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The Fifth Element- Is That Her Skin?
23 Plays1 month ago
Welcome to the Season 2 Finale! We're getting some color and vibrancy and really wild textiles to finish out this season. We praise aliens, people who work with vinyl, and the majesty of Ruby Rhod. And the Diva, can't forget about the diva. Climb into your pods and don't forget to tip your flight attendants, she's got to keep that wig in tip-top shape!
We're taking a few weeks off before we return for season 3 with a whole new theme. End Transmission!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119116/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_1
https://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/35459/1/a-closer-look-at-gaultiers-fifth-element-costume-design
Music: Cassette Deck by Basketcase
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Transcript
Introduction to the Hot Set Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Melinda. I'm Ariel. This is Hot Set, the movie podcast about costume design.
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome back to Hot
Influence of 'The Fifth Element' on Hosts
00:00:23
Speaker
Set. We are here to talk about one of the most, I want to say, colorful movies that influenced me when I was a teen, um aside from Baz Luhrmann movies. ah This is The Fifth Element by Luc Besson, starring Mila Jovovich, Bruce Willis, and designed, costumes designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier.
00:00:46
Speaker
There's so much to talk about with this. like I haven't watched it in a minute, so I definitely had some feelings.
Navigating Emotions and Podcasting Post-Election
00:00:52
Speaker
And ah this is the day, this we're recording on January 21st, so I don't know if you heard about it, but some real horseshit happened yesterday, real real fucking fast. And so I don't know if you've heard anything about like the stamp on fascism that like they said out loud.
00:01:11
Speaker
you know really out loud. ah But I was watching this. um I'm going to admit it upfront. like it's It's been hard. these episodes have been like I love this podcast. I love talking about these things, but it's been hard for me to do it the same way as when we started post-election. So since November, it's been very... they the The vibe shift is real. The vibe shift did happen and we are...
00:01:39
Speaker
you know, continuing to do what we want to do with the show, but it is a different feeling. It is a different feeling. This is our offering as craftspeople to talk about a craft that we love as um as an entertainment and as like what we know and what we what we do behind it um without going on obviously in deep dives academically a bit more of fanatically. But yeah, like just in case there's like a in my voice, that's why. Because I was on the couch watching this doom scrolling while watching. And that was pretty, pretty tough. And so like, you know, that's the reality of it. But we we are still here to make this podcast because we
00:02:23
Speaker
There is so much in the world, and we're not going to allow every bright light to be extinguished by all of the bullshit. And this is one of those things where it's, you know, this is our outlet. This is one of our our little outlets of silly crazy goofy, so. This is our tiny corner. This is our little corner of the internet where we get to do what we want to do. And this episode's not coming out for a couple weeks after we record it, so who knows what is going on.
00:02:52
Speaker
I don't know. But we're here now.
Personal Anecdotes and Film's Daily Impact
00:02:55
Speaker
So we're here. So I think last episode at the end, I might have mentioned that there's like a couple of phrases from this movie that will get into my head and then I'll just like repeat them. Well, it was proven correctly this morning when my husband was getting ready to leave for work and he was just like watching, like standing up and he was just like chicken, chicken.
00:03:19
Speaker
it just You know, back and forth, both of us. And I, you know, as a full grown adult, ah ate some comfort food today. And that was while I was watching it. And it was ah vegan mac and cheese with plant based chicken nuggets. So that I couldn't say to myself, chicken. Oh, it was intentional. or It was an intentional. um I made like cuisine to go home. And I served it to myself.
00:03:47
Speaker
on a decorative tray that is the Millennium Falcon. I think that's the next stage in like the podcast evolution is like, here's our food pairing with yeah the movie that we've picked, just so you know.
00:04:02
Speaker
oh And so, you know, like drowning in in real world stuff, but going like chicken multi-punch and just really just looking for like the the things to hold on to. So, oh, I told you about this because I read it recently online that um so in past episodes, I've been having a hard time researching like articles like when we first started, even it wasn't this bad. But um I would at least be able to Google, you know, ah the movie costumes, put in the designer costumes for this movie. And I'd be able to find some articles from the time that the movie came out or like a 20 year retrospective. And yeah, there's always a little something. Yeah. Yeah. Haven't been able to do it because I have to like scroll through so much like Pinterest by this. And it's like, no, no, no, no. I'm actually looking for articles. Well, if you go.
00:04:55
Speaker
And search something in Google. When you get the results back, there's a tab that says, like, so ah images and shopping and all that stuff. Scroll to the right to where it says tools. Go into the dropdown menu. Go to all results and check not all results, but verbatim. And then yeah search again. And you will start to actually get the results for the things you were looking for. So this time I actually did get a couple articles and I looked at them and they weren't like super duper in depth what I pulled up ah because I wasn't going super hard.
Gaultier's Contribution to Film and Fashion
00:05:24
Speaker
I didn't find too much, but yeah, a little bit. But it was it was exciting to be able to read somebody talk about it. It's like Googling in 2011. It was amazing. Oh my god. It was just y'all. It was so different being able to go to a search engine and actually search for stuff and get results. It was crazy. I did ah pull up Jean-Paul Gaultier's IMDB. And he's done a lot of stuff that isn't just runway or fashion house. Like there's he's he's worked with another a French director whose name Jean-Pierre Jeunet who did um that Amelie. Yes. Yes. And so another French director who has very, very strong um design dreams. and tw yeah like
00:06:18
Speaker
once like bold, once something like... Very bold, very tight to world design. And so I didn't i didn't really realize, and he did um The City of Lost Children, which is kind of like a weird ah surrealist film. And I didn't realize that Jean-Paul Gaultier had done more in movies because like I just knew that he had done this one. This, I mean, like if this was your only one, okay. But like, yeah, I think I think people who are not familiar with him are actually familiar with some of his work in the fashion world and they might not realize it. Like I think his most sort of like culturally recognizable piece would be the Madonna like cone bra. Like if if you're not into design and you're not into fashion and you're not into costumes, you probably still know that piece. You can picture it in your mind and like this is the man that brought you
00:07:14
Speaker
that thing, so nothing else. It's a very, very strong image. Nothing else. Cone boobs, you will know that. That will also carry you over to a hocus pocus. and so Like i I just, because I didn't really follow Jean Paul Gaultier's, I haven't really followed his fashion career. Like I just kind of like the fifth element, boom. And then just like recognition that yes, Jean Paul Gaultier is fashion. This movie was basically like, because he designed a thousand costumes or a little bit over.
00:07:48
Speaker
And yeah in one of the articles I read, he was kind of quoted as saying it was like designing 10 runway show collection yeah yeah ten shows, 10 shows, 10 collections. And that is having, okay, I've never done, obviously, a Broadway production. I've never done a production where you have, let's say, over 30 bodies who have to do um in theater more than one thing like I okay I've designed a show where I had 32 or 34 performers and each performer had seven looks but I didn't have to do renderings for that it was a shop and rented show it was a pole shop rented show um I've never had to design and like there there was design in that but that's like real-time design where you're kind of like full plating it, where you're looking at like, this is a decision of a palette. So we're going to make everybody fit in this palette. And then we're going to make it work that way with like accessories, etc. But like I have been creating from zero everything like you're finding things, you're buying things, you're renting things.
00:08:59
Speaker
yeah yeah doing that kind of a thing where you have so many people who have to keep coming back on stage as different people who are not the principles and have to have like massive fantastical changes because they're in a world that's so separate from your own or so heightened. And so obviously never designed a film that had a budget for costumes like this. So right The amount of renderings I've ever had to do for a show has been far more limited, right? It's been, yeah I think, me too massively like 25 renderings or 30 renderings for a show, you know, because like, yeah if I'm rendering for ensemble, I'm doing one
00:09:38
Speaker
or two or three bodies to represent the ensemble.
Impact of Costume Design on Film Narrative
00:09:43
Speaker
Much more common. yeah Yeah, which is I'm not taking yeah the time to render each individual. And so like in film, yeah I'm assuming that it's more if you're doing the renderings like that to have to render for each individual character because Yeah, everyone's made like, especially for like, this type of project, like, all of these costumes have to be made. So you have to have a rendering for everything like, you know, obviously, there are like, a few things where one, like one rendering could represent like, all the
00:10:18
Speaker
flight attendants or something, but you're making hundreds of renderings of what it is going to be because you are then working with the people building and buying and like purchasing materials to figure out what everything is. and You might have to like alter them, do all these different things like different generations of the images. Basically, all that to say, that's a hell of a lot of work and I don't know what the timeframe was that there was to do all of this design process. And I don't know Jean-Paul Gautier's design process. So I don't know if it's like, you know, trying to milk water from a stone or if it's just like, no, I'm going to just draw for 36 hours and just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Like the ideas are constantly coming and all that stuff. Because do we know if he does his own renderings? Do we know if he has an illustrator? Yeah, I don't. I don't know. i don't know And that's an interesting process too, right? Is it costume illustration? It's its own industry. The the closest that that I can like pull from memory, ah an association that I can pull from memory, is a Star Wars thing. When they had the Star Wars costume exhibit in Denver, um they showed a bunch of costume illustrations for
00:11:33
Speaker
a bunch of things and like the different versions as they went along and they had like this series of photos showing George Lucas with research books talking to the illustrator and saying like you know pointing out different bits of things here and like that process is also pretty crazy because it's like a it's like a um god I'm gonna forget the name right now but like when a crime happens and you have a ah oh yeah like a illustrator sketch artist yeah sketch artist. it's It's kind of like that where it's like, do you want this nose or do you want that nose? Okay, we'll work on that. Okay. Do you want these shoulders or those shoulders? You know, like everything has to be the most collaborated because you're trying to get somebody else to communicate what's inside of your brain. So I don't know what this process was at all for Jean-Paul Gautier. And I'm very fascinated because like a thousand designs
00:12:23
Speaker
And you would assume that they would all come from the designer, but that's not really how it works in the real world because there are some folks who have assistance and they delegate or they have like, you know, different sometimes, and I'm not saying that this happened here at all, but there have been designers who just lift their work from other people and don't give any credit whatsoever. So it's like, I don't know if any of that happened. All I do know is that the volume of work for this is nuts because like a yeah thousand things 10 collections just like nuts nuts nuts and you brought out the flight attendants and i yeah I knew you were gonna have feelings about them. i don't even I don't even like okay so you had briefly mentioned before we started recording that you felt maybe a little bit differently on this watch than you have in the past.
00:13:14
Speaker
before we like delve into the flight attendants because I also was having that reaction.
Analyzing Societal Commentary in Costumes
00:13:19
Speaker
how were yeah How were you feeling that was like standing out to you on this watch? One of the things that I was really noticing in this particular watch is that with one exception that I can think of, every single woman in this movie looked like the type of woman that a successful commercial high-end fashion designer would want wearing their clothes. And by that, I mean
00:13:47
Speaker
very slender or like very voluptuous ah and just like a beautiful exquisite delicate featured face. There was a lot of just the same body type and these like beautiful like looking like fashion model women over and over and over again. The only exception that I could really notice and picked out was the one like female officer with like the big Princess Leia buns that comes to yeah but for the apartment. But yeah, I was like, wow, it's amazing how in the future, every single woman looks like a fashion model. That is so interesting. So strange. I had the same reaction. And in the articles that I picked out the three,
00:14:39
Speaker
That was mentioned and the way that they mentioned it I was like, oh I didn't make this association because I was so grumpy about it and And what they said was in this future, like the McDonald's workers with their matching uniforms that highlight their assets, their physical assets, the the flight attendants, all of these female roles are occupied in a way, dressed in a way where it shows that service workers still don't have a choice over how they display themselves or how they're used in this future. And I was like,
00:15:15
Speaker
Oh God, that makes that even bleaker. you know Because it's like, okay, so in this future, potentially people are being hired like they have been in the past and how they've been now in the Abercrombie and Fitch kind of way, where it's like, well, you're pretty, so we'll hire you and we'll put you in front of house and you'll wear these clothes. And I was just like, oh, I didn't even, because like, I i mean, this movie came out in 1997. It came out in 1997.
00:15:44
Speaker
So we were 10. Did you see it when it came out or did you see it later? I saw it later. And I think I saw it later too, but not that much later, but at least when it had come out on VHS, I think. oh yeah And, or it was on TV. So I was still a kid at most 11 or 12, right?
00:16:03
Speaker
and i just understood oh a fashion designer designed this and i was a kid with no interest in fashion at the time so i didn't apply any more thinking then this is just like a heightened runway kind of.
00:16:18
Speaker
connection going on yeah with the costumes and so I just like accepted oh well the clothes are this way because it's like the the focus is the clothes it's and I also hadn't studied costume I hadn't gotten interested in costume to the level that I am now where I understand that it's a storytelling device so I never applied the storytelling rules to parts of these costumes, including the service workers. Whereas I just took for granted, like oh all of these women are just like incredibly gorgeous and are you know being assigned like wigs to wear that match their aesthetics. Can you imagine? They're like, here's your McDonald's little hat and here's your McDonald's little wig. What? Here's your little jumpsuit. yeah like Oh my God. and so
00:17:00
Speaker
it's It just like now on this watch it feels so controlled in a yeah and a different way and it's like oh my god. but like feel it the same way with the men. I did not feel like it was not a commentary on the entire service industry. It was a commentary on how women are treated yeah in the service industry. And I don't know that it was really a commentary so much as it was just like a choice. You're saying it's so right. That's exactly the way to say it, where I just never applied it as commentary.
00:17:36
Speaker
I don't think it is, but I don't think it's commentary. And so I loved that other people were putting commentary on it.
Design Choices Reflecting 90s Influences
00:17:43
Speaker
And I didn't do the deep research to see if Jean-Paul Gautier had further, you know, things to say about it being commentary or Louis Besson. And honestly, I wouldn't trust Louis Besson's opinion. and oh no um no And like, because there's so much that's just sexualizing women and then is being kind of explained at the back end. Like, Leeloo, Mila Jovovich's like famous iconic ah medical bandage bodysuit. The explanation for that was in these articles where it's like, okay, when you're, you know, it's certain combat, ah not combat, when you're in certain um situations where you're being
00:18:19
Speaker
um cared for by medical personnel, they need to be able to access your body so that they can like change bandages or you know whatever. That's why like in the US s our medical gowns are like open in the back. right it's not about right It's a little bit about modesty, about just like the the hot points, but they need to be able to access your body to take care of your body. So I get that and making it look like medical bandages strips. don't buy that. trips I don't buy that. But that explanation at all. that feels like an explanation at the back end of it all, where it's like, no, you just wanted like a futuristic thing that would make sense material wise in this in yeah capsule thing that she was being brought alive in, but you wanted to show the body of this, I'm doing air quotes, perfect being. And that's what you did. And like Jean-Paul Gaultier's like strengths, and especially at that time and interests were in bond like bondage fashion, lingerie. And like that was incorporated a lot into
00:19:17
Speaker
his runway work. Absolutely, like there's so much body consciousness in this design that is, you know, applied to men in certain situations also. So like there is that but but it's at the end of the day, it's like, ah yeah, you just wanted Mila Jovovich to look Yeah. Hot. He just says that's really what it is. Don't try to trick me. Yeah, it's hard for me to apply, you know, the deeper contexts to some of these things because of stuff like that. And so it's an interesting way to rewatch it, actually paying attention to these things. And like Bruce Willis and some other men have some like more 90s style androgynous, you know, influenced fashion things, which like
00:20:04
Speaker
ah for For the critique, I love the costumes in this. Me too. It's really great. It's really great. the like The material choices are bonkers and make it feel so separate and in the future. And it feels like something designed by like a ninety s um somebody who's present in the 90s in club scenes and stuff oh yeah because there's so much rubber and so much stretch fabric that is being very visibly stitched by like a... A overlock or a serger? Thank you. An overlock or a serger. I can't even. yeah but yeah like Her bandage dress is like these giant zigzag stitches all over it that I was like, that's a really weird choice. Okay. To make these like massive visible stitches. So it's like... I feel now knowing how many because like I didn't understand how much Jean Paul Gaultier designed and so I wasn't sure if it was principles and then they had like other stuff to to uphold that but like no a thousand or more and so all of it like the world is is totally influenced by this designer so I could also totally understand doing like giant zigzag stitches because you're like I gotta sew a lot of shit okay
00:21:20
Speaker
ah like I need to get through it. We are quite busy, as a matter of fact. And also, we know how much she needs to move, and we don't want any of these stitches to pop. So let's make it the most stretch-friendly we can. For sure. But Corbin Dallas, played by Bruce Willis, also has some pretty interesting looks. And what was also interesting is that the things that I kept reading, it feels like they're all written by the same person. They were. I swear. Because it was crazy. Everything was like touting the party line that the only time first Willis has ever looked good in cinema was in die hard. So they kept making him wear vests to kind of call back to die hard. Like gotta show off the guns, gotta show off the biceps. Like okay. Okay. So he has this like orange vest that's backless.
00:22:11
Speaker
I don't think it's a vest, personally. i i They keep calling it that. I don't agree with that assessment of what it is. It is a shirt. It's like a singlet with cuts cut-outs, you know? Yeah. And made out of a very stretchy fabric or like a a rubbery neoprene, not even neoprene, necessarily. Yeah, they kept saying it was some rubber. And I was like, I don't know yeah about rubber either. I don't know. It was just like a very interesting thing. And it it really, I feel like that's one of the pieces that high-lit.
00:22:40
Speaker
Jean-Paul Gaultier's understanding of the human body and how to shape things on the body and highlight shapes because like everybody's clothing on them made them look so good. Like Gary Oldman looked It's so good. It's like evil man outfits with these like high ass collar. Like, so but it's just like the, the shoulders and the waist, like everything, there was a very significant understanding of human body, but there was a significant understanding of a specific type of human body and it was athletic or slender and that's it.
Craftsmanship and Challenges in Costume Creation
00:23:20
Speaker
And so that was a shame. that we didn't really get to see. Because, yeah, when we saw, I don't remember her name, but Cinnamon Bunlea, when she comes in, she's in a military uniform. And those are far more conservative than any of the others. Because we have like monks, we have priests or whatever. And we have like the lot of military and like and theyre various yeah the scientists, the medical personnel. And they're all very, very conservative compared yeah to most of the other patients.
00:23:52
Speaker
jumping around so hard. But like, I but love Ruby Rod.
00:24:02
Speaker
chris talker I've seen that leopard print look in real life. So like, I would do ah like i went to a Jean-Paul Gaultier retrospective exhibit. um i It was a long time ago now, maybe like 10 or 15 years ago now.
00:24:17
Speaker
Um, so I got to see like the Madonna cone, bro. I got to see some of his like real high end, like beautiful runway looks, but then in the middle of the exhibit, they had like leopard print. And I was like, thank God, because I need to see that. Okay. So we have these like,
00:24:36
Speaker
Sometimes when you have a character in your designing, I feel like you can have so many different ways to kind of like turn your character into an icon so that you can look at a costume out of the corner of your eye and go, it goes to that person. And sometimes it's a color association or a palette association, but sometimes it's like cuts, it's silhouettes. So like Leeloo has these very revealing things and like there's a ah white color association, there's like the suspenders. The big orange, yeah yeah. The color cut out. There's specific things for Leeloo, there's the orange for Corbin Dallas, and he also has the same kind of like body cuts for a lot of things, except for when he's wearing a tuxedo, but then that shirt gets torn to hell, so it gets reduced to that kind of shape.
00:25:23
Speaker
yeah um But then we have, yeah, Corbin Dallas with, repeat no, not Corbin Dallas, Chris Tucker with Ruby Rod and those skin tights. Yeah. dick but But like statement, color, just like all ah g like ones yeah likeage ah the The opera outfit with the roses. roses i a color god I was just like, Philly Porter, eat your heart out. The mic has to match, the hair has to work through it.
00:25:58
Speaker
it's I just like, that was such a perfect, I get this character who's a radio personality, but still has to be seen at every minute because he's recording live every minute and is such a character. He reminds me so much of influencers now just like walking around live streaming everything just like being the most annoying person in any place that you could possibly imagine like he he did it first. And I feel like I might forgive influencers now a teeny tiny bat if they dressed like Ruby Ross. You know what?
00:26:43
Speaker
at least you got that outfit on. At least you got that style going like, come on. But I just was like, what a beautiful silhouette that you've chosen for this character. And then it's like got the like the again, androgynous where it brings in the male and the female binary.
00:27:01
Speaker
shapes that we're used to into this character who is just like a hot mess at every second. And it's just like dialed up to 75 every second. Chris Tucker at the Chris Tucker-iest has these glamorous freaking outfits. Like I just like love it so much. It's like Cruella de Villa of the future somehow. And we're sure mixed with like a live streamer.
00:27:25
Speaker
Oh my god, like I just loved seeing that again so much. And there's just so many textiles in this. So when i when I've worked on costumes, it's I haven't worked many shows where it's been necessary for me to work mostly with stretch textiles or yeah like vinyls or plastics. like I've worked with them in small chunks.
00:27:50
Speaker
but not on a large scale. So this, this is so much not natural fibers, except for maybe some of the uniforms for the military, because those are kind of like more, you could see like a cotton happening in there. Yeah, they're more traditional. Yeah, like a twill, a cotton like canvas, like there's, there's more traditional woven fabrics than plastic going on. Yeah. And like with the priests, you could see with them too with their robes. Yeah. They're a little nubby. Yeah. Yeah. With that kind of a situation like a wool or something going on or felt. But everybody else has synthetic fabrics like up the wazoo. Yeah. And so I was just like, these are... And a lot of people talk
00:28:41
Speaker
and construction about like, you know, oh, it's so hard to do XYZ or you have to be such a specialist to do XYZ. You can, if you can turn on a power button, you can learn how to sew. If you can, you know, hold a pencil, you can learn how to hand sew.
00:28:56
Speaker
These are just truths. It's just practice. It's just practice and time investment. And repetition and dedication. And it's like anything else. Anything else you just have to do is keep doing it until you get good. But people like to kind of mythologize it. And so I'm not going to be mythologizing it. But I am saying that I was looking at all these things. And I was like, I don't usually work with these textiles. Because I personally, in my own work, I don't like to buy a lot of synthetic stuff.
00:29:23
Speaker
um I I like to try to repurpose old things or whatever but that's just like on me so I just don't have a lot of uh experience working with a lot of these textiles and I'm just like how I just kept looking at things on screen and looking at like the background and whatever and going how many needles would I break in this scene like I think I'd break at least four. because it's like decentant like some I have like a decent amount of experience working with like stretch fabrics and not so much like the vinyl and plastic stuff, but like I've done a decent amount of dance stuff where I've worked with different kinds of stretch fabrics and like like building and then like also like altering. and
00:30:09
Speaker
I mean, it is different. But it's just like, yeah, it's I don't think it's worth mythology. I know you're not. No, not at all. You know, like, it's, it's, it's a slightly different skill set that takes a little bit of different understanding of just like,
00:30:26
Speaker
how materials are going
Mystery Behind Diva Plavalaguna's Costume
00:30:29
Speaker
to sit on the body. But like, yeah, it's it's a little different, but it's not crazy. that No, it's not crazy. vinyl Like the vinyl and plastic and stuff is a little more crazy because any time you put a hole in that fabric with a needle, that hole is there forever. It doesn't go. forever And those are the things that I'm talking about, too, because it's like when you look at like the divas dress,
00:30:51
Speaker
There's so many things that are layered or like we need to talk about but that because I'm not clear what part of what we're seeing of her is skin and what part is.
00:31:08
Speaker
clothing because the part that you would think is her skin and the part that you would think is clothing are the exact same color and texture. So I would like someone to tell me where her clothing starts and her skin ends on that costume because I do not understand it just by looking at what is on the screen.
00:31:31
Speaker
I feel like this is a perfect time to like wish that we could talk to like a cosplayer right now because like, boom, we would have an answer. And I feel like I would if I were designing this, right? And I was like, well, we do we want to have this much of her body covered in makeup or do we want to shorthand it because she's an alien and we can?
00:31:55
Speaker
so that we're making sleeves that aren't going to crease in a weird way, the way that the rest of the dress might. So it's made maybe out of a slightly different weight of the same fabric. And like also, because the budget on this is insane, they could probably yeah custom order this. And like even though we said, like if you're sewing in vinyl and plastic, that hole is there for forever, they could probably order more than a freaking fan. Yeah, they could start over if something terrible happens. I think that's what I meant too, is like, I would be like, oh my god, there would be a couple costumes here where I'd like break shit and be like, fuck, I fucked up another piece. Be like, on a normal thing, you'd be like, I have a finite amount of these things. But with, with Plava Luguna, Diva Plava Luguna,
00:32:40
Speaker
I feel like you could totally get away with the only skin being visible, being right above her neck, her face, yeah but like and her hands. Not just the practical, like how did they do it, but within the story, what part... like yeah what It would be like me wearing a leather dress made of human skin. Like that's what is happening here because it is the exact same color. It is the exact same texture. She is like head to toe in this like pearlescent, like sky blue. She's got like these metal cuffs on her wrist and she's got this big metal like collar piece that goes like down her back, but like her entire face, her entire head.
00:33:24
Speaker
everything is the, her hands is the exact same color and the exact same texture look as what you would think is addressed. And I don't, I mean, she's an alien, so like anything can be anything. It's not like, anything can i don't think I don't have a problem with no any of it, but it is like, I don't know what I'm looking at. I totally misinterpret what you were saying at first. And now I'm totally getting it because yeah, it is I didn't, I never, in all these years, I never looked at her like that and thought that. I just assumed that she was wearing a dress that she had made matches. Like her she probably is, but like I don't know if that is what I'm supposed to think. Such a strong choice.
00:34:06
Speaker
to do that. It's very weird. It's wild and like that's why she's such an iconic like character where you see her from anywhere and you're like I know exactly what character that is. Oh yeah. Because that is so striking like oh my god and then yeah saying like if I was wearing a dress made out of human skin like that really takes it to a whole other level. I would love to know what that design choice came from.
00:34:35
Speaker
which I'm like, you know, aliens can be anything. And I love that for them. I'm so happy for aliens. They can be anything and any rules can apply to them. And that is totally fine. But like, I do need something to explain it to me so I can understand. I just, yeah, that's pretty wild.
00:34:53
Speaker
Well, you just opened that up for me. way that i' never received the before I love that so much. I didn't like I only thought about it because I started to write down something about her like skirt and then I was like, is it a skirt? Yeah. What is it? Just more of the diva. Is it? Is that her skin? What? How would I? How would you know? Oh, my God. No.
00:35:20
Speaker
I feel like I'm just going to, I'm going to have to sit with that for a while. ah Just my perspective of the diva so much. And also like when, when Corbin Dallas like punches into her chest to pull out the stones, it goes right in and you don't see a different garment. And like also the fact that she could hold those in her chest. What is her anatomy? Like, you don't know and if that dress is just out of her skin, then what is happening here?
Speculating on Gaultier's Creative Process
00:35:48
Speaker
Like,
00:35:48
Speaker
Cause it is like a full length skirt. So like, if that is her skin, she's got like a, she's got like a skin flap over her. Like, I don't know what it would be, but like the weird like tubes coming out of her head are the same color. There's like metal bits on her, but I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. The metal bits could just be the jewelry on the skin. It could be. Wowie. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
00:36:18
Speaker
And I just want to clarify that I watch this movie extremely sober. Like this is not. a man I have not watched any of these movies with any assistance, shall we say? No. Because I would not be useful and I'm barely useful. but i like i I feel like that thought train it like sounds like someone who like took an edible before watching the movie, and i just so I promise you I didn't. But it also is like, I'm just imagining, because like you know when you're in the process of designing something, you're talking to your director if you're not a sonographer, if you're not the person like Julie Taymor, who designed like Lion King, and also had other people working with her, but it's the heart of all of the inspirations for all the divisions when you're a sonographer.
00:37:03
Speaker
comes from one person as opposed to a director hiring people who can execute a seed of an idea and then slowly like you know collaborate to chip away at it to get it closer. like it's It's a difference. I'm trying to imagine that the meetings for design, like what they what they looked like, how tight those meetings were, if it was like, okay, Jean-Paul, you know go off, um go do your thing and then we'll come back and just go like, oh, this is so cool.
00:37:29
Speaker
end of story. right right Or if it's like, okay, well, I have these characters in my head, can you translate them? And then we'll refine it. Like what level of collaboration was there? And then when you're talking about Diva Plava Laguna, what is that conversation? Is it, I want her to be an alien where it's very, it's very ambiguous if this is like a ball gown, but I want, she's this famous performer. I want her to look like it's a ball gown for a stage performance, but it's actually her alien skin. Like, what is that meeting? And I want to be able to travel back in time and hear that conversation, even if it's just a couple senses and going like, okay, cool, yeah. Like, what? Yes, I get it. I know. I know. I did Jean-Paul Gautier, like, designing that at, like, 4am after having drunk, like, two bottles of wine and just being like, this is her.
00:38:20
Speaker
Like, she is the diva. This her. Like, i I don't know. That's the nosiness where it comes in. And also because yeah sometimes as a designer, you have to be able to sometimes justify your designs if your design if your director or other designers don't understand what you're trying to do or to say. So it's like, what would that explanation be? And it's not like you have to justify yourself to me. It's just like, no, no, no. When you're designing something, you usually have a backstory or a reason for why those things are happening. You're creating little stories for yourself to place that person in that world. Yeah. Oh, my God. You really opened the door for me here. I just was like so distracted by that. Like for the whole second half of the movie, I was just like, I get it.
00:39:08
Speaker
Where does she end and the clothes begin? Maybe nowhere. For me, it was always the logic of of her chest being hollow. Which, like, yeah, that is a whole thing, yeah. And it's like I noticed before that there's no separation between the skin and, like, a fabric, but I didn't really, like, think that consciously, and so now I'm really stuck on it. So now you, the listener, gets to really listen to us talk about that.
00:39:35
Speaker
but tominary
00:39:39
Speaker
i i I don't, I don't even know where else. to So like the beginning of this, I mean, obviously we're gonna talk about it more, but it's like, so there's a a famous musician who plays ah one character who's like constantly trying to chase them down. He's like the little,
00:39:54
Speaker
gopher guy who's working for Gary Goldman. And that's why he played by Tricky, the um the art the British artist. Yeah, I do not know what that is. There's a band you I think that you would massive attack. Tricky was massive attack. Yeah. Okay, okay. You would know Tricky's voice from massive attack, because there's a couple songs that were like super super big in the 90s that absolutely crossed the pond and were in like soundtracks and all these things. So you would know his voice. yeah And that's how I recognized him when I was a kid. I was like, teardrop? Oh my God, massive attack. I know this sound. And he is like this little, this little goof who just can't get anything right ever. yeah But I think when I was a teenager, I wanted his wardrobe.
00:40:44
Speaker
Oh. is he like Is he the one that comes up to the tech counter and tries to check in as Corbin? Yeah, as Corbin Dallas. first yeah Yeah. It was giving me, sorry to bring it back up, but it was giving me kind of like Brad Pitt and Fight Club feeling a little bit.
00:41:01
Speaker
like it was There's just something in the air in this like span of years where it was just like, everybody was just looking at like what were the club kids like doing. like that There's so much of that in like a lot of projects. You can just like see it yeah once you like know about that in the 90s and that's what he looked like there. It was like mesh and feathers and yeah. It was this flirtation with Androgyny.
00:41:27
Speaker
yeah you know, where it was like trying to mix. It was kind of like a descendant of like David Bowie as Club Kid, you know, where it's like that conversation in the public eye of subcultures being like in the main focus and being like, hey, I can wear whatever I want and I can just make it look good because it's just clothes. so and I can express myself however I want to. And it felt like that conversation of and androgyny. I might be saying it wrong, sorry, but it's like not the word androgyny. I might be trying to describe what I'm thinking incorrectly. yeah But it feels like at this time and for some years before, like every decade there's a different version of this conversation of like right what yeah what is gendered clothing even.
Contrast in Military and Civilian Costumes
00:42:10
Speaker
And so it's like all these male figures that we were seeing in the 90s that were wearing
00:42:16
Speaker
slightly more feminized or sexualized in the same way that female characters were traditionally feminized by, like, showing more skin, like, artistically, whatever. and Interesting cut-ups. Yeah. yeah um But I just, like, loved that stupid leather jacket with, like, the the the snap, like, right here. I just, like, loved that thing. um What was your, I don't know, what was your, like,
00:42:42
Speaker
What part of the design was like the strongest to you or had the most impact? Yeah, that is such a great question. um I think it's very bold of me to ask it because I don't even know if I have an answer. I mean, definitely i I feel like we kind of have covered the stuff that maybe would have been like my go to, but to like talk about like stuff that we haven't talked about as much like It was like you said that the descartes the dichotomy of the like uniforms being very conservative was something that I didn't really think about before but like looking at like the president and all the military people and it was this very like tunic
00:43:31
Speaker
culture. It was giving me Star Trek. It was like giving me like a little bit of like the 80s Star Trek where it was like everybody was in like layers and layers of uniform things that I was sort of like that is a really big difference to like Bruce Willis and Mila like in their very body con like looks. It was very different and not something that I think I ever thought about before this viewing. But yeah, it was kind of an interesting choice to be like, this is the establishment. This is the the power in this society and they're all dressing like Starfleet, kind of. Like they're following roles that you would recognize in this future, which is like these people are locked tight. And I did think it was interesting because I
00:44:21
Speaker
didn't really like quite pay attention to it a long time ago. In the beginning when they're ah reviving Mila's character and the military guy kind of steps under a blue light, the medical officer is under there and his eyes are all weird, but the the the I'm forgetting his name. i don't I can't tell you names, but the the military guy, his uniform all lights up. All the trim, everything is like electric colors underneath this blue light. And I was just like, what must it be to work on a project like this where you have the ability
00:45:00
Speaker
to do all of this and like have all of these little details that like, okay, well, we're in this environment and we can react a hundred percent and we don't have to take shortcuts. Like, Oh yeah, I know.
00:45:16
Speaker
must have been so fun to work on. And like, I'm with you because I didn't on until this viewing really, really take in the difference between the conservative silhouettes and the crazy. yeah And I think for me, one of the biggest impacts of all the designs was how hair works in this movie.
00:45:38
Speaker
with the different groups and the different looks. Like there's so much, like the short abrupt like hair lines and like the shaping and like Ruby Rod's hairstyles and the dyeing on Mila's hair. Like Leeloo has this like bleached and then the over dye of the bright yeah orange. So it's not just a solid color. There's so much more happening in there.
00:46:07
Speaker
There's just so much happening that that is rich, I think. like It's just so rich because it's not like somebody just has their hair back in like an alligator clip and we're calling it a day. like There's effort that's visible and not invisible the way that other designs require.
00:46:29
Speaker
every design aspect is visible to an equal point, but it's not this like crushing wave of just having too much at and thrown at you. It's just like everybody's skills are at the fore and they're working together really well. The hair and the makeup and and all this stuff is just like so good. I was also thinking a lot in this because I had read you know this articles with the same sound bite quotes that you read because that's all there was.
00:47:01
Speaker
here's a show was It was like one person gave one interview in 1997 and every article was just like repeating whatever. um But like knowing that there were a thousand different costume looks created for this movie, then I was struck by on this watch how few of those are on our protagonist's characters.
00:47:23
Speaker
They don't change costumes very much. Like each person has like two to three. Leeloo gets into that one outfit. She's in it the whole time. Like she stays in it. Like Bruce Willis has like maybe three, maybe four if you want to like consider the very end where he's like completely lost his tuxedo shirt. But like, yeah.
00:47:43
Speaker
you know like um the priest ah guy whose name I can't think of kind of stays in the same thing like um the president stays in the same look the whole time the military guys they are in the same so it's like a thousand costumes so much of that work is like background and these like really small characters That don't get featured very much and it's like so much effort into those characters which is like great but and so rare that you do like sci-fi is one of the few places where you do get to do that because you're Creating a world that doesn't exist. Yeah, but like yeah, so like so few looks on our lead characters It's kind of wild to think about it's amazing because yeah, they're they're so
00:48:31
Speaker
strong and striking the things that they're wearing. And they're not even necessarily wearing that many pieces, but it's just like the shapes and the colors are so strong that you're like,
Costumes in World-Building and Storytelling
00:48:42
Speaker
okay, I buy this. And it also tells you a story about a world in which like, Corbin Dallas lives in like this one room, like box.
00:48:49
Speaker
that has like transformative furniture that like goes into the walls so it's like you're seeing and he's like getting held up by a guy you know like with a for him like a machine gun and like this his thing on his head was the That was the funniest thing ever. It's so funny how it like bounces around and stuff like it's just there's so many like funny things but this is also not a utopia by any means because this is like a mega city right where it's like massive massive towers we see it in like in star wars that same kind of thing um totally mega towers where they're so high up that you have like flying cars that are like
00:49:30
Speaker
You can't touch the ground. And so there's like massive populations. And Corbin Dallas is like a retired military officer who's working as a taxi cab driver. And so he's not living like a glamorous lifestyle. So he doesn't have like a lot of clothes. And he's also this military guy who seems to live like pretty basic yeah because yeah he's just kind of like used to that anyway. anyway So yeah, we usually see like in in movies that are principal characters are the ones who get to wear all the fun stuff and it's like nope yeah, they they're pretty like
00:50:04
Speaker
I want to find a better word than iconic, but they're like turned into these like archetypal's not right either, but they're like made into these like statement pieces. And then they just carry that through the story. And it's says so much that they are so striking as they are and that they stand out the way they do in the world. And then you have to have so many bodies in the background where you have made all of these things that are equally telling the same story of this being a different world and like different locations just is fantastic. This is just such a strong example of how much design can make or break your story because if this was
00:50:49
Speaker
not up to this level, I don't think we would be talking about the fifth element the way that we do. Like if this was really, really, cause like the world is pretty grungy. Like it's been lived in, it's been centuries where it's been like this. And we see like trash piles. yeah Like we see all this stuff, but we still see so much innovation in the clothing. And if it was all equally,
00:51:15
Speaker
dingy the way that like you could argue Star Wars, like the original trilogy is because it's after you know a world a war like series of Star stars Wars. that The stateated alex hitler ah titular of wars in the stars. Whatever. But it's like the whole point is that that that world is or all the worlds that we see ah have been so extracted from and like brutalized that everything you have, you wear until it falls off of you, basically. like They're all super distressed and like been through it. and In this, they're wearing frigging rubber that's like neon. and like I'm wearing this to the club. They still look
00:52:01
Speaker
I don't know, alive? in a day they they They're saturated and live in a different way. And so it's like, yeah, if it had been designed differently, it could have still been an awesome movie to watch with some problematic stuff, as most movies do have. But like it wouldn't be visually, I think, as stunning.
00:52:19
Speaker
Yeah, there's something about I think having such a um particular fashion designer be your costume designer because I do think that there might have been like maybe there would be a tendency for a different designer to like kind of want their extras or they're really minor characters to kind of fade a little bit. And like clearly Jean-Paul was like, no, no, they will be just as detailed just as designed, just as loud and bright and have just as like weird shapes on the body as I feel like for this thing. Like I'm not concerned about, you know, making sure that I'm constantly looking at Bruce Willis when I'm watching the movie. Like he's not.
Cultural Influences and Millennium Fashion Trends
00:53:05
Speaker
Like he'll stand out regardless. Yeah, exactly. Which is true.
00:53:09
Speaker
This is like a weird connection, so bear with me. But have you seen the movie Idiocracy? Oh, you but better believe I have seen the movie Idiocracy. Taking my glasses off of my eyeballs for a second. That's a whole different conversation. We're not going to get into that in the moment. That movie did tell the future, unfortunately. But what I'm going to focus on are the Crocs.
00:53:30
Speaker
yeah At the time, those were that was a struggling company that nobody knew about and the designer had no budget. So they reached out to this company and were like, hey, could we make a deal? And they were able to afford using Crocs for all the actors because they had so little money and the business needed that basically investment and exposure so badly. Uh, like a promotional. Yeah. Yeah. And so it worked for both symbiotically. And at the time, Crocs were so stupid. Like I, I still would not prefer to have a pair of Crocs for myself, but like in middle school, when they first came out, we were like, these are dumb. Like they're just really weird. bad They don't they look like weird orthopedic. Like, I don't know. Like I don't want to wear those. And your foot looked like a cartoon. like there now Like, these aren't serious shoes. And so, Idiocracy, it's hilarious that everybody's wearing Crocs, and now Crocs are a popular thing, and that's its own demon to talk about, whatever. But for some reason, because Crocs were also so bright, too. Like, they were bright, ugly-ass colors. And so, there's something about... Yeah, they were so stark, you know, and so there's something ah about like this smooth roundness of that like rubber or whatever it is that they're made out of that is like tied visually to the fifth element for me because like there's all these people who are wearing these bright rubberized
00:55:12
Speaker
or you know whatever these synthetic fibers and textiles are, there's just something about where it's like, I could see that future coming from a future that created Crocs. you like People are wearing these things because they're maybe easier to launder for them if they don't have access to like a bunch of water or a bunch of whatever. like Maybe they just yeah oh you yeah you just need a disinfectant when everything's made of rubber. Write it down and then you're fine. There's just something good about it where I'm like, oh, there was something in the water in the 90s, I feel. Because there's so many people who like you can kind of just like draw these little light lines that might be imaginary. But you're like, oh, I can see maybe where you were inspired by something together in the same five year period. But this was your interpretation of that thing and how you see it painting a future potentially.
00:56:11
Speaker
I think the impending millennium really messed with people and made people go like, what is clothing? What is fabric? What else could, like, we're gonna go to space. What else could we find out there? Like, I think everyone was so obsessed with this, like, otherworldly-ness and was like wearing, like, silver, like, who?
00:56:34
Speaker
Foy old silver fabrics that are just like, oh, okay in things in the year 2000. We're just out of control. I just want everybody to know. Yeah, if you weren't there. you might smile god What a time. um but Yeah, I don't know. I just there's something.
00:56:54
Speaker
like lovely for me about watching all these costumes because they are such a, they're they're in this season of our show because I've been talking about it since you had the idea to start this show at all. But it's like this this movie, this design of Jean-Paul Gautier, and it shows you how lazy I am that I'm like a fan of his work in this so hard, but like I'm not gonna necessarily follow the rest of his career. I'm just like, no, it's this isolated thing that I love. Thank you so much for it. um That's the way to do it. I like to just drop in and drop out. Yeah. This was so inspiring might or might not be the right word to me, but this I feel like holds a place in my brain the same way that Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet does.
00:57:42
Speaker
that um God forbid I remember any of the other movies that we covered in this season. But it's just like, it's a moment where something opened in my brain.
00:57:53
Speaker
where I yeah recognized the work that was being done and didn't fully understand what costume design meant yet. But I was like, this is special. This is different. It's like when I saw The Lord of the Rings, it was like, oh my God, everything in this is making me feel like I'm a part of this world. It was like The Matrix when you know you see the the matrix versus like the real world. And you're like, oh, I feel all of these things. It's like Star Wars, like successful costume design. And yes, I am listing things that are like not invisible costume design, like modern clothing for the period. Yeah, I understand that. But like, I was just so like, whoa, this is cool.
00:58:37
Speaker
And I did understand for the first time, these are not things that you could necessarily just walk into the world and find. You have to make them. and when you have to be somebody like yeah yeah like You have to be somebody or be a series of someone's who know how to make these things. It's not just like you know tearing your tights and then turning them into sleeves or something, but it stems from that urge to like alter your own clothing. But these are materials that you have to know where to go to put your hands on them and how to how to cut into them so that they're not just garbage. like you know like there's
00:59:16
Speaker
this is one of the first times yeah like This is one of the first times that I really understood that there's skills at play. in these things and that the skills go beyond some other things that I've seen in movies before. But this was like one of the first times that I really understood, oh, I like this.
Influence of 'The Fifth Element' on Culture
00:59:34
Speaker
I don't think I had such a like, I don't have such a strong emotional feeling about this movie, like I like this movie. It didn't change your life. It didn't change my life.
00:59:46
Speaker
I i ah feel like this is one of those movies that other people that I knew were like, this movie is my movie. And I was like, you can have it. That's fine. I don't need to today like i don't need it to be everything for me. That's okay. I do really enjoy it and i I really enjoy the costume design but like it doesn't quite have, it didn't have that hold on me when I was a kid. I don't know, I'm not sure what movie would be in that category for me as being like this is the one but I don't think this one is it. Like I didn't have cable tv, I wasn't watching MTV, I wasn't keeping up, like I just didn't know about subculture styles, I didn't know about club kids, I didn't know about certain stuff like
01:00:35
Speaker
I was exposed to things for like through reading and through conversation with like with my mom, but it was very like controlled because I wasn't watching TV all the time. So I wasn't taking in all this stuff. So I was kind of like left behind, like fashion wise and clothing wise, which when I went into public school, who way that was, uh, I was terrible going from brook Hill school to public school. Um, that sounds hard. That seems hard to do.
01:01:02
Speaker
This was like, I think this and like hackers, you know, there, there were certain movies that were like so nineties to me that yeah were like this aiming for this like subculture influence and like, we're cool and beautiful and young and free.
01:01:21
Speaker
but it wasn't like, you know, when you see like the movie now and then, which takes place in the sixties or sixties. You know, it's not a movie that's about the eighties, like, and it's not necessarily a movie about the nineties about just kids who are just normal, boring kids. It it was something so apart from that, but I hadn't had any of that exposure to those design influences that Jean-Paul Dautier was like pulling from. So it yeah felt like just such a different language. And I was like, hold up, where'd this come from? Yeah, like, who are you? If there's something that that did that, made it and it's obviously it's not a movie, but I would say for me, it would have to be the Spice Girls. They were huge. That was a big influence on me, like, visually. Like, that was a big influence on what I thought was cool, how I wanted to look, was, like, put all five of them in a blender and I wanted, like, all of the clothes. Like, every single one, so. Yeah. And that's about the same time that this was because they hit they they yeah they shone ah bright and ah briefly as stars, especially in America. you were It was an intense, intense moment. you Yeah, you had to grab that comet as it was coming by because they were really only big in the U.S. for like a couple of years. so But so big, so impactful.
01:02:47
Speaker
yeah know It's it's it's like weird looking back and going, like why do i why did this? What was it? yeah by the scene pack it was a It was a moment for me where I was like, oh, wow, you can do a lot of different things and without knowing the language of it.
01:02:59
Speaker
kind of visually understanding this was a big budget for costumes. Like, holy cow. Yeah, yeah. This is a big purposefully, like, we're going to do a lot. And thank God. Oh, my God. And like, for a movie that starts in, like, the 20s, you know, and we're seeing, like, this archaeologist and Luke Perry. Oh, I forgot about Luke Perry. Aziz, more light! Oh, how could I forget? Like, we're seeing that and then we just get, like, punched in the face.
01:03:29
Speaker
with these aliens and they have such like a cool like art suits. Yeah, suits that have like an art decoy kind of as like maybe a little bit of like what's her name from Metropolis like maybe yeah, it's like gold and the plating and the joints like I mean, I don't know how to do Yeah, like there's something. There's like, it's the curves in it because so often you see like robotic things that are very sharp and there's just like the art nouveau art deco meeting of like curves still being embraced. And so yeah, what a good connection. Oh my God. Tied back to our very first episode. But like we get, we start there and we're like, oh, this is going to be a different experience. And then it's like, boom, we're in it.
01:04:18
Speaker
I don't know. It takes us so many different places. I just, I love yeah the design of this movie so much. And there are many times that I wanted to yell, oh, good. We're continuing the theme of futuristic men being space perverts.
Season Reflection and Community Importance
01:04:32
Speaker
We'll just will never get away from it. We'll never ever and get away from it. And I did love, though, so much. I don't like that the situation needed to arise in the story at all. But I loved that Leeloo just immediately had a gun to Corbin and Dallas's head and was like, why are you touching me without my permission? Like, yep I will end you if I have to. Like, why would you think that's okay? Because it's not okay. There's literally no reason to think that that's okay. And yeah, I know it was just like, it was great. And it was unfortunate that it was, um you know, necessary or like surprising in the story that that's what happened, but it did happen.
01:05:17
Speaker
This is the end of the world. No, this is the end of season two of this show. so May it not be that.
01:05:32
Speaker
There is a dark planet approaching. Any attempt to destroy it only makes it more powerful and bigger. And we need the all perfect being to come out of nowhere and save us. That's kind of where we're at. We need that fifth element that is love, I guess, like to blow the shit out of everything. But we also Real talk. We need to ah be with our communities and people are still going to make art and people are still going to make silly goofy stuff during this really horrible time that's ahead of us. And anybody asking like, why is it a horrible time? Get rocked because you're purposely being ignorant. We're still going to be making this throughout the years to come because like everybody
01:06:22
Speaker
ah There's always a place not not to say like, this is art, like, capital A art, but it falls under that umbrella because it's not, it's not a cut and dried, you know, like, we're not computer engineers, we're not in the mass and sciences, we are in a different discipline.
01:06:38
Speaker
And we are passionate about the work that we do. And ah sometimes that passion is changing. like I'm not working in the field right now because it's most complicated. But we have a complicated relationship with the the work that we do. But at the heart of it is building community. Because like when you are in a sewing studio, a costume studio, when you're in like an attic sewing with people, or a basement, or a basement, a cave,
01:07:08
Speaker
There's kind of nothing like it. It's a skill that has, um, constructing clothes is a skill that has come through human history. And talking about it in this way is like, yeah, we're talking about movies, but this is a skill that is a human skill. It's a human art form and it's one that we are very proud of and proud to be like a part of it. And we're always curious about it. And if this can be, you know, a little breath, uh, something for you.
01:07:37
Speaker
during the year's upcoming then glad to be here. It's also our little breath. I was gonna say if and if you don't like it, then screw you. It's our little breath and we're gonna keep making it. because it's not you know We are part of each other's community and that's really what it's about, right? It's like reach out to your friends, reach out to your, you know, your people, your chosen people and keep your communities alive, take care of each other, um listen to a podcast together. ah Make a podcast together, make art together, don't let that die. Yeah, don't bow down to fascism beforehand. Don't do it in advance, don't do it. And yeah, take care of yourself, do what you need to do, but don't forget that there are almost
01:08:27
Speaker
anywhere there could be someone in a worse position that than you're in.
Future Podcast Directions and Conclusion
01:08:31
Speaker
no If there's some way that you can help them, that's cool. That's great. but And also look after yourself. And also punch Nazis. um I saw today that Paramount or something was re-releasing. They were doing like an Indiana Jones thing, like today.
01:08:50
Speaker
And it was like that feels pretty good because it's just a that is one of the best things is all the funds the Nazis to get punched in it Even though we watched it recently and we're like But hey, that was a highlight. All the Nazis get a question. I'm really struck these days by all of the people using Nazi language and imagery and hand gestures. And they don't even have the fortitude, to be honest, about what they're doing. To be a Nazi is to be a coward, period. But like true I think that everything that's playing out right now is playing out
01:09:29
Speaker
pretty tightly the way that it played out in the last century, step by step. And there's also, was it 1984 where they talk about like, there's a quote from 1984 that's like, they were kind they were told that the evidence of their eyes was not what they had seen, the evidence of their ears was not what they had heard, and they believed them.
01:09:51
Speaker
And that's like what they're trying to fuck around with right now. and The double think, the double speak, all that. And so all that stuff is very much just it's a tactic and it's a fucking bullshit one. cut this out I don't care. Whatever. I don't know. How do you feel about it on editing day? But um overall, yeah, this is our silly, goofy little touch point.
01:10:21
Speaker
in a crazy shitty time. just Just basically, yeah, we get to be two friends who get to sit and talk about this and this is like a ah moment of relief for us. And so yeah find your your points where you can sit and talk with people that is a moment of relief as well as a moment of like solidarity, right? like Because I know that if anything flips, if, you know,
01:10:43
Speaker
yeah the power grid goes down. I know that my people who know how to do these certain tasks, that we have these skills, we can help each other and we can help other people and teach other people these skills and like, I don't know.
01:11:01
Speaker
And with that, we are going to take a break before season three starts. Yes, we are. It's it's been kind of difficult like we talked about before. um I've been enjoying so much during the podcast, but like it it's it's hard to be going through real real times. and yeah i guys And I think that we need a break.
01:11:22
Speaker
to, I don't know, just take a break. Yeah, just recalibrate, just have a little rest. um And we're coming back with another season and it's going to be a good season. But I think having a little bit of a break and having that like a steady foundation underneath us. Yeah. yeah While all this shit is happening, we'll be good. um yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So um do we want to give like a tease as to what the next season is going to be or?
01:11:51
Speaker
Yeah, I'm like, is, and do we do that? And then put like a caveat that like, if the world implodes, we might change what the season focuses. But at this point, there does not seem to be a reason to do that. So yeah, I think sure. Okay, so uh without giving a name to the next season it's necessarily because the name could change and like you said the the theme could change depending on you know what's happening in the world um we are going to be kind of creating something off of sort of like a technicolor dreamcoat situation and not just this technicolor dreamcoat but no designs that are yeah
01:12:35
Speaker
Technicolor saturated and it feels like the fifth element is a good jumping off point for that. I think it's the perfect bridge between the two and actually like a great bridge from season one to season two and to season three. It all works together. It's all good. And I'm really looking forward to some new um directions in season three because we're going to be yeah incorporating some other cultures and other parts of the world as best we can. And we're really looking forward to it. So thank you for listening to us so far. I hope you enjoy this episode.
01:13:13
Speaker
Yeah, don't be alarmed when nothing comes out next week. It'll be a few weeks until you hear from us again, but we'll be here. And um yeah, look forward to to reconnecting with you all at that time. NPR Voice, thank you and good night. but Bye. Bye bye.