The Bechdel Cast - Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005)

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

This week, we're celebrating Caitlin's birthday with an episode on Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005)! And don't forget, our SHREKTANIC TOUR kicks off NEXT WEEK in London, Oxford, Edinburgh, Manchester, and Dublin, so grab tickets now at linktr.ee/bechdelcastSee 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. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos,

host of the Happiness Lab podcast. As the U.S. elections approach, it can feel like we're angrier and more divided than ever. But in a new, hopeful season of my podcast, I'll share what the science really shows, that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello, listeners. Caitlin here dropping in at the

top of the episode to give you one final reminder about the Shrek-tanic tour, which starts next week. And you're also about to find out that this is my birthday episode. So if you would like to give me the most wonderful birthday gift of all, you can do so by buying tickets to the shows on this tour, which are two shows in London on May 22nd, followed by a show in Oxford with the Saint Audio Podcast Festival on May 24th, then Edinburgh on May 26th, Manchester on May 28th, and Dublin on May 29th. Right now, there are still a few tickets available for all of these shows, and it would just really mean the world if you came out to see us live. We have so much fun, goofy stuff planned, stuff you've never seen or heard before.

So do yourself a favor. Do not miss these shows, which you can buy tickets to at linktree.com. We will see you there. We are so freaking excited. The other thing, switching gears here, but the other thing that we want to do at the top of the episode is to place a content warning for domestic abuse and violence, as that is a component of our discussion on this episode. 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. Hey, Caitlin. Hey, Caitlin. Hey, Jamie. Are you telling me that for the last six or seven years, you've also been podcasting in secret? Well, gee, I don't know. I'm going to be really secretive about it. I guess the only way to get to the bottom of it is to kill each other. Or to join forces and do a podcast together wow and revitalize our relationship by starting god wouldn't that be i haven't seen the reboot but what if that is what happens mr and

mrs smith just start a podcast that would be such a bummer i really hope that that doesn't happen did you watch the show i didn't watch the whole thing but but I saw the pilot, so I can describe the premise based on that. Okay, I read about it, but I feel like that's sometimes what happens now on shows where they're just like, um, they're under 35. Should they have a podcast? Unclear. Maybe. Anyways, do-do-do-do, happy birthday to Caitlin.lin happy birthday that's exactly who oh happy birthday thank you so much. I'm excited and if this happens to be your first time around here because you're a huge Mr. and Mrs. Smith 2005 fan, welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Jamie Loftus.

My name is Caitlin Durante and this is our podcast where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test just to get the dang conversation going except we wait till the very end of the episode to talk about it. Yeah. It makes sense. It really does. It really does. The Bechdel test is, of course, a marginalized gender, speak to each other about something other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue. And it should be a meaningful exchange. And then we just sort of start the conversation from there. It's thrilling. So today's movie is, like I said, Mr. and Mrs. Smith Jamie what is your relationship if any with the dang movie easy nothing uh nothing nothing nothing I had never seen this movie I feel like I'm coming

in completely cold because not only have I never seen this I had no interest in the reboot because I had never seen this I really have never had much of an interest i mean especially as time goes on as we'll talk about i've never really had much of an interest in brad pitt or angelina jolie or action movies so this was just never going to be a movie i was going to see yeah fair even though i think that like mean, when this movie came out, it was like 11 or 12. So I feel like I should have been, I feel like that's a very like gossip magazine age.

But I was also not very invested in the media narrative. I don't know. I guess this one just missed me. I just didn't care. Yeah. And I have to say, not to be a downer at the top of the episode, I watched the movie and I care less

than ever. I didn't like it very much. Although I do get, like, watching it now, I do get why people liked it at the time. I get it. It's a sexy little movie. And it has its moments. But yeah, just really was not doing very much for me. Caitlin, what is your history with Mr. and Mrs.

Smith? I saw it in theaters in 2005. I was either a freshman or sophomore in college. So, you know, I didn't have the most refined taste. And I thought this movie was awesome. I was like, wow, look at these hot people being so hot. And they're hot near each other. And they're hot on top of each other. And they're fighting and then they're kissing. And wowie wow. These are all the very nuanced thoughts going through my head. And I thought it was a fun movie. And then I bought it on DVD. And I watched it a lot on DVD. And I still have the DVD brag for that. Your DVD collection is a thing of beauty. I really don't stand by a lot of it, but it is there.

That's growth. That's growth. I feel like it. Thank you. It's very alarming when someone's growth. That's growth. I feel like it. Thank you. It's very alarming when someone's taste never changes. Yeah. If everyone can vouch for their DVD collection from 20 years ago, folks, we've got a problem. You've got to look inward. Yeah. You know, there has to be certain things that you cannot answer for. What was it like rewatching? I thought that the storytelling was sloppy and the pacing was really bad. Yeah. Because since I first saw this movie, I of course went on to get a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University, something I would never mention, but I have a far

better understanding of, you know, narrative structure and pacing. And I was like, oh, this movie like lags. There's a lot of like unnecessary repetition in the exposition. Like this could have been streamlined significantly. I thought the storytelling was just like not very well done, especially in Act One. Yeah, it was one of those movies where i couldn't tell if it was the writing or if i was just bored but i did find like a lot of the establishing information confusing right i mean this is just movie logic but i'm like they didn't know right then you guys are a

joke you're bad at your job because you're not being very subtle. They are pretty bad at their jobs. Yeah. The other thing about this movie is that, so I teach screenwriting classes using aforementioned degree that I would never mention. Plugs, plugs, plugs. And the main assignment in my intro level class is for students to write a film treatment. And I send them various treatments as an example of what to do and how to write a treatment.

And I would say the best one I have found after scouring the Internet is the treatment for Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Really? A lot of the treatments are either, that are available online, at least, that I have access to. They're either a James Cameron scriptment, so it's like 70 pages long, and he basically just wrote the script, but kind of summarized it also.

So those aren't useful. Or they're treatments that just like aren't very good at encapsulating like what the story of the movie is. So even though this is like not a masterpiece of cinema, the treatment for it is at least effective at being a treatment and serving the purpose that a treatment is supposed to serve. So I send this to all my students and this is kind of like the main one that we study. And so I'm constantly rereading the treatment for this movie. Wow. Yeah. So like you actually have a consistent and like rather intimate relationship with this movie. This is wild. Right. But I hadn't rewatched the movie probably since like 2010, 2011. Like it definitely fell off for me and it wasn't something I was consistently watching after the first like few years of enjoying it. But I do have this kind of like intimate relationship with at least the premise of the movie and so i was excited to go back and re-watch

it to see if it held up at all and i would say generally the answer is no although i don't know if it was just the nostalgia but i was like i'm still having fun there's still some fun set pieces and sequences definitely and also i mean like there's certain like images where well I don't even know this is necessarily true but there are a few images in this movie that I'm like they don't make shots like that anymore and I'm thinking of Angelina Jolie snapping someone's neck basically as Catwoman then jumping off a building with an umbrella and getting into a cab all in the space of 20 seconds I'm like yes now that was cinema. That was cinema.

That was pretty amazing. The movie feels like a movie in that moment. The movie was really feeling like a movie because this is not a movie in which magic is a factor, but like Catwoman, Mary Poppins. I know there was some sort of gadget, but I was like, no way, no way. I know.

Wow, that's fascinating. Well, I'm excited to talk about the story. I also did a fairly deep dive on the meat because I mean that to me, when I think of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I think of the media cycles around it more so than the movie that I didn't care about and never saw.

So we're firing on all cylinders today because it was, I mean, it's probably one of the most famous tabloid sagas of our lifetime that has been, I think, thoughtfully reappraised many times in the last couple of years. And also Brad Pitt is a domestic abuser. We simply have to say it at the top of the show. Whose children hate him. So, you know, so much to talk about today. A rich charcuterie of discourse. Indeed. Shall we take a quick break and then come back for the recap? Let's do that. Okay. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist

who on October 16, 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 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. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like what's the history behind bacon-wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. Season two. Season two. Are we recording? Are we good?

Oh, we push record, right? And this season, we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Saying that the most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba, and the piña colada from Puerto Rico. So all of these Latin cultures. We thank Latin culture.

There's a mention of blood sausage in Homer's Odyssey that dates back to the 9th century B.C. B.C.? I didn't realize how old the hot dog was. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We're back. It's still Caitlin's birthday. And we are Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Can I just say, before we even start, how I've never like, because I didn't, outside of Brad Pitt and Angelinaina jolie had no idea who was in this movie i haven't experienced this in a long time but when vince vaughn came on screen i experienced a full body shudder and i don't even like hate him but i just like for whatever headspace i was in when I was watching this yesterday, I was like, not today. No, I can't do Vince Vaughn today. And of course, he's the worst character in the movie. Oh, my gosh. And you're like, why is he here?

And then you do a little research and you're like, well, it's the same director as Swingers. That's why he's here. Yes, that is why he's here. And he's playing a character that was his like bread and butter during this time and also in swingers era misogynist piece of shit loser wedding crashers he plays basically the same character oh really yeah he's just like spewing hatred toward women in every line of dialogue and that is his character also on top of that of that, it seems like, I don't know, I feel like you see misogynist characters who are meant to look very, like, smooth. And then you see misogynist characters,

and I'm just talking about this era of movies, who it's clear that they're being hateful out of rejection. I don't like to see either but right you know the very like he lives with his mom which you're like it's just all so lazily written and i feel like this movie falls somewhere in the middle because we're not supposed to be like wow he's awesome and hilarious but we're also like he's still an ally to the characters we're meant to be rooting for and no one ever calls him out on his behavior so it's just sort of presented uncritically and we're I think meant to laugh along at what he's saying I think in 2005 seems likely I don't know I haven't seen Wedding Crashers and I'm God willing, I'll never have to.

If you're a matron and I hope you are, please never vote for wedding crashers when it's on the poll. I never want to watch it. If I can get through my whole life with never seeing wedding crashers, that'll be all right yeah i agree anyways mr and mrs smith what happens in this damn movie so we open on a couple's counseling session where we meet a married couple mr and mrs smith that's the name of the movie who are john and Jane, played by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. And we see them talking to the therapist and they are not on the same page maritally. And they then start to tell the story of how they met. So five or six years ago. Hilarious.

They were both in Columbia during a flurry of police activity. Hilarious. talking to his friend slash colleague eddie that's vince vaughn saying how he proposed to jane they're getting married meanwhile jane is talking to her friend jasmine played by carrie washington who is too good for this movie i mean carrie washington is too good for so many of her early roles i just hope that this is the kind of movie where you look at the budget and you're like, I certainly hope she got a good paycheck. I hope, but I also doubt. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I also have such doubts.

We have such doubts. Much like Meryl. Much like Meryl, I have such doubts. Yes. So they're talking about John, aka they're not passing the Bechel test and jane thinks that john is a construction contractor john thinks jane works in tech what they don't know is that actually they're both assassins whoa yeah i mean so much of this movie plays on i think very tropey views of what hetero marriage

is which is you secretly hate each other uh-huh but also like this movie just takes it to such a far-flung extent where i'm just like oh my god what is this writer's marriage like we're like obviously it's not autobiographical because then he would be cool but the fact that they're like they don't even know really what each other does i don't know it's funny it's weird right so i have a little bit of information on this pulling of course from scholarly journal wikipedia once again hit me the movie was written by Simon Kinberg, who's written, I think, some of the most hated X-Men movies also. Oh, I didn't even realize that. He wrote Dark Phoenix, I believe, or produced Dark Phoenix. was a grad student and he had the idea for the movie after listening to a couple of his friends

who went to marriage therapy and he thought that it sounded aggressive and mercenary and he's like hmm this would make an interesting template for a relationship inside of an action movie so he just like took his friend's marital problems and then put that in an action movie question mark so i mean i don't hate that like i get what he's saying but also i don't know it's weird i sort of thought that like the therapy was presented less hatefully than therapy often is in movies of this era. So it's interesting to think that he actually didn't feel that way. Well, who knows? But it didn't read to me as like outwardly.

Like I thought it was like a fun framing device that makes it clear that he's a piece of shit, which I know the movie isn't really capable of showing, but I had no issue with the actual framing device. Yeah. Yeah, it works for me. So then we cut to five or six years later and again, their marriage is rocky and unaffectionate. They are not open with each other. They still don't know what the other one actually does for a living. Then we see Jane leave one evening on an assignment. She goes to see an arms dealer pretending to be a dominatrix and kills him. Meanwhile, John assassinates a few

guys at a poker game. They both make swift escapes and they reconvene at their suburban neighbor's holiday party and we're like wow what a contrast between their sexy lives as assassins and suburban life there's a lot of these coming out i was thinking about the bad sorry frank oz but the bad stepford wives adaptation that came out like the year before after this like there's a lot of oh yeah weird attempts i feel like with like summery blockbusters to comment on suburban life and i'm sure there was a good one i don't know that i've seen it anyways this is another one where you're just like, sure, they're not like other suburbanites, but like, that doesn't mean that we like them. I don't know.

Well, Stepford Wives was the reason that Nicole Kidman, who was originally considered for Jane Smith. Oh, right. Yes. Couldn't do the movie because she was too busy filming Stepford Wives. Wow. Well, I guess this movie was technically more successful. But I mean, I feel like there would be a rift in the space time continuum if this movie's casting went differently. Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Because then, I mean, you would probably never have the Brangelina of it all, which might be for the best for all parties, but also like, yeah,

if the casting for this movie leads went different, America as we know it would crumble. Like what would people have talked about? True. In any case, so John and Jane then both head off to work at their respective assassin offices and they both get the same assignment

to kill benjamin dance played by adam brody who we've already seen receive an assignment of his own although we don't know what it is see that was my pleasant jump scare was adam brody's appearance in this movie had no idea good for him good for him for a second when i think you first see him from the back and i was like if that is justin bartha i'm gonna lose it but regrettably it was not just i mean i'm happy either way i'm happy either way yeah now it's adam brody and he's also being a misogynist because he's like ordering a woman to bring him a cup of coffee. And that's not her job. And he sucks. Yeah. And if there's one thing Adam Brody is going to do and he's typecast, it's be a piece of shit.

True. I was like, wow, it's really been 20 years of Adam Brody being typecast as a piece of shit. Mm hmm. I wonder what he's like in real life. We're seeing a pattern, aren't we, I was like, wow, it's really been 20 years of Adam Brody being typecast as a piece of shit. I wonder what he's like in real life. We're seeing a pattern, aren't we, of male actors being typecast as misogynists. I wonder what's up with that. But the twist is, in this movie, we're supposed to be rooting for at least one of them. Yeah, we're supposed to be laughing, laughing, laughing. Yeah. Anyway, so John and Jane separately go to a location in the desert

near the U.S.-Mexico border where they know Benjamin is going to be. And they're planning their attack. And then they both realize another assassin is there. And they try to sabotage the other one because they don't realize it's their spouse. Neither are successful in their mission to kill Adam Brody. Jane flees the scene. Great sentence. Yeah, I think I just started calling him Adam Brody from this point on.

I mean, what the hell are we supposed to call? i know benjamin you're right no get a grip so jane flees the scene and john takes her laptop to try to figure out who that was meanwhile jane is at lady assassin headquarters industries because everyone she works with is a woman. Whoa. Feminism alert. I mean, it's a fun idea. It's a fun idea. Although her boss, who they call Father, played by Keith David, is I think the only man. And he's like, you have 48 hours to clean the scene,

AKA find the other guy and kill him or else she will become the next target. Right. So we cut back to John who finds out an address for the laptop and goes there, discovers that it's the office of his wife. Whoa. Meanwhile, Jane is looking at footage of the other assassin in the desert and she realizes it's her husband. So they both go home pretending like everything is normal, but dinner is very tense. And then some wine gets spilled and they both leave under the pretense of they're going to clean it up. But actually, John grabs a gun, Jane speeds off in the car, and they part ways. So then John goes to

Vince Vaughn's house. Mistake number one. Seriously. Jane goes to Lady Assassin headquarters and talks to Kerry Washington. Both John and Jane are relaying that their spouse is the other assassin

and that they have to kill them. Although they seem to be contemplating whether or not they can go through with it. The idea is they claim to not contemplating whether or not they can go through with it. The idea is they claim to not love each other, but you can see that they seem to actually have feelings for each other that they're not willing to admit. So John goes to Jane's office to try to kill her, although he

can't go through with it, and she escapes. Then he goes to her backup office, question mark? I don't, I was also confused. And then she explodes the elevator that he's in, except she didn't really mean to, and now she's sad. And she goes to a fancy dinner by herself herself and she's having a little tear falling down her face but surprise john shows up because he was in a different elevator i guess and i also was like the writing on that was also so confusing i was like how did he get? I also did my favorite character in the movie is the person that Angelina Jolie works with who kills Brad Pitt. And then Angelina Jolie is like, wait, what? Which, first of all, you have to brief the room if you're bluffing.

Yes. So another example of just both of these assassins are not very good at being assassins i don't know why they're so high up in assassinating assassinating yes uh no i think the first one was good but just that there's like an unnamed character who's like what you said you said goodbye yeah it's like good for her she's good at her job. Promote her. Right. So anyway, John shows up to this dinner and they're sitting together, guns pointed at each other, trying to figure out how to proceed. They dance a violent but also horny tango. But then she tries to kill him again by planting a bomb on him oops and she escapes and he takes the bomb off or whatever they both race home but they're talking to each other on the phone

on the way and john is trying to be sentimental it's clear that there are feelings between them but they're not really willing to fully admit it. They get home, they're sneaking around, they're gathering weapons, and then there's a big shootout. Then it turns into hand-to-hand combat. But in so doing, they realize that they can't kill each other. And then suddenly, they're making out. And then they have have sex and the passion is reignited in their relationship and for the first time they're honest with each other about their lives and their pasts and they're telling each other all of this stuff about who they really are but oh no now there's a hit out for both john and jane and vince fawn gets notification to kill them and other assassins come after them also so jane and john steal their

neighbor's car and escape there's a whole car chase. They kill the people chasing them. Then they go to see Vince Vaughn to get some intel on who's after them and how many people. And he's like, basically, everyone from both of your agencies are going to try to kill you. If you separate, you have a shot. But if you stay together, you're dead. Unless you can find something that they want more than you. So John and Jane kidnap the original target, Adam Brody, and he reveals he was never actually the target that they were because their agencies found out that they were married. So they set up a sting to get them to kill each other.

And Adam Brody was just the bait. It's the classic, I'm just an intern. I'm just a little stinker. Sure. Yeah. So he was the bait and he still is. And a flock of assassins are approaching. So John and Jane do contemplate splitting up

and going their separate ways, but they decide to stay together and fight. And they end up in this like big box store for home goods or something. It's like an Ikea. Yeah. Again, some attempt to like be better than the mall or whatever.

They're like, we're built different. Screw the mall. You're like like we're built different screw the mall you're like sure right whatever so they're in this store and assassins surround them but mr and mrs smith take out all of the enemies and they win and we cut back to them at couples therapy. Their marriage is in a better place because now they're honest with each other. And they fuck all of the time. The end. So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.

Yay. We're back. Okay, where should we begin? Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 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 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 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. I kind of want to briefly go through the various other renditions of this narrative. Yeah. Because there are a few. Yeah.

They're kind of relevant, I suppose. I was more just sort of interested in them. So there's a Hitchcock movie from 1941, a rare Hitchcock comedy. Fun fact, I watched this movie back in probably like 2007 or something because I was like, I like the Mr. and Mrs. Smith from 2005. I wonder what the Hitchcock one is like. And it basically has nothing to do with. Really? So the story is that there's a married couple where the woman finds out that their marriage was never actually valid. And so they have various arguments and eventually split up and she starts dating another

man. But her husband, David, keeps following her, just stalking her. And she keeps being like, no, I don't want to get back together with you. And he's like, well, what about if we do? And that's basically the story. And then they realize that actually they are meant for each other and then they kiss at the end and I guess they get back together so it's about like a marriage that isn't valid and then they have to decide if they want to actually be together as a married couple or not so very little to do okay a lot of logistics in there yes i thought the movie was pretty bad i didn't enjoy it at all when i watched it and so great that is that version apparently there is an american crime drama tv series that aired for like two months in 1996 before it got canceled oh called

mr and mrs smith it stars scott bacula and maria bello okay minion oh okay first of all that better be how she pronounces it maria bello bello that one i didn't come across i mean i came across the original but weird interesting so the premise for this one and i think it again only aired for like a dozen or so episodes but the premise is a spy known only as mr smith, that's Scott Bakula, works for a private security organization known as The Factory. And in the pilot, a rival named Mrs. Smith, Maria Bello, becomes entangled in a case with Mr. Smith. And then after losing her job when the mission fails, the factory hires her and assigns them to work together. And even though they often bicker and they know nothing about each other's personal lives, including their real names, they make a good team. So this one's closer.

Right. Inching toward what we have. Yeah. And then, as I said, I watched the pilot of the 2024 TV series starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, where two strangers independently agree to become secret agents for a mysterious organization undercover as a married couple. So in this series, they know that the other one is a spy from the very beginning. It's just that the marriage is a sham they are not actually married i don't know how the rest of the episodes pan out but i do know that they like start to get to know each other a little bit better i don't know if a romance develops or not i didn't watch that far into it i've've heard good things about it. I think it's probably worth watching, but this is famously not a TV or reading podcast. And so we simply can't speak to it.

I feel like I missed the media cycle for that series and I am kind of intrigued. I think I will watch it. I liked the first episode. I would keep going. Okay. And I guess time will sort of tell with the most recent adaptation. I feel like at least at the time of this recording, this rendition of Mr. and Mrs. Smith is the best known.

Yes. Because it was a really, really, really successful movie. Like kind of more successful than I remembered. It almost made half a billion dollars 20 years ago, which is just, I guess everybody saw this movie except for me like it pretty wild pretty impressive and one of the kind of i think bro-iest creative teams i've come across in a movie we've covered in a while and that's sort of saying something we've got the director of swingers uh and born identity one we've got the writer of actually i did like this movie but it is i think bro canon guy richie sherlock holmes oh i also like the movie he directed what i think is considered the worst x-men movie of all time you know he's just kind of slaying uh no but just like a really interesting broey mrs smith never stood a chance is what i'm saying yeah in

terms of there being any sort of nuance there i kind of want to talk about the characters first and then get into the media thing because i feel like that's just like almost a whole other podcast so I don't want to forget to talk about the characters yeah Caitlin what do you what do you think of Mr. and Mrs. Smith I don't care for them and I really don't care for Mr. Smith I fucking hate the guy yeah he is awful to me what I was getting was like Smith. I mean, I think he's way worse at his job. I think that Jane is a more competent spy and, you know, a woman in an action movie. I appreciate that she is the better one at her job. And that's a job that in i'm sure real life and in movies is commonly associated with a man doing that job so i appreciated that she was at least shown as being competent at her job

yeah however i think that as far as characterization goes like what even is her personality i feel like she's so underwritten i feel like that for every woman we see really because i mean even i think it's like even more intensely contrasted between kerry washington and vince vaughn where they're playing for sure mr and mrs smith's respective best friends and you can just tell that the writer i mean simon kimberg very well maybe a nice guy but i don't think he has any grip on what women would say to each other if left in a room and it felt clear every time that happened which was almost never it was not very much but even if she's interacting with her husband i feel like she just like is a blah nothing like there's no personality there at least john gets jokes yeah john and vaughn john

john and vaughn whether or not you laugh at them is kind of beside the point, but they're written in such a way that, you know, they're the funny ones. They get the jokes. And meanwhile, Jane is humorless and she isn't generating any of the comedy in this action comedy, aside from maybe one or two punchlines that they give her. But generally speaking, like she's sort of a nothing character, no personality. She's humorless. Meanwhile, the men get to have fun. We were talking about this a lot on the Knocked Up episode, where the men are written to be funny and goofy, and the women are like humorless shrews. And I found that to be the case for this movie as well. I didn't find them to be, I guess, as like shrewy in this movie as they certainly as they are in like Judd Apatow movies of the same era. I guess I more found them to just be nothing.

Right. Like nothing. Which is really frustrating because you consider like angelina jolie had an oscar like why didn't you write her a part right which i know happens to successful actresses in particular all the time but it's just like come on yeah and i think that you know she and carrie washington do everything with what they're given but they're not given very much and I think that the best moments for Angelina Jolie I feel like there's references to her I guess what her persona would have been at the time where like she's like this famous gorgeous woman with a history of like publicly being into kink so I feel like there are

like references to that throughout the movie it's like fun i don't know i mean and this happens all the time still but like you've been given this tremendously talented actor and she's just treated like a body right and totally which i feel like early on in us doing this show i like i feel like i had kind of like an undercooked like she's being objectified and like which is very very often true and i think is often true in this movie but isn't an inherently bad thing to be sexy in a movie like that's yeah technically right part of the appeal of this movie is two hot people fighting fine great like i'm seated for that but it's just you also have to be able to like do other things or it starts to feel like well you're just a body if you're not given any sort of like if you don't have a character right and so yeah like brad pitt is hot with a character and angelina

jolie is hot without a character and so you you're just like, well, yeah, that's, they did the thing. That's men writing a movie for you. I am speculating here, but it feels so much to me as I watch this movie that the direction that director Doug Liman was giving to Angelina Jolie in every scene was be sexier, flutter your eyelashes, do something with your posture. Because that's what you're seeing in every scene. It's him being funny, cracking a joke, being goofy, whatever.

And then her just sort of like pursing her lips or fluttering her eyelashes or something like that. Which it's like she's great at. For sure. But also she has a fucking Oscar. Like I think that you see a lot of the same stuff like we talked about truly like probably over seven years ago now the tomb raider movies where yeah i think that she is objectively less objectified in this movie than she is in the tomb raider movies but that is not really a yard stick that anyone should have to use. Right.

Yeah. So, I mean, it just feels like a classic example of, especially because while Brad Pitt is a piece of shit domestic abuser, he's a good actor, right? So you have two famously talented actors. At this time, the more decorated actor is being given absolutely nothing. And, you know, no one really said much about it. And while this movie is coming out, Angelina Jolie specifically is getting pummeled in the media.

And so it's just almost like society hates women. What? It's misogyny. It's almost like everyone everyone hates women you know what the show is about yeah very obvious in this movie this movie i mean if nothing else it just feels like lazy and it's characterization of women it's just like neither director nor writer talked to any women that they knew to see this i mean i feel like that's also reflected in how lazy the uh attempted like upper crust suburban commentary is in this movie where you know frank oz stepford wise isn't great but it's at least specific in like what it's trying to do it doesn't do a great job but you can see the attempt right but it's

just like men be doing business women be holding babies and wearing ugly sweaters and you're like certainly like the rich upstate new york white upper class like fair game but like it's not saying anything i don't know it was just bizarre i think one positive thing or maybe just one thing let's let's see let's give this up i was surprised i guess that this wasn't present because i feel like you know like there are a couple in their 30s and they're homeowners and blah blah blah there is not any baby storyline between the two of them i was sort of expecting that just because of what i am trained to expect from movies about heterosexual couples that are 30 or over and there is like one scene where like mrs smith is holding a baby and she's sort of like i liked that and i liked that

it never came back and you're just okay, they don't want kids. And I think that given the fact that they're assassins and bad at it, that's probably for the best. But that's one of the only nice things I can say about this movie is I kept expecting that to become a thing. And it never did. However, so many of the one-liners, because like you're saying like he is supposed to be funny and maybe in 2005 people i mean people seem to be laughing to the tune of half a billion dollars i mean yeah but like any like little comment any quip that he'd throw to her would be like i don't like your cooking i don't like you like they're also his wife coded in a way that like

it was annoying because it was sexist and annoying but it was also annoying because it just was like bad writing where like he's talking to her like the quality of her cooking was something that we know is very important to her when we have no real reason to believe that that's true. Like, it just seems like, again, like the writers being like, well, what would hurt a woman's feelings? And I don't know, it's just so lazy and felt like dated for 2005. Like it just sucked. Yes. And he's just mean to her. He's just mean to her. And then he slut shames her at the end you know just anything you could possibly imagine yeah that you wouldn't want

it's kind of the murderer's row yes there's all these examples of him he like comments on our cooking three times like why and then it's revealed that like she doesn't cook like the women at Lady Assassin headquarters cook for her or something. But you also like see her preparing food. So I'm like, but we are seeing her. I don't know. Anyway. Yeah. So like more bad writing and like inconsistent writing. But also just like counting on your assumption that any woman would be so hurt if her husband

didn't like her cooking. And you're just like, right. Yeah. At least she's like, I don't care what you think about my cooking. Stop talking about it. Right. There are a few things that I don't hate and I think are probably why I connected to this movie as much as I did in 2005. One of them is her participation in the action where, and we've had this conversation many times

at this point as far as like, if a woman is allowed to be in an action movie? Is she allowed to fight? And if so, what does that look like? And in this case, again, we see her being competent at her job. She gets to do stuff. She's doing action movie things. She's shooting guns. She's driving in the chase scene. She's allowed to fight her husband. Right. Yeah. That's a almost like separate conversation as far as like, men and women, can they fight each other? But before I kind of dive take out the last two cars chasing them and so she takes charge and she's the one to take out those cars and there might be some like possibly gendered things attached to this but she's the more sort of like meticulous planner assassin that's her approach to her job whereas john is the more like oh i'll improvise

oh i'm just gonna wing it and then that manifests and he is very often wrong he's often wrong and she's usually right but when she calls him out for it i feel like the movie is framing those moments as like, she's nagging him and he got the job done. So what's the big deal? So I was feeling notes of that. I kept going back and forth on that. Yeah. Cause it's like, I think that you can read it both ways, but I just don't see any reason to give a generous read to this writer or director right right so i appreciate her involvement in the action it's something that a lot of action movies before and since this movie wouldn't afford even a like a lady assassin to be as involved in the action as she is and And then, like we were saying, yes, she and a man are fighting each other. And this is another discussion we've had many times.

I think most recently on maybe the John Wick episode. But it's always been like, should we see a man punching a woman in a movie? Can a woman and a man fight each other? And I think our conversation has evolved over the years, but at least in this context, when they are both trained assassins and their mission is to kill each other, it stands to reason that they would be fighting. And the movie doesn't shy away from that again it shows her just as competent of a fighter as him and their equals as far as like hand-to-hand combat and gun stuff so and gun no i i agree with you i think that that's something that like

i wonder i meant to look more into this because I feel like for years and years, whenever men and women would fight on screen, it would launch a bunch of op-eds about like, should this have happened? also has to do with how much I was reading about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's relationship. It's only in one sequence, but let me know what you think. It was bothering me and it could be a personal thing, but in the scene where they're fighting in their house, I get it. They're assassins. I do feel like there's erotic fighting. There's wish fulfillment stuff. It's blah, blah, blah. They're basically BDSMing each other without any consent rules because it's blah, blah, blah. I get it. I do feel as if, though, that like all of her moves or the majority of her moves to me looked like fight moves, looked like martial arts, right? Training. fight moves looked like martial arts right training and I felt like his moves often looked more just like domestic abuse and shoving her against a wall and just throwing her over a table

and like I don't know it bugged me yeah the fight choreography like he did do martial arts stuff and she didn't break shit over his head so maybe I was reading into it a little too hard but there were like several things especially because it's Braditt and we know he's a domestic abuser right like that just like i don't know yeah but then in any other fight sequence they're in together it's just that long fight sequence where they're fighting each other where it just felt like she was almost always doing clear martial arts stuff. I felt like he was like half and half. He was very often just pushing her. I didn't like that fight sequence very much.

That didn't ping for me because I didn't super notice it. I'm not saying it didn't happen. I would just have to like rewatch and look more closely at that but i'd imagine it's because of the whole oh he's the fly by the seat of his pants assassin and she's the meticulous one and so maybe that also manifested in the fight choreography but then if you're a filmmaker making that choice for the characters and for the actors you have to understand the implications of what that actually looks like and like what are the optics of a man fighting that way i know i felt like i was writing the op-ed in 2005 i'm like am i think but because i do think it is like if they didn't they have to fight each other like it's also misogynistic if they don't let her fight him like that's ridiculous it was

just the way there was just like a few choices that just felt yeah i mean not even necessarily unrealistic if you're fighting someone but like i just didn't like it i uh i didn't like it. I didn't like it. Fair. I don't like this movie. Let's see. What else? I will say the one other thing that I appreciated on this watch, although it's perhaps open to interpretation, but I thought it was interesting that of the two of them, the man seems to be the more sentimental one or at least the one who's more willing to express his feelings because there are different scenes such as when they're doing the tango in the restaurant or when they're on the phone with each other as they're both driving back home he's sort of like probing to see if she does have feelings for him and he's being a bit more open about how he does have feelings for her and he says something

like i thought you looked like christmas morning right and she's like no it was only ever just work and so she's like kind of the cold one. And he's the one more willing to be warm and like try to coax emotion out of her, which is something you don't often see in totally hetero relationships, you know, and it's obviously because of social conditioning where men are conditioned to be the more kind of closed off ones emotionally. Generally speaking, men are not taught how to regulate or express their emotions very well. So I thought that that was an interesting subversion at the very least. Yeah, I agree. And then now I'm going to be a hater again. And I was surprised that you know she like she and carrie washington talked very frankly of like carrie washington's character is like well you don't love him so that's great and she's like i know i don't

but then she like kind of like has a moment to herself where she's like but do i love him right which is like i guess this goes back to the fact that a character was not necessarily written for Miss Jane Smith as being a core issue because outside of them both being hot and obviously they have chemistry. They like got together because of this movie. But if you're just reading like I don't understand what she gained by staying with him. I don't know. I mean, we think this about couples all the time.

I just like he's such a fucking asshole. She's better at what they're doing than he is. And I understand that logistically, like now it's them versus the world. But it almost felt like a prison sentence for her where it's like good that she wanted to stay with him because it didn't seem like the movie gave her much room to leave him really because of what their circumstances and i just ah it was weird and also just the obsession that this movie had with how much the amount of time that he brought up how much they were or weren't fucking was incessant and then like literally the last line in the movie is like everything's great now because

we fuck every day you're like great i don't know i just think if it was in a different movie i would be like woohoo but this one just didn't hit for me i did like when Adam Brody wore the Fight Club t-shirt. That was fun. I mean, ha ha, funny joke. Get it? Yeah, I have a few more things to say about the characters themselves and then we can move on. There were a few other things that I didn't like and just felt like it was leaning into gendered stereotypes and stuff. You brought up him slut shaming her toward the end because they're having a conversation where they're both saying a number of people. It's not clear. And I think this is the joke. It's not clear if it's the number of people they've had sex with or it's the number of people they've killed.

I think you can interpret it either way. And like the uncertainty is the joke in this situation. But either way, you can interpret it as she's fucked 317 people or whatever. And he's threatened by that because it's a lot more than he has. And he's then making slut-shamy comments about her or things that can be interpreted as slut-shamy comments. And it's just not a funny joke. as they're sort of divulging new information to each other that they've kept from each other all these years he says something like i was married before and she gets very pissed right because that's what's supposed to matter to her and sexual partners is what's supposed to matter to him yeah her being jealous of another woman and another romantic relationship he's had in the past. And she gets so mad about it. And it just felt like a very tropey, like, pitting women against each other

kind of thing that men do in their writing. There's that. There's similar to the, he's obsessed with hating her cooking.'s another like runner about curtains where she's like look i got new curtains and he's also which to me says i wrote down like simon kinberg has never done a chore because it's like also like he doesn't even know how to write about like if you were a homemaker what would be important he's just like yeah like what do women do curtains right like being a homemaker is and doing domestic work in general is a very legitimate way to spend one's life but the job isn't curtain like it's It's just so brain was not on when writing any of the Mrs. parts down. Certainly not.

Also, the trope of like her guns are in the kitchen because women spend time in the kitchen and his guns are in a garage because men like cars and they go into the garage and i think it's just like so much of like their relationship is predicated on the fact that it is safe to assume that every married couple hates each other which obviously isn't to say that like all marriages should be presented as happy and easy because that's not realistic either. Most people get divorced. But like just that I find that so depressing just to be like they've been married for five years and they're that miserable. They should get divorced. Like if I was married to Simon Kinberg, I'd be like, are you fucking kidding me?

Yeah. Fucking kidding me. Do you hate me yeah i guess i appreciate that the i suppose moral of the story is if you are open and honest with your romantic partner it will lead to a healthier relationship that's true that is true and i think even in spite of the kinberg comment that like the movie is not against couples counseling and that it seems like it actually amongst other things like yeah the more honest they were with each other the more deeply they fell in love and that's a nice precedent it's all over the place yeah also i mean speaking about the guns again there's a part where after

they've decided to like team up and collaborate and their allies john hands jane a gun and she's like why do i get the girl gun and then he like hands her a different gun and i'm sure in 2005 they thought that was like feminism or something lazy yeah yeah i didn't really know what to make of that but yeah the movie's full of different moments where you're just like i think they're trying something or i think they're trying to comment on something or challenge a trope. But for the most part, it's just leaning into pretty gendered tropes overall. Yeah. Ultimately, if you're looking for commentary, this is just not the movie to watch.

Nope. I wanted to say because I felt like I was losing my mind because she was then not credited. And I didn't have the Wikipedia page in front of me. I just watched the movie straight through. Angela Bassett is in fact the voice of Mr. Smith's boss because I was like, wait, that's so weird. It sounds like Angela Bassett

and it is. Because I think you just hear her on the phone and you're just like, whoa. And then who knows? I'm assuming that she knew the director or something. But there's that. In terms of the other characters in this movie, we don't really have much to talk about. I mean, other than the respective best friend characters, which as we were hinting at earlier on, Vince Vaughn's character is just obnoxious every word that comes out of his mouth is misogynist we've talked about characters like this in the past he fucking sucks and like you were saying earlier Caitlin like him sucking is his personality but he has a personality which we cannot say of Kerry Washington's character Jasmine who is playing a very stock best friend character and

I think like also very much plays into the black best friend trope yeah where we know nothing about her other than she is Jane Smith's friend and co-worker and is there to ask her questions and to ask her like plot questions that set up Jane's also poorly written emotional arc. Yeah. So like you said earlier, like Kerry Washington, obviously, I mean, not only deserves better, but like Angelina Jolie, very much proven that she's way too good for this movie. Other than that, I mean, this movie really does sort of stay locked on mr and mrs smith i don't really know if i have much to say about any other characters besides them and their best friends

vince fawn gets more screen time than carrie washington does which is also telling easily i think adam brody also gets more screen time than carrie was. I do like the idea of an all lady assassin agency, but we don't really know anything about it or what the deal is there. So a strong idea to introduce. Yeah, that was the kind of thing. My note there was like, I really love that.

And I wish there was more of it, but I also, it's not like I want to know what this creative team thinks happens there. And all women's assassin squad would look like, you know, there's better movies about it. And some of them written by other misogynists. I'm thinking about Kill Bill. Great movie about, I guess, majority women's, Deadly Viper assassination squad. Four of the five of them are women.

Should we talk about the Brangelina of it all? Let's do it. I think you probably have more research on this than I do. I just mostly remember like the anecdotal stuff as it was happening in real time. Actually, I wanted to start with that before getting into the specifics. This is a sort of a detour into a tiny You're Wrong About episode. I wanted to know what your recollection was of that media cycle before I talked about it. Here's my recollection. I don't know how reliable this information is. It's your recollection. So that's the thing. Like, I feel like probably

it's wrong. And that's interesting. So I remember Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston being this power couple that everyone was obsessed with. And oh, my gosh, they're gonna make it and everyone loves them as a celebrity couple. And then Angelina and Jolie enters the picture by way of this movie, because this set is where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie met. And I remember the kind of media attention around this being that, oh, Angelina Jolie is a homewrecker, and she broke up this amazing couple. I also remember something to the effect of the reason that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston cited as splitting up had something to do with the fact that she didn't want to have children, and he did. So I vaguely remember something about that being part of the reason that they split up. But everyone was like, well, it's obviously actually because he fell in love with Angelina Jolie instead.

Yeah, I just remember that part of it and Angelina Jolie getting a lot of guff for being a homewrecker. I didn't feel really one way about it or the other because I've never been a celebrity gossip person. I just like let it wash over me and I don't pay attention. And like, honestly, until the news broke pretty recently, was it in the past year that Brad Pitt was outed as an abuser? Or the past year or two? I think in a major way. Yeah. In the celebrity gossip world, it was, which is a part of this story. And again, like I'll say for anyone listening for a comprehensive version of this story, this is not the place, um i think it became more commonly reported in the last couple of years but the story has been out there for a long time i believe that the assault that is in 2016 yeah so the like as

long as this show has been like eight years ago essentially like i mean and who knows what a marriage ending but that was sort of the final straw and when i think it's presented that angelina jolie was like this is not safe for me or the kids and we've got to get the fuck out of here right yeah so my point is i didn't know about that story when it happened in 2016 right i didn't either and until it was like sort of re-reported post me too i thought they were still married like i didn't even know they got divorced like that's the level at which i'm paying attention to celebrity gossip so it's almost none i rarely care about it like that it's just not my thing well that's why i was curious like what your memory of the time was because it was like whether you were interested in the story or not you

couldn't avoid it really okay so yes the truth thing is that these two met on the set of this movie began having an affair while brad pitt was still married to jennifer aniston and that he then left Jennifer Aniston and in quick order was with Angelina Jolie they didn't get married for years but there was also and I won't get too deep into this but there was pretty soon after they were together they started having children and adopting children and ultimately I think that they have five or six children together, either biological or adopted. And from what I have gathered, none of these children want anything to do with Brad Pitt. And that's just the truth. Anyways, but just trying to keep stuff in order. At the time, I feel like you sort of got this very classic Madonna horror tabloid story with Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie.

The two essays that I'm pulling from here, the first was published last year in Vox by Constance Grady. Brad Pitt was the only winner of the Aniston-Jolie tabloid battle. The other is an older piece by a writer I really really like ann helen peterson in buzzfeed remember that from 2014 it's almost 10 years ago and that piece is more of a deep dive on how angelina jolie essentially had to like pr maneuver her way out of this fucking nightmare yeah and eventually at least at the time it was published, seemed to have successfully done so. Both are really good pieces. I'd recommend checking both out, particularly the more recent one. But essentially, I mean, and I remember this, even though I was 11 and should

not have known any of this, even though I wasn't interested in it, just you couldn't go to a grocery store without being confronted with this story. The cover of every magazine. Yeah. And, you know, I feel like the story evolved over time. And it started as, you know, Angelina Jolie is a man stealer. Jennifer Aniston is the sweet girl next door. Angelina Jolie is this like vampy man stealer homewrecker essentially yeah which media of the time really played into ways that she had either presented herself or been framed in the past of like you know early angelina jolie kissed her brother and like wore billy bob thornton's blood around her neck and like she was a weird lady like and I think that anything she did in her 20s and she also had I don't know a ton about her early life

except that she is the daughter of John Voight who's famously a piece of fucking garbage and like I believe they don't have a relationship. Anyways, sounds like a difficult upbringing, a kind of like tumultuous 20s that she had, but also very successful. She won an Oscar for Girl Interrupted. But either way, they're like, okay, Jennifer Aniston, good. Angelina Jolie, bad.

However, as time went on, that narrative didn't flip, but it did change where once angelina jolie and brad pitt had a family and angelina jolie which had already begun and i want to be careful not to like position any humanitarian work that she's done as disingenuous. Like, I don't think that that is true. We don't need to get into the weeds of like, well, what is it? You know, whatever. I do believe that the convictions that she's presented, it's been at least on a long enough timeline that whether you agree with the particulars or not, it seems to be a big part of her life. But as that became a bigger part of her life and she sort of was presented as less of

a home-wrecking vamp and more of a mother of five who did all of this work you see the narrative flip and like all angelina jolie is not bad anymore the more she leans into motherhood or the more the media leads into the image of motherhood she's presented better and better and meanwhile Jennifer Aniston does not end up having children and she's presented as pathetic on a longer timeline yeah you're totally right that at the time it was presented that Jennifer Aniston didn't want children and Brad Pitt did so he found a woman who could give him children yeah it turns out that this is also not true she had fertility issues and had them I mean I don't cannot speak to the timeline that she but it wasn't until like 2019 where she gave an interview that was like

there was this popular narrative about me that like I didn't want to comment on because it's just like fucked up and weird because whether you want children or not is a very personal decision and has nothing to do with anything and also it shouldn't have been criticized if she didn't want children right but as it turns out she did and it was also just this like big traumatic lie so it's you know one of the more i think famous and fucked up media narratives because of course in all of these br Pitt is never presented as bad it's he was tempted or he was not given the babies that he wanted so who could blame him which is a lot of what the Vox essay is about of just like it was never even floated or presented that he would could be at fault for anything it has to be the fault of one woman or the other

and there were t-shirts sold and all this shit. So I think, you know, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston's like career, you have to imagine mental health are affected by that. And then on a longer timeline, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have a family together. They get married at some point. And he was an abusive, alcoholic person to her. And they're without getting into I think we have referenced it on the show before and other Brad Pitt vehicles. I don't remember

which episode off the top of my head. but essentially he assaulted his wife and berated one of his children in front of the whole family on a plane in 2016, which resulted in an investigation. It resulted in police reports. And ultimately, it was at least a contributing factor to their eventual divorce. What that looks like now, it was actually in the news as recently as four days before we're recording this. I think a lot of the reason, even though post Me Too, and I can't say exactly when I remember first hearing this story for the first time, but post Me Too, this story was brought up again because I think that it was reported at the time, but no one took an interest. Culturally, we simply didn't care. Post Me Too.

So I guess any time after late 2017, this story comes back, but it does keep kind of disappearing like it never stayed it appears that the reason that is is because brad pitt has been repeatedly suing angelina jolie to get her to say less about this essentially so the story i'm pulling from angelina jolie's lawyers call brad pitt's nda request abusive in winery case there's also this whole business like they're rich and so they had a winery business and they're in a fight with that but basically like he's finding all of these reasons to sue her because i want to make sure i'm getting this correct. I'm going to quote from a Vulture article by Zoe Guy from a few days ago. Jolie's attorneys previously claimed Pitt wanted her to sign an onerous and expansive NDA that would, quote, cover Pitt's personal misconduct, whether related to Miraval, the winery, or not.

Including the abuse allegations related to an incident on a plane in 2016 in order for Jolie to agree to sell her stake in Miraval to Pitt. When the deal fell apart over the matter, she sold her shares elsewhere. So essentially, he's suing her for selling her shares to this winery she no longer wants anything to do with because she doesn't want to be involved in his life. And he attempted to make it impossible for her to extract herself from their co-owned business unless she signed an NDA saying she could never publicly speak about him being a domestic abuser, which how is that fucking legal? I couldn't tell you. But she just sort of was like, it appears that she was sort of like, fuck you and sold her

shares off anyways. And now he's trying to sue her again. I think that Brad Pitt obviously has a very vested interest in his image and does not care about anybody, perhaps except himself. Yeah. He is a bitch. I hate him in the bad way. We talked about this. I'm sorry. We talked about this in our episode yesterday.

Oh, on Monsters, Inc. Yeah. In Monsters, Inc. Go to the Matreon. Bitch in the bad way. We talked about this. I'm sorry. We talked about this in our episode yesterday. Oh, on Monsters, Inc. Yeah. In Monsters, Inc. Go to the Matreon. Bitch in a bad way. Bitch in a bad way. We're bitches in a good way. Exactly.

So while there are, you know, I'm sure plenty of criticisms of Angelina Jolie that have nothing to do with this marriage, Brad Pitt very much the villain of this marriage and still actively the villain with this marriage. Brad Pitt, very much the villain of this marriage and still actively the villain of this marriage. I want to just finally close by reading what their son Pax posted on Father's Day to his Instagram story. He said, Happy Father's Day to this world-class asshole.

You time and time again prove yourself to be a terrible and despicable person. You have no consideration or empathy towards your four youngest children who tremble in fear when in your presence. You will never understand the damage you have done to my family because you are incapable of doing so. You have made the lives of those closest to me a constant hell. You may tell yourself and the world whatever you want, but the truth will come to light someday so happy father's day you fucking awful human being and so i see no reason not to go with him there yeah and to believe children of abusive parents it appears at least at the time of this recording it seems like angelina jolie has a good relationship with all of her children they have six by the way i know that we were not sure if it's five or six i was literally doing the mr and mrs smith thing it was like five or six years five or six children

it's yeah it's six because i think they had twins and then i kept counting twins as one which is twin discrimination and i apologize to the twin community. But yes, it seems like Angelina, at least their children publicly have a good relationship with her. And they also publicly fucking hate Brad Pitt. So fuck Brad Pitt, I guess is the little bow I want to put on that segment. Yeah.

There are a number of movies that he is the star of that I really like and I don't consume those movies anymore, or at least not doesn't necessarily mean that I will refuse to watch certain things. I will just be mindful of horrible people involved in the project. It varies project to project or, you know, actor to actor. You know, it's very much on a case by case basis. And everyone's on like sort of a personal journey. Right. With that. Like, I certainly don't think anyone who like would watch a movie with Brad Pitt in it is a bad person. I think it's just personal.

Yeah. I think as time goes on, I find him harder and harder to stomach. Sure. And it's been a journey for me because like there was a long time where he was someone i enjoyed very much watching on screen and he's a good actor unfortunately he's a good actor he is and he's charismatic and charming the way that a lot of scary bad people are and this was one of the harder ones for me to be like oh i don't fuck with him anymore fuck brad pitt the end this movie passes the bechdel testing yeah there are a few scenes in lady assassin headquarters industries where but although are they ever not talking about

john smith let me triple check but i think i clocked a few like barely passes okay did technically pass i would say spiritually definitely not so whoever's editing the wikipedia page these days sort of go with god i would say uh yeah it technically i think may pass between Jane and Jasmine but spiritually no because neither of them are really characters that were written true so it's challenging actually there's oh this is one of my favorites because there is a like old website that we consult sometimes to check our own work, BechdelTest.com. And every once in a while you find a movie where there is just a rich comment section where they're like, well, sort of, and then other people are like, it doesn't. So jury's kind of out on this one that like the official ruling of the website is no. There's a lot of comments are saying

technically yes. I'd say let's just go with no. I'm fine with that. Because either it's Kerry Washington's character and Jane Smith talking about killing a man. That's better than nothing. But they are mostly talking about John Smith, I believe. And then there might be an interaction between Jane Smith and her neighbor, Mrs. Coleman. They're always talking about the Colemans and maybe something there passes. But again, that's a very fleeting moment, a fleeting character, not plot impactful.

So I would say spiritually, no, the movie does not pass the bechdel test and possibly technically no yes but what about the most important media metric of all oh do you mean the bechdel cast nipple scale where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens i'll give this movie one nipple. There are some things I did appreciate more at the time and still to some degree appreciate, which is the woman's involvement in the action. I think a lot of other movies that would have an assassin

who's a woman would still not let her do much. So I appreciate that she's a far more active participant in the action than we're accustomed to seeing, especially of movies from this era. And there are a couple other slight subversions that I appreciated, like the man being the more emotionally expressive, sentimental one. And not that like I'm advocating for women to be closed off emotionally. It's more that a trope is present. But it does happen and you never see it. And you don't see it.

And so I appreciate the subversion of that trope. But by and large, it's a movie leaning into gendered tropes and it's not as good as i once thought the movie was so one nipple for the few things that i appreciate and it goes to carrie washington justice for carrie washington i am gonna go half a nipple because i don't really i don't have a nostalgia for it uh the more I read about the Brangelina saga the more just like hostile I grew to it it's not you know you cannot blame the movie itself but spiritually I do and so I'm gonna give it a half nipple and I'm gonna give the half nipple to you know I'm gonna give it it a half nipple and I'm going to give the half nipple to

you know I'm going to give it to Angelina Jolie and with that Caitlin happy freaking birthday thank you so much if listeners want to do something nice for me on my birthday you can you can follow me on Instagram I was just talking about this on the Monsters, Inc. episode, which may have already come out or maybe it comes out very soon. But either way. On the Matreon. Right. On the Matreon. Either way, I am trying to do more stand up in LA and elsewhere. And it helps to get booked on shows the more followers you have. I don't necessarily like that that's the case, but it is the fact of the matter.

We live in a society. So just follow me on Instagram so that I can appear to be a legitimate comedian. You are doofus. Wow. I mean, I know that. I know. But bookers don't.

Bookers, yeah. They're lazy. Anyway, listeners, thank you so much for listening to the show. And, you know, I just feel extra sentimental on my birthday. And finally, free Palestine. Happy birthday, Caitlin. Thank you. Follow us also on Instagram at Bechtelcast.

There's our Patreon. Oh, another little gift you could give me for my birthday. If you're not already a Matreon subscriber, go over to Patreon.com slash Spectalcast, where you can get two bonus episodes every single month, plus access to the 150 bonus episodes on the Matreon for $5 a month. And our tour kicks off very soon so grab tickets to that if you don't already have it at link tree slash spectral cast we're in various cities in the uk as well as dublin and you know what i'm not going to plug anything because it's your damn birthday happy birthday uh but people should listen to your new show your new new podcast. Say something about it. Wow. Only because you asked on your birthday.

Yeah, please check out if you haven't checked it out already. We should be a few, I guess, two episodes deep when this comes out. 16th Minute is a new weekly show I'm doing that comes out every Tuesday. That's a different profile every week of a different internet character of the day. So I believe this week our episode on the dress just came out. Remember that? Was it the dress that people either saw? Was it like white and gold or black and blue, right? Yes.

Oh my gosh. I'll never forget. Never forget. Yeah. So every episode is like that. Just internet things that have been ingrained in your brain against your will every episode's about that so check it out we're having a fun time over there and it's also produced by Bechtel cast producer Sophie Lichterman so very nice

enjoy your birthday Caitlin thank you so much enjoy your day listeners. Happy birthday to you also. And we'll be back next week for more episode. Bye. The Bechdel cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited 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 16, slash Bechtelcast. Matthews State. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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