fun and freeing and nice to to do that with the people who listen to this show so if you attended

any of these shows thank you so much for coming barbies yes chances are that we talked to you personally because we are uh we enjoy doing that it's really fun and uh quite frankly i just like to see everyone's little outfits they're wearing to quote the Will Ferrell character I hate in this movie in the least creepy way possible um yes but this was a blast and so this is our one of our live shows if you enjoy the vibe you're picking up and you happen to live in the UK well guess what good news We're going on tour in the UK. We sure are. Yeah.

At the time of this recording, we have shows booked in late May in London, Oxford, Manchester, and Edinburgh. So if you live in or near any of those places, or also if you just kind of live like anywhere... Looking to do like a little trip with your friends yeah if you want to do a little trip we're taking a trip so you should too so come see us live in the uk tickets for those shows are at linktree slash bechtelcast

and we're so excited because we're covering titanic and shrek the shrek-tanic tour is going to go really hard so if you can be there highly recommended that you be there yeah and yeah again thanks to everyone who came out to the barbie tour and you know thank you to all of the venues that hosted us we're posting the episode from Stab Comedy Theater in Sacramento, but there were so many wonderful places that hosted us along the way. And yeah. So without further ado, we present to you the Barbie movie episode. The Bechdel cast. Oh my goodness. Hi, Barbie. Hi, Barbie. How are you?

Hi, Barbie. Hi, Barbies. Hi Barbie! Hi Barbie! How are you? Hi Barbie! I like how quickly the Barbie shows get corny. Like they just have to be. You're like, we're just pushing through it. We gotta do it. How is everybody? Thanks for coming.

Thank you for coming. Hell yeah. We're really pumped to be here. Because we're doing two shows back to back. So we're doing, I guess it's like the margot robbie wearing pink yes we just took our quaaludes with the 90 the 90 minute release and so by the time that show starts we're gonna be so fucked up yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna pass out in the middle of the show we're gonna be crawling around anyways we're here to talk about barbie yeah yeah um so uh okay we'll do the free applause thing first give it up if you've ever listened to our show

okay give it up if you have not and you're being dragged here against your will okay we have some people that's okay it's a safe space usually we are not able to make eye contact with all the people so like if we do it's not personal it's just kind of like there's nowhere to look um who has seen the barbie movie round of applause did anyone not see it whoa wow we had some people in San Francisco last night who didn't know who we were, hadn't seen Barbie, but still wandered in

and could not account for why. And they still loved the show. I mean, did they? I don't know. Hard to say, but whoever that man was, I'm rooting for him. I would never root for a man. Real allyship.

True allyship. Okay. So we'll kind of get right into it. So, Caitlin. Yeah. I know you've seen the Barbie movie. It's true. Oh, one of my favorite parts of the

movie is when isa ray says the godfather and he's like oh yeah the godfather right oh is this the godfather it's like one of my favorite line reads ever yeah but okay so i know you've seen the movie what is is your history with Barbies in general? I did play with them. Brave. Brave of me to say. Yes. I had a handful as a kid.

I mostly made them have sex with each other. Yes. I had horny Barbies. I also probably played with them in other contexts, but I don't remember that. And then after a while I was like sort of outgrowing or I felt like I was outgrowing Barbies and uh but I had a sister I have a she's still alive I have a sister she's three years younger than me and so she was still in her Barbie playing phase and like I don't know just kind of like out of obligation I would still play with her

but I was like I'm too old for this I'm too old for this. I'm too cool for this. So I turned so many of my Barbies into weird Barbies. I would chop off all their hair. I would paint them with nail polish. I would pop off their heads, their limbs. Like I was just destroying the hell out of them and having a blast. That's real older sibling behavior. It's just menacing.

What about you? What's your Barbie history and experience um i've been preparing for this episode my whole life hi i i liked barbies when i was a kid i like had a million cousins so most of my barbies were hand-me-downs from them and then my mom did that thing where she like we didn't have any money and yet she went into credit card debt, getting Barbies I couldn't touch. And then she'd be like, this is going to pay for your college. And you're like, they shockingly are still at her house. They have accomplished nothing.

But, yeah, my mom was a doll collector. And I really liked dolls, but I couldn't, like, I don't know. It was like the thing, especially when I hit middle school, I wouldn't let myself just like something. I had to turn it into like, I had to intellectualize it. Right. So I was, thank you. But like, I was like, oh, it's not that I like the movie Titanic

because it's a perfect movie. I actually am really into naval history. So it just kind of intersects with this interest i have and so i weirdly know a lot about naval history to cover up for the fact that i and it's similar with barbie's i didn't want to just be like i like playing with dolls i was like it's actually an anthropological history of american play things and you're like what the fuck was she talking about you know how how did it feel when you released yourself from that need to and then you could just be like i like what i like i think you uh well no i i don't know sorry this just became a therapy section i think when

i let loose i let two loose and then people were coming over to the the apartment and they were like it's too many dolls you know they were like, it's too many dolls. You know, they were like, put some, we're being watched, you know? But I also went through the phase and, you know, I don't think I was wrong to do this, but I think that in middle school, I went through the phase where I wrote the Mattel Corporation a letter.

Oh? Yeah. I got onto Microsoft Word and I had a thing or two to say about the body standards that Barbie encouraged. Was Clippy like, are you writing a letter? Clippy was like, hey, Jamie, I support you. Fight the power. Wow. Feminist icon and ally, Clippy. Let's hope so.

But yeah, non-binary icon clippy oh it's true but yeah i like wrote a strongly worded letter and then returned to my barbies to play so you know children are full of shit but yeah i loved barbies i have a couple of slides to this effect i also saw did anyone watch the barbie animated movies yeah one person yeah you were either like my I didn't because they were like mostly there's me and my dolls I'm actually this is me on lewds so nice kind of intersects with the second but yeah this is me on lewds with all my hand-me-down dolls um and then I want to share some of my favorite haunted Barbies that I've learned about

in preparing for this episode. If we could go to the next slide. This is Chuck E. Cheese Barbie. We have two of them. Oh my God. I know. Isn't she great? She's wearing a Canadian tux

to go to Chuck E. Cheese alone. I can get behind that. Next slide is Rosie. Rosie O'Donnell Barbie. You have to love it. You have to support it. I have her at home. So that's my history with Barbie.

Great. Should we talk about the movie, I guess? Yeah, we should. It's Caitlin's famous recap for crying out loud. Here we go. Let's do it. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017

was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption

that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project.

All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not.

What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people.

There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think

of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about

the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Santos Escobar. Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre

Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. Okay, the Barbie movie opens on a reference to 2001 A Space Odyssey, where narrator Helen Mirren explains that for a long time, dolls were always baby dolls, meaning that the little kids who played with them could only ever play at being like mother or parent until Barbie dolls came along and changed everything because barbie she's got money she's got a house she's got a car she's

got a career they they girl boss her right away i love how it's like it starts with this really funny parody and then it immediately goes to a commercial you're just like all right this is what the movie is i think it's so funny when i've seen so many uh i don't know like kind of twitter pilled criticisms they're like this movie's so corporate it's a commercial i'm like yeah it's a barbie movie yeah what are you talking about and then they're like i'm gonna go watch fast and furious which is definitely not a commercial. All right. Yes.

Okay. So Barbie, she's got it all. She can be anything, which means that women can be anything. And all the problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved. Or at least that's what the Barbies in Barbie land think. And so we cut to Barbie land. We meet Margot Robbie as stereotypical Barbie. She's perfect. She lives in her dream house.

She has so many Barbie friends. Some of them are played by Issa Rae, Alexander Shipp, Emma Mackey, to name a few. That's what I wrote down in my notes. Brave. Brave.

Brave. Thank you. And we already, we get the foot shot right away. And immediately we're just like, Quentin Tarantino down in my notes. Brave. Brave. Brave. Thank you. And we already, we get the foot shot right away and immediately we're just like, Quentin Tarantino dead in a ditch. I was like, wow, a foot shot that is also moving the plot forward. Yeah. Wasn't that hard.

Wouldn't be. Because when Quentin Tarantino, what did I say? Tarantino. It's the say Tino it's the loots when Quentin Tarantino showed this very actor's foot in a different movie aka Once Upon a Time in Hollywood it was for no reason

it was for no reason anyways I was like wow the wiki feet community really won with that one. We checked Margot Robbie's WikiFeet on stage last night because I just like to keep up with the community. And she has the first perfect score I've ever seen. Wow. You don't have to pretend to care. I thought it was interesting.

That's fine. We can move on. Okay. All right. So We can move on. Okay. All right. So Barbie gets ready for her day. She heads to beach because that's where the, that's where the Ken's hang out because Ken's job is beach. The job is beach.

And we meet Ryan Gosling Ken, who is stereotypical Barbie's boyfriend. We meet some other Kens, as well as Alan, played by Michael Cera. Shout out, Alan. He's an ally. He's an Alan, and he's an ally. It's a perfect Barbie archival. They're like, remember this guy?

He just wore Ken's clothes for a couple of years i didn't know about alan until the movie had you heard of alan heard of him yeah but now i can never forget he stands at the edge of my bed i have sleep paralysis okay so uh ryan gosling ken is very insecure and all of his worth is entirely attached to how much Barbie likes him and how much attention she pays to him. Then she invites him to her party that night where all the Barbies and all the Kens are dancing. And it's a great time until Barbie says, do you guys ever think about dying? And everyone's like what but but they do know what dying is who told them who told them they also know what genitals are and that they don't have them and that makes you think how how they know about that yeah i don't know i would

let yeah they they're they're aware of a lot of complexity, but they're willfully ignorant of it. Sure. So it is like not too different from our world in that way. Yeah. Okay. So this is the start of some weird things

happening for Barbie. Like she steps out of her high heels and her feet go flat instead of staying in like tiptoe shape. So Barbie goes to Weird Barbie, played by Kate McKinnon, to see what's going on. And Weird Barbie tells her that there's a rift between Barbie Land and the real world. And whoever is playing with her in the real world must be sad and is projecting that sadness onto Barbie. So Barbie has to go into the real world to fix it.

So she leaves Barbie land via various modes of transportation in a very fun montage. But she realizes that Ken has stowed away with her and wants to come and she reluctantly lets him tag along. Then they arrive in Los Angeles. Ever heard of it? have we they they have you know that's why and they notice that things seem to be reversed where it's men who have all the power and privilege and opportunity in this world and women have very little of those things barbie sets out to find the

girl who's playing with her and she sees visions of a girl playing with barbie's then the girl becomes a teen and she has a difficult relationship with her mom meanwhile ken is walking around century city and he discovers patriarchy and horses i really the the images to represent patriarchy are really it's like you know patriarchy three sylvester stallone's bill clinton ronald reagan mini fridge yep yep horse telling a woman to go away and you're like all right it's a i really love that um you know it's feminism 101 but you know it resonates i mean it works this also begins a split in the movie that continues throughout which is that ken is doing something fun and funny and barbie is elsewhere crying this yes this becomes a big theme through the movie and sometimes i'm like we gotta

we gotta like cut this lady a break oh my god she's weeping seriously and she's not i'm not judging her for that bad things keep happening to her it's too close to home i have mixed feelings because it's like yes i also cry under the patriarchy all the time. But I also have fun. I also horse. It's like major horse girl erasure when you think about it. Yeah. Why doesn't Barbie love horse?

Barbie famously loves horse. Hello. She's like, Barbie loves horse. And then that american girl doll loves horrors wait which one felicity someone else said it three people okay we have some i was a kirsten wow did anyone have a kirst Yeah. She had the loopy braids. Remember? Okay. No one cares.

Well, Kirsten was kind of a mid one. I was a Kit Kittredge girl, Little Miss Reporter during the Great Depression. And then when I got really depressed during lockdown I bought another one um Melody she's a Motown singer from the 60s whoa these ones didn't exist when I was they no they they exist for like children now I shouldn't have it okay but I love her she's one of the many watching eyes eyes in my home all right so ken discovers patriarchy and he freaking loves it then we cut to mattel headquarters where the ceo of mattel played by will ferrell learns that a barbie and a ken have escaped into the real world this is overheard by Will Ferrell's executive assistant, Gloria, played by America Ferreira, who is like doodling and designing new Barbies, such as irrepressible thoughts of death Barbie

and full body cellulite Barbie. And we're like, hmm, is there a connection here? Then we cut back to Barbie and Ken at a school where barbie approaches the girl from her vision her name is sasha played by ariana greenblatt but rather than the warm welcome that barbie was expecting sasha is like hey barbie you've been making girls feel terrible about themselves for decades she was like dear Mattel, I have some strong feelings about Barbara Millicent Roberts. She's not

wrong. And then Clippy was like, are you writing a letter? And so she's like, yeah, you make girls feel horrible about themselves and you're a fascist. And then once again we have Ryan Gosling looking at horses barbie crying crying yes yes so then ken heads back to barbie land to teach the other kens what

he learned about patriarchy meanwhile with barbie so some guys show up who work at mattel to take her back to mattel headquarters but bar Barbie is uneasy about the whole thing. She doesn't trust Will Ferrell. So she runs away as she's escaping. She stumbles upon a woman named Ruth played by Rhea Perlman. They have a quick conversation and then Barbie escapes from the Mattel building. Yeah.

And this is when it kind of, it's kind of established that in this world, Rhea Perlman is God. And that really works for me like makes sense there's like that moment where they're doing the sistine chapel thing where she like passes her the tea cup and you're like whoa this is getting and then i went and and there's all these book of genesis references it's a you know the discourse around this movie is a fucking disaster but you can find the clickbait about like is Barbie the book of Genesis

and then I read it and I was kind of swayed I get it Barbie land the garden of Eden you know you can get that I don't want to talk about it but you can seek that out on your own if you want

okay so Barbie escapes the Mattel building and she's picked up by gloria and sasha because gloria is sasha's mother and barbie realizes that it wasn't sasha's memories she was seeing it was gloria's i love this scene because it's a lot of like characters connecting an exposition intercut with car commercial it's really fun it's really like i people are like dunking on this scene and you're just like fuck you i don't know i think it's funny and greta gerwig didn't even direct the car shots she was like someone else can take care of that that's not my problem she's like who directed fast and the furious can we get him for a day all right so they figure out this connection between them

they dodge the mattel executives and they need a place to hide so the three of them go to barbie land when they arrive though barbie land is different it's not a place full of women's leadership and empowerment it is now now a Ken-driven society. They start with, like, the scene from Top Gun. They're doing Top Gun volleyball. Yeah, all the Barbies are now, like, subservient to the Ken's needs. Ken has just... Chris Evans' brother is running for president.

Yeah. Ken has basically just infected Barbie land with patriarchy and horses he's turned barbie's dream house into ken's mojo dojo casa house he's brainwashed all the barbies all of that so barbie is horrified and devastated and she's crying again she is crying again and she's and and this time there's no coming back yeah no so eventually she and gloria and sasha pay a visit to weird barbie to figure out what to do i feel like weird barbie is kind of like a friendly grinch figure where she lives on the outskirts of town at the top of a mountain it's like if you went to the grinch's house and he was like hey I know you hate me but that's all good Weird

Barbie's also like Morpheus from the Matrix like here's your two choices red pill or blue pill and then I just feel like I don't know there's a version of this movie to me where like Weird Barbie gets like a laser gun and tries to like exact revenge on the Barbies that have been talking shit about her I kind of want that for her. She's really taking it lying down. Yeah, justice for weird Barbie. I know. At the end, she's like,

can I be the queen of garbage? And he's like, yeah, sure, you can be the queen of garbage. Oh, no, I want so much more for her. Okay, so they all figure out a plan to unbrainwash the barbies and regain control of barbie land via a series of feminist monologues from gloria and it works and now the barbies have to get the kens to turn each other, which they do by making them jealous of each other via them playing guitar at the Barbies,

doing Matchbox 20 covers. It's too easy, but I laugh every time. It's so funny. This is also where we get Ryan Gosling singing, I'm just Ken. Then the Kens go to war with each other other during the battle like while they're distracted the barbies go to the white house or the pink house i guess and they're like okay let's vote to regain constitutional control but good this time um so they regain control of barbie land and then barbie and ken have a conversation where

for some reason she apologizes to him and he says thanks for saying that i was like you motherfucker literally i that is like a point in this movie that i am so baffled by i want i have to like i have to blame it on studio notes in my mind because it doesn't make sense to me that like in the previous scene we have like this brief like sort of quiet scene with america ferreira and margot robbie and america ferreira is like he is trying to take over the government he stole your house he brainwashed your friends and margot robgot Robbie Barbie's like, yeah, that's right.

I don't have to feel bad for him. And then in the next scene, she's like, I'm so sorry for the perceived slight. And then he's like, well, you shouldn't have done that. Why I stole your house.

Like, yeah. And then on top of that, she goes on to do a lot of emotional labor to be like, Ken, it's time for you to discover who you are outside of your relationship to me and he's like okay and then again no apology not even a thank you no he just he pays it forward to the other kens yes uh and she's also i mean she's doing emotional

labor for him the whole time like from the first frame he's in where he's like am i cool she's like yes okay so then some changes are made to barbie land such as weird barbie is allowed to integrate into barbie society yeah some of the kens are also given a tiny bit of political power and then will ferrell and the other mattel executives have arrived in barbie land to close the portal between the two worlds i don't even know why they're there but get them out out of barbie land and then sasha is like well what about barbie like what's her ending and barbie doesn't really know what she wants but the woman from earlier ruth appears again she turns out to be ruth handler inventor of the barbie doll wow and then she and barbie have another conversation

that helps barbie realize that maybe she's not barbie anymore and maybe she wants to be where the people are. She wants to see, wants to see them dancing. Okay, and then... No, no, no, whole song, please. Okay, yeah. What do you call them? Feet. And then we see the Quentin Tarantino shot again. It's perfect.

It's perfect. And then she becomes human, and the movie ends in Los Angeles with Gloria and Sasha dropping Barbie off at a gynecologist appointment. Not how I would have ended the movie. A little bit of gender essentialism there, but that's the movie.

That's the movie. Wow. Thanks, Caitlin. Yeah. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, The situation is desperate. and she paid the ultimate price.

Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do.

One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that?

You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance.

It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring.

This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of my Cultura podcast network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. So before we get started, because there is some reference to Barbie history here, I'm putting my weird hobby to use. And I'm going to share a little bit of Barbie history with you. So if we could get up the Ruth Handler. Okay, so that's the real Ruth Handler. She is a co-founder of Mattel and the creator of Barbie. She was one of the few women working in toys in

the 1940s, as well as one of the only Jewish women working in toys in the 1940s. And she co-founded Mattel with two other men, her husband Elliot and a guy named Matthew. And they made the name of the company

a combination of Matt and Elliot. No Ruth to be seen. They will pay because they died. So did she. In any case, I'm a Ruth fan. They originally make a bunch of other toy products and she keeps pitching this idea of a adult fashion doll with boobs. And male executives are like, boobs on a doll, you're a pervert. And

so she's not allowed to make it for years and years because boobs on a doll, you're a pervert. Eventually, she sees this German doll called build lily that has boobs and then the men are like all right well if one man thought it was a good idea i guess we could do it so they make barbie uh they name it after her daughter barbara who's in the next slide here i believe yes there's barbara there's barbie she originally fucking hated barbie's as is her right she's like mother how could you um but yeah there's like a few biographical details uh given about ruth in the movie that are all true including uh they i think she says i'm a tiny woman with a double mastectomy and tax evasion issues. All of these are true. She was technically sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Jordan Belfort vibes. I know. And like Jordan Belfort, she was a wealthy white person and did not actually serve. Yeah. I think anytime in prison, she got community service, which is horseshit.

And also she defrauded rich people. So you're like, well, yeah. And in any case,uded rich people. So you're like, well, yeah. And in any case, she didn't go to jail, but she was forced to resign from Mattel. And what she pivoted to then is she had had a double mastectomy. She was a two-time breast cancer survivor and had spoken publicly about having self-esteem issues after the loss of her breasts. And so she invented a second really successful product that was sort of a,

I don't know how to describe this product correctly, but it was basically like fake boobs that you could put on like a bra. If you'd had a mastectomy, you could get it in one, you could get both, whatever you needed. And that was really successful as well. And yeah, she was a, you know, scammer criminal who had two really successful inventions wow from

Barbie to Braby don't encourage that no it was good it was good and some people liked it because I stared at them I was like I think it's all because we can see them but yeah Barbie and Ken were named after her kids, Barbara and Kenneth.

They both hated the dolls. They got a good settlement when they died. Anyways, and then Ruth, Ruth's sort of, that her sort of end of life reflection was that her whole life had revolved around titties and that hadn't been intentional. Nice. So she's really cool. I'm glad that they included her in the movie and like referenced her.

Is it corporate propaganda? Absolutely it is. But she is a cool lady. I was hoping because one of the things that I understand was probably necessary for the movie to be made, but I find really annoying and poorly handled as the ceo character and the ceo narrative i wish that they had instead brought in other figures from barbie history because there's so many interesting people and i want to spotlight one right now this next slide is kitty black perkins she was the the lead designer of Barbie for 25 years from the 80s into the early 2000s.

She's really cool. I feel like she's really under-discussed. She designed the first black Barbie. She was also the first black Barbie designer at all and sort of was a huge advocate for getting more diversity within the Mattel company I wanted to I think I have a next slide of some of her most famous creations yes I definitely had that doll on the right she also did a really cool series that I was too young to have encountered but there it's called The Marvelous World of Shawnee. And it was the first Barbie collection that was entirely black women of different skin tones and hair textures. And it was really, really cool. And she had this

incredible impact on the company. And I just wish that instead of a room full of men, we had brought people like Kitty Black Perkins into the mix because she is a really important part of Barbie history, and we don't really see her or many prominent characters who are not white in this movie. And so that's Jamie's Barbie history section. Wow, thank you. Thank you.

Wow, a round of applause. You guys, it's giving hostage situation all right i think if you go to the next slide i think we're back in the dream house yeah here we are nice uh no but you um just touched on something that is a big part of the discussion around this movie so the movie came out people watched it and i don't know why i had to people watch explain that and then and then what happened but then and then and then people had some thoughts about it but did they write them down they did and then they also said them out loud oh thank you and a lot of the a lot of the criticism around this movie was it's feminism 101 it's's white feminism, the movie. We need a more nuanced and intersectional approach

to discussing feminism in media. And that is very, very true. I don't disagree with that at all. But I have mixed feelings about it because the world, most of the people in it, I think still need a lesson, like a feminist 101 lesson. So I don't know.

I was just like, like okay pretty cool that a enormous blockbuster movie with a huge budget huge studio backing about a very famous product tackled patriarchy and examined feminism the big problem with it yes is that it has like sort of the facade of inclusion because of some of the characters but those characters are very much on the periphery and it still centers the like epitome of like western beauty standard whiteness blonde hairness, like all that stuff. And it's pee-pee-poo-poo. That's what I'm getting at. Yeah, I think we feel pretty similarly about this. I feel like it's having to hold a bunch of truths at the same time,

which if you're having a discussion online is famously not possible. It's like all of a sudden someone's threatening to kill you. But no, no one threatened to kill me over the barbie movie because i kept my mouth shut wow i mind my own business um no i think that yeah i i agree that i think that a lot of the as i was like going back through my knowledge of barbie history I feel like a lot of the issues with the movie with inclusion are the same issues that Barbie has with inclusion, right? Where there has been progress, there have been attempts, there has been motion forward. And like the company has, to some extent, taken notes about, I think most recently there was a discussion around ableism with Barbies. And there has been discussions around race with Barbie.

There's been discussions around body types with Barbie and it's slowly changed over time, but it still always centers the thin blonde white woman. And I think that that's also what this movie is doing. And I'm thrilled that we have I think it's like I'm thrilled that we have so many amazing barbies and i'm also frustrated that we don't get more of them you know but in the same way i think you're totally right the way that people have talked about this movie feels disingenuous in the same way that like i was saying earlier that people were like this movie's a commercial i was like yeah not like Man, which is an indie sleeper hit. You know, like just it just feels really disingenuous the way people have approached the discussion where it's like, I need to find a righteous reason to hate this. Right.

It's like you just don't like it. And that's OK. Like, not everyone has. I also feel like the reverse argument and a lot of the like we're not going to get into the oscars discourse because this episode doesn't come out for a month and hopefully it will be very dated but like the way that you know like white feminists online will defend uh the most wealthy white woman in the world against her will you're just like what is this yeah what am i looking at um but in any case i i do i do feel like it's uh there are really valid

criticisms to be made of this movie and also when we're talking about this movie as like a blockbuster which it is the conversation is really pointedly different like no one's having conversations like this around any other blockbuster that i can remember which i think is cool it's different but so there's also a lot of bullshit to sift through this is the 14th highest grossing movie of all time if you look at the 13 above it and probably the 100 below it like none of those movies even acknowledge sexism or patriarchy or any of those things they probably all or most of them have a male protagonist like they're not most of them are directed and written by men as well they're not having the same conversation this movie is doing and as we

always say it's not any one movie's responsibility to like change the world or be the be all end all thing when it comes to discussing feminism but the movie it missed many opportunities to be more inclusive to have more meaningful inclusion because again you know there's a barbie played by a trans actor harry neff there is a fat barbie played by sharon rooney there is a disabled barbie who uses a wheelchair she's played by Grace Harvey. But we don't get to know her at all. She has no lines. I think that we don't get to really know the Barbies.

We get to meet a lot of them, but outside of Margot Robbie Barbie and Weird Barbie, you don't really get a distinct personality for anybody, which is not true of the Kens. And that is my big issue with this movie and i really really like this movie like if we're just going like romp can i watch it yes yes a

million times 10 out of 10 on caitlin's romp-o-meter right it's the best uh but yeah when it comes to like well who has most of the funny moments and who, and which group has the more distinctive personalities and things to do. It's the Ken's by a mile. Like I'm never not going to be frustrated that the Barbies don't get their own song. Like the Ken's get this. And like, I'm just Ken in my opinion,

fucking rips. It's so good. It does. It was on my Spotify wrapped and that's so embarrassing and what and was it number one i don't know yeah but like that was so cool and they got this big studio like old school ballet move they got it like all this stuff and meanwhile barbie is crying somewhere and you're just like this fucking sucks. I read somewhere that there was an original,

there was a Barbie, I don't know if it was a song because Marco Robbie, I don't think sings. But there was originally, I only saw it written as like, there was originally a fart opera. What?

What words did you say? I don't know if it was shot, but i was reading a lot of i i listened to the director's commentary for this movie brag and thank you yeah i did i i didn't learn very much the two things it was mostly greta gerwig being like yeah so then this happens i'm like i could just watch the movie uh but uh no Greta Gerwig said there was originally a fart opera that she was planning for the Barbies because they were like discovering, I don't know if it was in the real world or Barbie world,

but they figure out what farts are. And then there's a Barbie fart opera. Okay. And then I guess that she was like, and no one thought that was funny. So it didn't end up in the movie. I'm like, I don't know how I feel about that. I guess, I would have, you know, either way,

the Barbies don't get a big number, and the Kins do. Sorry, I was going to say, Fart Opera, what is this, a Shrek movie? Okay. The other thing I learned from the Greta Gerwig commentary that I really loved

was that, you know, like there's a moment where usually it's Dua Lipa mermaid, but then suddenly it's John Cena mermaid. I don't think Greta Gerwig knows who John Cena is. Because he comes on screen and she goes, oh, John Cena. And she said, John Cena came in for the day

and that was so lovely. I had such a great time directing John Cena. And I was like, wow. It has not reached her. But I'm just like, yeah, I guess, like, in the Gerwig-Bombach household, has anyone ever been like, let's turn on WWE? I don't know. It missed her.

I really, oh, John Cena. No one ever tell her. John Cena, well. They haven't watched Fast and the Furious 8 and above. Which one did he appear in for the first time? 9? 9. Oh, wow.

Some people knew the answer. Thank you for everyone being ready. It's kind of, you know, never underestimate your audience. If it's not Hobbs and Shaw I don't care but yeah I think like one of my big criticisms of the movie is that the Barbies don't get to have as much fun as the Kens do yeah for sure and again like all of the emotional labor that Barbie is doing with Ken at the end and there is is a point where Barbie is just less active as a character in the back half of the movie.

But Gloria and Sasha sort of take over as the more active female characters at least. And weird Barbie. I feel like the three of them when... Which, yeah,

I didn't know how to feel about that. But I'm like, when I've been having a depressive episode and three friends are like, all right, we're going gonna make sure that they don't shut your power off

it is nice but yeah she's really really active for the front half of the movie but once she hits that wall not as much but she comes back at the end she rallies she does come back and at the end of the day it is a movie about like a woman having

a self discovery it's literally she's a woman on the verge of the day it is a movie about like a woman having a self-discovery it's literally it's a she's a woman on on the verge of a nervous breakdown yeah wow and i here's my other little thing okay i think we should talk about gloria and sasha because i think their dynamic is underexplored but also interesting sasha specifically i feel like it's very okay here's my stanley kubrick reference. I'll tell you. Okay. I have a master's degree in screenwriting. I would never bring it up, but try me.

Okay. Sasha's story can be boiled down to how I learned to stop worrying and love the Mattel Corporation. That is Stanley Kubrick. Okay. Yes. Because I think that it's a really interesting dynamic between the mother and daughter. It's frustratingly only like I think well done for about 10 minutes towards the end of the movie where when Barbie gets depressed, you know, Sasha and Gloria. I just want to keep saying America Ferrera.

Sasha defends her mother when Barbie is like you're useless or whatever the fuck she says and I liked that I don't really know what their conflict is I feel like it's just sort of pulling from like if you've been a teenage femme it's probably a dynamic you've had

with your mom and so you're just vaguely... Stop, mom! Stop it! I don't like the movie Titanic. I like naval history. Stop embarrassing me! I'm not horny.

Stop. That's kind of their vibe. Yeah, yeah. But I really like those moments between them where they're like learning to understand each other she has to admit that her mom is cool and then they go back but they do mostly exist in relation to barbie as like barbie's assistant and then america ferreera develops the weapon of mass destruction which is her speech and i don't even have the energy to really go into the speech and how it was like not very good but go back and listen to it it's like here's what i'll say about this i feel like the speech is i don't know i don't hate the speech i think it was well performed it was well performed the

words however i would have rewritten it there i didn't i didn't mind the speech. I think it was well performed. It was well performed. The words, however, I would have rewritten it. I didn't mind the words. I feel like there was a lot missing, which the big thing for this movie in general, I feel like it attempts to address patriarchy in certain ways, but patriarchy is just one element of the evils of the world. We see this movie attempt to address patriarchy while not addressing either white supremacy or capitalism,

which are the main things that intersect with it. So I feel like the moments in this movie that feel hollow is because those two other things are being very pointedly ignored. Because if you're addressing white supremacy, then you can't have mostly white leading characters and if you address capitalism you can't have the Barbie movie and so it feels

weirdly like I appreciate elements of the like attempt to boil patriarchy down to a simple and effective speech and it's like I don't know I could take or leave parts of it but I also I saw this movie in theaters a couple times and there was always someone bawling their eyes out and and so

it's like i'm not gonna take that from people like i you know the moms were really in in in their bag with that my mom my mom was sobbing my mom was sobbing during that and I was like okay that's enough and and then you're embarrassing me in the movie and then at the end I don't think I've told you this and then at the end there's another attempted profound move uh moment the speech worked on my mom the second profound moment she was mad it was at the end when Rhea perlman says we mothers stand still so our she we can stand back and see how my mom was like i would never stand still and i was like that's true i've certainly never seen you stand still even when i've specifically requested it and she's like i think that's so regressive.

You should say that on Bechdelcast. Which I agree with. I think that that line genuinely sucks. The speech was a hit or miss for me. I appreciate that it resonated for people. Did it need to be published in the newspaper? No, that's so goofy and embarrassing. And I don't know.

So many things that are embarrassing to me about this movie involve the reaction to it versus like what i'm actually watching i don't know yes i feel like okay this is super super picky but the america ferrera speech for some reason it feels like 15 it goes like 15 longer than you expect it to and i kind of want her to like i feel like there's a good sketch and like her pausing and then continuing and being like you can play one video game but you can't play two video games you can you can go to cvs but you don't have an extra care card like it's just like because it's a, you get like in that cadence, you can say fucking whatever and my mom would be weeping.

You can go to McDonald's, but you can't get a Happy Meal because you're a grown up. And no one respects you. Wow. It's so true. It's so true. No, it's not true.

You can get a Happy Meal. You can do it all the time do it all the time no well anyway okay so what else

are we doing to talk about oh hi hello someone's getting parasocial in the front you saw you saw an opportunity

and you seized it yes I did notice that You saw an opportunity and you ceased it. Yes, I did notice that. Because I think Gloria's name is only spoken once in the whole movie. And it's in passing. Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, what is her character's name?

Because I missed it every single time. All like four or five times I've watched this movie yeah it's right i mean i feel like that also speaks to like how even though gloria and sasha are prominent characters you don't actually know that much about them and a lot of what you know about them is just based on what you understand about parent-child dynamics like so much is not actually there it's just like relying on what you may have experienced to like sort of fill in the gaps of what might be there. I do love her Duolingo husband and that's America. Oh my God. And that's America Ferrer's real husband.

Real husband. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. His name is whatever. Who cares? I did write it down. But you would never support a man. i'm just dad exactly also when he says si se puede which has to be a reference to gotta kick it up yes absolutely

well well we're talking about our favorite jokes um when will ferrell ceo is like if humans went to barbie land or barbies came into the real world things would happen beyond what your wildest dreams could ever imagine and then jamie dimitri jamie dimitri best person alive i love him so much if he's listening marry me um stath let's flats is the best show ever. Anyone seen it? One person. The single whoop. Meanwhile, 40% of this audience has seen every Fast and the Furious. Just collecting data. Anyway, Jamie Dimitriot Hot. He replies to like, oh, what could we possibly imagine?

And he says, a podcast hosted by two wise trees. This podcast. That's this podcast. Now, what is the Becht Trees. This podcast. That's this podcast. Now, what is the Bechtel cast? This podcast. But a podcast hosted by Two Wise Trees. If you were a tree, Jamie,

what tree would you be? Oh, I don't know tree kinds. I'll tell you all of them. Okay. We got willows. We got oak. We got birch. Palm.

Palm. Oh, you're out oh no more trees maple elm whoa um apple tree don't help her anyway okay orange okay really quick while we're on the subject of the ceo because we referenced this earlier but i really think like and again i i fully understand that this movie was signed off by mattel so of course i'm sure they had a million notes i'd be really curious in the future i just would love to have more oral histories of studio notes in general because i think a lot of the time the writers and directors absorb a lot of criticism because it's their name there but there's a million shadowy figures that influence

what ends up there and i like when anytime i've written an episode of tv like there's been a whole scene that you're like weird what is that and yet my i wrote it you know it's, like there's been a whole scene that you're like, weird, what is that? And yet I wrote it, you know, it's just like there's so many people involved. So I would be curious how the CEO character evolved, because I think that casting Will Farrell feels really intentional there, right? Because if you're doing a CEO as a villain, you don't cast Will Farrell. If you cast Will Farrell, it's because you want him to seem kind of like oh well he's not doing the right thing but he's kind of hapless

and he's kind of like whatever like he'll figure it out. He's a goofball he's a goofball and I think that that is a really pernicious way to frame corporate America also didn't he play basically the same exact character in the Lego movie? Yes!

Yes! In the Greta Gerwig commentary, spoiler alert, she did say something helpful. Okay. When he first comes on screen, she says, the CEO character,

he's not evil. He's like a really enthusiastic golden retriever. He really believes that sparkles lead to female empowerment and he's just going to stick with that. And I hate that. I hate that so much i think that there is like attempted commentary within there and i'm i am like to give this movie as much credit like as as i can it it says more and jabs at more than you would expect it to

where it's like they do reference like we have not had many female executives really ever and there are like a number of jokes to that effect um but also it just sort of makes the capitalism element feel like goofy and harmless while we're attacking patriarchy and white supremacy we don't talk about and so it's just like oh i mean i know and and one movie cannot do everything but because this movie is so honed in on patriarchy, the way it treats other elements feels kind of dissonant and weird. But it's also like,

if it didn't treat it that way, would the movie exist? I don't know. Because something, something, I mean, that's the thing about presenting a anti-patriarchy argument in a movie packaged in this very like pink hyper feminine barbie package which a lot i mean it makes it does it make it very palatable and fun yes but again it it it just uh ends up ignoring a lot of things and creating cognitive dissonance but i do like how

hyper feminine like hyper feminine aesthetics are like inherent to this world and i i like i really do like that and i like i feel like the pictures you see of people who go to see the movie reflect that where it's like permission to be hyper feminine and that was like one of the elements of uh stereotypical barbie that i really liked where you're presented stereotypical Barbie along with all of your assumptions about her which is criticisms that have haunted Barbie some rightful some were projected over the course of over half a century where like she is brainless she's a bimbo she's not smart and like associating hyper femininity with not being smart. And it seems like stereotypical Barbie has like inferred this about herself because she's

always like, well, I'm not one of the job Barbies, so they should probably figure it out. But she is this hyper feminine Barbie. And then over time she figures out like, I am smart. I am capable of growth and i i really liked that is like having a hyper feminine character who is smart and not playing into the tropes that we're used to seeing because i feel like it truly is like there's a lot of times where you see a woman in pink and you're trained to think like bimbo not smart uh not going to contribute very much. And that's silly, even though pink's not really my color.

Wow. Could have fooled me. What? I feel like we had a very similar discussion on the Legally Blonde episode. Yeah, absolutely. I also had Elwood's Barbie. What? That's a thing too?

Is Barbie just like Lego where every property that exists is Lego and also everything in person is also Barbie Barbie I feel like does a weirder job of it where it's like things that you're like oh that's awesome and then you're like why Rosie O'Donnell like why Chuck E. Cheese I recently I think she'll be she'll be at my house when I return I recently got Ida B Wells Barbie like they make historical women Barbies too I have Sally Ride Barbie we're adding Ida to the mix you know running out of shelf space I just have too many I don't know whatever I've never heard of John Santa oh my gosh we've never what we have yet to talk about the DJ Khalin situation i don't know what to he's in the movie you guys what is he a ken no he's selling the kens oh my god oh you guys i almost backed off

because i was like wait it's dj collin another one the guy who's like these on! He's in the movie! The guy who's like, these Mojo Dojo castle houses are flying off the shelves. You guys, and also a celebrity who famously hates eating pussy. They're just like, this is a whole...

We could write a fucking dissertation on this. Oh my God. I'm like, I just had a surge of adrenaline. But I was like, I know had a surge of adrenaline. But I was like, I know who DJ Khaled is. Yeah, he had a cameo. And I also love that during that,

Greta Gerwig absolutely does not know who he is because she was silent through that whole scene and then started talking. A few other fun cameos though. Annie Momolo has a little cameo. We've got Emerald Fennell is Midge. I know. I started talking. A few other fun cameos, though. Annie Momolo has a little cameo. We've got Emerald Fennell is Midge. I know. Okay.

Where are our salt burn heads? The closest salt burn will come to the Oscars, unfortunately. Also, the woman at the bus stop is legendary costume designer Anne Roth. She did Midnight Cowboy. Yes, she did. Midnight Cowboy. Cold Mountain. Mamma Mia. And then won Oscars for English Patient and

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Bottom. Did you write bottom down twice? No, but I said the first bottom as though there was more to that title and there isn't. We're doing isn't you're doing we're doing great we're doing great it's the lewds i'm telling you

hi again barbies it's future barbie caitlin and future barbie jamie wow we're basically the astronaut barbies i know that astronauts don't time travel, but in my mind, they kind of basically do. Yeah. Have you ever seen Interstellar? No. I mean, it's kind of like that. Have I ever seen Interstellar? Have we ever covered it on the show?

No. So no, I haven't seen it. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Anyways, welcome to the future. Yeah. anyways welcome to the future yeah so this is the point in the show where i just want to share with you that we would do our fun like we did a live game where we had barbies from the barbie movie and we would do kind of just a series of um immaculately improvised scenarios oh such good improv we brought up some audience members to

do it with us and they were just as good at improv as we were and sometimes better because we're pretty mid at it uh wow can't believe you said that we were awesome we said it on stage but but it was a blast so but you know obviously that doesn't quite translate to audio. So in lieu of that, you, the listener listening for free will be deprived of fun and subjected to further discourse because, of course, in the live show, you know, time is limited. So we didn't get to quite everything that we wanted to. And that's why you should come to the live shows when we do have them because there are segments that we tend to cut out when we release the actual episode on our feed because either they just don't translate very well to the audio medium

or we just want to give our audience, our attendees to the live shows, a little special treat. So it's all the more reason to come to our live shows when you can the shows are fun yeah i just wanted to start by i know that we had a section in the live show where we talked about ruth handler and sort of the history of barbie as well as kitty black perkins i just wanted to add a few extra things that we didn't have time to talk about in the

show just because i thought it was interesting that also connects to the idea of mothers and motherhood within the context of this movie because i and i know that we're like not supposed to do this so please don't yell at me i bravely read a book oh jamie how could you I know but I really I mean I genuinely really am interested in doll history I really am and so I got this book from the library and if you are not a subscriber to not a subscriber to the library but like yeah how if you have a library card you're able to access free books and movies through your library card so I borrowed the book Barbie and Ruth the story of the world's most famous doll and the woman who created her by Robin Gerber just to sort of bolster my knowledge about

what the actual story of Barbie is because understandably in the movie and this isn't even a criticism like the movie is not about the history of barbie i think the fact that ruth handler is even included was more than i was expecting honestly true but i think that what we didn't get the chance to talk about in the live show was how she is presented as a god figure and also a maternal god figure yes because she is presented to us like and it's like not hidden at all that like she is basically the god to barbie's jesus sure and that as we'll talk about in a little bit like is explicitly stated by greta gerwig is like she and noah bombock knew that they were doing it i think that that's a really weird but like pretty interesting thing to include in

your barbie movie yeah but the real life ruth handler what i think i think it just sort of That's a really weird but pretty interesting thing to include in your Barbie movie. But the real life Ruth Handler, I think it just sort of speaks to how we project, not just, I mean, the real life Ruth Handler was a mother to Barbara, aka Barbie. But I think that, like we've talked about in a lot of movies, that it has to do with this sort of cis woman divine prophecy. Where not only will you be a mother, but you will be, mothers are inherently good. And mothers are inherently good at being mothers. When that is often not true and also a ridiculous expectation because it is not a divine prophecy. You're a person. And I think that that is very well demonstrated in real life, Ruth Handler's

life, who had consistently a very, very contentious relationship with specifically her daughter, but both of her children. And I think, you know, by many accounts, she was an incredible businesswoman. She had a lot of growth throughout her life, where she did not consider herself to be a feminist, and in fact, like avoided friendships with women for much of her life. And it wasn't until her later years when she was making prosthetic breasts for breast cancer survivors that she really felt connected to women and to just even the concept of feminism and, you know, had a period of her life where she was reflecting and like reading feminist theory and being like, wait, have men been awful to me most of my life and you know yes and to the point where something that really made me laugh was that this doesn't exist in the sort of more overarching histories but when she finally when she started her company that was just hers her husband wasn't you know involved in her company for the prosthetic breasts was called ruth 10 And so she finally got her name in the company,

my girl boss hero. But in any case, she had a very difficult relationship with her children and was not quote unquote, the natural mother that we see presented who is inherently, you know, like just knows exactly what to do. And I just thought that that was worth mentioning

even in the context because of how she's presented where and they are willing to you know sort of cop to maybe it's not the best phrasing but like cop to certain like flaws that were public such as being sentenced to a 45 year prison sentence uh, and having had a mastectomy, but still feel the need to be like, but at the end of the day, she's a mother. When in fact that was like a part of Ruth Handler's life that was very challenging.

Also, and we mentioned this in the live show too, but the line where the Ruth Handler character at the end of the movie says something like we mothers stand still so our daughters can see how far they've come or whatever the line is and how it just rubbed a lot of people the wrong way yeah I think like that again it just like applies this prescriptive role of like deference and yeah humbleness and and becoming a mother means that you surrender other parts of your life and stuff like that yeah the other thing that i found

interesting about ruth handler's like journey with feminism is that from my understanding she created barbie or she at least viewed barbie an alternative to baby dolls, something that was like aspirational, something that would help girls or whoever was playing with them. And that's a separate issue I have with this movie where it feels it's very much like, well, the only people who play with dolls are girls. But anyway, that's it. I'll get to that later. But anyway, she viewed Barbie dolls as an aspirational way to help girls envision their lives outside of being a mother, which of course, you know, that was the expectation that was foisted onto women at the time Barbie was created. And Barbie dolls were an opportunity to allow girls to see that they could grow up and have a career and they

didn't necessarily have to adhere to that kind of rigid societal expectation which was a pretty radical idea at that time right so i appreciate that about bar Barbie dolls and about like Ruth Handler's vision for them. I do too. And I feel like, you know, the way that I, even though like when I was a kid, I forget if I mentioned it in this, but yeah, that I had like a moment where, you know, I loved playing with Barbies and then felt self-conscious about enjoying it and then realize that it is in fact quite stressful to have an aspirational doll even though you are projecting your hopes and desires through them in a way that feels very fun and dynamic and cool in the way that just being a kid is the body stuff does get

to you over time and certainly i wrote a strongly worded letter to Mattel being like, listen up, boys. My boobs are not going to come in. I've recently realized and like, but just truly like the very, you know, entrenched white Western beauty standards that Barbie's been rightfully criticized over a period of years. We talked about this during the show, but that I didn't really understand. And I think that that is sort of a testament to the power of Barbie, too, that I didn't really know as a kid that dolls does the aspirational doll say about what i should be aspiring to but the fact that that didn't exist that problem didn't exist before because you were not supposed to aspire to anything and like wow um right i also just wanted to touch on really quick because it's ken history yes ruth handlers the handlers elliot and ruth had two children barbara and kenneth barbie and ken and ken i feel like he is

not i mean just as in the world of the barbie movie under discussed under examined uh in in real life as well ken handler seemed like a truly wonderful person who, so who eventually, unfortunately he passed away of AIDS fairly young. I think it was in his forties in the late eighties, early nineties. And so there is sort of this whole, I mean, both children, Barbara and Kenneth, different than the dolls, I think appreciated what their parents were trying to do, but resented how it sort of haunted them. Right. Where Ken was teased at school for being like, do you just have a lump, you know, goofy shit like that. But if you're a kid, that's humiliating and it feels horrible and Barbara interestingly her issue with her mom that she reflected on later was that she resented her mom for having a career because it meant like

quote-unquote her mom was different which of course is entrenched in privilege the reasons that that is but it was interesting just sort of reading how she reflected on that later on where she was like, I resented my mom because I didn't really understand how radical it was that she was working. Like I didn't see any moms that were working. And so I assumed she was the problem when that wasn't the case. Oh, she also said of her brother, Ken, and I think this was prior to his death so it was just like good-natured ripping but she said my brother is eccentric and he thinks my mother is god and i was like i want a son like that um but in any case i feel like you do have two cat sons like that i do they're both eccentric and they think I'm God and I'm not going to challenge that. No, of course not.

But yeah, Ken was, I mean, he was a young gay man in the 60s. And so it was not socially acceptable for him to be out. He was married to a woman for most of his life he had some uh show business aspirations that um so because uh he you know like the kids they all grew up in LA they're kind of like Hollywood babies and Ken went on to direct two movies one of which I've seen called Delivery Boys about okay and this is coming sounds like me and my hooters career it is a very like dancey somewhat homoerotic movie i quite enjoyed it the plot is all over the place like you're like i think they are just like dancing and delivering but um it's a 1984 film directed by ken handler about a multi-ethnic group of pizza delivery boys who start a break dancing team and having seen the movie i can tell you that's exactly what it's

about and nothing else uh but he he you know he is most famously known as the namesake of the but he also was a very creative person and had a lot of output of his own. So in any case, he did not come out to his family, I believe his mother, father and sister until he had already tested positive for HIV, to the extent that he and his wife was already aware at this point. And so Ken, and his his wife suzy and a doctor went to the the home to explain not only what his diagnosis was but what it was at all because of how naive and how i mean i think it really just speaks to how undereducated the general public was about issues surrounding HIV and AIDS. And so he passed away in 1994. He was only 50 years old.

And at the time, his parents announced that he had died of a brain tumor. And so, I mean, I cannot say with any level of certainty what the intention behind that was, whether it was a denial that they had a queer son or if they thought they were, you know, in this very antiquated way, thought they were acting in his best interest. I don't know. They didn't speak about it extensively. But I just feel like Ken had a really tragically short but really interesting life and within the queer community was really well loved and had a lot of friends and a lot of creative pursuits and

stuff like that and he didn't like Ken dolls and Barbie well she didn't like Barbie dolls and so I guess if you invent something don't name it after your kids they will hate you but that's the additional context I wanted to to share thank you for that and I guess the other things that I had about the movie that we didn't have time for in the live shows a lot of them were things that I found frustrating about the movie a few specific things are a pretty big component of Barbie's character in addition to the fact that she's crying for most of the second half of the movie, is that she has a strong fixation on her own appearance. And of course, Barbie is a product of her environment. So it makes sense that she's hyper focused on her image because so much of the Barbie brand and lore is about what she looks like, how she's designed,

that she's quote unquote perfect, all of that kind of stuff. But this manifests in the movie in a way that I feel like is not really thoughtfully commented on. There is that moment where Sasha's saying like like you made girls feel horrible about themselves and you're a fascist but but it's kind of like she's presented as ultimately being wrong because and I think it's also like I get it's it's tricky because I feel tempted to defend the movie where it's like well you know it's like part of it but like couching it in jokes sometimes is really tricky because it's like in one situation there something is if not a thousand percent true worth discussing and then the other thing that barbie is a fascist is objectively not true and so it's all sort of cast in the same sort of like well none of this is true and you're like

well let's get back to the body image thing because I think there is some truth to what Sasha's saying that a lot of the criticisms of Barbie that have come up over the years are sometimes coming from a place of just like how dare a woman exist and then there also is genuinely as we talked about in the live show a a history of because this is, quote unquote, the aspirational doll, you're being handed this white, thin, blonde, large breasted, anatomically impossible doll and told this is what you should be aspiring to. Right. So that's a far more complicated thing to deal with. And I mean, yeah. Right. And then again, the way this all plays out in the movie for Barbie's character is that like,

the thing that finally motivates Barbie to be willing to take this journey into the real world and fix this rift that's been created is weird Barbie saying like, if you don't do this, you're going to keep getting more cellulite and Barbie's like oh my god that's the worst imaginable thing I could never have that so that's what motivates her to go on the quest toward the end of the movie after you know Ken has taken over and ruined Barbie land yeah one of the big things that barbie is upset about is that she's not pretty anymore and that she's worried that ken doesn't like her anymore she also says things like i don't think i'm smart or interesting but because she's already been so focused on her appearance it feels like

that's kind of the bigger takeaway from that moment. And also the added in, like, Margot Robbie's the wrong person if you want to, like, blah, blah, blah, which is a very funny joke. But yeah, I think that, yeah, it's like something that, and I, like we were talking about, like, I think that this does, in a really kind of pernicious way, tie into this movie's fundamental inability to talk about capitalism in a meaningful way

because you can't talk too much about the body stuff without being overly critical of barbie who is bankrolling the movie right and i i felt frustrated by the cellulite joke again it just felt like kind of dated too because it's not like there are not you know we have a fat barbie we have at least some body diversity within the barbie it's not you know arguably not enough but there it does exist and i was like okay i guess if you're like 5d chessing it like no barbie has cellulite because they're all hard plastic but the you know the inherent message in there it still felt like yeah it was still pretty focused on looks. herself because when a certain trait is valued by society you tend to value that about yourself or you're conditioned to value that about yourself however i feel like there was a big opportunity

for barbie to learn that that's not a trait that she should place so much emphasis on or that she you know should be expected to be valued by others. Yeah, about herself based only on her appearance, and that she, you know, should discover other qualities about herself. But the movie doesn't fully get there. You know, there's a little bit at the end when she is talking to the Ruth Handler character about becoming human and wanting to be someone who makes and creates ideas and contributes to society. But that doesn't really feel super earned to me because everything we've learned about her thus far, a lot of what we learned about her thus far is like her placing so much emphasis

on her appearance and like being very fixated on that and I feel like if that arc had just been more like thoroughly explored I feel like I could have easily gotten there but I don't know it just it didn't quite work for me I agree but like to a slightly turned down extent I guess I think that the the body issue is unexplored in a way that I don't know. It was disappointing. And also because it is the Barbie movie, I was not surprised that those kind of flaws were present. Because I don't think that this movie is handled to truly meaningfully critique the product of Barbie. And because so much of the critique around Barbie

surrounds body issues, I wasn't surprised that this movie doesn't crack that wide open because it's not a movie by its very existence that would be able to. But I don't know. I mean, there's been so much talk about like, well, what if there's a Barbie 2? First of all, just let the movie be the movie. And also I think, I think that like, were there a Barbie too, I would hope that like,

if the focus on the first Barbie movie is on tackling the stereotypes associated with Barbie, then it's like, and let's move on and let's focus on the Barbies that like we were talking about during the live show are present, but not story present. then it's like, and let's move on and let's focus on the Barbies that like we were talking about during the live show are present, but not story present and deserve actual storylines. And, and so I guess that that is what my hope would be. I guess I wasn't super put off by it because I didn't really expect more from the Barbie movie in that regard. But I like I guess that transitions

a little bit into something that I was thinking. I mean, because I think that by the nature of our jobs, we I mean, I was even when I was seeing this movie for fun, I was thinking about it from a Bechdel cast lens, because what the movie is talking about makes it kind of hard to not, you know, put it on. some movies are so just like smooth brain that you're like I'm just having fun but like it it was hard to not immediately you know because the movie is trying to interrogate however overly essentialist as we're going to talk about and and mention in the live show but interrogate binary gender stereotypes as they pertain to Barbie. I think that I got so honed in on that, which is like not a fault on my part. I mean, the movie is asking you to do that,

but I wasn't thinking about alternate readings of the movie. And so I wanted to just mention two that did not occur to me, but I thought were interesting to read more about. One of them was the Ruth Handler is God, Barbie is Jesus, where Greta Gerwig has said at a number of points in the press tour for this movie, yeah, that she basically compares this to a reverse Adam and Eve situation. She says in a Vogue interview from last May, quote, Barbie was invented first. Ken was invented after Barbie to burnish Barbie's position in our eyes and in the world. That kind of creation myth is the opposite of the creation myth in Genesis. And so I feel like it kind of, with that weird kind of biblical lens, some of the creative choices make a little more sense to me but don't necessarily work like

I feel like it's if you're having to have these two things be true at the same time it's and be a corporate movie it's basically impossible but there were some choices that I didn't like from a gendered perspective like we talked about during this the episode the end scene with Barbie and Ken where she apologized apologizes to him. He doesn't apologize to her. I think that like once I read the biblical interpretation of it, that scene made more sense to me. But from the gendered place, which is how it's basically presented to us, it didn't work for me as much. But I did think it was interesting that that read is very valid and at least somewhat

intentional. Sure. Either way, I'm still going to be frustrated by all of that emotional labor that Barbie is doing, all of the apologizing that she's doing and receiving none in return. Yeah. All I was saying was that that read works for the biblical thing, but it's also like that's a biblical thing. Do I want to give that read deference? Not really. The other reading I wanted to reference because I saw it a couple of times. There's a number of pieces written about it, just about Barbie. And when I say Barbie, I mean Margot Robbie Barbie, as an asexual icon. Of course, she is not openly ace within the movie, but there have been a number of, I think, really well-written

and thought-out pieces that argue that she is ace-coded, including interviews that Margot Robbie has given. In that same Vogue press tour, Robbie was asked, she's my friend, Margot Robbie has given in that same Vogue press tour. Robbie was asked, she's my friend, Mago was asked if the character of Barbie had sexual desire. And Margot Robbie said, no, I don't think she could. She is sexualized, but I never thought she should be sexy. People project sex onto her. Yes, she could wear a short skirt but

because it's fun and pink not because she wanted you to see her butt so this is i'm pulling this argument from a salon piece by kelly pow that came out last summer aka the season of barbie think pieces um but but kelly pow essentially makes the argument that um while it is not a uh stated choice with the character that barbie's interests like she openly like has no desire for a relationship but basically what this piece is describing that i feel like is often lost in the discourse around ace characters and ace people, of which there are already so few in terms of characters, is that being asexual does not preclude you from rape culture. And that Barbie's character in this movie is an interesting example of that, that while she

does not desire a sexual relationship she is still constantly piled on by the rape culture that exists by how people perceive her so i thought that was another you know interesting of the because it just felt like i mean the discourse around this movie was just so much that it wasn't even as if these two reads were like not able to be found but there was just so much that i just wanted to say hey check this out uh i thought i thought it was interesting yeah i like that read and i appreciate about this movie that she doesn't end up with ken and that this romantic relationship isn't foisted on her when she clearly is not interested in it and after all that Ken had done to ruin Barbie land so um right I thought that

was a really interesting and brave choice yeah again just like something you never see in blockbusters is I think even in blockbusters if you have a lead character who's a woman or a femme that even if they are very self-motivated they're moving the plot along like it's they're a great character there still is generally like and here's their partner and and again obviously we've talked about it on the show a million times. Not that that is lessening desire, but it's just very rare to see a protagonist who it's just like, here's a hyper feminine protagonist and we're not going to force her to end up with someone. Like, I can't think of a popular example of that. That isn't a child like that isn't like a movie for children it's it's very rare and especially when the like the source material right is barbie plus ken like you would expect

that to be how the movie ends up but i'm really glad that that wasn't the case agree although there is something at the end that I did find very frustrating. We touched on this in the live show, but I think it deserves more attention, which is that when Barbie decides to return to the real world and become human, the first thing that we see her do is go to a gynecologist and it's implied that she has grown a vagina? The implications are quite scary. It's a very gender centralist thing to imply that because she apparently has a vagina now, that's how you a quote-unquote real woman i was talking about this bravely with my boyfriend not to but i i was talking about because that was something that from view one i've always felt yucky about and because and and i don't think it comes from a

hateful place i just think it comes from a thoughtless place and that I was like well what is because I like I've never not seen that because it is also kind of like a tongue-in-cheek kind of thing but I'm like there's other ways to make this joke without it having to be gender essentialist I was like can we have her go buy some mace like can we like there's a lot of different ways to be like i am joining the struggle of human women and femmes today and i am buying mace and a knife to attach to my keys or whatever it is without it becoming this creepy like you're saying like essentialist bio freaky like it's just a dark road to go down don't ever go down it there's ways to make the point i think that they're trying to make without doing that

my pitch was like why can't we just see her like enrolling in a class or something like i like that like at the end she's like excited to do something that people dread like that it's like no one's smiling to go see their gynecologist but like no one's smiling when they're doing millions of things associated with uh being a femme in the world you know right so greta gerwig i pulled a quote from her about this she says quote i knew i wanted to end on a mic drop kind of joke but i also find it very emotional when i was a teenage girl i remember growing up and being embarrassed about my body and just feeling ashamed in a way that i couldn't even describe i felt like everything had to be hidden. And then to see Margot as Barbie with this big old smile on her face saying what she says at the end

with such happiness and joy. I was like, if I can give girls that feeling of Barbie does it too, that's both funny and emotional, unquote. Which, fair, I get get especially because women and femmes are encouraged to feel ashamed about their body but it just feels like like you said it wasn't carefully thought out and the implications of a joke like that were kind of ignored and yeah stuff like that I agree yeah I think it's under the eye and I it's also interesting to hear her sort of internal logic it makes sense that it comes from a personal place but again I think that that's just that's almost like something that we rarely encounter in this exact context but like that feels like the auteur risk that like people in those positions just need to be really mindful about is that like if you're projecting your experience as the experience, you're going to come up against issues like this that are intentional or not exclusionary. And in this case, centering cis women.

And also I can acknowledge that cis women, I mean anyone could laugh at that joke and that a lot of cis women felt seen by it. But I just feel like as the button of a movie that I really enjoyed, I was bummed out by it. There's just so many ways to make that point without centering that there's so many ways in which femmes are encouraged to feel shame and discomfort you really have a charcuterie board so truly yes a few other things that i found

frustrating about the movie this is just going to be a quicker list. But one is the joke that compares what's happening in Barbie land with like Ken taking over, comparing that to colonizers committing genocide against indigenous people in the new world in the 1500s. Yeah, especially in a movie that makes no attempt to comment on indigenous people in any other way except in this one joke and it yeah do not like nope another one and i hinted at this a little bit ago but the suggestion that the only people who play with dolls are girls this is the case in the opening sequence with the little girls playing with the baby dolls. And then later when Weird Barbie is explaining to Stereotypical Barbie that there's usually a disconnect between the Barbie and the girl who is playing with her. Ignoring the fact that boys and children of all genders play with dolls. Right. Which again, it felt very preventable.

Like you don't change the meaning of that statement by saying like the kid like yeah the language could have been altered to just make it more gender inclusive and it just didn't do it speaking of weird barbie i say justice for her i think she deserves more of an apology i think weird barbie could have should have stolen someone's house i was like weird barbie should have done some damage i feel like if i was weird barbie i would be feeling such rage in a way that i would have been more interested i would have been way more interested in weird barbie exerting her rage onto the other barbies versus the Kens on the Barbies because Weird Barbie unlike the Kens has genuinely been wronged

right she is like Jennifer Hudson cat in Cats as I think I loudly said to you in movie theater but it's true she is she is like memory like where's her memory all alone in the moonlight like she they said like

hard enough Barbie says she used to be the most beautiful barbie but then she got old and weird and now she's been sent off to the island of misfit grinch barbies and it's like that's literally jennifer hudson cat yeah tell me that's not her what was the name grizzabella grizzabella the glamour cat and then they gave her the gift of death at the end they should have done that they should have sent weird barbie up in the balloon and just given her the sweet embrace of death if that's what she wanted either way we do know that she knows what death is and i will never get over that but yeah i think that like there was just the fact that i mean i and i i liked kate mckinnon's performance I think the aesthetic is cool. Like the joke of Weird Barbie is awesome.

But it just felt like that character is like, it's such a strong setup for a character and such a perfect piece of casting that it's like, let her fuck around. She's mostly just like, it's all good that you've treated me horrifically and I'm Jennifer Hudson cat. You're like, it's actually famously not all good. It good it's not okay and yeah and then she's doing a bunch of the labor to like

save barbie land and unbrainwash the barbie so it's like marco robbie barbie keeps calling her ugly and i'm like it feels very like liz lemon coated where you're like i mean the cost of it makes her look not you know but but it's like you're still looking at Kate McKinnon be serious you know right I mean it goes back to stereotypical Barbie's kind of obsession with image that like I just wish had been handled differently in the movie anyway and yeah and and I guess like with her obsession with image I think it makes sense that it's there, but it's just not handled, period, kind of. It just is. It's like the blockbuster,

what happens in every blockbuster, where they're like, we're not doing the thing, but to some extent, you're always doing the thing. Doing the thing. This is real quick, but I would also say justice for Midge. I know. There's the voiceover that says like

oh let's not show midge because a pregnant or i'm sorry a pregnant doll is just too weird and i don't disagree with that i don't necessarily want a pregnant doll if you've seen the doll i'd like because i i also wrote justice for midge in my notes. Justice for Midge as she's presented in the movie. In the movie. Yeah. And then you see the doll and you're like, that is disturbing. But when you see, you know, Emerald Fennell in the movie and then it like pans away from her really quick.

It just means that there's a joke at the expense of a pregnant person. Yeah. So I didn't love that either um yeah i let it fly but only because the doll's genuinely bone chilling it's creepy yeah i guess i don't know how succinctly or thoughtfully i made any kind of like conclusive thoughts throughout the live show. But I do just want to say that like bottom line, it's about women lifting each other up and fighting against the patriarchy. Very few movies are actually about that. It's not a movie that revolves around a woman ending up romantically with a

man. Instead, it's a movie about a woman's self-discovery and self-actualization. But I also think that this movie pretty accurately reflects where we are at culturally in regard to feminism. You know, it's again, a big, high budget, high grossing movie about feminism that still focuses on a character who is cis. She's white. She's hyper feminine. She's traditionally beautiful, because that is like, it's Margot Robbie, because that is still what's largely valued by society. And even though there's more feminist discourse in the mainstream culture than there was,

and there's more calling out sexism and patriarchal standards than there was like, you know, a decade ago. And certainly before that, intersectionality is still not very mainstream. And I think this movie reflects that. I think that the, as we said, like the attempts at inclusion are pretty surface level. And it just means that we just have to keep pushing the conversation of intersectionality and meaningful inclusion. And I think that this movie, I want to believe, and I think we did discuss this in the live show, is that while this movie leaves a lot to be desired in terms of meaningful inclusion that its success in a just world paves the way yeah i mean because i mean we've talked about this on this show for years where it's like proving again and again and again that a quote

unquote marginalized movie going population which is ridiculous because women are the majority of movie going population like need to be validated as worthy of being catered to directly and it's very rare that like at least in the blockbuster sense that women and friends are undeniably shown to be can be a force behind a movie and i I hope and, you know, blah, blah, blah, like, I don't believe we live in a just world. But I hope that the success of Barbie will lead to more meaningfully inclusive projects. And hopefully, this will be a stepping stone in building blockbusters that are genuinely more inclusive. And I think building blockbusters that are genuinely more inclusive and i think building blockbusters that are more genuinely inclusive mean straying from this old ip because you're presented with a high

fucking mountain to scale if you're given barbie ip like it's it i i really hope that the success of Barbie can be taken as a sign that, yes, in fact, women still want to see movies, always have, always will. And to invest in original stories that don't have these complicated and fucked connections with body image, with race, with heteronormativity that the Barbie property does. And so, in any case, I think this movie, like, I mean, we've talked about it all at this point, but its failures should be discussed. And I hope that its success means that those failures can be corrected by directors down the line.

And with that, let's take you back to the Barbie past where we provide our Barbie past conclusive thoughts about the Barbie movie. Wow. Does the movie pass the Bechdel test? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Immediately and all the time.

And we love that. And we love that. And when the Ken's are talking, they're usually talking about Barbies. Yes. Immediately and all the time. And we love that. And we love that. And when the Kens are talking, they're usually talking about Barbies. It's true. So it's like the reverse spectral test thing. It's true. They're talking about Barbies or horses and horses of indeterminate gender. I feel like horses really kind of get the short end of the stick in this movie.

I feel like horses, you know, they never ask to be associated with patriarchy. That's true. Let them be free. the felicity girls are begging for it yes but what about our nipple scale the scale where we write the movie with zero to five nipples examining it through an intersectional feminist lens yes i'm between like a 3.5 and 4 on this. I think this movie is doing a lot more than most movies do. And even though it misses opportunities to be more inclusive and to be more intersectional and to just open up more conversations about capitalism and white supremacy and all the things we discussed it still is it's a fun romp about women taking down the patriarchy and i love that so i think i'll go i'll go four nipples four out of five is 80 and that's still a b minus and that feels honestly fair. Wow. So. Last Barbie over here. I'll give

one nipple to John Senna. Whoever the fuck that is. Never heard of him. I will give one nipple to Issa Rae. I will give one nipple to Greta Gerwig and I'll

give one nipple to Margot Robbie. Wow. That was not creative at all. I'm going to go for as well. Yeah. I mean, based on everything we've been talking about and stuff we didn't even have time to talk about,

I think that this movie is because this movie exists and was so successful. I am currently at the time of recording, optimistic that it will lead to more women-driven projects that are more inclusive and are more thoughtful on the issues that this movie didn't address. Because is a Barbie movie ever going to be capable of handling capitalism meaningfully? Probably not.

But I do feel like the success of this movie and the fact that it is explicitly about women tackling women's issues is really amazing. Yeah, I mean, I think that obviously the diversity of this movie is very surfacy. I still can't believe that they cast Issa Rae and gave her 10 lines yeah like what is wrong with you my mom is a second grade teacher and I asked I like did a little study I was like what

are kids favorite parts of the Barbie movie and their favorite parts are when Issa Rae shows up they are so thrilled and do a leap Mermaid and those are the parts that matter to the children and I celebrate that. John Senna Mermaid sort of crickets there because who is that? Who is John Senna? Who's John Senna? I don't know who that

is. But yeah I mean I just like I really liked seeing this movie. It puts me in a good mood to watch it. And there's not a lot of movies that do it. And I think it's going to stand the test of time. And I think that's really exciting. So I'm going to give it four nipples.

I'm going to give one to Greta Gerwig. I'm going to give one, ooh, I'm going to give one to Ariana Greenblatt. Because I wish that Sasha had had more to do. And she played the moody teenager really perfectly. Truly. She was like giving full hot topic in her first scene. It was like all but like the thumb, you know,

like the sleeve on the thumb. She could have been wearing fingerless gloves and it would have worked and that's great. I'm going to give one nipple to Issa Rae and I'm going to give one nipple to, I'lle, and I'm going to give one nipple to, I'll give one to John Cena as well. I hope he catches a break at some point.

He's really struggling. No, I'm going to give mine to DJ Khaled because, no, wait, wait, wait. No, I'm going to give mine to DJ Khaled's ex-wife. May things have improved on her end. Yeah. Is that an episode episode that's our episode everybody thank you so much for coming and that was

the Barbie live show thanks again to everyone who came out to all of the shows that we did on this tour thank you to the venues for having us we always have such fun doing live shows especially the meet and greets hanging out like actually just getting to spend time with you we really appreciate it very much thanks to everyone who bought merch and again

we have another tour coming up in the uk so if you want to come see us do shows on titanic or shrek which we know most important movies of all time possibly the two movies that are most canon to this show so you know that we're gonna put on a spectacle and you can't call us misinterests because guess what they're directed by men sorry uh no we'll see you at the uk thanks to everyone who came out to this tour and um as always if you if you want to listen to more bechtel cast well you're very able to do that you can go right now to our patreon aka matreon that's patreon.com slash bechtel cast and for five dollars a month you have access to two additional episodes a month around a fun theme hosted by caitlin and myself it's always a good time and you'll get access to over 150 episodes of back catalog there as well oh my goodness you can also go to our merch store at tpublic.com slash the Bechdel cast,

where you can satisfy all of your merch needs and everything there is designed by a one Jamie Loftus. So grab your merch and stay tuned for the other live show that we covered on this tour. That episode will be coming out soon on the wolf of wall street so keep your eyes peeled for that and other episodes bye bye bye the bechdel cast is a production of iheart media hosted by caitlin dorante and jamie loftus produced by sophie lichterman by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Voskrosensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus. And a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast,

please visit linktree.com. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years.

I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams.

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