The Bechdel Cast - Casino Royale with Kenice Mobley
Episode Date: May 9, 2019Loftus...Jamie Loftus and Durante...Caitlin Durante link up with fellow spy and special guest Mobley....Kenice Mobley to examine Casino Royale (2006).(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuse...s, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @kenicemobley on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Hello and welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name is...
Dun-nuh. Dun-nuh. Dun-nuh. Dun-nuh. No, you keep name is I'll do the
My name is
Durante
Caitlin Durante
I'm
Jamie
James Jamie
Jamie Loftus also
The beginning of the movie is fun Jamie Loftus also. Dun-dun-dun.
Dun-dun-dun.
The beginning of the movie is fun, and then it's so long.
Oh, welcome.
This is the Bechdel cast.
It sure is.
Tuh.
And what do we do here?
What do we do?
What do we do?
What do we do?
Well, this is a podcast about the role that women play in famous movies, whether they be main sidekicks, femme fatales, or sacrificial lambs.
Hey.
Yes.
So we use the Bechdel test as a jumping off point to initiate a conversation about the representation of women in movies and the Bechdel test
if you're not familiar
two female
identifying characters
they should have names
first of all okay
they should be in the movie together
they should talk to each other
and they shouldn't talk
about a man especially
if that man is James Bond.
I like to call him Jimmy Bond.
I kept writing down Jimmy B.
Jimmy Bobo.
And then for our purposes,
it just has to be a two-line exchange
between two women,
and we'll find out later on
if this movie passes.
We have picked perhaps.
It's kind of interesting that it's taken us this long to get to this franchise.
A notoriously toxic franchise that I'm excited to talk about.
I know nothing about Jimmy Bobo.
And so I did a lot of reading, did a lot of learning.
And boy, is this movie long.
It certainly is.
Without much further ado, let's introduce our guest, shall we?
Let's do it.
She is a New York comedian.
Ever heard of it?
So sorry.
You might have seen her on Laughs on Fox.
She is the host of the love about town podcast and if you're a matron you might remember her from our back to the future episode yeah it's kanice mobley
welcome back thank you for having me
sorry it's really exciting yeah i should have it's a it's mobley, Canisse Mobley
I can just keep doing that
throughout the course
I want to get bad iTunes reviews, I do it so many times
so
what's your relationship with this
franchise?
we're doing Casino Royale by the way
Casino Royale, this is a movie
2006
so when I was a kid
I watched all of the
Pierce Brosnan ones.
I went to the theater
with my mom to watch them.
They are cheesy as hell
but I was like
super into them.
Like the tech is dumb.
They try to do
some CGI stuff.
It's dumb.
The relationship
to the entire country
of Russia is very silly.
They have Alan Cumming
playing a Russian.
Do you remember that one?
I didn't know
he was in a James Bond.
Yes.
Alan Cumming is a Russian. Do you remember that one? I didn't know he was in a James Bond. Yes. Alan Cumming is a Russian jerk programmer, hacker.
Wow.
Yes.
Perfect for him.
Goldeneye.
Oh, shit.
I played the video game Goldeneye.
I don't know if I saw the movie.
That's the only video game I've played more than once.
And I work at a video game company.
They try to make me play video games and I'm like, absolutely not.
But I will fuck with some Goldeneye.
Sure, sure, sure. Oh, my God. i have to see alan cumming i think a russian villain
like especially like everyone's doing the most like none of the people they i think
femke jansen is not russian right i don't believe so yeah yeah they have her being an evil lady who
like chokes people with their thighs it's like a whole thing of course yeah that's the move if you're a woman
you have to put your pussy in someone's
face and then choke
yeah when you guys mentioned that on another episode
I was like they must have seen
Simcha Jansen fucking people
to death with her thighs
like it's a thing Pierce Brosnan's so
inherently silly too like you
just I feel like I just can't take him seriously
like maybe it's
because i'm most familiar with his work in the mamma mia franchise but i'm just like i can't
take this guy seriously i saw that for me he starts off as bond and then he goes thomas crown
affair which not a great like representing women not great, man. I have a soft spot for it, and I have to acknowledge that. But, okay, so.
Sure.
All that is preface to the last one, I think, with Pierce Brosnan was, like, 2000.
Or, no, like, 98, maybe.
And then I heard that they were coming out with a new one.
It was around my 21st birthday.
I am older than you guys.
You're, like, a year older than me.
It's, like, crazy.
It's, like like a whole different
time don't get my references i'm just like so old so uh yeah so i heard that they were coming out
with it and i themed my entire 21st birthday party around oh my god so i brought like um like
the green felt stuff that covers like a table that you would play poker on i got like three
handles of vodka to make vodka
martinis with uh not that many people came i was not popular uh so everyone who came like outside
of me and the other people who were like playing poker the whole night everyone else became
shit-faced and i turn around and like everyone's just on the floor and i'm like oh well successful
party theme party yeah guess what the theme of my birthday party was last year?
Paddington.
Yep.
Thanks to.
Hell yeah.
Was it Paddington, both Paddingtons or Paddington 2?
It was basically just like dress as close to Paddington as you can.
So everyone's dressed as Paddington?
There's like literally someone wore a red hat and that was it.
Okay.
To be fair, it was in the
the event description in the event i made and i didn't show up wow but it was hard it's hard to
get a paddington outfit i didn't realize yeah it looks so simple you can get a blue coat or jacket
or shirt just a blue thing there's a red bucket Yeah. You think it would be easier to find a red bucket hat?
I feel like you've got to go to Venice Beach.
Yeah.
Like there's travel.
They're selling them there.
Yeah.
You're going to have to take like the weed banner that's around the base of it.
You're going to have to take that off.
But once you do that.
Sure.
Then I think you're good.
A fun birthday though.
It was great.
I had such a good time.
Hell yeah.
So then you saw the movie when it came out.
Yes.
And have you seen the other ones in this?
I have seen every other one, yes.
Okay, cool.
Same.
In order, I will give them in quality.
And if people disagree with me, they are wrong, okay?
Takes.
So first one, Skyfall.
Best?
I think Skyfall's best, followed by Casino Royale,
followed by this maybe controversial Quantum of Solace,
and last is Spectre.
Last is Spectre.
I hated Spectre so much. Spectre was really bad.
I would agree with you.
I think I like Casino Royale a little better than Skyfall
but I did enjoy Skyfall.
Either way.
I feel like people shat on Quantum of Solace so hard
but compared to...
Spectre was very, very bad.
Was Spectre the most recent one?
Yes.
Spectre is the one where he sleeps with a woman
his age and they're like whoa this is wild okay he he fucked monica bellucci this is nuts even
though she is like a supermodel who was his exact same age right oh my god like inclusion is this
equality it was trash awesome yeah jamie what's your history with Jimmy B?
Nothing.
I have no history nor attachment to Jimmy Bobo.
He seems like he kind of hates women.
Oh, does he?
It's weird.
I feel like most people have at least someone in their family who is very into James Bond.
I just didn't.
I don't know what it was.
I had Robot Chicken.
There was a really funny sketch that got cut based around GoldenEye,
a movie I haven't seen, but it was about peeing in someone's eyeball.
That was kind of funny.
Whoa, what?
Because it would make your eye golden.
It's like a golden shower into your eye.
I really don't like it.
Well, it got cut.
And that's all I know about james bond cool good good
good yeah what about you caitlin i similarly had seen at least a few of the pierce brosnan ones
the one i remember most is the one that hallie berry was in which i think was like early 2000s
that i think that was like one of the last pierce if not the last one yeah i just remember her like
being tied to a slab and there's like a laser about to like slice her up.
And then of course Jimmy B has to come in and save her.
And that was still Pierce.
Yeah, it was.
I only remember that one because that movie came out right after she won an Oscar and people were like, huh.
Oh yeah.
For Monsters Ball because that was like 2001.
Then yeah, this had to be like 2002.
Yeah, I think so.
It was not good.
They all have the same name, these movies.
It's like, live another day, die again tomorrow.
Tomorrow never dies.
Tomorrow never dies.
Die another day, because I remember that was like a song.
It was a song, yeah.
Who did that song?
Madonna, I think.
Yeah.
Whatever, it's fine. I like that song? Madonna, I think. Yeah. Whatever. It's fine.
I like that song.
I honestly like most of the James Bond songs, and I cannot accept this about myself, but
it is true.
The Adele one is really good.
Right?
Skyfall's great.
Yeah.
Patrice hates it.
Patrice is my twin sister.
None of you know her.
Okay, cool.
But she complains about this song constantly because we constantly get in fights about
James Bond.
She thinks Quantum of Solace is the best because she's fucking crazy.
She's like, no, I studied geopolitics.
Don't you have the same brain as your twin?
Yeah.
Wait, she's arguing the cultural importance of Quantum of Solace?
Yeah, she's like, water rights are going to be a thing.
Come on, guys.
We got to get on board.
And I'm like, I don't think that's a reason to like a film.
I don't.
So anyway, so I've seen a few of those.
I have seen all of the Daniel Craig ones.
And then I hadn't seen any of the ones from the Sean Connery era or Roger Moore, any of those older ones.
So I was like, maybe for this episode, I should just go and watch one of them, see how it goes.
So I started Gold Member or Gold or gold finger again they all have the
same gold member is awesome powers cool so not that one so gold finger yes and i saw the first
five minutes of it and within the first five minutes you see a naked woman in a bathtub
she gets out and starts kissing James Bond, who this one
is a Connery one.
Who is a notorious advocate
for women. Yes. Feminist icon
Sean Connery.
So he starts kissing
her while she is still naked
and he is fully clothed.
And then a bad guy comes in to attack
Bond. So Bond
flings her around and uses her as a human shield.
What?
And that results in the bad guy bludgeoning her on the head.
And then I was like, I've seen enough.
Yeah, this is.
I get it.
I understand what this movie is going to be.
So.
Yeah, I can't get behind anything before Pierce Brosnan.
I saw From Russia with Love or Two.
You get it.
He hits a you get it.
He hits a lady in it and they're just like of course.
Hits her in the face. I'm like why are we
doing this? There's a number of super cuts
out there of like old school James
Bond just straight up abusing women
like treating them badly
physically abusing them
like being
racist. It's like he's just horrible um it's weird and then
it's like by comparison like a lot of stuff i was reading about casino royale was like well
by comparison he's actually a militant feminist and you're like i guess if he was beating women up and now it's, I don't know.
I'll do the recap.
I couldn't tell you what happens in this movie, really.
I know there's a card game.
Yes.
Yes.
Well, I'm here to tell you what happens.
I know that accountants also have to sort of be, pretend to be people's girlfriends sometimes.
Right.
Kind of part of every accountant's job.
She is not a spy, but they're like, let's bring, like, she's undercover spy now.
What is her training?
She's literally like the assistant comptroller or something.
They're like, no, you got to be hot.
Yeah.
I think they did what they did in Miss Congeniality, where they were just like scanned through
the computer and was like, who works here?
And then they just threw her into this.
Yeah.
Which of you is, at least, but she was like already an undercover FBI agent.
Was she?
Yeah.
In Miss Congeniality?
No,
Chrissy Hart.
Yes.
Yeah,
yeah,
yeah.
No,
this is like someone with no fight training.
Right.
Who's never seen anyone die.
Who like doesn't know how to be discreet in any way.
Right.
Yeah.
And then he's like,
wear this dress.
You're my wife now.
Oh my God.
That dress.
I was like,
I don't think I've seen anything that's more
2006 than that dress and that hairstyle
together. I was amazed. But I was
furious when she's like, and we'll get to it, but she's
like just sitting in a shower. I was like, bitch, that dress
costs like $10,000. I get that
you're sad, but all you had to do was take
the dress off and then sit in the shower. Like, fuck
out of here. That's ridiculous. Okay, sorry.
Continue. It's a really
every prom dress from that era
looks exactly like that dress with like the rhinestones down the plunging neckline and the
straightened hair it's like okay okay eighth grade semi what's up okay so the story of casino royale
uh there's an opening scene it's in black and white and it's basically just establishing there's a new james
bond in town because he gets Craig because he's gotten promoted to double o status or he will
once he kills this double crossing agent dude and then we see all that happen and we're like, wow, James Bond is cool. He's gritty now.
Yeah.
So we cut to Madagascar where Bond is after a bomb maker.
And there's this huge parkour chase through a construction site that ends with James Bond killing the guy and blowing up an embassy.
So that's very cool.
Yep, that was great.
And we were supposed to be like, yay!
He got promoted!
This is in Madagascar.
Like, they need the infrastructure.
And that whole sequence resulted in, like,
the destruction of a high-rise building.
And I'm like, wow, okay.
What you're trying to save, like, you could have just saved money by, like,
not doing any of that. Right. Yeah. This is a sequence, you could have just saved money by not doing any of that.
Right.
This is a sequence that only could have been made during the Bush administration.
Yeah, just the number of black bodies that are just falling from the sky like, well, collateral damage.
Yeah. I want to talk about that a little later on.
Meanwhile, there's this bad guy, Le Chiffre.
Say it again. Say it again. Le Chiffre. Say it again, say it again.
Le Chiffre.
And that's Mads Mikkelsen's character.
Hell yeah.
And he's free bleeding out of his eye, you know.
This is a feminist text.
Where's his eyeball diva cup he is taking money from bad guys in uganda to invest in bad things i'm not really sure
and then he's he's playing po he loves poker he's on a yacht he's got a girlfriend who i don't know if she
even has a line in the entire movie she's his girlfriend and yet she is 17 that actress
the actress that plays his girlfriend was in oh it's got monica potter and freddie prince jr
and she has to blend in with a bunch of models to like for some reason because they think he
killed somebody she's in that but she's also in, she's one of the Americans in Love Actually.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
With like January Jones?
Yeah, with January Jones
and Denise Richards.
Denise Richards shows up later.
Yeah.
Yeah, she's one of those ladies.
Awesome.
Like I am a model
and this is all I do.
Right.
I don't know why I gave her that accent,
but given her face,
I think it makes sense.
No, I buy it.
Okay.
Her name's Ivana Milikevich.
Then yeah, that accent made sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You nailed it.
Hell yeah.
Russians, please do not be mad at me.
I'm so sorry.
So we're back in London and Bond is hacking.
He's finding stuff out about something called ellipsis.
And then he breaks into his boss's house.
That's M, played by Dame Judi Dench.
And she's like, Bond, you shouldn't have killed that guy.
You shouldn't have blown up that embassy.
Bald is the one in charge?
Yes.
Yes.
But she's like, you need to look at the bigger picture.
Like, who hired that bomb maker?
We don't know that because you killed him.
And then she's like, quit being such an arrogant wanker. your picture like who hired that bomb maker we don't know that because you killed him and then
she like basically she's like quit being such an arrogant wanker and never come to my house again
and god every time they cut to judy then she's in this ornate room and she's super concerned
and then sometimes she's on like a patio and she's super concerned right and then bond goes to the bahamas he's driving a ford yeah oh my god the
product placement in casino royale is so funny he's always texting people on his sony erickson
phone yeah and then in the closing scene after spoiler over it a lot of a lot of sony product placement i was like
that doesn't drive a ford anyway so he's driving around a ford and then he finds this guy named
alex demetrios who is up to no good no and he is a known associate of le chiffre Le Chiffre. This is my favorite.
And this guy, Demetrius,
he's got a hot wife. He's got an Aston Martin. He is playing poker
as well. So Bon joins in on this poker
game and he wins Demetrius'
car and money and
wife.
I mean, the top three
possessions of any man.
And he finds out from her that demetrius
is getting this flight to miami so bond follows him to miami he realizes that there's some
terrorists who are targeting this large plane to blow it up the shots of the plane are so it's shot
like it's a cock you know what i mean like the the they're the shots of the plane
are extremely phallic i went back and watched them twice of like what an interesting like you
didn't need to do that well it's basically but it looks like i like they're like it's like the
biggest plane ever to fly this guy it's basically titanic they're like i want to marvel the speed it's filmed like it's a
huge dick like it's just that it's the titanic of this guy's i wasn't i was like okay this is
this was the choice yeah i mean anyway so bond stops this from happening he stops the explosion
and then the sheaf was counting on the plane exploding because it would have done something to the stocks.
Which I don't understand how making the stocks lower would have made him money.
I don't understand the stock market.
And I only sort of know this because of the big short.
But you can bet against a certain outcome, I think.
That's wild. You can bet against. Yeah, a certain outcome, I think.
That's wild.
Ta-da!
That feels like it should be illegal, but anyway.
I will say, in that scene where they talk about, like,
oh, he was supposed to make all this money from this plane being exploded.
It didn't work.
They also say, like, he also did this on 9-11.
And they, like, very much so gloss over that. They're like, yeah, he did all this, and he made did this on 9-11 and they like very much so gloss over that they're
like yeah he did all this and he made a fortune on 9-12 and i'm like so wait wait wait wait in
this movie's logic le chiffre did 9-11 and it's only mentioned once and we never talk about it
and he like made a lot of money off of 9-11 that's like a one-off judy dench line she says one line
about it and i'm like so we're we're not going to go back to that?
And Dave Frigg is like, yep.
As we all know.
So this movie is suggesting that Le Chiffre did 9-11.
Did 9-11.
I mean, well, that's wild.
So Le Chiffre, oh my god, Le Chiffre.
Le Chiffre.
Le Chiffre.
He has to recoup all that lost money.
So now he is setting up a very high stakes poker game at Casino Royale in Montenegro.
Bad writing.
There's 10 players.
It's a $10 million buy-in.
And he's hoping that he will, because he's so good at poker, he'll sweep everyone out.
He'll get everyone's money.
But guess who's going to be one of the players it's our friend jimmy b jimmy bobo at the table
playing the cards because he's also good at poker because he's good at everything
and then vesper lind shows up that's uh ava green's. And she's with the Treasury who is fronting the $10 million for Bond's buy-in.
And she's cute, you know.
And they have some cheeky banter.
They have some cheeky banter.
This is the first, this is canonically the first smart woman James Bond has ever spoken to?
Yes.
It's wild.
And then, as you hinted at, Jamie, jamie they have to like assume these alter egos because
they're going undercover but immediately bond is like i'm not mr beach i'm james bond because you
know he's an an arrogant wanker yeah and then they have to pretend to be a couple and they have to
yeah even though they don't have this cover story anymore they need to right the logic of why they have to be a couple as well and they're like the logic of when you
have like there's that scene where he brings her the dress and then he's like when you go down to
kiss my neck well you want them to look at your neck so that i was like this is a bad plan this
is a perverted bad plan. It certainly is.
Also, I mean, wouldn't it be crazy if women were playing this poker game?
There are a few women at the table.
There's the Asian lady who was at the, she was also on the yacht with LaShifra earlier.
She never says anything throughout the movie.
She appears in these two pivotal scenes, but has no name and no lines.
Maybe she did 9-11.
There's a story to be told. Someone Right. Maybe she did 9-11. Maybe.
It's like there's a story to be told.
Someone at that poker table did 9-11.
The dealer is a woman.
Okay.
I believe.
But yeah, there's, other than that, women aren't allowed to play poker.
And don't talk in that scene.
Not at all.
But before that, they link up with this guy, Mathis, because he's their contact for this mission.
And the players assemble they have to enter this password in in the event that they win so that the money will
be wired to them and then the game begins it's Texas Hold'em uh Bond and Le Chiffre are very good
at poker and Bond discovers Le Chiffre's tell which is that his eye twitches when he bluffs. So he has to cover it up.
And then there's a break in the game during which Bond fights and kills a bunch of bad guys
who are trying to kill a sheaf because he lost them the money.
And then Bond gets all cleaned up and he's like, I'm back, baby.
Here to play more poker.
And then Bond loses all his money because he thought the sheaf was bluffing
because he was doing his tell. But it turns out he wasn't bluffing because he thought the sheaf was bluffing because he was doing his
tell but turns out he wasn't bluffing and he had the winning hand so he needs five million dollars
to buy back in and vesper's like no you're you're an arrogant wanker i'm not gonna give you the money
and he's like man but this cia dude who is also undercover and also playing is like hey I'll buy you back in
as long as the CIA gets to take
Le Chiffre and he's like great deal
he says my favorite line in the whole movie which is
Jeffrey Wright being like does it look like
we need the money
and I don't know why I love it
it's delivered in this very
throaty way like it works
for me every single time I love it so much
and when he said it I was like I actually don't know the answer to that question.
Maybe they,
I think maybe they could use the CIA just like rolling.
That's what I think everyone thinks about our government.
They're just like,
you don't give a shit.
Here's a billion dollars.
We literally throw this away.
I was thrilled to see Jeffrey Wright in this movie.
I didn't know he was in this movie.
I was like,
thank God.
So then the game starts up again,
but before anything can happen,
Le Chiffre poisons Bond
and he goes into cardiac arrest,
but luckily there's a defibrillator in his car.
As there would be.
And then Vesper has to come in and save him.
She saves him, but then she's kidnapped.
Yeah.
Shit.
And it's the final phase of the game. is all in and guess who wins it's our friend jimmy bobo jimmy bobo uh something like
150 million dollars and he somehow figures out that mathis is a bad guy and then he like runs
out to go do something about that and then vesper gets kidnapped right then
he goes after her they're both captured by like the chief goons and he tortures bond by hitting
him in the balls a lot a lot and hard hard and a lot oh did not see this kinky ball play scene coming.
Because he strips him down totally naked.
It makes him sit on a chair without any like.
He could have left his shirt on for the purposes of this type of torture.
But sure.
We have to see Jimmy B's nipples.
Yeah.
I mean, I was and I was thrilled.
I was thrilled.
But what a what a wild sexually charged scene.
Yeah.
Because he's trying to get the password that Bond had entered so he can steal all the money back from him.
But Bond refuses.
And then someone comes in and kills the she from leaves Bond and Vesper alive.
So then the money gets transferred to Bond.
You know, Vesper's like, I have the account number and you have the password.
And he reveals that the password was vesper because he's in love
with her and they're in love now she took way too long to recognize that it was her name it's like a
six letter thing and he's like v e s and it isn't until p where she's like oh wait what
what are you talking about and also she starts loving him for no reason,
but suddenly they're in love,
or at least I guess she's pretending.
I don't know.
But they go on holiday in Europe,
and they're riding around on a boat,
and there's Wi-Fi on the boat apparently.
Yeah, Sonny Vias out.
His penis recovered is what they want you to know.
There's a scene where she literally weeps,
like, even if it's just a finger left, he's like hey babes cock still works yeah yeah and then he decides to quit being
a spy because he loves her so much he like emails em with his resignation letter from a boat that
apparently has wi-fi anyway but then he's like wait something is wrong and the money is not in
the account that it's
supposed to be in and he realizes that vesper stole it so he goes after her there's a big fight
a building collapses into the sea and then she lets herself drown and die yeah what not sure
and then m is like oh she was being blackmailed by the sheaf's people who kidnapped her boyfriend.
So that's why she betrayed Bond.
This is all delivered so last minute.
And like, Judi Dench says it all in one breath.
You're like, what?
She's like, hey, BTW, we found out this person that was working for us uh has been against us this whole time is completely compromised like this is her dating history like yeah the
amount they were able to discover so quickly makes it seem like it was very obvious right yeah and
then like judy den just like yeah bummer we didn't figure that out earlier anyways that's how it goes
but we were she she starts off as being so thorough.
And then it's like, well, Eva Green's dead.
Should have seen it come and didn't see it come.
And what are you going to do?
Come back to work, maybe?
Yeah.
And he's like, okay.
And somehow this is the easiest Daniel Craig Bond movie to follow because I would like
Quantum of Solace and Spectre are unfollowable.
Skyfall is pretty easy too.
But like, you're just like, what?
Yeah.
We need to take a quick break,
but we will come right back in a second.
Yep.
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,
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To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free,
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I've been thinking about you.
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One session.
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BPM 110.
120.
She's terrified.
Should we wake her up?
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What was that?
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That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.
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We're back.
Here we are.
I think that was a good transition.
Thanks.
All right, where do we, where to begin we're too i mean well i i want to because you both have far more experience with this franchise as a whole than me i wanted to talk about the concept of a
bond girl please in general because it seems like eva green is one of the bond girls that is treated
slightly better than a lot of other women in the franchise and i was i did some reading about this
but i was curious about your impressions on uh vesper i like that she at least has an active
role like in a lot of the pierce brnan ones, it's a woman who like,
hey, I was going about my life, living it,
and somehow I'm tied up in this international intrigue.
And oh no, someone's trying to kill me and I have no preparation for this
and I just run around and scream a lot.
Yeah.
So thankfully this isn't,
I mean she does do her fair amount of screaming,
but at least she has like a reason to be there
and some sort of training.
And she gets to make some decisions
even though they're immediately overridden.
Right.
Yeah.
It's weird because she participates in the narrative more than I expected, just with
the reputation of the James Bond franchise.
But it's still so...
She participates in that fight where James Bond kills two men in front of her, but only
for a second she like
yeah gets the gun out of his hand and that's it or she prevents James Bond from being poisoned
but then two seconds later she's kidnapped yeah and like yeah like it's like you're saying sure
her most of the stuff she contributes is overwritten right away and she's mostly just
like James Bond you're not as cool as you think you are and then he does something that proves
that he's that cool and you're like okay really so you're, you're not as cool as you think you are. And then he does something that proves that he's that cool.
And you're like, OK, really?
So you're just saying she's wrong.
That's the whole OK.
Right.
I would argue that her involvement in this story doesn't make that much sense because
the position that she's put in is like the representative of the treasury that's funding
the money.
As we already kind of hinted at like she has no like spy training
the fact that she's thrown into this undercover mission as a spy yeah and you know when they
shot this she's 26 oh wow yeah there's a 12 year age gap with and the age gap it's sad that i'm
like that was less of an age gap than I thought but 12 year age gap between these
actors just for for curious listeners right yeah so she's thrust in this story in this like
spy role that she has no training for yeah she's an accountant right a sexy accountant it's clear
that the whoever crafted this story was like well we need a woman there to keep being there so that he has someone to kiss.
So like, oh, we'll just take this treasury woman.
But like her role as like a representative of the treasury and then her ongoing role based on that, like that doesn't make sense.
But they're just like, well, we need this beautiful woman here.
So let's keep her, you know, keep her around.
From what I know, and I'm sure that James Bond fans are going to slide into our mentions for this episode, it's inevitable.
Sure.
I'm still traumatized from Lord of the Rings.
Oh, yeah.
But I believe that Casino Royale, this is adapted from one of the first, if not the first, James Bond stories ever written. how closely I know like all the main players that are in this movie are included in that story but
I don't know how far this deviates from the Ian Fleming original this movie had also previously
been adapted in the 60s too I think there's another Casino Royale yeah based on based on
the novel yeah yeah is that a Connery one do we know i don't i'll fact check it really quick uh just uh 1967
david niven the first james bond okay yeah there's there's a there's a few bonds that were only in
like one or two movies and then sellers is in it oh okay so in the original one uh ursula andress plays vest berlin and david niven plays sir james bond okay um in the 1967 one
so also and it is kissing around the first uh james bond novel first ian fleming novel oh ever
yeah okay i had not the first bond movie because there had been a few before that I believe in the earlier 60s it doesn't
matter I had a little bit of did a little bit of research about the history of Bond girls they do
tend to fall into three categories main sidekick femme fatale sacrificial lamb all three of which
are like not every story has all three Casino Royale does. According to this, the main sidekick would be Vesper Lind.
The femme fatale would be Valenka.
And the sacrificial lamb would be Solange Demetrios, the wife.
Okay.
Wait, who is the femme fatale?
Valenka.
The one who poisons him.
Le Chouf.
Le Chouf.
Yeah.
His girlfriend.
Oh.
She makes a mean face while she poisons his girlfriend. Oh.
She makes a mean face while she poisons someone.
Got it.
So these are the three main categories of Bond girl.
Apparently it's Ian Fleming, who seems generally pretty gross and misogynist. but he says that the inspiration for all of the Bond girls that appear in the franchise ever are based around this woman named Muriel Wright who he met when she was 26 and he was not 26
she was an independently wealthy model who was devoted to Fleming despite his repeated unfaithfulness, and then she died in an air raid.
Oh.
Okay.
So then Ian Fleming was like,
I'll honor her memory by being rude to women until I die.
Right, because if we break down those three Bond girl roles,
it's a woman who has to die to further the plot yeah it's a woman who doesn't really get her
own story she's just attached to the male heroes that's berlin story or it is an evil devious woman
because women be manipulative and like not just that but like the using her sexuality for evil
yeah and there's there's a few other like tropes of the bond girl
that and there's so many that no one character like there's no complete through lines but
several bond girls have obvious signs of inner turmoil and others have traumatic pasts uh several
have unhappy sexual backgrounds that we know about so Roald Dahl wrote the screenplay to uh Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory you only live twice okay there's sorry that's all these 1970s like
children's authors like Shel Silverstein Roald Dahl they're out there doing pervy weird stuff
on the side so he wrote this but he said that when he was writing that screenplay he was explicitly
told he was advised to use three Bond girls.
The first should die, preferably in Bond's arms early in the movie.
The second, a villain whom Bond seduces before she dies in an unusual and gory way midway through the movie.
And the third, who survives until the end of the film.
So this is like baked into the formula.
Yeah.
To the point where they would just tell a
writer like these three things should happen i mean we're just looking around the room of the
three of us like obviously one of us is a femme fatale obviously one of us is a sacrificial lamb
and one of us is uh the sidekick the three categories of women yeah so it actually lines
up pretty well it's actually very accurate for women yeah i mean that's where we've all been
at one point we've all been all of these wow because women contain multitudes oh my god
wow uh can we talk about the sacrificial lamb first i guess okay i have so i took a lot of
notes during this movie i was in a starbucks in culver city yesterday just going nuts like wow wow and all of my
lines begin with okay well
because
like even okay we first see her
she's riding on a horse on
the beach and the people on the beach are happy
to see this and I'm like that is
fucking disgusting there's poop
everywhere and they have these three random
black kids who are just like smiling and running
after her chasing the horse yeah they do like a closeup of these smiling black kids face and i'm like
for what right oh black people co-sign so it's like sensual and meaningful it's very oh i was
so so dumb it is so strange yeah we're supposed to believe that she's like this poorly treated
put-upon woman because she goes into the casino she she hugs Demetrius, and he's like, you're two hours late. And then she looks at James Bond like, see how I'm treated?
But if you were two hours late to a date with me, I'm sorry, I have the right to be mad.
I'd be like, you're two hours late. And then she was like, oh, sorry, I was out on a horse.
Yeah.
So that's why I'm late.
I'm furious. I was like, you, why, no, you're the jerk in this scenario.
And Bond says, he negs her outside of the car.
He's like, because she's like, oh, I don't go home with strange men.
And he's like, maybe you're just out of practice.
Where it's like, I shouldn't have to prove that I fuck.
I'm married.
So much of the Buscemi test can be applied to this movie.
Oh, yes.
Where if Steve Buscemi says that to a woman outside of a car,
she runs away.
Yes.
Even if he has an Aston Martin, she's still like, bye.
Yeah.
If Steve Buscemi says, have you gone home with a strange man recently?
Yeah.
They exchange maybe like six lines of dialogue,
and she gets into this stranger's car.
And I was like, I know what happens to her.
Like, I've seen this movie before.
And I feel less bad because she's clearly not protected.
Like, she's random strangers.
Right.
Anybody.
She's also this, like, you know, exotic beauty with this, like, European accent.
Like, an Italian accent kind of thing.
Yeah, it's like, Daniel Craig is ugly hot, okay?
He's a category of man. He is ugly hot okay he's like he's a category
of man he is ugly hot I'm
into it it's definitely my type but to act
like this woman who is clearly
with some sort of millionaire man who lives
on a fucking beach is gonna be like
oh boxer face over here that's
who I wanna get with
you just have boxer face
like what like she would have been fucking
a bellboy so long ago.
I have so many issues with that.
Absolutely not.
I mean, just like the whole building.
I know it's like so baked into his character, but the idea that James Bond, regardless of which actor is playing him, is just inherently irresistible to all women.
Because it's like even his smaller interactions with women, because he, you know, flirts with a number of like secretaries and concierges and they're all like oh yes like you wouldn't do that to any random daddy off the
street which is ultimately who he's like an upper scale good-looking dad yeah you wouldn't act that
way the receptionist at that the hotel or whatever in the bahamas is like fucking him with her eyes and i'm like why she
has to like change her pants yeah she's like right you a man a regular ass looking dude oh my god
also they and this is a pet peeve of mine in this movie outside of the concierge lady none of the
people who work for this hotel are white and then so the idea that this like james bond is going to
be just tying his shoe and someone's going to be like hey you and i'm like oh no they would have
been like where's the black person that parks our car like it just it drove me insane but i do look
forward to a future when white people are also accused of working wherever they happen to be
i was like i progress but no right what no. What? No. Oh, my God.
And this, I mean, this is on topic for what you were just saying, but, like, the way that
Africans are treated in this movie.
Yeah.
Is, because you see scenes in Uganda and in Madagascar.
Yeah.
And it's.
You can tell the difference because in Uganda, the black people are very shiny and sweaty.
And in Madagascar they are dusty and that means we
are in a different place right yes it's raining in one place and not in the other I feel like
this is very common of a lot of movies especially of this genre but if you see Africans they are all
like militant militia like money power grubbing like just violent people and largely used as scenery
yes yeah like when they like they follow little black kids running around and it's like hey you
know exotic it's like yeah i hate that and then the in the scene where james bond kills those
two guys in the stairwell yeah one of them is fighting with a machete and i find that like
i wish they would stop making Africans
fight with machetes like Afri-
Like, these people have guns.
Weapons, yeah.
But they're like, no, no, no, never mind.
Wait, what is the culturally appropriate thing
that I should have?
Because he's wearing, like, a three-piece shirt.
Yeah, where is he holding this fucking machete?
So infuriated.
Oh, because he-
Well, he had the machete
because he was going to chop off a woman's arm. Okay, right africans it was impractical yeah no one would ever bring a
machete to i mean but i mean it's the suggestion that like these people are so primitive yeah that
they are gonna they're gonna chop off limbs yeah it's like well and also like right before that
fight when they capture the femme fatale girlfriend it's like that is such an old image of like black men taking these virginal white girls
and like, oh no, James Bond has to rescue this virginal white girl who later tries to
kill him.
Yeah.
And then he, you know, murders two black men and it's fine because he sucks their blood
off of Eva Green's fingers.
Hated that.
Oh, I hate that.
So weird. fine because he sucks their blood off of Ava Green's fingers. Hated that. In that scene when they're ruining
very expensive clothes
and he's like, he sits down next
to her, he puts his arm around her. Did she ask for that?
Whatever. Okay. But then he's like,
I'll make it better and he sucks
on her fingers in that weird way.
And then he says better and she's like,
yes? She's like
rocking back and forth like having
a fit and then he's just like let me just
she's having a full-on i mean but to be fair that was one of the only reactions in the movie that
made sense i'm like she is an accountant she did not sign up to watch two men die right by someone
she doesn't know that well yeah like it's oh god We're all over the place. Back to Solange. Sorry.
I just, yeah, that character, she's not around for very long.
And then how does she die?
So here's what happens.
Basically, Bond uses her to get information from her on her husband.
Which she knows.
That's like referenced on the scene. Yeah, she mentions that while they're making out.
She's like, la, la.
And then they're dry humping on the floor in another very 2006 dress yes yeah
it's like that weird sort of satin not satin exactly but like this shiny thing that's supposed
to hang on you i guess if it gets wet it's ruined forever like that kind of so he invites her to his
room she for reasons that don't make any sense agrees to it i guess because it's implied
yeah she's like this horny housewife whose husband doesn't love her enough for something
right and then he uses her and then like orders some champagne and caviar for her and then like
peace and then she doesn't say bye he never says like while she goes to the bathroom he's like
yeah uh send caviar and chip. Okay, cool.
Wait, what?
No, for one.
Just for one.
And then he disappears.
Yeah.
She's also, I don't know, like, what background it's implied that she's from, but I felt like she was, like, pretty exoticized.
Oh, yeah.
Right.
Like, the way her character was treated.
Like, she just can't help herself.
She has to have sex with Daniel Craig.
And there was that whole, this exchange did make me laugh where it's just so like James
Bond cheesy where she's like, I had so many chances to be happy.
So many nice guys.
Why can't nice guys be more like you?
And then he says, because then they'd be bad.
I was like, oh, he went there.
Oh, she was.
And then so the next scene we see her in, she is a dead body.
She's dead.
In a hammock.
In a hammock, like tangled up in a hammock because Le Chiffre's people had her killed for talking to Bond and giving him any information.
Right.
I think it was Le Chiffre's people.
It's hard to tell.
There seems to be a lot of bad guys in this movie.
It's so quick.
And it's like the fact that in 2006, they're like, no, that still has to be a core element of these stories.
There's so many ways you could have gotten that information.
A woman didn't need to die for it.
Right.
He is a spy.
Like he can just follow the guy around.
Yeah.
But the fact that he,
he uses aren't horny.
He,
yeah,
he uses a woman to get information that he easily could have gotten somewhere else
yeah and based on his personal history he should be more concerned for her safety
right every woman you've slept with dies you should figure that out yeah well i mean that's
a you problem he sees women as being disposable so um we got to take another quick break but we'll
come back and talk about more of the
ladies
definitely 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.
To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free,
subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple 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 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.
In a galaxy far, far away.
No, babe, that's taken.
We're in our own world, remember?
Right.
In our own world, we're two space cadets.
And totally normal humans.ets and totally normal humans.
Sure, totally normal humans.
Embark on a journey across the stars,
discovering the wonders of the universe
one episode at a time.
We'll talk about life, love,
laughter, and why you should never argue with
your co-pilot. Especially when she's
always right. Right. And if
we hit turbulence, just blame it on Mercury
retrograde. Or Emily's questionable space piloting skills.
Hey, join us on In Our Own World for cosmic conversations, stellar laughs, and super corny dad jokes.
Listen to In Our Own World as a part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And don't worry, we promise to avoid any black holes.
Most of the time.
No, wait.
Oh, that's it.
Oh, that's still right?
Yeah.
I keep being really nervous I'm going to slip into Mission Impossible by accident.
I get that.
I was so afraid when we started.
I was like, oh, no, it's the wrong one.
I mean, it's confusing.
Also, they work for MI6 not to be confused with Mission Impossible 6.
Oh, yeah.
God, there's such a different movie where what if they had really just jumped the shark with the Daniel Craig franchise and they're like, no, his dick gets cut off.
And now we've got eunuch Jimmy Bobo out here navigating the world without a penis, probably being way better at his job.
He can hack into Em's house and computer.
He clearly has access to do all of these things.
He does not need to fuck these women to get this thing.
His dick is really what's holding him back
from being an exceptional spy.
Honestly, I think that's true of a lot
of people.
If we could just get, like,
not all the dicks. I'm not crazy.
Some of the dicks would help people
achieve their fullest potential.
We need just some clarity. I mean, horniness in
general. If people were less horny
imagine what we could accomplish more people need to be neutered this is my 2020 platform
for a less horny future yeah please elect me i think i think the biggest flaw of this movie
is that q is not present and q course, is his friend who comes in later
who makes gadgets and stuff for him
who is played by Ben Whishaw, a.k.a. Paddington.
He's got flopsy hair.
Yeah, he's looking cute.
He's a cutie pie.
He's like every guy I dated in grad school.
It's perfect.
Thinner than me, but I have to live with that in my brain.
Yeah, it's great.
So moving on to the femme fatale.
We don't know that much about her.
Including her name?
Do we even ever learn her name on screen?
I don't think so.
And she's credited as being named Valenka,
but I'm assuming that's because she
has a name in the book okay because i don't think we ever hear it on screen right she is the first
time you see a woman on screen in the whole movie i believe it's around 19 minutes into the film
she comes out she walks through the room yeah she's like there's like a male gaze shot where
she's like she's popped out of the water she's wearing a swimsuit she's drenched and then uh she climbs onto this yacht
and then she like walks through a poker game and the number of times people walk through poker
games like that's cool is insane to me like it's so soaking wet there this is a mega yacht okay you
could go to another floor you don't have to do this in front of everyone like so and her crossing
that room just starts out a scene of that poker.
Right.
We could just cut straight to the poker game.
We don't need to see a woman getting out of the water
and then like toweling off as like,
it's just like.
We haven't had a James Bond movie in four years.
People forget what bikinis are.
They forget what objectification feels like
and we have to remind them.
Yeah, I don't know.
And then she's later, there's that moment with the two men that James Bond eventually kills,
who I don't think are named either.
Are they named?
The two African?
Yeah, the Ugandan.
Yeah.
Machete and not machete.
Yeah.
She's like captured by them and we're supposed to be like,
we have to save this virginal white girl.
Right.
But then it turns out the twist is women are bad and she tries to poison them and then she uh dies as
well doesn't she um where does her story leave off she's around i think when they're like cutting a
hole in the chair to put james bond in i think doesn't she leave lead vesper off into another
room i think so so if she does die it off into another room or something? I think so.
So if she does die, it happens off screen
and it's implied that we don't really know
for sure. But if she
is with them as Vesper's being
tortured, it's implied that
all the people except for Vesper
get killed. So if she
dies, it happens off screen, but
we can assume that she might die.
She's not even a particularly interesting or good femme fatale, but she can assume that she might die she's a she's not
even a particularly like interesting or good femme fatale but she's there well because she's only on
screen for maybe a combined total of two minutes like she's hardly in the movie she doesn't have
any like she doesn't even get like a cool catchphrase like no you guys like femke jansen
like say like some nonsense after like pussy killing someone like she would say something
cool and you're like oh wow that's what she's nutty like there was something there but this
was just like she silently poisons people right she says one line like i'm sorry she's she says
i'm sorry classic woman line you get one line and it is you apologizing she's apologizing to the chief because i guess she
knew the bad guys were there in the room and because like right after that they attack him
so i guess it's implied that she knew that they were about to attack him or that like she sold
him out or something i don't quite know but yeah we see so little of her that it it's like
can't make heads or tails of
anything because they always show her back right just keep showing it but she's there to be i don't
know like i mean clearly this franchise has no regard for women whatsoever right but like not
i mean i guess vesper kind of ends up to be a similar thing of like she's not what you thought
she's duplicitous and like she's you know she's fooling you she's
lying to you all women are deceitful above all because they want your money and they want your
penis and they want to you know like all this shit um so that's the long yeah yeah so just to
recap uh we see her sexualized we see her being brutalized she poisons our hero and then it's implied that she dies yeah which is
the exact same thing as solange minus the poisoning she is sexualized she is brutal as
she is murdered let's talk vesper okay she's not like the other girls that vesper she's only been
working for four years like she i'm sorry it made me so mad when i found out that she was only 26
and i'm like the way he nags her at the beginning when he's like you wear mannish clothes and you
try to act tough and that's why you're not promoted i'm like promote like in the four
years since college right like she's already being put in charge of 10 million dollars i think
she's doing all right she's doing fine yeah let's unpack that scene where they meet each other because there's so much of i wasn't
expecting a scene like that i hated it but um from the reviews that i read at the time this is
supposed to be like it's one of the only two times james bond quote unquote falls in love in any of
the movies ever i guess it happens in one other movie in the late
60s but she is killed after they get
married and then he goes
back to being an asshole
but this is Vesper is the only other woman
he like actually falls in love with and
possibly considers quitting
the swinging dick lifestyle
so this is supposed to be
like James but Jimmy Boba
finally meets his match right and
there's just like it's such corny dialogue where he's like your beauty is a problem you worry you
won't be taken seriously and then she says which one could say of any woman with half a brain
and we're like oh yes queen and then he's like true or he says like you're saying can he's
overly masculine clothing,
more aggressive than her female colleagues,
which gives her a sort of prickly demeanor.
And ironically enough,
makes it less likely she'll be respected and promoted by her male superiors
who mistake her blah, blah, blah.
Insecurities for arrogance.
Right.
And then she looks at him like,
you've got me.
Oh, you're right.
The fact that I have any confidence is a game.
It's off-putting. Yeah. Gross. But then she like turns it back on him me. Oh, you're right. The fact that I have any confidence is a game.
Gross. But then she turns it back on him because this whole
scene serves to be like, look how good I am at
poker. I'm so good at reading people.
So he's reading her and then she
turns it right back on him. She's like, well, you're
an orphan who wears suits that look like
shit. Yeah.
Which was cool to see.
You wear it with such disdain.
Yeah.
And then he looks at her like,
oh,
perhaps Jimmy Bobo has met his match.
And then she's just like,
I'm not going to fuck you.
Nice ass though.
And he's like,
thank you.
Just before that,
she says,
she's like,
MI6 looks for maladjusted young men who give little thought to sacrificing others in order to protect queen and country.
And then a little bit later,
she says,
you think of women as disposable pleasures rather than meaningful
pursuits i don't think women should be looked at as meaningful pursuits either but um but it's like
that was the sort of line where i was like uh heart in the right place right but it again it
feels this is one of many examples we see of like the woman character who we're supposed to like saying something that is
vaguely feminist but it feels so empty yeah because of everything else that happens in the movie it's
major lips so it's like right because she's calling attention to him like his habitual mistreatment of
women but then with kind of like a nod and a wink to this entire misogynist franchise. Remember how you used to literally
punch women in the face?
Right, but then
the movie still treats women like shit.
So it means nothing.
It just has to get sneakier.
And then she's like, yeah, you have a hot ass though.
Yeah, and then he's like, thanks for noticing.
And in the car ride
to the hotel
they're talking about how they have
adjoining rooms, and she's like, I'm not
going to have to worry about you. And that just, like,
you're not going to have to worry about him coming into your
room? You have to ask him?
You're not going to rape me,
are you? Again, it's like, she's
an accountant.
This is such a crazy concern for an
accountant to have.
And he's like, no, you're not my type.
Not that I'm morally opposed to going into your room.
You're single, so gross.
Right, because he goes, smart?
And he goes, single.
I was like, oh, so you're a bad person.
Yeah.
Cool.
He's like, I'm a bad person.
I'm not a rapist, though.
Great.
Right.
And then because of this weird, who knows who made the choice that she has to go from being an accountant to a spy who's undercover and in love with him to like.
And has to be his girlfriend.
Because heteronormativity.
I was like, who would be the one to make this call?
Would it be Judi Dench?
I don't.
I guess.
Whose jurisdiction is this in?
But that happens.
And we've already discussed that that's ludicrous but then he uses that excuse to take a lot of liberties with her body
surprise kissing her groping at her she is like resisting a lot of the time at first and he's
still just like we have to maintain this cover that you're in love with me. I immediately broke upon entering this hotel.
What are you talking about?
Which is so not necessary.
I mean, it's like just so not necessary to his success in this poker game to be like forcing himself on this woman he just met.
I guess the idea is like, well, you're a woman who is attractive conventionally.
So I'm going gonna use you to distract
the other players so that i can win yeah and then it's like again kind of like you were saying
caitlin there's like these empty like well she has his she's she's got his number too where he
brings in that dress he's like you're gonna wear this dress you're gonna kiss my neck and then
she's like well i got you a jacket a A dinner jacket. They're dinner jackets and they're dinner jackets.
Right.
And that's like the empty like, oh, no, she's not powerless in this situation.
She bought him a jacket.
Right.
But that's the thing with her character is that like she, yeah, she always has like a rebuttal or she's like, your jacket sucks.
I sized you up the moment I saw you.
And the idea that the movie is putting forward is that like oh he's met his match all other women are lame and stupid but she's not
like the other girls and she can like match his wits and his whole thing i mean they're all lame
and stupid but you have to throw your your dick in there you have to you have to throw your dick detach it from your body and launch it
launch it yeah there and ultimately with with her it's it sucks because it's just like with
with these characters even when you're given this empty feminist like it reminded me of that thing
we talk about all the time where like women in action movies get to do one thing and everyone's
like wow look at her go girl power right But it's like empty and means nothing.
And it's just to like throw the SJWs off.
But we're not thrown off.
But she like ultimately she has no motivation outside of establishing a domestic life with James Bond.
Because after all this stuff happens, she I mean mean and it's like we find out she's
a double agent but we're led to believe like we don't know what her ambition in life is it seems
like she's got a pretty powerful job that she can apparently just leave yeah um she took go on a boat
in Venice she seems like yeah a high-ranking money manager for England. But she's just like, no, you're going to like be my basically be my husband and, you know,
pulls him away and takes on this nurturing role for him.
Where there's that weird line where she was like, if you were just a smile and a little
finger, I'd still fuck you.
And he's like, that finger does fucked up stuff.
It's like, are you going to finger her with your pinky?
Or like rub her clit?
I did picture it. What do you do with a pinky finger?
What if you just had a smile and a pinky?
They're like connected cosmically and they just go to town.
But yeah, it's just, she's ultimately like,
we don't know anything about her.
The logistics of her character are paid. There's no attention. We don't know anything about her the logistics of her character are paid there's no attention we don't
know what she wants in life rather than to be
hanging out with James Bond well I would
argue that she is all three things
she is also a femme fatale
and also a sacrificial lamb
because she sacrifices herself
by drowning herself in the
elevator when she did not need to do
that and she's
a femme fatale because she like
double-crossed bond and like fucks him over so she's kind of like all three of those roles by
the end so it's because she's like that femme fatale type we don't know like did she love him
or was that just all part of like the ruse yeah and then it's like ultimately it's like a double punch in the stomach of it's
then revealed that no her real motivation was to save a different guy yeah who you've never met
and never will and we just needed to kill her or get rid of her because women never come back for
a second movie yeah so she has to and it's it looks like that's not like the bond girl doesn't
always die but it's not out of the question
yeah because it's just canonically women don't come back yeah and daniel craig gets a million
paychecks we talked about that on the mission impossible episode too so if you want more
discussion on you know disposable women but the man keeps the his the core of men get to keep
coming back but the ladies you never see him again single use
yeah there's a scene where she's like coming on to him aggressively in like whatever hospital like
very fancy hospital he's like recovering in where you can fuck him yeah right yeah the sexy hospital
and he's like oh you used to hate me and's like, I'm afraid I'm a complicated woman.
And he's like, oh, that is something to be afraid of.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Oh, I'm tired.
Yeah.
It's unfortunate.
I mean, I feel like, yeah, for 2006, I think that unfortunately this was an attempt at a more empowered Bond girl.
Man, I missed it. But if you looked at,
but compared to the others,
it's like, they're like,
look, he doesn't hit her.
And he doesn't like,
treat her like she's the stupidest person in the world.
So it's like, unfortunately,
and Bond heads leap into our,
swan dive into our mentions.
It seems like for this particular,
like very toxic franchise franchise this would be progress
but they abandoned that because in the specter he's dating someone who's like 22 years younger
than him like he's no because the whole movie i was like oh good maybe either she'll find out that
like that's her dad or she's the daughter of someone who is very close to him. But yeah.
And I'm like, there's no way they're going to.
Oh, they.
Oh, so they're going to this.
No, absolutely not.
This is this is my specter is the bottom one.
It's not good.
Oh, gosh.
Also, the Mathis character is like constantly explaining to Vesper what's happening in the poker game.
And that is obviously there because the audience, if you're not familiar with poker, like there needs to be like expository dialogue to be like, oh, here's what the bet is or here's how this is going to play out.
But like, why not make Vesper the one who knows poker?
Who's the one who's like, give her a thing.
It makes sense.
She's an accountant.
She's a numbers person.
Like, yeah, it would make sense that she would know she might know poker and that's why she would be able to say with
authority no i'm not going to give you this additional five million dollars because i know
how this should be played and i understand it and you don't have the ability to carry this off and i
know that that would make her better but no she doesn't know anything because women can't know
anything it's always the men who
know the stuff and the reason she denies him the money is connected to that same through line of
just her being flippant towards james bond and that's how she's the match for him because she
won't give him whatever he wants right away she will make him wait as many as two minutes
to give him exactly what he wants there's that scene where he's arguing with her and she's like, I'm not going to.
You're a bloody arrogant wanker.
And then he's like, you're a bloody idiot.
Screams at her for being an idiot because she won't give him money that he is constantly
hemorrhaging.
Yeah, he's bleeding.
Yeah.
So it's very cool.
Yeah.
Also, the men in this story are commenting on her looks constantly.
I hate Mathis or whatever yeah like
hey he's like talking to james bond like she isn't there for when they're having this introductory
meeting and then he's like oh sometimes the money and he like touches her shoulder in this weird
way and like clearly he's like i'm straight up looking at your boobs right now i'm not hiding it
and i'm i'm seeing your pretend man i'm looking in his eyes letting him know that i'm looking at
your tits like Like it's crazy.
Yeah.
The program is like, I would tell you you're beautiful, but everybody's still staring at you.
And she's like, thanks.
And you're like, no.
They're at work.
This is their job.
They're at work and they're still just like, you're so pretty.
Like that is not appropriate workplace.
The last thing I wanted to talk about was Judi Dench's character.
This seems to be one of the only things this movie does that is, like, I think unequivocally right.
Because this was a character who's always played by a man.
But now it's Judi Dench.
I liked that a lot.
I guess that M, Jimmy Bobo's boss.
Yes.
Jimmy Bobo's Bobo, was previously played by John Houston, David Niven, Edward Fox, Bernard Lee, Robert Brown, and Ralph Fiennes.
Or Ralph Fiennes plays it now.
Yeah.
Oh.
Yeah.
Because Skyfall.
Oh, shit.
I forgot.
Yeah.
So he's playing it now.
So he's not in the mix at this time.
He's not in the mix at this time, but Judi Dench was also
in some of the Pierce Brosnan ones.
So she's carried through.
Oh right. That part for me
was cool.
Even though there's not a lot of things
of substance that happens in the scene, she does know
who caused 9-11. She doesn't seem worried about it.
It is not that important but they never tell the american spy like oh hey bt dubs um that thing that happened in your country not so long ago i feel like you should
know right damn people in britain are they're still holding on to a grudge from like 300 years
ago they're like yeah we know who caused 9-11 but we're not gonna tell them
here was my thing with M
is that so she assumes
this kind of like tropey boss
role where she's like this
stiff by the books
boss who doesn't like our heroes
methods because they're a little unorthodox
but then because he
gets results she's
meant to look kind of like wrong and foolish for
not believing in him so she's like oh we have to do things by the rules and he's like no i'm too
cool for that i'm gonna do things my way and then she's like you were right so like i feel like
she's kind of made out to like look a little like hey you should be more lenient with your stuff you're too stuffy over there judy so that was my
main thing with em well and she's also constantly advising i do think the character is written to
be more of a female character just the way she communicates with him and she's also constantly
advising him to repress his emotions yeah where she i don't know i'm just like i did did the did
the male versions of this character talk this much about emotional compartmentalization?
Doesn't seem like something
that James Bond's male boss would be,
but she brings it up like two or three times.
Yeah, like, yeah, you need to be sure
that you're keeping your emotions down.
I don't think you'll have a problem with that, though.
And he's like, no way, never felt a thing.
Yeah, if I felt her, I looked at her dead. It it doesn't matter i don't care about any of this is what
he was saying at that moment and then she's like okay 9-11 see you later you're like no
dark she was also if you can hear like banging happening on this recording we don't know what
it's from but sorry about it we're all doing our best it's the metronome of life yeah yeah the heartbeat of the
earth i guess my final thoughts for this movie or this whole franchise this whole thing is that
these movies go to great lengths to be like look how freaking cool james bond is he dresses well
he's charming he's classy he's very good at betting women he drives cool cars
he wears cool watches he says quippy lines and he holds guns that yeah and he's good he's good
so the male audience who these movies are targeted toward are seeing this and they're
gobbling it up they're like oh this is how you be cool uh by mistreating
women and dressing good all right i mean this is like one of the seminal examples of like
how young men because it's like the movies like this are are targeted at horny uncles but also
boys yeah yeah where it's just like this is like a blueprint and it's like the further you go back
in this franchise the worse and worse it gets but even if you're a young boy that sees something like this, it just hardwires your brain all sorts of fucked up ways.
I mean, if you were to guess what are the top five film franchises that wire boys' brains the wrong way on how to treat women i would say this this would be their top one
of them yeah and it's going strong baby it is going strong and there was also a new one they're
making a new i think this is daniel craig's last one yes this is swan song uh there was uh worth
saying last year uh there was a james bond producer where i think that there was some like
they're like who's gonna take over for daniel Craig? Maybe we'll get a black James Bond. Maybe we'll get a female James Bond.
And the producers were like,
you will not get a female James Bond ever.
Like it was,
they were very close.
We need a Jamie Bond.
We need a Jamie Bond.
First of all,
I'm very strong.
And I fuck constantly.
And it does ruin, it makes me worse at my job
so i think that there's a lot there i also i'm just like i'm sort of over uh all female reboots
of fundamentally flawed franchises sure but the fact that they were just like nope
fuck you no way you're like well now I kind of want it any other final thoughts yes okay so I have been
in love with Mads Mikkelsen for a long time sure it is part of the reason why I was like we have
to all see this I'm making all of my friends come to this movie that is you're right Jamie
I did not realize how fucking long it was they're already in Montenegro and I'm like oh this has got to be like what like 25 minutes there's another hour and eight minutes
to the film yeah I was shocked that it was as long as it was two and a half hours long it's
over the top they could have cut most of the scenes where yeah just where he's doing something
um I am asthmatic and I hate that they villainize asthma in this movie. Oh yeah. Because he's like
he's like sinister like in his
shaking of his inhaler and using
it and I'm like okay some of us just can't breathe
that well and I don't think that that has to be
a sign that we're bad people.
I was very upset by the representation
of asthma. Demonizing asthma is unacceptable.
Actually I had one question for the
room. Sure. Do you
both think that a feminist
version of the james bond character is possible i mean it would have to be it would have to like
disrupt basically everything we know about james bond because the one of the main things that's
known about him is that he is a womanizer. So, like, you got to strip that whole identity from him.
Well, I think that there's a way.
I think that there's a way that he can still, like, you can have a lot of sex and be a feminist.
Like, I think that there's a way that he could hook up with a bunch of women and treat them with respect.
People do it all the time.
Not enough, but it's been done. I feel like it would have to be
almost in the way that I feel like
there's a number of horror films now where
a character, something that happened
when they were a child or something, comes back
and they're like, well, we were kids.
You would have to have something that
makes him confront.
I would love it if it was pictures of all
the women that he slept with who were dead.
You're toxic.
He's being tortured, but also being forced to see, hey, all these things that you've done, maybe this isn't the mission. I would love for there to be a major component of a James Bond.
Maybe the movie after Daniel Craig, he takes a good, long, hard look at himself.
Yes!
I want it.
I don't think that... They're never going to do that, but I would love to at himself. Yes! I want it. I don't think that, I mean, and again-
They're never going to do that, but I would love to see it.
It would be so good.
Like, again, I have very little knowledge of this franchise,
but just based on, like, the fact that the character has changed over time,
and he still doesn't treat women well, but treat them differently.
Like, it seems like this is a malleable character.
The actor changes.
It seems like there's at least,
if we're never going to get a female James Bond,
whatever.
I don't even want that.
I want a woman to have her own franchise.
But there seems like there's a version of this character
that could still drink, fight, and fuck
and not be horrible to women.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We'll see.
So, Mr. Hollywood, if you're listening i mean sorry just
real quick in skyfall there is a character who has to pay for the consequences of how mi6 operates
and how not whatever group they're in yeah what who does have to answer for that and it's not
james bond it's judy dench like so she has to deal with the consequences of like this lifestyle,
what it means,
because someone's like,
hey,
here's a mirror to like what you guys actually do.
But yeah,
it doesn't affect James Bond at all.
He doesn't change.
He still fucks around.
He still takes actions that destroy city blocks and kill millions of brown people.
But like,
who cares?
You know?
Oh,
man. Well, kill millions of brown people but like who cares you know oh man well i'm holding out hope for
james bond ally holding out hope i mean if we get idris elba as is often discussed he's too busy
doing his hbo dj show what he is oh it dropped i haven't seen it yet my boyfriend watched it but there's an
idris elba dj show on hbo anyways this might be his ballers famous actor gets shitty hbo show for
no reason love it anyways idris elba i would yeah he would be incredible yes indeed um does this
movie pass the bechdel test no no it doesn't even come close
women do not even interact or I think we're even in the same scene there's one scene where he's
like uh it's not Mr. Beach or whatever it's Mr. Bond and he's talking to a hotel receptionist
oh she is not talking to the hotel receptionist she doesn't resume talking until they walk away
from that other woman right yeah they can't actually see each other yeah it's not mr but it's mr bond that's my favorite line in the movie um yeah no women
don't even uh know each other yeah no maybe nope well how many nipples will we get this
movie is treatment i'm gonna go with a zero yep yeah zero i'm gonna go with a zero as well all right yeah i will go with
half okay of a nipple okay all of which goes to judy dentry because she like when i was a kid i
was like she's the cool she's the one in charge she tells everybody what to do they all do it
that's true okay i i will also give a half nipple. All right. I'm going to stick with zero.
I will for Judy and for the baldest woman being in charge and that rule being abided by, I will give a half a nipple.
Everything else was bullshit.
Indeed.
Kniece, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me.
I listened to the show.
I love it.
Oh my gosh.
Thank you.
And listen to, if you're on our Matreon, I loved our listen to the show i love it oh my gosh thank you and listen to uh if you're
if you're on our matreon i loved our back to the future episode and if you're not on our matreon
what are you doing yeah grow up sign up um can you where can people follow you online is there
anything you'd like to plug uh they can follow me on all of the platforms at kani smogly ity. It's K-E-N-I-C-E M-O-B-L-E-Y. And
I have a podcast called Love About Town where
we are very dumb and
we joke about sex and dating and relationships.
Cool. Hell yeah.
You can follow us on all the
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You're very, our Jimmy Bobo.
And, um, Bad person Alright, bye
Bye
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