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00:00:01
Lagniappe
3 Plays33 minutes ago
Ben, NiNi and Shan answer your questions and award the Girl Who Tried.
Episode transcript available here.
00:00 Welcome
00:55 Introduction
02:32 Inbox: Addicted, and Other Early BL
19:13 Inbox: BL and Queer Cinema
23:36 The Theory of Love RomCom Rewatch
38:51 Girl, You Tried
01:08:04 Outro: One Fuck Of A Year So Far
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Hosts
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to The Conversation, the queer media and brown liquor podcast. I'm Ben, the media critic. I'm Meenie, the Vig's queen. And we're your drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie who are sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.
00:00:33
Speaker
We're here to talk queer film and dramas with a special focus on Asian QL. So if you like deep dives into queer stories, if you like cracked out takes on art and commerce and queer media, if you just enjoy simping for attractive people, we believe in simping.
00:00:50
Speaker
Tune
00:00:55
Speaker
And we're back. It's been ah long season for us. We've been in and out But honestly, if we actually haven't watched that much, and we haven't even talked about that
Podcast Schedule and Content Recap
00:01:08
Speaker
much. Right before we were recording this session, we were trying to get our notes together, and we realized that the arc of this season of our podcast isn't barely about the last four five months of BL.
00:01:20
Speaker
We covered an old BL that will never die, two GLs that most people are never going to watch, Two Western shows in a fandom that mostly only wants to talk about Asian shows. And then we watched Y'all Boys and Isu and had a lot to say about that.
00:01:38
Speaker
That's been the year.
Hosts' Personal Updates
00:01:42
Speaker
We put out episodes in January and February, then nothing till May. June was The Untamed. And then our next episodes went out in August.
00:01:55
Speaker
That's where we are. We're doing fantastic. but We're doing great. ah spot But don't worry, Shan is still here. Say hi, Shan. Shan is always still here. You'll never have a chance to miss me.
00:02:06
Speaker
I know some of you have asked us like directly what's going on with us. Nene was hella busy. I was busy. There's a lot going on. But also, we've been struggling, y'all.
00:02:17
Speaker
The shows are mid. We're not going to pretend they're not. and We're not going to get out here. And just moan about shows at you guys. It's not how we like to roll.
Audience Interaction and Feedback
00:02:32
Speaker
Nini solicited some questions from the audience, one of which is too long and will become its own podcast episode at some point. Again, we're such big name fans. We're getting to our inbox six plus months after the questions came in.
00:02:47
Speaker
We love y'all. We really do. It's the real Tumblr experience. Alright, so let's start with a question. Shine, you want to take us in? Alright, our first question is from Lolly Girl Pops, and they write, Hello, hello.
00:03:01
Speaker
I've been playing catch up on the pod, having found you by chance via a reblog, possibly a lurking Shan reblog, baby. Thanks for this shout out, Lolly Girl Pops. And I'm just having the best time. First of all, please allow me to simp for this podcast. Adore you. Adore your insights.
00:03:16
Speaker
You really make me sit up and pay attention. I'm now so much more critical when watching these shows, and I tend to mostly only watch the shows you endorse. And a nice little parenthetical here. Hello, she loves to cook and she loves to eat. You beautiful thing I'd never have found if not for the conversation.
00:03:30
Speaker
We love that. They continue, so thank you for being truly brilliant. Also, I'm still a little bit of a newbie when it comes to
The Evolution of BL - Quality and Challenges
00:03:35
Speaker
BL. I'm working my way through my early BL syllabus and recently watched the original Addicted. I was genuinely surprised by how much I like this.
00:03:42
Speaker
I can't recall if you've ever touched on this show, but I'd love to know what you make of it if you've ever watched it. And what do you make of earlier BL in general? Is quality improving all the time? i feel like I want to tackle the second half of that question before the first half.
00:03:59
Speaker
First, thank you for listening to us and watching She Loves to Cook. She loves to eat. Anytime somebody tells us they watched a show because of us, it makes all of this worth it.
00:04:10
Speaker
Nothing makes me happier than people going, the show you recommended? It was actually pretty good. As for the generalized question, is quality improving all the time?
00:04:22
Speaker
The short answer is no. Hell no. The long answer is yes. But that requires a very long answer.
00:04:32
Speaker
This is a long-form podcast. So... Like all types of media, you get ebbs and flows. Freedom is given to creatives who every now and then do something really spectacular.
00:04:47
Speaker
And then people will try to build on that and iterate upon that. But eventually the people with money have figured out what makes enough money and then tries to skim as much of it as they can. And that's when things get worse and start to decline.
00:04:59
Speaker
We are very much experiencing that right now in the genre. It's hard to not acknowledge that the overall uncertainty that everyone is facing on the global scene has an impact on the shows you want to watch.
00:05:14
Speaker
That's all I'm going to say about that. But this has been a very difficult year. Genuinely, this is one of the worst years in BL I've experienced since maybe 2017. That's kind of weird to say when we're getting...
00:05:27
Speaker
Still a large volume of shows overall. I just don't think a lot of them are very good. and don't really have a lot of standouts from this year that I think are worth hyping about. The thing about progress is it's not a straight line and it requires a lot of constant effort.
00:05:44
Speaker
And it's a question about what do you consider to be quality? If we're measuring the success of BL about the willingness of boys in the genre to kiss each other, then sure, I guess we've gotten better than where we started in terms of just actors being willing to suck face.
00:06:03
Speaker
If we're talking about the willingness of production companies to spend money, sure, i think a lot of the shows look better and sound better than they did 10 years ago. But for me, I think the storytelling in the genre has taken a pretty big hit in the last year.
00:06:19
Speaker
That's me, though. I'm here for gay reasons, not boy fantasy reasons. I think that long arc-wise, in terms of production quality, definitely.
00:06:32
Speaker
In terms of acting quality, actually for the most part, yes. In terms of story quality... Hmm, it's a mixed bag, ah much more mixed bag than I would expect.
00:06:46
Speaker
As the niche has gotten broader and some things have gotten more popular, i think some of the storytelling has fallen a little bit by the wayside. The art and the commerce are balancing differently right now, and it does show.
00:06:59
Speaker
For me, that means that when something stands out, it really stands out, like it makes it easier for it to stand out. You're not caught up in the drops, so it's easier to find the gold.
00:07:12
Speaker
But overall, to put it to you this way, this year I've gone back to sort of my OG stance. I probably haven't watched more than 15 shows so far. i might end the year between 15 and 20, which is how I started watching d l The last two years have been an anomaly where I've watched a lot more than that.
00:07:32
Speaker
But this year, I feel myself heading back down to normal levels. So in terms of my enjoyment of the genre, I'm having a slightly better time than Ben and Shan this year, but not that much.
00:07:47
Speaker
Shan, what about you? What are your thoughts? Yeah, I agree with both of you. It's not really a matter of BL as a genre being better or worse compared to the
Impact of Addicted Series and Censorship
00:07:56
Speaker
past. It's just that the problems are different.
00:07:58
Speaker
In the past, the problems were more about not being able to get funding for productions and low production values and very green actors who were not yet comfortable with BL as a thing.
00:08:10
Speaker
We're past all that. That's great. But there are new and in some ways much more insidious and complex problems now in the genre. Now that it has become profitable. Now that capitalism has gotten its hands on it and is the main point of these shows at this point.
00:08:26
Speaker
So no, I would not say things have gotten better. i think they've gotten different and in some ways worse. My God. ah just realized that we're living in Lovely Writer.
00:08:37
Speaker
You know... I wouldn't mind if we actually were. if I to wander on by, ah wouldn't be mad at it. Girl, that man is making so much money as a model, he ain't worried about us right now.
00:08:48
Speaker
He's abandoning us! Oh, man, I miss you, bud. I think we should talk a little bit about Lally Girl Pop's other question, which was about Addicted, ah television show that has quite a bit of infamy just because of the circumstances around it, but that I think is maybe not something we consider upper echelon BL. It's really just the circumstances of the show that made it notable. A little bit of background for folks who don't know, Addicted is a Chinese BL web series that aired in 2016.
00:09:21
Speaker
And it is essentially the show that ushered in the current era of gay censorship crackdown in China. It was, I think, something like the second most viewed show on Aichi at the time that it was airing, wildly popular beyond expectations. And of course, that came with some consequences.
00:09:39
Speaker
The show was actually explicitly depicting romance between two boys They did kiss on screen and the episode in which they had their first sexual encounter is the episode where the show got yanked off the air, banned from continuing and finishing its run.
00:09:59
Speaker
the two lead actors in the show were blacklisted by the Chinese government. Like literally they put out the word that they were not to be hired for anything, that they were not to be promoted.
00:10:11
Speaker
Some of the... Promotional stuff they had filmed for the show and got yanked and was never allowed to air. And those actors struggled to work for quite a long time, although they've started to rebound very recently.
00:10:24
Speaker
The show got a lot more attention and became famous for what happened to it and the wave of anti-queer censorship that it ushered in for Chinese dramas. So I watched Addicted when I started watching BL.
00:10:37
Speaker
I don't know if you all remember my BL story, but I basically ran through like one from every country to get a cross section of what was out there. And Addicted was the Chinese BL that I found to watch.
00:10:49
Speaker
There was all this hype around it. And I remember thinking to myself, what is the hype about? I was not a fan of Addicted. it was not my cup of tea.
00:11:00
Speaker
based on what else I've seen of Chinese BL, especially now that there's been a little bit of a Chinese BL resurgence. This is sort of the nature of Chinese BL, and I'm not entirely sure I'm a fan of that.
00:11:15
Speaker
For me, I was just kind of like, okay, what's this about? Oh, this is what this about? Eh, pass. I didn't even know about all the controversy until much later. didn't realize it got yanked off the air because to me, it didn't feel like it ended in the middle.
00:11:29
Speaker
It just felt like it ended. it wasn't for me. So the difficulty I faced was I watched this show in error, which means I didn't finish it because finding shows was a lot more complicated back then.
00:11:42
Speaker
I'm very happy for the new BL fans who get pissy if a show is not free on YouTube for them. Back in my day, we had to walk uphill both ways to find out. In the snow. Let me tell you, in the snow.
00:11:56
Speaker
We were heavily relying on fan subs back in the day, and they were inconsistent, to put it politely. Very much love and respect to all the people trying to make these shows accessible to us.
00:12:08
Speaker
It just was very difficult sometimes. And this is one of those shows I think I got maybe two or three episodes in, was a little confused, could not find the show, learned about all the controversial stuff, and then just sort of put it aside and everyone went back to it.
00:12:21
Speaker
Also, i had read commentary about themes in the show that made me not want to watch it. They readapted the show with Stay With Me like two years ago. And following the week-to-week commentary on that was also uninspiring for me.
00:12:39
Speaker
So my primary feelings about Addicted are, it's really tragic that one of the most populous countries in the world shut down ah whole form of storytelling over the show.
00:12:50
Speaker
And I felt really bad for the actors, who I'm thankful we can say are working again. it felt really shitty that these guys' careers got ended for trying to do a good job with the work that they were given. and Didn't they also make a Thai version of Addicted this year?
00:13:04
Speaker
Yeah, they did. And it sucked. I forgot that that happened. Yeah, please do not You will not be happy with your memories. So I liked Addicted better than Ben Ornini did. I'm a little bit more tolerant, I think, of some of the mainstays of Chinese BL.
00:13:22
Speaker
I've read a lot of Danmay. It doesn't faze me quite as much, although I can't endorse it, really. it kind of is what it is, and you can either rock with it or you can't, and I don't judge anyone who doesn't want to.
00:13:33
Speaker
The Chinese are a bit sexually repressed, and that comes out in some real weird ways in the way they write sex. This is not only for gay sex. It is also true of the way they write heterosexual sex.
00:13:46
Speaker
I want you all to know that I did successfully pressure Shan into watching some movies with me this year. And we watched In the Mood for Love, and Shan was so mad about it.
00:13:59
Speaker
I don't even need that energy right now. Whenever people are encouraged to repress their natural desires, you're going to get some weirdness in the way that they write romance and sex.
00:14:10
Speaker
That is always present in Chinese drama and particularly in a Chinese gay drama in a BL, l you're going to see some weird stuff. You're going to see violence presented as romantic. You're going to see a lot of old cliches about like wanting to force people to accept their true nature through sexual violence. That kind of stuff is in the mix.
00:14:30
Speaker
This story also is technically stepbrother's story, although the two of them are only kind of incidentally stepbrothers. Neither of them ever lived together as brothers.
00:14:41
Speaker
Their parents got together after they had already met each other. so it's not the kind of stepbrother story where there's an actual family unit that's being disrupted. It's just kind of, I think, more of like a trope hook.
00:14:52
Speaker
That was Shan clarifying for me. Yes, that was for Ben. This is one of my hugest squicks. They cast good actors in this show. They are good at what they do. They represent the characters well and they had good chemistry.
00:15:05
Speaker
I believed that they were into each other. i believed the romance. And I thought that the show overall was pretty decent production-wise. It had a good idea of what it wanted to do. There were some moments in the show that still really stick with me.
00:15:17
Speaker
Important character and relationship moments. The show also used music really well. but And I think it was bold of them to have them kiss on screen. had them have sex on screen.
00:15:28
Speaker
Unfortunately led to this huge backlash, but it was a bold thing to do at the time. I will say I watched the show and then my insatiable curiosity got me.
00:15:39
Speaker
was like, well, the show didn't get to finish. So let me go find the novel and read it. Oh, my friends, I do not recommend that anyone read this novel. Oh, my God.
00:15:50
Speaker
mention it specifically because if you think that there were squicks or tropes that you find distasteful or problematic aspects of the show, I will tell you that they improved on that book like a hundredfold. No exaggeration. The book is horrific.
00:16:06
Speaker
That is my one word summary. Horrific. Please do not read it if you have any sensitivities about any of this stuff. The show, I think, is a successful adaptation that got to the core of what was compelling about that book.
00:16:20
Speaker
and the relationship that it depicted and brought it to life on screen without using most of the worst shit that was in that book. So I do give the creators of that show props.
00:16:31
Speaker
I wish they had gotten to finish what they started. feel like if the show hadn't been banned, it would have been briefly popular and then probably... faded, but because it got banned, because the story got cut off abruptly in the way that it did, it became an important symbol for BL and for queer rights in China.
00:16:50
Speaker
That's why, in my opinion, it has endured, and that's why people still watch it. Quick round, Robin, question to sort of tie off that question. What is your favorite OG, probably terrible in terms of production quality and acting, but you love it anyway?
00:17:07
Speaker
turn type. Benjamin? know, it's hard. Is it? mean, maybe it's hard to pick one. i mean, I thought you would go straight for make it right. The same. I'm like, Ben, it's make it right.
00:17:19
Speaker
I mean, my heart is saying make it right. But I was like, let me at least consider what else was going on at the time. The actual answer is make it right. Most ridiculous experience is Lovesick.
00:17:30
Speaker
One of the benefits of being a new fan is how organized the fandom historians are about stuff now. When you decide to watch Lovesick, you know you're going to watch 48 episodes. In 2017, I did not know.
00:17:45
Speaker
i watched the first season and was like, oh, that was kind of cute. Oh, there's more? How fun. i was 14 episodes into into the second season. I'm like, this doesn't feel like it's wrapping up anytime soon.
00:17:56
Speaker
What is happening? I remember this so clearly. i was at the Toronto International Film Festival with one of my best friends and one of their friends having a blast. And I remember walking around with them and having like a real emotional crisis over. so I was like, i don't think I've ever gotten tired of watching gay media before, but I really think I'm tired of watching the show.
00:18:15
Speaker
This is around episode 22 Love 6 season two. i was like, I don't know how to feel about this. Like I'm tired of this. Episode 22, you had 14 more to go It was like a question mark about when this fucking show was going to end.
00:18:31
Speaker
I could not live that way. I need to know what I'm signing it for. Legitimately, the answer is Make It Right. Despite how bad it is, the gay ideas inside of Make It Right are some of the best of the era.
00:18:43
Speaker
Y'all know the answer to mine, and so I'm not even going to say it. We will say it for the benefit of the people. It's love by chance. Is it love by chance? It's definitely love by chance. Love by chance is also a great choice.
00:18:54
Speaker
I really hate that fucking new suage gets to get two points in that
Reflections on Podcast's Impact and BL Fandom
00:19:00
Speaker
response. That's incredible. We said OG and that's what we meant. OGs.
00:19:14
Speaker
Let's go to the next question, shall we? This one's long, so strap in, folks. It's from Harry, so have a good time with it. This one's from Harry or HasMatilda Tumblr.
00:19:25
Speaker
They write, Ben, NeNe, next season soon. Yay! I've been a loyal listener since you first announced the project and have thoroughly enjoyed hearing your opinions and seeing the way the pod has transformed over the past couple of years.
00:19:38
Speaker
Had some good conversations with a friend about the QL sphere recently. She's a queer cinephile. And while she was visiting, we watched a back-to-back viewing of the Iron Ladies and Eating Papa on the Seashore for quite the evening.
00:19:51
Speaker
They don't have a lot of respect for the shows I watch, despite me managing to get them to watch one or two over the years and then more during her visit. In parenthetical, something about the BL sphere being solely Fujo's in their 20s. Yeah, I've heard that one.
00:20:04
Speaker
But talking about the pod may have convinced her that there is valuable discussion to be had, which I guess is a win. The ep where you talked about Marahuyo Project, which is one of my favorite shows, specifically piqued their interest, which was a favorite discussion of mine too, especially as we were able to watch the show together.
00:20:19
Speaker
I appreciate the work you do. I feel like this QL season was one with a lot of interesting stories, but not many stuck the landing. Certainly looking forward to hearing you talk about Tempo, if that's on your list.
00:20:30
Speaker
As an Inter fan and one who is not in any of the more extreme fan circles, seeing the way the show tackled a toxic, overbearing, business-as-usual fan base was enlightening. specifically in the expectations and roles of the fan base for creators.
00:20:45
Speaker
Certainly something to be said about the industry there. I know you don't have an awful lot of faith in GMMTV helming BLs in Thailand right now, but I feel like I'm more concerned with the way they are or aren't protecting their talents.
00:20:57
Speaker
Idol culture also popped up in Gelboys, which is def a show I'm keen to hear you talk about if you plan to. I also finished watching Theory of Love after last season and have enjoyed following the related cinema challenge.
00:21:10
Speaker
Can't say it's my favorite off-gun outing, but certainly my favorite part of fandom is the ensuing conversation in meta. Also, see your love. Finally, a disability BL that didn't drop the ball.
00:21:20
Speaker
Such high hopes for Pluto in that regard, especially from the first couple of eps. Oh, well, I love these show reviews, Harry. These are great. Um... Not many questions on my end for you today, but I did want to pop in for the first time and share my love and some thoughts.
00:21:33
Speaker
Keen for the winter season, despite it meaning my summer is leaving, it's cooling down and I am not happy. I hope you guys had a somewhat restful break despite, well, everything. Harry. Thank you, Harry. I'll just note that we're getting to your question kind of late. ah So the season has changed. We're getting to the question so late. It might have come back around to being accurate. Like winter is coming. Summer is leaving. Winter is coming.
00:21:54
Speaker
I love Harry so much. I'm so glad you messaged us. Harry and I have had quite a few fun discussions over the years. I'm very glad you got your friend to watch some of BL, but your friend is correct. If they're a queer cinephile, BL is not concerned with queer truth as its primary reason. If you're here as a queer cinephile, it's a pain in the ass.
00:22:13
Speaker
The only thing I will say to your friend is you can't just dunk on BL as Fujo's in their 20s because there are Fujo's in their 70s who still love Star Trek. Fujo's will always be Fujo's.
00:22:26
Speaker
They're underpinning a lot of this. It's a complicated experience to be a fan of this genre. You got to share space with a lot of people you weren't expecting to share it with. Isn't that just the experience of fandom overall?
00:22:39
Speaker
You're just going to be sharing space with people who do not see the things the same way you see the things. And that can be incredibly annoying and has been for us sometimes.
00:22:50
Speaker
But also, we are meant to be a big tent, I guess. That is not a universal opinion. look
00:23:00
Speaker
The tent is at least big enough to fit me, Ben, and Shan. That's a fairly big tent. Which is a fairly big tent, I think. I'm really glad you got your friend to watch Marihuyo Project. That's a good one to show ah queer cinephile. I think your friend probably actually gets some enjoyment out Opawn, too.
00:23:17
Speaker
I think your friend should look at our vibes list for standout queer narratives and watch those. I think they would enjoy those. Basically. Check in with us once a year. We'll tell your friend who's worried to watch.
00:23:36
Speaker
Harry mentioned the Theory of Love Cinema Challenge. I want to dive into that a little bit. Y'all know I am not a fan of Theory of Love. Shan has gotten Ben to rewatch it and change his opinion.
00:23:50
Speaker
It will not happen for me. Twice. Shan got me to watch this goddamn show fucking twice. I will say that the second rewatch was entirely his fault. I made the foolish mistake of musing on this podcast where Shan could hear it.
00:24:05
Speaker
Never do that if you don't want to be embroiled in a project. From the idea of a Theory of Love rewatch where we actually watched the films that were the thematic thrust of the episodes of the show.
00:24:18
Speaker
13 movies for 13 episodes. Shan was like, that sounds great. I love our project. We also have nothing else good to watch. Let's do that. So we went and watched all 13 films with each episode over the course of just over four months with some of our homies. You can look at the TOL RomCom Rewatch tag on Tumblr and view our joy and dismay and horror at this project.
00:24:45
Speaker
We watched Dear Daconda, a pretty famous Thai film. We watched Love Actually, and unfortunately famous Western Christmas movie. We watched Friends with Benefits, an American rom-com with Mila Kunis and the original Thief Justin Timberlake. We watched Crazy Stupid Love.
00:25:02
Speaker
We watched 10 Things I Hate About You.
Theory of Love Cinema Challenge
00:25:04
Speaker
We watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. We watched Flipped. We watched The Proposal. I'm going to get Ooh. The last moment. Begin again.
00:25:15
Speaker
actually like that one. He's just not that into you. My Girl, another famous time movie. And Stand By Me, a fairly famous American film.
00:25:26
Speaker
Let's not get into all the reviews of these films. we could be here all night. I will say this much. As someone who likes film, this was a very worthwhile project.
00:25:37
Speaker
This was a really interesting look at a bunch of the kind of movies that a wannabe cinephile who can't read would select. This is such a healing experience for me.
00:25:50
Speaker
I can finally let go a third. That boy is so stupid. And he has such terrible taste in film.
00:25:58
Speaker
The best film on this list was one Kai selected. Yep, that was my favorite part of the Wii Watch when we finally got to a good movie and we realized it was Kai's pick.
00:26:09
Speaker
Third is a rom-com trash, girly. This is not me dunking on rom-coms. We watched some good rom-coms in this list. Third has horrible taste in rom-coms and does not know how to watch a movie. Inside the show, Theory of Love, third is a film reviewer.
00:26:24
Speaker
He is watching and referencing these movies that are on our rom-com rewatch list. And each of the episodes of Theory of Love is named after the corresponding movie.
00:26:36
Speaker
That's how we actually know which movies Third likes and what he thinks of these movies. And it's not just that he has bad taste. He's a horrible meta-analyst and critic.
00:26:48
Speaker
He did not understand most of these movies. This is actually intentional in the story. Third is a hopeless romantic who's a little bit dumb and ah and in love with his own misery. And he's taking all the wrong lessons from these rom-coms he's obsessed with.
00:27:04
Speaker
He clearly never finished 10 Things I Hate About You. I'm going to go let's through some quick hits. Dear Dekanda, I was really impressed with the film, but I hated the main character and the core themes of that movie.
00:27:18
Speaker
I think it's a deeply troubling film, and Thai people, we should reflect. That being said, there's a lot of horrible American and Canadian ones out here. We got lots to go around. The next one was Love Actually. And the fact that I will have that horrible song stuck in my head for the rest of my life is a real travesty.
00:27:37
Speaker
Welcome to the experience. I hate that movie. I finally get to the iconic scene with the fucking cards in that movie, and it is the most fucked up thing of all time. You never knew the context of that scene!
00:27:50
Speaker
I never knew the context, and I don't care. I'm spoiling it for anybody who's never seen it. Leave it to them. Everybody should discover this movie for themselves! Can I just mention, though, this is a bad movie.
00:28:02
Speaker
I don't hate it. You know what, Nini? That is the least surprising thing you've ever said to us! We all know. We all know that I enjoy some absolute trash. like Where is the Harlem Nights gif? I need it right now. Is it a trash movie? Yes.
00:28:18
Speaker
Do I enjoy it? Parts of it. We watch these movies with a group of friends and one of our friends wrote such a scathing breakdown of this movie. We'll link it because it's so good.
00:28:30
Speaker
You should just go read some of the reviews of these films that we wrote. It was very fun. We watch Friends with Benefits. Not a terrible movie, but gets most of the normal rom-com things wrong about misunderstanding its core characters and hating its girls.
00:28:43
Speaker
We watch Crazy Stupid Love. Is that the one that had Ryan Gosling in it? That was one the better movies. That movie actually was way better than I expected. I was surprised.
00:28:55
Speaker
Fer did not understand it at all. He didn't. He clearly was just using all these movies because they had titles that were allowing him to be dramatic. He did not watch these movies. third analysis of this film is on the level of like love it's so crazy and stupid like that's it that's like that's the level meta-analysis he's right i hate that boy so much now let me tell you And he's the screenwriter for their company? I don't believe it.
00:29:24
Speaker
We watched 10 Things I Hate About You, pretty decent Shakespeare adaptation, honestly. Classic. Very good use of a lot of young talent at the time that went on to have pretty decent acting careers.
00:29:36
Speaker
We watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, one of the most incredible sci-fi romance movies I've ever seen in my life. I always telling people to watch that movie. Always. Always. Mark Ruffalo is always willing to give us bulge in movies. Thank you. all hear No, but seriously, Eternal Sunshine is one of the movies that I am constantly recommending to people. I think it is one of the best movies I've ever seen.
00:30:00
Speaker
It's really good, and it was linked to the episode of Theory of Love, where we get a perspective flip. It was really beautifully done. I was incredibly impressed by the screenwriting for the show in the first half and how all of these movies that we watched tied in so clearly thematically to the episodes of the show and the things that were happening in the relationships.
00:30:23
Speaker
Wow. Eternal Sunshine is all about that grief of a relationship lost and trying to recover from that and making a drastic choice because it's so hard. And this is the pinnacle episode of Theory of Love where we get the perspective switch. We find out what's been going on the whole time.
00:30:44
Speaker
And we see Kai start to grieve the mistakes that he's made in the relationship that he's lost. That was probably my favorite week of the whole project. The movie was so good. The tie-ins to the episode were so clear. One of my favorite episodes of the show.
00:30:57
Speaker
In the second half of the show, i do have to unfortunately report that the thematic ties between the films and the show started to fall apart a little bit. It's just all bad. That's not true. From here on out. That's not true.
00:31:08
Speaker
That's like one good film in the back half of this. But the next one we watched was Flipped. And this one sucked the second most. and just viscerally mad now hearing the title this was one of the absolute worst films i have ever watched in my life horrible and this is third's favorite film it's fucking favorite movie he says it a million times it is the most asinine tedious film i have ever watched it's bad and third should be ashamed of himself We watched The Proposal. That's the Sandy B. That was actually pretty good, too.
00:31:40
Speaker
Which one the Ryans is that? Reynolds. There you go. That one was a lot of fun to watch, but kind of dark because it's an immigration romance. The immigration piece of it hit weird in 2025, I'm not going to lie, but it was a cute movie.
00:31:53
Speaker
It has Sandy B. She's good. She can't save every film that she's in. How dare you?
00:32:03
Speaker
Two two speed on a boat. I said what I said. Cruise control. Two speedy, two oceanic. How dare you? said, she has owned it herself and was like, I should not have said yes. Kiana warned me and said, don't do it, girl.
00:32:20
Speaker
The next, ninth film was The Last Moment, which is only on here because clearly GMM was like, we need to put one of our movies in this little show. Yeah, they must have forced it because it does not belong at all. is...
00:32:32
Speaker
Probably the worst film on this list. Oh, I hated it. and I will never get over Piss Boy in my life. I will not be providing context for that.
00:32:42
Speaker
That is a trigger just for the people who watch that with us. you don't want to know.
00:32:50
Speaker
Don't ever watch that film. Not that you will. We had to go through some trials to even find it to watch. We watched Begin Again. That has Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightley.
00:33:03
Speaker
I actually love Keira Knightley a lot. And I think she and Mark are fantastic in this movie. Holy shit. This was legit. Of all of the films that we watched, Eternal Sunshine is the one I'm most grateful that I watched.
00:33:14
Speaker
But this was honestly the sleeper movie of the entire project for me. I was not expecting to be as enamored with this movie as I ended up being. This was an excellent rom-com, and I really don't want to spoil it. If you're ever in the mood for a rom-com, go watch this.
00:33:31
Speaker
It'll be good for you. It's a music movie that has good music. I see that it's written by the same people who wrote Once, and I love Once, so I will definitely be taking this one in It is an incredible movie.
00:33:45
Speaker
I was deeply emotionally moved by it. Yeah, we were all really into it more than we expected to be. And then we watched He's Just Not That Into You, one of the worst films of the project.
00:33:56
Speaker
This is like the number three worst film we watched. Holy shit. It was bad. We knew that one was going to be bad, though. It's based on that terrible book that was really popular in the early 2000s. It's just basically nagging women.
00:34:08
Speaker
Horrible. I can't believe they used Justin Long that way. There was a, well, I won't call it shocking, but there was quite an abundance of deeply misogynistic films on this list.
00:34:19
Speaker
We watched My Girl, a very famous Thai film. I really loved the nostalgia of this particular film. Yeah. It's one of those classic adult looks back on their childhood and reminisces.
00:34:33
Speaker
To be clear, no relation at all to the English My Girl film, just similar name. It was an excellent film. I have some issues with the adult section of it, but the nostalgia section, fantastic.
00:34:46
Speaker
Yeah, the kid stuff was awesome. The kid actors were great. And then we finished off with fucking Stand By Me. Oh my God. This film is famous only because River Phoenix and Will Wheaton awoke many things and a lot of young people.
00:35:00
Speaker
But this is a dark, really mean film. I don't like it. I hated it. I actually like viscerally hated it. I had trouble watching it, which doesn't usually happen to me. Not for me.
00:35:11
Speaker
So our final thoughts. Was the project worth it for us? Yes. Should any of you actually do what we suggested? Probably not.
00:35:23
Speaker
ah I think it's so fun if you're not the type of person who really enjoys unpacking the context and influences around the media that you enjoy i do think it was a way to get more insight into the characters and theory of love which was fun for me because that's a show that i already really love and it added a new layer but some of these movies are not good so don't put yourself through that if you aren't like really committed to the bit in the way feel free to just read our reviews and decide if you actually want to watch the films
00:35:56
Speaker
If you're a big fan of Tybiel, I actually think it would be very beneficial to watch Dear Dekanda and My
Thai Film Recommendations
00:36:02
Speaker
Girl. I think it would be helpful in general to engage with more mainstream Ty film, especially that was made before 2010, because that's the films that informed a lot of the creators that you're fond of now.
00:36:15
Speaker
You do not need to watch The Last Moment and deal with Piss Boy. Please don't. I beg you, don't do it. i will suggest that people watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. 10 Things I Hate About You, and Crazy Stupid Love.
00:36:31
Speaker
I want to just double down on endorsing Begin Again. I think a lot of people haven't seen that film, and it was surprisingly great. It really was. I think of all the films I watched in this one, Eternal Sunshine and Begin Again are the two that I am most glad that I watched.
00:36:45
Speaker
I got one final question for Ben. We've now come to the end of two Theory of Love rewatches, and I feel like you evolved a bit on each. Where are you sitting now with it? Third is trash.
00:37:06
Speaker
Like there's a part of me that actually doesn't want Kai to make the turn because I don't think third deserves it. I think third is a pretty horrible friend.
00:37:18
Speaker
It's notable when they did their pandemic special that they clearly realized they lost the audience on third and they tried to do a bunch of repair work to show that third was growing out of this ball of resentment that he was.
00:37:30
Speaker
These were a horrible group of boys. Exactly! These are bad and friends! Third really lost me on this outing. Kai becomes more sympathetic each time I watch the show. Like, I know that's hard to believe, Nene, but honestly, he's the only character who's written in such a way that they actually experience an arc.
00:37:52
Speaker
His character actually internalizes the events that happen to him and tries to change his behavior. And that's really frustrating to recognize in the third watch that third himself never experiences ah moment of personal growth in all of this.
00:38:09
Speaker
I'm telling you, Kai is the hero of this show. It's a tough pill to swallow. but All of us who over-identified with third, we got some soul searching to do. We got some baggage to unpack.
00:38:20
Speaker
Yeah. Work on your drama therapy, people. Myself included. Like, I watched this when I was 27. I'm 35 now. I have grown. i am not that boy anymore.
00:38:31
Speaker
great to see, Betsy. I believe in drama therapy. It's real. Anyway, thank you for the question, Harry. it was a fun project for us to do, and it was fun to have people follow along.
'Girl, You Tried' Segment Analysis
00:38:44
Speaker
Thank you.
00:38:52
Speaker
We're going to get to a couple of the other notes that Harry left. We are now headed into the last part of ourlan up episode our signature segment called Girl, You Tried. This season has encompassed most of the year, and it's been bad.
00:39:11
Speaker
Mimi, these girls are not trying. They're not trying at all. It's so hard to pick any that are even went attempting. Going back to the original point of Girl You Tried, it is all about shows with a good idea and terrible execution.
00:39:26
Speaker
But some of these girls are not trying. The ideas are not there. We came up with a list of three that we could stretch to say that they tried.
00:39:38
Speaker
I actually enjoyed all three of these. Shan and Ben have other thoughts. The three nominees for the first two-thirds of this year's Girl You Track are Tempo from JMMTV, Us the Series, JMMTV GL, and When It Rains It Pours, Futari Doshubari from Japan.
00:40:01
Speaker
Since Harry asked us about Tempo, I will let Shan go first because she has thoughts. My experience with Tempo was actually pretty fun for me. I watched it in a way that was correct for me, which is I did not watch it week to week with everybody.
00:40:17
Speaker
I tend to get pretty frustrated with GMMTV BLs when I watch them weekly. So I took a different approach this time. I said, you know what? I'm going to wait. If at the end people are still saying they really like the show, I'm going binge it.
00:40:28
Speaker
When shows have pacing issues or when there is some messiness in the writing or things just don't progress in a way that feels satisfying, I can get over that much better when I'm binging than when I am watching week to week and having a lot of time to ruminate and get frustrated in between episodes.
00:40:47
Speaker
So I watched Tempo in a binge and it was actually pretty fun. I enjoyed the show. I certainly did not experience the fervor about it. That many people seem to It didn't strike me as a show that quote unquote invented romance. I did not think that the main pair and their story was as compelling as many people seem to think. It was just a perfectly okay, middle of the road romance for me.
00:41:10
Speaker
I liked the romance parts of the show. I liked the group dynamics and the friendships. What I didn't really vibe with was anything about the idol industry. The show just got that super, super wrong, like catastrophically crazy wrong. And it bothered me through the entire show.
00:41:27
Speaker
None of the plots that were about the idol industry really made any sense. The main characters that were rooted in the industry, like the group's boss and the people around them, their motives and actions didn't really make sense.
00:41:39
Speaker
i thought the music and the performances were bad, but I did enjoy the main thrust of the romance. I was really into Lego's character. was my favorite. thought he was fun.
00:41:51
Speaker
I had fun with it. It wasn't that deep for me, and it certainly didn't stick with me in the way that some of the classic GMMTV BLs I love did, but I thought it was a perfectly good show.
00:42:02
Speaker
They did try. It had really good production values. It was a par-b-d-show. and it looks like They clearly put money into this. The whole look of the show was gorgeous. There was so much cool stuff going on in the visuals and the costumes.
00:42:17
Speaker
I really enjoyed just visually watching it. I definitely think it's a show that deserves acknowledgement for its effort to tell a decent story. Yeah, I watched it week to week.
00:42:29
Speaker
So I had a different experience from Sean on this. I enjoyed the romance. I thought it was a pretty good s slow burn. Watching it week to week, it was excruciating in a good way.
00:42:41
Speaker
I love the theme song. I listen to it almost every day. i am not steeped in idol industry stuff. So that stuff stood out to me less than it would have stood out to Shan, who is really, really immersed in this stuff.
00:42:57
Speaker
I overall had a good time with this show. It was gorgeous to look at and it sounded really good. I think that they put effort into They did try.
00:43:08
Speaker
Ben watch Tempo? You didn't, right? sure didn't. I
00:43:14
Speaker
i didn't think so, but I just wanted to double check. I will say this for Tempo. I thought the two leads had very nice lips based upon the GIFs I saw. then They took good care of those lips.
00:43:25
Speaker
I didn't see a single Lip Watch 2025 moment in any GIFs. And you know what? I'll take it. But all of the mooning and screaming about these boys... Didn't speak to anything interesting happening from a queer perspective in this show, though I felt no desire to watch it.
00:43:43
Speaker
And I do not feel any FOMO. I think that's fair, because even when I was watching it, I was like, I don't necessarily think that anybody else needs to watch it, but I'm having a good time. The things the show does well are not things that really matter to you, Ben. So I think that was the right thing you.
00:43:58
Speaker
I feel like if I had watched it, I'd just be irritated at this point. So it's probably for the best. Moving on to the next nominee, I think this is one that only I watched, which was Us the Series, which is a GMMTV, Chiao, with Emi and Bonnie. I love Emi Tassorn, so I was definitely inclined to watch this.
00:44:20
Speaker
The show Trini Parlansk hit us a six for a nine. The way it was promo-ed was actually not what the show was about.
00:44:31
Speaker
It was more of a family trauma narrative. I actually got really into the show. I think that all the acting was great. I think that the underlying story was great.
00:44:43
Speaker
There is a terrible parent who is not forgiven. Shani will be happy to know. So what is the story, girl? My experience of this show, I watched episode one and I was repulsed by it and I stopped watching the show.
00:44:57
Speaker
That's all I remember. And I remember Twig like gritting their teeth through the whole show. Me and several of our friends watched it together and we're like, no, thank you. Goodbye. So like, what was the story here?
00:45:09
Speaker
Let me see if I can pull together like a coherent explanation. You put it on this list, girl. You got to. Yeah. I think the reason that Shannon Twig and the others hated the show is that it starts with a big lie. And you think that the show is just going to be about the romance. So the big lie in the beginning is one of the things that you're just like, oh, no.
00:45:30
Speaker
But actually, the big lie goes away fairly early. And the romance actually is... done and dusted fairly early and the rest of the story is about bonnie's character who is the little sister of sing harit's character they have this terrible father who has been cheating on his wife their entire lives they have multiple siblings out there One of their siblings is actively trying to ruin their lives, which is how the big lie happened, because she was working with the girl who was with Singh and eventually fell in love with Bonnie.
00:46:07
Speaker
That part went away really quickly because she was like, no, I actually like this girl. I'm going to tell her the truth. I'm not going to be part of your thing. And then homegirl was off the rails. Yeah. That was actually the majority of it.
00:46:20
Speaker
Homegirl went off the rails and Sing's character trying to be the glue that holds his family together and basically having a nervous breakdown over it. Wow, that is really not as advertised.
00:46:31
Speaker
It was advertised kind of as Emmy's character was with Singh's character and then cheated on him with his sister, which is not what happened at all. It really is more of a family trauma narrative.
00:46:45
Speaker
A lot of it is about Singh's character basically having this slow motion nervous breakdown. Bonnie's character has left the family at the beginning of the story. She's living on her own.
00:46:55
Speaker
She will not go back. Her father slept with her teacher and had a kid. Nobody wanted to tell the mom. And it was a giant familial mess. But in the end, not only is the father not forgiven, i think he actually does something that ends him in prison.
00:47:13
Speaker
So there's lot there that nobody really expected. But in terms of the actual two romances, there's Emmy and Bonnie and there's Viu and Mim, who is Bonnie and Singh's half-sister in the story.
00:47:29
Speaker
Those are actually pretty good, solid romances. Emmy and Bonnie have great chemistry. Viu plays an amazing lesbian when you give her the right script. i quite enjoyed it.
00:47:41
Speaker
I don't think it's for everybody, but I also want people to know that it is not as advertised. I guess they thought that something that looks more like a salacious GL cheating plot would attract more attention, but that's what turned a lot of people off of it, I think.
00:47:57
Speaker
Demi's character doesn't actually cheat on Sing's character. She breaks up with him when she realizes that she's in love with his sister. The terrible promotion is the part where they did not try, but on the actual story, they tried, and they genuinely, on most of it, succeeded.
00:48:14
Speaker
Okay, so... That moves us on to the final nominee for The Girl Who Tried this season. And there is definitely a split decision on this one. When it rains, it pours.
00:48:27
Speaker
Futari Doshubari.
Deep Dive into 'When It Rains It Pours'
00:48:29
Speaker
Here we have like the opposite, Nini, where me and Ben watched this week to week and you binged it literally like just this weekend. Ben, you watched this one and thought about it quite a lot. Do you want to give the overview?
00:48:40
Speaker
Sure. What It Rains It Pours is a adult romance story where two guys who work at the same company end up becoming unexpected pen pals because of a typo and an email address.
00:48:55
Speaker
and end up using each other sort of as a journal to dump about the frustrations they're having in their relationships. Our more optimistic guy has been with his longtime girlfriend, and she seems to be increasingly sex-repulsed.
00:49:12
Speaker
This is leading to distance in their relationship and causing him a great deal of uncertainty and frustration. Our other guy is gay And in a very strange cohabitation with his childhood friend who seems determined to take care of him, but will absolutely, in no uncertain terms, fuck him at all.
00:49:38
Speaker
The two of them get steadily closer in their emails and then eventually realize that they've been emailing each other, which turns into them hanging out with each other more. And in the building frustration and loneliness they're feeling, they end up finding a connection in each other and then deciding to go forward with the emotional affair they've been having for a while and turn it into a full-on sexual affair.
00:50:02
Speaker
This eventually leads to both of their relationships blowing up. And in the aftermath, the two of them are going to maybe try to be together. This should have been a pretty solid show for us to talk about.
00:50:16
Speaker
Unfortunately, the week-to-week experience of this show led to a lot of frustration that I think you were spared, Nene. I noticed you had like a really positive experience at a specific moment, and I went back and read our commentary at the moment.
00:50:33
Speaker
And basically we had your response and then had it ripped because the book readers were like, that's a cop out from the show because this is the story these guys were actually telling.
00:50:44
Speaker
I think that's the consistent problem with this particular show. It withholds key moments and leaves them off screen for the audience to determine what happens there.
00:50:57
Speaker
I don't enjoy the constant emotional ambiguity That I was left with when it comes to this show. More specifically, because sex was such an important sticking point for both of the characters for why they were so willing to get involved in an affair, i really think this show being a little chaste about its sex was not a good choice.
00:51:23
Speaker
also think that they did a bad job with the gay pair because I think they really did a disservice to the Fujisawa character which is not fair because they actually did a great job with the Kaori character.
00:51:38
Speaker
I actually really loved the breakup scene. I think that character was given a great deal of grace by the narrative overall and I think that that section of the story landed the most cleanly for me.
00:51:53
Speaker
It's tricky one to unpack and talk about because there's a novel. There's what the show ended up doing. And then there's what I actually hoped the show was going to do, which is neither of those things.
00:52:05
Speaker
So there's a few different versions of the show swimming around in my head. In the book, Fujisawa is very much an evil mustache twirling villain, which is not something that I would have been interested in. So I am glad that the show changed that.
00:52:20
Speaker
Just I don't think that the ways that the show changed the narrative actually landed very well because, as Ben said, there was a lot of ambiguity in the changes that they made that was not intended to be there.
00:52:32
Speaker
That ended up becoming most evident and unfortunate in the dubious consent, non-consensual, however you want to call it, sex scene that was depicted in the penultimate episode that was in the book a violent sexual assault.
00:52:47
Speaker
We went to talk to folks after the episode and learned that there were so many different interpretations of what happened in that scene and nobody was entirely sure what we were supposed to think happened or what it meant, which is really not good when you're talking about something as serious as assault from an abusive character.
00:53:04
Speaker
So that made me pretty uncomfortable. I just was really disappointed that that was the direction the story went because what I found most compelling about this show when it started was that it seemed to be about these two relationships where it wasn't that anybody was villainous. It was just that the desires...
00:53:24
Speaker
of the people in these relationships were mismatched. They were trying to force these long-term relationships that weren't working because they wanted different things than their partners.
00:53:34
Speaker
I really liked that as an idea to unpack. And I liked too that our two main characters did not actually deal with those things in a healthy way. And that led them to make the decision to cheat. I thought that that felt very human and very realistic in terms of how affairs like that tend to happen.
00:53:52
Speaker
That's part of why I was extremely disappointed when they turned the gay side of that equation into a straight up like abusive controlling stalker situation. like That really undercuts what I thought we were doing here.
00:54:03
Speaker
And it's just not what I want to be watching. And then on top of that, they added ambiguity where there wasn't supposed to be ambiguity. And that created a lot of confusion and muddled their messaging. I kind of see what they were trying to do, I think.
00:54:15
Speaker
But the show for me was kind of a weird experience all the way through. There were always parts of it that I found compelling. And there were always parts of it that I didn't think were working. So it never fully clicked for me.
00:54:27
Speaker
i appreciated, though, that there was clearly a lot of thought that the creators were trying to do something interesting here. There was a lot of care that went into like the visuals of the show.
00:54:37
Speaker
It just never came together for me. And the way the last few episodes played out with a lot of major important scenes and important themes from the book being removed but not fully and leading to this weird ambiguity, i agree with Ben that them not including the actual pivotal sex scene of the book is a head-scratcher.
00:54:57
Speaker
They kind of had them go from entering an affair with with ambiguous or unclear feelings for each other into just like a snap of a finger. Suddenly they're passionately in love, but we didn't see any of that because they cut it all out of the story.
00:55:11
Speaker
That was a big miss for me. I did really like the Kauri breakup scene and I liked the way that her arc was handled all the way through. It's a show that I think belongs in The Girl You Tried consideration because it did try. It did do some interesting things, but it just didn't cohere. And it certainly did not provide a consistent experience for the people who watched it.
00:55:34
Speaker
This is actually first a time we've gotten to talk about it because I literally just finished it today. I think that I benefit from a few different things. One, that I binged it. I think definitely changes the tenor of a lot of it for me.
00:55:48
Speaker
Two, that I'm just coming off of editing our conversation about Hisu in Class 2. And three, that I have sort of developed a level at which I approach Japanese drama.
00:56:06
Speaker
that doesn't for me read ambiguity so much as reticence to portray certain things. I also was not engaged in any of the conversation around it. I was not familiar with the story.
00:56:20
Speaker
and didn't know anything about the novel. I went into it completely blind. I had no expectations whatsoever. And I think that that genuinely put me in a place to just be able to receive it, take it in and come to a conclusion that way. So for me, when I watched it I don't see any gaps.
00:56:39
Speaker
Normally, and Sean had pointed this out to me, I am good at filling in gaps where I see them, which is why I have slightly better time with some shows than Ben and Sean do.
00:56:51
Speaker
But there's a difference between filling in gaps and there not being gaps for me. And from my view of watching the story, i don't find any gaps. So I guess that's the big question then for you.
00:57:03
Speaker
Where you think we're describing gaps, what did you read? Sean talked about one around the pivotal sex scene, which I assume is the sex between say and How You Are. Yes?
00:57:15
Speaker
Yeah, but not the part that we saw in the show. so In the novel, they have the first very awkward sex, which is what we saw. And then after that, they have their emotional moment together.
00:57:26
Speaker
And that is when they start having real sex, good sex. passionate sex and that is very intense and goes on for days that is the part that the show cut out and that's what explains why he gets so sprung for the boy yeah that is when they actually passionately fall in love with each other which is something that was not actually on screen in the show to me they fell in love before that so that but they actually got to this ex It was a pivotal moment for them, yes, but not in terms of their emotions.
00:57:59
Speaker
Because for me, I'm seeing them having the emotional affair the entire time. And so the physical affair, when it comes, it's this turning point, but it doesn't do it for me. This is the BL gay divide, and this is why I'm so angry about this particular part.
00:58:14
Speaker
This is a show about a gay man and a straight man getting together. I don't think glossing over... the sexual awakening component of that is acceptable at all. I'm not willing to just hand wave that as, well, they were already having the emotional affairs of the sex doesn't matter. It actually does because so much about what they were doing was wrapped up in notions of identity.
00:58:36
Speaker
Glossing over what may have happened between Fujisawa and Sei is unacceptable as well, because one of them was absolutely refusing to have sex and then maybe tries to have sex, maybe tries to force sex, maybe rapes his boyfriend, maybe they have awkward bad sex finally.
00:58:55
Speaker
We're not entirely certain, but we know the both of them are kind of over it. and emotionally spent the day after that. This is a show where the sexual tension between the four main characters was critical to their characters, and it was not well managed for me.
00:59:14
Speaker
I'll just add, Ben mentioned earlier that for some of us, there was a more positive reaction and then we learned more about the book and then changed. That's not how I experienced it. I was disappointed the whole time from the jump. I was just like, uh-uh, nope, that was not it. They did not nail that. I did not see what I needed to see for Hagewara.
00:59:30
Speaker
For me, it was very startling to go from... Hagiwara's uncertainty and still figuring out if he wanted this to then all of a sudden he is obsessively into, say, to the point where he's falling apart.
00:59:43
Speaker
Like that literally was a two minute transition on screen. And for me, i need to actually see that. I need to see him have the sexual awakening. I need to see him then tip into a more serious and passionate love. And I need to see that play out to the point where he starts to lose his grip.
01:00:01
Speaker
that's just not stuff you can skip for me i think i definitely have a different view of that and that's maybe because of the way that i think about sex but i take your points both of you you call yourself the sex and story girl this was a show about sex and they didn't have that's exactly the thing i didn't think the show was a about sex the fact that they're not having sex with their partners To me, it's about the emotional pain of rejection more than it is about the physical desire for sex.
01:00:34
Speaker
Which is why when they finally get the sex, it's supposed to be about how do they respond affirmation. The scene when they're having sex, when Sei tells Hagiwara if they don't want this body or whatever it is that he says to him, that really hit me.
01:00:50
Speaker
I sound incredibly emotional because it was to me like validating The show's about sex, but it's also not about sex. And I probably just under indexed on the amount that it was about sex for me.
01:01:04
Speaker
That's going to have to be a year mileage. Very much varies. I can never use a show making the entire narrative about sex and then copping out when it comes time to actually show the sex. The only sex that we saw between them was the awkward sex. We didn't see the good sex. So like that doesn't resonate to me at all as an argument.
01:01:21
Speaker
for everything that you guys have said, I completely see where you're coming from on this. I just had a totally different reaction to the show. Yeah, that's fair. I am going to reiterate that I just don't agree with that at all. I think it's completely unacceptable.
01:01:38
Speaker
This is one of those things where I'm actually kind of gay furious because Hagiwara's sexual awakening is important. If the show wants us to believe that he got sprung from this boy after a great dicking over the course of a weekend, we don't have to see like them boinking per se, but there are many artful ways to accomplish it.
01:02:02
Speaker
The fact that Fujisawa would never touch that boy, him finally touching that boy, and that whole sequence being a little bit ambiguous and everybody not being certain what happened there is also extremely unacceptable for me.
01:02:17
Speaker
On top of that, making his whole reticence about the boy, about some sort of really fucked up tragic loyalty because he feels guilty about maybe being the reason his parents died...
01:02:28
Speaker
Not good. This is one of the rare times I was with the Arrow Ace girlies. There's a really fascinating concept of devotion here that I think is being twisted badly.
01:02:40
Speaker
And the fact that him finally having sex was about him sort of losing this feeling of possession. That needed to be fully played out. And I think the show cut away too fast on that.
01:02:51
Speaker
I'm just extremely frustrated about this entire experience. You're more mad about it than I thought you were. I think you've gotten more mad over time.
01:03:01
Speaker
Okay, so those are our three options for the girl who tried. And now we get to pick one. How do we pick one from this little list here?
01:03:13
Speaker
I don't even know. i'm not giving it to us, though, because I don't like this one just being something else entirely. That's frustrating. Prepping your audience for what they're going into and then giving them something else.
01:03:28
Speaker
That's bad. but but Well, I'll say the marketing team tried something. don't know if it was a smart team. least for like tempo. I was like, OK, it looks like everybody got what they wanted out of that.
01:03:41
Speaker
If they had advertised it as a family drama, most people would not have bothered to watch it. I would have watched it.
01:03:49
Speaker
And because of that, I don't think that that could be the girl who tried. Thinking about Tempo versus When It Reigns at Forrest, such different shows. I think Tempo has an argument in that they were trying to do an idol romance. And it seems like the audience connected to that.
01:04:05
Speaker
Even if everybody who gives a shit about actual idol stories were like, what the fuck?
01:04:12
Speaker
Yeah, you know about the idol industry, it's a tough show. but I find myself resistant because i don't want to praise GMMTV for giving milquetoast idol commentary when they're the primary source of this shit.
01:04:29
Speaker
did get something right that Only Boo got very wrong in that when the idols had to choose between their relationships and their careers and they chose their relationships, there were actual consequences for that.
01:04:43
Speaker
Okay, that's a point. I'll give them that. They saw the error that they made in Only Boo and did correct at least that part of it. Certainly they didn't land it perfectly, but I was glad that they improved on that.
01:04:55
Speaker
Okay, so we have one show that's kind of eh, and another show that actively angered people. So which one? but I feel like I want to give it to the show that pissed me off because my anger is specific.
01:05:11
Speaker
When it comes to When It Rains and Pours, the arc is complete. Yeah. we're not arguing about whether or not the show completed the story it was telling or whether or not it was doing what it was actually doing but difficulty with this show is at key moment they left the audience hanging and then we have to sort of decide what actually happened in a way that gets us to the next scene that's a specific frustration I keep going to the Kauri breakup scene.
01:05:41
Speaker
There's two key things she does in that scene that I really like. She talks about how she read the messages and while she was upset, one of the things that she noted was that despite everything, he never once said anything bad about her.
01:05:54
Speaker
And two... She told him to break up with her. She's letting him be the one who ends it. Even though he had an emotional affair and then a physical affair with someone else, she owned how she let him down and set him up for that.
01:06:12
Speaker
I think it's really significant that she's willing to be the one who was in the wrong TM and give him the position of the one ending the relationship. I think that the creative team behind this show was really trying to do something here. I think they cared about it.
01:06:29
Speaker
And I think that they succeeded in some ways in creating compelling characters, creating compelling dynamics. I mean, the only reason you get mad about something is because you're invested in it, right? You wouldn't even get mad if you didn't care.
01:06:41
Speaker
The spirit of The Girl You Tried is a show that had good ideas and had good intent and had some real effort in the production that just maybe missed the mark here and there and didn't quite land it. And that, to me, is what When It Rains It Pourses is. So it feels like the right pick for me.
01:06:58
Speaker
It's better to talk about something that failed in an interesting way. And i think that based on what you guys are saying for you, it failed in a way that was at least discussable.
01:07:11
Speaker
I think that's right. We had a lot to say, let me tell you I think it's more for some people than others, but for the people whom it failed, it was an interesting thing to discuss. It was a lot to unpack about why it didn't work.
01:07:24
Speaker
So I think that's right. I just want to point out, people, we are in August, and this is the first girl you tried we have gotten to all year. It's a bad year, folks.
01:07:35
Speaker
I'm sorry. Yikes. The best show we had this year was made two years ago. That's how bad things are. The girl who tried is when it rains, it pours. Congratulations, dubious honor.
01:07:48
Speaker
You will go into the hopper for our girl who tried of the year. You will probably win it considering there's nothing else happening.
01:08:03
Speaker
Wow. End of summer is here And here we are. I'm sad. We can't end on a sad note. Let's find something to be happy about. Is there anything interesting that you guys have watched in the last few weeks?
01:08:18
Speaker
Can be anything at all that made you happy? Anything interesting. I am stalling for time. I'm looking at my list.
01:08:29
Speaker
I'm too. It's looking great. Plume got us to start watching Rearrange. We're one episode in. I can't say shit about Atavio one episode in. But you did like the first episode. I did. I think there were some good ideas in the first episode. This was hella gay.
01:08:43
Speaker
So I'm kind of into that. I think, Nini, we can give a shout out to Good Boy, which is K-drama that we enjoyed watching quite a lot. The ending did not come to our expectations.
01:08:54
Speaker
We had a good time watching it for most of the show. We did, in fact. We are stretching. We're doing our best to come up with things. Let's see. see. Shine is very pretty, even if I'm feeling rather dubious about how every episode it goes. But what if rich people are sad too? I still think that that is not actually the message.
01:09:17
Speaker
I really hope that you're right, idiot. It isn't, but the problem is like every episode they go, you say rich people are bad and poor people are good. Is that fair? They have asked that question in every single question. they have. But also they had the greatest intellectual foreplay of all time with two guys sending each other coded messages through romance books in the library.
01:09:39
Speaker
i did see gifts of that. I was like, who is this tall drink of water flirting through books? But I shan't be watching this show until we get to the end. And I am assured that it doesn't totally blow the class themes because you all know how I am.
01:09:55
Speaker
I had a good time with a Star Trek episode a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, the last one was donor. Were you about one they put Kirk in charge? My dad really liked that one. He said it reminded him of the first day he was a principal.
01:10:07
Speaker
I'm getting this in here before we go. You cannot have Kirk and Spock on screen together and be constantly doing no homo shit. around This season of Star Trek Strange New Worlds is the most weirdly no homo shit I have seen from Star Trek in a long time.
01:10:28
Speaker
It is genuinely uncomfortable. My dad, who is normally not even aware of this, is texting me like, what's up with all this strange shit?
01:10:38
Speaker
Wow, okay. So you know that's bad. My father, an OG Star Trek fan who was not aware of any of the Spurk shit, was like, what's going on with all of this making Spock have a girlfriend every episode stuff?
01:10:51
Speaker
And I'm like, thank you, Dad. It's a lot, isn't it? Wow. I didn't know this. This is a good update. I like to be at the very edge of the periphery of Star Trek, just having a very general knowledge of what's happening and never venturing in myself.
01:11:08
Speaker
Good to know. Thank you for the I was going to say this about the state of current dramas. i have retreated to rewatching hometown cha-cha-cha. That's where I'm at.
01:11:19
Speaker
Wow. Wow. For people who want the gay update from me, i was trying to be super invested in 10 Things I Want to Do Before I Turned 40 and also trying to be super invested in Stay By My Side After the Rain.
01:11:32
Speaker
These are two shows that I really want to love. And unfortunately, they just keep being so fucking weird. It's... I do work bad lately because Ben's trying so hard to like these shows and they're just bad. They're not good.
01:11:50
Speaker
This is a rough year. I feel like the energy of the entire planet right now is misaligned. I'm with you. Something's not right. It's not good. We're all struggling. It's not fun. There's very little fun to be had out outed here right now.
01:12:03
Speaker
I don't know. Stay safe out there, people. I am praying to the Sing My Crush gods. Please, just drop a show on us out of nowhere. Please, we need it.
01:12:15
Speaker
The only thing I have left on my list right now is 25G Akasaka Day Part 2 and the way that this year has been going. We didn't even talk about it, but I became the main role of a BL drama, had a second season, and it was barely about the leads at all.
01:12:33
Speaker
And when it finally was about them, it undercut its own core theme. The first show fucking ended on I want to like you as a man, not as an Aoi Nagahajime fan. And then the fucking end of season two is like the only thing I'm good at being as an Ayanagi Hajime fan.
01:12:47
Speaker
Let's have sex. No! Bad! was pissed! We were so mad. Like, don't come back just to destroy the things we love. Just stay gone.
01:12:58
Speaker
Okay? swear to God, if the 25G1 does it too, I'm gonna lose it. We might have to retire for RealReal, not for PlayPlay. Maybe I'll go on hiatus. I don't know about retire.
01:13:09
Speaker
I mean, I functionally have. I was so mad after the Isu response that I took BL out of my header. i don't actually describe myself as a BL blog anymore. He's mad.
01:13:19
Speaker
He's mad at that fandom. I cannot be associated with a fandom that thought that that show was horrible. There's a lot I can disagree with. The parts of BL that the girls are here for, I'm not always here for those things, but you know, more power too that we can share the space. No.
01:13:33
Speaker
At the point at which we're saying that the show is bad and convincing other would-be fans that the show is bad, we have failed. I don't want to hear shit about how BL amplifies queer voices if we're saying the show is bad. All of you can go fuck yourselves on that one.
01:13:47
Speaker
Woo! And that's a great note to end up. I mean, there's nothing more to say. With that, we out. See us when you see us. and No promises on when that will be. No promises. We'll be back anytime soon.
01:13:59
Speaker
We might check in at the end of the year for awards. We've got a couple of things on the horizon. If we can get the scheduling lined up. Not about any actual shows, though. We're going to do some industry deep dive stuff. And then head into the end of the year. Whomper!
01:14:15
Speaker
Okay. All right. And with that, we'll say bye to the people, Shan. Bye, people. Say bye to the people, Ben. Peace.