Oh this episode, Caitlin, Jamie, and special vampire slayer guest Jasmine Johnson kill vampires and discuss the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie.
(This episode contains spoilers)
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On the Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef and best start changing it with the bec Del Cast. Hey, Caitlin, Hey Jamie. So we're about to graduate from high school, right, and I'm trying to trying to like plan the next phase. Can I just like pitch you what my ideas and then let me know what your plans are? Please? Okay? My plans are to graduate from high school, moved to Europe, Mary Alfred Molina, and then die. What are your plans? Oh? Um? I was thinking I would just like accept my fate as a vampire slayer and kill a bunch of vampires. Because you're not like other girls? I know? Are you? I am? I am exactly like other girls. Isn't that wild? That that's that becomes the truck question of the movie? Um, Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Durante, and this is our show in which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point now, Jamie, Yes, whatever is the Bechtel test, Well, i'll tell you it's and and I we told Alfred Molina this, so it's good that we're all like my future husband, Alfred Molina, who famously hates men's rights activists, as he said on our show. Absolutely he's got to come back, okay the Bechdel test, we're and we're okay. So that's an example of something that does not pass the Vitel test because the version that we use, uh, it's a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test. Lots of different versions of it. The version that we use requires that two people of a marginalized gender with names speak to each other about something other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue, and the dialogue exchange should have some sort of meaning and not just an offhand like would you like spaghetti? No, although unless it's very plot spaghetti, and it's very important, sometimes there's plot spaghetti. What's an example of plot spaghetti? Huh oh? Actually maybe in another vampire movie, which the name of it is Escaping Me right now, but it's the one that key for Sutherland is in not Donald Sutherland. What the hell movie am I thinking of The Lost Boys? The Lost Boy? Yes? Sorry, I was like The Lost Boys. There's plot spaghetti in that movie. I've never seen it. Well, I wouldn't call it plots spaghetti necessarily, or it might not even be spaghetti. But there's a scene where there's like some noodle dish and then they're like feeding it to humans and then they're like just kidding, its worms or something iconic, and then they're like they use their vampire powers to turn the spaghetti into worms. I might be completely remember that the name of the movie. I have, Look, it's been a minute. My brain works in mysterious ways. Move over, Mom's spaghetti plot. Spaghetti has entered the chat. Well, I'm glad that we got that. I think that that was a very perfect way to introduce our Absolutely, yes, let's get her in the mix. She is the senior vice president of Development at Crypt TV. She is a co executive producer on Peacock's The Girl in the Woods. It's Jasmine Johnson. Thank you guys for having me, Thanks for being here. I'm always like to talk about Buffy, the Vampires, are the movie in particular, Yes, So what is your relationship and history with the movie the franchise in general? Tell us everything? Yeah, you know, Um, it's really interesting because in my line of work, my line of work being like being a producer and a development executive, where I have to meet with a lot of writers and a lot of directors, specifically those who like genre because that's what I produce. I would say, like a third of the time, I always have people who will cite Buffy as such a big inspiration to them, and when they cite it, they're talking about the TV show, always, always, always talking about the TV show. And I think I might be maybe the rare person who when I say I was obsessed with Buffy as a kid, I'm talking about the movie, not the show. I've seen like a season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the TV show, but the movie was what I watched Pete as a kid over and over and over, so much so that I was convinced, And do not laugh at me, because it still may be true, but I was convinced that I was in line to be the Slayer because I have a similar birthmark to the one that it tells Buffy that she has uh and I just knew. I just knew that I was supposed to be one of the slayers of the vampires. I hate to tell you guys, it didn't happen. But yet this was so short, you know yet maybe maybe yet. I feel like my my hey day is sort of behind me at this point as far as being able to like fight and kill and I don't know, takedown vampires. But you never know, you never know. It's very like sixteenth birthday. Like I remember the pilot episode of Sabrina the Teenage which she I think she woke up on her sixteenth birthday levitating above the bed, and that was the thing that I was like, absly, that's going to happen the morning of my sixteenth birthday. I will be floating. I just really want the show or movie that's about like you turn forty and then realize you have magical monster slaying powers me. I guess I could. Yeah, that's the next thing that I want to be responsible for making. Oh that is such a good idea. That would actually be amazing because everything is like sixteen, seventeen eighteen, But like what happens when you're like me and I'm thirty three, and I have no powers to look forward to coming into its kind of kind of sex a little bit. It's pretty agest the fact that, Yeah, like so much media I mean in general revolves around young people like thirty and younger, and it's like, what about the people I feel like I come of age every five years, Like I have another coming of age like every few years, and I'm like, what what coming of age thing am I going to have when I'm fifty? Like that should be a story for that. I mean, that's so true. I mean, I I always use the term I say that I love coming of age content, and people always equate that with like y A meaning you're in your teens or like your young adults, and I always have to correct them and say, when I see coming of age, I'm not necessarily talking about like teenagers. Obviously you do come of age at that age, but you never like truly stopped coming of age. And I think, um, you know, having more things that explore what that looks like when you're past whatever the ages that media has deemed as the one that is the most important, I think should be done more, you know, Like it's it's just as important. Totally. Yeah, I think we just got a pitch together in a space. Yeah, and hey, I heard that you're a development executive, so I am. I am anyway, that's all. That's all to say. I was convinced I was going to be the next Layer. It didn't happen. But maybe in the real world you can be four and be a Slayer. So or maybe the slayer before me killed all the vampires one of them. That could be possible. Hard to say, Jamie. What's your relationship with the Buffy franchise? Extremely limited? I think I've said this this might have been on Maiturion episode. But I had like a very bizarre experience with the Buffy series where like my first day of college, there was a girl who like locked me in her dorm room and made me watch ten episodes in a row, and it was like, I think, well intentioned, but felt like a hostage situation, and I just the whole experience left a bad taste of my mouth towards Buffy culture. So because it was just like I was like, God, what a stressful thing to happen on your first day of anyways, So I have very limited experience with it. I knew I thought it was interesting going into preparing for this episode only knowing like the impression I had was that fans of Feed the TV series hate this movie, and I was curious. I was like, I wonder why, Like, I've definitely seen ten episodes of Buffy under Duress, so I get that the tone of the shell um, but I, you know, it's it's dated in a lot of aspects. But I really thought the movie was perfectly fine and everyone was being a baby about it, like it's very different from the show. But if there's anything that that Caitlin and I were texting about this before we started recording, uh, there's anything that we've learned on this show in the past month, because we also covered Alien Resurrection another Weeden script, it's that Josh Weeden loves to have a tantrum when he doesn't have complete creative control over something, and he'll like shit talk anything that he didn't have a million, which is like whatever that bears out in his personal behavior too, but like any time he doesn't have complete creative control, he's like, that was the worst thing that ever happened, and pee pee poo poo, and it's like, dude, the movie is like pretty good. I really enjoyed it so good. It's fun. Uh, Caitlyn, what's your history with Buffy? So I am admittedly a fan of the show, although I would I have not engaged with it in many years. I binged, all is it seven seasons? Somewhere around like twenty twelve. I want to say, I watched it with my best friend j T, who was always a big fan of the show. Then I watched a little bit of the spinoff show Angel, I read some of the comics. I at some point, I think after I saw the series, I went and watched the movie. I don't remember if I watched the movie before or after. I think it was after the series, which probably explained why I didn't like it as much as the series, because I was like, oh, this is different and blah blah blah, and then going back and rewatching the movie for this episode, I was like, oh, I was hard on the movie back then. It's not as bad as I thought, or it's not even like bad at all, although I would say the third act gets a little it's kind of messy at the edge. Yeah, it gets a little flimsy. I could have stood to have maybe like a more epic, less weirdly sexually charged. I was just like, dude, pee wee is a vampire who like jumps on the hood of a car. I was like, Yeah, how can you feel dislike this movie? That's so um Yeah, I was. I was too hard on the movie the first time I saw it. I generally enjoyed it watching it back this time to prep for the episode. And that's my general history with Buffy. Should we dive into the recap of the movie, let's do it, and Jasmine feel free to jump in whatever. Yes, okay, okay. So we open on a quick scene in the dark Ages. We see a young woman fighting some vampires and we get some voice over about vampires and vampire slayers. Then we cut to nineteen nineties southern California. The light ages very funny. Um. We meet Buffy played by Christy Swanson, who is doing a cheer routine with her fellow cheerleaders. Then she goes to the mall with three of her friends who I do not know what those characters names are, because we did they happy, we don't really love. I think I know one's name is Jenny. I remember that because I think I don't know which I think it was the one with the curly here because I remember Jenny not to spoil the end, but the dance. But outside of that, I'm not sure. Did they even give those characters names barely? I think so. Hillary Swank is one of the friends, and she I think it's Kimberly. Yes, okay, yes, yes, yes. But then there's a third one who in fact, like the one black friend. What's her name? What's her name? I don't know. We don't know anything about her, Okay, we because I kept like waiting for waiting to find out what her name is. I kept waiting for those characters in general to become important relevant to the story, and they never like, uh that was That was one of the things where I'm like, Buffy needs like and I know that that's a huge part of this show, is like Buffy is like connection with her like crew or other women and yeah, movie Buffy, no dice in that department. Yeah, it's kind of a bummer. Um. It's one of the things that I also I didn't realize like in watching it as a kid, but it had been maybe like fifteen years since I saw the movie and then rewatched, and I sort of hate the idea that like Buffy has to be such a lone fighter, Like I think that that messaging that you know your friends are not going to support you and you have to sort of give up everything in order to save the world is not quite right. And I understand that the show didn't go that route. And if I was going to remake this movie in the day and age, I wouldn't do that. Like I wouldn't her friends can, like, they can all start that way, and you can have some who maybe don't believe in vampires or don't support Buffy, But I don't think that every single person in her friends group needed to be so terrible all the way through the way. It almost felt like another way of like because it's like kind of goofy and funny to be but it's you know, definitely a thing where it becomes a big part of the movie as it goes on to telegraph that Buffy is not like other girls, and it seems like that's how they demonstrate it by making other girls mean and vapid and awful, which is like that that's not the move, right, Yeah, we can talk about that more because there's a lot to cover their Okay, So Buffy has friends and they go shopping and they do cheerleading together, and at the mall, they have a brief encounter with Donald Sutherland, who is giving off some weird vibes. He's wearing a trench coat, like he's just staring at them, not saying anything. So they briefly encounter him, but then they go about their day and head to the movies. A couple of their classmates are there. Pike played by Luke Perry and Benny played by David Arquette are there at the movie theater and they're like these like burnout quote unquote loser types. And then that night Buffy links up with her basketball star boyfriend Jeffrey. Meanwhile, one of Jeffrey's friends is walking through a park and crosses paths with Paul ol Rubens, who is looking very creepy and it seems like he is probably a vampire. I love he's having so much fun in this movie. I love him in this movie. He's great, I think because would have like overlapped with pee weee to like I don't know, not to whatever. This is a feminist podcast, so I'm not going to just hand it to Paul Rubens for an hour. But it is like, I feel like he's like underrated in like how versatile he is because he's so associated with Pee wee. He's got range. He certainly I'm a scene stealer in this movie. I can't wait till we get to his death scene. Oh my goodness, hot five best deaths. It's so good. Oh gosh. Then we cut to a news report about a bunch of people having been attacked and dying from severe neck wounds. Then Buffy has a dream about the vampire slayer who we saw briefly at the beginning of the movie, who I think is also played by Christie Swanson. Yeah, it's like her in a wig. That was a confusing part of the Lord to Be. It was like the lure is kind of messy when I thought about it, where I was like, okay, so there's always been slayers, but they all seemed to be Christie Swanson reincarnated over and over. Question marks. See that I've gotten in debates about this as a child, because hit it, you know, it's kind of it kind of sucks a little bit because as a kid, you want to play like as your favorite characters, Like we want to play power Rangers. You want to play whatever, and so playing Buffy is not a game. But if I wanted to play Buffy, I wanted to be Buffy. But it's the early nineties and kids would tell me like, you can't be Buffy because you don't like Buffy. Or even if if I was playing Power Rangers, you can't be the pink Ranger. You have to be the yellow one because the yellow one is black. And I'm like, shut up, I will be who I want to be. But in diving into the lore, as I was watching this movie, I had flashbacks to being a kid and being told I couldn't be Buffy because this is how Buffy looks, and I was listening to what Buffy was saying. Um. And this comes a little bit later when Mark says like, have you been having these dreams? And she's like, yeah, you know, I was a handmading maiden or something. And she's also like I was a slave in Virginia And I picked up on that like so quickly. And again this may just be my own personal history with Buffy and just growing up in a society that I wanted to marginalize me and tell me I could only be but a certain character. But I was like, there's no way that like Buffy. If she looked like Buffy would have been a slave girl in Virginia. So I believe, and I'm sorry to go on such a deep tante point, but this is important to me, only me, maybe, but it's important. I believe that Buffy was just when she was dreaming, she was putting herself in the situations of these girls. I don't think it was actually the slayer looked exactly like Buffy every single time. I just think that she was dreaming and putting herself in the shoes of all of these I'm not even sure if it was only um women, who knows, anyone could be a Slayer, but so I think any one of us could have been a Slayer, including me. Know. That's a very good point though. Yeah, and that makes sense that like she would just insert herself into her own dreams. But yeah, no, that's a really good point. I hadn't thought about that sequence in context of because the other the only other one you see as her in a wig. That totally makes sense. Yeah, yeah, because in the show you see like slayers of by gone days, and I if I'm remembering correct, there's one who is like a Slayer in the nineteen seventies, who is a black woman in the show who like pops up now and then throughout the series. So the Slayer is not just Christie Swanson or Sarah Michelle Geller. Um. Okay. So during this dream though, we see this vampire Loathos played by Rutger Howard, and he seems to be like the big bad vampire in charge. Then we cut back to the present where Paul Rubens vampire tells his master, presumably Loathos, that he is building an army. Uh. Then the next night, Buffy and her friends go out to plan their upcoming senior dance. A drunk Pike and Benny are there. They all give each other a hard time. Then the guys leave and then Benny gets bitten by Paul Rubens. Pike doesn't notice because he's passed out for being so drunk. And then Donald Sutherland shows up and takes Pike with him. Then Donald Sutherland ak Merrick. It takes him a while for us to know what his name and his name and this is like Donald Sutherland, They're not great with names. Donald Sutherland in a trench cut three. Donald Sutherlands in a trench cat so he is Merrick. He pays a visit to Buffy and tells her that her birthright, her like destiny, is to be a vampire slayer and that he is her watcher, and she's like, what are you even talking about? So then he takes her to a graveyard to show her and prove to her you know that she is in fact the slayer. A couple of vampires come out of the graves and Buffy is able to kill them with relative ease. She seems to be a natural at this. Then we cut back to Pike and Ben Benny shows up and he is a vampire. Now he wants Pike to invite him in he's floating. Pike is like, what the hell, dude, get away from me. I don't want any part of whatever you're doing. Yeah. Meanwhile, Lothos, the big bad vampire, is getting more and more powerful. Buffy, on the other hand, is not too sure about this whole being a vampire slayer thing. She just wants to be a normal teenager and go to cheerleading practice. But Marek shows up again and he proves that she is the true slayer by throwing a knife at her head, big swing, really really a risk, but she catches it. What would he have done if that went straight through her forehead? Right? Like, congratulations, you just killed the child. I wonder how many like teen girls he has accidentally killed because he's like, you're probably the Slayer. Let me just test this out, and then a knife through her skull. You know, I never thought about that. That's pretty dark. I actually don't feel like Marek is a great trainer. We can talk about that anymore, maybe later. So I do now that you say that, I feel like he probably went through like at least three or four girls before he finally got to the right one with Buffy. Dark because his gauge also isn't that great. Because he sees Buffy doing some gymnastics and he's like, wow, you're a gymnast. You must be the Slayer. And it's like the pretty basic gymnastics too. I mean, I can't do any gymnastics, so none of it is like super basic. But she's doing a couple of cart wheels and like a backhand spring or something. It's not like she's doing Olympic levels of gymnastics, but still she's I guess that makes her quality find to be the best slayer, right, like, uh, dude, your criteria seems to be a bit off. Um. But he was right. She is the slayer because she catches the knife and he's like, only the true slayer could have done that, and she's like, okay, I guess I am the slayer. So then she starts training so that she can be fully prepared to take on vampires, and then we get a fun training montage. We see Buffy slay her first vampire. I guess not her first because she slayed some in the graveyard, but like her first one is like the official slayer. Meanwhile, other vampires, including Paul Rubens vampire, attack Pike in his van, but Buffy and Marek show up and save him, and then Buffy and Pike have a conversation about like, oh wow, he's so surprised that she kills vampires. He thought that she was like just like the other girl, Arles or whatever. Um, And there's also some romantic tension in the air between them. Buffy again wants to continue to keep up her normal life with her friends and cheerleading, so one night, when she's cheering at a basketball game, one of the players Grueler is now a vampire, so she chases him out of the game and fights him. Pike shows up to help, and then Lothos shows up, and there's a weird interaction between him and Buffy where he's like, I'm waiting for you to ripen. Yeah, and so we'll talk all about that, because yeah, the last thing you want to hear someone say to a young woman is exactly that. So or a young person at all, Like, yes, it's just like getaway, get away, And then Lothos kills Merrick very easily, barely tries. It is every time Lothos is on screen, I'm just like, what is happening? What is he doing? How? Why is anyone reacting the way they're reacting. I find it all very confusing. But he so he kills Mark and then just leaves, so Buffy is still safe. She's sad over the death of Merrick. She also just feels in way over her head, and then she and Pike have an argument because she's like, I can't handle this. I just want to go to the senior dance and he's like, oh, well, I thought you wanted to do important things like kill vampires, and then he drives off on his motorcycle. Um So, then Buffy goes to the senior dance. Her boyfriend Jeffrey dumps her there, which is like who cares, right, We're lucky cares because she's like, oh, yeah, here's the other guy that I'm a sort of already dating. Yes, because Pike shows up after all, and then he and Buffy kiss, but then a bunch of vampires invade the dance and Buffy fights them. Then she heads off to face Lothos. She gets there, she kills Paul Rubens, where again, his death scene is just, I would say, totally inconsistent with the other things that are happening in this moment in the movie, very long and drawn out, extremely campy. But I wouldn't want it any other way. You can't have it any other way. Um So, then Lothos is about to bite Buffy, but then she fights back, she gets away. She returns to the dance where her classmates have killed a bunch of vampires, and then Lothos bursts in again and Buffy finally kills him, and then she and Pike ride off on his motorcycle. That's the end of the movie. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back and we are back, all right. Where shall we begin, Jasmine, is there anywhere in particular that, like, was there anything that stood out to you on this rewatch that you want to talk about in particular? Um uh? Maybe too much for me to be able to like center my brain where to start. So why don't you guys pick something? And I'm sure I will have a lot to say. Sure, I just wanted to start with a little bit of like context on the movie and get through kind of the jos Sweden of it all because I'm always trying to get in and out there because I feel like we've been talking about him too much on the show recently and I'm I'm sick of it. Um Okay, So this movie was written by Josh Weeden. The characters are his creation, and then he goes on to do the TV show later. It's also directed. I feel like it's not discussed enough. This movie is directed by a woman, fran Rubel kuzy Uh and she's I don't know she she's been a director of various romps over the course of her career. I think that it's interesting, Like the main takeaway, I don't know like listeners of the show will know jos Sweden bothers me. I don't like him, and I think it is so interesting how he has kind of managed to shape the entire narrative around this movie and in the process whatever a writer who was really tooting his own horn for being Mr Feminist for a while, like repeatedly dumped on the woman who directed this movie and kind of blamed her and Donald Sutherland for the reason that it didn't turn out the exact way that he wanted it, as if like whatever, he's like screenwriting nepotism. He should know that when you've write a script, it's not going to appear word for word on the fucking screen, you baby. Anyways, So, but but he's such a feminist. Yeah google google that, Um whatever, Okay, So, uh, I'm like having a hot flash now. It's upsetting. I mean, it's really upsetting because for a long time, like you said, he was sort of like the voice of I don't know, but you're right, women, like kind of like women in genre like badass women. I don't It just is kind of a bit. Uh. It's so rough when you think about it, it just it makes you there's so many things that we did wrong in the past. Um, but allowing that to sort of be the voice of of badass women is maybe one of them. But it shows inspire a lot of writers. But now we do have to sort of contend with what does that mean to have someone like that have shaped such an influential female character. It's a it's a messy topic, um, and it seems like you guys are sick of talking about it. So just in the context of him specifically, he's just been coming up a bunch um. But yeah, I mean, I guess the long and short of it there is that he in multiple interviews, has said that Donald Sutherland was very difficult than the set he was writing rewriting his own lines, which I do fully believe. It's there's like so many stories about Donald Sutherland being a pain in the as to work with. Fine, I'll concede at that point. But he he also was like, oh and this director was so like weak willed and she would let Donald Sutherland kind of walk all over her. And I'm just like, do you hear yourself? In any case, I think it is interesting that you know, in retrospect, Josh Weeden kind of actively turned his own fan base against this movie, and I think that's why people don't really critically engage with it. But there's, uh, there's quite a bit going on. Yeah, yeah, Um, starting with I mean, just the kind of basic idea of this being a movie that centers a a woman is like the hero, like the ass kicking like action star of the movie, which like a lot of movies of this genre or this type don't do. This is a pretty male heavy thing, as is the idea of like kind of the hero's journey chosen one narrative that is something that women and girls like usually don't get to be the chosen one in most stories. This is like a pretty male centric idea, and so it's just like very cool to have this movie that, as simple as it might seem, and like, like you mentioned, Jasmine was like a very empowering thing for you to watch, Like to be able to like see this woman and watch her kicking ass and have this like chosen one narrative be about a teen girl, Like that's an empowering thing for you know, the target audience of this movie being like teens and you know, young people generally, I imagine. So yeah, I mean I think that's just like a a cool thing in general. Yeah, the movie has things to discuss, but the but the I mean, like the action scenes are fucking cool and like funny and dynamic, and she's in control, like I was really worried about at the end. I was like, oh, no, please don't say that, you know. I feel like it's so we very often see in this kind of this specific era of when women are fighting or even when they're the hero, they're kind of like tossed out of the climax scene and it's like, no, now you will be saved. And this happens in another vampire movie with Twilight, where Bella Swan is the protagonist of that franchise, and yet in the first movie she's just like rendered unconscious almost immediately during the climax and then like doesn't get to do anything. Yeah, and then like the other example, I always go to his like Kristen Kirsten, Sorry, it was getting like the oh the Christians and the Kirsten movie stars Kirsten Dunce like caught in a just like held on the side of the scene in a spider web for the entire climax of Spiderman too. Um, you're just like, okay, so you're not invited to proticit like, but Buffy remains in control of basically all of the action. And it's really I thought Christie Swanton did a really good job. She's I thought so too. I also really loved like, at the very end, you have you have Pike, and I appreciated the Pike was the damsel here. You know, Pike always fainted. There was even one time I think where I heard him saying like, at least I did faint this time. And you get to the very end and Buffy has saved the day. I mean, Pike didn't really do much. I don't really know what he did, uh, But he looks up and he's like, oh, did I do all this? And she's like, no, no, you absolutely did not. And he's like, yeah, yeah, he did all this, and it's it is totally fine with that. I don't I never felt like he felt like his masculinity was threatened in any way, not that it should have been, but this is the early nineties we're talking about, um, and I just really think that, like, as a young girl watching this, I didn't realize this obviously at the time, but I internalized a lot of the good There's there's some rough stuff we'll talk about that, but a lot of the good things. The main thing being watching this woman like really like you said, take over, take ownership, kick butt, and like come out and on top, and she is She's the one. No one else does this but her. She saves the world basically. Um. I think it was really informative, especially now as I'm getting into making, you know, being able to help make my own content, the kind of things that I value and the kinds of stuff that I want to make. I really do think that if I think about it, I can trace it back to very early on, like watching and loving Buffy as a kid. You just never know like what someone's going to watch and how it's going to influence them, which is why I think that it's really important like what we put out there, what we put on on our screens, um, because you just you just don't know that. And with that romantic subplot with Pike, as you said, there's like I mean, it starts out it's it's like one of those enemies to lovers dynamics, which is like, which I kind of I do. I'm a sucker for that. Um. But like we mentioned, like their dynamic is mostly this like almost like gender flipped, because we're so used to seeing it the other way, where you know, we're used to seeing a man be the fighter, the protector, the action hero and his love interest a woman because everything is hetero in movies. Um that she's the damsel. She's the one who has to be saved. She's the one who's not really participating in any of the action in this movie, though, it's like completely flipped where he does help out sometimes and almost he he assumes this role is almost like her sidekick. I would say, I think he kind of gets in the way a little bit more, which like is funny and like, yeah, I don't know, I just I appreciated that where there's yeah, various scenes where he like he doesn't fight at all and then he instead fates or he does like help out a little bit, but it's still buffy like taking the reins and like getting ship mostly done. And then like you said, like at the end, like he acknowledges that he hasn't contributed much. This is not a blow to his ego. He's just like, wow, you're And I also think that there's something to be said for him kind of encouraging her to like continue to be the slayer because there's like a moment where she's like, I'm in over my head, like I just want to be a normal teenager, Like this was sprung on me and I never asked for this and blah blah blah. And he was just like, well, like, you have this opportunity, now, don't you want to like make something of it and like do this important stuff. And you know, the way he handles it is like maybe a little I don't know, I feel like he could have handled that better. But the fact that he's like cheering her, he's her cheerleader. Wow. I also love that he even though he felt like it was beneath Buffy and definitely beneath himself, he still showed up the dance. He still came to the dance, and he came prepared. I think you bought a bunch of spikes, a bunch of wood and it came in. Yeah. I was I'm glad for having this this talk because I was back and forth it on like Okay, what function does this love story serve? And like, as I was watching it to to prepare, I do think that like there is, I don't know. We're always arguing that it's like, is this head of real love story necessary to the story, and well, and I you know, we'll get to this, and we've sort of already started talking about this, but um, how I do wish that one of just like the glaring things about this movie is that there are no women in Buffy's life that provide any support or like real narrative importance for her, And so I wish that she also had like a friendship. But I did feel like, yeah, the dynamic with her Pike, especially as the movie goes on, does serve a function like you're describing Jasmine of like you know, it's still extremely heteronormative and and stuff that it's like movies from to be, but it's he's not threatened by her, because I feel like even when you do have these like very active female action stars the guy that they'll partner with, even if they're very in love, sometimes it's like he's not totally okay with the dynamic or like he's threatened by it. Almost feels like a competition. Yeah, and this doesn't feel that way at all, And it's like it sounds like that that does have like a real positive application of like Pike is still this like traditionally cool like outsider motorcycle like like he's so he's cool, right, but also is very secure in himself and is like okay with his girlfriend being the one who saves the world and was rooting for them by the end. I just wish that she had some friendships. Um, some friends she can have that and friends right, like her best friend ended up being Donald Sutherland in a trench coat. I needed a I needed a little more than that. Yeah. Uh. The one thing about the romantic subplot that was all for me was like really this again, where at the dance he's like, Puffy, you're not like other girls, but she's like, yes, I am. I liked that. I liked that. I was glad because when I heard that, I like, groan, why what what was your What problem did you have with it? I mean mostly just that like the idea of like Heateroman especially will use the you're not like other girls as a compliment when it's really just like that's just a way to tear down other women or to like paint femininity or just like womanhood or girlhood, and these broad strokes and as like bad, right, but like, oh, but if you're not like the other girls, you're different in like X y Z ways, Like that's awesome. So it just like is a way to kind of demonize femininity and like girlhood and womanhood and things like that. So it's like always like it always pings for us when we hear like, oh, you're not like the other girls. But then she's just like So what I liked about it is that she immediately challenges him and it's just like, yeah, I am because there's nothing wrong with other girls. Who doesn't say that, but like that's the implication I just wish to. The script also followed through on that and gave us some likable women in the script that weren't Buffy, which which we know that like Jos Sueden is capable of doing. So I'm assuming that that had to do with studio stuff, because it like we do know that he, you know, for all his faults, does right women who are friends with each other and important to each other. But yeah, that I don't know. I'd like I And I also another like little moment that I appreciated from Buffy was also at the end where I think Pike says something like he asked her to dance after she's killed every vampire ever, and he's like, I'm assuming you want to lead, and she's like, no, I don't. And I liked that. I was like, that's I didn't think it until she said that. I was like, oh, yeah, like action girl protagonists, I feel like we're so like painted with a broad stroke of like and she's in charge of fucking everything and she's the boss of blah blah blah blah blah, where it's like people are complicated, and she's like, nope, I don't want to be you can do this. It's all good and it's fine. Like I thought that was a very sweet exchange. Yeah, it's it's kind of like you guys said, I guess a little bit unfortunate that in the whole if you look at the way that they paint that they be particularly teen age girls. But I guess you could say, um, women in general, since there are no like adult figures in her life because her mom is awful as well. Uh, it's a very very negative view of them and even like take like Buffy herself. I don't know if you guys tracked this, but I happen to. I love, love, love like outfits in fashion, and I particularly love the stuff in this movie. Um, but Buffy goes from wearing the sun dresses and like her hair down and all that to wearing cut off shorts with like a flannel and boots. Like the implications sort of being that if you are into this stuff, you're into Even at the end when she's going to look for like a dress and she's shopping, she's not like super into it anymore because now she's evolved. She's better than that. She's like the next level of woman, which I have a huge problem with. I think, like you said, Jamie, people are multifaceted, and I don't love this idea that it doesn't only come up in Buffy. That comes up quite a bit that if you happen to be quote unquote girl or into fashion or whatever it is, um that is deemed to be like I said, uh, feminine activity, that it's less than and it makes you less than. And in order to ascend, you have to put that behind you and realize that that is not something that you need to care about. And once you do that, you will become the person that you should be. And I think the two things can completely and totally exist together, which is why I wish that at least one of her friends had like stood by her in addition to Pike and didn't have to. I mean, they were pretty awful in the beginning, but I don't think that like some of the stuff that they loved needed to have changed to still support their friend and take down vampires together. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, where it's like and again, it's like I don't even know who would have been the purpose trader of that stuff, because Josh Weeden has like distanced himself so much from this script, so who knows. But but yeah, it does seem to like in a way that feels very nineties, but I feel it does still happen sometimes in media like demonize whatever a more traditional form of femininity and make it seem like, oh, this is an inherently weak and vapid way to live and feel. Where it's like that is so like there's no gray area there, and there needs to be gray area, especially because I don't know even like style Lize, I was like, I want Buffy's costumes from the beginning, not the end, or like some modification because I know It's like, you know, I want her to be able to fight comfortably, but I'm like, you could modify your style at the beginning to make it like vampire killing friendly. I liked all of the outfits. I like Buffy in the beginning and the end, then all of her outfits for the training montage too. I really liked that training montage me too, right, But the movie does like subscribe to this idea that like Buffy is the one good female character in this story, and all the other women because they like, quote unquote like feminine things that the movie deems to be like vapid, like shopping and like wearing dresses and caring about going to a dance and like all that stuff all the other women in the movie equals bad to the point where, like to bring up the costuming thing again, when Buffy goes leaves the dance to go fight this like Horde of Vampires, she's wearing a dress, but Luke Perry throws her his leather jacket as if to say, like, you'll need this to fight vampires. I said that exact thing when I was watching it. I was like, what's the point, what is that gonna do? I feel like it's going to like encumber her arms, it's going to make it harder for but cool. I gotta LEVI jacket great, but it looks cool. I guess I don't know, but yeah, I think. In addition, so not only are all the all the other female characters in this story, you know, painted with these broad strokes of just like portrayed as being too hyper feminine equals vapid equals bad kind of logic. Um, it means that all of Buffy's most significant relationships in the movie are with men. And you know, we talked about her and the love interest Pike already, but then there's also like Buffy and her mentor Merrick, Buffy and the villain Loathos, So like we can have separate discussions about that. But yeah, the movie does subscribe to this idea that like, Buffy is kind of not like the other girls and that's a good thing, right, And it's like that's not the message that we should be putting out into the world, which is wild, yeah, because it's like the character pushes against that, but then the movie doesn't quite follow through on effectively commenting on it. It's a little bit messie. Yeah, let's take another quick break, and then we will come right back and we're back. Should we talk about Buffy and Merrick? Which why not? I mean he he like also starts out being like, Wow, I've never met such a like vacuous and vapid slayer. I can't believe I'm stuck with you right now. And but then she's constantly challenging him, and it gets to a point where they actually develop a bond and mutual trust, and at one point she's like, what do you even do, sir? Like I'm out here putting my neck on the line. What are you doing? Like? Oh, I'm kind of like a trainer kind of guy, a very bad one because it's been centuries and he has not defeated the vampires. I'm like, how do you still have this job? In any other line of work? If you consistently do not deliver the results, you are replaced. Yeah, here you are to lead another girl to the slaughter. Men get a million chances, don't they? They a million chance to do one thing? He also like he admits he's like, oh, I should have found you so like so many years ago. We should have started your training a long time ago. But I don't I don't know. I just it was like, well, what do you what were you doing? Like, isn't it your job to find her and then like early on and train her. So it's also such a like a blase sort of thing to say, considering this is Buffy's life her, like she's putting her life on the line, and Mary's just like, oh, sorry, you probably should have years of training under your belt, but you're still going to have to sort of condense everything into a four week timeline. I think at one point Buffy says, it's been like three weeks or four weeks or something years and training condensed four weeks. Marek is awful, trash, He's bad at his job, like I felt like, and I feel like Buffy. Buffy did so much of the like emotional lifting in that like she like whatever, She's like, oh, he made a joke, like she kind of like brings out a lighter side of him. But it's like, yeah, he put her in an impossible situation that was like for sure, and she pulls it off like she's I don't know, I thought that that that montage cracked me up because she's wearing the same outfit at the beginning and end of the montage, So I guess that she just happened to be wearing the same outfit exactly three weeks later, which is like true to like clothes, but was confusing movie wise, like what it seems like no time has past because he's always wearing the same trench coat, so you're like, what day is it? Whatever? Gosh, Yeah, but yeah, I mean, I guess I don't totally know how to feel about this relationship because he also like dies like and then there's like forty more minutes of the movie. But I guess I appreciate that that dynamic grows and that they come to respect each other, and then he's even like, wow, you're you were the right person for the job after all. And then I think as he's dying, she's like, sorry, I keep doing this wrong, and he's like, no, don't do that. Yeah, do what you're doing. Don't play our game. Don't play by our rules, because clearly it never works because there's still vampires around, So do it your way, Buffy. And so he respects her and admires her, and yeah, So I don't know. I guess I was like fine all of that. Yeah, I think the relationship you know, it ended up being kind of sweet. My issues specifically come with Mark as the trainer of the Slayers, and I've said my piece about that, like story was like I didn't hate Mark. I just felt like their connection Like again, I just feel like there were stronger options for a character for Buffy to connect with because they truly had nothing in common. He wasn't doing a good job. And then when he died, like she was, she was sad, but it was also like, I don't know, I feel like the movie wanted you to really feel his death and I was like, oh wow, Donald Sutherland died pretty early in the movie. That's that's interesting, right. I was like, well that was kind of easy. That was simple. I thought it would have lasted the whole time, all right. There was like no fight, Like suddenly he was just stabbed. There was like no fighting leading up to that. I was like, what how? Who was all back? Um? Also, okay, so Marek is like, hey, how about those menstrual cramps you're feeling? Oh my god? Yes, okay, Josh, is that a thing on the TV show? Please say it's not. No, I do not think so. I was like, what are you doing? So what is happening here is that basically, when vampires are nearby, Buffy feels menstrual cramps. It's like a warning sign to let her know that vampires are afoot. And she's like, what is this all about? And Mark explains it's a natural reaction to their unnatural nous to vampires unnatural nous. So basically I know that, like Josh Weeden does not consider this movie to be cannon, but if you're looking at like this movie and the show, the lore seems to be that the vampire slayer is always a cis woman. So at least with this movie, with this like world building thing of menstrual cramps equals vampires are nearby, the logic is that like if you're a slayer, you're a woman, and being a woman means you have a womb and that you're a menstruating person and that's natural. So it's like this very sis normative idea. And I think it's also supposed to be kind of like a joke to like I don't know what it was. It was so random. Yeah, that didn't work for me at all. It's like and it doesn't really come back either where. Yeah, it's like very and it's like sis normativity and also just and it's like, oh, well, I'm writing a character that menstruates. I better bring that up like that. You don't need to bring that up like if, like if the Slayer was written to be a SIS man, I feel like there would not be anything like that attributed to his character. It wouldn't be like, oh, your scrotum is gonna hurt when vampires are around? Like did that happen to the last Boys? Kaylin remembers the movie better than both of us. Yeah, like, what are you what? It was so weird? Yeah? I found that to be very very bizarre. It was two? Really? Uh was what two ing there? It was really having a two? Um? Okay, So the other like major relationship or like whatever dynamic there is between Buffy and another character in this movie is with her and Loathos And I'm gonna need some help understanding what. I don't know if we can help you there. I had talked, there's any help? That was? I have no words, Yeah I have, here's my spiel about it. So what appears to be happening is what feels like a very sexually charged hero slash villain dynamic that feels extremely gendered, because again, I don't think it would be written that way if the hero was a man. But because it's a teen girl, this weird like heterosexual dynamic gets introduced, which is especially creepy because she's a teenager and Lothos is played by a much older actor and also the characters hundreds of years old. Right, Yeah, I feel like this happens in other movies where the protagonist is a girl or a woman and the villain is a man. I thought immediately of Labyrinth with like Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie and like that weird like dance they have together. Um, But there are all these scenes where like Buffy has a dream where she gets into bed with Lothos and he embraces her. There's that scene where like the first time they come in in face to face contact, Lothus is like, oh, I'm ready, I'm ready for you to ripen because like it seems like he doesn't want to fight her so much as like have this weird like seduction sex, Like he's like fetishizing the idea that she's a slayer, which feels very like vampire culture as well of like this old creepy guy trying to like engage with a teenage girl, and that's kind of like cannon to this genre in a way that I was kind of hoping that the movie was going to comment on, because this movie does a lot of things that vampire movies don't usually do. But that was something that felt kind of bizarrely very much in place. Yeah, I just and I didn't understand logistically what the heck was going on. Like the first time that Buffy has an actual showdown with Lothos and she sees him and is mesmerized. Is that? Is that what's happening? Right? I don't know. I'm like, stab him and she can't. She's not really moving, she's looking at him, she's coming closer, and like you said, there's this weird sexually charged energy. I didn't quite understand what was happening. All I kept shouting was what are you doing? Stab him with your wooden staately um and some he kept saying like we're drawn to each other, and it was just like all very weird and the movie could very much so exist and should have existed without that. And I don't know, even from a story perspective, I actually think it undermines the logic of what was going on because I have no clue like why that was happening exactly, and if like they insist on that happening in the movie because like vampires, I mean, like vampire lore is very much that, like they're seducers. They like draw people in with the you know, they glamour people. So like if that's a thing that needs to be established just part of like the world building, and it just isn't. So it gets really confusing to the point where we're wondering, Yeah, Buffy, why aren't you killing him? Why aren't you trying to fight him? Because it seems like in in her character because she is so like one of the things I like about her is she's so self assured against people that, you know, whatever, against people who are giving her ship. Like she rejects Donald Sutherland in a trench coat several times, is like fuck off. Like she's she's like very confidently rejecting the call to adventure, and she's like, fuck you, Like I maybe you don't like that. I want to like graduate high school, moved to Europe, married Christian Slater, and die iconic line. She's like, but that's what I want so like leave me at like alone. And then there's that amazing thing where her like shitty boyfriend's friend slaps her button then she like slams him to the ground. It's like this is a girl who like is not afraid to fight back when someone's fucking with her, and so it does feel like out of like I don't know, Yeah, that didn't feel fully realized because it's like we've seen her give so many people ships. Yeah, it's not consistent. Yeah, So I was just so confused by that. But then like based on some weird thing that Mark had said where he's like, listen to the music and when the music stops and then he like boh dies. But then like the music has stopped in that scene with her and Lothos, and she's like, oh my god, it was I knew it all along music and we're like what are you. I'm like, did you forget to have a scene here? I never quite understood like what she realized. I never got it. I was like, Okay, confused she understood what it was that was her next move, because I certainly didn't understand. I mean, I think it is important for the audience to make it clear to the audience what that's all about, but whatever, whatever, it is fair enough. She then kind of like snaps out of it, and then she finally starts to fight back and then you know, lands the killing blow in in the next scene and you know, defeats him finally. But there's so much of like that dynamic where he's like being uber creepy and like uber predatory, which again, this is what vampires do, but there's nothing to establish why what is exactly happening, what Lothos wants, why he wants to seduce the player rather than kill her since she is an immediate threat to him, or why why she's responding to it, and the way that she is that it's just like just feels like very weirdly like gendered and sexualized in a way that like just made no sense to me. Absolutely none. Okay, I'm glad we're all in agreement. Say, have any any other stuff they wanted to to talk about for this one? Just a couple quick things. One, this is another teen movie that ends with a big dance. I don't think here that's a stable. Yeah, it was a staple. I'm just pointing it out. I'm not saying I gender, you know, I love a dance. You hate that detail, he said, am I just more notice it as a as a very consistent trope. I love it. Sometimes sometimes I'm just I'm annoyed by it, depending on kind of what happens or what the implications of the dance, because sometimes it's like, well, a movie starring a teen girl has to end in some big romantic thing because girls like romance and love stories and glamourus balls where she hetero kisses her one true love. And then other times I'm like, uh, you know, the high schools have dances, so it makes sense that like you'd have the big third act it like a significant social event kind of thing. It didn't bother me because I felt like that like brought together Buffy's two worlds so cleanly, whereas like she was on the dance planning committee, those are where her previous friends were. I felt like in this, like this movie kind of uniquely because sometimes you're just truly at a dance because it just feels like, well, this is where teen movies end. But in this movie, I did feel like it was justified in like bringing her worlds together, that is fair, right. It was also like, like you said, Jamie, we've throughout. Um you start at the beginning where she's like, fully, you know, they're one of the second or third scenes we see with Buffy and her friends. They're planning, they're trying to figure out what the theme should be, and they settle on environmentalism, and that was kind of funny. Bugs or something. Yeah, they're like, we hate bugs, bugs, let's get rid of the ozone there. So it was like weaved in and like Jamie said, it was I felt like it was a nice little having the two worlds come together. And maybe I just I don't know, maybe I'm a sheep that just likes everything that everybody else likes. But I loved that in Dance with her and Pike, I thought it was very sweet and I was off for their romance. Um, I was okay with it in this instance. I will say I did not mind the hetero teen romantic subplot in this movie, because which is saying something because it's vile, right, but I think, like, yeah, the way that you know, we already talked about it, but it's um the way it was handled I appreciated. Another thing I appreciated was the fight choreography. Um where we've talked about this a lot, where a lot of movies with a woman as the action hero doing fighting often has like very gendered and sexual fight choreography. We talked about that vagina slam slam. I wasn't getting any of that really in this movie. It was just like what you'd expect as far as just like non gendered combat. And I also really liked the fight choreography, like wove in what Buffy was already really good at, Like she's a very gymnastic fighter, Like it's cool, I don't know, Yeah, like her being a cheerleader as part of why she's a good fighter, which I feel like that's that on top of it, Like I mean, I guess we we don't really talk about this very much because we've probably talked about this and they bring it on episode, but like cheerleaders are so athletic and strong and it is like so physically taxing to do, and so to see that like applied to combat was really cool. Yeah. Yeah, Bubby was already starting out, uh like at a hive in the beginning of the training montage. This isn't fighting, but I remember watching her climb do the rope climb and she just like sails up that rope. And I don't know if you guys have tried to climb a rope, but that is not easy. She was tried and not succeeded, so she was already starting like at a high And I do love that they incorporated the gymnastics um in the show that I have coming out this month. We also have a main character, much like Queen Buffy, who was a monster fighter, and we had a lot of conversations about like what does it look like, what do those fight scenes look like? Because you mentioned this being um non gendered fighting style, But I do think that when we were talking about our own character, there are differences between the ways that people fight, especially depending on who your opponent is going to be, and you want to make sure that you're utilizing what you would actually as the person how you would actually fight, and so a lot of times you'll see that people don't take that into consideration, especially when it comes to female characters, like what are the ways that they are going to approach a fight UM versus like a male character. And one of the things that I love about Buffy, like you said, is they were using what she would already have considered as her strength, which is her gymnastics. So it's nice that they took the time to think about that and really incorporate that into the style. Uh. And it's cool to watch, you know, I love watching her flip around and stuff. Yeah. I guess the better way to frame it is that her fight choreography didn't seem sexualized in the way that a lot of women's fight choreography tends to be. Right. So yeah, um, this is also a very white movie. Yeah. The cast is very white. Any people of color, which I think is hardly there's her one friend, her one friend who we might not even know the name of. I think she has two lines, hardly says anything. Yeah, so any people of color are relegated to like secondary or tertiary like background characters who we learned nothing about. You know, every major character is white. Yeah, which is um uh. You know I already went in a whole speel about how, you know, growing up like wanting to play certain characters and not having any that there certainly were black characters, but like you said, they oftentimes had no lines or just were very much in the background. And this wasn't just the early nineties, like I want to say, like even still sometimes still now, but especially in my formative years as a child and a teenager, even watching some of the shows that I love to watch, like I was a huge Small Bill fan for a while, um and that show I Love, Love Love, but like they had a character who was Superman's best friend who was black, and over the course of like literally I want to say, the first season was pushed to the background and was very much just showed up to expose it some stuff and then leave. And that's kind of what I felt like most how most black characters were treated um and still are sometimes where they never have their own storylines, they never have their own agency. They are just there to either be uh like the voice of wisdom or come in and relay just enough information so that the producers and the network executives can say, oh, but we have a character of color. But they're never given like the meat and potatoes, which is unfortunate because people want to see themselves on screen, which is why I would get into fights about how I want to be Buffy even though I don't look like Buffy. Um And it's just you know, I'm glad that we're sort of talking about these things and and changing it. I think the changes are coming slowly, but it really is important that people are able to see themselves and like, yeah, like you're saying, not just in a surface way and like an impactful, fully realized character way. And also it's a it's a very straight movie as well, which is always like I don't understand why vampire. I understand, but it's like I understand because society, but also I'm just like vampires being repeatedly coded as strictly hetero. I'm like, it just doesn't track for me. It doesn't like, never has, never will. Vampires I feel like, are queer cannon, like what very hetero movie vampires are pan sexual, all of them? For sure. I think that's true for sure. For sure, there's no way that you can live hundreds of lives. I couldn't even live this life that I'm in without exploring my sexuality and figuring out that straight. So you're trying to tell me that hundreds of years like no one explored outside of just you know, And I don't buy it. I don't buy it at all, not not a chance. And again, tell me if I'm misremembering Caitlin. But the TV show isn't quite as hetero uh normative, right, there are queer there is at least a queer character, correct, there's several queer characters or queer relationships like you actually see in fact that might I think that was one of the first shows on network television or not, I guess cable television that had um or what that word? I don't my television bub for a while, wasn't it, and like you can if you remember that, maybe I'm arranging myself like with UPN But it was not one of those I don't know cab or what it was. In any case, it featured one of the first lesbian kisses on on screen on television. Yeah, so yeah, there was not quite so much heteronormativity as there is in this movie and most movies. Feels worth mentioning that, especially toward the beginning of the movie, Buffy and her friends make different jokes that are like at the expense of the unhoused population or they don't um. There's some like xenophobic remarks that are made and things like that, But I think that's done to show who Buffy used to be or like who like who what her friend group is like these again kind of like self centered, sort of like rich elitist types. Um. But you know there's there's still like jokes made at the expensive on housed people and stuff. So you know, feels pretty nineties. Does feel very nineties. Ben Affleck is in this movie. I know, like five seconds, like two seconds, And I actually read somewhere, um, just in casual googling of this movie, which one does, I read that his line, the one line he had, was actually dubbed because the director hated his delivery, like to be to have one line in a movie in that line be completely dubbed over. Couldn't even get that. I couldn't even get that right. But yes, Ben Affleck is in this movie. So is Thomas Jane, who was not as bigger an athlete. I did not catch. I did not catch that either. But I was watching this with my girlfriend over the weekend and she was like, that's Thomas Jane and I was like, no, only Ben Affleck is the that the only star that just like briefly appeared. Uh, Thomas Jane plays Oh you know that character had a name. They are horrible with the names. And when Pike goes to get I guess his van service because he's trying to leave because he knows vampires are out and about and he's like, I want no part of this. The mechanic and I have no idea how my girlfriend was able to spot that this was Thomas Jane. I don't like to even still, like I wouldn't be able to pick that up. Um, but yeah, Thomas Jane appearance. Even Ben Affleck have ran random appearances. And uh, this movie also Stephen Root, who is one of my favorite character actors, plays like the school principal in this movie. Yes, there's a lot of people this movie is apparently kind of stacked with with the cast here. Yeah, and then I kind of assumed. I was like, oh, like, whatever happened to Christy Swanson. I've never seen her in anything else. She has been consistently working this entire time. But she's She's in a lot of like TV movies and stuff that I tend not to watch. But yeah, she's she's still around working. Shouts out to her. I thought she was awesome as Buffy. She's great, like just just a quality quality super heroine. And then Paul Rubens giving the performance of a lifetime stealing every scene is so wonderful. Yeah, it's a fun movie. Like if you if you have been on the fence about giving this movie a chance just because of kind of the bizarro cultural reputation it has, watched the movie. It's fun, You'll have a good time. Yeah, But does it pass the Bechtel test? I feel like it does. Even though the Buffy's friends barely have names and we barely learn them and they mostly talk about a yellow leather jacket and um, but they talk about like planning the upcoming dance and stuff like that. So yeah, and they have that whole scene that's about like that. I mean, they do talk about men for a part of the scene, but about the conflict of like Buffy, you've changed, Like why do you think what we like it is not cool anymore? Like that was a meaning Like yeah, I'll always be bummed out that there were not stronger friendships. But I feel like that's a lot of that scene pretty firmly passed. And then I think maybe a few exchanges with Buffy and her mom as well, like when she's like what time is it? And then Buffy lies and she's like my watch is so slow? Like yeah, I guess that that, Oh Buffy's Mom, where's that spin off? Yea, So it does pass the Bechdel test as far as our nipple scale, in which we assign zero to five nipples to the movie based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens, I feel like I would give it like a three, maybe even like a three and a half, so we can get half a nipple. Yeah, we give quarter nipples sometimes, Yeah, decimal to your heart's content. I think we've given pie nipples before three point one four, it's given negative nipples before inverted. Yeah. Yeah, the nipple score spectrum is fluid. Um. I think I'll give it three and uh half. Maybe that's too generous, but especially for like an early nineties movie, because oh my gosh, comparing this to other early nineties movies in any genre really like things were not great. So kind of maybe like adjusted for time inflation almost, but inflation. The fact that you have the fact that you have this female centered story about a woman chosen one narrative about a woman who like kicks ass and doesn't really need help from men because Marek, as she points out, is not really doing anything. Pike is her sidekick who barely does anything, who gets like damseled, and that she has to save several times, like she never really has to be saved. She's doing all of the work. She has all of the agency in the movie. Although I guess you could argue like being a chosen one kind of like inherently takes agency away from you because she's just sort of like your voice a gendered way, though, right, right, right, right exactly. Um, So, as far as the circumstances go, like she's got agency, she's doing things. She's a very active character. I didn't hate the hetero romantic subplot. I did hate the weird dynamic between her and Loathos that did feel oddly gendered. Yeah, yeah that that. I don't know what's happening to the weird men's oh cramps thing. We should have just been absolutely deleted from the movie. Um, the fact that there's no racial diversity, there's no like body type diversity, it's all very heteronormative. But yeah, I think there's enough like cool stuff going on. I think I'll land on a three three and a quarter nipple and I'll give one to Buffy. I will give one to Paul Ruben's death scene. I'll give one to Buffy's black friend, who we who the movie doesn't even care to give her a name. And I'll give a quarter nipple to the little baby kitty that Lothos is about to go snack on in that one scene, because I feel really bad for the cat. I'll meet you there. I'll go three and a half as well. I think the issues this movie has with a glaring lack of diversity across the board is both very obvious and extremely of its time. Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of just co signing our discussion and what you just said, Caitlin Um because I like Buffy a lot. I like how much she subverts I wish that the villain subverted more about this genre. Yeah. I wasn't actively rooting against the central relationship, but I do wish that she had women in her life to talk to and it was like extra, like they were right there. Give her a connection with her mom of some sort, even if it's not positive, Like give us something like give us some friendship. Give you know there there are opportunities, or like why are all the vampire villains men? Like what you know? There's like so many opportunities for her to not just have the pivotal figures in her life be a bunch of white guys and but that's not how it went. However, I love buttfy. I really loved the performances in this movie. And I'm gonna give it three and a half. So I'm gonna give one to Christie Swanson. I'm gonna give one to the director of the movie, fran Rubel Kuzooe, I will give one to the Motorcycle, and I'll give my half to Paul Rubbin's nice Jasmine. What about you? Um, I will give this three and three quarter nipples, so I'm slightly higher than you guys. Three point seven five nipples. Three quarters of those nipples goes exclusively to the scene where the friend grabs buffies but and she flips them over and slams them against the locker, because that is the proper response to when that happens. So good, UM, I mean, you guys have already touched on. Um, you guys already touched on the things here. I agree with everything that you said. I I will focus mostly on the positive here because, like I said, this had like such a positive influence on me and seeing a character like Buffy, especially growing up as a child of the nineties and a teen of the early thousands, you just never saw I shouldn't say never, but mostly did not see women portrayed in this way. So I already gave my three quarters of a nipple to that one scene. Obviously one goes to Buffy. I gotta give one to my man Pike. I'm a big Pike fan. I appreciated what they did with that romance and with that character, and I guess what do I have? One more? One more nipple. I will give one more nipple to just the influence that that movie had on me and how it continues to have influence on me, and the stuff that I want to champion developing now that I am an adult, over thirty woman who gets to help put content out into the world. Yes, which, speaking of tell us about your show, Yes, yes, I would love to um. So the show is called The Girl in the Woods and it premieres October one, which I believe is in Thursday very soon on Peacock um and the show, much like Buffy, the show revolves around our main character, whose name is Carrie Ecker, and she is a monster slayer. She lives in this colony on the outskirts in the woods of this mining town, and this colony soul job is to protect a door, a very mysterious dore that stands in the woods. Um. The door is a door to a monster dimension and it is the number one priority that that door does not open and the monsters do not come out. But this is a TV show, so you can guess what is going to happen. If you can't guess, the girl's gonna open and monsters are going to come out. Um. And so Carrie uh is going to eventually find herself in this mining town and she's going to come across two new friends whose name names are Tasha and Nolan, and together they are going to have to uh fight the monsters that have been released and try and say this town. It is a very fun show. It has a lot of great themes that I think are very relevant today. It is a very queer show. Um. I say that with so much pride being a queer woman myself. Um and Uh, I just think much like Buffy, it is very fun. It is very fun, um and uh. We have three main characters and I think they all sort of you get to see the three mains play characters that you don't really see very much even today. Um. And I'm just really excited for for everyone to to check it out. At the very least. If you love watching teens fight monsters, check out the show. But if you also like character development, you like scary content that has uh social and very like human themes at the heart of it. Uh and you love teen romance, especially with a little dash of queer inserted into it. All of the things that I love, um, you'll love. Hell yeah, everyone check out The Girl in the Woods on Peacock. Is there anything else you want to plug? Social media? If you want to find me on Instagram? UM or Twitter at the same handle, it's jazz face Killer. It's jazz with twosy ease killer with two els, jazz face Killer. UM and please him me up. Let me know what you think about the show. Let me know what you think about Buffy the movie. Um, spread the word about Buffy the movie. So many people talk about the show and that's fine, but like, let's bring up you know, the movie's profile because I think you're right, Jamie and that Joss Wheden did some damage out there. And it's not fair because this movie is very fun. Yeah it is. It is. Let the Buffy Movie Live totally. Thank you so much for this was a lot of fun. Thanks for inviting me to be on the show. I loved talking about all this stuff with you, guys. Our pleasure. Come back anytime. Thank you. And then you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtel Cast. We've got our Patreon ak Matreon that gives you two bonus episodes every single month, plus access to the back catalog. It's five dollars a month at patreon dot com slash bechtel Cast. You can also get our march at t public dot com slash v bechtel Cast. It'll be there if you need it. If you don't need it, that's okay too. And with that, do you both want to get on my motorcycle and let's get out of here? Oh my gosh, yeah, let's blow this joint. Can I wear a leather jacket? Oh yeah, you can, sorrow, you can borrow my yellow leather jacket, Jasmine, so five minutes ago? Okay, win, No, it's retro alright, Bye bye bye