On the Bechdel Cast.

The questions asked if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism?

It's the patriarchy.

Zephy and Beast start changing with the Bechdel Cast.

Hey, Caitlyn, Hey Jamie.

Have you ever wanted to watch a movie that's sort of like Mulan but without literally anything that made it fun?

I can't say that I have wanted that too bad?

Do I have the movie for you?

Is it g I Jane?

It's with deepest regrets, it's g I Jane.

Wow, there's what I mean there?

What is this movie if not the be a Man thing over and over and over, but with a soundtrack that is completely dissonant with what is happening on screen.

This, I mean, this is a small nitpick to start with, but the soundtrack to this movie.

I have a theory as to why it is the way it is, but it's it's fun weird.

Ridley Scott is so all over the place.

He really is what goes through this man's head?

But the why is why is the pretenders in G I Jane?

Like?

Can we leave them out of it?

I don't like that the pretender that Chrissy Hind got like G I Jane Dollar Anyways, anyways, there.

The feel like making love.

Honestly, why is that there?

That's why Vigo morton'sage accent, Vigo Morton's in shorts.

Why are so?

And this this is the this is the petty complaint Runk.

There's also I mean, but like, okay, Chrissy Hind, Randy Newman, Mozart, even Mozart's catching a stray by appearing in G.

I.

Jane Like, it's just you just hate to see you hate to see it.

Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.

I guess we were gonna have to cover this one eventually, weren't we.

We were.

Yeah.

My name is Jamie, my name is Caitlin.

This is our show where we examine movies through an intern sectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point.

That is a media metric, many different versions.

I'm just gonna breeze through this today because there's so much to talk about.

I know, it's like, but it is, I mean, it's this, this movie is slippery in a way that like does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Sure, but at what cost?

Exactly?

Exactly, so many different versions of the test.

The one that we use is do two characters of a marginalized gender have names?

Do they speak to each other?

And is there conversation about something other than a man?

And we ideally like it when it's a narratively meaningful conversation, which in this case, sure it's narratively meaningful, but is the narrative at what jingoistic bullshit?

Yes, it's like if you had to email the Pentagon to get your movie made.

Reconsider Yeah all right, yeah, well buckle in because spoiler alert, it does pass the Bechtel test.

But that is literally what we will not really, I mean, it is relevant because it passes the Bechdel test way before the Bechdel test was a culturally relevant marker, and it does so very intentionally, but to a very nefarious end, which is to recruit women to the American military.

Yes, indeed, at what cost?

We have a wonderful guest.

Let's get her in the mix.

She is a lawyer and host of the five to four podcast and popular Cradle podcast.

It's Rhan and Hamam.

Hi welcome, hello, and you're welcome.

You said you know, we'll just have to you know, we knew we'd have to get to g I Jane at some point.

You're welcome for being the person that brought it to twenty twenty five.

For you guys, thank you came much true, It came true.

Yeah, I guess to start, let's talk about our history with this movie.

Yeah, Rhannon, what's your relationship with it?

So this is really interesting because I had a childhood relationship to this movie.

Without seeing the movie as a child, I had a relationship to it in that the promo for the movie, Demi Moore and the casts, you know what is it called their their publicity tour for it.

Let's say the interviews that they gave.

The hoopla that was made about, in particular some of the what people would call iconic scenes.

Demi Moore shaves her head right in this movie, those kinds of things.

Demi Moore screams at one point, suck my yes.

That that sort of like media really hit me as a kid.

I remember seeing things like this being like discussed on TV.

And you know Demi Moore's workout routine, these kinds of things right, and I as a child was even though let's go ahead and get it out there.

I'm Palestinian Arab growing up in the time post Gulf War then post nine to eleven.

Right, So as a child, I was somehow even with that context about myself out in the open here.

As a child, I was not clocking that the movie was about US imperialism, right, the violence of like the US military.

I was not clocking this at all.

And again I never saw I never saw the movie.

So anyways, invited onto this podcast, was thinking immediately about, you know, when when I was a kid, what were the movies that were like about being a badass lady, you know, being a powerful, strong lady, being one of the guys, even though you're a lady.

So this this came up, and then now like as an adult watching it, I have you know, the full layers, let's say, of like perspectives and interpretations and analysis where you're just like, oh my god, this is so so dark, darker than you know, even maybe like a sort of substanceless feminism, you know, Patina.

Over all of this, it's even darker and more disappointing and and sort of at root more violent than that.

It's totally it's very this is a movie with a dark energy, putting it in that category.

Yeah, and I do.

I feel like this movie did.

I also hadn't seen it before, but I felt like I did because it was so It's so talked about.

I mean, I unfortunately one of the associations that I have with this is like that g I Jane was name checked in the slap incident.

This is would remember that.

WHOA, I don't know, I don't remember that.

Yes, I blame my fiance for remind I don't know why men think about this lap so much, but they do.

But when Chris Rock was mocking Jada Pinkett Smith, he called her GI Jane because she was bald.

And all that to say, for a movie that was not very successful and pretty widely mocked in its time, it has real cultural staying power.

Yeah, and for like really bizarre reasons.

Because this movie is clearly clearly has an agenda, and it is to promote US imperialism and to bring the third wave feminist movement under the umbrella of US imperialism and sell it back to women.

And I think that that is why we get the weird soundtrack that we do.

We're like, oh, and we've got your music, girl power.

I mean, there's so many things that this movie does that is very nefarious to that end, but it has its cultural legacy.

I feel like it's a little harder to pin down.

I'm glad it wasn't more successful.

It doesn't seem like it had a top gun effect, but it still does demonstrable harm because we're still talking about it.

Yeah, yeah, you know.

I think it's also a little bit about selling feminism to men too, like because it's like, actually, they can be badasses and actually if the real goal is like serving your country and shooting at the bad guys, then women can do that too.

Maybe, you know.

Yeah, it's feminism for like sexist men who like the type of feminism that they could get behind or digest.

Almost yes, I mean it's like so constantly dissonant, where every other scene it's like it will start to make a point but then fail to interrogate the system that that point is being made inside of.

So it's it's totally meaningless all the way down to like the turf Senator herself, like where you're like, yes, like she's she is kind of like Nancy pelosiing her way through life.

This is a valid criticism.

There are people who do this, who weaponize identity politics against people like but then fails to it.

But they were like, and and you know who really has it figured out?

The Navy, And You're like, what do you mean?

What do you mean?

Her being the big bad is so weird, Like it's just like I don't I don't know, I don't know what the fuck there.

I mean, I do know what the fuck they're on about, and it's very frustrating, very uh.

I had also never seen this movie, but I remember it being a big deal when it came out.

It was the same year as Titanic nineteen ninety seven.

So it never stood a chance.

So I was busy and with.

Making an impact.

Yeah right, but this movie was marketed to all hell I remember there was just like yeah, like you mentioned Rihann in different images or scenes from it.

That just became part of the cultural zeitgeist.

But I just I've never been interested in war or military movies, so I was like miss me with this, no thank you.

So I just watched it for the first time the other day, and I don't really know what I was expecting, and it kind of it sort of like was everything I was expecting and nothing I was expecting at the same time.

It was a bizarre experience.

But and I feel like it Also we'll talk about this later, but like where it's really Scott's filmography is so fucking weird.

How can he make Thelma and Louise and this also like I don't know, he was just like also not that like film and Louise is a post child for perfect feminism or anything, but but for.

Its time I mean.

But also I mean it's just like the movie he made immediately after Thoma and Louise was fourteen ninety two Conquest of Paradise.

So this guy is a girl boss imperialist.

Like I don't I which those exist, but it's just I don't know, yeah, the But then he also makes Gladiator, which is like anti imperial he maybe just wants to work.

I don't fucking get it.

I was.

He also makes black Hawk Down, which is right, also very like military copaganda.

I'm gonna look up if that one did, because this movie didn't get the Pentagon Seal of Approval, but mostly for like perverted reasons, where Ridley Scott was like, no, her superior does have to look at her in the shower, and you're like, that's the reason that that's.

The nipples are hard in uh in A lot of that have to talk.

I'll talk about that later.

But she doesn't care.

She's just she's just one of the boys.

She's just one of the boys.

I want to be treated just like everyone else badly.

You're like, what the fuck, it's wild.

Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to recap the.

Movie, and we're back.

Okay.

So here's g I Jane nineteen ninety seven.

So we open on a hearing where this guy named Hayes, who is vying to become Secretary of the US Navy, is giving a testimony.

But Senator de Haven, who's a whoa whoa whoa woman.

She's not afraid to say it.

Yeah.

This senator interrogates Hayes about the abysmal treatment of women in the military and how there are all these barriers women aren't allowed to do, like a quarter of the jobs in the military, and she wants full integration of women in the US military, which is something the Department of Defense will agree to if candidates who are women are able to prove they measure up to the men in a series of test cases, but the high ranking men who want this program to fail select the Navy Seals as the test case where women would have to prove themselves because the Navy Seals training is famously, very very difficult.

It has a sixty percent dropout rate, meaning most men can't even handle it, so there's no way a woman will be able to.

How many times do they say this sixty percent dropout rate in the movie explicitly?

So many times that they just throw out that stat to remind us, you know, it's really hard.

It's so hard, it's.

So hard to do this.

The stakes are high.

Yeah.

Then we meet Lieutenant Jordan O'Neill played by Demi Moore.

Her name is not Jane, no shocking, Yeah, it is Jordan.

I had no idea.

Why why not just call it?

I mean, the name Jordan was not sticking for me.

All my notes say Jane.

Right.

So she works at the Naval Intelligence Center doing some sort of strategist analyst whatever intelligence job, and we see her mid mission.

Seems like she's good at her job, and of course she's surrounded by men who tell her to know her place and not step out of line or whatever.

And she's being told this by someone who It took me a while to figure this out because all the men in this movie look the same to me, exactly.

Okay, okay, I was waiting for someone to say it.

You'rs like, I don't know who these guys are.

I was like, do we like that one?

I don't, don't.

I don't know, But this man is a don't step out a line.

And it turns out out to be her boyfriend.

Yeah, they live together.

They live and not only did they live together, they take they take baths together like they're twins.

It's twins.

I guess maybe when you're a child.

Zoom for efficiency's sake, I wasn't talking about adult twins.

Meanwhile, Senator de Haven is reviewing candidates to join this test program, and she thinks this Jordan O'Neill has potential because she's attractive and feminine.

Yeah.

Yeah, transphobia already entered into the movie in this scene.

Yeah, and with photos too, which is absurd.

Yeah.

The first the first person who is suggested, she's like, oh, too strong, people are gonna like she drops chromosomes, Yeah, and.

Musom test on this person kind of thing.

And there's like this heavy indication that I'm like, well, at least she turns out to be the villain, but that's just it was like out of pocket.

Immediately she checks that, which this is a weird planted payoff.

She wants to make sure that Debi Moore is straight.

Yeah, she says, I don't want you batting for the other side.

Yeah, it's like it's such a nineties dork loser like way to phrase that, but yeah, I feel like she's trying to say, like, well, are you normal, because we need a normal person quote unquote to do this, and then like all of the prejudices that come with what she considers normal, we're safe to advance her career.

I'm not really sure what she's trying to do it.

But it's really unclear.

I had to watch these scenes a few times to try to figure it out, and I'll try to explain it when we get there, but I'm just like, what is going on here?

Yeah, but after they say a very like transphobe turfey remark, this senator also sees another picture of a woman who is tall and thick and muscular.

She has kind of more masculine features, and they mock her and they're like, is this the face of someone you want on newsweek?

She looks like the wife of a Russian beat farmer, and you're just like, holy shit, what.

A specifically hateful joke, Like who wrote that?

Yeah?

So anyway, they're reviewing all these candidates and they select Jordan as the person they want to recruit into this program on the condition that Jordan is not gay.

And we'll talk about that.

Don't ask, don't tell of at all, because like the senator is very explicitly asking.

But anyway, like was.

It that the whole Wasn't that the thing?

She's like, I know I'm supposed to not ask, but I'm asking.

I'm asking, and you'd better tell, he says.

She says, I just want to.

She says something like, I just want to make sure you have a solvent heterosexual at home.

Yeah, like that you have a male.

Partner and they're so heterosexual that they take baths together.

Yeah, we're doing foot stuff.

Yeah.

Cut we cut to Demi Moore's feet.

I believe a total of three times.

One time when they're like, your foot's all fucked up, and it cuts to the foot, You're like, I hate to say the foot I didn't need to see the.

Foot almost like a Tarantino movie in that way.

Yeah.

Anyway, she does have a heterosexual boyfriend.

His name is Royce Solvent, heterosexual at home.

Yeah, and don't worry, he hates her.

He is not supportive of her goals because she's interested in this opportunity, but she doesn't want to be a poster child for women's rights.

She just wants the operational experience so that she can advance her military career in a way that she's not able to now with all these sexist roadblocks.

So already we're not on board with the goal, right, Like the goal is bad, the goal.

Is real bad.

And Royce points out that the men in the training program will make her life a living hell, and he's not wrong, but he's also like, well, I don't want to wait for you if you go off to war.

I expect you to wait for me, but I'm not gonna do that for you.

And then I don't know if they break up or if he just kind of like leaves in a huff, But that doesn't really end well.

Jordan arrives at a naval base in Florida to begin her Navy seal training.

She meets her commanding officer, who's like, oh god, a woman.

I guess his reasons for hating women.

He gives later is very funny.

It made me laugh where he's like guy in a car, Like I was like, he's just saying shit.

It's like that has nothing to do with you, and like, would never inconvenience you, right.

He's also he says like, I need to hire a guy in a collegist now to keep track of your pap smears.

And it's like she's only there for three months.

We don't need a bunch of pop smears during that time.

Like how many pap smears was she forced to get during her time?

I don't know anyway, so he's not thrilled about her being there.

We also meet some of her fellow trainees, who of course are all men, and they're talking about how women can't do what we do.

They're too weak and they have too much body fat.

And one guy is named Flea, which is my cats, which I found very distracting.

I wrote that in my notes, so I was like Jamie's cat alert flee.

He flee would never do anything that.

The other flee does.

He would never join the military.

It's a man of integrity exactly.

In addition to Flee, there are guys like McCool Wickwire Cortes, Jim Cavizl is there playing a guy named Slovnik, and they hate her immediately.

Then she settles into her like R and R quarters, which is just an empty room because it's separated by gender and she's the only woman.

Then it's the first day of training.

We meet Command Master Chief Ergale played by Vigo Mortensen.

Short shorts Viego Mortenson shorts.

Are so short the entire film.

Yeah, did he ask for that, leggy Vigo Mortensen.

We don't see the legs on literally any other character, including I think maybe Demi Moore a couple times, because as we'll talk about, there's like, I guess they could have done worse with hyper fixating on her body, but they definitely don't miss the opportunity too.

Sure.

Well, it seems like all of the whatever like leaders of this training program are wearing the same short shorts because there's a few of them and I only notice one para legs same.

Yeah, it seems like it was all Vego.

I was looking at all the legs.

But in any case, he's one tough sombitch.

And everyone starts the very vigorous and brutal training, obviously lots of physical exercise.

They're fighting over food, they're having to eat it back out of the trash again.

They're plunging into freezing cold water.

They have to write an essay about why they love the United States Navy.

The drill sergeants are screaming and belittling them, and this is all just in the first day.

Yeah, there's so many montages in this movie.

It's exhausting, truly.

Gi Jordan is struggling, but she's not the worst at this and she's very determined, even though a lot of the men are cruel to her, especially this guy Cortes, has a vendetta against her.

But again she's very determined.

Though for those who are not determined to complete the training, they have to ring this bell three times and it signifies their resignation.

So that's always kind of like looming over everyone.

Then there's this obstacle course, which they make to be like a war zone with the officers shooting at them.

Yeah, but there are these like booster steps for women and women only time advantages.

But Jordan doesn't want those.

She wants to go through the course like everyone else.

So she goes to her commanding officer to be like, your gendered double standards mean that I'm being treated as an outsider, Like how am I supposed to fit in and succeed?

And then he pitches a fit.

This is where he's talking about pap smears and her perfume.

But then he agrees to hold only one standard for everyone.

Then we get the scene where she buzzes off all of her hair, becoming the baldest woman.

But I would not say she's in charge, so it does not follow the baldest woman in charge not.

Which is weird because I feel like it's one of the movies I based that idea around despite have never having seen it.

But again you have.

It is weird how how similar there's like sequences in Mulan which comes out the next year, similar hair chop and scene.

True.

Yes, she also moves into the same like bunking area as the men, and that guy Slavnik is disgusted that she brought tampons with her.

I'm like, what would you like if she didn't have any?

Like what do you wonder to.

Just free bleed all over the place.

Yeah, he screams multiple times, like as they're like, you know, clear out, like you know, we gotta we gotta go or whatever.

He's like, you don't care about tampons.

You don't care about tampons, like fixated.

Right, there's this is somebody really really having a meltdown?

Yeah, as melodramatic as a lot of it is, I'm like, yeah, I do believe that someone would do that.

Yeah.

Men are very emotional.

They're huge drama queens.

Yeah, it's true.

Okay.

So then Hayes, the Navy secretary guy, gets wind that a woman doing the Navy seal training program has gone public.

It was supposed to be a secret, private thing, but it's gone public because there was this like investigative journalist or someone taking pictures of Jordan during training.

And so the Navy Secretary is furious about this becoming public information, and he wants her progress monitored and then also for like background research to be done on her.

Basically he wants to see if they can find anything to discredit her because this haze guy wants the program to fail.

But she's doing pretty good.

She's made it through the first week of training.

She's getting the hang of things.

She's getting into peak physical shape, doing a lot of you know, pull ups and push ups, but not wearing a sports bra, which I don't know why you do that.

She wants to be just like everyone else.

They're not wearing a sports bra.

Why should she?

Yeah, exactly, And she's starting to earn the respect of some of the men, though others like Cortes and Slavnik still have this like sexist rivalry, which.

Which is the sort of part of what's at the core of her very feminist goal is to earn their respective men.

Exactly.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Then there's a part where Jordan struggles to pull her own body weight onto a raft that's speeding by, so the master Chief questions if she's strong enough to be there.

And this is happening in a scene where she's taking a shower and he just comes in and she's naked and they're both just like shrug.

This is the scene where Israel is mentioned.

Yeah, drink d we have an Israel mentioned.

That was like in a scene where you're already like flat on your ass, like what am I watching?

And then he brings up Israel and it cuts to naked Demi Moore.

I'm like, what the fuck is this?

What are we doing?

He's like, you know, the IOF is awesome actually, and then he's like, and you're too weak to be here anyway?

Want to be in charge of boat number six?

Well, and she also manages to get a girl Boston there too, where she's like is it also talking sort of in reference to I guess America and Israel, where she's like, well, how did you get your little thing?

How did you get your little your metal?

And it's like saving a woman is bad, saving a man is good.

It makes you think.

I was like this, you're naked.

He's your boss and you're naked.

Like yeah.

So it's at this part of the story that I really started to worry that they're gonna wedge in some like love story between the two of them, because it sort of starts to kind of I think in a different movie, or maybe there was just another draft of this script where like there was that Okay, I had.

A feeling, yeah, we'll talk about it.

But there I went through because I was like, why did this movie not get Because there's I mean, the whole military entertainment complex usually comes down to weirdly like one guy, and it was one guy for like thirty five years, who would be the one to decide if you are going to get the full force support of the American military to make your shitty movie.

And this one guy ended up saying no and not signing off on g Jane.

And one of one of the original reasons that Ridley Scott did agree to change was that she was originally dating her superior in the Navy, which I'm assuming would have been the Vigo Mortenson character.

So that might just be left over from that, I'm not sure.

But yeah, I'm like, why is this scene here where he's like, it's not overtly sexualized, but she isn't the shower, but he is kind of like looking her up and down and she is naked and he's not, and so it's very bizarre and.

They get very close to face to face.

Yeah, it is introducing sexual tension here, and it feels like very overtly we're supposed to think Demi Moore is hot, Demi Moore is sexy, you know.

Yeah, yeah, so the movie doesn't culminate in any kind of love story between them, but it feels like it was like starting to drop some hints anyway.

Then there's this like simulation mission thing.

It's I'm like Capture the Flag, but like military Industrial Complex style, where Jordan leads her team.

She's delegating tasks, but Cortes and Slovnik refuse to take orders from her because she's a woman, and they get themselves and everyone else on the team captured.

The master Chief beats the shit out of Jordan.

He acts like he might rape.

Her in front of everybody.

Yeah, in front of everybody, because by their logic, this is what she quote unquote wanted for them to not go easy on her just because she's a woman, But she doesn't give up any information.

Then she fights back and kicks the shit out of the master Chief and this is when she.

Goes suck my deck.

And now he respects her and so her other fellow trainees enough to invite her out for a drink when they have some R and R time.

Which also it's so frustrating, where like her sort of one pal who is always like she's whatever, the feminism nurse or whatever, but she like this is another sort of decisive moment for the debianmore character where she's like she tells the other girls She's like, I can't hang out.

The boys finally invited me.

I'm like, god, you suck, you suck.

Yeah, So she goes to hang out and drink with the guys, but she also goes on the like little beach picnic outing with the women at the training center, who I think are mostly medics, and a reporter is there taking more secret photos of the women, and the high ranking men see the photos and pull Jordan aside and say it looks like you were fraternizing with other women in a gay way, and Jordan is like, no, this is just women hanging out.

But the men want to pull her out of training and give her a desk job, basically demote her, I think.

And she's enraged and she rings that bell that signals that you want to quit the Navy seal training, and she leaves and goes back home.

Her boyfriend Royce is there.

They reconcile and he shows her some reports and letters and stuff, and it seems like Senator de Haven, the woman who was originally advocating for Jordan, is the one who hired the photographer to sabotage Jordan's training.

Yeah, it turns out she's a cowardly bitchous.

She really is.

And these are the reasons that I only very vaguely understand and can barely articulate.

But it's something like she I think she's a senator in Texas and there are these different military bases in Texas that are in danger of being shut down.

So she kind of like trades, does some kind of trade with someone to prevent the basis from being shut down in exchange for kind of selling out Jordan, I think, is what was happening, right.

Yeah, Like she's gonna lose reelection if these bases get shut down, like the voters right will turn against her or something.

And so with this threat looming, she saves the bases over saving Jordan, right.

Right, which of course a senator would do, right.

But it's like this is where like the ultimate dissonance comes in where she's like, no, that I need to be a Navy seal, and it's like, lady, you don't.

You do not need to be a Navy There is a funny like there's like a repeated it's just like a bad writing thing.

But the Anne Bancroft character this seed says a few different times she's like, well if you think you're going to change my mind, then pull up a chair, or like go to sleep, or like you're going to be here for a long time.

Past your time.

Yes, I was like, what do you okay?

Whatever, So Jordan threatens to expose the senator for being a lying piece of shit.

I guess unless de Haven gets Jordan back into the Navy Seals training program.

Cut to Jordan returns to complete her training and she and the others are about to do I think this is sort of like their last thing and operational readiness exercise in the Mediterranean Sea.

But then they get called to go on a real life military mission in Libya.

Yeah, like, and they're not done with training yet, and they're being asked like, okay, no, you got to do Navy Seal mission right now?

Yes, And I've seeing how fucked up these people are, right right, what an amateur show this is.

I'm like, I don't think they're ready, and the mission is also vague, but I think they have to do some sort of rescue or extraction thing.

I'm guessing rescuing some American soldiers in Libya.

And we'll talk about the way the country and Libyan characters are portrayed.

But yeah, basically there's you know, a big third act battle.

The Master Chief needs to be saved and Jordan kind of takes charge.

She's giving orders, and then she ultimately gets the Master Chief to safety.

They make it out, and they return to the US, where Jordan officially makes it into the Navy Seals after successfully completing her training.

The end y we so let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss, and we're back where to begin, Oh, Ash Rhannon, is anything jumping to you?

You know, it really is hard to choose.

Is it the racism, the orientalism?

Is it?

You know that this really military propaganda.

Is it the dissonant and illogical, superficial feminism, it's it's it's they're so difficult.

You know.

I think something that stuck with me throughout every scene in which Jordan is insulted or even like sabotaged, you know her, the fellow Navy Sealed trainees, you know, actively try to sabotage her and make her look bad every time, even and I think this culminates in the scenes where they're doing this sear training, the capture of the flag exercise.

Right, It really culminates in this in this part where Vigo Mortensen physically assault her.

I mean, it's a really it's actually like difficult to watch.

It's like she's actually getting like truly truly violently beat up, and then he acts like he's about to sexually assault her in front of everybody.

There's blood, like all of this stuff.

What is sticking with me throughout every single one of these horrifically sexist examples is not that anybody like learns a true lesson about sexism or that that kind of overt sexism is wrong.

It's that Jordan overcomes it.

And actually, you know, master Chief Vigo Morten said, did it all for the right reason, so that she could prove herself, so that the team will get behind her.

You know.

Afterwards he tells an officer, another officer who says like, hey, I think you kind of went too far on that.

He tells an officer, you don't get it.

She isn't the problem we are, and I did right, like, I did it for all the right reasons.

And this is the entire movie.

It's really sick, yeah.

Right, and it's they don't, like you said, no one really learns anything.

It's just that she has sort of assimilated into man behavior quote unquote yes, which is the problem with any sort of girl Boss feminism where it's like, women can uphold imperial institutions too, women can commit war crimes too, and that's the logic of the movie.

I feel like this movie even takes out a step further where, like I like, in your prescriptive girl Boss narrative, it's like, oh, yes, women can commit horrific atrocities, women can be billionaires, women can do you know, A, B and C.

But this one is also predicated to the fact that like, like, her whole mission is to be treated like a man likes it's yeah, you know, Sheryl Sandberg shit where I feel like it's even worse where I feel in some girl Boss narratives it's like, oh, and now the guns are pink or whatever the fuck She's like, she's not even asking for the gun to be pink, like she's She's like, I want to do war crimes just like everyone else.

I she is so vested in not questioning the system she's participating in to a kind of scary degree.

She has no question.

Yes, her mission is to be completely swallowed whole by it.

Yeah, let me prove it to you.

I can do I can do war crimes.

I'm actually really good at it.

If you would just let me, you just beat me up like everybody else.

Yeah, I don't care about feminism.

I'm not trying to be some poster child for women's rights.

I just want to be a bloodthirsty war.

Criminal, right, And that's I do think it's like an interesting idea, not in the scope of this movie at all.

It is an interesting idea to not want to be the poster child for something.

I think that that is like an interesting narrative tension.

But in the context of this movie, it makes her an even more confusing character because, like I get to the extent that she doesn't want to be a poster child.

She doesn't want the media to hyper fixate on her.

That's fair, right, Like she doesn't want all these things to happen, But like she doesn't even take issue with the sexism that she does experience, Like she gets annoyed when like the I mean in the beginning where the I don't know what the fucking title is, but the first guy she meets before Vigo Mortensen, lays out sort of like, Okay, here is what we're going to do to sort of protect you from what is almost certain to be a very hostile group of people towards you.

Yeah, and she's like, no, I don't want to be like, which is just sending what I mean.

This expands so much because like, obviously there is real life misogyny and homophobia in the military which is shown here, but it has no interest in questioning those policies.

It's just questioning it in regards to this one character who's like, I don't care about that.

So what is this movie even trying to accomplish.

Yeah, it feels like it's just trying to not only enlist women into the American imperial project, it's also saying be quiet about the like about the gender discrimination you've heard about?

Shut up, Like if you were a real soldier, you wouldn't quote unquote complain about it.

Yeah, and any even minuscule nod to like, oh, there might be a systemic problem here.

For example, when Vigo Mortensen after almost killing me more like we're supposed to understand right by physical assault in front of people.

After he does this, and he says the thing about like she isn't the problem we are and this is why, this is why I did this, right saying we are if he's referring to like whatever, the US military or something like, there's no there's no then like next step, which is like, okay, if this is if you're saying this is a systemic problem here, there's no next step of like, oh, how might we fix that?

The solution is like again, honorably, I beat her up in front of people, right, Like.

It's it's not even like there's not even an interest in like accomplishing a very like what also would have been a bullshit like centrist propaganda to this movie.

Ye, yeah, it can't even do that because the movie also hates their Nancy Pelosi character.

So it's like, I don't know what to do with that, Like, I mean, it's a it's a right wing movie totally.

Yeah.

I mean, like it seems to be saying, well, there's sexism everywhere, so of course there's going to be sexism in the military, but the movie is like otherwise completely uncritical of any systemic issues within the military and the military itself, which is a tool to uphold US imperialism.

And do lots of violence, including sexist violence.

All over the world, you know.

For sure.

And it's basically just saying like, yeah, the military is is awesome and women should want to be a part of it.

And that type of jingoism is still being used today, obviously not only to recruit for the military, but to recruit ICE agents.

I've seen people likening the signing bonus and the relatively high salaries for ICE agents, likening that to incentives the military has historically offered to encourage people to enlist.

So and the fact that the Viga Mortensen character, you know, references the IDF in the scope of by far the darkest scene in the movie to be there, and it's a hard contest because he also almost kills her.

I mean that is used in IDF logic all the time, is that like, we love women and women are a part of it.

When it's conscripting to a genocide.

It's just I don't know.

I was so shocked at how how this movie wouldn't even get to I guess the very low nineteen nineties girl boss feminism.

It doesn't even like clear that.

No, it sure doesn't.

And then you have the whole third act of the movie, which is this mission in Libya, where again unclear exactly what they're doing.

It says they're doing an extraction thing, but I don't think we ever see.

That, which based on the documents, not to be a spy, but but based on the documents that I was saying, that is very, very intentional, and I think that reminds me of like a lot of when the American military is involved in a movie.

They never want to draw your attention to exactly what is being done in the movie.

That's why in the most recent I didn't see it, but in like the Top Gun reboot, they're fighting a country that doesn't even exist, unnamed.

Yeah, so vague.

Yeah, I remember that about that.

So that's very much a part of the playbook where they're like, Okay, we're willing to name the country that we are killing civilians in, but we don't want to say exactly what we're doing or what the goal is because you don't want to think about that too hard because it's violent.

Yeah.

A couple mentions of the word plutonium, right, like satellite cells.

It is like something extraction, right, and it's just supposed to be like it's it is shoving.

It is shoving.

Imperial violence down your throat, but to such a vagueness that like you are assumed to be on their side anyway, right, Like you're this is acceptable because surely what's going on in Libya is bad and those are bad guys doing it, right, Like that's there's this baseline assumption not criticized or not like engaged.

At all to right, like it's just playing on prejudices.

They're assuming the audience already has.

Right the idea that like, well, we're in an Arab country, so of course it's full of terrorists and those people's lives are expendable, and the Navy has carte blanche to shoot and kill whoever because they are the enemy.

And even before Libya gets mentioned, someone says like, oh, we're getting called to this mission where Iran Iraq and it's like no, another one, another enemy country, quote unquote.

So and then just like the way the country of Libya is portrayed, the score that starts playing once where.

In Libya stereotypical like arrul, which is like a Arab Middle Eastern ancient kind of wind is instrument, is the score.

So you're like, oh, they're in Arabia, yep, they're landing on the beach in Arabia.

Right, Like, truly, at every level this movie is trying to play on American prejudices.

Yeah, the way they make Libya look like this dusty barren, decrepit wasteland, the brown filter they put on those scenes in post production that makes everything just look dusty and dirty.

The way the people of Libya are presented, they're hostile, They're needlessly violent, Like forget that the US Navy has just invaded this country for unclear reasons and are killing anyone they see and.

Will continue to for decades after.

Yeah, so just absolutely horrific.

And I think that like another I honestly do not know the name of this character because I couldn't keep track of all the boy names.

But there is exactly one black character who we get to know.

This is a very very very ugly play to make.

His name is mcool.

McCool.

All the names are so silly, okay, so McCool.

Also, he has to give this speech while actively treading water, which is like that doesn't seem fair to that actor, but whatever.

So that where, you know, and it's done in this very nineties way where it's equating the struggle of black soldiers with the struggle of women's soldiers as if it's an identical struggle.

But the only black soldier we get to know is mcool apparently, and he references very real prejudice in the American military against black people, which is a very you know, it's an important thing to talk about, like it is a very valid subject, but it's brought up for all the wrong reasons.

It's brought up to say, like, oh, no, you know, g I Jane, like, I totally understand your struggle, like because my grandfather was treated this horrible way by Themerican military, and then they proceed to push back on that system not at all, like and especially in a movie that is racist in general, that it feels like Ridley Scott is like or the writers of this movie, sorry he didn't write this, David Twohea and Danielle Alexandra girl Boss what the fuck?

But they you know, they're they're basically weaponizing this true fact about how racist the American military is to excuse all the other racism that the movie is guilty of perpetrating.

And also that's the only thing we ever learned about McCool, we'd ever guess.

Yeah, he speaks in other scenes, like, I think all the guys sort of with the exception of like the bully guy and Viga Mortenson, they're all like about the same amount of active in the scene, but the fact that they go out of their way to be like, Oh, our one black character, he and his family have experienced racism and that's all we're gonna tell you.

And that's what defines him.

Yeah.

Yeah, because you have like the Jim Cavizo character who's obsessed with tampons being near him.

Yeah, that's the one thing we learn about him.

Yeah, Cortes Cortez is the guy who like sabotages her and like doesn't help her over the wall.

And then Vigle Mortensen sees that and he's like, well, I better combat this sexism by threatening to rape a woman in front of everyone.

Yeah.

Yeah, what you're never gonna get in this movie.

And look, I don't expect Hollywood to give this kind of analysis to us.

I'm not saying right in nineteen ninety seven that Hollywood and Demi Moore we're gonna make the kind of movie I'm about to describe.

But you never get from this movie that the US military is inherently by design racist, sexist, transphobic, because it is an expression of capitalism by imperialism.

Right, these things are not designed to be inclusive or diverse, right like this is, this is this is a structure and a system that truly is not reformable, Jamie, you said it earlier, like this is a right wing movie, right like this is and and and the military, the US military is like a right wing conception, you know, a structure, and so yeah, you're you're never gonna get that.

You're gonna get.

What you're gonna get from this movie is a peak inside quite a glamorized individual experiences of individual discrimination.

You know.

But but but not like, oh, you know, the US military was racist during World War Two.

It's still racist.

It's still super sexist, and like wonder, wonder what's going on there, you know, But.

At the end of the day, it's the military we've got.

Yeah, and so I guess in a way it's really cool.

And at the end of the day they're shooting Arabs, so that's great.

You know.

That is like very much what the third act is telling yeaheah, yeah, it's this movie is evil.

Super Dark has an evil and there's there's so much so I wanted to We talked about this in a couple of different episodes.

I know we definitely talked about it in our Top Gun episode.

I believe we also talked about it way back in the day in our Independence Day episode and also Transformers because the American government, uh, the American military was involved in the making of all of these movies.

Now, I mean I I did not finish it, but I am bravely in the middle of watching a documentary called Operation Hollywood, how the Pentagon shapes and censors movies.

It's f I've heard of this, Yeah, it's on YouTube for free.

It's from It's a little dated because it's from I think it's from like the early to mid two thousands, but it is a sort of breakdown of exactly how this system works.

So for listeners who haven't heard of those other episodes or haven't heard us talk about it in a while, Basically, there is a specific job that is it's a guy named phil Essentially for a long time at this time, it was a guy named Philip Strubb who is the DoD's film liaison.

Is the name of the title, and so from nineteen eighty nine to twenty eighteen.

This was a job that basically this guy would go over scripts that wanted to have either bases or tanks, weapons, whatever it is, lent out to them at a lower rate in exchange for reflecting the American military in a positive way.

It's a propaganda unit, right, And to be clear, obviously there was a ton of military propaganda in cinema, like going back to its very existence, but it took them till the eighties to make this unit, and it is in direct response to Top Gun.

Top Gun came out in eighty six and famously there was a huge enlistment spike in response to its popularity, and that was when the DoD I guess realized, well, if this is going to be a trend in movies, we want to be directly involved with it.

And so that is why this department was created.

And it really does seem to just be this guy.

So every movie from eighty nine to twenty eighteen is going through him.

Now it goes through this guy named David Evans.

Very very little is known about these guys by design, I am sure, but there is there were a and again I cannot vouch for this website, but a website called spy culture dot com.

Pretty cool sounds git they in Spy Culture Nature.

They did leak some documents.

This is from a couple of years ago how the Pentagon rewrote Gi Jane and there are twenty five pages of documents that they were able to access that were between the office of Ridley Scott and Philip Strubb about this movie and with specificity what exactly the DoD wanted changed about this movie and what Ridley Scott's response is, what the concessions he did make and the concessions that he didn't.

And so the long and short of it is that this movie was not signed off by the DoD explicitly because it showed that there's sexism in the Navy, and so they were like, sorry, mister Scott, the premise is flawed.

The Navy isn't sexist.

There's no sexism here.

But that does not mean that Ridley Scott did not make significant concessions to this.

So I'm just going to read from this article what were the Pentagon's objections.

They didn't have any issue with the basic plot of a woman going through special Forces training, but they did have a problem with almost everything else.

One problem was that they didn't want the training identified as being for the Navy Seals, but wanted Scott to invent a fictional special unit that O'Neill was trying to get into.

So again that trend of like, let's not talk about exactly what we're doing because then people might think about it.

They didn't like O'Neill's boyfriend being her superior, so that was changed.

A scene between the CEO at the training base and O'Neil was considered too sexist, but Scott didn't want to change that.

O'Neill shaving her head was considered out of line, and Scott replied can be negotiated, which I don't think it was.

But the scene where the chief confronts O'Neil while she's naked and having a shower quote presents privacy policy issues quote unquote, which Scott agreed to change, which he didn't.

A scene where a seal urinates in a foxhole in front of O'Neil had the DoD conceding that it addressed quote issues related to the presence of women in frontline combat roles unquote, but quote carries no benefit to the US Navy unquote.

They also didn't like the sequence depicting survival, evasion, resistance escape training, which sees the masters chief imprisoning, waterboarding and beating up trainees, including the protagonist.

So that's it.

That's that's it movie.

So those are the reasons why the DD did not ultimately sign off on this movie.

Because one of the heroes waterboards another hero, however, that does not mean that significant.

So I guess the question is what is the agenda of this movie if not to get the support of the DoD, because it doesn't and Redley Scott does not end up like really getting the what I don't know exactly what the benefits are, but the ostensible benefits you would get.

So what the fuck is this movie trying to do?

Like it's baffling right right.

If it's not gonna bother to bend over backwards to get the Seal of approval from the Department of Defense, then but it's still like, but the military is awesome, and like, let's make this movie basically as recruitment propaganda to specifically encourage women question mark to join.

The military, join the military, and never ask a question like.

Yeah, yeah, no, the dissonance here the it's really it's sort of nonsensical in a lot of ways, plot wise, dialogue, and then the and then the kind of like politics of it are are are really nonsensical as well.

You know, what what what was released Scott's goal?

What are what were the what are the goals of the writers here?

What's what's Demi Moore's goal in being in being in this?

You know, it's like a lot of I think there's a lot to unpack there.

I can I know a little bit about that because I did not remember.

I don't know, I just did not remember the like cultural conversation around this movie.

But so apparently this was Demi Moore at a time in her career where like she was sort of waning in popularity.

She had just starred in a huge box office bomb called Strip.

Tease, which was notorious for being a horrible movie and people hated her performance, and.

So she was already I mean, and this is this is sort of, I guess, unfortunately, a more kind of classic tale of how actresses are disposable, and then to me more making the choice to star in a US imperialist narrative to try to undo that and rescue her career.

I think it seems like what her motivation here was was to kind of dig herself out of the hole that she'd been thrown into by strip teas and try to remarket herself as an action star by doing this.

But by all accounts, it didn't work.

And it seems it seems like, I mean, it's I don't like, this movie is fucking horrible and evil, and people were very like weirdly sexist to Demi Moore for having been in it, Like they blamed the movie sucking wholly on her.

She like won a Razzie, which feels like an over correction because it's like, there's so many issues with this movie.

I wouldn't put her performance in the top ten of those issues are agree.

I actually, okay, you know, let's take the script and the and the movie and and everything for what it is.

Her acting is not.

It's not the problem.

It's not the problem.

Yeah, it's not the problem that makes this movie land the way it lands, you know.

Right, And she's and like, so it's just from what I can tell, I mean that she she was just pretty like squarely escapegoaded for this movie's unpopularity, even though I will say at the time there were reviews of this movie that were like, uh, this movie is too jiggoistic for me to engage with.

So even in the nineties, like people, we're not just taking their slop, which was I don't know.

I guess I was pleasantly surprised that not everyone was just taking the slap.

But then you get into like, I don't know Ridley Scott.

I don't know.

He's made four thousand movies, he's five hundred years old, so can we get to the bottom of what his whole deal is?

Probably not.

He also made huse of Gucci, which I forgot.

Oh my gosh, he directed that.

That's hilarious.

Wow, he made the last dool at a house of Gucci.

Savior.

He's just an enigma, an enigma.

He's booked and busy.

He'll do anything.

But he I mean his other I mean, you could argue his most famous characters he directed the first Blade Runner, but he also I mean, his most famous character you could say is Ellen Ripley.

Yeah, right, I would, it's probably his I would agree with him.

And she is also in the American military, so like he like.

There's a soft spot in Ridley Scott's heart for us military story.

Yeah.

Yeah, like I don't know, and there has been a lot made of over the years of like wow, Ridley Scott for a male o tour has women as his protagonists pretty often, which is true.

I have not seen all of his movies, but they're you know, examples obviously Alien Thelma and Louise Prometheus, which I didn't see Gi Jane.

I know that the last duel centers around a woman house of Gucci.

Looks they're not all good, but it does happen with some frequency.

But it is always, i think, without fail, a white woman.

And also he doesn't write the scripts, so he's sort of just a gun for hire.

Clearly he has an interest in this, but it's a very particular kind of woman he has interest in.

Yeah.

Can I bring up a very short exchange in Gi Jane which I think almost completely encapsulates the nonsensical politics of this movie.

Please, When Jordan has survived the torture session, training session, Capture the Flag, when she's survived it and she's at the bar with the guys, she's done it, She's she's in you know, like this is this is almost like a scene with a victory lap where she's finally in.

The boys, you're gonna say, she goes to the bathroom.

Is this right, Jamie, Yep, she goes to the bathroom.

Oh and and after all of this has happened to her, she's very physically injured her face, like, she has black eyes, she has a huge like red mark on the side of her face.

She's obviously been beat up.

Right, she goes to the bathroom.

She's in the women's restroom.

She's at the sink, and another woman is in there who walks past her and said, after you know, looking at her and noticing what her face looks like, she walks past her and she says, ain't really my business, but I say, leave the bastard, which is like, so this woman has assumed that Demi Moore's character is in a situation of like intimate partner violence domestic violence, right, and that like her partner, a man has beat her up, and Demi Moore g Jane Jordan O'Neill turns and gives like a little bit of a smirk, like doesn't doesn't say anything in response.

The woman leaves the bathroom, but she kind of smirks, and I think, like, what we're supposed to interpret is like, oh, it wasn't that she's actually succeeded at something really big and accomplished something important, but like, actually, what did happen was that she was beat up by a man?

Yes, you know what I mean.

Yes, she was physically assaulted by men.

She is in an abusive relationship, yes, in which a lot of people would say she should leave.

Yeah.

So it's so it's so wild, it really is.

Well like and that yeah, and that lady is made to look ridiculous and it's like no, you actually unfortunately guessed it exactly.

But it's like, but this movie cannot I think it's like what is the stopping point?

Because it's like, well, if what is happening to dem More is abuse, then what's happening to all of the soldiers his abuse?

And you're like, yeah, yeah, what if it was there?

Yes, but again just like going right up to the line of like, but we cannot interrogate the system why I don't know.

I really don't know.

The other exchange that because and I feel like that that exchange and this one like really tells you what the movie is about.

For some reason, what is the okay in one of her many like would you say that to a woman?

Which there are times to ask that question very rarely.

When she does though, where it's like she's talking to her her nurse friend, you know, and she her nurse is like, why are you doing this?

And it is kind of gendered the way she's asking it.

I wish she was asking it more in the Royal why are we doing this?

Can we stop?

Right?

But she says why are you doing this?

And then to me, Moore says, would you ask a man the same question?

Blah blah blah?

And then like, and what do they say when you ask them that question?

And the nurse replies, they say, because I get to blow shit up.

And then instead of again, instead of interrogating that, Demi Moore's character says, well, there you go.

And then the scene is over and you're like, well, I guess that's what the fucking movie is about.

Yeah, because I get to blow shit up?

Does feel like sort of the moral of the story.

Yeah, yeah, and anything being a victim of any kind of violence is worth it so that you can blow shit up.

Yeah, this is like the moral of the story.

It's boggling.

We touched on this a bit already, but The one bit of commentary I suppose that the movie does seem to offer is that this senator woman who does this like gender integration into the military project, originally kind of under the guise of feminism and championing women, but she abandons all that to further her political career.

As soon as her own career is being threatened, she drops any advocacy she was doing.

Fuck that, I'm looking out for me and myself, which happens all the time in American politics.

I mean, look at fucking AOC pretending to be this progressive voice and then voting to keep sending money to Israel.

You know, shit like that.

But that commentary means basically nothing in a movie that's saying, well, yeah, sure politicians are correct, but the American military is right good.

Actually, that's I mean the under the underdog.

You're like, what do you mean you're talking about.

There's a scene, there's a scene earlier first first half of the movie for sure, maybe even first quarter of the movie, in which the guy in the highest command position at the base or training center where the trainees are at he's on the phone with the senator.

This is when the photos first go public.

You know, there's some sort of investigative reporter taking pictures with a telephoto lens, and these are getting leaked to the public, and all of a sudden, the public knows that a woman is in the training program for the Navy Seals.

So the senator calls the high ranking officer and is like, what the hell you know, this wasn't supposed to go public.

What's going on?

And the officer guy says, like, you know, a Senator, these photographers are using telephoto lenses.

Nothing I can do.

They're on a public highway now unless you want me to violate the Constitution and violate their civil liberties.

I can't do anything about that.

And you wouldn't want that, would you, Senator.

And it's like the milly the military cares about the Constitution.

They're they're they're doing ice detentions right now.

They're using military basis for for kidnapping migrants.

So yeah, no, that's that's yeah.

The the US military is in no way the good guy in in in any in any situation, and certainly not legally right, I.

Mean, and I think it is like a very a very like calculated thing to present the military as the good guys but not present the entire government as the good guys like they It's almost like it's a it's a like a lot of copaganda narratives.

It's like the there there are bad apples, and Anne Bancroft is a bad apple.

She is too craven and ambitious, certainly not the head of the military, especially if you go back to the beginning, and like she I think accurately points out that he was sex like wildly sexist at many points in his career.

But we're just meant to forget that because the moral of Demi Moore's story is that embracing masculinity and all of its horrors is good for you, and so it doesn't matter if even I don't know like the because the Ambrake bankrupt character is like it's almost frustrating that you're like, yeah, this is these these are real people that do this, but there is no one in the military who is presented as they would actually be, or if they are, it's like, and that's good and that's the job.

But when when this other character is craven and horrible, it's bad.

There's no rules, right exactly exactly.

It's I had a note that that the scenes in this movie.

We're moving at like breakneckt speed.

It's the scenes.

The scenes in this movie, I don't know if we want to talk about this.

Y'all are forty five seconds long, especially in the first half, and we're establishing so much information and we are moving at such an intense wild pace, and yeah, these are this is editorial choice for sure.

And it's always this like there are these like hard cuts to the next scene, and they're usually accompanied by this like really epic music when it's like nothing epic happened.

Like why are we like it's either epic music or like nineties adults contemporary.

It's so dissonant we should turn to the score.

Maybe, Yeah, because there are some.

Choices made about nineties women ballads in very key scenes.

Some of them I was laughing because they're just like it heard.

Yeah, there is a Chrissy Hind song where I was like that, and I also hate that, you know, it's like these people would have had to have agreed to have their song put in this.

I what I don't know, I guess is do you get to see the movie before you like decide if your song is able to be used.

I'm assuming no, but either way it's horrible.

That's an interesting question.

Yeah, whether whether these whether these women artists would have approved their song being used in the movie had they seen it before.

Yeah, I mean, even if you agree to the premise, it's still it's like either way.

Chrissy Hyde put two of her songs in the Girl Boss Navy Seals movie.

Yeah, so you know that's that's on her.

It was clockable, Yeah, it was clockable beforehand.

You're right, yeah, it does.

It does feel like the songs are weaponized.

Yes, but that was I mean, like not to defend anything here, but like the feminism, the Girl Boss feminism of the nineties, this movie is very emblematic of that, and that was what we were like, Yeah, this is feminism because we just weren't in ter I mean there are episodes, early episodes of the show I feel like on the.

Rock, Oh yeah, we were not asking the right questions.

Yeah, I was not saying good things on that episode, like being critical enough of the military industrial complex.

But yeah, this was this was very reflective of the times.

There are two things I do like about this movie.

One is the scene where Jordan and her boyfriend are in the bathtub together and then he gets out of the bathtub and she says, get your dick back in here.

Oh my god, I like, this movie's tried so hard, so hard.

Also that weird fart, what is that fart joke?

That the like, Oh, yeah, the hell was that?

That was a brain fart, like a soldier.

That was a brain fart, And I don't accept brain farts in you said something stupid and brain and I don't accept that in my office.

This this script was bad, but also the actor was not selling it at all or I was like, what the hell like, yeah, silly.

Ye didn't like that?

Did love?

Get your dick back in here?

And then there's also a part where the whatever the officers are screaming at and berating the trainees, you know, hurling insults at them, and one of the things they say is worm sperm and that's just that's that's funny.

That's good.

I'll go ahead and put that in my pocket.

Yeah, yeah, I'll say that again.

Yeah, thank you, Daniella.

Actually, but everything else was bad.

We also touched on this a bit, but the way to me Moore's body is again, this is not the worst offender of over sexualizing a woman's body and lear her.

But there are some weird choices made where, for example, lives that there's that little montage where she's by herself trying to get stronger doing push ups and pull ups and stuff, and it seems like she is not only not wearing a sports bra, but she's not wearing any bra and like no shade to not wearing a bra in general, but when you're doing like very hard physical exercise, like that doesn't make any sense, and it's it's very much seems like it's a well, we have to make sure we see her hard nips through this white tank top.

Yes, yeah, she's gotta be she's got to be sweaty, and we need to see the edges of her body in every respect because throughout the movie, you know the naked where she's naked in the shower with Vo Mortensen in in the space with her.

This is another thing like throughout we have to have these almost like sign posts, remember that Meanmore is hot, member Demi Moore is sexy, you know, like it's reminding the audience constantly like yeah, we're kind of saying a girl has a brain and a girl has a body that can accomplish things physically just like men.

But also girls are hot.

But we're but we're told at the very very big I mean it is by I guess who we're supposed to think it is the villain of the movie, even though she's tied for top villain with so many characters.

But we're told at the beginning of the movie like the limits to which because we're shown we're shown literally pictures of women who are not acceptable, and like Demi Moore is acceptable, and the camera is not fighting with the villain of the movie on that whatsoever.

Yeah, yeah, the movie isn't taking that up critically.

They're like, yeah, you're right, she is hot.

You do have to you do have to be hot to be respected.

You're like, oh, yeah, right.

And the Senator isn't even poised as the villain at first, and he thinks that she's advocating for women's rights for up until probably sixty percent of the way through the movie, and.

That's that's the bummer is like again, just like with the theme of this movie, that at the by the end of the movie, no one is advocating for women's rights, even disingenuously, like we've actually lost one person pretending to fight for women's rights, and then there's no one to fill that void, right, and.

Again, you could read this and I don't think this was the movie's intention at all, but you know, it could have been commentary that, yeah, there are women who you would think would be championing for women's rights, but they turn out to be upholding the same sexist ideals of the patriarchy, which is very much a thing.

There are many women like that, but the movie it just seems as like, yeah, she, like the only other woman in the movie is evil, and.

Well there's also missus nurse who oh right, missus Medick, who is weaponized in a way we haven't talked about yet, right where we didn't talk about the homophobia plot point, which is get into it seed that is planted and then and then it comes back.

How thrilling.

When the senator was outright transphobic and homophobic at the beginning, I was, unfortunately like it turned on tried to go into my nineteen ninety seven brain.

I'm like, I'm assuming that her transphobia is completely being played as a joke and audiences are not supposed to have a problem with it.

The homophobia, I was less sure about of like are we because she makes such a point of it to be like, I need to make sure you're a straight, normal lady.

You're getting dicked down right by a man with a penis.

Right, you better be telling someone to get you get your dick back in here every night.

And she's like, don't you worried?

I am.

I'm the most normal woman alive.

But that home again just like this brain dead ass movie where they bring back the homophobia because she goes to the beach with women and makes physical contact with the only woman she's met in the military.

Even like it's so obviously platonic.

I mean, but I do believe in like the nineties tabloid culture, this could be weaponized against someone successfully.

I definitely do believe that.

But again, it's just like the way that it plays out is like, it's not that that is something that should be pushed back on.

It's that because they also once again go out of their way to be like we're not asking and you don't have to tell us, but which I also know did happen.

But then her way of dealing with it, she's like, well, this sucks because I'm not queer and then she leaves.

It was like, that's not the only thing that sucks.

They're like, it's it's just this character is unable to conceive of anything outside of her personal predicament, and so any like social commentary that happens is because it is directly relevant to her.

Is why she's always asking would you ask a man this?

Because she's a woman and she's directly experiencing the prejudice.

But when it comes to literally anyone else, whether it be anyone who's not white, whether it be queer people, she's like, well, that sucks because I'm straight and white.

And then she like stops home and again and again with the fucking.

When she's like threatening and bankrupt, she's like, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna say something about this publicly.

I'm going to say this on MSNBC.

And it's like, great, do that.

But then when she gets what she wants, which is to like go commit a war crime, she shuts up, yeah and never says anything.

So it's like, yeah, she's awful.

Yeah, you know, I think this is like a really I think this is a really big theme of the movie, which is that like everything is about everything is about individual experiences and individual interactions to everybody's detriment.

Right, So this is about like her as an individual experiencing you know, discrimination in different ways and how she overcomes it.

But but the system and the rules and and nothing ever changes.

And I think I was really thinking about this in terms of what I think are a set of really disappointing ending scenes.

So the end of this movie is the ceremony on the beach, where you know, the people who have made it through the training are entered into Great, you made it into the Navy Seals.

Good job.

You know, I've just murdered dozens of brown people in Libya.

Yeah, that's right, and so handshakes all around, Congratulations soldier, here's your here's your ab Seals little metal thing whatever.

And then that cuts to Jordan, like in the locker room, kind of putting her stuff away.

She realizes that Master Chief Vigo Mortensen has put a book of poems in her locker or in her area and inserted another medal, like we can only assume is because she saved his life right right then, and then they make eye contact and they're alone, they're alone in the in this locker room.

They make eye contact kind of like the honorable nod at one another.

I see you, you see me, and then the movie is over.

And so there's a lot of questions I have, Like number one, the movie proves to you, tells you multiple times, there's no systemic change here, even as to some sort of like collective change even among her team of trainees that she just went through this.

That there's no ceremony around her getting this medal publicly, Like there's no like team at the end of this movie, the people that she's just been through all of this with.

There's no like celebratory or like, g I Jordan, we really actually you know, we did it together, you know kind of thing.

There's no there's nothing.

It ends with her in front of a locker like right, yeah, I don't know, does that make sense, Like it's just the lady.

It's just this lady, right.

You would think there would be like and now women are allowed to do the thing.

Yeah, but there's none of that.

Yeah, it's just like it is so hyper individualistic every step of the way.

To go back to the don't ask, don't tell of it all.

Oh.

Yeah, So after these like beach photos have been revealed and she's like, these accusations are bogus.

But she also says like she's like, are you suggesting that I'm a lesbian?

Well you better drop these malicious accusations.

As if she's also homophobic.

Yeah, well she is, Like I'm like she we have no reason to believe that she holds anything but firmly right wing believes based on everything we see her do and say or this whole movie.

True, Yeah, the homophobia here to the degree and I don't think it is.

But if there is some tiny interpretation that could be made that, like homophobia in the military is unjust and wrong, which I don't think the movie is doing right, it's still you are still supposed to kind of shrug your shoulders and understand why that would be wielded against her or like wielded against anybody, right, Like you're still supposed to be like you know, if maybe you're like, yeah, but being queer isn't wrong, right, It's still the lesson is still supposed to be.

But like, but but don't you see like you can't be publicly you know.

That's the That's the best that can be said about the homophobia here.

And what a nineteen ninety seven sentiment is like, hot white women can join the military, but you better be straight or you're not welcome here.

Like it's just the line is so clear.

Wait, I need to find this.

Oh yes, okay, this is from that same spy culture again.

If anyone knows about the legitimacy of the publication, Spy Culture.

Sounds like a scholarly journal to me.

Yeah, their logos very silly.

I'm like they got the document.

I don't know.

Okay, I have not vetted spy culture, but they had a behind the scenes fact that I did not see anywhere else.

So, continuing on this back and forth between Ridley Scott and the DoD, Scott agreed to almost all the changes requested, but even after he submitted a heavily altered script, the DOOD still said no.

This led to an amusing but not unprecedented incident where Demi Moore called up the White House and asked to talk to press it in Clinton to try to get the decision overturned.

The DoD file on Gi Jane includes several press cuttings about this, all of which makes sexy jokes.

Yeah.

So, also, Demi Moore called one of our pedophile presidents to try to get her imperialism movie made as intended.

You're just like and the White House was probably like lady, you just did strip teas and it sucked.

Like, you know, Demi Moore in ninety seven doesn't have social or political capital at the White House, I.

Mean, and unfortunately that is like reflected.

I mean it all because it sucks because like Demi Moore is willingly participating in this imperialist slop.

Yeah, and also she is kind of treated like shit a lot.

Yeah, you're just getting demeaned left and right.

Yeah.

Does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?

I'm looking at me notes, but don't want to be batting for the other side.

They will eat corn flakes out of your skull.

Oh your boyfriend telling you we don't have to talk about that.

I just I took notes on like the wildest lines.

You know, there are some lines that are just straight up weird, like just yeah, the brain fart thing, the corn flake skull, like get your dick back in here.

Worm sperm or sperm.

At least we had worm sperm.

This movie gave us worm sperm and nothing else.

I'm grateful.

Yeah, that's all I had this movie does pass the Bechdel test, as we said at the beginning of the episode, but again at what cost.

Yeah, this is this is a great example of the reason why it was to this day Alison Bechdel's like, that was not how I intended it for it to be used, right.

Yes, as far as our nipple scale though, where we rate the movie based on a scale of zero to five nipples examining it through yes, hard visible nipples through your white tank top, based on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens.

Uh.

I think maybe if I had watched this movie ten years ago, I would have given it like two nipples.

Today I'm giving it zero nipples because it really is just a propaganda tool for American imperialism and American military industrial complex, and those are the most evil entities imaginable.

So I give it zero nipples.

If I did have to give it some, I'll give one foot rot or whatever Jordan gets diagnosed with on her foot.

I can why bring foot rot into it.

I'm not trying to cut to the foot rot, like, yeah, one foot rot to the line worm sperm, but zero nipples.

Yeah, I'm also zero this.

I'm like I'm glad that this movie was not successful in doing what it wanted to do.

I would recommend, I mean, I'm going to when we got off this callm to keep watching that documentary because I think that that's like something that should be talked about a lot off.

Like how absolutely complicit so many filmmakers, and now I think even more so video game creators are in working with the American military.

And how yeah, and how so much of this I mean, this specific movie is clearly targeting women, but how so much of this entertainment targets children so that when the recruiters come around, they have already been, you know, fully encouraged to view fighting for an imperial force as normal and good and righteous and all this stuff.

So yeah, no, no, no nipples.

It sucked.

Yeah, zero nipples for sure from me.

Love it when we're all in agreement, lehann And thank you so much for joining us.

It was a pleasure.

This was really fun.

Thanks for having me.

Oh my gosh, come back anytime.

Please tell us about your podcasts, tell us where people can check them out, et cetera.

Sure, so wherever you get your podcasts, both of these.

My podcast five to four is a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.

We talk about discuss present basically left critique of the Supreme Court, critique of the conservative legal movement.

You know, there's six fascists up there right now.

There's a lot to talk about.

So check out five to four for all the Supreme Court depression news.

And then and then I'm also on a podcast called Popular Cradle, which is a little bit newer, and Popular Cradle is a podcast about Palestine from here in the far diaspora.

I am on that podcast with two Palestinian organizers, community organizers, and we're talking about the Palestinian liberation movement, the history of Palestinian resistance, what's going on right now, gesturing at everything, and more.

So, Yeah, you can check both of those out wherever you get podcasts.

You can follow me on Blue Sky at Awa Rhiannon AA's a y w a Rhiannon.

And you can check out our Patreon four five to four at patreon dot com Slash five four pod all spelled.

Out excellent, Thank you again, come back anytime.

Thank you.

Death to g I Jane, Sorry death death, death to g I Jane.

So I was thinking of the Wendy Williams, the Wendy Volliumes meme.

Oh Yeah, you can follow our our Patreon as well aka Patreon at patreon dot com.

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