130: Should Billy Eichner Blame Homophobes for ‘Bros’ Bombing? Plus: Is ‘Blonde’ worth your time?

Hey, everybody. It’s Sunny. Just driving you a quick note before the episode starts. We’re gonna be doing a live bulwark event on Thursday, October twentieth. At Penn Social in DC.

Charlie is taping a show. There’s gonna be a panel with Sarah and Amanda and Tim. I’m not gonna be doing any of that fun stuff, but I will be there saying hi and letting everybody know what movies they Should watchers should not watch. So if you if you wanna come and say hi, please swing by. There’s gonna be a link in the email with this episode.

Use that to sign up, and we’ll see you there. Welcome back to Across the Movieau presented by Bulwark Plus. I am your host, Sunny Bunch, Culture Editor of The Bulwark. I’m joined as always by Elizabeth Rosenberg of the Washington Post, Peter Zimmerman of Reason Magazine. Alyssa Peter, how are you today?

Well,

I am happy to be talking about movies with friends.

First, up in controversies and controversies bros. Bombed at the box office. Bros have woes. Woes for bros. See what I did there.

Star Billy Eicher knows why. It was the Straits. The Straits did it. In a series of tweets bimoting the critically acclaimed but ill attended movie’s disastrous four point eight million dollar opening, I care to cried homophobia and lashed out at audiences who stayed home, quote, even with glowing reviews, great rotten tomatoes scores, and a from cinema score, etcetera, straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for pros. And that’s disappointing, but it is what it is.

And, quote, he tweeted, he added that everyone who isn’t homophobic weirdo should go see bros. I mean, that’s a theory. It’s a theory at least. I’m not sure it holds up to even a little bit of scrutiny. Let’s just take a few things in order.

Thing the first, pure comedies for adults are basically a more button genre at the box office right now. There’s a reason flesh, open day and day on about eight hundred screens, and in homes on VOD. Ramcoms do very well on Netflix, where a twenty million dollar comedy puts up similar numbers to a hundred million dollar action movie. But in theaters, they are almost dead. Alright.

Thing the second, the numbers suggest it’s not just straight audiences who didn’t show up for this in warning. I got some math coming up. I’m gonna be doing some journalist math, so be be be very careful here. But the weekend gross of four point eight million or so divided by the average ticket price of nine dollars and fifty seven cents puts the total number of admissions at just over half a million tickets sold. But I think this actually even overstate things a little bit because the film over indexed in New York City and Los Angeles where tickets average nearly three dollars more than that.

So let’s split the difference here. And let’s say let’s ballpark eleven dollars ticket. That averages out to four hundred thirty six thousand three hundred and sixty four tickets sold. Now If America’s population is about thirty eight hundred thirty two million and ten percent of that population identifies as LGBT, there’s about thirty three million such individuals. And if every single one of those tickets that was sold went to an LGBT individual and they did not, but let’s just say they did, that means that roughly ninety eight point seven percent of American gay people did not go to bros this weekend.

How dare they? Fing the third, the marketing the marketing on this movie made it sound like homework. Like, you had to show up to earn the good guy points. Right? And I’m I’m sorry.

That’s just not how audiences decide to go to movies. Being told you have to support something, because it’s a cause rather than because it’s good is just box office death. Consider a different tack taken by the woman king. Alright. That’s a movie that was targeting a similarly sized audience as bros.

In that case, African American women who comprise about seven percent of the American population. And it it did so by showing people a rousing action movie with, like, great action scenes and big fights and that sort of stuff. Rather than just hectoring people, about showing up. Shocker, that movie opened almost four times gross. Okay?

Bing the fourth. Here’s the fourth thing. I a hard time believing that Americans have suddenly gotten more homophobic now than they were in decades past when like the birdcage or brokeback mountain were huge box offices. Like, even love Simon, which came out a couple years back, more than double bros opening weekend box office. And thing the fifth, and I, like, I feel kind of bad saying this, but I feel like he’s open to himself up to it.

Billy Iker is just super annoying. Like, Billy Billy on the street is the sort of thing that I consolidate for about ninety seconds and not much more than that. And he was, like, the worst part of later seasons of parks and rec. Like, I just I I watched the trailers for for that movie and I think to myself two hours of this. No.

No. Thank you. But it’s entire highly possible that I am just a horrible bigot and part of the problem, Alyssa, what’s wrong with me?

I mean, there are so many things wrong with you.

Don’t take literally? Not a literal

question. Yeah. I thought this segment was about bros. Who who am I

No. No. What’s wrong with Sunny? Who here is the broiest bro on the show? I think I think we all know the answer to that.

Alright. I’m sorry. Listen. So what what’s the deal here? Yeah.

So I think that Broads ran up against a couple of the problems you’ve identified, but also there is just a tension between selling your thing as historic and important to a certain extent and selling it is interesting. And I actually think that as sort of an experiment and as a casting showcase,

the

idea behind Frozen is great. Right? The whole schtick is that everyone in the movie, even straight character, is played by LGBT actors. And that is frankly a twist on the diversity debate in Hollywood that I think is refreshing and useful. Right?

I mean, there tends to be a reductionist argument in these cases. Only transactors should play trans characters. Only people from a very specific racial and ethnic background should play characters from extremely specific racial and ethnic backgrounds. The more expansive thing to argue in all of these cases would be that you know, you should cast more transactors as cis characters. You should cast, you know, people of various racist ethnicities as not their ethnicities because their inevitably going to be, you know, more people in broader categories than there aren’t extremely narrow ones.

And so for Broads to essentially sell itself within Hollywood as a sort of historic talent showcase is a much more intelligent version of that diversity argument than the one that has sort of dominated Twitter, if not, places like, you know, U. S. E. N. Berg’s inclusion efforts.

So, you know, on a sort of like business level, I found bros very appealing. I will say, you know, I think that the trailer, you know, leaned into that a little bit in part. The end of the main character works at, like, at LGBT is trying to, like, get an LGBT History Museum set up, it’s a very very narrow cast. And, you know, I I mean, I think that there is probably a legitimate question about whether a movie that is aimed at like, date night audiences that also has, you know, gay sex scenes is going to I think there are probably still some mental hurdles there. You know, I mean, I think somebody broke back mountains, like, you’re, you know, you’re there for, like, the trauma and the history and the high mindedness of it all, not for the, you know, I think there are probably a fair number of Americans straight couples who just, like, aren’t gonna see themselves in a gay rom com and then aren’t gonna pick pick it for date night fare.

And whether that is evidence of homophobia or sort of an incomplete revolution and cultural integration get it, tomato, you can you can have that argument. That’s totally fair. But I think that, you know, bros was advertised as movie that’s in part about Billy Eichner’s character, and I agree with you. I like, the trailers sold it as the least annoying version of Billy Eichner, but his schtick has never been one that I found that interest staying. It sold it as sort of as much about his professional life in, like, kind of niche l d LGBT space.

As it sold the as the movie sold itself as a romantic comedy. And so, you know, I am eager to see bros. I wrote approvingly about the idea for it when it was announced. To get our enthusiastic opening, we can know because I have a lot of things going on. And like, I’m looking forward to seeing it at some point, but it was also sold intermittently and narrowly enough that, you know, at a certain point, if you tell if you’re marketing for movies, like, this is for this community, this is about this community.

Instead of being a more straightforward argument, there are some people who, you know, in their very elementary, early, like, Okay. If I’m gonna see one thing this weekend, folks will help filter that out. And I think it is a challenge between obeying the sort of media incentives to sell everything at historic and unique and groundbreaking in some way and just selling something as enjoyable. Peter, I wanna I

wanna hit on one thing that Alyssa touched on here with you because I do think that this is this is at least part of bro’s problem, which is that, look, the three of us are movie heavy consumers. We we consume a lot of movies just just as a course through the course of our job, but also through our personal lives

like More than most people even before it became a gig. More more than most people

more than and I don’t think any of the did you go see

it? See,

so, like, none of the three of us actually went to go see it. None of us were we we did not make it a priority. It was not like a thing that we needed to do. Now part of that again is because for our work, we had other things we had to prioritize. We had to sit through three hours of blonde.

We’ll talk about that in a minute. But that but but that but, you know, look, I went to see other I went to see I went to go see smile. This weekend instead of bros because it looked more interesting to me. Smile cleaned up at the box office. Bros failed badly.

And I I I do think that, you know, but Smile pitched itself as like, here’s a horror movie that can be enjoyed by all. And bros was like, you need to see this. To prove that you’re a good ally. And

I

just think that that that’s just not an appeal. That’s not an appealing

appeal. I

think that is basically correct. And, you know, it may even be correct in a way that’s somewhat unfortunate it. So, Mataglasiast has spent occasionally pointed out over the last six months or so that there is pretty good solid research at this point that shows that if you told people that it’s something it was inequitable in the sense that, like, it was worse for for black folks, especially for poor black folk. Folks books. I think this is my as a recall, this research has to do with the coronavirus that if you told people, oh, this this is actually like it’s really affecting poor black communities more than people cared less about it because the equity pitch just doesn’t connect with people.

Now you might say, wait, that’s that suggests some bad stuff about our society. But if you kept that that’s like the state we’re in, then what you realize is that if you wanna help poor black people, you actually kind of have to emphasize the universality of the problem rather than emphasizing this that, you know, these problems may affect poor black people more. And there’s sort of a a corollary here with bros, which was that this was supposed to be a movie, like, oh, if you are if you wanna see the movie about if you wanna see the gay rom com, come to see bros. And they didn’t do a very good job of pitching this as a movie that was like, hey, this is a funny movie that you will enjoy. They pitched it as a movie that you should see because you support our political cause.

And I don’t think that many people go to see movies like spend a couple of hours of of their entertainment time and really movies can be quite expensive these days? Like, I mean, it’s it’s quite a lot even if you’re not paying for child care. People don’t think think of their entertainment time and dollars as cause dollars. Now maybe they’re gonna give to the Patreon or whatever, but that’s a different thing. And please, you know, give us your time and your money for the cause, but it’s also entertainment is a weird a message that I think just doesn’t go very far with other people.

I also think there’s something here to the the idea of representation. So I I like Alyssa really quite approve of the idea of casting every single person in this whether they’re playing a gay role or straight role or whatever as they’re all LGBT performers. I think that’s great. And I think that’s a good way to, like, sort of, make the point that actually any person can play any role. At the same time, this is a movie that is very much that centers the the the gay experience and is it has, you know, and is very much about putting that on screen.

And one of the things we hear in the in discussions of representations is that people want to see themselves represented on screen. And that’s why we need to have non white guys in, you know, in as the leads in in a lot of types of movies. I

agree

with that to some extent. Like, there’s, like, people wanna see themselves. At the same time, if you take that logic to its end point, then people are going to be less interested in not seeing themselves. And so straight that what so that goes to Alyssa’s point that straight couples again, you might even think this is like not a great thing or not a great sign for society, but straight couples by that logic are going to be less likely to to go and see a a a romcom that does not represent their experience and in fact kind of went out of its way to advertise that it does not represent their experience. And

I think there is a tension here that we haven’t discussed, which is that, you know, I think the the pitch for marriage equality, specifically and sort of LGBT inter you know, mainstreaming into American culture on society rested a lot on a fundamentally conservative argument that gay people are just like everyone else. Like, they wanna get married, they wanna have two point five kids and a dog and like house and suburbs that the only thing that’s different is, you know, who they’re attracted too. And

that’s not

I mean, maybe that ends up being true, like a hundred years down the road, but there are a distinct set of queer cultural practices, institutions, you know, like, community spaces, you know, traditions, histories. And there is real tension in some of these communities about losing you know, for example, like lesbian bars are going basically extinct in the United States. And that is a significant cultural law loss. Right? I mean, those were really valuable community spaces for a long time.

And, you know, having somebody that disappear is complicated, you know. LGBT pride go, you know, I think a lot of city organizers are torn between seeing it as, you know, making it like primarily family friendly event and having it be something that is, like, specific and sexual and culturally confrontational in some ways. And you know, so a movie like Bros was always gonna be in a tricky position between selling itself as something that is set in a, you know, in a specific community setting. And that something that is totally, like, mainstream and denatured. And I would guess from the trailers, since again, I haven’t seen the movie, is that, like, That tension is a little bit part of the movie.

Right? That Billy Eichner’s character is someone who is very much a product of and invested in those spaces, and the guy he falls for is someone who is like really normy and mainstream and could pass us straight. And that cultural tension is really interesting. It’s a good subject for a movie. It’s an important debate for these communities to be having.

It also makes the marketing something like this challenging. It’s

also just But there’s there’s there’s something else here though, Sunny, that you touched on that I just wanna, like, get in here is gay or straight? Ram comes are just really not doing well right now. And there is there is like, it’s very easy to imagine a, you know, a a a Chris or Jason starring very conventional like extremely white, like, you know, classic in the sense of, like, Julia Roberts era style Romcom that is made perfectly and has and just, like, like, gets great reviews and everybody in, like, and just flops because it’s late September in twenty twenty two, and Hollywood has absolutely no idea how to get adults to come to a movie theater to see two people kind of fall in love. And it almost like, maybe the probably with a Chris or Jason in the main role and, like, you know, whoever today’s equivalent if McRyan is. It would do a little better than this at the same time.

These this type of movie totally independent of the sexual politics of it, is is just not something that anyone knows how to get adults to to pay for at this point in time. Well,

there’s there’s a correct me if I’m mistaken, but there’s a George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Ramcom, hitting theaters in, like, two weekends. And I saw I swear to God, I saw the first ad for it yesterday. I was like, wait, what? That’s coming I remember hearing about that’s coming out. Yeah.

I also saw my first ads for this over the weekend, and they weren’t even movie trailers. And again, we go

see how many movies a year. I go see I see three movies a week in theaters, most weeks, you know, maybe two two movies a week in in theaters right now. Because there’s less out. But, like, I see a lot of movies in theaters. I have zen zero trailers for this.

I have no idea what this movie is about. And it’s because I I think they just have no idea what to do with it. I Like, it’s getting dumped in, you know, late September. And look, wait, it’s

it’s gonna come out in October. But look, it is it’s a George Clooney movie that there are big stars, but that’s the other thing here. You know, this is this is an attempt to do that without big stars. As well. Right?

These are not Billy Eichner is just not household name. George Clooney may you know, George Clooney and Julia Roberts May in the end, produce a hit because because there is an audience for that sort of thing. So I don’t wanna say that it’s that, like, any romcom right now is guaranteed to be a failure. But what I will the point I wanna make is totally independent of whether it’s about a gay couple or a straight couple, a especially a movie without big stars, but even with big stars, they’re just much bigger risks than they used to be because there’s no sort of consistent audience for this sort of thing, and there hasn’t been for several years now.

I wanna I wanna make one last point, unless I’m if I’m wrong. Maybe I’m maybe I’m over over reading the room and and it wouldn’t really it doesn’t really make a difference anyway. But I’ll say this as somebody who I I actually wanna go see bros because Judd Appetel produced. I like Judd Appetel’s movies. I That’s all.

Good director. Yeah. And and the the director

is a good director. And, you know, again, I I don’t hate Billy Einer, but I do, like, I can I I do I do find him, you know, a little annoying for extended periods of time. But, like, he still is, like, kind of an interesting presence.

I wanna

go see it. But I gotta be honest, I wanna see it less after, like, getting harrying. I This is just like I feel like this is a very natural human reaction. Like, getting haranged about not going to see it has made me want to see it less, frankly. Yeah.

I

get that. You know, it’s a I mean, look, when you make your movie about something other than the movie, people, you know,

people are gonna

have reaction to that. That’s reasonable. I’m not sure this is a good advertising tactic. At the same time, I, like, this is clearly a passion project for him. I feel like kinda bad that it flopped.

I feel a little for not making time to go see it this weekend. And, like, it’s I think, you know, as an advertising strategy, this may be kind of a disaster. I just or feel for Billy? I can’t hear as a human being. Yeah.

Why he’s clearly he’s clearly hurting? I I do feel I do feel bad about it. Alright. So what do we think? Is it a controversy or a controversy?

That audiences did not show up for bros, Alyssa. It’s a

controversy audiences don’t show up for all sorts of things. Peter,

it’s a controversy And I actually just wanna say, I agree with Alyssa. I don’t necessarily think that the response here, you know, to to blame the Straits was a productive one. At the same time, I get it. You spend years of your life on a on a project. You hope it will be a hit and it’s not.

And it’s that’s a hard thing to go through for anyone.

It’s it’s an contraversy that people didn’t show up and it’s a controversy that he is throwing a fit about this because I like, I it’s just not a it’s it’s a bad book. It is counterproductive. You know, I I, like, you you you cannot harang people into showing up for your movie. You have to give them something that appeals to them. And, like, being like, hey, look, the people who showed up were really liked it.

Hang on, cinema score. Everyone should come see it is a much better appeal than you have all failed me. And my my cause. It’s that’s bad luck. Bad luck.

Alright. Make sure to save time for our bonus episode this Friday in which we discuss whether Hollywood can save journalism or maybe vice versa? Question mark. And now on to the main event, blonde, the new adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel of the same name, about the life and times of Normogene Baker, aka Marilyn Monroe, who is played here by Anida Armists. Director Andrew Dominic’s movie is not really a standard bio pick.

It’s more a lynchy and meditation on the crushing nature of fame, and it’s about as fun as that sounds. There is a there’s been a lot of chatter about this movie and its supposed misogyny, the cruelty towards its subject, and yes, the movie is cruel. But only in the sense that life was cruel to Marilyn Monroe. It’s a movie about a woman who was used and abused by movie executives, by presidents, by husband’s, who’s Aternal search for a father figure culminated in suicide, cheery. The die the Dominic has not crafted a portrait of her successes as an artist or a business woman as a philanthropist or a writer.

But it’s just a it’s just a portrait of the indignities that were heaped upon her starting from a young age when her insane mother nearly drove them into a firestorm to young adulthood when she was assaulted. By Daryl Zanek on the casting couch to her later years when she made. She was made to perform oral sex on JFK while secret service agents listened outside just outside the doors. The whole thing is just it’s cavalcade of cruelites. That’s that’s the the bottom line here.

And the movie look, the movie is successful. Blonde is success in the sense that Dominic wants us to feel horrified. And we do, you know, hooray, I guess. It’s unpleasant to watch and that can be fine. Certain situations, art doesn’t have to be pleasant.

You know, a movie about wartime atrocities can be unpleasant, a movie about slavery can be unpleasant, a movie about holocaust can be unpleasant. But that unpleasantness has to have a deeper resonance than like, I don’t know, fame isn’t worth it? Sometimes fame is bad, I guess. I don’t think this movie accomplishes the depth needed to kind of put us through what it put us through. Anadarko is fine as Monroe, so long as you don’t mind the all American sexual icon slipping into a Cuban accent now and again.

And Dominic’s direction is best described as domineering throughout the film he shifts aspect ratios and color palettes. You know, we’re kind of going between black and white and saturated color etcetera etcetera. He’s basically slipping between how images that he found of Marilyn Monroe looked and then using that in the film. It’s a very annoying technique. I’m gonna be honest with you.

It’s a deeply, deeply annoying technique. And the point he is making here is fairly clear, famous something that happened to Marilyn Monroe. We all saw her how we saw her, you know. She she didn’t really get to see herself how she saw herself. It’s it’s just what happened to her.

It’s just incredibly distracting. It’s the opposite of immersive to quote one famous movie critic who was talking about the godfather. It insists upon itself. It insists upon itself. I don’t I don’t care for that.

I don’t know, guys. This is a miserable movie, but Peter, you love misery. So what what am I missing here?

But I know that you’re

missing much. I think you just appreciate things a little bit differently than I do. I I don’t disagree with your assessment in a lot of ways. I do find the movie’s formal inventions, however, to be to be worthwhile in some ways. This is this is a a fascinating movie to just sort of as a piece of of of of of cinematic technique.

And to watch all of this deployed and to sort of see it all come

together, is

is I think there’s there’s just a to me, there’s sort of something that I kind of that I even even, well, yes, finding this movie quite dark and despairing and even unpleasant. It’s not like a woman I wanna watch every, you know, every weekend. There is something enjoyable and engaging just about seeing someone who is so in control and so in command of the imagery. And Dominic is is one of the don’t know if I wanna call him one of the greats of the last twenty years. At the same time, he has made some great movies, the assassination of Jesse James by the Cow Ford is just a straightforwardly great film.

I really loved killing them softly. I am one of the few people who just finds that movie to be fantastic because it’s so dark and so mean and so just like cynical about human nature and how people like do things that I just like, and and about America and the American project, I just appreciated, like, kind of the depths of its nastiness. Now I think that same nastiness is present here in blondes and it’s somewhat less effective. It’s certainly less entertaining. That it was in killing them softly, which is really this great sort of bleakly satirical arc of a movie.

I think the the biggest problem with Blonde is that it doesn’t have enough of a theory of Marilyn Monroe herself. The movie has a theory of the world around her, but it treats her It treats her as an object who is acted upon and at the same time wants to criticize the world for acting upon her as if she is an object. And so that to me, the the problem with this movie is that it doesn’t take the next step of saying of of showing us who she was or even attempting to sort of to to give her a character to the extent that she wants anything at all in this movie, it’s to be a mother. And the motherhood stuff

really comes

off. It’s it’s kind of one note in grading and doesn’t It just doesn’t like, the movie doesn’t do very much with it except to say, oh, it’s because she has her own issues with parentage and and and all of this. Right? And it’s the her her mother who abused her and that sort of thing. And I think that the the fatal, you know, or maybe not the fatal, but the central flaw of this movie is that its central character is not someone who the movie really cares about.

The movie cares about the abuse that seep upon her, but it doesn’t it

doesn’t

then say, and we should feel for her because she’s a real person who. Who does something, who wants these things, who has an inner life, who has a psychology outside of of this very sort of one note shallow sensibility of, you know, sort of desire to be a mother. And I don’t think desire to be a mother is even necessarily, like, that’s a good that might be a good starting place for a psychology. But this movie barely does anything with it. So it’s a it’s a fascinating technical and formal exercise.

I think there’s a lot that I enjoyed. I like, share Dominic’s sort of essentially mean spirited view of of of human nature. But I also don’t think the movie is engaging enough and it, in particular, it’s not engaging because it’s hard to there’s it’s not just that there’s no one to root for. It’s that the central character doesn’t have any drive towards anything. She’s just drifting along until she very sadly dies.

I wanna push

back on one thing in your in your review here, Peter, which is that Andrew Dominic has never made a good movie. The assassination — So long. — the assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford is the most overpriced film of of the two thousands. It’s a good looking slog, but it is a slog. And it it at least it’s that that movie is more interesting to me because at least it it does feel like it’s about something.

Though it is it is also about fame in a weird way. It’s about the warping effect fame has on people around the famous, which is interesting in and of itself. Maybe we can talk about that another time. And and killing them softly is like a movie that is so obvious and unsubtle as to be unartful. I I just think, like, giving having having it all take place during the two thousand eight financial crisis with the speech at the end about how, you know, America has always been, oh, come on.

Give me a I’m making the the I’m making a bad motion on the screen right now because I’m disappointed with that. I’m still disappointed with that dumb movie. It’s dark and funny. It’s it’s end pointed. Bad movie.

It’s a bad movie that thinks it’s a smart movie. That’s the worst kind of movie. Bad movies I can handle, bad movies that think their smart movies are much worse. Alyssa.

Man, I I wanna be honest with listeners, but I feel like I’m still really processing what I think of this movie. Which I think is

like Yeah.

I I am having trouble with one. Peter and I watched it together, which I think and I was like, I was glad to have sort of someone else in the room there. Because it’s I mean, It’s a movie

that, you know,

I think goes beyond sort of not being interested in that subject and kind of has contempt for it. Right? And Dominic

has

been very clear in interviews that, like, he really doesn’t care about Marilyn Monroe. It was,

like, as

anything other than, like, someone who was, like, beautiful and killed herself. Right? Like, he, you know, he’s been open about Kathy. Like, he doesn’t think anyone, you know, watches her movies, clearly has no interest in, like, her production company, which played a role in bringing down the studio system, or, you know, her more serious dramatic work and stuff a bus stop. And he just he is totally uninterested in her.

And you know, for a movie that is about the sort of, you know, that theoretically is, like, in part about her sort of primal drive to be a mother. You know, I mean, the the scenes with the like, you know, fetuses and the like speculative eye view of her during this, like, you know, episode of what’s basically gynecological rape.

It’s

just, you know, and

I

think you don’t necessarily have to be

you don’t necessarily have

to be interested in Maryland Monroe as a real person. Right? I mean, you could construct something about her and motherhood that is separate from her real history, which I’m like she very much wanted to be a mother she had severe endometriosis. She, you know, had surgery for it. She knew she had ish.

Like, she, you know, she was she did not you know, have some sort of, oh, I, you know, I don’t know why I can’t get pregnant or stay pregnant and like, I mean, she knew she had a medical condition that makes it very hard to conceive. And have children. Which

is entirely absent from the film. Yeah. Unless I’m just just completely

No. No. Totally absent. Completely absent from the film. And like, you know, endometriosis has physical effects on you beyond just like not being able to conceive.

And so you could construct something else, but, like, he just has nothing to say about, like, motherhood or the experience, like, the experience of pregnant for someone who is has been, like, objectified as this, you know, incredibly powerful, but, like, sterile sex symbol. Right? Like what does it mean to be this image of, like, female sexuality and yet not be able to have a kid? You have no sense of, like, clearly she’s looking for a father figure in her various husband’s who she calls daddy. The movie also excludes her first husband who she married to get out of foster care when she was sixteen.

Right? Like, she literally got married so she didn’t have to have another guardian. And again, like, you could be totally uninterested in the just much more complex real person that Marilyn Monro actually was. But he just doesn’t care. Right?

I mean, this is a movie about like a, you know, men who have contempt for women. And the movie just, like, I I almost don’t wanna say that has contempt for Marilyn Monro and Norma Jean because it’s just so it’s so obviously uninterested in her as like a human being. Just like she’s basically an animated blow up doll in the film. And yet, you know, in a weird way, I find myself resistant to some of the criticism of it. Right?

I mean, I I am a little allergic to the argument that, like, oh, you know, of course, you know, that makes her just about someone who is sad that she couldn’t be a mother and that’s a cliche. And it’s like, actually infertility is a huge deal for people. Like, it’s you know, it can be driving in Primo. And,

like, Marilyn

Monroe really care the real Marilyn Monroe really cared about the fact that she didn’t have a baby. Like, that was tragic for her and was a defining experience. And, you know, I think some of the images in the movie are beautiful even though they’re third. Right? Like that, you know, craze to drive up into the Hollywood hills during the forest fire or even that, like, ridiculous threesome vaccine that turns into Niagara Falls.

It’s just like

like it’s

ridiculous, but it’s also kind of beautiful. And so

You know,

I am mad at the movie in some ways. I am frustrated to a certain extent that I can’t entirely get it out of my head. I hate the conversation around it to a certain extent. Totally. I feel like I am experiencing like three hundred and sixty degree irritation with regards to this movie.

Well, they

they this movie is one of these movies that has been blessed by really bad criticisms. And look, I think there are I I I think there are fair criticisms of this movie have leveled some of them. Listen, you have leveled some of them, but there there has been, like, this this weird undercurrent of, like, the very existence of this movie is, you know, an a misogynistic assault on the, you know, decency of common society. But I and I’m just like, wow. I mean, look, I like,

she

was sad. She she was clearly sad in her real life about things that were going on in this movie. Like she it’s not like it’s not like all of this is invented out of whole cloth and like I don’t think that we should say that it’s impossible to portray something like this. But but there there are people who are like offended that this movie exists. And that is always a little bit troubling to me.

And

now

it’s it’s the literary nonhotties. We just have it out for the amount. Speaking of dumb controversies,

we should, you know,

Except for the fact that that was, like, the most just

it was a

good Twitter cycle. For the for the right for

people who are not terminally online, somebody somebody said that Joyce Carol oats should not have been allowed to write a book about Marilyn Monroe because Joyce Carol oats is not hot enough to write a book about Marilyn. Monro, which then led to a whole cycle of people posting shots of, like, photos of Joyce Carolos when she was younger being, like, what do you mean? She wasn’t hot enough? And it’s like, It’s like, alright. We’re getting into weird territory here for what?

We are getting into Is hotness? Or can I mean, like, we didn’t Choice Carol Oates invent the

Hot Girl Walk? What

we really need is for Doris Carrolitz to win the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday to complete this new cycle. If Blonde brings that about and like Twitter just completely melts down as a result. I will agree that Bond is like the greatest movie ever made for destroying social media. I’m

gonna bring up one more thing that I’ve mentioned to Alyssa when we watch it together, but that I I I wanna run by Sunny. I think this movie is interesting as a as a demonstration of what sort of awards bait Netflix will fund. Because Netflix isn’t paying for this because they think this is like the next red notice. Right? This is this is probably not going to be a big Oscar contender in the end, but when they when you buy a movie like this, and fund it.

Upfront, that is how you are what you are hoping from it. And it is interesting to me to see this movie Follow following, Netflix’s previous black and white old Hollywood film Menck by David Fincher. Because both of them are movies about how Hollywood is terrible and abusive. And as we talked about last year around this time. During award season, we inevitably go through a cycle of movies where Hollywood is like celebrates itself.

And the and the inspiring power of movies, which like, and bits of which often get shoehorned into films that have nothing to do with that as like a central message. Right? Like, there’s a a whole bit in the shape of water about how they’re watching the movies and they find themselves, you know, and, like, they learn who they are and they become together and that they’re Sam in the Kenneth Brand Off film that came out last year, the black and white run. Right? When they watch shitty, shitty bang bang and look, oh, oh, this is what makes us a family is watching the movies together.

And the same in the Will Smith film that came out what last year, the tennis movie. Right? They all watch the movie together, and that’s how they become a family feel and find

themselves. That was like an abusive. They they, like, had to watch the movie over and over again till they got the the message of it. But right. But it’s always

about the power that the inspiring power of Hollywood to bring people together. And this year, we’re getting two movies that are explicitly about that. The new Sam Mendez film and the Spielberg movie the Fatalman. And

don’t forget, Dominghells, Babylon. Though

that that that that that looks a little more skeptical of Hollywood, I think, then.

So which we haven’t seen any of those — Yeah. — yet, although they’ve started the first two have started the screen. And It’s just fascinating to me that Netflix’s take on old Hollywood is that it’s abusive and destroys people and we’d like you to award us for that. It’s given, like, Netflix’s very weird relationship with the studios and with the with the legacy Hollywood production companies, it seems like there might be some sort of not that subtle message

happening. The ballot of Buster Scruggs also has at least two segments that are essentially deconstructions of the know, Hollywood cowboy myth. No. I mean, I think I that is an interesting point. I hadn’t really thought about that.

And it is it is kind of funny to think about this as like, Netflix’s Sato Voche war against the the studios. Like, look at what they did to Maryland. Look at what they did to Bank. Bank. Bank in Maryland.

It’s an

also an argument that is to their advantage in the sense that they’re being, like, the incumbents are bad with the

future. Yes. I I actually think that is what’s going on here is that Netflix is laughing. Like, there’s someone at in at Netflix is giving these movies green lights and going. What is it?

What are the folks at at Fox and Sony get it? I guess Fox doesn’t exist anymore, sadly. What are the folks at Disney and universal thinking and, you know, like, they’re they’re gonna there’s there’s, like, I I kinda think

that they are communicating with each other through these choices here. I also think that this is this is the sort of movie that Netflix gets way out over at Skis on that they’re like, yeah, we we should give money we should give money to our tours to make Oscar worthy movies. So we’ll give money to Alfonso Quaron, and we’ll give money to the co one brothers, and we’ll give money to David Fincher, and they’ll they will make things that will win us awards and that’s great. And then they’re like, well, what about the guy who made the assassination of Jesse James by the Carabrobert Ford? You know, Andrew Dominic?

No. They already had a relationship with

him because Dominic did direct a bunch of episodes of Mind Hunter. Exactly. So, you know,

we’ve got we’ve got this guy. He he wants to make this movie about Bond. They’re like, yeah, sure. Let’s give him money. And then he comes back with this, like, n c seventeen nightmare film.

And they’re like, what are we what are we supposed to do with this? What are we you know? I don’t know. It was good while it lasted. We’ll see if it keeps going.

Alright. So what do we think? Thumbs up or thumbs down on Blonde,

Peter? I give this movie a thumbs up with the proviso that it has some real flaws, and I’m not sure I ever wanna watch it again.

Alyssa, I think just purely as

a, like, is this an enjoyable way to spend your time? I have to give it a thumbs down. It’s

thumb down. Thumbs down. Easy thumbs down. Not a

bad movie. No one

should no one should watch it. Why do you hate art? That’s it. That’s it for this week’s show. Make sure to swing by at gmail dot com for our bonus episode on Friday.

Make sure to tell your friend, strong recommendation from a friend is basically the only way. Growth podcast audiences if we don’t grow. We’ll die. We did not love two days after, so please complain to me on Twitter at sunnybunch, and I welcome in that it is in fact the best show in your podcast feed. See you guys next week.