The Bechdel Cast

Came to the pod by way of Sixteenth Minute by Jamie, needed to still be able to hear her voice. One of the few pods in my rotation that I find myself laughing out loud and smiling to myself - a much needed reprieve while still holding movies to account!

I got into the podcast though Jamie’s other more journalistic podcasts that I loved and always found compelling and informative. So I started listening to this podcast regularly and I think I’ve listened to around 100 episodes and found a lot of great films I now love through this show. However I do think there is plenty of room for constructive criticism while admiring the mission of the podcast. I just want to start by asking: Why don't they just focus on women-centered media? There is nothing stopping them from just selecting films already directed by women or that focus on women characters. I’m sure there’s plenty of international films and smaller indie films that they could select to highlight for their listeners and dissect where they could get past the hump of the film needing to be told from a woman’s perspective whether in-story or BTS so they could actually have a more dynamic discussion about the specific merits of the film. I respect the mission of the podcast to highlight and critically examine women’s representation in films and more broadly examine films from an intersectional feminist lens. However it does feel pointless if so many episodes are only going to be concluded with some variation that “it would be so much better if this story was told with a women’s perspective” when as a director or in the writer’s room. It just often seems like they’re just going down a checklist and not actually critically engaging with the work on its own merits. I know they don’t pretend to be film scholars, especially since they are doing it more from a comedian’s perspective not as film scholars, but I do think there’s much more opportunities for critical engagement with intersectional issues that they’re just letting go to waste. I also strongly wish they would more confidently engage with disagreements over how to evaluate certain films and how different feminists can have different criteria for what they look for in art/entertainment and how they grade it. I know feminists aren’t a monolith so I wish they could feel more comfortable navigating those discrepancies in opinion. Because even among specific guests who have been on the podcast or been spoken of positively, there is still a good variety of opinion surrounding how to thoughtfully engage with film & pop culture. My favorite episode where I started to notice this was for The Apartment, I honestly love that Caitlin was caught off guard by Jamie actually having a dissenting opinion for once at the end and just lost her confidence and just gave up on having an opinion at all on the film. I wish they were more self-assured to confront those disagreements more regularly. An example that comes to mind immediately is Jamie has mentioned being a big fan of Broey Deschanel, and I know she was on the podcast for Forrest Gump. Broey had a very confident positive opinion of May-December from her video essay on it that neither Jamie nor Caitlin engaged with at all in their episode on that film. They seem uncomfortable going outside a moralistic comfort zone when examining provocative films like that and don’t seem to want to engage with why so many other people who they have mutual respect with and consider peers may have strongly differing opinions, and they often treat dissenting opinions as a monolith. I’m also surprised they haven’t had Yhara Zayd on the podcast yet, I’d think she would make a fantastic guest and Jamie has mentioned being a big fan of hers before. I know she’s a bigger fan of “My Best Friend’s Wedding” than Jamie & Caitlin were. I also know past guest Emily Vanderwerf is a bigger fan of The Royal Tennabaums than Jamie has mentioned being. I know the point of the podcast isn’t to highlight disagreement but I do think staying too far in their comfort zones can keep the discussions stagnant and make it seem as if they aren’t really learning much from each other about how to be more thoughtful consumers of media. I’m also annoyed by the occasional inconsistencies in the views or standards given by the hosts: Jamie mentioned being uncomfortable questioning age gaps among high school couples in The Perks of Being a Wallflower episode, Caitlin freely criticized those relationships as creepy in the Dazed and Confused episode and neither one said anything either time. I don’t care what their actual opinions are on those topics, I just want them to be consistent with each other about their standards and be transparent if they changed their mind or if they have a disagreement with each other. I do like it when they bring guests to the podcast with more expertise and can illuminate more historical or social context to the films and subject matter discussed. Anyway I have enjoyed the podcast for the most part as much as my experience with individual episodes can vary wildly. I think the podcast has been valuable for me to examine my own attitudes toward film and pop culture and I want from media in terms of the perspectives being told and who is given the opportunity to tell their story and the social impact those stories can have when a more creatively dynamic and socially robust group of people are given those opportunities. There have been many times I disagreed with the hosts, but I still respect them and reflecting on why I disagree with them has been intellectually nourishing for me.

This show rules & is all I listen to atm- extremely funny & insightful hosts and guests!!!! I just wanted to air one grievance: I feel that transness & a diversity of gender experience is a huge blind spot for this show. They’re really mindful of bringing on guests who can speak from lived perspective/experience pertaining to race and sexuality, but trans guests (who might talk about gender in a more expansive way than “women & femmes” vibes) are wildly underrepresented. The hosts (one of whom is non-binary so this tracks) very thoughtfully expanded the language of the Bechdel test to include marginalized genders instead of just cis women, so I’m hoping there will be future eps that walk the walk!

Been listening for years & love the show overall. My one wish for improvement: there are def a number of episodes where they clearly hadn’t researched the movie very well but still went overboard trying to find a social justice issue to harp on. I don’t mind those discussions, but it’s hard to give any sense of credibility when you don’t know the movie well enough to discuss v important & nuanced themes. Love when they bring a guest on who knows both well (like the barbershop w queen latifah episode)

One of the hosts loves to growl the phrase “my daughter,” I guess because 1) she’s imitating Liam Neeson in the movie Taken, and 2) because she thinks it’s really, really, really, really, really funny and interesting. She does it many times per episode, and I guess it’s just the most intriguing thing since sliced bread to her. I’ve never seen anyone run a “joke” into the ground like this. I keep trying to listen to episodes of this podcast, but it never works out. I like podcasts about movies, but this one, I’m constantly skipping ahead. The episode I listened to today (August 7) is Revisiting the movie Her, and it had such potential. But I had to skip ahead at least 12 minutes before they even got to the topic. And then several more before they meaningfully got on topic. And then the growl, this time on the phrase “my wife.” I had to go ahead and exit the episode around then; no point in listening if I have to skip ahead so much. So I guess I’ll just growl “farewell” and hope the podcast listens to feedback in their reviews, especially the things a few of the other reviewers have written.

Are you guys OK? I used to love this podcast, but I now find it to be miserable to listen to because you both seem kind of miserable and like you don’t enjoy any film you watch. I understand wanting to look at art through a critical lens, but life can also be joyful and beautiful and funny. And—as other reviewers have pointed out—the overt anti-semitism has become quite troubling so I can’t support what you’re doing. Best of luck.