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

It's the patriarchy.

Zephyn bast start changing with the Bechdel Cast.

Hello, and welcome to Bad Bechdel Cast.

I'm bad, Caitlin.

And I'm bad Jamie.

And this is our podcast.

That's not I was.

This is our bad podcast.

This is this is our good podcast about bad movies about bad well you know, not every week, but.

Uh, but a lot of theme.

So this is our podcast where we take a look at your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for a discussion.

Which is going to be hilarious this week because I think the main interaction between women in this movie is lorlike Gilmore stealing Grandma's socks.

I think that that is that is about the beginning, middle, and end, but we'll talk about it.

It is the Bad Santa episode.

I think, continuing the trend on the show recently of now that we've been around for almost ten years, like movies that you would think we would have covered by now, but for whatever reason, it never quite wins in a poll.

Whatever it is, we are covering Bad Santa.

But first, Caitlin, what the hell is the Bechdel Test?

So we can be certain this movie doesn't pass it, which it.

Doesn't, certainly.

It is a media metric created by our very best friend in the whole wide world, Alison Bechdel.

We've met her twice.

Yeah, different versions of the test.

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

Do they speak to each other?

And is the conversation about something other than a man?

And then we also like it when it's a narratively meaningful conversation and not just throw away dialogue.

Which I don't even think.

The saw the SoC thing is kind of just a side gag that doesn't really serve a narrative purpose, does it?

I would say no, A lot of things in this movie don't serve a narrative purpose.

It's very a vibes it's a vibes based film.

But we so to bring on Bad Santa.

We have an incredible guest who is an expert in this field, not in being Bad Santa, but in holiday movies specifically, so let's get him in here.

Absolutely.

He's a film critic, podcast host, and author of the book Have Yourself a Movie, Little Christmas.

It's Alonso de Aldi.

Hello, welcome, Thank you for having me.

I once did a Comic Con panel with Alison Bechdel.

Actually, oh, oh gosh, so she's your best friend too, that's how that works.

Yes, yeah, you've spent probably a comparable amount of time the exactly we love her here obviously.

Yes, I I'm so curious to hear about the book and updating the book.

But to ask you a question I'm sure everyone does all the time.

What is your favorite holiday movie?

Oh?

Man, it's hard for me to pick one.

I mean, I think it's sort of inescapably.

You know, It's a Wonderful Life is a movie that has become kind of a cornerstone of American cinema in general.

That is also, you know, a Christmas movie.

But so much of it depends on kind of what mood I'm in, Like if you look at the book, you know, I've got chapters about tearjerkers and about you know, horror movies and action films, So it sort of depends on you know, I think what's great about the idea of Christmas movies is that whatever you're in the mood for and whatever kind of film flows your boat, you will find something that dovetails with you know, Christmas.

It's true.

It is such as you were saying that, I'm like, I actually don't.

I had to think for a second to figure out my answer to that question.

Caitlin, do you know what your favorite holiday movie is?

Yes?

I have two.

Muppet Christmas Carol.

That's tied for my first one too.

Yeah, and Batman Returns.

Right.

Oh, okay, I think's Muppet Christmas Carol.

And I don't know if this is an embarrassing one or not, but I love Jim Carrey Grinch.

I love it.

No, that's that's great.

That's a good Okay, Okay, I'm sensing a tepid reception and the chat that's fun.

That's fun.

Not my favorite.

It's hitting twenty five this year and they're actually doing I think it's going to be back in theaters and they're putting out like a four K.

It's a whole thing.

We saw it in theaters last year as well.

I think like at the end of the day that movie came out when I was seven, and that is probably why I still love it so much.

We have a recurring thing on Breakfast all Day called was it great?

Or were you eight?

Very much what this wants, which, weirdly, I think comes into play for a lot of people with the movie we were talking about today, Bad Santa.

But before we get there, Alansa, what was it like revising the book and the re release?

Tell us more about it?

Well, you know, it's funny.

I think if you have like a website or a podcast, you can constantly be updating it and bringing it, you know, up to speed.

But once you've written a book, it's just dunk.

It's there, you know, and it's sitting there and there's nothing you can do to change it.

So pretty much from the moment the first edition came out back in twenty ten, I've been thinking in my head, Oh, I got to add this.

I want to add this.

I hope I can do this again so I can put in these other movies, and not just the many new films that have opened since twenty ten.

But I'm constantly finding things that I had missed before, Like thanks to TCM, I was introduced to the whole world of Christmas Noir, which I had just completely missed the boat on.

So now I've got films like Blast of Silence and Cash on Demand.

You know, I got to circle back and put in So yeah, it was It was a treat because it sort of allowed the book to be a living document again that I could sort of update and talk about certain things, and you know, never mentioned the movie about the boy Wizard again and you know, all of that stuff to kind of bring it to twenty twenty five.

Amazing.

Oh that is amazing.

Thank you for Like the second you said that sub genre, You're like, yeah, of course that exists, but occurred to me.

I'm excited to get a copy of the book.

I'm stoked.

Oh, thank you.

And we come to this place today for magic, and by that I mean a discussion of the two thousand and three movie Bad Santa, which I think is I do feel like Caitlin.

Over the years we have covered truly a staggering amount of movies that came out in the year two thousand and three.

Again, I think probably just a youth bias of the time.

Alonza.

We'll start with you, what is your history with the movie Bad Santa?

And I guess at this point, the Bad Santa cinematic universe.

Yeah, Weirdly, I can't remember if I saw it in theaters or not.

Surely I must have, if only because I was a huge fan of Ghost World, which was Terry's Waggoff's previous film, which is a total Bechdel Test passer.

I want to say it is as a non expert, but I don't remember vividly seeing it, but I know it was certainly when I when I wrote the book the first time around it it was one that I knew had to go in there.

And it's a film that I appreciate, and I get why people like it, and I get why people need that kind of Christmas movie in their diet in December, if they're just like oding on sugar plums and they need a little, you know, a little saltiness in there.

I get the role that it plays in a balanced, you know, holiday diet.

And I remember kind of not hating Bad Santa two as much as most people did.

Not that I'm not going to die on the hill of that movie, but I was kinder to it, I think than a lot of other critics were.

But generally speaking, these have been ones where there are a lot of films in the book that was like, I knew I had to include them because they have a following, because they have spawned you know, Christmas tree ornaments, and you know they get screened every year, you know your National Lampoon, Christmas vacations.

You know.

I was way too old for the home alone phenomenon.

I was in my twenties when the first one came out, so I don't have the attachment to it, to the people who were you know, seven when it came out have but you know, I get why they're there.

I get why people love them.

And this is in that category of like if you like Bad Santa, I get it.

I understand what it's bringing to you every December.

Right, it is definitely I guess I'm like, where would I put I would put this in the same category as National landpun.

I think I would also include Eight Crazy Nights in like the Edge Lord Christmas Cannon that this is firmly a part.

Of Yeah, yeah, Winter Holiday, Like Edge Lord, highly problematic movie or subgenre.

So like a lot of broad comedies, it doesn't age particularly well.

Right, I mean, weirdly a Christmas story.

When it first came out in nine eighty three was designed to be kind of an anti Christmas Christmas movie.

It was designed to poke holes in nostalgia and the idea of looking back on this sort of rosy Norman Rockwell past and sort of showing that it was actually a lot messier than we give it credit for.

But over the years that movie has it's self become this object of nostalgia that I think it's kind of dulled the original intent of being sort of spiky.

And I mean, I, as a self proclaimed grne, like the idea of a movie that subverts the notion that Christmas is this sweet, joyous time where everything is nice and wonderful, Like I don't like super saccerin holiday movies typically, so something like Bad Santa.

In theory, you should be the target Audioce is.

More aligned with what I would like.

But just I guess to say my history with this movie, I saw it around the time it came out, and I hated it then and I hate it now.

I did not think it was funny.

I don't like the humor of this movie at all, for the same reason back then as I do like that's how problematic so many of the jokes are in this movie that even in two thousand and four or whenever I saw it, I was like, you can't say that, so so I really don't care for this movie.

What about you, Jamie, what's your relationship with it?

I'd never seen it before.

I yeah, I'm also coming in as a hater.

But it's a rich text.

It is a rich text that we and there is I think a lot of like production information about this movie that I was kind of interested in that Like, once I learned it, I was like, oh, I guess this is like a worse Coen Brothers premise, Like if the Coen Brothers had actually written this movie, it could have maybe been not quite what it is, but like it was almost so many different movies that I found learning about the production history interesting.

You know, is it shocking to find out the Weinsteins have fingerprints on this?

Certainly not.

But I remember, I mean I was too young to see it when it came out, But I also remember I remember them marketing very clearly because I was not too young to be watching Gilmore Girls, which I was very much watching in two thousand and three, and all of the children and their mothers watching Gilmore Girls.

It was kind of a scandalous thing that Laura, like Gilmore is in Bad Santa licking Billy Bob Thornton on TV, and you're like, that's an upstanding citizen of Stars Harlow, Connecticut.

Like she would not be caught dead saying fuck me Santa in a car.

But that's the range that Lauren Graham has.

I love Lauren Graham does exactly what would Rory Rory would be just Rory's home.

You have to imagine, like, especially because her character exists in this like fuck void, as many women in broad comedies do that, I feel like you can be like, this is like Laura, like Gilmore on an absolute bender like Rory's home studying and she's fucking Santa.

I just I understand now why Lauren Graham did this at this point in her career to be like, hey, I'm not just Laura like Gilmore, I can also fuck Santa.

I also understand why I have sounded like a good idea to do this movie at the time, and it was successful, so you know, you could argue, and you know Bernie Mac smoking a cigarette and mixing a laxative.

I was laughing.

I wasn't laughing very much, but I was laughing.

Then, Yeah, I did not like the movie.

I did not, but I am interested to talk about it because it is like, it's an interesting subgenre that I like and I wish like I think there is like a version of this movie I would like or this premise.

I guess there's a thing we get into with comedies of I think, certainly in this era.

And yeah, I think Edge Lord is a fair descriptor, at least in terms of the audience, where I think that maybe people set out to portray behavior that was appalling and audiences were like, ooh yeah, like I'm down for this, Like the generations of dudes who had to be explained that Swingers was not a how to, that Swingers was not asked, but they took it that way anyway.

And I think it's telling that the Cherry's Wygoff director's cut of this movie is the shortest of all the cuts, and it's the cut that makes the Billy Bob Thornton's character the least appealing, like everything, where he's sort of nice to the kid he takes out, so he is not interested in making his protagonist like appealing to the audience or somebody that we root for or empathize with.

And but so I mean, yeah, I think you're right.

A lot of it is on paper, and it's in the film, and it's in the text, and we have to deal with that.

But I think there is also that thing where the audience decides, oh, hey, you know Freddy Krueger, he's so funny, you know, like that they they imbue a character who is to be a hero with heroic tendencies because they feel like it.

Yeah, I was.

That was another thing that I was really interested to talk about with you both, is how wildly different the various cuts of this movie seem to be.

I watched a bad Er Santa, which I think is the longest version of this movie.

Yes, and that is the version that somehow the movie Joker is going to become relevant in a moment because Todd Phillips was brought in to direct a couple of scenes Terry's Wygoff.

So Terry's Wygoff.

We've covered ghost World on the show.

You can go to that episode.

We've got takes on ghost World.

But yeah, like I mean, he directs infrequently, and so it is it is kind of I didn't know he had directed this, and I was like, Wow, this really doesn't seem like the movie he directs, and it's clear that, like everyone had a slightly different creative vision here, like Terry's Wygoff wants to make a movie about a despicable person and does not want you to feel you know, bad for him, which I think is like most clearly illustrated by basically cutting out the relationship between him and young Roger his young Ward Thurman.

Oh my god, wait did someone calls him Roger?

Roger is Thurman's dad?

Oh okay, see this okay, and also a monologue at the beginning of the movie.

I don't think is in this wygof cut that basically gives you a framework for why bad Santa is the way he is, where it implies that he had an abusive upbringing and you know, you're given a framework that doesn't justify the behavior but contextualizes it.

Terry's Wygoff has no interest in that.

The theatrical cut, and then even more so, the longer cut, has more of an interest in doing what you know, like commercial movies do, which is give him a redemption arc, give him a you know, I gotta get this selevant to this little kid then blah blah blah, and you know, and I honestly don't know which version of it I that.

I couldn't really decide.

I'm like, I don't really want a redemption narrative for this guy, but I also like it's you know, zwygov Has will disagree, but I don't like watching a terrible person for eighty five uninterrupted minutes, nor I So I don't know.

It's a It's a sticky wicket this one.

It really is.

And we'll get into it, but first let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap.

We're back, ho ho hoick.

Quick question before we get into the recap.

Do we think that John Ritter would want this movie to be dedicated to him?

Oh?

Rip.

I love John Ritter, and I understand why it was dedicated to him, it's his last film appearance.

But I'm like, I don't know.

I don't know if I would be like, yeah, slap my name at the end.

I want to be forever associated with this.

Well in the same way that Clorus Leachman is in this movie but uncredited, and I have to imagine it's because she's like I don't want my name.

Yeah, she's like, oh, I'm so sorry.

I thought I was in a Cohen Brothers movie.

I didn't.

I feel like that's how a lot of these people get involved because it's a great cast, and some people think that they're going to be in a Terry's Wygoff movie.

That's going to be allowed to be a Terry's Wygoff movie.

Some people think they're in a Cohen Brothers movie, and kind of like they're in a Weinstein Brothers movie, which is the worst case scenario.

I think there's an onion piece that's written from the point of view of somebody who had an episode of Ironica's Closet dedicated to them.

So yeah, I think it's just one of those things where you never know when you're gonna go.

So like any any project could be your last.

That's a really that's a very harsh reality because I mean John Ritter was also I mean he was he was in his fifties.

I feel like he, you know, if he knew he was living on borrow time, this maybe would not have been the one, but who knows, We'll never know.

In any case, here's the recap of the movie.

So we meet Willie played by Billy Bob Thornton.

He works as a mall Santa, but he's not very good at his job.

You might even say he's a bad Santa because he's mean to children.

He gets drunk on the job, he pisses himself.

He also works with Marcus played by Tony Cox, who is a little person who dresses up as an elf.

And then we get a reveal that Willy and Marcus break into the mall after hours and that their Santa slash Elf jobs are just a cover so that they can steal stuff on Christmas Eve, where Marcus takes a bunch of merchandise.

Willy is a safe cracker by trade and he steals a bunch of cash from the safe and we find out they've been doing this every Christmas Eve for the past seven or so years.

And after they successfully pull off this heist, they go out to celebrate and Willie contemplates trying to get his life together.

He's like, oh, maybe I'll stop drinking, maybe I'll open up business and settle down and get married.

But he's forgetting that he's a bad Santa.

And eleven months pass of him being a drunken degenerate.

Bad off season Santa.

Yeah, he's bad off season and off season.

It is very I mean, he's a bad dude.

But this man is just he's just so actively in despair.

From frame one where you're just like it's I'm worried about him.

I'm thinking of him like an uncle.

There's a John Cassavetti's version of this movie where it's just about a guy who's an alcoholic who also is a Santa you know, yeah.

Yeah, I mean it seems like that sounds like it's closer to what Terry's Waygoff wanted and they're like, oh no, we have to give him.

He needs to be a father by the end of the movie.

Like does he well also to speak to like the Coen Brothers conceit of it all because originally the Coen Brothers developed the concept for this movie, and then they brought on another writing team to write the script, but the Coen Brothers were still involved to some degree in the development of the script.

It seems like they added some crass jokes seemingly not too far from what ends up in the movie, and then the Coen Brothers stay attached as executive producers, but any of the cleverness and tact that I think usually appears in a movie that the Coen Brothers are involved with, is mostly absent from Bad Santa.

But like if this was maybe like The Big Lebowski but the dude Moonlight says as Santa Claus or something like that.

So if it's like a character like the dude who is way more redeemable than this Willy character, like that's a movie I can get behind.

But Willy is so I guess intentionally despicable, but also just by virtue of like having him be the protagonist, and like this is the character we're following and laughing at.

We're laughing at all the joke he says, and like so many people love this movie for the wrong reasons, like you were saying, Alonzo.

So like it's just it's so hard to get behind for me.

Yeah.

But anyway, So about a year passes and then Willie gets a call from Marcus.

It's that time of year again, and they show up at a department store in Phoenix, Arizona, in their Santa and Elf costumes.

Willy is once again horrible at his job.

He's drunk, he's cruel to the children, he swears in front of his boss played by John Ritter, who goes to the security manager of the store, Bernie Mack, and asks him to keep an eye on Willie.

Bernie Mack is funny in everything.

Yes, he's just never not amazing.

I know, he's too good for this movie.

Yeah.

Then we meet a child named Thurman Merman.

Although we won't learn his name for a really long time.

It's so it's I clocked it at least in the Batter Santa cut.

It's thirty two minutes in where you get a name for this character, which doesn't feel like a strategic reveal.

It just I kept writing down child question mark because it just takes a really long time to learn what his name is.

Well, the idea is that Willie doesn't bother to find out his name for we know, and then finally he's like toward the end of the movie, he's looking at Thurman's report card and he's like, Thurman, who is that?

Is that you?

Merman?

Yeah, so we don't really know what his name is for a long time, but I'll call him Thurman because that's his name.

He's played by Brett Kelly.

Who reprises the role in Bad Santa too, and also has a really funny paragraph in his Wikipedia page I would like to share.

Oh please, I don't know who has it in for this guy and included this on his Wikipedia page.

He was a contestant on the October twenty third, twenty twenty four episode of Jeopardy.

He ended Double Jeopardy with zero dollars, thus did not qualify for Final Jeopardy and therefore finished in third place.

Someone hates this guy?

Why would you put that on that?

It is such a short Wikipedia page, and that's one of the things I have.

I have a nice Brett Kelly thing to add to.

So he appears in another Christmas comedy that I like quite a bit called Unaccompanied Minors.

Oh yes, Paul fig directed, and Lewis Black plays the sort of harried airport manager in that movie.

And he actually said, he goes, I took the movie because I wanted to work with the kid from Bad Santa.

Oh that's really sweet.

So you actually told him on set, Yeah, you're the reason I'm here, kid, I wanted to work with you.

So you know, that's that's a Brett Kelly positive.

True, That's that must have been so exciting.

God, I mean, it's he he's adorable in this movie, He's not, you know, he's he's just a boy.

I know.

And he is frequently bullied by other kids by.

Literally like bullied dot like jpeg, like like he's just some.

Kid, yeah bully TM.

He's also bullied by Willie when Thurman comes into Santa's workshop at the department store and sits on Willy's lap, and Thurman asks him a bunch of questions about being Santa because he thinks that Willy is the real Santa Claus and is enamored by him.

Later that night, Willie meets a bartender named Sue I think, but that's the Lauren Graham character, and she has a Santa kink, so she buys him a few drinks and then has sex with him in his car in the parking.

Fuck me Santa, Fuck me Santa, Fuck me Santa.

Correct, and then we are introduced to for the little screen time she has.

All of it is just completely like irrational.

I'm so curious at what point this love story became like I'm curious if this is a studio mandated romance, because it just wasn't.

I don't know, like her whole thing where it's like, okay, it's one thing to have a Santa cank, Fine, okay, But then at the end she's like, I like you, I think you're You're like, no, you don't.

Come on, what do you like about him?

He is the most despicable person imaginable.

He's mean, any stinks.

Yeah, anyways, I know, we'll talk about it.

But so they have sex in the car, and then right after this, a man who was at the bar aggressively approaches Willie.

And it's unclear exactly what is going on here, but we do know that it's homophobic.

You're like, oh, we we see this person again.

No, no, no, we will not see this person again.

He's here to be a I don't know plot device.

Yeah, and so he attacks Willie, but Thurman intervenes and kind of saves Willy.

So he gives Thurman a ride home, where he lives in a big house with his grandma played by Chloris Leachman, who seems completely oblivious to her surroundings.

And Thurman again is incredibly naive and he still thinks Willy is the real Santa Claus.

So Willi takes advantage of this situation and steals money and a car from them, and Thurman's just like, whatever you need, Santa.

Then Willy continues to be bad Santa.

He has sex with a woman in the dressing room at work, and he gets caught by John Ritter, but he manages to weasel his way out of getting fired.

Then he thinks maybe a cop is snoop around his motel room, and he worries that the police are onto him and Marcus for their robberies.

I did think it was very funny.

I don't know if this was a joke or just like how the scene ended up.

But he's like loudly making a phone call about this like basically hotel.

He's like, hey, I think they're onto us, yeah, which is just like, ah, movies are fun.

Also, Octavia Spencer's in this scene and we're like.

Oh, they really be the Octavier.

The early roles of Octavia Spencer like she deserves.

Peace, seven pounds, seven pounds.

It's gracious.

And then she came back for the sequel and we're just like, she's too nice.

She's too nice.

I did watch the sequel to prep for this.

Okay, yes, and thoughts.

I have regrets.

I'll share my thoughts when we get to the discussion.

But okay, I did not watch.

I did not watch the sequel.

Also, by the way, speaking of Gilmore Girls, Alex Borstein pops up in here as well, yes.

Which also feels like a two thousand and three comedy requisite, like she has to be there and I'm always happy to see her.

This is like peak mad TV era.

Yeah, yeah, it's Lois for crying out loud.

I'm always happy to see her.

Okay.

So Willy's like, oh no, the cops are onto us.

So he decides to go back to Thurman's house and hide out there for a while, and Thurman is all too happy about this.

He keeps asking more questions about Santa and the North Pole and the reindeer and everything else.

And sometimes it seems like Willy and Thurman are hanging out because they're like playing checkers and stuff.

But mostly Willy just treats Thurman horribly and has Lauren Graham's character over for sex in one of.

I think the most baffling seeds.

It just I don't know the Lauren Graham character, like you have you gotta laugh or what can you do?

But this scene where we've established because she is a woman.

She loves kids and she wants kids, and you know, true of a lot of women, but I think it's a default mode for women in movies.

You know, she loves kids, but she's totally fine with being caught having sex in front of a kid.

Does not make any effort to move, She just sort of passively watches the conversation as if the writer for baby It's just it just pisses me.

And then at the end she's like, Wow, he's such a great kid.

I was like, what is this?

What is this?

Does she like kids or not?

She also sees Willie be horrible too, thermin and says.

Nothing, and she's like, I can fix him, question Mark.

But ultimately she like, you know, the reasons that Willy changes, at least in the theatrical cut of this movie, have little to nothing to do with her.

They have almost everything to do with Thurman Merman, which I'm not upset about, but like, also, you're just like, what is the function of this character other than this is a comedy and therefore we need a hot woman in it.

Right.

I should have mentioned also that I believe the version that I watched and am doing the recap on is the theatrical cut.

Okay, so anyway, we see Willy and Thurman hanging out.

There's also a scene where Thurman badly cuts his hand and Willy kind of helps him and kind of shows a little concern and maybe Willy is growing and changing question mark.

He even cooks dinner for Thurman and his grandmother.

But then Thurman gets beaten up by his bullies and he goes to Willy for help, and Willy's like, well, what do you want me to do about it?

Leave me alone?

So I guess he still has some growing and learning to do.

Meanwhile, John Richard has asked Bernie Mack if he can help him get Willy fired.

So Bernie Mack starts doing some digging on Willie and Marcus, and he tells John Ritter's character that their track record is clean, but he knows actually that they are thieves, and he approaches Willy and Marcus to blackmail them and be like, give me half and I won't turn you in.

See, And now it's feeling like a Coen Brothers movie again.

Right right, And they have no choice but to agree to this.

The next day, Willie shows up to work as Santa Drunker than ever he makes a scene.

It seems like he has hit rock bottom, especially when he attempts suicide.

But then Thurman comes in and Willy sees that his face is bruised, so Willy decides not to end his life, and instead he beats up the children who have been bullying Thurman because Willy is feeling parental towards Thurman now or something.

So now Willie feels like he has helped Thurman and he feels good about himself, and he gets Marcus to help him teach Thurman how to defend himself, and so he's like doing all of these what he thinks are nice gestures.

And then a little while later, Thurman gives Willie the Christmas present he made for him, a wooden pickle, which is how he cut his hand in the previous scene.

Literally gives a phallic item with his blood in it, and you're like, huh, okay, wow, the themes are so subtle.

I don't know, but.

Willy seems really touched by this.

Yeah.

Then Thurman reveals that he has not received any presence from Santa for the past couple years, and he thinks maybe it's because he's a no good loser and Willy is like, well, look kid, I'm not Santa.

In fact, there is no Santa, and Thurman is like, well, I know that.

I just thought maybe you'd want to give me a present because we're friends.

And Willy's like, oh damn so true.

And you can tell that same was added in because shortly after Thurban just goes back to calling him Santa and trading him like he's real Santa.

Right then, Willy has Lauren Graham's character over to spend Christmas eve Day with him and Thurman and they do lots of Christmas e things.

Meanwhile, Marcus and his girlfriend who we see occasionally, but don't worry, we won't learn anything about.

Her for your wife, I'm not sure.

Yeah, some Romanta partner.

I also there was a shot in at least I think this might differ tween cuts.

There's a shot that I was like, I guess confused by in the longer in Batter Santa, where I thought she was gonna like egg on my face.

I thought she's gonna do something that was her idea, but it turned out I was wrong.

But there there is a scene where you know they're in the mal cafeteria and Tony Cox calls Bad Santa a scumbag.

His girlfriend is there, and then she's like taking notes as Billy Bob Thornton is making a confession about the details of what's being done, and I was like, is she gonna blackmail him?

Is she gonna?

Is she gonna, you know, go off on her own and do something?

But then she doesn't, so never mind, So never mind she does A woman almost had an idea, but then it was like, oh wait, I misunderstood.

No note, that would never happen in a movie, Jamie.

Sorry.

So Marcus and his partner killed Bernie mack by run.

I did not see that come over with their van kind of signs style that I associate that kind of death was signed.

Yes, absolutely, yeah, And I guess the idea is that they won't have to give him half of whatever they steal.

And then Marcus and Willie get to work on their usual robbing the department store on Christmas Eve, and Willie cracks the safe and then he's like, oh wait, one last thing, and he grabs the stuffed elephant toy that Thurman mentioned he wanted.

But then Marcus pulls a gun on Willie.

The heel turn of Marcus is so like this ten minutes is a journey for I was like, this is not who I understood this man to be.

Wow.

Yeah, it's almost like the screenwriting is not very.

Good, written by forty five different people.

Yeah, kind of fun, but.

But Willy's like, I can't count on you anymore.

You're drunk and unreliable Willie.

And then he's about to shoot him and take all the money for himself, but then a bunch of deis X security guards pop out and Willie manages to get away, and he's hell bent on giving Thurman the Christmas gift, so he goes back to Thurman's house with the stuffed elephant, but the cops are chasing him and they shoot Willy on the stoop of the house, but Willy survives somehow, even though he had like eight bullet wounds.

Does he die in this Terry's wyof cut?

I oh, I don't think he dies on any of them, but it's been a while since I've seen it, so don't quote me on that.

Interesting.

It would be wild if he died in that cut.

And then there's still somehow a sequel where he's.

Good point.

Well, Terry's Wagoff also had nothing to do with the sequel, and he also says that they kind of wait, he's something that was kind of bitchy that I thought was funny in a piece I read it.

He said something like I will not be seeing it, the best of luck to all involved, kind of thing.

He said, I'd like to see the sequel Shore.

So far, I've only seen the trailer.

Tony Cox looks hilarious in it.

The rest not so promising, but I wish of luck.

I was like, wow, bitchy it well, and he had to sorry, just real quick.

He had to fight for Tony Cox.

The Wine scenes did not they were.

They wanted like Mickey Rourke or something, you know, to play that role.

So they didn't.

They didn't appreciate the Tony Cox casting.

They really didn't appreciate the Brett Kelly casting.

They wanted like a sort of Zach Efferny Disney kid, and so that they actually came up with a kid who looks like a genuine, you know, kid on kind of nerd.

Yeah, a regular looking kid.

Uh, you know.

These were not the not the movie the Wine Scenes had in mind, and they obviously wanted something softer and kinder and gentler, which is why I did not want to give them.

It's interesting because it feels like, yeah, this is uh.

I always find like production notes on movies like this interesting, where it's like there's so many cooks in the kitchen and everyone wants something that is like pretty wildly different, and so it ends up so it ends up being like a little bit of all of it, and it just is is a weird thing, and you're just like, well, what version of this?

So you just have to be like, what version of this movie would I have liked to see?

Choose your adventure?

Yeah, to go back to the sequel really quick.

That movie was directed by Mark Waters of Mister Mengl Mean Girl's Fame, Freaky Friday Fame, another like huge departure from what he normally does, Like why are all these guys directing bad Santa movies when they had previously done like movies about teen girls, Like.

Well, I think it's it's weird, it's a pivot.

It's not my least favorite pivot.

I feel like my least favorite pivot was like twenty nineteen ish, when every guy who directed a broad comedy like an offensive broad comedy of the early two thousands was like I'm making a me too movie and I was like, no, you're not.

Why are we letting you do that?

Well, I remember in the two thousands it was a definite like queer Indie to mainstream teen girl pipeline, Like you know, Jim Fall went from Trick to the Lizzie McGuire movie, and you know, Tommy o'hager did get over it, and the guy who did kissing Jessica Stein did like, you know, legally Blonde two.

Like that was that was the segue.

It's interesting, Yeah, like these bizarro pipelines that you're like, I guess it made sense to them.

I don't know really well in the same way that like, for at least, I feel like it's kind of winding down now.

But it's like, if you made a really good A twenty four movie, you would then make a really horrible Marvel movie.

What did the director of Minari just do?

It was something like it's like not a fast and furious movie, but something like that.

We're like, really, oh wait, that's you're okay.

Oh Twisters, Twisters?

Oh I kind of liked Twisters.

I gotta say no, it was fun, but it was just like, this is who we're Okay.

I mean, I guess you understand small town America, you.

Know, like Barry Barry Jenkins mufassa like that.

Yeah, that kind of good example.

It is weird, it is.

I don't know why it feels particularly weird for Terry's wagoff to have made this jump, but it does.

He's just I think again, and I think we're grappling with the movie they thought they were making and the movie that different people wanted to make.

In the movie that wounds up happening, and I can see a through line of Terry's wygof and the kind of sort of archly bitter observational humor of Ghosts World, and of his documentary work.

I mean, this is the guy who did the Crumb documentary, Let's not forget.

I can see that segueing into a version of Bad Santa, which is bleakly funny and no way trying to make its lead character huggable.

And I think he's up against the Cohen brothers and the Weinstein brothers having different visions entirely, and so we're left with this sort of mulligan stew of everybody's different flavor profile thrown in, and then it comes down to like, well, who's cut are you watching?

You know?

Yeah, it's it's interesting.

I mean, I guess it's hard to know where to start with this movie.

Yeah, well there's a couple of minutes left.

Oh god, Oh yeah, there's e Bilog right right.

Right, Yes, So he survives all these gunshot wounds.

Willy does and recovers kind of off screen in a hospital, but we're seeing Thurman at home.

He's opening a gift from Willy as well as a letter which explains that Willy is off the hook for the crimes he committed because the cops shouldn't have opened fired on an unarmed Santa and because he rated out Marcus or something.

I don't know.

I was like really barely following this point.

But then there's a final beat of the movie where Thurman's bully shows up to harass him again and Thurman, per Willie's fatherly guidance, kicks the bully in the nuts the end Merry Christmas.

They're like, yeah, I guess that that should happen in this movie at some point.

I guess they make you work for it.

So that's the movie.

Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.

We're back, okay, really quick.

I found a hopefully this IMDb user.

It seems like they were thorough, but this is my source.

There is an IMDb us or who wrote out all of the differences between the three versions of this movie.

Oh wow, okay, so thank you, thank you, thank you so much.

So that was how I sort of started figuring out what I saw versus what actually happens in the theatrical cut, which I guess we have to sort of take his cannon, but I think that he so just to read the end of the director's cut, I think we are to believe that he's dead.

All scenes of Willy trying to teach the kid to stand up for himself, including the boxing scene which Terry's Weggoff didn't even direct, are removed.

The car death scene is the same as on the unrated version, which I think is just like more violent.

The Bernie mac One no no, the bad Santa car chase, oh okay, when he dies and alternate car chase scene.

Also, Willy does not say this is Christmas and the kids getting as fucking present, because this is the version with no moral.

The ending is changed to the kid scrubbing Willy's blood off the front porch, so I think he is cooked in the Terry's Wagoff for which is like a version that it wouldn't be my favorite movie.

He's not my favorite director, but like, I think that that at least has like there's a vision there, you know, to like, here is this despicable piece of shit.

I would be surprised if all of the not that there would be a lack of offensive jokes in that version, but there is such a commercial version of these jokes that I think we hear.

I don't know, it's just it's puzzling.

Where should we start because this is obviously I mean, we've talked about movies like this on the show before.

This is a movie whose objective is to be offensive to as many people as possible, Like that is part of why this movie exists.

So it's not shocking that it happens, but it is uh yeah, I mean it again not my favorite and also still no matter when that kind of movie comes out, it's very reflective of like what is considered shocking and also but like not so shocking that you can't do a huge you know, commerci movie around it that I think would be very different now.

Well, I think, for instance, the whole you know, Lauren Graham has a Santa Kink thing is a thing that we hadn't seen in a Christmas movie up to that point.

And so just having it there, having her yell that out, and having that be the thing that drives her character was you know, enough of a novelty that that was like, well, we're gonna do that, of course, you know.

And does it say much for her character?

Does it make sense in the larger context of who she's supposed to be and how her relationship with him grows over the course of the film.

I mean not really.

They didn't.

Yeah, they didn't give much thought to that, But I mean, yeah, it is a thing where when you saw that add on Gilmore Girls in two thousand and three, it was shocking because you'd never heard anybody say that before, much less America's Sweetheart, you know.

Yeah, I mean it's I guess if we're starting with her, I mean, it doesn't even feel like a particularly long conversation because it's like, I don't think I know enough about her character to know if her character changes at all throughout the movie.

It seems like kind of from the jump, she has a Santa kink, She's gonna show up every once in a while out of context.

Why does she have no one in her life to spend Christmas with?

We don't know, we don't care.

Why does she completely ignore all the times in which Willie says something horrible, does something.

Horrible in front of a child, but she loves children?

Like if she has a Santa kink, wouldn't this be like a busy time of year for her?

Like, wouldn't she, you know, she'd have something lined up for her Decembers right, gorgeous?

She should be making the round Like why Santa?

I think it's safe to say like this.

The women in this movie are essentially an afterthoughts in terms of their their participation in the story and in the you know, overall character arcs of the men, like they're set dressing.

Yeah, each woman is basically some caricature of a person where you have like Marcus's girlfriend or wife or whatever partner played by Lauren Tom she uh, I don't even know if we learn her name in the movie, like her character's name.

And she's like she's so accomplished and you're.

Just she's Lois.

Yes, oh okay, okay, she's her characters name is Lowis.

She's Lowess And now it doesn't make any sense, but like she's in the Joy Luck Club.

She's like a big stage actor.

Like I was just like, I hope that they paid her well for this because this is beneath her.

I don't imagine they did, but we can hope.

But yeah, I mean, like it's her character is almost presented as Marcus's sidekick, like she kind of helps with the robberies sometimes, like she seems to be the getaway driver maybe, but like why isn't she more integrated into the like the robbery crew or not that I'm like, but I'm also like, well maybe women should steal more.

But I mean, if we're gonna have a robbery crew, let's get her involved, let's get her involved.

But mostly her character is there to display a series of racist stereotypes and that's pretty much.

It, yeah for her.

Yeah, I mean whatever we could.

Cinema sends this to death.

But like in the in the like logic of I I don't know why Marcus is it, like she's my main conspirator, Like why is Beds I know that you need I guess for this scheme to work, you need a Santa.

But again, why this Santa?

The same I'm asking the same question as the Lauren Graham.

Why this Santa?

Well, because he's a safe cracker.

I think that's I mean, he's not a Santa who is a safe cracker.

He's a safe cracker who pretends Santa to get inside.

And I think Lois is mainly there to sort of give Marcus a shopping list of specific consumer items that she wants him to take from the department store while while Marcus is draining the safe of the cas.

Because women be shopping, maybe they truly be.

And yeah, I guess it's like I don't think it would have changed things very much to have her like a little more actively involved in those schemes.

And I also feel like she's well, let me know what you think.

I also feel like she's kind of there to make Marcus seem like a better person, Like she serves kind of another function where bad Santa, he can't hold down a relationship, he's a mess, blah blah blah.

Marcus says explicitly at one point, like I am in a monogamous relationship.

I'm very happy blah blah blah.

And it's like she I think she's there as set dressing.

She's there to be this broad you know, stereotype, and she's also there to like make us feel a certain way about Marcus.

Like everything about her has very little to do with her.

She's which is the story of women in broad comedies for the most part, it's just like she's there to tell you something about this guy, for sure.

So I don't know, there's another there's you know, we don't need to go shot for shot, but there's you know a lot of very leering POV bad Santa gazing on women's bodies.

Often that's how we meet women characters is from the bottom up.

It is his POV.

But again there's like it's not commenting on anything.

If we then go on to not get to know this woman at all and she's just like ugh, or she's like I like that.

Yeah.

The fact that he is he finds sort of plus size women appealing, I think is the movie treats as being as funny as Lauren Graham having a Santa Fetters ca.

Yeah totally, yes, yes, I can right, yeah, No.

That's played as a joke and then bringing Octavia Spencer into it, it just makes it even worse.

Leave her out of it.

My takeaway from her involvement in the story.

So, she plays a sex worker named Opal, and like you mentioned, Jamie, she's in the sequel for some reason, she's just.

Too nice for her own good.

She's in a lot of like weirdly bad movies.

It seems like to do a favor to a friend.

But the way that Willy is presented, basically it's like everything that Willy does or anyone who he's involved with or whatever, everything everything associated with him is bad because he's Bad Santa, and so him knowing Opal, I feel like this movie is sort of is anti sex work just by virtue of like she knows him and everyone that he knows is bad, and then she's in one quick scene and then we never see or hear from her again.

Yeah.

There's also I think that this is only in the Badder Santa cut which makes sense because it feels very like why is this here.

There is a cutaway scene towards the beginning during these like eleven last months where Bad Santa is spending all his Bad Santa money where he brings sex worker home and then just kind of like beerates her for a while and then the phone rings and it's Marcus and he's like, guess what, it's November.

And then we cut to that and you're like, well, I'm glad they caught that out, but it was I think kind of solidifies your your thinking there where there's another scene with I think a sex worker who's somehow characterized even less we really just meet her and then she's told that she smells and she sucks.

So, yeah, this is a movie written by so like getting into the production a little bit and then we'll definitely go back to the characters.

There's a lot to talk about, but just so Terry's Wygoff was set to direct this.

It was written by Glenn Fakara and John Recua, who are a team who I believe.

They they did I Love You, Philip Morris, which I am a fan of.

Actually it's really they They didn't.

They did crazy stupid love right, and then they do the thing that these that these guys often do, which is they take a serious turn and it kind of doesn't work.

They did Whiskey Tango Foxtrot later on.

Oh and then they go back to comedy, and they did Jungle Cruise.

I've never seen I Love You, Philip Morris.

I have seen the Billy Bob Thornton Bad News Bears, which is interesting in retrospect because it sounds like that's what the Coen Brothers kind of wanted from this movie.

There were almost a million different Bad Santas.

It was almost James s.

Gandelfini.

There was almost Bill Murray, it was almost Jack Nicholson, it was almost de Niro, Like.

Well, DeNiro would go on to be Bad Grandpa, I think.

Yes, which is a far worse movie than this, which is wild.

I have not seen Bad Grandpa, but I do.

I'm like, I wonder how common that is that, Like, if you work long enough, you're gonna be bad something Bad Moms.

Well it's like you know, well, yeah, no.

The bad prefix definitely got very popular for a one of the run I was thinking about, like, yeah, turning down Bad Santa and then doing Bad Grandpa is like when on Connery turned down Lord of the Rings and then said yes to Leave of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

You never know, You just never know.

Everything is a gamble.

I love I feel like there's a I can't remember what my favorite example of that is, but yeah, So anyways, just like speaking to the all over the place nature of the movie there, when the sequel came out, there was a an oral history of the first one that released that gets at what you were talking about earlier.

Alonzo that Tony Cox was an actor that Terry Swagoff really had to fight for and he sort of it sounds like there's conflicting accounts, but that he kind of threatened to walk if he didn't get the cast that he wanted and really went to bat for Tony Cox and Brad Kelly, who seemed to have a lot of love for him.

Billy Bob Tharton seems like maybe not as much, which brings us to I don't know, like the less said about the Weinstein's, the better they're involved, you've seen them.

It's not chocking.

But brings us back to Marcus, who again it's like there from scene to scene, I feel like his character is treated very differently.

There is a version of this character that I think is better, but I get like there there were this movie did have me sometimes for like a scene or two where you're like, oh, that's interesting, right where I don't know.

Well, there's a base level of pragmatism of like, dude, you're drunk.

We have to keep it together if we're gonna, you know, do this heist, and if you are like urinating on children and having sex with women in the dressing room, that's not gonna help us.

Like, you've got to keep it together long enough for us to do our thing.

And I think if they had focused on that, where he's just like trying to get the job done and not tolerant of you know, Willie's shenanigans, that's a character, but they don't.

They don't stay on.

That, they don't quite commit to it.

Yeah, I felt the same way, where it's like it is an interesting premise to me that we have Tony Cox, who is a little person.

He has been in a ton of movies, but his character, unlike so many little people in movies, is not defined by that quality.

He is first and foremost robbing department stores, and like it's a broad comedy, it's not a huge, you know, in depth life, but.

Like he's willing to use his status as a little person to get the elf gigs, which right in another movie, I think that becomes a smarter thing of like, well, I'm a little person, you're a safe cracker.

I know we'll do this, and that becomes our stick.

And I think the fact that he is resentful of the fact that he's spending nearly the entire movie dressed as an elf, but he's doing it as a means to an end is an interesting way to portray a little person character that a lot of other movies weren't maybe smart enough to do.

I guess it's the thing that really bumps for me, and I'd be curious what our listeners think as well, is that it's so often I feel like every time we get a little closer to having a fuller idea of his character, it just like the concept of his taking advantage of other people's assumptions about him to get what he wants, that's an interesting premise, But then it sometimes just devolves into jokes about little people that feel like, you know, the elements of this kind of movie that really don't work for me, where it's just like piling it on and piling it on and piling it on to the port where it feels like improvised, of like, what's the worst thing you can think of?

To say about this man.

You know, right, the movie waffles back and forth between scenes where other characters will be talking about him and they're not sure what language to use to describe him, and they end up using disparaging language and using slurs, and you know, Bernie mac finally comes in and has to say, like, you know, the correct languages, little people.

And you could argue that there's commentary there kind of in people fumbling over the right language who use and getting it wrong and being ablest along the way, But that gets undercut when in all of the other scenes you have various other characters, namely Willie constantly insulting Marcus and being entirely ablest toward him, and sometimes Marcus pushes back on that and he calls him out.

I think pretty frequently he does, which is which I did, which again I appreciate it.

Yeah, of like there's multiple scenes where Marcus is like I think it's it's a scene towards the end where he's like, yeah, go ahead and say, like say something about how I'm a little person, like you're the weakest man in the entire world, and like that's kind of all you have on me because I'm a person and you're a piece of shit.

And so it's like there are these moments of like lucidity that you're like, oh, now we're going somewhere.

But then it like the turn that Marcus's character takes toward the end didn't really scan for me, like totally.

It's just sometimes it's eating its cake and having it tube and like we're acknowledging that this is terrible, but we're also doing it because you're going to find it funny, you know.

Yeah, it's also a lot of Willy saying slurs and that's played for laughs, and that's Oh, you're the audience is supposed to laugh at that.

Oh, we're supposed to find that funny.

So I do want to get Billy Bob Thornton credit for not trying to make this character lovable.

Yeah, Like I think he is committed to the Zwygoff version of this, which is that this guy is a piece of shit.

And I think there are other characters who would play it with a wink, who would play with oh I'm a scamp, but you love me, and Billy Bob Thornton just feels like he is going full on no, no, I am this is an alcoholic hitting rock Bottom in a Santa suit.

Yeah, it's like that's I think that's It's like everyone is kind of in a different movie here at different moments, because it does feel like, I don't know's there's Billy Bob Thornton performances I really really enjoy and like his his whole Like we can't even get into the Billy Bob Thornton of it all.

There's just so much going on with that guy.

I also didn't realize he was in his seventies.

Now he's like also weirdly ageless in my mind.

But but yeah, it seems like he's he's playing the version of this character who dies at the end.

He's not playing the version of this character that forms a meaningful Christmas bond with a bullied.

Child and.

Right right, so he Yeah, that's a good point, Like he is playing an irredeemable piece of shit in you know, more of like an art housey Terry's Wygoff movie, and then it's like Frankenstein into being this other thing and it just doesn't work.

And I also, I mean, like I don't know, there is a lot of speaking to your point, Heitlen, a lot of ablest dated language that was very normalized to say in a shock context in the two thousands that now just is like does not age.

Well, it's weirdly making a comeback, and that's also horrible.

But we see that a lot.

We see that, you know, with relation to Tony Cox's character.

We see that with relation to Thermimon's character quite a bit, whether it's like fat shaming or dropping the R word, which comedy is in the two thousands did constantly because that was what it was like watching a movie.

Then yeah, I don't know, it's I think we keep kind of circling back to the same point where it's like this, if this movie is this tone, just just kill him, just kill the guy.

But then also I'm like, there were scenes that I was like, I like Therman Merman.

I don't want to get rid of Thurm and Merman.

I think he's a sweet kid.

I want the best for him.

What's funny about steering away from the ending in which he dies is that it basically turns Bad Santa into the kind of Christmas movie that people who love Bad Santa would, on the for the most part, say they don't like you know, if you're turning to this movie as an alternative from the sort of sweetness and light or from the kind of redemption arcs of you know, it's a Wonderful life or a Christmas Carol or whatever, then you would want that character dead.

But if you don't, and you want to see him improve and become a better person because of the magic of Christmas or whatever, then really you do like that kind of movie.

You just can't admit it, and so we have to dress it up in this sort of like badass, you know, thing that you can feel like a tough guy about.

But it's it.

It has been edited to be that movie eventually, but.

Yeah, it still wants you to like have the like warm ish fuzzies at the end where they're like, he's okay, you guys, He's okay.

It's like not too far from the narrative that we've seen over and over as far as especially father and Son Redemption are Christmas stories, because that's the Santa Claus.

That's Jack Frost, feminist masterpiece, Michael Keaton's Jack Frost.

I mean Elf, even Elf, Like.

It's so it's so many this movie coming out the same year as Elf is wild What a wild year for love?

Actually yes, have y'all done a love actually episode?

It was like one of our first episodes.

I would hope, So Okay, yes, I think.

We're due for a revisit, though, I mean, I think it's a long time.

We just watched The Family Stone for the first time and I was I'm like, I need, I need to like go on a walk, I need to promise the event since the film.

But but yeah, for this one.

In the theatrical cut, it seems like and certainly in the extended cut, I mean I wrote down tells you it's a fathers and sons movie in record time, tells you in ad r in the opening shot or in narration in the opening shot.

And interestingly, I've gotten in the habit of looking at some of the top letterbox reviews, especially for broad comedies that I don't like, because you can you can almost always find someone's reasoning for like why this movie means a lot to them, and I think it's interest to look into it, and a handful of them for this movie specifically references that opening monologue as like what really hooked them?

So I'm like, you know, probably this zygoth version of this movie wouldn't have been commercially successful, but it would definitely make more sense.

But yeah, I mean that opening monologue is also like paints him out to be a despicable person.

He says something racist within it.

It sort of solidifies that, like we're playing into negative stereotypes around veterans.

We're playing that, you know, certainly around addiction.

That is the premise of the movie, right.

But starting the movie by being like I was like abused by a father with anger issues and like have gone on to live this like aimless, self destructive life and I hate Christmas but I'm Santa, it like sets you up for the Weinstein version of the movie of like what his I mean, it's also the moral of Jurassic Park, where it's like this the Crouch needs to learn how to be a father yesterday.

And.

Which sounds like the Zwygoff cut has like no interest in whatsoever.

Nope, Yeah, I don't know.

I'm like, I guess I prefer like I don't really prefer one over the other.

But seeing them sort of Frankenstein together is a is a very weird experience.

I mean, sadly, I guess this is an example in which like studio notes and interference do make a movie more successful, because you're right.

I think the Zwygoth version of Bad Santa would have been like an art house curio and it would you know, would have a tiny cult that watched every year, But it would not have become what it became because again I think it's it is a movie that stealthily is delivering the kind of Christmas movie that Bad Santa fans would claim that they were too cool for.

Yeah, everyone secretly like I feel like wants the Grouch to reform.

It's the screw.

The Grinch is hard to grow three sizes, right.

Jim Christian for Michael Caine screwge to look at cratch It and be like, here's a Christmas goose.

But it's just like beyond the pale here because the original version of this character is kind of irredeemably horrible.

Well that's the thing, Like whatever, if there has to be a male redemption story like a fine I would there have rather men always redeem themselves than a bad man go on staying horrible for the rest of his life.

Right, Yeah, so like in realized like how it always happens in real life.

But the movie is just so riddled with slur after slur after problematic joke after reductive stereotype after.

You know it, like, which is like the two thousands right in comedy.

It's just it can't.

I mean, there's we could get into the representation of alcoholism, the agism with the grandmother character being so oblivious that she doesn't notice that an adult man with a balaclava is in her house about to rob her everything.

Like yeah, I mean, it's like it's so deeply of its time and like ven some and so to be asked, I think kind of then Anne now to be like, we love this guy, he's a lovable rogue, Like I don't.

It's sell It's the it's the rule of if you were her child when you saw this movie, I'm sure that, like it is something that you carry a little torch for in your heart.

But yeah, having seen it for the first time, for this, I'm like, I just I simply cannot, I cannot participate in loving this movie.

But Bernie Mack did still manage to make me laugh and basically every scene he was in I mean fair, that's just kind of the rule of Mac.

I'll touch on the sequel really quick because I'm like, well, if I watched it, because you've both seen it.

Yes, I saw it when it came out, not since, so I don't really remember it.

I watched it yesterday, so it's quite fresh.

Okay.

Tell me.

The main reason I wanted to watch it is because it came out in twenty sixteen, and this is around the time that movies started to be less overtly problematic and slightly more conscious about how things were being represented and what language was being used and all of that kind of stuff.

Our show came out this week.

Exactly, so I was curious if you fixed everything we actually.

Fixed Well, I don't know, take a survey.

I don't know that we've made much of a dent.

But I was curious if this sequel scaled back on any of the ableism, racism, fat phobia, agism, et cetera that we see in the original movie, because I feel like you will see sequels that come out like whatever, ten, fifteen, twenty years later that will sort of update whatever.

The story the world.

Yeah, things feel slightly updated and slightly adjusted for the time.

Bad Santa hates woke.

I just know he hates woke.

This movie did not do that.

This movie doubled down and even added some stuff like it was just as problematic, if not more than the two thousand and three original movie.

Which is I mean, I think the only thing that is like, I don't know, I mean, yeah, I didn't see it.

I had it up and I was like, I cannot press play it, Like I just can't do it.

But clearly an interest in this style of comedy in the mid twenty tens wasn't there, because this Is the sequel did not do well.

It didn't even make its budget back.

And I'm and not that I'm in any way defending it, but I think, of course, if you're gonna make a bad Sant sequel, you're gonna think, well, what do people love about the first one?

What is it that keeps them coming back and rewatching it every year?

The easy answer is, oh, well, the shocking humor and the you know, the the sort of bleak point of view and the no holds barred offensiveness.

You know.

So now let's have Kathy Bates say all that stuff.

You know.

Yeah, oh yeah, I guess that that is the twenty sixteen twists.

They're like, now, women are horrible.

We wrote a woman character and she's awful.

You're like equity, all right.

Also, Kathy Bates plays his mother and she's only seven years older than Billy Bob Thornton.

So that's the it's the Angela Lansbury condition, you know.

Yeah, she spent the entire nineteen sixties playing the moms of people she was like less than a decade older than Yeah, urion Canada.

Yeah, I'll fall down.

Yeah.

Why, it's just like, can a woman just have a Bob in peace without it being a big, a whole thing?

Evidently not?

Well, thank you for watching Bad Santa, both of you and it's best of but also Lauren Lauren Graham didn't come back.

She was like, I'm correct you No.

I just this year I read both of her memoirs because I am a millennial woman, and I had a great time.

She's a really great funny writer.

Nice to check those out.

She's quite good.

Uh.

In the remake of the Best Christmas Pageant Ever that came out last year.

Oh, I haven't seen Pete Holmes movie.

Yes, because she she narrates and so, you know, which gives it a little Christmas story flavor.

And then she was in Twinless this year, which I didn't see, but I know you did.

Caitlyn.

Yes, I loved that movie.

And then she's in one of the Colleen Hoover slop movies that I'm kind of play.

She plays Mommy question Mark, probably in a movie called Remind Him.

I'm just like the Colling Hoover movie is.

It's I will never see them, but I do kind of delight in seeing the trailers aggressively shoveled at me, where it's like, nice, try nice, triasshole.

You're not getting me in that room.

There's a few other things with this movie, like specific things that we haven't touched on that you know, we don't need to necessarily go into a lot of detail on.

I'm thinking especially of the scene in which the random man from the bar, oh yeah.

Tax the homophobia jumps care.

Yeah, that's a character played by A.

J.

Nadou, who plays Samir from Office Space.

I was like, oh my god, that's Samir.

But anyway, the scene is so bizarre.

Also, the character is named Hindustani troublemaker yeah, which is like, if there was any question of how much regard the script has for the character.

There there you go.

But it manages to be everything at once.

I mean, it manages to be so many horrible stereotypes that it's like almost impressive that it's like homophobic, it is hostile to any brown person who's ever existed.

It's like, it's just so I does feel like that.

Yeah, I was like, what is it?

I think it's supposed to be a joke about like repressed homo eroticism, which is manifesting as homophobia in the character.

But I'm just like I could barely make sense of it.

It's such a bizarre scene.

The character never comes back.

It is based off of a look in the bar.

It's just bizarre.

So it's a it's a handful of things like that throughout the movie, on top of all the just slurs that are ablest, racist, sexist, fat phobic, homophobics, et cetera.

And I and and it doesn't pass.

The bechd.

And it doesn't even come close to passing the Bechdel test, so we can got to just skip over that.

Usually there's at least a spirited debate going on in the comments of Bechdel test dot com, but here for this one, everyone's pretty like, no, Nope.

Lauren Graham touches clorus Leachman's foot, and that is that is as far as we got.

So yeah, So let's get to the more important metric, and perhaps the most important metrics, the Bechdel Cast Nipple scale.

Yes, the scale where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.

I will give this movie zero nipples.

Can you imagine that.

It's kind of an easy one.

I'm going to join you with zero nipples.

Look, the movie got some chuckles out of me, but.

This is a sinister movie.

It does have a bit of a dark aura.

I would say it's again, it's like if Terry's Wygoff had been able to commit to his vision, it's still wouldn't be a movie I liked, but it would be a movie that made sense.

But maybe that was saying something that was like trying to make a statement.

But this just ends up being a statementless.

Because he really, like I mean, outside of I mean, I guess the change that takes place with him has to do with Thurman Merman, but it doesn't have to do with anyone else.

And there are so many characters that it's bizarre that it doesn't have to do with anyone else.

And I guess we touched on this, but my last thing said because I have no nipples to award, is that I felt like they really sold out Marcus's character based on who I thought he was.

I felt betrayed.

I was like this, he is so like I mean, he's not a genius, mastermind, criminal, but he is at least thoughtful in how these things committed to.

Yeah, so for him to randomly murder someone who people are certainly going to miss, it just felt like, so.

That's sloppy, that's sloppy work.

It was a sloppy He's presented as.

Being the far more competent of the two between him and Willie.

He's on top of stuff, he's making a list and checking it twice.

You might say he truly is, and then suddenly he's like a murderer, Like where did this come from?

Is very bizarre, it's something else.

It's yeah, so yeah, zero nipples boo to this movie.

Alonso, How about you?

What do you?

What say you?

Oh?

Well, if we're talking the scale is purely about intersectional feminism.

I think a zero was the only way to go if we were rating out on like you know, a poisonous missiletoe displays or you know, empty cans of bud light.

It might be something else, but yeah, on the nipple scale, it is a It is a big goose egg.

Indeed.

Well, thank you so much for joining us for this discussion.

Thank you for having me.

What a holiday treat.

Where can people follow you online?

Check out your podcasts and your books and everything else.

Well, you can read my reviews of current films at the film Verdict at the film verdict dot com.

And I'm on various podcasts.

My husband Dave White and I do the show Linoleum Knife, which just celebrated its fifteenth anniversary.

Right, thank you.

Yeah, we are the literal gray old men of movie podcasting.

Also, you can hear me on Breakfast All Day with Christy Lemire.

The two of us used to do a show called What the Flick, but now we've started We've had Breakfast all Day going for several years on YouTube, the Maximum Fun show Maximum Film with Drea Clark and Kevin Avery, and I pop in regularly to Deck the Hallmark to talk about Chris's movies of various stripes.

I'm the easiest person on earth to Google, but I'm a Duraldi on Blue Sky and Alonzo dot Duraldi at Instagram.

And my new book is the revised and updated second edition of Have Yourself a Movie, Little Christmas.

It's available wherever you buy books online, in person at your local library.

It's a book, book and an ebook.

Pick one up this holiday.

Season, please do, Aliza, thank you so much.

I a longtime fan of your work, so it's like its cool and surreal to talk to you about this perfect movie.

No notes.

If y'all haven't done Carol yet, you know, I think there'd be a lot more to dig into.

We have done Carol.

You have done Carol?

Okay, yeah, yeah, that is That is the That is the Christmas movie that does follow.

You can find us in all the regular places, mostly on Instagram.

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Ho Ho ho bye.

The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and produced by Me Jamie Loftus and.

Me Caitlyn Dorante.

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Ever heard of them?

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