Rachel & Rachel discuss moral panics, child documentarians, and "the ghost of lesbianism" in HAVOC (2005). Please see the episode notes for content warnings.
Rachel & Rachel discuss moral panics, child documentarians, and "the ghost of lesbianism" in HAVOC (2005). Tragically, our explanation of how a real life private plane crash fits in was cut for time.
CONTENT WARNINGS: This episode contains discussions of racism, sexual assault, drug use, addiction, mental illness, self-harm, suicide, and police brutality.
Our next episode on SUPERCROSS (2005) is coming your way April 20th!
Email us at channingsalon@gmail.com and follow us on:
RSB: There is a sequence in this movie where the characters are driving around LA and drive past the marquee for The Room and I kind of wish I had watched The Room instead.
RLB: I definitely wish that I had watched The Room instead.
00:14
[audio clip]
Anne Hathaway/Allison: Let's go downtown. There's a whole different world down there.
Bijou Phillips/Emily: There's a monetary zone of geography which we're not allowed to pass.
[end audio clip]
RSB: Welcome to The Channing Salon, the show where we discuss gender, genre, and je ne sais quoi, one Channing Tatum movie at a time. I'm Rachel S. Bernstein--
RLB: And I'm Rachel Lee Berger--
RSB: And this week, we're talking about the 2005 film Havoc, directed by Barbara Kopple. Before we go any further, we should note that we're discussing a film that contains some pretty intense scenes of sexual assault, drug use, and racism, so please keep that in mind as you decide whether to listen to our episode and decide whether to check out the film for yourself.
RLB: Please don't check out the film for yourself on this one.
RSB: Yes. Unless you are an insane completist like ourselves give it a miss.
RLB: Yeah, if you're doing an Anne Hathaway podcast then you will need to.
RSB: And also please call us.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: Set up a double date with us. So we can start with just the imdb summary of this movie, it's just one sentence: two affluent suburban girls clash with the Latino gang culture of East Los Angeles. Which in my opinion is both completely accurate and did not prepare me in any way for what i was about to see. Rachel, do you agree?
RLB: I don't know.
RSB: Rachel's still unprepared.
RLB: I truly have no idea what this movie is. I know some of what it tried to be--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: And I know some of what is in it, but what this movie is?
RSB: Yeah, when I was writing the summary and trying to pick out what the significant events were I had a lot of difficulty.
RLB: What it is is probably just an abomination, but it's more than that.
RSB: So what actually happens in the movie: Anne Hathaway and Bijou Phillips are two wealthy LA high school girls, Allison and Emily, whose equally wealthy and white boyfriends have formed a quote unquote "gang" because they're all really into MTV. It's called the PLC--the palisades something--Bijou's boyfriend is Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He wears a lot of saggy pants--
RLB: He does a lot of things besides wearing saggy pants and frankly the only one that's forgivable is the saggy pants.
RSB: Yeah. Anne's boyfriend is Mike Vogel and he wets his pants at one point.
RLB: He does and it was the most interesting thing that happened in the film.
RSB: I would agree. Uh, so the white kids decide to go downtown, or east, which is basically treated as a descent into the underworld, and they buy coke from a Latino gang--a real gang--but then the boys get in a fight with the gang leader, played by Freddie Rodriguez of Six Feet Under fame. So Emily and Allison find this a super fascinating experience, so they keep going downtown and partying with the Latino gang, especially because their home lives are really empty and boring and their moms are alcoholics and they love drugs a lot. So eventually they ask Freddie Rodriguez if they can join the real gang and he tells them they can if they have sex with the gang members. They agree to this but once it starts they change their minds pretty quickly and in particular Bijou's character Emily is more or less gang raped when she tries to back out in the sex challenge. She immediately goes to the cops but Allison is really distressed by this, not because she's All Cops Are Bastards but because she believes that what happened was consensual and it's not right to go after the gang members.
RLB: I mean it's a little bit because she thinks all cops are bastards. She definitely theoretically believes that--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Going after the gang members through law enforcement--
RSB: She does recognize that it'll be disproportionate punishment.
RLB: Yeah she definitely--there's definitely some recognition that that's in the mix--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Here, ethically. Unfortunately, everything else--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: So unfortunately the white fake gang has found out about the rape, and they decide to take their dads' hunting guns and go take revenge. They run into the real gang and suddenly the film cuts to black and we only hear gunshots and screaming, leaving the ending ambiguous, although Allison and Emily are basically squared away at that point so it's unclear how relevant the ambiguousness is. So there's also a running thread throughout about another kid at their school who's making a documentary about the white gang and repeatedly interviews Allison about it, which I'm tacking on at the end because that's about how well-integrated that plot thread is. We should mention at this point that Channing is barely in this movie. He actually is billed in the opening credits but I was pretty surprised that he was--he has maybe five lines. So he plays one of the white guy gang members--most of his role is just standing there so the gang isn't just two guys. Uh, he is the one who supplies them with the guns, again, which i do wanna talk about a little later--
RLB: We will.
RSB: But I mentioned a bunch of the other notable cast in the summary, but I do wanna also mention Shiri Appleby, of Unreal fame, who plays a friend of Emily and Allison's, and Michael bean and Laura San Giacomo, who play Allison's parents. And also Josh Peck has one line in this movie which I personally found fascinating.
RLB: The fact that he's playing Bijou Phillips' brother...
RSB: Brother--the Rubin family.
RLB: Is incredible.
RSB: Um, so we'll definitely wanna dig into both that plot and the performances later, but Rachel, was there any other important context that you think we should bring up right now?
RLB: I think it's worth briefly noting that this movie was not theatrically released in the US.
RSB: Yes, so this movie premiered at Munich Film Festival and Chicago Film Festival--it was produced by New Line and for various reasons it wasn't theatrically released.
RLB: It also is Barbara Kopple's only narrative feature.
RSB: Correct, she is primarily a documentarian, best known for her first film, Harlan County, USA, from the seventies, which she won an Academy Award for best documentary for--one of two that she's won. There are a few different explanations for why this film didn't get a theatrical release--one of them is just that the reviews out of Chicago were terrible--
RLB: Correctly.
RSB: But another one is that--and unfortunately this movie, because it was less of a hit than Coach Carter, even more of the contemporary context around it has been lost to internet decay, so we haven't been able to fully flesh out our research on every point, but what we were able to find is that Anne and Bijou both refused to participate in promotion for the film, largely because they felt that Barbara Kopple, the director, had been mistreated by the studio and not given creative control over final cut. And unfortunately, we weren't able to find the full details of how that manifested, but that definitely was part of the situation, that they weren't able to do the full promotional aspect they were hoping for, because they lost--I assume Kopple as well as well as Anne and Bijou.
RLB: It's also interesting that there exists an unrated cut of the film.
RSB: Yes. It is seven minutes longer and according to people who've seen it a lot of it is just non sequitur plot.
RLB: We really thought that the obvious answer was that there was more nudity, because there's already so much nudity--
RSB: Because there's a lot--so much female nudity.
RLB: But it turns out that that is not the case which is somehow even more baffling.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: When we just--we assumed the situation could not get more baffling.
RSB: Yes. Um, we haven't even dug into all of the crazy backstory of this movie yet.
RLB: We have not.
RSB: So before we do that, let's just go through our experiences with the movie. Had you seen this one before, Rachel?
RLB: I did not even know this movie existed--
RSB: I didn't either.
RLB: Until very recently.
RSB: Yeah, neither of us knew this existed. What was your impression or your expectation before watching?
RLB: Having seen the trailer, I was braced for something, but could never have been adequately prepared for this.
RSB: Yeah, I certainly expected something much more conventional.
RLB: I expected something sort of deliberately provocative and quote unquote "unconventional," but along very conventional lines.
RSB: Sort of painfully conventional in practice. It's not.
RLB: Yes, ( sort of expected a very formulaic--
RSB: Right--
RLB: Rebellious uh--
RSB: Story we've seen before.
RLB: Edgy ... yes.
RSB: I expected, you know, a Romeo and Juliet clash of two worlds kind of thing. That's not what this is.
RLB: I don't think I quite expected that clash of two worlds kind of thing, I think I just expected there to be more of a plot. And also expected the movie to be either more or less self-aware.
RSB: I definitely got the impression from the trailer that this was a romance, which is very much not the case.
RLB: Oof. Sure is not.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Actually, I take that back. I actually think it is a romance, but we can discuss later.
RSB: Well, we can discuss that aspect.
RLB: In many ways I actually was surprised when the movie ended and it wasn't a romance.
RSB: Yeah, between--I think we're thinking of the same two characters.
RLB: We're absolutely thinking of it. But I also, considering the 2005 of it all, was very unsurprised that it was not a romance, but was surprised that it got as close as it did.
RSB: Yeah. So we can get into that when we talk about gender in this movie, but, uh, so something I wanna say--this movie was made--it had a nine million dollar budget and it made back less than four hundred thousand--
RLB: It had a nine million dollar budget?
RSB: It did have a nine million dollar budget.
RLB: It doesn't look like it had a nine million dollar budget.
RSB: (t doesn't look like that at all. It looks like trash.
RLB: Wow. I'm actually shocked by that.
RSB: I mean, to be fair, how much of that was location fees for Palisades High School?
RLB: Sure. But I mean, look, I get that movies cost--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: A ton of money--
RSB: But it's ridiculous that this movie, which is in a lot of scenes visually like impossible to follow--
RLB: Yeah it's upsettingly--
RSB: The entire--
RLB: Incompetent.
RSB: The entire opening sequence has like a dark blue wash like--
RLB: Oh my God, if you have a problem with like the Breaking Bad Mexico filter please don't ever watch this movie because you will just scream the entire time.
RSB: Truly, um--
RLB: Both for like reasons of it being used to indicate, y'know, this isn't where white people live, and also just it being visually very upsetting--
RSB: Yes. This movie is hard to watch for a lot of reasons.
RLB: Hard to watch on every level.
RSB: On every level. It has a 45% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but Rotten Tomatoes, like us, wasn't able to find everything that they would've liked to--there are only 11 reviews compiled and in fact we were able to find some reviews that didn't make it onto Rotten Tomatoes, so I think 45% is pretty high for how critics actually received it.
RLB: Especially considering critics barely received it any more than anyone else did.
RSB: Absolutely. Um, it was basically a few reviews out of Chicago and Munich and then it disappeared.
RLB: Imagine spending nine million dollars and this is what happens. I would be--
RSB: God. And hiring multiple Academy Award winners.
RLB: Like I really hope someone lost a career over this. Like I don't wish that on people, but the decisions made were so bad that I think everyone would be better off if whoever was responsible for this did not work in film.
RSB: So let's talk about genre. Rachel, our classic question: what single one-word genre would you put this movie in if you could only pick one?
RLB: Drama.
RSB: Yeah, I think I'd rather go with drama too--on the one hand it doesn't come close to capturing what happened; on the other hand, nothing could.
RLB: Nothing could, and also the word drama is supposed to be "other."
RSB: Yes that's true, it's like "literary fiction."
RLB: Yeah, I mean--
RSB: Honestly literary fiction might be a better category for this film than drama.
RLB: No it's not. No it's not.
RSB: It's very bad. Um, what super specific subgenre, down to the nitty-gritty, is this movie in, and what other movie or movies fits in there with it?
RLB: I'm a little bit tempted to put it in the category of, sort of, movies about troubled teens, but I actually think that genre or subgenre encompasses a lot of movies both better than this movie and also movies that are equally bad or worse in other ways but ways that are sort of different to this.
RSB: I also think that's a little bit broader of a genre than this question is really tackling.
RLB: Well exactly, but I'm tempted to lump it in with some of those and I could get more specific about that, but I'm actually--I'm gonna go with the kind of movie that a guidance counselor would show you in middle school, except this version is rated R. Like--
Both: Hard R.
RSB: There would be so many scenes where my high school history teacher would have to hold a piece of posterboard up over the screen and then freak out when we could see the nudity through it like she did when she showed us Elizabeth.
RLB: Wow.
RSB: Uh-huh. It was an amazing time.
RLB: Yeah, I think it's--it's essentially a big-budget PSA.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: But a very misguided one. And I think there are other movies that fit in that very specific niche but it's not worth discussing them because they're very bad.
RSB: It's very much a racial panic movie, I would say specifically on the axis of young white women's sexuality.
RLB: I think it's a racial panic movie on that level, but I also think it's both a racial panic movie and also a young women's sexuality and specifically young white women's sexuality moral panic movie more generally.
RSB: Yes, that's fair.
RLB: Because I do think that the characters are in both a titillating sense and a demonizing them sense and also a, uh, didactic sense--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Being punished by the narrative for their sexual agency and their sexual choices, both in the context of the interactions with this Latino gang and also with their white boyfriends who are awful, like--
RSB: They're--they're terrible people.
RLB: Oh my God.
RSB: So you and I discussed this a little bit off the air, but we both felt this movie was a little anachronistic to 2005 both in terms of the specific way it's exploitative and the way that the characters are all punished for their crossing of socioeconomic boundaries.
RLB: I would strongly agree.
RSB: So I wanna talk about a few other genres that this movie doesn't quite fit right in--
RLB: I agree.
RSB: So one of those just on the top level is the high school movie, um, because this movie, bizarrely enough, is sort of set in high school--
RLB: It is.
RSB: There's even a scene where they go to class.
RLB: It's really strange when it chooses to be a high school movie and when it doesn't.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And in some ways I think that also has resonances with Coach Carter, which is not especially relevant, since Channing Tatum is such a non-entity in this movie and there's no real connection, but they did both come out in 2005, and I think--
RSB: Yeah, and I think we can talk about this a little bit later on, but they're incredibly different films, they're for incredibly different audiences, but in a lot of ways they have very similar themes.
RLB: They do. And I think that it's also part of our goal with this podcast is to look at sort of pop culture over our lifetime--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And film across different genres and different budget levels and different, you know, audiences over the course of our millennial lifetime--
RSB: And look at what the common concerns are--
RLB: Look at what the common concerns are, what the artistic trends are, and also how the casts, um, especially when we are focusing, you know, one specific performer, both tell us about the Hollywood metanarrative surrounding these films, but also tell us about what Hollywood was consciously doing and subconsciously doing when they were making these films, and I think it is really interesting that Channing Tatum was in both these films in the same year--not because of Channing Tatum necessarily, but because it is interesting that these two films came out the same year and share an actor.
RSB:i think that's very valid and i think one of the things about channing tatum is that we picked him because while he is interesting as an actor we also think that he happens to have chosen a list of films three dozen films that give a fairly good overview of what hollywood has been thinking on the subjects of genre and gender over the last fifteen years in his early career by coincidence and in his later career by choice
RLB: Absolutely, and I do actually think that the kind of film arc from Coach Carter to She's the Man that we're gonna cover in these first few episodes is--
RSB: Channing Tatum: the high school years. When he was 25-30.
RLB: It's really interesting looking at high school movies of that era across such a spectrum.
RSB: Yeah, it's really interesting, because we do think of the high school movie as a genre, but with this and Coach Carter we've really looked at two different movies that are set in a high school but neither of them is in that genre.
RLB: And we're gonna look at at least one more that's a completely different genre which is the high school comedy.
RSB: Yes, absolutely, and like we kind of think of--there's two high school genres, there's the high school comedy like She's the Man and there's something like Perks of Being a Wallflower which is a high school drama, and I think what's interesting is that Havoc and Coach Carter both use the high school setting for genres that are not necessarily within that framework.
RLB: I would argue that the sports movie has a high school subgenre.
RSB: That's fair.
RLB: I mean Remember the Titans, et cetera, are pretty, y'know, notable high school movies, but they are high school movies that focus on adults.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: And I do think that those tend to be more of that inspirational narrative--high school movies from the perspective of the teens that are still dramas tend to be more of the, I--I kind of want to say the moral panic genre.
RSB: That's fair, although I think that contemporarily in the past ten years high school dramas have focused really heavily on mental illness.
RLB: They have, but I would consider that part of the moral panic genre--
RSB: That's completely fair--
RLB: For teen movies.
RSB: Discussion to have but I think we're getting a little far afield from Havoc--
RLB: We are, although I do think that this movie prefigures many of those films.
RSB: One of the things that I think is strange about this movie is that--
RLB: I mean to be clear, there's a suicide attempt--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: At the end of this film. It's a very half-hearted one.
RSB: There's a suicide attempt and it's also heavily implied in that scene and never before in the film that these two girls have engaged in self-harm together before.
RLB: It's a very--it's a very strange scene. But it is worth pointing out the idea of mental illness, suicide, and self-harm as a major concern of the teen drama genre became such a huge thing starting I would say around this era--
RSB: Right around this time, yeah.
RLB: And I think that we can also talk a little bit more about TV versus film--
RSB: Sure.
RLB: Over, y'know, the course of the 2000s and 2010s, but this in some ways I think was part of an overall transition from fearing that kids are getting into trouble versus fearing that kids are troubled.
RSB: Yes. Very true, and I think when we look at the context of how this film was adapted from the 90s to the 2000s, I think--although we can't know I would guess that that's some of the changes that were made as this was adapted from a 90s treatment to a 2000s screenplay.
RLB: Did you wanna talk a little bit more about the issue of it feeling dated for a 2005 film?
RSB: I do, but before we do that, because we've been talking about mental illness i wanna talk about how addiction and drugs feature into this movie, and particularly how the specter of Anne Hathaway's addict mother is constantly brought up.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: And in fact in that suicide scene we're talking about they make a joke about Anne Hathaway's mom probably having a spare suicide kit lying around.
RLB: To be clear, when we say they make a joke in the suicide scene it's because the entire scene is kind of played as a joke in a way that's--
RSB: Arguably the most comedic scene in the movie.
RLB: It's bizarre, it's super jarring I think--
RSB: Yeah, I agree.
RLB: In the movie, how jokey they suddenly become, not just because of the subject matter but because of everything that leads up to it.
RSB: That's not how their relationship has really been throughout the movie and suddenly it's almost like suicide is the ultimate bonding moment for them.
RLB: I mean they definitely joked around.
RSB: Sure.
RLB: In the scene--
RSB: The scene--
RLB: The scene.
RSB: Oh my God.
RLB: I don't know how to even talk about it.
RSB: I do wanna talk about, just as a genre aspect, how this movie does and doesn't flirt with the--a) the addiction drama, and b) the--I don't wanna say drug drama, but like a movie about the excesses of drugs, and I think this movie flirts with both of those subgenres but never quite jumps into either of them.
RLB: I agree, I think similarly you had brought up the idea of the crime thriller as a genre--
RSB: Which is by the way--sorry to interrupt, but it is the genre that imdb classifies this movie as.
RLB: Yeah, I think this movie isn't quite a crime thriller, but along similar lines to the the drug thing I think there was also just obviously a huge moral panic about white teens getting to drugs at this time and specifically--
RSB: Absolutely.
RLB: White teens getting into drugs in a way that had them interacting with gangs.
RSB: Absolutely.
RLB: Because gang moral panic was so big at this time.
RSB: So I will say, like, in 2005 I was graduating from a heavily white elementary school and transitioning to a heavily Latino middle school and the number of talks we got about how there would be gangs at our future school was alarming.
RLB: I remember whenever we'd go over things like the dress code at the beginning of the year in school in, y'know, middle school in particular, it was always about like gang symbols--
RSB: Gang symbols always, and none of the anti-gang education that we had ever explained like what a gang did. There were people in my high school who wore gang colors on purpose but not because they were in gangs it was because they wanted to act like they were in gangs
RLB: Precisely which is also exactly what the characters in this movie do.
RSB: Absolutely, although it was more racially diverse at my high school.
RLB: Well, that's fair.
RSB: But yes, but I certainly knew people in middle school who were referred to as "wangstas," which, the even worse version of that word is used pretty frequently in this movie--
RLB: It was used in the first scene of the film and that was when i started--
RSB: Screaming internally and also externally?
RLB: Yeah. The use of the n-word in this movie is something we can also discuss--
RSB: Probably we are not--
RLB: Probably the less--
RSB: The right people to dig into it too hard.
RLB: But we also don't really need to because there's very little to say about it other than it is used very excessively for a movie that as far as i remember has no Black people in it.
RSB: Zero.
RLB: It's really--
RSB: There is like one Black couple dancing in the background at the white party scene at the beginning.
RLB: That's a really really dark choice--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: That this movie made.
RSB: I did see one person theorizing that the original treatment involved a Black gang rather than a Latino gang and it was changed for various reasons. i don't know if that's true but it's something that I've certainly seen theorized. We do wanna make super clear that the director and writers are all white, which I think is very clear from the content but I do wanna make sure it's actually said.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: But I do wanna go into addiction, 'cause we keep swerving away from it. So throughout the movie we know that Anne Hathaway's mom has--played by Laura San Giacomo, who I recognized as the therapist in Honey Boy, but in fact in the movie Laura San Giacomo has just returned from rehab and they're trying to keep the marriage together. None of this ever becomes relevant and yet it's brought up like in every scene.
RLB: And I think the reason it's brought up is pretty obviously to give Anne Hathaway's character a motivation for quote unquote "acting out."
RSB: One of the things that this movie, if it were like a smarter movie, could've done is used that to show that addiction is a problem that affects both the Palisades and East LA, but it doesn't.
RLB: I do think it's worth noting that in this film addiction is treated as sort of an upper-class problem--
RSB: In fact the gang members who sell coke almost don't use it at all.
RLB: It's unclear whether they use it but it's definitely clear that they are not struggling with an addiction to it.
RSB: Correct, and nobody that we see in their communities is either. At one point Anne Hathaway asks why he sells in his own community rather than going out to a wealthier community and making bank by selling to people like her and he kinda says "but this is my home, I know everybody," and there's no reckoning with the ethics of selling crack to your beloved community. There's almost an implication that crack belongs in the East LA world so that it isn't threatening when it enters that world the way that it is when it enters the world of the Palisades. But I also wanna talk about the hallmarks of the addiction drama in general and how the fact that Anne's mom is kinda going through this addiction storyline that does kind of echo the classical addiction drama narrative because it kind of to me makes me think--it gets that genre into my mind, and i do think that in some ways this film does follow a lot of the narrative hallmarks of the addiction drama it's just that going to East LA is what the drug is
RLB: Yeah, and in a way it's treated very literally that way--Bijou Phillips' character at one point says she wants to go with Anne Hathaway's character to East LA because she wants to "feel what it's like" and--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: There's a very--isn't that also in the same scene where they try crack?
RSB: No, that's in--that's in, I think--I don't know. They have the same conversation a lot of times. But there is sort of this, if you think about the classic addiction drama trajectory of, you know, initial elation, descent to rock bottom, and then final note of hope, that's very much Allison and Emily's trajectory. I think the one final genre that we wanna talk about is, ah, documentary, both in relation to the fact that there is this documentary conceit throughout the movie, which we can--
RLB: I would call it more of a framing device.
RSB: That's fair.
RLB: And it is very much a framing device in the sense that it appears mostly only at the very beginning and end of the film and they mostly forget about it.
RSB: Yes, but I also--I mean, documentary is also relevant in that the director is a documentarian--This is her only narrative feature, she's very well-respected and well-regarded as a documentarian--
RLB: Yes, and I have not seen her documentaries.
RSB: I haven't either.
RLB: But for all I know that's well-deserved, and if that is the case, good job, Barbara Kopple.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Please don't make more narrative features.
RSB: Just as a reminder, her most famous film was Harlan County USA which is a cinema verite take on a miners' strike that occurred in the 1970s--she made a lot of films about union politics. She also makes a lot of films that are celebrity biographies, for instance she did a biography of Gregory Peck, she did one of Sharon Jones that was very well-regarded. Most relevant to our interests, she directed High School Musical: The Music in You, which is a documentary about students in Fort Worth, Texas performing High School Musical onstage. We can talk about--there's, like I said, this framing device or conceit throughout the film that this other student at their school is filming a documentary on them and this is never really explained--
RLB: It's not explained at all. I kept waiting for--
RSB: I thought I had missed something.
RLB: I kept waiting for that child to explain why he even had a camera.
RSB: Right.
RLB: Someone gave him a camera.
RSB: They all seem to know this kid and know that he's a--you know what it reminded me of? It reminded me a lot of Dil in Rugrats: All Grown Up.
RLB: Oh my God. See, it just reminded me of like, American Vandal if the people who made American Vandal weren't smart.
RSB: Yes. But no I did think like--it reminded me a lot of Dil in Rugrats: All Grown Up.
RLB: I mean what it actually reminded me of, which is also TV, is the episode of Buffy where Andrew gets a camera for some reason.
RSB: That too.
RLB: It really does feel exactly like that except--
RSB: The guy even kinda looks like Andrew.
RLB: They don't know that it's funny.
RSB: Right. But it very much is just that--that trope that only exists in fiction, there's no real child like this, of the child documentarian.
RLB: I mean we've all been that child a little bit right?
RSB: But we've never been that child to the extent that it is our character trait.
RLB: No, and we've also never talked to kids we don't hang out with for the purposes of making a documentary apparently for the student body. Like there's a lot of implications that other students are going to see this documentary, which is why Anne Hathaway's character masturbates on camera during it--I can't explain to you if you haven't seen this film how much I don't want you to know what happens in this film.
RSB: I know, I feel like we're being vague and it's because you shouldn't have to suffer with the specifics.
RLB: Anne Hathaway starts flirting with the documentary kid--
RSB: Who is so uncomfortable--
RLB: Who is so uncomfortable with it and also is just like, "can we talk about the things I'm interviewing you about please?" and then like tells her she's lonely or something and it's supposed to be profound but it's not it's just like a very basic observation.
RSB: It's like--there are these constant intimations throughout the movie that Anne Hathaway is much smarter than anyone else around her, it's all through stuff like that interview or her giving a really good answer in class without thinking about it--the implication in this scene is that she's acting pornographically and then saying "isn't this what you'd really rather see than my thoughts?" and he keeps desperately going "No, I wanna see your thoughts!"
RLB: And I do think it goes back to what you were saying about this implication that she's really smart, and the repeated implication that she's really smart in the same--as someone who in 2005 was much younger than this character but like was still, I guess, a preteen sort of at the time and was, y'know, considered smart or whatever--
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: I do feel like a huge thing in that time--
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: Was encouraging girls to be smart by telling them not to be interested in boys and sex and clothes and any like aesthetic or fun interests--
RSB: And also the implication both in the film and I think in that culture in general is that a girl who is interested in sex is either stupid or hiding that she's smart.
RLB: Yeah, exactly, like the idea was very much that being interested in those things was "playing dumb" is how I heard it phrased a lot, and I was always very encouraged as a kid by the adults around me to, you know, not hide that I was smart and I was like, first of all what are you talking about, I'm not that smart, like please shut up, also why do you think that I'd be hiding it? Like, people can do two things, and also like what--what personality do you want me to have here?
RSB: Yeah, and I think again the implication both in that culture in general and very much in the film with the contrast between Allison and Emily is that some girls don't have a choice about drugs and sex being their life, and so if you have a choice appreciate that fact.
RLB: Yeah, I found the implication that Anne Hathaway's character was secretly smart--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: When it was really pretty obvious she was smart and just also had interests that were not bookish--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Also like she's very pretty which--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: I mean--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Look, some of us were not given the option to be pretty instead of smart. And I think that the--the dichotomy there sure is problematic in like the cultural trends sense, but there's also very much a, like, "oh, you're pretty and sexy therefore you must be actively hiding that you're smart" if other people are too stupid to pick up on it and it's like no, she's just--she's smart and people aren't paying attention.
RSB: Yes. But I do think there's an aspect to which this film is saying Emily and Shiri Appleby and their dumbass friends don't have a choice about this, but Allison is so special that she could choose not to have this be her life.
RLB: I agree that it's saying this but I think it's less saying that she's special and more condemning her for--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Not behaving whatever way--
RSB: In accordance with her specialness.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: So I do wanna just quickly kick it back to documentary and we talked a little bit about the shooting style, um, or lack thereof--
RLB: The shooting style's just confusing to me. It's not really a consistent visual style and it's also--I mean it is in the sense that it's pretty bland.
RSB: Yeah it's bland and yet also deliberately obfuscating.
RLB: There's also certain scenes where it becomes voyeuristic in a weird way and there's also scenes where it becomes very borderline point-of-view shot--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Kinda territory. The one I'm thinking of in particular is when they first go to a party hosted by the Latino gang and the one scene where Latina women appear--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: In the film, um, and they are framed--
RSB: There's a handful of scenes where they appear but they're all kinda like this.
RLB: Are they?
RSB: Well there's the--the, uh, the baptism scene, there's women in that.
RLB: I forgot about that.
RSB: And then there's the woman in his apartment at the end of the film.
RLB: That's true there is. Oof. The way that the camera treats them--
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: God.
RSB: And the way the camera treats--
RLB: It's upsetting.
RSB: The way the camera treats the arrival of white women at this Latino party.
RLB: I just--I just hated it so much.
RSB: I said this off the air I think, but this movie uses an astonishing amount of documentary-style conceits for a movie that has very little interest in realism.
RLB: Can you elaborate on that a little bit, because i'm not totally sure what you're referring to specifically. I don't disagree with--people, the relationship between this movie and reality doesn't exist, but in terms of the visual style and in terms of documentary techniques--
RSB: Absolutely. Well, I think there's this immediacy of the camera that to me this feels very--Barbara Kopple is a cinema verite documentary filmmaker and in terms of--we talked about how the shooting style is very ugly, and I think there's a sense to which that's viewed as a virtue in a certain documentary world--
RLB: Absolutely.
RSB: And particularly in Barbara Kopple's history of documenting, uh, people in poverty and people from a world she doesn't come from, I think that there's a certain tendency--and again, I haven't seen her documentary work, so I don't know if this is at play in those, but I think there's a certain tendency sometimes to use deliberately ugly visuals whether that's shooting, or lighting, or, uh, color to make a play at authenticity that isn't authentic.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: Um, and I think that's very much at play here. And there's also almost a--in some of the scenes there's almost a wildlife shooting aspect of how they shoot the teenagers, um, especially in some of the group scenes and the party scenes--the way that the camera kind of moves through parties and moves through groups of teens--
RLB: There's also a fight in the opening scene--
RSB: There's a fight in the opening--
RLB: That's very much shot like a wildlife documentary--
RSB: Absolutely and--
RLB: In a way that's not totally dissimilar to but considering it's--considering that the Mean Girls fake wildlife documentary, uh, conceit--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Was before this movie was shot.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Like this movie truly--I can't tell if the filmmakers had seen other high school movies and tv of the era and were deliberately copying some of their conceits or if they hadn't seen them and thought these were original ideas.
RSB: I think it's the latter.
RLB: I definitely think it's the latter, although I mean--did you have more to say about documentary?
RSB: Yeah, I did just wanna say again going back to that fight I think it's notable that some of that fight is seen through documentary kid's lens and some of it is seen ostensibly in the third person and those shots look identical--
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: Except for the, y'know, red light REC frame--
RLB: Oh my god, yeah, the fake like--
RSB: That's where that nine million dollars went.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: I know. Nine million dollars. So I do kinda wanna move on to gender now--I think we've canvassed genre pretty well, and I think in this movie genre and gender intersect pretty firmly.
37:26
RLB: I agree.
RSB: So I think we'll we'll come back to it, but Rachel: who or what is doing the most regarding gender in this movie?
RLB: Oh my God.
RSB: I know, there's so many bad answers.
RLB: There's a lot of bad answers and there's also a lot of good answers for a given definition of good. I'm gonna go ahead and say Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
RSB: That's completely fair.
RLB: He's playacting a version of masculinity that first of all doesn't exist--
RSB: Oh, absolutely not.
RLB: Because he is like--he's doing an accent in his attempt to pretend to be a black gangster--
RSB: He actually reminds me of some of the discussions we've had about Jesse from Breaking Bad.
RLB: A little bit.
RSB: But to be clear, that's an amazing performance. This is a bad performance.
RLB: Sure, Jesse in Breaking Bad is an archetype that's so specific it's actually not an archetype anymore, but this is not--this is like--this is cultural appropriation, but it goes beyond that--it goes beyond that into--
RSB: Creating a whole new culture.
RLB: Creating--well no, cause it's not successful.
RSB: No, absolutely not.
RLB: It's just--it's sort of like seeing--it's the sort of thing that you'd expect if you asked, like, a toddler to do the script of The Godfather.
RSB: God.
RLB: Like all of it, like just--
RSB: That's dark.
RLB: That's the level of acting that's happening for the character to be clear.
RSB: Right.
RLB: I don't think that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is necessarily doing a bad job, I just think that what he was being asked to do should be illegal.
RSB: Yeah, that's valid.
RLB: You shouldn't be able to ask an employee to do this.
RSB: That's so valid.
RLB: It's awful to witness and so embarrassing but also unsettling.
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: There are so many words I could use to describe it, but the thing that really struck me was just the masculine posturing of it--
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: Through this racialized lens where he's clearly adopting not just these elements of black culture that he admires and envies, but also this, like, version of masculinity that I think his friends are more successful at embodying even when they're just being white kids--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Than he is at all, and part of that is just that like, his stature is smaller than theirs--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: And I mean, he's Joseph Gordon-Levitt, you know what he looks like--
RSB: Although he has wacky hair.
RLB: Yeah. But like, he's like--he just looks like a dude, but he does not look like a, like, muscular--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Athletic dude the way that Channing Tatum does and the way that--I think the other men in this movie are supposed to be more in that vein, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a strange casting choice in my mind--
RSB: I agree.
RLB: Just because he's so clearly out of place next to these guys--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And I do think the hair is weird--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: The hat's also weird.
RSB: Every hat in this movie is from--
RLB: There's a scene--
RSB: A cursed dimension.
RLB: There's a scene where inside of a high school Channing Tatum is standing against the lockers wearing two hats at once.
RSB: He is wearing--he is Two-Hats Tatum.
RLB: I wish that I could explain how I felt upon witnessing the two-hat look.
RSB: Rachel and I have a policy that we try not to text each other too much when we watch the films so that we don't get ahead of ourselves, and I had to text her "Channing is wearing two hats."
RLB: And I was like, "What does that mean?" and then I watched the movie and I was like [gasp]
RSB: He's wearing two hats.
RLB: Two hats.
RSB: It's so weird.
RLB: It's very weird. And it's two hats. Two whole hats.
RSB: On one man.
RLB: On one head.
RSB: On one head! And he doesn't speak in that scene.
RLB: Nope, he's just wearing two hats, and I remember nothing that happened in the scene because of it. He was wearing two hats so emphatically--
RSB: So emphatically.
RLB: That it--I could not hear the dialogue.
RSB: The hats were so loud.
RLB: Yeah, I have so many questions about the dress code at this school.
RSB: I have so many questions about--I should've looked up who the costume designer is. I'm gonna do that now.
RLB: Okay. Whoever they are, I think they were doing a good job for what the movie wanted.
RSB: Costume designer's name is Sara O'Donnell--Oh, we'll actually see her on the future Channing movie--she was assistant costume designer for GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
RLB: I'm really looking forward to watching GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra by the way because I have no idea what to expect.
RSB: Same.
RLB: But it seems like the kind of movie that we are going to enjoy watching whether it's enjoyable or extremely bad.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: We're gonna love it so much more than this.
RSB: So anyway--
RLB: You didn't answer.
RSB: Oh, that's right, I didn't answer.
RLB: You didn't answer the question.
RSB: Oh, who's doing the most genderwise?
RLB: Who do you think is doing the most genderwise in this movie?
RSB: Kinda wanna shout out Shiri Appleby.
RLB: I almost said Shiri Appleby.
RSB: I feel like she is perform--first of all, I kind of thought a little bit about why she's in the movie and why the girls have another friend, and I think part of her purpose in the movie is to kind of provide this unmarked rich girl femininity for Anne and Bijou to diverge from. I think we don't need to have this conversation but we can also have a conversation about Jewishness in this movie--
RLB: I don't think I have it in me to have a conversation--
RSB: That's completely fair.
RLB: About Jewishness in this movie, particularly because in the context of everything else going on in this movie--
RSB: It's like such a minor thing.
RLB: It's nothing. Like it's like--
RSB: I agree, I don't think it's a conversation worth having--
RLB: It's not--it's not worth--
RSB: I don't think it's a conversation worth having, but I do wanna say, like, Shiri Appleby is obviously trying to portray a very specific type of wealthy Los Angeles high school girl.
RLB: Yeah, I mean, she's playing a JAP, that's--we can just say that.
RSB: That is what I meant, yes.
RLB: Yeah, I--regardless of your other feelings, if you have any, about the Jewish American Princess trope or stereotype or archetype, um, she's very clearly playing that--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: But also playing a particular variation, which is the sort of Jewish equivalent of the dumb blonde. In some ways I do think Bijou Phillips' character, who again, her brother is supposed to be Josh Peck, is--
RSB: And her name is Emily Rubin.
RLB: Yeah she's, I think, perhaps supposed to embody a slightly different variant, but I--draw your own conclusions.
RSB: Yeah, Bijou's--
RLB: If you know enough about this to have an opinion I think you can pick up what we're putting down.
RSB: Bijou's parents' main role in this movie is to constantly talk about going out to their summer house in the country.
RLB: That and also to talk about suing people.
RSB: And calling the cops.
RLB: Mm-hmm. Don't do that by the way. Like in your life.
RSB: We very much don't recommend it.
RLB: Just feels like it's worth emphasizing at any opportunity.
RSB: Certainly don't call the LAPD.
RLB: God. I really will say, like, I did find the end of this movie upsetting--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: On that level.
RSB: Yeah, this is getting afield of gender, but just really quickly while we're on this topic, this movie has this deeply perfunctory interest in making sure to establish that the LAPD is racist toward the Latino gang members.
RLB: It's a very strange choice where the movie once again seems it's self-aware to the point where it is so proud of its own self-awareness that it circles back around into oblivious.
RSB: It, it, it's very much checking a box of "and the LAPD is racist!"
RLB: Something that we didn't quite cover in the genre discussion that I think we should is that part of what makes this a high school movie is that there is a scene where Anne Hathaway is distracted in class but is asked a question by the teacher, who's talking about capitalism basically, and she gives an answer that's supposed to be thematically relevant but instead felt like--
RSB: What movie do you think you're making?
RLB: Well, it did raise the question of what movie did they think they were making, because the answer that she gave was really about the inherently exploitative nature of capitalism--
RSB: And particularly racialized capitalism.
RLB: And it felt like it was--
RSB: Was that in the movie at some point? The original title of the treatment is The Powers That Be, which doesn't seem to indicate any theme that survived into the finished movie.
RLB: I really do think that--
RSB: I know we're on, like, kind of an archaeological hunt with this one but--
RLB: I really do think that to a certain extent this movie clearly sought to portray racism--
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: From an antiracist standpoint, but it perpetuated so much racism in all of the artistic choices that went into creating the narrative that it ultimately portrays--that I actually found myself surprised every time that something came up where they acknowledged racism existed.
RSB: This is a deeply reactionary film made exclusively by people who considered themselves to be progressive.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: Um, but so, let's get back to gender, um, we've talked a little bit about two minor characters who we think sort of exemplify this film's idea of masculinity and femininity--
RLB: Yup.
RSB: And we've touched a little bit on the intersections of genre and gender, but do you wanna say anything further about that intersection before we get more into the weeds?
RLB: I think we should get into those weeds.
RSB: Okay! And so many weeds. No flowers.
RLB: Lot of weeds for a movie with surprisingly little weed in it!
RSB:Yeah, there's no weed in this movie, which is very weird.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: Like, because high school students don't actually do that much coke, like--
RLB: Also, like, this was before weed was legalized in California--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: So you would expect the kids to just be more into weed, like Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character--
RSB: Is clearly a stoner.
RLB: Is clearly supposed to be a stoner, but it's never mentioned.
RSB: Yes, um, so what would you like to touch on first genderwise? Do you wanna dive right into that scene?
RLB: We have to--we have to talk about it, because like--
RSB: Should I start with the Variety quote? Because--
RLB: Um, yeah, go ahead and read the Variety quote.
RSB: Okay, so there's--I just wanna read a quote from the Variety review of Havoc, um, which came out of Chicago, and I think that'll be a good lead-in to discussing what it's talking about/ Right, so the writer's name is Lisa Nesselson, and what she had to say, including various other things, is that "the friendship between Allison and Emily rings girlish and true, and comes complete with tantalizing lesbian-flavored moments."
RLB: For one thing, I think that's a mischaracterization of what's in the movie.
RSB: I would agree. I don't think that--I don't think that tantalizing lesbian-flavored moments are what's happening.
RLB: I don't think that's what's happening at all.
RSB: In part because--let's just say it, Emily openly propositions Allison.
RLB: I don't know that I'd quite characterize it that way but I will say that I think this is a movie that's extremely 2005 in its treatment of whether to acknowledge that gayness exists.
RSB: So essentially there's a scene a little over halfway through the movie--
RLB: I also do wanna point out that this is the same year that Anne Hathaway was in Brokeback Mountain.
RSB: Yes, I think that's super relevant.
RLB: It's very relevant, and I think in many ways the--where we were on portrayals of lesbianism in--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: American cinema, versus gay male sexuality, is part of this conversation, but I also think that the idea that this moment in Anne Hathaway's career was transgressive in this particular way--
RSB: Yup.
RLB: Where nudity and gayness were the major concerns.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: It's--it just says a lot about what was happening in movies in 2005.
RSB: And how one signified maturity.
RLB: Maturity and seriousness.
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: As well as artistic commitment.
RSB: Right, absolutely.
RLB: So at the beginning of the film, Anne Hathaway attends a party at which she meets up with her boyfriend. They go to his car, she takes off her shirt--first Anne Hathaway boob appearance of the movie, not the last.
RSB: There's so much Hathaway boob in this movie.
RLB: Yes, and she looked great, but I did not enjoy any of it. I kept thinking "put your clothes back on, please."
RSB: And also, while Anne Hathaway at the time was 23, her character was very specifically mentioned as being under eighteen, which I think we can get into later, but--
RLB: So she hooks up with her boyfriend and they go back to his car and she gives him a very theatrical blowjob--
RSB: Topless blowjob.
RLB: Yes, like a few scenes later--actually is it the next scene? Immediately after that Anne Hathaway's character Allison goes to Emily's house and climbs into bed with her and like, starts spooning her.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: And Emily is like "I'm glad you came over, love you."
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And they go to sleep.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: And I was like--
RSB: What's happening here?
RLB: "Excuse me?" And that was the first time in the movie, not the last, that I was like "Hang on, this is a whole different area of questionable content than I was expecting! Even having seen the first scene of this movie. Yeah, but she climbs into bed with Emily and they snuggle and say they love each other and go to sleep and I was like, are we gonna talk about this or is this something that's never gonna come up again in the movie, and it's just one of those movies that thinks friendship between teenage girls is like--
RSB: Like that.
RLB: Like that.
RSB: And then for the next forty minutes Emily makes a ton of decisions that really only make sense if she's in love with Allison.
RLB: There's also a scene where the documentary child, which is what i've chosen to call him--
RSB: That's who he is.
RLB: Uh, he also is, like, visibly younger than the rest of the cast.
RSB: He is, yeah, he seems to be like a freshman.
RLB: Yeah, um, the documentary kid asks Anne Hathaway's character after she talks about things feeling fake or her seeking, y'know, something that felt real, which is her whole motivation for all of this going to East LA, uh, and hanging out with gangs--he asks when the last time she felt something real is and she talked about just sitting in a corner at this party with Emily, and she says something along the lines of "I don't know, that felt real, I just really love her," y'know, and then it cuts to a completely unrelated scene and I was like--
RSB: Huh.
RLB: Hang on!
RSB: They also they spend so much time holding hands.
RLB: They hold hands a lot. Also there's this one scene where she does this incredibly possessive grab around her waist--
RSB: Uh-huh.
RLB: As they're walking away--
RSB:Yes.
RLB: From the guys and it's, like, over the top.
RSB: It's very over the top. So all of this is going on and obviously, like, Rachel and I have seen a lot of movies that never acknowledge this type of thing, it's almost our wheelhouse--
RLB: Everyone in the world has seen a lot of moments at this point that don't acknowledge this type of thing.
RSB: Yeah, but I would say that's very much our wheelhouse.
RLB: Yes, a lot of movies should maybe acknowledge these types of things--not the way this one does--
RSB: No.
RLB: But to a similar degree, even if they're not gonna commit--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: In the same way this one does not commit but also does acknowledge it.
RSB: So there's a scene a little more than halfway through the movie where basically apropos of nothing, they're hanging out in her bedroom, and Emily turns to Allison and says "What if--"
RLB: "What if we're on our deathbeds--"
RSB: "On our deathbeds, thinking over all the guys we've been with, and we realize we were always meant to be together--"
RLB: Yeah, she says, like, all the guys we've slept with and loved and whatever, like she--it's this whole speech, and she's like "But what if this whole time we were meant to be together?"
RSB: "I don't wanna regret that on my deathbed."
RLB: I don't think she says that.
RSB: She doesn't say that, no, but that's the implication.
RLB: It is the implication, but she literally says the other stuff, to be clear.
RSB: To be clear, yes, and this isn't prompted in any way, she just seems to have decided it's time to bring it up.
RLB: They're also on her bed.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And like--
RSB: Rolling around.
RLB: Then there's some, like, straddling each other and stuff--
RSB: So then anne hathaway basically pounces her.
RLB: It's weird, and then Anne Hathaway's like "I don't think I could go down on you, LOL" kind of thing.
RSB: Yeah, Anne Hathaway, like, gets--she like pounces on her, straddles her, leans in almost to kiss her, and then says like while they're very close "But I could never go down on you," and then backs up and stays straddling her--
RLB: I thought she had backed up before that, but like--
RSB: Maybe she does.
RLB: Oh, I could be misremembering, cause I don't wanna remember anything in this movie.
RSB: Yeah, so then Anne Hathaway, like, sits up still straddling, and it's very unclear whether it's a closed question or not.
RLB: It's very unclear. Then they smoke crack. That's what happens next.
RSB: They fail to smoke crack.
RLB: Well, yeah, they try, um, yeah, it's--
RSB: But then for the rest of the movie Emily continues to make a bunch of decisions that only make sense if she's in love with Allison and believes she's just been rejected by the woman she loves.
RLB: Yeah, I do--I do think it's slightly less "only makes sense in that context" mostly just because this movie doesn't make sense even with any explanation.
RSB: Fair, clearly.
RLB: Nothing she does actually makes a lot of sense, and I don't actually think that that is the only explanation for her behavior.
RSB: Okay, I don't think it's the only one, but essentially they're in a scene where Emily becomes very, very committed to having a gangbang, and keeps--
RLB: In the same room as her.
RSB: And keeps kind of making eye contact with Allison while saying "I can take it, I can take it."
RLB: It's--
RSB: Very weird.
RLB: I hate this movie.
RSB: I know.
RLB: Like I really--I'm really glad that we're almost done with this and don't have to think about this movie again too much, because I really--as the movie went on started to find it genuinely upsetting, rather than--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Like I don't typically have too much trouble watching pretty traumatic things onscreen, from just, like, a personal standpoint--obviously I find them upsetting, especially if the movie is effective in trying to upset me--
RSB: Right.
RLB: But like, I don't personally have a history of trauma that makes, like, a rape scene especially difficult to watch.
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: I found this one so--
RSB: Horrible.
RLB: Gross.
RSB: Horrible.
RLB: On every possible level. And so creepy and exploitative and it--deliberately titillating in a way that--
RSB: Exactly the phrase i was gonna use.
RLB:was clearly for an audience that obviously wasn't me, but also wasn't anyone like the characters it was portraying--
RSB: And that in my opinion had an external narrative of fantasizing about these women.
RLB: Absolutely. And I found it--
RSB: It's disgusting.
RLB: Really upsetting. Um, the--
RSB: I definitely watched that scene in discomfort.
RLB: It was like, it's gonna stick with me in a way that, like, I wish--
RSB: Would not like it to.
RLB:that it wouldn't, and that I wish I hadn't watched in the first place, if it weren't for like a purpose like this. Like had i seen this movie and it wasn't something I was gonna discuss on a podcast I'd be really upset that I watched it.
RSB: I would've turned it off by that point.
RLB: I hope I would've turned it off by that point but sometimes you're, like, in a screening and you can't, like, you could walk out but--
RSB: No, I understand what you mean.
RLB: I typically wanna see things through to the end.
RSB: I understand what you mean.
RLB: Can we talk an little bit more about--
RSB: About the lesbian aspect?
RLB: Yeah--well, no, let's move on to the the gang rape scene and we can kind of discuss the treatment of sexuality in the movie after that--
RSB: Yeah, so I don't wanna get too into the weeds of the choreography of this scene, but essentially what happens is Emily begins to have consensual sex with a group of the gang members--
RLB: Well, no, she begins to have consensual sex with one gang member.
RSB: Right, and--
RLB: Then she changes her mind about which of them to have sex with.
RSB: And this basically instigates them no longer caring what her opinions about the sexual situation are.
RLB: This is also after one of the guys involved was trying to have sex with Allison--Anne Hathaway's character--and Allison put a stop to it in the middle of foreplay because she changed her mind, and also because she was watching what was happening to Emily and starting to grow concerned.
RSB: Yes, and she at that point makes an attempt to convince Emily to also back out and Emily refuses to back out at that point, and by the time that she does start trying to the men stop her.
RLB: It's important to note that Emily, up to this point, has very much been not just letting but asking Allison to drive this whole--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Situation forward. She's the one who she wants to ask the gang members if they can be inducted into their gang.
RSB: Which turns out to be through this sex ritual.
RLB: She is the one who has to initiate things on Emily's behalf, because Emily doesn't have the confidence essentially.
RSB: Yeah. So I wanna be super clear that watching this it's very clearly a rape.
RLB: I agree. It's very, very clear. The situation is not what I would call clearly consensual to begin with--
RSB: It's coercive to begin with.
RLB: It's coercive. By this point it is extremely cut-and-dry.
RSB: That, however, is not how the remainder of the film regards it.
RLB: No, I was incredibly confused and horrified to learn a couple of scenes later that the characters disagree about whether it was a rape.
RSB: And that the film does not take a firm position that one of them is lying or incorrect. But the problem is that the situation is unambiguous--it happens onscreen!
RLB: It's also pretty clear that the movie is aware at least to a certain extent that these people are going to be treated terribly by the LAPD--
RSB: It's been stated many times openly and implicitly.
RLB: And I think that the implication is that Allison is aware of that and that is part of why she does not believe that they should press charges, but I also think it's very strange that what she actually says--
RSB: Is it wasn't really rape.
RLB: Is that it wasn't rape.
RSB: And there's never an implication that she's lying about that to get them to stop from going to the police or anything.
RLB: No, it's very clear she's supposed to believe it.
RSB: Yeah, and especially with the fact that this disbelief in the rape is put in Allison's mouth, who as we've been saying, the entire film has been established as the smartest person in the room, possibly the smartest person in Los Angeles, and very much our point-of-view character, makes it uncomfortable when she takes on this view.
RLB: There's also a really weird power dynamic between Allison and Emily, given that it's very clear, like, explicitly in dialogue clear, that Allison is in charge in these situations, and Emily is, y'know, the follower, it's clear that Allison feels guilty for, I suppose, getting them into this situation in the first place, but it is not clear that Allison believes that considering that she thinks they are at fault rather than the rapists.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: It's not clear that Allison thinks she bears the responsibility for that.
RSB: Right.
RLB: It seems that she thinks that that was a very straightforward and literal asking for it situation on Emily's part.
RSB: Yes, which it again, to be clear, very unambiguously was not. The film does not depict these events in any way ambiguously.
RLB: Yeah, and I--I will say, like I think--
RSB: If it thinks it was doing that I'm very disturbed.
RLB: Yeah, I do think the film--I do think the filmmakers chose to portray it as a rape.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And that's why I found the conclusion absolutely baffling.
RSB:I agree.
RLB: When after that point the characters act--
RSB: Act as if it was ambiguous.
RLB: Don't characterize it that way.
RSB:Yeah.
RLB: I think it's worth talking a little bit about sex in this movie more generally--
RSB: Yeah I agree.
RLB: And about sexiness in this movie.
RSB: Sexiness very much so.
RLB: And I also do think that it's really relevant at this point to reiterate that the characters are underage but they are all played by actors in their twenties.
RSB: And not only are they in high school but it's very specifically mentioned that at least Allison is not eighteen yet.
RLB: I don't know who this movie's for.
RSB: Great question.
RLB: And I found contemplating the question kind of upsetting.
RSB: It's really disturbing--you used the phrase "teensploitation" when we were talking off the air--
RLB: I did.
RSB: And it's not a terrible phrase.
RLB: It's not the only movie that I think I would characterize that way, but it also--I don't, I don't know that it's, y'know--
RSB: To the extent that this movie--
RLB: I don't know that it's what I would call it ultimately, I don't know that that's a good term--
RSB: Sure, I just think that it's a relevant concept.
RLB: There's certainly--
RSB: I think also--
RLB: There's certainly a tradition of movies about teenage girls that theoretically are from their perspective that end up very much not for teenage girls.
RSB: Yes, and but, also a lot of the time these women are nude, like, crying in the bath or being raped or masturbating on camera for a freshman, like they're not always nude in sexy situations that are titillating to watch.
RLB: I would say that none of the situations in this film--
RSB: Maybe the blowjob at the beginning.
RLB: I would say that it is attempting to be titillating but I did not think that even if I were like a teen--
RSB: You didn't love the foot shot?
RLB: Huh?
RSB: You didn't love the feet shot?
RLB: Oh God.
RSB: I'm sorry.
RLB: But yeah, I think if I had seen this movie as a teen, even though I would've probably been like "Anne Hathaway, hot!"
RSB: I know, I would've been like, "Boobs!"
RLB: I mean the things is, it's just like, she's hotter in Brokeback Mountain.
RSB: Well, that's the thing, is--so I do wanna say, obviously to the extent that this movie didn't immediately disappear from the conversation, one of the big things that it did get talked about in the context of is the fact that Anne Hathaway is topless--she's fully nude in Havoc, but she's topless in two movies in the same year.
RLB: Is she fully nude in Havoc?
RSB: There's a scene where she is, and Bijou definitely is fully nude--
RLB: Bijou definitely is.
RSB: In a couple scenes, but I think there's a fully nude Anne--
RLB: We don't see everything, but--
RSB: We don't see the front.
RLB: She is clearly fully nude.
RSB: We do see a fully nude body twice, two different scenes. I think there's a scene where Anne's nude as well.
RLB: I was honestly surprised there was not full-frontal female nudity in this movie.
RSB: I agree.
RLB: Because there was a lot of female nudity.
RSB: There is no male nudity.
RLB: There is at least--
RSB: There's some shirtless men.
RLB: No, I think the men during the rape scene--
RSB: Oh, they unbutton their jeans.
RLB: Bar, well, I think they are nude.
RSB: Are they really?
RLB: At least one of them.
RSB: I was not--as you might have guessed, I was not paying attention at that point.
RLB: I really tried to not watch too closely at that point.
RSB: Yeah, so, but going back to it, there was a lot of discussion of the fact that there are two movies in the same year where you can see Anne Hathaway's breasts, and last year she was Ella Enchanted, and that's a narrative that I think trips up a lot of young women actors, this narrative of--oh, now they've gone for the sexy roles, when in fact there's a certain age women reach when they don't have a choice about that.
RLB: There's also--going back to a little bit of the conversation about the gay content, y'know, there's a conversation to be had about the whole narrative with women in particular of, you know, actors who are really serious and committed to the role are willing to do nude scenes--
RSB: And I think basically what the narrative was, which Anne wasn't able to stop from happening, was "Anne is doing two sexy movies to prove she's not a teen princess anymore," and the only way that she found to combat that narrative, which I think made her very uncomfortable--as I think it would make most of us pretty uncomfortable--was to say that no, she's just a really committed artist, and these are the projects that meant the most to her, and nudity is a tool in her acting arsenal.
RLB: Which to be fair is true.
RSB: It absolutely--but I think both of those narratives have some truth to them and also don't tell the whole story.
RLB: I would agree, and--
RSB: Like they're--I'm certain that her agents were thinking about getting her out of the Ella Enchanted, Princess Diaries world.
RLB: Absolutely.
RSB: And I think overall we're glad they did! This is the last movie in which she plays a high school student, I should mention--
RLB: Thank God. Because I know she was 23, but she looks thirty.
RSB: She looks so old in this movie.
RLB: And like beautiful--
RSB: Gorgeous.
RLB: But like, because we're not the kind of people who think thirty-year-olds are old or unattractive--
RSB: She's like 23 playing sixteen or seventeen and looks at least 26, probably more. Like 31 part of it is her styling as well, but, you know, she has a perfect haircut that is in character for her character but makes a woman look older. We should mention the one-shoulder top--we'll put it on Instagram.
RLB: There is a top in this movie that's just the most 2005 garment I've seen ever.
RSB: If you know that one picture of Ashley Tisdale on the red carpet wearing, like, a tulle skirt over jeans--
RLB: There's more than one of those.
RSB: This is the top equivalent of that image. It has one shoulder and it desperately wants a second one. But I do think that there are some interesting differences, like, actually worth talking about, between Anne's nudity in Havoc versus her nudity in Brokeback Mountain, and how the famous topless scene in Brokeback Mountain is doing something entirely different with the nude female body than any of the scenes in this movie are doing.
RLB: I mean for one thing, I think it would be in really bad faith to characterize the scene in Brokeback Mountain as pornographic.
RSB: Absolutely. And I don't think I can say the same about this movie.
RLB: No.
RSB: To the extent that, like, I told Rachel after the movie, like, I'm kinda surprised this wasn't rated NC-17.
RLB: Yeah, and I'm also kind of surprised that they didn't want it to be.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: I think it would've been more marketable.
RSB: I kind of agree--if it was the movie they don't want you to see people would've wanted to see it more. But I do wanna go back to this question, and this kinda takes us back into the genre world once again, of is this an erotic film? Like is it intended to be and is it, i mean, i certainly didn't feel turned on watching this movie--
RLB: No, I felt kind of like I never would feel that way again--
RSB: Wanted to be turned on ever again--
RLB: I kind of after this movie was like, do I think boobs--
RSB: Are good anymore?
RLB: Are good? And I'm not sure about the answer.
RSB: Yeah, this movie is not gonna make you--
RLB: Maybe this movie made me straight.
RSB: It's not like this movie made me feel good about male sexiness either.
RLB: No, but it was such a non-issue in the movie--like this movie really was not interested in male bodies and male sexuality at all except in the context of men wanting to fuck teenage girls.
RSB: And men of color as instruments of rape.
RLB: Sure.
RSB: But going from there, was this movie interested in turning on its audience? Cause it's--
RLB: I can't tell because I can't tell who the audience is.
RSB: Right, but is it--is it trying to be a an erotic film?
RLB: I can't tell.
RSB: I can't tell either.
RLB: It either definitely is or definitely isn't and I hate that there's a gray area.
RSB: Right, like on the one hand there's absolutely no reason to include so much sex if it's not trying to be an erotic film, but on the other hand if it is trying to be an erotic film, why are all of the narratively important points so unarousing?
RLB: I think it's important also to maybe differentiate between erotic films--
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: That are, you know--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Supposed to be sexy, versus edgy films--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: That are sexual.
RSB: That's fair.
RLB: And I think that this is definitely in the latter camp--I don't necessarily think this is in the former, but I do think there's overlap, and it's possible that it was intended to be.
RSB: Yeah, I mean there are some of these scenes where I'm like, is it trying to turn on the audience?
RLB: I also honestly--I felt like there were some conflicts between collaborators about--
RSB: Mmm, that's possible.
RLB: What the film was trying to do with some of those scenes, because it did not feel clear that everyone involved--directing-wise, camerawise, performancewise--had the same agenda.
RSB: I will say, some of those scenes are the ones where Anne Hathaway as a performer seemed most confident in the film.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: She feels very out of her element in this movie, but ironically some of the scenes where that doesn't feel like the case are those nude and sexual scenes. But I will say, like, a lot of the nudity in this movie doesn't appear to be saying anything other than "Look, it's Anne Hathaway's boobs!"
RLB: In a strange way I find it pretty similar to the way the movie frames the lesbianism, or sort of--I don't wanna call it lesbianism, I wanna call it the ghost of lesbianism that's haunting the movie.
RSB: The lesbian-flavored moments.
RLB: The movie feels at certain points like it should be leading to a conclusion where, like, it bizarrely takes a turn into, like, romance or even, like, forbidden romance kind of territory, and the girls either get together or are, y'know, torn apart and can never be together.
RSB: Yeah, and it kinda seems like lesbian desire could either be their path out of this journey they're taking down into the gutter or their accelerant farther in and it in the end it ends up being neither.
RLB: It's so weird, and I just--
RSB: This movie is so bad, guys.
RLB: I expected them to land somewhere with the lesbian question and they did not.
RSB: I feel like that's the pull quote for this episode.
RLB: I just, I really, they addressed it way too much for them to not make a decision about it and way too little for me to feel like they made a decision about it.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: I think we should talk about Channing Tatum.
1:13:40
RSB:I agree! That's a fun activity, unlike talking about this movie. Um, I mean, I think, what's Channing doing in this movie and how does it work with with genre and gender?
RLB: So I think an interesting trend early in Channing's career, when he's still playing teenagers--
RSB: Right.
RLB: Or even when he's playing just young twentysomethings--
RSB: Young people, yeah.
RLB: Is that this persistent casting of Channing Tatum as kind of this edgy misbehaving teen--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Is not consistently casting Channing Tatum as an underprivileged teen.
RSB: Right.
RLB: It's about half and half. He's either playing a kid who clearly grew up in poverty or he's playing a kid who grew up in overwhelming privilege.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And I find that fascinating, just because his performances frankly are the same either way.
RSB: And something that i wanna quickly flag--Channing, like we said, has about five lines in this movie, but one of them is, referring to a gun, "My dad took down an alligator with this one."
RLB: Which is insane, but--
RSB: Because it's insane because they live in Los Angeles!
RLB: Yes, I mean it's insane for many reasons. He does have a little bit of a Southern accent--
RSB: Exactly.
RLB: Which I do--I did think that was deliberate, but I also was like, was that improv? What happened there?
RSB: Like for some reason Channing's character in this movie is Southern even though it takes place in Pacific Palisades and there's no implication that he's not from there.
RLB: I do also think it's worth noting that in that same scene he calls someone a pussy, and that's one of the only lines of dialogue he has in the movie, and again this podcast is just about how people love to cast Channing Tatum in things that are just, like, full of gender.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And I just--I had questions, but I also found him to be one of the few elements of the movie that I relatively understood what he was doing there.
RSB: Yes, except again, that he seems to live in Louisiana while everybody else lives in Pacific Palisades.
RLB: Yeah, although I was thinking Florida for the alligator thing.
RSB: Florida works too.
RLB: Um, he's not playing Gambit yet.
RSB: Well, okay, fair, but basically we talked a little bit in the last episode about Channing carving out this niche in Hollywood of playing Southerners and bringing Southern culture into Hollywood, and for some reason that's at play in this movie about Los Angeles politics.
RLB: But only in one scene.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Which is even stranger.
RSB: Yes. The other thing he does in this movie is wear two hats, so like--
RLB: We already talked about the two hats but the two hats has to be emphasized again.
RSB: He has another hat in another scene too. I do think in that one scene with Anne in the hallway I think we see some of Channing's future sort of fatherly good guy energy that we'll see become a hallmark of his career.
RLB: I do think that similarly to Coach Carter he also is there because he does bring a really specific kind of fun to be around guy energy.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And it's very clear--
RSB: Which this movie desperately needs.
RLB: It desperately needs it, but it's also very clear that, like, he is a good actor to go to if you need someone who doesn't really have a role in the movie but you need someone who's going to convey friendship.
RSB: Yes, that's very true.
RLB: I don't know what it is about Channing Tatum that makes him so good at playing a friend, but I wish he was my friend.
RSB: Same. Unfortunately we're making this podcast, so that will never be possible.
RLB: Yup. Also I want good things for him.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And so that does not include--
RSB: Our friendship.
RLB: That.
RSB: So we talked a little bit about the ages of the teenagers in this movie, butIi do kinda wanna dig into a little more--so Channing is 25, and this is the start of several years of playing teenagers, whereas Anne Hathaway's 23 and this is the last film she plays a teenager--or a high school student, I guess for part of Brokeback she's a teenager, right?
RLB: I don't remember.
RSB: Okay. I haven't seen Brokeback in a long time. But basically, Anne is closing off her career at 23 of playing teenagers and Channing is just starting his at 25 and I think that's something worth digging into a little bit.
RLB: I mean I don't think we have to, like, dig too far into it, because anyone listening to this podcast is aware of genders.
RSB: That's true.
RLB: You've seen a movie and also you know about genders, so do we need to explain that? Y'know, let us know if you have questions, cause we can try--
RSB: Please write in.
RLB: But like I think you get it.
RSB: Yeah, I just think, like, it is fascinating.
RLB: It is fascinating. I also do think it's interesting that in Coach Carter Channing Tatum clearly was not playing necessarily a sexy teen, but he was playing a teen heartthrob type sort of in the background. In this he's really not, like there's no indication that he has a girlfriend.
RSB: There's no hot guy in this movie. None of the guys are portrayed as hot.
RLB: I think Freddie Rodriguez is supposed to be compelling to Anne Hathaway up to a certain point.
RSB: But he is not really supposed to be sexy and hot to the audience.
RLB: No, and I also think that there's an implication that what she finds hot about him is not--
RSB: His looks.
RLB: Hot. I think that he'd be a really good romantic lead in something that is not like this, and I would like to see that, because he is a really compelling actor to watch and I think that that's worth knowing.
RSB: I think he's in general an underrated actor and someone that I'd like to see come back in some way.
RLB: Also just an underused actor.
RSB: That's what I mean.
RLB: I think the reasons are pretty obvious.
RSB: I would agree.
RLB: I thought he and Anne Hathaway had good chemistry and I would not mind seeing him in a movie that wasn't this.
RSB: Yeah, and I thought he brought so much more nuance to this than the movie wanted him to bring.
RLB: I know, the movie was fighting him at every fucking turn.
RSB: So other than briefly appearing in Don Jon, Channing Tatum and Anne Hathaway haven't reunited. I for one think they would do a great film together, so I wanted to just, to wrap up and give us something to talk about, give you the chance to give me an on-the-spot pitch for a Channing and Anne movie.
RLB: Do you actually like my on-the-spot pitches? Cause usually when I offer them it's cause I feel they're bad but I can't contain them.
RSB: I think they will be entertaining.
RLB: Okay. So I think that Channing and Anne should do a musical, obviously, um, but I think it should be them playing Old Hollywood stars in a musical.
RSB: Okay.
RLB: That's--that's my pitch. It can be like a Singin' in the Rain kind of deal, but they are filming something like Singin' in the Rain and obviously they hate each other, and then they fall in love.
RSB: I love it.
RLB: What I actually think would be good is if they did a play together.
RSB: That would be really fun. Um, I would love to see them do Shakespeare together.
RLB: Yeah, I mean, Anne Hathaway did do Twelfth Night.
RSB: Obviously both of them are famous Twelfth Nighters.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: But--
RLB: They should do Twelfth Night.
RSB: That would be really fun, but I would also love to see them do, like, As You Like It.
RLB: But I feel like they are both famously stars of Twelfth Night--famously in Anne Hathaway's sense in that she was in Shakespeare in the Park, and the promo image--
RSB: Bisexuals who are extremely online know that promo image. And if you are--
RLB: We know it so well.
RSB: If you are a bisexual and you haven't seen Anne Hathaway's promo image for Shakespeare in the Park Twelfth Night--
RLB: With Audra MacDonald.
RSB: With Audra MacDonald, please do yourself a favor and google it, because you will have a happy time.
RLB: Especially if you like Shakespeare and--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Wish that you could, y'know, go see the archived recording of that that exists but will never be available to the public, because they don't do that--I mean it's available to--
Both: The Public!
RSB: Ba-dum tshhh!
RLB: But it's not available to--
RSB: Us.
RLB: Us.
RSB: We haven't seen it.
RLB: Yeah, which is sad.
RSB: We both really like Twelfth Night.
RLB: We--we do, and--
RSB: You'll get to hear all about it soon.
RLB: We'll try to keep it to a minimum, honestly, because it's--yeah.
RSB: We can do dueling tales of our high school Twelfth Night speeches. We will not perform our high school Twelfth Night speeches, because--
RLB: Well, first of all, I didn't go to high school, but second of all--
RSB: Okay, well, fair, yours was college.
RLB: Second of all, it's not worth--
RSB: No.
RLB: It's not worth it.
RSB: I love all of this. I love your Channing and Anne pitch, or Channanning--
RLB: Yeah, did you have a Channing and Anne pitch?
RSB: I mean, my extremely, like, bland one is if Channing is playing Sky Masterson Anne would be a great Sarah.
RLB: That's true.
RSB: So I'm gonna, every--I'm not going to mention Channing being in Guys and Dolls every episode, but I have done that so far.
RLB: Yeah, I mean, it may or may not have been cut from the last episode, cause I haven't decided yet, but we did discuss, like, if you were gonna put Channing in a musical what would you put him, and Rachel did say for, y'know, probably the dozenth time--
RSB: This is a personal agenda.
RLB: Yeah, and she's right.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Hollywood, if you're listening--
RSB: Channing Tatum, Guys and Dolls.
RLB: Anne Hathaway would be a natural fit for that project.
RSB: She'd be a really good Sarah both in terms of her acting and just, it would work really well for that type of project.
RLB: I do think that briefly--we should also discuss the Channing and Joseph Gordon-Levitt collaboration over the years.
RSB: Sure, absolutely.
RLB: Just because it's notable that this is the first time they were in a movie together, but they have worked together several times since.
RSB: Absolutely, both as actors and as producers.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: They're in this together, they were in 2008 in the film Stop-Loss, in 2009 they were in GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra together; Channing appears in Don Jon which is sort of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's big auteur project, and then they did the beautiful television show Comrade Detective together, it's amazing--
RLB: We love Comrade Detective, and--
RSB: We are possibly the world's biggest Comrade Detective fans.
RLB: I don't know if anyone else watched it but I--I found it so enjoyable.
RSB: It's so good.
RLB: Both the sheer audacity of its existence--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Like they successfully produced and released it--
RSB: Yeah, that's insane.
RLB: But also, like, it's fun to watch.
RSB: It's real fun to watch. And then they actually have, like, various future projects that they have claimed to be working on together at one time or another.
RLB: So like, they're friends.
RSB: They're friends. They work together, they like each other as creative partners--
RLB: It's remarkable that on this film they ever wanted to work with each other again after it.
RSB: I know. I would never wanna touch anything involved in that experience ever again.
RLB: Yeah, and honestly I find it kind of charming that they were like, yeah, we're gonna, like, stay friends and collaborators after that.
RSB: Absolutely.
RLB: Did we have anything else to say about Channing?
RSB: I think that, y'know, unlike with Coach Carter, he really has so little screen time that there's no way to say, oh, you can see the Channing to come, but I do think given that he still is the consummate professional and he doesn't phone it in.
RLB: Yeah, I do also think it is interesting the way that this role is in dialogue with his other teenage roles and the class politics of his other roles as a teenager and as an adult.
RSB: I think it's also interesting that this kind of--because there is very little we can find out about sort of the metanarrative at this point--it's interesting to see how clearly his team was hustling, he was hustling to get small but prominently credited roles in films like this.
RLB: Yeah, and he also was, y'know, up-and-coming enough to get these small roles in movies with major names.
RSB: Exactly.
RLB: Um, it's also I do think interesting that despite being in probably as much of this movie as he--as the other guys are, as we said, Joseph Gordon-Levitt rarely appears on the screen without him, if ever, it's weird that his role arguably is proportionately larger this movie but is so much less of a relevant entity than in Coach Carter where he does very much feel like part of the team and one of the sort of defined members of the team, who--we did not love that movie, but they did at least feel like an ensemble of characters to an extent.
RSB: This movie has one and a half characters.
RLB: Yeah, and that's kind of the point that I wanna make, is just, like, Channing does his best here but even Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was pretty well-known--it's strange that like none of the guys in this movie matter to the movie at all.
RSB: Not at all.
RLB: Especially considering the movie ends with one of them getting shot.
RSB: I know, and we're supposed to care?
RLB: Are we supposed to care?
RSB: Question mark?
RLB: It's unclear, because the movie is not sure if it even cares about the protagonists.
RSB: Right, so I feel--I wanna go into our closing if you're ready.
RLB: Yeah.
1:26:41
RSB: I feel a little silly even asking this question, but Rachel, did you like the movie?
RLB: I did not.
RSB: I also did not. And Rachel, did you think it was good?
RLB: No.
RSB: This movie is bad.
RLB: This movie is really bad. Please don't watch it. Especially please don't pay money to watch it.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: We're, like, y'know, stupid and did. Not very much though.
RSB: It was three dollars.
RLB: Yeah. If it had been more than that I'd be upset.
RSB: I'd be writing a complaint.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: This is a very bad movie. Um, but on a more interesting question, were we to do a spinoff podcast about a member of this cast, who would we choose, or who would you choose?
RLB: Um, the problem is the ones that it would be at all interesting to do a podcast on are Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and both of them have done Christopher Nolan movies that I don't want to rewatch.
RSB: Yeah, I mean, I think on the question--
RLB: Like I've seen their movies with Christopher Nolan.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: But as I've stated, I do not enjoy his films, and I don't--
RSB:The Dark Knight Rises is probably my least favorite film that I've seen twice all the way through.
RLB: I'm not sure that I even--I'm not sure that it even is one of my least favorite films, because I've seen a lot of bad films, and I've even seen bad films more than once, but I don't want to watch The Dark Knight Rises again, at least in full, and so that is sort of an issue--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: For those two.
RSB: That said, though, like truly on concerns of genre and gender I think that Anne Hathaway is one of the stars who, like Channing, really has a filmography that embodies those questions--
RLB: I agree.
RSB: And I think it's hard not to say that Anne Hathaway's the right choice there, just because she obviously is, even though neither of us wants to watch Tom Hooper's Les Miserables either.
RLB: I mean, I've seen that more than once, so, yeah.
RSB: That's what I'm saying.
RLB: I do like Les Mis. I think Tom Hooper is not good.
RSB: Neither do I, and I don't even like Les Mis.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: So basically, I'm glad we're not doing a spinoff podcast on Anne Hathaway, but i will say that--
RLB: She is the obvious choice.
RSB: She very much lends our--lends herself to our subject matter.
RLB: She has a really interesting Hollywood metanarrative, and she does have a lot of really interesting projects, both good and bad. I think it's--she's a really similar figure in many ways to Channing Tatum, I think, but I think, y'know--
RSB: And I think--
RLB: There's a sexism factor that doesn't factor in with Channing Tatum, but I also think in some ways she's given more credit for being smart and deliberate as an artist in a way that like--
RSB: Yeah, although--
RLB: Early in his career I don't think he was.
RSB: Yeah, although I would argue that maybe that is in some ways gendered as well.
RLB: Oh yeah, I don't disagree that it's gendered.
RSB: Um, do you have any final thoughts on Havoc or do we wanna just run away?
RLB: I wanna just not think about Havoc again unless it's Havok with a K and he's an X-Man.
RSB: I feel the same, yeah. Yeah. Let's close on the note of: this movie is bad.
RLB: Sure. Sure. Uh, y'know, um, do you want to offer me a Channing Datum?
1:29:55
RSB: Yes, my Channing Datum for today, ah, Channing has dyslexia and ADHD!
RLB: Wow!
RSB: Yeah!
RLB: I didn't know that. What an icon.
RSB: Indeed, very much so. Do you wanna run through the socials? Or do you want me to do it cause you don't remember them.
RLB: You should do it cause I don't remember them.
RSB: Friends, we would love it if you would follow us on Twitter @channingsalon, on Instagram @channingsalon--please find us on Letterboxd where our username is also channingsalon.
RLB: If you want to start an Anne Hathaway podcast and wanna collab--
RSB: Or just if you wanna get in touch, please reach out to us at channingsalon@gmail.com. And thanks for listening! Next time on The Channing Salon we'll be discussing 2005's Supercross, directed by Steve Boyum.
[audio clip]
Voice 1: It's time to go toe to toe with the big boys.
[sounds of engines revving]
Voice 2: Those guys got bigger engines and better torques--
Voice 3: Cross the finish line first, it don't matter.
[end audio clip]
RLB: I know nothing about this one and I'm excited to find out, because it can't be worse than this.
RSB: Uh, it's another sports movie, just FYI.
RLB: That's okay, that's much better than this.
RSB: We got Rachel to like sports, because at least it's not Havoc.
RLB: I wouldn't go that far, but pretty close.
RSB: Yeah.RSB: There is a sequence in this movie where the characters are driving around LA and drive past the marquee for The Room and I kind of wish I had watched The Room instead.
RLB: I definitely wish that I had watched The Room instead.
00:14
[audio clip]
Anne Hathaway/Allison: Let's go downtown. There's a whole different world down there.
Bijou Phillips/Emily: There's a monetary zone of geography which we're not allowed to pass.
[end audio clip]
RSB: Welcome to The Channing Salon, the show where we discuss gender, genre, and je ne sais quoi, one Channing Tatum movie at a time. I'm Rachel S. Bernstein--
RLB: And I'm Rachel Lee Berger--
RSB: And this week, we're talking about the 2005 film Havoc, directed by Barbara Kopple. Before we go any further, we should note that we're discussing a film that contains some pretty intense scenes of sexual assault, drug use, and racism, so please keep that in mind as you decide whether to listen to our episode and decide whether to check out the film for yourself.
RLB: Please don't check out the film for yourself on this one.
RSB: Yes. Unless you are an insane completist like ourselves give it a miss.
RLB: Yeah, if you're doing an Anne Hathaway podcast then you will need to.
RSB: And also please call us.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: Set up a double date with us. So we can start with just the imdb summary of this movie, it's just one sentence: two affluent suburban girls clash with the Latino gang culture of East Los Angeles. Which in my opinion is both completely accurate and did not prepare me in any way for what i was about to see. Rachel, do you agree?
RLB: I don't know.
RSB: Rachel's still unprepared.
RLB: I truly have no idea what this movie is. I know some of what it tried to be--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: And I know some of what is in it, but what this movie is?
RSB: Yeah, when I was writing the summary and trying to pick out what the significant events were I had a lot of difficulty.
RLB: What it is is probably just an abomination, but it's more than that.
RSB: So what actually happens in the movie: Anne Hathaway and Bijou Phillips are two wealthy LA high school girls, Allison and Emily, whose equally wealthy and white boyfriends have formed a quote unquote "gang" because they're all really into MTV. It's called the PLC--the palisades something--Bijou's boyfriend is Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He wears a lot of saggy pants--
RLB: He does a lot of things besides wearing saggy pants and frankly the only one that's forgivable is the saggy pants.
RSB: Yeah. Anne's boyfriend is Mike Vogel and he wets his pants at one point.
RLB: He does and it was the most interesting thing that happened in the film.
RSB: I would agree. Uh, so the white kids decide to go downtown, or east, which is basically treated as a descent into the underworld, and they buy coke from a Latino gang--a real gang--but then the boys get in a fight with the gang leader, played by Freddie Rodriguez of Six Feet Under fame. So Emily and Allison find this a super fascinating experience, so they keep going downtown and partying with the Latino gang, especially because their home lives are really empty and boring and their moms are alcoholics and they love drugs a lot. So eventually they ask Freddie Rodriguez if they can join the real gang and he tells them they can if they have sex with the gang members. They agree to this but once it starts they change their minds pretty quickly and in particular Bijou's character Emily is more or less gang raped when she tries to back out in the sex challenge. She immediately goes to the cops but Allison is really distressed by this, not because she's All Cops Are Bastards but because she believes that what happened was consensual and it's not right to go after the gang members.
RLB: I mean it's a little bit because she thinks all cops are bastards. She definitely theoretically believes that--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Going after the gang members through law enforcement--
RSB: She does recognize that it'll be disproportionate punishment.
RLB: Yeah she definitely--there's definitely some recognition that that's in the mix--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Here, ethically. Unfortunately, everything else--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: So unfortunately the white fake gang has found out about the rape, and they decide to take their dads' hunting guns and go take revenge. They run into the real gang and suddenly the film cuts to black and we only hear gunshots and screaming, leaving the ending ambiguous, although Allison and Emily are basically squared away at that point so it's unclear how relevant the ambiguousness is. So there's also a running thread throughout about another kid at their school who's making a documentary about the white gang and repeatedly interviews Allison about it, which I'm tacking on at the end because that's about how well-integrated that plot thread is. We should mention at this point that Channing is barely in this movie. He actually is billed in the opening credits but I was pretty surprised that he was--he has maybe five lines. So he plays one of the white guy gang members--most of his role is just standing there so the gang isn't just two guys. Uh, he is the one who supplies them with the guns, again, which i do wanna talk about a little later--
RLB: We will.
RSB: But I mentioned a bunch of the other notable cast in the summary, but I do wanna also mention Shiri Appleby, of Unreal fame, who plays a friend of Emily and Allison's, and Michael bean and Laura San Giacomo, who play Allison's parents. And also Josh Peck has one line in this movie which I personally found fascinating.
RLB: The fact that he's playing Bijou Phillips' brother...
RSB: Brother--the Rubin family.
RLB: Is incredible.
RSB: Um, so we'll definitely wanna dig into both that plot and the performances later, but Rachel, was there any other important context that you think we should bring up right now?
RLB: I think it's worth briefly noting that this movie was not theatrically released in the US.
RSB: Yes, so this movie premiered at Munich Film Festival and Chicago Film Festival--it was produced by New Line and for various reasons it wasn't theatrically released.
RLB: It also is Barbara Kopple's only narrative feature.
RSB: Correct, she is primarily a documentarian, best known for her first film, Harlan County, USA, from the seventies, which she won an Academy Award for best documentary for--one of two that she's won. There are a few different explanations for why this film didn't get a theatrical release--one of them is just that the reviews out of Chicago were terrible--
RLB: Correctly.
RSB: But another one is that--and unfortunately this movie, because it was less of a hit than Coach Carter, even more of the contemporary context around it has been lost to internet decay, so we haven't been able to fully flesh out our research on every point, but what we were able to find is that Anne and Bijou both refused to participate in promotion for the film, largely because they felt that Barbara Kopple, the director, had been mistreated by the studio and not given creative control over final cut. And unfortunately, we weren't able to find the full details of how that manifested, but that definitely was part of the situation, that they weren't able to do the full promotional aspect they were hoping for, because they lost--I assume Kopple as well as well as Anne and Bijou.
RLB: It's also interesting that there exists an unrated cut of the film.
RSB: Yes. It is seven minutes longer and according to people who've seen it a lot of it is just non sequitur plot.
RLB: We really thought that the obvious answer was that there was more nudity, because there's already so much nudity--
RSB: Because there's a lot--so much female nudity.
RLB: But it turns out that that is not the case which is somehow even more baffling.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: When we just--we assumed the situation could not get more baffling.
RSB: Yes. Um, we haven't even dug into all of the crazy backstory of this movie yet.
RLB: We have not.
RSB: So before we do that, let's just go through our experiences with the movie. Had you seen this one before, Rachel?
RLB: I did not even know this movie existed--
RSB: I didn't either.
RLB: Until very recently.
RSB: Yeah, neither of us knew this existed. What was your impression or your expectation before watching?
RLB: Having seen the trailer, I was braced for something, but could never have been adequately prepared for this.
RSB: Yeah, I certainly expected something much more conventional.
RLB: I expected something sort of deliberately provocative and quote unquote "unconventional," but along very conventional lines.
RSB: Sort of painfully conventional in practice. It's not.
RLB: Yes, ( sort of expected a very formulaic--
RSB: Right--
RLB: Rebellious uh--
RSB: Story we've seen before.
RLB: Edgy ... yes.
RSB: I expected, you know, a Romeo and Juliet clash of two worlds kind of thing. That's not what this is.
RLB: I don't think I quite expected that clash of two worlds kind of thing, I think I just expected there to be more of a plot. And also expected the movie to be either more or less self-aware.
RSB: I definitely got the impression from the trailer that this was a romance, which is very much not the case.
RLB: Oof. Sure is not.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Actually, I take that back. I actually think it is a romance, but we can discuss later.
RSB: Well, we can discuss that aspect.
RLB: In many ways I actually was surprised when the movie ended and it wasn't a romance.
RSB: Yeah, between--I think we're thinking of the same two characters.
RLB: We're absolutely thinking of it. But I also, considering the 2005 of it all, was very unsurprised that it was not a romance, but was surprised that it got as close as it did.
RSB: Yeah. So we can get into that when we talk about gender in this movie, but, uh, so something I wanna say--this movie was made--it had a nine million dollar budget and it made back less than four hundred thousand--
RLB: It had a nine million dollar budget?
RSB: It did have a nine million dollar budget.
RLB: It doesn't look like it had a nine million dollar budget.
RSB: (t doesn't look like that at all. It looks like trash.
RLB: Wow. I'm actually shocked by that.
RSB: I mean, to be fair, how much of that was location fees for Palisades High School?
RLB: Sure. But I mean, look, I get that movies cost--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: A ton of money--
RSB: But it's ridiculous that this movie, which is in a lot of scenes visually like impossible to follow--
RLB: Yeah it's upsettingly--
RSB: The entire--
RLB: Incompetent.
RSB: The entire opening sequence has like a dark blue wash like--
RLB: Oh my God, if you have a problem with like the Breaking Bad Mexico filter please don't ever watch this movie because you will just scream the entire time.
RSB: Truly, um--
RLB: Both for like reasons of it being used to indicate, y'know, this isn't where white people live, and also just it being visually very upsetting--
RSB: Yes. This movie is hard to watch for a lot of reasons.
RLB: Hard to watch on every level.
RSB: On every level. It has a 45% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but Rotten Tomatoes, like us, wasn't able to find everything that they would've liked to--there are only 11 reviews compiled and in fact we were able to find some reviews that didn't make it onto Rotten Tomatoes, so I think 45% is pretty high for how critics actually received it.
RLB: Especially considering critics barely received it any more than anyone else did.
RSB: Absolutely. Um, it was basically a few reviews out of Chicago and Munich and then it disappeared.
RLB: Imagine spending nine million dollars and this is what happens. I would be--
RSB: God. And hiring multiple Academy Award winners.
RLB: Like I really hope someone lost a career over this. Like I don't wish that on people, but the decisions made were so bad that I think everyone would be better off if whoever was responsible for this did not work in film.
RSB: So let's talk about genre. Rachel, our classic question: what single one-word genre would you put this movie in if you could only pick one?
RLB: Drama.
RSB: Yeah, I think I'd rather go with drama too--on the one hand it doesn't come close to capturing what happened; on the other hand, nothing could.
RLB: Nothing could, and also the word drama is supposed to be "other."
RSB: Yes that's true, it's like "literary fiction."
RLB: Yeah, I mean--
RSB: Honestly literary fiction might be a better category for this film than drama.
RLB: No it's not. No it's not.
RSB: It's very bad. Um, what super specific subgenre, down to the nitty-gritty, is this movie in, and what other movie or movies fits in there with it?
RLB: I'm a little bit tempted to put it in the category of, sort of, movies about troubled teens, but I actually think that genre or subgenre encompasses a lot of movies both better than this movie and also movies that are equally bad or worse in other ways but ways that are sort of different to this.
RSB: I also think that's a little bit broader of a genre than this question is really tackling.
RLB: Well exactly, but I'm tempted to lump it in with some of those and I could get more specific about that, but I'm actually--I'm gonna go with the kind of movie that a guidance counselor would show you in middle school, except this version is rated R. Like--
Both: Hard R.
RSB: There would be so many scenes where my high school history teacher would have to hold a piece of posterboard up over the screen and then freak out when we could see the nudity through it like she did when she showed us Elizabeth.
RLB: Wow.
RSB: Uh-huh. It was an amazing time.
RLB: Yeah, I think it's--it's essentially a big-budget PSA.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: But a very misguided one. And I think there are other movies that fit in that very specific niche but it's not worth discussing them because they're very bad.
RSB: It's very much a racial panic movie, I would say specifically on the axis of young white women's sexuality.
RLB: I think it's a racial panic movie on that level, but I also think it's both a racial panic movie and also a young women's sexuality and specifically young white women's sexuality moral panic movie more generally.
RSB: Yes, that's fair.
RLB: Because I do think that the characters are in both a titillating sense and a demonizing them sense and also a, uh, didactic sense--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Being punished by the narrative for their sexual agency and their sexual choices, both in the context of the interactions with this Latino gang and also with their white boyfriends who are awful, like--
RSB: They're--they're terrible people.
RLB: Oh my God.
RSB: So you and I discussed this a little bit off the air, but we both felt this movie was a little anachronistic to 2005 both in terms of the specific way it's exploitative and the way that the characters are all punished for their crossing of socioeconomic boundaries.
RLB: I would strongly agree.
RSB: So I wanna talk about a few other genres that this movie doesn't quite fit right in--
RLB: I agree.
RSB: So one of those just on the top level is the high school movie, um, because this movie, bizarrely enough, is sort of set in high school--
RLB: It is.
RSB: There's even a scene where they go to class.
RLB: It's really strange when it chooses to be a high school movie and when it doesn't.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And in some ways I think that also has resonances with Coach Carter, which is not especially relevant, since Channing Tatum is such a non-entity in this movie and there's no real connection, but they did both come out in 2005, and I think--
RSB: Yeah, and I think we can talk about this a little bit later on, but they're incredibly different films, they're for incredibly different audiences, but in a lot of ways they have very similar themes.
RLB: They do. And I think that it's also part of our goal with this podcast is to look at sort of pop culture over our lifetime--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And film across different genres and different budget levels and different, you know, audiences over the course of our millennial lifetime--
RSB: And look at what the common concerns are--
RLB: Look at what the common concerns are, what the artistic trends are, and also how the casts, um, especially when we are focusing, you know, one specific performer, both tell us about the Hollywood metanarrative surrounding these films, but also tell us about what Hollywood was consciously doing and subconsciously doing when they were making these films, and I think it is really interesting that Channing Tatum was in both these films in the same year--not because of Channing Tatum necessarily, but because it is interesting that these two films came out the same year and share an actor.
RSB:i think that's very valid and i think one of the things about channing tatum is that we picked him because while he is interesting as an actor we also think that he happens to have chosen a list of films three dozen films that give a fairly good overview of what hollywood has been thinking on the subjects of genre and gender over the last fifteen years in his early career by coincidence and in his later career by choice
RLB: Absolutely, and I do actually think that the kind of film arc from Coach Carter to She's the Man that we're gonna cover in these first few episodes is--
RSB: Channing Tatum: the high school years. When he was 25-30.
RLB: It's really interesting looking at high school movies of that era across such a spectrum.
RSB: Yeah, it's really interesting, because we do think of the high school movie as a genre, but with this and Coach Carter we've really looked at two different movies that are set in a high school but neither of them is in that genre.
RLB: And we're gonna look at at least one more that's a completely different genre which is the high school comedy.
RSB: Yes, absolutely, and like we kind of think of--there's two high school genres, there's the high school comedy like She's the Man and there's something like Perks of Being a Wallflower which is a high school drama, and I think what's interesting is that Havoc and Coach Carter both use the high school setting for genres that are not necessarily within that framework.
RLB: I would argue that the sports movie has a high school subgenre.
RSB: That's fair.
RLB: I mean Remember the Titans, et cetera, are pretty, y'know, notable high school movies, but they are high school movies that focus on adults.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: And I do think that those tend to be more of that inspirational narrative--high school movies from the perspective of the teens that are still dramas tend to be more of the, I--I kind of want to say the moral panic genre.
RSB: That's fair, although I think that contemporarily in the past ten years high school dramas have focused really heavily on mental illness.
RLB: They have, but I would consider that part of the moral panic genre--
RSB: That's completely fair--
RLB: For teen movies.
RSB: Discussion to have but I think we're getting a little far afield from Havoc--
RLB: We are, although I do think that this movie prefigures many of those films.
RSB: One of the things that I think is strange about this movie is that--
RLB: I mean to be clear, there's a suicide attempt--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: At the end of this film. It's a very half-hearted one.
RSB: There's a suicide attempt and it's also heavily implied in that scene and never before in the film that these two girls have engaged in self-harm together before.
RLB: It's a very--it's a very strange scene. But it is worth pointing out the idea of mental illness, suicide, and self-harm as a major concern of the teen drama genre became such a huge thing starting I would say around this era--
RSB: Right around this time, yeah.
RLB: And I think that we can also talk a little bit more about TV versus film--
RSB: Sure.
RLB: Over, y'know, the course of the 2000s and 2010s, but this in some ways I think was part of an overall transition from fearing that kids are getting into trouble versus fearing that kids are troubled.
RSB: Yes. Very true, and I think when we look at the context of how this film was adapted from the 90s to the 2000s, I think--although we can't know I would guess that that's some of the changes that were made as this was adapted from a 90s treatment to a 2000s screenplay.
RLB: Did you wanna talk a little bit more about the issue of it feeling dated for a 2005 film?
RSB: I do, but before we do that, because we've been talking about mental illness i wanna talk about how addiction and drugs feature into this movie, and particularly how the specter of Anne Hathaway's addict mother is constantly brought up.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: And in fact in that suicide scene we're talking about they make a joke about Anne Hathaway's mom probably having a spare suicide kit lying around.
RLB: To be clear, when we say they make a joke in the suicide scene it's because the entire scene is kind of played as a joke in a way that's--
RSB: Arguably the most comedic scene in the movie.
RLB: It's bizarre, it's super jarring I think--
RSB: Yeah, I agree.
RLB: In the movie, how jokey they suddenly become, not just because of the subject matter but because of everything that leads up to it.
RSB: That's not how their relationship has really been throughout the movie and suddenly it's almost like suicide is the ultimate bonding moment for them.
RLB: I mean they definitely joked around.
RSB: Sure.
RLB: In the scene--
RSB: The scene--
RLB: The scene.
RSB: Oh my God.
RLB: I don't know how to even talk about it.
RSB: I do wanna talk about, just as a genre aspect, how this movie does and doesn't flirt with the--a) the addiction drama, and b) the--I don't wanna say drug drama, but like a movie about the excesses of drugs, and I think this movie flirts with both of those subgenres but never quite jumps into either of them.
RLB: I agree, I think similarly you had brought up the idea of the crime thriller as a genre--
RSB: Which is by the way--sorry to interrupt, but it is the genre that imdb classifies this movie as.
RLB: Yeah, I think this movie isn't quite a crime thriller, but along similar lines to the the drug thing I think there was also just obviously a huge moral panic about white teens getting to drugs at this time and specifically--
RSB: Absolutely.
RLB: White teens getting into drugs in a way that had them interacting with gangs.
RSB: Absolutely.
RLB: Because gang moral panic was so big at this time.
RSB: So I will say, like, in 2005 I was graduating from a heavily white elementary school and transitioning to a heavily Latino middle school and the number of talks we got about how there would be gangs at our future school was alarming.
RLB: I remember whenever we'd go over things like the dress code at the beginning of the year in school in, y'know, middle school in particular, it was always about like gang symbols--
RSB: Gang symbols always, and none of the anti-gang education that we had ever explained like what a gang did. There were people in my high school who wore gang colors on purpose but not because they were in gangs it was because they wanted to act like they were in gangs
RLB: Precisely which is also exactly what the characters in this movie do.
RSB: Absolutely, although it was more racially diverse at my high school.
RLB: Well, that's fair.
RSB: But yes, but I certainly knew people in middle school who were referred to as "wangstas," which, the even worse version of that word is used pretty frequently in this movie--
RLB: It was used in the first scene of the film and that was when i started--
RSB: Screaming internally and also externally?
RLB: Yeah. The use of the n-word in this movie is something we can also discuss--
RSB: Probably we are not--
RLB: Probably the less--
RSB: The right people to dig into it too hard.
RLB: But we also don't really need to because there's very little to say about it other than it is used very excessively for a movie that as far as i remember has no Black people in it.
RSB: Zero.
RLB: It's really--
RSB: There is like one Black couple dancing in the background at the white party scene at the beginning.
RLB: That's a really really dark choice--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: That this movie made.
RSB: I did see one person theorizing that the original treatment involved a Black gang rather than a Latino gang and it was changed for various reasons. i don't know if that's true but it's something that I've certainly seen theorized. We do wanna make super clear that the director and writers are all white, which I think is very clear from the content but I do wanna make sure it's actually said.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: But I do wanna go into addiction, 'cause we keep swerving away from it. So throughout the movie we know that Anne Hathaway's mom has--played by Laura San Giacomo, who I recognized as the therapist in Honey Boy, but in fact in the movie Laura San Giacomo has just returned from rehab and they're trying to keep the marriage together. None of this ever becomes relevant and yet it's brought up like in every scene.
RLB: And I think the reason it's brought up is pretty obviously to give Anne Hathaway's character a motivation for quote unquote "acting out."
RSB: One of the things that this movie, if it were like a smarter movie, could've done is used that to show that addiction is a problem that affects both the Palisades and East LA, but it doesn't.
RLB: I do think it's worth noting that in this film addiction is treated as sort of an upper-class problem--
RSB: In fact the gang members who sell coke almost don't use it at all.
RLB: It's unclear whether they use it but it's definitely clear that they are not struggling with an addiction to it.
RSB: Correct, and nobody that we see in their communities is either. At one point Anne Hathaway asks why he sells in his own community rather than going out to a wealthier community and making bank by selling to people like her and he kinda says "but this is my home, I know everybody," and there's no reckoning with the ethics of selling crack to your beloved community. There's almost an implication that crack belongs in the East LA world so that it isn't threatening when it enters that world the way that it is when it enters the world of the Palisades. But I also wanna talk about the hallmarks of the addiction drama in general and how the fact that Anne's mom is kinda going through this addiction storyline that does kind of echo the classical addiction drama narrative because it kind of to me makes me think--it gets that genre into my mind, and i do think that in some ways this film does follow a lot of the narrative hallmarks of the addiction drama it's just that going to East LA is what the drug is
RLB: Yeah, and in a way it's treated very literally that way--Bijou Phillips' character at one point says she wants to go with Anne Hathaway's character to East LA because she wants to "feel what it's like" and--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: There's a very--isn't that also in the same scene where they try crack?
RSB: No, that's in--that's in, I think--I don't know. They have the same conversation a lot of times. But there is sort of this, if you think about the classic addiction drama trajectory of, you know, initial elation, descent to rock bottom, and then final note of hope, that's very much Allison and Emily's trajectory. I think the one final genre that we wanna talk about is, ah, documentary, both in relation to the fact that there is this documentary conceit throughout the movie, which we can--
RLB: I would call it more of a framing device.
RSB: That's fair.
RLB: And it is very much a framing device in the sense that it appears mostly only at the very beginning and end of the film and they mostly forget about it.
RSB: Yes, but I also--I mean, documentary is also relevant in that the director is a documentarian--This is her only narrative feature, she's very well-respected and well-regarded as a documentarian--
RLB: Yes, and I have not seen her documentaries.
RSB: I haven't either.
RLB: But for all I know that's well-deserved, and if that is the case, good job, Barbara Kopple.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Please don't make more narrative features.
RSB: Just as a reminder, her most famous film was Harlan County USA which is a cinema verite take on a miners' strike that occurred in the 1970s--she made a lot of films about union politics. She also makes a lot of films that are celebrity biographies, for instance she did a biography of Gregory Peck, she did one of Sharon Jones that was very well-regarded. Most relevant to our interests, she directed High School Musical: The Music in You, which is a documentary about students in Fort Worth, Texas performing High School Musical onstage. We can talk about--there's, like I said, this framing device or conceit throughout the film that this other student at their school is filming a documentary on them and this is never really explained--
RLB: It's not explained at all. I kept waiting for--
RSB: I thought I had missed something.
RLB: I kept waiting for that child to explain why he even had a camera.
RSB: Right.
RLB: Someone gave him a camera.
RSB: They all seem to know this kid and know that he's a--you know what it reminded me of? It reminded me a lot of Dil in Rugrats: All Grown Up.
RLB: Oh my God. See, it just reminded me of like, American Vandal if the people who made American Vandal weren't smart.
RSB: Yes. But no I did think like--it reminded me a lot of Dil in Rugrats: All Grown Up.
RLB: I mean what it actually reminded me of, which is also TV, is the episode of Buffy where Andrew gets a camera for some reason.
RSB: That too.
RLB: It really does feel exactly like that except--
RSB: The guy even kinda looks like Andrew.
RLB: They don't know that it's funny.
RSB: Right. But it very much is just that--that trope that only exists in fiction, there's no real child like this, of the child documentarian.
RLB: I mean we've all been that child a little bit right?
RSB: But we've never been that child to the extent that it is our character trait.
RLB: No, and we've also never talked to kids we don't hang out with for the purposes of making a documentary apparently for the student body. Like there's a lot of implications that other students are going to see this documentary, which is why Anne Hathaway's character masturbates on camera during it--I can't explain to you if you haven't seen this film how much I don't want you to know what happens in this film.
RSB: I know, I feel like we're being vague and it's because you shouldn't have to suffer with the specifics.
RLB: Anne Hathaway starts flirting with the documentary kid--
RSB: Who is so uncomfortable--
RLB: Who is so uncomfortable with it and also is just like, "can we talk about the things I'm interviewing you about please?" and then like tells her she's lonely or something and it's supposed to be profound but it's not it's just like a very basic observation.
RSB: It's like--there are these constant intimations throughout the movie that Anne Hathaway is much smarter than anyone else around her, it's all through stuff like that interview or her giving a really good answer in class without thinking about it--the implication in this scene is that she's acting pornographically and then saying "isn't this what you'd really rather see than my thoughts?" and he keeps desperately going "No, I wanna see your thoughts!"
RLB: And I do think it goes back to what you were saying about this implication that she's really smart, and the repeated implication that she's really smart in the same--as someone who in 2005 was much younger than this character but like was still, I guess, a preteen sort of at the time and was, y'know, considered smart or whatever--
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: I do feel like a huge thing in that time--
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: Was encouraging girls to be smart by telling them not to be interested in boys and sex and clothes and any like aesthetic or fun interests--
RSB: And also the implication both in the film and I think in that culture in general is that a girl who is interested in sex is either stupid or hiding that she's smart.
RLB: Yeah, exactly, like the idea was very much that being interested in those things was "playing dumb" is how I heard it phrased a lot, and I was always very encouraged as a kid by the adults around me to, you know, not hide that I was smart and I was like, first of all what are you talking about, I'm not that smart, like please shut up, also why do you think that I'd be hiding it? Like, people can do two things, and also like what--what personality do you want me to have here?
RSB: Yeah, and I think again the implication both in that culture in general and very much in the film with the contrast between Allison and Emily is that some girls don't have a choice about drugs and sex being their life, and so if you have a choice appreciate that fact.
RLB: Yeah, I found the implication that Anne Hathaway's character was secretly smart--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: When it was really pretty obvious she was smart and just also had interests that were not bookish--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Also like she's very pretty which--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: I mean--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Look, some of us were not given the option to be pretty instead of smart. And I think that the--the dichotomy there sure is problematic in like the cultural trends sense, but there's also very much a, like, "oh, you're pretty and sexy therefore you must be actively hiding that you're smart" if other people are too stupid to pick up on it and it's like no, she's just--she's smart and people aren't paying attention.
RSB: Yes. But I do think there's an aspect to which this film is saying Emily and Shiri Appleby and their dumbass friends don't have a choice about this, but Allison is so special that she could choose not to have this be her life.
RLB: I agree that it's saying this but I think it's less saying that she's special and more condemning her for--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Not behaving whatever way--
RSB: In accordance with her specialness.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: So I do wanna just quickly kick it back to documentary and we talked a little bit about the shooting style, um, or lack thereof--
RLB: The shooting style's just confusing to me. It's not really a consistent visual style and it's also--I mean it is in the sense that it's pretty bland.
RSB: Yeah it's bland and yet also deliberately obfuscating.
RLB: There's also certain scenes where it becomes voyeuristic in a weird way and there's also scenes where it becomes very borderline point-of-view shot--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Kinda territory. The one I'm thinking of in particular is when they first go to a party hosted by the Latino gang and the one scene where Latina women appear--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: In the film, um, and they are framed--
RSB: There's a handful of scenes where they appear but they're all kinda like this.
RLB: Are they?
RSB: Well there's the--the, uh, the baptism scene, there's women in that.
RLB: I forgot about that.
RSB: And then there's the woman in his apartment at the end of the film.
RLB: That's true there is. Oof. The way that the camera treats them--
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: God.
RSB: And the way the camera treats--
RLB: It's upsetting.
RSB: The way the camera treats the arrival of white women at this Latino party.
RLB: I just--I just hated it so much.
RSB: I said this off the air I think, but this movie uses an astonishing amount of documentary-style conceits for a movie that has very little interest in realism.
RLB: Can you elaborate on that a little bit, because i'm not totally sure what you're referring to specifically. I don't disagree with--people, the relationship between this movie and reality doesn't exist, but in terms of the visual style and in terms of documentary techniques--
RSB: Absolutely. Well, I think there's this immediacy of the camera that to me this feels very--Barbara Kopple is a cinema verite documentary filmmaker and in terms of--we talked about how the shooting style is very ugly, and I think there's a sense to which that's viewed as a virtue in a certain documentary world--
RLB: Absolutely.
RSB: And particularly in Barbara Kopple's history of documenting, uh, people in poverty and people from a world she doesn't come from, I think that there's a certain tendency--and again, I haven't seen her documentary work, so I don't know if this is at play in those, but I think there's a certain tendency sometimes to use deliberately ugly visuals whether that's shooting, or lighting, or, uh, color to make a play at authenticity that isn't authentic.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: Um, and I think that's very much at play here. And there's also almost a--in some of the scenes there's almost a wildlife shooting aspect of how they shoot the teenagers, um, especially in some of the group scenes and the party scenes--the way that the camera kind of moves through parties and moves through groups of teens--
RLB: There's also a fight in the opening scene--
RSB: There's a fight in the opening--
RLB: That's very much shot like a wildlife documentary--
RSB: Absolutely and--
RLB: In a way that's not totally dissimilar to but considering it's--considering that the Mean Girls fake wildlife documentary, uh, conceit--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Was before this movie was shot.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Like this movie truly--I can't tell if the filmmakers had seen other high school movies and tv of the era and were deliberately copying some of their conceits or if they hadn't seen them and thought these were original ideas.
RSB: I think it's the latter.
RLB: I definitely think it's the latter, although I mean--did you have more to say about documentary?
RSB: Yeah, I did just wanna say again going back to that fight I think it's notable that some of that fight is seen through documentary kid's lens and some of it is seen ostensibly in the third person and those shots look identical--
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: Except for the, y'know, red light REC frame--
RLB: Oh my god, yeah, the fake like--
RSB: That's where that nine million dollars went.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: I know. Nine million dollars. So I do kinda wanna move on to gender now--I think we've canvassed genre pretty well, and I think in this movie genre and gender intersect pretty firmly.
37:26
RLB: I agree.
RSB: So I think we'll we'll come back to it, but Rachel: who or what is doing the most regarding gender in this movie?
RLB: Oh my God.
RSB: I know, there's so many bad answers.
RLB: There's a lot of bad answers and there's also a lot of good answers for a given definition of good. I'm gonna go ahead and say Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
RSB: That's completely fair.
RLB: He's playacting a version of masculinity that first of all doesn't exist--
RSB: Oh, absolutely not.
RLB: Because he is like--he's doing an accent in his attempt to pretend to be a black gangster--
RSB: He actually reminds me of some of the discussions we've had about Jesse from Breaking Bad.
RLB: A little bit.
RSB: But to be clear, that's an amazing performance. This is a bad performance.
RLB: Sure, Jesse in Breaking Bad is an archetype that's so specific it's actually not an archetype anymore, but this is not--this is like--this is cultural appropriation, but it goes beyond that--it goes beyond that into--
RSB: Creating a whole new culture.
RLB: Creating--well no, cause it's not successful.
RSB: No, absolutely not.
RLB: It's just--it's sort of like seeing--it's the sort of thing that you'd expect if you asked, like, a toddler to do the script of The Godfather.
RSB: God.
RLB: Like all of it, like just--
RSB: That's dark.
RLB: That's the level of acting that's happening for the character to be clear.
RSB: Right.
RLB: I don't think that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is necessarily doing a bad job, I just think that what he was being asked to do should be illegal.
RSB: Yeah, that's valid.
RLB: You shouldn't be able to ask an employee to do this.
RSB: That's so valid.
RLB: It's awful to witness and so embarrassing but also unsettling.
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: There are so many words I could use to describe it, but the thing that really struck me was just the masculine posturing of it--
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: Through this racialized lens where he's clearly adopting not just these elements of black culture that he admires and envies, but also this, like, version of masculinity that I think his friends are more successful at embodying even when they're just being white kids--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Than he is at all, and part of that is just that like, his stature is smaller than theirs--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: And I mean, he's Joseph Gordon-Levitt, you know what he looks like--
RSB: Although he has wacky hair.
RLB: Yeah. But like, he's like--he just looks like a dude, but he does not look like a, like, muscular--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Athletic dude the way that Channing Tatum does and the way that--I think the other men in this movie are supposed to be more in that vein, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a strange casting choice in my mind--
RSB: I agree.
RLB: Just because he's so clearly out of place next to these guys--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And I do think the hair is weird--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: The hat's also weird.
RSB: Every hat in this movie is from--
RLB: There's a scene--
RSB: A cursed dimension.
RLB: There's a scene where inside of a high school Channing Tatum is standing against the lockers wearing two hats at once.
RSB: He is wearing--he is Two-Hats Tatum.
RLB: I wish that I could explain how I felt upon witnessing the two-hat look.
RSB: Rachel and I have a policy that we try not to text each other too much when we watch the films so that we don't get ahead of ourselves, and I had to text her "Channing is wearing two hats."
RLB: And I was like, "What does that mean?" and then I watched the movie and I was like [gasp]
RSB: He's wearing two hats.
RLB: Two hats.
RSB: It's so weird.
RLB: It's very weird. And it's two hats. Two whole hats.
RSB: On one man.
RLB: On one head.
RSB: On one head! And he doesn't speak in that scene.
RLB: Nope, he's just wearing two hats, and I remember nothing that happened in the scene because of it. He was wearing two hats so emphatically--
RSB: So emphatically.
RLB: That it--I could not hear the dialogue.
RSB: The hats were so loud.
RLB: Yeah, I have so many questions about the dress code at this school.
RSB: I have so many questions about--I should've looked up who the costume designer is. I'm gonna do that now.
RLB: Okay. Whoever they are, I think they were doing a good job for what the movie wanted.
RSB: Costume designer's name is Sara O'Donnell--Oh, we'll actually see her on the future Channing movie--she was assistant costume designer for GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra.
RLB: I'm really looking forward to watching GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra by the way because I have no idea what to expect.
RSB: Same.
RLB: But it seems like the kind of movie that we are going to enjoy watching whether it's enjoyable or extremely bad.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: We're gonna love it so much more than this.
RSB: So anyway--
RLB: You didn't answer.
RSB: Oh, that's right, I didn't answer.
RLB: You didn't answer the question.
RSB: Oh, who's doing the most genderwise?
RLB: Who do you think is doing the most genderwise in this movie?
RSB: Kinda wanna shout out Shiri Appleby.
RLB: I almost said Shiri Appleby.
RSB: I feel like she is perform--first of all, I kind of thought a little bit about why she's in the movie and why the girls have another friend, and I think part of her purpose in the movie is to kind of provide this unmarked rich girl femininity for Anne and Bijou to diverge from. I think we don't need to have this conversation but we can also have a conversation about Jewishness in this movie--
RLB: I don't think I have it in me to have a conversation--
RSB: That's completely fair.
RLB: About Jewishness in this movie, particularly because in the context of everything else going on in this movie--
RSB: It's like such a minor thing.
RLB: It's nothing. Like it's like--
RSB: I agree, I don't think it's a conversation worth having--
RLB: It's not--it's not worth--
RSB: I don't think it's a conversation worth having, but I do wanna say, like, Shiri Appleby is obviously trying to portray a very specific type of wealthy Los Angeles high school girl.
RLB: Yeah, I mean, she's playing a JAP, that's--we can just say that.
RSB: That is what I meant, yes.
RLB: Yeah, I--regardless of your other feelings, if you have any, about the Jewish American Princess trope or stereotype or archetype, um, she's very clearly playing that--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: But also playing a particular variation, which is the sort of Jewish equivalent of the dumb blonde. In some ways I do think Bijou Phillips' character, who again, her brother is supposed to be Josh Peck, is--
RSB: And her name is Emily Rubin.
RLB: Yeah she's, I think, perhaps supposed to embody a slightly different variant, but I--draw your own conclusions.
RSB: Yeah, Bijou's--
RLB: If you know enough about this to have an opinion I think you can pick up what we're putting down.
RSB: Bijou's parents' main role in this movie is to constantly talk about going out to their summer house in the country.
RLB: That and also to talk about suing people.
RSB: And calling the cops.
RLB: Mm-hmm. Don't do that by the way. Like in your life.
RSB: We very much don't recommend it.
RLB: Just feels like it's worth emphasizing at any opportunity.
RSB: Certainly don't call the LAPD.
RLB: God. I really will say, like, I did find the end of this movie upsetting--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: On that level.
RSB: Yeah, this is getting afield of gender, but just really quickly while we're on this topic, this movie has this deeply perfunctory interest in making sure to establish that the LAPD is racist toward the Latino gang members.
RLB: It's a very strange choice where the movie once again seems it's self-aware to the point where it is so proud of its own self-awareness that it circles back around into oblivious.
RSB: It, it, it's very much checking a box of "and the LAPD is racist!"
RLB: Something that we didn't quite cover in the genre discussion that I think we should is that part of what makes this a high school movie is that there is a scene where Anne Hathaway is distracted in class but is asked a question by the teacher, who's talking about capitalism basically, and she gives an answer that's supposed to be thematically relevant but instead felt like--
RSB: What movie do you think you're making?
RLB: Well, it did raise the question of what movie did they think they were making, because the answer that she gave was really about the inherently exploitative nature of capitalism--
RSB: And particularly racialized capitalism.
RLB: And it felt like it was--
RSB: Was that in the movie at some point? The original title of the treatment is The Powers That Be, which doesn't seem to indicate any theme that survived into the finished movie.
RLB: I really do think that--
RSB: I know we're on, like, kind of an archaeological hunt with this one but--
RLB: I really do think that to a certain extent this movie clearly sought to portray racism--
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: From an antiracist standpoint, but it perpetuated so much racism in all of the artistic choices that went into creating the narrative that it ultimately portrays--that I actually found myself surprised every time that something came up where they acknowledged racism existed.
RSB: This is a deeply reactionary film made exclusively by people who considered themselves to be progressive.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: Um, but so, let's get back to gender, um, we've talked a little bit about two minor characters who we think sort of exemplify this film's idea of masculinity and femininity--
RLB: Yup.
RSB: And we've touched a little bit on the intersections of genre and gender, but do you wanna say anything further about that intersection before we get more into the weeds?
RLB: I think we should get into those weeds.
RSB: Okay! And so many weeds. No flowers.
RLB: Lot of weeds for a movie with surprisingly little weed in it!
RSB:Yeah, there's no weed in this movie, which is very weird.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: Like, because high school students don't actually do that much coke, like--
RLB: Also, like, this was before weed was legalized in California--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: So you would expect the kids to just be more into weed, like Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character--
RSB: Is clearly a stoner.
RLB: Is clearly supposed to be a stoner, but it's never mentioned.
RSB: Yes, um, so what would you like to touch on first genderwise? Do you wanna dive right into that scene?
RLB: We have to--we have to talk about it, because like--
RSB: Should I start with the Variety quote? Because--
RLB: Um, yeah, go ahead and read the Variety quote.
RSB: Okay, so there's--I just wanna read a quote from the Variety review of Havoc, um, which came out of Chicago, and I think that'll be a good lead-in to discussing what it's talking about/ Right, so the writer's name is Lisa Nesselson, and what she had to say, including various other things, is that "the friendship between Allison and Emily rings girlish and true, and comes complete with tantalizing lesbian-flavored moments."
RLB: For one thing, I think that's a mischaracterization of what's in the movie.
RSB: I would agree. I don't think that--I don't think that tantalizing lesbian-flavored moments are what's happening.
RLB: I don't think that's what's happening at all.
RSB: In part because--let's just say it, Emily openly propositions Allison.
RLB: I don't know that I'd quite characterize it that way but I will say that I think this is a movie that's extremely 2005 in its treatment of whether to acknowledge that gayness exists.
RSB: So essentially there's a scene a little over halfway through the movie--
RLB: I also do wanna point out that this is the same year that Anne Hathaway was in Brokeback Mountain.
RSB: Yes, I think that's super relevant.
RLB: It's very relevant, and I think in many ways the--where we were on portrayals of lesbianism in--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: American cinema, versus gay male sexuality, is part of this conversation, but I also think that the idea that this moment in Anne Hathaway's career was transgressive in this particular way--
RSB: Yup.
RLB: Where nudity and gayness were the major concerns.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: It's--it just says a lot about what was happening in movies in 2005.
RSB: And how one signified maturity.
RLB: Maturity and seriousness.
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: As well as artistic commitment.
RSB: Right, absolutely.
RLB: So at the beginning of the film, Anne Hathaway attends a party at which she meets up with her boyfriend. They go to his car, she takes off her shirt--first Anne Hathaway boob appearance of the movie, not the last.
RSB: There's so much Hathaway boob in this movie.
RLB: Yes, and she looked great, but I did not enjoy any of it. I kept thinking "put your clothes back on, please."
RSB: And also, while Anne Hathaway at the time was 23, her character was very specifically mentioned as being under eighteen, which I think we can get into later, but--
RLB: So she hooks up with her boyfriend and they go back to his car and she gives him a very theatrical blowjob--
RSB: Topless blowjob.
RLB: Yes, like a few scenes later--actually is it the next scene? Immediately after that Anne Hathaway's character Allison goes to Emily's house and climbs into bed with her and like, starts spooning her.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: And Emily is like "I'm glad you came over, love you."
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And they go to sleep.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: And I was like--
RSB: What's happening here?
RLB: "Excuse me?" And that was the first time in the movie, not the last, that I was like "Hang on, this is a whole different area of questionable content than I was expecting! Even having seen the first scene of this movie. Yeah, but she climbs into bed with Emily and they snuggle and say they love each other and go to sleep and I was like, are we gonna talk about this or is this something that's never gonna come up again in the movie, and it's just one of those movies that thinks friendship between teenage girls is like--
RSB: Like that.
RLB: Like that.
RSB: And then for the next forty minutes Emily makes a ton of decisions that really only make sense if she's in love with Allison.
RLB: There's also a scene where the documentary child, which is what i've chosen to call him--
RSB: That's who he is.
RLB: Uh, he also is, like, visibly younger than the rest of the cast.
RSB: He is, yeah, he seems to be like a freshman.
RLB: Yeah, um, the documentary kid asks Anne Hathaway's character after she talks about things feeling fake or her seeking, y'know, something that felt real, which is her whole motivation for all of this going to East LA, uh, and hanging out with gangs--he asks when the last time she felt something real is and she talked about just sitting in a corner at this party with Emily, and she says something along the lines of "I don't know, that felt real, I just really love her," y'know, and then it cuts to a completely unrelated scene and I was like--
RSB: Huh.
RLB: Hang on!
RSB: They also they spend so much time holding hands.
RLB: They hold hands a lot. Also there's this one scene where she does this incredibly possessive grab around her waist--
RSB: Uh-huh.
RLB: As they're walking away--
RSB:Yes.
RLB: From the guys and it's, like, over the top.
RSB: It's very over the top. So all of this is going on and obviously, like, Rachel and I have seen a lot of movies that never acknowledge this type of thing, it's almost our wheelhouse--
RLB: Everyone in the world has seen a lot of moments at this point that don't acknowledge this type of thing.
RSB: Yeah, but I would say that's very much our wheelhouse.
RLB: Yes, a lot of movies should maybe acknowledge these types of things--not the way this one does--
RSB: No.
RLB: But to a similar degree, even if they're not gonna commit--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: In the same way this one does not commit but also does acknowledge it.
RSB: So there's a scene a little more than halfway through the movie where basically apropos of nothing, they're hanging out in her bedroom, and Emily turns to Allison and says "What if--"
RLB: "What if we're on our deathbeds--"
RSB: "On our deathbeds, thinking over all the guys we've been with, and we realize we were always meant to be together--"
RLB: Yeah, she says, like, all the guys we've slept with and loved and whatever, like she--it's this whole speech, and she's like "But what if this whole time we were meant to be together?"
RSB: "I don't wanna regret that on my deathbed."
RLB: I don't think she says that.
RSB: She doesn't say that, no, but that's the implication.
RLB: It is the implication, but she literally says the other stuff, to be clear.
RSB: To be clear, yes, and this isn't prompted in any way, she just seems to have decided it's time to bring it up.
RLB: They're also on her bed.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And like--
RSB: Rolling around.
RLB: Then there's some, like, straddling each other and stuff--
RSB: So then anne hathaway basically pounces her.
RLB: It's weird, and then Anne Hathaway's like "I don't think I could go down on you, LOL" kind of thing.
RSB: Yeah, Anne Hathaway, like, gets--she like pounces on her, straddles her, leans in almost to kiss her, and then says like while they're very close "But I could never go down on you," and then backs up and stays straddling her--
RLB: I thought she had backed up before that, but like--
RSB: Maybe she does.
RLB: Oh, I could be misremembering, cause I don't wanna remember anything in this movie.
RSB: Yeah, so then Anne Hathaway, like, sits up still straddling, and it's very unclear whether it's a closed question or not.
RLB: It's very unclear. Then they smoke crack. That's what happens next.
RSB: They fail to smoke crack.
RLB: Well, yeah, they try, um, yeah, it's--
RSB: But then for the rest of the movie Emily continues to make a bunch of decisions that only make sense if she's in love with Allison and believes she's just been rejected by the woman she loves.
RLB: Yeah, I do--I do think it's slightly less "only makes sense in that context" mostly just because this movie doesn't make sense even with any explanation.
RSB: Fair, clearly.
RLB: Nothing she does actually makes a lot of sense, and I don't actually think that that is the only explanation for her behavior.
RSB: Okay, I don't think it's the only one, but essentially they're in a scene where Emily becomes very, very committed to having a gangbang, and keeps--
RLB: In the same room as her.
RSB: And keeps kind of making eye contact with Allison while saying "I can take it, I can take it."
RLB: It's--
RSB: Very weird.
RLB: I hate this movie.
RSB: I know.
RLB: Like I really--I'm really glad that we're almost done with this and don't have to think about this movie again too much, because I really--as the movie went on started to find it genuinely upsetting, rather than--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Like I don't typically have too much trouble watching pretty traumatic things onscreen, from just, like, a personal standpoint--obviously I find them upsetting, especially if the movie is effective in trying to upset me--
RSB: Right.
RLB: But like, I don't personally have a history of trauma that makes, like, a rape scene especially difficult to watch.
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: I found this one so--
RSB: Horrible.
RLB: Gross.
RSB: Horrible.
RLB: On every possible level. And so creepy and exploitative and it--deliberately titillating in a way that--
RSB: Exactly the phrase i was gonna use.
RLB:was clearly for an audience that obviously wasn't me, but also wasn't anyone like the characters it was portraying--
RSB: And that in my opinion had an external narrative of fantasizing about these women.
RLB: Absolutely. And I found it--
RSB: It's disgusting.
RLB: Really upsetting. Um, the--
RSB: I definitely watched that scene in discomfort.
RLB: It was like, it's gonna stick with me in a way that, like, I wish--
RSB: Would not like it to.
RLB:that it wouldn't, and that I wish I hadn't watched in the first place, if it weren't for like a purpose like this. Like had i seen this movie and it wasn't something I was gonna discuss on a podcast I'd be really upset that I watched it.
RSB: I would've turned it off by that point.
RLB: I hope I would've turned it off by that point but sometimes you're, like, in a screening and you can't, like, you could walk out but--
RSB: No, I understand what you mean.
RLB: I typically wanna see things through to the end.
RSB: I understand what you mean.
RLB: Can we talk an little bit more about--
RSB: About the lesbian aspect?
RLB: Yeah--well, no, let's move on to the the gang rape scene and we can kind of discuss the treatment of sexuality in the movie after that--
RSB: Yeah, so I don't wanna get too into the weeds of the choreography of this scene, but essentially what happens is Emily begins to have consensual sex with a group of the gang members--
RLB: Well, no, she begins to have consensual sex with one gang member.
RSB: Right, and--
RLB: Then she changes her mind about which of them to have sex with.
RSB: And this basically instigates them no longer caring what her opinions about the sexual situation are.
RLB: This is also after one of the guys involved was trying to have sex with Allison--Anne Hathaway's character--and Allison put a stop to it in the middle of foreplay because she changed her mind, and also because she was watching what was happening to Emily and starting to grow concerned.
RSB: Yes, and she at that point makes an attempt to convince Emily to also back out and Emily refuses to back out at that point, and by the time that she does start trying to the men stop her.
RLB: It's important to note that Emily, up to this point, has very much been not just letting but asking Allison to drive this whole--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Situation forward. She's the one who she wants to ask the gang members if they can be inducted into their gang.
RSB: Which turns out to be through this sex ritual.
RLB: She is the one who has to initiate things on Emily's behalf, because Emily doesn't have the confidence essentially.
RSB: Yeah. So I wanna be super clear that watching this it's very clearly a rape.
RLB: I agree. It's very, very clear. The situation is not what I would call clearly consensual to begin with--
RSB: It's coercive to begin with.
RLB: It's coercive. By this point it is extremely cut-and-dry.
RSB: That, however, is not how the remainder of the film regards it.
RLB: No, I was incredibly confused and horrified to learn a couple of scenes later that the characters disagree about whether it was a rape.
RSB: And that the film does not take a firm position that one of them is lying or incorrect. But the problem is that the situation is unambiguous--it happens onscreen!
RLB: It's also pretty clear that the movie is aware at least to a certain extent that these people are going to be treated terribly by the LAPD--
RSB: It's been stated many times openly and implicitly.
RLB: And I think that the implication is that Allison is aware of that and that is part of why she does not believe that they should press charges, but I also think it's very strange that what she actually says--
RSB: Is it wasn't really rape.
RLB: Is that it wasn't rape.
RSB: And there's never an implication that she's lying about that to get them to stop from going to the police or anything.
RLB: No, it's very clear she's supposed to believe it.
RSB: Yeah, and especially with the fact that this disbelief in the rape is put in Allison's mouth, who as we've been saying, the entire film has been established as the smartest person in the room, possibly the smartest person in Los Angeles, and very much our point-of-view character, makes it uncomfortable when she takes on this view.
RLB: There's also a really weird power dynamic between Allison and Emily, given that it's very clear, like, explicitly in dialogue clear, that Allison is in charge in these situations, and Emily is, y'know, the follower, it's clear that Allison feels guilty for, I suppose, getting them into this situation in the first place, but it is not clear that Allison believes that considering that she thinks they are at fault rather than the rapists.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: It's not clear that Allison thinks she bears the responsibility for that.
RSB: Right.
RLB: It seems that she thinks that that was a very straightforward and literal asking for it situation on Emily's part.
RSB: Yes, which it again, to be clear, very unambiguously was not. The film does not depict these events in any way ambiguously.
RLB: Yeah, and I--I will say, like I think--
RSB: If it thinks it was doing that I'm very disturbed.
RLB: Yeah, I do think the film--I do think the filmmakers chose to portray it as a rape.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And that's why I found the conclusion absolutely baffling.
RSB:I agree.
RLB: When after that point the characters act--
RSB: Act as if it was ambiguous.
RLB: Don't characterize it that way.
RSB:Yeah.
RLB: I think it's worth talking a little bit about sex in this movie more generally--
RSB: Yeah I agree.
RLB: And about sexiness in this movie.
RSB: Sexiness very much so.
RLB: And I also do think that it's really relevant at this point to reiterate that the characters are underage but they are all played by actors in their twenties.
RSB: And not only are they in high school but it's very specifically mentioned that at least Allison is not eighteen yet.
RLB: I don't know who this movie's for.
RSB: Great question.
RLB: And I found contemplating the question kind of upsetting.
RSB: It's really disturbing--you used the phrase "teensploitation" when we were talking off the air--
RLB: I did.
RSB: And it's not a terrible phrase.
RLB: It's not the only movie that I think I would characterize that way, but it also--I don't, I don't know that it's, y'know--
RSB: To the extent that this movie--
RLB: I don't know that it's what I would call it ultimately, I don't know that that's a good term--
RSB: Sure, I just think that it's a relevant concept.
RLB: There's certainly--
RSB: I think also--
RLB: There's certainly a tradition of movies about teenage girls that theoretically are from their perspective that end up very much not for teenage girls.
RSB: Yes, and but, also a lot of the time these women are nude, like, crying in the bath or being raped or masturbating on camera for a freshman, like they're not always nude in sexy situations that are titillating to watch.
RLB: I would say that none of the situations in this film--
RSB: Maybe the blowjob at the beginning.
RLB: I would say that it is attempting to be titillating but I did not think that even if I were like a teen--
RSB: You didn't love the foot shot?
RLB: Huh?
RSB: You didn't love the feet shot?
RLB: Oh God.
RSB: I'm sorry.
RLB: But yeah, I think if I had seen this movie as a teen, even though I would've probably been like "Anne Hathaway, hot!"
RSB: I know, I would've been like, "Boobs!"
RLB: I mean the things is, it's just like, she's hotter in Brokeback Mountain.
RSB: Well, that's the thing, is--so I do wanna say, obviously to the extent that this movie didn't immediately disappear from the conversation, one of the big things that it did get talked about in the context of is the fact that Anne Hathaway is topless--she's fully nude in Havoc, but she's topless in two movies in the same year.
RLB: Is she fully nude in Havoc?
RSB: There's a scene where she is, and Bijou definitely is fully nude--
RLB: Bijou definitely is.
RSB: In a couple scenes, but I think there's a fully nude Anne--
RLB: We don't see everything, but--
RSB: We don't see the front.
RLB: She is clearly fully nude.
RSB: We do see a fully nude body twice, two different scenes. I think there's a scene where Anne's nude as well.
RLB: I was honestly surprised there was not full-frontal female nudity in this movie.
RSB: I agree.
RLB: Because there was a lot of female nudity.
RSB: There is no male nudity.
RLB: There is at least--
RSB: There's some shirtless men.
RLB: No, I think the men during the rape scene--
RSB: Oh, they unbutton their jeans.
RLB: Bar, well, I think they are nude.
RSB: Are they really?
RLB: At least one of them.
RSB: I was not--as you might have guessed, I was not paying attention at that point.
RLB: I really tried to not watch too closely at that point.
RSB: Yeah, so, but going back to it, there was a lot of discussion of the fact that there are two movies in the same year where you can see Anne Hathaway's breasts, and last year she was Ella Enchanted, and that's a narrative that I think trips up a lot of young women actors, this narrative of--oh, now they've gone for the sexy roles, when in fact there's a certain age women reach when they don't have a choice about that.
RLB: There's also--going back to a little bit of the conversation about the gay content, y'know, there's a conversation to be had about the whole narrative with women in particular of, you know, actors who are really serious and committed to the role are willing to do nude scenes--
RSB: And I think basically what the narrative was, which Anne wasn't able to stop from happening, was "Anne is doing two sexy movies to prove she's not a teen princess anymore," and the only way that she found to combat that narrative, which I think made her very uncomfortable--as I think it would make most of us pretty uncomfortable--was to say that no, she's just a really committed artist, and these are the projects that meant the most to her, and nudity is a tool in her acting arsenal.
RLB: Which to be fair is true.
RSB: It absolutely--but I think both of those narratives have some truth to them and also don't tell the whole story.
RLB: I would agree, and--
RSB: Like they're--I'm certain that her agents were thinking about getting her out of the Ella Enchanted, Princess Diaries world.
RLB: Absolutely.
RSB: And I think overall we're glad they did! This is the last movie in which she plays a high school student, I should mention--
RLB: Thank God. Because I know she was 23, but she looks thirty.
RSB: She looks so old in this movie.
RLB: And like beautiful--
RSB: Gorgeous.
RLB: But like, because we're not the kind of people who think thirty-year-olds are old or unattractive--
RSB: She's like 23 playing sixteen or seventeen and looks at least 26, probably more. Like 31 part of it is her styling as well, but, you know, she has a perfect haircut that is in character for her character but makes a woman look older. We should mention the one-shoulder top--we'll put it on Instagram.
RLB: There is a top in this movie that's just the most 2005 garment I've seen ever.
RSB: If you know that one picture of Ashley Tisdale on the red carpet wearing, like, a tulle skirt over jeans--
RLB: There's more than one of those.
RSB: This is the top equivalent of that image. It has one shoulder and it desperately wants a second one. But I do think that there are some interesting differences, like, actually worth talking about, between Anne's nudity in Havoc versus her nudity in Brokeback Mountain, and how the famous topless scene in Brokeback Mountain is doing something entirely different with the nude female body than any of the scenes in this movie are doing.
RLB: I mean for one thing, I think it would be in really bad faith to characterize the scene in Brokeback Mountain as pornographic.
RSB: Absolutely. And I don't think I can say the same about this movie.
RLB: No.
RSB: To the extent that, like, I told Rachel after the movie, like, I'm kinda surprised this wasn't rated NC-17.
RLB: Yeah, and I'm also kind of surprised that they didn't want it to be.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: I think it would've been more marketable.
RSB: I kind of agree--if it was the movie they don't want you to see people would've wanted to see it more. But I do wanna go back to this question, and this kinda takes us back into the genre world once again, of is this an erotic film? Like is it intended to be and is it, i mean, i certainly didn't feel turned on watching this movie--
RLB: No, I felt kind of like I never would feel that way again--
RSB: Wanted to be turned on ever again--
RLB: I kind of after this movie was like, do I think boobs--
RSB: Are good anymore?
RLB: Are good? And I'm not sure about the answer.
RSB: Yeah, this movie is not gonna make you--
RLB: Maybe this movie made me straight.
RSB: It's not like this movie made me feel good about male sexiness either.
RLB: No, but it was such a non-issue in the movie--like this movie really was not interested in male bodies and male sexuality at all except in the context of men wanting to fuck teenage girls.
RSB: And men of color as instruments of rape.
RLB: Sure.
RSB: But going from there, was this movie interested in turning on its audience? Cause it's--
RLB: I can't tell because I can't tell who the audience is.
RSB: Right, but is it--is it trying to be a an erotic film?
RLB: I can't tell.
RSB: I can't tell either.
RLB: It either definitely is or definitely isn't and I hate that there's a gray area.
RSB: Right, like on the one hand there's absolutely no reason to include so much sex if it's not trying to be an erotic film, but on the other hand if it is trying to be an erotic film, why are all of the narratively important points so unarousing?
RLB: I think it's important also to maybe differentiate between erotic films--
RSB: Mm-hmm.
RLB: That are, you know--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Supposed to be sexy, versus edgy films--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: That are sexual.
RSB: That's fair.
RLB: And I think that this is definitely in the latter camp--I don't necessarily think this is in the former, but I do think there's overlap, and it's possible that it was intended to be.
RSB: Yeah, I mean there are some of these scenes where I'm like, is it trying to turn on the audience?
RLB: I also honestly--I felt like there were some conflicts between collaborators about--
RSB: Mmm, that's possible.
RLB: What the film was trying to do with some of those scenes, because it did not feel clear that everyone involved--directing-wise, camerawise, performancewise--had the same agenda.
RSB: I will say, some of those scenes are the ones where Anne Hathaway as a performer seemed most confident in the film.
RLB: Yes.
RSB: She feels very out of her element in this movie, but ironically some of the scenes where that doesn't feel like the case are those nude and sexual scenes. But I will say, like, a lot of the nudity in this movie doesn't appear to be saying anything other than "Look, it's Anne Hathaway's boobs!"
RLB: In a strange way I find it pretty similar to the way the movie frames the lesbianism, or sort of--I don't wanna call it lesbianism, I wanna call it the ghost of lesbianism that's haunting the movie.
RSB: The lesbian-flavored moments.
RLB: The movie feels at certain points like it should be leading to a conclusion where, like, it bizarrely takes a turn into, like, romance or even, like, forbidden romance kind of territory, and the girls either get together or are, y'know, torn apart and can never be together.
RSB: Yeah, and it kinda seems like lesbian desire could either be their path out of this journey they're taking down into the gutter or their accelerant farther in and it in the end it ends up being neither.
RLB: It's so weird, and I just--
RSB: This movie is so bad, guys.
RLB: I expected them to land somewhere with the lesbian question and they did not.
RSB: I feel like that's the pull quote for this episode.
RLB: I just, I really, they addressed it way too much for them to not make a decision about it and way too little for me to feel like they made a decision about it.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: I think we should talk about Channing Tatum.
1:13:40
RSB:I agree! That's a fun activity, unlike talking about this movie. Um, I mean, I think, what's Channing doing in this movie and how does it work with with genre and gender?
RLB: So I think an interesting trend early in Channing's career, when he's still playing teenagers--
RSB: Right.
RLB: Or even when he's playing just young twentysomethings--
RSB: Young people, yeah.
RLB: Is that this persistent casting of Channing Tatum as kind of this edgy misbehaving teen--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Is not consistently casting Channing Tatum as an underprivileged teen.
RSB: Right.
RLB: It's about half and half. He's either playing a kid who clearly grew up in poverty or he's playing a kid who grew up in overwhelming privilege.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And I find that fascinating, just because his performances frankly are the same either way.
RSB: And something that i wanna quickly flag--Channing, like we said, has about five lines in this movie, but one of them is, referring to a gun, "My dad took down an alligator with this one."
RLB: Which is insane, but--
RSB: Because it's insane because they live in Los Angeles!
RLB: Yes, I mean it's insane for many reasons. He does have a little bit of a Southern accent--
RSB: Exactly.
RLB: Which I do--I did think that was deliberate, but I also was like, was that improv? What happened there?
RSB: Like for some reason Channing's character in this movie is Southern even though it takes place in Pacific Palisades and there's no implication that he's not from there.
RLB: I do also think it's worth noting that in that same scene he calls someone a pussy, and that's one of the only lines of dialogue he has in the movie, and again this podcast is just about how people love to cast Channing Tatum in things that are just, like, full of gender.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And I just--I had questions, but I also found him to be one of the few elements of the movie that I relatively understood what he was doing there.
RSB: Yes, except again, that he seems to live in Louisiana while everybody else lives in Pacific Palisades.
RLB: Yeah, although I was thinking Florida for the alligator thing.
RSB: Florida works too.
RLB: Um, he's not playing Gambit yet.
RSB: Well, okay, fair, but basically we talked a little bit in the last episode about Channing carving out this niche in Hollywood of playing Southerners and bringing Southern culture into Hollywood, and for some reason that's at play in this movie about Los Angeles politics.
RLB: But only in one scene.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Which is even stranger.
RSB: Yes. The other thing he does in this movie is wear two hats, so like--
RLB: We already talked about the two hats but the two hats has to be emphasized again.
RSB: He has another hat in another scene too. I do think in that one scene with Anne in the hallway I think we see some of Channing's future sort of fatherly good guy energy that we'll see become a hallmark of his career.
RLB: I do think that similarly to Coach Carter he also is there because he does bring a really specific kind of fun to be around guy energy.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And it's very clear--
RSB: Which this movie desperately needs.
RLB: It desperately needs it, but it's also very clear that, like, he is a good actor to go to if you need someone who doesn't really have a role in the movie but you need someone who's going to convey friendship.
RSB: Yes, that's very true.
RLB: I don't know what it is about Channing Tatum that makes him so good at playing a friend, but I wish he was my friend.
RSB: Same. Unfortunately we're making this podcast, so that will never be possible.
RLB: Yup. Also I want good things for him.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: And so that does not include--
RSB: Our friendship.
RLB: That.
RSB: So we talked a little bit about the ages of the teenagers in this movie, butIi do kinda wanna dig into a little more--so Channing is 25, and this is the start of several years of playing teenagers, whereas Anne Hathaway's 23 and this is the last film she plays a teenager--or a high school student, I guess for part of Brokeback she's a teenager, right?
RLB: I don't remember.
RSB: Okay. I haven't seen Brokeback in a long time. But basically, Anne is closing off her career at 23 of playing teenagers and Channing is just starting his at 25 and I think that's something worth digging into a little bit.
RLB: I mean I don't think we have to, like, dig too far into it, because anyone listening to this podcast is aware of genders.
RSB: That's true.
RLB: You've seen a movie and also you know about genders, so do we need to explain that? Y'know, let us know if you have questions, cause we can try--
RSB: Please write in.
RLB: But like I think you get it.
RSB: Yeah, I just think, like, it is fascinating.
RLB: It is fascinating. I also do think it's interesting that in Coach Carter Channing Tatum clearly was not playing necessarily a sexy teen, but he was playing a teen heartthrob type sort of in the background. In this he's really not, like there's no indication that he has a girlfriend.
RSB: There's no hot guy in this movie. None of the guys are portrayed as hot.
RLB: I think Freddie Rodriguez is supposed to be compelling to Anne Hathaway up to a certain point.
RSB: But he is not really supposed to be sexy and hot to the audience.
RLB: No, and I also think that there's an implication that what she finds hot about him is not--
RSB: His looks.
RLB: Hot. I think that he'd be a really good romantic lead in something that is not like this, and I would like to see that, because he is a really compelling actor to watch and I think that that's worth knowing.
RSB: I think he's in general an underrated actor and someone that I'd like to see come back in some way.
RLB: Also just an underused actor.
RSB: That's what I mean.
RLB: I think the reasons are pretty obvious.
RSB: I would agree.
RLB: I thought he and Anne Hathaway had good chemistry and I would not mind seeing him in a movie that wasn't this.
RSB: Yeah, and I thought he brought so much more nuance to this than the movie wanted him to bring.
RLB: I know, the movie was fighting him at every fucking turn.
RSB: So other than briefly appearing in Don Jon, Channing Tatum and Anne Hathaway haven't reunited. I for one think they would do a great film together, so I wanted to just, to wrap up and give us something to talk about, give you the chance to give me an on-the-spot pitch for a Channing and Anne movie.
RLB: Do you actually like my on-the-spot pitches? Cause usually when I offer them it's cause I feel they're bad but I can't contain them.
RSB: I think they will be entertaining.
RLB: Okay. So I think that Channing and Anne should do a musical, obviously, um, but I think it should be them playing Old Hollywood stars in a musical.
RSB: Okay.
RLB: That's--that's my pitch. It can be like a Singin' in the Rain kind of deal, but they are filming something like Singin' in the Rain and obviously they hate each other, and then they fall in love.
RSB: I love it.
RLB: What I actually think would be good is if they did a play together.
RSB: That would be really fun. Um, I would love to see them do Shakespeare together.
RLB: Yeah, I mean, Anne Hathaway did do Twelfth Night.
RSB: Obviously both of them are famous Twelfth Nighters.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: But--
RLB: They should do Twelfth Night.
RSB: That would be really fun, but I would also love to see them do, like, As You Like It.
RLB: But I feel like they are both famously stars of Twelfth Night--famously in Anne Hathaway's sense in that she was in Shakespeare in the Park, and the promo image--
RSB: Bisexuals who are extremely online know that promo image. And if you are--
RLB: We know it so well.
RSB: If you are a bisexual and you haven't seen Anne Hathaway's promo image for Shakespeare in the Park Twelfth Night--
RLB: With Audra MacDonald.
RSB: With Audra MacDonald, please do yourself a favor and google it, because you will have a happy time.
RLB: Especially if you like Shakespeare and--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Wish that you could, y'know, go see the archived recording of that that exists but will never be available to the public, because they don't do that--I mean it's available to--
Both: The Public!
RSB: Ba-dum tshhh!
RLB: But it's not available to--
RSB: Us.
RLB: Us.
RSB: We haven't seen it.
RLB: Yeah, which is sad.
RSB: We both really like Twelfth Night.
RLB: We--we do, and--
RSB: You'll get to hear all about it soon.
RLB: We'll try to keep it to a minimum, honestly, because it's--yeah.
RSB: We can do dueling tales of our high school Twelfth Night speeches. We will not perform our high school Twelfth Night speeches, because--
RLB: Well, first of all, I didn't go to high school, but second of all--
RSB: Okay, well, fair, yours was college.
RLB: Second of all, it's not worth--
RSB: No.
RLB: It's not worth it.
RSB: I love all of this. I love your Channing and Anne pitch, or Channanning--
RLB: Yeah, did you have a Channing and Anne pitch?
RSB: I mean, my extremely, like, bland one is if Channing is playing Sky Masterson Anne would be a great Sarah.
RLB: That's true.
RSB: So I'm gonna, every--I'm not going to mention Channing being in Guys and Dolls every episode, but I have done that so far.
RLB: Yeah, I mean, it may or may not have been cut from the last episode, cause I haven't decided yet, but we did discuss, like, if you were gonna put Channing in a musical what would you put him, and Rachel did say for, y'know, probably the dozenth time--
RSB: This is a personal agenda.
RLB: Yeah, and she's right.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: Hollywood, if you're listening--
RSB: Channing Tatum, Guys and Dolls.
RLB: Anne Hathaway would be a natural fit for that project.
RSB: She'd be a really good Sarah both in terms of her acting and just, it would work really well for that type of project.
RLB: I do think that briefly--we should also discuss the Channing and Joseph Gordon-Levitt collaboration over the years.
RSB: Sure, absolutely.
RLB: Just because it's notable that this is the first time they were in a movie together, but they have worked together several times since.
RSB: Absolutely, both as actors and as producers.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: They're in this together, they were in 2008 in the film Stop-Loss, in 2009 they were in GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra together; Channing appears in Don Jon which is sort of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's big auteur project, and then they did the beautiful television show Comrade Detective together, it's amazing--
RLB: We love Comrade Detective, and--
RSB: We are possibly the world's biggest Comrade Detective fans.
RLB: I don't know if anyone else watched it but I--I found it so enjoyable.
RSB: It's so good.
RLB: Both the sheer audacity of its existence--
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: Like they successfully produced and released it--
RSB: Yeah, that's insane.
RLB: But also, like, it's fun to watch.
RSB: It's real fun to watch. And then they actually have, like, various future projects that they have claimed to be working on together at one time or another.
RLB: So like, they're friends.
RSB: They're friends. They work together, they like each other as creative partners--
RLB: It's remarkable that on this film they ever wanted to work with each other again after it.
RSB: I know. I would never wanna touch anything involved in that experience ever again.
RLB: Yeah, and honestly I find it kind of charming that they were like, yeah, we're gonna, like, stay friends and collaborators after that.
RSB: Absolutely.
RLB: Did we have anything else to say about Channing?
RSB: I think that, y'know, unlike with Coach Carter, he really has so little screen time that there's no way to say, oh, you can see the Channing to come, but I do think given that he still is the consummate professional and he doesn't phone it in.
RLB: Yeah, I do also think it is interesting the way that this role is in dialogue with his other teenage roles and the class politics of his other roles as a teenager and as an adult.
RSB: I think it's also interesting that this kind of--because there is very little we can find out about sort of the metanarrative at this point--it's interesting to see how clearly his team was hustling, he was hustling to get small but prominently credited roles in films like this.
RLB: Yeah, and he also was, y'know, up-and-coming enough to get these small roles in movies with major names.
RSB: Exactly.
RLB: Um, it's also I do think interesting that despite being in probably as much of this movie as he--as the other guys are, as we said, Joseph Gordon-Levitt rarely appears on the screen without him, if ever, it's weird that his role arguably is proportionately larger this movie but is so much less of a relevant entity than in Coach Carter where he does very much feel like part of the team and one of the sort of defined members of the team, who--we did not love that movie, but they did at least feel like an ensemble of characters to an extent.
RSB: This movie has one and a half characters.
RLB: Yeah, and that's kind of the point that I wanna make, is just, like, Channing does his best here but even Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was pretty well-known--it's strange that like none of the guys in this movie matter to the movie at all.
RSB: Not at all.
RLB: Especially considering the movie ends with one of them getting shot.
RSB: I know, and we're supposed to care?
RLB: Are we supposed to care?
RSB: Question mark?
RLB: It's unclear, because the movie is not sure if it even cares about the protagonists.
RSB: Right, so I feel--I wanna go into our closing if you're ready.
RLB: Yeah.
1:26:41
RSB: I feel a little silly even asking this question, but Rachel, did you like the movie?
RLB: I did not.
RSB: I also did not. And Rachel, did you think it was good?
RLB: No.
RSB: This movie is bad.
RLB: This movie is really bad. Please don't watch it. Especially please don't pay money to watch it.
RSB: Yeah.
RLB: We're, like, y'know, stupid and did. Not very much though.
RSB: It was three dollars.
RLB: Yeah. If it had been more than that I'd be upset.
RSB: I'd be writing a complaint.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: This is a very bad movie. Um, but on a more interesting question, were we to do a spinoff podcast about a member of this cast, who would we choose, or who would you choose?
RLB: Um, the problem is the ones that it would be at all interesting to do a podcast on are Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and both of them have done Christopher Nolan movies that I don't want to rewatch.
RSB: Yeah, I mean, I think on the question--
RLB: Like I've seen their movies with Christopher Nolan.
RSB: Yes.
RLB: But as I've stated, I do not enjoy his films, and I don't--
RSB:The Dark Knight Rises is probably my least favorite film that I've seen twice all the way through.
RLB: I'm not sure that I even--I'm not sure that it even is one of my least favorite films, because I've seen a lot of bad films, and I've even seen bad films more than once, but I don't want to watch The Dark Knight Rises again, at least in full, and so that is sort of an issue--
RSB: Yes.
RLB: For those two.
RSB: That said, though, like truly on concerns of genre and gender I think that Anne Hathaway is one of the stars who, like Channing, really has a filmography that embodies those questions--
RLB: I agree.
RSB: And I think it's hard not to say that Anne Hathaway's the right choice there, just because she obviously is, even though neither of us wants to watch Tom Hooper's Les Miserables either.
RLB: I mean, I've seen that more than once, so, yeah.
RSB: That's what I'm saying.
RLB: I do like Les Mis. I think Tom Hooper is not good.
RSB: Neither do I, and I don't even like Les Mis.
RLB: Yeah.
RSB: So basically, I'm glad we're not doing a spinoff podcast on Anne Hathaway, but i will say that--
RLB: She is the obvious choice.
RSB: She very much lends our--lends herself to our subject matter.
RLB: She has a really interesting Hollywood metanarrative, and she does have a lot of really interesting projects, both good and bad. I think it's--she's a really similar figure in many ways to Channing Tatum, I think, but I think, y'know--
RSB: And I think--
RLB: There's a sexism factor that doesn't factor in with Channing Tatum, but I also think in some ways she's given more credit for being smart and deliberate as an artist in a way that like--
RSB: Yeah, although--
RLB: Early in his career I don't think he was.
RSB: Yeah, although I would argue that maybe that is in some ways gendered as well.
RLB: Oh yeah, I don't disagree that it's gendered.
RSB: Um, do you have any final thoughts on Havoc or do we wanna just run away?
RLB: I wanna just not think about Havoc again unless it's Havok with a K and he's an X-Man.
RSB: I feel the same, yeah. Yeah. Let's close on the note of: this movie is bad.
RLB: Sure. Sure. Uh, y'know, um, do you want to offer me a Channing Datum?
1:29:55
RSB: Yes, my Channing Datum for today, ah, Channing has dyslexia and ADHD!
RLB: Wow!
RSB: Yeah!
RLB: I didn't know that. What an icon.
RSB: Indeed, very much so. Do you wanna run through the socials? Or do you want me to do it cause you don't remember them.
RLB: You should do it cause I don't remember them.
RSB: Friends, we would love it if you would follow us on Twitter @channingsalon, on Instagram @channingsalon--please find us on Letterboxd where our username is also channingsalon.
RLB: If you want to start an Anne Hathaway podcast and wanna collab--
RSB: Or just if you wanna get in touch, please reach out to us at channingsalon@gmail.com. And thanks for listening! Next time on The Channing Salon we'll be discussing 2005's Supercross, directed by Steve Boyum.
[audio clip]
Voice 1: It's time to go toe to toe with the big boys.
[sounds of engines revving]
Voice 2: Those guys got bigger engines and better torques--
Voice 3: Cross the finish line first, it don't matter.
[end audio clip]
RLB: I know nothing about this one and I'm excited to find out, because it can't be worse than this.
RSB: Uh, it's another sports movie, just FYI.
RLB: That's okay, that's much better than this.
RSB: We got Rachel to like sports, because at least it's not Havoc.
RLB: I wouldn't go that far, but pretty close.
RSB: Yeah.